The pro shop phone rings, the assistant pro answers, and quite often the question coming from the caller is, “Can I talk to a pro?”

“Speaking,” answers friendly, easy-going Julie Jones, assistant pro at Lawrence Country Club since March. “That does drive me nuts. That’s like my little pet peeve.”

Old stereotypes die long, slow deaths, such as the one about all golf pros being men. Another one that seems to be dying a quicker death, from what Jones can tell, is that women play slower than men and clog up the course.

“Anymore, women are so conscious about that stereotype it’s almost gone the other way,” Jones said as we waited on the 10th tee box at Eagle Bend for a few men playing ahead of us to get out of range. “I’ve been playing with the Lawrence Country Club ladies on Thursday morning out here. Some of those ladies, they are fast. Get to the ball, hit it, get back in the cart, away you go. They could play 18 holes in two hours, I bet.”

Busy lifestyles, Jones said, forced many women to play so swiftly.

Julie Jones takes a swipe on the fairway as Lawrence Journal-World sports editor Tom Keegan look on. Jones and Keegan played Wednesday at Eagle Bend Golf Course. Below, Jones putts.

“They talk about how when they first learned to play golf they would have a baby-sitter for two hours, and they would have to get to the club, get their shoes changed, play golf, and get home,” she said. “They didn’t have time to jack around, so they’d have to get it done.”

A native of Davenport, Iowa, Jones is the daughter of a pair of Missouri graduates and was indoctrinated at a young age.

“I dressed up as a Tiger for Halloween every year,” Jones said.

She might as well wear a Missouri jersey to work every day for all the anonymity her boss, head pro Jon Zylstra, allows her.

“I like to downplay that, but Jon likes to tell everyone,” Jones said. “He likes to see their reaction.”

A 1999 graduate of Mizzou, Jones played for the golf team there. Before interviewing for her job, she had only visited Lawrence once, for a Border War football game.

From Mizzou, Jones went to work at Oak Hills Country Club in Omaha, Neb., where she eventually was promoted to top assistant.

She took the job at Lawrence Country Club, she said, largely because Zylstra was looking for someone to do merchandising in the pro shop.

Thad Allender/Journal-World Photo Julie Jones puts on Wednesday at Eagle Bend Golf Course.

“I’m interested in that side of the business, the retail side of the business, so it’s a good opportunity,” she said. “I guess maybe being a girl, I’m a little bit more into fashion, doing the buying, seeing it come into the shop, displaying it, kind of start-to-finish of the process and budgeting and forecasting and all that.”

Riding with an expert and wearing a golf shirt with horizontal brown stripes and bright orange shorts, I seized the opportunity to ask for an honest fashion critique.

“Not bad, actually,” she said. “Colored shorts are in. Tall socks : I don’t know about those. But the colored shorts are very hip.”

Jones saved me two strokes with one sentence during our round when she said: “I think that’s my ball you’re about to hit.”

Jones said about 60 percent of the golfers she gives lessons to are women.

“I think some women just seem to be more comfortable with a female teacher, especially a lot of beginners who are a little more apprehensive about even simple things like what you do when you get to the club,” she said. “They are a little more comfortable asking me how this works as opposed to some guy behind the counter. I don’t know why, but that seems to be the way it is.”

Don’t expect Jones to be able to teach you how hit your drives as far as she hits hers. On No. 11, she rocketed her tee shot 280 yards into the right rough.

Not bad for a g … olfer.