Villa resident excels as multi-sport athlete

A naturally talented and competitive villa resident, Margene Grady, ended the summer of 2022 with flair: In August, she won her third Super Senior Women’s Amateur title at the 57th annual championship at Lake Panorama, and then her team overthrew the reigning champions to win the 61st IGA Women’s Club Team championship by one stroke.    

That’s not all:  Margene also shot her first hole-in-one on an Iowa course while playing at Waterloo’s Gates Park.  She got her first ace last December in Florida.  

She started the summer with her and her teammate’s fifth win of the Iowa Golf Association Women’s Four-Ball Championship in the senior flight.  Just three years ago, in 2019, Margene made Iowa women’s senior amateur history by winning both division titles, Iowa Women’s Senior Amateur and Super Senior, at once. 

When asked about her athletic talent, Margene modestly explains, “I was always active on our family farm growing up.” But it wasn’t until her 20s that she tried the games of golf and bowling. 

“We didn’t even have a golf course in my hometown of Tripoli. It was a colleague from work who invited me to my first game and showed me how to play,” Margene explains. That was all it took for her to get hooked on the game.  She bought her first set of clubs from a rummage sale. 

She picked up bowling the same way as golf, on her own – by bowling a lot. Eventually, she was asked to join a league and still bowls in a league in Florida, where she and her husband, Tim, spend the winter months. Her induction into the Iowa State US Bowling Congress (USBC) Hall of Fame in 2020 was the culmination of many years in league bowling, plus state and national  events.  

Amongst all her golf tournament wins, Margene prizes her 2013 double eagle the most. That’s three-under-par, sometimes called an albatross, and it’s more rare than a hole-in-one. According to an article in the Austin Statesman, about 40,000 golfers hit a hole-in-one each year in the U.S.; only 200 make a double eagle. 

Margene and Tim are members of Fortified Life, the WHC program that protects financial assets while helping members age independently.  And you might guess Margene’s goal for successful aging: “I just want to golf for as long as I can.” 

Margene shares one of her favorite golfing awards, her 2013 double eagle.