Speaker 1: M golf is the say anything in golf that doesn't change,
Speaker 1: anything that changes the best implying does this man a
Speaker 1: one time winner on the PGA Tour. The point Alan
Speaker 1: is he didn't go Hollywood. You need a fourth Hello?
Speaker 1: This is Alan Chifnuck back for another Need a Fourth podcast,
Speaker 1: in which myself, Michael Bamberger, and Jeff Ogilvie take turns
Speaker 1: surprising each other with a mystery guest. The other two
Speaker 1: co hosts usually have no idea who this person is
Speaker 1: until we start taping, but on this occasion, the guest
Speaker 1: himself surprised us by jumping into our virtual hangout sooner
Speaker 1: than expected. Um Strangely it was Ben Crunch. I was
Speaker 1: no technical ability whatsoever, normally doesn't even have a cell phone,
Speaker 1: but somehow he got into our our zoom hang out
Speaker 1: before we could get there. So there's there's no preamble.
Speaker 1: But before we get to a fascinating and life affirming
Speaker 1: conversation with a gentle bed, we do need to thank
Speaker 1: our our sponsors Echo Golf, who make this podcast possible. Michael,
Speaker 1: do you have something to say? Well? I think you
Speaker 1: know this about me on because you've known me well
Speaker 1: for a long time UM marketing. Resistant, like you can't
Speaker 1: tell what kind of sweater I'm wearing today because it's
Speaker 1: been blacked out, much like Tiger with the pin Man,
Speaker 1: you know he's black that. But Echo I can speak
Speaker 1: about authentically and naturally. And I want to ask you
Speaker 1: a question Echo, because I think you'll know where I'm
Speaker 1: going with this. Have you noticed with this Echo shoe
Speaker 1: you put it on and there's no quote breaking in period?
Speaker 1: Have you had that right out of the box. They
Speaker 1: are very crushy, very comfy, no blisters, The leather is supple,
Speaker 1: it just it just molds around your foot in an
Speaker 1: almost sensual way. So yes, I know you're speaking of Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I had an experience with one of our
Speaker 1: other guests, Mike Mills, where he went to a golf course.
Speaker 1: I had forgotten one of issues. He had to go
Speaker 1: to the pro shop buy shoes. He didn't buy Echo.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day he had terrible blisters.
Speaker 1: And we have never forgotten about that. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it ever happens with an Echo shut not my experience. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's a great product. We're happy to wear them, and
Speaker 1: we were pleased they're sponsoring this podcast. So without further ado,
Speaker 1: let's get to Nita fourth. How are you been? Where
Speaker 1: are you? Jeff? I am sitting uh next to the
Speaker 1: full length hall on the West Coast at Row Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Oh you lucky dog you. Oh my gosh. That's still
Speaker 1: one of my favorite courses in the world. I really
Speaker 1: I tuned in a couple of weeks ago to watch
Speaker 1: Kingston Heath and Victoria. Uh I happened to be. You know,
Speaker 1: as we have talked, I'm a bashed fan of of
Speaker 1: the Australian courses, especially in the sand Belt. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like the sand Belt anywhere in the world. I still
Speaker 1: reckon that they're the most handsome bunkers I've ever seen
Speaker 1: in my life. At at Royal Melbourne Kingston Heath, there's
Speaker 1: simply because there's no sand like it anywhere on the
Speaker 1: face of the earth. But I just really enjoyed I
Speaker 1: watched I watch people play it. Having been there, it's
Speaker 1: really fun for me to watch and I know they're
Speaker 1: they're coming up with another one here pretty soon. What
Speaker 1: do they play? Jeff was in a week or two
Speaker 1: we play h said, there's a sand Belt Invitational tournament.
Speaker 1: We play um Kingston heath Role, Melbourne West, Yara Yarra
Speaker 1: and Penitzia Kingswood North. Of course I've seen Yarra Yarra,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful too, but god, they're just respectacular. They're spectacular.
Speaker 1: Jeff was talking about the sand in the sand belt
Speaker 1: is very angular and therefore it can compact in a
Speaker 1: unique way and that's how they can cut those sharp
Speaker 1: edges of the bunkers, which kind of blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Like I always I never thought about the different parties
Speaker 1: of sand. I would like to hear you guys talk
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes about different sands and how it's affected
Speaker 1: your lives as designers, because that's incredible to me. Well,
Speaker 1: I could just tell you the first time I saw
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne, Um, I've never seen anything like it. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh. Actually the first courts that I played in
Speaker 1: Australia was Metropolitan Metro, which was wonderful, just wonderful golf course.
Speaker 1: But I went over to Royal Melbourne and I they
Speaker 1: size and the scope and uh, I just say, they're
Speaker 1: magnificent bunkers. They're meaningful, they they're bold. But yes, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any sand like it on the face
Speaker 1: of the earth one of the very few places, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned that there's no collars on the greens. They
Speaker 1: just rolling. They just edge right into the buckers, which
Speaker 1: is a unbelievable contrast. And when you're standing out there
Speaker 1: trying to hit an approach shot to any of those greens,
Speaker 1: it's very vivid, uh, And it's a it's a uh
Speaker 1: it does mark where are you trying to go? But
Speaker 1: I think the size and the proportion and the different
Speaker 1: ways that uh, that really Mackenzie and Alex Russell. Alex
Speaker 1: Russell to me is Webby one of the unsung heroes
Speaker 1: of golf architecture anywhere in the world. What a what
Speaker 1: a craftsman he was, Uh, And I really do count
Speaker 1: myself very lucky to have spent a couple of hours
Speaker 1: with Claude Crockford to who was the old green keeper
Speaker 1: at Royal Melbourne. And I'll never forget a couple of
Speaker 1: things that he said. He he stunned me with this one.
Speaker 1: He said, you said, you know, you in America try
Speaker 1: to grow grass. He said, we try to keep it
Speaker 1: from growing over here. And that just it has uh
Speaker 1: sort of an insight as to his expertise at a craftsman.
Speaker 1: You know, he grew up bowling, He grew up building
Speaker 1: bowling greens in in Melbourne, and uh it was but
Speaker 1: the way that they keep golf courses and the way
Speaker 1: that there are agronomy standards are as high as anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. Uh. He described the process of how
Speaker 1: you know, every three or four years they re turf
Speaker 1: the grass. And he definitely believed that compacion was the
Speaker 1: bane of all diseases. Uh. I just don't think that
Speaker 1: I was ever around anyone who was that learned. And uh,
Speaker 1: he was so avid and his principles. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: this too. One day I played with Greg Norman Melbourne. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a very very hot day and the wind
Speaker 1: was blowing hot from the north. It was about a
Speaker 1: hundred degrees, about a ten percent in humidity. I got
Speaker 1: through and I went, god, I always want to see
Speaker 1: what the crew does. How did the place looked like
Speaker 1: it was gonna be on fire? And a small crew
Speaker 1: went out with a handheld hose and spent about two
Speaker 1: minutes on each grin and then they laughed, and I said,
Speaker 1: well that that's unbelievable. Uh, but it's when you talk
Speaker 1: about firm conditions anywhere in the world. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know Lynks in the UK when you've had a drought.
Speaker 1: But to me, I was treated so many times in
Speaker 1: Melbourne to to play firm firm services, so healthy, so healthy.
Speaker 1: Think about that a lot, but there's no no other
Speaker 1: place that you can do it, though, Jeff, have you
Speaker 1: ever had a chance to play Ben's course, Sandhills in Nebraska?
Speaker 1: I haven't been to Sound Hills No, Unfortunately, it's been
Speaker 1: on the wish list for a while. But it's so
Speaker 1: hard to get to um when you do what we
Speaker 1: do like and I'm sure Ben can relate to this
Speaker 1: in the playing days. When you do what we do
Speaker 1: and you love golf courses, all you want to do
Speaker 1: is play the great ones. But when you play an
Speaker 1: average one Tuesday through Sunday every week, it's just hard
Speaker 1: to sort of roll out on Monday and go somewhere
Speaker 1: special because you're going to go play the next six days,
Speaker 1: somewhere that you don't really probably love, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get a bit jaded and you never really
Speaker 1: the two. It doesn't go to fun places. You know.
Speaker 1: We don't go to Westchester County very often anymore, and
Speaker 1: I mean, we do go to Carmel just pretty good. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't go to Nebraska, you know. Um. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I haven't been to Soundhills, no, but I've played. I've
Speaker 1: been been. Give me a little tour of his place,
Speaker 1: Austin Golf Club, which was really cool. And I've always
Speaker 1: loved his because him and him and Bill's courses have
Speaker 1: just such a like he was talking about role Melvin,
Speaker 1: they have. It's a subtle, it's a nuance. It's it's
Speaker 1: quite Uh, you have to go find the golf course,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to find where the intelligence isn't it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's one of those They're always courses
Speaker 1: that you want to play again. And I think, which
Speaker 1: is probably the ultimate compliment of an architect me if
Speaker 1: if anyone had ever played any of our courses, if
Speaker 1: they just say, if they finished their team, they just
Speaker 1: want to go out and play again. And I think, well,
Speaker 1: we've done a decent job here, you know, because my
Speaker 1: favorite courses I don't know. I mean, you read Golf
Speaker 1: magazine or Golf Digest and they have this list of
Speaker 1: how they rank course is and its shot values and
Speaker 1: all that, you know, the juncts that they just talked about.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, but to me it's um. If I
Speaker 1: want to go play again, and the one that's pulling
Speaker 1: me to the first to the hardest is my favorite,
Speaker 1: you know. UM. And I think that's sometimes indescribable, but
Speaker 1: I think Bill and Ben's course is generally do that
Speaker 1: to me. Well, Jeff, you're you're right at right at
Speaker 1: the peak where where you are. I can tell you this.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to tell you all the story. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been lucky enough to win tournaments and
Speaker 1: I've had pressure putts. Jeff will appreciate this. We played
Speaker 1: the World Cup at Roal Melbourne and Mark mccomber was
Speaker 1: my partner. We're coming down the last few holes and
Speaker 1: we were very almost tied with the Ozaki brothers from
Speaker 1: Japan and Julie we had just had our first child,
Speaker 1: who was in Hawaii, and we were gonna finish, finished tournament,
Speaker 1: go back over to Hawaii. Ka Tron was two months old.
