Speaker 1: Golf. Is that say anything in golf that doesn't change?
Speaker 1: Anything that changes the best in playing? Does this man
Speaker 1: a one time winner on the PGA Tour? The point
Speaker 1: Alan is he didn't go Hollywood. You need a fourth? Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome back to need a fourth. We always appreciate you
Speaker 1: being here. Before we get to a spectacular guest and
Speaker 1: Hill Irwin, who is so wise and so droll and
Speaker 1: so much fun, we just wanted to tip our cap
Speaker 1: to Echo Golf Shoes, who have been a sponsor all
Speaker 1: season long and who have helped make this podcast possible.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Echo, Michael, did you have
Speaker 1: something well, I know one of your favorite golfers one
Speaker 1: wearing Echo shoes this week. Effortless charm comes to mind,
Speaker 1: both for the Echo shoe and this particular golfer. Take
Speaker 1: it away on Oh yeah, Lydia Ko. I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: praise to John Rom, but I think Lydia Coo might
Speaker 1: win more tournaments this year though Ram has a head start.
Speaker 1: I mean, she just got married. She looks very happy
Speaker 1: and settled, and it is such a mega talent. And
Speaker 1: I've said this before when I love watching Lydia play
Speaker 1: because it's like she's dancing out there. She's like Ginger Rogers,
Speaker 1: you know, with a golf club. She's so light on
Speaker 1: her feet and I actually, yeah, people talk all the
Speaker 1: time about a golfer's footwork, and to me it seems
Speaker 1: a little overblown. But I do notice it with Lydia,
Speaker 1: just the way she moves and and her grace. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's the shoes, because she's always
Speaker 1: wearing Echo shoes and my eyes go there. So congrats
Speaker 1: to Lydia. Thank you Echo for helping launch her into
Speaker 1: another stratosphere and for making this podcast possible. Now let's
Speaker 1: get to Hale Irwin. Hello, this is Alan Schipnuk back
Speaker 1: for another Need of Fourth podcast, which myself, Michael Bamberger,
Speaker 1: and Jeff Ogally take turns surprising each other with guests.
Speaker 1: And we have a great one today. One of the
Speaker 1: few humans on planet Earth who can say they've won
Speaker 1: more opens and Jeff Ogilvie uh also a protagonist in
Speaker 1: Michael's wonderful book Men in Green. I know he's been
Speaker 1: a long time hero to you, Michael, Um does do
Speaker 1: we know who this person is? Do we have any guesses?
Speaker 1: Could be? Could be Jack Nicholas, could Curtis could be Curtis,
Speaker 1: you know, be Curtis. Okay, fine, both Jeff and this
Speaker 1: guest have won national championships at one winged foot golf club.
Speaker 1: Does that Does that help? It's not Billy Caspers. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with it. I'm gonna go with Hale Irwin.
Speaker 1: Yes it is. It is Hale Irwin, the man himself,
Speaker 1: three time US Open champion, Hal come on down, welcome
Speaker 1: to this at NITA fourth podcast. Mister Hale Irwin. Thank
Speaker 1: you for saying yes, yes, uh differentiated from maybe okay,
Speaker 1: I could follow that with you, Ellen, I could follow that, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a relief. So this is a very exclusive club.
Speaker 1: The number of men who have conquered wingfoot in the
Speaker 1: United States Open, that's as macho as it gets. Is
Speaker 1: there a special kinship there? Even more than every every
Speaker 1: US Open champion I'm sure has a grudging respect for
Speaker 1: the other guy. But when you do it on the
Speaker 1: same course as that kind of extra special well, I
Speaker 1: don't know about what Jeff thinks, but for me, I
Speaker 1: conquered man. I don't think any of ever conquer a
Speaker 1: golf course, much less wingfoot of true test of golf
Speaker 1: there's I found that when Bryson won there several years ago,
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize some of the shots coming in the
Speaker 1: change the entry to the greens a bit. And I
Speaker 1: played it perhaps a year or so afterwards, and sure
Speaker 1: enough the entries to the greens had changed some. So
Speaker 1: I didn't quite recognize the golf course on television at least.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about Jeff, but I thought Wingfoot
Speaker 1: prior to those those changes was one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult golf courses you could ever play, particularly under open conditions. No,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. It's like, um, Harry Cult describes Swinley Forest
Speaker 1: as his least bad course, you know, which is a
Speaker 1: fantastic way to describe his favorite bit of work. But
Speaker 1: I think when you win the US Open at Wingfoot,
Speaker 1: you do the least bad you know. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: a fight. Like sometimes I'm sure Hill conspected that you
Speaker 1: finished a tournament and you're like, I played really well.
Speaker 1: I didn't really feel like I played that well at Wingfoot.
Speaker 1: I just didn't do as bad as everybody else beat you.
Speaker 1: Wingfoot comes but brings it swipping stick out there, and
Speaker 1: it it beat you. And like Jeff says, there are
Speaker 1: tournaments you win you think, yeah, I really played well.
Speaker 1: I was on top of my game. But every time
Speaker 1: I played woot, I go back to the locker thing.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, if I got work to do, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like a puppy that's been whipped. Now it
Speaker 1: would probably be an appropriate time to remind the listeners
Speaker 1: that Hale shot a last round seventy three and one
Speaker 1: at seven over part see I beat that. I was five.
Speaker 1: I've I wasn't on, Yeah, Ramon wasn't cold. The massacre
Speaker 1: yours was the massacre at wing Foot Rot seventy fous Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: does that remain the hardest the golf course you've ever played? Hale?
Speaker 1: That that's set up that week barring wind conditions. You know,
Speaker 1: we can throw wind in anywhere on the planet and
Speaker 1: it makes a golf course very difficult. But we had
Speaker 1: virtually no weather to speak of, you know, breezes, but
Speaker 1: no maybe a sprinkle or two, but weather. It was
Speaker 1: not an issue at any time. And you know, we've
Speaker 1: all played open conditions across the way, and you go
Speaker 1: down in Australia and play some of those great courses
Speaker 1: they have down there, and when the winds up. It's
Speaker 1: nearly impossible, but they are weather related to But wingfoot
Speaker 1: and seventy four is hards golf course I've ever played,
Speaker 1: bar none. Hell, how much do you subscribe to the
Speaker 1: theory that they went crazy in the setup in relation
Speaker 1: to the seventy three US Open when john Johnny Miller
Speaker 1: shot the sixty last round sixty three, Well, yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't know what was in their mind, but the knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction seems to be after Johnny's final round. And
Speaker 1: give Johnny credit for a great round of golf. Plate
Speaker 1: We had ideal conditions there to money had rained the
Speaker 1: night before, the greens were receptive. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: Johnny played and he was lucky. I mean he played really,
Speaker 1: really well. He stuck his irons close, he made a
Speaker 1: lot of puts. Now fast forward to the next year.
Speaker 1: Was the USGA thinking about that? Oh they had to be.
Speaker 1: There's just it would be inhumanly possible not to think
Speaker 1: about it. So I'm sure the setup was. It was terrifying,
Speaker 1: It really was. I remember the doom and gloom in
Speaker 1: the locker room after practice Round one was you could
Speaker 1: hardly breathe. You could cut it with a knife, and
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, my goodness, all you have dudes beat
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the fields already checked out, they're gone.
Speaker 1: There's just thirty percent of the guys here are going
Speaker 1: to try most of the fields gone. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened. Obviously, Hail, the US Open
Speaker 1: suited you, and I think you were in an era
Speaker 1: where there's no question it was the biggest tournament on
Speaker 1: the planet. It feels like maybe in contemporary times, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, the players are get more excited about the
Speaker 1: Masters and it's become a little more of a spectacle.
Speaker 1: But can you speak to in your era just the
Speaker 1: meaning of the national championship to the players? Well, I
Speaker 1: think certainly here in the United States it was it
Speaker 1: was the Probably I won't speak for everybody, it was
Speaker 1: probably the biggest event. You'll have the subscribe to the Masters,
Speaker 1: you certainly have those, and rightly so subscribe to PGA,
Speaker 1: and you can make an equal and maybe stronger arguing
Speaker 1: about worldwide would be the Open Championship. It's been going
Speaker 1: on longer, it's it encompasses the world, initially more so
Speaker 1: I think than the US Open. Now, Jeff could probably
Speaker 1: speak to that better than night because when living down
Speaker 1: in Australia, he probably when't you talked Open, it could
Speaker 1: have been the Open and not the US Open. For
Speaker 1: all I know, it could have been Australian Open. But
Speaker 1: I think each country kind of had its favorites, and
Speaker 1: certainly for me as a kid growing up, it was
Speaker 1: the US Open. But I'd be curious what Jeff thinks. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's similar to that. I mean we we
Speaker 1: audolized the Open Championship growing up, being the British one.
