In some ways Shirley Englehorn has led a charmed life in which she seldom seems to take a misstep. But in other ways, she has to laugh at how accident-prone she appears.
The Colorado Springs resident won 11 times on the LPGA Tour, including the 1970 LPGA Championship where she beat all-time LPGA victory leader Kathy Whitworth in an 18-hole playoff.
On the other hand, Englehorn was sidelined for significant periods by two separate career-threatening accidents: being thrown off a horse and being involved in a major auto wreck. And though her LPGA Tour career ended in 1978, that doesn’t mean she’s put major mishaps behind her.
That became evident in August, while Englehorn was preparing for a golf school at Kissing Camels at Garden of the Gods Club, where she’s been a golf instructor since 1995. While sorting equipment, she tripped on a golf club and ended up cracking her right femur.
“I obviously am very accident-prone,”, Englehorn said with a laugh during a recent phone interview. “I never dreamed I would crack a femur tripping on a golf club. I’m lucky an iron didn’t fall and hit me in the head.”
At least Englehorn has a sense of humor about it all, despite the resulting two months of therapy she had to do in a rehabilitation facility.
But the good thing is, how Englehorn is respected in the game is certainly no joke, as recent developments have shown. Most notably, during Thanksgiving week, the LPGA announced that Englehorn and Donna White of West Palm Beach, Fla., will be inducted into the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals Hall of Fame. The enshrinement ceremonies will take place in October in San Antonio at the LPGA T&CP’s national conference and Hall of Fame reception.
Englehorn, a member of the LPGA since 1959, and White will be just the 24th and 25th Hall of Fame inductees for the Teaching and Club Professional division. Previous inductees from Colorado include Pat Lange and Penny Zavichas.
“I was overwhelmed to be selected as one of the few through the years,” Englehorn said the day before turning 74 last week. “It’s a great honor for me.”
Englehorn certainly has a stellar resume, both as a player and an instructor. From 1962 through 1971, the “Lady in Red” — so dubbed because of the preferred color choice for her outfits — won all of her 11 LPGA titles. That includes the 1967 Shirley Englehorn Invitational in her home state of Idaho. Her 1970 victory in the LPGA Championship not only marked her only LPGA major title, but it capped a remarkable stretch in which Englehorn won four times in four starts. She also served as the president of the LPGA Tour during the mid-1960s. (Englehorn is pictured at left in 1963.)
Englehorn crossed paths with some of the biggest names in golf history during her playing days. When she was recovering in Augusta, Ga., in the spring of 1960 from a broken back and a concussion after being thrown off a horse, among her visitors in the hospital were two players who were in town for the Masters, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, even though neither had met her before. But they remained acquaintances through the remaining years of Hogan and Nelson’s lives. And Englehorn drew inspiration from how Hogan had come back from a head-on collision with a bus in 1949.
“He was a wonderful man,” said Englehorn, who would go on to be awarded the Ben Hogan Award in 1969 for her comeback after her accidents.
About the same time Hogan and Nelson visited, she met a young, promising amateur by the name of Jack Nicklaus. And in 1964, Englehorn won the Haig & Haig Scotch Foursome event while teaming with Sam Snead. And two of her playoff victories came over Whitworth, winner of 88 LPGA events.
But after undergoing an ankle fusion in the 1970s in the wake of her 1965 auto wreck, Englehorn quit the LPGA Tour in 1978.
In part due to her horse accident, Englehorn had acquired her LPGA teaching certificate in the early 1960s, which would pave the path for the second portion of her career. Though she taught on and off during her Tour career, it’s been since 1978 that she’s been a full-time instructor.
“Winning four tournaments in a row was very exciting. I thought I was in a big dream,” she said. “But it was a very narrow window. And I don’t get the enjoyment out of winning that I do from teaching. I loved the Tour, but there’s more satisfaction from teaching.”
In 1978, Englehorn earned the LPGA National Teacher of the Year Award. Thirteen years later, she received the Ellen Griffin Rolex Award, one of the highest honors given to golf instructors. And at different times, Englehorn has been named one of the country’s top teachers by Golf Digest and Golf for Women magazines.
A longtime LPGA Master Professional, Englehorn has taught at a variety of sites over the years. But she ended up in Colorado Springs at Kissing Camels due to her circumstances at the time. The course she was working at in California went under, and Englehorn needed a new teaching gig. Her friend Judy Bell of Colorado Springs (who would become USGA president in 1996) and the Kissing Camels owner at the time needed a teaching professional, and Englehorn happily came to Colorado and set down roots.
Englehorn teaches all types of golfers — women and men, kids, those with physical problems; you name it. And she savors every minute of it.
“I love my club and I love teaching,” she said. “I love to see people who are really interested in learning. And I love to teach children. I’m an old-time basics (type of instructor): grip, stance, ball position and balance. If I can give people one good tip that helps them, that’s great.”
Of course, given Englehorn’s broken femur, she hasn’t been doing much teaching lately. But she anticipates she’ll be back at it soon.
“I miss my teaching,” she said.
