David Graham - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to just wee, weep in Madden.

Mike Gonzalez 0:18

David, welcome and let's just start with uh growing up in Australia. What can you tell us about it was like here back in those days?

David Graham 0:26

That's so long ago. I don't think I've got too many memories of that. Uh I've got some good memories. I've got some bad memories, I guess, too, you'd say that. Uh you know, I was born in Melbourne, I came from a difficult family, and I was going to school and not a very good student and and uh not wanting to spend any time at home, and I used to go to a school called Waddle Park Grammar School, which was uh, you know, a bike ride from my house. And um I remember going through a shortcut through an alleyway, and there was uh a cricket field, an oval cricket field. And at both ends, like we have in American football, we you know, they have uprights, and always there was always somebody there banging balls through the uprights and you know, going and picking them up. And and on the way there was a little nine-hole golf course called Waddle Park. And I stopped there by chance one day, and the the pro there, John Green, said, Um, you know, you like golf? I said, sure. He said, Well, you want to come and start working on the weekends? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. So I was uh about maybe twelve, thirteen years old. Um I won the junior championship there when I was 12 years old. It was a little nine-hole golf course, and I won playing left-handed. It was the only tournament ever won playing left-handed.

Mike Gonzalez 1:53

And why left-handed? You must have been given some equipment uh left-handed or something.

David Graham 1:57

I've I've thought about that. I've thought about that a lot. I don't have any recollection of the first club that I picked up. It most likely was left-handed, so that was the only one that I knew. I played a little bit of cricket uh in high school. Um and cricket, you always wanted to keep the cricket bat elevated and tilted down so that you didn't hit what we now call pot flies. And you wanted the strong hand on the top of the bat to kind of pull the handle forward and keep the bat at an angle. And you also learnt that you wanted the strong eye to be looking at what we called the bowler, who's the pitcher. And so when you tilt your head and you've got a strong eye, you want to be able to see the ball you coming straight at you with your strong eye and not looking awkwardly out of your left eye. So I I I batted left-handed as well. And yet when I bowled, I bowled right-handed. So I knew um, I knew then that I was a more dominant right-hander. I wasn't ambidextrous in the true sense of the word 50-50, but I was maybe 70-30. Uh, but anyway, the bottom bottom is the first club that I picked up happened to be left-handed, and that's how I started to play.

Mike Gonzalez 3:19

Bruce, were you always played right-handed? Did you do anything left-handed?

Bruce Devlin 3:22

Always right-handed. Uh you know, what David just said brings an obvious question. Oh, wonder what he'd have been like on the PGA tour playing left-handed when he won when he was twelve years old. He might he might have had a better career than what he had.

David Graham 3:37

Yeah, I I don't want to trade that in. I don't want to go back and try. But I was lucky because uh from there there was uh an uh second assistant's job uh actually at a Riversdale Golf Club in Melbourne, where the famous Peter Thompson also served some of his apprenticeship. And the head professional there was a very nice gentleman named George Naismith. And I was as a second assistant, I was only allowed on the practice fairway, you know, like ten minutes before dark and and you know, five minutes before sunrise. And I was out there nearly dark, and I was hitting balls on the range, and he happened to drive by, and he really hadn't paid much attention to me, and and he got out of the car, actually, because the driveway ran parallel to the practice fairway. And he walked over and he he said, you know, let me see you hit a couple of balls. I said, sure. So I teed it up with my two wood, and I hit this lovely little fade down, and it was a uh a length of practice fairway that a good player could hit it into the trees. Now the young players would be flying it over the trees out, you know, into another district, another zip code. But um and I hit these two balls and he turned around at me and he said, Well, that looks pretty good, he said, but I don't think you'll ever be any good left-handed. He said, I think you need to start and play right-handed. And I went, Wow. And he was, I had uh really admired and respected this gentleman because he'd had a nice reputation in Australia as a player and as a head professional, and he'd played in the Open Championship a few times, and he played in the Australian Open. And so he was a very well-known, uh kind of a little bit kind of a Butch Harmon kind of a guy in Australia in those days. And so I just I believed him and I just said, yes, sir. And the next day he said, Well, go to the shop, pick out some heads, pick some shafts out, and uh build yourself a set of right-handed clubs. So I started to play right-handed, and he drew a straight line on the practice fairway with another line on the inside, kind of a V, with the straight line on the intended target line, and he said, Take it back on that line and bring it back on this line, and you'll do just fine. So I started playing right-handed, and um took me a couple of years, and but in that process I had trouble putting right-handed because of my eye dominance. And I was on the putting green one day and he walked out and he says, Why are you putting left-handed? I said, Well, I I putt better left-handed. He said, Well, if you play golf right-handed and you putt left-handed, you're gonna look stupid. He said, People are gonna laugh at you. He says, If you're gonna play golf right-handed, putt right-handed. I, yes, sir. So I started to putt right-handed. So the first tournament that I played in right-hand was at uh Victoria Golf Club. And I don't remember what scores I shot, but it was kind of that was the start of it.

Mike Gonzalez 6:38

So what what do you remember what he saw in the way you went after the ball left-handed that that got him to think you were better off right-handed?

David Graham 6:45

Well, I've I've come to learn over the years that he was far wiser in years than most people in golf in those days, because uh the ball influenced the game so much in that era because it had so much spin. And people of my size playing golf in that period had to learn to hook the ball. You couldn't hit fades because the ball had so much spin that a fade would get airborne too quickly and it would call what now is obsolete in golf is called an upshooter, where the ball would have so much spin and develop so much uh uplift that it would just go nowhere. And so I learned to hook, and he was a believer in the right hand, not unlike Ben Hogan, to be honest with you, the right hand should be on the bottom of the club because as the club comes down on the downswing, the face of the club relevant to the target is open. And it needs the stronger of the two hands when the brain connects to initiate the power, it sends it straight to the strongest part of the body. So the right hand would be able to get the club to square and to be able to rotate the toe. So he believed that the the strong hand should be on the bottom of the club.

Mike Gonzalez 8:10

And did you stick with that shot shape your entire career?

David Graham 8:15

Well, I I did for a long period of time until I came to America and found out that that shot pattern didn't work over here because of the size of the greens and the different size ball. The transition from the small, but it was easy to be a pretty good play with a small ball, but it was so much different more difficult, and Bruce would know he had to do the same thing. But the the big ball required completely different contact and angle of of of contact.

Mike Gonzalez 8:42

And how long did that take you guys to kind of pick up on that transition?

Bruce Devlin 8:47

It was well from my standpoint, it it was it was pretty difficult. Everything that David said is correct. And harking back to what he just said about the old golf ball spinning so much when you cut it, uh the same thing happened when you moved from a little the one point six two to the one point six eight. The six eight spun a lot more. So uh You know, it was uh it was a lot easier to curve the ball because you could put more spin on it, but it was obviously harder to control.

David Graham 9:20

Well I I'd I'd done you know, in in the early stages, I had done reasonably well as a young player. I won several tournaments in Australia in in those days. They were big tournaments, the Victorian Open and the New South Wales Open and the Tasmanian Open and all that. And then I'd gone up into Asia and had mild success, and I'd also got fortunate to get paired with Bruce and win the World Cup in 1970. Um I came in 1969, the first trip was to Portland, Oregon, where uh Bruce and I actually were playing in the El Cannes Golfer of the Year, and I found out real quick that of the 30 players that were playing in that tournament, I wasn't very good because the the only person I beat was Cal Nagel, and Cel Nagel played 18 holes of golf with 15 clubs and finished up shooting at 86 when it was actually a 71. So I he was the only guy in the field I beat that had a 15-shot penalty. So I knew I couldn't I couldn't hit the ball right. I got my tour card, which in which was fortunate because I still played what I call the old style golf even in those days. But I uh I started to transition after I got my tour card, I was fortunate that I was on the range with Bruce at Colonial. And I'd missed the cut, and he was like one behind the lead and stuff like that, and he won the tournament and all that stuff. And I told him, I said, you know, what have I got to do to become a better player? And he said, Well, do you want the sh you want the cliff notes or do you want the whole book? I said, Well, hell, throw the whole book at me. And and the dialogue started, well, your clubs are too flat, you stand too far away from the ball, your grip's too strong, your swing's got too much radius in it, your ball flights too low, you stand too far away, you've got to get more upright, yeah, yeah, yeah. Otherwise you're a hell of a golfer. Otherwise I didn't play very well. And and when I look back, there was no truer words spoken because I would never have played, I don't think, to the extent that I did play, had I not made that change. And I was, you know, I was keen. I was a hungry young guy. And you know, if somebody said to me, you know, crawl on your knees for 500 yards and you'll be a better golfer, I'd have done it.

Bruce Devlin 11:54

There you were going. Yeah. He also uh He also started you talking about being hungry. I remember when he was uh I think he was seventeen years old when I first met him. We uh Gloria and I were living in Canberra, and I come back from a fishing trip and he was there with uh with Alex Mercer. And before he left the house, he'd raided my golf club. Oh, you didn't give me that's not true.

David Graham 12:18

You didn't you didn't give me one, you stingy old booker.

Bruce Devlin 12:23

So he uh David was always always uh keen to learn. Very keen to learn. And uh obviously you know, he ended up being a pretty smart guy. You know, you don't win two major championships and golf tournaments all around the world if you if you can't take in all of that information and make it work for you.

Mike Gonzalez 12:43

So so early on you you transitioned from lefty to righty. You mentioned uh George Nasmith uh being the fellow that uh that was instrumental in that. And then you worked at Riverside Golf Club for a while. Riversdale. I mean oh Riversdale, sorry, Riversdale, yeah.

