Oldest Women's Major Championship Winners
As a reminder, the five current women's majors are the U.S. Women's Open, Women's British Open, Women's PGA Championship, Chevron Champion and Evian Championship. There were also several other tournaments in the past that were, for a time, counted as majors.
The record-holder — the oldest winner of any women's golf major — is Fay Crocker, who was 45 years, 7 months, 11 days old when she won one of those old, now-defunct majors, the Titleholders Championship, in 1960.
(See also: Youngest winners of women's major championships)
The List: Oldest Winners of LPGA Major
(Note that the Titleholders Championship was discontinued after 1972. Also, "Nabisco Dinah Shore" is a previous name of the Chevron Championship, and "LPGA Championship" is a previous name of the Women's PGA Championship.)- 45 years, 7 months, 11 days — Fay Crocker, 1960 Titleholders Championship, won by seven strokes over second-place Kathy Cornelius.
- 43 years, 7 months, 10 days — Sherri Steinhauer, 2006 Women's British Open, won by three over runners-up Sophie Gustafson and Cristie Kerr.
- 43 years, 7 days — Babe Didrikson Zaharias, 1954 U.S. Women's Open, won by 12 strokes over second-place Betty Hicks.
- 42 years, 13 days — Juli Inkster, 2002 U.S. Women's Open, beat runner-up Annika Sorenstam by two.
- 41 years, 7 months, 17 days — Betsy King, 1997 Nabisco Dinah Shore, won by two strokes over second-place Kris Tschetter.
- 41 years, 2 months, 23 days — Betsy Rawls, 1969 LPGA Championship, won by four over runners-up Carol Mann and Susie Maxwell Berning.
- 41 years, 2 months, 20 days — Meg Mallon, 2004 U.S. Women's Open, won by two over second-place Annika Sorenstam.
The oldest women's major winner record she set in 1960 is one of the oldest standing LPGA records. And she had multiple other records and firsts (see our biography of Crocker for those).
Her victory in the 1960 Titleholders was wire-to-wire, and it was also the last of Crocker's 11 career LPGA victories. Not surprisingly, none of the golfers on this list — it's an "oldest" record, after all — won many "regular" LPGA tournaments after claiming their 40-plus major title. Zaharias, Inkster, King and Rawls each won three more "regular" titles, Mallon two more and Steinhauer one more.
Of the current five major championships of women's professional golf, the only one missing from the list above is the Evian Championship. The oldest Evian winner is 40-year-old Angela Stanfod in 2018.
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