Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg,
Speaker 2: fridagg bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off
Speaker 2: the golf course.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host,
Speaker 3: Andy Johnson, and today this is a special. It is
Speaker 3: not going to be hosted by me. Uh, it will
Speaker 3: be hosted by Kevin van Volkenberg. H It is an
Speaker 3: interview with the great Colin Montgomery. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview.
Speaker 3: Lots of chuckle chuckle moments, lots of nitty gritty details
Speaker 3: from Monty, stories from yesteryear. This was a fantastic listen.
Speaker 3: This was a piece of content We thought about using
Speaker 3: a couple of different ways and it ended up just
Speaker 3: being a podcast, so we said, why don't we put
Speaker 3: it on here? So big thanks to Kevin, big thanks
Speaker 3: to Monty, and I hope everybody enjoys this episode of
Speaker 3: the Friday Golf Podcast and Kevin's interview with Colin Montgomery.
Speaker 1: Hi, Colin, Hello there, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great. Thank you for joining me this morning.
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been a fan for a number of
Speaker 2: years and one of the things I love doing is
Speaker 2: reading Golf by our and so I found this recently
Speaker 2: and I was going through it and I thought, you
Speaker 2: know what, this would be a great chance to talk
Speaker 2: to Monty about, you know, his career and some of
Speaker 2: the stuff, because I feel like I almost feel like
Speaker 2: I'm a bit of a professor for the younger generation
Speaker 2: of golf fans because I could sort of educate them
Speaker 2: on some of the game grades who they might have
Speaker 2: missed a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's it is, it's it is. It is
Speaker 1: different nowadays. You know, they all come out of college
Speaker 1: and they're all looking similar, you know, with their hats on,
Speaker 1: and the way they play the game is very similar
Speaker 1: to the way that we used to play the game
Speaker 1: with feel. When you think of even a different generation
Speaker 1: than me, but the Travinos of this world, the Palmers,
Speaker 1: the Nicholas that you know, these guys that real feel players.
Speaker 1: Now it's a whole different game, isn't it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a three hundred and thirty bash and
Speaker 1: and uh and a wedge on and and and it's
Speaker 1: all about potting really, you know. Now it's it's it's
Speaker 1: used to be holding up a seven iron into into
Speaker 1: that right to left wind and all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Now it's a bit of a bash. But hey, every
Speaker 1: sport changes, you know, every sport has changed, and and
Speaker 1: every sport is changing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you study the sort of greats of the
Speaker 2: game when you were young and coming up, you know
Speaker 2: in Glasgow and stuff.
Speaker 4: Did you at anything?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't. I didn't look at any swings particularly.
Speaker 1: I was always interested in the guys that got the
Speaker 1: ball up and down. Uh Sevy I always I always
Speaker 1: admired Savy. In fact, at the Master's many many a time,
Speaker 1: and we miss him terribly, you know, but at the Masters,
Speaker 1: I remember watching him. Uh. We used to have the
Speaker 1: range across just beside uh, Magnolia Lane, there was a
Speaker 1: bunker on the left, on the left hand side. He
Speaker 1: drove up to the clubhouse and he used to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in there, and I used to
Speaker 1: watch him, and I used to sit there and watch
Speaker 1: him just as a spectator. Really, I was one of
Speaker 1: the hundreds of people that were just watching him, and
Speaker 1: I was playing in the tournament, and and I admired
Speaker 1: that sort of vision and that and that that that
Speaker 1: that charisma, you know, and that of trying to get
Speaker 1: that ball as close as possible from this indifferent lie.
Speaker 1: I think that was just a real talent, you know.
Speaker 1: So I watched him, but swinging the golf club not really, no,
Speaker 1: because mine was always quite unique and I had a
Speaker 1: very upright swing from from birth, really came out the
Speaker 1: cradles swinging the club upright, and it wasn't failing me
Speaker 1: at that stage. So I was one of these people
Speaker 1: that if it wasn't bossed, I don't want to fix
Speaker 1: it really, you know, because I heard so often and
Speaker 1: I'd played with a number of great players. Ronan Rafferty
Speaker 1: remember that name, who won the Order Merit back in
Speaker 1: eighty nine. There great player went to the led Better school.
Speaker 1: Not blaming led Beetter, but one of you know that
Speaker 1: type of idea, got very good, try to get better
Speaker 1: and didn't. David Fairty was another one that was a
Speaker 1: very good player, you know, that played nar RDI Cup
Speaker 1: team that went went that way as well. Howard Clark,
Speaker 1: a great player went that way, and I was I
Speaker 1: was always a bit no, no, no, don't please try
Speaker 1: try try. If this works, If this is what you've
Speaker 1: got and this works, stick with it, because it's a
Speaker 1: very dangerous road to go down because it might not work. Yes,
Speaker 1: it worked for Faldo, it worked for Nick Price, it
Speaker 1: worked for some players to change their swings. But I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was never really one of those. No, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: So my wife grew up in New Mexico and reading
Speaker 2: your biography, I saw you know you started that in
Speaker 2: New Mexico military attitude. I can't imagine knowing New Mexico
Speaker 2: at a place that feels more different than Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 2: How did you How did you end up there? And
Speaker 2: and I know this was the famous story about you
Speaker 2: sneaking out in the middle of the night, but what
Speaker 2: do you remember about the decision to essentially be like
Speaker 2: this is not for me.
Speaker 1: Well, my father was on business. My father was in cookies,
Speaker 1: Fox's biscuits we call them. We call them biscuits, you'd
Speaker 1: call them cookies. And he was over in America, in
Speaker 1: the Dallas area and was looking for because it was
Speaker 1: in the days before that the British used to go
Speaker 1: to university in America. You know, we never really used
Speaker 1: to go. There was nobody really that I was one
Speaker 1: of the first ones. Foald o'lyle went for a couple
Speaker 1: of months, I believe, but I was really looking for
Speaker 1: a degree, to be honest, and then if golf happened
Speaker 1: to be paying for it, great, you know, because because
Speaker 1: as in the Scottish team. So my father was on
Speaker 1: business in Dallas and heard about New Mexicano mil Interstitute.
Speaker 1: We got in touch with the with the the golf
Speaker 1: coach there, Lovely Fellow, and he went down out of
Speaker 1: season right, this was in the summer, so there was
Speaker 1: no there was nobody there. The school was closed really
Speaker 1: uh So we went around saw the facilities. As an
Speaker 1: ex military man himself, I thought this was this was great.
Speaker 1: The facilities were great, the practice facilities were super, the
Speaker 1: the accommodation, everything about the place. Okay, okay, you're off,
Speaker 1: so I said, okay, fine. I hadn't been myself, so
Speaker 1: so my first my first view of the of the
Speaker 1: of the military institute was it was of course when
Speaker 1: I when I arrived, and it was very different when
Speaker 1: I arrived to what he saw. It was very much
Speaker 1: more military. And although I had come from personally a
Speaker 1: military background, with my father being in the military here
Speaker 1: in here in the UK just after the war he
Speaker 1: was he was based in the Sewers Canal. He was
Speaker 1: in the Sewers crisis back in the back in the day.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was just too military, too quickly, right.
Speaker 1: It was the it was the all call at five
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. It was the cold showers, it
Speaker 1: was the thing, and it was all very very too much.
Speaker 1: So no, it wasn't really for me. So so it
Speaker 1: was one of these things that that that that get
Speaker 1: getting out in the middle of the middle of the evening.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a bizarre sort of situation. How
Speaker 1: I got to Houston Baptist University. And it's it's in
Speaker 1: the book, but at the same time, you know, to
Speaker 1: hear it from from from word of mouth, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, right, okay, try and I said, look, it's
Speaker 1: not for me, Dad. I had to make a phone call.
Speaker 1: And and you know, when you're sort of stand in
Speaker 1: line for a phone call. There was no mobile phones
Speaker 1: in these days, there's no cell phones. It stood in line,
Speaker 1: put your ten cents in and off you go, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, okay, well look it's not for me, right, okay,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Okay, So get up to Albuquerque,
Speaker 1: which was the biggest city close by. It was about
Speaker 1: two hundred miles. It's not a four hour drive up.
Speaker 1: So I got a Greyhound bus. That wasn't. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the most pleasurable experience at night time, believe me, from
Speaker 1: Roswell to Albertquerque.
