No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1065: A Visit With Michael Bamberger

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Randy visits with the one and only Michael Bamberger to discuss his latest book, The Playing Lesson: A Duffer's Year Among The Pros, and a number of other topics from his legendary career. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠⁠ Support our Sponsors: ⁠Holderness & Bourne The Stack System If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club today. Yeah, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Better than most! Expect anything different? Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the No Laying Up podcast.

My name is Randy. I'm glad you're here. This episode today is near and dear to my heart. It's a full-length conversation with the great Michael Bamberger, author and senior writer forgolf.com. If you follow me or know me at all, you know I'm a massive fan of Michael's, both the person and Michael, his work as a writer. In fact, one of his previous books, To the Linksland, which has been somewhat recently reprinted and re-release. least in honor of its 30th anniversary, is truly among the best golf books ever written, in my opinion.

Certainly check that out if you have not read that yet. The occasion behind today's conversation is the release of Michael's newest book, and that's called The Playing Lesson, a Duffer's Year Among the Pros. The book is an homage to George Plimpton's famous book, The Bogey Man, and has Michael crisscrossing the country playing golf and relaying his adventures, with names you'll recognize and a lot you'll meet for the first time. Like all of Michael's writing,

I think it's sharp, it's witty, and it does a great job of revealing basic truths about people in golf. It's just really, really good. Our conversation uses his book as a pathway into a lot of different topics, and I'll say some range well beyond the game of golf. I think Michael's wise and worldly,

and so any opportunity I have to sit down with them, I make sure to try to glean some life advice where I can. And just so you know, this conversation, I spoke with Michael in his office at his house in Philadelphia. We have a No Laying Up podcast YouTube channel. So if you're curious, you can watch it over there. I will say this, Michael's office, I think, if you're familiar with him at all,

is probably exactly how you imagine it. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. I know I did. It was a real treat to get to sit down with Michael. And we're going to get to it real quick, though. Let me thank one of our sponsors today, and that's Holderness and Born. Holderness and Born, their new late summer collection just dropped.

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And now without further ado, my chat with the great Michael Bamberger. And this is a special treat. I am inside the office of Michael Bamberger, senior writer, gulf.com, author of nine books and a play, I might add, and a play. and I'm here to hang out with Michael. The occasion for this is to talk and chat about his new book, The Playing Lesson, A Duffer's Year, Among the Pros. It was released just a couple months ago. It's available wherever books are sold.

I would encourage folks to support their local independent booksellers. And Michael, first of all, welcome. It's so nice to catch up with you. How are you today? Great. It's nice to have you here. Now, I just introduced you to my wife under your birth name. So am I to call you Phil or Randy over the course of this interview?

It's the eternal question, truly, whatever is easiest for you. I would say Randy does not come naturally to me at all. So let's go with Phil. Okay. For anybody listening that is not aware, I'm not sure how you wouldn't be aware. My real name is Phil. So yes, please call me Phil. Well, how do most of your listeners and your audience, how would they think of you?

I think probably Randy. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's an interesting thing. It's an old college nickname, and sometimes I think, man, if I could just go back. One, why did I pick Randy? It's a long story, but Randy was a name I chose and ultimately stuck as a nickname. And then two, fast words, when we were starting, no laying up, why did I feel like I needed to write under a pen name, an alias, a nickname? Why could I have just chosen my real name? It would make life a little bit more simpler today. But here we are. Did you play basketball under Randy or under Phil? Under Phil. Under Phil.

Okay. If you saw you on our roster sheet at Washington and Lee. Always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always introduced myself as Phil, but I figure people listening, they know me as Randy. So that's what I tend to go with on no laying up. This came up just the other day with our daughter, because we were talking about the film director, M. Knight Shyamalan. And he assigned himself the nickname Knight in college. when he was at NYU. And do you know that name, Mnite, Sean Blah?

Yeah, of course. And, uh, but his given name is Mnuch. So anybody knows him from his private life, his family life, it's Mnose. Anybody knew him in high school, it's Mnuch, but anyone who knows him in NYU or through Hollywood, it's night or as people often say M-night. Yeah.

He just invented it. Well, that was one of your books. I wrote a book about this guy. I also want to mention to the Linksland was recently, was recently republished, re-released. Congratulations on that. I think the last time you and I did a podcast, it was about your book,

The Second Life of Tiger Woods. That was, gosh, several years ago now. But yeah, like I said, the occasion for today's visit, your new book, The Playing Lesson, a Duffer's Year among the pros. Michael, what I like and truly, what I think the genius of your writing is,

while it's about golf, it's never just about golf. I think invariably you touch on life, the human condition, you find the beauty in it, and that's what I really, really appreciate. And so I think in the vein of that, for people listening, I think this conversation, we certainly will tie it to your book, but I'd love to go in all kinds of different directions if that's all right with you. Of course. It's flattering. Okay. I have to ask a question, though, before we get started, and it goes back to the second.

Second Life at Tiger Woods. On the dedication page, there's an inscription that says, and I'm quoting here, this book is dedicated with gratitude to MD251 MC. And underneath that, it says this is a riddle for any reader with, quote, a modest prize awaiting anybody who can decode those seven characters. Michael, I kid you not, I've thought about this more than I'd like to admit over the ensuing three, four years, whatever it's been. For the life of me, I don't know what it is, and I'm dying to know if this modest prize has been awarded to anybody. It has been, yeah. There's been about maybe three or seven people somewhere in that range. Okay. I have figured out over the years, and they have received a modest prize. And lawyers being

lawyers when the book is getting vetted to come out. The lawyer actually asked, the lawyer was the same lawyer who worked with Bob Woodward on his books. He was super thorough. He was a guy that Simon Schuster used a lot for its books. And Woodward is a Simon Schuster editor. And one of the things he asked us, what is the value of the modest prize? And he said, I really haven't decided. He said, it matters because if it's over a certain threshold, then federal law kicks in over prize giving and I don't know the details of it at all, but whatever the threshold is for anybody who thinks that they can figure it out, it doesn't meet the threshold of going to federal prize. Yes, people have figured it out. So there's more than one prize. This is still

ongoing. If anybody is still able to figure it out, you're still awarding prizes. Generally speaking, it's been a book off the shelf here, not necessarily one of my own. But yeah, I only ask because I won't ask you then to reveal it. I'll ask you in confidence just to set my own mind at ease. Interesting. Yeah. All right, I had to get that out of the way. Let's, let's.

Can I just start for one quick thing about something you said right at the beginning? Please. Years ago, like when I was in high school, the New York Times is always a big thing in our house. And reading the letters to the editor, this woman wrote in about a story that ran in the sports section in the New York Times. And the woman wrote, do you realize? that in the course of this story, you never identified what sport you're writing about. And that made such an impression on me. And it was like about women's field hockey or whatever it was.

It was like, there's a broad interest in golf or baseball or politics or movies or anything. But if you want to bring in the world, you better be aware that people don't necessarily focus this, focus on this as intensely as you might, you know, you, Phil or me, Michael, like earlier we're talking about Jake Knapp's caddy and he's had a caddy change. Well, what are the chances of somebody knowing about that catty change? Close to zero or I'll go to a cocktail party and they still think Joe La Cava is catting or they think Steve Williams is still cutting for Tiger and they think Tiger's still playing. I'm like, no, Tyre hasn't played in years. They're oh really? What's up with him? I said, ah, you better get another drink because I can't get into

It's too much. Right. But anyway, so it's nice to you to comment on that, that it's about other things. But this woman's letter to the editor made an impact on me in, I would say, 1977. Well, that, yeah, it's very true. I, you know, I don't mean to overly flatter you this early in the interview, but that is what I, it's the beauty of golf, and I truly think that's the beauty of your writing. And I think it's the same thing with your new book. So let's just start here with the playing lesson. It's inspired, as you say, by a book by George

Plimpton, his book, The Bogey Man. I think for any readers, could you quickly just talk about who George was and did you know George? How did that book specifically come to influence this new book of yours? Would you have known the name George Plimpton prior to this? I think in very just passing. It's a name that I think I've heard. red, but I couldn't tell you much biographical detail. Some people you'd have to be even older than you are filled

to know the name. His most famous piece ever was a cover story about a phenomenal right-handed pitcher. Maybe left-handed pitcher that the Mets had signed. And the pitcher's name was Sid Finch. And Sid Finch

I do know Sid Finch. You know about Sid Finch. I remember reading that in Sports Illustrated. Did you? Okay. And Sid Finch came to the Mets training camp with a bag over his head because he was, and he had been, he grew up in an orphanage in England, was educated at Harvard and had a 168 mile or something like that fastball. And it was an April Fool state issue for Sports Illustrated. So that's probably George Plimpton's best known piece. But George, one of George's main things as a writer was to do an activity and write about it.

