Kris Schoonover fell in love with golf, as many do, at a young age.
It was an idyllic introduction to the game: summer Fridays spent with her four siblings, sharing a few hand-me-down clubs and stretching $5 as far as it would go at nine-hole Bloomer Golf Course, just up the road from her hometown of Cornell in northwestern Wisconsin.
“In the summer, every day you had something – swimming, softball, all kinds of different things,” she said. “On Fridays there was nothing, so dad said, ‘Here’s a couple of clubs. All five of you get on the bus.’ We would go to Bloomer on a school bus. It was part of the [Cornell] rec program. No supervision other than the bus driver. Who would do that nowadays?
“We’d come back in the afternoon, happy as a clam.”
Golf wound up opening many doors for Schoonover. A fine player who wasn’t quite good enough to make it professionally, she instead channeled her passion and energy into multiple career paths off the course.
She has been, at various times (and occasionally ove…
