ELVERSON, PENNSYLVANIA | The reason Martha Leach wants to reach 90 USGA championships is etched deeply in one unfailing thought: she is a competitor.
When you grow up in a family of 10 kids, you compete for a seat to watch TV or a spot in the bathroom you share with six others — that lesson of gnawing at the bit and staying staunch stays with you.
“We had one TV and chairs throughout, no sectionals back then, and if I was getting up and said ‘one, two, three,’ no one could touch it. It was our code. It saved your seat,” Leach said. “However, I would be getting up and I would have a sister wedging her way in to cancel it out.”
Leach, 61, thinks she has three or four years more of competition left to reach that goal of 90 events.
“People don’t know how cool it is to play in a national championship,” she said. “I have to say I am a USGA snob because I expect a lot from the courses and most courses deliver. Most venues deliver. And you expect the competition to elevate too.”
Leach, the youngest sister of three-time U.S. Women’s Open winn...
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