Ask Mindy Inglis-Reid about all the golf tournaments she’s played, and you get a shrug. Ask her about the ones she’s won, and you get a wry smile.
“There’s a lot of routine in golf. You have the same schedule. I look forward to it, I look forward to the championships,” she said. “They’re about the same weekends they always are, so you know your schedule pretty much in the summer.
“I don’t know. It’s just what I do.”
And she happens to do it better than anyone else around. The milder days and cooler nights are signaling an end to another summer, and the end to another year that goes as a chapter in Inglis-Reid’s sparkling resume. The 47-year-old claimed the Pembroke Pines women’s championship in August going away, shooting a 3-over 147 over two rounds to claim her 18th club title.
Staggering as it is, the number of championships isn’t as stunning as the frequency. Inglis-Reid won her first title at what was then Plausawa Valley in 1996. She’s won each year but three since – who knows what happened in 1997, 2010 and 2014 – and has added to her home course domination by winning all 15 Concord city championships she’s competed in.
Inglis-Reid isn’t one to glow about her accomplishments. But that mark comes closest to cracking the exterior.
“That’s my best record,” she said. “That’s a tough record. There have been a few I didn’t think I could pull off, and I did.”
It’s easy to see where the consistency comes from. The Pembroke resident hits the ball long, but keeps it straight. She’s accurate from tee to green, a good ball-striker and a savvy shot maker when the occasional odd bounce sets up a bad line or tricky lie.
“She’s long and down the middle. For a lady, especially, she’s very long,” club pro Eric Thompson said. “If we’ve got a ladies’ long drive (contest), her name is always (there). She’s a good ball-striker, very consistent.”
Things used to get shakier when she’d reach the green. Not anymore.
“I had always struggled with my putting, but the last three or four years it has really taken shape,” she said. “You always lose your short game over the winter. That’s what you have to work on to get back in the spring. You always have to work on that all season.”
She learned that from an early age. Inglis-Reid picked up golf as a 15-year-old at Derryfield Country Club and couldn’t get enough, taking lessons for two summers and spending her time after school and on weekends teaching herself the rest of the game on the course.
“I was playing probably five, six days a week as a kid,” she said. “All my friends were over there. I had the privilege of meeting and being mentored by really good golfers in Manchester.”
The more she played, the more she figured out how to fix whatever skills were lagging by herself.
“There’s a lot of that,” she said. “You take a few lessons and you just have to go at it and figure things out for yourself. … But you need the basics. The lessons gave me the basics, they gave me a great starting point. And the rest you just figure out.”
That growing game thrust her onto the scene as one of the state’s top amateur golfers, along with players like 16-time State Am champion Dana Harrity and Beth Hamilton, a former Pembroke Pines member who won the Canterbury Woods championship this year.
They’re part of a field that Inglis-Reid has gone head-to-head with in tournaments over and over again throughout the years. And even after all the matches and all the wins, the butterflies still come back on the first tee.
“I still do get nervous,” she said. “It depends on what it is. If it’s something that means a title, sure. But nerves are good. You can use them in the right way.”
She’s found a way to do that year after year, making a name for herself throughout the state and at her home course.
“She’s someone around here that the ladies follow,” Thompson said. “They have a lot of pride in the club here, there’s still a big push when she’s playing events. Everyone’s paying attention. It’s something to rally around for our club members.”
That clout can be expected from 33 combined club and city championships, though Inglis-Reid said she still has a prevailing goal.
“I would love to get a State Am, but I’ve been trying for that for years,” she said. “I’ve been in contention, I’ve led it, I’ve had a low round, but I just can’t hang on to grab that one.”
It’s a different tournament than the ones Inglis-Reid has captured; at 54 holes over three days, the State Am is far more of a stress on the body.
“It is a grind,” she said. “Honest to God, they are just so much work. I mean, you’re so exhausted after you play a round, just mentally.”
It hasn’t gotten easier. Inglis-Reid was hitting a drive last fall when she suddenly felt pain in her arm, jumping to the conclusion that she had torn a muscle in her elbow. The real situation was worse – the muscle was indeed torn, but so were tendons in the elbow joint. She spent the summer recovering and with shots was able to play through the injury, but the chances of playing enough to compete in the State Am and city championship were zero.
“I have a hard time playing two 18-hole rounds back-to-back with my elbow the way it is,” she said. “It just needs more time to heal.”
That should be as soon as next year. Inglis-Reid expects to be at 100 percent after the winter, ready to pursue more hardware in a sport that’s rewarded her every step of the way.
“Golf’s a lot about relationships and friendships,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people through golf. My mom jokes with me that I can’t be anywhere, at a restaurant or wherever, that I don’t know somebody, and it’s usually through golf.
“I never take anything for granted. Doesn’t matter what it is. It’s a privilege to play golf. I’m fortunate to play it well, and I don’t take it for granted.”
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at abonifant@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at
@dbonifant.)