Shaun Micheel - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game. And Bruce Devlin. Let me give you some names for you to think about here. Colin Montgomery, Steve Stricker, Bruce Devlin, Ricky Fowler, Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Matt Kuchar, Ian Poulter, and I could go on and on. Any idea what those guys have in common?

Bruce Devlin 0:46

I sure do, because I meet that same standard. But uh the gentleman that we have today doesn't meet that standard of not winning a major because he won the 2003 PGA championship at Oak Hill. And it is a pleasure to have with us today Shaun Micheel. Shaun, thanks for joining us.

Shaun Micheel 1:08

Thank you very much for having me. It's uh it's a nice distinction. Um so it's good to be with you and share some of my some of my life with you today.

Mike Gonzalez 1:16

Sean, great to have you. And uh what what's it like to forever be known as a major champion?

Shaun Micheel 1:23

Yeah, I mean, I it's different now than I think it used to be. Um I I look at my career um, you know, probably much different than when I was playing full-time. Um you know, usually I get announced that way. Um and when I think about it, I it it does remind me of of the events that I didn't win. And I think I think about that more than I do the PGA, um, simply because uh as a as a player, you know, you you you want to win tournaments. That's really that's why you play. Um and I wasn't able to accomplish that. I mean, I I should have probably won a few more tournaments. There's there are reasons why uh that I've kind of figured out. But uh I take a lot of pride in the PGA. Um all of us that play professional golf, and even players that just play at the amateur level or even at the club level, um, have all probably had a lesson from a PGA pro. And um so I I take a lot of pride in that in representing the 28,000 men and women that do that every day. I mean, Lord knows, I don't think I could do do that. Um but I think about a lot of the players that you just mentioned. I think of Lee Westwood, he and I have played quite a few times, the impulse, I mean, all these guys, Steve Stricker. And I have been asked, you know, would you rather have won, say, five events or ten events or one PGA? And of course, I you have to get outside my body, so to speak, I think, to to really think about that. And you know, I almost think that I and this this answer changes, I guess, depending on the day, is I almost think that I wish I would have won kind of 10 events. I'd I wanted to have a consistent career. Um, I wanted to be out on the PJ tour. That's what I wanted to do for a living. Once I got through college, that's what I decided to do. Um, I always wanted to be a consistent player. I didn't necessarily necessarily have to be the best player. I didn't have to be famous, I didn't have to have five airplanes, I didn't have to have six houses. I loved the game. I loved playing the game. Um it was how I made my living, it was how I paid for my kids and and my house and all those types of things, but I didn't need the other stuff. Um and so as proud as I am of the PGA, I I think that uh having uh I wouldn't have I wouldn't have gotten kind of beaten up so much through the media um had I won a bunch of other things. Um I don't know what it's like. I know the players, I I would never ask them how do you feel about you know not winning a major championship with all the accolades and accomplishments that you have seen throughout your career. Um, you know, as players, we just we support one another, we we acknowledge great shots uh that the players hit, but you don't go to certain or certain places you just don't go with people and uh players because I think it opens up yourself to a lot of scrutiny. We all do that anyway to ourselves. I think we're our own worst critics. Um so that question I have thought about a lot, and I and my answer really is I think I just wanted a more consistent career. Um as proud as I am of that trophy and what I was able to accomplish, it just proved to be a very difficult time for me to try to one up at because I didn't I didn't know how to do it, I wasn't prepared for it. Uh I did some things that maybe weren't weren't too intelligent golf-wise, um, that kind of derailed some of the good things that I wanted to do. But the PGA allowed me to participate in a lot of events around the world that I uh maybe had always wanted to play in, particularly the majors, the masters, for example, the open championship. I mean, really all of them. Um but I was, you know, the my my relationship with the Make a Wish organization, uh raising money for children, being part of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital here in Memphis. I mean, that's that's been part of my life since I've been here. So, you know, long story, but but um it has been it has been difficult mentally and emotionally, I think, for me to try to have won that tournament and and not have you know really won anything else. I mean, I had some success afterwards, a few runner-ups and stuff like that, but um winning, uh it's fleeting, and and uh the guys that the guys that do it and that do it consistently, they're just special, special players. And I kind of say this, I the the players that are Hall of Famers, the players that have really won a lot of tournaments, I mean, they played for a lot of things. They played for the trophies, they played for the Hall of Fame, they played for their legacy, they played for their fans. And I summed my career up this way. I I played to keep my job. And if you look back at my career, that pretty much started on the first shot that I hit at the Sony at the Hawaiian Open, you know, because I started out the year going, well, I want to keep my card. And that's a that's not a that's not a way to be successful. And I was always kind of teetering on that. I think a lot of players kind of found themselves in that same uh predicament. Um, you know, do you let yourself go? I mean, there have been so many times that I've been on the golf course and I told my caddy, I said, God, why can't I just play like I played yesterday in the Pro-An? Why can't I hit a pitching wedge over this bunker instead of hitting a chip nine to a safe area in the green? And ultimately that's that's why I didn't win more. I I just played too conservatively, and I never could let myself play the way that I needed to play.

