With 15 wins on the LPGA tour, including two major championships, Sally Little stands out as South Africa’s greatest ever women’s golfer. She speaks to MatieMedia’s Cody Hansen about her monumental rise in the sport, her struggles along the way and how she spends her time giving back to the game.
In 2016, Sally Little became the first woman to be inducted into the South African Hall of Fame. She stands out as not only South Africa’s greatest women’s golfer, but one of the greatest of all time. PHOTO: Cody Hansen
It’s a busy Wednesday morning at the Sally Little Centre for Excellence in Maitland, Cape Town.
In the corner of the driving range, two young girls strike golf balls into the air, carefully setting their grip and posture before each shot.
Behind them, overseeing each shot, stands golfing royalty.
Sally Little spends 27 weeks of her year coaching girls at the centre, giving back to a game that has given her so much.
The Beginning
Little’s golfing journey began at the age of 11, when her father came home with a push cart and asked his daughter if she wanted to earn some extra pocket money by caddying for him on Saturday mornings.
It took her a few months to develop an interest in playing the game.
“One day I said to him while walking – ‘Daddy, can I have a hit out here?’,” Little recalls.
Little’s father – a good player himself – taught her the basics of the game. Within a few months she was playing.
One day, the women of Metropolitan Golf Club invited Little to play in their club competition, as she was progressing really well.
“I won their competition two weeks in a row. And they called my parents and said: ‘We don’t want to babysit your daughter’. That was that,” says Little.
Little’s father was very upset, so he spoke to some of his friends.
“My daughter’s going to play on Wednesday afternoons with the boys,” he said.
Little, who was 12 at the time, teed it up with the men, off the men’s tees, and played in their competitions.
After taking up golf at the age of 11, Sally Little had a glittering amateur career – which included winning the South African (SA) Amateur, SA Strokeplay and finishing low individual at the World Amateur. SOURCE: Facebook/SallyLittleGolf
“So, I was thrown into that mix. And I developed really quickly. I often say it was the greatest gift to me that the ladies didn’t want to play with me, and those men brought me into a position where I wasn’t afraid to compete,” says Little.
She began playing in boys junior tournaments, winning the Western Province U16s one year.
“I didn’t think anything different of it, because I just got into playing, and the guys my age group were fabulous to me,” she says.
At 15, Little reached the final of the women’s Western Province amateur, held at King David Mowbray. She was terrified.
“I walked up onto that tee and the whole fairway was lined with the male players of Metropolitan. The woman who I ended up playing was Esme Piercy. She didn’t have a prayer.”
Making a statement
Little says that her parents never pushed her into playing the game.
“I just got into it. And I wanted so badly then to see how good I could be,” says Little.
After winning Western Province, Little’s parents encouraged her to go up to Johannesburg, which is where all the top amateur golfers in the country were at the time.
In the first round of the Transvaal Ladies Amateur, Little was paired against Brenda Blumberg, an accomplished amateur player.
“I didn’t know who she was, and I beat her 9&8 on her home course. Houghton.”
Brenda was married to George Blumberg, who was in partnership with Mark McCormack and would go on to become the CEO of International Management Group (IMG). IMG managed all of the best golfers in the world, including Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
Brenda convinced him to watch Little play. He watched her in the final, which she won, and immediately took an interest in her game.
Gary Player (left) pictured with Sally Little (right) . Little says she looked up to Player from a young age and credits him for his support throughout her career. SOURCE: Facebook/SallyLittleGolf
At 17, with backing from Blumberg, Little went overseas for the first time, where she made the semi-finals at the French Amateur, gaining great respect from overseas players in the process, including her idol – Catherine Lacoste.
She then met McCormack in New York, who considered managing her, but first wanted to see how good she was. McCormack sent her to Florida where Bob Toschi, who he regarded as the best golf coach in the world, could critique her ability.
After hitting balls for 40 minutes in front of Toschi and his entourage, he told her there’s nothing he would ever change in her golf swing or her ability. “What you do is what we all dream of doing,” he said.
Soon after, Little played in the World Amateur Championship in Spain, where she finished with the low individual score in the tournament.
