One of the greats of women’s golf, Amy Alcott had a long and illustrious career as a member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), winning five major championships. She is now a successful golf course design consultant, part of a team that designed an Olympic golf course.

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That same year, Alcott began to attract an annoying sort of attention when it was realized that she was only three wins away from inclusion in the Hall of Fame. According to the rules of that organization at the time, a golfer was required to win two major championships and more than twenty-nine tournaments for automatic inclusion. By 1991, Alcott had won two more tournaments, putting her only one win away. In 1995, the honor was proving elusive for three golfers—Alcott, Beth Daniel, and Betsy King. In that year, the closest Alcott came to a win was a tie for fifth. Still, it was one of only four winless seasons in her twenty years on the tour.

By 1996, King had won her place in the Hall of Fame, but Alcott and Daniel were still under the gun. Daniel had won thirty-one tournaments but only one major. Alcott had five majors and twenty-nine total. Whenever she competed, she would hear well-meaning fans say, “Come on Amy. You can win one more and get in.” The Hall of Fame issue put a considerable amount of pressure on Alcott, but she shunned sympathy. “It needs to be hard,” she said. “It should be tough.” But she went on to declare that the rules should be changed because “there’s nothing out there for the younger players to strive for.” She was referring to the fact that the number and quality of players had so increased that winning thirty tournaments for a golfer who joined the tour in the 1990s would be virtually impossible. She also declared in 1995, “In my mind, I had a hall-of-fame career five or six years ago.” A great many people agreed with her. So, ultimately, did the Hall of Fame. Alcott was the first player to qualify under revised World Hall of Fame eligibility criteria established in early 1999. That year, she became the seventeenth woman to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. She is also a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame and the National Jewish Museum Sports Hall of Fame.

Alcott’s first book, published in 1991, was Amy Alcott’s Guide to Women’s Golf. In 2010, she published: The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life, in which she interviewed twenty-seven celebrated golfers. That same year, she was featured, along with other golf giants in the book Golf’s Ultimate Eight: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Amy Alcott, and Other Golf Greats Reveal Favorite Holes to Create the Ultimate Fantasy Course, by Steve Eubanks. She also wrote the foreword to Marcia Chambers’ Unplayable Lie: The Untold Story of Women and Discrimination in American Golf.

In addition to playing on the Legends Tour, LPGA’s official seniors tour, Alcott was tournament presenter of the “Office Depot Championship Hosted by Amy Alcott,” from 2001 to 2004. She also became involved in golf course design and is now a highly successful consultant. With architect Gil Hanse, she designed the golf course in Rio de Janeiro that was the site of the 2016 Olympics.

A popular television commentator and writer for a variety of publication, Alcott went further afield to make cameo appearances in the film Tin Cup and the television shows Arliss and The Tracy Ullman Show. She even hosted a radio show called GolfChix for a while, starting in 2013. And she owns Katharine Hepburn’s golf cart.

Sports broadcaster Jim McKay once said of Alcott, “She is one of golf’s most gifted and intelligent professionals.” He went on to add, “And perhaps in all of sports.”  Writer Brian Heard, in his series on LPGA golfers commented, “Add in the word ‘interesting’ and that’s just about right.”