One of Most Anticipated MATCHes In History of Women's Golf CELEBRATES 100th ANniversary In MAY

Headline Announcing Stirling's Defeat at the 1921 British Women's Amateur Championship At Turnberry

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     Stepping from the steamship Carmania onto a British pier in March of 1921 auburn haired, freckle faced, Atlanta born U.S. Amateur Champion Alexa Stirling was greeted by a crowd of onlookers and fellow golfers.
     In a few months Stirling would be participating in one of the most anticipated matches in the history of women’s golf against a fellow women’s amateur most believed to be the best in the world.
     Stirling's opponent - two time British Women’s Amateur Champion Cecil Leitch - could outdrive most male amateurs from the tee. Her power had already helped her defeat at least two former British Men’s Amateur Champions in head to head competition.
     Even Stirling doubted her ability to defeat the British champion. Her father said as much to the American press following her departure for Britain.
      The morning of the British Amateur Championship Stirling awoke in her room at Turnberry. She asked a hotel maid for breakfast and some gin to calm her nerves.
In the first round Stirling would face the British champion.
      As the match got under way the weather was terrible and growing worse. What had begun with a slight drizzle had become a steady rain – buffeted by a frigid Scottish wind. Some 4,000 spectators had gathered to watch the contest. If Leitch were to win it was widely assumed it would need to be from the tee.
     Despite all expectations to the contrary Stirling held her own over the first four holes - splitting the difference with her opponent. At the fifth Leitch approached the tee and swung. Her club head struck the top of the ball - propelling it only 20 yards down course.

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      Born September 5,1897 in Atlanta - the daughter of a successful doctor who emigrated from Scotland with his wife Nora three years earlier - Alexa Stirling spent only a short time of her childhood in her family home near the Grand Opera House on Peachtree Street.
     While still very young Stirling left her home in Atlanta with her family and returned to her father's native Britain.
     "I remember something of Scotland and about its breezes but I wasn’t playing golf then,” Alexa later recalled.
     At the age of ten Alexa returned to Atlanta with her family. Her father had built an English style cottage across the street from the East Lake Golf Course.
     The future champion wasn't very athletic as a young girl. An avid outdoorsman Dr. Stirling encouraged his two daughters to play tennis, swim and be active. It didn't take long for Alexa to catch on. By the time she was three Alexa’s mother stopped giving her young daughter dolls. “The prettier the dolls were the more delight I got in tearing them up,” Stirling later recalled.
      The future champion and her sister Nora were so often seen swimming in the lake near their home they became known as the “Mermaids” at the East Lake Clubhouse. 
     Nora, Alexa and their father (who had taught them how to swim) would go a half mile from the boathouse, to the far end of the lake and back, with their mother following in a rowboat. It was on the lake that Dr. Stirling taught Alexa the calm and poise - how to conserve her strength and never to panic - that she would later be known for on the golf course. 
     When not swimming Stirling played tennis with the neighborhood boys on the courts near her home. Soon however she found a new sport.  
     A few times every week Dr. Stirling would play golf at East Lake with a neighbor H.B. Harman – who built a bungalow a few blocks away from his home. Alexa often tagged along with her father.
     “At first there was nothing remarkable about her playing but as the years went on her game developed rapidly and ‘wise head’ golfers used to say ‘There’s a coming champion watch her,’” Harman later recalled of those early days in Golfer Magazine.
    When Stirling was just 11 her father bought Alexa her first clubs -  a driver, a midiron and a putter. She soon began taking lessons with East Lake’s pro Stewart Maiden – a “silent, studious, Scotchman” according to one account - born in the golfing village of Carnoustie - who Stirling affectionately referred to as "Kiltie."
     One of Maiden's other students was a young neighborhood boy named Bobby Jones.
     Five years older than Jones, Alexa and her young friend  both modeled their swings after Maiden’s.
     Soon Alexa began to stand out from the crowd. 
At the age of 12 Alexa won her first trophy at East Lake – beating the neighborhood boys including Jones. Stirling however never received the trophy because it was given to one of the boys instead.
     A year later the auburn haired, brown eyed young teenager had shot a lower score than 43 of her opponents in the qualifying round of the Southern Women’s Championship. When she was 15 Stirling competed in the national 

