It is a landmark US Women’s Open, the first time the USGA has taken the biggest championship in women’s golf to Pebble Beach Golf Links, one of the most famous golf courses in the world. And this year’s is certain to be among the most memorable Opens in the 78-year history.

In celebrating the milestone, it felt right to reflect on the championship and spotlight the moments that have helped define the event through the years. There have been a variety of winners—from phenoms and Hall of Famers to dark horses and unknowns—winning in all sorts of ways. There have been tears of joy shed, and tears of heartbreak, too.

We recount it all in our countdown of the 18 most memorable US Women’s Opens, a ranking that is likely to inspire some debate. Before we begin, however, here are a few interesting historical facts about the championship.

• It was not a USGA event initially. It was started by the Women’s Professional Golfers Association, which held it for three years. Then the LPGA was formed and it staged it the next four years. In 1953, the LPGA asked the USGA to take it over.

• The first Women’s Open in 1946 had a field of only 39. Entries have topped 1,000 every year since 2004, with a record 2,107 coming this year for Pebble Beach.

• Mickey Wright and Betsy Rawls share the record for most US Women’s Open victories, with four.

• Forty-five of the first 77 Women’s Opens were won by those in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

• Among those who never won the Women’s Open: Kathy Whitworth, Nancy Lopez, Lorena Ochoa and Beth Daniel.

OK, on to the countdown.

18. Annika goes back-to-back (1996)

Annika Sorenstam had formally announced her arrival in women’s golf the year before at The Broadmoor but began to forge her legacy as the dominant golfer of her generation by winning the Women’s Open for a second straight year. This one came at Southern Pines, a convincing six-stroke victory over Kris Tschetter after shooting a closing 66 to break the Women’s Open 72-hole scoring record with an eight-under 272 total. “It’s a wonderful feeling to win this championship,” Sorenstam said through tears. “Once was wonderful. To win it twice was more than wonderful.” In 2006, she would add a third Open victory to her distinguished record of 72 LPGA titles and 10 majors.

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17. No Open for Nancy (1997)

Nancy Lopez reacts to a missed par putt on the 17th hole at Pumpkin Ridge that, in part, kept her from finally claiming the Women’s Open title. Craig Jones

She was 40 and at the end of her reign, with 48 LPGA victories but none of them the US Women’s Open. Yet Nancy Lopez was tied for second after the second round at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club outside Portland, Ore., and solo second after the third, trailing by three. Lopez outplayed England’s Alison Nicholas in the final round (69 to 71), but ultimately came up one stroke short after two bogeys in her final four holes and missing a 15-foot birdie to force a playoff on the last. Finishing second for the fourth time in the national championship, Lopez knew she had missed her last best chance at victory: “This should have been the one, darn it.”

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16. Grand Slam bid stymied (1986)

Pat Bradley had won the first two women’s majors that year, the Nabisco Dinah Shore and the LPGA Championship, but her try at a third straight, in the Women’s Open at NCR Country Club, came up three strokes short as she finished in fifth place. Bradley, 35 at the time, would go on to win the du Maurier Classic a few weeks later, becoming the first and only player to win three legs of the Grand Slam in one year in the modern era. History will note that the other major winner in 1986 was Jane Geddes, who prevailed over Sally Little in a playoff at NCR to win the Women’s Open, the first of her two career major victories.

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15. A legend in a landslide (1949)

The Women’s Open in ’49 was played at Prince George’s Country Club in Landover, Md., a par-75 layout that was mastered by only a single player. Louise Suggs played 72 holes in nine-under-par 291 and won by a record 14 shots over Babe Zaharias. Suggs would win 61 tournaments, including a second Women’s Open in 1952 that helped her claim 11 majors in her Hall of Fame career.

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14. First time on TV (1965)

The final round of the Women’s Open at Atlantic City (NJ) Country Club was nationally televised and it produced a worthy champion. Future Hall of Famer Carol Mann won by two, the third of her 38 LPGA wins and second of two majors. The Women’s Open has been televised every year since.

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13. A playoff and a penalty (2016)

Rules officials explain to Brittany Lang (right) the two-shot penalty that Anna Nordqvist had just been assessed during the playoff at CordeValle. Jonathan Ferrey

Tied at six under at California’s CordeValle Golf Club after 72 holes, Brittany Lang and Anna Nordqvist continued on in a three-hole aggregate playoff. On the second extra hole, the 17th at CordeValle, Nordqvist inadvertently and unknowingly touched the sand with her club in a fairway bunker. The infraction was caught on TV, and Nordqvist incurred a two-stroke penalty, which she was told about while playing the next hole. Lang would go on to win the playoff by three. “Just focusing on hitting my shots, and apparently I touched the sand,” Nordqvist said afterwards. “It wasn’t on purpose. And just one of those things. I have to deal with the consequences. Unfortunately, it happened, but it’s not the end of the world.”

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12. One sweetheart victory (2010)

Paula Creamer’s celebration after winning by four at Oakmont was emotional. Scott Halleran

One of the game’s most popular players, Paula Creamer had eight LPGA victories prior to arriving at Oakmont Country Club but was still in search of a major title to help validate her status as one of the top players. In the months preceding the Open, the 23-year-old nursed a hand injury that still bothered her throughout the week and wasn’t exactly conducive to playing in Oakmont’s gnarly rough. She prevailed nonetheless, winning by four and posting a 72-hole score of three-under 281.

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11. The very first champion (1946)

The inaugural US Women’s Open was a match-play event that had a 39-player field to start, with the final coming down to two future World Golf Hall of Famers, Patty Berg and Betty Jameson. Berg, who won 36-hole stroke-play qualifying by seven shots, prevailed in the 36-hole final, 5 and 4, at Spokane (Wash.) Country Club. The 28-year-old, who four years later would be one of the founding members of the LPGA Tour, claimed a first prize of $5,600 in war bonds. The following year and from then on out, a 72-hole stroke play format was used.

• • •

10. An amateur beats the pros (1967)

France’s Catherine Lacoste, 22, made history with her two-stroke victory at The Homestead, becoming the first and only amateur to win the Women’s Open. That said, it didn’t come without some nerves; Lacoste, daughter of tennis star Rene Lacoste, took a five-stroke lead into the final round and shot 79, but hung on for the title. In 1969, she went on to win the British Ladies Amateur (a title her mother won in 1927) and the US Women’s Amateur, but by 1970 she had all but retired from competitive golf, never having turned professional. No other amateur has been able to match Lacoste’s feat, though others have come close, notably Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang finishing tied for second in 2005 and Nancy Lopez tying for second in 1975.

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9. Annika begins her reign (1995)

A second straight US Women’s Open title help solidify Annika Sorenstam’s burgeoning place in women’s golf. JD Cuban

Big things were expected from Sorenstam after she became the first international player to win the NCAA title in 1991 and finished runner-up at the 1992 US Women’s Amateur. But after joining the LPGA in 1994, she had failed to post a victory prior to arriving at The Broadmoor and didn’t look as though she would do it in Colorado, either, entering the final round trailing leader Meg Mallon by five. But Sorenstam closed with a 68, Mallon a 74 and Annika had the first of her 72 LPGA victories and 10 majors.

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8. An unexpected champion (2003)

Hilary Lunke’s brief career had one shining moment when she shocked women’s golf by winning the Women’s Open at Pumpkin Ridge, defeating Angela Stanford and Kelly Robbins in a playoff. At 24, the Stanford grad was the first winner who had gone through local and sectional qualifying to play her way into the field. It was her only victory in an otherwise lacklustre career, and she retired five years later after only seven seasons on the LPGA Tour. In 24 career major starts, her next best finish was a T-37.

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7. The ultimate birdie for Birdie (2005)

Birdie Kim celebrates after holing a bunker shot for birdie on the 72nd hole at Cherry Hills. Christian Petersen

Morgan Pressel, then a 17-year-old high schooler, was trying to accomplish the improbable at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver and become the second amateur to win the Women’s Open—and the youngest-ever winner of a major title. She was tied for the lead on the 72nd hole, standing in the fairway and watching the other co-leader, Birdie Kim, play her third shot on par 4 from a greenside bunker. The 23-year-old South Korean proceeded to shock everyone—particularly Pressel—when she holed the tricky sand shot for a birdie. “I was never a good bunker player,” Kim said. “Finally, I make it.” Pressel couldn’t regroup, bogeying the hole to allow Kim to win by two, her only LPGA victory.

• • •

6. A costly mistake (1957)

A dejected Jackie Pung (left) sits during the prize ceremony as Betsy Rawls is awarded the Women’s Open trophy at Winged Foot. Bettmann

Jackie Pung had the championship at Winged Foot Golf Club won by a stroke over Betsy Rawls, then lost it when it was revealed she had signed an incorrect scorecard. She made a bogey 6 on the fourth hole of the final round, yet her playing partner, Betty Jameson, marked Pung down for a 5. Pung, incidentally, made the same error on Jameson’s card and both were disqualified. “Winning the Open is the greatest thing in golf,” Pung, 35, said at the presentation ceremony. “I have come close before. This time I thought I’d won. But I didn’t. Golf is played by rules, and I broke a rule. I’ve learned a lesson. And I have two broad shoulders …” Herbert Warren Wind, writing for Sports Illustrated, noted: “You will probably never see an unhappier group of people at a golf championship than was gathered at the Winged Foot Golf Club.” Indeed, the members had become fond of Pung during the week, and after the mistake raised $3,000 among them to present to her, or $1,200 more than she would have earned with the victory.

• • •

5. The phenom delivers (2014)

Michelle Wie’s win at Pinehurst silenced those who doubted whether she would live up to her hype as a junior phenom. Scott Halleran

Expectations had been exceedingly high for Michelle Wie throughout her career, not long after having qualified for the US Women’s Amateur Public Links at 10 and missing the cut by one in the PGA Tour’s Sony Open in Hawaii at 14. Yet these expectations went largely unfilled until she won the Women’s Open, defeating Stacy Lewis by two, at Pinehurst No. 2, the week after Martin Kaymer had won the US Open there in the USGA’s memorable back-to-back Opens. The 24-year-old’s reaction told it all: “Oh, my God, I can’t even think straight. I’m so happy right now. I’m just unbelievably happy. I’m so honoured to have my name on the trophy. Just so grateful for everything. I’m just really happy. I’m really thankful, just everything, feeling every single emotion I can right now.”

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4. A Hall-of-Fame career fulfilled (1999)

Juli Inkster was able to win her first Women’s Open without too much worry, in the process breaking the USGA scoring record in relation to par. Luke Frazza

A three-time winner of the US Women’s Amateur, Inkster seemed certain to one day claim a Women’s Open title when she embarked on her Hall of Fame career. Yet in her first 19 starts in the championship, she had only two top-10 finishes (including a painful playoff loss in 1992 when Patty Sheehan birdied her last two holes to force the extra round, then won by two shots). At age 38, in her 20th start, however, Inkster put together a stellar performance at Old Waverly Golf Club, shooting a USGA record 16-under-par score to win by five strokes. “The hardest part was it really was my tournament to lose. No one had the pressure on except me. I had no one to blame but myself,” Inkster said, having started the final round-up by four shots. It was the 20th of her 31 career LPGA victories and the first of two Women’s Open titles (she’d win again in 2002 at Prairie Dunes). “This is the ultimate tournament,” Inkster said. “No one can take away from me that I’m a US Open champion.”

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3. A win that inspires a nation (1998)

Se Ri Pak’s victory at Blackwolf Run inspired a generation of golfers in South Korea. Craig Jones

She was only 20, still mostly an unknown outside of South Korea who’d surprised American fans by winning the LPGA Championship six weeks earlier. Yet Se Ri Pak probably would have been considered an underdog in the playoff at the Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run had it been not for the person she was facing. Jenny Chuasiriporn, a 20-year-old Duke undergrad, made a 40-foot putt on the 18th hole to force extra holes and was trying to write her own “can you believe this” story. Tied still after the 18-hole playoff, the pair went another two holes before Pak pulled out the victory with a birdie. The championship was televised in South Korea, and Pak’s victory ignited a movement that resulted in South Korea’s LPGA dominance. “Back then, there was not the communication there is today,” Pak said when recalling the win. “It wasn’t until a week after I won that I learned that all of Korea was watching. It was unbelievable to me.” Following Pak’s lead, 46 more South Korean golfers have won LPGA Tour titles and all told 18 South Koreans have combined to win 33 majors. “At that moment,” said 2011 US Women’s Open winner So Yeon Ryu of Pak’s win, “just golf is my hobby and violin my dream. But now the violin is my hobby, golf is my dream, my job. So totally changed.” Pak went on to win 25 LPGA events, including five majors, before retiring in 2016. She is in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

• • •

2. Comeback from cancer (1954)

Babe Zaharias’ comeback was inspirational to her and others dealing with cancer. Underwood Archives

Fifteen months after undergoing cancer surgery, Babe Zaharias, at 43, became the oldest player to win the Women’s Open, running away with the title by 12 strokes at Salem (Mass.) Country Club, her third Women’s Open victory. “My prayers have been answered,” said Zaharias, who had missed the 1953 Open due to the surgery. “I just told the Lord to let me play again, and I’d take care of the winning. Today, we sealed the bargain.” Indeed, her performance was described in Golf World magazine as “the greatest sustained golf ever in a women’s championship.” At year’s end, the Associated Press voted her the female athlete of the year for the sixth time. Zaharias would not have a chance to defend her title a year later, forced to miss the championship because of back surgery that revealed the cancer had returned. She died in September 1956, at 45.

• • •

1. The Open’s greatest champion shines once more (1964)

Mickey Wright’s connection to the USGA and the Women’s Open will continue on after her death, thanks to her donation of her estate and possessions to the governing body. PGA of America

Any US Women’s Open list has to include Mickey Wright, who won the last of her four Women’s Opens at San Diego Country Club, the golf course on which she grew up alongside friend Billy Casper. “That was a very personal tournament,” Wright said years later. “It was my home. It was the first tournament that my mother and father had both seen me play in a tournament.” Wright beat Ruth Jessen, who also had San Diego ties, by two shots in an 18-hole playoff. “I hate to lose,” Jessen said, “but there is some consolation in losing to the greatest woman golfer in the world.” Indeed, it was Wright’s seventh win of the season and she would add four more titles before the year was out. Wright eventually ran her LPGA victory total to 82, including 13 major championships. Wright died in 2020 but her connection to the Women’s Open will continue; in Wright’s will, she bequeathed her estate and possessions to the USGA, which then announced that it has named the medal the Women’s Open champion received after Wright.

The post The 18 most memorable US Women’s Opens, ranked appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Mickey Wright undeniably was a gift to golf, one of its greatest champions, her swing alone an enduring work of art. But now comes word from the United States Golf Association that she has gifted the game substantially more than a memorable biography.

