John Mahaffey - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and uh Bruce Devlin. We've never opened up a show like this, uh, but uh as you know, we do audio tests with all of our guests, and so I happened to call this gentleman the other day, and and uh I was just trying to be polite, you know, and uh I simply asked him, How are you doing?

John Mahaffey 0:35

I'm not doing worth a damn. I don't want to be on this show, and I've had enough. Tell Devil I'm done, all right? I do you know this guy?

Bruce Devlin 0:46

Yeah, the voice is very familiar. Uh he's been a great player on the PGA tour. The 78 PGA champion, John Mahaffey. John ny boy, great to have you on the podcast with us. Thanks, pal.

John Mahaffey 1:02

Thank you, Mike. I'm gonna get you back. No way I won't. Oh, good to be with you guys this morning.

Bruce Devlin 1:13

Oh, great to have you with us, pal. It's been a long, you know, we've known you for a long time, and uh you've you've had a great career, and we look forward to telling your story today.

Mike Gonzalez 1:24

Thanks for being a good sport, John. I just couldn't pass up that opportunity. And I know you two guys go way back, so I knew Bruce wouldn't have any problem with it. But uh, you know, as we've talked about, Bruce and I are here to tell your story in your voice, and so we look forward to hearing all about uh your career uh going back to the beginning. And uh as we have come to learn, you were born in Kerrville, Texas. Uh so we'll talk about the early days, but perhaps you came a little too early.

John Mahaffey 1:55

I did. I was a premature baby. Uh how how early, I don't know. But I my parents tell me I was in an incubator for uh months. So uh it was touch and go whether I was gonna make it or not. So lucky to be here, quite honestly.

Bruce Devlin 2:09

Glad you're here. Yeah.

John Mahaffey 2:10

Uh me too.

Mike Gonzalez 2:13

So tell us a little bit about uh your young life growing up in uh in Texas.

John Mahaffey 2:20

Well, Kerrville, Texas was an absolutely idyllic place for a kid to grow up. It really was. Most of my uh kin folks and and friends had ranches and stuff, so we learned to ride, uh hunt, and fish and all that kind of stuff. We had a nice little public golf course we could play, had a lake to fish in and uh, you know, go skiing and all that kind of stuff. It was really the I didn't realize how great I had it until I moved away. And it's uh it was a wonderful, wonderful way to grow up. I had great parents, uh very supportive, and uh you know, I never really wanted for anything. We weren't wealthy, but my my dad worked his way up in Carville Bus Company to become uh president and actually CEO, so uh through the years. And uh he just uh he had a great work ethic and uh I learned a lot from my father.

Mike Gonzalez 3:10

So who were the golfers in the family?

John Mahaffey 3:14

Me. That was the only one yeah, again, growing up in a small town, uh I played all sports all the way uh from whenever I could. I fell in love with sports. My parents never could. My dad traveled for a living and uh usually came home on the weekends and um my mother didn't play any sports, she was kind of afraid uh of a lot of things, I think. Uh anyway, she uh she was supportive as well, but I I played I played all sports, as I say, and uh I think it was my uh when I was 11 years old playing Little League Baseball, our our team didn't make it to the playoffs. So I had a buddy of mine, he says, Hey, what you want to go play some golf? I'd never played golf in my life and didn't have a set of golf clubs, so I borrowed my uncles and went out to Kerville Municipal Golf Course, all right, now known as Scott Schreiner. And uh just a little nine-hole golf course, and I was a good baseball player, good hitter, and stuff, so I thought this has got to be simple. You know, ball sitting there, you know, they're not throwing it at you or anything else. And uh after nine holes, I was absolutely the most frustrated guy you've ever seen in your life. That little thing just sat down there, and uh, you know, it was terrible. And so I'd I made up my mind that I was gonna learn how to play the game. And I started out as a caddy uh at the at the municipal golf course in the summertime and uh got all my practice balls out of the creek and stuff, kind of like Trevino talked about, getting it out of the creeks with your toes and stuff, put them in a gunny sack, and I'd go on his practice team, which was nothing much more than just a bunch of dirt and rocks piled up, kind of leveled off a little bit, and you just hit them out in the field or went out and picked them up. And uh that's kind of how I I I learned how to play golf, reading golf digests and stuff. Arnold Palmer was my hero at that time because he that you know it was around the 60s and stuff, and and and Arnold was uh wasn't on top of his game and Arnold Arnold's army and the charge from behind and all that, you know, pretty pretty intriguing for a young guy. And uh I remember uh I guess after three summers there was this older gentleman that used to come to Kerrville from Houston, and Kerrville's up in the hill country of Texas, it's a lot cooler and less humid than than Houston. This guy was a member of uh Houston Country Club. Otis Meredith was his name. He was a lawyer, and uh he'd come there, had a little place in Hunt, Texas, where he'd come and then every day he'd play nine or eighteen holes. So one day I see his cart coming down. Uh the clubhouse was up on a hill, his cart came down and he came bouncing over to the practice tee and walked over and says, Young man, I don't know your name, but every summer I come here, I see you over here, and he says, You're the hardest working young man I've ever seen in my life. And he had a book with him. And he he picked it up, he says, But I'll tell you what, the way you're you're swinging at a at a golf ball, he says, You can't kill snakes with that thing. He says, Let me give you this. And uh seriously, he says, I have a friend of mine from Fort Worth that wrote this book, and it was Ben Hogan's uh, you know, the uh Five Fundamentals. Five Fundamentals.

