MONTEREY, Calif. – Our cavalier attitude about history is a curious thing.

We tend to treat it with respect, but only in an obligatory fashion. When it comes to basking in the benefits of gifts left by visionaries from generations ago, we are quick to enjoy and slow to give thanks.

Fortunately, there are those who think differently. Clear-thinking Emily Chorba, for instance. In possession of a keen sense of history, Chorba works with others who share her passion to keep alive the memory of Marion Hollins, one of golf’s greatest stories.

To some who sit deep within the golf community, Hollins’ life is so brilliant she has been made a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2022 and will be inducted posthumously in March.

But for Chorba and others, there is more to accomplish – specifically, a Marion Hollins Memorial at her resting place, Cementerio El Encinal here in Monterey. Presently, a bench is in place, but funds are still being raised for a commemorative plaque in an area of the cemetery that is landscaped with nine Irish Yew trees. (Details can be found at marionhollins.org.)

Should you be thinking that that’s a lot of attention being paid to a woman who passed from this world in 1944, there’s this: Hollins’ life and her legacy are worth all of it, so cheers to Chorba and her colleagues.

To wrap your arms around the Hollins story, consider the landscape in the 1920s. Barely had women earned the right to vote, for goodness sakes, when this headline blazed on the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Plan Golf Club For Women Only.”

Lovely concept, no? And it wouldn’t take you by surprise in today’s climate. But this was Jan. 20, 1922 – do the math; that is a hundred years ago – and came in response to a golf club decision on Long Island to stop women’s play.

For good reason, women resented it and to their relief, Marion Hollins became the force who made the Women’s National Golf & Tennis Club on Long Island a reality. It was the first golf club financed and developed entirely by women.

(It survived till World War II, at which time it merged with the Creek Club and is now part of the Glen Head Club.)

Those who knew her were not surprised at Hollins’ leadership.

“She would rather be right than champion. Right in the matter of form and style,” wrote Fred Perry in the Inquirer.

Perry was referencing Hollins’ ability to play the game. At 21 she was runner-up in the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur, and in 1921 she defeated Alexa Stirling to win that title. She was named captain of the first U.S Curtis Cup team in 1932 and her three wins in the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association and seven triumphs in the Pebble Beach Women’s Championship speak to her golf prowess.

A portrait of Marion Hollins (courtesy of her grand-nephew, Tony Grissom).

But it was her quest for “form and style,” as Perry indicated, that drove Hollins. Born into high society – her father was a Wall Street Tycoon and best friends with J.P. Morgan – Hollins was not content to live an easy and simple live on the family’s 600-acre estate on Long Island.

Instead, she became a champion in equestrian, a champion golfer, and studied golf course architecture in the United Kingdom. She was not living off a family trust when she relocated to Santa Cruz, Calif. (her father had gone bankrupt); instead, Hollins parlayed her four passions – property, golf, business, and vision – into a lucrative real estate business.

Her circle of friends included Bobby Jones, Alister MacKenzie, and Samuel Morse, “The Duke of Del Monte” and developer of Pebble Beach.

With Morse, Hollins contributed ideas to accomplish his goal of making Monterey Peninsula a golf mecca. To her suggestion that “an elite private club” be formed, Morse selected a 150-acre parcel and Hollins pointed to MacKenzie as architect for the Cypress Point Club.

Arguably the world’s most treacherous and riveting par-3, the 16th at Cypress where one has to carry a ravine over crashing Pacific waves to a green more than 200 yards away? “I was in no way responsible for the hole. It was largely due to the vision of Marion Hollins,” MacKenzie wrote.

For land she envisioned as being perfect for a great golf course in Santa Cruz, 48 miles north of Pebble Beach, Hollins hired MacKenzie, and he created Pasatiempo Golf Club. It is utterly spectacular, immersed in character.

Jones, who had been smitten with Cypress at first sight, was equally enthralled with Pasatiempo when he joined Hollins to open the course in 1929. It was all Jones had to see to know that he wanted MacKenzie to help him build Augusta National GC.

It’s not hyperbole to suggest that Hollins made sure they connected.

Skeptical? Don’t be. Consider that Sidney L. Matthew, the acclaimed historian who chronicled much of Jones’ life, told the late Dave Anderson, a New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist: “If the women members’ issue (at Augusta National) had been raised (back in the 1930s), I think it’s fair to say that Bob Jones would have invited his friends Marion (Hollins) and Alexa (Stirling) to be members.”

We will never know. But we do know that Hollins’ impressive credentials and incomparable legacy will soon be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Deservedly.

All that remains is for Chorba – a historian and board member at Pasatiempo – and colleagues to be successful in the quest to complete the Marion Hollins memorial project. Also, deservedly.