By BILL BURRUS

At age 58, Cissye Gallagher still swings a mean stick.

The mother to four grown children and grandmother to eight, Gallagher doesn’t have much time for golf anymore, but she still has the competitive spirit that drove her to become the most decorated amateur golfer in Mississippi.

The former LSU golfer and 12-time winner of the state amateur recently qualified for the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Open, which starts Saturday at the Cassades Course in Hot Springs, Virginia.

She was the co-medalist in a qualifier tournament in Harpeth Hills Course in Nashville, Tennessee, posting a round of 77 with very little prep work.

“I just decided that I am running out of these opportunities (for competitive golf),” said Gallagher. “I would have liked to play more, but life gets in the way. Jim and I have both lost parents in recent years, and we just got our youngest daughter married recently. And throw in the grandkids, and there just hasn’t been much time.”

But Gallagher says she has worked hard since qualifying in late July in hopes of being competitive at the 63rd U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Her husband, Jim, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, served as his wife’s caddie in Tennessee but will not be able to be on hand this weekend.

“I would like to make the cut obviously and then win a match or two. I feel like that would be a good outing for me,” Gallagher said. “It’s going to be a great time because I have dinner reservations with a lot of my golfing friends who play all over every weekend.”

Gallagher said she has always wanted to play at the historic Omni Homestead Resort, which is located in the Allegheny Mountains.

But there is more to Gallagher’s love of the historic course. The late, great Sam Snead, who won tournaments on the PGA and Senior Tour for more than six decades, was the golf professional at the course for a long time after his playing days. 

Gallagher met Snead as a child when her late father, Ed Meeks, was in Memphis for a golf tournament.

“He was a special man and golfer,” she said. “That was such a big moment for me at the time.”

Gallagher is the matriarch of Mississippi’s greatest golfing family, winning more state Amateur championships than any man or woman in the state’s history, winning two while she was pregnant. Her oldest two daughters, Mary Langdon and Elizabeth, have also won State Am trophies.

Gallagher played on the Pillow Academy boys golf team from 1979-1984. She signed a scholarship with LSU and was a part of three LSU teams that played for national championships. LSU won eight team titles while she was on the team.

She spent one year (1990) on the LPGA Tour.