{"id":44347,"date":"2026-07-30T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/44347\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:47:11","slug":"patty-bergs-historic-win-at-the-first-ever-u-s-womens-open-in-1946-cemented-spokanes-legacy-in-the-world-of-womens-golf-arts-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/44347\/","title":{"rendered":"Patty Berg\u2019s historic win at the first-ever U.S. Women\u2019s Open in 1946 cemented Spokane\u2019s legacy in the world of women\u2019s golf | Arts &#038; Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was Sunday, July 20, 1975. Sandra Palmer, a then 10-time LPGA Tour winner, woke up after a restful night of sleep, knowing she had a chance to win the 30th U.S. Women\u2019s Open at Atlantic City Country Club.<\/p>\n<p>After carding scores of 78, 74 and 71 in the first three rounds of the tournament and heading into the final round tied for the lead, she was ready to face the three other women putting up a fight in New Jersey that week: Sandra Post, the first Canadian to play on the LPGA Tour; Kirkland, Washington\u2019s JoAnne \u201cBig Mama\u201d Carner; and a budding 18-year-old amateur from New Mexico, Nancy Lopez.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Open is a grueling test of golf. Both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s editions of the tournament are notorious for narrow fairways, thick, overgrown rough, and fast greens \u2014 all challenges the victor must conquer in order to hoist the trophy come Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the Monday before the 1975 U.S. Women\u2019s Open began, during primetime for players to practice and get a feel for the course, a rainstorm hit the area, making the 18-hole track play much harder and longer than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That same morning, from the window of the cabin Palmer was staying in on the club\u2019s property, she spotted a golfer and her caddie standing on the driving range. The caddie had an umbrella out, and the golfer herself was in full rain gear, pounding ball after ball before the sun had even fully risen for the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought, \u2018Well, I better get out there,\u2019\u201d Palmer says. \u201cSo I got my rainsuit on, took my place on the range with her and started my own practice for the day ahead of me. Then I realized who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_2.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1550\" height=\"1107\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a691826c356e.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"143\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Patty Berg (pictured in 1951) won her only U.S. Women\u2019s Open title,\u00a0and one of her 15 major championships, in Spokane in 1946.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Everett Collection Historical\/Alamy photo<\/p>\n<p>The mysterious golfer getting in some early morning practice was Patty Berg, a 60-time LPGA Tour winner, 15-time major winner and first president of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the 30th U.S. Women\u2019s Open, Berg was 57 years old and hadn\u2019t won a tournament in over 12 years. But that didn\u2019t stop her from honing her game at every opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought, \u2018If she could do it, then I could do it, too,\u2019\u201d Palmer says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So the two of them stood in the pouring rain, working through every club in their bags, warming up physically and mentally for the start of the tournament on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Berg would miss the 36-hole cut by two shots after carding two consecutive rounds of 80 on Thursday and Friday and wouldn\u2019t compete for the remainder of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>But Berg\u2019s Monday morning range session partner went on to win the U.S. Women\u2019s Open that Sunday by a margin of four strokes with a total score of +7. Palmer credits Patty Berg for giving her the motivation on that fateful, soggy Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_4.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1157\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a691827af6e1.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"143\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Spokane Country Club clubhouse circa 1928.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<p>In 1946, 29 years before Palmer\u2019s win in New Jersey, Berg won a U.S. Women\u2019s Open of her own&#8230; in Spokane, Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Despite still holding the record for most major championships in LPGA history, it was in the Lilac City where she would win her only U.S. Open title.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Berg is being celebrated in Spokane once again with a weekend-long event at Kalispel Country Club, the same course where she reigned victorious 80 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Jerid Keefer, board member of the Sunshine Club, a sports organization dedicated to raising awareness and funds for women and children in need through golf, came up with the idea for an anniversary event after pausing to look at a framed photo of Berg he\u2019s passed many times in the Kalispel clubhouse.<\/p>\n<p>That moment of pause led him to learn that the first U.S. Women\u2019s Open was held at the course he\u2019s a member of, and how Spokane played a part in the storied history of women\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for our community to kind of thump its chest a little bit,\u201d Keefer says. \u201cSpokane has a way of doing remarkable things, and what this 80th anniversary allows us to do is honor our history, the legacy of the Athletic Round Table, and women in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The event, happening Aug. 7 and 8, features a junior clinic, an 18-hole tournament, a legends breakfast and a women\u2019s leadership summit.