Bruce Devlin 6:18

Wow, yeah.

John Mahaffey 6:19

And that's how I learned how to play golf from that book. And uh it was uh it was amazing uh for me. I used it, it was kind of like it was my golf Bible. Uh I never had any any formal teaching at the nine-hole municipal that I played. Uh the guy that that sold you, you know, your your Greens fee or took the Greens fee was the guy that mowed the greens and everything else. And he was a city employee. He wasn't a golf professional. We didn't get a professional until I was well into high school.

Mike Gonzalez 6:46

Yeah.

John Mahaffey 6:48

Yeah. But I mean it was it was uh it was cool to learn how to play that way uh and and to know what the right things to do. I had no clue, you know. I I couldn't swing like Arnold Palmer. I kind of didn't want to, you know, and Hogan was my same size. So that's I figured that was the way I wanted to go.

Bruce Devlin 7:06

It's very interesting, John, that uh that that you played a lot you know a lot of other sports, and we've found that talking to all our guys that we've talked to over the over the last few months is a lot of them felt like that playing uh team sports helped them to play golf. And and I think your your point was well taken. You say you were a good hitter, so you figured if that ball's gonna sit there and not move around, I ought to be able to beat the hell out of it.

John Mahaffey 7:34

Well, exactly. And I think the other thing was that uh I think you you learn how to be more competitive. I played basketball. I finally decided after a while, I played football for a while. My dad came and watched the last game I played, and we were playing in in Del Rio, Texas, and they had this running back over there that was about oh, six feet and about 220 pounds and could, you know, just faster and grease lightning. And I played defense. And uh we kicked off to those guys, and he was going around the other end, and I'm thinking, this is great, I don't have to worry about this guy. Then he then he cut back, and I was the only guy between him and the goal line. He ran over me, he drugged me for 40 yards into the end zone. When I when I looked up, I was looking through the ear hole of my helmet, and my face mask was covered with mud. And my dad came up to me after the game. He says, So what do you think? I said, That's enough. Find another sport. And I did. I I I uh I love basketball. I played basketball. That was actually my favorite sport. Uh I had a couple of scholarship offers to play basketball for gym from junior colleges and stuff, but uh I averaged about 20 points, uh, made 40 points in one basketball game, uh shot from the outside, top of the corner of the key. I I I loved uh, I mean in the corner, top of the key. Uh before they were three-point uh shots. So I loved it though. I I'd I'd do more, I really wanted to do that more than anything else, but I knew I was never going to be big enough or fast enough to do it.

Mike Gonzalez 9:01

You're good enough to get some scholarship offers, right?

John Mahaffey 9:04

Well, yeah, but that was just from junior college. And and I'm not putting that down because then you can but I would have never probably gone anywhere with it. And uh along along this this time period, uh I played I played on the golf team. I ran track for a while, I ran hurdles. Being a little guy, that's kind of hard to do because your knees get beat up pretty bad trying to leap over those. It's like high jumping every time you run over one. Or trying to. Anyway, uh the golf the track coach was also the golf coach. And he says, I'm I'm one guy short. And he said, I understand you play golf. So I said, Yeah, I do. And so he put me on the golf team, and I played uh from my freshman year all the way through uh to uh to when I graduated, and I played with Hal Underwood, who ended up going to the University of Houston. And Hal Underwood was the guy that talked to Dave Williams. I lost to Terry Jastral. You remember that name, Devil.

Bruce Devlin 10:02

I do, I sure do.

