Carol Semple

Carol Semple (born October 27, 1948) is an American amateur golfer.

Semple was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. From a prominent golfing family, her father served as president of the United States Golf Association (USGA) in 1974 and 1975. Her mother played competitive golf and served on various USGA committees for many years. At age 16, Carol Semple won her first tournament by defeating her mother in the finals of the Western Pennsylvania Women's Championship.

A 1970 graduate of Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, she defeated Anne Quast to win the 1973 United States Women's Amateur Golf Championship at the Montclair Golf Club in Montclair, New Jersey. Semple won the 1974 British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship. At present, she is one of only eleven golfers to hold both titles. In defense of her U.S. championship that year, she made it to the 1974 finals but lost to Cynthia Hill. Among her other significant victories in amateur play, she won the 1976 and 1987 North and South Women's Amateur Golf Championship, two U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Golf Championships, and won the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur Championship four years in a row from 1999 to 2002. She also was part of the American team that won four Espirito Santo Trophys at the World Amateur Golf Team Championships. She is also one of only five people to have won three different USGA individual championship events, the others being JoAnne Carner, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods.

Married, she became known as Carol Semple Thompson. She has been on more Curtis Cup teams and scored more victories than any competitor in the history of the Curtis Cup. At age fifty-three, she clinched the U.S. team's 2002 victory with a dramatic 27-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

Carol Semple Thompson was voted the 2003 Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. In 2005, she was named recipient of the PGA "First Lady of Golf Award." In 2008, she was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement category. [ [http://www.pgatour.com/2008/r/06/24/uswomensopen/index.html Career female amateur joins World Golf Hall of Fame] ]

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