It didn't take long for Hank Kuehne to live up to his reputation. The biggest hitter in golf took on the longest hole at Oak Hill -- the 538m 13th -- with ease during a practice round.
He ripped his driver some 350 yards, then followed that with a 2-iron into the middle of the green.
"I'm pretty much one of only a couple -- if not the only person in the field -- that can actually get there in two," Kuehne said Monday at the PGA Championship. "I have to try to take advantage of my strengths."
That strength is not difficult to figure out.
Just watch the gallery gasp whenever the 27-year-old Kuehne takes a behemoth cut. Just look at how PGA Tour players stop what they're doing when Kuehne removes the head cover of his driver on the practice range.
Look at the statistics.
Kuehne not only leads the PGA Tour in driving distance at 292.3m, his drives measure more than 270m an astounding 86.5 percent of the time; the tour average in that category is 24.5 percent.
Still, Kuehne says he's not solely about power.
He already has heard some people writing off his chances at Oak Hill, primarily because the fairways are tight and the rough is the thickest at a major in at least five years.
"I think everybody just thinks because I hit it far, I don't hit it straight," Kuehne said. "I hit it a lot straighter than anybody really gives me credit for. People look at statistics and don't really know that much about the players and how they play."
People know this much about Kuehne -- as long as he is off the tee, it took him a longer time to get back to Oak Hill.
Kuehne, a recovering alcoholic, reached the pinnacle of his career five years ago when he beat Tom McKnight to win the 1998 US Amateur.
"I would have told you that you were crazy if I thought it would take me this long to get out here," Kuehne said. "One of the things that I've learned through everything I've been through ... is you can't take anything for granted."
Kuehne has been through plenty.
Hooked on alcohol in his teens, Kuehne was driving drunk in 1995 when he ran a stop sign and had an accident in which he broke his ribs.
After winning the US Amateur and turning pro, he injured his shoulder, which kept him from reaching his potential, and left him without any status going into this year.
Kuehne finally turned it around with a runner-up finish in Houston, and has made enough money to secure his PGA Tour card for next year. Next up was getting to the PGA Championship, knowing it was held at Oak Hill.
"After I made enough money to have status, it was one of my immediate goals to try to figure out how I could get into the PGA," he said.
Not to worry. The PGA of America offered him an invitation to the final major of the year, and his first as a professional.
He played the 1999 Masters, US Open and British Open as the amateur champion, and played a practice round at Augusta National with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. He was crushing drives back then, but Kuehne wasn't sure where they were going. This isn't the same Oak Hill where Kuehne won his US Amateur.
"I remember it was a lot faster, a lot firmer," Kuehne said. "I think with the new tee boxes and everything else, I'll probably hit 12 drivers out there. I hit a lot of irons in the Amateur, but it all depends."
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