Fab foursome enters golf hall

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/10/2009 (6146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LYNDA Palahniuk was inducted into the Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame and Museum on Monday night because of her lengthy resume of championships.

She will always stand out among the Hall’s members in another way. She refuses to get old.

The 57-year-old, who now lives in Kelowna, B.C., has the 2003 Canadian Senior Women’s championship among her many accomplishments, and runner-up finishes in that event in 2007 and 2009.

But it’s the fourth of her four Manitoba Amateur championships, a highly emotional victory in 1992, which best makes the point.

“In October the previous year, I was trying to motivate myself and started working out, swimming, so I started writing my acceptance speech in my mind right then, to get myself motivated,” Palahniuk said before Monday night’s ceremony at McPhillips Street Station Casino ballroom which inducted her, Dr. Billy Parker, Cathy Burton and the late Jack Swanson into the Hall.

“That what was going to sustain me, to keep me from getting old, because I turned old (40) in March and I wanted to prove to myself that you could be 40 and still compete with 20-year-olds and it became a huge obsession.”

Palahniuk waged a storied battle with three-time defending champion Aileen Robertson that July at Niakwa, and prevailed on the final day.

“You talk about being in the zone and I wondered if that would ever happen to me and it totally happened that week,” she said. “I played every hole at Niakwa in my brain at night for months. I knew exactly what I’d hit on every hole.”

Robertson, the six-time Manitoba Amateur champ who now lives and works in Toronto, recalled those hotly contested battles with Palahniuk.

“When I think of her, I think of what a great competitor she is, the kind of great, steeled resolve about her,” Robertson said in a phone interview recently. “When I was first coming up through junior, she was always someone to look up to and I cherished our competing against each other. She won some, I won some and we developed a great friendship as well, something a lot of people don’t know about.”

Palahniuk also has the 1996 Saskatchewan Amateur and the 2002 B.C. senior women’s crown to her credit.

Burton, 48, had a pair of Manitoba Amateurs (1984 and 1986) and a Saskatchewan Amateur (1986) to her credit before turning pro and competing on the Futures Tour between 1988 and 1990. A Class A CPGA member since 1996, she has done stints at Southwood and St. Charles Country Club and has been instrumental in junior-golf development as a respected teacher and coach.

Her successes in that area earned her induction in the player/builder category.

Parker, 52, is a former Manitoba Junior (1974) and Amateur (1978, 1979, 1982) champion who earned Manitoba player of the year honours in 1979 and 1982.

“I’m surprised because I played well for a relatively short period of time compared to people like (HoF member) Garth Collings,” Parker said Monday night. “It’s a real honour.”

The fourth member of the class of 2009, Swanson, was inducted posthumously. He died in 1979.

The former president of Assiniboine and vice-president at Elmhurst was also president of the Manitoba Golf Association and Royal Canadian Golf Association.

His lengthy contributions to the game included his position as secretary-manager of the MGA between 1971-1979.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Par 3 with the players

Three of the four inductees Monday night were prominent Manitoba players who have moved away, so we gave them a par-3 questionnaire:

“ö Where are you now and what are you doing?

Parker: “I’m in Edmonton, I’m a radiologist and playing golf at Royal Mayfair and I’ve been there for 11 years.”

Burton: “I’m in Calgary, head professional at River Spirit Golf Club and running the course, still teaching and loving that and very active running the junior programs at our club.”

Palahniuk: “I’m a grandmother of two in Kelowna, I still work part-time two or three days a week and I couldn’t be happier.”

“ö The best golf shot I ever hit was:

Parker: “Last day of the Manitoba Open, early ’80s at Pine Ridge, first time I was playing against pros and I was three-under and on the 16th hole and to a back pin and I hit it to two feet with a heck of a lot of people around. Lots of cheering and I would up finishing third or fourth.”

Burton: “I think it’s a 185-yard five-wood, totally blind because it was uphill, at the Saskatchewan Amateur, hit it to two feet.”

Palahniuk: “On Sept. 24, my husband’s 60th birthday, I got a hole in one at his course (Harvest Golf Club). It was a thing of beauty and I stole all his thunder.”

“ö What do you miss most about Manitoba golf?

Parker: “The people. I’ve been playing around the country a fair amount but Manitoba has the best events like Mundie Putter, and such good people.”

Burton: “The people. For sure. To me this is home. When you go to another province and nobody knows you, it’s not the same trying to build up a clientele and your reputation.”

Palahniuk: “My friends.”