Hale Irwin - Part 2 (The U.S. Open Wins)

Intro Music 0:07

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

Let's talk a little bit about uh about Hale Irwin's professional career. Bruce mentioned some of this uh in the intro, but 83 professional wins, including 20 PGA Tour victories, uh three wins on the European Tour, 45, which is the all-time record senior PGA Tour wins. The highest world ranking was seventh in 1991, but he was in the top five in Mark McCormick's rankings each year from 1975 through 1979. One of only five players to win on six continents, so he was clearly a global player, as were people like Bruce Devlin, Gary Player, David Graham, Bernard Longer, Justin Rose, just to name a few. He made 86 straight cuts on the tour from January of 75 to the end of the 1978 season. That's fourth all time, which is just an astounding accomplishment. Uh on the tour itself, three majors. We'll talk about the open wins, U.S. open wins in 1974, 79, and 1990. And uh there are a whole bunch of other wins, as we mentioned. And uh I thought what we would do just with the time we've got Hale, is why don't we just jump right to the majors first and get to the good stuff? We can start with the U.S. Open and then ask you to reflect on uh your experiences at some of the other majors. But uh let's just go, let's just go if we can right to the U.S. Open, where you had 34 starts. You had 27 cuts made of those 34 starts, five top fives, seven top tens, thirtep 25s, and uh of course you got three wins, but you've got uh one or two other close calls you'd probably want to reflect on as well, wouldn't you?

Hale Irwin 1:55

You know, uh Mike, I maybe it's just me, but uh I remember the wins and whether I finished second or hundred second, it didn't matter to me.

Mike Gonzalez 2:07

That's pretty consistent across the other guest as well.

Hale Irwin 2:11

Winning was the name of the game. In fact, I I kind of make this little comparison. You take the name Erwin, Erwin, Erwin, Erwin.

Mike Gonzalez 2:23

I like it. I like it.

Hale Irwin 2:26

You know, to say that you finished you had so many top 25s. So what? Um it may be a great statistic, but believe me, when I left town, I was oh man, did I play great? I had a top 25 this week.

Mike Gonzalez 2:43

Look what I got.

Hale Irwin 2:45

Boy, that was but I I think I'm gonna go back just a little bit because you know the you jump right to the open, but I think winning your first event uh is is such a career boosting, confidence boosting accomplishment. Bruce, you know what I'm talking about. You win that first event as a professional, and there's I can remember that down at at C Pines at the Heritage. It was a tough little golf course at the time. And to win there, I felt on I I didn't need an airplane to get off of that island.

Bruce Devlin 3:24

You were flying high, baby.

Hale Irwin 3:27

So I think it those those wins helped win other events. Now you can go forward to the US Open event. I I mean I I won that was 71, and I won the same tournament again in 73. So it wasn't like I hadn't won before, but unless you're in the mix at a major championship, you really don't know what it's about because it they can be uh career-altering both ways. Because we've seen the guys win a career major and they disappear from the scene, so you have to build upon that. But I think it really helps set the tone for having had some experience before. Orville Moody. Bruce, we see he wins one tournament on the on the tour, and it was a U.S. Open. Uh how how do you figure that one?

Mike Gonzalez 4:15

So you see a guy like Hale Irwin winning at Harbortown, uh, knowing the golf course as people do. It's not surprising that someone that would have success in a U.S. Open would probably likely have some success there. Uh it's a tough golf course. You've got to position your T-shot well, you got to shape your ball. It's it's it's tough today, by the way, if you haven't played it lately. It's a hard, hard course, and and uh you won there three times, didn't you?

Hale Irwin 4:43

I did. 71, 73, and 94.

Mike Gonzalez 4:46

And I'll talk about one close call you had, and that was in 81 because you and Bruce, I think, both finished second in 81 to uh a very hot Bill Rogers that year.

Hale Irwin 4:57

Oh yeah, Bill had a great year that year. He uh he played well. I think he won the open championship that year. Yeah, yeah. He uh he just played that little fade out there and he had that old mallet putter, and he just put the ball in a hole every time. He he played fantastic golf that year.

