Semple Thompson’s Amateur Career is Unrivaled

Semple Thompson’s Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur Career Is Unrivaled

By Pete Kowalski

Carol Semple Thompson’s first visit to the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur was at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore in 1964. As a 16-year-old, she won her flight and her mother, Phyllis Semple captured the championship trophy.

Her older sister Fraser also played that year, and Carol was given a silver-plated pitcher for her B flight victory, and it was dispatched to her parent’s trophy room. Sadly, that room was burglarized in 1980.

“They took everything,” Semple Thompson said. “Twenty-five years after it appeared in Lake Arthur, north of Pittsburgh. Someone was diving there and they pulled it out of the lake. We figured they melted all the sterling down and threw the silver plate stuff in the lake. So, I now have the pitcher that I won for the second flight in 1964.”

Now a hale and healthy 77-year-old, Semple Thompson rarely missed that Pennsylvania Golf Association championship.

“It was definitely one of my favorites,” she said. “I went with my mother to so many of them to begin with. We just got into the habit of crisscrossing Pennsylvania. It was an automatic thing, and it never seemed to conflict with other summer tournaments.”

This year’s Women’s State Amateur, presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods and hosted by the Pennsylvania Golf Association, is being played at Gulph Mills Golf Club in King of Prussia July 20-22. Penn State junior Hannah Rabb is the defending champion. Rabb, who plays out of Susquehanna Country Club, took a two-stroke victory last year at Valley Brook C.C. with a final round 68. Gulph Mills is hosting the championship for the fifth time and first time since 2013. In addition to Rabb, past champions in the record field of 120 players are Rylie Hein (2023), Jackie Rogowicz (2019 and 2022) and Katie Miller Gee (2007, 2015, 2017).

Over the course of her “career” in the championship, Semple Thompson won her first in 1969 at Fox Chapel Golf Club and her last in 2006 at Oakmont Country Club (at the age of 58), a nice circle for the resident of Sewickley, who lists Allegheny Country Club as her home course.

In that span of 33 years, the World Golf Hall of Fame inductee was in the final match an astonishing 27 times, winning 22 times and finishing as the runner-up five times. The closest person to her record number of victories is Helen Sigel, who won five times.

Also, the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s Senior Women’s Amateur champion in 2015 and runner-up in 2011, Semple Thompson is the ultimate competitor and arguably the best female amateur to ever play the game in the U.S.

“I was driven by winning,” said, the seven-time USGA champion who played in 130 national competitions from the 1963 U.S. Girls’ Junior through the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Open not to mention a record 12 appearances in the Curtis Cup Match. “I loved going with my mother but winning was important to me and getting to the finals was important. Winning was paramount for me.”

In the course of her competitive career, Semple Thompson needed to overcome the challenges of other sterling players like Connie Shorb of York, a 10-time Pennsylvania Senior Women’s Amateur winner and a three-time Women’s Amateur victor.

They met in the Women’s Amateur final match twice in 1994 at Fox Chapel and in 1982 at Saucon Valley C.C. in Bethlehem. Semple Thompson was the winner both times.

“Connie and I go way back to junior golf,” Semple Thompson said. “She’s a great person and she was a really good player. We had some battles against each other. She’s been part of my life for so long. It’s amazing. Golf relationships are so special. It’s because of the game. It pulls you together. We’ve been opponents and we’ve been great friends.”

Semple Thompson also listed Judy Oliver (1970, 1976 and 19877 champion) and Nancy Porter (1983 champion) as two major challengers in the Women’s Amateur.

Her decorated career brought a slew of hardware with her victories, most of which is not in the Sewickley home she shared with her now deceased husband Dick Thompson.

All Semple Thompson’s USGA championship contestant badges are housed in her World Golf Hall of Fame locker in Pinehurst, N.C. The Western Pennsylvania Golf Hall of Fame has her Pennsylvania medals and other prizes are in the Heinz History Center and The First Tee of Pittsburgh.

“I’m saving my USGA stuff for the USGA,” she said. “I have a lot of clutter in my house but maybe not so much in terms of trophies and things.”

Semple Thompson excelled at match play, thus her record of success. Her mindset was to play the golf course and not focus on her opponent.

“Not that I didn’t talk or be friendly,” she said. “I just didn’t watch them play or concentrate on their game. I concentrated on my game against the golf course. That was my theme.”

Having a stable and content life was also a big part of her time span as an almost unbeatable player.

“Part of the longevity was that I was happy in life and Dick Thompson was a huge part of that and he was the love of my life and we had a wonderful marriage,” Semple Thompson said. “He supported me so much in my golf as did my mother early on and she handed the reins over to Dick. I had really good health. I didn’t have back problems. I don’t know what else to say except that life was good and it still is good.”

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Pete Kowalski worked more than two decades as a department director in communications at the USGA and confides that his friendships in the game are more numerous that his greens-in-regulation.