July 4, 2026
Happy 73rd Birthday, Dad
Kim Jeffrey Brown
PGA Master Professional
July 4, 1953 — October 1, 2004
Husband · Dad · Grampy · Golf Legend
The Story
Kim Jeffrey Brown was born on the Fourth of July, 1953, in Syracuse, New York — which means that every summer, on his birthday, the whole country lit up the sky. He graduated from Ithaca College and carried an upstate work ethic south to Texas, where he would spend more than two decades becoming one of the most respected golf professionals North Texas has ever produced.
He did it in the most Kim Brown way possible: not from behind the gates of a private club, but from a City of Dallas municipal course. As Head Golf Professional at Grover C. Keeton Golf Course in East Dallas — Keeton Park, to everyone who played it — he built a career on public fairways, teaching everyday golfers, working families, and above all, kids. His nickname, “Mr. Pause,” was so much a part of him that it made it into his obituary.
He “made his name by organizing the area's junior golf scene before junior golf was cool.”
The Builder
Long before junior golf had academies, foundations, and tour pipelines, Kim was laying its foundation in North Texas by hand. In 1982 he took the chairmanship of the Northern Texas PGA Junior Golf Academy. In 1983 he helped found the Northern Texas Junior Golf Association, giving competitive junior golf in the region its first true home. In 1987 he helped establish the NTPGA Junior Golf Foundation to fund and grow it all. The section named him Junior Golf Leader of the Year five consecutive times.
His peers kept handing him bigger jobs: Vice President of the Northern Texas PGA from 1993 to 1995, Interim Executive Director in 1995, and finally President — the highest office in a section of more than 850 PGA professionals. And in 1997, the crowning credential: PGA Master Professional, the highest ranking the PGA of America can bestow. At the time, he was one of only two Master Professionals in the entire Northern Texas Section.
The programs he built did not retire when he did. Keeton Park still runs junior golf today, the foundation he helped create still funds young players, and in 2019 — fifteen years after his passing — the Northern Texas PGA honored him posthumously with its Distinguished Service Award. Institutions forget most people. They did not forget Kim Brown.
The Trophy Case
- 1982Chairman, NTPGA Junior Golf Academy — his first major leadership role
- 1983Co-founds the Northern Texas Junior Golf Association (NTJGA)
- 1985NTPGA Golf Professional of the Year — the section's highest honor
- 1986–90Junior Golf Leader of the Year — five consecutive years
- 1987Helps establish the NTPGA Junior Golf Foundation
- 1988FOUR awards in a single year — Teacher & Coach, Player Development, and Merchandiser of the Year in BOTH Public/Resort and Private categories
- 1988–90PGA Teacher & Coach of the Year — three consecutive years
- 1988–90Randy Smith PGA Youth Player Development Award — three straight years
- 1993–95Vice President, Northern Texas PGA
- 1995Interim Executive Director, Northern Texas PGA
- 1997PGA MASTER PROFESSIONAL — golf's doctorate; one of only two in the entire Northern Texas Section at the time
- 1997NTPGA Golf Professional of the Year — for the second time, twelve years apart
- 1997President, Northern Texas PGA — elected by 850+ fellow professionals
- 2019Distinguished Service Award — awarded posthumously, fifteen years on
Roughly 1% of all PGA Professionals in history have earned Master Professional. He did it from a public course, while running the whole section.
The Man They Remember
He loved teaching kids most of all.
Colleagues remembered how he lit up on the lesson tee with young golfers. It was never a job — it was the point.
He built people, not just programs.
He mentored younger professionals who carried his work forward — including those who went on to shape some of the greatest players in the modern game.
He chose public golf.
A Master Professional could have gone anywhere. He spent his career at a city course, making the game bigger instead of more exclusive.
He is still remembered.
More than twenty years after his passing, friends and fellow pros still return to his memorial page each autumn to say so.
The Last Honor
2019 — fifteen years after his passing, the section called his name one more time.
At the Northern Texas PGA President's Dinner, Joe Trahan stepped to the microphone and announced that the section's Distinguished Service Award — its recognition of long-standing, exceptional performance as a golf professional and distinguished service to the game itself — was being presented to Kim J. Brown, posthumously.
Fifteen years after he was gone, a ballroom full of golf professionals reserved a table for his family, put his name on the card, and stood for him. Sections hand out awards every year. They almost never reach back fifteen years to do it. That is not protocol — that is love, on official letterhead.
“In recognition of long-standing exceptional performance as a golf professional and distinguished service to the game of golf.”
Him, In a Word (or Twelve)
Things he loved. Things he said. Things we'll never stop laughing about.