Heir to a Legacy

Vinh Luu and the American Dream

By Amberly Glitz Weber

Photograph by Tim Sayer

One early morning in 1979, Vinh Luu’s parents dressed him and his six siblings as if for school, before leading them cautiously out into the dark city streets of Saigon. Beneath those outfits, they wore as much clothing as they could put on, walking away from their family home with little more than the clothes on their backs. They were headed to an unnamed location to meet the smugglers they’d paid to arrange their escape. There they waited to be ferried in smaller, less conspicuous groups to board the rickety fishing boat they hoped would carry them to a new life.

The Luus had lived in Saigon since Vinh’s grandparents immigrated from China. His father worked as a dentist with the South Vietnamese Army, and his mother’s grocery business was the breadwinner for their large family. Vinh remembers her as a hard worker, and successful. Living in the capital city, the family did not see much bloodshed during the war years. “I remember after the fall of Saigon, you hear a lot of these celebrations by the Communists, shooting guns up in the air,” he says. “I remember seeing tanks tearing up the streets when they came in.”

After the fall of Saigon, the family stayed, hoping things would be better — they weren’t. In mid-1975 the Communist Army confiscated his mother’s grocery business, shutting down the entire supermarket with the promise that they would eventually return it to the local owners. His parents decided to flee soon after.

“You know, I think about it all the time,” Vinh says. “I can’t imagine bringing seven children, risking everyone’s lives for this trip. You take a chance at life; you have to make a decision. I can’t imagine just putting one life at risk, so for them to do that, it was desperate.” And not just their seven children — the Luus brought along extended family, loaning three uncles and numerous extended family the funds necessary for escape.

They paid extra — all in gold, as the currency was by then worthless — to ensure everyone was on the upper deck. Simple inland boats used mostly on the Saigon River, the holds were barely suitable for carrying any cargo, much less the human kind. During the escape, Vinh and his older sisters were separated from their parents and placed below deck. “This is a rickety old fishing boat,” Vinh remembers. “The smell of engine oil and saltwater down there — I passed out. When I woke up, I was completely naked. Literally, I was marinated in that engine oil, saltwater mixture.”

Eventually reunited with his parents on deck, his mother’s first concern was, “Where are your clothes?” Vinh’s infectious smile lights up his face as he gestures comically. “I’m like, ‘Mom, how am I!’ Come to find out later she had sewn gold necklaces and bracelets into our clothes to live off of at the refugee camp.”

Their ship floated in the South China Sea for nine terrifying days, struggling with broken engines, faulty navigation, seasickness, crowded conditions and little food. The passengers worked to stabilize the craft during storms, moving from port to starboard in an effort to avoid capsizing on the rough seas. Vinh remembers being so weak, he doubts he would have lived had they not made landfall when they did. One of his 2-year-old cousins died on the boat, as did his paternal grandfather. Their bodies were thrown overboard.

“After I reunited with my parents on the boat, I sat next to my dad. I don’t know when my grandfather died on the trip, but my dad, he was just bawling. I didn’t know why, and I cried with him. But now, looking back, I know why — either his father passed away, or he didn’t think that we were gonna make it.”

The boat landed on an isolated Indonesian island, where they remained for almost three months. Their boat disintegrated the day after landfall. Discovered by the island’s inhabitants, they were eventually moved to a more official camp.

Luu family at the island refugee camp.

“The first island we were on, it was like what you pay to go to now. It was like paradise. The men built huts out of coconut leaves,” Vinh says. They spent the next three months in the second, larger camp before being moved to Galang Refugee Camp, where they would be processed for relocation. The latter two camps were rife with disease. Vinh remembers being sick throughout, the family living in what amounted to a cardboard box.

Tote bag with the family’s official refugee case number.

He has a reminder of the camps preserved on one of the few family heirlooms to have survived the escape, a black leather tote bag. Marked on the bag and still visible is the family’s official refugee case number, which was used for everything in the camps, from housing to meals. It’s engraved in Vinh’s mind as well, a five-digit number he’ll never forget. He says it twice, first in Vietnamese and then in English — 62291.

Their stay in the camps was prolonged, since the Luus were determined to wait until space restrictions allowed for two conditions: that they go to America, and that they go together. Ultimately a church in Gastonia, North Carolina, sponsored the family. Vinh doesn’t remember much from his first sight of America, but he does remember his first days in Gastonia.

“We had a beautiful snowstorm. I ran outside barefoot — and came right back in,” he says and laughs at the thought of his cold-footed scamper.

That contagious grin is as etched on Vinh’s face as his family’s case number is on the leather bag. Starting school in Gastonia, he couldn’t speak the language. “I was pretty fortunate. We had a teacher’s assistant and she devoted a lot of time helping me. I was fortunate to have wonderful teachers growing up. They had an incredible, long-lasting impact on my life,” he says, his eyes beaming with gratitude.

   

Left: Vinh and his friends, Jason Jones and Dennis Muldowney.

Right: Vinh with his American mom and dad, Kathy and Jim Muldowney.

 

It didn’t hurt that he’s incredibly smart. It’s the first thing his close friend, Jason Jones, noticed about him. “The first time I heard his name was in algebra. Every time we had a test, our algebra teacher would announce who got a 100. She’d call out, ‘John Smith and Vinh Luu made a hundred.’ And then the next test, ‘Amy made a hundred and Vinh Luu made a hundred.’ And I was thinking, ‘Who is this Vinh Luu guy?’”

Despite having been in the country only a few years and still learning a new language, Vinh tried his hand at anything and everything. Jones produces their 1989 high school yearbook as proof. While keeping excellent grades and working as a grocery bagger at Food Lion, Vinh’s smiling face appears throughout the volume. Jones laughs and taps the Quiz Bowl Team image lightly. “Even though his English was bad, every week he would come and we would ask questions. And even though that was not his strength, he still wanted to learn; he still wanted to participate; he still wanted to just do it. That’s Vinh,” he says.

The two friends take trips together every few years. One took them to Las Vegas, where they elected to try something other than gambling on the strip. They rented bikes to ride the Red River Canyon, a challenging 30-mile trip. As the experienced cyclist, Jones could tell Vinh was struggling on the uphill, hot desert route. Every time he checked on him, Vinh’s reply was a quavering, “I’m O-O-O-K,” right up to the moment he dismounted and heaved his morning’s breakfast at the side of the road.

Jones wanted to call “a paddy wagon, or 911,” but Vinh wouldn’t hear of it. “And we finished that 30-mile ride. I couldn’t believe it — but that’s just the kind of guy Vinh is.”

Vinh’s older sister married and headed to San Francisco at the end of his junior year. His family decided to move with the newlyweds. Vinh went out that summer but found himself homesick for North Carolina. “There’s a big Asian community out there” he says, “and this is pretty funny, but I started school there, and I couldn’t find American kids. It was all Asian kids. And I was homesick. ‘Where are my American kids to hang out with?’” He laughs. His parents agreed to let him move home to Gastonia, where he stayed with his friend Dennis Muldowney’s family for senior year before enrolling at N.C. State.

His “American mom and dad,” Kathy and Jim Muldowney, say he’s been part of the family ever since. Jim gestures to a large photograph on the living room wall of their Raleigh home — a beautiful family portrait of children and grandchildren at the beach for a Thanksgiving reunion. Jim points to Vinh in the center of the frame. “That’s our family.”

“I joke he gets adopted by about 20 people a year,” Jones says of Vinh’s ability to make friends and create family. When an elderly neighbor mentions their worries about the long drive to a family wedding in Florida, Vinh volunteers to chauffeur them. A 90-year-old neighbor’s son visits regularly from out of state, and Vinh delivers him to and from the airport, refusing payment. A neighbor posts on the NextDoor app looking for assistance and Vinh answers the ad, generating another close bond.

   

Left: Vinh and his family.

Right:Vinh and his parents.

 

As the oldest son, Vinh still maintains his family role as patriarch despite the nearly 3,000 miles separating him from his West Coast family. For him, there are no passing acquaintances — every relationship sparks a long and meaningful connection. Jones remarks fondly that although “Vinh’s never married, I don’t know anybody that has as big a family as he does.”

After graduating from N.C. State, Vinh began a long career at Ericsson Telecommunications, working in the Research Triangle. During the ’90s a new co-worker arrived from Iran, a political refugee who relied on Vinh for his advice and guidance. Years and a few out of state relocations later, the two stay in touch. Vinh’s a good mentor for anyone, but particularly for those seeking to build a new life.

“Assimilate,” he says, passing along his best advice. “Your roots and everything, it’s very important to carry on. But the faster you assimilate, the better off you are. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because this is your new life. And work hard. There are so many opportunities here, people don’t realize.”

While the family was blessed to find a welcoming community in Gastonia, they met with their share of challenges. Vinh still remembers the time a group threw rocks at their home, shattering windows before beating a hasty retreat. The experiences of his early years — a house fire in Vietnam that claimed the life of an older sister and his family’s terrifying escape from Saigon — could have been a struggle to overcome, the stuff of mental anguish.Vinh mentions that at one time he suffered from sleep paralysis, a sensation of being conscious but unable to move before waking, evoking terror and a sense of powerlessness. But Vinh has a superpower of his own, a buoyant nature and deep connection to others through simple, genuine kindness.

“It’s much different now than in the ’80s when we came here. People are more knowledgeable about things outside the U.S. and Americans are very — they care,” he says. “So, these refugees that end up here, I think they’re gonna be well taken care of. There’s hope.”

After Ericsson closed its R&D section in the Triangle, Vinh Luu’s expertise brought him to the Sandhills in 2016 to work as a contractor on mobile wireless technology for U.S. Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. He feels as though he’s come full circle.

“You know, you have the Americans who went into Vietnam and fought for the South Vietnamese, us. And now, I’m doing work that protects the troops — keeps them safe, and America too, in that respect. It’s neat when I think about it. It’s more than a job, you’re actually protecting America.”

Service may be his profession, but his hobby is people. “I do a lot of stuff for some older folks that need help. I don’t have an exciting life,” he says with characteristic humor.

