Kentucky PGA Members of Impact

By Bob Denney, PGA

Larry Gilbert earned less than $20,000 on the PGA Tour, barely enough to cover less than a week’s expenses by today’s standards.

But once he turned 50 years of age, it was like someone had ignited a booster rocket underneath him. Larry found his footing on the former Senior PGA Tour (today’s PGA Tour Champions), where he won three times, and earned $3.2 million by stepping over barriers that former club professionals could not. He won a major on the over-50 circuit as well, the 1997 Ford Senior Players Championship.

In the process, the man from Vine Grove, Kentucky, a suburb of Fort Knox, struck golf’s golden lode.

Larry was one of a family of eight children to William and Thelma Gilbert. His father was a civilian electrician working at the Army base at Fort Knox. Eldest brother, Jerry, a former PGA Professional, spent time at Tanglewood Golf and Country Club in Milton, Florida, where the likes of future two-time Masters Champion Bubba Watson and 2008 Ryder Cup hero Boo Weekley honed their games.

Larry Gilbert was first a dominant force among his PGA of America peers. He won three PGA Professional Championships, capturing titles in 1981, ’82, and ’91. He appeared in 20 PGA Professional Championships, making the cut in 17 and posted seven top-3 and nine top-10 finishes.

He defeated Don Padgett II on the second playoff hole to win the 1981 PGA Professional Championship at PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and a year later parlayed a putting tip from his wife, Brenda, into a record third-round 65.

“He had a habit of gripping the club too tight, and told him about it,” said Brenda. “I didn’t play much, but I was able to notice things like that. When he was putting really good, I would watch, and I knew the difference when he wasn’t. Of course, he wouldn’t tell that to any of the pros.”

Larry then survived a final-round 74 to edge Larry Benson by a stroke and earn his second straight title on the same Champion Course at PGA National.

His last national title came on Oct. 6, 1991, at rain-battered Doral Resort and Country Club in north Miami. Larry‘s closing 68 was a stroke better than Ron McDougal and Gene Fieger, making him the first three-time PGA Professional Champion.

Larry forecast victory in a special way that wasn’t bragging, but was prophetic.

According to 1990 Champion Brett Upper, who was seated at a Champions dinner the year earlier, Larry was asked to stand and say a few words.

“You won’t be seeing me here next year, as I’m headed out trying to play on the Senior Tour,” said Gilbert, “but before I go, I plan to leave by winning one more of these championships.”

Said Brenda, “Those PGA Professional Championships were special to him as were the PGA Cup matches.”

Larry was a six-time PGA Cup member, and compiled a 15-8-2 match record.

When Larry played on the PGA Cup, the U.S. had a 4-1-1 record, and suffered its lone defeat in 1983 at Muirfield, Scotland.

“I remember Muirfield well,” said Brenda. “That was when they didn’t allow women into the clubhouse. If we had to go to the restroom, we had to go to a certain door and we were escorted to the restroom. It was a converted men’s restroom.

“My sons, Chris and Allen, could go into the clubhouse, but I couldn’t.”

The Americans were routed, 14½ to 6½ by Great Britain & Ireland, even with Larry winning his singles match.

There was less than four days turnaround from that event for Larry, who flew back with his family to Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the 1983 PGA Championship.

Larry did find his game didn’t lose in the time zone changes, making the cut and finishing 73^rd for his highest finish in 13 PGA Championship appearances.

Larry’s path to the bright lights of golf began as he attended Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro on a basketball scholarship. But he made his mark there by leading the Blue Raiders to the 1965 NCAA College Division Golf Championship, as well as finishing as the school’s first-ever individual national champion.

Joining Larry in the championship spotlight were teammates Dan Midgett, Jack Haley, Dan Lewis, George Cogbill, Steve Robinson and Bob Wolfe. Playing for fellow Hall of Famer Coach E.K. Patty, Gilbert helped lead his teammates to three OVC championships and four TIAC titles.

Larry met Brenda Pylant of Fayetteville, Tennessee, on campus at Middle Tennessee State. Brenda graduated in three years, majoring in mathematics and physical education. Larry was a business major.

That first “date” progressed to the campus recreation hall where the twosome played a game of ping pong.

“I told everyone that we met in a pool hall,” joked Brenda. “I still have that ping pong ball.”

The romance blossomed, and they were married after Larry’s junior year.

Following graduation, Larry became a recreation director at the YMCA, and was an assistant professional at Valley View Country Club in Huntsville, Alabama.

Brenda worked at the Missile Command for NASA, and later the Lockheed Space Systems.

Larry then got an assistant professional position at Audubon Country Club in Louisville, and Brenda worked for Chevron Oil Company.

When Larry won the State Open once, Brenda recalled, the club members took up a collection for him.

“The prize money was low, and they did a wonderful thing,” said Brenda. “They gathered the money on a table and covered it up with a cloth.”

