Pat Lange and Penny Zavichas were inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in consecutive years in the 1990s, and now they’ll join the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals Hall of Fame on the same day in August.
The LPGA announced Friday that the two longtime Coloradans will comprise half of its T&CP Hall of Fame class for this year. Lange and Zavichas will be inducted — along with Kerry Graham of Arizona and Lorraine Klippel of Pennsylvania — on Aug. 16 in Chicago during the LPGA T&CP’s 50th anniversary celebration. The Solheim Cup will be contested in the Chicago area Aug. 21-23.
“To be recognized by my peers is absolutely stunning,” Zavichas said.
As for Lange, “Receiving this honor is very humbling and exciting,” she said.
Including the current foursome, only 12 people have been named to the LPGA T&CP Hall of Fame since it was established in 2000. This is the first group that will be inducted since 2006. According to the LPGA, the T&CP Hall of Fame is “the highest honor given to teaching and club professional members for extraordinary membership service and leadership while contributing to the game of golf and the golf industry.”
A final selection committee, made up of 10 leaders in the golf industry, including the LPGA commissioner, chose the inductees.
Both Lange and Zavichas have been prominent fixtures in Colorado golf for many years, and Zavichas was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1996 and Lange in “˜97.
“Sometimes you reach” to say that honorees are local, “but their careers were here,” said fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Joan Birkland. “That’s amazing.”
Zavichas, a niece of LPGA founder and Hall of Famer Babe Zaharias, is the co-founder and head instructor at the 41-year-old Craft-Zavichas Golf School in Pueblo, where she”˜s lived since age 2. She has 44 years of instruction experience, has been designated an LPGA Master Professional, and was named LPGA teacher of the year in 1973. She also played the LPGA Tour, at least part-time, from the 1960s to the early “˜70s.
Zavichas’ roots in the LPGA run deep as she joined the organization in 1962, served as LPGA National Teaching Chairman in 1970-71 and as LPGA treasurer in 1973-74. She was a TV analyst for women’s golf on both ABC and NBC.
Lange is known as an authority on club-fitting for women — most notably the development of shafts that match the swing speeds of female players — and in the field of golf instruction. An LPGA member since 1965, Lange in 1992 founded Golden-based Lange Golf, known largely for producing golf clubs and other equipment for women.
Lange, one of the first 15 LPGA members named a Master Professional, was voted the LPGA’s national professional of the year in 1989 and was nominated five times for the LPGA’s teacher of the year honor.
In Colorado, Lange has served on the executive board of the Denver-based Girls in Golf program, which provides opportunities in the sport for girls who otherwise would not have them. The organization also donates golf clothing and equipment, and sponsors a scholarship. Lange, who now lives in Palm Desert, Calif., has been an instructor at seven courses in Colorado, including in Denver, Golden, Arvada, Aurora and Vail.
“Pat has great spirit and an extraordinary sense of humor in addition to her immense teaching talents,” former LPGA Tour standout Sandra Palmer once noted. “She makes golf fun.”
