Mickey Wright

1935-

American golfer

One of the greatest woman golfers of all time, Mickey Wright dominated the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. With a total of 82 victories, she ranks second only to Kathy Whitworth in career LPGA wins and in 1999 was named Female Golfer of the Century by the Associated Press. Long admired for the fluidity, grace, and power of her golf swing, Wright is the only woman in golfing history to have held four major American titles (the U.S. Women's Open, LPGA, Western Open, and Titleholders) at one time. Forced to cut back sharply on her golf in the late 1960s by bad feet and the lingering effects of an earlier wrist injury, she has played occasional tournaments and special events in the years since but spends most of her time today in retirement at her home in Port Saint Lucie, Florida.

Looking back on her distinguished career, Wright observed: "Golf has brought me more rewards, financially and personally, than I ever could have earned had I become the psychology teacher I set out to be. I feel as if I've earned my own version of a master's degree in psychology in study and experience, trial and error, on golf courses throughout the United States. For psychology … is as integral a part of good golf as an efficient swing."

She was born Mary Kathryn Wright in San Diego, California, on February 14, 1935. The daughter of an attorney and a homemaker, Wright was raised in the enclave of La Jolla. She began hitting golf balls with her father when she was only 4 years old and had her first lesson in golf at the La Jolla Country Club when she was 11. Her game improved rapidly and within a year she had broken 100. Wright won her first major victory the Southern California Girls Junior Championship when she was only 13. Three years later she won the U.S. Girls Junior Championship, paving the way for her entry into women's amateur competition. In 1954 she finished fourth in the U.S. Women's Open. When she wasn't playing a tournament, Wright practiced, working with her coaches to perfect her golfing technique. All the hard work paid off handsomely for Wright, as she developed one of the best technical swings of any woman golfer.

Emboldened by her success as an amateur, Wright in 1955 turned professional. Joining the LPGA tour, she announced to the world at large that she planned to be "the best woman golfer in the world some day." Wright quickly made it clear that hers was no idle boast. From 1958 through 1964 she dominated women's golf in America, winning four U.S. Women's Open titles, four LPGA championships, a Western Open title, and two Titleholders victories. Between 1960 and 1962, Wright became the only woman in golfing history to hold four major titles at once. Her titles during this period included the U.S. Women's Open, the LPGA championship, the Western Open title, and the Titleholders.

Averages 7.9 Wins a Year

In the 10 years between 1959 and 1968, Wright captured 79 of her 82 career victories, averaging an almost unbelievable 7.9 wins per year. She was a four-time winner of the U.S. Women's Open Championships, taking the titles in 1958, 1959, 1961, and 1964. Wright also was the only woman to win the LPGA Championship four times (1958, 1960, 1961, and 1963). In 1963 alone, she won slightly more than 40 percent of all LPGA Tour events, winning 13 of 32 events.

Extremely popular with her fellow golfers, Wright began to come under increasing pressure to perform in the early 1960s. Looking back on this tumultuous period, fellow golfer Kathy Whitworth, the only woman golfer with more career wins than Wright, recalled: "The pressure was so great. Sponsors threatened to cancel their tournaments if she [Wright] didn't play. And, knowing that if they canceled, the rest of us wouldn't be able to play, Mickey would always play." It was a recipe for burnout. In 1962, Wright played 33 tournaments, followed by 30 in 1963, and 27 in 1964.

Serves as LPGA President

Because she also served as president of the LPGA during this period, Wright was duty-bound to promote the LPGA tour by presiding at scores of press briefings and doing every imaginable interview related to the tour. Despite her popularity, Wright was not comfortable with this kind of spotlight, and these promotional demands on her time took their toll. She later said: "I'm not good as far as wanting to be in front of people, glorying in it, and loving it. I think you have to love that to make that kind of pressure tolerable to me."

During the height of her career, Herbert Warren Wind, one of the country's best-known golf writers, described Wright as "a tall, good-looking girl who struck the ball with the same decisive hand action that the best men players use; she fused her hitting action smoothly with the rest of her swing, which was like [Ben] Hogan 's in that all the unfunctional moves had been pared away, and like [Bobby] Jones 's in that its cohesive timing disguised the effort that went into it." Wind was not alone in his glowing assessment of Wright. Betsy Rawls, a championship golfer who joined the LPGA four years before Wright, told the Illustrated History of Women's Golf : "She set a standard of shot-making that will probably never be equaled. Mickey's swing was as flawless as a golf swing can be smooth, efficient, powerful, rhythmical, and beautiful. Her shots were something to behold…. She contacted the ball at precisely the right point in the arc of the swing and with such clubhead speed that no shot was impossible for her. She was a spectacular golfer to watch."

