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Marlene Stewart Streit

Marlene Stewart Streit

Hometown

Cereal

Alberta

Year Inducted

2004

Inducted Category

Competitor

Birthdate

Mar 09,1934

Amateur Wins: 76

1951: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship, Ontario Junior Girls’ Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1952: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship, Ontario Junior Girls’ Championship
1953: British Women’s Amateur, National Mixed Foursomes Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship
1954: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship
1955: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship
1956: U.S. Women’s Amateur, Women’s North and South Championship, U.S. Women’s Intercollegiate Championship (NCAA), Women’s International Four-Ball Championship (with Anne Casey Johnston), Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship, Totem Pole Tournament, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1957: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1958: National Mixed Foursomes Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1959: Helen Lee Doherty Championship, Daks Ladies’ International Championship, National Mixed Foursomes Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship
1960: Helen Lee Doherty Championship
1961: Helen Lee Doherty Championship
1963: Australian Women’s Amateur, National Mixed Foursomes Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship
1965: Helen Lee Doherty Championship, Women’s Amateur Championship of Palm Beach, National Mixed Foursomes Championship
1968: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Close Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1969: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1970: Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1972: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1973: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship
1974: Women’s North and South Championship, Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1976: Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1977: Ontario Ladies’ Amateur Championship
1985: U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Senior Women’s Amateur Championship
1987: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, Ontario Senior Women’s Championship
1988: Canadian Ladies Golf Association Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, Ontario Senior Women’s Championship
1989: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion
1990: Palm Beach Polo Women’s Four-Ball Championship, Ontario Senior Women’s Championship
1992: Ontario Senior Women’s Championship
1993: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion, Canadian Ladies Golf Association Senior Women’s Amateur Championship
1994: U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur
1995: Ontario Senior Women’s Championship
1996: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion
1999: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion
2001: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion
2002: Ione D. Jones/Doherty Senior Division Champion
2003: U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, Women’s International Four-Ball Championship, Ontario Senior Women’s Championship

Awards & Honors:

Canadian Woman Athlete of the Year: 1951, 1953,1956,1960,1963
Lou Marsh Trophy: 1951, 1956
Bobbie Rosenfeld Award: 1952, 1953, 1956, 1963
Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame: 1962
Officer of the Order of Canada: 1967
Canadian Golf Hall of Fame: 1971
Rollins College Hall of Fame: 1977
CLGA Distinguished Service Award: 1997
Ontario Golf Hall of Fame: 2000

Marlene Stewart Streit is quite simply the most successful amateur golfer in Canadian history. Her career spans more than five decades with at least one major amateur victory in each. She won at home – 11 Canadian Ladies Open Amateurs, nine Canadian Ladies Close Amateurs and four Canadian Ladies Senior Women’s Amateur tournaments – and abroad, where she is the only woman ever to win the Canadian, British, American, and Australian amateur titles. In 2004, she rightfully became the first Canadian member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Stewart-Streit was born March 9, 1934, in Cereal, Alberta. At 15, she began riding her bicycle to The Lookout Point Golf Club, in Fonthill, Ontario, located in the southwestern region of the province, and caddy, using the money she earned to pay the $25 club membership fee. The club pro, Gordon McInnis Sr., began giving her lessons and a year after taking up the game, she finished runner-up in the Ontario Junior Girls’ Championship. Soon she would become a national figure. For winning the 1953 British Women’s Amateur, she received a heroine’s welcome. In Toronto, 15,000 people cheered as she drove by in an open convertible.

“I did not live my life or play golf to reach this destination. As a lifelong amateur, I only played for the love of the game. For me it’s not about the destination, but the joy that comes from the journey.”

Short in stature, but a giant on the course, Stewart-Streit had a long, sweeping backswing and a big shoulder turn, getting every ounce of power out of her body that she could. Often, she didn’t hit it as far as her competitors, but she made up for it with a deadly short game. “She’s scary around the green,” said LPGA Tour player A.J. Eathorne, an Alberta native. “If you’re playing against her in match play and she’s just off the green you have to count on that going in almost all the time.”

In golf, the short stick is the great equalizer. “The putter is probably the biggest club in her bag,” said fellow Canadian Dawn Coe-Jones. “Marlene’s the one you would like to make a putt for you if your life depended on it.”

Her short game was the difference when she defeated future Hall of Famer JoAnne Gunderson-Carner 2&1, in the 36-hole final of the 1956 U.S. Women’s Amateur. “I was hitting 4-woods into greens and she was hitting 7-irons,” Stewart-Streit recalled. She was four down by the 20th hole but fought back. “Marlene never gives up,” Coe-Jones said. “She is the most intense person I have ever seen on the golf course.”

Stewart Streit won the 29th, 30th and 32nd holes to take the lead. On the decisive 35th hole, she sank a 12-foot putt to win.

Fact

Marlene Stewart Streit was the first Canadian inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Outside of competitive golf, Stewart-Streit has served endlessly in Canada to improve youth opportunities to the game and improve the competitive edge of Canadian women. In 1965, she defeated Marilynn Smith in a Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf match in Oslo, Norway. The winning prize was $7,000. To retain her amateur status, she asked Shell to donate the prize money to what became the Marlene Streit Awards Fund. She won another $3,000 the following year despite losing to Mickey Wright. That $10,000 grew with interest and the fund is still being used to pay travel costs for promising junior golfers.

“There’s a great deal of us that, who knows where we would’ve gotten if it weren’t for Marlene,” said Canadian touring pro Nancy Harvey. “Marlene believed in us and if Marlene believed in you, you were definitely going somewhere.”

Stewart-Streit still believes in her own game too. In 2003, at age 69, she became the oldest woman to win a USGA championship when she defeated Nancy Fitzgerald with a par on the fifth extra hole in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. “It’s one thing to win in your backyard but I think to do it worldwide like she did, that’s impressive,” Coe-Jones said, “and it’s something that might not be done again in the amateur ranks.”

Marlene Stewart Streit was originally inducted through the Veterans category.