Hal Sutton - Part 2 (TPC Wins and the 1999 Ryder Cup)

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to hook just a little bit.

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

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

SPEAKER_01 0:23

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:32

That's a pretty good pick.

SPEAKER_01 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 uh 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 Mikelob. And it's like I So you didn't you didn't understand English when I was talking to you.

Mike Gonzalez 2:15

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

Bruce Devlin 2:18

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. So that was time for me to say goodbye.

Mike Gonzalez 3:02

Now let's talk a little bit about your professional career uh turning pro uh as a fairly young guy in in 1981, I believe, uh after completing tour school. Um 15 professional wins, including 14 PGA tour victories. Your highest ranking uh in the world rankings fourth in the year 2000. Had a pretty good playoff record, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Uh yeah. I was all right in playoffs.

Mike Gonzalez 3:30

Uh better than most.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Well, I don't know I think that's accident. I don't know that there's any um it's just circumstantial, probably.

Mike Gonzalez 3:43

It's tough sometimes when it comes down to one hole, but you had a a good stretch. I I seem to remember reading somewhere we're probably three or four in a row in pretty quick succession you had won uh in playoffs, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Something like that. I don't I don't recall all of it, but uh you know, here's something that people don't really I'll say this at this point. We remember our failures a lot more than we remember our successes. And uh, you know, one of the things that I look back on my career is the failures that I had at Augusta. Augusta never agreed with Hal Sutton, and you know, it seemed like every time that I went there I was I was defeated before I ever played. And uh, you know, it just didn't fit my eye, didn't fit my game, and I found myself trying to do things that Hal Sutton didn't normally try to do at Augusta. And and I I I always walked away from Augusta with a not a good feeling at all, to be honest with you. And uh, you know, I haven't been back to Augusta since uh the last time I played. I think I played 18 Masters, if I remember right. And I only had one week out of all of them that was even something that that, you know, we wouldn't even call it a great success. I finished ninth or tenth or something like that. And you know, who remembers when they finished ninth or tenth? You know, no one does. And you know, I was the one guy, the only thing I ever wanted, Augusta, I won the par three tournament one time.

Bruce Devlin 5:24

And that was the kiss of death when you won the party.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

I would say that was a kiss of death. I think I I had kissed death already before I when I drove down Magnolia Lane, I think.

Mike Gonzalez 5:37

So do you think it was it was kind of in your head coming in? It was it a course that you just you just it just didn't fit your eye the way some courses did. What do you think it was?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Well, you know, I was a low ball hitter most of my life. And I faded my driver and drew my irons. And that is not the recipe for a really good play at Augusta.

Bruce Devlin 5:58

Sure would work the other way, though, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

It would have worked the other way. Yes. If I would have drawn my driver and faded my irons, I'd have had a lot more success at Augusta. But it just and I always went in there. I mean, this is just how stupid this is. I tell kids about this all the time. A guy wrote an article after I had finished leading Money Winner in 1983 and won TPC and PGA in the same year. And if they'd have had world rankings at the time, I'd have been ranked number one at that time, but they didn't even have world rankings at that time. And this guy wrote an article, said, Howe will never do any good at Augusta because he doesn't hit the ball high enough. And so guess what I started trying to do every time I went to Augusta? I started trying to hit the ball high, which meant I didn't compress the ball as much. It wasn't as solid of hits. And we all know that the wind blows at Augusta and it's tricky, and the easiest way to defeat wind is to get on top of it and compress the ball and hit it compressed. And, you know, I just I didn't do what Hal Sutton knew to do. I did what others thought I needed to do. And, you know, I saw in your notes how you talked about what happened to me from 1987 to 1995. To be honest with you, I won like six or seven times in the first three or four years that I was out there, and everybody was writing about what I didn't do right rather than what I did do right. And I thought, you know, who am I playing this game for? Am I playing this game for everybody else or am I playing this game for me? And you know, I couldn't quit because I was locked into having to make a certain amount of money to live the lifestyle that I was living. So I started buying cutting horses and started showing cutting horses, and that became almost an obsession with me, just like playing golf was. And, you know, it was it was a departure from the thing that was causing me the heartache, which was golf at the time. And I kind of lost what I even played the game for. I loved to play the game, and I didn't need everybody else's opinion of, you know, of course, uh, in the sports world. I mean, it I mean, imagine how bad it is now for these kids that have social media and everything else. If I was bothered by it by just what they wrote in Golf Digest and what they said on TV, every day in social media they can tell you what you're doing wrong.

