Marion Hollins

Hollins playing golf.

Hollins at age eleven (far right) with her father, H. B. Hollins (far left).

Marion Hollins (December 3, 1892 – August 27, 1944) was an American amateur golfer.

Biography[]

Hollins was born in East Islip, New York. Her father, H. B. Hollins, owned a Wall Street brokerage firm, H.B. Hollins & Co.

Hollins is known as an athlete and as a golf course developer, one of the only known female golf course developers in history. She won the 1921 U.S. Women's Amateur and was runner-up in 1913. She also had many other amateur wins.^{[citation needed]} She was the captain of the first U.S. Curtis Cup team in 1932.

In her time, she helped develop three world-class golf courses: The Women's National Golf and Tennis Club in Glen Head, Long Island, NY; Cypress Point Club, and Pasatiempo Golf Club.^[1]

Hollins was responsible for hiring Alister MacKenzie to design Cypress Point and Pasatiempo; she was ultimately the reason Bobby Jones hired MacKenzie to design Augusta National Golf Club.^[2]

She died of cancer in 1944 at the age of 51.

Hollins was inducted posthumously into the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame on Long Island in the Golf and Historic Recognition Categories with the Class of 2002. She will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2021.^[3]

The information below was submitted to the World Golf Hall of Fame which resulted in Miss Hollins induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame, class of 2022 (which includes Tiger Woods, Susie Maxwell Berning, and Tim Finchem.)

Outstanding contributions of Marion Hollins[]

Introduction[]

As a competitive golfer, Marion Hollins was considered an equal to prominent women amateurs already inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Yet it is through her pioneering contributions as a woman in the development of golf courses like Cypress Point, Pebble Beach and Pasatiempo that she stands unmatched a century later.

Hollins was a decorated, multi-sport athlete who headlined the generation before Babe Zaharias (WGHOF 1974). Like Babe, her greatest passion was golf. Because of her success in both course development and competitive golf, Hollins remains a role model for women seeking to make their own distinctive mark on the game today. Her accomplishments continue to resonate as we look forward to several golf events scheduled in the next few years.

The 2021 WGHOF Induction Ceremony will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Marion Hollins’ victory in the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur. In 2023, Pebble Beach will host its first U.S. Women’s Open, which also coincides with the 100th anniversary of Hollins’ victory in the first Pebble Beach Championship for Women, a competition she established to support her task to achieve Sam Morse's dream for the Monterey Peninsula as a golf mecca.

Soon to follow, the 2025 Walker Cup Match will return for the second time to Cypress Point Club, a course that owes its very existence to the determination of founder Marion Hollins. While there may be no more iconic hole in the world of golf than the 16th at Cypress Point, there is certainly none more directly attributable to a woman. Prior to Cypress Point’s construction in the late-1920s Marion Hollins demonstrated the viability of the hole as a par-3 for all golfers – male or female – by driving a ball across a 200-yard expanse of the Pacific Ocean, landing in the middle of the future site of the 16th green. As course designer Dr. Alister Mackenzie (WGHOF 2005) later wrote, “I was in no way responsible for the hole. It was largely due to the vision of Marion Hollins.”

In her time, Hollins set a new standard for golf design and the development of courses, both public and private, and her greatest contributions continue to be visited and studied by golfers from around the world. Just as new generations of golf architecture enthusiasts have come to appreciate C.B. Macdonald in the years following his 2005 induction for accomplishments both as an amateur champion and innovative course developer, so too would recognition by the World Golf Hall of Fame increase appreciation for Marion Hollins, Macdonald’s contemporary and female counterpart.

While other amateurs in the Hall may have won more championships, and other contributors may have established more prominent reputations as leaders and visionaries, no woman member of the World Golf Hall of Fame today possesses Marion Hollins’ combination of accomplishments as a both a player and developer of the game’s great courses. Her credentials as U.S. Amateur Champion, as an early Chair of the USGA Women’s Committee, as Captain of the first USA Curtis Cup team in 1932, stand alongside her pioneering work as the developer of the Women’s National Golf & Tennis Club in 1923, Cypress Point Club in 1928, and Pasatiempo Golf Club in 1929, among others.

Contributions as a pioneer woman golf architect and developer[]

• The Women's National Golf & Tennis Club (1923): At a time when women had only recently won the right to vote, Hollins developed the concept of a national women’s golf club, procured the necessary land, assembled the financing, recruited the members, and oversaw the course construction.
  • Prior to finding the land, she armed herself with a camera and small motion picture outfit, traveling to Great Britain to scout for holes that fit her definition of a national course for women, following the model established by C.B. Macdonald at National Golf Links of America.
  • She hired and worked with Devereaux Emmet, who was assisted by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor in the final stages.

