Alexa Stirling

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

of the golfer. Keeler also noticed that Alexa’s playing companions were somewhat coincidentally unnerved by her slower pace of play. Some responded by more than an occasional sigh and expression that seemed to inquire, “What’s taking her so long?” Others actually played their own shots too quickly for their own good. Importantly, whether she realized it or not, Alexa’s putting suffered dramatically. As everyone knows, a golfer who can putt is a challenge for anyone. Unfortunately, the converse is also true. East Lake’s pro, Alex Smith, always believed a player should “miss ’em quick.” Really he meant that playing without undue delay would help you “make ’em quick.” As with many legendary players, the skill that “goes” first is the putting stroke. Delay leads to worry, worry leads to doubt and none of that can be good. So it was with Alexa. The 1923 national championship was case in point. In the final match against Edith Cummings, Keeler explained: From a mechanical viewpoint, putting had a good deal to do with the last round. Miss Stirling missed putt after putt of four and five feet, while Miss Cummings was sinking six-footers. The fact that Miss Cummings used only 15 putts going out while Miss Stirling took 19 explains a good deal of the reversal in the lead. ... [Miss Stirling] took 34 putts on sixteen greens in the afternoon, worse than 2 to the green; Miss Cummings took 30. And it is on the green and in the short game that slack nerves show most. I guess it was nerves, all right. Stewart Maiden seemed to agree that Alexa was trying to “play safe as if not to lose a hole instead of going out to win it.” In the second round against Western champion Miriam Burns, Maiden also thought Alexa had “lost her nerve.” He gave her a “good lecture” which perhaps incorporated his philosophy that you should “get ’em’un doon, then tew, then get ’em three doon.” In other words Stewart promoted his pupils to “shoot the works.” Alexa responded positively by reaching the finals but not by the margins she achieved in her earlier days. Even though Edith Cummings prevailed in the 1923 championship, Alexa’s friends and fellow competitors continued to be flabbergasted at how balanced her life was. Golf was not all she lived and breathed for. Three time national champion Margaret Curtis wrote Alexa a personal note after her loss in 1923 which accurately summarized the collective thoughts of the sports community. Published by former USGA curator Janet Seagle, the note read in part: You seem to be able to play beautiful golf and even in addition to a job! ... Your game is good for American sport and is a real inspiration to golfers... Keeler may have been correct about Edith Cummings’ victory being a fulfillment of destiny. After all, F. Scott Fitzgerald used Cummings as the basis for his stylishly feminine golf character “Jordan Baker” in The Great Gatsby. As the “glass of fashion and the mold of form,” the Roaring Twenties golfing girl was portrayed as

wealthy, sassy, dressed to the nines and able to conquer major sporting contests in the spare time between lavish parties and lusty romance. Whereas Cummings may have conjured this image for Fitzgerald, Alexa reflected more traditional values. Even so, Pop Keeler agonized over every match Alexa played. “The more you see of championship golf, the more it makes a Presbyterian out of you,” he lamented. “More and more it looks as if a golf championship is all in the books before a ball is

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