When it came to golf, Judy Kimball Simon was a natural.

“I was fortunate because I didn’t have any trouble hitting the ball and I was strong,” said Judy, the daughter of a Sioux City sporting goods owner and major league baseball scout.

She was still a newcomer to the game when she entered the 1954 Iowa Women’s Amateur at Sunnyside Country Club in Waterloo. She shot 99 and didn’t make match play. She came up just short again in 1955 at the Davenport Country Club, but did win the long-drive contest with a 275-yard wallop.

She was 18 when she reached the semifinals in 1956 at the Clinton Country Club. Still a teenager, she was the oldest member of the Final Four. Sharon Fladoos of Dubuque was 13. Andy Cohn of Waterloo and Linda Cahill of Keokuk were 16. Fladoos beat Judy in the semifinals, 4 and 2.

The tournament switched from match play to medal play in 1957, when Judy finished third at the Fort Dodge Country Club. Then she captured the 1958 Iowa Women’s Amateur title at the Cedar Rapids Country Club, finishing five shots in front of Cohn and Fladoos. That summer, she was the low amateur and finished 18th overall at the Waterloo Women’s Open, then a stop on the LPGA Tour.

“When she was in high school and college she was a grinder,” six-time Iowa Women’s Amateur champ Corkey Nydle once said. “She worked hard. She was quiet on the golf course, very focused on what she was doing.”

That 1958 Iowa Women’s Amateur was the only one Kimball Simon would win. She finished fourth in 1959, the year she reached the semifinals of the Trans-Mississippi. And she placed third in 1960, the year she reached the semifinals of the Women’s Western Amateur. That was also the year she graduated from Kansas after reaching the quarterfinals of the National Women’s Collegiate.

She was contemplating enrolling at Texas to pursue a degree in kinesiology, but her career went in a completely different direction. Wilson Sporting Goods offered Judy, Betsy Rawls, Patty Berg and Mickey Wright endorsement deals to give clinics and promote golf equipment. Kimball Simon’s first set of clubs had been Patty Berg Defenders.

Judy signed the deal on Nov. 9, 1960, and became a professional. In her first event, the 1961 Sea Island Women’s Open, she finished 16th in a field of 25 and won $95. Later that year she became the first LPGA rookie to win in 10 years when she captured the American Women’s Open in Minneapolis.

“If I don’t win again in a hurry, I’ll at least know that I have been a winner, and that will help,” she said after finishing two shots in front of Rawls.

Kimball Simon chipped in twice during her final round of 74, from 28 feet on No. 6 and 60 feet on No. 13.Judy said she never thought she’d won “until the last putt dropped. If I had bogeyed that hole, I had visions of a sudden-death playoff.”

She became the first and only Iowan to win a women’s major championship the following year at the LPGA Championship. Judy, 24, shot 70-69-71-72 at Stardust Country Club in Las Vegas and finished four shots ahead of the field. Her 282 total was three shots better than the previous tournament record, established by Louise Suggs in 1957. Kimball Simon won $2,300 for her victory, from a purse of $15,000. The Los Angeles Times named her Woman Golfer of the Year.

Kimball Simon would add two team victories, one with Gloria Ehret at the Yankee Women’s Open in 1966 and the other with Kathy Whitworth at the LPGA Four-Ball in 1971. A week later she won her last LPGA Tour title at the O’Sullivan Ladies Open. She was also a nine-time runner up in her 18-season career, two of those coming in majors. She finished in the Top 20 of the LPGA money list every year from 1961 to 1968, including a career-best seventh in 1967.

“It bothers me that I haven’t won more,” Judy said in 1977, as her career was winding down. “My swing is as good as most, with the exception of Mickey Wright. My putting stroke is better than most. I think I’m a good competitor. But I’ll tell you this. Even though the record book doesn’t show it, I’ve been fortunate in choosing golf as my career.”

Judy Kimball Simon Bio from Des Moines Register by Rick Brown

• 1958 Iowa Women’s State Amateur Champion
• 1958 LPGA Waterloo Women’s Open – Low Amateur

LPGA Tour Victories: (18-Year Career on the LPGA Tour)

• 1961 American Women’s Open in Minneapolis, MN
• 1962 LPGA Championship in Las Vegas, NV
• 1966 Yankee Women’s Open (4-Ball) with partner Gloria Ehret
• 1971 LPGA Four-Ball with partner Kathy Whitworth
• 1971 O’Sullivan Open in Winchester, VA