SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED
SI.COM
APRIL 2022
73G
ENE’S PATH TO the 10th green at Pinetree started
at Clover nook Count r y Club, f ive houses dow n f rom
his childhood home in northwest Cincinnati. There he
spent his early years foraging for golf balls; he knew
precisely where to look for errant tee shots, and he deliv-
ered them to his grandfather for spare change.
The ones he didn’t pawn off he put into play on imagi-
nary links in his backyard. The sandbox was a bunker.
Course architecture demanded wedge shots fly over small
trees. And when Gene outgrew the yard he joined his
father, also named Gene, for Sunday-morning scram-
bles. He treasured the lone miniature victor’s trophy
they collected.
The game kept Gene busy in
his favorite place, the outdoors
(where he also spent time
working on cars with his father
and tended to orphaned rab-
bits). He won one 11-and-under
tournament and played on his
high school team—but he was
never quite talented enoughto earn a college scholarship. His focus turned toward
earning a degree in mechanical engineering at Purdue,
after which he landed a job in Indianapolis, where he
developed five patents related to emergency exit alarms.
His mother, Sharon, saw that first office, though, and
was jarred. With its f luorescent lights and no windows, it
seemed like a cage for someone who spent so much of his
free time on the links—or hiking or rafting or skydiving.
Gene’s favorite escape in these years was a lovely course
on Indy’s east side: a Pete Dye design called The Fort, with
a surprising number of steep slopes and elevation changes
for central Indiana. And slowly that escape became an
obsession. He won the club
championship, and staffers,
noticing his talent and even
temperament, asked him to
start instructing junior golfers.
Which is how he latched on
in 2003 as an assistant pro,
giving up a steady, well-paying
job for the chance to work long
hours, for little pay, in the heat
and cold and rain. Well-suited
for complex problem-solving,
Siller would employ this skill
in, say, running a f lawlessly
organized tournament, or
teaching young golfers how
to f lush their irons. “You don’t want to sit back and in
20 years [wonder]: Boy, could I have made it as a golf pro?”
his father told him approvingly.
Soon the sport lured Siller south, toward Atlanta,
where courses stayed open nearly year-round. He took
a similar job at St. Ives Country Club in 2007, and it was
in this role that he ended up attending the type of expo
where camps and sports programs peddle their summer
services to local moms and dads. Gene was promoting
golf clinics at St. Ives. Ashley Bouknight, a student at
Georgia, was touting cheerleading camps. Had their
booths been set up a bit farther apart, perhaps they
never would have chatted. But as the hours wore on,
they grew more focused on each other.
He wore penny loafers and a white cashmere sweater
on their first date; she looked past his fashion choices and
found warmth. They drank and laughed, and later Ashley
told her best friend that Gene was special. Two weeks
later, she promised herself she would someday marry
him. And two years after that, she did. Beau arrived in- A younger brother, Banks, followed in ’15.
Early on, when they were dating, Gene left Ashley a
Post-it with a sweet message. When she told him how
much she appreciated it, notes started to appear all over.
And the passage of time did nothing to cool those affec-
tions—Ashley remembers how they always sat close on
the sofa, a hand on the other’s leg, to the end.
For Gene, that love superseded even his own ambitions.
Ashley had family peppered around metro Atlanta, and
BAD
PAPER
Beau (above
in white,
with his
parents and
brother)
put colored
pencil to
paper in the
aftermath
of Gene’s
shooting.