WEBVTT - Fried Egg Stories: The Massacre at Winged Foot 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.120 This episode of Frida Egg Stories is brought to you 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.400 by the US Open Victory Club. So to celebrate the 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.639 upcoming US Open Week, the Victory Club has teamed up 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.680 with the Frida Egg to give away four ticket packages. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.280 Each of these has two tickets for Saturday and Sunday 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:18.520 at the one hundred and twenty first US Open at 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.799 Tory Pines in twenty twenty one. The Victory Club is 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.479 the official fan club for US Open fans. Membership is 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:30.240 free again free, and you'll get access to exclusive US 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.720 Open content, virtual fan experiences, offers and discounts, and events 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.839 at the championship and throughout the year. So to enter 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.559 the sweepsticks, join the Victory Club at Usopen dot com 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.760 slash Victory Club, complete your profile and answer podcast to 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.640 the question how did you hear about the Victory Club? Again? 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.960 That's Usopen dot com slash Victory Club. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.000 The Frida Egg requires a different technique. What you need 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.160 to do is actually square the face so it'll dig 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.840 down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.760 out onto the green. Here's the thing. Playing out of 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.440 a buried lion of bunker is completely different than playing 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.120 out of a nice, clean lion a greenside bunker. 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.280 You need to be aggressive on any shop, whether it's 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.440 sitting cleanly or it's Frida Egg. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.480 Well, we've all faithd it, the dreaded Frida Egg. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:21.320 Not to be feared, though. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.000 It's actually a pretty easy shot to hit. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.400 So are you recording on your on your zoom i 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:34.160 am recorder? 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:35.120 It is rolling? 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.800 Okay, So if we could just get started with the 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.120 with local rules. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:46.080 Okay. Do you want me to say local rules? Yes, okay, 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.160 local rules. Do not take this book too seriously. It 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.520 is about grown men, most of whom are in a 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.440 living by swinging long sticks in small balls. In other words, 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.960 it is about golf, and golf is neither a microcosm 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:08.359 of nor a metaphor for life. My name is Jeremy Shapp. 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.200 I host a few shows at ESPN outside Lines in 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.320 the sixty and my father Dick Shapp, wrote a book 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.200 about the nineteen seventy four US Open at Wingfoot. The 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.520 name of the book has become synonymous with not only 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.200 that tournament, but also with the course of which always played. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.440 The name of the book was Massacre Foot. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.160 All right, can you hear me? 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:34.720 I can hear you? How you doing. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:40.519 Okay, Well, let's see. I'm hayl Irwin, longtime PGA Tour 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:46.000 professional and an advocate of great golf for everyone. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.760 So Wingfoot nineteen seventy four. Can you just tell me 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.920 a little bit about seeing and playing that course for 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:57.280 the first time that week? 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.919 Oh boy, try to put some of those nightmares away. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:11.000 So this is Friday Egg Stories. I'm Garrett Morrison. Today 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.960 we go back to a time of woundcore balls and 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.640 persimmon headed drivers, the time when the USGA handed the 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.440 winner of its marquee event a check of thirty five 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.960 thousand dollars instead of two million. The nineteen seventy four 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.480 US Open, held at Wingfoot Golf Club has become a 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.880 touchstone in the debate over what a golf championship should be. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.240 Depending on your perspective, It's either the US Open at 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.440 its best or the US Open at its worst. It's 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.160 now known as the Massacre at Wingfoot. That term comes 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.840 from the classic book by Dick Shapp, from which his 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.760 son Jeremy Shapp will be reading some passages in this episode. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.960 This week, the National Championship returns to the West Course 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.680 at Wingfoot, So it feels like a good time to 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.120 consider what it means for a tournament venue to be 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.720 insane difficult, and what it takes to pass that kind 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:04.240 of test. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.960 The attack upon Wingfoot is about to begin. One hundred 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.720 and fifty men, the most gifted golfers in the world, 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.840 are about to assault the West course of the Wingfoot 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:22.040 Golf Club. It's a lovely site for a battle. Eighteen 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.960 holes of gently rolling greenery in Mamaroneck, New York, half 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.320 an hour's drive northeast of Manhattan, in the heart of 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:30.800 affluent suburbia. 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.880 By nineteen seventy four, Wingfoot Golf Club was over fifty 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.000 years old, and the West course had already hosted two 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.560 US Opens and a US Amateur. The credentials of this 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.599 aw tilling House design were well established. So was it 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:51.359 a tilling House intention to build a tough championship course A. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.560 One hundred percent from day one. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.679 You might be aware of the famous quote that you said, 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.840 I was given a simple instruction, give us a man's 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:01.960 sized course. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:03.920 This is Neil Reagan. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.520 I'm the historian at Wingfoot Golf Club. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.120 And Neil is telling me about the first US Open 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.479 at Wingfoot West in nineteen twenty nine, when the course 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.600 was only a few years old. Going into the tournament, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.320 the newspaper headlines had a theme. 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.800 Bobby Jones thinks it's going to be a great driving contest. 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:26.080 Wingfoot is called the most difficult course ever chosen. This 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.160 is the week before the US Open, not the week after. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.520 During the Championship, the writer Obi Keeler was on the grounds. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.200 Obi Keeler, you know, Obie Keiller was Bobby Jones's best 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:37.400 friend and biographer. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.359 With him in the gallery was aw Telling Hast. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:42.719 They met on the course and they talked, and they 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.000 watched a lot of golfers, and he had a classic 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.080 short article about it. 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:47.679 He says. 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.880 One of the most deeply interested spectators was a mister 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.920 A W. Telling Hast, a distinguished looking gentleman with a 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.440 carefully waxed mustache who was to be seen in all 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.039 parts of the golf course at all times, but not 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:01.960 at the same time, or something very much like omnipresence 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:03.159 Tilling Hast. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.080 It seems to the great deal of talking. 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:07.440 They say, it's a tough course. He said to me, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.000 but you will notice that the scores of parr are 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.080 being made not too frequently. 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:12.560 It's true. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.080 The man who scores par at Wingfoot will have shot 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.359 par golf if you know what I mean. Tilling has 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.680 rejoinder to one spectator's comment was a bit of a classic. 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.400 The spectator said, they're having a bit of trouble with 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.760 your golf course. I saw one fellow take three strokes 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.440 in the same bunker, and tilling hast said, possibly the 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:33.159 trouble is it with the bunkers. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.560 After seventy two holes, Bobby Jones and al Espinoza were 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.480 tied at six. Over the next day, Jones beat Espinoza 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.880 in a thirty six hole playoff by twenty three strokes. 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:50.200 The greatest golfer of the era had won in dramatic fashion. 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.560 But not everyone was happy with the first wing Foot Open. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.280 After the open, one newspaper column this wrote a very 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.040 long article saying it was too tricky. 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:00.520 It was too difficult to them. 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:02.520 They would hit the fairway and have to hit over 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.480 a bunker when they got on the green. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.640 They had undulations on the green. It wasn't like other courses. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.880 There were many other articles in the newspapers about how 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:12.960 difficult it was, how it was called the hardest course 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:13.640 in the country. 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.400 So yes, its reputation was there from day one. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.080 One thing I've heard is that the nineteen seventy three 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.440 US Open, where Johnny Miller shot sixty three in the 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.720 final round, famously had some influence on the severity of 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.559 the setup at Wingfoot. Do you think there's some truth 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:33.880 to that? 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.520 One hundred percent? One hundred percent. 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.120 Mark Moulvoy was at Wingfoot in nineteen seventy four. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.120 Yep, my name is this Mark Moulvoy. In nineteen seventy four, 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.080 I was one of the golf writers for Sports Illustrated, 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:50.640 well behind Dan Jenkins. 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.720 And you heard that the USGA was determined not to 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.520 give up another sixty. 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.120 Three and they're not going to do that again. Well, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.480 you know, hey, I can go set up wing Foot 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.920 tomorrow myself where no one's going to break three hundred. Yeah, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:06.800 I'm serious, you know what I mean? 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.960 Three hundred On the eve of the nineteen seventy four 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.280 US Open. Wingfoot is a sterner challenge than ever. The 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.600 course has been linked in Bunker's added trees, planted, all 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.400 the little touches that please the USGA and chill the 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.320 golfer who hopes to break. 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.240 Or equal par So, what made the USGA set up 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.960 of wing Foot in nineteen seventy four, so severe. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:30.600 Well. 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.720 First, the course was playing as a par seventy of 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.680 six nine and twenty one yards, which wouldn't be long today. 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:39.480 But back then, and this. 