Top local golfer Puckett dies at John Hay fairways

July 10, 2021 Metro BLISTT

Local top golfer Fred Puckett collapsed due to heart attack at the 17th hole of the Camp John Hay golf course on June 25 during a tournament. Brother Larry Puckett told this writer in a private message of the demise of his brother on June 27.
The brother, now based in Japan, told this writer that his brother died playing the sport he love the most and had been successful with the number of titles he won in local golf competitions especially in the Fil-Am Golf Invitational Tournament.
It was sorts of a premonition that he collapsed and died on the 17th hole.
A flightmate who is a physician performed CPR on Puckett awaiting for the ambulance to bring him to the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. He was 72. Son Mikee said that his father’s body lies in state at their home at Greenwater Village and might have a 10-day wake.
“For now wala pang final date (for his interment). Yung wake nya is 10 days (For now, there is no final date yet. The wake will be 10 days),” said the son through private message. Puckett was part of the Camp John Hay golf team that failed to annex the first two editions of the Seniors division when it was launched in 2004, but would later win three straight between 2010 and 2012. He would later join the Pugo Adventure which he helped win the Seniors Fil Championship in 2018.
He also won several individual awards in the top seniors flight winning six in the first nine years of the Seniors Fil-Am which started in 2004, when the touted world’s biggest amateur golf event turned 55 years old.
Puckett teaches golf at Camp John Hay golf where many of the local players were his students. Former Youth Rep. and councilor Edgar Avila said in a comment on Facebook that his sons learned golf from the amiable Puckett.
Pigeon Lobien/ABN