“The late four-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Mickey Wright has bequeathed her estate and possessions to the USGA,” the organization announced in a news release on Wednesday. “The preservation of her story is imperative to the USGA’s mission to chronicle the history of women’s golf and share it with generations to come.”

Wright, who at 85 died in February, is donating everything from equipment and awards to scrapbooks, photo albums, films, videos, her library, record collection, personal writings and other materials that involve her wide-ranging interests. These include fishing, the stock market and sculpture, according to the news release.

Among the artifacts are “thousands of pages of correspondence with family, friends and other golfers, as well as personal writings about her golf game and legendary swing,” as well as the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s highest honor, that she received in 2010.

“We are honored that Mickey Wright has entrusted her legacy to the USGA,” Hilary Cronheim, director of the USGA Golf Museum and Library, said in the news release. “We strive to preserve each champion’s story in a multi-dimensional way, speaking to the breadth and depth of an individual’s life, character and impact.

“The story of golf cannot be told without Mickey Wright, and this collection ensures that future generations will appreciate her not only as a defining character in the game’s history, but as an individual with diverse interests, passions and pursuits outside of golf.”

The USGA also will honor Wright’s desire to be interred outside the Mickey Wright Room on the USGA campus is Far Hills, N.J. It will do so in conjunction with a celebration of her life at a date yet to be determined.

The post Mickey Wright has bequeathed everything in her estate, including a massive collection of artefacts, to the USGA appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“Whenever I talked to the great players like Ben Hogan and Jackie Burke about who they thought had the best swing ever, they always said it was Mickey Wright,” says McLean, a Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher based at The Biltmore in Coral Gables, Fla. “I’m a ‘position’ teacher, and hers are still the best. You can teach with what she does just as easily today as you could 60 years ago.”

Wright, who passed away Monday at age 85, won her last tournament almost 50 years ago, but her fluid, powerful, athletic swing was more than a prototype. “There were women before her who were powerful players,” says Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Mike Adams. “Babe Zaharias was an athlete who could smash the ball. But she muscled it out there. Mickey Wright’s swing was not only powerful, but it was elegant. It was better than Sam Snead’s.”

McLean intensively researched Wright’s swing for a video project decades ago, and was struck by the things Wright did instinctively that turned out to predict tour teaching styles as years progressed. “One thing I remember distinctly was her discussing how she used the last two fingers on her left hand to pull on the club from the transition,” says McLean. “That caused a slight bow in her wrist, and put her in a very powerful position. That’s something people talk about today as if it was brand new, and she was doing it in 1955 when she joined the LPGA.”

Wright had a shorter career than most all-time greats, retiring from a full schedule in 1969 at age 34 because of bad feet and an aversion to the publicity that came with being the face of the tour. But she packed a previously unprecedented amount of winning into her 14 full seasons, winning a then-record 82 tournaments—including 13 majors. ‘

A Golf Digest swing sequence of Wright from 1964.

Nobody on the LPGA had a swing like Wright’s, but Claude Harmon III says her action was one that would get even more exposure by a virtual mechanical twin who would join the PGA Tour in 1962, when Wright was already in her prime. “Jack Nicklaus swung it a lot like she did, with the knee action and the high hands,” says Harmon, a Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher based at The Floridian in Palm City, Fla. “But the best thing about her swing? Eighty-two wins. What more do you need to say?”

Adams says Wright forced people who were dismissive of women’s professional golf to acknowledge the power and athleticism in the sport. “She had a great swing—not a great swing for a woman, or any of that stuff you used to read people saying in the 1940s or 1950s,” says Adams, who is based at Fiddler’s Elbow Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “She used her size and athleticism to make a very rotary swing without a lot of the slide players tended to use during that time. Ernie Els is a good modern comparison. I wouldn’t call her swing ‘modern’ or ‘classic.’ I’d call it ‘timeless.’ She was a great lady, and she had the best swing the game has ever seen.”

The post To avid students, Mickey Wright owned “The Best Swing Ever.” here’s why appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Guy Yocom
Update: Mickey Wright died on Feb. 17, 2020. The interview below was conducted in 2017.

Mickey Wright is without question the greatest female player of all time, compiling a staggering 82 LPGA victories, including 13 major championships. Her swing, an aesthetic and technical miracle, was assessed by Ben Hogan as the best ever. By 1969, at age 34, she had attained almost mythical status. Then, just like that, she was gone. She retired, mysteriously, playing sporadically until 1973, before receding to her Florida home and a private life of her design. Since that time, Wright has spoken occasionally, but never at length. No golfer, Hogan included, has ever left us wanting more for insight into the player’s thoughts and experiences. On this occasion, she let us in. In conversation, Mickey speaks with an easy precision, her voice strong and alert. It’s a two-way deal—she asks questions, issues funny rejoinders to your answers, points out ironies. Her takes on others are generous, her self-assessments modest. She is fiercely pro golf and, not surprisingly, a traditionalist. She is a delight. For this, the 111th edition of My Shot, we present the one and only—the best there ever was—Mickey Wright. —Guy Yocom

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I’M IN GREAT SHAPE FOR 82. I had a couple of surgeries earlier this year I don’t care to advertise, but I’m recovering nicely. So well, in fact, that I went out on my back porch yesterday and hit five wedge shots out to a fairway of the course I live on. I went out and picked up the balls, like I always do. It might not sound like much, but these Florida summers are no joke. How many 82-year-old women do you know who have been out hitting balls in 95-degree weather?

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I STILL LOVE SWINGING A GOLF CLUB more than just about anything. For years after my last competitive appearance in 1995, I’d hit balls from my porch. When the USGA Museum put together the Mickey Wright Room in 2011 and needed a few mementos, I sent, among other things, the little swatch of synthetic turf. I hit balls off it one last time and figured that was it. Then some good friends of mine in Indiana heard about it and sent me a brand-new practice mat. You know how it works: Put out a mat, some balls and a club in front of a golfer, and the temptation to use them is going to be too much. So I keep my hand in, five or six balls at a time. Just enough to remain a “golfer.”

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NOT TOO LONG AGO, the nice people at Wilson Sporting Goods sent me a new set of irons. It had been a while since I’d seen a new set, and what a shock it was. The shafts today are so much longer, the lofts so much stronger than I’m accustomed to. I felt I could barely handle them. Swinging them feels almost like a different game, and not necessarily an easier one. So I stick with my old gap wedge with a Wilson Fat Shaft that is at least 20 years old. I carry the ball 100 yards, maybe 110. Not much different than I used to, really.

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I’M ALWAYS WORKING ON SOMETHING. Setup, ball position, weight distribution, mainly. The fundamentals. How far I stand from the ball, the first moves of the takeaway. There never was a time in my life when I wasn’t trying to work on something. To me, that was the whole point. That’s where the joy comes from, in identifying problems and then fixing them. I might very well be better at something next year than I am right now.

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I’VE BEEN TRYING the new swing ideas I keep hearing about, things I see players doing on TV. They leave me cold, to be honest. I watch the way players keep their feet planted, their backs perfectly straight and rigid with their lower bodies hardly moving at all, and just know they’re going to get hurt. They look overly “leveraged,” not the perfect word perhaps, but one all those angles bring to mind. It’s just the opposite of how I learned, which is the swing happening from the ground up. I guess I just don’t understand the modern way. One thing’s for sure, I see an awful lot of players wearing medical tape. Hands, arms, legs, back, everywhere. That can’t be a good sign.

