No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 278: Peter Jacobsen

Episode Date: February 5, 2020

Peter Jacobsen joins to talk about the Premier Golf League, how Norman tried something similar in the '90's, and why Arnold put a stop to it. He also reflects on his playing career, tackling a streaker, Payne Stewart, and a myriad of other topics. Thanks a ton to Peter for the time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast our interview here with Peter Jacobson is gonna roll shortly First I got to apologize though for the audio quality you're gonna hear in this. It's a long story I'm not gonna bore you with it. First half of this interview It's gonna sound like Peter's coming from across the room. It's because he is. I had a comedy of errors that happened and

we are lucky to have captured it. And our editors done a great job with getting the audio to this level of quality. So I do apologize for that. Bear with us. It's not that bad. You'll get used to it a couple of minutes into it. And then about halfway through the episode, the quality is going to snap back to pretty darn solid or perfectly solid. As solid as you would expect, we're not perfect, but you'll hear that it's actually coming through the microphone. Had the software crash on me in the middle of the interview, thankfully I had a backup

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So for more on this Visit Quater.com, C-U-A-T-E-R.com, 15% off your first Quater purchase when you go to Quater.com. Without any further delay, here's our interview with Peter Jacobson. You were talking about how you can't believe, you don't feel like one how you can't believe you don't feel like one of the older guys. I don't feel like one of the older guys. I started at age 22 back in 77 and 44 years. It's ridiculous how it's flown by. I've been so lucky to have played with all the great players in the game.

I've been around them, been in them. I've gotten to know them all as good friends and I look on their accomplishments with great admiration and amazement, but the getting to know them as well as I have is the fun part. But still, I don't feel like an old guy. Well, it's one of the questions I have for you, this will start right off the bat. You've got the benefit of hindsight now. For your whole career, what's something you wish you knew? What's something you would have done differently, something you figured out late in life,

but if you had a chance to change something golf-wise about your career, what would you change? I would have worked harder on my short game coming out of Portland, Oregon, and grew up in Portland, played at University of Oregon. But I only worried about ball striking. I worried about hitting them all the fairway and hitting in the greens. And I didn't work on my short game enough. And only in the later part of my career did I really focus on my short game. Pitching, chipping, bunker play, putting.

I think I would have had a few more wins and a better career had I worked on my short game. In fact, whenever I do a clinic with amateurs and juniors, I'm always stressing that. Go work on your short game because it's going to save you. Some of the greatest players in the history of the game, Tiger, Phil, Sevy, Biaistelles, Ben Crenshaw, they all saved rounds and golf and saved tournaments on and around the greens. Was there anyone that you looked on and around the greens. Was there anyone that you looked around and saw the way they did things either with technique or with practice that made you say, oh, wow, I need to get better at

this. Was there anyone? I love asking pros what they see in other people's games that makes them want to get better or makes them realize they need to change something. Well, Sevy was a good friend of mine. We played a lot of golf together, a lot of practice rounds of majors together. And he would work with me on certain shots. And I would try to steal everything that he did because he was magic. As magic as Mikkelson is and Tiger is around the greens, that was Sevi. Just the hands, is that what was it? I don't know.

I don't know if it was as technique so much as his will to get it up and down, but he would hit shots that nobody would imagine. He'd be left of the green and he'd have two bunkers facing him. And I would take a big high flop, put it on the green, and try to make it 20 footer. He would pick the little strip of grass running between the two bunkers at about a 45 degree

incline. He'd take it eight iron, bounce it into that incline, and it would go up there about two feet. That's a shot I never would look at, but he would do on routinely. So he was the guy that really made me think more about getting it up and down, getting it done, playing golf rather than golf swing. Interesting. We, and Laney had an interesting take on this too, on the gamesmanship of Sevy from the Ryder Cup perspective, and he kind of aired on the side of, it wasn't

really gamesmanship. It was a borderline borderline inappropriate if not inappropriate how he conducted himself in some ways from a competitive standpoint coughing in backswings what's that like during a practice round for a major you guys playing money games or what was your experience like with sevy in that regard we would always play games where we would hit crazy shots in fact we did it probably four five six times did it with Greg Norman too where it would be call a shot. Normally you go to US Open and you watch four guys tee off of the hit driver and then they hit their eight iron and then they put in chip. Seven would have a game where we would call a shot. We might get on the tee of a par four, but

he would say, okay, it's going to be a four iron around that tree back to the fairway. So we would get up and we would hit a four iron around a tree into the fairway. It was less about playing the golf course and learning the course and more about creating shots because I came to learn later in my career playing a lot with Sevy. Sevy never did hit it in the fairway. He never did it. That's why I was going to say. It was always in Trouble. Well, I hope you guys got to call the shots every now and then too. Okay, we would rotate. Okay I distinctly remember when fluff was getting for me for 20 years Sevy's brother I believe his his sentay was his brother was kevin form We were playing in the pga at cherry hills and Denver

We got to the 8th hole apart three, it was one of our call shot games. And it was service turn and service said, okay, it's you and fluff against Vicente and me playing this part three on our knees. So we dropped down to our knees now, you got to understand this surprise round for a major chance. I'm trying to think maybe either he or green or Trevino won that tournament, I can't remember, but we dropped to our knees and we had to hit our shots from our knees

and fluff and I beat him. So here are these ballastero brothers who are great shot makers and fluff and I took him down on that hole at that time. What course is this, that? Cherry Hills and that. Oh, Cherry Hills, you said that, sorry. What's fluff like?

