Those Who Can, Do and Teach: Celebrating Shirley Spork’s Mastery of Golf and Her Commitment to Sharing it With Others
She gave femme.
Shirley Spork invented the spork. Just kidding. She and twelve other women golfers started the LPGA in 1950. She passed on the tenth of April in Palm Springs at the age of ninety-four, leaving Marlene Bauer Hagge as the last surviving LPGA founder and the golf world better for having had her in it. It’s taken me several days to put something together on Shirley because, like her, I am a teacher by trade and, although I only shook her hand for the first time and spoke with her briefly about being interviewed at the Dinah this year, eight days before her death, it was also the last time the Dinah is supposed to be held at Mission Hills. So the layers of personal connection and “lasts” here are a lot to bear.
Spork was staunch in life and in competition, but so is everyone covered on Mother of Golf. What made Spork unique was her confidence, her humor, and her passion for teaching what she knew about golf to others (even men!). She presented herself in a variety of ways over the years—sometimes feminine, sometimes masculine, but always looking self-assured and therefore giving. She is never not smiling or laughing in photos, and she dedicated her life to sharing.
Spork’s reputation as a teach-happy golfer started in her youth. Born outside Detroit in 1927 to an electrical engineer and a pharmacy clerk, she hopped the stone wall surrounding nearby Bonnie Brook Golf Course as a child to collect and sell golf balls until she saved a dollar to buy a putter. Boys caddying at the course made fun of the fact that she used the putter for every shot, perhaps sparking her lifelong commitment to promoting accessibility and gender equality in golf.
After a local teaching pro helped her piece together a set, Spork began competing. At fourteen, she was called “one of the future stars of Detroit” by a local newspaper, and later won the first national intercollegiate golf championship for women while attending what is now Eastern Michigan University, studying physical education. She graduated in 1949 and was hired as a P.E. teacher in the Detroit public school system. With a competitive fire still smoldering inside, she helped found the LPGA at age twenty-three, which was more challenging than most people realize, as there was so little money invested in the organization that players had to drum up their own publicity and convoy to tournaments in a row of cars, using different colored ping pong paddles to signal to each other whenever someone needed a food or bathroom break.
She gave masc.
Spork continued the hustle, pursuing a master’s degree at Bowling Green State, teaching Monday through Thursday, and playing LPGA events Friday through Sunday, according to her 2017 memoir From Tee to Green. The demanding nature of teaching schoolchildren likely contributed to her shift toward work as a head professional, which would have given her a bit more freedom to tour. She taught at Ukiah Municipal Golf Course in Northern California and Tamarisk Country Club in Palm Springs (a club founded as a haven for the Jewish, Black, and women golfers barred from joining nearby Thunderbird Country Club), instructing Harpo Marx, Danny Kaye, and Nat King Cole. She taught lessons in California during winters and played on the tour during the summer.
Spork never won an LPGA title, and was even returned a donation she made to a church by a priest who said she needed it more than God, but she came close with a second place finish at the 1962 LPGA Championship. What she did win, however, was LPGA Teacher of the Year twice, in 1959 and 1984— something that’s since been achieved by only one other person.
Spork’s reputation as a legendary teacher was solidified in 1959 when she, Barbara Rotvig, and Ellen Griffin created the Teaching & Club Pro Division of the LPGA—the sister branch to its touring division. They coordinated the convention of the first LPGA National Golf Schools in 1960 at the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Vermont to educate coaches on how to teach the game specifically to women.
In her 2012 memoir, fellow LPGA founder Marilynn Smith wrote: “People ought to be given the opportunity to be taught with a sincere method” with teachers focusing on “the way a student learns, then [deciding] how to best communicate knowledge.” Smith also wrote that to these women, “it became apparent that there was no place for teachers to get training, and [they] needed people who were interested in teaching teachers how to teach. Some are born with the ability, but that certainly wasn’t the case with everyone.”
