(NOTE: This story was updated on Oct. 25 with reaction and additional details from Howe.)
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If the person who was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on Wednesday can be judged by the people who submitted letters of recommendation on her behalf, Lauren Howe will be a stellar addition to the Hall.
World Golf Hall of Famer and former USGA president Judy Bell, 12-time PGA Tour winner Dow Finsterwald and Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Tom Connell all sung the praises of Howe, a longtime Coloradan who was one of the best female players in the country at various times during mid- and late 1970s and through much of the ’80s.
“Lauren was an amazing athlete with a passion to succeed,” wrote Connell, who saw Howe develop as a teenage golfer and now is a fellow instructor of hers at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora. “… For a 10-year period beginning in 1974, I was a witness to a remarkable series of accomplishments by a young prodigy from Colorado and later a seasoned professional on a national stage, coached by a brilliant teacher who happened to be her father, and supported by a large, loving family.”
Added Finsterwald, who’s also a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame: “Since moving to Colorado Springs at age 14, Lauren took the golf scene by storm.”
For her many accomplishments as a player, and for her continuing devotion to the game through her work as a golf instructor, Howe on Wednesday was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. The Aurora resident will be inducted on June 2 at Denver Country Club.
Asked her reaction to the impending induction, Howe said on Thursday morning, “In the back of my mind, I knew it could be coming. And yet it still hit me … I’m tearing up now. It’s just so precious to me, especially having not played in a while and everything. It really hit me like a big wave.”
Also being honored on June 2 by the Hall of Fame will be Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster (as Golf Person of the Year); Mark and Lynn Cramer, who own and operate the Denver Golf Expo (Lifetime Achievement Award); golf course superintendents Fred Dickman from The Broadmoor and Barry Kendall from Green Valley Ranch (Distinguished Service Awards); and Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins and Lauren Lehigh of Loveland (Future Famer Awards). Coincidentally, Howe has been Lehigh’s swing instructor for over a decade. See below for the accomplishments of all these honorees.
As for Howe herself, she was quick to recognize the many people who helped her along the way, including the big-name women’s players of the era who took her under their wings during her early years.
“When my dad (Winston Howe Jr.) was the pro at Country Club of Colorado, one of the biggest influences in my life was to be able to go up and play golf with Judy Bell, Barbara McIntire, Tish Preuss, Nancy Syms, Cindy Hill, Bonnie Lauer — all of those gals. They were always so kind to me and walked me through a lot of things. I am so grateful to them for that.”
And of course, Howe pays tribute to her dad, who doubled as her instructor.
“My father was my teacher,” Lauren Howe said. “He always made sure that as he was working with me, he never got a jaundiced eye. He would take me back in the day to Bob Toski, Jim Flick and to Paul Runyan for my short game. To this day I think (my dad) was the best diagnostician in all the land.”
Lauren Howe’s top golf accomplishment was winning on the LPGA Tour, in 1983 at the Mayflower Classic. But she had been making an impact on the regional and national golf scene since the first half of the 1970s.
The first big breakthrough came in 1973 when she won the San Francisco Women’s City Championship shortly before turning 14.
After turning 15 in 1974, she advanced to the finals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior, losing in the title match 7 and 5 to Nancy Lopez, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1975, Howe was the co-medalist in the stroke-play portion of the same national championship. And in 1976, she was the solo stroke-play medalist.
Howe certainly made her mark in Colorado at an early age as well. In 1975, at age 16, she not only won the CWGA Junior Match Play, but the open-age CWGA Stroke Play.
Girls high school golf in Colorado wasn’t an officially sanctioned sport until 1990, but Howe was the No. 1 player on the boys team at St. Mary’s in Colorado Springs for the three years she spent in high school.
In 1976 as a 17-year-old, the Utah native qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open, which was held in a Philadelphia suburb the week following the U.S. bicentennial. An assistant to Winston Howe who was friends with JoAnne Carner set up a practice round pairing that included the 1971 national champion and the Colorado teenager. “That was so cool,” said Howe, who went on to make the cut and finish 39th in the top tournament in women’s golf. (Coincidentally, Carner won that U.S. Women’s Open — her second — in a playoff.) That same year, Howe won the Mexican Women’s Amateur.
“The year when I was 16 was my best playing year — ever,” Howe said. “It was like I was on fire that whole year. Sixteeen was a good year. I played without any doubt. If there was ever a qualifying, it wasn’t, ‘Am I going to qualify?’ It was more like, ‘Am I going to win the qualifier?’ I wish I could get that back.”
After one year of college golf at the University of Tulsa — as a teammate of Lopez — Howe won the prestigious Women’s Western Amateur in 1977. Then she turned pro at age 18. That same year she was named the Woman Athlete of the Year by the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1978, Howe joined the LPGA Tour after winning the Q-school tournament — becoming the youngest medalist at that time and setting a scoring record that stood for more than two decades.
“All this stuff is really so touching to me,” Howe said in recalling some career highlights. “One of the coolest memories came after winning the school. My dad went with me to the qualifying school and we drove out of the parking lot singing, ‘We are the champions.'”
In 1983 after recording her victory in the LPGA Tour’s Mayflower Classic in Indianapolis, Howe was named Golf Person of the Year by the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. That season she finished 19th on the LPGA money list.