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I HAD ONE GOLF-RELATED injury my whole career, a ganglion cyst in my left wrist. I did sprain my ankle twice, both times while wearing high-heels at cocktail parties. I don’t count those.

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YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD OF LUCY LI, the girl who at age 11 played so well at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open. We struck up a friendship via email, which is pretty neat considering I could be her great-great-grandmother.

It goes to show, the language of golf never changes. Lucy is 14 now and still a tiny thing, not much over 100 pounds. Obviously she wants to hit the ball farther. I’ve told Lucy to hang in there, that she hasn’t stopped growing and that more distance will come with time. I’ve suggested she turn her shoulders as far as they’ll go and to turn her hips, too, and for heaven’s sake, let that left heel come off the ground. But the main thing I’ve told her is to avoid lifting weights and to simply hit a lot of balls. There is no substitute for being “golf strong,” developing the muscles you actually use in the swing. And she’ll develop muscle memory, which is vital to a young player.

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MY FIRST TEACHER was a man named Johnny Bellante. The first lesson at La Jolla Country Club, he broke off the limb of a eucalyptus tree and handed it to me. “I want you to make this branch sing,” he said. To make a loud noise when I swished the branch through the air, I had to apply as much speed as I could, smooth but forceful. What a wonderful first lesson that was. It taught me the sensation of swinging through the ball, not at it.

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THE MOST INFLUENTIAL TEACHER, however, was Harry Pressler. He was known throughout California as the finest teacher of female players there was. Every Saturday, my mother would drive me 2½ hours up to San Gabriel Country Club to see him for a 30-minute lesson. My swing, which people have praised, really is Harry’s swing. On the wall of his office he had a photograph of Ben Hogan practising with a belt around his thighs and a band around his upper arms, a reminder to keep them as close together during the swing as possible. For all the talk about the old way being about individual styles, Harry was adamant that there was one good swing. Club square going back. Right hand under the shaft in the “tray” position at the top, the club at a 45-degree angle. Clubface square halfway down, at impact and into the follow-through.

He would physically move me into these positions so I could train my muscles to flow into them naturally. My swing might have had style in terms of rhythm and tempo, but in truth it was somewhat manufactured. But it was a swing for a lifetime, and boy, did it work.

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MANY YEARS LATER, I was on the range at Austin Country Club with Betsy Rawls when Harvey Penick came by to watch. Harvey was never my teacher, but since I was there hitting balls, he offered some help. He handed me a home-made teaching device, a heavy metal ball welded to the end of a chain. It was like a convict’s ball and chain, except it had a grip on it. He said it would improve my rhythm. “Just make your normal swing,” he said. I guess I swung it like I did that eucalyptus branch, because the ball broke off the chain and flew down the range. If it had hit somebody, it surely would have killed them. I looked over at Harvey, and his mouth was wide open. “I don’t think this will work for you,” he said.

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WHEN I WAS 12, I began taking part in clinics put on by a pro named Fred Sherman at Mission Valley Country Club in San Diego. They were at night, and a lot of people came out to watch. The range was lit by these enormous lights in the distance, similar to a baseball stadium. At the height of the evening, Fred would bring me forward to demonstrate. “Mickey, show the people how you can make the ball disappear,” he’d say, and I would drive the ball so it went out of sight, still climbing as it passed beyond the lights. Over the years, when I needed a big drive, I’d whisper to myself, Make it disappear.

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WHEN I DROVE THE BALL through those lights, the crowd would go, “Ooh.” I found, to my surprise, that I liked the attention. The best golfers, I believe, have a little bit of ham in them, a little show-off. Even shy golfers have a “just watch what I can do” part of their makeup that is a huge asset to them. The desire to embrace the spotlight, to put your talent on display and show people you can do this one thing really, really well, is a gift. I can’t think of a really good pro who hasn’t had that.

‘In the 1960s, several of us started shooting films of our golf swings. I never was satisfied with what I saw.’

I ONCE PLAYED AN EXHIBITION with the late Mickey Rooney, who when I was a kid was a huge Hollywood star. He was my partner, and I opened the show with a good drive down the middle. Nice applause from the gallery. Now it was his turn, and he went through an elaborate series of antics—waggles, stretches, deep breaths and so on—that lasted a good 30 seconds. The crowd was silent. Finally, he took the club back. When he got to the top he froze momentarily, then fell over like a statue. Didn’t break his fall or anything, just tipped over like a tree, hitting the ground with a thud. A planned pratfall, done only the way those old pros could do it. The crowd was almost helpless with laughter.

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SAVE FOR THE WOMEN’S WESTERN OPEN, there was precious little match play in women’s pro golf back then, and I was glad for it. I always saw medal play as a better test. I never could reconcile how someone could score a couple of 8s and still be declared the winner. But that’s just me.

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AFTER I BEAT BARBARA MCINTIRE in the final of the 1952 U.S. Girls’ Junior, I felt as sorry for her as I was happy for myself. She was a friend, and I knew winning would have meant so much to her. Later, I won the 1962 Titleholders and ‘64 U.S. Women’s Opens in playoffs, beating the same woman—Ruth Jessen—both times. Poor Ruthie had played so well, too. All these years later, their losses still bother me. I suppose there are players who don’t mind seeing their opponents suffer. But I was never that way.

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BUT I DID HAVE A PLAYFUL EDGE. When I played with Louise Suggs, I always made a point of telling her after the round how much I enjoyed watching her. She had such a beautiful swing. I’d say, “Thank you for helping me today, Louise.” She’d say, “What are you talking about? I didn’t help you.” I’d say, “Oh, yes you did. Your swing really helped my rhythm.” She’d laugh, “Well, I’m sorry about that.”

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IN 1954, while still an amateur, I was paired the final 36 holes of the U.S. Women’s Open with Babe Zaharias. I was 19 and scared out of my boots. Can you imagine suddenly competing against the greatest athlete of all time? Babe was larger than life, almost like something from another planet. She was coming back from surgery a year earlier for colon cancer but still was phenomenally athletic. Her arms and legs had a muscular quality I had never seen before. She was a showman and completely owned the galleries. On one hole she called her husband, George, over to shield her while she removed her girdle. I was naive and blushed when she did that, but Babe thought nothing of it. She showed it to the gallery and said, “Just watch me hit it now.” She was rough and tumble, competitive, and kind. And my, could she play. She’s often remembered as a long hitter, and maybe it was true before I saw her, but at that U.S. Open it was her short game that stood out. She won that championship by 12 strokes. I finished tied for fourth, 17 strokes back. It seems like such a privilege to have seen her play close-up. Only two years later, she was gone.

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MY EARLY YEARS ON TOUR, we travelled to tournaments by car, a caravan of us going from one city to the next. It’s often talked about as a hard life, but I never saw it that way at all. We all had Cadillacs, big, really comfortable cars. There were fewer automobiles on the road, no congestion. I found it a joy. It gave you time to relax, think and see this beautiful country. We listened to the radio a lot, country music mostly, but we liked to find stations that played a lot of Elvis Presley.

We all were crazy for him.

In 1956, in St. Petersburg, Fla., I finally got to see him perform. This was a big deal for me. I was 21, remember, and he was the hottest thing in America. There were a lot of girls in the crowd, and I behaved just like the rest of them, squealing and carrying on.

● ● ●

WE PLAYERS WERE CLOSE, but I wouldn’t liken it to that movie “A League of Their Own.” It didn’t have that sorority, team-like feel. Keep in mind, we were independent contractors. Golf is the ultimate individual game. There were kindnesses everywhere, from sharing putting tips to lending advice and encouragement. But to say we felt like family is a little much. That’s a whole different dynamic.

