Tour Victories:
Major Championships:
• U.S. Women's Open: 1975
• Titleholders: 1972
Awards and Honors:
• LPGA money leader, 1975
• Member, Texas Golf Hall of Fame
• Member, National Collegiate Hall of Fame
Trivia:
Sandra Palmer Biography:
Palmer was a four-time winner of the West Texas Amateur, and won the Texas State Amateur in 1963. She played collegiately at North Texas State University, and was runner-up at the 1961 National Collegiate Championship.
Palmer graduated in 1964, turned pro and joined the LPGA Tour that year. The next 14 years were evenly divided between famine and feast: Palmer went seven years without a win, then won at least once in each of the following seven years.
Her first LPGA Tour victories came in 1971, and there were two of them. The next year she claimed the Titleholders Championship, which was one of the tour's majors at that time.
Palmer won four times in 1973 and three times in 1976, but it was in 1975 that she earned Player of the Year accolades. That year she won twice, but they were big wins: the U.S. Women's Open, plus the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner's Circle (the Dinah Shore, later known as the Nabisco, was not yet a major, but it was one of the most important tournaments on the circuit). Palmer also led the tour in earnings in '75.
Palmer nearly repeated as U.S. Women's Open champ in 1976, but fell to JoAnne Carner in an 18-hole playoff.
Palmer finished in the Top 10 on the money list every year from 1968 through 1977. Her final LPGA Tour victory was in 1986, and her last tournament appearance in 1997. She also won the Sprint Senior Challenge, an unofficial tour event, from 1991 through 1995.
Palmer was a founding member of the Women's Senior Golf Tour, now known as the Legends Tour. She now teaches golf and is highly respected as an instructor.