And one of the things I did was he played football for the Detroit Lions. one set of downs in a scrimmage, but he wrote a whole book about it called Paper Lion that was later turned to a movie, same name. And then for his next trick after that, he got himself into some PG-tour pro-ams and wrote this very funny book called The Bogie Man about it. And I read that book in high school and made a huge impression on me. And I never knew George Plumpton, but I had some conversations over the years. and our mutual editor, Joe Foufari Adler, we and I were playing golf a couple summers ago, and he said, you know, nobody's done the Plimpton thing since, and I knew where he was going was like sold. Yeah, I would love to try to do that. So that was the impulse, the impetus for this book.

So for folks that have not picked up the book yet and would encourage everybody to do so, in the best way you can kind of, Explain the premise then with George and the bogey man. What is it you go about setting off to do with your experience? Well, what George did was he got you inside the ropes because, you know, it's unimaginable. Now, of course, baseball is the fantasy camp where people go down to spring training and they sort of hang out with former players. But the pro am is a unique thing in golf and particularly a pro am where you're playing and your pro is playing for keeps, which does happen like at the old Bob Hope tournament.

now called the American Express and the Bing Crosby tournament and he played in both those events. The pro is playing for real and you're inside the ropes with the pro. So you were really seeing the game in a way that you can't imagine another sport actually

at such an intimate range. So Plimpton did that very successfully and I thought all these years later I've had the chance to see a lot of golf really up close. Like I would say the difference between seeing golf through through being a caddy for a tour player and being a reporter and being a fan, I would say it's night and day, actually. And for the amateur participant in pro-am, it's sort of the same thing.

You sort of get to know the pro in a different way. So that was the starting point. And then it turned into a lot of different things, which is, and this is part of the charm of the bogeyman. You know, Plimpton is a generous 18 handicap. He's probably a lot of worse than that. But the idea is, can you get better? Can you actually get better at something? So that becomes part of the goal in this book as well. So you drive around. Driving's a big theme of the book, road tripping.

I want to ask you about that. And as you said, you participate, take part in a number of different pro ams across golf, all professional golf. You have the PGA tour, of course. You have a live proam, LPGA. what else? A senior champions tour, Pro-Am, and... Epson Tour. Epson Tour. For those who don't know what the...

Can you describe what the Epson Tour is for the listeners? Well, I assume most listeners probably know the Corn Ferry Tour, and so the Epson Tour is the LPGA equivalent. Perfect. It's kind of the AAA, if you will, of LPGA golf. That's all to say, beyond just playing in the pro-am, and certainly you meet pros and you meet different people, but you introduce us to a wide range of characters.

You go off on tangents. It's just a wonderful book. So I want to explore what I think are some of the big themes. There's always an eternal pushpole. You know, Michael, I don't want to give away too much because that's the beauty of picking up and reading your book. But I hope to entice people with enough to really set off their curiosity. And pick it up for yourself.

Pick it up for a person in your life who loves golf. I think we need a level set on your golf. So talk to me. I guess we can go back to the beginning of the playing lesson if it's much different than where you are today. But what is your handicap? How much golf do you play? Let's set a baseline for listeners about Michael Bamberger's golf.

Now, I had an Anika Sorin's name on the phone yesterday for a piece that I'm doing. And she's a member of Augusta National. And we were talking about her best rounds ever to Guston National. And long before she was a member, which she was at the height of her powers as a player, she played it from the championship teas on a windy day, and she broke par. Like, that is astounding. So we were talking about how difficult a Gus National is.

So just to describe my own game for a minute, like, it looks more competent than it is. And the reason I say that is like, and I said this to Anka another day, and I'll tell you her response in a minute. Like, for everybody who follows golf knows what to Gus Nationals because they watch it on TV. So let's just say the first hole. It's a 100-yard-wide fairway. You can't miss it. And the fairway's hot. It's going to roll up there somewhere.

And then you're going to add a hybrid or a six-iron wherever it is. And you're going to get it near the green. So now you've taken two shots. The chances of getting in the hole in five from there, four me, are close to zero. Because I'm probably going to take two chips and four puts. And that's a lot. So I said to Anika the other day, just yesterday, I said, Anika, you know, like, you can get Greenside in regulation, but then try to make a parer-bogie from there.

And she's like, yeah, totally. So that's sort of, you know, I'm a terrible short putter. I'm a bad chipper. I invented a club to try to help me with my chipping. I meant it kind of invented a putter to try to help me with my yipping. But it's a struggle. But I can get it up in the air. I can hit an okay distance.

And it's been this. way for a long, long time. And I had very much enjoyed this quest to try to get better, or at this point at age 65, to hold on to what I have. And Phil and I were talking about swimming in other activities. Well, you're evading. What's the handicap? Because I know you keep the handicap. Yeah. And, you know, if I'm playing well, I'll certainly break 90. And, you know, a few times my life, I've broken 80. And I can go along well. Well, you know, I can play six holes in even par, you know, but then I'll make a triple.

So probably a lot of people can relate the same. What are, do you have golf goals? What are your goals at this point? My number one goal is to start with the ball that I finish. I love that. Good. Why do you find yourself doing the same thing? Well, it's part of, well, I'm cutting you off here.

Oh, I've tried to simplify my goals into don't three put, no penalty shots, which I think kind of inherently, you know, finished with the ball you started with. And what's my other one? Oh, no double chips. You know, if you're around the green, get it on in one. Hank Haney always used to preach that. And I feel like it's a simplified way to just take three goals to the golf course every time I play. That's perfect. Yeah, at my level, if I do, I have no penalty shots and no three puts, which never happens, and no two chips, which never happens, I will shoot 85 or better.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's a, I think that's a great way to approach the game. And in general, having simple, manageable goals is great. I would say my single most significant goal is to stay really engaged through the round. And, like, that, you know, that half minute that you're going to spend preparing and playing the shot to be thoroughly engaged in it, which is definitely part of the deep beauty of the game, is our chance to get lost in this pursuit that really is mind over matter until you let go of the mind and it turns into matter. Like, can you make the swing that your mind has already sort of planned for you to make? But that's all to say, you don't, you're not thinking to yourself, I need to get into single-digit handicap, you know, you're not, you don't consider golf goals that way

necessarily? No. Okay. No. I consider golf goals more joy of the game and the joy in being control of your emotions and your, and your, and your thoughts. And I think that's really, what I've just described is really why 50 years after 50 years of playing why the game still has such a hold on me because that's just to me like like writing

or reading or some of the you know almost any pursuit really is this uh even shoveling like if you you know shovel your your your driveway uh just the idea of something's in your mind and then you make it happen you know i get that way folding laundry yeah i do the laundry and you start with this unkempt pile of clothes, and by the end, I love the satisfaction of seeing everything folded and kind of put in place. Yeah. It's a little Zen that way, I think. Yeah, I totally agree with that.

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If you want to use that time to get better at golf, Sacksystem.com slash NOLU code no laying up. Back to Mr. Big and Mr. Bamberger. Well, you spoke about emotions. What's the most upset you've ever been on the golf course? Well, unfortunately, it comes immediately to mind. I'm not proud of it at all. In Cooperstown, I love baseball, but I don't follow as close as I used to at all.

But when Christine and I were courting, we went to Cooperstown. I was playing the leather stocking course. Have you ever been up there? No. It's a lovely course. and they have this 18th T that you take like a suspension bridge

to walk out to this 18th T I never carry a lot of balls and I ducked up four in a row into the lake I had no more golf balls left him out on this island and I lost it it's like

what is losing it mean what is like I'd rather not say it wasn't pretty I didn't break any clubs okay okay some profanities I'm sure profanity

red of face and I was a lot younger and it was a bad scene or marriage or then we were probably engaged, you know, survived it, but over the years I've become much more mellow, really, on the course. It's not that much that upsets me anymore. My friend Mike Donald, who played the tour for years, you know, he would say of me or anybody, you know, who gets really upset, like, you're not good enough to get that pissed off. The first time I heard him say, yeah, that's totally correct. Yeah. One thing that you mentioned in the book that I really connected with, you speak of your, what's the right word for it? You speak of how much you enjoy playing golf in relative silence. And as somebody that's naturally introverted, that just resonated with me.

I'm so curious, though, how you go about, are you able to make? message. I'm sure your good friends know this about you just over time. How are you able to kind of convey that or do you convey that to new playing partners or caddies without coming across as rude? That is really a funny question. A friend had a daughter and the daughter was getting married. And the kid was a really nice kid. I took him out for golf. And we both hit two shots off of one. This is at the Philadelphia Club. I'm lucky enough to be a member. And I had it left and he had it right. So he walks with me, Odu, to my ball.

And I said, you know, I'm delighted to have you out here, but let me just say how this goes. I walk to my ball and you walk to yours. He's like, okay, I understand. And then we played in two hours and 50 minutes. We're just in plenty of time if you got the golf course to yourself. For a two ball to get around an eight-in-hours, 250, you're not racing. You're just playing golf. The other thing, well, that's what I do.

