Paul Azinger - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and Bruce this morning our guest may be the finest foosball player we've ever interviewed.

Bruce Devlin 0:26

Well, he he does a lot of things good. He may he may be one of the best fishermen that ever went on the PGA tour as well.

Paul Azinger 0:43

Hey, I appreciate it after uh just hearing you guys in the warm-up there. Um, you know, archiving all these players is something that's pretty cool that you guys are doing, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Bruce Devlin 0:55

Glad to have you, buddy.

Mike Gonzalez 0:56

Yeah, thanks for joining us, Paul. As you as you mentioned, we've we've had the privilege over the last few months of doing this to interview uh the guys you would know, uh, and maybe even followed when you were younger, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, and just just some some some great guests, Tony Jacklin, and and uh I have to say you're one of the younger guys we've we've actually interviewed. You know, you and Finchie and Strange and are some of uh maybe uh uh maybe Elk are some of the younger guys that we've had a chance to talk to. So welcome to the show.

Paul Azinger 1:28

Well I appreciate it. It's I'm 61 now, so I'll be 62 in a couple months, so I'm glad I'm one of the younger guys.

Mike Gonzalez 1:36

Uh why you can be. Anyway, uh as we said before, uh what we want to do is tell your story, and so the only way to tell the whole story, just to kind of go back to the beginning. Uh you were born, as you mentioned, uh uh 61 years ago in 1960 in Holyoke Mass. Why don't you tell us a little bit about growing up?

Paul Azinger 1:56

Well, my dad was in the Air Force, and I never remembered Holy Oak Mass. We moved when I was about six months to Homestead, Florida. In the early 60s, we were down there and during the all the Bay of Pigs, and you know, it was a pretty tumultuous time, I guess, in Homestead, but I was unaware of it. That's where I learned how to fish as a little kid in bass lakes, and my dad was he liked to go out in the boat, and uh he was really good at baiting hooks, and he didn't care about the fishing part, and all of us kids, we got I've got three brothers, we all loved it. Homestead was great, and um but we got out of Holyoke Mass pretty quickly. My dad loved Florida, he didn't like cold weather.

Mike Gonzalez 2:39

It's hard to find Florida natives. You're you're I guess you could be considered a Florida native.

Paul Azinger 2:46

Probably. I I think because we we lived in New Jersey for three years. I I guess I've lived in Florida fifty-seven years, and uh that's a long time. I've been in this particular area of Sarasota Bradington now for a long, long time, and uh uh I mean before I-75 came through the this part of the state even.

Mike Gonzalez 3:06

Yeah. That uh that west side, because uh of the routing of that interstate, tended to attract more Midwesterners, where the uh the other side of the state tended to s uh to uh attract people from the northeast, New Yorkers and so forth.

Paul Azinger 3:22

That's really accurate. That's exactly right. And uh the West Coasters they think they've got it made, and the East Coasters think they've got it made. Both coasts are completely different, too. Uh you know, they're very uniquely different. The Atlantic Ocean pounds the coastline, but they don't get that much erosion over there, not like we do. Yeah, it's it's a I don't know, they don't get red tide. We've had a lot of red tide lately. Um, but boy, what a population explosion this has been here during especially during COVID.

Mike Gonzalez 3:52

Well, I can imagine we're having the same thing in South Carolina where people just decide they can work anywhere, can't they?

Paul Azinger 3:58

Yeah, nowadays we're doing this.

Bruce Devlin 4:02

Yeah, that's right. And we're we're getting uh we're getting quite a few people come to Texas too. I think I think uh most of them uh deciding that they like the sunshine like they do in Florida and South Carolina.

Paul Azinger 4:18

I think there's an element of uh you know just wanting to be free too, you know. Some of these states are being they're different than other states out here now. I mean, obviously if you live in Florida, there's not a lot of mandates on the people here, and I I think gosh, there's like a million people a day coming to Florida. I I don't know. I hope they all don't move here.

Mike Gonzalez 4:41

So Paul, where do you where where do you fall amongst the three brothers agewise?

Paul Azinger 4:46

Second to last. Okay. My two older brothers uh I have a different dad. My their father died in an airplane crash um as he was in the military, and my mom remarried another Air Force guy. My dad went to Vietnam and he was in Korea, so she had a lot of stress in her life. Oh I bet so I had two older brothers, but they're brothers, and um and my younger brother. He lives in the panhandle, he was in the golf course architecture and design for a little while, but it was it was during the crunch, you know, when things went bad. Uh only Jack and Arnold and Gary could get golf courses back then. Bruce Devlin do a few.

