Nathaniel Crosby - U.S. Walker Cup Captain

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Wellcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game, and I'm so pleased to welcome our guest today. The captain of the 48th Walker Cup team for the U.S., Nathaniel Crosby. Nathaniel, welcome.

Nathaniel Crosby 0:28

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Mike Gonzalez 0:31

And I know that uh you and I and my co-host Bruce Devlin go way back and probably have some great stories from particularly the clam bake days of the 60s and 70s. Bruce, uh, what do you remember about Nathaniel as a young young lad?

Bruce Devlin 0:44

I remember when he was about 18 inches tall. Uh when I first went to the uh Crosby Klake back in 1963. He was just a two-year-old boy who was uh sort of walking around with his mom.

Mike Gonzalez 0:59

Nathaniel, you've got the Walker Cup coming up with opening ceremonies on May the 7th. You've got the competition on May 8th and 9th. Your world must be a little hectic right now.

Nathaniel Crosby 1:10

You know, um I'm I'm preparing diligently to sit in a golf cart and watch players. So I'm I'm practicing my best to do that. But it's it's been uh it's been a great honor and a thrill to to be chosen the Walker Cup captain now for the second time, and and really the best privilege of all is getting to know the next generation of uh great players. It's you know, I've been following them at these amateur tournaments for the last three years, and um it's really like going back in time to to go to places, uh tournaments that I played in 40 years ago. Um, but as you might expect, there's not a lot of galleries, and uh inevitably you meet the parents and and the families, and then the kids are looking at you like an extension of their support group. So so uh that's been the most fun of of all of the uh exercise.

Mike Gonzalez 2:04

Well, we look forward to visiting with you today and talk a little bit about the Walker Cup, its history, a little bit about the the host venue. It'll it'll uh be uh uh happening on Seminole Golf Club uh down in Florida. And uh but I think our listeners would probably also just enjoy hearing a little bit about Nathaniel Crosby, about uh your playing career because you were quite an accomplished amateur golfer, so we want to get into that a little bit with you. Uh obviously, uh as the son of Bing Crosby, uh you were you were close to golf really your entire life, and and uh some great memories of your father and his famous tournament at Pebble Beach over a long number of years, and you got quite involved with that at an early age, didn't you?

Nathaniel Crosby 2:52

Yeah, I uh you know my dad died when I was just turning 16 years old, and my mom had threatened to do theater uh most of the time that she was married to my dad, so she handed the reins over to me to host the the tournament. Um and literally from at age 16, I'm a junior in high school and I'm carrying a briefcase to to school and trying to keep track of uh what were 168 amateur invites and 25 professional invites, and the other responsibility was the pairings, which was amazing. I think I think Bruce, did I pair you with Bob Bruce a couple of times? I I can't remember who you played with. Yeah, I've got to I have this memory going back to you're forget you forget everything you did yesterday, but you remember everything you did when you were 16.

Bruce Devlin 3:42

That's true, yes. You did pair uh pair me up with him, of course. In the you know, I played with Dean Martin as my partner for uh ten years, so uh we got we got to play the first couple of rounds with uh with a lot of different uh groups.

Nathaniel Crosby 3:58

So I gotta I gotta mention this. Um you were leading the US Open at Pebble Beach through the second round. And uh and I would have been on that leaderboard if not making a nine on the fourteenth hole. Uh I think I would have been about three or four shots. Made the cut by a couple of shots after a nine on the fourteenth. But that was I was I was trying to chase you down, and then I I couldn't get it out of the fairway bunker on fourteen. Still still trying to live that down.

Bruce Devlin 4:32

Well, that's that was a big number to obviously to make then. But uh I don't know if you looked at the newspaper on Saturday morning, but it it sticks indelibly in my mind. The headline of the uh in the sports page of the San Francisco Chronicle, which in those days was green paper. I don't know if it still is, but uh the headline said headline said, Old war horse leads the open.

Nathaniel Crosby 4:59

So the other funny sidebar to that uh to that day was that Larry Rinker, I think, was in second place after the second round of you.

Bruce Devlin 5:09

Correct.

Nathaniel Crosby 5:10

And he had hair over his sh he had hair over his shoulders, and they were asking him to go to the press tent for an interview, and the the security guard wouldn't let him in thinking he was a caddy.

Bruce Devlin 5:23

And I played the I played the third round with uh Rinka.

Nathaniel Crosby 5:28

Yeah, of course, yeah, you were one and two, so that was uh too too fun. But uh uh Old War Horse, that was right. The sporting green had you as the old war horse.

Mike Gonzalez 5:39

And for our listeners, just uh remind everybody, that was 1982, that's the year Watson won with that famous chip hit at 17, and uh Bruce was actually leading on Sunday after six holes.

Bruce Devlin 5:50

That's right. I got to the lead, I made uh four birdies the first six holes, and then I stood up on the ninth T with the lead and hit a pretty good drive, and it wiggled its way down on the right in the right side of the fairway into that rough. Boy, in those days that rough was tough, and uh I shook hands with a six at the ninth hole, and that sort of uh stopped my momentum.

Nathaniel Crosby 6:12

People forget about uh I mean it was such an historic day in golf with Watson shipping in and uh on the 17th hole. But Bill Rogers played with me the first two rounds, and he played with Watson in that last round. And we recollected the the round from start to finish, and Watson got an up and down off of the beach on nine just to get a lie, just to get a lie on the ninth hole on the beach, and he chipped in for a par, and then he holed it from over the back of 14 for a birdie, and then he chipped in on 17. So poor Buck Rogers, I think hit it inside of ten feet from the fifth hole on and didn't make one. And I think he finished three or four shots back, but Watson hold it three times in the last ten holes from off the green.

