2014 CONNECTICUT GOLF HALL OF FAME
BETTY BOYKO
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Inducted into Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame for Distinguished Service to Golf
etty Boyko, one of the great pioneers
of women’s golf in Connecticut, will
enter the Connecticut Golf Hall of
Fame in December of 2014 in the category of
“Distinguished Service.”
Boyko was instrumental in the
founding of the Southern New England
Women’s Golf Association (SNEWGA) in
1956, and it was her forward thinking vision
and energy that launched the Connecticut
Women’s Amateur Championship ten years
later in 1966. Women who have followed in
her footsteps, and who have benefitted from
her trailblazing efforts on behalf of women
golfers have long revered Boyko. In 2009
SNEWGA created the Betty Boyko SNEWGA
Invitational. The Connecticut Women’s Senior
Amateur trophy is named in her honor.
In 2006, on the occasion of
SNEWGA’s 50th anniversary, then president
Gale Lemieux of Timberlin Golf Club found
inspiration in the work of Betty Boyko and
other early leaders when she wrote, “Recently
I had the pleasure of meeting three of the first
four presidents of SNEWGA, Betty Boyko,
Anna Polanski and Arline Rich. These women
are an inspiration for all of us to assess what we
can offer back to the game and our association,
and to find a way to reach out to women golfers
and encourage and support their interest in the
game.”
The social and competitive
environment was very different in the 1950s
and 1960s for women golfers. It was a struggle
to convince clubs to put in women’s tees and
to establish women’s handicaps. Sometimes it
was hard just to get playing time. “What the
founders must have gone through reminds me
of that movie, ‘A League of Their Own’,” said
Deb Johnson of Sterling Farms Golf Course,
one of Connecticut’s top women golfers for
many years.
Boyko, the President of SNEWGA
in 1963-64 recalled the early years with great
fondness in a 2006 interview. “I formed a
committee that included members from the
Connecticut Women’s Golf Association and
we played the first championship in 1966,”
Boyko said. “I think we had thirty-five of us
playing in the first one.”
The tournament gained instant
credibility when Connecticut Golf Hall of
www.csgalinks.org
Above: Betty Boyko (left) presents the Connecticut Women’s Amateur Trophy in 2007 with Tournament Chair Pat Balzer
(right), a championship which she was instrumental in founding in 1966.
Famer Pat O’Sullivan Lucey, a former Curtis
Cupper, LPGA winner and nine-time CWGA
champion signed up and won the inaugural
event.
“We had mostly team competitions
at first with four players on each club’s team,”
Boyko recalled. “It’s more competitive now
because of the young players.”
The signature event in the
association’s early years was the Team
Championship, which has remained a fixture
on the annual schedule. Boyko, who was a
longtime member at Indian Hill Country Club
and who also played extensively at Goodwin
Park Golf Course, carded a 78 at Blackledge
Country Club to win the individual medal in
1970, a round she often referred to as her best
ever.
Former president of the Southern
New England Women’s Golf Association
and its current historian, Jenny Burrill paid
tribute to Boyko as the driving force in the
creation of the Con