No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 546: Jason Hehir

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

Fresh off the debut of Shark - his documentary about Greg Norman at the 96 Masters - director Jason Hehir joins Soly for a deep dive into the film, his relationship with Norman, key moments in the film, and more. Plus we also detail Jason's experience as the director of The Last Dance and what it's like to interview Michael Jordan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. 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. Sully here got an interview coming here shortly. I believe to be an exclusive interview with Jason Hare. He is the director of the new 30 for 30 that just aired on ESPN called Shark.

It is about the 1996 Masters. Greg Norman's collapse there, but also 1996 Masters, Greg Norman's Collapse there, but also a lot about Greg Norman's career. Listen to know he's been in the news a lot for a lot of reasons. Other than his career, I really enjoyed not only this conversation and look back on his career and of course one of the most famous collapses

in golf history, but also the perspective on his playing career and business interests and personality and it's a great look at the shark. And a lot of great interviews in that documentary. So I highly recommend you check that out wherever you are able to do so. It'll be only SPM plus, and I'm sure in a lot of other places where you can catch a replay if you did not already.

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Here is Jason here. All right. So Jason, I know a lot of people know you from the last dance and other sports documentaries you've done and other films you've made, but just curious for our golf center audience. What is your what is your golf experience and is is it intimidating at all making films in the golf space? It's fascinating and thrilling because I'm such a bad golfer that I just,

I mean, I have plenty of friends who are good golfers. I took it up only a few years ago. I'm 45 years old. So I became obsessed immediately. I golf when I was a kid, but that I didn't need an escape from anything. And, you know, the idea now of turning my phone off and spending time with three of my buddies

and like sipping on cold beers and like competing, but also just like I would golf if they're in don't golf and vault, it was just us driving around in carts. So I do have a long background of golf and then my family, I come from, you know, a lot of golfers in my family scratch and above my cousin is a plus three. So we always, my memories of watching the masters and the US open and the PGA and the British in every summer when I was growing up are pretty vivid. So I have an extensive background, but my ability does not reflect that.

What about your knowledge of Greg Norman? You know, we're talking about your film that's coming out here. As you're listening to this, it's already out, called Shark. What is this your idea to do this? Are you brought this idea to talk about, you know, do a film on Greg Norman? What is your knowledge about him before?

Where would you put your knowledge? Now I'm wondering how that process works. Really good friend of mine, I'm Connor Schell. Used to be one of the top people in command at ESPN. He has since left in the last couple of years. He left and started his own company called Words and Pictures. And as part of that company getting off the ground, he agreed to do a number of 30 for 30s for his old colleagues.

And one of them was this doc that they called me about. I was actually at Fred Rieka with my cousin, that plus three guy, with him. And I came off the 18th green and we were having a beer afterwards and I got a call from Connor saying, well, would you be interested in doing a doc about Greg Norman at the 96 masters? He's agreed to come back and play the Augusta and Augusta has agreed to let him play with the same pen placements. And I mean, he has a lot of stuff going on, Connor, and I had a lot of stuff going on too, but both of us were laughing on the phone like, listen, man, if we can't make something fun on this and if we can't like treat this as one of the perks of the job,

then what are we doing here? So it was an immediate yes, no money was discussed, nothing else was discussed. I just said to Connor, like, yes, I absolutely will do that project. And here we are. Are you well versed? Would you say, in the Greg Norman story, or where does your process start in terms of researching for this, preparing for this, doing interviews with him, and telling that story? Is it a story you've always wanted to tell? I know for me personally, it is one of my first golf watching memories, I think, with the 96 Masters, it drilled into my head what choking is.

And I think we've been waiting for a long time for for a deep dive into it like this film. And I'm just wondering what that when that starts for you and where you started for what basis you were starting from. I vividly remember the Larry Myes chip. I was watching that masters with my dad, which is he and I and our tiny little sun room in our house with this little 27-inch TV, which by then was like 27-inch color TV with cable was like, oh shit, we're doing well. You're kidding.

Yeah, so I vividly remember watching that with my dad and knowing how crazy and improbable it was that that guy hit that chip, but certainly not having any idea of what the masters was at that point. I think I was about to turn 11 so I was like 10 years old and didn't really know. I just remember that day. But also, he was so indelible off the course, right? Is that everyone had that gear. In the early to mid 90s, the shark gear was everywhere. You saw guys, like hackers out on public courses, everyone had those hats on. The older guys had those hats on. And then in 96, I vividly remember watching that in college with my roommates on that Sunday. So that was always with me. And I always as my career went on, I graduated in 98 and started

in the business in 99. And always thought that that would make an incredible documentary just to talk to him about that and to see where he, where he came out. Now this is five years after that, 10 years after that. Now we're, you know, 25, 26 years after. So to talk to him about it and to see how he's reconciled it and to see how he confronts it now with something that was an obvious yes. How were you able to spend any time with Norman I guess before the project kicked off or

you know it was the first time you sat down with him was it with with cameras on. We had a zoom in the exact place where I'm sitting right now and they were looking for directors and they offered me up as one of the guys who might be doing it and so he and I discussed things. What I'd be interested in, what he was interested in, what his goals were for the project and mine too. And then the night before we did that first interview, I had dinner with him for about three hours.

And we just talked about a lot of things. Golf related and non-golf related and everything else. But that was about it. It wasn't like we were super close when I sat down with him. What's a three- hour dinner with Greg Norman? Like what are the topics of conversation? Is it what is the timeline on this as well? Because we'll talk about some of this later as what he's been making a lot of headlines

and golf for some other reasons. But what is the actual timeframe of this timeline for that was that I was approached about the project in March of 2021. April of 2021. April of 2021 is when we shot at Augusta with him there. You'll see, you know, from the doc, you've seen it, or at least the rough cut, the shots of him while he's at Augusta during the Masters. And then a month later, as when we went back

and shot him by himself at Augusta. And then we didn't interview him until June of 2021. So it was the night before his shoot that I actually met him in person for the first time because my co-director Thomas Odofeld and producer Matt Chase and another producer, Marie Morbola, went down to Augusta and were running around Augusta, literally like sprinting ahead to get him because we didn't have the kind of, you know, camera crew or production facilities that CBS has Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We just had two cameras and about six people.