His friend Jason Jones goes to the heart of the matter. “Vinh is a good example of what America should be about — and has been about. This is why we are a country of immigrants, and this is why it is a dream.” The dream expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., “that every man is heir to a legacy of dignity and worth.”

It is an inheritance Vinh Luu earns every day. PS

Aberdeen resident Amberly Glitz Weber is an Army veteran and freelance writer. She’s proud to live in a country where there are Vinh Luus.

Juneteenth

The Second Independence Day

Produced by Brady Gallagher

Photographs by Tim Sayer

In June of 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 2,000 soldiers of the 13th U.S. Army Corps arrived in Galveston, Texas. Led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, the troops marched through Galveston reading General Order No. 3 at numerous locations, including their headquarters, the courthouse, and at what is now the Reedy Chapel-AME Church. The order informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves were free.

One year later, on June 19, 1866, the formerly enslaved people of Galveston celebrated a year of freedom with the Juneteenth holiday, a name derived by blending the words “June” and “nineteenth.” Also known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth is believed to be the oldest African American holiday, and currently 49 of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia — in addition to the federal government — recognize Juneteenth as either a holiday or ceremonial holiday and a day of observance.

Juneteenth celebrations include picnics, rodeos, barbecues, parades, and readings of the works of Black authors like Ralph Ellison, whose posthumously published second novel is titled Juneteenth. Mitch Capel will host his second Juneteenth celebration this year at Cardinal Park. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee at Sandhills Community College will also host its second Juneteenth celebration this year.

Kim Wade

Educator and Community Activist

I can only imagine the mixture of overwhelming emotions felt on June 19, 1865, when slaves in Galveston, Texas, heard U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger read the Executive Order of the United States, that all slaves are free.

When reflecting on that day, once the slaves felt safe to react, I imagine them running, jumping, dancing and shouting with joy. I’m certain many fell to their knees and praised God for answering their prayers. I can feel their tears of relief and understand their fear and uncertainty — including the PTSD effects so many acquired after experiencing years of inconceivable abuse and separation from family.

To me, Juneteenth marks that moment in history when the dynamic for many slaves began to shift, for the first time in their lives, to being acknowledged as a human. We became more than humanlike plantation cattle. It is one of the original landmarks of unlimited possibilities for the formerly enslaved.

Juneteenth is Independence Day for African Americans because it marks a documented date when the last group of slaves across the nation finally got the news.

My family and I celebrate Juneteenth by attending festivals or hosting cookouts and now family reunions. I remember learning about President Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves, but this portion of history was not something I was taught in school. Like many baby boomers, we learned most of our Black history through the grapevine of relatives, Black media and historians in our community.

One of the many personal stories about some of my ancestors becoming free slaves, documented in UNC-Chapel Hill historical archives, includes family members here in Moore County owning so much land they donated some of it to build what was known as a formal school for Negroes. That property is presently mapped as part of Hoke County. They were industrious enough to use the pine trees on their property to operate a lucrative turpentine business. Some of the same family’s offspring migrated to predominately Black Rosewood, Florida, where a racial massacre took place in 1923. These are the types of stories we share to honor the resourcefulness of our ancestors.

Every African American across this county and country has so much history about their ancestors we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. Juneteenth, declared a federal holiday, will help document and create a platform for many of those treasured conversations for generations to come. It will not only include the story about slaves in Galveston, it will lead to many personal stories of the enslaved and their descendants throughout America.

Juneteenth is a time for all Americans to gather and celebrate African American history and culture. Together we get to reflect how far America has come and how much further we plan to go, despite the obstacles in our path. For those of us who embrace different cultures and love learning about everyone’s uniqueness and our different journeys, it’s an exciting time to be alive.

 

Danny Hayes

House of Fish Owner and Chef

Juneteenth wasn’t taught or celebrated in the school system where I was educated. I wasn’t aware of Juneteenth, the meaning of that day, or what actually occurred until about 15 years ago, setting me off on a quest for knowledge and understanding. Now that I know something about this incredible holiday, I choose to celebrate with food. The seafood dishes I will serve on the Saturday before Juneteenth will be inspired by what my ancestors would have had. It’s an acknowledgement that I stand on the shoulders of people who paid the price for me to live my dream.

The poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou speaks to how I feel about Juneteenth, especially two lines in the final stanza:

Bringing the gift my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

 

Diana Turner-Forte

Teaching Artist in Dance, Reiki Master and Holistic Health Practitioner

Juneteenth represents another day to express gratitude to a higher source for being alive and having the opportunity to share my passion for creative expression. It’s a day to celebrate freedom, not just for African Americans but for all of humanity. Every milestone in history is a step forward and should be appreciated.

My journey as a classical ballet dancer occurred during a matinee performance at Mershon Auditorium in Columbus, Ohio, when I was mesmerized by a live performance of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Fall River Legend. I received the kiss of destiny and was lured into the program by the craftsmanship of the dancers, the synchronicity of movement to music, and the lighting and stage sets. 

A few weeks later I was on a plane to study at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School to be molded into a professional ballet dancer. It was in Canada, through the rigorous, disciplined daily ritual of mental and physical training, where my technique was refined and my awareness of classical lines, flexibility and physical form were honed. I was transformed into an artist and began my professional performing career with the Chicago Ballet in 1974.

In addition to Juneteenth, another 19th century milestone was the 1846 premiere of African American dancer George Washington Smith in the role of Albrecht with Mary Ann Lee in the first American production of the ballet Giselle in his hometown. Smith acquired his skills as a ballet dancer from studying with visiting European teachers in Philadelphia, a thriving arts hub at that time. 

Trailblazers are driven by faith, passion and courage. They are always looking past the horizon with an innate knowing of potential opportunities. They are compelled to continue their journeys regardless of what others say or do. Friedrich Nietzsche speaks to this idea: “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Racial, economic or educational obstacles are simply provocations for visionaries to take great strides forward aligned with their higher purpose. The voices of Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, healers, poets and artists are inevitably inclusive — filled with wisdom and clarity — and yet often end up being the most maligned contributors of a civilization.

Ideally Juneteenth will evolve into a celebration of American freedom, truth-telling, and multicultural community events in which citizens become more awake, spiritually grounded, and together seek to forge paths that offer meaning and hope to future generations.

 

Fallon Brewington

Chief Executive Officer Boys and Girls Club of the Sandhills

Growing up, I never really knew what Juneteenth was and what it symbolized. I honestly got the best explanation and understanding of it from the ABC show black-ish. If you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to watch it whether you are just learning about it or have known and celebrated it for years.

What Juneteenth personifies to me is yet another momentous day that I am proud of my heritage and history as a Black woman in America. In my family, we were raised to know how the strength and perseverance of our ancestors helped shape and mold us into resilient, powerful, proud people, and to take pride in the the color of our skin and what it means to be in it. It is a sacred legacy, to do whatever it takes to ensure the generations that follow have it better than we do, just as my ancestors endured injustice to pave a better way for me.

I spend time with my children on all holidays. It’s important to have those family traditions that they can reflect on when they get older and have their own families. It’s the same for Juneteenth. We celebrate by participating in various community events in Moore County, or we may go back to where I was raised in Richmond County. This year we will Celebrate at Cardinal Park.

My parents made sure we knew we were going to do more and have more opportunities than they did. It was their mission to ensure that their children would have the ability to do and experience just about anything we wanted. I now know how much of a sacrifice that was emotionally, mentally, physically, financially and even spiritually. I can see this as a parent trying to do the same thing for my own children, as well as the youth in our community. It’s the greatest gift to experience the fruits and rewards of their labor in my life, in my children’s lives.

Ultimately, I believe that’s the essence and spirit of Juneteenth. All of us, especially Black Americans, are the fruit and rewards of our ancestors’ labor and what they endured.

 

Mitch Capel

Storyteller, Artist, Actor, Poet

Juneteenth is a day of reflection on the struggles, hardships and injustices suffered by our ancestors who were held in captivity for over 400 years. It was a day of jubilation for the descendants of the 250,000 still enslaved people who finally received the news 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation that the dream of freedom was a reality.

The historical legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of never giving up hope in uncertain times. Now that it is a federally recognized holiday, the level of acceptance and awareness will hopefully be accelerated. The history of this country has been distorted while being taught, and it is disheartening that there is now an effort to sugar-coat even more of the truth about this nation. If we ever want to have an honest accounting of who we are in America, we can’t pick and choose what we wish to remember. There is an African proverb that says: “Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.”

In 1872, in Galveston, Texas, those formally held in bondage saved $1,000 to purchase a piece of land where they could celebrate Juneteenth because of laws barring people of color the use of public facilities. Ninety years later, in 1962, my father, Felton Capel Sr., purchased acreage in Pinebluff where folks could celebrate, recreate and gather because of residual effects of those same laws — renamed segregation — that were in place. The Cardinal Park has become synonymous with good wholesome fun for all communities in Moore and surrounding counties.

I have celebrated Juneteenth over the years telling historical stories around the country at festivals, museums and other venues where the day was being acknowledged. Last year we decided to celebrate Juneteenth at Cardinal Park in Pinebluff in an effort to bring about reflection and reconciliation in our communities. It was a joyously wonderful gathering of an estimated 750 people. This year we’re expecting the same, if not more.

One of my father’s, and my own, favorite stories is by the great African American poet laureate Paul Laurence Dunbar and is titled “Goin’ Back.” I love this poem because it captures the migration after emancipation and the climate 30 years later. My father loved it because he too left the South and moved to New York at an early age seeking a better life only to return soon after, realizing his best opportunity was where his roots were. Right here in Moore County.   PS

The Happy House

Elegance and practicality on the lake

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

  

When Bill and Mandy Berg moved from Charlotte to Pinehurst in 2018, Mandy’s goal was to create a “happy place” — light, bright, uncluttered, cheerful. The tools were at hand: Mandy’s profession is staging houses to look their best for prospective buyers. But this job had moving parts. The décor must be elegant for entertaining yet practical, given a family with two young children, a huge dog, a cat and all the attendant paraphernalia.

