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UGA Lady Award – Terry Norman Hansen
Terry Norman Hansen assumed an important role in golf from the very start, filling out her family’s foursome.
The 2022 UGA Lady Award is best viewed in that family portrait. Upon receiving the news of her honor, Hansen started naming relatives who were more deserving of being recognized. Technically, with “Lady” in the title, the only other qualifier would be her mother.
That’s a good place to start, for multiple reasons. Mary Norman, who died in 2017, characterized the definition of an award that’s “based on women’s golf participation, giving back to women’s golf, passion, love and respect for the game, teamwork that makes a difference and being a friend, leader and inspiration to your peers.”
She was overlooked regarding the UGA Lady Award, created in 2012. Yet here’s where it all begins to make sense: As she approaches her 60th birthday next year, Terry is becoming more like Mary.
“The older I get, the more traits I’ve picked up from her,” Hansen said. “I’m more patient, more understanding, more encouraging to people I’m playing with. … She was amazing.”
The other element that justifies this recognition is how Hansen’s playing career tends to be undervalued. That’s possibly because since winning the Senior Women’s State Amateur in her first year of eligibility (2013), she has not pursued a senior golf career. Hansen expects to play more competitive golf once she retires from working as the registrar at Dixon Middle School in Provo.
Asked where golf fits into her life now, Terry Norman Hansen said, “Oh, I love it. I love to play … I’m always trying to get better.”
In any case, her Women’s State Amateur record is phenomenal, even beyond the four victories in the early 1980s before she turned pro and played what’s now the Epson Tour. She twice placed second in the Women’s State Am and added several other top-five finishes, including one at age 16 and another in her 40s, when the 100th tournament was staged.
In nominating Hansen for the UGA Lady Award, former recipient Margaret McDonough credited her with supporting women’s golf for more than 40 years. As she spoke, Hansen had just arrived home from playing in the annual Joyce Billings Memorial tournament in southern Utah, honoring a former UGA Lady Award winner.
Read more about the UGA Lady Award by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe in the November issue of Fairways magazine.