Lanny Wadkins - Part 2 (The Ryder Cup and the Majors)

Mike Gonzalez 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Let's move on to the Open Championship then. 14 starts, nine cuts made. One top five, two top tens, three top twenty-fives. Best finished fourth at the old course in 1984. What's your memories of that one?

Lanny Wadkins 0:26

And then I played that was probably one of the best ball-striking weeks I've ever had in my life and couldn't make a thing.

Mike Gonzalez 0:32

You need brakes at the Open Championship, don't you?

Lanny Wadkins 0:34

It was uh I I didn't have didn't need the brakes. I just needed to make the putts. I hit it, I think, as well as anyone. I was even, and Bruce knows that it at the old course, if you're driving it straight and have a lot of confidence, you can go the short route next to bunkers or OB fences. Well, I was doing that all week because I was driving it so well. And I was hitting a lot of quality shots, and I just couldn't make the putts, and I was right there. I mean, it was you know, I I've seen some replays of it, and I was right there all you know till the last you know last bit.

unknown 1:03

Yeah.

Lanny Wadkins 1:04

But it was I love playing over there. I uh uh I played very well in 73 when Weisskoff won because we played all our practice rounds together, money games. I had a lot of money games with Arnold and Weisskoff and Bert Yancey and that group, and we played uh every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, leading up to Weisskoff's win uh at Trun in 73. And I and I finished, I want to say six, and I played with Neil Coles and didn't play particularly good last round uh and and still finished sixth. I was right there. So I always felt the money games did us a lot of good, got us ready to play.

Mike Gonzalez 1:37

Yeah, that open championship in 84, that's the one Sevy won.

Lanny Wadkins 1:40

Sevy won. Watson hit it over bogeyed 17, hit against the wall and the road hole or something. Yeah, and made a bogey coming in. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 1:47

How about open open championship venues? What were your some of your favorites?

Lanny Wadkins 1:51

I love Burkdale, I love Muirfield. Old course there's nothing like the old course. It is what it is. And uh I played uh I'll give you, I mean, because of you know who you get to play with and stuff, uh I'll play with Peter Thompson in the first two rounds of of an open championship at the old course one yeah. Oh my so when he was still playing. So I mean, I I've been fortunate that I've gotten to play with you know who uh from Gene Sarazen to Peter Thompson to you know Nicholas and one year at the Disney uh best ball tournament when we had the it was at Disney World. I my partner for seven straight days was Arnold Palmer. Arnold invited me to play as his partner in 74 at Disney World. Oh my god so I got to play seven straight days with Arnold Palmer as my partner. And you know, you can play with a guy one time, and Devil can allude to this, you know, and you go, I didn't see that he was that good. Now you play with a guy seven straight days and you're gonna see everything you're gonna find out exactly how good this guy is. I play with Arnold seven straight days as my partner. Pro ams the whole deal. I came away as much as I respected him already, I came away with a newfound respect for his ability to think around a golf course and hit shots that I'd never seen him hit before. It was it was incredible.

Mike Gonzalez 3:08

Yeah, you you go back to your experience with Peter Thompson playing in the open. I would guess, I mean, he won what, five open championships.

Lanny Wadkins 3:15

Yeah, that's all. Three in a row.

Mike Gonzalez 3:16

I don't remember where he won him, but the odds would say he must have won at least one at the old course. I'm not sure, but uh do you remember?

Lanny Wadkins 3:22

I do not remember where he won him.

Bruce Devlin 3:24

But I you know, I remember watching him growing up. Yeah. Uh and uh my good friend Norman von Neider was a pretty good player, and I w I I used to go and watch Peter Thompson and it was it was sort of like it was sort of like watching paint dry. It was down the middle of the fairway on the green. No uh no emotions, none, you know, just it was like uh TikTok. Yeah. TikTok, you know.

Lanny Wadkins 3:56

I mean he was They didn't they didn't the the great players back then didn't hit it offline, they didn't make mistakes. I mean that that was just the way the game was played. Entirely different than today. Different uh attitude, approach, the whole thing.

Mike Gonzalez 4:09

The the whole risk assessment of these guys uh in terms of how they approach the game, a little different than it used to be.

Lanny Wadkins 4:14

Well, when you don't miss fairways, there's not much risk. I mean, uh you know, I mean honestly, that's you know, when I was playing well, I I felt like that. I you know, I would I never it never occurred to me I was gonna miss a fairway. I mean these guys are standing up hoping to get it in the fairway. I'm sitting there I'm when I missed a fairway, I was surprised when I was playing well. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 4:33

Let's uh let's move on to the one that uh I'm sure you've talked about a lot over the years, and that's the PGA championship in general, but in particular your win back in 77, 28 starts, 20 uh 20 cuts made, five top fives, six top tens, ten top twenty-fives. And uh the big one, of course, the win in 1977 uh at the PGA championship uh at Pebble Beach.

Lanny Wadkins 4:57

At Pebble, yes. First major championship ever decided by sudden death, which was kind of cool.

Mike Gonzalez 5:02

You guys expect you weren't expecting that, were you?

Lanny Wadkins 5:04

Oh, no, no, no. I I got I'm sitting there waiting. You know, I finished a hit. I only I mean I was back of lit. We're all pulling for Littler to win. I mean, he's everybody's favorite, and he had some trouble, and uh all of a sudden I get to actually I looked at a scoreboard around 16 and I'm thinking to myself, you know, if I can make I had about an eight-footer for par at sixteen, I'm looking at the boy, I said, I'll make this and birdie the last two, I might have a chance.

Mike Gonzalez 5:30

You started six back that year.

Lanny Wadkins 5:32

Yeah, I did. And then I I I made the putt at sixteen. The flag was back left at seventeen, the T's back across. I had the best two iron of my life at 17, about 12 feet behind the hole, and the putt did everything but go in. Went in the top side and it finished on the bottom right corner behind. I mean, I don't know how it didn't go in. I'm thinking, ah, that cost me. That was my chance. You know, I hit a good T-shot at 18, laid up with four iron, and I'm standing in the middle of the fairway at 92 yards, the big scoreboard behind the green, and right before I hit my shot, and I numbers may be incorrect, I'm five, and Littler makes a bogey to go back to six, or Littler makes a bogey go to five, and I'm four, something along those lines. Anyway, I'm one back before I hit this shot, and I just went I I just, you know, I went nuts. I was like, I got a chance. And I hit I hit a 92-yard wedge, a foot and a half from the hole. Made birdie and stood by the scores tent waiting for everybody to finish. Nicholas had a 15-18 footer on the last screen to tie me. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, at this point in time, I'm thinking this 18 holes on Monday playoff. Yeah. I said, you know, I really don't want to play Jack Nicholas in an 18-hole playoff here at Pebble Beach on Monday. I said, that ain't that ain't gonna turn out really good for old Lenny. And so, you know, and when he missed, I was like, Yeah, baby, we're getting better. And then Littler actually got it up and down with the flag back left from right of the right bunker at 17.

unknown 7:02

Yeah.

Lanny Wadkins 7:03

For par and then had about 25, 30 feet at 18 and two-putted. So my buddy Ed Sneed had brought me a beer. I was up by the clubhouse, and I'm thinking I'm playing Monday, and they said, nah, you're on the first T. So I was halfway through a beer, and I said, Oops, here it hit. I gotta go.

Mike Gonzalez 7:21

Did you have a chance to go ahead and eat balls?

Lanny Wadkins 7:22

Oh no, no. You don't have a chance to pull up. I've been waiting almost an hour.

Mike Gonzalez 7:26

And so where did that start then?

Lanny Wadkins 7:27

First T. We did not, they they did not have anything planned. They'd already taken the gallery ropes down, everything was gone. You've seen the British open the open championship when the guys on 18, everybody. We had that for three holes. Completely out of control. So you start at one? Started at one, got on the first T. Don Paget was president of the PGA, looked at me and lit, and said, by the way, whichever one of you guys wins, you're on the Ryder Cup team. He said, You will knock Al Guyberger off the team.

Bruce Devlin 7:57

Oh be damn.

Lanny Wadkins 7:58

So the right a PGA champion was going to be automatic. So we get up there and get on the first hole, and I had this cat, old caddy named Ralph Coffey, who you probably remember, old North Carolina boy. Yeah. I get on the first hole and I've hit it, put a good tee shot out there, and he got my second shot, and I said, What we got, Ralph? Well, Ralph started stuttering. Ralph couldn't talk. He was too nervous. I said, Write Ralph, write it down, bud. So he, my caddy on the first playoff hole, I'm 26 years old, 27 years old. I'm like, Ralph, write it down. But he can't, he cannot get it out. So he writes, he's shaking, gets the arch down. And so I said something, you know, uh-huh. I mean, so I hit a pretty little eight-iron right over top of the flag over the green. I'm toast. I am. Couldn't be more dead. Uh and little seeing me lays it up on the right, on the right front of the green. I left my shot about 15 feet short, coming straight down the hill. I've got, he let he rolls up to about a foot, and I make this 15-footer stay alive. It's unbelievable. So then the uh we went to the second hole. But now we're gonna go one, two, three. Second hole, we got it on the green, and two, both of us did. I lipped out my eagle putt. He ran his about four feet by and made it coming back. Then three, we hit good T-shots, and uh uh we both did the opposite of what we'd done in the morning. In the morning, I'd hit it on the front of the green, spun it back off the front edge, and I now take wedge and I had a crappy lie, and I kind of caught a little mini flyer and it went over the back of the green. Lyd had hit it over the green in the morning, I think, out of bounds. Well, he spun it off the left front into just a horrendous lie. I know my ball's over the green, and I'm walking as I walk on the front of the green, I walk past his ball, and I went, oof. And no way he can get that within 15. I mean, this lie was the green growing right into it, it was long, it was nasty. And I gouged mine out to about six feet. He got it about 15, missed it, and I made the six-footer to win.

Mike Gonzalez 9:57

Yeah, that's great. And and uh in in addition to the the writer cup slot, uh uh you came uh right out just after that and had a nice win at the uh World Series of Golf, didn't you?

Lanny Wadkins 10:09

I did. I played very well, I was you know, playing really well, went into Firestone and uh opened with 67 and and literally uh played wonderful golf. Uh you know, my good buddy Tom Weiss golf and I were paired together last day, and we walk on the first T, and I'm feeling my oats at this point in time. I just won the PGA and I'm leading this thing, and I'm leading Hale by two, but Tom by five. And back then they paired one three, not two, not one, two. So Hale's in the group in front, and I went, hey big T, what do you want to play for today, bud? And you gotta understand, first prize in the PGA I just won was 45,000. He said 100,000, which was first prize at Firestone. I said, Oh, you K didn't play today, did you? Yeah. He birties the first four holes. He played, he sh he lipped it out twice from about eight feet and shot 29 the front nine at Firestone.

unknown 11:01

Oh my god.

Lanny Wadkins 11:02

It was one of the best nine holes golf I've ever seen played. I birdied a couple, I actually ended up with a one-shot lead going to 10, and then I I bogeied my last hole, I three-parted the last hole of the tournament and shoot 65. We both shot 65 the last round, and I won by five. But it was uh, and that was a tournament record that stood for 14 years until Owlothabo broke it, I want to say 91. And when he did, I was actually runner up to Owathable that week when he shot way under. The thing I remember about that, if somebody had asked me before the tournament started, we had a lot of rough at Firestone, what do you think's gonna win this week? I said, six under would be a hell of a score. I shot six under and finished four shots ahead of third place and lost by twelve to Owathabul.

Mike Gonzalez 11:48

Isn't that amazing? Yeah, that was quite a week. That was quite a week. You had three seconds also in the PGA.

Lanny Wadkins 11:53

Yeah, I lost uh uh runner up to Raymond in 82 at Southern Hills. Um he shot 63 the first round and just got out in front and stayed there. Then uh 84 Trevino at Shoal Creek. I had the lead uh with nine to play, and Lee made everything. I made here again, I made nothing. So I three putted a couple times, and then um 87 I lost a playoff to Larry Nelson at uh PJ National at the time. I mean but it was good. My brother had a chance. I think my brother lost that tournament by a shot or two, so we were both right there for the for a major, which would have been cool. But uh I missed a little putt in the playoff. The Greens were horrible. They basically putting on dirt that week. I remember that. And I think Larry and I were the only two people to break par for the week. We should I think we were just one under.

Mike Gonzalez 12:42

Lanny, let's get a little bit into your writer cup career because that was uh probably uh you may not agree, I don't know, but f from a fan perspective, the highlight of when I think of Lanny Watkins, I think of the Ryder Cup and the record there. Number of points made, number of teams on, the record, the performance, uh the results, uh outstanding.

