It’s Byron Nelson week, and to you that may be just another week, but to me it is one of the highlights of the year. I’ve been working at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship for more than twenty years and I highly recommend it for anyone who loves golf, getting outside, or simply people watching. It’s a hoot.
I’ll never forget my first year; I was a rookie marshal constantly fearful of doing something dumb like walking in a players’ line. But when the rains started everything changed. And as the day progressed, the challenge became whether or not they were even going to play. At every break in the weather the rookies like myself would squeegee the greens and do our best to bail the water out of the bunkers. Then it would rain again.
You haven’t had any fun until you’ve bailed and raked bunkers for hours on end.
Weatherwise it was a terrible week. It must have rained ten or fifteen times, and of course every time it rained we had to evacuate the players. I’ll never forget seeing Greg Norman huddled under one of the hospitality tents, wet, cold and totally tick-off about getting wet I suppose. Apparently it never rains in Australia, or at least it never rains on Greg Norman. But we all survived, including Greg Norman, although I don’t think he ever returned to the Nelson. I suppose it could have been the rain, but more likely it was the less than sterling round he shot on Sunday.
For several years the Nelson had the reputation that it always rained, and stories like the one I just told likely contributed to the misnomer. The truth is we’ve only lost four days of golf in thirty years. Most of the time we worried about being scorched by the Texas sun, then again the sunshine brought out the beautiful ladies. It’s that ying/yang thing working, I suppose.
Regardless of the weather, it is always fun to get close to the players because you see and hear some amazing things. Like the time Nick Faldo missed the fourteenth fairway and was hopelessly in the trees. Being a dutiful marshal, I cleared an area so that he could safely pitch the ball out into the fairway, take his punishment and move on to the next hole. When he arrived at his ball I was astonished when he pointed toward the green and said, “I’m going right there,” then he asked me to clear the area. Understand, “Right there” required that he hit a 150 yard shot no more than six-feet high, under the trees, then carry the ball over a lake as well as a mound to an elevated green. It was just the kind of shot that you and I make everyday.
As I moved the crowd back I smiled politely at Nick as he focused on the shot at hand. This was the first time I had ever been close to Faldo and I was struck by how big he was; six-four I would guess and every bit of 225 pounds. As he took his stance over the ball I said to myself, “This is crazy. Pitch it out in the middle of the fairway and take six or seven out of the equation.”
Then, with a hundred people crowded as close as possible, Nick made his swing, not the easy, form-fitted swing that he usually makes from a fairway, but a low violent punch shot that sent the ball rifling through the trees like a .357 magnum. As his ball cleared the water it was traveling at perhaps a thousand miles an hour just before it impacted with the large mound that protected the green. Then, as if he had played a twenty-yard pitch shot, the ball bounced straight up in the air and fell softly on to the green and the crowd went crazy.
As those of us still standing close to Faldo deep in the trees cheered and laughed at the astonishing shot we had just witnessed, Nick slowly removed his glove and looked straight at me and winked as if to say, “Nothing too it, Mate.”
It was totally cool.
These days I’m stuck in the media tent during most of the Tournament, but occasionally I do get to watch some great golf up close and it is still as thrilling as ever.
The EDS Byron Nelson Championship has almost 2,000 volunteers helping out each year, and judging by the celebration we have at the end of each Tournament, every one of them has a blast. And, if you have the opportunity to work a tournament I’ll bet you’d feel the same. It doesn’t have to be the PGA Tour to be fun. The guys on the Nationwide, Champions and LPGA could use your help, as well and those tournaments might be even more fun to work. But even if you don’t have the time to work, make sure you get out to see some great golf in person. I’ve told that story about Nick Faldo a thousand times and there are a thousand more stories just waiting for you.
See you at the golf tournament.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tailor Made Golf Lessons
I took another golf lesson today. It was something that I’ve needed to do for a long time. Like many golfers, as little things go wrong with my swing, I apply Band-Aids here and there until I have no idea what I am doing.
I’m like the old joke where the guy goes to the tailor because one arm of his jacket is too long and the tailor tell him to tuck a little bit of it under his arm. Then he notices that one leg is longer than the other, so he tells him to bend his left knee. Finally he sees that his lapel is puckered up on one side, so he asked him to hold it down with his chin.
Leaving the tailor’s shop he passes two friends, and seeing their friend bent over and hobbling with his chin holding his lapel in place, one friend asked the other, “What’s wrong with Sam?” to which the other friend answers, “I don’t know but doesn’t his suit fit nice?”
It’s frustrating and amazing to me that what I think I am doing with my golf swing and what I am actually doing are sometimes so different. Granted my cat-like reflexes have far surpassed their nine lives and there are times when my rippling abs actually get in the way of me making a full turn, but I keep trying.
A couple of years ago the publisher of Tees2Greens and vaunted golf addict, Mike Casson and I attended Bill Moretti’s Academy of Golf Dynamics in Austin, Texas. And, except for the scorching heat that accompanied Austin in August, The Golf Magazine Top 25 Golf School was great fun and very helpful.
For me their teaching method was both beneficial and interesting to watch. It started with videoing each of the fifteen students’ swings and then spending no more than five minutes with each of us talking about what they saw. They told us that it was the first and the last time we would look at a video. Their reasoning was that they didn’t want us thinking about our swing in pieces. Some will likely disagree with that reasoning, but it is hard to disagree with Moretti’s twenty years of success.
Back on the range, the five instructors walked behind each of the fifteen students for not more than ten minutes before starting down the line with individual instructions. As you might expect, each set of instructions was different for each person but the goal was the same; the one-plane swing.
For the next three days I hit ten thousand balls more or less. My hands hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt and parts we’ll just call parts hurt as well. Inter-mixed with ten thousand one-plane swing balls, we putted for hours, chipped and pitched for several more hours, and dug holes in the sand traps until we were almost covered up. We worked on downhill lies, up-hill lies and side-hill lies and every lie in between. You name the shot and we worked on it and in the end that was one of the most beneficial aspects of the school for me.
I’m sure I benefited from the hours of one-plane swing practice, but learning proper technique for many different shots was something that has continued to help me. Rarely do I have a shot that I don’t know how to play; that doesn’t mean that I can actually hit the shot, but at least I do know what kind of shot I should be trying to hit.
Moretti sent each of us home with specific drills, video tips and an email address that we could use to talk about any swing problems we might have in the future. I don’t know if this constitutes a lifetime guarantee, but it’s close.