I mean, we see the pictures and I think everyone has an image of fluff. I don't know if I've ever heard his voice. I know he's a deadhead, I believe, is about all I know about fluff. He's the biggest deadhead you'll ever meet. When I first met fluff, but first of all, when Tiger hired fluff

to go to work for me, Tiger, everybody thought, oh Peter, you got a hate Fluff, you got a hate that he left you. Not at all I encouraged it because how many chances do you have to go to work for or work for the greatest in that chosen profession. And it was that obvious to you before he... Tiger was going to be great. I knew Tiger when he was a kid, I was there when he won the US Amateur in Portland, Oregon where I used to live. It was clear he was going to be a great player. But my count is the easiest going guy that you'll ever meet. I talked to him, oh maybe once or twice every two weeks. I don't see him as much anymore because I'm not

doing as much TV for NBC. I used to see him all the time in Fioris turning 50. So we don't know where Fioris gonna play this year, whether it's tour or champions tour, but Fluff is the easiest going guy. He is a loyal, true friend. One of my best friends in life, not just in golf, but in life. Could you have pictured him, Caddy,

how old is he now? Is he approaching his 80s, isn't he? No, no, no, no, he just looks at it. I was gonna say, as soon as I said that, I'm like, he probably just looks older than he is. Oh my God, he's got some hard years on him. And he knows it too, we always laugh at that. I think he's 72, his birthday is on, I believe,

February 7th, he's gonna be 72, or maybe, maybe 73, I'm not sure, but he's still going strong. Carries that bag, hustles behind jam, and it's great to see. So in the first part of this audio that we had, I've redoing currently, you mentioned that you are also, you're not only recognized as a player and as a commentator,

but for two other things that you've also experienced in your life and career, what are the things that people come up to you and say? Well, since Golden Tea came out and I was involved in that inception of the game and did voice-over, still do voice-overs now with Jim Nance, people come up and say, hey, we see that guy's name on the leaderboard, he might be 2, 3, 4, or 500,

but that's the Golden Tea guy. I sign Moratographs as the Golden Tea guy, then as a player. And it's fun, and the other one too is I get a lot As I was in the movie tin cup. I won the US open in tin cup the one the tournament that Roy McAvoy was chasing and people will say oh you're the tin cup guy you you were in tin cup How did that come about? How did you get in that and how long were you on set for that? There were a lot of players Tour players in tin cup John Cook Greg St on set for that? There were a lot of players, tour players in Tim Cough, John Cook, Craig Stadler, Fred Couples, Cory Pavan, Jerry Pay, Bruce Litzky, Tommy Armer, a bunch of us, Ron Shelton, the

director. He wanted it to be very authentic, PGA tour authentic. So when we were on set with Kevin Coste and Don Johnson, who were great to us by the way, We just interacted, we walked around on the putting green like we were getting ready to play a tournament round. We'd be in the locker room talking and he'd walk by and there was no script by Coste or Don Johnson that we knew of. It was just guys go do your thing. Kind of like if you and I were doing a podcast and Coste were to walk through and that would be a part of the movie. Just do your thing.

So, and I think, I think when they were asking if somebody could be here on this specific day, because that's the day they were going to shoot the final, I put my hand over, I said, I can be here. And Sheldon said, good, you're going to win the U.S. Ask her to say, what's, was there an actual competition to see who got to win the U.S. open in that movie? No, no, no? You just won. Because I played the final round with Jerry Payne,

who actually did in the US Open, so he was like, dude. How did I get it? Get it, I did it. He said, hey, I don't know, but my hand up first. I just, I don't know if this is a good question for you, but I wonder how they got away with using the US Open. Because I know like Happy Gilmore had to make up some names of events and stuff, but I don't know if the USJ

licensed that to him. I know there's weird stuff around some of that, but. Maybe that was way before the US Open. Like, saying it anything like that. Maybe the USJ thought it was a good advertiser. I don't know. What was the, I guess, the talk around tour? Was there a general excitement about that movie at the time?

Very much so. Remember the great line, Cheech said, when Caster shanked a ball and he said, hey, you're shoving the chili pepper on the legions, you know what? It was a lot of excitement because there were so many players in the world. Right. Yeah. It was real. We were all anticipating how cool it was going to be

for it when it came out. And it was. Did they have like tour consultants kind of covering off on the golf aspect of it, making sure they got the details, right? So that was Gary McCord. Okay. And McCord and Coster became pretty good buddies. McCord taught Coster how to play golf, how to swing. And I think he did a costume to the good job.

McCord put his heart and soul into that. And it was just a fun movie. It was something right down McCord's alley who he likes to laugh and have a good time. And I thought the movie was great. Yeah. No, it's extremely, extremely rewatchable. And golf channel is not shy about putting it on in the. Yeah. Royalties. I get 48 cents. Did you have to join this street screen actors guild? Yes. Okay. Yes. I'm a member of the screen actors. Do you have to pay dues to that every year?

How's that work? No, I don't play him. I don't remember, but I don't pay him. Well, it kind of fits in, that movie fits in well with, you've always been a personality on tour and me from a younger generation. I've always known you as personality. Do you think a couple questions related to that?

Do you feel like this current tour is kind of trending away from encouraging that kind of personality? And do you ever feel like your accomplishments on the course may be overshadowed by your personality? Put it this way, when I was younger, and I was influenced very much by Chi Chi and Lee Trevino and Fuzzy's L, I tended to skew that way because they they were more like, or I should say I was more like them.

But it really came out of necessity to be able to have a personality or to sit yourself apart, to be able to be noticed, to be able to do programs and get endorsements and be able to survive. There wasn't the money then as it is today. So I don't think it is of importance to the players today to be to worry about their cue factor or to show much personality because safer is better. Safe is better.

And there's more media out there, obviously. But it's also there's so much money out there. Players can win tournaments, put it this way. When I played you needed to be a tour member for about 10 years to say that you have a career or you can you've made a living playing golf. Nowadays all it needs is one year. You have a good year, you win the FedEx Cup, you can quit, you're done. So I think the needs back then were different than they are today. That's why you saw so many kind of wild things back then and you don't see it much anymore.

