CHASING A DREAM KOHUT KEEPS TAKING SWING AT PRO TOUR.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

Seven years after nearly advancing to the second stage of U.S. Open qualifying as a high school freshman, J.T. Kohut continues to chase his dream of playing on the PGA Tour.

``I definitely plan on getting there some day,'' said Kohut, who is heating up his preparation by playing on a desert developmental tour for a second consecutive summer. This year, he's competing in the 12-event West Coast session of the Hooters Tour in the Palm Springs area. Last summer, he played on the Gateway Tour in Arizona.

It's all about Kohut getting his game ready for his biggest tournament of the year - the three-stage PGA Tour Qualifying School, which runs each October through December. It has been called the most pressure-packed event in the game because it determines participants' chances to play on professional golf's best tours.

The grueling, 14-round elimination tournament awards its top 35 finishers playing privileges on the PGA Tour. Almost as importantly to young pro hopefuls such as Kohut, Q School earns its second tier of survivors membership on the Nationwide Tour - the Triple-A level of American professional golf and a tour that has been called by its members the second-best in the world.

``Basically, my whole year is based on Q School,'' said Kohut, whose 2002 preparation came to a heartbreaking end in the first stage of that qualifying tournament, when he missed advancing by a stroke after taking a double bogey on his final hole.

Kohut prefers to look ahead rather than back at that fateful day at TPC of Herron Bay in Coral Springs, Fla., where his 71-73-71-72 performance was punctuated by a final approach shot that sailed over the green.

``I expect to be on the Nationwide Tour next year,'' he said. ``I think I'll play well enough and be mentally ready.''

The mental aspect of the game is an area where Kohut believes he has made his biggest improvement in the past year after excelling at the physical part almost from the time he began to play.

Epilepsy, which nearly claimed his life as a young child, left Kohut unable to play many other sports, but golf provided a recreational and competitive opportunity and he made the most of it.

From drubbing men's club members at Verdugo Hills 3-par course in Tujunga - where he established a still-standing record of 11-under par as an 11-year-old better known as Jerome - to twice recording holes-in-one on par-4 holes as a high school golfer, the game always seemed to come easy for Kohut.

He came within a stroke of tying for first place in the Southern Section championship as a sophomore at Westlake High, where he twice won Marmonte League MVP honors and earned scholarship offers from USC and UCLA.

He chose the Bruins as part of a top recruiting class that included current Pacific-10 Conference champion and record-holder John Merrick, but the epilepsy-triggered learning disabilities Kohut was able to overcome with hard work in high school proved too much a load in college, and he left the Bruins last year.

He looks forward from that, too, and takes the best from his college experience: an appreciation of the value of focus.

``I got better immediately after I left UCLA because I was able to go with my own schedule and do my own practice,'' he said. ``That's what college will do for you because you have to focus on two different things. You have to prioritize a lot of stuff, and I wasn't able to fully develop my concentration to one thing. I'm just one of those people. It's unfortunate, but because I had the disorder, I wasn't able to fully focus on two things.''

Merrick, who helped the Bruins win a Pac-10 title and finish third in the NCAA this season - their best finish since a national title in 1988 - hopes his former teammate achieves his goal.

``J.T. was a great player with a great swing,'' Merrick said. ``He was always a great ball-striker, and it's good to see him excited about pro golf. I wish him the best.''

So does Kohut's former high school coach, Dave Costley, who remembers Kohut as much for his studying on rides home from tournaments as for the advanced game that was way ahead of what Costley had previously seen from players entering high school.

``He was way ahead of other freshmen,'' Costley said. ``Since then, maybe because of the Tiger Woods influence, we've had a lot of good young players coming into high school golf. But at that time, J.T. really stood out.''

Kohut hopes to stand out again someday as a member of golf's top tour. In the meantime, he's trying to keep his game hot on a minor-league tour that suddenly doesn't seem that far from the big time.

Until three days ago, the only professional tournament Ben Curtis had ever won was on last year's Hooters Tour. On Sunday, Curtis won the British Open, reminding developmental tour players everywhere that dreams don't have to remain just dreams.

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Former Westlake High standout J.T. Kohut left UCLA last year to chase his dream of playing on the PGA Tour.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer