For Her, Game Never Gets Old

Changes in women’s golf in the past 56 years are incalculable.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Betty Jean Hulteng, winner of the 1939 Spokane City women’s golf tournament, has returned to “defend” her title.

At age 14, Betty Jean Rucker competed in the 1938 championship, and won it the next year at 15 - adding titles in 1942, ‘43 and ‘44.

Now, at 71, she’s decided to try it again as a tuneup for the Pacific Northwest Golf Association championship later this fall.

“I don’t know what inspired me to do this,” she said of her entry in the Spokane Area Women’s Golf Association Tournament to be held Tuesday at The Creek at Qualchan, Wednesday at Sun Dance and Thursday at Esmeralda.

Hulteng still carries a handicap in the 12 neighborhood

“She still plays really well and every once in a while she’ll get a score in the 70s,” said Karen Hollon, a former city champ, who will also compete in the tournament. “The thing is, people think so much of her, she’s one of the biggest advocates of junior golf there is, and she’s so well respected.”

It’s likely Hulteng’s golfing longevity is a product of her environment.

Her parents met on a 1916 blind date during which her mother defeated her father in golf. “He had been a Northwest tennis champ, but after she beat him, he decided to take up golf seriously,” Hulteng said.

Betty Jean’s dominance of the women’s game stretched past Spokane, as she also won the Pacific Northwest Golf Association’s women’s amateur title in 1946.

That year, she lost to the legendary Patty Berg on the 35th hole of her semifinal match in the U.S. Women’s Open at the Spokane Country Club.

Later that year, she lost a match to Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

“Babe was very direct and was difficult to play with,” Hulteng said. “Her husband (George) was a wrestler and a lot of his friends followed the matches - big, burly, cigar-smoking guys. But she was very blunt. You’d make a putt and she’d say, ‘Well, I hope you don’t do that too often.”’

After getting her degree in economics from Stanford, Hulteng added a graduate degree in personnel administration from Radcliffe. She considers it good fortune that there were no women’s golf teams at the time.

“I’m delighted I didn’t have that choice; to have to play and go to school, too, would have been too hard,” she said.

Hulteng added six Rhode Island women’s championships before returning West when husband John joined the journalism faculty at the University of Oregon in 1955.

Although she may have been among the nation’s best golfers in her time, she has no regrets about not having the opportunity to turn professional.

“I’m glad I wasn’t in this era,” she said. “When I was playing in the ‘40s, golf was a different game. It was mostly college students. I don’t think ladylike is the right word for it, but it certainly was more of a game and not a profession.

“The pro circuit, that’s a bum’s life. In the ‘50s, some amateurs I knew turned pro and a lot of them said that golf isn’t as much fun anymore. Every shot is for money.”

That’s certainly not the case for Hulteng, whose five decades of sustained golfing excellence have been nothing but fun.

Super senior

If you get worn out hiking up No. 18 at Indian Canyon, look to one Mr. Harley Potter of Winston-Salem, N.C., for inspiration.

Potter started golfing at age 92 and continues to play - competitively - at 103. He’s been in three tourneys since he turned 101.

As reported in Golf World magazine, he shoots his age almost every week, with a best score of 98.

Dial-a-Duffer

This is bad news for all of us who believe that those who carry cellular phones on the golf course should be strapped to a flagstick and flogged.

But here goes: If you are having trouble with your game, you may now phone 1-900-988-TIPS and receive on-the-spot golf tips at a cost of $2.99 a minute. (Not to mention the unending derision from you playing partners.)

Tournament

Manito Golf and Country Club will host the Washington State Women’s Golf Association Senior Championship Monday and Tuesday with shotgun starts both days at 8:30 a.m..

Age range of entrants is 50 to 86.

The oldest entrant, Mazie Herman, has golfed for 51 years - since age 35. She has won the Spokane Country Club women’s championship roughly two dozen times and is a former city champion.

At 86, she carries a 19 handicap.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo