sports Golfers honored by Arkansas State Golf Association

By Donna Stephens

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State Golf Association presented its 2009 Hall of Fame and awards banquet Oct. 29 at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock, and the River Valley and Ozark area was well represented.

Stan Lee of Tumbling Shoals was honored as the organization’s Senior Player of the Year. Summar Roachell of Conway was recognized as the Junior Girls Player of the Year.

Lee’s story is well-known in Arkansas golf circles. A twotime All-American at LSU in 1973 and ’74, he played five years on the PGA Tour, with his best finish a second at the New Orleans Open in 1977.

He regained his amateur status in the mid-1980s and along the way won eight Arkansas state amateur championships and was inducted into the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame in 1999. He toyed with the idea of playing on the Champions Tour but regained his amateur status officially in 2005. Two years later, he became the youngest United States Senior Amateur winner in history at 55 years, five days.

But 2009 brought a big surprise.

Lee had back surgery in February and played in just one tournament in late May, losing in the final of the ASGA Senior Match Play Championship. According to the latest issue of Arkansas Golfer, he didn’t play in another event until Aug. 8-9, losing in a playoff at Cooper’s Hawk in Melbourne. He won at Pine Bluff Country Club and added the ASGA Senior Stroke Play Championship at Greystone inCabot in late August.

From there he played in the U.S. Senior Amateur in Chicago, falling in the round of 16 on the final hole to former champion Mike Bell of Indianapolis. But that showing gave him 175 points for the Senior Player of the Year race, leaving him just 22 behind former winner Oscar Taylor. The race came down to the River Valley Senior Stroke at Russellville Country Club in September. Lee shot 65-64-129, seven strokes ahead of Jim Gray and 11 ahead of Taylor.

Lee finished the season with 840 points. Taylor was second with 818.

“The cream always rises to the top,” said Jay Fox, executive director of the ASGA, in introducing Lee. “Stan Lee is known far and wide around the Mid-South and will go down in history as one of the best amateur golfers in Arkansas. His close friend Rick McCoy convinced him to [play at] Russellville, where he wrapped up Player of the Year by 22 points.”

Lee used his acceptance remarks to expound upon the most important things he’s learned from golf throughout a 45-year career, including how golf and life are intertwined: patience, perseverance, persistence, how to win and how to lose, discipline, sportsmanship and how hard work precedes success.

“Championships fade, glory is so fleeting, and trophies tarnish with time and end up in the back of your closet,” he said. “But so many of the dearest friends of my life I have met through golf, and many are in this room. I cherish those relationships.

“It’s not about that booming drive. It’s about relationships and friends.”

After the dinner, Lee told an old friend how his time off had changed his outlook on golf.

“Once I started playing again, I had such a new appreciation for it,” he said. “For the first year in my life, I really enjoyed playing golf. It has been such a part of my life, but I’d reached the point that I’d lost my joy. Now I’ve got that back.

“Once you reach a certain point, you learn to appreciate things more.”

He said this one was a different kind of accomplishment compared to the many others on his résumé.

“As we get older, we mellow,” he said.

Lee told Arkansas Golfer, “If I can win a state tournament next year, it will be the sixth consecutive decade I have won a state championship. I know that is lucky - just to live that long and have a chance to do something in six decades - I am proud of that.”

And, as he’d done in 2007 to the same reporter, he predicted he would win the 2010 U.S. Senior Amateur.

“I’m going on record now,” he said.

***

Roachell, 14, was a stroke away from winning Junior Girls Player of the Year in 2008 but lost on a six-hole playoff to Taylor Fisher of Hot Springs in the ASGA Junior Girls Stroke Play Championship.

In ’09, she won the Greater Little Rock Championship and Bruce Jenkins Memorial, finished runner-up at the Burns Park Junior Stroke and reached the semifinals of the ASGA Junior Girls Match Play Championship. Then she went on a streak, winning five of her last six tournaments - the Arkansas Women’s Golf Association Junior Stroke at Chenal, Bubba Smart at Pine Bluff Country Club, Ben I. Mayo at Hardscrabble Country Club in Fort Smith, Hot Springs Country Club Junior Stroke and the ASGA Mountain Valley Junior Girls Stroke Play Championship at Texarkana Country Club.

Roachell finished the season with 975 points, well ahead of Katie Webb of Heber Springs, who finished in second at 695.

She also finished her freshman season of high school golf undefeated, winning the 7A Central, Class 7A State and Overall titles.

In her acceptance remarks, Roachell thanked her parents, Bill and Lisa Roachell, and talked about what golf had taught her: “the importance of being honest, the importance of having respect, integrity, to dream big, work hard and have fun.”

Other golfers honored included Jon Zieske of the Aloatian Club, Arkansas Professional of the Year; Hunter Smith of Cabot, Junior Boys Player of the Year; John Siratt of Antioch, Mid-Senior Player of the Year; Glenn Hickey of Little Rock,Super-Senior Player of the Year, and Nicklaus Benton of Cabot, Amateur Player of the Year. The 16th Class of the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame comprised Fox, Bobby Baker of Little Rock, Rosey Bartlett of Dallas and the late Bob McGee.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 149 on 11/15/2009

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