It is with great sadness that Golf Manitoba has learned of the passing of Peggy Colonello on Wednesday, April 15, 2020 at the age of 97.
Peggy Colonello made a huge impact on women’s golf in Manitoba and Canada as an administrator. Her volunteerism spanned decades and started in 1974 where she served as president of the Manitoba Ladies’ Golf Association until 1976. Peggy continued her administrative work in golf serving a two-year term as president of the Canadian Ladies’ Golf Association from 1982-83. During her time on the national executive, Peggy attended World and Commonwealth championships in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, Britain and Switzerland, including the various Canadian events in which she participated. Peggy, for her contributions to the sport, was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and was an inaugural inductee into the Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame on September 29, 2003.
In addition to her volunteerism, Peggy also enjoyed the competitive side of golf. She represented Manitoba on three Manitoba Senior Provincial golf teams, and many winning Nassau teams for Elmhurst. Peggy was very active in the affairs of her home club, the Elmhurst Golf & Country Club in Winnipeg, where she and her husband Alex had been members since the 1940s.
The Colonello name was well known in golf and not only for Peggy’s contributions. Her husband Alex Colonello first moved to Winnipeg in 1941. In 1973, Alex purchased and become president of the Bay Bronze company and eventually acquired the golf accessory line from Bayco Industries to form Bayco Golf Inc. Bayco golf ball washers can still be found on the tee boxes of golf courses all over the world. Alex Colonello passed away in 2013 at the age of 93.
In 2018 and at the age of 94, Peggy Colonello established the Alex & Peggy Colonello Foundation with a mandate to support junior golf in the province of Manitoba. The Foundation established an unprecedented endowment of $3 million dollars that will aid in supporting the development of new generations of golfers through grassroots golf initiatives and high-performance programming. Since 2019, the Foundation had committed $130,000 to junior golf programs including the Golf in Schools initiative, provincial junior team development and the University of Manitoba Bisons golf program. The Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame also received support in recognizing and celebrating contributions to golf at the annual Hall of Fame Induction ceremony and will continue to be supported from the Foundation.
Because of her continued devotion to grow the sport for which she and Alex loved so much, the legacy of Alex & Peggy Colonello will carry on through junior golf and for generations to come.
To read Mrs. Colonello’s obituary, please click here >>