Dottie Pepper - Part 2 (The 1999 Nabisco Dinah Shore and Solheim Cup)

Intro Music 0:07

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

You come off that year four wins in 96, uh a bit of a lull then. Maybe you were still winning elsewhere, but uh or coming close, but uh um, you know, we fast forward to 99 with the next Dinoshore win. So what was sort of going on between 96 and 99?

Dottie Pepper 0:29

I just didn't play that great of golf, and I was completely reinspired, um, really re-inspired by the Solheim Cup in '98 at Muirfield Village. Uh played really well with Brandy Burton in 96. We were at the Wales at St. Fier. Um, had some personal stuff going on that wasn't very positive, and the Solheim Cup at Muirfield Village was a real, real kick in the can for me. I it just made me want to go out and play great golf again. And I played exceptional golf that week, and it proved myself that I'm I'm ready to kind of kick this thing back into high gear.

Mike Gonzalez 1:07

Yeah. Bruce, it's been interesting as we've talked to these guests. Everyone has a lull. You experienced it. Oh, everybody did. Uh, for a variety of reasons, right? I mean, sometimes it's physical. It's hard to get through a long career like Dottie had 17 years, I think, on the PG LPG tour. Hard to get through 17 years without something going on with your body. You've got personal things going on because everybody's got an outside life to golf. Golf is such a mental focus sort of game that everything around you've got to be in order, too. So there's a lot of stuff that uh keeps people from having 17 beautiful, wonderful years.

Bruce Devlin 1:41

It's not gonna happen. And uh you've you've summed it up pretty good, you know. Uh when you're playing well, you think, uh, well, you know, I know how to play this game. I I've got I've got it. Uh there's no way I'm gonna lose it again, and then all of a sudden you fall off the tracks and you wonder, how the hell did that happen? And basically, it's uh uh I always felt when I was off track, back to basic fundamentals grip, stance, alignment, you know, just go back to where you started, and that's I think that's the only way you can get it back, Dottie.

Dottie Pepper 2:18

I I completely agree. Um, and it's it's those fundamentals. And what was I thinking about when it was going well? Was I not thinking at all? Was I was there one particular thing I was focused on? Going back to what you know works, and sometimes that is we're we're constantly, I and Curtis talks about this too. You're always trying to get better, but where's that where's the the peak performance in the bell curve that keeps you in in that zone somewhere before you're you're pushing yourself to get better where you can plateau and and be really good, but you push yourself too far and you're off the other side. We're always trying to get better, but how do you stay in that that optimal space where you perform best? And sometimes you gotta go to the other side to figure it out.

Bruce Devlin 3:06

Yeah. So in uh when you won the second time at uh uh Dinah Shore, tell us about your feelings there.

Dottie Pepper 3:15

I had um really started working into '98, I moved down to Laksahatchie Club in Jupiter. So I really had a great situation for playing and practicing and had a trainer, and um I came up ready to play at the beginning of '99. Um, I packed on some muscle. I had really worked hard fundamental-wise, and I was ready to go. And at the tournaments leading up to that, I I knew I was I was rounding into form at the right time. Oddly enough, I that particular week I did not drive a golf ball very well. Um, I hit it far enough, but it was also very crooked. But I pitched and fought my way around the golf course, I think, better than I than I ever had, and I I flooded beautifully. I I just iron play was was phenomenal. I had gone to um Bruce, you might know Jack Bulcotty, who did a lot of work on golf clubs and was Nicholas's guy, and and he was down there in Palm Beach Gardens. Palm Beach. Yeah. Yeah. And I took my set of, I was did not like the set of irons I had at the beginning of the season. And things were going left, and I knew I wasn't swinging left. So took him to Jack and he got the big old lead hammer out. And he and I I was like, oh my god, what are you doing in my golf clubs? Uh literally, the hammer, the head of the hammer was like this, and he got him, I got him on the lion loft board, and he said, These things are way too upright for you. Spent them two degrees flatter, and I was off to the races. Everything that I was working on clicked. And I headed to the desert, played beautiful golf, and then it all really kicked in that particular week.

Mike Gonzalez 4:53

Yeah, you led by three after three rounds.

Dottie Pepper 4:56

And as Judy Rankin said, if you're playing well, three can be a lot. If you're not, it's not.

Intro Music 5:01

Yeah.

Dottie Pepper 5:02

And I I played a really, really good final round, but it it came down to in the final, final grouping, it was Meg Mallon, myself, and Kelly Robbins. And we had Meg was in the grouping on Saturday, and it started we started to separate ourselves from the rest of the field. And I just remember standing myself on the 17th, holding even on Saturday. I am not going to be the one that's going to blink. We were both playing exceptional golf. And I think it she would have won maybe every other Dynah with the score that she shot. Um, and I ended up winning by six.

Mike Gonzalez 5:36

Yeah, uh, that was six over Meg and Kari Webb. Uh you bogeied 13 on Sunday, but then you came right back and uh and birdied uh uh 14. Tell us a little bit about what happened on 16.

Dottie Pepper 5:49

Uh 16 is dog leg, slight dog leg to the right, far four, and I hold out. Uh in the middle of the fairway. One of, like I said, one of the few fairways I actually hit that week. Uh and and and hold out with the seven iron. And funny thing is, uh, on my my website, it's on there, the the the reel of there's I don't know, 15 or 20 seconds that ESPN was kind enough to give me, and we used it as part of the part of the lead up to the book. Uh, but it was my my now dear friend and colleague Ian Baker Finch was on the call.

Mike Gonzalez 6:20

Ah, how was it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, Bruce, having talked to 47, I think, now, uh, interviews, all pretty much major winters winners, not very many have had a chance to come down the stretch with that kind of lead and walk up that 18th hole to an ovation.

Bruce Devlin 6:41

That's true. That's absolutely true.

Mike Gonzalez 6:43

A very rare privilege. What'd that feel like, Dottie?

Dottie Pepper 6:46

You know, I I I was I I think I enjoyed going to the 18th hole, knowing that I had that sort of a lead, but I hit it in the water. Like, I can't even enjoy this. I just knacked three went into the into the water left. So, you know, I think there was, and I was bound and determined that I didn't want to finish with bogey, so I ended up making, I think, a 10-footer or so for um for a par. In fact, the the photo is on on the wall behind me um when I made that. It was it was not a birdie butt at the last, it was for par. But I didn't want to finish making a six with that kind of lean and having played that well all week long.

Mike Gonzalez 7:26

Yeah, well, uh, you know, it was the most strokes ever under par in a major. Um, it ended a two-year drought for you. Of course, you did take the traditional dip this time in the pond on 18. But what I like for our listeners, uh, because there's hope for all of us, uh we hear Dottie talk about how bad she drove the ball, Bruce. She only shot 70, 66, 67, 66. Come on. 1900? She's not driving the ball well.

Bruce Devlin 7:54

Yeah. Well, she has a very high standard. Well, maybe that's what it is.

Dottie Pepper 7:58

I don't know. I pitched it like I never pitched it before. I I was not, I don't think, a very good pitcher of the golf ball, but that week I was aces there. Every time I got in trouble, I it was it was pretty impressive, even by my standard.

Mike Gonzalez 8:14

Yeah. Well, you notched a couple of other victories uh uh later that year, the Oldsmobile Classic Walnut Hills uh Country Club up in Michigan by two over Kelly Keeney, and then uh and then in 2000 you won the Arch Wireless Championship at uh LPG International Legends Course by three over Rachel Hetherington.

Dottie Pepper 8:32

That was that was the tour championship. So it was the last event on the schedule, and I'd just come off a pretty pretty bad bad run through the middle of the summer with my back. If I I missed defending the title at Walnut Hills, sadly, the golf course doesn't even exist anymore. It's it's now a housing development, but it was a classic old Midwest um Lancing great membership. Um they just couldn't make it go, and over the last couple years it's it's um become a housing development. But that was that was an important win too. Um I felt, you know, my dad played for the Tigers. I made the made made the trip to Tiger Stadium during the 99 event on Saturday night because it was going to be the last time I could see baseball in Tiger Stadium because they were tearing it down and building Plumerica Park. So I managed to to wiggle that in. Um and then you know I couldn't defend because I was I was on I was all in PT for months uh trying to get through the 2000 season to get into the Solheim Cup where Bradley was was captain and then who was well enough to play and play well in in November um at the at the tour championship. But I had I gone out to dinner Saturday night with the Rankins and Billy Ray Brown and had some bad oysters and I was so sick for the final round, it was awful. Oh my it was awful, but managed to to hang on for for one last win, and that was my last tour win.

