Mike Weir - Part 2 (The Early Professional Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to fall. Well, welcome to another edition of For the Good of the Game. Bruce Devlin, I've got three hints for our listeners. First of all, uh, they can't see the color shirt I'm wearing, but that would be one clue as to who our guest is today. The second is he happens to be the youngest by a long shot of our 30 some odd guests that we've had since we've started this podcast. And finally, uh I think he probably played hockey long before he played golf.

Bruce Devlin 0:45

Well, you got that right. He he's uh he's got quite a record too, you know. He uh he's tied with George Newson for the most victories on the PGA tour. Uh he was he won the tour championship in 2001. The Masters in 2003, and he's won uh$28 million playing golf, and we are so proud to have with us today, Mike. We uh Mike, thanks for joining, Mike and I. Oh, pleasure, Bruce, Mike. Appreciate it, guys.

Mike Gonzalez 1:17

Great to have you, Mike. Uh I would guess, I think uh I saw on the senior tour site that that earnings number is probably uh a little closer to 30 million now. But uh uh you're probably our our our first active player that we've talked to because uh you're young enough, 51 years old, still on the senior tour. And so you're still writing your golf story where most of our guys, the their golf story has been completely written already.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, it's kind of uh I look at it as uh my second chapter, I guess, in the in the book uh going forward here on uh PGA Tour Champions. So uh the last last year and a half out there has been a lot of fun to uh to get back out with the guys that I hadn't seen in a few years.

Mike Gonzalez 2:01

And we're in that part of the year where you're probably enjoying a little downtime, huh?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

It is, yeah. We um I'm in Utah as we speak, and we probably had 16 inches of snow overnight. Uh so a nice big storm, so it's uh ski season time. That's why you guys were roughing me up a little bit about my beard. It's kind of uh it's it's ski season time. We kind of do that to keep warm around here.

Mike Gonzalez 2:28

Well, let's start with the professional career of uh one Mike Weary. Turned professional in 1992 and started playing uh, I guess first on the Canadian tour. You played a little bit in Asia. Tell us a little bit about uh just getting started on tour, Mike.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I mean uh out of college, yeah. I was trying to find a place to play. And you know, back then we had the you know the Q school that uh went to, there's still Q school now for that Cornferry tour, and that's how you get your card. But back then you could hopefully if you played well in the qualifying school, you'd get through and get on the PGA tour. And for a number of years I kept missing there, and uh so I was trying to find a place to play. And the Canadian Tour was a good great place. Obviously, myself being from Canada, I was familiar with a lot of the country, but there was also parts of the country I wasn't familiar with. So it was great to uh in my early days to really see Canada. It was great to uh travel. I drove, had my clothes rack in the back of the uh of the car, um uh and and just drove drove and played the tour through the summer, and then the qualifying school was in the fall, and um I would try the qualifying school, and the Canadian tour back then had an affiliation with the Australasian tour, as it was called back then. Uh if you if you had some high enough finishes on the Canadian tour and finished high enough on the Order of Merit, you could get some some status on the uh Australasian tour. So after I'd missed the qualifying school for the PJ Tour, the Australasian tour, the events in Australia and New Zealand um started up kind of in November. So I I headed down there in 1993, I believe, was the first time my first event was the New Zealand Open. And uh went down there to Auckland and played um, I believe it was the Remuera uh golf course, and that was my first kind of foray into professional golf, really, outside of the Q school and the Canadian tour that summer. That was my first overseas experience and playing down there. And I kind of did that loop for four or five years. You know, I I'd I you know play play through Australia Australi Australia mostly and some in Asia from November through March. And then the Canadian Tour would start up sometime in June. I would come home and and uh try to get my game in sh in shape for uh the Canadian Tour and for Q school. So I did that loop for a number of years.

Mike Gonzalez 4:45

And uh Bruce, you can probably relate to a few of the things that Mike just went through. That that that whole life on the road thing, and then also uh, you know, the uh the part of the world that he's talking about, because you competed uh back and forth between this country and uh down that region quite a bit, didn't you?

