Katherine Harley - The USGA Ladies Championships Forgotten Star

Katherine Harley holds two unique positions in women's golf. First when winning the 1908 USGA Ladies Championship at The Chevy Chase Club in Chevy Chase Maryland she defeated both Margaret and Harriot Curtis in match play.

The Curtis sisters dominated the USGA Ladies Championship from 1905 until the late 1914 and Ms Harley was the only player ever to defeat both of them in a single tournament on her way to a USGA Championship. At the time Miss Harley was playing out of Fall River Country Club, Fall River, Massachusetts.*

Her second unique position is that she was the first women golfer to win the USGA Ladies Championship as a single and then a married woman, winning the 1914 as Mrs. H. Arnold Jackson of Oakley Country Club Watertown Massachusetts. As fate would have it her first match play opponent was Harriot Curtis.

The USGA Ladies Championships, continue your search here......

Fall River Country Club was one of Harry Vardon's stops on his 1900 tour. In fact the cover photo from Bob Labbance's "The Vardon Invasion" is of Vardon on the first tee at Fall River.

A close examination of the photo reveals a young lady just to the right of Vardon's left shoulder, who although the photo is slightly blurred bears the expression of almost trance like fixation on Harry.

Although most of the details of Miss Harley's life and golf career are lost in the past, speculation that the young lady in the photo is she is not too far fetched.