Amy Alcott - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:14

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and Bruce Devlin. I always like it when we get these younger guests on. Yeah. And uh this lady, uh, among other things, I mean obviously we'll hear about her great uh uh golf record, but uh she started one of the most iconic traditions of the major championship that has ever been, and I'm sure we'll hear all about that as well.

Bruce Devlin 0:40

That's right. Well, you know something she's won 34 golf uh professional golf tournaments around the world, and she's she's won five majors, and just to give you an idea of how much she likes the majors. Those five majors, she won by 24 shots. So when she get when she gets a chance to win a major, man, it's all over, and we're what we want to welcome Amy Alcott joining us today. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Alcott 1:10

Thank you, Bruce and Mike. Great great to be here with you. Love the game, happy to talk about the game.

Bruce Devlin 1:18

Yeah, and what a game you had. Yeah, well, you still probably do.

Amy Alcott 1:24

Yeah, you know, I got some new clubs recently that are, you know, you finally have to uh kind of uh turn the turn the corner and go with something lighter and graphite and all of that stuff so you don't, you know, screw yourself in the ground. But I've got some new irons that I actually am hitting pretty good and hitting longer. So um, you know, it kind of renews your faith and your ability a little bit.

Bruce Devlin 1:54

There you go.

Mike Gonzalez 1:55

No question. Well, Amy, as we've talked about, we're here to tell your story, and we always start at the beginning. I know you were born in Kansas City, Missouri, but you weren't there long, were you?

Amy Alcott 2:05

I wasn't there very long. My uh father was in the dental school there at a very fine college there, UMKC, and um he had um uh three kids. We I was the baby, and um so he kind of high-tailed it out of there. He had a thing about teeth. He had a degree in orthodontics and dentistry, and uh he loved sports, and so did my mother. My dad was the uh, you know, like the New York City handball champion. Uh they still play handball, even you know, uh all around, but uh uh he grew up in the streets of New York and my mother played tennis, and so you know, the winters in Kansas City probably maybe might have been conducive to starting a dental practice, but not raising three kids that he was kind of athletic minded. Neither one of them played golf. I'll say that up front. And they never my dad played a couple of times just to kind of when I wanted to go play, and um but uh yeah, he hightailed it out of there and moved to um rented a little house in Beverly Hills and uh started uh his first dental practice, which is right across the street now. When I think of my childhood, going with him on Saturdays to um his dental practice to put braces on kids, uh was right across almost literally where the new SoFi stadium is where they're playing football. Um he kind of got out of there pretty quick and he bought a I'll just keep rambling here. He bought a originally uh we moved out of the rental house and bought the house that I lived in for most of my childhood, which ultimately over the years uh became the Alcott Golf and Country Club. He bought this house for $19,000 from an old-time movie actress. Um Dolores Del Rio was her name. I think she used to dance around like Carmen Miranda with the fruit on her head. I don't ever I you know I was a baby, so I don't remember meeting her, but my dad bought this house that he could probably not afford. It had a paddle tennis court in the back and a swimming pool, and and um so that's the house I grew up in. And that's my my venture out to the wet to the west. And I'm sure glad he did that.

Mike Gonzalez 4:53

So Bruce, we we've you know, we've this is our 52nd uh golf great that we've interviewed. I'm not sure if I remember anyone else saying that their folks didn't play the game.

Bruce Devlin 5:07

Not that I can remember.