Speaker 1: We come down to the last hole and I have
Speaker 1: to make this eight foot or downhill for us to win.
Speaker 1: And Julie told me before that punch, she said, look,
Speaker 1: I've been away from that baby for two weeks. You
Speaker 1: better make that put before we've got this, you know,
Speaker 1: eight feet down on the ice, and somehow I got
Speaker 1: it in. But that's one of the pressure pots I
Speaker 1: ever had, and I was so proud to want it
Speaker 1: real Melbourne. But god, I'll never forget that. Julie and
Speaker 1: I laugh at that, and I said, Julie, you were
Speaker 1: really tough on me. That's God. You don't know how
Speaker 1: difficult that pot was. But you know, as an aside,
Speaker 1: I love to talk to anybody who can handle wing
Speaker 1: foot in the US Open. How about that, Jail. I'll
Speaker 1: never watch, never forget watching Jeff playing there. He played beautifully,
Speaker 1: played bold when he had to. That's you know, anybody
Speaker 1: who has been around wingfoot and played it in competition,
Speaker 1: it is difficult, very difficult, and he handled them. And
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of him for doing that. He carry
Speaker 1: it off in great fashion. Yeah, wingfoot stuff. I'm glad
Speaker 1: I don't play it every week. I'm not sure i'd
Speaker 1: still play golf if I played it every week. But
Speaker 1: it's such a treat. Um. I was back there this
Speaker 1: summer actually for the first time for a few years,
Speaker 1: and every single time the Greens blow me away. You
Speaker 1: could have no rough around there in the place would
Speaker 1: be really difficult. Um, there's not too many places like
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up around role Melbourne and the
Speaker 1: Sound Belt that the greens are so important and where
Speaker 1: you are around the greens wingfoot. If you're in the
Speaker 1: wrong spot around the greens, I don't care who you said.
Speaker 1: He's not getting it up and down, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you're in the right spot, it's relatively sort
Speaker 1: of doable. But it's finding the right spots really hard.
Speaker 1: It's just incredible. And I don't know about you've been,
Speaker 1: but I feel like if if we built wing foot
Speaker 1: greens now, they'd run us out of the business and
Speaker 1: they never give us another jump again. Yet they might
Speaker 1: be they might be my favorite greens I know. With
Speaker 1: were those contours, they'd be unmanageable, especially green speeds these days. Uh,
Speaker 1: superintendents you know have and they don't have contests between
Speaker 1: each other, but they're very proud of of what they
Speaker 1: can do. Uh. But you're right. You you study the
Speaker 1: formations and the swings and the borrows on those greens. Uh, Wow,
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty fierce. They don't need to get up
Speaker 1: when their tournament. Oh gosh, it's it magnifies your errors
Speaker 1: a lot. How do you guys feel about the new
Speaker 1: back to all three of you, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about We have seen it yet, but just the idea
Speaker 1: of a new back t on on thirteen out Augusta National.
Speaker 1: This is the way golf's gone, and it's it's Augustin
Speaker 1: National has tried very hard to stay ahead of of things. Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't. I think there were what maybe two players
Speaker 1: in the last three years who could carry the ball
Speaker 1: over those trees across the corner, which is unfathomable in itself.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've just seen a picture of it.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in person. But you can't get
Speaker 1: out of there. You've got to go. You've got to
Speaker 1: go straight and then and then maybe hopefully a little turn.
Speaker 1: But it's I'm gonna get back there, I guess in
Speaker 1: April and and look at it and say, I'm very
Speaker 1: happy I don't have to look at that. But it's
Speaker 1: the club has tried very hard two uh challenge players
Speaker 1: these days. That's very difficult to do. Ah. I never
Speaker 1: thought that I'd see a day where well over half
Speaker 1: the field can carry the ball three hundred yards, ah
Speaker 1: and it and it. I know they've tried very hard
Speaker 1: to keep in the situation where your approach shots. People
Speaker 1: play the same clubs that they did a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I don't I know, I'm not sure if that's possible
Speaker 1: these days. But especially if you have dry conditions, the
Speaker 1: ball is gonna keep running, but will it will be
Speaker 1: interesting to see. But then again, Jeff knows, you've got
Speaker 1: to get up and tackle those greens, get into the
Speaker 1: greens and position yourself. It's very difficult. Uh. You have
Speaker 1: shots there, especially the little shots. I don't know about you, Jeff,
Speaker 1: the little shots that Augusta are. It always seemed to
Speaker 1: me that you could practice all the little practice shots
Speaker 1: you wanted to, But in the tournament itself, you get
Speaker 1: up to your ball and you say, God, I've never
Speaker 1: had this shot before, so you have to have to
Speaker 1: imagine it and have to feel it. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit like Royal Melbourne, you know, you just you can
Speaker 1: practice there as long as you want, but you never
Speaker 1: seem to have the same shots, imagination and touch. Ben,
Speaker 1: when you played your first Masters in two, what club
Speaker 1: would you have been hitting in the can you remember? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hit many many drive and three and four woods.
Speaker 1: You know, if you hit a good one off the
Speaker 1: tee uh, with a little bit of turn, a little
Speaker 1: bit of dangerous turn them to the left, that's what
Speaker 1: you were trying to do, no question, But uh, you
Speaker 1: think about that whole so many momentous decisions that were
Speaker 1: made there. H Uh. You know it comes in the
Speaker 1: in the round where if you do try it and
Speaker 1: you and you fail, it comes early enough and your
Speaker 1: round it sticks with you to the end of the
Speaker 1: day and you say to yourself, well should I have
Speaker 1: tried that? Or if you bring it off, it gives
Speaker 1: you extra confidence as well. But then you have to
Speaker 1: try to two part number fourteen, which is hard enough. Uh.
Speaker 1: But no, thirteen and fifteen have always been a great
Speaker 1: part of that place, always will be. Uh. So many
Speaker 1: exciting things have happened. Uh. But no, it played longer
Speaker 1: in those days, no question. But you know you with
Speaker 1: a persimmon club and a blot of ball, you could
Speaker 1: only drive so far. Jeff is a as a golf
Speaker 1: course architect, yourself, how would if you were presented with
Speaker 1: the question of what do we do on thirteen? What
Speaker 1: do you think you might have said? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Like Benn says, it's kind of it's what offs thatt um.
Speaker 1: In one sense, it's a shame, I think, because there's
Speaker 1: something nice about, well, there's two sides that there's something
Speaker 1: nice about. We still play the same game that Jones did,
Speaker 1: but we don't you know, um, we're still playing the
Speaker 1: same course. Is that the beauty of the Masters as
Speaker 1: we go to this beautiful place every single year almost indefinitely,
Speaker 1: it's been and you just you get to see every
Speaker 1: generation play these same holes. It's it's nice that we
Speaker 1: do that, and it's a little bit of a shame
Speaker 1: that we have to change it. But we do have
Speaker 1: to change it, and you want to see you don't
Speaker 1: want to see if there's two or three going over
Speaker 1: the trees now from the what's been the current tea,
Speaker 1: there's going to be going over the trees in a
Speaker 1: few years time, and that's taking all the fun away
Speaker 1: from that hole because the fun has been said. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a relatively simple hole. If you hit two great shots.
Speaker 1: It's just really difficult to hit those two great shots,
Speaker 1: you know, and you've got to really got to risk
Speaker 1: your tournament a little bit to make three there, you've
Speaker 1: got to take the war are on on the left,
Speaker 1: and you've got off the team and you've gotta take
Speaker 1: the water on the right off the second shot. It's
Speaker 1: almost the perfect hole. Um, and it's unbelievably far back
Speaker 1: that picture I've seen where that tea is like pen says,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty glad I don't have to play it right now. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know what, every time, at least in my era,
Speaker 1: Augusta was the change era, the big change here. I
Speaker 1: know it's always evolving, it's always been changing, but it
Speaker 1: gained a lot of length in the last twenty years. Um.
Speaker 1: Every time we'd get there and it's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is too long, like seven everyone when they put the
Speaker 1: tea back onto everyone was complaining and moaning, we can't
Speaker 1: hit three irons into this green. This is ridiculous. Everyone's
Speaker 1: hitting wedge in again, like they got it right. We
Speaker 1: all thought they were wrong, but they were right. They
Speaker 1: were ahead of the curve almost every time. So, um,
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see. I'm sure it'll play really long,
Speaker 1: and there'll be a bit, a little bit of moaning.
Speaker 1: I mean, players are very careful about moaning at the
Speaker 1: Master's because they want to come back, um, But in
Speaker 1: a few years time, I'm sure it'll be right. They
Speaker 1: haven't really missed the mark very often there, um, and
Speaker 1: it kind of needs to happen. It's great. It would
Speaker 1: be great to see the whole field having to hit
Speaker 1: three iron or five wood or something from with the
Speaker 1: ball way above their feet and take that shot on.