Bruce Devlin 8:30

It's just ridiculous, isn't it? Well, now though, uh don't we have a little$40 million payout now for those that handle the social media the best way?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, the popularity contest.

Bruce Devlin 8:43

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, it is unbelievable.

Bruce Devlin 8:46

I I don't understand it, Hal.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I thought it was all about who the best player was. I didn't know it was going to be who was going to win the popularity contest. Me either.

Bruce Devlin 8:54

I thought it was about scoring, get your ball in the hole the quick you can.

Mike Gonzalez 8:59

And at least as announced, I didn't see any element that had anything to do with what you do with your golf ball.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Well, I mean I'm a fan of Tiger Woods, I'll just go ahead and say that, but I'm not a fan of him winning the eight million dollars at first prize while he's sitting at home on the couch.

Mike Gonzalez 9:22

And then and that's conceivable, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

That is conceivable the way this is set up. He's got way more followers than anybody else. A long shot way more. And uh he's he's the biggest influencer. And you know, I just can't see that.

Bruce Devlin 9:40

I guess I can tie it all together and say that Hal Sutton and Bruce Stevlin are not big fans of the PJ Tour's popularity contest.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

You think that might be right? You know, Bruce, we we probably agree on more things than just that.

Bruce Devlin 9:56

Yeah, I guess we do.

Mike Gonzalez 10:00

I forget how many followers he's got. I had oh, it's uh I know what he's got. On Twitter, he's got six point six million followers.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

That's what I'm talking about. Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 10:11

You look and see who's in second place there. Way, way behind. Way behind.

Bruce Devlin 10:16

Yeah, yeah. Ricky Fallon's probably the next one.

Mike Gonzalez 10:20

Let's talk about PGA tours specifically. Uh I mean, certainly we're gonna we're gonna get to talking about uh your major, which was the 1983 PGA championship, where you won by one over Jack Nicholas. But in 1983, player of the year and leading money winner, and we'll talk a little bit about money because you've got some interesting stories there about some of the purses you won. But uh it was$450,000 for those that uh wanted to know what the leading money winner took home uh back that far ago, uh almost 40 years ago. 1994 Comeback Player of the Year. And in recounting some of your wins, if we just kind of set aside the tour championship, the TPC wins, the PGA win, what are some of your most memorable wins on PGA Tour?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Um actually Memorial would be one of them. Uh you know, winning Jack's tournament there that week was a lot of fun, you know. Um he took such pride in his golf tournament uh and his golf course, still does, you know, and um it was just it was like the TPC week, you know, it's all about the players. Well, Jack made it all about the players at the memorial as well.

Bruce Devlin 11:35

It's always been that way.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, it's always been that way, and I just felt like it was another players' championship, you know, and practice facilities were so good. Yeah, he treated the players, the locker room was fantastic, and it was just a great experience all the way around, and then to have Jack hosting the event. He was my idol, you know. Everything that he did, I watched what he did.

Bruce Devlin 12:02

Those milkshakes were pretty good too, weren't they? They were? Did you ever have one of those?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Oh of course I had one of those. Yeah, everybody had one of those. They were special, weren't they?

Bruce Devlin 12:16

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 12:17

They bring them around on a tray, you know, you got chocolate, you got Oreo, you got you got whatever you want there, right?