Amy Alcott 5:08

Yeah, it's pretty pretty unusual. So my start became I was a child really of television, watching all the sports shows on TV, the cartoons, and then the these golf shows would come on on Saturday. And probably sparked my interest because I was kind of a little tomboy and played with all the boys on the street, baseball and everything, and these golf shows would come in. CBS Golf Classic, Big Three Golf, Shell's Wonderful World of Golf. And I used to watch these shows on TV and you know, from like Billy Casper from Greece, Kermit Zarley from Firestone Country Club, Carrie Middlecoff, you know. And there really weren't any women. Uh I think they had one show possibly with uh Babe Zaharias, but I'm not sure. But um anyway, I asked my dad if he knew anything about it, and he had bought my mom a set of golf clubs with these burgundy shafts, thinking that maybe she'd take up golf. I don't know when he got those for her. But I was eight years old, and he cut one down for me about 18 inches long and put black duct tape on it, gave me two golf balls, and I went out to the front yard and started pushing these balls around in the sprinkler heads in the front lawn and um trying to emulate and trying to whack the ball. And he says, Oh, you gotta use we gotta get some plastic ones if you want to do that. And uh that front yard, I started to sink soup cans, Campbell's soup cans in the in the bottom. Uh we had three cups. Um I had that little eight iron I used to like chip and putt all over the place with it and chip out of the ivy. We eventually, my dad dug out the uh dirt, and we had a sand trap. We used to go down, he'd take me down to this place fish or lumber, and we'd go down and get every two weeks we'd get sand because I used to whack all the sand out and break the window. I'd strap, and then I'd have this uh um uh kind of over the driveway, and then I'd blade one, and then I'd knock the window out or something. So we eventually had to put up a whole huge my dad, you know, he he saw this like passion of mine, this intense passion, and he didn't want me to like go without. And so he uh put up this huge uh net, and all I had to do was string it across the front of the house, and the entire neighborhood thought the Alcott's were fumigating every day because they had to rest them because it was huge, like I mean, it was huge, it was 30 feet tall, and all I had to do was I mean, the extent that he went to to do, you know, to that was great. Then I met coming back from a drive-in family movie in the back of the car. I saw this thing, 10 o'clock at night, Walter Keller's golf shop on 2138 Westwood Boulevard, just down the street from UCLA campus. First golf discounter in America. And I said to my mom, I want to go there. You know, I'm like a nine-year-old kid. She took me in there and I started, went to the back, and I saw these nets set up with these mirrors, kind of the mirrors, of course, you could look watch your golf swing, kind of the precursor to video. And um, you'd stand on these mats and whack balls, and I got on the carpet, and this man walked by and he said, Uh, get back on. I just put that carpet in, it cost me a thousand bucks. Get back on the mat here and show me your swing. And I had this little flat swing that I kind of developed, and I took this swing and he looked at me and looked at my mom and said, Uh, wow, she's got some power. She's a little racehorse. I'm Walter Keller, I own this place. And um, he talked, he says, This is my daughter Amy, and my mother said, I'm Lee Alcott. And uh, can can she get some lessons? And he says, I'd be glad to give her some lessons, you know. And uh he was a real entrepreneur and the first golf discounter and had this shop that was an institution in Los Angeles. I mean, anybody on the west side, any of these people from the fanciest clubs like LA Country Club and Riviera and Bel Air and Brentwood Country Club to, you know, the public courses, the par threes, they'd all buy their equipment at Walters. I developed a relationship with him, and and uh my mother bought me six lessons for $36. And that was really the start of learning really how to swing a golf club.

Bruce Devlin 10:27

Interesting.

Amy Alcott 10:29

And that's uh I'm not letting you guys get a word in edgewise, but no, that's that's what we're here for.

Bruce Devlin 10:35

We want to listen to you, not us.

Amy Alcott 10:37

Okay. Well, so that was the beginning with Walter and the start of my connection to the game of real connection to the game of golf. And he was pretty much my, although I seeked out over the years other people, the other unusual thing, other than my parents playing, was he's pretty much was my only teacher to the day he died.

Bruce Devlin 11:02

Was he a member of one of the clubs here in Los Angeles?

Amy Alcott 11:07

And when I, you know, um, which to me, my god, Riviera Country Club. And um once a year, once I got was playing junior golf and developed really pretty good player, he would take me there once a year, and I'd be waiting outside with my little shoes, and he'd pick me up in this old beat-up Mercedes and drive me over there at six in the morning, and I'd play with these guys, and it was the highlight of my life to play an actual 18-hole course. And a good one, too, and a great one, yeah. And so we weren't obviously my parents weren't golfers, and uh so we uh weren't members of a country club, and so I would wait in line as a junior golfer to get on the LA City golf courses, and they used to have a rule that here I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, they had a rule that you had to be fourteen years old to uh to play the city golf courses. Now I don't really know what it is unless you can show them that you can play golf. But back then I would wait all day, put my name on a list, probably hit a thousand balls and chip and putt with the other kids, and wait for my name to get called at three o'clock in the afternoon, hoping that I could go out with a group late in the afternoon. And knowing when I had to go up to that starter shed, there was um uh a wonderful uh Afro-American man named Clyde that worked there. And I know he knew I wasn't 14. And one day he said to me, he says, Well, Miss Alcott, you can join the group on the T. I said, Well, I've only been waiting all day. He says, Please tell me, how old are we today? And I would say, Well, Clyde, I'm 14, or Mr. Clyde, I'm 14. Well, then step right up there and show them what you got. And so, you know, I look back on the my career and I think these were really the good times, you know. Uh the the memories of that, wondering if you were even gonna be able to you had some jerk there saying, We know you're 11, you know, show me your ID or something like that. But it took a few of these things across, you know, that good breaks, and I don't know, it uh it's it's a good memory.

