One of the greatest golfers in history was finally voted in to the PGA Hall of Fame in November, 2017. Who was this ‘Tiger Woods of ladies golf’?
While most people would answer this question with Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, or even Michelle Wie, they wouldn’t even be close.
The most dominant LPGA player in history was hands down Mickey Wright who’s career peaked in 1963-1964. Look at some eerie similarities between her and Tiger:
Both players grew up in Southern California. Both Woods and Wright won the National Junior Championship. Tiger won the U.S. Amateur while Mickey won the Women’s World Amateur. She lost in the finals of the 1952 U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Both golfers attended Stanford but left early to turn pro. Tiger Woods has 79 tour victories, topped by Mickey’s 82. He has 14 major wins, while she had 13. A little weird eh?
Tiger won 9 tour events in 2000 and 8 in two other years. Mickey won 13 events in 1963 and 11 more in 1964! And alas, both players had their careers cut short by pain.
What’s more is that Mickey Wright had one of the greatest golf swings in the history of the sport – man or woman. Both Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson proclaimed that she had the greatest golf swing they had ever seen.
Her flowing classic swing was also so powerful that she could outdrive many male pros. She would dominate the competition and the golf course like Tiger Woods did from 1997-2005. Watch:
Mickey Wright always urged golfers to use their feet and lift their heels while swinging.
She recently stated about today’s players in Golf Digest, “I watch the way players keep their feet planted, their backs perfectly straight and rigid with their lower bodies hardly moving at all, and just know they’re going to get hurt. They look overly “leveraged,” not the perfect word perhaps, but one all those angles bring to mind. It’s just the opposite of how I learned, which is the swing happening from the ground up.”
More video of Mickey Wright’s perfect golf swing: