Class of 2026

Gail (Purdy) Brophy

Hometown: Glens Falls, N.Y. 
Residence: Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Deceased (1942–2020)

Gail Purdy Brophy was one of the most accomplished all-around athletes the Capital Region ever has produced — a two-time New York State Women's Amateur champion, a U.S. Women's Open competitor, a national-caliber speed skater, and, decades later, the author of one of the great comeback stories in New York golf.

Purdy won the 32nd NYSGA Women’s Amateur as an 18-year-old in 1961, becoming the youngest woman ever to win the crown to that point. Purdy won the state title again as a 20-year-old in 1963. 

Such success was no surprise to anyone in the Capital Region paying attention to women’s sports of that era. 

Purdy was a child phenom in athletics who started garnering headlines in the Glens Falls Post-Star as a 9-year-old speed skater in 1951. 

As an 11-year-old in the winter of 1954, Purdy placed second in the juvenile division of the National Indoor Speed Skating Championships, and she won the Northeastern New York speed skating title that year. In 1957 at age 14, she won the Junior Girls National Speed Skating Championships for 440 yards and was second at 880 yards. Purdy almost made the first-ever U.S. women’s speed skating team for the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. Competing as a 16-year-old at the national trials in Minnesota in February 1959, Purdy placed fourth in the 1,500-meter event and fifth in the 3,000-meters. Only six women were picked to compete in four events (including the 500 and 1,000 meters) at the 1960 Games.  

Purdy made headlines in golf as a young teenager as well. She qualified for the U.S. Junior Girls Championship at age 14 in 1956. At age 16 in 1958, she shot 3-over 77 to win the Northeaster Women’s Golf Association championship. She reached the semifinals of the NYSGA Women’s Amateur in 1959. 

Her NYSGA breakthrough came in July 1960, even though she had spent most of that June in Norway training with some of that country’s best speed skaters. By this time, Purdy was an 18-year-old getting ready to enter her sophomore year at Paul Smith’s College. Purdy made a hole in one early in match play on the 150-yard seventh hole at Niagara Falls Country Club. 

“I’ve been playing since my dad got me started when I was 12 and have been in tournaments five years, but this was my first hole in one,” she said.

In the 36-hole final, she faced Syracuse’s Virginia Guilfoil Allen, who had beaten her the year before and who won the title in 1941. Allen (an NYSGA Hall of Famer) had been runner-up in 1945, 1952 and 1959. In the final, Purdy chipped in for birdie from 45 and 38-feet, respectively, on the par-3 fourth hole and the par-3 30th hole (No. 12 at Niagara Falls CC). Purdy won the match, 3 and 2, with no bogeys over the last 10 holes. 

Purdy qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at Massachusetts’ Worcester CC in 1960 and at New Jersey’s Baltusrol CC in 1961. Competing as an amateur, she made the cut of the top 40 and ties after 36 holes both years.  

She won the NYSGA Women’s Amateur a second time in 1963, at the Whiteface Inn course in Lake Placid. Purdy defeated 15-year-old Debbie Austin of Oneida in the final, 8 and 6. Austin was the youngest player ever to reach the finals and would go onto LPGA stardom.

Purdy played in the U.S. Women’s Amateur in both 1962 and 1963. 

She continued to rack up speed skating medals, including a second place finish at 200 meters at the North American Speed Skating Championships in Wisconsin in 1963. At the trials for the 1964 Winter Olympic Games, held in Minnesota in February 1963, she again almost made the team. She was sixth in the 3,000-meter race. The top four finishers in that event wound up being picked for the six-woman team that would compete across four events at the Games. Overall, she won 7 North American, National and U.S. Open Short Track Championships. She also won over 100 skating titles in the northeast.

At her home club, she was a ten-time Glens Falls Country Club champion. In 1967, she teamed with PGA star Gene Littler in an 18-hole exhibition match against PGA star Billy Casper and Schenectady’s Gail Sykes.

Then her competitive golf career went quiet for more than four decades — not for any lack of ability, but out of devotion to family and business. When her father fell ill in 1963, Brophy left college and took the reins of the family enterprise, Purdy's Discount Wine & Liquor, running it for the rest of her life while raising two daughters.

In 2006, after a 42-year hiatus, Brophy roared back to competitive golf and picked up right where she had left off. She won the inaugural NYS Women's Super Senior Amateur Championship in 2007, successfully defended the title in 2008, and added runner-up finishes in 2009, 2012 and 2013. Closer to home, she swept the 2012 Northeastern Women's Golf Association Senior and Super Senior championships and defended the Super Senior crown in 2013.

Brophy's standing in New York athletics was recognized well beyond the scorecard. 

In 1991 she became the first woman inducted into the Glens Falls Hall of Fame, and she remains one of only two women in the Saratoga Springs Hall of Fame, alongside LPGA star, broadcaster and NYSGA Hall of Famer Dottie Pepper. The NEWGA honored her with its Golf Achievement Award and, in 2017, named a tournament in her honor — a fitting tribute to a lifelong champion and a generous supporter of junior and women's golf.

Gail Purdy Brophy passed away on Feb. 23, 2020, at age 77. Across two eras of competition separated by more than forty years, she embodied resilience, versatility and quiet excellence — the rare champion who won at the highest levels of two different sports. Her remarkable career earns her a lasting place in the New York State Golf Association Hall of Fame.

Gail (Purdy) Brophy's Career Highlights

  • 2x NYSGA Women's Amateur Champion (1961, 1963)
    • 1961: defeated Ginny Allen 3 & 2 at Niagara Falls CC; youngest champion at the time
  • 2x NYSGA Women's Super Senior Amateur Champion (2007, 2008); runner-up 2009, 2012, 2013
  • First champion of the inaugural NYS Women's Super Senior Amateur (2007), after a 42-year competitive hiatus
  • NEWGA Senior and Super Senior Champion (2012); Super Senior champion again (2013)
  • Participant, U.S. Girls' Junior Amateur Championship (1956)
  • Participant, U.S. Women's Amateur (1962, 1963)
  • U.S. Women's Open: made the cut in both 1960 and 1961
    • 1960: finished 39th (84-81-81-85—331)
  • 10x Glens Falls Country Club champion
  • First woman inducted into the Glens Falls Hall of Fame (1991)
  • One of only two women in the Saratoga Springs Hall of Fame (with Dottie Pepper)
  • NEWGA Golf Achievement Award
  • The Gail Purdy Brophy Tournament named in her honor (2017)
  • Champion short-track speed skater — 100+ Northeast titles, including seven North American, National and U.S. Open Short Track championships
« Back to Listing