The RoundHouse | 2/13/2019 12:14:00 PM

Where are they now:
 
Kelly Eddy - women's golf (2002-05)
 
Kelly Eddy thought she was done with golf after college.
 
"I was totally burned out on it," she said. "I took up tennis. That was going to be my competitive outlet."
 
She golfed at Wichita East, winning the City League title as a senior and Class 6A regional titles twice, and at Wichita State. She majored in psychology and worked at Big Brothers/Big Sisters before getting her masters degree in counseling at Oklahoma State. She worked as a school counselor for six years.
 
Then golf pulled her back in.

She coached at Blue Valley Northwest High School. She met board members from the Kansas City-area Web.com Tour stop, played in their charity scrambles and volunteered on the charity committees for the men's professional tour. When the tournament needed an executive director/tournament manager in 2014, board members asked and she answered.
 
"It was a nutty year and they were really in a tough spot," she said. "Someone approached me. I kind of did that whole 'look behind me, you must be talking to someone else.' They said 'We think you can do it, and we'll teach what you don't know.' Through a lot of people's help and a lot of mentors . . . that was the next step. I haven't looked back. I definitely love it."
 
Her parents seemed to know what was coming. They encouraged her to stick with golf as a youngster. They insisted she take business classes to prepare for a career.
 
"My parents were right," she said. "Now I go back to him and say 'Gosh, Dad, thanks so much. You really knew what you were doing.'"
 
Status update – In 2017, the Web.com Tour hired Eddy as a senior manager, business & sponsor relations. She is one of four senior managers who divide up the 27 Web.com Tour events (28 next year) across the country.
 
This week, she is in Sarasota, Fla., at the LECOM Suncoast Classic at Lakewood National Golf Club, where she is working with a new title sponsor. The Web.com Tour is a pipeline to the PGA Tour.
 
"It's everything business-related that goes into a Web.com Tour Tournament," she said. "You've got, hopefully, a title sponsor or title-sponsor revenue . . . you've got local sponsors, you've got the golf club, you've got all of the constituents that play into it and then the fans. It's all of the business elements that would play into it, from the contract with the golf course, the contract with those large-level sponsors, looking at the strategic planning for the tournament going down 3-5 years . . . making sure it's stable."
 
At the Suncoast Classic, Eddy is helping implement an experimental pro-am format where the amateurs play nine holes with a pro and the back nine with another pro. Eddy works with nine Web.com events, in addition to projects such as seeding new markets and updating security protocols.
 
Back home – Eddy admires the Wichita Open, Wichita's Web.com Tour stop. She watched it growing up in Wichita and used its growth as an example when she worked for what was then the Midwest Classic in Kansas City.
 
She enjoys the enthusiasm when she returns home, where her parents live, to watch the tournament as a fan.
 
"What an absolutely incredible thing for me to see from a fan perspective, and from a local perspective, and then to be able to look to that when I was trying to do it at an event in Kansas City," she said. "You've got a 30-year event. They are clicking along. They have sky boxes that have sold out around that 17^thgreen already. Their pro-am has sold out. That's success."
 
Who's next –The Web.com sends its best to the PGA Tour – eight 2017 Web.com graduates won PGA titles during 2017-18.
 
Eddy hesitates just a bit to list picks for rising golfers.
 
"It's so hard," she said. "This is like they're all your children when you're asked to pick a favorite."
 
There are standouts.
 
"Maverick McNealy is one of them to watch," she said. "He burst onto our tour last year and is really starting to have a ton of success. Ben Taylor has already had success. He's a fan favorite. Just a great personality. Gets involved in the community everywhere that he goes. Rafael Campos is another one. He's one of the best players out there and he was plagued by injury for a couple of years. I think we're going to see big things out of him. This is arguably our best class of players that we've had, or the strongest class of players, that we've had come into a year."
 
Lots to learn – Eddy was recruited to Wichita State by one coach and played for new coaches as a freshman, again as a sophomore and for her final two seasons. 
 
Her golf career was difficult, but she regards the experience as critical to her professional path. A challenging day at work isn't as daunting as a 36-hole struggle as a college golfer, she said.
 
"That doesn't sound like a positive," she said. "Now, getting into career, a lot of times I'm pulling from things that happened or struggles that I had in my college golf career and remembering the small success. Sometimes the failures are providing more than the successes, knowing how I handled it and how I would have changed it."
 
Playing golf at an NCAA Division I school put her in position to network.
 
"Someone finds out you played DI golf and now they're willing to invite you to a scramble tournament because they want you to be the one that's hitting the tee shot off the red tees," she said. "Sometimes, it really is that simple. You have a good time out there, you become friends, you start working together in business. Golf was the in to every single opportunity I got. It's a common language."
 
Road trip to Atlanta – Eddy grew up watching Shockers basketball and remains a devoted fan. 
 
Her fondest memory is the spontaneous trip to Atlanta for the 2013 Final Four. While in Kansas City, she met former Wichita State pitcher Jaime Bluma. Months later, when she needed a fellow fan to watch the Elite Eight game against Ohio State, she called Bluma. 
 
"I said 'I've never missed an important game in my life; I'm going to this,'" she said. "He said 'I'm going.' Pretty soon, we had three of us at the table that had agreed to go and we had plane tickets bought. Old roommates of mine were there. Guys from the (2006) Sweet 16 team were there. There were people from the national championship baseball team. It was so fun to have all these generations of athletes there in Atlanta and realize we're part of a family."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.