Patricia Jane Berg was born on February 13, 1918, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Herman and Bella Berg.
Patricia Jane Berg was born on February 13, 1918, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Herman Berg, a grain merchant, and Bella (Frank) Berg. She grew up in a comfortable middle-class household on Minneapolis's south side and was known from childhood as an exceptionally athletic and competitive child.
Before turning to golf, young Patty was a standout athlete in a variety of sports, including speed skating, ice hockey, and especially football, where she quarterbacked a neighborhood boys' team nicknamed the '50th Street Tigers.' Her father, recognizing her competitive drive, encouraged her to take up golf at around age thirteen after concerns grew that football was too rough a pursuit for a girl of her age in that era.
This early exposure to competitive, physically demanding sports in a time when opportunities for girls were extremely limited set the foundation for the extraordinary athletic career that would follow. Within just a few years of picking up golf clubs, Berg would rise to become one of the most dominant amateur and, later, professional golfers in American history, eventually helping found the LPGA Tour and reshaping the landscape of women's professional sports.
Her birth in Minneapolis and her Midwestern upbringing were formative to the tenacious, no-nonsense personality that later characterized both her golf game and her tireless promotional work for women's golf across the United States.
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