Former Frog Angela Stanford to be inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame

Fort Worth native and TCU great Angela Stanford will be elected to the Texas Golf Hall of Fame this fall, as was announced over the weekend.

Joining Stanford are Hank Kuehne, Verne Lundquist, Mike Wright, Dow Finsterwald Jr. and Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio.

The class will be inducted Oct. 6 in a ceremony at Houston Country Club. Each new member will be commemorated on granite markers on the Texas Golf Walk of Fame at Brackenridge Park Golf Course in San Antonio.

Stanford was an all-timer as a Frog, graduating from Saginaw Boswell High School before matriculating to TCU, where she was a four-time All-American. She has won six times on the LPGA Tour, including one major, the 2018 Evian Championship. She is the first woman to receive induction into the Hall’s Tour Professional class in 10 years.

As a high schooler, Stanford won the Fort Worth Girls Championship four consecutive times, from 1993-1996. She won the 1996 Texas State 4A High School Championship and the 1996 PING Texas State Junior Championship before becoming a four-time All-American and a four-time All-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) selection across a collegiate career that saw her win nine tournaments. She was named WAC Freshman of the Year in 1997 and WAC Player of the Year in 1999 and won the 2000 WAC Championship. Stanford finished her amateur career as a member of the 2000 U.S. Curtis Cup team and a semifinalist at the 2000 British Ladies Amateur.

Stanford has been successful as a professional, a career spanning 20 years so far and netting her over $11 million in career earnings. Her first victory on the LPGA Tour came in her third season, at the 2003 ShopRite LPGA Classic. A week later Stanford was in a three player 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Women’s Open; she lost to Hilary Lunke by one stroke. Her best finish on the LPGA money was in 2008, at ninth place with over $1.1 million.

According to Wikipedia, Stanford has been a member of six U.S. Solheim Cup teams: in 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, where in the penultimate match, she defeated Suzann Pettersen which cleared the way for Paula Creamer to score the winning point, and gave the U.S. Its first Solheim Cup win since 2009.

On September 16, 2018, Stanford won her first major title at the Evian Championship.

“We are delighted with this year’s class!” said Texas Golf Hall of Fame Board Chairman, Reid Meyers. “Ms. Stanford is the first female selected into the Tour Professional class in ten years. The Kuehne family now has the Triple Crown with Hank joining his sister Kelli and brother Trip as an Inductee. To have ‘Oh, Wow! In your life have you seen anything like that!’ Verne Lundquist elected is wonderful. There are no truer gentlemen than Mike Wright and Dow Finsterwald. Jr., and the venerable Oak Hills is a great addition to our Registry. We could not be more pleased not only with this class but, also, the depth of the list of nominees.”

According to the TGH, Stanford was overwhelmed when she heard the news. “Oh wow! I am speechless right now!”

Congratulations, Angela!