Female champion at The Country Club wrote the book on golf

By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer

BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) — The winner of the first major held at the history-steeped golf course hosting this week’s U.S. Open served up plenty of solid lessons that still hold true today. Her name: Genevieve Hecker. Hecker’s victory in the U.S. women’s amateur in 1902 made her a perfect fit to write “Golf For Women,” the first instruction book written specifically for women. It’s a manual that, in some ways, remains every bit as relevant in 2022 as it was when it came out. Hecker’s second straight title in the country’s most prestigious women’s event came 11 years before Francis Ouimet put golf on the map in America by winning the U.S. Open at The Country Club. Her victory came seven decades before Title IX changed the landscape for women in sports forever in the U.S.