Western Women

In 1932, lanky, lantern-jawed Mildred ("Babe") Didrikson, then famed only as a basketball player, proved at the Olympic Games that she was the world's best woman track athlete. In 1934, she learned baseball well enough to pitch in exhibition games for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Athletics. She took up golf, became good enough by last spring to win the Texas Women's championship, to have the U. S. Golf Association declare her no amateur. Said she at the time: "I have decided to become a 'business woman' golfer, following the example of such outstanding golf stars as Joyce Wethered and Helen Hicks. Good golf is not a male monopoly. My own case proves it. Two years ago I took up golf for the first time. I placed myself in the hands of competent professionals and I find myself shooting consistently in the 70's. . . . I'm the happiest girl in the world today and I'm going to work my head off playing." Last week, in Chicago, Babe Didrikson, 22, made her first appearance as a professional golfer in the Western Open Championship for Women, attracted a large gallery who hoped that she and onetime Amateur Champion Helen Hicks would meet in the final.

Against Josephine Souchek, 17-year-old daughter of a Chicago truck farmer, Miss Didrikson had a narrow escape in the quarterfinals, managed to win on the 19th hole. Next day, while Helen Hicks was losing to Mrs. Opal Hill of Kansas City, who later won the tournament, Babe Didrikson was beaten by able Elaine Rosenthal Reinhardt of Winnetka, Ill., runner-up at 15 for the National Amateur Championship of 1914. Experts agreed that Babe Didrikson can already outdrive any other woman golfer, that she would need another year of practice before her short game and putting are as good.

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