10th

  • Born on this day in 1987, Anna Nordqvist from Sweden who plays on the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour. In only her fifth start on the LPGA Tour, she won her first professional tournament and major, the LPGA Championship in Maryland in June 2009. This led to her selection as a captain’s pick for the Solheim Cup. In November, she won the LPGA Tour Championship for her second victory of the season and was named Rookie of the Year on the LET and finished runner-up to Jiyai Shin for LPGA Rolex Rookie of the Year honors.At the Solheim Cup in 2013, Anna won her alternate shot match with Caroline Hedwall with a hole-in-one at the 17th hole, beating Morgan Pressel and Jessica Korda 2&1 during the Saturday morning session. This was the first hole-in-one in Solheim Cup history. At the end of May 2015, she won her fifth official championship on the LPGA Tour. She birdied the second-to-last hole and bogeyed the 54th hole to win by one stroke over Dutchwoman Christel Boeljon in Galloway, New Jersey, in 2016 she lost to Brittany Lang due to a rule violation, which wasn’t disclosed until the final hole. In September 2017, she won her second major, The Evian Championship in France, after overcoming American Brittany Altomare in a play-off in horrendous weather conditions. 

 

11th

  • American Miller Barber, Jr. died on this day in 2013 at the age of  82. Born on 31st March 1931 in Louisiana, he was raised by his mother and took up the game at age 11, his first golf bag was a cardboard tube coated with shellac. He earned money for lessons by preparing vegetables for troop trains passing through to the West Coast. After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1954, he spent four years in the Air Force, then turned professional four years later, and won his first PGA Tour event in 1964. He earned 11 career tour wins, but did not win a major championship. The closest he came was in 1969 at the US Open at Houston, where he held a three-shot lead over the field after three rounds, but shot 78 in the last round to finish three shots behind winner Orville Moody. Also in 1969, he entered the final round of the Masters Tournament two shots out of the lead and was paired in Sunday’s final group but shot a final round 74 to finish 7th. He played on the Ryder Cup team in 1969 and 1971 and in 1973, he won the longest regulation tournament in PGA Tour history. The World Open Golf Championship played at Pinehurst Country Club was a 144-hole affair, which he won by three strokes over Ben Crenshaw. He holds the record for combined PGA Tour and Champions Tour starts at 1,297. 

12th

Much to my chagrin i cannot find any golfer who was born or did on this day in bygone years.  But a little bit of research has come up with the fact the 12 June over the years has proved a very popular day for British clubs to hold their Ladies’s Day – so perhaps find a local club and pop along to watch.

 

 

13th

  • Dicky Thompson, born on this day in 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA played on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour.  He joined the Nationwide Tour in 1990. He won the Ben Hogan Baton Rouge Open and the Ben Hogan Elizabethtown Open en route to an 8th-place finish on the money list which earned him his PGA Tour card for 1991. He did not perform well enough on his rookie year on Tour to retain his card but got his Tour card for 1992 through qualifying school. After another poor year on the PGA Tour, he took a hiatus until earning his PGA Tour card for 1995 through qualifying school. Again he did not do well enough to retain his card but did record his best finish on the PGA Tour of his career, finishing in a tie for fourth at the Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic. He took another hiatus from the Tour and rejoined the Nationwide Tour in 1999 where he recorded five top-10 finishes. He played on the Nationwide Tour again in 2000, his last season on the Tour. He played on the NGA Hooters Tour in 1989, 1994 and from 1996 to 1999, winning six tournaments during that time.

14th

  • Another American player, Frederick Funk born today in 1956 played on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. Born in Takoma Park, Maryland, Fred tried several sports, and even boxed for eight years for a junior boys club and played on the golf team at High Point High School, Maryland. He attended the  University of Maryland, College Park, but was cut from the golf team in 1975. He transferred to Prince George’s Community College, then returned to UM two years later to earn a top spot with the Terrapins golf team.  At the time he also held a job as a circulation supervisor for the Washington Star. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1980 with a degree in law enforcement. He turned professional in 1981, but worked as a golf coach at UM from 1982 to 1988.  He has had 29 Tour wins to date including a tie for 17th place in the 1887 Masters, 6th in the 2004 US Open and a tie for 4th at the PGA Championship in 2002.

15th

  • Born on this day in 1878, the first American woman and second overall, to win an Olympic event,  Margaret Ives Abbott, who won the women’s golf tournament [consisting of nine holes] with a score of 47, at the 1900 Games in Paris.  Born in Calcutta, her father died when Margaret was very young and the family immigrated to American where her mother took a job as the literary editor of The Chicago Herald, the family settled in Illinois, where Margaret began playing golf at the Chicago golf Club and soon began winning local championships, off a reported 2 handicap. In 1900 she travelled to France to study art, under Degas and Rodin and music, while there she learned of the Olympic golf event and derided to enter. Her mother. Mary, also played in the tournament, finishing in either 7th or 8th place, which represents the  only time in Olympic history that a mother and daughter have competed in the same sport in the same event at the same Olympics. The ironic thing was that she would never know she was the first American woman to become an Olympic champion. Margaret, who passed away at age 78 on 10th June 1955, approached the Olympic competition thinking it was just another tournament, but later research established that the event was on the official Olympic programme.  Even at her death her children had no idea that their mother was an Olympic Champion, until they were contacted by a researched from the University of Florida, who had done some ‘detective’ work!  The Rio 2016 Olympic Games were the first time golf was included in the Olympic program since 1904 and the first time the women’s individual golf event was contested since Margaret won it in 1900. While in Paris she met Finley Peter Dunne, later a noted American humorist, the pair were married in 1902 and lived in New York for many years. Margaret won the 1902 Femina Cup in Paris, which was the forerunner of the French Women’s Championships, which started in 1908.

16th

  • English professional Thomas Horton,  was born on this day in 1941 in St Helens on Merseyside but was brought up on the island of Jersey.  He was an assistant at Ham Manor Golf Club near Worthing, Sussex from 1959, later becoming the professional there. In 1974 he moved to Royal Jersey Golf Club.  He celebrated 25 years there as professional before his retirement in 1999.  He finished in the top ten of the Open Championship four times, won a number of important tournaments both before and after the founding of the European Tour in 1972 and played in the Ryder Cup in 1975 and 1977. He reached 50 just before the founding of the European Seniors Tour and won 23 times on the tour between 1992 and 2000.  In the 2000 New Year Honours, he was awarded an MBE for services to golf, and he was made an honorary life member of the European Tour in 2012.  He was taken ill at the AGM of the Royal Jersey Golf Club on 7thDecember 2017 and died later that evening in hospital, he was 76 years old at his death.