The headline read: “Winningest golfer ever.”
“Jack Nicklaus, of course,” I thought to myself.
I’d been doing research for a new project, clicking through articles to calculate how many more wins Tiger Woods needed to surpass Sam Snead’s and Jack Nicklaus’ records.
Eighty-two PGA Tour wins, 18 major championships. Those were the universally known marks to beat, right?
Wrong.
Kathy Whitworth was 15 years old when she first picked up a golf club in the small ranch-turned-oil town of Jal, New Mexico.
Jal was a place where everyone knew everyone. Whitworth’s father was elected the town’s mayor and her mother volunteered at the local church and Salvation Army. Meanwhile, Kathy spent her time beating the bass drum in her high school’s band – her graduating class only had 28 students.
One day, after playing tennis, her friends suggested they head to a local golf course. Whitworth had never played golf, but she considered herself a good athlete and decided to tag along with her grandfather’s clubs.
“I could not believe that I couldn’t play this golf. That was the hardest thing I ever tried my life. But it just grabbed me, I fell in love with it and I can’t remember playing tennis again,” Whitworth recently recalled.
Sixty-nine years later, Whitworth had become golf’s winningest pro on a major tour after amassing 88 LPGA victories. Six more than Snead and Woods on the PGA Tour, and six more than Mickey Wright on the LPGA.
When I first learned about Kathy Whitworth, I was surprised, disappointed and annoyed. Surprised I didn’t know much about her. Disappointed I hadn’t heard her name spoken more often. And annoyed she hadn’t gotten the attention her male counterparts received.
I approached our features department at Golf Channel about doing a piece about her life and career; they graciously agreed. A few months later, in November, I found myself on a flight to Dallas, anxiously skimming through articles and trying not to feel too demoralized by the vast amount of information connected to Whitworth. In addition to her 88 tour victories, she also had…
- Seven Player of the Year awards
- Seven Vare Trophy awards
- Eight money titles
- 11 holes-in-one on the LPGA
- A tournament win every year for 17 years
- Captained the first two American Solheim Cup teams
Can you see why I was intimidated?
I met Kathy Whitworth for the first time last month. She took a swing on the range and my jaw dropped. Her flexibility, swing speed and positioning were unreal. “It all starts with the grip,” she reminded me a couple times that day. RIP to golf’s greatest winner. pic.twitter.com/vBlzhvksB0
— Nicole Gaddie (@NicoleGaddie) December 25, 2022
Trophy Country Club in Trophy Lake, Texas, is a sprawling 36-hole course about 30 minutes from Dallas and Fort Worth.
Oak trees create a green canopy that stretches for miles and a sense of ease, and Texas hospitality surrounds the place.
I headed to the “trophy room,” a long room flanked by black wood in the clubhouse. On the longest wall stretched a trophy case with several glass shelves illuminated by bright lights. On those shelves told the life story of the woman we were about to meet.
I expected she might be intense, maybe a little cold. I guess that’s what I presumed it took to become such a great champion. In this business, time with those at the top can feel abbreviated.
First, I heard the laughs. Down the hall, Whitworth was stopped by everyone she passed. The speaking grew louder and then a tall and slender woman appeared. A head of white hair complemented by a royal blue shirt. Energetic and inviting, she had no air of self-importance as she entered the room.
After Whitworth’s frustrating foray into the game, she was determined to get better. Her parents decided to join the local country club, where she met Hardy Loudermilk, the club’s head professional. Recognizing Whitworth’s potential, Loudermilk told her mother to take her to a professional in Austin, Texas, named Harvey Penick.
“Nobody at that time knew who Harvey Penick was. We went up to the driving range and I don’t know many how many balls I hit, but he finally said, ‘I think I can help you, but you’re going to have to do what I tell you,’” Whitworth said.
Whitworth spent three days working on basic fundamentals with Penick, while her mother sat in the background with a pencil marking notes on a paper sack.
Penick wouldn’t let Whitworth swing the club until her grip was right. She spent her first lesson grasping the club and then releasing it. At her hotel room later that night, she repeated the motion for hours.
Whitworth’s game improved and she traveled around West Texas playing in tournaments. When she turned 19, she turned professional.
The LPGA was almost 10 years old when Whitworth arrived. She had always looked up to Babe Zaharias and quickly realized her game was nowhere near the Babe’s.
