Babe Didrikson Zaharias
220px Zaharias (early 1930s)
Personal information
Full name	Mildred Ella Didrikson Zaharias
Nickname	Babe
Born	(1911-06-26)June 26, 1911 Port Arthur, Texas, USA
Died	September 27, 1956(1956-09-27) (aged 45) Galveston, Texas, USA
Nationality	United States
Spouse	George Zaharias
Career
Turned professional	1947
Retired	1956 (her death)
Former tour(s)	LPGA Tour (joined 1950, its founding)
Professional wins	48
Number of wins by tour
LPGA Tour	41
Other	7
Best results in LPGA Major Championships (Wins: 10)
Western Open	Won: 1940, 1944, 1945, 1950
Titleholders C'ship	Won: 1947, 1950, 1952
U.S. Women's Open	Won: 1948, 1950, 1954
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame	1951 (member page)
LPGA Tour Money Winner	1950, 1951
LPGA Vare Trophy	1954
Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year	1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1954
Bob Jones Award	1957

Medal record
Women's athletics
Competitor for the  United States
Olympic Games
Gold	1932 Los Angeles	80 m hurdles
Gold	1932 Los Angeles	Javelin throw
Silver	1932 Los Angeles	High jump

Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who achieved outstanding success in golf, basketball, and track and field. She was named the 10th Greatest North American Athlete of the 20th Century by ESPN, and the 9th Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century by the Associated Press.

Biography[link]

Mildred Ella Didrikson was the sixth of seven children born in the coastal oil city of Port Arthur in southeastern Texas. Her mother, Hannah, and her father, Ole, were immigrants from Norway. Three of her six siblings were born in Norway, and the other three were born in Port Arthur. She later changed the spelling of her surname from Didriksen to Didrikson.^[1] Didrikson moved with her family to Beaumont, Texas, at age four, residing at 850 Doucette. She claimed to have acquired the nickname "Babe" (after Babe Ruth) upon hitting five home runs in a childhood baseball game. In reality, her Norwegian mother had called her "Bebe" from the time she was a toddler.^[2]

Though best known for her athletic gifts, Didrikson had many talents and was a competitor in even the most domestic of occupations: sewing. An excellent seamstress, she made many of the clothes she wore, including her golfing outfits. She claimed to have won the sewing championship at the 1931 State Fair of Texas in Dallas, but in reality won the South Texas State Fair in Beaumont, embellishing the story many years later in 1953. She attended Beaumont High School. Never a strong student, she had been forced to repeat the eighth grade and was a year older than her classmates. She eventually dropped out without graduating after she moved to Dallas to play basketball.^[2] She was a singer and a harmonica player. She recorded several songs on the Mercury Records label. Her biggest seller was "I Felt a Little Teardrop" with "Detour" on the flip side.^{[citation needed]}

Already famous as Babe Didrikson, she married George Zaharias (1908–1984), a professional wrestler, in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 23, 1938. Thereafter, she was largely known as Babe Didrikson Zaharias or Babe Zaharias. The couple met while playing golf. George Zaharias, a Greek American, was a native of Pueblo, Colorado. Called the "Crying Greek from Cripple Creek," Zaharias also did some part-time acting. The Zahariases had no children and were rebuffed by authorities when they sought to adopt.

Babe Zaharias Park is located in Beaumont adjacent to her museum.

Athletic achievements[link]

Didrikson gained world fame in track and field and All-American status in basketball. She played organized baseball and softball and was an expert diver, roller-skater and bowler. She won two gold medals and one silver medal for track and field in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.^[3]

AAU champion[link]

Didrikson's first job after high school was as a secretary, for the Employers Casualty Insurance Company of Dallas, though she was employed so that she could play basketball as an amateur on the company's "industrial team", the Golden Cyclones, in competition governed by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931, Didrikson first achieved wider attention as a track and field athlete.

Representing her company in the 1932 AAU Championships, she competed in eight out of ten events, winning five outright, and tying for first in a sixth. In the process, she set five world records in the javelin throw, 80-meter hurdles, high jump and baseball throw in a single afternoon. Didrikson's performances were enough to win the team championship, despite her being the only female member of her team.

