Hal Sutton - "High-Powered Agents" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

So how you were assembling your small team, so you start with Freddie, but you also added an agent, didn't you, at some point?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Well, uh yes. My uh original agent was Fred Ridley, who is now running Augusta. Yeah, chairman of Augusta.

Mike Gonzalez 0:31

That's a pretty good pick.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Yeah. You know, Fred was with McCormick IMG at the time, you know, and uh well he had actually left McCormick at this time. He had been with him originally, he was an attorney, you know, and he was just an attorney in Tampa, and I called him on the phone and I said, Fred, I I don't know if you want to do this or not, but I said, you know, I I kind of want somebody that understands what being an agent is like, but doesn't conform to all the things that agents do. And uh he said, Yeah, I'll be happy to do that. And so he did it for a few years, and then he said, You know how I had a lot of early success, and he said, I think you need to go ahead and let uh McCormick and Hughes Norton handle this. And uh so McCormick uh flies into he and Hughes Norton fly into Shreeport on Arnold Palmer's jet and I pick him up and never will forget that, you know, and um we had a long meeting about things and anyway I ended up going with them for about a year and you know, everything they brought to me was things that I said I didn't want to do to begin with. You know, the obvious things. And uh you know, I didn't I never had taken a drink at that time in my life and I told them I won't do any alcohol or any cigarettes, and the first two things they bring to me is Nabisca I mean RJR and and uh McCalope. And it's like I So you didn't you didn't understand English when I was talking to you.

Mike Gonzalez 2:14

Any of that sound familiar from your experiences with them, Bruce?

Bruce Devlin 2:17

You know that's something that you and I have in common, Hal. I was with McCormick in the early days too, and uh my my dismissal of the company wasn't wasn't because of uh alcohol and cigarette uh you know endorsements, but uh uh I got on a plane uh in LA one day and I headed back to Australia and I got a phone call say, you know, that account that we have with that brokerage firm needs needs a little extra money in it. They they were taking care of the account and it wasn't working very well. Time for me to say goodbye.

Mike Gonzalez 3:01

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Intro Music 3:22

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. When it started, it's like just smacked off line. It had it for two, but it bounced off nine. Black heads, as long as you're still in the stage, okay.