Laura Davies

Date of birth: Oct. 5, 1963
Place of birth: Coventry, England

20

4
• LPGA Championship: 1994, 1996
• U.S. Women's Open: 1987
• du Maurier Classic: 1996

• LPGA Player of the Year, 1996
• LPGA money leader, 1994
• Member, Europe Solheim Cup team, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011
• Member, Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup team, 1984
• Awarded M.B.E. (Member of the British Empire), 1988
• Awarded C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), 2000

• In 1997, Laura Davies won the Standard Register Ping for the fourth straight year, setting a record for most consecutive wins in one LPGA event. (The record was later broken by Annika Sorenstam at the Mizuno Classic.)

• In 2004 Davies set the LPGA single-season record with 19 eagles.

Laura Davies might have seemed like the second coming of JoAnne Carner when Davies played the 1987 U.S. Women's Open: A big woman with big drives. So maybe it was appropriate that Davies wound up in an 18-hole playoff along with Carner (and Ayako Okamoto).

And when Davies won that playoff, it was a victory that led the LPGA to amend its constitution. Davies wasn't even a member of the LPGA Tour at that point, so the LPGA changed is constitution to grant Davies automatic membership.

Davies began playing tournament golf at age 7. Her amateur career gained steam in the early 1980s, when she won several big regional and national events in the U.K. She also played in the 1984 Curtis Cup.

Davies turned pro in 1985 and led the Ladies European Tour in money in 1985 and '86. Then she showed up in America and walked off with the 1987 U.S. Women's Open.

Her rookie year on the LPGA was 1988, and she won twice that year. Her most productive stretch on the LPGA was 1994-96, when she won nine times and finished second nine times; and finished first, second and second, respectively, on the money list.

Davies was clearly one of the best female golfers in the world during this time, as she also won three more majors.

Davies never confined herself to the LPGA, playing often back home on the LET, and also in Asia and Australia. In addition to the 20 wins she has totaled on the LPGA Tour, Davies has more than 40 wins on the LET and a handful of wins on other tours, too.

She's even played on traditionally men's tours, competing in an Asian PGA Tour event in 2003, and a tournament cosponsored by the Australasian PGA and the European Tour in 2004.

Davies was never very consistent on the LPGA; she didn't rack up tons of Top 10 finishes. But when her putter got hot to go along with her booming drives, she became a threat to win. Her most recent victory on the LPGA was in 2001.

Davies has 25 points in the LPGA Hall of Fame's point-based qualification system. She needs two more points to gain membership in the Hall.