Which “first” is meant?
Europe has a long history of women’s championship golf, but the phrase “first woman to win a major in Europe” depends on which events count as majors, and that has changed over time. The recognised list of women’s majors has shifted over the decades, and the earliest European champions played in amateur events that were considered the top of the game in their day rather than in tournaments later labelled majors. For that reason this article does not assert an exact first winner. It sets out the main European events and the dates that can be stated with confidence.
One point of 1967 is worth stating early. In that year Catherine Lacoste of France won the US Women’s Open, but that was in the United States, at The Homestead in Virginia, not in Europe. She was an amateur, and her win was a European triumph on American soil.
The British Ladies Amateur
The oldest of the European championships is the British Ladies Amateur, first played in 1893 at Royal Lytham and St Annes in England. It was organised by the Ladies’ Golf Union, which was formed at about the same time to run the women’s game and to establish a system of handicaps. The championship drew the best amateurs of Britain and Ireland, and later players from continental Europe and North America.
For several decades this was the premier event for women golfers in Europe. Winners were prominent figures in the game, but as there was no professional tour, the idea of a “major” in the modern sense hardly applied. It is fair to say it had the status that a major has now, but a precise ranking of early winners is not offered here.
The long wait for a professional circuit
Professional women’s golf in Europe developed far more slowly than in the United States. The LPGA was founded in 1950, while Europe had no organised women’s professional tour for decades afterward. Talented players either remained amateurs or moved to the American circuit.
By the 1960s British and European players were beginning to cross the Atlantic more regularly, and amateurs from France and elsewhere on the continent were having success. In 1967 the main European events for women remained amateur championships, along with a small number of other tournaments.
Catherine Lacoste
Catherine Lacoste’s career shows how the amateur game could reach the top. She won the US Women’s Open in 1967 as a 22-year-old amateur, and she remains the only amateur to win it. She was the daughter of René Lacoste, a French tennis champion remembered as one of the Four Musketeers, so her family was already well known in sport, though the same name is more familiar from the clothing brand. The sporting prominence of France in this period extended beyond golf. The tennis career of Suzanne Lenglen had earlier given French women a place at the top of the sport, even though that was a different game and a different generation.
Lacoste is also remembered for winning the British Ladies Amateur and the US Women’s Amateur in 1969, though anyone relying on those details should check them against the championship records. She later stepped back from competition, and her career was relatively short, which is one reason her 1967 win stands out.
The Women’s British Open and the European Tour
The Women’s British Open was first played in 1976, and it took on a different status when it was recognised as an LPGA major in the early 2000s. It has since been played on a rotation of well-known links and parkland courses, and it is now a significant feature of the calendar. Under a sponsor’s name it is currently styled as the AIG Women’s Open, though sponsors and names change.
The Ladies European Tour was established in the late 1970s, and it has since grown into the main professional circuit in Europe. It offers a path for European and other players to compete near home. Over the years it has hosted events across the continent and, increasingly, in other regions, and it has co-sanctioned tournaments with other tours. The Evian Championship, held in France, was elevated to major status in 2013, which added a second European-hosted major alongside the British Open.
The Solheim Cup and team golf
The Solheim Cup, a biennial team match between European and American professionals, was first played in 1990 and is the women’s counterpart to the Ryder Cup in spirit. It has helped raise the profile of European players and the tour that supports them, and many European players now divide their season between the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA.
A cautious summary
The honest position is that the first woman to win an event now regarded as a European major cannot be named without choosing a definition. The British Ladies Amateur is the oldest championship, the Women’s British Open and the Evian Championship are the modern majors held in Europe, and the Ladies European Tour is the professional structure behind them. Each of these has its own record of champions, and any reader wanting a specific name should consult the official lists.
Meanwhile, the sporting calendar of the period offers some contrast. The Wimbledon championships were by then a fixture of the British summer, while women’s golf was a quieter affair. The politics of the continent in these years, from the Common Market veto of 1967 onward, had little effect on the golf course. What did matter was the slow growth of opportunity, club by club, in a game that took a long time to open up to women.