You Da Mann!!--LPGA Hall of Famer Carol Mann Makes Broadcasting History...Twice!

LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer, Carol Mann

Televised Golf's Beginnings

When Babe Zaharias won the inaugural U.S. Women's Open in 1948, only 1% of American households owned a television set. At the time, it was considered a luxury, but as technology, programming, and access improved, so did its popularity, and by 1952, that number had grown to 34%, encompassing roughly 15 million households across the nation.

Chicago businessman George S. May was the first person to embrace the potential of televised golf when he arranged a regional telecast of his All-American Open tournament on July 29, 1946, making fans in the Chicago market the first to view live golf from the comfort of their own living rooms. While most golf historians credit the 1947 U.S. Open as being the first televised American golf tournament, KSD-TV’s airing of that event in the St. Louis market occurred over ten months after the Tam O’Shanter telecast.

With sponsorship from the United States Rubber Company, local ABC affiliate WBKB-TV mounted a camera atop the Tam O'Shanter clubhouse and provided live video of golf action at the first tee and fairway as well as the second and eighteenth greens with commentary from veteran sportscasters Johnny Neblett and Jack Gibney. Viewers could see George May in his flowery Hawaiian print shirt and identify players when the picture was coming through at its best, but could not easily see the ball even though they could see the flash of the clubs being swung.

When Gillete Safety Razor Company purchased radio broadcast rights to the 1946 U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open championships, they allowed television rights to be sold separately, and when approached about the 1947 Open, they again expressed no interest. While other sports like boxing, Major League Baseball, and NFL football were on television in the late Forties, golf remained a harder sell. Not so for LPGA founder Fred Corcoran, who saw television as an amazing showcase for golf. Corcoran was so bullish on television that, while simultaneously directing the LPGA tour, he negotiated a three-year contract with the PGA to become Promotional Director for their tournament division and--in exchange for a $12,000 a year salary--he would get exclusive rights to PGA-sponsored tournaments on radio and television.

Corcoran went to Tom Gallery, sports director for NBC television, and offered him the chance to own professional golf, but Gallery wanted no part of it. Had Gallery gotten on board, Corcoran planned to sell sponsorship to Miller Brewing Company, and things would have taken off, but the doubters won the day. Once again, the PGA was beaten to the punch, and George May produced the first nationally televised golf tournament on August 9, 1953, the World Championship of Golf, which Lew Worsham won with a walk-off eagle on the 72nd hole during the last few minutes of coverage. The USGA followed suit the next summer with a nationally-televised broadcast of the 1954 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, and while it was clear that the marriage of golf and television had a future, the boom occurred several years after Cororan's contract had expired.

1965 U.S. Women's Open

The first national broadcast of the U.S. Women's Open wasn't until eleven years later, when NBC aired the final round of the 13th Women's Open at Atlantic City Country Club on July 4, 1965. With defending champ Mickey Wright out with an injury, the conversation shifted to tournament favorites Betsy Rawls, Kathy Whitworth, and Marlene Bauer Hagge, as well as 47 year-old Patty Berg and a fourth-year pro from Towson, Maryland, named Carol Mann, who had put herself on the radar with a win at the Lady Carling Open the week before.

Standing 6'3", 24 year-old Carol Mann stood out on the LPGA as much for her height as she did for her golfing skills. Born in Buffalo, New York on February 3, 1941, Mann grew up in Chicago and Baltimore and had been playing golf since the age of nine. Tutored by Manuel de la Torre, she won the Western Junior and Chicago Junior in 1958 before attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She turned pro in 1961 and picked up her first win three years later at the 1964 Women's Western Open.

Mann got off to a slow start in Atlantic City, shooting a six-over 78 in soggy conditions on Thursday, but shot a competitive course record 70 in Friday's second round that vaulted her into second, two shots behind Kathy Cornelius. Wheezing and hacking through a respiratory infection, Mann carded another 70 on Saturday to take a four stroke lead over Mary Mills and Judy Tourluemke (known better now by her married name, Judy Rankin). "The way she played in that wind, she stood nine feet tall," said an impressed Cornelius, who won the Open title as a rookie in 1956. "It was one of the finest rounds I ever saw. You're going to hear a lot more about this girl."

Playing two holes in front of Mann in Sunday's final round, Cornelius had herself a day. She began the day five shots behind Mann, but by the 13th hole, she was 3-under for the round and trailed Mann by only a stroke. Feeling the heat after finishing the 11th, Mann knew she would have to find a way to make a birdie or two coming home if she hoped to keep her lead. That's how they stood as NBC's broadcast began.

With Bill Mazer and Bud Palmer at the mic, and cameras set up at the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes, Cornelius was the first of the leaders on camera as she barely missed a 14-footer at the 17th to tie for the lead. Coverage then switched to the 18th, a 515-yard par-5, where Cornelius was on the green in regulation, and as she lined up a 30-footer for birdie, the announcer broke in, saying "We've just been told that Carol Mann is in some trouble back on number 16." Seconds later, Cornelius's putt looked as if it might go in, but it lost steam as it neared the cup and settled just inches short.

After Cornelius tapped in for par to take the clubhouse lead at plus-4, the cameras cut over to 16, where Mann drained an 18-footer to save par. "A fantastic putt!" the announcer interjected, "What pressure was on that kid on that shot!" That wasn't the half of it, though. What the television audience had missed was Mann's big push-slice off the tee at 16 that nearly went out-of bounds and ended up on the downslope of a ditch. It was from there that she laid up in front of the green and hit her third shot to 18 feet before coaxing in the putt for par.