John Mahaffey 10:03

I'll never live this down. I lost to him on the 36th hole of the of the State Junior at Brackenridge Park, and uh and he won the state junior. I was the runner up. We both got a phone call from Dave Williams and uh offering us scholarships to play at University of Houston, which was the the golf power back in the day. Big time. Yeah. And uh Hal Underwood had told Coach Williams, he said, I played with this skinny little kid down in Kerrville, he said Tyvee High School, and he said, he can, he's a he's a pretty good player, but he made 40 points in a basketball game. And anybody that small can make 40 points in a basketball game has to have some heart. I think we need him here. And Hal Underwood was responsible for getting me to the University of Houston. And uh I can't thank him enough. I mean, it was a it was the start of a of a wonderful time in golf for me.

Bruce Devlin 10:52

Yeah, I'll say what a what a powerhouse Williams had back then, boy.

John Mahaffey 10:56

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 10:56

So you were there with who were the guys that you were with?

John Mahaffey 10:58

Uh Hal Underwood, Bob Barbarossa, uh Bruce Ashworth, uh Jim McLean, who's a great teacher right now. Uh gosh, uh Tom Jenkins, who had a great career on the PJ Tour Champions. Uh, and so many, I'm free. Doug Olson was there, Corker DeLoach. He played on our on our team, John Mills. Uh I'm gonna leave some guys out. We had so many people down there. We had 20 guys on our freshman team trying to get five spots. I mean, we weren't even allowed to, I mean, we couldn't play as freshmen at that time on the varsity. So uh my my first year on the varsity was my sophomore year. And uh we did pretty good from then on, I think. I guess you did.

Bruce Devlin 11:40

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 11:40

Yeah, take take us through that record because uh uh I think starting in 68, you came close, right, as a team. You lost by two shots in 68.

John Mahaffey 11:49

We lost by two. Uh yeah, we did at Las Cruces, New Mexico. And uh I I never forget how Hal Underwood was on that team. He was captain. And uh, you know, it was kind of I was one of the first guys out, and I shot 67. And I was so proud of myself. I mean, Hal got me down there, and now I've played well for the captain, and we're gonna win in NCAA and all this kind of stuff. And we faltered, some of the guys faltered coming in, we lost by two to Florida. And uh all the upperclassmen uh went their separate ways, and I had to drive all the way back to Houston with Dave Williams in the in the station wagon. And that was some punishment enough to set to make me want to win every NCAA from then on when I was playing, because that was brutal. Uh I mean he uh obviously he was upset, but uh anyway, I I think I I I learned a lot from from that experience and the fact that uh, you know, you've got to be a graceful loser, but you've got to be also a graceful winner. And uh the the next year we we went to the Broadmoor and we beat uh Quake Forest in the last round to win that NCAA. Bob are Bob Barbarossa played very well up there too that year. Uh and then the following year went to uh Scarlet at Ohio State. And uh I'm gonna preface this a little bit. Uh the week before the NCAA in 1970, I qualified for the U.S. Open at Hazeltine, and uh which was uh uh incredible in itself. But the thing is that whole week was was magical for me because I played a practice round with the defending Orville Moody had a locker next to my or close to mine, you know, the M's, at the in the locker room, and he came in and sat down and he says, Hey, you want to play a practice round? So I'm playing a practice round with the defending champion of the U.S. Open. Who won it who won it champions, right? Who won it champions? He certainly did. Uh and then uh I went to um let's see, I played the final round with Lee Trevino, and we're coming down the last hole, and uh Trevino's looking up at the scoreboard. He says, hey, he says, if you birdie this hole, you're gonna be low amateur in the U.S. Open. And I think I'm you know, I'm choking anyway. And uh so I knocked it on a green, I missed the putt, but I made parse. So uh Crenshaw and I tied for low amateur. And Trevino, uh I'll never forget this. He waited for me outside the uh scoring tent. And he never, you know, he never remembers anybody's name, Bruce. He got, hey, hey, pro, or hey, hey, yeah, hey, hey, he said, hey, hey, Papa, hey, papa. He says, You uh you thinking about playing pro? You're going pro. And I said, Yeah, I I kind of am. And he says, Well, let me tell you something. That little duck hook you're hitting out there every day, I don't need you'll never be able to play worth a darn on the tour, especially if you get to really hard greens and stuff. He says, look, come over here. When you get done with this little presentation, you've got to go to over to the guys in the suits. He says, I want you to come to the practice tea. I want to show you something. So I go over to the practice tea with Trevino and he shows me how to fade it. He says, Let me tell you why this is good. He says, You can get the ball up in the air higher, you can stop it quicker, you control it better than uh than a draw. He says, You still got to know how to do both, but I'm gonna tell you the fade's gonna be the one that's gonna make a career for you if that's where you're gonna go. So I the next very next week when I go to the NCAA, I'm now fading the ball. And I I mean, it was such a simple move to do to learn how to do this. Uh, he didn't do things complicated, he just did things that made sense, you know.

