Mark Brooks - Part 2 (The Tour Wins)

Intro Music 0:07

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

You mentioned to us earlier that breakthrough with that 66 finishing up that tour school in 87. But why don't you sort of just fill in the gap between going pro in 1983 at age 22 and that breakthrough in the fall of 87 leading up to your first one at Hartford?

Mark Brooks 0:36

Whew. That's a toughie. That's a whirlwind four years. My first full-blown year. I played like eight or nine tournaments, I'm going to say something in that range. From the time I turned professional after NCAA. So that would have been I'll get my years right. That would have been the summer of 83. I actually Monday qualified a few times. I got a couple of sponsor exemptions. And I I made a few cuts and then went to Q school. So and went straight through. So now you're on tour. You think you're ready. I mean, you're at 22, you're pretty bulletproof. I mean, you know, I mean, think about it. You've you got sponsored, you got, you actually have wheels, you got gas money, you got food money, you got a little bit of entertainment money, and now you got a tour card and you're flying, flying all over the all over the country playing in PJ tour events. So it's uh it's a little, I'm not gonna say overwhelming. I'm not really that type of person uh uh to be overwhelmed. Um intimidated, maybe, yes. Overwhelmed, no. So I got out there and got after it. And uh I've had some success, uh, you know, as you can imagine, made some cuts. Uh let's stop there. I'll get I'm gonna put this in perspective for people. And I won't be, I'm not even gonna give you an exact number, but I'm within a couple thousand dollars, give or take. My first year in 1984 to stay fully exempt on the PGA tour, and that's one 125th on the money list was around$30,000 that got your card. That's for the year, not for the week. So it puts it in perspective for the year. Now, in those days when they that's when all these, you know, they obviously it's changed, but the you know, those guys make all this money off the golf course. Well, let me ex- I'll I'll give you the the the here's the truth. And it was true for most of us, unless you were beyond exceptional, and yeah, I wasn't that far away from being a pretty you know, pretty darn good prospect out of college. I I won five or six times my senior year, by the way. So, you know, I became, you know, I got on the radar as far as you know, maybe potential endorsements and things like that, which I had a few. But if you doubled your money, you know, if you made 30, 40, you made 40,000, 50 grand on the PJ tour, you could probably double your money off the off the course. Well, you know, that kind of tells you about where your revenue was at the end of the year. I mean, 75, 80, 100 grand was unreal. If you made$100,000, uh, you know, you probably finished 80th, 75th, 80th on the money list. I mean, you had a pretty good year. So very interesting, the dollar dollar figure changes. Uh a fine hotel room was of under$40. I'll just give you an example. So uh my times have changed.

Mike Gonzalez 3:50

Well, as you can imagine, we've we've talked to life on the tour, life on the road with a lot of our guests, uh, you know, hearing from Bruce and what he went through in the 60s, all the way through more current. Uh uh, you know, Curtis Strange, Bruce, uh Curtis Strange told us that uh they budgeted$18 a night for their hotels.

Intro Music 4:10

Yeah.

Mark Brooks 4:10

Well, he's older than me.

Intro Music 4:13

Yeah, that's right.

Mark Brooks 4:16

And I I moved on up. There's a chain, and I'd been on tour a few years, and uh I guess I'll let him remain nameless, but uh they they they went nationwide pretty fast, and I mean it was like a godsend. We had this, you know, kind of new chain all over the country, and literally, I mean, you could get a pretty nice room for you know 30-35 bucks a night, and uh that would have been you know late late 80s. So it was uh it was uh it was an interesting deal.

Bruce Devlin 4:44

So Mark, tell it you know, that first victory uh at the Sammy Davis tournament in Hartford, tell us tell us how that changed your life too. I know you know you struggled there for four years prior to that, and then bang, all of a sudden you're a you know, you got an exemption on the tour, and that had to make a big difference to you.

