| Babe Didrikson Zaharias | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) Babe Zaharias c. 1947 | |||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Full name | Mildred Ella Didrikson Zaharias | ||||||||||||
| Nickname | Babe | ||||||||||||
| Born | (1911-06-26)June 26, 1911 Port Arthur, Texas, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Died | September 27, 1956(1956-09-27) (aged 45) Galveston, Texas, U.S.[1] | ||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (170 cm)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Weight | 126 lb (57 kg)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Sporting nationality |  United States | ||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||
| Career | |||||||||||||
| Turned professional | 1947 | ||||||||||||
| Former tours | LPGA Tour (joined 1950, its founding) | ||||||||||||
| Professional wins | 48 | ||||||||||||
| Number of wins by tour | |||||||||||||
| LPGA Tour | 41 | ||||||||||||
| Other | 7 | ||||||||||||
| Best results in LPGA major championships (wins: 10) | |||||||||||||
| Western Open | Won:1940,1944,1945,1950 | ||||||||||||
| Titleholders C'ship | Won:1947,1950,1952 | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Women's Open | Won:1948,1950,1954 | ||||||||||||
| Achievements and awards | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||||||||||
Event(s) | Sprint, 80 m hurdles,high jump,long jump,javelin throw,discus throw,shot put | |||||||||||||||||
| Club | Employers' Casualty Co. Club | |||||||||||||||||
| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||||||||||
| Personalbest(s) | 80 mH – 11.7 (1932) 100 m – 12.3 (1931) 200 m – 25.6 (1931) HJ – 1.65 m (1932) LJ – 5.70 m (1930) JT – 43.69 m (1932) DT – 42.06 m (1932) SP – 12.04 m (1932)[1][2] | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||
Mildred Ella "Babe"Didrikson Zaharias (/zəˈhɑːriəs/;néeDidrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled ingolf,basketball,baseball, andtrack and field. She won two gold medals and a silver in track and field at the1932 Summer Olympics before turning to professional golf and winning 10LPGA major championships.
Mildred Ella Didrikson was born on June 26, 1911,[3] the sixth of seven children, in the coastalcity ofPort Arthur,Texas. Her mother Hannah and her father Ole Didriksen were immigrants fromNorway. Although her three eldest siblings were born in Norway, Babe and her three other siblings were born in Port Arthur. She later changed the spelling of her surname from Didriksen to Didrikson.[4] She moved with her family to 850 Doucette inBeaumont, Texas, at age 4. She claimed to have acquired the nickname "Babe" (afterBabe Ruth) upon hitting fivehome runs in a childhoodbaseball game, but her Norwegian mother had called her "Bebe" from the time she was a toddler.[5]
Although best known for her athletic gifts, Didrikson had many talents. She also competed in sewing. An excellentseamstress, she made many of her clothes, including her golfing outfits. She claimed to have won the sewing championship at the 1931State Fair of Texas inDallas; she did win theSouth Texas State Fair in Beaumont, embellishing the story many years later in 1953. She attended Beaumont High School. Never a strong student, she was forced to repeat the eighth grade and was a year older than her classmates. She eventually dropped out without graduating after she moved to Dallas to play basketball.[5] She was a singer and aharmonica player and recorded several songs on theMercury Records label. Her biggest seller was "I Felt a Little Teardrop" with "Detour" on the flip side.[6]
Already famous as Babe Didrikson, she marriedGeorge Zaharias (1908–1984), a professionalwrestler, inSt. Louis, Missouri, on December 23, 1938. Thereafter, she was largely known asBabe Didrikson Zaharias orBabe Zaharias.[7]
Didrikson gained world fame intrack and field and was a three-timeAAUAll-American in basketball from 1930–1932.[4] She played organized baseball and softball and was an expert diver, roller-skater, and bowler.[8]
Didrikson's first job after high school was as a secretary for the Employers' Casualty Insurance Company of Dallas, though she was employed only in order to playbasketball as an amateur on the company's "industrial team", theGolden Cyclones.[9] As a side note, the competition was then governed by theAmateur Athletic Union (AAU). Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931,[10] Didrikson had first achieved wider attention as a track and field athlete.
