Lottie Dod
Encyclopedia
Charlotte "Lottie" Dod was an English
sportswoman best known as a tennis
player. She won the Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Championship five times, the first one when she was only fifteen, in the summer of 1887. She remains the youngest ladies' singles champion, though Martina Hingis
was three days younger when she won the women's doubles title in 1996.
In addition to tennis, Dod competed in many other sports, including golf
, field hockey
, and archery
. She also won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship
, played twice for the England women's national field hockey team
(which she helped to found), and won a silver medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics
in archery. The Guinness Book of Records has named her as the most versatile female athlete of all time, together with track and field
athlete and fellow golf player Babe Zaharias
.
, Cheshire
to Joseph and Margaret Dod. Joseph, from Liverpool
, had made a fortune in the cotton trade. The family was wealthy enough to provide for all members for life; Lottie and her brother Willy
never had to work. Besides Willy, Lottie had a sister, Annie, and another brother, Tony, all of whom also excelled in sports. Annie was a good tennis player, golfer, ice skater
and billiards
player. Willy Dod won the Olympic gold medal in archery at the 1908 Games
, while Tony was a regional level archer and a chess
and tennis player. When Dod was nine years old, two tennis courts were built near the family's estate, Edgeworth. Lawn tennis, invented in 1873, was highly fashionable for the wealthy in England, and all of the Dod children started playing the game frequently.
Together with Annie, who was eight years older, Dod entered her first tennis tournament, the 1883 Northern Championships in Manchester
, at age eleven. They lost in the first round of the doubles tournament to Hannah Keith and Amber McCord, but won the consolation tournament. One journalist, Sydney Brown, noted that "Miss L. Dod should be heard of in the future". She turned out to be correct.
At the same tournament in 1885, she came to prominence when she nearly beat reigning Wimbledon champion Maud Watson
in the final, losing 8 – 6, 7 – 5. Dod would win the doubles event (with Annie) and had earlier won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the Waterloo tournament. These performances earned her the nickname "Little Wonder" in the press.
Slowly, Dod became an established top player, illustrated by the fact she partnered then seven-time Wimbledon doubles winner Ernest Renshaw
for the first time in 1887. That same year, she also debuted at Wimbledon. Only six competitors, not including top player Watson, entered. Dod easily advanced through the first rounds to earn the right to challenge the defending champion1, Blanche Bingley
, whom she defeated 6–2, 6–0.
The two met again in the final of the 1888 West of England Tournament. Although designated as a so-called "open" tournament, the officials made the remarkable decision to impose a handicap of 152 on Dod. She still managed to win against her opponent, now known by her married name, Blanche Hillyard. The Wimbledon final of 1888 was rematch of the previous year, and Dod again emerged victorious (6–3, 6–3).
Lottie Dod's style of play, then regarded as unorthodox, now seems notably modern. She was perhaps the first player to advocate hitting the ball just before the top of the bounce and to adopt a modern, albeit single-handed, racquet grip. Her ground strokes were reported by contemporaries to be unusually firmly hit by the standards of the time, but - like many female players of the day - she served underhand and only rarely employed spin.
Dod only entered one open tournament in 1889 (the Northern Championships, which she won), and failed to attend Wimbledon, much to the disappointment of her fans. Together with Annie and some friends, she was on a sailing trip off the Scottish
coast, and didn't want to return in time for Wimbledon. This was followed by a complete absence from the game in 1890.
After failing to do so in 1889, Dod was determined to win Wimbledon three times in a row, starting in 1891. Although it was her only competitive appearance of that season, she won her third Wimbledon title with ease, again by defeating Hillyard (6–2, 6–1).
1892 saw Dod's first singles defeat in an open tournament since 1886, losing to Louise Martin of Ireland
in the Irish Championships. It was the last of only five losses in her entire tennis career. She continued the year strongly, culminating in another easy Wimbledon victory over Hillyard.
Dod's last tennis season as a competitive player was 1893, and she played in just two tournaments, winning both. On both occasions, she defeated Blanche Hillyard in three sets, despite a heavy fall in the Wimbledon final. Her record of five Wimbledon titles would not last for long, as Hillyard, after losing in the final to Dod five times, won her sixth title in 1900. Suzanne Lenglen
broke Dod's record of three consecutive singles wins by winning from 1919 to 1923.
