Golf within the Northern California area was celebrated Thursday, Sept. 22 at Poppy Hills Golf Course because the NCGA inducted its eleventh Corridor of Fame Class with a ceremony at Porter’s within the Forest.
Becoming a member of Distinguished Service Award honoree Gail Rogers had been Corridor of Fame inductees Pat Cornett, Jim McMurtrey and Lucious Bateman, who was represented by Gary Plato and Dick Lotz.
Gail Rogers (Distinguished Service Award)
Mark Twain stated the 2 most essential days in our lives are the day we had been born and the day we discover out why.
For Gail Rogers, her calling got here a bit later than others. Even maybe unexpectedly. However it definitely occurred.
Following commencement from Lesley School, Gail, a local of Connecticut, had turn into an elementary college instructor. It wasn’t till later, in her late 30’s and coming off a divorce, that Gail determined she needed to attempt one thing new. Fortunately, that new alternative was golf.
She’d quickly after meet her present husband, Ken, at De Laveaga Golf Course in Santa Cruz. By Ken, Gail met Pat Schultz, a board member for the Girls’s Golf Affiliation of Northern California. Following Pat’s suggestion, Gail, a self-described bookworm, joined the WGANC Event committee.
One other likelihood prevalence occurred shortly after when Gail and a few of the WGANC members had been visited by then USGA West Area Director Ron Learn, who introduced alongside copies of the Choices on the Guidelines of Golf. As Gail will inform you, it was then that all of it clicked.
She’d turn into the WGANC Guidelines chair, and ultimately the affiliation’s president. Her speedy rise didn’t go unnoticed both. In 1995, Invoice Paulson, then govt director of the NCGA, employed Gail to be the NCGA’s Assistant Director of Guidelines and Competitions. She grew to become the primary feminine to carry the place and went on to be the Director of Training combining her instructing abilities together with her love of the principles of golf..
From there, Gail simply continued to blossom. She’d find yourself serving for the USGA for almost 20 years, changing into one of many first feminine Guidelines officers at a U.S. Open. As a USGA Girls’s Committee member, she’d officiate on the Curtis Cup and amongst different issues function chairperson of the U.S. Girls’s Newbie Public Hyperlinks presenting the trophy to the champion, NorCal’s personal Mina Harigae.
Following her retirement from the NCGA, however wanting to remain concerned, in 2011 she joined the NCGA Board of Administrators. In 2019, Gail would turn into the NCGA’s first feminine president. She too would function the honorary chair of the 2018 U.S. Women’ Junior at Poppy Hills.
Depend all of it up, and Gail has served the sport for over 30 years. And whereas she says she’s retired, she’s nonetheless concerned. The calling hasn’t actually stopped but.
Watch Gail Rogers Video
Jim McMurtrey
Typically, life occurs after we’re making different plans.
In the summertime of 1950, on his 18th birthday, then San Leandro resident Jim McMurtrey had plans to have fun by going bowling. The lanes had been full, nonetheless, so Jim and his friends as an alternative crossed the road to a driving vary.
His life would by no means be the identical.
Having had his curiosity piqued, Jim, after serving within the U.S. Military, later determined to attempt to give golf one other attempt. He was self-taught, but additionally obtained a couple of tips—–from somebody he may beat. Fueling his curiosity was day journeys to the San Francisco Metropolis, the place amongst others he’d watch matches between Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi. At what grew to become his house course Lake Chabot, in the meantime, he studied the swing of main champion Tony Lema.
It was time for Jim to make his personal swings. Within the late 1950’s he entered his first occasion, a membership match at Lake Chabot. He’d win with a rating of 85, regardless of by no means having beforehand damaged 90. He’d caught the competitors bug, and whereas there have been some downs, together with dropping to Tal Smith on the S.F. Metropolis, Jim would later turn into the man to beat.
As a senior, Jim racked up a still-standing file of 5 NCGA Senior Championships, the final coming in 2000 on the age of 68. Throughout a six-year interval, Jim by no means completed worse than third in 5 NCGA Seniors. Tacking on three California Senior Newbie wins, and a Senior 4-Ball victory, he’d ultimately set an NCGA file for complete NCGA Senior wins and was the inaugural NCGA Senior Participant of the Yr in 1995.
Different accolades embrace three wins on the Alameda Commuters, a win on the S.F. Metropolis, 4 wins on the Santa Clara County Senior and low novice honors on the 1989 U.S. Senior Open. Jim’s additionally obtained three wins on the Invoice Penn Cup Senior, an Oakland Metropolis Newbie win and 6 wins on the Senior Golf Affiliation of Northern California. He too has competed within the Senior British Newbie and Senior Australian Newbie and is a 27-time membership champion at programs together with Lake Chabot, Spyglass Hill, Diablo Nation Membership, North Ridge Nation Membership and Hayward Golf Membership.
