Welcome to the Two Down Press golf newsletter!

Amazing how a single day of 70 degree weather can get the golf juices flowing! After what has been a long hiatus for many 2DP readers, I hope that you’ve been able to make your long awaited return to the course this week.

It may be February, but it’s been anything but a slow news week in the world of Carolinas golf! Our Q&A series returns for a conversation with Epson Tour player Rachel Kuehn, who is busy preparing for the upcoming season. We also have updates on developments at Candyroot Lodge and news from several notable tournaments. Let’s dive in.

TWO DOWN PRESS Q&A

Rachel Kuehn is a professional golfer currently based in Charlotte, NC. An Asheville native and daughter of 9-time CGA champion and USGA Executive Committee nominee Brenda Corrie-Kuehn, she burst on to the scene in 2017 when she won the Carolinas Women’s Amateur at age 15. She then went on to become a 4-time All-American at Wake Forest, winning 2 ACC Women’s Player of the Year awards and leading the team to a national championship in 2023. Kuehn has represented the U.S. in multiple international competitions, including being a member of 3 Curtis Cup teams. After turning professional, she earned her Epson Tour card through LPGA Q-Series and played a full season on the circuit in 2025, making 20 starts and finishing 26th in the points standings.

We caught up with her on the eve of her second season to discuss her transition to life as a pro, her biggest takeaways from last season, and what she needs to improve to earn her LPGA Tour card in 2026. This conversation has been edited for brevity and readability.

2DP: 2025 was your first full season on the Epson Tour. How are you feeling about your rookie performance?

RK: The long-term goal is to get my LPGA Tour card, but the real goal of last year was to learn the ins and outs of professional golf. Everyone tells you how different it is from college golf, but you don't really know what to expect until you're going through the routine of traveling every week. My goal was to get comfortable with the cadence of travel, the practice rounds, and the sheer volume of golf you're playing during the season.

I learned a lot last year, but I wasn't particularly happy with how I played. It was a tale of 3 seasons - I played nicely at the start and had a couple top-10 finishes early, but didn't have a great summer and missed about 6 cuts in a row. It taught me an important lesson about momentum when you are playing every week. How do you stop the slide and reset when you don't get the chance to take a break? In college, you play for a week, come home for 2 weeks, go on the road again, come home for 2 more weeks. There's a chance to reset when things aren't going well.

The other big piece was learning a new golf course every week - it was like drinking from a fire hose. I'm excited to go back this year and not have to start from scratch. I think we're going back to 14 of the same golf courses.

I finished the season with a couple good finishes in Alabama and Arkansas, but overall it was a roller coaster. I was really glad to keep my full Epson Tour card and go straight to Stage 3 [of Q-Series]. It was definitely an adjustment year.

2DP: What are some things you learned about establishing your routine on the road? What are you planning to do differently this season?

RK: One of the big things I tried to do last year was make sure I played every course twice before we teed it up. Normally that meant I’d finish a tournament on Sunday, drive Sunday evening to the next location, play at least 9 holes on Monday, the other 9 on Tuesday, and then play the Wednesday pro-am.

The way the schedule worked out, there was never a day to take off or just practice. I'm a self-proclaimed range rat. Playing all the time is great, but I don't feel like I get my most productive work done that way. I need a good amount of time to practice and work on my fundamentals, and I didn't build in enough time to do that last year. I'm hoping this year I won't feel as much pressure to play every golf course twice because I've seen them.

The other big piece I totally dropped the ball on was not staying in good enough communication with my coach. Every player has their bad tendencies, and it's really easy to slip back toward them when you are playing a lot and not paying enough attention. We've come up with a better plan this year.

2DP: Outside of time management and logistics, what parts of your game do you feel you need to improve to be successful out there?

RK: When I look at my season, my honest opinion is that I made too many bogeys. Part of that needs to be bogey avoidance, particularly with short game around the greens. I also don’t think I was taking enough advantage of the birdie opportunities with my wedges and on par 5s. That has been a big emphasis of my practice over the off-season.

What has shocked me the most about professional golf is the low scores. In college, you could shoot -2, -1, -2, finish at -5 and be in the top 10 every single time. If you're not shooting double-digits under par, you're not cracking the top 10 in a professional event. You're also way better off having a week where you shoot 12-under and then shooting 80 the next week, because the point system heavily rewards having a couple really good finishes.

My mom is still, to this day, a really good golfer, and she's always been big on course management and strategy. I've been wired to aim for the middle of the green, and I think there is a lot of value in that until you're trying to make a bunch of birdies, then you might need to take on a little bit more risk.

It's been an adjustment in mindset - feeling more comfortable firing closer to flags in an effort to make more birdies. Hopefully I’ve gotten my short game to a place where I’ll be OK short-siding myself once or twice a round.

2DP: Would you say you're someone who thrives on harder setups where par is a good score?

RK: I was actually having that conversation with one of my brothers the other week. I love a harder golf course because it rewards discipline. It’s just the way I am wired - to play the percentage golf shot. I think it suits my style of game a little bit better.

2DP: How are you finding the transition to life outside of college - living on your own, figuring out your routine when you're home, and all of that without the infrastructure of a team?

RK: There's definitely a weird cadence to my year. I was putting together a calendar for my roommate and I'm gone for 8 weeks, then I'm back for 2, so there's a very weird balance to strike with travel and home life.

You don't get a ton of time to practice on the road, so a lot of work needs to be done when you're home. Conversely, you also need to be making sure that when you're home, you're resting, recharging, and not burning yourself out - there's a weird little push and pull. How do I make sure I'm still enjoying golf and not working myself down too much, but also feeling like I'm productive enough and ready for the next event? It's a weird, almost guilty feeling that you're not doing enough.