Larry then moved his family to Jackson Country Club, in Jackson, Tennessee, in the early 1970s, and spent two years there. Larry’s second son, Allen, was born in 1971.

It was during that time that he received financial assistance from friends to attempt to make a niche on the PGA Tour in 1972.

That season ended, and Larry decided that he would better manage his career as a club professional. From 1973 through 1987, he was the first PGA head professional at Doe Valley Country Club in Brandenburg.

While managing the duties of the club, and having Brenda assist in the golf shop, Larry was an inspirational teacher and kept his game sharp. He once lipped out a putt for a 59 at Doe Valley.

In 1988, Larry took a job for four years at the formerly titled Champions Course at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

Larry went on to win eight Kentucky PGA Championships, three Kentucky Open titles, and was a 12-time Kentucky PGA Player of the Year.

“Larry really believed on the course that if he was playing good or bad, it was better to handle one shot,” said Brenda. “For example, a 74 is better to work for than a 75.”

“He enjoyed teaching the game, especially at Doe Valley,” said Brenda. “Anytime they called to help at an event, he was there.”

Larry was especially popular as a regular a day ahead of the Kentucky State High School golf tournament.

“All the players would watch dad put on a ball striking clinic, and he would throw in a few trick shots as well,” said Chris Gilbert. “A pro in Lexington, Al Chrouser, once told me that when he needed Larry for a clinic, all he had to do was call, and dad would drop everything and be there.”

Chris said his own interest in playing the game and improving at his pace was the result of caddying for his father.

“When I really started improving at golf, was the two summers (1992-93) that I spent caddying for dad full-time,” said Chris. “That’s when I truly got to spend time and see the way he fought his way around a golf course and just listen to him. It was how he was thinking about each hole, about strategy and how to hit shots, and his concentration.”

“Just being out there, you could easily see the huge difference between someone of his caliber and other good players.”

“We started a streak of top-10 finishes about six in a row,” said Chris.

In an article in which the magazine called him "a hero to the nation's club pros," Sports Illustrated noted that, "In 1993, after having been the medalist at the Senior Q-School the previous fall, Gilbert and his wife, Brenda, took the last $4,000 out of their bank account and gambled that Larry could compete against the best players of his generation.

In only his second start Gilbert won $12,000, and he went on to earn $516,000 as a rookie."

In 1993 and 1994, Larry led the Champions Tour in Total Driving, a statistic that combines a player's driving distance and driving accuracy.

The lowest money list finish in his five years on the Champions Tour was 26th. Larry was 17th in earnings as a rookie in 1993, and was ninth in 1994 when he won his first two victories. In 1997, his last year on the tour, he finished ninth again, despite leaving the circuit following cancer diagnosis.

Larry played in 16 majors on the PGA Tour (mostly PGA Championships) but made only two cuts. But in senior majors, he posted seven Top 10 finishes in 17 career starts. In addition to his victory in the 1997 Senior Players Championship, he tied for second place in the 1995 Senior PGA Championship.

He also was fourth in The Tradition and tied seventh in the Senior PGA in his final year of 1997 — Top 10 (including a win) in all three majors he played that year.

In August 1997, a month after winning the Ford Senior Players Championship, Larry had a routine physical examination.

Doctors found a small tumor on Larry’s lung. Subsequent tests revealed that cancer had spread to his bloodstream, shoulder and rib. He would wage a five-month battle with cancer and died Jan. 21, 1998, in Lexington. He was 55.

“It’s a tragedy to lose a man as fine as Larry Gilbert just as he reached the pinnacle of his career,” said then-PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. “Golf has lost a great individual.

“The Ford Senior Players Championship was the level of achievement he had worked for his entire life, and he spoke often of how gratifying it was for him to play against the best and prevail.”

Through his senior tour success, Larry was an inspiration for club professionals to pursue their dreams. Additionally, his impact upon young people in Central Kentucky was shaped by teaming with state premier amateur Dave Bunnell in founding the Gilbert-Brunell Foundation (GBF).

Bunnell, also a member of the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame, passed away in 2013. The GBF continues the passion of Gilbert and Brunell in extending opportunities for youth to enjoy the game of a lifetime.

Larry was a 1992 inductee into the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame, in 1995 to the Middle Tennessee State University Athletic Hall of Fame, and in 1998 into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.

As the Kentucky PGA prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2025. One honor has eluded Larry Gilbert, one of the state’s longtime honored favorite golfing “sons” – the PGA of America Hall of Fame.

That campaign continues for a PGA Professional who excelled at both the club and tour level.

Larry is survived by his wife, Brenda, and children, Chris, who works for Price Waterhouse, and Allen, a full-time sports official and who has a degree in international finance, and who caddied for Larry at least eight times on tour.

“He loved people,’ said Brenda. “He helped lead a group in Bible study on tour on Wednesdays on tour. He loved junior golf and that was why the junior foundation was established after he died.”

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