Mike Gonzalez 5:14

Yeah, hard to believe. It's 40 years ago. We we talked to him actually released his episode, the week of open championship week, when it was at Royal St. George's, and he got a kick out of that, just reliving those memories. So uh so you're right. You you win you win a couple of times at at Harvardtown, and uh, and uh next thing you know, uh you're at Wingfoot for the 1974 U.S. Open. Maybe uh the bad news for you guys that had to play in that that was the year after Johnny Miller tore up Oakmont. So they uh they had it, it looks like they had it in for you that year with setup.

Bruce Devlin 5:48

It was so I'm gonna cut across half the I want to tell you something. That's the hardest damn golf course I ever played in my life that week. I agree.

Hale Irwin 5:57

Oh I I tell people without weather being an issue, you know, without wind and rain and all the nastiness that weather can bring, it was easily the hardest golf course. Just first tea to first green and getting your trying to get in with it was uh without the grass eating your shoes. Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 6:20

Well, and it's very uh Hale mentioned about you know attitudes of people that he used to watch. I gotta tell you something from an attitude standpoint, and and he said it about himself earlier about the fact that you you're not gonna outwork him. You know, he he I mean, and that's that was very typical, I thought, uh, Hale, of your whole career was the fact that, you know, you don't you don't win 83 golf tournaments if you quit halfway through. Uh it's just not gonna happen. So uh kudos for you for all those great victories.

Hale Irwin 6:53

Well, they as you well know, they don't come easily, and it it's it's more than skill. You've got to have that's that something. And and the difference between guys that get on the tour, women, it doesn't matter. They all can hit a golf ball. That's not the the barometer. It's what do you do with the brain and the heart? How do they connect? Yeah, and then how does it transform itself into confidence and the ability to go put the ball in the hole? And we we see so many young people come out that they can't miss, have that can't miss label. Then they get out there and they run into the the Bruce Devlins of the world, they they come home and cry to mama and papa. I just I didn't make it. Well, I wonder why. Because maybe that's all they ever did. They're too cajoled.

Mike Gonzalez 7:40

So take us through that week uh that you had back in 1974. Of course, this was at Wingfoot. Difficult course setup, as you guys mentioned, coming off the 63 that uh that Johnny Miller had finished with at Oakmont the prior year. You won by two over Forrest Fessler at seven over. Dick Schapp, a famous uh sports uh caster and writer, uh, I think maybe first described it as the massacre at Wingfoot because of that brutal setup. But Sandy Tatum uh he sort of denies that that had anything to do with the setup that week.

Hale Irwin 8:14

I believe that, don't you, Bruce?

Bruce Devlin 8:16

Yeah, sure I do. Yeah, yeah. Tell me another stories.

Hale Irwin 8:22

Well, oh boy.

Mike Gonzalez 8:23

So take us back to that week.

Hale Irwin 8:24

Well, I think they started the for me. Uh I I've played well the week before in Philadelphia. I've I don't know if I finished second or third or whatever. I had one of those top fives or tens, whatever. That's but anyway. Um so on the car up to uh I was drove with Leonard Thompson up to Wingfoot. And the moment I stepped foot on Wingfoot and played that golf course and came in back to the locker room, the doom and gloom in the locker room was unbelievable. Of course, now after day two, it is even thicker. So I can remember thinking, you know, all you have to do is beat about a third of the field because the other two thirds have given up. They're they've checked out. And you put it in the simplest terms and trying to say, okay, I don't have all these guys to beat now. I've got A, that golf course to beat, and then you got the Nicholases and the people like that, certainly. But more than anything, you better have yourself to fall back on because no one else is going to catch you this week.

Mike Gonzalez 9:27

Yeah. So an example of what you're talking about, I guess the first round average was about 78. No one broke par that first day, did they?