Bruce Devlin 15:19

Yeah.

John Mahaffey 15:19

And uh great, great, uh, great player, Trevino, obviously, but I mean I like the way he could move the ball, maneuver it, all his imagination and stuff. And uh in fact, that's why we played the guy the game of golf back then, wasn't it? Just to be able to be able uh to create shots, yeah, you know, and stuff. It was fun, you know, to do that in competition. Anyway, I beat Lanny Watkins by a shot uh for the individual there at Scarlet, and uh which he never let me forget. And uh also uh we won the team, so that was uh the sweep for the University of Houston. A proud moment.

Bruce Devlin 15:56

How about that? Pretty nice that Trevino would take the time to even, you know, say, hey, come on over here, I want to show you something. And uh uh that had to have a big influence on the city.

John Mahaffey 16:09

Well, it did, it did. And that's not the only time he ever did he did that. Later on in my career, I lost the uh the Tournament of Champions at La Costa to Johnny Miller one year. Played with Nicholas the last round, and uh come up to the 18th hole, hit a nice little shot in there, but it kind of kicked left and ran up against the fringe. And they had a pretty tall fringe back then on that uh that particular week anyway. Uh I tried to put it. I didn't know about the bladed wedge. All right. I tried to put it, and I had a like a bullseye putter, and it got caught up and I left it like eight feet short or whatever, and then missed it. Johnny Miller makes a par and wins the tournament. So uh I'm again, I'm coming out of the practice, out of the uh scoring tent, and Trevino's got three golf balls and a sand wedge. He says, Come here, takes me up to the putting green. He said, I can't believe you don't know this shot. And he showed me how to how to do that. You know, how to when it gets blade it kind of top it out of there, it comes out like a putt. So he he was very influential in a lot of stuff I did, a very good friend. But you know, that was back back in the day. That was what guys did.

Bruce Devlin 17:13

Uh yeah, we were all friends.

John Mahaffey 17:14

We were all friends. And I remember coming out and uh a lot of the guys from from Texas, a lot of the guys I played with that that made the tour, uh, guys like Miller Barber, Gene Littler, the Abear brothers, uh, they took you under their wing and they they take you to uh corporate outings and stuff. And uh, you know, it's a guy they'd say, look, you don't know what you're doing here, but we're gonna teach you how to do a clinic. You're gonna wear a coat and tie, your shoes are gonna be polished, you're gonna say yes, sir, and yes, ma'am. And let me tell you why you want to do this. Because you want to be these these corporate people you're meeting, they're the ones that are putting on these golf tournaments for one thing. The other thing is you're not gonna your life on a tour is very short-lived from what you think it's gonna be. That's what's well before the champions tour or whatever.

Bruce Devlin 17:57

Yeah, right.

John Mahaffey 17:58

And he says, and you make good contacts with these corporations, you're gonna have these outings for the rest of your life. They're gonna, you know, just make an impression, a good impression. So uh, you know, that that's kind of a and then guy all the guys out there, if they thought that you could play, and if they thought that you would work at it and just not kind of uh, you know, blow it off, they would help you. They really would. And that it was it was great to have that kind of fraternity.

Mike Gonzalez 18:26

Well, you go back to the 1970 win. That was the last in a stretch of I think it was a dozen NCAA titles for Houston in a span of 15 years. So quite a quite a dynasty that Coach Dave Williams had built back then, wasn't it?

John Mahaffey 18:42

Absolutely. Yeah, he uh he had the right idea. He got he got really good players from all over the country and uh state junior champions and and really good players. And we qualified all the time. It was just like it was like playing the tour almost. Uh you'd uh it and and you were afraid to to shoot a bad round because you didn't want to go back to qualifying. So it put that kind of pressure on you. So when a lot of us went out to the tour, we were used to qualifying. Monday qualifying wasn't as difficult as it could have been for some that didn't go through that. And we play you know, we always play strobe tournaments. We didn't play any kind of uh match play. Uh so uh every every shot really counted. Uh and you did not want to go back to qualifying because it was so hard to get back on the team.

