Lewellen Honored to Carry on Arnold Palmer’s Legacy at the 2021 Palmer Cup

Nearly every day for more than two years now, on her way into work, Kim Lewellen has walked past a towering statue of one of her heroes, Arnold Palmer. A truly great ambassador of Wake Forest and the sport of golf, Palmer's statue serves as constant reminder of his passion, sportsmanship and competitive spirit that helped shape and grow the game. To Lewellen, the Demon Deacons' head women's golf coach, it's also a daily reminder of her responsibility to carry on his legacy by fostering those same qualities in her student-athletes.

In the summer of 2021, Lewellen will be taking that responsibility to a whole new level in her role as coach of the 2021 U.S. Palmer Cup team.

On Sept. 10, the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) announced that Lewellen, along with Greg Sands of Texas Tech, will lead the United States team in the Palmer Cup which will be held June 11-13 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.

"I am thrilled to be coaching Team USA," said Lewellen. "The Arnold Palmer Cup is an amazing event that is very special to the golf world and Wake Forest family. At Wake we strive to emulate Arnold Palmer both on and off the course, so being able to continue to bring his spirit to the game and continue his legacy is a huge honor for me."

Palmer Cup logo

The Arnold Palmer Cup was co-founded in 1997 by Arnold Palmer and the GCAA. Supported by Arnie's Army Charitable Foundation, the Arnold Palmer Cup provides a platform for perpetuating Palmer's commitment to youth development and the growth of amateur/collegiate golf. It is a Ryder Cup-style tournament featuring the top men's and women's collegiate golfers matching the United States against a team of International players. Each team consists of 12 men and 12 women. While golf is typically an individual sport, the Arnold Palmer Cup is unique. It's an event in which young men and women work together as a team toward a common goal, and as a coach, Lewellen will be striving to help her players understand what it means to pursue that goal while representing their country.

Like Palmer, who left Wake Forest to serve three years in the Coast Guard, Lewellen's father also served in the armed forces, so she understands what an honor it is to represent the United States.

"I'm excited to be able to represent the United States," she explained. "I have such a heart for our country and so much respect for the men and women who serve, and I will be proud to represent that on an international stage."

Emilia Migliaccio, a senior on Lewellen's Wake Forest team and soon-to-be three-time U.S. Palmer Cup team member, thinks Lewellen is the perfect choice to lead next year's team.

"Coach Lewellen knows the values that Arnold Palmer had and upheld throughout his whole life, and his whole golf career. She always reminds us how important it is to be respectful on the golf course, sign your name legibly when asked for an autograph, and have a good attitude.  At the end of the day, the Palmer Cup is about sportsmanship and I think that is 100% going to be something that she emphasizes at almost every team meeting because those things are part of her value system too. She also has such incredible energy, and that positive energy is going to be felt by everyone on the team, and it's going to make everyone motivated to play well."

While this is the first time she will be coaching the Palmer Cup team, Lewellen is no stranger to success. In just her first two seasons as the head coach of the Demon Deacons, Lewellen has coached five All-Americans, won the ACC team and individual titles, and finished runner-up at the NCAA Championships. Last spring, the Deacons had a record-breaking four All-Americans and finished the COVID-19 shortened season ranked No. 1 in the country by Golfstat. They won four team titles and three individual titles in just seven events. She is a four-time ACC Coach of the Year, and prior to coming to Wake Forest, she guided the Virginia Cavaliers to back-to-back ACC Championships in 2015 and 2016.

Two of Lewellen's standout Wake Forest players, Migliaccio and sophomore Rachel Kuehn, will tee off with Team USA in this year's Palmer Cup which was postponed to December due to Covid-19. Both women, along with several others from the Deacs' men's and women's teams are expected to be in the running for spots on either the U.S. or International teams in 2021, so Lewellen may see some familiar faces on the course next summer. Players will be selected using a combination of the Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking, committee picks and one coach's pick.

Players for the 2021 Palmer Cup won't be announced until next spring, so how does one go about preparing to coach on an international stage when they don't know who will be playing?