The other vehicle was being driven by bootleggers. One of the occupants was captured, the other escaped. Police found 20 gallons of liquor inside. Alexa’s car was “demolished” and she suffered cuts and bruises to her face, jaw and knee. She would be unable to compete.  
     Stirling spent the following months recuperating from her injuries. That October she was well enough to compete at the national championship at the Mayfield Club in Cleveland.
     Vying for her third consecutive championship win, Stirling gave former two time champion Dorothy Campbell Hurd a thrashing. The match looked more like an exhibition than the final round of a championship the papers reported. Spectators were eight to ten deep.
     “The men lining the triumphal path, took off their hats to her. The women without known exception cheered her, patted her on the back and uttered all of those feminine congratulatory praises,” wrote the Salt Lake Tribune.​
     Stirling appeared unfazed. “The young woman with the golden brown hair smiled happily and modestly acknowledged the applause," they wrote.
      At the clubhouse all talk turned to the upcoming British Championship.
     “If she....plays the game she has played this week at Mayfield, Cecil Leitch will be running in circles,” one observer  remarked according to the Tribune.Having captured her third consecutive American national championship, Alexa was taking no chances. This time she would depart for Britain much earlier.
     On March 8 - after finishing her last practice round with Jones at East Lake - Stirling left for England.
     For American women's golf it was a momentous occasion. Not since 1904  - when Mabel Higgins of Chicago became the first American to compete in the British Championship and was defeated in the first round – had the Americans had a better chance of capturing the British title. 
     Before departing Stirling  attempted to temper American expectations. “I know I have a task on my hands to win the title, something no other American woman has done. That’s the reason I am getting such an early start,” Stirling told the press in New York before departing on the Carmania.
    Once she arrived, Stirling was greeted by a crowd of British fans and fellow golfers on the pier.
     “No invading golfer who has ever appeared on English courses has won the unstinted praise that is being showered on Miss Alexa Stirling,” wrote the Guardian following her arrival.
     The British were particularly fearful of Stirling's favored club - the mashie (the modern day equivalent of a five iron).
      If Stirling got the chance to use the club the Guardian predicted she would need a new ball every four holes “for the paint will have vanished and the cover will have been cut to shreds."
     According to the Guardian the club was an "abomination". The "type of club which only two classes of people can possibly afford to use – the millionaire and the golf ball manufacturer.”
     The British even tried to claim Stirling as their own. Despite the fact that she had been born in Atlanta the Guardian alleged that she had never been naturalized and was therefore a citizen of Scotland. Even if she won, the championship would still be in British hands they reasoned. 
     On April 18 Stirling made her British debut at Stoke Poges. Off to a good start Stirling's play on the back nine deteriorated. Afterward she told the press that since her arrival in Britain she had not been feeling well.  
“[I] always feel tired and about half way through the match all my strength seemed to leave me,’” she explained.
There Stirling caught her first glimpse of Leitch on the course.
     For the rest of April, Stirling competed in a few more British events in preparation for the championship at Turnberry. 
     113 would compete on the famous course tucked away along the western coast of Scotland.  By sheer luck Stirling drew Leitch as her opponent in the very first round.
     The morning of the match on May 30, Stirling asked a hotel maid for breakfast and some gin.
     The weather was terrible. A steady rain only grew steadier by the minute. A blustery, cold wind had begun to blow.
     “I was not long in forming the opinion it was one of the most objectionable days on which I had ever played,” Leitch later wrote.
    Still some 4,000 "soaked, bedraggled and cold" spectators watched the contest according the Kansas City Star.
     By the fifth hole Stirling and Leitch were tied but not for long.
     “Miss Leitch had a decided advantage in driving both as 
to direction and distance while our Atlanta friend showed but one brief flash of her ordinarily wonderful ability. Near
​and on the green both players were weak and this was especially unfortunate for Miss Stirling because it was her putting that we had placed much of our hopes for

