She won two gold medals and a silver in track and field at the 1932 Summer Olympics before turning to professional golf and winning 10 LPGA major championships.

Mildred Ella Didrikson was born on June 26, 1911,[3] the sixth of seven children, in the coastal city of Port Arthur, Texas.

[6] Already famous as Babe Didrikson, she married George Zaharias (1908–1984), a professional wrestler, in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 23, 1938.

Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931,[9] Didrikson had first achieved wider attention as a track and field athlete.

Representing her company in the 1932 AAU Championships, she competed in eight out of ten events, winning five outright, and tying for first in a sixth.

Pickett and Stokes were later removed from the team, and replaced by white athletes who had qualified with slower times from the trials.

[13] Didrikson is the only track and field athlete, male or female, to win individual Olympic medals in separate running, throwing, and jumping events.

She was noted in the January 1933 press for playing (and badly losing) a multi-day straight pool match in New York City against famed female cueist Ruth McGinnis.

Shortly thereafter, she was denied amateur status and consequently, in January 1938, she competed in the Los Angeles Open, a PGA (Professional Golfers' Association) tournament.

No other woman competed against men in this tournament until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie, and Brittany Lincicome almost six decades later.

They were married eleven months later, and settled in Tampa, Florida, on the premises of a golf course that they purchased in 1949.

[citation needed] Charles McGrath of The New York Times wrote of Zaharias, "Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery.

[22] Unlike other female golfers competing in men's events, she got into the Los Angeles[23] and Tucson Opens through 36-hole qualifiers, as opposed to a sponsor's exemption.

[25] In March 1934, Didrikson pitched a total of four innings in three Major League spring training exhibition games: Didrikson also spent time with the House of David barnstorming team[29] and is still recognized as the world record holder for the farthest baseball throw by a woman.

[31] She was the leading money-winner again in 1951, and in 1952 took another major with a Titleholders victory, but illness prevented her from playing a full schedule in 1952–53.

According to Susan Cayleff's biography Babe, Dodd was quoted as saying, "I had such admiration for this fabulous person [Zaharias].

Cayleff wrote, "As Didrikson's marriage grew increasingly troubled, she spent more time with Dodd.

On September 27, 1956, Zaharias died of her illness at the age of forty-five at the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas.

[33] She was named the 10th Greatest North American Athlete of the 20th Century by ESPN, being the highest-ranked woman on their list.

Standing 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) tall and weighing 115 lb (52 kg),[40] Zaharias was physically strong and socially straightforward about her strength.

[43] In 1973, Zaharias, who had lived in the Denver area for most of the 1940s and early 1950s, became one of the three inductees in the inaugural class (joining Dave Hill and Babe Lind) of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

[49] It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.Williams' remark typified the attitude of some toward women who did not fit the traditional ideals of femininity current in the first half of the 20th century.

[4] Aside from her impact on the women and girls of her time, she impressed seasoned sportswriters also: She is beyond all belief until you see her perform...Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen.The Associated Press followed up its 1950 declaration fifty years later by voting Zaharias the Woman Athlete of the 20th Century in 1999.

In 2000, Sports Illustrated magazine also named her second on its list of the Greatest Female Athletes of All Time, behind the heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

The ideal in the 20s and 30s was Joyce Wethered, a willowy Englishwoman with a picture-book swing that produced elegant shots but not especially long ones.

Zaharias developed a grooved athletic swing reminiscent of Lee Trevino's, and she was so strong off the tee that a fellow Texan, the great golfer Byron Nelson, once said that he knew of only eight men who could outdrive her.

[40] In 2014, Zaharias was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people.

This par 71 features slope ratings ranging from 126 to 138, making the course worthy of the great athlete for which it is named.Note: This list is incomplete.