 |
 The Golf Swing of LPGA Great Mickey WrightPerhaps the greatest player in LPGA history, Wright joined the LPGA Tour in 1955 and scored 82 victories in her amazing 26-year career. 
Wright's 14-year win streak from 1956 to 1969 is bettered only by the 17-year record of Kathy Whitworth. Wright won the 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1964 U.S. Women's Open Championships and shares the record of four titles with Betsy Rawls. In the 10-year span from 1959-1968, Wright captured 79 of her 82 victories, averaging an incredible 7.9 victories per year over that span. In 1961, Wright won three of the four LPGA majors the U.S. Women's Open, LPGA Championship and the Titleholders Championship. She is the only woman in LPGA history to have won the LPGA Championship four times (1958, '60, '61, '63). Her 13 victories in 1963 (of 32 Tour events, 40.6%) is a record that probably never will be touched. Wright stopped playing regularly on Tour in 1969. In 1979, she participated in the Coca Cola Classic to enter a five-way playoff eventually won by Nancy Lopez. She wore sneakers throughout the event and shot 70-74-72 to finish second. In 1994, she finished second in the Sprint Senior Challenge which earned her $30,000 -- the biggest paycheck of her career. She was voted as the Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year in 1963 and 1964. Wright was the 1994 Honoree of the Memorial Tournament, a PGA Tour event founded by Jack Nicklaus. She was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1964 and the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1976. |