And it was like, all right, you can play these nine holes, go out there and you have two hours. So a lot of sprinting around there, which myself as a golf fan, I was so jealous that I couldn't go to that. I was on another project and couldn't go down that day. But I mean, imagine if your job was just to run around and unoccupied Augusta National for the afternoon, Chase and Greg Norman, with the pin placements in the same place that we're on Sunday in 1996. It's powerful, man.

And it's something that, you know, we, I know maybe 0.01% about filmmaking compared to someone like yourself. But I still view things a little differently than I would if I was just a regular sports fan watching it on TV. But just the powerful nature of when Norman walks off the first tee and he's telling the story of standing right there about Jack Nicholas putting his arm around him and saying, I hope you're as nervous as I am as Greg's playing in his first master's like, it adds a whole nother layer, if I may say to this film about just bringing him back to that spot to relive it and steer into

it. Like he is the impression you got that he was an open book and willing to, you know, take any possible questions you have ready to relive it because he also makes a comment in there that he's never rewatched that round and I just found it interesting that he was really to go through the ringer for this for something that is not a not necessarily a vanity project. I give him a lot of credit for going wherever he wanted to go. I think that any pro athlete has a certain sense of ego and if you said to them, hey, man, we're not going to do a lot about the 96 masters. We're going to talk about your accomplishments.

He probably would have said, I'm fine with that. He's Greg Norman. He's worth half a billion dollars and he is Greg Norman walking around for a reason. He's got that aura about him. But because of that, I give him a tremendous amount of credit and respect for, for instance, we had him watch, as you said,

that final round in 96. And he didn't know that that was coming. We didn't specifically discuss this. I think that that his people had had conveyed to him. They're going to show you some clips and have you discuss them. But we had everything loaded up. It was really, we were going to make him watch all 78 shots of, of, of Sunday in 96. But, but we, we certainly had those loaded up. And I didn't want to lie to him

by showing him some of his accomplishments and then do him into all the sudden now we turn. It was very clear from the very beginning, like the first clip we showed him was Jim Nance's on air welcome. Hello friends in 1996, whatever that was. And it was here we are and Greg Norman is up by a lot, is up by six strokes. And

this is, you know, it's just a question of, is he a 42 long or a 42 regular, I think, is what Kenny Main said. So he knew at that moment what was coming in, he could have said, guys, I'm not doing this. He could have stood up and walked out in any moment, or he could have gotten really combative or even a little bit defensive, which on TV comes off as a lot defensive, I give him a tremendous amount of credit for sitting there and understanding what we were doing and going along with it. And my thought always, it wasn't to victimize him and it certainly wasn't to make fun of him or ridicule him. I always had in the back of my mind the thought that I think that people, especially in America, the thought that I think the people, especially in America, in the US, when you screw up, if you own it,

people are so willing to forgive you. And whether it's a moral transgression or an athletic transgression or something in between, if you screw up and say, yeah, hey, you know what, hand up, I push that thing 40 yards to the right on 18, I shouldn't have done it and it's still eat to me to this day So I thought he did I give him credit for for Equating himself really well of sitting there Watching these things it got a little awkward. I'll be on By the time he went in the water on 12 and he knew what we were doing I had to skip a couple our producer Matt had everything cute up And I think I skipped like he had a bad approach shot on 10

that went wide left and I skipped that because it was like I could see he and I had his energy was like wait are we going to go? So but you had to have the missed three footer on 10 or I'm sorry on 11. You had to have the mist three footer on 10, or I'm sorry, on 11, you had to have the water on 12. He birdied 13. He was within two strokes, that famous shot where he drops to his knees on 15 and misses eagle by, I mean, I don't know how the ball didn't go into the hole this day.

It looks like it rolled over the hole, which it may have. If he sinks that, their tie going into 16. And even I said too, that if you're down to going into 16, you're still in it. Anything can happen. This is a gust of you. Birdie 16 and creep with them one. You get 17 and 18 to go. That 18th fairway starts looking a lot more narrow if you're up by one, but it was fascinating just to consider what that place can do to an elite athlete, the aura that that place has. And I'll tell you that is one of the great rewatches to and it's painful rewatch the whole

but the whole broadcast is up on YouTube like all of the masters broadcasts are and it it the you I guess it's kind of Frank Tricinian, the CBS crew, knew way ahead of, you know, they knew what the story was. They had to follow one pairing, basically, you know, for the whole day. And they just linger on the tension the whole time. They linger, they linger the fact, even Fautos shot. I know it's not what this film's about,

but Fautos shot into 13. He spends three or four minutes deciding on what club to hit. And it's just a level attention. And maybe that's what I honestly think like this day is what made me, it not made me a golf fan, but it up the level of which I was a golf fan because it was just such incredible theater. And what I thought a big takeaway I had

from your film as well was this was not, not as much of a freak occurrence as maybe I would have once thought it was. The you did an amazing job of accumulating all of the things that were off from the end of day Saturday all the way through to basically 16 when he hits in the water and the fidgeting of the club, the re-gripping of the club, FALDO talking about that. How does that to watch? I mean, I'm not a... Over a shot.

That's a tight lie in the middle of the fairway. We've all stood over that thing and then thought like, oh, there's a couple of people watching me. Imagine if you're on, I think that was the second or the, I know it was the eighth for 24 seconds. Yeah. That's all. And that's when Faldon even says, and Kudos to Faldon for his candor in in this in

this dog too saying, I noticed it. And that's when I knew that I could capitalize. I'm very much as well documented not a huge fan of Faldon's commentary, but he was fantastic at this document at doctor. I mean, his his perspective on things was such. I guess it came from a, I don't want to call it sympathetic place. It was definitely not a a taunting thing at all. You just seem to understand what Greg was going through on that day and also as at the beginning, like he can't believe that Greg would go back there. He says it's like, why would you want to go

watch a crap movie again? He's calling Greg's final round in 96 of crap movie. And he's right. But to see the Faldon that we depicted in that doc, which I think is accurate at that point, was the super conservative, you know, he was the metronome. He was the guy who has had no personality and was just like, he was always lingering, always there. And then he struck when it was time to strike, he would strike it lowly into this.