Mike Gonzalez 19:28

Yeah, you had to show up with your game every day. Every day.

Bruce Devlin 19:35

When did you uh when did you decide to uh to make the move to return return to pro?

John Mahaffey 19:42

Well, I think after winning the NCAA and uh and and having a great summer, uh tied for low amateur in the US Open. Uh I got uh I went to Houston. My dad, I I actually had planned on playing the amateur circuit that summer because I thought I had a chance to make the the uh Walker Cup team. And my dad came in one day and he says, you know, son, and and we we like I said, we weren't that my parents weren't that wealthy. We were okay, you know, uh, you know, middle class. And uh so my dad said, uh, son, what are you gonna do this summer? I said, Well, I thought I'll go to the Northeast Amateur, and then I think I'll go up to play in the Niagara Falls, then I think I'll go to the Southern Amateur, and then you know, try to qualify for the U.S. amateur. He says, That's great. He says, How are you gonna get there? Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 20:35

Where are you gonna find the money, son?

John Mahaffey 20:37

And I said, And you know, he wasn't mean about it. You know, he just said, Look, your mother and I have sacrificed a lot. Uh, and we wanted to. We wanted you to have what you had. You and he did us a favor. We both asked you to graduate from college in four years, and you did. So we're proud of you for that. Uh, but quite frankly, we don't have the kind of money that it would take for you to do that. And uh, you know, you need to see if you can find a sponsor. So uh with that, I went to uh I went to talk to Jackie Burke and Jimmy DeMerrit. I drove to to Houston from Kerrville and uh out to the champions golf course, and they hired me uh as an assistant, knowing that I was doing that because I wanted to learn how to play golf. I wanted to learn how to and wanted to go to the next qualifying school. And so uh it was a great opportunity for me. I learned a lot from from those two gentlemen. Uh they were two, well, you know, two completely different kind of people.

Bruce Devlin 21:39

Yeah.

John Mahaffey 21:39

Uh I I never saw Jimmy DeMarrett without a smile, never saw Jackie Burke with one. So, you know, it was kind of like Jackie was a taskmaster, and and Jimmy was always telling stories and jokes and stuff, and absolutely wished I'd have taped these things or written them down because the stories he told about back in the day with Walter Hagen and Lefty Stack House and all these different people that all these crazy people that did stuff that played so well. Uh I just I sit for hours in the locker room listening to him tell these stories. It was it was great. And uh because of uh Jimmy DeMerit, I got to meet Ben Hogan. Uh one of the assistants, Hogan was going to come in in April. This was in 1971. And uh that's when I went to work for champions. And uh so uh Hogan came in a little early for the April tournament. It used to be called the Houston International, and he came in early to play some practice rounds. He wanted to talk with Jimmy and play with Jackie and so forth. So uh one of the assistants calls me and he says, uh Demair wanted me to call you and ask you if you wanted to play with him tomorrow as a partner against Hogan and Burke. And I'm thinking the guy's pulling my leg. These guys, first of all, they're jealous as hell because they knew I was there only to try to get to the tour. The second thing is they knew I'd I'd learned how to play golf out of Hogan's book. So, you know, I'm thinking they're they're pulling my chain, you know. So I figured they said, he said, be out here, they're gonna tee off at nine. So I I show up out there at eight o'clock, and sure enough, they're there. And Hogan and the three of them are on the right side of the practice tail. I go way over to the left and start adding balls. Now I'm scared to death, okay? Here's my hero, here's the guy I learned how to play golf from his book, you know. And uh anyway, so Bert gives me the, you know, come on, let's go to the first T. So I walk over there and I'm I'm still shaking, and I'll never forget I shake hands with Mr. Hogan, and I said, Mr. Hogan, I'm John Mahaffey. He said, How are you, young man? And I just I'll never forget the size of his hands and the grip and uh how pristine he looked. I mean, he he'd been hitting balls for a while. I mean, it looked like he'd never broken a sweat. And uh very cordial. And anyway, we uh we tee off. We only get to play nine holes that day because we got this huge thunderstorm that came through and uh lightning and thunder and all that. So I shot 31 on the front. And Hogan shot like 35. So we go in the locker room, and we're playing for some money, which I have none. I I got no money, but one of the one of the uh uh members is gonna you know spot me the cash if I lose anything. So we go in there and I'm I I sit up at the bar with uh Cleve, the locker room attendant. And DeMerritt's locker was very close to the bar, which it should have been. And uh so Burke, Demerrit, and Hogan are sitting there. Mr. Hogan are sitting there, and they're talking, and they're kind of huddled up, and then they look up and then they look back down and they look up. So Mr. Hogan walks over and says, uh, young man, he says, uh, you want to play golf tomorrow at nine o'clock again? And I look over at Burke and Demerrit because I'm working for them and they they go like this. And so I said, Okay, I'd love to. Well, that night it rained all night long, and we had a norther come through their kind of deal where I mean it was blowing 40 miles an hour, it seemed like, the next day. And we planned all the way back, and uh, I end up shooting 71 and Hogan shoots 69. So now I I guess I lost money, I don't know. Never found out how that that part ended up, but they go back and again back in the locker room, and uh so I'm up at the bar, they're huddled up, and then Mr. Hogan walks over and he says, John, now he knows my name, which is kind of made me feel good. He says, uh, uh, you're gonna have dinner at the club tonight, right? And normally assistants didn't have dinner at the club, and one of the members overheard, and he goes, Yeah, he's having dinner with us. He said, Be here at at seven o'clock. So at precisely seven o'clock, he walks over to our table and he said, Uh, John, how would you like to play in Colonial next week? He says, I I think I can get you in. Uh, it'd be like a sponsor's exemption or a champion's choice, whatever they call it there. And I said, Uh, I'd love to, Mr. Hogan, but uh I'm not a member of the tour. And I mean, it didn't take him that long. He goes, I didn't ask you if you were a member of the tour. I asked you if you wanted to play at Colonial next week. I said, Yes, sir, I do. So he walks into Birkin Demerit's office, he makes a phone call, comes back in, he says, Okay, you're in. One stipulation, you have to play all your practice rounds with me and me only. I mean, I've died and gone to heaven. The guy that I learned how to play golf from, his book, and you know, and I've had a wonderful experience with the champions, got me in the colonial tournament, and I play in uh practice rounds with a guy that won the thing five times called Hogan's Alley, you know, at Colonial Country Club. I could, I mean, I'm just excited as I could be. So I go uh to the tournament. We play our practice rounds, and uh I uh Hogan Hogan was my mentor for almost 20 years, but Hogan never taught me how to swing. He taught me how to play golf. Course management more than anything else. Think, you know, here to go there. And uh so we play all the practice rounds, and he's showing me how to play the golf course and run it up on four, you know, uh don't lay up on five, cut it around that corner, all kinds of stuff. You know, if you don't have guts enough to play that shot, you shouldn't be playing professional golf, all that kind of inside information, right?

