GRAND OLD LADY : Marlene Hagge Has Been a Member of the LPGA Tour for All of Its 38 Years

Marlene Hagge is the GOL of golf--the Grand Old Lady.

At 16, way, way back in 1950, she was a charter member of the Ladies Professional Golf Assn., now simply known as the LPGA. She is the youngest ever to join the group, and now, in her and the LPGA’s 38th season, she is the oldest on the tour.

Although she hasn’t won a tour event since 1972, she can still be competitive. The diminutive, attractive veteran shot a one-over-par 73 in the opening round of the Nabisco Dinah Shore Invitational Thursday at Mission Hills Country Club.

“I believe I’m hitting the ball as well as or better than I ever did,” Hagge said after her performance on a hot afternoon in the desert. “After all these years, it’s a matter of concentration. If I’m playing well as I did today, it isn’t difficult.

“But when I’m not playing well, that’s when it’s hard. It is easy to turn a 74 into a 78 or 79. Today, I could easily have had a 68 or 69. I just don’t putt as well as I did when I was younger. I don’t have the yips, I’m just not as good.”

When she was good, she was something special. As a 10-year-old in Long Beach, she won the boys’ city championship. At 13, she won the Los Angeles City women’s championship on the Wilson course at Griffith Park.

As Marlene Bauer, she was already famous in Southern California when she and sister Alice, 6 1/2 years older, turned pro in 1950. Within six years she was a glamorous star of the struggling women’s tour.

In 1956, at 22, she had a year to remember. There were 26 events that season and Hagge won eight of them. Moreover, she was second in nine other tournaments. That year she set tour records for 72 holes, 54 holes and 36 holes.

“I figured out that if I had done that on the 1984 tour, I would have earned $800,000,” she said. “I really am happy that the girls are doing so well. I don’t envy them a bit.”

She earned only $20,235 that year. In the middle of the tremendous year, she changed her name from Marlene Bauer to Marlene Bauer Hagge after marrying Bob Hagge, an architect. They were later divorced, and he married sister Alice.

In 1984, when her best finish was a tie for 10th, she earned $24,770. Not only were the purses small 30 years ago, but the golfers had to do the work.

“The courses may not be all that much better, but the conditions are,” she said. “We couldn’t afford a staff, so we had to do all the work ourselves. We had to paint the hazards. It was the late ‘50s before that changed.

“It was the ‘70s before we got much recognition and we’re still in a struggle. Now the (men’s) Senior Tour is playing in some of the same areas we do. There’s only so many golf dollars.

“The airline schedules weren’t much in those days, so mostly we drove. We didn’t play every week, so it wasn’t too bad. I remember winding up a tournament in St. Louis and a friend and I drove nonstop to San Francisco for a tournament the next week. That was 2,200 miles. I was so conditioned that I could have driven all the way to Hawaii.”

Hagge does not envision a women’s senior tour.

“For one thing, the girls won’t stay out that long,” she said. “They’ll get their money and leave. I’m weird--I don’t mean that--I’m just an exception.

“If a woman wants to raise a family, she can’t take 10 years off and then make it back. I was different. I am a health nut, I’ve always worked out and, I have played every year.”

Hagge, who lives on the Mission Hills Country Club grounds, remembers vividly a couple of incidents from her junior days.

“When I won the L.A. City Women’s championship in 1947 when I was 13, on the back of the score card it said, ‘No children under 14 are permitted on the course,’ ” she said. “There was no junior program in those days.

“When I won the Long Beach boys’ championship, I was the only girl, so they didn’t think anything about it. They didn’t fear me.

“In the final, I played a 15-year-old, Irving Cooper, who was later a pro. I had a crush on him. After I beat him he never spoke to me again. It was sometime later I learned a girl wasn’t supposed to beat a boy.”

Hagge played with or against all of the golfing greats. She rates Mickey Wright, a member of the Hall of Fame, the greatest.

“She had a great golf swing,” Hagge said. “She wasn’t even a great putter, but she was the best player.”

Of the legendary athlete, Babe Didriksen Zaharias, Hagge said: “She wrote the book on gamesmanship. I guess I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she admitted it herself.”

How long will Hagge keep playing.

“I take my golf life a year at a time,” she said. “I made up my mind that I would give it my best shot this year and probably call it quits. But I feel so good right now, I don’t know.

“The only real problem is that the last two years I’ve developed allergies. On a hot day like today, I can hardly breathe.

“Soon as I get my breath, it’s back to the practice tee. When you’re going well, it’s fun.”