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Susie Maxwell Berning, a three-time U.S. Women’s Open champion, earned entry into the World Golf Hall of Fame in April 2020, and on Wednesday, March 9, she will be inducted along with Tiger Woods, former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and the late Marion Hollins. A version of this story initially ran on usga.org in 2019.
As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. It turned out to be a good thing that the colt a 13-year-old girl was caring for got scared by a train and ran wild over Lincoln Park Golf Course on a summer day in 1954. And it’s a good thing that U.C. Ferguson, the longtime professional at the Oklahoma City, Okla., course didn’t cast off a terrified Susie Maxwell.
Instead, the benevolent Ferguson encouraged her, the start of a relationship that led to a Hall-of-Fame golf career that produced 13 professional victories, three of which were U.S. Women’s Open titles.
That’s how Susie Maxwell Berning’s passion for golf began.
When her family first moved to Oklahoma City from Southern California, they rented a house across the street from Lincoln Park. The family had little money, so two of Berning’s three brothers started caddieing at Lincoln Park. Susie inquired as well, but Ferguson politely told her that girls didn’t do such things.
So Berning turned to equines when her father was asked by a co-worker to tend to a pair of horses.
On the periphery of Lincoln Park were bridle paths, and one day while she tended to one of the colts on the bridle path, a train conductor sounded his whistle. The scared colt broke free and ran wild on the golf course, damaging a couple of greens. The colt was eventually corralled, but Berning was summoned to the golf shop. She expected a thorough tongue-lashing from the head pro.
In lieu of punishment, Ferguson asked Berning if she would teach his two young children to ride. One day, Ferguson asked Berning if she was interested in playing golf. “That silly game?” she replied.
When LPGA Tour star Patty Berg came to town for a clinic, Berning attended and was mesmerized by Berg’s personality and humor. “Oh, that’s what golf is about,” she remembered saying. “I would like to try that.”
Ferguson provided free lessons, equipment and rounds at Lincoln Park for Berning, who became smitten with golf.
Berning wasn’t the only Oklahoman to benefit from Ferguson’s generosity. He helped create Golf Inc., a fund that provided area golfers with scholarship money for college. Berning, future U.S. Amateur champion Bob Dickson, Mark Hayes and many others were beneficiaries.
“He was a gentleman and a half,” Berning said of Ferguson, whose Golf Inc. had raised more than $400,000 in scholarship money by the time of his death in 1999. “I wish to this day we had more professionals like U.C. He loved the game and he loved to teach the ladies.”
Berning received $500 a semester to attend Oklahoma City University, where she competed on the men’s golf team when there wasn’t enough interest in starting a women’s program. Abe Lemons, the school’s legendary basketball coach who also oversaw the golf team, listed her in the lineup as S. Maxwell. Berning said Lemons called her Sam at competitions.
Playing with and against the men prepared Berning for a future 33-year career on the LPGA Tour. She had grown up competing with her brothers and playing with Ferguson, so the adjustment wasn’t all too difficult.
“I know some of them were shocked to find that ‘Sam’ was a girl,” said Berning, who now resides in Palm Springs, Calif. “I know a couple of them said they didn’t want to play against a girl. But for the most part, I was accepted well.”
Berning’s exploits came a decade before the passing of Title IX, which required schools to offer the same opportunities for females that were afforded to their male counterparts.
She decided to turn pro after she saw two of her chief Oklahoma rivals, Beth Stone and Betsy Cullen, join the LPGA Tour. She had defeated both in Oklahoma amateur events and figured if she could beat them, she could join them. Berning was named the LPGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year for 1964 and a year later, she claimed her first major title, the Women’s Western Open.
She won the first of her three U.S. Women’s Opens in 1968 by three strokes over Mickey Wright at Moselem Springs Golf Club in Fleetwood, Pa. A year earlier, she and Stone had come up two strokes shy of amateur Catherine Lacoste at Virginia Hot Springs Golf & Tennis Club.
Berning went on to win consecutive Women’s Open titles in 1972 and ’73 at Winged Foot Golf Club and the Country Club of Rochester, respectively. She is one of just six women to win three or more U.S. Women’s Opens, joining Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Hollis Stacy and Annika Sorenstam at three, while Wright and Betsy Rawls won four.
When Berning won her second Women’s Open in 1972, she also became the first mother to win a major title, as her daughter Robin was 2 years old. She has since been joined in that distinction by Nancy Lopez, Juli Inkster and Catriona Matthew. Years later, Berning set another standard by becoming the first mother to compete with her daughter in an LPGA Tour event, as Robin – then a 19-year-old sophomore at Ohio State – played in the 1989 Konica San Jose Classic.
After she retired from the tour, Berning became a noted instructor. She has since been inducted into several halls of fame, including the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame, and, now the World Golf Hall of Fame alongside all of the game’s greats.
None of this would have occurred had it not been for a scared horse.
“If I hadn’t gone out and asked to caddie, if my horse hadn’t run on the golf course, I would never have gotten to know U.C.,” she said. “Nobody in my family knew how to spell golf.”
David Shefter is a senior staff writer for the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.