Post-Olympics[link]

In the following years, she performed on the vaudeville circuit, travelled with teams like Babe Didrikson's All-Americans basketball team and the bearded House of David (commune) team. Didrikson was also a competitive pocket billiards (pool) player, though not a champion. She was noted in the January 1933 press for playing (and badly losing) a multi-day straight pool match in New York City against famed female cueist Ruth McGinnis.^[4]

Golf[link]

By 1935, she began to play golf, a latecomer to the sport in which she would become the most famous. Shortly thereafter, despite the brevity of her experience, she was denied amateur status, and so in January 1938, she competed in the Los Angeles Open, a men's PGA (Professional Golfers' Association) tournament, a feat no other woman would even try until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, and Michelle Wie almost six decades later. She shot 81 and 84, and she missed the cut. In the tournament, she was teamed with George Zaharias. They were married eleven months later, and lived in Tampa on the premises of a golf course that they purchased in 1951.

She went on to become America's first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s. If she had wanted to gain back her amateur status, she would have had to play no other sports for three years. After gaining back her amateur status in 1942, she won the 1946 U.S. Women's Amateur and the 1947 British Ladies Amateur – the first American to do so – and three Women's Western Opens. Having formally turned professional in 1947, she dominated the Women's Professional Golf Association and later the Ladies Professional Golf Association, of which she was a founding member. Serious illness ended her career in the mid-1950s.

Zaharias even won a tournament named after her, the Babe Zaharias Open of Beaumont, Texas. She won the 1947 Titleholders Championship and the 1948 U.S. Women's Open for her fourth and fifth major championships. She won 17 straight women's amateur victories, a feat never equaled by anyone. By 1950, she had won every golf title available. Totaling both her amateur and professional victories, Zaharias won a total of 82 golf tournaments.

Charles McGrath of The New York Times wrote of Zaharias, "Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery".^[5]

Against the men[link]

While Zaharias missed the cut in the PGA Tour event during her first year of tournament golf, later, as she became more experienced, she made the cut in every PGA Tour event she entered. In January 1945, Zaharias played in three PGA tournaments. She shot 76-76 to qualify for the Los Angeles Open.^[6] She then shot 76-81 to make the two-day cut in the tournament itself, but missed the three-day cut after a 79, making her the first (and currently only) woman in history to make the cut in a regular PGA Tour event. She continued her cut streak at the Phoenix Open, where she shot 77-72-75-80, finishing in 33rd place.^[6] At the Tucson Open, she qualified by shooting 74-81 and then shot a 307 in the tournament and finished tied for 42nd.^[6] Unlike other female golfers competing in men's events, she got into the Los Angeles^[7] and Tucson Opens through 36-hole qualifiers, as opposed to a sponsor's exemption.^[8]

In 1948, she became the first woman to attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open, but her application was rejected by the USGA. They stated that the event was intended to be open to men only.^[9]

Last years[link]

Zaharias had her greatest year in 1950 when she completed the Grand Slam of the three women's majors of the day: the U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Women's Western Open, in addition to leading the money list. That year, she became the fastest LPGA golfer to reach 10 wins, doing so in one year and 20 days, a record still standing. She was the leading money-winner again in 1951, and in 1952 took another major with a Titleholders victory, but illness prevented her from playing a full schedule in 1952-53. However, this did not stop her from also becoming the fastest player to reach 20 wins (two years and four months).

Zaharias was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953, and after undergoing cancer surgery, she made a comeback in 1954. She took the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average, her only win of that trophy, and her 10th and final major with a U.S. Women's Open championship, one month after the surgery and while wearing a colostomy bag. With this win, she became the second-oldest woman to win a major LPGA championship tournament (behind Fay Crocker). Babe Zaharias now stands third to Crocker and Sherri Steinhauer. These wins made her the fastest player to reach 30 wins (five years and 22 days).^[8] In addition to continuing tournament play, she also served as the president of the LPGA from 1952 to 1955.^[10]

Her colon cancer recurred in 1955, but despite her limited schedule of eight golfing events that season, she managed to gain her last two wins in competitive golf. On September 27, 1956, Zaharias died of her illness at the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas, at age forty-five. At the time of her death, she was still a top-ranked female golfer. She and her husband had established the Babe Zaharias Fund to support cancer clinics.^[11] She is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont.

