Gayle Borthwick

If Gayle Borthwick doesn't remember this trip to Broadmoor Golf Club, something is terribly wrong.

As Gayle Hitchens, then 17, she competed in the 1961 U.S. Girls' Junior at Broadmoor, but when asked during the USGA Senior Women's Amateur, played at the same club the second week of September, for her memories of that week, she drew a blank. And it wasn't as though she played miserably; she was one stroke off the medalist's score and advanced to the round of 16.

Her latest trip to Broadmoor G.C., for the stroke-play swan song of the Senior Women's Amateur, should be engraved in her memory for some time, if not forever. The 52-year-old retired grade school teacher from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, took the lead during the second round and survived a stumble midway through the final 18 to win the title, giving her women's senior titles both north and south of the 49th parallel.

Borthwick finished with a third round 78 and a 54-hole score of 10-over-par 226, one stroke better than compatriot Marlene Streit and Karen Oldham of Silver Lake, Ohio, and two ahead of Tish Preuss of Colorado Springs, Colo., the 1991 winner.

"This was something I'd always wished for but never thought I could achieve," said Borthwick, a Canadian champion a the junior, amateur, mid-amateur and senior levels. "I've played well all summer but there's been a little clink in the armor in that several times I've led after the first two or three days and then something's happened on the last day. I hung in there and I guess I'm proud of that."

It appeared for much of the final round that the outcome would be a foregone conclusion as Borthwick, who began the day three strokes clear of Preuss, twice opened four-stroke leads. When the leaders hit the turn and headed for the stretch run, however, no one could force a decisive move. Borthwick made two double bogeys, one at the eighth and another at the 11th, Preuss bogeyed the ninth and 10th and Oldham bogeyed three of five holes starting at the 11th.

When Borthwick bogeyed the par-5 13th, chipping to within three feet but missing the putt, she and Oldham found themselves sharing the lead. Moments later, Oldham returned the favor with a bogey at the par-5 15th to fall one back and give Borthwick the lead for good.

Streit was steady throughout the day, fashioning two bogeys against one birdie through the first 16 holes to trail by one. But a so-so chip at the 17th left her a six-foot putt for par, which she missed, and her last chance, a 10-footer for birdie at the last hole, stayed inches left of the cup.

"She's a great player," Streit said of Borthwick, the '93 and '94 Canadian Senior Women's Amateur champion. "She's a strong player, and I'm not surprised at all."

Preuss, who played with Borthwick in the final round, stayed within shouting distance for most of the round, but she was 0-for-3 on sand saves, and a wicked 6-iron at the 10th, which led to the first of back-to-back bogeys, hurt as well. "That put me in jail," she noted, "and if I hit it anywhere else I have a chance to get up and down."

Thus Borthwick will go into the record books as the final stroke-play champion at the USGA Senior Women's Amateur. After 35 years of 54 holes stroke play, the only format the championship has ever known, it will fall into line with most of the USGA's other amateur championships starting in 1997 at Yeamans Hall Club in Charleston, S.C., when two days of stroke play will yield a 64-player, matchplay draw.