Kayla Benge wouldn’t be quite whole without golf. It ties too heavily into her Indiana upbringing for her to ever give up competing.
“I think it’s more or less the fact that I feel very close to my family when I’m on the golf course,” Benge said, “because of all these memories we’ve shared since I was 2 or 3. It’s kind of that feeling of closeness with my family and the sport and how important golf has been in my life.”
At 24, Benge, of Plainfield, Indiana, was the oldest player in the field at the Hoosier Women’s Amateur and finished in the top 15. After competing four seasons for Xavier and transferring to North Carolina Asheville in 2022 for a fifth year, she’s now in among a small group of women to remain both amateur and highly competitive post-college golf.
Benge played the Hoosier Am on the heels of a fifth-place finish in the Indiana Women’s Amateur last month, where she was the defending champion, and a runner-up finish at the Indiana Women’s Open in June. In May, she attempted to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open for the first time. She opened the 36-hole qualifier in St. Louis with a 75, which landed her in a share of third, and battled weather with the rest of the field in the second round before falling out of contention for the sole qualifying spot.
“For me to be that close in one round, it was obvious to me that if I was on my game, I had the opportunity to qualify,” she said.
In many of her summer events, Benge felt she was in a position to win, but never felt like her game was sharp enough to get it done. That begs the question of whether a professional career is still in the cards. She says it’s something she has considered, and it isn’t off the table yet. But pro golf being one of very few sports with a variable income and fixed costs, turning pro comes down to something of a business decision.
“Turning pro is something that I’ve always wanted to do but it’s something that I need to have more knowledge about before I do it,” she said, “because to turn pro to just pro is one thing, but I just love to compete. So for me, if all I’m concerned about right now is just competing and enjoying playing the sport that I grew up playing, I don’t really care all that much about making money while doing it.”
Kayla Benge with her dad, Curt, at the 2024 Hoosier Women’s Amateur. (Photo: Landon Ringler/Golfweek)
Benge largely competes around the Midwest, in tournaments she can reach by car instead of plane. Being financially smart about what to play means she can keep competing against high-level talent, like she did this summer. And at this point, turning professional would only limit the tournament opportunities she has. Nothing is stopping her from teeing it up in a pro event as an amateur, she reasons.
Put me in
Benge learned the game from her grandfather Stanley Benge, who picked up a job as a course ranger and starter at the Brickyard Crossing Golf Course in Indianapolis upon retirement and brought his granddaughter out one day during a Drive, Chip and Putt competition for kids. The idea was that a 6-year-old Kayla would just ride the golf cart, but instantly she wanted to compete.
Stanley bought her a set a little clubs, told her she had to be 7 to participate, and started helping her with her short game.
Sports run deep in the family culture. Curt coaches high school girls basketball at Plainfield High School in the family’s Plainfield, Indiana, hometown and started a girls golf team there, too. Kayla played on both.
“It’s been coach dad, so that part of makes it easier because that’s part of my profession is coaching,” he said. “That’s always been kind of built into my relationship from the get-go.”
Curt’s coach sense is also what makes him an effective caddie. It’s “knowing what not to say and when to remove yourself,” he said. They agreed very early on that if Kayla wanted help, he’d help her after the round was over.
“Having him on the bag is always a very comfortable feeling,” Kayla said, noting that no one knows her game better. Now that she’s in her mid-20s, having her dad caddie brings the added benefit of spending coveted time together.
Comfort zone
Kayla was in the 7th grade the first time she first competed in the Indiana Women’s Amateur. Curt remembers seeing Division I bags all over the golf course that week. When Kayla was 12 or 13, Curt asked her when driving home from a tournament what she wanted to do with golf. Kayla said she wanted to play in college, at the Division I level.
“I said, ‘Well, why?’” said Curt, who played college basketball at Marian University in Indianapolis. “She said, ‘Well, they’re the best.’”
When Curt explained the time commitment, Kayla was unfazed.
“Dad, that’s all I do now,” she told him.
For someone as competitive as Kayla, who practiced as much as Kayla, getting to a place of comfort within the game can be difficult. Post-college, Curt thinks she may have found it. There is no longer any pressure to make a lineup.
“The part that’s different now is you just show up to have fun,” Curt said of where he sees his daughter with the game. “You show up to play and I hope it goes well but I think that, in a lot of ways, has helped her play better than when she was younger, even since college.”
Kayla works as the pro shop and outings manager at the Links at Heartland Crossing in south Indianapolis, a job that gives her the flexibility to prepare for and compete in tournaments, and for now, lives at home with her parents. She took a week off early in the summer to travel to France and is exploring how she could qualify for next summer’s Women’s British Open.
“It’s more than a sport to me,” she said. “It’s family, it’s experiences and it’s kind of that constant that’s always been in my life and I feel like should always be there. . . . I definitely feel like having it as a constant in my life is the best thing for me as a person.”