The greatest women’s golfer of all time, Mary Kathryn (Mickey) Wright, was born on this date in 1935 in San Diego. She would win 13 majors in her 82 LPGA Tour victories. She died in 2020. The World Golf Hall of Famer won four U.S. Women’s Opens and four LPGA championships.
Golfer Patty Berg was born on this date 107 years ago in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Berg was one of the original LPGA Tour founders. She grew up with future football coach Bud Wilkinson, just two years older, in her neighborhood. The LPGA pioneer was not only a great champion but known as a golf ambassador. She had an infectious personality that was always on display. When she did a teaching clinic, she emphasized you must “swing to the finish” and then did so with a flourish.
On this date in 1989, the 50th PGA Seniors' Championship was played at PGA National GC and was won by Larry Mowry in a one-stroke victory over Al Geiberger and Miller Barber. For all their golf battles, the Big Three of Palmer, Player and Nicklaus didn’t finish 1-2-3 very often in tournaments. But that’s what happened on this date in 1963 in the Phoenix Open when they finished 1-2-3 for Palmer, Player and Nicklaus, in that order, at Arizona Country Club with four-round totals of 273, 274 and 275.
On this date in 1973, Arnold Palmer won his final PGA Tour event, the Bob Hope Classic, with a two-shot victory over Jack Nicklaus. Arnold had scores of 71-66-69-68-69—343, and won $32,000. The courses were Bermuda Dunes/Host course (72, 6,778), Indian Wells (72, 6,500), La Quinta (72, 6,530), Tamarisk (72, 6,863), Palm Springs, California. Arnie’s first victory had been the 1955 Canadian Open. Also, on this date in 1961, Arnold Palmer shot a 66 in the third round of the Phoenix Open, then shot a 70 in Round 4 to tie Doug Sanders for first at 270. In an 18-hole playoff, Palmer defeated Sanders, 67-70, and won first prize of $4,300. Also, Helen Hicks, one of the founding members of the LPGA Tour, was born on this date in 1911 in Cedarhurst, New York. Hicks’ main victories were the 1937 Western Open and 1940 Titleholders Championship. She died in 1974 at age 63.
World Golf Hall of Fame member Greg Norman was born on this date in 1955 in Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. He won the Open Championship twice but perhaps is just as well known for the majors he didn’t nail down after being in a strong position, the most notable being the 1996 Masters. On this day in 1951, Al Brosch, of Garden City, New York, was the first player to shoot a 60 on the PGA Tour at the Texas Open, third round, on the par-71, 6,400-yard Brackenridge Park Golf Course. He broke the record of 61 shot by amateur Dow Finsterwald in 1950 in the St. Louis Open.
Sandy Lyle, one of the Fab Five along with Ballesteros, Faldo, Langer and Woosnam out of the UK, was born on this date in 1958 in Shrewsbury in western England. He won two majors, the 1985 Open and 1988 Masters, and was the playing partner in 1986 to Jack Nicklaus during Jack’s final-round romp to victory in the Masters. And this is a date usually noted when the St. Andrews Club became the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, in 1834, with William IV as club patron.
Australian star Jan Stephenson won 16 times on the LPGA Tour, the first coming on this date in 1976. She finished at two-over-par 218 in the Sarah Coventry Naples Classic on Lely Country Club to edge Judy Meister and Sandra Haynie by one shot. Also on this date in 1981, Sally Little won the LPGA Elizabeth Arden Golf Classic at Turnberry Isle in Miami at five under par in a playoff with Joanne Carner and Judy Rankin.
This date carries a somber tone in golf history with three deaths. Scottish golfer Freddie Tait, who won the Amateur Championship in 1896 and 1898, died in 1900 at age 30, a victim of the 2nd Boer War. LPGA cofounder and 1947 U.S. Open winner Betty Jameson died in 2009, age 89. And three-time major winner Billy Casper died in 2015 at age 83. And also on this date in 1947, Jimmy Demaret shot one of the PGA Tour’s early great rounds with a nine-under-par 62 in the first round of the Texas Open in San Antonio at Willow Springs. Demaret was holing putts from all over, and got done with his round just before a blustery “Texas norther” came in and dropped the temp from 65 to nearly freezing in just a few hours. Among the golfers caught in the bad weather was Ben Hogan, who shot 75.
On this date in 1971, golf was played out of this world when astronaut Alan Shepard used a makeshift 6-iron he’d assembled from different pieces to hit a couple golf balls on the moon. Commander of Apollo 14, Shepard adjusted moon-rock collecting tools to make his golf club so he could keep his “mission” secret from as many people as possible. His best shot, he estimated, went 200 yards. The original moon club is housed at the USGA Museum.
