This will be a historic week at Pebble Beach, as the United States Golf Association will conduct the U.S. Women’s Open at the legendary seaside course. The storylines coming out of the competition are numerous: Can Minjee Lee defend her title? How do the women navigate this course that most golfers know so well from watching past men’s Opens and annual PGA Tour events on TV? Can Rose Zhang stay hot and compete for a major title in her rookie year? What will Annika Sörenstam do?
One storyline, personal to me, is that Emily Crisp, universally known as Missy, will be making her final walk at a USGA Open Championship as a rules official. Crisp has decided that the time has come for her to turn in her rules armband, and she will do so at the end of the 2023 USGA competitive calendar.
Crisp’s career in golf and her contributions to the game are not all that well known outside of golf’s inner sanctum. That’s a shame, because she has had a remarkable career on and off the course. She is one of the greatest USGA volunteers in the 129-year history of the organization.
Born Emily Ridgway, she grew up playing at the Fishers Island Club in New York, where she would go on to win an amazing 19 club championships. Upon graduation from Vassar College, she married Peter Crisp, and they settled on Long Island.
She then began a two-decade career in education. Crisp taught at Green Vale School, a co-ed private school in Glen Head where her three daughters would attend. Toward the end of her tenure, she set up a computer-literacy program for the school, and before long, she had parents asking for her tech advice. It helped that she loved computers and that her husband had a board seat at Apple Computer.
Crisp became an entrepreneur, establishing the Crisp Computer Corporation in 1983. She counseled many of the small village governments that populate Long Island and built a thriving business. She went on to merge her company with another Long Island firm, Admit Computer Services, and she served as Admit’s chief financial officer from 1992 to 2010.
Golf was never very far away. She served on the board of the United States Senior Women’s Golf Association (unrelated to the USGA) and served as the website administrator and publications chair of the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association. She also served on the boards of that organization as well as the Women’s Long Island Golf Association and was chair of club women’s committees at Fishers Island, Piping Rock and Jupiter Island.
“I have met an amazing number of wonderful and highly committed people, many of whom I consider good friends, traveled extensively, including abroad, seen a multitude of golf courses and watched extraordinary players execute incredible golf shots, and challenged myself in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined. What could have been better?” — Missy Crisp
That’s an awful lot of golf volunteerism, but as her friend Mary Bea Porter-King pointed out, “Missy is one of the best time managers I know. She can fit more into a day than most fit into a week. When she commits to an organization or a charity, she doesn’t care about her name on the letterhead. She is all in. She somehow manages all her volunteer work and her personal life, and continues to win tournaments everywhere she plays. Missy does not have time to see obstacles or ceilings. She is too busy looking for solutions.”
In the winter of 2002, legendary amateur Bill Campbell, a fellow Seminole Golf Club member, tapped Crisp on the shoulder and forever altered the arc of her life. Campbell chaired the USGA Nominating Committee at the time, and he asked Crisp to join the USGA Executive Committee. Crisp agreed, becoming one the few women to serve at that level of golf administration.
“That was life-changing, at a time in my life when I was unsure what I wanted to do,” Crisp said. “I had moved to Florida and sold the computer company. Bill Campbell provided me an opportunity I couldn’t resist. In the following 21 years, I have met an amazing number of wonderful and highly committed people, many of whom I consider good friends, traveled extensively, including abroad, seen a multitude of golf courses and watched extraordinary players execute incredible golf shots, and challenged myself in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined. What could have been better?”
Porter-King, also a former Executive Committee member, said: “When Missy came to the USGA Executive Committee, she was unknown, but it did not take her long to earn the respect of the committee and the world of golf. Missy took on every challenge with a professional and pleasantly assertive attitude. There had been only four women serving on the USGA Executive Committee before her, and just like her predecessors, she saw the game played by golfers, not golfers with genders – just golfers with different abilities.”
Crisp began to immerse herself in the rules of golf, eventually becoming a nationally recognized rules expert. On her own time, and on her own dime, she would go on to serve in a rules capacity at more than 100 golf tournaments, including 18 U.S. Opens and seven Masters.
At the 2004 Masters, Crisp experienced her most dramatic rules controversy. She was stationed at the 11th green during the third round when Ernie Els pull-hooked his drive into the deep brush off the tee. Crisp was summoned to provide a ruling. Els insisted that he was entitled to relief, but Crisp was adamant that he was not. A second rules official, the PGA Tour’s Jon Brendle, was called in, and he agreed with Crisp. Els didn’t budge and asked for a more senior official. Tournament chairman Will Nicholson Jr., a former USGA president, came out and gave Els the relief that he sought in a decision that later was questioned. Els made bogey on 11 and finished one shot behind Phil Mickelson.
Crisp served on the USGA Executive Committee for seven years, and her most important contribution during that time was overseeing the Golf Handicap and Information Network, more commonly known as GHIN. The service provides handicaps to the state and regional golf associations. Her technical background helped the USGA grow and expand GHIN dramatically during her term.
I met Missy in 2005 when she joined the Board of Directors of the American Junior Golf Association, of which I am a member. Over the next two decades, we would bump into each other at USGA championships and share long car rides from the AJGA headquarters to the Atlanta airport. She was instrumental in educating the USGA staff and Executive Committee members about the AJGA’s role in the junior game in America. In a very real sense, the partnership between the USGA and the AJGA, part of the National Development Program announced by the USGA earlier this year, was a direct result of her internal efforts.
Alas, along with retiring from the USGA, Crisp is saying goodbye to the AJGA. Like every golf organization she ever served, the AJGA is better for her service.
Serving as a rules official, according to Crisp, entails “hours and hours of relative boredom punctuated by moments of sheer panic.” You would not know that from her, however, as she made it all look so easy and natural.
The countless holes and miles she logged over her career are truly amazing. Her volunteerism took her to the United Kingdom, South Africa and China, among other destinations. She walked many of the finest golf courses in America. She gave selflessly to the game that captured her heart at age 5.
She will miss it all, especially the many friendships made on fairways along the journey. But she won’t disappear entirely. Crisp still will be found with her rulebook in hand at Florida State Golf Association events during the winter and New York/Connecticut events in the summer.
Crisp will tell you that she got much more from golf than she gave. The game will push back on that statement; golf has been indelibly enriched by her lifetime of service.
Thank you, Emily Crisp.