Top 10 Best Women Golfers of All Time, Ranked

A lot of people think that “golf” stands for “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden,” which is understandable since a lot of people believed it. Because, well, golf has a long history of not letting women play. In fact, in the late 1800s, some golf clubs and courses wouldn’t even let women join.

Thank goodness times have changed, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) now makes it easy for women to play golf and win prizes. It’s also important not to forget the seven very talented women who made it to the PGA to compete with the guys.

Women’s golf is just as exciting now as it was in the past, and these 10 women helped make it possible.

10. Betsy King

Country:	Career:	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1977-2005	39	6

Betsy King had been playing on the LPGA for seven years before she won her first professional match. Once she started to win, though, it was hard to stop her. She won a huge 28 times between 1984 and 1992.

The fact that she is a woman player gives other late bloomers hope.

9. Karrie Webb

Country	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
Australia	1994-present	56	7

Kararie Webb has won 41 times on the LPGA Tour, which is more than any other current female golfer right now.

She was one of Australia’s best female players of all time, and from 1999 to 2002, she won six of the 16 majors she played in. During that time, she also placed in the top five of three other major tournaments and only missed the top 15 twice. In the early 2000s, Annika Sorenstam and she were pretty much the only two women competing in the LPGA.

Despite her recent decrease in performance, Webb continues to be a significant contender in major championships.

8. Amy Alcott

Country:	Career:	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1975-2008	34	5

In the end, Amy Alcott ruled the LPGA in the 1980s, winning at least four tour events in three different years (1979, 1980, and 1984). She is also one of only a few women to have won a major three times.

The 1980 U.S. Women’s Open, which she won by nine strokes, may have been her most impressive win.

7. Se Ri Pak

Country	Career	Pro wins	Major Championship
South Korea	1996-2016	39	5

In the end, Se Ri Pak was one of the first Korean players to really do well in the US. From the start, she was on fire. She displayed exceptional talent right from the beginning, achieving victory in four competitions during her first year as a professional — two of which were prestigious major championships.

Pak was better than most golfers because she was good at putting. During her career, she won all six of her playoff matches.

6. Kathy Whitworth

Country	Career:	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1958-2005	98	6

In the end, Kathy Whitworth has 88 LPGA wins, making her the female player with the most wins. She was also the first woman to make $1 million in LPGA earnings, which wasn’t a surprise.

She has also won more times around the world than either Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus.

5. Betsy Rawls

Country	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
1951-1975	1951-1975	58	8

Finally, Betsy Rawls won a game every year for 19 years, from her first LPGA Tour event in 1951 to 1970.

In the 1960s, she was president of the LPGA, and she was one of the first golfers to be admitted into the LPGA Hall of Fame. She was also made a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

4. Babe Zaharias

Country:	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1947-1956	48	10

In the end, Babe Zaharias was the first woman to ever qualify for a PGA Tour event. She did it three times, at the Los Angeles Open, the Phoenix Open, and the Tucson Open. She also tried to get into the U.S. Open, but the USGA wouldn’t let her in.

She was also good at sports outside of golf. In the 1930s, she threw in a few spring training games. She still throws a baseball 296 feet farther than any other woman in the world.

3. Louise Suggs

Country	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1948-1962	61	11

In the end, Louise Suggs made a name for herself in the golf world by helping to create the LPGA with Babe Zaharias, Patty Berg, and Marilynn Smith. She also won 11 major titles.

In her time, she was thought to be the best female golfer in the world. In exhibition matches, she even beat guys like Same Snead and Ben Hogan.

2. Annika Sorenstam

Country:	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
Sweden	1992-2008	97	10

In 2003, Annika Sorenstam was the third woman to play in a PGA Tour event at Colonial. She quickly became so well-known in the golf world that people called her by her first name, like “Arnie,” “Ernie,” or “Tiger.”

After retiring in 2008 to focus on raising a family, she made a comeback at the age of 50 and emerged victorious in the 2021 U.S. Senior Women’s Open.

1. Patty Berg

Country	Career	Pro wins	Major championships
United States	1940-1979	63	15

The bottom line is that Patty Berg was such a good athlete that she played quarterback for her Minneapolis, Minnesota, football team when she was young.

She began playing golf when she was 13 years old and won 29 junior titles very quickly. From 1946 to 1958, she played on the LPGA Tour 93 times and won multiple times. In those 93 events, she had 77 top-25 wins in majors. Girls all over the world are thought to have become interested in golf because of her influence on the sport.

Table of Contents