Laura Baugh

Laura Zonetta Baugh (born May 31, 1955 in Gainesville, Florida) is an American golf champion. As a child she won the National PeeWee Championship five times, her first coming at age 3. Her parents divorced when she was 11 years old and she moved with her mother from their Florida home to Long Beach, California. She studied briefly there at Long Beach City College and California State University, Long Beach.

Lacking the money to pay green fees, she and friends would sneak onto golf courses to play. At age 14 she won her first of two straight Los Angeles Women's City Golf Championships. In 1971, at the Atlanta Country Club in Atlanta, Georgia, she defeated Beth Barry to win the United States Women's Amateur Golf Championship. Her physical appearance brought her considerable publicity and for 1971 she was chosen as a Los Angeles Times "Woman of the Year" and Golf Digest's 1972 "Most Beautiful Golfer." She made a commercial for UltraBrite toothpaste that won a Clio Award.

Baugh was a member of the U.S. teams that won the 1972 Curtis Cup and the World Amateur Golf Team Championships. She then turned professional and joined the LPGA Tour in 1973 where she earned Rookie of the Year honors. Despite her successful start and prodigious talent, alcoholism and emotional problems would take over her life and she would never win an LPGA tournament. Her drinking caused spontaneous bleeding that could have ended her life had she not sought treatment that included time at the Betty Ford Clinic in 1996. She described her battle with alcohol in a 1999 book titled "Out of the Rough"."

During her professional golfing career from 1973 through 1997, Baugh earned 66 Top 10 finishes, including ten runner-ups. She became a member of the Women's Senior Golf Tour and has also worked as a television announcer for The Golf Channel and operates "Laura Baugh Golf Workshops for Women Only" [http://www.laurabaugh.com/] .

Baugh has been married four times, twice to the father of her seven children.

References

* "Out of the Rough : An Intimate Portrait of Laura Baugh and Her Sobering Journey" by Laura Baugh and Steve Eubanks, with a Foreword by Arnold Palmer. (1999) Rutledge Hill Press ISBN 1-55853-755-4

External links

* [http://www.lpga.com/player_results.aspx?id=5066 Profile on the LPGA's official site]