Representing her company in the1932 AAU Championships, she competed in eight out of ten events, winning five outright, and tying for first in a sixth. Didrikson's performances were enough to win the team championship, despite her being the sole member of her team.[4]
Didrikson set four world records, winning two gold medals and one silver medal in track and field in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.[11][12] In the 80-meter hurdles, she equaled the world record of 11.8 seconds in her opening heat. In the final, she broke her record with an 11.7 clocking, taking gold. In the javelin, she also won gold with an Olympic record throw of 43.69 meters. In the high jump, she took silver with a world record-tying leap of 1.657 metres (5.44 ft). Fellow AmericanJean Shiley also jumped 1.657 metres, and the pair tied in a jump-off when the bar was raised to 1.67 metres (5.5 ft). Shiley was awarded the gold after Didrikson was ruled to have used an improper technique.[1] She did not compete in the discus throw, as fellow AmericanLillian Copeland beat her out in the Olympic trials; Copeland went on to win the gold medal in discus.[13]
Before the 1932 games, Didrikson was involved in a racial incident involving fellow athletesTidye Pickett andLouise Stokes, both of whom are black. In Denver, on a train, Didrikson threw water on Pickett and Stokes, because Didrikson didn't like having African-American athletes on the team. Pickett and Stokes were later removed from the team, and replaced by white athletes who had qualified with slower times from the trials.[14]
Didrikson is the only track and field athlete, male or female, to win individual Olympic medals in separate running, throwing, and jumping events.[15][16]
In the following years, she performed on thevaudeville circuit, traveled with teams like Babe Didrikson's All-Americans basketball team and the beardedHouse of David team. Didrikson was also a competitivepocket billiards (pool) player, though not a champion. She was noted in the January 1933 press for playing (and badly losing) a multi-daystraight pool match in New York City against famed femalecueistRuth McGinnis.[17]
By 1935, Didrikson began to playgolf, a latecomer to the sport in which she became best known. Shortly thereafter, she was denied amateur status and consequently, in January 1938, she competed in theLos Angeles Open, aPGA (Professional Golfers' Association) tournament. No other woman competed against men in this tournament untilAnnika Sörenstam,Suzy Whaley,Michelle Wie, andBrittany 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 inTampa, Florida, on the premises of a golf course that they purchased in 1949.[18]
Didrikson became America's first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s. In order to regain amateur status in the sport, she could compete in no other sports for three years. She gained back her amateur status in 1942. In 1945, she participated in three more PGA Tour events, missing the cut of one of them, and making the cut of the other two; as of 2023, she remains the only woman to make the tournament cut in a regular PGA Tour event.[19][20] Zaharias won the 1946U.S. Women's Amateur and the 1947British Ladies Amateur – the first American to do so – and threeWomen's Western Opens. Having formally turned professional in 1947, Didrikson dominated the Women's Professional Golf Association and later theLadies Professional Golf Association. She was a founding member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, in 1950.[21] Serious illness ended her career in the mid-1950s.[22]
Zaharias won a tournament named after her, theBabe Zaharias Open of her hometown ofBeaumont, Texas. She won the 1947Titleholders Championship and the 1948U.S. Women's Open for her fourth and fifthmajor championships. She won 17 straight women's amateur victories, a feat never equaled by anyone. By 1950, she had won every golf title available. Totaling both her amateur and professional victories, Zaharias won a total of 82 golf tournaments.[23]
Charles McGrath ofThe New York Times wrote of Zaharias, "Except perhaps forArnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery."[24]
While Zaharias missed the cut in the 1938PGA Tour event, later, as she became more experienced, she made the cut in every PGA Tour event she entered. In January 1945, Zaharias played in three PGA tournaments and made the initial cut in all three, becoming the first and only female to do so.[25] She shot 76–76 to qualify for theLos Angeles Open.[26] She then shot 76–81 to make the two-day cut in the tournament itself, but missed the three-day cut after carding a 79. She continued her cut streak at thePhoenix Open, where she shot 77-72-75-80, finishing in 33rd place.[26] At theTucson Open, she qualified by shooting 74-81 and then shot a 307 in the tournament and finished tied for 42nd.[26] Unlike other female golfers competing in men's events, she got into the Los Angeles[27] and Tucson Opens through 36-hole qualifiers, as opposed to a sponsor's exemption.[28]
In 1948, she became the first woman to attempt to qualify for theU.S. Open, but her application was rejected by theUSGA. They stated that the event was intended to be open to men only.[29]
In March 1934, Didriksonpitched a total of fourinnings in threeMajor Leaguespring training exhibition games:
Didrikson also spent time with theHouse of David barnstorming team[33] and is still recognized as the world record holder for the farthest baseball throw by a woman.[34]
Zaharias had her greatest year in 1950 when she completed theGrand Slam of the three women's majors of the day: the U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Women's Western Open, a feat that made her the leader on the money list that year. Also that year, she reached 10 wins faster than any other LPGA golfer, doing so in one year and 20 days, a record that still stands (as do her records for reaching 20 and 30 wins, in two years and four months and five years and 22 days, respectively).[35] She was the leading money-winner again in 1951, and in 1952 took another major with a Titleholders victory, but illness prevented her from playing a full schedule in 1952–53.
