A Winning Design

The first tee at Whirlwind Golf Club was lively: 60 or so people at the Ford Championship in Chandler, Ariz., shuffled in the desert dirt, trying to find the best vantage point to see the pairing on the tee. Dozens were there to see 25-year-old Kate Smith-Stroh play her second weekend on the LPGA Tour. Among those jockeying for position was Smith-Stroh’s dad, Kris. Kris wore a large bucket hat and sunglasses, and greeted friends there to watch his daughter with a smile. Beneath the dark lenses of his glasses, Kris was fighting tears. 

“This was huge to make this cut,” Kris says. “You don’t want to get too high, and you don’t want to get too low.” 

Kris moved his portable golf seat to the backside of the tee, close to the cart path. It was a location that might give him a couple step advantage on the crowd after his daughter hit her opening tee shot.

“You get away from cut lines, it’s a wonderful week. Cut lines are stressful,” Kris says, having just watched his daughter spend the first 36 holes of the tournament on the cut line.

Smith-Stroh opened with 70, and in Round 2, she shot one-under on the front nine before running off five birdies in seven holes to post 5-under 67. She was tied for 17th, within striking distance of the lead, and paired with Chinese player Yahui “Grace” Zhang. Smith-Stroh beamed while talking with her playing partner and their caddies. If she was nervous, it didn’t show.  

“She loves to talk,” Kris says. “It’s who she is. It’s her makeup. Is there stuff going on internally? Hell yeah there is!” 

Smith-Stroh’s name was announced. One can only imagine what goes on in a golfer’s head as they look towards a target and choose a shot, but in Smith-Stroh’s case, one imagines she’s seeing art. Smith-Stroh’s mom, Margery, is an artist, a talent she passed to her daughter when Smith-Stroh was young. Smith-Stroh now stood on the first tee of an LPGA event as the only professional golfer who owns a graphic design company. 

Smith-Stroh took a practice swing next to the ball and with little hesitation, hammered her drive down the middle. She averaged 287 yards off the tee throughout the week, but with first tee adrenaline, her drive might have surpassed 300.

A shorter-hitting Zhang made birdie. Smith-Stroh made par after her wedge into the opening par-4 came up a bit short. It was a sign of things to come. Zhang played a beautiful round on Saturday, making six birdies and an eagle on her way to 65. Smith-Stroh made five birdies of her own, but was set back by a few mistakes.

“It was the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of by far,” Smith-Stroh said. “It’s so cool for women’s golf that it’s gotten to that, but for someone who has never heard 80 people collectively sigh when you chunk it in a bunker, that's a new feeling.”

There have been other new feelings recently. Smith-Stroh made it through Q series for the first time and earned an LPGA Tour card at the end of 2024. She made the cut in her first LPGA event, and traveled to China to play her second. After the opening rounds at the Ford Championship, Smith-Stroh was well-positioned to qualify for her first major, The Chevron Championship. But for all her progress, Smith-Stroh was recently contemplating why she was playing professionally at all. 

The 2024 Epson Tour season tested her faith. When she arrived at the Copper Rock Championship in Hurricane, Utah, Smith-Stroh had missed three of six cuts and had yet to crack the top-10. She played well at Copper Rock in previous seasons and loved the course. Her family, friends, and her husband, Glenn, flew in to watch the tournament. Round 2 got away from her early and she shot 40 on the front nine. She was numb when she closed with a triple bogey to post 79, missing the cut by three. 

“I was like, this is miserable,” Smith-Stroh says. “I talked to my best friend. She was like, you don’t have to do this. You run a company. Glenn has a job. No one is making you play professional golf. That was low.”

Smith-Stroh missed the following week’s cut by five. She began to worry she wouldn’t even qualify for LPGA Q series, which meant she would no longer be eligible for free balls and gloves from Titleist. She began stashing balls and gloves away for that possibility, only playing a single ball during tournament rounds and playing old balls during practice rounds.

“Some of the balls I use are like practice balls from high school,” says Smith-Stroh. “I’m always scared I’m going to get the rug pulled out from under me and I’m going to get no golf balls ever again.”

Her thriftiness extended to life off the course. At the grocery store, Smith-Stroh bought the cheapest items, even when Glenn suggested they spend a little extra for name brand food. It was partly a symptom of poor play, but she learned the importance of frugality early in her life.