Cultural impact[link]

The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum in Beaumont is also the chamber of commerce welcoming center.

Zaharias broke the accepted models of femininity in her time, including the accepted models of female athleticism. Although just 5' 5" tall, she was physically strong and socially straightforward about her strength. Although a sports hero to many, she was also derided for her "manliness".^[1] She died 10 years before the Second Wave of feminism altered the social landscape of the United States and made women athletes, such as Billie Jean King, more acceptable.

Zaharias has a museum dedicated to her, and a golf course that she owned was given landmark status.^{[citation needed]} Beaumont, Texas is home to the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Park and Museum.

Contemporary impressions[link]

It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.

— sportswriter Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram, ^[1]

Williams' remark typified the attitude of some toward women who did not fit the traditional ideals of femininity current in the first half of the 20th century. However, in the same time period, the Associated Press chose her as the "Female Athlete of the Year" six times for track & field and for golfing, and, in 1950, overwhelmingly voted for her as the "Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the Century".^[1] Aside from her impact on the women and girls of her time, she impressed seasoned sportswriters also:

She is beyond all belief until you see her perform...Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen.

— sportswriter Grantland Rice, quoted by ESPN, ^[1]

She was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Women's Golf in 1951. In 1957, she was given the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. She was one of six initial inductees into the LPGA Hall of Fame at its inception in 1977.

Modern-day[link]

The Associated Press followed up its 1950 declaration fifty years later by voting Zaharias the Woman Athlete of the 20th Century in 1999. In 2000, Sports Illustrated magazine also named her second on its list of the Greatest Female Athletes of All Time, behind the heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She is also in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Zaharias is the highest ranked woman, at #10, on ESPN's list of the 50 top athletes of the 20th century. In 2000, she was ranked as the 17th greatest golfer, and the second-greatest woman player (after Mickey Wright) by Golf Digest magazine.^[12] Her exploits were referenced by the irreverent comedy program Family Guy, in which her name and deeds were used as part of an "extended" version to the theme of the television series Maude.^{[citation needed]} Zaharias was also mentioned on the Simpsons episode, "The Devil Wears Nada," as the costume Marge Simpson wears when she poses for a racy charity calendar.

She broke the mold of what a lady golfer was supposed to be. The ideal in the 20s and 30s was Joyce Wethered, a willowy Englishwoman with a picture-book swing that produced elegant shots but not especially long ones. Zaharias developed a grooved athletic swing reminiscent of Lee Trevino's, and she was so strong off the tee that a fellow Texan, the great golfer Byron Nelson, once said that he knew of only eight men who could outdrive her. "It's not enough just to swing at the ball," Babe said. "You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it."

— journalist Charles McGrath, New York Times, ^[5]

Zaharias penned an autobiography This Life I've Led. It is no longer in print but is available in many libraries.^[13]

In 1975, the film Babe, based on Zaharias' life, was released, with Susan Clark playing the lead role. Alex Karras played George Zaharias. Clark and Karras met while making the picture and later married.^[13]

Babe Zaharias Golf Course[link]

In 1949, Zaharias purchased a golf course in the Forest Hills area of Tampa and lived nearby. After her death, the golf course was sold. It lay dormant as developers attempted to acquire the land for residential housing.

In 1974, the City of Tampa took over the golf course, renovated it, and reopened it, naming it the Babe Zaharias Golf Course. At some point afterward, it was accorded historical-landmark status.^[14]

In the media[link]

Zaharias appeared as a guest on the ABC reality show, The Comeback Story (1953-1954), explaining her attempts to battle colon cancer, which thereafter still claimed her life.^[15]

In 1952, she appeared in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn film Pat and Mike.

