How far did Laura Davies hit the ball?
Big-hitting Laura Davies has the most victories on the Ladies European Tour, with 45. She has also won 20 times on the LPGA Tour. She has won four Majors: the U.S. Women’s Open of 1987, the LPGA Championship of 1994 and 1996 and the du Maurier Classic of 1996.
She learnt to give the ball a hefty whack when she was growing up. She would play with her brother and his friends and, according to her own website, “soon learned that in order to keep up with them and have any chance of competing, she needed to hit the ball quite hard, a trait that was to become her hallmark.” Her mother would drop the pair of them off at the golf club in the morning on her way to work, and collect them in the evening on her way home.
Laura Davies turned pro in 1985, aged 21. She won the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit in 1985, 1986, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2004 and 2006. She was the LPGA Tour Money Winner in 1994. In 1996 she was both the LET Player of the Year and the LPGA Player of the Year.
The first year that the LPGA collected driving distance stats was in 1992 when Davies’ 258.87 yards was 20 yards longer than the next longest hitter, Juli Inkster. She topped the tour’s driving distances for the next four seasons as well when her figures were 254, 253.2, 265.6 and 262.6 yards respectively. No other golfer has topped this list in five seasons.
Even aged, 54, in 2018, Dame Laura was 28th on the LPGA driving stats, at just shy of 262 yards (Yani Tseng headed the list at 275 yards.) This distance served her well that season in the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open, held at Chicago Golf Club. She played the par fives in a cumulative 15-under par, and made two eagles on par 5s. Her final score was 16-under, enough for her to win by 10 strokes.
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