Claude and Michelle Hooton and their three daughters, Libby, Courtney and Chloe Belle... all of them passionate about golf... produced a top quality publication through the fall of 2008, when the economy took its famous nosedive and ad dollars dried up.
At its peak, Golfer Girl had a circulation of 10,000, with subscribers in all 50 states, Mexico and Canada and clearly served its specialized niche very well. A photo from the summer of 1977 shows the girls... aged 16, 13 and 10... surrounded by stacks of their first issue. A total of six seasonal issues hit the stands, and one can still view them at golfergirlmagazine.com.
The Hooton sisters may not be writing about golf these days but it's still very much a part of their lives. Libby, now 20 plays on the golf team at the University of Pennsylvania and 15 year-old Chloe Belle has taken up rowing in addition to golf, but it's middle sister Courtney who's now in the spotlight, making golf history with a ninth consecutive San Diego Junior Golf Association age class triumph and having recently been signed to play collegiate golf at her dream school, Harvard. The Hootons have an interesting hole-in-one story too. Courtney spoke about it recently from the Kraft Foods Junior Challenge.
I remember Golfer Girl so well because I actually used it to keep my niece interested in golf when she was wanted to give it up for cheerleading! She was eleven at the time, she's now sixteen and quite the star on her high school team. She'll definitely be playing collegiate golf too. So even though the economy halted the Hooten's magazine, they definitely had an impact on my niece as I'm sure it did on others who read it at the time.
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