Two-time Masters winner José María Olazábal was born on this date in 1966 in Hondarribia, Spain. A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, he won at Augusta in 1994 and 1999.
Byron Nelson, a member of one of America’s Big Three with Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, was born on this date in 1912 in Waxahachie, Texas, a part of Dallas-Fort Worth. Lord Byron won five majors and in 1945 won a record 19 tournaments. Also on this date, a pair of LPGA events include, in 1979, Joanne Carner winning the LPGA Colgate Triple Crown and in 1990, Pat Bradley winning the Oldsmobile LPGA Golf Classic
The 18th Senior PGA Championship ended on this date in Dunedin, Fla., with Al Watrous winning an 18-hole playoff 72-75 with Bob Stupple. And also on this date in 1876, Albert Spalding began a sporting goods company, with $800, manufacturing a golf ball among balls for several sports.
Today was a day of golf infamy. On February 2, 1949, a Wednesday, Ben Hogan and wife Valerie were returning home from the Phoenix Open to Fort Worth when a bus hit their car head-on near Van Horn in west Texas. Initial reports indicated Ben had died, but he survived only to require months of recovery from severe injuries. He came back to play professional golf again and ultimately win nine majors.
The 20th Senior PGA Ch. finished on this date in 1959 at PGA National GC in Dunedin, Fla. The winner was Willie Goggin, using a borrowed set of woods, by one shot over three players, including major champions Paul Runyan and Denny Shute. Goggin shot four-under 284 and won going against common practice. He wasn’t comfortable with the set of clubs he brought from California, mainly the woods, so he borrowed another set of woods and still won. Three players tied for second behind him by one shot: Leland Gibson, Paul Runyan and Denny Shute.
On this date in 1957, Arnold Palmer began play in the Phoenix Open at Arizona Country Club, just as the PGA Tour visits Scottsdale for the Phoenix stop next week. Palmer shot a 66 in the first round to share the lead with Billy Maxwell. Palmer didn’t break 70 the next three rounds, and tied Maxwell and two others for fifth at 277. Billy Casper won with 271. And on this date in 2015, New Zealand’s Lydia Ko became the youngest male or female golfer to be ranked No. 1 in the world at age 17.
Two World Golf Hall of Fame members were born on this date two years apart: Curtis Strange, a two-time U.S. Open winner, in 1955, and Payne Stewart in 1957. Stewart also won two U.S. Opens and a PGA and notably passed away tragically in 1999 in a jet crash. On this date in 1965, at its 71st annual meeting, in New York, the USGA approved changing the U.S. Open format to four daily 18-hole rounds instead of two days of 18 holes and a final day of 36.
On this date in 1978, “Big Momma” Joanne Carner won the Colgate Triple Crown Match-Play Championship to start the LPGA schedule that year. Carner took first over Sandra Palmer at Mission Hills C.C. in Palm Springs, Calif. And when he died on January 19, 2024, at age 100, Jack Burke, Jr., was the oldest living major golf champion. He was born on this date in 1923 in Fort Worth, Texas. Burke, cofounder of Champions Golf Club in Houston with Jimmy Demaret, and winner of the Masters and PGA in 1956.
On this date in 1957, three-time major champion Nick Price was born in Durban, South Africa. A two-time PGA Championship winner, Price’s crowning moment was winning the 1994 Open Championship. And on this date in 1968, Chandler Harper—who had one of the greatest monikers in golf—won the 29th Senior PGA Championship by four shots over Sam Snead at PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Harper, of Portsmouth, Va., had won the 1950 PGA Championship. His Senior PGA victory was worth $4,000, which was $500 more than he won for the PGA!
On this date in 1967, Arnold Palmer shot a 64 at Rancho Municipal, one of his best scores ever, in the second round of the Los Angles Open. He shot 67 and 68 the next two rounds to win and collect the $20,000 first-place prize money. Also, on this date in 1969, Tommy Bolt won the 30th Senior PGA Championship by one shot over Pete Fleming on the East Course of PGA Naitonal. Bolt shot a 67 and won on his first try in the championship.
On this date in 1957, Arnold Palmer shot an 80 in the third round of the Thunderbird Invitational. It was a bad round surrounded by good ones. For the week he scored 71-69-80-68—288 and tied for 32nd and received a “whopping” $112.50. And on this date in 1986, Val Skinner won the LPGA Mazda Golf Classic at Stonebridge Golf Club in Boca Raton, Florida, at eight under par.