"Whatta Woman"

At Tampa the crowd edged in closer to see Mildred ("Babe") Didrikson Zaharias whack out a golf ball. It was a sight all right, but there were risks; the Babe, among her other great talents, has a sharp tongue. Said she to the crowd: "I know I'm good, but not this good. I have to have room to hit the ball." As the gallery fell back, she took a look toward the flag, waggled once, and sent the ball flying.

There are few men in the land who can outdrive husky Babe Didrikson; she once slammed a ball 408 yards, averages an amazing 240. But the Babe contributes more to ladies' golf than just swat: she is a crowd-puller. Unlike most women golfers, who are timid before an audience, the Babe in her showmanship is as subtle as a punch on the nose. When she spotted a photographer trying to take her picture, she yelled, "I'm not so bad that you have to have your thumb over the lens, am I?" At Orlando, she quipped to her male partner: "Come on, pardner, let out. Why allow poor little me to pass you up all the time?"

Last week at Ormond Beach she played her 40th consecutive day of tournament golf. She sank one 45-foot putt with a breezy exclamation, "Ain't that pretty?" She also won her sixth Florida tournament in six weeks. Muttered one spectator: "Whatta woman."

No Muscle Moll. There is little question that Mildred Zaharias is still the world's top woman athlete. But she is no longer the rough-&-tumble tomboy (or "muscle moll" as some sportswriters preferred to call her) that she was in the days of the 1932 Olympics. That was an era when her specialties were baseball, basketball and track. Now trim, athletic and 32, she carries 145 Ibs. gracefully, wears silly hats, nylons and red fingernail polish when she dresses up.

The retreat from tomboyishness began when she married cauliflower-eared George Zaharias, a 300-lb. wrestler. The bride gave up baseball (she could throw farther than most big-league outfielders) and winning track meets singlehanded. The bridegroom, shortly after the honeymoon, quit being, a wrestler.

Now he promotes weekly wrestling matches in Denver, has a string of muscle men touring the state, and operates a cigar store on 17th Street, Denver's financial street. He makes enough money to finance the golfing junkets of his wife, who once turned pro, then reformed. "Babe is an amateur," says George proudly.

Babe and George met on a Los Angeles golf course, where a promoter, as a gag, had put the wrestler and the lady golfer in a threesome with a minister. After they were married, they kept on golfing together. On the fourth tee at Brentwood one day, the Babe hit a terrific drive down the fairway. Then George, just a plain country golfer, went through some of the contortions of his trade--flying mare, airplane spin, body-twist--and hit the ball about three yards farther than the Babe. Said Babe: "I always said I could fall in love with a man strong enough to outdrive me."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.