When did you feel like you had that career, had carved out a career or it's always weird asking people about finances but like you said, the game has changed so much in that regard that you go back and look at guys like you and your career earnings and what you're making in the 80s and travel costs are expensive. I always wondered what the threshold for feeling like you're making money playing golf was back then because you can look now

and there's guys that I know that are pretty comfortable playing on the corn fairy tour, but I imagine that wasn't necessarily the case back then. I think I felt like I made it when I was out of debt. How long did that take? It took probably eight years. When I first played my first three years, I was on a sponsorship by some friends of mine in Portland. And after that ran out, I went out on my own. I didn't have much money, but I had

I had trusted belief in myself. And I had a few small contracts, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 contracts, and I saved my money. And my wife, who's my wife for 43 years, she was very good at managing money. But when I was out of debt and we bought a small condo in Portland, we started having kids, and the pressure was on. I knew I had to perform, but it really, gosh, I won my first tour event in 1980. I won a couple of times in 84 and probably in the late 80s when I was a father of three and I felt more comfortable. But so what's that? That's a long time. That's a long time ten ten years until i felt like a quote unquote made yeah well it does that how does that affect your golf

i mean some people get you know it can say you know hope having your feet held to the fire like that makes you play better but i can also add a lot of pressure to you so how did affect you it helped me yeah it made me really focus and pay attention i as you said earlier who did i really focus in on and who did I learn from? Everybody. I was so lucky to get thrown in.

When I first came out with Arnold Plummer and I signed with McCormick, I think they signed me on a whim. I was a nobody. But I got thrown in with Arnold and Jack and Gary Player and David Graham and Hale Irwin and Raymond Floyd. And I watched and I listened and I learned about how to be how to be a golf professional. You can be a professional golfer and be a jerk with a lot of tournaments and be an idiot but to be a professional golfer that

basically runs a whole gamut. It runs from getting to registration in the morning and being kind of people and go out and playing great, being in a pro-amp, being kind of your partner, giving a little of your time. And then winning a tournament and giving a good acceptance speech. So I was lucky. I learned from the best. It's a small or small circle than I think a lot of people think. I mean, if you, you know, it's pretty easy to, you know, if you get a bad reputation with one agency or one thing you've done ever,

if you showed up for a pro-AM hungover and you didn't talk to people, that becomes a story that follows you around forever. It is a small world out there and put it this way. If you have a bad experience with a pro and a pro-AM or a dinner or somebody mistreats you, you're gonna tell a thousand people. I know. If you have a really good day, you're not gonna tell us many because that's what it's expected of you. Basically, parody with Arnold Palmer would say, it's imperative for you, Peter Jacobson or any tour player, to give that amateur you're playing with that day.

The best experience they've ever had in a golf course. You're not only representing yourself and your family and your name, but you're representing the PGA tour. And if you're proud of that organization as I am and I think we all are, then you're going to do your darnest to give that person the best day. And I was lucky. I learned that at a young age. Well, I love asking people this, what would you would consider your welcome

to the PGA tour moment? It could be anything. I tend to direct that towards, like I'm walking out in the range and there's boom, Jack Nicholas right there. He comes up on me in a practice round or something like that. What was your moment of like, whoa, I'm here.

Well, I'll tell you exactly what it was. It was my first time I ever qualified for a Tour d'avent. It was at Pebble Beach. There'd been Crosby back then, now the AT&T. I qualified on Monday. I played with Bill Rogers, the open champion former player of the year, 1980. I played with Bill Rogers and a Monday

qualifier at Olddale money in Carmel, California and I shot 70 and I got into the Crosby. I was so excited It was Monday afternoon I ran out to Monterey Peninsula Country Club One of the courses in the rotation to play a few holes teed off on the backside play three or four holes Sun is setting in the Pacific and I said I better cut over and get in before he gets too dark. Well I cut over to 16, hit some t-shirts, walk enough the D and who comes around the corner from 15, Arnold Palmer, playing with Martin McCormack, who happened to be my manager at the time that I'd never met him. That's a good thing. Did he know you was your manager? No, he didn't know me. So I'm standing there with my hand down my pants.

Don't know what to do. This is Arnold Palmer. Now, this taught me a lot right here. He could have big time me, ignored me, waved me off. He walked right up to me, hitched his pants, snorting away, did stuck his hand out and said, hi, I'm Arnold Palmer. Can we join you?

Now, it was clear that I cut in front of him, but he wondered, do we be inclusive in including me? I played the last three holes with he and Mark. They talked to me like I was a pier. We got Dundee shook my hand. He left, so did all the 400 people in the crowd. It was just my caddy and I. That was my, you're on the tour now,

because where else would you have been able to play three holes with Arnold Palmer, unless you played in a pro-an with, was in a corporate world. So my first day as a tour player was my hello moment. I've either, I didn't know that when I asked it, but I've either heard you tell that story, or I've heard somebody else tell a very similar story

about Arnold. Like as soon as you're talking about Arnold walk it up the other, or I've heard somebody else tell a very similar story about Arnold. Like as soon as you're talking about Arnold walking out the other, because I guarantee you're not the only person that happened to. Because you can argue that Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods are the greatest players in the game, and I wouldn't argue that.

I say that all the time, but who's the most important person in the game? Probably Arnold Palmer, because he set the stage. He laid the foundation for what we have today. Now, Tiger may surpass Arnold at some point, if as he starts to play last or not as well, if Tiger becomes the ambassador that everybody in the game hopes he becomes, he could someday surpass what Arnold did, but in my book, the most important player in the history of the game was and still is Arnold Palmer.

