By: Shane René, USGA P.J. Boatwright Intern
Known affectionately as “Dimples,” an allusion to her infectious smile and prodigious skill on the golf course, Shirley Englehorn is a name to count among the likes of Harmon Killebrew as one of Idaho’s greatest sporting exports of all time.
Born in Caldwell, Idaho, Englehorn received a royal introduction to the game by LPGA co-founder Shirley Spork, and her talent emerged quickly thereafter. At 15, Englehorn won the 1955 Trans-Miss Championship, earning some national recognition as women’s golf was just beginning to establish the institutions that continue to push the game forward today. She remains the youngest player to ever win the event almost 70 years later.
As she finished school at Caldwell High, Englehorn made a short but emphatic splash on the Idaho amateur golf scene, collecting three-consecutive Women’s Amateur Championship titles in ‘56, ‘57 and ‘58. She’s since been elected into both the Caldwell High School Sports Hall of Fame and the North Idaho Sports Hall of Fame
In 1959, Englehorn made what now seems like an obvious decision to turn professional. What followed was a career defined by triumphs over near tragedy. In 1960, Englehorn was involved in a major equestrian accident in Georgia which sidelined her from competition for many months. She earned her first two victories during the 1962 season, winning the second by seven strokes, and continued to make herself known at the highest level of women’s professional golf. In 1964, she paired up with PGA Tour great Sam Snead to win the Haig & Haig Scotch Foursomes event.
Englehorn’s career took another harrowing turn in 1965 when she was nearly killed in a car accident. After an arduous, year-long recovery, she returned to the winner’s circle at the Babe Zaharias Open in 1966 and continued her run toward 11 career wins on the LPGA Tour. The next year, Englehorn won her own tournament at Purple Sage Golf Course in Caldwell (which she hosted from 1966 to 1968), beating LPGA legend Kathy Whitworth in a playoff.
In 1968, she received the Ben Hogan Award for her recovery.
Englehorn won her lone Major Championship on the LPGA Tour at the 1970 LGPA Championship (Now called KMPG Women’s PGA Championship), once again besting Whitworth in an 18-hole playoff.
“She was a wonderful player and could have won many more tournaments than she did,” Kathy Whitworth said in an article published by the LPGA. “Unfortunately, she had two incredibly bad accidents that most people probably would never recover from. She did recover though and returned to win again. She had a lot of courage.”
Engelhorn continued to struggle with injuries at the end of her playing days, returning to competition from surgery twice in the early 1970s — including a run of four consecutive wins in 1970. But once she put her playing days behind her, Engelhorn's golf life morphed into that of a widely celebrated teacher, earning her way into the LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame in 2014. In 1978, a year before her retirement from competition, she won the LPGA’s Teacher of the Year award.
Throughout her career, she would often return to Caldwell to visit her parents at their home along the third hole of Fairview Golf Course.
Accomplishment Highlights:
11-time winner on the LPGA Tour, including one major championship in 1970 (LPGA Championship)
Awarded the Ben Hogan Award in 1968
The LPGA Teacher of the Year Award in 1978
Inducted into the LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame in 2014