Transcript
WEBVTT
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Intro Music
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Let's see. 1964 first prize $3,000 times 57 years? I don't know. No, that's more 67, 57 years.
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Yeah, thats the 1967 Prize. You must be talking about your first PGA win, the St. Petersburg Open at Lakewood Country Club.
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1964, $3,000 bucks first prize.
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So what's your recollection of that tournament?
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Just my lesson from Jack (Nicklaus). The day before the tournament and then to win by four shots was pretty special. Really?
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You beat him by four shots? Right?
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I can't remember if he finished sedond or not.
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I've told it before. You know, he said that's it, that's my first and last lesson with you.
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You're done.
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I think that event, this is 1964,and that event had been contested since 1930. That was actually the last year of that event.
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That was the last year. Yeah, yeah.
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And I think there were only two Non-U.S. winners in the history of the tournament. Can you name the
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One, Ferrier?
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other one?
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There you go, Jim.
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That's not too bad.
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No, no, it was another Aussie. And Raymond Floyd won that event the year before. And at the time, he was the youngest PGA winner since 1928.
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That'd be right.
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Yeah, he was young when he won.
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They're
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Just coming on the scene and he was just a little over 20, 20 and a half years. Remember your next win? A little closer to home here. 1966 Colonial National Invitational at Colonial Country Club.
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That was a big one. Especially with my relationship that I had with Mr.
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Hogan, who went on to winning.
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Hogan's Alley as they call it.
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That's what everybody used to call and still do, they still call it Hogan's Alley.
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Were they doing the Scottish tartan jackets back then?
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They were and I have an interesting story about that. They sent a jacket to Australia that I never got. And I guess it's probably 15 years ago. I went to Colonial for the champions dinner, and I didn't have a jacket. And I forget who the tournament director was back then. But he said, Did you leave your jacket at home? I said, No, I never got one and he said, yeah, we sent you a jacket. I know, we sent you a jacket. I said, Well, I never got it. So they call the tailor that makes all the jackets for everybody.
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And they they built me a jacket.
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So I've got it in my wardrobe right now.
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Good. And they've got a Wall of Champions, right by the first tee.
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On the first tee.
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And your name is up there somewhere.
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Yeah, that's pretty nice to go there and be represented with all those great players that won there, a lot of good players won at Colonial.
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A young lady professional tried her hand with the big boys back in 2003.
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That's right. She did, Annika. Yeah. Annika Sorenstam. I see where she played in a tournament I think a couple of weeks ago for the first time in something like 12 or 13 years.
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She did and I think she and Henrik Stenson are doing something in their own home country as well. But she she played pretty well, actually that year. Yeah, she was she was a good player.
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Very good player.
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Didn't quite make the cut, as I recall.
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But she didn't miss much.
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It was close, yeah. The next one was, and we're going to come down through some of Bruce's significant wins here in his career. The next one, you mentioned this course Royal Birkdale, a course you apparently liked because you won the 1966 Carling World Open there correct. And I'm sure there's at least one thing you recall about that particular tournament.
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Yeah, that was a time where I think the first prize was like $55,000. And if you wanted to, you could defer some of your payment. I think you could take that payment over three years. And the balance that you left there, back then, was like drawing like 12%. So that seemed to make sense to me to leave it in there making 12% rather than what you do with it, you know, I guess investing or something but,
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But at the time, the winning prize was the largest winning prize to date.
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It was a lot.
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Yeah.
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55 grand was the largest that had ever been paid out to a winner and it was sponsored by of course, Carling Brewing Company. Today, you'd know them as Molson Coors. And you beat the late, great Billy Casper that particular day.
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Yeah, that's always a thrill to finish in front of him. I have one story about him that'll tell you how much I appreciated how much it s to beat a guy like that, I pl yed within the last 36 holes at the Western Open
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in Chicago at Butler National?
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No, it wasn't at Butler it was, I can't remember the name of the golf course, it was a much shorter golf course than Butler National and he might have missed hit a couple of shots in 36 holes but I know I remember vividly going back to the hotel that night and saying to Gloria, look you know, I'm really not so sure that I really should be here playing. I played with a guy today that I don't think I could ever beat him. But you know things change so he really impressed me. A very very good player Casper. What I don't know how many times he won, 40 something times or something like that? A lot. A lot.
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You know, better than I but all that I remember hearing from people just what a sweet nice man.
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Yeah. Beautiful guy. Yeah.