Apart from entering women's tournaments, Dod sometimes also played and won matches against men (who usually played with a handicap), and on one occasion defeated star players Ernest Renshaw and George Hillyard (the husband of Blanche) when doubling with Herbert Baddeley
.
1This was actually the all-comers final as Helena Rice did not defend her 1890 Wimbledon title, which resulted in the winner of the all-comers final winning the challenge round and, thus, Wimbledon in 1891 by walkover.
, which was very popular with English travellers. There, she passed the St. Moritz Ladies's Skating Test (figure skating
), the most prestigious skating for women at the time. Dod also rode the toboggan
on the famous Sankt Moritz Cresta Run
, and began mountaineering
with her brother, climbing two mountains over 4,000 m in February 1896.
After a long cycling
trip in Italy
, Lottie and Tony returned to England, only to come back to St Moritz in November, now accompanied by their mother and brother Willy. This time, Dod took the St. Moritz Men's Skating Test and passed, as the second woman ever. She also competed in curling
. In the summer of 1897, she and Tony again ascended several mountains, this time in Norway
.
. Playing as a central forward, she was soon named captain of the team. Club matches in which Dod played were won, while losses happened only in her absence.
By 1899, Dod had made it to captain of the Cheshire county
team, and represented her club at meetings of the women's hockey association for the northern counties. She first played in the English national team on 21 March that year, winning 3–1 over Ireland.
Both English goals in the 1900 England and Ireland rematch were scored by Dod, securing a 2–1 victory. Dod failed to attend the match against Wales
, suffering from sciatica
attacks which kept her from sporting for months.
Although she had recovered by 1901, Dod would not play again in national or county matches. All members of the Dod family stopped attending sports events for a while after their mother died on 1 August 1901, and Dod apparently lost her interest in field hockey during that period, although she did occasionally play for Spital Club until 1905.
Dod helped establish a ladies' golf club at Moreton
in 1894 and entered that year's National Championships (match play
) at Littlestone (Kent
). She was eliminated in the third round, but Dod's interest in the sport grew, and she became a regular competitor in the National Championships and other tournaments for the next few years. In 1898 and 1900 she reached the semi-finals of the National Championships, but was defeated narrowly both times. In 1900, she also played in an unofficial country match against Ireland, which the English won 37–18.
Dod did not compete in golf in 1901, and hardly entered major tournaments in the next two years, but she did play in the 1904 British Ladies Amateur, held at Troon
. She qualified for the semi-finals for the third time in her life, and won it for the first time. Her opponent in the final was May Hezlet
, the champion of 1899 and 1902. The match was very close, and the two were tied after 17 holes. Hezlet missed her putt on the final hole narrowly, after which Dod grabbed an unexpected victory, becoming the first, and to date only, woman to win British tennis and golf championships.
Following her victory, Dod sailed to Philadelphia
, where she had been invited by Frances C. Griscom
, a former American golf champion, to attend the U.S. Women's Amateur as a spectator. Upon arrival, Dod found out the tournament regulations had been changed to allow for non-Americans to compete, and she was requested to compete. Her loss in the first round was a disappointment, but Dod persuaded several Americans to come and play in the British championships the following year.
In the week before these 1905 championships, three international matches were planned, starting off with the first British-American international match. Dod was the only British player to lose a match, as the United Kingdom won 6–1. Dod then played for the English team in a 3–4 defeat against Scotland and a 4–3 win over Ireland, although she lost both her matches. Dod was then eliminated in the fourth round of the National Championships. It was to be her last appearance in golf.
, Berkshire
. They had been practising archery from the times before, but all three became more serious now and joined the Welford Park Archers in Newbury. As one of their ancestors was said to have commanded the English longbow
men at the Battle of Agincourt
, they found this an appropriate sport.
Lottie Dod won her first tournament by 1906, and finished fifth in the Grand National Archery Meeting of 1906, 1907 and 1908. Dod's performances in the 1908 season earned her a spot on the British Olympic team. The field in the women's archery event consisted only of British women, but without the best archer of the era, Alice Legh. Dod led the competition, held in rainy conditions, after the first day but was surpassed by Queenie Newall
on the second day, eventually taking second place with 642 points to Newall's 688. Her brother Willy fared better and surprisingly secured the gold medal in the men's competition.
