By: Shane René, USGA P.J. Boatwright Intern
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 Idaho 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 100’s and into the high 70’s. 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 Amateur’s 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 to test herself against some of the best up and coming talents the state has to offer. In a generation driven by speed, Darrington may be among the first to admit that winning a 7th state title would be a tall task to conquer. But those close to her say this is evidence of a few of her defining qualities: an deep competitive instinct that made her such a prolific champion, 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.
Accomplishment Highlights:
Women’s Amateur Champion (1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1991 & 1992)
Women’s Mid-Amateur Champion (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021)
Women’s Senior Amateur Champion (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 & 2023)
16-time PNGA Lamey Cup Player