HAVE A BLAST WITH OUR PAST
Pung paved way for future Hawai'i golfers

Learn about Hawai'i sports history and those who figured prominently in it in this feature. We'll ask a question Wednesday and present the answer in an in-depth profile Thursday.

By Bill Kwon
Special to The Advertiser

Q: Michelle Wie, the 13-year-old phenom, is Hawai'i's latest national golf champion. But this person was the first. Who is she? A: Jackie Pung won the U.S. Women's Amateur in Portland, Ore., in 1952.

Pung, 81, lives in Waikoloa Village on the Big Island, on the golf course, naturally, and still gives lessons. But never on a Sunday unless it's after church.

"I still go to the course every day and watch a lot of golf on TV," said Pung, who will be watching the U.S. Women's Open this week with somewhat bittersweet memories.

Except for a memory slip, her greatest moment in golf would have been a victory in the 1957 U.S. Women's Open at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Instead, Pung always will be remembered for a tournament she didn't win rather than for her 1952 Women's Amateur title or five LPGA victories. She was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.

Excited by the thought of winning a major, Pung suffered memory lapse.

She knew that she had shot a final-round 70, which was the correct total.

But Pung signed and turned in the scorecard showing a par 5 on the fourth hole, which she bogeyed.

The DQ erased her crowning achievement. The LPGA media guide lists Betsy Rawls as the winner with Patty Berg runner-up. No mention anywhere of Pung, who shot one stroke better than Rawls only to be relegated to a footnote in golf history.

With the U.S. Women's Open coming up, Pung was asked if she still thinks about it.

"Not really," she said. "It's come and gone. Golf is a game of rules and I broke a rule."

She would rather dwell on the positives, her many accomplishments in a remarkable career that has established her as the greatest female golfer to come out of Hawai'i.

Someday, Michelle Wie might claim that honor. But she's got a lifetime of catching up to do.

First lady of golf

"I still go to the course every day and watch a lot of golf on TV," says Jackie Pung, 81, who won the U.S. Women's Amateur in 1952 and went on to play on the LPGA Tour. Kevin Dayton • The Honolulu Advertiser

She was the first woman elected to the Hawai'i Golf Hall of Fame, joining Ted Makalena, Francis I'i Brown, Guinea Kop, Jimmy Ukauka and four others in the inaugural class of 1988.

Pung also is the first from Hawai'i to join the LPGA Tour. She also was the first woman in the state to be named director of golf, first at Mauna Kea and then at Waikoloa Village after her 11-year LPGA career ended.

Besides working at other golf courses, including on the West Coast, and the city's park and recreation department, Pung also coached the University of Hawai'i women's golf team for three years.

Having seen Wie on television and in person at last year's LPGA Takefuji Classic at Waikoloa, Pung sees the youngster as the heir apparent.

Helpful fathers

For both, golf has proved to be a god-given gift with fathers playing significant roles in nurturing that gift.

"A father's influence is very important," Pung said. "I'm glad that Michelle's father is doing so much for his daughter and her future. Whatever the father is doing seems to be right for her."

In Pung's case, her avid golfing father, Jack Liwai, encouraged her to take up the game at the age of 6, first to caddy for him.

"My father was captain of the Hawaiian Golf Club and my first job was to make hapu'upu'u (a mound) with water and sand for him because there were no tees back then," Pung recalled.

Soon, Pung was playing with hand-me-down clubs from the guys in the club and getting good at it.

"I played at Ala Wai Golf Course, which only had six holes, and learned from Guinea Kop when he was the pro there. We lived in Nu'uanu, so I used to sneak in the Oahu Country Club and chip and putt until someone chased me out," Pung said.

Tournament play at 15

Pung started playing tournament golf at the age of 15 when she was a ninth-grader at Kamehameha Schools, but transferred to Roosevelt High School, where she played on the boys' team.

Still in her late teens, Pung won the first of her four Hawaiian Women's Amateur championships in 1938, but there were no significant local women tournaments until the Jennie K. Invitational, which started in 1950.

Prior to that, she competed in the inaugural U.S. Women's Amateur in 1946, losing to Patty Berg in the quarterfinals.

After marrying Barney Pung, a fireman and champion swimmer, and raising two daughters (Barnette Fischer, who also lives in Waikoloa Village, and Leilani, who died several years ago), Jackie put the clubs away.

National titlist

She came out of a four-year retirement to win the 1952 Jennie K. at the age of 30. The win encouraged her to play in the U.S. Women's Amateur later that summer at the Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore.

Pung made history by beating Shirley McFedters, 2 and 1, to win the national championship. She didn't do a victory lap, she did a victory hula.

"It was a great joy to win the national championship," Pung said. "I worked so hard and was so proud that I was from Hawai'i. I had to do a hula. I got (a) scolding, but I didn't care."

Coming from a musical family — her father was a musician in a Hawaiian troupe that once toured Memphis, Tenn., where he met Jackie's French-German-Irish mom — hula came naturally to Pung.

11 years on LPGA Tour

Named by the Los Angeles Times as the 1953 Woman Athlete of the Year, Pung was urged to turn pro and join the LPGA Tour, still in its fledgling years. She finished second to Betsy Rawls after an 18-hole playoff in the 1953 U.S. Women's Open in Rochester, N.Y.

Besides winning five times, Pung finished runner-up 14 times in her 11-year career on the LPGA Tour. But no one will ever forget her heart-breaking mistake at Winged Foot in 1957.

Rawls said she hated to win that way. Sympathetic club members took up a collection for Pung, raising $3,500 — more than double what Rawls earned for her victory. A championship trophy, though, is priceless. That's the heartbreak of it all.

Still, Pung feels no regrets.

"I've got my daughter, six grandchildren and I'm very happy with my Church of Religious Science. People don't believe I'm 81. And I'm thankful that the LPGA honored me as a master professional," Pung said.

Struggling with diabetes and finding it difficult to recall some things, Pung remains a source of inspiration to the game of golf and life, not only in handling adversity but overcoming it.

They're putting in a miniature 18-hole putting green at Waikoloa Village with plans for a driving range. Fittingly, they're going to call it, "Jackie's Golf Course."