Lake Bluff Golfer Finds His Place Among Pros Through Disappointment

A time comes in every elite athlete’s career when they know they have arrived. 

Lake Bluff golfer Curtis Skinner found his in disappointment rather than achievement.

In 2008, the 54-year-old failed to qualify for the U.S. Amateur championship. That disappointment led to a qualifying berth the following year and playing in last month’s U.S. Senior Open.

"I played the last five holes three over to miss by a stroke going to the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst,” Skinner said of that day three summers ago. “That’s when I knew I could play with those guys.” 

A year later, Skinner shot a career best 66 on the final day of qualifying to land a spot in the U.S. Amateur at Southern Hills in Tulsa. It turns out he needed every bit of that round. One missed putt would have put him in a playoff.

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Competing against professionals like Ben Crenshaw, Hale Irwin, Mark Calcavecchia and Berhnard Langer last month was a thrill and career highlight. “It’s not my normal warm-up to hit balls next to Ben Crenshaw,” he said. 

Growing up in Lake Forest, Skinner was primarily a self-taught golfer from the time he was a 12-year-old caddy at Old Elm Golf Club in Highland Park. He learned to play on Mondays when the caddies could play for free. The game soon became a passion. 

“We could get a pass at Deerpath (Golf Course) for $35 for the summer,” Skinner said of his teenage days. “It would keep the kids out and the mom’s knew where we were.”

As much as he loved golf, he also knew the chances of earning a living were stacked. In his freshman year at Southern Methodist University, he thought about playing golf but remembered why he was there.

“If I played golf, I would have flunked out of school,” he said. 

Instead, Skinner took a class in finance to change his life. After a brief attempt to make the professional golf tour, he returned to Chicago, took a job as a runner on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and has been a financier ever since.

When he isn’t fixated golf, Skinner is a trader concentrating on interest rate futures. His full-time business career does not allow the luxury of playing constant golf like a professional. “For three weeks before a tournament, I get home from work, have dinner and practice until dark,” Skinner said. “That’s about two hours a day.”

After the tournament, he returned to work in one of the most volatile trading periods in history. Nervousness about tournament golf pales in comparison to helping other people make financial decisions. 

“If you make a mistake in golf you can only hurt yourself,” Skinner said. “If I make a mistake in business somebody else can lose a lot of money.”