“Hawaii’s First Lady of Golf” is gone.
“Hawaii’s First Lady of Golf” is gone.
Jacqueline “Jackie” Nolte Liwai Pung of Waikoloa died peacefully March 15 at Life Care Center of Kona, family members said Tuesday. She was 95.
Born on Dec. 13, 1921, in Honolulu, Pung first played golf at age 6. Her father, Jack Liwai, was a full-blooded Hawaiian and captain of the Hawaiian Golf Club. A teenage prodigy, she played on the Roosevelt High School boys team. Pung won three consecutive Hawaiian Women’s Amateur championships in 1937, 1938 and 1939, while a teen. She took the title again in 1948.
Pung ended a four-year retirement to win the 1952 U.S. Women’s Amateur title at Waverly Country Club in Portland, Ore., and was named the Woman Athlete of the Year by the Los Angeles Times.
Joining the LPGA Tour at age 31 in 1953, the first Hawaii player to do so, Pung won five professional titles and was runner-up 14 times. That includes the 1953 U.S. Women’s Open, which she lost in an 18-hole playoff to Betsy Rawls. A big hitter with a personality to match who sometimes danced hula on the golf course, Pung was popular with galleries and fellow players.
But it was a major title that got away, the 1957 U.S. Women’s Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., that became the bittersweet signature of Pung’s 11-year LPGA career.
It appeared Pung had edged Rawls by a stroke to win the tournament. She signed a scorecard with the correct final round total of 72 and correct four-round total of 298. But her scorecard, kept by playing partner Betty Jameson, marked a par 5 for Pung on the fourth hole, when she actually had shot a bogey 6. Pung made the exact same error on Jameson’s card. Both were disqualified and Rawls declared the victor with a 7-over-par 299.
Pung told the Honolulu Advertiser in 2003 she didn’t think much about it anymore.
“Golf is a game of rules and I broke a rule,” she said.
The members of Winged Foot, however, had a soft spot for Pung. They passed the calabash and presented her a check for $3,000 — $1,200 more than Rawls’ payday for winning.
Pung left the tour in 1964 because she missed her husband Barney, a fireman and champion swimmer. She became the first woman director of golf at Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and then at Waikoloa Village Golf Course. The LPGA named her Teaching Professional of the Year in 1967.
Pung was inducted into the first class of the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame in 1988 and continued to teach golf into her 80s, despite battling diabetes.
Her life and career were chronicled in a 2005 biography, Jackie Pung: Women’s Golf Legend, by Betty Dunn.
Visitation is 9 a.m. Saturday, April 22, at St. James Episcopal Church in Waimea, with services at 10 a.m. The family requests aloha attire. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to Hospice of Kona, P.O. Box 4130, Kailua-Kona, HI 96745. Family condolences may be sent to Barnette Fischer, P.O. Box 383333, Waikoloa, HI 96738.
Pung is survived by her daughter, Barnette (Bruce) Fischer of Waikoloa; sister, Audrey Hong of Honolulu; brother, John Liwai of Waikoloa; four grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, Barney Kapaakea Pung, and daughter, Sonia Leilani Case.