Bruce Devlin 7:06

That's pretty remarkable, isn't it? Uh I guess when uh I guess when it's your turn, uh things happen that way.

Nathaniel Crosby 7:14

It was an amazing day, amazing day.

Mike Gonzalez 7:17

So how old were you uh uh looking back at your earliest remember uh memories of the of the clam bake? How how young of uh uh boy were you when you still have some recollections of that time?

Nathaniel Crosby 7:28

Well, I don't remember being held in my mom's arms at two, but I'll take Bruce's word for it. I I remember starting to attend when I was about eight, seven, or eight or nine years old, and it obviously motivated me. We used to stay at Cypress Point and adjacent rooms to my dad and mom, and uh my brother and I used to you know pass out scorecards on the first tee at Cypress Point to the players, and uh it was it was just such a great motivator for a young for a young guy, and you know, back then I I talk about it a little bit because I'd inevitably follow Nicholas or Weisskopf. And back in those days, those guys were considered monster power players, but they were hitting it about 10 or 12 or possibly 15 yards further than the other guys that they were playing with. Um, and it's such a different game now. I think the disparity in driving distance then was you know, the shortest hitter on the tour was 20 yards shorter than the longest hitter on the tour. And it's uh when you look back on the origin of the the drive the distance stats, I think Dan Pohl was the first uh the longest uh he led the driving distance in 1979, the first year they kept the stats at 273. And I think the shortest hitter on the tour was like average 253 or four. So it was all within 20 yards of each other.

Mike Gonzalez 8:58

Yeah, what would you have measured out at Bruce back in that uh in your prime?

Bruce Devlin 9:02

Well, I would uh I I would sort of fit in uh just behind Dan Paul, like about 12 or 15 yards behind him. He could hit it a long way. And of course, uh I I got to play a lot with uh with Jack, with Nicholas, and uh it was it was no contest with him downwind, but uh we were a little closer if we played into the wind. Uh obviously, because of the flight of our golf ball, his was a lot higher than what mine was. You know, growing up in Australia, you learn how to play against you know with the wind and against the wind. And uh growing up on the little golf ball, the 1.62. You know, I have a tendency to hit that ball a lot lower than you would the uh 1.68. So uh I I was sort of uh probably probably in the um 85th percentile of uh long hitters.

Mike Gonzalez 9:53

Nathaniel, it was really uh I think a credit to your father to bring the ProM format to uh to the PGA tour at that time because he he was really sort of at the forefront of this. I mean a lot of folks followed, but uh wasn't he really sort of at the forefront of uh adding this format?

Nathaniel Crosby 10:12

In fact, you know, my the one of the great lookbacks on my dad when I wrote a book uh a few years ago called 18 Holes with Bing, and um you know, doing the research on my dad from before I knew him as uh in my lifetime was amazing because he was the founder of so many different things from transcribing radio broadcasts, um, where he was the seed capital for Ampex, you know, and uh you know, frozen concentrate orange juice. But he was the creator of the Pro Am format with the tournament at Rancho Santa Fe in 1937. So there was no such thing as a pro-am format prior to that. That would be they would mix amateurs in the pro tournaments to to get the purse up, you know. So guys like Jimmy Vickers and Goldwater and a few of these guys would uh would put you know put their anti in and they'd be happy to take him, but there was no pro-am. And then um dad decided to bring it up at the suggestion of a the PR director at Pebble Beach named Ted De Ryan uh after World War II. So he moved it from Rancho Santa Fe after it was suspended during the war and then uh relaunched it in I think '47 at Pebble Beach.

Mike Gonzalez 11:28

And and uh I'll ask each of you guys to comment on this, but uh, you know, there were there have been a lot of uh uh celebrities that have lent their names to tournaments and or sponsored tournaments. I mean, Sammy Davis and Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, uh Glenn Campbell, Joe Garaggiola, Danny Thomas. But but looking back, uh uh Bob Hope and your father were serious golfers, particularly your father, accomplished golfer, and uh uh it was a little bit different for those events, I think, than some of the ones that just put their name on it.

Nathaniel Crosby 11:59

I think the format has stood the test of time uh more than anything else. With uh dad's vision was one pro and one amateur. And as Bruce knows, there's just been an amazing amount of lifelong relationships that have occurred from that one pro, one amateur format. And uh, you know, now not only does it continue to succeed at Pebble Beach with the ATT, but it um the Dunhill is uh you know really did a not you know a smaller field, but the same format. And uh, you know, people are uh scratching and crying and crawling to get into that tournament each and every year, which is you know kind of a cold uh part of the year in St. Andrews. But uh, you know, the one player, one pro, one amateur format seems to be uh a great format for both the pros and their amateurs. And you know what we used to do when when we were hosting it was um we used to leverage the the the top players, let them bring their, you know, let them bring their friends or their brothers or their dads or their sons or whatever. So we were able to leverage that pairing to get you know pretty much the strong strongest feel of the first part of the tour season.

Bruce Devlin 13:11

Yeah, and looking at the other tournaments that uh Mike mentioned, uh most of them were you know just a pro-am on Wednesday. The the the Crosby format, uh, as you say, is uh it stood the test of time, no doubt about that. And uh those of us that were fortunate enough to be part of the clam bake, it was uh it was a great week.

Nathaniel Crosby 13:32

The one bow I will take is that in my young negotiating career at the age of 16, I was uh we had just I had just hosted the first tournament, and Dean Beaman had me down to Sawgrass for the Pro Am at Sawgrass, and I was staying with him in the condo. Dean was the then commissioner of the PGA tour, and um and he was work, he was telling me stories about his life on the PGA tour and how he won a couple of U.S. amateurs, and then he'd weave into negotiating and trying to grab some stuff for the for the tournament. And uh he was adamant about trying to get the amateurs out on Sunday. And uh with the advice of George Coleman, my dad's buddy, and Bob Roos and a lot of other people that were helping me with my responsibilities, I uh I stood my ground and uh like to take the bow for having the amateurs still playing on Sunday uh at Pebble Beach to this day.