Mandy pulled it off, complete with white carpet in the bedrooms, off-white upholstery in living room and den, and vanilla walls throughout.

Not that anybody would notice a few muddy footprints or sticky fingers with all eyes on the view. The Bergs’ three acres slope down to Lake Inverness at the Country Club of North Carolina (CCNC) where a brood of ducklings paddle through the water lilies and a turtle climbs onto the grassy shoreline. Herons, largemouth bass and an eagle complete the wildlife backdrop. Sunsets can be spectacular from a deck stretching the length of the house, equipped for cooking, eating, relaxing, playing.

Naturally, this happy place, built in 1982 for a furniture executive, brings the view inside through windows and tall sliding glass doors . . . everywhere. In fact, if the 1 1/2-story house with slightly Asian lines, four roof pitches covered in wood shakes and a whiff of Mid-Century Modern was seeking a name, The Abode of Sliding Doors might work.

A door not facing the lake reveals a petite tea garden walled off for privacy, and the children’s upstairs bedroom doors open onto balconies. Even the laundry room has a view. The effect is absolutely mesmerizing, rain or shine, winter or summer, with dogwood, hydrangeas and azaleas splashing color onto the exterior gray longboards.

   

Mandy knew Pinehurst from her grandparents, who lived at CCNC. Her parents came up from Florida to play golf. After deciding to leave Charlotte, Mandy and Bill narrowed their house hunt to Pinehurst village or CCNC. At the time nothing in the village quite suited. Despite the view, even this house had its drawbacks, for Mandy at least. Every floor except the tiled kitchen was covered in thick white carpet. And every wall wore wallpaper. Bill, however, experienced the wow factor and, as a recreational handyman/renovator, he identified the projects. And the floorplan allowed the family to spread out, or come together. After some budget tweaking, they moved in, hired a contractor and pitched in.

Up came most of the carpet, replaced by whitewashed oak. Off came all the wallpaper, leaving some walls in need of repair. An upstairs playroom for Emma, 8, and Harry, 10, was squeezed under the eaves. After they are grown, it’s destined to become a guest bedroom. Then Bill had an idea: Why not cover an open space near the loft with strong rope netting secured to a frame, creating something like a hammock, where the kids (or grown-ups) could bounce around or simply peer down into the den?

“I was out of town when they built the hammock,” Mandy says. “I wasn’t that happy . . . it compromises privacy.”

But it sets the house apart from every other at CCNC. And the kids love it.

Bill also constructed and installed mantels for the double-faced fireplace, built the outdoor firepit, and created a desk to fill a pass-through between the living room and den. He framed the loft and installed a new kitchen backsplash. “I’m a hands-on kinda guy,” Bill says. “I got it from my dad, who was a This Old House kinda guy.”

His next project: docks, since “The lake is my favorite part of living here.”

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The layout does retain some of its 1980s features. Back then, locating the master suite on the main floor was coming into fashion, especially for retirees. Turn left from the wide foyer with its handsome twin Chinese chests lacquered white and, beyond the TV den, the master suite opens out onto the deck, where railings have been removed to further expose the view. The living room is in use, flowing into a dining area with a spectacular white trestle table and molded Plexiglas chairs. Hanging low over the table is a chandelier more Star Wars than Phantom of the Opera.

Turn right from the foyer and find the kitchen — a surprise in an age of glamorous food preparation centers. No Sub-Zero, no farm sink, no island, no Viking or Wolf blast-furnace ranges. Instead, there are classic pine cupboards and a dinette glassed in on three sides. Except for new countertops and some minor adjustments, the L-shaped kitchen was left intact, at least for now. Mandy has plans. Beyond the kitchen is a modern butler’s pantry with laundry equipment, wine fridge, another sliding door and storage cabinets. This mixture of new and recently done (in white and sandy beige) adds to the retro charm.

        

Mandy’s signature hue, however, is blue — more bright navy than Carolina pastel. Bill also favors blue. Navy against white is everywhere, splashed on rugs, sewn onto pillows, woven into dinette chairs, dominating a collection of ginger jars. The dining room sideboard is lacquered a shiny dark royal, as is a writing desk in the master bedroom. Even the art, some commissioned, other pieces collected, explores shades of blue.

Ah . . . the art. That makes Mandy happiest. “It speaks to me,” she says. She planned white walls and retained some white carpet so the art would “pop.” Several paintings come from local artists, including Kristin Groner. Abstracts are both framed and flush-mounted. Mandy has an eye for placement — an art in itself. In the dining room a single painting, spotlighted by a recessed fixture, adds drama to the simplest meal. Just as dramatic is an old, stained, full-sized North Carolina state flag that Bill found on eBay and mounted over Harry’s bed, while Emma’s room requires a bean bag chair and sparkly princess-pink accents.

Each child’s room has its own small bathroom, beyond a blessing for teenagers.

“We’ve done a lot with a little, here . . . built a lot of value,” Bill observes.

        

Contemporary architecture and furnishings are rarely classified “romantic.”

The exception might be The Abode of Sliding Doors, sitting at the end of a narrow lane canopied by branches of tall trees, thick with new leaves. The sun shining through turns the canopy into a cathedral. Beyond, the grass slopes toward the lake, where two Adirondack chairs await sunset viewers.

But does the conglomerate create a happy house?

“The color, design and art make me happy,” Mandy says. “This is a joyful place.” PS

The Coolest Summer Job Ever

When blocks of ice were the size of Volkswagens

By Tom Bryant   •   Illustration by Gary Palmer

“Actually, pine trees were the reason peach orchards, as we knew them in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, went away.”

It was 1997 and we were sitting in a semi-circle in the living room of Clyde Auman’s home listening to him reminisce about the old days of peach farming. The “we” was the latest crop of the Moore County Leadership Institute, a group of about 15 diverse residents of the county. Sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, our group met once a month to tour a place important to the success of our county. It could be a historical location like the Bryant House, or something as integral to our economy as its peach farmers. Mr. Auman was, without a doubt, the patriarch of peach farming. His orchards were famous throughout the state.

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Auman continued, “before the loblolly and longleaf pines got so tall, the frosty winds of early spring would blow right on through the orchards not harming the peaches. But then the tall pines stopped the circulating winds and allowed frost to settle, and that killed not only the current crop, but later even the trees.

“Right now, on our farm, we do just about as much with pine straw as we do with peaches.” He chuckled. “Can’t make it on one end, we try it on the other. We have a few peach farmers, here and yonder, but nothing like the heyday when the region was known throughout the country.”

Mr. Auman was in his 80s when he spoke with us and, as we left his house to get on the bus and head back to Southern Pines, I hung back from the group.

“You might remember my father,” I said to him as we stood at the back door of his home.

“Who is your father?” he asked.

“Monroe Bryant. He was superintendent of the ice plant in Aberdeen.”

“I do remember him. A good man. I hope he’s doing all right. I’m sure he’s retired by now.”

“Unfortunately, Dad passed away at an early age.”

The folks had boarded the bus and were waiting on me.

“He thought a lot of you and your peaches.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your dad. He and his ice plant played a tremendous part in our peach industry. We need to get together. Come back out sometime and let’s visit.”

When I got back on the bus I sat behind the driver. On our way out to the main road, he looked over his shoulder at me. “You got along well with Mr. Auman,” he said. “Must have some history there.”

“Yeah, he knew my father back in the day when peaches were king.”

“Your dad in the peach business?”

“In a way. Without the ice plant my dad ran, the peaches would have had a hard time getting to the markets up north and out west.”

By now two or three of our group had tuned in to our conversation. One asked the natural question. “What’s an ice plant? I’ve seen those ice boxes beside the road but surely that’s not it.”

I tried to give a short history of an industry that’s as extinct as the dodo bird.

“Think about a giant cooler,” I said, “one about the size of a football field and about eight or 10 stories high full of blocks of ice, each weighing between 350 and 400 pounds. That ice was used to cool down railroad cars carrying fruit from our region, like peaches, or vegetables from down in Florida, all heading north or west.”

“And that giant cooler is no longer there?” one of the ladies asked.

“Yep, just like the old iceboxes before electric refrigerators. That’s kinda what happened to the ice plant when refrigerated rail cars came along. It was the tallest building in the county until it burned down in the late ’60s.”

I thought about that conversation the other day when I rode by the dirt lane that used to lead to the ice plant. I was on the way back from Burney’s Hardware and decided to take a walk down the railroad tracks to see if I could find the former site of the plant.

I parked out of the way next to a vacant lot, locked the car and headed south. It was only about a half mile walk and I made it in no time. Tall longleaf pines were growing where the major ice storage room used to be, and the hole in the sand that was the engine room was thick in weeds and briars about head high. I stayed on the tracks and did a cursory inspection of the remains of the place that played such a major part in my early years.

The recollection of those days came back clearly. My dad was the head honcho of all the doings around the massive plant, and I remembered my own participation in what has turned into a dead industry.

City Products Inc., the corporate head of ice plants from Miami, Florida, to Aberdeen, North Carolina, had massive ice factories in Florida, including Miami, Belle Glade, Lakeland, Sanford and Jacksonville. There was also a plant in Florence, South Carolina. The Aberdeen location was the last stop on the way north and west. The locations of the ice plants were built close to major railroad switching yards, at just the right distances, to service the needs for massive freight requirements of railroads hauling perishable fruit and vegetables across the country.

As a young fellow, I naturally hung out with Dad as much as I could, and he often let me accompany him as he made the rounds of the peach packing houses in Moore County and the surrounding area. For me, it was fun — I got to eat all the peaches I wanted. Then, as I grew older, it provided much-needed college funds. I worked a couple of summers at the location in Aberdeen and later spent a summer at the plant in Lakeland, where Dad became manager after the Aberdeen plant was closed.