It's funny - I was actually saying to someone that it's been nice how the snow and the ice has forced me into a really nice break over the last couple weeks. The golf course has been shut down, so I’ve been able to sit at home and do all my logistics for next year, binge-watch some TV shows, and just relax. I got a proper break without the feeling of "maybe I should be doing more."

2DP: Charlotte has become your home base. What were some of the reasons you chose Charlotte and how is it working out for you?

RK: I am loving it. I'm from Asheville, so it's only 2 hours driving to get there. It's also only about an hour and a half to Winston-Salem, so all of my “homes” are very close by. Obviously, there's a massive airport that can take me anywhere I need to go conveniently, which was another big part of it. I think it will be home for the foreseeable future - it's going to take a lot to convince me to leave.

Honestly, the biggest piece of the puzzle was finding a golf course that would let me practice and play, and I actually found 2! I practice out at Charlotte Country Club through their young professionals program. It's been under renovation since September, but I'm excited to get back out there when the course reopens. Last year, I also joined the touring professional membership at Carolina Golf Club, and both places have been equally awesome. They're very different, but I've really cherished the relationships I've built with both memberships.

It's really rare to find a golf course that not only lets you come out and practice and enjoy the facilities, but also a membership that's excited to have you out there. Sometimes you go out to different spots and almost feel like you're intruding or overstepping, so you try to stay on the outskirts and you don't really embrace the community of the golf course.

I feel so unbelievably blessed because, at both of these courses, I actually feel like the membership gets excited to see me. They've really embraced me and my career - I get texts when I'm on the road and have people stop me at the course to talk about my recent finishes. I honestly struggle to put it into words how lucky I feel because that is not the norm and I'm aware that it’s not the norm, so I just feel really fortunate.

PRESENTED BY TWILIGHT GOLF CLUB

February is a busy month on the TGC events calendar! Starting this week, members across the state will be participating in the opening round of Matchplay Madness, an annual net match play bracket culminating with a 36-hole final at Bryan Park in Greensboro.

On February 16, teams from Charlotte and Winston-Salem will face off in the 3rd TGC Presidents Cup at Cabarrus Country Club. The series is currently tied 1-1, so stay tuned to see which team will successfully break the deadlock!

Registration is also live for the 2026 Twilight Invitational at Statesville Country Club on March 19! There are still spots available for TGC’s premier spring event, so visit the website for more details and get involved.

LOCAL BEAT

Once only discussed behind paywalls and in cryptic Instagram posts, details about Candyroot Lodge, a new public golf destination being developed in South Carolina, have started to emerge. A new website is now live, and one of the co-founders recently launched a Substack newsletter to share ongoing updates.

The project, which was originally announced last May during PGA Championship week as “Downbonnie,” is being developed near Jefferson, South Carolina, a town just over an hour’s drive from Charlotte and about 45 minutes northeast of Camden. The land sits in the northernmost section of the Carolina Sandhills, a stretch of land prime for golf development that is now home to the Tree Farm, Old Barnwell, and Broomsedge.

Led by a pair of brothers from Chicago, Aaron and Ethan Oberman, Candyroot will eventually be home to multiple golf courses. The first, known as “Milkstone,” is being designed by Mike Koprowski, who rose to prominence in the golf course architecture world after his work with Kyle Franz at nearby Broomsedge. Shaping is well underway on what looks to be a sandy, rolling site, with preview play expected to begin in Q4 2026.

All eyes are currently on Milkstone, but ownership’s intention to build a multi-course facility take a page out of the recent Dream Golf playbook by developing a “remote” golf destination relatively close to multiple major metropolitan areas. It will be interesting to see how closely the final product compares to a destination like Bandon Dunes in terms of off-course amenities, as the Candyroot website seems to intentionally shy away from the term “resort.”

While the Oberman’s do not come from the golf industry, they have enlisted some heavy hitters to help promote the project. Long-time Golf Digest editor Ashley Mayo joined the team last fall as a fractional CMO, while Billy Richards of Carolina Pines Golf has recently been on property capturing content.

The bottom line? We’re potentially a year or 2 away from adding another world-class golf destination to the Carolinas conveniently located within 90 minutes of both Charlotte and Columbia. While the green fees will likely be premium, Candyroot is sticking to the model popularized by Mike Keiser and his sons, investing in good land and architecturally significant public golf with a “build it and they will come” mentality.

STORIES TO TRACK

U.S. Open Final Qualifying Set for Gaston Country Club: Registration is now live for both the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open, with Local Qualifying dates slated for April and May. On the Men’s side, Gaston Country Club was selected as 1 of 10 Final Qualifying sites that will play host to Golf’s Longest Day.

Carolinas Invitational Announces Return to Broomsedge Golf Club: The event, which has a 20+ year history at Carolina Golf Club, will return to Broomsedge again in 2026 after a successful first visit this past fall. Entries will open early summer for the 36-hole four-ball competition, which has again secured a primo fall date at one of the country’s best new courses.

Entries Open for HV3 Junior Invitational: The tournament will return again to Cramer Mountain Club and Gaston Country Club on March 21-22. Charlotte-area qualifying will take place on March 14 at the River Bend YMCA Golf Course in Shelby.

Derek Gould Wins Charlotte’s Intown Golf Club Championship: Gould clipped defending champion John Eades by 1 shot with rounds of 65-67. This was, in fact, a simulator tournament, so I’m going to have to dig into the gimme settings before forming an opinion on those scores!

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