Mike Gonzalez 13:53

Yeah, it's the it's the Mr. Clydes of your life that can really make a difference, isn't it?

Amy Alcott 13:58

Yeah. Yeah, and I see junior golf the way it is today and the wonderful things that are going on in the game with like I'm sure you've got a great program down in Houston with and first tea programs and and everything trying to really encourage, you know, it's the lifeblood of the game, junior golf, and no doubt about it. So I'm I'm grateful I had nobody does it alone. I had some great encouragement like that.

Mike Gonzalez 14:31

So, you know, you were still fairly young when you got exposed to Riviera and some probably some other nice places to play. You were seeing all sorts of famous people, maybe even playing with them. Were you old enough to really appreciate that at the time?

Amy Alcott 14:46

Um, well, it through my adventures from junior golf, I started when I was nine playing in the nine-hole division. Walter says, Well, you got to start going out and competing. So I played in the Southern California Junior Golf Association and over time, you know, competed. My mother drove me all over Southern California. I mean, I can't even begin to tell you. It's very similar to um, in a way, to a Serena Williams, Venus Williams story of, you know, growing up in a city and and uh um and uh you know being passionate and having a committed parent who just you know would drive me to all these places and then whatever. But to to kind of answer your question, once I got kind of uh went out with Walter to Riviera and I started winning all these junior golf tournaments, and then I started playing in these amateur tournaments, and I was winning everything, and everyone knew my name. You know, I started to, you know, get invited to you know golf courses and like with Walter, and I'd if I went to Riviera, oh my god, uh that was eye-opening. I'd hit balls on the driving range next to Jim Backus, you know, who was uh voice of Mr. Magoo and Mr. Uh uh his wife, what was Show Gilligan's Island? Thirsty with his wifey Lovey.

Bruce Devlin 16:20

You probably saw my friend there too, Dean Martin.

Amy Alcott 16:23

Dean Martin was one of my original sponsors.

Bruce Devlin 16:26

Okay.

Amy Alcott 16:27

When I was getting ready to go on the tour, um Dean Walter went around to 15 different members of Riviera because I couldn't afford to do it, and my parents couldn't. And uh Dean Martin was one of my original sponsors, along with uh, you know, Glenn Campbell. And uh they all put up a thousand bucks apiece. You know, how many players get sponsored and actually make it? And I was able to pay my sponsors back after two years on the tour, once I turned pro at 18 and and had $386 after paying everybody else back, and I said, I'm gonna do this on my own. And so um but you did. I did, I did, and there was a wonderful group of you know, all these people at Riviera, Peter Falk, and I used to putt with Rita Hayworth. I didn't even know who she was until my mother came and picked me up and all her beauty and elegance, and uh, she'd watch me putt. And I mean, I have stories about all of these particulars people, and the list goes on about the famous people out at these different clubs, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 17:49

Yeah, did you did you ever play at Lakeside? I know they had a lot of the old movie stars there.

