Golf: Might Makes Wright

Most golfers would be flattered to be mentioned in the same breath with Arnold Palmer. But not Mickey Wright. "Bah," she snorts, when people call her "the Arnold Palmer of women's golf." "Palmer and I don't have a thing in common. I have a classic swing. His is all wrong. He's just lucky he's strong as an ox."

Big words for a woman. But at 5 ft. 9 in. and 145 lbs., Mary Kathryn Wright, 28, is a big woman—and the best lady golfer in the world. After eight years as a pro, Mickey has won the U.S. Women's Open three times, the Ladies' P.O.A. three times, the Titleholders (female equivalent of the Masters) twice, and 45 pro tournaments in all—more than Arnie Palmer and Jack Nicklaus combined. She has been the leading money winner among lady pros for two years in a row ($22,236 in 1961; $21,642 in 1962), and her total winnings amount to $127,000. By last week, she had entered ten 1963 tournaments, won six of them, placed second in two others, and put $11,132 in the bank.

Those Foolish Fellows. What makes Mickey so good? Might, mainly. Most lady pros are plunk-plunk, soft, accurate hitters. Mickey is strictly wham-wham, the longest driver in the ladies' game today, perhaps the longest ever. "She hits the ball farther than Babe Zaharias ever did," says Veteran Pro Louise Suggs, "and she gets her distance entirely in the air. Babe got hers entirely on the roll." Mickey averages 225 yds. off the tee, often gets the ball out 270 yds.: with the help of a 40-m.p.h. wind in the Dallas Civitan Open in 1960, she actually overdrove the green on a 385-yd. hole. "I can outhit many men—much to their embarrassment," says Mickey gaily. "They think they are pitting their masculinity against my femininity, their strength against mine. That's foolish. They aren't competing with my strength; they're competing with the efficiency of my swing."

The daughter of a San Diego attorney, Mickey Wright began batting balls around a driving range at nine, played her first real round of golf at eleven. Within a year she was breaking 100. "The kids at school called me 'Moose,' " she says. "I had a terrible inferiority complex. I needed something to show my prowess. Golf was it." Mickey stopped feeling inferior at 15, when she shot a 70 in a San Diego tournament. In 1954 her father staked her to a summer on the pro tour—as an amateur. Mickey was low amateur at the Tarn O'Shanter, the St. Petersburg Open and the U.S. Open and was runner-up in the U.S. Amateur. She changed her amateur standing on the spot.

That Tournament Trail. Today, blonde, blue-eyed Mickey Wright is the woman to beat in every tournament she plays. "It's a case of if I win, well, I was supposed to. If I don't, it's 'What's the matter with Mickey Wright?' " A determined career girl with few thoughts of marriage, she logs 35,000 miles a year in an air-conditioned Oldsmobile Starfire (supplied free by General Motors) that is practically a closet on wheels. Her traveling wardrobe: seven cocktail dresses, 20 blouses, 30 pairs of Bermuda shorts, 20 sweaters, eleven pairs of shoes.