(Editor’s note: This is part of our Remember This series, looking back at memorable moments in golf history.)
To properly emphasize through the impact that Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias had on golf — or sports, in general — would take hours. Maybe days.
But May 1 marks the anniversary of her final LPGA Tour victory — an illustration of her dominance, desire and determination.
It happened in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at the 1955 Peach Blossom Open. Zaharias had already won 40 LPGA titles, including 10 majors, and sparked a tour that today gives female athletes the world over a chance to inspire.
But she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1954 and her career appeared in jeopardy, even after she won the U.S. Women’s Open by 12 strokes while wearing a colostomy bag.
After more physical setbacks, she returned in 1955 and in the opening rounds of the Peach Blossom Open at Spartanburg Country Club, Zaharias posted scores of 72 and 70, even though as she later wrote in her autobiography, “I still wasn’t ready to admit that I wasn’t in condition to play. I was more determined than ever to win one.”
Her stamina clearly sapped, Zaharias struggled through a 75 on Saturday and then won the tournament — on May 1, 1955 — with a final round 76, giving her a two-stroke victory over Marilyn Smith.
But as she said in “This Life I’ve Led My Autobiography,” the event left Zaharias weakened.
“That tournament was an ordeal for me toward the end. My back was really hurting. I came home to Tampa and practically collapsed. I was in bed for several days. I figured some rest was all I needed. Each week I kept expecting to get back on the circuit. But I was having pains in my right leg and numbness in my right foot,” she wrote.
“My condition got worse instead of better. Finally, I went down to Galveston in late May to the John Sealy Hospital to see Doctor Robert Moore, the man who did my 1953 cancer operation. He called in some of the other specialists there for consultation, and my back trouble was diagnosed as a slipped disc.”
It was the last time Zaharias would ever grace an LPGA field, She died on September 27, 1956, in Galveston, Texas. Between the amateur and pro ranks, she won a total of 82 tournaments.
The early LPGA was built to showcase Zaharias, one of the greatest athletes in American history, as Beth Ann Nichols wrote in Golfweek last year. A woman who qualified for the 1932 Olympics by competing – and winning – as a one-woman team at the AAU Championships. Zaharias entered eight competitions, won five outright and tied for the lead in the sixth.
Zaharias is memorialized at the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum in Beaumont, Texas.