Hale Irwin 9:36

I I'm I'm surprised anybody could get close to par. But but I the I just remember the rough being so long, and and and of course, Jack uh he he foreputs the first screen, uh, knocks it right off the putting surface, makes a double bogey, and you know how quick the word spread on the golf course about that one? Wow. So you don't find the world's best player foreputting the first green um without it being difficult. And that was back in 74, and let's put it correctly, the the um the environment in which most superintendents found themselves, they didn't have the money, most of the clubs didn't put the money in. These people now are scientists, they are engineers, they are the most uh knowledgeable people, they just don't grow grass, they don't water the ground and grass grows. These people really know how to develop turf. Well, this was a little bit prior to that, but they had done a superb job on getting Wingfoot ready for that open championship, and of course the rough just happened to get long for no other reason. It just did it all by itself. I'm sure that's what happened.

Bruce Devlin 10:49

Sandy assured us of that.

Hale Irwin 10:51

No, that that's okay. You know, I I that's okay. If you hit it in a rough, unlike today's, you know, hit it wherever you want to, 350 yards and gouge it out onto the green. I think it puts a premium on putting the ball in play and playing shots and playing playing the golf court, not overwhelming the golf course.

Mike Gonzalez 11:10

So you were you were uh you were one back after 54 with uh Tom Watson being the leader. Uh you two guys played the final round together, I believe, right?

Hale Irwin 11:19

We did.

Mike Gonzalez 11:20

And Tom was fairly young, 24 or so at the time.

Hale Irwin 11:23

He was. And uh, I remember thinking, I think Arnie was up there pretty high. And in my mind, I'm I'm kind of going through, okay, we've got Tom, and he's young, uh, he's hitting it a little too wild, missing too many fairways. Not that he can't win, but he said, okay, I he's got his own issues. Arnie, and I don't know why I was thinking this. Arnie's getting too old. He's got his, he's not gonna. You know, I just kind of in my own mind, I built this case up where I've got a heck of a chance if I don't do something stupid.

Mike Gonzalez 11:54

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 11:55

Well, I I made a nice putt at number nine from about, I don't know, 30 feet, I guess, uh, up over a ridge and for a birdie, uh, which was uh a birdie on a par five hole that was converted to a four. If you remember, they moved the T up about three yards and said, okay, now it's a par four. But I'd hit a, I think, a four wood to that green and it made a nice butt, and I took the lead there. But then I had several bogeys on the back nine, and uh it was just hard to get in. It was everybody was struggling to get in.

Mike Gonzalez 12:29

So what's it feel like with a two-shot lead in the U.S. Open standing on the 18th T? Did you know it at the time, or did you confirm it when you got to the green?

Hale Irwin 12:38

I did not know that. Uh I'm I drove it into the the heavy rough at 17, just off the fairway, but all it has to do is trickle in a foot, and that's all it did. And I I took my four wood and I laid it open and chopped it out to where I think I had a 110-yard second shot or something like or third shot. And I had a pretty good shot, probably 10 or 12 feet from the hole. And I remember walking up to the putt thinking, okay, I need to make this to at best have a one-shot lead. At worst to be even. Because I I knew I was either in the lead or tied. Uh but to maintain that I had to make that putt.

Mike Gonzalez 13:21

Was it that level left or writer?

Hale Irwin 13:23

Yes. It it looked like it was about a 60-foot putt and broke about 10 feet, is what it looked like. And all downhill. Yeah, of course. But you know, when that went in, it was such relief that I'm walking to the 18th T thinking, okay, I I I think I've got a one.

Bruce Devlin 13:40

I think I got it.

Hale Irwin 13:40

Now Marshall said Fezz are just bogeyed 18. So you've got a two-shot lead, but I I think I was wise enough to say, Don't believe it. Don't believe something that's not official. It doesn't matter. You've got to put the ball in this fairway. Which I did. And then I didn't know I had the lead until I got up to the T shot, and you could see the big board up at 18. Uh and then I just hit a wonderful two-iron from there right over the top of the flag and two putty from 25 feet.

Mike Gonzalez 14:11

You probably had about a one inch or left in if to finish it.

