Susie Maxwell Berning, a three-time champion of america Ladies’s Open golf event who was identified for her tenacity on the golf green and her grace off it, died on Wednesday at her dwelling in Indio, in Southern California. She was 83.
Her daughter Cindy Molchany confirmed the demise. She stated her mom had had lung most cancers for 2 years.
Rising from Oklahoma Metropolis within the Sixties, when ladies’s skilled golf was nonetheless a growing sport (she later estimated that there have been solely about 70 golfers on the tour on the time), Berning constructed a glittering profession. She shone brightest when the stakes have been highest. 4 of her 11 wins on the L.P.G.A. tour have been in main tournaments, together with the Western Open in 1965.
The three others have been U.S. Open wins in 1968, 1972 and 1973. Berning was considered one of simply six ladies to win three or extra, together with Betsy Rawls, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Hollis Stacy, Annika Sorenstam and Mickey Wright — all members of the World Golf Corridor of Fame. In 2021, Berning lastly joined them within the Corridor, which honors each female and male stars of the game. She was inducted in the identical class as Tiger Woods.
Full recognition of her accomplishments got here slowly largely as a result of her profession was abbreviated, as she constantly prioritized household.
Throughout her decade-long prime, which started in 1968, she averaged fewer than 13 occasions a yr, together with solely seven in 1970, when she was pregnant along with her daughter Robin, and two in 1977, whereas pregnant along with her daughter Cindy.
Berning had not performed in a couple of month earlier than her first U.S. Open win, by which she beat Wright, a four-time champion, by 4 strokes on the Moselem Springs Golf Membership in Fleetwood, Pa. She had been on her honeymoon along with her husband, Dale Berning, an actual property investor.
In her induction speech, Berning referred to as her daughters her “fifth and sixth main,” including: “I all the time thought that having my household on tour was not only a blessing, however it was a bonus. Irrespective of how the spherical went, I used to be Mother first.”
In these days, the comparatively small pool of feminine skilled golfers additionally functioned as one thing of a household. “On the course, we tried to beat one another’s butt,” she stated in that speech, “however there was by no means any love misplaced. Off the course, we took care of one another. We’d eat, room and journey collectively from city to city in caravans.”
The petite Berning excelled on tight, tough programs the place taking pictures par was thought-about the usual, in keeping with Golf Oklahoma journal.
In her second Open win, in 1972 at Winged Foot Golf Membership in Mamaroneck, N.Y., she triumphed by a single stroke over three runners-up, together with Judy Rankin, who had been Berning’s maid of honor and was one of many few different ladies on the tour with a household.
Berning efficiently defended her title the subsequent yr on the Nation Membership of Rochester in upstate New York. She began sturdy within the event however faltered on the inexperienced. Her husband then gave her a distinct putter, which he had purchased for $5. After spending a night training with it of their motel room, she received the event by 5 strokes on her thirty second birthday.
As she put it in her speech, “Not dangerous for a lady, five-two, from Oklahoma who actually thought horses was going to be her future, not golf.”
Suzanne Maxwell was born on July 22, 1941, in Pasadena, Calif., the fourth of 5 youngsters of Shields and Isabelle Maxwell. Her father owned a restaurant and later a turkey farm, in Southern California, however the household moved to Oklahoma Metropolis after each the restaurant and the farm have been broken by hearth.
When she was younger, her brothers Roger and Invoice have been making good cash as caddies at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Oklahoma Metropolis. All in favour of earnings moderately than the game itself, she inquired a couple of job. She was informed that caddying was not for ladies.
As an alternative, she grew to become dedicated to her household’s two horses. As Berning recounted final yr on the podcast “Fore the Good of the Recreation,” she was taking them each on a stroll on a bridle path close to the golf course when considered one of them broke free, trampling fairways and greens.
When groundskeepers hauled her to the course’s professional store for punishment, the pinnacle skilled on the course, U.C. Ferguson, a famend golf teacher, forgave her and requested if she needed to present driving classes to his youngsters.
He additionally provided to introduce her to golf. “I saved saying, ‘No, that silly sport, you chase this little white ball round, no sir, thanks,’” she recalled. A yr later, he invited her to a golf clinic being given by Patty Berg, a founding member of the L.P.G.A. Her response, she recalled, was “That’s what golf is? I’d wish to attempt that.”
Ferguson grew to become her mentor, and beginning in her sophomore yr of highschool, the place there had not been a ladies’ staff till she began a small one, Berning proved a prodigy.
She received three consecutive Oklahoma highschool golf championships. She later performed down the accomplishment as a result of there have been so few ladies taking part in on the time.
“I shot a 121 at considered one of these tournaments,” she stated, “however see, there was no competitors.”
After commencement, she grew to become the primary girl to earn a golf scholarship to Oklahoma Metropolis College, which was planning to begin a ladies’s staff. As a result of she was the one feminine participant to precise curiosity, she was pressured to play on the lads’s staff, the place she was given the nickname Sam.
Whereas pondering doable postgraduation careers throughout her senior yr, she noticed that two native golf rivals have been already “successful slightly bit of cash right here and there,” she stated. “I saved considering, ‘I can beat these. I beat them a few years earlier than.’”
Not lengthy after, she joined the tour. She took dwelling Rookie of the 12 months honors in 1964.
Berning continued to compete on and off into the Nineteen Nineties earlier than turning her consideration to educating; she divided her time between the Reserve Membership close to Palm Springs, Calif., and Maroon Creek Membership in Aspen, Colo.
Along with Ms. Molchany, she is survived by her different daughter, Robin Physician, and two grandchildren. She and her husband divorced in 1997.
Regardless of her storied profession, Berning earned a pittance in contrast with the skilled golfers who would observe. She made mild of that truth in her induction speech, turning to that yr’s famous person inductee within the viewers and saying:
“By the best way, Tiger, of my three U.S. Opens, the full winnings was $16,000. I used to be questioning if you happen to’d wish to swap checks.”