“I almost quit because I felt like I just wasn’t good enough. I went back home and talked with Mother and Dad and told them, I don’t feel like I’m good enough. And they said, ‘Well, give yourself three years and if that doesn’t work out come home, we’ll do something else,’” remembered Whitworth.
Her rookie year, Whitworth made $1,300 in 26 events. Wright, Betsy Rawls and Patty Berg showed her how to be great. “I watched them like a hawk. Because that’s how you learn,” Whitworth said.
She gave clinics and exhibitions and returned to Texas to work with Penick. Then in 1962, she got her first professional win at the Kelly Girls Open outside Baltimore. But she remembers her second win being more important. Battling Wright in Scottsdale, it came down to the final hole on the final day when Whitworth thought she needed a birdie.
“I made a conscious decision to go for it, there was no reason to back off. I made a 15-foot putt for birdie and later found out I didn’t need a birdie. The point was, I had accepted the challenge and went for it and it gave me the confidence that I could do this,” remembered Whitworth.
Back in the Trophy Lake clubhouse, I sat down with Whitworth. She had a casual practicality when talking about her Hall of Fame career. In her words, her success followed from Penick’s teachings, making the right on-course decisions and knowing the shots she could play.
There was a humbleness engrained in her way of speaking. When she mentioned her eight tournament wins in 1963, she quickly emphasized that they didn’t compare to Wright’s 13 the same year.
I asked her about the pressures of being near the top.
“When I became leading money winner, the hard part was staying there. You’re the leader and you’ve set the bar and you’re trying to achieve that bar every year,” Whitworth said.
“When you’re No. 1, people look to you to be the leader. The press could be pretty tough. I felt more fun when the tournament started. Because inside the ropes, nobody can get you.”
In addition to competing, Whitworth served as the president of the LPGA, as well as on the pairings committee, tournament committee and she was the treasurer. Although she came after the Founders, she was still part of the group that ran the tour on the tour.
Wright’s then-record of 82 LPGA wins was in Whitworth’s mind more than Snead’s. But the press focused on her chances of surpassing Snead, whose mark was always a little fluid. He was actually credited with 84 PGA Tour wins in the early ‘80s.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I wasn’t going to try to stop winning,” said Whitworth.
When she won in Rochester for victory No. 85, Snead called her in the press room to congratulate her. The two later became good friends.
Whitworth notched her final career win at age 46 in the 1985 United Virginia Bank Classic, bringing her total number of LPGA wins to 88. Four years later, she retired from professional golf.
I followed behind Whitworth as we meandered along her trophy case. Celebrities like Yogi Berra, Dinah Shore, Joe Namath and Bob Hope were pictured alongside her. On one end of the room was a photo of her mother at her old course in Jal.
Trophies and medals covered every inch of the shelves, but Whitworth walked by them to say hello to the restaurant staff working that morning. It was clear the club respected and loved Whitworth. In fact, we could hardly walk anywhere without someone coming up to talk to her.
Here, Whitworth wasn’t one of golf’s greatest. She was simply Kathy. And everyone I met had their own Kathy Whitworth story.
“I live off the 10th hole and I used to sit outside in my backyard to drink my coffee early in the morning. All of a sudden I see a woman teeing off by herself, walking and carrying her bag. Lo and behold, it was Kathy Whitworth. She would do that all the time,” said one member.
“I’ve worked here for five years, I’ve never met her, but she always sends me a Christmas card with $20 inside,” said the course marshal, Bruce.
Another member was eager to talk about the times Whitworth had come up to his son on the range to give him tips. The pro shop assistant said, “her name should be mentioned on Golf Channel at least two times per week.”
When I circled back to Whitworth, I found her taking a photo with a women’s group outside. “We love Kathy!” they exclaimed.
I asked Whitworth if she’d be willing to hit a ball on the range and she said she’d give it a shot. Like Penick, Whitworth developed a love of teaching, and her meticulousness is evident from the care she takes arranging her grip.
She pulled out a 3-wood, plopped down a range ball and took a swing.
Back and high, perfect position at the top, impressive speed through contact … for a moment, I forgot I was watching an 83-year-old.
I was speechless.
She looked back at me and smiled, “How about that?”
Now I remembered I was watching the winningest player to ever put a tee in the ground.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct Sam Snead’s official PGA Tour career wins, as believed to be in the 1980s, and when Kathy Whitworth was recognized as surpassing his mark.