Speaker 4: Having been to Masca, I know that.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well well this wasn't. This
Speaker 1: wasn't now as well, this was this was forty years
Speaker 1: you know, forty two years ago. My god, say so,
Speaker 1: I hope the boss has there had its day, believe me,
Speaker 1: it had its day. Then never mind, Now forgot to Albuquerque.
Speaker 1: I got to the airport at Albuquerque. It dropped me
Speaker 1: off at the airport and I looked at the screen.
Speaker 1: I looked at the screen, and Dad said to me,
Speaker 1: get to Albuquerque airport and give me a call and
Speaker 1: see what's what flight's available. So okay, okay, because there's
Speaker 1: no point I could have come home to Scotland. But
Speaker 1: I was in America. I was a long way away
Speaker 1: from home. I wanted my degree more than anything, and
Speaker 1: there was no really point home, nothing to come home too.
Speaker 1: As opposed to family, there was nothing. There was no job,
Speaker 1: there was no career as such. So I decided to
Speaker 1: stay American, and I got I looked at the screen
Speaker 1: and there was a choice. There was four flights. There
Speaker 1: was La San Francisco, there was Dallas, and there was Houston.
Speaker 1: And the first one, seven thirty in the morning was Houston.
Speaker 1: Yet on it. So I got to Houston, checked into
Speaker 1: the double tree in outside the airport at Houston. I remember, God,
Speaker 1: every time I fly in to Houston. I passed it
Speaker 1: on the way on the way out of the airport.
Speaker 1: It's still there, my God, never forget it forty two
Speaker 1: years ago, and stayed there, and he says, okay, we
Speaker 1: got to Houston, right, Okay, let me make some phone calls,
Speaker 1: you see. And it became it became very interesting, the
Speaker 1: phone call scenarios. Whereby a member of the golf club
Speaker 1: that that we were members of in Yorkshire at the
Speaker 1: time had a chaplain, a minister, and he was the
Speaker 1: chaplain of the astronauts that used to come over to
Speaker 1: train with our Royal Air Force. UH we had a
Speaker 1: we had a space program that you know alongside the
Speaker 1: US UH and our R e F trained train with
Speaker 1: their guys, and they came over and trained us. And
Speaker 1: he was the minister of the chaplain for the for
Speaker 1: the area. And he said, okay, said I know, I
Speaker 1: know Alan Shepherd. Now, Alan Shepherd, we all know was
Speaker 1: the first man in the moon, or not first man
Speaker 1: in the moon, the first man to play golf on
Speaker 1: the moon. And probably they only have a man to
Speaker 1: play golf on the moon.
Speaker 4: The course record on the moon.
Speaker 1: He hasn't gone down yet. It's still Brighton. Brighton thinks
Speaker 1: he's long, but not it's not all an Alan Shepherd
Speaker 1: sixth ann and uh so it was. It was. It
Speaker 1: was a friend of a friend and that got through
Speaker 1: to to to the Houston, the NASA connection in Houston,
Speaker 1: the astronauts of course, and he knew the coach at
Speaker 1: at Houston Baptist University and a guy called Dave Mannon
Speaker 1: and and okay, Dave took a trip up from from
Speaker 1: HBU it's now called Houston Christian University actually as opposed
Speaker 1: to Houston Baptist University up to visit a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago and he saw me in the hotel room
Speaker 1: and said, look, okay, all our all our sponsorship, all
Speaker 1: our all our deals that are done for the for
Speaker 1: the year, so we'll have you as a walk on
Speaker 1: and hopefully you can you can get some financial aid
Speaker 1: in the next three years because it was expensive and
Speaker 1: the dollar happened to be one to one with a pound,
Speaker 1: which was a nightmare for my father because it was
Speaker 1: very expensive. Anyway, So long story short, I enrolled in
Speaker 1: the Houston Bache's University and played as a walk on
Speaker 1: the first year and managed to secure uh you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of sports sports scholarship for the next for
Speaker 1: the next three and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I really did.
Speaker 1: It was it was a super time and nothing against
Speaker 1: New Mexican Institute. It was just it just wasn't for me.
Speaker 1: It might be for some, you know, obviously for some,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't for me at the time. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 2: They did never come looking for you. The New Mexico
Speaker 2: military and student never tried to track it.
Speaker 1: Well, every time I every time I go, I must
Speaker 1: have made every time I go to the immigration officers
Speaker 1: when I land in America, I think, is this it
Speaker 1: is this the time, you know, do I have a
Speaker 1: red flag? You know? Do I have a red flag
Speaker 1: against my name? But I've managed touchwood, I've managed to
Speaker 1: to avoid it.
Speaker 2: I read in the book that you almost burned down
Speaker 2: your college apartment by making scones.
Speaker 4: I did what you remember about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a disaster. I am okay, first and foremost.
Speaker 1: I've never been a chef. Okay, that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just a disaster for me. I'd stay out in the
Speaker 1: kitchen as much as possible. Toaster is about my limit.
Speaker 1: And and yeah, I decided one day to get these
Speaker 1: Pillsbury dough things. You you sort of unwrap them and
Speaker 1: they all come out, you know, write twelve sort of
Speaker 1: scone scones whatever they're called biscuits, I suppose. And I
Speaker 1: put them on this tray and put them in the oven,
Speaker 1: and I thought it's done a great job. You know.
Speaker 1: Trouble is that I didn't realize that one of the
Speaker 1: guys hadn't cleaned the tray before and it was full
Speaker 1: of fat. So I put this in the oven, and
Speaker 1: of course it caught fire. Well, bloody hell did it
Speaker 1: catch fire? This whole place I was downstairs, thought oh,
Speaker 1: hang on, that's a funny smell. So I went upstairs,
Speaker 1: go downstairs with a friend. And I was going upstairs,
Speaker 1: the basketball team were down below me. It was funny.
Speaker 1: And I used to know one of the guys. He
Speaker 1: was a great guy, and I said, that smells funny.
Speaker 1: So I went upstairs and thrice the flames. That's what
Speaker 1: the hell do I do? So I called nine one
Speaker 1: one and we called it nine nine nine. We called
Speaker 1: nine nine nine. You call it nine one one and
Speaker 1: called so the two fire engines come running up and
Speaker 1: spray this whole apartment with water. Now, the rest of
Speaker 1: my three guys that I shared the apartment with were
Speaker 1: out at the time, so when they came back, everything
Speaker 1: was soaked. I mean, it was just ridiculous. Everything was soaked.
Speaker 1: I'd soaked. It leaked down to the basketball teams, you know,
Speaker 1: so that there was that I'll never forget. There was
Speaker 1: Nigerian guy who was about seven foot I forget his name,
Speaker 1: part of our basketball team. And he came up and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, he's going to kill me.
Speaker 1: You know, he is going to kill me. I had it,
Speaker 1: I've had it. He was great. He helped me, helped
Speaker 1: me clean up. I mean, he was fantastic, but oh god,
Speaker 1: I made my missa. I mean, hey, college, you know,
Speaker 1: college times. It was fantastic. And I went back. A
Speaker 1: funny I went back. I went back two years ago.
Speaker 1: So it's forty forty years after and that apartment should
Speaker 1: have been should have been. Absolutely, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: written off thirty years ago. It's still standing, believe or not.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's still standing. I tried my best
Speaker 1: to get rid of it, but it's still But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, good stories. And I really did enjoy I
Speaker 1: really did enjoy my time at Houston. It was that
Speaker 1: you've got a fantastic system in America. That college program
Speaker 1: you have is something to behold. And anytime that anybody
Speaker 1: asks me about America, and he said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: my son's good. Is there any chance to get you know,
Speaker 1: I got a chance to go to me, I said,
Speaker 1: take it, take it. It's not just the education, it's
Speaker 1: not just the golf. It's the lifestyle. You know, it's
Speaker 1: the lifestyle. And you manage to go to a bigger school.
Speaker 1: I was at a smaller school. But if you've got
Speaker 1: a bigger school with a football program, I mean you
Speaker 1: see these I mean one hundred thousd and people at
Speaker 1: Iowa and Georgia and these places, I mean incredible, the
Speaker 1: alumni and the money that's involved, and the support that
Speaker 1: the colleges get. It's the superb start to one's life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really did enjoy it. And it was the making.