I proceed to my golf ball by myself. If I'm with a caddy, I take clubs and I proceed to my golf, you know, I'll pull two clubs I think I might need. And by the way, if those clubs aren't the right clubs, they become the right clubs. Just figure something out. It's part of the fun, anyhow. So I'm always advancing to my ball by myself. And I hope this isn't getting ahead of yourself.

but there's a little moment in the book where I'm playing, Phil and I were just at this nine-hole course or played a golf called St. Martins. And I'm playing this match. You may remember this part of the book. I know exactly what you're going to say. Should I get into it? Yeah, please.

And I'm in the, and I hit a wildly crazy bad T-shot, and I hit a good recovery shot. And I've got a, you know, long, long, long lag putt just to get it close to try to two-put for a par. And I hit this beautiful lag puttut. Now I've got maybe five feet for a par. So I'm in the hole. And I'm standing in the back of the,

and I'm just in this reverie and the guy says come on in here we're in this together I'm like holy fuck we're not in this together I'm doing my thing but now you've killed my mojo vibe of I don't even know what you're talking about we're in this together we're playing a match what do you mean we're in this together it's not a group activity no we can have a beer afterwards yeah yeah but I mean you totally got my head and I yip my five footer he made his worry That was that calculated? Do you think that guy? I don't think so.

I don't think it was. Not that one can ever really know. Sure. I just think it was in his personality type. Okay. You know, there's a salesman personality type in life and in golf, of course, where they think it's communal. You see that with reporters, too. You have reporters who are like, yeah, we asked them that after the round.

And like, John Feinstein was a friend of mine who died early. this year. Like John was really a reporter's reporter. He never asked a question or press conference because one of his things was, I don't share. And I admired that. I guess I'm in my own way. I'm sort of the same way. Okay. Let's switch themes a little bit. I appreciate you sharing that about your personal golf. A big theme I mentioned earlier in this book is the idea of a road trip. You do a lot of driving from point A to point B. I know it's something that you really enjoy. What does it take for you to fly instead of drive? Are you the type of person if it's at all feasible to drive? Is that what you're opting for? Talk to me about your mindset

with getting behind the wheel and doing a true road trip. Yeah, I love to get in the car and I'm reluctant to fly. Flying's boring and driving's interesting. You know, it's sort of like the starting point for me. Driving is your own schedule. Flying is somebody else's schedule. Driving you're in control, flying somebody else is in control. So, you know, if I like to visit my friend Ryan French in Alpena, Michigan, one could, I live in Philadelphia, so one could fly Philadelphia, Detroit, and then fly Detroit to Alpena. You know, if I had to fly, I would fly Philadelphia, Detroit, and then drive the rest. But better yet would be just to drive the whole thing.

We've done, I've done, I've done, I've done, I've done both with Ryan. But I just think, you know, you read what you want to read when you're, when you're, you listen to what you want to listen to, you talk with who you want to talk to. You meet people, you're much more likely meet people along the way. And I just think it's superior in every way. So I drive to, for me to drive to Augusta is nothing. Of course, our kids are grown now, so I don't have that pressure of, you know, getting back so quickly. So even like a simple trip to August, which is only 12 hours from here, to break them in two days and spend the night in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina,

and find golf courses and driving ranges and little restaurants and little ice cream shops along the way. Just the joy for me. And just one quick point here. My first job after college was on the newspaper, Martha Zerun called the Vineyard Gazette. And when I was there in 1982, a book, I'm bringing it up because I would definitely recommend this book to people. It's called Blue Highways by a writer named William Leastheat Moon. And he just got in his car and started driving her in a van in this case. And he slept in the van.

And I remember really being taken, it was sort of like, oh, I don't know. It's a classic road trip book. And so I was in my early 20s when I read that. And that's been a lot of the stuff that happened to me at a young age, high school. school and college and after college, I stayed with me ever since. And that was one of the things that caught me down this path of much prefer to be in my own car. I imagine you have some hard and fast rules, whether you think of them as hard and fast rules. I can't, I don't imagine you being like a fast food eater on the road. I got to think you're stopping at diners, small town

restaurants whenever you can. I'm curious what the, you know, the must do for Michael Bamberger on a road trip are. What are you listening to? Is it, is it music? Is it podcasts? Is it nothing? What's kind of set the scene on a typical road trip, if you will? Okay. That's really an interesting question. No one's ever posed that question to me before. Well, this is only new since the advent of Siri.

But if you are anywhere, so if you're conscious about what you eat, and I would say that I am, if you say to Siri, show me Greek restaurants near here, where there's usual only, wherever you are, you're in Richmond, Virginia, wherever you may be. There's only going to be one, and it's going to be a family-owned restaurant. Yeah. And the beauty of the Greek restaurant is that it's family-owned, and that they're doing their own shopping, and that they buy the fish that day, and that they're warming up the pita. They may have made it themselves, the fetta.

Like the other day, I did this. I was in Clifton, New Jersey, and I said to Sir, show me Greek restaurants. And beautiful piece of salmon came with French fries and spinach. And now, I'm not proud of what I'm about to say. But I put Parmesan cheese on my spinach. And I said to the guy, would you have Parmesan cheese by any chance? And the guy said, wouldn't you prefer Feta? I'm like, yeah, definitely.

That would be way, way better. So, like, you know, the Greek restaurant is a very healthy way to eat. So that would be one of my things. You can expose, on a long drive, you can expose yourself to a lot of music. Like, I'm well versed in the Almond Brothers, but only to a point. And, like, if you've got a 10-hour drive, you can go deeper and deeper. Or like the guitarist, T. Bone Burnett is a friend of mine, is a remarkable person. But I don't listen.

You know, he's played, for those who don't know, T. Bonnay, is a well-known producer and guitarist, and he's played with Elton John and Bob Dylan and many legends over the years. But he's done a lot of his own music. So once on a long job, I just said to Syria or whatever they call it, you know, play T. Bermon Burnett. Well, it turns out there's hours and hours of T. Bonnet recordings out there. Would you know that name, Teabon Burnett? No, no. So, so that's a deep pleasure. Just one quick thing happens to bring up Ryan French again. I have written

about this before, but, you know, not too many people would have found it. So, you know, people fall in love with music as kids often. You're in high school, you're in college. And that musical love usually never dissipates over time. Like, who is your favorite? abandoned high school. Well, I think that's right. And I find myself listening to a lot of the same stuff I did at that point. An example would be OAR, of a revolution. We'd listen to a ton in high school and college. And I've started listening to it. It just takes you back, right? I think that's the beauty of music. It puts you in a place and a time and it's very unique. I didn't know OAR until recently. Someone your age told me about him, and I did just that. I sort of listened to Hoy

are, and it's a great sound. So there's a band, well-known band named Jefferson Airplane from the 60s and the 70s, and then two guys broke off from Jefferson Airplane and found a band called Hot Tuna, and those guys' names are Yarmacowkin and Jack Cassidy. And I was driving up to see Ryan French in Alpena. And I'm just sorry, Ryan French, I think a lot of people will probably know him as Monday Q Info. That's the very popular account. count that he runs. As you are to Big Randy, he is to Monday Q info. That's exactly right. So I'm not good to electronic things and anything. That doesn't shock me, Michael. And so I roll into Alpena and the phone has died and now we're going to go play golf.

And I was listening to Hot Tuna on the way there. There's this old Chuck Berry song called Talk About You and Hot Tuna is a version of it. And I was listening to this on the way in. and then the phone died. So then I charged it while we were playing. And then Ryan and I went out and played it in the way came in. And then there was the girls like junior high school, or maybe the high school girls Alpina High School team was practicing on the practice team.

And Ryan and I were in the parking lot. And the windows were down. And suddenly out of nowhere, hot tunas talking about you, this whole Chuck Berry song, started playing. on the driving range. And I said to Ryan, that is unbelievable. What are the chances of these girls in 2023 listening to the same music that I listened to in high school? And then Ryan said, Michael, your car is still on. Your phone is obviously just recharged. And the music that you were listening to on the way in is now playing and flooding the driving range with it. So anyway, a long-winded

answer to your question about musical taste, but that's really one of the great, great joys of modern life is how easy it is to get access to all sorts of music and one of the joys of driving as well. And then, of course, podcasts have become a thing as well. And I don't listen to podcasts at home, but in the car. Okay. In the car I do. So what's, just speaking of road trips, what's a favorite route of yours? If anybody listen. has an itch to just make a nice long road trip. What immediately springs to mind for you, at least in the United States here? What's one of your favorite road trips that you can remember? You know, I'll just say something that Christine and I recently did. So I'm lucky enough to cover

the Masters every year. And then Christine came down after this year's Masters. And I went from Augusta to Columbia, South Carolina. And then I picked up Christine. And we were in my green mini. which Phil and I went earlier today. It's got 140,000 miles on. Everyone's like a top. And we went from, we went to Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, Montgomery. I'm sure we're in Aiken at some point. Asheville and maybe Richmond on the street.