Often when summer employment came up among friends, I’d try to explain my job pulling ice. The ice was made in attached cans that would hold enough water to make a block that weighed 400 pounds, sort of like the ice in an ice tray. The cans were submerged in a refrigerated brine tank about half an acre in size. The metal cans were attached, 10 to a group. My job was to hoist the ice out of the tank, using a crane, and walk the cans down to a 10-foot dip tank, full of water, which would free the frozen cubes from the cans. Then, still using the crane, I’d lower the cans, now with loose ice blocks, to a swivel tray that would allow the ice to become free and slide on a conveyor into the storage room. I didn’t know what boredom really meant until I began pulling ice all day. But, hey, the job paid minimum wage — a dollar an hour — and that went a long way to provide spending money for college.

It’s remarkable how well the entire network of plants from Florida to North Carolina meshed to refrigerate rail cars traveling with highly perishable vegetables and fruits.

The plant was built in 1928 and the business was huge during the height of the Great Depression, when there was no shortage of laborers. Each plant location had bunkhouses, kitchens and dining halls to house traveling workers who would move as needed from one location to another following the rail cars north.

Platforms running parallel to the railroad tracks enabled workmen to ice 50 railcars at a time using just the right formula of ice and rock salt to cool the fruit or vegetables to the correct temperature and get them to their destination fresh and unspoiled.

Not long ago someone asked me what I remembered most about the ice plant. I guess it would have to be the immensity, the sheer monumental size of the major storage room, the huge electric motors that pulled the compressors that cooled and refrigerated the brine tanks and ice storage rooms, and in its heyday, the number of people it took to make it all work — and how few it took to close it all down.

Most of all, I remember my father. The endless hours he committed to making sure everything was done just right, never, ever doing things to just get by. He led by example, and I’m a better man for the experience of working with him.

Now the ice plant is just a hole in the sand where tall pines grow. The memories are all that’s still eight stories high. Most folks don’t even know it existed.

But it was here and what it did made a difference. In the process it even taught one kid about the world of real labor, sweat, the value of a dollar, and responsibility. A pretty cool job. PS

Tom Bryant is a Southern Pines resident, a lifelong outdoorsman and, in his youth, a reliable summer employee.

View from the Tower

Judy Rankin reflects on golf, the Bells and Pine Needles

By Ron Green Jr.

Judy Rankin is on the road again, making the familiar 117-mile drive from her home in Lubbock, Texas, where she is near her children, to her other home in Midland, Texas, where she lived for many years.

That’s why when you ask Rankin where she lives, she says, “I wish I knew.”

One thing helps the miles roll away: an apple fritter and a cup of black coffee.

“I love apple fritters. You know how everyone loves Krispy Kreme doughnuts? Well, I love apple fritters,” Rankin says over the phone, having secured her morning snack for the ride.

Rankin, 77, is an elemental thread in the fabric of American golf, her success as a player followed by a nearly 40-year broadcasting career, setting her apart in a game made better by her contributions. Through grit and grace, Rankin had a Hall of Fame playing career, then enhanced it through her television work, sharing the gospel of golf in her comfortable and enlightening way.

When the U.S. Women’s Open is played in early June at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, part of what the championship has become is because of Rankin and what she has done for the game. She is a living example of leaving something (in this case, golf) better than she found it.

Rankin also has a history with Pine Needles, which is hosting its fourth Women’s Open, but that doesn’t make her unusual. Almost everyone who came across the late, great Peggy Kirk Bell and her husband, Warren “Bullet” Bell, were left with a piece of the place and its people. Pine Needles is not just a destination, it’s a state of mind. That’s the lingering influence of Bell and her husband, an enduring legacy embraced and nurtured by their children and their families.

“There was something about Peggy,” Rankin says. “She was a magnet with people. There was a way about her.

“She was never a big, affectionate hugger, but she was affectionate in her way. I don’t know how you couldn’t like Peggy. She was such a wonderful role model for so many different things in the game. I admired her a lot.”

Whether Bell was cruising through the pine-shrouded streets in her authentic London taxi, her 1928 Model A convertible or her 1964 Lincoln Continental — just to name a few — or giving impromptu lessons to guests having a meal at Pine Needles (Bell often wore a golf glove inside to make a teaching point), she was a force of nature, and the Women’s Opens played at Pine Needles are a nod to her as much as they are to the Donald Ross design hosting the championship.

Bell’s only major championship victory came in the 1949 Titleholders, a tournament that was played for the final time in 1972 — at Pine Needles. Sandra Palmer beat Rankin and Mickey Wright, and the memory remains with Rankin.

“I think Bullet had it in for us because they made us play from so far back,” Rankin says. “The golf course was so long. That’s what I mostly remember. We swore on the 18th tee he had the markers back so far that your right foot was on a downslope. That became part of the lore.”

Rankin was an exceptional player, earning low amateur honors as a 15-year-old in the 1960 U.S. Women’s Open and a year later landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.

She won 26 times on the LPGA Tour and, in the process, became the first player to win $100,000 in a season. Rankin was named player of the year twice and three times won the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average. She has been the captain of two U.S. Solheim Cup teams, both victorious, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. Her contributions to the game were recognized by the USGA when it presented her with the prestigious Bob Jones Award in 2002.

Since 1984, Rankin has been in the television booth, covering both men’s and women’s professional golf, earning a reputation as one of the best analysts in the business. It has allowed her to stay close to the game and appreciate its evolution.

“I think (women’s professional golf is) in the very best place it’s ever been. There have been years and periods of time when it was great, but right now it’s like their time has come,” Rankin says. “Along with that is an influx of a ridiculous level of talent and depth. Women’s golf is fortunate that people are now recognizing it. That’s the driving force.

“If you ever played at a high level you stand in awe at what some of the players today can do. I defy anybody to watch the Korda sisters (Jessica and Nelly) play golf and not walk away with their jaw dropped.”

Like seemingly everything else, golf has changed in recent years, and the women’s game is no exception. The LPGA Tour is truly global, and the introduction of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was like a booster shot to an already growing portion of the game.

Distance is a primary determinant in the women’s game, just as it is for the men. Rankin says it’s basic math — the longer a player can hit it, the more advantage they have going into greens with shorter clubs.

That’s not all that matters, but it has shifted the dynamic in recent years. So has the way players approach the game today. They are better prepared physically, mentally and through technology.

“The best example is Augusta,” Rankin says. “I don’t know if 30 years ago players in the amateur ranks would have had the talent or the composure to go play some of their best golf at Augusta. We saw (Jennifer) Kupcho do it, and now this 16-year old (Anna Davis) lit it up. That’s the kind of difference in the game and the difference in the young golfers.

“Maybe more of them know where it is they want to go and what they want to do because of the success of the LPGA Tour. If you go back into my time, it was not a very reasonable thing to do to turn pro. A lot of that drive and a lot of that composure is due to the LPGA and its success. A lot of people have seen them, and it’s an attractive place to be.

“Instead of being intimidated, they are inspired.”

As Rankin rolls on toward Midland, her personal horizon has widened. When she called the Chevron Championship in early April — won by Kupcho — it was her final major championship in a television booth. She is scheduled to work three more events this year but beyond those, she has nothing planned.

Rankin plays a little golf these days, rarely more than nine holes. She recently underwent surgery on her left hand related to Dupuytren’s contraction, an affliction that required surgery in her right hand about 15 years ago.

“This was all my choice. The Golf Channel has been great to me,” Rankin says. “I don’t know what would be down the road next year, but if there is any work at all, it would be very little. I’m 77, so it’s time. I had 25 years or whatever on the PGA Tour and I feel a little bit like a historian for the LPGA Tour. I will stay close to it. Maybe I’ll do a few other things, I don’t know.

“I felt like the time was right and I haven’t really looked back.”

Not with the road between Lubbock and Midland in front of her.   PS

Ron Green Jr. is a Charlotte native and a senior writer for Global Golf Post. He’s covered the game for over 30 years.

* The PineStraw Redux *

A little cocktail that changed the course of history (well, my history)

By Tony Cross   •   Photograph by John Gessner

 

A little over seven years ago, I was working behind a restaurant bar and, as the evening was starting to wind down, PineStraw’s Andie Rose walked over to say goodnight. She and a large group of her friends had just finished celebrating a birthday. She thanked me for her old fashioned and mentioned that the magazine had a 10th anniversary issue coming out that May.

“Would you be interested in creating a cocktail for the occasion?” she asked.

Without hesitation I agreed and told her that I’d be in touch. “Cool,” I thought to myself. That was immediately followed by, “What the hell am I going to do?”

At the time, my twin obsessions were working out and thinking of cocktail ideas. Even though my creative juices were flowing, I was scared to death of coming up with a drink that would be published and read about — not to mention drunk — by half the county.

“It’s got to have pine straw as an ingredient,” I thought. That quickly morphed into, “That will never work, but pine needles might.” I went to the end of the internet searching for ideas and came up empty. Ultimately, I decided to go with a pine needle simple syrup and work everything else in the cocktail around that. I chose pisco (a brandy from Peru or Chile) as the base spirit. I’d recently received a special order from our state’s ABC, and just happened to be in the middle of a love affair with it. The other ingredients included chamomile-infused dry vermouth, lemon juice, and a muddled strawberry. In retrospect, maybe I was trying to do too much in my head but I felt like I had something to prove. In the end, the article accompanying “The PineStraw” was very kind.

By the end of the summer, I was no longer with the restaurant. The idea of opening my own spot scared me. I was juggling notions of what to do next when my brother suggested I would crush it with a cocktail catering business. Southern Pines was growing faster than Jabba the Hutt, but I knew that I couldn’t make a living just catering gigs. There had to be something else.

One night while I was talking to myself in the shower (I’ve been barred from karaoke bars in seven states), the soap in my ears whispered what that “something else” was. Bottled carbonated cocktails for delivery. And that’s all it took to get me going. I named my business Reverie Cocktails after my brother’s daughter. Reverie means “daydream,” but it also meant “drunkenness” in 16th century France. Quelle chance!

My idea sounded great in the shower, but I had no clue how to carbonate cocktails, bottle cocktails, or start a business. Details, details. I was still jonesing from being behind the bar and would do anything to create a cocktail for someone, which led to another crazy idea. Maybe I could write about it. After chatting with the PineStraw folks, my first column (on punch) came out in December 2015.

