tommy has always been a monster. He's a great player, a great husband, a great father, and a great friend. People make comments about how he's just a regional player, blah blah blah. The guy won a us open, and beat 4 hall of famers one after another to do it. Tommy puts god and his family first, not pool. Imo, that's admirable.
In 1992, tommy had a great week in chesapeake. He started out against (iirc cavin coker) - he almost lost that first match hill-hill, with coker breaking. From there, he went on to be fusco, rempe, lebron (not a good week for pennsylvanians, sorry terry), bustamante, hall, archer, and then archer again. This was back when it was a race to 13, not 11.
In the hotseat match, johnny tossed in the towel as tk got ready to pocket match ball. Johnny then had to face the winner of jose parica/buddy hall. Johnny got parica. I thought jose was going to win that match against archer, but he missed an off angle 8 in the corner, and johnny got a second life and put jose away.
If jose would have beaten archer, it would have been the shortest us open final in history.
johnny took the first game of the final, and tommy rattled off to a quick lead and jumped up 7-1. Johnny had a chance to win another game, but missed a shot that he would normally make. According to johnny, he said, "it wouldn't have made much of a difference anyhow - tommy was playing great."
to many of us, tommy was not an unknown back then. He didn't just pop out of nowhere. He had been around for a while. He was dominating the florida tour - everyone knew he was capable of winning, including johnny (who i might add, was the reigning 9 ball world champion). Tommy double dipped johnny archer in his prime.
Tommy has won several regional tournaments since then, in fact winning 6 in row last year. The regional tours in florida aren't cake walks, in fact the brackets are filled with world class players. Those tours provide the best competition, and attract the best players, and tk is always in the hunt - he plays as strong as anybody, and he's 45 years old. You couldn't ask for a nicer, more entertaining player to be in your pool room, than tommy kennedy.
As terry said, tommy is one of my best friends. He is one of those people i can call anytime to talk about anything. If i needed anything, he'd be the first person i would call, regardless of whether he could solve the problem or not. Sometimes you just have to hear what you need to hear from those that are able to make you hear it. Friends like that are few and far between in the world of pool.