And now today, to see the Nick Faldon today with the sideburns and the birthlight collar and the open shirt and the medallion, it's like he's the dude that people thought the Greg Norman was back then. He's evolved into that. So that's a little like subtext that I found fascinating. Yeah, and I'll tell you too, the Peter Costa story always slays me about, you know, if for those that maybe haven't watched it or have, you know, aren't familiar with it, I wondered he could tell us that. And how'd you heard that story before,

before filming this? About you're kidding me? About, yeah. I had never heard that before. That was something that he told us for the first time in my research that he had gone into. Now, a bunch of things had befallen Greg from the time that he walked off of 18 on Saturday night

until the time that he teed off on Sunday. And I always thought that the big mystery of this doc was going to be unfolding exactly what happened and what was this moment that no one had ever heard of before. But there wasn't anything that earth shattering. It was a series according to several people we talked to, and therefore shattering. It was a series, according to several people we talked to and therefore I think the truth, a series of several small things that got into his head.

So one of the things was that there was an English writer who said, even you can't fuck this upgrade, Greg was leaving the clubhouse that night and that seemed to stick in his crop. Another thing was that his wife had arranged for a surprise party of 12 of his friends to be flown up on his private jet from, I believe they were living in Jupiter

or somewhere nearby at that point, to Augusta. And Greg heard about that because the pilot called to verify this is the time we're taking off and all that. And he had a fit because it was almost like you're spitting in the face of the golf gods that ran him on winning this thing. And then there was a local guy who Peter Costas not realizing the politics of this thing

thought was off the record. It was Brian Hammons from the golf channel is what they relayed the story to. It was relayed on the local CBS affiliate, yeah. Exactly. So Hammons said that Costas told him that Peter had noticed some flaws in Greg's swing, and specifically his grip,

that could make this thing a little bit more interestingly you'd expect for someone with a six stroke lead on Sunday. And he reported that. So Dr. Kenyak calls Costas into the truck on the morning of, it's 7 a.m. on on master Sunday morning. They're far from being on air, but there's still everyone's like worker bees. And they're probably hitting left the facility that night.

And so did you tell the world that Greg Norman is going to choke today? And Costa said, no, I said one thing to this one guy. And I don't know how it got out. And then he said, well, because well, just called me and said he around your throat and ca kind of like limped out w his legs and then came b for nothing. If that's wh

word about at 7 a.m. On then he's he's in even more A quick break here to check whoop the personalized digital fitness and health coach and official fitness wearable of both the PGA and the LPGA tours. You can monitor your recovery, your sleep, your training, and your health with personalized recommendation. And coaching feedback with Woop helps you train smarter, recover faster, sleep better,

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any new members. If you have six months left of membership on your account, you can upgrade now and get the 4.0 for free. Right now, Woop is offering 15% off when you use code NLU15 at checkout. So go to whoop.com, whop.com, enter NLU15 at checkout to save 15% on your purchase. Now back to Jason Hare. You start piezing the puzzle together and it all starts making a whole lot more sense, you know, as to why the guy that shots 63 to open the tournament, then I think a 69 and round two finishes it with a 78. Like it just

doesn't make any sense to, to be swinging at that well and for have it to go so wrong. You look at though, and we went into this too. In the doc is that is Greg snake bit or whether things that he put himself in position to be snake bit. So it's one thing to for Larry

Mies to hit that shot against you on 11 in the second hole of the playoff. It's another thing to shoot three bogies on the back nine on final Sunday when you're in the lead. Same with the 86 PGA at Bob Tway, holds the bunker shot and Costa is going to make the point of the he shot 40 on the back nine. So if you could imagine say a tiger.

If a writer said to tiger walking out of the clubhouse on Saturday at Augusta, even you couldn't fuck this up. Do you think the tiger would have done anything except say, fuck you and walk out, I don't know if we can swear on this podcast, but like, it wouldn't, listen, man, like people are built in different ways and Greg Norman is worth half a billion dollars,

and I doubt he has many regrets. But there are things that some people can handle that some other people can't. And golf is a very mental game. And it's no shot against you if that can throw you off your game. But if it can throw you off your game, then you might not win the masters. And if an old writer says, even you couldn't fuck this up,

and that actually makes you lose a moment of sleep, then maybe it's not meant to be. I'm struggling to marry this, marry this point, but I would consider, I'm not putting these words in your mouth here, I would consider Norman to be one of the great ego maniacs of golf. As far as the stories, I've, the many stories I've heard over the years. And I'm wondering if that is there's a certain bravado that comes with somebody that has an enormous ego and always need to be constantly reminding people of their accomplishments. And I made a note in here to even point out that he says, you know, when he was rubbing, he admits he's rubbed people the wrong way for a lot of years out there and he makes a little comment

of, oh, that's just their jealous of my accomplishments. And I just found that interesting. He was like, no, man, you might be like rubbing people wrong for the wrong, different reason. But all that to say, if you have this, you know, carry this very large ego, if someone who exposes a little chink in the armor, like some, a comment like that, it almost kind of exposes the facade that is this ego, bravado, whatever you're carrying around.

