Mary Lou Crocker, LPGA Tour Golfer

Mary Lou Crocker was an LPGA Tour golfer in the 1960s and 1970s who had one LPGA victory. Before turning pro, she was a USGA national championship winner.

Birth name: Mary Lou Daniel

Date of birth: September 17, 1944

Place of birth: Louisville, Kentucky

Date and place of death: January 27, 2016, in Bartonville, Texas

Also known as: She first became known as "Mary Lou Daniel," her birth name, before marrying in 1971 and using her husband's name as "Mary Lou Crocker." Today, in print, she is sometimes referred to by both names: "Mary Lou Daniel Crocker."

Her Biggest Wins

• 1962 U.S. Girls' Junior
• 1962 Women's Western Junior Amateur
• 1965 Kentucky Women's Amateur
• 1973 LPGA Marc Equity Classic

More About Mary Lou Crocker

As Mary Lou Daniel, she was the co-medalist at the 1961 U.S. Girls' Junior, the USGA's national championship for girls, with a 78. But she was knocked out in the second round of match play. Crocker was also runner-up that year in what was, at the time, the second-biggest junior event, the 1961 Women's Western Junior Amateur.

Crocker's glory year as an amateur was 1962, when she won both those tournaments, the 1962 Women's Western Junior Am and the 1962 U.S. Girl's Junior. At the USGA championship, the 17-year-old high school senior beat future LPGA major winner Sandra Post in the first round, and another future LPGA winner, Jan Ferraris, in the semifinals. She then beat Mary Sawyer, 2-up, in the title match.

Crocker was named the 1962 Kentucky Female Athlete of the Year. And she became the first woman to receive a men's athletic scholarship from the University of Kentucky: She had to play for the men's team because the school did not have a women's golf team.

After three years at Kentucky (and a win in the Kentucky State Amateur), Crocker turned pro in 1965. And 1966 was her rookie year on the LPGA Tour.

It was a solid start to her pro career: At the end of 1966, she was 35th on the money list (and remained inside the Top 60 for all but one year through 1977). But the tied-fourth that was Crocker's best finish that year remained her career best all the way until she finally won a tournament in 1973. Her career was slowed down by recurring knee troubles, and later, in the late 1970s, by wrist surgeries.

But before that first victory, there was another event that had an even bigger impact on her life. In 1971, Crocker went on a USO tour of American bases in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War, that also included fellow LPGA pro Renee Powell, and a one-armed trick-shot artist named Jimmy Nichols. She met her future husband on that trip, and rekindled a friendship with Powell, one the LPGA's first black players, that had first formed in the U.S. Girls' Junior tournaments in the early 1960s. The three of them conducted up to five clinics/demonstrations each day over three weeks.

The USGA, in its obituary of Crocker published in 2016, explained Crocker's and Powell's relationship: "During the racially divisive 1960s, Crocker stood in solidarity with the LPGA Tour's only two black players, Althea Gibson and Renee Powell. Along with many other LPGA members, Crocker vowed that 'all or none' of the LPGA players would compete when several tournament sites threatened to exclude the Tour’s black players."

After Crocker and Powell met in junior golf, the USGA continued, "the two kept in touch throughout their respective college golf careers, and reconnected when Powell followed Crocker to the LPGA Tour in 1967. ... Crocker and Powell forged a unique bond in 1971 when they traveled to Vietnam to entertain U.S. soldiers on a USO Tour stop in Saigon. Decades later, Crocker would travel many times to the Powell family's course, Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio, where she would help Powell teach juniors, women and military veterans."

Crocker's best season as a pro was 1973, when she had her lone LPGA Tour victory and also her lone Top 10 finish in a major. The win happened in the Marc Equity Classic, by four strokes over runner-up Jane Blalock. She also had a tie for third that year in The Heritage tournament.

Her only Top 10 in a major was a tie for ninth place in the 1973 U.S. Women's Open. Crocker's third-round 69 was one of just four sub-70 rounds recorded in the tournament that year. (Her next-best showing in a major was tied for 20th in the 1968 LPGA Championship.)

In 1976, Crocker got into a playoff at the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Classic against JoAnne Carner, Mickey Walker and Sandra Palmer, one that Palmer won on the third extra hole. But Crocker finished 30th on the LPGA season money list, her best showing to date.

She bettered that in 1977, though, finishing 24th (which remained her career-best) even she had no wins, seconds or thirds that year.

Crocker's 14-year LPGA Tour career ended in 1980. She moved to Dallas and became a golf instructor, and got heavily involved in the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf program. She was the site director for that program in Dallas.

Mary Lou Crocker passed away in 2016 just two months after receiving a cancer diagnosis, and just a few months after her last trip to the Powell's golf course in Ohio. Renee Powell traveled to see her a few days before her death. Crocker was 71 years old.

Today, Crocker is a member of the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame.

Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Ladies Professional Golf Association. 1974 LPGA Player Guide, Biographies.
Ladies Professional Golf Association. 1979 LPGA Player Guide, Biographies.
LPGA Tour. Media Guide, Tournament Chronology, 1970-79 (via Internet Archive), https://web.archive.org/web/20100102105959/http://www.lpga.com/content/Chronology70-79.pdf.
Mickey, Lisa D. "Mary Lou Crocker, 71, Was 1962 U.S. Girls' Junior Champion," USGA.org, February 2, 2016, https://www.usga.org/articles/2016/02/past-u-s--girls--junior-champ-mary-lou-crocker-dies.html.
Ross, Helen. "Charlie Sifford Award carries extra meaning for Renee Powell," PGATour.com, February 23, 2022, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/beyond-the-ropes/2022/02/23/charlie-sifford-award-carries-extra-meaning-for-renee-powell.
The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. "Pressure Over Now, It's Vacation Time," The Associated Press, July 23, 1973, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hAMdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NpwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7086%2C4519406.
United States Golf Association. Official USGA Record Book, 1895-1990, Triumph Books, 1992.