Lawrence Butch O’Hearn picked up a golf club very early in life. His talent was evident and obvious to all that he would take up the game. As a six-year-old, he was always at Brightwood Golf and Country Club and by ten he was a member. He became a caddy, which helped him learn the game.

As a 17-year-old he won a Nova Scotia Junior Championship a year after he made the Provincial Junior Team that played at the Nationals in Toronto, Ontario. At 18, he took top Junior Provincial Honours for a second time and played in the Nova Scotia Men’s Amateur Championship. He won a spot on the Provincial Team that attended Nationals and was a Willingdon Cup team member in 1962 and 1963. O’Hearn won the Dartmouth Open as an amateur in 1964 and also the Maritime Amateur Championship later that summer.

He turned professional in 1964 and won various regional open championships against top Maritime and touring pros from the United States. In 1968, he became the first Atlantic Canadian golfer ever to hold a PGA card. Lawrence Butch O’Hearn was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame in 2000.