● ● ●

I THINK ATHLETES HAVE A MOMENT, a tiny little window, where they are at their absolute peak. A high-water mark of their skill and ability to execute. For me, it would be the 16th hole, final round of the 1957 Sea Island Open. I had a narrow lead and faced a 2-iron shot to a green with a huge, yawning bunker. It was 48 degrees, and the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour, just difficult as you can imagine. Long irons were always the strength of my game, and that shot, which I hit to 10 feet, gave me goosebumps. It had a surreal quality to it. It came off exactly how I saw it in my mind’s eye, the quality of the contact and the ball flight, with the perfect trajectory and curvature, as good as it got for me. I won the tournament, and though it was far from my greatest victory, I spent the rest of my career trying to duplicate the feel of that shot.

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I LOVED THE CHALLENGE of hitting long irons, but my favourite club was my 6-iron. Most players have a favourite club, one that looks more inviting than the rest when you set it behind the ball. To me it was the 6-iron from my set of Wilson Staff Dynapower irons, 1963 model. Long after I retired, I loved taking the club out to a short stretch of holes behind my house. It was the perfect club, distance-wise, for making par, hitting both my tee shots and approaches with that one club. The 5-iron was too much, the 7-iron not enough. One day, it broke. The head flew off, and for some reason it couldn’t be repaired. That was a sad day.

It’s up at the USGA Museum now, on display with its sisters.

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AT MY BEST I would go into what I called a “fog.” I never thought of it as the “zone” you hear about today, though maybe it was something like that. It was a mental state where I could concentrate really well and play with a greater confidence than usual. I had it when I shot 62 at Hunting Creek in Louisville in 1964. It was elusive, but that’s when I played my best.

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I WAS ONLY 34 when I stepped away from playing full time in 1969. In 1960, shortly after I moved to Dallas, I was invited by Earl Stewart to play out of Oak Cliff Country Club, make it my home base. Earl was a marvellous teacher and a fantastic player who to my knowledge is the last full-time club pro to win a PGA Tour event on his home course.

I played a lot of golf with Earl. We would play for 50 cents in our matches just to have something riding on them, and I don’t know that I ever beat him, even with him hitting a 2-iron off the tees and me a driver. I pleaded with Earl to talk to me about my swing. He steadfastly refused. He said, “You have to play. It’s not about the swing, it’s about how you get around the golf course.” He was filled with all kinds of wisdom, things like taking responsibility for each swing and how to deal with bad shots and good.

I respected Earl so much. I wanted to please him.

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IN 1961, I won 10 LPGA tournaments. I returned to Oak Cliff hoping for some approval from Earl. He said, “That’s pretty good, but you should win every tournament.” I thought he had to be joking but redoubled my efforts anyway. In 1962, I won 10 tournaments, and in 1963, I won 13. Each time I got home, Earl said, “Not good enough. You should win every time.” Long story short, in a four-year period beginning in 1961, I won 44 tournaments, including eight major championships. I also served as president of the LPGA for two years during that stretch, attending every cocktail party and Rotary Club event. The sum of trying to meet the expectations of Earl, the LPGA, my father and the public exhausted me physically and emotionally. I developed an ulcer and had all kinds of anxiety. It wasn’t the years, it was the mileage.

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I KEPT ON, but in 1969, with my leg in a cast after one of those sprained ankles, I stepped away from golf completely.

I enrolled at Southern Methodist University, figuring I’d discover a way to put my brains to work. College, I quickly learned, had changed radically from what I recalled from my experience at Stanford, where I’d gone for a year before turning pro in 1954. There was a lot of cheating, which was completely different than at Stanford, where everybody obeyed the honour code. It was so different from my experience in golf, too, where honour and self-policing was the norm. I also couldn’t get my head around a subject called “new math.” I got an A, but the effort it took was frightful. All it took was one quarter at SMU, and I knew I had to get back to what I knew best—being a pro golfer. I kept playing semi-regularly until 1973.

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THOSE 50-CENT GAMES I played with Earl Stewart were kind of an aberration. I never liked playing for money in casual games. I’m no prude; I absolutely will bet on other things. But golf I thought was too precious to bet on. It’s a holy thing to me. Betting dirties it a little. I always thought the game was interesting enough to stand on its own.

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THE BEST PURE WOMAN GOLFER I ever saw was Patty Berg. She understood the game, meaning she had an uncanny knack for exacting the best score possible. She was a clutch putter, a remarkable fairway-wood player and the best sand player I ever saw. One-shot in particular is burned in my mind. At the 1955 Titleholders Championship at Augusta Country Club, Patty hit into a bunker on the 13th hole. She faced a 30-yard shot from a severe downslope, her lie in the sand not very good. I thought she was dead. She very quickly and decisively played it to within three inches of the hole. It was a breathtaking shot even for a great pro, and I saw her play many like it. Patty’s skill is kind of lost to history, but there’s been no one better.

Photo by Bettmann/Getty ImagesWright winning the Grossinger Open in New York in 1960.

IN THE YEARS since I left the tour, my favourite swing to watch was Patty Sheehan’s. Beautiful rhythm, on plane and square at the top. Also, she swung through it beautifully. I’m not much of a note-writer, but after Patty won the U.S. Women’s Open in 1994, I sent her a message telling her I thought she had the best swing of her era. I heard she appreciated that. Of the players out there now, I really like the swings of the Korda girls, Jessica and Nelly. They’re both special.

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IN THE 1960S, several of us started shooting films of our golf swings. I never was satisfied with what I saw. The tendency is to be critical, to see things that aren’t perfect and start fiddling with them. It never ends, because heaven knows we never get to perfect.

I think seeing a good teacher and practising what he tells you is quite enough.

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WHAT DO I THINK of the new LPGA dress code? Well, the line between projecting femininity and outright sex is a thin one. If you look at the history, in my early years the LPGA Tour fought a perception of masculinity. The players made a conscious effort to be more feminine. Jan Stephenson and Laura Baugh were really good at that, because while men no doubt saw them as sexy, they primarily were just being really feminine. They were attractive, but the look was natural more than forced. Some of the players today seem to be forcing the sexiness. I do think you want to make it look more like a golf tournament than a men’s club. So I’m for the dress code. I don’t think anyone will have trouble recognizing the players as attractive women.

MY HEART BREAKS for Elizabeth Moon, the girl who raked away the short putt before it was conceded at the U.S. Girls’ Junior. It was so unfortunate, and I know painful. I want her to know I’m thinking of her. The rules can be severe, but what’s important is the lovely way she took responsibility for her error. I’m for her opponent, the [Erica] Shepherd girl, too. I want them both to take pride: Only in this game can such harsh outcomes reflect well on the competitors. If it were another sport, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show what fine young people they are.

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I WATCHED A LOT OF THE RECENT U.S. WOMEN’S AMATEUR. It was at San Diego Country Club, a tremendous course and a special one to me. On the par-4 18th hole, a California girl, Haley Moore, boomed a drive out there and had a wedge left to the green. At my best, I needed a 2-iron. The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don’t see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player’s experience. With that 2-iron, I was presented with strategic choices. Which way do I curve the ball? Do I hit it high or low? Should I maybe hit a fairway wood? For Haley, there really was one option: hit the wedge. So, though the game is interesting to watch and always will be, it’s less cerebral for the player.

