Global Golf Post: UK and Ireland

JOHN STEINBREDER
For most of Bob Kain’s adult life, the
weekend after Labor Day was always about
tennis. That’s when the finals of the U.S.
Open were played in New York, and as the
longtime head of the tennis division at the
International Management Group, and as
the agent for Billie Jean King, Bjorn Borg
and Pete Sampras among others, Kain was
there. Seeing to the needs of his players.
Schmoozing with current IMG customers
and developing new ones. Hammering out
deals that involved the opening of tennis
academies in Asia, perhaps, or the staging
of tennis tournaments in Africa.
But this year, Kain had other things to
do. Rather than worrying about tennis, he
was focused on golf, because he was com-
peting in the U.S. Senior Amateur.
It seems ironic that a person who was
one of the most powerful in racquet sports
is now so completely engrossed in golf that
he would forget tennis during the big-
gest tennis weekend of the year. And it is
also remarkable that a man who came to
tournament golf relatively late in life, and
did not tee it up in anything more competi-
tive than a club championship until he was
56, would be good enough to qualify for
something as big as a U.S. Senior Am.
“I never thought I could get to this
level,” Kain says. “But I started working
pretty hard on my game in my 50s, and I’ve
been having a lot of fun.”
He has also been having some success.
This summer Kain qualified for his third
Senior Am (he lost in match play). It also
was when he won his biggest event, the
Senior Club Championship at Pine Valley.

“I’ve managed to keep getting a
little better each year. ... What
other sport gives you the chance
to get better in your 60s?” – Bob Kain
much more enjoyable,” he says. “I shot
my best scores at the three clubs I belong
to this past year, including a 66 at Pine
Valley. Now, what other sport gives you the
chance to get better in your 60s?”
For many years, golf was the “other”
sport to Kain. First and foremost, he was a
tennis player, good enough to compete for
the University of Virginia. Then, tennis be-
came his business specialty when he joined
IMG in 1976. In time, Kain became one of
its top executives, eventually president
ing of fellow IMGer Hughes Norton, who
was Tiger Woods’ first agent. “I was a lefty
in tennis,” Kain explains. “But I learned to
play my golf from the right side. Like I was
hitting a backhand.”
But even as he started teeing it up a
bit, Kain didn’t have much time for golf.
The work and travel that his job demanded
simply didn’t allow it. He did seem to have
a natural affinity for the game, however,
and when he started to play a bit more in
his 50s, Kain got his handicap down to the
low single digits. The father of two sons, he
began practicing and playing more, at Pine
Valley and also at the Country Club in Pep-
per Pike, Ohio, which is next to his home.