Speaker 1: It was the making of me as the golfer, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. America learned. America taught me how to win
Speaker 1: more than Britain. You know, we feel well done, good effort,
Speaker 1: you finished third, you know, well done America. Well that's
Speaker 1: the second loser, you know, in America. Big difference. So
Speaker 1: it was it was a good time, great time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We talked about your upright swing a little bitarlier. Why
Speaker 2: do you think the swing that Bill Ferguson taught you
Speaker 2: when you were a young man like held up so
Speaker 2: well over your life.
Speaker 1: I think I think more upright swings hold up better
Speaker 1: than a rounded swing. There's less to go wrong. There's
Speaker 1: more lateral movement than there is a hip turn. There's
Speaker 1: less turn in my swing than there isn't you know.
Speaker 1: There's more lateral movement forward to back as opposed to round.
Speaker 1: And I think that the round swing. When it works,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. But you see nowadays with the round of swing,
Speaker 1: when it doesn't work, my god, it can go off,
Speaker 1: and it goes off in a hurry. It goes off sideways,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty degree angle. I never had that. I
Speaker 1: was always a little more consistent. I wasn't as long
Speaker 1: as some of them because I wasn't using my hips
Speaker 1: to turn. I was more consistent because it was a
Speaker 1: lateral movement. And I think a lot of the good
Speaker 1: iron players Nicholas was a great iron player. Scott Hoak
Speaker 1: I always, I used to think, was a good iron player.
Speaker 1: More upright swing, similar sort of thing to myself, David
Speaker 1: Tom's upright swing. These guys that that I always admired
Speaker 1: as as good iron players. And that's what mark my
Speaker 1: strength was. It wasn't in the driving of the ball
Speaker 1: because it wasn't long. I could find it. But then
Speaker 1: I took my strength to my iron player because it
Speaker 1: was upright and it was consistent. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: In college, you know your walk on, uh so you
Speaker 2: kind of had to, you know, earn some money and
Speaker 2: can make a living. One of your first jobs was
Speaker 2: the valet parking cars and a valets taught you about life.
Speaker 1: It was a great fund, great fun up at lock
Speaker 1: of Our Country Club in Houston and amazing. And it
Speaker 1: was the very wealthy wealthy clubs, you know, one of
Speaker 1: these ultra private wealthy clubs in America. And and because
Speaker 1: we allowed, we were allowed to play on Mondays when when
Speaker 1: it was maintenance day, you know, the course was closed really,
Speaker 1: but they allowed some college players to come on, which
Speaker 1: was great for us. Super golf course Jack Nicholas signature
Speaker 1: design course. Super And so they got the team out
Speaker 1: one evening to help them valley park the cars. They
Speaker 1: had this big, big I suppose fundraising or one of
Speaker 1: these big, big events, and see here we go. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just it wasn't just the Buicks and the oldsmobiles,
Speaker 1: you know, this was the Porsches and the Rolls, Roysters
Speaker 1: and the stuff. So we we had fun. We had
Speaker 1: fun even just getting in the damn car, never mind
Speaker 1: driving it. So it was fantastic fun. Yeah, all the
Speaker 1: luxury German cars and all the range Rovers and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. It was always superb. And of course getting
Speaker 1: into the car, into an American car for one, of course,
Speaker 1: it's the wrong side of the wrong side of the road.
Speaker 1: For us, I'm on the wrong side of the wheel
Speaker 1: and h okay, and the owner might have switched the
Speaker 1: car off or luckily he's kept it on right, but
Speaker 1: he might switch it off and get out of the car,
Speaker 1: help the wife out the car. So I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: the car. Now, where's the bloody ignition? Where where do
Speaker 1: I start this thing? Where's the you know, the gear
Speaker 1: levers and all the stuff. Is it sick shift? Is
Speaker 1: it not? Our It was okay with stick shift, because
Speaker 1: that's what we use here, so stick ship? Is it automatic?
Speaker 1: Is it? I mean, oh, my god, you know what
Speaker 1: you know? And then there could be a small gentleman
Speaker 1: get out the cast of course you're stuck farting near
Speaker 1: the whew, you can't turn this thing? Or it was
Speaker 1: it was it was, It was an event. And then
Speaker 1: they paid you for it when you when you came out,
Speaker 1: it was great. I mean, they gave you in these
Speaker 1: days twenty dollars. My god, that was a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money for us. I mean I was living on
Speaker 1: seventeen and a half cents of off Craft macaroni cheese.
Speaker 1: Where the cheese was was was powder? You know the
Speaker 1: stuff you're poured seventeen and a half cents, that proves
Speaker 1: that was my dinner. So twenty dollars to park a
Speaker 1: car was superb for me, and that helped me pay
Speaker 1: pay for things at university. Yeah, help help feed me.
Speaker 4: Your your love of cool cars kind of grew over time.
Speaker 2: But you said that you got a job driving for
Speaker 2: your dad for Fox Biscuits, who were like a regional
Speaker 2: sort of salesman, and you buggered up three cars, or
Speaker 2: so I did.
Speaker 4: I did having to tell your father about.
Speaker 1: Well, that wasn't good. That wasn't good. You don't tell
Speaker 1: the boss. You don't tell the that you've written off
Speaker 1: a car, because it gets around the factory very very quickly.
Speaker 1: You know that, Oh god, I've messed up again. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was always I was always I don't know, I
Speaker 1: was I was. I was always late now, and it's
Speaker 1: one thing I'm never am. Because there's a golfer our
Speaker 1: world revolves around time. If you're off at ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: your whole day is surrounded by you know, you know
Speaker 1: what time you get up, breakfast, practice time, you know what.
Speaker 1: So it's all it's all based around time. So I
Speaker 1: was always late. I was always I had to merchandise
Speaker 1: the shelf and these biscuits, these these cookies. So I
Speaker 1: had to take the take the old ones and put
Speaker 1: them to the front, you know, you sort of rotate them,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, but best before date stuff, you know, yes.
Speaker 1: And so I did all that, and I was always
Speaker 1: a little bit late. I was always quite. I had
Speaker 1: to leave it and then you know, leave the shelf
Speaker 1: perfectly perfectly, you know, good. And then I was a
Speaker 1: bit late. So I was always in a hurry. So
Speaker 1: I was always speeding. And in the winter in Yorkshire
Speaker 1: where I was in the north of Yorkshire, it was
Speaker 1: quite snowy sometimes in the north of England, and you
Speaker 1: get the odd you know. So they all happened in
Speaker 1: the winter. I put one on its I put one
Speaker 1: on its roof once. These were the sales rep cars.
Speaker 1: It was an old called the Ford Escort. I mean
Speaker 1: it was a it was a cheap car, but it
Speaker 1: was a good car in its day. But yes, I
Speaker 1: was on number four. I was on number four when
Speaker 1: I left, when I left to go to university, I
Speaker 1: was on number four. I did this for two winters
Speaker 1: to get enough money to play amateur golf in the summers.
Speaker 1: That's why I started university at twenty and not eighteen,
Speaker 1: because I was doing I was doing this to fill
Speaker 1: in time in the winter, because I couldn't play golf
Speaker 1: here in the winter. So it was yeah, it was
Speaker 1: good fun. It was good fun. We had a We
Speaker 1: had a good laugh. I had seventy two sales reps
Speaker 1: in the company running around the country doing all sorts,
Speaker 1: and I was one of them. And I found it's funny.
Speaker 1: My father passed away in January this year and I
Speaker 1: found he was ninety four. And I found the report
Speaker 1: card from Fox's Biscuits. And I didn't realize I was
Speaker 1: so bad. I didn't realize I got I thought I
Speaker 1: was getting a's and a pluses. I didn't realize that's
Speaker 1: so bad. I think I got one c. The rest
Speaker 1: of them are d's and ease. You know, I thought
Speaker 1: I did a good job. He obviously kept them from me.
Speaker 1: He kept them from me without without telling me that
Speaker 1: it was good. Father bad at the job. Thank god,
Speaker 1: Thank god. I wouldn't I wouldn't have been taken on
Speaker 1: if I wasn't the boss's son. It was. It was
Speaker 1: quite funny, quite funny. I didn't realize how bad it was.
Speaker 2: That's great, told the famous story a bunch of times
Speaker 2: about playing at Turnberry with Peter Jurman and and being
Speaker 2: seven under through nine and stuff on the on the
Speaker 2: bad nine.