Bruce Devlin 5:02

I did, yes. And uh fortunately for me, uh uh when I f when I first got my invitation to come over and play in the United States at the Masters Champion, that was uh I received that invitation because I won a couple of tournaments in Australia and you know in the early years, and uh that was uh that was a great help. Plus, to win the Australian Open, uh I mean that capped it all off for me to get to get to the Masters in 62.

Mike Gonzalez 5:28

I think you had a chance to win the New Zealand New Zealand Open at least once too, didn't you?

Bruce Devlin 5:34

Yeah, well that was a long time ago now. That was 1963. That's awesome. So yeah, so yeah, it was uh the the it was great playing on the Australian tour. You know, we had so we we always had international players like George George Newton came down there. I took him and his wife down there. No, his wife didn't come, I'm sorry. Took him down there to play for a series of tournaments, and uh of course we had Arnold and Jack and Gary and you know, a lot of the great players, Porky Oliver, Dutch Harrison, uh, you know, just naming there's a lot of guys that used to come to Australia. It was great, great for our uh golfing public to be able to see these great players come and play in Australia.

Mike Gonzalez 6:17

We'll do a quick plug of this new book that was written by John uh Riley uh uh that was just sent to Bruce and I, Mike. It's about Porky Oliver, and I've just started reading it this morning. It's called How He Played the Game. And uh so uh John Riley, thank you for the copy, and we'll be very interested in and hearing about Porky and and uh uh the guys that he competed with, uh the likes of Hogan, Sneed, Nelson, and so forth back in that day. Did you have any overlap with Bruce Bruce with uh Porky at all uh much?

Bruce Devlin 6:48

Uh I saw him play uh in Australia before I'd uh turned pro when I was still an amateur. Uh so I got to see him when he when he did visit Australia. And of course he he was quite a friend of uh my coach Norman von Neider. And I'm not sure that Mike would know who Norman von Neyder is, but he was uh he's uh he was one of he was the greatest bunker player that ever lived. I think he taught Gary Player and myself and Crampton and David Graham, all the all the guys that were good out of the bunkers, they've all learned from Norman.

Mike Gonzalez 7:23

So Mike, how how did that uh uh early travel through Asia and even uh through Canada uh prepare you for what was to come on the U.S. tour?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I think uh a number of things. I think um you know, cutting my teeth, playing uh in Australia and and Canada, I think my game wasn't ready. It wasn't ready to compete against uh the best players in the world on the PGA tour, and it wasn't even at a level to compete really on the Australian tour. I mean, if I had a good finish, I was finishing in the top 25. I was super happy. You know, uh there was a stretch in Australia, and and my status on the Australian uh tour was was just I was exempt into the Monday qualifying, so I wasn't even exempt into the tournaments, but I was pretty proud of the fact that every Monday qualifying I went to, I I got through. And there was a strip a stretch in Australia that I missed six cuts in a row. So I missed the cut and I'd have to fly to the next event and have to Monday qualify and you know uh pushing my bag and Monday qualifying, you know, have having a push cart. And it's you know how warm it can be down there, and you're you're trying to keep up with the group. And but I I found a way to kind of get through, and and even though I didn't have success in the tournaments, I think it served me well that uh I started finding out you know where I was lacking, what I needed to improve upon, and I knew I was a long ways off from the PJ tour, but I was chipping away at it. I kept uh uh I kept my uh focus, uh I guess on on the prize and the goal of getting there, and and sure it was frustrating, but I never got super down. I was like, I I'm gonna figure this out, I can figure a way to get better. And I was never a student of the golf swing really at all in my early, my late teens and early twenties. I just knew how to score, and it became apparent playing down in Australia that um boy, I needed to sharpen up my ball striking, I needed to um uh uh learn how to flight the ball a little bit better when the wind's blowing. Um, all these things I started trying to figure out, and I then I started studying some players and what they started to do. And so it was a great education for me to have those four or five years um in my early 20s to to figure it out because when I went to the qualifying schools and and the odd, you know, I would get in the Canadian Open in my early 20s, and and when I got on the range with the guys, I mean I was I was hitting these little thin ones and fat ones, and and you see all the guys on the PGA tour hitting it so well, and I'm like, boy, I'm I'm still a ways off. So it was it was great to uh uh to refine my game, I guess, uh playing in Australia and Canada.

