Golf Legend Here For Mid Ocean Tournament
With a golf handicap that still seems to be in inverse proportion to his age, a 92-year-old US amateur golfing legend is currently back in Bermuda for the Mid Ocean Club Men’s Invitational.
Kentucky native Harreld Kirkpatrick [pictured] has played in all the major tournaments — Masters, US Open, British Open, US Amateur Championship and the British Amateur Championship — open to an amateur.
“I am proud to call Harreld friend and to list him among my mentors,” said Bermuda professional golfer Kim Swan. “I’m happy to welcome him back to Bermuda.”
Mr. Kirkpatrick, who has participated in numerous Bermuda tournaments over the years, has won over 100 golf tournaments during his competitive amateur golf career, including the 1953 and 1954 Kentucky Amateur Championships.
He qualified for the 1951 British Senior Amateur Championship and the 1955 British Open Championship, and also served as president of the Kentucky Golf Association in 1959.
He was a scholarship athlete at Murray State University, and served with distinction in the US Navy in World War II — participating in the 1944 Normandy invasion — and was awarded five Purple Hearts during his service.
Mr. Kirkpatrick began caddying for 25 cents a round when a nickel would buy a Coca-Cola and movies were a dime.
When members began playing cards, the caddies would borrow a set of club and hit balls. That was in 1933 — when he won his first championship.
He worked in Kentucky’s coal mines at an early age but Mr. Kirkpatrick later obtained a bachelors degree in science at Murray State University on a basketball scholarship.
He then spent four years in the US Navy which landed him in Iceland and Russia and he was in the Mediterranean during the invasion of Sicily and Italy. He was also in Normandy for the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.
He left the Navy a Lieutenant Commander with five Purple Hearts and returned to Beech Creek, Kentucky.
As an engineer with the Beech Creek Coal Company, he was able to play golf more often. He won the Kentucky Amateur in 1953 and 1954, the Kentucky Bourbon Open in 1954, 1955 and 1959, a tri-state tournament in 1950 and the Tennessee Valley Tournament in 1950, 1953 and 1954.
He qualified and played in the British Amateur in Wales in 1951 and the British Open in Scotland in 1955.
In 1959 he became head of the coal company and didn’t get a chance to play seriously until his retirement in 1980.
He and his wife Marion now live in Florida.
The Harreld Kirkpatrick story is a great one and I am blessed to have spent quality time with him over the past 25 years. The people of Bermuda are most appreciative of visitors like Harreld and Marion Harreld Kirkpatrick. The Kirkpatrick’s have been the model of repeat visitors. There was a significant period during the past 25 years when they consistently spent (on average)3 weeks a year in Bermuda.