Peggy Colonello made a huge impact on women’s golf in Canada as an administrator. But if you ask her, she was proudest of the fact that she was able to win a spot on the 1973 senior women’s team Manitoba sent to the national championships in Truro, Nova Scotia. “I was carrying an 18 or 19 handicap when I made the team,” she said. “Today, I wouldn’t get a sniff if I couldn’t play better than that.”

Since 1948, she belonged to Elmhurst Golf Course. She has circled the planet on behalf of golf, attending World and Commonwealth Championships in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, Britain and Switzerland. She was a team manager, a diplomat, a captain and a referee on international junkets.

Colonello served as president of the Canadian Ladies Golf Association (1982- 83). She acted as chair of the 1986 Canadian Championship in Winnipeg. She presided over the Manitoba Ladies Golf Association in 1975-76, taking the MLGA to rural Manitoba for a tournament for the first time.

In 1984, she was nominated for the Manitoba Sports Federation’s Outstanding Volunteer in Sport Award.

She was the consummate publicity director for the MLGA in 1972 when the Canadian Championship was held at Niakwa. “Women’s golf has come a long way,” she said. “Our team would shoot in the 90’s. Now, we get into the 60’s. Look at men’s golf. They shoot in the 70’s and miss the cut.”

“There was a point in my life when I said I felt the age of volunteerism had died,” she said. “The pendulum has swung the other way. There seem to be more volunteers than I would have ever imagined.” If they are anything like Peggy Colonello, women’s golf will do just fine.