Kris was a PGA professional working at a private club when he became a father. After a few years, he felt like he was losing control of his life: he was working exhaustive hours and not able to spend time with his son, who was three, and their new daughter, Kate. Kris decided it was time for a change that would give him more freedom. He and Margery pooled their resources and bought a golf course in Detroit Lakes, Minn., a small town in the western part of the state near Fargo. The course was an old layout with small greens, difficult par-3s, and gentle doglegs. 

Kris’ son, Karter, took a liking to the game, but his daughter wasn’t immediately interested. “Kate wanted to pick dandelions and pick frogs out of the pond,” Kris says. “It took her brother to drag her along. She wasn’t hungry to play golf but she did it because she wanted to play golf with her brother. That made it special for us.” 

As the kids grew up, they became the caretakers of the course. The course wasn’t generating much revenue, so the business became a true family affair. They sold the back nine and later the range to keep the place afloat. 

“We only had one or two full-time employees, max. Dad would mow the greens, Karter and I would pick the range, I’d change cups sometimes. My mom and I, and my brother, would work the pro shop. My mom did all of our spraying for fertilizer.”

Kris would bring the kids along for nine holes in the evenings, where they would set tee markers for the following day and fix pitch marks. The course was often busiest in the late afternoons and early evenings when locals got off from work and kids got out of school. At sunset, the course came alive with neighborhood kids trying to squeeze as many holes in as they could before dark. Karter would ask Kate to play and practice with his friends, even when she didn’t want to. 

“I would not be here without my brother, just because he brought me along all the time,” says Smith-Stroh. “He brought me along with his friends. He’d be like, hey Kate, we gotta practice today. He was such a good role model.”

Kate began entering tournaments and because there were only a couple girls competing in her division, she would often get a trophy just by showing up. The new hardware motivated her to spend more time on the course. In 8th grade, Kate competed in the High School State Championship. Despite never having shot under par before, she posted two consecutive rounds of two-under, winning by nine shots. That’s when people took notice of her talent.

In her first tournament as a reigning state champion, Smith-Stroh shot 92 and didn’t make a single par. “My Dad took the scorecard and hung it up in our pro shop,” she says. “It sounds really mean, but he was like you’re only as good as your last round.” The scorecard hung in the pro shop until the family sold the course in 2016. It was a reminder to stay in the moment and work hard; you never know what the next round will bring. 

The family focused on state and regional tournaments, not having enough money to travel to AJGA events. Kris believed this would benefit his daughter by keeping her confidence high. She won five straight high school titles. “My grandparents would fly in for a month every year to drive us to tournaments because we couldn't afford to pay someone to watch the pro shop,” says Smith-Stroh. By the time she was ready to go to college, Smith-Stroh knew how to mow the rough and how to fix a mower when it broke down – which the old machines often did.

A few Big Ten schools recruited her, but Smith-Stroh ultimately chose Nebraska, the southernmost school that showed interest by offering her a full ride. While she hoped to major in art, the school also had a graphic design program that proved more practical and beneficial to her future. “In college, that's when I started feeling like designs or art work around golf were not really made for me as a female. They were all just harsh and boring, and a little masculine as far as logos or ads. That’s when I thought, oh, I could do something better.”

She improved on the golf course every year as a Cornhusker, but didn’t believe she was good enough yet to have a future in the professional game. Smith-Stroh asked her golf coach what she needed to do to make a run at pro golf. “At the time, she said I need to putt for two hours a day,” says Smith-Stroh. “That was the biggest shock. It was mostly like 18 holes and two hours of practice, or 9 holes and four hours of practice. It was like, you've got to do this and no excuses.”

The advice paid off: Smith-Stroh won the Big Ten Championship, made the Palmer Cup team, qualified for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, set school scoring records, and earned Golfweek Third-Team All-American honors. She still didn’t know if she was good enough to make it as a pro golfer, but her success made the decision easier. 

“I gave myself three years,” Smith-Stroh says. “I assumed it would be really tough and I wouldn’t make it on the LPGA and it would be just a chapter in my life. I was always just realistic about it. But I love the Epson Tour and the struggle of doing it with people and connecting with people. I met a lot of great people and I didn't expect that part of it.” 

Kris helped raise money around their hometown, and Smith-Stroh quickly gained Epson Tour status. In her spare time, she started redesigning golf logos and sharing them on social media, where they caught the attention of golf podcaster and broadcaster Shane Bacon. 

