Stat profiles for 1500 golfers
Winning the Crosby in '61 and thoughts on Pebble Beach
First on GolfObserver: February 6, 2004
Once again, we're pleased to bring you some memories from Bob Rosburg, one of only nine golfers to have won both the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby tournaments in his career. The others are Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Phil Mickelson, Tom Kite, John Cook, Peter Jacobsen, and Steve Jones. Not bad company to keep. But not only has Rossie won both events, he's also been a part of television broadcast teams for both. In that combination of winning and broadcasting these great events, he is in a company of just one.
Below Rossie gives us his thoughts on winning the Bing Crosby in 1961, the man who started the "Clambake", playing with James Garner, Cypress Point and Pebble Beach.
Now as Dave Marr said for almost three decades, "Back to you Rossie."
- GolfObserver editors
--------------------------------------------------------Winning the Bing Crosby in 1961
I knew Bing fairly well, and he had a really fantastic tournament. Bing did a great job bringing in his friends to play, and it showed. Every year it had a great field of players and top-notch celebrities . Nobody wanted to pass on this tournament.
It always got the best television ratings, and most of the time it was played in such crappy weather, that it was always a tough tournament to play in. On top of the bad weather play was slow, and you had to play three different courses. Still, I had the greatest time every year I played in it.
You would never see a harder working guy than Bing getting the event prepared. In the '50s and '60s I would come out to the L.A. Open to help them set up the teams and their handicaps. Between Bing, Ed Crowley, Bob Roos, Maurie Luxford and myself, we just about knew everybody that was playing. And we used to adjust the handicaps to what we thought they should be. It was a whole lot closer golf tournament when we did that than what it became afterwards when they would just go on what the guys sent in. Handicapping was a tough thing to legislate, but Bing wanted it that way. He kind of knew everybody, and if a guy didn't like it, that was too bad because everybody wanted to play. We'd go both ways with guys. We wouldn't just cut people; we'd add some to people. Phil Harris would always send in a 15 or 14. Well, we'd give him 17 or 18. Lemmon was the same way. He'd try to be honest, but he never made the cut so we'd try to get him there, try and give him something. And those were great days.
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I'll never forget the year I won, in '61. I was eight shots behind going into the last round. I had played with James Garner in the first three rounds, and we had missed the cut. Unfortunately we had made a double bogey at the 16th hole at Pebble Beach, which cost us the cut. So, the next day I played with three other pros, and it was one of the toughest days to play golf I've ever seen in my life. Like I said, I was eight shots behind and ended up winning shooting a 72. Goes to show you how poor the weather was. It never rained or anything like that, but the wind really blew hard that day. That made the greens hard as a rock. It was just a tough day to play.
I wasn't in the last group, so I had to wait around after I finished my round. When play was finally finished and I was the winner, Bing came up and congratulated me. Told me how great I played, and that I really knew how to play Pebble Beach, and if a U.S. Open came here I would do well in it. I thanked Bing for the kind words and told him, "let's go up and have a cocktail." Crosby told me that he couldn't right then, because he gave an award every year to the amateur who helped his pro the most, and he needed to get together with his people to chose the winner of that award. Well I said to Bing, "you don't have to think about it this year. Just give the award to Garner for going home and leaving me alone on the final day." Well wouldn't you know it, Bing used that at the dinner that night. Garner heard about it, and he didn't speak to me for about two months. It was great fun, and Garner and I have been laughing about it ever since.
Bing was really great. You asked him for something, and he went out of his way to get it done. When I first had some horses, I had this trainer called Tom Eskimo. He was a pretty good golfer, about a 7 or 8, and would always ask me if I could get him into the Crosby to play one year. I went to Bing about it one time, and he told me that he would see what he could do. Of course, he got a spot for Estimo to play, but he got in a bit of trouble over it. It seems that he had one spot left, intending to put Estimo into it, but forgot to put his name down. Crosby's wife saw that there was the one spot left and wanted her dentist to play in that spot. In the confusion my trainer got the last spot over the dentist. A couple of days later Crosby's wife asked him: "Well Bing, what about my dentist, did he get in?" Bing said: "No, I gave it to Rosburg's friend, the horse trainer. I can get better tips from him than I can from the dentist." That's what kind of a guy Bing Crosby was, a comical guy with a dry sense of humor. A really nice guy.
I really think that the tournament lost some of its luster when Bing died, but I don't think the tournament was quite ever the same when they got rid of the Monterey Peninsula course and replaced it with Spyglass. Not that Spyglass isn't a nice course, but I think it was too hard for most of the amateurs. And then it really lost it's luster when they took Cypress Point out. The amateurs just loved to play at Cypress, and so did I. There is no better place in the world to play than at Cypress Point.
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I must have played there 100 times and loved every round. One thing you may find hard to believe is that I never went for the 16th green, never. I laid up to the left. I just thought the risk was too great. Yes, in practice I'd take out a driver every now and then and try to put it on the green. But during a round that we were actually playing for I never took a shot at it.
I've always said that if I had one place or round left to play I would pick Cypress Point. It wasn't that hard a course. It wasn't that great a golf course, but it was always in wonderful shape, and it's pretty. The deer would run around, the wild life and everything. Of course, there weren't many people around either. You could play quickly, and I always liked that.
- Thoughts on Pebble Beach
Pebble Beach is a good course. Some great holes, some not so great holes. It has charisma, or whatever you call it. So much has been said about Pebble Beach. If it hadn't been for the weather,
I'd never thought Pebble Beach was really that hard, as hard as everybody thinks it is. The one thing about the place is how beautiful it is with all those holes running along the ocean. I don't know, I was always in awe with the place when I went there. Maybe I've gotten a sour taste in my mouth lately because it has gotten so commercial. They say it's a public course, but of course you have to pay so much money, and it takes six hours to play. I think it's hurt what people think of the course.
Photo: ©
Scott Halleran/Getty Images Pebble Beach could be the prettiest golf course in the world.
I've played there since 1940, when they had the state amateur there (Pebble hosted the California State Amateur every year). I was runner-up three times, which meant I lost three times in the finals. Oh well. Still I am a winner at Pebble with my victory at the '61 Crosby. It was a great win. I thought I played a great last round thinking my way around the course. I hit it in the bunker at 17. The wind was blowing so hard I took a 1-iron and hit the bunker on purpose. I didn't want to hit it on the green, because it was so hard that I thought it would bounce over the green and into some really bad trouble. I made a 4 (bogey), but then made a 20-footer on the last hole for a 4 (birdie) to win the tournament. It was a tough day to play, and at that time they had as good a field there as you were going to find anywhere. And of course I won the pro-am nine years later playing with John Brodie, who is a great buddy of mine. I think that was almost as big a thrill as winning the tournament. It was really fun.
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