She was a close friend of fellow golferBetty Dodd. According toSusan Cayleff's biographyBabe, Dodd was quoted as saying, "I had such admiration for this fabulous person [Zaharias]. I loved her. I would have done anything for her."[36] They met in a 1950 amateur golf tournament in Miami and became close almost immediately. Cayleff wrote, "As Didrikson's marriage grew increasingly troubled, she spent more time with Dodd. The women toured together on the golf circuit, and eventually Dodd moved in with Zaharias and Didrikson for the last six years of Didrikson's life."[37] They never used the word "lesbian" to describe their relationship, but there is little doubt that their relationship was both sexual and romantic,[3][36] and Zaharias has been described as the first lesbian gold medallist in Olympic athletics.[38]
In 1953, Zaharias was diagnosed withcolon cancer. After undergoing surgery, she made a comeback in 1954. She took theVare Trophy for lowest scoring average, her only win of that trophy, and her 10th and final major with a U.S. Women's Open championship, one month after the surgery and while wearing acolostomy bag. With this win, she became the second-oldest woman to win a major LPGA championship tournament (behindFay Crocker). Babe Zaharias now stands third to Crocker andSherri Steinhauer. These wins made her the fastest player to reach 30 wins (five years and 22 days).[28] In addition to continuing tournament play, Zaharias also served as the president of the LPGA from August 1952 to July 1955.[39]
Her colon cancer recurred in 1955. Despite her limited schedule of eight golfing events that season, Zaharias won her last two tournaments in competitive golf. On September 27, 1956, Zaharias died of her illness at the age of forty-five at theJohn Sealy Hospital inGalveston, Texas. At the time of her death, she was still a top-ranked female golfer. She and her husband had earlier established the Babe Zaharias Fund to support cancer clinics.[40] She is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in her hometown of Beaumont, Texas.[41]
During her final years, Zaharias became known not only for her athletic abilities but as a public advocate for cancer awareness, at a time when many Americans refused to seek diagnosis or treatment for suspected cancer.[42] She used her fame to solicit donations for her cancer fund but also as a spokesperson for theAmerican Cancer Society. Her work in this area was honored by US PresidentDwight Eisenhower on a visit to the White House.[37]
TheAssociated Press voted Zaharias the Greatest Female Athlete of the first half of the 20th century,[4] and later,ESPN ranked her the 10th Greatest North American Athlete of the century, the highest-ranked woman on their list.[43]
Zaharias broke the accepted models offemininity in her time, including the accepted models of female athleticism. Standing 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) tall and weighing 115 lb (52 kg),[44] Zaharias was physically strong and socially straightforward about her strength. Although a sports hero to many, she was also derided for her "manliness".[4]
Zaharias was inducted into theLPGA Hall of Fame in 1951 (now part of theWorld Golf Hall of Fame). In 1957, she posthumously received theBob Jones Award, the highest honor given by theUnited States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. It was accepted by her husband George, four months after her death.[45] She was one of six initial inductees into theLPGA Hall of Fame at its inception in 1977.[46]
Zaharias has a museum dedicated to her in Beaumont, Texas: theBabe Didrikson Zaharias Museum. Several golf courses are named after her. ATampa, Florida golf course that she and her husband owned, the Babe Zaharias Golf Course, was given landmark status.[47] In 1964, Zaharias was inducted into theFlorida Sports Hall of Fame.[48]
In 1973, Zaharias, who had lived in the Denver area for most of the 1940s and early 1950s, became one of the three inductees in the inaugural class (joiningDave Hill and Babe Lind) of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.[49]
In 1976, Zaharias was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[50] Two years later, she was inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame.[23]
In 1981, theU.S. Postal Service issued an 18 cent stampcommemorating Zaharias.[51][52] In 2008, Zaharias was inducted into theColorado Women's Hall of Fame.[53]
On January 7, 2021, Zaharias was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom by PresidentDonald J. Trump.[54]
It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.