But no way, it was really a civil rights tour of the south. It was a lot of zigzagging across. It was a lot of zigzagging. And but it turns out, you know, of course, in Memphis, there's the Lorraine Motel or Hotel where King was assassinated. All these cities have great monuments to the civil rights movement. I would highly recommend anybody has a chance to do this sort of thing. And one of our things, maybe more my thing than Christine's thing, is travel without much of an agenda.

Like I'm really, this is become a joke, but it's not really, I'm very truly commitment-phobic because I want to really be open to surprise. So, you know, I will often just, you know, make a hotel reservation that morning for that night. Because you want to sort of just see where the, where the spirit takes it. And I think, I talk about T-Bone and I compare notes about this occasionally. It's like this over-planning of life and it's over-structuring of life. It sucks the air out of life, I think. Yeah.

And I think to me, and I know this is a luxury of where I am in my life, but to be open to surprise and whim, is just really like a great joy like yesterday our son Ian and Christine and I we were swimming at you know lucky enough to be a member of a club with a pool filled up a cricket club and we were planning to see Freaky Friday and then

like the last minute we had a heart change and we decided to see this art house movie instead and we really knew nothing about it it's set in Rhodesia in 1980 obviously you might know it let's not let

the dogs let's not go to the dogs tonight i think that's the name of the movie huh and it's a total art house movie and it's a woman named fuller it's it's based on her memoir we knew nothing about it and it's a totally mesmerizing beautiful movie like the only thing i knew about it was that it was playing at a theater that shows reliable movies yeah but anyway so it was just like a spur of the moment thing but um you know even like an interviewing like i need to know a little bit about a subject but I don't like to overdo it because I want to be really open to surprise

and I just read a book by the writer Susan Orlean would you know that name? I do know the name and her best known book is called The Orpard Thief but she's written this absolutely incredible memoir of her writing life that's called Joy Ride which, you know, a name

I can really relate to it. Like when she's writing this book I feel like she was writing to me because one of her things is to really be open to surprise and prepare but not over-prepared. So you don't feel like you know everything. And I think that's been a gift to me as a reporter is feeling like I'm inept. I don't know anything and I'm going to puzzle my way through it.

And I think to your question about road trips, road trips are sort of the same sort of thing. Is there a road trip that you haven't done that you would love to do? Well, we were talking about New Zealand earlier. or in this not a typical road trip. I've never been to New Zealand, I've never been to Australia, but New Zealand especially really appeals to me.

But really anywhere, like if I was in Austin and was going to fly out of Dallas to just look at a map and figure out some back road way. Because that's another thing, yeah. I'm sure you try to avoid just the major freeway arteries

as much as possible. Yeah. Get on the back roads. Yeah, the name of this book that I mentioned earlier, I don't know if I mentioned the name earlier, William Lee Seam, the book's called Blue Highway. That's in your book as well for anybody looking for that reference.

Yeah. So blue highways, I was really not aware of this until reading the book, but if you look like an old Rand McNally map, you know, I don't know what color are the use for the interstates, but the blue highways are these two-line country roads often to take you from one time to the next. It might have originally been horse trails, the blue highways. Yeah, always interesting. I had an experience just last year. I've traveled a lot in Florida over the years, but I took blue highways or back roads really

from where was I? I was in St. Augustine and I was trying to get to somewhere on the West Coast. And, like, you actually couldn't believe that you were in Florida in 2024 on these roads that I was in because it was orange groves and horse farms and little towns and miles and miles and miles where you saw nothing but maybe a Ford truck passing it. Yeah. Well, I think road trips is a decent enough segue to talk about pro golf. Pro Golf being, of course, a theme throughout the book. And I want to pull a quote, this is from page 136 of your book, and you're speaking about men's pro golf of an older variety.

You say, quote, it was primitive and great and not complicated. And that just really struck me, and I'd love to drill down on that a little bit. And I guess where I'll start is, was there ever a world of possibility that men's pro golf specifically could have stayed like that? Or was it always due to be overly and optimally commercialized and built up as big as possible? Interesting question. One of my fairer people in golf is Curtis Strange, for those who don't know. He won back-to-back U.S. Opens in 88 and 89, and he was on Rider Cup teams. He was a captain Ryder Cup team.

And we were together somewhere in a grow room and golf's on TV. And the guys analyzing the golf swing, Tiger, and Curtis is on a lot of golf on TV as well. And Curtis turns out of me and says, when did the golfsman get so complicated? And it really doesn't need to be so complicated. Or like, you know, prior to talking to Anika yesterday, I was looking at some of her highlight real stuff. It's like, that swing is so simple. It's profoundly simple and great and rhythmic and beautiful. I think what happened was that the equipment changed

and the golfer and the swing changed with it. So I think when you had a small wooden head and a steel shaft and you had the relatively soft ballad of ball or really very soft ball of ball, for those who don't know anything about the blot of ball, it was almost so soft that you could almost put your thumbnail into it. That's how soft the surface was. And it really did curve a lot more. I think the player had to actually use more athletic.

I wouldn't even say think. I would say you could almost say for sure. Had to use more athletic intuition for how to propel the ball to a distant target. And that required athleticism over technique, really, your own personal stamp on your swing. So I think as equipment evolved, and then the goal. golf revolved with it. Like, for instance, if you look at Jeff Ogilvy, winning that U.S. Open at Wingfoot versus Bryson D. Chimboe winning that U.S. Open at Wingfoot, it was a radically different games. Yeah. And kind of, to me, an insult, like you're hurting wingfoot. Wingfoot

wasn't, in my opinion, this is not to criticize Bryson D. Chimbo and for Bryson to figure out a way to shoot the lowest score for 72 holes. That's his job. and he did it beautifully. But it wasn't beautiful to watch because it wasn't what Tillinghast intended for that golf course to be played, to drive it as far as you can, don't care if you're in the rough or not,

and then hit some kind of hard wedge that stops. That's not what Tilling has meant to be that course to be. But that's what happened to the game because the equipment got out of control, in my opinion. So to your answer, I think it was, I think the change in swing technique came about because of the equipment changes. You don't really put on a prognosticator hat in the book, but I am curious what you think the future of men's pro golf looks like. I know there's some ball rollback stuff on the horizon,

potentially. We're yet to see kind of how all that shakes out. But I guess, are you optimistic? that the men's pro game does it need to get back to what it was or is that or you know are we just kind of old men reminiscing on how it was in our day it's kind of it's very interesting I'm here to say that because you know you're a lot younger than I and I would not ever consider someone 40ish I was trying to be I was you know I didn't want to just call you and you know I mean everyone loves the era in which they came up of course The great actor William Hurt had a former wife named Beth Hurt, and I met her along the way. And she said, regarding how people dress, they dress in the way in which they were happiest in their lives.

And I'm not going to go too deep down that road, but I think I'm super attached to these old-timey golf shirts that they're cotton. I much prefer cotton to polyester. I prefer the stiff collar, I prefer four pot. And, of course, they have been making, you know, they made them prominently in the 70s of the 80s, and now I've got to go on eBay to find them. And by the way, if anybody goes down this path, I'm hesitant to have even brought this up because now I'm going to have competition for these shirts. But there's a thing called NWT.

Do you know what that stands for? No. Well, I wouldn't know this either until this new hobby of mine of hunting for golf shirts. It means new with tags. Oh, okay. Well, I'm not buying secondhand golf shirts because we know. what happens, you know, with men on golf courses. But anyway, so the same thing happens, you know, I fell into baseball in the 70s.

We know, we were talking about the Cincinnati Reds, the team that that you grew up with. You know, for me, it was the New York Mets and, like, 69. You know, so you say names like Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, and Steve Carlton. They are absolutely magical names to me, and they will never, ever be duplicated. But there are people your age and people much younger, and they're going to cite that, of course, the pitchers of their era, who are the dominant pictures, and it's totally understandable. Having said all that, I grew up in the greatest generation of golfers ever because I got Big Jack, Tom Hotson, Jack Nickus, Lee Trevino, Tony Jacqueline, Sevee by Asteroos,

Bernerner, Sandie Littweil, Ian Woosdom, an absolute total murderers row from, let's say, the early 70s, through the early 90s, and it will never be duplicated for the range of personality, the paths that these people had into golf in the first place. So I consider myself very lucky. Now, there are people you are age and younger than you, and they feel that way. And I've met these people, and I admire them. They feel that way about Phil and Tiger, of course. That's totally understandable.