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WHEN I SEE A YOUNG PLAYER standing with her hand on her hip after missing a putt, I feel like jumping through the TV screen and giving her the talking-to Betsy Rawls gave me shortly after I came on tour. I was an exceptional ball-striker already, and it annoyed me to no end to get beaten by someone who didn’t hit it as well but chipped and putted better. I had this arrogant attitude that if I hit it better I somehow deserved it more. After I’d complained for the umpteenth time to Betsy about this, she finally had heard enough. First she reminded me that the basic premise is to get the ball into the hole in the fewest number of strokes. A simple fact, but one lost on a lot of good ball-strikers. Then she told me to start taking responsibility for every shot and stop feeling sorry for myself. When the pity parties stopped, I immediately started winning. I would have won some tournaments, but I’m certain the total wouldn’t have reached 82.

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THERE’S GOT TO BE GOLF IN HEAVEN. I hope I get there and that it’s just me and my 2-iron. Or maybe a couple of angels will be looking on. Everything will look like Sea Island Golf Club did in the old days, sedate and beautiful. I’ll be facing that shot to a well-trapped green again, trying to duplicate that shot from 1957. If it’s really heaven, I’ll pull it off.

The post We Finally Got Mickey Wright! appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Mickey Wright, widely considered the greatest female golfer of all time, died on Monday of a heart attack, according to the AP. Wright was 85.

Wright joined the LPGA Tour in 1955, at a time when compiling a whopping 82 wins. That total includes 13 major championships, and Wright remains the only LPGA player to hold all major titles at the same time. At her height, Wright won 44 times in a four-year stretch, and was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year twice, in 1963 and 1964.

“At my best I would go into what I called a ‘fog.’ I never thought of it as the ‘zone’ you hear about today, though maybe it was something like that,” Wright told Golf Digest’s Guy Yocom in a 2017 interview. “It was a mental state where I could concentrate really well and play with a greater confidence than usual. I had it when I shot 62 at Hunting Creek in Louisville in 1964. It was elusive, but that’s when I played my best.”

But Wright’s excellence was not confined to her performance. Her swing was so mechanically sound and pure that Ben Hogan dubbed it the finest swing in the game. Moreover, she also served as LPGA president during a two-year stretch. A responsibility that took its toll on her.

“I attended every cocktail party and Rotary Club event,” she told Yocom. “The sum of trying to meet the expectations of [teacher] Earl Wright, the LPGA, my father and the public exhausted me physically and emotionally. I developed an ulcer and had all kinds of anxiety. It wasn’t the years, it was the mileage.”

Worse, she was plagued by foot injuries, forcing her to retire from full-time competition at age 34 in 1969. She continued to play sporadically for the next several years, even winning the 1973 Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle (now the ANA Inspiration), but she withdrew from public life in 1973.

Nevertheless, her love for the game never tired, as she told Yocom, and continued to play recreationally.

“I still love swinging a golf club more than just about anything,” Wright told Yocom. “For years after my last competitive appearance in 1995, I’d hit balls from my porch. When the USGA Museum put together the Mickey Wright Room in 2011 and needed a few mementos, I sent, among other things, the little swatch of synthetic turf. I hit balls off it one last time and figured that was it.

“Then some good friends of mine in Indiana heard about it and sent me a brand-new practice mat. You know how it works: Put out a mat, some balls and a club in front of a golfer, and the temptation to use them is going to be too much. So I keep my hand in, five or six balls at a time. Just enough to remain a ‘golfer.’”

Wright’s attorney Sonia Pawluc told the AP that Wright had been hospitalized for the past few weeks in Florida after an injury from a fall.

“There’s got to be golf in heaven,” Wright told Yocom. “I hope I get there and that it’s just me and my 2-iron. Or maybe a couple of angels will be looking on. Everything will look like Sea Island Golf Club did in the old days, sedate and beautiful. I’ll be facing that shot to a well-trapped green again, trying to duplicate that shot from 1957. If it’s really heaven, I’ll pull it off.”

The post Hall of Famer, trail blazer Mickey Wright dies of heart attack appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

I’M IN GREAT SHAPE FOR 82. I had a couple of surgeries earlier this year I don’t care to advertise, but I’m recovering nicely. So well, in fact, that I went out on my back porch yesterday and hit five wedge shots out to a fairway of the course I live on. I went out and picked up the balls, like I always do. It might not sound like much, but these Florida summers are no joke. How many 82-year-old women do you know who have been out hitting balls in 95-degree weather?

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I STILL LOVE SWINGING A GOLF CLUB more than just about anything. For years after my last competitive appearance in 1995, I’d hit balls from my porch. When the USGA Museum put together the Mickey Wright Room in 2011 and needed a few mementos, I sent, among other things, the little swatch of synthetic turf. I hit balls off it one last time and figured that was it. Then some good friends of mine in Indiana heard about it and sent me a brand-new practice mat. You know how it works: Put out a mat, some balls and a club in front of a golfer, and the temptation to use them is going to be too much. So I keep my hand in, five or six balls at a time. Just enough to remain a “golfer.”

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NOT TOO LONG AGO, the nice people at Wilson Sporting Goods sent me a new set of irons. It had been awhile since I’d seen a new set, and what a shock it was. The shafts today are so much longer, the lofts so much stronger than I’m accustomed to. I felt I could barely handle them. Swinging them feels almost like a different game, and not necessarily an easier one. So I stick with my old gap wedge with a Wilson Fat Shaft that is at least 20 years old. I carry the ball 100 yards, maybe 110. Not much different than I used to, really.

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I’M ALWAYS WORKING ON SOMETHING. Setup, ball position, weight distribution, mainly. The fundamentals. How far I stand from the ball, the first moves of the takeaway. There never was a time in my life when I wasn’t trying to work on something. To me, that was the whole point. That’s where the joy comes from, in identifying problems and then fixing them. I might very well be better at something next year than I am right now.

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I’VE BEEN TRYING the new swing ideas I keep hearing about, things I see players doing on TV. They leave me cold, to be honest. I watch the way players keep their feet planted, their backs perfectly straight and rigid with their lower bodies hardly moving at all, and just know they’re going to get hurt. They look overly “leveraged,” not the perfect word perhaps, but one all those angles bring to mind. It’s just the opposite of how I learned, which is the swing happening from the ground up. I guess I just don’t understand the modern way. One thing’s for sure, I see an awful lot of players wearing medical tape. Hands, arms, legs, back, everywhere. That can’t be a good sign.

● ● ●

I HAD ONE GOLF-RELATED injury my whole career, a ganglion cyst in my left wrist. I did sprain my ankle twice, both times while wearing high-heels at cocktail parties. I don’t count those.

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YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD OF LUCY LI, the girl who at age 11 played so well at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open. We struck up a friendship via email, which is pretty neat considering I could be her great-great-grandmother.

It goes to show, the language of golf never changes. Lucy is 14 now and still a tiny thing, not much over 100 pounds. Obviously she wants to hit the ball farther. I’ve told Lucy to hang in there, that she hasn’t stopped growing and that more distance will come with time. I’ve suggested she turn her shoulders as far as they’ll go and to turn her hips, too, and for heaven’s sake, let that left heel come off the ground. But the main thing I’ve told her is to avoid lifting weights and to simply hit a lot of balls. There is no substitute for being “golf strong,” developing the muscles you actually use in the swing. And she’ll develop muscle memory, which is vital to a young player.