Bruce Devlin 27:19

So very direct, too.

John Mahaffey 27:22

Uh yeah, I mean it was hell. He didn't he was serious. He didn't play fun golf either. You know, it was serious. And so after the practice rounds, I don't see him. I don't see him the rest of the rest of the week. I make the cut, uh, I play well the third round, and I've got a chance to win the golf tournament. And uh so I I come into the last iron holes and I choke my guts out. I really did. I ended up tying it for 12th. Uh Gene Littler won. And uh I still haven't seen Hogan. Haven't seen him at all. So I go back to my holiday inn on freeway. I'm packing up and I'm pretty dejected because I feel like I I let him down. Uh bad enough that I lost the tournament, but uh, you know, let Mr. Hogan down. And the phone rings. And I answer and he said, uh, John, this is Ben Hogan. I said, Yes, sir, I know. He says, Uh, do you know where the Hogan factory is? I said, No, sir, I don't. He said, Find it. It's on West Pafford, be there at 10 in the morning. So the next morning I I'm there early, and his secretary, I think her name was Claribelle, if I'm not mistaken, uh, lets me in at precisely 10 o'clock. And so I go and and uh I'm I'm sure you've been in Mr. Hogan's office, but he his desk is kind of sitting up here, and there's a chair that's not not tall enough for you to car, you can stuck kind of see his head. Well, you're taller than I was. I could kind of just barely see his head. You know, he's in a power position, right? Right so he's talking to me, you know. He says, you know, he says, uh you didn't do too well that last night, Holes. And he said, I watched every shot you hit. He he came out there in disguise. And Valerie was following me the whole time, and I'd never met Valerie to that point. And uh, you know, kind of reporting. And anyways, and uh he said, but I think you've got what it takes. He says, uh I've already called up to Canada uh to the Peter Jackson tour, and I've got you in. Uh two weeks from now, you're gonna go to Winnipeg and play West all the way to Vancouver. You play about seven tournaments. And uh he said, and he opens a drawer of his desk and he takes out two sheets of paper and puts one on the end of his desk. I stand up and look at it. He said, This is a contract. I want you to represent the Hogan Company. He said, You're the first person I've ever asked to do this. And I said, But Mr. Hogan, I know you're not a member of the tour yet, but you will be. He says, uh, you just need some experience. That's why I wanted you to go up to Canada and learn how to play for money. So uh Gene Sheeley, my club maker, is going to make all your clubs. Yeah. And don't think you're gonna get out of this place with a club that you designed because you're not unless I approve it. Every club comes to me first before it leaves. So uh that was the beginning of uh of an incredible relationship that I had with with Mr. Hogan.

