MIDLOTHIAN — An LPGA major champion, the Virginia State Golf Association’s winningest all-time amateur, a five-time PGA Tour winner and a respected administrator will comprise the second class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame, which will be inducted May 18, 2017 at The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond.
The Virginia Golf Hall of Fame selection committee convened earlier this month to make the selections. The members of the 2017 class are Donna Andrews, Keith Decker, Wallace McDowell and J.C. Snead.
Those four will join the six members of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, which were inducted in May 2016: Vinny Giles, Chandler Harper, Clyde Luther, Sam Snead, Curtis Strange and Lanny Wadkins.
Andrews, 49, was born in Lynchburg and excelled as an amateur in VSGA events. She won two VSGA Junior Girls Championships (1983-84), took home five straight titles in the VSGA Women’s Amateur Championship (1985-89) and won three VSGA Women’s Stroke Play Championships (1984-85, 1987). Andrews played collegiately at the University of North Carolina and won the 1988 North and South Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst.
Andrews made her LPGA Tour debut in 1990 and won six championships between 1993 and 1998. Included in that run was a major championship, the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore (which is now known as the ANA Inspiration).
Andrews’ first LPGA Tour victory came in 1993 at the Ping-Cellular One LPGA Golf Championship, when she defeated Tina Barrett and Missie McGeorge by one shot. She recorded her largest margin of victory the next spring when she won the PING/Welch’s Championship by three shots over Brandie Burton and Judy Dickinson in March 1994. Two weeks later, she finished a stroke clear of Laura Davies to claim the Dinah Shore.
Andrews won the ShopRite LPGA Classic in 1994, the Welch’s/Circle K Championship in 1997 and the Longs Drugs Challenge in 1998. Andrews finished third on the LPGA money list in 1998. She represented the United States in the Solheim Cup in 1994 and 1998 and was U.S. Junior Solheim Cup captain in 2007.
After retiring, Andrews — who was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 — spent some time as an on-course reporter for ESPN’s LPGA coverage. She is currently the lead teaching instructor at Pine Needles Resort and Lodge in Southern Pines, N.C.
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