Speaker 4: Why do you think he played so well that day?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know, obviously like that was a was
Speaker 2: a pretty seminal moment in your life when they're.
Speaker 4: Saying we're going to work for you.
Speaker 2: But you almost kind of like blacked out and didn't
Speaker 2: really even think about how well you were playing. From
Speaker 2: all the accounts of it, why do you think that
Speaker 2: you were playing so well well?
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's I think it's one
Speaker 1: of these things that that that I can speak on
Speaker 1: behalf of most golfers that play the game to a
Speaker 1: certain level, is that if you do blackout and not
Speaker 1: think about it, like like in a pro am, how
Speaker 1: many court records are shot in a pro am? How
Speaker 1: many course records are shot when you're not really not
Speaker 1: really interested or not really bothered, you know, or how
Speaker 1: many pots are hold, you know, after the guy's been
Speaker 1: missing putts in the pro am all day long, and
Speaker 1: and I happened to hold a pop for a for
Speaker 1: a birdie. So this this pot doesn't matter for this guy,
Speaker 1: but he has a practice pot anyway, and of course
Speaker 1: holds it. It says, God, if I could do that?
Speaker 1: How how you know that? God? How easy is this game?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't And it's true, isn't it. How easy
Speaker 1: is this game? And it doesn't matter? And if we
Speaker 1: could only play, we could only play that way more often,
Speaker 1: it'd be amazing. And I wasn't interested in the golf.
Speaker 1: The golf was secondary. I was wanting a job, so
Speaker 1: it was it was the secondary. I was watching what
Speaker 1: I was saying more than I was what I was playing,
Speaker 1: you know. And I just happened to hold a few
Speaker 1: pots and I chipped in and something, and hey, presto.
Speaker 1: You know, they say I'm good enough for for pro
Speaker 1: golf never mind, never mind you know, working for them.
Speaker 1: So I think it's I think it's the fact that
Speaker 1: to get into that mentality, to into that psychological way.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure books and books have been read about
Speaker 1: it all the time, you know, don't bother. Just hey,
Speaker 1: what's the worst that can happen? You can miss the part, Well, Hey,
Speaker 1: there's worst things gonna happen in life, right, what's the
Speaker 1: worst can happen. We'll just swing the club. And that's
Speaker 1: what I was doing. And it's amazing how anybody can
Speaker 1: play better without without really thinking about it, And that
Speaker 1: if I was to tell anybody what to just just
Speaker 1: go out there and don't I don't worry about the
Speaker 1: pressures and the and the and and get getting intense
Speaker 1: and getting down and just swing the club and get
Speaker 1: on with it. It's amazing how how well one can play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you told the story about your first victory
Speaker 2: at the Portuguese Open, I was kind of struck by something.
Speaker 2: Kind of point how your father didn't even know you
Speaker 2: won until you called him later that night on the phone,
Speaker 2: because you know, now he'd be able to follow shot
Speaker 2: by shot and get it in to me. God, yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you remember about that phone? I mean, now
Speaker 2: it's that feeling.
Speaker 1: Now it's shot link, isn't it? And you'd be able
Speaker 1: to see how far I've got from a second shot
Speaker 1: to the last.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't live on TV? How is it? How is
Speaker 1: he supposed to in Scotland? How's he supposed to know
Speaker 1: what's happening in Portugal? Uh? Okay, it's two and a
Speaker 1: half hours away. But there's there's no there's no communication.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a whole different world now we live
Speaker 1: in that it's immediate, everything's there.
Speaker 2: And yes, do you remember that excitement, excitement of that
Speaker 2: phone call, like calling him up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the highlights package was shown, you know,
Speaker 1: two weeks later at nine at night. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: just said, look, you know, I started four ahead and
Speaker 1: I hadn't won before, and it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And I started four ahead. I birdied four out the
Speaker 1: first five holes and got about seven ahead, and then
Speaker 1: it was I got into that frame we're just talking
Speaker 1: about whereby okay, just just swing the club, just just
Speaker 1: play golf, you know, don't worry about anything. And then
Speaker 1: got another four ahead and finished eleven, which was crazy.
Speaker 1: But the phone call, yeah, I mean, to win on
Speaker 1: the European Tour was a big deal. Win anywhere is
Speaker 1: a big deal. To win in the corn Ferry, to
Speaker 1: win in Asia, to win any on any tour anywhere
Speaker 1: is a big deal, especially a first one. You remember
Speaker 1: it well. And I remember Portugal so well, and I
Speaker 1: visited Kintodalago many times since. And my cards, my four
Speaker 1: cards are on the wall in the in the clubhouse
Speaker 1: to this day, nineteen eighty nine, So it was what crumbs,
Speaker 1: you know, the thirteen years thirty seven years ago, My god,
Speaker 1: amazing but at the same time great, great memories, you know.
Speaker 1: But to win by eleven was special. There's something there,
Speaker 1: people thought there was, there was something to build on.
Speaker 1: You win your first pro event by eleven shots, you think, okay,
Speaker 1: this is something on who's this? And then it's funny,
Speaker 1: you know, the next ten, the next ten were by
Speaker 1: one shot, hm, and you think, how's that? How's that?
Speaker 1: I thought I conquered this game. I thought I've got
Speaker 1: I thought I've got this, you know, I thought I
Speaker 1: was the only one ever to conquer this, this game
Speaker 1: of goal, eleven shots ahead, and yet and yet the
Speaker 1: next ten were all by one. It's amazing how the game,
Speaker 1: you know, how how it how it transpires. But it
Speaker 1: was a fantastic feeling, great phone call to say, look
Speaker 1: I've won. And that was and that kept my job really,
Speaker 1: you know, because because you've got a two year exemption. Now,
Speaker 1: in fact, it was more it was the TPC, which
Speaker 1: was our a Players Championship, so it was a five
Speaker 1: year exemption. I got so it gave me that that
Speaker 1: golden ticket really for five years. That allowed me to
Speaker 1: play with Freedom on the tour for that time and
Speaker 1: then progress toward the Ryder Cup stuff you know, you
Speaker 1: know two years later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, sorry to butt in here, but let's
Speaker 3: take a quick break from Manti to talk about our
Speaker 3: friends at Perfect Practice. I gotta say I recently went
Speaker 3: through a move and I have some new spaces and
Speaker 3: I was setting up one of them, and the first
Speaker 3: thing I thought of was, look at all this floor space.
Speaker 3: What a perfect place for my perfect practice putting, Matt.
Speaker 3: I have been kind of in between places for a while,
Speaker 3: and a thing that I've missed is by perfect practice
Speaker 3: putting Matt. It is something that keeps my putting just
Speaker 3: kind of dialed in. I love this thing. I didn't
Speaker 3: think I was gonna like it as much as I do.
Speaker 3: What I love about it are the lines.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: Obviously I have the eight foot model. You can get
Speaker 3: them bigger, you can get them smaller. But one of
Speaker 3: the things that I like about this is I can
Speaker 3: work on a variety of length putts. Really, the putts
Speaker 3: that I feel like I need to make on a
Speaker 3: consistent basis. I know, eight footers or fifty percent proposition.
Speaker 3: But the big thing I love about this, I love
Speaker 3: working on straight putts. If you can just hit a
Speaker 3: straight putt down a line, you're gonna be dialed in.
Speaker 3: And that's what the Perfect Practice Putting Matt allows you
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Speaker 3: classic you know, setup drill. Make sure you're set up
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Speaker 3: go wrong, and and golf is when you're not set
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Speaker 3: And let's get back to Colin Montgomery.
Speaker 2: I've read a bunch about you know, you went head
Speaker 2: to head with Seven a lot during that time.
Speaker 4: You know, I read a lot about his aura.
Speaker 2: What was it like to compete against him?
Speaker 1: Oh, he was, it was It was it was like
Speaker 1: playing I mean, he don't use this analogy very often,
Speaker 1: but it was like playing against God really, you know,
Speaker 1: in our in our world. You know, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: in a European world. It was playing against someone very
Speaker 1: very special or a charisma passion. I think that's the
Speaker 1: word I would use for Seven, the most passionate man
Speaker 1: I've ever met about life and about golf. Every shot
Speaker 1: was as if it was his last. You know, every
Speaker 1: shot was so vital to him. And he used to almost,
Speaker 1: you know, almost enjoy being in a position of okay,
Speaker 1: just watch this sort of stuff. You know, he was
Speaker 1: in a position where he was up against some dustin
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, and then just watch this, Monty.
