In a past chapter of Kent Jesperson’s life, months of work would culminate this week – Boston Marathon week. Jesperson is a 32-time marathoner with a 3-hour, 10-minute personal record who has toed the Boston starting line nine times in his life. But running is only part of Jesperson’s sports story.
Jesperson, 70, is also a three-time Wyoming Senior Amateur champion, having won in 2008, 2010 and 2018. Winning those titles kick-started his involvement in the U.S. Senior Challenge, a one-of-its-kind senior event that brings together a four-man team of senior golfers from different states to compete in a 54-hole competition. The event dates to 1986 and has been played at venues all across the country.
As a top Wyoming senior, Jesperson was asked to put together and captain a team from his state after taking home senior am hardware.
“That started everything off,” he said of his relationship with the event.
For the past 12 years, Jesperson has recruited one or two teams to compete in the event. Six years ago, he went on the event’s Board of Directors. His work in elevating the event, and senior golf in general, resulted in this year’s Challenge Man of the Year award. It’s an honor annually presented to a person whose life has been exemplary in family, business and golf.
Jesperson has always felt a responsibility to make the sport better if he’s going to enjoy the benefits it brings. As a board member, Jesperson helped lay out policies, tried to recruit more states to take part in the event and helped pick future host sites.
The Man of the Year award was humbling in that it showed Jesperson he’d succeeded in his effort to give back.
“When they recognized me as Man of the Year, I was taken aback because I thought…you’re just one of the guys that go in there and do whatever it takes to try and make it better,” he said.
Jesperson took a similar hands-on approach to fatherhood, which delayed his competitive golf career a few years. He and wife Linette have two daughters, Tricia and Ashlee, and Jesperson didn’t want to miss the golden years of their childhood. He was also putting in hours of running at dawn, and it didn’t seem manageable to juggle that and golf.
“When they were growing up, I actually quit golf for nine years because it took too much of my time and I said my kids are young, they’ll only be young once,” he said.
Jesperson re-entered the game a few years before his 50th birthday. It didn’t take long to shake off any accumulated rust because he was 55 when he won his first Wyoming Senior Amateur. He was 64 when he won his last. Shortly before winning that third state senior am title, Jesperson tore his meniscus, which ended his running but not his golf.
Jesperson owned a real estate brokerage company for 40 years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and upon retiring in 2019, moved to Phoenix full-time with his wife. Now he plays out of Verrado Golf Club and has a game five days a week in the winter.
“In the summer we travel and see our daughters, so I play less,” he said.
The 2024 U.S. Senior Challenge will be played at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, on June 3-6. New Mexico won the event in 2023 when it was played in that team’s home state at Canyon Club at Four Hills.