Virginia Golfer September / October 2014 | Page 25

FAR LEFT: A mutual interest in golf, as well as a keen curiosity
in learning and instructing, helped unite Mark and Leslie
Guttenberg. LEFT: The Guttenbergs have a practice area in
their backyard. BELOW: The couple finds solace in the tucked
away serenity of their home.

caddied for her. She needed an 85 or better
at Longwood Golf Course to get her card,
and she was right on track when they arrived
at the 17th hole, a long and foreboding par 3
over water.
“When we got up to the tee, all I could see
was that water,” Mark remembers. “Then she
hit a 3-wood to 3 feet and made birdie. When
we got to the 18th green, I told her she could
five-putt and she’d still make it. That was
really a thrill for both of us.”
Leslie was 28 when she earned her card
and began teaching the game, often in tandem with Mark. They did group lessons for
couples, held clinics for adults, ran camps
and clinics for kids and also developed a devoted clientele for individual lessons. Mark
moved from Prince William to Westpark
Golf Club in Leesburg where he was the
head PGA professional. One of his young
pupils over a 12-year span was a young kid
from Leesburg, Billy Hurley III, twice a
winner of the VSGA Amateur Championship (2004-05). He is now playing on the
PGA Tour.

CONTINUED SUCCESSES AND
A RENEWED RECOLLECTION
When he turned 47, Mark embarked on his
own golfing quest. He wanted to try playing
the senior Champions Tour when he turned

w w w. v s g a . o r g

50. That’s when he and Leslie decided to
lay out their backyard practice area. He left
Westpark to work on his own game, and
they both taught lessons right out the back
door of a home they’ve now been in for 27
years. Several Redskins players were clients,
as was Fox News commentator Brit Hume,
among others.
Guttenberg did not fare well in several
attempts at Q-School for the Champions
Tour, though over many years he’s won several events conducted by the Middle Atlantic
Section of the PGA of America. In 2006, at
the age of 53, he qualified for the U.S. Senior
Open at Prairie Dunes Country Club in
Hutchinson, Kan., and though he missed the
cut, the experience remains one of the great
memories of his life in golf.
Leslie also had a fabulous time that week,
especially after Friday’s second round. Johnny
Miller was on the premises working the telecast for NBC, and a friend from the USGA
who knew about her infatuation with that
1973 photo of Miller and his wife introduced
her to him. She actually showed Miller the
old clipping, and he signed it: “To Mark and
Leslie, True Love, Prairie Dunes 2006.”
Mark and Leslie, also the proud parents
of a son, 23-year-old Taylor, still have a
true love with golf after all these years.
Mark recently accepted a job at Bull Run

Golf Club in Haymarket as PGA director
of instruction for the Raspberry Falls Golf
Schools