Mike Gonzalez 6:54

Yeah, Bruce Devlin, having played at a high level globally for a number of years, I'm sure you can relate to a lot of what Sean just uh shared with us.

Bruce Devlin 7:02

Absolutely, I can. And you know, in when you think when you you know, think about my career, for instance. I was reasonably consistent there for quite a few years, but never could crack the major championship. And uh, you know, I Sean, I may give you some of my wins if you know give me allow me to share your major championship with you. But uh that's what happens in this game, and you I think you handled it beautifully there by saying what you did. And uh it's uh it's still a great uh thing that you did to win the PGA championship, no matter what anybody said.

Shaun Micheel 7:39

Yeah, you know, I um the week, you know, it wasn't like it really came out of the blue. I mean, if if uh leading up to that, uh, you know, I played some pretty good golf. I remember playing uh I remember I was inside the the top 70, and I think people forget um that I qualified for the PGA for the PGA, obviously not for a win, but for top 70 of current year PJ to PGA. Now that's some pretty good play when you think about it. Um, you know, I remember Rich Bean telling a story. We did an outing together, and I remember him telling a story that um, you know, he he it's not to knock him, and we were good friends, but this is this is the reality of it. You know, he told a story at an outing we were doing at Westchester that said that he was coming down an elevator on a Monday with somebody who he didn't name. Um I was getting on the elevator at the hotel in Rochester, and he and he remembered asking the player, he goes, How did he get in this tournament? And I remember hearing that story, and it really set me off. And it still does, I think, to a to a certain extent, um, because uh when you don't take in consideration other players, and I mean, how could you possibly think that of another player? I don't think I've ever thought of like how would you qualify for this event. So it really upset me at the time. Um and again, it to qualify for that event, top 70, PJ to PJ, that that's some pretty good golf. And interestingly, after I won the next week, and Rich Rich explained this as well, he said that player, again, who who I don't know who is, um said, Man, I hope you talk to talk about me like that this week, you know, because um, you know, so um anyway, there there have just been a there have been a lot of things that I have have battled, um not so much like that, but just some of the some of the some of the press that I've received. And and uh but I've gotten just as much good press too. And I think it's like a player. You know, you remember you don't remember the eight burries you made, you remember the bogey in the last hole. And I and that's just that's just me. So I've had to learn to kind of let that go. And it's okay for me to acknowledge that. It's okay, it's okay for me to share some of this stuff with people. Um we've all gone through it no matter what you do for a living, or you know, but but um I think when, you know, getting back to my win, when you when you look at it, um I played some really good golf uh leading up to that. I knew that I was in a different uh different situation, and I learned that the very next week at uh Firestone. Uh just how difficult, just just how I would say, quote unquote, important uh this win was um in the kind of the annals of golf. Uh it really is just a golf tournament, but it was something that I was it was my it was my living, it's what I did, it's what I love to do. Um and I just realized just golly how difficult it was going to be for me to kind of navigate those waters. I was having a tough time with my agent at the time. You know, he wasn't sure what to do, as great of a man as he is. Uh we we were both just kind of we were just kind of navigating an unknown territory, so to speak. And um it just almost just proved to be just insurmountable. I mean, I I um uh I struggled for a while and I regained my footing shortly thereafter, but but uh anyway, uh for all the great things there were, and there were there were plenty of them. Uh just the the negative ones seem to seem to stick in my my brain.

Mike Gonzalez 11:10

Yeah, well we'll work our way back to the PGA uh championship in 2003, but we got a lot to cover before then as we uh tell your life story. So let's just take our listeners back to the beginning. We always like to talk about uh you guys growing up part of the game, you know, and so forth. And so we know you were born in Orlando, Florida, not sure you spent a lot of time there, but just take us through some of your early days as a kid. What do you remember?