Mark Brooks 5:06

No, it does. And I certainly follow that with the sophomore slump in '89. Uh I will I will say that. So, you know, taking the pressure off um is a is a good thing, and it's probably a dangerous thing in a way. I mean, it's uh it's not about getting lazy. You know, people over oversimplify when they're trying to analyze people and maybe what happened to a player, you know, gosh, this guy just won this, and you know, he what happened to him? Well, he works, you know, most of the guys, and I would be in the group that worked pretty darn hard at starting to climb the mountain, and once you reach, you know, this certain peak, there's uh you know, relief, I guess would be the word. There's relief that, you know, the that you were good enough. There's that's the one relief. You're it's it's self-belief becomes more real because you actually proved it to not only yourself but to the naysayers or the people out there that just don't know or don't care. I mean, even your family and your friends. So they're like, holy, holy smokes, this guy actually went out there and did it. I I wouldn't have I'd have bet my house when I watched this kid play at 16 or 17, there's not a chance in H this guy will play the tour. And I didn't grow up with the I'm proving you wrong. I didn't have a chip on my shoulder. I wasn't one, I didn't have any of that going on. Um, I was pretty much worried about my, you know, doing my own thing, you know, making my own thing work. And I'm gonna attribute some of that back to the team aspect. I mean, I played competitive sports. I was by no means, I wasn't D1 material in basketball or football or baseball or anything. But I continued to play basketball, for example, because I loved the sport. I didn't really quit completely until my the the Christmas break, my senior year in high school. And I did it partially to stay in good shape. You know, it was uh good to be around friends, you know, that my two of the better players on our golf team were really good basketball players. So, you know, we all kept hanging out. But it the competitive thing was in in a team sport, I mean, you're you better be taught. You take care of your business first. You know, your your cog in the wheel is just as important as that other guy's. So uh that mentality of having that, I'm gonna call it responsibility. You have to take responsibility for you know your performance and most importantly for your preparation. So having that team peer pressure of having yourself prepared to perform properly for the team carried over into my individual sport. No question about it. I learned very it was just in my DNA to be as prepared as you can going into tournaments, whether it was uh you know, City Junior or the club championship, junior club, or the state, you know, or a national event. So this that was just part of my deal. So practice, sweating, working, bleeding, you know, being exhausted. That was part of sports for me. Okay. I mean, I'm talking from age six on. We're we're peewee football. You can picture, you know, 20 of us out there running around. Well, we had we were so fortunate in my area, and a lot of areas are. I'm not saying we're totally unique to this, but I mean we had NCAA all-American football players out there coaching us at six, seven, and eight years old. And we'd be out there, you know, running around. We wouldn't get some one play. We probably had three plays. And we couldn't get one right and start getting dark. These dads all went over and pulled their cars up, turn their lights on. We're out there, we're out there at six years old, they're making us stay 40 minutes past dark to get one play right. So, I mean, when you start at age six, and then you grow up in a Baptist church with you know a prominent Baptist minister, so you start with you know discipline and morality, not just beat down your throat. That's not the that's not my point. You start out with that as your way of life, and I think that's the basis.

Bruce Devlin 9:30

So winning uh winning at the uh winning at Hartford in the playoff, Mike.

