2024
Bill Nunnenkamp is known as the guy that you don’t want to be matched against in a golf tournament. The 2024 Roanoke Valley Golf Hall of Fame inductee is one of the most competitive senior golfers in Roanoke Valley history.
Originally from Long Island, New York, Nunnenkamp moved to the Roanoke area in 1996. He learned to play golf at a young age. Bill practiced and played his high school matches on Long Island’s famous Bethpage Black Course.
As a young golfer, Bill once caddied for the iconic entertainer, comedian and actor, Milton Berle.
Nunnenkamp fondly recalls, “Berle had his clubs equipped with what many refer to as ‘training grips,’ to ensure he would always grip the club properly.”
Nunnenkamp managed a shoe store in New York and would hire young people as part-time employees. He once hired Eddie Murphy to work in the store, right around the time Murphy was getting started in the comedy business.
“He was a real chick magnet for the store,” recalls Nunnenkamp. “He brought in extra sales.”
When Bill was a younger man, work and family took precedence over golf, but as a senior golfer Nunnenkamp’s game has flourished. He lays claim to twenty-six different club championships between his years at Countryside, Blue Hills and Ole Monterey. He has competed in the Roanoke Valley Golf Hall of Fame tournament for twenty-seven years. Bill captured the RVGHOF senior championships in 2008 and 2012, and he emerged victorious in the 2016 and 2019 super senior events.
Nunnenkamp’s achievements reach well beyond the boundaries of the Roanoke Valley. He won the 2021 Middle Atlantic Golf Association Senior Amateur (Legends division) at James River Country Club. He went undefeated in the 2018 Virginia-West Virginia Team Matches at Olde Mill Golf Resort and was also selected by the VSGA to represent the Commonwealth in the 2019 Captain’s Putter Matches, an annual competition pitting a team from Virginia and West Virginia against their North and South Carolina counterparts.
Closer to home, Nunnenkamp won his age divisions of the Allegheny Amateur senior championship at Blacksburg Country Club three times and the Southwest Virginia Amateur senior championship twice (including establishing a record total of 68-68). Bill also won Boonsboro Country Club’s 2018 Fox Puss Invitational super senior championship and the 2018 Jefferson Cup super senior championship at Birdwood Golf Course. In addition, he has won several four-ball tournaments in the area.
Nunnenkamp has accumulated eleven holes-in-one over his career. Most of us would love to just have one, or even to witness one.
“I played golf for years without ever making a hole-in-one,” Nunnenkamp shared. “Then, unexpectedly, they started coming in bunches.”
Bill added, “The game of golf is about overcoming obstacles. We all grow up playing different sports -- which is great -- but with golf, we can continue to play all our lives, from age eight through our eighties, and enjoy the fresh air and friendships we make along the way. The game is like therapy for me. It’s something I enjoy and will always enjoy.”