Speaker 1: Peter Thompson had won five, Greg won a couple when
Speaker 1: we were a kid. When I was a kid, it
Speaker 1: was that was the sort of considered that I don't know,
Speaker 1: the World Championship of golf, I guess for an Australian,
Speaker 1: you know, that was like as big as it got,
Speaker 1: although the Masters was always something so sort of special
Speaker 1: and unique and you only got back in those days
Speaker 1: what you've got about four hours of coverage for the
Speaker 1: whole weekend, and it was sort of so sort of
Speaker 1: mystique about the whole thing. But the feeling as Hale
Speaker 1: would get and all US players would get when they
Speaker 1: played the US Open, we have that same feeling when
Speaker 1: we play the Australian Open. You know, it's just something
Speaker 1: about your national championship. It doesn't need to be the
Speaker 1: biggest tournament in the world to be special. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure the South Africans are the same. In South Africa
Speaker 1: and the Canadians. I mean that we've seen some of
Speaker 1: the Canadians how big the Canadian Open is for them.
Speaker 1: So the National Open is the National Open. I don't
Speaker 1: think it matters what everybody else thinks of it, like
Speaker 1: it's really special, and the US Open is sort of
Speaker 1: I guess that the unique in that just the way
Speaker 1: it's tested. It's on the best courses in the US,
Speaker 1: which it's usually on some of the best courses in
Speaker 1: the world. It's been won by everybody who's almost anybody
Speaker 1: who's ever been sort of historically relevant golfer, they've all
Speaker 1: sort of won the US Open. And I didn't really appreciate,
Speaker 1: I guess the US Open, how big it was and
Speaker 1: how impressive a tournament was until I got to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Masters is nice and it's intimate, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of small in a way, and it's got
Speaker 1: its own sort of charm. But the US Open is
Speaker 1: just on a scale that's hard to imagine until you
Speaker 1: get there, just how big it feels, and how important
Speaker 1: it feels, and how tough the course is, and what
Speaker 1: it does to the players in the locker room. In
Speaker 1: the locker room in the US Open, like Hay'll just
Speaker 1: mentioned before, it's quite an interesting place. There's USGA people
Speaker 1: would be best not to go in there. I think
Speaker 1: it's it's just a fantastic tournament. I think yeah for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Open Championship was the major that, like
Speaker 1: I was as a kid, I thought it was the
Speaker 1: most special. But when I got to the US Open um,
Speaker 1: I was hit in the face with how big a
Speaker 1: deal and how special it was. Hell, you had you
Speaker 1: had a stretch in the in the seventies where you
Speaker 1: were top five four years in a row at Augusta
Speaker 1: and you know that. Did did you feel like you
Speaker 1: could win there? Did? Did? Was it a different style
Speaker 1: of golf? I mean, you're so sononess to the US Open,
Speaker 1: but you had your chances. You finished tied for second
Speaker 1: at the Open Championship. I mean, you're knocking on the door.
Speaker 1: That's some of the other ones. But was it just
Speaker 1: a different kind of golfer and it just didn't go
Speaker 1: your way. Well, I think, uh you can. I think
Speaker 1: Jeff makes a really good point when you talk about
Speaker 1: your national championship. For me, it seemed to pique my interests,
Speaker 1: my competitiveness, my spirit, whatever you want to. Augusta was
Speaker 1: a place that I truly loved. I really did did.
Speaker 1: I I think give it in the same terms as
Speaker 1: the US Open. Non, nor did I think of the
Speaker 1: Open Championship in the same way. The PGA was different.
Speaker 1: They're all different. But for me, Augusta was a place
Speaker 1: I really did want to play well, and I did.
Speaker 1: I had some good, good tournaments there. I led it
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but you got to get to
Speaker 1: the finish. The thing about Augusta to me was that
Speaker 1: there were critical holes that you know, where I was
Speaker 1: probably average in length. If you just average plus five yards,
Speaker 1: you had a distinct advantage. And I referred to holes
Speaker 1: mostly the par fives, but you can say number of five.
Speaker 1: Back then, you could just drive it a little bit farther.
Speaker 1: Going into that green with a mid iron or a
Speaker 1: shorter iron than a four iron or five iron or
Speaker 1: three iron was so much easier. If you get a
Speaker 1: little bit farther at eight, get up that hill a bit,
Speaker 1: you might have a chance to get it up to
Speaker 1: the front edge of the green eleven. The same in
Speaker 1: thirteen fifteen. Those holes, that just a couple of extra
Speaker 1: yards makes a big difference on how you can approach
Speaker 1: those greens. With one or two less clubs or par fives,
Speaker 1: you might be able to get it on into And
Speaker 1: that's what I lacked. I lacked that that extra o.
Speaker 1: Could I hit it far enough? Yeah, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to sacrifice the accuracy just to try and get
Speaker 1: it out there farther. Plus, I think my game was
Speaker 1: always predicated on give me the tightest fairways out there
Speaker 1: and put big tall trees right next to them. And
Speaker 1: I led defined my target when I got to an
Speaker 1: open championship or a little bit at a gust, because
Speaker 1: the fairways aren't pretty generous, I kind of had a
Speaker 1: hard time picking my target. That was for me psychologically
Speaker 1: and mentally more difficult than it was driving it down
Speaker 1: a really tight fairway. Yeah, the sky, little gust, there's
Speaker 1: hard to get your head around when you first get
Speaker 1: that there's nothing that I'm at. The fairways is so wide.
Speaker 1: I mean the second shot to the second hall, you've
Speaker 1: got football fields you can hit that ball into, like,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of hard to sort of it makes
Speaker 1: you forces you to sort of pick small targets, and
Speaker 1: it's really difficult because the scale is so big. Like
Speaker 1: you said, hey, when you're in traditional US Open setups,
Speaker 1: or it's obvious I'm there and if you're good enough,
Speaker 1: if you hit it there, you'll be good, you know, um,
Speaker 1: And each each presents its own challenge. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: ultra wide fairways at Augusta, at places like that, the
Speaker 1: big scale can be just as awkward in a different way.
Speaker 1: And then I found that for the Open Championship too.
Speaker 1: You get there and you've got a relatively flat horizon
Speaker 1: other than it might be in the dunes, but you
Speaker 1: don't have big trees, you don't have big hillsides, you
Speaker 1: have just the roles and the mounds. And you go
Speaker 1: to Saint Andrew's, for instance, and you know there's probably
Speaker 1: five eighty bunkers out there, but you can only see
Speaker 1: three of them. And so for me it was here's
Speaker 1: the fairway, but you're always supposed to play left, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't never separate that in my own mind, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it was how you approached playing.
Speaker 1: You know, Jeff may have a different way of approaching
Speaker 1: playing Wingingfoot than I. We were both successful at it,
Speaker 1: but there might be different avenues in which to play.
Speaker 1: But I just couldn't never get my mind or wrapped
Speaker 1: around playing away from a target or seeing something that's
Speaker 1: relatively flat. Hit at the church spire, see that that
Speaker 1: cloud flying by those were I just I had a
Speaker 1: hard time with that. Can I go back to something
Speaker 1: Jeff just said a minute ago? You know he was
Speaker 1: talking about the locker room at Wingfoot and how you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want the USGA, wouldn't want to be in there.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know about the evolution of the USJ
Speaker 1: as an authority figure in both your lives. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of a theory. I don't know if it's true,
Speaker 1: but like my mind, like when Hale was coming up
Speaker 1: in the game and Hale's told me about going to it,
Speaker 1: I think the sixty US Open was maybe your first
Speaker 1: US Open that you went to as a fan. Is
Speaker 1: that right, Hall, Yes? And like this is how I
Speaker 1: came up and imagine held the same the USGA and
Speaker 1: Alan I have joked about this over the years. They
Speaker 1: were like the stern father that you need in your life.
Speaker 1: And they told you how many clubs and what the
Speaker 1: rules were, and you just kind of respect to them,
Speaker 1: and they gave you the golf course and it was hard,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you might complain about it, but it was
Speaker 1: the USGA. And then so Hale, I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: you on that, and then Jeff, I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: if it's any different for you, And then i'd love
Speaker 1: to hear you both talk about whether that's evolved, because
Speaker 1: like if you think about that US Open at Oakmont
Speaker 1: a few years ago, where you know, there was uproar
Speaker 1: over the USGA and how they handled Dustin Johnson's you
Speaker 1: know ball thing on that putting green, and now it's
Speaker 1: I don't think there's that blind acceptance of the authority
Speaker 1: figure and I think it's hurt golf. I know it's
Speaker 1: a long we did question. I'm sorry for that, but
Speaker 1: I hope that warms you guys up for maybe addressing
Speaker 1: this broad question. Well, Michael, I wouldn't expect a short
Speaker 1: question from you. Sorry, it's got to be long winded,
Speaker 1: but I think you make a very very valid point.
