Judy Rankin ( Torluemke; born February 18, 1945) is an American professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

er and golf broadcaster. A member of the

World Golf Hall of Fame The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site honors both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 go ...

, she joined the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...

in 1962 at age 17 and won 26 tour events. Since 2010, Rankin has served as the lead analyst for LPGA Tour telecasts on the

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply Golf) is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently based out of NBC S ...

. She previously served as an expert analyst for golf coverage on ESPN/ABC.

Amateur career

Born and raised in St. Louis,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, Rankin won the Missouri Amateur at age 14 in 1959. The next year she was the low amateur at the U.S. Women's Open, and was on the cover of ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence tw ...

'' in 1961 at age 16. She turned pro the following year.

Professional career

Rankin's first

win came in 1968 and she won 26 events, topping the money list in

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 ...

and

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

. She finished in the top ten on the money list eleven times between 1965 and 1979, and was the first to win over $100,000 in a season on the LPGA Tour (over $150,000 in 1976). Although Rankin did not win a major championship, she was a four-time runner-up. Her best finishes were a second at the

1976 LPGA Championship The 1976 LPGA Championship was the 22nd LPGA Championship, held May 27–30 at Pine Ridge Golf Course in Lutherville, Maryland, a suburb north of Baltimore. Betty Burfeindt won her only major title, a stroke ahead of runner-up Judy Rankin. It ...

and tied seconds at the 1972 Titleholders Championship, 1972 U.S. Women's Open, and 1977 LPGA Championship. Rankin won the Colgate Dinah Shore Winner's Circle (currently the

ANA Inspiration The Chevron Championship is a professional women's golf tournament. An event on the LPGA Tour, it is one of the tour's five major championships, and has traditionally been the first of the season since its elevation to major status in 1983. Fou ...

) in 1976 and the Peter Jackson Classic (later renamed the

du Maurier Classic The CP Women's Open (french: Open féminin du Canada) is a women's professional golf tournament managed by Golf Canada. It has been Canada's national championship tournament since its founding in 1973, and is an official event on the LPGA Tour. ...

) in 1977; both events were later elevated to major status, but are not counted as majors in the years in which Rankin won. Her 26th and final win on tour was in August

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...

Jericho, New York Jericho is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Nassau County, New York, United States, on the North Shore of Long Island, approximately 29 miles (47 km) east of Midtown Manhattan. Its population was 13,567 as of the U.S. 2010 Cen ...

. Rankin was LPGA Player of the Year twice (1976, 1977) and won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average three times. She retired from full-time competition at age 38 in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

due to chronic back problems, and later captained the victorious

Solheim Cup The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian-American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force ...

teams in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. Rankin became the first player voted into the

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or muse ...

in 2000 under the veterans category, and she was also inducted into the

in 2000. In 2002, she was voted the

Bob Jones Award The Bob Jones Award is the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. It is named in honor of Bobby Jones. Winners *1955 Francis Ouimet *1956 William C. Campbell *1957 Babe Za ...

, the highest honor given by the

United States Golf Association The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the rules ...

in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. She was awarded a star on the

St. Louis Walk of Fame The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors notable people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to the culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years ther ...

in April 2013.

Broadcasting career

From 1984 until 2018, Rankin worked as a golf commentator for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and ABC. In 2010, she became the lead LPGA analyst for the

. She has also been a professional advisor for the magazines ''

Golf Digest ''Golf Digest'' is a monthly golf magazine published by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit under its Warner Bros. Discovery Golf division. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's competi ...

'' and ''Golf For Women''.

Personal life

Rankin was known as Judy Torluemke (pronounced Tor-''lum''-kee), until her marriage to Walter "Yippy" Rankin in 1967. They lived in

Midland, Texas Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States. A small part of Midland is in Martin County. At the 2020 census, Midland's population was 132,524. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas metropolitan ...

, and have a son, Walter Jr., known as "Tuey," born in 1968. After a battle with throat cancer, Yippy died at age 71 on February 24, 2012. Tuey's wife is the

sister-in-law A sibling-in-law is the spouse of one's sibling, or the sibling of one's spouse, or the person who is married to the sibling of one's spouse.Cambridge Dictionaries Online.Family: non-blood relations. More commonly, a sibling-in-law is referred ...

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

golfer

Geoff Ogilvy Geoff Charles Ogilvy (born 11 June 1977) is an Australian professional golfer. He won the 2006 U.S. Open and has also won three World Golf Championships. Professional career Ogilvy was born in Adelaide, South Australia to an English-born fat ...

. Rankin was diagnosed with

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or ...

in May 2006. She completed treatment by August 2006 and returned to her on-air work on

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Televisi ...

in time to cover the 2006 Women's British Open.

Professional wins

LPGA wins (26)

''Note: Rankin won the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner's Circle (now the

)
and the Peter Jackson Classic (later the

) before they became major championships.'' LPGA Tour playoff record (4–12)

Other wins (2)

*1974 (1)

Colgate European Open The Colgate European Open was a women's professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1974 to 1979.LPGA National Team Championship (with

JoAnne Carner JoAnne Gunderson Carner (born April 4, 1939) is an American former professional golfer. Her 43 victories on the LPGA Tour led to her induction in the World Golf Hall of Fame. She is the only woman to have won the U.S. Girls' Junior, U.S. Women ...

)

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rankin, Judy American female golfers LPGA Tour golfers World Golf Hall of Fame inductees Golf writers and broadcasters Golfers from St. Louis Golfers from Texas Women sports announcers People from Midland, Texas 1945 births Living people 21st-century American women