David Graham 12:58

But there was something more interesting that happened in that period, and I don't know exactly the dates, but after I finished my apprenticeship at Riversdale, uh George Naismith retired. And and I didn't want to work there anymore under a new professional. And so I I went and worked for his brother at uh Wall Waverly Golf Club, Teddy Naismith, and I worked there for five or six months, and then he said, There's a little job at a nine-hole golf course in Tasmania. Would you be interested in going over there and teaching? And I said, Oh, sure, that sounds adventurous. Yeah, I'll do that. So I went over there to a little club called Seabrook Golf Club. It was in Burney, Tasmania, way up in the northwestern part of the state. Beautiful little town in those days, mainly uh uh uh timber country. Probably grow some good wine now. Yeah, they most likely do. I I should have bought ocean frontage there, but didn't have any money then, so it didn't make any difference. And there was uh an Australian guy named Eric Kremlin, who was really a nice man, and he was a good teacher and he was a good player, and he worked for a golf club company called Precision Golf Forgings, and they had started forging clubs in Australia primarily for the Asian market because the Japanese weren't making clubs and the growth of the game was going pretty good up there, so he started this golf club company. And I Eric Kremlin came to Tasmania to Seabrook to do an exhibition to promote the company. Yeah. And they said to me, Well, would you play with him? And I said, Well, sure. And we only played nine holes, and we played nine holes, and we got done, and he was so nice, he said to me, He said, he said, David, you're gonna die in this place if you don't get out. And I said, Well, I don't have any choices. He said, Well, I'm gonna go back to Sydney and I'm gonna talk to ch the chairman of the company, was a guy named Um Higson. Uh yeah, Higson. Yeah. That was John Higson, his son. That was the son. Son of the Claire Higson. He was the founder and chairman, and he was a really nice guy. And he loved young guys. He had a nice staff. He had Peter Thompson and Kel Nagel and uh a few Australian players playing their clubs and doing PR. And Eric Kremman called me up and said, I've got you a job and I've got you a place to stay. So I packed up my bags and I moved to Sydney. And that's really my second introduction to learning about golf equipment. The first one is when you're an apprentice and you learn how to do club building, because that was you you bought clo you didn't buy clubs in whole in bulk in those days, you bought components and you had to put them all together.

Bruce Devlin 16:00

But I think uh I think there's also a location here at Preston Trails where we're talking to David, where he spends a little bit of time doing the same thing that he started doing back when he was uh 14-year-old, still fiddling with golf clubs. It's in the bud.

David Graham 16:16

Yeah. I'm still looking for the perfect set, which I know I'll never find, but I as as President Bush likes to paint, I like to tinker with clubs. So it it occupies my mind and it's peaceful, and I really enjoy that. And it to an extent it keeps my interest in the game, because Callaway still send me all the clubs and the stuff that I want, and I can build them and I go practice and hit them and try them. And it if I had to play just with one set of clubs anymore, my interest level wouldn't be anywhere near what it is.

Bruce Devlin 16:47

Yeah, it also uh brings back some memories for me. David and I used to spend quite a lot of time traveling together on the tour, and uh many times we'd have adjoining rooms in a motel, and uh uh not only did we change grips, but we changed shafts, and our vice that we used to use to hold golf clubs was the door jam. So we'd one of us had hold the club in the door jam, the other one had uh hold the door, and then we'd put a little bit of heat on it and pull the shaft out and put another one in there.

David Graham 17:16

We never did set off any fire alarms, did we? We never set off one fire alarm. But I pity the poor people that came into that room the day after we checked out with putting grips on with lighter fluid and burning epoxy and all that kind of crazy stuff. But yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 17:32

I can picture you guys traveling with a grinding machine and how to do that. No, we never did that.

David Graham 17:36

No, but we bought one every week. I mean the first stop from the airport wasn't the golf course or the hotel, it was Home Depot.

Mike Gonzalez 17:44

Or whatever it was Home Depot back in those days, I guess, right?

Bruce Devlin 17:47

Yeah. Or ace Ace Hardware or something like that. Something like that.

Mike Gonzalez 17:50

Was Eric Cremen the the Creman the fellow that introduced you to Alex Mercer?

David Graham 17:55

Uh yeah, I don't remember that. Um I met Alex, I think Alex was a staff player, and he was um a very well-known teacher in his day, and still is, he and his brother Dave. And I I started to get lessons from Alex, and I but I I don't like to be critical because that's not my nature. But he never taught me to do the things that I needed to do to play in America. Um he helped me mentally and he gave me confidence and everything, but he was not familiar with with swinging a golf club to get ball flights to play golf in this country with with the tight pin locations and stuff like that. And the first year I played in the Masters, I mean, I couldn't stop the ball. You know, I mean my ball was coming in so low and so hot. I I think I maybe set a record for chipping from behind the green uh uh you know every time. And uh the other thing, too, uh uh we were all Bruce and I were so lucky, and uh young Australian players were lucky. You know, Gary Player won the Australian Open seven times. You know, Jack Nicholas won the Australian Open six times, you know. Arnold won one and he won a uh a Masters Australian Masters tournament. And you know, so in the late sixties through the middle seventies, you know, we we saw these superstars coming to Australia. And, you know, I was I had a passion to learn. I mean, I sat on the range watching Gary play hit balls for hours and he was really good at, you know, what's wrong with my swing, what should I do here, and what about here? And then Nicholas had come and you'd see golf like you'd never seen played before. So you you had the ability to to absorb, you know, the the pinnacle of of somebody's play, and you thought, well, man, how am I going to beat this guy playing like this? I got to make some changes. So we were very blessed to have those guys make those trips in in that time frame. And you know, even Bruce, you know, I mean, he had to st he had to go back to Australia. It was a vicious cycle in those days because there wasn't any money. The appearance money was was fair at best. The prize money was, you know, we were playing for $25,000, total purse. Yeah. You know, and the papers were so cruel, they'd say Nicholas gets huge appearance fees, you know. Devilin demands appearance money, and and the press would get on you and stuff, and you know. And if it hadn't been for Qantas giving airline tickets to players to come down there, there'd have never been any of these tournaments. But the the dislike for like Nicholas coming to Australia and taking our money, you know, it was just so unap inappropriate to do that. You know, they were more concerned about them themselves. And rather than saying, God, aren't we lucky that Jack Nicholas traveled from one side of the world to the next to play? And the jealousy was just awful. And you know, Gary Player during the apartheid periods, I mean what he went through. Yeah, bad. Yeah, you can't imagine, I mean, booing and screaming and painting greens and death threats and everything like that. It's a re he's had a remarkable compared to what he's gone through. It's unbelievable. And not a lot of that's documented anymore. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 21:40

Uh times have sure changed. You know, relative to appearance money, for example, I can't imagine anybody having any qualms about appearance money these days. But back in those days i there was an issue, wasn't it?

