Marlene Hagge (née Bauer; born February 16, 1934) is an American former
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 ...
. She was one of the thirteen founders of the
LPGA
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 ...
in 1950. She won one
major championship and 26 LPGA Tour career events. She is a member of the
World Golf Hall of Fame.
Amateur career
Hagge was born in
Eureka, South Dakota and had a progressively successful amateur experience. She started playing golf at age 3. At age 10, she won the Long Beach City Boys Junior. At age 13, she won the Western and National Junior Championships, the Los Angeles Women's City Championship, the Palm Springs Women's Championship, Northern California Open and the Indio Women's Invitational. In 1947, at age 13, she became the youngest player to make the cut at the
U.S. Women's Open and finished eighth. In 1949, at the age of 15, she became the youngest athlete ever to be named
Associated Press Athlete of the Year, Golfer of the Year and Teenager of the Year, and she won the
U.S. Girls' Junior and the WWGA Junior titles.
Professional career
Hagge was the youngest of the thirteen women who founded the LPGA in 1950, and remains the youngest ever member of the LPGA Tour. Her older sister,
Alice Bauer, was also a founder. She won her first tournament in 1952 at the
Sarasota Open
The Sarasota Open is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor green clay courts. It is currently part of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger Tour. From 2022, the event is held at the Payne Park Tennis Center in Sara ...
. She would go on to win a total of 26 events on the LPGA Tour, including one
major championships, the
1956 LPGA Championship
The 1956 LPGA Championship was the second LPGA Championship, held June 21–24 at Forest Lake Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb northwest of Detroit.
Marlene Hagge, age 22, won her only major title in a sudden death playoff o ...
. That year, she was also the tour's
leading money winner and led the tour in wins with eight. In 2002, was voted into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame through the Veteran's Category in and was officially inducted into the
World Golf Hall of Fame. Her final competitive appearance on the LPGA Tour came in 1996.
Hagge appeared on the June 18, 1961 episode of the
CBS game show ''
What's My Line''.
Personal
She married Bob Hagge, her sister Alice's ex-husband in late 1955. They divorced in 1964.
Hagge was married to former
PGA Tour golfer
Ernie Vossler from 1995 until his death on February 16, 2013. They lived in
La Quinta, California, where she remains.
['' Golf World'', March 2, 2009, p. 22]
Professional wins
LPGA Tour wins (26)
*
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
(2)
Sarasota Open
The Sarasota Open is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor green clay courts. It is currently part of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger Tour. From 2022, the event is held at the Payne Park Tennis Center in Sara ...
,
Bakersfield Open
The Bakersfield Open was a golf tournament on the Nike Tour. It ran from 1990 to 1993, and was played in Bakersfield, California. In 1990 and 1991, it was played at Bakersfield Country Club. In 1992 and 1993, it was played at Seven Oaks Countr ...
(tied with
Betty Jameson
Elizabeth May Jameson (May 9, 1919 – February 7, 2009) was an American professional golfer. She was one of the thirteen founders of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) in 1950. She won three major championships and a total of thi ...
,
Betsy Rawls and
Babe Zaharias
Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (; Didrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball and track and field. She won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Summer O ...
)
*
1954
Events
January
* January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany.
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...
(1)
New Orleans Open
*
1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...
(8)
Sea Island Open The Sea Island Open was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1954 to 1963. It was played in Sea Island, Georgia at the Sea Island Golf Club from 1954 to 1957 and 1963 and at the Cloister Country Club from 1958 to 1962.
Winners
;Sea Island Women' ...
,
,
Pittsburgh Open,
Triangle Round Robin The Triangle Round Robin was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1953 to 1962. It was played at several different courses on the East Coast of the United States.
For its first nine years it was played using a "round robin" format, similar to t ...
,
LPGA Championship,
World Championship,
Denver Open
The Denver Open Invitational was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour that was played intermittently in the Denver, Colorado area from 1947 to 1963. Chi-Chi Rodríguez
Juan Antonio "Chi-Chi" Rodríguez (born October 23, 1935) is a Puerto Rican p ...
,
*
1957
1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...
(2)
,
*
1958
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...
(2)
Lake Worth Open Invitational,
*
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
(2)
Mayfair Open,
Hoosier Open
*
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...
(1)
*
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
(1)
Mickey Wright Invitational The Mickey Wright Invitational was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1961 to 1969. It was played at several different courses in the San Diego, California area. Tournament host and San Diego native, Mickey Wright, won the first three editions ...
*
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
(5)
,
Milwaukee Open,
Phoenix Thunderbirds Open,
LPGA Tall City Open The Tall City Open was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1964 to 1968. It was played in Midland, Texas
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States. A small part of Midland is in Martin County.
At th ...
,
Alamo Open
*
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
(1)
Stroh's-WBLY Open The Springfield Jaycee Open was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1969 to 1970. It was played at the Northwood Hills Country Club in Springfield, Ohio.
Winners
;Springfield Jaycee Open
*1970 Judy Rankin
Judy Rankin ( Torluemke; born Febr ...
*
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
(1)
Burdine's Invitational
Major championships
Wins (1)
1 Won on first hole of sudden-death playoff.
See also
*
List of golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagge, Marlene
American female golfers
LPGA Tour golfers
Winners of LPGA major golf championships
World Golf Hall of Fame inductees
Golfers from South Dakota
Golfers from California
People from Eureka, South Dakota
Sportspeople from Riverside County, California
People from La Quinta, California
1934 births
Living people
21st-century American women