Judy Rankin - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Intro Music 0:07

It went straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it's not it.

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and Bruce Devlin. I think our guest today is known perhaps as much for the career she's just finishing as her stellar playing career.

Bruce Devlin 0:28

Well, that could be the case. She's also a World Golf Hall of Fame member. And as you mentioned, she's been in the television business with work for ESPN, ABC, and just retired from the Golf Channel. She's a 26-time winner on the LPGA tour. And it is indeed a pleasure to thank you, Judy Rankin, for joining Mike and I this morning. We love to tell your story. It's a great one.

Judy Rankin 0:58

Well, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be with you and um uh what you all are doing and um compiling stories of um all of um our friends and fellow uh golfers. It's pretty terrific.

Mike Gonzalez 1:14

Well, Judy, thanks so much for joining us. Uh, you know, just thinking about what you've probably been living through these past few months as you've wound down your broadcasting career, uh, a little bit like um a player you and I would know, being a St. Louis Cardinal fan, Albert Poohs, who this year was his swan song. And every stadium he visited, of course, he had to go through that whole process of saying goodbye to the fans. You must have had a little bit of that yourself.

Judy Rankin 1:41

Well, I did, but I I I I would have to say for the record, he was a lot better at what he did than I was at what I did. Yeah, but um, yeah, and um, and I have I have gone into um pretty much retirement. Uh there is the possibility that I will work two or three times a year in the future if all stays well with my brain and this and that. But um, yeah, as far as as far as being the lead analyst and uh the person um at the golf channel for women's golf, uh that's Morgan Pressell now.

Mike Gonzalez 2:16

Okay, well, we're really anxious to reflect back on your golf broadcasting career because it was uh uh quite a stellar one, but uh there's quite a bit to talk about relative to golf as well. And what we like to do as we tell your story is uh take you on a little uh walk down memory lane, I guess. And and uh we always start at the beginning. I kind of hinted at the St. Louis connection because you were born there. So just take us back to the war years. You're born in St. Louis and what it was like growing up in that area, and then uh we'll talk a little bit about learning the game.

Judy Rankin 2:48

Um well, I was born in St. Louis. Um my father had had been in the army um at the when I was born, I believe, you know, 1945. Um he was um now in St. Louis, and he and my mother um at one point both worked for Monsanto Chemical Company there in St. Louis. Um but my dad had just been in the army and uh actually they got married when he was um still enlisted. Uh and he was he was very lucky um two or three times in his life in the army. He had um his entire company was sent to northern Africa, and for some reason he was not, he was furloughed to St. Louis, and he ended up in San Antonio because he could run a printing press. And they sent him there to run a printing press, and um, you know, I think very possibly saved his life. Uh so uh that that's one story that I distinctly remember um growing up. But um well when I my first memories, we lived in a three-room, four-family flat um in sort of what now would be considered really the inner city of St. Louis, but was a pretty nice little neighborhood at that time. And um uh my father played a little bit of public course golf. And he really and he became he became fascinated with Ben Hogan. And about the time that all this was happening, I was five, six, um, my mother started having convulsions. Uh and and her her health I think had a lot to do with my becoming a golfer. Um it it sounds like a strange story, but um over the time when I was five, six, seven, um it became clear that she was not going to live, that she had a malignant bain brain tumor. And um uh the way I first hit a golf ball was she and I went with my father. They had just opened um driving ranges with lights in St. Louis.

Bruce Devlin 5:10

Oh, sure, yeah.

Judy Rankin 5:11

And uh she and I went with my father to watch him hit balls, and I was six. And of course, every I've there is not a six-year-old living that does not want to try to hit the ball. Okay, and I wanted to try to hit the ball, and um, it was kind of an elevated tea. It's funny how I remember that you know, you don't remember a lot of things, but I can remember that that rubber mat and the tea box, and it was elevated. So when I hit the ball, which it's thank you, I could hit it, um, it's it appeared to be airborne and all those things. Uh now maybe it was, I don't really remember. But um, that's when my father had this idea that he could try to make me swing like Ben Hogan. And um uh so anyway, from that time on my mother got sicker. Um, I started hitting golf balls in a in a basement of a hotel in St. Louis, the Chase Hotel.

Mike Gonzalez 6:12

And uh the Chase Park Plaza Hotel.

