R.I.P. Louise Suggs
/One of the LPGA's founders and earliest stars who also became known for her name brand club lines, has died at 91.
Frank Litsky's NY Times remembrance of the 11-time major winner.
Suggs won 58 pro tournaments, including 50 on the tour. Her 11 major titles included the 1949 United States Women’s Open, which she won by 14 strokes, the most one-sided victory on the tour until Laura Davies won a tournament by 16 strokes in 1995. Suggs won every season of her professional career and in 1957, at the L.P.G.A. Championship, became the first player on the tour to capture the career Grand Slam, winning all of the tour’s major events. The L.P.G.A. Tour’s rookie of the year award is named after Suggs.
Doug Ferguson with the Associated Press obituary.
Her efficient, powerful swing marked her for greatness as a teenager in Georgia. She began to get national acclaim when she won the 1947 U.S. Women's Amateur, the 1948 Women's British Amateur and the 1949 U.S. Women's Open, beating fierce rival Babe Zaharias by 14 shots.
Ben Hogan once said after watching Suggs swing that her swing "combines all the desirable elements of efficiency, timing and coordination."
The LPGA posted this remembrance video:
Golfweek posted this conversation with Suggs almost two years ago.
**David Shefter with a USGA.org remembrance of Suggs, including this:
Suggs owns U.S. Women’s Open records for the most top-five finishes (14) and most top-10 finishes (19). Besides her two victories, she finished second five times, a mark she shares with JoAnne Gunderson Carner. Her 11 major championship wins are third all-time behind contemporaries Berg (15) and Mickey Wright (13), and one ahead of Zaharias and Annika Sorenstam.
From 1950-62, Suggs managed to win at least one tournament, and she led the money list in 1960. She also proved she could compete against male professionals by winning a tournament on a par-3 course in Palm Beach, Fla., where the field included major champions Sam Snead, Lew Worsham, Dow Finsterwald and Tommy Armour, as well as leading female golfers of the era.