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MY FIRST TEACHER was a man named Johnny Bellante. The first lesson at La Jolla Country Club, he broke off the limb of a eucalyptus tree and handed it to me. “I want you to make this branch sing,” he said. To make a loud noise when I swished the branch through the air, I had to apply as much speed as I could, smooth but forceful. What a wonderful first lesson that was. It taught me the sensation of swinging through the ball, not at it.

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THE MOST INFLUENTIAL TEACHER, however, was Harry Pressler. He was known throughout California as the finest teacher of female players there was. Every Saturday, my mother would drive me 2½ hours up to San Gabriel Country Club to see him for a 30-minute lesson. My swing, which people have praised, really is Harry’s swing. On the wall of his office he had a photograph of Ben Hogan practicing with a belt around his thighs and a band around his upper arms, a reminder to keep them as close together during the swing as possible. For all the talk about the old way being about individual styles, Harry was adamant that there was one good swing. Club square going back. Right hand under the shaft in the “tray” position at the top, the club at a 45-degree angle. Clubface square halfway down, at impact and into the follow-through.

He would physically move me into these positions so I could train my muscles to flow into them naturally. My swing might have had style in terms of rhythm and tempo, but in truth it was somewhat manufactured. But it was a swing for a lifetime, and boy, did it work.

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MANY YEARS LATER, I was on the range at Austin Country Club with Betsy Rawls when Harvey Penick came by to watch. Harvey was never my teacher, but since I was there hitting balls, he offered some help. He handed me a home-made teaching device, a heavy metal ball welded to the end of a chain. It was like a convict’s ball and chain, except it had a grip on it. He said it would improve my rhythm. “Just make your normal swing,” he said. I guess I swung it like I did that eucalyptus branch, because the ball broke off the chain and flew down the range. If it had hit somebody, it surely would have killed them. I looked over at Harvey, and his mouth was wide open. “I don’t think this will work for you,” he said.

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WHEN I WAS 12, I began taking part in clinics put on by a pro named Fred Sherman at Mission Valley Country Club in San Diego. They were at night, and a lot of people came out to watch. The range was lit by these enormous lights in the distance, similar to a baseball stadium. At the height of the evening, Fred would bring me forward to demonstrate. “Mickey, show the people how you can make the ball disappear,” he’d say, and I would drive the ball so it went out of sight, still climbing as it passed beyond the lights. Over the years, when I needed a big drive, I’d whisper to myself, Make it disappear.

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WHEN I DROVE THE BALL through those lights, the crowd would go, “Ooh.” I found, to my surprise, that I liked the attention. The best golfers, I believe, have a little bit of ham in them, a little show-off. Even shy golfers have a “just watch what I can do” part of their makeup that is a huge asset to them. The desire to embrace the spotlight, to put your talent on display and show people you can do this one thing really, really well, is a gift. I can’t think of a really good pro who hasn’t had that.

‘In the 1960s, several of us started shooting films of our golf swings. I never was satisfied with what I saw.’

I ONCE PLAYED AN EXHIBITION with the late Mickey Rooney, who when I was a kid was a huge Hollywood star. He was my partner, and I opened the show with a good drive down the middle. Nice applause from the gallery. Now it was his turn, and he went through an elaborate series of antics—waggles, stretches, deep breaths and so on—that lasted a good 30 seconds. The crowd was silent. Finally he took the club back. When he got to the top he froze momentarily, then fell over like a statue. Didn’t break his fall or anything, just tipped over like a tree, hitting the ground with a thud. A planned pratfall, done only the way those old pros could do it. The crowd was almost helpless with laughter.

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SAVE FOR THE WOMEN’S WESTERN OPEN, there was precious little match play in women’s pro golf back then, and I was glad for it. I always saw medal play as a better test. I never could reconcile how someone could score a couple of 8s and still be declared the winner. But that’s just me.

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AFTER I BEAT BARBARA MCINTIRE in the final of the 1952 U.S. Girls’ Junior, I felt as sorry for her as I was happy for myself. She was a friend, and I knew winning would have meant so much to her. Later, I won the 1962 Titleholders and ’64 U.S. Women’s Opens in playoffs, beating the same woman—Ruth Jessen—both times. Poor Ruthie had played so well, too. All these years later, their losses still bother me. I suppose there are players who don’t mind seeing their opponents suffer. But I was never that way.

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BUT I DID HAVE A PLAYFUL EDGE. When I played with Louise Suggs, I always made a point of telling her after the round how much I enjoyed watching her. She had such a beautiful swing. I’d say, “Thank you for helping me today, Louise.” She’d say, “What are you talking about? I didn’t help you.” I’d say, “Oh, yes you did. Your swing really helped my rhythm.” She’d laugh, “Well, I’m sorry about that.”

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IN 1954, while still an amateur, I was paired the final 36 holes of the U.S. Women’s Open with Babe Zaharias. I was 19 and scared out of my boots. Can you imagine suddenly competing against the greatest athlete of all time? Babe was larger than life, almost like something from another planet. She was coming back from surgery a year earlier for colon cancer but still was phenomenally athletic. Her arms and legs had a muscular quality I had never seen before. She was a showman and completely owned the galleries. On one hole she called her husband, George, over to shield her while she removed her girdle. I was naive and blushed when she did that, but Babe thought nothing of it. She showed it to the gallery and said, “Just watch me hit it now.” She was rough and tumble, competitive, and kind. And my, could she play. She’s often remembered as a long hitter, and maybe it was true before I saw her, but at that U.S. Open it was her short game that stood out. She won that championship by 12 strokes. I finished tied for fourth, 17 strokes back. It seems like such a privilege to have seen her play close-up. Only two years later, she was gone.

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MY EARLY YEARS ON TOUR, we traveled to tournaments by car, a caravan of us going from one city to the next. It’s often talked about as a hard life, but I never saw it that way at all. We all had Cadillacs, big, really comfortable cars. There were fewer automobiles on the road, no congestion. I found it a joy. It gave you time to relax, think and see this beautiful country. We listened to the radio a lot, country music mostly, but we liked to find stations that played a lot of Elvis Presley.

We all were crazy for him.

In 1956, in St. Petersburg, Fla., I finally got to see him perform. This was a big deal for me. I was 21, remember, and he was the hottest thing in America. There were a lot of girls in the crowd, and I behaved just like the rest of them, squealing and carrying on.

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WE PLAYERS WERE CLOSE, but I wouldn’t liken it to that movie “A League of Their Own.” It didn’t have that sorority, team-like feel. Keep in mind, we were independent contractors. Golf is the ultimate individual game. There were kindnesses everywhere, from sharing putting tips to lending advice and encouragement. But to say we felt like family is a little much. That’s a whole different dynamic.

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I THINK ATHLETES HAVE A MOMENT, a tiny little window, where they are at their absolute peak. A high-water mark of their skill and ability to execute. For me, it would be the 16th hole, final round of the 1957 Sea Island Open. I had a narrow lead and faced a 2-iron shot to a green with a huge, yawning bunker. It was 48 degrees, and the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour, just difficult as you can imagine. Long irons were always the strength of my game, and that shot, which I hit to 10 feet, gave me goose bumps. It had a surreal quality to it. It came off exactly how I saw it in my mind’s eye, the quality of the contact and the ball flight, with the perfect trajectory and curvature, as good as it got for me. I won the tournament, and though it was far from my greatest victory, I spent the rest of my career trying to duplicate the feel of that shot.