Shaun Micheel 11:33

Well, I mean, yeah, I I like you said, I I my sister and I were born in Orlando. My dad had uh my dad had been flying um for one of the three-letter intelligence services, you know. I won't get into that, but he um uh decided it was time to have kids, started flying for an airline in um Orlando called Shawnee Airlines. And interestingly, if anybody that's driven uh World Drive in uh Orlando understands there's about a 3,000th um strip uh of concrete to the right there as you drive in. My dad used to fly people from the airport, which is now, I guess, the Sanford Airport, um, to to Walt Disney World when it first opened in the early 70s. So it's kind of fun to reminisce about that. But but he did that, um, and all of a sudden there was uh a notice that he got about a company called Federal Express, and he wanted to take a chance. He had $8,500 left on his GI Bill. He came up to Memphis, actually was Little Rock at the time, is where the company first started. And he um began training. They needed pilots. They had they had, I believe, three airplanes, three Falcon 20s at the time.

Bruce Devlin 12:43

Wow.

Shaun Micheel 12:44

They took his money, he trained, got hired. My dad, being in uh the Air Force, he didn't have a college degree in most of the airlines back in the day. If you think of like Eastern Airlines, Braneth, Pan Am, who are now defunct.

Bruce Devlin 12:58

Right.

Shaun Micheel 12:58

Um, you know, he they they required a college degree. And FedEx said we just need pilots. And they my dad did all of his training, and as I told you earlier, I have all of his logbooks. I have his first day of flight training that I go back and look at. So it's pretty interesting to go see that. Uh got hired uh in February of 73. The Federal Express uh operated their first revenue flight in April of 73. And I believe, um, I believe my dad, looking these senior lists, I think my dad was the 48th pilot hired. Wow. Um, they had a group of guys that were called the Dirty 30, and my dad was just outside of that group. Um so off to Memphis we we came when I was four years old. So I've been here now since uh 1973.

Mike Gonzalez 13:42

So let me let me ask you about Shawnee Airport. Your name is not derived from that, is it?

Shaun Micheel 13:49

No, no, I don't I you know uh I I you know it's funny, and my parents are have been passed on for a while now, but um I don't know, Sean just came up. My sister's name is Shannon. So Sean and Shannon would just seem pretty pretty simple. But yeah, he used to fly like uh uh twin otters and beach 99s, and he flew all over like the Bahamas and Miami, and but there's this thing called the stall port, S-T-O-L, the stall port at Orlando, that if you do a Google Earth and you look at it, you'll see it. And then my so my dad used to land there in like 1971, 72, something like that.

Mike Gonzalez 14:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh you moved to Memphis, and uh I assume if you're like most of our guests, you probably played a lot of different sports as a kid.

Shaun Micheel 14:33

I did, yeah. I mean, yeah, I played football and and basketball. Basketball I really loved, and I played that through my freshman year of high school, and then eventually golf had just kind of taken over, and I didn't have time for both. But yeah, I like most kids, I did I did everything. Um but I was always interested in flying, and and we'll probably keep coming back to that uh because that's that's that's what I wanted to do for a living. But yes, as a child, I didn't didn't play golf until probably 1979 or so. My parents, we moved from one area of town out to a place called Countrywood, which is where Bruce, you probably played their Colonial Country Club, where Al Geiberger shot us 59.

Bruce Devlin 15:11

So I was there that day.

Shaun Micheel 15:14

Yeah, oh, were you? Yeah, I mean Al and I Al and I love talking about that because he said of all the kind of the players, um, speaking more of say my generation, I'm about the only one that really knows the course. Um, and just how difficult. And it's still tough.

Mike Gonzalez 15:29

Uh if you and Bruce, if you came back, you'd be like, this place is still think think about it back then though, with you using the golf bowls and the golf clubs that he used to shoot 59. That's so amazing.

Shaun Micheel 15:41

Yeah, I mean, that would well yeah, I mean, that was the longest course on tour, even if you if you took out the international, it it held that uh distinction for a long time, even even into my my career. So um but yeah, I mean I moved out there and I played at a golf course called Stonebridge. I lived on the back of the green at uh Colonial, south of Forth Hole. I don't know, Bruce, you remember it's a big dog leg left um with a big bunker on the left side of the fairway, about two sit two sixty or so off the tee. And um so I would hone my skill every night. I'd go up and play and practice, and my parents were just on the other side of the trees down the hill, and when it was time for dinner, I'd hear Sean, it's time to come to dinner. So yeah, that's what I would do. And I was about ten when I first started playing golf.

Mike Gonzalez 16:28

Yeah. Well, what got you what got you started? Did your folks play, or did you have friends that played, or what was the deal?

