Keith Decker has won a record 27 VSGA championships.
Donna Andrews at the 2003 U. S. Women’ s Open. line of well-known teaching professionals, a mom, and a high school football coach are the most influential people in the careers of the players chosen for induction in the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame in 2017. Donna Andrews, Keith Decker and J. C. Snead will be honored May 18, 2017, in ceremonies at the Country Club of Virginia in Richmond. They’ ll be inducted along with the late Wallace McDowell, the pioneering former executive director of the Virginia State Golf Association.
Andrews, the first woman selected for the Hall, won five straight VSGA Women’ s Amateurs and later won six LPGA tournaments, including a major championship, the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore. Now a teaching pro in Pine Needles, N. C.,
Andrews had a series of outstanding teachers in her playing career. They included Phil Owenby, Davis Love, Jr., and Jack Lumpkin.
“ All my teachers were great,” Andrews said.“ They gave me a good foundation for my swing. But the person who introduced me to the game back home in Lynchburg was my father, Barclay Andrews.”
Decker, an amateur from Martinsville who has won 27 VSGA championships in the last 28 years, was brought into the game by his mother, Paulina Joyce.
“ Before I got my first junior set of clubs, she made me my first club, a club with a
J. C. Snead won eight times on the PGA Tour and claimed a major on the senior circuit. wooden shaft,” Decker said.“ And I still have it.
“ I started playing golf with her when I was 7 or 8 years old. She was very patient with me. Then when we moved to Virginia
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18 V IRGINIA G OLFER | J ANUARY / F EBRUARY 2017 vsga. org