A handful of years ago I enjoyed nine holes with Judy Rankin on a par-3 course named in her honor, “The Judy,” at Midland Country Club in West Texas, where she has lived for many years. The holes range from 46 to 107 yards. It’s a place for kids, beers, fun. Among the couple of clubs Rankin brought was a Wilson R-90 sand iron—heavy flange, steel shaft painted brown to look old—that she started using shortly before having the best stretch of LPGA career: 11 victories combined in the 1976 and ’77 seasons, over runners-ups such as Sandra Haynie, Pat Bradley, Jane Blalock, Hollis Stacy, Sandra Palmer and Nancy Lopez.
Rankin was in her early 70s when we went out on that sunny, winter afternoon and was playing hardly any golf, but she settled into every wedge shot with purpose, left hand turned way over in that signature strong position that might have sabotaged someone else but which served her so well. Once a pro, always a pro.
She accumulated 26 victories in two decades on the LPGA Tour before back problems drove her into retirement in 1983. Two generations know Rankin as a golf broadcaster, a second career that began at the 1984 U.S. Women’s Open, where she joined Bob Rosburg as a walking announcer on ABC’s production from Salem Country Club in Massachusetts. Jim McKay, Dave Marr and Rhonda Glenn were in the 18th tower, and Jack Whitaker provided perspective.
If Judy’s voice on that maiden telecast sounds nervous and uncertain, it’s because she was nervous and uncertain. Rankin certainly didn’t have any idea that she would be calling golf nearly 40 years after her debut on television, where she has been an insightful—candid yet kind—commentator for so long. “I didn’t know if I could stand up in front of people and talk,” Rankin told reporters earlier this week prior to the start of the LPGA event in The Colony, Texas. [But] I started to feel capable.”
She had a lot to learn about TV, just like she did in 1962 when she began playing the tour at 17 after being something of a pee-wee prodigy in St. Louis.
Rankin was 6 when she hit her first golf shots at a lighted driving range, a symbol of American post-war leisure and good times. But her childhood was anything but carefree. Rankin’s mother, Waneta, was diagnosed with a brain cancer and died when Judy was 11 after years of deteriorating health. By the time she lost her mother, Rankin was thoroughly immersed in golf at the urging and direction of her dad, Paul Torluemke, a taskmaster not unlike fathers in more recent times in all corners of the globe.
“When you’re a little child and maybe playing golf or whatever the sport might be, it’s not all rosy,” Rankin said. “It’s not always completely inspired by the child’s desire. I don’t in any way want to say that I was an abused child. My father certainly saw bigger things for me than I saw. I certainly was pushed, but I was never told I had to play golf.”
As opportunity beckoned, Rankin jumped into pro golf before finishing high school. “When I think about what I got to do in life and the places I’ve been and people I’ve worked with, I’m sort of stunned at that myself,” she said. “I always thought I would finish at any given moment and I never did. I’m not proud of that and not happy about it; it’s one of those things we did wrong. Fortunately, it did not seriously hold me back.”
This weekend’s The Ascendant LPGA Benefiting Volunteers of America is Rankin’s last broadcast of the year. “I don’t know what next year holds,” she said. “If it holds anything, it would be minimal, because Morgan [Pressel] has done a nice job taking over my position.” Ken Venturi retired from CBS 20 years ago after being a staple for decades. The finish line for Rankin carries a similar feel of a familiar and substantial presence who is going to be missed.
She has savored her lengthy run on television, a career almost twice as long as her playing days. As Rankin wrote in a story for the LPGA that accompanied a wonderful “Drive On” video, late in his life Paul Torluemke told his daughter, “Judy, I think you played golf for me. TV was for you.”
And TV has really been for all of us who have watched Rankin on the air all these years, capable and then some, her education in life evident on every show.
Well done, Bill. Judy hits for the cycle: great player, great broadcaster, great lady. All class and not a phony bone in her body. Her decency and her insight will be missed.