It was just two weeks ago on a Friday that I arrived at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain slightly after 8:00am and pulled into my usual parking space in the upper lot. Upon arrival I noticed our pro shop attendant, Shawn , talking to two men and a woman. I saw that he pointed to my car. A distinguished looking man who appeared to be approximately 65 years of age started walking towards me.
The man walked right up to me, had a broad smile on his face, stuck out his hand, and said, "Hello. It's been awhile. I'm Bob Lunn." I was momentarily stunned. I last saw Lunn up close and personal on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Beverly Country Club in Chicago following the fourth round of play at the Western Open, golf third longest running tournament after the British Open and the United States Open. The car was packed with suitcases and baby gear and he was readying his family to head on down the road, specifically to Minneapolis for the playing of the 70th U.S. Open at Hazeltine.
Local golfers who know my history are aware that I got started in the game as a caddie at Beverly, an old established Donald Ross course on Chicago's South Side. The Western Open rotated from site to site as it does nowadays as the BMW Championship. Past victors at Beverly editions of the Western included Chick Evans, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus. It was my fourth summer of employment at Beverly, I was 17 years old, and had a nice job as the assistant caddie master. Through the efforts of our head pro, Charley Penna, I was able to return to the caddie yard to work specifically for Lunn. Penna was a longtime friend of Lunn's personal coach, Tommy LoPresti of Haggin Oaks. And because I was one of the more knowledgeable caddies at Beverly, I was Penna's choice to loop for his pal's protégé.
Lunn and I spent the next 45 minutes reminiscing about that week as the pro and the looper. It was five days that have indelibly been etched in my mind and had a great impact upon my amateur career.. I showed Lunn some of the pictures I have on the wall of my office at Adams Springs with newspaper headlines, pictures of Beverly's pro shop after the devastating tornado of 1967, a photo of Palmer teeing off in the Western, and a picture of the 1967 Ryder Cup team given to me by Johnny Pott, a five time PGA champ who used to live locally at HVL.
We talked about all that had occurred in the 54 years since that rainy afternoon in Chicago and how golf had positively influenced our lives. Lunn had been made aware of my golf journalism career of the past 31 years as his brother Dave and wife Peggy currently reside at Hidden Valley Lake. They would send Bob, who now lives with his wife in east Texas, the occasional golf column from the Record-Bee whenever I spoke of my week inside the ropes.
Lunn was nowhere near 65 years old as he recently turned 79 and he was much thinner than the burly bomber I caddied for way back when. We had a nice walk down memory lane. I mentioned to golfers in the know like HVL's Billy Witt that it didn't just make my day, but instead made my summer. I remain quietly stunned that Lunn came to visit me that day.
So who exactly was Bob Lunn? He was part of the PGA Tour's golden era of Nicklaus-Palmer-Lee Trevino-Billy Casper- Raymond Floyd and the like. He was a second tier champion and had a career very much like those of Frank Beard or Bert Yancey or Gibby Gilbert. He grew up in San Francisco and was on the Lincoln High golf team, oftentimes acknowledged as the greatest team in the San Francisco Bay Area. His teammate of note was Johnny Miller. Upon graduation from Lincoln, he moved to Sacramento to work with LoPresti. He won the USGA Public Links in 1963, defeating another future pro, Steve Opperman, in the finals. He turned pro in 1965, got through PGA Tour Q School in 1966, and started to make an immediate impact. On back to back weeks in 1968 he won the Memphis Open and the Atlanta Golf Classic. Golf Digest named him its most improved golfer on tour in 1968 as he finished 11th on the money list and pocketed (in those days) a very tidy sum $102,711. While he should have been a member of the Ryder Cup team in 1969, those were the days of the PGA of America's five year apprenticeship rule as week as its war with the Nicklaus-Palmer backed Tournament Players Division. He won at Hartford in 1969, won the SoCal Open that year, and was on the cover of the February 17,1969 edition of Sports Illustrated that announced "Golf's Brand New Look: Bob Lunn at Palm Springs."
Lunn won the 1970 Florida Citrus Classic (now the Bay Hill) a few months before I caddied for him, beating Arnold Palmer by one stroke. He would finish behind Tony Jacklin and Dave Hill, coming in third place the week after the Western at the U.S. Open at Hazeltine. He won perhaps his biggest title the following winter at the Los Angeles Open, beating Billy Casper in a playoff. That night he took a bow on national television as he was introduced by the tournament host during his prime time show, the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. He would win for a sixth time on tour the following year in Atlanta. Family duties and road weariness slowed down his career . He left the tour after the 1980 season, working at various Northern California golf clubs. He remained competitive winning the 1984 NorCal Match Play and two years later took home the NorCal Stroke Play Championship. Comparing Lunn to today's world of golf, he was very much like Tony Finau. He was a bomber who could get very hot and knew how to win against some of the game's best.
Just like that week in Chicago in 1970, I will also go to my grave with super fond memories of Bob Lunn's visit to Adams Springs and me two weeks ago. Thanks to Billy Witt for making it known that a former caddie of his lived in the area and thanks to brother Dave and to Peggy for bringing Bob Lunn to Cobb that day. Yes, it was the start of a great summer.
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