Speaker 1: You know, I went as a youngster. I was. I
Speaker 1: just lived in Boulder, outside of Denver, but I was
Speaker 1: relatively new to that environment and I just went down
Speaker 1: there kind of an interesting I really didn't know much
Speaker 1: about it, although I'll have to admit that it really
Speaker 1: piqued me. The thing. Two things I remember most about
Speaker 1: Denver just kind of how impressionable a young person can be,
Speaker 1: was watching Oh yeah, Ed what's his name, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: hit it off the first tea in a practice round
Speaker 1: and the ball went out through where I remember mine
Speaker 1: falling out of the here. He just kept going, Porkey, Oliver.
Speaker 1: That's it. Way to Ed, Porkey Oliver hit it out
Speaker 1: there to kept going. And then I saw Ben Hogan
Speaker 1: on the practice he dump a shag bagful of brand
Speaker 1: new balls, brand new balls, a shag balls. Wow. But
Speaker 1: I did go on to play in the sixty six
Speaker 1: US Open as an amateur at Olympic Club, and as
Speaker 1: you say, the authoritative figure was there. I was fortunately
Speaker 1: made the cut and I was first out the next day,
Speaker 1: and the USGA was there reading me my rights about
Speaker 1: how fast we had to play. We were the number
Speaker 1: one out and they were going to be watching us
Speaker 1: on every hole and it you know, it put the
Speaker 1: fear in me. Now, if someone were do that in
Speaker 1: today's game, you'd look at him and say, you know,
Speaker 1: leave me alone, go away, Which I think is sad
Speaker 1: in a way because I wish the USJA would go
Speaker 1: back and make the rules a little bit more stern,
Speaker 1: make them not as encompassing of everybody, because Jeff knows
Speaker 1: this as well. The professor sort of level game where
Speaker 1: we play us the same equipment, it's a different level
Speaker 1: of competition, it's a different level of talent and taking
Speaker 1: the same rules to apply throughout from the very best
Speaker 1: to play the game at the professional level to the
Speaker 1: club level, it's very difficult. So why not have two
Speaker 1: separate rules, two separate rule book? And I just think
Speaker 1: that the players that play the game professionally, I don't
Speaker 1: have their own rules. Australia with the USGA was this
Speaker 1: other body that we heard about because we grew up
Speaker 1: under the RNA in Australia and by a sort of
Speaker 1: relationship the Australian Golf Union, who certainly had that stern,
Speaker 1: sort of strict headmaster type attitude towards us when we
Speaker 1: were kids. But that was just part of it. And
Speaker 1: like as much as we sort of bumped heads with
Speaker 1: the authorities when we were kids, it was part of
Speaker 1: the sport and it was kind of cool. It's kind
Speaker 1: of always cool to have this, you know, strict boss
Speaker 1: at the top. But I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the USGA, I mean they did some funky stuff
Speaker 1: along the way. I mean, I've read a bunch of
Speaker 1: golf books. I don't think Sam Sneed was too friendly
Speaker 1: with the USGA. They used to give him some dodgy
Speaker 1: t times in the US Open, and they sort of
Speaker 1: made up the rules as they went along a little
Speaker 1: bit from what I understand from history. But I mean
Speaker 1: there's still there's still a bit of respect them, and
Speaker 1: it's different. The world has changed so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: with keyboard warriors on their phones and high speed cameras
Speaker 1: getting Dustin's ball moving, and those things have happened forever
Speaker 1: in golf, you know, It's just that now everybody's watching
Speaker 1: and everyone has an opinion on what the right and
Speaker 1: wrong thing to do in the situation. And I'm very
Speaker 1: very happy that Dustin won that tournament because I thought
Speaker 1: he got pretty hardly done by there. And they changed
Speaker 1: the rule because of it, which was interesting. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they ultimately have basically the respect. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think professional golfers are the right people to
Speaker 1: ask about the USGA really, because we only had one
Speaker 1: real exposure to him every year, and that's the US Open,
Speaker 1: and that's not that's sort of not something that's going
Speaker 1: to make you love for people who set it up,
Speaker 1: you know, um, so you shouldn't ask us. But I think,
Speaker 1: all in all, I think the rules thing I think
Speaker 1: is interesting that Hoyle brought up. I think when they
Speaker 1: changed the rules, I knew the rule, every rule in
Speaker 1: golf up and down until a few years ago. Now
Speaker 1: I don't have a clue like they keep changing them
Speaker 1: and um, all in the effort to speed up play,
Speaker 1: but fundamentally, if people just play faster, it'll get faster.
Speaker 1: It's not because of how high people drop the ball from.
Speaker 1: I used to read the rule, but because I saw
Speaker 1: afraid I was gonna have an infraction of a rule
Speaker 1: that Like you, I knew the rules up one side,
Speaker 1: down the other, and I read them on a plane
Speaker 1: or back of the room. I just feared having to
Speaker 1: get in a situation where I didn't know the rule,
Speaker 1: and like you, Jeff, I don't know how to drop
Speaker 1: a ball anymore. It feels so odd dropping it from
Speaker 1: my knee. And then what is They're not waterheads was anymore?
Speaker 1: They're penalty areas well. You can have that in the
Speaker 1: middle of fairway if you're in a divit, you know.
Speaker 1: I just don't. I just wish we'd go back to
Speaker 1: defining the rules what they really are and leave them
Speaker 1: at that. Not that I want to go back to
Speaker 1: stymies and where you don't ever touch your ball, but
Speaker 1: I do think that we need to tighten up the
Speaker 1: rules so we all can play under the same banner
Speaker 1: of rules rather than these loose kind of interpretations. I
Speaker 1: have a funny story from excuse me, that Oakmont situation.
Speaker 1: You know, it was the last few holes were playing out.
Speaker 1: No one knew it was going to happen with Dustin,
Speaker 1: how it was going to affect his score. The entire
Speaker 1: tournament was thrown into chaos, and I was asking people,
Speaker 1: where's Mike Davis. He'd gone totally underground, and so finally
Speaker 1: someone said, I saw him in the locker room. So
Speaker 1: I ran into the into the locker room at Oakmont
Speaker 1: and there was Davis. He's walking around in a towel.
Speaker 1: He just he'd just taken a shower so he could
Speaker 1: be fresh for the for the trophy ceremony, and he's
Speaker 1: tying his tie and he's not on his phone. He
Speaker 1: was completely unbothered by this whole thing. I mean, the
Speaker 1: tournament was on the brink of anarchy and he's in
Speaker 1: there messing with his winds or not. And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: this is unbelievable, Like I'm more stressed out about this
Speaker 1: than Mike Davis is, and it's his tournament. And I've
Speaker 1: never forgotten that that attitude was kind of like it
Speaker 1: was almost callous and indifferent, Like I think there was
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that could have handled it, but
Speaker 1: they it was probably the worst possible way. And I'll
Speaker 1: never forget Mike Davis in his towel, just kind of
Speaker 1: hanging out in the locker room. Well, the us opens
Speaker 1: crumbling around him. But anyway, I had to share that
Speaker 1: well maybe Mike, Mike knew then more than anybody else
Speaker 1: that he was leaving the USDA had to leave these
Speaker 1: problems to the next president executive director. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that was an amazing moment, as you surely know. You know.
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Speaker 1: We're trying to have some fun. We also have to
Speaker 1: pay the bills here at the fire Pit Collective. So
Speaker 1: back to Nita Fourth. You know, obviously, Hale, it's part
Speaker 1: of your biography that that maybe younger fans aren't even
Speaker 1: aware of that you are a badass football player in
Speaker 1: college and at Colorado won some some accolades, and you
Speaker 1: know there's there's a lot of debate about our our
Speaker 1: golfers real athletes or not. I would I would love
Speaker 1: to hear your take on this and how how being
Speaker 1: a football player informed you as a golfer. Well, certainly
Speaker 1: two different ways to go at it. Football for me,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about not football as they have in Europe,
Speaker 1: which is soccer as we know it, and and not
Speaker 1: that crazy game that he play in Australia. Oh god,
Speaker 1: that is nuts to play the reading rules football. But
Speaker 1: to me it was away through college. You know, my
Speaker 1: mom and dad didn't have a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: whereas I was really at that time, my golf was
Speaker 1: I'd won the state high school, I'd won some state tournaments,
Speaker 1: but in the state of Colorade, we weren't blessed with
Speaker 1: a lot of players that can really play at a
Speaker 1: high level. So I really know what I could do
Speaker 1: with my game, and no golf school universities had come
Speaker 1: around with any interest in me being on a golf team.
Speaker 1: So when you get to kind of a full ride
Speaker 1: scholarship to play football, Okay, my dad was handing me
Speaker 1: the pen here son sounds good to us and I
Speaker 1: and that was fine. I don't regret it. For one moment.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it taught me a lot of discipline.
