U.S. Open Women's Polo Championship™
Tournament History
The U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship™ has a profound history dating back to the 1930s in California. The first women’s U.S. Open tournament was presented by the United States Women’s Polo Association (U.S.W.P.A) in 1937 at the Golden Gate Field in San Francisco, California, in 1937. Riviera (Louise Tracey, Dorothy Rodgers, Audrey Scott, Ruth Cropp) defeated Santa Barbara 9-4 to capture the inaugural title. The U.S.W.P.A., the first and only women’s polo association in the history of American polo, created a women’s handicapping system mirroring that of the men, with one nine-goal player and several eight-goal players. The U.S.W.P.A. played eight to ten tournaments a year accumulating 300 members and 25 clubs in its ten-year tenure. At the onset of World War II however, the women focused their attention towards the war effort.
Women were officially welcomed into the United States Polo Association in 1972 with Sue Sally Hale becoming the first woman member. A devoted advocate of women in polo, Hale was alleged to have disguised herself as a man in order to compete in tournaments throughout the 1950s and 60s. U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship™ competition did not resurface until the early 1990s. On the centennial anniversary of the USPA in 1990, a U.S. Women’s Open was officially sanctioned and held at Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Appropriately, Hale along with her two daughters, Sunny and Stormie captured the title with teammate Caroline Anier. In an electrifying overtime match, Empire defeated Palmera Hanalei Bay 10-9, with Anier scoring the sudden-death goal in the seventh chukker. After a few years of competition at Empire Polo Club, U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship™ competition once again lost momentum, this time for only a couple decades. It was officially recognized as a national tournament in 2011 and has been hosted at the Houston Polo Club for the past seven years, becoming the largest annual women’s polo event in the United States.
2017 U.S. Open Women's Polo Championship™ Winners: San Saba - Hope Arellano, Dawn Jones, Lia Salvo, Sarah Wiseman ©Kaylee Wroe Photography
