Pictor inaugural winner at GSGA event

Published 1:06 am Friday, April 8, 2011

Top seed and reigning Georgia senior women’s champion Brenda Pictor of Marietta captured the Georgia State Golf Association’s inaugural Georgia Senior Women’s Match Play Championship — but needed one extra hole to do so — as she topped Maria Johnson of Jesup in the 19-hole final match at Doublegate Country Club.

Pictor built a 3-up lead through six holes, but Johnson won the next two with pars as Pictor posted double-bogey/bogey on the seventh and eighth. Pictor won the ninth with a birdie to hold on to a 2-up lead at the turn.

Johnson continued to chip away at the lead, winning the 136-yard 11th hole with a birdie and moving the match to all square with bogey to Pictor’s double-bogey on the 14th.

Pictor posted par on the 17th to retake the lead with one hole to play, but Johnson saved par on the 18th to win the hole and extend the match. Pictor then secured the victory with par on the 19th hole (No. 1).

Pictor has won three GSGA Senior Women’s Championship in the last four years, and is also the reigning GSGA Tommy Barnes Award winner, given to the state’s overall amateur player of the year.

Pictor advanced through the championship bracket with relative ease, posting 8-and-6 and 6-and-5 victories in the first two rounds. In the semifinals she faced Claudeen Lindberg of Atlanta, the only other person to own three GSGA Senior Women’s titles, and won that match 1 up.

Johnson, the 10th seed in the championship bracket, went 20 holes in her first-round match with Liz Butler of Greensboro, then posted 2-and-1 and 6-and-5 wins in her quarterfinal and semifinals matches.

Other flight and consolation bracket winners were as follows: Barbara Brown of Carrollton (championship consolation); Phoebe Fulford of Meigs (first flight); Debra Allen of Leesburg (first flight consolation); Jane Kelly of Albany (second flight); Janet Macgregor of Peachtree City (second flight consolation); Fran Coody of Perry (third flight); Alicia Bartlett of Powder Springs (third flight consolation); Pam Pangle of Leesburg (fourth flight) and Carol Fitzgerald of Leesburg (fourth flight consolation).

Entries were open to female amateur golfers who are GSGA members and age 50 or above as of April 4. The field of 48 competitors was divided in five flights (16 players in the championship, eight in Flights 1-4) by handicap index.

Complete tournament results are available at gsga.org.

Founded in 1916, the Georgia State Golf Association (GSGA) received its official charter on June 24, 1924. Since that date, the GSGA has grown into one of the largest state amateur golf associations in the country, with over 350 member clubs and 85,000 individual members.  With a mission to promote and preserve amateur golf in the state of Georgia, GSGA offers a computerized handicapping service, course rating and measuring, and annually conducts a full schedule of statewide competitions for men and women of all age groups.

Other services include a summer-long junior sectional program, award-winning Golf Georgia magazine, membership recognition and rewards programs, management of the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame and a charitable foundation administering two college scholarship programs.