Bernhard Langer - Part 6 (The Senior Tour - Act 1)

Lee Trevino 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to do that.

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

So Bernhard, before we get you on the senior tour, because that's the last thing that uh we've kind of held at the end to cover with you, uh, we should acknowledge the passing of your mother recently at the age of 100.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, she was uh very special person, um very hardworking, and she always said, if I can't work anymore, I want to die. And uh last seven years have not been good for her. She was pretty much helpless in bed and couldn't do anything. But um up until about 93, she was uh you know doing very well, and we were very blessed. I was blessed to have her as my mother, and uh our uh kids were blessed to have her as her grandmother, and everybody around that she impacted with her life. Uh, she did a lot of good. So very fortunate to have you know, to have parents that have been married and not divorced, and to have uh a family where I always felt loved. So it was for me a wonderful childhood and a great upbringing.

Mike Gonzalez 1:23

Yeah, well, our faith teaches us that uh death is not an end but a new beginning.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah. Exactly, yeah. And how we felt about her, it was a celebration of life. Um, you know, celebrating the hundred years she lived and how she impacted people and how she treated everybody and her faith in God and all of that. So it wasn't there was obviously some mourning because whenever you lose a loved one, it's it's tough and it's too soon. But it was far more celebrating than anything else.

Mike Gonzalez 1:56

So assuming that we've got uh fans of Bernhard Longer and a hundred years listening to this interview, what would you like them to know about your mother and how she impacted you as a human being?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, first of all, she was uh she went to church every day, so her face was a big part of her life. Uh she was also a very hard-working woman. Um she had to be. She she had to work when she was in her teens. Uh, she had a misschool to go to work just to get two meals a day or three, because they couldn't afford it at home. They had uh 12 kids and they couldn't feed all of them, so they had to go out and work at other farms and other places just to get a meal. Uh and you know that impacted me to some extent. Uh, I think that's where I got my work ethic from, from my parents. My dad was a very hard worker as well. And growing up in a poor environment probably made me try even harder to not have to suffer through the things my parents did and have a better life. Uh so those are some of the very basics. But the the the greatest impact was facing God and uh telling the truth. That was very big. Uh there was no chance you could get away with a lie or a white lie. You had to tell the truth no matter what. They pounded that home, you know, every day, every week. Uh they always said if you lied to us, that hurts us far more than if you tell us the worst news you can possibly tell us, but you tell the truth. And so that's what I came up with, and um, you know, that's why I'd like to think I'm a pretty honest person.

Bruce Devlin 3:52

Well, I guess so.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

And I appreciate other people who you know are the same. And uh and a handshake meant uh a handshake and a word meant a word. It wasn't uh I tell you yes and and I do no afterwards, or I promise something and I do the opposite. Um that that meant a great deal. So uh I'm I learned a lot of good life lessons from my parents. And another one was just always being welcomed at home, at home. There was always love. No matter where I traveled to, whether it was Australia or Morocco or Spain or England, it didn't matter when I came home. It it wasn't, well, did you do good or bad? It was oh, we love you, glad you're back home. And she always remembered that you know, you gotta let the other ones win too. Whenever I was myself, and I said, Well, I I I could have won and I finished second, or I didn't do as well. Oh, that's okay. Let the other ones win too. You know, you get your share. So uh it was that kind of attitude, huh?

Mike Gonzalez 5:07

Well, uh, you know, I was blessed to to have my grandmother around German grandmother till the age of 101. And so, like you, I was quite grateful that my kids got a chance to hear directly some of those life lessons from these women that lived long, long time ago when times were much different.

unknown 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Oh yeah, yeah, times were very different and very, very difficult. You know, the right and certainly my mom's generation and my dad's, they lived through World War II when they were teenagers and uh becoming an adult and everything was destroyed. It was very, very difficult and and uh just just hard. Life was hard.

