US Women’s Open Winners and History

US Women’s Open Winners and History

In some ways, the history of the US Women’s Open reflects the history of inequity in women’s sports. It’s a young tournament, dating back to only 1946, whereas the equivalent (and generally male) US Open dates to 1895. This is, the USGA, suggests in its official history, due to a decided lack of women professionals until after the Second World War.

Along those lines, it’s also worthy of noting that unlike the US Open, it was not founded by the USGA, but rather by the pioneering, but short-lived Women’s Professional Golfers Association.  The first was a match play event at the Spokane Country Club, with the $19,700 purse contributed by a men’s fraternal organization out of slot machine proceeds. The USGA shortchanged the women then, as they do now with significantly lower purses. How this stands the test of gender parity, I don’t know.

After three years, the WPGA turned the tournament over to the newly formed LPGA. It wasn’t until 1953 that it was first run by the USGA, which had been running the US Open, US Amateur and US Women’s Amateur since 1895.

Another distinction from the US Open: While the US Women’s Open is the oldest women’s tournament open to professionals and amateurs, it’s not universally considered a major in the golf world. Neither the European Ladies Professional Golf Tour, nor the Japan LPGA sanction the US Women’s Open.

Patty Berg won the first Women’s Open, defeating Betty Jameson 5 and 4 in the 36 hole final. That was the last Women’s Open that used match play. (Note that the PGA Championship used match play until 1957, after which it too abandoned the format).

Betsy Rawls was the winner of the first USGA sponsored championship. In all, Rawls would win four times, a feat matched only by Mickey Wright. The only amateur winner was Catherine Lacoste (daughter of Rene Lacoste), in 1967.

When the USGA assumed control of the championship, there were just 37 entrants. Reflecting the growth in womens’ sports, in 2010, there were 1,296 entries. Growth in women’s sports internationally also is on display as nine of the last 20 champions have been foreign born.

The US Women’s Open currently has the biggest purse in women’s golf, at $5 million. Note, however, that this does not even come close to equity with the men’s game, for which the USGA offers $12 million.

The US Women’s Open is open to any female golfer with a handicap of 4.4 or lower. Qualifying consists of a single sectional state of 36 holes played on a single day. Exemptions come from eleven categories, including winners of the Women’s Open from the past ten years, major winners from the past five, the top 50 from the previous LPGA money list, the fop five from the Japan LPGA, Korea LPGA, and European LPGA money lists, and official winners of LPGA tournaments from the past year.

A list of all past winners is below:

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