Bruce Devlin 10:04

So early in your career, you had uh you had a uh interface with probably one of the if not the greatest player that ever played the game, Jack Nicholas. He had an influence on you as well. He did, Bruce.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Um I was I believe 13 years old. He he so I was 12 years old, he came to do an exhibition at my home club, and our head professional at my home club here on Oaks, um Steve Bennett, played this exhibition. So I got to see Jack up close for the first time, and that's where um my dad told me who he was, and I started you know studying who he was. Later that summer I went to the Canadian Open for the first time to watch. You were probably playing Bruce, um, 1982, maybe, where you would you have been playing there?

Bruce Devlin 10:48

Oh, I don't think so. I don't think I played it. No, I think that was uh 81 was Mark.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

81, so I just missed you, but yeah, just missed it. But I I got to see a professional tournament for the first time, and I thought, man, this is what I want to do. I want to be a professional golfer. This is the coolest thing. I remember uh going onto the driving range, they had a junior clinic with Tom Kite and Andy Bean, and all of us juniors got together around when they were doing the clinic and they rolled these titles golf balls when we were when they were done doing the clinic, and we were filling our pockets with these golf balls. And um, it was so fun. I thought golf was the coolest sport ever. And so I I got back and after this experience, I thought to myself, well, I'm left hand, I didn't see any left-handers. There were no left-handers. And like, well, if I'd be a professional golfer, maybe I need to switch to right-handed. So my father helped me draft a letter to Jack Nicholas. I thought, well, who else better to ask? I said to my dad, maybe I should ask Mr. Nicholas. Who should I switch to right-handed? So we obviously didn't have his address. I and I think he was writing for golf magazine at the time. So I wrote this letter and and uh signed it to golf magazine attention, Jack Nicholas. And I sent to the to the golf address address or golf magazine address. And and sure enough, you know, a couple of months later I get this letter back saying, No, Mike, I believe you should, you know, I've always believed that you should stick to your natural swing. And and then he plugged his book. He said, In my book, Golf My Way, I have a section devoted to left handings, which I promptly went out and bought. So where is that, Linda? It's here. It's um I figured out I'm trying to think where it is right now. It's in my it's in my uh it's in my bedroom. It's in it's in uh it's over in my bedroom over there. But uh I got it framed and I brought it to uh the memorial tournament and show Jack. Um that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's really cool.

Mike Gonzalez 12:38

Yeah, so uh you talked about as you were preparing your game uh in other parts of the world eventually for the PGA tour. You were watching people, you're watching people's games, watching their swings. Who were you watching and what were you learning?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I think early on, um before I started watching the modern players, I got a hold of uh Hogan's five fundamentals, modern fundamentals of golf. I started studying that. I started um reading reading about him and just so the you know the basics, the setup, um, how to position yourself, how to get yourself set up to the ball. Um I had a very, very strong grip as a junior. I was a small guy, um had a very strong right hand, which I still have a little bit of a strong right hand now, but it was very strong. So I started adjusting that um and started playing around with it myself, um, and started having a little bit of success, a little started getting a little bit better. But I I kind of figured in my early 20s, as I was still struggling and not getting a lot better, that I needed you know another set of eyes. And so I was you know basically just thought, who's the best the best players in the world right now? And in the early 90s, it was uh Nick Faldo and Nick Price and David Frost was playing very well, guys that were working with David Ledbetter. So down in uh down in Palm Desert, there was uh a guy named Mike Wilson who was working for David Ledbeater at his academy there. And uh my caddy at the time, or or he was a playing friend of mine, uh later became my caddy Brennan Little. We were playing the kind of the mini tour circuit together. He was getting lessons from Mike, and uh so I went to talk to him and he gave me some you know kind of eye-opening ideas about you know stabilizing the lower body and and how the body should move a little bit more and linking the arms together with the turn and the pivot. Um and that's where I started kind of going down the road and started seeing more success.

