R.I.P. Mickey Wright
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The legendary LPGA champion and founder has passed away at 85.
Famous for her swing and grace, Mickey Wright is remembered by a number of stories, starting with the AP obituary posted at GolfChannel.com listing her remarkable accomplishments.
• 82 LPGA titles, second only to Kathy Whitworth (88).
• 13 major championship titles, second only to Patty Berg (15). Four of those were U.S. Women’s Open titles, equaling Betsy Rawls for most ever.
• 13 victories in a single LPGA season (1963). It remains the tour record. She won 11 times in 1964, which equals Annika Sorenstam for second most LPGA victories in a season.
• Four consecutive major championship victories, a mark no other woman has ever achieved. She won the last two majors in 1961 and the first two in ’62.
• Five consecutive Vare Trophy titles for low scoring average (1960-64), the most won in a row in tour history.
• Four consecutive LPGA money titles (1961-64).
• 14 consecutive years with an LPGA victory (1956-69).
Beth Ann Nichols for Golfweek on Wright:
Wright was one of the most important figures in golf throughout the early 1960s, a private person by nature but constant presence on the course while playing some 30 tournaments each year and winning at a rapid rate. She later allowed the public into her life in a different way, offering more than 200 artifacts to the USGA Museum for her own personal room at the Far Hills, N.J. shrine.
Wright’s swing was the envy of the golf world. It’s one she began building at age 15 while taking lessons from Harry Pressler, an esteemed instructor in California. Wright and her mother traveled 250 miles round trip to see Pressler every Saturday for two years.
Wright’s swing was the envy of several all-time greats and can be seen in this Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf, as well as in a shortened clip from that broadcast. Ben Hogan famously said her swing was the best he ever saw:
Seven years ago, Adam Schupak wrote about Wright’s donation of all her memorabilia to the USGA.
Wright, 77, is only the fourth player — and the first woman — to have a gallery honor her name at the museum, joining the golf icons Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones and Arnold Palmer. If there were ever a doubt, her place as part of the celebrated history of the sport is now drawn in indelible ink.
“She cried when I told her,” said Rhonda Glenn, a U.S.G.A. historian and longtime friend, who informed Wright in November that the U.S.G.A. executive committee had approved the room.
Here is a fantastic highlight film of Wright’s fourth U.S. Open win at San Diego CC.
Ron Sirak authored this tribute feature for Wright’s induction into the PGA of America Hall of Fame.