Speaker 1: It's a much more difficult decision than it is with
Speaker 1: a sixth iron or even a nine on or some
Speaker 1: of these kids hit in there now. So, as I said,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a slight shame, but it's where
Speaker 1: golf is, and it's such a great hole that it'll
Speaker 1: be it'll be fine, and it will still be one
Speaker 1: of the best holes in the world. And the boys
Speaker 1: are just going to have to work it out in
Speaker 1: Monday Thursday. They're just going to have to work out
Speaker 1: what they want to do and how much they want
Speaker 1: to take on and and someday hopefully we get the
Speaker 1: two leaders standing there with a three iron and a
Speaker 1: five wood in their hand like Faldo did in ninety
Speaker 1: six and deciding which one do I hit, which one
Speaker 1: the way hit and standing there for three minutes, because
Speaker 1: that's really why the masters. I think it's so compelling
Speaker 1: to watch just because it makes players make decisions they
Speaker 1: don't want to make, but you have to make them.
Speaker 1: You know. It forces you to go for thirteen when
Speaker 1: you really don't want to. That's every really hot shot
Speaker 1: when you've got a long club, but you have to
Speaker 1: go because you can just tell that cost us or
Speaker 1: someone's up in the talent. It go goes you into
Speaker 1: taking a chance, you know, and it's yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the targets are wide enough and it's inviting. You know
Speaker 1: that shot is downhill and you have to figure that
Speaker 1: and well, you know you're going the ball is going
Speaker 1: to travel a little further downhill. It's very difficult, of course,
Speaker 1: But you know, I knew things were changing a good
Speaker 1: while ago when the new seventeen te at St. Andrew's
Speaker 1: was back over thrown and onto the new course, I said, wow,
Speaker 1: that things are changing. So you know, it's holes like that,
Speaker 1: like you say, yeah, yes, change, but you had to
Speaker 1: uh in the hands of these great, great players. I'm
Speaker 1: having the best time watching so many great players these days.
Speaker 1: It's the quality of golf. Yes, it's a power game,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's It's wonderful to see the skills
Speaker 1: come out at different times with all these guys, all
Speaker 1: these young guys who are trying to climb the ladder.
Speaker 1: Uh they you can see where they A lot of
Speaker 1: it sometimes is where people have come from. I always
Speaker 1: reckoned that people from Australia and people from South Africa
Speaker 1: could really play the game because of where they grew up. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can handle breezy conditions, uh, hot conditions and very adaptable.
Speaker 1: So I enjoyed meeting different people from across the world
Speaker 1: and where they grew up and how they played Alan.
Speaker 1: How about for you, as someone who has written a
Speaker 1: lot of memorable game stories from a what what would
Speaker 1: you if you if Fred Ridley called you and said
Speaker 1: what should we do on third chain? What would you
Speaker 1: tell him? I'm not expecting that phone call, but um,
Speaker 1: I would enjoy it. Um. It's funny you mentioned that
Speaker 1: that Fouledo three iron, Jeff, because I've I've been lucky
Speaker 1: to witness a lot of amazing shots and pressure situations
Speaker 1: the majors, And I was standing right there on that
Speaker 1: rope line when Fouldo was standing out there in that
Speaker 1: fairway and framed by the trees and the beautiful afternoon light.
Speaker 1: And you know, people always talk about the sound of
Speaker 1: of a strike and impact and it can be a
Speaker 1: little mythologized, but I can still hear that strike and
Speaker 1: the way that ball just rifled through the air before
Speaker 1: you even land on the green. I was like Greg's cooked.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was probably the most pure gold shot
Speaker 1: I've ever seen my own two eyes. And um so
Speaker 1: that that's just a funny memory I have, And um yeah,
Speaker 1: I would, I would tell Fred I understand why they
Speaker 1: pushed it so far back. They don't want to have
Speaker 1: to go back again in five years like they obviously
Speaker 1: tipped it out. I hopefully they will. They will bring
Speaker 1: the tea forward. You just you want almost every player
Speaker 1: in the field have to make that decision, and if
Speaker 1: if they put it too far back, and and how
Speaker 1: it's an automatic layup for half for two thirds of
Speaker 1: the field. It takes a lot of the romance out
Speaker 1: of that hole. And um so finding the right mix,
Speaker 1: testing the longest players, but also letting the Zach Johnson's
Speaker 1: or someone like that at least think about it. Zac's
Speaker 1: about example, because he laid up every time. But you
Speaker 1: know them it would be. I think it'd be a
Speaker 1: shame if if it's just if it becomes a thoughtless
Speaker 1: hole where um, so many guys just don't even they
Speaker 1: hit it. They know they're not gonna go for it,
Speaker 1: so they hit a three wood or a five wood
Speaker 1: off the tea just to make sure they put in
Speaker 1: the fairway. They hit another they knock it up there
Speaker 1: with a five iron, and then it just becomes, you know,
Speaker 1: basically a hundred yard part three. Like none of us
Speaker 1: want that, so um air on the side of of
Speaker 1: of keeping the drama and the the excitement. But I
Speaker 1: think they know that instinctively. It's just difficult, you know.
Speaker 1: I know that Jeff uh, when he thinks about building
Speaker 1: the course, you want to try to reach everybody that
Speaker 1: you can. You would it brings variety. We always tried
Speaker 1: to get at part five that you could reach and
Speaker 1: then one that you couldn't, just for variety's sake. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't always work out that way. Uh. The nature
Speaker 1: of the par five's at Augusta are such that on
Speaker 1: certain days you can get there on all of all
Speaker 1: the eight's a little difficult going uphill, but uh, the
Speaker 1: the temptation with the with the water on the back
Speaker 1: nine and the way it starts to climax is it
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen that often in such a beautiful place.
Speaker 1: And it's Uh. I've always said the acoustics of playing
Speaker 1: that golf course in the tournament have a lot to
Speaker 1: do with it. If there's no place that sound means
Speaker 1: quite a lot. You always know where you are, You
Speaker 1: always know who did what by the decibels of yells.
Speaker 1: Uh just makes you excited. Uh. Just doesn't happen that
Speaker 1: in the world of golf that often. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: both of you guys are obviously golf romantics, Michael as well,
Speaker 1: but for for for Jeff and Ben, when you go
Speaker 1: to a course that in your playing days that you
Speaker 1: just don't love it, It doesn't stir the soul. It's
Speaker 1: probably has the initials TPC and it maybe not. But
Speaker 1: it's just not a a wondrous piece of architecture. It's
Speaker 1: just a golf course. And like you, like you said, Jeff,
Speaker 1: you got to slog through the practice rounds, the pro am,
Speaker 1: the tournament rounds. How do you set aside your own tastes,
Speaker 1: in your own mental health so you can focus on
Speaker 1: the job at Ham, which just make a lot of birdies,
Speaker 1: like when you're essentially offended by the architecture, like how
Speaker 1: challenging is for the two of you. In particular, I
Speaker 1: didn't struggle too much. There's enough to worry about when
Speaker 1: you play golf, you know, like how am I hitting
Speaker 1: it one? Am my? What am my swinging it like
Speaker 1: this week? As my partning, as my chipping, um working
Speaker 1: on something here and there. So I think most of
Speaker 1: a progolf I don't know how ben most of the
Speaker 1: progolfs golfers headspaces filled up with how am I going
Speaker 1: to hit it better tomorrow? Or how am I going
Speaker 1: to hold more puts tomorrow. I think it's a bonus
Speaker 1: when you get to play an inspiring golf course. I think, um,
Speaker 1: and you're just used to it. The PG two is,
Speaker 1: I guess, I mean, to its benefit and its detriment,
Speaker 1: is very good at setting up stuff very similarly every week. Um,
Speaker 1: so you kind of know what you're going to get
Speaker 1: before you get there, and it's about how do I
Speaker 1: shoot the lower score around this course that I can
Speaker 1: a minutes a lot more fun obviously at Augusta or
Speaker 1: the Old Course or Riviera or raw Melbourne or um,
Speaker 1: because there's a more and more depth and more nuance
Speaker 1: to the sport rather than just hit it straight and
Speaker 1: go find it and hit it straight again. Um, But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's the job. I mean,
Speaker 1: I fell in gold with love with golf courses slowly
Speaker 1: over time, great architecture, I think. I mean, I grew
Speaker 1: up on the sand belt, so I didn't believe everybody
Speaker 1: when they said, well, your courses are the sum of
Speaker 1: the best in the world, Like until I went away.
Speaker 1: I thought, what do you mean they're just over this,
Speaker 1: it's just around the court. What do you mean that
Speaker 1: they all golf courses are like this? You know? And
Speaker 1: it was just gradually over time that I realized, Wow,
Speaker 1: it took me a long time to work out that
Speaker 1: I've grown up around such incredible golf courses. Um that
Speaker 1: most of the time I was just focused on how
Speaker 1: do I hit the ball better or further? Or I
Speaker 1: can't fade it at the moment, what am I doing? Um?
Speaker 1: It was more game focused and course focused, and I
Speaker 1: think the golf course stuff came gradually, I mean right now.
