Member clubs: The Olympic Club and Richmond CC. Occupation: Professor of Medicine and Associate Chair for Education in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Associate Chief of Staff for Educa- tion at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Family: Husband Mike Iker and two daughters, Annemarie, a recent Amherst College graduate, and Theresa, a junior at Scripps College. Education: M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania (1980); B.S. in Biology, Stanford University (1976). Golf résumé: Cornett played in more than 50 USGA championships, starting with the 1971 U.S. Girls’ Junior and including eight U.S. Women’s Open Championships. She was the runner-up at the 1987 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, captured the 1990 Women’s Western Amateur and played on two Curtis Cup teams (1978 and 1988), the biennial competition between female amateur teams from the U.S. and Great Britain and Ireland. She served as captain of the 2012 team.
On her captain’s appointment: I was honored and humbled. As one gets to the later stages of a golf career, to receive an international honor like this was amazing and unexpected.
On the 2012 Curtis Cup: I knew going into the event that while the U.S. team had a great record, playing in Scotland would be tremendous- ly challenging. Three of the international cups were already there (Ryder, Walker and Solheim) and they
wanted the last one. I also had seven girls who had never played at this level. I put a lot of effort into preparing the girls mentally for the different formats and who would play well together. I regret not putting as much effort into the four- ball format since we had historically done well. I think it will be good for future captains to have a template, a standard curriculum for teaching play- ers about the foursome and four-ball formats. I am very proud of Team USA. They played terrifi cally but ran into a fi ne Great Britain and Ireland team on the fi nal day’s singles matches. [Great Britain and Ireland won for the fi rst time since 1996, by a score of 10.5–9.5].
On maintaining a competitive game while raising a family: I’m a great believer in balance in one’s life. It’s important to turn your mind off and do other things. My game fell off a little when I was balancing career and family, but you do the best you can.
Dream foursome: All former Curtis Cup captains. Carol Semple Thompson, who was gracious enough to drive me around at this year’s event (Cornett broke her ankle in a cart accident after the fi nal four-ball pairing teed off on Friday afternoon of the event), Judy Bell, who was my captain at the ’88 cup and the fi rst female USGA president and Marion Hollins, the fi rst captain and only previous Northern Californian.
Growing up: I was fortunate that I had parents who supported my passion for sports. They joined Salinas GCC when I was 10 and that club had a great junior program. It was a tremendous nurturing environment to grow up in. I got to play a lot, and that was vital.