by www.LSUsports.net, LSU Sports Interactive
LAS VEGAS -- LSU women’s golf Coach Karen Bahnsen accepted the pinnacle award of her 25-year coaching career at LSU as she was inducted here Wednesday night into the National Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
The event came at the concluding banquet of the group’s annual convention, being held this year in Las Vegas at Harrah’s Hotel and Casino.
Bahnsen, the dean of SEC women’s golf coaches, has her 25th team ranked No. 14 in the country with a win in the fall season and looking to take her team to the NCAA Division I Championships for the second straight year and the third year in the last four. In all she has taken eight teams to the championship round and 14 to the NCAA Regional Round which started in 1993.
“I wish to thank the NGCA and I am honored to join such a great group of former inductee,” Bahnsen said in her remarks.
The Mobile, Ala., native was the first recruit of the LSU program back in 1979 and took over as head coach of the team following the 1984-85 season from Buddy Alexander who had served for a couple of years as both the men’s and women’s head coach at LSU.
In her career she has coached 15 All-Americans, 33 All-SEC players, 28 tournament team titles, 28 individual titles, 10 top three finishes in the SEC championship and five top-10 finishes in the NCAA Championships. There have been 68 Academic All-SEC honorees and 21 National Golf Coaches Association Academic Scholars.
“When it comes to the history of LSU’s 30-years of women’s golf, there is no person who understands it more than Karen Bahnsen,” said LSU Senior Association Sports Information Director Kent Lowe, who presented Bahnsen for induction at the banquet. “Karen is not only a coach, but a person who understands what every shot means to these collegiate players because she has lived it.
“It’s the legacy you leave with your players that is most important,” said Lowe, “and it is the constant calls, emails and visits that she gets from former players that shows me how much she is respected and revered for the time she has given to collegiate golfers who have passed through Baton Rouge.”
“This is an opportunity to be a role model in life for these girls,” Bahnsen said. “You can do it all. Being a wife-mother and coach requires a balancing act, but I always believe in keeping family first. Once a recruit comes to LSU, the girls become a part of my family. I am competitive -- we all want to win -- but it is all about making a difference in players’ lives. So to me, this award is not about me, it’s about the team.”
Among the players who have starred for Bahnsen as coach are Jenny Lidback, who was the number one college player in the nation in 1986 and an LPGA major winner; LPGA winner Jackie Gallagher-Smith, the three Amigas in the mid-1990s (Ashley Winn, Michelle Louviere and Laura Moore) who won nine team titles; Diana Shore Trophy winners Lisette Lee (2000) and U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion Meredith Duncan (2002), double All-American Katy Harris in the early 2000s to current All-SEC player Megan McChrystal who early in her career is on pace to post one of the lowest averages in school history.
“To all the girls I’ve had the privilege to coach over the past 25 years, hopefully I have been able to touch their lives in some way,” Bahnsen said of her teams.
Among those Bahnsen thanked and on hand for the event were her Mom, June, and long-time husband LSU Senior Associate Athletic Director Bo Bahnsen.
Also honored at the event were former Georgia star and now Arkansas head coach Shauna Estes-Taylor and former Arizona State and LPGA player Wendy Ward who were inducted in the players Hall of Fame category.
Denise St. Pierre, the coach at Penn State University and a former NGCA President, won the Gladys Palmer Meritorious Service Award. St. Pierre led the membership in volunteer work in New Orleans in relief of Hurricane Katrina. At the 2006 NGCA Convention, which was moved out of New Orleans to Lake Tahoe, St. Pierre introduced an idea to the membership that called for golf programs to conduct fundraisers to raise money for New Orleans Habitat for Humanity.
That effort raised $60,000 to build a new home and she led a delegation to New Orleans to help finish building the house that the NGCA sponsored.
Bahnsen became the 42nd member of the NGCA Coaches Hall of Fame while Estes-Taylor and Ward brought the number of players enshrined to 53.
