Robbye King Unger’s impact on junior girls’ golf

By Gib Palmer

During her illustrious career in golf, Robbye King Unger won six VSGA Women’s Amateur championships and was a finalist in four others. She was named an alternate for the 1964 Curtis Cup squad. In one summer, she won the Virginia, D.C., Maryland, and Middle Atlantic women’s amateurs. She won the VSGA Senior Women’s Stroke Play Championship and was club champion at Farmington Country Club 17 times.  She was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1997 and was elected to the third class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame in 2018.

With all her success in championship golf, when asked what accomplishments in golf that she was most proud of, Robbye didn’t hesitate. She cited her efforts in 1970 to create the Virginia Junior Golf Program for girls. She takes great pride in the strides that girls and women have taken in golf in both the amateur and professional ranks since those early days.

Looking back, Robbye said when she was 13 or 14 years old, she was playing out of the Army Navy Club and playing in District of Columbia events. In those days, D.C. had an extensive girls’ program. Robbye recalled being driven by D.C. women who took her to the USGA Girls’ Junior Amateur in Greenwich, Connecticut, at age 14 and Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she was 15. Such was the commitment to girls’ golf there in those days. She assumed that every area had that kind of golf program for girls, but when her father, U.S. Navy Admiral Ed King, was transferred from the Pentagon to the Norfolk Naval Base, she learned it wasn’t the case in Virginia. She went from playing in tournaments nearly every week at ages 13-15 to playing none when she was 16 and 17.  Robbye’s high expectations for tournament opportunities in Virginia went unfulfilled.

At age 18, Robbye was playing in the VSGA Women’s Amateur at Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville and was 4 up with 9 holes to play but went on to lose to Mary Patton Janssen (Virginia Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2019). The next year, at the Cascades Course in Hot Springs, Robbye was again 4 up with 9 holes to play but failed to close out the match. At age 20, she won the event at the Cascades with a 2 & 1 win.

Her two losses, when she held significant leads, taught her that she hadn’t learned how to compete and to close out tournaments. In her words, “golf and tournament golf are different. They need to mesh, not collide”.

Her experience convinced her that Virginia needed to develop a program for girls to play competitive golf, so in 1969 she assembled a committee to create the Virginia Junior Golf Program for girls. In 1970 the first event under the new program was held with 16 girls competing, many of whom Robbye said had not ever even played more than 9 holes! Today, Virginia has one of the country’s leading golf programs for junior girls and Robbye is justifiably proud of her legacy that has produced great amateur and professional women golf champions along with thousands of girls who just love to compete.

Robbye King Unger’s influence on golf in Virginia and beyond has been so meaningful that she is considered one of Virginia’s greatest champions and contributors. 

Gib Palmer is a past VSGA President and President of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame.