If the Idaho amateur golf community had a Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods-type figure, most would point to Scott Masingill. 

The Payette native was born into one of the families that established Scotch Pines Golf Course in 1962 (then Payette Golf Course), where the seeds of his historic amateur career took root. A couple decades later he would try his hand at course architecture during the course’s expansion from nine to 18 holes, and he served as president of its board of directors. For decades, his love of golf has been rivaled only by his commitment to the communities that raised him. 

“I’ve lived in Idaho my whole life,” he said. “So, anything that says it’s a state tournament, I’m interested in it.”

Golf was not always the obvious path forward for Masingill, who grew up showing talent for a variety of sports including basketball and baseball. In fact, baseball was the family sport, played by his father and uncle, and a popular pastime in the town that raised MLB legend Harman Killebrew. But as Masingill arrived at his sophomore year, Payette High School wouldn’t allow him to play both sports due to the amount of time each would force him out of classes. When his parents arranged hitting lessons with Killebrew for Masingill and his cousin Brad, the Hall of Famer suggested, on account of their slender builds, that they better stick to golf.      

Today, Masingill’s legacy, which is highlighted by stunning longevity, stands on the shoulders of his unmistakable talent. After winning his first junior tournament in 1967, it wasn’t until 1999 that he endured a title-less season on the golf course. Following consecutive state titles with Payette High School, Masingill played for his beloved Oregon State Beavers, where he won the PAC-8 championship in 1971, besting the likes of Tom Watson and Craig Stadler.   

In 1972, Masingill captured his first Idaho Men’s Amateur title, beginning a run across four decades that would become the flagship accomplishment of his career. Today Masingill stands alone with nine state titles, winning his last in 2001, and continues to make strong showings in the event as he wades into his 70s. In 2023, he entered the final round with just three players between him and the lead — two of them were yet to graduate high school and the third was 22 years old.  

“I was a college kid trying to beat the older guys; I was the older guy trying to beat the college kid; I was the father just trying to cobble something together,” he said. “So, each of those eras was a completely different challenge.”       

Masingill turned professional in the wake of his final Men’s Amateur win, at 50 years old, and spent a few years Monday qualifying into events before earning status on the Champions Tour in 2006. Across 33 appearances in Champions Tour events, including a handful of Senior Major Championships, he shared fairways with many of the game’s greatest champions. 

But ultimately, Masingill says the magnet that drew him back to the amateur game is the people who play alongside him. They are doctors and lawyers, plumbers and schoolteachers, students and social workers; they are successful, he notes, in other parts of their lives. Their lives are enriched by the game, but never made miserable (at least, not too miserable) by the horrors of their short game. They are people for whom golf is not a matter of life and death, but a matter of heart and soul. 

Masingill is drawn to them because he’s one of them; he’s one of us. He just happens to have won more times than most of us have in our dreams.   

The IGA announced in 2019 that the Men’s Amateur trophy be named in Masingill’s honor and he’s handed the Scott Masingill Cup over to the winner every year since — even after being in contention to win it many of those years.   

“I’m flattered that somebody feels that way about me,” Masingill said. “When you’re doing this, you don’t know what legacy you’re going to have. And that just embedded that all of the things that I’ve done — and what I’ve been — is worth it.”

Jean Lane Smith’s name will always live in gold on the front plaque of the Idaho Women’s Amateur Trophy — which was named in her honor in 2019 — but her legacy lives in the long list of appearances her name makes around the sides of it. 

Smith stands alone with seven Idaho Women’s Amateur titles, besting fellow Hall of Fame inductee Karen Darrington by one. Smith notched her first Idaho Am win in 1984 and went on to win the event six more times in the following 14 years. Smith used those years to make a historic run at Darrington, who’d won three titles before Smith had corralled her first. Darrington reached six titles in 1992, but Smith, almost 20 years her senior, knocked down three more wins over the next five years to cement her legacy over Idaho’s flagship women’s amateur event.  

“Even today we go out and play, and it’s still like that — it’s just ingrained in us,” Smith laughed about her rivalry with Darrington. “They were good matches; some were close, some were runaways. But what comes out of it in the end, and which is most important to me, is to just look at the friendship that came out of it.”    

She found similar success in the IGA’s senior division, winning five Women’s Senior Amateur titles, joining a rare club of players with double-digit IGA Major titles. Smith also won a number of senior titles outside of Idaho. In 2003, she won the PNGA Senior Women’s Amateur. She is also a six-time winner of the Western Golf Association’s Senior Women’s Amateur.

But Smith’s success in state and regional championships takes a back seat to the pinnacle achievement of her career: winning the 1995 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. To this day, she is the only Idahoan to win a USGA Championship event — professional or amateur, male or female. 

Born and raised in St. Louis, golf was not an obvious path forward for Smith. Tennis was the game of choice before her 16th birthday when she was gifted a set of golf clubs, taking to the fairways at Old Warson Country Club. Today, the St. Louis club's website refers to Smith as “Old Warson’s Best Woman Ever.”   

Smith is known as a fierce competitor, bringing the sort of intensity to her craft that you can only find in the most accomplished athletes. But her competitive fire never overshadowed her model sportsmanship, a value she always sought to pass along to the generation of players she inspired to play and play their best.  

“Jean Smith has left an indelible mark on golf in Idaho and inspired countless individuals with her dedication, skill and passion for the game,” 1997 Idaho Women’s Amateur Champion Sheryl Scott wrote. “Her journey as a golfer has been marked by remarkable accomplishments that underscore her status as a true icon in the golfing community.”  

Smith was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association (PNGA) Hall of Fame in 2005. 

With 21 major amateur titles, Karen Darrington is the most prolific amateur championship player in Idaho state history, consistently dominating her competition across multiple divisions for the better part of five decades.

The serendipity of Darrington’s golf career is a marvel of its own. Arriving in Provo, Utah as a freshman basketball player, the Twin Falls native befriended one of the players on the women’s golf team. Tagging along to golf practice one spring, Darrington — who’d played just a few rounds in her life — suddenly found herself in a qualifier against another player for the final spot in the team’s next tournament. Trading scores of well over 100, the other player decided that softball might be more fun and Darrington found herself in New Mexico playing college golf for Brigham Young University.  

The golf course that the BYU team played in that event featured large putting greens, prompting some discussion amongst the team over how to navigate them.  When one of the players jokingly suggested she would simply chip to avoid lengthy putts, Darrington took her advice. Shortly after, word of a young Idahoan chipping off the greens spread around the tournament. That young Idahoan would go on to become one of BYU’s best players.    

“I was really out of my league paired with really good golfers who had been playing since they were young,” Darrington said. “I shot well over 100, but I was hooked.” 

With basketball in the rearview mirror, Darrington watched her scores tumble out of the 100s and into the high 70s. Then, in 1979 — just two years removed from her tournament golf debut — Darrington won her first Women’s Amateur Championship and successfully defended her title the following year.  

After her third victory in 1983, she nearly won consecutive titles for a second time if not for fellow Hall of Famer Jean Lane Smith, who won her first Women’s Am title in 1984. Darrington got back in the winner’s circle in 1985 and then waited six years before she won her last two titles back-to-back in 1991 and 92. Of the 20 Women’s Amateurs hosted from 1979 to 1998, Darrington and Jean Smith combined to win 13 of them. 

But as both women moved on to mid-amateur and senior divisions, Darrington took her dominance to the next level. She won three consecutive Mid-Amateur Championships beginning in 2015, took a year off, and won another batch of three in 2019, 20 and 21. 

Much like fellow Hall of Fame inductee Scott Masingill, Darrington still shows up to play in the Idaho Women’s Amateur most years. In a generation driven by speed, Darrington may be among the first to admit that winning a seventh state title would be a tall task. But those close to her say this is evidence of a few of her defining qualities: a deep competitive instinct, a fearless approach to any competition that comes her way, razor-sharp abilities that just won’t quit and an undying love for the community of championship golfers that she’s spent so much of her life making her mark in.      

