Remembering the Big Sky Open
by Ty Sparing, MSGA Marketing & Communications
Sixty years ago, the Big Sky Open golf tournament was introduced in Polson, a popular women’s event that lasted for over three decades. Originally attracting some of the best golfers in the Northwest, the Big Sky Open was organized mainly because female golfers of the era desired a competitive stroke play tournament to go along with the Women’s State Amateur Championship which was still a match play event back in those days.
The ladies who showed up were no slouches, with MSGA Hall of Famers such as Helen Tremper, Edean Anderson Ihlanfeldt, Jane Hibbard, Jewell Lee, Mona Clark, Doreen Ehlert, Penny Sipes, Sally Sisk, and even MSGA’s own rules official Shanda Imlay being in the mix (champion in 1975), just to name a few.
The great Helen Tremper won that first Big Sky Open in 1965, which was held at the then nine-hole Polson Country Club. At the time, Tremper was in her prime, having already won eight of her eventual 15 State Amateur titles. She dominated the entire decade of the 1960s, winning the State Amateur Championship every single year, except for, ironically, 1965 when she was unable to play due to an illness. With somebody as competitive as Tremper, no doubt the Big Sky Open was seen as an opportunity to remind the competition that she was still top of the class and would be for some time.
As Shanda recalls playing against the perennial women’s champ, “Helen always had a gallery and it was fun watching her play and how she tried to intimidate the players, especially the young players.” A competitor if there ever was one.
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Tremper’s success was that the 1960s and ‘70s was somewhat of a golden age for women’s golf in Montana, and the Big Sky Open was representative of that fact. Drawing in elite female golfers from throughout the Northwest and Canada, the event could get over 180 entries, comparable to the Montana State Women’s Amateur that regularly hosted over 200 competitors during this era. And while it “was not as competitive as the Women’s Amateur,” as Shanda tells us, with the amount of talent that showed up every September it was nothing to sneeze at either.
Tremper ended up winning the Big Sky Open three more times, achieving the three-peat from 1970-1972 after the event had relocated to the Whitefish Lake Golf Course following several years in Polson and once each in Lewistown and Helena.
Tremper’s longtime friendly rival Jane Hibbard won the tournament three times between 1968-1978, and PNGA Hall of Famer Edean Anderson Ihlanfeldt took home a victory as well in 1969 at her old stomping grounds, the Green Meadow Country Club. For those three legendary Montana golfers with 27 State Women’s Amateur victories between them, the Big Sky Open titles get lost in a sea of golfing accolades. But considering the limited competitive tournaments for women during that era – there was no State Women’s Mid-Amateur until 2020, for instance – events like the Big Sky Open inevitably drew top tier players, because it was the only game in town.
As the years rolled on, however, the tides of women’s golf started changing, and the Big Sky Open responded in kind by fading away.
“Back in the Helen Tremper and Jane Hibbard days,” Shanda tells us, “they were married and belonged to country clubs and did not have to worry about work and careers. They could concentrate on raising the children and playing golf.” Whereas along with still taking care of kids, “women today are involved in their careers.”
While the nation’s workforce in the 1970s began including more women in permanent full-time roles, junior golf started taking off as well, which allowed more opportunities for girls to play at the high school and college level. Title IX was signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972 and by the time the University of Montana and Montana State female golf teams were finally rolled out in 1993, the transformation of women’s golf in our state was pretty much complete – competitive women’s golf in Montana became a pursuit monopolized by the youngsters.
As an example of the changing cultural dynamics within the game, a noticeable shift happened in the late 1970s where the dominant female players in this state went from women like Tremper, Hibbard, and Ihlanfeldt who were winning titles well into their 40s, to predominately college golfers or those who had recently graduated. It’s a shift that is still in effect today, as seen in the Montana State Women’s Amateur Championship leaderboards where top 10s regularly appear to be all-star teams of college golfers from around the state. In fact, since 1976, only one golfer over the age of 25 has won the State Women’s Amateur, the great Joanne Steele who won the event for the second time in 2009 at the age of 38.
In 1984 the Big Sky Open had its largest field ever of 187 entrants, with familiar names like Tremper, Hibbard, Jewell Lee, and the eventual winner, Susie Knight. However, by the end of the decade the event was struggling not only to find host courses, but to attract high level competitors like when it first started in 1965. As the demographics of elite women’s golf in Montana were shifting younger, the Big Sky Open being scheduled in late September meant that the best players were already off to college playing for their respective colors. Tremper, Hibbard and Ihlanfeldt never had those collegiate athletic opportunities.
Having become something of a cross between a mid-amateur and a senior event, the Big Sky Open sputtered along without an identity throughout the 1990s – roughly half of those years, organizers had to cancel the tournament due to lack of interest from courses and participants.
By 1999, the event was gone for good. After three and a half decades, the power of tradition could not match the pace of cultural change. A once proud event that hosted the best of Montana women’s golf faded into history.