Reigning B.C. Amateur champion headed to Liberty University this fall to play collegiate golf
Austin Krahn never struggled when it came to deciding what he was going to do with his life. Almost from the moment he picked up his first golf club as a four-year-old, Krahn knew what his career path would be. He would be a golfer and the PGA TOUR his ultimate destination.
“My parents say that when I was six years old I was telling them I was always going to carry a pen in my pocket so I could sign autographs,” Krahn said with a chuckle in an interview from his Christina Lake home.
“I’ve always said, never have a Plan B because it gives you a fail-safe if you don’t commit to Plan A. So I have always committed to golf. It is what I love to do, I feel like it’s a gift God has given me to perform and that is what I am going to do to the best of my ability. I honestly can not remember a time where I didn’t think that golf wasn’t going to be what I was doing for the rest of my life.”
Krahn, who turns 19 this summer, is making good use of that gift. He has emerged as British Columbia’s top amateur golfing prospect with an impressive resumé of recent on-course accomplishments. Krahn has won the last two B.C. Junior Boys titles, three straight B.C. Indigenous championships and last summer won his first B.C. Amateur Championship.
Austin Krahn, Seen Here With His Dad & Caddy, Gene, Has Won 3 Straight BC Indigenous Titles
As he emerges from a winter golf hibernation of sorts, Krahn is keen to keep adding to that resumé. “I’m extremely excited to get back going, especially after not playing a whole lot in the winter,” he said.
“It’s like that itch that you need to scratch. It’s one thing to be hitting balls, but it’s another thing to be playing in a tournament. Being in contention in a golf tournament down the stretch is what I play for. It’s so much fun. So I am excited to get back out there and hopefully build off everything I did last year and hopefully have an even better year this year.”
Krahn has something other than tournaments to look forward to this year. He recently committed to Liberty University, a NCAA Division 1 school, where he will begin his collegiate golf career this fall. That move came as something of a surprise to those who have followed Krahn’s junior career. Krahn’s faith is extremely important to him and he wasn’t convinced college golf was going to be a good fit for him.
“My world does not live or die on whether I perform well in golf tournaments,” he said. “Having that faith and my devotion to commit to God is the most important thing in my life, so to make decisions that are based on that is the most important thing. Going to any college just didn’t fit because they don’t teach from a biblical perspective and the environment isn’t a fully Christian environment. So finding a college where I could not only grow in golf but also grow in my faith was 100 per cent what was important. That is what led me to Liberty.”
Liberty, based in Lynchburg, Va., was founded in 1971 by the late American pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell. It has a solid athletic program and Krahn is excited to test his game at the collegiate level.
“It’s a Div. 1 college. They have been to the NCAA national championships. So you are playing all the high-level collegiate golf tournaments and getting all of the experiences that you need. There’s a course and driving range on campus with a chipping area and practice green. It’s really an impressive setup.”
Krahn grew up playing the nine-hole Cascade par 3 course in his home-town of Christina Lake with his dad, Gene, and older twin brothers, David and Mitchell. In the early days, they’d make the 10- or 15-minute drive to the course from their home. But after Gene bought the course when Austin was 10, it became home.
“I have been playing this par 3 course since I was four years old,” he said. “It’s the first place I picked up a club, where I got my first lesson. I grew up playing here and then when my dad bought it of course we played it a lot.
“I have got holes-in-one on No. 1, that one was a slam dunk, and then I have also aced No. 4 and No. 8. It’s a life-long dream to ace every hole out here, but I don’t know if we are going to get there.”
Krahn’s solid play in recent years caught the attention of Golf Canada and he has been part of the national NextGen team the past two years. That has given him the opportunity to play around the world. Last summer he competed on the Canadian team at the Toyota Junior World Cup in Japan.
He played a prestigious amateur event in England and in early January of this year he competed in the South American Amateur Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After shaking off a little winter rust in the first two rounds, Krahn closed with rounds of 67 and 68 — the best of the field — to finish 12th.
“Looking back, it’s pretty cool to think about all the places I have been, the experiences beyond the golf you get when you go to international events,” Krahn said. “And then there’s the team aspect of it. When you are playing in the Toyota in Japan there’s something special about playing on a team that you don’t get that often in golf.”
Krahn knows he has benefitted immensely by being part of the national team. “It is beneficial in every aspect of the game. You obviously get the top-line coaching and you get all the help you need. But also being able to play over the winter at training camps and getting into high-level golf tournaments that you don’t have to qualify for, you just kind of get in because we are on Team Canada. And on the mental side and nutrition side of it, Golf Canada has a mental coach and a nutrition specialist. I have learned over the last couple of years that is invaluable. It’s stuff that I can use for the rest of my career.”
Matt Wilson, head coach of Golf Canada’s NextGen boys’ team, is impressed with Krahn’s game. “Austin is a really interesting young man,” Wilson said in an interview. “He does so many things exceptionally well. He drives it unbelievably nice, every part of his game is solid. But what he is very good at is getting a lot out of his game. He’s a wonderful competitor, he plays extremely freely and he carries himself at a level of maturity that is very uncommon.
“He has a unique combination of a high-level skill set, high-level golf IQ, he’s curious and is always open to new ideas that might help him improve, and once the lights go on he competes very, very well. And he’s very committed to the way he works around a golf course. He makes very few mistakes.”
Austin's Footwork Resembles A Pretty Good PGA TOUR Player
And when he does make a mistake, Krahn has shown an ability to recover. The best example of that came at last summer’s 123rd playing of the B.C. Amateur Championship at Bootleg Gap Golf Course in Kimberley.
Krahn arrived at the 72nd hole with a one-shot lead and needing a par on the tough 505-yard par 4 to win. He pulled his drive and drew a sketchy lie in a fairway bunker. He chunked an attempted lay up and his ball nestled into the rough 175 yards from the pin.
At that point, it looked like Krahn would do well to get into a playoff. Instead, he struck a magnificent eight-iron that settled three feet from the hole. He tapped in the putt for par and the biggest win of his life. “That was pretty unreal,” Krahn said. “That was one of the greatest feelings ever.”
Krahn is six-foot-two and 140 pounds soaking wet. So, yeah, he’s skinny. He hopes having access to all of the fitness facilities at Liberty will help him add some muscle. But he doesn’t feel the need to bulk up big time.
“Golf is not a sport of who can hit it the longest, it’s who can shoot the lowest score. I usually carry my driver about 285 yards which is not the longest but I typically hit it very straight off the tee so my distance off the tee is actually very good because I can hit driver on almost every hole, whereas some people are hitting three-woods or a two-iron. Having access to that fitness stuff at university is going to be huge. Just getting more speed with my height shouldn’t be as hard for me as some other people. I should be able to pick it up pretty quick.”
Krahn is headed this week to a Team Canada camp in Arizona and will play his first spring event at the Terra Cotta Invitational, April 16-18 in Naples, Fla. Golf season is almost here and he can’t wait to get going.