Yeah. It's funny. I don't know if funny is the right word. I don't mean to make this a tough transition, but just with what happened recently with Kobe Bryant and his tragic passing. I was listening to some podcasts on the drive down and how everyone wanted to compare, Kobe to Michael and then start comparing, like LeBron to Kobe. And I forget who made the point on the podcast I was listening to, but it was basically like, no, no, these things all work linearly.

Like they work together. I mean, you can't compare Kobe and Michael because like what Michael did helped drive Kobe and like the certain things he learned from Michael and the things that like LeBron it's not you can't cover enough like how much LeBron has learned from Kobe has made LeBron a better player. So it's it's it's not a I love to do debates on player but like what you're to bring it back together to that point what's happening with Tiger and how he's been able to have this impact on the game couldn't have been possible without what Arnie did

Is I think what you're saying? I couldn't agree more than one thing that that you can't you can't do you can't compare errors people say who's better jack? Yeah, or Tiger It's not possible. They play different equipment. They have different technology and that's all you have to know right there It's it's like being with a rotary phone on the wall in your kitchen, there's only one phone and a black and white TV in your living room, to today, you've got cell phones in our pockets and we can watch a super ball while we're out playing golf.

It's a totally different era. But when you think about one player, beginning another player, beginning another player, without checknick lists, there would be no Tiger Woods. Without Michael Jordan, there'd be no Kobe Bryant. And I loved Kobe Bryant, not just because of the player that he was, but the person that he was. And to me, I go way beyond performance. When you look at the Hall of Fame, people learn the Hall of Fame for their

accomplishments. But what about the Hall of Fame, people learn the Hall of Fame for their accomplishments. But what about the Hall of notoriety? The things people do away from their game. When you look at what Magic Johnson's done, you look at what Michael's done, you look at Arnold and Jack and Tigers doing now with his foundation, it's all well and good. We stand up and we give trophies and we give speeches and stuff. But at the end of the day, what are you thinking about? I remember when I went to Arnold's service, when Arnold passed away a few years ago, I went to his service in the trail.

And there were 20 players there, and everybody that got up to eulogize Arnold, a lot of cassorns, Tim Jack Nicholas, his grandson, Sam Saunders, the Commissioner of the Tour Everybody. Not one of them mentioned Arnold's accomplishments. Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, Hall of Fame, what they talked about was what he'd done for his community, for the game, for the world, for charity.

And that really struck me because Arnold Palmer, if you can't highlight what he's done with his clubs, then you really think, oh, well, that's really nothing we should talk about. You need to talk about the man that he was. And that's what I love thinking about Kobe and what he meant to so many people in the game. And boy, it's just such a sad moment to think about he Koby and what he meant to so many so many people in the game and

But it's just such a sad moment to think about he and his family and and what he could have been Yeah, no, I think it this is not that relevant to our conversation But I I always I'm used to quote sports hated Koby I didn't root for my root against him in sports and it I became very blind to him as a person because I was driven by not liking him as a basketball player. I'm more of a LeBron guy. It's a separate conversation. Well I'm a blazer. I'm a Portland traveler. I'm a Jersey guy. Yeah. And I'm not a big Laker Jersey guy. Yeah. But I loved Shaq and I love Kobe and I was so happy that Kobe only played for one team. I love that. Yeah. It's kind of a throwback for the old way. For sure. But I really, look, you can not like a team and pull against them, but you can appreciate a player playing for that.

And that's what I'm getting at. It's like I was blind. I was really starting to come around and him as a person, hearing, like interviews he'd done since he was done playing, how he talked about his daughters. And I was like, you know what, he probably always was this person, but now that I always had the sports part that I didn't like and I didn't let myself like him. I don't know how that relates to this conversation, but it all does connect.

It all does connect. You are also known as being a bit of a prankster. I want to know like what's the best prank, your most memorable prank that you ever pulled on something. Well, I don't know if I'm so much of being a prankster, but I love crazy times and crazy moments. When Pink Stewart was a live,

Pink Stewart and I had a band with Mark Lyfe, former tour player called Jake Trump, The Flounders. And I played guitar and sang, Mark played guitar and played harmonica. We all three can't sing, but we all did sing, it didn't matter. We're not, we're not. You were just playing some tracks for me, you can sing pretty well. One of the things that we would love to do, when we would go to a certain town, whether

it's Hilton Heter Greensboro, Columbus, we would always love to go to a bar after Thursday or Friday round, or maybe after we missed the cut and we would have dinner, have a couple of pops and the local band would let us get up on stage and play and that to me is how I remember painstoring. As somebody up on stage totally out of our element, we might have just walked off the golf course, tried to save a par, make a birdie, lead a tournament, and here we are on stage with a guitar to microphone or harmonica, playing it and singing it with a local band. That was really something that we loved to do. So, I'm probably known more for a lot of the extra stuff that I did rather

than winning tournaments on the PGA tour. Where would you go in Dublin? Was it the Bogey Inn? Yes, exactly. You just said that you might have a... I mean, I grew up two minutes driving from the Bogey Inn and you could hear from my parents house the music that comes from there.

And I think they make like 33% of their income during that one week during the year. It's just like the other club. A lot of things you heard a little off key that was probably payinged or did I? We did here. I did wanna talk about, you know, pain has kind of been a topic of conversation

with the 20 year anniversary of his death and obviously what recently happened with Kobe. But what was, you were close with pain, you mentioned that, what was your first memory of him? Like what was the first thing that comes to mind? The first time I met pain, I didn't like him. I don't think many people did like that. That was one of the things too was I was good to ask his pain

and I mean this affectionately was pain and appropriate name for him because he was a pain in the ass to a lot of people. Boy, you took the words out of my mouth. We used to joke about that. When pain came out on tour, he was, he had chip on his shoulder. He wanted to prove that he could play, and it was clear he could play. But he just wasn't enjoyable enough to be around. I don't know what it was.

