We celebrate Mother’s Day tomorrow, May 10, and if there’s one thing certain in this world, without moms there would be no golf. Well, there would likely be no anything, but we are talking moms here and they all deserve our highest appreciation tomorrow and every day.
We found a great story on the LPGA Women’s Network about professional golfing moms. It was published last year, but is still appropriate today. The kids are a year older and the moms are all a year wiser, and probably even better golfers than before! Click here to see the story.
Though she wasn’t a mom, Babe Zaharias was one of the great champion women golfers. It’s a good time to celebrate this lady and her achievements. We learn from Wikipedia that, as Babe Didrikson, she was playing golf in 1935 following a gold medal Olympic appearance (track and field) in 1932. She was denied amateur status as a golfer, so, in January 1938 she competed in the Los Angeles Open, a PGA tournament. No other woman competed against men in this tournament until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lincicome almost six decades later. She shot 81 and 84, and missed the cut. In the tournament, she was teamed with George Zaharias. They were married eleven months later, and settled in Tampa, Florida, on the premises of a golf course that they purchased in 1951.
What is not reported in this account was well known by author and golf historian Pete Trenham, a Philadelphia PGA professional and hall of famer. Click here to see Pete’s story about Didrikson’s appearance in a PGA event a year earlier, in 1937.
And here’s a little something just for fun. Match the mom to the golfer.
Christine
Rosie
Dening
Doris
Mary
Laura
Arnold Palmer
Francis Ouimet
Jordan Speith
Sam Snead
Jason Day
Rory McIlroy
Happy Mother’s Day everyone.