LPGA Founding Member Shirley Spork
Posted on May 21, 2019
The Ladies Professional Golf Association, LPGA, was established in 1950 by 13 founding members. Among them was Shirley Spork, a young golfer from Michigan. She later helped found the LPGA Teaching Division. Spork, now 92, remains active in golf and still provides golf lessons to a select few. The Professional Golfers Career College had the privilege of talking to Shirley Spork and discussed how the game has grown.
Shirley Spork was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She got started in golf when she was young, and her family moved next to Bonnie Brook Golf Course. “The kids in the neighborhood caddied and on Mondays they could play on the golf course free. They said if I had a golf club, I could play with them.” A young motivated Spork gathered golf balls that landed near her backyard and began selling them back to the golfers as they came by. Once she had enough money, she headed downtown to the dime-store to buy a club.
“There were tall ones and short ones, metal ones and wood ones. I pick one that had a number ten on it, it was short and straight.” When she proudly presented her new club to her caddie friends, she was met with laughter because her first club was a putter. “So, I started with a putter. I’m always saying I’m trying to get to the beginning, I started at the end and that’s why my book is called From Green to Tee.” Spork quickly took to the game and soon expanded her club collection to more than a putter. She competed throughout high school and was the 1943 Detroit City High School Golf Champion.
Spork went on to attend Michigan State Normal College, now known as Eastern University. “While I was in college, this was after World War II, they restarted the National Intercollegiate Tournament of Ohio State University and I got to go and compete in the tournament.” Spork shares. The focus at that time was more on intramural team sports and not individual sports, which forced her to pay her own way to go. “I won the National Championship, came back to Eastern Michigan and was not recognized for winning the national tournament.” She was honored by the men’s department; however, they couldn’t give her a letter, but they gave her a jacket with national intercollegiate honors. After waiting 67 years, Spork returned to her alma mater and was given her long overdue letter, she finally got her big E.
During the late 1940s there was little competition for amateurs on the national level. “To play in your state championship you had to belong to a private club,” Spork explains. “I didn’t belong to a club, but I played Publinx golf and they invited one person from the Publinx to play in the state championship.” That’s how she earned her entry into the Michigan State Amateur championship. “Which I won in 1949.”
While at a tournament in Wichita, Kansas, prolific golf business manager Fred Corcoran presented a charter for the women to sign to start the LPGA Tour. “There were 11 of us at the meeting and two others that signed the Charter in New York where it was consummated. We signed it in Wichita, Kansas in September of 1949 and the tour started in January of 1950.” Spork continues to discuss the beginnings of the LPGA Tour. “I played on the tour in the beginning in 1950. During the first five years of the tour I was teaching at the Tamarisk Country Club in Palm Desert, California in 1953.” Spork has seen the desert she calls home grow from having only two 18-hole golf courses to now having 120 golf facilities. During those early years of the tour “there were the big three which was the Babe (Babe Zaharias), Louise Suggs and Patty Berg, and there wasn’t much money out there to play for in those days. So I decided I would teach in the winter and try to play the tour in the summer, which I did for some time.”
On May 6, 1950, Shirley Spork made the move from an amateur golfer into a professional. “The Women’s Western Golf Association held a tournament each year called the Women’s Western Open.” When a tournament is listed as an Open, both amateurs and professionals may compete in the event. “It was held in Chicago and Babe Zaharias was the head pro at this golf course.” The tournament field included the women’s big three of Patty Berg, Louise Suggs and Babe Zaharias. Prior to the tournament starting Spork “…was registered to play as an amateur and I was sitting at breakfast with Babe and her husband George and Marilynn Smith. I was sitting across from the Babe and she said to me ‘listen kids why don’t you turn pro.’ I said, ‘well yeah I’d like to do that, how do I do that.’ She stood up from the table and came over and wacked me on the head and said ‘I deem you a pro. Go down there on the tee and tell them you’re a pro.'” So, Spork made the walk down to the head of the Women’s Western Golf Association, Mrs. Dennehy, and said “Excuse me, I’d like you to announce me as a pro today.” Mrs. Dennehy inquired if Spork’s mother was aware of what she was doing. Spork replied “no but she’ll know tonight when I call her. And that’s how I turned pro.”
