With 88 victories on a professional tour, Kathy Whitworth sets the standard. Now the US golfer died suddenly on Christmas Eve. She was 83 years old.
Golfer Kathy Whitworth, record winner on the women’s professional tour, died on Saturday at the age of 83. This was reported by several US media and the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tournament series, citing Whitworth’s partner Bettye Odle. A cause of death was not given.
She died suddenly on Christmas Eve at a party with friends and family, it said. “Kathy left this world the way she lived her life – loving, laughing and making memories,” Odle said in a public statement.
With 88 wins in nearly a quarter of a century, Whitworth has the most by any player on a single professional tour, the Associated Press reported. So far, no man has reached this mark. Tiger Woods is the only active golfer within their reach with 82 wins. Whitworth was also the first woman to surpass $1 million in prize money on the LPGA tour. That was in 1981. Overall, she earned more than $1.7 million in her career.
Whitworth won her first title in 1962 and her last in 1985. She won six majors in her career. Whitworth was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982.
Whitworth was born in Monahan, a small town in West Texas, in 1939 and learned to play golf in New Mexico. She turned pro at age 19. “I don’t think about the legacy of 88 tournaments,” she once said. “I did it because I wanted to win, not to set a record or achieve a goal that no one else can surpass. I’m not a big exception.”