Amy Alcott 17:53

Oh, yeah, yeah. I played there, you know, uh obviously a couple of times and played there once about 15 years ago with Jack Nicholson, uh, who loves the game. And um, you know, I played with more President Ford, uh Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines when I was Bill Clinton. Um, you I mean I could go down a long list of of uh uh of presidents and I used to play in an event years ago in the desert called the uh Betty Ford Invitational. And um I used to get paired with the president there. That was pretty funny. And then years later, I'm in the desert, and I ran into him when he wasn't president and quite old in a supermarket, and he was looking for some bread, and he had a guy with an earphone next to him, and it would have taken some experience to know he was the president of the United States. And I said, Mr. President, I said, uh, what are you doing here in the middle of August? It's only 116th out in Colorado, and he says, Oh, well, we're just here for a week and Betty's home making some sandwiches, and I'm looking for some bread. I said, Well, this is really good. And he says, Yeah, I think I'll stick with our favorite, you know, whatever. And he said, I said to him, Well, how are you playing? How's your golf game these days? And he says, Oh, it's great. It's like much, much better. And I said, Well, what are you doing? And he says, I don't know. I'm just I'm just hitting fewer people. So um, and then we went to check out, and I was roaming around and came back. He was checking out in front of me, and this little gal looked like one of those diner scenes with the gal chewing gum. Had no clue who he was, and I said, Nice to see you, Mr. President. And then when he left with the guy with the walkie-talkie, she says, Who was he the president of? I said, I I don't even want to go there. I'm sorry. That was Gerald Ford, the president of the United States. So um anyway, um, I don't know, all of these, all of these uh stories just uh are kind of kind of they they form the backbone of your kind of your career and your life. It's all the people you meet and seeing Dean Martin out at Riviera competing, you know, playing golf out there, those guys, when I was hitting a thousand balls a day, and he'd have his gambling games going on out there, and he'd be in a cart.

Bruce Devlin 20:50

And uh I was in some of those games, by the way.

Amy Alcott 20:56

I'm sure at Riviera where they used to tear three. I think Barry Jekyll with was Barry Jekyll around? Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 21:06

He was there, but most of the time it was Idi Anderson and Dean and and his buddy from Chicago and Lou Rosanova.

Amy Alcott 21:17

From uh Savannah.

Bruce Devlin 21:19

Right.

Amy Alcott 21:19

So you were in those. Did you guys place it for some pretty big money?

Bruce Devlin 21:24

Uh well, I suppose on a relative basis. I mean, from you know, the money I was making on the tour, if I could, you know, if I could get those guys for a couple hundred bucks, that was a pretty nice way to start the week.

Amy Alcott 21:37

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that was a Dean used to drive the have those fancy velvet shoes, and his uh hair was usually had a little tinge of purple in it. Do you remember that? And he'd drive that fancy Gia car, and anyway. Fun times, fun times, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 22:00

Yeah, Dean Dean was uh was Bruce's uh clam bake partner up at the Crosby for a number of years, wasn't he, Bruce?

Bruce Devlin 22:06

Yeah, ten years. He and I played uh Crosby for ten years.

Mike Gonzalez 22:10

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 22:10

Yeah. It's a lot of fun. He's uh he was a real real the crooner of Yeah. Probably one of the best that ever decided to sing a song, really.

Amy Alcott 22:22

Yeah. Yeah, he he loved it.

Mike Gonzalez 22:26

And so well we could talk uh we could talk celebrity golf probably for hours just uh based on the folks that you guys have both uh oh I'm sure has probably played with tons of people.

Bruce Devlin 22:43

Yeah.

Amy Alcott 22:44

Over the people.

Bruce Devlin 22:47

Yeah. So Amy, tell us about some of your junior golfers. I mean, you you were you were a you were a tough competitor back then when you were you know just a 12 and 13 year old girl winning all the tournaments.

Amy Alcott 23:04

Yeah, well, as I said, I was lucky had to have a mom that drove me all over. And I was very lucky to have a mom in a way that didn't play golf. Because she would let me out at golf tournaments and and um let me uh you know uh just tell me, you know, she didn't care what I shot, no matter what I shot, she still loved me. So she wasn't obsessed, she wasn't a sports parent, one of these people that's like makes a kid want to turn away from sports, a little league parent. So I was very, very lucky, and so I got all that experience and then slowly started uh so I must have won like 130 junior golf tournaments in the Southern California area, and then I went back and back in 1973, no, before that 71 to Dallas and played in the U.S. Junior Girls Championship. And I was just talking uh and and on Cape Cod this past week, I saw my longtime friend, rival going way back to that era.

Bruce Devlin 24:15

HS.