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.240 Is nineteen seventy four, before we really had the advance 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.240 and technology and the equipment. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:46.680 They played with ballata balls. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.040 We have a golf ball that doesn't go as far. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:51.920 They played with per simmon heads. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.679 We're using wooded headed drivers. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.120 I would bet that at that time that opened in 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.560 seventy for the head of a driver was probably one 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.640 hundred fifty or sixty see seeds. Today it's for sixty. 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.880 We don't have all the ingredients that today's players have 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.439 in terms of technology. Man like Arnold. 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.559 Palmer, who was very long, had struggles reaching the eighteenth 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.080 grade in two. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.160 So it was a very long course. 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:16.520 For the day. 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.840 Second, if you missed fairways, you were in trouble. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.320 So it was ay start with a relatively long golf course. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.160 Number two, the rough was due for the any rough 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:27.920 that I have ever played my career. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:30.960 Roof was too high. You couldn't do anything out of 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:31.480 the rest. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.160 The grass did grow long, very long, and when I 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.000 say I went off to the side of the second green, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.000 and I started pulling up grass and it did not 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.400 stop it about a foot. It kept going. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:48.000 Gary play a shankd to shot on the fourteenth holl 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.800 from the left Roughee shanked a shot across the fairway. 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.280 But when you looked across Gary in the left rough 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.880 there you can always not see Gary because the roof 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.240 was so high, and Gary, of course is a diminutive 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:02.120 to say the least. 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.640 And third, once you managed to get to the green, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:06.400 your work was far from over. 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.280 And once there, now you've got contours, and generally speaking 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.600 the greens might break a little bit from back to front, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.199 but there's a lot of contours in between. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.120 And then the greens were super fast for that era 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.000 seventy four open and went for uc balls. Trick went 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.280 past the cup and going another five and six feet, 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.280 and then a five or six foot quite A bare 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.320 foot is never a straight button never. 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.520 So I think most people when they play wing foot 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.120 will be surprised at how well you have to read 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.320 the greens to shoot any kind of acceptable score. 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.520 So really, what made wing foot such an exacting test 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.000 in nineteen seventy four was pretty simple. In order to 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.079 have much of a chance at par you had to 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.520 hit the green in regulation in order to have much 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.000 of a chance at hitting the green, and regulation you 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.800 had to drive it long and straight, hole after hole 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.120 after home with no letup. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.800 But that's we saw a course that was unrelenting. It 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.640 was going to fight you at every turn, and if 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.520 you made a birdie, it would get back at you. 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.280 At every Open, at least a dozen frustrated professionals vowed 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.640 that they will never never again play in a US Open. 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.520 Early in the week at Wingfoot, the contestants began to grumble. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:26.840 There was a lot of doom and gloom in the 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.440 locker room after those first one or two rounds of practice, 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.280 because no one was coming back with a lot of 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.320 confidence in being able to see very many birdies out there. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.959 It was a very very difficult golf course, and it 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:42.760 was palpable. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.679 And the target of the player's hire was a familiar one. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.960 Hidden behind these gripes is the belief, sometimes expressed and 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.679 more often implied, that the USGA, which is the governing 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.079 board of American amateur golf, is intent upon embarrassing the pros, 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.080 upon spotlighting the flaws, not their flare. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.320 Part of the story here is that in nineteen seventy four, 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.360 competitive pros were just becoming independent. It was only five 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.960 years before that they had broken away from the PGA 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:13.880 of America and they. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.720 Had a bitter battle, and the pros essentially seeded from 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:23.680 the PGA and formed the PGA Tour. Well, I think 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.280 that they were looking for some support from the USGA. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.360 It didn't get it, So the fledgling PGA Tour was 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.839 on its own and more and more inclined to view 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:33.680 the USGA as an opponent. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.120 I mean they just felt that, you know, it was 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.080 too much of an amateur operation. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.280 Tuesday, two forty pm, a pair of young pros are 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:48.040 standing outside the clubhouse, engaged in a favorite pastime, complaining 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.200 about the USGA. I wouldn't even play in a USGA events, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.240 as one of them, if it wasn't the Open. This 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.960 would be a great tournament if the USGA didn't run it, 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.079 says the other pro let me re phrase that this 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.120 is a great tournament in spite of the USGA. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:06.760 So what did you What did you make of the 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:08.160 complaints about the setup? 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.760 Well, I might answer that question with the question, let's say, 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.200 do you hear from the players of note ever any 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.880 complaining about the golf course. Probably not. You hear the 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.240 players that complain the most are the ones that at 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.360 least likely to win a golf tournament. So I think 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:31.760 when you start putting barriers around what is acceptable to you, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:36.480 you've really locked yourself in to a non competing position. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.079 And I remember after the second practice round saying to myself, 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.640 if seventy percent of field is checked out, I mean 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.400 you could just there were players that just weren't capable, 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.679 and you can hear them talking. So if I can 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.840 be thirty percent field, I might have a chance. 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:59.480 Wednesday, eleven thirty am, three USGA officials, each tucked in 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.280 a blue blae, each with a pipe tucked in his mouth, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.440 or holding a conference to explained the course to the press. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.920 What we try to do, says Sandy Tatum, is not 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.720 to confound the best golfers in the world, but to 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:13.040 find out who they are. 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.400 And I didn't grow up in a country club environment. 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.480 I grew up in a very small town of southeast Kansas. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.000 We had a little nine hole sand green golf course 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.120 and I just pictures over here on the wall of 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.080 that little course. And when we moved to Colorado, when 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.120 I was fourteen, I caddied at a local municipal golf course. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.360 I'd make two dollars to seventy five cents and then 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.480 I'd go pay the green spees of two dollars and 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:46.360 twenty five cents. That'd leave me fifty cents to buy 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:47.640 a hot dog or whatever it was. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.760 Pale Irwin quickly became an excellent golfer, but he ended 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.080 up going to college for football at the University of Colorado. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.920 He was an All Conference defensive back, and it was 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.480 on the football field that he developed his mo mindset 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:01.320 as a competitor. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.920 Here was a case where playing college football sort of 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.320 undersized under speed. I mean everything I did was under 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.760 the norm kind of gave me a little bit of 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.360 an attitude towards You're not going to beat me. You know, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.120 I may lose, but it won't be from lack of effort. 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.320 He knew he had to play not only harder, but smarter. 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.080 You'll always hear you perhaps you know, sorry, you have 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.840 to read your keys, and my keys were generally speaking, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.560 the offensive linement, the center, two guards, and most of 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.640 the time they will give away the play just by 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.640 their stance, the way they acted and what you watch 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.720 on film enough and then you get in the game 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:44.960 and you see it firsthand. You start picking up the 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.320 little idiosyncrasies, whether it be the eyes might move, or 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:50.960 the head or the way the hand goes down on 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.400 the ground or something that you pick up. You you 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:56.440 have to have those clues. And that's what I think 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.880 I was good at was anticipating and recognizing those clues and. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:05.240 Wing foot Taylorwin saw a big, fast offensive line. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.320 And I'm respectful of not only my opponent, but the 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.840 opponent for this golf course. I'm respectful of that man. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.160 With that respect comes the recognition that I've got to 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.240 pay attention to some of the details. You had to 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.080 put the ball in the fairway, but that doesn't mean 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.720 you hit an iron off the tee because now you're 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.440 left with such a long second shot. It just doubles 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.800 up on how difficult that second shot becomes. So got 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.280 hit fairways, got to hit greens, and keep the ball 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.600 under the hole. It does not matter. I'll trade a 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.400 thirty fit or a ten foot downhill button for a 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.040 thirty fit uphill, But every time, just put the ball 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.120 under the hole. Don't worry where the flag is. If 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.680 the flag is twenty two pass on and six in 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.080 the right. So what, let's hit it in the middle 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.760 of the green. Okay, it's twenty Let's just try to 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.240 hit it twenty and you know, just find those areas 0:16:57.760 --> 0:16:59.640 in which to hit the ball. So I felt like, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.320 for me, that could give me a reward. It throw 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.520 me a bone that if I hit a shot that 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.560 was on the green and I'm within thirty feet the hole, Hey, yeah, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.199 with success. So that's just the way I kind of 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.160 played my game, and I've always played my game. That's 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.520 why I've never relied upon a caddy. For all the 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.240 advice that today's caddies seek to throw at their players, 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.680 Oh it put me to sleep. I've got a play 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.400 faster than that. I haven't got time to be ridden 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:27.760 in bedtime storage. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.960 So by nineteen seventy four, Hail Irwin was a twenty 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.040 nine year old pro with an NCAA championship and two 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.000 wins at Harbortown to his name. But he brought a 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.760 lot more than just that resume to the Wingfoot Open. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.120 He also brought experience with opponents much scarier than any 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.199 golf course, and he brought a self confidence rooted in 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.439 self reliance rooted in a childhood of sand greens in 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:57.520 two seventy five per. 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.000 Loop are Mike Talon seeing it better than anybody else, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.560 so walks out there on the grass. No, does my 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.800 confidence in myself? Is it any less than Jack Nicholas 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.879 would have. No. I have a belief in myself that 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.280 what I'm doing for me is the proper thing to do. 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.080 Of course, that's not to say that hailer Win was 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.200 unaffected by the severity of wing. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.920 Fut By the time we got to Thursday and they 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.919 called your name on the first team, and you're thinking, oh, no, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.840 here we go. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to post this. 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:37.040 Car Thursday one, eight pm. After driving into the rough 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.040 then hitting a five iron twenty feet above the first hole, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.639 Jack Nicholas gently taps his putt toward the cup. The 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.360 ball slips past and rolls down the incline, leaving Nicholas 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.119 a full twenty five foot putt coming back. What an 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.360 embarrassing way to start the opening. 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.119 Fut pass And your words spread very quickly on the 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.399 first day with Jack Nicholas four putted the first you 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.840 put it right off the green. You know, that's like wildfire, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.040 and now you get an idea of what you're in for. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.280 If you hadn't suspected already, now you know so. 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.240 Anyway, in the fourth hall, the pin was sort of 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.879 in the center of the green, but right center, just 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.440 in from the from the fringe. Projecked a beautiful iron 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.000 in there, about ten or fifteen feet right of the 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:21.840 whole three part of that sucker. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.480 The best golfer in the world finished with a five 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.359 over seventy five seven PM. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.360 Jack Nicholas comes into the press ten without complaints or excuses. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.720 The course didn't play any tougher than other open courses, 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.119 Nicholas says, the greens are the course you're scared of 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.879 every putt. I wish we've played a course like this 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.199 every week. We'd learn how to put Later on Thursday, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.119 a motorist attempting to leave the Wing Foot Golf Club, 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.720 takes a wrong turn and accidentally drives across the first green. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.680 He does no damage at all. The green holds up 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:56.880 like asphalt. 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.879 No one broke. Part of that first day, Gary Player 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.760 held the solo lead after an opening seventy and three 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.520 shots behind him. Hail Irwin was playing a study game. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.280 So I thought, for me, if I can go out 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.440 and stay positive, even with a bogie, I know I'm 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:16.360 going to make that, but I know others are going 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.080 to make them too. So let's stay in the game. 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.640 Forget what happened on the last and this is something 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.000 that should happen all the time. But forget about what 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.399 you've just done. Let's think about what you have. 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.879 To do on Friday. Playing in the morning, hail Irwin 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.120 doesn't make many scores he has to forget. He finishes 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.639 with a seventy and by the middle of the afternoon 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.080 holds the lead at plus three. One shot. Behind him 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.960 are two twenty four year old toms Kite and Watson. 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.159 Tied with hail Ierwin are Ray Floyd, Gary Player, and 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:48.960 one other very familiar name. 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.760 Friday, five point thirty six pm, as Arnold Palmer walks 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.320 toward the seventeenth t the division of his troops begins 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.200 to applaud What did he just do? Someone I think 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.080 he just breathed A cynic replies. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.440 You're in the final group on Saturday, and in front 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.480 of you is the pairing of Gary Player and Arnold Palmer. 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.840 What do you remember of the atmosphere around that group 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.800 ahead of you. What was the what was the venue 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:21.679