Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 3: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg,
Speaker 3: Frida egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the Welcome back
Speaker 1: to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Andy Johnson. Today I have a giant podcast
Speaker 1: for you. I have two parts, two interviews, one with
Speaker 1: Todd Dempsey that I conducted and another with Chris Millard,
Speaker 1: longtime golf media person who's written a book, new book.
Speaker 1: The Todd Dempsey podcast was done by me. The interview
Speaker 1: with Chris was done by Garrett Morrison. Garrett is out
Speaker 1: of the country right now. He is frolicking about Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 1: I'm very jealous. I'm envious of his trip. Right now,
Speaker 1: he's playing with some Australian golf legends at some of
Speaker 1: the best golf courses in the world. So today, who
Speaker 1: knows where he is today, but he just finished up Victoria,
Speaker 1: He's played Royal Melbourne East. I'm not sure where he's
Speaker 1: going today, but he is. He's on quite quite the
Speaker 1: little trip down there. Todd Dempsey will be up first then.
Speaker 1: Chris Todd, for those that don't know, is a former
Speaker 1: PGA Tour player. He was a four time All American
Speaker 1: at Arizona State in the nineties, a walker cupper. What's
Speaker 1: interesting about his life now is that he makes Persimon woods.
Speaker 1: He plays Persimmon woods pretty much exclusively. He has played
Speaker 1: like PGA Tour Qualifiers, Champions Tour, Final Stage, Q School
Speaker 1: playing per Simmon. Just a very interesting person in golf.
Speaker 1: Chris Millard, he just wrote a new book. The new
Speaker 1: book is called The Shot Watson Nicholas, Pebble Beach and
Speaker 1: the Chip That Changed Everything. So it's a look at
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty two US Open and Pebble Beach. A
Speaker 1: lot of the book is actually about the architecture of
Speaker 1: Pebble Beach. So Garrett and Chris talk in depth about
Speaker 1: this book in Pebble Beach and that's the podcast. Before
Speaker 1: we get into the podcast, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and talk about our partner, Stripe. Stripe's been a partner
Speaker 1: of the Egg for a really long time, really since
Speaker 1: we started to take payment. So we spend a couple
Speaker 1: of years not doing any monetization. But when we wanted
Speaker 1: to make money on the website, we turned to Stripe
Speaker 1: and Stripe's been an amazing partner honestly, like great partners
Speaker 1: are partners that you don't have to worry about. I've
Speaker 1: never really had to worry about Stripe. So Stripe works
Speaker 1: for us. They also work for giant businesses like Alaska Airlines,
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Speaker 1: This is an amazing stat. It powers one percent of
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Speaker 1: lot of products. You know, they have their online checkout
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Speaker 1: the other cool products that they have that we use
Speaker 1: and over three hundred thousand businesses used, that's more than
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Speaker 1: advance billing software to handle even the most complex business models.
Speaker 1: So whether you need a flat rate monthly subscription that's
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Speaker 1: in between. Stripe Business helps businesses grow with smarter recurring
Speaker 1: revenue management. So if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: what Stripe can do for your business. Visit stripe dot com. Todd,
Speaker 1: I would love to hear you are becoming one of
Speaker 1: the foremost Persimmon officionados in the in the game of golf,
Speaker 1: I'd say you're on the on the forefront, nobody else
Speaker 1: is playing per Simon and Champions Tour Q school. What
Speaker 1: is the process for building a persimon would like you're
Speaker 1: doing right now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I start with pretty much a just a raw
Speaker 4: block of person. It's it's been eat it and and
Speaker 4: dry it out by by the middle Ground in Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Really good guys that are still still uh cutting per
Speaker 4: Simon and so yeah, I start with a pretty raw
Speaker 4: block and you know sole plate face, insert, bore out
Speaker 4: the hozzle, just in shape it to whatever whatever I
Speaker 4: want to to create. So it's uh, it's fun. I
Speaker 4: I definitely in high school, I used to refinish woods,
Speaker 4: but but now it's being able to create it from
Speaker 4: pretty much nothing is is a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: What type of tools are you using to like shape
Speaker 1: it down? Like how do you get it into that
Speaker 1: into the head design? I'm also curious, like do you
Speaker 1: play around with different designs? I know, like I have
Speaker 1: a few different sets of Percimmons with with different features,
Speaker 1: Like I have a the Ben Hogan one that as
Speaker 1: the little like speed slot on it. Like, are you
Speaker 1: messing around with aerodynamic designs and and trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, how you can improve them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I do. I try to. You know,
Speaker 4: most people that are into Persimmon are into the classic designs.
Speaker 4: But that speed slot that is a that is a
Speaker 4: good I love that that Hogan head. But I've messed
Speaker 4: around with some larger heads and some really small heads,
Speaker 4: and yeah, I mean I'm always kind of looking to
Speaker 4: see what works, but try to stick to pretty classic
Speaker 4: designs and keep it as simple as possible.
Speaker 1: You mentioned so you're into refinishing Persimmons as a kid,
Speaker 1: I think like every kid really probably from my generation
Speaker 1: to back, was into it. Like I always remember as
Speaker 1: a kid, like playing around with lead tape ape and
Speaker 1: seeing what I can do. I think like a lot
Speaker 1: of that's gone with the modern clubs and club fitting
Speaker 1: where it's gotten to, but I used to, you know,
Speaker 1: mess around with different setups, and you know, you would
Speaker 1: you would do different things to your clubs, Like when
Speaker 1: you finished playing professional golf around it was the you know,
Speaker 1: early twenty tens. How did you get back into the
Speaker 1: Persimmon world.
Speaker 4: It was kind of by accident. I didn't play much
Speaker 4: golf at first. After after the game kind of beat
Speaker 4: me up a little bit and I didn't play much.
Speaker 4: But when I did go back out, I find myself
Speaker 4: just playing around with per Simmons. It's just for me
Speaker 4: fun to you know, the feel and the sound and
Speaker 4: in my opinion, the way the way the game was
Speaker 4: meant to be played. Yeah, it was kind of by accident.
Speaker 4: I didn't didn't really go out with the intention of
Speaker 4: making per Simmons, but I started to start messing around
Speaker 4: with making some from scratch and got a lot of
Speaker 4: interest from from friends, so I started making for them
Speaker 4: and then just kind of kind of grew from there.
Speaker 1: What have you seen is like, what what type of people,
Speaker 1: if you've thought about this, are kind of most drawn
Speaker 1: to the Persimon game? And and like what I see
Speaker 1: when I have mine in the bag is like golfers
Speaker 1: around me are just genuinely interested in hitting it. They
Speaker 1: love obviously love the sound. But is there is there
Speaker 1: a type of person that you come across more often
Speaker 1: than not that is particularly interested in playing per Semon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say mostly people in my age range, you know,
Speaker 4: early fifties that kind of played per Simmon, kind of
Speaker 4: at the tail end of Persimmon, and then the start
Speaker 4: of metal woods, which which obviously really changed the game completely.
Speaker 4: So I think people that kind of appreciate how the
Speaker 4: game was. How you know, golf courses were designed for Persimmon,
Speaker 4: they were not designed for the wood, the metal woods
Speaker 4: that are out today, So I think, but I have
Speaker 4: seen all ages, you know, you surprise I have been
Speaker 4: surprised how many younger people are drawn to the person
Speaker 4: and the game. The way when you look at old
Speaker 4: highlights of great players in the past and playing what
Speaker 4: they played.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's amazing when you look back at
Speaker 1: like the shells wonderful world of golf, and just the
Speaker 1: how much stylistically the difference of the game is with
Speaker 1: you know, Persimmon would than in comparison to the metal
Speaker 1: like just how how dramatically different. Even the technique of
Speaker 1: a golf swing is. What do you see from from
Speaker 1: your standpoint as someone who played on tour in the
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty CC era, how is your golf
Speaker 1: swing and your approach to the game different when you
Speaker 1: play per simmon versus the modern technology.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's definitely a little more With today's equipment, you
Speaker 4: can kind of swing for the fences and just just
Speaker 4: let it go or then I mean you still it's
Speaker 4: still the same swing, but it's swing's a little a
Speaker 4: little less reckless than I see some of the swings today.
Speaker 4: And you know, misshits are we're an issue back then,
Speaker 4: where now you just kind of hit it anywhere on
Speaker 4: the face and it's going to get out there somewhere
Speaker 4: in play. So it's taking a lot of the skill
Speaker 4: out of the game and has changed the way people
Speaker 4: swing the club. For sure. I'm not a super technical
Speaker 4: and I don't really analyze the golf swing, but but
Speaker 4: it looks different when I in the rare occasion when
Speaker 4: I watch a little on TV, it's swings are swings
Speaker 4: are a lot different than what I remember growing up.
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of that is the equipment,
Speaker 4: which is kind of a shame, but it's not much
Speaker 4: not much we can do about it now, But I
Speaker 4: I just I just like to keep the game the
Speaker 4: way I the game I fell in love with growing up.
Speaker 4: That the beauty of of of the game and the
Speaker 4: equipment and and you know, nobody was really trying to
Speaker 4: cheat the game with developing clubs that that make it easier,
Speaker 4: you know, they're I think the rules it's you know,
Speaker 4: once the Metal Woods came out, the hollow heads, it's
Speaker 4: kind of a turning point in the game, and it
Speaker 4: would have been nice to keep you know, solid heads, no,
Speaker 4: no hollow heads. It seems like it could be a simple,
Speaker 4: simple rule, simple fixed to to what we got now,
Speaker 4: but it's definitely a little late for that.
Speaker 1: You uh, you have played on the Champion and Champion
Speaker 1: Shore Q School also some Monday qualifiers with the person
Speaker 1: in Woods. What is the general reaction of of your
Speaker 1: your playing partners when they see what you're what you're
Speaker 1: rolling up with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely gets gets some interest. And I'm not
Speaker 4: really people that know me know, I'm not really into
Speaker 4: get into the spotlight or trying to get attention and
Speaker 4: kind of the opposite. So it's I kind of I
Speaker 4: play it just because I love playing it, and but yeah,
Speaker 4: well kind of wonder what I'm doing at times, but
Speaker 4: it's just I'd rather just not not play than than
Speaker 4: play with some of this modern stuff. That's that's really
Speaker 4: It's made the game just so so much. You know,
Speaker 4: you go play Cyprus Point, great, great course, that's now.
Speaker 4: I mean people hitting sandwiches into into every hole and
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of a shame. But I just do
Speaker 4: it for my own enjoyment and try to try to
Speaker 4: avoid too much attention. I just like to do my thing.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, I understand where people wonder what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I you know, in my experience playing like Persimmon and
Speaker 1: seventies plays, I've gotta set up Wilson FG seventeens that
Speaker 1: I play with a fair amount to me, I don't
Speaker 1: think like if you play well, you still like you
Speaker 1: can't maybe quite bully the par fives as much, but
Speaker 1: like you still have the ability to shoot really good scores.
Speaker 1: I think this is like a misconception people think, like
Speaker 1: like turning it back to the Stone Agent turns the
Speaker 1: game into impossible. Like if anything, I find like when
Speaker 1: I play per Simmon, I keep the ball in play
Speaker 1: a little bit more even on poor driving days because
Speaker 1: the ball just doesn't go as far off line. But
Speaker 1: like what I see is like by I still have
Speaker 1: the ability to shoot really really good rounds. It's just
Speaker 1: when I don't have it, it's a little bit more
Speaker 1: clear that I don't have it, right, Like it creates
Speaker 1: almost a little bit, just a little bit wider variance
Speaker 1: of scoring, but like it doesn't prohibit you from shooting
Speaker 1: a low number.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. It's if you're swinging it well, it
Speaker 4: gets out there almost as far as the modern stuff.
Speaker 4: And like you're saying, it's a little straighter, so yeah,
Speaker 4: I agree, it's not. You're not giving up much when
Speaker 4: you when you're swinging it well, when you're a little off,
Speaker 4: it can it's it makes the game a little tougher,
Speaker 4: but that's just kind of the way it was designed
Speaker 4: to be played, So I yeah, it's it's especially with
Speaker 4: my woods, they're kind of designed for the modern ball.
Speaker 4: The some of the older older per Simmons, if you
Speaker 4: try to you know, they were designed for ballattas, so
Speaker 4: they can be tough. But but mine are you know,
Speaker 4: a little more weight in the back, a little a
Speaker 4: little more loft, a little less bulge and roll, and
Speaker 4: they tend to work well with the modern ball. So
Speaker 4: I really don't feel like I give up much at all.
Speaker 4: And then you add in just the enjoyment of of
Speaker 4: enjoying the game, and that's worth worth a few shots
Speaker 4: in my opinion. So yeah, it's uh, I.
Speaker 1: Think I think just generally, like I find my attitude
Speaker 1: when I play with with the older stuff is better
Speaker 1: as well. And I think like, and I have a
Speaker 1: friend that says that this is because you don't practice
Speaker 1: anymore and you know you're not as good as you
Speaker 1: used to be, and these clubs help you cope with that.
Speaker 1: But I do think like just in general, like when
Speaker 1: you you you're I think like, I just find myself
Speaker 1: happier with the with the with the like there, the
Speaker 1: feel of it is just so much more rewarding, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know you are swinging well, when you're driving it well,
Speaker 1: there are no you know, misconceptions about how you're playing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's definitely true. You can't really fake it
Speaker 4: with with persimon and blades. You know, you either make
Speaker 4: a good swing or you don't, and you accept the consequences.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, that's it's I just feel like, again,
Speaker 4: classic golf courses were designed for for this type of equipment.
