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Dorothy Iona Campbell Amateur Golfer Born: 24th March 1883, Edinburgh Died: 20th March 1945, Yemassee, S.C.
![[Dorothy Campbell]](images/campbell.jpg) Dorothy Campbell © American Annual Golf Guide |
![[13th on East
Course]](images/east4.jpg) 13th East Course, North
Berwick © Digitalsport UK
![[Canty
Bay]](images/cantybay_1.jpg) Canty Bay, North Berwick © Digitalsport UK
Tournament Record Scottish Ladies': 1905,1906,1908 British Ladies Amateur :1909,1911 U. S. Women's Amateur
:1909,1910,1924 Women's Canadian Amateur:1910,1911,1912 Western Pennsylvania 1914, 1915, 1916 North & South Womens
1918, 1920, 1921 Boston District Championship 1922 Florida West Coast Championship 1923, 1925 Philadelphia 1925, 1926,
1927, 1929, 31, 34 Bermuda Ladies Championship 1931. 1934 Pennsylvania State Championship 1934 U. S. Women's Senior
Championship: 1938 Great Britain Team v. USA : 1905, 1909 Scottish Internationalist : 1909, 11, 28, 1930.
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Campbell wins Amateur Double
By Douglas Seaton North Berwick Factfile DOROTHY CAMPBELL was born at 1 Carlton Terrace, Edinburgh in 1883. She
was originally named 'Gladys' but this was altered to Dorothy two months after the birth. Her parents were William Campbell and
Emily Mary Tipper. Her father was a partner in the family business Thomas B. Campbell & Co. metal merchants and lead pipe
manufacturers at 61 Constitution Street, Leith where they employed 33 men and 14 boys.
Dorothy's uncle Thomas B Campbell built Inchgarry House as his summer residence in North Berwick, one of the first properties to
be constructed on the West Bay. Inchgarry is situated on Links Road overlooking the 18th tee and the house was shared with William
Campbell and his family. Dorothy had six sisters and two brothers, and her father died when she was sixteen years old.
The famous West Links at North Berwick where her grandfather Thomas Campbell and her uncles Robert and Tom played golf was
the perfect playground for the young Dorothy while living in Inchgarry House during the summer months. She took her first swing
when she was 18 months old, and her first club was a six-penny club lacking the bone and the lead then commonly used, purchased
in a toy shop in the High Street in North Berwick.
Dorothy played golf on the small nine-hole course at North Berwick, which was used principally by women and little boys. She said,
"how any of us managed to acquire a decent game there will always remain a mystery to me, and yet it was done, because we had some
splendid players. I do not think that any of our holes were as much as two hundred yards in length and as in those early days, the
terms under which the ground was leased, forbade any traps or bunkers being made, the range of shots required was painfully
limited. However, we managed to have a good time playing there and the very fact that our holes were so short and so narrow was an
incentive to acquiring accuracy."
Campbell was first to win the British and U.S Amateur back to
back. In 1896, Dorothy Campbell aged 13
years, joined the North Berwick Ladies Golf Club and with a handicap of nine was able to hold her own against the senior members.
Dorothy was a pupil of Ben Sayers and learned to play the game over the West Links, at a time when an hour's lesson cost 3/6d and
a day's golf on the links was a shilling. Dorothy said it was Lord Denman (later Governor-General of Australia) who encouraged her
to use a full swing and she also credits May Hezlet's instruction book which inspired her to concentrate.
In 1894, her older sister Madeline with a handicap of two, won the North Berwick Ladies Handicap competition
after a play-off over the Ladies Links. Madeline Campbell and Edith Orr were the leading golfers in the North Berwick Ladies Golf
Club. Dorothy first came to the attention of the press in 1901 when she was mentioned in the publication 'Irish Golfer'. The article
read Dorothy Campbell, one of the young cracks of the North Berwick Ladies Club beat Frances Griscom the American Lady Champion
over the West Links in August.
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In 1905, Dorothy Campbell played for the British team that
beat a U.S. squad led by the Curtis sisters, six matches to one.
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| In June 1903, Dorothy played in the inaugural Scottish Ladies Championship at St Andrews when she reached the
semi-finals. In 1905, she entered the Ladies' British Amateur Championship at Cromer, and again she reached the semi-finals. Two
weeks later Campbell entered the Scottish Ladies' Championship over her home course at North Berwick. The tournament was in its
third year and had previously been held at St Andrews and Prestwick, but this was the first event to be organised by the Scottish
Ladies' Golfing Association, formed the previous year.
