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One Of Creekmore's Other Passions? Horses, Of Course

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Ocala, Fla. – It was a bit apropos that Carolyn Creekmore headed to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur a happier soul.

Not because of anything to do with her golf game. It’s connected more to another passion in her life. Namely, her horses. Recently one of her mares had a foal on her Dallas, Texas, farm. With Ocala known for its own horse farms and prized thoroughbred population, it’s been difficult for Creekmore to keep her mind off the four-legged beauties.

When former USGA champion Carolyn Creekmore doesn't have her eye on a golf ball, she's usually tending to other interests like sailing or her horses. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)

She followed up a first-round 75 at Golden Hills Golf and Turf Club with a 77 on Sunday that should safely get her into match play.

“It’s probably not worth talking about my golf,” said the 2004 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur champion  in a self-deprecating manner after signing her scorecard.

Just as well. Soon the topic turned to her horses. Creekmore beamed. She currently owns 14 tiger horses with her longtime boyfriend Donny Anderson, who played in the first two Super Bowls for the Green Bay Packers under legendary coach Vince Lombardi. Better known as gaited spotted trail horses that resemble the Appaloosa, Creekmore referred to the gait as an Indian shuffle and the horses with Appaloosa spots.

Creekmore, 57, immersed herself in the breeding business roughly 14 years ago, after developing a soft side for horses and animals at a young age. When she was 10 years old while growing up in Fort Smith, Ark., her father, Steve Creekmore Jr., presented Carolyn with her first horse at Christmas. For Carolyn, the love affair with horses was instantaneous.

“I thought Annie Oakley had arrived,” said Creekmore. “I had this mare that was big and strong and fast, and I’m 10.”

In those days, she rode her horse down a hill and through a couple of pastures to get to school about a mile or two away.

Creekmore fondly recalled how she and her friends would sing Beatles songs along the way.

She grew up, attended Arkansas State University, owning a couple of horses all the while, then graduating in 1974. The busy work of life limited the time she could devote to the horses before, as fate would have it, she was pulled back like a magnet to a refrigerator door. About 15 years ago, her father mentioned he’d be interested in obtaining an Appaloosa gaited horse. At that time, Creekmore’s dad had built a small golf course on his farm, which offered the best of both worlds.

Creekmore did some research and found an Appaloosa colt for sale in the small town of Mena, Ark. Mena’s claim to fame at the time was for painting airplanes. Creekmore and her father took the hour-and-half drive to check into it.  

“I told him when we got there, ‘Daddy, it’s yours if you want him,’ ” said Creekmore, her eyes twinkling with the recollection. “And he said, ‘That’s great. I’m 70 and he’s going to kill me.’ ”

Creekmore couldn’t put her finger on it at the time, but whether it was the romanticism of owning the horse, the way it looked at her, or what, she couldn’t get the colt out of her mind.

Before heading to play in the Mexican Women’s Amateur, her dad noticed grandiose thoughts dancing in Carolyn’s eyes. He told her to try and talk herself out of buying it while at the tournament.

If anything, the opposite came true. She obsessed that someone else would snatch up Pepper. When she returned, she purchased Pepper and two mares – a Peruvian Paso and Missouri Foxtrotter. “All babies. Just 2 years old,” she said.

Through the years, another stallion came along and the rest of the stable was either purchased or bred. Soon she bought a farm for all of them to call home. Most of the horses bred from Pepper have some form of pepper in their names. The new stallion, named Easy, is the son of Pepper and the dame is a full-gaited Appaloosa mare in Missouri.

Caring for them like an attentive mother, Creekmore recently slept in her barn when the latest foal was about to enter the world.

“The mare was acting like she was going to have the baby,” said Creekmore. “She had all the signs. She was nipping at her sides like she had cramps, so I’m freaking out and calling the doctor at midnight. I’m telling him, ‘This mare is going to have this baby, I just know it.’”

After the doctor explained that the mare would deliver the following day, Creekmore slept in the barn the next night. The mare’s water broke, she said, leading to another frantic call to the doctor, who calmly told her that she should call him back in four hours if delivery hadn’t begun. As luck would have it, at 3 a.m., delivery did begin – with no doctor on site. Creekmore held the foal’s hooves as it came out.

“This baby is beyond perfect,” she said.

As hard as it is to part with them, Creekmore would love to sell a few. Half of the stable is spotted and gaited.

In any event, the commitment it takes to care for them is large. With a fervor for golf and horses, she knows at some point her time will become compromised. In terms of selling them, she has one colossal rule.

“I just can’t bear the thought of someone abusing them,” said Creekmore. “Not when I have pulled them from the womb.”

Ken Klavon is the USGA’s Editor of Digital Media. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.