In 2007, Carolyn Gage began work on Babe, a full-chorus, full-orchestra musical about Zaharias.^[16]

In June 2011, Little, Brown published a major biography of Zaharias, Wonder Girl, by author Don Van Natta, Jr.^[17]

In season 21 of The Simpsons, Marge dressed up as Zaharias for her Charity Chicks calendar with a history theme. Marge also refers to her as the female Tiger Woods of the 20th century

Amateur wins[link]

This list is incomplete:

• 1946 U.S. Women's Amateur, Women's Trans-Mississippi Amateur
• 1947 North and South Women's Amateur, British Ladies Amateur

Professional wins[link]

LPGA Tour wins (41)[link]

• 1940 (1) Women's Western Open (as an amateur)
• 1944 (1) Women's Western Open (as an amateur)
• 1945 (1) Women's Western Open (as an amateur)
• 1947 (2) Tampa Open, Titleholders Championship (as an amateur)
• 1948 (3) All American Open, World Championship, U.S. Women's Open
• 1949 (2) World Championship, Eastern Open
• 1950 (8) Titleholders Championship, Pebble Beach Weathervane, Cleveland Weathervane, 144 Hole Weathervane, Women's Western Open, All American Open, World Championship, U.S. Women's Open
• 1951 (9) Ponte Verde Beach Women's Open, Tampa Women's Open, Lakewood Weathervane, Richmond Women's Open, Valley Open, Meridian Hills Weathervane, All American Open, World Championship, Women's Texas Open
• 1952 (5) Miami Weathervane, Titleholders Championship, Bakersfield Open (tied with Marlene Hagge, Betty Jameson and Betsy Rawls), Fresno Open, Women's Texas Open
• 1953 (2) Sarasota Open, Babe Zaharias Open
• 1954 (5) Serbin Open, Sarasota Open, Damon Runyon Cancer Fund Tournament, U.S. Women's Open, All American Open
• 1955 (2) Tampa Open, Peach Blossom Open

LPGA Majors are shown in bold.

Other wins[link]

• 1940 Women's Texas Open
• 1945 Women's Texas Open
• 1946 All American Open, Women's Texas Open
• 1947 Hardscrabble Open
• 1951 Orlando Florida 2-Ball (with George Bolesta)
• 1952 Orlando Mixed (with Al Besselink)

Major championships[link]

Wins (10)[link]

Year	Championship	Winning Score	Margin	Runner-up
1940	Women's Western Open	5 & 4		Mrs. Russell Mann
1944	Women's Western Open	7 & 5		Dorothy Germain (a)
1945	Women's Western Open	4 & 2		Dorothy Germain (a)
1947	Titleholders Championship	+4 (78-81-71-74=304)	5 strokes	Dorothy Kirby (a)
1948	U.S. Women's Open	E (75-72-75-78=300)	8 strokes	Betty Hicks
1950	Titleholders Championship	+10 (72-78-73-75=298)	8 strokes	Claire Doran (a)
1950	Women's Western Open	5 & 3		Peggy Kirk
1950	U.S. Women's Open	−9 (75-76-70-70=291)	9 strokes	Betsy Rawls (a)
1952	Titleholders Championship	+11 (74-73-73-79=299)	7 strokes	Betsy Rawls
1954	U.S. Women's Open	+3 (72-71-73-75=291)	12 strokes	Betty Hicks

See also[link]

• Golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
• Golfers with most LPGA major championship wins

Notes and references[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Zaharias, Babe Didrikson (1955). This Life I've Led: My Autobiography. New York A.S Barns & Co. ASIN B0018EAHXW. 
• Van Natta Jr., Don (2011). Wonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-05699-1. 
• Cayleff, Susan E. (1996). Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06593-4. 
• Klawans, Harold L. (1996). 'Why Michael Couldn't Hit and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports. W.H. Freeman & Company. ISBN 978-0-7167-3001-9. 

External links[link]

• Babe, a 1975 TV movie biography, at The Internet Movie Database
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias Photos held by the Library of Congress.
• Babe Zaharias at the LPGA Tour official site
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias biography at Golf.about.com
• "Babe Didrikson Zaharias's Legacy Fades," The New York Times, June 25, 2011
• Babe Didrickson Zaharias - Note: Although this is the official site of the Babe Didrickson Zaharias Foundation, it contains a number of notable factual errors. For example, it states that she won all of the events she entered at the 1932 Olympic games when in fact she won two of the three. It states that she graduated from high school; she did not. And it states that she did not smoke, which is also not true.

This article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links. (August 2008)

Don Van Natta Jr. (born July 22, 1964) is a bestselling author and an investigative reporter for ESPN, which he joined in January 2012. He previously worked for 16 years as an investigative correspondent at The New York Times, where he was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams.

