How Sam Snead became the only male golfer to have ever won on the LPGA Tour

Sam Snead is one of the greatest golfers to ever play the sport.

He’s tied with Tiger Woods for the most PGA Tour victories of all time, with 82, and the American is a seven-time major winner from the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Gary Player idolized Snead and once called him the most athletic golfer of all time. He had an extraordinary career, which was interrupted when he served in the Navy during World War II.

But one of the most incredible episodes of Snead’s life came in 1962, when he became the first and only man to win an LPGA Tour event.

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The reason why Sam Snead won an LPGA event

In 1962, Snead was invited to play in the Royal Poinciana Plaza Invitational. It was an event that ran for two years, starting in 1961. Both years it was played on a par-3 course, giving the men no real advantage.

The previous year, the tournament featured 24 men and women, both amateurs and professionals, and Snead finished third behind the winner, Louise Suggs.

But in ‘62, it was just a 15-player field, featuring 14 women and Snead. And in a two-day, four-round event, Snead posted a score of 5-under to take the victory, beating Mickey Wright by five strokes.

Snead was credited with an unofficial LPGA Tour victory and took home around $1,500 for the win.

The Palm Beach Post reported, “The last three holes [of the opening round] were played with the knowledge that his expensive little inboard runabout boat was slowly sinking, just a wedge shot from the course, in Lake Worth.”

It was a clinical victory for Snead, and one that remains etched in the record books.