The young lady at the counter at the Nevada Bob’s Golf Store in San Leandro was not only deadly efficient, but she was also very knowledgeable when it came to equipment, golf balls and golf accessories. On top of that, she was super friendly. I remember thinking she had a real career ahead of her in the ultra-competitive world of golf retail. Of course, I was wrong.
Yet as I went to that Nevada Bob’s in suburban Alameda County several more times, I learned a whole lot more about her. Initially I did a double take when I realized her name was Pat Hurst. A local kid, she was a gifted golfer as a teenager, winning junior events throughout the Bay Area. When she was 17 years old, she won the United States Girls Junior Golf Championship. She attended nearby San Jose State University and had a stellar collegiate golf career. Hurst was the Big West champion in 1988. One year later she was the NCAA individual titlist while leading SJSU to the NCAA team title in 1989. The following year Hurst won the United States Women’s Amateur, defeating Stephanie Davis in a 37-hole finals match.
If anyone was ready for professional golf with big-time victories in the U.S. Girls’ Junior, the NCAA Championships and the U.S. Women’s Amateur, it was Pat Hurst. She turned professional in 1991 and headed off that autumn to the LPGA Tour Qualifying School tournament. She missed out on securing her tour card and was relegated to playing competitively on the Players West Tour, a low-money mini-tour that was prevalent in California and Arizona in the 1980s and 1990s. During the course of the next two years, Hurst won five times on the Players West, but because it wasn’t affiliated with the LPGA Tour, she had to return to Q School in the fall of 1992. This time Pat played better, but still came up short, missing out on her tour card by one measly stroke. She played once again on the local mini-tour and even gave lessons as a teaching pro to the members at LaQuinta Country Club.
Yet two years of struggle were too much for Pat, and she returned home to San Leandro where she took that retail sales job at Nevada Bob’s. Rededicating herself to golf, she tried to get through Q School for a third time in the autumn of 1994 and this time around Hurst got inside the cut line, finishing tied for 20th place. She finally had exempt status on tour for the 1995 season. She took advantage of her new-found opportunity.
Hurst had a solid first year and at the conclusion of the season she won LPGA Rookie of the Year honors. She improved in 1996 and had her breakthrough moment in 1997 when she won the Oldsmobile Classic in Michigan. It was a most impressive first win because Hurst won the title by one stroke over future Hall of Famer and Bay Area friend, Juli Inkster. Nine months later she took a great step forward and won the Nabisco Dinah Shore, the first LPGA major of the season. Once again, she prevailed over a quality leader board, beating Helen Dobson by one stroke.
Pat Hurst was a top-20 golfer on the LPGA Tour during the course of the next 10 years and was a member of the Solheim Cup matches for the American team in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2007. Team USA won four of the five cups during that span. Her Solheim Cup record for 20 matches over those years was a solid 10-7-3.
It was a competitively outstanding time on tour with the likes of Juli Inkster, Patty Sheehan, Annika Sorenstam, Christie Kerr and Lorena Ochoa dominating leader boards, and yet Hurst continued to win against stellar linksters and strong fields. In 2000 she won the Electrolux in Tennessee over Julie Inkster, beat Christie Kerr to win the 2005 State Farm in Springfield, Illinois, captured the Safeway Classic in Portland in 2006, and beat Lorena Ochoa and Yani Tseng to prevail by one stroke at the 2009 Master Card Classic in Mexico City. She also lost four playoffs during those years, three times to Annika, including an 18-hole playoff loss to Sorenstam in the 2006 U.S. Women’s Open.
During the past decade, Pat Hurst has continued to compete on the LPGA Tour and has served as a three-time assistant captain to Juli Inkster for the Solheim Cup teams in 2015, 2017 and 2019. She turned 50 years of age this past May. Earlier this week it was announced that Hurst would be the captain for the American team at the 2021 Solheim Cup matches. The 2021 matches will be contested in early September at the Inverness Club in Toledo. Inverness is a traditional old-style golf course that was designed by Donald Ross and first opened in 1903. It initially hosted the first of its four U.S. Opens in 1920, has been the site for a pair of PGA Championships (a most notable one in 1986 when Bob Tway holed out from the sand on the final hole to beat Greg Norman by one stroke), and hosted two U.S. Senior Opens, two NCAA championships, and this past year’s U.S. Boys Junior.
Hurst, who has also served as the assistant women’s golf coach at San Jose State, felt she was ready to take on the top job for Team USA at the Solheim Cup. At her press conference earlier this week, she stated that “deep down I had hoped for the same opportunity (as Inkster), a chance to take what I learned from Juli and put my personal touch to it.” Of course, the captain can’t bust tee shots, attack flags and sink long putts, but I have a feeling that Pat Hurst will be a very good captain for the American side at the 2021 Solheim Cup. She has always been a fighter, she has always been resilient and her positive personality will be an asset to the American team’s fortunes. Yes, Pat Hurst has come a long way from the front counter at Nevada Bob’s and the lesson tee at LaQuinta Country Club.
On a final note, Pete Dye passed away this past Thursday. He was 94 years of age and had been suffering from dementia during the past few years. Pete and his late wife, Alice, have been featured in this column several times for their impact upon golf design and the modern game. Pete and Alice were a design team that built more than 200 courses, including Carmel Valley Ranch, PGA West, TPC Sawgrass, the home of the Players Championship, Blackwolf Run, and Whistling Straits, the site of this year’s Ryder Cup. Pete Dye was an active member of the post-World War II gods of American golf course architecture that included Robert Trent Jones, Tom Fazio, Dick Wilson, Robert Muir Graves, Billy Bell and Ellis Maples. He had a most creative mind and was able to design and build some of America’s finest modern-era courses.
