Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Tish Preuss, a longtime national standout in women’s amateur golf, passes away at 85
By Gary Baines – 7/29/2024
Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Phyllis “Tish” Preuss, one of the top female amateur golfers in the country in the 1960s, who later became a USGA champion, passed away over the weekend in Southern Pines, N.C. She was 85.
Preuss — who spent a considerable portion of her life in Colorado Springs, where she moved in 1970 — represented the U.S. as a player on five winning Curtis Cup teams (1962-70), then captained the victorious 1984 American squad in Muirfield, Scotland. The 1962 competition against Great Britain & Ireland was held at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
Preuss won the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in 1991 at Pine Needles in Southern Pines, where she posted the second-lowest three-round total (221) of the championship’s stroke-play era (1962-96).
But it was in the ’60s and early ’70s when Preuss particularly made her mark in amateur competition. She finished runner-up in the 1961 U.S. Women’s Amateur and on two other occasions reached the semifinals in that event. She ended up competing in 21 U.S. Women’s Ams between 1959 and ’81.
Three times — 1963, ’68 and ’69 — she was low amateur at the U.S. Women’s Open, and she finished ninth overall in that championship in ’68. Preuss claimed titles at the North and South Amateur (1964 and ’67), the Eastern Amateur (1963) and the Southern Amateur (1965 and ’68). She also won the prestigious Broadmoor Ladies Invitation in 1978.
Preuss was a very longtime friend of fellow amateur standouts and Colorado Golf Hall of Famers Judy Bell and Barbara McIntire. For many years, the three shared homes in Colorado Springs and Southern Pines.
Preuss, who was born in 1939 in Detroit, was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1986. She was named the organization’s Golf Person of the Year two years earlier after her successful stint as U.S. Curtis Cup captain.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com