He was a tough guy to like. I admired his game, but he was a hard guy to enjoy his company. But later on, as he became more of a seasoned tour player, he and I bonded through music. He wanted to beat everybody, every great competitor. When you look at Tiger and you look at Jack and you look at Lany and you look at Raymond Floyd, there's not a lot of affection on the course because they want to kick you in the teeth. Pain was that way. But I think when pain softened a little bit when he got married and had kids and he became a Christian and he started becoming more accepting of people

and then the true pains tour came out. And he and I did so many things, well put it this way, he had tons of friends. You talk to 50 guys, they'll all tell you that pain was their best friend because that's how warm and Affection that he became to his friends he cared about their families he cared about your game So pain became one of the one of the great people in the game. What are the great people in sport? All right, you made it you made it through the struggle part of the audio quality we are are a clean, smooth sailing for the rest of the way. Before we get to the back half of the interview, I want to remind you guys, Taurus saw season five, the Carolina's is airing

now live on our YouTube channel. If you already listened to this, that means the Kiowa episode played last night. Neil and I have a very adventurous match from the backties at the very difficult ocean course at Kiowa, while Trond,, DJ and Randy moved up a set had a nice leisurely stroll along the beach there. We documented our day there and we're going to continue document this season which is brought to you by original penguin. They've

the clothing company we've partnered with for this season. They've got great styles for everyone if you want to stand out in the course like Neil and TC like to, they've got wild prints. But if you're looking for something more conservative, more traditional, maybe even blue, you know, that's something I'm going to be wearing. They've got that as well. We love the fit of the clothes, especially the polos and the pants. And original penguin, it stands for originality and celebrating good times with on and off the course. We demonstrated that wearing the product both on and off the course for the entire season and I'm still wearing this stuff actually I've got two two two different sets of original penguin clothes on right now so check them out at originalpanguine.com always remember to be an original and be

sure to swing them by the YouTube channel and check out our series there as well now for the last half of our interview with Peter Jacobson. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about mostly because you were, I wanted to what your role was in this. There's a lot of conversations now with the world tour. What was your role in this? How did it come about? I want to hear it because I think a lot of my generation knows Greg Norman tried to do

something and it didn't work out and it became the WGC's and our knowledge of it is probably not that good. So what can you tell us about that? I was playing in the shark shoot at Greg Norman's tournament in Los Angeles in the early 90s. I was playing with Arnold Palmer as my partner. And Greg called us all to a boardroom to Sherwood Country Club and he had a proposal for us. So I was one of 20 or 24 players and they're all the name players that you would know Paying Hail Irwin Lanny Watkins Bruce Lyskey Curtis Strange Arnold on and on And Greg proposed a new tour. It was called a world tour. There would be 48 or 50 players. There would be

20 tournaments worldwide big money big opportunity and we were all invited to be a member of the tour because we were in the top 50 on the world ranking. Arnold Palmer was completely insulted because he said to Greg and everybody in the room, he said, Fellas, when I was playing in my heyday, I was one of the big three. It was Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. And he said, how many times do you think we were approached about breaking off and starting our own tour, our hand-picked tour of 20, 30, 40 players? And we said, well, probably quite a few times. And he said, yeah, that's right. And you know why I didn't do it? Because it would have been detrimental to the game and it would have hurt the PGA tour

and he and he got up and walked out. He said, if you guys want to do this, good luck to you. I'm out. I'm done. Now Arnold wasn't playing much golf back then in the early 90s. We played a lot together in some bestful tournament. Shark Shootout, Fred Mart Challenge, CVS Charity Classic. But Greg knew that it was a destructive idea because the PGA tour, when it was formed in 68, 69, there were just a few players. They broke away from the PGA of America to form the tour and then it's grown into what it was then and what it continues to be today.

Now I'll say this, if it's about the game making the game better, I'm all for it. But if it's only about money, which this seems to be what it is, then I want nothing to do with it. It's destructive. I'll echo what Arnold said. If it's about money, I want no part of it. Because think about it. If we'd done the World Tour with Norman back in the 90s, or the big three had broken off, you never would have heard of Tiger Woods or Phil Mikkelson, or any players of Jordan's feet, Justin Thomas, because the tour would have been fragmented,

and I'm not sure you would have been able to put all the pieces together once Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. I don't know who's behind this, but this echoes so much what Norman tried to do. Don't forget, we would have had to rescind our tour membership back then also. Now this new tour member, this new tour that comes out, they're going to do 18 tournaments and they're going to help the PGA tour. That's a lie. There's going to be only 18 tournaments that Tiger, Orori, or Phil, or Justin play. They're not going to go play Tampa or Greensboro

or the Bob Hope or the American Express. They're not going to do that. And I would say again, if the tour was hurting for money and these players were hurting for money, I might understand it, but they're not. The tour is flourishing, they're flourishing. I just wonder maybe if there are some agents, some of these players agents find it,

looking to get richer, I don't know, but I worry about the influences these players are in the advice they're getting because that's why I wish Arnold were still alive. And I don't know what Jack says and I don't know what Gary says. I'd like to hear from them, but I think it's a bad idea and I think it's a destructive destructive scheme. And that's where I struggle on coming to terms with it too is it can't be the first

time anybody's thought of this. And so, I guess I didn't really know the history behind the opportunities. It would make way more sense back in the day with the big three for how much those guys fetched and how much they were probably subsidizing the rest of the total thing. Correct. Absolutely. I think the best argument and favor of the players that are in support of this is that The best argument in favor of the players that are in support of this is that they're probably the free market of golf is not as free as other big sports. So MBA and things like that are people are paid closer to market value versus just straight

performance. That's a point at the same time, like you said, they're not struggling for cash. The purses are going up, they're continuing to go up. I guess they're not increasing a ton, but the purses are big. People are getting a ton of money. People are getting good off-course money. That it's hard to say that it's definitely not about anything more than money. You know, it's not about this aglorious new competition series.

