Imaginative kids come up with lots of great gifts for their moms. Cindy Berning Molchany, armed with imagination and a gift for technical innovation, gave her mom her own website.
Susiemaxwellberning.com is not a cookie-cutter website, which makes it ideal for a mother whose 76 years have been far from ordinary.
At 5 feet 2, Susie Berning has probably won more U.S. Women’s Opens per inch than any player in LPGA history. The tour’s 1964 Rookie of the Year won her first tournament a year after turning pro, captured her first major a month later and won the first of three Opens in 1968.
She also married Dale Berning that year and moved to Incline Village, Nev. Fate, financed by Boise Cascade, brought her to Waikoloa Village for a clinic and she ended up representing Hawaii’s Inter-Island Resorts on tour.
In 1980, the family of four — Susie, Dale and daughters Robin and Cindy — moved to the island of Hawaii, where they lived for the next 16 years. Susie worked, and worked on her game, at Kona Country Club while playing on tour. The girls graduated from Hawaii Prep Academy and Dale ran charter fishing trips.
Robin, whose son Ian is now 14, golfed for San Jose State and Ohio State and turned pro. In 1989, she and Susie became the first mother and daughter to play the same LPGA event.
Nearly 20 years later, Robin organized a “U.S. Open Crawl” for her mother to Moselem Springs, Winged Foot and the Country Club of Rochester (N.Y.) — where she now lives — to celebrate at the sites of her mother’s three titles. Only Mickey Wright and Betsy Rawls have won more Women’s Opens (four).
Cindy and her husband live in Pennsylvania, where she is an “online marketing professional who primarily works with female entrepreneurs.” Over the holidays last year, she scanned her mom’s golf memorabilia and filmed teaching videos at The Reserve Club in Palm Springs, Calif., where Susie, 76, now lives. She also teaches at Maroon Creek Country Club, in Aspen, Colo., in the summer.
The website project started as a way to honor her mother and introduce her popular instruction to more people. Cindy, who traveled on tour with her mother and sister every summer while living in Hawaii, found herself fascinated by what she found. She says now that the website only “scratches the surface” of what her mom accomplished.
“Growing up, my mom was just my mom,” she says. “Intellectually I knew that she had career achievement, but it wasn’t until I was older, and in particular going through this experience, that I fully started to emotionally comprehend what she was able to do in her life and career. It’s remarkable, and the pride in my heart for her grows daily.
“She was a renegade and a pioneer. Not only did she overcome some serious odds in her life to become a golf professional, but she did it during a time when, if we’re being honest, women were not taken all that seriously. Her game made everyone — male or female — stop and take notice. She’s my feminist idol.”
Berning’s career touches a bunch of bases. Instead of being long, she was “sneaky” good. She was also relentlessly competitive, with a vaunted short game fed by infinite hours of practice and imagination — the basis of her favorite short game tip.
“You have to learn to have a tremendous amount of imagination,” Susie says. “Use your eyes more than you ever used to. There’s more than one way to do any shot and more than one club to use. Some don’t use their imagination enough and visualize it.”
Berning’s imagination is one of her greatest assets, on and off the course. It allowed her to envision — and pull off — enough spectacular shots to win 11 times on tour and get inducted into the sports halls of fame in Oklahoma and Nevada. Her last win came 20 years ago when she shot a final-round 64 to capture the Sprint Senior Challenge.
Her imagination has also helped her become one of the LPGA’s top-50 players and teachers.
And, in not-so-enlightened times 50 years ago, it gave her the wisdom to continue her career with her young daughters in tow on tour every summer. Berning never played a full schedule after she moved to Hawaii, but she competed into her mid-50s, making 13 starts in 1995.
“I enjoyed the competition and traveling,” Berning says. “It was a good experience when we were in Hawaii for the girls to travel. When Robin was 12, she caddied for me at the Nabisco Dinah Shore… . Cindy ended up caddying for Lenore (Muraoka Rittenhouse) and Patty Sheehan. Lenore had one of her best finishes with Cindy. Cindy made her relax because Cindy didn’t know what it was all about.”
Cindy does know websites. The site she created has footage from all her mom’s Open victories and extensive putting, bunker and short-game video lessons.
There is also a resume of a career so unique it is included in the books “Soup for the Woman Golfer’s Soul” and “The Story of Golf in Oklahoma.” That’s where Berning grew up and was the first woman to receive a golf scholarship from Oklahoma City University, where she played on the men’s team for legendary basketball coach Abe Lemon.
Cindy also included a photo gallery, old magazine articles and “Vintage Cushman Motor Car” commercials. Those include what is basically a 26-minute travelogue made in 1969 that features five golf holes in Hawaii and the late Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer Jackie Pung playing with Berning.
In other words, the website goes full circle. Susie Berning’s fondest memories of Hawaii are of that friendly little golf course next to the Kona Surf, which was “quite remote going from the mountains to the ocean.”
“I just remember meeting a lot of nice people,” she recalls, “and the weather was perfect.”
Now, golf still keeps her “very interested in life and being in shape” and meeting new people. This year, she also “met” three bears while traveling. Living in Palm Springs just makes life a little simpler.
“Hawaii is a perfect place for golf, too, but you have to fly everywhere,” Berning says. “I like to drive.”