This sentiment was echoed by Shirley Englehorn during a recent phone interview she granted me, saying that once Englehorn could no longer compete on tour due to injuries sustained in two different accidents, Spork “taught her how to teach,” kicking off Englehorn’s thirty-year coaching career. Spork also successfully campaigned for time spent playing on the LPGA tour to count as credit toward PGA membership, and partnered with the National Golf Foundation to create a series of books and videos called the Golf Teaching Kit to guide coaches.
Although Spork dedicated much of her energy to improving the general approach to the instruction of women golfers, her impact on men golfers has also been monumental. One of my favorite photos of her shows a group of boys looking on as a young Shirley scribbles on a piece of paper, perhaps tallying a scorecard or signing an autograph. The pattern continued with her time teaching men as a head pro for years in Palm Springs, as well as on a 1951 tour of the U.K. and France. While conducting an exhibition at St. Andrews, she was told she was the first woman to ever be allowed inside the clubhouse. The significance of that moment was not lost on her, so she decided to show the men what they’d voluntarily been missing and stood on a table to give a pitching demonstration.
Train your sons to ask women athletes for their autographs.
While most of us rightfully react to gender discrimination with vitriol, Spork patiently looked for the best in her students. In a conversation with FORE Magazine, she remembered an older man she was teaching who “wanted to be able to swing and hit the ball.” Spork explained: “He was so bad, he’d hit it backwards or underneath me. I told him that ‘our goal this year is to try and play one hole of golf where you stay on your own fairway.’ After numerous lessons, he came back to me with a big smile and said, ‘I did it!’ That was such a great reward to both of us; we fought it out, struggled, and created something.” Feminism in its basic form, everyone: people of different genders supporting each other, with equity in mind, on the path toward equality. That student was willing to hire (a.k.a. invest in) a woman instructor, and in return, Spork generated an environment in which the student could demonstrate vulnerability, thereby allowing the two to more quickly reach their shared goal.
If you’re like me and you’re wondering where Spork got this patience for men golfers because you certainly don’t have any, it was likely fortified by her relationship with sponsor Tommy Armour. Spork told the LPGA: “You can’t believe how big his hands were. He would take my hand in his and my hand would just disappear. They were huge.”
Hot.
But Spork’s relationship with Armour went deeper than instructional tips and his huge hands. She went on to say: “He believed in me and signed me when nobody else would. Companies like Wilson wanted Babe and Patty (Berg), but Armour saw value in me, and I’ll never forget that.” The weight lifted off women’s shoulders when men advocate for them out of sincere appreciation rather than out of sexual attraction or as a marketing strategy is hard for most men to fathom. Men are women’s primary obstacle in this sport, and when they remove themselves from that role, women are able to be their competitive, generous, influential selves, as Spork consistently demonstrated. Spork still would have had a historic career had Armour ignored her like other potential sponsors, but his support helped ensure that we’d all be as touched by her life and expertise as we have been.
In her later years, her concern for other golfers expanded to the senior golf community. She told FORE Magazine: “I think there could be more emphasis on the senior golfer. I think the PGA and LPGA should be offering more assistance to keep seniors in the game, and that can be done very easily by giving some supervised practice and providing competition that may be 9-hole or even 6-hole competitions at their clubs.” She was right, considering golf is often touted as one of the few sports people can play into old age. It’s time that golf leaders take action to support that claim, just as it’s time they start applying funds, time, and concerted effort to their claim to want to “grow the game.”
Shirley Spork lived a full life in spite of never having invented the spork. “Any phase of the game you name, I have done, except for being a golf course architect,” she mused in a 2017 interview. If there was any darkness, she never let on, but that gives us something to continue trying to find out about her. For now, she’ll live on as an icon for golfers, for teachers, for people of all genders, and she’ll serve as an inspiration for those of us who routinely lose hope in the face of what this game continues to represent.
First and second photo from the LPGA website; third photo from Historical Image Archives