David Graham 21:51

Well, it was. And it was a big issue. And and it was um it was uh expected of Australians to just Go back and support the game and play for nothing.

Bruce Devlin 22:02

Right.

David Graham 22:03

You know, don't be ungrateful. And you'd say, well, you know, excuse me, but what the hell have you done for me? You know, I I'm I didn't see you putting any money in my pocket before I became a good player. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Bruce Devlin 22:14

And David made a good point about uh Qantas uh being part. And there was uh people that started the Masters uh used to be called the Wills Masters. Uh the Wills Company was a tobacco company. And they were uh um they were partially responsible responsible for getting the American players to come over. Uh I remember I brought Jack over there one year and Arnold come over one year, Bob Murphy.

David Graham 22:40

Well Trevino came over Trevino you you talked him into going.

Bruce Devlin 22:44

Yeah, Trevino come over and uh we played the uh we played the open at Royal Sydney. And I remember it was uh similar to the 65 PGA at Laurel Valley where the pros weren't allowed pros weren't ac actually allowed in the members part of the golf club. They could especially if they had their wife, they could go you know, they could go into the locker room, change their shoes, and then um I wrote a I remember writing a story about they had built Hessian cubicles, cubicles with Hessian bags around them where the wives of the players were actually having to go to the bathroom there. And uh I I was very fortunate to have known the Chief Justice in Australia at that time who was a member there, and and I saw him in the locker room and I said to him, you know, I don't understand. You know, we bring we bring Lee Trevino and his wife over here, and they can't get in the clubhouse to go to the bathroom. He said, Well, we'll change that. And he ended up letting them come into the clubhouse. But you know, that's that was one of the clubs where you had to when you cut yourself, you had to bleed blue, not red. So it was uh bit of a back in those days there was a pretty snooty club.

David Graham 24:06

Oh, it was. And and and I mean I I remember that. They built like a a little tent when they told Trevino that's where he could go change his shoes in the tent. Pretty pretty amazing. And I can I can remember too uh playing I was paired with Gary Player at Yarra Yarra Golf Club one time, and it was like in February, I forget what tournament it was, but it's like a hundred degrees. Yeah and there's no water.

Bruce Devlin 24:33

Yeah. No water on the golf club.

David Graham 24:35

And Gary said, you know, I'm I'm dehydrating, and somebody said, Well, there's there's a tap over there, go drink out of the tap, you know. Part of the irrigation system. And then the next minute somebody'd come out with a with a uh a a jug of ice water and a glass, and they'd give it to Gary Play, but nobody else could get it. You know, there was no there was no snacks at the turn, there was no halfway house. Most of the time there weren't any potties to go to. And I mean it was just, you know, crazy. I mean times have which I think times are great. I think the young players are doing s great. And I think the uh I've game's in pretty good shape, actually. The game's in great shape, but it's got got great young players and they're performing, they're playing golf like none of us could ever play.

Bruce Devlin 25:23

Well, we you we you can't even relate to what's happened between the technology of the golf ball number one and the golf clubs number two. I mean, David, I'm sure, will confirm to me. I remember playing playing at the Disney tournament, the tenth hole there as a at the Magnolia course as a par five. And I was a pretty good driver of the golf ball, and I drove it out there. If I could get it in front of the right-hand bunker, it was two thirty-five to carry the bunker at the front of the green. And that was my absolute longest, hardest, best three wood that I could hit. If I didn't hit it perfect, I couldn't carry it. Three two thirty-five.

David Graham 26:03

Well, and I think the other thing too is that these kids are so in such good shape. Yep. You know, they work out, they stretch, they have trainers, they're strong. And you know, I mean, Gary Player was the only player that really was a fanatic with fitness until maybe Bernhard Langer came along. He was also really into fitness. Yeah. But now if you if you don't go to the gym, you're not going to play well. They're all fitly. Yeah, they're all strong and fit, and it's amazing.

Mike Gonzalez 26:35

Let me take you back to what you were talking about seeing when Nicholas came over, Player came over, Palmer came over, you watched these guys hit balls, and you know, the light bulb kind of went off for you saying, wait a minute, this their game's on a different level in terms of what they can do with the golf ball. What did you see, what did you witness that that that caused you to realize, uh-oh, I gotta I gotta I gotta dial it up a notch to be successful in America in terms of how I flight the ball, how I approach the game?

David Graham 27:04

Well, mainly the elevation of the ball off the club face, the launch angle was completely different. The launch angle with an old ball, um, it's kind of flipped. The launch angle with the s the small balada-covered ball with a eight degree wood would come off the ball at about twelve degrees, so you had to learn to make that ball come off the club at eight degrees. It was always pretty easy to learn how to keep the ball down, because you you learn to play in the wind, but it was required a completely different angle of attack to hit the ball up. And now because of the ball with less spin, that's all you do anymore. Launch angle equates to distance. So these tour players now are getting twelve, thirteen, fourteen degrees of launch angle and still trying to get it higher and higher, like DeChambeau, his launch angle. I I don't know what it is, but I bet it's every bit of fourteen degrees.