Lanny Wadkins 13:04

Well, thank you. Yeah, I I thought it was too. I didn't know it was gonna going to be that way. And when I won the PGA playoff, I alluded to earlier that they had already told Littler and I whoever one was on that team. And so my first team in 77, I'm on a team with Jack Nicholas and Don January, Dave Hill, uh Ed Sneed, Hale Irwin, Hubert Green, uh, stock Stockton. A lot of pretty heady stuff for a 26, 27-year-old at the time. Watson and I were the babies on that team. Tom made that was his first team and my first team. And um it was it was really neat because um and the the cool thing for me was having Dal Fensterwall as captain because I had known Dal. I met Dal when I was 17, and uh he had helped me with my wedge game at one point in time. And then later on, when I was at Wake Forest, Dal had invited me to there was a national pro am pro scratch amateur thing in like Port St. Lucie, and Dal had me come down and play as his partner. So I'm going to a captain that I knew, so it was it was very nice. Plus, I I gotta give credit where credit is due. There has never been a better bar in the universe of anything anywhere than the one Dow Fensterwall had in our team room. It was impressive. Is that right? Oh, yeah. More single malt whiskeys there than you'd ever find anywhere.

Mike Gonzalez 14:22

So it kind of compare and contrast the the team vibe, the dynamic uh back then compared to the way it uh is uh these days.

Lanny Wadkins 14:32

Uh it was it was I think relaxed. We were all friends, we weren't competitive against each other at that point in time. Um there was enough age difference between me and Nicholas in January and Hill, but Watson and myself and Irwin and Hubert Green, you know, we all had the utmost respect for those guys. So it was a it was a good mix of players. And Finstey kept us in our kind of our group, if you will. I played my one, you know, we only played three matches that year. They they were trying to this was the last year of Great Britain and Ireland, so this is before Europe. So uh there we only had played like uh I want to say uh uh alternate shot matches uh the first day, best ball the second, and singles the third. So three sets of matches. Uh I played with uh Hale Irwin, my first match at Lithuam St. Ann's, and um Hale and I won. We beat uh Bernard Gallagher and Brian Barnes, and then uh Ed Sneed and I won big the next day. We played together and we we played a lot of golf together, and we were hoping we'd get paired, and we both told Finsey that we were good friends, and so he put us out, and then my singles match. I guess somebody with the PGA had gone to Dow and said, you ought to put Lanny out first. He likes to play fast, he'll run over somebody, get him out there. So I remember we go out the first I'm first off and I'm playing Howard Clark, and Howard hasn't played a match the first two days. And Howard was a young buck, maybe younger than me at the time, great golf swing, hit it forever. And we get out there, and Finsy comes and walks the first couple of holes with me, and he says, I don't know where the hell this kid's been. Why haven't they played him? He said, You better play your ass off if you're gonna beat him. And I played really well. I I beat him, I think, three and two or four and three or something, but I played very, very well to beat Howard. He was quite a quite a good player.

Mike Gonzalez 16:36

Yeah, you probably have vivid memories of each of your each of your writer cups. What was your probably your most favorite?

Lanny Wadkins 16:44

I mean Kiawa stands out because of what it was we hadn't won in a while to get back and win at Kiawa, but I think I still think the one that if I had when I look back, the 83 match at Palm Beach Gardens um with Jack Nicholas as captain was was very, very special. Uh and I think that was was that way because Jack was the captain. Had a team that pretty much got my peers, I mean Curtis Strange, Jay House, Fuzzy Zeller. Uh was Raymond on that team? Raymond was on that team. Calvin Pete was on that team. Uh we had a a a really solid team of Gil Morgan was on that team. Gil and I won big one day alternate shot seven and five or something. And uh but it was you know a really good team, good bunch of guys. They all got along. It was uh but the cool thing was instead of having our team dinners at the hotel in a room, we went to Jack's house every night. It was ten minutes away. We'd go to Jack's house and have dinner at his house and Barbara and I mean the whole deal. And we're all walking around Jack's house, where are the trophies? You didn't have any trophy. We're like, come on, man, I want to see a master's trophy. Uh so but he got nothing out. So it was really kind of but it was really neat, you know, being close to Jack. And then for me, uh I played with Craig Stadler two rounds, and I think I played with uh Gil Morgan another one, so it was it was all good stuff. I played the matches, and then I had my singles match came down to me playing Jose Maria Conazaris, and I needed to beat him for us to win 14 half, 13 and not beat him, but actually tie him. I had one of those matches I played really well, but he holed it from everywhere. I mean, first hole was a good start. I've got it about six feet for Bertie, he's 40 feet for par and we tie the hole.

Mike Gonzalez 18:34

Oh my.

Lanny Wadkins 18:34

I mean, that that happened a lot that day. And uh I actually made a six-footer at 17 to stay alive. I get to 18. One down, and um the entire team's out there. The only group left on the course is Watson playing Bernard Gallagher, and Watson's two up and two to play. Watson didn't lose when he was two up and two to play, so they weren't concerned about him. But I had everybody, Curtis and Jay and everybody right next to me. Tom Kite was right there when I'm playing this hole because they know I've got to win this hole to tie my match for us to win four. Otherwise, it's gonna be a tied Ryder Cup. I had a good drive. I outdrove Canizaris. He took it across the corner of the lake with his second, which I thought he was gonna lay up, and I was like, damn, that means I got to hit it over there too. And I hit a really good three with it, and I hit this three wood, and Curtis Strange starts yelling at my ball in here. Get up, go! I said, Don't worry, Curtis, I hit it solid. So it carried and got over there. I had 72 yards for the hole. Kind of Zaros was away. He kind of fatted it to the front edge of the green, and I hit the 72-yard shot about a foot from the hole.

Mike Gonzalez 19:43

I remember that.

Lanny Wadkins 19:44

Made Birdie, won the, won the hole, tied the match. Nicholas goes over and kisses the divot. I mean, that was the whole that was the whole deal. You know, it was it was very cool stuff. And probably to this day, the best party celebration we've ever seen in our team room. It was it was unbelievable. I mean, Jack Nicholas was drinking champagne out of the router cup with a cork in his mouth, and he tried to waterboard Barbara. He said, Barbara, you gotta take a sip out of the router cup, and it was full of champagne. And he grabs the back of her head and dumps the whole thing. It was impressive.

Mike Gonzalez 20:19

There are probably no videos, no social media back then.

Lanny Wadkins 20:22

No, no social media. I mean, thank God it wasn't, because I mean it was you know, those memories to me are better being ours.

Bruce Devlin 20:30

Yeah.

