Imagine following the footsteps of one of the greatest golfers in Iowa history.

Jacque Fladoos Peters pulled it off. Five years younger than her sister, Sharon, Jacque watched her sibling win four state high school individual championships, four Iowa Junior Girls’ Amateur titles and three Iowa Women’s Amateur titles.

Jacque added to the family legacy. She won two state high school titles in 1962 and 1963 playing for Dubuque High School, stretching the family stranglehold on the title to six years. Dubuque also won a state team title in those six seasons. Jacque won a third individual state title in 1965. She also won an Iowa Junior Girls’ Amateur title in 1963 and matched her sister’s three Iowa Women’s Amateur crowns.

The Fladoos sisters grew up around golf. Their father, Arnie, managed the Dubuque Golf and Country Club. Jacque played in her first Iowa Women’s Amateur in 1961 at the Ottumwa Country Club. While Sharon was winning the championship, Jacque tied for eighth in the first flight.

Jacque caught some attention in 1962 at the Waterloo Women’s Open, then a stop on the LPGA Tour. She shot a first-round 74 that was four shots better than Sharon and two better than the great Mickey Wright. Her mother, Rosalie, called Jacque’s performance “the best round of her life.”

There would always be comparisons between the Fladoos sisters. Arnie Fladoos always thought that Jacque had more power off the tee than Sharon.

“Actually, Jacque is a better putter, too,” he said. “Sharon didn’t have to make many tough putts. But Jacque had to work a lot more on the short game.”

Sharon stepped away from competitive golf in 1964, so head-to-head duals between the Fladoos sisters never happened. Jacque reached the semifinals of the USGA Girls’ Junior in 1963, the same year she finished second to Corkey Nydle at the Iowa Women’s Amateur. When Jacque beat Carol Sorenson in the quarterfinals of that USGA Girls’ Junior, she got some revenge for her sister. Sorenson had defeated Sharon in both the semifinals of the 1959 Women’s Western Junior and in the finals of the 1960 USGA Junior.

Jacque was a sophomore at Clarke College when she won her first Iowa Women’s Amateur by nine shots in 1966 at Elmwood Country Club in Marshalltown. Jacque averaged 73 shots over the final three rounds. The rest of the field combined for one round of 73. And with the victory, Sharon and Jacque became the first set of sisters to win the title. Lia and Becky Biehl did it three decades later. Jacque defended her title at the Cedar Rapids Country Club, and added a third in 1969 at the Sioux City Boat Club, finishing five shots in front of Susan Harman of Cedar Rapids. “She wasn’t Sharon,” Harman said later. “But nobody was Sharon. Sharon was one of the best players in the country when Iowa really wasn’t producing them. Jacque was really solid, and had a lot of self-confidence, She didn’t do anything particularly extraordinary, but she didn’t make mistakes.”

Each year, the winner of the Iowa Women’s Amateur is presented a trophy. It’s called the Fladoos Trophy. Jacque Fladoos Peters taught school for 34 years in Upland, Calif. She passed away in 2008 at 60 years of age.

• 3-time Iowa High School Girls’ Champion – 1962, 1963, 1965
• Iowa Girls’ Junior Champion – 1963
• U.S. Girls’Junior Amateur Semifinalist – 1963
• 3-time Iowa Women’s Amateur Champion – 1966, 1967, 1969
• Inducted into Dubuque High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1996
• Inducted with Inaugural Class, Iowa High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame – 2008