Bruce Devlin 12:22

Talking about memorial. How about last weekend what happened?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

With John Run, what a how about that? That was unbelievable. You know, when they when they put together that protocol, I I'm pretty sure that maybe somehow it slipped their mind what's going to happen if somebody's got a six-shot lead after 54 holes, what's going to happen like that? He's already come in contact with everybody out there. So, I mean, I mean, if I were John Rom, I'd be some kind of upset because this is millions of dollars of ramifications. This is not just the 1.67 million, this is 15 million, FedEx Cup point. Yeah. This is everything. I mean, I don't know how they were able to do that and and smile.

Bruce Devlin 13:12

Yeah, and I want to tell you something. He handled it with so much class, his statement was, I thought was just extra special, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah. Yeah, I don't uh I don't know how he kept himself together to do that. I don't know.

Mike Gonzalez 13:28

Well, it's it it's unfortunate. As you said, Hal, uh somebody didn't anticipate this. And you know, as as the world has started transitioning back to some normalcy, uh the question that I ask is, at what point as the pendulum swings back to normal, does the PGA re-look at their protocols and say, okay, we need to shift a little bit, because obviously if they wanted to let John Rom play his final round on Sunday, they could have done that and kept him and everyone on the planet safe. They could have sent him out as a single if they wanted to, they could have had him do take a trolley for crying out loud, but I mean just literally keep everybody away from him and had a had him safely complete his round. They could have done that, but the unfortunate thing is the rules were published as they are and they had to follow the rules.

Bruce Devlin 14:22

It leaves it leaves a question for me though, Hal. Uh you know, this has been going on now for pretty close to 18 months. Right. Why are the players, why have the players not been vaccinated? Why haven't they taken the covert shot? I don't know. I've had mine. I mean, you know, if if you're out there in in the public, uh it would seem to me that you know we might have uh we might have thought a little bit more about making sure that the guys all all got their shots, you know. He's not the only one that's that's you know been taken off the golf course, but this was uh bit of an overstatement, I think.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Well, this is gonna make everybody take a look at it. I can tell you that. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:12

I would I would have thought there'd be a long line this morning at the vaccination line for a lot of the tour pros that haven't gotten it. Probably so. Yeah. Uh other memorable wins on the tour other than the big ones I mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Team wise, uh the 99 Ryder Cup was quite uh I don't think I ever had anything that I ever did that I felt like was more of an accomplishment than being part of that team.

Mike Gonzalez 15:41

That was a pretty intense environment too, you were in, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

It was. You know, there was a lot of yeah, I don't know how well y'all remember that, but that's where some of the younger guys on the team wanted to be paid to play. And there were several meetings leading up to that that uh were pretty contentious. And um so, you know the emotions were running high, let's put it that way. And you know, everybody had talked about how great the team was, and you know, I was I it it I'd been long removed from making a team. Uh it'd been 12 years since I'd been on a team, so I was so grateful that I was just able to be there. Yeah. And you know, set aside, I mean they I could have paid them to be part of the team instead of them paying me to be part of the team. And I had a different outlook than a lot of the other guys on the team. And you know, it was such a joy for me to be there and to be part of it, and Ben was such a joy to play for, and you know, Bruce and Bill Rogers and Bruce Litzkey and what just I mean, that was a fun team to be part of. Boy, what a finish.

