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NOV/DEC 08
By Becky LaPlante In the late 1950s and early ’60s, Carol Sorenson Flenniken was the player to beat in the Wisconsin women’s amateur golf world. By the time she was 15 years old, she was competing in – and winning – both junior and women’s events.
Flenniken chose her college, Arizona State University, based on its golf program, though she went there on an academic scholarship. She won the NCAA championship her freshman year, and she played twice on the prestigious U.S. Curtis Cup team. In addition to numerous Wisconsin Women’s State Golf Association victories, Flenniken won the Women’s Western Amateur and the Women’s Trans-Mississippi.
Flenniken was a force in women’s golf at a time when women were supposed to stay home, and when there wasn’t any real money involved. Those two factors weighed heavily on her decision to remain an amateur player, though many say she would have fared well at the professional level.
“Carol was the absolute best woman golfer that I know that didn’t turn professional,” said friend and opponent Lynn Zmistowski.
Flenniken’s distinguished amateur golf career garnered her honorary memberships at Janesville CC and Monroe CC, and she’s a member of the WSGA Hall of Fame, the Colorado Golf Association Hall of Fame and the Arizona State University Hall of Fame.
Carol Sorenson was born in Janesville on Nov. 15, 1942, to Ted and Hazel Sorenson. She married club professional Bill Flenniken when she was in her early 20s.
An only child and a tomboy, Flenniken learned to play golf at the age of 6 by tagging along with her father, a successful boys golf coach at what was then Janesville Senior High School.
It wasn’t long before Flenniken began playing competitively, and her first Wisconsin victory was the Janesville Municipal Ladies Golf Championship when she was just 10 years old. After that her parents joined Janesville CC, and that membership was the beginning of Flenniken’s exceptional junior career.
Flenniken played just about every sport there was to play as a child, but by the time she reached sixth grade she began to focus on golf. When she was about 12 years old, Flenniken attended the Tam O’Shanter All-American, a tournament in Niles, Ill., with her father. Babe Zaharias was playing, and Carol followed her from hole to hole, crawling between spectators’ legs to catch a glimpse of The Babe in action. The day started out cool, but by the time afternoon rolled around it had warmed up, and Flenniken went to the car to change into shorts. It’s been 54 years since that day, and Flenniken still remembers what happened when she returned.
“(Babe) was obviously aware that this little Carol was watching her, because she walked off the green and saw me there and said, ‘Wadja do, change your clothes?’ And it was just a thrill for a kid like me. And it wasn’t ‘what did you’ it was ‘wadja.’”
Flenniken’s father continued to teach her until she was 15 years old, and then Russ Tuveson helped hone her skills at Janesville CC. There she played some with the ladies, but most of the time she played with the men.
“I played on Wednesday afternoon, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning with the men,” Flenniken said. “No women were allowed on the golf course (during those times), except Carol. They were awful good to me and encouraged me, and had a great deal to do with all the junior tournaments that I won and probably my good fortune at a younger age, because I had a lot of support from Janesville CC.”
Tuveson is in his 80s and hasn’t seen Flenniken in years, but the longtime Wisconsin golf professional remembers “everything” about her. Her swing was on plane, he said, and she was an all-around great player.
“Tee to green she was good, and she had a good short game,” he said. “Good putter – she was good at everything.”
Tuveson once took Flenniken to Brynwood CC in Milwaukee for a practice round before a tournament. But Flenniken’s mind wasn’t on her game that day, he said, and she shot 40 on the front nine. Tuveson told her they were going home, that it
didn’t even pay to play if she was going to shoot in the 40s.
“She gets mad and she says, ‘Never mind, let’s play another nine; I want to play the back nine,’” he said. “Well, on the back nine she shot 36, because she was determined.”
So it seems.
Flenniken’s first Wisconsin Women’s State Golf Association win came at the 1958 junior championship when she was 15, and she followed up with another win in ’59. But winning the junior title wasn’t enough for Flenniken, and she overlapped her junior wins with victories at the ladies’ championship in ’59, ’60, ’62 and ’63. In 1959 she won the Women’s Western Junior Championship, and in ’60 Flenniken won the 12th United States Golf Association Girls Junior Championship by beating Sharon Fladoos of Dubuque, Iowa, 2 and 1.
At Arizona State, Flenniken quickly made a name for herself with her compact swing and deadly putter, and she became the team’s No. 1 player. Before her sophomore year, she earned one of the two golf scholarships offered by the school, and she was a member of four NCAA championship winning teams.
Before Sorenson could graduate, she took a semester off to play for the 1964 Curtis Cup team. Being selected to play on that team, Sorenson said, was in those days the biggest honor an amateur player could have.
The matches were played in South Wales at Royal Porthcawl GC, and the U.S. rolled to a 10-7 victory over the Great Britain/Ireland team. Flenniken and partner Barbara Fay White defeated Bridget Jackson and Susan Armitage, 8 and 6; to this day they hold the tournament record for the largest winning margin for foursomes.
Flenniken’s most notable win came at the 1964 British Amateur, a match-play event her childhood hero Babe Zaharias had won 17 years earlier. At 22, she became the youngest woman ever to win the event, but the only reason Flenniken even entered is because she was already in Europe for the Curtis Cup matches.
“I didn’t just whip over there to play in the British Amateur,” she said.
The championship match was scheduled for 36 holes, but it went 37.
“I won it because (Jackson) missed a putt on the 18th hole, but the trouble is I probably missed several putts or it would never have gone to the 18th hole,” she said.
Flenniken doesn’t remember many details of her matches at the British Amateur, but there is one sensation the woman from Wisconsin will never forget.
“I’d never been so cold in my life,” she said as she described how she wore hand warmers and other cold-weather gear during practice rounds. “I grew up in Wisconsin, but I played golf in Arizona.”
The hoopla surrounding her victory at the British Amateur was thrilling. The gallery was much larger than any she’d ever played in front of, and photographers were everywhere. The atmosphere of playing in and winning a European tournament, she said, was much different than it was in the U.S.
In 1964, the biggest year of her golf career, Flenniken was named the Wisconsin athlete of the year. She said that honor, next to winning the British Amateur, was the highlight of her career because it came during the Green Bay Packers’ glory years and she beat out some famous names, like Bart Starr.
Zmistowski met Flenniken while they were playing in a tournament 37 years ago, and the two still see each other a few times a year. Zmistowski said Flenniken was able to hit a 2-iron straight at the flagstick every time she hit it. Flenniken, Zmistowski said, would chit-chat on the golf course but always stayed focused on her game. She was automatic, and she amazed everyone with her ability to fire her irons at the green.
“Very few golfers, men or women, can hit a 2-iron straight at the flagstick,” Zmistowski said. “If you can hit your 2-iron perfect, obviously hitting the rest of the clubs perfectly is easy. And it certainly was for Carol. She simply did not miss any shots.”
Now 65, Flenniken lives in Brush, Colo., and spends her time – when she’s not playing golf – hunting pheasant, duck, quail and doves with her husband and their dogs. Though she has struggled with back problems and has had three back surgeries over the course of 20 years, she has continued to play competitive golf and is an eight-time Colorado Women’s Golf Association Stroke Play champion and a four-time CWGA Match Play champion.
“I really enjoy playing golf,” Flenniken said. “And if I don’t play well, I can’t wait to get back to the course the next day to try to figure out what I’d done wrong.”
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