Jane Blalock

Barbara Jane Blalock (born September 19, 1945) is an American business executive and retired professional golfer.

Jane Blalock was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on September 19, 1945.

Raised in Portsmouth, her father, Richard Blalock, worked as a newspaper editor in town.

She began golfing at age 13, and credits her family with being supportive of her different endeavors, including athletics.

After years of practicing golf at the nearby country club, Blalock attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.

She continued to play amateur golf as she studied, winning the New Hampshire Amateur in 1965, 1966, and 1968, and also winning the Florida Intercollegiate Championship in 1966.

She graduated from Rollins College in 1967 with a degree in history.

Blalock began working as a high school history teacher upon graduation, and a year later she borrowed money to return from New Hampshire to Florida, where she spent five weeks taking lessons from golfer and instructor Bob Toski.

She won the New England Amateur tournament in 1967 and 1968.

The following winter, Blalock returned to work at a country club in Florida, laboring on the driving range and doing odd jobs while listening to Toski advise students.

Though she had yet to win a tournament outside of New England, at age 23 Blalock left her job as a history teacher to become a professional golfer.

After winning several New England golf tournaments in her youth, Blalock joined the LPGA Tour as a professional in 1969, being named LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 1969 and Most Improved Golfer in 1970 and 1971.

Her first purse was in Louisville, Kentucky in 1969 for $264.

She earned 1969 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

Blalock won her first professional tour victory at the Lady Carling Event in Atlanta, Georgia in 1970, beating Betsy Rawls by one stroke.

Blalock won Most Improved Golfer at the LGPA Golf Awards in both 1970 and 1971, and those same years Golf Digest named her their "most improved professional."

She won the historically notable Dinah Shore Colgate Winner's Circle in 1972, earning "the richest prize in women's golf history."

On April 16, 1972, won the inaugural version of the Dinah Shore Colgate Winner's Circle, earning "the richest prize in women's gold history" with the $20,000 first place award.

The Dinah Shore event would later be upgraded to a women's major golf championship.

That moment for [female golfers] was 40 years ago [at Dinah Shore].

We began getting corporate-type sponsors.

We had celebrities wanting to meet us and play with us.

We were asked to do television commercials." Blalock in particular recollects doing a commercial with Jan Miner.

In May 1972, she won the Suzuki Golf International Tournament in Pasadena, California, besting Kathy Whitworth.

Shortly afterwards Blalock was disqualified from the Bluegrass Invitational for allegedly placing a ball incorrectly, and then failing to mark a two stroke penalty on her scorecard.

Within a month, the LPGA Tour would move to suspend Blalock.

In response, she filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the LPGA, obtaining an order to allow her to continue playing until the lawsuit had run its course.

Despite the ongoing lawsuit, in 1972 Blalock went on to win the Dallas Civitan Open and the Lady Errol Classic.

Blalock came in second at the 1972 LPGA Championship.

The rules violation conflict would continue until 1975, when after losing several appeals and being ordered to pay damages to Blalock, the LPGA agreed to settle.

In 1975, Blalock won the World Ladies Championship in Japan, an achievement which she would repeat the very next year.

Golf Magazine named her to its All-American Team twice, also naming her to its LPGA All-American Team for three consecutive years total.

After successfully fighting a suspension from the LPGA for allegedly signing an incorrect scorecard a month after Dinah Shore, by 1977 she was the sixth-highest paid female golfer of all time.

The Evening Independent described her as "one of the foremost women golfers of her time" the following year.

Associated with various boards and non-profit organizations, she has authored two books: The Guts To Win (Simon & Schuster, 1977) and Gimmies, Bogies and Business (Mastermedia, 1999).

Nursing a herniated disc, Blalock failed to win a tournament from 1981 until 1984, though after two wins in 1985 she was named Comeback Player of the Year by Golf Digest.

Since retiring in 1987, Blalock continues to hold the world record for "most consecutive cuts made on a professional [golf] tour," with her 299 unbroken cuts considered the longest streak for any LPGA Tour or PGA Tour player in history.

She also has the most wins of any LPGA player without a major championship.

Voted into the Legends Hall of Fame in 2014 by a committee of LPGA veterans, she remains founder and CEO of both the Legends Tour for veteran female LPGA golfers and the LPGA Golf Clinics for Women.

Her company, JBC Golf, Inc., manages both programs.