Val Skinner

A golfer since the age of four, Val Skinner won her first golf title three years later. She was the 1974 and 1978 Nebraska Junior Girls champion and the 1980 Nebraska Match Play champion. Skinner was the 1976 and 1978 High School State champion and, as a senior, captured 20 high school titles. Attending Oklahoma State University, she was the 1980 and 1982 Big Eight champion and the 1982 Big Eight Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year. She led the nation in scoring average from 1981-82 and, as a senior, captured titles at five of the six events she played. As a result of her outstanding collegiate performance, Skinner not only was elected as a member of the U.S.-Japan All-Star Team, but she also was named ambassador to Japan throughout the competition. She was also named GOLF Magazine's Collegiate Player of the Year in 1982.
Skinner joined the Ladies European Tour in 1982 and had four wins. In 1983, she qualified for the LPGA Tour which she played on until 2003. She played in a total of 486 events making 337 cuts with 69 top-ten finishes.
Her first LPGA win came in a playoff at the 1985 Konica San Jose Classic. Skinner went on to win six times on the LPGA Tour. She was ranked in the top 15 in the world seven of 20 seasons during her career. She was a member of the victorious U.S. Solheim Cup team in 1996 and is a member of three golf halls of fame.
In 2000, Skinner founded LIFE (LPGA professionals In the Fight to Eradicate breast cancer), a charity program which features a pro-am in Jackson, N.J., that benefits the New Jersey Cancer Institute and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation to help in the fight against breast cancer. The LIFE Event continues to bring together the world's most elite women golfers with corporate partners to raise money and awareness for the breast cancer fight. As of 2019, the LIFE Event has raised more than $11 million and continues to make one of the largest donations in the country for breast cancer research and education from a single-day golf event.
Skinner served as a golf analyst for CBS Sports and the Golf Channel for 13 years. She resides in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. and Bay Head, N.J. She credits her father, Richard, and Bob Rotella as individuals most influencing her career. She enjoys skiing (water and snow), surfing, traveling, movies, reading, most sports and antiquing.

Skinner is playing in her first U.S. Senior Women's Open.