Mike Gonzalez 9:59

Yeah, uh that was win number 17 on the LPGA tour for Dottie Pepper and and you know, Bruce, one thing that uh I find very interesting, uh Dottie, I haven't done the math on this, but I look at your LPJ playoff record of of three and five, and so you had some other close calls. But the thing about that that I don't understand, well, I I think I do maybe we've talked to all these major champions, the greatest players that have ever lived, and I bet if I added up all of their playoff records, it's probably sub 500, which just shows you what a crapshoot one-hole playoffs are.

Dottie Pepper 10:35

Yeah, it can be yeah, it it can be. Uh and I I think overall, if I had to go back and change my mindset about playoffs, it would not be you can't rest on your laurels, and you gotta be the one to go out and try to win it, not wait for somebody else to make a mistake. And I think I think maybe I waited a little, I was maybe a little too passive, if if that makes any sense at all.

Bruce Devlin 11:02

Does make sense, absolutely.

Mike Gonzalez 11:06

Well, let's just uh uh touch briefly on the majors, Dottie. You you talked about your experience with some of these. We of course talked about the the wins at the dinosaur, but if you start with uh the dinosaur Kraft Nabisco, uh you had some other close calls. I mentioned you finished second uh the year before you won in 92 to Amy Alcott in 91. Uh you finished second the year after you won it in 99 to Corey Webb, and you also finished second the following year to uh Annika. So you you you did like that golf course, didn't you? I loved it.

Dottie Pepper 11:37

I did like that golf course. I I liked the time of the year it was. I was fresh. Uh and I and it had been a focal point for me really since you know that it becomes the focal point when you sit down and establish what you think your schedule is going to look like for the year. You wanted to I talked to Nicholas about this for for a bit um back in in '92, and you're trying to pick a schedule. Of course, he liked to be on site and play his way around that particular golf course. We would always go early to Augusta, would go try to go early to a US Open. Women couldn't do that because of our our agreement with the tour. When we signed on at the beginning of the year, you couldn't play the previous week at the tournament site. So you had to either not play at all or you had to play in the tournament that was on the schedule prior. So I I couldn't do that. Uh, but I was ready to focus on that particular that particular major at the beginning of the year was always, I think for me, I was a little fresher. And I I knew exactly what it took to get around that golf course.

Mike Gonzalez 12:40

Yeah. You know, that's an interesting point you make, Dottie, because the counterpoint to that that we've heard from the men is many of our champions that we've talked to, Bruce, didn't have a particularly good record the PGA just because of where it fell in the schedule. And by that time, a lot of them said, we were worn out.

Dottie Pepper 12:56

Worn out?

Bruce Devlin 12:56

Yeah, right.

Mike Gonzalez 12:57

August, yeah. It had been a long year.

Dottie Pepper 13:00

Yeah, I think you can you can debate the way they've got the schedule now with really one one highlight from March, April, May, June, July.

Bruce Devlin 13:13

June, and July.

Dottie Pepper 13:14

Right. Um, it maybe it's spread out a little bit better. Maybe that I I personally like having the PGA in May. I think it's going to open some different golf courses, different venues that will that will change maybe the makeup. But uh it was it's hard to maintain intensity, to maintain good health, to maintain your enthusiasm. Uh toward the end of the year, it's hard.

Mike Gonzalez 13:37

Yeah. At my age, I'm having a tough time doing it for four hours.

Dottie Pepper 13:43

Good point.

Bruce Devlin 13:45

So 15 starts at uh Nabisco Donasure, made the cut 15 times. Then the LPGA championship, 15 starts, 14 cuts. So you missed one time there, that's all.

Dottie Pepper 13:59

I missed one there. I it never um so I played with my first LPGA championship was at Kings Mill in Cincinnati, west side of Cincinnati. Um, not a golf course I particularly loved, but got it around. Never really had when the Duke when DuPont Country Club started hosting the LPGA championship, didn't like the golf course, and so my chances were I tried everything. I went in there weeks early, tried to change the whole way I prepared, nothing ever clicked.