Speaker 1: I'll get up and down here, you know, and I'll
Speaker 1: beat you on the whole. And he and he probably did.
Speaker 1: It was it was amazing to play with him, as
Speaker 1: you say, an aura The only other other person I've
Speaker 1: had that playing with was Tiger Woods. Mhm. Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: had an aura about him and still still does that
Speaker 1: meter around oneself that no one comes into without being invited.
Speaker 1: I think Tiger has that and Sevee had it. There's this,
Speaker 1: there's this, there's something special, there's something special. There's a
Speaker 1: few people that walk into a room without knowing who
Speaker 1: they are or who it was. The room changes. I
Speaker 1: remember I was in the company of Sean Connery once
Speaker 1: in Scotland. He walked into a room. There was something
Speaker 1: about him, you know. I mean it wasn't Sean Connor.
Speaker 1: It was James Bond walking into the room, you know,
Speaker 1: and a big man, a big presence. Greg Norman had
Speaker 1: it for a while. Greg Norman had that. Sevy and Woods, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a few of them have that, and it
Speaker 1: was it was just a delight playing with him and
Speaker 1: an knowing that he was the you know, he was
Speaker 1: European Golf, the first winner of the Masters, the first
Speaker 1: this and first that that sev did. He was the
Speaker 1: he was the initial guy. Uh but it was an honor.
Speaker 1: I mean, meat, who who the hell am? I you know,
Speaker 1: remember my times and the boss from from from New Mexico,
Speaker 1: Albuquerque and the Greyhound Buster and now I'm playing alongside Seve.
Speaker 1: This was this was dramatic. Yeah, there's a big, big,
Speaker 1: big step.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said kind of that early part of your career,
Speaker 2: you almost didn't give yourself enough credit, Like when you
Speaker 2: looked back, you did better than you sort of realized.
Speaker 2: And why do you think you were hard on yourself?
Speaker 1: I think I think it was parental. Was was was?
Speaker 1: You know, there was pressure there to succeed. I wanted
Speaker 1: to succeed. I didn't want to I didn't want to
Speaker 1: feel that I was a journeyman pro. I wanted to succeed.
Speaker 1: So there was that in me. There was that in
Speaker 1: built in the family. You know a bit of pressure there,
Speaker 1: a bit of pressure on myself. I wanted to achieve.
Speaker 1: I wanted to achieve, and when I got married, I
Speaker 1: wanted to give the lifestyle to wife and children and
Speaker 1: all the stuff that came with being a successful golfer sportsman.
Speaker 1: And that opportunity was given to me, I wanted to
Speaker 1: take it. You know, the opportunity was given to me.
Speaker 1: I mean there could have been twenty thirty forty better
Speaker 1: golfers than me in Scotland. But the opportunity was given
Speaker 1: to me, and I didn't want to throw that away
Speaker 1: in many ways, so I wanted to achieve. Possibly that's
Speaker 1: why I was to harden myself, you know. I wanted
Speaker 1: to achieve, probably too much. If I was giving a
Speaker 1: lesson to anybody to start the game, i'd have said,
Speaker 1: I'd have said to them, be patient. Be patient. It's
Speaker 1: a long road, you know, here's us talking. I'm sixty
Speaker 1: two years old now, I'm still competing at a reasonable level,
Speaker 1: and I wish I was a little more patient with
Speaker 1: myself in those early days. But but you want it,
Speaker 1: you want it now, you want it, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's difficult to be It's easy to say terrible word patient,
Speaker 1: you know, when you you know, you're two over after
Speaker 1: five and your caddy says, oh, be patient. He's a
Speaker 1: bloody hell. You know, I've got to I've got to
Speaker 1: find a birdy someone that might be patient. You know.
Speaker 1: So it was a horrible word, but it would be
Speaker 1: great if if if we all had it, if we
Speaker 1: all had it. In any sport, being patient is is
Speaker 1: pool number one. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The story of Jack kind of early congratulating you in
Speaker 2: the Pebble it is open. It's almost kind of overshadowed,
Speaker 2: like how well you played that day.
Speaker 4: Everyone remembers that. Jack sort of.
Speaker 2: Said, you know, oh, congrats Marty won the Open. But
Speaker 2: I wonder what you remember about that round. I mean,
Speaker 2: the wind was obviously like crazy. It was just a
Speaker 2: crazy conditions of day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was. I remember remember every shot
Speaker 1: I hit, you know, and I and I was going
Speaker 1: through it. You know, I must have played well, Yes,
Speaker 1: I did. I was controlling the ball and a number
Speaker 1: of players weren't able to control the flight of the ball.
Speaker 1: I hit the ball particularly low. At that time ninety two.
Speaker 1: I was very young, still really to the game. But
Speaker 1: I hit the ball lower than I do now, and
Speaker 1: in a wind around Pebble Beach, it was an advantage
Speaker 1: to do that. I wouldn't say it is now, but
Speaker 1: it was then in a wind, and I kept it down.
Speaker 1: I hold a couple of important potts. I remember the
Speaker 1: shot I hit at sixteen seven and I hit at
Speaker 1: sixteen there and it hit the pin. My second shot
Speaker 1: it was the pin was on the right hand side,
Speaker 1: a very devilish pin position. You've got to miss it
Speaker 1: left and it was going a little it was fading
Speaker 1: a little bit too far right, but it hit the
Speaker 1: pin and a holder left to right. Oh god, it
Speaker 1: must have been about an eight foot left to right Pott.
Speaker 1: And in the wind, I thought, oh, that's good. And
Speaker 1: the up and down at the last again an eight an.
Speaker 1: I hit my third shot into the green at the last.
Speaker 1: Even to find the fair way and then lay up
Speaker 1: was difficult enough. The eight time came up short into
Speaker 1: the front bunker. I came out about four foot and
Speaker 1: on these Poana greens were nasty beans, I mean horrible,
Speaker 1: they just oh I hate them, you know. And I
Speaker 1: managed to hold this four fourth through in the wind,
Speaker 1: and I really thought when I did it, I thought,
Speaker 1: what have I done here? You know? What have I done?
Speaker 1: Tom Kite was only on about the eighth or ninth hole.
Speaker 1: He was only half way round, and I'd finished, and
Speaker 1: after I'd signed my card through the back of the
Speaker 1: eighteenth green ut pebble Beach. I'll never forget it. And
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholas appeared. He came down the ladders from his
Speaker 1: from from the studio, and uh, first time I met him.
Speaker 1: I hadn't met him before. And Jack Nicholas, will Christ
Speaker 1: hang on a minute. You know Feavy was good. Wow,
Speaker 1: now we've got we've got hang on. This is the King,
Speaker 1: the King. I know Palmer was known as it, but
Speaker 1: to me, he was the King. And never forget he says, well,
Speaker 1: he says, uh, you know, I'm I'm Jack Nicholas said, yes,
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, Jack Nicholas here, he says that genius
Speaker 1: and he said, never forget it. Congratulations on being our
Speaker 1: national champion. That's what you said. He didn't say the
Speaker 1: US Open as such. He just said congratulations and being
Speaker 1: our national champion, because I knew that he'd won six
Speaker 1: of those things and being a national and that whatever.
Speaker 1: In Mahamoni, it was a national champion. Was a big
Speaker 1: deal for Jack Nicholas to be the US Open champion,
Speaker 1: never mind the Masters or the PGA. The national championship
Speaker 1: was big. It was like our Open championship, ourselves and
Speaker 1: I and I walked away thinking okay, and he went
Speaker 1: back up. He went back in his up to his
Speaker 1: up to his booth to finish his commentary, and I finished,
Speaker 1: I said, I want to walk to it. Well, he knows,
Speaker 1: he knows what he's talking about. He's one here. He
Speaker 1: knows what he's talking about. At Pebble Beach, he knows
Speaker 1: tom Kite could have played these last nine holes in
Speaker 1: horrendous conditions. Really, I mean, the wind was forty miles
Speaker 1: an hour. It was. You wouldn't you wouldn't have played.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have played. You'd have said, look, this is silly,
Speaker 1: you know. And only because the pown of greens were
Speaker 1: damp that the ball wasn't moving on them, you know, so,
Speaker 1: or else it would have been canceled. And I thought,
Speaker 1: so I went back to him. I went back to
Speaker 1: my manager, John Simpson at the time, who madged Faldo
Speaker 1: and Norman and Price and these guys had a room
Speaker 1: at the lodge because I couldn't afford that at that stage.
