Newsroom
Golfer Browne at OCSF Feb. 14
Professional golfer Olin Browne ’81, a three-time PGA Tour winner and victor at the 2005 Deutsche Bank Championship, will be the featured speaker at the Feb. 14 Occidental College Speakers Forum at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena.
An 11:30 a.m. reception will precede the noon luncheon in the hotel’s Viennese Ballroom. The Ritz-Carlton is located at 1401 S. Oak Knoll Ave. Tickets for the luncheon are $35 per person ($20 for Oxy GOLD members). For reservations or additional information, contact Sheila Boyd at (323) 259-1456 or sboyd@oxy.edu.
After more than two decades as a pro – one of the few from a Division III school – Browne had a breakout year in 2005. After struggling for years, losing his exempt status on the PGA tour and fighting physical ailments, he came close to withdrawing from the U.S. Open qualifying. He not only qualified but was at the top of the leader board until the final round – a story that attracted international media attention. “Olin Browne is a great story,” Tiger Woods said at the time. Revitalized, Browne went on to win the Deutsche Bank tournament in September, and this month finished sixth in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
A relative latecomer to the game of golf, Browne joined the Occidental College golf team his sophomore year and gradually moved up to the No. 1 player. He was twice a first team All-SCIAC player and in 1982 received an at-large invitation to the NCAA Division III championship.
After college, Browne moved to Florida to try his hand on the mini tours before eventually earning his card to play on the PGA Tour. Following three Top 10 finishes in 1996, his big breakthrough came in 1997 in his hometown of Washington, D.C., where he was playing in the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club. He fired three 71s and a third-round 69 to finish tied for fifth, earning him an exemption to the 1998 Masters.
Later that year he won for the first time on the PGA Tour, chipping in from 40 feet to win in a playoff to capture the 1998 Canon Greater Hartford Open. Browne’s second PGA Tour victory came in 1999, when he shot a 66 on the final day to beat five golfers by one shot to win the MasterCard Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas.
Browne lives in Hobe Sound, Fla., with his wife Pam, (Harder) Browne ’81, and their children, Olin Jr. and Alexandra.