And I'm just wondering if I might be over thinking or over analyzing that, but I'm wondering if you have any perspective. And maybe we both are, because I agree with you. I think that a lot of it had to do and the stories, especially the stories that I have covered where icons are involved, guys who are seen as alpha males, guys who are seen as, you know,

quote unquote superheroes, so much of it comes back to their dad and their relationship with their dad. And he always thought that his dad resented that he was this long-haired surfer who chose to get in the golf and his dad never supported him. And then he made it and he made it,

he was always gonna prove to his dad that he could make it. And I think that that a lot of times that manifests a little boy and in adult clothing and whether they have tattoos all over them or whether they have long hair or whether they, you know, that acts out in one way or another. And that's what I saw there was a lot of, I do think that he, it's Darwinian is that you learn to be impenetrable

because you have to be. He came out of nowhere. At that point, golfing from Australia might as well golfing from Neptune. So he, give him the credit that he went, he had the vision to go to Europe, to go to Asia, to win a bunch of tournaments, to wait until he came to America, until the right time, a lot of, like all of these decisions he made correctly, because look where he is now.

But I do think it always, he always felt like the kid who was being padded on the back by Jack in 81 walking down the first fairway saying like, I hope you're as nervous as I am. I don't know that he ever felt like he belonged at Augusta. It was always like, I can't believe that I'm here. So 81, certainly, I can't believe that I'm here. 86 come all the way back. That's one thing that I didn't know before the making of this talk. I certainly knew that the 86 masters is, you know, legend because of Jack Nicholas and what he did in the back nine and what he did to win that tournament. I didn't realize that Greg had gone birdie on 14, 15, 16, 17 and had an opportunity

par ties it birdie to win and then fans of four iron 40 yards to the right on his approach after piping his driver. I didn't realize that. Well, that's the Norman story, though. It is so much greatness that puts you into the position and ultimately ends up in so much failure. That is what, and that's what again, the film does a great job too of ex, you know, you put that number up on there that says, number one in the world for 331 straight weeks. Like that is, that's a ridiculous achievement. Right, it was, it was cumulative weeks,

but it was three hundred three one weeks within the middle of the 90s. So that's still a, and, and a phenomenal feat. And by the way, pre-tiger, number one money winner in PTA tour history. Yeah. And he played a lot of his events in Europe and Asia. And still was number one in PGA Tour money pre-tiger. The other thing that was striking to me is that 96 we see is like almost ancient, the

Greg Norman 96 collapse. We see that as ancient history. A year later is Tiger's first year so much changed in those 12 months. I don't know that you can name a sport that had such a seismic shift in one year because the Tiger era and the Greg Norman era, if you wanna call it that, to me are two totally different things.

It's almost like they're playing with, you know, a lot of balls and, you know, persimmon woods and all that. It's that much of a difference. Yeah, no, it's I think another powerful moment is the side by side shot of Norman hitting a shot into into 12 in 2021 along with him looking up at the ball in in 1996 because that's that's really where where things changed and you know, they got, you get the audio in there to say the shots goes over the bunker. And the commentary that says, you know,

he went at the pin with it. You get, it's a different club. It's a different shot if you're even over the bunker versus going at that pin. And that's bad decision making commentary from Costus that says the first sign of nerves is bad decision making. And the next is execution. It really tied everything together.

We interviewed Tony Navarro, was our second interview of the entire project. And there's such a code, I actually give Tony credit, there's such a code among caddies that like he's not going to sit there and tell us everything, he's not going to divulge the conversations he had with Greg, he's certainly not going to say, you know, I told him everything to do it. That to me was so enlightening. I would love one day to do some sort of a story about Caddy's or A Caddy that illustrates what it's like to be a Caddy on the tour. I mean, I'm the guy that any golf magazine I read, I go straight to those like anonymous Caddy articles and all that to see which really going on behind the scenes. So, Tony was great, couldn have been a nicer guy, but by design, just wouldn't give anything up.

I saw a little, I don't want to call it a trick at this point, but something I recognized from the last dance was, you know, nor showing Norman watch the golf and the specific shots on the tablet. I find that again, extremely powerful, just to see reaction. And one sequence in particular was him playing the ninth hole and he hits the shot and it's funny immediately hits the shot and I go that sounded different and he points right at it and says see that right there like that was thin right there and then you ask the question you know of you know when you started to get worried and he says that was it that was an easy golf shot and that was it right there. I just I found that I don't have a question related to that and I found that to be really good filmmaker.

Imagine knowing, I mean, the question I think, and I think I stumbled over the question because the interviews, that was my third interview with him. And at that point, it had become a conversation like this and we're kind of stepping over each other and I'm not reading off a page and trying to read the question perfectly. But my point was like, when did you know that you were fucked?

And he said right there. And I didn't say when you were fucked, but I said, what did you know that, you know, things were not gonna, and I kind of trailed off. And he pointed at the laptop that we had next to him to that right there. It was that shot that we have been discussing because it was it's a hundred yard shot and you're supposed to know if you especially if you played a gust of one time let alone you know however many times you had played it up until that point you can't be short with that shot you're gonna end up it's gonna roll back and you're gonna end up 40 yard short if you're to yard short and he was short there and that's when he said so imagine the agony of and Faldo says in the dock, I knew if I could get within three after nine, I had a shot.

He was within three after that, and then the wheels really came off, because he bogies 10-11 and then goes in the water on 12. Imagine the agony of all you wanna do when you're making that turn, is make a left to the clubhouse instead of making your right over to the 10. But you know you feel terrible and now the crowds are really starting to gather because

this thing looks like it's going to be an actual dog fight. I just, that's the, I had sympathy for him at that moment to say, like, I knew that's what I knew it was over. Like, oh my God, I remember interviewing Sugar Ray Lennon one time. And he had told me that there was only two times in his life that he knew that he was coming into the ring and he knew he was going to lose. And he said, you know, if you're walking into the ring, you know, this is Sugar Ray Lennon. This is one of the first like big interviews I had ever done. I was like, I can't believe this guy is telling me. It was so fascinating to me. But as a golfer, you must know, too, I don't have it today.

And this guy does, and I'm defeated. That's why we really made a point to say if he had played with Mikkelsen, maybe history changes. I think Valdo was like the absolute antithesis of an ideal playing partner for him. Because Greg wants to congratulate a guy and talk with them and banter with them.

