She was literally one of the giants of the game, both on the golf course and for the work she did in the evolution of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She was a natural leader, winning a U.S. Women’s Open, 38 events and serving as one of the LPGA’s most influential presidents. Yes, she was 6’3″, and yes, she was self-conscious about her height, but Carol Mann always seemed quite natural in her surroundings, whether it was taking on Kathy Whitworth and Mickey Wright, or selling the ladies’ tour to corporate America. There was a time when she was the LPGA’s Mann for all seasons.
In 1968, she won 10 times and the Vare Trophy with a then-record 72.04 scoring average. The next year she won eight times and was the LPGA’s leading money winner. Starting with the Women’s Western Open in 1964 and ending with Lawson’s Open in 1975, she towered over everybody in the competition except Whitworth. And then it all became too much for her. Like Whitworth and Sandra Haynie in the late 1970s, she just burned out. “I had made a tremendous effort, and it still wasn’t satisfying,” Mann told Liz Kahn in her unauthorized history of the LPGA. “I said to my father: ‘Daddy, is this all there is to life? Is this all the accomplishment I can expect? Is this the only kick I’m going to have? Do I have to keep doing this?'”
