From there Helen ventured out to Inwood Country Club, not quite two miles from her house, with her brother Jarvis, nicknamed “Chub,” an amateur boxer who would also win the Long Island Junior Golf Championship. She played with a kid named Jack Mackie, Jr., son of the pro at Inwood. That competition was just what Helen needed.

In a 1931 profile, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote: “When still very young and in high school, (Helen) tried out for and won a place on the (Lawrence) high school golf team (all boys at that time). Had Helen been a bit older and her male teammates been around a bit longer, Helen might have found herself patronized. But, as it was, they accepted her as one of the team, and when she and her three teammates went out to play against other high school opposition, Helen Hicks played in the number 2 position and got no quarter at all from those pitted against her.”

She won the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association Girls’ Junior Championship in 1926, less than a year after first swinging a club. She repeated as champion in 1927 and won again in 1928, establishing herself as one of the top juniors in the country. Losing to the guys early lit a fire.

According to Ralph Trout, a New York sportswriter in the 1920s, “I recall one match Helen had to play on the Dyker Beach course against some New Utrecht golfers. That was one in which Helen was beaten by a young man who played better golf than ever before in his young life. At his age, he simply wasn’t going to let any girl put anything over on him, certainly not with a gallery of several hundred around watching the fun. Doubtless Helen recalled that afternoon, and after competition like that, she must have realized that her golf would have to improve if she were to beat those kids from other schools.”

Clad in a long skirt and beret, Helen’s athletic form was well ahead of its time. She was often referred to as “muscular,” or “robust” or “stockily built,” although photographs from the period show a fit and strong woman who would have gone unnoticed at any gym in the world in the last 30 years. Every college coach in the United States wants golfers who look like Helen Hicks did in her prime. Still, American writers of that time referred to her as “sturdy” and “broad-shouldered,” a “full-bodied type of youngster with muscular strength and stamina.” She earned various nicknames including “The Eastern Slugger” and “The 4-H Girl” for “Hard-Hitting Helen Hicks.”

LPGA Founder Helen Hicks was Americas Female Professional Golfer

First Lady

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