Kathy Whitworth, who has died elderly 83, gained extra US Professional Golf Association occasions than any golfer, a complete of 88 between 1962 and 1985. At her top, between 1965 and 1973, she used to be Ladies PGA participant of the 12 months seven instances, the highest cash winner at the LPGA excursion 8 instances, and 7 instances claimed the Vare trophy for the most productive scoring reasonable.
She used to be the Associated Press’s feminine athlete of the 12 months in 1965 and 1966, and in 1975, whilst nonetheless taking part in, used to be voted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 1981 she was the primary lady to cross the $1m mark in prize cash. Although she gained “only” six majors, in her top years there have been best two or 3 tournaments designated as such; since 2012 there were 5. If her 10 wins in non-LPGA occasions are incorporated, together with 93 runner-up positions, it may be argued that she used to be as dominant as any golfer in historical past.
Golf used to be now not Whitworth’s first recreation. Tall and athletic as a lady, she used to be in the beginning a skilled tennis participant. She used to be born in Monahans, Texas, however grew up in Jal, New Mexico, the place her father, Morris Whitworth, ran a ironmongery store. She used to be taking part in tennis in highschool when some teammates took up her {golfing}, and she or he discovered the trouble of the brand new recreation a problem.
Her folks joined the native nation membership so she may take classes with the membership professional, and her promise used to be so obvious that he referred her to Harvey Penick, a famend professional trainer on the Austin (Texas) Country Club. Her mom, Dama (nee Robinson), would make the lengthy drives along with her.
In 1957, nonetheless 17, Kathy gained the New Mexico state beginner championship; when she repeated her victory a 12 months later, she dropped out of Odessa Junior College and, after her father, by means of now mayor of Jal, arranged a syndicate to again her, joined the LPGA excursion.
She struggled in the beginning, and regarded as quitting, however as a substitute in 1961 took time without work to wait a six-week health center run by means of the LPGA co-founder Patty Berg. She got here again to put 2d 4 instances, and in 1962 gained her first match, the Kelly Girls Open (Kelly Girls used to be a secretarial temp provider) in Maryland.
Her 2d win got here within the Phoenix Thunderbird, by means of 4 strokes over Mickey Wright, then the dominant lady at the excursion, and created an impressive competition between the 2. Whitworth took her first primary, the Titleholders (the ladies’s model of the Masters) in 1965, and repeated the fulfillment in 1966. The subsequent 12 months she gained the Women’s Western Open and the LPGA Championship, which she would additionally win in 1971 and 1975.
Intense, and topic to self-criticism about her play, she went right into a hunch within the past due 70s, which led her to go back to Penick in 1981 to rebuild her recreation. The effects had been instant; in 1982 she broke the now-retired Wright’s document of 82 wins, and in 1984 she gained her eighty fifth match to damage Sam Snead’s males’s highest of 84, which has since been revised downward to 82 and paired by means of Tiger Woods.
Six extra wins adopted, and Whitworth gained her remaining match, the United Virginia Bank Classic, in 1985. In that 12 months she and Wright teamed up within the Legends of Golf match, from which the ladies’s Seniors Tour grew. When the match organizers requested Whitworth to pair up along with her outdated rival, she urged they ask Wright first, figuring out how she “loved the spotlight”. “We already have,” they spoke back, “and she said she’d play, but only with you.” The best girls’s pair within the tournament, they hit off the boys’s tees, which angered one of the male professionals, and completed respectably in the midst of the pack.
Whitworth later labored as vice-president of the LPGA, and in 1990 revealed Golf for Women, written with Rhonda Glenn, a pioneering information in particular for ladies. In that 12 months she additionally served as captain of america staff within the inaugural Solheim Cup, a feminine model of the boys’s Ryder Cup, matching america as opposed to Europe. The Americans gained in Florida, and Whitworth captained them once more in 1992 after they misplaced to Europe at Dalmahoy in Scotland.
Moving to Flower Mount, Texas, along with her spouse Bettye Odle, she stayed lively with the LPGA. She retired in 2005, and in 2007 wrote Kathy Whitworth’s Little Book of Golf Wisdom (2015, written with Jay Golden), whose identify used to be a tribute to Penick’s Little Red Book of Golf.
She is survived by means of Bettye.