Speaker 4: So when people go out and say they shot sixty
Speaker 4: three at Cyprus Point, it's not really the same as
Speaker 4: Ben Hogan shooting sixty three in the in the match.
Speaker 4: You know, it's that was like a totally different game.
Speaker 4: So it's it's kind of you really can't records have
Speaker 4: kind of gone out out the window. You know. It's
Speaker 4: uh with with you know, when the Hogan's hitting you know,
Speaker 4: mid irons into every hole out there and guys are
Speaker 4: hitting sandwiches. It's just it's not you can't compare those scores.
Speaker 4: So but it's again, it's more more about the enjoyment
Speaker 4: for me and just yeah, just enjoying playing golf. It's, uh,
Speaker 4: there's a much more satisfaction on a good good drive.
Speaker 4: And and it's just what I remember as a kid
Speaker 4: growing up in the eighties playing golf. That's, you know,
Speaker 4: getting on the first tee and looking at everybody's driver,
Speaker 4: the gray and the stain in color. It's definitely different.
Speaker 4: Now you get on the first tee and it's, uh.
Speaker 1: Was do you asked? You asked? Was your was your
Speaker 1: driver built with AI technology? Like mine? Was?
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, I I know. Now you get on the
Speaker 4: tee and and and it's just whatever brand four hundred
Speaker 4: and sixty c C driver you've got where it was,
Speaker 4: it was a lot more you know, started conversation, you know,
Speaker 4: looking at somebody's McGregor or somebody's wood Brothers, and every
Speaker 4: every driver was unique, one of a kind. So it's
Speaker 4: a I don't know, it's not not for everybody. I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to change anybody's mind about golf, but I
Speaker 4: for me, it's just, uh, I don't think i'd play
Speaker 4: if I if I if I stuck to what the
Speaker 4: way equipment is going.
Speaker 1: I've told a lot of people that I've played golf
Speaker 1: with this the story this year, but we we did
Speaker 1: a we did a Hickory tournament and it was we
Speaker 1: played like seventy two holes of hickory golf. And I played,
Speaker 1: you know, the day or two before it with Hickory
Speaker 1: clubs and and it was it was awesome. It was
Speaker 1: super fun. But you know, the Hickory clubs are heavier,
Speaker 1: and obviously then you have the small sweet spot. And
Speaker 1: I played a couple of days after that, I played
Speaker 1: with modern clubs, and what I couldn't believe was I
Speaker 1: had It was an effect. I felt like it effectively
Speaker 1: was like speed training. I came back, I was faster
Speaker 1: and because of the emphasis of hitting the club in
Speaker 1: the center. I the next like two weeks, I drove
Speaker 1: the ball better as good as I've ever driven the
Speaker 1: ball because of like if you think about like the
Speaker 1: mechanics of of have hitting these Percimmons or Hickory drivers, well,
Speaker 1: like you have to you have to focus on center contact,
Speaker 1: and then the added weight is effectively like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a donut in baseball right where So I think,
Speaker 1: like when I what I'm saying this for is like
Speaker 1: I think, like any like type of golfer, if you
Speaker 1: play with this type of technology every once in a while,
Speaker 1: when you come out of it, I guarantee you're going
Speaker 1: to play better with the modern clubs because like you
Speaker 1: are going to like the folk you you cannot take
Speaker 1: a swing. I think, like that's the biggest thing, is
Speaker 1: Like I think, I like can space out. I'm somebody
Speaker 1: that has a short attention span, and modern equipment allows
Speaker 1: me to space out, whereas retro equipment does not allow
Speaker 1: me that opportunity. I like, I find myself more focused
Speaker 1: over shots, and that is a good thing just to
Speaker 1: do because when you play the modern equipment and you
Speaker 1: bring that laser focus back, it is like you are,
Speaker 1: you are going to play a lot better than before
Speaker 1: playing that stuff. So I think it's it's a I
Speaker 1: think like people do this like cross and I like,
Speaker 1: I thoroughly this is not why I play retro clubs,
Speaker 1: but people do cross training and all sorts of other sports,
Speaker 1: and I think that, like one thing that nobody's really
Speaker 1: explored is how cross training with old equipment can help
Speaker 1: you play better golf with modern equipment. And I know
Speaker 1: that's not why you're doing it, but it is another
Speaker 1: avenue of appeal for the old equipment is that I
Speaker 1: guarantee by playing like what I found after playing I
Speaker 1: played like it probably a year and a half, two
Speaker 1: years of personmon and blades. What I found because I
Speaker 1: missed way more greens. My short game got way better
Speaker 1: over two years. Right, My putting got better because I
Speaker 1: had more lag putts because I was having longer approaches
Speaker 1: into greens. You know, like it made me a way
Speaker 1: more complete player by playing this equipment. And sure, like
Speaker 1: I didn't shoot all like the lowest scores all the time,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was improving because of what the
Speaker 1: equipment was forcing me to get better at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I used to
Speaker 4: coach some kids, some high school golfers trying to play
Speaker 4: college golf, and I would give them a per Simon
Speaker 4: would and I could see it with them. It helped
Speaker 4: their driving. It definitely has helped my driving when I
Speaker 4: reluctantly do play a modern driver. It just is so easy.
Speaker 4: It's not even it doesn't even feel like off, but it,
Speaker 4: uh yeah, it's it's it's not really why I do it,
Speaker 4: but I agree that it can only help you know, it's, uh,
Speaker 4: if if you're hitting wedges into every hole, you're probably
Speaker 4: not missing many greens and you're not not really learning
Speaker 4: how to play the game. So I it's I would
Speaker 4: definitely recommend it, even for people that aren't interested in
Speaker 4: it for the nostalgic reasons, to to to play them
Speaker 4: and see what it does for your game, because it
Speaker 4: definitely definitely makes you sharp. You can't you can't get
Speaker 4: away with a whole lot swinging for Simmons.
Speaker 1: So you you had a great competitive career, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you might say, oh well, he might play
Speaker 1: downplay it, you downplay stuff, but you you were a
Speaker 1: four time All American at Arizona State. You played on
Speaker 1: the Walker Cup. You made one hundred and fifty cuts
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty cuts on the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: and corn Ferry Tour. When you look back on your
Speaker 1: your career, do you have like a singular event or
Speaker 1: experience that stands out above all all the other ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean definitely playing the Walker Cup was one
Speaker 4: of the highlights, you know, representing the US, and that
Speaker 4: definitely stands out. As far as pro golf, it all
Speaker 4: kind of ran together. It was a way to make
Speaker 4: a living, and it kind of kind of squeaked by,
Speaker 4: but it was I got away from from why I
Speaker 4: played golf, and I was just out there trying to,
Speaker 4: you know, like make cuts and make some money, and
Speaker 4: completely got away from from why I started playing the game.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of why when I was I didn't
Speaker 4: play at all, and then when I did come back
Speaker 4: and play, I was going to do it differently with
Speaker 4: persimmons and kind of the way the game when I
Speaker 4: was introduced to the game, the way it was played.
Speaker 1: So what is it about golf that you love the
Speaker 1: most at its core? You like like the aspect of
Speaker 1: the game that the person brings out. What is it
Speaker 1: about golf that you fell in love with as a kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it wasn't about the score. It was
Speaker 4: more about just being out out in the nature and
Speaker 4: the course, being one with the course and kind of
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you're trying to shoot a low score,
Speaker 4: but it was kind of it was not in the
Speaker 4: top five of things that I was out there for. Again,
Speaker 4: when I turned pro, it became everything. So yeah, just
Speaker 4: is is a you know, as much more into into
Speaker 4: golf courses. That's That's one thing I did find when
Speaker 4: I went from amateur to pro golf went from playing
Speaker 4: you know, really really good golf courses to still good courses,
Speaker 4: but not not historical. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I played
Speaker 4: for US Amateurs and and maybe they weren't the They
Speaker 4: were all good, but not It was kind of a
Speaker 4: kind of a low point in in in the U
Speaker 4: s Ams. But I the Champions Club in Houston was
Speaker 4: was a highlight. But you know, the Honors Course, TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 1: Do you have Mirefield Village around then too.
Speaker 4: Airfield Village, which, yeah, that was good, but but you know,
Speaker 4: it was kind of an interesting stretch for for for Usam's.
Speaker 1: But I well, it's an interesting stretch for golf architecture.
Speaker 1: I think when you were growing up the the late
Speaker 1: eighties early nineties is probably when you would say that
Speaker 1: golf architecture completely had most lost its way, you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five that you know, you're talking about like
Speaker 1: at that point the very starts of the careers of
Speaker 1: Tom Doe, Core and Crenshaw, these people that have brought
Speaker 1: back that brought back a lot of the great classic
Speaker 1: golf courses with restorations and and then also brought a
Speaker 1: whole new era of golf design into kind of into vogue.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't until you know, really the early two
Speaker 1: thousands that you were on the PGA tour at that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's true. And I mean, I think Pete
Speaker 4: Died puts a lot of a lot of thought, put
Speaker 4: a lot of thought into his designs, and I think
Speaker 4: he was a genius. But uh yeah, two of my
Speaker 4: usams were Pete die course, which is okay, amazing, But
Speaker 4: but yeah, I definitely drawn to the more classic designs,
Speaker 4: the more subtle, subtle features.
Speaker 1: And if I was going to give you ten rounds
Speaker 1: of golf, how would you how would you break them out?
Speaker 1: You could bring whoever you want, so you can bring
Speaker 1: you know, assume you're flying private from course to course.
Speaker 1: You got ten rounds with three of your favorite people.
Speaker 1: How are you splitting up the ten rounds across courses?
Speaker 4: I mean growing up in San Diego and my first
Speaker 4: five will probably be California courses.
Speaker 1: I live in California and one of the things I
Speaker 1: love the most about here is the golf courses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I know, I miss I'm in Florida now.
Speaker 4: I really miss the Polanta and how bad they get
Speaker 4: in the afternoon and how I just I just this
Speaker 4: that you know, I'm I'm on this Bermuda here. That's
Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm still trying to find courses that
Speaker 4: inspire me out here. But I would you know, Cypress, Pebble.
Speaker 1: Gosh, you could do multiple, multiple rounds courses too. This
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be ten. So you could say I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play five at Cypress and I you know, but
Speaker 1: you can. You can break up to your ten however
Speaker 1: you want. I saw your your your Walker Cup was
Speaker 1: supposed to be at Chicago Golf and it got canceled.
Speaker 4: Yeah, bad break, Yeah exactly. I mean, interlocking was good.
Speaker 1: It was Interlock, it's great.
Speaker 4: But yeah, Chicago Golf and I was able to finally
Speaker 4: play out there a few years ago for the first time,
Speaker 4: and yeah, that would have been fun. And I love
Speaker 4: Seth Rayner and but yeah, Interlock in a lot of
Speaker 4: history there with Bobby Jones and but yeah that Yeah,
Speaker 4: going back to the courses i'd play, I recently played
Speaker 4: Pine Valley a friend of mine as a member and
Speaker 4: finally got to play out there. That that is an
Speaker 4: amazing place. I wasn't It wasn't what I expected. I
Speaker 4: thought it was just going to be really impossible, and
Speaker 4: which it kind of was. But I it's pretty fair,
Speaker 4: you know, It's it's there. You can't lose a ball
Speaker 4: out there. It's pretty hard to lose a ball, which
Speaker 4: I expected it to be different, but they've they've got
Speaker 4: it trimmed up pretty good where you're not going to
Speaker 4: lose a ball and it's either hit good shots so
Speaker 4: you don't and it's it's relentless. But I definitely definitely
Speaker 4: want to play out there.
Speaker 1: I think one of the interesting things about that that
Speaker 1: golf course is like way better with Persimmon than modern.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first day we play, I played all the
Speaker 4: way back, which I don't know the yardage and I
Speaker 4: don't know if those teas were there back back in
Speaker 4: the day or not. But it was a little bit
Speaker 4: of a stretch. But the second day we played one
Speaker 4: tee up and it was just perfect with percent and
Speaker 4: being able to work it off the tee and so yeah,
Speaker 4: that that was. That was a fun, fun couple of days.
Speaker 4: As far as East Coast courses, that would probably be
Speaker 4: my favorite. But yeah, I'd rather I could just go
Speaker 4: up the California coast, you know, you could.
Speaker 1: You could do you know, like if you just did
Speaker 1: California and you did you know, l a CC, Valley Club, Cyprus,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, Like in cal Club, it looks pretty you
Speaker 1: could do two in each of those five. I mean,
Speaker 1: you haven't even talked about Riviero bel Air. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like it's kind of crazy, like how in how
Speaker 1: different and unique all those courses are from each other.
Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, that's that's the beauty of California. You
Speaker 4: got everything, you know, every every kind of weather, every topography,
Speaker 4: and yeah, the golf in California is it's what I
Speaker 4: grew up on and so I definitely miss it. I
Speaker 4: was able to go out there a couple of times
Speaker 4: this year and play and play some of those courses again.
Speaker 4: But it, yeah, I could. Yeah, you never get bored
Speaker 4: playing golf in California.
