While golf may have been what she was recognized for, don’t doubt for one moment that Kathy Newton was the consummate athlete. In an era that really didn’t allow for girls to compete, Kathy still found a way. While at Baldwin Wallace, Kathy participated in intramural sports and during her years there won individual championships in badminton, bowling, golf, swimming, table tennis and tennis. She was also president of the Women’s Recreation Association, a member of Sigma Delta Pi, a Spanish honorary and was a committee chairperson of the Student Assembly and Student Council.
After her graduation in 1950, her amateur golf career took off. She played on the Florida Amateur Golf Circuit from 1955-57 and competed in many national amateur events in the ’50’s and ’60’s. She also played in the Title Holders Tournament three times.
Upon returning to Northern Ohio, Kathy soon began dominating women’s golf. A three-time winner of Tri-League, her first victory in 1962 was a three-day event. She also won in 1975 and 1976. Since 1956 she has won 26 club championships and seven Cleveland Women’s Golf Association Championships. In 1958 she won the News Tournament of Champions. In 1995 at the age of 66, Kathy competed in 90-degree heat in the CWGA thirty-six hole final against youngster Shani Roth. Her biggest victory would come at Brookside Country Club in Columbus in 1963 when she captured her first WOSGA title defeating Martha Kosar. Just two years earlier at the famed Camargo Club, Kathy lost in the finals to Judy Rand.
In 1991 she was voted into the Euclid Sports Hall of Fame and in 1992, the Baldwin Wallace Women’s Alumni Athletic Association Sports Hall of Fame. In 2006 she was inducted into the Northern Ohio Golf Association’s Hall of Fame.
Kathy has given back to the game. She was a CWGA Ratings Committee member starting in 1958. In 1965 she served on the Board of the Trans Mississippi Golf Association. In 1973 she served as President of the Acacia Women’s Golf Association. In 2001 at the age of 71 she became President of the CWGA and has served that association for over fifteen years. Kathy Newton served youth as well. She retired from a career in education in 1994.