But they even feel that way about Ricky Fowler and Jordan Speath. And they feel that way about, you know, Jake Knapp and Max Homa. So I think people are always going to love their era. I guess the game itself, though, I do think there's merit to even when I was younger and first getting into golf, it just seemed like you had guys that looked, you had different body shapes, different body sizes, you had different golf swings, you had different shapes to the golf ball. You had guys hit it high, you had guys hit it low. I guess there was a lot more variety it seemed like in pro golf before this

modernization of equipment that we see today. And it feels like today, everything's a lot more similar than anything is unalike. But I don't know if you would agree with that. I don't know if, again, that's just me remembering things how I want to remember them. I don't have a good answer for that. But I do think there's something to be said about it would, I think golf is at its best when there are many different ways to go about getting the ball in the hole. And this swing can look different than that swing, and this ball flight can look different than that ball flight. It just seems like anymore today,

everything's just optimized to launch pretty much the same and hit it as far as you can and kind of wedge on as much as possible. And I think there's some beauty and there's some inherent interest that, for me, has disappeared. I mean, I feel that I completely agree with that assessment, except for on the body type. I remember when Tyre won that master's by 12, you know, his first major as a pro, wins by 12, and he's probably about 6-2, and Vijo is playing great golf then, Ernie, Davis-love. And I thought golf was really going to go to being a big man's game. And then to see Rory McElroyd play at the level that he's played and shows you that it's really not true.

So I'm not so sure for body type, and I think that's, I think golf's lucky that it can draw. I think Rory McElroy is an example. I mean, I don't know what they call Rory McElroy, but I know I'm a little over six feet. I feel like I tower over him. You know, I don't, is he 5-7 or 5-8? Yeah, I think he's what listed as 5-9 probably. But I don't think he's anything like that. So that shows you that it is possible.

But to the broader point, yeah, they hit it as hard as they can. They almost all hit it as hard as they can. And as you say, they're trying to launch it as high as they can. But, you know, I read on golf.com the other day in a James Colgan story that C.U.S.'s's ratings were through the roof this year. I was actually surprised to see it because to me, the game is not as interesting as it was. And the golfers themselves and the personality types are not as interesting. They're still interesting because golf's very, very challenging. And it's a distinct personality type that's going to have enough OCD to get good enough to play at that level.

Yeah. But not as interesting. as what you were describing earlier. You drew a connection, having spent some time we mentioned on the women's side of professional golf. And you made a comment that the LPGA today feels much more like what the PGA tour used to feel like 40, 50 years ago. Just I guess I interpreted that as, and I agree with you, if this is what you had in mind. It feels like a closer knit community, more of one big group. traveling together, there's more opportunities to, you know, I don't think a lot of players do

drive from stop to stop. Nellie Korda did famously. What was it a couple of years? She made a point to drive between some stops. But I know that's one of, I think that's one of the reasons why I feel such a strong attraction and interest in the women's game. And I'm just curious how that realization or what some of those maybe bigger takeaways are for, for you having spent some more time in and around the women's side of professional golf. Did you go to LBJ events as a kid in Ohio? No, I didn't. I didn't. Because the LBJ was always, you know, done a great job of marketing itself to places like Dayton and Rochester, New York, and, you know, not some of the great metropolises.

But I would say what you're describing is exactly what I experience where, for one thing, as a fan, you can talk to the players that are accessible. The pro-am experience with the women is night and day different from the pro-am experience. For the starting point, you can tell the women are glad that you are there paying attention to them. That's not a cliche. I mean, it is a cliche, but it's a cliche born in truth. We feel that even from the media side, right? There's just a sense of, yeah, they're, I don't know. It sounds cheesy, but you feel an appreciation for like, oh, you're here covering the tournament.

You know, like, thank you. And I don't like it, you can't help but feel a little better receiving that, you know? Sure. Who doesn't want to feel appreciated? Right. Anka said she would call yesterday at high noon. At high noon, that phone rang. Yeah. Because that's, first of all, that's her personality type. But also, it's like, that's the way it's supposed to work, really. You know, we have a commitment to selling the game and selling our interest in the game. She's long out of the game at this point. And so, you know, the point here was that in any little way, whatever I write up for golf.com, about.

on a because it's not going to hurt the ratings for the u.s women senior open it's only going to help them and that's sort of a little bit of our obligation so you're paying whatever you're paying to pay to play in a an lbj pro m that's good for the game and uh so it's like almost everything in life and you kindly noted this earlier in your marks that you know i try to see golf in the context of life in general but really like the starting point for my own life is the gratitude gene. Can you believe how, like when I say we're lucky enough to live to belong to a club that has a swimming pool. We're lucky enough to live to belong to a club that has a swimming pool. Yeah. It's like if you lose track of how lucky you are, you lose track of the whole thing. So I think what's usually appealing about the OPA tour is they haven't lost the gratitude gene. And I think that's in every walk of life. So I was interviewing this, a PJ tour player, not. not well known. And I said, oh, well, you know, can I, can I follow up with you? And he said, yeah. And I said, oh, well, how would you like to do that? He said, well, here's my email address.

Let's see how that goes. And then we'll see where we go from there. Like, holy fuck. Okay. But the chance of me running to you are zero. Now, maybe this guy thinks he's more in demand than he is. I don't know. But the point here is that you can tell in life anybody who's connected to a sense of gratitude or not. And I think in general, I would say more than I think, we know, we know and we're in the presence. We went out for breakfast earlier, this lovely server that we had. She was making an effort with us, not because she wanted a tip, because I don't know. It's a million different things, including the fact is she doesn't have a job if people like you and I don't come into her restaurant in the first place. Sure. So it's just like I'm looking for that gratitude

Eugene and my own life every day, you know, I try to look for it all day every day and no one can, but you try. Well, I think this is another good segue, if you don't mind. We off camera, we talked a little bit about Scotty Sheffler and I think Scotty is somebody that I have really a growing appreciation and fondness for in professional golf. Not only does his great play speak for itself, but certainly, you know, his comments before the Open Championship this year, I find him a very interesting person. And I was so fascinated with those comments he made about just fulfillment and how quickly infleading winning golf tournaments is in his search for a deeper meaning. I struggled to think of a golfer, a pro athlete that has said something that has really just stuck with me the way those comments did. And I wanted to kind of tie it.

This is a long setup for some questions. But in your book, you spend a lot of time with Arnold Palmer talking about Arnold Palmer. On page 201, you quote Arnold Palmer as saying to you, this is Arnold saying to you, I love. the edge. And this was after he won the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills. And you go on in the book, these are your words, musing about that. He had reached a mountaintop and found that his desire was marginally less intense. And I just, when I read that passage on Arnold Palmer, I immediately went to Scotty Sheffler. And I guess let's start here. What do you make a Scotty Sheffler? What did you make about those, the famous press conference prior to the, to the Open Championship?

How do you interpret Scotty Sheffler? Yeah, you know, I was fascinated by that too. And, you know, like you wouldn't necessarily say that Scotty Sheffler is a fascinating person. Like, I don't know who might, you know, any sort of like deep philosopher type person. But, and so very significant, but he is fascinating in actual fact. Because he's figured out this gift of simplicity. Yeah. Like, you know, we talked about this earlier at breakfast late.

Or maybe we didn't, but it comes up in my mind often. Like, let's say whatever you're feeling is about Liv. I don't think Liv has done anything to help make professional golf a better game. His starting point with Liv is they didn't have to accept the money. Now, the Saudis offered the money. Greg Norman started the league. He found these Saturday backers. let's say everybody said no. Let's say Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Brooks Kepka, and

Bryson D. Shambo and Charlie Hall and the rest of them, let's just say they said, they said, no. Well, then you'd really have some sort of minor league league that nobody would pay attention to. So in other words, he got it down to the essence of the thing. So I admire that quality in a person that can get it down to the essence of the thing. Now, I don't know if I have this correct. But go ahead. Are you okay? But when Shephler and I were just kind of, it was the pandemic masters. And so there was nobody out there. And I barely knew who Shephler was.

And we were walking toward the first T together. Just so happened. We were like in lockstep. I said, how do you like this? I either said, how do you like this golf course or how do you like this tournament? He said, yeah, I wouldn't know. I never played it before. I don't know if he was referring to the tournament or the golf course.

But one or the other. He said, yeah, I don't know. But it was just like so natural. He was like, he wasn't like, you're supposed to be a golf rider and you don't know. You know, he was just so unassuming about it. And the one that I asked him, I said, well, you grew up in New Jersey. And then he moved to Texas or you're more of a Bruce guy or a Willie Nelson guy. He's like, wow, that's a good question.

I'm going to have to think about that and get back to it. So in other words, like he's engaged in the world. And then, you know, as much as I love the tournament remarks he made before the British Open, And the remarks I made it afterwards about the Chipotle. Did you follow this at all? Well, refresh me. After he won, he's, you know, he's talking about the level of fame that he has. Well, here, you know, so he says, well, there's one Chipotle he goes to, and it's loaded with golf people.