Lanny Wadkins 20:30

You know, I didn't we know in our head. We don't care. Well, I you know, my generation didn't care about sharing that stuff with everybody or felt obligated to. It was they were our memories and our celebration, that's what it was about. So uh but yeah, really, really cool stuff. I remember Raymond uh and there dancing with his wife and Calvin Pete's wife, and it was, I mean, everybody was it was a very, very big celebration. Fuzzy's elders started it off. It was it was all nice and calm until Fuzzy walked in with a magnum of champagne and sprayed the room. You know, and that's that's what started it. I walked up behind Joe Black, who as Devil knows was the straight-laced executive director of the PGA back then.

Bruce Devlin 21:10

He's still around, too.

Lanny Wadkins 21:11

Yeah. I had a big bottle of champagne, I walked right behind him, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and took put the whole thing down his back. I mean, it was a wide open party, so it was good. And then we went to dinner, we had destroyed the suite. We come back after dinner and they have cleaned it. It looks like nothing ever happened in there. And I mean I remember there were a couple people, I'm not gonna mention names that I actually carried to their room later on that night.

Mike Gonzalez 21:41

Well, quite a record, uh uh uh as I mentioned before. Twenty one and a half points as a player. Not many players have exceeded that total, have they?

Lanny Wadkins 21:51

Well, Casper and Palmer, that would be about the two? Yeah, and they played more matches back in the day. They we had I had one router cap that we only played, like I said, three matches. And back in the day, they used to play two singles matches each day on on the last day. So they played not just 2-4-5, they played 2-4-6. So it was but anyway, you know, it was I was I'm very proud of what I did. I I was involved right when Europe was getting really big and really tough. I played against, you know, their big five and woosham and faldo and sevy and Olathal and Lyle. Um played a lot of golf against them.

Mike Gonzalez 22:26

So what was 83 about the time that they started to emerge as a team?

Lanny Wadkins 22:31

Yeah, that was woos that was the first time we had seen Woosnum. Uh Faldo was young. He hadn't changed his swing yet with fat with Ledbetter. Um yeah, they were kind they were kind of coming around. That was their first, you know, jaunt in there, if you would.

Bruce Devlin 22:48

Question for you. You said 83. What do you think changed European golf for them to become contenders with the American players? I ha I have my opinion of it.

Lanny Wadkins 23:02

I'd love to know what I think first and foremost, Bruce, they went from Great Britain and Ireland to including Europe. So now Sevy can play, so now Langer can play. Uh you had Lyle and Faldo and Woosum would have been able to play, but that was the main crux of it. I mean, you had uh, you know, Sam Torrance was still playing very well at that point in time. They had a they had a number of really good players. I I think they'd come on pretty well, but uh Sevy hit was a big deal in eighty-three and because Sevy had uh I want to say Sevy boycotted the Ryder Cup in '81 because he wanted to be paid and they wouldn't pay him. And so and he found out that the Ryder Cup's gonna go on with or without you, Sevy, if you want to play, play. So he in 83 he was back there.

Bruce Devlin 23:51

I I agree with you. I I think that's it. Uh I look at uh I look back at the that history in the middle sixties to the middle eighties, and I see not too much progress on the European tour from a quality player standpoint. But when they went to the big ball, I think they all learned how to how to play a different game of golf. And the you know, the Sevies and as as Laney said, all the all the good players that they added from Europe, then it made a made a hell of a difference.

Lanny Wadkins 24:27

Yeah, and and and they'd gone away from the little ball a couple years earlier, probably. I think it probably took them a while to get over it. Yeah, because the first few opens that I played in, I played the little ball some. And that was back when you could change. You were into the wind you'd play the little ball and down when you'd play the big ball. Correct. Absolutely.

Mike Gonzalez 24:46

Yeah, and a lot of people forget that, that you had that flexibility back then.

Bruce Devlin 24:49

Yeah, well, there was even a time when uh I remember playing the PGA uh in North Carolina. Tanglewood, probably. Yeah, with playing Tanglewood, uh where you where I saw Bobby Nichols playing uh a titless golf ball off the T most of the time, and then when he got to a really hard par three, instead of hitting that wound bowl, he'd pull out the solid bowl.

Lanny Wadkins 25:15

Yeah, the old top plate or Shrixon or whatever or whatever it was back in Molotar or whatever.

Bruce Devlin 25:21

Instead of having to hit a two-iron, he's hitting the four-ign at it.

Lanny Wadkins 25:25

Exactly. I I remember Bobby doing it. I remember Dwitt Weaver doing it a bunch, you know. Yeah. Guys that had, you know, that that made a difference. They could go some of these guys could go from you know, two iron to five iron with that ball.

Mike Gonzalez 25:36

It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So Lenny, you you went on to uh to captain the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill in '95. What are your memories of that?

Lanny Wadkins 25:44

It was a great week. It was something I was very proud to do. It was uh a lot of ways uh one of the coolest things I've ever done is be Ryder Cup captain. And conversely, it was one of the most disappointing things that we did not win. You know, I had a I had a three-point lead with 11 matches to go, and that should have been pretty good. And uh had guys that just didn't play well. Europeans played well, and some of my guys didn't perform down the stretch, and we, you know, we lost 14 and a half, thirteen and a half. But it was uh that was tough to take because I'd put you know, my wife and I put two years of our life into that thing. I mean, when you're rider cup captain, I'd made probably a dozen trips to Oak Hill over the years, and uh I was doing press conferences every week for the PJ of America. Every tournament I played at, I had to go do a a press conference every single week I played at that stretch. Talking about it. Yeah, talking about the Ryder Cup. So it was it was always on your mind, and then you're looking at the players and they want picks and the stuff. So it was yeah, I wish I'd had more picks. I only had two back then. It's I didn't know I had the choice to make it more, which some of the captains have over the years.

Bruce Devlin 26:52

It's an honor, though. You know, it's great, great to think that that you get honored with uh captaincy of the Ryder Cup. It's quite an honor, Lenny.

Lanny Wadkins 27:00

Well, I I uh it w it was kind of cool. It was um it was kind of expected, but as it turned out, because at that point in time the PGA was uh big on using their former champions as captains, and we had they had gotten into a niche of my area, my era guys, if you would, Stockton had been and once then Raymond, and then Watson was captain ahead of me, and so it was it was kind of cool because when Watson was captain, they had he had uh the two captain's picks were actually me and Raymond. So I played you know as a captain's pick in in '93, and I remember we're going into a meeting talking about strategy and stuff, and it was Watson got me and Raymond to go into this meeting, and somebody says, Well, there goes the the past, present, and future captains in together. So it was it was kind of cool that I followed Watson like that. So it was very neat.

