Jim Colbert, renowned for wearing his bucket hat while winning eight times on the PGA Tour and 20 times on the PGA Tour Champions, has died, the PGA Tour announced. He was 85.
Colbert died on Sunday. The tour did not list a cause of death.
Colbert was a teenager playing a tournament in Kansas when he nearly collapsed from sunstroke, leading doctors to insist he start wearing a hat to protect himself. He chose a bucket hat, which became his trademark during his PGA Tour career.
Born in New Jersey, Colbert went to Kansas State on a football scholarship. He turned all his attention to golf after an injury and was runner-up in the NCAA Championship in 1964, and two years later was on the PGA Tour.
He won the first of his eight PGA Tour titles in the 1969 Monsanto Invitational Open. He had a pair of top 5s in the majors in 1974, a tie for fourth in the Masters and tied for fifth in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot.
His best season on the PGA Tour was in 1983 when he won twice and was 15th on the money list.
Colbert was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996, had surgery to remove his prostate and was back on the course two years later, winning The Transamerica.
Colbert kept ties to Kansas State. The men’s and women’s golf teams play at Colbert Hills Golf Club in Manhattan, Kansas, which he helped design and opened in 2000.
Colbert was inducted into the Kansas State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
Colbert in Las Vegas
Colbert, who lived the latter part of his life in Las Vegas, was active in business. According to the PGA Tour, he bought his first golf course in Las Vegas in 1980. Jim Colbert Golf grew to own 23 golf courses, had 700 employees and gross revenue of $50 million.
A 2017 article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Colbert was the former manager of Las Vegas Municipal Golf Course. Colbert was a key figure in making the 1983 Las Vegas Pro-Celebrity Classic, now known as the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, the first million-dollar purse in PGA Tour history.
The Shriners event ended in 2024 after 41 years. Colbert was inducted into the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame in 2019.
