SEATTLE — As a boy growing up in north Everett, Jack Lamey had no idea what awaited him in life.
A high school state championship. A full scholarship to Stanford University. The opportunity to go on to medical school. A long and successful career as a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology. And the chance to belong to perhaps the premier private club in Seattle.
And all of it, he said, because of golf.
“I would not be who I am, nor would I be as fortunate to be where I am, were it not for golf,” the 70-year-old Lamey said. “And I couldn’t possibly give back to golf as much as it’s given to me.”
But he’s going to try.
Earlier this month, Lamey was elected president of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association, a voluntary position for which he expects to serve two consecutive one-year terms. He will have various administrative duties, lead regular board meetings, and assist executive director John Bodenhamer and the organization’s staff in conducting the PNGA’s full schedule of championships and other events.
“I look at myself as being an ambassador of goodwill for golf in the Northwest,” said Lamey, who previously was a board member for six years and the vice president for three.
As president, Lamey will be “a good fit for a number of reasons,” Bodenhamer said. “One, he’s been a fine player for a long time and he’s been a big part of what the PNGA does with our championships, so he understands that side of it. He’s also a fine gentleman. I don’t know of anyone in our organization who doesn’t think very highly of Jack.
“He’s also got a real keen sense of golf history and (PNGA) history, and he brings a real passion to the presidency because he understands that history and tradition. And that’s important to us because we’re proud of that history.”
Lamey started playing golf as a grade school youngster in Everett, where his father, Walter, was a dentist and where his parents were longtime members at Everett Golf and Country Club. As a boy, he played a regular Sunday game with his dad and other members at Everett G&CC, but also rode his bicycle from his home to nearby Everett Municipal Golf Course — today Legion Memorial GC — four or five times a week to play.
“Everett Muni’ was pretty big in my career,” he said.
Through his senior year at Everett High School in 1957 — when he was the individual state champion — “I was so entranced with golf,” he said. “I’d play from March through September, and then at the first of October I’d start getting myself in shape for basketball (as a senior, he was the school’s starting point guard).”
Lamey was a two-time Snohomish County Amateur champion as a high school player, and he became an All-American at Stanford. Perhaps he could’ve played professionally, but medicine turned out to be his calling.
Even there, golf helped. Lamey said he believes his golfing success at Stanford and later at Washington — he transferred to the UW as a junior and later helped the Huskies win a league championship — distinguished his medical school application and helped him gain admittance.
His competitive career dropped off during medical school and his subsequent career. But after his first wife died of cancer in 1989, he began to play more frequently.
Golf became “my way to get away from the world,” Lamey said. “I’d go down to the end of the practice tee and bang balls, and it made me feel better. Or I’d get out on the golf course with friends.”
In more recent years, Lamey has become one of the region’s best senior players, with two PNGA Men’s Senior Amateur titles. In his 60s he had a plus-2 handicap at Seattle Golf Club, the city’s oldest and certainly one of its most prestigious private clubs, where Lamey has been a member for 30 years.
He first shot his age when he was 65, and he has since done it another 17 times. And whenever it happens, he said, “it’s absolutely special.”
Lamey married his current wife, Yvonne, in the early 1990s, and then retired from medicine 10 years ago. These days he plays mostly for recreation and camaraderie, but he also plays more often — usually four times a week. At 70, his handicap is still a lowly 2.
“I’m not as competitive as I used to be in terms of my game,” he said. “But I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not able to do it anymore and it’s OK. … I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to have succeeded in golf as much as I have, and now I just enjoy the game of golf for the game of golf.”
And he looks forward to the chance to continue giving back.
“When I was working, and as busy as I was, I really couldn’t give myself fully to golf,” he said. “So I would contribute in short bursts. But once I retired I decided I was going to give back to the game because I’ve learned to appreciate just how much golf had given to me.”
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