Carner, JoAnne (Gunderson)
Golf
b. April 4, 1939, Kirkland, WA
"The Great Gundy" won the U. S. Amateur championship five times, in 1957, 1960, 1962, 1966, and 1968. She even won a tournament on the professional tour in 1969; no amateur has done it since. She joined the tour in 1970 and won the U. S. Open the following year.
Although she was the Open champion again in 1976 and won the Vare Trophy for the lowest average round in 1974 and 1975, her best years as a pro came after she turned forty. She was named LPGA Player of the Year and Vare Trophy winner three years in a row, from 1981 through 1983, and she was the tour's leading money winner in 1982 and 1983.
Carner became the second LPGA player to pass $1 million in earnings in 1981; in 1988, she became the second to pass $2 million. She was also the first woman golfer to earn more than $200,000 in each of three consecutive years. Her last victory was the 1985 Safeco Classic, her forty-second, which ties her for sixth on the all-time list.