Speaker 1: And then there was the offensive setups. There was this
Speaker 1: period early in my career, and it's probably been it's
Speaker 1: come and gone over the years. It seems to have
Speaker 1: gone for now, which is nice. Just the hack out
Speaker 1: rough when you hit it off the tea and you
Speaker 1: knew you just pulled sander On out. As soon as
Speaker 1: you hit in the roff, you'd walk up with fairway
Speaker 1: with your sund on because there's the only club you're
Speaker 1: ever going to hit for your second shot, because you
Speaker 1: were in the rough. That really drove me nuts. And
Speaker 1: I had trouble going seventy two holes giving my head
Speaker 1: in a good space when that was happening, because I
Speaker 1: think recovery is the some of the beauty of golf
Speaker 1: is that eggs getting yourself out of the problem you
Speaker 1: get yourself into. UM. And if the best courses and
Speaker 1: the best our favorite golfers ever have been masters at
Speaker 1: doing that, UM. It frustrated me a lot when it
Speaker 1: was just you hit it the roff and you just
Speaker 1: have to hack it out and try to get it
Speaker 1: up and down. For part of that was boring to me,
Speaker 1: and that annoyed me. But most of the time, the
Speaker 1: challenge of actually playing the game was enough, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was just cream on type of what was
Speaker 1: a great cause. I agree with Jeff. I mean, the
Speaker 1: hardest circumstances to play, at least in my career, was
Speaker 1: playing the US Open, where it seemed like thirty years
Speaker 1: in a row, you knew exactly what the setup was
Speaker 1: going to be. It's very ironclad, uh thirty six thirty
Speaker 1: seven yards wide or approaching forty and certain servistances. But
Speaker 1: the rough was brutal on both sides, and you just
Speaker 1: it was very penal, but you knew what was gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and it was very frustrating. Like Jeff said that, you
Speaker 1: you know, you hit the ball the rough, there's only
Speaker 1: one thing to do is hack it out and try
Speaker 1: to get it up and down somehow. But that's the way.
Speaker 1: It was brutally tough, uh uh fearsome because you knew
Speaker 1: what was the whole week was going to be that way,
Speaker 1: so put the no question if us on the straight drivers. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's very tough to do a lot of golf courses,
Speaker 1: but it was very consistent. I think our uh P
Speaker 1: J boat right from the U s g A set
Speaker 1: up the courses many many years. You knew exactly what
Speaker 1: you were going to get. Uh. Things change a little
Speaker 1: bit later, probably for the better, but it was you
Speaker 1: knew what was gonna happen. A lot of other major
Speaker 1: tournaments went that way. To the p G A of
Speaker 1: American went many years. Was uh, same setups, uh, but
Speaker 1: a little bit like Jeffson, sometimes it's not the true
Speaker 1: revealer of a golf course and it's makeup. Uh. I
Speaker 1: was lucky to when I started traveling as an amateur
Speaker 1: through college, I would go seek out a golf course
Speaker 1: that I had heard about, and I'd go visit it,
Speaker 1: look at it, and it really kind of Uh. That
Speaker 1: was my thesis uh in architecture, started seeing different places,
Speaker 1: see how things work, to see what people were talking about.
Speaker 1: They said, way, do you see this green way? Do
Speaker 1: you see this whole? You know, things like that. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in Jeff's case, you grew up right right
Speaker 1: next to some of the best courses in the world.
Speaker 1: I have to chuckle with that. It must be unbelievable
Speaker 1: you grew up around there and everything else doesn't come down. H.
Speaker 1: I've never said anything like it, though. When I went
Speaker 1: through the first time, I said, God, this is completely fantastic.
Speaker 1: Now it's unbelievable. I because you don't believe it when
Speaker 1: everybody tells you you live next to the best course
Speaker 1: of the world, on the one next door that's that's
Speaker 1: one as well, and then the one just kept two
Speaker 1: balls down the road is as well. It's like, there's
Speaker 1: no way we didn't have the best stuff in this right,
Speaker 1: And it's not until you go somewhere else to realize that.
Speaker 1: You must have to go away. So the alchemists that
Speaker 1: that great book, you have to go away to realize
Speaker 1: that it's all right in front of you. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: it was incredible, so spoiled, amazing. So most people start
Speaker 1: at some local communiti that they haven't ranked the bunkers since,
Speaker 1: and um there's there's not much going on there and
Speaker 1: it's pretty poor. And they go up and they fantasize
Speaker 1: about playing at these great golf courses, and eventually, one day,
Speaker 1: after thirty years of golf, they get to go play
Speaker 1: somewhere fantastic. I was the other way around, um, which
Speaker 1: is an interesting way to do it. Now people people
Speaker 1: can see it on television, but unless you're there, you
Speaker 1: just you can't comprehend how how the wonders it is.
Speaker 1: And like I said, in the hands of great architects
Speaker 1: and people who take care of them and know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. It's just it's very neat. Then you may
Speaker 1: you may know that Jeff is doing work at Madonna. Uh, Jeff,
Speaker 1: you are too young to remember. But I am not
Speaker 1: how well Ben played at the nineteen seventy five US
Speaker 1: Open at Madonna. Who was a shot out of the
Speaker 1: uh Lou Graham, John mahaffey playoff? Do I have that right?
Speaker 1: You're you're exactly right? And I blew it, blew what happened?
Speaker 1: What happened the seventeenth hole there, and and the way
Speaker 1: that the exactly the thirteenth hole. Now it's seventeen very long,
Speaker 1: part three over the water, and I hit this two
Speaker 1: iron and I hit it in the toe and and
Speaker 1: and rinched it before the green. That was my double bogie,
Speaker 1: and that I've lost, I've got. I missed the playoff
Speaker 1: by one, but it was right there before me. But
Speaker 1: I didn't execute painful painful to iron. Uh that was
Speaker 1: my best open finish, US Open finish. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Lou Graham, Lou Graham and John mahaffy. But I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're working at Madonnah. It's a that spectacular place. It's
Speaker 1: so wonderful holes there, stately trees, uh and some good
Speaker 1: strong holes, my gosh, lots of good holes. And you
Speaker 1: know in Chicago in summer, you have to deal with
Speaker 1: the breeze. You have to play the wind in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Probably Jeff's case will probably cut down a few trees
Speaker 1: and make the wind, make the winds sing through those trees.
Speaker 1: But he's got a wonderful place to work with. Madonna
Speaker 1: has been one of our great courses and great membership,
Speaker 1: very proud memberships there. Yeah, it's very exciting for us.
Speaker 1: It's uh, as you said, it's an incredible property, very grand.
Speaker 1: Just driving in you feel it feels very big and
Speaker 1: special and like you said, proud membership, very engaged in
Speaker 1: the club. And yeah, way privileged to get a chance.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's a great place.
Speaker 1: The story it's had, so there's not many courses it's in.
Speaker 1: It's in that short list of clubs that have had
Speaker 1: all the biggest tournaments in the US. You know, it's
Speaker 1: had US Opens and Roadic Cups and p g I
Speaker 1: Tour events and um for for and a really interesting
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that and then jeh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's it's got a scale and a feel that's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty special place. So it's gonna be it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fun. Hopefully we hopefully we do a nice job.
Speaker 1: I mean, in job like that of Jeff, how how
Speaker 1: much latitude you have can can You're probably not going
Speaker 1: to reroute it. But is it just just to take
Speaker 1: what's there and make a little spiffier or do you
Speaker 1: have the freedom to really reimagine some of the holes
Speaker 1: and and you know, because this place does have a
Speaker 1: history and a pedigree, so how does that constrain you? Um, well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Um, sometimes when we work in Australia, um,
Speaker 1: we have to go through seven different committees and boards
Speaker 1: and twelve different member meetings to be able to move
Speaker 1: a bunker, you know. Um. But in the US we've
Speaker 1: found generally that very often it's like, well, you guys
Speaker 1: are the experts. You tell us, you know, and if
Speaker 1: we sort of if we suggest something bold, they'll think
Speaker 1: about it and go, yeah, that's great to it, and
Speaker 1: if um, we don't, they'll be disappointed that we didn't
Speaker 1: suggest something bold, you know. So, I mean it's not
Speaker 1: Madonna is so great, the bones of it are so great,
Speaker 1: and the land is so great, um that there's going
Speaker 1: to be some mostly just polishing the diamond really and
Speaker 1: sort of I mean courses chat, I mean trees grow,
Speaker 1: and greens deteriorate, and bunkers deterior eight and cutting lines move,
Speaker 1: you know, like you take photos of fantastic and my
Speaker 1: data has got this great sort of archives of photos
Speaker 1: over the years, and you can see how much golf
Speaker 1: courses move without them trying to make them move over
Speaker 1: time and minutes an organism, um. And the guy cutting
Speaker 1: the greens cut the greens in seven but then a
Speaker 1: new guy cut them and he sort of cut them
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a different place. And the
Speaker 1: bunker is the sound splash out of the bunkers that
Speaker 1: buy some of the bunkers get bigger and smaller, and
Speaker 1: it moves, so a lot of it is sort of
Speaker 1: going picking through all of that and sort of where
Speaker 1: were the best versions of these holes over the years,
Speaker 1: and um trying to sort of have some historical sort
Speaker 1: of a nod to history and when the second or
Speaker 1: the third, or the eighth or the twelveth, or when
Speaker 1: it was at its best state, you know, having a
Speaker 1: look at that and can we sort of find that again, um,
Speaker 1: and just get back to the best version of the
Speaker 1: golf course that it can be. And sometimes that might
Speaker 1: be moving green or moving a hole, and sometimes the
Speaker 1: holes in the perfect place and you might just have
Speaker 1: to rebuild the bunkers for function. Um. So we're a
Speaker 1: little bold on the plan in spots, but where generally
Speaker 1: sort of pretty. As I said, sympathetic to that. The history,
Speaker 1: it's got really interesting history. It was really hard to
Speaker 1: find which architects had ever been there. It's a really
Speaker 1: sort of checking history. They've had a lot of people
Speaker 1: come to do what we're doing in the last hundred
Speaker 1: years at madna UM. So combing through the boys, Michael
Speaker 1: and actually are fantastic at finding that they found pictures
Speaker 1: and evidence of architects going there. The club didn't even know,
Speaker 1: which was kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, really really cool.