The bottom line here is that lessons are good for your game if for no other reason than it encourages you to hit ten thousand balls. Give your PGA Professional a call when you’re having problems; let me know how it goes and I’ll do the same. As a matter of fact, over the next few weeks I’m going to take lessons from D.A. Weibring and Randy Smith and if they don’t tell me to give up the game, I’ll let you know how it went.
I’m like the old joke where the guy goes to the tailor because one arm of his jacket is too long and the tailor tell him to tuck a little bit of it under his arm. Then he notices that one leg is longer than the other, so he tells him to bend his left knee. Finally he sees that his lapel is puckered up on one side, so he asked him to hold it down with his chin.
Leaving the tailor’s shop he passes two friends, and seeing their friend bent over and hobbling with his chin holding his lapel in place, one friend asked the other, “What’s wrong with Sam?” to which the other friend answers, “I don’t know but doesn’t his suit fit nice?”
It’s frustrating and amazing to me that what I think I am doing with my golf swing and what I am actually doing are sometimes so different. Granted my cat-like reflexes have far surpassed their nine lives and there are times when my rippling abs actually get in the way of me making a full turn, but I keep trying.
A couple of years ago the publisher of Tees2Greens and vaunted golf addict, Mike Casson and I attended Bill Moretti’s Academy of Golf Dynamics in Austin, Texas. And, except for the scorching heat that accompanied Austin in August, The Golf Magazine Top 25 Golf School was great fun and very helpful.
For me their teaching method was both beneficial and interesting to watch. It started with videoing each of the fifteen students’ swings and then spending no more than five minutes with each of us talking about what they saw. They told us that it was the first and the last time we would look at a video. Their reasoning was that they didn’t want us thinking about our swing in pieces. Some will likely disagree with that reasoning, but it is hard to disagree with Moretti’s twenty years of success.
Back on the range, the five instructors walked behind each of the fifteen students for not more than ten minutes before starting down the line with individual instructions. As you might expect, each set of instructions was different for each person but the goal was the same; the one-plane swing.
For the next three days I hit ten thousand balls more or less. My hands hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt and parts we’ll just call parts hurt as well. Inter-mixed with ten thousand one-plane swing balls, we putted for hours, chipped and pitched for several more hours, and dug holes in the sand traps until we were almost covered up. We worked on downhill lies, up-hill lies and side-hill lies and every lie in between. You name the shot and we worked on it and in the end that was one of the most beneficial aspects of the school for me.
I’m sure I benefited from the hours of one-plane swing practice, but learning proper technique for many different shots was something that has continued to help me. Rarely do I have a shot that I don’t know how to play; that doesn’t mean that I can actually hit the shot, but at least I do know what kind of shot I should be trying to hit.
Moretti sent each of us home with specific drills, video tips and an email address that we could use to talk about any swing problems we might have in the future. I don’t know if this constitutes a lifetime guarantee, but it’s close.
The bottom line here is that lessons are good for your game if for no other reason than it encourages you to hit ten thousand balls. Give your PGA Professional a call when you’re having problems; let me know how it goes and I’ll do the same. As a matter of fact, over the next few weeks I’m going to take lessons from D.A. Weibring and Randy Smith and if they don’t tell me to give up the game, I’ll let you know how it went.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Playing For Money
Last week I played in a $61,000 Calcutta. Gulp. There were sixty-four teams of two playing alternating shots. Each team’s handicap had to total eighteen. For example, a one and seventeen could play together, or a nine and a nine and so on. The field was divided into four groups teeing off at hole number one, nine, ten or eighteen and half the field was eliminated on each hole until only one team remained out of each group. Ties were decided with a chip-off. The four remaining teams then played for all the cash with the first place team taking fifty percent of the pot, second place got twenty-five percent, third placed received fifteen percent and fourth place grabbed the final ten percent and sixty teams went home with zip, zilch, jack and a big zero.
It was total cutthroat rules with all kinds of heckling, loud music and craziness. You weren’t allowed to touch anyone or hit anyone with a thrown object but other than that it was open season. If you were lucky you teed off late after some of the antics lost their appeal. You also learned to not screw around on the tee-box. Too many practice swings brought down the wrath of both players and spectators alike. They made fun of your swing, your clubs, your legs, even your wife’s legs, anything to throw you off your game.
This particular game had no relationship to the gentleman’s game that we all love to play. It was crude and rude and the perfect game for an all male outing. And, if you were aware of the rules it was funny, if you were not, it was a disaster.
It was also nerve wracking because you didn’t want to let your partner down and you didn’t want to look foolish, and of course there was the money. Lots and lots of money; enough to make my hands sweat for sure, and the closer you got to the final hole the more nerve wracking it became.
At some point everyone in the field realized that it was a game of luck and dealing with the pressure and that the best golfers don’t always win. A couple of years ago we had a 18 handicap who had consumed no less than ten beers rip a four iron 175 yards over water into a twenty mile per hour wind and land the ball four feet from the hole with his partner yelling at him to lay-up. He could have stood out there with a bucket of balls and never hit that shot again. I can still hear him slurring something like, “I didn’t come here to lay up.”
Oh, well. As Rocky Balboa once said, “Freak luck is a strange thing.”
My partner and I had a plan, which was basically don’t do anything stupid early, and the plan worked like a charm as we pared the first and second holes to move on. One more hole and we were in the money. However, on the third hole my partner, who was a ten handicap, got a little pumped-up and hooked a five-iron over the green into rough leaving me with a very difficult shot.
Standing over the ball I couldn’t muster enough moisture in my mouth to spit. My breath quickened and my legs felt a little weak. All I needed was a twenty yard wedge shot out of the rough, over a trap and onto a narrow finger of the green that was not more than thirty feet wide. As the boom-box blared Mariachi music I picked the ball cleanly and watched it fly over the mound toward the top of the flag and heard the crowd cheer. As I run up to see the results I met my partner who was shouting, “Great shot.”
At the top of the hill I surveyed my mastery of the game and how I had left my partner a makable six-footer with our opponents buried in the trap. How should we play the final hole for all the money and what should I do with my share?
Yes, I am the greatest golfer who ever lived, I thought right up until the other guy put his bunker shot about six inches from the hole and my partner ran the six footer by the hole and I had a tap in to tie the hole.
Well, to make a long story only half long, we lost the chip-off and the other guys went on to win the whole thing. As we rode back to the clubhouse with the cheers of the final hole echoing off in the distance, we apologized to each other ten or fifteen times and pledged to do better next year.