Speaker 1: You played with Phil Mickelson in college. I believe you're
Speaker 1: a brief roommate of Phil. Do you have a favorite
Speaker 1: story from or tale of Phil from his from his
Speaker 1: early years.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't think of a specific story, but
Speaker 4: he was just you could tell he was going to
Speaker 4: do something great just being around him. His confidence and
Speaker 4: his Yeah, there's just something different there that and he
Speaker 4: was always very good to me. He he made my
Speaker 4: game better. I played played a lot with him and
Speaker 4: tried to compete with him, and and that that really,
Speaker 4: you know, did a lot for my game, my short
Speaker 4: game especially. I just I realized just how good people
Speaker 4: can be putting and chipping. I mean, I'd never seen
Speaker 4: anything like it, So, yeah, it was it was a positive.
Speaker 4: I think it was just one year that that I
Speaker 4: played with him, but he yeah, he I mean, it's
Speaker 4: it's kind of a shame to see he's kind of
Speaker 4: I was hoping to watch him play some Champions Tour stuff,
Speaker 4: and I don't haven't seen much live stuff. But it's
Speaker 4: I was hoping he was gonna play more PG tour
Speaker 4: stuff for a while. He's you know, winning the PGA
Speaker 4: at fifty. He still still was competitive.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, I think I was at that PGA,
Speaker 1: and I think that I think because of like what's
Speaker 1: happened over the last couple of years, that gets a
Speaker 1: little bit overshadowed and not talked about as like truly
Speaker 1: one of the great sporting moments of the last like
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe one of the greatest sporting moments of
Speaker 1: like in the history of sports was that win. It
Speaker 1: was un I mean, he he had no form and
Speaker 1: then like to take down Brooks Kopka, who at the
Speaker 1: time was like the pre eminent major championship player and
Speaker 1: like completely like kind of like I it was walking
Speaker 1: inside the ropes that day. I was. I mean, it
Speaker 1: felt like he just like played a game on him,
Speaker 1: like he he he like kind of got him mentally,
Speaker 1: you know, he slow played him and kind of I
Speaker 1: think he drove him nuts. And part of how Kopka
Speaker 1: kind of folded was that he was frustrated with Phil
Speaker 1: and how slow he was playing, Like it was like
Speaker 1: he was hustling him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he. I mean I saw a lot of that,
Speaker 4: you know, playing playing money games with him in college,
Speaker 4: and yeah, he just he's just such a competitor and
Speaker 4: he'll find a way to win. He it won, went
Speaker 4: forty five times on the PGA Tour. That's during the
Speaker 4: Tiger era too, so it would have been sixty probably
Speaker 4: at least if Tiger wasn't around. So he, Yeah, just
Speaker 4: an amazing player. I've still probably never seen any I
Speaker 4: played a little with Tiger kind of before he took off,
Speaker 4: but Phil was is is his game is it's different
Speaker 4: than anything I've ever seen before or or since. You know. Again,
Speaker 4: it's kind of a shame that he's kind of you know,
Speaker 4: we don't get to see him play anymore. But he's
Speaker 4: an amazing player.
Speaker 1: Your kids are competitive surfers, which I read. You know,
Speaker 1: you grew up surfing and and then you've gotten back
Speaker 1: into surfing because of that. What what is it about
Speaker 1: surfing that appeals to you? And do you think there's
Speaker 1: any any bit of golf? Uh? And and some of
Speaker 1: the aspects of golf that that that surfing shares.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they're both pretty solitary sports. You know,
Speaker 4: you're kind of kind of out on your own, whether
Speaker 4: you're on the golf course or or in the water.
Speaker 4: So I do. I do like that where it's it's
Speaker 4: all on you, you know, there's no no team to
Speaker 4: bail you out. So it's I like that aspect. And
Speaker 4: physically it's definitely different. But a golf swing is a
Speaker 4: pretty explosive move, and so is surfing. You know, popping
Speaker 4: up on your board and making turns, it's pretty pretty
Speaker 4: explosive moves. So they're they're they're similar in that way.
Speaker 4: But yeah, definitely a different, different, different culture. They're very
Speaker 4: different cultures. But I love the taking the kids to
Speaker 4: surf contests, a lot of a lot of good people,
Speaker 4: and it's definitely different than than the what I remember
Speaker 4: growing up playing playing golf turn and.
Speaker 1: The competitive surce it's a little different than the competitive
Speaker 1: golf scene.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I mean, there's definitely some with the judging. It's, uh,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of you know, with with with golf,
Speaker 4: you either shoot the number you don't. With surfing, it's
Speaker 4: there's unfortunately more more things that play into your results
Speaker 4: than your actual surfing. But it's I mean, it's hard.
Speaker 4: I I don't envy the judges that have to judge surfing.
Speaker 4: It's uh so that that part I'm not a huge
Speaker 4: fan of. But I love golf. It's it's all on
Speaker 4: you and you either shoot the number you don't.
Speaker 1: What's one bucketless place that you want to surf and
Speaker 1: what's one golf course that you haven't played that you
Speaker 1: you really want to see.
Speaker 4: My son recently went to Nicaragua and I've seen pictures
Speaker 4: that that looked like a like ideal ideal surf spot,
Speaker 4: so that would probably be my my place I'd want
Speaker 4: to go to surf. I've actually never been on a
Speaker 4: surf trip. I just surf at home with the kids,
Speaker 4: and so that that would be uh, I'd love to do.
Speaker 4: That's at some point. I've never played golf in Ireland.
Speaker 4: I played some in Scotland and I would probably I'd
Speaker 4: love to play some of those those courses in Ireland.
Speaker 4: So no of course in particular, but.
Speaker 1: Just the surf culture in Ireland like pretty good.
Speaker 4: That's that's what I hear. So yeah, it could be
Speaker 4: combined for sure.
Speaker 1: I know like La Hinch is like a huge surf town.
Speaker 1: When we were I was in Northern Ireland this spring
Speaker 1: and Port Rush is like a huge surf town. So
Speaker 1: you like go out there and it's like you're on
Speaker 1: Royal Port Rush and you're playing and then there's people
Speaker 1: when you look down the dune, there's people surfing. You
Speaker 1: could do you could surf and play world class golf
Speaker 1: like all the way up in down the Irish coast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't didn't think of that, but I have
Speaker 4: heard that. I read that book, that Ireland book. I
Speaker 4: forgot what it's called, but where he walks around Ireland.
Speaker 1: But of course called Ireland. Yeah, yeah, Tom Coins book.
Speaker 4: Right, So yeah, here about about the surf spots there.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that would be an ideal spot for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a when I was over there, we
Speaker 1: were I mean, it's like a pretty cool culture, like
Speaker 1: the surf there's I mean, it seems like pretty popular.
Speaker 1: My my sister in law the last few years has
Speaker 1: been just she's basically just taught yoga at surf camps
Speaker 1: all around the world, and one of them she taught
Speaker 1: yoga at was in Ireland. Now she's in Nicaragua at
Speaker 1: a surf camp there. But you know, she she's able
Speaker 1: to teach yoga and then go surfing every day good.
Speaker 4: Life sounds pretty good there.
Speaker 1: But the uh, the when I was in I there
Speaker 1: was this great map I wish I think I might
Speaker 1: have taken a picture on my phone. I'll have to
Speaker 1: try and find it. But there's this great map that
Speaker 1: like showed all like the surf spots along the coast
Speaker 1: and it was really cool. You could kind of layer
Speaker 1: it up. That'd be a great all time huh golf
Speaker 1: surf trip. But your your oversized luggage would be tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of it.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of luggage for sure. But yeah, it
Speaker 4: sounds like it'd be worth it for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for people interested in in in buying your clubs,
Speaker 1: how do they do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I've I've started a partnership with Power
Speaker 4: Built Golf, which I'm really excited about. So they I
Speaker 4: make woods for them and they put them on their website.
Speaker 4: So Power Built Golf is a good good place to
Speaker 4: look for him. I do occasionally do some some custom
Speaker 4: stuff still, but yeah, I just top Dempsey dot com.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, the Power Built thing, you know, that's
Speaker 4: a a classic company that was big in the in
Speaker 4: the eighties when I started playing golf, and so it's
Speaker 4: kind of a dream to be working with a company
Speaker 4: like that and making woods for them.
Speaker 1: Irons look awesome too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're doing doing just real simple forged blades and
Speaker 4: great potters. I'm doing some putters for them to Persimon Potters,
Speaker 4: which I'm excited about. But they're just doing like a
Speaker 4: classic eighty EO two that looks looks so good, just
Speaker 4: the right amount of offset. And Paul bow and Travis
Speaker 4: Henderson there at David Martin at power Build are great
Speaker 4: guys that are that are really doing some exciting stuff,
Speaker 4: getting getting back to the to the classic roots of
Speaker 4: the company.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, when we talk about all
Speaker 1: the things like pros pro should have to play blade irons,
Speaker 1: you know, like now that they've gotten into this cavvyback stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's just like, why can't the best players in
Speaker 1: the world play play blades?
Speaker 4: You know? Yeah, I mean I agree. And now you're
Speaker 4: seeing tour players with their highest iron is a is
Speaker 4: a five iron. You know, I got got hybrid four irons,
Speaker 4: three irons. It's uh yeah, I I I don't understand
Speaker 4: it because I I can't hit a hybrid to save
Speaker 4: my life. Guys, they'll have three hybrid I mean tour
Speaker 4: players three hybrids in their bags, and I don't know,
Speaker 4: they're obviously doing better than me, but they I agree
Speaker 4: that it's I just think that the game would be
Speaker 4: better if people played played equipment that that golf courses
Speaker 4: were designed for. And yeah, keeping as much much of
Speaker 4: the you know, like you know, people get better by
Speaker 4: by improving their their their swinging and there and they're
Speaker 4: putting stroke and not not with a new a new
Speaker 4: piece of equipment that's that the scientists devised, you know.
Speaker 4: I just it's that when I grew up, it was
Speaker 4: just it was all on you. You know, there's no
Speaker 4: there wasn't this seemingly endless search to find the club
Speaker 4: that will basically swing for you. And so yeah, it's
Speaker 4: just I guess it's just the things change and and
Speaker 4: maybe others are better and adapting to the change in me,
Speaker 4: but I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: What you just described reminds me of just standing over
Speaker 1: a long iron shot with a with a old school blade,
Speaker 1: where you're just standing over and all and it's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a lot of trouble around the green and
Speaker 1: all you're thinking about is like you just got to
Speaker 1: put a really good move on this one, you know,
Speaker 1: and having that that that's what you feel right before
Speaker 1: you pull the trigger, is like, just make sure you
Speaker 1: make sure you move your body well you.
Speaker 4: Know, Yeah, yeah exactly. It's uh, there's you're definitely on
Speaker 4: your own in that situation.
Speaker 1: And that's the that's the beauty of golf, right there
Speaker 1: is that feeling where it's like, am I going to
Speaker 1: pull this off? Am I? I'm in this moment. It's
Speaker 1: a it's an extraordinarily difficult situation, and we're going to
Speaker 1: see if we pull it off, if we're going to
Speaker 1: be able to do it. And when you do it,
Speaker 1: there's nothing better, nothing feels better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know. Now you're looking at a hybrid.
Speaker 4: It's a whole different, different shot. You can hit it
Speaker 4: anywhere on the face and it's going to get up
Speaker 4: there somewhere. But I I never never have been able
Speaker 4: to hit them. They go and I go left. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that's my tendency too.
Speaker 1: I just like and now like I look at them
Speaker 1: and they're clothes and I'm and they look close to me,
Speaker 1: and I just it's I don't like them at all.
Speaker 1: I like the driving iron, the modern driving irons. They're
Speaker 1: basically the same thing, but they make those things are
Speaker 1: set up and look way better to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I definitely I agree, But those those are
Speaker 4: hollow heads they yeah, trampoline effect that that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: been a huge you know, guys are hitting those two
Speaker 4: eighty three hundred and what a difference. You know, if
Speaker 4: you can get it just changes the game so much.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I agree, they at least look kind of
Speaker 4: like golf clubs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, well Todd, thanks so much for coming on,
Speaker 1: and it was great chatting with you, and look forward
Speaker 1: to seeing Babell. We'll play for simon one day.
Speaker 4: That was good. Thanks Andy.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to Chris Millard, let's talk
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Speaker 1: heard about good Walk through this podcast. We partner with
Speaker 1: good Walk Coffee. We make our own blend. I am
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Speaker 1: got my monthly shipment yesterday, so I'm back on the
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Speaker 1: a nice little tumbler. I use it to walk around
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Speaker 1: I'm walking the dog, or in the morning when I
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Speaker 1: People love coffee. The holiday box is a great gift,
Speaker 1: but the coffee is also a great gift. So thanks
Speaker 1: good Walk and let's get over to Chris Millard to
Speaker 1: talk about Pebble Beach in his new book.
Speaker 3: I am here with Chris Millard, the author of a
Speaker 3: new book called The Shot, Watson, Nicholas, Pebble Beach and
Speaker 3: the Chip That Changed Everything. It was published by Back
Speaker 3: nine Press. It's available for pre order now, I believe
Speaker 3: in shipping sometime in mid December. Chris, welcome back to
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: Great to be with you, Garrett, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: So your book is kind of centered around this shot
Speaker 3: by Tom Watson in the nineteen eighty two US Open,
Speaker 3: the famous chip in that everybody knows, but I thought
Speaker 3: we would take this book as a kind of excuse
Speaker 3: to dig into Pebble Beach's history a bit. A significant
Speaker 3: portion of the book is about that. It kind of
Speaker 3: doubles as a history of Pebble Beach as well as
Speaker 3: a history of this one shot. So let's talk about Pebble.
