ASGA to celebrate new hall of fame members

The Arkansas State Golf Association’s grandest celebration of the year will be held tonight at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock with the annual hall of fame and awards banquet.

This year’s hall of fame inductees are Jerald Barnett, Lisa Cornwell, Bill Hall and Jon Zieske.

“This is always the culmination of the year, our big hurrah,” ASGA Executive Director Jay Fox said. “We get to crown our players of the year and induct some fabulous new members. It’s important to a lot of people.”

Cornwell is a Fayetteville native who works for Golf Channel as a studio host and a tournament reporter. She played golf collegiately at SMU and the University of Arkansas. She won four Arkansas state amateur titles, her first

coming at the age of 14.

Hall is a native of Camden, where he won the city tournament at 10 years old before later capturing the ASGA State Junior title. He was a two-year letterman for the Razorbacks

as a walk-on, and turned professional in 1970. He would later play on the PGA Tour Champions Tour, where he had six top-25 finishes in 1994.

Zieske was the head professional at The Alotian Club

in Roland from 2004 until his sudden death at the age of 48 in June 2017. He was the PGA South Central Section Arkansas Player of the Year three years in a row, winning the South Central Section’s Professional of the Year title in 2010.

Barnett, who died in August, was an All-Southwest Conference basketball player at Arkansas who played golf for the Razorbacks in 1956. Barnett was a former ASGA president who won the state match play championship in 1969.

“It’s unfortunate we will be honoring two of our four inductees posthumously, but they will have a lot of friends and family members here to see them inducted,” Fox said.

The ASGA Players of the Year for 2019 will be honored. They include: Tyler Reynolds (amateur), Katelyn Dunstan (women’s), Kyle Thompson (mid-senior), Gordy McKeown (senior), Brenda Carr (women’s senior), Bill Wrentz (super senior), Charlie Angel (masters), Pam Evans (women’s masters), Blaine Calhoon (juniors) and Josie Roberson (junior girls).

“We go from junior boys and junior girls all the way to our masters champions,” Fox said. “We run the whole gamut in our age divisions. These people work hard and are well-deserving to be considered players of the year. It’s not an honor that comes easily.”

The PGA Professional of the Year and PGA Player of the Year also will be announced tonight.