Golf and Basketball
A native of Austin, Minnesota, Wallace W. Ulrich fist won fame as Big Nine golf medalist and Minnesota State Junior champion. He also starred on the Austin High School basketball team which won district and regional titles and played in the state tournament in 1939.
Ulrich entered Carleton in 1941, and did not lose a golf match in 16 meets in his first two years. Included was a win over the Big Ten co-champion. He was the leading scorer on the 1942-43 basketball team and captained the 1943 golf team. That year he qualified as one of 32 finalists in the NCAA golf tourney at Olympia Fields Golf Club in Chicago. He won five consecutive matches, defeating in match play golfers from Princeton, Yale, Notre Dame and Texas to become Carleton’s only NCAA champion in history. The day after his win he reported for duty in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Ulrich returned to Carleton following the war, and graduated in 1948 after having captained the 1947-48 basketball team and winning his third cage letter. While at Carleton he captured the Minnesota State Open golf championship in 1946 and again in 1947.
Following graduation he joined the professional golf tour. His first major victory was in the Kansas City Open, where he finished 24 strokes under par, edging Lloyd Mangrum and Gene Littler by two strokes. Ulrich shares the PGA record of 60 strokes for a major tournament round, accomplished in 1954 at Virginia Beach. He also once shot a 59 in a pro-amateur event.