Largest Margins of Victory in U.S. Women's Amateur Matches

What are the biggest wins (and worst defeats) in matches played during the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship? Multiple golfers have claimed 18-hole matches by winning 10 consecutive holes to start a match. And the 36-hole record is a winning margin so large that it is also the record margin of victory for any USGA match.

The U.S. Women's Amateur Championship, the biggest event in women's amateur golf, dates to 1895. It is run by the United States Golf Association.

Largest Winning Margins, 18-Hole Match

Preliminary matches prior to the 36-hole championship match are scheduled for 18 holes. Four golfers in U.S. Women's Amateur history have won an 18-hole match by the score of 10 and 8:

10 and 8 — Dorothy Campbell Hurd def. Mrs. C.W. McKelvey, first round, Merion Golf Club (Original Course), Haverford, Pa., 1909
10 and 8 — L.B. Hyde def. C.D. Barrows, first round, Homewood Country Club, Flossmoor, Ill., 1910
10 and 8 — Patty Berg def. Mrs. Myron Davy, first round, Westmoreland Country Club, Wilmette, Ill., 1938
10 and 8 — Mary Lena Faulk def. Mary E. Nelson, first round, Allegheny Country Club, Sewickley, Pa., 1954

How do you win an 18-hole match by a 10-and-8 score? You win every hole for the first 10 holes. No holes lost, no holes halved — a 10-for-10 shutout of your opponent.

Two of the four golfers who won 18-hole matches by 10-and-8 scores are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame: Dorothy Campbell and Patty Berg. Another on the list, Mary Lena Faulk, went on to win one major on the LPGA Tour.

Largest Winning Margins in 36-Hole Final

The championship match in the U.S. Women's Amateur is scheduled for 36 holes. These are the largest margins of victory in just those 36-hole finals:

14 and 13 — Anne Quast Sander def. Phyllis Preuss, Tacoma (Wash.) Golf and Country Club, 1961
13 and 12 — Glenna Collett def. Virginia Van Wie, Virginia Hot Springs Golf & Tennis Club (Cascades Course), Hot Springs, Va., 1928
11 and 9 — Babe Didrikson Zaharias def. Clara Sherman, Southern Hills Country Club, Tulsa, Okla., 1946
11 and 9 — Saki Baba def. Monet Chun, Chambers Bay, University Place, Wash., 2022
10 and 8 — Virginia Van Wie def. Glenna Collett Vare, Salem Country Club, Peabody, Mass., 1932
9 and 8 — Glenna Collett def. Alexa Stirling, St. Louis Country Club, Clayton, Mo., 1925
9 and 8 — JoAnne Gunderson def. Ann Baker, Country Club of Rochester (N.Y.), 1962
9 and 8 — Morgan Pressel def. Maru Martinez, Ansley Golf Club (Settindown Creek Course), Roswell, Ga., 2005
9 and 7 — Kay Cockerill def. Kathleen McCarthy, Pasatiempo Golf Club, Santa Cruz, Calif., 1986

Lots of big names on this list, too, as one would expect. And Anne Quast Sander (a 3-time U.S. Women's Am champ and 4-time U.S. Women's Senior Amateur champ) doesn't just hold this record, she shares the record for largest margin of victory in any USGA match from any USGA championship. She shares that record with Bobby Jones and Jerome Travers. Phyllis Preuss, a very accomplished player, failed to win a single hole against Quast in that 1961 championship match.

Matches between Collett and Van Wie appear twice on the list, first with Collett as the victor in 1928, then again in 1932 when Van Wie got a little revenge. Collett's 1925 victory, the second of her record six U.S. Women's Amateur wins, also makes the list.

Two legends of the professional game also appear above: Babe Didrikson Zaharias, one of the greatest female athletes of all-time, an LPGA co-founder and 10-time major winner; and JoAnne Carner, "Big Mama" on the LPGA Tour, on which she won 43 times after turning pro at age 30. At the time of her 1962 win, Carner was not yet married — she was JoAnne Gunderson, "the Great Gundy," and, eventually, second only to Collett Vare with five U.S. Women's Amateur victories.

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Sources:
USGA. U.S. Women's Amateur, Fast Facts, https://championships.usga.org/uswomensamateur/2025/articles/fast-facts-for-2025-us-womens-amateur.html.
USGA. U.S. Women's Amateur, U.S. Women's Amateur Records, https://championships.usga.org/uswomensamateur/u-s--women-s-amateur-records.html.

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