Valdo is just a thousand yards there. Metronome. I think Fowdo hit all 18 greens that final round too. I know he shots Bogey free 67, but it's just, yeah, that's a, and then, you know, Ian Baker Fidgett doesn't usually say a whole, you know, you know, doesn't speak as make a very pointed statement. What he talks on air, you know, he's kind of a he's more of a friendly announcer and you ask the question of, you know, was was, you know, we did it matter. I think it would be asked, you know, what would have gone differently if Fowda was not paired with him.

He was just definitive. Yes. And that that that that that's a match. a producer who was awesome at all of this and is another, you know, golf fanatic who's hovering around a 20 with me, but both of us are huge golfing fans and he's the one who interviewed Ian. And it was, he didn't even get the question out of his mouth. Yeah, he did. And I don't know if the version that you saw, but but Scott Ann Pelt and I agree with him says, I believe history was changed that day. Scott Damn Pelt and I agree with them, says I believe history was changed that day. If a young Phil Mikkelsen, and this is not the feel that we've come to know, but if a young Phil Mikkelsen,

who's still really, really good is playing with a veteran Greg Norman on that Sunday, does he give up that lead? I don't believe so. I do believe that history was changed permanently by the fact that Nick Fowldale got up and down from behind the green on 18 on Saturday That's what's so fascinating to me about these tournaments is that he goes along with his approach shot and he Has that's a very difficult screaming down the hill chip

That he has to make into that pin and he gets it within three feet and taps in for par and that's what gets him that final pairing. If he in any way by a millimeter screws up that chip, then we're not having this conversation because Greg Norman's life at that point, it may be worth the documentary, but it's not worth a documentary examining his life through the prism of Augusta. What, you know, I wouldn't paint myself as a big Norman fan yet at the same time. I felt like he comes across mostly likable in all this. Did you get that impression, you know, from working with him directly on this project? He was nothing but really, really nice to me. And to the people who approached him, like, I think you asked me what's dinner like with Greg Norman.

In Florida, at least, it's a lot of people approaching him and asking for autographs, asking for pictures. It's my wife's anniversary with me. We're having dinner over there. Could you come say hi? And he was accommodating to every single one of those people. And he was, you know, oftentimes, people of that stature, they have a person who is the conduit. And he was, he was directly communicating with us at all times and really seemed to enjoy the process. I don't know with us at all times and really seem to enjoy the process. I don't know that he thought that it would come out like this. And that's not to say that I think, I sincerely think and I hope that this enhances his legacy. When it comes to people thinking that he is a choker or a failure because he's not, that

he's objectively not. Now the Saudi stuff aside, that's a completely different conversation. If you wanna talk about Greg Norman, the businessman versus Greg Norman, the golfer, but his golfing legacy is one of the indelible golfers of his generation, a two-time major winner, and the all-time leading winning winner before Tiger. And if that's a fact, all of those things are facts. So I hoped that this thing,

and I continue to hope that this thing actually enhances his legacy in golf. The other stuff is a different question. I do want to get to some of that. And I've shared a few of my moments I thought considered to be the most powerful. Anything that we haven't talked about that you would consider to be some

of the strongest points in the film. I just thought that one of the first shots that we had recorded was it fascinated me that Greg Norman, for all of his legacy and all of his history and, you know, being one of the first names at some of my generation, I'm 45, would mention if they named golf superstars from their childhood. some of my generation, I'm 45, would mention if they named golf superstars from their childhood. It says so much about Augusta and the mystique of Augusta that he is standing in the same place that I am that you are, that any fan who's lucky enough,

any patron who's lucky enough to get a pass to watch that day is standing, Greg Norman is there because he came that close to winning a green jacket. But if you're not a winner of a green jacket, you have to stand behind those ropes and you watch a legend like Jack Nicholas in the ceremonial tee off. So our camera was fixed on him at the end of the film as Jack gets the smattering of applause. He makes a dumb joke. Everybody laughs because he's Jack Nicholas and he knows why they're laughing and they know that he knows why they're laughing.

And it's this moment where it's like, there's there that you're under the oak tree. It's just history. Jack tees off and we're on Greg and every head swivels to see where Jack's T-Shot went except for Greg's and he stays on Jack. And part of that is golfing expertise. He probably knows by the sound of it,

and he knows by Jack's backswing that the thing is piped. And part of it, I would be willing to bet my left arm. He's thinking, I should be on the other side of these ropes. I could be teeing off with Gary Player and Tom Watson and Jack Nicholas as a legend who is the ceremonial starter of this great tournament. And he came that close. And that's what's, it's the reason why I wanted to do this film is, is the power of one place

to shape someone's legacy for better or worse. Yeah. And it's, it's a, it's a, the butterfly effect thing in golf is, is crazy to think about in the list. It's, it's not the, he's not the only name on the list of guys that, you know, one shot, one lip out, one lip in or away from, you know, I've been Lin Matisse, his story of being crazy close to one of the masters up there. Scott Hoke, Ed Sney, it's a, the list goes on and on and on. It's anything that got left on the cutting room floor that it was especially hard to cut. We spent a lot of time with Bushch Harmon. We went out there with him. I mean, Harmon was Greg's swing coach from the early 90s through 96 and beyond. The thing

about doing a doc with ESPN, which they're great partners. Other partners now, you don't, it's the length of the story is the length of the story So if it's 80 minutes if it's 62 minutes, it doesn't matter ESPN you have to be 50 77 or 100. That's it Because that's what fits in an hour long or an hour and a half or a two hour window respectively, so there were things that Maybe should have been included that weren't and there were things that maybe could have come out that that didn't so that's always a tricky needle to thread when you're doing something for commercial TV that that has a specific number that you have to mail but overall there's there's nothing that I wish that we put in that we wouldn't have managed to get in. So on this note about you know

everything that's been going on with Greg Norman since you sat with him and filmed him with the Saudi stuff. He's now the Commissioner of Liv Golf. Did it, Augusta National has been incredibly particular about their image for many, many, many years. They seem to be opening year by year. They're opening their doors to more entertaining content, stuff that they've done. YouTube this year, this film, they did a great documentary on the 2020 masters that was the one in November. It just seems like they keep adding things yet. It seems like, for my interpretation,

it seems like they were kind of not anticipating this arriving, this breakout league that is rivaling the PGA tour and Greg to be the commissioner of it. Did that kind of, did that cause any complications in the timeline of this film, in the publication of this film or anything that related to your responsibility lies? Nothing from my responsibility.