Judy Rankin 6:16

And um uh a golf pro from a little nine-hole course, a man named Bob Green, he had a little indoor range in the basement, like two hitting bays, you know, into um big tarps and sand. The ball would drop in sand. And uh after you hit a bucket, you'd go pick them up out of the sand, or I would, nobody else did. And um uh and that's where I learned to swing a club.

Mike Gonzalez 6:42

So uh and Bruce, upstairs, upstairs at that hotel years ago, they had wrestling at the chase. Do you remember that?

Judy Rankin 6:50

I don't remember that, but I can tell you that I saw Bobby Darren at the Chase Hotel when my dad took me, that was some kind of treat.

Mike Gonzalez 6:58

Oh bet.

Judy Rankin 6:59

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 6:59

So sorry to interrupt.

Judy Rankin 7:01

Yeah. No, um, so that's where I really learned to swing a golf club. And, you know, it's it's funny because if you go up to now in my life, one of the interesting things that I have learned about Korean players um that are so prevalent in the game and so blooming good, um, is that it is so difficult to get on golf courses and to find places to play, and so on and so forth. That's so much of their game is honed at driving ranges. And that's how they seem to develop such perfect golf swings. And I do believe when I was seven, I had a pretty near perfect golf swing, a really good golf swing anyway. Um, I ended up with a very strong grip, which we'll get to later, but I did not I was not taught that initially. And um so I was never really on a golf course until I was seven. And um that's when I first got outside and hit golf balls or you know, played around to golf, played any holes of golf. I don't remember how many.

Mike Gonzalez 8:09

So you you referred to the the uh the the facility where Bob Green, the pro worked, uh I guess that was Triple A Club out in Forest Park?

Judy Rankin 8:18

Yeah, it was a nine-hole private club in Forest Park, which for your listeners, if they don't know, Forest Park is huge, and um it was created during the 1904 World's Fair. So, um and as time has gone on, it was ruled that you could not have a private club in a public park, and so it is no longer a private club. But at the time it was a nine-hole course with a little driving range and many, many tennis courts, and it was basically a tennis club. And some tennis players like Chuck Buckholz, uh a young woman Justina Bricca, they came out of that club. So it was known more for tennis than golf. Um, but because of Bob Green's friendship with my dad and helping me, the members there gave me free reign to play and practice. So at this point, when this was happening, my mother had already had a couple of surgeries and she was paralyzed right down her left side. Right, uh the whole left side of her body. It was a front right tumor, and um, you know, she never moved her left arm or anything again. So my dad no longer hit golf balls or played golf. All he did was carry my bag and walk and try to make me act like Ben Hogan. Yeah. So I looked at the I looked at the ground when I walked, and an old caddy once said, Do you ever find any money walking that way?

Mike Gonzalez 9:53

So for your father at this time with what he was going through, was this sort of an escape for him a bit?

Judy Rankin 10:00

I'm sure that it was, but it just because of our life, um our life was more serious. You know, um, when I was seven, my dad had to talk with me that they had only given my mother six months to live. And as it turned out, she lived until I was eleven. But she was such an invalid, and um it was uh it you know, it it became our way of life. My father's mother and father and sister took her into their house and she had a hospital bed, and they took magnificent care of her, except for the last year of her life. Uh my grandmother just kind of couldn't do it anymore. And uh my dad was taking my mother to a nursing home, and he turned around and decided he couldn't take her, and he brought her back to our apartment, and he hired somebody to take care of her. So she was with us. Well, I don't know if it was the last year, but it was certainly in the last year of her life. Um, so she never was in a facility. Someone in our family always took care of her, but it was she was 36 years old when she died. It was not good. And it it it changed it changed the way he and I, and I think, you know, everybody saw things. So almost everything in our life, um even everything took on a little bit of a serious bent. And um I have friends now who still think sometimes I'll get a little too serious. But uh um yeah, I it you know, something like that. It changed no doubt it changed my function.

Bruce Devlin 11:46

Oh yeah. Tremendous, especially at that young age.

Mike Gonzalez 11:49

Yeah. Yeah. Did you play other sports as a youngster as well?

Judy Rankin 11:53

I am so not athletic, it's embarrassing. I really um I interesting. Um I I'm not I can save my life swimming, but I'm not a swimmer. Um my father said I put the wrong foot forward when I threw a ball.

Bruce Devlin 12:11

Okay.

