Lucy Barnes Brown (née Lucy Nevins Barnes) (March 16, 1859 – September 30, 1921) was an early American amateur golfer, known for winning the inaugural U.S. Women's Amateur in 1895. Barnes was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She married Charles Stelle Brown in 1880 and competed in the 1895 tournament as Mrs. Charles S. Brown representing Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Shinnecock Hills at the time had club members named Barnes, and the

United States Golf Association The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the rules ...

(USGA) speculates that Mrs. Brown was their daughter. The USGA had just been formed in late 1894, and earlier in 1895 had held the inaugural

U.S. Amateur The United States Amateur Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Amateur, is the leading annual golf tournament in the United States for amateur golfers. It is organized by the United States Golf Association and is currently held each August ov ...

and U.S. Open. On November 9, 1895, they held the first U.S. Women's Amateur championship at the Meadow Brook Club in the

Town of Hempstead, New York The Town of Hempstead (also known historically as South Hempstead) is the largest of the three towns in Nassau County (alongside North Hempstead and Oyster Bay) in the U.S. state of New York. It occupies the southwestern part of the county, on t ...

. The tournament that year was an 18-hole stroke play event (

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

, used today, started the following year). Thirteen women competed, and Mrs. Brown won the tournament with a score of 132, defeating Nellie C. Sargent by two strokes. The score of 132 was the women's course record at the time. Mrs. Brown did not compete in the Women's Amateur again. Her husband, Charles S. Brown, founded a real estate company in 1873 which is still active today as Brown Harris Stevens LLC. One of their children, Archibald M. Brown, was later president of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. The couple was still living in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in 1920.

References

External links

1895 Women's Amateur results
(including a New York Sun article)

(playing at The Country Club in 1902) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Lucy Barnes American female golfers Amateur golfers Winners of ladies' major amateur golf championships Golfers from New York (state) Golfers from New York City 1859 births 1921 deaths