Speaker 1: Because I was undersized, I had to do things in
Speaker 1: a very disciplined way. I had to really convinced myself
Speaker 1: that I was playing larger than I really was. I
Speaker 1: had to make those players opposite me respect me and
Speaker 1: maybe much to my physical pain. But there's just certain
Speaker 1: things you had to do, and some of that I
Speaker 1: think flipped over to my golfers. I think specific of
Speaker 1: the discipline. I've never had a coach, I've never had
Speaker 1: an instructor, and just it wasn't available. I didn't have
Speaker 1: the money anyway, So I think there were things that
Speaker 1: I had to do within me internally to expose what
Speaker 1: talent I may or may not have. And that could
Speaker 1: be the same for a lot of people. But you're right,
Speaker 1: football and golfers kind of a strange combination if you
Speaker 1: had baseball and golf, or basketball and golf. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of kids in today's world are restricted
Speaker 1: to one sport or one activity and that's it. And
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of things that could benefit
Speaker 1: those kids to have some cross training, mental and physical.
Speaker 1: Playing other sports, you learn how to accommodate in a
Speaker 1: team game. You learn how to accommodate yourself in a
Speaker 1: golf for instance. So I encourage parents and your youth
Speaker 1: to play all the sports you can get, get a
Speaker 1: taste of all of it, and then you'll you'll weed
Speaker 1: it down to the ones you enjoy. Did you wear
Speaker 1: a leather helmet? Oh? Yeah, I folded it up and
Speaker 1: put it in my pocket. You know that was my winner,
Speaker 1: Beanie when I go back to the door. Oh, you're funny, Allen.
Speaker 1: But I would I would assume that was the most
Speaker 1: manly era of football. I mean, the protecting the quarterback
Speaker 1: and receiver rules were those were way off in the future.
Speaker 1: The idea of targeting, all that stuff. I mean, and
Speaker 1: you were, you were playing the Texas schools, and I mean,
Speaker 1: just give us a taste of what just how how
Speaker 1: gladiatorial those football games were back then. Well, there was
Speaker 1: a certain team which will go un named, but they
Speaker 1: were in the Big Eight championship and they have to
Speaker 1: be and still water Ocloma. I will not say who
Speaker 1: that team was, though they were at the time a
Speaker 1: very physical team and we had what we call late
Speaker 1: whistle practices, so we would go full speed during the
Speaker 1: week and to get ready for this. And if a
Speaker 1: runner went down, the whistle didn't blow for several seconds too,
Speaker 1: so you get accustomed to somebody coming in and still
Speaker 1: trying to block you, that the play still continued. But
Speaker 1: and I hated those. I hated those. But you learn
Speaker 1: through different means how to accommodate each team. The physicality
Speaker 1: of football speaks for itself. There were some guys that
Speaker 1: were extremely fair but extremely tough. There were guys that
Speaker 1: played a little under the bonnet. You know, they took
Speaker 1: some cheap shots. But then again, that's the way it was,
Speaker 1: that's the way you played, and you had to be
Speaker 1: aware of that. And you know, okay, if I get
Speaker 1: that from you, okay, you can respect something for me
Speaker 1: here pretty soon if I have the opportunity. But again,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like David Goliath. You know, I felt
Speaker 1: like I was David almost all the time. And you know,
Speaker 1: David wins out in the end. That's great. I have
Speaker 1: one for Jeff now down Under with the Aussie rules.
Speaker 1: Those guys are nuts, are they not. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a tough, tough game. It is a tough game, like
Speaker 1: it's evolved a lot. You would have seen it back
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, back in the seventies and
Speaker 1: eighties and stuff. I'm sure it was tough. They were
Speaker 1: big kids, they hit hard. There was only one or
Speaker 1: two umpires on the field, and they couldn't look at
Speaker 1: there's eighteen players on each field and a really big field,
Speaker 1: so when the umpires the balls up there, I mean
Speaker 1: they were given it to each other at the other
Speaker 1: end of the field. Like I mean, it was it
Speaker 1: was a proper battle. It was a bit like hockey,
Speaker 1: you know. It was just any hit was fair unless
Speaker 1: it was sort of like really dangerous. But with all
Speaker 1: the cameras and there's more umpires now, and they have
Speaker 1: this thing called trial by videos, so like they video
Speaker 1: every player on the field and afterwards they all get
Speaker 1: suspended if they've come up with too many cheap hits.
Speaker 1: And it's like all sports has been taken over by
Speaker 1: sports science and they've worked out that it's more effective
Speaker 1: to score against teams if you're running more and you're
Speaker 1: not hitting as much, and so it's a little bit
Speaker 1: friendly and now than it was back then. But yeah,
Speaker 1: back then, it was violent, like if you had all
Speaker 1: you take, he went drawing you know. Yeah, Well, Jeff
Speaker 1: made a good comment earlier that sports, all sports have
Speaker 1: come under the camera and the microscope of analysis, and
Speaker 1: those in those days we didn't have that. You you
Speaker 1: played pretty much on the honor system in golf, and
Speaker 1: were there players that probably took that and broke it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were probably singular in nature and we all knew
Speaker 1: who they were. But for the most part, the players
Speaker 1: played very much according to the rules as we had
Speaker 1: the rules then, and the same for these other sports.
Speaker 1: But incomes to television and the media, and now there's
Speaker 1: a super analysis and say sports science and how to
Speaker 1: go about things that there's more of a specific target
Speaker 1: now and you can take that right to hitting a driver.
Speaker 1: You know. I watched young man not too for the
Speaker 1: TPC Scotts Stale here, not too long ago. I was
Speaker 1: out there, well too long ago, probably three years, four years,
Speaker 1: and this kid had his teacher and he was bombing
Speaker 1: these drives and after every drive they went over and
Speaker 1: looked at the launch monitor and I'm thinking I would
Speaker 1: have taken any one of those, but his coaches almost
Speaker 1: berating him for not doing this and that. And to me,
Speaker 1: they were awesome, every one of them. But they played
Speaker 1: by the numbers. Now they don't really play by field.
Speaker 1: They don't play by Hey. You know, I'll take that
Speaker 1: anytime on any hole and go on to the next one.
Speaker 1: It's got to be that perfect swing, hit the ball, launch, angle,
Speaker 1: spin rate, blah blah blah. And the feel of the
Speaker 1: game is gone. And I think in that in that
Speaker 1: sense the kind of what we're talking about in general,
Speaker 1: the feel of the game is not what it once was,
Speaker 1: and things are never static, they always move around. But
Speaker 1: I've kind of long for the day where we would
Speaker 1: get back to a little bit more of a structured
Speaker 1: environment and keep all those well. Another story two No.
Speaker 1: Last year, I was at the Players Championship having lunch
Speaker 1: with the President of Championship, Miller Brady. We're up in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth hole having launched, and I'm looking down on
Speaker 1: the green and there were eighteen people on the green.
Speaker 1: Eighteen and I'm thinking, this is you gotta be kidding me.
Speaker 1: There was the four players, the caddies. Okay, now you've
Speaker 1: got ten others that are what are they But they're
Speaker 1: walking on the greens or throwing balls back to the players,
Speaker 1: and they're this now to me, eighteen people to have
Speaker 1: one group. You got it, that's a joke, So that
Speaker 1: to me is overdone. But again they're talking to doing
Speaker 1: an old guy, well kind of, I mean Gray, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think these track man and these launch monitors are
Speaker 1: really good tool, but I think they become such a
Speaker 1: they become the focus. I mean, they don't even watch
Speaker 1: the ball. Like Hale said, these kids will hit a
Speaker 1: driver and they'll look at the screen. They won't even
Speaker 1: watch the ball. And I'm sure if if you'd got
Speaker 1: Hogan or Jack or Trevino or something, they were a
Speaker 1: track man, I mean he could He couldn't have told
Speaker 1: you the specific numbers, but he would have told you
Speaker 1: if it was good or bad, and if it was
Speaker 1: spinning too much, or it was how he'd struck the ball.
Speaker 1: He didn't need a computer to tell him because he
Speaker 1: just let the ball tell him what was happening. And
Speaker 1: I think, like Hale says, you lose a bit of
Speaker 1: feel for the game if you don't do that enough,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I'm sure it's a good tool
Speaker 1: to go back to and check stuff, and there's absolutely
Speaker 1: advantages to it, but it seems to have become such
Speaker 1: a crutch. These guys play practice rounds on tour with
Speaker 1: two guys carrying around launch monitors and putting him down
Speaker 1: behind every single shot. I'm not sure that's how you
Speaker 1: shoot lower scores. I don't know, maybe it is, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely the flavor of the months. To do that.
Speaker 1: It would be much more fun, I think, to see
Speaker 1: these kids out there playing for one hundred dollars just
Speaker 1: with themselves, you know, and competing and getting under pressure
Speaker 1: and needling each other on the last few holes and stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that is far more the skill that you
Speaker 1: want to polish than having a plus three point five
Speaker 1: down swing or whatever these numbers they're chasing, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think it's every sport's happened though. I mean
Speaker 1: every sport has been taken over by sports science people
Speaker 1: who initially go in to improve the game, and they do,
Speaker 1: but I think it just takes over to such a
Speaker 1: level that the focus of the game is now good
Speaker 1: numbers on a screen, not low scores, you know, not
Speaker 1: being able to read a lot. I mean golf, you
Speaker 1: just can't science tournament golf. I mean every lie you
Speaker 1: ever have is different, every day is different. I mean,
Speaker 1: my ball goes a different distance every day, like even
Speaker 1: in Arizona, Like it's cool one morning, it's going nowhere.
