Amy Alcott knows Riviera. She knows this because she grew up in a golf-obsessed neighborhood. She knows this because she worked her way from a backyard netting and hardware setup to sharing the green at the Riv alongside Dean Martin and Rita Hayworth. She knows Riviera because she’s a member now, which means she has a love for the iconic, devilishly driving 10th and the epic amphitheater 18th, but also the quieter corners, like the tree-lined par-4 12th or the eucalyptus-clad 16th.
Amy Alcott knows golf’s major championships. She knows THIS major championship, Women’s US Openone of its top five titles. Alcott won 1980 playing at Richland Country Club in Nashville, Tenn., a brutal mid-July affair with 100-degree temperatures and just one 72-hole score under par: Alcott’s four-under-par 280, a tournament record. She won by nine.
Amy Alcott knows Southern California’s premier championship golf. She was the first to make the famous jump into Poppie’s Pond from the 18th green at Mission Hills in what was then known as Dinah’s Shore. She won that championship three times.
So there’s no better ambassador for this week’s US Women’s Open than Alcott, who at age 70 has added to her Hall of Fame career several levels of coaching, writing, consulting, course design – and, of course, playing. This is the same woman who designed and operated Alcott Golf and Country Club, after all. Because he liked to play.
