The field is set for the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, taking place October 6-11 at Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Fla.
Among the 132 competitors in the field, nine hail from the Pacific Northwest, with four being from Washington state:
- Ginny Burkey (Eugene, Ore.)
- Susan Craven (Snohomish, Wash.)
- Terri Frohnmayer (Salem, Ore.)
- Carrie Jacobson (Bellevue, Wash.)
- Denise Kieffer (University Place, Wash.)
- Jackie Little (Procter, B.C.)
- Karen Madison (East Wenatchee, Wash.)
- Alison Murdoch (Victoria, B.C.)
- Lara Tennant (Portland, Ore.)
Click here for complete coverage of the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship.
Meet the competitors:
Denise Kieffer, of University Place, Wash., is a police sergeant and a longtime WSGA championship competitor. Kieffer won the 2009 WSGA Women’s Champion of Champions, and represented Washington state in the 2011 and 2013 USGA Women’s State Team Championships.
Susan Craven secured the fifth and final qualifying spot in the championship out of a sectional qualifier hosted by Skagit Golf & Country Club in Burlington, Wash.
This is the second time Carrie Jacobson of Bellevue, Wash. has qualified for the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, having qualified previously for the 2016 championship.
Karen Madison of East Wenatchee, Wash. qualified for the championship earning co-medalist honors at a sectional qualifier held at Anchorage Golf Course in Alaska. Madison was named the 2015 WSGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year and is a two-time WSGA champion, having won the 2015 Senior Women’s Champion of Champions and the 2016 WSGA Super Senior Women’s Amateur. She won the 2015 PNGA Super Senior Women’s Amateur.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.