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Golf instructor Connie Deckert has seen a significant increase in the number of female golfers playing in Waterloo Region since she took up the sport more than 35 years ago. Women’s leagues, clubs and tournaments are helping to encourage golfers of all skill levels to tee up.

When Elmira’s Connie Deckert first took up the game of golf more than 35 years ago, finding other women golfers in the area was a challenge.
Now, ladies’ tournaments, clubs and leagues are quickly popping up across Waterloo Region as more and more women begin to appreciate the health, social and even economic benefits of the sport.
“Women need this game for business,” Deckert said. “It’s a perfect venue to conduct business because it gives you a chance to get to know people.”
After years of recreational play, Deckert recently turned her passion for golf into a career by teaching at Max’s Golf Centre in Waterloo and coaching both the men’s and women’s teams at the University of Guelph.
She is thrilled that women, especially juniors, have taken such a liking to a sport she said provides a lifetime of enjoyment.
The university students she works with look at her in amazement when she tells them stories about how women’s golf used to be.
Although Deckert competed in many amateur events and even tried to turn professional in 1972, she was ineligible for university golf scholarships because of her sex.
Times have changed dramatically since then she said, but not as quickly as she would have liked.
For example, women’s golf was only recognized as an official university sport in Ontario three years ago.
At the Elmira Golf Club, where Deckert played with very few female partners when it opened in 1963, the Tuesday night ladies’ league only got going four years ago.
Since then, however, it has taken off, growing to 120 players from 40 in the last two years alone, said organizer Kristy Allen. The club even had to create a waiting list due to time restrictions.
Other courses in the area, including Merry-Hill, Doon Valley, Rockway and Cambridge (CGC) have also experienced growth in their ladies’ leagues, with the latter’s doubling since last year.
“I would say definitely more women and more juniors are getting involved. I’m finding a lot of women are joining because they want to play with men, their husbands or their boyfriends or whatever, and I’m finding that a lot of families are getting involved,” said Carla Munch-Miranda, one of CGC’s professionals.
Like Deckert, Munch-Miranda is a golf coach (at the University of Waterloo), who is excited about the way women’s golf is evolving.
Even though she only started playing 16 years ago, the now-33-year-old was the first female golfer in Waterloo Region to become a member of the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association. Now, more players are following in her footsteps; increasingly, young women are trying out for the university team.
One thing that has not changed much, however, is the ratio of men to women golfing on a typical Saturday or Sunday. While there may be hundreds of men teeing up throughout those days, Munch-Miranda normally sees about 10 women.
Restrictions like work, money and family commitments come into play, as well as anxieties about golfing on such busy days.
To overcome these fears, all three of the avid golfers agreed women should learn the etiquette, rules and pace of play and take lessons. They should also start by playing with friends and other women to build confidence.
“The lady’s league is more just a fun, social night out: a chance for the ladies to come out to the golf course and know that there’s no worry of being intimidated by having four really good men golfers behind you, [where] you feel pressured to get moving,” Allen said.
“I think just the more women kind of get out and start playing, if you can get out on a regular basis that always helps. It’s amazing the improvement that we see in the ladies from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”
She added that with all the women-friendly courses available in the region, rookies should have no problem finding a comfortable place to start. And once they catch the bug, the rest is history.
“I think it just gets frustrating when you hit one bad shot after another and after another. But it’s amazing, as soon as you hit that one good shot, you may have hit five bad shots before, but as soon as you have that one good one, it kind of makes all those disappear and it’s like, ‘OK, this is why I’m out here.’”
Deckert said she teaches women the same way as men, barring a few adjustments for body type; the only difference between the two is confidence.
“A lot of them doubt their ability to hit a ball.”
Once that worry is taken care of, the next step is mastering patience and concentration, two things women are not always great at, she said.
“You can’t be walking down the fairway thinking what you’ve got to buy at the grocery store. You can, but you’re not going to play the best golf.”
The best golf does not always result in the greatest score, however. What some people do not understand is that it does not take a high skill level to have a lot of fun.
Since most golfers do not break a score of 100, the game is more about hitting great shots than making par or birdie.
That said, women are becoming increasingly interested in competition, leading to events such as the Elmira Golf Club Women’s Invitational on July 22.
With a typical winning score of 72-78 (par is 70), many of the roughly 100 women who enter mean business.
Allen has competed in the event for the past four years and enjoys pushing herself.
“It’s a fun game and every time you go out, it’s completely different. You can play the same course 20 times in a row and you will never have the exact same game. I find it very challenging, which I enjoy.”
Tomorrow (Sunday), the Waterloo chapter of the Executive Women’s Golf Association, for which Deckert is the education chair, will be hosting its championship at Savannah Golf Links in Cambridge: yet another opportunity for women to challenge themselves in the sport, she said.
All it takes is a little dedication and some passion, something Deckert hasn’t lost throughout her decades of play.
“The greatest reward is seeing a person hit a good shot and seeing their smile and having them realize they can do it. Because it’s all about empowerment. I want to work myself out of a job.”