Mike Gonzalez 17:03

Yeah, that was the uh the the battle at at Brookline as it came to be known, 1999, when Ben Crenshaw uh famously said those words about having a a good feeling about this the night before the the Sunday singles. And uh of course uh Ben shared with us a little bit about uh how he came to really appreciate the history of the game at Brookline because of Womet and all the things that happened there, and then to have Justin Leonard make that putt on Ollie on that same 17th green that Ben tells all these old stories about was almost made your skin crawl. It was just uh quite special, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, it was. It was uh being part of that team was you know, as a month before Payne got killed in the plane accident. Um just a lot of them you look back, a lot of emotional things happened that week. Um you know, Justin did not play good that week, and um I happened to play really good that week, and uh Jeff Maggart and I were playing together, and Ben come and we were supposed to take Friday afternoon off, and Ben comes to uh our Saturday afternoon off. And Ben came to me and he said, Look, man, he said, uh, we really need y'all to play this afternoon. He said, I was gonna let y'all off. Y'all are playing better than a lot of the other guys, and we need you to play. And I said, Man, put me in, coach. I'm ready. And Jeff Maggart said, I don't feel like I can play and be ready to play tomorrow. And you know, I couldn't imagine that. Uh, you know, I love Jeff to death, but I can't imagine saying I can't play. And uh so Ben turned to me and he said, Who do you want to play with? And I said, I want you to put me out with pain. I said, he bleeds red, white, and blue. And Ben shook his head and he said, Pain's in it everywhere out there right now. And I said, Yeah. But I said, This afternoon is best ball, and he's got to go in there and play that shot, and he'll figure out a way to do it. And Ben looked at me and he said, He said, Hal, he said, man, you're playing really good. He said, Justin has never won a point. He said, I think you can win him a point. And he said, he needs the confidence to do this. And I said, Well, if that's who you want me to play with, then put us out there. And we were playing Olathable and uh Jimenez, and I can tell you the Spaniards, Spaniards are harder to beat than anybody because they go down with a ship, I'm telling you. And so anyway, we were one down going into 15, and it was the only hole that I wasn't, I made bogey, and Justin had about a six-footer for a par. I'll never forget this. And Justin hadn't really helped me a shot the whole day. And I said, Justin, I said, if you just make this putt, I'll beat them from here in. I promise you, I'll beat them from here in, but you got to make this putt. And he hits this putt to a dead duck, it goes all the way around the hole and falls in. And I hung it on the lip on 16 for an ace. And so we squared the match up right there to even. And of course, we've got the T going into 17. And both of us drove it right down the middle of the fairway. And I, you know, Olathoble hits it way right, and I mean uh uh Jimenez does, and Olathoble hits this kind of snappy hook out there, and they're both in the rough. And so Justin running off the T, and I'm hollering at Justin, Justin, just a minute, just a minute. And I had to run up there to catch him, he won't stop, you know. And I run up there and I said, Hey, look, man. I said, I just I see the stage set. And he said, What are you talking about? I said, You're one of the best wedge players in the world. Pump him up. I said, game on, this is your hole right here. Best wedge player in the world. I was a day off. The next day was, the stage was set for the next day. On 17.

Bruce Devlin 21:05

Oh, it was, wasn't it? That was something else. Wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I happened to be up there that week. I was I was trying to earn a buck uh working for a company up there. And that was that was what I mean, that was a thrilling week for me, just watching you guys come back that day. I mean, it was something else. Yeah, it was it was a cool week. Cool week.

Mike Gonzalez 21:26

We'll come back to some other Writer Cup memories. Let's let's take you back then early in your career because uh it wasn't too long you were you you had been on the tour when you you won the the the players' championship at Sawgrass, and and wasn't that maybe the second year or so that they'd uh they were on the stadium course?

SPEAKER_01 21:43

It was. It was my first year. I wasn't eligible my rookie year. Jerry Payton won it the first year that they were there, and then uh it was a lot harder golf course at that time than it is right now. They saw Softened it up.

Mike Gonzalez 22:04

It was very controversial early, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was uh I never will forget uh in that particular win in 83, I hit it over the green on 16. The pin was back left, and at the time the water didn't go all the way behind the 16th. It went behind the 16th green, but on the left hand side there was um some land that you could surface, play and surface. And par five, and it was the green was more perched up. They lowered that green by a long shot. And I mean I hit this great shot in there right at the flag with a draw, and it went over the green, and I had the hardest pitch shot you can ever imagine. And I never will forget it. I pitched it about a foot for Birdie and was in the mix after that. I wasn't really in the mix to that point, and the wind was blowing pretty hard that day, and I hit this unbelievable shot into 17. Wind was blowing hard left to right, and I hit it, started at the left center of the grain, and the wind blew it all the way over to the flag. I had like a six-inch putt for Birdie, and that's where I ended up taking the lead right there. But it was a bunch of us in there. You know, nobody knew who was going to win, and I just happened to be the last man standing, really.