<\/p>\n<p>At the legends breakfast, attendees can brush elbows with World Golf Hall of Famers Nancy Lopez and Sandra Palmer. Becky Calder, the first female pilot to graduate from the U.S. Navy\u2019s Top Gun flight program, will speak at the women\u2019s leadership summit. The Golf Channel\u2019s School of Golf host Blair O\u2019Neal will also share tips and tricks for young golfers at the junior clinic.<\/p>\n<p>Keefer says the main goal of the event is to celebrate Spokane\u2019s historic role, while also furthering the impact that golf can have on our community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t currently have golf as a part of middle school curriculum here,\u201d he says. \u201cI know golf is different than other sports \u2014 there are barriers to participation \u2014 but if there are youth in our community that want to pick up the game, we want to provide them with that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LAYING THE GROUNDWORK<\/p>\n<p>Before Berg\u2019s historic win at the 1946 tourney, there was no national open championship for women golfers. Unlike the men\u2019s game, which offered four major championships by that time, one of which was the U.S. Open, the only opportunity women had to compete on a national stage was in the U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_3.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1213\" height=\"1440\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a6918273a29a.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"237\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lack of an open championship for women tracks with this notion that we didn\u2019t really see women professionals in full force until the \u201930s and \u201940s,\u201d says Elizabeth Beeck, exhibitions curator for the USGA Golf Museum and World Golf Hall of Fame. \u201cWhen the Women\u2019s Professional Golfers Association (WPGA) was founded in 1944, one of their calls to action was to create an open championship of sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1944, the same year the WPGA was founded, the 26th edition of the PGA Championship (one of four men\u2019s major tournaments) was held in Spokane at Manito Country Club. The event was sponsored by the Athletic Round Table, a Spokane-based sports booster club headed by local attorney Joe Albi.<\/p>\n<p>Just two years later, the WPGA and the Athletic Round Table came together to put on the inaugural U.S. Women\u2019s Open in 1946. Held at the Spokane Country Club (now Kalispel Country Club), the tournament was contested from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 and featured most, if not all, of the top women\u2019s professional and amateur golfers at the time.<\/p>\n<p>There would be four more U.S. Women\u2019s Opens held before the LPGA was founded in 1950 and six more before the USGA began conducting the event annually. It\u2019s the only event to have been recognized as a major since the founding of the LPGA. It\u2019s garnered notable champions such as World Golf Hall of Famer Mickey Wright, former world No. 1 Annika S\u00f6renstam, Michelle Wie West (the youngest player to ever make the cut at a U.S. Women\u2019s Open) and, most recently, current world No. 1 Nelly Korda.<\/p>\n<p>The Spokane Daily Chronicle reported the first U.S. Women\u2019s Open was initially set to be played at Manito Country Club in 1945, but was postponed as a result of a \u201ctransportation directive by the Office of Defense preventing players from making the trip\u201d due to the Second World War.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no record available that I can find detailing why the event was held in Spokane,\u201d Beeck says. \u201cBut it could be that the Athletic Round Table of Spokane was so willing to help sponsor it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_6.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1157\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a691829012f6.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"143\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Indian Canyon Golf Course was the home of a\u00a0PGA Tour event in the 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Erick Doxey photo<\/p>\n<p>        LOCAL RULES<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no secret to those living in the area, but Spokane is a bit of a hidden gem when it comes to golf. With about 15 courses within an hour of the city center, it\u2019s a golfer\u2019s paradise around here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Having taught lessons at Manito Country Club and North Idaho\u2019s The Golf Club at Black Rock, former LPGA player and teaching professional Wendy Ward always praises the Inland Northwest\u2019s golf scene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost people don\u2019t know how to pronounce Spokane, let alone find it on a map,\u201d Ward says. \u201cI have played some pretty incredible courses all over the world, and I liken the city and county courses to country clubs in other parts of the world. There is so much variety in the golf around here. There are tree-lined courses, links-y desert courses. There\u2019s a world of golf that I don\u2019t think too many people realize exists up here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ward, a three-time Solheim Cup player and four-time LPGA Tour winner, thinks most golfers in the region probably don\u2019t realize Spokane\u2019s historic impact on the game.