Later on, while I was loading my clubs into my car, I thought about the greatness of my chip and the accompanying cheers, smiles and back-slapping I had experienced. Then I started thinking about how my partner had missed such an easy putt. It didn’t matter that given twenty chances I could never make that chip shot again. It didn’t matter that I had played completely over my head. It didn’t even matter that my partner had carried me on his back most of the time.
It must have been the way Tiger felt at the Ryder Cup.
Yes, I think I need a new partner to benefit from my 18-stroke handicap.
It was total cutthroat rules with all kinds of heckling, loud music and craziness. You weren’t allowed to touch anyone or hit anyone with a thrown object but other than that it was open season. If you were lucky you teed off late after some of the antics lost their appeal. You also learned to not screw around on the tee-box. Too many practice swings brought down the wrath of both players and spectators alike. They made fun of your swing, your clubs, your legs, even your wife’s legs, anything to throw you off your game.
This particular game had no relationship to the gentleman’s game that we all love to play. It was crude and rude and the perfect game for an all male outing. And, if you were aware of the rules it was funny, if you were not, it was a disaster.
It was also nerve wracking because you didn’t want to let your partner down and you didn’t want to look foolish, and of course there was the money. Lots and lots of money; enough to make my hands sweat for sure, and the closer you got to the final hole the more nerve wracking it became.
At some point everyone in the field realized that it was a game of luck and dealing with the pressure and that the best golfers don’t always win. A couple of years ago we had a 18 handicap who had consumed no less than ten beers rip a four iron 175 yards over water into a twenty mile per hour wind and land the ball four feet from the hole with his partner yelling at him to lay-up. He could have stood out there with a bucket of balls and never hit that shot again. I can still hear him slurring something like, “I didn’t come here to lay up.”
Oh, well. As Rocky Balboa once said, “Freak luck is a strange thing.”
My partner and I had a plan, which was basically don’t do anything stupid early, and the plan worked like a charm as we pared the first and second holes to move on. One more hole and we were in the money. However, on the third hole my partner, who was a ten handicap, got a little pumped-up and hooked a five-iron over the green into rough leaving me with a very difficult shot.
Standing over the ball I couldn’t muster enough moisture in my mouth to spit. My breath quickened and my legs felt a little weak. All I needed was a twenty yard wedge shot out of the rough, over a trap and onto a narrow finger of the green that was not more than thirty feet wide. As the boom-box blared Mariachi music I picked the ball cleanly and watched it fly over the mound toward the top of the flag and heard the crowd cheer. As I run up to see the results I met my partner who was shouting, “Great shot.”
At the top of the hill I surveyed my mastery of the game and how I had left my partner a makable six-footer with our opponents buried in the trap. How should we play the final hole for all the money and what should I do with my share?
Yes, I am the greatest golfer who ever lived, I thought right up until the other guy put his bunker shot about six inches from the hole and my partner ran the six footer by the hole and I had a tap in to tie the hole.
Well, to make a long story only half long, we lost the chip-off and the other guys went on to win the whole thing. As we rode back to the clubhouse with the cheers of the final hole echoing off in the distance, we apologized to each other ten or fifteen times and pledged to do better next year.
Later on, while I was loading my clubs into my car, I thought about the greatness of my chip and the accompanying cheers, smiles and back-slapping I had experienced. Then I started thinking about how my partner had missed such an easy putt. It didn’t matter that given twenty chances I could never make that chip shot again. It didn’t matter that I had played completely over my head. It didn’t even matter that my partner had carried me on his back most of the time.
It must have been the way Tiger felt at the Ryder Cup.
Yes, I think I need a new partner to benefit from my 18-stroke handicap.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
What Makes A Great Golf Hole?
I’ve asked the question numerous times of golf course architects, golfers of various skill levels and lowly writers like myself: “What makes a great golf hole?” How can you compare the 18th at Pebble Beach to the 17th at Saint Andrews’ old course? What could the 13th at Augusta National possibly have in common with the 8th hole at Prairie Dunes in Kansas? Difficulty? Sure. Beauty? I suppose in an Emmitt Smith Dancing With The Stars sort of way. Maybe the secret is the strategic element; the golf hole that makes you think, or perhaps perplexes you with choices. Who really knows?
I for one have come to believe that golf course design is a strange amalgamation, like a beautiful woman with a crooked nose, or a scary movie that you can’t stop watching. It is seductive and sinister, brutal and beautiful, and as we’ve all said from time-to-time, I can’t describe it, but I’ll know it when I see it.
It was with this confused attitude that I recently accompanied D.A. Weibring, architect Steve Wolfard and design associate Josh Peters to Fair Oaks Ranch Golf and Country Club a few miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. ClubCorp, one of the premier owners and operators of golf clubs around the world, had asked D.A. and the team at Golf Resources to update Live Oak, one of the two championship courses at Fair Oaks. The work was almost finished and D.A. wanted to take one last look before the course opened.
For me, it was both educational and fascinating to watch the Golf Resources team at work. D.A. would stand on each tee looking down the fairway, imagining the perfect ball flight as well as the ones that strayed right and left. He looked at the size of each set of tees, commenting on how there was enough room to move the tee position each day. He asked Steve to make a note to trim a couple of branches that hung out a little too far over the new championship tee. As we drove our carts to the first landing area, he looked back and forth from the tee to the green and smiled. “This is great,” he said to Steve who took notes. “You can actually see the landing area from the tee, and when you look at the green you can tell what kind of shot the course wants you to hit.
“Look at this, Sam,” he said beckoning me to take a closer look. “See how the green invites the shot? You can challenge the hole by playing over the bunker, or you can play it safe and aim for the right side of the green. There’s a bailout area just to the right of the green that allows you to play all different kinds of shots depending on your skill level. That’s kind of cool, don’t you think?”
It was kind of cool I thought that D.A. and Steve had considered all of the different options for all of the different skill levels. “Golf is a game and it’s supposed to be fun,” D.A. said. “It’s not very much fun if you are continuously over matched.”
Having been “over matched” more than once, I certainly agree with that statement. Pine Valley from the back tees is not for the faint of heart, or the twenty-handicapper and unless you are just a glutton for punishment it’s not going to be a lot of fun either. I understand that there is a group of people that live to play the most difficult golf courses, but that’s not me.
However, I was surprised when D.A. said to me “I’m not sure we would have designed Live Oak any differently to satisfy the people who only want to play a course that’s really hard. From the championship tees with Sunday pin placements and fast greens, Live Oak will challenge anyone’s game.”