Mike Gonzalez 14:35

So at some point uh you put yourself in a position to come come over here and and try the big tour. Take us a little bit through um how that all happened.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, I guess that that process and of of going to the Q school, I kept doing that from 90, I guess, 93 through 97. Um, and then finally in in 97, I broke through and and made it to the final stage of the qualifying school. You know, I every year I went I I was able to advance past the first stage, but the second stage was kind of my nemesis. I missed by one or two shots, it seemed like I just kept falling just short. So in 97, I guess I I I got through the second stage and it felt like a relief. It felt like, man, I I got through. I'm in the final stage. I I should get some sort of card either. I think I believe it was the Nike tour back then, the today's Cornferry tour. Um I'm gonna have some sort of card, it looks like. Um so I felt more relieved. And uh the qualifying school was down at uh Greenleaf in Florida, and I'll I'll never forget it was uh I was right on the bubble. You know, I think it was top 18 players or something at the at the final stage, got their cards, and not like today's game, there were scoreboards everywhere and everything. I I had an inkling that I was doing okay. And I'll never forget this foreign. I hit on the 16th hole, I hit it to about like this coming down the stretch just to tap in and uh made two great pars on the last two. And I thought, uh, I'm right on the bubble. I couldn't wait to get over to the written scoreboard to see what was happening and uh and see what was happening. And uh Donna Capone, who who you guys know, came, she was doing a little bit of the commentating, and she came over and she's like, Hey, it looks like you got your card, uh, your PGA tour card, and man, I was overcome with emotion. I was it was a real thrill. A real thrill.

Mike Gonzalez 16:29

Yeah, and then um did you come back in 1998? Was that the year you were medalist of the uh tour school qualifying?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

So it was the following year. So I played the PGA tour in '98, and um I finished, I think, 130th or 131st. So I just missed uh keeping staying in that top 125. Um and so I had to go back to the qualifying school, and and at the final stage, I played very well and won the final, and won the final uh qualifying. So I had a little bit better status starting in in '99, I guess. And uh and started playing better. And things started coming together with uh with Mike, my coach, too. I mean, uh I implemented uh in that offseason that kind of waggle that I do now in in my swing and started experimenting with that in the off-season and uh trying to, you know, then the put the players of today are kind of getting a bowed wrist. Mine, I was trying to get a bit of a cup wrist because I I hit the ball so flat and I was starting to get a little more height with my ball with the this cup right wrist. And so I was doing this drill. I would take the club a little bit inside and I'd cup, you know, I'd cup my right wrist a little bit and then take it to the top. You know, Nick Price was doing this, and um that that's the player I was really the modern player. I talked about Hogan, who I studied uh uh a lot, but the modern player I really studied was Nick Price. And I started experimenting with this cup and this waggle, and then I I took it into play in some practice rounds, and I was really hitting the ball well and really in control of my game. And I thought, well, Q school's right around the corner. It was like a week away. I played a few more rounds kind of doing this with the waggle. It just kind of I don't know what it did, but it just I think it just settled me. I fell into a routine with it. Um and yeah, I I played really well at the Q-school and won. So 99 kind of started off really well with this new uh kind of new routine, I guess, for the year.

Mike Gonzalez 18:26

Were you one of the early ones to really get set into a very specific repeatable pre-shot routine, or had others been doing that uh long before?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Um I I think I think some other players uh had done it before. Mine just kind of fell into it the way I explained. Uh I guess it was kind of a it started as a drill and became this uh subconscious thing that that came to be, this this nice routine that set me uh um it kind of calmed the nerves, I guess, uh and and took the value out of things. I just my attention was just on doing this, uh, this little move. But um years later, I've talked to Johnny Miller about this. He's like, you know, Billy Casper used to do this, and I don't know if you remember this, Bruce. He said Billy Casper was very disciplined about his routine. He wouldn't take his head cover off the club, he would wait until it was his turn, take the head cover off. He had a very specific way he did things. So that was his routine. Mine, mine became the kind of this waggle in the way I set up the ball. But I think other players have over the years have done certain routines. Have you did you do anything like that, Bruce, in your career? Any kind of pre-shot routines?

Bruce Devlin 19:37

No, I didn't, but but the one one guy that uh that I took a lot of notice of in my era was a guy by the name of Bert Yancey. Okay. And Bert Yancey was so meticulous about the way he did it that he had his caddy with a stopwatch all the time. And from the moment he put his hand on the golf club in the bag until he struck the ball, he had to it had to be in perfect timing. So that you know, there was no no outside influences. It was uh from the time you picked the club up until the time you strike the ball, was I'm not sure of the exact seconds, but you know, let's say it was 13 seconds. And if he didn't if he was on the practice T and he he used to get mad at himself because he'd take too much time. So uh so you know, do you talk about routines? Uh he uh he was the one that impressed me r remarkably so because of the timing.

Mike Gonzalez 20:30

Specific pre-shot routines, were they as prevalent back in the sixties as they are today? Um maybe they were and we didn't hear about them, but I didn't it didn't seem as noticeable to me as it is today.

Bruce Devlin 20:42

I I don't I don't think to the extent that uh that that Mike and some of the other guys do with that pre- you know, the first the the take the waggle away for a little bit and then stop and sometimes do it twice before they do it. Uh no, I don't think it was as preval prevalent in my era as it isn't today for sure.

Mike Gonzalez 21:02

The whole mental approach has gotten so much more attention in the recent decades than it had back then as well. And that's really part of it, isn't it, Mike? As you said, getting your mind just focused on the routine and off all the other stuff that could enter into your uh thinking.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah, I think so, Mike. That's uh I didn't realize that's what it was doing for me, but the more I um started thinking about it, it was like, yeah, it it is um putting me in this nice frame of mind that my attention isn't on the outcome. What you know, I want to hit it close, or I don't want to do this, or it was just on doing this move right, and I knew if I do the move right, I was gonna hit the ball pretty solid and and with some amount of control. So that became my focus. So I felt like in contention in a tournament, um, I wasn't um freaking out about trying to win or anything. I was just trying to do my routine, and then um I think that's what you see a lot of the players do now. Um, you know, kind of around my era, same thing was Carrie Curry Webb. You know, a lot of people thought I was copying Kyrie Webb because she, I think, had had some sort of a routine like that before me. Mine came from my coach and kind of organically, but you know, Carrie uh Kari had her own version of that.

Bruce Devlin 22:14

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 22:14

Bruce knows this, but Mike, we had uh recently on the show, we had Larry Nelson uh just a couple of weeks ago, and we'll release his first episode, I think, on Thursday. But uh it's interesting because he came back from Vietnam really never having played golf to any extent, picked up the game after returning from Vietnam. One of the influences on him, that same book you read of Hogan's.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Absolutely. I've read a lot about that. That's it's an amazing uh coming back from Vietnam like that, not really playing the game and to hit the heights that he had, you know, kind of being self-taught through reading that book is incredible. Yeah. Pretty remarkable.

Mike Gonzalez 23:03

Uh, you talk about traveling. Yeah. You talk about traveling uh in Asia and Australia and having to, you know, make the cut to play the next week or Monday qualify. And that's of course what life was like back in the 60s for many players, wasn't it, Bruce, before uh it came to the 125.

Bruce Devlin 23:22

It was, yes. Uh uh you know, today I think if you if you get on if you happen to get in a golf tournament and finish in the top ten, I think you're automatically exempt, even if you're not an exempt player, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

That is correct, yeah. Top ten correct. Yeah, you're in the next week.

Bruce Devlin 23:40

Whether you have any status on the tour or not.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Right. Right. Did you guys have anything like that? So if you um qualified in an event, you Monday qualified, if you had a top ten, would that get you the next week, or no? You had to go try to go off.

Bruce Devlin 23:55

Well, I was pretty I was pretty lucky because uh I I came over here to play on actually on the tour in 1963, and uh I I I ran out of money at them at about the end of May or early June and headed back to Australia. And uh uh fortunately for me, when I came back the next year, uh I I won the golf tournament in St. Pete and that that got me exempt. So uh I never I I actually never went through it. I got sponsors' exemptions in the early days because of winning the open and uh and then to win St. Pete in 64, just you know that that sort of uh put the put the icing on the cake for the city.

Mike Gonzalez 24:36

But in general, you know, i if you didn't finish top sixty, uh then you uh you know, and without the odd uh sort of sponsors exemption, you'd Monday qualify. If you qualified for the tournament, your your objective was to make the cut. Because if you made the cut, then you could go and play the next tournament.

Bruce Devlin 24:55

I see. Okay. And if you didn't finish in the top thirty players, you couldn't make money. I believe it.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I believe it.

