Peggy Kirk Bell, a top amateur golfer in the 1940s and ’50s who went on to become a respected instructor and an advocate for women’s golf, died on Wednesday at her home in Southern Pines, N.C. She was 95.
Kelly Miller, her son-in-law and the club president at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club and the Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club, both of which Kirk Bell owned, announced the death.
Kirk Bell — who competed as Peggy Kirk before she married Warren Bell, a former professional basketball player, in 1953 — was one of the top amateurs in women’s golf in the years before the Ladies Professional Golf Association was formed.