Amy Alcott 24:16

Yeah, Paula HS, that's the duty, Paula Stacy. And I met her in the first match, in the very first match, I was 13 years old and she was 15. And she said, you know, you you had just kind of gotten into the juniors, I mean, national type of stuff. Because Walter Keller says, you're not gonna know how good you are. You can win everything around Southern California, but you're not gonna know how good you are until you play national junior golf. So I went back there and I had Hollis three down after nine holes. And she was telling the story of where the hell was this junior come from? Kid come from California and you know, with the ponytail or whatever. We still talk about it. And so she ended up beating me on the 17th hole. I I took the gag a little bit, I'm sure, but that was the beginning of a long friendship and then years of playing U.S. junior championships. And um I met her again uh in one of the best at Augusta Country Club in 1970 That was 71. 71. That was 71. We both in in match in and stroke play had shot three under par at Augusta Country Club right across from Augusta um uh three under par 70s and tied and went to the nineteenth hole. And our uh Marshall was a great guy who was kind of great writer of the time, and uh Frank Hannigan with the USGA. He marshalled our match, and he says when we got done, that is uh he's marshalled some pretty amazing matches in his time. And that was man or woman, pro or junior. That was like one of the more to have the kids shoot three under par and go to the 19th hole, and then she again she made a long putt on me. But then in 1973, I ended up winning at Somerset Hills Country Club when I was 17, and um I won my match, and um, you know, these are kind of great friendships that are and relationships, you know. I won the state amateur in 73 at Pebble Beach, um, set a course record there at the time, but just recently got a phone call the other day from the pro at Pebble Beach because uh they never kept track of the women's course records, only men's. And he says, Well, we understand from the old pro years ago that you in 19 that you had the course record, and I said, Yes, I shot uh 69 in the qualifying. He says, Well, that beat back then Babe Zaharius's record at Pebble Beach. And so um he says, Well, a young player named Rose Zhang um just shot 64.

Mike Gonzalez 27:23

Oh my god.

Amy Alcott 27:24

I said, Well, was it from the I said, was it from the N'T's? Because mine was, you know, the like the 1973 qualifying. And um anyway, I was I was blown away, and I'm thinking, of course my course record's been broken, you know, it's like it's something you're proud of for many years, and then a great player, great players come along and they beat it. So that's what happens in the game. And and I'm glad to see that you know the talent is so great that you know. That's amazing. So that was the junior golf. And right after that, I had no one college scholarship offer when I was 18 to go to Dartmouth and play on the men's golf team. It was just kind of pre-Title IX.

Mike Gonzalez 28:11

Yeah.

Amy Alcott 28:12

And I'm thinking, what do I want to go to? Walter one again said, you know, you're a little racehorse, you should go out on the pro tour. And everybody with the US GA that knew me, PJ Boatright, and everybody was saying, Oh, you gotta go to college. You're too young to turn pro at 18. And um so I I turned pro and barely qualified in 19 uh 75, qualifying January at Kendall Lakes. Uh they had like uh 70 people and took 10 and I I gagged, you know. I more pressure in the qualifying than anything, and I I ended up uh qualifying and uh went out after that, and I told my mom, you know, it's all downhill from here. Getting through that qualifying school was everything. I was never so nervous in my life. And then three weeks later I won my very first tournament, which ended up either being the fastest win in LPGA history or one of them. I I don't know.

Bruce Devlin 29:21

Third tournament, right?

Amy Alcott 29:22

Third tournament. Yeah, made a 25-footer on the last hole at uh Pasadena Golf Club at the Orange Blossom Classic in St. Petersburg. And the guy when I got done said, Well, Arnold Palmer won one of his first tournaments here as well. So I knew that after that that I'd kind of found my bailiwick, but I was out there, it was not easy playing against what I thought was a bunch of old ladies, you know, because I was such a kid. And people used to say, When are you gonna be in your 20s? I mean, it felt like forever, you know, for me to get into my 20s. Yeah, and so you know, when I was 22, I'd gone to Montreal, I won the Canadian Open in Montreal. I eagled just memories, eagling. It was the first year the Canadian DeMaurier was a major. Uh that was my first major, and then the very next year won the US Open at 23, which was very young at the time.

Mike Gonzalez 30:30

So Yeah, well, let's come back to those. I I I do want to ask you one thing back when you were an amateur. Was there an opportunity uh to get on the Curtis Cup team back in 1972?

Amy Alcott 30:41

Yes, and I was never chosen, and I don't know why.

Mike Gonzalez 30:45

I can't imagine why, given the record that you used to be.