All of it set in movement as a result of the bowling lanes had been full that fateful day.
Watch Jim McMurtrey Video
Patricia Cornett
For Patricia Cornett, all it took was slightly little bit of affect and a few assist from some pleasant faces.
Whereas rising up in her hometown of Salinas, Pat was at all times energetic. Her dad and mom, Barbara and Jack, took discover, and one fateful day introduced her to Salinas Golf and Nation Membership. Little did her mother and pa most likely know the place that first go to would take her.
Pat, an enormous Arnold Palmer fan, started engaged on her personal sport because of some free classes from then-Salinas Golf and Nation Membership professional Ben King. By the point she was 12, she’d enter, and win, her first occasion at Salinas Fairways.
Later, Pat would take her ever-blossoming abilities to Stanford. As a walk-on, she’d turn into an All-American first group choice, serving to lead the Cardinal to convention titles in 1975 and 1976.
After graduating from Stanford, Pat enrolled at medical college in Philadelphia, the place she obtained her MD diploma. Following completion of her inner medication residency and fellowship at Letterman Military Medical Heart, she additionally started juggling her position as a mom to her two daughters– Annemarie and Theresa.
All of the whereas, Pat nonetheless saved her sport sharp. In each 1978 and 1988, she performed for the U.S. Curtis Cup squad in opposition to Nice Britain and Eire.
She’d go on to compete in 26 U.S. Girls’s Mid-Amateurs, ending as runner-up in 1987 and incomes two medals as a semi-finalist within the US Girls’s Newbie and one semi-finalist medal within the US Girls’s Mid-Newbie. In all, Pat has performed in 66 USGA Championships. She’s certified for eight U.S. Girls’s Opens and 21 U.S. Girls’s Amateurs, reaching the semifinals of the Am in 1976 and 1982. In 2012, in the meantime, she’d reverse roles and captain the U.S. Curtis Cup squad.
Different accolades embrace being a three-time San Francisco Metropolis champion and two-time winner of the California Girls’s Newbie.
Extra lately, Pat has performed in 10 U.S. Senior Girls Amateurs, advancing to the quarterfinals in 2009. And, in fact, there’s her three NCGA Senior Girls’s Championship crowns. All whereas in the present day nonetheless practising as a Board-certified doctor of inner medication and medical oncology and hematology at College of California-San Francisco.
From that first journey to the course and people first classes, one can say Pat’s gone fairly a method.
Watch Pat Cornett Video
Lucious Bateman
There’s an expression that claims instructor is sort of a candle. It consumes itself to mild the way in which for others.
For Lucious Bateman, all of it may’ve been completely different. It’s doable that he may’ve joined Lee Elder and Charlie Sifford as a few of the black gamers paving the way in which for Tiger Woods.
However it didn’t unfold that method for Lucious. As a substitute, circumstances took him in one other route.
Born in 1906 in Louisiana and raised in Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Bateman began his golf profession caddying on the Edgewater Resort and Golf Membership in Biloxi, the place he tied the course file as a teen.
Sadly, he’d by no means get the prospect to essentially present his abilities as a participant. That was as a result of black gamers weren’t allowed on tour, not to mention generally the course. And by the point the tour did lastly open its doorways to black gamers in 1961, Lucious was already previous his prime.
So Lucious, following service in World Conflict II, opted to make an influence and depart a legacy one other way—by instructing. Working primarily at Airway Fairways close to the Oakland Airport, Lucious ended up instructing a whole lot of youth. Often called Bateman’s Boys, amongst his many pupils are some greats—John Lotz and Dick Lotz, Al Braga, Don Baucom, Gary Plato and the late main champion Tony Lema, who went on to win the 1964 British Open and 12 tour occasions.
Not as soon as did Lucious ever cost one his Bate’s Boys for a lesson, or for a bucket of vary balls.
Whereas instructing, Lucious nonetheless sometimes confirmed off his personal sport. He’d set quite a few information at Peninsula golf programs reminiscent of Alameda, Crystal Springs, San Mateo, Tilden, Hayward and the previous Hillview in San Jose.
Previous to his passing in 1972 on the age of 66, Lucious was requested by Golf Digest if he’d lamented the prospect to indicate his abilities as a participant. Replied Lucious, “My mom taught me that all the pieces occurs for one of the best. What could seem to be a troublesome break typically works out the opposite method. I’ve no complaints.”
To the day, his many classes nonetheless resonate.
Watch Lucious Bateman Video
