Dawn Coe-Jones: Bio of the LPGA Winner

Dawn Coe-Jones was a longtime member of the LPGA Tour and one of the leaders of a wave of Canadian golfers who arrived on the LPGA in the early to mid-1980s. She won multiple times on tour, but passed away in her 50s due to cancer.

Date of birth: October 19, 1960

Place of birth: Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada

Date and place of death: November 12, 2016 in Tampa, Florida

Coe-Jones' Professional Wins

Coe-Jones is credited with three wins on the LPGA Tour:

• 1992 Women's Kemper Open
• 1994 HealthSouth Palm Beach Classic
• 1995 Chrysler-Plymouth Tournament of Champions

She also won several unofficial money tournaments. Those were the Pizza-La LPGA Matchplay Championship, in 1992; and, teaming with Dave Barr both times, the 1989 and 1990 Canadian Airlines International Mixed Team Championship.

In the Majors

Coe-Jones never won a major, but she had Top 5 finishes in all four of the LPGA major championships she played in during her career. Her best finishes were third-place showings at the 1990 Women's PGA Championship (then called the LPGA Championship) and 1993 du Maurier Classic. She also finished solo fifth at the 1992 U.S. Women's Open and tied for fifth at the 1993 ANA Inspiration.

In the biggest tournament in women's golf, the U.S. Women's Open, Coe-Jones also posted Top 10 finishes in 1995 (tied seventh) and 1997 (tied ninth).

The du Maurier was an LPGA major played in Coe-Jones' native Canada, and winning it would have been, by far, her biggest achievement. She came close in 1993, shooting 68 in the final round. But she finished one stroke out of a playoff (Brandy Burton defeated Betsy King in that playoff). Other Top 10 finishes in the du Muarier for Coe-Jones happened in 1988 (tied 10th), 1994 (tied seventh), 1998 (tied fourth) and 1999 (solo fourth).

More About Dawn Coe-Jones

She was Dawn Coe when she arrived on the LPGA Tour, but after marrying in 1992 she competed as Dawn Coe-Jones.

Coe-Jones picked up golf at age 12 and, as a teenager, worked at March Meadows Golf Course in Honeymoon Bay, British Columbia. She won the British Columbia Junior Championship in 1978-79, and the British Columbia Amateur Championship in 1982-83.

The latter two wins happened while she was attending Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, where she won two NCAA titles and was a first-team All-American in 1983. Coe-Jones' greatest amateur win also came in 1983 when she took the Canadian Amateur Championship.

She graduated from Lamar in 1983 with a degree in elementary education, turned pro, and finished fifth in the 1983 LPGA Q-School final qualifying tournament. Her rookie year on the LPGA Tour was 1984.

Coe-Jones' best finish in that rookie year was 12th, and her first Top 10 finish happened in 1985. She recorded a third-place showing in 1987, then runner-up finishes in 1989 and 1990. She cracked the Top 20 on the LPGA money list for the first time in 1989, finishing 19th.

Coe-Jones had her career-best money list finish of 11th in 1990, and she also posted Top 20 money list finishes in 1992, 1993 and 1995. What was arguably her top season was 1992, when she earned her first LPGA win at the Women's Kemper Open, narrowly missed her second win in a playoff at the Oldsmobile Classic (losing to Colleen Walker), and won the unofficial-money Pizza-La LPGA Matchplay Championship.

The of her LPGA wins was at the 1995 Tournament of Champions, an event open only to tournament winners and to active Hall of Fame members.

Score Magazine, a Canadian golf publication, named Coe-Jones the Outstanding Canadian Female Professional in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. She came close a few times at the Canadian Women's Open, but wasn't able to win it in 24 tries. She did finish third in 1993, fourth in 1998 and 1999, and fifth in 2004, and was low Canadian in the tournament 13 times.

Coe-Jones last played in an LPGA tournament in 2008. She ended her career with three wins and 44 career Top 10 finishes. She also has the distinction of being one of just two players (the other being Sherri Turner) in LPGA Tour history to record two double eagles.

After leaving the LPGA, Coe-Jones also played in 24 tournaments on the senior circuit, the Legends Tour, with nine Top 10 finishes.

Coe-Jones was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer in 2016 and died only a matter of months later at the age of 56. Today the Dawn Coe-Jones Golf Classic is played annually in Florida as a fundraiser for The Amandalee Fund, a sarcoma research advocacy charity.

Dawn Coe-Jones was inducted into the British Columbia Golf Hall in 2001 and into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2003.