Bruce Devlin 5:28

Yeah, I did a few. You sure did. So Paul, you're good on a little you were uh you were involved in the architectural side of it too.

Paul Azinger 5:37

Well, no, it was mostly my brother. I I did a dabble in a redo here and there. I didn't I don't have the patience for it. You know, it's like people ask me if I tie my own flies and stuff like that. I'm uh I don't I don't do I don't have patience.

Mike Gonzalez 5:51

You mentioned lake fishing and and uh as a Midwesterner, uh obviously that's all we did, you know, bass and bluegill and crappie and so forth. That's a different kind of fishing than uh off the coast kind of fishing that you would have in Florida, isn't it?

Paul Azinger 6:06

Thing about fishing, I think, really it's for dreamers, isn't it? I mean, uh people that lose sleep at night because they know they're gonna go catch the next day, they're dreaming, and that's you know, it doesn't matter what the fishing is, there's you have to figure it out if you want to produce and catch. Uh fishing in itself is terrible. Catching is what it's all about. So I'm all about catching fish. And but I'm a dreamer. I want to catch, you know, something maybe I could eat or a trophy, something like that. I I love it. I get away too. I feel I I isolate now, you know. I think with COVID, it's changed my brain a little bit, and I I just really don't mind being on my own or just with family.

Bruce Devlin 6:47

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people feel that same way, uh, Paul. It's it's it's really changed our lives.

Paul Azinger 6:54

Well, that's a whole nother podcast, I'm sure. One day, maybe, but um right now I I just you gotta kind of do what you gotta do.

Mike Gonzalez 7:01

Yeah, yeah. So, how did you get introduced as a as a young guy to this great game of ours?

Paul Azinger 7:08

Uh my mom and dad were members at Fort Dix and Maguire Air Force Base when we were in New Jersey, and they were members at Homestead Air Force Base when we were down there, and I can remember sitting on my dad's golf bag, he pushed it, the push cart, and used to ride around. And I know when I was four years old, I could hit his forewood pretty solid, it wasn't too heavy, I could choke it up or whatever it was, and he always just thought I was a gifted little golfer for some reason, but I never played golf seriously. Probably uh maybe eighth and ninth grade, but in high school I wasn't serious about golf really until I got to college. But my parents loved they both loved golf, they were both single-digit handicaps. My mom won 19 club championships, so she was really good.

Mike Gonzalez 7:57

Yeah, yeah. And a and a good bridge player too, I understand.

Paul Azinger 8:01

My parents could both play bridge, they were incredible bowlers. And uh my mom would roll every she rolled 600 series every time she competed. She was so good.

Mike Gonzalez 8:14

So we know where you got that athletic ability then.

Paul Azinger 8:17

Yeah, I guess. From my mom. My dad was good too, though.

Mike Gonzalez 8:20

Yeah. Yeah. Did your brothers play golf?

Paul Azinger 8:23

They do, they're all pretty good, single-digit.

Mike Gonzalez 8:27

So did you play with them as a kid or uh more on your own?

Paul Azinger 8:31

Um, you know, I think we played together, but we always would fight and it wasn't that much fun.

Mike Gonzalez 8:37

And uh Well that sounds familiar.

Paul Azinger 8:40

You know, I don't know. My dad would kick me off the course if I misbehaved and stuff, and but but my two older brothers are just a little bit they're old enough that I didn't really get into golf until they were gone. And you know, I was so naive about professional golf, I really was clueless to what it would take. And um yeah, well, I don't know. I I don't know. I never really practiced one day in my life until I went to college.

Mike Gonzalez 9:08

Huh.

Bruce Devlin 9:09

Isn't that amazing? Quite a story, Paul.

Mike Gonzalez 9:11

Yeah, what was it that changed then? What sort of collectance said, okay, I I I may would take this a little bit more seriously.

Paul Azinger 9:18

Well, I again I was just naive about what it was gonna take to play professionally, and um I had never broken 70 in my life when I went to college, couldn't break 82 days in a row, really. But I got there with Dr. Jim Sutty, the golf coach at the time. Floyd Horrigan was the golf coach I thought was gonna be there. He went to Sentenary where Hal Sutton was.

Mike Gonzalez 9:39

Yeah, sure.

