Betsy Rawls

Betsy Rawls
Personal information
Full name	Elizabeth Earle Rawls
Nickname	Betsy
Born	(1928-05-04)May 4, 1928 Spartanburg, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	October 21, 2023(2023-10-21) (aged 95) Lewes, Delaware, U.S.
Sporting nationality	United States
Career
College	University of Texas
Turned professional	1951
Former tour(s)	LPGA Tour (joined 1951)
Professional wins	58
Number of wins by tour
LPGA Tour	55
Other	3
Best results in LPGA major championships (wins: 8)
Western Open	Won: 1952, 1959
Titleholders C'ship	2nd: 1952, 1953, 1959
Women's PGA C'ship	Won: 1959, 1969
U.S. Women's Open	Won: 1951, 1953, 1957, 1960
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame 1960 (member page) LPGA Tour Money Winner 1952, 1959 LPGA Vare Trophy 1959 Patty Berg Award 1980 Bob Jones Award 1996 LPGA 50th Anniversary Commissioner's Award 2000

Elizabeth Earle Rawls (May 4, 1928 – October 21, 2023) was an American professional golfer who played on LPGA Tour. She won eight major championships and 55 LPGA Tour career events. She was a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Early life and education

Rawls was the daughter of Robert Miller and Mary Earle Rawls. She was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and moved to Arlington, Texas, in 1940. She went on to graduate from Lovelady High School and enrolled in North Texas Agricultural College (now UT-Arlington) in 1946 as a physics major. As a freshman, she was recognized by faculty and department heads as a "Who's Who" in Physics, and was selected for the Phi Kappa Theta honor society.^[1] The following year Rawls transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated from with a degree in physics in 1950.^[1]

Amateur career

Rawls started playing golf at age 17. She won the Texas Amateur in 1949 and 1950. She also won the 1949 Trans-National and the 1950 Broadmoor Invitational. In 1950, she finished second at the U.S. Women's Open as an amateur.^[2]

Professional career

Rawls turned professional in 1951 and joined the LPGA Tour. She won her first tournament that year at the Sacramento Women's Invitational Open. She would go on to win a total of 55 events on the LPGA Tour, including eight major championships.^[3] In 1959, she earned the LPGA Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average. She was the tour's leading money winner in 1952 and 1959 and finished in the top ten on the money list a total of nine times. She led the tour in wins three times, 1952 with eight, 1957 with five (tied with Patty Berg), and 1959 with ten.

Rawls was the LPGA's president from 1961 to 1962. In 1967, when the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame was created, she was one of the six inaugural inductees. The LPGA recognized her induction year into the Hall of Fame of Women's Golf, 1960, as her official induction year into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame and the World Golf Hall of Fame. Following her retirement from tournament play in 1975, she became a tournament director for the LPGA Tour.^[4] From 1987 until 2004, she was the tournament director for the McDonald's LPGA Championship at the DuPont Country Club.^[3] In 1996, she was voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.^[2]

Death

Rawls died in Lewes, Delaware, on October 21, 2023, at the age of 95.^[5][6]

Professional wins

LPGA Tour wins (55)

• 1951 (2) Sacramento Women's Invitational Open, U.S. Women's Open
• 1952 (8) Houston Weathervane, Bakersfield Open (tied with Marlene Hagge, Betty Jameson and Babe Zaharias), Seattle Weathervane, Cross Country 144 Hole Weathervane, Eastern Open, Women's Western Open, Carrollton Open, Thomasville Open
• 1953 (4) Barbara Romack Open, Eastern Open, U.S. Women's Open, Fort Worth Open
• 1954 (3) Tampa Women's Open, St. Louis Open, Texas Open
• 1955 (1) Carrollton Open
• 1956 (3) Tampa Open, Sarasota Open, Peach Blossom Open
• 1957 (5) Tampa Open, Lake Worth Open, Peach Blossom Open, U.S. Women's Open, Reno Open
• 1958 (2) Tampa Open, St. Petersburg Open
• 1959 (10) Lake Worth Open, Royal Crown Open, Babe Zaharias Open, Land of the Sky Open, Triangle Round Robin, LPGA Championship, Mt. Prospect Open, Women's Western Open, Waterloo Open, Opie Turner Open
• 1960 (4) Babe Zaharias Open, Cosmopolitan Open, U.S. Women's Open, Asheville Open
• 1961 (2) Cosmopolitan Open, Bill Brannin's Swing Parade
• 1962 (1) J.E. McAuliffe Memorial
• 1963 (1) Sunshine Women's Open
• 1964 (2) Dallas Civitan Open Invitational, Valhalla Open
• 1965 (2) Pensacola Invitational, Waterloo Open
• 1968 (1) Mickey Wright Invitational
• 1969 (1) LPGA Championship
• 1970 (2) Dallas Civitan Open, Cincinnati Open
• 1972 (1) GAC Classic

LPGA majors are shown in bold.

Other wins (3)

• 1951 Hollywood Four-Ball (with Betty Dodd)
• 1954 Inverness Four-Ball (with Betty MacKinnon)
• 1962 Babe Zaharias Open (tie with Kathy Cornelius)

Major championships

Wins (8)

Year	Championship	Winning score	Margin	Runner(s)-up
1951	U.S. Women's Open	+5 (73-71-74-75=293)	5 strokes	Louise Suggs
1952	Women's Western Open	1 up		Betty Jameson
1953	U.S. Women's Open	+6 (75-78-74-75=302)	Playoff1	Jackie Pung
1957	U.S. Women's Open	+7 (74-74-75-76=299)	6 strokes	Patty Berg
1959	LPGA Championship	+8 (76-68-69-75=288)	1 stroke	Patty Berg
1959	Women's Western Open	−1 (70-76-76-71=293)	6 strokes	JoAnne Gunderson (a), Patty Berg
1960	U.S. Women's Open	+4 (76-73-68-75=292)	1 stroke	Joyce Ziske
1969	LPGA Championship	+1 (71-72-79-71=293)	4 strokes	Susie Berning, Carol Mann

¹ In an 18-hole playoff, Rawls 70, Pung 77.

See also

• List of golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
• List of golfers with most LPGA major championship wins

References

External links

• Betsy Rawls at the LPGA Tour official site
• Betsy Rawls at golf.about.com at the Wayback Machine (archived April 15, 2008)