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So, we'll move on to the 1969 Byron Nelson Golf Classic at Preston Trail Golf Club.
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Yeah, that was that was always I was always a favorite stop on mine. I like the golf course there and, and it was it was a bit of a struggle for me though. I had a I had a pretty good lead going the last day and then things sort of was going a little awry.
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And I was fortunate enough to to hang on, I think I beat Crampton by a shot. And I think two guys feels right Frank Beard and Bruce Crampton
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You held them off for the win. And I think there were only two other foreign born winners in the first 37 years of that tournament that being Peter Thomson, who you talked about earlier and Roberto De Vincenzo, yeah Roberto. The next one had to be fun. For a number of reasons. It was the 1970 Bob Hope Desert Classic.
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Yeah, that was fun. And yeah, it was fun.
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Because it it it went over into the evening. That particular tournament. I I got to the 17th hole playing with Lee Trevino.
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And we both drove it in the fairway and I fortunately drove it a few yards past him. And my caddie and I were getting yardage. And I think if I remember correctly, I had like 145 to the front 157 to the flag. And I'm thinking in my mind, you know, what am I going to hit because I know there's a boundary at the back of the 17th hole at LaQuinta. And I Trevino hit he shot on the green and I walk back I'm talking to my caddie. So what do you think Smitty, Emil Smith was my caddie back in those days. I said Smitty, what do you think? And I looked down at my bag, and all I could see was one iron that had a seven on it. And right next of Smitty, was Lee Trevino. So I gather that there was a little bit of you know, the only place you can lose the golf tournament is if you hit it over the green and you can't hit the seven iron that far so
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Your selection was settled
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My selection had already been settled. Yes.
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And it worked out because you won the tournament, Of course this is the tournament that Bob Hope put his name to several years before and at the time. I think he were the first and really the only non-U.S.
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winner up until the year 2000.
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when Jesper Parnivik won the tournament. That's a long stretch.
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So the extra story to that is when I had finished in those days, I was I had a partner at the Bing Crosby now called the AT&T but the Bing Crosby in those days my partner was Dean Martin. And in the clubhouse after the after the tournament, I got a phone call.
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And it was from Dean who was opening in the I can't remember the name of the of the casino in Vegas, but he said, I got a plane coming down to pick you up. You coming up for the opening. You and Gloria coming up for the opening. So you win the tournament and hopped on the plane and flew to Vegas and sat right underneath him when he opened his show. That was that's a pretty special thing to happen.
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You could get used to that kind of star treatment couldn't you?
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That was pretty special if he was because I mean, I know my wife loved him.
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He was he was a sweet guy too.
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Quite an entertainer. And so did you play every year in the Crosby Clambake with him?
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I played I played 10 years with him
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Oh, that had to be so much fun.
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Yeah, that was fun. That was fun. Yeah.
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I can only remember watching his you know, variety show program on television quite a quite a talented guy. And part of the Rat Pack, obviously. I'm sure you met all those guys over the years right?
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I met all those guys. And I met all the guys that used to look after then.
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And it was a fun time, really.
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So you know, back in the day of playing the Hope.
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I mean, you must have played with or met former presidents who played in that tournament and then it was of course star studded because it was a sort of a pro-am format wasn't it over five days?
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Yeah. Yeah. Five days. Yeah,of course that's changed. Now. It's back to the four day deal. But yeah, well, we had we had four courses in the rotation back in those days.
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I think the year you wanted it was Eldorado, Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells and then, as you mentioned, LaQuinta.
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Yeah, yeah, that was a host club that year was LaQuinta.
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So what was more fun than the golf part of it or the evening festivities
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Oh, the evening festivities were great. We got up there in time to have a bite to eat with him before he started his show. And, and when when we walked into the theater, you know, just before he started to perform, there were two vacant chairs right, right down in front of him right underneath the mic. And of course he he was nice enough to introduce us before we started the show, which was pretty special, too.
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Pretty nice bonus for winning the golf tournament.
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So as defending champion coming back the next year, what happens? You get to play with anybody special because you're defending champ, you remember?
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Yeah, I do.
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Remember, I remember very well.
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I didn't play quite as well. And of course, that time of the year. Saturday and Sunday, you you know we were teeing off two tees. So Sunday, the last round I'm I'm teeing off the back back on the 10th hole. And my two playing partners were Charlie Sifford and Pete Brown. And everybody will remember that they were black. And my wife always walked in front of me as I was playing. So if I was sitting my second shot into a green, she'd be at the green.
