Eureka, South Dakota
2002
26
One
2000 LPGA Commissioner's Award
2002
South Dakota native Marlene Bauer Hagge was one of the original 13 LPGA Tour Founders along with her sister, Alice Bauer. She started playing at age 3 and by age 10 won the Long Beach City Boys Junior. At 13, she won six amateur championships, and became the youngest player ever to make the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open in 1947, a record that still holds to this day.
Hagge was the youngest ever member of the LPGA Tour at 16 years old. She won her first Tour event in 1952 at the Sarasota Open and would go on to win a total of 26 events. Her lone major championship came at the 1956 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Her final full season was 1996, when she competed in four tournaments and played one last event in 1997, finishing in the top 10 to place ninth in her final LPGA tournament appearance.
Hagge was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame under the Veteran’s Category (now dissolved) and the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002. Hagge is one of two founding members of the LPGA Tour still alive, along with Shirley Spork.
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