Shaun Micheel 16:33

Yeah, my dad played. My dad played, um, and so he and all of his FedEx pilot buddies, um, they played at a golf course which was you know four or five miles from the house called Stonebridge. And so even though I wasn't a member at Colonial, I I did play it quite a bit. But for the longest time, I I uh would go out and just ride with my dad in the cart because I couldn't really play, I couldn't hit the ball every time, and that's really what my dad wanted. He wanted to see see me able really be able to play the game before I was allowed to play. And I think he took me out there um as a way of kind of uh just spending time with me because those early days at FedEx, um, you know, the men and women that were flying uh and just working, it was a grind to keep that airline afloat. Um and so he was gone a lot. He he would pick up trips, and um, so it was really just me, my mom, and my sister for the longest time. My dad would be gone sometimes six, eight weeks at a time if he was moving into a new airplane. Um, you know, he'd have to go to Denver. Uh Denver had the flight simulators when he moved to the 727th. So um I spent a lot of time alone with my with my mom and my sister, and I think he just kind of took that upon himself to introduce me to a game that he loved. And um, you know, my first my first ever pro was uh was a pro named Joe Cothy. Joe uh passed away, I think 2015. Um and he he actually had some pretty good accomplishments around uh the Tennessee section and everything. But um I didn't have a whole lot of friends that played golf back in the day. It just wasn't a cool sport, I guess. And so I found myself playing with with all my dad's friends, and you know, uh I really grew to love those guys because they accepted me. I don't know what they said when they when I when I was with my dad. I don't know if they're like, oh, here's Sean again. But it didn't take me long. I mean, I was beating my dad at 13, 14 years of age, and my dad, um, even before he died, had a you know, six or seven handicap as and you know, so um he was a good player, and most of the guys were good players, and they always welcomed me, which always made me feel good because my my dad um kind of always had me in tow. And there were days that that uh I didn't play, I would just go out and practice and things like that. But I grew I grew up really playing around uh my dad's uh friends.

Mike Gonzalez 19:00

Probably some uh real characters too, I would say, huh?

Shaun Micheel 19:03

Oh, yeah. I mean the stories, you know, uh I that's why I love aviation. Because uh several of my dad's friends were uh were Navy fighter pilots, uh flew F-4 Phantoms, uh F-86s, uh, you know, A7 Corsairs. So I knew a lot about aviation. I love being around it. I I almost felt like I could run FedEx as much as I, or at least the at least the pilot department, you know, whenever I was with them, you know, as an ear at an early age. But yeah, lots of colorful stories. We grew up also hunting. We had we always had property uh, you know, in Mississippi or Tennessee. We always had two or three hundred acres. And so I grew up, I just grew up around those those guys. Um a lot of stories I was always told, hey, don't take this home to your mom, you know. So there were a lot of things like that, you know. Um but but uh I had a great childhood. I uh you know, I found my what my my way into golf. Uh like I said, I finally uh had ruled out many of the other sports, basketball again after my freshman year, I just couldn't couldn't do that anymore. So but one thing is I I didn't play a lot of tournament golf. Um the if you go back and look at what the AGAGA tour, I think that's still what it's called. You know, that didn't even get started until 1986. So I'm into my juniors, almost senior year of high school when it started. Uh now my good friend Doug Barron, who's now won three events on the champions tour, most recently the regions, uh, we grew up together and he has been placing basically playing golf since he was like three or four. And he was always playing tournaments. So I don't know if like his life, if he was kind of predetermined that he was gonna play golf. Um but I didn't really enjoy I didn't enjoy traveling. I I didn't enjoy going to hotels, I didn't enjoy going on the road. I mean, I would play the Southern Amateur, the State Amateur, State Junior, Father Son, my dad and I won once, you know. So I played a lot of stuff like that. So I didn't play a whole lot, I mean, local stuff here in the city. Um, you know, I I definitely played uh Memphis four ball, Memphis amateur, different things, but I didn't play a lot of national golf um, you know, growing up. Um just I didn't like I didn't like traveling and it's I didn't really figure it was really necessary.

Mike Gonzalez 21:19

Yeah. I mean look looking looking back on that uh uh do you think maybe more times in the arena as a kid learning how to compete under the gun, would that have been more helpful for you or not necessarily?

Shaun Micheel 21:33

Oh, I don't know. I mean I was uh I mean I was just doing what I love to do. I mean, if I if there was a tournament that I was gonna play in, I played in it. You know, I you know after my freshman year, I won the state uh high school individual title, my sophomore year and my senior year. Um, you know, so I was a I was a pretty good golfer, you know, and that's back when we didn't have districts. I mean, it was if you know I played against everybody, whether it was a big school or small school, and now of course, you know, it's broken up into one. A, two A, three A, etc. Um, so I was I was a I was a pretty good player. Um, you know, and I and I was getting better. Uh but it was just a matter of how much I loved it and how much I wanted to work at it. Um, and you know, those days in the high school, yes, I started playing more and I found a lot of friends to play with. I was competing in the high school level, playing a few more events in the summer. Um, so that was starting to happen. It just was probably a little a little bit later in my life than maybe some.

