St. Louis, Missouri
2000
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Two-time Rolex Player of the Year (1976, 1977), three-time Vare Trophy recipient (1973, 1976, 1977)
2000
Judy Rankin was born and raised in St. Louis, Miss. After winning the Missouri Amateur at age 14 in 1959, she finished low amateur the following year at the U.S. Women’s Open. She went on to add another Missouri Amateur victory to her resume in 1961 as well.
In 1968, Rankin captured her first LPGA Tour victory at the Corpus Christi Open. From 1968-79, she would go on to win 25 more times, and currently ranks 23rd on the LPGA Tour’s All-Time Wins List. In 1973, she won four tournaments and recorded a total of 25 top-10 finishes, going on to earn her first of three Vare Trophies. In 1976, she was the first player to ever cross $100,000 in a season thanks to six victories and ended the year with her first Player of the Year honor of her career. Her last win came in 1979 at the WUI Classic, and her last full season on Tour was 1983, having amassed a total of two POTY awards and three Vare Trophies. Rankin also went on to captain the 1996 and 1998 victorious U.S. Solheim Cup teams.
Judy Rankin was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame under the Veteran’s Category (now dissolved) and the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. Her other honors include earning GWAA Female Player of the Year honors in 1976 and 1977, the LPGA Founders Award in 1998, the discontinued LPGA Patty Berg Award (1999), the USGA’s Bob Jones Award (2007) and most recently the LPGA Commissioner’s Award in 2021. From 1984 until 2018, Rankin was a golf commentator for ESPN and ABC and became the lead analyst on LPGA broadcasts on the Golf Channel starting in 2010.
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