When Annika Sorenstam teed it up at the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 in a tournament now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge, it was widely reported that Sorenstam was the first female to play in a PGA TOUR event since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1946.
Shirley Spork then politely raised her hand, cleared her throat and spoke.
Spork, a founding member of the LPGA, who died in 2022 at age 94, noted that she played in the PGA TOUR’s 1952 Northern California-Reno Open, earning a sponsor exemption and shooting symmetrical rounds of 77-80-77-80 at Washoe Golf Course, a tournament that had no cut. Spork finished 105th, well back of winner Dutch Harrison.
This week, Lexi Thompson will join a select group of women – one that includes just six others, to be exact – who have played in PGA TOUR tournaments. Thompson will tee it up at the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. Thompson, the younger sister of Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR players Nicholas and Curtis Thompson, is an 11-time LPGA winner, including a triumph at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the LPGA’s major championships. Besides Didrikson Zaharias (seven appearances) and Spork and Sorenstam’s lone starts, the other women who have played in TOUR events are Michelle Wie West (eight appearances), Suzy Whaley and Brittany Lincicome, both with one start each.
Of that group, Didrikson Zaharias is considered by many as the greatest female athlete in history. The native of Port Arthur, Texas, with the given first name of Mildred, earned two track and field gold medals in the 1932 Summer Olympics, in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin and a silver medal in the high jump. She is still the only athlete – male or female – who has ever won Olympic medals in running, jumping and throwing events. She also excelled in basketball, softball, baseball and bowling.
As a golfer, a sport she didn’t begin playing until she was 23, Didrikson Zaharias won 48 professional tournaments, including three U.S. Women’s Open titles, three Titleholders Championships and four Western Open victories. She went into the Hall of Fame of Women’s Golf in 1951, and when the World Golf Hall of Fame opened in 1974, Didrikson Zaharias was part of the inaugural class.
As a dominant force in the women’s game, not surprisingly, Didrikson Zaharias gave PGA TOUR golf a go on seven different occasions and became the first woman to play against the men in a tournament. She was a sponsor exemption in her first three appearances, none of them going very well. Didrikson Zaharias shot rounds of 86-88 at the 1935 Cascades Open in Virginia, opened with an 86 and withdrew at the 1937 Chicago Open and bowed out after an 81-84 first two rounds at the 1938 Los Angeles Open. Despite her lack of success, these all came within three years of her taking up the sport.
“She is beyond all belief until you see her perform,” famed sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote of Didrikson Zaharias. “Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen.”
The last player to compete in a PGA TOUR tournament was Lincicome, at the 2018 Barbasol Championship. Playing as a sponsor exemption, she missed the cut in Nicholasville, Kentucky, but not before shooting a second-round, 1-under 71, making her only the second woman – along with Wie West – to break par in a tournament. Wie West did it three different times.