In 1910, Dod came close to winning the Grand National, which would have made archery the third sport in which she became a national champion. Both Lottie and her brother William led after day one, but moved down to second on the final competition day. After the Welford Archers were disbanded in late 1911, the Dods' interest in archery faded, meaning the end of Lottie Dod's long competitive sports career.
(Tony had married in the meantime). When World War I
broke out, Willy enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers, while his sister worked for the Red Cross in a military hospital in Speen
.
Dod wanted to be transferred to the war zones in France
but was hampered by sciatica
and never served as a nurse outside England. She did receive a Service Medal by the Red Cross for serving more than 1,000 hours during the war.
She then lived in London
and Devon
, and she never failed to attend the Wimbledon Championships until she was in her late eighties. After her brother Willy died in 1954, she lived in several nursing homes on the English south coast, eventually settling at the Birchy Hill Nursing Home in Sway, Hampshire
. There she died, unmarried, at age 88, passing away while listening to the Wimbledon radio broadcasts in bed.
Dod was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame
in 1983.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
sportswoman best known as a tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
player. She won the Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Championship five times, the first one when she was only fifteen, in the summer of 1887. She remains the youngest ladies' singles champion, though Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis is a retired Swiss professional tennis player who spent a total of 209 weeks as World No. 1. She won five Grand Slam singles titles...
was three days younger when she won the women's doubles title in 1996.
In addition to tennis, Dod competed in many other sports, including golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, and archery
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
. She also won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship
British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship
The British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship was founded in 1893 by the Ladies' Golf Union of Great Britain. Until the dawn of the professional era in 1976, it was the most important golf tournament for women in Great Britain and would eventually begin to draw golfers from continental Europe...
, played twice for the England women's national field hockey team
England women's national field hockey team
The England women's national field hockey team represents England in international women's field hockey. England won the 2006 Women's Field Hockey World Cup Qualifier.-World Cup:* 1990 – 4th place* 1998 – 9th place...
(which she helped to found), and won a silver medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics
1908 Summer Olympics
The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, England, United Kingdom. These games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome. At the time they were the fifth modern Olympic games...
in archery. The Guinness Book of Records has named her as the most versatile female athlete of all time, together with track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
athlete and fellow golf player Babe Zaharias
Babe Zaharias
Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias was an American athlete who achieved outstanding success in golf, basketball, and track and field...
.
Early life
Dod was born in BebingtonBebington
Bebington is a small town and electoral ward within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. It lies south of Liverpool and west southwest of Manchester, along the River Mersey on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
to Joseph and Margaret Dod. Joseph, from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, had made a fortune in the cotton trade. The family was wealthy enough to provide for all members for life; Lottie and her brother Willy
William Dod
William Dod was a British archer. He won the gold medal in the men's double York round at the 1908 Summer Olympics on his 41st birthday....
never had to work. Besides Willy, Lottie had a sister, Annie, and another brother, Tony, all of whom also excelled in sports. Annie was a good tennis player, golfer, ice skater
Ice skating
Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...
and billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
player. Willy Dod won the Olympic gold medal in archery at the 1908 Games
1908 Summer Olympics
The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, England, United Kingdom. These games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome. At the time they were the fifth modern Olympic games...
, while Tony was a regional level archer and a chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
and tennis player. When Dod was nine years old, two tennis courts were built near the family's estate, Edgeworth. Lawn tennis, invented in 1873, was highly fashionable for the wealthy in England, and all of the Dod children started playing the game frequently.
Tennis
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, at age eleven. They lost in the first round of the doubles tournament to Hannah Keith and Amber McCord, but won the consolation tournament. One journalist, Sydney Brown, noted that "Miss L. Dod should be heard of in the future". She turned out to be correct.
