Maria Floyd, wife of Hall of Fame golfer Raymond Floyd for 38 years, died on Friday at the couple's home in Southampton, N.Y. She was 69.
Maria Floyd had been battling bladder cancer, but at one time had been declared cancer-free.
According to Golf Channel contributor and Golf World/Golf Digest senior writer Tim Rosaforte, a private service will be held Sept. 15 in New York, followed by another private celebration of her life at Shinnecock Hills, where Floyds are members.
At age 43 in 1986, Raymond Floyd won the U.S. Open at Shinnecock, becoming at the time the oldest U.S. Open champion (Hale Irwin, then 45, broke Floyd's record four years later).
Raymond Floyd famously credited his wife for his U.S. Open victory. He had shot 77 and blown the 54-hole lead the previous week in the Westchester Classic, and on the ride out to Shinnecock, she insisted he explain why it had happened and figure out how not to let it happen again.
"I said, 'It was just one of those things,'" Raymond Floyd told Edgar Thompson of the Palm Beach Post in 2011. "I hit a bad shot or two, and the engine blew.' She said, 'That's not good enough.'"
"We had a pretty heated ride over there for three hours," Floyd said. "That was a soul-searcher."
“She was really strong," Raymond Floyd told Rosaforte in 2011, "and has been all her life.”