<\/p>\n<p>Beloved hometown celebrity Bing Crosby was a huge advocate for the game, hosting his own golf tournament called the Crosby Clambake at a number of courses on the Monterey Peninsula beginning in 1937. The event is now a mainstay on the PGA Tour \u2014 renamed the AT&amp;T Pebble Beach Pro-Am \u2014 and is played each year as a signature event featuring the top 80 male golfers in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Spokane once hosted a PGA Tour event called the Esmeralda Open at Indian Canyon Golf Course back in 1945 and 1947. The event was also sponsored by the Athletic Round Table, and its professional winners included 1946 Masters winner Herman Keiser and Byron Nelson, the latter of whom is widely regarded as one of the best to ever pick up a club.<\/p>\n<p>And from 2021 to 2023, Idaho\u2019s Circling Raven Golf Club held the Circling Raven Championship, an event on the LPGA\u2019s developmental Epson Tour.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always thought that Spokane would be a great spot for a Legends Tour event or an LPGA tour stop,\u201d Ward says. \u201cI know this community would love to support and see women\u2019s golf like that. It started here 80 years ago, and it would be neat to grow and build that into something special in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Patty Berg also spoke highly of Spokane\u2019s golf courses.<\/p>\n<p>In 1997, she returned to Spokane Country Club to help kick off the Washington Senior Women\u2019s Tournament. In an article published in the Spokesman-Review, she said of the venue: \u201cI think all the girls who played with me never forgot this course. It is one of the most beautiful I ever played on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>WHO RUN THE WORLD? (GIRLS)<\/p>\n<p>In 1934, New York-born Helen Hicks became the first female professional golfer, signing with the Wilson Sporting Goods Company to promote their equipment. Berg followed in her footsteps, turning professional in 1940 after winning 29 amateur titles and signing with Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ten years after turning professional, Berg was one of 13 women to found the LPGA (alongside Hicks) and served as its first president until 1952.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was a really exciting time for women\u2019s golf,\u201d Beeck says. \u201cWe were seeing these women become professionals \u2014 getting paid to become golfers, which was not, for lack of a better word, fashionable before then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the inaugural U.S. Women\u2019s Open, storylines were already being created by golf fans and media about how the tournament would play out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody was talking about Patty Berg and Babe Didrikson Zaharias,\u201d Beeck says. \u201cThey wanted a head-to-head battle between the best professional and America\u2019s first female golf celebrity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zaharias was an extremely gifted athlete. Some labeled her as the best female athlete of all time, as she competed in boxing, track and field, basketball, baseball, and softball. But she couldn\u2019t make a living playing those sports, as there were no professional sports leagues for women at the time. So she began playing competitive golf in 1935 at age 24 and formally went professional in 1947 after winning the British Ladies Amateur that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Berg and Zaharias had played in exhibition matches together quite frequently, but this was the first time they\u2019d play in a competitive national tournament together, each hoping to capture the title for herself.<\/p>\n<p>And luck was certainly on Patty Berg\u2019s side that week in Spokane during the 1946 U.S. Women\u2019s Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>CHANGING THE COURSE<\/p>\n<p>The tournament followed a similar format to that of the men\u2019s PGA Championship. On the Monday and Tuesday before the event, the field of 39 women was reduced to 32 players through a 36-hole stroke play qualifier. Put simply, the 32 best scores after playing Spokane Country Club twice through moved on to qualify for tournament play and a chance to win a portion of the purse: $19,700 in war bonds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the tournament, however, would be contested in match play, a format in which golfers compete head-to-head for individual holes rather than counting total strokes. For every hole players complete in fewer strokes than their opponent, they receive a point. If the two players tie, the hole is halved and the score remains unchanged. The game ends when one player leads by more holes than there are holes left to play on the course. For example, if a player is \u201c4 up with 3 holes to play,\u201d the match is over, and they win \u201c4&amp;3.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Firing a first-round, one-under-par 73 and a two-under 72 on the second day, Berg came out on top of the early-week qualifier leaderboard, earning her medalist honors and a spot in the first match come Wednesday at 11 am.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_1.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1073\" height=\"1502\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a691826593f3.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"280\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Paired with amateur Margaret Spear for the first 18-hole match of round one, Berg won 7&amp;6. Zaharias, on the other hand, was knocked out in the first round, losing to amateur Grace Lenczyk, who was three up with two holes to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The most impressive win of the day went to Betty Jameson, who won her match against Barbara Smith 9&amp;8, having won nine of her first 10 holes and leaving nearly half of the course to be played another day.