An Elmira man involved in a bus crash north of Fort McMurray, Alberta Monday morning died in an Edmonton hospital Wednesday.
Randy Wilkin, 55, a driver with Cherrey Bus Lines of Drayton, succumbed to injuries he sustained when his bus collided with a flatbed truck; a co-worker, Larry Binkley of Mildmay, remains in critical condition in an Edmonton hospital.
They were the only ones on the bus at the time.
The two men, who were in Alberta to transport workers between their camps and their job site in the oil sands, were thrown from the bus in the collision on Hwy. 63 just north of the city limits. They were airlifted to an Edmonton hospital in critical condition.
Though the incident is currently under investigation, police believe the bus was southbound on Hwy. 63 when it turned left into the path of the truck, which was travelling northbound. Because both men were ejected from the bus, police don’t know who had been driving.
Wilkin, an active member in the community through his involvement with the Elmira Sugar Kings, will be missed by family and wide circle of friends.
“He’s going to be sorely missed, sorely missed, and remembered forever. It’s a huge loss to us, to the organization, to hockey – as a friend, as a buddy … you name it. Terribly sad thing,” said club president Jeff Seddon.
“He was a big bear, a big teddy bear. He enjoyed a good laugh, he could laugh at himself, he was kind, he was understanding, he would help – he was just a good guy.”
Through his work with the Kings, Wilkin, a team director, assisted at fundraisers, served as treasurer, helped out with equipment and drove the team bus on occasion.
“He made himself available to do whatever needed to be done; if he thought he could help, he’d be in there helping,” said Seddon.
That sentiment was echoed by his friend Neil Freeman.
“A very generous person, the type that would want to help out with whatever he could. [He’d] do anything for just about anybody, whether he knew them or not.
“Happy-go-lucky; he was always up for a good laugh. Definitely, he’ll be missed by all his friends – he had a lot of friends,” said Freeman.
Wilkin, who arrived in Alberta about a week ago on a short-term contract, had been driving for Cherrey since 2005.

Musicians Magdalena Tomsinska (left), Michael and Shannon Purves-Smith, and Marilyn Fung were the recent recipients of a total $6,000 in funding from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.

Two Elmira musicians have been given the green light to go ahead with new projects thanks to grants from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.
Michael and Shannon Purves-Smith were awarded $3,000 each, part of a total $78,300 (21 grants) doled out across the region.
“I think that they’re very interested in promoting the arts in the region, one of the economic aspects of the region, just so that holistically, the economy of the region is strong,” Michael said.
He will use his share of the money to pay the 25 people who helped create the double CD compilation Contrasts in Love.
The primarily vocal work features over two hours of chamber and choral music compiled over many years, Michael said.
“I hope this is thoroughly memorable music. I think it is.
“My own conviction is that one should be able to use the whole realm of music, including popular music sometimes.”
Contrasts in Love incorporates various musical influences. At times, the sound is romantic like Frederic Chopin and Franz Schubert, at others like Igor Stravinsky and music from the Renaissance, Michael said.
“It’s all very, very accessible. Unless you really just have an aversion to classical music and won’t listen to anything that sounds like that, which is the case with many people, I’d be very surprised if people wouldn’t find this very attractive music.”
Over the past year Michael has been on sabbatical from his teaching position at Wilfrid Laurier University (where he directs the University Wind Ensemble and the baroque programme) in order to promote his music. He plans to sell these newest CDs on his website and at independent retailers.
The arts fund backing and another $2,000 grant from Laurier has allowed Michael to produce a compilation that covers a host of local talent recorded in interesting locales, including the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto and St. James’ Anglican in Stratford. His son will be creating the cover artwork.
Michael, the music director of the Wellington Winds, said he is pleased Waterloo Region is supporting an important part of the area’s culture.
“I think for many people it means that they do projects that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, it’s that simple.”
Although Shannon’s work would have gone ahead without the grant, it would have taken much longer, she said.
Her ensemble, Greensleaves, is producing its third CD entitled Na bliskich lakach (On the Meadows Nearby). It features Polish music from the 16th and 17th centuries, produced and sung by group member Magdalena Tomsinska.
“She’s the only one who knows what she’s doing, we just play,” Shannon said with a laugh.
The group decided to create this third work after its first two albums sold so well.
“People have been asking us to do another one.”
Using their own money to produce the first CD and profits from that to create the second, the group members were thankful for the grant to be used for the third.
Unlike Michael, Greensleaves has a long way to go before completing the project, which it plans to promote in the Polish community both in the region and beyond.
They will use a local sound engineer, production company and musicians to put it together, with Shannon playing recorders and viols.
Greensleaves is a lute/recorder/viols consort specializing in Renaissance and early Baroque music. The group was founded in 1996.