Bob Baptist has been retired since 2015, but still says “we” and “us” when discussing sports writers and the media biz. A true newspaper man never forgets, and BB’s blood still runs printer ink black.
Trivia question: Who has written more words than anyone about the Memorial Tournament? Answer: Baptist, whose career at The Dispatch lasted from 1976 until he typed his last sentence nearly four decades later. During that span, BB covered every Memorial, becoming something of a wet weather expert along the way.
Baptist’s immaculate – some might say anal – record-keeping, including tracking rain delays, was relied upon by golf writers who have him to thank for knowing that 47 of 184 rounds, covering 30 Memorials, have been delayed, suspended or canceled by inclement weather in the 49 years of the tournament.
The wet stuff is what the native of Erie, Pennsylvania, remembers most about covering the Memorial, but his recall of other matters, both statistical and slapstick, is worthy of public consumption.
I worked side-by-side with BB for 18 Memorials and can say without hesitation that the Kent State grad is deserving of being honored May 28 with the 2025 Memorial Journalism Award. He’s still not sure his award plaque should hang on the same wall with such luminaries as Grantland Rice, Jim Murray and Dan Jenkins, but I feel safe in saying that none of those gentlemen would have been able to tell you that exactly 1,286,492 club strikes have been struck in the past 49 Memorials.
Getting it wrong was never right with Bob Baptist
Inaccuracies are anathema to Baptist, which means you can bet the stories he tells are 99% factual. Chalk the other 1% up to the normal dysfunction of a maturing mind. The man is more than a little gray around the temples.
Baptist’s earliest memory of the Memorial, even before he covered it, turned out to be prescient.
“I moved to Columbus in late 1976 and was sitting in my apartment on Sunday afternoon and had the TV on and was watching the final round of the ’77 Memorial,” he said. “I wasn’t that interested in golf then. I remember hearing, ‘A wind-swept rainstorm is coming in and they’re going to have to finish this on Monday morning.’ ”
Memorial host Jack Nicklaus returned the next morning to win the rain-delayed tournament he founded in 1976, and for the next 37 Memorials Baptist chronicled every weather suspension, interviewed every winner and usually was the last writer on site late each night.
A man of character, Baptist had several run-ins with a cast of PGA Tour characters.
“I was there for when Curtis Strange came walking up after his first round in 1989,” Baptist said, reminding that Strange was the defending Memorial champion. “He came up through the crowd on 18 and an autograph seeker asked, ‘ Will you sign this for my kid?’ “
Strange, who could be salty, snapped back with an obscenity suggesting the man’s child should go you-know-what himself.
“One of the radio reporters caught it on a hot mic,” Baptist said, rightly pointing out how Strange’s comment was made in the presence of dozens of fans, which made it fit to print.
“I got called to the practice range the next day with a ‘Bob, Curtis Strange would like to see you on the range,’ ” Baptist said. “He reamed me for a little bit, and I told him ‘Just stop doing it. You’ve got to curb your temper a little bit and these things won’t happen.’ We came to an understanding. He was mad at me for a couple years, then we were fine. Golfers get mad at you for awhile.”
Especially when you report the truth, which BB did.
Baptist, who also covered Ohio State men’s basketball for 18 seasons, labeled himself “Big Event Bob,” because he liked covering golf’s major championships as well as the Memorial. But I like to think of him more as Bulldog Bob for the way he attacked his beat. Or Silent Bob, because of the “Phil Mickelson incident.”
‘Phil Mickelson incident’ awkward Memorial Tournament moment
After Nicklaus shot a 1-under 71 in the first round of the 2002 tournament, a reporter asked Mickelson, who shot 73, if he was surprised the 62-year-old Golden Bear broke par?
“Am I surprised the guy who designed the course shot 71? What kind of dumb— question is that?,” Mickelson said, cracking his “I’m joking-but-not-really” smile.
It turns out I taped the interview and played it back for a few colleagues in the media center, with no intention of using the quote in a story. But a media spy heard about it and ran to Mickelson, who entered the media center and approached Baptist, thinking he was the “Bob” who was replaying the tape.
Lefty began talking to Baptist, who without looking up from his laptop computer pointed down the row of reporters to me.
After assuring Mickelson I had no intention of using the quote – until now, that is; feels like the statute of limitations have run out – Lefty lumbered off.
Baptist, who still chuckles when thinking about the awkward scene, said Mickelson never cared much for Muirfield Village Golf Club.
“There was always a feeling Phil didn’t like the course because he didn’t think it was set up for a left-hander to play well,” Baptist said.
Lefty may be right. No southpaw has won the Memorial, which is about the only thing Baptist did not witness over his 37 week-long visits to MVGC. He saw Nicklaus win twice, Tiger Woods win five times and Paul Azinger blast a bunker shot into the cup to defeat Payne Stewart on the 72nd hole in 1993. He saw the media horde grow from a handful of writers from Ohio papers to dozens of scribes from New York to Los Angeles and beyond.
He saw the original press room, which housed golf carts 51 weeks of the year, bloom into a state-of-the-art media center facility. Saw Dublin transformed from rural route to hip hangout. Reported on the Euros defeating the Yanks at the 1987 Ryder Cup at Muirfield Village, typing away as the European team partied only 30 feet away. As usual, despite the noise and distraction, BB demonstrated the steely concentration of Tiger Woods over a 10-foot par putt.
Baptist logged thousands of miles driving from his home in Pickerington to Muirfield Village, a route that became so familiar he probably still can find his way blindfolded.
But he never wore blinders. When players complained about No. 16, a par 3 they have bad-mouthed since the tournament’s inception, Baptist wrote it. When the cicadas swarmed, he wrote it – 17 years apart. When John Huston shot 61 in 1996 and Tiger shot 85 in 2015, he wrote it. When Nicklaus began lengthening the course in the late 1990s, in part to Tiger-proof it, Baptist wrote it.
He is as much a part of Memorial history as, well, wet weather. But his humor is much drier. Congrats on your award, BB. You’ll always be one of us.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at@rollerCD. Read his columns from theBuckeyes’ national championship season in “Scarlet Reign,” a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Dispatch. Details at OhioState.Champs.com
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