Mo Martin | |
---|---|
Personal information | |
Full name | Melissa Linda Martin |
Nickname | Mo |
Born | Pasadena, California, U.S. | October 8, 1982
Height | 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m) |
Sporting nationality | United States |
Residence | Naples, Florida, U.S. |
Career | |
College | UCLA |
Turned professional | 2005 |
Current tour(s) | LPGA Tour (joined 2012) |
Former tour(s) | Futures Tour (2006–11) |
Professional wins | 4 |
Number of wins by tour | |
LPGA Tour | 1 |
Epson Tour | 3 |
Best results in LPGA major championships | |
Chevron Championship | T14: 2016 |
Women's PGA C'ship | T17: 2014, 2016 |
U.S. Women's Open | T21: 2016 |
Women's British Open | Won: 2014 |
Evian Championship | T2: 2018 |
Melissa Linda "Mo" Martin (born October 8, 1982) is an American professional golfer playing on the LPGA Tour. Her sole win on the tour was a major championship, the Women's British Open in 2014. [1]
Martin played college golf all four years at UCLA, [2] walking-on as a freshman. [3] She was the Bruins' Most Valuable Player in 2002, earned UCLA academic honors, and was also a three-time Pac-10 Academic Honorable Mention selection. [4] She graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in psychology.
Martin turned professional in 2005, and joined the Futures Tour on January 23, 2006. She played in the 2007 U.S. Women's Open and missed the cut. Martin was the 2010 recipient of the Futures Tour's Heather Wilbur Spirit Award, presented annually to the player who "best exemplifies dedication, courage, perseverance, love of the game and spirit toward achieving goals as a professional golfer." The annual recipient is nominated by her peers on the tour. [5] In 2011, with 11 top-10 finishes and 1 victory, she earned full playing privileges on the LPGA Tour for the 2012 season.
Martin won the Women's British Open in 2014, her first major championship and also her first LPGA Tour title. She led after 36 holes, but a 77 (+5) on Saturday dropped her three strokes back. An eagle at the final hole on Sunday gave her the victory, one stroke ahead of runners-up Shanshan Feng and Suzann Pettersen. [6] [7] It was Martin's first eagle of the 2014 season and the win moved her from 99 to 26 in the women's world rankings. [8] Her previous best finish in a major was a tie for 29th at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Born in Pasadena, California, Martin attended Chandler School. [9] Her father, Allen Martin, was a defense attorney and taught her to play golf as a child, using Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. Allen died of a heart attack when Mo was in college at age 20, and she then established a relationship with her paternal grandfather, Lincoln Martin, who was over 90 years old. Before Allen's death, Mo and Lincoln had minimal interaction, due to a strained father-son relationship. During her early years as a professional on the Futures Tour, Lincoln was her chief supporter and mentor. He died in March 2014 at age 102, about four months before she won her major title in England. [1] [10]
Her nickname "Mo" was given to her by her father, in reference to the U.S.S. Missouri , [1] [10] a famous battleship of World War II that served the U.S. Navy into the 1990s.
She currently resides in Naples, Florida.
Legend |
---|
Major championships (1) |
Other LPGA Tour events (0) |
No. | Date | Tournament | Winning score | To par | Margin of victory | Runners-up |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jul 13, 2014 | Women's British Open | 69-69-77-72=287 | −1 | 1 stroke | Shanshan Feng Suzann Pettersen |
No. | Date | Tournament | Winning score | To par | Margin of victory | Runner-up |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | May 6, 2007 | El Paso Golf Classic | 69-71-67=207 | −9 | 1 stroke [11] | Caroline Larsson [12] |
2 | Jul 27, 2008 | USI Championship | 71-66-67=204 | −12 | 4 strokes | Gerina Mendoza [13] |
3 | Aug 14, 2011 | Eagle Classic | 70-67-66=203 | −13 | 3 strokes | Cara Freeman |
Year | Championship | 54 holes | Winning score | Margin | Runners-up |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | Women's British Open | 3 shot deficit | −1 (69-69-77-72=287) | 1 stroke | Shanshan Feng, Suzann Pettersen |
Results not in chronological order before 2019.
Tournament | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chevron Championship | T70 | T66 | T29 | T51 | T14 | T63 | CUT | T21 | ||||||
U.S. Women's Open | CUT | CUT | T42 | CUT | T35 | T21 | CUT | CUT | ||||||
Women's PGA Championship | T30 | T37 | T17 | T26 | T17 | CUT | T33 | |||||||
The Evian Championship ^ | T57 | CUT | CUT | T26 | T2 | |||||||||
Women's British Open | 57 | CUT | 1 | CUT | T2 | T49 | T39 |
Tournament | 2021 | 2022 |
---|---|---|
Chevron Championship | ||
U.S. Women's Open | ||
Women's PGA Championship | CUT | CUT |
The Evian Championship ^ | ||
Women's British Open | CUT | T51 |
^ The Evian Championship was added as a major in 2013
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
Tournament | Wins | 2nd | 3rd | Top-5 | Top-10 | Top-25 | Events | Cuts made |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chevron Championship | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 7 |
U.S. Women's Open | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 3 |
Women's PGA Championship | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
The Evian Championship | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
Women's British Open | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
Totals | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 39 | 25 |
Karrie Anne Webb is an Australian professional golfer. She plays mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, and also turns out once or twice a year on the ALPG Tour in her home country. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. She has 41 wins on the LPGA Tour, more than any other active player.