Bruce Devlin 25:17

So so Jack uh I'll remember for Hartford, the first year that Jack played on the tour, the first check he made was for$33 and he he got the extra penny because three of them tied for last money, and he got$33.34.

Mike Gonzalez 25:37

Yeah, he kind of recounts those first few weeks on tour where he makes the cut, makes a couple hundred bucks, makes the cut, makes a couple hundred bucks, and you know, just kept playing to where at some point you make the top sixty and then life is good again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

I remember getting a couple of those uh hundred dollar checks on the Canadian tour. You know, if you if you won the event, I think first place was eighteen thousand dollars, and then it went to ten, and then it would drop way down. So if you finish 50th or something, yeah, you're you're making a check for not$33, but maybe$300 or something, you know. Definitely not covering expenses.

Bruce Devlin 26:14

Yeah. So 90 99 was uh was the start of your really significance on the on the PGA tour. And you achieved something in that year that hadn't been achieved for 45 years, I believe. Is that correct? Do you know what that was?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

A Canadian winning in Canada, possibly. That's right.

Bruce Devlin 26:36

The first Canadian to win in 45 years. Yeah. So uh you know what a great year you had too. You know, you won you know about a million and a half dollars in 1999. That was yeah, that was a big year.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

It was a big year. I played really well that year, and uh culminating at the end of the year, uh then it was called the the Air Canada Championship um out uh just out on the outskirts of Vancouver. And yeah, I couldn't ask for having my first win on the PGA tour to happen in Canada, and the way it happened, um it was just a magical day. It was just one of those days that the weather kind of got a little bit tough. Um I played extremely, extremely well, and it came off the heels of uh the PGA championship just I believe three three weeks prior, where um I it was a you know my first chance at winning a major championship. So only my second year on tour, I find myself in the final group with Tiger Woods, and you know, I just didn't handle it very well. I shot 80, and you know, it was a bit out of sorts. I was a bit out of sorts, not so much with my game, but kind of probably my mental game and just how how big the moment was. So to bounce back three weeks later, find myself in contention again in Canada, which felt like a major championship to me with the way the crowds were, and um to bogey the first hole Sunday, but stay calm about it, um, and and and know that okay, I've went through I went through this experience three weeks ago. I know how to breathe, calm myself down, and you know, I rattled off a bunch of birdies and and played it, had a great Sunday, and made this uh holed an eight iron on the 14th hole and made this great two-put on the 18th hole to from a long ways away to roll it, roll it down like this and tap in for my first win. Um was you know, it it's when I think of memories in the game, that that one is right there with the Masters because it was, you know, so significant my first win and and the way it happened in Canada.

Mike Gonzalez 28:40

Of course, you're referring uh, I think the three weeks prior experience to the uh PJ Championship that was held at Medina. And of course, we'll come to that. We'll talk about that a little bit and let you fill in some of the holes for us. But uh, I guess our listeners would consider a closing 64, 700 to be playing pretty good that last day to win that tournament.

Bruce Devlin 29:00

It was. Saturday was pretty good, too. 64, 62.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, it was a great finish. Um, you know, everything was was I was hitting my irons great, uh driving. You know, I when you shoot those numbers, you're you're playing some really good golf. And and that's what I told myself. As I said, I I I bogeied the first hole. I think I hit it about this far in the rough off the T. I hit a good T shot, but it just rolled through in the rough and uh tough lie, and I made a bogey in the first hole, but I was very calm about it. I felt very confident, and um yeah, I came, you know, rattled off eight birdies the rest of the day, and it was uh yeah, exciting day.

Mike Gonzalez 29:35

Yeah, you won by two over Fred Funk, who made a run on the back to give you a little bit of competition, I guess, huh?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah, he did. He was right there. I think uh Carlos Franco was right there. Payne Stewart was right in contention. Um so it was a it was a good mix. The back nine, the weather turned too, the temperature dropped, and uh I'll never forget seeing the grandstand and people all bundled up on the grandstand. It looked kind of like an open championship uh feel to it. Um and yeah, it was just it was really special.