Reverie Cocktails launched the next year. I figured out how to carbonate those cocktails and deliver them. The logistics have changed some, but the mission has remained the same. Not only do we sell our cocktails locally, we deliver to Wilmington, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, as well as locations in Ohio and Indiana. Soon we’ll be in our fourth state, West Virginia. All the while, I’ve been allowed to write about spirits, cocktails, techniques, and things that I never would have dreamed anyone would want to read about.

It’s come full circle this month as Reverie Cocktails debuts our PineStraw cocktail on draught and growler delivery. We’ve switched the pisco to equal parts Absolut vodka and Beefeater’s gin, but the pine needles, chamomile, lemon and strawberry are still there. It’s an honor to recreate a drink that helped launch my business. And for that, I thank you. PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (now ex-bartender) who runs the cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

Home Again

The history of women’s golf is embedded in the Sandhills

By Ron Sirak

From its earliest days, the road for women’s professional golf has wound its way across the Sandhills of North Carolina, not as a regular stop but rather as a special place where special people commanded center stage. This year, for the fourth time, the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in Southern Pines will be the site of the U.S. Women’s Open. And if the past is truly prelude, the Donald Ross masterpiece will have something special in store for 2022. The first three times the women’s championship of the USGA was at Pine Needles the winners were Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb and Cristie Kerr, a trio of LPGA royalty.

Sorenstam, with 72 wins, including 10 majors and three U.S. Women’s Open titles, and Webb, with 42 victories, seven majors including the U.S Women’s Open twice, are both in the World Golf Hall of Fame. They are also the last two who successfully defended the U.S. Women’s Open title, both sealing the double at Pine Needles. Kerr, with 20 victories and two majors, likely will join them in the Hall of Fame when she becomes age eligible.

Annika Sorenstam during the final round of the 1996 U.S. Women’s Open Championship at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, June 2, 1996.

Who will be part of that rich tradition this year? Nelly Korda or Jin Young Ko, whose battle for the 2021 LPGA Player of the Year went down to the last tournament? Lydia Ko, who won 14 times before her 20th birthday and after a lull of several years seems to have rediscovered that form at the age of 25? Americans Danielle Kang or Lexi Thompson? Seven-time major winner Inbee Park from South Korea? Or Nasa Hataoka of Japan, who might be the best in the women’s game without a major? Will Yuka Saso of the Philippines join Sorenstam and Webb and successfully defend the title she won last year at The Olympic Club?

While the special place the Sandhills holds in the game of golf was dug out in large part by the shovel of the architectural genius Donald Ross, the bold vision and sheer determination of the Bell family contributed greatly in solidifying that legacy. Also enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame is Peggy Kirk Bell, regarded by many as the 14th founder of the LPGA Tour.

A pioneer as a player, an instructor and a businesswoman, Peggy and her husband, Warren “Bullet” Bell, purchased Pine Needles in 1954 and restored it to its former glory. She is as much a part of the history of Pine Needles as Ross and those who have won championships there.

Peggy Kirk Bell, 2011
Peggy Kirk Bell and Warren “Bullet” Bell

Bell, who died in Southern Pines in 2016 at the age of 95, was not one of the 13 women to sign the original LPGA charter, but she was there from the beginning, finishing runner-up in the eighth LPGA Tour event ever played, losing in the finals of the 1950 Women’s Western Open 5 and 3 to Babe Zaharias at Cherry Hills Country Club in Colorado.

Born in Findlay, Ohio, Bell started playing golf at age 17 and quickly won a number of titles. She played college golf at Rollins College and won the Ohio Women’s Amateur three times, and in 1949 took the Titleholders Championship and the North and South Women’s Amateur. She was also a member of the 1950 U.S. Curtis Cup team.

When the U.S. Senior Women’s Open was played at Pine Needles in 2019, one of those in the field was Sally Austin, a former women’s golf coach at the University of North Carolina and an instructor at Pine Needles who was uniquely positioned to assess the impact of Bell on the women’s game.

“It is so special and I’ll get emotional thinking about this and how much she would’ve loved being here for this and seeing her friends playing and some of her students, of which I was one,” Austin said. “When they brought the first Open here, she was super excited. I know she’s looking down and smiling, so glad that it’s here. This is her legacy, and this golf course and all that her family has done to keep this alive.”

Bell’s early presence in the women’s professional game previewed the role Southern Pines was to play in women’s golf. The first time the LPGA Tour visited here was the 1951 Sandhills Women’s Open at Southern Pines Country Club. Patty Berg won and Zaharias was second. In 1959, Joyce Ziske won the Howard Johnson Invitational at Mid Pines Golf Club.

The first women’s major in Southern Pines was at Pine Needles in 1972, when Sandra Palmer won the last Titleholders Championship by 10 strokes over Mickey Wright and Judy Rankin. Palmer, who’s now 79, won 19 times on the LPGA, adding the 1975 U.S. Women’s Open to the Titleholders as her major championships.

“Pine Needles will certainly go down as one of my finest feats,” says Palmer, whose one-under-par 283 was the only score in red numbers that week. “No one really knows what remarkable golf I played that week except the Bells. Bullet had the course set up from the back tees. It was hard.”

Sandra Palmer, flanked by Peggy and Warren Bell

Dick Taylor, writing in Golf World magazine, gushed about both Palmer and Pine Needles, calling Palmer’s performance “one of the greatest showings seen on a genuine test of golf under valid conditions.” He likened the challenge of the Pine Needles set-up that week to that faced in a U.S. Open.

 

“If it is to be a major championship, a title bestowed by the thinking players and fans alike, then the course must be as dominant in the proceedings as the players,” Taylor wrote. “The 6,500-yard (and up) Donald Ross-designed Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., superbly fit the bill to such a point you would have thought by the complaints it was the men’s U.S. Open.”

The LPGA returned to the Sandhills in 1995 when Rosie Jones edged Dottie Pepper in a playoff to win the Pinewild Women’s Championship at Pinewild Country Club of Pinehurst. Since then, major championship women’s professional golf has visited the area five times — and it has never disappointed.

In 1996, Sorenstam backed up her breakthrough triumph a year earlier at the Broadmoor Golf Club by successfully defending her U.S. Women’s Open title with a magnificent display of shotmaking, hitting 51 of 56 fairways at Pine Needles as she topped Kris Tschetter by six strokes. Sorenstam was on a mission that week to prove she was not a one-hit wonder.

“Majors are always full of pressure,” says Sorenstam, looking back more than a quarter-century. “Being the defending champion adds to the pressure. I wanted to make sure that winning at the Broadmoor was not a fluke and that I belonged in the major champion circle.”

Sorenstam not only proved she belonged, she established the foundation for her Hall of Fame career, attacking Pine Needles with the relentless consistency that became the Swede’s trademark. Her worst effort that week was an opening even-par 70, which she followed with rounds of 67, 69 and 66 to finish at eight-under-par 272.

“I was totally in the zone that week,” she says. “I was on autopilot. I had prepared very well, and I loved the course. Also, being a friend of Peggy Kirk Bell made it even more special. She has done so much for the game, especially for women. Peggy shouted ‘Heineken’ after my last putt dropped. That was her nickname for me since my amateur days.”

The next time the U.S. Women’s Open came to Pine Needles is the last time anyone has taken home the trophy in back-to-back years as Webb romped to an eight-stroke victory over another future Hall of Famer — Se Ri Pak. That 2001 U.S. Women’s Open was contested in the midst of an incredible run of dominance in the four major championships by four future Hall of Fame players.

From 1998 through 2003, 18 of the 24 majors were won by Sorenstam, Pak and Juli Inkster, who captured four majors each during that stretch, and Webb, who took a half-dozen of the grand slam titles in that six-year period.

In 2001 Sorenstam, Pak and Webb — who also won the LPGA Championship (now the KPMG Women’s PGA) — swept the four majors and the next year, those three plus Inkster each took home a major trophy. Webb, however, was simply overwhelming at Pine Needles in 2001, carving out rounds of 70, 65, 69 and 69 to finish at seven-under-par 273, eight strokes ahead of Pak.

“My first U.S. Women’s Open had been in ’96 at Pine Needles,” Webb says. “I loved the course then and knew coming into ’01 that it fit my game. That was possibly the only time in my major career that I came in playing well, and I went to the first tee on Thursday knowing and expecting to be there on Sunday with a chance to win. I’m not sure I’ve played a major from start to finish as well.”

Webb, who is among the most gifted ballstrikers in the history of the women’s game, loved the challenge presented by the course, which demands not only precise physical execution but also a disciplined and well thought out mental approach.

Karrie Webb during the 2001 U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles

“Pine Needles is very much a second shot golf course,” Webb says. “It’s a true Donald Ross test in that way. Understanding where to hit in on the greens and where the slopes are that could feed the ball away from the hole or off the green completely is a big key. Being able to hit irons with the precision and distance control to certain spots on the greens is the key to playing well around there.”

Cristie Kerr tied for fourth place in that 2001 U.S. Women’s Open, and when she returned to Pine Needles in 2007 it was with the burden of being known as the best player on the LPGA Tour without a major championship title. She had nine career victories and had won eight of them over the three previous seasons, emerging as a contender to challenge Lorena Ochoa to succeed Sorenstam as the best player in the women’s game.

Kerr began slowly, opening with rounds of 71 and 72 on a layout that now played to a par-71. Then she put the hammer down in the third round, taking the lead with a 66 that began on Saturday and ended Sunday morning because of a rain delay. She took the lead for good with a birdie on No. 14 in the final round, then closed with four consecutive pars to better Ochoa and Angela Park by two strokes.

“I had won a bunch of tournaments but I had never won a major championship,” Kerr says about her mindset coming into Pine Needles in 2007. “My intention was to play myself into contention, and that’s exactly what I did. I got a lot of chances (in the third round) and my putter was hot. I was a freight train and nothing was going to stop me that week. I made a lot of 30-foot par saves.”

History was made in the Sandhills in 2014 when, for the first time, the U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Open were held at the same venue in back-to-back weeks as Michelle Wie edged Stacy Lewis by two strokes at Pinehurst No. 2 for her only major championship a week after Martin Kaymer mastered No. 2 for an eight-stroke victory.