● ● ●

I LOVED THE CHALLENGE of hitting long irons, but my favorite club was my 6-iron. Most players have a favorite club, one that looks more inviting than the rest when you set it behind the ball. To me it was the 6-iron from my set of Wilson Staff Dynapower irons, 1963 model. Long after I retired, I loved taking the club out to a short stretch of holes behind my house. It was the perfect club, distance-wise, for making par, hitting both my tee shots and approaches with that one club. The 5-iron was too much, the 7-iron not enough. One day, it broke. The head flew off, and for some reason it couldn’t be repaired. That was a sad day.

It’s up at the USGA Museum now, on display with its sisters.

● ● ●

AT MY BEST I would go into what I called a “fog.” I never thought of it as the “zone” you hear about today, though maybe it was something like that. It was a mental state where I could concentrate really well and play with a greater confidence than usual. I had it when I shot 62 at Hunting Creek in Louisville in 1964. It was elusive, but that’s when I played my best.

● ● ●

I WAS ONLY 34 when I stepped away from playing full time in 1969. In 1960, shortly after I moved to Dallas, I was invited by Earl Stewart to play out of Oak Cliff Country Club, make it my home base. Earl was a marvelous teacher and a fantastic player who to my knowledge is the last full-time club pro to win a PGA Tour event on his home course.

I played a lot of golf with Earl. We would play for 50 cents in our matches just to have something riding on them, and I don’t know that I ever beat him, even with him hitting a 2-iron off the tees and me a driver. I pleaded with Earl to talk to me about my swing. He steadfastly refused. He said, “You have to play. It’s not about the swing, it’s about how you get around the golf course.” He was filled with all kinds of wisdom, things like taking responsibility for each swing and how to deal with bad shots and good.

I respected Earl so much. I wanted to please him.

● ● ●

IN 1961, I won 10 LPGA tournaments. I returned to Oak Cliff hoping for some approval from Earl. He said, “That’s pretty good, but you should win every tournament.” I thought he had to be joking but redoubled my efforts anyway. In 1962, I won 10 tournaments, and in 1963, I won 13. Each time I got home, Earl said, “Not good enough. You should win every time.” Long story short, in a four-year period beginning in 1961, I won 44 tournaments, including eight major championships. I also served as president of the LPGA for two years during that stretch, attending every cocktail party and Rotary Club event. The sum of trying to meet the expectations of Earl, the LPGA, my father and the public exhausted me physically and emotionally. I developed an ulcer and had all kinds of anxiety. It wasn’t the years, it was the mileage.

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I KEPT ON, but in 1969, with my leg in a cast after one of those sprained ankles, I stepped away from golf completely.

I enrolled at Southern Methodist University, figuring I’d discover a way to put my brains to work. College, I quickly learned, had changed radically from what I recalled from my experience at Stanford, where I’d gone for a year before turning pro in 1954. There was a lot of cheating, which was completely different than at Stanford, where everybody obeyed the honor code. It was so different from my experience in golf, too, where honor and self-policing was the norm. I also couldn’t get my head around a subject called “new math.” I got an A, but the effort it took was frightful. All it took was one quarter at SMU, and I knew I had to get back to what I knew best—being a pro golfer. I kept playing semi-regularly until 1973.

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THOSE 50-CENT GAMES I played with Earl Stewart were kind of an aberration. I never liked playing for money in casual games. I’m no prude; I absolutely will bet on other things. But golf I thought was too precious to bet on. It’s a holy thing to me. Betting dirties it a little. I always thought the game was interesting enough to stand on its own.

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THE BEST PURE WOMAN GOLFER I ever saw was Patty Berg. She understood the game, meaning she had an uncanny knack for exacting the best score possible. She was a clutch putter, a remarkable fairway-wood player and the best sand player I ever saw. One shot in particular is burned in my mind. At the 1955 Titleholders Championship at Augusta Country Club, Patty hit into a bunker on the 13th hole. She faced a 30-yard shot from a severe downslope, her lie in the sand not very good. I thought she was dead. She very quickly and decisively played it to within three inches of the hole. It was a breathtaking shot even for a great pro, and I saw her play many like it. Patty’s skill is kind of lost to history, but there’s been no one better.

Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images
Wright winning the Grossinger Open in New York in 1960.

IN THE YEARS since I left the tour, my favorite swing to watch was Patty Sheehan’s. Beautiful rhythm, on plane and square at the top. Also, she swung through it beautifully. I’m not much of a note-writer, but after Patty won the U.S. Women’s Open in 1994, I sent her a message telling her I thought she had the best swing of her era. I heard she appreciated that. Of the players out there now, I really like the swings of the Korda girls, Jessica and Nelly. They’re both special.

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IN THE 1960S, several of us started shooting films of our golf swings. I never was satisfied with what I saw. The tendency is to be critical, to see things that aren’t perfect and start fiddling with them. It never ends, because heaven knows we never get to perfect.

I think seeing a good teacher and practicing what he tells you is quite enough.

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WHAT DO I THINK of the new LPGA dress code? Well, the line between projecting femininity and outright sex is a thin one. If you look at the history, in my early years the LPGA Tour fought a perception of masculinity. The players made a conscious effort to be more feminine. Jan Stephenson and Laura Baugh were really good at that, because while men no doubt saw them as sexy, they primarily were just being really feminine. They were attractive, but the look was natural more than forced. Some of the players today seem to be forcing the sexiness. I do think you want to make it look more like a golf tournament than a men’s club. So I’m for the dress code. I don’t think anyone will have trouble recognizing the players as attractive women.

MY HEART BREAKS for Elizabeth Moon, the girl who raked away the short putt before it was conceded at the U.S. Girls’ Junior. It was so unfortunate, and I know painful. I want her to know I’m thinking of her. The rules can be severe, but what’s important is the lovely way she took responsibility for her error. I’m for her opponent, the [Erica] Shepherd girl, too. I want them both to take pride: Only in this game can such harsh outcomes reflect well on the competitors. If it were another sport, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show what fine young people they are.

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I WATCHED A LOT OF THE RECENT U.S. WOMEN’S AMATEUR. It was at San Diego Country Club, a tremendous course and a special one to me. On the par-4 18th hole, a California girl, Haley Moore, boomed a drive out there and had a wedge left to the green. At my best, I needed a 2-iron. The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don’t see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player’s experience. With that 2-iron, I was presented with strategic choices. Which way do I curve the ball? Do I hit it high or low? Should I maybe hit a fairway wood? For Haley, there really was one option: hit the wedge. So, though the game is interesting to watch and always will be, it’s less cerebral for the player.

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WHEN I SEE A YOUNG PLAYER standing with her hand on her hip after missing a putt, I feel like jumping through the TV screen and giving her the talking-to Betsy Rawls gave me shortly after I came on tour. I was an exceptional ball-striker already, and it annoyed me to no end to get beaten by someone who didn’t hit it as well but chipped and putted better. I had this arrogant attitude that if I hit it better I somehow deserved it more. After I’d complained for the umpteenth time to Betsy about this, she finally had heard enough. First she reminded me that the basic premise is to get the ball into the hole in the fewest number of strokes. A simple fact, but one lost on a lot of good ball-strikers. Then she told me to start taking responsibility for every shot and stop feeling sorry for myself. When the pity parties stopped, I immediately started winning. I would have won some tournaments, but I’m certain the total wouldn’t have reached 82.

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THERE’S GOT TO BE GOLF IN HEAVEN. I hope I get there and that it’s just me and my 2-iron. Or maybe a couple of angels will be looking on. Everything will look like Sea Island Golf Club did in the old days, sedate and beautiful. I’ll be facing that shot to a well-trapped green again, trying to duplicate that shot from 1957. If it’s really heaven, I’ll pull it off.

 

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