At the same tournament in 1885, she came to prominence when she nearly beat reigning Wimbledon champion Maud Watson
Maud Watson
Maud Watson was an English tennis player.Born in Harrow, London, the daughter of a local vicar, she began playing competitive tennis in 1881. Undefeated in tournament play, in 1884 the nineteen-year-old Watson won the first ever Ladies’ Singles title at Wimbledon...
in the final, losing 8 – 6, 7 – 5. Dod would win the doubles event (with Annie) and had earlier won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the Waterloo tournament. These performances earned her the nickname "Little Wonder" in the press.
Slowly, Dod became an established top player, illustrated by the fact she partnered then seven-time Wimbledon doubles winner Ernest Renshaw
Ernest Renshaw
Ernest Renshaw was an English tennis player.Together with his twin brother William Renshaw, Ernest won the men's doubles at Wimbledon five times. He also won the singles championship at Wimbledon once, in 1888 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1983...
for the first time in 1887. That same year, she also debuted at Wimbledon. Only six competitors, not including top player Watson, entered. Dod easily advanced through the first rounds to earn the right to challenge the defending champion1, Blanche Bingley
Blanche Bingley
Blanche Bingley was an English tennis player.Born in Greenford in the London Borough of Ealing, Blanche Bingley was a member of the "Ealing Lawn Tennis & Archery Club." In 1884, she competed in the first ever Wimbledon championships for women and two years later captured the first of her six...
, whom she defeated 6–2, 6–0.
The two met again in the final of the 1888 West of England Tournament. Although designated as a so-called "open" tournament, the officials made the remarkable decision to impose a handicap of 152 on Dod. She still managed to win against her opponent, now known by her married name, Blanche Hillyard. The Wimbledon final of 1888 was rematch of the previous year, and Dod again emerged victorious (6–3, 6–3).
Lottie Dod's style of play, then regarded as unorthodox, now seems notably modern. She was perhaps the first player to advocate hitting the ball just before the top of the bounce and to adopt a modern, albeit single-handed, racquet grip. Her ground strokes were reported by contemporaries to be unusually firmly hit by the standards of the time, but - like many female players of the day - she served underhand and only rarely employed spin.
Dod only entered one open tournament in 1889 (the Northern Championships, which she won), and failed to attend Wimbledon, much to the disappointment of her fans. Together with Annie and some friends, she was on a sailing trip off the Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
coast, and didn't want to return in time for Wimbledon. This was followed by a complete absence from the game in 1890.
After failing to do so in 1889, Dod was determined to win Wimbledon three times in a row, starting in 1891. Although it was her only competitive appearance of that season, she won her third Wimbledon title with ease, again by defeating Hillyard (6–2, 6–1).
1892 saw Dod's first singles defeat in an open tournament since 1886, losing to Louise Martin of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in the Irish Championships. It was the last of only five losses in her entire tennis career. She continued the year strongly, culminating in another easy Wimbledon victory over Hillyard.
Dod's last tennis season as a competitive player was 1893, and she played in just two tournaments, winning both. On both occasions, she defeated Blanche Hillyard in three sets, despite a heavy fall in the Wimbledon final. Her record of five Wimbledon titles would not last for long, as Hillyard, after losing in the final to Dod five times, won her sixth title in 1900. Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player who won 31 Championship titles between 1914 and 1926...
broke Dod's record of three consecutive singles wins by winning from 1919 to 1923.
Apart from entering women's tournaments, Dod sometimes also played and won matches against men (who usually played with a handicap), and on one occasion defeated star players Ernest Renshaw and George Hillyard (the husband of Blanche) when doubling with Herbert Baddeley
Herbert Baddeley
Herbert Baddeley was a British male tennis player and the younger of the Baddeley twins....
.
Wins (5)
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1887 | Wimbledon |  Blanche Bingley Hillyard |
6–2, 6–0 |
| 1888 | Wimbledon (2) | Blanche Bingley Hillyard |
6–3, 6–3 |
| 18911 | Wimbledon (3) | Blanche Bingley Hillyard |
6–2, 6–1 |
| 1892 | Wimbledon (4) | Blanche Bingley Hillyard |
6–1, 6–1 |
| 1893 | Wimbledon (5) | Blanche Bingley Hillyard |
6–8, 6–1, 6–4 |
1This was actually the all-comers final as Helena Rice did not defend her 1890 Wimbledon title, which resulted in the winner of the all-comers final winning the challenge round and, thus, Wimbledon in 1891 by walkover.