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And this particular day, the sixth hole, par four, and I'm getting ready to hit my second shot. And I hit it on the green and putt out and I'm about to walk over to the 7th tee and she is laughing at to me and comes over and says to me, you won't believe what just happened. I said What happened? She said I walked up behind these two gentlemen at the back of the green. And one guy says to the other one. So who's coming up next? Guy said, well, Bruce Devlin and Pete Brown and Charlie Sifford. And the other one guy says, so which one is Bruce Devlin? So that was I got humiliated a little bit. But it's sort of it was sort of pretty funny when you think about it. So we walked on to the 7th tee and I said to Charlie and Pete I said I got a little story. I gotta tell you well, that broke them up. We could I don't think anybody could hit the tee shot at the next hole for a minute and a half.
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Everybody was laughing so much.
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That's a good one. The Bob Hope tournament, at least back then they had the Classic Girls part of the festivities as I recall.
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They did, yeah.
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But it was an interesting format and must have been a fun format.
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It was a fun tournament. Yeah, it was a fun tournament to play.
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And Bob Hope wasn't the only celeb back in those days that hosted tournaments. Yeah. Bing Crosby did his Clambake. Yeah. I don't know when Sammy Davis started his in Hatford.
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Sammy Davis didi it in Hartford. Yeah. That was that was after after the Hope.
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And Andy Williams in San Diego Open.
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That's right, that's right. Glen Campbell for Campbell. Right. Yeah. Yeah, there was some great. I sure some great memories from some of those.
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He's, he was a great he loved these golf , Glen Campbell. Well, they all did.
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They all love their golf. Every one of them.
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They would have had to have to made that kind of commitment, because there was a big commitment they was to put your name on a tournament like that and have it organized and run. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you must have played pretty well in the 1970 Bob Hope Desert Classic. Not only did you win it, you want it with the lowest winning score for the first 17 years of the event. So you must have played pretty well.
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Yeah, yeah. Well, I, you know, every time you win, it's a lot of fun. But that was pretty nice. I'm trying to think of at the presentation on the 18th green. with Bob Hope and what was the lady's name that used to twitch her nose?
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Phyllis Diller?
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No, no, no, no.
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Oh, you mean? You mean bewitched? Yeah. Yeah.
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I can't remember her name now. But, but she was she was part of the presentation with Bob Hope that year.
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Montgomery comes into mind, I don't know that's your name. But
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Anyhow, that was that was sort of fun.
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Yeah. The same year you when the Cleveland Open at Aurora Country Club? With a pretty good finishing round, I might say.
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Yeah, I think I was 130 for the last two rounds, right. 66/64
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Not a bad finish with the 64 being of course record. Yeah.
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Yeah, that was fun. Like I said, you know, they're all those memories are always great to think about.
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Because, as as you obviously know, that was when we were still doing the 36 holes on Sunday.
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Yeah. And by then you probably had your vein thing taken care of and you know, that wasn't an issue because a 36 hole Sunday's I'm sure for a while for you before you had that done they were pretty rigorous?
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They weren't much fun.
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Yeah, but the you know, the, you close it out in fine fashion on that Sunday. So, you know, it's kind of nice to come off the golf course shooting 66 and knowing that you got another 18 to play. Yeah, let's just keep it going.
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Yeah boy, it's hard to do too. You know, we see it all the time. You know, guy shoots a really low round. It's hard to back it up, but pretty fortunate.
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And you beat up a guy. This is a name that most people are not going to remember but a fella, you beat him by four shots he had just returned from Vietnam. Duty
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Eisen.
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Yeah, Steve Eichstadt I think.
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Eichstadt, Steve Eichstadt, That's right. Yeah, that's who it is. Yeah.
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And I don't remember hearing that name. So I don't know if he had a short career on the tour or not
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I think he had a fairly short Tour. Yeah, but he must have you know, played pretty good that week.
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Yeah, I'll give you a couple of quotes from the from the Cleveland newspaper that I found one that said"after the scrambling pars save on the eighth hole" and this this I think this is a quote from you, "I covered more ground on that one hole than most people do on their vacations.
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That probably that made my day" so you must It must have been a very memorable par save.
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Yeah one of those that you that you would Oh I hit it left off the tee and right for the second shot and scrambled up somewhere on the green about 40 feet and holed it for a par was like boy talk about stealing.
