Head golf professionals are not simply ordained.

Most find their way to the top only after serving extended stints as assistants. The money isn’t great, and the hours can be brutal.

But it’s hard to imagine any of those in our region paying bigger dues than Andy Hite, now in his 11th year as the head pro at Dominion Meadows Golf Course in Colville.

Hite, who grew up in Kettle Falls – where he still lives with his wife, Laurie, and the youngest of their three sons, Shelby – launched his quest to become a PGA Class A profes- sional in 1994 when he hired on as an assistant under Bob Scott at Liberty Lake Golf Course.

While Hite enjoyed the working environment there, the job did have its drawbacks – such as having to get up at 3:30 a.m. and make the 102-mile drive from Kettle Falls to Liberty Lake each day during the summer.

Those predawn commutes, he said, were killers – literally.

In fact, Hite might have done more to thin out our region’s wildlife population during his three years at Liberty Lake than some avid hunters do in a lifetime.

“I hit three deer, a bear and a parked pickup truck making that drive,” he said. “It was tough on me, and my cars.”

According to Hite, he hit the three deer and the pickup with the same vehicle – a Chevrolet Celebrity that hardly satisfied his fascination with “anything that goes fast” but got good gas mileage. The bear he hit with his Dodge Stealth, a sleek sports car better suited for speed, but one he rarely drove to and from work.

Hite repaired his Celebrity after his first encounter with a deer, but lived with the damage after hitting the second and third.

He totaled the car when he ran into the pickup, which had been stolen and abandoned on the highway near the small town of Addy.

“Whoever stole it had parked it sideways in the middle of road,” Hite said. “And I came up over the hill in the dark and T-boned it.”

For the rest of the story see Bergum.