Amy Alcott 30:48

I was I was I I was an alternate and uh one of um I was made an alternate, it was at San Francisco Golf Club.

Bruce Devlin 31:00

Too young, see?

Amy Alcott 31:01

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 31:02

Probably I'll bet I'll bet you that's why they did it.

Amy Alcott 31:05

Yeah, I don't I don't know, but uh I was, you know, I'd never won the U.S. amateur. But um then, you know, w there was a sh a period in time there when I went from junior golf at the end of being 17 to on the pro tour at 18. So I played in a lot of junior events and two U.S. women's amateurs while I was a junior, one in St. Louis and the other one in uh Montclair, New Jersey. But then I turned pro. So I didn't have this long kind of amateur career like a Carol Semple or you know, some of these people that had these longer careers. So that's just something that uh just kind of bypassed me.

Mike Gonzalez 31:56

Well, let's just recap the career of Amy Alcott. Uh as Bruce mentioned at the top, 34 pro wins, including 29 wins on the LPGA tour, which ranks you as 18th all time, which is pretty cool. Um Amy was a global player, which we'll talk about, although a lot of what we'll talk about are LPGA wins, but uh but you you didn't um you didn't mind traveling to to get your golf in around the world. And uh there's probably some stories we're gonna want to hear about uh uh relative to that, like you being known as the tour bus DJ, for example.

Bruce Devlin 32:31

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 32:32

Which we'll we'll we'll come we'll come back to that. But uh uh as you mentioned, you joined.

Amy Alcott 32:37

Dan Stevenson gave me that title because I would show up on these bus trips, these long bus trips in Japan, and have my cassettes. I'd before I flew over on Japan Airlines, I'd line up the cassettes for the long bus trips. And we've got a long story, a lot of stories about those.

Mike Gonzalez 32:59

So you'd put your set list together ahead of time, huh, with all your cassettes?

Amy Alcott 33:02

Oh, yeah, it was the age of disco.

Mike Gonzalez 33:04

So there you go. How do you forget, right?

Amy Alcott 33:08

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 33:09

Yeah.

Amy Alcott 33:10

Was there dancing on the bus then too when you did lots of dancing on the bus, and you'd have two hours in the bus from the hotel, and then two hours or three hours coming back, and a train. And uh near the end of it, I can remember Pat Bradley saying to me, Alcott, when you don't come over on these trips anymore, that's it for me. You know, you kept us all you kept us all entertained, and there was somebody, I wasn't a drinker, you know, much, and but the a lot of those gals consumed mass quantities of beer, you know. You'd get done, you'd you'd get done, you'd be have been up since five taking a bus out there, played your round.

Bruce Devlin 33:56

I mean, this wasn't the long day.

Amy Alcott 33:59

You know, Bruce, long day. Yeah, lots of beers, and there was a always a bucket, bucket at the back of the bus, you know. It was crazy.

Mike Gonzalez 34:12

You would get the party started then, huh?

Amy Alcott 34:14

Yeah, I'd go be up at the front and we'd be dancing, and there's a famous story about we had a lip syncing contest. Um, and Kathy Whitworth didn't have a partner. You know, people would pair up with their friends, so they'd pick a song and you'd come up with the microphone at the bus and you'd sing whatever, you know, whatever your song was, and then everybody would kind of judge you and uh and then they'd we'd vote. Well, the last singing group was Kathy Whitworth and Amy Alcott in What's Love Got to Do With It? So we'd have Tina Turner, you know, we'd start start that and Wit would hold the microphone, and I mean to this day, to this day, everybody remembers Alcott and Whitworth and what's love got to do with it. Um and I had picked Kathy when I was un inducted in the Hall of Fame. Um historically, I wanted her to be my person who presenter. And we had a big laugh about that. Just, you know, a lot of history with um, you know, an older player, uh, a a player who's historic and golf history with all her wins.

Bruce Devlin 35:45

Oh, yeah.

Amy Alcott 35:45

But a real a real piece of work. And but there was that part of wit that, you know, we used to joke with her about her hair, you know, because every hair was in place, and she'd probably use a can of hairspray. And uh there was a Clerol ad on TV about a about a wind tunnel test. Try this new Clairol product. And we used to joke with Wit about, oh, that's Kathy Whitworth, man. Every hair was in place. It was like a it was like a crash helmet, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 36:22

Uh I think I saw her hair move. It must be a five-club win.

