Local Golf | Mackenzie still gets coach's help

Former Washington Husky Paige Mackenzie had a caddie on her bag in her latest LPGA Tour event who knew her and her game well — UW coach Mary Lou Mulflur.

"She was awesome," Mackenzie said Thursday of her former coach. "It was a lot of fun. I would like to have her on my bag all the time."

Mackenzie, playing on a sponsor's exemption at the John Q. Hammons Hotel Classic outside Tulsa, Okla., made the cut and shot 74-72-74 — 220 to finish tied for 59th and won $2,419.

In August, without her coach as caddie, Mackenzie won $9,627 after tying for 29th on a sponsor's exemption at the Wendy's Championship for Children in Ohio.

Mulflur's Huskies team opens its season today at the Nittany Lion Invitational at University Park, Pa.

NOTES

• Betty Well, 84, who has been playing golf at Glen Acres Country Club in South Seattle for about 40 years, made her first hole-in-one Thursday. She aced the second hole with a 7-wood from 115 yards.

• The UW men's golf team opens the 2006-07 season at Washington National outside Auburn on Monday in the two-day Opus Northwest Husky Invitational. The eight teams are Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State, UCLA, California, UC Davis, Loyola Marymount and San Diego State. Golfers will play 36 holes Monday and 18 Tuesday.

• Patty Berg, who died this month in Florida at age 88 of complications of Alzheimer's disease, had a link to Washington. In 1946, she won the first U.S. Women's Open at the Spokane Country Club.

Craig Smith: 206-464-8279 or csmith@seattletimes.com