Bell’s impact on golf? Simply immeasurable


By STUART HALL


ing 78-year journey would unfold must have been unfathomable. In 1938, the idea of a young woman


W


becoming a golf instructor or a touring professional or even a savvy business negotiator was likely as much wishful thinking as prac- tical because few such oppor- tunities existed. Had her


mother Grace not deemed her too old for camp or had there been more to do in her small home- town of Findlay, Ohio, Mrs. Bell may never have met golf. No doubt thou-


hen Peggy Kirk Bell first met golf at age 17, how the wondrous, intertwin-


to help others, her teaching and her faith.”


Talk to anyone about Mrs. Bell


and Judy Bell’s words resonate like an echo.


Her list of honors reads like scroll-


sands of golfers over the more than three quar- ters of a century until her passing in late November at 95 would have been the poorer. But what metric quantifies the


A parting tribute to a legend


number of doors opened by Mrs. Bell for being a charter member of the LPGA in 1950? Or lending her name to a North Carolina-based developmental golf tour for young women? Or offer- ing a simple word of encouragement to a player struggling to find improve- ment on the driving range? Or for not hesitating to host a U.S. Women’s Open even though the bottom line would show in red? There isn’t. “Her impact was so far reaching,”


said Judy Bell, a former U.S. Golf Association president whose friend- ship with Mrs. Bell dated back to the 1950s. “I think of her tremendous gen- erosity, her selfless giving of her time


12 TRIANGLE GOLF TODAY • SPRING 2017


ing movie credits, but a few speak to her stature in the game — the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s highest honor for distinguished sports- manship; induction as the first women into the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame; and the LPGA’s Patty Berg Award, that recog- nizes a person’s diplomacy, goodwill and contributions to the game. Golf Digest magazine once named her among the five most influential women in the sport. Mrs. Bell’s golf


life transitioned seamlessly between


player, instructor, resort


owner and game ambassador. As an amateur, her signature


wins were three consecutive Ohio Women’s Amateur titles (1947-49), the 1949 North and South Women’s Amateur in Pinehurst and the 1949 Titleholders Championship, then considered a women’s professional major. In winning the Titleholders, Mrs. Bell defeated professionals Berg by two strokes and good friend Babe Zaharias by five. A year later, she was a member of


the victorious 1950 U.S. Curtis Cup squad captained by Glenna Collett Vare, a six-time USGA champion who is considered the greatest female golfer of all time. Mrs. Bell soon turned professional, became one of the LPGA’s 13 charter members and played the tour sporadically into the mid-1960s.


In 1953, Mrs. Bell and her husband


Warren “Bullet” Bell began leasing Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, which they later bought outright. A year later, she stepped into instruction and soon found her voice. “She understood the mechanics of


the game and instilled them in a sim- ple manner,” said Peter Stillwell, who interacted with Mrs. Bell while serving as executive director of the World Golf Hall of Fame when it was located in Pinehurst. “She wasn’t as technical as a lot of instructors today, but she was able to explain the mechanics of the swing very easily. And people were very comfortable with her teaching techniques.” As Stillwell can attest, Mrs. Bell’s


masterful story telling and knack for remembering people complemented her teaching style. Stillwell heard her tell numerous stories about his moth- er, Jeanne Cline Stillwell, who was a college classmate Mrs. Bell’s at Rollins College and longtime friend. Golf did not come easy to Mrs. Bell,


who often said it presented the biggest challenge of any sport she had ever tried.


"Ben Hogan helped me immeasur-


ably by making me put my left hand straighter on the club,” Mrs. Bell wrote in an instructional piece for Sports Illustrated in 1959. "I had thought it was impossible. What fortifying this fundamental did for me was to put my feel less in my grip and more in the club head, and it strengthened my whole swing.” A little-out, little-in loop in her


waggle above the golf ball was learned from Tommy Armour, who described the technique as a mini swing. A slight bent knee movement for- ward before swinging came cour- tesy of Byron Nelson. Such nuggets were not


hoarded by Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Bell routinely


walked through the Pine Needles din- ing room in the


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evening with a glove stashed in her blazer. To diners willing to glean a tip, she would put the glove on and swing a fork or any other utensil to make her point.


“There are people who teach for a


living and then there are people who live to teach,” said Kelly Miller, Mrs. Bell’s son-in-law and president of Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. “Peg was one of those who lived to teach.”


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