Speaker 3: What was your first experience out there? When did you
Speaker 3: first see the course?
Speaker 2: Well, the first time I ever saw the golf course
Speaker 2: was probably in the early nineties when I was working
Speaker 2: for Golf World magazine and I was out there to
Speaker 2: cover something and I thought, you know what, I'm out near.
Speaker 2: I'm in the general area. I can't be even in
Speaker 2: California without finding my way down to Pebble, so I
Speaker 2: just kind of wandered down there. I remember driving by
Speaker 2: fifteen t at Cyprus and thinking, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: can't believe I'm here, and then follow seventeen mile drive
Speaker 2: down and so my first sighting of the whole place
Speaker 2: was really I wasn't playing. I was just trying to
Speaker 2: soak it in. So it was a visual treat for me,
Speaker 2: and that was probably in the early nineties.
Speaker 3: It's very easy to see the courses when you're in
Speaker 3: you can just kind of drive by them.
Speaker 2: I didn't expect that, you know, like coming from the northeast.
Speaker 2: You know, if let's just suppose you want to do
Speaker 2: a drive by and check in on Wing Foot.
Speaker 3: Like right, this is not going to go out to
Speaker 3: Long Island and kind of guess you can kind of
Speaker 3: drive by some of those courses, like.
Speaker 2: Shima Cock you can trying to drive right through it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the idea that that it's so exposed and
Speaker 2: so at least visually accessible to the average Joe, just
Speaker 2: driving down seventeen mile drive was kind of staggering to me.
Speaker 3: I always tell people that you can just ask for
Speaker 3: coastal access at the entrance of the Pebble Beach Resort essentially,
Speaker 3: and just drive in and kind of park next to
Speaker 3: the seventeenth hole. Yeah, and walk around and see the
Speaker 3: golf course. Nobody's going to stop you from doing that.
Speaker 4: It is little store.
Speaker 2: David Fay, you probably remember David. He was executive director
Speaker 2: of the USGA for years. He wrote an introduction to
Speaker 2: the book. Tom Watson wrote a forward, and David Fay
Speaker 2: contributed an introduction, and Fay starts off as introduction saying,
Speaker 2: you know, the first time I ever set foot on
Speaker 2: the Monterey Peninsula, I was, you know, a twenty year
Speaker 2: old kid in a friend's car, and I was just
Speaker 2: bombing down the road and I thought, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: that's fifteen T at Pebble Beach just to my right
Speaker 2: right there. Holy cow. You pulled the car over, popped
Speaker 2: open the trunk, pulled out an old ball, used ball
Speaker 2: in a rusty club, and hit a shot on fifteen T.
Speaker 2: And he goes. I was back in the car and
Speaker 2: pulling away before the ball ever landed. But I could
Speaker 2: tell my friends I hit a shot at Cyprus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got got to outrun the cops. After that,
Speaker 3: you know you can. There are hiking trails that kind
Speaker 3: of go through Pebble Beach, and I always tell people
Speaker 3: that there's a great hiking trail that essentially runs along
Speaker 3: the top of the big dune ridge that separates the
Speaker 3: dune holes at spy Glass Hill from the dune holes
Speaker 3: at Pebble Beach. There is a public hiking trail that
Speaker 3: you can There are maps of these trails that you
Speaker 3: can find online. But you can just walk right by
Speaker 3: the inland portion of Cypress Point as well. I did
Speaker 3: many times when when I lived in the area and.
Speaker 2: I didn't beautiful walk.
Speaker 3: It's incredible. Yeah, it kind of dumps you out right
Speaker 3: by the fourth hole at at Spyglass Hill, right the
Speaker 3: third green fourth hole. It sort of takes a turn
Speaker 3: there and goes along the fourth hole. But as you're
Speaker 3: walking along that that high point, you can definitely see
Speaker 3: the ninth hole at Cypress Point and all the all
Speaker 3: those inland holes which are which are so wonderful and beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's a mental note next trip out there. I got
Speaker 2: to do that one.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, So what made you want to delve into
Speaker 3: the history of Pebble Beach.
Speaker 2: Chris independently Garrett. Both Golf Channel and ESPN at various
Speaker 2: times in their existence cited Watson's chip is the greatest
Speaker 2: shot in golf history. And so a few years back,
Speaker 2: a friend of mine said to me, you know, if
Speaker 2: those two organizations think it's the best shot in golf history,
Speaker 2: maybe there's something to it, like, maybe you should look
Speaker 2: into it. So I started researching the main characters and
Speaker 2: the drama, and if you think about it, they're Tom
Speaker 2: Watson and his caddie, Bruce Edwards, Jack Nicholas, Pebble itself,
Speaker 2: the US Open itself, and you track basically end ABC
Speaker 2: and ESPN, which were in an interesting shadow dance at
Speaker 2: that time, which if you want to get into it later,
Speaker 2: we can. You track all these characters up to the
Speaker 2: moment when Watson chips in, and then you see how
Speaker 2: that moment refracted all their lives. What did that moment
Speaker 2: do to them all? How did it change things? And
Speaker 2: the truth is what I discovered is that chip changed everything.
Speaker 2: It changed the future trajectory of Pebble Beach itself, It
Speaker 2: changed Washington Watson's standing in golf history. It marked the
Speaker 2: denw ma of Nicholas's career. It marked forever the rise
Speaker 2: of cable television and the extinction of the three network
Speaker 2: version of television we may have all grown up with.
Speaker 2: So it really changed everything, and that's why I thought
Speaker 2: the book would be kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: There are all these different threads that feed into this
Speaker 3: one shot.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The television angle of it was the most surprising to me,
Speaker 3: and what we'll talk about that later. But it's something
Speaker 3: I've been interested in for a long time as well.
Speaker 3: So I appreciated the history of the rise of golf television.
Speaker 3: I think that's a very interesting story that hasn't really
Speaker 3: been investigated.
Speaker 2: I agree with you completely. We have most of us
Speaker 2: have viewed golf on television for decades in our lives,
Speaker 2: and so it is the way most of us ingest
Speaker 2: or consume the game on at least a weekly or
Speaker 2: daily basis. I think I've always thought it was worthwhile
Speaker 2: to look at golf through the lens of how television
Speaker 2: looks at golf and how television presents golf. It's always
Speaker 2: been an interest of mine anyway, so I'm glad to
Speaker 2: hear you you like that.
Speaker 3: It's something I always think about when the Masters comes
Speaker 3: around because the history of the Master's telecast is such
Speaker 3: a rich history onto itself. But of course the Masters
Speaker 3: was not the first golf tournament to be televised in
Speaker 3: the US. That was really the US Open. The US
Speaker 3: Open was the one that was there kind of at
Speaker 3: the beginning being televised. But we'll get to that later.
Speaker 3: First I want to talk about some of the history
Speaker 3: of Pebble Beach. I love the detail that you have
Speaker 3: on the history of Pebble Beach in this book because
Speaker 3: I think it's one of the more underappreciated or misunderstood
Speaker 3: histories among the great golf courses. It's also an unconventional history.
Speaker 3: You know, if you read it enough golf course in
Speaker 3: golf club histories, you start to become familiar with a
Speaker 3: kind of common story structure about these courses. They were
Speaker 3: built by some great architect in the tens, twenties or thirties,
Speaker 3: and then they lost their way, and then they came
Speaker 3: back because Tom Doak or Gil Hans or Bill Corr
Speaker 3: visited and brought it back to its former glory. But
Speaker 3: that's just not the path that Pebble followed. This was
Speaker 3: a really strange kind of course with the strange early evolution,
Speaker 3: and you do such a great job of fleshing out
Speaker 3: the details of that evolution in this book. So first,
Speaker 3: the history of the land itself. There's a lot to
Speaker 3: say here, but briefly, as briefly as you can, what
Speaker 3: was the history of the land at Pebble Beach before
Speaker 3: it was developed?
Speaker 2: So, you know, the Mexican influence on that part of
Speaker 2: California began to recede, you know, roughly in the eighteen thirties,
Speaker 2: eighteen forties, and the property had actually changed hands several
Speaker 2: times sort of between the eighteen forties in the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 2: I guess the best place to tune in to keep
Speaker 2: this sort of you know short, is when David Jacks
Speaker 2: bought their property. And a lot of people may not
Speaker 2: know that David Jacks is the man who gave the
Speaker 2: name to Monterey Jack cheese. It was a lot of
Speaker 2: the dairy required to produce that certain kind of cheese
Speaker 2: was produced on farms he owned in that area, and
Speaker 2: that's where Monterey Jack comes from. So the property changes
Speaker 2: hands a couple of times. I guess maybe the most
Speaker 2: important moment in the development of Pebble Beach really is
Speaker 2: the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point. You know,
Speaker 2: when we had rail travel that could essentially take you
Speaker 2: anywhere from anywhere in the US to anywhere in the US.
Speaker 2: That's when Pebble started. That's when their moment arrived. And
Speaker 2: of course the men involved in the driving that spike,
Speaker 2: a lot of them were San Francisco household names, you know,
Speaker 2: like Crocker and Huntington and Leland, you know, all these guys.
Speaker 2: And they also happened to be the guys who wanted
Speaker 2: to drive some traffic down to property they owned down
Speaker 2: at del Monte. And so the you know, long before
Speaker 2: field of dreams, these guys ascribed to the idea that
Speaker 2: if you build it, they will come. If if you
Speaker 2: have a resort, and if you can build a railway,
Speaker 2: people will start coming. And that was sort of the
Speaker 2: beginning of people coming to Pebble Beach. Well actually it
Speaker 2: wasn't even really thought of as Pebble Beach, that it
Speaker 2: was thought of as del Monte. And there had been
Speaker 2: golf in del Monte starting in the late eighteen nineties,
Speaker 2: that beautiful little golf course, del Monte Golf Club.
Speaker 3: Old del Monty as it's often called Yeah.
Speaker 2: And designed by Charles Maud in eighteen ninety seven, great
Speaker 2: little beloved golf course in that area. So people had
Speaker 2: been coming to play golf in that region long before
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach was even a thought in anyone's mind. And
Speaker 2: the property continues to change hands a little bit and
Speaker 2: around let's see nineteen. Well, well the golf course. Really
Speaker 2: you talked earlier about how it's kind of a curious
Speaker 2: happenstance that Pebble Beach ever even came to be. It
Speaker 2: really is. I mean, I've often thought that it's not
Speaker 2: a coincidence that a golf course that was birth not
Speaker 2: far from where the Grateful Dead came to be famous,
Speaker 2: traveled along a strange trip. It really was a circuitous route.
Speaker 2: And originally that property there was a group the Carmel
Speaker 2: Development Corp. Came to the people who owned that property
Speaker 2: and said, you know what, you'd probably be smart to
Speaker 2: develop homes here. So, as stunning as it sounds, the
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach we know in love today was almost obviated
Speaker 2: by homes. And in fact, as you probably know, in
Speaker 2: any of the Pebble Beach historian devoteesno a lot was
Speaker 2: actually sold the William Batty lot, which really for people
Speaker 2: who've been to Pebble or watch it essentially occupied the
Speaker 2: old fifth Hole. And so when they retreated from this plan,
Speaker 2: fortunately you know, reason prevailed. They decided, you know what,
Speaker 2: if you build houses on this waterfront land, you're taking
Speaker 2: away the view of the houses that are up on
Speaker 2: the ridge. And there were more lots up on the ridge.
Speaker 2: So they realized they were going to get more money
Speaker 2: if they preserved what became the golf course. So they
Speaker 2: sold all the life on the ridge. They all have
Speaker 2: since there were more lots. That means more waterfront views,
Speaker 2: that means more income. And for the longest time, as
Speaker 2: you know, I know, Garrett, the fifth Hole, that one lot.
Speaker 2: The family who did buy that one lot when they
Speaker 2: were thinking of developing it would not sell. And in fact,
Speaker 2: I don't think they sold that lot. It's the William
Speaker 2: Beatty family. I think it was like lot lot three
Speaker 2: block something I can't remember. They wouldn't sell to Pebble
Speaker 2: until the nineteen nineties, and that's when Jack Nicholas was
Speaker 2: actually hired to When they did sell back to Pebble Beach,
Speaker 2: Necklace was hired to fashion a fifth hole. That was
Speaker 2: really the original intent of the desires to have a
Speaker 2: fifth hole that went more towards the water than away
Speaker 2: from the water. And so that was like a kind
Speaker 2: of a thorn in the paw of golf purists a
Speaker 2: long long time. That ultimately did get resolved. I think you,
Speaker 2: I think you have a better fifth hole now than
Speaker 2: you did when you had to work around the baby property.
Speaker 3: Well, there certainly was a It was evidence of the
Speaker 3: of the kind of chaotic genesis of the course that
Speaker 3: that that one house was sitting there on the coastline.
Speaker 3: It was the only real you know, it was the
Speaker 3: only property that was pressed right up against the coastline
Speaker 3: at Pebble Beach, and of course the course had to
Speaker 3: work around it for a long time, the fifth hole
Speaker 3: part three traveling inland and then finally coming out onto
Speaker 3: that sixth te where you then can get back to
Speaker 3: the coastline. And so that that was that was sort
Speaker 3: of a funny little quirk of of the of the
Speaker 3: property for quite a while. But yeah, it was. It
Speaker 3: was as you say in the book, it was originally
Speaker 3: meant to be kind of a real estate development, but
Speaker 3: then the notion of a golf took hold Samuel Morse
Speaker 3: being a key driver behind it.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I neglected to mention him, because he
Speaker 2: was really he was both the one of the problems
Speaker 2: and he was the problem solver, you know he was.
