BOCA RATON, Fla. — It’s just after 2 p.m. on a Wednesday at Boca Rio Country Club. Bob Toski and Judy Rankin are sitting in a couple of plastic fold-up chairs on the range, reminiscing about a lesson that took place more than 50 years ago.
Rankin, then an 18-year-old pro, told Toski that if he intended to change her grip, she’d be on the next plane out of Miami.
“How much did you weigh on tour?” Toski asks.
A 93-year-old can ask that question.
Plus, Toski has a thing about weight. More on that later. Rankin, 74, said anywhere from 105 to 117 pounds.
“For your size and your weight,” continued Toski, “you were one of the better ballstrikers I’ve ever seen. You had to have one of the greatest pair of hands in the game of golf.”
“For my time,” a humble Rankin replied.
Toski, who turned pro in 1945 and won five events on the PGA Tour, lives down the road from Boca Rio. The Golf Channel coordinated this on-camera reunion during the new Gainbridge LPGA event. The pair hadn’t seen each other in more than 15 years.
Moments like these are priceless, and as a parade of rookies warmed up on the range, part of me wanted to head down the line and introduce them all to Toski, who in addition to Rankin taught a dozen U.S. Women’s Open winners.
History lessons are so few and far between these days. After the Rankin interview, Toski sat down in the caddie tent to escape the brisk air and talk about one of golf’s most unlikely major winners, Birdie Kim, who won the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open.
“The story you’re about to hear,” Toski begins, “you won’t believe.”
Her swing was nearly perfect when they met, he said. There was a telephone pole about 150 yards away from the practice tee at Sherbrooke Golf & Country Club in Lake Worth, Florida. Toski told Kim he was going to hit three balls at that telephone pole. He took out a 6-iron, and on the second attempt he nailed the pole. Now it was her turn.
“I had a way of testing,” he said. “They didn’t call me the godfather for nothing.” Kim hit the pole on the first swing. “I said the lesson is over,” Toski recalled. “We’re not going to the practice tee anymore. We’re going to play golf every day, and I’m going to teach you how to shoot a low number.”
And so Kim set out to learn how to play the game, much like Rankin, by watching Toski. He helped the unknown South Korean player develop what he called “a golfing mind.” Toski considered Rankin’s “golfing mind” to be her greatest attribute.
Rankin, who’d go on to win 26 times on the LPGA, spent every winter at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Florida, before she got married, playing golf with Toski five times a week. There was a par 3 on the back nine that required a 4-iron from Toski. He showed Rankin how to play the hole successfully with driver.
“Watch all the great players at the top of their backswings,” said Toski. “What’s their first move?” The lower body, he answers in step with Rankin. “Why does the lower body move first? Because your legs are heavier than your arms and hands,” he said, “and your arms would catch up to your legs, but your legs can’t catch up to your arms.”
Rankin, a World Golf Hall of Famer, nods her head in agreement. Such a practical and simple explanation of the swing sequence is vintage Toski. Rankin said she was always taught to be weary of instructors who had a theory. And anyway, Toski, a 2013 PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame inductee, wasn’t in it to get rich. In fact, he never charged Rankin for all those lessons. Didn’t charge Kim either.
“I had empathy for people who were struggling because I struggled,” he said. “I went broke twice on Tour, and in my fifth year I was the leading money winner and I weighed 120 pounds.”
Players used to give Toski a hard time about his size. He starts in with a story about Lou Worsham, asks if I’d ever heard of him. Told no, he shot back with, “You need to study history.” Worsham won the 1947 U.S. Open, and every time he played with Toski, he asked how much he weighed. Every time, Toski lied and told him 127 pounds. His small size had earned him the nickname, “Mouse.”
After Toski had won the 1954 World Championship of Golf, which offered the richest prize, he was headed out to celebrate his four-win season at The Drake Hotel in Chicago. When Toski stepped out of the shower, he found Worsham and Clayton Hefner waiting on him.
“I wrapped my towel around me,” said Toski, “and said ‘What the hell are you guys doing here?’ We used profanity back in those days.” The two men picked up Toski and carried him over to the scale, which revealed his secret – 118 pounds. Worsham predicted that Toski would go down as the best lightweight player in golf history.
As if to prove that fact a million years later, Toski then rolled up his sleeve to show off his skinny wrists. “Nobody has wrists smaller than mine!” said the Mouse.
The fact is there’s nothing small about Toski. He remains a larger-than-life character with a dynamite smile.
He soon was ushered off to another interview session in the belly of the clubhouse, his storytelling still very much in demand. But not before belting out a few tunes.
Every Friday night, Toski sings the classics at Arturo’s Italian restaurant in Boca. He first learned to sing in the choir as an altar boy. “I can do a number on ‘How Great Thou Art,’ ” he said, “and you’ll cry.”
He wasn’t wrong. Gwk
This story originally appeared in Issue 1 – 2020 of Golfweek magazine.
