1918-
Golfer

Young Athlete.

One of the leading woman golfers from the 1940s through the 1960s, Patty Berg developed professional women's golf in the United States. Berg grew up in Minneapolis and was athletic as a young girl, playing sandlot baseball and quarterback for a boys' football team. She placed third in a national "midget" ice skating race while in high school and was a track star at her high school. Berg began playing golf in 1932 and excelled under her father's teaching. Within a year she qualified to compete in the state championship tournament. In 1935 she won the first of three Minnesota state championships and reached the finals in the U.S. Women's National Amateur Tournament. At age seventeen Berg attracted national attention when she lost 3 and 2 that same year to the well-known Glenna Collet Vare. In 1937 Berg made it to the finals...