Hall of Fame

Charlie Murphy had just one golf lesson in his life. 

It was 1968, he was 21 years old, and he had just finished an outstanding career at Siena College. He already was among the top amateur golfers in New York State. 

“I had won the district championship . . .  and my father sprung for a lesson,” Murphy recalls.

They went up to the Saratoga State Park course and saw a pro named Tom Creavy, who had won the 1931 PGA Championship and played in the first Masters in 1934.

“At this time, he was probably 60 years old, and he’s sitting at a picnic table with a Panama straw hat on and an umbrella over his head,” Murphy said. “He says, ‘Hit a few balls.’

“I hit five 7-irons,” Murphy said, “and Tom Creavy went to my father and said, ‘There’s nothing I can do for that swing, it’s perfect.’ And that was the only lesson I ever had in my life.” 

Creavy knew what he was talking about.

Murphy spent the next 30 years compiling one of the most consistent records of excellence at the amateur level New York State has seen. He’s the top amateur the Capital Region has produced since 1960.

Murphy played in the New York State Amateur championship 30 consecutive years and finished in the top 10 15 times. He was second twice, third four times and in the top five nine times. He won the inaugural NYSGA Mid-Amateur championship in 1984. He won six Eastern New York Golf Association titles when it was the Albany area’s premier amateur event. He won 10 Tri-County titles (six stroke play, four match play) and three Troy Invitationals. He played in the U.S. Junior Amateur, the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Mid-Amateur and the British Amateur. He also was an NYSGA committee man for about 15 years and served on the USGA Green Section Committee for 10 years.

The 79-year-old Murphy will be inducted into the 2026 Class of the New York State Golf Association Hall of Fame at a ceremony on Nov. 6 at Albany’s Wolferts Roost Country Club. 

Asked the key to his consistency, Murphy said: “I was an OK putter, but I always thought I prepared better than anybody. Course management and preparation. Remember back then, there were no range finders. Maybe you had a 150-yard bush on each side of the fairway. I had about 200 yardage books that I had prepared myself, by pacing. And I had the greens charted.”

Murphy took advantage of that research with superb ball-striking. He had tremendous distance control with his irons and was a greens-in-regulation machine. 

“He was a very good ball striker,” said Murphy’s life-long friend Mike Daniels, who also had an excellent amateur career. “You know, he had this natural little draw, and he knew how to work the ball both ways. A very consistent player.

“But probably the best part of his game is his mental aspect of the game,” Daniels said. “He's a true student of the game in all aspects. . . . A lot of the courses used to have 150-yard bushes. But one would be 145, one would be 150, one would be 155. If you weren’t prepared you could be off by 10 yards. He had them all down, and he could hit the number he wanted.”

Murphy got into golf as a little boy through his father, Charles Murphy Sr.

“My father was a World War II veteran, a greatest generation guy who got married late, got back from the war and took up golf,” Murphy said. 

“My introduction to golf was, he would go out after work, and you had shag bags, and you had your own balls,” Murphy said. “I was there to pick up the balls. He had an olive drab canvas bag, which was Army issued. My father would give me his club and let me hit the last two balls in the bag.”

Starting when Murphy was about 11, his mom would drop him off every day of the summer at the former Albany Municipal Golf Course, on a site where now sits a completely renovated course called Capital Hills at Albany. A youth season pass was $10.

“Initially, my mother would drive us out, drop us off, morning to dark,” Murphy said. “Later we took our bikes out, and we played 36 holes a day, every day.”

Murphy calls the Albany Muni “probably the worst golf course in the history the world.” 

“The fairways weren’t aerified from 1932 through the ‘60s, which is probably one of the reasons I’m a digger,” he said. “I dig down. You had to go down to get the ball. It wasn’t sitting up in the fairway. They never cut the rough. The rough was just weeds about a foot high.”

Murphy’s home-grown swing was good enough for him to qualify for the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1964, where he made match play and reached the Round of 32. 

“During the practice round, a kid came up to me on the range and said, ‘I don’t know why we’re here. See that kid over there? He’s from San Francisco. His name is Johnny Miller. He’s going to win.’”

Miller, the future World Golf Hall of Famer, did win. 

Murphy, who had graduated high school a year early, thinks he might have drawn interest from a major college golf program if he was entering his senior year that summer. But he already had committed to Siena. After an outstanding college career, Murphy never considered trying to turn pro. There wasn’t much money in the pro game, and he hadn’t played at a big-time golf power.

Thus began a stretch of domination in the Capital Region.

Murphy’s best chance to win the NYSGA Amateur came in 1977. He had a three-shot lead with on the back nine in the final round but missed a short put on the 72^nd hole and lost to Troy’s Rich Serian by a shot. 

Almost every year the next decade, Murphy was near the top of the leaderboard. But it arguably was tougher to win the State Am in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s than many other stretches of the tournament’s history. 

Finishing third in ’77 was Jeff Sluman, followed by Joey Sindelar, George Zahringer and Dr. Allen Foster, all of them NYSGA Hall of Famers. In fact, there were eight future NYSGA Hall of Famers in the field in ’77. Sluman, the six-time PGA Tour winner, won the State Am in 1978. Mark Balen, a Big Ten champion and second-team All-America at Ohio State, won in ‘79 and ’80. Syracuse’s Jim Roy, who subsequently qualified for the PGA Tour, won in 1981. Zahringer won in ’84. Murphy was a distant second to Christopher Lane in the 1985 State Am. 

“The ‘77 tournament was probably the strongest field ever assembled for a state amateur,” Murphy said.