Speaker 1: If you can have access to get arcads and you
Speaker 1: really see what has happened through the years, it's such
Speaker 1: a help. As you know, uh, like you say, bunker
Speaker 1: edge changes, putting green sizes changed through the years with
Speaker 1: the gronomy and this and that. But like you said,
Speaker 1: if you have a good set of our caves. You
Speaker 1: just know when you talk to the older members and
Speaker 1: this and that and you rely on them, it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's fun. Yeah, we've loved it. If I if you
Speaker 1: had any advice, I think you'd probably agreed. Ben of
Speaker 1: anyone who had a golf course. You just take photos
Speaker 1: all the time and put them in the archives, you know,
Speaker 1: and get testimonials for members, and just just record everything
Speaker 1: because over the years, um, the clubs where you go
Speaker 1: to where they don't have any evidence of what was
Speaker 1: there before. It's kind of disappointing and you have to
Speaker 1: decipher it, which is kind of fun. But it's fantastic
Speaker 1: when you've got the records, especially of such an old
Speaker 1: place like Madonna, because um, it's it's just interesting anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're into golf courses, it's just fantastic to read
Speaker 1: about how people they used to play the tea from
Speaker 1: over there. Can you believe that? I mean there might
Speaker 1: be a standard hundred foot trees there, but the tea
Speaker 1: used to be over there, you know, and you go
Speaker 1: stand there, it's like, wow, it would have been a
Speaker 1: better hole from here, but we can't move seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: foot oak trees, so we better go back to the
Speaker 1: time this. I just find that stuff really really interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like an archaeological dig in a way, sort of
Speaker 1: digging through the history of a course, especially of course
Speaker 1: like Madonna that's had so many sort of so many
Speaker 1: hands touch it. You know. It's really a combination of
Speaker 1: a lot of people over the years sort of putting
Speaker 1: their touch on it and changes here and then changing
Speaker 1: it back because we didn't like that. Twenty years later
Speaker 1: and um, we had a really interesting I think it's
Speaker 1: shady ocause I'm sure they'd be they'd be fine about
Speaker 1: telling us there was at one point the eighteenth that
Speaker 1: Shady sort of goes over a hill and at one
Speaker 1: point Mr Hogan had put a bunker in I think
Speaker 1: on the right hand side of the fairway. Ben might
Speaker 1: even remember the bunker. I don't know when it was there,
Speaker 1: but um, and it was over the hill. It was
Speaker 1: a bunker that was sort of blind, you couldn't see it. Um,
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be an awful bunker. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long it was there for. And they
Speaker 1: filled it in and I think they were telling that
Speaker 1: someone mentioned Mr Hogan, remember that bunker that you put
Speaker 1: down on the right hand side of the eighteenth there
Speaker 1: was never a bunker on the right hand side of
Speaker 1: the end. He'd erased it from the whole, and he
Speaker 1: erased it from history just by denying that he'd ever
Speaker 1: put one there. So those sort of things I just fanty.
Speaker 1: I just love that stuff about golf and golf courses.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the arcrafts are brilliant. God, that guy, he
Speaker 1: can't believe this. Uh. Thinking the other night that in
Speaker 1: two successive nights in Fort Worth I had dinner with
Speaker 1: Mr Hogan and his wife and Byron Nelson and his
Speaker 1: wife were two successive nights, which was I'll never forget
Speaker 1: that as long as I lived. And they were two
Speaker 1: different people and a lot of big for each other.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, they grew up in the same town, the
Speaker 1: same candy yard. But I was lucky enough to have
Speaker 1: known them both. Cherished my friendships with both. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people would would have ever
Speaker 1: had dinner two successive nights when with those two. Uh. God,
Speaker 1: I think about what they accomplished in the game and
Speaker 1: how how much that people looked up to them both.
Speaker 1: That's quite remarkable. So I'm very lucky. What's your best
Speaker 1: boging story? He he came out. I played. This was
Speaker 1: really funny. I played around at Colonial in the morning.
Speaker 1: It was very hot day, and I went out to
Speaker 1: Shady Oaks. I was going to hit some balls in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, and um, I was. I was not playing well,
Speaker 1: and so I went out and h the Little nine
Speaker 1: is what they call it over that's where Mr Hogan practice.
Speaker 1: So I went out there and was hiting balls and
Speaker 1: he came over here. He comes over in his cart
Speaker 1: and he said, all right, let me see you've hit
Speaker 1: a few. So I did, and I wasn't hitting them
Speaker 1: well at all, left, right, every which way. And he
Speaker 1: looked at me, said, well, what did you shoot today?
Speaker 1: And I said I shot sixty five And he did
Speaker 1: not want to hear anything like that, and he said
Speaker 1: he watched me a couple more shots, and he just
Speaker 1: took off. He said, well, good luck to you, fella,
Speaker 1: and he just drove off. He always kind of teased
Speaker 1: me because I knew Jackie Burke and Jimmy de Merritt
Speaker 1: very well. He loved talking about those two. But now
Speaker 1: I had some clubs made, and he always teased. But
Speaker 1: Barron was a very It's like a grandfather, you know,
Speaker 1: very very different. Uh. He'd always try to help, but
Speaker 1: to no avail in both both camps, but I know
Speaker 1: them both. Uh cherish those times. I'm terribly sorry to
Speaker 1: break into this episode of You to Fourth because it's
Speaker 1: it's so much fun to listen to to bank crunch
Speaker 1: opine on so many things. But we do want to
Speaker 1: tip our cap to our very generous corporate sponsors, Link Soul.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of the clothing they make. I've
Speaker 1: been wearing it for a super long time. Definitely predates
Speaker 1: their alignment with this podcast is an authentic testimonial. I
Speaker 1: do love their clothes. Um, and we're doing kind of
Speaker 1: a fun little giveaway. If you go to the fire
Speaker 1: Pits Instagram handle, you have to follow us and you
Speaker 1: have to comment on this episode. Shouldn't be hard. There's
Speaker 1: been a lot of thought provoking topics and that will
Speaker 1: make you eligible for this gift card, which we will
Speaker 1: reveal in a very splashy public way and you could
Speaker 1: gets cool clothing on us. So thanks for supporting Links Soul,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Need a Fourth. Now back to
Speaker 1: Mr Ben Crenshaw. Then this is a nutty question. This
Speaker 1: is for all three of you, guys. Um, then you've
Speaker 1: played courses that don't have well, Jeff made a funny
Speaker 1: reference earlier to uh municipal courses that hadn't had bunkers
Speaker 1: rakes since the late eighties. How would you feel been
Speaker 1: about golf courses not having uh rakes and bunkers. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's some places cannot possess the tools
Speaker 1: to keep courses like that, so it's what they have
Speaker 1: to do. But you finally say, well, this is a
Speaker 1: golf course, and and people this is a place where
Speaker 1: it's not possible, so you play it. That's how people
Speaker 1: learn uh uh uh. It's a it's something that's not
Speaker 1: always possibly. It's influence and as much as I love
Speaker 1: Augusta National, it's only place in the world where you're
Speaker 1: going to get uh agronomy like that, and people are
Speaker 1: enamored with it. Yes, the people at home always have
Speaker 1: got to wonder why why we can't do that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's not possible, you know. So when you when you
Speaker 1: grow up in certain circumstances, and Jeff and I have
Speaker 1: known players that have come from let's say, unkempt golf courses,
Speaker 1: they learned how to play, and they they're very adaptive. Uh,
Speaker 1: their experiences are different, but you you come to admire
Speaker 1: those those guys and gals who have done that uh
Speaker 1: part of as part of your learning process. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it can't be graceful all the time. It just can't be.
Speaker 1: It's not not possible. Nature doesn't work that way. I
Speaker 1: like the idea of the Peter Thomas always the easter
Speaker 1: yellists like, don't rape bunkers, it's a hazard. I just
Speaker 1: don't hit it in there, you guys, don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know what a tough bunker shot is. Um. I think
Speaker 1: if we play, it's a symptom of seventy two whole
Speaker 1: stroke play becoming the only form of the game, don't
Speaker 1: you think. I think if we played match play all
Speaker 1: the time and Goldford gone the match play route like tennis, say, um,
Speaker 1: you could not rate because it would be fine because
Speaker 1: it's just you against your opponent in that group and
Speaker 1: the better player would generally win and you don't have
Speaker 1: to protect the field. And um, but you play seven,
Speaker 1: You've got a hundred and fifty six guys playing the
Speaker 1: same course. It's currently and we're playing for so much money,
Speaker 1: and it's so important. You really have to give everyone
Speaker 1: the same playing field as much as you can, I think, um,
Speaker 1: But I love the idea of the adventure. And when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, it's funny. I remember, being the younger
Speaker 1: I was, I would grab it. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: hit the hardest shot possible, Like I would go to
Speaker 1: the bad line the bunker before. I wouldn't tee it up. Now,
Speaker 1: all I want to do is put it on a
Speaker 1: good lie to make myself look good, you know, and
Speaker 1: hit a good shot. But when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: all I wanted to do was a hard shot, And
Speaker 1: that's the the adventure that sort of maybe has been
Speaker 1: lost a little bit of golf because we're all too
Speaker 1: enamored with a perfect golf shot that we forgot that
Speaker 1: the whole point of this is just going out into
Speaker 1: the backyard and having an adventure, you know, creating your
Speaker 1: own stuff. And I think not raking bunkers, that's part
Speaker 1: of that. So I think I'm on both sides of
Speaker 1: you can't really do it in practical terms in place.