Mike Gonzalez 23:23

Is this the one that started on a uh a Friday because uh of rain the the the previous day and then had to finish on Monday?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Well, uh I I won it twice and both of them were on Monday finishes.

Bruce Devlin 23:34

So I remember something that uh I guess we get to listen to it quite a bit uh at the players' championship. I remember a guy standing on at 18th grade, hitting the six sign and saying, What? What did he say, Hal?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah, be the right club today. Yeah. Yeah, it was I didn't need it any other time. I needed it right then. You know, the ball. You know, and you you can understand what I you know, it was just a moment of passion. It's in the air, it's right at the flag. I know I got the right club in my hand. The only thing that could defeat me at that time was something that I wasn't in control of. Yeah. You know, weather, wind, something. And uh I had done my job. And that was really what came out at that point.

Bruce Devlin 24:24

I thought it was a classic statement. Be right today, baby.

Mike Gonzalez 24:29

And I know you're asked a lot about that. Probably walking through airports, people are shouting that at you, and it just became it's become an iconic line in in the game of golf, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Well, it was a you know, probably for a number of reasons. You know, at the time, you know, it didn't look like Tiger could be beat. And uh, you know, it was one of those I'd played with him the whole way, and you know, it whether it was him or our failures, you know, everybody was being turned back. Uh and I basically played with him the whole way around and he and I, you know, matched up. I had a three-shot lead when the rains came. And uh he made Eagle and I made par on sixteen is why it got the one shot lead from three.

Mike Gonzalez 25:20

You got it to four shots, didn't you, on the first hole when you resumed?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yes, I did. I got it to yeah. I well I made Bertie, I think, on the first okay. I don't remember exactly, but I did get it to four shots. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 25:33

And uh you know Did you feel like it was match play at that point with Tiger Woods?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah, I did. And I, you know, I I had made the statement to uh Freddie before we went out there. I said, if we can get to 16 with a three-shot lead, I don't think he can beat us. And he said, Freddie said, Why do you say that? And I said, Well, because he may go for the green on 16 and I may not. And I said, that brings three into play for him, and that brings five into play for me. And he said, so we've got to be prepared for that. And if that, if we can get to 16 with a three-shot lead, even if that scenario happens, that still has me carrying a one-shot lead to 17, and he's got to play 17 and 18 just exactly like I do. And at the time I was matching, I mean, I was I hit the ball great, I hit 17 greens, you know, I was I was really hitting the ball from point A to point B as good as anybody was at that time. And I didn't think he could beat me. That was the truth. You know, it's like if we just got to match shots and your dominance with distance doesn't come into play, I don't think you can do this any better than I can. And that's kind of what happened.

Mike Gonzalez 26:45

Did the course favor him a little bit that Monday simply because it was a wet soggy course?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

It did, but we had gotten past a lot of the holes that that was going to be the case, other than 16. And so, you know, he was able, I knew he was gonna hit that two-iron stinger off of 18, and I had already told Freddie, I said, Look, I had played three-wood off of 18 the other three days. And that was a smart play for Hal because you just put it out there in the right side of the fairway and hit that four-iron into the green. And I said, But you know, I can't out hit his two-iron stinger with my three-wood. And I have to have the last shot into the green. I've got to have the last ability to hit the shot. And so I told Freddie, I said, you know what, no matter what, we're hitting driver off of 18 on Sunday, because I want to hit the last shot into the green. And it all kind of went as planned, to be honest with you. Doesn't always work that way, but that time it did. It sure did.

Mike Gonzalez 27:42

If I remember it correctly, uh Tiger's approach missed right, didn't it? Just off the green.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, it missed right long.