Bruce Devlin 30:17

You know, it's interesting too that John, you being the first one there, he had a lot of players that uh ended up playing for the Hogan uh Bowling Club. And and a very interesting part was for about uh, I think for about an eight-year period, there were more guys that won major championships using Hogan equipment and golf balls than any other manufacturer.

John Mahaffey 30:42

Exactly. The bet it was the best ball I ever played, without a doubt. No doubt about it. And the clubs were fantastic. In fact, the only the only regret I have is that I learned too much about how to put golf clubs together and I became obsessed with an expert.

Bruce Devlin 30:58

Well you thought you were in my own mind. Right, right.

John Mahaffey 31:03

No, it was uh and I think if I'd have spent a little more time on a practice team hitting short shots and stuff and rather than saying, you know, my again changing shafts and doing kinds of weighing grips, I think that might have made a big difference.

Bruce Devlin 31:17

Well, it had to be a great experience.

Mike Gonzalez 31:20

Were guys during that uh era still using the steel ring to check your balls?

John Mahaffey 31:26

Yeah. We still did that, see if they were around. Absolutely.

Bruce Devlin 31:30

Yeah.

John Mahaffey 31:31

Did a lot of crazy I I don't think anybody I mean, we marked the golf ball or stuff like that. We never drove ring, uh, you know, circles around the golf ball to putting stuff. I didn't none of that kind of stuff.

Bruce Devlin 31:41

We tried to get them through the ring of metal, though.

John Mahaffey 31:44

Well kidding we did. Yeah. It was a great time to play, though. My goodness, I think that's so much talent back there. Not that there isn't today. I the game of golf is is in such good hands right now, I think. It was some of the younger players that can really go. Uh a lot a lot more of them that are really terrific players, too.

Mike Gonzalez 32:06

And at a very early age, right? I mean, they're they're coming out of this college system now ready to win.

John Mahaffey 32:13

Oh, no doubt about it. But you know, they've been playing golf since they were four. Most of these guys. I mean, uh I I don't think I'd give up my upbringing for anything because having to dig it out of the dirt, as Trevino and and and Hogan talked about a little bit, I think that that helps you ingrain things in your mind, what really works and what doesn't. Yeah. And uh and you know, the the the precious tips that these guys gave you were things that they they weren't theories. Uh, you know, they were things that these guys worked on and they figured out they work under pressure. And uh that was kind of cool to to be part of that and and and have the information given to you by somebody with the reputations and the ability these guys had.

Bruce Devlin 32:56

John, you uh you decided to turn pro in uh in 1971. Yeah, did you you have to go through the Q school?

John Mahaffey 33:05

I did. And uh in fact there were it you went through three. You went through a uh regional, a sectional, and then the the qualifying school. And I all three of them that I played in, Tom Watson did as well. And uh when I got to the uh to the final school, I happened to notice that one of the guys that followed me around every day was Gardner Dickinson. Come to find out later that it was Gardner Dickinson, that Hogan sent Gardner Dickinson down there and wanted a hole-by-hole report, okay, to him about how what I was doing and how I was uh how I was going about it. And I had a little advice from from from Mr. Hogan about that too, to not play to play smart golf. To play golf more like he played uh all the time, basically, is that he worked everything off the middle of the of the green. If it was on the right, he'd he'd hit it off the middle of the green and fade it. Left he'd draw it. You know, if it was on front, he'd bounce it off on the back he'd he'd hit it in there low. Or uh on the front he'd hit it in there high, on in the back, he'd bounce it in, uh, and let it skid back there. And and uh meaning that you don't take any chances. You know, uh thirty feet for a par or for a birdie is a whole lot better than trying to get it up and down out of a hazard, you know, to make double or triple buggy and blow your chances of making it. But I I do remember a phone call I got from Gardner one night. Uh we played at the old JDM golf course uh in in uh down in Florida, and uh it was it was called PGA National a little bit after that. Anyway, the ninth hole had a bunker off the T and then had water in front of the green and whatever, and I drove it in a bunker, it wasn't a deep bunker, and had a decent line, took a four-wood and cut it out of the bunker on the green. So I get a phone call that night and it's Gardner, you just kind of talking like this, how Gardner used to talk. And he said, Hogan told me if you ever hit a shot like that again that I was supposed to come over and and and give you all kinds of hell. He said, Why are you doing something stupid like that? All you have to do, hit it out, knock it on a green, try to make park no worse than burn that no worse than bogey. He says, You're gonna make seven or eight if you top it out of there, and stuff like that. So he had somebody uh he was always watching. He always he always got reports, and uh I thought that was pretty cool that he that he cared that much. He was he was quite a mentor.

