From the Archives: Lindstrom, Higuchi Earn Major Champion Status in Myrtle Beach

Long before Myrtle Beach finally became the rightful home of a PGA TOUR event for the first time last year, the Grand Strand was the setting of not just one but two of golf’s major championships – with the women paving the way each time.

In 1962, The Dunes Golf & Beach Club and United States Golf Association (USGA) brought the U.S. Women’s Open to the Grand Strand. Not considered a contender until well into the final round, Murle Lindstrom rallied from a five-stroke deficit to make this major event her first-ever victory as a professional. Lindstrom’s final-round 73, played in a persistent rain, was good enough to edge Ruth Jessen and JoAnn Prentice by two strokes.

This event became the first of four USGA championships hosted in Myrtle Beach, with three at the renowned Robert Trent Jones design including the 1977 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur and 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship. The Palmetto Course at Myrtlewood Golf Club hosted the 1978 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.

Fifteen years after Lindstrom’s Dunes Club triumph, Japan’s Chako Higuchi made her mark by winning the 1977 LPGA Championship at Bay Tree Golf Plantation’s Gold Course in North Myrtle Beach. Higuchi was three shots better than runners-up Pat Bradley, Sandra Post and Judy Rankin to win her only major title, and with the victory Higuchi also became the first Asian and first Japanese golfer to win one of the LPGA’s major championships — or any major championship in golf.

Higuchi would go on to reach legend status in Japan, where, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, she won a record 69 times on the LPGA of Japan Tour. Bay Tree Golf Plantation would ultimately close in 2006 for redevelopment.