Life[link]

At the "Times," Van Natta was on a six-reporter team, led by Jeff Gerth, that won the 1999 Pulitzer in National Reporting for a series of stories about American corporations that sold satellite technology with defense uses to China. And in 2002, Van Natta was one of nine reporters to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for his work on Al Qaeda in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

With his former colleague at the Times, Jeff Gerth, Van Natta has written an investigative biography about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton entitled, Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. It was published in June 2007 by Little, Brown and Company.

Van Natta was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He graduated in 1982 from Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey, New Jersey. He is a 1986 graduate of Boston University, where he won the Scarlet Key, an award given to student leaders. At BU, he served for three semesters as the editor-in-chief of The Daily Free Press, an independent daily newspaper published by students. In 2000, Boston University's College of Communication presented Van Natta with its Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2005, Boston University honored Van Natta as one of its 22 alumni to have won the Pulitzer Prize.

At the Times, Van Natta was the first investigative correspondent in the newspaper's history to be posted overseas. He was based in the newspaper's London bureau for nearly three years, from January 2003 until September 2005. While at the Times, he has also covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the deadlocked 2000 election in Florida, campaign finance and the crash of TWA Flight 800. Since September 11, 2001, Van Natta has covered terrorism and "extraordinary rendition," the C.I.A. program that kidnaps terrorism suspects abroad and sends them to third countries, where they are often tortured. In October 2005, Van Natta was one of three reporters to write a 5,800-word article about former Times reporter Judith Miller's 85 days in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury led by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. The article focused in detail on the handling of her case by the Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and top editors at the Times, including executive editor Bill Keller.

Prior to joining the Times in July 1995, Van Natta worked for eight years at The Miami Herald, where he was a member of a team of reporters awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. Van Natta was sent by Herald editors to cover the eye of the storm in Florida City in southern Dade County. He stayed in a Comfort Inn, which was destroyed by the 165 m.p.h. winds, and he nearly lost his life. His first-person account of surviving the storm was part of the Herald's Pulitzer winning entry. While at The Herald, he won numerous national, regional and state awards, including the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel and the Investigative Reporters & Editors Gold Medal for an eight-part series called "Crime and No Punishment," which revealed Miami had the highest rate of crime but the lowest rate of punishment in America.

In April 2003, Van Natta published his first book, First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters from Taft to Bush (Public Affairs, ISBN 1-58648-008-1). The non-fiction book about Presidential golf was a New York Times bestseller, and was also excerpted in the March 24, 2003 edition of Sports Illustrated, and was the cover story in the June 2003 edition of the Observer Sports Monthly in the United Kingdom. First Off the Tee was made into a documentary by the Times Discovery Channel, a show that featured interviews with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. And the book was also named a Notable Non-Fiction Book by The New York Times and one of the best sports books of the year by Sports Illustrated.

Van Natta's latest book, Wonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, was published in 2011 by Little, Brown. Van Natta is working on two new books—one about the News Corp./News of the World phone-hacking scandal, with London-based Times colleague Sarah Lyall, and the other a biography of Sid Gillman, the NFL and AFL head coach.

On September 5, 2010, The New York Times published the results of a six months investigation led by Don Van Natta Jr into alleged malpractice at the News of the World, a British newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. The News of the World dismissed the allegations as unsubstantiated and said "the investigation was tainted by a vested interest in the outcome". They also accused The New York Times of flawed reporting and of being motivated by commercial rivalry. In a letter to the Times' Public Editor Arthur Brisbane, The News of the World cited seven breaches of The New York Times' own ethical guidelines on accuracy, use of anonymous sources, bias, impartiality, honest treatment of competitors, reader benefit and conflict of interest. They also questioned the professional detachment of Mr Van Natta Jr. who they claimed had sent a Twitter message linking to personal attack on News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch alongside a message which read: "The Last Great Newspaper War". In a blog post following publication of the News of the World story, media commentator Michael Wolff characterised Van Natta Jr. as a Times's "enforcer" and "insider, loyalist and gun". In his column, Mr Brisbane broadly supported the Times' reporting but conceded that it relied heavily on anonymous sources and that presentation of the story and gratuitous references to Mr Murdoch could leave room for suspicions of a "hidden agenda".

