Lorne Rubenstein | |
Look at Bob Panasik, the youngest player to make a cut on the PGA Tour
January 15th, 2006
 Photo: © Courtesy Canadian PGA.Com |
Bob Panasik. |
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He was a boy then and he's a senior now and he's still trying to perfect his game. Bob Panasik was working out on the Ultimate Bowflex at his home in Windsor, Ontario when he stopped to chat about a record he's held for 50 years. You see, the Panny man, now 65, is the youngest player to make the cut in a PGA Tour event.
Panny, as his pals know him, was 15 years, eight months and 20 days old when he made the cut in the 1957 Canadian Open at the Westmount Golf and Country Club in Kitchener, Ontario, 60 miles west of Toronto. Panasik shot 73-74 to make the cut and played the third round with eventual winner George Bayer. Now he's in the news again, because Tadd Fujikawa became the second-oldest golfer to make the cut in a PGA Tour event when he did so in the Sony Open last week. The exuberant young man was 16 years and four days old. Well, young.
Suddenly Panny were wondering who's the youngest player to make a cut. Panny's the man. Eric Saperstein, a producer at The Golf Channel, called him to appear on Golf Central. Panny did that Monday night, with co-anchor Inga Hammond. He told her he'd like to become the oldest player to make the cut in a PGA Tour event as well as the youngest. Why not dream? That's Panny
But wait. Panny wasn't sure earlier Monday how it would all turn out on the Golf Channel. He thought the call might come from Nick Faldo, he who is in the Golf Channel's booth with Kelly Tilghman. Panny's never been less than enthusiastic and optimistic, so why wouldn't he get a call from Faldo? Or think he would. See it, feel it, believe it. Something like that, anyway. Panny sees the sun peeking
through the darkest clouds.
The guy's a treat. Trust me. I caddied for him First of America tournament on the Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) in 1994. This was at the Egypt Valley Golf Club in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Panny loved being on the senior tour. He loved it so much that he hit up to 1,000 balls a day during tournament weeks. He hit balls until dark after tournament rounds. He forgot that he wasn't a kid anymore, though, and he injured himself and had to take a couple of months off. But by the time he reached Grand Rapids, he was ready to play. In his own way, of course.
I noticed a bag tag that had an interesting observation on it. "Excuses are the crutches for the untalented," it read. Panny explained that ex-National Hockey League referee Red Storey had provided the line. He liked it so much he had it made into a bag tag. "Some of the moaners out here don't like that," he told me. "But I thought it was so good I had it bronzed."
Panny was working on getting his hands out of the swing. He talked to himself as he approached the ball, saying, "Shoulder fade, slow back, left to right." Panny did okay, tying for 24th. He didn't make enough that year to keep his card, but hey, he did win plenty of fans. Panny often invited kids from the gallery onto the green for a moment. He'd give the kids a pat on the back, hand them a golf ball.
He was, and is, a kid himself, in many ways. There were so many things he liked about being out there with the roundbellies, as Lee Trevino called his fellow senior golfers. For one thing, his surname meant his locker was usually between Arnold Palmer's and Gary Player's. Cool, Panny figured.
Photo: © Jeff Gross/Getty Images & Canadian PGA | | Bob Panasik and Tadd Fujikawa. |
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It was also cool, very cool, according to Panny, that Fujikawa played so beautifully and with so much youthful joy at the Sony Open. Panny watched. Of course he did.
"It was an amazing feat," Panny said as he took a breath between killing himself on the Bowflex. "People watch it, and they think it's great, and it is. But at 16, it's way beyond that. It's a parent's dream for a child."
Panny knows that the dream doesn't always last. Reality intrudes, usually. Ty Tryon was the second-youngest player to make a cut on the PGA Tour, when he did that in the 2001 Honda Classic. But he's struggled since. Then there's Michelle Wie. Panny loves the way she swings, but he wants to see her win, he wants to see her give herself a better chance of showing her stuff.
"She's being put in a position where she can't win," Panny said. "Even a dog has to be rewarded for his achievements." I think he was saying that Wie wasn't in a position to achieve, playing with the men, and so she wasn't going to be rewarded.
Meanwhile, Panny's hoping to reward himself. He plans to try to qualify for the U.S. Senior Open, one reason he's beating himself up in his home workouts. Panny does six different exercises and 30 push-ups between each set.
"If I'm going to be competitive at 65, I have to be fit," Panny said. "I want to know that I'm going in with my best chance to compete. If I don't do everything to do my best, what's the point?"
Part of his program includes a breathing routine that I had trouble deciphering as we spoke. Panny chatted on about when a golfer should inhale and when he should exhale. He said that most PGA Tour players don't realize their eyes are racing and they're not coordinated with their look at the ball. He said that a player's eyes have to stay connected to the ball and target until the ball stops. He said that the left foot for a right-handed golfer has to stay stable through the ball and that the players' two hands should stay on the club until the ball has stopped.
He also said he loved the way Fujikawa putted, something about him staying connected to the ball for 94% of the distance it travels to the hole on a mid-length putt. This is the same man who looked at the putter as a pencil a few years ago. Who knows, maybe he still does. This was while he was playing some Senior Tour events in Florida, and had some success.
"The putter is only a long pencil, isn't it? he asked, or, rather, said. "And how do you hold a pencil? You hold it with your thumb on one side and between your index finger and forefinger on the other side. The other two fingers aren't on the pencil because you don't need them. The index finger and forefinger are more sensitive."
Gotta love the Panny man, because the Panny man can. He can be entertaining, he can whack that ball, and I've not even gotten into the trick shot exhibitions he loves to do. And I also haven't mentioned that he was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2005. His cell phone message so informed callers. He was proud of his achievements and his well-deserved recognition.
The guy lives and breathes golf. Oh yes, that breathing. He was still expostulating about how to breathe for better golf while we were talking. I remember that Panny sometimes grunts while driving a golf ball. He's one spirited fellow, and he's very, very proud of still holding the record as the youngest player to make the cut in a PGA Tour event.
"I get calls and mentions about it all the time," Panny said. "When you're holding a record that's lasted 50 years, how many records last 50 years? [Byron] Nelson winning those 11 in a row in 1945. Who else? I have to be in the elite five. Will somebody break my achievement one day? Who knows? But it hasn't been broken yet."
Sure hasn't. Panny man, you're the man.
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