Judy Rankin 12:11

My son did not want me shooting baskets in the front of the house. He didn't want people to see me. So um, no, I did not. That's that's interesting. So so Bruce, uh I could ice skate a tiny bit, tiny bit I could ice skate.

Mike Gonzalez 12:25

Yeah, in our large sampling of golf grates now, uh, you are definitely the outlier.

Judy Rankin 12:31

Yes, oh I'm sure.

Bruce Devlin 12:33

Very much so.

Judy Rankin 12:33

You know, it's either it's either you're a you're a it in for me it was I was a golfer, um, not an athlete. And um, you know, one time years ago when they were doing all that superstar stuff, you know, all the you'd do these different sports and this and that, and they contacted me when I was a very good player and so on. And I turned them down because I thought, geez, I'll row a boat in a circle, you know. So I didn't, I tell I told them when they had speed knitting to call me. Yeah. You know, I was um, I think everything about what I've done has never seemed like it's what I should have been doing, but I'm grateful.

Mike Gonzalez 13:18

So, what was the attraction to golf back then? Was it the the physical challenge? Was it uh the results you'd get with a fair strike? Was it the solitary aspect of the game? What was it that really uh drew you in?

Judy Rankin 13:31

Well, I think as a child, um it probably has gone away, but I think as a child I was a pleaser. And because I tell you our life was so serious, um I seemed to have a little ability to do this, and my father really wanted me to do it, and um we had we had no money. Um, and so you know I kept trying to do it, and I would tell you that I did I I I I certainly did like doing well and winning. I didn't like much anything, everything else that went with it, but I did it. And um I I've tried to say that I think so many kids, whatever their sport is or whatever their endeavor is, um, are pushed to some degree. And to some degree, um I think sometime in your life you'll be sorry if you had not accepted that, because you know, you don't necessarily, when you're eight years old, have a work ethic. Yeah. Um so there you go.

Mike Gonzalez 14:36

Well, I I had read somewhere where one of your early successes, if not your earliest, was winning a hole-in-one contest sponsored by the St. Louis Globe Democrat, which is probably back then one of the two major papers. I think the post-dispatch being the other, right?

Judy Rankin 14:51

Yeah, yeah, that's right. So it was the third hole at AAA. And when you'd be driving through the park, they had this contest went on for a week or something, I don't know. And, you know, people would stop on their way home from work and hit their three balls and this and that. And um, so my dad took me to do it, and the hole was I I I really cannot remember now. At the time, the hole was either a hundred yards or a hundred and twenty yards, one or the other. And I teed up three drivers and hit the green three times in a row. And um, I won the the junior, I don't know if it was the junior division or the women's division. I have the trophy still of the hole in one contest. And um, and I'm told that they interviewed me on KMOX radio or something like that.

Bruce Devlin 15:40

Sure, yeah.

Judy Rankin 15:40

And that when the man asked me a question, I shook my head.

Mike Gonzalez 15:43

So yeah. Yeah. Just like television.

Judy Rankin 15:48

They said, What made you think you could do this? And um I said, my father said I could. So there you go.

Bruce Devlin 15:58

There you go.

Mike Gonzalez 15:59

Yeah, I think your average distance to the hole with all those three drives, if you average that all up, maybe that's what wanted for you compared to the competition.

Bruce Devlin 16:06

But uh Amazing with the driver, too.

Judy Rankin 16:09

I was teaming up my little driver, that's right.

Mike Gonzalez 16:12

Yeah. Well, you had a lot of success as a as a junior. I mean, uh, Bruce, you look at uh winning all those just national pee-wee championships at such a young age. That's amazing.

Bruce Devlin 16:23

And then to win the uh state amateur at 14, I mean, that that was a big step, Judy.

Judy Rankin 16:31

That was a big surprise, to tell you the truth. Um first of all, um my dad sent me to Springfield, Illinois, uh, Missouri, by myself, and a a family from the club, Hickory Hills, I think it was, uh, was gonna um house me and so on. So I don't think anybody really thought I was gonna play as well as I did, but um I did, and uh my father and Bob Green came down for the final match, and um I won. And um then I I did not win the next year. I think I qualified was 69 when I was 15, but I did win again when I was 16. So um it uh yeah, that was a that was a big thing in my life, and um I not that anybody cares, but when I was 14, I weighed 80 pounds. And you know, so I really I probably looked like I was 11. Uh anyway.

