Alexa Stirling

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

times when I didn’t want to go on living. But I did go on living so I had to face the problem of how I was to live. I decided that I’d just do the very best I could.

During the championship, Jones established his throne beside the twelfth tee so that he could survey the skills of each of the contestants. He was an inspiration to all, including a 52-year-old sentimental favorite known by her friends as Alexa. In her first round of the competition against Betty

MacKinnon, Alexa appeared competitive as ever, but the wisdom of her years had tempered the desire to chase after another title. Sportswriter Edwin Pope chronicled the remarkable manner in which Alexa exited the matches. The article, titled “Stirling Bows Out In Great Gesture,” stated: Two trim and gracious ladies, Betty MacKinnon and Mrs. W.G. Fraser, were intent upon short putts on the 18th green of East Lake Country Club. Betty, out of Dallas, had batted her way up that 203-yard windup in two strokes. Hole-out on her four-footer would admit her to the second round of the Golden Anniversary Women’s National Amateur Tournament, for Mrs. Fraser already had used three swats. Yet the Ottawa lady had a chance to halve the hole if Betty missed that putt and she, Mrs. Fraser, hit the bucket with her seven-footer. A bare chance, but a chance. The years went by in an instant for Mrs. Fraser. She leaned over, picked up her ball and held out her hand to Miss MacKinnon. Betty smiled and looked at Patty Berg, the unforgettable little pro standing near by, and said with one glance what Patty put into bubbling words: “Alexa Stirling is the greatest competitor – the finest lady – the game has ever known.” As Alexa walked back to the clubhouse to sit with Bob Jones, she explained her actions to Patty Berg. “I had my time Patty. This is their time.” Throughout her retirement, Alexa successfully avoided the limelight being shined on her brilliant achievements. Daughter Sandra told author Gleason: “She hid her light under a bushel.” Like Bob Jones, she “never took herself or her accomplishments so seriously that she stuffed her shirt with them.” Of all the women champions, her feet were perhaps freest of clay, devoid of guile, envy, false pride and overriding ambition. Her children saw the silver plates, pitchers and salvors on the mantle, but these objects spoke of no particular self-aggrandizing accolades. When Alexa went to play in the 1934 Canadian Women’s Open Amateur, 6-year-old daughter Sandra’s only concern was “poor mommy has to wear a dress!” Around the house she usually preferred slacks. She had a practical reason. “We could do much better in knickerbockers,” Alexa once wrote while discussing styles on the course. “The skirt is a big handicap in putting, especially on windy days where it may often hide the ball just as you go to hit it.” But her kids never really appreciated the scope of their mother’s contributions until she was inducted into the

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