She Won 2 Gold Medals In The 1932 Summer Olympics, And Then She Became A Professional Golfer
As the weather gets warmer and we enter the summer, more and more people will be heading out onto golf courses to play in the sunshine.
There have been a lot of brilliant women golfers in America, but do you know the athlete that founded the Ladies Pro Golf Association?
It was Mildred, otherwise known as Babe, Didrikson Zaharias, and she was an astonishing Olympic athlete who achieved greatness throughout her career.
Born in Texas in 1911, Babe was one of seven children, and her parents were Norwegian immigrants. After her family moved to Beaumont, Texas, in 1915, she became interested in sports and began playing baseball in her neighborhood.
She earned her nickname, Babe, after hitting multiple home runs in baseball games, like the famous player Babe Ruth.
Babe excelled in many different sports as a kid and found a love for basketball. After high school, she worked for the Employers Casualty Company in Dallas, Texas, and played for their company basketball team, the Golden Cyclones.
After training very hard for a few years, Babe made the cut for the 1932 Olympics. She was only 21 years old and won a gold medal for the javelin throw and set a world record. The following day, she won another gold medal in track and field.
She was assumed to win more gold during the high jump but was given a silver medal instead. Overall, she won three medals and broke three records.
After her fantastic performance at the Olympics, Babe turned to golf. She was discriminated against for being a woman in the sport, but that didn’t stop her, and she wowed people with her tremendous talent. In 1938 she competed in the Los Angeles Open and met her husband, George Zaharias.
Parilov – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Babe obtained amateur status as a golfer and became one of America’s first female celebrity golf players. During the 1940s, she won tournament after tournament, including the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the British Ladies Amateur.
Throughout her career, she won 82 tournaments in total. She even had a tournament named after her held in Beaumont, Texas, called the Babe Zaharias Open.
Babe and golfer Patty Berg co-founded the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1949 to create more opportunities for female golfers. After its first year, she took over as president of the association.
In 1953, Babe was sadly diagnosed with colon cancer. She underwent surgery and impressively won at the 1954 U.S. Women’s Open championship one month later. Unfortunately, her cancer returned in 1955, but she continued to play golf and won two more tournaments.
She died at the age of 45 in 1956 while still considered one of the best female golfers in the country.
Although Babe’s life was tragically cut short, what she achieved throughout her exciting career was nothing short of astonishing.
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