Michelle Wie 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champion on Pinehurst’s No. 2 course

“One week changed my life,” Wie says. “That’s what the U.S. Women’s Open does. It creates opportunities for us to create life-changing moments. It’s not just one tournament. It’s a major that we look forward to, watching it when we were kids and playing on venues like we do. It means so much to me. That elevated visibility for our tour so much, and us being able to play on these top venues.” In 2029, the USGA will reprise the men’s and women’s back-to-back championships in Pinehurst.

And in 2019, the second-ever U.S. Senior Women’s Open was played at Pine Needles, following the event’s debut a year earlier at historic Chicago Golf Club, one of the five founding clubs of the USGA in 1894. Helen Alfredsson, who had her heart broken in the U.S. Women’s Open several times, won the U.S. Senior Women’s by two strokes over Inkster — yet another Hall of Fame member — and Trish Johnson.

Helen Alfredsson wins the 2019 U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Pine Needles

“I get goosebumps,” Alfredsson says about looking back on that victory. “The USGA events (are) the toughest events. It took everything and then some to win it. You had to have everything, all the ducks in a row, and you have to have putting, playing, ballstriking, and mentally because you know you’re going to make bogeys or even double bogeys, but you just have to keep going. I was very thrilled to also get it on a golf course like Pine Needles, which I thought was an amazing test.”

Just as the legacy of Donald Ross is burnished by the brilliance of Pine Needles, the enormous contributions of Peggy Kirk Bell and the Bell family to the game of golf are remembered each time a major championship returns to one of their properties. During the more than 60 years Peggy was the owner and head instructor at Pine Needles, she pioneered methods of teaching — especially to women — and infused students with her passion for the game.

Today, Pine Needles remains in the Bell family. Her daughters, Peggy Bell Miller and Bonnie Bell McGowan, are instructors, and her two sons-in-law, Kelly Miller and Pat McGowan, serve as Pine Needles’ president and director of instruction, respectively. Peggy has passed the torch to them.

When the 77th U.S. Women’s Open tees off on June 2, the quest will commence to see who takes the torch passed from Sorenstam to Webb to Kerr. The Sandhills of North Carolina serve as a cradle for golf in the United States. It is a place where the courses, as Dick Taylor said, are “as dominant as the players in the proceedings.”

Time and again, Pine Needles has shown that dominance. Now we find out which player is up to the challenge. Now we find out who will live up to the legacy of Ross and Bell as well as the standard of excellence established by Sorenstam, Webb and Kerr. Now it’s time to write the next page in the storied history of Sandhills golf.  PS

Ron Sirak worked for The Associated Press for 18 years, followed by 18 years with Golf World and Golf Digest magazines. He is past president of the Golf Writers Association of America and recipient of the PGA of America Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award; the LPGA Media Excellence Award; and the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association Lincoln Werden Award.

Story of a House

Fit for a Queen

Historic Pinehurst home gets the royal treatment

By Deborah Salomon 
Photographs by John Gessner

“What’s in a name?” Possibly, quite a bit, when applied to Red Brick Cottage.

This appellation, plus “1920,” appears on the shingle hanging outside this Pinehurst village showplace. Glenn Phillips, who with his wife, Pat, purchased the house in 2019, was intrigued. The retired luxury home-building executive, also a civil engineer, knew what to look for, like an original tile roof and copper gutters. He doubted the date, since brick was not common during the white clapboard teens when, in 1918 and 1919, Leonard Tufts sold two lots to H.B. Swoope, a Pennsylvania coal baron who snapped up the whole corner facing the Carolina Hotel. The superb construction suggested either a greater investment than its neighbors — or perhaps materials and workmanship bargain-priced during the Depression. Glenn searched village records for support.

“More likely (into the) ’30s,” he concluded, although one document on file at the Tufts Archives lists nothing more specific than the ’20s. Odd that no architect is mentioned, given its unusual quality and features, starting with ornamental brickwork around the front door.

In any event, Swoope died in 1927. His estate sold the property to A.C. Judd in 1929, who sold it to Sprigg Cameron in 1930, causing much confusion among family ghosts searching for their proper haunt.

Set far back from the street on an almost double lot, the house appears smaller than its actual 5,000 square feet. This optical illusion is furthered by an L-wing not visible from the front. The wing contains a garage with servants’ quarters over it — accessed by a back staircase — which are now charming guest bedrooms in refreshing blue and white, each big enough to hold two queen-sized beds. 

As for “cottage” — hardly. Cottages are sweet little lakefront dwellings. Brick previews the formality of a settled family dwelling, perhaps even year-round, although before residential AC even the ghosts headed north in July.

Provenance aside, Red Brick Cottage has weathered well. The cross-hall plan, four spacious bedrooms, five bathrooms, large (for the era) kitchen and costly mullioned casement windows throughout support this idea.

And now, Red Brick Cottage has reclaimed its purpose. The Phillips family will use it as a seasonal gathering place for their adult children and two grandchildren, giving them more indoor space than their longtime primary residence: a 42-acre horse farm in Durham where they raised a son and three daughters in 2,400 square feet, with two bathrooms.

The Phillips family, originally from New Jersey, discovered Pinehurst while attending their children’s equestrian banquet at the Carolina Hotel. During subsequent visits they walked the village, liked what they saw. “This is a place where I thought I could live,” Glenn recalls. In addition, businesswoman Pat and daughter Veronica wanted to acquire a boutique. Monkee’s in Southern Pines was available.

How better could the stars align?

But real estate fulfilling the Phillips’ requirements (size, quality, proximity to shops and restaurants) is always scarce. Connections count.

They learned of Red Brick Cottage from Cathy Maready, an interior designer who had done their beach house on Figure Eight Island. Maready knew of its upcoming availability through the owner. The transaction was completed without the house ever hitting the market. It needed only minor upgrades, including a larger bathroom for the master bedroom, which Glenn and Pat moved to the main floor study adjoining the living room — unusual but practical as homeowners age. Luckily the new stall shower fit into an empty elevator shaft.

Since they would bring nothing from Durham, what the Phillips needed was an interior designer familiar with their tastes to interpret, locate, select and deliver.

“A dream client,” says Maready, who was given a budget and free rein.

The only mandate: Create décor that fit the pre-Depression era, as if rescued along with the house from a time capsule.

Furnishings that fit the description do exist but require legwork. Maready had a better idea: a package. None was more suitable than reproductions licensed by Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, the ninth Earl Spencer. Known as the Althorp Collection, these pieces duplicate chairs, tables, sofas, chests and accessories found at the 90-room ancestral manor the Spencers have occupied for 500 years in Northamptonshire. Diana is buried at Althorp.

Maready met the Earl when he launched the collection at the High Point furniture mart. From this finely crafted array she created a portfolio for the main floor living room, master bedroom, hallway, dining room and wherever appropriate.

“I look at (my clients’) faces,” Maready says. “I want them to feel pretty in that space.”

Almost all her selections were approved, some country English, others to the castle born, allowing for inlaid woods, a crushed blue velvet sofa, case pieces, a butterfly table, a needlepoint box on legs, imaginative prints against which guests might imagine Lady Di and her little brother playing hide-and-seek. Maready invested in vibrant jewel tones of blue, green and red merged in the carpets. The game room and sun porch are done in sunny shades and less formal designs. Glenn, a details person, points out the game room fireplace, converted to gas but with fake coal that glows instead of logs.

Formality satisfied, he wanted a “fun” place to live, as expressed in a Chinese hunt motif fabric on game room chairs.

Original floors throughout are an unusual combination of narrow and wide boards in both clear and knotty pine, probably sourced locally.

The kitchen — already remodeled when the Phillips purchased Red Brick Cottage — defies period or classification. Long and narrow, it has full-sized sinks, one farmer and one oval, on each side. Down the middle, instead of an island stands a table big enough to seat eight on three-legged stools, and tall enough to double as a work surface. This European kitchen staple is joined by cupboards that are free-hung rather than built-in, two ovens set into a column, a backsplash in black, and antique red ceramic tiles. The effect is vaguely Scandinavian.

A few family heirlooms, including a writing desk belonging to Glenn’s aunt, supplement the Althorp manor ensemble. Wall-mounted TV screens with hidden wires and picture frames display fine art when the game is over.

But the blue ribbon is the oversized dining room papered in a blue avian print so dense that diners seated at a table for 12 can almost hear the birds chirping, feel their wings fluttering.

A brick veranda across the back opens out onto a lawn big enough for croquet, should they wish. The house, the garden, the location, the furnishings and paintings, it has fulfilled the new residents’ desire for authenticity, bringing back a period seldom honored — when conversation was among friends, not with Siri; when books were printed on paper and music spun on black vinyl discs. “Everything here is so much more relaxed versus our horse farm,” Glenn says.

“We are a very close family,” Pat adds. “Now we have a house where we can all be together, a house where all the dots have been connected.”

After a deep breath: “I feel like a queen.”  PS

Great Scot

Dorothy Campbell Hurd — first international star of the women’s game

By  Bill Case   •   Photographs from the Tufts Archives

In March 1912, Miss Dorothy Campbell arrived in Pinehurst for a month-long stay at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Fownes. The 28-year-old Scot was no ordinary houseguest. Acclaimed as the greatest female golfer in the world, she had already won 10 national titles in an astounding run from 1905 to 1912.

It began modestly. To her genuine surprise, in 1903 at age 20, Campbell reached the semifinals of her native country’s most important title, the Scottish Ladies Championship. “I only possessed four clubs at the time, and I had no experience at match play,” she later wrote.

But she was just getting started. In 1905, she reached the semis of the British Ladies Amateur. Two weeks later, her breakthrough victory came in the Scottish Ladies, contested on her home course, North Berwick’s West Links. A throng of 4,000 cheered the hometown lass to a hard-won, 19-hole victory over Molly Graham in the final match. Miss Campbell would repeat as Scottish champion in 1906 and win the title a third time in 1908.

