For Texan Schultz, Much to Be Thankful For

By Andrew Blair

Hot Springs, Va. - Texan Anna Schultz could only be partially satisfied with her first-round score of 3-over-par 73 at the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at The Homestead’s Cascades Course.

Many wouldn't know it from the way she carries herself, but Anna Schultz's lineage can be traced to the Holocaust. (Robert Walker/USGA)

After all, she’s been battling her driver and searching for her swing. And the gnats here, big enough to carry her golf bag, have her hoping for a gale-force of Texas wind just to blow them beyond Bath County. Fighting some alignment issues, too, she just shrugged her shoulders after verifying and signing her scorecard following Saturday’s first day of stroke play qualifying.

“Some days you pure it and shoot 80,” she smiles, knocking away a bug. “Other days, you figure you just can’t play a lick and you wind up shooting a pretty good score.”

Schultz, who won the 2007 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at Sunriver (Ore.) Resort, understands how to keep a good game or a bad one in perspective. Bearing a wide smile, Schultz knows she has plenty to be thankful for when she recounts her family lineage, in itself a triumph of the human spirit.

Uncommon Courage

That’s because her parents, Joseph and Maria Koncewicz, both Polish Catholics, are Holocaust survivors from World War II. Her dad was a prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp and both were subjected to Hitler’s atrocities of forced oppression.

“The only reason my dad survived was because he knew a trade,” Schultz says. “He was very good with his hands. He was a machinist and only 19 when he was in the concentration camps.”

He knew how to help make weapons. It probably saved his life.

“That’s the only reason they didn’t gas him,” Schultz says.

Schultz’s mother made it through the horrors of the time when millions of others, including family members, weren’t as lucky.

“Her brother was gassed and her other brother was hung on a light pole,” Schultz says.  

Schultz hopes the stories of Jews and non-Jews aren’t forgotten. It’s a story with a happy ending if there is such a thing in an unbearable tragedy. Her parents met in a displacement camp after the war and then got married in Germany before moving to the United States where they were taken in by a Dallas couple.

Later, Schultz’s father started his own business and is now a very successful entrepreneur in the field of engineering.

“He did it from nothing, which is pretty awesome,” Schultz says.

Though her parents only occasionally talk to Schultz and her three siblings about the time, Anna knows the memories are still pretty vivid; after all, the scars never really go away.

“Even now, it’s still very painful. When they talk about it, they start crying,” Schultz says. “We get them to talk about it every once in a while and they tell us a little more each time.”

During the end of World War II, her father was a part of a death march. He somehow managed to stay alive and when the United States’ involvement reached its height, her father has spoken of the days when emaciated survivors tore their former captors “almost limb from limb” in retaliation.

With a look of amazement, Schultz also remembers a recent conversation with her parents.

“I asked them if they had to live their life over again, what they would change,” Schultz recalls. “To my great surprise, they both said they would go through it all again because it’s made them value each and everything that they have today. It was incredible.”

Thoughts of Friends

Anna (pronounced Ah-Nuh) Schultz was born Aug. 8, 1955, and it was through her parents’ courage that she has enjoyed the privilege of playing golf. Schultz has shined as an amateur golfer. In addition to her Senior Women’s Amateur victory, she was a finalist in the national championship in 2006 at Sea Island Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga., and a finalist at the 2000 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, Calif.

A certified public accountant and a member of The Honors Golf Club of Dallas, Schultz has also enjoyed her share of success in area events, collecting more than a dozen titles.

Her three children are all excellent players as well. Sons Mark and David played at Texas A&M, and her third son, Kevin, played at the University of Texas. She emphasizes to them that nothing should be taken for granted.

“We didn’t get everything we wanted,” Schultz says. “Growing up, we still had to work for what we got.”

Schultz admittedly enters the week with the pursuit of a second title at the forefront of her thoughts. Truth be told, she is competing with a late friend on her mind in 2008 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur finalist Toni Wiesner, who succumbed to cancer in late July. Schultz and three other Dallas-area competitors are wearing blue ribbons on their hats in honor of Wiesner. Among the players remembering Wiesner is Carolyn Creekmore, who equaled the low round of the first day of qualifying with a 2-over 72.

Schultz remembers Wiesner as a player who would shine brightest when things were seemingly at their worst.

“She was a fiery competitor, a ‘mudder,’ ” Schultz says. “The worse the weather, the better she played, because she knew she had the advantage. If you were the champion or finished dead-last, it didn’t matter to her. She was a friend to everybody.”

Changing Dynamic

Schultz knows that her chances this week will depend on continuing to get a handle on her ball-striking and negotiating the Cascades’ undulating greens.

She remembers playing a practice round at this year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship with three rising young players who eventually advanced to the quarterfinals in teenagers Alexis Thompson, Jessica Korda and eventual winner Jennifer Song. The experience with the teenagers illuminated how the younger generation is moving the needle of the game with their length; Schultz hopes there is still some reward for playing position golf. 

“I see these girls hit it forever,” Schultz says. “I’ve been trying to get it longer, but the problem is that’s a little different swing than I had in ’07.

“They all hit it beautifully, but they’re younger than my kids.”

Andrew Blair is communications director for the Virginia State Golf Association. E-mail him with questions or comments at ablair@vsga.org.