Bruce Devlin 14:30

Yeah, isn't that amazing?

Dottie Pepper 14:31

I love Bethesda Country Club and I played pretty well there. Um, but I never never fell in love with DuPont. It didn't fit my eye. It just something was not was not right about that place, and uh my chances at an LPGA championship were about zero.

Mike Gonzalez 14:46

Yeah, just and just for our listeners who who don't know this, uh DuPont Country Club was the host from '94 all the way through 2004. So I guess that's a stretch of 11 years. And you're right. I mean, you you look through some of the names, and there's some repeat winners, so that suited the certain certain players and certain players that didn't.

Dottie Pepper 15:03

Yep, there were mega bombers that played really well there. Um Julie played very well there, Lord Davies played well there. Uh it was it pelted the McDonald's championship early on there, and I had one or two good finishes, but it just never, there was never a love affair with the golf course.

Mike Gonzalez 15:22

Yeah, yeah. You had the few good finishes at the U.S. Open. Uh again, uh 19 starts, 18 cuts made, but you had uh six top tens, five top fives. You had the three-thirds in 88 at Baltimore, uh Lisa Newman won, 1990 at Atlanta Atleta Club with uh with Betsy King winning that one, and then 2001, you mentioned the one at uh Pine Needles, that's the one that Corey Webb won.

Dottie Pepper 15:46

Yep. And I played very poorly to start that that open. I think I uh I wanted the US Open too much. It always it was the Dyna and the US Open were such such big focal points for me, and I think I think I just wanted it too much.

Mike Gonzalez 16:03

Yeah. You played in a couple of uh British Opens. Of course, that major was only a major starting in in the year 2001, so that kind of came along late in your career.

Dottie Pepper 16:15

I did go over and play, but it was not on the on the LPGA schedule. I went over, I thought it would make me you know more complete player, so I went over, Bruce, you'll appreciate this, thinking, well, I'm going to a British open. I need to be hitting it like head high to a grasshopper and hitting these tumblers. So that's the way I prepared and flew from Seattle to London, played the Safe Coat Championship, flew to London, and we ended up now. Tell me again where um where Ian Polture plays. Anyway, Parkland golf course. I thought you needed to hit it, I move it both directions. So I was hitting it.

Mike Gonzalez 16:58

A little different than Lakes Golf.

Dottie Pepper 16:59

Well, different than Lakes Golf, but we didn't have the access to really know what these golf courses were like. Not like you can get on the internet and take a take a drone tour.

Bruce Devlin 17:08

Yeah, yeah, doesn't help much.

Mike Gonzalez 17:10

Yeah, exactly. Um and then uh finishing up with the DeMaurier, which uh was a major from 79 to 2000. So you did have 11 starts there, made a cut every time. And uh best finish was uh uh fourth in 1993, the year uh Brandy Burton won it London Hunt Club.

Dottie Pepper 17:28

Very cool golf course, and we were in the midst of a massive heat wave. Um but they they moved that championship from East Coast to West Coast, and they really did have something special there in Canada, and and government legislation got in the way because it was a tobacco company.

Mike Gonzalez 17:44

Yeah, yeah, that's what happened. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit of team play if we can. You've referenced a couple times uh your experience in the Solheim Cup, and um you had a chance to play as a player six times. The record for Dottie Pepper, pretty good, Bruce.

Bruce Devlin 18:01

13, 5, and 2, boy. I'll say it's good.

Mike Gonzalez 18:06

You must have thrived in that environment.

Dottie Pepper 18:08

I I did. Um and talked about it earlier. My whole foundation was based upon a very disappointing Curtis Cup experience. Uh, and having the opportunity to be on that first team was announced, well, at DuPont Country Club, Charlie Mechan, or how else is Charlie was the commissioner? Anyway, no, Charlie Charlie wasn't the commissioner at the time, but it was announced that there was going to be uh a women's equivalent or to that of the Ryder Cup, and I thought, well, I want to be part of that. And oh, by the way, points have already started to accrue. We're gonna go back to the beginning of this season. I thought, oh, this is good. I've already won one year, so I I I'm I'm I'm in the mix. And it turned out I got the last the last earned spot on that team. I got had to get it up and down from 150 yards at Centel in at Tallahassee at Cologne Country Club to lock up the last spot on that team. It was it was pretty it was a very, very special week.

