From PNGA Champion to OGA President – the journey of Donna Smoot

by Tom Cade, Editor

As with many people in the region’s golf community, the game has been a throughline for Donna Smoot of Portland, Ore., and has carried her throughout most of her life. She was a junior golf phenom, a PNGA champion, a high school golf coach, and after eight years serving on the Oregon Golf Association’s Executive Committee she is now that association’s president, a role which also places her on the PNGA Board of Directors, furthering the collaboration between the PNGA and its member associations.

“This has really been a ‘full circle’ experience for me,” Smoot says. “I look at the other members of the board, and I’ve known many of them my whole life. I played junior golf with them when we were kids. Golf is something that stays with you, and after a while you see other people on a similar journey. It’s such a great way to stay connected.”

She learned how to play the game at Portland Golf Club, where her parents were members. “I played in all the OGA and PNGA championships while I was growing up,” she says. “I was really into it, and really enjoyed it.”

Smoot played on the golf team at Beaverton (Ore.) High School, and also competed in national championships, such as the 1984 U.S. Girls’ Junior, held that year at Mill Creek (Wash.) Country Club, and the following year when it was held in Pittsburgh, Pa.

She showed enough promise that she was recruited by Mary Lou Mulflur, who was in the early years of her hall of fame career as the head coach at the University of Washington. Smoot was offered a golf scholarship and played four years (which included a redshirt fifth year during her freshman year) on the UW’s women’s golf team.

After graduation, she continued to compete in regional events. In 1991, she made it to the final match of the PNGA Women’s Amateur before falling to champion (and future PNGA Hall of Famer) Marcia Fisher. The following year, Smoot, then at age 24 (and at the time still going by her maiden name of Olexio) closed the deal, winning the 1992 PNGA Women’s Amateur, held that year at Yakima (Wash.) Country Club, going 37 holes against Tracy Cone in the final match. (Cone herself would win the PNGA Women’s Amateur two years later, in 1994.)

Smoot’s lasting memory from that victory was having her mom, Micky Olexio, caddie for her in the final match. “It was 37 holes in 90+ degree heat,” she recalls with a laugh. “She was a trooper, but she was glad it didn’t go any more holes.”

Shortly after her PNGA victory in 1992, Smoot turned professional and began competing on two of the women’s mini tours on the West Coast – the Futures Tour and Players West. In the fall of 1994, she took on the task of organizing a small mini tour in the Pacific Northwest. With the help of others, such as longtime Northwest golf supporter Elon Ellis, who Smoot knew from growing up playing at Portland Golf Club, she administered (and played in) four tournaments in the area, with the goal of preparing aspiring women players to compete in that fall’s LPGA Tour Qualifying Tournament.

Smoot competed in two LPGA Tour Qualifyings, but did not advance to the tour itself. She soon married and began working part time at various golf clubs in the region, assisting with summer camps and other golf clinics.

In 2001, Smoot gave birth to twins, Nicole and Curtis, who would occupy much of her time for the next few years. She would later work in a sales position for the Portland Lumberjacks, a professional indoor lacrosse team. When her two kids began attending Beaverton High School, Smoot started coaching the school’s girls’ golf team, on which her daughter played.

“Both my kids played on the high school team,” she says. “They both still play a lot of golf. Curtis now lives in Boise, and he’s good enough that he competes in some of the Idaho state championships there.”

With her daughter now living in Denver, Smoot and her husband travel a lot during the summer, visiting them. “We take our clubs pretty much everywhere we go,” she says.

Smoot, who regained her amateur status and for quite a while has carried her handicap through the OGA Portland Metro online club, had continued to keep her own game in shape during those busy years, winning the 2008 Oregon Women’s Public Links Championship.

Because of her time coaching the girls’ golf team at the high school, Smoot was eventually hired as the assistant to the athletic director at the school, where she still works today. “I love what I do, because everyone is always so happy to be there,” she says. “Helping the athletes compete, giving them opportunities, it’s really gratifying.”

And it was during this time, around 2017, that Smoot was approached by members of the OGA Executive Committee about joining the board as a director. “There were probably several factors in them approaching me about this,” she says. “I had grown up playing OGA events, had coached golf at the high school level, had played many years competitively as an adult as an amateur and as a professional, and then had become involved with sports administration in Oregon.”

She initially began her time on the OGA Executive Committee helping with the Junior Golf Committee. Eventually, she was asked if she would serve a term as the OGA’s vice president. Smoot knew the protocol is that serving as president would be the next step.

“It wasn’t something I sought,” she says of her ascension to the presidency this year. “Everyone on the Executive Committee is a volunteer. We do it because we love the game, and we have respect for its traditions, and we all understand how much it brings to the community. For me, I see this as another learning opportunity, a chance to make improvements, and leave the game in Oregon in a better position. That’s everyone’s goal.

“We have a great CEO in Rick Rangel, and the OGA has a great staff. We want to do what we can to support their efforts.”

One of her first significant roles as president this year was serving as captain of Team OGA in the 18th PNGA Lamey Cup, held in early May at Oswego Lake Country Club. “It was great to be around really good, competitive players again,” she said, “and to see the collaboration with the other Associations, and serve an active role in the golf community.”

Smoot pauses, and then says, “Yes, golf has been a throughline throughout my life. I’m fortunate to be able to still be involved with the game, and with people who feel the same way. I would want this same experience for the younger generation, in whatever form or degree it may become.”