Class of 2026
Mike Hulbert
Hometown: Elmira, N.Y.
Residence: Orlando, Fla.
Mike Hulbert was at the grueling, six-round PGA Tour Qualifying School Tournament in December of 1985. The final stage pitted 161 players fighting for 50 spots, although finishing in the top 20 was critical to have a good chance to get into early-season tournaments. Miss the top 50, and you were sentenced to another year struggling in golf’s minor leagues.
Stuck in the middle of the pack after two rounds, Hulbert went to the driving range after 36 holes to tune up. He put an alignment stick on the ground and was about to hit.
“The first two rounds I played with a kid from the Bahamas or Puerto Rico who I had played with a lot on the minitours,” Hulbert recalls. “And he wasn't any good, but his grandpa was loaded. . . . I mean, this guy couldn’t play dead in a cowboy movie.
“All of a sudden, he comes running over to me,” Hulbert said. “He goes, ‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘Well, I'm seeing if I'm lined up.’ He says, ‘There's nothing wrong with your game.’ He kind of yelled it, and he's getting into my kitchen. He goes, ‘You know what your problem is? You're acting like a baby. You don't want to come back and play the minitours with me. Got it? So I'd advise you just to go hit it, find it, and get it in the hole.’
“So I packed up the stuff and went to my hotel room,” Hulbert said.
Hulbert shot under par the next two days, cruised to a 13th-place finish at Q-School and earned his spot on tour for 1986.
Hulbert, in fact, thrived on tour for the next 15 years precisely because he could get it in the hole; he could score.
Hulbert won three official events in his PGA Tour career and three other unofficial PGA events. He placed second six times, had 21 top-five finishes, 43 top-10s and 118 top-25s. He made more than $4 million in official prize money.
The 68-year-old native of Horseheads will be honored for his brilliant career on Nov. 6 when he is inducted into the New York State Golf Association Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Albany’s Wolfert’s Roost Country Club.
A bottom-line difference between golfers who make the PGA Tour and elite amateurs who turn pro and never break through is the ability to go low. Shooting 66s, 67s and 68s is essential to surviving as a pro. Hulbert could score.
In 1986, Hulbert ranked sixth on the PGA Tour in birdies and tied for second in eagles. In 1989 he was second in birdies with 402, or 3.4 a round, and third in eagles. In 1991 he was 13th in birdies. He regularly ranked among the top 50 on tour in Greens in Regulation.
“I had a very good short game and a very good iron game,” Hulbert said. “In order to be up there, you had to make birdies. I wasn’t one of these guys that made three birdies and all pars. Did I have some clean cards, yeah? But did I hit every fairway? No. I think my highest percentage of fairways hit back in ‘89-90 was about 65%.
“I always thought back then one of the most important stats was Greens in Regulation, especially when we went to harder venues,” he says. “Come to think of it, if you’re one of the highest birdie guys per day per round, that’s a nice stat to have.”
“He didn’t have holes in his game,” said former PGA Tour star Joey Sindelar, Hulbert’s lifelong friend and a NYSGA Hall of Famer. “He was a good putter. He became a really good short gamer. From 30 yards in, bunker shots. When he went in the bunker, he was trying to make it. He was a gifted short gamer, pitcher, chipper, sand game.”
Sindelar was a long hitter on tour in the 1980s. Hulbert calls himself “sneaky long.”
“I would say he was in the 80th to 90th percentile power level,” Sindelar said. “And back then the difference in distance was only like 15 yards. . . . No. 1, he had power. No. 2, for his whole career he was one of the best 3-wood players I’ve ever seen in my life. If it was a par-5 and he had a shot with his 3-wood, he’d make an eagle or a birdie. You couple that with his short game, he could be aggressive with his power component.”
One of the most amazing facts in New York State golf history that two men, born just 15 days apart and from a town with a population of only 19,000 – Horseheads -- both became PGA Tour standouts.
Sindelar was born March 30, 1958. Hulbert was born April 14, 1958. Sindelar lived by the No. 2 tee of what then was Francourt Farms Golf Club, now Soaring Eagles Golf Club, in Horseheads. Hulbert’s house was about 2 miles away.
Hulbert’s father, William, was a single-digit handicap golfer who loved the game. Mike started swinging a club about age 8 or 9.