Mike Gonzalez 5:49

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's come back to to the present day. And uh um uh you were hoping to defend uh being the two-time defending champion at the Chubb recently, defend that championship, but uh you had a little workout and uh didn't quite go according to plan, did it?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

No, it didn't. Yeah, I was uh very disappointed not be able to play uh the Chubb tournament in in Naples, uh, because it's one of those courses where I feel my game uh is really suited for. It's it's a very it's a little shorter, 6,900 yards, uh part 72, I think it is. And uh uh very narrow, a lot of punishment if you miss the fairway from you know penalty areas to OB to water to everything. So you have to hit fairways and greens, and that's one of my strengths. Um uh my strengths is not to hit it far, like the tournament we played in Hawaii a few weeks ago. Uh you know, that was set up for the bombers, wide fairways, no rough. It was all mostly about distance and then hitting it far and making some putts. Anyway, so yeah, I was uh I tore my Achilles tendon on uh February 1st, I think, and uh that put an end to golf and every other activity for uh the next few weeks and months. And so I'm uh trying to recuperate from that, and uh you know the had to cancel the masters, which was disappointing too, because I had just announced it was gonna be my last masters this year, and so that's not gonna happen now. I'm hoping to be there in person. I should be able to walk again, but I'm I won't be playing golf. Anyways, working on the rehab. Uh surgery went well, everything else looks good, and uh should be hopefully back by May or June.

Mike Gonzalez 7:58

Yeah, well, good. Um I guess your wife is getting a taste of what retirement might be like for you. Is she having fun or not?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

She has to drive me around, you know, drive me to the physiotherapist, drive me to the hyperbaric chamber, drive me here, drive me there. And so her schedule is uh disrupted by by what I have to do at this point in time. But uh that will pass. And uh yeah, we'll have to get uh used to each other again. It's her and me. Uh and yeah, we've seen more of each other last couple of weeks than than we have for a while.

Mike Gonzalez 8:35

Yeah, that's but but on a serious note, you've had some time now to sit and think uh what's been on your mind as it relates to future goals, setting new goals for yourself. Uh maybe you've thought about uh life after golf. What's been going through your head?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Well, that kind of uh has been at the back of my head for a little while now, but uh I as I've said lately, I still think I have some good years in me. Uh as I look back, I was still, you know, fifth in the Schwab Cup. I was actually second in the Schwab Cup till the very last tournament last year, right? And then got passed by three guys. But uh I'm I'm not just uh a run-of-the-mill number on the tour, I'm still competitive. And uh I think that's that will determine how long I play. So if as long I play golf to win, I play golf to have fun, and obviously to impact other people and be a role model. Yeah, uh, but I I don't see I would enjoy finishing 40s, 50s every week, week after week. Uh I think that's that will be the time. Uh I don't think I'm there yet. My uh you know near future is to get healthy again and to play competitive golf, and then we'll see if I can come back as strong as I was before, uh, or stronger, or if I'm not capable to perform up to the standards I would like to be at. And uh we will know by summer or autumn, you know, what that looks like.

Mike Gonzalez 10:13

Yeah, yeah. So so we've covered much of your career, Bernhard, and and uh I guess let's take you back now to oh, I don't know, 45, 46 years old. I think you had uh a win in 2002, maybe one you shared with Colin Montgomery when the playoff got too dark to finish. Uh but from that point on, as you wound down your winning days on regular tours and started thinking about the champions tour, what sort of preparation were you doing? What sort of advice were you getting from the older guys on on what you might need to do in those bridge years? Just take us a little bit through the preparation before you got to age 50.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

You know, I I really didn't get any advice from anybody. I I still felt I was playing uh pretty high-level golf. And I actually remember being in a playoff at age 49 and a half at uh Fort Worth, Colonial, uh with Jim Fury, Rory Sabatini. So I had a actually had a putt, you know, on 18 to win and uh hit it closer than the other two in the playoff. But Rory made a long putt and I missed my short one, shorter one. So I still felt I was playing some pretty good golf. Um obviously there were some courses that have gotten too long for me where I couldn't compete at at a very top level, but there were other other courses where I was still competitive. And uh my initial goal was yeah, let's try the champions tour, see what it's like. I really didn't know a whole lot about it, except Gary Player always told me that these guys are really good, they're much better than most people think. I really didn't know what I was facing, so my goal was to just uh be one of the top maybe five or ten guys on that tour. Hopefully win again because I did miss winning. Like you said, I didn't win in the in the late forties, uh except for maybe the you know PNC father-son championship or four of them, some other things. But yeah, well, it's five of them now, but that's right. It's uh so so winning was always you know, that's what we play for. You you play for the adrenaline to go through your veins and uh enjoy being in contention coming down the stretch.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 12:44

So so did your routine and preparation change much as you look back to your regular tour days and and then coming out on the senior tour?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Not a great deal. I as I got older and older, I probably spent more and more time in the gym and physio units uh just to you know recuperate my body and stay as strong and healthy as I can, because I figured if I'm healthy and and strong enough, I can uh swing the way I want to swing, and I'll have more uh stamina uh and and I should play better golf. That was my outlook. So and as you get older, you can't, well, I can't beat balls for eight hours a day or something like that. It's just the body doesn't like it. So I you know I I slightly reduced that part of the game and spent more and more time uh recuperating, but that really happened more so later in the in the late 50s and 60s. In my early 50s, I was still uh extremely hardworking, yeah, you know, on the driving range, playing practice rounds. And one of the things, uh the very first the first 12 months on the champions tour, I had to play two proams every day, every week. So and then I like playing a practice round because I hadn't seen any of these courses. So here I go, I play every Tuesday practice round, pro am Wednesday, Pro Am Thursday, and then three tournament days. So it was almost more strenuous than playing tour, even though we played a uh a round less of competitive golf, but you know, pro-am can be longer and more tiring than sure uh than a competitive round. So yeah, the first 12 months was uh not easy, it was pretty pretty tough. So I'm glad I was fit and healthy.

Bruce Devlin 14:46

So that was 17 years ago, Bernhard, uh when you started on the senior tour. And uh we we'll get an opportunity to go through 46 victories on the senior tour. Uh I guess you weren't really thinking you were gonna make that many wins.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

No, I wasn't though. As I said, my goal was to win some and and hopefully, you know, not just be a run-of-the-mill guy out there, but but be one else that uh is uh in contention on a regular basis. But uh yeah, far succeeded my expectations. Uh let's put it that way, with really what nobody talks about much because there's no more money list as such. It's all about the Schwab Cup. Uh but I think I won 11 times in 12 or 13 years, which uh you know is is far better than I could have dreamed or hoped for.

Bruce Devlin 15:48

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:48

I you know, I think one thing people people don't think about with you guys when you turn age 50, you turn into rookies again in some respects, because I would I would guess some of these cities are new to you in terms of where to stay, where to eat. Some of these golf courses are new to you. So it's almost like going back to age whatever, you know, 20-something and getting out on the tour for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Absolutely. It felt weird being called a rookie, you know. But all the yeah, the venues, many of the venues were brand new, so you had to, you know, put some extra time and effort into learning how to play these new courses and where to stay and where to eat and all that kind of stuff. But um, America is fairly easy uh to get around. And uh I had a good caddy, so we prepared fairly well and and adjusted to the the new way of life, which meant mostly playing three rounders, and only there were only five or six tournaments where we played four rounders, the majors and and the Schwab Cup.

Bruce Devlin 16:56

So going back to that first year, uh if we look at the way you won your first victory that year at the Administrative Small Business, Bernard shot 62, 65, 64 to win by eight shots. Do you remember that? First victory on the senior tour.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

You never forget your first victory, absolutely. And uh and it was also one of my best in terms of my scoring and ball striking. Uh, you don't win a lot of tournaments by eight shots.

Bruce Devlin 17:32

No, you don't.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Uh so it was, I believe it was my fifth tournament on the champions tour uh after sort of a mediocre start. Uh my first one was Pebble Beach, where I didn't do all that great. I had higher expectations. But uh to you know, to have a win on my fifth start and to win by eight shots showed me that I'm capable of uh winning out here on a regular basis and that that I could uh you know hopefully do that a couple of times a year, just every once in a while.

Mike Gonzalez 18:07

Well, winning on a regular basis, uh you certainly did. Bear with us while uh I take our listeners through your uh some of your career highlights, and then Bruce, perhaps for our listeners, you'll take them through Bernhard's senior career highlights, but just in general, for Bernhard Longer to remind folks 123 pro wins, I think, to date. Uh we keep having to update these numbers as we come back to uh 42 wins on the European tour. That uh that's second only to Sevi Ballesteros. Uh one of I think only five men on the planet that have won on six continents. Uh won the Masters two times in 1985 and 1993. So uh perhaps fitting that uh that next year, if you're able to come back for your last, it will be the 40th anniversary of your first win there. 46 champions tour wins. That's first now on the all-time list. Uh Hale Irwin, having held that uh uh position for a long, long time at 45. Bernhard participated in 10 Writer Cups as a player and one as a winning captain. And that's just the the high highlights, Bruce.

