S2 Ep69: Murder Of A Golf Legend

While in her 20's, Marion Miley was already a golf legend. Between 1931 and 1938, she won six Kentucky Women’s Amateur events. She also won many of the nations premier amateur events for women. Among her wins were two Trans Championships, two Women’s Southerns, two Women’s Weston Amateurs, two Western Derby titles and the Augusta Invitational. She also had made two of the prestigious Curtis Cup teams. While women’s amateur golf was in its glory days, as the Ladies Professional Golf Association had not yet evolved, golf offered little financially when it came to the future for women. Marion Miley, however, was making it in spite of the country being bogged down in Depression. Often described as photogenic, she made for good interviews and as a result she was seen in newspapers and movie theater newsreels. Standard Oil of Kentucky took advantage of her celebrity and hired her to travel about and inspect their service stations. She had only started to parlay her talents that exceeded her golf.  She was in the company of Bob Hope, Clark Gable and Bing Crosby, playing in more than 100 charity events, and her distance off the tee made her even more popular. She could hit the ball further than Hall of Famer Patty Berg, and during a driving contest at one of the tournaments outdistanced 1932 Olympic champion Babe Didrickson. Marion Milet was murdered in a botched robbery attempt at the Lexington Country Club in Lexington Kentucky. Our guest this week is Beverley Bell who has just published the definitive work on The Murder Of Marion Miley.