Speaker 1: By lunchtime, it's going twenty yards further. You know, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know how you do that on a launch mournament,
Speaker 1: but if you play golf every day, you can just tell, well,
Speaker 1: my seven nine is going to go one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five. It just feels like it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I think if you lose that connection one hundred whatever
Speaker 1: that is, you get a long way away from it downhill.
Speaker 1: My seven ns like you're five one though, right like
Speaker 1: it's it's um. I actually have quite conservative lofts. I
Speaker 1: have sort of semi old school lofts. I have the
Speaker 1: lofts that I grew up with, like a forty eight
Speaker 1: degree pitching wedge and a forty four degree ninine, but
Speaker 1: I mean nineins forty degrees. Now I don't look at
Speaker 1: the numbers on the bottom of the club anymore. I
Speaker 1: just really they say, well, you've got two hundred and
Speaker 1: three yards and he's hitting an eight yard Huh, how
Speaker 1: do you do that? But I think Jeff makes a
Speaker 1: great point. It's it's become so numerized that we forget
Speaker 1: how to play and how about just a four and
Speaker 1: a half hour practice round. Wouldn't that be something I
Speaker 1: remember back when I was I'd try to be the
Speaker 1: first one on the golf course just to get out
Speaker 1: there and end. Yeah, I didn't want to spend six
Speaker 1: hours watching some guy chip and button button, chip and
Speaker 1: hit and hit and hit. And they said, well, do
Speaker 1: you only play one ball in practice round? At the
Speaker 1: US Open. That didn't stop very many players. I still
Speaker 1: played in six hours practice round. So I think, of
Speaker 1: all the things we can talk about, I think the
Speaker 1: speed of play has the biggest negative influence in my opinion,
Speaker 1: then anything else we could talk about. I think if
Speaker 1: we don't pick up the speed of play and the
Speaker 1: chitter chatter between player and ketty that goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on, it may make good sound bites, but boy,
Speaker 1: it takes a long time, and people tune out after that.
Speaker 1: They in today's world, they want things to happen now
Speaker 1: and not later. They want to see that shot now
Speaker 1: and not lay. And I think we have to keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. Well, what one counterpoint to what what
Speaker 1: you guys were talking about is on this show, we
Speaker 1: had just in the last couple months, we had brandall Shambli,
Speaker 1: and we had Gary McCord, and both of them said
Speaker 1: basically the same thing that they were They had tremendous
Speaker 1: success as juniors and in the college game, and they
Speaker 1: came out onto the tour and they had kind of
Speaker 1: no clue what they were doing, and they lost their
Speaker 1: way and they were never able to find it as
Speaker 1: professionals because they didn't have the information, they didn't understand
Speaker 1: their swing. They tried to emulate other players. And so
Speaker 1: I'm wondering for you, Hale, as a guy who's never
Speaker 1: really had an instructor, who didn't who just kind of
Speaker 1: did it your own way, do you think if you
Speaker 1: had access to the information and some of these tools,
Speaker 1: you could have been significantly better or do you think
Speaker 1: it would have hurt your sort of natural way of
Speaker 1: playing the game. I would have to say it probably
Speaker 1: would have hurt the way I naturally played the game.
Speaker 1: And I think Jeff said it basically said, the ball
Speaker 1: tells you what you're doing. If a ball courge left
Speaker 1: or right, we'll just sit down and figure why is
Speaker 1: the ball curve left to right? Why is it curved
Speaker 1: right to left? And say, okay, there's this rotation that
Speaker 1: rotiation is why isn't it spin up in the air well,
Speaker 1: And you go back and say, the club at impact
Speaker 1: had to be in this position to get there, that
Speaker 1: my body had to be in this was to put
Speaker 1: the club that way. You just trace it back and say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just a simple little here and in this swinging
Speaker 1: there was. It's very simple. But we so overcomplicated that
Speaker 1: the natural tendency of a player is overrun by the
Speaker 1: numbers what the launch monitor is saying. And I just
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of players out there, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing thousands of these kids come out of high
Speaker 1: school and colleges that want to be number one in
Speaker 1: the world. Well, they're not going to get there if
Speaker 1: they don't listen to themselves first and quit playing by
Speaker 1: the numbers all the time. I just I just think
Speaker 1: it's the wrong way to go about it, you know.
Speaker 1: And all to your point about out about what Brando
Speaker 1: and mccordy were saying. I remember Hale telling me years
Speaker 1: ago he learned golf on the PGA Tour and one
Speaker 1: of the end I was sort of thinking about this
Speaker 1: when you're talking about Mike Davidson locker room, he saw
Speaker 1: Arnold and big Jack in the locker room. And here's
Speaker 1: Arnold with his big chest and he hit the ball
Speaker 1: with his chest. And here's Jack with these big thighs
Speaker 1: and he hit the ball with his thighs. And then hell,
Speaker 1: tell me if I'm not getting this right. But like
Speaker 1: your body tells you how to play golf your way,
Speaker 1: and Hale Orwin's you know, built differently than Jeff Ogilvie,
Speaker 1: They're going to go out of different ways. So it
Speaker 1: really comes from inside the golfer. And I think for
Speaker 1: anybody our age and older, you were drawn to that
Speaker 1: that was just that the golfer figured it out for himself,
Speaker 1: and we are losing that. Well. I think if somebody
Speaker 1: saw my body build versus Jeff, for instance, I think
Speaker 1: Jeff probably has a closer body build, you know, taller
Speaker 1: tram like today's player versus Mair. They were shorter players
Speaker 1: and probably spent more time at the bar they did
Speaker 1: on the practice team. But the fact is these kids
Speaker 1: now he kind of come back to his golf. For athletes,
Speaker 1: I'd say yes, because today's player has to be an athlete.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to go out there and
Speaker 1: do some of the things they do with athletic proudness. Now,
Speaker 1: are there other things you'd pick up from other sports? Yes,
Speaker 1: but I think today's player and you can go down
Speaker 1: and and maybe ask Dustin Johnson if he was a
Speaker 1: good athlete. Yeah, he's a good basketball player. You know,
Speaker 1: go down, you pick him. Whomever they are, let's talk
Speaker 1: about us open chambers. Ask everyone of them what they've
Speaker 1: done in the past, and I'll almost guarantee that they've
Speaker 1: played other sports along the way, maybe not at the
Speaker 1: high level, but they have introduced their mind and their
Speaker 1: bodies to other activities. Yeah, I agree. It's well when
Speaker 1: you play out the sports, you're sort of learning how
Speaker 1: to use you in your mind, like you say, like
Speaker 1: in a different way, like you get weary one track
Speaker 1: when you just play golf. But I think this, I
Speaker 1: guess we can't just be like complete naysayers. I mean,
Speaker 1: the level of golf played at the top now is outrageous,
Speaker 1: Like it's really good. There's a lot of really good
Speaker 1: But the fiftieth best player now is like he looked
Speaker 1: like the number one golfer in the world twenty years ago, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of good players now, So
Speaker 1: you can't poo poo, the whole approach. I just think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very dangerous territory for a for a person who's
Speaker 1: sort of one of those analytical type people who's going
Speaker 1: to work really really hard and chase every little thread.
Speaker 1: This technology is pretty dangerous, right because you've just got
Speaker 1: any number of different sort of sort of avenues you
Speaker 1: can go down to sort of flood your mind with overthinking.
Speaker 1: I think for guys like Dustin Johnson and those guys
Speaker 1: who can just sort of take a bit of information,
Speaker 1: say that's mine, and then just go off and play
Speaker 1: golf like Dustin Johnson, I think it's a really ball
Speaker 1: to all this stuff. I just think it's it's it's
Speaker 1: risky for this. I've seen a lot of golfers over
Speaker 1: the last and I'm sure how I'll saw it through
Speaker 1: his career that as soon as you start, there's there's
Speaker 1: a certain type of personality that if you get down
Speaker 1: that technical path, like you're not coming back. You know,
Speaker 1: you're just going down and down and down. And I
Speaker 1: think that door is wider open than it's ever been,
Speaker 1: you know, because there's just so many different ways you
Speaker 1: can analyze the sport. I think you have to a
Speaker 1: coach's true job really, because it seems like you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to play golf without a coach anymore, not many do.
Speaker 1: But a coach's true job is to teach a player
Speaker 1: how to teach himself and to become redundant. I mean,
Speaker 1: the best coach becomes redundant the fastest right. And guys
Speaker 1: like Butch. Butch for out of out of Area seems
Speaker 1: to have done that really really well. You know, he
Speaker 1: gives a guy a couple of things. You know, what
Speaker 1: your best when you do these sort of things, and
Speaker 1: then he just leaves them alone. If you've ever been
Speaker 1: on the arrangement, butchers teach any of his good players.
