Women Power

Being a professional female golfer and becoming well-known at that is no easy feat.  Still, women’s golf has produced a number of famous women golfers.  From the 1900s to the 1920s, British amateurs dominated women’s golf.  By the 1930s, US women golfers hugged the limelight.  After World War II, Patty Berg helped establish the LPGA and became its president.  By the late 1990s, famous women golfers included Nancy Lopez, Michelle McGann, Laura Davies, Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb. These legendary women golfers have made indelible marks in golf history and paved the way for gender equality in the field of golf.

Babe Didrickson Zaharias is one of the greatest woman athletes in sports history.  She was an all-around athlete who dabbled in basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming but gained fame in golf and track and field.  Her powerful swings, low scores and playing performance transformed women’s golf.  From 1946 to 1947, she won seventeen tournaments in a row including the 1947 British Women’s Amateur Tournament thus becoming the first American to win said event.

Nancy Lopez is one of the most popular women golf players in the history of women’s golf.  She was already a crowd favorite early on in her career because of her gentle personality and style of play.  In 1978, she won nine tournaments and another eight tournaments in 1979.  She was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1987.

Mary Kathryn “Mickey” Wright is one of the most honored golfers in the LPGA history.  She was named Greatest Female Golfer of the 20th Century by the Associated Press.  She joined the LPGA Tour in 1955 and won tournaments on the LPGA Tour every year from 1956 to 1969.  Her fourteen –year winning streak is second best in LPGA history after Kathy Whitworth’s seventeen-year streak.  She is the only golfer in LPGA history to win all four majors simultaneously in 1962 after winning the final three majors of 1961.

Annika Sorenstam, a Swedish golfer, is probably the best female golfer.  She is one of the most successful professional golfers of all time.  From 1995 through 2006, she won eight money titles and never finished lower than fourth place.  Overall, she won sixty-nine professional tournaments and ten major championships in that span of time.  Annika Sorenstam was the first woman golfer since Babe Didrikson Zaharias to compete on the PGA Tour at the 2003 Colonial.

Michelle Wie, an American-Korean golfer, has redefined the game of golf.  She has brought prestige and honor to all women golfers everywhere.  By the time she turned pro in October 2005, shortly before her 16th birthday, she had already proven herself worthy of competing against men and women golfers on the PGA and LPGA Tour.  In 2003, she became the youngest ever winner of the US Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship at age thirteen.  That same year, she made her first debut in an LPGA major tournament competing with the likes of Annika Sorenstam.  In 2005, while still an amateur, she finished second to Annika Sorenstam at The LPGA Championship.  When she turned pro, she already had multi-million dollar product endorsement deals.