Famous Golfer - Mildred Didrikson (Babe Zaharias)

The other legendary woman player was born Mildred Didrikson, but is much better known as "Babe" Zaharias. She was one of the greatest athletes, man or woman, there has ever been. She started as a baseball and basketball player and obtained her nickname because she once hit five home runs in one game. thus inviting comparison with the great Babe Ruth. When she was eighteen she entered the National Track and Field Championships before the Olympic Games and won six events, setting new world records in four of them. In the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles she won gold medals in the javelin, the high hurdles and the high jump, but she was disqualified from the high jump after setting a new world record because she has used the "Western Roll", a new technique which was then considered to be unladylike. During the Los Angeles games she was persuaded to try golf, a game at which she was instantly successful. She won the second tournament that she entered but then she was disqualified by the USGA as they held that her earnings as a basketball and baseball player meant she was a professional player. As with Joyce Wethered before her, the amateur game, which at that time was the only game available, was barred to her. "Babe" Didrikson married George Zaharias in 1938 and regained her amateur status five years later. She then proceeded to win 17 consecutive tournaments, including the British Ladies' Amateur in 1947. She was the first American winner of this event. Later that year she turned professional and was a leading figure in establishing the LPGA. She won 31 events on the tour, including five after a cancer operation in 1953, and two more, including the last of her three US Women's Opens, in 1954. Sadly, the cancer recurred and she died the following year.