Paul Azinger - "Short Arms/Deep Pockets - Life on the Road" SHORT TRACK

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Let's go back to life on the road, then we'll recap your your record a little bit. But uh you mentioned uh you mentioned the uh the motorhome. Was that the 1983 Vogue?

Paul Azinger 0:25

It was. It was. It was a 1977 Vogue or a 19, but we bought it in '83. It wasn't brand new, so if it was in the book, it was written wrong. Um, but it was a Vogue mini motorhome. And today, enthusiasts, they don't they've never even heard of that brand. I don't know what happened to it, but we loved it. We had a cat named Cleo that we bought in uh at the BC Open at the mall in Binghamton. Uh you remember that? We bought a cat named Cleo, and that cat lived with us in the motorhome for four years. Played the mini tours and lived in Orlando and really the Sheridan Twin Towers parking lot, and uh played the JC Goosey Mini Tours. There were great times. I remember one time up at we were on the turnpike up in New Jersey or New York somewhere, and we got on the turnpike and we're cruising along and get to the toll booth, and the motorhome doesn't fit in the toll booth. And uh we had missed the sign. I was I was driving, missed the sign where you we weren't allowed on there. There's no way to go but backwards. So I was on the shoulder and went backwards in this motorhome looking in my mirror for a couple miles before I got back to the exit. One of the scariest things ever. We had all kinds of stuff happen. My wife was driving at one time, leaving Dural, went through the toll booth and it didn't fit and just ripped the awning right off the side of the whole thing. It was a great time though, great times of our life we're living in that camper. And uh but we finally when she started when she got pregnant with Sarah Jean, our our first daughter, she had her in December of eighty-five. We finally got out of there. I got a deal, uh, and we lived in a villa in Bradenton, a parish, a town called Parish, uh, at River Wilderness, and I wore this logo on my hat for five years for twenty-five thousand bucks a year. And at the time I probably could have been getting about two or three hundred thousand a year, but I had signed this five-year deal and I was trapped, so I just I just did it.

Mike Gonzalez 2:30

Days on the Road, Curtis Strange uh uh tells us that uh his budget, he and Sarah's budget for hotels back in the day was eighteen dollars a night.

Paul Azinger 2:41

Yeah, well, Curtis had the reputation for having short arms, deep pockets.

Mike Gonzalez 2:46

Deep pockets and those alligator alligator arms, huh, at the at the dinner table?

Paul Azinger 2:55

That's right. But uh I tell you this, and at the Houston Open in 1984, my wife and I stayed at a Motel 6, and it was but at the time I think they were Motel 12s. Remember they went up to like$12.99. And you still had to pay like three dollars to get the key to the television. But when uh I opened the door the next morning to go to the course, I couldn't open the door, and I looked over the air conditioner out the window, and there was a dude laying there um blocking the door, and he was dead or passed out. I didn't know. I so I called the front desk. I said, There's a dead man stretched across my front door, and they it was just a homeless guy. We were right in a homeless area, and it was a homeless guy just passed out drunk. I couldn't open the door. So that that was you know, I remember I remember we had some hairy situations on our tour, places that we stayed back in the day. Scott and Sally Hooke were actually tied up and robbed in their hotel. An incredible story, and uh Scott never talks about it, but what a horrifying thing for both of them. And we always we stayed in places we shouldn't have been, I think a lot of us. The tour didn't help that much with accommodations, and if you didn't know what you were doing back then, you could have ended up in a scary spot. Well, I did it at Riviera at my rookie year. I flew out to LA and landed at eleven o'clock at night. I had a couple hundred dollars with me and was had to qualify at LA North for the Riviera tournament. And I went out of that place right past nude nude nude, right into Anglewood, into the worst section. But I went into LA and and I couldn't get in a hotel room because no one would break a hundred dollar bill. And so I went into a 7-Eleven and I walked in there and there was a c empty cash door on the counter, and this guy came out white as a sheet. Somebody had just put a gun to his head, and I he must have walked out as I pulled in. There's so many little things, you know, back then. We stayed in some scary spots in the early 80s.

Mike Gonzalez 5:02

Uh Sarah Strange, one time she walks into a room. This is a room with red uh shag carpeting, crushed velour pillows, and I don't know if it was the maid or somebody approaches her in the room and says, Young lady, does your mother know who you where you are? I believe it. And she says, What what well yeah? As a matter of fact, I just talked to her, and turns out uh as as Curtis said, this place was this place was rented by the hour. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. There was a lot of and he was probably at the golf course, you know.

Paul Azinger 5:35

You know, we were all it's a naive generation that came out in the 70s and 80s. You know, the internet now, it's I I mean, you almost wish for some naivety for the young folks. Now everybody knows everything. That little white palette has never been.

Mike Gonzalez 5:51

We hope you've enjoyed this short track of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe. Read the word. Tell your friends. Until we teat up again. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 6:12

Just offline. My head, as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.