Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956), American athlete, who dominated a number of sports at the highest levels in an era that offered limited athletic opportunities for women. She was a track and field star in the Olympic Games and one of the top professional golfers in history. A 1950 Associated Press (AP) poll named Didrikson the greatest female athlete of the first half of the 20th century. She was born Mildred Didriksen in Port Arthur, Texas. (She later changed the spelling of her last name, and took the name Babe Didrikson Zaharias after marrying in 1938.) As a youth she played just about any sport she could, especially basketball and baseball--where her long, Babe Ruth-like home runs were the probable source of her nickname. She was also an excellent swimmer and bowler. In her teens Didrikson twice won a place on the All-American women's basketball team and established three national records in track-and-field events. At the 1932 Olympic Games she not only won gold medals but also set records in the javelin throw (143 ft 4 in/43.69 m) and the 80-meter hurdles (11.7 seconds). After the Olympics Didrikson toured the country as a basketball and baseball player. In the mid-1930s she took up golf and soon excelled at the game. From 1936 to 1954 she was one of the world's best players, both as an amateur and a professional. She captured the United States women's amateur championship in 1946 and won the U.S. Women's Open three times (1948, 1950, and 1954). Didrikson was one of the founding members of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour in the late 1940s. Didrikson received numerous honors during and after her career, and she is a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame, National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. Her autobiography, This Life I've Led, was published in 1955. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.