While her name might not be as recognizable today as it once was, Glenna Collett Vare was a revolutionary figure in the game of golf and now she is buried in an unmarked grave in Bala Cynwyd, writes Lochlahn March for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Golf historian and author Stephen Proctor is working on a book about Vare’s rivalry with British golfer Joyce Wethered.

Both athletes revolutionized the way female golfers were seen, showing that they could score just as good as, and even better than their male counterparts. And that a woman could be a good mother and have an athletic career.

Proctor said Vare was once dubbed “the female Bobby Jones” and “the first Lady of Golf,” but now very few people know who she was.

When she died, she was interred in her husband’s family plot under his headstone at Laurel Hill West Cemetery.

Vare was originally from New England but settled in the Philadelphia area when she married Edwin H. Vare, Jr., considered South Philadelphia royalty in the 1930s.

Vare won her first U.S. Women’s Amateur Golf Championship at the age of 19. She would go on to win the U.S. Amateur six times during her career. It is a record that has never been broken.

Read more about Glenna Collett Vare and her unmarked grave in Bala Cynwyd in The Charlotte Observer.

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