Mike Gonzalez 30:05

So I assume when you tap that one in on 18, that uh you knew at the time that was for the win.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

I I had yeah, I knew that I was two ahead, and Fred was gonna have to make an Eagle on the 18th hole, and it was a you know a daunting hole about a driver and a five-iron all over water to uh green protected by water. So I mean, I guess anything can happen in golf. We saw Robert Gomez do that at Bahill, you know, knock it in the hole. But uh I was feeling pretty good about my chances there.

Mike Gonzalez 30:33

So how long did it take you to come off of that high?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, that one that one stayed quite a while. Uh but you know, there was still some some of the season left, and uh and you know, I wanted to kind of keep the momentum going. And um so yeah, it was definitely a high for a few days for sure.

Mike Gonzalez 30:52

So we we just heard Mike talk about his first win on the PGA Tour. That was uh uh the first of eight PGA Tour wins uh to go along with some other professional wins. He had 14 total professional wins, but the eight PGA Tour victories tied him, as Bruce mentioned earlier with George Newson. Uh he had three wins on the Canadian Tour, two wins on the European Tour, and one senior PGA Tour victory so far. So far. But uh Mike's highest ranking was third. He spent 110 plus weeks in the top ten. Um of course we'll talk about his major win at the 2003 Masters. And uh let's just continue on with some of these other wins. The the next year, of course, uh you went to Valderama and played in the World Golf Championship, the American Express Championship at Valdorama Golf Club, winning by two over Lee Westwood.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

That was uh that was a moment where I felt like my game took another step uh forward um and to the next level. And you know, I don't know if either of you have played Valdorama. It's a demanding golf course, uh a lot of dog legs. You have to be very precise off the team, very precise around the greens. Um you know, played extremely well Saturday. I think I shot 65 on Saturday to to get right close to the lead with uh Hideki uh Tanaka, I believe. Hidemichi Tanaka from Japan. We were in the final group, but Tiger was right in contention. Lee Westwood, Sergio was right there. Um and it was just this great battle. And and Sunday, you know, I I believe I shot 68, but I played as good or better than I did Saturday. I was in really control of my game all day. And um the I think the pivotal shot was the 17th hole I uh laid up, and it's a island green, and I I hit my third shot over a little bit over the back of the green. I was left with this uh kind of deaf pitch, and I knew I had a a two-shot lead, and there had been kind of carnage on that hole all week. I made an eight on that hole on Friday. I think Tiger made a seven or an eight one day. Nick Price made a nine on that hole. The hole was just plied the green was so firm, and it's an upside-down saucer, and um just such a difficult uh green. So now I have this downhill pitch with a two-shot lead that if I hit it just a touch too hard, it's going in the water. And I hit this really great pitch that that came out and rolled down to about four feet, and I made that putt to have a two-shot lead going to the last hole. And that that proved to me that with Tiger being right there and Lee Westwood, and uh I was able to hold my nerve and hit you know that kind of pitch and and make that putt to uh to secure that lead. I felt really confident about that win that that that was gonna propel me even more forward.

Mike Gonzalez 33:39

You buried five of the first eleven holes. Do you remember what your lead was after the 11th?

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Um I think it was still to just two or three. Um I don't think it really got extended. I think Lee was right there, and I think Tiger maybe made a couple bogies come in. I think he was still right there at that point. Yeah. And uh so it was it was still very, very close.

Mike Gonzalez 34:01

So, Bruce, I have to ask you this about golf course design. How often did you design a golf hole that dog leg right, but the fairway canted to the left, or vice versa? Because you sure have that of Valdorama, don't you?

Bruce Devlin 34:18

I tried not to do that. I can say that. Yeah. Sometimes, though, you know, sometimes uh you you get in a situation where you uh where you can't do much about it from a routing standpoint. You know, uh I don't know what the problem was with the Valderama. Uh, fortunately I've never played the golf course, but I heard it's fun to play, even though it's difficult.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yeah, it is fun to play. It is it's challenging visually. Um yeah, the 18th hole is a par four. It's almost a double dog, like it kind of goes out to the left and then comes back to the right. And um to hit driver there, you have to take it up and over this tree and can't really see where the ball is landing. It's a very, very demanding uh hole and uh tough, very tough finish.

Mike Gonzalez 35:02

We're gonna move on to 2001. The tour championship at Champions Golf Club. Uh, Bruce, you know that place pretty well. That was in a playoff with uh Mr. Ells, Mr. Garcia, and Mr. David Toms.

