Three-Time Colorado Open Champ Bill Bisdorf Passes Away

 

Colorado Golf Hall of Fame member Bill Bisdorf, who between 1964 and 1967 won three of the first four Colorado Opens played at Hiwan Golf Club, passed away September 19. He was 87.

“We called him ‘Mr. Popeye’ because he had huge forearms,” remembers Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Charles “Vic” Kline, who first competed against Bisdorf in the inaugural Colorado Open. “And man, could he smoke it—long and straight. Dustin Johnson reminds me of Bill.”

In addition to his legendary length, Kline remembers Bisdorf as an exceptional putter  who often used a cross-handed ( “left-hand-low”) style—a rarity during the 1950s and 1960s.

Bisdorf admitted he almost didn’t finish that initial Colorado Open at Hiwan, which bore all the rawness of a newly opened course. “The first year the fairways were clumpy, the rough was clumpy and balls bounced in all directions—mostly sideways,” he told CAG’s Denny Dressman in a 2014 interview. “By the last day my ankles and feet hurt so much, I was going to quit, even though I was in the lead.”

On the 15^th hole, his playing partner Jim English, who was in second place, talked him out of quitting. “Jim said, ‘Crawl the last four holes! You’re going to win the tournament!’” Bisdorf said. “Had I quit, he’d have won.”

Bisdorf won the event with a 14-over-par 294, six shots ahead of English. He would shoot 2-over 282 in his Colorado Open victory the following year and a five-over 285 in 1967. The course proved to be so challenging that the first seven tournaments featured over-par winning totals.

A Championship Record

Originally from Waterloo, Iowa, Bisdorf played on the same Naval Championship Team as Gene Littler and Billy Casper between 1952 and 1954. Turning professional in 1955, he qualified for six U.S. Opens and ten PGA Championships, including nine consecutive ones between 1960 and 1968. He claimed the Mile High Open and was the Colorado Section PGA Player of the Year in 1964 and 1965. In 1974 he captured the Colorado Section PGA Match Play Championship.

Between 1958 and 1971, Bisdorf made the cut 21 times in 43 starts on the PGA Tour. “The golf was great, but the rest of the life sucked,” he told CAG in 2008. “Back then, you couldn’t take your family with you.”

“He and I had that conversation many times,” remembers Kline. “Back then, you’d play Sunday and that night drive like hell to the next place and play again. It was a vagabond’s life, and Bill was not a vagabond.”

Bisdorf prefered the life of a golf professional to that of a professional golfer. He served as the Head PGA Professional at the now defunct Green Gables Country Club between 1959 and 1967. Then, after competing in nine PGA Tour events in 1968, he went on to own and operate Denver Capital Golf, a store at Broadway and Colfax where he gave lessons and sold equipment. He finished his career at the Twilight Golf Course at Leetsdale and Quebec.

Until a few years ago, he and his wife Norma would play a regular Sunday game with friends at Overland Golf Course.

Bisdorf entered the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1989. He is the fourth member of the august institution to pass away in 2016. Will Nicholson, Jim English and Ed Nosewicz preceded him.

“He was a great asset to the golf community, a great teacher and a great player,” says his onetime student and longtime friend Donald Brenner. “Above all else, Bill Bisdorf was a terrific human being.”

 

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