A natural competitor, known among IGA players for her steely fist pumps, Darrington has always been a beloved member of her community. In rare moments of defeat, you’re sure to find her congratulating the champion. As a longtime supporter of junior golf, she’s volunteered as a captain for Idaho’s Junior Girl’s Cup Teams eight times and served for eight years on the IGA’s Board of Directors.  

In 2023, Darrington stepped down from the board of directors and announced that she would take a year away from competition in 2024 to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the South Pacific island of Tonga. At the 2023 IGA Tournament of Champions, Darrington was acknowledged for her years of service to the Idaho golf community after she finished her final round of amateur competition until 2025.     

While players in the IGA’s Senior Women’s division may, in moment of competitive thinking, welcome her absence from leaderboards in 2024, her presence will be missed by all. 

Joe Malay is the kind of guy you’re likely to spot on the driving range or in the clubhouse before you meet him. Under a trademark goatee and a plume of white hair, selections from his brightly colored and boldly patterned wardrobe spill down toward his feet as he buzzes from person to person, old friends and new ones, representing everything good and everything golf in Idaho.   

“Joe Malay, Weiser, Idaho” is how he introduces himself to new faces, proud to represent his beloved hometown along the Oregon border where he’s achieved a rare celebrity among locals. He’s held the course record at his home club — Rolling Hills GC — for more than 40 years. He’s won the club championship 41 times. He’s gone out of his way to play at least one round with every member of the club. And when the maintenance crew is unavailable or understaffed, Malay is always ready and willing to hop on a mower. 

Malay graduated from Weiser High School in 1967 and shipped off to Kansas City Community College where he played on the golf team for a year before signing up with the U.S. Marine Corps in 1968. He received an honorable discharge in 1969 and returned to Weiser where he “hung around, played golf and had no real plans.” 

Planned or not, Malay turned his golf life into something far more significant than “hanging around.” For decades, his presence in the Idaho golf landscape is felt far beyond the Ore-Ida border towns that raised him, consistently competing across the state — with notable success — in every format and division that he could find. 

And when he’s not playing golf, Malay is one of the most visible champions of junior golf in Idaho. During any given week — even with his 80s beaming on the horizon — Malay could leave his home town of Weiser, drive to McCall to emcee a Calcutta, hustle through passes to run putting contests at the Junior Amateur in Rexburg, drive through Boise to pal around at a tournament in the Treasure Valley and then turn around to play in the Senior Amateur before driving back home. If you’ve ever wondered what a golf nut looks like, the answer is Joe Malay.    

Malay is one the founders of the Idaho Junior Golf Foundation, an organization that raises and distributes money to junior golf programs around the state. Since its founding in 1997, IJGF has provided essential funding to programs like the Idaho Junior Tour, First Tee Idaho and sends Idaho juniors to college on the foundation’s Cody Hayes Scholarship. Every year, Malay hosts a putting competition and raffle at the Idaho Junior Amateur Championship for all players. 

In the winter, when there are no golf tournaments to attend, Malay’s charitable nature never cools down. His annual holiday fundraiser — Santa’s Ho-Ho Express — has raised more than a quarter million dollars for underprivileged youth in the Payette/Weiser area. In 2001, locals nominated Joe’s Ho-Ho Express for a national competition put on by Walmart to profile local charities. When Malay won the competition, Walmart sent a camera crew to film a commercial which aired in all 50 states over the holiday season.  

While his legacy is most defined by his presence off the golf course, Malay commands plenty of respect as a player. He’s represented Idaho (as both a player and captain) on more than 50 different cup teams, won the Idaho State Four-Ball seven times, qualified to play in eight USGA Public Links Championships, and carved his name into the Men’s Amateur Championship trophy in 1986.  

In 2019, the IGA’s Senior Amateur Championship trophy was named in his honor. 