Bruce Devlin 17:36

Yeah, yeah. Skinny little girl. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 17:40

Yeah, won three straight national peeweed championships. I think you added a fourth title later. You you played at age 14 in the 1959 U.S. Women's Open, which I think was won by Mickey Wright.

Judy Rankin 17:55

I um I did, you know, at that time you you you would send in like your handicap or whatever, and um they would approve you to play. You there wasn't qualified, it wasn't anything like it is today. Um, and so I did go when I was 14, and they asked me if I was registering for my mother. And I um, but I was uh quite honestly completely scared to death, and um uh I did not make the cut. I don't even know what scores I shot. Uh but I was leaving Oakmont not that many years ago with a bunch of the guys that I work with. And I tell you, we took a turn on kind of, I don't know, somebody had a way home where we were staying, and I saw the sign for Churchill Valley, and you looked up the hill, and I remember the first T was way up high, and you would drive down to this fairway, and you know, I said to these guys, I said, You're not gonna believe this. But that's where I played the first U.S. Open when I was 14. Anyway, how that came about, we just drove by the place. Um, but anyway, I was more than frightened to say the least, and um, it was the biggest thing and the biggest stage I'd ever seen.

Mike Gonzalez 19:16

What important building blocks, right? Because then you go and you you're in the next U.S. Open, 1960, the one Betsy Rawls wins, and now you're low amateur.

Judy Rankin 19:26

Well, the golf course Worcester Country Club was really hard. I remember that. It was grueling. And there were some really good amateurs playing, players like Barbara McIntyre and Judy Bell and all, um, uh, who I did not know personally. In fact, I probably met them there, maybe for the first time. But um uh my scores were not low, but my scores were good scores for me, and um I was low amateur, so uh that was a big deal. And as time went on, it might have had to do with why I turned pro so young. Um I I guess we had a hope that I would play on the next Curtis Cup team because I'd been low amateur and I didn't. You know, it was mostly country club players, and um and I was very young, and also I I I see this now, I probably didn't know it then, but it was probably a factor that my father was very close to my golf game and all that. Um, so I did not get named to that Curtis Cup team. And um, that was a little bit of a blow when I was 16. And uh my father um let me remember what no, what I was going to tell you was Judy Bell told me all these years later that they should have had me play, they might have done better.

Bruce Devlin 20:50

So a little bit later, huh?

Judy Rankin 20:53

Yeah, but no, but um, yeah. So and I I now at this age I can see um a little bit more of what the reasoning would have be been. But um that was a you know, the Curtis Cup was and is a big deal for amateur golfers and young women. And uh uh but everything was different then. I mean, it's just you tell the story, but I'm not trying to compare.

Mike Gonzalez 21:22

Well, uh looking back on the history of Sports Illustrated, there aren't too many 16-year-olds that found their way to the cover.

Judy Rankin 21:31

I have no idea. No idea. So aside from Ben Hogan, the other reason I've played golf and continued to work at it was I was sitting in my mother and father's bed on a Sunday morning, and the Sunday paper was there. And Parade magazine had all the beautiful pictures of Queen Elizabeth's coronation. If she's Think historically, 53 is when Hogan won.

Mike Gonzalez 22:04

Carnival.

Judy Rankin 22:05

Yes. So now my dad, he's trying to wave some sort of carrot. Don't ask me what. And my dad says, you know, I think he had an audience with the Queen. And we could go there when you're 16, and you could play in the British amateur, and maybe you'd meet the Queen. So I kept trying to do that. I did. And um so I was 16. And my father and Bob Green uh got, I think, a little bit of sponsorship money. I don't know if it was a loan to my father. I don't know what it was. And we went to the British Amateur, and do you not know it was at Carnoustie? And and I mean the weather was I I well, the weather was frightful. First of all, we checked into this is a whole story in itself. We checked into a hotel in Dundee, and we had two rooms. I'm not sure why my dad did that, but or we had connecting rooms or something, and it seemed very spooky to me. And I said, I don't, I'm, I'm staying with you, you know. So my dad goes downstairs. This is kind of an embarrassing story. But my dad goes downstairs and tells them we just want the one room, and they like raise their eyebrows like I'm not his daughter. And you know, I I don't know that he did, but I was really offended. And we stayed there only that one night, and then we ended up going to Carnoustie to stay. And we stayed in, I can't tell you the name of it, but I can tell you that I've been to Carnousti in recent years, and it's now um a nursery, a nursing home. And um, and so we stayed at that hotel, which was very near the golf course. Um, the golf course only had a kind of hexagon-shaped starter shack. There was nothing else there, nothing else there. And um, and the only other American that was playing was Ann Stranah, Frank Stranah's wife.

