Getting to know: Alison Murdoch
April 11, 2014
Morgan Gibbens (British Columbia Golf)
Ask Alison Murdoch what it is she likes about playing golf and her answer is so simple, and so obvious, it may surprise you.
The four-time Canadian Senior Women’s Champion described a survey she once took part in that asked women to check off, from a list, what it was they liked about playing golf. The final possible answer: “playing golf”.
Murdoch ticked the last box.
“I have a passion for the sport. I enjoy playing golf, watching it on TV, being a Rules Official, even seeing courses off the highway as I drive by and seeing them in the air as I fly over,” Murdoch explained.
“I love everything about golf itself.”
That passion has grown and developed into an impressive amateur golf career, she was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2013.
Her relationship with the sport, on a social and competitive level, began at a young age on a small, nine-hole course outside of Ottawa, Ontario near her family’s summer cottage.
“When I started out, you played in competitions, I can’t even remember that you had to sign up for them. It was just assumed,” Murdoch said from her home in Victoria.
The drive to compete was never lost.
She may be a fierce competitor, and a self-proclaimed “golf nut” since a young age, but that isn’t to say that the Titleist Order of Merit winner doesn’t appreciate the auxiliary benefits that attract women, and men alike, to the sport later in life.
“There’s fresh air, exercise, opportunity for getting together with your friends and actually doing something rather than just drinking a coffee,” said Murdoch.
“Maybe the sideline benefits are what are going to get less-competitive people involved.”
Quick to recognize that not all golf needs to be competitive, Murdoch states that there’s more than enough room for those who just want to play socially.
Forward tees have allowed less experienced players to join in the game, and certainly encouraged more women to get out on the course.
“It’s a very social game. But it’s not a sport like tennis, where you have to play with someone as good as you or you can’t get a rally going,” explained Murdoch.
“In golf, you are playing with your own ball all the time so it doesn’t matter if you’re playing with someone who hits it 20 yards farther or shorter than you.”
Those added benefits of the game and playing socially may suffice for some golfers, but not Murdoch.
Murdoch has always been, and remains, a competitor.
“One of these days, I won’t be able to play any more. I’ll have arthritis in my fingers and toes and I’ll be pretty much too glad to be a Rules Official and play social golf, but I want to keep playing competitive golf as long as I can,” said Murdoch.
“I don’t want to look back in 15 years and say ‘Why did you quit? Why did you resign? You quit too early.’ I do not want to look back and regret not continuing to play competitively as long as I possibly can. So I’ll keep going.”