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But sometimes you need that kind of thing to happen to keep a good round going.
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Yeah, you do.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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The other one was you were quoted as saying it was"probably the best putting round I ever had". At least up until that point.
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Yeah, I always felt like I was a pretty good putter but, that particular day, you know some days you get hold of that putter and you just feel like you're going to make it.
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and alot of time when you feel like you're going to make it, you do make it. I've sure anybody who's putted well feels that way, when they think they're going to make it, that they can make it.
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Yeah, confidence breeds confidence. Yeah, yeah.
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Let's move on to 1972 the Houston Open at Westwood Country Club. There were three guys all guys, our listeners would recognize big names that that you beat that tournament Tommy Aaron, Lou Graham and Sanders And Sanders and Lou Graham probably went on to win the U.S.
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Open at Medina right. In about 75 I think Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So three good players.
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Yeah, three, three good players and tried it. You know, every time every time you beat those guys, I mean, it's, it's hard is hard to explain to people just, you know, just what it does for your confidence. It helps the pocketbook too, but but you know, you feel like you belong when you can beat guys like that.
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Yeah. You won again in 72 with the USI Classic. This was a tournament contested, Boston, Bostin at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton , MA. Yeah. And you talked about Charlie sSfford.
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Earlier in this particular tournament, you beat Lee Elder.
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He finished second by three.
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Yeah. And everybody that's listening would have just seen Lee participate in the first tee ceremonies, the opening opening shot ceremonies where he was honored does as rightly he should have been.
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First black player to play in Augusta.
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Yeah, yeah. So I mean, and people know this, but he was he was quite a player in his own right, as well. And that was your I think that was your last win on the PGA Tour. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, yeah.
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So all in all, pretty good PGA Tour career, we just kind of skimmed over the highlights, including your eight wins, but you had 22 other professional wins worldwide, including quite a few on the Australasian Tour, right.
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Yeah, won on the PGA a couple of times. And the Willis Tournament twice. Yeah, it was. The Australian tour was it struggled for so many years.
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So you know, just hard to get sponsors. And when when we could get it as an American player to come over that sort of helped a little bit, but it's much stronger now.
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Well speaking of an American player, of course, he was young at the time, but you won the 1983 Air New Zealand Shell Open. And you beat a young fella by the name of Bobby Clampett?
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That's right.
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Bobby Clampett,
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With a 10 footer on the last
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I remember that very well. Yeah, that was a that was my, that was actually my swan song. There in 83. Yeah, yeah, I, I pretty much quit after that. You know, I'd had I'd had a couple of goes at the television thing. And I was spending most of my time to be honest with you on the architectural side of the business.
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Yeah. And I think I've heard you say, perhaps that you could have you could have competed a while longer.
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That's the one question my wife has asked me many times, do you you know, do you regret the fact that you didn't really spend a lot more time playing on the tour than then what I did? But I you know, I don't think I have any real regrets about it. I've I enjoyed my time that I spent with NBC and ESPN and and or course, you know, building golf courses all over the world has been sort of fun too. I suppose my, my pride and joy orcourse is a golf course down in Beaufort, South Carolina. At Secession. That's That's my favorite.
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Yeah. And I'm sure we're going to talk about that some more as we go on through all of our through all of our episodes, but that's sort of home for me, and we'll be seeing you in a few weeks coming down to bring the Devlin, your signature event down. Quite, quite becoming a prestigious amateur event A lot, a lot of fine players, and you'll be there the week after Memorial Day. Correct. So yeah, hopefully we'll have fast and firm conditions, which I think is what you'd like to see down there.
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I'd love to see it, yeah.
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There were a few other team events too I mean again, the of course you have the famous events of today's times, Ryder Cup Presidents Cup of course everybody knows those.
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Unfortunately, at the time, you were playing back in your prime Presidents Cup it was you know, just somebody's dream child it didn't exist. And so you really didn't have an opportunity as an Australian player to play in the Ryder Cup,
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Right
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Ryder Cup wasn't nearly as big a deal back then as it is today, although it was it was something significant, but there were some important world events. And team events too, weren't there?
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Yeah, well we play you know what we used to be called the Canada Cup, where I don't know how many nations used to play in that probably, you know, in the 40 or 50 nations would go to it. I remember playing. I played in it twice. I played in it 1970 with David Graham down in Buenos Aires in Argentina. And that was a long trip after, after finishing a golf tournament in Australia, then flying to Buenos Aires talk about a long trip. And then I also played with Crampton. Bruce Crampton in Hawaii one year we played in the Canada Cup together. So yeah, that was that that was the forerunner, I think to the President Cup.
