2023 Women’s Senior Player of the Year

The Rochester District Golf Association began its Women’s Senior Player of the Year Award in 2020 as a way to honor the year’s top female players – ages 50 and above – based on points earned from local, regional and national women’s senior tournaments throughout the season.

To be considered for the RDGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year award, golfers must play a minimum of 5 events on the published Points schedule with an additional requirement that 3 of those events must be RDGA events.

Winning the 2023 RDGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year Award was Deb Wood of Durand Eastman Golf Club, who won both the RDGA Women’s AND RDGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year honors for the second consecutive year. This year, Wood finished 210 points ahead of Jan Lavigne of Ravenwood Golf Club. Lavigne won two titles in RDGA Two Person events – and added a runner-up finish in the 2023 WRDGA District Championship and a tie for 5th in the NYS Women’s Senior Four Ball.

In the fourth annual race for the RDGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year, Wood played in six RDGA Two Person events throughout the 2023 season – compiling an impressive two victories and finishing in the top-5 (gross score results) in another four events. At the State level, Wood also scored a top-10 finish – a tie for 9th place – in the NYS Women’s Senior Amateur Four Ball Championship.

Her two brightest moments, however, came in the two biggest events she played in – at the WRDGA District Championship, in which she was a semi-finalist in the match play championship bracket, AND in the RDGA Women’s Open, in which she won the top Gross Score Division title.

By the end of the season, Wood held a 210 point lead over Lavigne – 590 to 380 – becoming the first player to win back-to-back RDGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year awards.