You know, it was announced that Greg was going to be the commissioner of that live golf league or live golf, whatever you wanna call it, in October of last year. We had completed most of our filming by then and we're entering editing at that point. But that's not an excuse. If he, if it had been announced

that he was the commissioner in October 2020, or October 2018, it wouldn't have made a difference to me in the telling of the story because the story I wanted to tell was the power of one place and the mystique of one place to shape someone's legacy for better or worse. When they are objectively one of the indelible athletes in their sport of their generation, it's the power of this place. So we didn't we as you'll notice if you watch the doc, the doc ends in 1996. Plenty has happened in Greg Norman's

life in the last 26 years. Right. He had another, you could quote unquote choke or failure or whatever, in 2008 at the British. We didn't get into that. I was only interested really in the telling of his story through the prism of Augusta. And in my mind, you needed the background to know what led him to 1981 when he first went to Augusta and then his last significant moment of Augusta in my mind was 96.

That's the story we were telling as far as the Saudi stuff goes. I can't imagine that Augusta was happy with it. I never got a word directly one way or the other of what we were supposed to do because we were dumb with the diet at that point anyway. And I imagine this one definitely falls outside the purview of your responsibility as well. But the premier date from this change from being during Masters week to now two weeks after that was that at all related to any of these these upcoming. So you know what this discussion around Norman is this Saudi golf commissioner. It's a question that I would like answered myself. Really? Interesting. Interesting. Was it easy to get commentators and past players to discuss Norman? I mean, were they pretty willing to do so?

There were some people reluctant to do so. I think as golfers are a type bunch and wives or friends and golfers and their wives or friends, and it's just like any other profession. If you burn a couple of bridges, then those people don't want to deal with you and business dealings, complicate things. profession. If you burn a couple of ridges, then those people don't want to deal with you and business dealings, complicate things, but by and large, we got a lot more candor from a lot more people than I expected when we started this thing because Greg is such a polarizing guy. So I was

happy with the turnout that we had. I've heard you discuss, you know, your your process. I'm in particular to the last dance on podcasts you've done of. Again, as I mentioned, we do some video stuff, so I have an image in my head and I have an understanding of how long it takes and how many steps there are in the process before something goes to film. I wondered if you could kind of, for people that aren't familiar with what filmmaking looks like, describe the timeline of a project like this and all the steps that go into filling in gaps, moving stories along, lighting, sound, correction, all of these things.

I know it's a lengthy process and I probably linked the answer, but I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what that's like. Most of it goes into either you are pitching the idea or you get pitched the idea and both of those things entail a ton of reading and research. Knowing everything you can about the subject before you go out to actually spend the money to have a camera crew and a sound crew go out and record stuff that you're going to use in the film. So, in that process right now, on a couple of projects

where I'm just sitting in this house here that we're renting down at Atlanta and just kind of reading and watching footage from YouTube and watching footage that I'm being sent and reading as many books as I can. For the last dance, for instance, there was well over 10,000 pages of stuff that I read that the stack of books that comes up, my wife is laughing off camera right now.

The stack of books comes up to my waist of the stuff that I read because I think that it's your responsibility when you go in to interview someone, be a Greg Norman or Michael Jordan or someone whose name we've never heard of to know everything you can about them, so that you can do as efficient a job as possible in telling their story. So a lot of it is research. Then you get to the point where you're shooting, that's when the fun part comes in, because you can start listening to music and start listening to songs and auditioning composers and seeing what you want this thing to feel and sound like. And then the editing process begins when you start actually like throwing this stuff

all together. It's a lot like cooking a big say Thanksgiving dinner or like a big holiday dinner is that you're going to say, right, this is what I want this thing to look like. This is what I want the table to look like. Is that how many people are coming? Now we're going to go shop for the ingredients. You get all the ingredients and then you start to put it together in the kitchen. This is what I want this thing to look like. This is what I want the table to look like. Is how many people are coming? Now we gotta go shop for the ingredients. You get all the ingredients,

and then you start to put it together in the kitchen. And as always, that's when people start coming in the kitchen and smelling things and wanting to taste things, and they're ready for the meal to be done, that's the dealing with the networks and the owners of the properties and all that. And that's a different sport,

but it's an important job all to it's own. So there's a lot of components to come in. Once you've done with the fun part, which is the cooking of the meal, then it's like, it's not ready to be done yet, because we have to now garnish the dishes and we have to make sure everything sounds perfect and make sure everything looks perfect.

Every single frame is color corrected, which means that it's painted to look as vibrant and as accurate to your vision as you wanted it to look and a place like Augusta, you know, that's a playground for a color corrector, but there's a lot of people who do a lot of jobs that I was never aware of before I got into this business who are incredibly talented and dedicated at what they do. So it's as close as I can get to playing a team sport and I wasn't good enough to advance beyond my late teens in playing a team sport, but it's as close as I can get to doing that because everyone has a role in camaraderie has so much to do with the final product. We are recording this and the documentary is coming out here as on the two-year anniversary of the last dance, the premiere of the last dance. I'm wondering, in what ways has that series changed your life?

