Five-Time major champion Amy Alcott has been a tireless advocate for junior golf in Southern California for many years.

An Incomparable Champion, A Legendary Slash

Unquestionably the greatest female golfer ever to emerge from Los Angeles, Amy Alcott was a precedent-setting junior, became a five-time major champion and, in 1999, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. She’s also a youth golf advocate, golf course designer and charity spokesperson. Yet, she will forever be known for a plunge into a pond.

To refresh, Alcott had just clinched her fourth major championship, the 1988 Nabisco Dinah Shore (now the Chevron Championship) and in the spur of the moment, enlisted her caddie, Bill Kurre, to go for a soak in a water hazard next to the 18th green at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage — a lake later renamed “Poppie’s Pond.” The spontaneity and joy of the moment boosted the fortunes of women’s golf and has never stopped resonating.

“I didn’t even really think about it,” Alcott told FORE in a recent interview. “I looked at my caddie and I said, ‘We’re going in the water.’ And we ran in there with all the rocks and the bird doo and the fencing, not knowing how deep it was. It was just a moment of excitement.”

A PRECOCIOUS JUNIOR

Born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1956, Alcott moved as a six-month-old with her family to Brentwood, a community on the west side of Los Angeles. She began her golf journey at age 7, eventually designing what she labeled the Alcott Golf and Country Club in her front yard, chipping from the ivy and putting into soup cans and sprinkler heads. “My dad put a huge net in front so I could hit golf balls,” recalled Alcott. “Everybody thought our house was being fumigated.”

Alcott was soon netting victories with ease. She amassed 132 junior golf trophies, culminating with a triumph at the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 1973. That same year, she set the women’s course record at Pebble Beach while winning the California Women’s Amateur Championship. She made more history in 1974 as the first female golfer to play in the CIF-SCGA High School Championship as a member of the Palisades High School boys’ team.

TWO DECADES OF MAJOR MAGIC

With no more amateur worlds to conquer, Alcott turned pro at age 18 — and promptly triumphed in her third start, at the 1975 Orange Blossom Classic, on her way to winning the LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year award. She snared her first major championship at the 1979 du Maurier Classic in Canada, captured the U.S. Women’s Open in 1980 — by nine shots over old junior rival Hollis Stacy — and won the first of three Dinah Shore events in 1983. By the time she won that final Dinah in 1991, she had racked up 29 LPGA Tour titles plus three LPGA of Japan Tour wins.

ARTISTIC AND ALTRUSITIC

“I took a little side job as a short-order cook in the Butterfly Bakery in Westwood when I was the U.S. Open champion,” she recalled. “We had people coming in looking for golf tips. They’d order the Amy Alcott Hole-in-One Special, which was ham, turkey and Swiss on rye bread with Russian dressing and coleslaw on the sandwich. Some of the guys would come in from Occidental Petroleum. [CEO] Armand Hammer was paying a lot of money to a corporate chef, but their guys would come over for $6 sandwiches made by Amy Alcott, and some golf advice.”

“She amassed 132 junior golf trophies, culminating with a triumph at the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 1973. That same year, she set the women’s course record at Pebble Beach while winning the California Women’s Amateur Championship”

Alcott hasn’t lost her creative flair. She’s dabbled in design, starting with a 2004 collaboration with Casey O’Callaghan at Indian Canyons GR (South) in Palm Springs. In 2025, she is redesigning Desert Island CC in Rancho Mirage. Most famously, she was a key part of Gil Hanse’s team that won the bid to design the Rio Olympic course in Brazil, which hosted golf’s return to the Olympics in 2016.

A strong advocate for junior golf, Alcott regularly participates in clinics and First Tee programs. She also coached the girls’ golf team at Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City. In 2023, she captained the U.S. PING Junior Solheim Cup team. She continues to teach, consult and serve as a corporate ambassador.

Amid all her interests and successes, she also has perspective. The Palisades Fire triggered a horrific start to 2025 for tens of thousands of Angelenos. Alcott was in the thick of it. On Tuesday afternoon, January 7, she grabbed her little plaid childhood golf bag, her U.S. Women’s Open medal and her dogs and evacuated to her second home in the desert. Fate smiled: her Santa Monica house of 35 years survived.

“I got very, very lucky,” she says, referencing the flames that burned within a half mile of her house. “There was a lot of work to do and smoke remediation, but my house is still standing. So, I have a lot to be thankful for, that’s for sure.