Kevin Dougherty retires from pro golf, but it was Rickie Fowler who helped him get his start

OWASSO, Oklahoma – Though his wife, Lindsay, was in tears as her husband reflected on his 12-year professional golf career, Kevin Dougherty surprisingly kept his emotions in check. Perhaps it was because he’d made his mind up – that he would retire at season’s end – nine months ago.

“I got to the Bahamas for the first event of the year in January, and I immediately wanted to be back home,” said Dougherty, a 35-year-old father of two kids under 4 – daughter Tristyn and son Beckett.

Now, after 182 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour, including his missed cut Friday afternoon at the Compliance Solutions Championship, Dougherty is headed home for good. He’d long soured on the grind and travel of tour life, and with a venture-capitalist job lined up in Dallas and Tristyn starting soccer, Dougherty was tired of being on the road 25 to 30 weeks a year. Even his one season on the PGA Tour, in 2024, wasn’t as fulfilling as he’d once dreamed.

“My family made this decision easy,” said Dougherty, with Beckett sitting in his lap. “Once I started basing my time off how many sleeps I was going to be away, that started tearing at me. So, now I get to be present in their life. I only get to be a dad once, and my priorities have shifted.”

Before Dougherty walked away from golf, he walked on – to Mike McGraw’s vaunted Oklahoma State team.

McGraw still considers Dougherty one of the most coachable players he’s ever been around in over four decades of coaching. “He’d look at you, and you’d tell him something, and he would do everything in his power to try and accomplish what you said,” McGraw said.

That determination was first noticed by Rickie Fowler, who grew up with Dougherty, who was two years younger, in Murrieta, California. With Fowler a senior in high school and as one of the nation’s top-ranked recruits, already committed to the Cowboys, he wanted McGraw to look at the unheralded Dougherty, who had just completed his sophomore year. So, he texted McGraw and asked if he’d be at the Trusted Choice Big I National Championship in Boise, Idaho; McGraw responded saying not only was he speaking at the banquet but also staying to recruit the whole week.

And because it was Fowler asking, McGraw wrote down a note to watch Dougherty for a few holes.

“I’m standing on the first tee and I hear Kevin’s name get introduced, and out walks this tiny, little kid,” McGraw recalled. “I mean, he was 5-foot-3 max, maybe 90 pounds, he’s wearing this orange hat that I think Rickie gave him. I immediately walk into the trees and call Rickie.

“What do you think, Coach?” Fowler asked, according to McGraw.

McGraw responded: “I think I’m watching the 12-and-under age group.”

Fowler: “Just wait, Coach. His dad’s a big guy, and he’s going to grow. He won’t always be small, and he’s got a lot of heart.”

Over the next few months, Dougherty started calling McGraw, as did former PGA Tour pro Tom Pernice, who told McGraw that as much as he wanted Dougherty to attend his alma mater, UCLA, Dougherty wanted to go where Fowler was going. McGraw eventually invited Dougherty on an unofficial visit, which Dougherty paid for, and soon after landed a walk-on spot.

When Dougherty finally stepped on campus as a college freshman, he stood 6 feet, 1 inch.

“But he still only weighed 125 pounds,” McGraw added.

From there, Dougherty established himself as the hardest worker on the team, developing a disciplined fitness and nutrition regimen that he still follows to this day. Though he redshirted his first year and played sparingly as an individual for much the next two-and-a-half seasons, Dougherty finally cracked the starting lineup during the spring of his junior season, which was highlighted by a T-5 finish at the NCAA Fayetteville Regional.

“He made a real difference on that team,” McGraw said.

The next year, as a senior, he won the 2013 Royal Oaks Intercollegiate, his first and only college title.

Dougherty never won as a professional, twice losing in playoffs on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he amassed over $1.2 million in earnings. He finished literally an inch away from a PGA Tour card in 2018, barely missing a chip at the Portland Open that would’ve given him enough points to graduate.

“I definitely believe that certain things happen for a reason,” Dougherty said in 2023 after finally earning his way to the big leagues; he’d make only eight of 26 cuts and lose his card as a rookie.

Two years later, he’s at peace with his decision to start a new chapter, the previous one closing, fittingly, just over an hour from Oklahoma State’s campus in Stillwater.

“I’ll remember the practice rounds with good friends, dinners, those times on the road,” Dougherty said. “Little stuff like that will never leave me.”

And McGraw will always remember the tiny, little kid who never quit until he had to.