Speaker 1: He's just standing there telling stories. He's not really telling
Speaker 1: them too much, you know, he's just Jessy playing well
Speaker 1: to day, DJ. Look how well you're hitting it today, DJ,
Speaker 1: And he's just telling stories. That's a great coach. Whereas
Speaker 1: the guy who's the players calling up after I mean,
Speaker 1: I've played lots of practice rounds with the guys who
Speaker 1: are calling their coach on the fourth hole, going what
Speaker 1: am I doing? I'll just hit it in the right
Speaker 1: trees on the third you know, like that's a bad
Speaker 1: spot to be. And the nature of the sport at
Speaker 1: the moment is it's very easy to get that way.
Speaker 1: You know, they're sending swings, they're taking a swing, their
Speaker 1: caddies holding the phone behind them on the thirteen and
Speaker 1: they're taking a video and they're sending it back and
Speaker 1: they're getting a lesson before they get to their second shot.
Speaker 1: You know, that isn't playing golf. That's not you playing golf.
Speaker 1: That's getting somebody else to tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a dangerous direction. But as I
Speaker 1: said when we started this, the level is so high
Speaker 1: at the moment of the best golfers you can't really
Speaker 1: pick at the approach because they are getting very, very good. Well.
Speaker 1: Having said that, though, let's go back to review who
Speaker 1: the winners have been, primarily over the last several years.
Speaker 1: It's going to be kind of the same names like
Speaker 1: they were in the past too. The best players are
Speaker 1: going to emerge one way or another. And is there
Speaker 1: anybody that's ever played the game at the level that
Speaker 1: John Roman is right now? And we get to how
Speaker 1: about Scottishcheffler last last year? You know we have those guys.
Speaker 1: Did anybody ever play the game at the level of
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods. Well, it could have been a guy named
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholas. You know, you can pick out those players
Speaker 1: or that group of players that were always the best,
Speaker 1: and they were always the best. And there are other
Speaker 1: front runners, and there are ones that want to be
Speaker 1: part of the show and they are, but not in
Speaker 1: the traditional long term sense that we're talking about right here. Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, I looked at the Senior Tour leaderboard
Speaker 1: yesterday and it was Ernie Els and Fred Couples and
Speaker 1: all these guys we've been doing it forever, but also
Speaker 1: got named Bernhard Longer at the top. And he got
Speaker 1: the win and he tied a certain record that's held
Speaker 1: by a certain guy on this podcast for most career
Speaker 1: Senior Tour victories. And I think that's it's it's always
Speaker 1: been a neat part of your biography, Hale, is that
Speaker 1: you got the Senior Tour and you went to a
Speaker 1: level that no one had ever really reached. All the
Speaker 1: Peter Thompson had had one heck of a year as well,
Speaker 1: and you've you've took that record from him. But the longevity,
Speaker 1: the excellence, and the grit and the determination to keep
Speaker 1: wanting to go forward and prepare and to win. How
Speaker 1: much did your senior success mean to you? And what
Speaker 1: would you say about Bernhard longer now that he's he's
Speaker 1: matched the wind total. Well, you know, for me, golf
Speaker 1: was it was my vocation. It was not my advocation.
Speaker 1: It wasn't something I spent a lot of time at
Speaker 1: home doing. When I was home, I was home. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be with my family. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: I wanted to take the kids to school. I wanted
Speaker 1: to do the things that most people consider mundane, but
Speaker 1: I thought they were so neat because it didn't get
Speaker 1: to do them. And you're traveling all the time. And
Speaker 1: I think once I got to a point on the
Speaker 1: Champions Tour, I just kind of took stock of where
Speaker 1: I am, where do I want to go? Not that
Speaker 1: I'm running out of time, but you have to have
Speaker 1: some idea of longevity and you don't know how long
Speaker 1: that will be. In that what do you still want
Speaker 1: to do with your life? And interestingly, I think when
Speaker 1: I started thinking that I felt my game level off,
Speaker 1: I just I lost a little of that focus. I
Speaker 1: lost a little of that willingness to prepare each and
Speaker 1: every week. It was getting more difficult each and every time.
Speaker 1: I think anybody's ever played the game at some level
Speaker 1: of success. Whatever you do, not just golf, but whatever
Speaker 1: you do, and you've achieved some major of success, I think,
Speaker 1: how long can you keep that up? What are you
Speaker 1: happy with? Now? See? I found that I was once
Speaker 1: I made kind of that started that thinking process. Now
Speaker 1: I'm I'm finishing twenty fifth, I'm finishing thirtieth, I'm finishing. Boy,
Speaker 1: I played great. I finished fifteenth. That's not where I
Speaker 1: wanted to be. That's not where I had been. And
Speaker 1: what age was that hill? Seventy six? That was probably
Speaker 1: a good ten years ago? Twelve years ago. I just
Speaker 1: felt like I could still play, I can still hit
Speaker 1: the shots, but I wasn't in it. My heart wasn't
Speaker 1: in it, my mind wasn't in it. I can go
Speaker 1: out now and I can hit golf shots, although the
Speaker 1: green seemed to be a little further way than it
Speaker 1: used to be. But it's not that I can't. It's
Speaker 1: just that I don't have that willingness to do the
Speaker 1: things that you need to do. And Burnard has done that.
Speaker 1: He's kept himself fit. He plays a lot of golf,
Speaker 1: but could I have gone on to win forty six
Speaker 1: or seventy Yeah, in my mind undoubtedly. Now could I
Speaker 1: don't know, but in the belief that I could. But
Speaker 1: that's not where I wanted to go. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make a turn in my life and spend more quality
Speaker 1: time with my family doing the things that I still
Speaker 1: had to check those boxes. And I didn't want to
Speaker 1: leave this world not having experienced some of those things.
Speaker 1: And I found then by level of efficiency on the
Speaker 1: golf course started dropping, and it was more mental than anything.
Speaker 1: But then again, I've had some physical things. I've had
Speaker 1: some left knee surgery. I've got some foot problems on
Speaker 1: my left side. As Jeff can tell you, you get
Speaker 1: something on your leading side, go off, you can't drive
Speaker 1: it the way you used to. It becomes a little
Speaker 1: flick of the risks and oh, that's an ugly shot.
Speaker 1: But it's just things like that, little things, but they
Speaker 1: mount up, and that's that's why some players succeed the
Speaker 1: little things they do well, and other players can do
Speaker 1: most of the things well, but they don't do the
Speaker 1: little things as well. Hence you get those guys that
Speaker 1: repetitively win all the time. Hell, you went the US
Speaker 1: Open at age forty five. Age I think, Jeff is, now,
Speaker 1: what do you think it is in your character that
Speaker 1: allowed you to be as good at golf at thirty
Speaker 1: five as you were at forty five. That's probably the
Speaker 1: I had the willingness. And I go back to that, Michael,
Speaker 1: simply because in nineteen eighty five, I was forty years
Speaker 1: old and I had just won the Memorial Tournament, and
Speaker 1: I started and Jeff knows this, he's in the golf
Speaker 1: course design. I just started my golf course design company.
Speaker 1: And there's only so much time you could put into
Speaker 1: each one of those. And if I was one hundred
Speaker 1: percent into playing, now I had to extract from that
Speaker 1: some time and effort to put over here to design. Well,
Speaker 1: there's that level that falls on the playing side that
Speaker 1: now makes me just another player. And I went that
Speaker 1: way for about five years. So now I had gone
Speaker 1: from you know, being a very good player forty years
Speaker 1: old and now back then remember four years old, My gosh,
Speaker 1: you're over the hill to can't play anymore. There's this
Speaker 1: thought process as well. You better, you know, start doing
Speaker 1: some janitorial duty somewhere, because you can't be a play
Speaker 1: golf anymore. So I at the winter of nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: I sat down at my desk and I wrote down
Speaker 1: termis I had won and what thoughts I had because
Speaker 1: I had and I really enjoyed the design process and
Speaker 1: we were successful at it, and it was really a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Speaker 1: But there's still a part of me and saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to give excuse me this playing one
Speaker 1: more year and if it's no good that I'm done.
Speaker 1: So I sat down and wrote the tournaments I had,
Speaker 1: what thoughts I had. So I went back to my
Speaker 1: first win, and if I couldn't remember something, then I'd
Speaker 1: leave it and I'd come back to it. But what
Speaker 1: that did. It spurred me into thinking like a player again,
Speaker 1: not just somebody out there playing golf, but somebody that
Speaker 1: had won, and what were those championship thoughts? And we
Speaker 1: started the ninety season, I could feel my game starting
Speaker 1: to come around. The preparation was a little more intense,
Speaker 1: the specifics of what I was trying to do became
Speaker 1: a little bit better. And so when we got around
Speaker 1: to open at medinah Oh, I told my wife two
Speaker 1: weeks before the tournament that well, I didn't like that,
Speaker 1: but I just felt like, I'm I don't feel a
Speaker 1: stranger here. I've been here before. And when I went
Speaker 1: out that day, as you know, let's play a good round,
Speaker 1: try and finish in the top fifteen, which gets you
Speaker 1: invited into the tournament the next year. Because I was
Speaker 1: invited that year, the USGA gave me free pass into
Speaker 1: the tournament, so I didn't want to have to I
Speaker 1: was not gonna do that again. I just too much
Speaker 1: respect for the organization and the tournament to do that.
