JoAnne Carner - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:14

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and Bruce Devlin. This morning, I know how you enjoy having these younger guests on. And uh I have to say, this lady that we've got with us today, she's won so many USGA titles. Last time I saw her step up to the first T at a USGA event, they started introducing her. I had time to go take the dog for a walk. I came back and they were still introducing her.

Bruce Devlin 0:43

She certainly has a history in the game. We could go back when she was an amateur, she was a five-time U.S. women's amateur champion. Turned pro at a late age, actually, when she was 30 years old, then she wins 49 times as a pro, 43 on the LPGA, two U.S. Women's Open Championship, and what a thrill to have JoAnne Carner with us today. JoAnne, we've been looking forward to this. Thanks for joining us.

JoAnne Carner 1:13

I'm looking forward to it too. Thank you, Bruce.

Mike Gonzalez 1:17

JoAnne, great to be with you. And uh as we've talked about, we're here to tell your story, and we're gonna tell it the way you want to tell it. The first thing we'll do, though, is go back to the very beginning. Uh, one thing we've done through what is now, this is our 60th interview on this series. We've always enjoyed having all of you, you golf greats, go back and and share with our listeners uh how you learned the game as a young child. So as we understand it, you were born in Kirkland, Washington.

JoAnne Carner 1:45

Yes. No one ever heard of it, but now it's famous because it's uh Costco's name brand.

Bruce Devlin 1:54

Right. Yeah, that's right.

JoAnne Carner 1:56

Yeah, they started there in Kirkland and then moved to the adjacent city, so yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 2:02

So tell us a little bit about growing up in Kirkland, Washington.

JoAnne Carner 2:06

Well, um I have uh one brother and three sisters uh growing up, and uh we live not too far from a little nine-hole public golf course. And my two sisters uh worked at the snack bar, and my brother worked on the golf course in the old days where they had all the hoses for watering, so I would go out and help him and uh hunt golf balls while I was doing that, and uh you pick up an old club and and uh start swinging, and and we uh the neighbor boys uh and some of the other young people that worked there were allowed to play after the paying customers, so it'd be almost dinner time, and we would go out and play, and uh did a lot of moonlight golf too.

Mike Gonzalez 3:12

That sounds familiar on our little nine-hole course in southern Illinois. It seemed like we were there from sunup to sundown. Yeah. So what w what age were you at the time when you started first uh I started at age ten and uh just played in uh some uh small uh local events and then uh entered the state uh public links, but at that point I couldn't go any further.

JoAnne Carner 3:44

Washington state has wonderful public links events for players throughout the state. But uh to progress as my game got better, um I had to join a private club and so I moved from there to Sand Point in Seattle. Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 4:06

Yeah, you started at uh Wanita uh golf course, right?

JoAnne Carner 4:11

Yes, at a little nine-hole golf course uh right on Lake Washington there, beautiful golf course, uh some long par threes, um, you know, a couple good par fives. And uh so I used to uh play there uh afterwards and then uh my brother and I would hunt golf balls and we'd we'd uh go home and use my mother's uh washing machine, clean them all up, and go down to this one T, uh the fourth T and uh sell them to all the paying customers on the weekend.

Mike Gonzalez 4:57

There you go. So what what could you take in on a good day?

JoAnne Carner 5:02

Well, uh probably close to $20. And uh we we I mean, which was a lot of money in those days. So my brother and I would sell them in the morning, and then uh we'd go back and invite the neighbor kids and we'd take them all to the movies every Saturday.

Mike Gonzalez 5:26

So Oh you're you're pretty popular then.

JoAnne Carner 5:28

Yeah, yeah. It was it was fun. I mean, we we didn't mind spending the money, didn't think about, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 5:36

Yeah.

JoAnne Carner 5:37

Uh whether, you know, because my parents were not rich by any means. My father was a carpenter, my mother was just a housewife.

Mike Gonzalez 5:47

Uh-huh. So your nine-hole course, if it was anything like mine, it was uh no irrigation, no bunkers, and you had to pick up your own range balls.