Mark Brooks 9:34

I did. I uh you can't be anything but lucky to win a playoff. So three guys, uh, excuse me here. The uh Dave Barr, the Canadian, yeah. Yeah, and Joey Sindelar from Horseheads, New York. Uh, and you know, both great players. Joey, again, he was one of those superstars in college that carried it right on to the PGA tour. And we ended up in a 3-0 playoff. Uh, there were there were a lot of things that happened, of course, that week. Uh early in the week, you know, uh playing a practice around with Lee Trevino, learning a new shot from the thick rough around the greens when your ball's up against the collar. Uh, and I will sidebar that one. By the way, that was putting with a five or six wood. You know, it wasn't blade in the sandwich. So uh Lee Travino, this that would have been 1988, showed me, you know, how to uh putt with a wood. So not not some of the people that take credit for that. I mean, honestly, Bruce, y'all were probably doing it in you know in the 50s. So all these shots these guys claim to have invented is not necessarily the case. But anyway, got in the playoff, and you know, I stayed in it. I think Joey, I don't remember all the details, trust me, but I do remember one shot. We uh we've gone to 17 at Harford, it's the one that goes around a big lake. It's kind of a well-known hole if you're a golf fan. And the T-shot's kind of scary, and I somehow got it in the fairway or got it in play, and I hit it to about, I don't know, 12, 10 or 12 feet. Well, Joey was already out, and Dave Barr hit it up on the hill left, you know, played away from the water anyway, and he plays this wild shot across the pond, and it looks like it's going in the lake, but it doesn't. It carries. And they had railroad ties actually at that time. So it was just above the railroad ties. He was probably 25 yards wide of the green. He didn't have 20 feet of green to work with. He's up against the boards, he has to flip his sandwich over upside down. I'm I'm I'm over at the green, you know, I'm watching, and I'll never forget. I'm like, I'm so I'm talking to myself because this is one of the few things you recall. And I've got this 12-footer, and he's probably gonna make six, you know, and you're thinking, and you're like, no, sir, this is match play, buddy. You know, you have to expect anything, went through my mind. So I kind of stay stayed in the moment, and I'll be darned if he doesn't flip this sandwich over, it's the old hockey Canadian thing coming out of him, and hits the shot from like 30 yards left-handed with a turnedover sandwich, zips right by the hole and goes about, you know, like six feet. I mean, I'm not kidding you. It was a joke. So I learned a lesson there. Anyway, I ended up making the putt, probably didn't matter, but I ended up rolling, you know, I ended up making the putt. But the bottom line was, you know, that was if you said what stands out, it wasn't any shot I hit, it was this wild recovery that Dave Barr had gone down, you know, this thing would have been uh right up there with Jordan Speece hole out as one of the most phenomenal hole out wins because there's no way I would have made the putt had he holed that shot. But uh that I do remember, and uh I had I had this is the from the the hen house to the penthouse, I had agreed to go do another, and I had a Monday deal, you know, Monday outings that was you know not in town. And by winning, I had to stay extra, you know, stay extra, stay later to do all the proceedings, the festivities afterwards. And that was uh that was back then, that was actually the Canon Grader, Canon Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy Davis. It was the longest name on the PGA tour. Anyway, well Fuzzy Zeller had hung around because he knew I was playing, I was on the list, and he had arranged somehow private air transportation to get to this outing. So instead of scrambling and getting to the airport and having to you know check in and do all the things, of course, there were no security lines then, but uh Fuzzy stuck around and said, you know, got a surprise for you. So I not only got I only not only won, but it wasn't my first ride, I will say, in a private aircraft, but it was my first ride in a private jet to go to an outing and get paid even more money. So it was anyway. That was uh that was the icing on the cake, uh hitching a ride to to the next uh outing.

Mike Gonzalez 14:16

Well, you went from the Greater Hartford Open to winning the Greater Greensboro Open. This was a 1991 Kmart Greater Greensboro Open at Forest Oaks Country Club again the hard way in a playoff with Gene Sowers.