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The one you won in 1970, you you traveled down to Buenos Aires with, as you said, David Graham, I think and you can tell us and remind us of the format, but you end up beating the host country, Argentina, correct. In that tournament, Yeah,
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We did. That was.
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That was a lot of fun. And if my memory serves me correctly, I believe that David, actually was the medalist in that tournament.
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I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So then, of course, you know, I got to play, I got to play another. I got to play another team event, where we played the Commonwealth Games in South Africa. Now, I'm going back a few years now back, back between the two Eisenhower Cup tournaments, that was in 1959. We had a team that went to the went to the tournament over there, and I think, I can't remember, I think I was the medalist. But I think the South Africans won it.
00:27:17.740 --> 00:27:22.089
Was just like a Walker Cup format, where you had eight, eight or so players on the team?
00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:36.490
No, no, there was only four. Okay, it was add the scores up again, sort of like the same thing as the Eisenhower Cup matches. That was the only time I ever played in the Commonwealth matches.
00:27:38.670 --> 00:28:02.910
Before we venture into your major championship experience, which was quite extensive, and quite a good record as well. Let's just talk a little bit about life on the road in general, as a, as a touring professional, you. I mean, you've alluded to some of the travel, but it had to be so much different back in the 60s, 70s, then, the way the players are sort of...
00:28:03.559 --> 00:29:07.700
...moving around today. Yeah. The one, I think the one thing that I remember more than anything else was that there were always five or six or 10 guys and their wives at the same motel. And a lot of times five or six of us would get together and the girls would work out which one was going to take care of the kids and then the boys would throw some money in the pot and the girls would go get food for us and we you know, do barbecues around the pool. slightly different, I think to what happens today, but that was always fun. You know, we were I think we were more we were closer together in those days. I think then what the players, some of the players today, you know, you take a guy like Spieth, and Justin Thomas they seem like they've they've had a long friendship together but not not in as many people I don't think
00:29:08.390 --> 00:29:25.849
Yeah, it's some of these friendships back in those days a bit more organic as you say. It might not have been guys that you'd necessarily had a long history with because your amateur career brought you together. You played together in college, he's a guy's guys you met on tour stops and had to travel together and stay in hotels and became friends.
00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:38.059
And if you think about it, in the in the early 60s, there would be there would have been very few college graduates that were on the tour.
00:29:39.349 --> 00:29:43.730
Good point. I mean, the college game wasn't a thing back then was it?
00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:54.500
Nothing like it is today. You know, I mean, these these young guys come out and look at Zalitoris at the at the Masters. I mean, boy, that boy nearly won the tournament.
00:29:54.839 --> 00:30:19.559
I joked with a friend of mine this weekend because I was texting on Sunday back inand forth with a good friend of mine who we went to university together at University of Illinois, and that's where Will's father went, and Will's father just happened to be a fraternity brother of this friend that I was texting with. And I joked with him, I said, Well, he's coming out of nowhere. But for those that look at this kid's record, he's a player. He's had some success.
00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:23.730
But I said, Look, he wins the Masters. He's gonna make it on the podcast.
00:30:24.210 --> 00:30:25.079
Yeah, for sure.
00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:49.740
Just missed, just missed. So maybe next year. But anyway, we'll talk about more aspects of how golf professional golf tour life is different today than it was back then. But that one aspect of that just the way you guys got around, and, and the friendships that develop because of the way you got around much, much different than the way it was
00:30:51.299 --> 00:31:35.099
Again, back in the in the 60s and early 70s. A lot of times, there'd be a pro-am on on the Monday after a tournament. So if like if you were playing in Columbus say, you know, there might have been a tournament in a couple 100 miles away. I can't think of the right. Maybe Detroit. And, you know, maybe 15 or 20 guys would get in their car and drive Sunday night and tee it up the next day in a pro-am and get paid 100 or two, whatever, you know, whatever the traffic would bear. But yeah, that happened a lot.
00:31:39.500 --> 00:31:53.569
Thank you for listening to another episode of"FORE the Good of the Game." Please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify. If you like what you hear, please subscribe. Spread the word. And tell your friends.
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Until we tee it up again," FORE the Good of the Game", So long everybody.
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