by Ross Heuchan/Jennifer Mirsky (The Royal Ottawa GC Heritage Committee)
On the first day of summer in 2023, a unique collaboration was born at The Royal Ottawa Golf Club in Gatineau, Quebec.
Board members of the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Georgia, including their Club President, Kevin Costello, met with Board and Heritage Committee members of The Royal Ottawa Golf Club. Their purpose was twofold: to further the relationship between the two clubs and to continue to work together to bring recognition to a largely forgotten golf superstar who was a member of both the Atlantic Athletic Club and The Royal Ottawa Golf Club.
Keen golfers may be familiar with Bobby Jones and his extraordinary amateur career including his Grand Slam accomplishments, but most will be unaware of where he learned his love of golf. At the age of six, Bobby began golfing at East Lake Golf Club, then part of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Though he loved golf in his early days, he was known for his frustration and impatience with the game, club throwing, and profanity. He credits his change and eventual success to one person, the person who was a steadying influence and who shamed him into behaving. They would become lifelong friends. That person was the subject of this recent meeting between The Royal Ottawa Golf Club and the Atlanta Athletic Club.
While Bobby Jones is recognized in the World Golf Hall of Fame, his mentor and supporter remains largely unknown.
Alexa Stirling Fraser was dominant in the early days of competitive ladies’ golf in the United States and Canada. She met Dr. Wilbert Grieve Fraser, a prominent eye specialist in Ottawa, at a golf exhibition in Ottawa. After a brief courtship, they married in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to Ottawa where they began to raise a family. Alexa joined Wilbert at The Royal Ottawa Golf Club and during a thirty-year span from 1925 to 1957; she would win nine Ladies’ Club Championships. She also won eight Ottawa Ladies City & District Championships.
Joe McLean has previously written in Flagstick Golf Magazine about Alexa’s achievements as a champion female golfer. She was a three-time U.S. Ladies Amateur Champion from 1916, at age 18, and again in 1919 and 1920 as well as three times runner-up in 1921, 1922 and 1925 and Canadian Ladies Amateur Champion in 1920 and 1934, as well as two-time runner-up in 1921 and 1925. Alexa was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Women’s Golf, which was instituted in 1950 at the Augusta (Ga.) Country Club, the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame (1967), the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1978), the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame (1986), the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame (1989), the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame (2013) and in 2021 the Ottawa Valley Golf Association (OVGA) welcomed her into their Hall of Fame.
The project that these two clubs are working on is to have Alexa Stirling Fraser nominated to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Led by the Atlanta Athletic Club and their Alexa Stirling Foundation, in collaboration with the Stirling Fraser family, the East Lake Golf Club, and The Royal Ottawa Golf Club, efforts are well underway to raise awareness of the accomplishments of this extraordinary woman and the influence that Alexa Stirling Fraser had on the development of ladies’ golf, on Bobby Jones, and perhaps, more importantly, on bringing respect and grace to the sport.
A noble task, indeed!
