Category 55.
Greatest Women’s Golfer
Honorable Mention:
Inbee Park has a career Grand Slam, 7 Majors, youngest US Open winner, Olympic Gold Medal, #1 on four occasions, 2x Player of the Year, 2x Vare Trophy, 3x most wins, 2x leading money winner, youngest to qualify for the HoF, one of four players with 3 Majors won in single season, one of three players to win the same major 3 straight years.
Laura Davies is the all-time leader on the LET with 45 wins, 7-time Order of Merit leader, 87 wins worldwide, 20 on LPGA, 4 Majors, 1x LPGA leading money winner, 1x Player of the Year, all-time leader in points won in the Solheim Cup, only woman to play an event in the European Men’s Tour, loves gambling & whiskey, former bookie, owns race horses.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias 10 Majors, 41 wins. Babe isn't just one of the greatest golfers of all time, but one of the greatest athletes of all time. 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, a feat that made her the leader on the money list that year. Also that year, she reached 10 wins faster than any other LPGA golfer, doing so in one year and 20 days, a record that still stands. Chosen as all around athlete but maybe belonged here.
Babe is Top 3, Laura is a slam dunk Top Ten, Inbee is harder to place but definitely would have received a few points. NBD either way.
Unlike the men’s golfer category or both tennis rankings, I decided to go with a weighted points system for this rankings only. I’m generally not a big fan of going strictly by the numbers because it doesn’t take into account generational shifts, depth of field, intangible factors like impact, et al. That said, with a few notable exceptions I was happy with the results achieved “by the book.”
My arbitrary and capricious points system:
10 points - Career Grand Slam
7 points - Major Titles
4 points - Major Award PotY / Vare
3 points - leading money winner
2 points - most wins / RotY
1 points - per win
Let’s see how that works out. I reserve the right as final arbiter to overrule the results where I feel it’s appropriate.
Tier 5
“She’s going to need some birdies down the stretch to pull this one out.”
16. (1 points) Amy Alcott 72 points
5 Majors
1x Vare Trophy
Rookie of the Year
1x most wins
29 Wins
Solid player, won in her 3rd event, RotY, won 4 or more events 3 times, initiated the leap into Poppy’s Pond at the Nabisco Dinah Shore major (now ANA Inspiration.)
1988 Dinah Shore
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15. (2 points) Patty Sheehan 85 points
6 Majors
1x Player of the Year
Rookie of the Year
2x most wins
35 Wins
1981 RotY, strong player in the 80s, won 4x twice,
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year (1 of 8 that year - sportsmanship-humanitarian thingy.) Won most of her majors in the next decade. Once blew an 11-shot lead in the US Open. Won 4 majors after that, gotta love the resilience. Good Solheim Cup player. One of the first LPGA players to come out.
Sheehan beats Inkster 1992 US Open @ Oakmont
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14. (3 point) Se Ri Pak 68 points
5 Majors
1x Vare Trophy
Rookie of the Year
1x most wins
39 wins / 25 LPGA wins 14 KLPGA wins
Well HELLO exhibit A on why rankings systems suck.
When Pak Se-Ri won two majors as a 20 year old rookie, there was one (1) South Korean golfer on the LPGA Tour. When she finished her 10th season (min. required) and they inducted her in the Hall of Fame, there 45 ROK players with an LPGA tour card. Approximately 45 of those players would call Pak their inspirational hero. Korean golfers who followed Pak won Rookie of the Year 12 times, were leading money winner 5 times, won Player of the Year 4 times. 15 different Korean players have won 26 majors since Se-Ri blazed the trail.
She won wire-to-wire to win the LPGA Championship in May and a month later she was the youngest ever winner at the US Open. At 92 holes - 18 hole playoff + 2 sudden death - it was the longest women’s tournament ever. Four days afterwards she shot a 61 at the Jamie Farr Classic in Toledo.
Se-Ri had five years with 3 or more wins, finishing 2nd on the money list 4 times. 19 years on Tour, Top 16 nine times. She was the youngest player to enter the Hall of Fame. She finished 10th in a men’s PGA event in South Korea. In 2006
Golf World wrote “she changed the game even more than Tiger Woods.” That is a bit of hyperbole, but it’s definitely true for the LPGA. The Tour would never be the same.
She is adored throughout east Asian and of course most especially in her homeland.
JUDGE’S DISCRETION: I’m giving her half credit for her KLPGA wins and another 10 points for being the OG Seoul Sister. That gives her 85 points and T15. She’s cuter than Sheehan so that’s my tiebreaker. Deal with it. TBH she should get 50 points for being the best thing that ever happened to the LPGA.
1998 US Open - Jenny JENNY! & Pak hitting it out of the water hazard
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13. (4 points) Lorena Ochoa 92 points
2 Majors
4x Player of the Year
4x Vare Trophy
3x leading money winner
Rookie of the Year
4x most wins
27 Wins
Very consistent player, clearly the best player on tour her last 3 years, held #1 158 consecutive weeks (all-time record.) Took over the reigns from Annika. Retired at 28 to start a family. Hosts her own LPGA event in Mexico.
