Ron Cerrudo: Profile of Walker Cupper, PGA Tour Winner
Ron Cerrudo was a PGA Tour pro from the 1960s into the 1970s. Before that, he was an accomplished amateur golfer who played in the Walker Cup and reached the British Amateur final. He won a couple times on the PGA Tour before back woes derailed his career.
Full name: Ronald John Cerrudo
Date of birth: February 4, 1945
Place of birth: Palo Alto, California
Date and place of death: April 24, 2024, in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
His Biggest Wins
Ron Cerrudo had two victories on the PGA Tour:- 1968 Cajun Classic Open Invitational
- 1970 San Antonio Open Invitational
- 1972 Moroccan Open
- 1992 Carolinas PGA Championship
In the Majors
Cerrudo got into nine majors and made the cut in five them. Those five made cuts included his first two majors, the 1966 Masters and 1967 Masters, which he played as an amateur. He had one finish better than 30th — tied 21st in 1969 PGA Championship. His last appearance in a major was in the 1975 U.S. Open.
More About Ron Cerrudo
Ron Cerrudo grew up in and played college golf in California, but spent the second half of his life as a teaching pro in South Carolina.He won back-to-back California State Junior Amateur Championships in 1961 and 1962, at ages 16 and 17 respectively. Also in 1962, Cerrudo reached the championship match of the California State Amateur before falling to another future PGA Tour pro, Dick Lotz.
Cerrudo played college golf first at Chabot Community College (1964-1965), then spent his final two collegiate years at San Jose State where he was an All-American both years.
He made his first start in a PGA Tour event (playing as an amateur) in 1965, the same year he finished eighth in the U.S. Amateur (which was then stroke play). He tied for third in the 1966 U.S. Amateur (missing a short putt on the final hole that would have gotten him into a playoff), and was solo third in 1967.
Cerrudo was part of the second-place Team USA in the 1966 Eisenhower Trophy, and was runner-up in the 1966 Western Amateur.
In 1967, Cerrudo reached the championship match of the British Amateur, but lost to Bob Dickson, 2 and 1. And he was part of Team USA in the 1967 Walker Cup, going 1-1-2. He won one singles match and halved another, and had one halve and one loss in foursomes.
Cerrudo turned pro midway through 1967 and 1968 was his rookie year on the PGA Tour.
It was a good rookie year: Cerrudo made 32 starts and had four Top 10 finishes. One of those was his first victory at the Cajun Classic. He won by four strokes over runners-up Charlie Sifford and Bobby Mitchell. It was the last year that tournament was played, and Cerrudo's 270 total tied the tournament scoring record.
Cerrudo finished 48th on the money list in 1968, then was 52nd in 1969.
In 1970, he got his second win at the Texas Open (then named the San Antonio Open Invitational), one of two Top 10 finishes that year in 15 starts. He was the third-round leader by four, and won by five strokes over Dick Lotz (who had beaten him in that 1962 California Amateur title match).
Even though he won in 1970, Cerrudo dropped to 63rd on money list when Top 60 was required to maintain exempt status. His season ended shortly after that Texas Open victory due to a bad back. Cerrudo underwent surgery in August to remove a ruptured disk.
The 1971 PGA Tour guide called Cerrudo's career (1968-70) "brief but very successful." But although he recovered well enough from the back surgery to be ready for the 1971 season, Cerrudo never won again on the tour and recorded only a few more top 10s in his career.
He did win the 1972 Moroccan Open, though, beating Al Geiberger in a playoff. That's the tournament later known as the European Tour's Hassan II Trophy, but at the time of Cerrudo's win it was not an official tour event.
Cerrudo continued playing the PGA Tour full-time through 1977, and his last start in a PGA Tour event was in 1980. Over his PGA Tour career, Cerrudo made 271 starts, had two victories, no seconds, two third-place finishes, seven total Top 5s and 16 total Top 10s.
Beginning in 1979, he embarked on a second, very successful career: club pro and teaching pro in South Carolina. He went to work in 1979 as the head teaching pro at Shipyard Golf Club on Hilton Head Island, and held that position til 1996. From 1996-2002, Cerrudo taught out of Port Royal Golf Club, also on Hilton Head. And the position he held from 2002 was on was at his own Ron Cerrudo Learning Center, part of Daniel Island Club in Charleston, South Carolina.
During his time as a teaching pro, he also won another tournament, his first notable victory in 20 years: the 1992 the Carolinas PGA Championship.
Cerrudo was 79 years old when he died in 2024. He is a member of the California Community Colleges Golf Hall of Fame, and of the South Carolina Golf Association Hall of Fame.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard. "Cajun Classic," Associated Press, November 25, 1968, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uaxVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QuEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6142%2C6229985.
Livsey, Laura. "Two-time PGA Tour winner Ron Cerrudo dies at 79," PGATour.com, April 30, 2024, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2024/04/30/two-time-pga-tour-winner-ron-cerrudo-dies-at-79.
PGA Tour. Players, Ron Cerrudo, Career, https://www.pgatour.com/player/01180.
SCGolfClub.com. "SCGA Hall of Fame adds Todd and Cerrudo," January 14, 2024, https://scgolfclub.com/2024/01/14/scga-hall-of-fame-adds-todd-and-cerrudo/.
Tournament Players Division, PGA of America. The Tour Book, 1971.