She became the first amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open, a feat that has not been duplicated.
She became the youngest golfer to win the title, a record she held for more than two decades.
She became the first non-American to win the crown, an accomplishment that held for 20 years.
She established that she was more than just the daughter of Rene Lacoste, the two-time Wimbledon (tennis) champion and founder of the Lacoste clothing and luggage lines — the alligator line.
She proved that she was more than just the daughter of Simone Thion de la Chaume, winner of the 1924 British Girls title, the 1927 British Women’s championship and a three-time winner of the French Women’s Amateur.
If ever there was a way to remove herself from the deep footsteps of two such giants of European sports, Catherine Lacoste found her way in the 1967 U.S. Women’s Open.
There’s even some intrigue to this championship. Women’s professional golf was not flourishing, and the only national television exposure the American pros received was during the U.S. Open on ABC-TV. This would be the third Women’s Open to have television coverage, so the concept was still exciting to players.
Upstaged by an amateur from Europe, the professionals were embarrassed at best and rude at worst. Newspaper reports suggested some players were mean to Catherine, cheering her bad shots and booing her good ones.
Catherine’s own reactions were mixed. She suggested some players were so hostile to her that they led her to tears. Yet she was seen each evening at the host Homestead Hotel, dining, dancing and partying. And two American professionals, Murle Lindstrom and Patty Berg, went out of their way to help her celebrate her 22nd birthday two days before the championship began.
When Catherine was a junior player in France, Peter Ryde wrote for The London Times that “she was young, she was powerful and she was scornful of opposition to the point of giving offense.” The American players perceived her as reserved, even shy but also with a wicked tongue.
Whatever her motivations and actions and whatever transpired among her fellow competitors, Lacoste announced herself as a world-class player in the first round on the Cascades Course of Virginia Hot Springs Golf & Tennis Club.
Her opening par 71 was good for a share of second place, one shot behind Sandra Haynie. Lacoste’s second round was her best, a 70 for a 141 total, five ahead of Susie Maxwell and Margie Masters.
A third round 74 did not hurt Lacoste as the best scores of the day came from players far behind. She remained five ahead of Masters and increased that lead to seven shots early in the last round despite severe morning nerves.
As any kind of competition faded from view, Lacoste lost some of her own momentum midway through the final round. She made five bogeys early on the back nine, and her lead evaporated. At various points on the back nine, she held a slim, one-shot lead over three players.
Susie Maxwell, three U.S. Open wins in her future, had a shot at the lead early on the back nine.
Veteran Louise Suggs, who won the championship in 1949 and 1952, was one shot out on the 16th hole, where she hit an approach shot into a hazard bank and took a double bogey.
Beth Stone was one behind with three holes to play. She parred all three holes and could not gain ground.
Lacoste established some breathing room on the 17th hole, a dogleg par-four. Because of a water hazard and trees at the corner of the dogleg, most players hit a pair of wood shots on the hole. Catherine gambled off the tee, cutting much of the dogleg and leaving herself only 110 yards to the green. She approached with a short iron to 10 feet and made the putt for birdie. The outcome was determined then and there, and she made a perfunctory par on the last hole.
Lacoste closed with a disappointing but functional 79 and a 294 total, 10 over par and two ahead of Maxwell and Stone.
She won the French women’s title in 1967 and 1968.
In 1969, Lacoste won the U.S. and British Amateur titles. In the middle of her final match in the U.S. Amateur with future LPGA star Shelley Hamlin, Catherine turned to a USGA official to ask how the association was going to get the trophy to France on her behalf.
While the outcome was still in doubt, the brash Lacoste had no doubt the title would be hers. She won the French Amateur and Spanish Amateur the same year.
In 1970, she became Catherine Lacoste de Prado and subsequently had four children, retiring (for the most part) from competitive golf but with a distinctive resume quite different from her father, her mother and every other woman amateur golfer to date. She won the U.S. Women’s Open.
Next: Hollis Stacy in 1977.