Mike Gonzalez 14:29

Good for you. Uh why don't you two take us through a typical clam bake week? What generally happened? How how how early did the amateurs come in and the pros come in? And when did the festivities really sort of kick off that week?

Bruce Devlin 14:44

Go ahead and thank you.

Nathaniel Crosby 14:45

Well, Bruce, you want to take it you take a shot at it, and then I've I've got my thoughts collected.

Bruce Devlin 14:50

Yeah, I uh Well, I all I can do is uh you know talk about the way I went to the Crosby, and that was always with uh like for ten years with Dean. Normally I would go to Los Angeles before that, play a little bit of golf around Riviera with him and some of his buddies, and then we'd wander down to Pebble Beach usually on Tuesday afternoon. Uh you know, have a practice round on Wednesday and then uh ready to tear up on Thursday because Wednesday night, uh or Tuesday night I think it was when you know we all there was always what what it was named, the clam bank. You know, there was a lot of guys that would uh entertain um uh to entertain us in the early days, but uh that sort of uh that sort of went away after a few years, and uh I I think it sort of settled in where it is today now.

Nathaniel Crosby 15:44

So um a lot of guys would come in, you know, on the on the Monday and get to know their partners. The clam bake was on uh the stag dinner was on Wednesday night before the tournament, and they uh, you know, after dad died, I was uh pretending to be Ed Sullivan for a little while and uh would introduce the likes of Bob Hope and Phil Harris. But Phil Harris kind of took over the hosting responsibilities of the of the Stag Dinner on Wednesday night and uh was uh was hysterical as he always was. Um but the the one great story is uh you Bruce remembers a guy named Dick Remsen, who was a member of Seminol, but he played every year at the suggestion of George Coleman because he was a really good amateur player. And one year he was paired with um um Butch Baird, and Butch had a speech impediment, and they hadn't played a practice round together, so they don't see each other until Thursday morning, and and Dick Remsen comes up to Butch Baird to introduce himself and says, Hi, I'm Dick Remsen, shakes his hand, and and Butch says, I'm b. It's on the back.

Mike Gonzalez 16:57

On the bag. Well that that party on Wednesday is pretty famous.

Nathaniel Crosby 17:03

Yeah, we had some great times and dad entertained there until the very end. And uh, you know, Phil Harris would go off color and and uh so would Bob Hope and some of the some of the uh early shows that I witnessed at age 11, 12, and 13 are are still vivid in my mind because I was 11, 12, and 13 and attending off-color performances. Some of the best dirty jokes I remember to this day from those two guys, but uh not to be repeated this morning.

Mike Gonzalez 17:32

Yeah, and with social media, you did they probably just couldn't get away with that today, could they?

Nathaniel Crosby 17:37

No chance. No chance, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 17:42

Or they'd be up on YouTube right now, I'm sure.

Nathaniel Crosby 17:45

Yep, that's about right.

Mike Gonzalez 17:47

Well, who who were who were some of the who were some of the the the more fun celebrities that you remember back in the early days, Nathaniel, that could participated.

Nathaniel Crosby 17:57

Well, Clint was in his heyday uh from spaghetti westerns back then, and he used to play with Ray Floyd every year. Um, but we had Arthur Ash, we had Sidney Portier, you know, it was George C. Scott. We had some amazing A-listers that would uh play in the tournament. It was the you know, really the second or third generation of uh of celebrities. I mean, my dad started out with you know, the athlete started out being Johnny Weissmuller, who who declared that uh after uh playing in the rain all day that he'd never been as so wet in his life from an Olympic swimmer, right? So uh, you know, the early days that you know dad retired from playing in 1957, I think, with his uh last partner being Ben Hogan, and um then he retired up to the booth and and um uh you know but the celebrities have rotated through the years, but they've always seemingly gotten the A-listers, um, and it's always kind of been a dogfight uh to see who gets in, and not every A, you know, not every celebrity that wants to play gets in. Um because there's only they they budget probably about 20 Hollywood and about 10 or 15 sports celebrities and probably still have the same allowance for for that. And um, but dad, the great thing about dad's amateur list is he never had an angle, he never really you know tried to leverage a single invite. It was, you know, he had Bill Tillman from the UK, who was kind of his ambassador, and says, you know, go pick out 10 or 12 great English or Scottish players that love amateur golf and tell them to bring a few pros, and then he'd he'd invite three or four pros to coordinate with ten or so, and he'd do the same thing from you know with uh Mexico and uh France. Coco DuPont was the guy who would bring a French pro, and uh he was a a leading figure in in uh promoting amateur golf in France. So dad just had a knack of uh you know spawning his his um his agenda to make it a little bit of an international event, and uh we'd be meeting these people for the first time, and and in many cases they became you know great friends of his. Matter of fact, the guy who he played was playing with in La Moraleja when he died was Cesar de Zilueta. And uh Cesar used to bring five or six um amateurs from Spain, and um dad was and then Manuel Pinero played uh back in the day uh when dad was still alive, and and um you know Caesar was the built the first Jack Nicholas course in Europe with La Moraleja. So just an interesting approach and uh didn't have you know any any angle or any future favor coming back to him, but just really enjoyed it. The only thing he didn't enjoy is um everybody knew the list was was uh delivered in the middle of September, and if you hadn't received your invite by October one, you knew you were in trouble. My dad used to go to Baja on October one, where there was no telephone, no fax machines, no internet, no nothing, no televisions back then, and nobody could get to him. He would he would hide for about six weeks, four to six weeks anyway, in October in uh Baja because of all the rhetoric he would get from people trying to get in the tournament that knew they weren't on the original list.

