Alexa Stirling

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

out in the low 40s and after halving the first three holes I had gone 1 up by getting down a 20-foot putt for a 2 on the fourth green. I was still 1 up at the turn and won the tenth and eleventh, but here Elaine started a rally. She took the twelfth with a neat 3, lost the thirteenth and won the fourteenth, where I needed three putts. We halved the fifteenth and then she got down a ten-footer for a win on the sixteenth and was only 1 down. The seventeenth at Mayfield is a lovely one-shotter from a cliff forty feet high, out on to a small green that is merely an island surrounded by traps and difficult rough. The distance is 170 yards, very deceptive owing to the height of the tee. Elaine drove first and got away a fine shot that rolled seven or eight feet past the pin – terribly close, it looked to me as I prepared to play. If I missed that little green and she squared the match – well, I had played her before and I knew her to be a cool and determined and capable opponent. She had cut away two holes of my lead and was playing boldly and well. At that time I was playing very well with my spoon and it was just the club for this shot, provided I could make the ball hold the green. It was barely a full spoon shot, and I decided to try for a fade on the ball, starting it to the left of the line just a little. The shot came off exactly as I wished and better than I could have hoped. I think the ball dropped less than a yard from the cup and stopped about four feet past it, well inside Elaine’s. She just missed her putt for a 2, and I sank mine, and the match was over.

Being a true amateur, Alexa appreciated the necessity for developing a career. She chose to learn bond and securities trading in the New York securities markets. She worked for a prominent securities house named S.W. Straus & Company. Her naturally reasonable and conservative style contributed mightily to her business success. Although she played golf only on weekends, Alexa was astonishingly competitive in the championships. O.B. Keeler noted that Alexa played as little as did Jones: “She probably plays golf less than any other well-known woman golf player in the world. She doesn’t touch her clubs during the winter or early spring. She wasn’t on

the links at all from last October until the next May. The only tournaments she played in before entering the 1920 Women’s National were the Davis-Freeman tournament for men at East Lake and the Canadian Women’s National.” Oh yes, while she was in New York, Alexa won the Metropolitan Ladies Championship. That tournament was akin to a women’s major at the time. Her big year was 1920. In addition to her third Amateur, she also won the first of two Canadian Amateur crowns. She shot her lowest competitive score of 75 at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club in Ancaster, Ontario. It was the second visit by an East Lake golfer. In the year before, Alexa’s East Lake chum, Bobby Jones, tied for second in the Canadian Open also played at Hamilton. Alexa was never a very robust woman. In 1923 at St. Louis, she weighed just 110. But her golfing technique permitted her to achieve uncommon length and accuracy both with wooden and iron clubs. During 1920, Alexa’s stroke average was 80 in the national championships. Her driving distance was 200 to 220 yards down

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