Mike Gonzalez 27:50

And did he give it, he gave it a pretty good run, didn't he, to try to make it? He did.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

He chipped it within two or three inches. Yeah, he did. I mean, yeah. That's one thing I'll say about Tiger. You can't turn your back on him. He's liable to hole it from anywhere.

Bruce Devlin 28:04

A lot of people have learned that, haven't they? Yes, they have.

Mike Gonzalez 28:07

You know, just the mentality though that you shared with us about how you approach those final holes. You had already thought it through in terms of the scenarios, and it it it it it come it goes in line with the advice a lot of people get about match play, which is you have to expect the unexpected, and you expect you anticipated all the different possibilities and weren't affected by it then, were you?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Well, there's nothing, you know, one of the things I'm about to start doing this thing called Let's Talk Golf. And it's all about mind. And Bruce can attest to this. If you had a mental game, you beat a lot of people.

unknown 28:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Most everybody that was playing the tour swung at it pretty good. Or at least they knew their swing well enough to play. What separated the best players in the world was middle, being prepared for whatever was fixing to happen out there. And, you know, seeing yourself to where you felt like you belonged there. So many people got out there but then didn't feel like they belonged or didn't feel like you know, this maybe they had outperformed where they felt comfortable. And I I think that's where like Nicholas and and Tiger Woods, that's where they felt the best. The better they performed, the better they got. And some people, the better they performed, they begin to not feel so good about that. You know, it's like I maybe I don't belong here.

Bruce Devlin 29:34

I went through that one time playing with a guy, playing the last 36 holes of the of the uh Western Open, and I was paired with Billy Casper. Uh-huh. And I want to tell you, I went home to my wife on that night after watching this man play 36 holes of golf. I think he hit one shot that wasn't, you know, pretty much the way that he wanted to. He how it was so good, I said to her, you know, I'm not sure I should be doing this. But, you know, then you lose that feeling next time you you that was uh that was one of the finest 36 holes of golf I ever saw in my life.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Well, there there are people, you know, and Billy Casper was certainly one of those people, you know, anybody that saw David Graham's last round at at Marion probably felt the same way about the way he played there. You know, there there are those special rounds of golf that people played that if that's what you saw and that's the standard that you felt like you had to meet, you you wanted to look for a different occupation, you know.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Very good point.

Mike Gonzalez 30:47

He was a world beater at that that final round of Marion, wasn't he, that year he won the open. Yeah. Uh let's just uh a couple of other memories about the 2000 Players Championship for some of our listeners that don't know. You won wire to wire there, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

I did. Yeah, it was a good week. It was uh I was hitting it great going into that week. And you know, I love TPC. I I had a lot of good finishes at TPC. It just it fit my game. I was a point A to point B type player, and you know, that's the kind of guy. Pete Dyed, those were the kind of golf courses that he built was point A to point B. And uh so I had some success on there.

Mike Gonzalez 31:30

Well, you you talk about how uh difficult the golf course was in its early years. You had some win that first day. You were the only player in the field that broke 70.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

The first day at in 2000? The first round.

Mike Gonzalez 31:46

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I didn't recall that, but you don't see that very often. No, you don't see that very often.

