Wally Ulrich: Golfer Won on PGA Tour in 1950s
Full name: Wallace William Ulrich
Date of birth: March 12, 1921
Place of birth: Iowa Falls, Iowa
Date and place of death: April 7, 1995, in Akron, Ohio
Nickname: Wally
His Biggest Wins
- 1943 NCAA Championship
- 1945 Mexican Amateur Championship
- 1954 Kansas City Open (PGA Tour)
More About Wally Ulrich
Wally Ulrich was a solid player on the PGA Tour from the late 1940s into the 1960s, although his full-time play mostly ended in the 1950s. He made a lot of cuts and also managed one victory: the 1954 Kansas City Open. In that tournament, his winning score of 268 was never bettered and remains the tournament record.Later in 1954, during the second round of the Virginia Beach Open, Ulrich scored 29 on the front nine, then played the back nine in 31. His score of 60 was the just the fourth 60 in PGA Tour history at that point, tying the tour's all-time scoring record for 18 holes. Ulrich shared that record until 1977, when the first 59 was recorded. (Ulrich finished ninth in the tournament.)
Ulrich played in 10 professional majors, six of them U.S. Opens. He made the cut in only one of those U.S. Opens, in 1950, but then was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.
He also played in four PGA Championships, reaching the Round of 16 in both 1953 and 1955. In the 1953 PGA he lost to Felice Torza, 1-down on the 38th hole. In the 1955 PGA, Ulrich went out to the eventual champ, Doug Ford, by the whopping score of 12 and 10. (Luckily for Ulrich there are several golfers from the PGA Championship's match-play era who lost matches by a 12-and-11 score, sparing Ulrich from holding the record for worst defeat in the tournament's history.)
Ulrich was born in Iowa but raised in Minnesota, and attended college at Carleton College in Minnesota. In 1943 he became the first small-school winner of the NCAA Championship. Because of World War II only seven schools were able to send teams, and Ulrich entered as an individual. In the championship match he defeated the University of Texas' Bill Roden, 4 and 2. His victory happened one day before he reported to the Marines for military service.
Ulrich won the Mexican Amateur in 1945 at at ime when that tournament was still a draw for top American amateurs. In 1946 and 1947, Ulrich won the Minnesota State Open. He decided to turn pro in 1948 and give the tour a shot.
His first wins as a pro were off the PGA Tour, though. In 1948, 1949 and 1950, Ulrich won the Rochester (N.Y.) Golf & Country Club's Shelden Invitational, a prestigious regional tournament. Another such win was in the 1950 Waterloo Open in Iowa, and he won the Minnesota State Open again in 1951.
But a PGA Tour victory still eluded him. In 1953 he had his only second-place finish in a PGA Tour event. Ulrich led the Canadian Open by two strokes as he stood over a downhill, 8-foot birdie putt on the sloping 15th green in the final round. But disaster: He hit his putt too hard and it rolled right off the green, into a deep bunker. Ulrich made double bogey and wound up second by one stroke to winner Dave Douglas.
That first, and what turned out to be only, PGA Tour win came the following year in Kansas City.
According to PGA Tour statistics, Ulrich made 206 PGA Tour starts in his career, first in 1945 (when still an amateur), last in 1968. Most of those starts happened between 1949 and 1956. He made the cut in 185 of those tournaments. In addition to his one win and one second-place finish, Ulrich was third once, had eight Top 5 finishes and 24 Top 10 finishes.
And he did win a few more tournaments off the tour: the Minnesota State Open for a fourth time in 1955; plus, in 1957, the Iowa Open and Minnesota PGA Championship.
During his years as a pro, Ulrich worked several club pro jobs, mostly in Minnesota. Then in 1952 he went to work for the company (it existed under various names) that made Golf Pride grips. Ulrich worked there until retiring in 1977 (in the 2020s, there were still Ulrich family members who continued working for the company).
Ulrich wrote the chapter on the 5-wood in the 1968 golf instructional book Golf Magazine's Your Long Game (affiliate link). He is a member of the Minnesota Golf Hall of Fame and of the Carleton College Athletics Hall of Fame.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Akron Beacon Journal. Obituaries, "Wally W. Ulrich," April 9, 1995.
Barrett, David. Miracle at Merion: The Inspiring Story of Ben Hogan's Amazing Comeback, 2010, Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Cauz, Louis. "Canadian Open Luck of the Draw," Toronto Globe & Mail, September 11, 1990.
Conner, Floyd. Golf's Most Wanted, 2001, Brassey's Inc.
PGA of America. 94th PGA Championship Media Guide 2012, All-Time Records, 2012.
PGA Tour. Players, Wally Ulrich, https://www.pgatour.com/player/02227/wally-ulrich/career.
Quad City Times. "Carleton Star New Champ of College Aces," Universal Press, July 1, 1943.
