Judy Rankin - "SI Cover Girl at Age 16" SHORT TRACK

Lee Trevino 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle.

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Then it started to 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 0:22

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 you think historically, 53 is when Hogan won. 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 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. Yeah, 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, Wannap, thank you. And I thought, you know, it hailed twice during the round.

Bruce Devlin 3:38

Oh my!

Judy Rankin 3:39

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 just quite frankly couldn't. And maybe I was even. I don't I I I was one down, and um anyway, I lost the match, one down to Sheila McGivin. I remember her name, and 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 McGivon beating me. Um it's funny that I remembered her name, but so I had kind of not warm memories of Carnoustie. Um but 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 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 5:32

Yeah, it did.

Judy Rankin 5:33

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 6:07

We hope you've enjoyed this short track 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.

Lee Trevino 6:31

It went smack down the fairway. When it started displayed, just split off line.