Mark Brooks 14:31

That's true. And I I I maybe I'll wait till you get to Milwaukee, but I don't want to forget about it. So, you know, Tiger has his slam, Gary Player has his, they've completed the slam. I actually had the slam. And I had the greater slam, which was the greater slam. That was Hartford, Milwaukee, and uh help me out here. Greensboro. And Greensboro, the GGO. So there was a point they're fine, not in one year, obviously, but over time, I finally completed the greater slam. So I wanted to throw that one in there. Uh Greensboro. That's a good story. I mean, I have I won't have a lot of stories. Uh again, playoffs. I remember the deal. Uh, I was struggling with a driver at the time, you know, getting the ball in play, feeling good about it. We, of course, we were on the metalwoods. This would have been 1991, now you've jumped forward. And a certain company came on and sort of snuck on the scene maybe about maybe a year before that, that was uh pretty well known with chopping the uh neck off and created these metal woods that caught fire. And that would have been Callaway, so it was the big Bertha. And sure. I was struggling, I was trying to a few different drivers. I I don't I'm probably on the Ben Hogan staff, and we weren't required to play the uh the the wood, let's call it the woods at that time, and they had not stumbled onto the correct metalwood by the even by that stage, you know. So everyone was either, and I'll I'll say names. You were probably either Taylor May, Founders Club, uh Cali had not really gotten on the scene yet. Um Mizuno had had, you know, there were a number of manufacturers that had metalwoods that everybody kind of played. And anyway, so fast forward, so I worked my butt off early in the week. Finally got one driver, and it was one, I believe it was, you know, it was one that got popular. I think it was a bridge stone J, it was like the J driver. Anyway, basically it was a loft cheated, loft cheated driver. It said 10 on the sole, probably had about six degrees. Everybody thought, man, this thing's going nine miles. Anyway, I worked my butt off and I played kind of funky on Friday, didn't drive it great with this driver that I'd basically hurt myself trying to you know get get fitted for for my you know swing at the time. And I actually finished my round on Thursday and ordered, got a hold of the what was soon to be the Callaway Tour rep, and I had them send me two drivers overnight. I had a later tea time on Friday. I got to the course early, they they arrived on time, you know, whoever was, you know, whatever the carrier was was on time, took them out there, and he had sent me two drivers, basically the same head with a couple shafts. And I remember they were steel. So one was an S and one was an X. I went to the range. Of course, luckily no one's out there really because it was between rounds on a on a Friday. Pretty quickly, one of them stood out over the other, and three days later, I won that golf tournament. I put that driver in play and drove it pretty darn good for the next three days. And if I actually became the first guy to win a PJ Tour event on tour with a Callaway driver, so that that's a little sidebar. Yeah. So that that was the Greensboro story, to be real honest with you. I was I the back, you know, I just went nuts. I mean, I wasn't right up top, you know, as far as the play. I I think I read in your notes I made 10 birdies on Sunday. I ended up shooting eight under and you know, waited around a couple hours, and uh, you know, sure enough, everybody I'm not gonna say imploded, but you know, you're watching, you can't help it. You're in there watching them, and you know, the the unfortunate bogey for that one, and uh-oh, you drove with the rough here, and uh-oh, and next thing you know, you better get to the range and get warmed up because this could go go more holes. And I was fortunate. And you guys have all watched cough forever, not to age you, but a lot of guys actually went their first events in that fashion, out of contention, you know, not really contention, just go nuts, shoot 62, 63 the last day, and somehow, you know, by the grace of God, it holds up and you walk away with a trophy. So that was number two. But uh, that's how that one happened.

Bruce Devlin 19:09

Then you finish with your Greta, the next one. Yeah, let's finish the Greta.

Mark Brooks 19:14

I was playing pretty good going into Milwaukee. The that was completing the slam. Uh playing pretty good. We played at a place called Tuckaway Country Club over in suburban uh Milwaukee.

Mike Gonzalez 19:27

Franklin.

Mark Brooks 19:27

Um kind of hilly site, really beautiful bent grass greens, big old huge greens. Um and you I was a streaky putter my career, but I, you know, there were times I got it going, and that was, I'm sure, one of those weeks I opened up, there's none, I opened up with a low round. And I mean something pretty stupid. And, you know, then just fought through. And but I had I was I was on let's just say that was probably starting to be the peak more peak of my, you know, start of the peak of my career as far as the you know the window uh of opportunity when you're actually playing good enough to actually, you know, I won't say predict a win, but you got a chance to win. And that would have obviously you got you saw started probably in the middle of 88, and you know, obviously now we're in 91, 92, and I had I mean I was finishing up pretty high on the money list, even without winning a couple of those years. So uh I was playing good and I opened up with you know with a really low, low round there at Milwaukee. I want to say even you know, I it was low, 63 or something, you know, pretty pretty low to get started. And uh playing good, you know, and when you're playing good, you you know, you start learning how to get out get out of your own way and manage the ball and uh you know see what happens. Uh back to the you know strategy. Uh I don't have a lot of notes on this stuff, but uh it's it's you knew podcasts like this, or you know, you get to speak about it long enough. You know, what's your goal? I wasn't good enough to say my goal is to go win. Would you like to win? Damn right. My goal was when with nine, if I could get within a couple shots of the lead with nine holes to play on Sunday, I'd pretty much done my job. And then let the chips fall where they may. Uh that so I would say that that for 15 years, that was kind of my thought. It wasn't worried about making a cut. That comes that start when you first start on tour, making cuts might be kind of a goal. Then you progress, it's not. Now it's not. Now it's to get in contention. Uh you know, you're you're angry when you're not in contention, you know, or you're you use the remaining holes, no offense to anyone, but to work on something, maybe some swing thought, swing thing you need to work on. You're totally out of it. You're gonna go out there, you're gonna work on it, try to go put it in use and uh find something to go for the next week. Uh that goes on honestly a lot, and it should. Being within two shots of the lead, you know, trying to get within touch of the lead. You can use whatever term. I use two shots, trying to be in touch of whatever the lead was going to. With about nine holes to go. That was sort of my goal. Close the door, close the deal. I mean, let's be honest. I was I'm a realist. I've always been kind of a realist, fact more fact-based. You're not going to win much playing. You're not going to take the trophy home very often if you choose professional golf and you end up on the tour. You're not going to take the trophy home very high percentage of the time. I mean, there's only been a few people in the history of golf that have won on a, you know, let's say above a 30% rate. So, I mean, we're talking, you know, it's embarrassing. Now, I will preface my 803, I did play probably a handful or more of PGA championships because of the lifetime exemption, probably beyond what I should have. Okay. But let's face it, I mean, it's uh you played in 800 tournaments, which I did, and you won seven times. What's that win rate? It's pretty fast, it's pretty low. But in the scheme of things, and I'll I'll give myself one pat on the back for my age and my peer group, seven wins is pretty darn good. Uh, there are a whole bunch of people who didn't win seven times, and uh I've got I've got one of those trophies that knock on wood, they haven't changed the name of that event.

