Information compiled by Art Utley
MIDLOTHIAN — The Virginia Golf Hall of Fame will induct its largest class since the Inaugural Class of 2016 this fall, as the Hall is set to add six new members at the 2022 Induction Ceremony, which will be held on October 19 at Independence Golf Club in Midlothian.
The six-member Class of 2022 includes H.M. “Bunny” Blankinship, Grace Anne Braxton, Galen Hill, Jack Isaacs, Lily Harper Martin and Phil Owenby.
Lanny Wadkins will serve as the ceremony’s emcee. A member of the Inaugural Class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame, Wadkins is a past winner of the PGA Championship and a 21-time winner on the PGA Tour. Wadkins, a Richmond native who won the 1970 U.S. Amateur, is currently the lead analyst for PGA Tour Champions coverage on Golf Channel. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2009.
H.M. “Bunny” Blankinship
A member at Boonsboro Country Club in Lynchburg, Blankinship served as the eighth president of the VSGA’s all-volunteer board of directors in 1959-60. A key figure in the VSGA’s development post-World War II, Blankinship later became the VSGA’s first executive secretary, a precursor to the VSGA’s eventual hiring of a full-time professional executive director.
Blankinship held the position for 10 years before his death in 1972. His successor, Jose Davila, also died that year, and in 1973, Wallace McDowell (Virginia Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2017) became a paid executive secretary and 10 years later became the VSGA’s first full-time employee with the title of executive director.
Blankinship’s name adorns the trophy given to the winner of the VSGA’s Senior Amateur Championship. The Fox Puss Invitational, an annual three-day event held at Boonsboro, began in 1971 and was named to honor Blankinship (Fox) and clubmate Charles Hancock (Puss).
Grace Anne Braxton
Fredericksburg’s Braxton has been a Special Olympics stalwart for more than 30 years, competing first in swimming and bowling before taking up golf. The sport has led Braxton around the world to play. She’s traveled to China, Greece, Abu Dhabi, Scotland and plenty of places in the United States as well.
Braxton is a two-time U.S. Disabled Golf Association women’s champion. She’s a three-time Special Olympics World Games medalist and a two-time world champion. She was a member of the Solheim Diversity Cup team at Gleneagles in Scotland in 2019 and a gold medalist at the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in China.
Said Special Olympics Virginia president Rick Jeffrey: “This is incredible news since our program is really about ‘what’s possible,’ and that’s exactly what Grace Anne is.”
Galen Hill
Hill has administered the Rules for more than 40 years, starting with the 1976 Eastern Amateur held at his home club, Elizabeth Manor Golf & Country Club in Portsmouth. He joined the VSGA Rules team soon thereafter and has worked as an official for 43 years, 40 of which included multiple VSGA Amateurs, Mid-Amateurs, Junior Stroke Plays and Senior Amateurs.
Hill becomes the fifth member of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame with an authoritative knowledge of the Rules of Golf, joining Clyde Luther (2016), Wallace McDowell (2017), Dr. Lew Blakey (2018), and Richard Smith (2020).
Hill’s Rules service extended beyond Virginia’s borders. He was the head Rules official and was responsible for course set-up for the ACC Championship for 26 years and performed the same duties at multiple NCAA Regionals and NCAA Championships. Hill served on the U.S. Mid-Amateur and U.S. Senior Amateur committees and was a Rules official at 10 U.S. Opens and 13 U.S. Amateurs. Hill won the VSGA’s President’s Award in 2004.
Jack Isaacs
Isaacs, a Richmond native who died in 1982, was a dominant force in Virginia golf in the 1940s and 1950s, both as a player and PGA professional.
Isaacs won the Virginia PGA Open five times, claiming titles in 1949, 1950, 1956, 1958 and 1961. He also won the Maryland Open in 1949, 1951 and 1952. A MAPGA Section Championship winner in 1941, he won the MAPGA Senior Championship three years in a row from 1959-61.
He was a force on the national stage as well, playing in a combined 25 U.S. Opens and PGA Championships, 16 PGA Senior Championships, and two Masters. He qualified for three Open Championships as well.
Inducted into the MAPGA Hall of Fame in 1996, Isaacs served as president of the Virginia Association of Golf Professionals from 1951-54. He was the head PGA professional at six different clubs, most notably Langley Air Force Base from 1938-63. After a four-year run at Willow Oaks Country Club in Richmond, he retired in 1969.
Lily Harper Martin
Nicknamed the “Tiny Typhoon of Portsmouth,” Martin joins older brother Chandler—a member of the Inaugural Class—in the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame. Martin won the VSGA Women’s Amateur Championship seven times, a record that has stood for 81 years. She claimed the trophy in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937. She missed the final in 1938, but ripped off another three victories in 1939, 1940 and 1941.
She never played competitively again after her victory in 1941. World War II halted competitive golf for three years, and in 1945, her husband and biggest supporter, Carl Martin, died of a heart attack. A widow at 28, she never remarried, and according to her brother, she never picked up a club again.
Martin also won the 1936 Mid-Atlantic Women’s Amateur in her only appearance in the event. She was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1995, six years after she died at the age of 73. Lily and Chandler are the second pair of siblings in the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame, joining brothers Lanny and Bobby Wadkins.
Phil Owenby
Salisbury Country Club director of golf Mike Hott sums up Owenby succinctly: “Phil is the epitome of the elite golf professional.”
A Charlottesville native who played on the golf team at North Carolina State University, Owenby began his long career as a professional in 1976 at Farmington Country Club. Since then, he’s worked at Hunting Hills CC, Boonsboro CC, Roanoke CC and Kinloch GC in Virginia, both on the teaching and business side. One of his pupils at Boonsboro—Donna Andrews—won an LPGA major and is a member of the 2017 Class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame.
Owenby is now the chief development officer for The Dormie Network, which counts Roanoke’s Ballyhack GC in its portfolio. A MAPGA Career Coach and mentor to PGA professionals, Owenby is a past member of the MAPGA Board of Directors and was the 2010 MAPGA Golf Professional of the Year.
The six new members bring the total Hall of Fame roster to 32 inductees. Previous Virginia Golf Hall of Fame classes, with the site of the Induction Ceremony, were:
- Class of 2021 (Hermitage CC): Moss Beecroft and David A. King.
- Class of 2020 (Hermitage CC): Kandi Kessler Comer, Wayne Jackson, David Partridge, Richard Smith and Wynsol Spencer.
- Class of 2019 (Farmington CC): Bobby Cruickshank, Harry Easterly, Mary-Patton Janssen, Tom McKnight and Bill Millsaps.
- Class of 2018 (Hermitage CC): Dr. Lew Blakey, Robbye Unger, Bobby Wadkins and Lew Worsham.
- Class of 2017 (CC of Virginia): Donna Andrews, Keith Decker, Wallace McDowell and J.C. Snead.
- Inaugural Class of 2016 (The Omni Homestead Resort): Vinny Giles, Chandler Harper, Clyde Luther, Sam Snead, Curtis Strange and Lanny Wadkins.