Marilynn Louise Smith
Marilynn Louise Smith (1929-2019) was a top collegiate golfer in the days when women had to pay their own way if they wanted to compete. As a founding member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, she spent her entire adult life encouraging girls to get onto the playing fields of sport and of life.As a child, Smith dreamed of pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals. After a particularly frustrating baseball game when she was 10 years old, Smith’s father decided to see if golf would suit her and took her to the Wichita Country Club. She turned out to be a natural. With her father’s help and tips from the club pro, she became a top competitor.She captured the Kansas State Amateur golf title from 1946-48 and won the 1949 Women’s National Intercollegiate Golf Tournament. Then she turned pro, signing a one-year contract with Spalding for $5,000 to play in tournaments, promote golf and give up to 100 clinics a year. It would be the first of 27 one-year contracts that she would sign with Spalding.That first year after college also led her to join with a dozen others to found the LPGA.She created the Marilynn Smith LPGA Charity Pro-Am, which raises scholarship money to help female golfers with college expenses. In 1973, she became the first woman to work a PGA event as a television broadcaster. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2006. Smith met five sitting presidents and played golf with her idols, Stan Musial and Ben Hogan.Smith was born in Topeka to Owen and Alma Tillmans Smith. She was survived by her sister, Gay Pappas and her husband Clifford; niece Michele Pappas Alexander (Keith), and her family, Dustin Alexander, Ryan Alexander, and Caitlin Alexander; and nephew Pete Leahy, and his family, Michael Leahy, and Zachary Leahy. At the time of her death, she was a resident of Goodyear, Ariz.She is buried in Topeka Cemetery with her parents, Owen and Alma Smith, and her maternal grandparents, Paul and Lillian Tillmans. “In her life, she broke barriers, shattered stereotypes and made others believe,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan said. “Quite simply, Marilynn left this world better than she found it — and set a standard that will guide us forever.”(Information from this article came from obituary information and from a profile written by golf journalist Ron Sirak.)
