The 2022-23 season wasn’t very kind to NCGA Hall of Famer Lynne Cowan.
Through most of the year, the 62-year-old Rocklin resident battled pain in her right foot. It got so bad that for nearly 10 months, she could barely walk. A series of MRI’s, other treatments and even a stack of in-soles for her right shoes—nothing helped.
“I would wake up and the pain would just progress, so I would hobble around,” Cowan said.
Then, one morning in January 2024 the longtime Sierra View CC member awoke and the pain was gone.
It was time to get back to work, which for Cowan means winning. She’d end up capturing her record sixth NCGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year crown, finishing the 2023-24 season with 1,433 points. Lara Tennant was second with 1,300 points.
Feeling better, Cowan would win the PWGA Legacy Open (for the first time) and placed second at the NCGA Senior Women’s Stroke Play Championship. She also reached the Round of 32 at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. It was at the U.S. Senior Women’s Am that the points race would be decided. Had Tennant, a three-time winner of the event won, she would have surpassed Cowan.
Other Cowan wins came at the Sacramento Valley Senior, where she won after a four-hole sudden-death playoff, and at Sierra View after wrangling the club title back from friend Karen Garcia.
“Looking back, I kind of had a slow start to the season,” Cowan said. “That win at the Sacramento Valley, having to go thru the extra holes. That was the one that got me going.”
It’s that feeling of “going” that keeps Cowan coming back to the tee box time and time again.
“Golf gives me something to work for and to look forward to. I was happy to be walking and playing again without pain,” Cowan said. “This winter I plan to work on my conditioning to prepare for next season as I try to navigate the aches and pains of senior golf.”