Few women have teed it up in a men’s professional golf tournament on the highest stage. Two of the LPGA’s earliest stars paved the way in this department, and there have been a handful of notable starts since then.
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of females who have teed it up against the men (on any level, from state amateurs to mini tours).
Instead, these are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic interrupting competitive golf as we know it, add another name to this list, too: Maria Fassi. The LPGA rookie is about to test her game on the Moonlight Tour, a men’s mini-tour, this week.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Zaharias, one of the game’s great athletes, was instrumental in attracting early fanfare to the LPGA. Zaharias had the kind of game that allowed her to fit in on the PGA Tour, too, and in 1935, she played the Cascades Open. Zaharias missed the cut but it started an 11-year stint during which she teed it up a handful of times with the men (becoming the first woman to do so).
Zaharias missed the cut at the 1938 Los Angeles Open (now known as the Genesis Invitational), but she played the event again in 1945 and did one better, making the 36-hole cut but missing a second cut to play the final round. She also played the Tucson Open and the Phoenix Open that year and teed it up again at the 1946 Los Angeles Open.
Shirley Spork
Spork was also an important figure in the early years of the LPGA and is remembered as one of the tour’s founders. She competed regularly in the early years of the LPGA before transitioning into golf instruction. As a result of that work, she was inducted into the PGA of America Hall of Fame in 2019. Spork made her first and only foray into PGA Tour competition at the 1952 Northern California-Reno Open.
Annika Sorenstam
When Sorenstam accepted a sponsor exemption into the Bank of America Colonial in 2003, several PGA Tour players voiced objections. Vijay Singh was among the loudest, famously saying he would withdraw should he be paired with her (he was not). Sorenstam went on to miss the cut by four shots, but she has referenced that week as a highlight of her decorated career. It was her first and only PGA Tour start.
Suzy Whaley
As it turned out, 2003 was a big year for women making PGA Tour appearances. Whaley, who in 2018 would become the first female President of the PGA of America, teed it up at the 2003 Greater Hartford Open just a few weeks after Sorenstam’s experience. She fired rounds of 75-78 and missed the cut. Whaley had earned her spot in the tournament by winning the Connecticut Section PGA Championship the previous year.
Michelle Wie
The now-30-year-old Wie has the distinction of being the youngest woman ever to compete in a PGA Tour event. She was only 14 years old when she played the 2004 Sony Open. A second-round 68 helped her get within a stroke of making the cut. Ultimately, that was a feat that Wie would never pull off despite playing seven more PGA Tour events – on sponsor exemptions – from 2004 to 2008.
Brittany Lincicome
Playing in a men’s field wasn’t a totally foreign concept to Lincicome, a Florida native who has been known to use men’s mini-tour events as a tune-up for the LPGA season. In 2018, Lincicome played the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship and attempted to become the first woman since Zaharias to make a PGA Tour cut. She was behind the eight-ball early after an opening 78 and her second-round 71 sent her home early.
Pernilla Lindberg
It wasn’t a PGA Tour start, but the latest LPGA player to turn heads by teeing it up in a men’s field was another major winner, Pernilla Lindberg. The Swede became the first female to play the New Zealand Golf Open in February in the event’s 101-year history. She played on a sponsor exemption, but missed the cut.