Campbell seemed poised to win her first British Ladies Championship in 1908 when she made the finals at St. Andrews’ Old Course. A massive crowd of 9,000 spectators, including Old Tom Morris, attended. Battling abysmal weather marked by hail and gale force winds, the drenched Campbell heartbreakingly lost the match to Maud Titterton on the 19th hole.

Her disappointment would be assuaged in 1909 when she finally won the British Ladies at Royal Birkdale. After the final match, an overbearing official blocked Campbell’s path to the awards ceremony.

“Are you a golfer?” the official demanded.

Campbell replied, “I don’t think so, but I believe they will want me inside to receive the championship cup!”

The victory resulted in an invitation from the United States Golf Association — itself only 15 years old — to play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship that summer at Philadelphia’s Merion Cricket Club, now Merion Golf Club. Campbell accepted and made her first Atlantic crossing. She adapted quickly to Merion’s parkland layout and sailed through preliminary matches to the final, where she faced a tough challenge. Her opponent, Mrs. Nonna Barlow, was a Merion member. Barlow had Campbell one down after nine holes, but the unflappable Scot took control down the stretch, winning the match 3 and 2, making her the first foreign-born player to win the U.S. title and the first to take the British and U.S. championships in the same year.

Dorothy and Jack Hurd

She successfully defended her U.S. Women’s Championship in 1910 at Homewood Country Club in Illinois, the first to win back-to-back. Although it was match play, her “medal” score of 78 in the second round was the lowest ever posted by a woman on a course longer than 6,000 yards. Campbell crossed the border into Canada, too, to capture the first of three consecutive Canadian Ladies Championships, and even established a permanent residence in Hamilton, Ontario. She returned to Great Britain in 1911 to compete in the British Ladies at Portrush and won that title for the second time, rebounding from a 3-down deficit to win 3 and 2.

During her 1912 sojourn in Pinehurst with the Fownes family, Campbell set her sights on winning the prestigious United North and South Amateur Championship. She posted the best score in the qualifying round by four shots and was a heavy favorite to add the championship trophy to her burgeoning collection. She reached the final match but was upset by Kate Van Ostrand, who clinched victory when her pitch on the final hole hit the pin.

The Fowneses, Campbell’s Pinehurst hosts, were kindred spirits and golf royalty. W.C. (Bill) Fownes won the 1910 U.S. Amateur. Bill and his father, Henry Fownes, founded and ran Oakmont Country Club, considered America’s most exacting test of championship golf. Bill and his wife, Sarah, saw to it that Campbell’s Pinehurst golf calendar was filled with matches and club competitions. 

As esteemed members of the “Cottage Colony,” the Fowneses knew everybody in the village’s upper crust. Among their many friends was 35-year-old bachelor Jack Vandevort Hurd, who, like Bill and Henry Fownes, worked in the steel business in Pittsburgh and was a member at Oakmont.

The Fowneses introduced Jack and Dorothy, and a year later, on Feb. 11, 1913, they were married in Hamilton, Ontario, in front of relatives and a few close friends. Following the ceremony, handsome and dapper Jack whisked his bride back across the border to his home in the Steel City. For a champion golfer like Dorothy, with a husband who was a member at Oakmont, Pittsburgh was an ideal place to begin married life. Better yet, she and her husband would be making extended winter visits to Pinehurst. Dorothy would become an American citizen, though forever retaining “her delightful Scotch burr as well as the poise and graciousness of her kind,” according to another champion, Glenna Collett.

Before the end of 1912, Dorothy gave birth to a son, Sigourney Hurd, and golf began to play second fiddle. She supervised the building of a second home in Pinehurst that fronted on the town’s village green. The turreted house at 10 Village Green East, fashioned after an English hunting lodge, was part of a Hurd family compound since Jack’s parents and brother, Nat, owned homes just a niblick shot away. A woman of many talents, Dorothy authored frequent and lengthy instructional articles for Golf Illustrated and Golf Monthly, played the piano and composed songs. She even knitted socks for Allied soldiers during World War I.

While her collection of national championships slowed after her marriage, Hurd still dominated club play in both Pittsburgh and Pinehurst, where she played regularly during the winter as a member of the club’s female golfing society, the Silver Foils. “The Pinehurst courses are proverbial,” she remarked in an article, “for the way they can become dry in a few hours and the next day see play go gaily on.” 

During her 10 seasons in Pinehurst, Hurd won the prestigious North and South Women’s championships held in 1918, ’20, and ’21. The number of trophies collected by “Mrs. J.V. Hurd” in other Pinehurst tournaments is incalculable, but the Pinehurst Outlook provided a glimpse of her dominance in winning the St. Valentine’s Day tournament of 1918: “Mrs. Hurd was going (on) in her famous and invincible fashion — not long, but straight and inevitable.”

By 1922 the Hurds’ marriage was unraveling. One telltale sign was the terse paragraph in a March edition of the Outlook reporting that Mrs. J.V. Hurd would not be around to defend the North and South title she had won the previous two years. The couple divorced a year later and Dorothy steered clear of the Hurd family haunts in Pinehurst and Pittsburgh thereafter. Since the couple’s new Pinehurst winter home was completed not long before their separation, it seems unlikely that she spent much time there. She moved her primary residence to Philadelphia and joined the Merion Cricket Club, site of her first U.S. triumph.

With the divorce in the rearview mirror, Hurd dedicated herself to climbing back into golf’s top ranks. Never a long hitter, she’d managed to overcome that deficiency during her championship run with the deadly use of her vaunted goose-necked mashie — an adored weapon that eliminated a previous tendency to shank. She used the club, christened “Thomas,” for run-up shots near the green. It proved especially effective from around 40 yards. In the 1921 North and South, Hurd holed two such shots in the final match to clinch the championship. In emphasizing the importance of the mashie in a Golf Illustrated article, she flashed her dry wit, writing, “Bernard Shaw’s axiom that we should exercise great care in the selection of our parents can be applied with equal force to the choosing of a mashie.”

But several women in the newest wave of fine amateurs — most notably Marion Hollins, tennis star Mary K. Browne, and the powerful Glenna Collett — were driving the ball 50-70 yards past Hurd’s. It was too great an advantage for Dorothy and or “Thomas” to overcome. At 40, could any pro help an aging champion find enough driving distance to enable her to compete against the new wave?

The Merion pro who stepped forward to assist was a man Dorothy Campbell had known in North Berwick: George Sayers. “George was born and brought up in my hometown, and I have known him since he was a boy,” she later recalled. “He told me he could help me change my swing but it would entail inordinate practice.” She had nothing to lose by trying.

Sayers wasn’t the first member of his family to teach golf to Hurd. Thirty years previously, his father, Ben Sayers, taught young Dorothy Campbell back in North Berwick. Dorothy’s home, Inchgarry House, was located hard by the 18th tee of the West Links, and she absorbed the game almost from birth, taking her first swing with a “six-penny” club at 18 months. It became common for golfers mounting the West Links’ 18th tee to encounter the toddler swinging a miniature club outside Inchgarry’s garden gate. In a piece for Golf Illustrated, Hurd wrote “that the fates decreed that I should be fairly impregnated with a golfing atmosphere from the very beginning, even if the family fable that I cut my teeth on the head of a cleek be not true.”

George Sayers switched Hurd’s unorthodox grip (the right thumb under the shaft) to the more conventional Vardon grip. He convinced her to jettison her stiff-wristed sweeping style in favor of a more fluid and athletic move to the ball. A grip change is one of golf’s most daunting projects, and Hurd worked on her new swing and grip for eight months with the sort of single-mindedness that would later mark Ben Hogan’s unceasing practice. She hit balls until the joint on her index finger became a raw wound, but once the changes began taking hold, she unlocked more power. Encouraged, she set her sights on entering the 1924 U.S. Women’s Amateur, held that year at Rhode Island Country Club, the stomping grounds of pre-tournament favorite, Glenna Collett, then in the midst of the greatest year of her Hall of Fame career.

With her best days more than a decade behind her, it was going to be a steep climb for Hurd. The mental aspect of the game was a subject she frequently wrote about in Golf Illustrated. She stressed “absolute concentration on the matter at hand, determination not to let bad luck discourage us and the resolve never to give up hope until the match is over . . . If it can be instilled into a player’s mind he can do a thing, he will generally be able to do it.”

Hurd cautioned against fits of pique with her customary drollness. “A certain theologian whom I have met has more than once told me that he considers the game of golf to be a most dangerous and harmful one, confiding that it’s bad for a man’s character for the same reason that a Presbyterian sergeant in the Boer War objected to bayonet charges — because it makes the men swear so.”

But whether her mental strength would be enough to give Hurd a meaningful chance against the likes of Collett, Browne and Hollins was open for debate. Even with her newfound distance, she would still be hitting second shots from 30 yards or more behind the long knockers.

Having cut her teeth in North Berwick, Hurd was quite comfortable coping with the stiff breezes off Narragansett Bay at the championship site. Her drives were traveling respectable distances, and chips by her ever-reliable mashie were resulting in “gimme” putts. Hurd breezed through to the final, where the smart money had her facing Glenna Collett — once Collett took care of two-sport star Browne in the other semifinal, that is. Collett hadn’t lost a match all year, but Browne scored an upset when her off-line putt at the 19th hole caromed off Collett’s ball and into the cup for victory.

In the final, Hurd was slow getting off the mark and trailed early. Then her putter — nicknamed Stella — caught fire. After 27 holes, Hurd had a 7-up lead. Three holes later, the match was closed out 7 and 6. Hurd’s victory set two U.S. Women’s Amateur records that remain unequaled — oldest winner (41), and most years between titles in the championship (14).

Hurd continued to play well throughout the 1920s and ’30s, winning five Philadelphia district titles. Stella, her deadeye putter, brought her another record in 1926. Playing Augusta Country Club, she used just 19 putts in 18 holes, finishing that amazing round with a chip-in by Thomas on the 18th.

In 1937 Hurd married banker and non-golfer Edward Howe, but the marriage only lasted six years. At age 55, Hurd — then Howe — won the U.S. Women’s Senior Championship. By her own estimation, during her lifetime she won over 700 first prizes.