And he's going to get bombarded with questions. But there's another Chipotle that he goes to where nobody knows him at all. And my friend Neil Oxman brought Tom Watson, well, everyone knows who Tom Watson's. Tom Watson has a very close friend named Neil Oxman who's a close to him in mine. Neil Caddy for Watson for years. And Watson came to Philadelphia, where Neil and I both live. And they toured. They went to Valley Forge National Park and Independence Hall.

Here's one of the greatest golfers in history. And it's been several days in Philadelphia. And Neil said, not a single person recognized Tom Watson. So one of the points here, and I think Schaeffler understands this is, they're very good at golf. It's so inconsequential as to be immeasurable. And I would say the same thing of, you know, almost every professional athlete. But if you love golf, it's very cool to see anybody do anything better than anybody else. And it's also very cool.

And this is true for, you know, whether it's Rory McElroy, Max Homer, or your eye, to try to do your best at this difficult thing. We're drawn to that. So I guess what Schaeffler was saying in those pre-open remarks is let's not get carried away with ourselves. here. And he he captures that. Well, and I think that's kind of, I don't know, I'm probably reading too much into what Arnold, just to tie it back to that Arnold Palmer anecdote, but about him, as you say, reaching the mountaintop and once you achieve what there is to be achieved in your profession,

right, I think it is very natural to lose an edge, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, wonder, okay, well, what's next? Where do I go from here? And so I think, you know, Arnold was very open with you about certainly losing something competitively. And I don't know, I just think it's really interesting with Scotty. He seems to have reached that same point. But because of his grounding in family and faith, and that's really what matters to him. And I, and I will say, too. It seems like he just enjoys the process of practicing and playing golf. It seems like he might not lose that edge. I don't know. It's just two different humans kind of at the same point and seeing a little bit different reaction in them. Yeah. Now, Arnold, you know,

a lot of your listeners probably wouldn't know this because we're so accustomed to thinking about the four majors. But Arnold was born in 29 and sort of came a golf age, let's say, in the late 30s and into the 40s. His father was, of course, superintendent and a pro at La Trobe, western Pennsylvania. And there was one major. There was the U.S. Open. Everything else was just a tournament. So he grew up with this idea like, wow, if you win the U.S. Open, you've achieved everything a person could achieve. He won that U.S. Open in 1960. He'd already won two masters by that point. He was like, he was done, in a sense, he was done. And in part was, you know, he had a lot of close calls and U.S. opens after that.

And what he was describing to me was that you could never really get the car in fifth gear when he most needed to close it out. You know, something Tiger really never lost, you know, and he, you know, he, Tiger never lost

that need to steamroll the competition. But Arnold was describing that he had. Now, Arnold's great good fortune, he's such a people person that he got a lot of life fulfillment by waking every day and being Arnold Palmer. Yeah.

And I used to have a photograph in your, do you guys still have that house in Jacksonville Beach? We don't, but all that stuff is in a storage unit. So that photo is. Describe the folks what the house was and what the Arnold. Well, we call it the kill house in homage to Tiger Woods and where he used to do some of his Navy SEAL training. But yeah, it was a bachelor pad. That was part studio.

Solly and I lived there for brief amounts of time. But the walls were just decorated with all kinds of golf memorabilia and pictures. And the picture you're referring to, I forget who snapped it. DJ has it, but it's Arnold Palmer leaving, I don't know if he's home in La Trobe or down at Bay Hill. But it's early in the morning. He's with his dog. And he just looks like he looks so totally. normal and not Arnold Palmer the king and I just think it's a it's a beautiful picture kind of

capturing the man yeah without all of the glitz and glam and what we've and he himself built himself up to be yeah well right it was that photograph was I'm almost certain was taken at Bay Hill coming out of his condo because it could sort of I recognize it because he lived uh he lived very modestly Arnold did I mean he was a very wealthy man and he had a modest home and Trove, a modest condominium in Bay Hill, and then a modest Casita out in Palm Springs. He had a jet. That was this one big extravagance. He was a great pilot.

I love that photograph because you can see how totally comfortable he is with being Arnold Palmer. Just being himself, really, is probably another way of saying it. But Arnold was very fortunate that when his playing days were over, he was able to find a lot of life fulfillment in the energy that he got from the public. And Nicholas was able to sort of find the same thing in designing golf courses. Watson probably had his own thing, got, you know, deeply engaged in political discourse, you know. And I worry about, uh, about Tiger and whether there is another thing for him. And I think it's a really weird thing that Tiger Woods is one of the most famous people in the world. You know, there can't be more than a hundred or so people who, you know, you have the

pope or, you know, you have people. certainly I would put him in top 100 I would think yeah he's a very famous person and yet day after day after day you have no idea what Tiger Woods is doing you know occasionally he goes out and watches Charlie play a golf tournament and then you don't see him for weeks on end you know the Ryder Cup's coming up

you know you don't hear him in connection you know in golf it's his thing so I mean I would say I don't know why I'm worried about Tiger Woods because I don't think worries about me but but Shephler just to go back to him for a second And for those who don't know, everyone who listens us would know the name Ben Hogan and almost certainly know the name Sam Sneed and Byron Nelson, all born in the same year, I think 1912, and all had very different paths through their Hall of Fame careers. And Byron Nelson's thing was like, make enough money to buy this ranch in Texas and then sort of go away.

And that's what he did. And I could see Scotty Schaeffler doing the exact same thing. like it's not so much the money for him it's like but it'll be a little bit more like the arnold thing but maybe on his own terms so whether winning the career grand slam is a goal for him or not i could just i could you know i could just imagine him saying you know our our eldest child is getting into sports or grade school whatever might be i want to be there for this that and the other thing and i don't want to devote myself to tournament golf as i has and walking away and being very content in doing it.

And he sort of predicts that in those comments. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you on that. So this movie that I mentioned to you a second ago? It's called the movie that Christine and Ian and I saw last night that I would definitely recommend to the listenership is, don't let's go to the dogs tonight. Huh.

And it's set in Rhodes. It's a new movie, though? It's a new movie. It's set in Rhodesia. In 1980, when Rhodesia was turning into Zimbabwe, and one of my favorite people in golf is Nick Price, whom I've just been drawn to for any number of reasons. Anybody knows Nick Price is the real deal. And he grew up in Rhodesia. So I wrote to him and told him about the, that we liked the movie last night.

And Nick just wrote back, Hey, Michael, I read the book years ago, fairly truthful, but some good bullshit in there, too. So I was at Tulsa. This is the PGA Championship that Justin Thomas won, the one that was going to be at Trump, and they moved it to Tulsa. Yeah. What's the name of that course in Tulsa? Southern Hills. Southern Hills.

Yeah. Good man. So there's an area where they park the carts, like it's subterranean kind of thing. And there's a men's room there. This is crass, but I've started going down this road. And Nick won a PGA championship. there. So I used the, I happen to be wandering through there. That's kind of one of my things that's already sort of poking around. And I used that facility. It was a very clean, appropriate

facility. And they had a photograph of Nick Price who won a PGA championship in this head. And I saw, of course, I sent a photograph of the toilet and the photograph of Nick to Nick. And Nick wrote back right away, he said, in the crapper where I belong. So anyway, that generation of golfers, first of all, they figured things out for themselves. You know, here's a guy, you know, he's in the Hall of Fame here, he's corresponding with, you know, just some random writer that he's met along the way. Nick probably thinks to me first inform us as a caddy because, you know, that, you know, when we first met, that that's what it would have been. But, like, I can't imagine, really, a golfer on tour doing that today. there seems to be more of a self-deprecating nature with some of those older players.

And maybe that's just we, I don't know the new players as well as we got to know the older players. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that, you know, Jack, I've been lucky enough to interview him a lot over the use. I don't know Jack's self-deprecating. Jack is definitely, definitely not self-deprecating. Once I was in his office and he said, well, how old is this is years ago? He said, well, how old is, not so many years ago, as you'll find out from this story. He said, well, how old is Roy McElroy?

And I said, uh, he's about, I think he's about 28. And Big Jack says, about 28. In other words, his thing is precision. So then he says, hey, Siri, how old is Joe? How old is worry? And, you know, of course, Siri answers. The golf, the Irish golfer. Oh, fuck.

Please. Turn that off. But no, self-deprecation was definitely not a thing, nor really for Arnold. But for Trevino, I think it was, for Billy Casper. I think it was for Nick. I think it was. I think their personality types came through their golf more. I think that's a beautiful way to put it.

I think that's honestly, I've been searching for a simple way to explain that thought. I think that's, I think you've nailed it with that. All right, before we lose track of Scotty and Arnold and the mountaintop, I wanted to ask you, have you experienced that feeling of, of being at the height of your craft of writing? Have you reached a mountaintop? Does that compute at all? Totally the opposite.

I feel like a ranked beginner. I know this is not a literal truth. I'm not being disingenuous enough to say this. I'm just saying how I feel. I feel like a ranked beginner. Anika called right at noon yesterday. I was nervous. The questions were inept.

