For the first time since the Championship began in 1946, an amateur won the Women's Open. Miss Catherine Lacoste, of Paris, France, scored 294 at the Cascades Course of the Virginia Hot Springs Golf and Tennis Club, Hot Springs, Va., and won by two strokes over Miss Susie Maxwell, Oklahoma City, Okla., and Miss Beth Stone of Muskogee, Okla.

Miss Lacoste scored 71 in the first round and was one stroke behind Miss Sandra Haynie, of Fort Worth, Texas. A superb 70 in the second round gave her a five-stroke lead over Miss Maxwell and Miss Margie Masters, of Largo, Fla. She maintained her lead at five strokes even though scoring 74 in the third round. She then had a 54-hole score of 215, and Miss Masters had 220.

Miss Lacoste increased her lead to seven strokes early in the final round, began to play poorly, and her lead subsequently dwindled to one stroke. She recovered near the end of the round, scored a birdie on the 17th hole and a par 3 on the 18th, and finished with her 294 total.

Miss Louise Suggs, of Delray Beach, Fla., seriously challenged Miss Lacoste through the final round. She was nine strokes behind when the round began, but made up eight of those strokes through the 15th hole. However, her third stroke to the 16th hole embedded in the bank of a water hazard, and she scored two-over-par 7.

Miss Stone was one stroke behind with three holes to play, and parred in. Miss Lacoste's mother once won the British Women's Amateur Championship; her father, Rene Lacoste, was a great tennis Champion.