Speaker 1: I see a room at the lodge and I watched
Speaker 1: it on television and I watched tom Kite come in,
Speaker 1: and not just tom Kite. I must give a lot
Speaker 1: of credit to Jeff Fluman as well, who they both
Speaker 1: beat me. I finished third in the end. I've never
Speaker 1: forgiven Jack Nicholas forgetting it wrong, and I've never forgiven him.
Speaker 1: And when I was when I was commentating a little
Speaker 1: bit on on on on Sky's Sports. He comes in
Speaker 1: and he apologizes. Now he says, I wasorry for that.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought you knew what you were talking about.
Speaker 1: You know, it was funny, but it was a good time.
Speaker 1: And all credit to Tom Kite for doing what he did.
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, the short game. He worked with
Speaker 1: Dave Peltz for many, many years and it came to
Speaker 1: fruition for Tom Kite. It was amazing, and you know,
Speaker 1: he holed out, he chipped in at the seventh and
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff that went on. And also
Speaker 1: a big shout out for Jeff Sluman, who also beat me.
Speaker 1: I finished third, and I must admit I was I
Speaker 1: was looking at very worst scenario was a playoff worst scenario,
Speaker 1: and to finish third means that these two guys did
Speaker 1: extremely well.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, People sometimes get a little bit confused by this take,
Speaker 2: but one of my favorite golf takes is that you
Speaker 2: and Phil Nicholson are are two of the best US
Speaker 2: Open players of that entire era.
Speaker 4: Like, it doesn't matter that you didn't win one.
Speaker 2: You put yourself in convention over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: which is kind of part of it all. I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: what is it I read you loved the US Open.
Speaker 2: What what isn't that you loved about it?
Speaker 1: I flew over for you as hope, and knowing that
Speaker 1: already you can discount one hundred players out one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty six. They hated it. They hated it mentally,
Speaker 1: they hated it. They didn't like the way the USGA
Speaker 1: set up the courses back in the nineties when we
Speaker 1: were playing film because that was our sort of era.
Speaker 1: They didn't like the way they were set up. I
Speaker 1: did because I because I could find the fairways with
Speaker 1: my drive right. It was a fair ways and greens
Speaker 1: type of thing, and that was that was my game.
Speaker 1: And I enjoyed it. I really did enjoy it. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the battle. I enjoyed the challenge of the way
Speaker 1: that the USGA had set up these courses. Yes, you
Speaker 1: made bogie, you and you god, you know the blooming
Speaker 1: look at that. You know, you know you got onto
Speaker 1: them halfway around the course, of course you did. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it was a different setup.
Speaker 1: It was it was. It was a different form of golf,
Speaker 1: and I really did. I did enjoy it. And I
Speaker 1: was in contention a lot, yeah, a lot not having
Speaker 1: won it, and Phil and I not to have one
Speaker 1: the US Open. You thought, surely, you know, surely would
Speaker 1: have won it. Between us, there must have been almost
Speaker 1: a dozen times where we had opportunities, the pair of us,
Speaker 1: and it came down to, Yeah, wing foot especially, I'm
Speaker 1: going back to wing Foot two thousand and six, where
Speaker 1: we were both leading on the last te and we
Speaker 1: both double bogue the blumbing last hole. For goodness sake,
Speaker 1: I think it was just fate that we're never going
Speaker 1: to win that tournament, the pair of us, you know,
Speaker 1: And that was my closest one. Really. I suppose, you know,
Speaker 1: to parle the hole would have won it. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it was a difficult hole, but I'd
Speaker 1: done the hard thing. I'd hit the fair way wing foot,
Speaker 1: The rest was easy, and I messed it up. But
Speaker 1: it was it was, Yeah, it was, it was. I
Speaker 1: just loved I loved the US Open, meaning that one
Speaker 1: hundred guys you could forget, and I was only playing
Speaker 1: against fifty guys who actually enjoyed it. So it was
Speaker 1: a different a different feel when I got to the
Speaker 1: first te different feel. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard you talk about slow play over the
Speaker 2: years and the frustration of that and sometimes and no
Speaker 2: more time does that come into you know, the upisope's
Speaker 2: a little different because everybody's stressing over every shot. But
Speaker 2: I remember watching two thousand and six and you having
Speaker 2: to wait, you know, ten minutes for hit his shot
Speaker 2: and stuff and then agonizing thing that was. But what
Speaker 2: do you remember about that, that nine to ten minutes
Speaker 2: of waiting for that?
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's amazing. I mean, if it wasn't Vj's fault,
Speaker 1: it was just he happened to hit a terrible drive.
Speaker 1: He'd admit that, a big, big hook into the second
Speaker 1: hospitality tent. So we had to get one drop from
Speaker 1: the first one, the second dropped another one and then
Speaker 1: there was a TV camera in the way then. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just it was one of these rules that
Speaker 1: were on forever. Okay. Meanwhile, Muggins is on the fairway
Speaker 1: here going through Hell. I'm convinced that if I'd played it,
Speaker 1: and it's not it's not the etiquette of the game, right,
Speaker 1: it's not the editor aim to play out of turn,
Speaker 1: but it's not illegal to do so. Play match play
Speaker 1: you can get called back, but stroke play it's not.
Speaker 1: And I'm convinced if I'd played that shot in real time,
Speaker 1: walked up to it as I do a couple of
Speaker 1: swings with seven A and hit it on the green
Speaker 1: and then oh, where's vj Oh he's over there. Oh sorry,
Speaker 1: did I play out a turn? You know sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But I was doing the etiquette thing, and to this
Speaker 1: day I wish I hadn't. Okay, but there you go.
Speaker 1: That's one of these things, because nine minutes is a
Speaker 1: hell of a long time to think in a positive way,
Speaker 1: hell of a long time to think positively, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: negative thoughts spring in. Okay, and again, get get out
Speaker 1: your head. Okay and get that just wait from getting
Speaker 1: out your head, walk away, start again sort of thing,
Speaker 1: you know. And unfortunately I just caught it slightly heavy
Speaker 1: and that was the worst thing I could do. But
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that I did play that shot in real time,
Speaker 1: just go up and hit it the way I would.
Speaker 1: You know, he was longer than me off the tees,
Speaker 1: so normally I was playing first anyway into the green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want but hey, there you go, faate you know,
Speaker 1: what the hell? What the health?
Speaker 2: Every every near miss is kind of like its own
Speaker 2: short story of agony in some plays.
Speaker 4: But I looked.
Speaker 2: I watched the PGA Riviera back in this and just
Speaker 2: I was struck by you know you birdied the last
Speaker 2: three holes, like it was one of the most clutch
Speaker 2: things imagined, including rolling in that like twenty foot on eighteen,
Speaker 2: which I always thought was like one of those clutch moments.
Speaker 2: It's like lost to history, like it's a do or
Speaker 2: you gotta make it to get into their playoff. What
Speaker 2: do you remember about that, those sort of stretch down there, Riviera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was that was that was. I
Speaker 1: was playing superb golf and that was the best golf
Speaker 1: of my life. Ninety five and I just joined Callaway.
Speaker 1: I was using irons that no one loved, the big
Speaker 1: Bertha irons. I mean it was just they were like shovels,
Speaker 1: but my god, they worked. The Helmsteatter was a fantastic designer,
Speaker 1: an engineer designing these clubs, City League, Callaway and myself
Speaker 1: and I was playing fantastic golf. I remember bird in
Speaker 1: the last three holes and it was like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: I can do this. And then Elkinton comes in playoff
Speaker 1: and he had the honor off the tee and he
Speaker 1: pulled it left off the tee into the rough on
Speaker 1: the high side of Riviera, and it's a place you
Speaker 1: don't go. It's a very difficult second shot because you're
Speaker 1: coming across the green. The pin was back left. He
Speaker 1: couldn't he couldn't get to the pin and my drive,
Speaker 1: believe it or not. Alistair mcaddie, Alistair mcclaim. We had
Speaker 1: a good time together. Were twenty eight years together and
Speaker 1: he just turned seventy. Actually got to wish him happy
Speaker 1: birthday and he said to me in the playoff, I said,
Speaker 1: how far have I got? He says, well, there's your
Speaker 1: divot there the first time, and there's you divot here.
