By Fred Altvater
The PGA of America announced last month that Annika Sorenstam, David Marr, Davis Love III, plus LPGA founding member and longtime teaching professional, Shirley Spork would be inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame.
Sorenstam, Davis Love and even Dave Marr are familiar names in golf, but the most intriguing inductee, plus one with an Ohio connection, is Spork, who has been one of the most important figures in golf for over 70 years.
Spork is a Detroit native, who played college golf at Eastern Michigan University and was later on the teaching staff at Bowling Green State University. The Eastern Michigan Women’s Golf Team annually hosts the Shirley Spork Invitational for top collegiate women golfers. 
She was one of the 13 original founders of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) in 1950. She also toiled on practice ranges, teaching the game and helped reorganize the LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals Association, which established the standards of excellence for aspiring young women professional golfers.
In 1959, she was the driving force behind the creation of the LPGA Teaching Committee, which reorganized the LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals division and currently boasts more than 1,750 members in all 50 states, as well as, 25 countries worldwide.
She graduated from Eastern Michigan University and was the 1947 Women’s National Collegiate Golf Champion. She was named the LPGA National Teacher of the Year twice, 1959 and again in 1984. She finished runner-up in the 1961 LPGA Championship, today called the KPMG Women’s Championship a major on the LPGA Tour.
Shirley was the first woman to be invited inside the Royal & Ancient clubhouse in St. Andrews, Scotland, to demonstrate wedge shots. In 1955, she became the first LPGA Professional invited as guest speaker at the PGA Annual Meeting.
Other accomplishments include: equipment design for Golfcraft Inc, co-authored the National Golf Foundation Teaching manual and instructional videos, and served as Head Professional and Manager at numerous golf courses.
Highly respected for her ability to communicate the dynamics of the golf swing, she put that skill to use as an LPGA Master Teaching Professional. She helped write the book on how the game is taught today.
She has received numerous awards over the years including, the 1994 Byron Nelson Award; the 1998 LPGA Ellen Griffin Rolex Award; membership in the 2000 inaugural class of the LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals, and the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame (2002).
She even authored, “From Green to Tee” in 2017, which chronicles her life and includes interactions with Babe Zaharias, Mickey Wright and Kathy Whitworth, along with celebrities that included Harpo Marx, who developed a comedy routine with Spork for special golf outings.
Shirley Spork has lived a life in golf most people could only dream of. She has been at the center of playing and teaching the game since the 1940’s.
This is truly an honor well deserved. Maybe a few more golfers will become acquainted with one of the true pioneers in the game of golf, Shirley Spork.