Tragedy befell Jack Hurd and his second wife, Caroline, when they both perished in an automobile accident in Wilmington, North Carolina, in May 1930. An accident would also end Dorothy’s life.

In 1945, after visiting friends in Beaufort, South Carolina, she was traveling by train to Pleasantville, New York, to visit her son’s wife, Ruth, while he was serving in the Army in the Philippines. As she was changing trains in Yemassee, South Carolina, Dorothy inexplicably lost her footing and fell into the path of an oncoming locomotive. She was 61 at the time of her death.

Dorothy Campbell Hurd Howe — with her mashie Thomas and her putter Stella — was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978. She wrote that the great shots she played so often with her favorite clubs were “almost second nature to me.” So was winning. PS

Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.

Powerhouses of the Pacific

By Bill Fields

Se Ri Pak, who retired from a Hall of Fame career in 2016, didn’t compete in the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open, but as sure as there was drama during a topsy-turvy final round at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, her enduring influence on golf was clear.

Se Ri Pak celebrates during the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open Championship.

By winning the U.S. Women’s Open in 1998 — along with the LPGA Championship that same season — Pak ignited a golf revolution in the Republic of Korea. Many girls in Pak’s home nation were brought into the sport through the groundbreaking achievements of the 20-year-old major champion, with South Koreans soon becoming a force on the LPGA Tour. Nearly a quarter-century since Pak motivated her countrywomen to excel, women golfers from across Asia have made an astonishing impact in majors and beyond.

Chako Higuchi of Japan (1977 LPGA Championship) was the only Asian, female or male, to win a major title prior to Pak’s breakthrough. Starting in 1998, 25 women representing six Asian countries have won 45 of the 104 majors that have been played. Trophies have been lifted by athletes from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, China and the Philippines. (Two major victories by Korean-born Lydia Ko, who plays for New Zealand, where she grew up, aren’t counted in the total.)

Their success has been particularly striking at the U.S. Women’s Open, where Asian players have captured 11 of the last 14 editions of the oldest major in women’s golf — a championship that was won by only three international players in its first four decades: Faye Crocker, Uruguay, 1955; Catherine Lacoste, France, 1967; Jan Stephenson, Australia, 1983.

Yuka Saso wasn’t a familiar name to American golf fans until early last June. That changed when the 19-year-old representing the Philippines steadied herself from a rough start on Sunday at The Olympic Club. Saso capitalized when Lexi Thompson lost a large lead over the final eight holes, coming home in 41 strokes on a course notorious for being the place where Arnold Palmer blew a seven-shot advantage after 63 holes at the 1966 U.S. Open to fall into a tie with Billy Casper, who defeated him the following day in a playoff.

Yuka Saso poses with fans and the trophy after winning the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club

With Thompson throwing away her hold on the championship, Saso, who trailed by six strokes through No. 10, closed with a 73 and tied Nasa Hataoka of Japan at 280. On the third playoff hole, Saso made a birdie to win the Harton S. Semple Trophy and the $1 million first prize. The daughter of a Filipina mother (Fritzie) and Japanese father (Masakazu), Saso matched Inbee Park of South Korea (2008, Interlachen Country Club) as youngest U.S. Women’s Open champion. Uncannily, Park, who has gone on to win seven major titles, and Saso were each 19 years, 11 months, 17 days old at the time of their victories.

“I was just looking at all the great players on (the trophy),” Saso said after winning. “I can’t believe my name is going to be here.”

Five other golfers from the Far East finished in the top 10 behind Saso and Hataoka at The Olympic Club, further proof of the region’s strength in the women’s game. A milestone was reached last fall when Jin Young Ko won the BMW Ladies Championship in her homeland. It was the 200th LPGA victory by South Koreans.

“This is a tremendous honor,” said Ko, No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings, the ninth Asian golfer to sit atop the list since its formation in 2006. “And I think it’s very fortunate that I am the player, the 200th-win player, and I actually think that it’s really fortunate that it was an event held in Korea as well. Obviously, being the player of the 200th win by Koreans was not a goal that I was working toward. It just happens that I was really focused, and I did my best and this came along.”

The trail of success for South Koreans that culminated with Ko’s landmark victory began with little fanfare in 1988. Ok-Hee Ku broke through that spring at the Standard Register Turquoise Classic in Arizona, defeating standouts Dottie Pepper and Ayako Okamoto, of Japan, a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour. Because the 1988 Summer Olympics were being held in Seoul, the country’s attention was focused on that, and Ku’s victory got little attention — certainly compared to the fanfare that greeted Pak’s double-major success a decade later. It was a start, though, and brought to mind a Korean proverb: “If you collect pieces of dust, eventually you will have a mountain.”

Ku, who won 23 tournaments on the LPGA of Japan, never added to her lone LPGA victory. She died at age 56 in 2013, by which time Koreans had become a dominant force on the LPGA Tour.

“I can’t imagine that so many Korean women are playing and succeeding on the LPGA, even in my dreams,” Ku told Golf World two years before her death.

The timing for golf to bloom was better when Pak, a golfer who interspersed smiles between powerful and accurate shots, came along. When Pak returned to her native soil in late 1998 after triumphing in America, her hero’s welcome was complicated by the fact that she was worn out, hounded by paparazzi even as she was treated for exhaustion and a viral infection in a hospital.

Pak knew she would be a beacon for women golfers coming up behind her, but that so many talented players emerged surprised her. “To be the best, you have to put everything into it,” Pak said a decade ago. “But they shouldn’t have too much pressure, extra pressure. But I think they feel it. There is only one No. 1 spot.”

The battle in 2021 for first place at The Olympic Club’s Lake Course — hosting the women for the first time after being a five-time U.S. Open site for the men — was intriguing. Megha Ganne, a 17-year-old amateur from New Jersey, shared the first-round lead and remained in contention at three under par, tied for third place, through 54 holes. Ganne’s performance put her in the final grouping on Sunday with Thompson, whose Saturday 66 put her at 7 under, one stroke ahead of Saso.

It was just Saso’s third appearance in the U.S. Women’s Open. Although Thompson was only 26 years old, she was competing in her 15th national championship, having debuted at Pine Needles in 2007 when she was 12. The talented and popular Floridian arrived in San Francisco with 11 career LPGA victories, the most recent two years earlier. Despite her skills, Thompson had only one major title, the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

When Thompson played a steady front nine at Olympic and Saso carded double bogeys at the second and third holes, it looked as if her major drought would be coming to an end and Saso would be left with a learning experience. “I was actually a little upset,” Saso said of her shaky start. “But my caddie talked to me and said, ‘Just keep on going. There are many more holes to go.’ That’s what I did.”

Strange things tend to happen at the famed Bay Area club — in addition to Palmer’s 1966 collapse, favored Ben Hogan (1955) and Tom Watson (1987) suffered U.S. Open disappointments there — and Thompson played a poor back nine, unable to close. A bogey on the final hole meant Thompson wasn’t even going to make the playoff and give herself a chance for redemption the way Ariya Jutanugarn did in the 2018 championship at Shoal Creek, where the Thai star lost a 7-shot lead with nine to play but won a playoff against Hyo-Joo Kim.

Ariya Jutanugarn won the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open in a playoff with Korea’s Kim Hyo-joo

In contrast to Thompson’s back-nine slide, Saso birdied Nos. 16 and 17 to tie Hataoka, whose 68 was one of only four closing scores under 70. After both players parred the two holes of an aggregate playoff, Saso’s birdie in sudden death made the difference as she became the 11th consecutive major champion from outside the United States, the longest American drought in women’s golf history, that Nelly Korda soon ended at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

To see Saso swing — taut, complete turn going back, hips quickly and fully clearing on the way through — is to think of another world-class golfer. Saso modeled her action after that of four-time major winner Rory McIlroy, watching his swing for many hours on YouTube. The similarity of their movements is striking when viewed side-by-side on video. Two weeks after winning the Women’s Open, Saso got to meet her idol as he played a practice round at Torrey Pines Golf Course for the U.S. Open. His advice to Saso: Keep a swing journal. “Everyone’s got a blueprint of what their swing is,” McIlroy told reporters. “If they keep on top of it and they do the same things, do the same drills over time, you fast forward 20 years you’re probably going to have a really good career.”

The first major winner from the Philippines, a country of more than 100 million with just 100 or so golf courses, Saso isn’t the first talented Filipina to earn golf headlines. More than 80 years ago, Dominga Capati, a laundress on a Manila sugar estate that bordered a golf course, picked up the game and defeated visiting foreign women players in the Philippine Women’s Open. A couple of decades later, in 1964, Capati played for the Philippines in the inaugural Espírito Santo Trophy, an international women’s competition. The Dominga Capati Memorial Tournament is still played to honor her contributions to golf.

Saso had plenty of support as she made history at the Olympic Club. Nearby Daly City is known as “Little Manila” for its large number of Filipinos. “I don’t know what’s happening in the Philippines right now, but I’m just thankful that there’s so many people in the Philippines cheering for me,” Saso said. “I don’t know how to thank them. They gave me so much energy. I want to say thank you to everyone.”

When the defending champion tees off at Pine Needles, she will be playing under a different flag. Saso, who competed for the Philippines in the Tokyo Olympics last summer, is now representing Japan. Under Japan’s Nationality Law, a person must choose one nationality before turning 22 years old. Saso cited business reasons, particularly the ease of global travel with a Japanese passport, for making the switch.

“We are obviously saddened to see her go, but she will always be Japanese and Filipino to us,” Bones Floro, an executive with the National Golf Association of the Philippines, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We hope that our countrymen understand and respect her decision. It’s sad that we lost her in terms of representation. But Yuka will always have a special place in our hearts as a Filipino, and we are happy for her.”

A golfer representing Japan has never won the U.S. Women’s Open. If Saso successfully defends her title — Australian Karrie Webb is the last to do so, at Pine Needles in 2001 — she would make history two years running. Given the Asian success of the last couple of decades, it wouldn’t be wise to bet against her.  PS