You know, it's... We already have that. I know. I think it is just... I know it's a real possibility, and they're very far along with setting this up, but I think it is going to end up with the tour. I don't know what changes are going to make, what concessions they're going to make. There is a negotiating tactic.

I'm not saying it's a ploy, but it's going to end up with something happening at the PGA tour level. I can't imagine this thing becomes a problem. So let me offer you this. If they really wanted to make some changes, some necessary changes, I don't know what they are. The only thing I can think is taking the PGA Tour and reducing fields. Let's be honest, we already have enough tournaments,

the World Golf Championships, and some of the majors and some of these other events, the FedEx Cup playoffs, they've got smaller fields. When you start looking, Tigers tournament down on the Bahamas, the Hero World Challenge, it's got 18 players. I don't know really what the players are looking for. So let me ask you this, let's say you're one

of the top 50 that joined this new tour and you play and you play great. Is the Masters in the USGA are they going to recognize that tour with world ranking points because don't forget the official world rankings. Get you into a lot of the majors. What happens if they don't agree to it? you into a lot of the majors, what if they don't agree to it? So now the master's comes and goes without a Rory McElroy or a Justin Thomas, Justin and Rory aren't going to like that. And to me, I think rather than destroy something, I think you should work on something that is really solid, really strong. Let me ask you this again.

Let's say you're in the top 50 or the top 48 and you happen to hurt your elbow and you can't play for six months and you fall out. Where do you go? Where do you go? Do you go back to the PJ tour or do you go to the Corn Ferry Tour and now you feel left behind?

It's almost like a competitive claw, I forget what it's called, now I'm drawing a blank. If you are leaving a job, you can't compete in a certain market, it's kind of the power, a non-competing agreement. There it is, it's a simple, it's the power that the PGA tour has. And it would be very different if the players

were picketing outside. Like, we need water coolers on every hole, and the tours know, we refuse to give it to you. Okay, well, we're gonna go do it over here, but there's not anything out there that the tour players are like, hey, we need this. Where is it? Yeah, this isn't the game of thrones to work,

King Jofrey, who has all the money and the peasants outside the walls are starving. The PGA tour exists to provide playing opportunities to the players. They do marketing for the players. The money flows through the tournaments and the communities we play to the players and we have a very healthy deferred compensation plan that you earn money into your account. I don't get it.

I don't understand what these players are thinking about. And I'll make a prediction right here. I don't think this is going to come to pass. I think this is another pipe dream because it's the wrong motivations. It's not about fixing or helping the game. It's about money. It's about greed. And that doesn't help anybody in the long term, only in the short term.

And that's where I think the assumption that fans are gonna love this is way off. No, we're the fans. Our base, when you start looking at our base fans, you could argue what the golf channel has done for the BGA tour. 15 years ago when they signed the deal, they gave a home to the BGA tour on the golf channel on Thursday and Friday.

When you come home, if you hear Rory's 10, 10, 12, and you run home and turn on the golf channel on Thursday and Friday. When you come home, if you hear Rory's 10-hundred through 12, and you run home and turn on the golf channel, you know the channel. So what they've done to be able to do that is one of the most important things. When you start talking about our base fans, our foundation, they know where to go for TV, but when you go to the towns like,

like I mentioned Tampa in Greensboro and Palm Springs and LA and San Francisco and San Diego, those are the fans that love the game. If all of a sudden you take the stars out of that, those tournaments, you run the risk of really pissing these fans off and now you're going to have a revolt against these top players that leave to go play these tournaments. these fans off. And now you're gonna have a revolt against these top players that leave to go play these tournaments. They said 10 of the 18 are gonna be in the US.

Well where are they gonna be? Are they gonna gobble up tournaments that already exist? Or are they gonna go to markets like Philly and St. Louis and Seattle that don't have tournaments? It is a real slippery slope here, and it's gonna take a lot of time, a lot of buy-in, a lot of money, and a lot of players turning their back on a tour that's been awfully good to them.

Well, the point you bring up about the history of this one happening with the big three and then again happening in the 90s and happening now, I'm curious as to what, and the point you made about Arnie is extremely interesting. I want to know where did you stand on it before Arnie said that and where did you stand on it after? We didn't know anything about it. I had no concept. We went into the board meeting. It was a complete secret. When Greg presented it to us, we all sat around looking at her like, what is this? There was a handout, I wish I'd kept the handout. But when Arnold saw it, and he made his speech

and he stood up and he walked out. You knew where you stood on that. Yeah, the next guy to speak was Lany Wadkins. He said, well, fellas, he said, if it ain't good enough for Arnold, it ain't good enough for any of us. So Lany got up and walked out as we all did. So I don't think anybody really had a chance to chew on it like they are now.

It was presented. Boom, here we go. But I have faith in these players today. Tiger, Phil, Rory. I think they're all really good guys and clear thinkers. I trust them to do the right thing. And that's where I kind of land on that too is going to come down to Tiger Woods. If they don't have Tiger, they don't have it. I don't think this thing exists. And I can't picture Tiger, captaining the 2019 president's cup team for the PGA tour and then saying, I'm done with the PGA tour. I'm gone. I thanks for everything, but I'm giving up on this and going to go, I just don't see that. As I said earlier in the show, that when Arnold Palmer stopped playing competitively

and he stopped playing period, he and I would partner in some of these bestball events. You know who had the biggest gallery, Arnold Palmer, why? Because it was Arnold Palmer. I think Tiger has the opportunity to be just that. He's still playing well, which is, it's amazing to me after all he's gone through with his body. And he could play very well

all the way until he's 50, but after 50, what will he do? I think Tiger is going to do the right thing because deep down inside, he knows what the tour has done for him. He knows what he does for the Game of Golf. And he could be a total upheaval in the game of golf If he decides to jump ship and this thing were to become a reality, I just don't think it will be yeah I mean tigers never been short of He's never been shy to pursue Financial benefit in the game, but I mean But I'm at the risk of saying something

that I don't know the full history of. I can't think of at a time where he has caused any kind of stink over the amount of money given out or any actual real issues with the tool. I mean, he has made, we've done a very basic study this. How much money he's made for other players is almost immeasurable. I've never heard him complain about that one time.

