By Russ Christ

George Boutell, Bill Dickey, Billy Mayfair, Dorothy Pease, Karsten Solheim, Arch Watkins, Tom Weiskopf, Sister Lynn Winsor, Joanne Winter and Jay D. Woodward are the Hall of Fame’s new members. There will be an awards ceremony and Pro-am golf tournament in late May to honor the recipients. Details are still being finalized.

George Boutell was a standout player both as an amateur and professional. He was a two-time Arizona state high school champion at Central High School.

He won the Arizona Amateur Championship in 1962 and was the first All-America in Arizona State University golf history, a feat he achieved in 1966. Most of the major golf publications selected Boutell as the top amateur golfer in 1965. Boutell also played on the PGA Tour from 1967-73 prior to becoming head golf coach at ASU from 1976-1986. His teams often finished in the top 10 in the NCAAs.

While at ASU he coached Jim Carter to the NCAA individual title in 1983. Boutell is currently a PGA Tour Rules Official.

A leader in minority golf, Bill Dickey, 71, created and managed the National Minority Golf Scholarship Foundation, which helps send young adults to college.

Dickey was a six-time president of the Desert Mashie Golf Club and also oversaw the Western States Golf Association. A former professional baseball player, Dickey took up golf at 28, but his involvement since then has earned him numerous awards, including the PGA's Distinguished Service Award, which he received during the 81st PGA Championship at Medinah (Ill.) Country Club last August.

Dickey has also received the AGA's Updegraff Award, the Golf Digest Junior Development Award and the PGA's Card Walker Award. He was inducted into the WSGA Hall of Fame in 1985 and the National Black Hall of Fame in 1989.

Billy Mayfair, a 33-year-old Scottsdale resident, has won five times on the PGA Tour, including the Tour Championship in 1995, when he earned over $1.5 million.

Mayfair was inducted into the Arizona State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. He had an impressive amateur record, winning the 1986 U.S. Public Links Championship and 1987 U.S. Amateur Championship. He also won the Fred Haskins award as the nation's top collegiate player and was a member of the Walker Cup team in 1987.

The Arizona Golf Association, because of Mayfair's superior amateur record and contributions to the game, gives out an annual scoring average award in his honor. Mayfair grew up playing Papago GC and currently plays out of Troon North GC.

Pease served on the USGA women and girls' junior committee for 22 years and directed the Women's Trans-National Golf Association from 1950 until her death. She first played golf in 1929 at age 14 for Phoenix High School.

As the founder of one of the world’s largest golf club manufacturers, Phoenix-based PING, Karsten Solheim, 88, made the leap from shoe repairman to international manufacturing executive. After making putters out of his garage in the late 1950s part-time while working for General Electric, his wife Louise encouraged him to establish Karsten Manufacturing (now PING), a company that currently employs 800 and exports to 66 countries.

Solheim created the famous PING putters and a complete line of golf clubs. The privately-owned company now has annual sales that reach eight figures. Solheim also owns Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix and has made major contributions to golf, including contributions to the Karsten Laboratory for Turfgrass Research and the Karsten Golf Course at ASU.

He also sought to advance women’s professional golf on a global basis with the Solheim Cup. Solheim has won numerous statewide and national awards.

Jay D. Woodward, who passed away in 1978, a year after he retired at the age of 72, was one of Arizona’s first agronomists. Woodward helped organize the Cactus & Pine Golf Course Superintendents Association of Arizona and was the first person to successfully grow bentgrass in Arizona. He began his career in 1938 and worked at Phoenix CC, a course that employed him for seven years.

Woodward was then hired to rebuild Arizona CC, where he stayed as superintendent until 1961. He was later asked to build Desert Forest GC in Carefree in 1961 and remained as superintendent for 16 years. Woodward trained 14 men who went on to become superintendents in the Southwest. In 1976 Jay won the prestigious Outstanding Service Award given by the GCSAA.

At that time he was one of only 11 men to receive the award. Woodward’s legacy lives on through two of his grandsons. Mike Pock at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale and Mark Woodward, CGCS at Dobson Ranch and Riverview Golf Course in Mesa, are still active superintendents.

Arch Watkins, who moved to the Valley from the St. Louis area in 1960, was referred to as a "Pro's Pro." He taught golf to hundreds of Valley youngsters for 45 years, most notably Heather Farr, Billy Mayfair and Jim Carter and was the first head golf professional at Papago Golf Club, where he worked for 18 years. A teaching professional at Camelback Golf Club in Scottsdale from 1981 until his death at the age of 69 in 1995, Watkins was the SWSPGA Teacher of the Year in 1991 and won the Anser Award in 1995.

The Anser Award is named in honor of Karsten Solheim for positive efforts in influencing the history of Arizona golf. Teaching was what Watkins liked best and his philosophy focused on the basics. His son Scott Watkins, an accomplished PGA professional, teaches at the Phoenician. He also had three daughters with his wife Marilyn, who works for the SWSPGA office in Scottsdale.

Tom Weiskopf, 57, the former PGA and current Senior PGA Tour professional, is now a prominent golf course designer. Despite learning the game at age 15, Weiskopf, a Paradise Valley resident and two-time Ryder Cup team member, won on the PGA Tour 15 times, including the 1973 British Open, and had four runner-up finishes in the Masters. He has also earned four Senior PGA Tour victories.

The Ohio State University alumnus became actively involved in golf course architecture in 1983 and has designed numerous award-winning courses, including over 20 co-designs with Jay Morrish; among them Troon Golf & CC, Forest Highlands Canyon Course, The Rim Club, TPC of Scottsdale, Foothills GC, the Monument GC at Troon North, Loch Lomond in Scotland and Double Eagle Club in Ohio.

On his own Tom Weiskopf Signature Designs has produced the Pinnacle at Troon North GC in Scottsdale, Rancho Vistoso in Oro Valley, Hassayampa GC in Prescott and a second course, Meadow, at Forest Highlands. Weiskopf has many more under construction.

Sister Lynn Winsor, 56, has been the golf coach at the all-girls school Xavier College Preparatory, her alma mater (class of 1961), since 1974. Under Winsor's guidance the Xavier golf team has won 18 state titles (16 were consecutive, a national record for consecutive state championships won by a high school). The Xavier team has won 91 percent of its matches since 1979.

Winsor was named the 1999 Golf Coach of the Year by National High School Coaches Association. Fifty of Winsor's former players, among them 1998 U.S. Amateur champion and current pro Grace Park and three-time state medalist Heather Farr, have earned college scholarships.

Joanne Winter was one of the 14 original Charter Master Professionals in the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Division (T&CP) and taught golf for more than 30 years.

Named the 1969 LPGA Teacher of the Year and the1995 recipient of the Ellen Griffin Rolex Award, Winter founded the Arizona Silver Belle Championship Golf Tournament in 1971 for junior girls. Winsor is the former women's golf coach at Arizona State University and was also a writer, inventor, national speaker and golf school founder.

Winter was a staff member of the Johnny Miller Golf Academy in Scotland and England and founder of the Diamond in the Rough Golf School. She also gave seminars for the PGA of America, LPGA and National Golf Foundation.