Also during her 13-year LPGA Tour career, which was interrupted at times by injuries, Howe finished second in the 1986 Mazda LPGA Hall of Fame Championship, where she lost in a playoff to Amy Alcott. That season, Howe notched five top-10 finishes on the LPGA circuit.
Howe (left) has been a golf instructor since 1991 and spent 2003-08 teaching at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla., before returning to Colorado, where she’s been based for the last decade. She now teaches at CommonGround GC, which is owned and operated by the CGA.
Despite her extensive playing career, Howe isn’t playing golf these days, but hopes to in the future. Two years ago while competing in a Legends Tour event near Plymouth, Mass., Howe was involved in a major automobile accident in which she sustained injuries to her brain, knee and wrist. Surgeries ensued.
“I can’t stand on a practice tee like I used. I’ve changed the way I’ve got to teach,” she said. “There are still ramifications, but we’ve settled the lawsuit and I have started at a brain clinic, which is the biggest thing.”
As for the possibility of playing and competing again, Howe said, “I haven’t played in two years. I really want to play in the (U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Next year) would be ideal. It might be optimistic, but I’m going to act as if” that might happen.
In the meantime, she’ll relish going into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. Asked about the reaction she’s gotten since telling friends and families the news, Howe said, “My best friend from high school said, ‘It’s about time.’ And my parents (Winston and Dolores, who now live in Highlands Ranch) were really happy. I have six brothers and sisters who were over the moon too.”
While Howe will be the lone Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductee on June 2 at Denver Country Club, several other people will receive awards from the Hall:
— Golf Person of the Year: Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster earns this honor from the Hall of Fame for the second time in three years. The 21-year-old has been the No. 1-ranked women’s amateur in the world almost continuously since July. In May, the Wake Forest golfer became the first Colorado resident to win the Women’s NCAA Division I individual title after finishing sixth and second at that national championship the previous two years. She represented winning U.S. teams in three prestigious international competitions this year — the Curtis Cup, Arnold Palmer Cup and the World Amateur Team Championship. In that last event, Kupcho finished second individually out of a field of 170. Kupcho competed in the LPGA Tour’s Marathon Classic in July, finishing 16th, her best showing in an LPGA event. The NCAA championship in May was one of three individual victories for Kupcho during the spring portion of the college season. In August, Kupcho became the first American woman to win the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the top women’s player in the World Amateur Golf Rankings as of the conclusion the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
— Lifetime Achievement: Mark and Lynn Cramer have owned and operated the Denver Golf Expo since purchasing it from PGA professional Stan Fenn in 2000, and every year it’s been a winter mainstay on the Colorado golf calendar. The Expo typically draws about 10,000 attendees each year at the Denver Mart. The Cramers take pride in supporting the major golf organizations in Colorado — and in the support those organizations give the Expo. The Expo over the years has made donations totaling $85,000 to the Colorado PGA charitable foundation, now known as Colorado PGA REACH.
— Distinguished Service: Course superintendents Fred Dickman from The Broadmoor Golf Club and Barry Kendall from Green Valley Ranch Golf Club overcame major weather-related obstacles so that big-time championships could be conducted with as little disruption as possible. In the case of The Broadmoor, a major hailstorm hit the area less than two weeks before the U.S. Senior Open was scheduled. But thanks to tireless work by Dickman and his staff, there was very little indication that anything had happened by the time the senior pros teed it up in late June. As for Green Valley Ranch, heavy rain, hail and winds estimated at 60 mph hit the area the evening before the scheduled first round of the CoBank Colorado Open. Thursday’s round was canceled and the tournament was reduced to 54 holes for the first time since 1981. But Kendall and his crew worked 11 straight hours pumping the water off the course and from the bunkers. By the weekend, players were raving about the course condition.
— Future Famers: Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins won the individual title in the 2018 boys Junior America’s Cup, which featured some of the top junior golfers from the western U.S., Canada and Mexico. He also led Colorado to its first team title ever in the boys Junior America’s Cup. Earlier in the year, Stewart became the first Colorado boy to win the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior. In the fall, as a senior, he captured the 5A state high school individual championship and led Fossil Ridge to its first team title in boys golf. Also late in the season, Stewart notched his second AJGA title of 2018 at the AJGA Junior at Big Sky in Montana. He shared medalist honors in qualifying for the U.S. Junior Amateur and finished second at the Colorado Junior Amateur. Stewart, the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado’s 2018 Boys Player of the Year, has verbally committed to play college golf at Oklahoma State
Lauren Lehigh of Loveland was one of 24 players (12 girls) worldwide to be named to the Transamerica Scholastic Junior All-America Team by the AJGA. The Loveland High School senior earned that honor by placing in the top five in an AJGA open or invitational, then based on the following criteria: standardized test scores, grade-point average, school leadership and community service. She won the girls division of the Colorado Junior Match Play, one of four Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado majors. During the course of 2018 at JGAC events, Lehigh won three times, placed second seven times and third three times. One of the runner-ups was in her title defense at the 4A state high school tournament. Lehigh finished third among girls at the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior. She helped lead Colorado to a fifth-place finish at the Girls Junior Americas Cup competition at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, where Lehigh tied for 14th place individually. She also placed 13th nationally in Big I National Championship. Lehigh, who’s been a member of the Hale Irwin Player Program for three years, has verbally committed to play in college at the University of New Mexico. Earlier this month, she was named the JGAC’s Girls Player of the Year for 2018.