Speaker 1: And it was it was within a foot. And that's
Speaker 1: the way I was playing. I was playing golf like that.
Speaker 1: I was hitting the ball exactly to plan, you know.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you've got exactly the same club. And
Speaker 1: I hit it perfectly and it stopped. It stopped short.
Speaker 1: It bit in as opposed to going forward the way
Speaker 1: that they had been doing. And it bit in about
Speaker 1: again about a twenty foot short where I was the
Speaker 1: first time. Really, but it it had bit in. It
Speaker 1: was it was right down the pin. I was happy
Speaker 1: with that he had missed the green because that's all
Speaker 1: he could do from his position. He had a good
Speaker 1: shot actually just threw the green on the on the
Speaker 1: back side his shot first and he putted it and
Speaker 1: hold it off the green thirty foot and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and I've got this now for a
Speaker 1: half and it didn't it didn't had a chance, but
Speaker 1: it you know, it was never going in. You know,
Speaker 1: one of those putts that you know when you've hit it,
Speaker 1: it's not happening. You know, halfway you got a chance.
Speaker 1: This one didn't. Okay, that's another one because ninety four
Speaker 1: I'd lost a playoff to L's and to Lauren Roberts
Speaker 1: at Dokmond of another playoff in a major there at Riviera,
Speaker 1: and it became you know, okay, well this is is
Speaker 1: this you know, just okay, this horrible word patience and
Speaker 1: what have you. You know, But that was that was one
Speaker 1: that I hate to say, got away because Elkinton had
Speaker 1: more chance of making a bogie from that position than
Speaker 1: he had a birdie. And I was making my paw.
Speaker 1: I could make my paw, but the birdie was was
Speaker 1: was tough to get on top of him. But it
Speaker 1: was it was one of these things. It was just, hey,
Speaker 1: well done him the playoffs. You know, you've got to
Speaker 1: take it when you can, and he did and and
Speaker 1: it didn't work for me on that particular occasion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, was it.
Speaker 2: I guess it was interesting to watch, you know how
Speaker 2: the press was maybe a little bit hard on you.
Speaker 2: The fans were a little bit hard on you, Like
Speaker 2: I wouldn't live a little bit of a public life
Speaker 2: just being a podcast or whatever. And it's it's hard
Speaker 2: not to absorb that kind of stuff when people are mean,
Speaker 2: when people are nasty, and I'm wondering how you kind
Speaker 2: of learn to deal with that.
Speaker 1: Over time, Well, I became, I became a I became
Speaker 1: a bit of a threat, to be honest. At ninety
Speaker 1: seven was the one Congressional I made a mistake. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll have to admit, you know, hey, who's perfect, But
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not. When I made a mistake congressional in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven where I answered back, I was leading
Speaker 1: the US Open then after the first round, and this
Speaker 1: was the second round after rain delay, and I answered
Speaker 1: back to someone and I regret that to this day,
Speaker 1: you know, and it hurt me for I'd say a
Speaker 1: good ten years, you know, which is most people's career.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I was lucky. I had a longer one,
Speaker 1: and it hurt me in America, and then I became
Speaker 1: after ninety seven ninety nine was there was the big
Speaker 1: change after the big five in Europe had left the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup. So we're talking Sevy, Falder, Langer, Lyle and
Speaker 1: Wusnam had left the Ryder Cup. And it was a
Speaker 1: new era coming through. It was the Harringtons, it was
Speaker 1: the Donald's, Clark Westwood, Poulter, these guys were coming through
Speaker 1: in Europe, him and Az, Paul Laurie and and I
Speaker 1: was number two in the world at the time, so
Speaker 1: I became the biggest threat. And therefore it was, you know,
Speaker 1: a bit like McElroy to this, to this Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: There was more angst on him than anyone, and there
Speaker 1: was more angst on me at the Ryder Cups, and
Speaker 1: it it sort of took took it took effect from
Speaker 1: then on. Uh. Difficult, yes, but at the same time
Speaker 1: gave me, especially playing for a team, it gave me Okay,
Speaker 1: look I'm not going to get this isn't going to
Speaker 1: get me down. I'm going to come through this, and
Speaker 1: and but but but individually it hurt more, you know
Speaker 1: when you're playing an individual tournament, but as a team.
Speaker 1: It really sort of spurred me on really that that
Speaker 1: I could, I could do this, and I could and
Speaker 1: I could play for my teammates and not let them down,
Speaker 1: you know, by succumbing to to to the crowd whatever
Speaker 1: it was. But now it's amazing. Now you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a threat anymore. On on the PTA Tour Champions
Speaker 1: and the crowd of fantastic there really are. You know,
Speaker 1: they welcome me with open arms to the Champions Tour,
Speaker 1: and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I've been there
Speaker 1: twelve years and I've enjoyed every minute of the Champions Tour.
Speaker 1: And it's been a great, great place to finish off
Speaker 1: one's career. Very lucky from fifty to sixty two to
Speaker 1: play competitively most sports you've finished at thirty five forty
Speaker 1: if you're lucky. But the crowd of yeah, it's been,
Speaker 1: it's been super. You know, on the first t I
Speaker 1: get a good applause on the first tee always, and
Speaker 1: I think, oh, this is okay, this is this is
Speaker 1: a nice place to play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I guess I wanted to kind of
Speaker 2: fallow a little bit that. You know, Tiger and Rory
Speaker 2: have kind of said at times, like I might play
Speaker 2: chamins to her, I might not.
Speaker 4: Rory's very out, we won't.
Speaker 2: Tiger's kind of saying who knows, probably will, but doesn't know.
Speaker 2: Why do you think it's brought you so much joy?
Speaker 2: And why do you think it would benefit you know,
Speaker 2: kind of anybody from you know, no matter how great
Speaker 2: they were, Tiger, Rory or whatever, just to sort of
Speaker 2: experience some of the joys that you like that.
Speaker 1: I think winning. I think being in contention brings out
Speaker 1: that brings out the sort of competitive juices in us all,
Speaker 1: and it gives them an opportunity when they're fifty and
Speaker 1: I'm sixty two. So it's not it's you know, these
Speaker 1: days are sort of more whining, thinner than they were.
Speaker 1: Langer's giving us all hope at sixty eight. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think it's the competitive juices because
Speaker 1: when you're forty five to fifty, and I suppose Tiger
Speaker 1: can say the same thing. I know, illness and and
Speaker 1: and accidents and all sorts of his body's you know,
Speaker 1: giving up on him, you know, many ways unfortunately. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, forty five to fifty is a
Speaker 1: time when we all tend to tread water. Yeah, whereby
Speaker 1: Luke Donald's doing the same thing. I was doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. Harrington was doing the same thing. It's a
Speaker 1: very difficult, very difficult a place to be. The forty
Speaker 1: five to fifty. Where are you competitive on the PGA Tour?
Speaker 1: Not really, not really, day in day out. You're not
Speaker 1: as competitive as you were. We've got to admit, whoever
Speaker 1: you are. And yet fifty comes around. My god, you're
Speaker 1: a rookie again. You know, you've got this rookie feel
Speaker 1: and you've got this I'm younger than anyone else in
Speaker 1: this field here, you know, so come on, I've got
Speaker 1: a chance here. And it's this is winning, winning isn't.
Speaker 1: Don't tell the sponsors in the day, but they didn't
Speaker 1: have to pay me. You don't have to pay me
Speaker 1: to win. The feeling you have when you win. You've
Speaker 1: beaten your peers, whether it be one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: odd in a major or eighty one as it is,
Speaker 1: and the champions two week to week to beat them,
Speaker 1: to win is a big, big deal, and it's a
Speaker 1: fantastic feeling. The self esteem goes up the whole. You know,
Speaker 1: you feel I'm six foot one, I feel six foot three.
