Juli Inkster: The Bay Area's Hall of Famer
Juli Inkster (b. 1960) is the Bay Area's greatest women's golfer, and her origin story is the most literal home-course advantage in the game: when she was three, her family moved into a house along the 14th fairway of Pasatiempo — Alister MacKenzie's Santa Cruz masterpiece (Pasatiempo).
Three straight Amateurs
Out of Harbor High and San Jose State, Inkster won the U.S. Women's Amateur three consecutive years — 1980, 1981 and 1982 — a feat no one has matched since (Wikipedia, Britannica). Like Venturi and Archer before her, she also took the San Francisco City Championship before turning professional in 1983.
Seven majors
Across three decades on the LPGA Tour, Inkster won 31 times with seven major championships, completing the career Grand Slam of the four majors then played in North America — including the 1999 U.S. Women's Open — and earning induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame. She did it while raising two daughters, becoming the tour's defining example of a champion who was also a working parent.
She still lives in Los Altos, still visits the family house on Pasatiempo's 14th (Pasatiempo) — the through-line from MacKenzie's fairways to the modern chapter of Bay Area golf history.