Mike Gonzalez 21:33

There was probably no danger of your partner not being included, Bruce.

Bruce Devlin 21:37

No, I I don't think so. Uh Dean loved to play golf. Uh he was a member at Riviera. Um he he he just he couldn't get to the Crossby quick enough, actually. He uh I know he and he and Bing were good friends, they uh often spoke with one another, but uh his his golf game was pretty good too. He probably needed a couple more shots than what he actually got, but uh he could you know he could get his ball around in uh in under 80. So he loved to play the game.

Mike Gonzalez 22:11

Did you guys uh have a good finish at all in your recollection?

Bruce Devlin 22:16

No, well, you know, sort of middle of the field there. We made the I think we made the cut about three or four times out of the uh, you know, as far as the Pro M is concerned. And that was always a big thrill for him to be able to play on Sunday.

Mike Gonzalez 22:30

And Nathaniel, the the sort of demand for that event that you talk about with A-listers in particular, but probably some B listers and so forth. Uh you probably had to have your arm you probably got your arm twisted a little bit, even as a 16-year-old, with some of these guys trying to get in, huh?

Nathaniel Crosby 22:45

Oh, yeah, I got a lot of chocolate bars sent sent in my mailbox during those years. Lots of chocolates and toys and clubs and things. So yeah, it was uh you find out who your friends are pretty quick. But um it was it was uh heady stuff, uh, you know, for for me. And and uh, you know, when I was in high school, I was still attending all the the board meetings, which were you know in leading up to the tournament, they were weekly. So I'd drive down there and and uh tool around Cypress for nine holes after a board meeting. But when I went I went to college at Miami, so it was a little tougher to to maintain the you know uh the presence with uh you know Monterey, you know, with being with the committees, but uh but I still you know mom and I co-hosted it the last two or three years, and uh then uh it we my brother and I stayed on the board when it changed over to the ATT in 1986, I think.

Mike Gonzalez 23:42

All right, well let's let's uh let's shift over and talk a little bit about Nathaniel Crosby, the golfer. Uh obviously, as as uh you grew up there uh not just with the clam bake, but uh uh in your family, golf was quite important. So tell us a little bit about how your game developed to a point where you thought, uh, I may uh try to compete on a more serious level.

Nathaniel Crosby 24:04

Well, I was kind of a you know, I knew from doing Christmas shows for 11 years where they'd dress me up in pastels and neon outfits, and I'd get my ass kicked at school the next day after they will. Um, you know, I well, I was kind of a jock and was desperate to be good at something and kind of threw myself into golf from really being inspired and watching watching the tournament. And um, you know, you could say I peaked in high school because I was a good young player. I was actually uh a favorite to win the U.S. junior because I set a course record to get to the tournament and then was medalist and uh won in college right away. And uh, you know, I just I felt like um I was on my way, but after uh the U.S. amateur, I had a good year the following year. I think I was ranked third in the country in 1981 and 1982 from golf digest, did a ranking for the top ten amateurs then. And um, you know, so I I gave it a try on the European tour, but my game wasn't really progressing. I I wasn't really getting better. Um, it had kind of plateaued and and um I I retired gracefully in front of my girlfriend and my dog at the age of 26 after uh playing three years on the European Tour.

Bruce Devlin 25:23

To have won uh at the Olympic Club in San Francisco when you won the amateur, uh some of the players that you beat beat were pretty good players.

Nathaniel Crosby 25:33

Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, I I had my moments. I mean even my first year on the European Tour, I was tied with Sevy with five holes to play in the Portuguese Open and was 87th on the money list. But uh I think I was 87th on the money list my first year, and then 115th my second, and 155th my third. So as they say on Wall Street, I was negative trending.

Mike Gonzalez 26:00

You were invited to play in Three Masters.

Nathaniel Crosby 26:03

Yeah, they kept asking me to leave on Friday afternoon, though.

Mike Gonzalez 26:08

Well, is that a is that a hard course? I don't even know.

Nathaniel Crosby 26:13

I'll tell you what, it's a uh it's uh the unjall the hills are unbelievable. You don't really see it on television, but when you when it's a hard walking golf course, as Bruce knows. It's that 18th hole is like doing a stairmaster.

Bruce Devlin 26:27

Well To play good at the Masters, you do have to have a good pair of legs on you because I know um most of the players, you know, we'd we'd be playing out in California and you know, club like Riviera, which isn't all that you know, a couple of hills that you have to do there, and then Florida, and then go to Augusta. A lot of guys had shin splits. A lot of players used to come up with shin splits, so it was a it's a very, very difficult walk. And uh I would say the greens are rather difficult as well, Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Crosby 26:58

Yeah, it was it was uh you know amazing to me, and when I first uh showed up in the practice rounds, I was trying to keep my score to just get comfortable and confident that I could shoot a couple of low rounds before the tournament started. And of course, they put the pins in impossible pin placements during the practice rounds to save the greens, to save the areas that they're actually going to use. So they would be uh, you know, you could put you could have about 45 putts if you wanted to putt out on uh during a practice round at Augusta because the pins weren't exactly fair. So uh after after uh a couple of those practice rounds, I said maybe I maybe I won't try to keep score until until we start.

Mike Gonzalez 27:44

What a great experience though, uh you know, having three whacks at it. You've got to have a special kind of game to really succeed at Augusta National, don't you?

Nathaniel Crosby 27:53

Yeah, it was amazing. It was just an amazing atmosphere, and you know, you kind of pinch yourself when you're going down the driveway, and just the aura of the whole place is just uh is amazing. I'm invited back every year as a as an honorary invitee uh for winning the amateur, and you know, you just pinch yourself when you go through the gates there, and um uh the place is just amazing, uh just kind of an Eden in the middle of uh in the middle of Georgia.

