Alexa Stirling

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

event in 1927 and 1932 but never won it. So Alexa’s disappointment in 1925 at the Canadian Amateur was not particularly bitter. In fact, Alexa’s return to competition after her marriage was greeted with a welcomed sigh of relief. Some feared her retirement from competitive golf altogether. She was certainly content with who she was, and did not seem to be driven from within or without to play golf. But she still had her incredible skills intact and was confident she could win any time she entered a championship. And the competition was getting keener all the time, a fact which certainly wasn’t lost on her. The St. Louis Country Club in Clayton, Missouri, was host to the 1925 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Alexa entered under her new name – FRASER. No golf correspondent was happier about it than Pop Keeler. That “extravagant admirer of the well-crafted phrase” exuberantly applied the summation of his talents to trumpet the news that Alexa had set the qualifying record: Out of the not very distant past where an autumn woodland flashed and flamed at Belmont Springs, and more lately at Mayfield, stepped a little auburn-haired woman with the very finest golfing style in all the feminine world, and over the long and arduous course of the St. Louis Country Club, Alexa Stirling Fraser, once from the Atlanta Athletic Club, now playing from the Royal Ottawa Club of Canada, showed the way to a great field in the medal round of the Women’s National championship and with a card of 77, four under women’s par, the little Alexa set a new record for the qualifying round. I was a busy little correspondent trying to keep an eye on the varying fortunes of the Dixie girls, while starting with that most famous ex-Dixie star, Alexa Stirling Fraser. Thinner than I had ever seen her, and prettier, too – I found the matchless crispness of her iron play as fine as ever, old power in her wood clubs, and apparently a recently acquired putting touch and confidence about the greens. In a word, Alexa looks admiringly fit. She is far under weight, certainly. She says that final match with Miss Mackenzie in the Canadian championship the other day cost her four pounds. But she is cheerful and philosophical, and she is shooting beautiful golf. Once more, as in the old days, the scribes are talking about “an Alexa tournament.” She is the cynosure of all eyes with sufficient experience to perceive the finish and smoothness of her method. The Stewart Maiden style is on top again in the qualifying round.

It was only the second time a score under 80 had been recorded in the qualifying round. Glenna Collett returned a 79 the year before. The showdown came in the finals pitting Alexa against Glenna. In some ways the match represented “passing of the torch” by Alexa to Glenna. In the end, Glenna prevailed over Alexa but not without a wonderful display of golf and sportsmanship from both. It was not “an Alexa tournament” after all. Glenna set a new women’s record in that final match. She had qualified with a 78 which was only one stroke higher than Alexa. Then against Alexa, she returned a 77 in the morning and a 75 in the afternoon while playing the bye holes. Alexa was actually beaten 9 and 8 on the 28th green. Glenna’s average score for seven rounds was a record 78. She had established a new frontier in women’s golf. In 1924, Glenna won 59 of 60 matches while losing a single semi-

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