Dorothy Germain Porter, 88, golf champion

When the Ladies Professional Golf Association was formed in 1950, the nation's best players - Patty Berg, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Louise Suggs - signed up.

Dorothy Germain Porter did not join them - even though, at 25, she had just won the 1949 Women's Amateur title of the U.S. Golf Association at Merion Golf Club.

"I preferred being married and having children and all that," she said in a 1996 Inquirer interview.

"I felt very complete, no trouble. I'm glad to this day that was my choice."

Mrs. Porter, 88, of Cinnaminson, who went on to a nationally ranked career as an amateur golfer, died of complications from pneumonia Friday, July 20, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Besides her 1949 success, Mrs. Porter also won the USGA Senior Women's Amateur titles in 1977, 1980, 1981, and 1983, a USGA website confirmed.

The five titles tied her with Carolyn Cudone, Juli Inkster, and Mickey Wright for sixth-most in a career, the website stated.

"She was always very comfortable being an amateur," daughter Donna Emig said Tuesday.

Even when Mrs. Porter was elderly and was watching the latest group of successful young women making their marks as golf professionals on TV, Emig said, "she really had no regrets.

"She knew what she had done and how good she was. So that was enough."

Her accomplishments were reported to be all the more remarkable because her family responsibilities limited her practices.

When the children were growing up, Emig said, Mrs. Porter would practice "about five times a week."

But, she said, "it could be as short as half an hour."

Besides her five national titles and other significant victories, Mrs. Porter won the Pennsylvania Women's Amateur title three times and the Philadelphia Women's Amateur title nine times - the last in 1992 when she was 68, making her a champion in six decades.

Wright, who won the U.S. Women's Open four times, recalled in the 1996 Inquirer article how well Mrs. Porter had treated her at the 1953 Women's Western Amateur tournament.

"Only one other time have I been enchanted by the graciousness of a golfer as I was by Dot Porter, and that's Nancy Lopez," Wright said.

"I remember I was so young I kept calling her 'ma'am' all the way around.

"In that match, Dot really became a model for me as to how a woman should act on the golf course. I thought being a lady and trying to be gracious is as important as playing good golf.

"She made a real impression on me."

Mrs. Porter played on the U.S. Curtis Cup team and was captain of the 1966 team.

And she won the Women's Western Amateur in 1943, 1944, and 1967.

It was at the Women's Western in 1942 - the year she turned 18 - that it dawned on her that she belonged.

She had just lost to Berg in the semifinals at Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northbrook, Ill.

"I was just sitting there, watching everybody, when right then I decided I could play in this league," she told the 1996 interviewer. "It was a definite decision. It wasn't like I grew into it.

"I just decided all of a sudden that I could make it out here. I didn't have to be afraid of them."

Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Porter graduated from Upper Darby High School and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education at what is now Arcadia University.

For more than two decades, the Riverton Country Club sponsored an annual Dorothy Germain Porter Golf Tournament, which in earlier years she consistently won, sometimes with daughter Nancy.

In 2001, an Inquirer reporter noted that at 77, she still could shoot her age.

Besides her daughters, Mrs. Porter is survived by son Mark A. Jr. and nine grandchildren. Her husband, Mark A., died in 1996.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 26, at First Baptist Church of Collingswood, 23 Frazer Ave.