Well, when you look at, in my world, I'm almost 66, there's an eligibility requirement on the Champions Tour, and it's money. You look at the money that my generation made, and now players coming out of the Tiger Tour and the money that he helped make him It it it's incredible and I agree with you Tiger has never said hey look what I'm doing for you I'm helping put money in your pocket not at all that the the spotlight shines brightly on Tiger and rightly so But he's always been Magnanimous about it. He's always done the right thing. Yeah, you can argue you did some wrong things, yes. But we all do wrong things from time to time.

But I'm a huge fan of his, and I think he's going to be the guy. He's probably going to turn the tide and turn this thing away along with some of these other great players. Do you foresee any way that this something comes out of this idea but also involves the PGA tour? Because like we've spoken, I don't think guys are going to nuke their PGA tour status. I just don't see that as a possibility. So do you see some kind of merge?

And that's where my knowledge of how the WGCs came about is limited. Is that how directly correlated to what Norman proposed is, you know, what eventually happened with the WGC? That's exactly right. What Norman proposed basically pushed Finchham, the commissioner at the time, Tim Finchham. I don't know, Push is the right word, but helped him to understand that there was maybe something a little different. I think the same thing could happen here. Every organization evolves and changes. Sometimes for the better, sometimes to the detriment, but that's one of the things I play with Eli Koke in a program, the former chairman of Chrysler. And I said, when you

get to the fork of the road, what do you do? And he goes, well, you go one way or the other. And if you realize you went the wrong way, you turn around, go back and take the other fork. It's not scientific. You just have to do the right thing. But something, this world golf tour, this world golf league, if it helps the tour step back and maybe take a hard look at itself and make some changes, great. But I think the tours doing really well. We have the playoffs, we have the majors, we have the World Golf Championships. I don't think we've ever, or currently in the way it is now, any great player from around the world is denied access. Again, scores, talk, and BS walks.

If you don't play well, you're out. You're back on another tour. What, if we're to kind of surmise, what are the weaknesses of the PGA tour? In this scenario, if we have a direct competitor coming up, what advantages do they have over the tour? What are the weaknesses here that, I don't know how to say that exactly,

but you know what I mean? It's kind of what could this tour eliminate problem-wise that the tour has that this premier golf league would not? Well, I'm not a big fan of having to go through the Corn Ferry tour to get to the tour. I really like the old ways where you went to a tour school and if you qualified, you'd be on tour. Now, if you're a stud player coming out of college, you have to rely on sponsor exemptions. Now Matthew Wolfe did that.

Colin Moore, how it did that. Victor Hovlin is doing that. And they're playing, well, they won on tour except Victor. But I think the feeder tour, which strengthens the corn fairy tour, I think it frustrates a player because he's got to go through the process. The argument is it's going to make you a better player it's going to help you to travel and learn how to how to allocate your time properly and practice and save money and all that and I agree I agree with that but it's not always I definitely agree that last part my issue with it is it's the golf courses for the most part aren't necessarily preparing you the best for PGA tour golf. And the purses aren't there.

I would love to see the purses. I think we could take a little money from the PGA tour purses and bring it down to the Corn Ferry because I've talked to a lot of players that when they played the Corn Ferry Tour, they said we could barely pay our bills because there's not a lot of money. Whereas there's a bunch of money. Now, again, to take the other side of the argument, the corn fairy tour is not major leagues yet. The PGA tour is the gold standard in the game. It is. I think it's a very big difference. It's basically the guys that graduate from

corn fairy to PGA are playing for 10X. Like you get up, it's like 10X. A 10th place finish is on the PGA tour is basically 10 times what Cornfairy is. It could be closer. I obviously the tour is the driver of the money. I think that that's a very extreme. For the difference in talent, that is an extreme, extreme hurdle. And the argument I would make is if you're trying to prepare a young player for the tour by having them go through the Corn Ferry tour, you want that player to have pride in their tour. You want them to be able to put their best foot forward in the pro-AMS.

If they know that they're going to play for more money, I think you're going to have more pride in that tournament in that tour. I just think that we could do a little bit better on that prize money. There's a couple things I want to make sure we get to before we wrap up with you. I was told by someone, I don't know if there's a reason why I couldn't name this person, but to ask you about when John Daly hit a drive over the crowd at the Fred Meyer. I know nothing about what this is, but I'm told to ask you about that. I did a tournament in Portland, Oregon called the Fred Meyer Challenge way back. I started in 88 and it went to 03. It was one of these Monday, Tuesday events, the shark shootout grew out of it. The CVS, charity classic grew out of it. It was a basketball competition.

10 teams, 20 players. John Daly was there and we were doing a clinic before the round. We always did the clinic on the 18th green to utilize the sky suites and sky boxes around 18. We would put up sod on the 18th green and hit back down, opposite back down the fairway. Daly got up one time, I was on the on the tea with Jack lemon, the great actor Jack lemon. And he got up on the tea, grabbed his driver and said, you know, I was on the T with Jack Lemon, the great actor Jack Lemon. And he got up on the T, grabbed his driver and said, you know, I'm tired of hitting drivers into the win. I'm gonna turn around and hit him downwind.

