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Babe Zaharias

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Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (June 26, 1911 in Port Arthur, Texas – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in many sports. She achieved her greatest successes in golf and athletics.

Contents

Life history

Babe Zaharias was born Mildred Didriksen (her surname was later accidentally changed) in the oil town of Port Arthur, Texas, and acquired her nickname "Babe" (after Babe Ruth) after she hit five home runs in a single baseball game. Both of her parents were immigrants from Norway.

Sports achievements

Although she played little golf growing up in Beaumont, Texas, she gained world fame in track and field and All-American status in basketball. She also mastered tennis, played organized baseball and softball and was an expert diver, roller-skater and bowler. She won two gold medals and one silver medal, for track and field, in the 1932 Olympics.

Didrikson's first job was nominally as a secretary, for the Employers Casualty Insurance Co., of Dallas, Texas, in 1930. In fact she was employed almost entirely to play basketball, in one of the "industrial teams," in competitions organised by the Amateur Athletic Union. Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931, Didrikson first reached wider attention as an athlete. Representing her company in the 1932 AAU Championships, she entered eight events, winning five outright and tying first for a sixth. In the process, she set five world records in a single afternoon. Didrikson's performance was enough to win the team championship, despite being the only member of her team. As the AAU Championships were the de facto US Olympic Trials, Didrikson qualified for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She was limited to entering three events there, the javelin throw, the 80 m hurdles and the high jump. She nearly won all three events: she won gold medals in the javelin and hurdles and cleared the same height as compatriot Jean Shiley in the high jump (with whom she had tied in the AAU Championship). The jury, however, disapproved of her style and declared Shiley the Olympic champion. After the Games, Shiley and Didrikson split their medals.

By 1935, she had picked up the sport of golf, the sport by which she would become most famous. Shortly thereafter, she was denied amateur status, and so in January 1938 she competed in the Los Angeles Open, a men's PGA (Professional Golfers' Association) tournament, a feat no other woman would even try until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, and Michelle Wie almost six decades later. In the tournament, she was teamed with George Zaharias, a well-known professional wrestler and sports promoter generally billed as "The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek". They were married eleven months later on December 23, 1938, and later lived in Tampa, Florida on the grounds of a golf course they bought there in 1951. Babe went on to become America's first female golf celebrity and leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s.

After winning back her amateur status in 1942, she won the 1946-47 United States Women's Amateur Golf Championship as well as the 1947 British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship and three Western Open victories. Formally turning professional in 1947, she dominated the WPGA and later the LPGA, of which she was a founding member, until illness shortened her career in the mid-1950s. She won the 1947 Titleholders Championship and the 1948 U.S. Women's Open for her fourth and fifth major championships.

Last years

Zaharias had her greatest year in 1950 when she completed the Grand Slam of the three women's majors of the day, the US Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Western Open, in addition to leading the money-list. 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. After having been diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 1953 and undergoing surgery, she made a comeback in 1954 and took the Vare Trophy and her tenth and final major with a U.S. Women's Open championship. Her cancer reappeared in 1955 and limited her schedule to eight events, but she managed two wins which were her final ones in competitive golf. Cancer took its toll, and Zaharias died in 1956 at age 45 while still in the top rank of female American golfers.

According to New York Times journalist Charles McGrath, Zaharias

"broke the mold of what a "lady" golfer was supposed to be. The ideal in the 20s and 30s was Joyce 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 of Lee Trevino's, and she was so strong off the tee that a fellow Texan, the great golfer Byron 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."
On six occasions, she was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year and in 1950, she was voted Woman Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century in an Associated Press poll. She was also the highest ranked woman on ESPN's list of the 50 top athletes of the 20th century. In 1957, she was voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.

Babe Zaharias Golf Course

In 1949, Babe Zaharias purchased a golf course in Forest Hills area of Tampa, Florida and eventually lived nearby. The golf course had a magnificant clubhouse which Zaharias was rumored to live in at one point. After her death, the golf course was sold. It lay dorment while developers attempted to acquire the land for residential housing.

In 1974, the City of Tampa took over the golf course and named it the Babe Zaharias Golf Course.[link] It was renovated in 2004 and has now been accorded the status of a Historical Landmark.

See also

References

Bibliography

External links

Olympic medalists in athletics (women) | Olympic Champions in Women's Javelin
Babe Didrikson | Tilly Fleischer | Herma Bauma | Dana Zátopková | Inese Jaunzeme | Elvīra Ozoliņa | Mihaela Penes | Angéla Németh | Ruth Fuchs (twice) | María Colón | Tessa Sanderson | Petra Felke | Silke Renk | Heli Rantanen | Trine Hattestad | Osleidys Menéndez

 

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