Peggy Kirk Bell, famed instructor and a member of the 1950 USA Curtis Cup team, said making the team was her goal in golf as an amateur. “That’s what I want to do – represent my country,” Bell said several years ago in an interview with the USGA. “If I could make that team, I thought that was like being in the Olympics…I can remember finding out about it. They would call you and announce it. I ordered room service that day. We were playing in a tournament in Florida, and I ordered tea. I said, ‘I’ve got to get used to having tea if we’re going to England.’ Making the team, it was a goal accomplished…That was the biggest thrill, really. Then it came out in the paper, and you got a letter from the USGA at the same time. I still have that letter. That was really a thrill.” Bell also played with the 1990 USA Curtis Cup team in a practice session in Florida a few months before the match. “I told them they were going to win,” Bell said. “They’d have a putt (of) about a foot and I’d say, ‘Putt it out. You don’t think they’re going to give you that, do you? They’ll be tough.’ And, you know, it was a closer match than the score, 14 to 4, indicated.”
--Rhonda Glenn