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Within the next few days, the Dayton District Women’s Golf Association will stage two golf  competitions that have become fixtures on its annual schedule.
Each is named after a golfer who left an indelible impression on the golfing community.
The Janet Beardsley Junior Girls Championship, which will be held June 25, honors the lifetime achievements of the late Janet (Shock) Beardsley, an outstanding golfer who gave even more to the sport than she received from it.
The Jinx Fensel Memorial Tournament, scheduled for Monday, June 29, has been played since 1993 in memory of Jinx (Walther) Fensel, an ordinary golfer with an extraordinary capacity for making her presence felt any time she put a tee in the ground.
Their personalities were different as night and day – Mrs. Beardsley quietly earning respect with her conduct on and off the course and Mrs. Fensel making friends with her outgoing nature and unconventional ways.
When the DDWGA decided many years ago to sponsor a junior tournament for girls, Mrs. Beardsley was an obvious choice as the honoree because she had come to be known as The First Lady of Golf in Dayton.
Growing up at Community Golf Course where her father was the manager, she was the only girl on the boys' golf teams at Fairmont High School and Denison University. She was both a city and state champion who served the United States Golf Association as a regional representative after retiring from competitive golf.
She attended the junior tournament until last year, having died two months after the 2007 event at the age of 89. The Janet Beardsley event has been on the calendar of most of the top junior girls in the Miami Valley for many years.
Jinx Fensel was a free spirit who played regularly at Community Golf Course and Sugar Valley Country Club until her death in October of 1992. Allergic to the sun, she wore large, colorful hats and knee-length outfits. She always had her arms covered.
“She was so much fun and had such a presence,” said Alice Burton, who was a member of Fensel’s regular weekend foursome for many years. “She was memorable. I’ll tell you that.”
Fensel’s sister, M.J. Donnelly, no longer lives in Dayton, but she supports the tournament every year with a significant financial contribution that enables the committee to purchase Waterford crystal awards and have money left over to contribute $350 to the DDWGA scholarship fund.
“It’s the least I can do,” Donnelly said by telephone from her summer home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “It was great of them to start the tournament, and I want it to go on.”
Referring to Fensel’s gregarious nature, Donnelly said, “In a family of 12, you’re going to be outgoing or you’ll be lost in the shuffle.”
Donnelly, once a finalist in the city women’s tournament, said Fensel, older by six years, pushed her to practice.
“When she took up golf, she went out with a vengeance,” the 85-year-old Donnelly said. “She went out to practice every day. She made me work at it.”
After Fensel’s death, her friend, Judy Farr, went to Burton and asked if a tournament could be held in her honor. With the help of Jim Awsumb, then head golf professional at Jamaica Run Golf Course, the first event was staged at Jamaica Run in 1993. Many of the contestants wore large hats to salute the honoree.
The Jinx Fensel Tournament is essentially a low net event because Fensel was a high-handicapper who referred to the best players as “the gross girls.” She enjoyed seeing the others win prizes.
“I don’t remember a low handicapper ever winning it,” Burton said.
If she were still living, Fensel would be 91years old. Chances are she’d still be cheering for the high-handicappers.
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