JoAnne Carner - Part 3 (Solheim Cup Captain and the Senior Women's U.S. Open)

Two-time major championship winner JoAnne Carner reflects on the later years of her illustrious career including her 35th Tour win at the 1882 Chevrolet World Championship of Golf that qualified her for the LPGA Hall of Fame. JoAnne was a repeat winner at 13 different events over her career even after waiting until age 30 to turn professional. In 2004 she became the oldest player to make an LPGA cut at age 65. She remembers several other majors that could have been and wished the USGA had inaugurated the Senior Women's U.S. Open before they finally did in 2018 as she was on a quest to tie Bobby Jones' and Tiger Woods' record of nine USGA championships. JoAnne enjoyed captaining the 1994 Solheim Cup at the Greenbrier and appreciates the many accolades bestowed upon her over the years including the 1981 USGA Bob Jones Award and her induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982. JoAnne Carner wraps up her life story, "FORE the Good of the Game."

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About

"FORE the Good of the Game” is a golf podcast featuring interviews with World Golf Hall of Fame members, winners of major championships and other people of influence in and around the game of golf. Highlighting the positive aspects of the game, we aim to create and provide an engaging and timeless repository of content that listeners can enjoy now and forever. Co-hosted by PGA Tour star Bruce Devlin, our podcast focuses on telling their life stories, in their voices. Join Bruce and Mike Gonzalez “FORE the Good of the Game.”

Thanks so much for listening!

Carner, JoAnne

Golf Professional

First she was known as “The Great Gundy.” Then “Big Momma.”

She loved match play, showboating to the galleries, riding motorcycles and partying in the clubhouse with members after her rounds. As JoAnne Gunderson, and later JoAnne Carner, she dominated women’s golf and nobody had more fun dominating than she did. There was a little Babe Ruth in her, a little Babe Zaharias, a little Walter Hagen and a little Shelly Winters, too. It made for some package.

“The ground shakes when she hits it,” Sandra Palmer once said, and with that statement the LPGA had a different type of folk hero to package with the glamour of Jan Stephenson and the youthful innocence of Nancy Lopez. While the youngsters were selling the LPGA Tour, Carner was going back to her Gulfstream motor home, where her husband, Don, had prepared dinner and found a stream where the fish were just waiting to take their lures. “I play better golf living in our trailer,” Carner said, and for a long while, nobody played it better.

“Some people are afraid to win, others are afraid to lose, I think winning is a lot more fun.”
As an amateur golfer, Gunderson was the historic equal of Zaharias and Glenna Collett Vare. Born in Kirkland, Washington, she came out of the Pacific Northwest and won the U.S. Girls’ Junior title in 1956. One month later, she lost in the final of the Women’s Amateur to Marlene Stewart to begin a 13-year run where she either won the national title or finished second seven times. Four of her five championship finals were blowout victories, but in 1966, it took Carner 41 ho… Read More

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