“I started doing logos on social media just to practice my skills as college was coming to an end,” says Smith-Stroh. “Shane really enjoyed seeing them on Twitter, and I was a big fan of the podcasts he was putting out.” 

“I’ve worked in golf shops and seen the benefit of having a good logo in a shop. Everyone that goes there buys something,” says Bacon. “Kate was extremely mature. You know the golfer that’s good through the bag? She was good throughout the bag but as a person.”

“He reached out and was like, hey, I want to start a logo company and do you want to go in on it together?” says Smith-Stroh. She decided the work would be therapeutic for her, helping to keep her mind off golf while potentially relieving the financial pressures of the grind.

The duo started Ground Under Repair Design. Smith-Stroh leaned on Bacon to gain industry knowledge, and Bacon relied on his new business partner’s artistic and design skills. Neither had a blueprint for how such a business should work and they learned together. They soon built a notable roster of clients that included David Leadbetter, Windsong Farm – a prestigious private club in Minnesota – and Monday Q Info’s charity foundation, Drive Fore The Future.  

Bacon has a demanding schedule and knows how consuming pro golf can be. Glenn, who has a background in design, and Bacon’s wife, Cindy, pick up the slack when their spouses’ schedules become overwhelming. “Shane and I get all the credit, but it’s a cool family company,” says Smith-Stroh. 

During tournament weeks, Smith-Stroh tries to complete her work by Tuesday and focus on competition for the rest of the week. Sometimes, however, Bacon steps in to remind her it’s okay to prioritize golf. “Shane has been like, hey, I think you should probably not be responding to clients during tournaments,” Smith-Stroh says.

“If she won an LPGA tournament tomorrow and she called me and said ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this,’ I would obviously 100 percent understand that,” Bacon says. “But I think it’s a passion of hers as well, and she’s so good at it. I think it’s cool she has this other outlet to occupy your mind.”

She finished 19th on the Epson Tour points list in 2023, nearly earning an LPGA Tour card, but didn’t make it through Q school. In 2024, she started missing cuts, losing confidence and stashing golf balls. After missing four of seven cuts and considering why she was playing pro golf, she made a decision: to live every day like she was preparing for the LPGA Tour, regardless of scores. She began focusing on the process of improving, not the anxiety of results. She started making cuts again and finished 4th in an event, qualifying her for Q series, relieving any lingering concern about paying for golf balls and gloves.

She had been traveling with fellow pro Kristen Gillman on Epson Tour, who gave her sage advice about the final stage of Q school: chip away at the week with one score at a time, shoot under par every day, and that should be good enough to get in the top-25 and earn LPGA Tour status. 

Through four rounds, the advice was working. Smith-Stroh came into the final round a couple shots inside the top-25. With Kris cheering her on, she played the first 12 holes in two-under, but made bogeys on 13 and 14, falling back to the cut line. 

“It’s not that she’s leaking oil. But you get a little nervous,” says Kris. “She gets on 17, which, oh my gosh, it’s 185, 190, and has about four tiers in it (the green). She smokes a 4-iron that never leaves the flag and she had a four-footer – and she makes it. We were breathing a sigh of relief walking to the 18th tee.”

Smith-Stroh managed to close with a par, which was good enough for T-19 and an LPGA Tour card. 

“That’s a cool definition of my daughter. She can pull it off. She’s under pressure and she can do it. Unbelievable,” says Kris, fighting tears. “I said, well, you made it.”

“It was a lot of emotion,” says Smith-Stroh. “I think it happened in stages. I wasn’t really sure of the status of the tour card. Then I started making plans for events and that’s when it really hit me: I’m not on the Epson anymore. It took a long time to really set in.”

The past weekend in Phoenix at the Ford Championship was another learning experience. Smith-Stroh played the final 36 holes in 1-under and went from T-17 to T-50. While she’s disappointed in the result, she earned enough points to move up the priority list, which should get her into her first major, The Chevron Championship. She doesn’t have specific goals for the year, she just wants to see how good she can be and remain focused on the process. 

There are now golf balls and gloves in her locker every week. She knows what it’s like to play in front of a large professional gallery in a big LPGA tournament. There is enough work at her design company that she and Bacon hired extra employees. She says the company has become part of her, and even if she were to win an event, she would continue her design work.

This golf artist from a small town doesn’t know what the future holds, but she has a winning design.

‍

‍

Smith-Stroh is a Carry athlete. For sponsorship possibilities or to play in a pro-am with her, visit her profile on the Carry website.