Berg, "Patty" (Patricia J.)
Golf
b. Feb. 13, 1918, Minneapolis, MN
"I'm very happy I gave up football, or I wouldn't be here tonight," Patty Berg said when she was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame. In her early teens, she quarterbacked an otherwise all-boys' neighborhood football team, the 50th Street Tigers. Her parents, deciding she was too old to be playing such games with boys, steered her into golf when she was fourteen.
A year later, she won the Minneapolis city championship and two years after that she was the state amateur champion. Berg won twenty-nine titles in seven years, including the 1938 U. S. Amateur, and was easily the most famous woman golfer in the country. She turned professional in 1940 and worked for Wilson Sporting Goods, which began to manufacture Patty Berg clubs. There was no women's professional tour at that time, just three or four tournaments a year, so she earned her money by giving clinics and exhibitions.
A serious auto accident late in 1941 sidelined her for eighteen months. After winning the 1943 Western Open and All-American at Tam O'Shanter, she joined the Marines. Returning to golf after the war, she won the 1946 U. S. Women's Open. More important for the future of women's golf, she became a founder and the first president of the Ladies' Professional Golf Association in 1948.
In the next eleven years, Berg won thirty-nine LPGA tournaments. She was the leading money winner in 1954, 1955, and 1957, and she won the Vare Trophy for the lowest average round in 1953, 1955, and 1956. The Associated Press named her woman athlete of the year in 1955 for the third time; the other awards came in 1938 and 1943.
Berg was a tireless goodwill ambassador for golf, giving thousands of exhibitions and clinics and training young professionals who signed contracts with Wilson. She was also active in charity work. She was given the 1976 Humanitarian Sports Award by the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation, the first woman so honored, and in 1979 the LPGA established the Patty Berg Award for outstanding contributions to women's golf.