“We had a very big backyard,” Hulbert recalls. “So I used to just grab a club. I remember the 4-iron with a leather grip. I used to just go out back and just hit it, and I could hit forever. . . . And eventually I went to the golf course with my dad.”
Hulbert met Sindelar when the two were at a state boys tournament at age 12 or 13. They became instant best friends.
“In the summertime, I spent more time at his house than I did at mine,” Hulbert said. “A daily Monday through Friday during the summer, I would stay in his house. We would get up in the morning and we'd hit a few putts and his dad would go to work delivering the mail. And we'd go out and play as many holes as we could over at Soaring Eagles. And we had to be back by 3:30 because that's when Joey’s dad got home. And we had better be down at the bottom of his hill hitting 7-irons back in his yard when he got home.”
Sindelar’s dad, Joe, was a self-taught scratch golfer and a first-rate instructor. After dinner, before dark, he would take his son out to the No. 2 tee for lessons.
“Guess where I was?” Hulbert asks. “I was down the fairway with my baseball glove catching the balls. I was good at baseball, but I got really good at it. I used to dive. I used to slide. I never got hit, which was good. I mean, did I miss some? Yeah, but it was so much fun.”
“Mike is a really fantastic athlete and was a pitcher in high school,” Sindelar said. “As the dew formed at dusk, I’d be hitting 3-woods with my dad going, ‘Too far inside, too far outside.’ And Michael is out there with a shag bag and a first baseman’s glove. Back in those days I’d be hitting it 240. I’d hit a few off line, and he’d go like a bird dog fielding these things. I’d hear him yelp when he got one in the palm of his hand.”
Sindelar was the area phenom, the top recruit in the state, and he earned a scholarship to Ohio State University. Hulbert could have played golf at a lower-level golf school but believed he could play Division I. Reading Golf World magazine, he saw East Tennessee State had a ranked golf program. He visited and walked on as a freshman. By his senior year, he was a Division I third-team All-America selection.
It took Hulbert his fifth try at PGA Tour Q-School to make it on tour, for the 1985 season. He ranked 161st on the money list as a rookie.
“I had more fun on tour than anyone who won only $18,000,” he said at the time.
Then came the Q-School success in late 1985, and Hulbert was ready to thrive. He placed 21st on the money list in 1986.
That included his first victory, at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn. Hulbert finished 8-under for the week and won by a shot over Sindelar, who already had won twice on tour and had established himself as a top-12 player in the game.
“I was probably the luckiest guy on the planet that week, with a little bit of talent,” Hulbert said. “I holed a shot every day. I holed out a 9-iron on the last hole, a par 5, the first day. The next day I holed a sand wedge and holed a bunker shot. The third round a knocked a pitching wedge in on the ninth hole for another eagle.”
On Sunday Sindelar finished at 7-under, tied with Hulbert for the lead, and was watching when Hulbert, playing in the last group, came up the final hole.
“I missed the fairway on the last hole, so I laid it up,” Hulbert said of the par-5. “I remember the yardage. I had 127 in, and I could see Joey standing behind the green. I hit the pitching wedge, drew it in above the hole, and here it comes back toward the hole. I whispered to my caddie, ‘I think we’ve made another one’. It stopped a foot below the hole. Birdie. I won by a shot. My picture’s up there. I had a bad pair of canary yellow pants on with a big white Titleist hat that looked like a conductor’s hat. I had a Cheshire Cat’s smile on my face. And Joey was the first guy who greeted me at the green.”
“My eyes are watering just remembering this,” Sindelar says, recalling the moment from 40 years ago. “Of course, I wanted to win. But when it’s your pal and it’s his first time. What’s the over-under on 127 from the fairway? Probably 12 feet. That’s what I was thinking. Then when he stuffed it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, he did it.’ Complete joy. Even today, it shakes me up telling the story. It was the greatest.”
Hulbert’s second win, in 1989, was just as memorable because it was in his backyard, at the B.C. Open, just 50 miles west of Horseheads. Hulbert shot 16 under and beat Bob Estes in a one-hole playoff.
“I remember I played the second last group on Sunday with Fuzzy Zoeller, who was the best guy to play with in the world,” Hulbert said. “You know how easy going he was. I made a very nervy bogey on the first hole. I didn’t even hit the hole from 3 1-2 feet. There was about a 50-yard walk back to the second tee. Fuzzy’s whistling and talking. He says, ‘OK, Hub, let’s get after it now. We got that out of the way. Let’s start making some birdies.’”