JoAnne Carner 5:58

Uh there was no driving range. Uh I I used to take my own shank balls, and on the side of the ninth hole, uh there was uh an area where it from the T you'd have to shank it to to get to it. Uh but my sister and I used to go there and we would hit wedges at one another. That's why I got very good with wedge shots. There you go.

Mike Gonzalez 6:34

Uh so as your game developed, uh uh it's always interesting to know how you actually learn the finer points of the game. And and so, you know, back in that day, because there really wasn't much in the way of televised golf that you could pattern your s your swing after, there was probably maybe some golf publications by then. Uh were you just copying people? Were you observing? Were you reading? How did you kind of learn some of these things?

JoAnne Carner 7:00

I I started uh the women in those days used to have these swings just like this. You weren't supposed to be athletic or not. But I was playing with my brother and some of the neighbor boys when I would play, so it was more fun to get in a driving contest with them. And then uh pro came to the area and and bought into the club, uh, you know, half ownership, and um so you know, he would work with me a little and I really hated to practice then, so he uh gave me Ben Hogan's book to read. And uh so I read it and came back a week later and he said, Well, what'd you get out of it? And I said, Right here. It says it takes ten balls to warm up, you know. That was the whole object of it was to make you realize how hard you gotta practice.

Mike Gonzalez 8:07

Yeah. Yeah, and pr and practice he did. Uh uh. So there was a a name that came up in our research, uh, a fellow and his wife that maybe was involved in getting you at uh at Sand Point Country Club, uh Al Burnham. You remember that name?

JoAnne Carner 8:24

Yeah, that's gone way back. But uh Yeah, it was uh uh his connection that got me uh over there to be interviewed and meet some of the board and uh and they gave me an honorary membership. So that was very critical to my career.

Bruce Devlin 8:48

That was great of him.

JoAnne Carner 8:50

And the club I mean the club did uh wonderful things for me because you know, as I said, we were not uh w wealthy by any means, my father being a carpenter. Um uh so when my game got you know better and better to go to national events and whatnot uh you know cost a lot of money and we did not have it. So the Sand Point Country Club membership uh got together and paid my way. They actually paid my father a salary for carpenter work there. And uh I was then able to go play national events rather than just state.

Bruce Devlin 9:42

Huh. Isn't that amazing how how you you know we hear we hear some quite remarkable stories, JoAnne, about how how all these great players like yourself have started. And we yeah, we we we look at a guy like Bernhard Langer, for instance. You know, he he started caddian when he was a a young boy, and uh it's it's great, it's great for the people to to understand that you know not all you great players came from you know big golfing families with a lot of money, you know, they come from a lot of poor families, and it's uh it's great to hear all that stuff from the players, it's wonderful.

JoAnne Carner 10:21

Yeah, I I would uh you know talk to my father, who never uh never played golf at all. But uh growing up in North Dakota, he he used to shoot pools. So when I would talk to him about slice and hook, he reversed to uh right-hand English and left hand and top spin and and so he could understand it better.

Mike Gonzalez 10:50

Yeah. That certainly makes sense. Uh I understand too the the women at the club uh uh helped you with some golf attire.

JoAnne Carner 11:00

Yeah, they were always trying to either f fix my hair you know, playing in Seattle. It was always wet and it was always yeah, so uh yeah, they they did.

Bruce Devlin 11:14

So that was nice.

Mike Gonzalez 11:18

So uh your game progresses, uh uh you get into high school, you go to Lake Washington High School, and uh which is probably very typical of the day. There wasn't a girls' golf team, was there?

JoAnne Carner 11:31

No. No, not at all. So that was where uh uh the only way I could play was play on the boys' team, you know.

Bruce Devlin 11:44

So did you get to play on the on the boys' team in competition?

JoAnne Carner 11:48

Uh I think one year.

Bruce Devlin 11:50

One year, huh?

