BG’s Rogers among 2026 honorees for Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame

Published 9:27 pm Thursday, June 25, 2026

Bowling Green’s Steve Rogers (front) plays in the 2009 U.S. Senior Open at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana. Rogers is among the Class of 2026 inductees into the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame. (KENTUCKY GOLF HALL OF FAME)

Bowling Green’s Steve Rogers has strong feelings about the game of golf — regret isn’t one of them.

Rogers has spent countless hours on the golf course, years and years pushing to compete and decades building an amateur resume few other players in Kentucky can touch. Last week, Rogers learned he will join a select company as a member of the 2026 induction class for the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame — a five-member class that also includes Campbellsville native JB Holmes, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour.

“It took a lot of trips and a lot of work throughout the years, but I just had so many people to help me along the way,” Rogers said. “It is a very prestigious group to be included in and I’m very honored and quite surprised — very appreciative of the honor.”

Rogers’ talent was evident early — at Bowling Green High School, he led the Purples to two KHSAA state championships and was the individual state champion in 1974. Rogers earned a scholarship to play at Indiana and helped the team with the Big Ten Conference championship in 1975. He won the Illinois Collegiate individually while serving as team captain and placed eighth in the 1977 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship.

“I think I was probably reasonably good at golf,” Rogers said. “I wasn’t a Kenny Perry or something like that — who’s a very good friend of mine and five years younger. I enjoyed so much all my younger competitive days with him, but he jumped far and away probably better than anyone in the state. I think he’s the best player to ever come out of Kentucky. But I think that I was always a good ball striker. I could play hard courses. I could hit it a decent distance and my iron game was pretty good. I wasn’t always the best in short game and putting, that probably held me back a little bit.”

After college, he continued to dominate in amateur events, winning the Kentucky Open (1982), the Kentucky Amateur Match Play (1995), the Kentucky Mid-Amateur (2006), the Kentucky Senior Open (2006) and the Kentucky Senior Match Play (2013-14).

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All the while, Rogers’ golf game was evolving as he grew older. When his drives off the tee began to fall a little shorter as the years continued to pass, Rogers honed in on his short game and putting and seemed to not miss a beat.

He has played in 10 USGA events, headlined by the 2009 U.S. Senior Open, and the 2010 British Senior Open.

“They always had qualifiers to get into USGA events that were very difficult,” Rogers said. “Like you would have 150 players for two spots at the most. I had some success at that because they would always hold qualifiers at very difficult golf courses and that always seemed to help me because of my ball striking.”

” … As I’ve gotten older and haven’t had the body and the ability to hit as many balls as I did in my younger days I actually got a little bit better and spent more time on those parts of my game that were the weakest — my short game and putting and whatnot. So when I got into senior golf, I guess my game was just a little more rounded. I was decent at ball striking, but my short game actually got pretty good.”

Franklin’s Perry, also a Kentucky Golf Hall of Famer and a 14-time winner on the PGA Tour plus a four-time senior major winner on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, thinks Rogers’ induction is a well-deserved honor.

“Steve’s impact on Kentucky golf cannot be overstated,” Perry said in a news release announcing Rogers’ induction. “His dedication to the game, both on and off the course, has set a standard for excellence that is truly remarkable.”

Now nearing 71, Rogers — a winner of more than 30 club championships ranging from Bowling Green Country Club and Indian Hills Country Club to Calusa Pines — can still be found most weekends out on a course somewhere. The last three weekends, it’s been member-guest events at local courses but Rogers still occasionally hits the road.

“I’m almost 71 years old and when you get 71 you’re not beating very many people,” Rogers said. “I love to play golf, the competitive side of the game and now I play in a few what is called Society of Seniors. It’s all over the country and we have events and so occasionally I’ll go and play in one of those. But that starts at 55 years old and I’m not going to beat many 55-year-olds at 71, so I don’t play in very many competitive events anymore.”

With the success he’s had on the golf course, Rogers has fielded the question of why he didn’t pursue a professional career more than a few times.

“I’ve had a few guys that I know who have played professional golf and been on the Tour who’ve said you would have made it,” Rogers said. “I don’t know that that’s the case. I don’t know, I just maybe never really had the confidence that I was that good. I think most people don’t really recognize on that professional level how good those guys are. Back in the day I remember there weren’t all these developmental tours and you had a qualifier one time of the year. And you either made it and then went on the Tour or you didn’t. They didn’t have the Korn-Ferry Tour and all the things they have now. I might have been able to compete at that level. I’m not sure about the PGA level.”

Instead of chasing that elusive Tour card, Rogers began building a successful investments business — his firm, The Rogers Tomblinson Group, was named by Forbes this year as the top wealth management team in Kentucky. In the community, Rogers has mentored and supported young professionals and junior golfers. He has served on several boards including the Salvation Army of South Central Kentucky, Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, the Kentucky Golf Association and Bowling Green Municipal Utilities.

Golf has made it all possible for Rogers, who will be enshrined in the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame during a ceremony slated for early November in Louisville.

“I have absolutely no regrets,” Rogers said. “Golf has been incredibly helpful to me in my whole life. I’ve got to travel the world — all over Europe so many times, so many trips meeting wonderful people … friendships that I still have with players in Europe and people that are on the Tour that I know and have kept in touch with. It’s helped me in my business. I’m with Morgan Stanley and I’ve done investment business for 40-something years. Gosh, when I was a kid playing golf in Glasgow and Franklin and Russellville and all these communities around as an amateur, I was at clubs and tournaments. As it turned out when I got in the investments business, hey those people became clients of mine.

“I was developing clients and didn’t even know it when I was younger.”

About Jeff Nations

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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