Mike Gonzalez 22:28

Yeah, you know, during my high school days, uh, Bruce, it was Jay Haas and everybody else. Yeah. Right. We didn't have a chance. Yeah. And anyway, Shaun, uh when you learned the game, of course, you're too young probably to have played the small ball much, but you certainly started out with some wooden clubs, I guess.

Shaun Micheel 22:48

I did, yes, I did. I I had uh I think my first set of clubs was a set of Chi Chi Rodriguez clubs.

Bruce Devlin 22:57

There you go.

Shaun Micheel 22:57

And those were, you know, kind of, I think it was like the driver, the three wood, probably a five-wood, and then it was a a three, five, seven, nine sand wedge or something. You know, you didn't have a full complement of clubs. I was pretty short as a as a as a kid, you know, and I finally started to grow when I got into high school. But my first kind of full set of clubs where you had the eight iron and the six iron were Patty Berg's. Um I would like I said, I was pretty short. So my dad found me a set of Paddy Berg, uh, I guess it was Paddy Berg Wilson iron. I think he was with Wilson. I think so. Yeah. So they were um that's that's what I started playing when I first and I probably played with those, oh well, probably before I got into eighth grade or so, seventh grade, and then I got some pings. Um my dad used like the ping, the K1s, you know, the I twos. I mean, the K1 was like the original club. If you could find a set, I don't know, I can't remember. Does it does it have to say Phoenix or Scottsdale? Are they the most expensive ones the way they're stamped? The Phoenix ones, okay. My dad probably had a set of those, but who knows where they are now. But um yeah, so I I played that's that's what I started out playing, and uh, you know, I I still uh I have the clubs that I played with in college um still upstairs. Um but yeah, the wooden clubs. I remember one time my dad I'd gotten uh a three-wood, a new tilus three-wood, and he got me it was a driver three-wood and a five wood. And my dad wanted to hit the three-wood, which even to today, I cringe when somebody asked me to hit one of my clubs, you know. And so um he promptly popped it up and put a scuff mark along the top of the titleist and had to send it off. Yeah, he never asked to hit my club again. So um, yeah, and that was, you know, that's a long time ago. That was back surely probably early years of high school. So we're looking at like 83, 84, 85, something like that. But yeah, um, even as a as a pro, uh when I first turned pro, um, I used a Tony Penna driver um that my friend that Doug had, Doug Barron had, and had a Mississippi State shaft. Don't remember what the shaft brand was, but it was a red Mississippi State shaft. And uh and I used that for a while too. And and um, so that's you know, that's 92, 93.

Bruce Devlin 25:21

Yeah.

Shaun Micheel 25:22

Um and then of course, then everybody started making basically nothing but uh metal woods, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 25:29

Were you a pro when you had to make that transition to like a big bertha or a metal uh headed club, or were you still uh an amateur?

Shaun Micheel 25:36

No, I mean I I well, I mean, when I I used um I think I was using an old 9.5 tour burner driver, probably as a freshman in well, I know I was because one of my friends used the clique. It was the clique for wood, the real small thing with the rails on the bottom.

Bruce Devlin 25:54

Yeah, yeah.

Shaun Micheel 25:54

So those really came out when I was in high school in the early to mid eighties.

Bruce Devlin 25:58

Okay.

Shaun Micheel 25:58

Um, I just, you know, with the softball, I I didn't have any problems. I just loved the wood. I I I seemed to hit it pretty well and and and everything, but eventually I kind of got rid of that novelty and and went on to full metal woods.

Mike Gonzalez 26:12

Yeah. Well, you had a it sounded like you had a good high school career, a couple of individual championships. So uh take us through those days of figuring out what you want to do for college. You know, had maybe aviation in the back of your mind. Uh, what was the process for choosing a college and eventually playing golf there?

