Long before championship roars echoed across The Country Club’s fairways, it was a spirited group of trailblazing women who brought the spirit of golf to life on the legendary grounds of The Country Club in Brookline. With passion and perseverance, they planted the seeds for golf’s rapid growth in Massachusetts.
In 2032, The Country Club in Brookline will host the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship, as this pinnacle venue for golf in the United States showcases the state’s most talented female amateur golfers 131 years after it first hosted.
This will be the 10th time The Country Club has held Mass Golf’s longest-running championship, second only to Brae Burn Country Club’s 15. This announcement comes approximately 18 months after the USGA announced that The Country Club would host four national championships, including its first U.S. Women’s Open. At the start of the next decade, Massachusetts’ best young female golfers will have a unique opportunity, playing at The Country Club in three important events: the 2030 USGA Girls’ Junior, 2032 Massachusetts Women’s Amateur and the 2045 U.S. Women’s Open.
This year’s announcement also coincides with the 125-year anniversary of Mass Golf, celebrating the women who organized the state’s amateur golf association. The Country Club holds a unique place in golf history as the only club to have been a founding member of the United States Golf Association (USGA) in 1894, the Women’s Golf Association of Boston (WGAB) in 1900, and the Massachusetts Golf Association (MGA) in 1903.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome the best amateur women’s golfers to The Country Club,” said Lyman Bullard, President of The Country Club. “We’ve proudly supported the growth of the game for more than a century, including as a founding member of the Women’s Golf Association of Boston in 1900, so we are especially thrilled to make this announcement coinciding with the 125th anniversary of Mass Golf.”
The Country Club’s connection to the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship dates back to the very beginning in 1900. Constance Zerrahn, a member of The Country Club, served as the first president of the Women’s Golf Association of Boston (WGAB), while fellow founder and secretary Louisa A. Wells authored the program for the 1901 Massachusetts Women’s Amateur held at The Country Club.
Margaret Curtis, whose uncle Laurence Curtis helped introduce golf to The Country Club in 1893, won the 1901 championship and reclaimed the title on the same grounds in 1907. She first competed in the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1897 at just 13 years old, carrying only four clubs, and went on to win three U.S. titles and four Massachusetts Women’s Amateur titles. Her older sister Harriot captured each of those titles once. In 1932, the Curtis sisters established the Curtis Cup Matches, played biennially by women’s amateur teams representing Great Britain and Ireland versus the United States. Margaret is also credited with founding the Massachusetts Girls’ Junior Amateur Championship in 1930 and the Massachusetts Women’s Senior Amateur Championship in 1941.
Laurence Curtis’s introduction to golf came from another woman: Florence Boit, who learned to play golf at Pau Golf Club in southwestern France, the oldest course in continental Europe. In 1892, when visiting her aunt and uncle, Jane and Arthur Hunnewell, Florence brought her golf clubs and laid out a course on their property in Wellesley. Florence demonstrated the game to a small group, including Laurence, who proposed that a golf course be created at The Country Club that fall.
While the club’s initial pastimes were the equine sports steeplechase, polo, and thoroughbred racing, on November 29, 1892, Laurence Curtis, Arthur Hunnewell, and Robert Bacon were granted permission to lay out a course at an expense not to exceed fifty dollars, debuting the game on the grounds in 1893, with some holes going through the infield of the racetrack.
The club’s first professional, Willie Campbell, expanded the course to nine holes in 1894 and then a full 18 by 1899. That set the stage for The Country Club’s hosting of the 1901 Massachusetts Women’s Amateur and the record 96 players (almost half from Massachusetts) who competed the following year in the U.S. Women’s Amateur, with Louisa Wells finishes runner-up.
As the tournament returns in 2032, competitors will play a course that remains remarkably similar to the layout used in the 1902 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, the first national tournament hosted by The Country Club. It’s also the same 18 holes used in 1913 when Francis Ouimet shocked the world with his U.S. Open playoff victory.
It promises to be a worthy test for the championship field, which has produced five consecutive champions who have gone on to compete at the NCAA Division I level, as have many of the others who have competed.
“The women will be playing the 18 holes with the greatest history at The Country Club,” said club historian Fred Waterman.
Past Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Winners at The Country Club
Most Recent USGA & Mass Golf Championships Hosted at The Country Club
The Country Club most recently hosted the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur in 2007, when one of its own, then-19-year-old Claire Sheldon, captured the title. Sporting green and yellow plaid shorts as a nod to TCC’s iconic colors, Sheldon (now Richardson) edged Hall of Famer Tara Joy-Connelly, 2-up, in the final match. Much like Matt Fitzpatrick’s dramatic bunker shot on the 18th hole to secure the 2022 U.S. Open, Sheldon sealed her victory with a clutch bunker shot on the final hole, landing it within four feet of the pin.
Another TCC member, Tracy Welch, competed in the 1995 U.S. Women’s Amateur, the most recent women’s national championship held at Brookline. Before that tournament, Marion Maney, the 1992 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, held the course record of 69. She joined fellow Massachusetts natives Loren Milhench and Susan Lemay in the field. That year, Kelli Kuehne, then an incoming freshman at the University of Texas, captured the first of her back-to-back titles, becoming just the fourth player to win both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur.
When the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur makes its return to Brookline, it will also mark the 150-year celebration of when The Country Club was founded.
“Hosting championship golf has been an honor and an important responsibility throughout our long history,” Bullard said. “Our 10th Massachusetts Women’s Amateur will be a special way to celebrate the club’s long commitment to women’s golf, along with what will be our 150th anniversary.”
The Country Club Future USGA Championship Sites
Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Future Sites
About Mass Golf
Mass Golf is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is dedicated to advancing golf in Massachusetts by building an engaged and inclusive community around the sport.
With a community made up of over 130,000 golf enthusiasts and over 360 member clubs, Mass Golf is one of the largest state golf associations in the country. Members enjoy the benefits of handicapping, engaging golf content, course rating and scoring services along with the opportunity to compete in an array of events for golfers of all ages and abilities.
At the forefront of junior development, Mass Golf is proud to offer programming to youth in the state through First Tee Massachusetts and subsidized rounds of golf by way of Youth on Course.