Speaker 1: So I went out and in fact, I was paired
Speaker 1: with your rosie friend Greg Norman's the last day, and
Speaker 1: I remember Gregg and Birdie the tenth hole. I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, another birdie or two. He You never know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen because the leaders are an hour
Speaker 1: behind us. So I just said, okay, forget it. And
Speaker 1: I looked at the leaderboard and I was one shot
Speaker 1: out of the top fifteen. Okay, let's just focus on that.
Speaker 1: So I Birdie number eleven, that's okay, Top ten, I'm
Speaker 1: Birdie number twelve, okay, top five, Bertie thirteen, jeez. Then
Speaker 1: a Bertie fourteen. So now I've gone from kind of
Speaker 1: off the board on one shot back and so when
Speaker 1: we get around to a part of fifteen sixteen seventy.
Speaker 1: So that's why the big putt at eighteen got me
Speaker 1: in the lead in the clubhouse. But never did I
Speaker 1: think it would win out right, I really didn't. It
Speaker 1: was that I just played the last eight holes in
Speaker 1: the US opened five hundred far and I got to
Speaker 1: a goal that I had sort of moving goals if
Speaker 1: you wish I'd kept moving and kept the bar hied
Speaker 1: and higher, but I got there. And that's that's where
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the previous years of the football,
Speaker 1: that discipline, the intensity, all that I think really kicked
Speaker 1: in and helped me a lot. The experience of having
Speaker 1: been there helped me a lot. The next day, I
Speaker 1: have to say it was I didn't play nearly as well.
Speaker 1: You know, Mike Donald played very steady golf, but I
Speaker 1: was two shots down with three holes to play, and
Speaker 1: we made a great birdie at sixteen, and unfortunately for
Speaker 1: Mikey he made a bow get the eighteenth hold to
Speaker 1: put us into a real playoff, which I buried the
Speaker 1: first extra hole. So all of that I think speaks
Speaker 1: to you can do a lot of things if you
Speaker 1: put your mind to it, and if you waver at all,
Speaker 1: then you better not be frustrated with the results because
Speaker 1: you have to be on point. You have to believe
Speaker 1: in yourself and you have to go out there and
Speaker 1: do the things that you know what you need to do,
Speaker 1: not what somebody else is telling you need to do.
Speaker 1: You have to feel it, you have to experience it,
Speaker 1: and then when you do it, it's a whole different feeling.
Speaker 1: And Jeff knows exactly what I'm talking about because it
Speaker 1: goes to all of us. Jeff, have you ever tried
Speaker 1: something that was extremely interesting Hill? Jeff, have you ever
Speaker 1: tried something similar where you know, being at forty five
Speaker 1: and you have so many interests in golf, so many
Speaker 1: different interests in different aspects of golf, But that idea
Speaker 1: of going back to your tournament wins and doing a
Speaker 1: deep dive and where you were there and what you
Speaker 1: can take from that and a play to where you
Speaker 1: are now, like Hell was talking about. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I kind of do it all the time I thought of,
Speaker 1: I mean not quite as formally obviously sat down and
Speaker 1: said write the decision time, let's do this properly. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no doubt when I was doing well, and
Speaker 1: I think when any guys are doing well, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost sort of that zen like. It's a monk like approach.
Speaker 1: It's the only one thing in your life and it's golf,
Speaker 1: and you've got a specific focus, and when you wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning, there's no doubt about what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You're going through your thing, and it can be hitting
Speaker 1: balls for twelve hours, or it can be just doing
Speaker 1: your one hour of practice, whatever it is. It's like you,
Speaker 1: like Hale says, if you know that makes you better
Speaker 1: when it's it's I guess it's clarity of vision and
Speaker 1: there's nothing else involved. I think once you start having
Speaker 1: kids and getting a few other interests and wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning, you've got ten other thoughts and you
Speaker 1: do a couple of other things. I'll just go I'll
Speaker 1: go hit some balls later in the afternoon and stuff
Speaker 1: I just doesn't work, and not not for me at least.
Speaker 1: It has to be sort of a very singular, singular
Speaker 1: sort of approach, you know, like focus. When I wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning, there's no doubt I'm going to
Speaker 1: go do this. I'm going to do this, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do this, and it's all about becoming a better golfer.
Speaker 1: I think as a golf became harder, it wasn't really
Speaker 1: golf becoming harder. It was me just getting into more stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, and having more stuff in your mind. And
Speaker 1: so you start playing bad in the first three holes,
Speaker 1: in your head goes off to somewhere else because it's
Speaker 1: just easier to think about something else than it is
Speaker 1: about golf. And yeah, it's it's valuable. How I'll described
Speaker 1: it is probably like one of the most powerful things
Speaker 1: someone can do, especially like when you've been good and
Speaker 1: then you start struggling a little bit sort of work
Speaker 1: out what it is. And golf has this funny sort
Speaker 1: of habit of making you think it's your putter or
Speaker 1: like your golf swing, or like you're not stretching your
Speaker 1: hamstrings enough or whatever it is. But it really isn't that.
Speaker 1: It's a peaceful place in your head where you just
Speaker 1: you know what you want to do and you know
Speaker 1: what you have to do to do that, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a great place to be. It's just a pureness
Speaker 1: of approach or simplicity, and there's only really one thing
Speaker 1: you want to do, and it's I just do this
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get better. I think when you
Speaker 1: get to a golf tournament there's a piece in knowing
Speaker 1: that you've been doing all the right things too, when
Speaker 1: you get there and you feel really well prepared. And
Speaker 1: as I said, it doesn't have to be hitting balls
Speaker 1: twelve hours a day like Hogan for two months. I
Speaker 1: think it's just doing what you know makes you better.
Speaker 1: You get there, there's just a bit more you play
Speaker 1: with a bit more ease, and you're a bit more
Speaker 1: patient with yourself because you know you sort of doing
Speaker 1: the best you can. And Yeah, everything that Hale said
Speaker 1: resonated really well. I think it's quiet wise and people
Speaker 1: would be too very well to listen to it. This
Speaker 1: podcast has gotten deep. I love it. Uh Well, Hale's
Speaker 1: been very generous with this time. Before we before we
Speaker 1: let him go, Any any last questions you want to
Speaker 1: fire at him? Machael got any long winded one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even have you even fallen Hale forever. He
Speaker 1: was part of Men in Green, your your spectacular book
Speaker 1: about all your childhood heroes. I'll brag about Hale a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, all our listeners would know a
Speaker 1: lot about Hale and his plank career. But Hale as
Speaker 1: a welcoming luncheon partner. I'll tell a quick story about that.
Speaker 1: But Hale and I were having lunch at the Memorial
Speaker 1: Tournament last year, and Tony Jacqueline was there, and Andy
Speaker 1: North was there, and Jordan Speet was one table over
Speaker 1: all these US Open winners and legends of the game,
Speaker 1: and like, what am I doing at this table? Obviously
Speaker 1: snuck in somehow and don't belong here. And Hale kindly
Speaker 1: said to me, well, Michael, who who are What are
Speaker 1: some of the good swings you've admired over the years?
Speaker 1: Like wow, a generous way to get a ninety shooter
Speaker 1: involved in the conversation. So hey, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for that, and thank you for
Speaker 1: for this time and sharing such interesting thoughts. It was
Speaker 1: neat to see Jeff respond to what you just said
Speaker 1: on such a deep level, So thank you. Well, you're
Speaker 1: tying well. I've enjoyed it, and Jeff's good to see it.
Speaker 1: I've always loved to speak to a fellow players and
Speaker 1: fellow champions, because I think we all have the same
Speaker 1: intensity in us. Some show it differently and it comes
Speaker 1: out in different ways, but ultimately it's how you play
Speaker 1: the game I think helps define what you're going to be.
Speaker 1: And you know, the thing I'll have to say is
Speaker 1: hitting balls for twelve hours. I don't think I've hit
Speaker 1: practiced for twelve hours in any week, but my thought
Speaker 1: was always go hit as many balls as you have
Speaker 1: to to get done what you want to get done.
Speaker 1: If you get it done in fifteen minutes, go home.
Speaker 1: You know. I never left the practice ground or the
Speaker 1: putting green without hitting a good shot or hearing the
Speaker 1: ball going the hole, even if I had to putter
Speaker 1: from a foot away, and never left without hearing that
Speaker 1: Luca at the last. And I think that's the way
Speaker 1: you leave something is on a good note. And with this,
Speaker 1: this has been a great time. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for the opportunity. Ka Luka, there you go. It's been
Speaker 1: a pleasure. I will say when when Hale broke Peter
Speaker 1: Thompson's Senior Tour record for victories in a season, I
Speaker 1: was there covering it in Hawaii. This is a long
Speaker 1: time ago and for Sports Illustrated we convinced Hale to
Speaker 1: do a photo shoot. Took a fishing pull down onto
Speaker 1: the lava rocks and he was in Hawaiian shirt and
Speaker 1: it was a little cheesy, but he went with it.
