While Lynn Zmistowski insists she never viewed herself as a volunteer in what she’s done for the game of golf, let it never be said that she was anything but dedicated to the task at hand when a duty was given to her.
Case in point: When she chaired the CWGA Course Rating Committee in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the USGA created a “Slope” rating system in which golf courses would be rated according to their relative difficulty for players of varying ability. The CWGA and CGA were tasked to rate all of Colorado’s golf courses in accordance with the new Slope system.
In order to get the job done right — and consistently — Zmistowski felt she personally had to participate in every course rating the CWGA conducted. So over the course of less than five years, she played every hole of every golf course in Colorado at the time, giving her a distinction not many people can claim. The state had about 120 golf courses at that time, so that was no small feat.
“For consistency, I made it my mission to go on all the ratings,” Zmistowski said this week. “It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. I’d play one week in Rangely, the next in Lamar. We had a great committee and always thought being on the committee was an honor. We loved being able to travel together and see the beautiful state of Colorado.
“I think you have to play the course to understand the course, and you have to understand the course to rate it. Colorado was a leader in the whole (Slope rating process). Most of the other states were looking to (the CWGA and CGA).”
It’s that dedication that earned Zmistowski a remarkable honor on Feb. 27 at the CWGA annual meeting — that of CWGA Volunteer of the Century.
With the CWGA leadership wanting some suspense for its centennial celebration at the annual meeting, Zmistowski didn’t find out she had received the award until the day of the event. She was competing in a couples club championship at her home course of Alta Mesa in Mesa, Ariz., that weekend, but had seen the program on the eve of the event. She noticed “Volunteer of the Century” by her name, “but I thought there must be a typo,” she said. But during the annual meeting, fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton texted Zmistowski the news.
“The shock was amazing,” said Zmistowski, who now splits her time between Colorado (Boulder specifically) and Arizona. “I said to my husband (Bill), ‘You’ll never believe this.’ It’s obviously an amazing honor. I never thought of myself as a volunteer. I viewed anything I did related to golf as a passion. It’s just a way to give back to the sport that has given me so much enjoyment.
“I never thought my name would come up under ‘volunteer.’ There are a lot of people who have been outstanding volunteers. I guess I just did it for more years. And I’ve enjoyed it.”
Zmistowski has been a golf volunteer for more than 40 years — ever since Joan Birkland called her in 1975 and asked her to join the CWGA’s Course Rating Committee. Birkland, a standout in both golf and tennis, is a longtime Colorado Sports Hall of Famer. For her part, Zmistowski is a member of the Colorado and Minnesota Golf Halls of Fame, and the Rochester (Minn.) Sports Hall of Fame.
Zmistowski’s volunteer duties have included 30 years on the CWGA Course Rating Committee, including five as chair; more than 25 years on the USGA handicap procedures committee, for which she received the Ike Grainger Award in 2009 (left); six years as the first captain of the Colorado Girls Junior Americas Cup team and working on the GJAC handbook. Zmistowski took her daughter, Kim, on all the Junior Americas Cup trips, and still remembers her doing cartwheels on the practice range.
As recently as last year, Zmistowski volunteered to answer handicap-related questions that the CWGA received. And for the last eight years or so, she’s served on the handicap procedures committee for the Arizona Women’s Golf Associaton and has been the handicap chair for Alta Mesa Golf Club and helps run a major women’s invitational at the course.
“I have all this knowledge and can be helpful to people,” Zmistowski explained. “I feel I can contribute.”
As CWGA Centennial Committee co-chair Nancy Wilson said of Zmistowski at the annual meeting, “It certainly shows her dedication to this organization and to the game of golf. … Lynn Z, as she is affectionately called, has performed each task that she accepted with focused dedication and is very deserving of the Volunteer of the Century award.”
But the Volunteer of the Century wasn’t the only honor Zmistowski was awarded at the CWGA annual meeting. She was also one of nine outstanding players in the history of the association, all of whom have won at least five major CWGA individual championships. Zmistowski, who earlier had claimed titles in two CWGA Match Plays and two Senior Stroke Plays, last year at age 70 earned the senior championship at the 100th CWGA Match Play. (Above, finalist Kathy Malpass congratulates the champion.) In all, Zmistowski has captured 15 individual state amateur titles in Minnesota, Colorado and Arizona.
Zmistowski was the only person to be included on both the CWGA’s “Notable Volunteers” of the century and the “Outstanding Players” of the century.
Overall, Lynn Z has many fond memories of her years in Colorado and volunteering for the CWGA. Here are a couple:
— On the first time she met former longtime CWGA executive director Robin Jervey, with a group at a Denver Nuggets game:
“I had laryngitis and could not say a word,” Zmistowski said. “Robin got the impression I was pretty quiet but once I got my voice back she said, ‘Lynn never shuts up.'”
— On meeting Birkland as the two squared off in the 1971 CWGA Match Play at Denver Country Club, where Zmistowski would go on to earn the title:
“After we teed off and were walking down the first fairway, Joanie said to me, ‘Well, Lynn, who are you and where did you come from?’ We proceeded to play the next 17 holes chatting so much that on the 17th green I said to Joanie, ‘How does our match stand?’ and Joanie said, ‘You’re 1 down.’ We have been very close friends ever since.”
Zmistowski, who considers Willis Case in Denver her home course in Colorado, calls the late Katie Fiorella, a fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer and a longtime fixture at Willis Case, her best friend. Fiorella served on the CWGA Course Rating Committee for more than two decades.
“Katie loved every last thing there was to love in Colorado, and she passed that love to me,” Zmistowski said.
(Above, Zmistowski is pictured with Birkland, center, and Fiorella.)