Dame Laura Jane Davies, is an English professional golfer. She has achieved the status of her nation's most accomplished female golfer of modern times, being the second non-American to finish at the top of the LPGA money list as well as winning the Ladies European Tour (LET) Order of Merit a record seven times: in 1985, 1986, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2004 and 2006.
Cristie Kerr is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. She has 20 wins on the LPGA Tour, including two major championships, and over $19 million in career earnings. Kerr was the number one-ranked golfer in the Women's World Golf Rankings for three time periods in 2010. She is naturally left handed but plays golf right handed.
Lorena Ochoa Reyes is a Mexican former professional golfer who played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour from 2003 to 2010. She was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for 158 consecutive and total weeks, from 23 April 2007 to her retirement on 2 May 2010, at the age of 28 years old. As the first Mexican golfer of either gender to be ranked number one in the world, she is considered the best Mexican golfer and the best Latin American female golfer of all time. Ochoa was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.
Michele Redman is an American professional golfer who played on the LPGA Tour from 1992 through 2011. She is currently the women's golf coach at the University of Minnesota.
The Epson Tour, previously known as the LPGA Futures Tour, and known for sponsorship reasons between 2006 and 2010 as the Duramed Futures Tour and between 2012 and 2021 as the Symetra Tour, is the official developmental golf tour of the LPGA Tour. Tour membership is open to professional women golfers and to qualified amateurs.
Brittany Grace Lincicome is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. She currently resides in Gulfport, Florida.
Alexis Noel Thompson is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. At age 12 in 2007, she was the youngest golfer ever to qualify to play in the U.S. Women's Open, since broken by Lucy Li who was 11 in 2014. She turned professional in June 2010 at age 15. On September 18, 2011, Thompson set a then new record as the youngest-ever winner of an LPGA tournament, at age 16 years, seven months, and eight days, when she won the Navistar LPGA Classic. Three months later she became the second-youngest winner of a Ladies European Tour event, capturing the Dubai Ladies Masters by four strokes on December 17, 2011. She won her first and only major championship at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship at the age of 19 years, 1 month and 27 days, making her the second youngest LPGA golfer to win a major.
Angela Gwen Stanford is an American professional golfer who currently competes on the LPGA Tour.
Tiffany Joh is an American professional golfer currently playing on the LPGA Tour and on the Symetra Tour.
María José Uribe Durán is a professional golfer from Colombia, currently playing on the LPGA Tour.
Inbee Park is a South Korean professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour and the LPGA of Japan Tour. She has been the number one ranked player in the Women's World Golf Rankings for four separate runs: April 2013 to June 2014, October 2014 to February 2015, June 2015 to October 2015, and from April to July 2018.
Katherine Kirk is a professional golfer from Australia, currently playing on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and the ALPG Tour. She played under her maiden name, Katherine Hull, until her marriage to Tom Kirk on 2 August 2012 and also under the name Katherine Hull-Kirk.
Jane Park is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. Before turning professional, Park reached the finals of the 2003 U.S. Women's Amateur and 2004 U.S. Girls' Junior, and won the 2004 U.S. Women's Amateur. She also tied for low amateur at the 2006 U.S. Women's Open. Since joining the LPGA in 2007, she has earned over $2.8 million and recorded 16 top-10 finishes.
Anna Maria Nordqvist is a Swedish professional golfer who plays on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour. She has won three major championships: the 2009 LPGA Championship, the 2017 Evian Championship, and the 2021 Women's British Open. She is the only non-American woman to have won major championships in three different decades.
Ryann Ashley O'Toole is an American female professional golfer currently playing on the LPGA Tour.
The 2014 Ricoh Women's British Open was played 10–13 July at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England. It was the 38th Women's British Open, and the 14th as a major championship on the LPGA Tour. It was the sixth Women's British Open at Royal Birkdale, the most recent was four years earlier in 2010. ESPN and BBC Sport televised the event from Royal Birkdale.
Céline Boutier is a French professional golfer who plays on the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA Tour. She has multiple wins on both tours including one major, the 2023 Evian Championship.
Vikki Laing is a Scottish professional golfer who played on the U.S.-based Futures Tour and the Ladies European Tour (LET), finishing 10th in the 2010 LET rankings.
Lilia Kha-Tu Du Vu is an American professional golfer and LPGA Tour player. In 2023, she rose to number one in the Women's World Golf Rankings and became LPGA Tour Player of the Year after winning four titles, including two majors at the 2023 Chevron Championship and 2023 Women's British Open.