MONTREAL — You won’t be shocked to hear that there are two Georgia Bulldogs at this week’s Presidents Cup. Nor that there’s a golfer each from Texas, LSU, and Oklahoma State.
But how ’bout three from Kent State?
The public university in Northeast Ohio is no stranger to professional sports. Julian Edelman played quarterback there. Antonio Gates caught passes there. James Harrison (and, fun fact, Nick Saban) tackled opponents for the Golden Flashes, too. But golf’s collegiate powerhouses tend to concentrate around greener pastures — think the warmer weather of the southeast or the temperate conditions of the California coast — rather than the grim winters you’ll find in greater Akron. (Cal-Berkeley also has three alums in Montreal: Max Homa and Collin Morikawa for the U.S. team and Ben An for the Internationals.)
The man responsible for the Golden Flashes’ semi-stardom is on-site this week. Herb Page, 73-year-old Canadian and retired Kent State coach, is inside the ropes sporting the black and yellow of the International team as he supports his trio of former players: Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes and Taylor Pendrith.
Page fielded a FaceTime from Hughes a couple weeks ago. Hughes was with his teammates at Royal Montreal for an International practice round just before the teams were announced.
“Mac [Hughes] was just talking to him first, and then Taylor and I popped into the screen,” Conners said. “First, he didn’t know what was going on — but he’s proud of us. He’s meant so much to, not just me, but all those guys as well … He deserves a lot of credit for getting us to where we are. The program and culture he created for us at Kent State was great for us on and off the golf course, becoming better players and becoming better people.”
Like Page, all three grew up in Ontario. And like Page, they headed to Kent State where, incredibly, all three were on the roster at the same time. Hughes arrived first, in 2009, while Pendrith and Conners came a year later, joining a roster that was roughly 50-50 Canadians and Ohioans.
They weren’t the first great golfers who’d played for Page — Ben Curtis was a Golden Flash a few years before winning the 2003 Open Championship — but together they helped Kent State punch above its weight. They were part of a 2012 team that went toe-to-toe with the big guns, peaking with a program-best fifth-place finish at the 2012 NCAA Championships. Conners finished T4 that year with Patrick Cantlay, who is one of his American opponents this week.
Hughes, who estimates he’s played a couple hundred practice rounds with Conners during their tenure on Tour, extended this week’s invite to their old college coach.
“It was one of the things I was very set on; once I knew I was on the team and Corey and Taylor were going to be there, as well, I thought, he’s going to be here, so he’s got my coach [credential] this week and he’s a part of the team, and he’s loving it,” Hughes said.
“He was a bit of a father figure to me when I was at Kent State, and I felt like he was someone I could really lean on and trust … the golf is one thing, but I felt like he was there for anything you needed. He cared for you [as a person] before you as a golfer.”
Pendrith added his own testimony.
“When I first came to Kent, I was not really that good at golf,” he said. “I was a diamond in the rough, as [Page] likes to say. And he taught me a lot. Him and Rob Wakeling, our assistant coach, they taught me so much — how to play the game, how to score my golf ball, but how to be a good person and get my priorities straight and time management and all that.”
Conners won five times in college and was a two-time Mid-American Conference (MAC) Player of the Year. Hughes was a three-time winner and three-time first-team All-MAC. And Pendrith won twice, including the 2013 MAC Championship, when he was MAC Player of the Year.
All three have now become PGA Tour winners, too, after Pendrith joined the club with his victory at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson earlier this summer. They were inducted into their alma mater’s Hall of Fame all together, appropriately, in 2021.
This isn’t the first time they’ve represented Kent State on the international stage. Conners and Hughes repped Canada at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and then Conners and Pendrith made the International team at the 2022 Presidents Cup. But they went a combined 0-8 at Quail Hollow, leaving the week with the sour taste of missed putts.
This week started dreadfully for their team, as the U.S. swept Thursday 5-0, but the Canadian crew got a measure of redemption on Friday. Pendrith, paired with International stalwart Adam Scott, beat Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala 5 and 4. Just minutes later, Conners and Hughes finished off Tony Finau and Wyndham Clark 6 and 5 in front of a raucous 13th-hole crowd that showered them with applause and Molson. Each of the three earned his first team point in the process.
“This is one of the highlights of my life right here,” Hughes said post-round. “This is one of the funnest days I’ve ever had on the golf course.”
“We all go way back. We’re great friends,” Conners said. “I don’t think any of us kind of dreamed of being here when we were all at Kent State together or growing up on the Canadian National Team. So it’s pretty cool that we’re all here.”
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