She didn’t have the assassins mentality of a lot of the players drafted. She frittered away a few majors and flat out choked on the 72nd tee of the 2005 US Open. But despite the holes in her resume there is no denying she was the one to beat for a few years. What Se-Ri is to South Korea and Asia, she is to Mexico and Latin America.
Ochoa first major 2008 @ St Andrews Old Course
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12. (5 points) Juli Inkster 94 points
Career Grand Slam
7 Majors
https://youtu.be/vH5qJNl8qDMRookie of the Year
1x most wins
31 Wins
She was so tough when the pressure was on - one of my favorite competitors. 9-time Solheim Cup participant, all-time USA leader in points, and has captained the last 3 teams. Never led the tour in money but won a tournament 16 out of 24 years. Her 7 Majors is T7 and in wins she is T16.
2002 US Open Prairie Dunes
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Tier 4
“
You’ll never know how good of a shot that was.”
11. (6 points) JoAnne Carner 106 points
2 Majors
3x Player of the Year
5x Vare Trophy
Rookie of the Year
3x leading money winner
3x most wins
43 Wins
”Big Momma” had more fun than most. Drove from tournament to tournament in an Airstream trailer with her lifelong husband. Loved by everyone, players & fans.
She dominated Amateur golf 1956-68, winning the US Amateur 5 times. She is the only woman to have won the US Girls’ Junior, the US Women’s Amateur, and the US Women’s Open titles, and was the first person ever to win three different USGA championship events. She won an LPGA event as an amateur in 1969, the last to do so for 43 years.
Turned pro at age 30 and the next year was RotY. In her second year she won the first of two US Opens. She just never seemed to stop winning. She was the second player to top $1M and stayed competitive through the early 90s.
1976 US Open
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10. (7 points) Betsy King 109 Points
6 Majors
3x Player of the Year
2x Vare Trophy
3x leading money winner
2x most wins
34 Wins
The 1976 Furman University golf team had four future LPGA players, including two Hall of Famers (King and Beth Daniel.) Took her 7 years to win on Tour but had a great career, winning 10 years in a row. Kept winning through age 45.
Don’t have a lot of memories of her. Think she was one of those stoic, emotionless players. Couldn’t be certain without looking it up. I remember she hosted her own event for awhile, I remember her being an early stalwart on Solheim Cup teams. Just nothing sticks out. Great player, no doubt.
Couldn't find a good video.
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9. (8 points) Pat Bradley 111 points
Career Grand Slam
6 Majors
2x Player of the Year
2x Vare Trophy
2x leading money winner
3x most wins
Won her first tournament in 1976 and he last in 1995. Won majors in 1980, 1981 & 1985, then her amazing 1986 when she won three; finished T5 three shots back at the US Open in her bid for a Grand Slam.
Nails - now that’s how you win a US Open.
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8. (9 points) Karrie Webb 133 points
Super Career Grand Slam (5 different Majors)
7 Majors
2x Player of the Year
2x Vare Trophy
Rookie of the Year
3x leading money winner
3x most wins
41 Wins
For some reason she always reminded me of David Duval. Great player but not Sörenstam great, not much emotion. But she was phenomenal. Had a 3-year slump about the time Duval fell off the earth but came back to have a very good career.
It’s in the hole
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Tier 3
“In a class by herself”
7. (10 points) Nancy Lopez 108 points
3 Majors
3x Player of the Year
2x Vare Trophy
3x leading money winner
Rookie of the Year
4x most wins
48 Wins
You just...you just had to be there. I can tell you what it was like watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown in 1973 or seeing Mark “The Bird” Fidrych talk to a baseball, but honestly, you just had to be there. In 1978 Nancy Lopez created a mania the LPGA hadn’t seen since the days of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. She won five (5!) tournaments in a row and the whole country fell in love with her. It cast a spotlight on a perennially fledgling tour and absolutely transformed professional golf.
Utterly charming, she became America’s sweetheart, everyone - EVERYONE - wanted to know more about her story. She was on the cover of
Sports Illustrated and swept every imaginable LPGA and Female Athlete of the Year award. The next year she won 8 tournaments, and kept winning multiple events for 5 years after that. Even pregnancy & birthing a child didn’t slow her down other than causing her to miss two half seasons.
She won 5 times her first full year back, had another child, then posted three more multiple win seasons. After her third child she cut back on her schedule.
There were disappointments. She never won the US Open, runner up four times. She finished second at the du Maurier Classic in Canada (then a major), and won the Colgate-Dinah Shore two years before it became a major. It’s fine. She is the Queen of the LPGA. We were so lucky to have her.
JUDGE’S DISCRETION: I’m sorry, but Nancy Lopez doesn’t come in 10th place in anyone’s list of greatest women’s golfers. She is as loved as Arnold Palmer and probably more important to her Tour than any player in history. She got the country excited about the ladies game more than anyone before her and few since. The LPGA is what it is because of her. 25 points just for being awesome. 133 points ties her with Webb and in no world is she less important than Australia’s greatest champion. Tie goes to the little girl from New Mexico who brought the LPGA into big time sports.
