The great Charlie Kunkle is the answer to two not-so-great Masters trivia questions
Charlie Kunkle was much more than just a name at the bottom of a Masters leaderboard.
Indeed, when “Kunk” died in 2013, the headline of his obituary in the Johnstown (Pa.) Tribune-Democrat described him as a “local icon.”
And he was. As both an influential businessman and prominent athlete in western Pennsylvania, Kunkle packed the lives of four or five men into his 99 years. He was a World War II veteran, a basketball captain at Duke, the president of the minor-league hockey team that would inspire “Slap Shot” and a friend of Arnold Palmer’s who would play an instrumental role in starting a top amateur golf tournament still held today.
Kunkle was also a self-taught amateur golfer who played his way into five straight U.S. Amateurs and, yeah, now that you ask, he did earn a spot in the 1956 Masters.
No, he didn’t do that well. Far from it. But Charlie Kunkle never shied away from talking about those four days at Augusta National.
To this day, Kunkle’s Sunday score of 95 remains the highest one-round total in Masters history. Same goes for his four-day total of 340, which is 52 over par if you’re counting at home.
Neither record is ever likely to be broken. His four-day total came in the last tournament before Augusta instituted a cut, and future golfers might choose to not officially record their score if they shoot higher than 95. (Former champion Billy Casper did just that when he scored 106 at age 73 in 2005).
But while he may have been disappointed in his appearance, Kunkle always said he was never embarrassed about the way things turned out.
"The record, that's not important to me," Kunkle told the Pittsburgh Press-Gazette in 2005. "I earned my way there. You don't get there by knowing the right people. I was proud to have played in the Masters.”
If anyone makes a run at a high score down in Georgia this weekend, it’s possible that Kunkle’s name might come up on the broadcast.
And if it does, you’ll know there’s more to the story.
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As he looks back on his father’s life, Kim Kunkle says his dad had different interests at different stages of his life.
And when he gained a new interest he threw all of his energy and effort into it, his grandson, Kyle Kunkle, says.
“When he wanted to accomplish something, he went out and just got it,” Kyle Kunkle says.
Born in 1914, Charlie Kunkle found that his first love was tennis. He became a city champion, then enrolled at Duke where he became a three-year member of the varsity basketball team, serving as captain in 1936.
When it came time to enlist for World War II, he threw himself headlong into studying aviation. He served in the Pacific and became a night flight director aboard the USS Independence.
When he returned from the war, he returned to studying everything he could about the game of golf and working on his swing at Johnstown’s first driving range — a venture he started with Lew Foy, the future chairman of Bethlehem Steel.
In time, Kunkle worked himself into one of the top amateur players in an area that was still booming in the shadow of Pittsburgh’s steel factories. He won club championships at Sunnehanna Country Club and became a fixture on the regional amateur circuit, eventually befriending a young prodigy from western Pennsylvania named Arnold Palmer.
The two traveled together to the 1954 U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. As the legend went, Palmer asked Kunk — a man 15 years his senior — for his input on the possibility of turning pro after winning that tournament.
This was, of course, before Palmer ushered in the explosion of professional golf. The amateur circuit was where it was at.
There’s nothing to the pro game and not much money, Kunkle said, why would you leave the amateur life?
“It’s a good thing Arnold didn’t listen to him,” Kim Kunkle says with a laugh a few years after Palmer died having made a reported $875 million in his life.
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Charlie Kunkle never offered any excuses for his play at Augusta, but there’s no doubt he had a few good options.
There was his age. Kunkle was 42 when he earned the Masters invite by reaching the quarterfinals of the 1955 U.S. Amateur. That was only six years younger than two-time champion Horton Smith, who only finished four shots better than Kunkle at the ‘56 Masters.
There was a lack of practice time. As an amateur golfer and a busy businessman in western Pennsylvania, the opportunities to practice were limited. Kunkle spent much of the winter simply hitting golf balls off a mat inside a barn.
And when he went down to The Greenbrier in West Virginia early that spring to get a physical and some actual play in, he was met with a week of bad weather. By the time he went down to Georgia, he had played only nine holes of golf.
