Influential Colorado ‘Golf Professional of the Century’ Vic Kline — who made a considerable impact for Colorado PGA, at Indian Tree and on golf in general in the state — passes away at 90
By Gary Baines – 9/25/2025
One of the people who could be in the mix when deciding who to place on an all-time Mount Rushmore of Colorado golf passed away this week.
Charles “Vic” Kline, a very prominent member of the golf community in the Centennial State for nearly six decades, died in Westminster at age 90.
A decade ago, when the CGA held its “Century of Golf Gala” to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Kline was selected as one of the six people honored as Colorado Golf People of the Century. Specifically, he was named “Golf Professional of the Century.”
Kline, the national PGA of America Golf Professional of the Year in 2000, was inducted into the PGA of America Golf Professional Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1990.
“He’s one of the most well-respected PGA professionals we’ve ever had” in the state, said fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kyle Heyen, now the Colorado PGA Section president, who apprenticed under Kline at Indian Tree Golf Club in Arvada from 1978-80.
“He was one of the guys who really made Colorado visible to the national PGA and built the Colorado Section to what it is today,” said Alan Abrams, the Colorado Golf Hall of Famer who worked under Kline for 24 years at Indian Tree and who is now the club’s PGA director of golf. “We owe a lot to him for his governance to the Section. He was always worried about the little guy or the golf professional, and he wanted to make sure they were rewarded for their hard work. I think he made good strides in making the Section one of the strongest in the nation.”
Kline was an outstanding player, having won the 1968 Colorado Open.
Kline was an outstanding player — having won the Colorado Open in 1968 and the Rocky Mountain Open in 1977 — but so much more. He served as president of the Colorado PGA five different years from 1975 through ’92 and was also involved with national administration at the PGA of America as a national committee chairman and a district director.
The junior golf program at Indian Tree, where Kline was the PGA director of golf for nearly 35 years, was named the best in the nation at a municipal facility by Golf Digest in 1988.
“This is ironic because we were putting together kind of a surprise honor for Vic for our fall meeting next month,” said fellow PGA professional and fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Bob Doyle. “We’re feeling bad because we obviously waited a little too long. Steven Bartkowski (the executive director/CEO of the Colorado PGA) asked me to be part of this video we’re putting together. We’re going to shoot it at the (Colorado Golf) Hall of Fame Museum. When Steven asked me to be part of that, I sat down and grabbed a notepad and started jotting things down about Vic that I knew. And in five minutes I stopped. I had 30 things on this notepad.
“But Vic Kline has been a role model. He was a great mentor to the people he worked with — Alan and Rudy (Castaneda, both at Indian Tree) and Mike Goff and Ed Winiecki, who is now the assistant executive director of the Southern Cal section. The list of the people he mentored goes on and on. But for all of us, when we were with him in the boardroom, Vic Kline has been a role model. Everything he did, we were proud of. We wanted to act like Vic. He presented things well, he stood up for the things he believed. He was a great player, a great leader. So he really was a role model for all of us.”
To that end, for the last two decades the Colorado PGA has presented an award in Kline’s name to a CPGA member in recognition of outstanding service and leadership to the Section. Among those who have received the honor are Abrams and Heyen — two of Kline’s mentorees — and Doyle.
In 2015, Kline (second from right) was named one of six Colorado Golf People of the Century. Also so honored were (from left) Barbara McIntire, Judy Bell, Will Nicholson Jr., and Dennis Lyon. Not pictured was Hale Irwin.
“The thing more than anything is (Vic) was a leader,” said Ed Mate, the longtime executive director/CEO of the CGA and a former Colorado PGA staffer. “The Golf Professional of the Century (title) says it all. And he instilled that in Alan (Abrams) for sure. Alan’s legacy there (at Indian Tree) is in many ways a testament to Vic.
“(Kline) definitely did it all. He was a great player, he was a great merchandiser, he was from that era where playing golf and teaching were at the core of being a PGA golf professional. He was also a great businessman, funny. And he was a hard-nosed guy too; he felt very strong regarding certain subjects. He had a way about him. His charisma would win the day. I would joke, if Vic Kline advocated for someone to get into the (Colorado Golf) Hall of Fame, they’re going to get into the Hall of Fame. There was something about him; he was persuasive.”
Born in Iowa City in 1935, Kline lettered in both golf and varsity basketball at the University of New Mexico. In New Mexico, he won two state amateur titles and one Public Links championship. He also played on the New Mexico Falstaffers AAU basketball team.
After teaching in Albuquerque public schools from 1961-64, Kline turned back to golf. After three years as a head professional in Albuquerque, Kline came to Colorado for a job at the Adams County Golf Course (now Riverdale). In 1969 he started his long run as director of golf at Indian Tree GC, from which he retired in 2004. For those who play the course to this day, not only do they see Kline memorabilia in the clubhouse’s trophy case, but the Indian Tree men’s and women’s clubs placed a plaque on a rock that is dubbed “Kline’s Corner”. “All who play here are rewarded by Vic’s Stewardship,” it reads in part.