Hale Irwin 14:15

Well, I I wish I'd have kept that ball. I knew I threw my arm out of socket through the ball about a hundred yards down the fairway, but I wish I'd kept it. But I was pretty excited.

Mike Gonzalez 14:24

So that ball never found its way back to you then, huh?

Hale Irwin 14:28

No, I'm I wonder where it is. I'd be curious to know.

Mike Gonzalez 14:32

Is that the one where you had a vivid dream about winning that open?

Hale Irwin 14:36

It was. Two weeks prior. Now you the the results the reality of it and what you have a dream are are all different. But the bottom line was that I had in my dream, I had won the U.S. Open. And Bruce, I don't know about you or anybody of the golfers that are listening out there, most of my dreams are frustration dreams. I can't get the ball in a hole, you know, I've I've driven down the middle of the fairway, get up there, and it's in a log pile, or you know, something. And uh but I told my wife, the only person I told, because I I didn't want to bite myself on the backside. Yeah. Saying, oh yeah, I'm well, you know, when I did, it was like, well, you know, dreams do come true. They they can come true.

Mike Gonzalez 15:17

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 15:20

So then in 79, uh, Hale, Inverness was a little bit difficult as well.

Hale Irwin 15:26

It was it's uh I think a very uh understated golf course. Uh it's not terribly long, but you had to put the ball in the fairway there, as you do on any any golf course, but particularly open US open courses. You had to put the ball there and kind of in the right spot because the greens were small, they were terribly easy to putt, and they did have some challenging holes that you really had to negotiate. Could you make some birdies? Yes. But as we saw at the end of the week, winning score was even par. And uh what I didn't have a particularly good first round, and uh I was more concerned about making the cut, so I had a really good second round and I had an even better third round. I think I may have shot 68, 67, something like that. And uh so going into the last day, in my mind, I thought I had a five-shot lead, I've told it's a four-shot lead, I've been told it's a three-shot lead. It didn't matter. I had a lead that um I felt like the most important shot of that day was the drive at the very first hole to get it in the fair way so I could calm the nerves, have a shot to the green, uh, make a solid par or perhaps a birdie, but get out of the box solidly and try to build on that lead. Well, after the uh I think it was the tenth hole, I had built that lead to six shots. And then as we were going through the the back nine, I walked up to the 71st hole, number 17, and I had a five-shot lead. And I patted myself on the back, I said, Way to go, you've won another open. And I went double bogey bogey because I had I had lost that focus, I had lost that the initiative. And uh boy did I learn a big lesson there that uh you never it's never over till it's over.

Mike Gonzalez 17:22

Yeah, that uh that closing 75 tied the post-World War II record for the highest final round score by a winner, uh, but you still won by two over Gary Player and Jerry Pate, as you said, at even par. And uh uh quite around that third round 67. I think you matched uh Watson's Eagle on 13. Were you playing with Tom Watson in the third round?

Hale Irwin 17:47

I don't know. I I may have been. Uh I know Tom Weiskoff, he and I repaired together the last round, and I watched him on Saturday make a putt from across the green uh on 13 for an Eagle. And uh I think he might have been he obviously he was up near the lead, and I may have had the lead, I may, I I don't know where I was at the time, but I'm back there on the fairway, and that's a kind of a lumpy little fairway sloping right to left, and I was on the side of a lump, and I thought, you know, heck with that. I'm gonna make my own eagle. And I had a two-iron shot off of this ball up in my face, hit it about a foot from the hole, and I made my eagle and went on. Uh but I look back at that shot and just say, you know, of all the shots that I can say, I think that led to the success was that second shot on that hole on the third round.

Mike Gonzalez 18:43

Just remember the TV coverage. I know um it would have been uh uh Dave Marr uh doing the color uh with Jim McKay, uh probably on ABC, I guess then back then. And uh uh you know, you were you were coming down 18 with that lead. Um uh and I think you were in the left bunk greenside bunker, weren't you, on 18?

