Like King, Babe Didrikson also played tennis. Unlike King, she also played every other sport ever invented. Seriously. She successfully competed in basketball, track, golf, baseball, tennis, swimming, diving, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating and cycling. She won gold medals at the 1932 Olympics in high jump, 80-meter hurdles and javelin. We’d joke that such a badass woman would never conquer domestic duties, except Didrikson was a competitive seamstress and won the Texas Seamstress Championship.
However, since female athletes in the 1930s were regarded as highly as communist Irish atheists, there were almost no outlets for female sports, forcing Didrikson to take up one of the few socially acceptable sports for females – golf.
Didrikson utterly dominated her opponents, winning 41 LPGA events and 10 majors. More importantly, she shocked people by refusing to act feminine. She went as far to try out and qualify for the PGA in 1945, something no other woman was able to do until 2003. Her imposing and unapologetic demeanormade future athletes like Billie Jean King more acceptable in mainstream sports and greatly advanced female athletics.
The 6 Greatest Athletic Feats Ever (Aren’t What You Think)