A Look At USGA Championships Held At The Homestead's Cascades Course

By Rhonda Glenn, USGA

Winding through the picturesque terrain of the Allegheny Mountains in Virginia, The Homestead’s Cascades Course – site of the 2009 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, Sept. 12-17 – has famously hosted some of the most memorable moments in women’s golf.

William S. Flynn, the cavalier gentleman who was one of the giants of American golf course architecture, laid out the course, which opened in 1923. Flynn built his reputation on helping Hugh Wilson put the finishing touches on the East Course of Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa., and he was in great demand when he was hired by The Homestead.

The picturesque 15th hole on the Cascades Course at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va. (Fred Vuich/USGA)

Today the Cascades ranks with Flynn’s work on Cherry Hills Country Club near Denver and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., as fine examples of using a great variety of American terrain to its best advantage.

The Cascades stands out as one of the more ingenious mountain designs, its emerald fairways winding through the trees, brooks and hollows of the mountainsides, tempting but never taunting the serious player. The mountain location influences play, but does not dictate it. This scenic course, which will play at 5,515 yards and a par of 35-35—70, is sure to test the competitors in the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur. No doubt it will provide another memorable championship to add to the seven USGA championships the Cascades Course has hosted in the past.

More than 80 years ago, the first historic moment at the Cascades came in the 1928 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. The steady Maureen Orcutt went around in 80 to win medalist honors in a field in which eight past or future U.S. Women’s Amateur champions qualified for match play. Their names make up a virtual hall of fame: Edith Cummings, Dorothy Campbell Hurd, Virginia Van Wie, Marion Hollins, Helen Hicks, Helen Stetson, defending champion Miriam Burns Horn Tyson and Glenna Collett.

Collett was the favorite when she teed off against Van Wie in the scheduled 36-hole final on that long- ago September morning. She was twice a U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, while Van Wie’s three straight victories were yet to come. In the end, Collett won by a startling margin of 13 and 12. It would stand as the largest winning margin in the final until 1961.

The course would not host another USGA event for nearly 40 years, and then it was the scene of two great encounters in rapid succession – the 1966 Curtis Cup and the 1967 U.S. Women’s Open.

The USA fielded one of the strongest Curtis Cup teams in history when they took the field against Great Britain and Ireland in 1966: Jean Ashley, Barbara Fay White Boddie, Carol Sorenson Flenniken, Barbara McIntire, Phyllis Preuss, Nancy Roth Syms, Anne Quast Sander and Helen Sigel Wilson. They were the best of their era and they thrashed the GB&I Team, 13-5. Boddie and Flenniken won all of their matches, establishing 4-0 records for the event.

The Cascades Course was also the site of the 1967 U.S. Women’s Open, which featured a memorable battle between a veteran champion and a young French amateur. Catherine Lacoste, the 22-year-old daughter of French tennis star Rene Lacoste, romped through the championship and seemed to have the title clinched as the fourth round began. Only veteran Louise Suggs, a two-time Women’s Open champion who was then in her early 40s, stood in her way. Suggs had won the second of her two Women’s Open titles in 1952, a full 15 years before, but in the final round she was the only player to make a charge on the leader.

Suggs was nine strokes behind when the round began, but made up eight of those strokes through the 15th hole. Then, a fateful swing – her short-iron approach shot to the 16th green, which lay just beyond a pond, hung in the sky and fell short, burying in the bank. She scored a double-bogey 7. Lacoste birdied the 17th hole and clinched the win. Susie Maxwell and Beth Stone tied for second, two strokes back. Lacoste remains the only amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open. Her affection for the course caused her to return in 2007, on the 40th anniversary of her victory, to play the Cascades with her husband and daughter.

The course was selected for another U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in 1994, 66 years after Collett captured the third of her six U.S. Women’s Amateur titles. The 36-hole final went to the wire in a classic battle between the two strongest players in the field – Wendy Ward and Jill McGill, the defending champion. In the end, Ward prevailed, 2 up.

The Cascades has also been the setting for great moments in men’s competition. William C. Campbell won the 1980 USGA Senior Amateur Championship on the course, defending his 1979 Senior Amateur title and earning medalist honors for the second consecutive year.

In 1988, the Cascades was the setting for the U.S. Amateur Championship, when Eric Meeks defeated Danny Yates in the final, 7 and 6. The Cascades also hosted the 2000 U.S. Mid-Amateur, won by Greg Puga , 3 and 1, against Wayne Raath.

These great moments combine to make the Cascades a special place, not only a course which presents unique challenges and breathtaking scenery, but also creates legendary memories, all of which promise to captivate the field in the upcoming 2009 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur.

Rhonda Glenn is the USGA’s Manager, Communications. She can be reached at rglenn@usga.org.