The ladies arrived in North Berwick on Wednesday 13th June, when thirty-two played in a putting competition at the Royal Hotel, on
ground now occupied by Craigleith View. On Saturday there was a stroke play tournament over the nine-hole Ladies Course and a
competition on Monday over the West Links for prizes donated by the Town Council.
The Championship started on Tuesday with 43 competitors, when the first and second rounds were completed in stormy conditions. In
the semi-finals, Dorothy Campbell beat J. Rusack from Hilltarvit by one hole and faced the holder Miss Molly Graham from Nairn in
the final. The game was all square after 18 holes and Campbell snatched victory on the nineteenth green watched by over 4,000
spectators.
Dorothy Campbell retained her Scottish title at Cruden Bay in 1906, beating the formidable Miss Alex Glover in the final. Again
the following year Dorothy reached the final, this time at Troon but was defeated on the 21st hole by another North Berwick
golfer Frances Teacher (Mrs. Mather). Dorothy won again in 1908, beating Miss M Cairns 7 and 6 at Gullane and was runner-up in
1909.
For the first time the British Ladies Championship of 1908 was held at St. Andrews. Dorothy entered from Musselburgh and faced
Maud Titterton, also from Musselburgh in the final, when the entire town came out to watch, including Old Tom Morris. The final
didn't start until three o'clock because the semi-final between Maud Titterton and the sensation of the event, seventeen year-old
Cecil Leitch went twenty-two holes and by that time the Old course was covered in fog.
Estimates for the crowd around the first hole was 9,000 people and by the 11th, a terrible storm blew in hitting the two
contestants with hail, rain and wind. Many of the greens were completely covered in water. Titterton's ball bounded through the
Swilcan burn on the final hole allowing her to square the match. At the first extra hole, Titterton beat Campbell with a par-4 to
her bogey-5. On the 27th May, two days after the final Old Tom Morris died. It is interesting to note that the Ladies were not
given the freedom of the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse during the championship.
In 1906 at Cromer she played for Britain in a match against a United States group. There were seven players to a side, and Dorothy
was No. 7 for the British team, which won by six matches to one. The American team was composed of the Misses Harriot and Margaret
Curtis, Miss Frances Griscom, the two Phelps sisters, Miss Georgianna Bishop and a Mrs. Martin.
At Royal Birkdale in 1909, Campbell again entered the British Championship from Musselburgh. This was the first major event to be
held at Brikdale and Dorothy defeated Ireland's Miss Florence Hezlet 4 and 3 in the final. She then took up an invitation to play
in the American Championship of that year at Merion Cricket Club.
Dorothy faced Mrs. Nonna Barlow from Ireland in the final. Barlow a member of the host club went out in 45 to Campbell's 46 and
was one up. Barlow however missed a short putt on the ninth which would have given her a two shot advantage. Campbell won the
eleventh and the thirteenth to take the lead, then won the fifteenth and sixteenth to win the match 3 and 2, to become the first
foreign-born U.S. Champion and the first woman to hold both the British and U.S. Amateur titles. It was a feat that neither Glenna
Collett nor Joyce Wethered who later dominated the game, accomplished.
The only tournament Campbell failed to win that year was the Scottish Amateur Championship played at Machrihanish when she was
defeated in the final by E. Kyle. In 1910, Campbell moved to Hamilton, Ontario and won the first of her three in a row Canadian
Amateur titles.
The USGA Woman's Amateur Championship trophy was donated in 1896 by Robert Cox from Gorgie in Edinburgh. He was Member of Parliament
for the Edinburgh South Division and learned to play golf at Musselburgh while attending Loretto School. The Robert Cox Trophy,
encrusted with Scottish thistles, and panels bearing scenes of St Andrews, is the only USGA trophy to be presented by a foreigner.
At the 1910 US Amateur Championship at Homewood C.C. Flossmoor, Illinois, Campbell scored a match-play 78 when she defeated Mary
Fownes in the second round. It was the lowest score by a woman over a course of more than 6,000 yards, and it was reported in the
American Golfer that the critics watching the championship described it as the most wonderful golf ever displayed by a female
golfer in this hemisphere. Campbell at the top of her game, sailed through the early matches never going further than the
fifteenth green in any of her victories. In the final Dorothy Campbell successfully defended her title by beating Mrs G. M. Martin
of Devonshire, England 2 and 1. In 1911, she picked up her second Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush Golf
Club, this time defeating Violet, the youngest of the three Hezlet sisters from Ireland. Dorothy coming from 3 down after eight,
to win 3 and 2.