JoAnne Carner 11:51

Yeah, I can't remember really. That's going too far back.

Bruce Devlin 11:56

Going too far back. Yeah. Well, I tell you what, it was the start of one fabulous amateur career. I mean, uh our our information tells us that you were absolutely dominant from 1956 to 1968 as an amateur. Quite a fabulous career.

JoAnne Carner 12:17

Yeah, I loved uh amateur golf, you know, it was match play. Uh for some reason that w was uh my forte, you know. Uh I think my record uh in USGA events, uh, you know, was like 900 out of a thousand. Uh you know, dude.

Mike Gonzalez 12:41

Wow.

JoAnne Carner 12:42

I won a lot of events. Uh and you know, uh I I USGA events were always the best to me because they it you always played some of the most famous golf courses, always in perfect condition. And you had to do all of your shots, recovery and putting chip and drive.

Bruce Devlin 13:11

Yeah.

JoAnne Carner 13:12

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 13:13

Tested your game.

Mike Gonzalez 13:14

Yeah, it did typically test the complete game, didn't it? Right. So we're gonna go through some of your record here, and it is, as Bruce said, quite extensive. I I guess we'll go back to 1955 when uh you're competing in the U.S. Girls Junior, uh, and you were runner-up that year, uh, lost four and three to Carol Joe Cabler.

JoAnne Carner 13:39

Yes, she was a good friend of mine, too. But she you know, that uh that was my first time going out of the state uh of Washington, so it's very exciting and and uh I saw a lot of things that have uh since changed, you know. The uh I remember s you know, standing and I saw uh uh drinking fountain that said colored water and I thought it was colored water, so I stood in line with uh most of the caddies there and finally got up there and turned it on and it was regular water.

Bruce Devlin 14:28

Regular water.

JoAnne Carner 14:29

You know, because I grew up with uh uh had a uh black uh girlfriend in in uh high school, so I didn't think anything of that, you know. Uh had no idea, but it educated me.

Mike Gonzalez 14:48

Uh oh, I I bet it did. So thinking back to those early travels, JoAnne, uh I'm sure you weren't taking net jets to your early tournaments. No. Was this primarily automobile travel or or w when did you first get on a train to go outside of the that area?

JoAnne Carner 15:06

Uh I don't think I ever went on a train. I flew to, you know, because all the tournaments were either uh, you know, around Chicago or or on the East Coast. Um so uh, you know, mainly New England area. Uh and so I had to fly to all those. I uh would stay in private housing uh as an amateur and uh got to meet some wonderful people and uh uh just you know really uh got an education just doing that.

Bruce Devlin 15:48

Yeah. Yeah that year in uh 55, JoAnne, you you uh you got beaten in the uh girls junior when you were runner-up, and then you won the Western Junior Girls Championship over Anne Quest? Yeah, Quest at Lake Geneva Country Club. So that was the that was the first real feeling you got about victory, right?

JoAnne Carner 16:11

Right, right. It it was and a strange thing, Anne Quest and I, uh she's from uh uh just outside of Seattle area, so we played against one another in little uh community outings. Uh so to go all the way out there and and play against her. Uh so we we met several times.

Mike Gonzalez 16:37

So you came back that next year to the U.S. girls, and uh this time you were victorious over a name that's come up a lot in our show. Uh it was a four-and-three victory over Clifford Ann Creed at Heather Downs Country Club in Ohio.

JoAnne Carner 16:52

Yes, it was that was a great uh, you know. Uh I can remember uh I I would go out and uh I would shoot like 33 every time I teed it up on the front line, you know, and uh so that's a good way to sign. Clifford Ann was uh uh you know very good player at that point, and uh so I always liked to beat her.

Bruce Devlin 17:30

She probably uh she probably felt a l a little bit better too in 56 after you beat her at the Joels Jr. than uh the Western Junior, she turned the tables on you.

JoAnne Carner 17:41

Yeah, yeah. That's why uh, you know, we used to have some good rivalry. I would I loved to win. I was a good winner, but I was also a good loser, too. Well you can't play your career without losing several times.