"That's a great question," Lewellen remarked. I think the best thing that I can do now is actually go to the tournament in December at Bay Hill and just watch how it all unfolds and try to gain some experience that way. It will be quite a bit different than coaching collegiate golf because although collegiate golf is a team sport, you're playing individual scores. That's not the case in the Palmer Cup. They will play a variety of formats from mixed four ball to regular foursomes and mixed foursomes, so there's a lot to think about. What I'd probably like to do is just go down in December, watch the tournament and absorb any and all information that I can. I'm going to talk to some of the former Palmer Cup coaches that are good friends of mine and brainstorm with them about some ideas. Since it's a Ryder Cup style event, I may even go back and watch some previous Ryder Cups and study some of the folks that have been successful and see what kind of information I can gain from that. So, I think for the next few months, it's just going to be really researching and taking in the information, keeping an eye on the watch list and what players are on that and trying to get to know them."

Once the team is announced Lewellen will focus on developing relationships, getting to know who they are and what makes them tick.

"This is different than collegiate golf where you've recruited the player, they come play for you, you get to know them, you get to know their personality—what they eat, what they drink, what they like, what's going to be helpful to say on the golf course, and what's going to be harmful to say. With the Palmer Cup I'm going to be thrown into a situation where I'm going to have to learn these players in a quick amount of time, so it will be really important to have conversations with the players and even with their college coaches, develop relationships and figure out how I can be helpful to them on the course."

That notion of wanting to be helpful to the players on the course is just another example of why Lewellen will make such a good Palmer Cup coach. She wants to be of service to others.

"Mr. Palmer was known for asking, 'what can I do for you?'," Lewellen explained. I think about that a lot, and I think that is something that we could all be asking a lot more, especially in these times right now. I think having that attitude and being able to portray that to the athletes is an important part of continuing Mr. Palmer's legacy."

Migliaccio has no doubt that Lewellen will do just that and in the process prove herself to be an outstanding Palmer Cup coach.

"Coach Lewellen is going to kill it," she said. "First of all, she's the most selfless person out there—she's truly a giver. She wants to make sure you have the best experience possible overall. And I think what will make her such a good coach is that she'll do things that a lot of other coaches don't do—like finding out what a player likes to eat because she knows how important nutrition is and wants to make sure everyone is getting fueled the way they need. She's really good at doing little things to give her an advantage. And she has that awesome energy that is going to bring the team together and get them motivated. Plus, she was national Coach of the Year—she knows what it takes to be the best coach out there—and she's going to do the same thing when coaching the Palmer Cup team."

Dustin Roberts, Deputy Director of the GCAA, had this to say about Lewellen.

"Kim has had a tremendous amount of success as a coach and her golfers have excelled both as a team and individually. It's also obvious to those that follow college golf that Kim holds high expectations for her teams beyond results on the golf course. She stresses many of the qualities that Mr. Palmer felt the Game teaches us. Kim's passion, and Mr. Palmer's ties to Wake Forest, make her a natural fit for the Arnold Palmer Cup and its goal of perpetuating Mr. Palmer's legacy of giving back to our communities."

Lewellen sadly never had the opportunity to meet Palmer in person, but as she exits the Haddock House next summer and walks in the shadow of her hero on her way to lead Team USA, she will be carrying a part of him and of Wake Forest with her. Even before she took the job at Wake Forest, her close friend and former Demon Deacon women's golf coach Dianne Dailey gave Lewellen an Arnold Palmer pin that she still has and is saving to wear during tournament week. She said the iconic, brightly colored umbrella is a good reminder of the spirit of the game and what Palmer brought to that. Palmer, who once described golf as the greatest game mankind has ever invented, will forever be a Wake Forest legend, and there is no one better suited to represent Wake Forest and lead Team USA to victory than his fellow Demon Deacon, Kim Lewellen.

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Lewellen Honored to Carry on Arnold Palmer’s Legacy at the 2021 Palmer Cup

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