Paul Azinger 9:40

And Doc Jim Sutty was there, which is the greatest blessing ever for me because he was addicted to golf, and I became addicted to golf and incredibly passionate. I didn't go home on weekends, and when I did it was just to be so excited to show my parents about what I was figuring out about how to hit a golf ball. And uh about my second year of college I was probably hitting four or five hundred balls every day and learning how to chip and putt a little bit, and I finally broke 70 about halfway through my second year of college. It's unreal. I remember two putting for a 68 on the last hole, and you know, all of a sudden I was nervous. I was, and I I I couldn't believe it. John Redman, I met Redmond, you know John. I do John's passed away now, but uh great coaches both. John was this crusty kind of you know uh irrascible sort that was very tough in his teaching. He he was taught by Sneed and he had a certain philosophy how to play, Redmond did. And uh Suddy, I had all that technical part and was able to see stuff on video during when Suddy was there, and and John and Doc Suddy got along real well. And those two together really, I got you know, the first time I saw my swing on video, I thought it looked okay. And uh Suddy says, Well, you're across the line, your past parallel, you're on your left side at the top, you got no leg action, and your club face is shut.

Bruce Devlin 11:17

My forbidden, you're pretty good.

Paul Azinger 11:19

Yeah, where do we start? And that's really how I started. That was the first time I ever realized that there was a way to do it. I'm not kidding, yeah. That was college.

Mike Gonzalez 11:29

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 11:30

Where I really realized there was a certain technique required to play golf. I was so naive, and I thought, I'll get out there and be a pro. But I was I think I've always been really physically smart. I can pick stuff up, you know. I used to throw darts until I I I could hit the triple and all day long.

Mike Gonzalez 11:51

Yeah, yeah. Are you a pull shooter?

Paul Azinger 11:55

Yep.

Mike Gonzalez 11:56

Okay.

Paul Azinger 11:58

I thought I was smart enough to play poker, but the math part of the poker it was just something I couldn't comprehend well enough to be decent at it, so I gave that up.

Bruce Devlin 12:07

I knew you'd tried that for a while.

Paul Azinger 12:10

Yeah, and the foosball thing was just a big hand-eye. You know, Ted Scott caddied for Bubba Watson all those years. He caddied for me for a little while, and I I wanted to be a world champion foosball player, and I thought that would look cool, you know, on my recipe or whatever I was thinking about. I can assure you that nobody would ever know who the best foosball player of all time is in this group of three, not even me.

Mike Gonzalez 12:35

I was gonna say, when when when I interviewed guys uh uh or or ladies to hire, I I don't remember foosball ever coming up as uh one of the things they'd aspired to. Yeah.

Paul Azinger 12:46

No, and it takes a lot of time to be good at it.

Mike Gonzalez 12:48

Yeah, but it was big in college for us. I know I know we had a lot of guys I knew that had foosball tables in their apartments.

Paul Azinger 12:55

Yeah, I think the video game Pac-Man killed foosball.

Mike Gonzalez 13:00

Yeah, yeah. Uh you you talk about Dr. Jim Suddy. Is is um did he work out of Cog Hill for a while?

Paul Azinger 13:09

Yep, Coach Suddy sure did. He's actually Dr. Dr. Suddy. He's written a book about the mechanics of the golf swing. He's way ahead of his time, you know. I feel um maybe not the all-time great communicator, but what a coach, and he knows it all, I feel, about technique and physical structure of the body and the mechanical structure of what is what can happen, how much wrist can rotate or supinate and all that. He's he's the man. Yeah, that's a guy. If you got him on your show, he'd probably be somebody needs to document Doc Suddy, in my opinion.

Mike Gonzalez 13:44

Yeah. Uh I used to live about 15 minutes away from from from Cog Hill. I know my brothers had a couple sessions with him, but I I do know he's he's very, very good. Incredible. Yeah, yeah. So you had a summer job at Bay Hill in college. Uh, how did that all play into your college career and your learning?

Paul Azinger 14:02

Well, Suty was the one that got me that. Uh talk Jim Suddy when I was at Brevard. I didn't know what to do between my first year and my second year, and he called me one day and said, We need a counselor at Arnold Palmer's Golf Academy over at Bay Hill, and it pays 80 bucks a week and room and boards free. So I said, I'll be there. And I stayed there for six, seven weeks, I think. We would pick up the kids at the airport, and um, we'd bring them to Bahill, they'd stay for two weeks, we'd take them back, we'd bring another batch of kids, and they would go back. And there were eight instructors, eight of us we were called counselors, but really we were runners for the pros that were teaching and for the kids, and we kind of had to make sure they did the right thing at night. They were between ages, I believe, 11 and 17. Uh, just the wrong age, you know, for a bunch of boys to get together.