By four o’clock we were back at the clubhouse. D.A. was scheduled to give a guided tour of the new course to fifty or so club members. As I followed along behind I watched D. A. talk almost lovingly about the changes they had made to each hole. Now and then he would drop a ball and hit a shot to demonstrate angles and strategies. As the tour continued the smiles on the members’ faces grew wider as they started to understand what a wonderful golf course D. A. Weibring and Golf Resources had designed.
At the end of the tour a couple of female members of the club cornered D.A. to talk about how a particular tree on a particular par-five forced their tee shots to the right side of the fairway making it difficult to reach the green in two. As I watch, D.A. walked the ladies to the landing area and then showed how they had changed the slope of the fairway to help position them for their approach shot. He pointed out how the bunker had been moved slightly left so they could run the ball on to the green if that was their shot of choice. Then he dropped a ball and flew it to the green just under the pin, then dropped another and hit a bump and run shot to within ten feet of the pin. “I think you’re going to have a lot of fun on this hole,” he said.
As D. A. walked away, the ladies remained at the landing area discussing strategy. “This is really great,” one lady said to other. “But, I’m not sure my husband is going to continue to give me a stroke after I run it onto the green a few times.” I heard both ladies laughing as I drove away, and as I peaked back over my shoulder, I’m pretty sure I saw a high-five.
I for one have come to believe that golf course design is a strange amalgamation, like a beautiful woman with a crooked nose, or a scary movie that you can’t stop watching. It is seductive and sinister, brutal and beautiful, and as we’ve all said from time-to-time, I can’t describe it, but I’ll know it when I see it.
It was with this confused attitude that I recently accompanied D.A. Weibring, architect Steve Wolfard and design associate Josh Peters to Fair Oaks Ranch Golf and Country Club a few miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. ClubCorp, one of the premier owners and operators of golf clubs around the world, had asked D.A. and the team at Golf Resources to update Live Oak, one of the two championship courses at Fair Oaks. The work was almost finished and D.A. wanted to take one last look before the course opened.
For me, it was both educational and fascinating to watch the Golf Resources team at work. D.A. would stand on each tee looking down the fairway, imagining the perfect ball flight as well as the ones that strayed right and left. He looked at the size of each set of tees, commenting on how there was enough room to move the tee position each day. He asked Steve to make a note to trim a couple of branches that hung out a little too far over the new championship tee. As we drove our carts to the first landing area, he looked back and forth from the tee to the green and smiled. “This is great,” he said to Steve who took notes. “You can actually see the landing area from the tee, and when you look at the green you can tell what kind of shot the course wants you to hit.
“Look at this, Sam,” he said beckoning me to take a closer look. “See how the green invites the shot? You can challenge the hole by playing over the bunker, or you can play it safe and aim for the right side of the green. There’s a bailout area just to the right of the green that allows you to play all different kinds of shots depending on your skill level. That’s kind of cool, don’t you think?”
It was kind of cool I thought that D.A. and Steve had considered all of the different options for all of the different skill levels. “Golf is a game and it’s supposed to be fun,” D.A. said. “It’s not very much fun if you are continuously over matched.”
Having been “over matched” more than once, I certainly agree with that statement. Pine Valley from the back tees is not for the faint of heart, or the twenty-handicapper and unless you are just a glutton for punishment it’s not going to be a lot of fun either. I understand that there is a group of people that live to play the most difficult golf courses, but that’s not me.
However, I was surprised when D.A. said to me “I’m not sure we would have designed Live Oak any differently to satisfy the people who only want to play a course that’s really hard. From the championship tees with Sunday pin placements and fast greens, Live Oak will challenge anyone’s game.”
By four o’clock we were back at the clubhouse. D.A. was scheduled to give a guided tour of the new course to fifty or so club members. As I followed along behind I watched D. A. talk almost lovingly about the changes they had made to each hole. Now and then he would drop a ball and hit a shot to demonstrate angles and strategies. As the tour continued the smiles on the members’ faces grew wider as they started to understand what a wonderful golf course D. A. Weibring and Golf Resources had designed.
At the end of the tour a couple of female members of the club cornered D.A. to talk about how a particular tree on a particular par-five forced their tee shots to the right side of the fairway making it difficult to reach the green in two. As I watch, D.A. walked the ladies to the landing area and then showed how they had changed the slope of the fairway to help position them for their approach shot. He pointed out how the bunker had been moved slightly left so they could run the ball on to the green if that was their shot of choice. Then he dropped a ball and flew it to the green just under the pin, then dropped another and hit a bump and run shot to within ten feet of the pin. “I think you’re going to have a lot of fun on this hole,” he said.
As D. A. walked away, the ladies remained at the landing area discussing strategy. “This is really great,” one lady said to other. “But, I’m not sure my husband is going to continue to give me a stroke after I run it onto the green a few times.” I heard both ladies laughing as I drove away, and as I peaked back over my shoulder, I’m pretty sure I saw a high-five.
Confessions Of A Bad Putter
Perhaps you read “Confessions Of A Bad Caddie” a few weeks back. If you did then you know that throughout that experience I had a professional caddie keeping me out of trouble and D. A. Weibring cutting me 18 holes of slack throughout the day. However, for this article I was not allowed to use a stunt putter. No trick photography was used either. It was all me: the so-so, the bad and the ugly.
Truthfully, I was never a very good putter, but for some reason I have become a really bad putter of late. I have three putted from six-feet, left thirty-foot putts ten-feet short, and putted twenty-foot putts ten-feet long. I am a lost ball in the high weeds of putting; a miss-hit waiting to happen; and a double-breaker away from putting the ball completely off the green. To say I need help is an understatement of Biblical proportion.
Those were the very words I used to describe my putting to Marius Filtmalter one of the most knowledgeable putting experts in the world. Marius, speaking with a slight German accent, smiled knowingly then went on non-stop for twenty minutes about address, angle, take-away, follow through, loft, speed, and acceleration. He is an encyclopedia of putting, and why wouldn’t he be? Marius has tested more than 40,000 putters including Tiger Woods. Using high-tech laser measuring instrumentation to build his enormous database, he may know more about putting than anyone else in the world. “Our goal was to understand what great putters had in common,” he said. “Once you have completed the test we can overlay your scores to any of the 40,000 putting profiles we have in our database. Wouldn’t you like to see how your putting stroke compares to Tiger Woods?”