Chronology

Frantic Pace Takes Its Toll

By the second half of the 1960s, the frantic pace began to tell on Wright. After another in a series of wrist injuries in 1965, she briefly dropped out of the tour. She returned in 1966 to finish second in the LPGA championship. Increasingly hampered by chronic bad feet and the wrist injury, Wright dropped out as a regular on the LPGA Tour in 1969. A decade later she played in the Coca Cola Classic and took part in the competition's five-way playoff, finishing second to Nancy Lopez . In the years since, she has played occasionally on the Seniors Tour, last competing in the 1995 Sprint Senior Challenge in Daytona Beach. It was at that contest that Wright played her last round of golf in competition.

Looking back on that last tournament, Wright told Sports Illustrated : "On the last hole, a par-5, I hit a pullhook drive into the rough. The ball was way above my feet. There was water left of the green and traps on the right. I used a four-iron. I wanted to work the heel of the club through the ball and hit the inside part of the ball. The ball sailed, nice and high. I liked to hit the ball high. I two-putted for a birdie. It was a wonderful way to go out."

Wright lives today in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in a modest white stucco house on property adjoining the Club Med Sandpiper Sinners Golf Course. She lives there with longtime housemate, Peggy Wilson, who played with her on the LPGA tour. Although Wright retired from competitive golf in 1995, she continues to practice every day, hitting 40 or 50 balls from a mat on her back patio onto the nearby fairway. Of her reputation as a perfectionist, Wright said: "The perfectionist bit in golf doesn't have as much to do with doing it perfectly as the total rejection and horror of doing it badly. And I don't know which comes first, or which is more important. Winning really never crossed my mind that much. It's trite, but I knew if I did it as well as I could, I would win. If I did as well as I could, it would have been better than anybody else did it, and therefore it would win. I look back on it like it's somebody else. It's like a dream, another life. What amazes me is that I could have done it as long as I did."

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: 2972 Treasure Island Rd., Port Saint Lucie, FL 34952.

Awards and Accomplishments

Related Biography: Golfer Betsy Rawls

A champion golfer in her own right, Betsy Rawls was both a contemporary and an admirer of Mickey Wright. The winner of 55 LPGA events, Rawls played on the LPGA tour during the late 1950s and 1960s, the years of Wright's greatest glory in the game. Rawls first joined the tour in 1951 and retired in 1975. Both Rawls and Wright were early inductees into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame.

She was born Elizabeth Earle Rawls in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on May 4, 1928. She grew up in Texas and didn't take up golf until she was 17. Only four years after taking up the game, Rawls won the 1949 Texas Amateur. She repeated that feat the following year and also won the 1949 Trans-National and 1950 Broadmoor Invitational as an amateur. In 1951, she joined the LPGA Tour, and led the tour in victories in 1952 (six), 1957 (five), and 1959 (10). In 1960 she won her fourth U.S. Women's Open to become the only LPGA player to win the competition four times. Four years later, Wright duplicated her feat.

After leaving the professional tour in 1975, Rawls was named tournament director of the LPGA. During her tenure, the tour experienced dynamic growth. After leaving her LPGA post in 1981, Rawls took over as executive director of the McDonald's LPGA Championship. During the LPGA's 50th anniversary in 2000, both Rawls and Wright were recognized as among the LPGA's 50 greatest players and teachers.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY WRIGHT:

Play Golf the Wright Way, Taylor Publishing, 1993.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Almanac of Famous People, 6th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.

Great Women in Sports. Visible Ink Press, 1996

Periodicals

Bamberger, Michael. "Where Are They Now?: The Queen of Swing: After Dominating Golf Like No One Else, Mickey Wright Took Her Leave." Sports Illustrated, (July 31, 2000): 128.

Other

"Betsy Rawls." LPGA.com. http://www.lpga.com/players/index.cfm?cont_type_id=1681&player_id=31473 (January 6, 2003).

"Mary Kathryn "Mickey" Wright (1935—)." Golf Europe.com.http://www.golfeurope.com/almanac/players/wright.htm (January 6, 2003).

"Mickey Wright." PGATour.com. http://www.golfweb.com/u/ce/feature/0,1977,839856,00.html (January 6, 2003).

"Mickey Wright: Professional." LPGA.com. http://www.lpga.com/players/index.cfm?cont_type_id=1681&player_id=31552 (January 6, 2003).

"A Profile of World Golf Hall of Famer, Mickey Wright." World Golf Village. http://www.wgv.com/hof/members/mwright.html (January 6, 2003).

Sketch by Don Amerman