Shaun Micheel 26:29

Yeah, I I um I kind of figured that I was getting I was pretty good, and I was starting to get recruited a little bit in my junior year, and that's really when I first started thinking. I mean, college was always gonna be the next step for me. I I I think it was just kind of like, okay, you you're at eighth grade, you're in ninth grade, you're gonna go to college. It just was the it was just the way it was gonna be. And so um again, I've kind of felt like I needed a college degree. I would go to a school uh that had an aviation program, whether it was like a middle Tennessee state or a Purdue or something like that. Um and uh so I started getting recruiting and I took some visits. I didn't take a whole lot of visits um because I was looking for a full scholarship. Now my dad did very well. He didn't he didn't need me to go to school for free. I was very lucky in that. But um I took visits to western Kentucky. They had a they had a golf uh uh coach there named Norman Head who taught Kenny Perry how to play, uh, was was renowned, you know, as a renowned teacher. I took a visit there. Um I got letters from lots of colleges. Um, you know, um, you know, West Point. I got it, I got a letter from a coach that I was looking at a couple weeks ago. Um, you know, I went to Kentucky. Uh Kentucky uh Steve Flesh took me out on my recruiting visit. Um that was a lot of fun. I went to a went to a basketball game. It was uh Kentucky versus uh UNLV, the running rebels, when they were doing well. Um had a long late night. I got back to the hotel, I said, Dad, this is where I'm going. And I was basically offered a I was offered a full scholarship. And then not long after that, so that's where I was going. And not long after that, the coach had called and he said, I think there was a player that was either going to transfer due to grades or whatever, and then decided to stay and kind of rebounded that first semester, I guess it was gonna be the spring semester. Um, and so they said, Well, look, we can't give you a full ride, but we can give you um we'll give you a half ride this year. And at the about that time, I got another letter from from Indiana University. Um, there was a gentleman here in Memphis who was a uh uh an IU law grad and was actually a dean of the law school. Uh uh Dean White was his name. Um, and he had contacted the coach and hey, you know, you need to come watch this kid play. And so he I I was playing a tournament and uh he came and watched me play, and and they made me an offer. I took a visit and they offered me a full ride. So that's that and and that's where I went. Again, I didn't play a lot of national golf. And the golf that I did play, I mean, yeah, I won't I won a bunch of stuff around here. Uh I won my state high school a couple times, like I said, um, but I wasn't nationally recognized. So I didn't get the letters from say uh Oklahoma State or LSU, which is where Doug Barron went for you know for a little while. Um and so it wasn't until that summer that no, I'd already signed my letter of intent. Okay, I already signed that spring. I was committed to playing at IU. I loved the guys and everything. Uh then I won um the Future Masters. Uh that I guess it was probably in July of that year, which was at the time was like like the largest um, you know, kind of golf tournament for juniors in the world. Um maybe not the most. I mean, I don't know if Phil Mickelson ever played or Duvall, but there have been a lot of great players that have played it. And then after I won that, I got a number of letters from other schools asking me if I'd like to come visit and maybe rethink my commitment. And you know, it's it's June, July already. Um my dad said, Well, look, you know, you've made you've already made a commitment. I mean, what do you want to do? You I'd already he and I flew, I I flew a Piper Archer up to my orientation. He and I f I flew my dad up there, and uh, because I'd got my pilot's license in high school, you know, that I'd already just got my license, so I flew up there, and so that had already happened. Um, and so I just honored that commitment, and it was you know, it was the best thing that ever happened to me in the end. Um but the process for me was relatively easy because I basically went to a few few uh schools. Uh I did receive quite a few letters from smaller schools, University of Memphis, um, and uh, but I always wanted to go away. And so um, you know, I wasn't I didn't have um too many really kind of big time options um, you know, at really big time schools until I won that future master's. And again, I'd already committed and I was gonna honor that. So I went to Indiana.

Mike Gonzalez 31:08

Well, you got to go up against uh probably during your time, Stricker and Mike Small at Illinois, didn't you?

Shaun Micheel 31:14

Yeah, yeah, they were two years older than me. So when I was a freshman and sophomore, um, and I don't know how old Mike is, but but uh Steve was a junior senior at Wisconsin. And Steve and I have maintained a uh a pretty pretty good relationship. You know, his his wife, Nikki, I believe is my age, and her dad, Dennis Tiziani, was the coach at Wisconsin. Yeah um and so I would see him and still see him when I play in the Wisconsin tournament this coming year, uh, this next year, uh uh Steve's the Am Fam Championship is moving to, I think it's called TPC, is it TPC Wisconsin, I think. But that was the old Cherokee Country Club that I grew up playing as a collegium.

Bruce Devlin 31:54

Oh gosh.

