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May 10, 2008

For the Lingenfelters, golfing is all in the family

Former Brave working as golf pro, passing love

By Dennis Clark

Lyle Lingenfelter downplayed his athletic ability recently when he recalled his finally cracking the starting five in his senior year on the Terre Haute South boys golf team.

He would admit he was the fifth man “on a good team” that year.

That “good team” finished the 1988 season just one stroke shy of advancing to the IHSAA state finals.

The four players ahead of him in that five-man rotation were juniors that year, all returning as seniors to place second in the 1989 IHSAA state finals.

“I had a hard time as a freshman just making the team at South. I had a broken leg that year and I think coach [Bob] Arnett felt sorry for me out there with a walking cast,” he laughed.

His inauspicious start in golf notwithstanding, Lingenfelter is in his eighth year as the PGA golf professional at the Round Barn Golf Club at Mill Creek — the clubhouse facility is actually a renovated red round barn — in Rochester, Ind.

Even more interesting for Lingenfelter, he can proudly field his own golf team of just his own children.

Lyle and his wife Cana have eight children — six girls (Kaelyn 15, Karsten 11, Kovenant 10, Kinley 8, Kristianna 4, Karah 2) and two boys (Kassidy 13, Kalvary 6) — and “one more coming within a month.”

Five of their eight children are currently playing golf, with three more waiting in the wings.

After high school, Lingenfelter didn’t play golf collegiately at Indiana State University because they didn’t have a golf team. Instead, he earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1992.

During college he was working at Rea Park under its pro at the time, Jon Holloway. One of Holloway’s staff members, John Henderson, suggested to Lingenfelter one day “hey, why don’t you get into the apprentice program.” He did.

Lingenfelter said his “business mind” helped him very well at PGA school, but ran into difficulty with the playing ability test. So much so that after graduating from ISU in 1992, he was preparing to get his CPA license and thinking of forgoing a career in golf.

“I finally passed [the playing test] in September after graduation … on my ninth try. I guess you could say I stuck with it,” he joked.

By 1993 Lyle and Cana were married, departing the day after the wedding to Shreveport, La. Lyle was the newly-hired assistant pro at the Shreveport Country Club, Cana was stationed at Barksdale Air Force base.

Lingenfelter worked for SCC pro Martin Stewart, who he described as a “good teacher, a good club fitter.” In 1995, Stewart moved on to another golfing opportunity in Shreveport and recommended Lingenfelter for his position. That recommendation was accepted.

“The Shreveport Country Club was a very good first experience. It was founded in 1909 … a very traditional club. I was very fortunate to be pro there at age 25.”

Lingenfelter stayed with SCC until the fall of 2001, then “we wanted to get back to Indiana. Cana, she’s from Newburgh, was out of the Air Force by then. So I started looking for a head professional position in Indiana.”

Since arriving in Rochester — about 90 miles due north of Indianapolis — his children have been following one by one in dad’s footsteps onto the golf course.

Kaelyn, the oldest, has been very successful as a junior player. Last year, she was runner-up in the Louise Suggs division at the Indiana Girls State Junior Championship. On the Mountain Dew Tour, she was sixth in points for her 13-14 age division, winning its tour stop at Rea Park on July 12.

Kassidy, Karsten and Kovenant also played in a prep tournament at Rea Park on Aug. 2. Kovenant won the girls 8-9 division, Karsten was fourth (girls 10-11) and Kassidy finished tied for fifth (boys 10-11). Kovenant also won the next day in a similar prep tournament at Raccoon Run.

Also kind of unique is that all the Lingenfelter’s children are home-schooled. Cana handles the majority of their education, but Lyle helps out with math problems when he’s not working at the golf course.

“It’s worked out really well,” Lingenfelter said of the home schooling. “I rarely get off the course on the weekends, but I can work my schedule during the week so I can spend some time with my family.”

Being home-schooled, Lingenfelter’s children won’t be a part of traditional high school golf teams. But he doesn’t see that as a detriment to the development of their golf games.

“People in the golf industry look much more at summer programs and their summer tournament schedule than they do a high school schedule. For them not playing on a high school team is not really a disadvantage.

“With Kaelyn, I’ve tried to get her into a couple Plantation Tour events, which is a nationwide tour. She played in South Bend last October and she played in Franklin in March this year. It gets a little expensive to do that, but she could play against higher quality competition early and late in the year.

“Without a high school season, sometimes that can be hard to do. They just have other things to do. They have their own school, Kaelyn’s played volleyball, so it’s difficult to play golf.

“But once the schools start practice I try to get them out in the afternoon about 2:30 so they can get in a hour’s worth of practice before the high school teams get out there.”

Lingenfelter is happy to be in Rochester, noting, “Cana and I really like it here. We joke about it being like Mayberry. People leave keys in their cars and locks … not me. But it is a friendly town.”

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