Speaker 1: If you don't rake bunkers, ever, then they don't work
Speaker 1: very well, you know, they you need to rank them
Speaker 1: to keep them operating properly and being good bunkers. But
Speaker 1: I like the idea of bad lies in bunkers. I
Speaker 1: just think it's not practically fair. Definitely reminds me of
Speaker 1: a story that I read, you know, when they furrowed
Speaker 1: the bookers at oak Mark, and that those those both
Speaker 1: fearsome bunkers ever and and you know you just couldn't
Speaker 1: hit the ball out of him. And I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: I was reading where Jimmy Demarritt was in a bunker
Speaker 1: on the thirteenth hole. It came kind of close to
Speaker 1: the clubhouse and Omont. These sportswriters came out and they said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about these bunkers, Jimmy, he said, Well,
Speaker 1: if we'd had these rakes in the Second World War,
Speaker 1: he said, Romil never would have made it past Casa Blanca.
Speaker 1: So much it kind of gives you an interesting about
Speaker 1: Jimmy de Merritt. But not thinking charlat McDonald's book, he's
Speaker 1: he wasn't above running horses through buckers. So I really
Speaker 1: meant for you to stay out of bunker somehow. So
Speaker 1: those those are pretty wild, but that's that's people have
Speaker 1: mentioned that, but you're right, and Jeff, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of tournaments that we have played for so many years,
Speaker 1: you have perfect lives and bunkers, and these guys become
Speaker 1: really adept at scoring because they have wonderful sand with
Speaker 1: which to play. So yeah, it was different a long
Speaker 1: time ago, a little more natural, let's say in yesteryear.
Speaker 1: But remember Jack maybe seven years ago with the memorial
Speaker 1: for the bunkers, and the players hated it. It was miserable.
Speaker 1: It was impossible because he would do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: the furrows are bad enough, but he would do it
Speaker 1: sort of perpendicular to the line of play, not parallel,
Speaker 1: so you you just had zero chance, right, um, which
Speaker 1: I don't like either, because if you don't want to,
Speaker 1: it's like the bat, it's like the hack out. Rough.
Speaker 1: Golf is more interesting when you've got hope when you
Speaker 1: hit it into a bunker off the te and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope I can get it on the grain.
Speaker 1: I hope I can get on the grain. There's a chance, right,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be there's gonna be a bit on both sides.
Speaker 1: If it's guaranteed to be dead, it's a miserable experience.
Speaker 1: It's just so, it's just frustrating and annoying. Um. But
Speaker 1: if you're walking out if you don't get a good lie,
Speaker 1: or you don't get a good lie. But sometimes if
Speaker 1: if half the time you get well, I can hit
Speaker 1: this one. This is fun. You know, you've got that
Speaker 1: little moment of joy in around you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's somewhere in the middle of this, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I believe in Jeff two you had to provide hope
Speaker 1: and optimism somehow. Then I'm sure you get this all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, people have their quirky little favorites.
Speaker 1: I'm sure all three of us would like to ask
Speaker 1: you about some of our quirky little favorites. So I'll
Speaker 1: get started here with uh, really near St. Andrew's. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been there? And what do you think of it?
Speaker 1: I have? I can understand why James Braid enjoyed his
Speaker 1: golf there. I thought it was fun, a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of shorter holes, It was a lot of character,
Speaker 1: but I thought very interesting piece of property. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it that well, but I knew that he he
Speaker 1: grew up air. Uh. But yeah, I have seen it,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was pretty interesting collection to hold,
Speaker 1: at least the periscope of course, right, yeah, yeah, fantastic. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Michael and I had a great match there this um
Speaker 1: this last summer. We sneaked over during the open at
Speaker 1: the old Course. I'm afraid he closed me out like
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth hold, but it was it was so
Speaker 1: much fun like that, that, to me is the perfect
Speaker 1: kind of golf course. The Cruden Bay, the North Barracks.
Speaker 1: It's just funky and weird and unforgettable. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you were saying earlier, Jeff, about you know,
Speaker 1: built trying to build wingfoot greens today. How do you
Speaker 1: both bring some some whimsy and some some fun into
Speaker 1: your designs but not get to the point where people
Speaker 1: are gonna throw up their hands and say, oh, it's
Speaker 1: too gimmicky, like it's such a fine line. But how
Speaker 1: do you do that with the modern golf courses, Jeff, I,
Speaker 1: you know, my first trip to the British Aisles, I
Speaker 1: just kind of came away with the notion that there
Speaker 1: are some odd shapes on a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you see, and they they just this, the planters just said, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make this part of this golf hole. I
Speaker 1: don't care what it looks like, you know, a giant
Speaker 1: hill in front of you or some some something that
Speaker 1: appears out of place on the first glance. They said,
Speaker 1: this is this is the situation, and we're gonna make
Speaker 1: a golf hole out of this. And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: it's so unusual that you see so many different things,
Speaker 1: you know. I was disappointed. I love Presleick the second
Speaker 1: I saw it. But the Himalayas whole, uh, not the
Speaker 1: ALP's hole, but the himalays Hold a long part three
Speaker 1: blind over the hill and I thought, playing the hole,
Speaker 1: it went over across the hill and it was a
Speaker 1: dead flat green, kind of a nothing green. I thought, well, god,
Speaker 1: maybe it should have been a punch bowl or something.
Speaker 1: But there was nothing to aid the golfer. You just
Speaker 1: you drive it over this hill. That was just that's
Speaker 1: the whole. Uh. You saw so many different things on
Speaker 1: that course. I think the stage in your memory, you
Speaker 1: never you never forget the ousehold, uh, but you you
Speaker 1: never see something like the pal burn on number three.
Speaker 1: You say, well, it's how that's placed. But that's that's
Speaker 1: where they made a whole out of it. So it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Uh, they didn't force it, they used odd
Speaker 1: situations to their advantage. It gives it gives a personality
Speaker 1: to a golf hol Yeah, I agree. I I agree.
Speaker 1: It's it's a shame golf has become so formulaic. Back then,
Speaker 1: they just they had to start in town and finishing
Speaker 1: town and they had to go that way and come back,
Speaker 1: and they just used what they had, little stone walls
Speaker 1: and the going over hills. I mean that path. It's incredible, right,
Speaker 1: North Berry is just amazing, and it's so because every whole,
Speaker 1: especially the first time you've ever been there, when you
Speaker 1: go over the stone wall is it on about the
Speaker 1: third I think? And then you're like, well there's a wall,
Speaker 1: what like do I hit a shore of the wall
Speaker 1: past the wall and maybe you walk through the middle
Speaker 1: of it and there's people having a picnic on the
Speaker 1: side of the fairway, and you're just excited for the
Speaker 1: next cool thing that you're going to see really quickly
Speaker 1: because it's variety. It's not eighteen of the same sort
Speaker 1: of thing. It's it's like, what am I going to
Speaker 1: find next? And I think there's something really cool about
Speaker 1: that you can't do it now because people would yell
Speaker 1: at you because you can't how to be rape the
Speaker 1: course for the wall across and like the slope rating
Speaker 1: is all wrong, and like it's just there's too much formula.
Speaker 1: It's it's nice that they still exist and we can
Speaker 1: get to go play them because we can sort of,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They set the game off in such
Speaker 1: a great direction. It's probably why the game is such
Speaker 1: a good game, because it got set off in such
Speaker 1: a good direction to begin with. You know, but it's
Speaker 1: very hard to do to replicate. You can't replicate it
Speaker 1: because you can't replicate nature. You know, that's thousands of
Speaker 1: years of farming and townspeople keeping the wrong people out
Speaker 1: building a wall across the third fairway, and then they
Speaker 1: just thought all the golf course has to go that way,
Speaker 1: so they just went that way. You know, we can't
Speaker 1: move the wall that's been there for a thousand years. Um,
Speaker 1: it's that stuff is fantastic. Some of the greens are amazing,
Speaker 1: like beer ITTs and um. Stuff is. People keep trying
Speaker 1: to replicate it, but the original is just it's absurd,
Speaker 1: but it's so good. It's so fun. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: even know how you would build it and actually make
Speaker 1: it work. But um, yeah, it's a fantastic press Wick
Speaker 1: to the best part about that Part three, the blind
Speaker 1: path three over the thing. There's probably there's hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of people in the world who think they've had
Speaker 1: a hole in one there. They haven't because the the
Speaker 1: caddies and people they're all quite often see a bill
Speaker 1: come down on the grain and they'll put the bull
Speaker 1: in the hall and they'll go play the next holl
Speaker 1: you know, come around the corner and go, oh the
Speaker 1: poles in the hall. Um incredible, fantastic. But that's hoving nice?
Speaker 1: Is that? That's uh yeah, press Way Scotland is just brilliant. Yeah, Jeff,
Speaker 1: have you had a chance to play, Friar said, ever,
Speaker 1: I haven't been to fries Head yet. No, that's that's
Speaker 1: up with. Have you been there on Sandhills and my Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. It's got a blind part three. It's
Speaker 1: got no yardage markers. You know, it took some nerve
Speaker 1: to do it, but it shows what you can do
Speaker 1: if you're willing to get away from the group. Think
Speaker 1: of this is the way it has to be. What
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be about right then? Yeah, that's right. It's
Speaker 1: h Kennedy. Bax is very persuasive and he has strong opinions.
