Woman Surprised To Get Invite To At&T; Many-Time San Francisco Champ Earns A Spot In Featured Pro-Am

Sally Voss Krueger is honored she will be among the few women who have played in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. She’s just not sure why she was invited.

“I was very surprised to receive the invitation,” said a genuinely perplexed Krueger, who has won the San Francisco women’s amateur title six times. “It would be a very good question to ask tournament officials.”

Lou Russo, executive director of the AT&T, had the explanation.

He said there was a tournament board meeting in San Francisco and the group went out for a friendly game of golf. When they needed a fourth, Krueger stepped in.

“She just hits a beautiful ball,” Russo said. “And she’s a great person.”

Few women have played in the annual event, partly because it is played from only two sets of tees, blue for the pros and white for the amateurs. It was believed that women, who normally would play from a third set of tees, might slow down the action too much.

Krueger will be playing from the white tees with her male amateur counterparts when the tournament starts Thursday at Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills. She’ll have a 10 handicap, Russo said.

“She really is capable of hitting the ball from the white tees,” he said. “After seeing her play, she’s just a great golfer and that’s why we invited her.”

Tournament officials say Krueger will be the first woman to play in the Pro-Am in nearly 20 years. LPGA stars Nancy Lopez and Beth Daniel played as college students during the 1970s when the tournament was the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am.

The first woman to play in the tournament was Olympic track and field star Babe Didrickson Zaharias, who sent in an application to take part as a professional in 1939.

Tournament organizers accepted her without realizing “Babe” was a woman. Her amateur playing partner was her husband, wrestler George Zaharias.

Krueger, 38, an anesthesiologist at California Pacific Medical Center, won the California State Women’s Amateur in 1979, in addition to her success in the San Francisco City championship in the late 1970s and ‘80s.

“For the last 20 years I’ve played golf in Northern California. When you do that, the AT&T is kind of the ultimate,” she said. “A chance to be a part of that is a really neat thing.”

Krueger has been around the game since she was a child. Her father was a Navy doctor and her family spent time in Bethesda, Md., when she was growing up.

“The Washington, D.C. area had a very good junior golf program. Because of that, I was able to play junior golf, and when I got to college I was a walk-on on the team,” she said.

Krueger went on to become a two-time All-American at Stanford. She never considered going on to a pro career after college, instead choosing to follow in her father’s footsteps.

“My father was a physician and a tremendous individual,” she said. “I wanted, probably, to emulate him. He loved his life and he felt like it was a wonderful thing to do. He had three children and all of us are physicians.”

For Krueger, the ultimate goal of her amateur career would be to make the Curtis Cup team. The AT&T, she said, was a pleasant surprise.

“It is a tremendous honor to even be a part of it,” she said. “I hope I play well.”