Amy Alcott

Hometown

Kansas City

Missouri

Year Inducted

1999

Inducted Category

Competitor

Birthdate

Feb 22,1956

Major Championships: 5

Peter Jackson Classic: 1979
U.S. Women’s Open: 1980
Kraft Nabisco Championship: 1983, 1988, 1991

Additional LPGA Tour Wins: 24

1975: Orange Blossom Classic
1976: LPGA Classic, Colgate Far East Championship
1977: Houston Exchange Clubs Classic
1978: American Defender Classic
1979: Elizabeth Arden Classic, United Virginia Bank Classic, Mizuno Japan Classic
1980: American Defender/WRAL Classic, Mayflower Classic, Inamori Golf Classic
1981: Bent Tree Ladies Classic, Lady Michelob
1982: Women’s Kemper Open
1984: United Virginia Bank Classic, Lady Keystone Open, Portland PING Championship, San Jose Classic
1985: Circle K Tucson Open, Moss Creek Women’s Invitational, Nestle World Championship of Women’s Golf
1986: Mazda Hall of Fame Championship, LPGA National Pro-Am
1989: Boston Five Classic

Additional Wins: 2

1981: Mitsukoshi International Golf Tournament
1986: Mazda Champions (with Bob Charles)

Legends Tour Wins: 1

2019: ANA Inspiration Legends Day

Amateur Wins: 1

1973: USGA Junior Girls

Awards & Honors

Golf

LPGA Rookie of the Year: 1975
Vare Trophy: 1980
Golf Magazine Player of the Year Award: 1980
Samaritan Award: 1984
Golf Digest-LPGA Founders Cup: 1986
Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame: 1990
National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum: 2003
Southern California Golf Association Hall of Fame: 2011
LPGA ‘Pioneer’: 2018

General

Henry P. Iba Citizen Athlete Award: 2005

Amy Alcott had waited to join the World Golf Hall of Fame for a long time. She had been on the cusp of entering the Hall since she captured her third Dinah Shore Classic in 1991 and plunged into the pond alongside the 18th green to celebrate the occasion. It was one of the shining moments of Alcott’s illustrious career, but since then she had been reminded for what she had not accomplished – that elusive 30th win that would grant her instant access through the LPGA Points system into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Whenever she competed, she said she heard well-meaning fans say, “Come on, Amy. You can win one more and get in (the Hall of Fame).” These warm wishes of support were a constant reminder of how close she truly was to joining an elite group.

On February 9, 1999, Alcott’s wait ended; not when she won again, but when the LPGA membership overwhelmingly voted in favor of a point system for active players and the creation of a 12-person veterans committee. She and Beth Daniel were the immediate benefactors of the new qualification standards.

“You have to be a perfectionist. You have to hate playing badly more than you love playing well. You have to hate losing more than you love winning.”

“Looking at my career and Amy’s career, I felt we were Hall of Famers for quite some time,” said Daniel.

The former qualifications were considered the most rigorous in professional sports. Only 14 players had met the standards since 1950, and none since Betsy King in 1985.

“The goal of the Hall of Fame is to honor those players that dominated women’s golf during their era,” said then-LPGA Commissioner Jim Ritts. “As the tour has grown in stature and the depth of talent expanded, the existing criteria precluded some of the tour’s greatest players from gaining recognition. The hallmark of the newly approved criteria is that the Hall of Fame will remain performance-based, and yet it is an attainable achievement for the elite players of today.”

Indeed, Alcott was a dominant player of her era. A native of Kansas City, Alcott joined the LPGA in 1975 after capturing the 1973 USGA Girls’ Junior at age 17. On her 19th birthday, in only the third LPGA Tour event she entered, she won the Orange Blossom Classic and went on to win LPGA Rookie of the Year.

Fact

Hanse Golf Course Design, of which Amy Alcott is a part, was selected by the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee to design the golf course in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic Games in 2016.

Since then, she blazed irons better than almost anyone in the game to amass 29 victories during her pro career, including five Majors. With her two victories in 1986, Alcott had 15 top-10 finishes, including winning the Nabisco Dinah Shore and becoming only the third LPGA member to surpass the $2 million mark in career earnings. She continued her winning ways and reached the $3 million mark in 1994.

“To be honored in the great circles of golf, to be enshrined with the other great Hall of Famers is something that I truly looked forward to,” said Alcott at the press conference announcing her place in the Hall of Fame. “In my heart, I have felt that I’ve had a Hall of Fame career.”

Alcott has continued to impact the game since her playing career ended. In 2008, she was named to the Advisory Board of the Southern California PGA Foundation. And from 2001-04, she was a major part of an LPGA event, the Office Depot Championship Hosted by Amy Alcott.

She has also been involved in course design, consulting on Indian Canyons Golf Course in Palm Springs, California, and Brick Landing Golf Club in Ocean Isle, North Carolina. In March 2012, Alcott’s crowning course design achievement came when she paired with Hanse Golf Course Design to create the winning bid to design the golf course in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the 2016 Olympics.

Amy Alcott was originally inducted through the LPGA category.