Bruce Devlin 17:58

Isn't that the truth? Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 18:00

Well, speaking of being a winner, so now we let's let's just talk about this uh this stretch of U.S. amateur wins uh uh across uh a period of about 11 years starting in 1957. Um you must have had you must have been rolling the rock this day because you beat Anne Casey Johnstone at Del Paso Country Club in Sacram in the Sacramento area, eight and six.

JoAnne Carner 18:23

Yeah. I really didn't like to uh you know win by that much. In fact, I lost some because they accused me of cat and mouse play. I'd get way up and then uh lose my concentration and lose some holes. But uh you know, most of that was you know, I guess I did that a few times, but uh most of the time it was you know, four and three, three and two match. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 18:57

Except the next two that were six and five, nine and eight. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, 1960 was was Gene Ashley at Tulsa Country Club six and five, and then two years later Ann Baker at uh country club of Rochester nine and eight. So uh uh you were dominating.

JoAnne Carner 19:16

Yes, yes. I uh I just uh you know, as I say, uh I was far better as a uh amateur in match play than as a professional uh on the LPGA.

Mike Gonzalez 19:36

So well give give our listeners a little bit of insight into your game back then, because it might have been a bit different in terms of what you were good at, what you weren't as proficient at when you became professional. Uh just uh take us through the bag. Uh your driver, your wedge play, your irons, your putting, uh uh what was what was really strong and what were things you were still developing back at that age?

JoAnne Carner 19:59

Uh driving was always uh long. I tended to hit it to the right when I missed it. In fact, my whole career was that way. Uh I would generally outdrive everybody. Uh I even outgrove some of the men uh when I played exhibitions, uh Men Pros. Uh you know, so uh it was probably the the best part of my game. Uh but I loved uh troubleshots. So to me, uh I would I didn't like just standing hitting seven irons out there at a green. I'd rather go uh hit actually at the pins or around the green, uh chipping uh and sand play. I was uh I had what I called wedge itis. I used my wedge for everything and uh, you know, got very good at it. I was not good at a pitch and run because uh you know it depends upon your area. In in the Seattle area and whatnot, you had so many hills, you know, uh similar to San Francisco their uh area, but uh so everything was a high lob shot in recovery. Putty I was hot and cold. Uh I was famous my whole career for hitting it three feet, four feet from the hole, and not even touching the hole on a birdie putt. But if it was for par, I made it like funny.

Bruce Devlin 21:52

Yeah, that's strange.

Mike Gonzalez 21:54

Yeah, so the the the recovery shot, sometimes they say necessity is the mother of invention. Uh Uh does the does the d misses on the driver and the recovery uh capability go hand in hand?

JoAnne Carner 22:06

Yeah, I learned to uh because of the uh you know spring, the the big hundred foot high Douglas firs in the northwest area, you know, they're not like going over the palm trees here in Florida. So uh you learn to hit low shots and uh and that uh under those uh branches uh and still get distance out of them. And you know, I I I played a lot uh uh recovery shots, and the the gallery used to be over there looking, you know, I'm over in the woods somewhere, and and uh as a professional, the gallery would be there uh figuring out how I was gonna play it. And so I'd tell them, uh, you know, and if I pulled it off, fine. If I didn't, they said, well, I changed my mind right before I hit the, you know, I made it fun and and uh I enjoyed the gallery.

Bruce Devlin 23:17

Yeah. Well, there was a little gap between the winning uh in 62, the UK in 1966, you had to go extra holes to beat Marlene uh Stewart straight.

JoAnne Carner 23:29

She is my favorite uh opponent. We uh you know, she beat me the first time, and I outdrove her a hundred yards.

Mike Gonzalez 23:43

Oh my.

JoAnne Carner 23:44

And uh I paced it off, and you know, and it was and she would take that little wood and and hit it up three feet, and I'd take my wedge and hit it 15 feet, you know. But we then played 10 years later and went extra holes, and I finally won. Uh, but we became uh very good friends, and to this day, uh I when she comes from Canada down to Florida, uh then I play with her several days a week uh until she has to go back to Canada.

