{"id":25325,"date":"2026-06-22T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/25325\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:04:08","slug":"ct-golfer-who-never-took-a-break-earns-way-to-pga-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/25325\/","title":{"rendered":"CT golfer who ‘never took a break’ earns way to PGA Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keith Kaliszewski,<\/a> who has coached the golfers at Hamden Hall for more than two decades, recalls a phone call he once received from a proud dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, Don James called me one day,\u201d Kaliszewski said, \u201cand he said, \u2018I have this kid. You don\u2019t know us, but I have this kid and he\u2019s pretty good at golf and we really want him to be in a good academic situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take a lot of convincing. Ben James was already known<\/a> for burning up golf courses everywhere, winning tournaments as a prodigy, and actually announced his commitment to play at UConn when he was 11 years old.<\/a> As he entered seventh grade the James family, from Milford, was looking for a prep school. Still, Kaliszewski had only the vaguest idea what he\u2019d be getting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just never took a break from golf,\u201d Kaliszewski said. \u201cHe would come to our match, or our practice, and then he\u2019d leave and go practice on his own. I\u2019d ask him, \u2018Ben, when do you take a break from golf?\u2019 And he\u2019d say, \u2018I don\u2019t.\u2019 \u2026 I\u2019d say \u2018Is that healthy? Do you ever feel like you\u2019re doing too much of it?\u2019 He\u2019d be like, \u2018No, if I take a break, I miss it too much.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Milford\u2019s Ben James finishes tied for 54th at Canadian Open after leading through two rounds<\/a><\/p>\n

It is estimated that even a devoted amateur who takes every advantageous avenue has but a 0.01 chance of joining the roughly<\/a> 150 card-carrying PGA Tour pros, which is Powerball stuff. Research shows it\u2019s harder<\/a> to go from high school to the PGA Tour than even MLB, the NFL or NBA.<\/p>\n

James chose a harder path, staying at home in Connecticut and playing for the prep school on which he settled, rather than move south where he could play year-round. But he never used the cold Connecticut winters as an excuse for taking a break. James worked on his craft at indoor facilities, usually Four Seasons in Bethany, determined to beat the darned-near unbeatable odds. He\u2019ll be among the elite field at the Travelers Championship<\/a> for the third time, first time as a bona fide pro.<\/p>\n

He won every tournament he ever played in for Hamden Hall, beating high school seniors even as a 7th grader. He reopened recruitment, landed at Virginia and dominated college competition. In a whirlwind couple of weeks since graduating, he got an exemption to play at the Travelers and qualified for the U.S. Open, both for the third year in a row, but exemptions and qualifying will no longer be necessary. After holding the No. 1 spot in the PGA Tour University Rankings<\/a> all year, James earned his Tour card and made a splash at the RBC Canadian Open last week, hitting drives as long as 389 yards,<\/a> leading after two rounds before falling back to 54th, cashing a check for $23,069.20.<\/p>\n

Not bad for a week\u2019s work on the links for a 23-year-old, a week out of college, and it\u2019s just a start.<\/p>\n

\"BenBen James tees off on the second hole during the third round at the Canadian Open golf tournament in Caledon, Ontario, Saturday, June 13, 2026. (Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to see where my game stacks up,\u201d James told reporters in Toronto before teeing off for the first time as a member of the Tour, \u201cand meet some new friends. Everyone has been super nice to me out here. They know I\u2019m the new kid, and they have all been super welcoming, and I really appreciate that. I would say just the friends and just learning about myself more and just kind of the everything about professional golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

The humility lines up with the golfer Kaliszewki coached and watched for six years. He may have been head-and-shoulders above the players around him, but he never acted like it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis teammates just loved him,\u201d Kaliszewski said. \u201cHe had national recognition pretty much all through high school. But you would never have known that, just being out on the course with him. He was just another one of the guys. That\u2019s how he carried himself, and he gathered a lot of respect because of it. Just a friendly, outgoing kid, but when it came time to play a match, he just flipped a switch and you didn\u2019t hear a peep out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dom Amore\u2019s Sunday Read: CT golfer on verge of his milestone round; support for Tony Reno, and more<\/a><\/p>\n

One match in particular stands out, against a soon-to-be Division I golfer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen goes down four shots after four holes,\u201d Kaliszewki remembered. \u201cIt was like Ben was actually going to lose. I started walking with him and I catch up and he looks at me and says, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m good.\u2019 He goes out on the next five holes, drains a double breaking downhill putt on the 9th hole, and I think he ends up winning by 2 strokes. He doesn\u2019t have a mean bone in his body, but when he\u2019s playing he has a way of doing something amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust when you\u2019d think you might be able to beat him, it was later, \u2018Uh, no, I didn\u2019t really have a chance.’\u201d<\/p>\n

James was the top freshman in the country at Virginia, and went to become only the fifth college golfer to be named a first-team All-American four times. He also represented the U.S. on two Walker Cup teams.<\/p>\n

James has always been driven, and what has always stood out is his ability to drive long off the tee.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the best ball-striker I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d longtime Virginia coach Bowen Sargent has said.<\/a> \u201cI\u2019ve never once seen him have a bad ball-striking day, not once in four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

State teen Ben James makes his prediction come true in earning invite into Travelers field<\/a><\/p>\n

James was at Shinnecock Hills this week playing in his third U.S. Open,<\/a> after missing the cut at Pinehurst in 2024 and Oakmont in \u201925. At the Travelers, now a Signature Event on the Tour, James\u2019 exemption will place him in another elite field in his home state.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing so young, I\u2019m just excited,\u201d James said last week, after finishing 10-under through 36 holes at the Canadian Open. \u201cI have no expectations. I\u2019m going to play the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at Hamden Hall, Kaliszewski is getting more and more calls from proud dads and the families of young golfers who now know, thanks to Ben James, how far you can go from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe certainly put our program on the map,\u201d he said. \u201cThose decisions Ben\u2019s made, to come to Hamden Hall, follow through on everything here, follow through everything at UVa, have gotten him to where he is now. Golf is one of the hardest sports to make it. We all knew what he could do, but to see him do it is something special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Kaliszewski, who has coached the golfers at Hamden Hall for more than two decades, recalls a phone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[6054,1453,10029,1454,899,1456,144,399,208,1045,10027,10028,1425,885],"class_list":["post-25325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-travelers-championship","tag-ben-james","tag-connecticut","tag-ctnews","tag-hartford-courant","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-pga-tour","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-shinnecock-hills","tag-the-travelers","tag-tpc-river-highlands-rbc-canadian-open","tag-travelers-championship","tag-u-s-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}