Ken Kellaney (#2020) has been a local legend in Arizona competitive golf circles for decades. He has won 15 Arizona state golf titles including a record 5 Arizona state amateur championships and has been named Arizona Golf Association Player of the Year a record 10 times. He has also participated in 13 USGA championships.
Now 63 years of age, he recently shot 10-under par 62 which included a double bogey and a missed four-footer. Good grief… No wonder we call him “The Legend”.
For that feat, Nut #2020 earned himself 620 Nut Points. I would have had no alternative but to award him 1,590 Points had he made the four-footer and not had a double bogey during the round.
But wait, there’s more…
Rockford’s greatest golfers No. 2: Ken Kellaney becomes an Arizona all-time great
This just in from a recent news article in Kellaney’s hometown…
Rockford (Illinois) Register Star
Golf? Or swim?
Ken Kellaney chose to golf.
But he didn’t just play golf. He worked at it. From the very start when he first began as a 10-year-old at Mauh-Nah-Tee-See Country Club.
“My parents joined and at that time in the summer you could either play golf or swim,” said Kellaney, 64, who would grow up to become the most decorated amateur golfer to ever come out of Rockford. “I decided I liked golf much more than swimming. I just absolutely loved it from the day I started.
“I would go there every day. Even when I couldn’t play the course, I would go to the driving range. I just wore out the driving range. I didn’t have an instructor at that age. I would read Golf Digest and bring the magazine with me. They would always have some pro pointers. I would try it out on the driving range and see if it would help my game.
“I just loved the process. I have always been a driving range guy. To this day, I try to hit balls every day.”
Kellaney, picked the second-greatest golfer in Rockford-area history, went on to become the only Rockford golfer to finish in the top five of the state tournament three times, finishing, third, third and fifth for Guilford from 1972-74. He also had a standout career at Illinois, leading the Illini in scoring average for three years and making team captain as a senior, when he finished third in the Big Ten and was named honorable-mention All-American.Kellaney decided to go into banking after he graduated rather than chase a pro career, but he still had many of his greatest golf achievements ahead of him. He moved to Arizona in 1987 and has gone on to win eight Phoenix city titles, a record five Arizona State Amateur titles and is the only player to win the career grand slam of Arizona amateur golf, winning the Publinks, Mid-Amateur, Match Play and Stroke Play state titles.
He’s also a record 10-time Arizona Golf Association Player of the Year.
“You don’t get those kinds of awards being a poor golfer,” said former long-time Rock Valley College golf coach Steve Benjamin. “He could really play. And he was a really nice gentleman. I miss him.
“Kenny and I played a lot together back in the day. He had all the tools and knew how to use them. He hit the ball long and was a very good putter. Ken, his shots were professional. You could hear them. I’ve only played with a few amateurs where when they struck the ball, you could hear it. Kenny was definitely one of them.”
Kellaney won two tournaments in college, including one where he beat John Cook, a future 11-time winner on the PGA Tour, by six strokes.
Former Illini Butch Pegoraro, Boylan’s 1967 state high school champ who went on to become the head pro for many years at Forest Hills Country Club, helped Kellaney get a scholarship from Illinois.
“The University of Florida was talking to me, but they weren’t able to offer me any type of scholarship and Illinois stepped up,” Kellaney recalled. “Butch Pegoraro lived right across the street from me and went to Illinois eight years ahead of me. He paved the way for me to meet the golf coach. The coach liked me and offered me a scholarship.”
After graduating from Illinois in 1979, Kellaney went to work as a bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago while also earning his MBA. When he moved to Phoenix in 1987, he began a 30-year career servicing the banking needs of middle-market businesses, including 23 years with the National Bank of Arizona.
He also was appointed last year as the Independent Director of the Southwest Section Board for the Arizona Golf Association.
But he’s mostly known in Arizona golf circles for winning the Phoenix area’s biggest amateur tournaments. Many, many times.
“I feel very fortunate,” Kellaney said. “There are a lot of great players who have come down here, and we’ve got some great golf schools. I was competing against kids from Arizona State and the University of Arizona, plus a lot of former professionals that got their amateur status back.”
Kellaney considers his fourth and fifth Arizona State Amateur titles as his favorite golf achievements.
“No one had ever won more than four, and I was recovering from a bout with melanoma a couple of years before that,” he said. “That really set me back. When I rebounded from cancer and won the Arizona State Amateur two years back-to-back, that was my most rewarding moment in golf, because of what I overcame.”
Ken Kellaney, Nut #2020, picked up 10,000 Nut Points for his 10 Player of the Year titles, 2,000 for his Rockford Hall of Fame induction, and another 1,500 for winning another Arizona State Amateur after defeating melanoma. No wonder they call him The Legend in Arizona competitive circles. The man can score. – The Head Nut