Louise Suggs

Golfer

• Date of birth: September 7, 1923
• Place of birth: Atlanta, Georgia
• Date of death: August 7, 2015
• Place of death:Sarasota, Florida

Sport: Golf

Early Life

The daughter of a baseball player and golf course manager, Mae Louise Suggs was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 7, 1923, to Johnny and Marguerite Suggs. By the age of ten, Suggs was playing golf with her father in Lithia Springs, an Atlanta suburb. They played when the course was closed to the public. During the early 1940s, a professional career in golf was not an option for women. Furthermore, Suggs’s parents would not have allowed their unmarried daughter to travel alone to play golf. Thus, Suggs worked as a file clerk for Gulf Oil Corporation; the job did not last, however, as her employers agreed that she was probably better at golf than at filing.

Amateur Career

When Suggs was thirteen, Martha Daniels, hailed as the best woman golfer in Georgia at the time, observed that she was hitting balls with ideal form. Daniels was so impressed with Suggs’s skill that she took her to the Georgia state women’s tournament. Suggs won the Georgia State Amateur Championship held in Columbus, Georgia, in 1940, when she was seventeen—about the time that she graduated as high school valedictorian. In 1942, she won this championship again. Thus, at nineteen, she was already the dominant woman golfer in the southern United States.

Suggs continued to establish her career and won the Southern Amateur Championship in 1941 and 1947. Three times she won the North and South Women’s Amateur Golf Championship: in 1942, 1946, and 1948. In 1946 and 1947, she won both the Western Amateur Championship and the Western Open, a major championship. In 1946, Louise also won the Titleholders Championship, later designated a women’s major championship. The next year, she won the United States Women’s Amateur Golf Championship. During her final year as an amateur, Suggs won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship and represented the United States on the 1948 Curtis Cup team, her final win as an amateur.

Professional Career

On July 8, 1948, Suggs turned professional and won the Belleair Open competition. In 1949, she added four wins: the All-American Open; the Muskegon Invitational; and two major championships, the US Women’s Open, by a record fourteen strokes, and the Western Open. In 1950, Suggs, along with twelve other female golfers, helped establish the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). She also won the Chicago Weathervane and the New York Weathervane Championships. By this time, Suggs had proven herself throughout the golf community. Following a win in the Carrollton Georgia Open that year, she won six championships in 1952: the Jacksonville Open, the Tampa Open, the Stockton Open, the All-American Women’s Open, the Betty Jameson Open, and the US Women’s Open, a major championship.

In 1953, Suggs compiled nine victories, including the Women’s Western Open, a major championship. She broke her own LPGA scoring record to win the Tampa Open and won additional tournaments, including the Betsy Rawls Open; the Phoenix Weathervane, in a tie with Patty Berg; the San Diego Open; the Bakersfield Open; the San Francisco Weathervane; the Philadelphia Weathervane; and the 144-Hole Weathervane. She was also the leading money-winner in 1953. Other accomplishments that year included the publication of a book, Par Golf for Women, and an award by the LPGA, the Vare Trophy, given for excellence in scoring.

In 1954, about halfway through her professional career, she continued to excel. She claimed the Titleholders Championship, a major win, in addition to winning the Sea Island Open, the Betsy Rawls Open, the Carrollton Georgia Open, and the Babe Zaharias Open. In 1955, Louise won the Los Angeles Open, the Oklahoma City Open, the Eastern Open, the St. Louis Open, and the Triangle Round Robin. The next year she was the winner at the Havana Open, the All-American Open, and the major Titleholders Championship.

In 1957, Suggs added the prestigious LPGA Championship and the Heart of America Invitational to her list of victories. She served as LPGA president from 1955 to 1957. She compiled four LPGA wins in 1958: the Babe Zaharias Open, the Gatlinburg Open, the Triangle Round Robin, and the French Lick Open. In 1959, she was victorious at the St. Petersburg Open, the Dallas Civitan Open, and, for the fourth time, the Titleholders Championship. In 1960, Suggs won four more competitions. In 1961, she became the first woman to defeat male pros when she shot two strokes better than Sam Snead and beat out Lew Worsham, Chuck Harbert, Tommy Armour, and Dow Finsterwald at the Royal Ponciana Invitational. She also won competitions in the Golden Circle of Golf Festival, the Dallas Civitan Open, the Kansas City Open, and the San Antonio Civitan that year.

Sugg’s professional career ended in 1962. She won the St. Petersburg Open and was scheduled to play later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When she became ill and was unable to attend the event, she was fined $25 for failing to appear. She felt that this was unfair and, as a matter of principle, retired to Delray Beach, Florida, and Sea Island, Georgia, where she taught golf, conducted clinics, and played in exhibitions. Over the course of her career, she had won fifty-eight professional tournaments, including eleven major titles.

Suggs was bestowed with many honors. In 1966, she was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and was an inaugural inductee into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame in 1967. In 1979, she became the first woman to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 2000, the Louise Suggs Rolex rookie of the year award, given to the best first-year player on the LPGA Tour, was named in her honor. She received the 2000 Patty Berg Award in recognition of her contributions to women's golf. She was also the 2007 recipient of the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. In 2008, she received the William D. Richardson Award from the Golf Writers Association of America for her outstanding contributions to golf.

Suggs died on August 7, 2015, in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of ninety-one.

Summary

Not only was Louise Suggs a key figure in the creation and success of the LPGA Tour, but she also was one of its most successful participants. Such feats as winning an LPGA Tour event three consecutive years, all four majors in existence during her career, and the 1949 US Women’s Open by fourteen strokes—a record not broken until Laura Davies’s sixteen-stroke win in 1995—helped to assure visibility and respect for women’s golf.

Bibliography

Litsky, Frank. "Louise Suggs, Golf Pioneer, Dies at 91; Helped Found the Women's Pro Tour." New York Times. New York Times, 7 Aug. 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Nickerson, Elinor. Golf: A Women’s History. Jefferson: McFarland, 1987. Print.

Stevens, Peter F. “Lady Killer.” Golf 44.11 (Nov. 2002). Print.

Suggs, Louise. Par Golf for Women. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1953. Print.