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Twenty-nine years ago, Trip Kuehne, Craig Barlow, Notah Begay III, and Chris Riley were amateurs. They stepped onto the golf course at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island for the 1995 US Amateur championship with their careers and possibilities ahead of them. They had no idea they’d be back at the same place — this time as seniors — for the 2024 US Senior Open nearly three decades later.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Chris and Notah and spending time with them,” Kuehne said. “We were all teammates on that 1995 Walker Cup team, which was pretty special, the bond you create over the week or so that you’re there.” Newport will host the Senior Open Thursday through Sunday, the first time the club has held a US Golf Association tournament since the US Women’s Open in 2006.



Kuehne, Barlow, Riley, and Begay will be competing in a field of 156, considerably smaller than the 1995 amateur field of 312. Kuehne, 52, left professional golf in 2008 to spend more time with his son and returned to the sport at the 2023 US Senior Open. He didn’t make the cut last year, but now his focus is on spending time with “the guys he grew up with.

” Advertisement Kuehne hasn’t been to Newport since that 1995 competition, but there are a few things about it he remembers. “You need to drive the ball fairly well, to avoid the high fescue rough and bunkers,” he said. “They’re relatively small greens that kind of have a lot of undulation, and you need to stay below the h.

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