Robert Funk is just coming off a nine-day stretch of competition in Northern California, with two runner-up finishes to show for it. The rest period doesn’t last long, however, because this week he jumps right back in at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship.
Funk, 61, of Canyon Lake, California, is not a grind-all-year-long guy. An ordinary week includes one, maybe two rounds at his home course, Bear Creek in Murrieta, California, and one or two range sessions. Despite the balmy weather of his home state, he’ll take three to four months off around the holidays. Before he gets it going again in the new year, however, he’ll work on his game every day to get it back into shape.
“I just got through doing that before doing that before I went out to San Francisco,” he said. “For about a month, I probably hit balls five times a week and I was chipping and putting.”
Funk, an electrical contractor, had never before played the San Francisco City Championship, an historic match-play tournament at Lincoln Park and TPC Harding Park, but teed it up this year and won stroke-play qualifying on March 18 to secure the No. 1 seed. He ultimately fell to Steve Johnson in the championship match.
The next day, Funk teed it up in the NCGA Senior Four-Ball Championship at Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach, California, with partner Jason Bittick. They finished second to Randy Haag and Steve Sear. Haag will also be in the field at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship.
Funk is a lifelong amateur, and one who has competed at the pinnacle of the sport – both in terms of field and venue. His list of U.S. Golf Association Championships is long and laden with memories. He has played a dozen U.S. Mid-Amateurs and qualified for the U.S. Senior Open four times. He gained perhaps the most notoriety at the 2017 U.S. Senior Open, where he was the only amateur to make the cut. His family was there to watch, and Funk still has great memories of conversations with legends like Tom Watson and Nick Faldo.
“I was given a medal on TV and when I played the golf course, it seemed very simple and easy to me,” he said of his experience at Salem Country Club in Peabody, Massachusetts. “I know I was just playing super great and putting really good and it was a really fun experience to have my parents – my dad had never even really seen me hit a golf shot until then.”
Low-amateur honors that week brought a sort of USGA victory lap for Funk and secured him an exemption into, among other events, the 2017 U.S. Amateur played at Riviera and Bel-Air in Los Angeles. That week, Funk, a recovering alcoholic, relayed his journey to sobriety to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Golf has played an important role in Funk’s life – teaching him about honesty, integrity and how to be steadfast in his commitment to something.