Speaker 1: But he's done a great job. It was a great
Speaker 1: piece of property to work with. But yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: unusual shapes there that we left alone and didn't try
Speaker 1: to transfigure it. In a lot of cases, can you
Speaker 1: you let the land speak for itself and you try
Speaker 1: to bring out its attributes and let the personality stand
Speaker 1: um and try not to you try to try to
Speaker 1: avoid sameness, a redundancy. Um. You want to give a
Speaker 1: little of this, a little of that. Uh. Things, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeff and I'm played enough of golf around the world
Speaker 1: that you remember so many different things, and you question yourself, well,
Speaker 1: why does that work? Why did why did that? Why
Speaker 1: do people enjoy that? You know, you question yourself wherever
Speaker 1: you're building. Uh, if you have to operate with a
Speaker 1: little restraint and saying why this is what this land
Speaker 1: gives us, let's stick with that and make it part
Speaker 1: of the same that you're trying to do. I have to.
Speaker 1: I have to share this story for for Jeff and
Speaker 1: Michael and those were listening. I was lucky to play
Speaker 1: golf with Mike Kaiser, and we wound up talking about
Speaker 1: Ben uh and his design partner, Bill Core, and Kaiser
Speaker 1: was telling he was so excited to go out in
Speaker 1: the field with them, you know, kind of early in
Speaker 1: in um the collaboration. He was just expecting to be
Speaker 1: dazzled by this really high level conversations about the design
Speaker 1: features and all these allusions to the great architects and
Speaker 1: the great holes, he said, And he said, Bill and
Speaker 1: Ben they kind of stand there and they stroked their
Speaker 1: chin and what says you think, Yeah, yeah, I like that. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: They go on to the next hole, and it was
Speaker 1: like the whole thing. They're like communicating without words, and Kaiser,
Speaker 1: they was so boring. I quit going out there with
Speaker 1: them because they're on. They can communicate and they can
Speaker 1: collaborate in a way that the other two humans can
Speaker 1: and it's so subtle, and you know that subtlety informs
Speaker 1: those designs. But anyway, that imagine you looking at at
Speaker 1: those those great sand dunes at Fryar said, I'm just
Speaker 1: picturing you and you and Bill just standing there kind
Speaker 1: of weaking and nodding and moving on to the next one.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to look at there. It was unbelievable
Speaker 1: when we first saw and there's a lot to look at.
Speaker 1: We went wow. I knew it was gonna be one
Speaker 1: of our very best opportunities. Um, you know I must
Speaker 1: I'm so lucky in my life that h thirty seven
Speaker 1: years ago formed a partnership with Bill Corp. Thirty seven
Speaker 1: years ago I married Julie. I made two really good decisions. Uh.
Speaker 1: But Bill is remarkable, the most patient man I've ever met.
Speaker 1: And he can assess a property as good as anyone.
Speaker 1: He can look at it very quickly and understand what
Speaker 1: its properties might be. Uh. It's really good at that.
Speaker 1: And he's an excellent router. In other words, he discovered
Speaker 1: the directions of the holes and how they fit together.
Speaker 1: He's really really good at that. So I've been very
Speaker 1: fortunate uh in that regard. Well, this is another I
Speaker 1: just feel compelled to add this bit. So you know, Ben,
Speaker 1: you're you're a master's champion. You're looking for looking for
Speaker 1: design partner. Clearly you're gonna be the selling point to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But when it comes time to
Speaker 1: name the company, Ben's let's just name it Court cranch
Speaker 1: like put the other guy's name first, which to me,
Speaker 1: he says a lot about about who you are and
Speaker 1: why that collaboration has been so fruitful because clearly are
Speaker 1: equals out in the field, and and you defer to
Speaker 1: to him as much as he does to you, and
Speaker 1: that that's I think what a collaboration is. Well, he's
Speaker 1: he's the ideal partner. I'm just as lucky as I
Speaker 1: could be. He's He's provided me with a lot of
Speaker 1: enjoyment uh and a lot of learning. Um. And uh
Speaker 1: if I could be as patient as he was, I'd
Speaker 1: be a better man. Uh. He's Uh, it's meant quite
Speaker 1: a lot in my life. We've enjoined uh prospecting about
Speaker 1: the uh possibilities that we've been given, and we've we're
Speaker 1: trying to bring out the best in the piece of
Speaker 1: land that we're working with. That's that's all you try
Speaker 1: to do. Uh. Uh it's process of learning. Uh. You
Speaker 1: learn every day and yeah, and there's no question. You know,
Speaker 1: you look back and say, well, maybe we should have
Speaker 1: done this back there. And you always you're gonna question
Speaker 1: yourself wherever you go, and you you say to yourself
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, you try so hard. Sometimes things turn
Speaker 1: out better than you ever thought. Uh while you're doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a subtle move across a green, or
Speaker 1: you know the size of a green or size of
Speaker 1: a bunker or something. You always you always think about
Speaker 1: proportion and balance and this and that. Sometimes it doesn't
Speaker 1: come off quite like you want. But sometimes sometimes the
Speaker 1: mistakes happen, you know, in the in the plus column.
Speaker 1: So it's fascinating that way to to the very point
Speaker 1: you just made. Right before um we all came on,
Speaker 1: Ben was talking about how you needed Elliott's help. Elliotts
Speaker 1: an assistant pro I think at at at Austin where
Speaker 1: Ben is today, or or Julius helped again on a
Speaker 1: on a computer. He doesn't have a computer, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have a cell phone. And uh, you know, of course
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a joke. But I mean
Speaker 1: it's not a joke because because it's true, but in
Speaker 1: this day and age, it kind of sounds like one.
Speaker 1: But really I think it's the essence of Ben as
Speaker 1: a person and as a as an architect um and
Speaker 1: I think to really be an an artist on the
Speaker 1: golf course or in golf course architecture, and I think
Speaker 1: Jeff is is similarly built. I know this is a cliche,
Speaker 1: even the phrase, but you really have to be in
Speaker 1: that moment, and in our modern lives that is so
Speaker 1: much harder to do than it's ever been before, because
Speaker 1: we're bombarded with these messages all the time. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if I think about a hero of mine,
Speaker 1: like like Herb Winn writing about Ben Crenshaw, I could
Speaker 1: imagine Herb and Ben just talking and Ben trying excuse me,
Speaker 1: Herb trying to absorb Ben's life and then explaining it
Speaker 1: and show it to readers, and um, it's just a
Speaker 1: treat for us, I think, Allen, I'm sure I'm speaking
Speaker 1: for you, and I imagine something for Jeff two, just
Speaker 1: to be able to hear someone who's so thoughtful about
Speaker 1: the game. This year, at at the Memorial Tournament, Ben
Speaker 1: was honored by Big Jack as the uh I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the exact term, but the Memorial Honoree of the Year.
Speaker 1: And Ben didn't have notes. He just talked about the
Speaker 1: game without notes because it's so deep within him. He
Speaker 1: doesn't need any notes, and he doesn't need any promising,
Speaker 1: doesn't need any anything. He doesn't need to look up anything,
Speaker 1: it's in him. Uh and um, you know that this
Speaker 1: conversation could go on probably until tomorrow and would never
Speaker 1: get tired. We haven't even had Jeff had a chance
Speaker 1: that asked Ben about fidly little Eelie type courses in
Speaker 1: Australia that he knows that Ben probably knows two. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I just thought I might share. I just want to ask, uh,
Speaker 1: how do I hold more parts? Honestly? When when you
Speaker 1: clearly well one of the best putterers we've ever seen, Um,
Speaker 1: when but you know obviously had some bad times. How
Speaker 1: did you what went wrong when you weren't making putts?
Speaker 1: And how did you fix it? Did you? I mean,
Speaker 1: because all we see now is mirrors and lines and
Speaker 1: circles around the hole and stuff. And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that that wasn't you when you when yours wasn't going well?
Speaker 1: Um on the putting grain, what did you do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know this that when I putted my best, I
Speaker 1: was thinking of absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, But I focused
Speaker 1: in on how hard I was going to hit it
Speaker 1: and where the where the line was most often times,
Speaker 1: how hard I was going to hit it. So I
Speaker 1: was trying to rely on imagination and where I just
Speaker 1: pictured the ball, just I made it, the vivid picture
Speaker 1: of how that was going to roll. And the times
Speaker 1: I got in trouble every time a mechanical thought crept
Speaker 1: in there, I was worried about the path of my
Speaker 1: stroke or whether whether my grip pressure was just right.
Speaker 1: In other words, when I putted my best, I have
Speaker 1: blank mine. And that might sound really strange, but I
Speaker 1: always remember a line that Bobby Jones wrote, and uh
Speaker 1: Bobby Jones on Golf, which I still think the most
Speaker 1: brilliant book about instruction. But he wrote he said, if
Speaker 1: anyone uh reduces putting to mechanical or uh precise thoughts
Speaker 1: in that way, he said, you are doomed for disappointment.
Speaker 1: And he said the whole the ability to gauge a
Speaker 1: slow or the the speed of a pot, you're much better.
Speaker 1: But I thought, well, God, if it was good enough
Speaker 1: for the most cerebral golfer that ever lived, worth worth
Speaker 1: looking after. So it's it's weird. When I've made potts,
Speaker 1: I just picture it and it comes off, and I
Speaker 1: didn't have any sort of thought about length of back
Speaker 1: swing or anything. It was very strange that way. I
Speaker 1: love that. I mean Okay, work on that, Ben Well
Speaker 1: and also Ben, I mean I remember talking um to
Speaker 1: Luke Donald. He was also obviously a great putter, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about your stroke and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you would teach people to put like
Speaker 1: Ben Crenshaw because it wasn't the same stroke every time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes looked like on the fast down hill, he's gonna
Speaker 1: and slice a little bit, and and sometimes he would
Speaker 1: take a long back swing and sometimes it was short
Speaker 1: like he was not that he did not have the
Speaker 1: same stroke repeate over and over. It was very situational.
Speaker 1: And is that part of what you're saying? It just
Speaker 1: just off the toad to dead and just yeah, Jeff,
Speaker 1: and I'll try anything. And Mike Putt, you know that.