Amy Alcott 36:26

Yeah. So yeah, I miss those times. They were all pretty, pretty funny, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 36:35

Yeah. Well, you came out of the box uh hot as you said, because uh joining at 75, you were the rookie of the year. You you won uh right away, you won the Vare trophy in 1980, winner of five majors, which I'm gonna I know we'll talk about. Um we probably don't have time to talk about all of your LPGA wins, but we certainly want to pick out the highlights. And so you mentioned your first, which has got to be quite gratifying uh uh in your third tournament. The 1975 Orange Blossom Classic, as you talked about. You won that by one over Sandra Post.

Amy Alcott 37:08

Yes, and didn't know how I stood par five hole and hit a terrible chip shot, third shot, which left me a 25-footer, but I had no clue. You know, I'm it was actually my 19th birthday, February 22nd, and I I I told my caddy I didn't want to know where I was standing. It was in the earlier days of the tour where they didn't have a whole lot of scoreboards. And I um uh hit a bad chip and I could I had this there's something about the feel, the energy that I knew it was important. I knew this putt was important and I I knocked that putt in the hole and I had no idea I won, and I kind of looked at my caddy and the crowd went crazy, you know. So I won and uh beat her and I think Sally Little by by a shot or two and it was just so amazing to do that. I think I shot 70, 70, 68 or 70, 68, 70. I mean, it was it was amazing. It was uh a very memorable moment.

Mike Gonzalez 38:24

So how big was that first check?

Amy Alcott 38:27

Five thousand dollars. The smallest on the LPGA, but the oldest event at the time on the LPGA, kind of put on by the local rotary club. And uh I remember clinching that check and flying back to Los Angeles, and my godfather um had sent I was met at the LA airport by a mariachi band. It was very memorable. My godfather Leo and Ethel and my mother were there, you know, and I will always remember that. It was pretty, pretty amazing.

Bruce Devlin 39:12

Oh bet.

Amy Alcott 39:12

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 39:14

So then in 76, you just jumped right out again and won. Yeah. L PGA classic, and also finished off the year one at Colgate, too. So two victories in 76.

Amy Alcott 39:26

Yeah, 76 was in uh Fours Gate in New Jersey, and um this golf course that had in uh had these huge mounds everywhere that looked like the greens were like buried elephants. It was crazy. And again, I played just great. And I laugh at this turn at that tournament and because it kind of made the headlines. Um so I played the last hole again. I was, I think, um tied with Jane Blaylock on the last hole and hit a drive down there, and I was in the fairway, and I remember one of my original sponsors from Riviera was a character named Bob William. And Bob William owned a uh he was a multifaceted person who was involved in developing the camera mount on a uh for for um photography or you know for all those Steve McQueen movies. He was a very interesting guy, but he was in the pasta business. And he used to earlier life, I'm rambling on, he managed like Betty Grable and George Raff, and they called him the driving range king at Riviera, and he was one of my sponsors, and he had so many great stories he would instill in me. Like he poured me my first scotch. I had my first scotch at the bar at Riviera with him. He introduced me to Scotch. Um, he used to write for the LA Herald, interviewed Ben Hogan, uh, you know, had this famous quote from Ben Hogan: fight out fear and timidity with anger when you're nervous. Fight out fear and timidity with anger. And as I'm walking up to this ball in the middle of the fairway at Foursgate, I've got like 150 to the pin and the pins in the front, and you couldn't be long, you'd have a tough downhill butt. I hit this incredible shot in there five feet under the hat uh under the pin and made it, and the crowd totally went crazy. I mean, and the tournament was called the Coca-Cola Classic, but it was sponsored by the Archdiocese of Trenton. So the galleries were enormous because the Catholic Church and all these parishes had gone out and sold tickets and got everybody to show up all over New Jersey at this golf tournament. And so we had enormous galleries for the LPGA tour in 1976. And I'm on the 18th Green with the Monsignor and the local president of Coca-Cola and whatever, and they being interviewed by the New York Times, a guy named Gordon White. And they said, Miss Alcott, you're just such a young person. What are you gonna do with all this money, this $15,000? And I looked right out at everybody, all the priests, and I said, Well, I'm gonna give it to the United Jewish Appeal. And uh anyway, so anyway, that made the New York Times. And um uh, you know, it was just one of my more memorable w wins. I'm sorry to ramble on about that.

