Peerless book review

Unparalleled: Joyce Wethered, Glenna Collett and the rise of women’s golf
by Stephen Proctor
Grade: A+
Teacher’s Comment: A wonderful account of a largely forgotten part of golf history.

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The 1920s are aptly called ‘the golden age of sports’. Baseball, college football, boxing, auto racing, horse racing, golf and others dominated the headlines. Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby. Red Grange and George Gipp. Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Pop Warner. Jim Thorpe and the fledgling NFL. Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. Bill Tilden and Rene Lacoste (yes, the shirt). Man O War and the Triple Crown. Gaston Chevrolet (yes, the car company is named after the driver), Indianapolis and Le Mans. Olympic stars Johnny Weissmuller (later famous as Tarzan in the films) and Paavo Nurmi.

And of course Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Chick Evans, Francis Ouimet, Ted Ray, Tommy Armor and other stars of the links.

Sadly forgotten by modern audiences, but also making headlines in the 1920s, was a group of female golfers such as Joyce Wethered, Glenna Collett, Alexa Stirling, Cecil Leitch, Marion Hollins and Molly Gourlay.

by Stephen Proctor Peerless is a long-awaited look at women’s golf in the sport’s Golden Age, told through the framework of the careers of two peerless players: Joyce Weathered and Glenna Collett.

Wethered, an Englishwoman, was known for a swing that was compared to Bobby Jones. Frame-by-frame examination of film at the time revealed that the two were virtually identical. Wethered won the British Ladies Amateur Championship four times and the English Ladies Amateur Championship five years in a row. Wethered was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1975.

Collett, an American, was known for her powerful, accurate drive and strong iron play. She once hit a ball 307 yards off the tee. In 1924 she won 59 of the 60 events she competed in. She won six U.S. Women’s Amateurs and 49 total championships between 1922 and 1935. She was part of the U.S. team that won the first Curtis Cup and was player captain in 1934, 1936, 1938 and 1948.

The LPGA’s Vare Trophy is named after Collett (her married name was Vare). Collett-Vare was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1975.

The two first met in a match at Troon at the British Ladies Amateur in 1925. Wethered defeated Collett 4 and 3 in the 18-hole semi-finals. That match sparked a transatlantic rivalry that culminated in the 1929 British Ladies Amateur at St. Andrews. That match, which covered an entire chapter in Proctor’s history, attracted 10,000 spectators and left legendary golf writer Bernard Darwin at a loss for words: “Many swear words will be used to describe the swings of the match and the quality of the play,” Darwin wrote. “I don’t feel fit for the effort.”

Collett never personally defeated Wethered.

Through the careers of these two legendary women, Proctor introduces the reader to other impactful, but largely forgotten, female stars of the era.

I was particularly intrigued by Marion Hollins, who followed a fine playing career with an even more impactful career as a golf course developer. She was instrumental in the development of Cypress Point, Pasatiempo and the Women’s National Golf and Tennis Club on Long Island. She also worked as athletic director for Del Monte Properties.

Moly Gourlay was a British golfer who, after a top-level career, became the first female golf architect.

In addition to describing the golf league and its players, Proctor draws a through line that connects the women’s game to larger social changes at the time and also to more modern institutions. For example, the LPGA is the result of the proof of concept developed in the 1920s and 1930s that people would see women’s golf. Ten thousand turned up for the 1929 British Women’s Amateur. Wethered’s 1935 American exhibition tour attracted large crowds.

And, Proctor argues, sport in general and golf in particular were part of the bigger picture:

Golf’s ongoing conversation about men and women has never been solely about on-court performance. Since the days when Lottie Dod won tennis and golf championships and climbed the world’s highest mountains, sports had been merely a stage to show that there was no limit to what women could achieve.

Proctor is a skilled writer who brings to life the lives of the women, their matches and the times in which they played. Furthermore, Peerless is meticulously researched, with thirty pages of notes and bibliography at the end. The combination of detail and lively, but concise writing makes Peerless a fascinating read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in golf history.

Also check out my review of another of Proctor’s books: The Long Golden Afternoon, which covers golf history from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War.

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