Hall of Fame

Region: Capital District
Hometown: Schenectady, N.Y.
Deceased (1948–2017)

Gail Sykes Clayton was one of the finest golfers Schenectady has ever produced, and one of the very few from the Capital Region to win on the national amateur stage, where she triumphed not once but twice. Sykes built an amateur résumé that few New York players, male or female, have ever matched.

She announced herself as a teenager. In 1964 she captured the NYS Girls' Junior 18U Championship, defeating Oneida's Debbie Austin (a future LPGA Tour winner) on the 19th hole, and reached the quarterfinals of the prestigious North & South that same year. The following summer, at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, Colorado, she won the 1965 U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, advancing through an 88-player field stocked with future LPGA and USGA standouts, before defeating Mary Louise Pritchett 5&4 in the final.

Her game only grew in college. Playing for Odessa College in Texas, she won the 1968 National Intercollegiate Women's Individual Championship, then transferred to East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. There she competed as an individual alongside the men's team from 1968 to 1971 and, in 1969, became one of only six golfers named to the first Women's Intercollegiate All-America team, all while earning bachelor's and master's degrees in education.

Sykes continued to compete at a high level well into adulthood. She was runner-up at the 1970 NYS Women's Amateur and won consecutive Ohio Women's State Amateur titles in 1975 and 1976, defending the second while six-and-a-half months pregnant. She played competitively into the early 1980s, stepping back only after the birth of the last of her four daughters.

Off the course, she devoted her life to young people as a longtime educator and golf and track coach at East Forsyth High School in Kernersville, North Carolina. Her standing in New York golf endured: the Northeastern Women's Golf Association named one of its major better-ball events in her honor, and East Carolina inducted her into its Athletics Hall of Fame.

Gail Sykes Clayton passed away on January 20, 2017, in Kernersville at the age of 68. As one of only a handful of Schenectady players ever to win a national amateur title, and the only one to win two, she stands among the greatest competitors the Capital District has produced, and earns her place in the New York State Golf Association Hall of Fame.

Gail Sykes Clayton's Career Highlights

• Winner, NYSGA Girls' Junior Amateur Championship (1964) — defeated Debbie Austin on the 19th hole
• Quarterfinalist, North & South Amateur (1964)
• Winner, U.S. Girls' Junior Amateur Championship (1965) — def. Mary Louise Pritchett 5 & 4 at Hiwan GC, Colo.
• Winner, National Intercollegiate Women's Individual Championship (1968), playing for Odessa College
• Named to the first Women's Intercollegiate All-America team (1969); one of only six selected
• Played alongside the East Carolina men's team (1968–71); earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education
• Runner-up, NYSGA Women's Amateur Championship (1970)
• Winner, Ohio Women's State Amateur Championship (1975, 1976) — defended in 1976 while pregnant
• Longtime educator and golf/track coach, East Forsyth High School (Kernersville, N.C.)
• NEWGA named a major better-ball championship in her honor (the Gail Sykes)
• East Carolina University Athletics Hall of Fame inductee (2004 or 2005 — confirm)