Bruce Devlin 28:07

And he does it with a like a six or seven degree uh loft on his driver, which is hard to believe, really.

David Graham 28:14

Yeah, but he hits it so far off the back foot, he's adding so much loft.

Bruce Devlin 28:17

Yeah.

David Graham 28:18

But you know, these guys today spend their life learning how to hit the ball high, where in my era you learnt to hit the ball low. Yeah. Completely different. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Mike Gonzalez 28:28

And so to take on an Augusta National with hard greens, tight pins, you had to flight it higher than what you were accustomed to growing up, I guess.

Bruce Devlin 28:36

Yeah. Well, I think you know, we've had a lot of we've had a lot of uh very good players come out of Australia. Uh and I think I think the main reason for it, aside from the fact that we, you know, we we had some pretty good coaches over there was when when we had to change, when they made the change, uh and I don't remember the exact year, I want to say 70 something. Where we we were forced to play the big ball. And if you look at, you know, from David's uh era along to all the kids today, I mean th they don't even know what the small ball is. They they wouldn't have a clue what it is or how it used to perform. So I I think that's uh I think that's one of the reasons why golf has become more a worldwide sport as opposed to, you know, the Americans were dominant, weren't they, back in the sixties and seventies, really when you think about it, all the all the really great players came from here.

Mike Gonzalez 29:37

Well let me take you right back to uh before you decided to come into the States. Uh perhaps before you turned pro, because you turned pro at a fairly early age, yes? Yes. Uh Norman von Neyda uh was a big name in Australia. And so what was his influence on you? Did you have some some dealings with him from time to time?

David Graham 29:57

Uh not as much as being publicized. Um I had always felt uh he was teaching um uh uh a billionaire in Australia called Kerry Packer. And he would always go and and Norman would always go and watch Kerry Packer hit balls in the park, not on the golf course. He just hit them in the park. And I made uh some kind of a comment about that. And I forget what it was, it was something to the effect, while you're teaching him, but you don't teach any young kids or something something inappropriate. Anyway, he didn't speak to me for years and years. And I called him up. I kind of I felt sorry for him, to be honest with you, because he had done so much for a lot of young players, but nobody really gave him any credit for what he had done for golf and in his private life. With if I always said if if you asked Norman for fifty bucks and he had fifty in his pocket, he'd give you the whole fifty and say, you take it and I'll I'll solve my own problem. And so one year I invited him to come as my guest to to Dallas and then to the Masters, of which he graciously accepted. And on that trip, he actually apologized to me because he made a comment like twenty years before that that he didn't think I would ever become a very good player. And he apologized, saying that that's the biggest mistake he'd ever made, which was fine. Anyway, he came to Dallas, and it's an interesting story because I picked him up at the airport, and we got in the car, we got to my house, he came to Dallas at like midnight, and I picked him up and got him in my house, and I put him in the guest bedroom, and at about three o'clock in the morning I hear David, David, David, I said, Oh my God, what is it? He said, I I've left my briefcase at the airport. I said, Oh man, he said, got my passport in it. I said, Oh, geez. Well, in those days, you know, American Airlines had like a 1-800 number that you could call and actually get somebody on the phone. And I got somebody and they said, Well, Mr. Graham, uh I'm in charge of Lost and Found, and we have the briefcase. I said, You gotta be kidding me. I said, Can I what time can I come and pick it up? He said, Well, we opened at 8 o'clock tomorrow. I said, I'll be there. So I went and I picked up the briefcase. I came home and he was having breakfast at my kitchen table, and our lady that took care of the house asked him what he wanted for breakfast. And he said, I'd like some cereal and sugar and hot water. Strange, not milk. So anyway, he had he had uh he had a bowl of cereal and he put like uh ten pounds of sugar on this cereal. Just covered the cereal, and he poured the boiling hot water on it, and the next minute he fell on the floor. He passed out. And I pushed all the buttons in my house to get the 9-11 people, and they all came and they put him on the gurney and they took him to uh Presbyterian Hospital and I f parked my car and I went into the emergency room and he was there, and I swear to God, this is what happened. The doctor, the ER doctor, said to me, Who is this guy? And I said, He's my guest. It's his name's Norman von Neider. And the doctor said, My God, he's the best bunker player in the world. I said, You gotta be kidding me. He's and Norman was known for being a bunker player. Bruce can attest to that.

Mike Gonzalez 33:56

We've talked about it, yeah.

David Graham 33:57

I mean, what are the odds? So anyway, he spent he spent four he spent two nights in the hospital. And I was in the room one night and uh the phone rings and I pick up the phone and uh lady says, uh, who's this? I said, it's David Graham. Uh Mr. Graham. This is what was Hogan's secretary's name? I forget what her name was. But anyway, she called and she said, Can Mr. Von Neider talk? And I said, Yes. She said, Well, Mr. Hogan would like to talk to him. So they chatted for a little while. Anyway, to finish the story, um, I bring Norman back to the house and he said, Well, let's go out to the club and hit balls. I said, Norman, you just got out of hospital. And he said, No, I feel fine. I feel fine. So I go out to the practice ferry and I set up an umbrella and a chair, and I get him there, and we're hitting balls. This is like on a Sunday, and we're going to go to Augusta like on the Monday. And he sat out there and watched me hit balls for, I don't know, three or four hours. And then the next day we go to Augusta and every every shot that I hit in all of the practice rounds and in all of the tournaments, he watched every single swing that I made. And I'll never forget this because it's kind of a Jack Newton who had unfortunate circumstances happen. And it's not anything to do with that, but he he was hitting balls on the range before his accident, years before the accident. And he was taking divots. You know, you could have buried a dog in these divots. And he came over and said to Norman, he said, When you're done with David, would you come and watch me hit some balls? And Norman turned around at him and said, When David's done, we're leaving. Okay. So anyway, that's my Norman's. But anyway, to cut a long story short, he was a wonderful man, and I I wish we'd have been friends our whole lives, but unfortunately that wasn't so. But he did a lot for golf in Australia.

