Larry McAtee began playing golf at the age of 10 under the tutelage of Gene Root at Lakewood Country Club. The next 19 years of amateur competition took him all over the United States and parts of Europe. Larry’s success in competitive golf began at Lakewood CC when he won the 1956 Lakewood Junior Club Championship at the age of 13. He successfully defended that title for the next four years.
In 1961, Larry was named the Colorado Junior Golfer of the Year by the Colorado Section of the PGA, which named him Amateur of the Year in 1963. In 1962, he received a golf scholarship to the University of Colorado, playing alongside Hale Irwin for coach Les Fowler. From 1963 to ’65, McAtee was a force in state amateur golf, capturing three successive CGA Match Play crowns, making him one of only three golfers to accomplish that feat in the 120-year history of the tournament.
Following his graduation from CU, he joined the U.S. Navy as an officer and pilot. He accumulated numerous base, district and regional military championships and set competitive course records in Meridian, Mississippi and Las Alamitos, California. He was world-wide All-Navy champion in 1967, 1969 and 1970. In 1970, he was Interservice champion, meaning the top golfer, world-wide, in the armed forces. In 1972, McAtee returned to Colorado to win a fourth CGA Match Play title—making him the first four-time winner since 1923.
In 1992, the same year of his Colorado Golf Hall of Fame induction, McAtee was also inducted to the University of Colorado Golf Hall of Fame (1992).