Mike Gonzalez 28:20

Yeah, uh right on Washington Road there. Did you play in a few uh par three tournaments?

Nathaniel Crosby 28:27

I they invited uh us as uh you know honorary invitees that were you know British amateur, U.S. Amateur, you know, British Open, US Open and Um PGA champions were invited to the par three. And I I my son, you know, until about five years ago, I think the last time I played, my son um was telling me the night before at a restaurant, said, you know, what are you most worried about tomorrow? He's 21 at the time. So are you worried about a shank, a skull, or a chunk? You know, to put to put the positive vibe in me. And I started 2-2-2. So I've got that, I've got that photograph of the leaderboard with me three under par through three holes. Uh, that's uh right over the right over the headboard at home.

Mike Gonzalez 29:13

That's pretty cool. Nathaniel, you had an opportunity also to compete in the Open Championship. Tell us a little bit about that experience in 1982 and 1983.

Nathaniel Crosby 29:23

Uh didn't do especially well there, uh, but um, you know, I the funny story that I that's a takeaway from that is that I played a practice round with Tom Weisskoff and Mike McCullough at Burkedale one year. And um, you know, flash forward 25 years later, I'm at uh Yellowstone Club at a party with Tom, and there was a lot of fancy people there, and Tom and I went off into the corner to tell old golf stories. And uh and I said to him, I said, I bet you I have two vivid recollections of being with you, and I bet you remember one and you won't remember the other. And he said, Go ahead, shoot. And I said, Well, the first time was uh when I was about twelve years old or eleven years old, and I'm watching you at Pebble Beach, and um you hit two you were in contention and you hit two balls out of bounds on the fifteenth hole. You're playing with Leonard Thompson, and and uh you came up to the 18th T and you were pretty despondent, and uh you get your T shot, and somebody yelled an expletive at you from the gallery, and you gave them the finger and you got fined. And I said to him, I'll bet you remember that. He says, like it was yesterday. I'm still mad at that guy who's like lucky I didn't go after that guy in the gallery. And I said, Here's the one you won't remember. I said, I played with you in a practice round before the Burkdale British Open in 1983. He said, Yeah, I don't remember that at all.

Mike Gonzalez 30:58

Well, you you you played Burkedale in '83 is probably true in '82. Which one, which course did you find more difficult?

Nathaniel Crosby 31:05

Well, it was fun. I I got to play with Sevy in uh 82 and uh Howard Clark. And I I love both courses. It's just amazing um how how great Scottish golf is. I love I love Scottish golf. And you know, what's interesting now when I took the Walker Cup team, we played over at Burkdale one day before Royal Liverpool uh matches uh a couple of years ago or 2019, and um to lengthen the courses, they have plenty of land, but you know, from green to tee now for the competitors, it's about a 60-yard walk back, you know, to for the at Burkdale and and I'm sure most of the other courses, and then they've elevated the T's, so it's 60 yards from green to T or 100 yards from green to T, and then you got to climb up 30 or 40 feet to the elevated T. So these old British open courses used to have the T's pretty close to the greens, and uh to accommodate the advances in equipment and the just the strength of the players, um you know they've they've lengthened these courses to now if you're playing the back tees, it's a pretty hard walk.

Mike Gonzalez 32:17

Well, uh 82 was a pretty good year for a guy you mentioned earlier, and that was the winner of the 82 U.S. Open, Tom Watson, because in your two open championships, the winners were Watson and Watson.

Nathaniel Crosby 32:32

Yeah, that's right. Uh, I think Tom uh won the British Open in both of those. Um Nick Price had the tournament one, and I think he was three over the last four holes as a 22-year-old at Trune. And um that was the first time I think that had ever happened to Tom, where he had kind of been in the clubhouse and really wasn't thinking about winning, and the next thing you know, they're giving him the trophy. But uh the interesting thing that happened that year was Bob Clampett, I think, had a seven or eight-shot lead in the third round, and he was so precise with his game, and he was certain that he could get out of this fairway trap with a seven-iron on the seventh hole, and he proceeded to hit four or five shots right into the top of the lip and made a ten or eleven on the hole. I think he still finished third or fourth in the tournament. But um, you know, it was a it was a great experience, and um, you know, I I got you know to I got a little bit of uh exposure to Sevy, and when I was playing on the European Tour, both you know, Sevy and Bernard Langer were number one and two players in the world, and both of them, you know, went out of their way to be nice to me and and uh as I would watch them hit balls a lot, uh thinking I was gonna improve by you know aping aping Sevi for sure. I loved uh love the way he used to practice and and um he was incredibly kind to to me and and uh really offered himself to so many younger players, you know, especially the Spaniards, but not not exclusive to the Spaniards.

Bruce Devlin 34:01

And Nathaniel, uh after you after you stopped playing, um you still stayed in the uh in the golf world quite a lot, didn't you?

Nathaniel Crosby 34:11

Yeah, I I I peddled, I got into the manufacturing business, bought uh got a group and bought the Tony Penna Golf Company, which eventually evolved. After three years, I think we evolved into the Jack Nicholas Company. Jack was leaving his McGregor arrangement and um wanted to get in the equipment business uh from the ground floor, so we had a boutique operation at Tony Penn of about three million dollars, and we built Nicholas to about 25 million, and then I left to do uh Orlamar golf, which took off. I think it was to this day is the fastest growing uh manufacturing company year to year from 1997 it was 1.2, and in 1998 we did 103 million with uh with the direct response advertising science and um the tri-metal, which uh you know I think almost everybody on the tour on the senior tour were playing the tri-metals, and then um, you know, we had Watson and Payne Stewart and a lot of a lot of uh participation on the regular tour as well. So we were we were gonna go public and then the stock market crashed for uh a little bit and I'm still uh still a little bitter, still got a little Tourette syndrome from that from that event that I didn't cash in on the 1998 success that we had, but um but it was a great experience and uh it was great working for Jack and uh you know have a lot of lifelong retailer buddies out there to this day from that experience.