Mike Gonzalez 19:08

Yeah. So uh uh you got to play in the inaugural Solheim Cup back in 1990. Of course, uh that was a win at Lake Nona, and team captain, appropriately enough, Kathy Whitworth.

Dottie Pepper 19:20

Exactly. Um and it just Kathy did something really, really cool. I think it was it's it's gives so much credit to what happened with Zinger, put it with his pods at Valhalla. Yeah Kathy did that in 90. She did she paired from she paired like personalities and just said anticipate that that your opponents are gonna play the best golf of their life and just go get it go get it done. She was she she was um she was amazing and and she was the captain in ninety two as well, but her mom had passed uh while we when we got to the matches, and so she headed home.

Mike Gonzalez 20:02

Yeah, yeah. That had to be tough for everybody, team included, to to kind of go through that experience.

Dottie Pepper 20:08

It it was. Uh there was there was just not a not a whole lot of organization, and I think a lot of people, because of how well we played at Lake Nona, thought that would translate immediately to playing well uh over in the UK. And that did not happen. Uh it it didn't. Didn't the team never gelled, we didn't make the weather was terrible, it didn't didn't make any putts, um, didn't have the leadership from from Kathy, and that was that was pretty difficult. But I think we thought we'd roll over um the the European team and they figured out a way that they didn't have to play, and so the rules have since changed, but they didn't have to play everybody before Sunday singles, so they just waited and they played all their horses and then put everybody on the golf course during singles. So of course the captain's agreement has been changed, and that's something that that is at the Ryder Cup as well. But you you gotta everybody's gotta play before Sunday singles.

Mike Gonzalez 21:05

Yeah. Well you got back on the winning track the next year.

Dottie Pepper 21:10

Yeah, 90 94 when we played at the Greenbrier, that was that was a different ballgame. You know, Carner was was the captain and she was magnificent. She didn't she set the whole tone by just um well Beth Daniels said it at one of the the early dinners, she said, we're gonna make the fat lady sing. So she had the sequined hat and she sat there with her cocktail at the at the head of the table every night, and she was just she she was she was remarkable, but her whole philosophy was just go win the first hole. If you win the first hole, you've got that mentality going forward, and that will that will carry it. And every and that was that was it was very simple, and we had our marching orders.

Mike Gonzalez 21:54

Yeah. So Joanne's leadership style a little bit different then?

Dottie Pepper 21:58

Yeah, she sort of She uh she just took everything as it came flying at her. Not nothing fazed her at all.

Bruce Devlin 22:06

So then in ninety-six and ninety-eight, your captain was Judy Rankin when you when you guys won at St. Pierre Hotel and then at Muirfield Village again.

Dottie Pepper 22:14

Yep. We were behind going into the final day at St. Pierre by by a decent margin, as I remember. And the only thing Judy said at dinner on Saturday night was, I want you to just go do what you already know how to do. So it's quite making this so difficult. You guys know how to win, you know how to play. Just go do what you already know how to do, and we rolled on Sunday. Pat Bradley was not playing well, put her out first, and she did get beaten, but I think she may have been the only loss, uh, with the exception of a couple of ties on on the way through the lineup. It was huge.

Bruce Devlin 22:52

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 22:54

Yeah, 1998 Mirrorfield Village. Dottie Pepper goes 4-0, and the Europeans were trying to use your image for motivation. That didn't work for them very well, did it?

Dottie Pepper 23:04

No, I don't think it did. No, it didn't. Um still that was a that was an important week because it was you know, we went to a golf course that was familiar to so many people, and the quality of the play was so good. Uh Judy, Judy worked hard at that at that week. Um, it was very hot. It was dry. It was a Meerfield Village that a lot of people hadn't really seen because they Yeah, Bruce, you know what Mearfield Village is gonna be like in in late May and early June, and it can be used to be a slug fest. Um, it was hot and dry, and it was actually a a home Ohio State game on Saturday, and the Solheim Cup sold out. So it was interesting. There was an amazing amount of support for the event in Columbus.