Then there was the weather at Augusta. The 1956 tournament, which was the first to ever be televised, is generally regarded as having the worst weather in the event’s 83-year history. Rain and wind menaced the players for most of the weekend.
A fellow amateur named Ken Venturi entered the final day with a four-shot lead and a good chance to become the first amateur to win the Masters.
He exited by carding an 80 in the final round and let Jackie Burke Jr. win the tournament with a 289, a total that is still tied for the highest winning score.
Kunkle’s scores got worse with each day. He shot a 78 on Thursday, finishing in darkness because of a weather-delayed start. An 82 on Friday was followed by a 85 on Saturday followed by the record 95 on Sunday.
"I was just trying to get out of there," Kunkle said in 2005. "It was very windy, the toughest conditions I ever played in."
But true to his character, Kunkle put his head down and went all 72 holes.
Kyle Kunkle believes his grandfather’s time on that aircraft carrier in the Pacific gave him a valuable perspective that he carried for the rest of his life. Later, when Kyle was growing up, Charlie would insist on saying goodbye in a unique way.
“What would Jimmy Valvano say?” Charlie would ask his grandchildren.
“Never give up,” they’d immediately shoot back.
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Charlie Kunkle returned to Johnstown after the Masters and didn’t dwell on the finish. He was too busy doing other things.
He helped get an indoor arena built in town and served as president of its first tenant — the Johnstown Jets — despite having no background in hockey. He oversaw the economic development of the town, helping Johnstown diversify its economy from relying solely on steel.
As for golf, Kunkle helped take the Sunnehanna Invitational — an amateur matchplay tournament that had been overtaken by Calcutta-style betting — and re-launched it as the Sunnehanna Amateur. The tournament featured stroke play, a rarity in the amateur world, and quickly started attracting some of the country’s best players.
From Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods to Rickie Fowler, the list of past participants is a who’s who in the world of golf and it has retained its prestige more than 60 years later. AmateurGolf.com recently ranked it the second-best amateur tournament outside of the USGA championships.
“It’s all because of Charlie Kunkle,” said Joe Shorto, the former pro at Sunnehanna and a longtime friend. “He was always out looking for players to attract to the tournament. He was the workhorse.”
You can’t stay so active in golf for so long without people getting wind of the fact you played in the Masters, and Kunkle wouldn’t hesitate telling people what they wanted to know.
Two of his favorite tales centered around the nerve-racking drive down Magnolia Lane (Kunkle got into a minor fender-bender, Kim says) and his spot next to Sam Snead and Ben Hogan in the locker room.
Though Hogan was known for being a prickly personality, he quickly greeted Kunkle and took him around for a clubhouse tour.
The affable Snead, meanwhile, never said a word to Kunkle. The contrast between the perception and Kunkle’s experience with the two legends always got a fun reaction from golf fans.
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Today, the memory of Kunkle’s appearance at the Masters is never far away from his family, particularly at this time of year. Kim still has his father’s Augusta National bag tag as well as one of the promotional items given to players — a simple beach towel printed with the course layout.
(Hey, it was a different time; the winner in 1956 only received $6,000.)
By the time he died in 2013, the Masters appearance proved to be a small part of who Charlie Kunkle was, a mere sentence in a diverse and interesting biography.
And yet for all of his accomplishments in the first 80 years of his life, one big one eluded him until his golfing days were coming to an end.
Yes, Kunk’s first hole-in-one didn’t come until he was 83 and had already eagled every single par-4 and par-5 at Sunnehanna. It came on the No. 10 at Sunnehanna when he was golfing with Kim.
“He came in and said, ‘It feels great hitting one in front of your son,’” Joe Shorto recalled. “But it’s bad when you can’t even see it roll in.”
As is custom, Kunk bought drinks that night — and then again the next day when he had quarter-kegs placed on the course for the other golfers. Every golfer that day enjoyed a toast to Charlie Kunkle.
“You look at his life and the things he was able to accomplish. For most people, if you accomplished one of those things, you’d be able consider it a successful life and you’d be extremely proud of it,” Kyle Kunkle said. “But for Kunk to have all those combinations of different achievements, it really says a lot about what kind of person he was overall.”
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