I'm a bad interviewer, I'm a bad reporter, I'm a bad writer, and I'm going to keep trying to get better. I just find it a very helpful way to keep trying this thing. The only thing I'm really pissed off about is being 65 and, you know, wishing that I had lots more time to try to get better at this craft. I'm not talking about golf. I'm talking about writing. That means the world to me. And that's why I love this book, Joyride by Susan Orlean so much, is that that's really what this whole, that's what her whole journey is about. Can you become a better reporter? Can you become a more empathetic listener? Can you convey what the person is like, what the experience was like to be with the person, why it matters in a better way, no matter what you're writing? Okay. So this leads me to, you have a quote in the book by Ben Hogan.

page 32, and you're, it's in the middle of a story relaying the journey of Lucas Glover in his putting. But you quote Ben Hogan as saying, I am the sole judge of my own standards. And I was really curious what that means to you as a writer. And are you just always tough on yourself? How do you, how do you go about, what does that call? quote mean to you. What does that quote mean to you? Well, it struck me right in the forehead. I mean, it's a quote you read and I immediately reach for the highlighter and I think there is so much

truth and it is a much needed reminder for me that I need to do a better job of becoming that sole judge of my standards and maybe to quit listening to outside voices and I find a lot of truth in it. I think I can be my toughest critic in all walks of life and I think the difficulty is sussing out when that's useful and when that's just overly burdensome. Very, very well said. I think it's much tougher for your, you sound like, I think you sell another thought you're trying to get out. No, no, no. I think it's much harder for your generation than mine and the generation that preceded me because you're so bombarded with images. You know, someone goes to some vacation and they snap their pictures and they put it on Twitter and they put it on Instagram and everyone's

judging it. Yeah, it looks like next to vacation. I've seen it better. You know, there's always that, fuck you. I don't give a fuck what your vacation was like. And I'm not putting my vacation on Twitter in the first place for you to judge it anyhow. Either enjoyed the vacation or I didn't or some aspects I didn't. By the way, that's life anyhow. It's never some perfect joyride, I mean, to use that word again. It's like there's good and bad and everything. Nothing goes perfectly.

But your generation has so much pressure on it in this achievement of what somebody else tells you is the ideal. And like, now I know this is a thing in the world now and I'm ignoring it and it's costing me. Like we were talking on breakfast today, you know, how many YouTube subscribes you have? How many Instagram people click on? Click, click, click, click, and everyone's counting the numbers all the time. But it's a killer if you let it kill. Now, the golfer, were you ever tempted to join social media? Or was it immediately like, what the hell is this?

Why would I would? Well, it sort of crept up. So it wasn't any immediate anything, but I never saw one positive thing that was going out of it. The one positive development, you know, since, let's say, you know, I wrote my first book in a typewriter. So, you know, from that transition from typewriter to where we are, is email. I love email. Yeah. Because, you know, I could, I love this movie that Judd Apatow made.

I'm just blanking on the name. But if any of it, whoops, I think I'm going to crime. And I definitely, funny people. Funny people. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the name of the movie, too. I have not seen it, unfortunately. So I wrote an email to Judd Appetal.

I totally guessed on his email. An hour later, he would not know me from Adam, it would be impossible. An hour later, the phone rang. He was Judd Apatow. We talked for two hours about it. It's amazing. Because of email. Email is a great equalizer.

So I do love email, but all the other stuff, I think that I do not see there are aspects of it. that are beneficial and you know breaking news being um you can get addicted to the breaking news too of course but i don't want to be totally dismissed so i'm just saying for what i do in my life i don't i don't no i don't i don't see any uh any benefit to it can i just finish one one quick thought about hogan what like there's so much in that i'm the sole judge now in a piece of writing, you're not, you are the sole judge and yet you're working with people as well. Of course, your readers, you know, if you had zero readers for me, that would be a failure because I'm trying to connect with readers.

So I'm very grateful for every single reader I have, but I'm not trying to write in such a way that the, you know, the net will just get thrown as broadly as possible. possible. But like my first reader is our mutual editor, Jofi. I've cracked this joke many times, but I'll share it one more time here. And he once wrote in the margins, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, flip the page. I can't tell you how bored I am in this section. And I super woke. Now, that is somebody else's judgment. Sure. But I've decided on my own that I trust Jofi's judgment. And he is shown enough respect for me to say, you can agree with it or not agree with it. And sometimes I don't agree with it. I have one sentence in one book. That's one of my favorite

sentences ever, won't get into the whole thing. Jovey was ready to take it out. I'm like, I think it works. Let's leave it. So that's an example of, I'm the sole judge of my own standards. But I think one of the great beauties of golf, and this gets to Hogan's whole life, and I would say Nicholas's whole life and lots of people who you admire, and it can be true for you and I every bit as much, is that golf tests honesty, honesty in the sense of like where you are in your own life, what you can do with that golf ball that's sitting there, what are you doing with the number that you're writing down, what you're doing in your match. If you and I play a friendly match this afternoon and the ball moves while we're over the whole,

and we're going to play a match, we're not going to call it because it's ridiculous. It has no matter. But we're going to tell the other person, well, I just want you know the ball moved here. Sure. And then you're going to say, yeah, who cares? Yeah, nobody cares. But in tournament golf, you have to care because the rule says that ball can't move. And, you know, it can't move from its original location.

I mean, that's a minor example. But whatever it might be, in other words, so that's one level of honesty. One level of another level of honesty is, you know, what you can do with a ball in that lie. Another level of honesty is what you're going to do to try to get better. And I think we're lucky to have this game that pushes you into honesty. in a way that so few things in life do because a lot of life is how much can you bullshit the other person?

That's so... And it's so boring. And we see it all... It's exhausting. It's exhausting. And one of the things about the long flight is the person next to you. They're usually full of shit. And so...

So we want to... You know, on the highest level, we want to trust this. scores. Now, we want to. We have to trust the scores. If we don't trust the scores of being completely, totally kosher, the whole thing falls apart. That's the starting point. And I just hope, because that's the only word I can use, that this generation understands that as much as preceding generations do. And you'll learn this over time. Like, I know in a high school tournament. We played a rule called lift clean in place when you were in a trap. We're playing

golf courses in March and April in Suffolk County in Long Island. And, you know, there are pine cones and things around. They were just trying to make the game a little more user friendly. So you create a local rule. It's totally fine. Lift clean in place. So you're in a tree. Well, it was in a bunker. Excuse me. Sure. If it's not raked, you know, you live to give yourself a normal lie and imagine. Yeah, go from there. So I lifted the ball. I swept my foot with the hawk point with soccer kick and then I placed my ball and that was all totally legit except for the fact that I placed my ball on the on the ledge you know I you know in other words I teed it up oh I see I cheated yeah and the guy's looking at me from the top of the bunker my opponent

it's like I'm sick to this day but but that's where I learned you know like I have people tell me of these things it or I caddy for you know the guy named peter travain and book to the Linksland years ago. It won't get into the whole thing. But I nearly cost him a penalty. And like, I know that this guy, no one, I gave him the wrong ball back. And it was also a lift cleaning place kind of situation.

And it gave me a ball to clean it appropriately. And then I threw the ball back to my through back the roll ball. And I realized that after he was over the ball, that it was not the ball. And that's the requirement of the game. You can't switch balls out of tongue, the other player. It's just a rule of golf. You might say it's a stupid rule.

It's not. But whether you think it's a stupid rule and out, that doesn't matter. It is a rule of golf. And I could tell from Peters looked like he was annoyed, but he was also grateful that I alerted him to it before him because he definitely, if had he figured it out later, if the number was different or something, he definitely would have called the penalty on himself

because that's how he went through his life. My friend Mike Donald, exactly the same way. All his golfing life. It's just like Davis love, almost every golfer I've gotten to know well. It's like it's so deeply embedded in them. So, I mean, that's like the most obvious level of honesty as it relates to golf, but it's every level of golf. And it's every level of golfer. And I think Hogan is hitting upon that in his remark.

So when you put a book out into the world, what is, do you imagine, do you read reviews on your books? What's your process for, do you care to gather feedback? How big is that net that you cast or who's, how do you? you go about seeking the opinions that you want to seek? Well, I don't seek the opinions, but when the opinions come to me, I read them eagerly and happily. You know, I've got my email always in my books and people write to me. Yeah. And I write, you know, unless there's something, you know, anti-Semitic or racist or, you know,

some vulgar thing in it, which very seldom happens. I always write back, you know, here I've got, I believe, probably have thousands of handwritten letters from over the years. I write back to every one of those people. And those are, you know, I made some of the best friends of my life through, through that course, that kind of correspondence. So that's, well, I guess I am seeking out in the sense that I have my email, uh, write in the book, but like on the Amazon, you know, when those, when people write in with reviews

and, uh, you know, on this most recent book, there's one, one star review. And the guy says, you know, after 50 pages, you know, I was bored out of my mind. I couldn't get through it. It's like, I totally respect that. You know, I mean, it's just the nature of reading there are, you know, that we've mentioned earlier the movie my dinner with Andre. I know people are bored out of their mind by my dinner with Andre. I totally get it.

