The first ‘family golf tournament’ was in 1954. Seven decades later, it’s the tie that still binds this California clan

In the mid-1990s, Bill Bruns, the editor of a weekly newspaper in Pacific Palisades, Calif., where my wife and I lived, told me about a golf tournament his family held every July near San Diego. You should write a story about it, he kept saying. I never did.

>A year ago, I reached out to Bill, now in his early 80s. It was several months after the Palisades fire that resulted in the loss of more than 5,000 homes and a dozen lives. He told me the house he owned since 1972 hadn’t survived, along with the rest of the block.

>At some point during the conversation, he brought up the tournament again, and with the same vigor I remembered from all those years ago.

>I knew right away I couldn’t ignore it any longer. So in mid-July, I was one 50 golfers who competed in the 72nd edition of what Bill and others refer to, simply, as “the family golf tournament.” It was a Saturday where the golf was unexceptional, but the comradery made the scores seem irrelevant.

>The original idea for the event came from Bill’s mother, Charlotte, who was living in northern San Diego County. It was 1954. Ike was in the White House.

>For years, relatives of Charlotte and her husband, George, had been coming down from Los Angeles for a visit. She figured: Why not turn the gathering into an actual event? Golf seemed the perfect activity since she and George had played since they were teenagers and others in the family enjoyed the game. So, she sent out an invite—unfortunately, the family doesn’t have a copy of the letter—and the tradition began.

>George Bruns was born in Argentine, Kansas, but raised in Los Angeles. He earned a Purple Heart for being wounded while in the battle of Okinawa during World War II. After the war, he moved his family to Encinitas. He and his father acquired Indian Rock Springs Water, a bottled-water business, which George sold in 1953. He later worked as a truck farmer, home builder and carpenter. The family today is predominantly middle-class and upper-middle class. “We don’t have any really rich guys,” Bill said.

Charlotte and George Bruns

George and Charlotte (top middle) with their three children (Bill lower middle).

>That first year, three foursomes played 18 holes at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, a semi-private course where Bing Crosby’s original Clambake had been held from 1937 through 1942, before switching to Pebble Beach in 1947. Folks had a good enough time that Charlotte and George returned to Rancho Santa Fe (a family friend was a member) making the tournament an annual affair that would be played over the years at Torrey Pines North, El Camino Country Club, Circle R Country Club and Whispering Palms Country Club.

>In the early days, the family tournament was more a social experience than a hard-core competition. “We were just taking to the game of golf,” explained Bill, so course etiquette was still being learned. Players talked as others were hitting shots, while some regularly jumped to the next tee before everyone in the group had putted out.

>From the start, non-family members have been invited, along with non-golfers (36 in 2026) who come to hang out with their relatives and see who will walk off with the trophies. Charlotte and George (along with Jack Osborne, a cousin who remained involved for many years) organized the festivities for roughly a decade before passing on the responsibility to Bill and his sister, Pam Schott.

>To spice up the fun, the tournament, which has just one flight, offers prizes for closest to the pin, low gross, low net, most improved, lowest junior, lowest senior and fewest putts on the front nine, back nine and overall.

The hardware up for grabs at this year's Bruns family golf tournament.

>In 1980, the tournament ended up at Torrey Pines South, the home course for the PGA Tour’s San Diego stop. Those who were there still talk about that day. “It was a six-hour round,” said John Greenhaw, in high school at the time. “The pro said we weren’t coming back again.”

>With good reason. One golfer, Dori Ollestad, finished with a 172. Give Dori her due, though, for keeping track of every shot.

>After that, the event was moved to Lomas Santa Fe Executive Course in Solana Beach. The course features 16 par 3s, none longer than 169 yards, and two par 4s. This was more their speed. And this is where the tournament has been ever since.

>The fact that the one-day tournament is still going strong seven decades later is a testament to the family—and to the game itself.

>“Everyone looks forward to playing,” Bill said, “even though a lot play just one or twice a year. They played enough as younger people. They can hack it around.”

>The tournament’s future, though, was once in jeopardy. After Charlotte and George divorced in 1967, she moved to the Bay Area while he later moved with a new wife to Austria. Fewer family members began to show up. And the event wasn’t held in 1970. “They didn’t think they would have it anymore,” Charlotte told me when I was at this year’s gathering.

>Yes, the same Charlotte. Forever young at age 101.

>Fortunately, enough people weren’t about to let it go away for good, including a couple willing, in 1971, to host the post-tournament get-together at their home about 25 miles from San Diego.

>As we drove to the course on the morning of the event, I asked Bill, who also serves as the handicap chairman, how he figures the number of strokes to give to players. An exact science it is not.

>He told me players have been known to plead for a higher handicap in hopes of winning the trophy for low net. Without much success, it would appear.

John Greenhaw has some fun in hopes of getting himself a few extra strokes.

>No one tries anymore. Except to inject some humor into the proceedings. Take the aforementioned Greenhaw, who arrived with a black patch on his left eye and a hand-written note from an obviously fictitious doctor. Bill was too busy checking players in to pay much attention, and a few minutes later, the patch was gone.

>Around 10:30 a.m., I hit my first shot … in the bunker.

