Mickey Wright

Mickey Wright, born in 1935, American golfer, who with 82 victories on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) circuit ranks as one of the outstanding female golfers of all time. She was born Mary Kathryn Wright in San Diego, California. Encouraged by her father, she began playing golf at age nine. She started winning local and regional tournaments five years later and went on to win the 1952 United States Golf Association Junior Girls’ Championship. After graduating from high school in 1953, Wright enrolled at Stanford University. Motivated by a fourth-place finish in the 1954 United States Open, she left in 1955 to join the LPGA tour. She won her first professional tournament the following year.

Over the next several years Wright compiled an impressive list of achievements, including winning the U.S. Open Women’s Tournament four times (1958, 1959, 1961, and 1964), the LPGA Championship four times (1958, 1960, 1961, and 1963), and the Titleholders Championship twice (1961 and 1962). In 1961 alone she won the grand slam of women’s golf, with victories at the U.S. Open Women’s Tournament, the Titleholders Championship, and the LPGA Championship. She captured 13 titles in 1963, an unprecedented record. A five-time winner of the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average on the LPGA tour (1960-1964), Wright was inducted into the Women’s Golf Hall of Fame (now the LPGA Hall of Fame) in 1964 and into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1976.