Pat Bradley

Born: March 24, 1951, in Westford, Mass.

31

6
• Kraft Nabisco Championship: 1986
• LPGA Championship: 1986
• du Maurier Classic: 1980, 1985, 1986
• U.S. Women's Open: 1981

• Member, World Golf Hall of Fame
• Vare Trophy (low scoring average), 1986, 1991
• LPGA Player of the Year Award, 1986, 1991
• Member, U.S. Solheim Cup team, 1990, 1992, 1996
• Captain, U.S. Solheim Cup team, 2000
• Recipient, Patty Berg Award, 2001

Pat Bradley: "Commitment was the key. You can have success, failure, setback and defeat, and rise above it."

• Pat Bradley is the only player to win three of the four modern-day LPGA majors in a single season, doing so in 1986.

• Bradley was the first LPGA player to cross the $2 million, $3 million and $4 million milestones in career earnings.

There's a cowbell in the World Golf Hall of Fame, and Pat Bradley is the reason why. When Bradley won her first LPGA Tour event in 1976, her mother, back home in New England, stepped out on the family's back porch and celebrated by clanging a cowbell. And Mom did the same thing for every win Bradley had on the LPGA, 30 more of them. After each, the ringing of the bell commenced. When Bradley's career ended, the cowbell was retired, too, to its current home at the Hall of Fame.

Bradley picked up golf at age 11. She won the New Hampshire Amateur title in 1967 and '69, and the New England Amateur in 1972-73. She played collegiatedly at Florida International University, where she was All-American in 1970.

Bradley joined the LPGA Tour in 1974 and got her first win at the Girl Talk Classic in 1976 (she also finished second six times that year).

Her breakout year was 1978, when she won three times. Bradley's most fertile years came in the early to mid 1980s. She led the LPGA in wins in 1983 (4) and 1986 (5). Her first major came at the 1980 du Maurier Classic, then she added the 1981 U.S. Women's Open and 1985 du Maurier.

But 1986 is the year for which Bradley will forever be remembered. That year, she won three of the four LPGA majors - the du Maurier, Kraft Nabisco Championship, and LPGA Championship. She finished fifth in the U.S. Women's Open. She won the money title and scoring titles that year, as well.

In 1988, Bradley was diagnosed with Graves Disease. She played 17 tournaments, but made the cut in only eight. But she returned to form in 1989, winning once. Three more wins followed in 1990.

Her last big year was 1991, when Bradley won four times, and captured her second money and scoring titles, and also was named Player of the Year for a second time.

The last of her LPGA victories came in 1995. According to the World Golf Hall of Fame, "during her prime, Bradley competed in 627 tournaments, posting 312 top-10 finishes, with 208 of those in the top five."