Speaker 2: He was basically brought in to do the liquidation when
Speaker 2: they decided they were going to start selling these properties
Speaker 2: that are now the golf course. He was the one
Speaker 2: brought in to sell those, and he was an eager,
Speaker 2: young yell graduate and he was gung ho. He's going
Speaker 2: to do whatever he had to do to get the
Speaker 2: job done. And after he sold the baby property, he
Speaker 2: literally wrote, I forget where I found this, Maybe in
Speaker 2: a memoir or somewhere he wrote, I think I'm going
Speaker 2: to regret.
Speaker 3: This wasn't wrong.
Speaker 2: Then he is the one who flipped it around and said,
Speaker 2: you know what, guys, rather than sell the rather than
Speaker 2: sell these direct waterfront lots, let's preserve this the views
Speaker 2: and sell lots up top. And then ultimately that gave
Speaker 2: the owners of the land the chance to build the
Speaker 2: golf course, which a preserved a lots the views, but
Speaker 2: also was going to be open to the public and
Speaker 2: would further enhance their ownership of the resorts down there,
Speaker 2: which they were big investors in, and so the tourist
Speaker 2: trap nature of Pebble just got even more so when
Speaker 2: the golf course got designed. Of course, the next step
Speaker 2: is all right, well, how do you get this golf
Speaker 2: course built? Who designs it? And as you've read in
Speaker 2: the book, Garrett, that was a weird thing in and
Speaker 2: of itself. You know, you look at who would be
Speaker 2: on your roster of you know, your wish list of
Speaker 2: potential golf course designers in the mid nineteen nineteen, sixteen,
Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'd be a fairly short list in America at
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And there were some real, you know all stars. I mean,
Speaker 2: you had Donald Ross, you had Alistair mckenn, he had
Speaker 2: Charles Blair MacDonald to you and I have talked about before,
Speaker 2: and there's some evidence that he considered all three of those.
Speaker 2: There's actually a little bit of confusion. Maybe he may
Speaker 2: have confused mackenzie and MacDonald in his memoirs. But still
Speaker 2: he had a who's who of potential designers staring him
Speaker 2: in the face for a great property. And he goes
Speaker 2: with the head scratching combo of Neville and Grant, who
Speaker 2: between them had never designed a single golf course in
Speaker 2: their lives, and the amateur amateur records they had. They
Speaker 2: were good players, they knew the game. But you know,
Speaker 2: like Jack Neville was a local guy, Walker Cupper, I mean,
Speaker 2: the guy was a real player, had never designed a
Speaker 2: golf course in his life, and neither had Grant. And
Speaker 2: somehow these two gave us Pebble Beach. But even the
Speaker 2: pebble Beach they gave us isn't the Pebble Beach that
Speaker 2: we all know in Revere today. It had to go
Speaker 2: through quite a few mutations.
Speaker 3: What were Jack Neville and Douglas Grant's respective roles on
Speaker 3: the project. Do we have a sense of, you know,
Speaker 3: who was sort of the head of it and who
Speaker 3: might have been in the tail of it, or do
Speaker 3: we not have that information.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I have that in a concrete way,
Speaker 2: but I know that Neville, well here I don't know this.
Speaker 2: I sense from reading all this and researching it, that
Speaker 2: Morse who was doing the hiring, you know, Morse who
Speaker 2: had became really the undisputed king of Pebble Beach starting
Speaker 2: with saving this property in the nineteen eighteen or so
Speaker 2: all the way up until his death, he was really
Speaker 2: the King. Morse had a real soft spot in his
Speaker 2: heart for Jack Neville, and Neville was over time, Neville
Speaker 2: became a bit of a head to Morse, and Morse
Speaker 2: was actually quite protective of Neville and of Neville's reputation
Speaker 2: visa v.
Speaker 4: Pebble.
Speaker 2: So even though, as we'll get into, Pebble took a
Speaker 2: lot of design twists and turns over its life, especially
Speaker 2: its life from conception in nineteen eighteen ish nineteen sixteen
Speaker 2: through the nineteen twenty nine AM a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: happened in there. Morse was always protective of Neville's authorship
Speaker 2: and Neville's byline. And even when you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people knew the changes that were being affected on
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach in the nineteen twenties, Morse always stuck to
Speaker 2: this theme that you know it was it was done
Speaker 2: by Neville and Grant. It was done by Neville and Grant.
Speaker 2: He always protected Neville, even when the facts said, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of other people who deserve.
Speaker 4: Some credit here.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna I'm going to offer a conjecture that
Speaker 2: Neville was more the lead than Grant was only because
Speaker 2: Morre said so much faith in Nebelle.
Speaker 3: It's always been my sense as well. And there's also
Speaker 3: some kind of circumstantial evidence around the fact that Jack
Speaker 3: Neville went on to do some more design work in
Speaker 3: the future, whereas Douglas Grant kind of faded back into
Speaker 3: the searit he did of golf history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Donald Grant ended up, I mean, Grant ended up
Speaker 2: moving to Donald I made the same mistake Nicholas made
Speaker 2: one time he went Donald Grant. Yeah, Douglas Grant's golf courses.
Speaker 2: Nicholas made that same mistake in his book. But I
Speaker 2: think Grant ended up moving back to England and really
Speaker 2: kind of ended up turning his back on American golf.
Speaker 2: But you so, you're right. Neville was much more front
Speaker 2: and center for his whole career, I mean whole life,
Speaker 2: even going way forward to when Sandy Tatum was asked
Speaker 2: to kind of redo the golf course, and he reached
Speaker 2: out quite emotionally. And a beautiful little piece of the
Speaker 2: book is when when Sandy Tatum and Jack Neville worked
Speaker 2: together to prep Pebble Beach for the eighty two US Open.
Speaker 3: So, what are some of the big differences between the
Speaker 3: nineteen nineteen version of Pebble Beach and the one that
Speaker 3: we know time, Where would you go first, and kind
Speaker 3: of describing to people how this golf course originally looked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to take your question you asked
Speaker 2: about nineteen nineteen. I'm going to go back one year earlier,
Speaker 2: in nineteen.
Speaker 3: Eight nineteen eighteen. Yeah, because there's this is actually this
Speaker 3: was news to me in your book, the fact that
Speaker 3: the course had been played before nineteen.
Speaker 2: So if you go into the pro shop there today
Speaker 2: and you buy something with a logo on it, it's
Speaker 2: got the beautiful trees and the rocky promontory, and it
Speaker 2: says nineteen nineteen. And of course that's the day that
Speaker 2: everybody believes that Pebble Beach had its opening. The true
Speaker 2: ruth of the matter is that the golf course was
Speaker 2: opened on March thirty first, and fittingly enough, April first,
Speaker 2: April Fool's Day of nineteen eighteen, and the baptism of
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach was an absolute embarrassment that day. The conditioning
Speaker 2: was atrocious, there were rocks everywhere, there were sheeps still
Speaker 2: grazing the property. The golf course was just not ready
Speaker 2: for prime time, and Morse and everybody involved with Pebble
Speaker 2: Beach at that time really put the brakes on and said,
Speaker 2: you know, we're not ready, and they literally shut the
Speaker 2: golf course down. And Morse told his team, the golf
Speaker 2: course design team and the maintenance team, you know, we're
Speaker 2: going to take a mulligan here, and they went. They
Speaker 2: spent a year, almost a year up until February of
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen, February twenty second, nineteen nineteen, when they actually
Speaker 2: were now ready for the actual opening of Pebble Beach.
Speaker 2: And so that one little glitch, that year long glitch,
Speaker 2: gets back to your point where you're saying, of this
Speaker 2: strange trip and this strange like it's not a straight
Speaker 2: line story Pebble Beach. It's a very curvy up and
Speaker 2: down story. So from a conditioning standpoint, and by the way,
Speaker 2: Pebble struggled with conditioning for a long long time. Even
Speaker 2: when they were starting to get big time tournaments like
Speaker 2: say the sixty one Amateur, even the seventy two Open,
Speaker 2: a lot of the great players were a little disappointed
Speaker 2: with the quality of the conditioning. And I guess we
Speaker 2: got to remember that while Pebble is ostensibly rolling in
Speaker 2: money now when they're charging I don't know are they
Speaker 2: have they hit a thousand yet for what does it cost?
Speaker 3: It's not quite a thousand yet they've virtuously kept it around,
Speaker 3: I believe the seven hundred to eight hundred dollars mark.
Speaker 3: But then there's the there's the resort stay that is
Speaker 3: usually involved exactly being able to play at Pebble Beach
Speaker 3: and all that. So it's not a it's not a
Speaker 3: cheap ticket.
Speaker 2: So while where you know, now they certainly have these
Speaker 2: streams of revenue coming into help, and their their reputation
Speaker 2: is so lofty, they can they can levy those charges.
Speaker 2: If you go back to the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties,
Speaker 2: sixties even and into the seventies, that wasn't really the case.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was no the promotional machine was much
Speaker 2: more muted. It was harder to get to Pebble. The
Speaker 2: techniques for managing turf weren't very advanced really anywhere until
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties and seventies, and it was tough. In fact,
Speaker 2: at one point, I think in the nineteen seventy two
Speaker 2: US Open, of course Nicholas had won the am there
Speaker 2: in sixty one. He comes back eleven years later and
Speaker 2: he wins the us Open and he turned to the
Speaker 2: head of the USGA and he said, what did you
Speaker 2: do with all the grass? I mean, these are guys
Speaker 2: who had been playing Augusta National in these great places
Speaker 2: all these years, and they would come out to Pebble
Speaker 2: and routinely be a little disappointed. So it's hard for
Speaker 2: us in our current day mindset to imagine that it
Speaker 2: would be anything but pristine. But for a long time,
Speaker 2: Pebble was anything but it.
Speaker 3: Was kind of a working man's course for a while,
Speaker 3: you know. That's that's kind of how it felt. For
Speaker 3: a while. It was, yeah, I mean it and you
Speaker 3: know there were there were glitzy people who would who
Speaker 3: would hang around the resort and all that, but the
Speaker 3: course uh was was a bit ramshackle and uh and
Speaker 3: even rural feeling, maybe partly because it was kind of remote.
Speaker 3: That was one reason for it, for its slightly shaggy nature.
Speaker 3: But that's hard to conceive of now.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 2: And not only was the conditioning an issue, but there
Speaker 2: were aspects of the golf course itself that drew that
Speaker 2: were so looked down upon. You know, Morse's goal was
Speaker 2: when he finally got his golf course built, his goal was,
Speaker 2: all right, I need to land some attention. I need
Speaker 2: to get some people, some big names, to come out
Speaker 2: here and play here and create a little excitement. So
Speaker 2: he created this thing called the Pebble Beach Open with
Speaker 2: I think a five thousand dollars perse, which at the
Speaker 2: time dwarfed most of the purses in professional golf. And he,
Speaker 2: with the scheduling skills of a boxing promoter, he scheduled
Speaker 2: his event to follow or proceed. It was right around
Speaker 2: either right before right after the LA opened. So all
Speaker 2: the big names in professional golf were in town or
Speaker 2: in California, and so he got them to zip down
Speaker 2: and play in this thing to create a little publicity.
Speaker 2: And the complaints with Pebble had been two. One was
Speaker 2: the eighteenth hole. And this is for I mean, you
Speaker 2: may know this, Garrett, but for the average person who
Speaker 2: watches Pebble, you know, the eighteenth is almost a sack
Speaker 2: a religious place. It's almost perfect. The eighteenth was the
Speaker 2: problem with Pebble Beach for much of its early life,
Speaker 2: and what Morse was trying to do was create enough
Speaker 2: interest in pebble that he could land the California Golf
Speaker 2: Association State Championship on that golf course, and that was
Speaker 2: his hole, like his true north was how am I
Speaker 2: going to get the California State championship on my golf course?
Speaker 2: And people kept telling him, you can't get that event
Speaker 2: on this golf course until you fix up the eighteenth hole.
Speaker 2: And the problem with the hole at the time was
Speaker 2: that it was very short. Couple of solutions came about.
Speaker 2: One was the first solution was offered by this guy
Speaker 2: named Arthur Bunker Vincent, and his idea was, hey, right
Speaker 2: behind seventeen Green, right where the beach is, let's pile
Speaker 2: up some rocks and sand and let's build a tea
Speaker 2: box right there, which would kind of require you to
Speaker 2: hit over a little piece of the bay, and you know,
Speaker 2: you'd have a dramatic tea shot. So they did that,
Speaker 2: and that's why we have that tea box where we do.
Speaker 2: That's Arthur Bunker Vincent's tea box. But it did while
Speaker 2: it added an exciting tea shot, it didn't do much
Speaker 2: for the rest of the hole, which was extremely short.
