Rosie Jones (born November 13, 1959) is an American

professional golfer A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation. A person who earns money by teaching or playing golf is traditionally considered a "golf pr ...

, with 13

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly ...

career victories and nearly $8.4 million in tournament earnings.

Amateur career

Jones was born in

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

. In her amateur career, she was a three time

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

Junior Champion (1974–76) and won the New Mexico State Championship in 1979. Jones attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

where in 1981 she was an AIAW

All-American The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

Professional career

Jones qualified for the LPGA Tour by tying for seventh at the

LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament In professional golf, the term qualifying school is used for the annual qualifying tournaments for leading golf tours such as the U.S.-based PGA and LPGA Tours and the European Tour. A fixed number of players in the event win membership of the ...

in July 1982. Jones's best position on the LPGA money list was third in 1988, when she was tied as the winning-most player with three victories, including the LPGA World Championship; she won that championship with a one-shot victory over

Liselotte Neumann 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 ...

, that year's U.S. Open champion. She completed her career with thirteen LPGA Tour titles. She also played for the United States in the

Solheim Cup The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian- American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving forc ...

seven times. She placed second in a major tournament four times (1984 U.S. Open; 1991

LPGA Championship The Women's PGA Championship (branded as the KPMG Women's PGA Championship for sponsorship reasons) is a women's professional golf tournament. First held in 1955, it is one of five majors on the LPGA Tour. It is not recognized as a major by the ...

; 2000

du Maurier Classic The Canadian Women's Open (), currently branded as the CPKC Women's Open for sponsorship reasons, is a women's professional golf tournament managed by Golf Canada. It has been Canada's national championship tournament since its founding in 197 ...

; 2005

Kraft Nabisco Championship The Chevron Championship is a professional women's golf tournament. An event on the LPGA Tour, it is one of the tour's five major championships, and has traditionally been the first of the season since its elevation to major status in 1983. Sinc ...

), but never won a major tournament. Jones achieved back-to-back wins in 1996-97 at the

LPGA Corning Classic The LPGA Corning Classic was an annual golf tournament for professional female golfers on the LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at LPG ...

, earning her the nickname "Queen of Corning";http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090420/NEWS01/90420077 she is also that tournament's all-time money leader "by a wide margin." At the conclusion of the 2006

U.S. Women's Open The U.S. Women's Open is one of 15 national golf championships conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA), is the oldest of the LPGA Tour's five major championships, which includes the Chevron Championship, Women's PGA Championship, ...

, in which she finished tied for 57th, she retired from competitive golf; as a symbol of her departure she removed her golf shoes, visor, and glove and placed them on the side of the 18th green. Since retiring from full-time play, Jones has competed on the

Legends Tour The Legends of the LPGA, formerly known as the Women's Senior Golf Tour (2000–2005) and the Legends Tour (2006–2021), is a professional golf tour for women aged 45 and older. It is based in the United States and is the official senior tour of ...

, winning two of the five non-team tournaments in 2007. She has also worked as a commentator for the

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

. She came out of retirement in 2008 to play the Corning Classic on a sponsor's exemption. She missed the cut by four strokes. In 2009, she qualified for the U.S. Women's Open; she missed the cut at the tournament by three strokes. In February 2010, Jones was named the captain of the U.S. team for the

2011 Solheim Cup The 2011 Solheim Cup was the 12th Solheim Cup matches, held 23–25 September in Ireland at Killeen Castle in County Meath, northwest of Dublin. The biennial matches are a three-day contest for professional female golfers, between teams of 12 t ...

Personal life

In 2004, Jones

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

publicly as

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

, an announcement timed with her acceptance of a sponsorship from

Olivia Olivia may refer to: People and fictional characters * Olivia (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Olivia (singer), American singer Olivia Longott (born 1981) * Olívia (basketball), Brazilian basketball playe ...

, a travel agency that targets lesbians. Among people who knew her, she had been out since the late 1970s.

Professional wins (25)

LPGA Tour wins (13)

LPGA Tour playoff record (5–4)

Ladies European Tour (2)

Other wins (1)

*1997 Gillette Tour Challenge (with

Juli Inkster Juli Inkster (nee Simpson; born June 24, 1960) is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. With a professional career spanning 29 years to date, Inkster's 31 wins rank her second in wins among all active players on the LPGA T ...

)

Legends Tour wins (9)

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

Wendy's Charity Challenge, Legends Tour Open Championship *

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

Kinoshita Pearl Classic *

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Legends Tour Open Championship *

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

Walgreens Charity Classic *

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

Harris Golf Charity Classic *

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

Wendy's Charity Challenge *

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

Wendy's Charity Classic *

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

BJ's Charity Championship (with Michele Redman)

Results in LPGA majors

CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied

Summary

*Most consecutive cuts made – 23 (1981 U.S. Women's Open - 1988 du Maurier Classic) *Longest streak of top-10s – 6 (1986 du Maurier Classic - 1988 Kraft Nabisco)

LPGA Tour career summary

Team appearances

Professional *

(representing the United States):

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

(winners),

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

(winners),

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

(winners),

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

(winners),

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

(winners) *

Handa Cup The Handa Cup is a series of senior women's golf matches between a United States team and a World Team drawn from players from the rest of the world. It was founded in 2006 and is an event on the LPGA Legends Tour. Since 2013 it has been officially ...

(representing the United States): 2006 (winners), 2007 (winners), 2008 (winners), 2009 (winners), 2010 (winners), 2011 (winners), 2012 (tie, Cup retained), 2013, 2014 (winners), 2015 (winners)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Rosie American female golfers Ohio State Buckeyes women's golfers LPGA Tour golfers Solheim Cup competitors for the United States Golfers from California Golfers from Atlanta LGBTQ golfers American women sports commentators American lesbian sportswomen LGBTQ people from California LGBTQ people from New Mexico Sportspeople from Santa Ana, California Cibola High School alumni 1959 births Living people 20th-century American sportswomen

Amateur career

Professional career

Personal life

Professional wins (25)

LPGA Tour wins (13)

Ladies European Tour (2)

Other wins (1)

Legends Tour wins (9)

Results in LPGA majors

Summary

LPGA Tour career summary

Team appearances

See also

References

External links