Women’s Championship Golf Kicks Off In San Diego

For only the third time in history, the United States Golf Association will hold a championship in San Diego on August 7-13: The U.S. Women’s Amateur tour at the San Diego Country Club. Putting one on takes a great deal of effort.

Hear from our own Don Tartre and Tom Wilson, this year’s Championship Director, about what is going into holding such an event. And we will also hear from special guest, Jill McGill, the 1993 USGA Women’s Amateur Champion. We’ll tee it all off at our usual time!

The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship marks the beginning of women’s competitive golf in this country. Along with the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open, the Women’s Amateur was one of the USGA’s first three championships.

The first Women’s Amateur Championship was arranged on short notice one month after the 1895 Amateur and Open Championships.

The following small item appeared in the social column of a New York newspaper shortly after the completion of play: “Thirteen ladies played 18 holes of golf at the Meadow Brook Club, in Hempstead, recently. Mrs. Charles S. Brown, whose husband plays at the Shinnecock Hills Club, in Southampton, L.I., made the best score and thus won the United States championship for lady golfers.”

Although a stroke-play format was selected for the first championship, the Women’s Amateur became a match-play competition in 1896, and has remained so ever since.

Many U.S. Women’s Amateur champions have gone on to success in professional golf, including five-time champion JoAnne Gunderson Carner, whose record of eight USGA titles is eclipsed only by Bob Jones and Tiger Woods (nine). Other notable champions include Beth Daniel, Juli Inkster, Danielle Kang, Lydia Ko, Kelli Kuehne, Catherine Lacoste, Anne Sander, Pearl Sinn, Louise Suggs, Carol Semple Thompson and Bade Didrikson Zaharias.