Mike Gonzalez 14:55

Oh, yeah.

Paul Azinger 14:57

You can't believe it. Uh, some of the stuff they did, but we had a big time, uh, and that's really where I learned how to really play golf was at Bahill. I got to work with uh well, I got to see Arnold Palmer. I've known Arnold now since I was 19 years old, pretty incredible. I knew Arnold since I was 19, and um but that really helped my career being at Bahill. I had eight different instructors, they watched me. I learned how to hit the guy, pick in the range, because he was my buddy. That was my big shot. My go-to was to knock the ball down, and that's where I learned how to do it, and that's where I learned when I finally went back to Brevard. That's when I finally broke 70 for the first time ever.

Mike Gonzalez 15:37

And then uh come come out of Brevard, was that the a two-year stint there before going on to play for the Seminoles?

Paul Azinger 15:44

Yep, then I went to Florida State and I won a couple tournaments there at Florida State. I won the Metro Conference and the Gator Invitational, which was the biggest of tournament the Gator was. And then I just decided to turn pro, um, which was a lucky thing I did. I got through tour school my first try, played the tour uh that year in 82 was the first year of the all-exempt tour. And so you had to finish top 125 on the money list instead of top 60. So I'm one of those rare guys that got a real taste of the rabbit system, the Monday qualifying, and and uh what it was like to play the all-exempt tour. I'm glad I got a taste of the rabbit system. I I liked it better, to be quite frank with you. Is that true? I thought it was a better system.

Mike Gonzalez 16:34

Well, yeah, why was that? We've heard a lot about that from the older fellows, obviously, and boy, what a what a tough deal to uh uh you know, much different than the the current system.

Paul Azinger 16:45

Yeah, I I always felt like the number sixty should be moved way up. But that there should still be that system, you know. Uh golf has never been a free ride, it's always been brutal.

Bruce Devlin 17:00

Bruce knows start from scratch each year.

Paul Azinger 17:04

Well uh it was a lot easier to stay on tour for 30 years when the all exempt system came in. I'll say that.

Bruce Devlin 17:11

I agree with you, definitely. Yeah.

Paul Azinger 17:13

Um, which is good and bad, but it also I felt it monopolized the tour a little bit more. It made it much more difficult to get on the tour. And now it's almost unconscionable how hard it is to get on the PJ tour uh for some of these guys, I think. I I I don't like it's a non-access situation now. You have to go through the nationwide or what what's it called now?

Mike Gonzalez 17:33

Um Corn Fairy.

Paul Azinger 17:35

Oh my gosh. Corn Fairy. Thank you. Yeah, Corn Ferry. So I probably called it what it was called f five names ago. Um yeah, the Corn Ferry is the it, you know, look, it's producing great players. There's no doubt about that. But the idea that you have to play to play the tour, you have to be successful there first. You qualify for that first.

Mike Gonzalez 17:56

Yeah, it's tough. Did did you go did you go to multiple uh Q schools?

Paul Azinger 18:03

Oh yeah. I think I went to four or four or five, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four. Then I won the tour school for the eighty-five season.

Mike Gonzalez 18:10

Yeah, so explain to our listeners why you would have played in multiple tour schools based on the way the system worked back then.

Paul Azinger 18:17

Well, I just didn't get in the top 125. You know, my first my rookie year, I made about 10,000 bucks, $10,600, and didn't keep my card. Went and played the mini tour for a year, which is really I had about $20,000 in entry fee, versus the tour's a hundred dollars a tournament to enter. Now it's not nothing, but uh mini tour was impossible. But I made about 30 grand on the mini tour in profit because I I was just confident when I went down there that I had played the tour a year, and again, I was naive about the tour, I was naive about the mini tour, and that is the first time I recognized what a head game golf was for me, and that just because I thought I had more experience and was better, just because I thought it, I played better. And so I got my card back, and then I immediately felt the insecurities that became flooding back when I was on the tour in '82, and I'd lost all the swagger that I had in '83. And then at the end of 84, uh I talked to a guy named Mac McKee, who my wife knew, who trained, he used to take on all comers at the fair when it and he'd travel, so he was a pretty tough guy. And um, he just took me, he taught me the mental side of of just sports in general, really, used kind of East German philosophies to progressive relaxation and all that stuff. And so I started to apply that, thinking that in my mind I had done something different than these guys were doing, and that gave me the kind of confidence I had when I was on the mini tour. And all of a sudden I started playing better and keeping my cards. So it was really a progression of self-belief, more so than the physical stuff.