Bruce Devlin 24:18

Yeah, yeah.

Judy Rankin 24:18

And um, so um uh we did spend a little bit of time with her, but uh to end the story, um I did all right in the first round. I drew a bye, and in the second round, I played a girl who had been playing golf for a year and a half, and she pulled her own clubs, and every time she went a hole, she'd say, one up, thank you. And I thought, you know. It hailed twice during the round.

Bruce Devlin 24:47

Oh my.

Judy Rankin 24:48

And at the 18th hole, I was one down, and I had to do I had to do something, um, like hit it over the moat, and I I just quite frankly couldn't. And maybe I was even. I don't I I was one down. And um anyway, I lost the match, one down to Sheila McGivin. I remember her name. Um, she couldn't have been nicer, but it was such a it was quite the blow. And um, all the years later, when I worked at Carnoustie with the Open Championship, they put an article in the paper about Sheila McGiven beating me. Um it's funny that I remembered her name, but so I had kind of not warm memories of Carnoustie. Um you mean that easy golf course? Yo, man, holy cow. And you know, my dad, so my dad thought if you could hit a golf ball well a certain way, that works everywhere. You know, he wasn't one to like adapt. Um he just thought you'd take more club or you'd this or that. Well, you you don't just take more club when the gale is blowing 30 off the North Sea and all those things. Anyway, I did not learn that until about 15 years later. But um so we went home and my dad said on the airplane, and getting over there and back was hard, you know, airplane then and so on 19 um 61. And uh we get home, but on the way home, my dad said, you know, if you don't want to play golf anymore, I I understand. And so I said, I don't think I want to play golf anymore. And so we were home about two weeks. Carnisti did that too.

Bruce Devlin 26:41

Yeah, it did.

Judy Rankin 26:42

And uh and um, you know, you still had a phone that was connected to the wall, and my father was sitting like I am now, and the phone rang, and he was sitting in the kitchen, and he grabbed the phone, and it was Sports Illustrated, and they wanted to know if I was gonna play at Baltashroll in the US Open. And they would like to do a cover story, and so I started playing golf again, and that's how that happened, and that is the honest truth. So you just wonder what makes your life go round. Who knows?

Mike Gonzalez 27:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, you talk about uh the difficulties of travel. Um, I'll take you back three years before that 1958, and young Bruce Dublin ventures away from Australia for the first time, going to the inaugural Eisenhower trophy at the old course from Australia. Wow and Bruce, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump there, wasn't it?

Bruce Devlin 27:39

Yeah, it only took me 52 hours, Judy. Holy cow. We went from uh we went to uh Fiji, uh, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, spent about five hours in New York, went to Newfoundland, across to London, up to Edinburgh. I mean, you oh just I I I I remember coming across the Pacific in a, I guess they called it a super constellation. It was the one that had the four engines, uh and they used to light up. They were bright red over nighttime. You look out the thing and you wonder, is this is this plane gonna blow up or what? It was it was scary, but uh, yeah, that was uh I understand your travel problems, Judy.

Judy Rankin 28:30

You know what's sad now? I'm so glad I know you and know know that story. Um and it's so sad that the young people today won't won't know how difficult it had been. Um you know, my my friend, um, my dear friend Peter Alice, um, he always told me the stories of coming to play the Ryder Cup. He was the he was on the last team that came across on the boat. You know, those those were great, great stories. So um I I I know everybody today is living in a great time, but we lived, looking back on it, we lived in a great time too.

Bruce Devlin 29:10

No doubt about it. I think we lived in the greatest time, to be quite honest with you. There was uh that things were a little more sensible, I believe, than what they are particularly today.

Judy Rankin 29:24

Um I don't know if general sanity is not in fashion. But there's yeah, I I just I just bought a card for a friend that said I get my I get most of my exercise today by shaking my head at what I see.

Bruce Devlin 29:44

Yeah, that's a great card, isn't it?

Mike Gonzalez 29:48

That could be another full episode.

Bruce Devlin 29:50

Yes, yeah, isn't that the truth?