Known affectionately as “Dimples,” an allusion to her infectious smile and prodigious skill on the golf course, Shirley Englehorn is a name to count among the likes of Harmon Killebrew as one of Idaho’s greatest sporting exports of all time.  

Born in Caldwell, Idaho, Englehorn received a royal introduction to the game by LPGA co-founder Shirley Spork, and her talent emerged quickly thereafter. At 15, Englehorn won the 1955 Trans-Miss Championship, earning some national recognition as women’s golf was just beginning to establish the institutions that continue to push the game forward today. She remains the youngest player to ever win the event almost 70 years later.   

As she finished school at Caldwell High, Englehorn made a short but emphatic splash on the Idaho amateur golf scene, collecting three-consecutive Women’s Amateur Championship titles in ‘56, ‘57 and ‘58. She’s since been elected into both the Caldwell High School Sports Hall of Fame and the North Idaho Sports Hall of Fame.  

In 1959, Englehorn made what now seems like an obvious decision to turn professional. What followed was a career defined by triumphs over near tragedy. In 1960, Englehorn was involved in a major equestrian accident in Georgia, which sidelined her from competition for many months. She earned her first two victories during the 1962 season, winning the second by seven strokes, and continued to make herself known at the highest level of women’s professional golf. In 1964, she paired up with PGA Tour great Sam Snead to win the Haig & Haig Scotch Foursomes event. 

Englehorn’s career took another harrowing turn in 1965 when she was nearly killed in a car accident. After an arduous, year-long recovery, she returned to the winner’s circle at the Babe Zaharias Open in 1966 and continued her run toward 11 career wins on the LPGA Tour. The next year, Englehorn won her own tournament at Purple Sage Golf Course in Caldwell, beating LPGA legend Kathy Whitworth in a playoff.  

In 1968, she received the Ben Hogan Award for her recovery.     

Englehorn won her lone Major Championship on the LPGA Tour at the 1970 LPGA Championship (Now called KPMG Women’s PGA Championship), once again besting Whitworth in an 18-hole playoff. 

“She was a wonderful player and could have won many more tournaments than she did,” Kathy Whitworth said in an article published by the LPGA. “Unfortunately, she had two incredibly bad accidents that most people probably would never recover from. She did recover though and returned to win again. She had a lot of courage.” 

Engelhorn continued to struggle with injuries at the end of her playing days, returning to competition from surgery twice in the early 1970s. But once she put her playing days behind her, Engelhorn's golf life morphed into that of a widely celebrated teacher, earning her way into the LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame in 2014. In 1978, a year before her retirement from competition, she won the LPGA’s Teacher of the Year award. 

Throughout her career, she would often return to Caldwell to visit her parents at their home along the third hole of Fairview Golf Course. 

Just over a decade after its establishment in 1940, Arnold “Hank” Haneke arrived at Hillcrest Country Club when the golf course was just nine holes. Under his leadership, Hillcrest blossomed into one of Boise’s preeminent golf clubs — and one of the finest in the region — as Haneke became the figurehead of golf in Idaho for the better part of four decades.  

Born and raised in Oregon, Haneke began his golf career as a caddie at La Grande Country Club and turned professional at 15 years old. In 1935, he became the head professional at La Grande, also serving as golf course superintendent, and there seemed little question that a long life in golf awaited him.   

When World War II broke out, Haneke enlisted with the U.S. Navy and served on the USS Ranger through the end of the war. Then, Haneke found himself on the east coast, serving as head professional at clubs in Florida and Maryland before heading to Idaho where he would live and work until he passed away in 1994.  

During his tenure at Hillcrest, Haneke’s reputation as a masterful teacher and authority on all things golf towered over his famously small frame. He worked with players of all abilities, including high-handicap members and budding superstars like Shirley Englehorn. Passing down his rich understanding of the game to everyone willing to listen was his life’s work. And as a player, he battled through back injuries to qualify for and play in the 1966 PGA Championship.   

