‘A Big Talent’ – “Little Kenny Willard” – Country Club Phenom
New Champion of Boys Never Took Lesson in Golf
Competition “Pretty Stiff” Says Kenneth Willard On Return
Competition was “pretty stiff,” said smiling Kenneth Willard after returning from Great Falls, where he took top honors in the Montana Junior golf tournament Sunday, shooting a 78 in 18 holes of medal play. Par for the course is 72.
The 16-year-old Missoula Country club caddie has been playing golf for two and one-half years and has never taken a lesson. His nearest rival at the state tourney was John Ruedi of Billings, who was two strokes over Willard’s mark.
The new junior champ birdied only one hole but missed birdies on five others only because he slipped somewhat on his putting. He usually got on the green in two strokes, he said, except on the long holes.
“I wasn’t nervous on the first nine,” said young Willard, “but when I found out I could win if I took a seven on the last hole I did get kind of nervous.” Kenneth shot a six on the eighteenth and final hole. Willard is the son of Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Willard of 740 Marshall street and is a student at Missoula county high school. He is small for his age and appears younger than 16 years.
The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on July 25, 1939.
What’s The Use?
Kenneth Willard, standing five feet two or three and weighing about as much as a dieted debutante, goes to the state golf tournament and wins a trophy half as tall as himself. Kenny, a caddy at the Country club, shoots a 78, whereas the best we could do over the same course some years ago (at another state tourney) was 85. Kenny has never had a golf lesson! Would anybody like to make an offer for our bag of clubs?
The above is from French T. Ferguson’s column, “The Oracle,” in The Daily Missoulian on July 27, 1939.
Kenny Willard won the Missoula Country club Caddy championship in August of 1940. He shot rounds of 77 and 79 to win this tournament. He placed third in the Boys Interscholastic tournament in May and placed second in the state junior tournament in Butte in July. He also finished second in the Missoula High School championship in 1940, losing to Billy Myers, a sophomore.
Kenny Willard won the state Interscholastic tournament in Missoula in May of 1941. It was the first interscholastic golf championship by a Missoula boy. He won by shooting two 77’s. He won the Missoula high school Garden City course championship in April that year. He also won the high school invitational tournament in Helena in May, shooting a 73 on the last day.
In the Missoula Country Club’s prestigious 54-hole Memorial tournament in May of 1942, Willard took third. Finishing 1st in that tournament was former Grizzly quarterback and now Missoula coach Ed Chinske, winning by four shots. Mulholland of Butte beat Willard by one shot for second. The tournament had close to 80 participants, including the winner from the previous year, Dave Fitzgerald of Livingston. Willard beat the noted Missoula golfer, Dr. Don Barnett, by 6 shots.
Kenneth David Willard was the son of Clarence D. and Leora Willard. One of five children, he was born in North Dakota in 1922. He died January 29, 1947 and is buried in Everett, Washington.
A short notice of his death appeared in The Missoulian on February 4, 1947:
Funeral Conducted For Ex-Missoulian
Funeral services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were held at the Purdy & Walters mortuary chapel in Everett, Wash., Monday afternoon for Kenneth D. Willard, 24, a graduate of Missoula High School who died in the veteran’s hospital at Portland after an extended illness. Burial was in Evergreen cemetery at Everett.
Mr. Willard, a navy veteran of World war II, came to Missoula in 1936 with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence D. Willard, from Williston, N. D., where he was born October 29, 1922. The family left here in 1942.
Survivors include two sisters who reside in Missoula, Mrs. Rae Larson and Mrs. Michael Sanzone. The parents and a brother, Dale, and a sister, Mrs. Genevieve Stuls, live at Everett.
Talented Kenny Willard was also a writer. He wrote a paper while at MCHS, revealing some clever observations of the brutal battle one local golfer waged upon the game of golf:
CADDYING
Kenny Willard, ‘41
Just because it sounds like an easy job to carry a bag full of clubs and watch a ball, don’t be too eager to accept a job of caddying. You’ll be disappointed if the golfer does not like you. You’ll be hurt when he curses and bawls you out. Each player is different and must be babied and coaxed, yelled at or ignored, as the case may be. You will have to caddy the way he likes it, no matter whether it is right or wrong. Sometimes you think you’re caddying for an escaped “nut,” if you judge him by his actions.
Some bright sunny day you get a job with a golfer who hands you a bag of clubs heavy enough to stagger a horse. You later find out he uses only five of them. This golfer steps up to the ball, grits his teeth, and takes such a healthy swing that he misses the ball completely. You get bawled out then for talking while he was shooting, although you hadn’t said a word. Our golfer then glares at the ball and takes an even harder swing. The ball comes to rest about thirty feet from the tee. The player walks cautiously up to the ball as if trying to take it unawares and gouges at it several times before setting it up on a tee. He slams a long hundred-yard shot that slices into the rough. The ball is found on a clump of grass, and he thinks you did it, so he knocks it off the clump. It rolls into a hole and after nearly breaking his club trying to get it out, he picks it up and carries it to the next hole.
You suffer along with him for six solid holes and then nearly expire as you watch his second ball splash into the creek on the seventh hole drive. His third shot is successful, and you congratulate him on such a nice shot. He replies that he knows it’s good. Together you trudge on. The player finally gets a seven on a par four hole and declares that he is improving. You think it’s about time, but you don’t say so.
Finally the last green appears, and you begin thinking about the tip you’ll get for not losing a ball. Your hopes are shattered as the next shot veers sharply to the right, going into the cottonwood grove where it is finally given up. This is too much even for our hero to stand, and he marches dejectedly back to the clubhouse, pays you (minus a tip) and disappears. You sneak off home disgusted with your erstwhile employer in particular and golf in general.
The above paper appeared in The Daily Missoulian on January 22, 1940.