Bruce Devlin 19:20

Yeah, well uh it'll take it'll take us a long time to go through each individual victory for whether Bernhard had on the senior tour or the champions tour now. But uh we said, you know, started off with that great victory in 2007 and then 2008, three victories, uh four victories in 2009. Uh you had you had to by that time realize that you were the number one player on the senior tour.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, one thing that bugged me was I didn't win the majors uh out there, and I think it took me a little while to to get my first senior major. Uh, and then once once I achieved that, uh I believe I came became the first one to win all five of them. That's right. Uh Grand Slam, uh whatever, career Grand Slam or something like that. And yeah, there was there were a couple of that really stood out. You know, winning the U.S. Senior Open in Seattle uh after having won the British Senior Open the week before at Carnoosty. Uh we flew to Seattle, so that's an eight-hour time change. And uh I played still very well, and now I'm paired with Fred Couples on Sunday. And it Fred Couples was born and grew up in Seattle. That's right. And that were 50,000 people out there, or 30, they were all tuned for him, every single one. There were two people on my side, my caddy, who was my my son and and my daughter, all of me in the crowd. And uh that felt like a Ryder Cup match head to head. And so I I was very, very fortunate and proud to be pulling out of that one as as a winner. But um, you know, so some some of the victories stand out more than others.

Mike Gonzalez 21:23

Well, I think uh, as you mentioned, frustration perhaps early on not breaking through the winner's circle in a major. I I don't remember the exact sequence of the dates of when these were all contested, but you must have had eight or nine uh perhaps top tens before you did break through with that first uh major at the senior open at Carnoustie, which was a victory by one over Corey Paven. That was a wire to wire win. And uh I do look back at the at the at the scoreboard on that one. I see that Bob Charles played in that one.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, Bob Charles was uh very unique individual, very helpful. Conscious. I loved uh talking to him and running into him on the European tour and all over the world. And he still played uh very high-level golf in his 70s. Uh, I remember one incident. I was having breakfast, I think it might have been the British Open or somewhere, and Bob Charles is staying in the same hotel and he walks past me and he has his own cereal and his own fruit or whatever. He traveled with his, he was really helpful. And he stopped at my table and looked on my plate and said, Hey Bernhardt, and I said, Hi, hi Bob. And he goes, Are you eating ketchup? I'm going, Yeah, I like a bit of ketchup on my eggs or on the potatoes. And he shakes his head and he goes, You aware of how much sugar is in ketchup? And he just kept walking, you know, just I'm going, Wow, this this guy's really into it. So yeah, I could have learned a lot of things from him, but uh my diet's never been that pure.

Bruce Devlin 23:05

I'll tell you one little story about him. Uh uh Mr. Charles and I won the CBS Golf Classic, right, in in California many, many years ago. And before we went there, both his wife Verity and my wife Gloria went to Hawaii for a few days before, you know, they figured we were probably going to get beaten early in the match play and we'd all end up in in Hawaii in Hawaii for the for the for the uh tournament, you know, January tournament. So uh Verity says to me before, I guess now Bruce, just remember you have to tell Bob that the tea time is 30 minutes earlier than what it actually is. And I said, Why is that? She said, Well, he will probably take about 15 minutes to comb his hair and then he'll have to do all his checklists and he'll make sure that that uh his collars are straight and his pants are so she went through this whole thing. So that's what uh uh it just brings to mind what you said about him walking by and saying, Do you catch him? He's quite a character.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 24:22

Well, so you you you you come off of those two major wins in in 2010, and it's not like he didn't keep winning, but in terms of the majors, uh Bruce always likes to ask about the gaps in records, and of course, there was a there was a gap from 2010 to 2014. Uh easy answer. You kept playing well, you just didn't quite break through. There was 12 top tens in that in that interval. So good plan, just no winning, huh?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, there was also one uh the only surgery in my life happened in uh March of 2011, I believe. I uh uh my left thumb, I tore a ligament and uh had to have surgery, and instead of uh coming back in about four months, it took about eight months because I developed arthritis in that joint, and the arthritis was actually more painful than before the surgery. So uh that that was kind of a yeah, a tough year because I stopped playing uh after I won the Chop Classic, I think in February, and then had surgery in March and really didn't feel pain free till November and when the when the year was over. So um but yeah, there were other times when I probably knocked on the door and just uh couldn't couldn't get across the finish line. And that happened many times in my whole career. You know, I was a very consistent uh campaigner. I I would rack up a lot of top tens and maybe not win quite as many as I should have because of various issues, mostly putting. But uh uh that's a whole story.