Speaker 2: It was kind of a stubby little par for And
Speaker 2: then in another kind of circuitous happenstance of Pebble Beach's evolution. Hollins,
Speaker 2: who moved out from the East Coast out to Pebble
Speaker 2: and was kind of a high society matron. She was
Speaker 2: very friendly with Herbert Fowler, who was a very prominent
Speaker 2: golf course designer, and Fowler had done some work on
Speaker 2: del Monte in recent years, and he and Marion were
Speaker 2: social friends, and that sort of led to Fowler being
Speaker 2: asked for his thoughts on eighteen. And Fowler basically says
Speaker 2: to Morse the same thing that the California Golf Association
Speaker 2: had said to Morris, which is, you're not going to
Speaker 2: get a golf our golf tournament on your golf course
Speaker 2: until you fix eighteen. And it's got to be thorough
Speaker 2: going change. Vincent's tea box was a nice idea, but
Speaker 2: you need a dramatic change. And that's when Fowler stretched
Speaker 2: it one hundred and seventy yards further up the coast.
Speaker 2: So he added one hundred and seventy yards to that hole,
Speaker 2: and that's really that what kind of put Pebble over
Speaker 2: the finish line for the California Golf Association, and that's
Speaker 2: what landed him the California State Amateur, which was held
Speaker 2: there for years and years, and that's when her Morse
Speaker 2: started thinking about bigger game, like, Okay, now I've got
Speaker 2: my attention getting golf course. Now I'm getting the great
Speaker 2: amateurs to come and play their championship every year. Now
Speaker 2: I'm cooking with gas. So that it was really the
Speaker 2: combination of Arthur Vincent's tea box concept and then Herbert
Speaker 2: Fowler's one hundred and seventy yard addition to the end
Speaker 2: of the hole that helped Morse put pebble on the map.
Speaker 3: Went from about a three hundred and thirty three hundred
Speaker 3: and forty par four to a pretty stern par five
Speaker 3: exactly right.
Speaker 2: And can you imagine now, imagine, whether you've played pebble
Speaker 2: or not, you've seen it on TV a million times.
Speaker 2: Imagine if you walk off seventeen and like the tea
Speaker 2: box is immediately to your right. It's not like out
Speaker 2: towards the water. It's just right there and you're kind
Speaker 2: of bunting one. You're not even hitting over the water
Speaker 2: at all. It's hard to imagine, and it's easy to
Speaker 2: get in the California Golf Association's head and say, oh,
Speaker 2: I get it. I get why they hated eighteen. And
Speaker 2: now when you look at what you have at eighteen,
Speaker 2: it's just incredible.
Speaker 3: Does a good job of fitting with the rest of
Speaker 3: the course too. It doesn't feel like it was designed
Speaker 3: by somebody else, or somebody who had not routed or
Speaker 3: conceived of the other holes that run along the coast.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, look at eight and nine and ten. Well,
Speaker 2: look at six and eight and nine and ten. It's easy,
Speaker 2: it would be easy for us to believe that the
Speaker 2: same person who laid those out is the same person
Speaker 2: who did eighteen, even though it's.
Speaker 3: Right not Yeah, eighteen is sort of a mirror image
Speaker 3: in some ways of ten. Exactly right strategically, you know,
Speaker 3: conceptually as a golf hole, the way that it uses
Speaker 3: the coastline pretty similar.
Speaker 2: I agree completely. And the other hurdle that Morse had
Speaker 2: is as the better players started to come to Pebble
Speaker 2: Beach for more California state championships, you had better quality
Speaker 2: of play, and you had more sophisticated judges of quality,
Speaker 2: and so they ultimately started to hone in on holes
Speaker 2: eight and thirteen. The green complexes at eight and thirteen
Speaker 2: and their concerns really were that those green complexes were
Speaker 2: not really designed to receive the kind of iron shot
Speaker 2: the fairway was demanding. So, in what I'm sure he
Speaker 2: hoped was an audition for future work at Pebble Beach,
Speaker 2: Alistair Mackenzie weighed in through probably again through Marion Holland,
Speaker 2: and they were very close, as you know, and he
Speaker 2: came in to do redo eight and thirteen. What happened
Speaker 2: was he started on aid and thirteen and got called
Speaker 2: away to Australia for another design job.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, well Melbourne, that was Mackenzie's famous trip to Australia,
Speaker 3: happened kind of exactly right in mid nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: So he goes down to Australia and meanwhile eight and
Speaker 2: thirteen aren't finished. So all of a sudden people are playing,
Speaker 2: They're going, wait, we told you to fix eight and thirteen.
Speaker 2: These are atrocious And what they what they didn't appreciate
Speaker 2: was that Mackenzie was in mid it was kind of
Speaker 2: a work in progress, and that when he came back
Speaker 2: from Australia he finished eight and thirteen and then everyone
Speaker 2: went all right, well, now now we've got a legit
Speaker 2: golf course. And that even put Pebble a little bit
Speaker 2: further on the map, a little higher on the map.
Speaker 2: And then, of course in the late twenties, in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty seven, the USJA announces they're going to bring the
Speaker 2: amateur to Pebble, and of course Pebble goes through an
Speaker 2: entirely new evolution for that.
Speaker 3: Well, before we get to that eight and thirteen Mackenzie's
Speaker 3: changes there. If you've seen the photographs of these holes,
Speaker 3: and I would suggest that anybody listening to this podcast
Speaker 3: who hasn't seen Mackenzie's versions of the greens at eight
Speaker 3: and thirteen, there are great pictures of them. Go check
Speaker 3: out an article called Pebble Beach then and now if
Speaker 3: you just search for that and Google, something will come
Speaker 3: up on the Pebble Beach Resort website that will show
Speaker 3: you a bunch of photos of those holes through the years,
Speaker 3: including Mackenzie's versions of those greens. They're very Mackenzie and greens,
Speaker 3: you know, recognizably his work similar in many ways to
Speaker 3: what he was doing at that very time just down
Speaker 3: seventeen mile drive at Cyprus Point, and so they were
Speaker 3: in his style in a way that they aren't anymore
Speaker 3: and also very different from what came before at Pebble Beach.
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about some of the rudimentary nature
Speaker 3: of jack Neville and Douglas Grant's original design at Pebble Beach.
Speaker 3: One way in which it was rudimentary, I think is
Speaker 3: that the greens were very simply constructed. Yes, many of
Speaker 3: them pretty large and just kind of sitting on the
Speaker 3: land in very basic ways. Yeah, without these kind of
Speaker 3: stylish bunkers or anything of the kind that Mackenzie was
Speaker 3: famous for. And so that's what Mackenzie was working with.
Speaker 3: He really changed the style of those greens quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Not only that, you're exactly right, Garrett, he changed eight
Speaker 2: and thirteen enormously. I do believe, just from the studying
Speaker 2: that I've done, the reading I've done, I do believe
Speaker 2: Mackenzie desperately wanted to get his hands on the whole
Speaker 2: golf course. I think he really and doing eight and
Speaker 2: thirteen was his way of saying, I'm available for these
Speaker 2: other sixteen holes.
Speaker 3: This is kind of my this is my example. These
Speaker 3: are my paint switches here, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then twenty seven rolls around and they announced the
Speaker 2: USAM is coming to Pebble which which really is like
Speaker 2: a that's a cultural moment for the USGA itself to
Speaker 2: have these sort of westward ambitions. That was quite a thing.
Speaker 2: To bring the most prestigious USGA title really at the
Speaker 2: time to California. That was like a moon launch, and the.
Speaker 3: Tournament was much a much bigger deal back then than
Speaker 3: it is now. You know, it's a big deal now,
Speaker 3: but you know, this is a tournament that Bobby Jones
Speaker 3: was playing.
Speaker 2: It exactly right. So that was a huge moment not
Speaker 2: only for the USGA and it's kind of westward or
Speaker 2: national lands, but also for Pebble Beach because now we've
Speaker 2: talked about a lot of these little evolutionary twists and turns.
Speaker 4: It took.
Speaker 2: Now they had to get the golf course ready for
Speaker 2: what the New York Times referred to as the onslaught
Speaker 2: And so how do you do that? You touched on
Speaker 2: something that I didn't really connect in the book. I
Speaker 2: I kind of wish I had when Mackenzie does eight
Speaker 2: and thirteen that I think may have a little bulb
Speaker 2: in the head of Chandler Egan, because that's who they ask,
Speaker 2: you know, they bring in Hunter and Egan. The odd
Speaker 2: couple of Hunter and Egan to get the golf course
Speaker 2: ready for the nineteen twenty nine am Hunter being an
Speaker 2: avowed socialist who ran for the governor of Connecticut as
Speaker 2: a socialist and wrote some pretty heavyweight tomes on sociology
Speaker 2: and communism, politics, religion. And Chandler Eagan, who is arguably
Speaker 2: one of the first it boys of American amateur golf,
Speaker 2: you know, NCAA champion, multiple am champion, Olympian, you name it.
Speaker 3: And the aristocratic sort of you know, kind of kind
Speaker 3: of an amateur in the Bobby Jones role. Contrasted with
Speaker 3: Robert Hunter, it is there is a you know, a
Speaker 3: bit of a mismatch there, but both men, of course
Speaker 3: worked had worked with Alistair mackenzie, Hunter assisting on some
Speaker 3: of Mackenzie's most famous California.
Speaker 2: And then he goes on to write one of the
Speaker 2: probably top five greatest books ever written in the history
Speaker 2: of golf course architecture, you know, The Links, which is
Speaker 2: just a must read. So this odd couple is brought
Speaker 2: in and you know, to their credit, you know, a lot,
Speaker 2: a lot of their quotes most and Chandler Eagan, I
Speaker 2: think had a slightly higher profile than hunter at that
Speaker 2: time anyway, and a lot of his quotes about this
Speaker 2: prep for the us M in twenty nine were things
Speaker 2: like God had done most of the work already, most
Speaker 2: of the heavy lifting was done already. There wasn't much
Speaker 2: to do except really bunkers and greens. And to your point,
Speaker 2: that was kind of a weak spot of Pebble Beach
Speaker 2: where the non Mackenzie bunkers and greens the other sixteen
Speaker 2: And if you talk to Jeff Shackelford about this, who's
Speaker 2: really a real student of Pebble Beach golf course design history,
Speaker 2: we spent a good amount of time on the phone.
Speaker 2: He basically says, when you look at what Egan did
Speaker 2: for the twenty nine AM at Pebble and the results
Speaker 2: that Pebble got out of the work he did, may
Speaker 2: be the most underappreciated golf course designer in history. And
Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty good argument, especially when you
Speaker 2: go back, if you look, you know, you recommended that
Speaker 2: article about Pebble Beach, you know, go back and look
Speaker 2: at the images. If you go back and you look
Speaker 2: at the images of Pebble Beach from the nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: nine era, the bunkering is just spectacular. Now, there's one
Speaker 2: really important thing happened in nineteen twenty nine that we
Speaker 2: haven't touched on, and of course that's the crash and
Speaker 2: the ensuing depression. Most of the great clubs. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know this from having been out there so long.
Speaker 2: In California. You know, Cypress Point almost closed its doors
Speaker 2: during the depression. They were filling in bunkers in order
Speaker 2: to reduce maintenance costs. And if Cypress Point was filling
Speaker 2: in these massive Pentagruleian bunkers to save costs, you can
Speaker 2: be sure that Pebble Beach which was doing the same thing,
Speaker 2: and these huge bunkers that he put in were also
Speaker 2: susceptible to the wind. You know, the bigger the bunker,
Speaker 2: the easier it is for the wind to get in
Speaker 2: there and suck all that stand out. So I think
Speaker 2: the bunkers that Egan and Hunter put in were absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2: I wish they still existed, but I understand why they don't.
Speaker 2: They just they couldn't but for a moment, for that
Speaker 2: moment in nineteen you know, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine,
Speaker 2: during the m and until the depression hits and wipes
Speaker 2: it all out that may have been one of the
Speaker 2: really most beautifully bunkered golf courses in the world.
Speaker 3: Well, for people who haven't seen photos of the course
Speaker 3: from this era, just envision a lot of the greens
Speaker 3: that you know now like seven or seventeen, being surrounded
Speaker 3: by these kind of duneescape style bunkers, completely surrounded in
Speaker 3: a lot of case says they aren't even really discreete bunkers.
Speaker 3: They're more like kind of island in this. Yeah, in
Speaker 3: this in this sandscape, it's almost like what you see
Speaker 3: at Mammoth Duns or something like that. At Sand Valleygan
Speaker 3: there's just a lot of exposed sand.
Speaker 2: And Egan said somewhere I think I maybe in the book,
Speaker 2: Egan said somewhere that this was something that we cooked up.
Speaker 2: We hadn't really seen this anywhere before. It's just something
Speaker 2: that we thought would be kind of cool to use,
Speaker 2: you know, my vernacular, and we tried it, and of
Speaker 2: course it looks amazing. You know, it was it was
Speaker 2: ill fated, it wasn't going to last forever, but for
Speaker 2: that moment, it's sure was spectacular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm of two minds about about this
Speaker 3: move by by Egan and I'm curious also about Hunter's
Speaker 3: involvement in it too, because Hunter is often known in
Speaker 3: his work with Mackenzie as sort of the artisan of
Speaker 3: the bunkers and the on site construction guy, and I
Speaker 3: wonder if he played a similar role in this project.
Speaker 3: But I'm of two minds about about this move by
Speaker 3: Egan's team to create these dunescapes, because on the one hand,
Speaker 3: they're clearly very impressive. When you see these photos that
Speaker 3: they're stunning, you know, and especially in their difference from
Speaker 3: what exists there now, you almost can't believe that the
Speaker 3: course once looked like this. Yes, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: it's not natural to that to that terrain for there
Speaker 3: to be these donezy bunkers. It's kind of an odd fit.