Mike Gonzalez 24:29

So uh one of the things I wasn't clear on because I saw it reported two different ways. You won either 41 or 42 holes in that match. Do you remember which one?

JoAnne Carner 24:39

41. 41. 41. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 24:42

And you know, you mentioned Marlene, she's the only person to win the Australian, British, Canadian, which by the way, she won 10 times, and U.S. amateur.

JoAnne Carner 24:54

Yes.

Bruce Devlin 24:54

She has quite a record.

JoAnne Carner 24:57

Yeah, she has a putter. Um we were talking about uh, you know, her putter, and Marlene has, you know, hands that are big as three of my fingers. In feet, she wears a size five shoe, you know, and she's uh says she's five one, but uh you know, that's debatable. Uh but uh so she's she's just the opposite of me. And so she was always straight and and all this.

Mike Gonzalez 25:30

You know, you you you talk about I mean her being fairly uh uh slender in build and and and we think about some of the other ladies we've talked about, Bruce. Uh you know, there was some there were some ladies playing professionally that could move it out quite a ways from a very small frame.

JoAnne Carner 25:45

Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 25:45

Yeah, that's true.

JoAnne Carner 25:46

Yes. There's uh I mean you really see it nowadays on the uh from the uh Koreans and and Japanese uh players who were very slight but had it very long. No.

Mike Gonzalez 26:05

You know, Judy Rankin was was uh not that tall, was she?

JoAnne Carner 26:09

Um she's about five four but very thin.

Mike Gonzalez 26:14

Yeah, Susie Burning.

JoAnne Carner 26:16

Susie about the same.

Mike Gonzalez 26:18

Yeah, yeah. But they could they could certainly move it out there. Well, at this time of your career, JoAnne, because you know you're still you're still a little bit a ways from uh turning pro, and obviously your career is is a a bit uh it's it stands out from others in that you didn't turn pro, as Bruce said, until age 30. So take us through sort of those early mid-20s, and what was your thought process between remaining a lifetime amateur, or did you have it in your mind that at some point you knew you were going to be playing professionally at some point?

JoAnne Carner 26:50

No, I played I played uh the two uh professional events uh as an amateur. I played one in the Seattle area, the Western Open, um, and I was coming down, um I think Betsy Rawls won it uh uh going away, but I was coming down the uh 17th hole and some friends of mine came up and said, you know, you're tied with Patty Bird for second place. You know, so I stood up with and I'd been playing great and I chunked it chunked it and chunked it, you know, finally finally watered on the green. But uh you know, that was the first time as uh playing against the women pro. And then I played in in uh the Verdeans, I played in in uh Massachusetts, uh finished second there. The Verdeans I won as an amateur.

Mike Gonzalez 28:05

So just so I'm clear then, JoAnne, are you saying that it it really wasn't until you were competing against the professionals in a couple of events as amateur that you really were starting to think seriously about maybe doing this professionally?

JoAnne Carner 28:17

Yeah, uh when I won the Verdeans as an amateur, uh then uh my husband was talking to a close friend of his there in in Rhode Island, and he said, you know, what do you think of JoAnne turning pro? And and uh he told Don that he thought it it would be great. And so Don talked to me about it, and I said, Hey, you know me, drop me off at the golf course in the morning, pick me up at dark, I'm fine. But I said, you know, it's a matter uh to me of whether my husband would like being out there with uh all these women. Uh so uh he thought it would be a great idea. So he said, I think you've just run out of goals as an amateur, you know, other than beating Glena Collette Bears um record, you know, of six US uh titles. But uh so uh that's what we did. We uh decided that we would give it a try.

Bruce Devlin 29:40

Oh, and give it a try, you did.

