80 лет назад в Спокэне прошел первый в истории чемпионат США по гольфу среди женщин

80 years ago, Spokane played host to the very first U.S. Women’s Open – and delivered an instant classic Exactly 80 years ago, Spokane hosted one of the most prestigious sports events in its history: the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament. Other events might have been bigger, drawing more fans and more frenzy – the NCAA basketball tournament springs to mind – but none were more historic. That’s because the 1946 U.S. Women’s Open at Spokane Country Club (today’s Kalispel Golf and Country Club) was the first-ever U.S. Women’s Open. Over the ensuing 80 years, the U.S. Women’s Open has become the nation’s ultimate women’s golf championship, won by famous names including Annika Sorenstam, Julie Inkster, Nelly Korda and Babe Didrikson Zaharias (more on her later). And the inaugural 1946 tournament in Spokane was won by one of the biggest women’s golf stars of all time: Patty Berg. How did Spokane land this plum? It was entirely due to a powerhouse local entity called the Spokane Athletic Round Table. This well-organized band of sports boosters, led by Joe Albi, was already known for bringing other national events to Spokane, most notably the 1944 men’s PGA Championship at the Manito Golf and Country Club. The Athletic Round Table originally approached the Women’s Professional Golfers Association a year earlier, in 1945. The association was dreaming of launching a true national championship for women, and they took the Athletic Round Table up on its offer to hold the event in Spokane – although at a different Spokane course, the Manito Golf and Country Club. Yet World War II was still raging in 1945, and ultimately that tournament was canceled due to wartime travel restrictions. But the Athletic Round Table did not give up. It renewed its sponsorship offer in 1946, which included providing $19,700 in prize money. On Jan. 7, the Spokane Country Club couldn’t resist trumpeting the big news – it had been chosen as the site of “another of the many famous golf tournaments the Athletic Round Table had sponsored,” this time for women golfers, and one that would “potentially attract all of the top women golfers, both amateur and professional.” The Athletic Round Table had once again scored a coup. However, on May 1, 1946, the organizers watched helplessly as disaster struck. A fire destroyed the main clubhouse of the Spokane Country Club. Some of the club’s officials were in despair, saying it would be “foolish” to stage the tournament there in just three months. How could it be held with no locker rooms and no space for social activities? The idea of moving it to the Manito Golf and Country Club was bandied about. Yet other club officials pointed out that “they golf on the golf course, not in the clubhouse.” As it turned out, there were usable locker rooms, which were in a separate caddy house and still intact. A tent was erected to serve as a makeshift clubhouse. Ultimately, the Spokane Country Club declared itself ready and able to host the tournament. To describe the U.S. Women’s Open as “prestigious” is no stretch today. It is the LPGA’s most coveted “major.” Yet in 1946 it was still an unknown quantity and much of its appeal to fans would depend on whether the country’s top golfers would be in the field. That would be determined by who made it through the qualifying rounds held around the country. In the months leading up to the tournament, much of the attention was focused on two golfers in particular – Patty Berg and Babe Didrikson Zaharias. They were undoubtedly the sport’s two biggest stars. Berg was the leading professional in the women’s game, a two-time Associated Press Athlete of the Year in the women’s category and the winner of numerous professional tournaments. She even had her own line of golf clubs. Zaharias was the nation’s champion amateur golfer and a household name for more than a decade. Both were celebrities, even outside the golf world – Berg for joining the U.S. Marine Corps and serving as a reserve second lieutenant during the war, and Zaharias for winning multiple Olympic gold medals in track. She also once pitched in several Major League Baseball spring training games. Plus, she was married to professional wrestler George Zaharias. The press called Babe “the Mrs. Muscles of golf.” So it was big news when both Berg and Babe qualified and immediately announced their intention to come to Spokane for the U.S. Women’s Open. “The list of entries in the first women’s national open golf tournament already has taken on the aspect of a national golf Who’s Who,” said The Spokesman-Review. It was also big news – of the alarming kind – when three weeks before the Aug. 26 start of the Spokane tournament, Berg emerged with her arm in a cast. She had suffered a pulled right wrist tendon, and told reporters, “I hope all it needs is rest.” She predicted her wrist would be healed in time for the big tournament. When the tournament began on Aug. 26, the fans at the Spokane Country Club were also pulling for one other big name: Betty Jean Rucker. At least, she was a big name in Spokane. Rucker was the Pacific Northwest Golf Association champion, as well as the Washington state women’s amateur champion. Rucker had the credentials to, perhaps, walk away with the nation’s biggest prize in her hometown. Yet it was Berg who put the entire field on notice when she played a 9-hole warm-up round at the Spokane Country Club the day before competition began. She shot a 32, “four under men’s par from the men’s tees.” Club officials said it was the “best ever made by a woman over the rugged route.” Her wrist was clearly healed up, but that wasn’t the only physical challenge she was fighting to overcome. In 1941, Berg had been badly injured in an auto accident, which had taken her out of competitive golf for several seasons. Was she still the same dominating force she had been before the accident? The Spokane Chronicle said Berg was convinced that winning a national title “would be the climax of her long comeback.” “For a year she could not walk,” said the Spokane Chronicle, “but now she swats the little golf ball championship distances again.” The format of the competition was unusual