Grace DeMoss Zwahlen (January 1, 1927-November 25, 2024) was a Corvallis native who graduated from Oregon State and consistently topped the amateur golf ranks in the Northwest beginning in the late 1940s.
DeMoss began playing golf as a teenager at the Corvallis Country Club while also competing as an equestrienne. There was no competitive golf available for young women at Corvallis High Schjool or Oregon State University. Grace played on the CHS boys team and moved straight to tournament competition when she was 18, finishing dead last in the 1945 Portland Open.
One year later, she hit her stride, finishing second at the Oregon Women’s Amateur. DeMoss won the Portland City Amateur in 1947. In 1949, she won the Canadian Women’s Amateur and then took the Pacific Northwest Golf Association women’s title in 1950.
She was selected for the Curtis Cup, a Ryder Cup-style tournament pitting amateurs from the U.S. against those from Britain, in 1952 and again in 1954. DeMoss won three Florida Amateur women’s titles from 1955-58, and three straight Oregon amateur titles, 1956-1958.
Her second husband, Fred C. Zwahlen, Jr., founded the Journalism Department at Oregon State. After retiring in the early 70s, DeMoss Zwahlen coached the golf program at Crescent Valley High School from 1986-2006. After moving to Southern California, she coached Rancho Santa Margarita until she was 90 years old. Two of her sisters were married to Oregon Sports Hall of Fame members Quinten Greenough and Don Durden.
Grace DeMoss Zwahlen is a member of the Corvallis High School, Oregon State University and PNGA halls of fame.