>In my foursome was Charlotte’s nephew, Norman Ollestad. The 59-year-old started coming to the tournament when he was a boy. He didn’t play back then, just drove the carts. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he took up the game. Even so, the tournament means a great deal to him, as it should.

>It connects him to his late father, also named Norman, an attorney (he worked for Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, actor (Cheaper by the Dozen) and author (Inside the FBI) who competed in the tournament when he was a teenager and was one of its most enthusiastic participants. Norman recalled his dad, who didn’t play golf the rest of the year, going on a number of occasions to the driving range at Rancho Park, a well-traveled municipal course in Los Angeles. That’s how he knew as a boy that the family tournament was coming soon.

>“He hit some balls,” Norman said, “and that was it. That’s how he prepped.”

>In 1978, the prep paid off. After some near misses, Norman Sr. earned the trophy for low net. A year later, he was killed in the crash of a chartered Cessna in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains. His girlfriend and the pilot also died. Only one passenger made it down the mountain alive: 11-year-old Norman Jr. He did it by relying on the survival skills he had picked from his dad, an avid skier and surfer.

>Three decades later, Norman Jr. wrote a best-selling book about the incident, Crazy for the Storm. I asked him after the round to express his feelings. He said a few words before he started to choke up. “A lot of my childhood was here,” he finally added.

>That goes for others, as well, including Alan Bruns, Bill’s son, a 53-year-old high-school teacher and baseball coach in Seattle. (This year, family members came to the event from as far away as Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, New York and Indiana.)

>“Many people, year after year, plan their summers as much as they can around making it here for this day,” Alan said, “to see the same faces, year after year … I’ve never met anybody who has had anything similar.”

Pictures from the family over the years.

Remembering family members who have passed.

>It got me thinking about how refreshing it is to see a family that places such a priority on getting together. In an era where it seems many people go years without seeing each other, the Bruns clan consciously makes time for each other.

>I wondered how often they would assemble if it didn’t have an annual reunion at Lomas Santa Fe. “Seventy-five to 80 percent [of the family], I would never see,” Alan said. “The connections are big.”

>To the past, as well. Next to the clubhouse were pictures of several dozen who have passed away. The caption said it all: Forever in our hearts.

>Another secret to the tournament’s longevity, in addition to the typically gorgeous San Diego-area weather, is what the family members do not talk about: politics. Especially in this polarizing era.

>Charlotte, a fine golfer in her day, put it best. “Some people wouldn’t come back,” she said, “because they’d know that the other person was not on their side.”

>Her daughter, Laurie Froula, 82, said politics was also avoided during other contentious times. “You didn’t ask people if they were for or against the war,” Laurie told me. By the war, she meant Vietnam.

>This year, to honor America’s 250th birthday, everyone wore red, white and blue.

Charlotte, now 101, is proud the tradition she began in 1954.

Bill Bruns (right) has attended all but one time.

>Looking at the whole group hanging out by the 18th green, I couldn’t help think: What happens when Bill and his two sisters—and their sons and daughters, mostly in their 50s—are no longer around? Will the tradition continue?

>The feeling is an unequivocal yes, given the fact that 10 of this year’s participants were 21 or younger. They know their day is coming, and they will be ready to keep the tournament alive. Bill’s grandson, Colin Mininsky, 13, the youngest participant (the oldest was 87) shot a respectable 83.

>“My driving was better than it has been in a long time,” he said. “Every shot was getting out there.”

>Bill, who won the low net when he was 13 in 1956, shooting a 92 at Rancho Santa Fe, was hoping for a hole-in-one this year. There hadn’t been one in 10 years. With an average of around 40 golfers, having 16 chances apiece—don’t forget the two par 4s—that added up to about 6,400 tee shots that had failed to find the bottom of the cup.

>Lo and behold, there were no aces again this year, which means the pot in 2027 will be more than $900.

>Which didn’t take anything away from the awards ceremony by the club pool. As usual, Pam, the only person who has played in each of the 72 tournaments (Bill missed one while working in New York for Life magazine) was a winner, for longest drive. Her husband, Roy, won three times.

>As for myself, I’m proud to say I earned $20 for closest to the pin on No. 12 (about five feet) and fewest putts on the back nine (11).

>Norman was also on his game, chipping in once and almost a second time. His dad would have been proud. By ending up with the fewest putts overall, with 26, he took home a trophy. He now has to get his name engraved on it and bring it back in next year.

>He’ll be there.

>“I’m glad to have my name with all these people who knew my dad before I knew my dad,” he said, “and share that legacy of the tournament and everything that comes with it.”

>Among the possessions Bill lost in the fire were his golf clubs—although the head from his Cleveland putter remained intact.

>It will go to good use.

>Pam will attach the putter head onto next year’s trophy for fewest putts.

>As I drove home, I thought about Bill and the fire. My wife and I haven’t had the courage to visit the Palisades, only about 90 minutes from where we live now, but plan to go soon.

>Bill bought a house last year in the city of Westchester, which is close to the L.A. airport.

>“We had a family disaster,” he said, “but we can still play in the golf tournament and see everybody. Life goes on.”