Shirley Spork had a unique experience during her first professional tournament as the winds kicked up to nearly sixty miles an hour. She describes, “And if you kind of walk toward the green you hope it didn’t blow the ball off the green… I was playing with Marilynn Smith and Louise Suggs, and on one hole as I took the club back, I lost my balance and I whiffed the ball. So, Marilynn and I were just hysterical, we just laughed about it.” Out of the nine registered professionals playing in the tournament, only Louise Suggs broke eighty. “That was my first experience playing as a professional golfer and since that time, I’m now 92 years old, and I had the opportunity to travel all of our country, every state, I’ve traveled in Europe, I gave clinics for A.E. PENFOLD Golf Ball Company.” Her travels led to an early highlight of Spork’s career. “I was able to be the first woman ever admitted into the clubhouse of the Royal and Ancient in 1951, having just played an exhibition in there at St. Andrews. That was a very big thrill… I’ll always remember it.”
While golfing on the tour, Spork always carried her fishing rod and would often go fish in the different areas she travelled to relax. Another memory she has from playing on tour was “playing Pebble Beach for the first time was very exciting to me being from the Midwest.” As Spork approached the 18th hole, the ocean came into play. “I hit my drive in the water, but the tide was out, so I went out there and pitched it back onto the fairway. My third shot went in the bunker in front of the green and I holed the wedge shot out of the bunker to birdie the hole… That was an experience.”
Looking back at the begins of the LPGA Tour, Spork recalls how two donors played a large part in getting it off the ground. “We were very fortunate in our beginnings to have support from people that had charities and could contribute monies to start tournaments… On the East Coast we had Alvin Handmacher who started a tournament called the Weathervane, it was played North-South-East-West and you totaled the four tournament and you ended up in New York, where his offices were for the title. Patty Berg won the first Weathervane.” Along with Handmacher the tour was assisted, “On the West Coast we had Helen Lengfeld, a very wealthy woman whose charity was United Voluntary Services, and she set up four tournaments along the West Coast for us to play in.” The inaugural LPGA Tour season had a total of 15 events.
“It was because of those people that supported us to get us going. Along with that we had sponsors such as the Rotary Club who used us to make money for their foundation.” The first 30 to 40 years of the LPGA Tour, “we never owned a golf tournament. We only came and performed, and someone put up the price money for us to play for. Then we got in our car and travel down the road to the next tournament wherever it might be.” After the initial struggle to get the LPGA Tour going, it’s incredible for Spork to think how “today that we are entirely global, playing in over 20 countries and television and 13 countries overseas. Full bore… They are very stable we have two tours, we have not only the LPGA, but we have a Symetra Tour, which is our second tour.”
Many women nowadays coming out of college golf try to pursue their playing career on the Symetra tour. “From that point on they try to get forward into maybe going on the main tour or going into golf media.” Spork points out how many careers in the golf industry there are outside of playing. “There are lots of jobs in media, sales, design of clothing in the golf and sports world, being a sports announcer, a writer, there’s a lot of things you can do besides try to play on the tour and still be in the game.” Spork is very delighted looking back on her career and the growth of the game. “I’m very happy that I was part of the beginning.”
After the LPGA Tour was established, Shirley Spork spent years convincing them there needed to be a teaching division. In 1959, the LPGA Teaching Division was created, “I’m a founder of both the tour and the teaching division.” The initial hesitation too for the Teaching Division was the fear it would take players away from playing on the tour. “Today we do have 1,800 members in the teaching division. We have six sections including an international section of which there are 23 countries represented… To start the teacher division for six years I held a five-day national golf school for teachers. If you participated in the five days in order to be certified, you got a certificate that says that you had attended a five-day seminar.” To earn certification and approval “three people observed them, the individual, teaching three different subjects: an individual, a man, a woman, a junior, a low handicap, a beginner or whatever… that’s how we began to create our nucleus and today having 1,800 members is terrific.”