Bruce Devlin 42:46

No, that's great. That's a great story.

Amy Alcott 42:49

That was the quote of the year in golf digest. I mean, at the very end of the year they had that in their Gordon White from the New York Times quoted Miss Alcott or whatever.

Mike Gonzalez 43:00

Oh, that's great.

Amy Alcott 43:01

What else did I win in 76, Bruce?

Mike Gonzalez 43:04

Well, you you went to Manila and won and hit Donna Capone.

Amy Alcott 43:08

Yes, I won the Colgate Far East Open there, and I think I was there a few times, and that was quite a win. We a lot of the players had gone, uh were taken there by the Colgate people to the on the boat with uh President Marcos, but I did get to play one hole with him. I wasn't part of that group, but I did go to the palace and went to the bathroom and made a wrong turn and ended up, I'm pretty sure it was in uh Melda's uh shoe closet.

Bruce Devlin 43:41

Shoe closet.

Amy Alcott 43:43

I saw I saw more shoes than I even want with the guy. Then the guys found me and came in with guns. And I said, I think I made the wrong turn for the upstairs bathroom. There was a party going on downstairs, and I I don't know, I went up the stairs. I remember It was like a green silk, like a silk. And I said, Oh, I'm out of here. I'm sorry. And there were hundreds and hundreds of shoes.

Mike Gonzalez 44:09

So Yeah, for our younger listeners who have no idea what we're talking about, this was the first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, and she was, yeah, the the story goes, just had thousands and thousands of pairs of shoes. But you're the first person I've ever met in person here that's actually seen the collection.

Amy Alcott 44:26

I saw them. Yeah, I actually saw them. I have a picture of Ferdinand and I, myself, uh under an umbrella. Because he came out and in the program wanted to play one hole with every pro.

Mike Gonzalez 44:40

Okay.

Amy Alcott 44:40

And um we subsequently, Colgate brought us back there a couple more times. We we played there, but that was a that was an amazing win and um a very uh hospitable country. It was really great to to go there. And thank you to the guy that the I mean David Foster, who was kind of put women's golf on the map, and he was the CEO of Colgate and got decided with D obviously with Dinah Shore, brought Dinah Shore in and created the Colgate Dino Shore that became the precursor to the you know, the Kraft Nabisco, the ANA, and now the now the Chevron Championship. So he was he put a lot of money into women's sports and women's skiing, and he's to my mind one of the more unheralded people in in golf, women's golf history. Put him in ads. He had a lot of fun with us too.

Mike Gonzalez 45:43

Yeah, well, the 1970s were an important decade for for women's golf, weren't they? Because that is the the time that corporate sponsorship sort of uh uh came in on the scene. I think the total purses in 1970 was uh just over $400,000. And by 1980, the prize money was five million dollars. So their involvement certainly made a difference.

Amy Alcott 46:05

Oh yeah. Yeah, and that they're there then a lot of companies, McDonald's and you could go down the list of the companies that kind of come in and out of golf sponsorship. It helps to have a a CEO that loves golf. They don't love golf, then that kind of fades away. And another one, we've been fortunate enough, and the game has grown and women's golf has grown that they they realize that now women's golf is uh a very good buy. And now in 2022, I mean, um you know, you're not looking at women's golf under a microscope in the back, the way my mother used to say, they're only listing the top five scores, and I have to look under a microscope to see if your name is there and so I mean I think back of the players way before me. But this was the seventies and now in 2022 it's you know, the tour is uh this is really the time without really talking about it too much, this is a great time for women. It's just kind of happened and you really can't complain that you're not getting what you deserve or whatever. If you if you go out and play well, uh there's sponsors out there, they're putting money into women's golf, and now is uh now is the time for women's golf. It's really growing all over the United States and the world. I mean, the game has gotten so global, it's crazy. So uh you look at the LPGA scores, and there's almost every country listed there.

Mike Gonzalez 47:44

True. Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again with a good of the game. So long, everybody.

Outro Music 48:10

It went smack down the fairway. And it started to slice, just split off line. My head is as long as you're still in the stage you're okay. It went straight down the middle file.