Alice Ritzman said last week that the annual Flathead Valley Juniors Golf tournament and auction that bears her name has raised more than $160,000 in scholarships for area golfers. That's saying something.

The list is long and includes recent golfers Jonah Wynne, Madeline Matson and Will Danielson. Not every recipient has had to play at Buffalo Hill Golf Club as part of the programs from Flathead High, from which Ritzman graduated in 1970. Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Glacier High (where Danielson graduated) have had kids land scholarships through the 23 years the tournament has kept going.  

"It had nothing to do with whether or not they were the best golfer on the team," Ritzman added. "It was, steer good kids into good habits. Those things were more important than what they shot." 

But how did we get here? Well, Ritzman herself grinded on the course enough to play on the LPGA Tour from 1978-98 despite not being the best player at Flathead High in 1970 -- that honor belonged to Stephanie Isch when the Bravettes won state that spring.  

Then she attended Eastern Montana College (now MSU-Billings), which had no women's golf. Yet Ritzman, a natural if undersized athlete, had fallen hard for the game. While earning her college degree in three years, she won the Montana Women's State Am in 1972 and '73 and worked at the Yellowstone Country Club. 

"I just kept trying to prove to myself that something that looked that simple wasn't that hard," she said.  

The Yellowstone CC names might be familiar: Paul Allen, Dave Gibson, Bob Eames. From Gibson and Eames she got her first formal lessons. It was Allen that put her in the old red tractor that swept off the driving range.  

"They wanted to give me some way to come out there and hit balls and practice," she said. "That was it." 

At some point she went to Laurel to watch Marilynn Smith, one of the founders of the LPGA Tour, put on a clinic. Smith advised her to attend an LPGA event, so she and friends road-tripped to one in Denver.  

At that event a contact advised her to head to Austin, Texas. Enter Tinsley and Harvey Pinnick; the former the head pro at Austin Country Club from 1971-95, the latter a golf coach of some renown. 

"Somebody loaned me $300," Ritzman said. "I figured I was just going to stay in Austin until my money ran out," Ritzman said.  

Tinsley gave her a job in the pro shop, and she'd spend half the day there and half the day on the course. 

On July 28, 1978, Ritzman finished second at the LPGA qualifying school in Vancouver, Washington. Julie Stanger, a 21-year-old out of the University of Arizona, was first; third-place finisher Cathy Thompson had been Nancy Lopez' roommate and teammate at the University of Tulsa.  

Ritzman, legend had it, had competed on the men's team at EMC; she had not. Yet here she was, all 5-foot-5 (or 6) of her. 

"I think I weighed 108 pounds when qualified for the Tour," she said. "But they said pound for pound, I was the longest hitter." 

After Ritzman turned that borrowed 300 bucks into $1.5 million in LPGA earnings, she eventually came back to the Valley, coaching the Flathead golf teams for a time and living on Foys Lake, a destination when she was growing up that is now where she has summer home. The Juniors tournament, she notes, wouldn't have worked without the help of Wes Young and David Schultz. "And eventually, mostly David," she said. "He did 90 percent of the work." 

Which brings us up to speed, or close. 

"When I was coaching, I'd tell the kids all the time: 'You know, you picked the hardest thing to do," she said. "Now my focus has changed to pickle ball." 

Are you any good? 

"Ah," she said. "For 74 years old, I'm pretty good. Which is to say, not very." 

Sports Editor Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 406-758-4463 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.