Winter sports
Although tennis would remain Dod's favourite sport, she shifted her attention to other activities in the following years. In 1895, she joined her brother Tony on a trip to the winter sports resort of St. MoritzSt. Moritz
St. Moritz is a resort town in the Engadine valley in Switzerland. It is a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden...
, which was very popular with English travellers. There, she passed the St. Moritz Ladies's Skating Test (figure skating
Figure skating
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level , and at local, national, and international competitions...
), the most prestigious skating for women at the time. Dod also rode the toboggan
Toboggan
A toboggan is a simple sled which is a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people down a hill or other slope for recreation. Designs vary from simple, traditional models to modern engineered composites...
on the famous Sankt Moritz Cresta Run
Cresta Run
The Cresta Run is a natural ice 1,212.5 m long skeleton racing toboggan track in the Swiss winter sports town of St. Moritz, and one of the few runs dedicated primarily to skeleton. It was built in 1884 near the hamlet of Cresta in the municipality of Celerina/Schlarigna by Major Bulpett, eventual...
, and began mountaineering
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
with her brother, climbing two mountains over 4,000 m in February 1896.
After a long cycling
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
trip in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Lottie and Tony returned to England, only to come back to St Moritz in November, now accompanied by their mother and brother Willy. This time, Dod took the St. Moritz Men's Skating Test and passed, as the second woman ever. She also competed in curling
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...
. In the summer of 1897, she and Tony again ascended several mountains, this time in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
.
Field hockey
The sport of women's hockey was still rather young when Dod took up the game in 1897. She was one of the founding members of a women's hockey club in SpitalSpital, Merseyside
Spital is a suburban area of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. It is located mid-way on the Wirral Peninsula, and is mostly incorporated into the town of Bebington and the most westerly point of Spital forms the most northern edge of Bromborough.Spital is primarily a...
. Playing as a central forward, she was soon named captain of the team. Club matches in which Dod played were won, while losses happened only in her absence.
By 1899, Dod had made it to captain of the Cheshire county
County palatine
A county palatine or palatinate is an area ruled by an hereditary nobleman possessing special authority and autonomy from the rest of a kingdom or empire. The name derives from the Latin adjective palatinus, "relating to the palace", from the noun palatium, "palace"...
team, and represented her club at meetings of the women's hockey association for the northern counties. She first played in the English national team on 21 March that year, winning 3–1 over Ireland.
Both English goals in the 1900 England and Ireland rematch were scored by Dod, securing a 2–1 victory. Dod failed to attend the match against Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, suffering from sciatica
Sciatica
Sciatica is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression or irritation of one of five spinal nerve roots that give rise to each sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the left or right or both sciatic nerves. The pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, or...
attacks which kept her from sporting for months.
Although she had recovered by 1901, Dod would not play again in national or county matches. All members of the Dod family stopped attending sports events for a while after their mother died on 1 August 1901, and Dod apparently lost her interest in field hockey during that period, although she did occasionally play for Spital Club until 1905.
Golf
Few golf clubs allowed women to play around the time Lottie Dod first played golf at age fifteen. Unlike tennis, Dod found golf a difficult sport to master. By the time she got seriously interested in the sport, the Ladies Golf Union (LGU) had been founded, and women's golf had become a real sport.Dod helped establish a ladies' golf club at Moreton
Moreton, Merseyside
Moreton is a town on the north coast of the Wirral Peninsula, England. In the 2001 Census, it had a population of 17,670 ....
in 1894 and entered that year's National Championships (match play
Match play
Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; this is as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 holes...
) at Littlestone (Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
). She was eliminated in the third round, but Dod's interest in the sport grew, and she became a regular competitor in the National Championships and other tournaments for the next few years. In 1898 and 1900 she reached the semi-finals of the National Championships, but was defeated narrowly both times. In 1900, she also played in an unofficial country match against Ireland, which the English won 37–18.
Dod did not compete in golf in 1901, and hardly entered major tournaments in the next two years, but she did play in the 1904 British Ladies Amateur, held at Troon
Royal Troon Golf Club
Royal Troon Golf Club is a links golf course located in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland. The club was founded in 1878, initially with five holes. Its Old Course is now one of the host courses for The Open Championship, one of the major championships on the PGA Tour and European Tour...
