Streit: Thompson continues to give back to the game

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Editor's note: Marlene Stewart Streit, who is considered Canada's greatest female amateur, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004. She will be on hand Monday to see her good friend Carol Semple Thompson join the Hall and took time to write about it for PGATOUR.COM.

Thompson

I'm excited to welcome my friend Carol Semple Thompson into the World Golf Hall of Fame. I always say that when I grow up, I want to be just like her. Of course, I'm about 14 years old than she is but I still mean it. She doesn't have an ugly bone in her body. I treasure her friendship.

She's very competitive but she's just as nice in everything she does. She's a great administrator with the Curtis Cup. As good a player as she is, Carol gives back to the game 10-fold without even trying. She serves on the executive committee of the USGA -- which is huge when you have nothing to do, much less when you're tying to play golf. She's played in the Curtis Cup 12 times. To play well enough to be selected for that team is big, but she's been instrumental in several wins, too.

I first met Carol when she was about 16 years old. I was playing in the U.S. Women's Amateur at Sewickley (Pa.) Heights Golf Club and I stayed with the Semples, who are one of the great golfing families of the United States. I was probably an old lady to Carol back in those days. I first met her mother, Phyllis in the 1950s, and her dad was a former president of the USGA. Her mother is really special. She's had lupus for about 25 years but she still practices and hits balls. She never gives up. First of all, Carol had to beat her mother and then she started beating the rest of the world. Carol definitely plays for the love of the game, and she's so good with her family.

Mark Cubbedge/WGHOF

Carol Semple won this trophy at the 1964 Pennsylvania State Women?s Amateur. The trophy was stolen by silver thieves during a 1980 robbery, but returned 26 years later.

We play partner golf together now down in Florida in the winter and spring. We've done that for the last four or five years. I tell her I'm old and I need a good partner. She gets mad at me when I rant and rave. She pulls me back to reality, though. We meet up in the Doherty/Jones Women's Challenge Cup and then play the next week at the Hollywood International Four-Ball. We also play together in the Palm Beach Polo Ladies Four-Ball Invitational, which we won last year. It's a lot of fun. She also organizes the Harder Hall Women's Invitational -- she does a lot of things people don't know about.

Carol has been a fantastic Curtis Cup captain. She's really supportive to the younger girls coming up and she's such a good role model. They all love her. She plays in tournaments all summer, so all the girls know her. She doesn't intimidate them. They can learn so much from her. She can hit the ball far and she has a good all-around game. Her real strength, though, is her short game. I remember one match in the 1992 U.S. Women's Mid-Am at Old Marsh in Palm Beach. She never let up and she beat me on the last hole -- chipping and putting -- and she went on to finish runner-up. You never know how she's playing, either. She's very steady.

Carol won the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur four times in a row -- and that takes some doing right there. She's dependable. She makes birdies and she makes putts. She's a great partner. She is tenacious and she concentrates so well. She always has a plan. She rides, too. She's a great equestrian. She's been riding in the hunt for forever so it's hard to find her in the fall. She loves to ride, but she gets in the barn and cleans it out, too. That's the kind of person she is.

I am so excited for Carol and Pete Dye. Both of them are such good friends and I think it's fantastic that they are getting the recognition they deserve. I know a lot of the other professional girls in the Hall of Fame -- Carole Mann and Judy Rankin and the rest of them. But I know Carol and Pete better. I think it's a great class. I can't wait to see her on Monday night.