Five players from the Northwest have advanced through to match play at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, taking place this week at Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Fla.
- No. 10 seed – Lara Tennant of Portland, Ore.
- No. 29 seed – Jackie Little of Procter, B.C.
- No. 35 seed – Terri Frohnmayer of Salem, Ore.
- No. 52 seed – Alison Murdoch of Victoria, B.C.
- No. 63 seed – Ginny Burkey of Eugene, Ore.
The complete field of 132 competitors featured nine golfers with ties to the Northwest, four from Washington: Denise Kieffer (University Place), Susan Craven (Snohomish), Carrie Jacobson (Bellevue) and Karen Madison (East Wenatchee).
Click here for complete coverage of the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship.
Jackie Little, 60, of Canada, was a quarterfinalist in last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, losing to Patricia Schremmer, 2 and 1. Little, who is competing in her fourth Senior Women’s Amateur, is a six-time winner of the British Columbia Women’s Amateur and British Columbia Senior Women’s Amateur, and a three-time British Columbia Women’s Mid-Amateur champion. In 2008 and 2009, Little won both the Canadian Senior Women’s Amateur and PNGA Senior Women’s Amateur, earning Senior Women’s Amateur player-of-the-year honors from both associations. Last week she won her third title in the PNGA Senior Women’s Amateur. She is a member of the Golf Hall of Fame of British Columbia (2009), Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame (2012) and the PNGA Hall of Fame (2017). She and her husband, Pat, formerly owned the Hollies Executive Golf Course in Canada.
Lara Tennant, 51, of Portland, Ore., was a co-medalist in the 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Tennant, who played college golf at the University of Arizona, played in the 2000 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur on her home course, Waverley Country Club. Her husband, Bob, grew up in a house on the 12th hole at Waverley, and her father, George Mack Sr., learned how to play at the course. She captured two Oregon Golf Association championships in 2017: the Oregon Senior Women’s Amateur and Oregon Women’s Mid-Amateur, which she also won in 2003 and 2008. Last year she was named the 2017 PNGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year.
Terri Frohnmayer, 62, of Salem, Ore., won the 1976 Pacific Northwest Golf Association Women’s Amateur Championship. A Rollins College Sports Hall of Fame member, she played golf through college, but stopped playing golf to pursue a business career. Approximately 24 years later in 2002, she decided to play again at the urging of her mother and husband. In 2010, she won the PNGA Senior Women’s Championship and followed that by winning the 2011 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Named the Oregon Golf Association Player of the Year and PNGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year in 2011, she works in commercial real estate at First Commercial Real Estate Services, LLC in Salem.
Alison Murdoch of Victoria, B.C. was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame in 2013, and is also a member of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and the Golf Hall of Fame of British Columbia. She has won four Canadian Senior Women’s Amateur titles, four Irish Senior Ladies titles, and has been named the PNGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year five times. This is the seventh U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship she has qualified for.
Ginny Burkey of Eugene, Ore. is no stranger to the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, having held the first-round stroke-play lead in the 2015 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Last month, Burkey won her eighth Pacific Northwest Golf Association team title, and in 2009 was named the WSGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year.
