Bonnie Bryant (born October 5, 1943) is an American

professional golfer A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation. A person who earns money by teaching or playing golf is traditionally considered a "golf pr ...

who played on the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekl ...

. She is the only player in LPGA Tour history to win a tournament

left-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

. Bryant was born in

Tulare, California Tulare ( ) is a city in Tulare County, California. The population was 68,875 at the 2020 census. It is located in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, eight miles south of Visalia and sixty miles north of Bakersfield. The city is named for th ...

. She did not take up golf until age 20, learning from

Vic Lombardi Victor Alvin Lombardi (September 20, 1922 – December 3, 1997) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB i ...

, a

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

for Brooklyn and Pittsburgh. Prior to taking up golf, she played five years of AAA- fast pitch softball. Bryant joined the LPGA Tour in 1971. She won once on the LPGA Tour. Her win came at the 1974 Bill Branch LPGA Classic in

Fort Myers, Florida Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...

. She shot a 7-under- par, 209 to claim the $5,700 first prize. She also lost to

Nancy Lopez Nancy Marie Lopez (born January 6, 1957) is an American former professional golfer. She became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1977 and won 48 LPGA Tour events, including three major championships. Amateur career Lopez won the New Mexico Women's ...

in a five-way sudden death playoff at the 1979

Coca-Cola Classic Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

.Lopez does Wright
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Professional wins (1)

LPGA Tour wins (1)

LPGA Tour playoff record (0–1)

References

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Notes

External links

* American female golfers LPGA Tour golfers Golfers from California Left-handed golfers People from Tulare, California 1943 births Living people {{US-golf-bio-stub