“Yes” I answered knowing that this story could use a good punch line.
The test began with my putter disappearing for a few minutes. They checked the length, the loft, the grip and a few more things I didn’t even know a putter had. It seems that my putter had no loft and the grip was not aligned with the putter face. “Not so good, huh?”
“Not so good” Marius repeated, “but not as bad as you might think.” And then he went on to tell me how clever our brains were and how, in many cases, it would compensate for things like the face and the grip being out of line. “Let’s see how that brain of yours is working. Make a few putts for me, okay?”
Oh no I thought, he’s already discovered my real weakness, however with my limited resources I followed along. I watched as he attached a tiny laser to my putter shaft and aligned it to the target hole about ten feet away. Then he asked me to putt five times using my normal set-up and stroke, which I did. Then he asked me to putt five times using my right hand only followed by five times using only my left hand. As I fought bravely to make each putt I continued to do play-by-play descriptions of the problem I was having with each swing of the putter; that was a push, I hit that on the toe, etc. Marius just smiled.
Pointing to a series of charts on the computer screen, Marius said, “Look at this, with both hands on the putter you are one degree open at address and six degrees open at impact. With your right hand only you are one degree open at address and almost ten degrees open at impact. When you switch to your left hand only you were still one degree open at address but at impact you were two degrees closed. Let’s try something,” he said. “Have you ever used a claw, or a left hand low grip?”
Looking a bit like Chris DiMarco’s father, I putted five times using the claw grip. The first putt shot two feet wide of the target but as I learned to lower my right elbow with each successive putt the ball tracked closer and closer to the hole until the fifth putt rolled softly into the cup. One out of five was hardly anything to write home about, but something felt better.
Then with my left hand low I struck five more putts making four of them and suddenly I was feeling a lot better. Could it be this simple?
Back at the computer screen Marius pointed out how my alignment at impact with the left hand low was now almost perfect and how my take-away had smoothed out, however he still had a problem with my acceleration and the length of my follow through. He pointed out how my putter did not achieve top speed until long after the ball had been struck and part of that was caused by the long follow through. He showed me how most great putters accelerated quickly to the proper speed creating virtually a flat acceleration line, however as soon as the ball was struck the speed rapidly declined. Indeed, my acceleration line was a loop with only one small point on the curve actually achieving top speed and by that time the ball was long gone.
Shortening your follow through doesn’t mean that you decelerate he emphasized. Remember, a virtual flat acceleration line is what you are trying to achieve. It feels different, even strange at first, but he assured me that with practice it would start to feel natural.
“Sam, you have the yips… but only in your right hand,” Marius said quietly as if to protect me from the “Y” word. “By putting with your left hand low you’ve greatly reduced the effects of your right hand. Ideally your right hand should just be along for the ride.” Then sitting at the computer screen he over-laid Tiger Woods’ putting charts on top of mine; it was like looking at a Michelangelo painting over laying a first grader’s stick figures. “This is what you’re shooting for,” he said with nary a smile. “You may never get there but at least we know which direction you should be going.”
So, with my left hand low technique still spinning in my head I headed for the practice green. Tiger’s silky smooth lines were still etched on my mind’s eye as I stroked putt after putt. I focused on maintaining my stroke at forty-five percent take away fifty-five percent follow through. Truthfully, it felt awkward and more than once the long follow through tiptoed back into my technique, but I kept trying. After about a half-hour I decided to take a break. As I sat there sipping on a tall cool one I wondered if Tiger practiced his putting as much as I did that day.
Truthfully, I was never a very good putter, but for some reason I have become a really bad putter of late. I have three putted from six-feet, left thirty-foot putts ten-feet short, and putted twenty-foot putts ten-feet long. I am a lost ball in the high weeds of putting; a miss-hit waiting to happen; and a double-breaker away from putting the ball completely off the green. To say I need help is an understatement of Biblical proportion.
Those were the very words I used to describe my putting to Marius Filtmalter one of the most knowledgeable putting experts in the world. Marius, speaking with a slight German accent, smiled knowingly then went on non-stop for twenty minutes about address, angle, take-away, follow through, loft, speed, and acceleration. He is an encyclopedia of putting, and why wouldn’t he be? Marius has tested more than 40,000 putters including Tiger Woods. Using high-tech laser measuring instrumentation to build his enormous database, he may know more about putting than anyone else in the world. “Our goal was to understand what great putters had in common,” he said. “Once you have completed the test we can overlay your scores to any of the 40,000 putting profiles we have in our database. Wouldn’t you like to see how your putting stroke compares to Tiger Woods?”
“Yes” I answered knowing that this story could use a good punch line.
The test began with my putter disappearing for a few minutes. They checked the length, the loft, the grip and a few more things I didn’t even know a putter had. It seems that my putter had no loft and the grip was not aligned with the putter face. “Not so good, huh?”
“Not so good” Marius repeated, “but not as bad as you might think.” And then he went on to tell me how clever our brains were and how, in many cases, it would compensate for things like the face and the grip being out of line. “Let’s see how that brain of yours is working. Make a few putts for me, okay?”
Oh no I thought, he’s already discovered my real weakness, however with my limited resources I followed along. I watched as he attached a tiny laser to my putter shaft and aligned it to the target hole about ten feet away. Then he asked me to putt five times using my normal set-up and stroke, which I did. Then he asked me to putt five times using my right hand only followed by five times using only my left hand. As I fought bravely to make each putt I continued to do play-by-play descriptions of the problem I was having with each swing of the putter; that was a push, I hit that on the toe, etc. Marius just smiled.
Pointing to a series of charts on the computer screen, Marius said, “Look at this, with both hands on the putter you are one degree open at address and six degrees open at impact. With your right hand only you are one degree open at address and almost ten degrees open at impact. When you switch to your left hand only you were still one degree open at address but at impact you were two degrees closed. Let’s try something,” he said. “Have you ever used a claw, or a left hand low grip?”
Looking a bit like Chris DiMarco’s father, I putted five times using the claw grip. The first putt shot two feet wide of the target but as I learned to lower my right elbow with each successive putt the ball tracked closer and closer to the hole until the fifth putt rolled softly into the cup. One out of five was hardly anything to write home about, but something felt better.
Then with my left hand low I struck five more putts making four of them and suddenly I was feeling a lot better. Could it be this simple?
