Player Profile: 2-Time USGA Champ Kemp Richardson
02 Oct 2007
by Pete Wlodkowski of AmateurGolf.com
see also: , Kemp Richardson Profile
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By Peter Wlodkowski, amateurgolf.com
Kemp Richardson: A Saturday Game at El Niguel
Country Club
What does a two-time USGA Senior Amateur
Champion do on a Saturday following
a second round loss in Indiana at the 2006 Senior
Amateur the week before?
Shoot a leisurely, 7-birdie round of 69 -- at his
home-away from home, El Niguel
Country Club in Laguna Niguel.
Two-time USGA Senior Amateur champion Kemp
Richardson gives new meaning to “golf
after 55,” and I jumped at the chance to play with
him in his regular
Saturday group.
I have met Kemp before, off the course, and his
familiar straw hat and “perfect
finish” have graced the web pages of
amateurgolf.com many times. When
my host Pat Mateer (the president of Championship
Golf) and I drove to the
tee and parked next to the other cart, all signs
pointed to the regular Socal
Saturday riding game – until we hit our tee balls
and Kemp picked up
his tiny Sunday bag a day early and strode up the
walking swath towards the
fairway.
Richardson is a fit 60, and he has no trouble
keeping up with the riders – it
doesn’t hurt that he hit it 10 less times than anyone
else in the group,
either.
The man possesses an unhurried swing that has
paid for itself many times over,
from his All American days at USC through his
stellar senior career.
”The thing about Kemp,” said El Niguel member Brad
Friel (the fourth
player in our group on Saturday) “is that he looks
the same swinging
a 5-iron as he does a driver.”
Richardson fired off 4-straight pars, and then
nearly aced our fifth hole,
(the 14th, we started on the back) his crisp 8-iron
landing perfectly in the
fringe, then slowly tumbling end-over-end towards
the cup. Thirty-seven years
of membership will tell you something about a golf
course, but shots like these
don’t hit themselves.
The conversation turned to El Niguel Country Club,
where Richardson’s
father John was a founding member. Both of their
names are engraved numerous
times on the club championship trophy, and the two
even met in the finals one
year (Kemp won). When Kemp won the US Senior
Amateur for the first time in
2001, he and his father became the first father-son
combination to win a USGA
Championship; John having won in 1987 at Saucon
Valley in Pennsylvania. The
elder Richardson has passed away, but memories
of their time together at El
Niguel are an obvious part of Kemp’s strolls down
the narrow fairways.
”You have to enjoy your home club, and I really like
playing here,” said
Richardson, who lives on the 11th fairway.
El Niguel is a pleasant place to spend time, and the
walkable layout flows
exceptionally well, especially when you consider
that it started as a 9-hole
course with the second nine added later. Richardson
still plays the back tees
and says the 7000 yard course should be
lengthened a bit. (What would you expect
from a guy who hits all the par-5’s in two and
drives the ball 280 yards
or more consistently?) The well-treed layout
demands an accurate tee ball,
and errant iron shots often lead to short-sided
bogeys on the tricky poa annua
greens. Many years at El Niguel have honed
Richardson’s driving and shotmaking,
just as Johnny Miller’s legendary iron play was
developed on the hilly,
wet fairways of San Francisco’s Olympic Club.
I hit my best drive of the day on No. 16, and Kemp
wound up
ten yards behind me on the reachable par-5. The
difference in our games became
obvious when he hit a high, fading 3-wood pin high
from 240 yards out – then
goaded me (“are you going for it?”) into trying the
same. My 3-wood
was a low fade into the right bunker, but I managed
to match Kemp’s birdie
by sinking a bomb of a putt. My flash in the pan
was over, but his best was
yet to come.
Friel later told me that just over a month ago,
Richardson missed just one
fairway, and hit all 18 greens in posting an “easy”
66.
You might think that a person who routinely shoots
under par and wins
national senior events might have pondered a career
on the Champions Tour. That
thought, however, hasn’t crossed the career stock
broker’s mind.
He once played with Tom Watson at the US Senior
Open, and while he could have
made a decent check the year he finished in 35th
place, Richardson is humble
about his place in the game. (Let this be a lesson to
anyone that ponders a second
career on the Champions Tour.)
”They’re just better,” said Richardson, matter-of-
factly, in
describing Champions Tour players. “It’s that
simple.”
Richardson enjoys the competition but isn’t in the
business of counting
victories and achievements. For the record, he has
competed in between 20 and
25 USGA events, and finished low amateur twice in
the US Senior Open over the
course of his career, which has also included a fine
college record at USC that
included two Pac-10 individual titles. He has won the
British Senior
Amateur twice; in 2001 he had the rare distinction of
holding both the US and
British senior titles at the same time. Richardson
calls his putting
his weakness, but admits that it can be streaky
good.
”I three putted six times in the second round of
qualifying at Victoria
National, but I’m feeling better over it today,” said
Richardson. “I
mostly hit the ball pretty well,” added the 2006
Canadian Senior Match
Play champ (the third country he has won a senior
championship in, by the way).
Richardson made the turn in 1-under-par 35,
suffered a three putt bogey on the
1st (our 10th) then birdied 5 of the next 7 holes and
could have easily posted
a 32 if not for a tee shot that we lost in the left
rough on No. 7. So much for
a balky putter.
The card said 69, my wallet said “fork over $20 and
be happy about it,” and
I drove out of the parking lot behind Richardson,
until he took a right turn
200 yards down the road and was probably home
before I made it to the 5 freeway.