The words of his high school golf coach have stuck with Louis Bennett for more than 15 years.

“A poor man should take a rich man out to lunch,” Bennett recounts, “because success leaves clues.”

Consider Bennett the impoverished up-and-comer who has figuratively treated Rusty Clemons to many a meal and is ready to reap the rewards from Clemons’ tips.

After two years as the girls golf coach at Summit High, Bennett has returned to his alma mater: Bend High. He takes over the Lava Bears’ boys team to become the program’s first new coach since 2001. Bennett has grabbed the reins passed to him from Clemons, who spent 17 years building the Bears into a strong program that reached unprecedented heights under his tutelage.

“Following Clem, I think if you were to ask the countless number of guys who have gone through the program what it would be like to do that,” Bennett says, “I think every single one would say the same thing: It’s an honor. I don’t know how in the world I’ll be able to fulfill everything he’s already done.”

Bennett was a three-time state competitor while at Bend, his best result being a tie for 40th in 2001. During his senior year in 2003, Bennett was 64th for a Lava Bears team that was runner-up for the state title in Class 4A, then the state’s largest classification.

It was Bend’s best finish ever at state — at the time. Under Clemons, the Lava Bears placed second four more times (2007, 2013, 2015, 2016) and claimed the program’s first state championship by winning the 5A title in 2014.

Now it is up to Bennett to pick up where his former coach — his inspiration — left off.

“It’s the reason that I’m coaching,” Bennett says of playing for Clemons at Bend High. “My experience was absolutely one of the best times of my life. I don’t remember scores that I shot. I remember the experiences that we had. I remember what Clem told us to do. I remember how he motivated us. So little was focused on the mechanics of the golf swing. It was more about what it takes to be a good person, how to be ethical, how to keep a 100 percent accurate scorecard, and how to shake a guy’s hand after a round, good or bad.

“It’s the things that Clem would continuously pound into our heads. I have to try to maintain those.”

Bennett was never the star of his high school teams, but he was not one to hang his head. Clemons likes to remember Bennett’s first varsity tournament, when, on one of his first holes, Bennett carded an 11.

“I’ll never forget it,” Clemons recalls. “I said, ‘Louis, man, how did you shoot an 11?’ And he looked up at me and deadpanned it: ‘Because I missed my 3-footer for 10, coach.’ He was always kidding and lighthearted like that. A great sense of humor and gregarious. He was a real smart kid.”

Though not a standout in high school, Bennett has made something of a career in golf. He played for a little more than a year at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Bennett says he stepped away from the game because of a lack of chemistry with the team’s coach. After taking a hiatus from golf, he returned a few years after graduating from Point Loma. He moved back to Central Oregon in spring 2008 after being hired as an assistant golf professional at Crosswater Club in Sunriver. Bennett then became the head pro at Broken Top Club (in 2011) and then at Tetherow Golf Club (in 2013) in Bend. Along the way he lent helping hands to Clemons at Bend High and to golf coaches at Summit as well. After leaving Tetherow in 2016, Bennett, who is now a financial consultant in Bend, landed his first high school head coaching gig, as the girls coach at Summit, where he helped the Storm to a 5A state title in his first season and a third-place finish last year.

While Bennett was coaching Summit to another high finish at state, Clemons was ready to walk away at Bend. The former longtime Lava Bears coach says it was “a mutual thing between my wife and I that I would retire.” Both he and his wife, Jana, were set to retire from teaching. All Bend High needed was a replacement for the coach who had put his program on the map.

Bennett had stayed in touch with his high school coach. He knew Clemons was on the way out. After the 2017 golf season ended, Bennett threw his hat in the ring for consideration as Clemons’ replacement. For Clem, the choice was a no-brainer.

“There’s a lot of things about Louis that are just super high quality and why he’ll do a great job,” Clemons says. “His golf background: high school golfer who … won a (team) trophy at state. He goes to Point Loma and letters there, and then he becomes a (head golf) professional. His coaching experience, it’s not like this is his first time as a coach. … He coached the Summit girls and won a state championship.”

Clemons likes what Bennett can bring to his new coaching position.

“The most important thing that Louis has to offer to Bend High and to Central Oregon is he’s a huge advocate for junior golf,” Clemons says. “Those things are gigantic virtues while he’s at Bend High.

“It’s really special to see him in that position now. … It’s special for me to see and know that all the values I had throughout the coaching time, he’s going to instill the same thing in those kids. It does my heart good to see a kid who I coached and taught and who, as an adult, is a great dad, a great husband, has a great job and is doing positive things in the city (and) is now at Bend High.”

Bennett, who has three kids (daughters Jordyn, 13, and Cambria, 5, and son Silas, 3) with his wife, Marrisa, is quick to mention some of his top Clem quotes: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing,” for example.

“He was always like, ‘We’re never going to not practice. We’re going to practice because every day we have is a day we can get better,” Bennett says, noting that his goal is to meld Clemons’ teachings with his own golfing experience. “I think he would be the first to admit that he’s not a golf guy. He doesn’t have a golf background. He doesn’t have the knowledge base that I think I can bring to the team.

“But he has the coaching,” Bennett insists. “He’s such a great motivator and encourager. I have to carry forward what he was able to do from that side and infuse my golf knowledge a little bit to make some of this my own.”

—Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.