— sportswriter Joe Williams,New York World-Telegram[4]
Williams' remark typified the attitude of some toward women who did not fit the traditional ideals of femininity current in the first half of the 20th century. However, in the same time period, theAssociated Press chose her as the "Female Athlete of the Year" six times for track & field and for golfing, and, in 1950, overwhelmingly voted for her as the "Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the Century".[4] Aside from her impact on the women and girls of her time, she impressed seasoned sportswriters also:
She is beyond all belief until you see her perform...Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen.
— sportswriterGrantland Rice, quoted by ESPN[4]
TheAssociated Press followed up its 1950 declaration fifty years later by voting Zaharias theWoman Athlete of the 20th Century in 1999. In 2000,Sports Illustrated magazine also named her second on its list of the Greatest Female Athletes of All Time, behind theheptathleteJackie Joyner-Kersee. She is also in theWorld Golf Hall of Fame. Zaharias is the highest-ranked woman, at No. 10, onESPN's list of the 50 top athletes of the 20th century. In 2000, she was ranked as the 17th-greatest golfer, and the second-greatest woman player (afterMickey Wright) byGolf Digest magazine.[55]
She broke the mold of what a lady golfer was supposed to be. The ideal in the 20s and 30s wasJoyce Wethered, a willowy Englishwoman with a picture-book swing that produced elegant shots but not especially long ones. Zaharias developed a grooved athletic swing reminiscent ofLee Trevino's, and she was so strong off the tee that a fellow Texan, the great golferByron Nelson, once said that he knew of only eight men who could outdrive her. "It's not enough just to swing at the ball," Babe said. "You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it."
— journalist Charles McGrath,New York Times[24]
Zaharias wrote an autobiographyThis Life I've Led. It is no longer in print but is available in many libraries.[44]
In 2014, Zaharias was inducted into theLegacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebratesLGBT history and people.[56][57]
She was inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2016.[58]
In 1949, Zaharias purchased a golf course in theForest Hills area ofTampa and lived nearby. After her death, the golf course was sold. It lay dormant as developers attempted to acquire the land for residential housing.
In 1974, the City of Tampa took over the golf course, renovated it, and reopened it, naming it the Babe Zaharias Golf Course. At some point afterward, it was accorded historical-landmark status.[47]
In 1980, theIndustry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms Resort inCity of Industry, California built two courses, The Ike and The Zaharias.[59] The courses were designed by William F. Bell (original design) and Casey O'Callaghan (renovation). In 2010, the courses together won the National Golf Course Owners Association's California Golf Course of the Year Award.[60]
This 18-hole course is named for Babe Didrikson Zaharias, one of America 's most decorated all-around athletes... This par 71 features slope ratings ranging from 126 to 138, making the course worthy of the great athlete for which it is named.
— Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms Resort Website[59]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Babe Didrikson Zaharias" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Note: This list is incomplete.
LPGAMajors are shown inbold.
| Year | Championship | Winning score | Margin | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | Women's Western Open | 5 & 4 |  Mrs. Russell Mann | |
| 1944 | Women's Western Open | 7 & 5 | Dorothy Germain (a) | |
| 1945 | Women's Western Open | 4 & 2 | Dorothy Germain (a) | |
| 1947 | Titleholders Championship | +4 (78–81–71–74=304) | 5 strokes | Dorothy Kirby (a) |
| 1948 | U.S. Women's Open | E (75–72–75–78=300) | 8 strokes | Betty Hicks |
| 1950 | Titleholders Championship | +10 (72–78–73–75=298) | 8 strokes | Claire Doran (a) |
| 1950 | Women's Western Open | 5 & 3 | Peggy Kirk | |
| 1950 | U.S. Women's Open | −9 (75–76–70–70=291) | 9 strokes | Betsy Rawls (a) |
| 1952 | Titleholders Championship | +11 (74–73–73–79=299) | 7 strokes | Betsy Rawls |
| 1954 | U.S. Women's Open | +3 (72–71–73–75=291) | 12 strokes | Betty Hicks |
Mrs. Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias, famed woman athlete, died of cancer in John Sealy Hospital here this morning. She was 42 years old. Mrs. Zaharias had been under treatment since 1953, when the malignant condition was discovered after she had won a golf tournament. ...
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
