US colleges eying young Aussie Kai

By Peter Owen

KAI Komulainen, the gifted Gold Coast youngster with the classic golf swing, stood on the 10th tee in the final round of the world’s biggest international junior tournament and, for a brief few seconds, allowed himself to think about winning.

He’d just eagled the par-5 ninth hole at California’s famous Torrey Pines course and completed his first nine holes in four-under 32. He was eight-under-par for the first 63 holes of the IMG Academy Junior World Golf Championship and fighting for the lead with Japan’s Taishi Moto.

Experience will teach Kai to never get ahead of himself in golf, to play each hole on its merits and to focus entirely on the next shot. But how do you tell that to a 16-year-old on the world stage for the first time with adrenalin coursing through his veins?

Who knows how it happened, but Kai then proceeded to play the worst nine holes of his golfing life – bogeys on the 10th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th holes. And then, when it couldn’t get any worse, he ended that round from hell with a triple bogey eight on the par-5 18th.

When the dust had settled, Kai signed for a final round 77 and finished 11th in the elite field of international junior golfers. Moto won with 11-under. Kai had gone nine-over par for those final nine holes.

But, as sport’s great champions know, you learn from experiences like Kai’s, and you become a better player because of it. 

Kai wasted little time on regrets. The following week he lined up in the US Junior Amateur Championship, then in early August competed in the Junior PGA Championship – one of junior golf’s ‘major’ events – at Cog Hill Golf Club in Illinois.

He began slowly with a four-over 76, then went 70-67-73 to roar up the leaderboard into the top 10, with only American boys in front of him, all bar one of whom was older than Kai.

It was an epic three weeks of golf and Kai’s performances impressed everyone. He and his mum Tammi, who shared the trip with her eldest son, attracted the interest of just about every recruiting agent representing the United States’ gaggle of universities.

College sport is huge business in the US, attracting crowds of up to 100,000 to the biggest football matches, huge television audiences and hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorships.

“Football attracts the biggest sponsorships and the most money,” Tammi Komulainen explained. “So universities naturally focus on putting together great football teams.

“But once the football money comes into a university, it’s shared around amongst all the sports. So if you’ve got a good football team, chances are you’ll have a good golf team, too.”

She was in awe of the facilities available to budding young sports stars.

“One university was so well prepared that if they’re getting ready for a golf event where there are bent grass greens, they’ll practice on their own bent grass practice greens. If it’s Bermuda grass they’re about to play on, they’ll practice on their Bermuda grass greens.”

She told of one college that can even simulate the wind conditions that the golf team is likely to encounter.

The US college system is so proficient in preparing young golf stars that it is rare these days for an American to graduate to the US PGA Tour without having come through the college system. 

Indeed, it is understood that tour officials are seriously considering promoting the top five or 10 collegiate golfers straight onto the tour, without the need for any other qualification.

It’s still early days for Kai, who needs to spend next year at high school on the Gold Coast before he can even enrol at a US college, but Tammi and he are already compiling a short list of possible colleges, which include top universities in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

“It’s very exciting,” Tammi said. “They’re telling us they’ll pay all expenses, even his meals and travel. It will be a wonderful opportunity for Kai.”

To understand the interest in Kai, you need to appreciate what he’s achieved in golf in his short career.

Last year, at just 15, he won the South Australian and Tasmanian Junior Amateur titles, as well as the Tasmanian Junior Masters and the Victorian Junior Amateur. He was runner-up in the South Australian Junior Masters.

Kai was named Junior Male Golfer of the Year in last year’s Queensland Golf Industry awards, and made his debut in a professional event in the 2021 Queensland Open at Pelican Waters, shooting two rounds of 73 and narrowly missing the cut.

Since then, he’s played against the professionals in the Victorian Open, the Northern Territory PGA and the Queensland PGA in January, where he finished 26th.

He won the Greg Norman Junior Masters last December and was 13th against all ages in the Australian Master of the Amateurs. And he’s not yet 17.

Kai’s been to the US several times already, having competed in a couple of US Kids World Championships, one of them with his sister Millie, who is three years younger. His brother Noah, 14, is also a gifted golfer but doesn’t yet have Kai’s commitment to the game.

Earlier this year, Open winner Cameron Smith – every young Australian golfer’s idol – invited Kai to spend a fortnight with him at his Florida home.

Smith practiced with him, played golf with him at some of Florida’s best courses, and then invited Kai to accompany him to the Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village in Ohio.

It wasn’t Smith’s best showing, but it wasn’t bad. He shot rounds of 67-69-72 and, coincidentally, 77 in the final round to finish tied 13th, and Kai loved every minute of it.

“He stayed with Cameron and his team at their house and got a first-hand look at how he prepares for a tournament – what he does, what he eats and how he relaxes. He learnt a lot.”

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to fast forward 10 or 15 years, and picture Kai doing exactly the same thing for another young, up-and-coming Aussie teenage prodigy.