Barb Rotvig: Teacher, Player, Pro
8/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Aug. 19, 2015
Barb Rotvig
By Brad Rudner
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to the Bentley Historical Library for providing press clippings, and to Roger Rotvig for submitting his write-up, "Strike Fore."
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The old saying goes, "Those who can, do; Those who can't, teach."
Barb Rotvig was an exception to that. She was just better at one of them.
More than a decade before Title IX shook up the sport world, at a time when opportunities for women in sport were few and far between, Rotvig forged a legacy through teaching, and she did so without being a student-athlete or coach.
Of her many claims to fame, two stand out. One, she was the first women's golf professional at the U-M Golf Course (It's also believed that Michigan is the first Big Ten school to hire a woman as a club pro). Second, and perhaps most important, is that Rotvig helped create the very first LPGA National Golf School -- also held at the U-M Golf Course -- in 1960.
She's one of the most influential women you've probably never heard of.
Before forging her reputation as an instructor, Rotvig was a gifted athlete. Growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, she rubbed elbows with the boys in a variety of sports, but wasn't allowed to play in official games, only practices.
In the summer of 1947, while working as a waterfront director in Newaygo, Michigan, Rotvig was persuaded to try out with the Grand Rapids Chicks, one of the teams in the newly formed All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The league, most famously depicted in the movie, "A League of Their Own," was created in an effort to fill the gap that was left behind with the most strong-willed young men off to fight in World War II.
Earning the nickname, "The Big Swede," Rotvig spent three seasons (1948-49, 1951) in Kenosha (Wisconsin) as a pitcher, the highlight of which was a no-hit, no-run outing on Memorial Day in 1949. Her brother, Roger, was in attendance and kept score on a six-page scorecard that he purchased for a nickel. Barb's picture was inside on page three.
The AAGPBL folded in 1954, but remains alive within the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Roger paid a visit there in 2009 and brought the scorecard from that game with him. The Hall of Fame staff asked him to leave it there so they could evaluate its authenticity. A few weeks later, the Hall called Roger and asked him if he would be willing to donate it to their display permanently. He obliged, and it remains there to this day.
To this point, Rotvig had only dabbled in golf, but the sport became a larger part of her life after she hung up her baseball glove. There, through a contact with local PGA professional Hank Jensen, she was introduced to Les Bolstad, the head coach at the University of Minnesota. Bolstad, who also coached 15-time major winner Patty Berg, helped Rotvig clean up her game.
Though few official records were kept, Rotvig played as an amateur and professional from 1953-1960. She played in five U.S. Opens, finishing as high as 16th in 1956. Even while she was playing, she never stopped learning, working at Antioch College in Ohio as a Professor of Physical Education, and getting her master's in physical education from UCLA.
All of which led her to Michigan. While balancing life on the LPGA Tour, Rotvig was an instructor in U-M Department of Physical Education for Women and served as chairwoman on the Advisory Committee on Women's Athletics.
Then, in 1960, the LPGA asked Rotvig to be one of the four founding members of the Teaching and Club Professional (T&CP) membership, a program that taught women's golf professionals how to teach the game to others. The very first class was held at the U-M Golf Course.
The program was such a success that the LPGA named Rotvig its "Teaching Professional of the Year" in 1960. In an article from The Ann Arbor News, dated Aug. 11, 1960, Rotvig was "one of the first to voice the real need for women professional teachers of golf."
In 1963, two days after Christmas, Rotvig succumbed to cancer at the all-too-young age of 35. Weeks before her death, 10 members of the Michigan ice hockey team went to the U-M Hospital where Rotvig was undergoing a blood transfusion and offered to help by donating blood of their own.
Ever the educator, in the years leading up to her diagnosis, Rotvig was taking architecture classes at U-M, helping design a course that would later become Radrick Farms.
It's unfortunate, even tragic, that someone who did so much for the game of golf was unable to see the day when women donning the block M could play in NCAA-sanctioned tournaments at the last course she called home. Her legacy, though, remains strong, as the LPGA T&CP program boasts over 1,600 members in all 50 states and in 26 countries.
So the next time you play 18 at the U-M Golf Course or at Radrick Farms, skip the cart.
Take a walk, and follow in the footsteps of a legend.
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