What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of women who have teed it up against the men (on any level, from state amateurs to mini tours) but instead, these are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history.
If the fairways and greens could talk, it’d probably take weeks to hear all the amazing stories.
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Riviera Country Club is approaching its 100th birthday and if the fairways and greens could talk, it’d probably take weeks to hear all the amazing stories.
Situated in the hills just off Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, the club has a long and distinguished history.
Originally established in 1926, “The Riv” as it’s affectionately called, will host the U.S. Women’s open in 2026 as part of its centennial celebration.
Riviera hosts the Genesis Invitational, a tournament that was originally the Los Angeles Open. Like many events on the PGA Tour, the tournament has had several names over the years but one thing that has remained constant is the golf course. It’s a favorite of most players on Tour, a timeless layout in a canyon four miles from the Pacific Ocean.
It’s also a hot spot for the who’s-who of Hollywood. Mark Wahlberg is a member. So is Adam Sandler. Conan O’Brien, Michelle Pfeiffer and Larry David are among the celebrities who own a home on the course.
Thousands of words have been written about the course but maybe there’s a story or two here that you haven’t heard before.
Annika Sorenstam, Gary Player and Babe Didrikson Zaharias – posthumously – have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Despite turmoil just blocks away at the United States Capitol Building on Wednesday, Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player were to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump on Thursday morning in the East Room of the White House. The closed ceremony was scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET.
The ceremony was originally scheduled for March 23, 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic. Babe Didrikson Zaharias also received the award posthumously.
The three join Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Charlie Sifford and Tiger Woods as the only golfers who have received the nation’s highest civilian honor.
The award is given to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. Other notable recipients include Muhammad Ali, Nancy Reagan, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sorenstam is the only player in LPGA history to card a 59 and won 72 times on tour, including 10 major titles. The eight-time LPGA Player of the Year was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2003.
Player won 24 times on the PGA Tour, including nine major championships. The 85-year-old is one of just five players to win the career Grand Slam (Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Nicklaus and Woods).
Zaharias, a two-time gold medalist in track and field at the 1932 Summer Olympics, went on to play professional golf where she also won 10 major championships.
These are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history in a men’s pro tournament.
Few women have teed it up in a men’s professional golf tournament on the highest stage. Two of the LPGA’s earliest stars paved the way in this department, and there have been a handful of notable starts since then.
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of females who have teed it up against the men (on any level, from state amateurs to mini tours).
Instead, these are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic interrupting competitive golf as we know it, add another name to this list, too: Maria Fassi. The LPGA rookie is about to test her game on the Moonlight Tour, a men’s mini-tour, this week.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Zaharias, one of the game’s great athletes, was instrumental in attracting early fanfare to the LPGA. Zaharias had the kind of game that allowed her to fit in on the PGA Tour, too, and in 1935, she played the Cascades Open. Zaharias missed the cut but it started an 11-year stint during which she teed it up a handful of times with the men (becoming the first woman to do so).
Zaharias missed the cut at the 1938 Los Angeles Open (now known as the Genesis Invitational), but she played the event again in 1945 and did one better, making the 36-hole cut but missing a second cut to play the final round. She also played the Tucson Open and the Phoenix Open that year and teed it up again at the 1946 Los Angeles Open.
Zaharias won the tournament with a final round 76, giving her a two-stroke win over Marilyn Smith in what proved to be her final LPGA event.
(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.
Babe Didrikson driving off the tee in a golf tournament, c. 1948. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
“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.