Mike Gonzalez 35:45

I love the symmetry, Nathaniel, of you being part of the victorious 1983 Walker Cup win at at Hoylake, and uh a few years later uh you are invited to captain the Walker Cup team, and the venue is Hoylake.

Nathaniel Crosby 36:08

Yeah, uh it was uh the funny story about going back to Hoylake was you know, my my Walker Cup experience was a little tough because uh I lost a match to an English player named Philip Parkin, who's I think he's on Sky Network still, but uh he he played great, shot about five under and beat me six and four, and Jay Siegel benched me the next day in the singles, and uh so I I bent I was benched two out of the four matches. So I I won uh I beat Philip Walton in an alternate shot deal with uh George McGregor, which was one of their better teams, so that kind of took the sting out of the experience. But when Jay Siegel was giving me advice with other captains at a captain's dinner after I was selected, uh everybody was going around the horn and giving me two minutes of their uh you know their thoughts on how to captain, and Jay Siegel's turn came up, who was my playing captain in '83, and he says, Whatever you do, Nathaniel, play play everybody three times. And I said, Listen, Buster, you know, 37 years ago, I still got this chip on my shoulder. You benched me twice. Of course, he played in about six or seven Walker Cup teams and captained twice, so he had no recollection that he'd benched me twice. But um, at any rate, so I let him have it in all my speeches at Royal Liverpool. I said it was deja vu all over again being on a part of two winning U.S. Walker Cup teams at Royal Liverpool, and I didn't get to play in either one.

Mike Gonzalez 37:44

Well, of course, uh you you mentioned your win in 2019 as your uh when you first captain the Walker Cup team. That was a common come from behind victory over the GB and I team. And and Hoylake, uh, as you can appreciate, uh some great, great history there.

Nathaniel Crosby 38:01

Yeah, it is it's such a great golf course. And you know, I'm a non-resident member of San Francisco Golf Club where I grew up, and my dad's the last thing my dad did for me was get me into that club, and I didn't realize, but Hoylake and San Francisco Club have been sister clubs. They were actually financed by the same group uh of uh of guys from Scotland. And uh I wish I knew more about the story, but uh there was an association there. And what's so great about Hoylake is um it's an easy walking golf course, and uh it's just it's got charm. Once you play, once you play the golf course one time, you'll you'll remember every single hole. It's it's uh it's very easy. Every hole is distinct and uh has a lot of charms to it. The the first T shot, the way we played it, was with the driving range on the right, and you were very nervous about flipping it out of bounds off the first T. So you could pretty much size up your competition that day. If if you hit it way out to the left, you weren't that confident. And uh if you hit a booming T shot down the right side, you uh in then uh you were showing your competitor that you were um ready to go.

Mike Gonzalez 39:12

Yeah, they they play a different uh setup for the open championship, but that opening T shot with that OB right on the on the range there, that's that's a bit intimidating for your opening shot, especially if you haven't hit any balls.

Nathaniel Crosby 39:24

Well, when you're thinking about it tonight before, you know it is.

Mike Gonzalez 39:27

Yeah, well, uh the history there, though, is one thing that's always impressed me. Of course, they got a great membership, but uh uh you know, two really famous amateurs come from there. John Ball, who's an eight-time British Am winner, Harold Hilton, who won the British amateur four times. Uh listeners may recall that uh this was the second leg of the slam for for uh Bobby Jones back in 1930. They've had some great open champions there. Uh Peter Thompson, of course, that you know Bruce, and Roberto Di Vincenzo, Tiger, Rory, just some great names that have won the open championship there.

Nathaniel Crosby 40:05

I'm not sure which uh which British Open it was, but Brian Morgan, the great golf photographer, was uh telling me the story. I think it was Trune, but um Peter Thompson won one of his five British Open Championships, and they had to delay the ceremony because he was the journalist for the Australian paper proof. So I don't know if you heard this. He had to write a story about himself winning the British Open before his deadline, so they had to delay the ceremony about 15 minutes. Now those were the old days.

Bruce Devlin 40:41

Yeah, I don't think he'd get away with that today, would he?

Nathaniel Crosby 40:45

No, well, yeah, I don't think any any player that's winning the British Open would be writing uh would be the acting journalist for the for the nation's newspaper either.

Mike Gonzalez 40:56

Nathaniel, tell us a little bit about the history of this event uh coming up, uh, and then we'll talk a little bit about uh the team, the chances, the venue, and so forth.

Nathaniel Crosby 41:06

Well, it really started a hundred years ago at Hoy Lake, and uh it was actually not considered an official Walker Cup, but George, you know, uh Herbert Walker's grandfather started the event as an idea, and uh it took hold. And through you know, through the years, the US has dominated it, but uh there's been a few uh I think in in the recent two decades uh it's been more of a challenge for the U.S. And uh a little different than the Ryder Cup because you know the continental Europe is not a participant. Um but but uh you know, GB and I, you know, these kids are you know, like we had physical education in junior high school or high school, and these kids are given golf clubs in uniforms at age eight, nine, ten, and it's part of their curriculum. So it's just amazing, but that's how so many of these uh great players come out of um you know a small population per se, with uh Ireland and and uh the UK.