Hale Irwin 19:08

I I I stood on that T shot or that T with a three-shot lead after my yeah, that's right. Double at 17. But now I I know I've lost my thinking because I I had been playing three wood off the T, something back in the fairway, hitting a short iron into the green because a very small green. And I thought, oh, I'm just so tired of thinking. Give me the driver. I'm gonna hit it down there as close to the green as I can. If I hit it, and I hit it in the right rough, then I hit it in the left bunker. Now I've got a short side green, and I'm thinking, what are you doing? I hit a good bunker shot, but I missed, I missed the putt. But uh after it was all over, I'm I will never and I had my family with me. My uh wife was there with our our two kids, young kids, and I remember thinking this is the first time I've had my my family with me at a big event like this, and still won. And that's the first thought is where's my family? Um even though it was a bad finish, whose name is on the trophy, guys? That's that's all I wanted to know. And uh show me the money.

Mike Gonzalez 20:14

Literally, as soon as you hit that bunker shot, almost as soon as you made contact, Dave Marr just said something like, Well, there it is. You know, once once he saw you get up with that that fine bunker shot, he said, That's it. That's it's over.

Hale Irwin 20:28

Well, it not that you're ever thinking that, but uh, I've just really kicked myself all the way up that hole. Like, what why didn't you, with that big a lead, play it back there, play safe. I just was tired of thinking. And uh boy, I learned a lot in those two holes on what to do and what not to do.

Mike Gonzalez 20:48

So for our listeners, just to remember, uh, that was that uh that was that tournament when uh Lon Hinkle uh took the short route uh on on that dog leg uh number eight, and they planted the Hinkle tree, I think, after the first round there, did they not?

Hale Irwin 21:05

They did, but that didn't deter Lon. He still kept going around it.

Mike Gonzalez 21:09

He did. And with success, I think, up till maybe the final round. But uh uh Bobby Clampett also, I recall, playing as a marker, was escorted off the golf course during the final round. Do you remember anything about that?

Hale Irwin 21:21

I do not. Oh, I don't know.

Mike Gonzalez 21:25

It obviously shenanigans were involved. As a marker, he would have been out in the first group, uh, I suppose. And and uh uh I don't recall the circumstances, but uh uh they played very quickly, maybe not uh exercising due care with every shot, uh, but at some point the US J said, All right, that's enough, and they escorted him off the golf course.

Hale Irwin 21:46

Well, I I do recall another player who will go nameless, not at an open championship, but playing as a as a marker, and he too being escorted off because he was playing shots from off of his knees and How would you like to be the here's a guy clowning around hitting the balls off of his knees?

Mike Gonzalez 22:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's jump ahead to win number three. That was a little closer for me because I was in Chicago at the time, and so uh uh I saw plenty of replays of that one. But this was the 1990 win win at the Medina Country Club in a playoff with Mike Donald. And uh boy, it took a it took uh uh uh quite an effort after 54 holes just to get in that playoff for you, and then uh had to make that short putt on 18 to get in the playoff, didn't you?

Hale Irwin 22:38

Well, I think Yeah, that that little bit up over that hump on the front of the green.

Bruce Devlin 22:44

Yeah. I have one question before you answer that. You you the first one you nearly threw your shoulder at. Did you nearly break your wrist with the third one?