Bruce Devlin 26:08

That is a story. You need to tell us about that story.

Mike Gonzalez 26:12

We will we will talk about that. Uh uh but uh you know you talk about uh you talk about the the injuries and and I I'd forgotten about the thumb injury, but we didn't ask you when you talked about your Achilles. Is that the most serious thing that you've had happen, or have you had some other instances of uh some things that took you out for a while?

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Well, I told you about my back injury, I think, at the uh 19, which didn't take me out for months and months or a year, it just kept recurring for uh a week here, a week there. You know, I had a lot of uh lower back issues. I remember playing in severe pain. I should have stopped, but I was, you know, my mindset was well, I flew all the way here, I'm here, let's just see if I can get through this. And instead of quitting, I I would have maybe made it worse. I don't know. But that happened many times. Sometimes I woke up with a really stiff neck where I could barely turn my head. And how are you gonna play golf if you can't turn your head? Uh and I tried that. Um, so if you look at my career, I hardly ever withdrew from a tournament because I probably, if you'd asked me what mistakes did you make, and that might have been one of them, to play injured too many times. But funny enough, I won a bunch of tournaments when I didn't feel good, when I was injured, or when I had a cough, or when I when I just changed my attitude because I was just out there trying to survive. Uh, when you feel good, you you know you put pressure on yourself. When you don't feel good, you're just happy to be out there playing golf, actually. Uh, and you're not overly concerned about the result, and all of a sudden you start playing better than normal and won a bunch of tournaments when I was not a hundred percent.

Mike Gonzalez 28:10

Let's go to 2014, then a couple of more uh majors on the senior tour. The first was your first senior players' championship. This was at Fox Chapel, a great, great Seth Rayner track in the uh in the Pittsburgh area, and that was in a playoff with Jeff Sluman. And uh uh Bruce, you saw in my notes some of the highlights I made about some of the scores Bernhard was posting in majors. You know, you don't see scores of the 260s very often in majors, two sixty-five, fifteen under.

Bruce Devlin 28:44

So that was in June, and then and then in July um the senior open championship, uh, where he beat Colin Montgomery by uh only thirteen shots. Uh and he shot two sixty-six, so two back-to-back senior victories, uh, major championships. Oh boy, thirty-three under par for those two championships.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, that may have been some of the best golf I ever played in my life uh that week at uh at the senior open because uh you know winning by 13 uh and then I think Colin was three or four shots clear of the next guy. Um and and Colin made some kind of remarks. I he said like he felt like he won a tournament, uh, and he can't believe he got beaten by shots. So uh it was just one of those crazy weeks when uh you know everything goes well. Um I hit it where I looked and I made a bunch of putts, and uh in the end, and the weather wasn't that that nice either, and the conditions were you know very uh testing.

Mike Gonzalez 30:00

Is the weather ever nice at Royal Porthgal?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Actually, it you know, there were a few days when it was very hot and uh so uh very firm, but generally you get wind and rain. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 30:14

Yeah, I mean what a stern test and to post uh that kind of uh score in those kind of conditions and win by 13, uh unbelievable. Wire-to-wire victory. Your 67 on the last day was the lowest round of the tournament, so you kind of finished it off in style. But uh as you said, you must have been playing some pretty good golf during the stretch.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, I I certainly certainly was. I didn't make a lot of mistakes in that type of course, you know, he has so many pot bunkers and so many hazards and problems around it's easy to drop shots, and I just didn't drop a lot of shots, and I made a ton of birdies. And you know, there was one other time in my life when I was uh the 1979 casual world under 25. I won that by 17 strokes. And and it wasn't a weak field. There were you know a lot of the best players under the age of 25 from all over the world traveled to this tournament, uh, including I think John Cook and Jim Nelford and you know some Americans who were good young players. And anyways, it sometimes I got into these streaks and uh you know things just got hot and and I was living in the moment and just kept pushing forward.

Mike Gonzalez 31:36

Well, uh Bruce, he didn't take his foot off the gas scoring-wise uh with a major in that next year, 2015.