Mike Gonzalez 27:54

So you didn't play much on the senior tour. You got into broadcasting pretty quickly, didn't you?

Lanny Wadkins 27:58

I did. Uh played well early on, had a bad elbow injury, got tenantis on my right elbow first time it ever happened, about halfway through my rookie year, and uh couldn't play for like six or seven weeks, and uh had to withdraw from the senior U.S. Open and some other stuff, so it was not good. And then uh the opportunity came along to go into broadcasting. I was I had taken over in '97 for Dave Maher when he developed cancer. Uh and I was doing the uh champions clinic at the PGA of America, at the PGA Championship. Jim Nance saw me doing that one year and said, You ought to be doing TV. And so Jimmy really kind of promoted me to CBS, and that's how that all kind of came about. So uh it was it was neat. I got to sit by Jim for five years and lead analysts on the Masters, the PGA, and a number of other tournaments. So it was, you know, a very cool spot sitting up there, very heady to be up there sitting next to Jim Nance. And so it was it was really, really a neat place. I mean, Bruce has been there, he understands, and uh it's it's a big responsibility in a lot of ways because you're you become kind of the voice of the tour at that point in time, especially the weeks you're working. And uh it's a it's it's a fine line to walk. You don't want to, you know, make it hard on your peers and your friends, but you've got to tell what you think.

Mike Gonzalez 29:27

And it you've got to be very forthcoming on on you know what's good and what's not good, and uh you know, well-played shots and stupid mistakes, and and you you've got that that's you know, you're not up there to be vanilla, and I think and that's and I think that's why the fans enjoyed watching the the Lanny Watkins, the Johnny Millers cover golf, because you're telling it like it is, and I think it's a lot more enjoyable to hear it that way.

Lanny Wadkins 29:52

Yeah, I think so. I mean, Curtis Strange did that when he was with ABC, same thing. Uh his thing to an extent now, but Johnny especially. And I mean, Johnny and I are probably had the same mold a little bit. We're good friends, go a long way, go back a long way.

Mike Gonzalez 30:03

And these days, uh, you're a golf channel.

Lanny Wadkins 30:07

I am. I'm doing the Champions Tour telecast. I did some regular tour stuff when I first started with golf channel, but now I'm pretty much exclusively just champions tour, and I'm doing 22 events for champions tour this this year and four majors. I mean, I'm doing all we're even doing the senior U.S. Open this year, which is kind of exciting. So I've got you know the the the three that I look forward to. I mean, the senior U.S. Open, the the senior open at Sunningdale, and then got the senior players at Firestone. So some venues I I know Firestone well. I've played the European Open at Sunningdale, so I'm excited about I get excited about the venues sometimes.

Bruce Devlin 30:44

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 30:44

Uh quite an honor back in 2009 when you're recognized for the totality of your golfing career, that being your induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Lanny Wadkins 30:55

It was very special. Um wasn't, you know, never thought of myself as the Hall of Fame. I never thought of that happening. And quite honestly, because of who got in ahead of me, I kind of all of a sudden expected that I would be. And when I I see guys, my peers, when I saw, you know, Kite and Crenshaw and Curtis Strange go in ahead of me, I'm thinking, what's the deal here? I mean, because you know, total wins, I had more than any of those guys, and it wasn't like they had that many more majors. I had a U.S. amateur and the players, and yeah, so it was uh you know, in the Ryder Cup experience. So I, you know, it I I was very proud of it, of the fact that it did happen and uh I'm very pleased.

Mike Gonzalez 31:36

Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate all the time you spent, sort of uh just uh recollecting and reminiscing over your career, you and Bruce. Uh uh just a few other questions I'd I'd like to kind of get into. Uh uh one would be this one if you had one career mulligan, where would you take it?

Lanny Wadkins 31:55

Wow. Uh maybe opening tea shot at Oakland Hills on the last day where I buried it in the bunker, made double and lost by two. That'd be a good start. Probably um Yeah, maybe a masters in 91. I can come up with one or two around there, maybe the the two and a half footer at 14 for Birdie. Um you know, some things like that that could have made a big difference. Yeah, there's yeah, I I I would obviously look at something that would have made a difference in a major, because that was uh where I th I felt, you know that I I, you know, that's that's my one regret is and and I think it goes back to what I said earlier in in the show was that had I spent more time with Phil Rogers working on my putting, you know, with his eye and his tutelage, I think maybe some of those shorter putts would not have been missed. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 32:48

Yeah. This is a question I asked uh of Steve Carleton about four years ago at a bar in uh Steve Carlton baseball, by the way. And do you really? Yes, I do. And of course, Steve was uh was a pitcher with the Cardinals before he went to the Phillies uh Hall of Famer, 4,000 plus strikeouts, you know the record, didn't you? Yeah. He was there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the World Series win against Boston in 1967, and we found a friend of mine and I found he and Tim McCarver sitting alone at the hotel bar. So we just went up and started talking, right? And and we were talking with him for an hour and a half, just the four of us, before other people started showing up. But I asked him the question among others, I said, and I'll ask you the same question, and I'll tell you, tell you his answer. He I said, if you knew at age 20 what you know now, what would you do different? And while you think about that, Steve Carleton's uh answer sort of amazed me because I had a lot of things running through my head about what he could have come with. But now here's a guy that pitched till he was what, 45 or so years old?

Lanny Wadkins 33:49

Yeah, early 40s anyway, and very successful.

Mike Gonzalez 33:52

Yeah, very successful. He says, Okay, uh I'm thinking to myself, he had a fastball, he had a curveball, and he had a slider. Okay? He says, you know, he didn't think this long. He says, I would have done uh I I would have done this. I would have learned a four-seam fastball, and I would have learned how to throw in a circle change. So he wanted to add a fourth and fifth pitch, thinking he could play another three or four years.

Lanny Wadkins 34:15

Well, and and plus it would have made his other stuff harder to hit.

Mike Gonzalez 34:18

Right. I just found that fascinating. Uh, you know, uh yeah.

Lanny Wadkins 34:22

I was doing an outing in Philadelphia, and they had, you know, how you you have things for that you can bid on out there. Yeah. They had three baseballs together that I walked up and bid on them, and nobody else like 50 bucks. Steve Carlton, Stan Musual, Sandy Koufax. I got all three.

Bruce Devlin 34:39

Okay. How about that? Yeah, that's crazy. So answer that. And all lefties. And all lefties.