• Pebble Beach (1922): Hollins met and was hired by Sam Morse as Athletic Director and given a leading role in achieving Morse’s dream for the Del Monte Company: to develop the Monterey Peninsula into a golf mecca. Besides her accomplishments cited below, Hollins initiated several leading golf tournaments for both men and women.
  • In 1923, Hollins launched the Pebble Beach Championship for Women, bringing some of the nation’s top women amateurs to compete at Pebble Beach Golf Links; Hollins won the tournament herself that year and dominated for the next several years, winning five of the first six tournaments. The Pebble Beach Championship for Women soon became the unofficial West Coast Championship.

• Cypress Point Club (1924-1928): Primary force in the vision and formation of this club.
  • In 1924, Hollins presented Morse with the concept for an elite private club in Pebble Beach. Morse was so impressed that he reserved 150 acres for the project and put her in charge to develop what would eventually become Cypress Point Club.
  • Around the same time, Hollins was assisting Morse with developing the Monterey Peninsula Country Club. Morse selected C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor as designers, in part for their contributions to Hollins’ Women’s National Club on Long Island. When Seth Raynor died, Hollins hired Alister MacKenzie, whom she met previously while competing in the UK, to design Cypress Point Club.
  • Hollins worked with MacKenzie hole-by-hole on Cypress Point Club. Her shot-making contribution to the design of 16^th hole made it one of the most celebrated, challenging, and beautiful golf holes in the world when it opened and remains that way today.

• Pasatiempo (1928-1940): The first planned sporting complex/residential complex in North America.
  • Hollins developed and owned Pasatiempo Golf Club near Santa Cruz, an Alister MacKenzie course that opened in 1929.
  • Bobby Jones attended at Hollins request and played with Hollins in the exhibition group on Opening Day. Jones’ experience playing MacKenzie designs at Cypress Point and Pasatiempo was a key factor in Jones’ decision to select MacKenzie as co-designer of Augusta National.

• Augusta National: Hollins first met Bobby Jones and played with him in an exhibition arranged by Jones at East Lake in Atlanta in 1924. Their friendship continued through the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach and as described above, the opening of Pasatiempo.
  • This relationship became key to the development of Augusta National, including Jones’ selection of Alister MacKenzie as co-designer of the course.
  • In addition to fostering the MacKenzie relationship, Hollins was instrumental in the founders’ (Jones and Clifford Roberts) decision to select the Olmsted Brothers as landscaping planners. Jones and Roberts used Pasatiempo Estates as a blueprint for Augusta National.
  • MacKenzie sent Hollins to Augusta as his representative and asked her to report back her valued impressions of the course as it was being constructed. Roberts questioned MacKenzie as to whether he should be at Augusta to supervise the course development himself, MacKenzie wrote, “I want her views and personal impressions in regard to the way that the work is being carried out,” and added in a subsequent letter, “I do not know of any man who has sounder ideas.”

• Hollins could be considered a peer to C.B. Macdonald for women's golf, given what she did with Women’s National (identical model to NGLA) and with the California trifecta of Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Pasatiempo, not to mention Augusta National and her contributions as a writer. In 1923, she became the first woman to write about golf course design (Source: Golf Illustrated.) Macdonald, like Hollins, was also a U.S. Amateur champion, administrator, and architect/developer.

Contributions as a National and International Champion[]

• 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion
• Served in 1921 as the third USGA Women’s Committee Chairperson.
• Captain of the first USA Curtis Cup team in 1932; her strategic captaincy is credited for the upset victory.

• Avid competitor:
  • Qualified 15 times for the US Women’s Amateur Championship – a runner-up in her first attempt in 1913, she won in 1921
  • Pebble Beach Women’s Championship: seven-time champion
  • Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association (MGA) Championship – three-time champion
  • Long Island Championship – twice champion
  • Griswold Cup Challenge – 1920 champion
  • British Ladies Amateur (the Women’s Amateur Championship): Competitor
  • Ladies Championship of France: Competitor

• In 1929, Hollins and Glenna Collett (Vare) (WGHOF 1975) defeated Walter Hagen (WGHOF 1974) and Johnny Farrell (1928 U.S. Open Champion) in an exhibition match at Cypress Point Club.
• Ambassador for Women’s Golf: Helped link America to European golf by bringing notable English golfers (Mrs. William A. Gavin, Molly Griffiths, Eleanor Helme, Janet Jackson, Cecil Leitch, Edith Leitch, Gladys Ravenscourt, Joyce Wethered, Enid Wilson) to play exhibition rounds at famous venues in the U.S.
• Hollins continued to compete at the highest level during her career in Pebble Beach. In 1933, the Pebble Beach Championship for Women was played at Cypress Point Club, and Hollins won for the sixth time.
• Her last two significant victories came in 1941, when Hollins won the Del Monte Championship, a prestigious women’s tournament comparable to the men’s California State Amateur, and in 1942, when she won the Pebble Beach Championship for the seventh time.

• 2012 inductee to the NCGA Hall of Fame.
• 2019 Inductee to the inaugural class of the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Hall of Merit.

Her involvement in so many diverse aspects of golf was unique for a woman of her time.

Team appearances[]

Amateur

• Curtis Cup (representing the United States): 1932 (winners, playing captain)

References[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marion Hollins.