The Only One

In 1967, An Amateur Won The Women’s Open. It Hasn’t Happened Since.

The 2007 U.S. Women’s Open marks the 40^th anniversary of the most stunning upset in the history of women’s golf, and the player who made it happen – Catherine Lacoste de Pinero – will be roaming the course at Pine Needles this week as a spectator.

In 1967 at the Hot Springs (Virginia) Golf & Tennis Club, the 22-year-old French amateur did what no one had managed to do before, or since. She won the Women’s Open and broke a sacrosanct barrier in the women’s side of the game.

No amateur ever beat the professionals at their own game in the national championship. It was a staggering feat.

"It made me into a person who wasn’t just my parents’ daughter!" said Pinero, who now lives part-time in Spain.

That was no small matter. At the time, Catherine Lacoste had won no national titles and certainly wasn’t on the radar as a favorite. Her bloodlines, on the other hand, were superb. Lacoste was the only daughter of Rene and Simone Lacoste. Her father was the world’s top-ranked tennis player in 1926 and ’27, won Wimbledon in 1925 and ’28, the U.S. Open in 1926 and ’27 and helped France win the Davis Cup in 1927 and ’28.

His wife was the former Simone Thion de la Chaume, a remarkable amateur golfer who was the seven-time French champion and in 1927 won the British Ladies Open Amateur.

Catherine's mother, Simone Thion de la Chaume, later known as Rene Lacoste, played golf and started the famous Lacoste clothing line. (USGA Photo Archives)

In France, the Lacoste couple was fabulously famous and wealthy: In 1933, Rene founded La Societe Chemise Lacoste, which manufactured and sold a cotton pique polo shirt that just happened to sport a little crocodile emblem on the front, the first clothing to use a designer logo.

This month, Catherine is bringing her husband, Angel G. Pinero, and her 27-year-old daughter, Vernoique Prado Lacoste, to Pine Needles as a sort of celebration of the 40^th anniversary of her win. Following the Women’s Open, they’ll make a sentimental trip to Hot Springs to play the Cascades Course where she won the biggest championship of her life.

"I am very excited and happy to come," Pinero said. "It will be a joy to show my husband and daughter who are coming with me a little bit of what I experienced in your wonderful country."

Forty years ago her victory shocked the world of golf. To put 1967 into perspective, the professional players Lacoste defeated that week make up a virtual hall of fame. Patty Berg, Donna Caponi, Marlene Hagge, Sandra Haynie, Carol Mann, Betsy Rawls, Marilynn Smith, Louise Suggs and Kathy Whitworth all played, as did the magnificent Mickey Wright, who owned four Women’s Open titles. But Wright shot 80 in the second round and having been notified of the death of her brother, withdrew.

Out Of Nowhere

A Women’s Open victory has always been an insurmountable dream for amateurs. In 1947, the ace competitor Polly Riley and Sally Sessions had tied for second, six strokes behind winner Betty Jameson. In the two intervening decades, only one amateur had come close. The wonderful American player, Barbara McIntire, had nearly pulled it off in the 1956 Women’s Open. McIntire fired birdie, par, eagle in the closing holes in the most noteworthy finish in the championship’s history. She tied Kathy Cornelius for first, but lost the 18-hole playoff the following day and that was that. Or so everyone thought.

If there was an amateur who had a chance to win, most believed it was swash-buckling JoAnne Gunderson, the powerful player who had won the U.S. Women’s Amateur four times by 1967. "The Great Gundy" eventually would win a professional title as an amateur, the 1969 Burdines Invitational in Miami, but it was a weekly tour event and, while the Burdines was a nice tournament, it certainly wasn’t the Women’s Open. Prior to 1967, the best that Gunderson had finished in the Women’s Open was a tie for 15^th in 1962.

After McIntire’s spectacular bid in 1956, the best performance by an amateur came in 1965 when Helen Sigel Wilson tied for fifth. Down the list of finishers that year, holding down the 14^th spot, was "Miss Catherine Lacoste, Chantaco G.C., Paris, France."

By 1967, Lacoste was not only relatively unknown on this shore, she wasn’t even a full-time golfer. True, she had won the French Ladies’ Open earlier in the year, but too much golf was a bore, she said.