<\/p>\n<p>After the first day of tournament play, 16 women remained, including future LPGA co-founder Helen Dettweiler and 20-year-old Spokane amateur golfer Betty Jean Rucker. In round two, Berg beat Mary Mozel 5&amp;3. Hometown hero Rucker kicked Dettweiler out of competition, and Jameson won her match against Ann Casey 5&amp;4.<\/p>\n<p>The quarterfinals saw a battle of the Bettys with Rucker defeating professional Betty Hicks 5&amp;4. Berg and Jameson continued their dominance, with Berg beating fellow professional Jackie Pung 6&amp;5 and Jameson defeating her opponent 8&amp;6.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the semi-finals, Jameson and Dot Kielty went tit-for-tat until Jameson went one up on the last hole to secure her spot in the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Rucker, who the Spokane Daily Chronicle said \u201ccouldn\u2019t be more the talk of the town if she were running for mayor,\u201d faced off with Berg in the 36-hole semifinal round. According to newspaper reports from that day, the gallery was full and locals were buzzing at the fact that the Spokane-grown golfer had a chance at beating the best in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The pair went shot-for-shot to halve the first four holes with pars. Then, Rucker began showing signs of struggling with her irons, overshooting greens and hitting a wayward shot into the trees on hole 13. At the lunchtime halt, Rucker was two down and by the 28th hole, Berg was six up. Rucker won the 30th, 31st and 33rd holes to cut the lead to 3&amp;2, but Berg only needed to halve the 34th hole in order to win the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rucker two-putted for a 5, and Berg hit a recovery shot from the rough and one-putted for a 4, securing herself a spot in the final matchup with her fellow professional and future LPGA Tour co-founder Jameson.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After playing golf for six days straight, Berg and Jameson stepped up to the first tee at Spokane Country Club on Sunday, Sept. 1. At the end of the day, one of them would claim the very first U.S. Women\u2019s Open title and cement themself in golf history forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Berg trailed early, but her putter got hot and things were all square at the first turn. She would be 4 up after 27 holes. After the noon intermission, she never lost her lead and won 5&amp;4 on the 32nd hole.<\/p>\n<p>Berg made the long journey home to Minneapolis after a grueling week in Spokane, victorious and with $5,600 in war bonds in her pocket.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The winner\u2019s share at the U.S. Women\u2019s Open was substantially less in the following years and wasn\u2019t exceeded until 26 years later, in 1972. At the tournament\u2019s most recent playing, however, winner Nelly Korda took home $2.5 million after conquering Riviera Country Club and a field of the best players in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey never really played for a lot of money back then,\u201d Palmer says. \u201cThey played for the love of the game of golf.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>THE LONG GAME<\/p>\n<p>Berg\u2019s win was historic and marked a new era of women\u2019s golf, but the work wasn\u2019t over yet.<\/p>\n<p>In 1950, Berg and 12 of her fellow pros came together to create the LPGA after the Women\u2019s Professional Golf Association ceased all operations in 1949.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The State of New York issued a Certificate of Incorporation to the LPGA with five women signing the original charter: Patty Berg, Helen Dettweiler, Sally Sessions, Betty Jameson and Helen Hicks. Finally, women professional golfers had a steady tour and a way to make a living playing golf.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 13 founding members caravanned to tournaments together, appeared on television, and held clinics to spur interest in the tour and get more women on the course.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey just did what they thought needed to be done to further the game,\u201d says Debbie Waitkus, founder of Golf for Cause, a consultancy company which seeks to empower businesswomen through golf. \u201cAnd these were things that typically you wouldn\u2019t think that a woman was capable of doing in those days. You know, they were expected to be home, making babies and running households and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the past six years, according to the National Golf Foundation, there\u2019s been a 45% rise in the number of on-course female golfers. Today, women and girls also make up a higher proportion of new golfers, including beginners and returning players.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, the National Golf Foundation reported that a record 28% of all on-course golfers were women and that over the six-year period the total number of women golfers increased to 8.1 million, the highest count on record. Meanwhile, the male golfer population rose just 12% over that time \u2014 an increase of 2.3 million players.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy husband has seen the eye rolls that happen when a woman walks up to the first tee and is paired with a group of men,\u201d Waitkus says. \u201cBut I know we can change one person at a time, and if we\u2019re [convinced] about what it is that we believe in, we can make a difference. There are so many organizations now, whether it\u2019s Babes Golf, the Ladies Executive Golf Society, the LPGA Amateur Network or Women of Color Golf headed by Clemmie Perry \u2014 all of them are empowering women and saying, \u2018You\u2019re welcome here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Waitkus was also close friends with LPGA co-founder Marilynn Smith up until Smith\u2019s death in 2019. She started the Marilynn Smith and Founders\u2019 Legacy Foundation in order to share the history of the LPGA and cement its founders\u2019 legacies in sports history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir philosophy was we all play,\u201d Waitkus says. \u201cWe either all can stay here or none of us are staying here. We all eat here, or none of us eat here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Patty Berg\u2019s illustrious career in professional golf is now the stuff of legend, there may not be another female golfer with a more dazzling amateur career than Nancy Lopez.