Bruce Devlin 36:07

He sure did. And and the gentleman that uh was at the ER was correct. He was uh probably the greatest bunker player that ever lived.

David Graham 36:16

Well, tell him the story.

Bruce Devlin 36:18

Yeah, well, I think we told I think I told the story where when uh when Mike and I put a couple of uh couple of series together for the podcasts. Um I when I turned pro, um I I was instructed by Slesinger, which was the company that I was associated with in Australia in those days, that I had to make a trip up the east coast of New South Wales and back down the tablelands on the inside of the mountain range. And I think we got to a little town called Tari, and we played a nine-hole exhibition, and at the end of the exhibition we always went into a bunker. And Norman always was the first one to talk about how to play, because I mean he was the guru, so obviously he's gonna talk first, and he he went through about seven or eight minutes of saying how easy it was to play out of bunkers, and you know, you've got to have the right club and you've got to have the right body at the right angle, and the club face at the right, open the right amount, and you do this and you do that. And the first swing he makes, he slaps it out of the bunker and goes in the hole. And then he walked to the side of the bunker, he said, now Bruce will show you how to do it. And I mean you can you imagine, you know, following this, I went in there and I held it right behind him, right behind him, went straight in the hole. So we picked all the golf balls up and left. Said done we're done. Two shots, two hole outs.

Mike Gonzalez 37:42

Any questions? That's a great story. Yeah. So uh uh as I mentioned earlier, you you turned professional fairly early. Was that 1962? Is that uh uh if you say so, yeah.

David Graham 37:57

Well you became We were actually a professional before that in the s in the system. They had like a junior category too. But you know, in in in Australia or in Melbourne in those days, when you turned 16, you had to go play nine holes with a uh PGA player, and you had to do a club fitting test, and you had to do a little bit on the rules, and then somebody had to approve you and sign you and everything. So then you I guess you became either a junior member or you became a professional, but there was no category between playing professional and club professional, like there is today with tour players and and PGA of America people.

Mike Gonzalez 38:46

But going through that process, did that then preclude you from playing in amateur events or once you took that step?

David Graham 38:51

Oh yeah. Once I became an assistant when I was uh in Ma I was thirteen when I first met George Naismith. And I had a visit with him and he said when in Melbourne, uh fourteen was the legal age to leave school. It was the only state that was fourteen. All of the other states were sixteen. And hopefully they have changed it now, because fourteen was well, I was happy it was fourteen. But um and Mr. Naismith said, when's your fourteenth birthday? And I said, May twenty-third. He said, Well, then why don't you start work on May 24th? And so I started work. And uh yeah, and in those days it was a collar and tie and and long pants and all that. And then I remember when the um the psychedelic socks came out, you know, the the pinks and the lemons with the sparkles barley. They are back in boat. I wore a pair of those to work one day, and Mr. Naismith said, uh young man, I think you better go home and change. I said, Yes, sir. So I had to go home and change. Yeah. They were pretty, you know, you weren't allowed in the locker room, you you couldn't weren't allowed to go in the billiard room, you weren't allowed to go upstairs, you have to eat in the kitchen. And, you know, some what we now consider when I when I think of the fact that I'm now a member of full members of so many clubs around the world, to think that you know that used to happen is just archaic. And in some clubs it may still be the same. I mean, you know, I I'm not opposed to cell phone rules and regulations, and I'm not opposed to collared shirts and stuff like that. But I think in some clubs in Australia, you're not allowed to wear short socks. You have to wear long socks.

Bruce Devlin 40:40

I've got to wear them just underneath the knee.

Mike Gonzalez 40:42

Yeah, yeah. Same thing in the UK, there's still some of the old line clubs. The the the status of the golf professional has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. Oh, big time.

Bruce Devlin 40:52

Yeah. Well, even my little club in little town I grew up in, Goldman, uh, I wasn't allowed inside the clubhouse as a junior member.

Mike Gonzalez 40:59

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 41:00

I could go play golf, but I c um, you know, and hit balls, but I couldn't uh I couldn't go in the clubhouse.

David Graham 41:06

Yeah. Well, it certainly changed because the club here in Dallas has over the years had nine Hall of Fame members, starting with Myron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, and so forth. So, you know, I I don't know of any other club that's got nine Hall of Fame members, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 41:26

Uh take us through sort of how the decision you developed to to take on the American tour come on over here. So, you know, from the time you started as a professional and developing your game, what did that look like over a few periods of times as you prepared to take on this tour over here?