Speaker 1: You know. It's superb. And I think that that would
Speaker 1: be apply to Tiger, would apply to anybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: the money that's been made now on the tour, it
Speaker 1: is less less objective, you know, to actually have to
Speaker 1: do this, uh you know, but but the enjoyment and
Speaker 1: the you know, God man, you know, he comes back
Speaker 1: to you. What else am I going to do? You know,
Speaker 1: haven't done any else in my life? What else am
Speaker 1: I going to do? So it's been a fantastic outlet
Speaker 1: really not just for me, but for everyone speaking for
Speaker 1: everybody on that on that PGA Tour, champions Stuart Think
Speaker 1: now being big number one on that tour, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: fabulous to have him on board, Steve Stricker, all the
Speaker 1: all the top Americans to come out there and play
Speaker 1: against the top international players of the day. It's it's
Speaker 1: a fantastic place to be and and and I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope Tiger can play. I really do. I think
Speaker 1: be fantastic for us all if Tiger can play, Hey
Speaker 1: even once. You know, I don't know how physically he's
Speaker 1: able to do. So let's hope he can manage to
Speaker 1: to play within the next couple of years, and and
Speaker 1: and and and and come out and play in a
Speaker 1: US Open. Because he's won the juniors, these the youths,
Speaker 1: he's won the mamateurs, he's won the US Open. My
Speaker 1: goodies and everything, but he hasn't won as senior US Open.
Speaker 1: And it'd be great to see him out there trying
Speaker 1: to compete, you know, yeah, trying to compete. I've won
Speaker 1: up on him already, thank god. You know, I've wont
Speaker 1: to see the US Open. He hasn't fantastic, but that
Speaker 1: type of thing, you know, to have that winning feeling
Speaker 1: again for him would be great. And all we do
Speaker 1: is the whole world of golf, which is him.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, those are that great quote. I think
Speaker 2: as a Norm McDonald quote the comedian so that the
Speaker 2: only thing an old man can tell a young man
Speaker 2: is that it goes by real fast, really fast, that
Speaker 2: a young man will never listen.
Speaker 1: I think that's yeah, it's true, true, it's true. You know.
Speaker 1: You know my father, my father was the same, you
Speaker 1: know what it was. He was sixty. He was sixty
Speaker 1: yesterday and then he was ninety four. You know, it's
Speaker 1: amazing how fast it does go. And we're very very
Speaker 1: fortunate to be able to do something that we enjoy,
Speaker 1: something that others enjoy watching us perform doing our thing.
Speaker 1: Were very fortunate in this world. And I mean, mustn't
Speaker 1: forget that, Yeah, never ever forget.
Speaker 2: That one thing called I was moved by in your
Speaker 2: you know, your Hall of Fame speech, as he said,
Speaker 2: if you could have one four ball match.
Speaker 4: It would be with your mom, your dad, and your brother.
Speaker 2: I grew up that my mom was a single handicap.
Speaker 4: She was great. My dad was not as good.
Speaker 2: And what do you remember about those those family games
Speaker 2: that sort of you.
Speaker 1: Know, oh, great games, you know, great games. And that's
Speaker 1: what That's what I've said. You know, people ask me
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, you know, and and the answers, oh,
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas and stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll fine, I've played with them, but great, But to
Speaker 1: bring back something that's that be impossible, you know, because
Speaker 1: my mother died quite young and and we had great games.
Speaker 1: We're all single figure handicaps. My mom was nine, my
Speaker 1: dad was five, my brother was about six or seven,
Speaker 1: and I was about two or three at the time
Speaker 1: going down to the scratch thing. So I always played
Speaker 1: with my mom against my brother and my father, and
Speaker 1: it was good, good, good competition or god, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it was. It was Oh yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was worthless in many ways, but it was yes,
Speaker 1: at the dinner table that evening, Oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: mom and I Mom and I used to yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: give it out a wee bid.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: It was superb and something something special really in that.
Speaker 1: And that's the world of golf. You know. You couldn't
Speaker 1: do that. You couldn't really do that football or baseball
Speaker 1: or basketball or something, but you could do it in golf.
Speaker 1: You could play with a family like that and we'll
Speaker 1: have a real good time. And and and you know
Speaker 1: a three well it was three hours in those days.
Speaker 1: It's now taking too long, but a three hour walk
Speaker 1: with a family, you know, people that people. God, now
Speaker 1: the social media world has taken over. People are on
Speaker 1: phones all the time. You know, there was no mobile
Speaker 1: loans in those days. To go out with a family
Speaker 1: for three hours walk and enjoy oneself playing this great
Speaker 1: game of golf. Can't be that you can't beat it.
Speaker 2: No, why are scott so good good at making whiskey?
Speaker 2: And I guess Loch Lomond in particular what makes the water?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the water that's whiskey is hey the water
Speaker 1: of life, isn't it? You know, life is water and
Speaker 1: it's the quality of the water in Scotland coming off
Speaker 1: coming off the mountains. That's what it is more than anything. Yes,
Speaker 1: the peat, the peat and the odd ingredient we have
Speaker 1: is okay, but it's the quality of the water. Very
Speaker 1: few countries can you go to a stream, walking down
Speaker 1: a hillside and drink the water and feel, my god,
Speaker 1: that's fresh. Scotland's one of them. So it's all through
Speaker 1: the quality of the water. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, What have you enjoyed about being a Loch Lomond's
Speaker 2: kind of ambassador stuff?
Speaker 1: It's been It's been a super time. Actually, it's been great.
Speaker 1: You know, we're started at KNUSTI twenty eighteen and I've
Speaker 1: really thrilled. I think the motto the motto is great,
Speaker 1: you know, the spirit of the open. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great motto. I think it's a great tagle line.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the Open, and we have too great
Speaker 1: We have two great exports. Really we are. We are
Speaker 1: the world's greatest exports exporter of whiskey, yes, okay, and
Speaker 1: we're not bad at golf either. You know, we've exported
Speaker 1: golf for the world as well. So golf and whiskey
Speaker 1: are united within Scotland and it's nice to be part
Speaker 1: of both. And it's also it's also a very very
Speaker 1: good drink. I wouldn't say I'm a I'm a big
Speaker 1: aficiano on the on the whiskey side, you know. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, trying other brands to compare against
Speaker 1: the loch Loman brand, I must admit I do prefer
Speaker 1: the lock Clan brand. I'm not just saying that to
Speaker 1: you because I'm talking to you. But it is a
Speaker 1: good taste, it is a good whiskey and I'm proud
Speaker 1: to be part of it. Colin Matthews, the chief executive,
Speaker 1: is a is a fan. I'm a fan of his.
Speaker 1: He's a good golfer and you know, we're good friends
Speaker 1: and it's and it's worked well. I've been to all
Speaker 1: the Open since twenty eighteen. I haven't played in any
Speaker 1: of them on my last Open was twenty sixteen at
Speaker 1: raw Troun. But I've enjoyed being part of it, being
Speaker 1: part of the Lochlan brand, but also going to the
Speaker 1: Open Championships, viewing what's going on and how great and
Speaker 1: how big an event it's become, as all the majors
Speaker 1: have become bigger and better. But it's nice to be
Speaker 1: nice to almost have to go to the Open, you know, really,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm an ambassador for lock Loan and
Speaker 1: Whiskeys in a way, it's a very easy job to say, right,
Speaker 1: tick a nap box this year. Yeah, so we'll look
Speaker 1: forward to going to row Berkedale next year and seeing
Speaker 1: the differences from the last time that I played at Burkedale,
Speaker 1: which was a while ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I have to track you down and I'm
Speaker 4: there and maybe we can have a.
Speaker 1: Please do please do you should come in? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, please, Well, my dear, this has been a delight
Speaker 2: Thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate you, not.
Speaker 1: At all, well, not at all delighted to speak to
Speaker 1: you and best to luck to you all right.
Speaker 3: Big thanks to Kevin to Monty, what a great podcast.
Speaker 3: Big thanks also to PJ. Clark for editing and producing
Speaker 3: this podcast. We will be back on Sunday with our
Speaker 3: Open Championship preview podcasts. It will be a half dy podcast.
Speaker 3: We'll do our traditional five things about the Major, but
Speaker 3: we also have a golf course section that will be
Speaker 3: tacked onto it as well. So big podcast coming Sunday
Speaker 3: to get you ready for the last major of the year.
Speaker 3: Thanks as always for listening, and we'll be back on Sunday.