Polly Riley was an international amateur champion of the 1940s and 1950s, and one of Texas’ greatest female amateurs ever. Riley won six Southern Amateurs, two Western Amateurs, three Texas Opens and two Texas amateurs. She was runner-up in both the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Women’s Open. She played on six Curtis Cup teams and captained the 1962 team. Riley is believed to have won more than 100 amateur tournaments.

A tiny five-footer who whistled her way around the course, she spent her early years in Fort Worth, Tulsa, and Kansas City, but she did all her golfing out of Fort Worth and graduated from Fort Worth’s Arlington Heights High School.

Polly Never turned professional, but she could play with the pros. On January 19, 1950, the first tournament ever played by the newly formed LPGA Tour teed off. It was the Tampa Women's Open in Florida. Everyone expected one of the better-known professionals in women's golf — Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, for example — to be the new tour's first champion.

Instead, it was Polly Riley. When the tournament ended on Jan. 22, 1950, Riley was the champion with a 295 total, five strokes ahead of runner-up Suggs.

She also won the following LPGA Helen Lee Doherty Match Play Championship in Miami, where she defeated Marlene Bauer in the 36-hole finals, 4-3. Marlene had just been named Woman Athlete of the Year. Polly also beat Babe Zaharias 10-9, in the 36-hole finals of the 1948 Texas Open. In competition against Zaharias, Polly can claim a 3-2 edge.

Riley continued to compete in the State Amateur well into the 1990s. She qualified for the Championship Flight in 1989, 50 years after her first entry in that tournament.

Later in her career, Riley was known as a top female teacher. A chapter was dedicated to her in the 1999 book, Different Strokes: The Lives and Teachings of the Game's Wisest Women.

She played out of Fort Worth her entire golf career, living less than two miles from Colonial Country Club until her death from cancer in 2002.

Birthplace: San Antonio, Texas

Born: August 27, 1926

Died: March 13, 2002