Miss Campbell played with a shut club face, square to square and an unorthodox grip, with the thumb of the right hand under the
shaft. Her best shot was a run-up shot that she used from distances of up to 50 feet. In the final of the North and South
Championship, she beat her opponent by twice holing this shot from 40 yards out. She used her goose-neck mashie with a small face
which she named "Thomas" for the shot, closing the club-face and hitting the ball on the downswing. At Augusta Country Club in
1926 she holed two chip shots and ended up having a record 19 putts for 18 holes lowering Walter Travis' record by two strokes for
putts-in-one-round. She nicknamed her putter "Stella" which had been with her since 1909. |
| " Campbell was the first woman to win the national championship of
five countries, USA, Great Britain, Scotland, Canada and Bermuda" | |
Dorothy Campbell represented Scotland in the Home Internationals in 1905-06-08-09-11-28-30. This was a golden period for the North
Berwick golfers as Campbell was joined in the Scottish team by Frances Teacher and Elsie Grant-Suttie in 1908 and 1911, both were
members of the North Berwick Ladies Club. Frances Teacher was Scottish Ladies Champion in 1907 and Elsie Grant-Suttie won the
Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship in 1910 at Royal North Devon G.C. Grant-Suttie also won the Scottish Ladies Championship
at St Andrews in 1911 after defeating Dorothy Campbell in the first round. Campbell in turn beat Grant-Suttie in the fifth round
of the Ladies' British Championship in 1911.
In 1913, Campbell married Jack Hurd, a steel magnate living at 7209 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh. He was a member at Oakmont C.C where
Tom Anderson Jr from North Berwick was the pro. The couple had a son and Mrs. Hurd went into semi-retirement from the sport until
they divorced in 1923. She returned to tournament golf in the twenties, after recognising that her old sweeping style, with the
club held in the palms and the wrists stiff, was obsolete. She took lessons from George Sayers, who she knew from North Berwick,
then a professional at Merion in Philadelphia.
Dorothy said "George was born and brought up in my home town, and I have known him since he was a boy. He told me he could help me
to change my swing, but that it would entail inordinate practice. I was fearful of the consequences, if I did not at least try,
so, with some misgivings, I decided to have a go at it." Throughout the month of November, 1923 she haunted the practice tee at
Merion and underwent a painful golfing metamorphosis. After two days a joint of her left hand's index finger was reduced to a raw
wound by constant friction with fingers of her right hand due to the Vardon or overlapping grip, which she was using for the first
time.
At forty-one she entered the 1924 U.S. Women's Amateur hosted by Rhode Island Country Club, home course to the tournament
favourite Glenna Collett, but she unexpectedly lost in the semi-finals to Mary K. Browne of Los Angeles. In the final, Browne
could easily outdrive Hurd on every hole, but "Stella" was on-fire. Dorothy Hurd defeated Mary K. Browne, the national lawn tennis
champion, 7 and 6 to win the title. This victory brought two more records that still stand; the number of years between titles,
and the oldest player to win the event.
According to the ladies magazine 'Fairway and Hazard' Dorothy return to Scotland in 1928 and 1930 and was selected for the
Scottish Team in the Home Internationals, despite her lack of competitive play. In 1928 she won all her three matches including a
remarkable victory over the dominant figure in British golf, Cecil Leitch at the twentieth hole. In the 1930 Home Internationals
she won two out of her three matches.
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| Dorothy maintained her scratch-handicap for 34 consecutive years
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In July 1934 Dorothy Campbell Hurd took permanent possession of the Griswold Trophy – her third victory in the Shenecossett Country
Club annual invitational at New London Connecticut. Then in September she won the classic Berthellyn Cup and created an all time
record of four triumphs in the series of invitational events conducted by the Huntingdon Valley Country Club, Abington PA. Dorothy
continued to play through the 1930s winning the 1938 U.S. Senior Women's Championship at the age of 55.
In 1937, she was married to Edward L. Howe, chairman of the Princeton N.J. Bank and Trust Company but they divorced in 1943. Two
years later Dorothy Campbell Hurd Howe was visiting friends in Beaufort (SC) when she was killed while changing trains at Yemussee
for the New York bound express. She was en-route to the home of her daughter-in-law Mrs Sigourney Hurd of Pleasantville (NY) whose
husband was a staff sergeant with the army in the Philippines. Dorothy was 61 years old when she died and remains the finest
amateur golfer ever to emerge from North Berwick. The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) was founded in 1950 and Dorothy
Campbell Hurd Howe was elected to the Women's Golf Hall of Fame as a charter honouree at Augusta Country Club. |
| Copyright © Douglas Seaton 2013, All
Rights Reserved. | |