Golfer.
Born at Winnipeg on 17 January 1939 to Dorothy Louise Day (1906-1988) and Douglas Grey Falconer (1906-1971), she attended Churchill High School, where her primary activity was participating in sports, including basketball, track and field, and swimming. She also enjoyed attending Winnipeg Blue Bomber football games with her father. Upon joining the Winnipeg Canoe Club, where she canoed and played tennis, she became interested in competitive rowing, and her team won a national competition in Ottawa when she was 17, breaking the event’s speed record.
After high school she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation until briefly joining the Royal Canadian Navy. Meanwhile, on summer weekends, she and her friends from the Canoe Club would pack canoes on racks, and drive to Kenora, Ontario for a weekend of paddling on Lake of the Woods. On one of these trips, she met Kenneth John Collier, a young medical doctor. They married in 1960, making their home In Portage la Prairie and raising their four children there.
On their honeymoon at Falcon Lake, her husband introduced her to golf, an event that changed her life. In addition to playing and loving the game, she started her career as a golf volunteer at the Portage golf course, serving as President, Vice-President, Handicap Chair, and Junior Chair for the Portage Ladies’ Golf Club. She initiated the introduction to golf program at Portage la Prairie schools and was a director of the club’s junior girls and boys section. In 1983, the organization began presenting the Joyce Collier Award annually to the top junior golfer. On the provincial scene, she served as District D Chair, then on the Manitoba Ladies’ Golf Association executive as Junior Director (1983-1984), Teams Director (1992-1993), Vice-President (1994-1995), and President (1995-1997).
In 1998, she joined the Canadian Ladies Golf Association (CLGA) and was its Director of Player Development until 2000. She was on the rules committee for the national CLGA junior and amateur tournaments in 1981, Publicity Chair for the 1991 National junior championship, and provincial President for the 1996 national senior championship. As well as having the role of Associate Governor in the Royal Canadian Golf Association (2006-2008), she worked as a volunteer on starting and scoring at Canadian National Railway’s Future Links events (2006-2010), as well as other national events, and was the Chair of the ecology committee for the 2010 Canadian Women’s Open championship.
She was named Sports Person of the Year in Portage la Prairie in 1998, earned a CLGA distinguished service award in 2000, and was presented with honorary life membership by the Portage Golf Club in 2004. Instrumental in the formation of the Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame and Museum, she served as President (2003-2006) and was chair of the induction event (2007-2011). Her contributions to the sport culminated with her being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012. She was also the 2012 recipient of Golf Manitoba's Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her decades of service to the game.
At home, she was involved with and supported countless activities for her family, from hockey and figure skating to piano lessons and family trips, and enjoyed initiating all of her children and grandchildren in the game of golf.
She died at Portage la Prairie on 19 September 2013.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 21 September 2013.
“Joyce Collier,” Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame.
“Joyce Arlene Falconer,” McCutcheon Family Tree, Ancestry.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 26 October 2026
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