Golfer Kathy Whitworth, who clocked most professional tour victories of all time, dies aged 83
Golfer Kathy Whitworth, who clocked up more wins than any other player on a single professional tour, male or female, has died aged 83.
No one has matched her outstanding 88 victories, not the legendary Sam Snead or Tiger Woods, nor Mickey Wright and Annika Sorenstam, who are considered two of the greatest female golfers in history.
Whitworth, who became the first woman to earn $1m (£829m) on the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association), passed away on Christmas Eve, her long-time partner said.
Bettye Odle did not divulge the cause of her partner’s death, but said that Whitworth died suddenly on Saturday night while celebrating with family and friends.
“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life – loving, laugh and creating memories,” Odle said in a statement released by the LPGA Tour.
Baseball star Frank Robinson and Whitworth hold their AP athlete of the year trophies in 1967. Pic: AP
‘Winning never got old’
Whitworth won the first of her 88 titles in the Kelly Girls Opens in July 1962.
During her career, which spanned nearly a quarter of a century, she won six majors and smashed Mickey Wright’s record of 82 career wins when she captured the Lady Michelob in the summer of 1982.
Her final victory came in 1985 at the United Virginia Bank Classic.
“Winning never got old,” Whitworth once said.
Whitworth in 1965. Pic: AP
Whitworth’s record among men and women alike
Snead achieved a record 82 wins on the PGA Tour, a total Woods has since matched.
Wright won 82 times on the LPGA Tour, while Sorenstam had 72 when she retired after the 2006 season, aged 36.
None of them have yet touched her 88 victories.
“I don’t think about the legacy of 88 tournaments,” she once said.
“I did it because I wanted to win, not to set a record or a goal that no one else could surpass.
“I’m not some great oddity. I was just fortunate to be so successful.
“What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person.”
Whitworth during the Tournament of Champions in New York in 2006. Pic: AP
The one missing title…
Former golfer Betsy Rawls once told Golf Digest that “Kathy was the best player of the game that I have ever seen”.
The only title missing from her glittering career was the US Women’s Open, the biggest of the women’s majors.
Upon becoming the first woman to bring in $1m in career earnings in 1981, she said: “I would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open.
“But it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning.”
Whitworth waits to tee off at the Raleigh LPGA golf tournament, 1972. Pic: AP
‘Golf just grabbed me by the throat’
Whitworth was born in Monahans, a small west Texas town, and started playing at age 15 in Jal, New Mexico, on the nine-hole course built for the El Paso Natural Gas employees.
She turned professional when she was 19 and joined the LPGA Tour in December 1958.
“Golf just grabbed me by the throat,” Whitworth once told Golf Digest.
“I can’t tell you how much I loved it.
“I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old.”
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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