Alexa Stirling

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

“…there is none who can deny Miss Alexa W. Stirling’s position at the pinnacle of the fair sex. Only superlatives can describe the little auburn haired Southern girl and her remarkable ability on the links. She stands today so high above the thousands of other women who are fast acquiring proficiency in the game that it is fairly incredible.” “In ranking the women golfers on the basis of their ability during 1919 Miss Stirling goes into her top place automatically.” “There is positively no American woman golfer close enough to the champion (Alexa) to be called a dangerous rival. She plays as near a perfect game on the links as any woman golfer who ever addressed the ball.” New York Times, Sunday, December 14, 1919 “(Alexa) was the finest iron player the feminine world of golf ever saw…To me nothing compares with Alexa, the feminine Bobby Jones of style, a golfer with a great heart…” “Alexa Stirling hasn’t a peer among the feminine golfers of these United States…There is not another woman who plays as sound and finished a game as the little red-headed girl from Atlanta” O.B. Keeler * *Nationally recognized authority on golf who chronicled every tournament stroke ever played by Bobby Jones and considered by Jones as “the greatest golf writer that has ever lived”

“I heaved numerous clubs and once threw the ball away. I read the pity in Alexa’s soft brown eyes and finally settled down…That experience had its proper effect. I resolved then that this sort of thing had to stop” Bobby Jones* *For whom the USGA’s highest award is given to the ‘individual who demonstrates the spirit, personal character and respect for the game exhibited by Jones.’

“Miss Alexa Stirling of Atlanta, GA has not lost a golf match since the national Championship of 1915…but the women are all agreed there is no woman in this country who can beat the auburn-haired champion. The women players have called her the Glorious Golfing Girl, and her record bears this out.” “No male amateur and no professional ever won an American golf title thrice in succession and only one woman ever accomplished this before now. But Miss Stirling’s feat is considerably more than that of her illustrious predecessor, Miss Beatrix Hoyt, since she won her three championships over a period of five years, from 1916 to 1920 (There was no contest in 1917 and 1918 because of the war) From Glorious Golfing Girl, New York Times (October 1920)

“The race track has Man O’ War, baseball has its Babe Ruth, and billiards has its Willie Hoppe. In the same way women’s golf in America has its Alexa Stirling, who is just as predominant in her field as any male champion happens to be in his…”

Grantland Rice,* New York Herald Tribune *The most widely read sportswriter of his era

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