The Women of Pinehurst

Photos Courtesy of the Tufts Archives

Golf legends like Donald Ross, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Payne Stewart have long been synonymous with Pinehurst. But the women of Pinehurst are equally as synonymous with greatness.

Maureen Orcutt, Estelle Lawson Page, Louise Suggs, Babe Zaharias and Peggy Kirk Bell excelled in the male-dominated sport, laying the groundwork for future stars like Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie. Annie Oakley was an interloper in the world of sharpshooting. Before being hired for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show no acts incorporated women.

“There were no narrative elements that featured women… Annie Oakley paved the way,” historian Paul Fees said on the PBS history series “American Experience.” Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, was a frequent guest at the Carolina Hotel. She flew her Beech-Nut Autogyro in and out of Pinehurst Flying Field in the early 1930s. Here we’ll take a look back at some of the legendary women who have left their mark at Pinehurst.

Three wins at Pinehurst wasn’t enough for Maureen Orcutt. She claimed victories during the 1931, ’32 and ’33 North and South Amateurs and came back to win the North and South Senior thrice during the early 1960s. “I loved to play Pinehurst No. 2,” she told Lee Pace for his book “Pinehurst Stories,” A Celebration of Great Golf and Good Times.” “I could hit the ball. I used to be a hitter, they’d say, and I loved to let out, and you could let out on No. 2.”

Annie Oakley had already made a name for herself as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show when she arrived in Pinehurst in 1916.

After she and husband Frank Butler joined the staff of the Carolina Hotel, she taught shooting lessons and hosted exhibitions. Butler managed the Pinehurst Gun Club.

Oakley is estimated to have helped thousands to nail the bric-a-brac pigeons flying around the gun club every winter through 1922. Her bird dog, Dave, was popular for his act of sniffing out money from exhibition spectators that would later be donated to the Red Cross.

Oakley’s time in Pinehurst was cut short by a car accident in Florida that left her less mobile.

Peggy Kirk crashed the party the first time she visited Pinehurst at 22 years old.

The Rollins College student heard about the North & South Women’s Amateur and decided she’d like to play so, naturally, she threw her clubs into her ’41 Packard convertible and headed North.

“I loved golf and I’d heard that Pinehurst was the golf capital of the world,” she said. “I said, ‘Gosh, I need to go play in that tournament.’”

But Kirk was in for a surprise.

When she walked into the clubhouse to register, she was asked for her invitation.

“Invitation?” she asked. “I’m sorry, gee, I’m just a college kid, I read about it and thought I’d like to play in it.”

The official excused himself for a moment and reappeared with a man donning wire-rimmed glasses.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Richard Tufts, and I’d like to extend an invitation to you to play in the North & South.”

When Lee Pace interviewed Kirk, now Peggy Kirk Bell, for his book “Pinehurst Stories: A Celebration of Great Golf and Good Times,” she doubled over in laughter thinking about that day.

“My first trip to Pinehurst and I crash the party,” she said. “I was soooo green. I just thought it was a tournament that you paid your $5 and played. I was so embarrassed I could have died. There wasn’t even an entry fee!”

It wouldn’t take long for Bell to establish her credentials as one of the best players in amateur golf and later one of the pioneering members of the fledging LPGA tour. In 1949, she won the Palm Beach Championship and the Titleholders, the ladies’ version of the Masters held at Augusta Country Club. Then it was on to Pinehurst in late April for the North and South.

“The women had played on course No. 3 every year,” Peggy says. “It was a good course but it was short. We kept saying we wish they’d put us on the ‘big course’—No. 2. Finally they did in 1949. There was a lot of excitement that year playing on No. 2.”

Peggy bested a field of 64 players to win that North and South, including a 1-up semifinal win over Estelle Page, one of the top players in the game. She then defeated the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, Grace Lenczyk, in the championship match by a 5-and-4 margin.

Fifteen years earlier, Payne Stewart settled over a crucial putt on the par-3 17th hole at Pinehurst No. 2, a U.S. Open championship in the balance. Stewart and Phil Mickelson were tied for the 1999 Open lead through 70 holes, with Mickelson striking his approach on 17 to 6 feet and Stewart nailing his to 4 feet. Mickelson’s putt slid past the hole and Stewart poured his into the heart of the cup, taking a one-shot lead that he preserved with his much-memorialized par on the final hole.

“It was a gimme,” caddie Mike Hicks said of the fateful birdie on 17. “Payne hadn’t missed inside 4 feet all week.”

Now it was Michelle Wie’s turn to make history on the 161-yard hole, her 8-iron nestling down 25 feet above and to the right of the front-left hole location. Wie had just double-bogeyed the 16th hole, letting a seemingly comfortable three-shot lead in the U.S. Women’s Open over Stacy Lewis shrink to a single shot. Lewis was now hitting balls on the practice range in the event of a playoff, and Wie settled into her unique table-top putting stance, where her upper torso is at 90 degrees to her long legs, the better to let her see the correct line from a head position nearer the ground.

If the 6 on 16 was giving her the shakes and sweats, she wasn’t letting on.

“I laughed it off,” she said. “Stuff like that does happen.”

Wie read a double-break on the putt, struck it with the perfect speed and the ball did just as she thought. It tumbled into the hole and the normally reserved and stoic 24-year-old emphatically pumped her fist twice as she marched to the hole and retrieved her ball with a flourish.

“That kind of emotion, that kind of pressure—I’ll think of that putt as one of the best putts I’ve ever hit in my entire life,” she said.

Now with a two-shot cushion, Wie made a routine on par on 18 and collected her first major championship, bringing to a close a memorable and historic fortnight in Pinehurst.
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Stories adapted from historian Lee Pace’s books about Pinehurst.