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Aug 8, 2025

Remembering PNGA Hall of Famer Pat Lesser Harbottle

Pat Harbottle on July 7, 2022, at the media day held at Chambers Bay for that year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur. She’s holding the championship’s magnificent trophy, on which her name appears. (Photo by Victoria Davis)

by Tom Cade, Editor-in-Chief

A legend and a pioneer in the Pacific Northwest’s golf community, Pat (Lesser) Harbottle passed away on July 30, 2025. She was 91.

Pat was the wunderkind of American women’s golf in the mid-20th century. Winner of the 1950 U.S. Girls’ Junior and 1955 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Low amateur in three U.S. Women’s Opens. Member of the 1954 and 1956 U.S. Curtis Cup teams. She more than held her own against some of the greatest names in women’s golf history – Zaharias, Wright, Berg, Suggs. She also won multiple PNGA titles, and was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame in 1985.

She was a pioneer in women’s sports. Decades before Title IX – when there were no women’s college golf programs – she played four years on the men’s golf team at Seattle University, often as its No. 1 player.

“Pat was a great supporter of the PNGA, WA Golf, and the golf community,” said Troy Andrew, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association. “Many of us were fortunate to know her and experience her grace, warmth, and inspiration. She paved the way for generations of women in golf, and her legacy will live on through all those she impacted.”

Patricia Ann Lesser was born in Queens, New York, in August 1933 to Louis and Marguerite Lesser. “Hungarian, French Canadian and Irish,” she would often say of the gene pool that bequeathed lovely dark features from which she stood out among her contemporaries. “My parents and relatives call me Patsy.”

Her father was a career officer in the Army, her mother an Army nurse. At age 7, Pat was introduced to the game by her father while he was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, Hawaii. Upon his medical discharge in 1944, Colonel Lesser settled the family in Seattle, Washington, and shepherded his daughter’s development as a golfer.

She was a natural at the sport, breaking 80 in her first year at age 13, using full-length men’s clubs.

Her rise in the game was swift. As a 14-year-old, she won the 1948 Seattle women’s championship, a title she successfully defended the following year. In August 1949, Pat was the medalist at the Canadian Women’s Amateur championship in Vancouver and advanced to the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals of the 1950 Women’s Western Junior, Lesser beat Barbara McIntire – who would twice win the U.S. Women’s Amateur and play on six Curtis Cup teams – and went on to win.

Pat next ventured to the 1950 U.S. Girls’ Junior at Wanakah Country Club in Buffalo, New York. In the final, Lesser soundly defeated Mickey Wright – future victor in 13 women’s majors during an iconic World Golf Hall of Fame career – 4 and 2.

At age 18, Lesser contended at the 1951 U.S. Women’s Open, tying for fourth with future hall-of-famer Marlene Bauer, seven shots back of winner Betsy Rawls, and behind only other future hall-of-famers Louise Suggs and Babe Zaharias. Lesser was the low amateur, and her 72-hole score of 300 established a record for amateurs.

Pat excelled in the four other Women’s Opens she played in. She skipped the 1952 U.S. Women’s Open, instead playing and winning the Oregon Women’s Amateur held at the same time. She also won the PNGA Women’s Amateur three times (1952, 1953, 1965).

She was the low amateur again in the 1953 U.S. Women’s Open when she tied for sixth. In the 1954 U.S. Women’s Open, Lesser tied for seventh. In 1955, Lesser finished eighth, and she tied for 16th in 1956.

On April 18, 1952, Seattle University’s men’s golf team beat Oregon State, 13.5-7.5.  What made this tournament noteworthy is that Seattle’s No. 1 player was pigtailed 18-year-old Lesser, who won her match. Two months later, Lesser was one of only 34 contestants at the Women’s National Intercollegiate Golf Tournament, where she lost in the semifinals. She would win the women’s college championship the following year.

She played four years on SU’s men’s team – always from the men’s tees – and won far more matches than she lost.

In 1955, Pat was at the top of her game. In July, she won the Women’s Western Amateur, and a few weeks later won the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Pat graduated from Seattle University in 1956, where she was a member of the Kappa Gamma Pi honor society. Graduation would have been the time for Lesser to join the LPGA Tour, but she did not. “I never considered turning pro,” she would later say. “I always wanted to get married and have children.”

John and Pat Harbottle would have five children, 15 grandchildren, and to date seven great-grandchildren. Their oldest, John Harbottle III, was a well-known course designer who worked with Pete and Alice Dye before starting his own firm. Courses in Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, California bear his imprint, the most notable being Palouse Ridge in Pullman, Wash, and the Olympic Course at Gold Mountain in Bremerton, Wash.

After her son John III’s sudden passing in 2012, Pat and her family were on hand to accept his posthumous “Local Legend” award, given that year by the Northwest Golf Media Association. Left to right are Pat’s grandson John IV, granddaughter Chelsea, daughter-in-law Teresa, Pat, and husband John II.

The most tragic event of Harbottle’s long life was John III’s sudden death in May 2012 of cardiac arrest at age 53. John III also was a founder of First Tee – South Puget Sound. Their youngest child, Rob Harbottle, is the PGA director of golf at BanBury Golf Course in Eagle, Idaho, a course designed by his late brother.

After she married, Harbottle stopped playing nationally except for a few USGA senior events. However, she continued to compete locally. She and John were members of Tacoma Country and Golf Club since the 1960s and for decades dominated club competition. Pat won the TC&GC club championship 23 times from 1965 to 2016, the last at age 83 with her husband John II serving as her caddie.

Pat Harbottle had her husband John Harbottle II caddie for her at the Tacoma Country & Golf Club senior women’s championship in 2016. That year, at the age of 83, Pat won her 23rd and final club championship.

A fine player in his own right, John II would also be inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame.

Always giving back to the game, Pat offered her experience wherever she could. At the 2007 U.S. Girls’ Junior, held that year at her home club of Tacoma Country and Golf Club, Pat volunteered at the registration table, as a walking scorer, and as a course marshal, for a national championship she had won 57 years earlier.

Along with her induction into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame, Pat is also a member of the Washington Sports and Seattle University Sports halls of fame. Since 2014, Pat’s home club of Tacoma has hosted the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational, a collegiate tournament held each fall and hosted by her alma mater, Seattle University.

She will be missed by the region’s golf community.

Patrick Hand of Global Golf Post contributed to this article.