Rhona Adair: Pioneer of Irish Women's Golf
Full name: Rhona Kathleen Adair
Date of birth: September 2, 1881
Place of birth: Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland (in what is today Northern Ireland )
Date and place of death: March 27, 1961, in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Also known as: After marriage, Rhona Cuthell or (in print) Mrs. Algernon Cuthell. (We've also seen her mistakenly referred to as "Rhoda," rather than Rhona.)
Her Biggest Wins
- 1900 Irish Women's Amateur Close
- 1900 British Ladies Amateur
- 1901 Irish Women's Amateur Close
- 1902 Irish Women's Amateur Close
- 1903 British Ladies Amateur
- 1903 Irish Women's Amateur Close
More About Rhona Adair
Rhona Adair was born into a golfing family in northern Ireland in the area of Royal Portrush Golf Club. Her father helped found the Golfing Union of Ireland and served as captain of the men's club at Portrush. Her mother was a captain of the Portrush women's golf club.Rhona herself picked up the game at age 8 and quickly progressed. In her earliest years on the course, she usually played at Killymoon Club in County Tyrone near her home. But by 1892, when she was just 11 years old, she had been made a member at Royal Portrush.
In the mid-1890s, Adair was beginning to win some of the earliest junior tournaments played at Portrush. She also had her first competitions against the Hezlet sisters, one of whom, May Hezlet, would become her biggest rival for superiority in Irish women's golf.
When the British Ladies Amateur (today known as The Women's Amateur Championship) was played at Portrush in 1895, Adair and the Hezlet sisters watched Lady Margaret Scott win the title for the third year running. Both Adair and May Hezlet went on to win the same title multiple times themselves. And Adair didn't just watch the tournament in 1895, she made her debut as a player that year at age 14.
Adair's first brush with a national championship was in 1899 (when she was 17 years old) in the tournament now known as the Irish Women's Amateur Close Championship. (A "close" or "closed" tournament is the opposite of an "open": One that only golfers who meet a limited criteria can enter. In this case, Irish Close means only Irish golfers could enter.) Adair reached the championship match that year before falling to May Hezlet, 5 and 4.
In July of 1899, Adair visited St. Andrews, Scotland, and The Old Course. There she met, and played a 36-hole match against, Old Tom Morris. Adair was still just 17, Old Tom was 77. And Old Tom announced before the match, "I'll no' be licked by a lassie."
Morris was 1-up after the morning 18, and 3-up after the 27th hole. Adair clawed a couple holes back on the inward nine, but Morris held on for the 1-up victory. On later days, Adair and Morris partnered and played their better ball against Harry S.C. Everard (a prominent amateur of the era) in two 36-hole matches, losing the first but winning the second.
Playing with Morris got her lots of publicity. Her golf started getting her even more in 1900, when Adair won the Irish-British double, one year after May Hezlet had done it first. In the championship match of the Irish Close, Adair beat Violet Hezlet, 9 and 7, at Portrush. Then Adair won the British Ladies Amateur by 6-and-5 over England's Isabel Nevile.
Adair reached the championship match in both tournaments again in 1901, winning the Irish Close but losing at the British Ladies Am. She won her third consecutive Irish Close crown in 1902.
And in 1903, Adair pulled off the double again. In the Irish Close, she once again beat Violet Hezlet in the championship match, 7 and 5. In the British Ladies Amateur, Adair won the title match over another Irish golfer, Florence Walker-Leigh, 5 and 3.
Her profile higher than it had ever been, Adair left for America with Harry Vardon later in 1903 and toured the U.S., playing (and almost always winning) exhibition matches. After she defeated Margaret Curtis (one of the Curtis Cup namesakes) in a tournament in Philadelphia, one American sports magazine called Adair "the foremost lady golfer in the world."
On that trip, Adair befriended U.S. Women's Amateur winner Genevieve Hecker. In 1904, when Hecker's book Golf For Women (affiliate links for book titles, commissions earned), considered the first instruction golf book for women, debuted, Adair was a contributor to it.
In May Hezlet's 1907 book Ladies' Golf, Adair served as the model for most of the photos demonstrating technique (such as grip) and proper club position at various points in the swing. Hezlet praised Adair's length off the tee and told a story about Adair being challenged, during her 1903 trip to America, to clear a creek that crossed a fairway with her drive. Women at the club laid up short of the creek at that time. The creek was 160 yards from the tee, and Adair cleared it on her third attempt.
But Adair was considered a long driver for her time, and for women's golf in that era. In 1900, she won a long-drive contest staged at Royal Lytham & St. Annes with a "blast" of 173 yards, 2 feet. Women golfers of the era had to play in outfits that were quite restrictive, and it was considered (by some) "unladylike" for a female golfer to really go after the ball.
Photographs of Adair were also used to demonstrate proper technique and positions in the 1914 instructional, Great Golfers: Their Methods at a Glance, by George W. Beldam. Those photos were analyzed in the book by Harold Hilton, who explained Adair's relative length by writing, "Lady players, as a rule, appear to persuade the ball on its way; Miss Adair, on the contrary, avoids any such construction on her methods by hitting very hard indeed."
By that point, though, Adair had been long retired from major competitions. The year 1903 was really her last as a major competitor in the biggest championships, even though she turned only 22 years old that year.
In 1907, Adair married an Army captain, Algernon H. Cuthell. They eventually had two children. Her husband was an Englishman, and Adair moved with him to Aldershot, Hampshire, England.
Alas, her husband was killed during World War I in 1915. In 1924, Adair returned to Ireland and lived out her life in and around Portrush.
And she remained very active in the Irish golf scene, known for helping younger players. She served on many club and Irish Ladies Golfing Union committees, including serving as ILGU president from 1931-33. In 1934, she was named lifetime vice president of the organization.
Adair was 79 years old when she died in 1961. In 2022, Irish Golfer magazine ranked "the 25 most influential women in Irish golf," and placed Adair at No. 4.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Beldam, George. Great Golfers: Their Methods at a Glance, 1914, MacMillan and Co. Ltd.
Clarke, Frances. "Adair, Rhona (Kathleen)," Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://www.dib.ie/biography/adair-rhona-kathleen-a0021.
Dictionary of Ulster Biography. Rhona Adair (1991-1961), https://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/2202.
Hezlet, May. Ladies' Golf, 1907, Hutchinson and Co.
Morris, Ivan. "The 25 Most Influential Women in Irish Golf," Irish Golfer, November 10, 2022, https://irishgolfer.ie/latest-golf-news/2022/11/10/the-25-most-influential-women-in-irish-golf/.
Tulloch, W.W. The Life of Tom Morris, 1907, T. Werner Laurie.
Wilson, Enid. A Gallery of Women Golfers, Country Life Limited London, 1961.