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“I hardly knew anything about professional golf when I started playing. There was no LPGA when I started at 17 years old.” Betsy Rawls went out one day to play golf with her father in Arlington, Texas, and fell in love with the game, even though there were no female stars to read about in the newspaper or watch from the gallery. World War II had just ended, and the names of Patty Berg and Babe Zaharias predominated in women’s golf circles. Four years after picking up her first club, Rawls won the 1949 Texas Amateur and in 1950 finished second behind Babe Zaharias in the Women’s Open, as an amateur. Enthralled by the game, the future Hall of Famer nonetheless began college at the University of Texas, majoring in math and physics and graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Once the LPGA Tour was underway, Rawls continued to win. “The competitiveness was always there, even though I didn’t play on a college team,” she commented. “I played a number of amateur events as much as possible, and then on the tour, I won right away. Maybe it’s because when you take up a sport later, you progress at it skill-wise a bit faster. Mentally I was very disciplined, very focused.” Majoring in math played a part in her approach to golf, but she credits other mental skills. “I was very analytical, and I’m not sure that’s the best way to play golf. Much of golf is by feel and what works best. Being able to concentrate and focus intently is half the battle, particularly in putting. Concentration is what helps you sink that 3-foot putt- analysis doesn’t help!” Often described as a wizard around the greens, Rawls says emphatically that she studied her short game the least. “I was good with a wedge, getting it down in two, playing from difficult spots around the green. It was all imagination and feel- I could trust my muscles to do it.” Few golfers would attempt this shot, but Rawls pulled it off to the astonishment of the gallery at a Women’s Western Open in Seattle. “It was the last round and I was tied for the lead. I hit a ball that landed near the green between the roots of a tree. I couldn’t take a backswing and get it anywhere near the green, so I turned around and hit it into the tree, banking it over my head and onto the green. I finished with a one putt for par. For years, people came up to me to tell me they saw that shot.” Unlike today’s professionals, LPGA players of Rawls’ era paid little attention to equipment specifics, and usually they accepted gratefully a sponsor’s gift of clubs. “I served on the Wilson Sporting Goods staff and every year they sent me a new set of clubs. I had no idea what the swing weights were or the shaft flexibility. I played with what I had!” Putting was one aspect of her game that Rawls never tinkered with. She had supreme confidence in her putting. “I could focus on the back of the ball and the line toward the hole at the same time. I had a putter called the ‘Velvet Touch’, a blade putter, and then I played with Ping putters when they came out.” For just $3.00, Betsy Rawls learned there was more to golf than analyzing the swing. She paid her money to Harvey Penick the first day, and she would never pay for another lesson. And like many of her colleagues, Rawls has nothing but praise for the esteemed Austin native who collected his golf teachings and published them in his Little Red Book.“He taught each of us (Kathy Whitworth, Sandra Palmer, Betty Hicks) differently and didn’t try to make all of us swing the same way. He always wanted to know how I was ‘missing the ball’. Harvey knew that each of us had our own tendencies in how our swings went wrong. I would go back each time to see Harvey and he was able to fix the problem. He would always start with the grip, then the stance, and then the alignment, then on to the swing.” In 1954, Betsy took a trip to Austin to see Harvey, who applied one of his ‘aspirins’ to her swing by having her close her clubface just slightly. In the first round she played after the ‘fix’, at the St. Louis Open, Rawls ran away from the competition, shooting a 67, a rare occurrence during the LPGA tour at that time. She also won the tournament by a large margin. “We didn’t score in the 60’s very often for a number of reasons. One was the fact that we played longer yardages then, from the men’s tees. That meant that we usually hit fairway woods or long irons into greens. Courses weren’t in the great conditions that they are today. They weren’t manicured. And equipment was much different then too, not lightweight with modern metals.” When she joined the LPGA tour, Rawls was one of about 20 players participating in 20 tournaments. She served on the tournament committee that set up the courses and pairings, gave rulings, and did the bookkeeping. The rest of the year Rawls toured the country with Patty Berg and others, giving clinics for Wilson Sporting Goods. During her career, Rawls won 55 times, including eight majors, four of them US Women’s Open titles. Mickey Wright is the only other player to win the Open four times. Betsy was inducted into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame in 1967 as one of six inaugural inductees. “No one who turned professional at that time did it for money or endorsements or to be on television. It was purely for the sake of playing competitively and proving yourself. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the 25 years that I played.” Like many of her counterparts, Betsy Rawls had enormous respect and admiration for the showpiece of the LPGA Tour at the time, Babe Zaharias. Galleries adored the Babe, and when she was playing well, she entertained onlookers with tricks and witty commentary. According to Rawls, the Babe was responsible for the LPGA’s early survival, but she irritated and intimidated her fellow players with her bragging and showmanship. “She was not someone you would want to sit down and spend an evening with,” Rawls remarked. When retirement from the tour beckoned, Rawls decided to remain in the golf world by taking on the role of tournament director for the LPGA in 1975. In her role she continued to travel with the LPGA Tour for six years. For her it was the perfect transition to another career.“When you’re playing on tour, especially for golfers, you really don’t want to think about doing something else in life. You’re just so consumed with golf and nothing is as appealing as playing golf. I was very lucky to get this job. I got up on Monday morning and spent the week with the same people I had known on the tour. In my role I went to nearly every tournament and set up the courses, writing the rules and running the competitions.The hardest part? Listening to the complaints of the players! I was the person who set the pins and the tees. One player would come to me and moan about the unfair pin placement and ten minutes later, someone else would approach me and tell me how brilliantly the course was set up! I couldn’t please them all.” After six years of intensive travel with the LPGA, Betsy was wooed by the McDonald’s Championship tournament officials to chair their event, moved to the Philadelphia area, and spent the next 23 years as executive director of this major LPGA championship. She is still very much involved with the McDonald’s tournament, which is the Tour’s leading contributor to charity, but she now has time to play her favorite sport a few times a week. After 55 wins, it seems impossible that Betsy Rawls could single out one most meaningful victory, but she immediately chose her final major triumph, in 1969 in upstate New York at the LPGA Championship. “It was a magical week toward the end of my career. I played bogey-free golf all week, shooting a 71 in the final round, which was a very low score in those days. I didn’t know if I would ever win again, let alone take a major championship.” Once she found golf, the easy-going math and science major never returned to the academic world. “I feel so fortunate, and lucky, to be able to make my living in golf. Not once in 25 years did I wake up and say ‘I hate having to go to work this morning!’

Susan is a regular contributor to Tee Time Magazine and a freelance writer. Besides playing golf, she enjoys writing about it. She is a published author, with various interviews, feature stories, travel articles, and short fiction to her credit. Susan continues to pursue her dream of writing full time for a golf magazine and also to be able to hit her driver 200 yards, every time.