Mike Gonzalez 19:58

Yeah. I I wasn't aware the progressive relaxation uh bit uh went back that far in your career.

Paul Azinger 20:05

I never really much talked about it, but it was a real thing to me to deal with the nerves and the pressure. And I finally got to where I, you know, uh I really loved being in that pressure situation. You gotta overcome that though. At some point you have to embrace it. And I think it was in about I know when it was. It was in 1985. My wife and I were still living in a 24-foot motor home. Um, this was our fourth year of living in a 24-foot camper really. Still didn't have two nickels to rub together, still hadn't paid taxes ever. So um, I was tied for the lead with Bernard Langer and Bobby Watkins, and Langer just won the Masters the week before. This was 1985. And so I'm gonna be in the last group on Saturday for the first time in my life, and I was so nervous I couldn't handle it. I called my friend Bert Yancey. I know Bruce knows all about Bert. He would he he would stop watch me and and you know, he always Bert was major instrumental in just a few things that he never said to me. But uh I said, Bert, I said, I think I'm I hate this feeling. I'm too nervous. I don't I'm gonna quit. I don't like it. And he said, son, you want to be so nervous you can't spit. I said, why is that? He says, because if you're not, you're in the middle of the pack. And it literally, my the everything I could feel everything goes flood out of my body. The the pressure, the brain, it was such a mindset, such the simplest thing. You want to be so nervous you can't spit. When I won the Phoenix Open, my first ever tournament, um, I was at Pebble Beach the next week playing a practice round by myself, and I got to the third hole, a dog leg left there, and Bert was on the green. It's a little big wedge or nine iron or something, downhill shot, and I saw Bert because you know he wore a bandana at that time, flapping in. The win or whatever. And I got down there and he came up real close to me and shook my hand. And Bert said, Congratulations on winning the Phoenix Open. Are you going to go to the British Open? And I was like, I don't know. I never it never crossed my mind to ask me if I was going to go to the British Open was the most random question. After he said, Congratulations, are you going to the British Open? I said, gee, Bert, I don't know. I never thought about it. And that's when he dropped the sun on me again. He said, son, you can win all the Phoenix Opens you want. But you can't make history unless you win a major. And if you don't play the British Open, you've cut yourself out of 25% of the major championships. And you know, that little walk down to that fourth T, Bruce, when you just a slight downslope down to that fourth T. I went from playing for the cash to play playing for the prestige. Just like that for prestige. And that's when I realized you either choke for cash or prestige. Because guess what? I had a chance to win that British Open. I bogeied the last two holes. That was mine. That was mine. And I let it get away and it broke my heart. And then the next year I had a chance. And Sluman shot 65 and it broke my heart. So, but it was Bert that instilled the you gotta be you want to be nervous enough you can't spit and you can't make history unless that was it.

Mike Gonzalez 23:27

That's a great story, and and uh I'm sure both of you guys agree that back uh as you got your careers going, any little edge you could find, or at least something that you felt gave you an edge was important. And so, Paul, as you got into something you call progressive relaxation, and you thought, you know, not everybody's doing this. Maybe this gives me a bit of an edge over the guys I'm competing against.

Paul Azinger 23:52

I think that everybody looks for something they think they're doing that no one else is. You know, our Ryder Cup team in 2008 was bonded with a secret. You know, we had the pod system and we thought that was something they weren't doing, and that helped their mindset, it changed their brain. And, you know, when I did the progressive relaxation, all I could think was I'm playing the course in my head all night long. I can relax my body from head to toe. I've fallen asleep thinking about the course and how I'm gonna play every shot. You know, I'm there's nobody doing this. That's what I thought. Might not have been the truth. I think they were probably a lot of them were doing it. But I, you know, I I was so quizzical because I couldn't really, I wasn't consistent early. And I remember thinking one day I would just fill out a questionnaire for the great players and put it in Floyd's locker and Lanny's locker and Bruce Devlin's locker, put it in, you know, Nicholas's and Trevino's locker. Do you sleep on your right side? Do you sleep on your left side? Do you sleep on your back? Do you sleep on your stomach? Do you eat the same thing every day? Do you have a beer at night? Do you I was out of control? And I think what I ended up doing in my head, this is in '82. And I I started in my brain to eliminate what I considered to be variables, and I didn't know if anyone else was doing that. So in my mind, if I saw a guy grab a couple beers and walk out of the locker room, I felt like, well, I'm not introducing alcohol into my system tonight. That's a variable I've eliminated. And I said, I'm better than that guy. That's that's just in my brain. I just decided I was better than him because he was going to drink and I wasn't.

