Al Barkow

A remembrance of Bob Rosburg from an old friend

Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:48 pm (Eastern)

By Al Barkow

A tribute to Rossie from a man that knew him for over 50 years.

With the passing of Bob Rosburg the other day another and fast diminishing link to Mid-20th century American golf history, and especially the development of the tour, is gone. As it happened, just three weeks before he died I had a long chat with Bob at his home in La Quinta, California. His cancer was in remission, and although he appeared physically frail his mind was as sharp as ever.

Photo: © Bob D'Amico/PGA Tour Bob Rosburg 1926 - 2009

"Rossie" was an especially good source of hard information, and colorful I-was-there anecdotes about the characters that played on the professional tournament circuit, and how the circuit itself operated when it was still a relatively rough-and-tumble hard buck.

A graduate of Stanford University, he played on the school’s team that won the 1946 NCAA championship, but didn’t turn pro until 1953, at the age of 26. That was rather old to start up, but he had married for the first time early in his life and had children, and because the purse money was paltry even when winning he was leery about making out as a tour pro. Still, he wasn’t too crazy about selling retail in a department store or cars for a San Francisco dealer, and when a pro named Jackson Bradley offered him a job as his assistant at the Edgewater CC, in Chicago, he made the move. A year later, with a $1,500 “loan” from some Edgewater members, he took his first fling at the tour. He got off to a good start, although the money barely made it seem so.

Photo: © Courtesy MacGregor Sports Rossie in a MacGregor publicity photo taken after he won the PGA Championship

He recalled that he made nada in his first two pro tournaments, but won the next one, the 1953 Brawley Open, which was called a satellite event (it was for those who didn’t qualify for the Tournament of Champions, played that same week at the Thunderbird GC, and featured only the top 25 on the money list). He earned $1,000 for his effort at Brawley, and didn’t get the money right away because the PGA of America, which was administering the tour at that time, had a rule that said you had to be a pro (and member of the PGA of America) for six months before you could collect prize money. Arnold Palmer, among others, went through that same procedure. “You had to wait for the money, but eventually you got it. They had to give it to you,” said Rossie.

Later that year he won the Miami Open, the last one on the annual schedule, took in $2,000, and at $8,600 was in the top 30 on the money list. $8,600! Walking around money on today’s circuit. Still, the total got him a full exemption into the next year, when he again finished in the top 30. And when he won the 1959 PGA Championship, he was exempt for life.

How did a fellow make out on such skimpy takings? “We drove our own cars, and caravanned. Players shared a room. I bunked with Arnold Palmer one winter. I traveled with my wife and kids during the summer. The rooms were probably a hundred dollars a week. A lot of players stayed at the same motels. We hardly ever ate out. We did barbecues, and baby-sat for each other. If I had an early starting time the wife of the one of the guys would baby-sit our kids. There weren’t many outings to do between tournaments, and make some extra money. Occasionally you might get fifty dollars to play with a group of guys.”

Photo: © Stan Badz/PGA Tour Rossie used a baseball grip his whole life in swinging the club.

Until the mid-1960s, much of the Tour was played on public golf courses, where the conditions were dodgy, at best. In Houston they played Memorial Park, a municipal layout. Rosburg: “I remember on the way to Houston one year some asked Jimmy Demaret what kind of shape Memorial Park was in. Demaret hung out there a lot. He said some improvements were made, including a new parking lot that was pretty nice. Jimmy said the only suggestion he had was that they should park the cars on the greens and putt on the parking lot. Demaret was the greatest.”

Course conditions prompted more than a few withdrawals by those of temperament. T Bolt, for example, who one year on a rainy day in New Orleans Bolt walked in from the far end of the course and when asked why he was w/d-ing said, “Because I cain’t read mud.”

Rosburg was among the w/d gang. Indeed, “they used to spell my name Rosburgw/d,” Rossie recalled, with a wry smile. “In those days you didn’t get ten thousand just for making the cut. There were 70 who made the cut and only 30 money places. So I thought if I didn’t have a chance of winning any money I was wasting my time playing the last 36 holes.”

Those with a temper back in the day and who displayed it were not fined, as they might be today, and it didn’t hurt otherwise given the short list of money places. As a result, temperament involved more than withdrawing if things weren’t going well. Bolt was famous for tossing clubs in anger, and so was Rosburg, which didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. He always appeared somewhat petulant, even when going good, and when not he had the good arm of someone who pitched some good baseball as a youth to give the club a healthy heave. Temper guys bond with those of that ilk, and Rosburg had a good story on the subject.

Photo: © Stan Badz/PGA Tour Many didn't know this but Rossie never had an instructor or took a lesson from anyone

“Don Cherry (the singer, who was a world-class amateur golfer) was a stormer. He played one year at the Crosby with Bolt. I was playing with Jim Garner, and when we started I said these are the four nastiest sonsabitches that ever played together. Garner, who was a good player, was notorious. One year at the Crosby we were playing with Phil Harris and Arnold at the Monterey Peninsula club. On one hole Garner hit a bad drive and went to throw the driver but held on and held on. Finally he let it go and it went backward into the gallery. He had to go get it, which is when I told him that if he was going to throw ‘em he should throw ‘em the way you’re going so you can pick it up on the way. I got that line from Bolt, who knew what he was talking about.”

Nowadays, as we know, the tour pros have a retinue that includes a psychologist, and Rossie admitted that a “shrink” might have helped him with his temper. There weren’t any swing “gurus” in his day, either—no Leadbetters, Smiths, Harmons, et al —although there was never a shortage of advice from rival players. However, you had to be careful of it. Not all those tipsters could be trusted. Gene Littler, early in his tour career, had rabbit ears, as they used to say, and nearly blew his career listening to those who would liked to have seen him disappear and put one more paycheck on the table. The classic story of the old pro who asked the young up-and-comer how he hit the ball so well with “that grip” was not a fable. It happened more than once.

None of that would have bothered Rossie, though. He never took a lesson in his life, and rarely practiced. He was not a ball beating range-rat in the Hogan mode. Fact is, he reminded me that when he won the PGA Championship he never hit one practice ball all week. Not even a couple or three warm-ups. “It was really hot in Minneapolis that week,” Rosburg said, “and the practice range was across the road and down in a hollow. I’d watch these guys coming back up from the range all sweaty and I said to hell with it. I’ll never forget the first hole, a 470-yard par four, hardest hole on the course. Every day I hit a four-wood on the green” Drive and a four-wood, the first shots he hit every day on the way to winning his one major.

They don’t ‘make ‘em like that anymore.

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