“He built Indian Tree starting in 1969 (with part of the course opening the next year),” Abrams said. “He was out there with a shovel and a rake and whatever truck he could get to make this thing work. He’s planted every damn tree and knows every stone that’s out there.”
In Colorado, as noted, Kline won the Colorado Open in 1968 at Hiwan Golf Club, earning the princely sum of $1,250. From 1975 through ’81, he was named the Colorado PGA’s Player of the Year five times.
“He was a fierce competitor,” Mate noted.
“He could hit irons further than anybody I ever saw,” said Doyle, who first encountered him as a caddie at the 1969 Colorado Open, where Doyle was looping in the same group when Kline was the defending champion. “He was such a strong man, but he also had great hands.
“If it had to do with putting a ball in a hole — basketball getting it in the (basket) or golf getting it in the hole or pool getting the balls in the (pockets), I’m telling you, don’t gamble with him. He knew how to get the ball in the hole.”
Meanwhile, from ’75 through ’92, Kline served as president of the Colorado PGA five times.
An area of Indian Tree Golf Club is dedicated Kline’s Corner in Vic Kline’s honor. Kline helped build the course in 1969 and into the early ’70s.
In 2000, Kline was presented the PGA of America’s top award, as national Golf Professional of the Year. Only one other member of the Colorado PGA has earned the honor — Warren Smith in 1973. That was followed five years later with Kline’s induction into the national PGA of America Golf Professional Hall of Fame. Twice — in 1975 and ’93 — he was named Golf Professional of the Year by the Colorado PGA, and he received many other honors from the Section.
“At the Section level, every time there was something tough that went on for the Section, we always turned to Vic,” Doyle said. “When the CGA and the PGA split, Vic was the one involved with that. When the PGA (of America) was requiring us to computerize, the PGA asked us to have Vic Kline be our president because they thought Vic Kline was the guys who could help us navigate those tough waters. As recently as a few years ago when we went through some trouble in the office, who did we include (to help solve the problem)? Vic Kline, who was almost 90 years old at the time. In thick and thin, when things were tough, we turned to him.”
Heyen, a national PGA of America Hall of Famer in his own right, was likewise very active in the Colorado PGA and nationally in the PGA of America. And having worked under Kline in his early days in the golf business, he took many a valuable cue from him.
“Watching him early in my career, it’s all about the respect, and he wore all the hats of a PGA professional, “ said Heyen, who plans to retire on Oct. 31 after a nearly 45-year run at Hiwan Golf Club. “We all aspire to be like Vic. He was an icon. And he was well-respected at his club. He was a traditional PGA golf professional and a great player.”
Until recently, Kline also long served as a volunteer board member for the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, where he’s been an inductee since 1990. He was named the Hall of Fame’s 2001 Golf Person of the Year shortly after earning his national PGA of America Golf Professional of the Year honor.
“I probably appreciated Vic more than most because I worked at the Section and worked at the CGA,” Mate said. “He was a diplomat in a lot of ways, an ambassador for golf. He certainly bled PGA blue. But I appreciated his leadership all the more because I worked for the Section and saw what he meant to the Section. If I had been at the CGA the whole time, I might not have seen that side of him. To the end, he was one of those guys who everyone would get quiet when Vic spoke.”
And Kline was big on paying it forward in the game, as Doyle came to understand even more fully 15 years ago.
“When I ran for national office — the secretary of the PGA of America in 2010 — Vic was really sick with cancer and was being fed through a stomach tube,” Doyle recounted. “He wasn’t supposed to travel or anything like that. He had cases of stuff (related to his medical condition) sent to the hotel in Boston because he would not miss that. He was not going to miss being at that (PGA of America) annual meeting, supporting me however he could. In the middle of all this illness and everything he was doing, he had to be there. That’s pretty special.”
Even after he retired in 2004, Kline remained a regular at Indian Tree. Indeed, Abrams said he saw him most recently on Saturday.
“He would come out and have breakfast with the boys on Saturdays and Wednesdays,” Abrams said. “He’d always come into my office and sit down, and we’d shoot the you-know-what about whatever was going on. He mentored me all through my career while working underneath him — and continued to do that even up until a week ago. It was always fun to have him in the office and talk. He was a mentor to me personally and professionally.
“He had three heart attacks, throat cancer. I think he’s had every shoulder replacement, knee replacement. He’s a strong bull — a very strong bull.”
But that strong bull certainly had a sense of humor about him.
“He always loved to gamble a little bit,” Abrams said. “That was his big deal. And if he got a dollar off you, he’d always write your name on that dollar and put it in his wallet. And then he’d go, ‘I’ve got to show you something.’ He’d go into that wallet of his and pull out (the bill) with your name and push those needles against you a little bit. He’d laugh and carry on. It seemed like there were quite a few dollars in there. He’d play that game with a lot of people.”
Indeed, it seems Kline was a rich man in ways that went well beyond that wallet full of dollar bills.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com