Bruce Devlin 23:21

So it's uh the PGA will stick.

Mark Brooks 23:24

But anyway, that that was Milwaukee. I was playing good. I mean, I was just in a really, really good run. And uh, you know, 90, 90, 91, 92, you know, a couple slow years. I don't go back and rehash all my years, but uh I was in the good run there, and Bruce can attest. You know, it mine probably ran about 12 years old. I probably had about a dozen years um that was you know really productive.

Bruce Devlin 23:51

Mark, your uh your fourth win in 1994 was at the Kempa Open. And uh that was of all of your seven wins, that was your largest victory, winning by three strokes over Bobby Watkins and uh D.A. Weibring.

Mark Brooks 24:05

Yep, so an attestment to how dominating my play was. All right, I'll give you the quick one. We got to stay with friends. Uh I I hadn't beaten the world that year, but I was, you know, plugging along, and I, you know, found the lightning in the bottle that week. You know, whatever it was, a swing thought or or some something like that. I mean, I hold, you know, I'm sure I know I hold the shot from a fairway that week. Uh, but I'm gonna tell you guys, I mean the the one thought now that we're speaking and you're conjuring up these old memories, there was a point, and I'm gonna wild guess it was on Friday, I had had one of those go-nut streaks. And it I'm let's call it Friday morning, you know. I mean, half the field I didn't teed off in their second round yet. But I had like an eight-shot lead. I mean, it was just something stupid. And I'll maybe that's why I never won by more than one or two, or you know, it was that that was pretty strange, I will tell you guys. You know, to look on the board and see your name, and let's just call it 14, 15 under, and second place is like six. It's like, wow, that's wild. So, and when it happens to you with holes left to play on Friday, you know, that's a rude awakening. And uh, you know, you talk about not thinking ahead, pretty hard not to think ahead at that point. But uh anyway, the week turned out great. I mean, obviously, uh, you know, hit some good shots coming down the stretch, and uh fortunately walked away with one. But I again pretty good stretch and came off a couple good years. A couple of my best years I didn't win.

Mike Gonzalez 25:51

Yeah, it's it seemed like there was a shift in fortunes that final round. Uh uh maybe it was the sixth hole, par five, where uh it looked like you might be in the creek front in the green, and uh Bobby Watkins felt compelled to go for it himself and uh ended up making a big number, and that was probably a big turn of events there.