Personal[link]

Don Van Natta lives in Coral Gables, Florida with his wife, Lizette Alvarez, a New York Times correspondent, and their two young daughters.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Column archive at The New York Times
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Don Van Natta, Jr. on Charlie Rose
• Don Van Natta, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Don Van Natta, Jr. in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper87/stills/46n3jtdx.jpg

Mickey Wright
Personal information
Full name	Mary Kathryn Wright
Nickname	Mickey
Born	(1935-02-14) February 14, 1935 (age 77) San Diego, California
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Nationality	United States
Residence	Port St. Lucie, Florida
Career
College	Stanford University (one year)
Turned professional	1954
Retired	1969
Former tour(s)	LPGA Tour (joined 1955)
Professional wins	90
Number of wins by tour
LPGA Tour	82 (2nd all time)
Other	8
Best results in LPGA Major Championships (Wins: 13)
Western Open	Won: 1962, 1963, 1966
Titleholders C'ship	Won: 1961, 1962
Kraft Nabisco C'ship	T66: 1984
LPGA Championship	Won: 1958, 1960, 1961, 1963
U.S. Women's Open	Won: 1958, 1959, 1961, 1964
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame	1964 (member page)
LPGA Tour Money Winner	1961, 1962, 1963, 1964
LPGA Vare Trophy	1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964
Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year	1963, 1964
Bob Jones Award	2010

Mary Kathryn "Mickey" Wright (born February 14, 1935) is an American professional golfer. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Early life[link]

Wright was born in San Diego, California. Her first important title was the 1952 U.S. Girls' Junior. She attended Stanford University and played for its golf team, but left before graduation.^[1] She lost in the final of the 1954 U.S. Women's Amateur, won the 1954 World Amateur Championship, and turned professional later in 1954.

Joins LPGA Tour[link]

Wright joined the LPGA Tour in 1955. She won 82 events on the LPGA Tour, which puts her second on the all-time win list behind Kathy Whitworth, who won 88 times. Thirteen of her victories were in major championships, which places her second to Patty Berg, who won fifteen majors. Wright topped the LPGA money list for four consecutive seasons from 1961–1964 and made the top ten on the list thirteen times in total between 1956 and 1969. Wright won at least one LPGA title for 14 straight seasons, from 1956 to 1969.

At the inaugural Tall City Open in 1964, Wright shot a 62 in the third and final round. It was the lowest score in LPGA Tour history at that time.^[2] Wright's Tall City Open win is also tied for the largest final round comeback in LPGA history.^[3]

Wright was coached by Harvey Penick. Ben Hogan said Wright's swing was the best he had ever seen.^[4] Wright retired from full-time golf at age 34 in 1969, because of problems with her feet, but did compete occasionally after that. Wright won 12 majors between 1958 and 1966, and she is the only player in LPGA Tour history to hold all four major titles at the same time. She now lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and plays recreational golf occasionally.^[5]

Legacy[link]

In 2000, Wright was ranked as the ninth greatest golfer of all time, and the top woman golfer, by Golf Digest magazine.^[6] In a major 2009 survey of experts, published by Golf Magazine, Wright was chosen the eighth best player of all time, and the top woman player of all time.^[7]

Notable amateur wins[link]

• 1952 U.S. Girls' Junior
• 1954 World Amateur Championship

Professional wins (90)[link]

LPGA Tour (82)[link]

