The History of Women in Golf

EAST BAY - Women in golf date back some 500 years, and it was a female in fact, Mary Queen of Scots, who commissioned the building of the sport’s holy grail, St. Andrews, in 1552.

Mary is considered the first woman to play golf and is also credited with coining the phrase "caddy" after calling her assistants on the course, cadets.

Women continued to play and help mold the game over the centuries. In the late 1800s, Issette Pearson Miller, in London, helped create one of the first handicapping systems, which allowed players of different levels to compete more fairly.

The United States Golf Association, formed only a few years earlier, held the first national women’s amateur championship tournament in 1895. Just after the turn of the century, the Rhode Island Women’s Golf Association was formed in 1914. No champion was crowned the first two years, but Elizabeth Gordan won the first title in 1916 and won the next four in a row. The sport continued to grow through the roaring ’20s, yet still no woman grabbed much attention.

And while Olympic gold medallist-turned golfer Babe Didrickson-Zaharias brought the women’s game into the mainstream in the late 1930s, the sport didn’t truly begin to take hold in this country among females until the post-World War II years.

The first U.S. Women’s Open was played in 1946 and was won by Patty Berg. The Ladies Professional Golf Association was formed in 1950. Zaharias, Berg and Louise Suggs were just a few of the LPGA’s initial standouts.

Kathy Whitworth was the LPGA’s first true superstar of the modern era, winning eight player of the year awards from 1966 to 1973. Whitworth still holds the all-time tour mark with 88 career wins.

Later in the 1970s, Nancy Lopez broke on to the scene. Lopez’s flair, girl-next-door persona and game helped raise the level of the sport. Lopez became the first player ever to win rookie of the year and player of the year honors in 1978.

More recently, Australian Karrie Webb and Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam have become the beacons of the professional ranks.

Webb became the first women to ever win $1 million in prize money for a season, doing so as a rookie in 1996.

Sorenstam won a remarkable 11 tournaments in the 2002 campaign and is slated to become the first woman to ever compete in a men’s PGA Tour event next month when she plays the Colonial outside of Dallas.

Back closer to home, the Ocean State Women’s Golf Association, a second outlet for women’s golf in the area, was formed in 1996. Its first champion was Joanne Call-Silva.

Of local current interest, the U.S. Women’s Open Championship will come to the hallowed Newport Country Club for the first time ever in 2006. Newport was one of the five original clubs that joined forces to create the USGA.

This year’s Open will take place at Pumpkin Ridge just outside of Portland, Ore. In 2004, the championship heads to the Bay State at The Orchard Course in Massachusetts then to Cherry Hills on the outskirts of Denver in 2005. The ’06 Open will be held in Newport, June 29 to July 2.