Mark Brooks 26:11

You know, I don't remember. I mean, I know he was close, and that's no offense to anyone, but I'm over there in my bubble. Okay, yeah, I'm over there watching my bubble. I will watch a shot. You know, you'll learn from shots. Wendy, par three, what club is it? But man, I just didn't obsess. You know, I loved I got paired with John Daly a lot after he came out and made his splash. And, you know, I loved playing with John, but but, you know, I didn't watch many of his shots, I'll be super honest with you. Uh just and it wasn't for intimidation, it's just they weren't any good information for me. And uh it's not being selfish in my in my for my view, oh, you know, dude, there's only been a couple of guys that I actually watched play golf. I mean, like really watched. And y'all can probably name them. And part of it's because I would watch everybody, no offense to all these other great players, you know, the Mark Omer's, the John Cooks. I mean, just go down the list. I watched them all. I learned from all of them. But when you got in a tournament, who did you kind of pay a little closer attention to? I got paired finally with Jack Nicholas one time. He was got he had he was in his 40s. I watched him from the time he zipped his bag open on the first T to it finished. Okay, and I thought he was watching me. That's why I was so nervous. And finally, after about six or seven holes, my case said, Man, would you just chill? This guy hadn't seen you hit a shot yet. You know, it broke the ice and uh brought it down because you become pretty self-aware when you think the the greatest of the greatest of all time is watching you hit a shot. But uh anyway, and then the other guy, I mean, I'm sorry, I can't help it, and I got paired luckily with uh with Tiger a lot after my 96 PGA. That's the year he actually turned professional. So I got in his pairing on Thursday and Friday, I might add, not too many Saturdays or Sundays, and I I watched him play a lot of golf, and you you couldn't help but watch his shots because they were quite different than we were used to seeing. So those were the two I watched a lot.

Mike Gonzalez 28:25

That's great. Uh let's move ahead then to the 1996 Bob Hope at the time, Chrysler Classic. You won that one by one over John Houston.

Mark Brooks 28:36

I did. Uh, what's my story with that one? All right, uh staying with a new friend, Howard Lester, who was the chairman, founder, co-founder, he might as well have been the founder of William Sonoma, the home goods cookware store, the owned pottery barn and all that stuff. He was the founder of that. And I was staying with him in Palm Springs, and I'd missed the cut at Tucson the week before, potted atrociously, and he uh was sharing a house he had bought with a friend of his named Bill Kempton of the Kempton Hotel Boutique Hotel Chain. And I'm rummaging around in their garage. They got their it was you know, one of the communities in Pollen Springs where the golf courses were inside the gates. So they had golf carts, they weren't there. I'm by myself. I'm digging through all their putters. I'm like, I'm gonna find something that works. And sure enough, he had this old Ray Cook that had it, you know, had his name sticker on the shaft, and it was just a regular Ray Cook, the old silver mallet with Billy Kempton and uh name tag on it, and I probably took, I don't know, five or six putters down to the putting green and we putted and putted and putted. I did by myself, and this Ray Cook started standing out. I started making putts with this darn thing, and you got the rest of the story. I put it with that Ray Cook. I'm not gonna say I made everything, but it probably felt like I made everything that week, and I ended up winning that golf tournament with the putter I got out of the garage, borrowed from Billy Kempton, and fortunately he let me have it. He's unfortunately passed on, and not too the too recent past, left behind a wonderful hotel chain and a great legacy, but uh I have that putter, it's one of the few clubs I've kept. Uh, I have that one, and Ray Cook actually made me one that they engraved, and uh he he refused to take his back. So that was pretty much the Bob Hope story, and uh made just some unbelievable lifelong friends there with the Lester's and uh to this day. So that was that was the Bob Hope story, and uh five rounds, uh put it awful, Tucson went down there and found the white lightning in the garage. So it worked.

Mike Gonzalez 30:54

Yeah, well, uh Mr. Devlin won there as well back in 1970. As a matter of fact, he had Lee Trevino clubbing him coming in.

Bruce Devlin 31:05

Are you kidding? Oh, you haven't had Bruce won.

Mark Brooks 31:10

Now, I mean, that's the show we should do, but Bruce won everywhere. Well, you know, Bruce is just enough ahead of me. Uh you know, you've had just uh enough birthdays ahead of me that we probably didn't play on the PGA tour. You uh you know, we probably just overlapped. As you know, your son and I are about the exact same age.

Bruce Devlin 31:36

Same age. Yes, you are.

Mark Brooks 31:37

And yeah, we're we're good friends, and uh we've known each other forever. And you know, he stayed in the golf business and still in the golf business. But uh yeah, we just missed. But I mean, so you want to go there? I mean, we got to hold, you know, the Don January's, uh Finsterwald's Devlins, and then it just keeps going. Key Cheese, all those guys. That's who I I mean, I grew up playing with. And Bruce Willate, fortunately, there were outings like the Amana Pro Am.

Mike Gonzalez 32:06

Oh, yeah.