by today’s standards. It began on Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 26 and 27, with two 18-hole qualifying rounds of stroke play. This would narrow the field to 32 golfers, who would then be paired up in five days of match play – meaning two golfers would go head-to-head against each other. The loser would be out and the winner would advance. By Sunday, Sept. 1, the field would be narrowed to two, who would play a 36-hole match for the championship. (This would be the only U.S. Women’s Open ever decided via match play). During qualifying rounds, Berg again established herself as the player to beat. She shot a one-under par 73 followed by a 72, which was a combined three under par (the Spokane Country Club’s regular par 72 course had been converted to a par 74 course for the women.) Berg earned the title of “medalist” in qualifying, seven strokes ahead of Zaharias in second place and eight strokes ahead of hometown favorite Rucker, in third. Berg had also established herself as a model of good sportsmanship. One male observer marveled that “Patty Berg, the perfect lady, thanks her caddy EVERY time he removes the pin.” In the first round of match play on Wednesday, Berg easily disposed of Margaret Speer. Berg won five of the first nine holes and then cruised to a 7 and 6 victory – meaning that the round ended when Berg went seven holes up with only six holes left to play. Meanwhile, an upset was brewing elsewhere. Babe Didrikson Zaharias “went to pot,” in the words of W. Patterson in The Spokesman-Review, on the back nine of her match. Babe had been one-up on Grace Lenczyk, a “comparative unknown,” after nine holes. But then Lenczyk embarked on “a spectacular show of championship golf” and knocked Zaharias out of the competition, 3 and 2. “It was just one of those first-round things,” said Zaharias. “The girl didn’t expect to win, so she just went out there relaxed and played a fine game. I didn’t.” Spokane star Rucker fared much better, winning her first-round match easily, and then scoring an upset in her second-round match. She beat a California pro 2 and 1, providing “the only defeat of a pro by an amateur.” Then she got the home crowd roaring again the next day, when she defeated a “grim little California pro” (in the words of Patterson, showing perhaps a local bias). That “grim little pro” was in fact Betty Hicks, the president of the Women’s Professional Golf Association. This put Rucker in the semifinals. Yet her next opponent was the most feared of all, Berg, who had sailed easily through all her matches. Against Rucker, Berg went out to a comfortable two-hole lead after 18. But the semifinals, like the finals, were 36-hole marathons. Berg extended her lead to six holes with eight holes left to play – but then Berg never won another hole. Rucker rallied to win three straight holes, leading an “oversized” gallery to wonder if they were witnessing a miracle comeback. It was not meant to be. Berg’s lead was still too large. Berg closed out the match on the 34th hole of the day. Rucker was out of the tournament and Berg advanced to the finals on Sunday, Sept. 1, against Betty Jameson, a pro from San Antonio. The news out of the Spokane Country Club was not strictly about golf. It was also about fashion, of a sort. One unnamed contestant was taken aside by tournament officials and told that her “shorts were too short.” She was advised to “revise her wardrobe” for her next round. She took that advice to heart, while demonstrating a mischievous sense of humor. “The next day she came to the club wearing long army pants, tucked into high paratrooper boots,” said The Spokesman-Review. Some eyebrow-raising news also came out of the many parties thrown by the Athletic Round Table. The Spokane Chronicle’s Herb Ashlock reported that at one soiree, “George Zaharias, 360-pound hubby of Babe Didrikson, got up and did a fan dance while the Babe purred through a harmonica.” During the Sunday final, Berg had her share of struggles – not necessarily caused by her opponent, Jameson, but from those long-ago auto accident injuries. Berg had “jarred” her “game” leg during qualifying and then wrenched it again during her semifinal against Rucker. The pain was bad “and her face whitened to prove it.” It was still bothering her during her 36-hole marathon in the final. “The famed redhead showed her fatigue from the first tee,” wrote Ashlock. “Her back and left leg were giving her strictly a bad time, and her putting – up till then easily the class of the tournament – wasn’t sure.” Still, she and Jameson finished the first 18 holes all even, each carding scores of 76 (the highest score Berg had recorded all week). “There might have been gallery doubt after the morning 18 about the afternoon show, especially in view of Patty’s all-around weariness and aching left leg,” wrote Ashcroft. “Well – the great Miss Berg gave the folks a putting show.” She sank a 25-foot putt and a 10-footer on the first two holes of the afternoon. Jameson was struggling and a few holes later launched a ball out of bounds. Berg found herself four up with nine holes to play, and at that point the match was essentially out of reach. Berg was, in the words of Ashlock, “as relentless as a moving glacier.” On the 32nd hole of the match, Jameson missed a par putt – and walked over and shook hands with Berg, who had just become the first winner of the U.S. Women’s Open. She had conducted a week-long clinic in world-class golf, during which “many a male hacker quietly slunk into the locker room and hid his clubs,” wrote Ashlock. Berg collected the prize money of $5,600 (in Victory Bonds, i.e., war bonds). It was a considerable sum at the time – in fact, it wouldn’t be until 1972 that an Open winner collected more. Yet it was small change compared to the $2.5 million that Nelly Korda pocketed for winning the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open. Berg wasn’t the only winner that day. After the victory, Berg took good care of her “diminutive caddy,” Eugene Crisp, 14 of Spokane. She gave him “$100 and a complete set of new Berg woods and irons plus a leather bag.” She also gave him a coveted “half-dozen post-war golf balls.” The paper declared Eugene “the happiest kid in the world today.”