Mike Gonzalez 25:33

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 25:34

And it was all I believed it and it made it true in that respect. And it that's just how I felt.

Bruce Devlin 25:39

And that's all that matters in your mind.

Mike Gonzalez 25:42

Well, and Bruce, uh, you know, one takeaway I had from a previous talk we had with Dean Beaman relative to getting an edge, you know, Dean told us about, and this is something he passed along to Jack Nicholas, but back in the late 50s, talking about, he was the first guy he thought that actually went out and stepped off, walked off yardages. Right. And and checked, and had caddy's check pin positions before every round. And he th he felt, and then Nicholas obviously felt too, they were the first guys to do that. That really gave them an edge.

Paul Azinger 26:10

Bruce, you know, what was your goal every week? Out prepare the field. I mean, that's all I cared about. I just wanted to believe that no one outprepared me, that the best they could hope for was to tie me. Yeah. That's how I thought. There's some players though that gave you always the impression that they had the one up on you. Payne Stewart, I felt like was out preparing me when I played practice rounds with him because he would do things that I never thought about. Faldo, I played practice rounds with Faldo, and I was like, But it changes the way you think, you know?

Bruce Devlin 26:40

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 26:41

It changes there's so many influences on a career. Crenshaw influenced my career so much, but how would anyone ever know that? Trevino had such a huge influence on me. You know, you play shut face. I'm gonna teach you, you know, and he just taught me everything he could from shut face. It's just great. And you don't realize, you know, when a career wraps up, oh, I did this, I was that, I was this. So many influencers and relators that come into your career that just the guy that bends your irons, if he's a donkey, you never even know it.

Mike Gonzalez 27:17

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 27:17

I had Joe Powell bending my irons. He was at McGregor, he bent Wisecoff's clubs, he bent, you know, I had Donnie White, polka dot building my clubs at McGregor for me. And you know, just little things made a massive difference. Wouldn't you say, Bruce? Just that you don't even consider. You could have had three eight irons in your bag and not even known it, because the guy bending your clubs wasn't good at it.

Bruce Devlin 27:40

That's true. Yeah, well, well, I used to s you mentioned spolding. I used to go to Chickapee Mass and stand there and watch uh Sandy Fakene do the do the grinding for me and you know said, you know, if you were to do this, Bruce, it it would help you do that, and if you don't do that, then you're gonna have a problem, you know. I mean he went through the whole rigmarole about why the club should be ground a particular way. And of course we've seen that, you know, we've seen that happen now for I mean, now you can do it out on the tour, you don't have to go to Chickape, Massachusetts.

Paul Azinger 28:15

The trucks follow everything around, and I think now biomechanically and uh there's been so much R D um invested in product that things that were could have been opinion back in the 70s and eighties when we were getting our clubs worked on could have been wrong.

Bruce Devlin 28:35

True. Absolutely.

Paul Azinger 28:37

It's not wrong anymore. They're not wrong anymore. It it's hard to miss the sweet spot now. I mean, you know, my the sweet spot needs to be as big as the end of my finger, even still today. Even still today.

Mike Gonzalez 28:50

Those uh assumptions or opinions you mentioned back in the day, they can now easily be validated with technology today, can't they?

Paul Azinger 28:57

Absolutely they can, and that's why a lot of times as a broadcaster or just a just instruction in general, you can say things a certain way that can make a player really a better player. And then he can look at it and say, Oh no, no, you know what, technically you're wrong about that. You know, the science says there or the data says that, and wow, you're like, oh man, you can't just flippantly say Phil Mickelson's the best bunker player on tour. Well, you know what? He probably still is, but he might rank 170th in fan saves this year. So if you say it, you know. Uh yeah, I don't know. I I I just it's a great game, but I I do, you know, since you're archiving this stuff and it's it's for the for me, basically, as we're doing this and whoever wants to hear me out and hear this out. I I think golf is um instruction. I don't know what I I think there's only w really one fundamental, truthfully, and you can turn it into maybe two or three. But what I was taught were fundamentals are not fundamentals at all. They're opinions. So because to me, I was taught grip stance position at the top. That's opinion. Uh but I was it was driven in my head that grip was a fundamental. I said, But I hold it here and my fingers and my hands here, and my right hand matches, and Johnny Miller's over there, and his right hand's on top, and Corey Paven, and then you got all the people in between us Langer, Freddie, Daly, all these they're all going in the Hall of Fame, and the grips are all different. Position at the top, I mean, just look at Dustin Johnson with his wrist the way it is, and then just look where Sergio's going and Justin Tom. Uh position at the top can't be a fundamental. Hall of Fame's full of different positions at the top. Stance certainly, they're all different. I I really believe that I have put my finger on Blackmar, Phil Blackmar and I, both of us, have really we feel we knocked us out of the park. We don't know how to communicate the simplicity of it. But the the golf swing is simply to do it correctly is the transition of motion that is in the proper sequence, and the sequence is turn, turn, swish. It's not turn, swish, turn. So the you turn to the right, you turn back, your lower body must start the downswing.