Manzli, the opportunities that I've gotten from that show, from the response to that show have been nothing short of life-changing. I'm still, sports is always gonna be my bread and butter because I grew up in a sports house. I grew up in my brothers and I would grow up. Either playing sports or making movies. Chasing each other around with a camera

or chasing each other with balls and bats and things like that. My brothers were older. So I was off in the one holding the camera, making the movie about them, just so I could play with them. So that's my, been my dream since I was a little kid. I want to tell more stories and just sports stories and that's what the last dance has afforded me the opportunity to do true crime stuff

and social justice stuff and music documentaries and eventually scripted films and things like that. So it was life change and say the least. I'm a decent sized basketball fan and I feel like, now we're living in this post-last dance world, but it felt like for many years there were these rumors of this previous project was rumored for a long time in this, you know, it basically is what

everybody wanted out of a 30 for 30 or something along those lines was to deep dive on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls because it just had a tremendous reverberating impact through like my entire generation of following sports. And it felt like we've never, I've just don't feel like I've ever really heard Michael Jordan speak about Obviously in the way that he does in the last dance Did you ever have any kind of pinch me moments of you know? There's one guy sitting across the table or across the room from Michael Jordan asking him these questions that sports fans have been dying to hear for a long time. Do you ever wonder how am I the guy that's that's getting to ask this?

more often than not. More often than not on almost every single question. And I think that the fear of failure is what keeps you focused and you have to leave that first interview, which is the one where he has the glass of the killer next to him in the cigar. We didn't know if he was going to leave a half hour in or three hours in. So there's a lot of unknowns, but like I said before, the only thing you can do is come in as prepared as possible. And credit to his people around him, they had put me in front of him a few times, so we knew each other a little bit for a few hours here and there. So he knew that I was going to be the one asking the questions that I was, you know, I had dedicated the better part of a couple of years to researching this thing before we sat down. But yeah, I think that about probably 20 minutes into that first

episode is when I said that those early bulls were called the Chicago Bulls Traveling Cocaine Circus. And this laugh came out of him, but I had never heard certainly in my dealings with him, but even in all of the thousands of hours of interviews and stuff that we had done with him. And that's when we knew that it was like, all right, he's actually here, he came to play because he easily could have just said, well, that's funny, but whatever. And he actually laughed, which acknowledged the truth of that statement or that title. And then went on to actually author an anecdote that illustrated that that's exactly what they were.

Would you describe it as, you know, you may not want to, want to praise yourself as much on this note, but that you kind of cracked the code a little bit when it came to Michael and as far as, you know, him getting comfortable with who's sitting across from him gives you so many of those reactions of, you know, him kind of rolled his head a little bit watching the tablet and, you know, kind of embracing the entire project. He tear, you tear down kind of this wall that he has held up for a long period of time. And I think people maybe don't fully understand what comes with the level of trust that's required with that right of I'm going to give you these incredibly golden moments that are going to end up being a lot of memes. Yet I'm trusting you to put this in the right spot in your film and that doesn't always work that way in film. Yeah, I think with him it was more that he saw the light at the end of the digging through his past tunnel. He at the end of the first interview he said to me, if you do your job right, I'll never have to do this again.

And I see what he means by that, because he had been through 8,000 interviews or whatever it was before then. You know, at the beginning of that process, his manager said to me, can you get through this entire doc just using the footage from that 98 season that we had, the troll of a footage and never interviewing him, just using news interviews from that 98 season that we had, the troll of a footage, and never interviewing him,

just using news interviews from through the years. In fact, she said, that's what's gonna happen here. And their team's perspective was, if you interview people present day, they're gonna change their minds on what actually happened, whereas in the moment, just use their interviews in the moment, because that's what's actually happening.

Mine was the exact opposite is that they were under the shadow of Michael Jordan at that point. And now with 20 years distance, they're likely to be more honest than they would have been. But Michael still looms pretty largely over that entire NBA community, especially the alums. But luckily, they convinced him to sit down and I think that the movie was better for it,

to sit there and see this guy who rarely talks. His scarcity was a gift to us. He doesn't like doing interviews, and he's sick of that process, and they'd rather just sit on his course and smoke cigars and play 36 holes a day. I don't blame the guy. I do the exact thing.

But it was a gift to us that he agreed to sit down. He was supposed to sit down two times. He sat down three times. So we had about nine hours with him over the course of three days of shooting. That sounds like a lot, but it's you probably could have gone a lot more. So you have, you know, you got to go through this trove of footage from the 98 season. Now 20 years from now, people are going to say, well, we need to see the lost interviews from the from the last dance. Like that's going to be there's probably some stuff in there that we were having somewhere. So so if you find this interview in 20 years, come find me. Did it ever get heated with him?

Anything you ever asked that, you know, maybe he didn't care for or was a straight non-answered or nothing like that? He said, I mean, quite the opposite. He said from the beginning, ask me anything you want, and I'll be honest. They asked me, for instance, to email him a set of topics. I said, like, sending the exact questions, like, not only is it not really journalistic,

but it's not going to, it's not going to be a vote. It's going to be a rehearsed response. But if I say here, the topics would I'd be discussing discussing mostly because of you know guys with that vast of career. If you interviewed LeBron or John L. Way or Greg Norman or Greg Maddox, they would all have trouble remembering what year was what and what the score was if you were interviewing Maddox about you know some world series in the 90s and say you know game four two outs in the fifth you threw say, you know, game four, two outs

and the fifth, you threw a slider and they call for it. He wouldn't remember that. And the same with Jordan, like, the thing with him is that he was like, it's like a pedic in remembering a lot of these things. But it really was just a cheat sheet for him to say, for me to say, hey, you know, you guys, you went to five games against the calves in 89

or whatever it was. But he quite the opposite said, ask me when I sent that email, he said, I saw the email you sent, by the way, and I didn't read any of it. Asked me anything we want, and I'll be honest. So he was really like truly an open book. And I think just because he wanted to get this over with, was like, all right, I have nothing to hide. I don't really care what these people think. The viewers, like, I'm going to be myself. He's got that kind of swagger and that confidence that he thinks, like, I'm going to tell the truth. And if

you don't like me, then fine. I'll be on my golf course playing three six. My golf course. What's the process of going through footage? Like, I mean, is there a whole team of people going through that 98? All the hidden footage footage? Is there a whole team of people going through that 98, all the hidden footage from that? Is there a big celebration? And it comes up when you find something in particular. And I imagine that that whole time period to be very exciting. Yeah, I mean, for more than a year, we have one PA named Zach.