Mike Gonzalez 23:52

Yeah. Boy, I'll say. Well, we could skip 2000 because you just went over to Scotland and played a uh a course that you could find anywhere in America.

Dottie Pepper 24:00

Thank you for saying that. But they have the best cream of mushroom soup ever. I ended up getting the recipe.

Mike Gonzalez 24:08

There's a lot of good stuff about Loch Loman, but I'm not sure the golf course is one of them.

Dottie Pepper 24:12

No, I I would agree. And they had had some sort of thing roll through prior or post the European tour playing there, and the greens were gone. No excuse, somebody's gonna make putts. But um it was kind of a bummer to roll up on a Solheim Cup and see see what the conditions were. Um but we just again didn't didn't play very well. There was controversy in there that um I think Bradley handled so well, and she was absolutely vilified for it.

Bruce Devlin 24:39

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 24:41

So, Donnie, take us through the transition you made then as you uh go from full-time LPGA player to Citizen Pepper.

Dottie Pepper 24:52

Um it was it was health driven. In 2002, I had my first shoulder surgery, and I think I lost I I was I guess I just didn't realize how burned out I was. Um tried to come back, came back too early. I was set back there for sure. Um and I just realized that there was more more good stuff to life than just beating balls and being on the road um playing golf. And in 2004 I was struggling again health-wise, and I lost a lot of the feeling in my face, and it turned out to be uh a compression situation in my right shoulder, so now I've got both shoulders that are either surgically repaired or need to be surgically repaired, and I just I'd had enough. I ended up um at the Mayo clinic in the fetal position, having a spinal tap, and I thought, this is not worth it.

Mike Gonzalez 25:44

This is just not worth it.

Dottie Pepper 25:46

And um, so that was early July of 2004, and and fortunately I had a very good friend that worked at NBC as a statistician, John Goldstein, who said, you know, Tommy the Plummy Roy, the producer, said, you ought to give her a shot, she might be okay at this. Um she kind of organized and she's got an opinion, and if she prepares to broadcast the way she did as a player, I think it might be all right. She'll be all right. Um so that was so I ended up withdrawing from the US Women's Open. I had I was given a special exemption to play in 04, gave that back, uh, and Tommy hired me then. And so I I started broadcasting everything NBC had uh for the rest of that season for the women's game. And they had it, they had a world championship, they had the women's open. Um they had the and then ABC called. So I didn't have a contract for an exclusive, but Judy Rankin fell. And she fell at the tour championship and she broke her elbow and banged up her face real bad, ended up having to have surgery, and they called me to do the Wendy's three tour challenge and also to go to the World Cup, which was over in Seville, Spain, and that really that changed my like I really do want to do this, and and I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being back amongst some of the guys that I was with at Titlist, so Billy Ray Brown. We had a ball, did a bunch of junior clinics when I was with on that staff and just reconnected with a lot of people that I played college golf and some of the professional silly season events with, but I loved the television side of it. I I loved just the process of getting on the air, of figuring out good things to be able to share with the audience that they wouldn't otherwise be able to know. And I had a lot of people really um serve as mentors who just gave me really good advice along the way.

Mike Gonzalez 27:43

Great. So you spent time with um with uh Golf Channel NBC, a little time at ESPN, and here you are at CBS working with some great, great colleagues.

Dottie Pepper 27:54

Yeah, it's it's been quite the journey uh and and very different. So over the course of it, because of where I worked, I've now covered every major championship. And that's cool. And and I and I loved being able to do do the amateur stuff. When we had I worked at ESPN, I I did play by play for the Walker Cup. I it was so I've been able to do it in different roles. I've been on the ground or I've been in the 18th tower or a supporting tower position. And I and I think it's really this goes back to my my days with at NBC with Tommy Roy, and he wanted his announcers to be able to wear every hat. If something happened, he wanted everybody to be very um flexible and adept at doing other jobs, not just being pigeon pulled into one sort of um utility. So I, you know, thankful, thankful for that. Um I've learned so much from every producer that that I've worked for, and now being at CBS with Seller Shy in the lead chair, it's um it's organized fun. And and I think there's a we came out of the COVID lockdowns because of how we did did golf, and we went back with a super tower sort of situation in Orlando in the studio, and having a couple of us out on the ground. I was the only one to do all 11 events that we came back and did post-lockdown.

