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Summer 2001 was a turning point for Kuehne's golf career. Motivated in part by his siblings' pro success, he toyed with the idea of rolling the dice at the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament. With the help of Tiger Woods's trainer, Keith Kleven, Kuehne reshaped himself from a 200-lb. desk jockey to a 165-lb. jock, his body fat dropping from 12 percent to less than 5 percent. He hit balls for three hours every day, while also playing at least 18 holes.
That summer saw some of the best golf of his life, but he found the experience strangely joyless.
"I knew I'd have to work that hard to succeed, but I couldn't keep up the pace," he says. "I needed more in my life."
At the end of the summer he took a job in equity sales. With the brief flirtation of playing for a living now over, Kuehne began to refocus on making the most of his amateur career. The results were almost immediate.
He was the low amateur at the 2003 U.S. Open, thanks to a dazzling second-round 67, and he made that year's Walker Cup team. He was also the medalist during the stroke-play qualifying at the 2003 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont, but lost in the second round of match play to an unknown kid with a hot putter.
That upset was typical of Kuehne's luck at the Amateur, which was fast becoming his white whale — a tournament he obsessed over but could never reel in. Despite the annual disappointments at the Amateur, Kuehne continued his run of good play, qualifying for the 2005 U.S. Open and helping the United States win a bronze medal at the '06 World Amateur Team Championship in South Africa.
Kuehne's career-capping run began at the 2007 Walker Cup, contested on the glorious linksland of Royal County Down.
In the weeks before the Cup he overhauled his game, tweaking his action with Hank Haney disciple Steve Johnson and committing to a new face-balanced, heel-weighted putter that left him reborn on the greens. Kuehne found himself taking all of his teammates' money during practice rounds, a much-needed confidence boost.
He contributed a crucial foursomes victory during the final day of the U.S.'s one-point victory, and by hoisting the Walker Cup after two previous losses he was able to scratch another item off his to-do list. Less than two weeks later he shot a final-round 67 to lead Texas to a one-stroke victory at the 2007 USGA Men's State Team Championship.
Kuehne finally had his name on a USGA trophy but was now hunting bigger game. As he left in September for the U.S. Mid-Am at Bandon Dunes, the 27th USGA championship of his career, Johnson offered a prediction: "You're going to win the tournament, and you're going to make your dad cry."
While not as prestigious as the U.S. Amateur, the Mid-Am — for players 25 and older — is still a big deal, conferring a Masters exemption on its winner. As Kuehne marched through the draw, those who cheered for him were girding themselves for the freakish upset that had always tripped him up in USGA events.
After surviving sudden-death in the quarterfinals he was three down with five holes to play in the semis versus Scott Hardy. Kuehne can run hot on the course, and he swears he wasn't sweating it.
"That was the single calmest I have ever been on a golf course," he says.
He won the next three holes to square the match, but chunked two wedges on 17 to give away the hole. This should have been the end of him, but Kuehne summoned a different kind of resolve and birdied 18 to force sudden-death, then put away the match with an 18-footer for birdie on the first extra hole.