Bruce Devlin 35:16

Yeah, good golf course. Uh the great uh Jackie Burke, of course, along with Jimmy Demarritt, built that golf course back in the early 60s. Uh it was uh it's been a it's been a great uh great part of golf really over the years. Uh a lot of golf tournaments played there. And Mike, you you you just went 68, 66, 68, 68. That's pretty good. That's pretty fancy part of the shooting around there. I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah. It was a it was a good week. I um I'll tell you a good story, is like earlier in the week it was um the tour championship fell a lot of families were there, and it was uh Halloween week was was that week, and I believe Halloween was uh, let's say it was on a Tuesday night, and Steve Elkinton had a little party for the kids at his house where the kids could trick or treat and go around the neighborhood and you had a little barbecue. And we were maybe having uh an adult beverage and and talking in the backyard and having a beer, and he said, you know, Mike, this place I think that if you can get it to the right quadrant on the green, um, even if you go a little bit over and you're chipping, but you're in the right section of the green, I think that's better than putting from below and coming up and over because the green the grain changes from into the grain and then down grain. So he kind of gave me that little piece of advice, like try to get the ball to the right quadrant, try to get it up to pin high, don't play for the middle of green. And I kind of used that strategy, and uh it worked. I mean, I I you know I probably didn't hit a lot of greens in regulation, but I was right around the hole chipping, and my chipping's uh very good. And and when I did hit it uh on the green, I seemed I was close to the hole because I was I was a little playing a little bit more aggressively, and um, you know, my putting was on point. And um yeah, the the playoff was very exciting. You know, I I um I bogeied the last hole. I hit it in the fairway bunker in regulation on the 70-second hole, and I caught it a bit heavy, and I short-sided myself to the right pin uh with catching that shot just a touch heavy and didn't get the ball up and down. So uh we had we went into this playoff with Ernie and Sergio and um and David Toms. And David Toms and I hit it in the fairway, and Sergio and Ernie missed the fairway, and um I hit a really nice maybe nine-iron to about eight feet and uh made that putt. So I think everybody except for those three guys was happy because it was we would have had to come back the next day because it was pretty much dark when I made that putt. Uh, we couldn't have played another hole. So I think the commissioner and everybody with the tour was happy that the tournament was over. Uh outside of David Toms and Ernie and Sergio, they probably weren't too happy. But um, it was really exciting, and as Bruce said, to be around Jackie Burke for the week and listen to a bunch of stories. That was my first time being around uh Jackie, and um that was great, you know, after having uh sitting down with him after the tournament and and talking through some of the history of the game and talking about you know how he came up with the idea to start champions uh was really cool.

Mike Gonzalez 38:20

Bruce, you got to spend a little time there over the years, didn't you?

Bruce Devlin 38:24

Yeah, yeah. Well, we when we moved to uh to Houston, we lived uh in champions it's at the back of the driving range was where our house was. So it was easy for easy for my two boys to go, you know, go to the club. And and Mr. Burke, you as you know, uh if one of those kids got a little bit out of line, they got a quick dressing down and told that they had to do this and don't do that, and by God, the next time you do it, you're out of here, you know. So it was a pretty safe place for my two boys to be because I knew they were being watched pretty closely.

Mike Gonzalez 39:03

And as you can imagine, Mike, we've had some great stories on this show about Jackie Burke from from Bruce, of course, from from from Elk, from uh Hal Sutton. Uh just a lot of great tales. And I'm sure half of them are true.

Bruce Devlin 39:18

Yeah, I think more than half of them are true, to be quite honest with you. There's a lot of stories about Mr. Burke, and I think all of them are true.

Mike Gonzalez 39:27

Mike, uh great win, great venue. You beat some great champions in that playoff. That had to feel pretty good and probably uh give you some momentum going into the into the next part of your career.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Yeah, it did. No, no doubt about that. That was the last tournament of the year um at that time, and um you know, to finish the season off with a win. And if I remember correctly, I don't think I was playing particularly well going into that week, so I felt felt very satisfying to kind of pull it together and um find some magic and win there.

Mike Gonzalez 40:02

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, it's all the floodplay. It went smack on the floor. Okay, it's middle five.