Patty Berg biography
Patty Berg, byname of Patricia Jane Berg, (born February 13, 1918, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.—died September 10, 2006, Fort Myers, Florida), American golfer, winner of greater than 80 tournaments, together with a document 15 main ladies’s championships, and first president of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).
Berg started taking part in golf on the age of 13 and shortly confirmed a outstanding expertise for the sport. In 1935 she received the Minnesota state ladies’s championship and reached the ultimate spherical of the nationwide ladies’s novice championship. In 1936 she repeated as state champion and received a number of lesser nationwide tournaments. The following yr she was once more defeated within the finals of the nationwide championship, however in 1938 she capped a season of 9 victories in 12 tournaments by successful the nationwide ladies’s novice title. She lowered her match schedule on coming into the University of Minnesota in 1939, and an appendectomy prevented her from defending her nationwide title that yr.
In 1940 Berg gave up her novice standing by accepting the sponsorship of Wilson Sporting Goods Company in Chicago. An harm in 1941 saved her out of competitors till 1943, when she received the Women’s Western Open. In 1945 she received the All-American Open, and the next yr she received the primary U.S. Women’s Open. From 1948 to 1962 Berg recorded 44 victories, together with 5 Western Opens (1948, 1951, 1955, 1957, 1958), 4 Titleholders Championships (1948, 1953, 1955, 1957), and 4 world championships (1953, 1954, 1955, 1957); she staged a outstanding drive to come back from behind and defeat Babe Zaharias within the 1948 Western Open. In her profession, Berg had 60 skilled victories. In 1954, 1955, and 1957 she was the main cash winner within the LPGA, of which she was additionally the primary president (1950–52) and one of many founding members.
Berg was one among 4 unique inductees into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1951, and in 1978 she turned one among two ladies inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1978 the LPGA established the Patty Berg Award for excellent contributions to ladies’s golf; the prize was awarded to Berg in 1990. She continued to seem often in tournaments in later years and carried out golf clinics as she toured the nation for Wilson Sporting Goods. Berg additionally wrote a number of books on golf.