Mike Gonzalez 34:44

So you gotta answer the question. So you're 20 years old, but you know what you know now. What would you do different?

Lanny Wadkins 34:51

I would have had better instruction because I did it all myself. I I think the the the one regret that I c I keep coming back to is is the Phil Rogers thing. Had I spent more time there and been a better putter, my ball striking I can't remember when my ball striking let me down in like at an open or something. Uh Masters, I don't think it was ever the ball striking, it was the putting. I would I would have been a better putter, chipper, pitcher, bunker player. We didn't have the facilities then that they have today with the practice areas and short game areas. We didn't have that. When I grew up and I wanted to work on my bunker game, I took a shag bag to the excess sand that my club had stored. It was flat. It was just a pile of sand. I smoothed it out and hit bunker shots to my shag bag. That was the way I practiced. That was all I had back then. I didn't have what my boys have grown up with or what we have here at Preston Trail today. I didn't have any of that. I would love to have had that, you know, or at least I would have spent I would have made myself a better pitcher, bunker player, chipper of the balls. I was a decent chipper and I had good imagination chipping. I don't I don't think I ever lacked that. But uh putter for sure.

Mike Gonzalez 36:05

Yeah. What was your best run of golf?

Lanny Wadkins 36:07

I played good a long time. I mean, starting about 82, I I had a great run there, but I had the one that stands out to me was the streak I had in 85. I played well in 85. I won three times. Every time I won, I shot over 20 under. But I had a I had a three-week run in '85. I won the Bob Hope Classic where I beat Stadler in a playoff. We shot 27 under. And uh I beat him in a five-hole playoff. I go to Phoenix the next week, and I doubled the last hole at Phoenix Country Club to finish like 10th or something. Then I go to Riviera and shoot 200 and win by seven. And I looked back and counted up through those because I was I hit it so well. In fact, I tell you how well I hit it. I shot 200 at Riviera. I did not have an up and down to save par until the fourth hole the third day. I birdied all four par threes at Riviera the first round. I hit every green the first round, as small as those greens are. But I went back and looked and figured up I averaged six birdies around for three weeks. Yeah, that's a lot of birdies. I mean, think about that. That's six birdies around for three weeks. You're gonna win something.

Mike Gonzalez 37:23

That's a nice little stretch, yeah. Well, let me let me uh I'll get you both involved in this discussion as we start thinking about how the game has changed from the 60s, 70s in particular to today. There are so many aspects that are different. I just wanted each of you to sort of opine on a few of them, if you wouldn't mind. Uh obviously the the from a financial perspective, things are a lot different, aren't they? Oh my god.

Lanny Wadkins 37:47

Yeah, oh my.

Bruce Devlin 37:48

Yeah, I you know uh you look at look at the golf that uh that we played, in particular, you know, I was uh I was quite a few years in front of Lanny. Um the the golf ball uh has it's just been amazing what's happened when you when you look at the old wound ballada ball that would you know you could curve it twenty-five yards if you wanted to. Uh it's harder to cur curve the new golf balls. They go a lot further. Uh they perform a lot better. They don't they're not distorted after you've used them for a hole or two. Yeah, Laniel remember back, you know, we used to carry a metal.

Lanny Wadkins 38:30

Oh, I've still got them. Metal ring. Yeah, that's you hit a ball one time, it won't go through the ring. And I in fact, when I played the Hogan ball, which was a very soft control ball, I finally figured out that the best way to play, get out of it, was I would play a sleeve of balls, three balls. I'd play a new in the first hole, a new in the second, new in the third, and by if you wait 20 minutes, it goes back in round. So I'd take that ball from one and I'd and I'd mark them one, two, three, and I'd play a sleeve on the front and a sleeve on the back. I one time walked into Ben Hogan's office and I was we were talking about this, and I said, Well, I play, and he says, you know, that's a great idea. I said, I think I'd take it a step further. I think I'd take nine new balls on the front nine and then rotate them and use those balls again on the back. So I mean, Ben liked what I was talking about and and really uh agreed with that that it would because you hit one driver, you couldn't force it with a sledgehammer through that ring.

Bruce Devlin 39:28

Yeah, and so now you're hitting the iron with that ball.

Lanny Wadkins 39:30

Yeah.

Bruce Devlin 39:31

So you you could hit a driver and an eight-on on the first hole, for instance, and putting, and you walk towards the second T, it would it would fall through one way, and then you'd put it on the different axis and try to put it through the hole, it wouldn't go.

Lanny Wadkins 39:44

Yeah. It was unbelievable. That was how soft it was back in the day. But you know, I I I I agree with with what Bruce is saying uh about a lot about the golf ball, and I but I'll take it a step further. I think the one thing that changed the game as we note knew it growing up, the golf ball is is changed, and I've heard Nicholas, everybody complain about the golf ball from day one. The thing that enabled that golf ball to be a factor was Karsten Solheim and Square Grooves. Had the PGA Tour won their lawsuit against Solheim, or at least we had had bifurcation back then where we said no square grooves on tour, the ball couldn't have been what it is today. If you didn't have irons that you could control that rock that they play today with, if we had the old V grooves that we played in the early 70s, you couldn't play today's golf ball. It wouldn't spin enough. You couldn't, you know, they've changed the grooves on the iron heads are what's changed it, and that's enabled them to come, okay, now we got the irons figured out. Now they come with the big-headed, perimeter-weighted drivers to get that thing in the air. And it's all about launch nowadays. So had we won that lawsuit, or had the tour gone for bifurcation where we had our own rules, and no the funny thing is the it when we had a vote on that, over 80% of the membership voted against square grooves. And somehow we lost that lawsuit. This is back early mid-70s, and that's when you know the ping square grooves, and that's when the ball started to change because you could do that because if you use their grooves, you're ripping the current ball we had to stretch.

Bruce Devlin 41:26

Just chew them apart.

Lanny Wadkins 41:28

So I I I think that was the enabler of today's golf ball. So I mean, I I I still think the big culprit has been the grooves. They tried to go back to V grooves here a few years ago, but and they went back to V grooves, but what they did was there's now no limit in how close they can be together. We used to have limits on that as well. When they're closer together, they've just there are more grooves on a face now than there ever were. So it's uh it acts the same way now as a square grooves.

Mike Gonzalez 41:56

So how do you guys feel about the the progression of technology? Are we in a good place, a bad place?