Shaun Micheel 31:55

Um so yeah, there there were there were a lot of players that uh that I played against um that are that are playing uh you know playing the tour or champions tour or or or you know in the college coaching realm right now, if you will. Um and so um of all the of all the time, of all my four years though in high in college, there were only a couple of guys, maybe a handful of players that I played with that wanted to play pro golf. So I was in a little bit of a different arena by choosing to go there. Um in the in the beginning, when I think about it, it it may have been a mistake to have gone there because again, I wanted to be a pilot at the time. Uh Purdue is the school that really had the aviation program. Um they did have an airport at Bloomington. I flew a bunch of planes out of there, but I was really not going to be on any track to become a professional aviator through a program at IU. But I stayed. And um, you know, hopefully I'm not getting too far ahead of us here, but but um after the end of my sophomore year, we we were getting a new new coach. Um Bob Fitch, who was the coach and had been there for a long, long time, was gonna retire. And and so there I was, kind of um trying to figure out, you know, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna stay? And I was committed to going to Mississippi State. Uh, you know, uh Mississippi State's where Doug Barron left LSU, went to went to Mississippi State. I knew all the players. I played a lot of junior golf with them in different tournaments, like the Southern Amateur and those types of things. So I knew them. I knew the coach. The coach knew me. Um and I spent, you know, I made a few phone calls to the athletic department trying to figure out who was going to be the coach. And when I finally found out, the men's, the, the uh Sam Carmichael, who coached the women, and Sam played the tour from what 62 to 69, I think. And Bruce, you might have even played with Sam. Yes, I did. Sam Sam was an all-American, he was an all-American at LSU. He played the tour, he got hepatitis, I think, in 1968 or 69, and basically uh was off the tour. He played in at least one or two masters. Uh, you know, um, he was teacher of the year at Indiana for a long time, in the state of Indiana for a number of times. Um Sam is the reason I stayed, and Sam is the reason that I played pro golf. I give him all of the credit. I mean, as as much work as I put into the game, I gave Sam, I give Sam all the credit for encouraging me to give it a try. Um, you know, um, but he is the reason why I stayed in Indiana. And there's no other reason why I stayed there. It was Sam, because at that point, I was starting to think that, oh, you know, maybe I could play pro golf. And if I circle back just for a minute to my to my to my childhood, you know, I grew up on the fourth green of the South Course. That's where we had where they had the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic that Bruce obviously knows very well. Yep. Every summer, every summer, I would take my lawn chair with my dad and I'd go up and I'd sit on the back of the green. And the fourth green was here. The fifth T would have been just to my left, about 20 yards, it was a long par three. Bruce, remember? I don't remember driving. It's a par three. Um, Bob Hope made a hole in one there in 1977. Or no, it was Gerald Ford. Gerald Ford made a hole in one in '77. There's a there's a there's a monument there to to honor that. So I would literally go with my dad, I would sit on the back of the green with it with a pair of binoculars, and I would I would sit there and I'd go to the, I'd just go back and forth between the fourth green and the fifth T. I met a lot of players. Uh, I think guys like Mike McCullough, um, Forrest Fesler, um, Rex Caldwell, JC Sneed, Sexy Rexy, Larry Nelson. I actually met those players. Did I mention JC Sneed? He signed, I have a glove that he signed for me when I was, I don't know, uh 11 or 12, something like that. He was staying with a friend across the street that he went to college with. So that was my introduction to golf. And as cool as I thought that was, I mean, I never had any inkling that I could play professional golf, but those are the players that I grew up with. And interestingly, um, I put out a post because um Oak Hill, Jason Ballard, uh, who's the pro at uh Oak Hill, um, played with Larry a couple of weeks ago, and I put I kind of relayed a little bit of a story underneath his um LinkedIn post, you know, talking about some of the guys that I just mentioned. So um I was introduced to professional golf at an early age. Um, that, and then going to the Tennessee Junior Golf Academy, I was 11, 12, and 13, I guess, there. And, you know, I got to meet Lou Graham and and uh Greg Powers and Mason Rudolph each uh each of my three years, those were the three players that were there. I got a picture. I still have the pictures. Matter of fact, in the hall of at the Hall of Fame in Nashville, um, they have a picture of me as uh as like an 11 or 12-year-old standing next to Mason Rudolph. I got these big high socks with red stripes on the top and and everything. So I was able to kind of get around professional golf as a as a young person. Um, you know, Mike McCullough really was the was the I wouldn't say it was the nicest person because he was a roommate of one of my father's pilot friends who I'd known since he started flying for FedEx. Frank Fedo was his name, and so Mike would always stay with him, and Mike would come around late in the afternoon, and he would he would spend some time with me on the putting green, up on the fourth green, and and I would watch him chip and putting, and we talked and stuff like that. So he was really the first pro that I had any type of like lengthy conversation with. Um but I loved it. I mean, we would walk around, I mean, every every every year the DTMC would come through. My mom used to have a a jar because people would park out on Rock Creek Parkway and they would walk through our yard. This is back, I mean, I'm sure they had tickets, but there was really only one entrance back in the day, probably, that they even and and so people would sneak through my yard and walk up behind the green. So my mom would put out a jar and she put it, she put a jar, a big, I mean, a big jar, had a small top, you could put dollars, coins, whatever, and she would donate, and she had a big sign, said if you'd like to walk through the yard, please consider leaving a donation to St. Jude. And so my mom actually had made it in the newspaper a couple of times for her philanthropic work for St. Jude. And um, sometimes it might have been a hundred dollars, sometimes it's a couple hundred dollars, but then there was one year when when somebody came and they stole the jar. They broke the jar and took all the money. Um, so that really hurt my mom. My mom, it really, you know, it I kind of makes me sad thinking about it now. You know, it kind of gets me kind of emotional that that somebody would, you know, do that. But yeah, somebody broke the jar and and took all the money. And obviously never found who did it, but but uh so my ties to to this tournament, the DTMC, now the FedEx St. Jude what championship. Um I've been part of this event for you know since I was 10 years old. So I'm I'm yeah, that and that's how my relationship with St. Jude started. So um but anyway, I've kind of gone a little haywire with some some of this, but oh that's all right.

