Donna Warner Has Won Her Club Championship 35 Times. The First Was in 1974.
Every clubhouse has a wall of champions plaques that nobody reads on the way to the bar. At Wanumetonomy Golf & Country Club in Middletown, Rhode Island, you don't need to read much. One name covers most of it: Donna Warner.
She won the women's club championship for the first time in 1974. This summer she won it again, at 79, for the 35th time.
h/t to @wunderpargolf, whose Instagram reel walked us through the plaque, and to Joe Calabro at GolfNewsRI, who reported the 35th title.
What the plaque says
We went through it year by year. Her name is up there in 1974 and 1975, again from 1979 to 1982, and again from 1984 to 1986. Then the big one: 1988 through 2000, 13 in a row. She adds 2002, then nine straight from 2008 to 2016, then 2020 and 2021. That's 34 engraved, and the engraver owes her one more for 2026.
For the rest of us, a good year is breaking 90 twice and keeping a sleeve of balls out of the pond on the par 3. Donna's good years end with an engraving.
The other names
What we like most about that plaque is the part that isn't her. Marji Packer, Roberta Asquith, Katherine Murphy, Brenda Sabbag and others are up there too, some of them more than once. Katherine Murphy won five straight from 2003 to 2007, and four different women won it from 2022 to 2025. After every one of those gaps, Donna's name came back, including the last one, when she won it at 79.
Fifty-two years of signing up
The reel asks whether she's the GOAT. We'll let the internet fight about that. Thirty-five titles across 52 years means that, decade after decade, she put her name on the sheet, went out and won the thing, starting before most of the people reading this were born.
Most of us can't get the group chat to commit to a Saturday tee time. We skip the club championship because our game "isn't there right now," as if it's ever there. Donna has been there for five decades.
So next time you walk past the plaque at your course, stop and read it. There's probably a Donna on it somewhere. If you're lucky, she's still playing, and she'd still beat you.