Alexa Stirling

V I | A L E X A S T I R L I NG

Alexa’s first major championship for East Lake was greeted with unbridled enthusiasm. A tremendous dinner party, attended by 305 guests, was arranged featuring a table centerpiece, which was nothing less than a faithful miniature replica of the East Lake course, clubhouse and lake. Alexa was presented that evening with a special gold life membership card for the club. The celebration appropriately recognized the fact that no Southerner had ever captured a major golfing crown. Before she was through, Alexa made sure everyone knew this success was no flash in the pan. History will record, however, that it fell to Alexa and one other close friend to make the critical difference in young prodigy Bob Jones’ life. The setting was provided when the American Expeditionary Force led by General Pershing joined the great war to end all wars in 1917 and sadly ended nothing of the sort. Those who fought abroad gave their lives. Those who remained at home did what they could to support the war effort. The USGA canceled major championships, but golf was still played to raise funds. None worked

harder than the Dixie Whiz Kids from Atlanta who helped raise $150,000 for the Red Cross. The Dixie Whiz Kids included Alexa, Bob, Perry Adair and a sensation from Chicago named Elaine Rosenthal. Rosenthal had freshly been crowned 1915 Women’s Western Amateur champion in her first of three victories in that prestigious event (1915, 1918, 1925). She also was runner-up to 1914 Women’s Amateur champion Mrs. H. Arnold Jackson. The Dixie Whiz Kids crisscrossed the country playing exhibition matches against professionals who scrambled to create a substitute tour. Jones remembered it as “the time of our lives, traveling all over the eastern part of the United States, playing golf almost every day and being acclaimed as fine young patriots – a phrase of the tour which never seemed to register with me. I couldn’t see that we were doing anything for our country. Simply playing golf, which was what we would rather be doing than anything else; visiting new golf courses – having a grand time.”

Dr. Stirling couldn’t possibly veto the invitation for Alexa to join the exhibitions. Alexa was apprehensive that Master Bobby Jones might continue to embarrass her in public but she took the chance anyway. Her genuine fears soon were realized. Jerome Travers, 1915 Open Champion and winner of four U.S. Open championships, recalled: Early in the war Bobby and I played as partners in a foursome match in Canada for the benefit of the American Red Cross. Our opponents were two leading Canadian golfers. On the first green Bobby missed a small putt and became so enraged that he hurled his club far over the heads of the crowd into a cluster of trees and stubble bordering the course. Bobby was quite a youngster at the time, and his irascibility was charged entirely to his youth. The Canadian gallery laughed good-naturedly at this outburst and joined in the search for the putter that had disappeared into the woods. It took us some minutes to find it and by that time Bobby had gained his composure. The inaugural match was played at Baltusrol in Springfield, New Jersey. Young Jones faced Cyril Walker who would later win the 1924 U.S. Open. Young Jones didn’t throw any clubs away but still outwardly played with

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