Mike Gonzalez 31:53

No. Um just to remind people, uh just quickly on Tiger Woods, uh, for those that remember his dominance in 2000 and why this win was so uh special, because uh you're head to head with him for at least the last two rounds and and and beat him. Um at this point in the year 2000, Tiger had finished first or second in ten of his eleven events and had won ten of his previous sixteen tournaments. And you beat him.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Well, there's a lot more to this story. Some people already know this, but after 99 I call Freddie, my caddy, who you talked about, into my office, and I told him the one tournament that he didn't finish was at Riviera in Los Angeles. And I talking about Tiger. And uh I called my caddy, Freddie, in, and I said, Freddie, I said somewhere on the west coast we're gonna be paired with tiger the first two rounds. And I said, here's what I'm gonna proposition us to do. We gotta beat him both rounds. Not one, but both. And he said, uh first two days, oh what why are you thinking like this? And I said, Well, there's three people that need to know this can be done. You, me, and tiger, and him. And I said, if we do it once, he's liable to think it's luck. You're liable to think it's luck. I might even think it's luck. But if we do it both days, all three of us are convinced that it can be done. So as luck would turn out, Riviera, we're paired together. And I beat him both rounds, the first two rounds. And I'll never forget walking off the last uh hole, 36th hole, and Freddie looked at me and he said, Mission accomplished. I said, Yeah, but we got 36 more holes to play here, too. And the next day, this is funny, I'm playing with Brandle Chambly the next day. And so, you know, Brandle, we had Brandle on the podcast not long ago, and Brandle brought this up. And Brandle said to me, Walking down the fairway, he knew I had played with Tiger, and he said, So what was it like playing with Tiger? He said, You know, I hadn't played with him yet. And I said, I was easy, it wasn't a big deal. So I beat him both days. And he said, uh, he said, Well, you said that with conviction. He said, uh, is there something to that? And so I told him the story. And uh, you know, whether it had any effect on Tiger or not, I know it had an effect on Freddie Burns and Hal Sutton. And that's all I had control over was the two of us. And that was my whole mission for doing what I did was to get Freddie involved to that point. And uh, you know, I've never talked to Tiger about that. I have no idea whether I will say this uh when we were playing in the last round, uh the only green that I missed was number eight, and I drove it uh in the long par three and was in the very back, and the only way you could get it close, really, for me, was to kind of slide it in there on the left side, and I got a little bit too cute with it. It went up on top of the hill and it went up down into the bunker on the far side, all the way against the back. And Tiger walked off in front of me, and he walked up there and looked at my ball. I'll never forget this Stevie Williams. He's 20, 30 yards in front of me, and he walks over towards Stevie Williams, and he's shaking his head. Tiger's in the center of the green, you know. He's basically saying to Stevie, he's dead. No way he's gonna get this up and down. And I get over there to look at it, and I can't stand in the bunker, and I mean I am way down. And I told Freddie, I said, Man, I've just got to stay as level as I can stay. And I mean, by far the greatest shot Hal's ever hit was that shot. I mean, I flushed it perfectly, landed it right where I was trying to land it, and it goes about six or eight feet by, and I make the putt coming back for bar. And we're walking to the ninth T, and Tiger looks over at me and he says, That was some shot right there. And, you know, I think that was indication to Tiger that I'm not gonna go away because that could have been the exit point right there.

Mike Gonzalez 36:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Leave it in the bunker, make double. Or skull it out or whatever.

Mike Gonzalez 36:33

Yeah. Well, that mentality that you developed then uh around Tiger, that was quite rare, wasn't it? I mean, uh uh maybe most guys wouldn't admit it, but unlike today, there doesn't seem to be the intimidation factor with many players that there were, at least in that stretch with Tiger Woods.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Well, you know, I don't know if y'all remember this or not, but Colin Montgomery made the statement in the press that he was uh everybody was playing for second. Yeah. Nobody could beat Tiger. Davis Love had a three-shot lead on him the week before at Bay Hill going into Sunday and Tiger smoked him, you know, and it and I'll never forget this on uh Sunday night. We were eating in the or Saturday night uh before the last round. I feel somebody come up behind me in the in the uh buffet line and grab me really hard on the shoulders, and it was Davis. And Davis said, Hal, you're you're somebody that can beat him, and the world needs you to beat him tomorrow. And you know, what a compliment for Davis to say that to me. And um, and you know, I was up for the task, you know. I had him on a place that I knew I could beat him on, and I wasn't gonna beat myself. And you know, so much of the time, you know, this goes back a ways. I was played on the 87 Ryder Cup team with Jack Nicholas, was the captain, and I was the only single guy on the team, so I stayed with he and Barbara at their house. And one of the things that Jack said I one morning at breakfast, I said, Jack, I said, How did you win so many tournaments? And uh, you know, against the best players in the world. And he said, Hal, I never beat myself. And, you know, I said, So what do you mean by that? And he said, you know, if you look back at my career, I didn't make a lot of birdies on the last hole to win. He said, I just didn't do something that caused me to lose. And, you know, to me, I always felt like playing to not beat yourself was a smart way to play golf. And, you know, that meant having a game plan before you played, and and living to the game plan, staying committed to the game plan. That's what I felt like I heard Jack Nicholas say that day.