Mark Brooks 32:07

And they did a great job of mixing the senior guys and the and the regular tour age together. There was definitely more of that that went on in the 90s. Uh, and so we did get to cross paths with these guys, not a competitive uh sense, except check my memory, we had a junior senior event where a regular tour pro paired with a senior tour player, champions tour player, and they had a tournament. I mean, it was a wildly successful, I thought, and we had a great time. I'm sure you played in it several times. But uh, you know, those things were great, and I think, you know, I won't get out of soapbox, but those kind of things need to be done more so they can, you know, these young bucks that, you know, the flat-billed, you know, kids that, you know, whatever, great for golf. I'm not I'm not disputing that, but they need to be taught how to tie the you know the present to the past. You know, obviously obviously looking forward. And we were tied to these guys, you know, that are just a few years older than us in a lot more ways and a lot more often than they are today. I promise you that.

Bruce Devlin 33:14

No, you're absolutely right. And then, you know, uh the second part of your great year in 19 uh 96 was winning the Shell Houston Open. And again, another playoff.

Mark Brooks 33:28

And again, and again another putter.

Bruce Devlin 33:32

Oh no, was it?

Mark Brooks 33:34

Absolutely. That thing that made everything in January, it was gone. I mean, gone. That thing, I couldn't make it, I couldn't hit the side of a barn with that thing about a month later. So I had moved on, and this was uh when the Odysseys first came out, the Bob Rossberg-inspired Odysseys, and had the black stronomic face insert. And I picked one of those up, and I'm gonna say Houston was probably an April event, if not early May. And so you can do the math. Somewhere probably in March, I picked up the Odyssey around that time. And I'm gonna I will this is not going out on a limp. I didn't hit it great that week. So this is in direct dispute of Brandles, you know, it's the it's the who who the great ball strikers that week that putt the best that win. I'm gonna go BS, man. I didn't hit it like the bottom third, but I putted like Lauren Roberts or Ben Crenshaw or Bobby Locke. I made everything all week long. And I still to this day remember the entire routine. Okay. I had for some reason, I think I was having, you know, some little ailment, you know, I needed to kind of rest, which, you know, we never we never learned from these things, but I had not hit many balls that week. I ended up having to put a lot just because that's all I could do. I think I had some kind of uh infection and uh you know on antibiotics and all that, and they're like, you know, take it real easy, you know, it's if it gets hot. So I put and I putted hours and hours and hours those first few days. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and certainly Tuesday and Wednesday. And I came up with this routine, which is not new, not magic. It's exactly, you know, I teach it today. If you can do it, I teach it. And that was an intermediate target, something close that was on the line you wanted to start it on. I did all my practice strokes standing behind, looking at the hole. So my eyes were level, and then I walked in and I aimed that putter at that spot and tried to get at the right speed. Dude, I made them all. It was I made everything, you know. You'd miss a green flub of chip, 18 feet, dunk. You know, you'd you know, half hit, decent, just a decent old seven iron in there to 22 feet, dunk. You'd wing it off in the woods, wide open gap coming out, perfect lie. It was just one of those weeks, and uh, you know, I made a bomb and uh either uh either in the playoff or to get in the playoff. But I made a big old long putt on 18 and a two-putted from you know eight miles away. Um they played at the woodlands then, and a lot of people have seen that hole, but again, it's watered, guarded, you know, off the T in the second shot. And I played a real safety approach in there and two-putted from like, I don't know, 100 feet to get in the playoff. And then made a pretty long putt on him. So it was Jeff Maggart, who was a local, and uh right. I continued that kind of beat the local trend with my next win in August. So Jeff Maggart, you know, he was from the woodlands, and uh, so I definitely was uh the crowd was probably, I'm sure, pulling the fans pulling for for Jeff, but uh anyway, they had to they had to settle with another Texan.

Bruce Devlin 37:05

There you go.

Mark Brooks 37:06

I I made them all that week. That's the only that's the that's the game there. And by the way, I'm sure I had abandoned that routine within a month. Moved on.

Mike Gonzalez 37:20

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. That's when my and please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, tell your friends. Until we tee it up again, good of the game song.

Intro Music 37:44

It went smack down the fairway. It started to slice just spit off time. Hit it for two, but it bounced off time. My caddies, as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.