David Graham 41:42

Well I uh I decided I got on a plane one year in um Calcutta, India. They put they put a tournament on the Indian Open. The first year it was in Calcutta, and I think the second year it was in New Delhi. And I got on the plane. I actually I got that's not quite the start of the story. I got really, really sick in India, and I got food poisoning and I got an infection in my stomach. And I got on the plane after being taken to the airport at like two o'clock in the morning, where they took all of the players that were leaving, because they had what they call the red-band militants we're gonna demonstrate, and there were gonna be like half a million of them. And our plane didn't leave until like ten o'clock in the morning. And I got on the plane and I sat next to Peter Thompson. And I said to him, I said, Peter, I think I'm gonna go play golf in America. And he said, Well, I think you need to rethink that, because you're kind of now the best player on the Asian tour, because I just won the Asian Order of Merit or whatever and got a whopping bonus of I don't know, $1,000 or something. And he said, you know, you can play the Asian tour and you can really make a lot of money and you can win a lot of tournaments. And and I said, you know, that's not really what I want. And I I basically said, if I had to do that as raw as that tour was, and you have to realize that was a raw tour in those days. Tough. And it was do it yourself. And you know, if you wanted to change your ticket from Tuesday to Wednesday, you had to go to the uh an airline office. It was all hand-correlated tickets with the carbon copies, and I mean I just got no courtesy cards? No, no, no courtesy cards. No. No food in the clubhouse. If even if you could get in there, there was no food. If you did, you had to pay for it. And um I just decided that that's not what I wanted to do. And I also kind of Decided that I didn't want to just go back to Australia and see what was installed for me. And I was very fortunate because I came over here and I got my card. And Bruce had just done a golf course in Emerald Hills in Hollywood, Florida. And he went to the owners, Dave Coy and Mr. Horowitz, and gotten my wife and I an apartment. And we lived there for a year or two before we bought our own little house. And, you know, Bruce gave me a car to drive up and down the turnpike, and he said, well, just get on the turnpike and Daytona Beach, you'll see the sign, and it's not that far. And I he said it's exit number 326. And I get on the I get on the turnpike in Miami and I see exit number 12. And I told my wife, I said, Well, that's not that far to go. And I mean, you know, 200 miles later on, where's this damn exit? And then I got lost because I didn't have GPS and I pulled over into the turn-off lane. The policeman pulled me over and wanted to know where I was going. And I told him, and he said, Well, you're in the wrong lane, you need to move on, and so and I didn't get a ticket. And so we didn't have children. That made a huge difference in my decision. If we'd have had children early on in our marriage, I most likely would have played the Asian tour and just stayed in Australia. A lot of players that come and play on the tour that have families and their their wives' family has families in Australia and all that. It's so hard to say, you know, sorry, but we're going to America for the next rest of our life. And I didn't have to worry about that because I'd come from I I didn't have anybody on my side, and my wife only had her mother and and a brother, but we saw them when we went back to Australia. It was so easy to just up stakes and come to the United States. And we came, and then, you know, all of a sudden you have a ch have a child, and then you start to play a little bit better, and you keep your exemption, and you get a nicer house and easier to travel, and you can fly or drive what the options are. And, you know, you never and you know, Nicholas would always say, you know, come to America, David. Gary Player would always say, you know, America, come and play in America. That's where the best players are, you know. And Arnold would say, come to America, and Devlin would say, Come to America. And Bruce kind of pioneered, you know, saying that, you know, you you can't play on the tour and commute. You know, that he just figured that out real quick.

Mike Gonzalez 46:49

Yeah, I got I got one perspective from talking to Bruce about what you're talking about. I got a whole different perspective talking to Gloria Devlin. Yeah. In terms of the family and the challenges and and the back and forth.

Bruce Devlin 47:01

David's right. That was uh you know, that's a that's a huge decision that we had to make. I guess it I guess we moved over to the U.S. in 1968. But you know, three kids, one the youngest one's six months old, and you rent your house to the American embassy and head off for two years, and those two years have turned into 53.

Mike Gonzalez 47:22

Aaron Powell Demi, did you really look at yourselves back then? I'll throw Bruce Crampton into the mix as sort of pioneers, at least from an Australian perspective, because were there really any other Australians before you that played as regularly on the U.S. tour as you guys did?

Bruce Devlin 47:37

No, I don't think I don't think any Australian prior to uh Crampton, who was uh he he started a couple of years earlier than what I did. Uh you know, some of the players like Norman played a couple of tournaments and Peter played a f uh, I believe a few tournaments here.

David Graham 47:53

But he did on the champions too in the championship completely different.

Mike Gonzalez 47:58

Yeah, that's uh that's Kel Nagel played a little bit here, but not a whole lot, did he?

Bruce Devlin 48:02

No. No, he he played a few he probably actually Kel probably played more here than what Peter did. You know, if you look at uh the career of both of them. Thompson was more of a a European tour player. You know, he loved uh he loved the old um English side of the golfer game. And uh Kel was Kel was uh actually he was a very interesting character when when when we were a lot younger. Kel obviously was Kel was one of the longest hitters in the game in those days. And they even used to they even used to have uh newspaper articles where they'd show where his drive was and where Roberto Di Vincenzo's drive was and what club they hit into the green. This was in the newspapers. So they were the you know Kel learned how to Kel learned how to hit that golf ball a long way probably a lot quicker than what I did for sure. But yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 49:00

David, how would you characterize your relationship with Bruce Devlin? Big brother?