He hit his first couple of balls without any warmup. Took a driver and hit two balls and snapped him and blocked him. Turned around, now he's facing an amphitheater, a crowd that goes up, it probably a 30 degree slope. He walked him, turned around, now he's facing an amphitheater, a crowd that goes up, probably a 30-degree slope, and it looked to me like he had a chalk ball in his hand. And I said, yeah, I just hit it right up all over those people's heads, and he put the ball down, and I thought it was going to explode.

You know, that old exploding ball trick, it was a real ball. And he tagged this driver. I wouldn't have done it with a wedge after an hour of warming up He tagged this ball and peered it knocked it over everybody's head Everybody lost their lunch. I promise to pay for everybody's dry cleaning of their underwear that on the on the path of that T-shot Well People were laughing that weren't in the line of sight of the golf ball, but a lot of people were upset about it,

but that earned John a small suspension, I believe at the time, yeah. So let's say you're hired for a speaking function of some kind, do you have like a go-to story? Like your story of like, all right, I know this is gonna get my laughs, like I know people are gonna hit, it's gonna hit people in the fields.

Do you have a go to? Well, probably, oh gosh, a bunch of them. The one story that I think people, people tend to forget, you probably don't even know this. When I tackled the naked street curve. I got that open here. That's, I wasn't gonna leave without this.

I know this one. That's the story. What, of course, was this one? This was at Royal St. George's in the open championship 85. I was in the second- and's in the open championship, 85. I was in the second- and the last group with Tom Kite. Had a chance to win, but we're now on the 72nd hole. Pain Stewart is in second place right behind the green.

Sandy Liles got a two-shot lead in the group behind us. I'm playing with Tom Kite, and all of a sudden out of the crowd comes this naked guy. We heard later that it was a Marshall who just stripped his clothes down and started streaking. Now normally when you see streakers, they're beautiful women or women, but this happened to be a guy. We'll be right around the green a couple times. We're waiting to put out, chip up and put out. We both miss the green. I'm standing in the other green with

kite and fluff and Michael Kerrick, a kite's caddy and I said, what do we do about this? And they said, well, just let the cops get them, the cops are chasing them around. And I said, well, if it comes near me, I'll tackle them. And they both looked at me all three, they went, no, you're not. I said, yep, so there's a challenge right there. You ran right by me and I tackled them, put my head down, turned it to the side, closed my mouth.

I didn't want any afternoon's surprise. And knocked him down, the Bobby's got him, and took him off. And the funniest thing is, I played in many opens, when you leave the next morning, all the papers of the world in Heathrow have pictures of the open champion kissing the trophy. But not this one.

It was this naked marshals bear ass on my shoulder as I turned to the head with a big, with a big disgusting look on my face as I tackle his guy. You gave a good celebration after that too. I did. Yeah. At the time he was part of a member Mark Gaston oh with the jets, he'd always do the sat dances.

I jumped up and gave a quick sat dance. All right, a couple more. What is an extinct event, an event that's no longer there that you missed the most? Well, it would be the tournament I did in Portland called the Fred Marne Challenge. Twenty players, actually twenty four players, twelve teams of two, and we had everybody. We had Jack. We had Arnold, Michelson, L, Sergio, the only player that we never had paint Stewart, Azinger, Fowdo. The only player we never got was Tiger, because it was a little bit before Tiger's time,

but then Tiger became so big, I offered him a bunch of money to come, but he never did. And it's the Home of Nike too in Portland, Oregon. But that event was unique. It was one of the first of its kind. And I don't think we'll ever see an event like that again because the players demand so much money for appearance fees nowadays that back then,

the players would play for the purse. They would get a guarantee of I think 30,000 bucks, two days, and it was a magical two days. You ask any player, Lanny played in it, Elkenton played in it, you name it, we had them all and the players still remind me about that, remember that tournament fondly. All right, we have a segment we're doing on the podcast this year

where we're BMW is a global partner of ours, a partner, of course, a global partner of the Ryder Cup. I can't let any Ryder Cupers get by without asking Ryder Cup questions, but you played for Lani Watkins at 95 for that Ryder Cup team. What was it like, let's see, as intimidating of a captain as he was just a fellow tour player? No, no.

Okay. As a captain, he was an unbelievable. He was intimidated by him. Well, Lani's intimidating period because he's a great champion and he's tough to play against. But I felt like he and his entire contingent of Ryder Cup captains and everybody that was in charge made us all feel so warm and welcome. And Lany was fantastic. You want to be on Lanywadkin's team,

or his side in a fight. He's gonna fight to the death for you. And that's how I felt when I was on his team. So I had two captains in my Ryder cups. 85, it was Trevino, and 95, it was Lany. Two different individuals, completely different individuals, but two incredibly great champions, guys you want to be on their team. Well, a question we love, love, love asking people. When was the last time you paid for

a round of golf? The last time I paid for a round of golf was about eight years ago, stream song. Okay. Ben Crenshaw sent me up to go play. And the bitch. I walked in the pro shop and I said, hey, I've got some guests with me. So I'm ambit or buddies of mine. I want to pay and they said, I don't worry about it.

It's taken care of. As I was leaving in the car with my three buddies, a guy from the pro shop came running out and he said, hey, you didn't pay for your golf. So I went in. I said, you, I thought you called us. I went in, slapped down my credit card and I paid for our golf. So I went in, I said, I thought you called us. I went in, slapped down my credit card, and I paid for our golf. There you go. Usually that question comes with a stunned silence of, oh my god, I can't even remember what the last time was. Well, if you're a member of a club,

like I am, and you pay dues, or you know, I buy you lunch and the eight bears you had earlier in the day, then yeah, I'm paying for golf. Yeah, that makes sense. How many times do you find in your career? Never. Never. No fines. Not even once. Okay. That's one we're trying to start asking people because I feel like there's always a good story there. But all right, we're going to let you go. It's thank you so much for letting us come down and crash your club here and thank you so much for joining us and look forward to listening to your I got in. That is better than most. Better than most.