Guthrie’S Marks Are Unparalleled And Unrecorded

A baseball writer once asked Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays which of his many great catches was his greatest.

“I don’t know,” Mays reportedly responded. “I just catch ‘em. You guys can rate ‘em.”

That’s much the same approach Connie Guthrie took to the many great rounds of golf she played around the Spokane area beginning in the early 1950s.

Unfortunately, it seems no one took the time to rate ‘em.

Not the 68 she shot at Esmeralda Golf Course. Not even the 68 she remembers posting at Wandermere. For whatever reason, precious few of our area’s 18-hole public golf courses maintain course records for women.

“Really?” the 64-year-old Guthrie said when informed of that fact. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

Yes, it is. Especially in this day and age when women are golfing in greater numbers - and golfing better - than at any time in the sport’s storied history. I was more than mildly surprised when I contacted 23 area courses and found that only three - Deer Park, MeadowWood and Hidden Lakes - have course records for women.

Most of the head professionals I talked to said they simply had nothing in their records to verify the lowest round shot on their course by a woman. And most sounded the same refrain: “But I’m sure Connie Guthrie shot it.”

Guthrie said she, too, was surprised that none of her low rounds were officially recorded.

“I should have kept scorecards, but I didn’t,” she said. “I assumed the golf courses did, but I guess I was wrong.”

Guthrie, who lives in Hayden Lake, dominated the local women’s golf scene from the time she was 16 years old until just several years ago when she put her clubs away after encountering health problems.

During an amateur career that earned her a spot in the Inland Empire Hall of Fame, the former Connie Oldershaw won two United States Senior Women’s Amateur titles, the Pacific Northwest Amateur, two Washington State amateurs and a record 15 city championships. “She was simply the best around - by far,” said Tumwater Valley head pro Chris Mitchell, who remembers first meeting Guthrie when he was working as an assistant pro under John Woodhall at Coeur d’Alene Golf Course in the mid-1980s.

“John told me he had a game for us with Al Scarth and Connie Guthrie,” Mitchell recalled. “I asked, `Who is Connie Guthrie?’ and he told me, `It’s OK. She’s a good player from Idaho.’

“He was conning me like crazy.”

Woodhall set up the teams, pitting he and Guthrie against Mitchell and Scarth. Then he suggested Mitchell play an individual game against Guthrie, giving her three strokes a side.

“I said, `OK, whatever,”’ Mitchell explained. “And then she goes out and shoots 66 and beats all of us guys, gross. That was one great setup. She absolutely didn’t miss a shot. She just drilled us, and she lapped me.”

And it could have been worse.

“John wanted her to play from the ladies tees, and we were going to let her,” Mitchell added. “But she was compassionate enough to say, `No, I don’t think I need to do that.’ And she played from the same tees as us guys.”

Guthrie recalls the “con” match, but doesn’t remember shooting 66. “I might have,” she said, “but it seems more like I shot 69 or something.”

Still, Guthrie maintains that her best round was the 5-under-par 66 she shot in a medal-play tournament at Hayden Lake Country Club in 1983.

“It was a good ball-striking day,” she recalled, “and a good putting day, too. I was never the world’s greatest putter, but that day, everything seemed to go in the hole. I was just in the slot.”

Other women have undoubtedly slipped into a similar slot. Amateur Suzie Stone, for instance, toured MeadowWood in even-par 72 in 1993, and Kathy Jensen, an assistant pro at Deer Park, established the women’s course record at her home course last year when she shot a 1-over 73.

The distressing thing, however, is that Spokane is blessed with an outstanding group of young women golfers, many of who are capable of challenging any or all of the local course records - if they only knew what they were.

Lani Elston, a 16-year-old who plays for Ferris High School, recently shot a 3-under 69 at Hidden Lakes in Sandpoint. Her score is listed as the course record. Guthrie admitted she has not heard of Elston, but said it was “wonderful” to have a young player posting such numbers.

“There was a time when I thought a new goal of mine might be trying to set every course record,” Guthrie said.

That was before the health problems hit.

But today, Connie Guthrie says she is feeling well - and considering dusting off the clubs and playing again.

“After a couple of bouts with cancer, I retired,” she explained. “But I may not stay retired forever. I’ve put some weight back on, which means I should be able to hit it farther, right?”

Let’s hope so.

And if Guthrie ever decides to recharge her game and pursue that goal of attaching her name to every local course record, let’s hope someone has the foresight to record every round.