Concise application of a binary function to rows of a (m x 2) matrix

Given the following matrix with weights in ls in the first column and heihts in the second colum:

> wgt.hgt.matrix
     [,1] [,2]
[1,]  180   70
[2,]  156   67
[3,]  128   64
[4,]  118   66
[5,]  202   72

I am looking for a concise way to apply this a binary function like

function(lb, inch) { (lb/inch**2)*703 } -> bmi

to each row of the matrix, resulting in an array, list or vector of with the 5 resulting BMI values. One way I found uses the apply function:

apply(wgt.hgt.matrix, 1, function(row) bmi(row[1], row[2]))

But a splat operator as in Ruby (*) would help making the call more concise and clear:

apply(wgt.hgt.matrix, 1, function(row) bmi(*row))

Does an equivalent to the splat operator exist, i.e. a syntax element telling R to split all vector-like objects to populate argument lists? Are there other, simpler or more concise suggestion for the apply call?