Nancy Lopez swing - unorthodox but great tempo & repeatable
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Tier 2
“Great Champion, beloved Founder, true legend”
NOTE:
no Player of the Year Award 1950-65
no Rookie of the Year 1950-61
no Vare Trophy 1950-52
The pioneers & Founders are special. There were no other women’s professional sports to model their organization after. They had no staff, did everything themselves. Setting up the course, drawing the pairings, negotiating with sponsors, putting on fan clinics, runnning the pro ams. Career women were a rarity and they were blazing their own way.
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6. (11 points) Betsy Rawls 126 points
8 Majors
2x leading money winner
3x most wins
55 Wins
Rawls turned professional in 1951 and joined the LPGA Tour (the Tour’s second season.) She won her first tournament that year at the Sacramento Women's Invitational Open. In 1959, she earned the LPGA Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average. She was the tour's leading money winner in 1952 and 1959 and finished in the top ten on the money list a total of nine times. She led the tour in wins three times, 1952 with eight, 1957 with five (tied with Patty Berg), and 1959 with ten.
Rawls was the LPGA's president from 1961 to 1962. In 1967, when the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame was created, she was one of the six inaugural inductees.
JUDGE’S DISCRETION: There was no Player of the Year award when she was playing. She was the best player on tour at least 2-3 times, so I’m giving her credit for two imaginary awards & placing her just above Webb (& Lopez.) Sorry not sorry.
newsreel - 1960 US Open
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5. (12 points) Louise Suggs 165 points
Career Grand Slam
11 Majors
1x Vare Trophy
3x leading money winner
1x most wins
61 Wins
One of the thirteen founders. Suggs already had 5 Majors (not counting her US Amateur and British Anateur wins) and was only a year away from making the Hall of Fame when she helped found the LPGA Tour in 1950. She was a consistent force, winning majors throughout the 50s Her last LPGA win came in 1962.
Remembering Louise Suggs
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4. (13 points) Patty Berg 190 points
15 Majors
3x Vare Trophy
3x leading money winner
2x most wins
60 Wins
As a youth in Minneapolis she played quarterback on a football team that included legendary OU Head Coach Bud Wilkinson. She won 29 Amateur titles in the 1930s including the US Amateur. She won 7 more Majors in the 1940s. In 1950, along with Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Suggs, she founded the LPGA, and won another 7 majors in the 1950s. She posted 7 top ten finishes in the Majors in the 1960s when she was in her 40s. She was a fixture in the Chicagoland golf community for nearly 70 years (Cog Hill Drudsdread, St Andrews Golf & County Club.) Great sense of humor & gifted public speaker.
Patti Berg - the woman who revolutionized women’s golf
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Tier 1
“Better than most.”
3. (14 points) Kathy Whitworth 208 points
6 Majors
7x Player of the Year
3x Vare Trophy
8x leading money winner
7x most wins
88 Wins
Before my time. Won a lot. Not as good a record in the majors as you might expect. Painfully shy.
Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf at Royal Bangkok
Sandra Haynie v Carol Mann v Kathy Whitworth
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2. (15 points) Mickey Wright 227 points
13 Majors
Career Grand Slam
5x Vare Trophy
4x leading money winner
6x most wins
82 wins
Before my time. Won a lot. Very good in the majors, better than you might expect.
Mickey Wright on Shell’s WWoG playing some French Amateur nobody knows
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Its weird I don’t know more about Whitworth & Wright. I know lots about golf history and golf architecture and most of the LPGA founders. But the top two winners, not so much. Anyway four dollars a pound.
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1. (16 points) Annika Sörenstam 252 points
Slam dunk choice for #1. Ticks ALL the boxes. NCAA champ, RotY LET ‘93, RotY LPGA ‘94, 8x Player of the Year, 8x leading Money Leader, 8x most wins, 6x Vare Trophy, shot a 59, stellar Solheim Cup record in 8x appearances, 98 wins worldwide, 72 LPGA, 10 Majors, 16-6 Playoff record including 2-0 in Majors. Retired at 38 to start a family.
Career Grand Slam. One of five women who have played a PGA Tour event (the only one drafted for this category.) Nice person, not afraid to voice her opinion but unfailingly gracious.
Ms 59 career highlights
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1. (16 points) Annika Sorenstam
2. (15 points) Mickey Wright
3 (14 points) Kathy Whitworth
4. (13 points) Patty Berg
5. (12 points) Louise Suggs
6. (11 points) Betsy Rawls
7. (10 points) Nancy Lopez
8. (9 points) Karrie Webb
9. (8 points) Pat Bradley
10. (7 points) Betsy King
11. (6 points) JoAnne Carner
12. (5 points) Juli Inkster
13. (4 points) Lorena Ocho
14. (3 points) Se Ri Pak
15. (2 points) Patty Sheehan
16. (1 point) Amy Alcott