Speaker 1: You've never seen anyone pretend to reel in a thousand
Speaker 1: pound fish the way it Hale did. The intensity like
Speaker 1: he just threw himself into this photos shoot, and I've
Speaker 1: always always made me laugh thinking about it. But the
Speaker 1: guys committed. I think that's I think that's something that
Speaker 1: our listeners will get from this this podcast. As you
Speaker 1: got wife's worth, live and go live it, folks, go
Speaker 1: live it. There you go. Well, what a gent haill
Speaker 1: Irwin Um very underrated, droll since the humor he really
Speaker 1: makes me chuckle like he's just the delivery is so great.
Speaker 1: But what did you guys take from that conversation? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's great when you I mean very wise about golf.
Speaker 1: Um clearly still loves the game. Um yeah, great, enjoyed,
Speaker 1: enjoyed every minute. His stories are great. Um, the way
Speaker 1: he approached it, I'm trying to I'm putting my golf
Speaker 1: pro golf hat on, trying to learn a little bit
Speaker 1: actually be honest. Yeah, it was neat to hear hear
Speaker 1: you respond to hell a lot, Jeff. Have you spent
Speaker 1: much one or anyone in one time with with Hill? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit along the way. I mean he's spent
Speaker 1: a lot of his time in Scott style, um, which
Speaker 1: I have too, so he like he mentioned TPC Scott
Speaker 1: style there a little bit, like he's popped up on
Speaker 1: the back of the range there a little bit. And
Speaker 1: we'll end up at the sun golf like sort of
Speaker 1: outings and golf days when the pros are all there
Speaker 1: in Arizona and stuff I've sent him. But he's always
Speaker 1: a good chat just like that. Yeah, very wise and
Speaker 1: like I said, Alan, at first you think he's very serious,
Speaker 1: you know, like he's kind of intimidatingly serious. But he
Speaker 1: isn't you know, once you starts sort of chatting to him,
Speaker 1: he's actually he's got a great little quick little wit
Speaker 1: and great stories. And he's been around. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: still he still seems so young, don't you think, Like
Speaker 1: he's just in such great shape and he's such a
Speaker 1: great athlete. Like he start mentioning that his first years
Speaker 1: open he went to was the nineteen sixty to go
Speaker 1: watch I know he was a kid, but that's where
Speaker 1: Hogan hit like fifty fifty one greens in a row
Speaker 1: or something like, um, Cherry Hills. Yeah, like that's a
Speaker 1: long time ago. I mean I read about that in
Speaker 1: books and he was actually there, so and he still
Speaker 1: looks great. Yeah. Yeah, And he his college team made
Speaker 1: a trip to Wingfoot and Tommy Armor was there. So
Speaker 1: it's just neat that here here the you know, you
Speaker 1: goes younger than I, but here we are spending an
Speaker 1: hour with a guy who knew Tommy Armor, and Tommy
Speaker 1: Armor goes back to nineteenth century golf. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty fast one hundred and twenty years. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. Incredible. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was fun. Well, um, I'll praise to Hale. I mean,
Speaker 1: what a career. I mean some twenty tour victories, three opens,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the Senior Tour can can really
Speaker 1: change a person's legacy very much, but I think in
Speaker 1: Hale's case, it really did elevate him because it just
Speaker 1: threw in a sharp focus what a competitor he was
Speaker 1: and the precision of his game and the longevity. I mean,
Speaker 1: to win forty something times out there and absolutely dominate.
Speaker 1: I mean eleven wins, eight wins, like that's neat. And
Speaker 1: he did it over a long period of time and
Speaker 1: obviously you know longer now. Matching that record has brought
Speaker 1: Hail back into the forefront. And you know, it was
Speaker 1: just it's it was. It was quite a second act
Speaker 1: or a final act for him. And so beating I mean,
Speaker 1: beating whoever turns up to play against you for fifty years,
Speaker 1: like that's outrageous. I mean, playing six good holes in
Speaker 1: a row is good in golf, you know, and he's
Speaker 1: done it. He did it for fifty years, like it's incredible.
Speaker 1: And for a guy who was a college footballer who
Speaker 1: didn't think he was that good, you know, yeah, it
Speaker 1: shows you the power of the mind and the like
Speaker 1: he said, the competitive nature of the thing. Really, Trump's
Speaker 1: like we were talking about all the science and all
Speaker 1: the technique and all that sort of stuff. I mean
Speaker 1: the competitive headspace, Trump's all of that. You know, He's
Speaker 1: obviously had it in spades. Is it an inspiration for you, Jeff?
Speaker 1: When you think about him whining a US opening forty
Speaker 1: five and you being about the same age and where
Speaker 1: you where your own life could go. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I've thought about that sort of stuff. I mean, I
Speaker 1: haven't been playing that much the last few years, but
Speaker 1: I'm starting to play a little bit more and absolutely
Speaker 1: like I think what you lose I mean, golf a
Speaker 1: little different now, maybe because they hit it further, but
Speaker 1: I still don't think it really is what you lose
Speaker 1: in your young athletic body when you get a bit older,
Speaker 1: is you're you're constantly gaining wisdom in golf. I think,
Speaker 1: whether you know it or not, you're sort of picking
Speaker 1: stuff up along the way. And as long as you
Speaker 1: keep playing, I think you can always sort of be dangerous.
Speaker 1: I think, especially in certain situations. Probably not maybe at
Speaker 1: Bethpage Black or something. I think those days are gone
Speaker 1: for me, but you never know, like there's certain places
Speaker 1: where I could probably do Okay, yeah, inspiration and look
Speaker 1: the scene is do a career too. It's like, I
Speaker 1: know it's not the same, but it's still competitive golf
Speaker 1: against your peers. It's really that feeling of coming down
Speaker 1: the stretch, having coming up with stuff under pressure and
Speaker 1: feeling it is like the real joy of the game,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really matter what everybody else thinks. If
Speaker 1: you can actually have that experience, and to realize that
Speaker 1: I could still have fifteen or so years of that
Speaker 1: sort of experience is kind of It's a nice thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to apologize for going blank but for a
Speaker 1: moment there. But after Alan talked about Mike Davis and
Speaker 1: his towel, I started kind of was in a woozy place,
Speaker 1: and it should be all I get back. The key
Speaker 1: is not to picture in your mind. Michael. You gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta got banish the mental image. I know what
Speaker 1: he did. Want to ask you guys very briefly, but
Speaker 1: how would Hale and how would Jeff in the Mike
Speaker 1: Davis role, and how would Sandy Tatum have responded to
Speaker 1: Phil Mickelson playing hockey at Shinnecock that year? I know
Speaker 1: Tatum would have thrown his ass out of the tournament.
Speaker 1: I think Hale would have. Jeff, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you would have done. I didn't mind what he did
Speaker 1: as much as I hated his excuse. His excuse was
Speaker 1: can play crap. Like if he'd come off and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, for twenty five years, I've been playing
Speaker 1: this tournament and I'm just sick of I'm messing it
Speaker 1: up by setting it up too hard. I just had enough,
Speaker 1: like stop making bowls are all off greens. Stop it
Speaker 1: like instead of saying, well, I thought I was going
Speaker 1: to have a lower score, like you come up with
Speaker 1: such bullshit that that's the pot, I didn't lock the
Speaker 1: fact that he did it. I mean it's no different
Speaker 1: from daily at Podhurst and stuff like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you play enough, he always opens at some point you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a meltdown, like it's just gonna happen. And
Speaker 1: he had his little meltdown and then pretended like it
Speaker 1: wasn't a meltdown, like um, just going up to the meltdown,
Speaker 1: and I think everyone could have taken with a bit
Speaker 1: of a laugh. You know, you know who our next
Speaker 1: guess should be for need of fourth ogilvie. How good
Speaker 1: was that? That's a perfect answer. That was eight plus.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right? Well, as I said, we've kind
Speaker 1: of thought of these uh these need to force and
Speaker 1: bunches and we're gonna take a little a little break
Speaker 1: but and retrench. But it's been an absolute pleasure and
Speaker 1: a joy podcast with both of you guys, and really
Speaker 1: fun slate of guests, and this was an experiment. We
Speaker 1: don't know how it was going to work, and I
Speaker 1: would I don't want to presumptuous and speak for the listeners,
Speaker 1: but I know for us, it's been really fun and
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed both of you guys immensely, so I just
Speaker 1: want to put that out there. Good Thomas on the season, Tae, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: all right. That was Hail Irwin and Jeff Ogilvie and
Speaker 1: Michael Bamberger. I'm Alan chef Nick. Thanks is always for
Speaker 1: listening and that was needed for Oh my god, it's
Speaker 1: a dangerous group here.