Yesterday's highjacking of text from The Book of Golfers was the fun kind, profiling Christy O'Connor upon his selection to the World Golf Hall of Fame.  Today's is of the sadder variety, as 1959 PGA Champion and longtime TV broadcaster Bob Rosburg passed away Thursday in Palm Springs, at age 82.

Suffice to say that you cannot be of a certain age group ("no longer in our thirties") and not be familiar with Rosburg's longtime work for ABC sports, where he broke ground as an on-course reporter.  So, with the tinge of sadness that always accompanies these things:

BOB ROSBURG

Well-known to contemporary viewers for more than two decades of television work, Stanford-educated Bob Rosburg (b.San Francisco, CA 10/21/1926) utilized the 10-finger grip and an ungainly looking swing, yet rode a Hall-of-Fame putting stroke and a keen competitive edge to great golfing heights. All told, Rosburg would win six times on the PGA Tour, placing no worse than 26th in money through 1959 and claiming the Vardon Trophy in 1958. In 1959 he captured what was easily his biggest victory, the PGA Championship, when he closed 68-66, yet still trailed by one until Jerry Barber bogied both the 71st and 72nd holes, handing Rosburg the title.

With the exception of a win at the 1961 Bing Crosby, Rosburg virtually vanished from the Tour for the next decade, reappearing rather dramatically at the 1969 U.S. Open where only a missed short putt at the 72nd prevented him from playing off with Orville Moody. In 1971 he tied for third when the Open returned to Merion, two strokes out of the famous Nicklaus-Trevino playoff. Then 45, he surprised everyone once more by defeating Lanny Wadkins to capture the 1972 Bob Hope Desert Classic, before suffering two declining years and retiring in 1975.