Mike Gonzalez 29:42

Yeah, you almost uh you almost caught Vare because in 68 you had a five and four win over uh Anquast Waltz in uh Birmingham Country Club. That gave you your fifth title, and as you mentioned, the second only to Vare, who won six uh ladies or uh uh women's U.S. amateur uh titles.

JoAnne Carner 30:00

Right.

Mike Gonzalez 30:00

And uh uh you were also runner up to Marlene Stewart in 56.

JoAnne Carner 30:06

Yes, she reminds me of that.

Mike Gonzalez 30:11

And in 64 to Barbara McIntyre at Prairie Dunes.

JoAnne Carner 30:16

Right. I remember all those. I can't remember the exact scores we shot, but I remember the losses.

Mike Gonzalez 30:29

Some people are pretty good at forgetting them.

JoAnne Carner 30:31

Well, uh I really uh nothing ever bothered me loss-wise, except uh uh the US Open at um in New Jersey. Uh you know, that was the only one that bothered me. My whole career, amateur and pro.

Mike Gonzalez 30:53

I'm sure we'll come to that. Bruce, uh uh few other things uh, you know, in the amateur career before we even get her onto the tour.

Bruce Devlin 31:01

Yeah. Arizona State University. Yeah, you know, you won the equivalent of the individual title in 1960. Uh and then you played in the Curtis Cup team, right? Four times, 58, 60, 62, and 64. No losses. That was nice. A tie and three wins. Right, right. That had to be fun to play in play for your country.

JoAnne Carner 31:26

I I uh loved that. Uh, you know, uh individual, uh I usually had no problem. Team-wise, it was always hard. They wanted to put me with a uh teammate with a player who couldn't get out of the rough, you know, and I was never a straight driver. I was always somewhere in the rough or whatnot. And and so it was always hard work, you know, to to pull off the team once, but uh individual I was fine and loved every bit of it. We went to to England and uh uh they uh uh were doing the photographs for each team and they had a terraced lawn that went down, so we were up top and and facing the cameras and that, and uh the photographer snuck around behind down below and did a shot and it came out in the newspaper of uh the British team sitting in a chair perfect feet together, arms in their lap and whatnot, all perfect, and then the adjacent full page of the London Times was the picture of the US team from behind, but it was the first time they had ever seen women in shorts. So they did the picture from the waist down.

Mike Gonzalez 33:17

Ah lovely.

JoAnne Carner 33:30

And we would practice curtsy and then we'd we'd uh tell them that you know, uh Monday after the uh matches are over, we're meeting the Queen. And so we'd ask them to give us corrections on on our curtsy for the Queen. We were lying like crazy, but but that was just some of the fun that we had in uh playing against uh you know, the uh English and Scottish uh Wales. That was yeah, in Ireland.

Mike Gonzalez 34:17

The Irish were in there too, probably. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So was that was that your first trip in 1960 to Lindrick uh golf club in England? Was that your first overseas trip?

JoAnne Carner 34:27

Yes. Yes, had never been out of the US. I mean it was terrific uh you know, uh long, long flights uh in those days, but uh you got there, you got to play some of the great designs of of the courses over there, you know, so uh all in all, uh you know, uh it was it was just uh a new episode, you know. Growing up in the northwest where you had lush screens and whatnot, you know, you you played different golf. It was very hard uh to uh try and hit the ball low over there for me, you know. Against the wind.

Mike Gonzalez 35:24

It was about the same age that you were that uh Bruce Dublin would have made his first overseas trip from uh Australia.

Bruce Devlin 35:31

Yeah, yeah.

JoAnne Carner 35:32

That's an even longer flight, Bruce.

Bruce Devlin 35:35

Oh man, it was a long flight. Uh it it's hard for people to believe, but it actually took me 52 hours to go from Sydney, and we went Sydney to uh Hawaii to LA to New York, uh six-hour lay over there, and then went up the north through the north part of the world, and then over to London, and then up to up to Scotland.

Mike Gonzalez 36:06

It was a it was a brutal trip. Thank you for listening to another episode of for the good of the game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.