Mike Gonzalez 42:16

How do you think this thing will evolve? You think it'll uh continue to be GB and I for the foreseeable future, or do you think they may, like they did with the Ryder Cup at some point, open it up to uh continental uh Europe players?

Nathaniel Crosby 42:28

I I really couldn't uh give you I I don't think in the foreseeable future they would think about doing that. Um I'm not certain that it wouldn't happen eventually. I think the more likely event is that um the kids are trying to make this event for two years, and then there's you know five or six days of practice round or almost a full week if you're going abroad. I think it's more likely that they might um change it into three a three-day competition with 12 players for each side. I would say that that might be the next step, but that's not anything that I know from uh you know any USGA conversations. That's just from a uh observer uh situation. It just seems like they may evolve into a three-day, 12-player each side deal at some point. And I would think that that might be their next step, but uh it's not you know, I I'm not I haven't heard that from any uh you know USGA executive or or RNA executive.

Mike Gonzalez 43:33

So the 48th edition of this event, as we've mentioned, will come up here uh in May and and uh uh this will be contested at Seminole Golf Club. Bruce, you probably have some recollections of Seminole. I'm sure you've been able to test that track occasionally.

Bruce Devlin 43:49

Yeah, when I first moved over to the United States, I lived in uh uh southern Florida and uh I had an opportunity in those days to play at uh Seminole. It's uh it's a it's a wonderful. uh test of golf, no doubt about it. And I think uh Nathaniel, you you probably agree with me. When Crensure and Core went back in there a few years ago and and uh recreated the golf course the way it was when it was originally built.

Nathaniel Crosby 44:15

I I think uh I think we got a feel for just what a wonderful piece of property is and uh it's turned out uh to be one of the best golf courses that you'll ever get the pleasure of playing yeah seminal this uh magnificent course I'm lucky to be a member and um you know George Coleman and my dad and my brother played there four days in a row in 1976 so I've seen the course evolve with different you know presidents and different approaches but uh really the angles of the greens and um you know the wind and the deep bunkers are uh are what makes the course so tough. Like Pinehurst I think the greens are if the greens are firm the the the uh the targets are about half the size and if the wind kicks up they're about 30% of the size you can't you can't uh roll your ball with the wind. If if you're hitting it's a right to left wind you can't hit a draw if it's a left to right wind you can't hit a fade or the ball just rolls sideways off the green if the greens are firm. And uh with the event being played in May there's always a chance that you might get a a little bit of rain during the week or during the event even um as it's not the driest month of the year it's not a it's not generally a wet month but um you know if the course really rears its it it becomes difficult uh in firm and fast pretty much in the winter months January February and March. Does a certain type of condition favor one team or another this year Nathaniel in your opinion I you know I don't know these guys hit the ball the ball comes down an elevator shaft from most of these guys so you know what's an what's an impossible target for you and I because we're hitting rainbow arcs these guys are hitting it straight up and it comes straight down um it's uh it's amazing but I I don't know I don't really know um that I'm pulling for one or the other I think you know putting is going to be a big factor um the course is relatively benign off the T. There's a lot of there's a you know very few places to miss a fairway or there's really you know unless you hit it in the water on occasional holes there's nowhere to really miss it you know put it out of play but um but you know when we had our practice squad down here before the last team the players played the Bears Club MacArthur Medalist and Seminole and you know they did not beat up Seminole and I've had a lot of good players um a lot of the former team you know they just don't seem to beat up Seminole the way they do uh the other courses so you know go figure I think the wind the wind is the big deal my my uh intelligence is telling me that the G B and I team maybe may have home field advantage well I think they've been I think they've been stationed here since December. So I've seen so many G B and I guys I'm like hey stop stop inviting them tell them to go back home to their loved ones you know I we thought we'd have a we thought we'd have a big advantage with uh the guys you know being in the UK but uh there I think three of the ten players are in in college over here and uh but the balance have been getting a lot of reps at all the courses down here and and uh they've been here most of the spring so you know I'm I'm on edge that's for sure. Any predictions well the only thing is that we we've got a great team um we uh we had a great showing yesterday cole hammer won um n c two a regional and quade cummins was second Pearson Cootie top five or six and uh uh Austin Ekron so we had you know I think four of our players were in the top seven in the in the one NC2A regional yesterday so you know I think everybody's in good form and uh it'll be it'll be really interesting. I I you know the last the last event in in Hoy Lake was a was a dog fight we came from if John Pack doesn't uh win two of the last three I think he win the last two holes to come from one down to one up and otherwise we'd have been four down after Saturday four points behind. So you know you don't take anything for granted and um it it should be a great competition and you know I I just tell the guys it's a it's a lifelong memory and uh you want a lifelong memory about winning not not the other you know with with nine of your predecessors as fellow members down there you must be getting plenty of advice uh you know like I said uh spider bellar was a was my predecessor with uh you know and it's amazing to see how these players evolve I mean uh Will Zalatoris was on Spider's team in 2017 and to see his game uh progress and you know Brandon Wu was on my last team uh who's in the top five or six in the corn ferry with about one third of the starts of everybody else uh because he didn't have full status. So you know it's just amazing to see these players and and they're getting good so quick. So I think the average age of a PGA tour Luke Donald I think told me this when he was number one player in the world Luke said that the average he was 34 and the average PGA tour player was 34. And now the average PGA tour player is something in the late 20s like 28 years old. So I think the game is getting younger I think it's getting younger.

Bruce Devlin 49:59

I think a lot has to do with the with their uh college uh uh stint too you know you went to the University of Miami uh the players uh that came out in my area uh if they if they went to college uh they weren't as sure that they were going to beat the Arnold Palmer's and Jack Nicholas as some of the young players like Zalatoris nearly won them won the masters this year so uh you know they come out ready to play I mean uh Jack Nicholas who yeah I mean Jor Jordan Spiet and all the things that he accomplished before he was 24 years old is amazing and you know back in the day other than Jack and Phil Mickelson and Tiger you know I think Jerry Pate won the U.S.

