Ellen “Ellie” Kieser (1920–2006) played alongside legends during her long golfing career, including Babe Zaharias, Patty Berg, even Bing Crosby. A long-driver, she was one of the country’s top amateurs. A frequent player on the California circuit, she later remembered long-time golf professional Peter Hay remarking, “The girl can hit a long way, but she has a touch of the blacksmith around the green.”
She joined The Olympic Club’s Women’s Golf Section in 1943 and immediately made an impact. She was the reigning Club champion from 1943 to 1947, taking the title from fellow OC Hall of Famer Dorothy Traung. Kieser also won the 1943 Pebble Beach Championship, the 1946 Northern California Women’s Golf Match Play Championship (again taking a title from Traung) and was runner-up in the 1947 Northern California Open Championship to Berg.
In 1946, she played in the inaugural U.S. Women’s Open Championship at Spokane Country Club. This was the only Women’s Open to be played as match play and after a 36-hole qualifier, she was one of 26 amateurs and six professionals to advance to match play. While on the practice green before the first match, Zaharias (the No. 2 seed) gave Kieser (the No. 26 seed) a putting lesson. The lessons benefited Kieser, who upset professional Hope Seignious, 3 and 2, but Zaharias’ putting let her down and she lost to Grace Lenczyk. As the Monterey County Herald put it later, Kieser “beat the babe that beat the Babe, 3 and 2.” In the quarterfinals, Kieser lost to Betty Jameson, a former national amateur champ turned professional. Patty Berg won the event.
She played in the 1948 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Pebble Beach (which was eventually won by Lenczyk), and then joined Bing Crosby for a foursome at Cypress Point. She would play with Bing several more times before she left golf to take over her family’s coffee shop at 19th Ave and Irving St. in San Francisco. She ran the business until 1980, when she retired and took up golf again. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was an active participant in the Women’s Golf Association of Northern California and fostered the careers of young female golfers. She is a member of Balboa High School’s Hall of Fame.
