World Golf Hall of Fame
3 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst, NC
It is rare to find a player from North Dakota who had success in the game. Beverly Hanson became the first from the state to not only win a USGA championship – the 1950 U.S. Women’s Amateur – but to represent her country in the Curtis Cup Match that same year. Now she is the first North Dakotan to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Hanson amassed 17 LPGA Tour victories, three of which were major titles. She claimed the inaugural LPGA Championship in 1955, defeating fellow Hall of Famer Louise Suggs, 4 and 3, in the title match. She would add the Western Open a year later, again edging Suggs by four strokes, and then captured the Titleholders Championship in 1958 by five shots. The last of her victories came in the 1960 St. Petersburg Open.
Her strong play earned Hanson a small amount of fame and even a cameo, along with Babe Zaharias and Betty Hicks among others, in the 1952 movie “Pat and Mike” starring Katherine Hepburn as a professional golfer.
Along with her husband, Andy Sfingi, Hanson lived in Greater Palm Springs (Calif.) for decades, raising two children. After leaving the LPGA TOUR, she enjoyed a comfortable life as a teaching pro at Eldorado Country Club in Indian Wells, a job she kept for 35 years.
“She had her normal little group of ladies who had lessons from her,” said Terry Beardsley, the director of golf at Eldorado. “And she had a joke every day. She loved to tell jokes.”
Wins in bold