Back at the computer screen Marius pointed out how my alignment at impact with the left hand low was now almost perfect and how my take-away had smoothed out, however he still had a problem with my acceleration and the length of my follow through. He pointed out how my putter did not achieve top speed until long after the ball had been struck and part of that was caused by the long follow through. He showed me how most great putters accelerated quickly to the proper speed creating virtually a flat acceleration line, however as soon as the ball was struck the speed rapidly declined. Indeed, my acceleration line was a loop with only one small point on the curve actually achieving top speed and by that time the ball was long gone.
Shortening your follow through doesn’t mean that you decelerate he emphasized. Remember, a virtual flat acceleration line is what you are trying to achieve. It feels different, even strange at first, but he assured me that with practice it would start to feel natural.
“Sam, you have the yips… but only in your right hand,” Marius said quietly as if to protect me from the “Y” word. “By putting with your left hand low you’ve greatly reduced the effects of your right hand. Ideally your right hand should just be along for the ride.” Then sitting at the computer screen he over-laid Tiger Woods’ putting charts on top of mine; it was like looking at a Michelangelo painting over laying a first grader’s stick figures. “This is what you’re shooting for,” he said with nary a smile. “You may never get there but at least we know which direction you should be going.”
So, with my left hand low technique still spinning in my head I headed for the practice green. Tiger’s silky smooth lines were still etched on my mind’s eye as I stroked putt after putt. I focused on maintaining my stroke at forty-five percent take away fifty-five percent follow through. Truthfully, it felt awkward and more than once the long follow through tiptoed back into my technique, but I kept trying. After about a half-hour I decided to take a break. As I sat there sipping on a tall cool one I wondered if Tiger practiced his putting as much as I did that day.
Confessions Of A Bad Caddy
It was 8:30 Thursday morning and I was standing on the number one tee-box at Oak Hill Country Club in San Antonio, Texas for the start of the AT&T Championship Pro-Am. The temperature was forty-seven degrees and the wind was blowing twenty-five miles per hour out of the north, gusting to thirty, when D.A. Weibring, a multiple tournament winner on both the PGA and Champions Tours, turned to me and said, “What do you like here, Sam?” It was at that very moment that I knew I was out of my element.
Luckily for D.A., the Champions Tour, Oak Hill Country Club and golf in general, Troy Martin, D.A.’s regular caddy and a terrific golfer in his own right, stood only a few feet behind me whispering, “I like a hybrid three” which I promptly repeated to D.A. as I offered him the three.
“I agree” D.A. said, taking the club from my hand and winking.
Such was the beginning of my career as a caddy. Frankly, I had worried about it all night long; I worried about walking in someone’s line, standing in the wrong place, not knowing the yardage, or handing D.A. the wrong club. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass D.A. But all my worrying turned out to be for nothing. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because being a caddy is easy; it was because Troy Martin, D.A.’s real caddy, was never far behind me. He seemed to know the yardage from every tree, every bunker (back and front), and every blade of grass. Just as importantly, he knew D.A.’s swing, his style and his temperament almost as well as D.A. did himself. He knew when to talk and when not to. He had a joke when it was called for and soothing words when necessary. I may have been D.A.’s honorary caddy that day, but thankfully Troy was my caddy and he was not about to let me screw things up.
With the hybrid three that I had recommended, D.A. drove the ball to the top of the hill in perfect position, and then he went to work. On the forward tee D.A. introduced himself to his four amateur partners for the day, Steve Herrera, Barbosa Zaragosa, Mike Newby and Terry McGowan, perhaps not the best golf team in the world, but certainly some of the nicest guys you’ll every meet. As each man teed off in various directions, D.A. was quick with words of encouragement. As the day went on D.A. spent more and more time with each player offering tip and high-fives.
Walking down the first fairway I said to D.A., “Not everybody likes playing in Pro-Ams, but you seem to really enjoy it?”
“I do enjoy it,” he answered. “And I think most of the guys on the Champions Tour do as well. Pro-Ams are the life-blood of our Tour. Maybe it’s because we are getting older and we appreciate everything a little more, but I really do appreciate the fans and the opportunity to continue to play golf.”
As we approached his ball in the middle of the first fairway, D.A. stepped away from me and pulled his glove on, which was my signal to pause the interview. “What have you got, Sam?”
Over my shoulder a familiar voice whispered, “135 to the front, 144 to the pin.” Troy handed me two wedges and a nine iron to offer D.A. and said, “I like a smooth nine,” which I repeated with confidence.
“Sounds good,” D.A. answered, then pulled the nine-iron from my hand and proceeded to hit the ball four feet below the pin. A few minutes later he sunk the putt to birdie the first hole then turned to me and said, “Good job” as if I had actually contributed to his success. Then with his smile still flashing he turned to his Pro-Am partners and shouted, “What do you say we just win this thing, okay?”
As the round continued my admiration for D.A.’s golf skills grew with each swing, but I was even more impressed with his respect for the game; that’s when I realized that perhaps those two things were inseparable. From the middle of the fairways, where D.A.’s ball seemed to always land, we chatted about Oak Hill, a golf course designed by A.W. Tillinghast in 1922 and how this 6,765-yard course was protected by the Bermuda grass rough that surrounded each tiny green. “These Spanish Oaks have been here for more than a hundred years,” he said looking around. “And this golf course has been here more than eighty years and luckily nobody has turned it into a high-rise building or a parking lot.” Then he took a long sip of water and said, “Here’s hoping it lasts another hundred years.”
By the seventeenth hole my feet and back were starting to ache a bit and D.A. was still smiling and shouting out encouragement to his teammates. From the middle of the fairway Troy told me that it was 121 to the carry the bunker that protected the front of the green and 133 to the pin. Interestingly, it looked further to me, which made me ask D.A., “What do you do when your eyes tell you one distance and your caddy tells you something different?”
“The first thing I do is ask for the yardage again just in case I heard him wrong or he read it wrong, then I trust what he says,” he answered. “Everything we do is about trust. Without trust everything is tentative.”
The eighteenth hole at Oak Hill is an unusual 203-yard par 3 through an opening in the Spanish Oaks into the wind. Troy handed me a hybrid three to hand to D.A. Frankly, a three seemed like a lot of club to me and I suspect D.A. saw that on my face when he said, “I guess you noticed how much wind there was above the trees, uh?” As I glanced up to the top of the trees for the first time D.A. launched a perfect hybrid three landing the ball no more than ten feet from the hole then turned to me and said, “Nice call, Sam.”