David Graham 49:04

Uh let's not get too carried away. Well, it's it's no secret that I've I've often said, and I'll say it again, that I don't think as a player I'd be where I got to without Bruce. So, you know, he was uh confidant that I could trust, always get good advice. I guess he's uh big brother.

Mike Gonzalez 49:30

Yeah, and uh Bruce, what was your recollection of what he related in terms of uh what he picked up from you about uh things he could he could do uh with his game?

Bruce Devlin 49:40

Well, uh you know, he mentioned earlier about uh you know, changing his golf game completely and uh that obviously was the I think the biggest change that David ever made in his game where where he went to more upright clubs, close to the ball, uh swung the club a little more upright instead of a little flattened round him round himself too much. But uh it's pretty obvious when you think about his career that that uh he was a he was a great learner. He uh you know, you could I I remember we were standing on the uh he may not remember seventh T in Hawaii, in Hawaii, where and there was a flag cut on we're playing a practice round, flag was cut on the right hand side of the green, and he said to me, Devil, how do you you know you how do you hit that sit-up little you know, fade to the right? So you remember that? Yeah, I did. I never did it that day though. But he but he tried and you know, he hit about three or four balls.

David Graham 50:50

A couple of low hooks in the left bunker.

Bruce Devlin 50:53

No, David was uh well, you know, his career obviously speaks for itself, but uh he's he's been a great learner over his life, I think. And um a lot of people have helped him, and I'm glad that I was part of it.

Mike Gonzalez 51:07

Yeah, good. So, David, 1969, uh you decide to come and take on the U.S. tour.

David Graham 51:15

I came to America in 1969 and only played one tournament, and that was the El Cannes Golfer of the Year in Portland, where there were 30 players that qualified, and Billy Casper finished up winning after Trevino, I think, buried it in the front bunker on the little Par 317th hole. But I I made the choice um to come after, you know, I I was lucky. I mean, there's no question I was lucky. I mean, I played practice rounds with Nicholas and Player and Arnold and Bruce and all these guys, and you know, every one of them said, you know, come to America, you know, you don't have a family, come over there and and play against the best players, and you know, travel is better, the food's better, no language barriers, you don't need passports everywhere. And uh it was it was the right choice. I mean, now it could have backfired too. I could have easily have come over here and not got my tour card and gone back to what I was doing, but I I just decided that if as a professional golfer, if there was going at that period, if there was going to be any normality in one's life, that was the best thing to do. And um and you know, Bruce proved it worked, and Crampton proved it worked, and th but you've got to also realize that it was not a popular thing to do in Australia. I mean, we kind of were traitors, you know. How can you leave your country and why are you going over there and living and you're going to Yankee land and come back talking like a yank. Why are you going over there? And I mean, and the press were just as ugly then as maybe they are now. And I mean, they and then the you know, you'd come back, and then if you'd win and you'd leave, and they'd say, Oh, well, you just you came back and you get your check and you go back, and I mean the jealousy was just rampant in those days. Fortunately, it's not that way anymore because, you know, the Adam Scots have won the Masters and and and the European players have proved that they can play, and the game is so global now, with, you know, the Japanese player winning the Masters, that everybody that's in the game as a player is doing pretty well. Uh it's not the struggle that it used to be. I mean, and the uh the jealousy is not what it used to be, and thank goodness it's changed. Uh but in Australia in those days it was it was sometimes very unpleasant. It was it was disgusting behavior by a lot of people, to be honest with you.

Mike Gonzalez 53:59

Well, and then on this side of the pond, uh I would suspect the American golfing fan was not quite as accepting of foreigners 60 years ago as they are today.

Bruce Devlin 54:09

Not even and and really the players. Uh David uh uh may not have noticed it quite as much as what I did, you know, me being here before he he was, but we were we were welcomed by the better players. Uh David's mentioned some of the names, you know, like Gary Player and Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas and a lot of the other players.

David Graham 54:34

Well, and Trevino. Trevino said, hey, I don't care where you come from, bring your game and let's play. Right.

Bruce Devlin 54:40

Put a put a T in the ground on the first T, and if you can beat me, you have at it, you know. But uh We were con we were considered foreigners. We were. Yeah. Really?

Mike Gonzalez 54:51

And and a and a bit of a threat to maybe the journeyman pro that was trying to scratch out a little more.

David Graham 54:56

Well and and yeah, and if you were playing a little bit better than them, they perceived in the early in the early days that I was here, I think the American player thought that the tour belonged to the American player. They started the tour, they raised the money, you know, the the Nelsons and the Hogan's and the Sneeds of the world started it, got it going, and then uh, you know, the Don Januaries and the Miller Barbers and everything, they got it really started. They were doing all the proams and all the playing, and they really thought it was a closed a closed deal. And it took you know, look what they did to Bobby Locke. I mean, they told Bobby Locke, you know, go home, you're you're good.

Bruce Devlin 55:40

Found a way to get rid of him.

David Graham 55:42

And so but that's all changed over the years. And I think uh more so with with things like Nicholas giving the putt to Tony Jacqueline, you know, at the Ryder Cup, that had a you know, and Nicholas got, you know, ridiculed for doing that. What do you mean? Make him putt. We want to win, you know. And um, you know, Nicholas proved that, you know, being a gentleman uh was more important than victory.

Intro Music 56:11

And that's when McCarthy lost out of it.

Mike Gonzalez 56:15

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.

Intro Music 56:36

And it started to slice just smidge off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My caddies, as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.