Inside Golf’s Michael Davis spoke in support of Kitty McEwan’s induction into the Victorian Golf Hall of Fame.
By Michael Davis
Kitty McEwan, believed to be the first woman to write about sport in Australia, was inducted into the Victorian Golf Hall of Fame as the industry came together at Huntingdale Golf Club for its annual celebration of the game at the Victorian Golf Industry Awards Dinner.
A talented sportswoman with a particular interest in golf, Kathleen ‘Kitty’ McEwan was a member at several clubs, including Barwon Heads, Riversdale, where she was club champion in 1933 and Commonwealth, where she was the inaugural women’s club champion in 1926. She was also Women’s Captain.
McEwan started covering golf for The Radiator in 1937 and then the Sun News Pictorial in 1938, which she continued – with a break for war service in the Land Army – until she retired in 1966.
A student at Ormiston Ladies College, she was instrumental in setting up what was originally called the Table Talk Cup, an interschool challenge event between teams from private girls’ schools and named after the magazine which sponsored it.
This later became The Sun Cup, named after The Sun News-Pictorial for whom she worked. McEwan became secretary of this event between 1929 and 1947. That event is now known simply as the Women’s Interschool Challenge Cup and has throughout its history raised a lot of money for charity.
Aside from her war service, she lobbied strongly for improved conditions for women in the workplace and for women’s sport to receive press coverage.
She had a range of interests and involvement in several prominent groups.
Among other things, she McEwan is remembered by the Kitty McEwan Trophy at Barwon Heads and by the Vic Sport’s Kitty McEwan Award for the Victorian Female Athlete of the Year.
Michael Moore from the Rossdale course was named the 2023 Victorian Club Professional of the Year.
Kitty was a strong influence on female journalists like Peg McMahon and Di Gatehouse, pioneers in writing about women’s sport in general and golf, in particular, for
The Age and Herald-Sun newspapers in Melbourne.
McEwan was one of two new inductees alongside the popular and well-known amateur golf official, Richard Kirby, a former Victorian Golf Association President who received an Order of Australia in the King’s Birthday Honours.
Kirby was honoured for service to golf, which included five years as President of the VGA from 2002-2007, a long association with the Golf Society of Australia and the Spring Valley Golf Club in Melbourne.
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