Lanny Wadkins 42:03

What do you think uh It's probably made the game better and more fun for more people? But I I'm a big believer in bifurcation. I don't know why we all of a sudden think that we have the only sport that can't have our own set of rules. You know, NBA basketball, they they've got their ball and they're you know different than other people. Three-point line is different than college. Baseball, they play with wooden bats. College Airwells plays metal bats. The seams on the baseball are not as high on Major League Baseball as they are in other places, so you can't throw as big a curves and stuff like that. So uh football has their ball, and they even have specific balls for kicking and other things.

Mike Gonzalez 42:43

So I So if you split the rules, what what would be different in the program than the than the amateur game?

Lanny Wadkins 42:50

Well, I I think the one thing they need to do is shorten it. I think if they shorten it where there's more play, I think you would see guys go to a golf ball that would be more spinny. Tiger Woods plays the spinniest ball out there, so he can maneuver his iron shots. You know, he's long enough. These guys are long enough. If, you know, they could take it back to where 300 is a legitimate 300 and 290 is great. First thing I would do is I'd say the lightest shaft anybody on tour can play with is 110 grams. That'll stop it. And the smallest head you can play is 360, not 460. Yeah, but 360. And then, you know, and and then you can't be over 46 inches long. And and you know, I would I may eliminate armlock putting. I may, you know, is they've already gotten rid of anchoring. Why not do get rid of everything that's anchored? Arm lock is just another version of anchoring. I would uh you know, I would go there with that stuff and make it a little bit more pure. That's I think if you did that, then the ball wouldn't wouldn't be as big an issue.

Mike Gonzalez 43:48

Would you have a minimum loft on the driver if you had to do all that?

Lanny Wadkins 43:51

No, I think you can drive what you want to, but I think it's you know and you can play with as weak a shaft as you want, but it's got to be a certain weight. The weight is what in the you know, you you're gonna swing it. 70 gram shav a lot faster than you are 110 or 15. And when we were we were playing, the shafts were 130 plus grams. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 44:08

What about fitness, health, nutrition? Was that even a topic of conversation 50 years ago for the world? We remember one player. That's about everybody.

Bruce Devlin 44:18

Gary the same Gary player.

Lanny Wadkins 44:20

And we all thought he was full of crap. I mean, you know, I my my nutrition, uh I go back to when Weisscraw took me to eat oysters for the first time at and we went into uh Felix's right there in New Orleans and said, hey, come on, rookie, you gotta have some oysters. And uh I had 12 oysters and came out and put them on the sidewalk afterwards. I mean that was that was my start with oysters, but I mean that was the way, you know, we we had good dinners and you know, we didn't have sports psychologists, we had bartenders. I mean, that was that was it. It was a a different era, and like I said, we did things ourselves. We didn't have a team, you know.

Bruce Devlin 44:55

It's affected one other thing too that uh Lenny certainly is involved in. It has been for quite a few near years now, and that's the architectural side of the issue. Uh you know, where it where is it gonna keep going if you're gonna, you know, have have the golf ball that keeps carrying 320 yards, and you know, do you you end up having golf courses that have to be 280 acres to put away?

Lanny Wadkins 45:21

Yeah, so 150, 200 acres. I mean, and yeah, and that that's that's I mean the the other the other side of that is we lose some outstanding venues that we can't use anymore because they're not long long enough.

Bruce Devlin 45:33

Yeah, absolutely. So I I overall I think they should be trying to hone it in a little bit, you know. How however you want to do it with take all the suggestions that Lanny just came up with, and that was you know, that would be the effect of it. Uh there wouldn't be any more 340-yard drives.

unknown 45:53

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 45:54

How about course conditioning, green speeds? What we're doing.

Lanny Wadkins 45:57

That's what's that that that's amazing to me. I mean, we de we never played uh we play on fairways now that in better condition than a lot of the greens we played on. It's it's unbelievable how much agronomy has improved the game of golf for everyone. I mean, invariably I go to these courses to do telecasts, and without fail, we always say this is the best condition this place has ever been in. And we say it week after week after week. And the one thing the tour does, the tour has an outstanding agronomy department that does advance work to all our courses. Well, I mean, we're talking year-round stuff they consult with these venues on, and that's why they're so good. We have some of the best agronomists in the world working for us on the PGA tour, and it filters down to the champions tour and and the you know, Corn Ferry Tour and everything else. So that's that's one reason you're seeing the scores as good as they are.

Mike Gonzalez 46:47

Yeah, because it really makes some of the scores you guys shot back in the day that much more impressive.

Bruce Devlin 46:52

Yeah, and you know, if you think about it seriously though, uh the scores today aren't as much lower as what you might think they would be. You know, you check the records and you know, take Lenny's, for instance. You know, his uh his 20 underpass score at Riviera, I mean you know still stands. Yeah, you don't see you don't see many people that can do that. And they got all of uh advanced technology.

Mike Gonzalez 47:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um caddies, the role of the caddy. Uh a little bit more involved these days, probably than than back when you guys were.

Lanny Wadkins 47:28

Drives me crazy. I'm sorry from a from a pace of play announcers. Yeah, it I think it affects pace of play. And I'll give you one glaring example to me is Bernhard Langer, who has never been a fast player. Okay, actually slow player. He and his caddy, Terry Holt, both have a book, and they go through it and they're comparing, and invariably when it comes down to, and Terry will say, Okay, we'll go with your yardage, then why does he even have a book? Yeah. But if I see Langer play, which he's done a number of times and win tournaments with his kids on the bag, particularly his daughters, who don't carry the book, don't have anything to say other than just nice shot, Dad, he plays twice as fast. Yeah. So without I I think there ought to be, if there's a book, for starters, there should be no Greens books. Reading Greens is an innate part of golf. If if you can read Greens better than the than the other person, then more power to you. What happened at the Monsters this year?

Bruce Devlin 48:27

No none of those Greens books.

Lanny Wadkins 48:28

Those Greens books. They weren't allowed. They don't allow them at Augusta. They can make their own rules there. So that and so and I think there ought to be one book for a player in caddy. That's gonna speed things up. I mean, yeah. I always trusted my caddy to be able to add five plus eight and get thirteen. Yeah, I just saying. So what about media?

Mike Gonzalez 48:51

The relationship with the media, the the the type of coverage. I mean, now it's you you watch a major, you see every hole. Back then, I mean, you barely saw the last four holes of a major championship round. Uh relationship with golf writers, much more golf writing than you know, no social media, none of this 24-hour news thing. How'd that all different?