But for me, it was life-changing. Another, you know, artwork that's, you know, I'm very close to the play Hourtown, the same thing. I know people think it's trite. I think it's steep. So I welcome. I welcome that. As long as it's an honest opinion, I welcome it. I know earlier, and I love this thought,

you know, I know you leave, you intentionally leave room for chance encounters, fleeting moments. There's one of my favorite that you detail in your book. I don't want to ruin it. I think it's best left in the book, but it involves the 2024 Masters and Vern Lundquist and his wife Sunday evening as he's exiting the tower there on 16 for the final time.

But you have a quote, Michael, there. And you say, as you get older, you only become more aware of life's chance opportunities, the fleeting nature of them. And I'm just curious on a day-to-day basis, how often do you encounter somebody, something that kind of tickles you? You know, maybe it's reading something, maybe it's, you know, the conversation we had at breakfast with the waitress. Do you find that happens daily for you? If you're open to it and you get out of your house, it'll happen every day of your life. Yeah.

You know, I mean, here's this, you know, this middle age and maybe older woman demonstrating her golf swing to us. It looked like she never had a golf ball in her life. But for whatever reason, she felt compelled to show us what her golf swing might look like. And maybe that is what her golf swing looks like. And yeah, so, you know, we may not remember that forever. We're going to remember for the rest of the day. Are you extroverted? Has it always been in your nature to,

be open to talk to people or is it a bit of a I won't say struggle I what does it come naturally to you have you always been like this that is such an interesting question because no I was I'm shy and introverted by by nature there and I think I got drawn to reporting because it was going to force me to be a person that I wasn't comfortable being uh I'm claustrophobic and which is one of the reasons I Much prefer to drive than get in a plane. And I volunteered at Sports Illustrated to write a story about a chess tournament in a maximum security prison in New Jersey where it was like the opening, get smart. If you remember that, where you had to walk through these gates that would open you'd be in a vestibule that would get into the next one. There were three of them to get in.

It was like terrifying for me as a claustrophobic person. And yet you're drawn to these things that. that challenge you, of course. So no, my, I've, I've kind of manufactured this life as an extrovert person when it does not come naturally to me at all. Yeah. Are you something like that yourself? Oh, my God. I am a introvert and it is, it, I mean, I love talking to people, but it does.

it drains the battery and I do need to go reset and just be by myself. It's such a, it's such, I don't know. I think they're inherently at odds because I love the random chance encounters. I took a taxi in from the airport last night to my hotel and I just had the best little conversation with the cab driver about soccer and I just, he had such a, an energy about him right and I'm always getting on myself and worrying that I'm not doing enough to make myself available for that type of interaction and I think just because I have a natural I'm like you I think I see a lot of myself in you quite honestly shy I despise bullshit and I love

when I can connect with somebody and go deep on a topic but I feel like it's it doesn't always happen that way. So when I do kind of connect with somebody and just feel comfortable, kind of just talking about what I consider real things, I love it. It's a joy, but I worry that I don't put myself in those positions often enough. Well,

I can relate to everything you've just said, except for one part of it, whereas for me, those chance encounters and those chance conversations and learning something new absolutely has the effect of charging the battery for me. And I think that's why I get my, myself in this position where I can learn something from another person.

And I think it does charge it. I think maybe the battery comment was more just, you know, I always joke, my personal hell is a cocktail party where I don't know anybody. Yeah. And just how draining that makes me feel at the end of the night. But you're exactly right. There's, there is an energy that I feel from a random encounter that, you know, you just don't see coming.

it's yeah it's one of the true beauties yeah my wife doesn't really appreciate this move but if mom at that cocktail party and if the house has a library and you go into the library and there's nobody in there you pull a book off the shelf and you start reading it and the person who comes in next and starts a conversation with you that person will likely be an interesting person that's your person that's a great that's a great that's a great tip um a few more questions if you don't mind You know, you talk about in the book, you're 65 years old. When you say, I don't mind. I'd like to interject one second.

This is a dream to have an intelligent person interested in what you're trying to do. So thank you. That's very flattering. I'm 41. I'm going on 42. And you're, what, 23 years older, 24 years older than I am. I marvel as I look back on the last 15, 20. 20, 25 years of my life and just the progression and how much of a, in one sense, how different

of a person I am, you know, the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and life experiences. And I always then, the natural thing is to look ahead 25 years and I feel like that's kind of where you are right now. And I'm just curious, aging is something that fascinates me. I think more so than ever I am aware of and in tune with my own mortality. And I'm just curious, Michael, this is a tough question. And you can tell me to beat it with this. How has aging been for you? Have you enjoyed it?

What has been, as you sit here at 65 and kind of look back, I don't know, what strikes you, I guess? I think how I'm going to answer that, I think, literally millions and millions of people with the same thing. You know, the single greatest joy is bringing two young people into this world as infants, you know, the children that Christine and I raised and helping them find their way in the world and then seeing them find their own way in the world, growing deeper in your relationship with your spouse, for those who have a spouse, with your friends, with your parents, with your relatives, trying every day your life to understand why we're here and what the joys are

of this brief amount of time we have on this earth. And I think the aging process is simply becoming more aware of that all the time. And of course, you're literally all the time, including this two hours or so that we've been sitting here, you're running out of time. time all the time. Yeah. And that doesn't mean, you know, make every second count. It's got to be exciting. It just means, I think, be aware. And by being aware of this passage of time, then you're going to want to use it more effectively, have a more honest conversation, be with people you really want to be with, read something you really want to read, watch a movie you really want to

watch play golf with people who you know appreciate the game as you do in places where you want to so the aging process has been eye-opening really yeah can i read you a quote yeah from george plimpton that you have in the book off page 222 george is quoted as saying i had the quick sense of failure, that I had not accorded value, that I had been accorded valuable time and had not made the best of it. And this was another quote that just stops me in my tracks. It opens a vein. If I can be raw and honest, I think the word contentedness, if that's the right word for it. I think that, um, I feel like that's the chase for me.

And the more I think about it, it feels a lot like golf. And I know this is kind of a tortured metaphor, but I feel like there are certainly times and just like golf where you feel good and you feel content. And things come naturally and it's great. And then there's times, probably more times when it can be a little bit of a struggle. and you kind of lose sight of, you know, whether through disappointment, frustrations, whatever it is, it feels like I'm searching, right? I'm searching my way back to feeling that content feeling.

I don't know if that resonates at all with you, but that George Plimpton quote about, I'd been accorded valuable time and had not made the best of it. about an interview that he did with a subject. But I think that, God, if you want to talk about what a life fear of mine is or something that is in my head at all times, it's probably that. And so, you know, hearing you talk about aging, like, that just so resonates with me. And as much as I can just try to appreciate and live in the moment, that's kind of my constant daily struggle, I think.

struggle, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I think that becomes more of a struggle in this age of constant access through Twitter and all these other things. And can you just sort of actually breathe and taking the moment of where you are? Like, you're not going to play this fabulous golf course, Marion West. Like, I'd rather play Marion West than Marion East for any number of reasons. But it's like, I'm excited for you.

to see this charming, funky, quirky golf course that nobody talks about, but I know your taste and I know you're going to say, yeah, this place is special. I know when I set it up, you say, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I think you're probably right where Plympton was probably about your age is just a little bit younger when he wrote that sentence. But I think about how advanced Plimpton was in his late 30s when he wrote that sentence. You know, he had this opportunity to get something out of Arnold Palmer. And you didn't get anything out of Arnold Palmer.

But really, that was on Arnold, not on George. George was trying his best. You know, I would say that is really, at the end of the day, the only thing, you know, like the only thing I could offer at 65 to someone who's in his early 40s is there really, really is nothing other than trying your best. And he can't even really try your best all the time. But that's what Hogan was saying. He knows when he tried his best. And there is a deep, like, this book, that's as good as I could write it for them.

But the next one, I hope would be better. And so there, you know, that's a lot of golf and that's a lot of life, that there's so much joy in trying. That really probably summarizes the whole thing. Like, you try to raise your kids. you're expecting your young cat are expecting your first child you're trying to raise your kids you're trying to put on these podcasts uh you're trying to get better at golf uh you're just trying and there is so much pleasure uh in that and uh that can sustain you it's sustained you for 65 years and i i know we're both wood knockers yeah and i hope it will from from here on now

Well, I really, really appreciate you allowing me into your home, allowing me to ask you all types of questions. You have a section in this book about people that, as you call them, they're knowers. They possess whatever that is that allows them to know golf and life. And I want you to know, Michael, you are on that list for me. And it really is truly a pleasure to get to speak with you. And thank you for sharing the time and the wisdom and the insights. Well, that is hugely flattering. Thank you.