Hale Irwin 22:55

You know, uh before the week, uh I have to go back just a little bit to set the tone, really. Um I had won the memorial term in '85, and then I had started my design company. And Bruce, you you've designed a lot of courses, and you know the that's fun. I really have enjoyed that design part. But it took away some of the focus of playing. So I went four and a half years of being a participant. I really didn't, I was not a player, and here yet I was current winner. I I mean I I could play, but I wasn't playing. I sat down in the winter of 1989, after the season was over, I got a yellow pad, I pulled it out, and I wrote down the tournaments I had won and thoughts. Okay, that tournament uh was posture, that uh alignment. You know, everything I could think about in winning, I wrote down. And if I couldn't think what that was, well, I'd I'd come back to it. Well, oddly enough, when the season started, now I'm starting to think like a player again. Just by virtue of that, I forced myself into not force, but it just sort of fell into this thought process that I had some four and a half years earlier. And I could feel it coming around. So when we got to Medina, I had been invited by the USGA. I didn't qualify in any other category, so I was invitee, and my goal was don't make their choice look like it was a bad choice. Pretty general, but not specific, because uh when you look back at the previous four and a half years, I really hadn't done anything. So I got off to a reasonable start, and after a couple rounds, I'm doing okay, and third round, I'm I'm alright. I'm about an hour behind the leaders, and Billy Ray Brown, who was one of the co-leaders, I believe, comes to me as I'm going to the first T, he's going to the putting green, and he asks me some advice. And Billy Ray is such a good guy, I really like him. Uh I said, Well, Billy Ray, you're you're playing well. Just don't beat yourself. You know, hit the shots that you're comfortable hitting, but don't don't do things stupid. Don't give shots away. So I'm walking up to the team, uh, Greg Norman and I are paired together. And uh so I'm I'm saying to myself, that's pretty good advice. Why don't you try that? Yeah, try that yourself. So we get around, we I'm doing okay, nothing special, but Greg and Greg's playing well, he birdie's number 10. So we're walking up to the 11th T, and I'm thinking, well, you know, if he makes a couple more birdies at where he is on the scoreboard, uh, he might have a chance. Who knows? And so I just tried to block it all out. And I looked at the leaderboard on the 11th T, and so the listeners know the top 15 get into the next year's tournament. And I was one shot out of the then top 15. So I said, okay, forget about Greg. He's got his deal, forget about Greg. I've got to play one under here in. And so I went out, I hit two great shots, eleven, about six feet, birdied it. Okay. Reset the goals, top ten. I birdied twelve. Reset the goals, top five. I birded thirteen. I don't know how much I can re-reset the goal. So I birded four holes in a row. Now I'm one shot back of the then lead. You know, Nick Faldo, uh, Mike Donald, and Billy Ray Brown were the guys that were still kind of vying for the lead. So when I parted 15, 16, 17, there we get to the tap in at 18. Tap in from 45 feet. Why it was such an exciting time because A, I'd overachieved what I'd set to do, and making a putt from that distance, I never thought it would win outright. Ever. And I if the best I could possibly get would be a playoff. Now it would be with whom. So I sat there for an hour watching him come in, and uh Mike was the guy that was, you know, we had the playoff the next day.

Mike Gonzalez 27:26

Yeah, Mike still had to make about a four-footer while you were watching. I think they had split camera, you on one side of the screen and him putting that three, four-footer on the other. That wasn't an easy putt to get into a playoff.

Hale Irwin 27:38

Oh, they never are. They certainly never are, but uh, you know, I think Mike played uh he played the kind of golf that he probably should have won. You know, the way he he I know in the playoff he played very, very well. He was very steady off the tee. He was playing uh a fairway medal, put it in the fairway. I was making mistakes. Um and I was two down with three holes to play. And again, I I'm at the 16th hole, and it's a dog leg, sharp dog leg left, and I'm they have concrete discs out in the middle of the fairway, 200 yards, and I'm one step from that concrete disc from the middle of the green. And but the pin is on the left side, and there's some trees growing on the left that where my ball is and where the flag is, those trees just tangentially are on that line. So if I pull it a yard, I'm gonna hit the tree. So I've I've really got to hit a draw around there. That's it's not the easiest shot in the world. Now, for you, perhaps, devil, because you played that shot, but uh anyway. I just hit uh I hit, I guess, another uh wing foot in 74 too iron, just drew it around there, put it about six feet, but made a tough little putt. It broke a lot, it probably broke you know six inches or so, but I made it, and and then unfortunately for Mike he boogeyed the the last hole. And we went to the first playoff hole, and I hit two good shots and made a about a 12-footer for a birdie.

Mike Gonzalez 29:08

Yeah, that was that was uh the first hole. Plays a little downhill, little dog leg left. Uh looks like you were hitting like a maybe three wood off the T.

