Patty Sheehan was my favorite female golfer growing up, and it wasn’t even close. Somewhere in a box of childhood treasures I still have the autograph she signed for me at the LPGA’s JAL Big Apple Classic but I don’t need it handy to remember the way it made me feel when she smiled and thanked me for coming out and told me to keep swinging.
Like Payne Stewart, she wore knickers, played with a swagger that let you know she would kill to get her hands on that week’s trophy and boy, could she putt. Sheehan, 67, won six majors and 35 LPGA tournaments during a Hall of Fame career.
Thirty years ago, she won the second of her two U.S. Women’s Open titles, which might be all the proof required that she was a gritty competitor. I might be a tad biased as a longtime member of her fan club but she’s become the Rodney Dangerfield of the women’s game – like the comedian before her, she gets no respect.
For whatever reason, the stars of her era – fellow Hall of Fame members Betsy King, Beth Daniel, Pat Bradley, Amy Alcott among them – don’t get the love they deserve perhaps because their career win totals are so similar, or maybe due to limited media coverage, or the fact that Nancy Lopez was America’s sweetheart. (Lopez did win 13 more times than Sheehan but her three majors are half of Sheehan’s six.)
Regardless, Sheehan doesn’t seem to be losing much sleep over it; indeed, I sensed she prefers being under the radar. She knows she had her days in the sun and how great she was and that’s all that matters to her. One of the most telling answers in this wide-ranging Q&A happened to be at the end when she was asked what she’s most proud of from her career.
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It wasn’t her U.S. Women’s Open titles, although she’s quite proud of them, but rather the people she met along the way, the friendships she made in the game that left the largest impression. Patty Sheehan left a big impression on me, too.