Bruce Devlin 31:43

Amazing. Boy, that's three majors in a row with some fancy scoring, Bernard.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, that uh the players, senior players was very good to me. I think I won four in a row, if I'm not mistaken, or something like that. Uh um on different courses, too. They rotated that tournament around a lot. And and as you know, as we all know, whenever you play a brand new course, it's a little harder because you've only had two looks at it or something like that. And it's like uh a course you've already played a hundred times.

Mike Gonzalez 32:28

If we go on to the following year, Bernhardt, you picked up a couple more. The first, I think this was your first Regions Tradition uh uh win at Greystone Golf and Country Club. This was by six over Olin Brown, and uh again seventeen under, uh, burdying five the last seven holes. So you kind of closed that one off in style as well.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, somehow something clicked on that back nine uh because it was pretty tight till then, and and all of a sudden, you know, I hit it closer and made some putts and and started to move away from the field. Um so it's it's the weird thing about golf. You never know what's around the corner. Um you just when things when you're when you're not playing quite as well, you just try and survive and not make a huge number and and hope you find something the next day or even during the day where things turn around and and things look upward.

Mike Gonzalez 33:27

Uh the other win in 2016 was the senior players' championship, your third. How did you like Philadelphia Cricket Club?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

I loved it. It was one of the best courses I've ever played. They just uh did renovations, I think. They cut down a lot of the trees, it was much more open and uh airy and more sun, more wind, and the conditions were extremely difficult. You know, I think if you look at those scores, some of the highest will uh uh probably see in that tournament because the wind was blowing so strong. Um and that the funny thing is everybody loved the golf course. I mean, they were shooting 78 and 80, some of the guys, but they were still praising the golf course. Usually you don't hear that. You know, when guys shoot the high, they like this, or they hate that. But everybody was saying how good that golf course was. And uh yeah, that was that was a very tough week, and it came down to the very last hole uh right down to the wire.

Mike Gonzalez 34:32

Yeah, you took on uh uh by one, it was over Joe Durant and uh Miguel Angel Jimenez, who I just saw at Chubb, and he's uh continues to play well as as well, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah. Yeah, well they you know there's so many good players. Um it just uh that there's really when you have a field of whatever, 80 on a regular basis, most of them can uh can win, but uh in a major you have even more on a regular basis.

Mike Gonzalez 35:02

So Bruce uh three more majors the following year in 2017. That's right. Seven victories in 2017.

Bruce Devlin 35:11

Started with the Mitsub Mitsubishi Electric, then uh Regions tradition for the second time, Bernhard, 20 under par again. Then you follow it up. Yeah, a week later at the KitchenAid senior PGA championship, 18 under par, and then finished off in July with another senior open championship, your third uh and win by three shots over Corey Pave. And that was uh I mean you talk about a great year and finished it at the uh PowerShares uh triple Q championship, uh where you shot uh another 11 under par to beat Angel Limenez, and um that's him, you beat him in the playoff. Some year.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, that was that was a very special year. Um I believe I won three majors, but uh the one that was that stood out was the senior PGA championship when I was head-to-head with V chasing and uh came out on top of that. That was the one missing in in my collage. I had never won a senior PGA championship uh before, and uh it's always a stern test, but it was a great golf course, uh the Trump course, and um uh again BC and I battled you know down the stretch, and in the end I might have won by two, I think. But uh it it was a lot of good golf uh even on the last day. Uh and then there were I think I might have won two playoff events too, if I'm not mistaken, that year. So it was uh a very, very special year. And for for some reason I didn't win the Schwab Cup, but uh we changed the format after that happened. When when one player wins seven and another one wins four, um and somebody else wins the Schwab Cup that uh only wins one, there's something wrong with the system. So we we made adjustments.

Mike Gonzalez 37:19

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. You weren't you weren't bashful about speaking out on that, were you?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Plus planning on it, but since you brought it up or since it came up.

Mike Gonzalez 37:31

Well, uh you almost won a fourth one that year. You were you were T2 in the senior players' championship that year as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah, uh as I said, it was a very uh played a lot of fantastic golf uh throughout this the whole season, and you know, confidence was high. Um, that's what happens when you win, it breeds confidence, and and confidence breeds winning. So it's like a positive cycle, like we sometimes go to and and that was certainly one of my best years in my career.

Mike Gonzalez 38:06

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Lee Trevino 38:27

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. Then it started to slice just smidge off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My caddy says as long as you're still in the state, you're okay. It went straight down the middle.