Luckily for D.A., the Champions Tour, Oak Hill Country Club and golf in general, Troy Martin, D.A.’s regular caddy and a terrific golfer in his own right, stood only a few feet behind me whispering, “I like a hybrid three” which I promptly repeated to D.A. as I offered him the three.
“I agree” D.A. said, taking the club from my hand and winking.
Such was the beginning of my career as a caddy. Frankly, I had worried about it all night long; I worried about walking in someone’s line, standing in the wrong place, not knowing the yardage, or handing D.A. the wrong club. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass D.A. But all my worrying turned out to be for nothing. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because being a caddy is easy; it was because Troy Martin, D.A.’s real caddy, was never far behind me. He seemed to know the yardage from every tree, every bunker (back and front), and every blade of grass. Just as importantly, he knew D.A.’s swing, his style and his temperament almost as well as D.A. did himself. He knew when to talk and when not to. He had a joke when it was called for and soothing words when necessary. I may have been D.A.’s honorary caddy that day, but thankfully Troy was my caddy and he was not about to let me screw things up.
With the hybrid three that I had recommended, D.A. drove the ball to the top of the hill in perfect position, and then he went to work. On the forward tee D.A. introduced himself to his four amateur partners for the day, Steve Herrera, Barbosa Zaragosa, Mike Newby and Terry McGowan, perhaps not the best golf team in the world, but certainly some of the nicest guys you’ll every meet. As each man teed off in various directions, D.A. was quick with words of encouragement. As the day went on D.A. spent more and more time with each player offering tip and high-fives.
Walking down the first fairway I said to D.A., “Not everybody likes playing in Pro-Ams, but you seem to really enjoy it?”
“I do enjoy it,” he answered. “And I think most of the guys on the Champions Tour do as well. Pro-Ams are the life-blood of our Tour. Maybe it’s because we are getting older and we appreciate everything a little more, but I really do appreciate the fans and the opportunity to continue to play golf.”
As we approached his ball in the middle of the first fairway, D.A. stepped away from me and pulled his glove on, which was my signal to pause the interview. “What have you got, Sam?”
Over my shoulder a familiar voice whispered, “135 to the front, 144 to the pin.” Troy handed me two wedges and a nine iron to offer D.A. and said, “I like a smooth nine,” which I repeated with confidence.
“Sounds good,” D.A. answered, then pulled the nine-iron from my hand and proceeded to hit the ball four feet below the pin. A few minutes later he sunk the putt to birdie the first hole then turned to me and said, “Good job” as if I had actually contributed to his success. Then with his smile still flashing he turned to his Pro-Am partners and shouted, “What do you say we just win this thing, okay?”
As the round continued my admiration for D.A.’s golf skills grew with each swing, but I was even more impressed with his respect for the game; that’s when I realized that perhaps those two things were inseparable. From the middle of the fairways, where D.A.’s ball seemed to always land, we chatted about Oak Hill, a golf course designed by A.W. Tillinghast in 1922 and how this 6,765-yard course was protected by the Bermuda grass rough that surrounded each tiny green. “These Spanish Oaks have been here for more than a hundred years,” he said looking around. “And this golf course has been here more than eighty years and luckily nobody has turned it into a high-rise building or a parking lot.” Then he took a long sip of water and said, “Here’s hoping it lasts another hundred years.”
By the seventeenth hole my feet and back were starting to ache a bit and D.A. was still smiling and shouting out encouragement to his teammates. From the middle of the fairway Troy told me that it was 121 to the carry the bunker that protected the front of the green and 133 to the pin. Interestingly, it looked further to me, which made me ask D.A., “What do you do when your eyes tell you one distance and your caddy tells you something different?”
“The first thing I do is ask for the yardage again just in case I heard him wrong or he read it wrong, then I trust what he says,” he answered. “Everything we do is about trust. Without trust everything is tentative.”
The eighteenth hole at Oak Hill is an unusual 203-yard par 3 through an opening in the Spanish Oaks into the wind. Troy handed me a hybrid three to hand to D.A. Frankly, a three seemed like a lot of club to me and I suspect D.A. saw that on my face when he said, “I guess you noticed how much wind there was above the trees, uh?” As I glanced up to the top of the trees for the first time D.A. launched a perfect hybrid three landing the ball no more than ten feet from the hole then turned to me and said, “Nice call, Sam.”
Monday, April 2, 2007
Hobnobbing With Tiger And The Boys
You might think that those of us who work in the media room of golf tournaments year after year would get to know the players pretty well and perhaps some of the guys do, but most of the players, including Tiger Woods, couldn’t pick me out of a two-man line-up.
Now, I’ve talked to Tiger a dozen times at press briefings. I even made him smile once when I asked him a question about Stanford basketball. But you should know that straying off course with a question for Tiger is always chancy because most of the time he is all business. A couple of years ago a reporter in Dallas asked Tiger what he thought about the girls in Texas and he stood up and left the press conference. The guy who asked the question was pulled aside by an Official who threatened to pull his credentials.
At that same Tournament Miss Texas showed up at the media area just behind the 18 green to have her picture made with Tiger. As she stood there in her high heels wearing her Miss Texas sash waiting for Tiger to finish, I asked her if she had made arrangements to meet Tiger to which her agent answered that they we just going to grab him for 10 seconds.
“He’s not going to stop,” I told them, but they didn’t believe me until he sped by, surrounded by bodyguards, with nary a glance at the beautiful young lady wearing a crown. I saw the same thing happen to Ivan (Pudge) Rodriquez the former Texas Ranger and present day Detroit Tiger catcher. Standing there like Miss Texas he shouted, “Tiger… Tiger…” to no avail as the most famous athlete in the world walked by without even a glance.
In Tiger’s defense, not that he needs that from me, I’m sure he has ten-thousand people a day wanting everything from an autograph to a loan, so in a strange way the most polite thing to do is to keep on walking. It’s also a very Elvis thing to do.
Not everyone is as hard to get to know as Tiger. I once ran into Davis Love III at a restaurant. There was even this awkward moment when we looked at one another as if to acknowledge that we might have known each other. He smiled and said, “Hey,” without breaking stride or stopping to chitchat. Yes, we’re definitely tight.
Three or four years ago I helped Jasper Parnevik’s nanny corral his kids who were running around the pressroom barefoot. I never realized that I was speaking to the future Mrs. Tiger Woods, but I guess at that point she didn’t know either, otherwise I might have been invited to the wedding.
