Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Olympic medal record
Women's athletics
	1932 Los Angeles	80 m hurdles
	1932 Los Angeles	Javelin throw
	1932 Los Angeles	High jump

Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete considered to be perhaps the greatest all-around female athlete of all time. She achieved outstanding success in golf, basketball and track and field.

Life history

Babe Zaharias was born Mildred Didriksen (her surname was changed to reflect the Norwegian spelling of her name instead of the Swedish spelling) in the oil town of Port Arthur, Texas, and acquired the nickname "Babe" (after Babe Ruth) after she hit five home runs in a single baseball game. She wrote that she was born in 1914, however her tombstone and baptismal certificate say she was born in 1911, which is generally considered the correct year. Both of her parents were immigrants from Norway.

Athletic achievements

Zaharias gained world fame in track and field and All-American status in basketball. She 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 Los Angeles 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 as a ruse for her to play basketball on one of the "industrial teams" in competitions organized by the Amateur Athletic Union. Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931, Didrikson first achieved wider attention as a track and field 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 (jumping over headfirst) and declared Shiley the Olympic champion. After the Games, Shiley and Didrikson split their medals.

By 1935, she picked up the sport of golf, a late-bloomer to the sport by which she would become most famous. Shortly thereafter, despite coming to the sport so late, 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 in St. Louis, and later lived in Tampa, Florida on the grounds of a golf course they bought in 1951.

Babe went on to become America's first female golf celebrity and the 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-- the first American to do so-- 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. Zaharias even won a tournament named after her, the Babe Zaharias Open of Beaumont, Texas. She won the 1947 Titleholders Championship and the 1948 U.S. Women's Open for her fourth and fifth major championships. She won 17 straight amateur victories, a feat never equaled by anyone, including Tiger Woods. By 1950, she had won every golf title available.

Charles McGrath of the New York Times wrote of Zaharias, "Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery."

Headline text

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 U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Western Open, in addition to leading the money list. That year, she became the fastest LPGA golfer to ever reach 10 wins. 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 being diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953 and undergoing surgery, she made a comeback in 1954 and took the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average, her only win of the trophy, and her 10th and final major with a U.S. Women's Open championship, one month after the cancer surgery. With this win, she stands as the second-oldest woman to ever win a major LPGA championship tournament. She also served as president of the LPGA from 1952 to 1955.

Her cancer reappeared in 1955 and limited her schedule to eight events, but she managed two wins which stand as her final ones in competitive golf. The cancer took its toll, and Zaharias died in 1956 at age 45 while still in the top rank of female golfers. She and her husband had established the Babe Zaharias Fund to support cancer clinics.

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 overwhelmingly voted Woman Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century in an Associated Press poll, followed by Woman Athlete of the 20th Century in 1999. That same year, "Sports Illustrated" magazine also named her the Female Athlete of the Century. She was one of six initial inductees into the LPGA Hall of Fame at its inception in 1967, inducted into the Hall of Fame of Women's Golf in 1951, and is now also in the World Golf Hall of Fame. She was also the highest ranked woman, at #10, on ESPN's list of the 50 top athletes of the 20th century. In 1957, she was given the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Memorial Center stands as a museum to her achievements in Beaumont, Texas. hey ya'l whats up?

Babe Zaharias Golf Course

In 1949, Zaharias purchased a golf course in the Forest Hills area of Tampa, Florida and lived nearby. The golf course had a magnificent clubhouse which Zaharias was rumored to live in at one point. 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 and named it the Babe Zaharias Golf Course. It was renovated in 2004 and has now been accorded the status of a Historical Landmark.

Latest Developments

Author Don Van Natta, Jr. is writing a biography of Babe Didrikson, which is scheduled to be published in late 2008 or early 2009 by Little, Brown & Company.

In 2007, Lesbian playwright Carolyn Gage started working on a full-chorus, full-orchestra musical about Zaharias (who is thought by some to have been a lesbian) called Babe.

See also

• Golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
• Golfers with most LPGA major championship wins

Bibliography

• This Life I've Led: My Autobiography, by Babe Didrikson Zaharias, New York, 1955
• Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, by Susan Cayleff, 1996.
• Why Michael Couldn't Hit and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports, by Harold L. Klawans, 1996

External links

• Official Site of the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Foundation - on archive.org
• Golf Stars Online - links to features and profiles
• LPGA biography
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias' U.S. Olympic Team bio
• Babe, a 1975 TV movie biography, at The Internet Movie Database