Former Australian Ladies Golf Union leader Dorothy Brown has died. She was 95.
Brown passed peacefully last week after an extended and brave battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in a private hospital in Queensland.
Golf Australia chief executive Stephen Pitt offered best wishes to her family on behalf of the Australian golf community.
“She made a long-term commitment to golf and made a valued contribution. Our sincere condolences to her family,” Pitt said.
Brown, nee North, was a keen and talented golfer and, remarkably, a member at Royal Queensland Golf Club for 72 years.
Having been appointed secretary in late 1940, she retained that position when World War I ended, thus becoming the first woman to hold such a position at a major Australian club.
She then was asked to resume the role in 1956 for a year as the club went through amalgamation with the Peninsula Golf Club.
So valuable was her contribution – across several committees and in filling many unpaid posts within the club – that she was made an honorary life member at RQGC in 1976.
She was also a member at Commonwealth, in Melbourne, when her and late husband Keith lived in Victoria.
She was appointed honorary secretary of the Australian Ladies Golf Union in 1972, her title changing in 1980 to coincide with the growth in the women’s game. In that year she became executive director of the ALGU, a position she held until her retirement in 1991.
Those who knew Brown described her as a “super efficient” worker with a passion for and knowledge of golf whose work helped progress the women’s game across the country.