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_5.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1216\" height=\"1703\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a6918284ad1a.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"280\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The photo of Patty Berg that lives in Kalispel\u2019s clubhouse.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Ryan Pettibone photo<\/p>\n<p>She captured the New Mexico Women\u2019s Amateur title at age 12 in 1969 and the U.S. Girls\u2019 Junior in 1972 and 1974 at ages 15 and 17, respectively. Right after graduating from Goddard High School in Roswell, she played in the 1974 and 1975 U.S. Women\u2019s Opens as an amateur, coming in tied for second place in 1975, the year Sandra Palmer raised the Harton S. Semple Trophy at the U.S. Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But her road to becoming a fantastic amateur and a legendary LPGA player wasn\u2019t as smooth as one might think.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez\u2019s high school didn\u2019t have a girls\u2019 golf team, so she played on the junior varsity boys\u2019 team, as there was a rule in New Mexico that barred girls from playing in body contact sports with boys.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After many discussions with a civil liberties lawyer and the board of education, during which the lawyer argued golf is not a contact sport, she was allowed to play on the boys\u2019 varsity team. Lopez wasn\u2019t just the only female golfer on the team, but the only female at any school in New Mexico that the team competed against.<\/p>\n<p>After turning professional in 1977, she won nine tournaments, including five consecutive, during her first full season on the LPGA Tour. By the end of her time on tour, she\u2019d amassed three major championships among 48 wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lopez never won a U.S. Open of her own, coming in second four times over the span of her career, but she remembers feeling Berg\u2019s impact on the tournament throughout the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery year at the U.S. Open, Patty would be sitting at registration and wishing every single person who was playing in the tournament good luck,\u201d Lopez says. \u201cShe was a special lady.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lopez made it a point to write letters to all of the players who meant something to her during her career, and Berg was one of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew she was staying at a hotel across from where I was during one U.S. Open, and I had written a letter to her to tell her thank you and let her know how much she meant to me,\u201d Lopez says. \u201cI went over there and gave her the letter along with a little teddy bear wearing a patriotic vest. When I got to her room, she read the letter and thanked me, but changed the topic immediately and asked me about how my putting was. It was so cute, she just went right into golf because she loved it so much. I just thought the world of Patty Berg.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Inlander_USWomensOpen_07302026_7.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1157\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a69182977ba3.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"143\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Sunshine Club hosts the annual Kalispel Invitational, a women\u2019s collegiate golf championship.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<p>Keefer, organizer of this weekend\u2019s 80th anniversary tournament, hopes the celebration held at the very track where Berg made history keeps the spirit of golf alive in Spokane and reminds people of \u201cthe power of one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere couldn\u2019t have been a second U.S. Women\u2019s Open without the first,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd whether it\u2019s an LPGA event in Spokane, which is what we\u2019re working towards, or a U.S. Open 80-plus years ago that came to fruition, I know there was a group of women that were pounding the pavement, busting their ass, trying to make something happen. And the fact that the city of Spokane took a chance made it a little bit easier to have a second one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to wrap your mind around big ideas,\u201d he continues. \u201cBig ideas take believers. Spokane took a leap of faith 80 years ago. I hope Spokane never loses the faith that we have the ability to do great things in the world of golf and in general.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though we may never know exactly why Spokane was chosen to host the first U.S. Women\u2019s Open, the city won\u2019t soon forget the importance of its role in the history of women\u2019s golf so long as Berg\u2019s legacy continues to be felt on the verdant fairways and pristine greens of Kalispel Country Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was Sunday, July 20, 1975. Sandra Palmer, a then 10-time LPGA Tour winner, woke up after a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1308,56,1288],"class_list":["post-44347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-u-s-open-championship","tag-culture","tag-sports","tag-u-s-open-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}