The season opener generally is reserved for the U.S. Open — Tiger’s version — traditionally played the second week of June. But the Women’s Open has had three early calls, each time as it has headed South, when it was played at Pine Needles this year and in 1996 and in 1999 in Mississippi.
This is not the only factor that makes the U.S. Women’s Open unique in USGA lore. It is also the only championship that USGA did not conceive or implement. That accomplishment belongs to the long-defunct Women’s PGA (WPGA).
Because of World War II, women were enabled to become head golf professionals at many clubs. Hope Seignious was one with a vision. She saw the need for an association of women golf professionals, mostly teachers and club professionals. She started the WPGA in 1944 and went to work on several projects, including a national championship for these pros, both players and club professionals.
Seignious recruited the money and organized the championship for 1946 in Spokane, Wash. She and others sought and gained the financial backing of the Spokane Athletic Round Table, an open-minded sports organization which put up $19,700 in what had been called war bonds.
The first event was match play. Patty Berg defeated Betty Jameson, 5 and 4, for the title. Berg also won the qualifying medal with a smart 145 total and took $5,600 in bonds.
Seignious and friends were pleased but tinkered further with their idea, switching to stroke play (the format of the men’s championship) in 1947, when Jameson avenged her inaugural loss with a six-stroke win. The venue was the highly regarded Starmount Forest Country Club in Greensboro.
The club was first site of the Greater Greensboro Open on the men’s tour; and while this was no longer the GGO site, securing this course was an accomplishment. The WPGA took a little hit, however, with a dip in the purse to $7,500. There was no athletic round table in Greensboro to help out.
A pair of amateurs, Polly Riley and Sally Sessions, tied for second place. Jameson, by shooting 295, is believed to be the first woman to break 300 over four tournament rounds.
One of the primary reasons the WPGA sustained itself as long as it did was the presence of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the track and field Olympian and master of many other sports. She turned her massive athletic ability to her newest and biggest love, golf. “The Babe” took the third women’s open title at Atlantic City (N.J.) Country Club by eight shots. Her 300 total belied her talent as the event was plagued by bad weather throughout.
The women’s tour encountered growing problems, not the least of which was the fact that amateurs had won three of the tour’s events in 1948. This circumstance did not reflect so badly on the abilities of the women professionals as much as it described the interest in national-level golf among upcoming women golfers.
Seignious and her cotton-broker father had financed the tour after the first year, and money was running out. Others saw what was coming and reorganized the tour under the name Ladies PGA or LPGA, the organization that stands strong today.
The new organization took over the Women’s Open championship in 1949, and Louise Suggs defeated “The Babe” by 14 shots. This was perceived as good for the fledgling tour because some thought it would not survive on a one-dimensional, “Babe” basis.
Suggs opened the championship with a 69 and finished with a record 291 total.
The Babe won again in 1950 by nine shots over amateur Betsy Rawls, who later turned professional and won the 1951 title by five shots. Louise Suggs won the crown in 1952 by seven over pros Marlene Bauer and Jameson.
The USGA took over the Women’s Open in 1953, an event that might be perceived today as a power play. But it was not. The LPGA found its niche in America by playing tournaments in small towns, by creating lasting friendships with locals and sponsors and at times by playing for gate receipts, an uncertain paycheck.
After the money total for the event dropped to $7,500 in 1947, it fell further to $5,000 in 1950 before rebounding to $7,500 in 1951. In this regard, the Women’s Open was not growing as supporters had hoped.
Because driving time between tour events often was more than 700 miles, because the LPGA generated needed income from pro-amateurs and because the association derived great “PR” from evening cocktail parties at tournament sites, the players grew tired, physically, of the 72-hole format. They began to play three-day or 54-hole events.
When the USGA approached the LPGA about assuming conduct of this event, the USGA was acknowledging that the event held the stature of a national championship. It would remain a 72-hole championship played at top venues and for larger purses.
By taking over the event, the USGA assured the future of the U.S. Women’s Open.
Next: The heartstopper of 1954.