. She qualified for the semi-finals for the third time in her life, and won it for the first time. Her opponent in the final was May Hezlet
May Hezlet
Mary Linzee "May" Hezlet was a British amateur golfer.Born in Gibraltar, she and her sisters Florence and Violet Hezlet grew up in Ireland and became top golfers in their era...
, the champion of 1899 and 1902. The match was very close, and the two were tied after 17 holes. Hezlet missed her putt on the final hole narrowly, after which Dod grabbed an unexpected victory, becoming the first, and to date only, woman to win British tennis and golf championships.
Following her victory, Dod sailed to Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, where she had been invited by Frances C. Griscom
Frances C. Griscom
Frances Canby Griscom was an American amateur golfer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and part-time resident of Tallahassee, Florida....
, a former American golf champion, to attend the U.S. Women's Amateur as a spectator. Upon arrival, Dod found out the tournament regulations had been changed to allow for non-Americans to compete, and she was requested to compete. Her loss in the first round was a disappointment, but Dod persuaded several Americans to come and play in the British championships the following year.
In the week before these 1905 championships, three international matches were planned, starting off with the first British-American international match. Dod was the only British player to lose a match, as the United Kingdom won 6–1. Dod then played for the English team in a 3–4 defeat against Scotland and a 4–3 win over Ireland, although she lost both her matches. Dod was then eliminated in the fourth round of the National Championships. It was to be her last appearance in golf.
Archery
In the autumn of 1905, Dod and her brothers sold "Edgeworth" and moved to a new home near NewburyNewbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
. They had been practising archery from the times before, but all three became more serious now and joined the Welford Park Archers in Newbury. As one of their ancestors was said to have commanded the English longbow
Longbow
A longbow is a type of bow that is tall ; this will allow its user a fairly long draw, at least to the jaw....
men at the Battle of Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
, they found this an appropriate sport.
Lottie Dod won her first tournament by 1906, and finished fifth in the Grand National Archery Meeting of 1906, 1907 and 1908. Dod's performances in the 1908 season earned her a spot on the British Olympic team. The field in the women's archery event consisted only of British women, but without the best archer of the era, Alice Legh. Dod led the competition, held in rainy conditions, after the first day but was surpassed by Queenie Newall
Queenie Newall
Sybil Fenton Newall , best known as Queenie Newall, was a British archer who won the gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London...
on the second day, eventually taking second place with 642 points to Newall's 688. Her brother Willy fared better and surprisingly secured the gold medal in the men's competition.
In 1910, Dod came close to winning the Grand National, which would have made archery the third sport in which she became a national champion. Both Lottie and her brother William led after day one, but moved down to second on the final competition day. After the Welford Archers were disbanded in late 1911, the Dods' interest in archery faded, meaning the end of Lottie Dod's long competitive sports career.
Later life
In 1913, Willy and Lottie moved to a new house in BidefordBideford
Bideford is a small port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is also the main town of the Torridge local government district.-History:...
(Tony had married in the meantime). When World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out, Willy enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers, while his sister worked for the Red Cross in a military hospital in Speen
Speen
Speen is the name of more than one place.In the United Kingdom:*Speen, Buckinghamshire*Speen, BerkshireSpeen also is a Lastname in Germany...
.
Dod wanted to be transferred to the war zones in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
but was hampered by sciatica
Sciatica
Sciatica is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression or irritation of one of five spinal nerve roots that give rise to each sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the left or right or both sciatic nerves. The pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, or...
and never served as a nurse outside England. She did receive a Service Medal by the Red Cross for serving more than 1,000 hours during the war.
She then lived in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, and she never failed to attend the Wimbledon Championships until she was in her late eighties. After her brother Willy died in 1954, she lived in several nursing homes on the English south coast, eventually settling at the Birchy Hill Nursing Home in Sway, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
. There she died, unmarried, at age 88, passing away while listening to the Wimbledon radio broadcasts in bed.
Dod was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame
International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. The hall of fame and honors players and contributors to the sport of tennis and includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an indoor tennis facility, and a court tennis facility.-History:The hall of fame and...
in 1983.