The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

JAMESON, ELIZABETH MAY (1919–2009).

Elizabeth May "Betty" Jameson, a founder and charter member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), was born in Norman, Oklahoma, on May 9, 1919. She began golf at age eleven and won fourteen significant amateur championships, including the 1932 Texas Public Links, the 1934 Southern Championship, two Women's Trans Nationals, two Women's Western Amateurs, one Women's Western Open, and two U.S. Women's Amateurs (1939–40), before turning professional in 1945. In 1947 Jameson captured the U.S. Women's Open at Starmount Forest Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her 295 U.S. Open total marked the first time a female golfer had scored lower than 300 in a seventy-two-hole tournament. During the next eight years she earned eleven more professional victories, including the 1949 Texas Open and the 1954 Women's Western.

In 1950 Jameson and twelve others founded the Ladies Professional Golf Association. In 1952 she donated the trophy, named in honor of Glenna Collett Vare, that is awarded annually to the player with the lowest scoring average on the LPGA Tour. In 1967 Jameson was one of the first six players inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame. In 1999 she was inducted into the Women's Sports Foundation Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she was recognized as one of the LPGA's top fifty players and teachers. Jameson, an avid artist, retired to Delray Beach, Florida. She died on February 7, 2009.

Del Lemon