• 1956 (1) Jacksonville Open
• 1957 (3) Sea Island Open, Jacksonville Open, Wolverine Open
• 1958 (5) Sea Island Open, LPGA Championship, U.S. Women's Open, Opie Turner Open, Dallas Open
• 1959 (4) Jacksonville Open, Cavalier Open, U.S. Women's Open, Alliance Machine International Open
• 1960 (6) Sea Island Open, Tampa Open, LPGA Championship, Grossinger Open, Eastern Open, Memphis Open
• 1961 (10) St. Petersburg Open, Miami Open, Titleholders Championship, Columbus Open, U.S. Women's Open, Waterloo Open, Spokane Women's Open, Sacramento Valley Open, Mickey Wright Invitational, LPGA Championship
• 1962 (10) Sea Island Women's Invitational, Titleholders Championship, Women's Western Open, Milwaukee Open, Heart of America Invitational, Albuquerque Swing Parade, Salt Lake City Open, Spokane Open, Mickey Wright Invitational, Carlsbad Cavern Open
• 1963 (13) Sea Island Women's Invitational, St. Petersburg Women's Open, Alpine Civitan Open, Muskogee Civitan Open, Dallas Civitan Open, Babe Zaharias Open, Women's Western Open, Waterloo Women's Open Invitational, Albuquerque Swing Parade, Idaho Centennial Ladies' Open, Visalia Ladies' Open, Mickey Wright Invitational, LPGA Championship
• 1964 (11) Peach Blossom Invitational, Clifford Ann Creed Invitational, Squirt Ladies' Open Invitational, Muskogee Civitan Open, Lady Carling Eastern Open, Waldemar Open, U.S. Women's Open, Milwaukee Jaycee Open, Visalia Ladies' Open, Tall City Open, Mary Mills Mississippi Gulf Coast Invitational
• 1965 (2) Baton Rouge Invitational, Dallas Civitan Open
• 1966 (7) Venice Ladies Open, Shreveport Kiwanis Invitational, Bluegrass Ladies Invitational, Women's Western Open, Pacific Ladies' Classic, Shirley Englehorn Invitational, Mickey Wright Invitational
• 1967 (4) Shreveport Kiwanis Club Invitational, Bluegrass Invitational, Lady Carling Open (Maryland), Pensacola Ladies Invitational
• 1968 (4) Port Malabar Invitational, Palm Beach County Open, Tall City Open, 500 Ladies Classic
• 1969 (1) Bluegrass Invitational
• 1973 (1) Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner's Circle

Note: Wright won the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner's Circle (now known as the Kraft Nabisco Championship) before it became a major championship.

LPGA majors are shown in bold.

Other wins (8)[link]

• 1959 Hoosier Celebrity
• 1961 Haig & Haig Scotch Foursome (with Dave Ragan)
• 1962 Naples Pro-Am (with Marilynn Smith)
• 1963 Haig & Haig Scotch Foursome (with Dave Ragan), Shell's Wonderful World of Golf
• 1966 Ladies World Series of Golf, Shell's Wonderful World of Golf
• 1967 Seven Lakes Invitational

Major championships[link]

Wins (13)[link]

Year	Championship	Winning Score	Margin	Runner(s)-up
1958	LPGA Championship	+8 (69-69-76-74=288)	6 strokes	Fay Crocker
1958	U.S. Women's Open	-2 (74-72-70-74=290)	5 strokes	Louise Suggs
1959	U.S. Women's Open	+7 (72-75-69-71=287)	2 strokes	Louise Suggs
1960	LPGA Championship	-4 (71-76-74-71=292)	3 strokes	Louise Suggs
1961	Titleholders Championship	+11 (72-75-76-76=299)	1 stroke	Patty Berg, Louise Suggs
1961	U.S. Women's Open	+5 (72-80-69-72=293)	6 strokes	Betsy Rawls
1961	LPGA Championship	+3 (67-77-72-71=287)	9 strokes	Louise Suggs
1962	Titleholders Championship	+7 (73-75-70-77=295)	Playoff1	Ruth Jessen
1962	Women's Western Open	+7 (69-74-76-76=295)	Playoff2	Mary Lena Faulk
1963	Women's Western Open	-4 (78-70-71-73=292)	9 strokes	Kathy Whitworth
1963	LPGA Championship	+10 (72-82-70-70=294)	2 strokes	Mary Lena Faulk, Mary Mills, Louise Suggs
1964	U.S. Women's Open	-2 (71-71-75-73=290)	Playoff3	Ruth Jessen
1966	Women's Western Open	+2 (72-78-76-76=302)	1 stroke	Jo Ann Prentice, Margie Masters

¹ In an 18-hole playoff, Wright 69, Jessen 72.
² Wright won on the fourth hole of a sudden-death playoff.
³ In an 18-hole playoff, Wright 70, Jessen 72.

See also[link]

• Golfers with most LPGA major championship wins
• Golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
• Women’s Career Grand Slam Champion

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mickey Wright at the LPGA Tour official site
• Mickey Wright bio at about.com