All this time, Murphy had a full-time job with the New York State Department of Health. History shows collegiate stars have the obvious advantage over mid-amateurs in state championships.

“The problem is I put so much pressure on myself for that one week, and other guys, you know, they were playing all the time,” Murphy said. “So all I had was four days, I didn't have four majors a year like Rory has now to try to win. I had one, but I kind of tried to peak for it, and you know, it kind of worked out, I played really well.”

The loss in 1977 stung. By that stage of his career, he was long-time good friends with Rochester’s Don Allen, a six-time winner of the NYSGA Amateur (and a member of the inaugural NYSGA Hall of Fame). 

“Don was heartbroken that I lost, he really thought I was going to win,” Murphy said of ’77. “That loss was kind of hard. And that winter, Don called and said, ‘I want you to come out and play in the Country Club of Rochester Invitational.’ Now whether it was to soothe the State Am loss or not, I don't know. And I stayed at his house.”

The prestigious CCR Invite attracts a great field, and it was played on Allen’s home course.

That summer, Murphy defeated future PGA Tour standout Mike Hulbert (a fellow 2026 NYSGA Hall of Fame inductee) in the semifinals, 2 and 1. Then Murphy walloped Allen in the match-play final, 7 and 6. Murphy went back to the CCR Invite in 1979 and beat Allen again in the final, this time, 3 and 2. A 6-iron from 170 yards to 1 foot on the par-5 10^th hole put Murphy in command of that match. Murphy also teamed with Allen to win the prestigious Williams Invitational at Rochester’s Oak Hill Country Club in 1979 and ’81.

“The proudest thing that ever occurred in my career is I lost that thing (the ’77 NYSGA Am) in kind of a heartbreaking fashion, and then went on from there, with Don Allen's help, to those CCRs, to the Oak Hills,” Murphy said. “And then what that really kicked off was the regional stuff, and I won all those regional tournaments, the six Tri-County championships. So it was really a pretty good bounce back.”

Murphy’s NYSGA Mid-Amateur title was free of drama. He shot 72-72-72 at Glens Falls Country Club and won by five shots. The final leaderboard included four NYSGA former or future NYSGA Am champions.

“This was the first Mid-Am, it was in September, and we got there for a practice round and the greens had recently been aerified and they weren’t completely healed,” Murphy said. “I’m not criticizing Glens Falls in the least. You have to aerify your greens. Glens Falls is a top 100 club. But that wouldn’t happen today. I got there and said to myself, ‘This is great, because I’m not the best putter in this field, but now the best putters are going to be complaining. I’m a better ball-striker than I am a putter, so this could actually help me.’” 

“The other nice thing about it was the trophy was named for a guy named Bob Hogan, a local official, an educator, a principal,” Murphy said. “Winning it with his name on it and then coming home on Sunday and giving my trophy to my father – that was a big thing.”

Later in his career, Murphy teamed with Daniels to win the prestigious Eastern Four Ball Championship at Congressional CC, the major championship course in Maryland. In five appearances, the duo posted first, second, third and fourth-place finishes.  

The year we won, we finished on the ninth hole at Congressional, which was a par-5 over a valley that neither of us could reach in two,” Daniels said. “We’re up by two shots. I hit first to the right side of a tiered green, a difficult two-putt to make par. Charlie hits his wedge from 110 yards, pull hooks it left of the green, hits an oak tree, bounces onto the green and rolls into the hole for an eagle. We won by four.”

Murphy had a distinguished career at the NYS Department of Health, from 1974 to 2002. He was Director of the Bureau of Financial Analysis. Then he was Director of the Division of Health Facility Planning. In the latter role he headed a group of 60 professional and support staff in the review, approval and monitoring of roughly 500 health facility construction projects. He developed a financial process program that saved member facilities and taxpayers millions of dollars annually. Murphy then moved to a management position with White Plains-based Cicero Consulting Associates, for whom he still works full time. 

Murphy and his wife Rose live in Naples, Fla. They have two sons, Keith and David.

It would be hard to write the history of the New York State Golf Association without including Murphy. 

“From 11 years old when I started until today, amateur golf has been a big part of my life,” Murphy said. “Of the 40 people in the Hall of Fame, I’ve had contact with or played golf with half of them. The arc of me and the New York State Golf Association is beyond a casual thing.” 

Charlie Murphy's Career Highlights

• Winner, Northeastern Collegiate Conference Championship (freshman, Siena College)
• Winner, Capital City Tournament (sophomore)
• 3x MECAA individual medalist
• ECAC Championship qualifier (1966)
• Helped Siena win the MECAA team title (1967)
• Winner, MECAA Individual Championship (junior and senior seasons)
• Captain of Siena teams winning 14 and 15 matches (junior and senior seasons)
• Individual qualifier, NCAA Regional Tournament
• Inducted into the Siena College Athletics Hall of Fame (1980)
• Winner, NYS Men's Mid-Amateur Championship (1984)
• Runner-up, NYS Men's Amateur (1977, 1985)
• 14 top-10 finishes in the NYS Men's Amateur (1967–1994)
• Played in 30 consecutive NYS Men's Amateur Championships
• 6x winner, Eastern New York Golf Association Championship
• 6x winner, Tri-County Stroke Play Championship
• 3x winner, Tri-County Match Play Championship
• 3x winner, CC of Troy Invitational
• 2x winner, CC of Rochester Invitational
• Qualified: U.S. Junior Amateur (1964, advanced to 2nd round), U.S. Mid-Amateur (1983), U.S. Amateur (1984, 1986), British Amateur (1984)