His passion to help golfers, teachers showed
Wimberly loved game, cared for those involved
He played the game. He taught the game (and taught the teachers). He nurtured the game.
He even wrote about it.
Above all, said Tony Hidalgo, Guy Wimberly cared deeply for those who played, taught and administrated the game of golf.
“He was a real people person,” said Hidalgo, the head pro at Albuquerque’s Arroyo del Oso Golf Course, who learned the business at Arroyo from Wimberly and Bob Meiering.
“He just loved the game of golf,” Hidalgo said, “and that’s the real reason (Wimberly and Meiering) were so successful, is that their personalities just lended themselves to the public.”
Wimberly, whose talent as a golfer and teacher was surpassed only by his decades of stewardship, died on Friday after a long illness. He was 81. His death was not coronavirus-related. “The past three years, he’s been very sick,” said Meiering, Wimberly’s friend of 67 years — they met at a junior golf tournament when they were 14 — and his business partner for 37 years. “We’d talk about once a week.
“Every time, the glass was half full.
Every time. …That’s just the way he lived.”
Wimberly came to Albuquerque in 1950 from Louisiana with his family, which included older brother Herb — a Skyline Conference champion at UNM and, like Guy, a lifetime golf professional. Their father, Herbert Wimberly Sr., was a co-owner of KOAT-TV and KOAT radio.
In 1955, 16-year-old Guy Wimberly
led the Highland Hornets to a state golf title. His All-American career at UNM spanned eight years (195764), interrupted by a hitch in the military.
That hiatus, he told the Journal in 2011, on the occasion of his induction into the UNM Alumni Lettermen’s Hall of Fame, was made necessary by a lack of attention to his studies. Then-UNM President Tom Popejoy, for whom young Wimberly had caddied, made the suggestion.
“Mister Popejoy sent me a letter,” he recalled, “saying, ‘Guy, why don’t you take a little time off?’
“That was the best advice he ever gave me.”
Upon his return, Wimberly began living a triple life: student, golfer, sports writer.
Wimberly covered golf for the Albuquerque Journal while playing for the Lobos, sometimes (but always modestly) mentioning himself. He reported on the likes of Lee Trevino, Mickey Wright and Kathy Whitworth when those future legends of the game competed here. But he also covered bowling and high school sports— mostly basketball, with some swimming and gymnastics sprinkled in.
It’s clear that, had he wished, Wimberly could have made newspapers his career. In 1963, the same year he won a Western Athletic Conference individual title, he won a journalism award bestowed by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
But, no, golf was his passion, his love for the game surpassed only by that for family and friends.
After college, Wimberly became a club pro at San Mateo Golf Center, a lighted, nine-hole course. In 1969, with his friend Meiering, he opened Arroyo Del Oso at Osuna and Louisiana Northeast.
“People said, ‘Oh, partnerships. It will never last,” Meiering said. “We were very happy to say we did 37 years on a handshake.”
The pairing worked, said Lesley Gannon Meiering, Bob’s wife, like interlocking hands on a golf club.
“Guy was in charge of PR, public relations, because he was such an incredible people person,” she said. “Bob was in charge of RP.
“People would ask, ‘what’s RP?’ That’s ‘regular procedure.’”
Meanwhile, Wimberly continued to play locally and regionally — and play well. He won the Navajo Trail Open in 1966-67, the Sun Country Open in 1971, backto-back McDonald’s Pro Matches titles in 1976-77.
Could Wimberly have made a go of it on the PGA Tour?
“In those days, you kind of went one direction or the other, either playing for a living or (becoming a club professional),” Hidalgo said. “He went into the business end of it, so he just competed mainly with other club professionals.”
As a young teaching pro, Hidalgo said, he couldn’t have had a better role model than Wimberly.
“We learned from both of them (Wimberly and Meiering) … from individual lessons to group lessons,” he said.
“That (watching Wimberly and Meiering teach) was part of our training. “(Wimberly) also taught nationally. He taught instructional classes for up-and-coming people to get their membership in the PGA.”
For Wimberly, among his decades of service to the game, 2011 was a special year. In addition to his induction into the UNM Alumni Lettermen’s Hall of Honor, that year saw him inducted into the New Mexico Sports and the PGA halls of fame.