Former LPGA golfer and native Texan Kathy Whitworth has died at the age of 83.
Her longtime partner, Bettye Odle, announced the news on Christmas Eve while celebrating the holiday with loved ones.
“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life, loving, laughing, and creating memories,” Odle said in a joint statement with the LPGA.
LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan added, “Kathy was a champion in the truest sense of the word, both on the golf course and off. In the short time I spent with Kathy, I was truly blown away by her and her approach to the game and to life … She inspired me as a young girl and now as the commissioner, and I know she did the same for so many others.”
Whitworth had the most wins of anyone, man or woman, participating in professional golf tours, winning 88 tournaments between 1962 and 1985, and becoming the first female golfer to earn $1 million in her career.
She picked up golf in 1955 and won the New Mexico Amateur women’s golf tournament just two years later and repeated as champion the following year.
Whitworth turned pro in 1958, but it took her years to win her first professional tournament — the 1962 Kelly Girls Open. She went on to win six majors in her career and broke the record for most tour wins in 1982.
She reached the $1 million earnings threshold in 1981 and notched her final victory in 1985.
“I did it because I wanted to win, not to set a record or a goal that no one else could surpass,” Whitworth once remarked while reflecting on her career. “I’m not some great oddity. I was just fortunate to be so successful. What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person.”
A two-time AP Female Athlete of the Year and seven-time LPGA Player of the Year, Whitworth was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982.
She remains the winningest golfer, with six more wins than Mickey Wright, Sam Snead, and Tiger Woods.