Golf: Ranking The Top Golfer From All 50 States
We may never see another career arc quite like Honolulu’s Michelle Wie
Hawaii
Michelle Wie
At long last, we can justifiably recognize a female golfer. Without ever touching a club again, Wie will be Hawaii’s shining light in golf for a while (sorry, Tadd Fujikawa). What were you doing at 10 years old? Wie was only qualifying for the 2000 USGA Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.
That first launched the Honolulu into the spotlight that, for a while, looked like it could be her undoing. Dubbed as the “Tiger Woods of women’s golf,” Wie was the youngest at the age of 12 to play in a LPGA Tour event and the youngest to turn professional at 16. At 15, she competed with the men at the PGA Tour’s Sony Open and shot 68 in the second round. 68! At the age of 15! What she did at a young age is almost unfathomable. While it looked like she was close to leaving the game after poor play and pressure, she’s forged a steady LPGA Tour career with a win at the 2014 US Open and two major runner-ups.
Idaho
Babe Hiskey
By my unofficial research, Hiskey is the only Idahoan to have a win on the PGA Tour. At the least, he is the leader with three victories. Troy Merritt, a Boise State alum, is valued in Idaho, but Merritt is disqualified from the conversation due to his Midwestern amateur upbringing. Hiskey, on the other hand, was a three-time state amateur champion, multiple winner on the PGA Tour and competed well on the Champions Tour. Not a Hall of Fame career, but not a bad résumé from the Boise native, either.
Illinois
Bob Goalby
Golf fans and historians all remember Roberto DeVicenzo’s scorecard gaffe at the 1968 Masters. Fewer remember who was on the positive end of that story: Bob Goalby. The Belleville native picked up one of his 11 career PGA Tour wins that day. He also tied for runner-up honors at the ’61 US Open and was a member of the ’63 Ryder Cup. Sandwich those achievements with a pair of Champions Tour wins late in life and a football-playing career in college at the University of Illinois and that’s a complete life right there.
Indiana
Fuzzy Zoeller
Only one man can lay claim to winning at Augusta National in his first competition. That golfer is none other than Frank Urban “Fuzzy” Zoeller Jr.
The New Albany native beat another Indianan, Billy Kratzert, among others, at the Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational in January of 1979 for his first PGA Tour win. That breakthrough landed him in the field at The Masters for his first time as a competitor. There, he got a little help from Ed Sneed’s late-round collapse to land in a playoff with Sneed and Tom Watson. Zoeller stared them both down to win in the second hole of sudden death. It propelled Zoeller to 19 career professional victories, 10 coming on the PGA Tour. That total includes his second major, a US Open win in 1984.
Iowa
Zach Johnson
Just as it is rare to find historically great golfers, it might be rarer to find them from Drake University in Des Moines. Johnson, a relatively late bloomer, put his home of Cedar Rapids on the map when he won the 2007 Masters in cool temperatures certainly not foreign to the Midwesterner. Johnson, a vocal Iowa Hawkeyes supporter, has shown success can be had for northern golfers. The bespectacled golfer has won 12 PGA Tour events and two majors, one recently coming at the 2015 Open Championship to spoil the Spieth Slam. When you think of golf in Iowa, it’s hard to put anything or anyone else at the top of that list.