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a let's face it, you know.
Speaker 1: I forgot who said into the clothes. The closer you
Speaker 1: get to the whole, the more difficult the game becomes.
Speaker 1: When when you think of it's a strange putting is
Speaker 1: completely That's why Mr Hogan really didn't regard part of
Speaker 1: the game. He loved hitting balls and he could do it,
Speaker 1: but he just he didn't disregard putting. But he he
Speaker 1: thought it was a part of the game that was
Speaker 1: that should have left less attention. Let's say, then, isn't
Speaker 1: there sort of a shift as you get closer to
Speaker 1: the whole where when you're far from the hall, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of good things that can happen, and then
Speaker 1: when you get closer to the whole, there's only bad
Speaker 1: things that can happen. Yeah, more more mental it becomes.
Speaker 1: And you know, the you try real hard to say
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, look it's you gotta hit the ball
Speaker 1: solid and you've got to stay down and you've picked
Speaker 1: the right line at the right pace. That's all you
Speaker 1: can do. That's all you can do. Michael's remember the
Speaker 1: first time you ever saw Ben Crunchhaw on a golf course? Well,
Speaker 1: I do for sure, and uh, I mean definitely on TV.
Speaker 1: That's certainly that that US Open stands out. And then
Speaker 1: Ben mentioned eighty five earlier about a cat in quite
Speaker 1: a few p J tournaments and five remember the cat
Speaker 1: He's saying, you know when when Ben puts, well, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: how does this guy not win every week? And the
Speaker 1: answer was, well he can't play, of course, Well, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't like That's what that was. The Catty Art
Speaker 1: joke back there. No, I'll tell you one of the
Speaker 1: most comforting you know, I'm not kiddy. I felt like
Speaker 1: I've always had the best caddy at Augusta for all
Speaker 1: my years in Carl Jackson, I mean, he was We
Speaker 1: worked together so well. But we saw saw things in
Speaker 1: unison something. We'd look at the pot and he'd say,
Speaker 1: what are you like and I said, you know, right
Speaker 1: out here and he would look at me and he'd say,
Speaker 1: we're together, And I said, man, I'm on the right track.
Speaker 1: So he gave me a lot of confidence before I
Speaker 1: hit the ball. But we had so much fun, uh,
Speaker 1: working out putts and watching other people put when we
Speaker 1: were in playing, we'd we'd read their potts. It's really
Speaker 1: but man, I mean that guy helped me so much.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable, so much. Okay, he grew up, he
Speaker 1: grew up caddying there, and he had his first heat
Speaker 1: caddying in the tournament when he was four years old,
Speaker 1: which is unbelievable. And it was Billy Burke, the guy
Speaker 1: who won the one US Open. Uh, and he played
Speaker 1: said he played in a startch white shirt and a
Speaker 1: tie every day. But that was his first job at Augusta.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Well, I mean it's one of those themes
Speaker 1: that runs through your golfing life been is these uh,
Speaker 1: these friendships you've had, whether it's Carl Jackson, or it's
Speaker 1: Billy Core or it's Buyer Nelson. And I think now
Speaker 1: a lot of people know you're you're the host of
Speaker 1: the Tuesday night Champions dinner at Augusta National. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you tell me one time, you get more nervous about
Speaker 1: that than any golf shop you have to hit. And
Speaker 1: but you never know what the hell I'm in the saite.
Speaker 1: You're standing there in front of all these guys you admire,
Speaker 1: and you know it's a dinner that we've all, you've
Speaker 1: all won, and it's just I just I started. I
Speaker 1: try to just started off and let him have fun.
Speaker 1: That's the best way. We're all we're all lucky to
Speaker 1: be there, really lucky to be there. Then. I know
Speaker 1: this would be hard to articulate, um, but it's such
Speaker 1: a one of the great moving moments in the history
Speaker 1: of golf, certainly for for you know of our generation.
Speaker 1: Was Carl comforting you when you when you won that
Speaker 1: Master's shortly after bearing baring Harvey. Can is there any
Speaker 1: way you can express the humanity he showed to you,
Speaker 1: Carl showed to you at that moment, because it's such
Speaker 1: it's such a rich moment of you know, I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to describe it, but maybe you can
Speaker 1: take over for me. We were together so long, um
Speaker 1: and and that had happened on that occasion is still
Speaker 1: I still daydream about it these these days. I can't
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe that it happened in the way
Speaker 1: that it did. But I, you know, after being exhausted
Speaker 1: and I got through it, I felt these big arms
Speaker 1: around me and uh, he said, buddy, you are you okay?
Speaker 1: And I went no, I was just overcome. But it
Speaker 1: was a friend helping me at that at that moment
Speaker 1: I needed help, I really did. But it was part
Speaker 1: and parcel of the things that we we learned to
Speaker 1: play that course together. We had some great times and
Speaker 1: we had some near misses, but I felt like I
Speaker 1: had a guy who really helped me considerably. He made
Speaker 1: me learn the golf course. But it was at that
Speaker 1: moment it was it was a friend to a friend. Uh.
Speaker 1: He'll always be my friend and very very kind man. Well,
Speaker 1: people ask me sometimes, what's you know, what's your favorite
Speaker 1: story you've ever done? And I often mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: for the anniversary of that victory, I went to Austin
Speaker 1: and Ben and Julie very gracefully welcome into their home
Speaker 1: and we cued up the videotape of the final round
Speaker 1: and we've watched it together and uh, you know, Julie's crying,
Speaker 1: Ben's crying. I'm crying, and uh, the how you found that?
Speaker 1: You guys haven't watched it in a long time, And
Speaker 1: it's just it's like I thinking in the story you
Speaker 1: called it like a fairy tale. Like it's just amazing
Speaker 1: that it all played out the way it did. And
Speaker 1: that's the magic of sports and Augusta National. It just
Speaker 1: it's it's somehow these stories come together and they're they're
Speaker 1: so cinematic, but it actually happened. You actually did it,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the great moments ever in golf. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: it's uh. I've met luckier and most and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very very much as softie and I've told many people
Speaker 1: and said, look, I cried supermarket openings. It was also
Speaker 1: when when when Ben won, there was an amazing three
Speaker 1: year period for the Masters with Ben's win and then
Speaker 1: Falders win and then Tigers win all three in a
Speaker 1: row there, and uh, you know for a whole generation.
Speaker 1: Jeff would have been part of that generation just coming
Speaker 1: of age and catching those. It would be like me
Speaker 1: catching that sent US Open or the seventy four US
Speaker 1: Open up at Wingfoot, just the magical period to fall
Speaker 1: in love with the game. I'll tell you what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tune in and I think it's next week to
Speaker 1: watch father son. Can't waite to watch Charlie Tiger's son.
Speaker 1: And I'm you know, last year I was watching that
Speaker 1: not only he could play, but he had it's luck.
Speaker 1: He had a single minded purpose. The way that he
Speaker 1: held those pots, you know, under pressure, it was like
Speaker 1: it was nothing. And I'm going, well, this this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. He's got a pretty good teacher and his father,
Speaker 1: but he was just doing it and I'm going, wow,
Speaker 1: this is I can't wait to watch it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are gonna watch it,
Speaker 1: but uh it Uh. You know, you really to look
Speaker 1: back at Tiger's career and yeah, he's unbelievable, but the
Speaker 1: mental toughness that he displayed it for decades. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no uh more competitive person a winner, and
Speaker 1: every time he had the lead, he won. H But
Speaker 1: I think his mind. You know, there are very very
Speaker 1: few people who accomplished things in the game, and you
Speaker 1: think about their mental capacities, and you look at Bobby
Speaker 1: Jones and Jack Nicholas uh and all these great players.
Speaker 1: They have a they have a very competitive side, but
Speaker 1: they have a mental side that a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't approach. Ah, he had it, My god, tigers had it. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean you're you're, what sixty years older than than
Speaker 1: than Charlie Woods, but you're linked by that same quest
Speaker 1: just to make more puts than just the magic of
Speaker 1: the game. I mean, it transcends it all. So that's good.
Speaker 1: Swing dude is gonna grow hit that ball put Fascinated
Speaker 1: by that. Well, I've been You've been incredibly generous with
Speaker 1: your time. I feel like we should let you go
Speaker 1: because Michael's right, we could do this deep into the night.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone would mind, except for our kids
Speaker 1: and wives and dogs were um waiting for us to
Speaker 1: end this podcast. But um, any Michael or Jeff in
Speaker 1: any last thoughts or questions for for Ben before we
Speaker 1: let them go. No, it's always good to chat Ben.
Speaker 1: Your you view golf in a y that I really
Speaker 1: enjoy Um. So yeah, been a pleasure. It's a bit
Speaker 1: of pleasure talking to you, Jeff. And I've always thought
Speaker 1: that you. I've always enjoyed how you, uh, depict things
Speaker 1: about the game, and not only as a player, but
Speaker 1: how people look at the game and how they look
Speaker 1: at courses and you're you're doing it, you're building courses,
Speaker 1: and I've always admired you. Like I said earlier, anybody
Speaker 1: you can handle wing foot is a tough customer. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure, always enjoy watching you and listening
Speaker 1: to you. And you two guys, Alan and Michael. Great
Speaker 1: to talk to you. It's always a pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: to you both. And uh, y'all had great holidays. We're
Speaker 1: coming around to part of the year where families get together.
Speaker 1: We enjoyed, we're we're lucky to be alive. Pick you
Speaker 1: both very much. All right, Thank you, Ben, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thanks Ben. Mm hmmmm h oh my god. It's a
Speaker 1: dangerous group here. M