"I get fed up every October," Lacoste told Time Magazine after her victory, "so I just don’t play all winter – except for maybe nine holes a week. After a tournament, I always quit for a week. I think golf should be fun, and I wouldn’t have much fun as a pro."

Lacoste had enjoyed one spectacular triumph in 1964, shooting the low individual score in the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship and leading France to a victory over the United States, but few over here, except United States Golf Association officials and the players involved, remembered the event.

Lacoste’s success on the golf course had its roots in the tournaments for children her mother organized during summer holidays at their home course of Chantaco in the Basque region of France. According to British golf writer Peter Ryde in the 1971 volume, The Golfer’s BedsideBook, "Madame Lacoste did her best to see to it that her daughter did not collar the first prize all the time, but it was hard work. They had given birth to a winner."

Lacoste had other pursuits. She was a fair horseback rider, played handball, volleyball and basketball and was a strong bowler. By her own admission, she was "a lousy" tennis player.

Perhaps her tennis game didn’t measure up to that of her father, but slowly, her golf was following the blazing tenure of her mother, Madame Lacoste, and Time remarked that during that magical summer week in 1967, Catherine proved that "she was a chip off the old niblick."

Lonely Time

The Cascades Course at The Homestead is one of those isolated gems that would today prove almost too inaccessible to host a major championship, but it’s a true test. The holes meander around the hillsides bordering the mountains. Little creeks and hillocks add interest and trees tower along the rough lines to capture wayward shots. The greens, breaking under the influence of the mountain ridges, torture the timid putting stroke.

Lacoste began with an even-par 71, one stroke behind Haynie. A superb 70 in the second round vaulted her to a five-stroke lead. Even after scoring a 74 in the third round, she retained the five-stroke margin.

She was the picture of a carefree amateur that week. She went bowling, took in a movie and gave piggyback rides to children at her hotel. June 27 had been her 22^nd birthday and she seemed ebullient, the night after the third round dancing a midnight Charleston in the hotel lounge, laughing when she slipped and fell on the dance floor. But the week had a darker side. Lacoste had come to this country alone. She ate her meals in the hotel dining room by herself until she befriended two small girls at breakfast. The girls convinced their mother to remain in Hot Springs for the week, until their new friend could "win the tournament."

All champions have a certain inner toughness but unlike Wright and McIntire, both of whom were so gracious when dealing with others, Lacoste at that time hadn’t quite the knack.

"…she was scornful of opposition to the point of giving offense," Ryde wrote in The Bedside Golfer’s Book. "Add to this some blunt remarks, remarkable more for their honesty than for their tact, and it is hardly surprising that…she roused occasional animosity. She once admitted to being perhaps ‘un peu cabochard’. We must make what we can of that, but ‘caboche’ is a hob-nail, and riding-roughshod over people’s feelings might not be wide of the mark."

Making History

On the eve of the final round of the 1967 Women’s Open, Lacoste was nervous, and so were the pros.

Catherine Lacoste watches a putt on the Cascades Course in 1967. She outlasted Susie Maxwell and Beth Stone by two strokes. (USGA Photo Archives)

Many professionals were dismayed at the prospect of an amateur, much less a foreign amateur, winning the most important American championship of the year. "We can’t let De Gaulle win!" one pro announced in the locker room before the last players teed off.

"I was a bit nervous, but excited," said Lacoste of that long-ago day.

As the round began, Lacoste, wearing short anklets with her golf shoes, a white visor and, naturally, a Lacoste sleeveless golf shirt, charged seven strokes ahead. But her jitters cost her as the round progressed – six bogeys in seven holes – and one lone player became a threat. Two-time winner Louise Suggs was 44 years old that year, seemingly ancient in the world of athletics, and her last Women’s Open victory had been 15 years before, in 1952.

Suggs’s graceful swing remained impeccable and on hole after hole she hit the greens and made the putts until she alone challenged the French girl. Nine strokes behind Lacoste when the round began, the savvy Suggs made up eight of those through the 15^th hole.

There is nothing more fun in championship golf than coming from a long way back against seemingly insurmountable odds and even the stoic Suggs had a gleam in her eye as she advanced.

And there is nothing as disappointing as when the effort fails. On the 16^th, a 534-yard par five, Suggs laced a perfect drive and hit her second shot down the fairway.