Mike Gonzalez 31:20

Thank you.

Paul Azinger 31:20

Inevitably, what you'll have is one click where maybe your knee, your foot, your hips, something's gonna go left as the club's still going up. Correct. That's the key. One hundred percent. I agree with you. If so it's you hey, look, the great I asked Hal Sutton one time, I said, did I said, what did Jackie Burke say to you? What was his b best biggest thing? And it turns out to be the same thing Redmond used to say to me. Son, you can only get speed one time. It damn sure better be the right time. When is that? Well, it's not from the top, I'll tell you that. So if that upper body starts first, then you've lost your sequence of motion. It would be really hard for someone to swing an axe head to a tree and not have their lower body start first. Absolutely. There's something about that golf ball that wrecks it for us, and we sling that, there's that second result. You know, that ball's gonna move in the air. But bottom line, if you watch these guys on tour, it's two turns and a swish. Every single player, if you watch down the line from behind and watch the ball leave out, if they had a scorecard in their back pocket or a yardage book, almost 100% of them, that right back pocket will disappear. And when it comes back into view, the left back pocket comes into view. So two turns and a swish, man.

Mike Gonzalez 32:42

Bruce Devlin, you you had a chance to play a lot of practice rounds with Ben Hogan.

Bruce Devlin 32:48

I did, yeah, and uh, you know, you could take Paul's uh dissertation right there, and you can you you can easily see that when you watch Hogan's. When you took about two turns and a swish, that was a super turn and a super turn and a swish. I mean wasn't it though? Oh, just fantastic. Well, he uh he was uh I guess he was the gold standard for for all of us to watch and see how an individual actually swung the golf club to get the best results, and he proved that he was probably the best.

Paul Azinger 33:26

Well, Tita Green, I I think that was one I wish that I could have watched Hogan hit. I've seen him I saw him one time and was too scared to even introduce myself, which I regret now, but um, you know, Hogan wanted to smash, he wanted to compress that ball. You know, that's what we were taught is how to compress that ball. It's it's they compress it, but a lot of times it they can click it out of there without a divot now.

Mike Gonzalez 33:49

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 33:49

It's a sight to behold, really, um to watch players this day and age play. You know, uh I don't know. I I wish the ball would spin a little more. I don't know if you could put more dimples on it or something, but you know, the Hall of Fame's full of guys that hit upshooters, Bruce. We know that that upshooter's gone forever, never to be seen again. What happened to the upshooter?

Bruce Devlin 34:10

No.

Paul Azinger 34:10

What happened to that? Technology beat the upshooter down. It sure did.

Bruce Devlin 34:15

It sure did. So, you know, and that that obviously is a conversation that's worthwhile having too. What, you know, has the has the game really is it a better game today, or was it a better game, you know, forty years ago when the ball spun so much and and your bad swings were accentuated by the spin on the golf ball?

Paul Azinger 34:40

I I think it's a better game than today. Um because everybody hits it a little bit farther, or a little bit higher, um a little bit less offline. It's probably a better game. And and uh, but it has to be, you would think, a little easier. Um but if you look at scoring averages on tour and the numbers of greens and regulation and the numbers of fairways hit and all the instruction and all that stuff, Bruce, um, those guys aren't more accurate. They're certainly not more accurate than Hogan or Nelson or Tiger or Jack. They're not they're not they're not doing anything better than those guys did. It just shows you that with all that technology, there's something in your head that gives you that feeling of you know uh invincibility and sustainability. Um, you know, I was able to stay on tour 30 years, that's sustainability. I only played what I thought was really exceptionally for about seven to ten years. The rest of it's sustainability and keeping your card and knowing how to play and how to think. We'll never know what anybody's thinking, but we know how they all think. We know how to think, don't we? You know how to think. You could go out right now, and if I said you've got to break 75 today, well, I haven't played in three years. You could probably, you know, scratch it around because you know how to think. You know how to do it. Um these guys are brilliant players, they they have information overload, they have to deal with the stress and pressure of Twitter and all the negative garbage that comes flying to them. Hope you choke tomorrow. That's come that comes right to your Instagram or right straight to your Twitter, and they're all using it to build their brand, so they have to see it. And they subject themselves to that. So I think mentally they have to be pretty strong. But the game itself, to watch it at that level, I I mean, it is just frightfully exciting to me. Watching Bryson make a mockery of a hole and hang a ball in the air for ten seconds, it's pretty dang impressive, knowing that he can make a triple trying it.