Bruce Devlin 29:16

Yeah.

Dottie Pepper 29:16

I think you developed you developed the trust and you developed um you really relied on each other, even though you weren't really in the same place. And I think it it helped our level of communication uh not only with producers and directors and all the technicians, but also the announcers themselves.

Mike Gonzalez 29:36

Yeah, Bruce, you're probably one of the few people listening or participating in this podcast that has an appreciation for how hard what Dottie does is.

Bruce Devlin 29:46

Oh, yes, I know exactly. You know, it's uh you you mentioned something very important, Dottie, and that is the learning from the people that uh that you work with. I can remember, you'll remember a gentleman by the name of Don Olmeyer. He told me when I first started, when he first came over uh to NBC, he said to me, I'm gonna give you one piece of advice. The people, what you see on your television set is the same as what the people see in their living room. So don't talk about that. Talk about the people, the conditions. It was the best advice I ever got from anybody in the TV business.

Dottie Pepper 30:28

So true. Um, it's a visual medium, and it was something that Eric Sapperstein, who was a studio producer at Golf Channel, my very first show in the studio, said tell the viewers something that they wouldn't otherwise be able to know. It's not what you're looking at, it's something to add, it's that needs to be additive. And that that set it so well, um, set the foundation so well. And then Judy Rankin's advice was especially because when I was at NBC, I was the third walker on the PGA tour coverage or the US Open coverage, all of that. Um, she said, that producer is not gonna stay with you, so say as much as you can in as few words as possible.

Bruce Devlin 31:09

There you go.

Dottie Pepper 31:10

And between those two, it's just a great foundation. And also from Mike Tariko, go back and watch your shows. Are there ticks, are there things you're falling into repeatedly that you can always clean up? And think about all the different sports that he covers and the amount of hours that he's on the air. He still finds time to go back and watch uh quite a bit and be constantly evaluating your own performance.

Mike Gonzalez 31:39

What a pro he is. And uh, you know, you I'm sure you two could talk broadcasting for uh uh another hour here, but uh with time being short, let's put a bow on this, uh Dottie. We certainly enjoy the work of you and your colleagues on CBS. And as we wrap up the life of Dottie Pepper, Bruce, there's uh three questions we like to always ask our guests.

unknown 31:58

Okay.

Bruce Devlin 31:59

There is uh the first one, Dottie, is uh if you knew what you know now when you first started on the tour, what would you do different?

Dottie Pepper 32:11

I would be a little easier on myself. And I I would um I would I would realize certainly because of the space that we as broadcasters are, that golf is so far from perfect. And that those people hitting those seemingly bad golf shots still manage them in their fair share.

Mike Gonzalez 32:30

Fair enough. Uh second question. You got one career mulligan, where do you take it?

Dottie Pepper 32:35

I take it at the Rochester International in 1997. I missed a putt that was well, screaming. It wasn't like it was probably two feet at the last hole to go into a playoff. Defending the title in '96. And you know, Rochester was important. It's three hours, three and a half hours from home. Yeah, that's home. Almost home country. Yeah. Um, but I I I missed a putt at the last hole, the forced playoff with Pennyham. Well, I would take that one again.

Mike Gonzalez 33:01

You you notice she didn't spend much time thinking about that, Bruce.

Dottie Pepper 33:05

That was a little scar tissue.

Bruce Devlin 33:06

Oh, yeah. Okay, we gotta finish it off, Dotty. How do you want people to remember Dottie Pepper?

Dottie Pepper 33:14

Ooh. I guess that I was a um a competitor at heart that also had a heart.

Bruce Devlin 33:26

Very good. Well, we just uh again, Dottie, thank you. It's been a a real pleasure for us to have you on the for the good of the game, and uh we wish you all the best from from here on and uh thank you again for joining us.

Dottie Pepper 33:40

Well, thanks for taking up this um it's a it's a monumental task that you have ahead of you, but but to to to try to do all the major champions and people who have changed the game, that's that's a that's a tall task, and thanks for for jumping on. No, thanks for giving me the platform to do it.

Mike Gonzalez 33:59

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 teat up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 34:20

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. And it started just like just smacked off line. My head is as long as you're still in the stage, you're okay. It went straight down the middle, five away.