The great Mickey Wright dies aged 85

Mickey Wright’s who possessed one of the best swings in golf passed away on Monday at the age of 85. Wright was one of the greatest players on the LPGA amassing 82 LPGA titles over a 14-year professional career.

In many peoples opinion Wright is the greatest ever woman player. Only one player, Kathy Whitmore, has more LPGA titles with 88 and only Patty Berg won more major championship taking 15 versus Walker’s 13.

In 1963 the American from San Diego, California won an incredible 13 events on the LPGA which remains a tour record. The following year she won 11 times, a mark only equalled by the great Annika Sorenstam.

The list goes on with her winning the Vare Trophy (lowest scoring average) five years on the trot from 1960 to 1964 and is the only player to have won four consecutive major championships.

“She had the finest golf swing I ever saw,” Ben Hogan once said.

Wright was one of six inaugural inductees into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1976 and was arguably the Tiger Woods of the woman’s game in the 1960s. It was a regular occurrence for sponsors to threaten to cancel events if Wright did not play.

Various ailments, along with a fear of flying, brought Wright’s great career to a premature end in 1969. On retirement, she withdrew from the public eye and became somewhat of a recluse in her home in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

In 1999, the Associated Press named Wright the female golfer of the century and in 2011, the USGA honoured her with the opening of the Mickey Wright room in its museum, only the fourth player and first woman to have had a collection opened in her honour.

Mickey may no longer be with us but the memory of her and that beautiful swing will live on.