Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956), American sportswoman who was one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, achieving particular success in basketball and track and field, though she is perhaps best known for her achievements in golf.
Mildred Didrikson Zaharias was born June 26, 1911, and earned her nickname "Babe" by hitting five homeruns in one childhood baseball game. At the age of 15, Babe was the high-scoring forward on the girls' basketball team at Beaumont Senior High School. She attracted the attention of Melvin J. McCombs, coach of one of the best girls' basketball teams in the nation. In February 1930, McCombs secured a job for her with the Employers Casualty Company of Dallas, and she was soon a star player on its Golden Cyclones. She returned to Beaumont in June to graduate with her high school class. The Golden Cyclones won the national championship the next three years, and she was All-American forward for two of those years.
Didrikson soon turned her attention to track and field. At the National Women's AAU Track Meet in 1931, she won first place in eight events and was second in a ninth. In 1932, with much more interest in the meet because of the approaching Olympics, she captured the championship, scoring 30 points; the Illinois Women's Athletic Club, which entered a team of 22 women, placed second with 22 points. Babe then went to the Olympics.
At the 1932 Olympics, she won medals in the hurdles, javelin throw and high jump. she won the javelin throw, with 143 feet, 4 inches, and won the 80-meter hurdles, twice breaking the previous world record. By the 1940s, she was the greatest woman golfer of all time. The Associated Press declared Babe Zaharias to be the "Woman Athlete of the Half Century" in 1950.
Didrikson began playing golf in 1931 or 1932. According to Gallico, in 1932, in her 11th game of golf, she drove 260 yards from the first tee and played the second nine in 43. She herself stated that she entered her first golf tournament in the fall of 1934. Although she did not win, she captured the qualifying round with a 77. In April 1935, in the Texas State Women's Championship, she carded a birdie on the par-5 31st hole, to win the tournament two-up. In 1947, Zaharias became the first American woman to win the British Ladies' Amateur Championship, at Gullane, Scotland.
Zaharias was the greatest woman golfer of all time, the winner of seventeen successive golf tournaments in 1946-1947, and of 82 tournaments between 1933 and 1953. The Associated Press voted her "Woman of the Year" in 1936, 1945, 1947, 1950, and 1954.