Mike Gonzalez 29:52

So at some point, uh you have begun the process, perhaps with your dad, of thinking about whether this might be something you want to do professionally.

Judy Rankin 30:03

Well, not really. What happened here here is how that came to be. I think when my father started me playing golf, well, I know he never I mean, it was not a reasonable thing to think you were going to play women's professional golf.

Bruce Devlin 30:17

Yeah.

Judy Rankin 30:17

And what he really thought was if I could play golf well, it would put me in um nice circles of people and uh that it would be good for my life. I don't think it probably wouldn't have been until probably those US opens that he started to think about that sort of thing for me. But he was in the printing business and he was um going to see a customer in Chattanooga and he took me with him on the trip. And um somehow or another I ended up playing golf with these people, and it was one of them was a gentleman, Jack Harkins, who was the uh the original founder of um First Flight Golf that eventually became Arnold Palmer golf, whatever. Anyway, he says, Why don't you and I was such I mean when I was 17, I was 17, really. Um he said, Why don't why don't we put you on the tour and you go play professional golf? And I my family we never had money. Um there was always some issue one way or another. And um so you know what it so first flight eventually became Arnold Palmer's company. Yeah, yeah, so um but he said we'll give you a we'll give you $150 a week to travel the tour and to play. So I was supposed to travel, pay a caddy, and do whatever else, I don't know, on $150 a week. And um my father and my craziness, we said okay. So and the LPGA at the time, there was no Q school nor anything like that. In fact, they needed bodies. And if you didn't have a criminal record and you could play a little bit, they were gonna approve you, and they approved me. So uh that's how I ended up turning pro. And um, it was uh not financially um good idea for at least two years. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 32:43

You know, I think Sandra Haney used that exact term with us last week, Bruce. He says they needed bodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, true. Yeah. So you make the decision, off you go. And we I I you know, I we always enjoy talking to our guests about some of those early years, particularly the first one. I mean, you're young, you're younger than most starting out on the tour, and cities are new, how to get around, how to find these places, where to stay, learning new golf courses. Just take us through that first year experience.

Judy Rankin 33:17

I was just, you know, muddling along, and so many, so many of those women um in their way looked out for me. Um, I didn't have a car that first year. I I was riding with I rode with a another gal some part of the time. It it's so funny now because I've lived in Texas, West Texas for so long. Um, but there's a little town in Texas um west of you. Bruce, it's called Segine, Texas. And um this gal's name was Sandra McClinton, and she was um when she wasn't playing golf, she was a bull rider. Anyway, one of the one of the nicest people I have ever known in my life, great, great gal, um, a very raw talent playing golf. But I rode with her, and that's how I got from tournament to tournament. And then um I did stay with Sandra. Um, we would share a room a few times, but real often I was with a family, which a lot of players were then. That's really what got them through. Um, and all the things that you talked about learning a new golf course, this, that, and the other. I don't know. We were just teeing it up and playing golf, you know, the best we could. And uh I do know I won my first $50, which is more than Jack Nicholas won the first time.

Bruce Devlin 34:41

True.

Judy Rankin 34:42

Um, in Baltimore, Maryland, a place called Ellicott City. And um, I was out with a friend with a flashlight. We were checking out the scoreboard Saturday night, see if I could get in the money, and I got fifty dollars. So um it was it was not lucrative to say the least. And the year I was 17, the last tournament I played was in Las Vegas, and we played at the old non-existent anymore Stardust, and we stayed there, and of course I couldn't, I I couldn't go anywhere because I wasn't 21. I could barely, they barely let me in the restaurants, and um it was not a good experience. Um Las Vegas was a little too much for me, and I went home and didn't go back for six months.

Mike Gonzalez 35:30

So interesting. Yeah, interesting.

Judy Rankin 35:33

And uh when I did go back, my stepmother had a relative that was a golf pro in Philadelphia, a man named George Griffin. And my dad and had talked to George this and that, and he was at a very, very high-end um Jewish club in Philadelphia called Green Valley. And I know Green Valley is still there. And um I went and stayed with the Griffins for a number of months, worked at worked in the pro shop and helped out whatever I did, and um tried to get my golf game sort of back working. And um Bruce, this'll get you. Um they get this young golf pro who comes in to be an assistant one day, and it's Bert Yancey. And and we would we would go out in the evenings, you know, five or six of us, and and when everybody was gone and play holes and all that. I know all of those things had were really good for my golf education. Um and um and Bert Bert met a girl, and all I know is he was tr struggling to get to work, and the next thing I knew he was driving a sports car, so he didn't ride for himself.

