The best nugget from last night's Players' Dinner came from Dena Nowotny, the first Women's Mid-Amateur Committee chairman. She told the crowd of 400 that when the Women's Mid-Am was started in 1987, Judy Bell, then a member of the Executive Committee, wanted the inaugural championship to be played at a first-rate venue and suggested Nowotny's home course, Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.
Nowotny didn't think that Southern Hills, which had hosted the 1958 and 1977 U.S. Opens (it would later hold a third U.S. Open in 2001), would be willing to give up the club for a new championship. So she decided to hold it in October during the week of the Red River Rivalry, the annual football game between the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas. She knew play would be sparse since most members would be in Dallas for the game.
It turned out to be a good week for all parties. The No. 1-ranked Sooners won, and the inaugural Women's Mid-Amateur made a successful debut, with 320 entries.
-- Hunki Yun