Which golfer has the most tournament wins in one professional tour?
Tiger Woods, you say?
Nope. His 82 victories put him in a tie for second place with Sam Snead.
Do I hear Jack Nicklaus?
Not even close with 73.
Or perhaps Annika Sorenstam?
No, she’s one shy of Nicklaus’ total with 72 wins.
The answer to the question is the recently deceased Kathy Whitworth who had 88 tour victories and over $1.7 million in career earnings in a career that stretched from the late 1950’s to the mid-1980’s. Whitworth added six majors to those 88 victories; oh, and she finished second 93 times. Whitworth was LPGA Player of the Year seven times, the top earner on the tour in eight years, and won the Vare Trophy seven times that is given to the golfer with the lowest scoring average for the year. Her first win was in 1962 and her last in 1985. The only accolade she lacked was a victory in the U.S. Women's Open.
Whitworth was born in West Texas and raised in a small town in New Mexico that was rich in oil and gas. She took up tennis at a young age but was introduced to golf at 15 and soon left tennis behind. The club pro taught what he could and linked her to Harvey Penick, a teaching pro in Austin, Texas. She would later say of Penick:
Harvey changed the whole game for me. He gave me a knowledge of the game and the swing. Harvey kept telling me, 'You have to have your own swing, not somebody else's.'
She worked hard to absorb Penick’s teachings, and at one point practiced her grip from 8:00 am-5:00 pm until she had it right.
The lessons paid off. Whitworth’s putting was a marvel to her peers. In 1969, a competitor remarked “[w]hen she has to have a putt, I mean absolutely has to have it for victory, she gets it every time.” She was a master of getting her balls out of bunkers as well.
Whitworth had a will to win unrivalled among her peers. One of them once remarked that Mickey Wright was the better golfer (who incidentally won 82 tournaments) but that Whitworth was the better player. Carol Mann played against both and said of Whitworth:
Kathy has great inner strength. She is probably a better competitor because she had to be. She is the best under pressure of anybody who ever played this tour.
A different contemporary saw things a bit differently:
She just had to win. It was unacceptable for her to make a mistake. She hated herself when she made a mistake. She was wonderful to play with — sweet as she could be, nice to everybody — but oh, man, she berated herself something awful. And that’s what drove her.
This is surely a rare combination among top competitors. On the one hand, to berate one’s self for errors but to not let that spill over into one’s relations. The history of modern sports are full of fierce competitors not able or willing to draw that line.
And interestingly, Whitworth really played golf because she loved it. She didn’t play for accolades or earnings:
The wonderful thing about it was that I was the one who called the shots. My success was totally up to me. I didn't do it for the galleries or money. Playing well was self-gratifying.
And, it was well she didn’t play for money because the LPGA tour was far from financially rewarding for the first part of her career. One sportswriter estimated if the earnings on the LPGA had equaled the men’s tour, her career earnings would have been more than $3 million.
Unlike many other athletes and many spectators, Whitworth never confused being a great athlete with being a great person. She once remarked “What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person.”
Whitworth was apparently unfazed that her name wasn’t mentioned alongside golfers who won less than she did. She said “[i]t’s not necessary for people to know you.” She continued “[t]he record itself speaks; [t]hat’s all that really matters.” And the record speaks clearly for the golfer that won more tournaments than household name golfers.
Other Passings
She has probably already scored interviews with all the VIPs in Heaven; here’s some of the work she did on earth: here, here, here and here.
Perhaps the greatest football player ever; watch his magic here and here.
For her first Paris fashion show “she stitched much of that collection on her own sewing machine in her shabby south London flat, hand-finishing it in the van that transported her, and the models, to France,”
This wife of a Rolling Stone followed her husband.
An actress who flouted the body norms of Hollywood.
One of the founders of the legendary Stax Records has left the building.
Her groundbreaking music threatened her nation’s regime, and here’s one the offending albums.
The architect of the Philadelphia soul has left; the Delfonics, The Stylistics, and The Spinners.
A nun who led shareholder challenges to corporate practices.
A soldier/photographer; samples from his work include: this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
A journalist whose books of concentration camp recipes became an unexpected hit.
A principled sports journalist who popularized football/soccer in the U.S.
His “immaculate reception” kicked off one of the greatest runs of any North American sports franchise.
This man of the cloth helped establish the United Farm Workers.
A professional clarinetist whose savvy investing allowed him to donate $125 million.
The legendary George Best said he was the best defender he ever played against.
A pivotal British rock artist.
Photo Credit: Sports - Golf - Marion Hollins. , . [No Date Recorded on Caption Card] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709751/