The Dinah Waves A Final Goodbye

RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA | She still waves, only this time it’s a goodbye. For 22 years, Dinah Shore, immortalized in bronze, has greeted players crossing the bridge to the island 18th green at the tournament course at Mission Hills that bears her name. The statue was created by her ex-husband, the actor and artist George Montgomery, who died in 2000 – nine months after his Dinah statue was unveiled, and the same year that her name was dropped from the tournament she founded in 1972 with David Foster, the president of Colgate-Palmolive.

Montgomery originally put their children in there as well, young kids trailing Dinah as she stepped forward and waved, a huge smile on her face. Today, Shore’s oldest, Missy Montgomery, is 74 and still visits the course during the tournament that hasn’t borne her mother’s name since the year the statue was unveiled.

Statue of Dinah Shore at Mission Hills Country Club Photo: David Cannon, Getty Images

George and Dinah built their home in the old Movie Colony neighborhood of Palm Springs in 195...