Belvidere's Shirley Dommers won the Illinois Women's Amateur five times between 1957 and 1974. She also won the Iowa State Amateur in 1946 and the Illinois State Senior Amateur four times between 1976 and 1983.
Dommers and fellow Hall of Famers Salley Wessels and Kay Rossmiller combined to win three State Am titles between 1974 and '78, but Dommers never played a match against the other two. Because Dommers lived in Belvidere and played out of Bel-Mar, she was ineligible for the Rockford city tournament in her prime, an event won 13 times by Wessels and nine times by Rossmiller.
That bothered me a little bit, but not a whole lot, Dommers said. I felt that was a tournament for women who lived in Rockford and golfed in Rockford.
Dommers almost didn't play golf. She wanted to play tennis. But her dad encouraged his young daughter to give golf a try. If, after 12 lessons, she didn't like the sport, she could return to tennis.
I took the lessons and the rest is history, said Dommers, who also won the Women's International Championship in both Italy and Switzerland in 1954.