Porter-King wins 2000 Budget Service Award

DAYTONA BEACH, FL - Mary Bea Porter-King, a member of the LPGA Tour since 1973, has been awarded the 2000 Budget Service Award for her dedication to bringing the world of golf closer to junior golfers in Hawaii, assuring juniors in the Aloha State have the same opportunities available to children on the mainland. She has been instrumental in improving the Kauai Junior Golf Association (KJGA) and, in 1998, co-founded the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association, which now serves more than 750 junior golfers.

Porter-King moved to Hawaii in 1989 with her husband, Charlie King, and son, Joseph, who was six years old at the time. When Joseph became involved with junior golf, Porter-King did as well. Joseph joined the KJGA, and by 1990, Porter-King was on the board of directors. She worked her way up from professional representative to vice president to president, which she has been for the past seven years. 

Under Porter-King's direction, the KJGA has grown from 45 juniors in 1990 to 240 in 2000. Drawing from her own strict instruction as a junior from LPGA Teaching Professional Betty Hicks, she instituted a mandatory rules and etiquette class, requiring each junior to attend eight rules classes and pass written rules tests before they are allowed to play on the course.

It isn't just with her junior golfers that Porter-King is persistent. While members of the KJGA could play free of charge at the Waialua Municipal Golf Course, fees at other area courses were in excess of $60. Porter-King went to all the resort courses on Kauai and convinced them to lower their green fees to $10 for juniors. 

In 1997, Porter-King began organizing college workshops for KJGA members, calling upon fellow Tour players and college coaches to visit Kauai and speak to junior golfers about what it takes to play college golf, as well as educational requirements and scholarship opportunities.

Less than 10 years after Porter-King arrived in Hawaii, she addressed the need for a statewide junior golf organization in Hawaii. In 1998, she co-founded the HSJGA, giving all junior golfers in Hawaii the same opportunities and privileges she had helped bring junior golfers on Kauai. Today, the HSJGA has a membership of more than 750 juniors and conducts more than 23 statewide tournaments every year.

Porter-King has served as HSJGA president since its inception, organizing college workshops, rules classes, mental training classes and physical conditioning classes for the entire state. In order to fund the HSJGA, Porter-King applied for and received grants from the USGA and Aloha Section PGA. In addition, Porter-King has worked with the National Minority Golf Association to gain exemptions for minority junior golfers to play junior golf tournaments in the continental United States. She is currently working to bring an American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) event to Hawaii, as many juniors cannot afford the costs associated with traveling to the mainland to play.

In addition to her duties as KJGA and HSJGA president, Porter-King represents Hawaii on the United States Golf Association (USGA) Junior Girls' Committee. As a committee member, she conducts the annual Hawaii USGA Junior Girls Qualifier and attends the National Championship to officiate.

"Children in Hawaii are slowly coming up to par with the opportunities afforded children on the mainland," said Porter-King. "We have many unique hurdles to overcome in Hawaii, simply because we are separated by water. But children here love to play golf, and with that in mind, anything is possible."

While playing on the LPGA Tour, Porter-King won the 1975 Golf Inns of America Classic. During a qualifying round for the 1988 Standard Register Turquoise Classic, Porter-King noticed a young child drowning in a pool at a house on the golf course. She climbed a fence and administered CPR to save the three-year-old's life. The Metropolitan Golf Writers Association developed the Mary Bea Porter Humanitarian Award, of which Porter-King was the first recipient, to honor a heroic or humanitarian act that enhances human life. 

Porter-King was born in Everett, Wash., and began playing golf at the age of seven. She graduated from Arizona State University in 1973 after earning All-American honors, as well as being named Outstanding College Athlete of America.

The Budget Service Award was instituted in 1991 by Budget Rent a Car, the official car and truck rental company of the LPGA, to recognize an LPGA member's services to youth through golf, both on the course and in the community. In conjunction with the award, Budget donates $5,000 to youth charity.

Past Budget Service Award winners are: Jill Briles-Hinton, 1991; Kay Cockerill, 1992; Sandy LaBauve, 1993; Michelle Estill, 1994; Nan Ryan, 1995; Shirley Furlong, 1996; Jane Frost, 1997; Donna White, 1998; and Renee Powell, 1999.