Jeanette Williams. Photos by Aprile Deanne Mckinnon.
4th Hole in One not even her biggest accomplishment
Jeanette Williams. Photos by Aprile Deanne Mckinnon.
Making a hole in one during a golfer’s lifetime is a dream come true and quite the accomplishment. Canyon Lake’s Jeanette Williams has the feat down to a science. She made her fourth hole in one last week. Nobody really knows, but that has to be some sort of Canyon Lake record.
Quite the feat, right?
Not her biggest. She’s really into pickleball.
“Here in Canyon Lake, what I want to leave as my legacy is that I helped introduce pickleball to the community,” Jeanette said. “It is the most popular sport and activity.” Jeanette was a founding member of the Canyon Lake Pickleball Club and helped to write the bylaws for the club.
Don’t misunderstand, though. She gets how unique it is to make four holes in one.
“I feel like a celebrity or something,” she said when contacted about a Friday Flyer interview.
Jeanette sunk the hole in one last week during the Canyon Lake Women’s Golf Tuesday Playday. She has definitely beaten the odds in sinking her fourth.
According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, only 16 percent of holes in one are made by women. The registry also states that the average age of a female golfer making an ace is 55, with an average of 15 years of playing the game. Also noted is that the average length of the hole for a woman making the hole in one is 111 yards.
Jeanette was born in 1944, this is her fourth hole in one and her most-recent one on Hole 15 was from 125 yards. Jeanette’s previous hole in one on Hole 15 was from 118 yards in 2011. In 2014, at the Seven Hills Golf Club her ace was at Hole 5 from 135 yards and in 2004 at the Canyon Lake Country Club’s Hole 11 it was from 154 yards.
Jeanette doesn’t just occasionally hit a ball in the hole in one stroke and play average golf the rest of the time. She is a fabulous golfer. Jeanette has received The Medallion, which is the highest award given by the Canyon Lake Women’s Golf Club. The award is given to those who have won Club Championships. For each additional Club Championship a woman wins, the club adds a diamond to the medallion. Jeanette said she now has seven diamonds.
In 2021, Jeanette was honored with the CLIPPS award from the Canyon Lake Women’s Golf Club. This award is presented to past presidents of the club who have gone above and beyond as a club president. In 2010, Jeanette was awarded for the longest drive (201 yards) of the year.
Jeanette works at her craft. She is on the golf course at least twice a week. Jeanette has been golfing since her college days and then coached the Eastern Arizona College women’s team for golf, basketball and tennis.
Jeanette is passionate about her love of teaching and coaching.
In the early 1970s, when there were not a lot of women volunteering or working as E.M.T.’s or with the Fire Department, there was a young Jeanette Williams volunteering in both of those departments in Puerco Valley, Arizona.
Jeanette was also involved in the Women’s International Motorcycle Association in the early 1980s as a member of its Women on Wheels.
Jeanette found her way to Canyon Lake from another teacher/coach who she worked with. This friend had a vacation home in Canyon Lake and while visiting the friend, Jeanette fell in love with the community. Jeanette loved watersports and boating, so it didn’t take long for her to make the move in 1992.
While living in Canyon Lake, Jeanette has been part of the Canyon Lake Women’s Golf Club, Canyon Lake Pickleball Club, Canyon Lake Emergency Preparedness Club, Canyon Lake Yacht Club, Canyon Lake Travel Club, Canyon Lake POA Recreation Club, and the Canyon Lake Woman’s Club.
Jeanette loves public speaking. After she gave a talk on Women’s History at the Canyon Lake Woman’s Club, she received a standing ovation for her speech. Jeanette attributes her love of speaking to the fact that her pastor at her Presbyterian church in Westminster would have her get up as a youth and speak for the youth group and at other church events.
Jeanette was very involved in her church life and loves serving others. She takes extraordinary pride in being a big part of her communities and serving the Canyon Lake community. Part of that service is teaching and coaching. It’s in her blood.
She loves introducing others to pickleball, the sport she helped introduce to the community. Jeanette said she still plays pickleball and offers free lessons for those who want to learn the sport.
“It makes me so happy to see kids that I have coached who are now adults competing in the sport,” Jeanette said. “Sports is the only thing I was ever really good at.”
While teaching at Valley High School in Sanders, Arizona, Jeanette had a student named Lois Yellowhorse. She was a star athlete at the school where Jeanette taught physical education and speech. She mentored Lois and was so proud to hear that she ended up being the first woman in South Dakota to lead an army platoon.
Jeanette’s zest for life and determination to be a woman of encouragement was a special gift she tried to give to her students. Jeanette retired from her last teaching job in 2007 at Rio Hondo College as a Professor of Physical Education after serving 17 years there.
At a reunion party at Rio Hondo she had the song played, “I Had the Time of My Life,” from the Dirty Dancing movie. After her fourth hole in one on Hole 15, her second one at that exact hole, Jeanette said, “I’m still having the time of my life.”