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2024 UGA SENIOR WOMEN’S PLAYER OF THE YEAR: KAREEN LARSON

Kareen Larson may have deserved some bonus points for hosting the Women’s State Amateur and winning a match. So it is probably fair that a visiting friend helped her secure the UGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year presented by Primo award.

Larson earned all of the points available to her in the Women’s State Am by finishing as the low senior in the stroke-play qualifying round with a 78 at TalonsCove Golf Club, where she works as the General Manager. Nothing else she did that week contributed to her Player of the Year bid, although she was the only senior to win a match and claimed a place in Utah golf history for her dual role of player and administrator.

“It was a lot of fun, a lot of work,” Larson said. “It put TalonsCove up a notch. I’m not going to lie; it was a little stressful.”

She’s thankful to a staff that allowed her to focus on her own game for two days. Due to seasonal staffing, though, Larson had to miss the Senior Women’s Am in late September. She figured that would cost her the Player of the Year award, but a substitute came through for her at Hill Air Force Base. Mathematically, Annette Gaiotti and Roberta Scott were the only golfers who could overtake Larson as Player of the Year. And who beat those two in match play? Robin Krapfl, an Arizona resident whom Larson encouraged to come and play in the tournament, as she continually promotes Utah women’s golf.

Kareen Larson earned all of the points available to her in the Women’s State Am by finishing as the low senior in the stroke-play qualifying round with a 78 at TalonsCove Golf Club, where she works as the General Manager.

Informed of her role in the Player of the Year outcome, Krapfl smiled and said, “Kareen’s a great friend, so I like that business.”

With a senior women’s golfer’s top four events counting, Larson totaled 170 points: 50 in the Women’s State Am, 50 as the low senior in the Women’s Stroke Play, 40 as the low senior in the Utah Women’s Open and 30 as the No. 4 senior in the Mary Lou Baker Open.

Gaiotti finished second with 157.5 points, just ahead of Scott (155), the Women’s State Am runner-up.

The 51-year-old Larson joined another Canadian native, Super-Senior golfer Randy Hicken, among the UGA’s Players of the Year, capping a season she labeled “kind of a crazy year, kind of a whirlwind.” She was happy with the way she competed on courses set up to test much younger players, while her advantage in distance often helped her rise above the other seniors.

The left-hander’s ability to maintain a high-level golf game was especially impressive, amid all that TalonsCove undertook. Colin Clawson, the UGA’s Director, Championships & Golf Operations, credited Larson with staging “a clinic in how to host a golf tournament” during the Women’s State Am awards presentation.

TalonsCove also hosted Utah Valley University’s annual women’s tournament in September.

In 2023, Larson received the UGA Woman Award for “giving back to women’s golf,” among other attributes of advocacy.

UGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year presented by Primo feature written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography provided by Fairways Media/Garrit Johnson.