Berg, Patricia Jane1918╨golferBorn in Minneapolis on February 13, 1918, Patty Berg took up golf at the age of thirteen and soon proved to have a remarkable talent for the game. In 1935 she won the Minnesota state women╒s championship at the age of seventeen. Later that year she reached the final round of the national women╒s amateur championship tournament. In 1936 she repeated as state champion and won several lesser national tournaments. In 1937 she was again defeated after reaching the finals of the national championship, but in 1938 she capped a season of 9 victories in 12 tournaments by winning the national women╒s amateur title at the age of twenty. She was voted the outstanding woman athlete of the year in an Associated Press poll in 1938, an award she won again in 1943 and 1955. She reduced her tournament schedule on entering the University of Minnesota in 1939, and an appendectomy prevented her defending her national title that year. In 1940 she gave up her amateur status by taking a promotional position with the Wilson Sporting Goods Company in Chicago. An injury in 1941 kept her out of competition until 1943, when she won the Women╒s Western Open. Later that year she enlisted in the Women Marines. In 1945 she won the All-American Open, and in 1946 she won the first U.S. Women╒s Open. In 1948 she staged a remarkable drive to come from behind and defeat Mildred Didrikson Zaharias in the Western Women╒s Open. She repeated at the Western Open in 1949; won the Eastern Open in 1950; the Western Open again in 1951; the World Open, All-American Open, and Titleholders╒ in 1953; the World Professional in 1954; the World Open, All-American Open, Titleholders╒, and Western Open in 1955, the same four in 1957; the American Open and Western Open in 1958; and the American Open in 1960. In 1954, 1955, and 1957 she was the leading money winner in the Ladies╒ Professional Golfers Association. One of the game╒s great shotmakers, Patty Berg won the Bob Jones Award from the US Golf Association in 1963 and the Ben Hogan Award of the Golf Writers Association in 1976. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in June 1974, the PGA Hall of Fame in 1978 and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1978 the Ladies' PGA established the Patty Berg Award for outstanding contributions to women's golf, and in 1990 they awarded it to Patty Berg. She continued to appear occasionally in tournaments in later years, and conducted golf clinics as she toured the country for a manufacturer of sporting-goods. ■styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ " !I ╔ 5¬ ╩ !I z !I ▐ ö !I ( 5¬ ) !I o 5¬ p !I link ` HYPR z ö