Haneke is also credited as an innovator in the pro shop. A man driven by details on and off the golf course, his pro shop at Hillcrest was notoriously clutter-free, deploying his well-trained staff to hold the highest standards of professionalism. When members entered a spring-loaded door at the side of the pro shop, he insisted that his staff greet the member by name before the door snapped shut behind them. Haneke always encouraged his pro shop staff to play golf with members, a policy that helped tighten the fabric of his community and gave his staff opportunities to meet and learn from successful figures in the community. His commitment to those details, and that consistency, established the reputation that Hillcrest maintains to this day.  

Haneke believed strongly in decorum; and those who knew him describe him as a man who commanded respect — but they are all careful to note that he never demanded it. At the 1990 Women’s Amateur at Quail Hollow — where Haneke was teaching lessons after his tenure at Hillcrest — the Quail Hollow Women’s Association asked Haneke to serve as the honorary starter and scorer for the final pairing. He arrived on a hot, sunny day in slacks and a suit jacket and walked all 18 holes. Even while navigating Quail’s hilly terrain at 72 years old, Haneke refused to take a cart, insisting that officials at events of such magnitude should always walk the course. 

Set behind his professionalism, but never hidden by it, Haneke was well known for his cheerful, friendly demeanor and was a champion of community above all else. Those who say they were fortunate enough to ask him questions about life and golf say those conversations would often reverse themselves, as he peppered them with a series of genuine questions about their own lives. 

“I think about him every day,” said First Tee Utah Executive Director Paul Pugmire, who worked for Haneke while he played golf at Boise State. “I always want to treat people the way Mr. Haneke did.”   

At Haneke’s funeral in 1994 — which required the closing of four city blocks for the procession — then-sitting-Governor Cecil D. Andrus arrived alone, without security or state representatives by his side, to pay his respects to the man who embodied the game we all love.

Just over a decade after its founding, Wayne Berry was appointed as the first executive director of the Idaho Golf Association in 1980, giving clear direction to an organization that has grown to serve more than 23,000 golfers and more than 80 golf courses across the IGA’s jurisdiction.  

Berry’s leadership was a defining moment for amateur golf in Idaho. Those close to him say he was instrumental in establishing more cooperation between Eastern and Western Idaho for professional and amateur golfers alike. The richness of the Idaho golf community, and the cooperation today’s members enjoy from Weiser to Driggs, is the direct result of efforts Berry made in his role with the IGA. At the same time, Berry wanted the IGA to be as approachable as possible, making it a key resource for professionals and amateurs across the golf industry. This often meant making himself available around the clock, always eager to answer questions and make sure that the community of golfers around him could maintain a fulfilling relationship with the game. 

Those close to Berry describe him as one of the most honorable men they knew, the kind of person with clear reverence for rules and regulations. That worldview made Berry well suited to become one if Idaho’s leading experts in the rules of golf. His authority on the rules, which was nationally recognized, gave Idaho more credibility in the national golf landscape and today Idaho hosts as many as eight USGA qualifiers every year.    

After a decade at the helm of the IGA, Berry joined the PGA Tour as a rule’s official in 1991. He went on to become Tour Director of the Hogan Tour (now Korn Ferry Tour) before he retired in 1998, a job that made him proud to bring the Albertson’s Boise Open to his hometown every year. 

“When you go to play in a tournament, you expect the best,” said Blue Lakes CC Head Professional Mike Hamblin. “Wayne always put the best product forward. No matter what golf course we went to, he knew how to set a golf course up, he knew how it would play the best and bring out the best in the players.”  

In 2008, Berry was given honorary membership into the PGA’s Rocky Mountain Section for his expertise on the rules and, most notably, his routine willingness to serve the Idaho golf community whenever called upon.    

“He always seemed eager to share his time,” said PGA Member Kyle Weeks, who was a professional at Eagle Hills where Berry played much of his golf in his later years. “He was everybody’s friend.” 

Berry attended La Grande High School in Oregon, earning varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball and golf. While golf would come to define his life and legacy, football paved his immediate path out of Oregon, landing a scholarship at Washington State University. After four years in Pullman, he was drafted by the New York Giants.