You know that old saying, “sometimes you can’t see what’s right in front of you?” Well, that’s how I felt when I was reading the Summer 2020 edition of Mass Golfer magazine the other day.
As I was flipping through the pages, I came across a section that focused on the famed Essex County Club in Manchester-By-The-Sea. After a few photo pages focused on the course, there was a section on all of the great players who won championships at the course. I went through each little section until I came across a name that was incredibly familiar — my co-worker here at the Item, Anne Marie Tobin.
Now, I knew Anne Marie played golf and I knew that at some point she had a competitive amateur career. As a golfer myself, we’ve had a bunch of discussions about courses, tournaments and just the goings on in the sport over the past few years we’ve known each other. But I had no idea the kind of champion I was standing in front of.
Anne Marie won a still-record seven Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championships in her career, including five in a row from 1991 to 1995 (the other two came in 1988 and 2000). She was named the Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts (WGAM) Player of the Year three times (1994, 1995, 2000), and eventually the trophy was actually renamed the Anne Marie Tobin Player of the Year trophy. She was a quarterfinalist in the US Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship in 1990 and the US Women’s Amateur Championship in 1991. She was voted as the best female amateur of the 20th century by a poll of Mass Golfer readers in 1999 and she was voted into the Massachusetts Golf Hall of Fame in 2016.
She was also a heck of a team player, winning five WGAM Mother-Daughter titles with her daughter Abigail.
And she’s given back to the game in more ways than just playing. She was the president of the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund for two years and was the first woman elected outright to the Massachusetts Golf Association Executive Committee.
To say that I was blown away with her resume is an understatement. I’m a guy who loves golf, but I picked up the game later in my 20s and never played competitively. I played my first competitive round ever a couple weeks ago in a qualifier for the Massachusetts Amateur Public Links Championship, and I got destroyed. I didn’t come close to making the cut. And do you know who was the first person to call me and encourage me to keep at it? Anne Marie Tobin.
I hope I’m not starstruck the next time I see her in the office.
