Title IX slashed a definitive before-and-after dividing line. But recently I’ve been reminded that women did play sports long before the 1972 law. Today, let’s go back to the early 1900s.
A hundred-plus years ago, golf was one of the few sports “approved” for women. It was a genteel pursuit that didn’t involve sweat. But, of course, it was a sport only for the privileged. There were tony country club golf courses and golf pros back then as now. Only a few dozen women competed at an elite level.
But one woman not only played golf, she excelled at it and she wrote about it!
A teen sensation
In the early 1900s, Genevieve Hecker topped the charts of the women’s golf circuit. She was born in Darien, Connecticut, in 1883, and began playing at the Wee Burn Golf Club in Noroton.* Her success at the game led to her eventual election as captain of the women’s team. In 1901, the family switched its membership to Apawamis, a course in Rye, New York, named with the Native American words for “covering tree.”
Genevieve was only 16 years old when she won her first tournament, the 1900 Women’s Metropolitan championships. She won again in 1901. That year, and in 1902, she also won the Women’s National Golf Tournament sponsored by the United States Golf Association (USGA), the highest achievement a woman could attain in those times.
“It is admitted by every critic who has ever seen her play that in style and grace, she is absolutely in a class by herself,” one sportswriter declared.**
But Genevieve also was eager to test her skill against men. In 1902, she led the Apawamis Club’s women’s team against the men’s team in an intramural match. She won her match by three holes against Maturin Ballou, the USGA secretary at the time.*** (And here I thought that the Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match was the first ever gender battle in sports!)
Sharing the good stuff
That year, Genevieve also began writing about golf. In 1902, Harper’s magazine published a series of her articles. Two years later, in 1904, she wrote the first book of golf instruction for women, Golf for Women, published by Baker & Taylor. It cost $2, was a bestseller and went into many subsequent printings. (The publisher thought it necessary to identify the author on the cover not only by her own name but in parentheses as Mrs. Charles T. Stout. It’s only proper, right?)
“No woman player, however skilful, can fail to profit by a careful study of it,” reported the New York Post in its review.****
Although Genevieve remained an enthusiastic player, she bowed to the conventions of the time and left competition while she bore and raised children. But in 1925, at the age of 41, she won a New York Women’s Metropolitan Golf event. Once a champion always a champion!
Today, around 25 million people play golf, according to the National Golf Foundation. About a quarter of the players are women. And, if you want, you can still pick up a copy of Genevieve’s book***** — it was reprinted as recently as 2017!
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* Genevieve’s father, John V. Hecker, was a flour miller in New York City, and no ordinary one at that. He was described at the time as a millionaire.
** W.E. Burlock, Jr., “Genevieve Hecker Tells Post Readers How Famous Women Golfers Are Preparing for Championship Tournament to be Played at Brookline This Week,” Boston Post (Sept. 28,1902), p. 48. However, Burlock also believed that Genevieve didn’t always play her best, “owing more, I have always thought, to indifference and carelessness than to lack of ability.”
*** But the men won the handicap competition 8-6.
**** Associated Press, “She Wrote the Book,” New York Daily News (June 19, 2022), p. 70.
***** Here’s one copy on AbeBooks. https://bit.ly/3yv4cPD