‘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.