Bruce Devlin 36:41

Or or a or a birdie easily out of the rough. That's that's crazy.

Paul Azinger 36:45

Well, he can make birdies out of the rough. I say this, though, I do believe that the the s the problem is for distance and all that stuff, it's just so easy to solve. It's just you know, I don't know how many dimples are on a ball anymore. Do you is it 416 dimples? No, no. Let's go back to 384 and say every no ball can have more than X number of dimples. Period. And then it'll spin.

Mike Gonzalez 37:10

Yeah.

Paul Azinger 37:11

I I talked to the USJ about that. I think that's too hard for them. They're shortening the legal length of a driver, which is probably, if you look back, it's probably something that's pretty simple. And uh, but my I I actually threw out another suggestion. I said, just lower the legal height of the T. You know, Bryson's got uh driver right now in 2021.

Bruce Devlin 37:33

Five degrees.

Paul Azinger 37:34

He's hitting off of he's hitting a five degree driver. He's hitting eight degrees up on it, six to eight degrees up. But you can only do that because the T's four and three quarter inches. If the T was three and a half inches or something, or just an inches shorter, no. I couldn't do it. And that would that would be part of the solution, just change the trajectory they are capable of launching it on. This dude's launching it s between twelve and eighteen if he can launch.

Mike Gonzalez 38:01

Right.

Paul Azinger 38:01

Come on. We were taught to play close to the ground. Hit that worm burner under the trees.

Mike Gonzalez 38:09

Well, we could we could do a whole podcast on this equipment discussion, and Bruce and I have actually talked about that, uh, Paul, uh getting the regulatory bodies on and and uh just identify from the very beginning. First of all, what are we trying to fix? Right? What's the problem? Let's define what the problem is. And and the the approach from the USGA and the RNA, the the problem definition is all about uh distance, right? It's it's uh it's their distant distance insight study. And everything's around distance. Uh what directly and indirectly impacts on distance? And I think uh you you both mentioned ball spin. That seems to be an easier one to get it back spinning the way it used to, which would probably cause guys to back off, don't you think?

Paul Azinger 38:56

Well, uh look, uh you can make a golf ball that goes half distance on some of these ranges, driving ranges, three-quarter distance, right? Cayman. Um it you can make a ball spin so much that it it can't work. And you can also have a ball with no dimples that'll knuckle so poorly it won't work. There's a spot in between there. It's perfect.

Bruce Devlin 39:19

No, I agree with you, Paul. Yeah.

Paul Azinger 39:21

That's just they they got it, they got it. All they gotta do is just put a hammer down and say, look, here's the deal. We figured out through incredible studies that the ball in order to go appropriate distance that we determine. I don't know, I don't know how you reign anything back this day and age, to be honest. Now, you know, now literally with the golf channel, you know, they're wanting content and they're gonna play this long drive thing, and I gotta tell you the truth, it's exciting. They rack out 30 balls as fast as they can. Come on. It's fun to watch. And it's like, man, if those guys can chip and putt, why not? So if you're the USGA, you got a bit of a situation. I th I think that the the easy thing right there was to shorten the driver, and I would shorten the driver and lower the height of the T. You can still swing as hard as you can. You know, that's mental too, by the way, Bruce. You know and I both know I can swing as hard as I can on every shot if I want. Right, but you don't you gotta have it's a mental decision to do that. You don't, because you just don't. But Bryson seems to do that. Yeah, and that is you gotta I remember thinking several times, you know, I'm gonna go out there this week and I'm gonna swing as hard as I can at every drive and I'm gonna hit every shot at the flag, and you get there and you can't do it. But he's doing it. That's when McCaddy lost the game.

Mike Gonzalez 40:48

Thank you for listening to another episode of 4 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, like tell your friends until we teat up again good of the game.

Outro Music 41:07

So everybody went smack down the fairway.