If you've been around golf for a while, you're probably shocked when you come across a talented player who has remained an amateur. Mary Ann Lapointe qualifies as a near-original, then, although some people could quibble that the 46-year-old, who lives in Georgetown, Ont., and won the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Championship last summer, hasn't been an amateur for her entire career.
That's a fair enough quibble, given that Lapointe turned professional briefly in the early 1980s after she graduated from Florida International University in Miami. She tried and failed to qualify for the LPGA Tour on a couple of occasions. She played elsewhere as a pro for a short time, and then she showed her smarts by packing it in as a pro and applying to be reinstated as an amateur.
"I decided I didn't like the lifestyle, and I was engaged to be married at the same time," Lapointe said yesterday from her home. "I applied [for reinstatement]in the fall of 1984 and I could play [as an amateur]by the fall of '86."
Lapointe made the right decision.
She and her husband are the parents of two teenage daughters, and she works part-time as a bookkeeper while playing amateur golf. The Golf Association of Ontario will recognize her accomplishments when it inducts her into its Hall of Fame on Wednesday at the Wooden Sticks Golf Club in Uxbridge, Ont., where it is based.
But Lapointe's induction, career amateur Marlene Streit said yesterday from her winter home near Palm Beach, Fla., won't be only because she won the U.S. Mid-Amateur.
"She would have gone in anyway," said Streit, the only Canadian member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. "Definitely. She has the record in Ontario to be in the Hall of Fame there and the record nationally to be in the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Mary Ann has represented Canada more times than anybody."
Streit probably wasn't counting herself. Still, it's true that Lapointe has served on many Canadian teams. She was on the one that nearly won the world amateur team championship two years ago in Puerto Rico and she hopes to make the team that will play in Cape Town, South Africa, in October.
As it happens, the final day of this year's world amateur tournament will conflict with the first day of qualifying for the match-play portion of the U.S. Mid-Amateur.
The Canadian Ladies Golf Association, now formally known as the Royal Canadian Golf Association's Women's Division, will announce its team after the Canadian Women's Amateur tournament in August, and it's likely that Lapointe will be on it. Should that happen, she won't defend her U.S. Mid-Amateur title.
"It's a win-win situation," Lapointe said.
It's just a guess from the tone of her voice, but it sounded as if her first choice would be to represent Canada in the world amateur.
Along the way to wherever she competes in October, Lapointe will play in at least a couple of CN Canadian Women's Tour events and the CN Canadian Women's Open in London, Ont., from Aug. 10 to 13, should she qualify.
Lapointe has won four Canadian Women's Amateur crowns and will play that event the first week of August at the Moncton Golf and Country Club.
Then there's the Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship. The CLGA -- whoops, the RCGA Women's Division -- is sending its national team, including Lapointe and seven other members, along with the eight players from its national junior team, to this important championship from July 7 to 9 at the Royal County Down club in Newcastle, Northern Ireland. Lapointe has played this mind-bending, awesome links before and is looking forward to the event.
Why not? She's had plenty of success at some of the highest levels of amateur golf. Most recently, she and Ivy Steinberg of Toronto won the Palm Beach Polo Four-Ball Invitational a couple of weeks ago. They swept through some of the top U.S. amateurs on their way to winning the match-play competition.
"I'm feeling better each and every year," Lapointe said. "When I think back to when I tried to qualify [for the LPGA Tour] my game is light-years different. No wonder I didn't make it."
Amateur golf in Canada is better off because she didn't. And Lapointe is happier for choosing to regain her amateur status. A look around the golf world shows many golfers who should have done the same, but who have wasted years trying to make it as tour pros.
They've lived a fantasy. Lapointe accepted reality and has distinguished herself as an amateur. She's evidence that reality is sometimes preferable to fantasy. More golfers should have chosen as she did so many years ago.