Golf Administrators Melanie Furuta, Hilary Howard Get A Rare Chance To Compete In National Championship

By David Shefter, USGA

Carefree, Ariz. – Contrary to popular perception, golf administrators, especially those who work in Rules and competitions, don’t play as much golf as people think.

Sure, they spend a lot of time at golf courses, setting them up for competitions and administering rulings during play.

In the case of 26-year-old Melanie Furuta, an assistant director of Rules and competitions for the Southern California Golf Association, it translates into 150 tournament days a year. The former three-year performer for Long Beach State – she also spent a season at Oregon State – rarely finds time to practice or play.

Melanie Furuta doesn't have much time to practice in her Rules position with the SCGA. (Bob Thomas/SCGA)

So when she managed to qualify for the 2007 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Desert Forest Golf Club by earning medalist honors at her southern California sectional, Furuta suddenly had to find the time to prepare.

“Leading up to the tournament, I was actually moving out of my apartment and trying to get into a new place,” said Furuta, who has been with the SCGA for two years. “It’s been a little crazy. I get off at 4 [p.m.] and can get home by 4:30, so sometimes I can get 90 minutes of practice in. It’s kind of hard when you’ve been at the golf course all day. The last thing you want to do is beat balls.”

Furuta, who shot a 10-over 83 in Saturday’s first round of stroke-play qualifying, isn’t the only golf administrator in the field this week. Hilary Howard, 30, of Pacific Grove, Calif., serves as the director of communications for the Northern California Golf Association, while Leslie Green, 36, of The Woodlands, Texas, is the event coordinator for the Houston Golf Associaton. Howard actually got into the field on Thursday when Sandy Woodruff withdrew. She was the second alternate from her qualifier in northern California.

“It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” said Howard. “To be honest, it was totally off my radar screen because I was the second alternate, so I was surprised by it.”

Howard is responsible for editing the NCGA’s quarterly magazine and overseeing the Association’s Web site. A former USGA P.J. Boatwright intern, she was hired full-time by the NCGA 2½ years ago. She also is currently working on a Masters in communications through a distance-learning program offered by Syracuse University’s well-known Newhouse School of Communications. Three weeks out of the year, she has to fly back to central New York for classes, while doing correspondence work through papers and conference calls. That, in itself, has left her little time for golf.

“I don’t have as much free time,” said Howard, who carded an 88 in Saturday’s first round. “Our office is at Poppy Hills [on the Monterey Peninsula], so I have the opportunity to hit balls at lunch. But I don’t play as much as one would think. I probably play nine holes a week.”

Howard just recently got back into playing golf. She played a bit as a junior at her parents’ home club in Scarsdale, N.Y., winning the parent-child event when she was 12. But mostly it was basketball that caught her attention and she earned a scholarship to Duke University, where she was a four-year performer and helped the team reach the 1999 NCAA Division I title game, where the Blue Devils fell to Purdue. In the Elite Eight, Howard’s team ousted three-time defending champion Tennessee.

The internship at the NCGA brought golf back into her life and the Women’s Mid-Amateur is the first USGA event for which she has qualified.

“Nobody has ever played in a USGA championship in the office,” said Howard, “so they were all very excited and they were going to [follow] it online this weekend.”

Furuta decided early on in college that she was not going to make playing golf a career. Chronic back problems forced her to redshirt a season at Oregon State and she realized that her game wasn’t quite good enough to play professionally. So she got involved with golf on the administrative side through the SCGA and two years ago scored 97 on her Rules test. She spends a lot of time setting up courses for competitions and in the offseason will assist with seminars at various SCGA clubs and handle phone calls regarding the Rules.

Last year, she tried to qualify for a USGA event for the first time and “realized I had a lot of work to do.”

This year, she missed making the Women’s Amateur Public Links, but the 73 in the Women’s Mid-Amateur qualifier earned her a trip to Desert Forest, which was her first competition since graduating from Long Beach State three years ago.

“I felt like I had to plan out every minute [of my day] just to get ready,” she said. “It’s a lot different out here than golf in California. You have grain to worry about [on the greens]. There’s no out of bounds or water and that’s actually worse because you can’t just take the one penalty stroke and get it back in the grass.”

Furuta ran into that situation at the 16th hole Saturday when one of her shots landed in the desert. She needed to take relief for an unplayable lie, which led to an 8.

Then again, she didn’t need the assistance from the walking USGA Rules official to administer the ruling.

“He came over and asked me if I knew my options,” said Furuta. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m OK thanks.’ ”

At least in one area, perception did live up to reality.

David Shefter is a USGA staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.