Thirteen founders made their LPGA dream a reality

(Continued from Page 4) called “the perfect golf grip” and a “natural beauty,” won 14 top amateur titles, including the 1939 and 1940 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championships. In 1942, she became the first player to win the Western Women’s Open and the Western Women’s Amateur in the same year. Her amateur career had been launched when she won the 1932 Texas Publinx Title at age 13.

Jameson turned pro in 1945, and won seven times prior to the start of the LPGA. Two years after her professional debut, she won the 1947 U.S. Women’s Open with a 295 total. That score marked the first time a woman had scored lower than 300 for a 72-hole tournament. She went on to win 13 LPGA tournaments, including three major championships, and was one of the LPGA’s first six Hall of Fame inductees.

Jameson’s greatest legacy is the Vare Trophy, which she donated in 1952, in the name of her idol, American amateur star, Glenna Collett Vare. It was the idea of this freethinking player to institute the concept of the Vare Trophy, which continues to be awarded to the LPGA Tour player with the lowest scoring average each year.

Sally Sessions

(1923-1966)

Rookie year: 1947

Growing up in North Muskegon, Mich., Sessions was a gifted athlete in both tennis and golf. She won the Michigan State Tennis Championship at age 16, and won both the city of Muskegon’s tennis and golf championships on the same day in 1942. Eventually, however, Sessions directed her focus solely toward golf. She won the 1946 Michigan Women’s State Championship and in 1947 became the first woman to break par-72 at Pinehurst Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C., with a score of 69. That same year and playing as an amateur, she finished as runner-up to Betty Jameson at the 1947 U.S. Women’s Open Championship, also adding a win at the 1947 Mexican Women’s Open.

A year later, Sessions turned pro, tying for 10th at the 1948 U.S. Women’s Open. She recorded a fifth-place finish at the 1949 Tam O’Shanter All-American tournament. Just like many other women professionals of her time, she became a staff professional for Wilson Sporting Goods and performed clinics and exhibitions around the country as a member of the Wilson staff. She never won on the LPGA Tour during her brief golf career, but Sessions served as the association’s first secretary.

Marilynn Smith (1929-2019)

Rookie year: 1950 LPGA victories: 21 LPGA earnings: $296,258

Smith was known as “Miss Personality” and the “LPGA’s goodwill ambassador” on the LPGA Tour in its early years. And it was Smith, wearing pearls and heels, who was often pushed out to adlib the LPGA’s earliest public relations efforts in front of fans, sponsors and the media. Accompanied by her fellow pros, she would often hit balls from home plate to the outfield and invite fans at Major League Baseball parks to come watch the local LPGA tournament. Once, she even attended a boxing match with the goal of reminding fans between rounds to attend that week’s LPGA event; unfortunately, the grueling nature of the sport made Smith swoon and one of her fellow pros had to jump into the blood-splattered ring to invite boxing fans to come watch women’s golf.

But while Smith was a true girl-nextdoor native of Topeka, Kansa, who called herself “just an ordinary gal from the Kansas prairie who has lived an extraordinary life,” she was a solid competitor on the LPGA Tour from 1957 to 1976, playing a more limited schedule until 1985. During that time, Smith won 21 tournaments, including two major championships at the 1963 and 1964 Titleholders Championships. Her first LPGA win came at the 1954 Fort Wayne Open in Indiana, with her final professional title notched at the 1972 Pabst Ladies Classic. She recorded nine top-10 finishes on the LPGA’s money list from 1961 through 1972.

Shirley Spork

(1927-2022)

Rookie year: 1946 Spork was always a player with a keen eye for golf swing technique, leading her to become one of six inaugural members of the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals Hall of Fame. Spork graduated from Eastern Michigan University, where she won the first-ever National Collegiate Championship in 1947, which was the equivalent of today’s NCAA Championship. A teacher at heart, she was the Western educational director for the National Golf Foundation for seven years and taught golf in the early 1950s at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Typical at that time, she spent the summer months competing on the LPGA Tour and the winter months teaching golf in the California desert.

In 1959, Spork helped found the LPGA’s teaching division along with Marilynn Smith, Betty Hicks and Barbara Rotvig. She was named LPGA National Teacher of the Year in both 1959 and 1984. She also served as the LPGA’s Teaching and Club Professionals chairperson for eight years. But Spork could also hit the shots, finishing among the top 10 on the LPGA’s money list in 1950, placing second in the 1962 LPGA Championship and fourth in the Carling Eastern Open that year. Widely considered the LPGA’s resident “trick-shot artist,” Spork would please crowds with golf shots on command and entertain fans in clinics wherever the tour traveled.

Louise Suggs (1923-2015)

Rookie year: 1950

LPGA victories: 58

LPGA earnings: $190,475 Suggs always let her clubs do the talking. Nicknamed “The Little Hogan” by the media in the early years, Suggs brought a sparkling amateur career with her to the newly formed professional golf association. The Georgia native was no stranger to golf fans, as she had wowed media and galleries throughout the 1940s with amateur wins that included two Georgia State Amateur Championships, wins at the 1941 and 1947 Southern Amateur Championship, three wins at the North and South Women’s Amateur Championship, the 1947 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, and the 1948 Women’s British Amateur Championship, as well as being a member of the 1948 U.S. Curtis Cup team.

Suggs is credited with 58 LPGA career wins and 11 major championships. In 1957, she won the Vare Trophy for low scoring average and also became the LPGA’s first player to complete the career grand slam, which included the U.S. Women’s Open, the LPGA Championship, the Western Open and the Titleholders Championship, at that time. Suggs became one of the six inaugural inductees of the LPGA Hall of Fame, as well as a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, and the LPGA’s Teaching and Club Professionals Hall of Fame. Over the years, she was honored with numerous awards, including the Patty Berg Award in 2000, the 2007 Bob Jones Award for “distin- guished sportsmanship in golf,” and the William D. Richardson Award in 2008, which recognizes “individuals who have consistently made an outstanding contribution to golf.”

Babe Zaharias (1911-1956)

Rookie year: 1950

LPGA victories: 36

LPGA earnings: $66,237

Mildred Ella

Didriksen was born in 1911 as the child of Norwegian immigrants who settled in Port Arthur, Texas. But this LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame member became better known as “The Babe” during her lifetime in sports. Moreover, she was the centerpiece for the LPGA Tour in its early days.

Zaharias was an Olympian who was often called the “greatest female athlete in history.” She starred in track and field, winning gold medals and setting or tying world records in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin, and winning the silver medal in the high jump at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Calif. She also was an All-American basketball player, earning her nickname after hitting five home runs in a single baseball game in the style of home run king Babe Ruth, and was said to have been equally adept in tennis, bowling, billiards, diving and roller skating.

But it was golf, and specifically the LPGA, where Zaharias made her final mark. She began focusing on golf in 1934, and won her second tournament a year later at the 1935 Texas Women’s Invitational. Two weeks later, the USGA ruled that she was a professional athlete because of her earnings in baseball and basketball, but she regained her amateur status in 1943, and won 17 amateur events from 1946-47, including the 1946 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship and the 1947 Women’s British Amateur Championship. She turned professional in August 1947. Her swaggering style and athleticism gave her 41 professional wins, with 10 victories prior to the LPGA’s start in 1950, with 36 professional titles on the LPGA Tour, including 10 major championships. She still holds the LPGA’s record as the player who reached 10 wins, 20 wins and 30 wins the fastest.

The LPGA owes so much to these pioneering women, who used their voices and athletic ability to create an enduring legacy. As this year’s phenomenal golfers compete in the Cognizant Founders Cup, take a moment to remember and honor these incredible, trailblazing women.