Atlanta Born Golfing Champion Alexa Stirling 

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women’s amateur championship on Long Island (where she impressed many of her fellow golfers).
     The following year Stirling captured the Southern Women’s Championship in Birmingham. That same year, in the national championship, Stirling lost in the semi-finals after 22 holes – the longest match ever played in the championship’s history to that point. During the match Stirling clawed her way back numerous times in a soaking rain but ultimately lost. That would not be the case the following year.  
     “Miss Stirling won about everything there was in the land of cotton and then came north and corralled the national title,” the Evening World reported.
     In Philadelphia she defeated national champion Florence Vanderbeck for the Berthellyn Cup - in what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “one of the most remarkable exhibitions of brilliant play by a woman in the history of Philadelphia golf.”
     Stirling instantly became the favorite to win the national championship.  
     In October Stirling beat Mildred Caverly on the 17th hole to become the national champion.
     Just when Stirling was at the top of her game America joined the war in Europe and her amateur career was put on hold.
     Competition was postponed during the war years. Stirling jointed the Motor Corps Division of the National League for Women’s Service - driving a coal wagon, farm tractor and ambulance. She also played Red Cross tournaments around the country with Bobby Jones and wrote a column that appeared in newspapers across the country encouraging women to play the game of golf.
      After a hiatus during the war years Stirling got her first opportunity to defend her title in 1919. Many had questioned whether Stirling's win three years earlier was simply blind luck. Her performance at the year's championship however shattered all doubt.      
     The day of the final round a thick mist hung over the course at the Shawnee Country Club - so thick you could not follow the ball soon after it left the tee.
     In just 13 holes Stirling won her second consecutive championship.
     Talk now turned to the upcoming British Women's Amateur Championship at Newcastle – a challenging 6,500 yard course where the “sand piles” were said to “loom up like mountains.”
     Seven of Stirling's fellow American golfers announced they would join her on her journey across the pond to compete. Stirling was eager to face Britain's pre-eminent women's golfer Cecil Leitch.
     One of six sisters - all who had competed in the British championship - Leitch had won the championship prior to the war. 
     Shortly before Stirling was to depart for Newcastle disaster struck. On the night of April 5 - near her home in East Lake - Stirling’s vehicle was struck by a car fleeing from police. 
      

 victory,” Bobby Jones wrote.
     Stirling managed to outdrive Leitch on the fifth and then again on ninth. On the latter hole her ball landed into a bunker near the green.​
     On the eleventh Stirling hit her ball out of bounds, lost a stroke, bunkered and went out of bounds a second time. To make matters worse Alexa’s putter failed her as well.                 “Miss Stirling had no less than five putts trickle across the rim of the cup during the round but the ball wouldn’t drop,” the Star reported. On the 15th hole Alexa lost the match.
      The most anticipated contest in the history of women's golf was over and the Americans had lost. Leitch would later write that she thought the weather had played a role in Stirling’s defeat.
     Something else however was amiss. Stirling never again would reach the heights of her remarkable run those five years. Perhaps it was the automobile accident that had so badly hurt her knee or just the vagaries of fate but her game was never exactly the same.
     That June Stirling went on to compete at the French Amateur Championship in Fontainebleau but lost. Soon afterward she returned to America calling her British and European tour off sooner than expected - including an expected appearance at Addington where she could have   potentially faced Leitch once more in late July.
     On August 8 Stirling reached home aboard the Carmania. Leitch pursued the defeated champion across the Atlantic.
     In September in Ottawa Leitch defeated Stirling in the semi-finals of the Canadian Amateur Championship on the 17th hole.
     The final blow came for Stirling in October when she lost the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship to Marion Hollins in what one newspaper called "the most complete trouncing the Atlanta girl has suffered in her wonderful career.”
     Stirling was never able to reach her peak form again. By then end of 1921 Stirling started a career with the bond department of S.W. Strauss and Co. in New York. Three years later she left the company and returned to Atlanta.
     In total Stirling would compete in nine U.S. Women’s Amateur Championships during her career in golf.
     Six time champion winner Glenna Collett Vare claimed that Alexa was the best American women’s golfer the nation ever produced.
​     “Alexa Stirling played the most magnificent iron game every played by any woman,” she said.
            Alexa died on April 15, 1977 at age 79.
 