Speaker 3: And partly for that reason, they were remember maybe never
Speaker 3: going to last because of the the wind and because
Speaker 3: of the fact that there just isn't a base of
Speaker 3: sand there on Pebble Beach's property to keep this kind
Speaker 3: of const struction in existence. Once they blow away, you've
Speaker 3: just got heavy clay.
Speaker 2: Basically, which, to your point on that service, that may
Speaker 2: be exactly the reason why they never existed before and
Speaker 2: never existed again.
Speaker 3: Like that yeah, I think they just blew away.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he can even had in his mind,
Speaker 2: you know, this lipstick is going to wear off, but boy,
Speaker 2: it sure does look it's going to look.
Speaker 3: Good for good for the amateur.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But as you mentioned, you know, the depression hit
Speaker 3: and I'm sure that the maintenance uh you know requirements
Speaker 3: of these doneesy bunkers were part of the reason that
Speaker 3: they that they didn't survive. You know that that they
Speaker 3: just took a lot of effort and funding to maintain.
Speaker 3: And that's something that Pebble Beach or many other courses
Speaker 3: in America had during the nineteen thirties and during World War.
Speaker 2: Two, no doubt about that. And by the way, if
Speaker 2: you do, if any of your listeners or viewers do
Speaker 2: go look at old images. Is when you look at
Speaker 2: seventeen in those old twenty nine era images, look at
Speaker 2: the spot in the back left of the green where
Speaker 2: Watson plays this chip that spurred this whole book, that
Speaker 2: what is that slope where he was was sand back
Speaker 2: in the twenty nine amateur era. And so just for
Speaker 2: a little sense of like connecting history, connecting the dots,
Speaker 2: that would have he would have likely been in sand
Speaker 2: if the Chandler Eagan design had survived, and that would
Speaker 2: have been a way easier shot for Tom Watson anyway
Speaker 2: than chipping out of you know, Shinhaigh rough.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So, Egan and Hunter's work I think is maybe primarily
Speaker 3: remembered for these dunescapes that they built, because that's the
Speaker 3: most visually striking part of what they did. But what
Speaker 3: are some other aspects, of course that that you would
Speaker 3: credit to that renovation? What are some other ways in
Speaker 3: which they altered the course in ways that proved to
Speaker 3: be kind of permanent.
Speaker 2: Let's see that That's that's a tough question because I
Speaker 2: don't know if I can come up with something uh
Speaker 2: lasting that we could point to today and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's Egan.
Speaker 3: Or it went away? I guess yeah. I mean, you
Speaker 3: know the old double ninth fair way if you play
Speaker 3: the ninth hole, now, you know you look to the
Speaker 3: right and you see a whole other expanse of now
Speaker 3: kind of rough that is right by the ocean cliff. Well,
Speaker 3: that that was once fairway, and that was an idea.
Speaker 2: Well in the old chambers, remember didn't they they didn't
Speaker 2: they opened a wasn't there a tea box down closer
Speaker 2: to the water on nine, on ten, it was on ten,
Speaker 2: it's on tests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they and they re established it if you
Speaker 3: walk to the right of the night train, but they don't.
Speaker 3: It's not very frequently in use. But it's a cool
Speaker 3: tea box.
Speaker 2: But I can't that's a really good question. I guess
Speaker 2: it lends itself to the ephemeral nature of what Egan
Speaker 2: and Hunter did. They they put Pebble on the Big
Speaker 2: Time map, but with changes that were that you know,
Speaker 2: we're just going to fade away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wild. I think that's right. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think one thing though, and there's no particular evidence
Speaker 3: for this, but I think I think it's true that
Speaker 3: they established the greens of Pebble Beach. Yes, that sort
Speaker 3: of still exist now. They're smaller now than they were
Speaker 3: when when Egan and Hunter built them, but they still
Speaker 3: have some of the character, some of the design concept
Speaker 3: that I think Egan and Hunter came up with. Basically
Speaker 3: the design concepts of the greens at Pebble Beach I
Speaker 3: believe to Egan and Hunters for the most part, and
Speaker 3: not Nevill and Graand Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think that's fair to say that's the only area where
Speaker 2: I could visually point to and say, you know, before
Speaker 2: Egan and Hunter, this did not exist, and now it does.
Speaker 2: I think probably the green surfaces are the only the
Speaker 2: only thing you could point to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think the main difference now between
Speaker 3: you know, the greens as they exist now and as
Speaker 3: they existed in the nineteen twenty nine US amateur, I
Speaker 3: think the main difference would be that they were bigger
Speaker 3: back then, and probably some contours have been lost over time.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the seventeenth green, for instance,
Speaker 3: which you write an account of in your book, that
Speaker 3: idea of the green as this kind of hourglass shaped
Speaker 3: thing with two different sections divided by a ridge. That
Speaker 3: was a Chandler Egan concept for a green, and that's
Speaker 3: still there.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, that's still basically there. I mean it's changed
Speaker 2: in some ways only because as the green, as the
Speaker 2: shape and size of the green has changed over time,
Speaker 2: the proportional space filled by the hump in the middle
Speaker 2: has changed a little bit over time.
Speaker 4: But in.
Speaker 2: A larger sense, you're right, that is the original Hunter Egan.
Speaker 3: Look, the basic concept. Okay, so going forward in time
Speaker 3: a little bit, why didn't Pebble Beach get a US
Speaker 3: Open until nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Well, so I asked Frank Canigan about this once. And
Speaker 2: Frank is one of the great truth tellers and all
Speaker 2: of golfer was. He passed away years ago. But I
Speaker 2: asked Frank in his quote, he's actually in the book, California,
Speaker 2: while now a economic behemoth, really in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: and certainly during the depression in the thirties and really
Speaker 2: until after World War Two, didn't have that many people
Speaker 2: living in it, and particularly northern California was not as
Speaker 2: populous as southern California. You know, La was growing a
Speaker 2: lot faster than the area around Pebble Beach. And if
Speaker 2: you look at the cities and the markets into which
Speaker 2: the USGA had taken the US Open, you know, these
Speaker 2: are big places. These are New York and Chicago. You know,
Speaker 2: there's they were worried. Frank Canagan tells me that even
Speaker 2: for the nineteen seventy two US Open, the USJA was
Speaker 2: worried that, you know, what would happen if you put
Speaker 2: on a US Open and nobody came.
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 2: Just weren't the bodies. And plus it was the first
Speaker 2: time they were going to have the US Open at
Speaker 2: a public golf course quote unquote public golf course, and
Speaker 2: a public golf course didn't have the ready made volunteer
Speaker 2: base that a private club would have, and so there
Speaker 2: was some doubts about that. There were always doubts about conditioning,
Speaker 2: as we talked before about Pebble Beach. So those were
Speaker 2: the big three strikes against Pebble, and they, you know,
Speaker 2: literally Frank Hannigan said to me, we were worried that
Speaker 2: nobody would come. In fact, the USGA's contract with Pebble
Speaker 2: had a stipulation that if a certain amount of people
Speaker 2: didn't show, there was going to be some kind of
Speaker 2: refund back to the USGA. Like the Pebble had to
Speaker 2: get out and say there'll be bodies here. So it
Speaker 2: was that that's really why it took a long time
Speaker 2: for the US Open, which you know, you and I
Speaker 2: talked earlier about how the am was for the longest time,
Speaker 2: was the golden child of USGA championships. In my own mind,
Speaker 2: I've always thought that once Bobby Jones started routinely winning Opens,
Speaker 2: he added glamour, the the prestige that he lent to
Speaker 2: the amateur that the amateur always had. It started to
Speaker 2: leach into the US Open and even onto the professional
Speaker 2: players who were playing golf at that time because Bobby
Speaker 2: Jones he raised all ships in a way, and so
Speaker 2: to bring their biggest what had now become their biggest title,
Speaker 2: the US Open, to Pebble Beach, seemed like a no brainer.
Speaker 2: But there, as I said, there were a lot of
Speaker 2: risks involved.
Speaker 3: What was the relationship between television and Pebble Beach, And
Speaker 3: maybe you could take that story up to the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two US Open, where there was an important element
Speaker 3: of that tournament being televised.
Speaker 2: So, as you mentioned earlier, the nineteen forty seven US
Speaker 2: Open was the first golf tournament ever telecast. And if
Speaker 2: you try to imagine where TV was in nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: it was extremely primitive. I mean, and this isn't even
Speaker 2: really an exaggeration, but like TV cameras were like as
Speaker 2: complicated as a car, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 2: now now you could film a TV show with your
Speaker 2: iPhone and people might not know the difference.
Speaker 3: And you can beam the image across the air right right,
Speaker 3: as opposed to having to you know, just imagine trying
Speaker 3: to trying to film a golf tournament. If you've got
Speaker 3: these massive cameras and you can't communicate, you know, the
Speaker 3: camera is and you have to figure out a way
Speaker 3: to connect everything.
Speaker 2: It's insane. And the people who I've spoken to, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people in this book in the TV
Speaker 2: industry that I talked to about the evolution of golf
Speaker 2: and TV, they'll tell you that, you know, the hardest
Speaker 2: sport to film for TV is golf because tennis or
Speaker 2: baseball or football all take place in a very predictable,
Speaker 2: confined area, and golf takes place over hundreds of acres
Speaker 2: with a small ball going hundreds of miles an hour.
Speaker 2: You can't be everywhere. You can get every shot in
Speaker 2: a tennis match pretty easily, you cannot get every shot
Speaker 2: in a golf tournament. So it's it's maddening to try
Speaker 2: to do television to golf television. And these guys in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven in Saint Louis just figured they'd give
Speaker 2: it a go, you know, and it was very much
Speaker 2: like an entrepreneurial kind of a Jerry rigged concept. They
Speaker 2: literally the entire telecast consisted of approach shots into eighteen
Speaker 2: because you know, they didn't have mobiles.
Speaker 3: What else could you do anheld.
Speaker 2: Camera where you could walk with the guy up to
Speaker 2: eighteen green. So it literally it started and ended with
Speaker 2: the approach to eighteen. And to show you how naive
Speaker 2: this all was, one of the guys went up to
Speaker 2: Ben Hogan, who was playing in the tournament, and said, hey, Ben,
Speaker 2: you know, do you think you could do a little interview,
Speaker 2: you know, like stand here in front of our camera
Speaker 2: and chat with us. And he kind of had to
Speaker 2: explain like what it was all about. You know, now,
Speaker 2: what player doesn't walk off eighteen in a tour event
Speaker 2: know that there's the media guy. So they had to say, well,
Speaker 2: we have a camera here and that's what we're going
Speaker 2: to do. And Ben Hogan said to the guy, well,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I think I've got time to chat
Speaker 2: with you guys, but you know, how about fifty bucks?
Speaker 2: And the guy says, you know, we don't. Really he
Speaker 2: set the standard really that.
Speaker 3: Was very Yeah, he protected journalism in.
Speaker 2: The exactly right Imagine the guy said, here's fifty bucks,
Speaker 2: where would we all be? Yeah, So the guy said
Speaker 2: to him, you know, no, we don't. We don't pay
Speaker 2: for that, and Ben said, great, I'm gone. So now
Speaker 2: go from literally the forty seven Open filming approach shots
Speaker 2: into eighteen move ahead. Later in life, television has become
Speaker 2: a little more sophisticated, and Rune Ourledge is now overseeing
Speaker 2: ABC Sports, which had the contract to air the US
Speaker 2: Open up until the early nineties, and Terry Jastro, who
Speaker 2: went on to become unbelo believably successful and well regarded
Speaker 2: television producer and director. They're all working at ABC Sports
Speaker 2: and they're working on preparing to broadcast the Pebble Beach
Speaker 2: US Open, And so they're doing site visits and where
Speaker 2: are we going to put our cameras and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: And they get this idea. They say to themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: golf has always started at, like in the old days
Speaker 2: at Saint Louis, the eighteenth hole. Even more recently in
Speaker 2: the in the seventies, we were only showing golf from
Speaker 2: like the eleventh hole on. And they say to themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, would you really would you cover a baseball
Speaker 2: game starting in the third inning? And they're like, no,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't. And so they come to this idea that
Speaker 2: a great golf telecast of the US Open especially ought
Speaker 2: to have as much golf as possible, and if you're
Speaker 2: at a place like Pebble, even more so because you're
Speaker 2: going to have such vistas. So they call Rune Oledge
Speaker 2: from their site visit at Pebble, and they say, and
Speaker 2: Rune has played in the Crosby but at this time
Speaker 2: Run is a regular in the Crosby Clambake playing with
Speaker 2: Tom Weiscoff. He loves Pebble as much as anybody. So
Speaker 2: they call Run and they say, hey, you know, we're
Speaker 2: out here doing the sight visit. We were thinking, maybe
Speaker 2: is this crazy? Maybe we ought to be showing more
Speaker 2: holes and more of Pebble and more of these views.
Speaker 2: As I say in the book, you know, asking Run
Speaker 2: our OLiS if he wants more pebble is like asking
Speaker 2: Christopher Walking if he wants more cow bell. So he says,
Speaker 2: that's a great idea, absolutely great idea. He says, why
Speaker 2: don't we get as much as we can? In fact,
Speaker 2: instead of just doing like one hour, let's do like
Speaker 2: three hours. And then Run had to come up with
Speaker 2: the decision, well, where are those three hours going to
Speaker 2: come from? And of course he was the godfather of
Speaker 2: why world of sports, which was just the it show
Speaker 2: in all sports television at that time, and so he said, great,
Speaker 2: we'll just make what we'll take two hours from why
Speaker 2: world of sports and make it golf coverage. And that's
Speaker 2: when they got that's the first time that golf ever
Speaker 2: got the big window, the big block of television time
Speaker 2: to show early early holes. Going back, I think maybe
Speaker 2: in that open they might have started around the sixth
Speaker 2: hole something like that, and eventually at Southern Hills, I
Speaker 2: think in seventy seven might have been the first time
Speaker 2: that they ever were able to show all eighteen.