Mike Gonzalez 39:11

So let's let's go back college days. Uh you're thinking about what you want to do when you grow up, and you aviation was in the back of your mind. Maybe not the place to best prepare for professional aviation, but uh take us through your thought process as you're approaching graduation, what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Shaun Micheel 39:27

Yeah, well, so Sam took over my start of my junior year. It's when I really started to play well. Uh I I I was working hard, I was I was doing a lot of drills, which I love. I love drills. Um I don't always like hitting balls, but I like I like doing the drills, and Sam gave me a number to work on. There's things that I need to work on in my golf swing to be a little bit more of a consistent player. I won three tournaments my junior year, yeah, my junior year. Uh my going into my senior year, I won five and should have won seven or eight. Um I was a first-team All-American. It was me and David Duvall and Phil Mickelson and guys like that. So, and Chris Smith from Ohio State. Um, had a great, great college, uh, kind of end of my college career. And again, I go back to Sam. I owe everything to him. Uh he was really the impetus for me to kind of go on. Um, I took an extra semester to to graduate, enjoyed one more kind of slash football, slash basketball season, trying to figure out uh what I wanted to do, where I was gonna go. Um, you know, um still able to practice with the team and and tried to help help the new players um, you know, out. You know, I won the I won the Big Ten individual title. We won the the Big Ten uh team title that year at Purdue. Um and so so my golf game was was really good. And um I spent that last semester trying to figure out what I was gonna do and and uh uh ultimately decided on you know starting my my career in uh in South Africa. So I uh the four years, you know, four and a half years, I mean I would say it went by pretty quickly. Um I started out kind of a kind of a mid-level player, just kind of uh I played every single tournament my my whole career. Um as a freshman, I started. I played, I was probably I think I was the third or fourth player on the team. Uh never got to be one or two the first year or so. But um uh, you know, I played played every tournament, so I was learning a lot, enjoyed my time in college. Um probably didn't enjoy it as much as when I go around, you know, the colleges, especially with my daughter now that's looking, I'm like, I really didn't take advantage of the college lifestyle too much, you know. And I look back, I was just really, really focused, really, my last two years on golf. And whenever practice time was over, and I don't remember there being any rules. Now it's 20 hours that the coaches can be with the players. And I don't know if there was a rule back then. But even so, I was always on my own practicing. I was kind of a solitary practicer. Uh, not so sure how I was received by my teammates. Um, you know, we enjoyed our time together. I don't know really what they thought of me. I was a bit standoffish, and I think that's a little bit of me today. I think if you met me, you would think maybe I'm a little bit standoffish, but when I'm working, I'm working. I don't care if I'm at my home club, and I was always that way. Uh and I and I'm not patting myself on the back, you know, but it was it was really uh being that way helped me get to where I wanted to be. Um and again, it just um I finally fallen in love with the game. And at that point, I'd finally decided that that's what I wanted to do. So it was pretty much all in on golf. And um, you know, again, I I think that my teammates might look and say, Oh yeah, he wasn't real friendly, or maybe he was, or I mean, I maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing. But I was I was grinding, and it was because of Sam. He had me out there working, I wanted to be there, and he he always appreciated hard work. And if I was gonna put in the work, he was gonna be willing to stay with me. And so Sam and his wife, Sue Carmichael, um, are probably my two biggest fans outside of my family, and uh I love them to death. Um and uh uh I see him, I see him a you know a few times a year, and and uh uh they were very encouraging. And Sue never cared that Sam was late for dinner because he was always he was he was always working with me and and the other and the others too. I wasn't the only one. There were there were a lot of players that worked hard. I mean, the the whole team worked hard. I just seemed like I was just staying out there till dark. So I so I missed out on some of the fun things that the college had to offer, and probably a good thing.

Mike Gonzalez 43:44

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we take the video. It up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Outro Music 44:05

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. Then it started to slice, just smidge off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My caddy says, long as you're still in the state, you're okay. Yes, it went straight down the middle, quite away.