Mike Gonzalez 36:53

Yes. That name's come up a little bit on the show, hasn't it, Bruce?

Bruce Devlin 36:58

Yeah, I um I do have a question for Judy then, uh seeing that she was around Bert. So did he teach you his timing mechanism for hitting a golf ball?

Judy Rankin 37:10

Not that I remember, but if you if you say, maybe I'll know. He he used to have, he would say these different every week he'd have something. Hit it with your knees, you know, hit, you know, it was it was it was good, but he was a phenomenal player.

Bruce Devlin 37:26

Yeah, he was a good player. Anyhow, he used to have his caddy, uh, always carried a stopwatch. And from the moment Bert put his hand on a golf club in the bag, he had to hit the golf ball in the same mechanism every time. So it was, let's say it was a uh one second to hold, a couple to get ready, three for a stance, five at the top, seven completed back swing. And and he and he'd sit there, he'd sit there with that caddy for uh hours making sure that he was doing the same thing every time.

Judy Rankin 38:03

Uh I think that might have been later in life, not when he was just a young guy.

Bruce Devlin 38:07

Probably was, yeah.

Judy Rankin 38:09

But we sure we sure had a lot of fun and um and I learned a lot, and those those things were very good for me. And I see so much interaction with the men and the women who play the game professionally today. And I feel like that is such an edge for the women. Um because you know, if if you're gonna be intimidated, that's where you're gonna be intimidated. And um when they're not, and and they get in a pressure situation, I think that's really valuable to them. And then and then I hear nice things like Adam Scott says, you know, when he's just all messed up, he thinks about NB Park's tempo, you know, that sort of thing. So it's it's all good, it's all great.

Mike Gonzalez 38:56

Yeah, yeah. So who were some of the mother hens that sort of uh kept their wings around you at a as a at a young age when you came out on tour?

Judy Rankin 39:04

Um, Marlene Hagee befriended me, no doubt. Um, not uh you know, a lot of people. Um of all people who a lot of people would think wasn't very social, Betty Jameson. Um there were three or four of us that were friends, and um Mary Mills, who was a US Open champion. In fact, that's the closest I ever got to winning the US Open because I roomed with her when she won.

Bruce Devlin 39:37

Did you really?

Judy Rankin 39:38

Yeah, the trophy was in my room, yes. And uh but um Marilena Falk, you know, um every now and then, you know, between tournaments, um a lot of the tournaments were 54 holes, and if people were driving, you know, you'd go somewhere. I remember we went, we all um made a stop somewhere on the west coast. We were driving, and we got to go outside of Eureka Springs, California and see the redwoods. And I was 18, sticks in my mind to this day, what a place, what a sight that was. Um so people like that, uh uh lots of good friends, you know. Mickey Wright, people would think uh was very standoffish and all, and she was, she was shy, one thing or another. But you know, there wasn't one thing I could have ever gone to Mickey Wright about or asked her about that she wouldn't have tried to help me. And um, you know, the last time I ever spoke to her, she called me um here at home I don't know, seven, eight years ago. Uh first of all, she called me when Yippie died. But the last time I talked to her, she called me on my birthday. And um that's pretty cool to get a birthday call from Mickey Wright, you know?

Bruce Devlin 40:59

Oh yeah.

Judy Rankin 41:03

She was the best. Um and I think I you never know. I think she'd have been the best in every generation given equipment and this and that. Now, I don't know, she might have been using equipment from the 60s, you know, in 2022, because she was stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. But all things being equal, she would have always been the best.

Mike Gonzalez 41:29

Yeah, I mean Kathy Whitworth shared that uh uh she was your Ben Hogan.

Judy Rankin 41:34

Oh wow. I mean you know, you you like rarely ever saw her hit a poor shot. And she was an average putter. Um but you know, her poor shot probably was 40 feet from the hole. We didn't miss the green. That was her poor shot and and just watching her, watching her hit t-shots, and she had a she had that wooden Wilson driver. It wasn't exactly blonde, it was a little darker than blonde, but I will always remember her with that driver. And um uh dynamic she was just she was just a very gentle, intelligent person.

Mike Gonzalez 42:18

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 42:42

It went smack down the fairway.