After draining the 18-footer at 16, Mann was back in trouble at the par-3 17th, when she pushed her tee shot into a bunker on the right of the green. "If she ever had a tough shot in her life, she's got one now," said the announcer. From there, she blasted to two feet and viewers across the nation held their breath as her putt rimmed around the cup and dropped in the back door for another par. She played the final hole flawlessly, with a center-cut drive, a 3-wood to the front of the green, and a chip that settled four feet from the pin. "I didn't mean to take any chances," she said afterward, "I wanted that putt for a 290." And she got it, rolling in the 4-footer for birdie, and a two-stroke win over Cornelius. Her 290 total for the tournament was ten strokes better than Babe Zaharias's winning score at the same course in 1948. Her prize for winning the first nationally televised U.S. Women's Open was a record $4,000.

NBC commentators Mazer and Palmer had already begun comparisons to Mickey Wright as the cameras captured an emotional Mann walking off the 18th green in the embrace of her parents and three brothers, who were there to see her win. It hadn't been a walk-off eagle, but the drama of Mann's final three holes had given the network exactly what it needed. Anyone watching objectively that day could see that LPGA golf could be every bit as exciting as the men's tour.

By the time she reached the clubhouse, Mann was a mess. "I'm just glad that there wasn't time for me to go on television," she said, "I think I would have bawled right in Bud Palmer's face." She was relieved that it was over, but expressed both to the press and to the USGA what a thrill and honor it was to win America's national championship. "No one knows what a thrill it is until they have played in it," she said, gasping for breath. Her sense of humor came through when a reporter asked about her love life: "I'm available, but he's got to be 6'4" and blond. So far I haven't found him," and when asked if she had any goals for herself on tour, she answered thoughtfully. "Sure," she said, "I've got goals. I want to be a good girl and win tournaments. I'm the second leading money winner as of this minute and that makes me happy. But I want to win tournaments more than just money."

Mann did both and did them well. Although the '65 Open was the last of her two major titles (the Women's Western was the other) in over twenty years on tour, she amassed 38 victories and $506,666 in career earnings. She won the LPGA's Vare Trophy for the tour's lowest scoring average in 1968 and was the tour's leading money winner in 1969. She served as president of the LPGA from 1973 to 1976, was a member of its Executive Board and Board of Directors, and in 1976, received the Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias Courage Award, recognizing individuals who demonstrate courage and perseverance in overcoming adversity to achieve success in sports. In 1977, she was inducted into both the LPGA and the World Golf Halls of Fame.

Another Broadcasting Milestone, and More

Mann made broadcast history a second time in January of 1979, becoming the first female golf analyst to work on a PGA telecast. After two years working on NBC's LPGA broadcast team, NBC Sports executive producer Don Ohlmeyer approached Mann to work on their PGA crew, and though she was hesitant, fearing resentment among the men on tour, she accepted and found that the players were eager to talk to her. "I think my appointment is a definite plus for the women's game," she told Miami News's Willie Schatz. "I feel some pressure because I'm a woman, but I have all the faith in the world that Don Ohlmeyer is not doing this just to put a woman on tour." Ohlmeyer didn't disagree.

The broadcast team of John Brodie and Carol Mann, 1979

From the outset, Mann made it clear that being a groundbreaker didn’t automatically mean that she was a militant feminist, “I’m an intelligent person who happens to be a woman, too.” After spending most of her adult life working as an individual, Mann was also concerned about working with a team, but she needed not have worried. Whether on the ground or in the tower, she was a natural, and gave interesting insights on the differences in how males and females played the game. One of the first proponents of live mics on the course, she was an innovator, whose low-key style and pleasant voice converted perfectly to TV, and her knowledgeable, candid approach to the sport made her, as Ohlmeyer said, "a damn good announcer."

Mann stayed in broadcasting for well over a decade, covering PGA , LPGA, and Senior Tour events as a commentator/analyst on the NBC coverage team alongside Don Criqui, Bruce Devlin, and John Brodie, and later with ESPN, ABC, and SportsBand. By that time, over 98% of American households owned television sets and Fred Corcoran’s vision had been realized. In today’s era of live-streaming, social media, and mobile apps, the contributions of Carol Mann to men's and women's golf broadcasting are often forgotten to all but the GenXers of golf. In golf broadcasting, she was the latter day equivalent of Dottie Pepper, but her reach in the profession extended far greater than even Fred Corcoran could have imagined.

After Mann's retirement, she went on to serve as an instructor at The Woodlands Country Club in Houston, Texas, and founded Carol Mann Golf Services, the first female-owned and operated course design and management firm, based in Houston. Along with her golfing activities, she served as president of the Women's Sports Foundation and lobbied for the passage of Title IX legislation during her tenure. She was an advocate for youth sports and supported the First Tee Organization, as well as authoring a book, The 19th Hole: Favorite Golf Stories, published by Longmeadow Press. In 2008, the PGA of America honored her with the First Lady of Golf Award. After a Hall of Fame career and over 57 years in service to the sport, Mann passed away at her home in Houston on May 20, 2018.

She was tall--as she liked to say, she stood five-feet, fifteen inches--but her stature, not just in the world of women's golf but in women's sports overall, is independent of physical height. She spent the first half of her life catering to what was important to other people: her parents, her coaches, her teachers, her sponsors. "Finally" she said in the second half, "I said 'no' to them all, and I'm doing it my way." She was an independent woman who cared more about competing than she did about beating people, and she always tried to make a positive impact no matter what she did. "I enjoy being a person, and getting old and dying are fine,” said Mann in her bio on the Hall of Fame’s website. “I never think how people will remember Carol Mann. The mark I made is an intimate satisfaction."

The First Lady of Golf, 2008