Speaker 3: Did all eighteen and at Pebble Beach, surely part of
Speaker 3: the motive would be, we want to make sure to
Speaker 3: show the seventh hole at the very least, like get
Speaker 3: back far enough in the round so that they can
Speaker 3: see some of that four through ten stretch, which is
Speaker 3: so great, whereas if you start at eleven at Pebble Beach,
Speaker 3: you're not really showing right Pebble Beach. That's a way
Speaker 3: that would satisfy anybody exactly.
Speaker 2: And speaking of motives, in their early discussions, Jastro had
Speaker 2: spoken with the general manager of Pebble Beach itself, and
Speaker 2: the general manager was complaining to Terry, this is all
Speaker 2: in the book that Hey, times at Pebble are tough.
Speaker 2: We're not selling out our rooms, we're not selling out
Speaker 2: the golf course. We're having a hard time. And so hey, Terry,
Speaker 2: when you air the USO, we need to do us
Speaker 2: a favor. Can you rather than just showing golf action,
Speaker 2: can you just sell the lodge a little bit? Can
Speaker 2: you sell the experience a little bit? And so I
Speaker 2: went back and I looked at the footage of those
Speaker 2: all four days of the telecast, and every day the
Speaker 2: opening shot is a tight shot of the front door
Speaker 2: of the lodge, and you know, the announcer says, you know,
Speaker 2: you're looking live at the lodge at Pebble Beach, and
Speaker 2: he talks about what a fantastic place it is. And
Speaker 2: then they panned back and they turned fifty yards away
Speaker 2: as the first t of one of the great golf
Speaker 2: courses in the world, and the phones are lighting up,
Speaker 2: people are reserving rooms again. And Jastro and the general
Speaker 2: manager Pebble said that that hosting that open airing that
Speaker 2: open is what kind of revived Pebble financially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so television and Pebble Beach have certainly been intertwined,
Speaker 3: very very intimately ever ever since very much. You know,
Speaker 3: to get to the kind of final beat of your
Speaker 3: story about TV and Pebble, the nineteen eighty two US
Speaker 3: Open represented yet another innovation in golf telecasts, right, yet
Speaker 3: another expansion of the coverage. Maybe you could say a
Speaker 3: few words about it, Yes, about that.
Speaker 2: So, up until nineteen eighty two, golf in America had
Speaker 2: only been broadcast on weekends. You'd only been able to
Speaker 2: watch it on a Saturday or Sunday. So ABC has
Speaker 2: the rights the television package, and what they would do
Speaker 2: is they would bring their whole crew out to a
Speaker 2: venue and they would use the Thursday Friday rounds as
Speaker 2: practice for what would be the coverage on Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 2: So the cameras would literally try to train the kind
Speaker 2: of know the angles of the ballflight and kind of
Speaker 2: get all that down on Thursday and Friday so they'd
Speaker 2: be ready on Saturday and Sunday. Well, this little teeny
Speaker 2: little cable contraption called ESPN, which was just starving for
Speaker 2: both programming and money approaches ABC Sports, which was the
Speaker 2: Leviathan and says, what would you think about us airing
Speaker 2: your Thursday and Friday rounds on our little cable net
Speaker 2: and then you guys can do your Saturday and Sunday rounds.
Speaker 2: And of course this meant that the ABC sports cameramen
Speaker 2: and announcers and PA's the whole staff, we're going to
Speaker 2: be live on Thursday and Friday, meaning they would forfeit
Speaker 2: those practice days. So it meant more tension and more
Speaker 2: work and less practice. And so the ABC people were
Speaker 2: a little bit the staffers anywhere were a little bit
Speaker 2: cold to this idea. And the disdain that broadcast television
Speaker 2: had for cable television at that time cannot be overstated.
Speaker 2: I mean, broadcast television was essentially Hollywood, and cable television
Speaker 2: was you know, the Des Moines affiliate, you know, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like there was no there was
Speaker 2: no glamour attached to cable even though at that moment
Speaker 2: what was kind of bubbling up under the surface was
Speaker 2: we were about to go from a three network universe
Speaker 2: in television, ABC, NBC, and CBS into this dozens of channels,
Speaker 2: hundreds of channels cable universe, and that the cable companies
Speaker 2: were going to be receiving money, not only subscriber fees,
Speaker 2: but also advertising dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and probably the greatest business model exactly right, ever invented,
Speaker 3: which is now collapsing, by the way, exactly right, but
Speaker 3: for about you know, forty years there it.
Speaker 4: Was that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And so while ABC was in the catbird seat in
Speaker 2: terms of glamour and prestige, the future was clearly going
Speaker 2: to be a cable television And so this all unfolded
Speaker 2: that week at Pebble in nineteen eighty two, with this
Speaker 2: upstart cable network trying to work with and ultimately usurp
Speaker 2: the you know, the leader, the ABC Sports leader, and
Speaker 2: that moment happened, you know, they finally agreed to do it.
Speaker 2: And right before they went on air, Kurt Goudie, who
Speaker 2: was one of the announouncers for ABC, no, it's Jim McKay.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, it was Jim McKay. Jim McKay says to
Speaker 2: everybody over their earpieces before they're about to go on
Speaker 2: air on Thursday and Friday. He goes, hey, don't waste
Speaker 2: your good stuff today or tomorrow. It's only cable.
Speaker 3: It's only cable that's good stuff. Well, you get to
Speaker 3: the end of that Tournament, seventy first hole, Watson chips
Speaker 3: and I rewatched this before our interview with an eye
Speaker 3: toward the telecast of it. Yeah, and what I noticed
Speaker 3: was that it was a very well executed telecast. It
Speaker 3: represented kind of how far golf television had come since
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven when they were just showing those approach chests,
Speaker 3: and how far it had come since those those Masters
Speaker 3: tournaments that they broadcast in the nineteen sixties when it
Speaker 3: was sort of similar. They would only cover a few
Speaker 3: holes at a time. It was black and white for
Speaker 3: at least a few years there. At the beginning, you
Speaker 3: get to Watson's Chipin' in nineteen eighty two, and the
Speaker 3: crew knows exactly how to deliver that moment. Yes, you
Speaker 3: see the shot itself in a wide shot, you see
Speaker 3: the ball go in. Then and then you have these
Speaker 3: different cameras, these different angles, the close up on Watson
Speaker 3: showing his run across the green, cutting to the crowd
Speaker 3: and showing the crowd going crazy, and then back to
Speaker 3: Watson as he continues to celebrate and points at his caddy,
Speaker 3: Bruce Edwards, And you know, says I told you so,
Speaker 3: basically because he told him before the shot that he
Speaker 3: was going to He wasn't just going to get it close,
Speaker 3: he was going to hold it. And you know, looking
Speaker 3: at this, I was like, well, this is basically a
Speaker 3: modern golf telecast. They got there everything that's really important.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a bunch of bells and whistles now
Speaker 3: that they have that they didn't have back then. But
Speaker 3: really that's all you need right there. The ability to
Speaker 3: show these shots from a number of different angles and
Speaker 3: to have the commentators following along live and delivering the moment.
Speaker 3: They were able to do that.
Speaker 2: It was almost cinematic, like if you if you take
Speaker 2: footage from just your random event, to take the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five US Open, I don't even know bell Reeve,
Speaker 2: I don't even know where it was, take footage from
Speaker 2: that and compare it to the footage you just described,
Speaker 2: maybe two and the advances in golf television are almost undescribable.
Speaker 2: But a lot of that vision, a lot of that
Speaker 2: sort of intimacy and the warmth and the humanity is
Speaker 2: actually brought to the screen by Ruin Oarledge that that
Speaker 2: was his thing. And I don't know, you may not
Speaker 2: be old enough. I don't know you. You might be.
Speaker 3: Do you remember was two years before I was born.
Speaker 3: If that gives you an idea, well.
Speaker 4: You might be.
Speaker 2: You were probably a little to you, you remember. But Rune
Speaker 2: Oarlich brought this thing about in the nineteen seventies and
Speaker 2: probably it lasted into the eighties called up close and personal,
Speaker 2: and it's become almost a cliche in TV now, but
Speaker 2: up close and personally. The idea of up close and
Speaker 2: personal was that, particularly in the seventies when this thing
Speaker 2: really took off. Maybe it could have been the early eighties.
Speaker 2: Rune had this belief that if I, if I knew
Speaker 2: you in some way, I would care more about what
Speaker 2: you're doing on the field, or on the golf course
Speaker 2: or on the tennis court. And so if I could
Speaker 2: somehow get a little bit closer to you with my camera,
Speaker 2: and if I could see your eyes a little bit,
Speaker 2: eyes were huge, and if my announcers had something a
Speaker 2: little more about you than he's born in California, you know,
Speaker 2: like maybe that you played golf at this college, and
Speaker 2: that you had been a left hander and the switch
Speaker 2: to right, and so more personal detail, and so that
Speaker 2: the better I knew you, the more I would care
Speaker 2: about what you were doing on TV. That was the
Speaker 2: essence of up close and personal, and Jastro talks about
Speaker 2: it in the book. In the chapter where we detail
Speaker 2: this TV moment and what went into these shots, Jastro
Speaker 2: talks about the importance of having the best cameramen in
Speaker 2: the business in position to get all the shots they wanted,
Speaker 2: close ups of the ball, like, for instance, you would
Speaker 2: not have seen a close up of a golf ball
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixty five US Open telegass. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: you got a real good look at the ball, and
Speaker 2: I am there since, and you had multiple guys with
Speaker 2: low angle cameras, multiple guys with high angle cameras. In fact,
Speaker 2: to get that balletic response by Watson is really a
Speaker 2: tribute to the cameramen because that just didn't happen a
Speaker 2: lot in golf, and it certainly didn't happen a lot
Speaker 2: with Watson. He was a very reserved guy. Ironic really
Speaker 2: that his greatest shot is marked by the most Unwatson
Speaker 2: like celebration you've ever seen in your life. And the
Speaker 2: fact that they were able to record all that live
Speaker 2: is a testament to the evolution of golf television. But
Speaker 2: it's really a credit to Ruin Oarledge and Terry Jastrow
Speaker 2: and to Chuck Howard who really learned nailed down how
Speaker 2: to do golf TV.
Speaker 3: And then beyond that, it's in color and it's showing
Speaker 3: Pebble Beach. You can see the ocean, you can see
Speaker 3: the course, and I think that probably changed a lot
Speaker 3: of things for Pebble Beach, being able to be beamed
Speaker 3: into people's living rooms in color so that people could
Speaker 3: actually see what this golf course looked like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it did. I think really almost starting
Speaker 2: in seventy two when people got to watch Nicholas hit
Speaker 2: the one iron the seventeen stretching through and really even
Speaker 2: to when they went there in ninety two, the best
Speaker 2: ad you could ever have for Pebble Beach is a
Speaker 2: US Open at Pebble Beach. And from the time that
Speaker 2: Golf di just started ranking courses, you see a huge
Speaker 2: rise in Pebble Beach's stature the more it's been on
Speaker 2: television in US Opens. So, you know, to Jastro and
Speaker 2: the GM's earlier point about you know, now they were
Speaker 2: selling rooms like the US Open and the ABC put
Speaker 2: Pebble back on the financial map. I think it's also
Speaker 2: carved out for Pebble Beach a permanent place in golf
Speaker 2: course lore. I mean it's it's just spectacular and it
Speaker 2: loves the camera.
Speaker 3: Well, Chris, it was great to have you back on
Speaker 3: the podcast again. The book is called The Shot Watson Nicholas,
Speaker 3: Pebble Beach and the Chip That Changed Everything available for
Speaker 3: order now. Maybe by the time this podcast comes out.
Speaker 3: In fact, copies of the book will be getting shipped
Speaker 3: out to people. So congratulations on the book and thanks
Speaker 3: for coming on.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Garrett, thanks for having me, and
Speaker 2: happy holidays to you and all your viewers.
Speaker 3: Yeah to you as well.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for listening to another edition of
Speaker 1: the Friday Podcast. I hope you liked this monster episode here.
Speaker 1: Gotten a ton of feedback about the Bob Crosby episode
Speaker 1: earlier this week. Thank you, that was really fun. I'm
Speaker 1: sad that Bob had a hard stop. That conversation probably
Speaker 1: would have kept going. We will definitely get him back
Speaker 1: on in the near future to have a part two
Speaker 1: of that discussion. But thanks the PJA for editing producing
Speaker 1: this podcast. He has been a busy boy. We've got
Speaker 1: year review going on on shotgun start and he is
Speaker 1: churning out the audio content. We've got two more weeks
Speaker 1: of pods and then a little break. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a holiday break, but we've got some goodies in
Speaker 1: store for the holidays. Thanks to everybody for their ongoing support,
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for another type of holiday gift,
Speaker 1: check out Club TFE our membership. That's a great gift
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Speaker 1: want to learn more about golf courses, architecture, if you
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