Arriving back in South Africa, Little received negative press because she had never won the SA Amateur or SA Strokeplay, the country’s biggest amateur tournaments.
“I was really hurt, you know,” says Little.
Fuelled by fire, Little won the SA Amateur and SA Strokeplay in the space of a week and turned professional.
Joining the professional ranks
Little headed to the US to pursue her professional career.
Her first event was in Winchester, Virginia.
“I won $22.22. My first cheque, and I never cashed it. That just meant so much to me. And from then on, I just slowly got better.”
Little won Rookie of the Year on the LPGA tour in 1971, despite only playing in seven out of 25 events.
She went home during the season.
“I was homesick. So, I went like that for the first three and a half years. Not really doing well. I’d shoot really low numbers, and then just choke,” she says. “I was young, still in my early 20s. I felt I was so immature as a player, and I wasn’t enjoying it.”
Sally Little turned professional in 1971, at age 19. In her first year on the LPGA Tour she was awarded Rookie of the Year, despite only playing in seven out of 25 events. SOURCE: Facebook/SallyLittleGolf
One December, Little’s father explained she wasn’t scoring well because her short game wasn’t good enough. He encouraged her to really work at it and commit to a full season in the US.
Instead of her coming home, her parents would visit her in the US for six weeks to see if it would help.
“I was so committed, I won my first tournament,” she says. “This was 1976. I finished in the top 10 ten times. I was flying.”
She felt that she could now compete with the other players on tour, and started enjoying it.
At the 1976 Women’s International, Little led throughout the tournament, which was broadcast on national TV. Feeling the nerves during the final round, Little three-putted hole 17, leaving her tied with Jan Stephenson, who had finished.
“Final hole. Here you go. I hook my tee shot in the rough. Hit it into the front bunker, pins in the back. I think I had a 75 foot bunker shot, long bunker shot – the hardest things in the world as a player. And in my head I’m like – ‘Here you go again. Come on. You’re a great bunker player’.”
“I holed it, on the 72nd hole, and it changed my life – in the sense that I knew I could play at this level and win,” says Little.
Once she started to focus on her short game, she never left the top 10 in the world rankings.
“For 10 years I was in the top seven. I never got to number one, but I got to number two in the world.”
Little won 14 events on the LPGA Tour from 1976 to 1982, including the 1982 Nabisco Dinah Shore Invitational, the most lucrative event in the women’s game, and her first major championship at the 1980 LPGA Championship.
“And then, unfortunately, I had a problem with my health.”
Sally Little celebrates holing a bunker shot on the final hole of the 1976 Women’s International to claim her first win on the LPGA Tour. PHOTO: Sourced/SallyLittleGolf
Struggles with endometriosis
Endometriosis had a massive effect on Little’s career.
After struggling with it in her early 20s, she had a hysterectomy in 1978.
Then she had a second bout with it.
“So, I had to take this drug called Depo-Provera. It’s a high steroid, and it knocked me out as a player. I couldn’t focus,” she says.
Little says it was depressing to feel like that.
“I had just had my best year… ‘82 was my best year,” she recalls. She had won a number of tournaments that year, but when she tried playing in ‘83, she couldn’t defend those titles.
“I wasn’t the same player,” she says.
She took almost two years off to get herself right, saying it wasn’t fair on herself to try to compete at that level.
“That’s what I had to do to get my body and my mind straight.”
But afterwards she didn’t have the same passion, as she went from a high level of performance to not knowing whether she would be able to play anymore.
“I couldn’t perform at the level I was used to.”
She considered retiring.
One day, Little received a letter from a fan who had followed her for years.
“She wrote me this beautiful letter, and she said ‘We’ve got snippets of what you’re going through. And we as your fans, will be so upset to see you’re not playing anymore. We don’t care how you play. We just love to watch you play. So, please reconsider. You’re way too young.”
Inspired, Little decided to begin playing again.
Sally Little was ranked in the top seven in the world golf rankings for a period of 10 years, reaching a career high ranking of number two. SOURCE: Facebook/SallyLittleGolf
The comeback
“My father had just died in ‘86. And I said, you know what, I’ve had all this time off. I’m going to go and play in the US Open,” says Little.
One of the goals Little and her father had was to win the US Open. She had finished second in 1978, losing by one shot to Hollis Stacy.
Her initial goal was to see if she could play. During the lengthy layoff, Little had to let her full-time caddy go. So, her brother, Donovan, asked to caddy for her.
“I said: ‘Don you don’t know what it’s like to be a caddy’. And he said, ‘I want to caddy for my sister. Come on. Let’s do it for daddy’.”
Little played with her brother on the bag, and in an incredible performance, finished 72 holes tied in first place with Jane Geddes for the US Open.
Little lost in an 18-hole playoff the next day by two strokes, but she says the feeling of joy was back for her.
“I realised that I will never be that player again that just focuses on winning. I was going to play the rest of my career with joy. And that’s what I did,” she says.
At the 1988 Du Maurier Classic, one of five major championships in the women’s game, Little produced a career-defining performance.
After rounds of 74, 65 and 69: Little held a two-shot lead over Laura Davies heading into the final round.
Little had lost tremendous weight due to her struggles with endometriosis, losing a lot of distance as a result, while Davies was 12 years younger and the longest hitter on the tour.
They were paired together in the final round.
Sally Little won 15 events on the LPGA Tour, including two major championships, despite struggling with endometriosis during the prime of her career. SOURCE: Facebook/SallyLittleGolf
After going back and forth all day, Little and Davies were tied going into the final hole of the tournament, a long par 4.
Davies hit her drive 280 yards into the trees; Little hit a good drive and hit her second shot, with a wood, onto the green.
Davies found her ball in the trees and played her second shot.
“You hear this crash boom, bang. I mean, the trees in Vancouver are like 100 feet high. And this ball comes out with this big cut. Lands – Bang! – next to the pin, in the bunker,” says Little.
Davies played first and hit her bunker shot to 2ft, leaving Little with a 30ft putt to win the championship.
“I’m standing over this ball,” she says. “And I’m saying if you’ve ever wanted to make a putt in your life and not go into a play-off with this woman, you’ve got to do it now, Sal.”
“Boom! I made it. I made it and won. So, that was it,” she says.
Little never played that way again. It marked her 15th and final win on the LPGA tour, and her second major championship.
She knew how much it took from her mentally to get into the right mindset.
“I’d done it so long, and I didn’t want to go there anymore. But the joy of winning that event was unbelievable,” she says.
Little received the 1989 Ben Hogan award from the Golf Writers Association of America. The award is given to a person who has come back from adversity, and other winners include Lee Trevino, Pat Bradley and Tiger Woods.
“Dinah Shore gave the award to me, which made it even more, you know, worthwhile.”
Sally Little walks to greet visitors of the public driving range at the Sally Little Centre for Excellence in Maitland. Since these photos were taken, the centre has added a new putting green and wedge facility. PHOTO: Cody Hansen
Giving back to the game
In the early 1980s – Little was one of the pioneers of an LPGA foundation programme aimed at getting girls off the street in the US through golf. Some 30 years later, over 500 000 girls have gone through the programme.
After living in the US for a number of years, Little came back to SA to grow the game locally.
These days, Little spends most of her time coaching through her programme, the Little Golf Trust, which was founded in 2015.
Her programme educates and empowers young girls from disadvantaged communities through golf.
She currently works with a school in Cape Town, where she and her team take 10 young girls out of school for an hour and a half to teach them the game using the starting new at golf (SNAG) method. About 60 girls have gone through the programme so far.
As part of the Little Golf Trust, Sally Little and her team empower and educate young girls through the game of golf. PHOTO: Cody Hansen
Little speaks fondly of a young girl currently in her programme, named Smyda.
“Today was the first time she got those balls in the air every time, and she’s getting more confident,” says Little.
She says that she wants to grow the game because golf is in her spirit.
“I know what golf has done for me as a person and my nature, the lessons it teaches you. And I was given that gift. And the most beautiful thing about golf is we all are taught early it’s a carry on sport. It’s a give back sport,” she says.
“Fix the divots, leave the course better than you found it.”