Nathaniel Crosby 50:43

Open at 22 years old but you know there's not a lot of those examples other than the you know the the few guys that we mentioned that are you know some of the great players of all time with Mickelson and Tiger and Jack. But these these guys today uh I think the Corn Ferry has been a big part of it. They you know I I have so many uh new relationships with these young players and they shoot 67 or six or eight ferry qualifying and don't get in. I I find it to be even easier to qualify for a PGA tour on a Monday than a Corn Ferry and I think they get so battle hardened and so tough from these experiences that when they actually get tea times they're they're not wasting them.

Mike Gonzalez 51:30

Well you've got a uh a great lineup of players uh Bruce and I had the opportunity earlier in the week to speak with Charles Cootie on our podcast and uh of course Charles uh celebrating his 50th year uh anniversary of winning the Masters back in 1971 and so I opened the show with the question I said to Charles I said I'm going to give you a choice right off the bat here you can either attend your 50th champions dinner at the Masters next year or you can go down to Seminole and watch your grandson Pearson compete in the Walker Cup. Which one would it be? And uh he didn't have to think very long on that one.

Nathaniel Crosby 52:05

Yeah you know Pearson's brother Parker was just outside the discussion you know he he's in the top 50 I believe in the in the world amateur golf rankings so those two guys are are neck and neck uh you know I expect Parker to maybe make the next team so the Cootie family is uh you know they're the the the third the third generation is keeping the legacy going I watched Pearson win the Western amateur last year at Crooked Stick and and he is uh I think he's uh was the number one ranked amateur in the world just a couple weeks ago he might be number two now but um he's a great great young man and a great player.

Mike Gonzalez 52:43

I'll tick through the some of the other names uh some of those you mentioned already but Ricky Castillo uh of course we mentioned Pearson Cootie Quaid Cummins Austin Eckrote uh Stuart Hagstead Cole Hammer William Mao John Pack Tyler Strafacci and Davis Thompson that's that's that's quite a quite a set of talent you got yeah I've I've had a blast watching these guys I mean Davis Thompson uh you know just hits the ball you know forever and uh always in play and I I look for him to be one of the stronger players on the team Tyler Strafassi I knew his grandfather because he he won the mid or the uh Publix twice in the 30s and was my first experience with Tyler was watching him get to the semifinals of the Western Amateur at uh Sunset Ridge a couple of years back and uh you know his grandfather had gotten to the semifinals of the Western amateur in like 1939 and I was like what is it with Houstra Fastings you can't get past the semifinals here.

Nathaniel Crosby 53:44

So um and and Cole Hammer uh you know watched his amazing summer in 2019 and he was kind of outside the window going into the practice squad and he played in the South Beach amateur and won it and should have won the Jones Cup left a four footer short on the last hole but uh finished second and then won again yesterday so he is uh you know an amazing talent I think he would have been well on his way to winning the U.S. Amber Pebble in a normal year but he ran into Victor Hobland who I think was par in for 63 from uh and and Cole got beat three and two.

Mike Gonzalez 54:22

So um Cole was uh Cole's a fantastic player and all the other players you mentioned they're all of equal talent uh no real weak link on the team so I'm I'm excited to uh to get in there and mix it up and and uh you know enjoy the only autonomous thing they have is the pair them uh you know find where the chemistries are between the players and try to pair them together and in the alternate shot and then uh make the appropriate uh decisions at the last minute but everybody as Siegels as Siegel suggested everybody will play three matches there you go so uh what can you tell us uh about the GB and I squad and uh who are the standouts in your mind well you know Fitzpatrick was on the last team Sandy Scott um and uh Ferguson there's a there's a bunch of good players Rory's touting the the young Irishman more I think in um uh he's just 17 years old I believe and and uh Rory I think told him to just go ahead and turn pro after the Locker Cup that he has enough game and he's ready to go so that's uh that's amazing um to get advice to just go do it at when you're only 17 years old but from from so I think they've gonna have a it's gonna be a very strong team it's gonna be a great competition um I have a lot of faith in my guys but uh don't underestimate the other side so I'll give a quick shout out to uh one of the GBI players uh Angus Flanagan uh we have a connection here locally with Angus and I know he's won his last two matches uh he plays for the Big Ten uh Minnesota team and and uh has won his last two I think he's uh Big Ten player of the year the last two times but I'm sure his friends at St. George's Hill and at Woking uh we want to give a shout out to them because they're quite proud of Angus and and wish him well as well he looks like he's about 11 years old which is is just amazing because he's like wait a second I watched him at the Western last year and he played great um but I'm just uh looking at his uh image on his brochure looked like he was about 12 or 13 years old and I'm like how can this guy be such a great player but um he is yeah he's a terrific young man from a great family had a chance to play with Angus here about uh four weeks ago his his came was pretty sharp when I played with him but uh we wish everybody well and uh Nathaniel I think just in wrapping up I think it's going to be a great competition uh tell us a little bit about uh for those that are still interested in perhaps attending are those tickets all sold out now how's that working yeah the the tickets were available to the public for about two minutes on the internet and uh unless you knew how to cut yourself in line they went away I think it's eighteen hundred and fifty attendees or uh uh tickets per day and if extra let me know because I could use them. Okay well we'll leave it right there then uh Nathaniel you've been more than gracious with your time we wish you and your team the very best in the 48th Walker Cup and uh we certainly thank you for joining us today appreciate it just we we've been thank you for listening to another episode of 4 the good of the game 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 cheat up again the good of the game song everybody it went smack down the fairway still in the state you're okay with