North
and South Womens' Championship (Pinehurst, N.C.)
Winner:
1915,1916,1919
Womens'
Eastern Golf Association Championship
The Women's Eastern Golf Association
Amateur Championship is one of the oldest and most prestigious
women's amateur championships in the United States. It is one
of the few major women's amateur championships that is played
in stroke-play format.
Winner:
1911(Brae Burn), 1912 (Philadelphia Cricket Club), 1913 (Brae
Burn), 1919 (Apawamis), 1920 (Merion)
Runner-up
1909 US Ladies Amateur Championship (Merion) beaten by Dorothy
Campbell Hurd
1912 US Ladies Amateur Championship (Essex County, Mass.) beaten
by Margaret Curtis
1914 North and South Womens' Championship (Pinehurst, N.C.) beaten
by Miss F. Harvey
1918 North and South Womens' Championship (Pinehurst, N.C.) beaten
by Dorothy Campbell Hurd
Honours
1930 President of United States Senior Womens' Golf Association.
In 1913 her official handicap was plus 1. Georgiana M. Bishop
along with Nona (Mrs. Roland) Barlow, Mrs. Frank Enos, Myra Paterson
and Helen Payson(Mrs. Richard) Corson founded the US Senior Women's
Golf Association in 1923.
Bio
Nonna
and her husband Ronald, a retired army officer, came to America
with her three children in 1898. Although born in Ireland it is
believed she spent a lot of time in England.
While
she never won the US Amateur her record is very impressive and
was neigh on invincible in Phildelphia her home state where she
won the state championship nine times between 1905 and 1923. Nonna
was also runner-up five times between 1902 and 1925.
The
1909 US Ladies Amateur Championship was played at Merion and there
were sixty-seven starters of which 32 reached the matchplay stages.
Nonna Barlow lost to Dorothy Campbell in the final by 3 and 2.
Campbell was the reigning British and Scottish Amateur champion
but despite this Nonna Barlow was able to hold her off until the
thirteenth.
After
the 1912 Eastern Amateur Championship the 'American Golfer' wrote:
"For sustained, consistent scoring, the Merion woman's
work has probably never been equalled in any competition in which
women have participated in this country" .
Curiously
in the 1912 US Womens' Amateur Championship Nonna was beaten by
Margaret Curtis who, according to Rhonda Glenn's much acclaimed,
The Illustrated History of Women's Golf, was according to local
newspapers innocently using cocaine to deaden the pain of a severe
cut sustained the night before and for most of the round the blood
was seeping through the bandage. Despite this and all but two
fingers of Miss Curtis' hand being bandage Nonna lost by 3 and
2. Nonna's defeat was laid squarely on her putting as she managed
to three-putt eight times over sixteen holes, a damning statistic.
Mabel
S. Hoskins book Golf For Women provides a number of illustration
of Mrs Barlow's swing together with an insight into her unorthodox
mechanics of her swing where she would only bend her left knee
in an abrupt action at the top of the backswing as opposed to
the natural gradual process on bending the knee during the backswing.
Whatever about the methodolgy the results were irrefutable proof
as to its effectiveness.
Source:
Golf For Women: Mabel S. Hoskins
Nonna
Barloe died 27 August 1958 in her home in Ardmore, PA at 92 years
of age. She played golf into her seventies playing on the first
team for the Merion Cricket Club. She had a son who died in the
WWI and a daughter Mrs Valentine N. Bieg of St. David's PA. By
1943 Nonna had gone blind.
In her
honour Merion established the Nonna Barlow Cup, a fourball strokeplay
event open to Class A players and played over the East Course
at Merion and organised by the Womens' Golf Association of Philadelphia.
