Ian Baker-Finch - "You Won Something Didn't You?" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

It went straight down the middle. Then it's Bruce. Uh you've always been a good mate. I know you're you were a generation ahead of me playing, but uh I followed your career with close interest. And uh I think you were one of the great players of Australia through the 70s and 80s. Uh I think well I only played a couple of tournaments that you were playing in uh as I was starting out and and you were you were finishing up, but I do remember your great win in New Zealand. I think you were you're certainly in your 40s when you won there. I was playing in that tournament. And uh anyway, you had a great career, mate, and you you've you've been uh a a wonderful role model for us Australians, a bit younger than you.

Bruce Devlin 0:53

Well, thank you, Ian. That's very nice of you to say that. And uh obviously, you know, I've I've had the uh the great pleasure of watching uh starting, I guess, with Greg Norman and all the way through to the young guys today. Uh I mean w we've put some pretty good players on the PGA tour. And I I think a lot of it has to do when we changed to uh the uh Institute of Golf in Australia and and we got a lot of uh lot of really good players come out of there. It's been it's been a great thrill to watch them all play.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, this there's been a lot, you know, we could just do an hour on this podcast on the uh transition of the great Australian players from uh well, you know, even before Tom O, but Tom O with his five British opens, and then all the way through to you know, Bruce Crampton, David Graham, yourself. Uh you mentioned Greg, you know, since then, you know, four or five other uh major winners, Wayne Grady, Elkie, of course, you know, Jeff Ogilby, Jason Day, Adam Scott, you know, pretty amazing, really, the uh the guys that have won. And you know what, a lot of them are from where I grew up, Bruce. A lot of them are from that uh that Brisbane, Southeast Queensland area, and Nambour is where I was born on the Sunshine Coast. But that um that little region, you know, when you think about it, it's pretty amazing, all of the major champions and great golfers that have come out of there.

Bruce Devlin 2:25

Well, the interesting part is too, you can play golf there 365 days of the year. So that that may have a little bit to do with it. It's not like you're down in Melbourne or Adelaide where, you know, where you're likely to get a few uh uh maybe even a little spot of snow every now and again.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, it's uh exactly right. You know, the where I grew up in Queensland, it's very similar to Florida. Uh warm climate grasses, uh hot and humid in the summer, beautiful winters. In fact, where I live now, Bruce, in uh in the Jupiter Palm Beach Gardens area, it's 26.5 degrees north, and where I grew up in the Sunshine Coast, it's 26.5 degrees south. Yeah, in the region. So uh very, very similar. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 3:10

Well, we've had a chance to talk to a lot of the Australian greats, as you know, and uh I would hope our podcast ratings in Australia ought to be pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, they should be. Uh definitely all of the guys that I passed it on to at the club, you know, guys my age or older, uh, they've all thoroughly enjoyed them. And uh we're not trying to uh encourage the 20-year-olds to to listen to ancient history as they would call it. Uh I played with a young fella uh one day recently, he's a tournament winner on the PGA tour. Actually, half the PGA tour lives here in Palm Beach Gardens. And he said, uh, you won something, didn't you? Didn't you you know before you started doing TV? Oh yeah. And I said, Yeah, I I won a few times. I I won the open. Yeah, yeah, I thought you won something. Yeah, yeah. So that was that was the first day I played with Daniel Berger. He's uh he's a super young bloke and really, really good player. Yeah, good player. Uh and it was it was funny that he said it like that. But that's that's how it is. The young guys they remember the greats, but they grew up Tiger Woods was their idol. Absolutely. And uh be before that, um probably doesn't matter to them too much.

Mike Gonzalez 4:18

Yeah, just thinking about some of the young kids uh on the tour today, uh, including the young men that just won this past weekend, weren't even born when you won the Open Championship, were they?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yes, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Thirty years, uh thirty years this year. Yeah, I know. Amazing.

Mike Gonzalez 4:38

We hope you've enjoyed this short track 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.