John Kunda, the dean of sportswriters in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, died Wednesday at the age of 72. Kunda, longtime columnist for the Morning Call in Allentown, battled with lung cancer and resultant complications for most of this year.
Although Kunda covered all sports with his popular columns that ran three or four times a week, he was most noted for his coverage of Penn State football and the golf scene.He retired from the Morning Call in 2003 but continued writing for a number of other publications. Most recently, he was a contributing writer to GolfStyles Pennsylvania magazine.
An accomplished single-digit handicap player in his prime, golf was Kunda’s passion. He covered 30 consecutive Masters and attended 33 consecutive Golf Writers Association of America Championships in Myrtle Beach. In September he was inducted into the Lehigh Valley Golf Hall of Fame. He also was a member of the Carbon County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.
It may have been fitting for a man of such golf passion, but Kunda died on the exact day of his 72nd birthday — an even-par 72.
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