Hulbert birdied the next five holes in a row.
“About 12 or 13, I hit it to 10 feet and missed the putt,” Hulbert said. “One of my buddies from high school said, “C’mon Hub, get it going.’ I looked right at him and said, ‘Listen pal, I’ve got it going!’”
After his initial bogey, Hulbert played the last 17 holes 7 under, shooting 65.
“Mostly I was proud to make my mom and dad happy,” Hulbert said. “And for them to see me win at the B.C. Open, that was probably the highlight (of his career).”
Hulbert’s third win also came in a playoff, over Kenny Knox at the 1991 Anheuser-Busch Classic.
But Hulbert also won three late-season events – the 1987 Chrysler Team Championship with good friend Bob Tway, the 1991 Ping Kapalua International in Hawaii (in a playoff over Davis Love) and the 1996 J.C. Penney Classic (a PGA-LPGA team event) with Donna Andrews.
The team championship actually counted as an official win from 1974 to 1981. The Kapalua included a field of 49, with most of the top 50 money winners on tour.
“They all count in my book,” said Hulbert, who averaged 32 tournaments a year over his first 15 seasons.
“He kind of learned golf by osmosis, watching my dad teach me, not that my dad wouldn’t teach him,” Sindelar said. “He used his athletic ability and he learned how to intuitively put the club on the ball, so that it lived in him. He wasn’t doing a process, he was doing a sport. He was not technical, he was gifted.”
A good example was the 1995 season, Hulbert’s 11th on tour, which was typical in that he ranked 16th in birdies and 33rd in Greens in Regulation. It was atypical in one big respect.
“Only a few people know that outside of the first two tournaments of the year, I putted one handed all year,” Hulbert said. “I did not win, but I finished second at Torey Pines.”
It wasn’t because Hulbert had the yips.
“I did it as a drill with David Ledbetter for two years prior and I made everything,” Hulbert said. “At times, your left hand kind of gets in the way. Everybody talks about releasing the putter. It’s easier to release the putter right-handed vs. two hands on it. As simple as I can put it, I wasn’t afraid to miss. . . . My short game to this day is still pretty dang good, really good. I can fix anybody right now.”
In 2002 came a career highlight when Hulbert served as the lone assistant captain to Curtis Strange for the U.S. side in the 2002 Ryder Cup matches.
“To me this is to this day still the highest honor,” Hulbert said.
“He was a fabulous choice,” Sindelar said. “He has no bossiness. He’s an extreme competitor, but he wouldn’t carry that to a player. He’s the opposite of getting in somebody’s face. He’s a defuser. He’d say, ‘You beat my butt for two years straight, you can do this.’ I can’t imagine anybody not being instantly comfortable with him.”
Asked what he was most proud of in his career, besides winning in front of his parents and serving his country in the Ryder Cup, Hulbert said:
“I never burned any bridges. I befriended a lot of people. I was a nice guy, and I think that actually helped me.”
Hulbert lives in Orlando with his wife, Teresa. They have two sons, Justin and Trevor.
Story written by Mark Gaughan, NYSGA Hall of Fame Committee
Mike Hulbert's Career Highlights
- Runner-up, NYS Men's Amateur Championship (1979)
- College golf at East Tennessee State University
- Winner, Southern Conference Individual Championship (1980)
- 2x All-American (1979, 1980)
- Turned professional in 1981; PGA Tour member (1985–2007)
- 3 PGA Tour victories:
- FedEx St. Jude Classic (1986) — one stroke over Joey Sindelar
- B.C. Open (1989) — playoff over Bob Estes, in Endicott, N.Y.
- Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic (1991) — first-playoff-hole win over Kenny Knox
- Winner, Kapalua International (1991)
- 592 PGA Tour events played; 45+ top-10 finishes; 6 runner-up finishes
- PGA Tour Champions member (beginning 2008)
- U.S. Open: T6 (1992, Pebble Beach)
- Masters: T19 (1992)
- PGA Championship: T23 (1991) [confirm vs. T-7 at 1986 PGA]
- British Open: T39 (1990)
- Director of Golf, East Tennessee State
- CBS Sports PGA Tour rules analyst
- Ryder Cup captain's assistant (2002)
- Inducted, ETSU Athletics Hall of Fame (2002)
- Member, Southern Conference 75th Anniversary Team
