The U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship has a profound history dating back to the 1930s in California. The first women’s U.S. Open tournament was presented by the United States Women’s Polo Association (U.S.W.P.A) in 1937 at Golden Gate Field in San Francisco, California. Riviera (Louise Tracey, Dorothy Rodgers, Audrey Scott, Ruth Cropp) defeated Santa Barbara 9-4 to capture the inaugural title. The U.S.W.P.A., the first and only women’s polo association in the history of American polo, created a women’s handicapping system mirroring that of the men, with one 9-goal player and several 8-goal players. The U.S.W.P.A. played eight to 10 tournaments a year accumulating 300 members and 25 clubs in its 10-year tenure. At the onset of World War II however, the women focused their attention towards the war effort.
Women were officially welcomed into the United States Polo Association (USPA) in 1972 with Sue Sally Hale becoming one of the first woman members. The modern U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship competition did not resurface until the early 1990s.
It was officially recognized as a national tournament in 2011, and was hosted at Houston Polo Club (Houston, Texas) until it found a permanent home in South Florida in 2018. Recent champions since relocating to the Sunshine State include Hawaii Polo Life (2019, 2020, 2022), BTA/The Villages (2021) and La Fe (2023).
