Why a tour pro ended up sleeping in his car on his major debut

Kevin Kraft, a pro from Pennsylvania, is making his US Senior Open debut this week at the Omaha Country Club in Nebraska.

His last season on the Korn Ferry Tour (the second tier to the PGA Tour) came back in 2008 when he missed all four cuts, the three seasons prior to that were pretty respectable but nowhere near good enough to make it to the big stage.

So this week is a pretty big deal and, even more so, after he made the cut.

But then a storm came in and he had to evacuate his hotel at 1.15am before driving to the course for some sleep in his car – and there was even worse news for his caddy as they made their way out of the hotel.

“The whole hotel’s shaking, the water had started coming in from the ceiling. Kinda watched what the storm was doing, kind of trying to figure out what our timeline was going to be. Then the alarm started going off again. Went downstairs and found that the whole lobby area was just flooding out,” he explained.

“John, my good friend and caddy here, his poor car got just nailed by a piece of roof that came off. So all scraped up on the side and two big pieces of metal actually wrapped around and went into his back bumper.

"So I went downstairs and found out that they were going to do a mandatory evacuation, so I ended up coming over here and just sleeping in the parking lot.

“I mean look, it’s moving day in a major. What am I going to do right? First professional major? I’m ready to go.”

All power to Kevin and, hopefully, a well-earned decent pay day on Sunday night.

This is a crazy story.

Evacuated from his hotel at 1:15 A.M., Kevin Kraft slept in his car at the course parking lot.

He's short on sleep on at his first senior major, but is ready to compete. pic.twitter.com/33Owax9g8R

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) July 10, 2021