Guna Kunjan, a Bellerose, Queens resident who worked for the last decade as the golf pro at Harbor Links Golf Course in Port Washington, died on Dec. 12 due to complications from stage 4 soft tissue sarcoma. He was 53.
Kunjan underwent surgery on Nov. 4 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan to remove tumors from his lungs following months of chemotherapy and other treatments but “didn’t come out of surgery well” and remained hospitalized, said friend Larry Fox, a Great Neck resident who in August co-chaired a golfing event that donated funds toward Kunjan’s treatments.
Fox said Kunjan, who emigrated to the United States from Malaysia in 1981, “was beloved by everybody.”
“He was a terrific golf teacher, No. 1, and I think he was a terrific human,” Fox said. “Everyone who ever came into contact with him came away with the fact that when you met the guy, he endeared himself toward you. I don’t think anybody could say anything bad about this guy. We’re all going to miss him.”
Kunjan seemed in good spirits prior to going in for surgery, and hopeful that he could soon return to the club, but Fox said he wasn’t sure if he was totally honest with his golf buddies about the severity of his illness.
“I think he sort of knew things were very critical for him,” Fox said. “He was looking at it, at least to us, from the brighter side.”
Kunjan was not married and had one sister in Malaysia who Fox said visited him in the hospital last month.
“He was coming to work after chemo treatments. That’s how tough he was,” said Bob Lipiello, the general manager at Harbor Links. “Regardless of how much pain he was in, there were times we carried his bags and computer for him, but he showed his heart was here with the staff and customers. It was really something to see.”
Lipiello said Kunjan’s personality was unlike that of the “traditional” Long Island golf pro. He said he felt an “instant bond” with Kunjan when they first met.
“He would say anything on his mind. I think it was just from being from a different part of the world, he brought a different culture and a different way of going about things that was outside the New York realm. It was a welcomed personality here,” he said.
In his decade-plus-long tenure as the head Harbor Links golf pro, Kunjan helped expand the club’s juniors program and held clinics for breast cancer survivors through the American Red Cross’s “Swing for the Health of It” initiative.
Kunjan was diagnosed with stage 4 soft tissue sarcoma in February, which he said in August originated in his thigh and spread throughout his body, rendering him unable to play golf.
He said one of his biggest concerns in battling the disease was that he lacked a support group during treatments, but that there had been “a great response” from Harbor Links members who offered to help him run errands.
“It scared me, that I’d be alone, because I’m not married and I don’t have family here,” Kunjan said. “I thought this would be my struggle.”
The golf club donated more than $3,000 for Kunjan’s treatments in August as part of its annual member-guest event, an annual fundraising event for Arnold Palmer Golf, which runs Harbor Links.
At the time, Kunjan said the tumors in his lungs had shrunk by about 50 percent since he began chemotherapy treatments, and he looked forward to continuing to train golfers.
But his condition worsened during the fall, prompting the need for surgery.
“It was a rough month for most of us. He didn’t really come out of surgery well and we couldn’t visit him because of how far Sloan Kettering is and because he was hooked up to a respirator,” Fox said.
“Fortunately, he had a sister overseas who did come in the last weeks,” he added. “She was with him at the end.”
Kunjan was cremated on Dec. 13, Lipiello said. A hearse carried his body around the Harbor Links campus before making its way to a crematory.
Half of Kunjan’s ashes were spilled into San Francisco Bay, where Lipiello said he began his golfing career, while the other half was sent back to Malaysia.