During Spork’s era there were four major golf manufacturers, Wilson, Spalding, McGregor and GolfCraft. She was part of the advisory staff for GolfCraft and gave exhibitions and clinics to boost women’s interest in golf. During a nine-hole exhibition match, Spork played a spectacular round, 7-under par, while grouped with Mr. Penfold. Mr. Penfold was the owner of A.E. PENFOLD golf balls which GolfCraft represented in the United States. Mr. Penfold was impressed with Sporks ability and asked her “would you like to come to England and Ireland and France and give clinics.” To which she excitedly said yes, being a young kid the opportunity to travel was huge. “I gave clinics and each time I gave a clinic on the 18th hole I would say ‘I thank you for inviting me here today. I hope you enjoyed your day and if you care to could you please throw some shillings, or whatever the money was, on the green for junior golf.’ That’s how I was promoting, starting to promote, junior golf as I travel.”
Shirley Spork has been involved in junior golf since 1951 and remains active to this day. “I’ve been involved with junior golf since 1951 when I went to PasaTiempo in the Monterey Bay Area working with, who became my mentor Joey Rey, who started the Monterey Bay Junior Golf Association… I progressed and became manager of three different golf facilities, I promoted Junior Golf at my area.” Along with junior golf, Spork has also been influential with the progression of women’s golf. “I have an endowment at Eastern Michigan for the women’s golf program… They have a Shirley Spork Tournament, they honor me in their league each season and over the past 20 years I’ve brought my endowment up to $100,000, so I’m really proud of that.”
At the Professional Golfers Career College, we’re focused on building the future leaders in the world of golf. Spork shares some insight into what makes a good leader. “Being a leader, you have to yourself understand individuals, that we’re all different and you have to nurture that quality they have… Personalities enter into if they’re going to like you as their leader or not.” Spork goes on to explain, “You have to become part of them, you have to be understanding of a situation and adjust. Be able to adjust and adapt to what’s going on at the moment.” She notes that you must be flexible with your lesson plans as situations change. “You have to be able to keep their interest and have fun with what they’re doing, encourage them to want to do something better and show them why it’s better.”
Shirley Spork has a unique way of presenting golf tips, which she calls Sporkisms. She shares a few, “a Sporkism is each shot must have a target to score the ball. You go from A to B to C. You don’t look at a hole and just hit it and that’s what most people do.” Another one “is less is more, meaning don’t overdo it. If you want to control what you’re doing, you have to control the golf swing you have to learn small before you get big.”
She has a few Sporkisms for eye control during the golf swing as well. “Be a chicken eye and your head rotate and then your body can continue with it.” She explains her metaphor, “do you ever watch a chicken eat food, a chicken turns its head to look at the ground to get the corn off the ground and then it turns its head the other way and gets another piece of corn. You have to think of your eyes as having a chicken eye and you look at it with your left eye and then you look at the divot with your right eye, but your eyes turn. So, your head turns but it doesn’t move back and forth it just rotates in its spot.” Another point for eye dominance Spork shares “is to say ‘Ball, Ball, Divot.’ I played 18-holes saying ‘ball, ball, divot.’ Look at the ball at address, look at the ball at the top of your backswing and look at the divot and then look up. Because to me, and I’ve taught 70 years, all the shots that spray to the right, people are always looking before they finish hitting to see where it went.”
Shirley Spork remains a prominent figure among the golfing world. During her career she’s received many honors for her work. Her alma mater Eastern University holds the Shirley Spork Tournament. She takes part annually in the LPGA Founders Cup tournament. She was the LPGA National Teacher of the Year in 1959 and 1984. In 1994 she received the Byron Nelson Award. She was a member of the inaugural class of the inductees to the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2015, she was presented the Patty Berg Award, which recognizes an individual for outstanding contributions to women’s golf.
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