Hale Irwin 29:16

Four wood, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 29:17

Four wood. I think it was uh you you you probably remember. I was trying to read the sign from the screen. It looked like he was playing about 385 from the from the USGA post.

Hale Irwin 29:27

Well, it was uh it narrowed down pretty. There was no reason to try and hit a driver. If you hit it straight, then you put it into the rough, and it's such a short hole, you're gonna hit a fairway wood or an iron and a wedge anyway. I ended up hitting a sand wedge, so it's a four-wood sand wedge, so why why take the chance and give yourself the opportunity? And that's what you have to do when you're when you're playing well. And we all know this that when you're playing well, you think, well, sometimes I can do things that I didn't do yesterday, but again, harkening back to what I did in 74, you take the right way to do it, and the right way is to play it this way.

Mike Gonzalez 30:02

And you flew it all the way back to the back of that green and and I don't know, seven, eight feet. Is that what you had left?

Hale Irwin 30:08

Oh, uh let's let's lengthen it to ten feet.

Mike Gonzalez 30:10

Okay, let's do that. But uh made that putt, and and I don't know why, but uh when when you got into the playoff with that long putt, we sort of joked about it, but it was a very long putt on 18 up that hill. Um you can't call it a victory uh lap, but it was certainly a happy lap. Uh high five and high five in the crowd, I'll I'll never forget that.

Hale Irwin 30:33

Well, I I won't either, because uh again, I go back to the 11th hole and the the goal that I had set for myself, and then as it we whidled down the holes, the concentration, the focus that it you need to get there, and then to be able to do it. And then the release of all of that when that butt went in a hole, that was a release. And I think the roar of the crowd and the the the applause and the excitement, uh it was that little jog over, and and I probably touched the hands of eight or nine people, and I guarantee you through the year I've touched 500 people.

Mike Gonzalez 31:16

Yeah, yeah.

Hale Irwin 31:17

Uh, but it was just an expression of thank you. That's all it was. I I didn't know what else to do. I was really jacked up, and uh that was just a uh a gesture of thanks.

Mike Gonzalez 31:27

Now, for whatever reason, I've got in my mind that that happened not once but twice, and maybe it was because of all the news replays I saw when I was living in Chicago, but I could have sworn that after you won, you did another victory lap.

Hale Irwin 31:41

The next week in Westchester. There you go. It was it was uh it was back to back, but it was more of a uh that one was planned. If I won. And I I'll put on just okay, if this is what it's gonna be, then let's let's keep the show on the road.

Mike Gonzalez 32:01

Yeah, that was terrific. Well, that sort of takes us through the three U.S. Open wins for Hale Irwin. Of course, there's a lot more to the Hale Irwin story that uh that we want to tell, and we will at some point. But Hale, you've been very gracious with your time today. Thanks for getting us started with your story. And uh Bruce Devlin, this has been fun.

Bruce Devlin 32:21

It has been fun, and uh as I mentioned at the the start of this segment, uh here's a man that's won 83 tournaments around the world. Uh some people have called him a bulldog. He's a hard worker, he never quit, as he said today on our little telecast. And we thank you, Hale, for for your time today, and we look forward to chatting with you uh in the future.

Hale Irwin 32:45

Well, I I look forward to it. And uh, you know, I've got the greatest respect in the world for all those guys and and ladies that have been out there uh pioneering before me and uh and those that have followed in the footsteps. Uh it's a fabulous game. It it has provided me, and I and I the trophies are wonderful, the money's even better, but more than anything else, the real treasure is the people that you get to meet uh around the world. Uh, how would I ever get to some of these places and meet the people that I've been able to meet had it not been for the game of golf? So to that end, I'm eternally thankful.

Mike Gonzalez 33:21

Thanks a lot, Hale, for being with us.

Hale Irwin 33:24

Oh, thank you. Look forward to seeing you again.

unknown 33:26

That little white pallet has never been.

Mike Gonzalez 33:28

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.