Alexa Stirling

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

I . B I O G R A P H Y

Alexa Stirling was born in Atlanta, Georgia on September 5, 1897, two years after her family moved from Edinburgh, Scotland. Growing up she played piano and violin, trained to be an operatic soprano, became an expert markswoman, built furniture, rode horses, and fly- fished, even tying her own flies. And because the Stirling family lived next door to the Atlanta Athletic Club at East Lake, “in her spare time,” wrote noted golf journalist Steve Eubanks, “she grew up to become the greatest female golfer in the world.” At East Lake, young Alexa was tutored by noted Scottish golf professional Stewart Maiden. She also became friendly with a young boy four years her junior named Bobby Jones. As children, Alexa and Jones played many rounds together. During one, Alexa’s father, Dr. Alexander Stirling, overheard Jones unleash a string of curses after a bad shot; he immediately forbade his daughter from playing with Jones again until he learned “some proper manners.” They didn’t play together for two years.

Alexa’s march to golf greatness began in 1915, when, at age 17, she became the youngest winner of the Women’s Southern Amateur. The next year, she won her first U.S. Women’s Amateur, making her both America’s youngest-ever major champion and the first Southerner to win a major. During World War I, with major golf events cancelled, Alexa toured the country with Jones and another East Lake alum, Perry Adair, playing exhibition matches in support of the Red Cross. As the “Dixie Whiz Kids,” they raised more than $150,000—the equivalent of almost $4 million today. After the war, her golf dominance picked up where it had left off. In 1919, she won her second straight U.S. Women’s Amateur, and in 1920 her third. One month later, she won the Canadian Women’s Amateur. (She would win it again in 1934, and finish runner up in ’21 and ’25.) Her Amateur streak ended in 1921, when she lost in the finals to Marion Hollins. Two years later, she lost in the finals again, this time to Edith Cummings. In between, she won the Met Women’s Amateur in both 1922 and ’23. She finished second in the U.S. Women’s Amateur—again—in 1925, to Glenna Collett.

6