Mike Gonzalez 38:50

So tell us about your winning checks at both of these tour championships or these tour TPC events.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Well, this is a great trivia question. You know, I won the first six-digit tour the check the tour ever paid, and then 2000 was the first seven-digit check the tour ever paid.

Bruce Devlin 39:10

So, Hal, how much do you think my first winning check was?

SPEAKER_01 39:15

You asking me that question. I'm guessing it was three digits, maybe four.

Bruce Devlin 39:20

It was it was four digits, but it started very low in the four digits.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah, you know, uh I I you know, Jackie Burke tells me that when he won the uh PGA, uh he won, I I think he said ten thousand dollars and the check bounced. And they told him that it would have to it would it would take him a week to put that money in the bank. And I I don't think we ever worried about uh in during um you know the PGA tours always had the money money was in your bank account, you know, two or three days later.

Bruce Devlin 39:58

So the interesting part of it is, you know, it really didn't matter in those days what it was. It was the fact that you were able to win that was the most important part of it, you know. The money was sort of ancillary.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, Bruce, that's a great point. We played because we loved the game, not because we were making so much money at it. You've already pointed out, I won the money list in 1983 and won$450,000. And you know,$450,000 sounds like a lot of money. Uh it certainly was a lot of money in those days, you know, but it's I mean, you finish uh fifth now and you make that much money almost. So you know, one a real quick story. I was rookie of the year uh in 1982, and I won 237,000 or something like that, and Mr. Nelson called me on the phone and asked me to meet him at Preston Trails. And I'm never gonna turn down Mr. Nelson on that. So I drove over to Preston Trails, and the way he always did it, he'd watch me hit balls for 30 or 40 minutes, and we'd go in and have lunch. And I never will forget this. I hit it great that day, and he said, Let's go have some lunch. And we go in and we're sitting there and I look over and there's tears running down Mr. Nelson's face. And I said, What's wrong, Mr. Nelson? He said, Nothing. These are tears of joy, huh? I said, What do you mean? He said, You know, you just won$237,000 in your rookie year, and that's more than I wanted my entire lifetime. And he said, You know what? He said, I felt like I had something to do with both of those journeys. I felt like I had something to do with a PGA tour, and I felt like I had something to do with your life, too. Is that an amazing story?

Bruce Devlin 41:49

That'll pop you up wanted.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yeah, that was uh incredible. I mean, that man was what a joy to be around. Yeah, he was a wonderful individual.

Mike Gonzalez 41:59

Just the early influences you had, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Hogan, Jackie Burke, uh, not many young fellas have that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

No, I was I was I was grateful for that, you know. Maybe that's why they made me serious and intense, because probably the least serious of those three was Mr. Nelson. And I mean, I can tell you there's never been anybody more intense than Ben Hogan was, and and I I would have to put Jackie Burke right there behind him. I mean, he's super intense human being. And uh I'm sure Mr. Nelson was too to win all the tournaments that he won, but he he he was in a different place than they were. Mr. Nelson was uh um pretty content with his life and where he was at.

Bruce Devlin 42:49

You know, he he was a joy to be around. You know, parallel to him, I I think in my mind was was Bobby Jones. You know, they they were both immaculate players and very dominant in their careers at the time. Uh that they seem to run parallel to me. I don't know whether I'm right or not, but that that was the opinion that I uh formed about the two of them.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah, well, they're both high in my book, you know. Um as a uh I didn't know Mr. Jones, but I certainly knew Mr. Nelson. What an ambassador to the game he was.

Mike Gonzalez 43:32

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 43:58

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