Golf Hall of Fame

No one has ever dominated the Peoria women's golf scene like Judy Coker.

She played in 20 women's city tournaments. She won nine titles between 1960 and 1984 and was medalist 11 times including five in succession (1970-74). In all she played 62 matches in city play and won 51 of them for a .823 won-lost ratio.

She teed up her first golf ball when she was 13, and two years later won the Country Club of Peoria women's title. She would win 17 more. She won three consecutive city girl's titles beginning in 1954 and played on the University of Arizona women's team 1958-60 and at Bradley in 1961- 62.

In the 1956-66 era she competed across the land: she was medalist in the Illinois state women's Amateur in 1962 and a semi-finalist in 1959; was semi-finalist in the Trans-Mississippi tourney, was a quarterfinalist in the Women's Western; played in the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships.

She was the first winner of the Early Bird Open at Lick Creek in Pekin and was winner of six American Cancer Society Illinois team championships.

Also a talented tennis player, she was runner-up for the 1970 Tri-County singles title when she played in both the city golf and tennis tourneys in the same week. She has won several women's city doubles and mixed doubles championships.

She was voted the "World's Most Beautiful Golfer" by Golf Digest in 1957, the award combining beauty with a handicap under 10.