‘Seniors golf for women’ came along in 2000

Yes, indeed. Women play golf, too.

There is a senior professional tour for women called “Legends of the LPGA,” featuring female players age 45 and older.

 

Founded in 2000, it showcases former LPGA Tour professionals.

Jane Blalock, 80, of Portsmouth, N.H., was the sparkplug who made it happen. She played on the LPGA professional tour from 1969-87, winning 27 titles.

 

Blalock holds the record for “most consecutive cuts made on a professional golf tour” – 299 – from 1969-80. (Among the men, Tiger Woods has the longest string of consecutive cuts made – 142, occurring between 1998-2005.)

A graduate of Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., Blalock spent a year as a high school history teacher, while taking golf lessons from legendary instructor Bob Toski.

 

As the CEO of JBC Golf, Inc., Blalock established the LPGA Legends tour in 2000, and her company continues to manage the program. She is also a consultant, motivational speaker and book author.

To ensure success of the LPGA Legends, Blalock recruited 24 veteran players who offered their endorsement and commitment to participate. Among them were JoAnne Carner, Kathy Whitworth, Sandra Haynie, Sandra Palmer, Judy Rankin, Carol Mann and Donna Caponi.

Perhaps the most noteworthy player on the list was Whitworth, a native of Monahans, Texas. 

She holds the record for most all-time victories in LPGA events – 88 titles. She competed from 1962-85, and all the tour players greatly admired her as a beacon of strength, providing guidance and encouragement. (Whitworth died in 2022 at age 83.)

Some of the early players who were successful on the LPGA Legends tour were: Rosie Jones of Santa Ana, Calif., and Christa Johnson of Arcata, Calif., (9 titles each); Trish Johnson of Bristol, England (6 titles); Nancy Scranton of Centralia, Ill. (5 titles); Juli Inkster of Santa Cruz, Calif., and Jan Stephenson of Sydney, Australia (4 titles each); and Patty Sheehan of Middlebury, Vt. (3 titles).

 

Rosie Jones

Christa Johnson

Trish Johnson

Nancy Scranton

Juli Inkster

Jan Stephenson

Patty Sheehan

Annika Sorenstam of Bro, Sweden (near Stockholm), is the top all-time money winner in women’s golf, with prize money totaling about $23.6 million. She won 72 regular tour titles and basically retired from the game in 2008. Sorenstam returned, however, in 2021 to win a major LPGA Legends event…much to the delight of her legion of loyal fans.

 

Two women who rank among the top all-time money-winners and are neck-and-neck in the standings (hovering around the $20.3 million mark) are Karrie Webb of Ayr, Queensland, Australia (shown above), and Cristie Kerr of Miami, Fla. (shown below). Both are now eligible to compete on the LPGA Legends circuit, and Kerr is a recent winner.

 

Relative newcomers on the LPGA Legends tour who have cashed in with recent victories are Giulia Sergas, 46, of Trieste, Italy (shown above), and Angela Stanford, 48, of Saginaw, Texas (shown below).

 

North Carolina’s greatest female golfer of all-time was Estelle Lawson Page (1907-83) of Chapel Hill. She was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1963 as one of five charter members and the first female athlete.

 

Estelle Lawson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1928. She learned to play golf from her father, Dr. Bob Lawson, who was a professor of anatomy at the UNC medical school and head baseball coach…as well as the athletic director who gave birth to the basketball program at the university.

At age 25, Estelle Lawson won the 1932 Women’s Carolinas Amateur Championship, the first of 10 victories in that event during her amateur career. She also won the prestigious North and South Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst Resort on seven occasions, which stands as one of her most enduring accomplishments. Estelle Page Lawson retired from competitive golf in 1955.

In 2003, Senior PGA golfers evolved into ‘Champions’

Effective in 2003, professional golf’s Senior PGA Tour was rebranded, becoming the “Champions Tour,” a move that was calculated to “freshen its image.”

 

The name was tweaked a bit in 2016 to “PGA Tour Champions”…and a three-tournament playoff system was introduced, similar to that used by the regular PGA Tour for its FedEx Cup.

 Named the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, it continued Schwab’s association with the season-ending tournament for PGA Tour Champions, which had been established in 1990. 

(The Charles Schwab Corporation is a multinational financial services company, offering banking, investment counseling and wealth management services to an array of clients.)

What hasn’t changed is that players become eligible to participate in Champions circuit events on their 50th birthday.

Some “names” who made their debut on the Champions tour in 2026 are Ian Poulter, Zach Johnson, Ben Crane, Vaughn Taylor, Jason Dufner and Henrik Stenson.

Johnson made a big splash, winning his first event on the Champions tour.

 

He won 12 tournaments on the regular PGA Tour, including two majors – the Masters (2007) and The Open (2015) played at the Old Course at St Andrews Links in Fife, Scotland.

 

Those with 50th birthdays coming up later this year include Ben Curtis, Geoff Ogilvy, Ryan Palmer, Luke Donald and Charley Hoffman.

Once again, one of the tour stops is in North Carolina. The SAS Championship will be played Oct. 18-20 at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, offering a total purse of $2.1 million.

 

Alex Čejka, 55, is the defending champion. Born in Czechoslovakia, he left the country with his parents as a refugee at the age of 9 and grew up in Munich, Germany.

 

The SAS Championship is the last tournament on the schedule prior to the Schwab Cup playoffs, so the caliber of the field should be superb.

 The premier senior golfer of all-time is Bernhard Langer, 68, of Anhausen, a village in Bavaria, Germany. He now resides in Boca Raton, Fla.

 

Langer has won an incredible 47 PGA Seniors/Champions tour events since turning 50. His prize money earnings are approaching $38.5 million, and he is still competing in tournaments.

