This year’s Kentucky Open at Triple Crown Country Club has lots to live up to compared to the last time the Union facility hosted the championship. J.B. Holmes and Josh Teater, both of whom now play their golf on the PGA Tour, were chasing Kentucky’s top championship in 2003 where Holmes ultimately prevailed for his first of two consecutive Kentucky Open victories.

At this point in their careers, Holmes was about to begin his junior year at the University of Kentucky while Teater was in his third year of playing professionally after playing college golf at Morehead State. Holmes has gone on to win five times on the PGA Tour while Teater has had several close calls with victory on Tour, including a one-stroke defeat to Viktor Hovland in February’s Puerto Rico Open.

Joining Holmes and Teater in the hunt for the 2003 title was Scott Porter, a KPGA Member at the time who also competed in the PGA Championship that year at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester. Porter won the Kentucky PGA Professional Championship that year and was riding the best stretch of play in his career. He and Teater finished in a tie for second place while Holmes edged them out by a stroke after recording a total score of 213 (-3).

Triple Crown proved itself as a good test during its first hosting of the Kentucky Open. Holmes, Teater and Porter were the only players to finish the tournament under par. 69 (-3) was the lowest score any player recorded throughout the tournament; Holmes was one of several players to shoot that number, which he did in the second round.

Mother nature injected one of the more humorous stories in Kentucky Open history, as Bill Coomer, PGA Director, Amateur-Professional Competitions for Golf House Kentucky recalled. “There was a huge storm that stopped one of the rounds. We decided to resume play, but we were only able to send half the field back out. The rain had stopped on one side of the course but on the other side it was still raining heavily.”

Fingers crossed nothing like that happens again this year when Triple Crown hosts the Kentucky Open for the first time since then. Hopefully there will once again be a top three composed of future PGA Tour players and major championship competitors.

Final results:

1) J.B. Holmes 70-69-74 – 213 (-3)
T2) Josh Teater – 214 (-2)
T2) Scott Porter – 214 (-2)
T4) Adam Gary – 217 (+1)
T4) Kelly Maxwell – 217 (+1)