Liselotte Maria "Lotta" Neumann (born 20 May 1966) is a Swedish professional golfer. When she recorded her first LPGA Tour win, by claiming the 1988 U.S. Women's Open title, Neumann also became the first Swedish golfer, male or female, to win a major championship.[1]
Neumann was born and grew up in Finspång, Sweden. Her father Rune was a former football player and coach of a local girls football team. After practicing different sports and supported by her father, her mother Ingegerd and her brother Mats, Neumann began playing golf at the local 9-hole course at Finspång Golf Club. She showed early promise and won the unofficial national youth championships, Colgate Cup, at three different levels, as a 12, 14, and 16-year-old. Neumann has later given a lot of credit, for her successful career, to her local coach since her early years, Pierre Karlström. Neumann also has showed her loyalty to her first golf club by, three times during the peak of her career in the 1990s, inviting some of the female golf stars of the world, Laura Davies, Karrie Webb, Kelly Robbins and Jane Geddes among others, for exhibition matches in Finspång.[2]
Amateur career
In 1981, only 15 years of age, she sensationally won the Swedish International Amateur Stroke-Play Championship, one of three major amateur tournaments in Sweden at the time, at Jönköping Golf Club, with a record aggregate of 282 and a 9-stroke margin. She bettered her personal 72-hole best with 30 strokes and beat the whole Swedish amateur national team, some of whom had not even heard of Neumann before the tournament. At the time of her triumph, she wasn't even qualified for the Swedish national junior team, which, the same summer, won the European Lady Junior's Team Championship.[3]
The year after, she successfully defended her stroke-play title and, at 16 years old, was a member of the national team at the Espirito Santo Trophy in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1983, she finished second in Orange Bowl International Junior Championship in Coral Gables, Florida. In 1984, she was the Swedish Match Play champion (tournament for first time open for professionals), member of the winning Swedish team at the European Lady Junior's Team Championship at Campo de Golf El Saler, Valencia, Spain, and medalist at the 36-hole qualifying competition in the European Ladies Team Championship, in Waterloo, Belgium. After another appearance at the Espirito Santo Trophy in Hong Kong in late 1984, she turned professional at the beginning of 1985, not yet 19 years old.[4]
Professional career
She collected her first professional win at the Pierre Robert Cup, over 54 holes at Falsterbo Golf Club, in Sweden in May 1985 and played on the Ladies European Tour (at the time named the WPGA Tour) the second half of the year, where she won twice. At the Höganäs Ladies Open at Mölle Golf Club in Sweden, she became the youngest ever winner on the WPGA Tour.
She led the 1986 Ladies European Tour Order of Merit for most of the season, with eight straight top three finishes, but lost the lead to Laura Davies at the last tournament, the Spanish Open. While Davies won the tournament, Neumann finished 27th, her worst of the season. In the rankings, Neumann finished second, earning £494 less than Davies. The same year the ladies' Swedish Golf Tour get started with seven tournaments and Neumann was its first Order of Merit winner.
At the 1988U.S. Women's Open at Baltimore Country Club, Five Farms, Baltimore, Maryland, July 21-24, at 22 years of age, Neumann led wire-to-wire in just her 16th LPGA Tour tournament, setting a new tournament first-round record 67 and 72-hole record 277, becoming the first Swedish major winner, male or female, as well as the first Swedish tournament winner on the LPGA Tour or the PGA Tour. She became the fifth non-U.S.-winner and the second youngest (by two months to Catherine Lacoste in 1967) in the 43-year history of the championship.[5] She was voted 1988 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year and earned her second Swedish Golfer of the Year award.
In total she won thirteen times on the LPGA Tour. The 1988 U.S. Women's Open remains her only LPGA major, but she won the Women's British Open in 1994, when it was recognised as a major championship by the Ladies European Tour, but not by the LPGA Tour. She also finished second five times in three other major championships.
Her best finish on the LPGA Tour money list is third in 1994. She also finished top ten in 1996, 1997 and 1998.
In 1984, Neumann earned Elite Sign No. 78 by the Swedish Golf Federation, on the basis of national team appearances and national championship performances.[6][7]
Besides being awarded Swedish Golfer of the Year three times, 1985, 1988 and 1994, Neumann received the Golden Club by the Swedish Golf Federation in 1998, as the tenth person, for great contributions to Swedish golf.[4]
In 1998, she also became an honorary member of the PGA of Sweden.[4]
She was recognized during the LPGA's 50th Anniversary in 2000 as one of the LPGA's top 50 players and teachers.
In May 2022, Neumann was elected, as its fourth inductee, decided by the board of the Swedish Golf Federation, into the Swedish Golf Hall of Fame, inaugurated the same year.[9]
Lost after eliminated on first extra hole Alfredsson won with birdie on second extra hole
Note: Neumann won the Women's British Open once after it was co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour in 1994, but before it was recognized as a major championship on the LPGA Tour in 2001.
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References
↑ Hellsten, CM (18 September 2017). "Här är alla svenska majorvinnare"[Here are all Swedish major winners]. Svensk Golf (in Swedish). Retrieved 15 September 2019.
1 2 3 4 5 "Golf - Den Stora Sporten'"[Golf - the Great Sport] (in Swedish). Swedish Golf Federation 100 Years. pp.71, 95 192, 198, 211, 220, 221, 224, 283.
↑ Ohlson, Jörgen (March 2006). "Tävling, En seger − för Sverige"[Competition, A victory − for Sweden]. Svensk Golf (in Swedish). No.3/2006. p.85. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
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