 

Langer has won the Schwab Cup a record six times. (He is also a two-time Masters winner, donning the “green jacket” in 1985 and 1993.)

In second place among the Seniors/Champions all-time tournament winners is Hale Irwin, 80, of Joplin, Mo. He won 45 titles and pocketed nearly $27.2 million in prize money between 1995-2007. He tells people his golf game is now in a “semi-retirement stage.”

 

In his younger days, Irwin won 20 PGA Tour titles, including three U.S. Opens (1974, 1979 and 1990).

Third in line is Lee Trevino, 86, of Garland, Texas. He collected 29 Seniors/Champions trophies between 1990-2000, which translated into about $9.9 million in prize money.

 Trevino also won 29 times on the PGA Tour, including six majors. He won the U.S. Open in 1968 and 1971, The Open in 1971 and 1972 and PGA Championships in 1974 and 1984. (In four of those tournaments, Jack Nicklaus was runner-up.)

At the top of the Schwab Cup rankings so far in 2026 is Stewart Cink, 52, of Huntsville, Ala. He is the defending Schwab Cup champion, and he has already tallied four wins this season.

 

While competing on the PGA Tour, Cink registered eight victories, including a major. He won The Open in 2009, played at the Turnberry Resort in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Other PGA Tour Champions who are “making noise” in 2026 and loom as challengers to Cink’s supremacy are David Toms, Steven Alker, Retief Goosen, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington as well as “rookies” Johnson and Crane.

David Toms

Retief Goosen

Ernie Els

Arnold Palmer lit it up at Senior PGA Tour events

Golf’s Senior PGA Tour enjoyed a bit of a “golden era” from 1980-87, when Arnold Palmer won 11 senior tournaments between the ages of 50-57.

 

Palmer was still a fierce competitor in 1987, when he signed a three-year agreement to serve the corporate spokesperson for GTE (formerly General Telephone and Electronics Company), while participating in various GTE-sponsored Senior Golf tournaments across the country.

At the time, GTE was organized by geographic territories. Within GTE South was Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

However, there were no Senior Tour events scheduled in 1987 within the GTE South boundaries. Word came down from GTE South headquarters in Durham, N.C., that Palmer’s contract contained language to the effect of “use him or lose him.”

After a lot of head scratching, a plan was formulated, and Oct. 27, 1987, was established as “Arnold Palmer Day for the Wiregrass United Way” at the Dothan (Ala.) Country Club.

He would fly his private airplane into Dothan Regional Airport and arrive bright and early to play a friendly 18 holes of golf and then address a luncheon gathering at the country club to endorse the six-county regional United Way organization.

 

Eight business leaders each pledged $1,000 to have the opportunity to play nine holes alongside Palmer. Members of the Dothan High School varsity golf team served as caddies.

To generate interest, GTE South’s public relations officer based in Dothan put out the word. He wrote about how the 25-year-old Palmer had burst on the scene in 1955, winning his first pro tournament as a tour rookie.

“Palmer is clearly acknowledged as being responsible for the growth and success of professional golf,” the publicist said. “Palmer’s slashing, charging style captured the imagination of the sports world, producing golf tournament heroics and drama never-before seen on national television.”

Spectators were invited to contribute $15 apiece to the United Way…and that included the luncheon ticket. Everyone who attended received a GTE pin-on button featuring Arnold Palmer’s signature as a keepsake.

One impressive sight was the parade of private golf carts by the club members, reenacting “Arnie’s Army” as they meandered along the winding cart paths.

The Dothan Country Club course is par 71, with a distance of about 6,400 yards.

Palmer was even par for his round that day, but his shot-making skills from tee to green were impeccable. However, his putter was icy cold. Nothing would drop. He said he feared that this was becoming a characteristic of his game.

Undaunted, Palmer proceeded to deliver an emotional, heart-felt appeal on behalf of the United Way, one that brought tears to those assembled. He was that kind of a gentle human being.

In no hurry to leave, Palmer stuck around the golf club as long as anyone wanted to chat.

GTE South definitely got its money’s worth on the day that Arnold Palmer came to Dothan.

Palmer continued playing Senior Golf long after 1987. He abruptly retired in 2006 while playing in an event at Augusta Pines Golf Club in Spring, Texas (near Houston), at age 77.

He was experiencing back pain but tried to gut it out. He proceeded to plunk two shots into the drink on the fourth hole. Then and there, he decided he could “no longer give the public the performance they deserved.”

 

Palmer technically withdrew, but he didn’t just quit and walk away. He continued to play alongside partners Lee Trevino and John Mahaffey, hobbling and shuffling along, but not keeping score.

Palmer finished the round to avoid “disappointing the spectators.” What a guy!

 

The Dothan Country Club is host to the Press Thornton Future Masters Golf Tournament, one of the most traditionally rich junior boys tournaments in the world.  

Four age groupings are open to competitors between the ages of 10 and 18. 

The Future Masters has become a proving ground for golf's brightest junior stars, but it is not, nor has it ever been, only about golf. It is about the spirit of competition, friendships made, sportsmanship on the course, and the challenge of preserving 76 years of growing golf.

Two prominent Future Masters alumni who have won the coveted green jacket. They are:

Scottie Scheffler, who won the 2006 Future Masters and claimed the Masters Tournament titles in 2022 and 2024.

Bubba Watson, who won the Future Masters in 1996 and earned Masters victories in 2012 and 2014.

Other Masters champions who competed in the Future Masters include Trevor Immelman, who won at Augusta in 2008, and Larry Mize, who won the Masters Tournament in 1987.

Other golfing greats who played in the Future Masters are: past U.S. Open champions Hubert Green and Jerry Pate; PGA champions Bob Tway, Mark Brooks and Shawn Micheel; and (British) Open winner Ben Curtis.