As the President of the 40,000 plus membership of the Utah Golf Association, Kurt Bernhisel is responsible for overseeing the administrative working’s of the Association’s Membership, whose stated objective is to “promote interest in the game of golf by encouraging, organizing, supporting, sponsoring and administering golfing activities and programs without regard to race, color, or creed, and to engage in educational and good will activities that further the game.”
As a Board Certified Practitioner in Internal and Emergency Medicine at the University of Utah Medical Center, Doctor Bernhisel is a committed upholder of the Hippocratic Oath and, “will always remember that I do not treat a fever chart, or a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.”
As a lifelong golf junkie, Kurt Bernhisel grew up at Bonneville Golf Course working as a range rat, golf cart runner, starter, and player, while learning to compete under the tutelage of legendary professionals, Dick Kramer, Tommy Reese, Marlow Quick, and Ernie Schneiter Jr.
He starred for Highland High School when they won the Utah State High School Golf Championship and he was the medalist. He went on to play for the University of Utah, competing in, and winning numerous tournaments including the Salt Lake City Amateur and was low amateur at the City Parks Open. He also qualified for the prestigious United States Golf Association’s Senior Amateur.
When you add up the sheer abundance and substance of his acquired knowledge and experience, there is no-one in the State of Utah, or beyond its borders, more qualified to lead and administer the game of golf during a global pandemic, than Doctor Kurt Bernhisel.
I sat down with the good Doctor after a long day of his completing his rounds at the University of Utah Hospital and discussed the state of golf, the COVID-19 virus, shelter-in-place restrictions, and the surprising fact that golf, as a sport in these troubled times, is booming.
Please listen to our conversation here.
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