                          - By Shawn R. Dagle Women's Pro Golf Editor/Reporter
 




                              
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Sources:
​Family search census record 1900
The Ottawa Journal April 16, 1977 “Alexa Stirling Fraser a Legend” Eddie McCabe
The Atlanta Constitution June 17, 1976 “Only Woman to Beat Bobby”
The Atlanta Constitution January 29, 1978
The Atlanta Constitution August 18, 1921 “Little Girls Who Swim Like Swans on the Lake”
The Evening World October 7, 1919 “Golf Champion Began Career As Tom Boy by Preferring Hammer and Nails to Dolls” William Abbott
The St. Louis Star and Times April 11, 1930 “Mary and Bob Have Troubles Besides Make Believe Spats on Radio” Harry T. Brundige
The Wilkes Barre Record May 30, 1922 “Impressions of Leading Golfers” Francis Quimet
Green Bay Press Gazette january10, 1921 “Alexa Stirling Will Show England Her Golf Wrists]
Muskogee Times Democrat March 11, 1921 “Georgians to Play Britons”
The Fairmont West Virginian April 20, 1917 “Stuart Maiden Wizard of the Links” Paul Perman
Times Union November 5, 1948 “Maiden, Jones’ Golf Teacher, Dies”        
The Boston Globe May 16, 1911 “Child of 13 Leads Field”
The Journal and Tribune May 30, 1915 “Miss Stirling is Champion”
Evening Public Ledger October 8, 1920 “Great Match for Women’s Title
The Sun Augsust 6, 1916 “Nation Boasts of Many Star Women Golfers
 The Sun September 11, 1915 “Southern Girl Put Out in Long Match”
The Evening World July 19, 1918 “Alexa Stirling National Women’s Champion and Perry Adair Will Pair Up Against Rosenthal and Bobby Jones” William Abbott
Evening Star September 22, 1916 “Miss Stirling Wins”
The Philadelphia Inquirer September 24, 1916 “Young Atlanta Golfer Outplays the Title Holder”
 Yonkers Statesman October 9, 1916
The Sun October 5, 1919 “Miss Stirling Wins Golf Championship
The New York Times September 21, 1919 “Golf Test for Women”
The Sun and New York Herald February 1, 1920 “Miss Stirling Star in Other Fields than Golf” Kerr Petrie
The Evening World October 7, 1919 “Golf Champion Began Career As Tom Boy by Preferring Hammer and Nails to Dolls” William Abbott
The Courier News (NJ) February 27, 1920 “Six American Women Will Compete in British Golf Event
The Evening World May 11, 1920 “Women Tee Off on English Links” William Abbott
The Sun “Report Miss Stirling Will Go to England to Meet Mrs. Leitch”
The Miami Herald April 7, 1920 “Woman Golf Champion Injured in Accident”
The Atlanta Constitution October 10, 1920 “Miss Alexa Stirling Wins National”
Buffalo Courier April 25, 1905 “Fair American Golfers Enter”
Muskogee Times Democrat March 11, 1921 “Georgians to Play Britons”
Tampa Bay Times March 4, 1921 “Alexa Stirling Goes Abroad”
Times Union March 7, 1921 “Alexa Stirling Sails Tommorrow”
The Birmingham News March 17, 1921 “Miss Alexa Stirling Welcomed by Britons
The Oregon Daily Journal April 19, 1921 “Alexa Stirling Wins Much Praise From British Experts” William Mallabar
The Guardian April 9, 1921 “The American Woman Golf Champion
New York Tribune April 19, 1920 “Tolley Routed by Miss Leitch in Mixed Play” Arthur Draper
The Guardian April 19, 1921 “American Lady Champion’s First Match in England”
The Los Angeles Times May 31, 1921 “Cecil Leitch Wins”
The Des Moines Register May 31, 1921 “Put Alexa Stirling Out in the First Round” Bobby Jones
The Kansas City Star May 31, 1921 “Handicapped by the Rain” Granland Rice
Golf Cecil Leitch 1922 J.P. Lipincott Co. Philadelphia pgs. 166-169
The Evening World “Miss Stirling Out of Finals For Golf Title” June 16, 1921 AP
The Guardian July 15, 1921 “Manchester Press Club Golf..”
The Lima Times August 8, 1921 “Miss Stirling Returns Home Empty Handed.”
The Journal and Courier September 24, 1921 “English Woman New Champion”
The Philadelphia Inquirer “Marion Hollins Wins National Golfing Crown” Perry Lewis October 9, 1921
Democrat and Chronicle December 1, 1921 “Champion Woman Golfer Has Taken Up Business”
Syracuse Journal June 1924 “Alexa Stirling is Back in Homeland” Joe Williams
The Ottawa Journal April 16, 1977 “Alexa Stirling Fraser a Legend” Eddie McCabe
Daytona News April 17 1938 “Miss Alexa Stirling Fraser Rated Best Woman Golfer”
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