Bio of English Golfer Diana Fishwick
Diana Fischwick was an English golfer who was a major player in British women's golf starting as a junior in the 1920s and continuing into the 1930s. Her exploits included a major upset victory in the British Ladies Amateur, and playing in the first two Curtis Cups. By the 1940s she was captaining international teams.
Birth name: Diana Lesley Fishwick
Date of birth: April 12, 1911
Place of birth: London, England
Date and place of death: December 17, 1996, in Sunningdale, England
Also known as: Diana Critchley, Diana Fishwick Critchley, Mrs. A.C. Critchley
Her Biggest Wins
- 1927 British Girls
- 1928 British Girls
- 1930 British Ladies Amateur
- 1932 English Ladies
- 1932 French Ladies
- 1933 Florida West Coast Championship
- 1936 German Ladies Open
- 1938 German Ladies Open
- 1938 Belgian Ladies Open
- 1946 Dutch International Ladies
- 1949 English Ladies
More About Diana Fishwick
Diana Fishwick picked up golf beginning at age 15. The Fishwick family home in Broadstairs, Kent, England, was next to the North Foreland Golf Club, which is where Diana got started. She was an all-around athlete as a youth, also playing tennis, participating in swimming and equestrian, and she had an interest in driving race cars.Just a year after starting in the game, Fishwick won her first British Girls championship at age 16. She repeated as the Girls champ in 1928 at age 17, becoming not just that event's first back-to-back winner, but its first 2-time champ.
She reached the final of the English Amateur Championship in 1929, but lost to Mollie Gourlay (the tournament's 1926 winner) by a 6-and-5 score.
Fishwick's first appearance in Europe's biggest women's tournament at the time, the British Ladies Amateur, was in 1930. The defending champ and greatest woman golfer of the era, Joyce Wethered, chose not to play. That left American Glenna Collett as a heavy favorite to win the British Ladies for the first time.
When the 19-year-old Fishwick, after advancing through the match-play bracket into the title match, learned she would face Collett for the title, she exclaimed, "What a lark!" Very few observers at the time thought Fishwick would win.
But she did, playing free and easy as the heavy underdog. Fishwick won that championship match by a 4-and-3 score. Collett never won a British Ladies Amateur Championship (now called The Women's Amateur Championship), and the first American winner didn't come until Babe Zaharias' 1947 victory. Fishwick later named her daughter Glenna after Collett.
She first played in the United States in 1931, but never threatened in the U.S. Women's Amateur. Fishwick did win once in America, though, at the 1933 Florida West Coast Championship. (By that point she had also added the French Ladies title in 1932.) She also reached the semifinals of the British Ladies again in 1933, which, after her 1930 victory, remained her next-best showing in that tournament.
Fishwick was selected for Team Great Britain in the first two Curtis Cups played. In the 1932 Curtis Cup, she did not play in the foursomes but in singles defeated Maureen Orcutt, 4 and 3. In the 1934 Curtis Cup, Fishwick partnered Wanda Morgan in a foursomes loss to Orcutt/Leona Cheney, then lost in singles to Virginia Van Wie, 2 and 1.
She was also part of traveling squads of British women golfers who toured overseas in the 1930s, including in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
Meanwhile, she kept winning tournaments. Fishwick won regional titles as the champion of Kent in 1934 and Surrey in 1936 (a title she won again in 1946). And she won national crowns as the German Ladies winner in 1936 and 1938, and the Belgian Ladies Open victor in 1938.
Something else big happened in her life in 1938: her wedding. Fishwick married Brigadier-General A.C. Critchley. They met in the early 1930s at Sunningdale, where both were members (Fishwick of Sunningdale Ladies Club). They even played as partners in many competitions, including partnering to win the 1933 French Scratch Foursomes tournament. (Fishwick had several other wins partnering men in mixed competitions, including the 1932 Midland Scratch Foursomes and 1934 Sunningdale Foursomes.) After marriage, Fishwick was usually called Diana Critchley in contemporaneous news reports, sometimes Mrs. A.C. Critchley. Later, some print publications and book authors referred to her as "Diana Fishwick Critchley."
World War II cut a big gap in golf competition in Britain and across Europe. When the war ended, the golf scene started up again in 1946. Fishwick won the Dutch International Ladies crown that year. She also reached the championship match of the French Ladies, but lost to Orcutt by the whopping score of 13-and-11 (the match was scheduled for 36 holes).
Fishwick was selected for the 1948 Curtis Cup, but did not play. Then she was named Great Britain captain for the 1950 Curtis Cup. She had mostly given up the major competitions by that point, but, primarily as a way to scout potential players for the coming Curtis Cup, Fishwick entered the 1949 English Women's Amateur. And she wound up winning it, 17 years after her first victory in the event.
That same year (1949) Fishwick lost in a playoff to Frances Stephens in the stroke-play Daily Graphic Women's National Tournament. She also, as partner of Cyril Tolley, reached the title match of the prestigious Worplesdon Mixed Foursomes, but fell to the team of Stephens/Leonard Crawley. (Stephens later partnered Fishwick's son, Bruce Critchley, to victory in the same tournament.)
Throughout her playing career, Fishwick was known as an excellent putter. She didn't waste time — she stroked the ball quickly on the green, and with no practice swings.
Her playing career essentially came to an end as she captained the 1950 Great Britain side (Glenna Collett Vare was the American captain) in the Curtis Cup, which the Americans won. She also captained a squad of Great Britain amateurs (there was no such thing as professional women's golf in Britain at the time) against American pros in the 1951 Weathervane Trophy.
Fishwick had many other national team appearances as a player over the years. She represented Great Britain & Ireland in the Vagliano Trophy in 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934 (all GB&I wins), and was team captain in 1948 (also a victory). And she represented England in the Women's Home International Matches in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1935 and 1936, plus 1947.
International play continued in the next generation of the family, too. Her son, Bruce Critchley, played in the 1969 Walker Cup. He later became a long-running golf announcer on Sky TV. (Glenna Critchley also was an accomplished amateur golfer.)
Today the North Foreland Golf Club (where she learned to play) still plays the annual Diana Fishwick Trophy in her honor. Since 1982, Sunningdale Golf Club has played the Critchley Salver in her memory. (Fishwick founded the Ladies Section at Sunningdale in 1950 and for many years to come was the section's honorary secretary.) Sunningdale also boasts the Critchley Room in its clubhouse.
Fishwick is also remembered each year at the British Women's Amateur, where the tournament runner-up's trophy is named The Diana Fishwick Cup.
Photo credit: Diana Fishwick in 1932; Image courtesy of University of St Andrews Library.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Kent Golf. Diana Fishwick, https://www.kentgolf.org/news.php?newsitem=673.
Mair, Lewine. "Long-serving ex-champion dies aged 85," The Daily Telegraph, December 20, 1996.
New York Times. "Miss Diana Fishwick, Golfer, Will Be Wed," August 23, 1938.
Steel, Donald, and Ryde, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Golf, 1975, The Viking Press.
Sunningdale Golf Club. Critchley Salver, https://www.sunningdalegolfclub.co.uk/critchley_salver.
Werden, Lincoln A. "Miss Diana Fishwick — The Visiting British Golf Champion," New York Times, February 9, 1931.
Wilson, Enid. A Gallery of Women Golfers, Country Life Limited London, 1961.
Women Golfers Museum. Famous Golfers, "F," Diana Fishwick, http://www.womengolfersmuseum.com/Famousgolfers/F.htm.