On her third, she faced a tricky shot. A wide pond fronted the green and the hole was cut just beyond the water hazard on the front of the green. Suggs still had to make up one stroke on the final three holes and hope that Lacoste, playing far behind her, did no better than par.

Suggs chose a short iron and took aim at the flagstick. She would go for broke. She hit the ball crisply. It climbed toward the flagstick, hanging in the sky before it dropped just short of the green, hit the bank and embedded near the water. Another foot and it would have been close to the hole. Suggs hung her head. She made a seven and her last great effort was over.

Still playing nervously but putting superbly, Lacoste began to recover. She cut the corner of the dogleg on the difficult par-4 17^th, and seeming to always knock in the putts that mattered, holed a 10-footer for birdie. She then safely hit the green of the par-3 18^th and made her par, winning by two strokes over Susie Maxwell and Beth Stone. Suggs tied for fourth, three strokes behind.

Lacoste dashed to the telephone to break the news to her father, who was celebrating his 63rd birthday in Paris.

"Obviously my parents were thrilled, especially as it was on my father’s birthday," said Lacoste. "It was 40 years after his victory in the U.S. (tennis) Open and 40 years after my mother’s victory in the British Ladies golf championship. My father was at the Paris airport to greet me, and when we flew to Chantaco in the south of France, many friends were at the airport to greet me."

Catherine went on to establish an impeccable amateur record. In this country, she won the 1968 Women’s Western Amateur. And in 1969 she accomplished the rare double, adding the U.S. Women’s Amateur crown to victory in the British Ladies Open. She won the French Ladies Open four more times and the 1969 Spanish Open. In 1970, she tied for low individual score in the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship, then virtually disappeared from the competitive front to raise her family.

Forty Years Later

Today Lacoste de Pinero splits her time between Madrid in the south of Spain and the house of her late parents at Chantaco, a golf club founded by her mother’s father in 1928 in the south of France. Her husband, Angel Pinero, is a composer and classical guitar concert player. Her daughter, Veronique, played on the Wake Forest golf team and once attended junior golf camp at Pine Needles. She has three other children, Genevieve, 36, Caroline, 33, and Jean-Miguel, 29, who is a professional horseback (jumper) rider. At the age of 61, she has four grandchildren.

She now serves on the board of directors of the famed Lacoste clothing company, of which her brother Michel is president. Arthritis in her knee keeps her from playing much golf and she no longer competes. Nine years ago, however, she founded the Senior Women’s Open at Chantaco, which she runs with the assistance of her daughter Vernoique.

Pinero is proud of the tournament, which in 2006 boasted 109 entries from 11 nations. "I hope many senior amateurs and pros come to play it next year on its 10^th anniversary," she said. "The deal is to find old and new friends in a very friendly atmosphere."

Before her trip to Southern Pines, Pinero made one rare public appearance in the United States. In 1995, the USGA staged a reunion for past Women’s Open champions in Colorado Springs, Colo., on the 50^th anniversary of that championship. Every living champion, with the exception of Wright, who no longer travels, was on hand. The overwhelming buzz at that auspicious occasion was that a number of champions and officials whispered to each other, "Lacoste is here!"

She was warmly greeted and joined in the fun at the celebration dinner.

When she rose to speak as a past champion, the old brusqueness was gone and she made a graceful statement, speaking of her affection for the U.S. and thanking everyone for their warm welcome.

Today, Pinero says she seldom thinks of her amazing win in 1967, but it sometimes comes to mind when the Women’s Open rolls around. Yet, she looks forward to her return to The Cascades Course where it all happened.

"I want too see it again because it is a lovely place," she said, "and it is fun to show my husband and my daughter where I won and obviously some special holes, like the last par 3, where I have so many memories."

As Madame Catherine Lacoste de Pinero strolls among the spectators at the 2007 Women’s Open, will they know who she is? Will they see the great champion or as just another 60ish matron with husband and daughter in tow? Perhaps a few will somehow recognize her as the player that she was, the player whom, for a short time, amazed the insular little world of golf and was the greatest woman amateur – perhaps the greatest woman golfer – in the world.

Rhonda Glenn is a Manager of Communications for the USGA. E-mail her with questions or comments at rglenn@usga.org.