And we basically put him in a closet and he watched the whole thing and he's not experienced enough to know at that point what's great and what's not. You know if there's something that actually moves the needle but really we just need it on paper what happens at every single second of this thing so that we can then go back through with eyes that are a little bit more experienced and then more experienced but when we got to the final parts of that vetting process, and Zach turned into just as valuable a member as everybody else on the team by the end, just because we got so steeped

in this material. But I would start getting iPhone videos that people would take of their laptops. And they would show me certain things that that would inform, you know, as I'm sitting there buried and and in three feet of books, how this thing is going to be parsed out over the course of 10 episodes, you had certain 10 polls that were like, okay, this is definitely going to go there. And we need to build to that in episode four because that's going to go there. We had this the moment 45 minutes in and the first episode when Michael gave that speech about it is who I am.

And if you don't like it, then you can lead that whole thing about being his teammate and what he expected of his teammates. As soon as that happened, the end of episode seven of last dance is him saying break with that huge finger. And we cut to black on that and we actually did break and I remember I had nowhere else to go because we're this big mansion and I wasn't

going to sit there and stare at him so I stood up and just walked through the double doors behind me not knowing what was back there it was a bathroom so I just like sat there and like splash water on my face and stare in the mirror and I remember thinking, all right, that goes here. That's gonna go at this part. So that was one of those temples that you built to. So people would be watching this stuff through the months of 2018 and 19 and send me these things and that's how we built the cornerstones of the building that this thing became.

What was it like, you know, Juan, what was it like interviewing Kobe Bryant for this project and what did his death have, you know, what kind of impact if it anything to his death have on how you were utilizing his footage in the documentary. The experience of interviewing him. And it was very much like he came in, I think he arrived before we did. And it was at his office. And he was in his office every morning, like first thing. And we got there to set up early

because that's what Kim Rook was always to, but he was there. And he called me into, he had a little, like a walking closet off of his office. It was like this of this, what do you want me to wear? It was very much like shake hands and be cordial, but it was like a business meeting. It wasn't like, hey, hang out.

Guys, need me coffee? Can I get you a donut? Nothing like that. And then he sat down and we just waved through the lights that we had set up and he sat down and said, all right, let's go. It was almost like it was tip off. This was very much like a game for him.

It was almost a competition to sit there. And the first few questions, he was going to test how much knowledge you had specifically. Like, oh, what era is that? What was the game? When did that first play? It was like, oh, December 4th, 1997, you guys played in LA and then you came back on February 1st and played in Jakarta. You needed to prove to him that you had done your research and then he would play along a little bit. And the eerie part, the crazy part was that he was going, it was the night of the 2000, I guess it was 19, uh, SPs and he was taking his chopper up to staples after that interview and getting getting on the helicopter.

So I will never forget it. We were, my wife and I were in, in the car on our way home from a troop to Atlanta. And just scrolling Twitter on the way home from the airport and seeing the rumors that he had died. And I said to my wife, like, help disgusting is this that people would do this, that they would save like the COVID-19. And by the time we got home, it was very clear what had happened. So coming into work that next day, it didn't make sense to us because we had been dealing

with with his people and him and him and the story so much. Like, if you had ranked 105 people for this, if you ranked from one to 105, likelihood to die before the thing came out, not to sound too morbid, but like Kobe would, in 105th, only because there was an 106 spot. It was that vital and that vibrant and that useful and strong. And like there was no question, there was no chance. It didn't make sense.

It still doesn't make sense now that that to speak of him in the past tense. But to answer the question of how we used him, it was always going to be the top of episode five. And that kind of like little nugget there of this young Kobe Bryant and Michael calling him that little Laker boy and all that, always going to be because the whole series was the timeline was the 98 season, with a halfway point of the 98 season was the all-star game. So we always knew that episode five was going to be that.

And if I ruled the world was always going to be that song, because it was kind of like the upcoming king and Lauren Hill and Nas had signed off. It was something that we're really looking forward to. And then I was like, oh my god, like, can we even, there are people at the NBA who want us to take him out entirely, which I've evenly disagreed with, because no one is going to forget about that. If anything, it's going to be, you know, his absence is going to be conspicuous. But Jordan's people ran it by Vanessa, and Vanessa signed off on it with no changes whatsoever. And then we decided to put that slate up in the loving memory of Kobe Bryant, which is the only, I mean, plenty of people, luminaries passed away before and during the making of that dog, but Kobe's the only, I mean, plenty of people, luminaries passed away before

and during the making of that dog, but Kobe is the only one who we felt deserve that in the middle of the film. Well, on an entirely different note to close this out, are there any other, any other golf stories that you would love to do a film about at some point in the future, anything come to mind? I mean, I always will have a soft spot for those the 99 Ryder Cup at Brooklyn, because that's, I bartended at Brooklyn

at the country club the summer before that. With part of the reason that I took that job being that I could actually go to that Ryder Cup and I wasn't able to go to that, but I would do, I mean, there's so many, there's so many great golf stories. I've read a good Wax Boyle that I think I would do, I mean, there's so many, there's so many great golf stories. I read a good walk spoil that I think I did a book report on it when I was like in, I don't know, with that, I've been like fifth or sixth grade.

Like I've always been one man audience for those kind of stories. So that's come back to me on that. I'll get out. Let's let's collaborate. I got a plenty of ideas of things I'd like to see you tackle over the years. Open ears. You give me a few strokes per side and we can talk about it over. We can make that happen.

Alright, well Jason congratulations on the film, we're excited to the golf world to see it as you're listening to this, it is already out so please do check it out. And thanks for spending some time with us and hope to do this again sometime. Cheers. You got me. Thanks for having me. You bet. Get the right club. Be the right club today. Yes!

That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. I'm gonna go.

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