Bruce Devlin 49:09

Oh, I don't know. Uh today, uh obviously, because I'm I've been out of the um the game and and the um the media side of it now for a long time. Lenny probably can answer that question.

Lanny Wadkins 49:21

Well, I I'm not on so I don't do Twitter or Facebook or any of that, so I'm kind of off that. But uh I I think there's too much outside influence. I mean, these people that can go on there and uh criticize or say whatever they want about anybody with no repercussions whatsoever. I I think it's it's it's a sad state in our society that that people can do that. I don't like that. Um but um you know I I the coverage itself I like. The thing that I like most watching a golf telecast are the shot tracers. I love seeing where the ball's going and seeing the the the curvature and the stuff like that. I I I can't get enough of that. I mean, unfortunately it's it's a money thing. We only have about one camera a week that does it on Champs Tour. Okay. So, you know, it's it that's an expensive deal to have that. So the regular tourists, I mean, sometimes they have it a lot, so it's yeah, they do have a lot.

Mike Gonzalez 50:19

Yeah, yeah. I guess one other thing I wanted to ask about uh is something that Bruce and I have talked about, came up in a discussion you had yesterday. You know, Bruce and Bruce Crampton and David Graham, sort of pioneers coming from another country onto the U.S. tour. As an American player, at least back when you were playing, what was your perception of the acceptance of foreign players onto the U.S. tour? Had it had it changed much from the time Bruce came out?

Lanny Wadkins 50:47

Uh I think it was it happened before I really got out there because I mean, when I came out, uh Bruce Crampton was he was the man. I mean, he could play. He was winning, I want to say in 73, he might have won four, five, six times, something like that. He beat me by a shot to win Phoenix one year. I played I know in 73 I had an outstanding year. I had like 14 top tens. I had a couple of wins, and it seemed like every single weekend I'm paired with Weisskopf and Crampton at some point in time, sometimes together to threesome, because the three of the of us were playing very, very well. And uh I played with Bruce Crampton a lot, and uh and I respect him. I got along fine with Bruce and uh didn't have a weakness in his game. He was uh he was he was a tough SOB to play against, too. He wasn't gonna he wasn't gonna give you anything.

Mike Gonzalez 51:37

But did you get a sense from any other players that uh there was a little bit of uh I did I you know what?

Lanny Wadkins 51:43

I I'll I'll I'll take it a a different level. I was fortunate enough that when I came out, I was is immediately playing in the upper echelon of the tour. Top ten, if you will, okay? I didn't hear it from those guys. I always think the bitching on our tour came from the guys that didn't play as well. Um I mean, it's you know, it's like I remember us having a players meeting one time and players complaining about this and complaining about that, and Jim Colbert said, stood up and said, Boys, I got the answer to all your problems. And everyone's like, oh, what? What? Play better. Yeah. That was it. I mean, Colbert just put it right on him, play better. That's it's as simple as you can make it. I mean, David Graham and I were in the same qualifying school. So I've known David. In fact, we met the first time when he had won the uh World Team Championship where he won the Eisenhower or the trophy for the world thing, the team thing from Australia. Yeah, and he was the medalist. We we met at the Gold T Awards in New York City. I was the U.S. amateur champion. And when David and I met up there in like in like 1970, so that was the first time I met. Then we ended up being the same Q school in '71.

Mike Gonzalez 52:52

Uh spectator behavior changed a lot since uh Woods were wood? Well, I don't think so.

Lanny Wadkins 52:59

I don't think so. I I I think uh yeah, I don't like the yelling, but other than that, uh we've had rowdy places going back to where Bruce and I both went at Pleasant Valley, left to 17 there. Oh my God. Uh and then at Greensboro over the years at 17 there. Uh there have been some noisy places that not not quite like Phoenix is today at 16, but uh we've we had ours, and then they you had to be prepared when you got there because they were they weren't gonna shut up when you got there playing.

Mike Gonzalez 53:28

Kind of gone through some phases over the years, haven't we? We had the you demand phase. Yeah, that that kind of stuff can go away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh let's just finish up with uh with uh uh pace of play.

Lanny Wadkins 53:41

We we touched on it briefly, but uh was there a pace of play issue at all back when you guys first Oh yeah, yeah, and and the same thing, the guys that were slow back then didn't think they were slow. And the the the issue is from my perspective, and I'm probably one of the ten fastest players, I may not have been as fast as Doug Ford, but I was I was right there. Wouldn't you say devil?

Bruce Devlin 54:04

I would say that uh yeah. Lenny had a reputation for two things. Number one was and I'd mentioned earlier about if you didn't get off the green, if you're in front of him, you didn't get off the green quick enough, you you know, the ball might land, you know, particularly if you hadn't got off the putting surface, it could it could be right there with you. But uh that and his tenacity of uh and ability, when he was playing good, he got to playing better, he never was scared of getting a big low score going. That's the one thing I remember about him.

Lanny Wadkins 54:41

Well, I will uh and I on the slow play thing, I'm gonna say one thing, and and uh uh and this is in defense. The one thing that happens with slow play. The fast player is the one that always adjusts. Slow player plays at his pace. We have to adjust to him. You never see it the the slow player getting faster trying to catch up. I led the Masters twice after the first round. Two different times I had the the 18 hole lead after the first day. Both times I was first off the first day in a TUSOM. I shot 65 one time playing with Joni Mudd, and we played in two hours and 45 minutes at Augusta, first off. I uh I never got to play at my pace. Invariably, and then the next day it took longer to play the first nine than it did the 18 holes I played the day before. So that's you know, if you like to play fast, then you're handicapped. So you I'm always adjusting. I used to have people, my friends say, Why are you walking so slow? You're gonna lose your I said, uh if I don't walk slow, I'm gonna stand around all day up there waiting. So I had to I had to learn to pace myself so that I wasn't standing in my bag waiting all day. So it's uh it's you know, it it it was delightful to play at my pace at Augusta. So two times I got to play first off, and both times I led after the first round.

Bruce Devlin 56:02

You know what's delightful? It's delightful that you joined us today. My pleasure, Debbie.

Mike Gonzalez 56:08

It sure is. It was fun listening to you guys tell your stories from uh back in the day, 60s, 70s, into the 80s. Uh quite a record. World Golf Hall of Famer. Lanny Watkins, uh, we really appreciate your time.

Lanny Wadkins 56:20

Thanks. Great being with you guys.

Mike Gonzalez 56:23

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. Smack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. And it's time to slice just smitts of land. My candy says as long as you're still in the stage, you're okay. It went straight down the middle.