I helped Fred Couples find his car in the parking lot one day. I was taking a shortcut through the parking lot in a stolen golf cart and I stopped to ask if he need a ride. He was eating a banana and looking lost. He made a comment about how all of the Tournament cars looked alike and he was right. I saw no reason to remind him that his name was on his parking spot. When we arrived at his car he politely said, “Thank’s Tom,” even though my name badge said Sam.
I met Butch Harmon four or five years ago when I was helping to introduce Harmon Tour Design golf shafts. Unlike Tiger, Butch knows my name and whenever we see each other at Tournaments or at the PGA Show he always speaks. I had dinner with Butch and his brothers at the PGA Show and I never laughed so hard in my life. Billy Harmon, Butch’s youngest brother posed the following question to Butch, “You won exactly one PGA event in your entire life, and now you’re the greatest golf teacher in the world; how does that work?”
Butch’s answer is unprintable, funny but still unprintable.
One of my favorite golf celebrities is Lee Trevino, and I never realized how famous he was until I met him. It was really cool. I was in Fort Worth, Texas doing some work at United Sports Technologies, the high-performance shaft manufacturer, when I looked up and there he was; a bit older but the smile and the sound of his voice was the same guy I had seen on television a thousand times. I sat and listened to him tell stories about Jack and Arnie for almost two hours. It was magical.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to help my client, I asked Lee if I could re-shaft his backup putter with UST’s new putter shaft. “I don’t have a backup putter,” he answered. “If the one in my bag acts up I tie it to the bumper of my car and drag it home with the trunk open so the other clubs can hear what will happen to them if they screw up.”
Just so you know, I am not well known internationally, either. For example, a few years back I was in the pressroom at the Byron Nelson Championship when a teenager by the name of Sergio Garcia almost had his PGA career delayed because he didn’t have fifty-bucks with him required for the PGA’s insurance. His agent and two or three of us in the pressroom loaned him the money and the rest is history, which reminds me that he still owes me $10.
I’ve met a lot of great golfers over the years including Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, however Phil Tataurangi, the lad from Auckland, New Zealand, is the only PGA Pro that I ever saw eat an earthworm. It was on the back nine in a rainy Pro-Am when he spotted the worm crawling near the fifteenth green. He picked it up and said something like, “In New Zealand these are a delicacy,” then dropped it into his mouth.
From that point on I never complained about the food in the pressroom.
Now, I’ve talked to Tiger a dozen times at press briefings. I even made him smile once when I asked him a question about Stanford basketball. But you should know that straying off course with a question for Tiger is always chancy because most of the time he is all business. A couple of years ago a reporter in Dallas asked Tiger what he thought about the girls in Texas and he stood up and left the press conference. The guy who asked the question was pulled aside by an Official who threatened to pull his credentials.
At that same Tournament Miss Texas showed up at the media area just behind the 18 green to have her picture made with Tiger. As she stood there in her high heels wearing her Miss Texas sash waiting for Tiger to finish, I asked her if she had made arrangements to meet Tiger to which her agent answered that they we just going to grab him for 10 seconds.
“He’s not going to stop,” I told them, but they didn’t believe me until he sped by, surrounded by bodyguards, with nary a glance at the beautiful young lady wearing a crown. I saw the same thing happen to Ivan (Pudge) Rodriquez the former Texas Ranger and present day Detroit Tiger catcher. Standing there like Miss Texas he shouted, “Tiger… Tiger…” to no avail as the most famous athlete in the world walked by without even a glance.
In Tiger’s defense, not that he needs that from me, I’m sure he has ten-thousand people a day wanting everything from an autograph to a loan, so in a strange way the most polite thing to do is to keep on walking. It’s also a very Elvis thing to do.
Not everyone is as hard to get to know as Tiger. I once ran into Davis Love III at a restaurant. There was even this awkward moment when we looked at one another as if to acknowledge that we might have known each other. He smiled and said, “Hey,” without breaking stride or stopping to chitchat. Yes, we’re definitely tight.
Three or four years ago I helped Jasper Parnevik’s nanny corral his kids who were running around the pressroom barefoot. I never realized that I was speaking to the future Mrs. Tiger Woods, but I guess at that point she didn’t know either, otherwise I might have been invited to the wedding.
I helped Fred Couples find his car in the parking lot one day. I was taking a shortcut through the parking lot in a stolen golf cart and I stopped to ask if he need a ride. He was eating a banana and looking lost. He made a comment about how all of the Tournament cars looked alike and he was right. I saw no reason to remind him that his name was on his parking spot. When we arrived at his car he politely said, “Thank’s Tom,” even though my name badge said Sam.
I met Butch Harmon four or five years ago when I was helping to introduce Harmon Tour Design golf shafts. Unlike Tiger, Butch knows my name and whenever we see each other at Tournaments or at the PGA Show he always speaks. I had dinner with Butch and his brothers at the PGA Show and I never laughed so hard in my life. Billy Harmon, Butch’s youngest brother posed the following question to Butch, “You won exactly one PGA event in your entire life, and now you’re the greatest golf teacher in the world; how does that work?”
Butch’s answer is unprintable, funny but still unprintable.
One of my favorite golf celebrities is Lee Trevino, and I never realized how famous he was until I met him. It was really cool. I was in Fort Worth, Texas doing some work at United Sports Technologies, the high-performance shaft manufacturer, when I looked up and there he was; a bit older but the smile and the sound of his voice was the same guy I had seen on television a thousand times. I sat and listened to him tell stories about Jack and Arnie for almost two hours. It was magical.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to help my client, I asked Lee if I could re-shaft his backup putter with UST’s new putter shaft. “I don’t have a backup putter,” he answered. “If the one in my bag acts up I tie it to the bumper of my car and drag it home with the trunk open so the other clubs can hear what will happen to them if they screw up.”
Just so you know, I am not well known internationally, either. For example, a few years back I was in the pressroom at the Byron Nelson Championship when a teenager by the name of Sergio Garcia almost had his PGA career delayed because he didn’t have fifty-bucks with him required for the PGA’s insurance. His agent and two or three of us in the pressroom loaned him the money and the rest is history, which reminds me that he still owes me $10.
I’ve met a lot of great golfers over the years including Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, however Phil Tataurangi, the lad from Auckland, New Zealand, is the only PGA Pro that I ever saw eat an earthworm. It was on the back nine in a rainy Pro-Am when he spotted the worm crawling near the fifteenth green. He picked it up and said something like, “In New Zealand these are a delicacy,” then dropped it into his mouth.
From that point on I never complained about the food in the pressroom.
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