Bruce Devlin 35:37

So, John, one question for you. I know your memory's very, very good. What was Gardner Dickinson's uh Chicken Hawk? Chicken hawk, there you go.

John Mahaffey 35:50

Should we pull him in on why they call him chicken? Yes, please do. Uh after ho after Hogan's accident, Hogan developed a little bit of a limp for a while. Well, actually for quite a while.

Bruce Devlin 36:02

Yeah.

John Mahaffey 36:02

And uh so shortly thereafter, Gardner developed a limp. The only problem was it was on a different leg. So they called Hogan the hawk.

Bruce Devlin 36:13

So Gardner uh became the chicken hawk.

John Mahaffey 36:17

Became the chicken hawk. And he always had the Hogan cap and you know, fancies it swing to to to try to uh emulate him, yeah. Yeah, Hogan.

Bruce Devlin 36:26

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 36:27

One thing I wanted to ask you about uh you used to do some imitations of some of the guys you played with.

John Mahaffey 36:36

I did. Uh Gary Player, uh Henry Longhurst. Didn't play with him, but uh and Chi Chi, you know, I I remember Chi Chi, uh I tell you what part song, you know, I play school right now, they have the chit to be me. I've been running on the bitch in in quote in Puerto Rico starting to get ready for the Masters. You know, and uh Henry Longhurst were like, oh no, no, and another ball meets a watery grave at the 16th. And so go the hopes of one young Tom Watson. You know, just stuff like that. And Gary, I've got to tell you, you know, I've got to tell you, I've been all over the world, and I'm the finest player that's ever played the game. I've won the Ho Team In Four Ball 17 consecutive years with my wife Vivian being runner up. So anyway, those were a few other things. I used to have fun doing some of the things.

Bruce Devlin 37:25

He was great doing that. Great doing that, Joan.

John Mahaffey 37:29

Uh, I don't get a chance to do much of that anymore, but uh it would, it was, it's it was a great time to play golf. It really was to be on the tour.

Mike Gonzalez 37:38

Having done uh now 31 of these interviews, uh Bruce and I will be celebrating our 100th episode soon, and by the time this airs, people will have heard it. And uh, we've heard the same sentiment from a lot of these guys that have played back in your era, that it was just a wonderful time to be playing.

John Mahaffey 37:57

Well, it was. And and and you know, I've been blessed my whole life. I've seemed in the right place at the right time to meet the right people. And I think uh I I don't know why. Uh maybe it's a gift from above. I hope that's the truth. But uh it it it like for instance working at champions, it was a great place to play and practice and and and gain some knowledge from two wonderful players, you know, that were major champions and Hall of Fame members. But also, back in the day, we had a lot of of actors and and stuff that put on golf tournaments, right? Andy Williams, you had Glenn Campbell, you had Bean Crosby, you know.

Bruce Devlin 38:36

Dane Martin.

John Mahaffey 38:37

Dean Martin. All these guys came to champions. All of them. I met all these guys before I ever went on the tour. So it made I I never felt uncomfortable in their presence or their friends. And yeah, and you meet and we met, I met a lot of of terrific people that in film and and and television that turned out to be some of the nicest guys uh and ladies that I've ever met in my life, you know, and just and loved golf. They didn't want to talk anything about their movies. They're like, Well, how do you hit this shot? What do you do for this? You know, uh, how do you stand this? What do you what's the pressure like out there? You know, and it's it was just it was cool that they're you realize they were actually human beings, you know, and uh they just had a wonderful talent for acting.

Mike Gonzalez 39:23

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.

Outro Music 39:47

It went smack down the fairway. When it started just like just smidge off line, we heard it with two, but it bounced off.