R.I.P. Louise Suggs

One of the LPGA's founders and earliest stars who also became known for her name brand club lines, has died at 91.

Frank Litsky's NY Times remembrance of the 11-time major winner.

Suggs won 58 pro tournaments, including 50 on the tour. Her 11 major titles included the 1949 United States Women’s Open, which she won by 14 strokes, the most one-sided victory on the tour until Laura Davies won a tournament by 16 strokes in 1995. Suggs won every season of her professional career and in 1957, at the L.P.G.A. Championship, became the first player on the tour to capture the career Grand Slam, winning all of the tour’s major events. The L.P.G.A. Tour’s rookie of the year award is named after Suggs.

Doug Ferguson with the Associated Press obituary.

Her efficient, powerful swing marked her for greatness as a teenager in Georgia. She began to get national acclaim when she won the 1947 U.S. Women's Amateur, the 1948 Women's British Amateur and the 1949 U.S. Women's Open, beating fierce rival Babe Zaharias by 14 shots.

Ben Hogan once said after watching Suggs swing that her swing "combines all the desirable elements of efficiency, timing and coordination."

The LPGA posted this remembrance video:

Golfweek posted this conversation with Suggs almost two years ago.

Update on 2015-08-09 07:01 by Geoff

**David Shefter with a USGA.org remembrance of Suggs, including this:

Suggs owns U.S. Women’s Open records for the most top-five finishes (14) and most top-10 finishes (19). Besides her two victories, she finished second five times, a mark she shares with JoAnne Gunderson Carner. Her 11 major championship wins are third all-time behind contemporaries Berg (15) and Mickey Wright (13), and one ahead of Zaharias and Annika Sorenstam.

From 1950-62, Suggs managed to win at least one tournament, and she led the money list in 1960. She also proved she could compete against male professionals by winning a tournament on a par-3 course in Palm Beach, Fla., where the field included major champions Sam Snead, Lew Worsham, Dow Finsterwald and Tommy Armour, as well as leading female golfers of the era.

Ko Struggles To 75 After Taking Controversial Unplayable

Lydia Ko is donating her earnings in this week's Volunteers of America North Texas Shootout to earthquake relief for Nepal, so her opening 75 no doubt upset someone not used to posting big scores.

And the round came with a controversial drop, as Randall Mell explains.

Ko was 2 under par in her round when she hit her approach shot at the 14th hole long and left. She tried to hit a lob over a tree blocking her route to the green, but her ball caught up in a branch and never came down.

With Hamilton in the tree, Ko asked why they had to free the ball if they were going to take an unplayable.

“We have to identify it,” Hamilton told her.

Shortly after, LPGA rules official Brad Alexander arrived. He told Ko she could take an unplayable lie based on witness accounts of the ball going into the tree. She took a penalty stroke and a drop near the tree. If the ball had been declared lost, Ko would have been required to take a penalty and also return to where she struck the last shot. She would have had to drop and play from there.

Caddie Jason Hamilton's climbing effort, while noble, didn't quiet some grumbling on social media about the attempts to shake the ball loose and the unplayable lie verdict.

The LPGA rules staff held firm to their conclusion according to a statement to GolfChannel.com.

The officials involved in the ruling with Lydia Ko today on the 14th hole referenced Decision 27/12 to support their ruling. Due to the fact that it was roughly a 30-yard shot, the spectators were able to see Lydia’s ball from start to finish and therefore provided indisputable evidence that the ball in the tree was indeed Lydia’s ball. Therefore the ball did not need to be identified as it was never lost. The USGA confirmed that in a situation where observers indisputably saw the player’s ball in motion come to rest in a specific location at which the ball remains visible, the ball has been identified as the player’s ball. Thus, since the ball in the tree was deemed as Lydia's ball, she was then able to proceed under Rule 28 – Ball Unplayable.

Here is the entire sequence: