Annual Lassies Classic seeks new champs

The chase for the title in the Lassies Classic golf tournament appears to be wide open.

Especially without the two-time defending champions and perennial tournament powers in the field.

New Madrid's Diane Fowler and Harriette Myers rolled to last year's championship by five strokes, after winning in 2006 by one stroke.

Fowler and Myers have captured three of the last four Lassies Classic crowns, giving them eight titles in all.

But due to a scheduling conflict, Fowler and Myers will not participate when the 30th annual two-woman scramble begins at 8 a.m. today at Cape Girardeau Country Club.

The tournament, sponsored by the club's Women's Golf Association, concludes Thursday.

"We can't wait to get started," said tournament co-chairperson Shirley Moore. "It's always such a fun event, and the weather is going to be so nice, with no rain in the forecast."

Without Fowler and Myers looming, Moore believes any number of teams could come away with the championship.

Among them is the squad of Janice Hoffman and Vicki Long, the tournament runners-up the last two years and past Lassies Classic champs. They play out of Kimbeland Country Club in Jackson.

Other past championship teams are the groups of Robyn Young-Leslie Steele from Cape Country Club, who claimed the crown in 2005, and Martha Hamilton-Barb Johnson. Hamilton is from Cape Country Club and Johnson plays out of Kimbeland.

"I think it's going to be a shootout. I think it's going to be really exciting," Moore said. "Without them [Fowler and Myers] playing, there should be a lot of teams fighting for it."

Hamilton and Johnson have been Lassies Classic mainstays over the years. Hamilton will be playing in the event for the 30th time -- she has not missed one -- while Johnson missed only the first Lassies Classic because she was living out of town at the time.

Hamilton will be one of nine players this week who also took part in the first Lassies Classic in 1979.

The others are Cape Country Club's Edna Ruth Fischer, Marcia Wagner, Jean Mabrey and Beth Mapes, along with Harriet Drusch (Kimbeland), Deanna Estes (Dalhousie), Hilda Bryant of Farmington and Lola McCain of Farmington.

"It's been a great tournament," said Hamilton, who refers to herself as an "occasional" golfer. "I generally play in two tournaments a year. My partner Barb Johnson belongs to Kimbeland. I play there with her for a tournament and here for this one."

Asked if she plans on extending her streak for many years to come, Hamilton laughed.

"I'm hoping to," she said.

According to Marion Miles Edwards, the original idea of the Lassies Classic started with her and five others from the club's Women's Golf Association.

Edwards said she and her late husband, Dr. H.T. Miles, played the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, where golf originated and which was also the birthplace of women's golf in 1867.

Edwards said she came back with so much enthusiasm from the trip that she and the other association members -- Mapes, Wagner, Ann Dombrowski, Diane Bryan and Edith Lansmon -- organized a 36-hole, two-day tournament.

Wagner named the tournament the Lassies Classic, and the players "Classy Lassies." Bagpipe music greets golfers as they arrive and all the greens have tartan flags.

"When we got back we talked about having a tournament here and we would pattern it after the Old Course in St. Andrews," Edwards said. "We did everything we could to make it as Scottish as possible.

"We thought this would just be a one-year thing. Now it's the 30th year. Unbelievable. It's been such a success."

The Lassies Classic grew from 30 teams in its first year to 108 in 1991. In recent years, the event has been limited to 96 teams to make it more manageable.

"We've never had any trouble filling it, and there is always a waiting list," said Edwards, who no longer golfs in the Lassies Classic but still attends the event every year.

The 192 golfers this week will represent nine states. In addition to Missouri, golfers will come from Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin.