Shaun Micheel - Part 2 (Early Professional Career)

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

What was the process for you of turning pro? Did you just cash a check one day and uh or did you have to declare yourself pro or what how was that process?

Shaun Micheel 0:24

Yeah, it's been yeah, I mean, I just I just entered my first term as a pro. I had uh uh, like I said, throughout that that last semester, um, you know, towards the end, I was kind of figuring out what I was gonna do, and I had heard about the South African tour, the sunshine tour. And so that's what I did. I got out of college, had I had uh a little bit of time, and sometime like the probably the second week of January or third week of January, Bruce, I don't know if you ever played that tour, but I never did know. I got on an airplane with some, I got on my got on an airplane with some friends, got on, went to, I guess it I think it was New York I went, got on South African Airways, and flew right to Joburg. Oh, but to Johannesburg. I had a an apartment with a friend of mine who played at Miami, Ohio, named Sean Gorgon. Sean was a great collegiate player, uh, played really well as a pro, but but never quite, you know, got going. Um and uh we lived in a place called Santon City, which was kind of the midtown, mid-city there. Uh we played, you know, the Wanderers Club. We played in Cape Town. We play, I mean, we played all over.

Bruce Devlin 1:28

A lot of good courses.

Shaun Micheel 1:30

Yeah, oh yeah, so many. I mean, you know, the Wanderers Club has a has a uh the cricket club is right next to the first T. Um uh uh Glendower, Houghton. Houghton is a course that they uh you know hosted the South African Open. I mean, a lot of times. So that I spent six or seven weeks there. Uh, you know, that was the first kind of my first foray in the in the golf. When that tour ended, I came back, didn't have a whole lot of success there. Uh it was new, it was I was a long way from home. Um, you know, my personality is is I just was a little bit homesick. Um never really been that and it kind of goes back to my early days that I didn't really like to travel. So I was learning new stuff. And um, you know, I tell my son this, he's 20, about to be 21 next month. And I said, you know, when I was almost a little bit older than you, you know, I literally was going to South Africa by myself, you know, trying to explain to him and trying to give him an understanding of what real life is about to be for him. You know, this calling home every day. I mean, I was on my own trying to make a living, and and uh, you know, and so I came back and and uh and started playing the mini tours in Florida. And uh I lived, I lived, uh I've I lived in uh Orlando, uh Winter Gardens where I lived, and Doug Baron and I, again, I've mentioned him a bunch today. Um we we had a house or an apartment in Winter Garden and we played the Tommy Armor Tour. Uh they had three-day events, they had two-day events, had one-day events. Um, you knew you're playing five, six days a week. So that's that's how I got started, just kind of mini tours.

Mike Gonzalez 3:06

Yeah. Uh had a couple of goes at the at Q School, uh uh at least. And uh, but uh as Bruce knows and has talked about many times with our guests, uh, you get out in the professional ranks, it's not easy to win, is it?

Shaun Micheel 3:21

No, no, it wasn't. And I and my first win was um I think 90, it might have been 90, in the 92, early 93. I I was playing the Tommy Armour Tour, and we were playing a place called Harbor Hills. Um, and I beat Brian Mogg, M O G G Brian Mogg. We beat him, who's a who's now a teacher teacher. You see him on YouTube, you see he's written a bunch of articles for golf, golf digest. I was a great player. We actually were in a nine-hole playoff.

Mike Gonzalez 3:47

Oh my.

Shaun Micheel 3:48

And on the ninth hole, I made a par, he made a bogey. It was gonna be the last hole because it was getting dark. But that was my first win. I think the check was$3,000. Um, you know, and so yeah, that that's uh I learned pretty quickly. And after being an all-American uh my last year of college, I got out on tour in what '94, so the 93 Hughes School, and I realized everybody out here was an all-American. I didn't do anything special. Um, you know, and so I was like, wow, I just got beaten up pretty quick. But um I enjoy I did enjoy those two years. Um I got on tour, I would say, relatively quickly for say someone of my ability. I mean, you had Phil Mickelson who'd already won. Um, you know, some of these guys, you can't really put a finger on it. Why why are they so good? I mean, if they look at a 10-footer and you have a 10-footer, why do they make it and you don't? I mean, I don't I don't know what it is. And and but Phil always had something, David Duvall. I mean, they just had something about them, the confidence. And I think you can see that in David. Uh, David always had the glasses, he hid behind those glasses. Even as a collegiate at Georgia Tech, he was like that. Um, maybe there's a bit of an ego there. Uh there's definitely some confidence in your ability. Um they knew what they wanted and they got it done. And players like me, I was always a little bit timid. I was always kind of on the fringe. Uh, it was kind of a shy kid. And I think when I first got out there on tour, first of all, I didn't know anybody. Most of my contemporaries, my contemporaries that I played with in high school and college, they were still playing many tours. And I basically had gotten onto the PJ tour. I shot a 67 the last round at the Nicholas private course with my dad Caddian. Uh and there it was. I was in a playoff and and uh yeah, so then I started my tour career, not really knowing anybody, and again, trying to learn new courses. And yeah, the the wins are the wins are just they're hard to come by, especially early in my career.

Mike Gonzalez 5:44

Yeah, I mean you you don't know the you don't know the courses, you don't know the hotels, you don't know where to eat. There's a lot going on those first few years as you kind of get your sea legs on tour.

Shaun Micheel 5:55

Yeah. Yeah, Dickie Pride and I laugh um laugh a lot about um going we had so whenever we finished, um everybody else went home. I tied for 36, I think, and there were probably 47 or 48, maybe 50 guys, maybe because we had a big playoff at the end. Um, and I think I had gotten like the 46th number because I've already anyway. Um but Dickie Pride and I sat in there for a couple days. We had our uh PJ Tour orientation where they teach you about how to commit. Uh I mean, it was always how do you represent the PJ Tour? I mean, that's that's always that's that that's kind of the first thing. It's like, what do you do now that you are now part of this brand? Um, how do you commit to tournaments? How do you travel? Uh what are some of the rules of uh you know uh you know, getting into the tournament? You got a credential. You have to have this credential everywhere you go. Um you got to have a money. We had a money clip, we didn't have a picture ID. There um, how do you uh how does the retirement work? How do you, when you make a cut, what happens? I mean, well, what happens when you enter a tournament, but you notice that you aren't in? You're like, why did I why am I not in this event? Because, you know, not everybody gets to play every week. And we see that now, even more than ever, that the players that that are very good players, uh their schedules are very limited. Um, and it's just gotten it's gotten worse over the years. So there were a lot of things. The funny thing about Dickie and I that we laugh about, Dickie was about to get married. He was uh, you know, and Kim's gonna hate this story. She's probably heard this a hundred times. But Dickie and I are sitting in the orientation, he's you know, I think I'm about to get engaged. Uh, you know, I met this girl Kim and blah, blah, blah. And I said, Are you sure you want to do this? We're about to be rookies on the PJ tour. I hear it's pretty good. You know, so so that this is the conversation that we had. It was just kind of a funny, funny thing. And um uh, you know, uh that's just something that I kind of remember. Um, but yeah, it was um uh the beginning of that. Uh I remember my like I said, my family was with me when I got my my when I got my card for the first time, and everybody was excited. But again, I knew that I was kind of in for uh I knew I was in for something new. I'm not sure I was quite quite, and I wasn't ready mentally for it. I probably hit the ball back then. I probably hit the ball as solid as as I ever had in my life, you know. Um, but um it was just uh it was a fun experience going to try to relive some of that with you guys today, just thinking about just how green I was behind the ears, because I just wasn't ready. And being, like I said, being a kind of a shy personality, I wasn't I wasn't great. I I I um I wasn't great with the fans. I was always nervous around the fans. And again, that was another thing that I think I wasn't the reason why I wasn't quite as successful as I would have liked to have been, is because I was always a little bit nervous about you know, not really playing in front of people, but just hearing some of the people the things. Um, I hit a couple people early in my career that really upset me that I think about today, you know, I would get offline and I'd hear people, you know, say things, and I just as a young kid, I just wasn't I wasn't ready for that. I think the kids today are brought up, um, not that it doesn't bother them uh you know personally, but I think they're able to kind of move past it a little quicker than I was. I held on to those things a little bit longer. But um, you know, those early days, yeah, they're they're they're they're tough. You don't get a lot of opportunities. Um you're always an alternate, seemed like for the most tournament, you're waiting. The commitment deadline was at five o'clock on Friday. You're busy calling over the weekend. Hey, am I in? Um, you know, trying to buy airline tickets at the last minute. Um it was expensive. I had I had several sponsors here. My dad um put together a group of guys that were FedEx pilots and one doctor that supported me throughout my mini tour career and my PJ tour career, um, all the way up until 1998 when I won the Singapore Open and was able to kind of finally move away from having sponsorship. I didn't need any help after that.

Mike Gonzalez 10:00

Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you were self-funded or maybe family-backed. Uh it didn't take Bruce very long to go broke on tour, did it, Bruce? No.

Bruce Devlin 10:09

No, it didn't take me very long at all.

Shaun Micheel 10:12

Yeah, I mean, it it's hard. Yeah, it it it it's difficult. You know, um, you know, I was lucky in the sense that there were there were a lot of mini tours around. There was, you know, there was the Tommy Armor Tour, there was the the there was another tour, the Space Coast tour, um, that also competed kind of opposite this Tommy Armor tour that was run by a uh husband and wife named Terry and Jenny Fine. Um they lived in Orlando and this tour kind of went all around and everything. But um, yeah, it it I think most guys enjoyed that. Um the common goal, I guess, for everybody was to find their way onto the PJ tour. And when I got into the PJ tour, I I realized it wasn't good enough just to be there. I was like, wow, what can I do to stay out here? Because I really enjoyed that that lifestyle, enjoyed traveling at that point, you know. By then, you know, I'd I'd been around, I'd been traveling, and that and all that the trepidation that I had early in my career about traveling, uh, you know, had got had gone away. And uh, you know, I needed to I needed to fall in love with that because that was gonna be my life. Uh as crazy as it was, and kind of the traveling circus that people um describe it as uh is exactly that.

Mike Gonzalez 11:23

Yeah, before we uh uh talk about some of your other wins, uh uh let's just take you back to 1994 because we've certainly heard about uh the story of uh of what happened with you at a golf tournament uh playing in New Bern, North Carolina. Take our listeners through that event.

Shaun Micheel 11:40

Well, I uh you know, as I said, I played a lot of mini tours. This was um this tour was called the TC Jordan Tour. T C was a gentleman that I believe um had he'd made a lot of money in the real estate business and wanted to create a golf tour. And uh again, I was kind of playing anywhere that I could um just to stay competitive. And and Doug Barron and I were rooming together in New Bern playing an event, and we had gone out into the parking lot. Um, you know, we're gonna go to the golf, we were actually gonna go get some lunch and then go to the golf course. Um and then we heard this commotion and we look out, and we were probably I don't know, maybe 150 yards from where this person, this car was in the water. And we're like, we didn't know what they were doing, we didn't know if they're filming a commercial or whatever. So we ran over. They had gone off this embankment and kind of gone down and gone into the river. Um, well, we sprinted over there, and I was, you know, we had to wear pants back in the day. So I had basically, I knew I was gonna have to go out there by now that the this noose river, um, I mean, I don't know, it's a mile wide probably. Um, the car was getting pulled out. Um I took all my clothes off down to my orange fish boxer shorts, but you can find it, it's on YouTube. If you type my name in, you type in Sean McKeel Newburn Rescue, you see how young I was, and you'll see me stand there in my orange boxer shorts because my my brother-in-law found the video and it's out there on YouTube. But anyway, um I went out there, there was a gentleman uh named Bill Forrest, and Bill Forrest passed away a few years ago. He owned a gas station on the corner. His son reached out to me uh last year. And um anyway, I had gone out there. There were two two elderly people in there. They were probably in their, well, I guess to be their early 70s. I think they were both in their mid-70s at the time. Uh there was a uh man and a woman, and uh we go out there and they wouldn't get out of the car. And now by now we're probably it's probably I mean, it's probably right at five and a half, six feet, and the car is just going out further. And we're probably, I don't know, 50 yards, 75 yards off of shore now, and going further and further out, and they couldn't swim. And so um we got them out of the car. I think I got the gentleman out. He was in the back. And we got him out and got him back to shore. By now, there was a crowd had gathered around, and the news crews were there, and the police were there, and the uh and stuff like that, and we kind of got them up to shore, and um, I remember just kind of doing a couple of interviews, one interview with the TV station there, standing there with no clothes on, and um, so it's kind of funny to go back and watch. But you know, it it's um well that was really the first time I'd ever kind of experienced something like that. Um I wasn't really sure. Well, I didn't really know what else to do. I don't think anybody, you just you just what do you what are you gonna do? There's people out there, and you just you know, I took my clothes off because I didn't know how deep it was. And for some reason it just it just dawned on me as like I can't afford to be out there with my be weighted down. I just didn't know. And then that's that's how that came to be. As quickly as I could, you know, could do that. And um I just swam out there and and and like I said, we got them back to shore and and uh you know I never I never never heard from, not that it really mattered, um, but um, like I said, they were in their mid-70s and had a car full of groceries and a trunk full of groceries.

Mike Gonzalez 15:12

And well, let me let me ask you something. Uh uh, do you happen to know the story of Mary B. Porter?

Shaun Micheel 15:20

No, I don't.

Mike Gonzalez 15:21

Okay, so Mary B. Porter has been a guest on the program, not because she won a major, but because of her other contribution to the game of golf. She uh really pioneered junior golf in Hawaii, was very key in the development of Michelle Wee, but she too was a professional golfer, played on the LPGA tour in the early days, had some parallels to your career. She has one win on tour, okay, and a mindset that woulda, shoulda, coulda, you know, maybe I'm an underachiever and all that stuff that you probably have thought about. But the other parallel is while trying to qualify for an LPG tournament uh in the qualification round, she notices a small uh boy that's uh uh uh has fallen into a swimming pool right across the fence of the golf course, leaps over the fence, pulls him out, does the whole you know rescue thing uh and saves this kid from drowning. Right? And um, her her playing partners continued on. I think there was only one golf, and that was Meg Mound that even stopped to see could she help or anything else. Well, anyway, long story short, she missed us qualifying for the tournament by one shot, uh, and then um everybody thought the better of it and said, you know what, Mary B, we're gonna let you in this week's tournament.

Shaun Micheel 16:43

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Bruce Devlin 16:46

So, Sean, uh, I know that you you actually won the tournament in Singapore. And uh, you know, in my early days I got to play a little bit in in through the Asian tour, up through Malaysia and uh Japan a little bit, played a few times there. So it's quite an experience playing over there. And as a matter of fact, it's it's rather very interesting, I thought. How about you?

Shaun Micheel 17:11

Oh, absolutely. I um, you know, uh I had my my PJ tour card in both 1994 and 1997 uh with a Nike tour card in '96. I was pretty dejected really after 97 because I thought that I'd really learned a lot about myself, a lot about my game in the couple of years that that I had been away from the tour. And it just turned out that again, I just wasn't I just wasn't emotionally ready. So at the encouragement of my agent at the time, uh he encouraged me to join uh a fellow player named Charlie Wee. Charlie is doing pretty well on the champions tour, and um uh he said, you know, Charlie was uh South Korean and was telling me about the Asian tour, and I'd already been to South Africa, so so I figured why not? Um so I entered the Q school, which I believe was in January of '98. I think it was in January. It was after Christmas, yeah. And I flew over to Kuala Lumpur, and I played, I was actually in a town called Johor Baru, I think is the town that I was in. But I flew into KL and I had to go through two stages because even though look, I I think even though the people were like, hey, you this guy played the PJ tour for two years, I still they still made me go through the first two stages. Originally I thought I was gonna get out of that, but I but anyway, I had to go. Played well, uh, finished, I don't know, probably top 10, maybe top 12 in the qualifying school. So I was able to play. And interestingly, they the Asian tour, uh, in any one event, they only allowed 35 non-Asians to compete each week. Don't remember if the fields were 120 or 130 or 144. I don't I don't remember the field sizes. So that was going to be a big barrier. So it was important for me to do as well as I could in the in the qualifying process. And and I did that, went back and and uh uh, you know, you think I'd remember my first event. I don't I don't I have to go back and look. But um I played in in India and Myanmar and Macau, play the VJ Singh and Macau. Um, you know, I played in a lot of places. And this this event in Singapore, first time obviously I'd ever been there. My dad, you know, flying for FedEx at the time, you know, he'd been to Singapore a lot and and uh and um you know was playing pretty good golf. And and uh at that time, you know, the Singapore was kind of like referred to as kind of the the the major in Asia, if you will. There were players, you know, Adam Scott played, Carlos Franco played, Angel Cabrera played. I mean, there were a lot of really great international superstars. Todd Hamilton, I think, Brant Joe probably played, they were stars in in Japan. But the reason I went over there was to get away from kind of the the dejection that I kind of felt um for being for kind of failing at the PJ tour again. I just, for whatever reason, just wasn't successful. And they and my agent at the time kind of felt like that was a way for me to kind of get away uh from the United States, away from um you know everybody, and just do something completely different. Uh and I did, and I and I loved every minute of it. It was a difficult it, you know, it was tough traveling because I would Delta Airlines, you know, I flew them exclusively for the most part. And I used to have my trips to get over there was was a Memphis to Dallas, a Dallas to Portland, a Portland to Seoul, and then a Seoul on Korean Airlines to wherever I was going in Southeast Asia. It could have been, you know, could have been Singapore, could have been Hong Kong, which I love, which was which is my favorite city, really, Hong Kong, my favorite international city. Um and there are a lot of great ones, by the way. Um so my days of getting over there, luckily I was young because I don't have the patience to be on a on a 35 to 40 hour trip to get to a golf turn anymore. Now I take now I start looking at my return on investment. I'm like, I don't know if I really want to spend the money or the time to go over there, if I'm only gonna play for this amount of money. So um, you know, that's kind of been a barometer as of late. But all great times. And um I went over and and uh I remember playing in in Myanmar. The golf course had, you know, the former Burma. Uh the golf course had all these statues from uh all over the golf course. Uh their water hazards were completely circular concrete. That were only like a foot deep. They were perfectly circled. There was there was no like there was no other water hazard there. You know, I wasn't really able to call. And one of the things that I had promised my wife when I started traveling the world was I was going to call her every single day. And we hadn't gotten married yet. We got married in November of 98. But when we started dating exclusively in like 1994, I promised her that I would call her every every day. And so as I got into some of these countries, I realized how difficult that proposition was going to be. And I think it was in Myanmar, it was really like the first time I didn't call. And I thought, man, I'm really going to be in big trouble here. But by then she'd already probably forgotten about me. We've been doing this so long. But I love Asia. I love, I mean, I loved everything about it. I loved the golf. I love the hotels. I love the cultures. My dad told me when I first started traveling internationally, my dad gave me a bit of advice that has stuck with me till to this day. Because he was exclusively international when he was his seniority was high and he was flying in DC 10 for a long time, the MD-11, he told me, he said, look, I want you to learn three or four words of the country of which you're in. I mean, so, you know, whether it's in Japanese or Malaysian or Thai or whatever, I was to basically try to learn. Um, I learned like hello, good morning, please, thank you, goodbye, those types of words. And I still do that in whatever language I'm in. And I think it was important for me to be relatable. Um, I had heard the stigma of the ugly American. I mean, I I've heard that for so long. I've still never really been able to define that. I don't really know what that means. I mean, you know, but but I learned about that, and it was important for my dad to explain to me that you you need to kind of ingratiate yourself into these new cultures. Um they uh they they may understand by looking at you that you're not Japanese or you're not Thai or you're not Malaysian, you're not Singaporean. But I promise you they will they will they will be thankful and they will be grateful and appreciate you a lot more if you try to assimilate with them. And so I've always known about the rules. The laws in some of these countries are different than what we have in the United States. In Singapore, for example, you couldn't buy chewing gum. Can't chew, you can't chew gum over there. I mean, you can take it in. You can't, I don't to this day, I'm not sure you can buy chewing gum there.

Mike Gonzalez 24:44

Yeah, if you throw it on the sidewalk, you get caned.

Shaun Micheel 24:46

You get exactly right. That's exactly right. And I so little things like that I learned. I learned not only you know tolerance, acceptance, respect, I learned a lot of things by I didn't always agree. I saw some pretty horrendous things when I was in South Africa. And if I can relate one story, so Sean Gorgon, who's the person I lived with and traveled with, we were playing at the Wanderers Club. Back in the day, uh the caddies, and I'm just gonna just use this how I was thinking, okay. They were kept um in an area, the caddies were in an area, okay, uh, where they would be assigned a player. Well, we had to use two caddies pretty much the whole time. My Sean's caddy was his name, we called him Pee-wee. I I cannot remember mine. I I probably remember it after we get off. We had two caddies that we've been using. We got into the parking lot, they saw us, they came out into the parking lot, were immediately met with two people swinging belly clubs at them. And we're trying to be like, no, no, no, no, basically. And it was the first time I'd ever seen anything quite like that. We had heard about the the Zulus and the Tutsis and the stuff that had been going on within the tribes and stuff inside South Africa, and seen on the news, but that's the first time I'd ever seen anything quite like that. And and I was uh it was sad, it really was. Um, you know, so that was my kind of my first experience into things like that. And so when I when I traveled, I always respected, even if I didn't agree, you know, I had to quietly dissent, I suppose, with some of the things that I saw that I deemed inhumane. Um everybody's laws are a little bit different, our speed limits are different, our you know, um, our punishments are different. Um, you know, whether in Australia or New Zealand or I mean these places, every everything is just different. And so I learned that early on from my dad. Those the thing about the laws and the thing about the language and learning a few words came from my father, and it served me well, and it still serves me well because um I have been, I've traveled the world, I've probably competed in 36, 37 countries outside of North America. So I've played a lot of golf, I've seen a lot of things, I've met a lot of people, I've been part of so many different uh cultures. Um I've loved it all for the most part. And I give more credit, I think, to Asia for that than I do South Africa, um uh mainly because most of the people that I spoke to spoke English. But when I went to these other places, even if Afrikaans was kind of what was spoken, most everybody spoke English. Uh and so when I started these other places, I I learned a lot about what my dad had said. And it just, like I said, it's it still sits with me today, and I and I still do that. So um anyway, I kind of got off a little bit there, but but it but it it uh it was a big part of my life. Uh taught me a lot, and it's I think it's something I try to share with my kids uh to be tolerant, accepting, and to be empathetic, and to to understand that there are people are you wouldn't understand if you left this, if you left the comfort of the United States, what people go through on a daily basis. And uh I've seen some bad things.

Mike Gonzalez 28:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, good lessons, good lessons learned from your father. Uh let's take you back to to happier times, back to that 98 win at the Erickson Singapore Open that was contested at Safra Resort, and uh you won by two over a German Hendrik Burman.

Shaun Micheel 28:34

Yeah, Hendrik, yeah. Yeah, I uh was you know playing pretty good golf. I um uh I managed to, I think I played the 72 holes in with just two bogeys. Um it's funny enough, there is a there is a video on YouTube um about the last couple swings that I made, an interview that I made with a big white Sarah uh Sony or an Erickson hat. Um had my gold chain on. So um I was, you know, again, I I I felt I was my golf was was finally starting to arrive. It was finally starting to materialize, if you will. Um and I it was hot. Man, that's probably as hot as I've been. Now that whole area, kind of Malaysia, Singapore, it's humid. Um but I I played extremely well. It was uh it was a tournament that I was um probably uh you know, I was in contention from the first day. And like I said, to play 72 holes with two bogeys, I'm not sure I've ever done that since. So um great experience. It was a great experience for me. Uh uh, you know, and got married, you know, a few months later. Um, and uh um, but yeah, I and the the other thing about Singapore is it's the first time I remember flying home. I don't know if it was dehydration, I was so sick that next day on the flight home, I I'd gotten some sort of like migraine headache on the plane. And I remember being in the bathroom for so long on the flight home that the Delta Airlines people asked me if they needed to divert to land to get me off the plane. And I was like, I just told them I just had this bad headache. I said, just keep going. And they actually let me sit in business class, you know, um, because that it was cooler up there and everything else. So for so anybody, there's of course there's never any seats left, but you know, if you want to get business class, complain about a headache. But that's another thing that I remember um you know very distinctly. But the golf was good. Uh again, I was I was thankful and was grateful to my agent for sending me over there. And ultimately I finished third on the Order of Merit um that year, which got me in a few events uh later on. It got me into an event in Japan, it got me into an event in 1999 at Dubai Creek in Dubai, uh, where I played with Justin Rose. Justin Rose was just in the midst of his what how many cuts did he miss? 17 cuts in a row or something like that as a pro. We played together. Yeah, we he and I've talked about that. We've we I don't know if we talked about it last year. We we I see Justin, you know, whenever I'm playing the PGA or whatever, um, and we talk about those days. Um, but I played with him at Dubai Creek, and and I I played actually played pretty well. And interestingly, too, that um that particular week, my dad was still flying for FedEx. He retired in 2001. Uh my dad met me there. He actually had an airplane and he took a flight to Dubai and asked me watch play golf on the first day. The next day I'd go out there and there's my dad again. Now, again, this is kind of pre-cell phone. My dad's out there, and I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, the plane broke in Frankfurt. Like, okay. So it is, I saw I'm here for another night. Go around to day three. He watched me make the cut, you know, and and go around. There he is again on Saturday. Like, what happened? The plane is not still broke. So uh anyway, so he my dad got a chance to watch me play three days in Dubai, and and I got a chance to play with Justin Rose while he was beginning his beginning his professional journey. Um by now I've been a pro since '92. So I've been a pro six, seven years, and and uh Justin is just getting started. Um and to get a chance to play with someone like that, um, you know, he had just finished what, third or fourth in the open championship the summer prior.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah.

Shaun Micheel 32:31

So so it was pretty cool. So the that win in Singapore uh kind of catapulted me on to um uh you know playing some events in Europe, playing this event in Japan, uh, which was which was a rough event because we had a typhoon that came through there. And um I took my wife there and and uh we had a great time. And uh, but then that's that's really when I got my feet wet, and that's really when I got comfortable playing professional golf. Went on that next year of the Nike tour, finished ninth on the on the money list, won in Greensboro, and got back on tour, and and uh kind of the rest was history.

Bruce Devlin 33:11

You you and Sam Sneed.

Mike Gonzalez 33:15

Oh yeah, that was yeah, that was the track you played on a few times, wasn't it?

Bruce Devlin 33:19

Yeah, I did, yeah. Stagefield Country Club and uh what uh what Sneed won there what five times or something? I think at the Greens were open, yeah. So you joined good company at Stagefield.

Shaun Micheel 33:34

Yeah, yeah. And he's got what 81 wins, 82 wins, or something like that. So anyway, but yeah, quite a few did uh he did, he really did. And uh that course, you know, I enjoy watching that course uh when they play their um now they flip the nines, and you know, their 18th was a par four, it was a par five for us. But uh, you know, that was again that was uh uh uh all of these things, I mean, these little kind of baby steps, if you will, that you take throughout your career. Um it took me a took me a while to kind of start walking. You know, most most some of these players, you look at David Duvall and and I and I reference Phil Mickelson again because they're two of my contemporaries that were very successful on the PJ tour early on in their careers, you know, it some people it takes a while, you know. You go from crawling to standing to walking to running, and and some of those players basically went from standing to running pretty quick, and they handled it very well. It just took me a while to kind of get going. So, um, but all of these experiences I have, um, I would say the the one of the things that I don't like um uh being called, um, and I see it a lot, and I've I've I've kind of reflected on this quite a bit and I've come around a little bit, is being called a journeyman pro. I think when you first read that, when I first started reading that, uh I took that as a as a negative. Um and it probably maybe it is written as a negative, I guess depending on who the writer is. I never liked being called a journeyman pro, but over the years I've accepted that, and I've I look at that as a as a badge of honor because uh to see as many stamps as I have in my first couple of passports, um the experiences that I referenced to you earlier with um, you know, with dealing with just the travel, the headaches, the nightmares of of travel, um, you know, uh I I just I've come to I just really appreciate where I came from. And uh again, I didn't start out my pro career to have, like I said earlier, five airplanes, uh boats and houses and different things like that. I I didn't, I never lived my life that way. I knew that that I had to make a certain amount of money in order to be exempt on the PGA tour, but I never looked at it in terms of wow, look what I have and look what you don't have. I I've never once thought of anything like that. And so the Journeyman moniker, uh I didn't, I did I really hated for a long time because people are like, wow, wow, you know, why weren't you good enough to get on the PGA tour? And I think that's the egotistical side of Americans and American golf in the beginning, because before the golf channel, nobody knew of these European players. Bruce, probably many people didn't know who you were. Um, maybe because you were winning and very successful. But I would play in these European events, and people would be like, Who is this player? I've never heard of him. He must not be any good. And I was like, you don't get it. You don't understand. I've played with these people, you are going to hear from them. But it wasn't until the advent of the golf channel in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, that some of these, some of the these players' names, like you know, Westwood and Colin Montgomery and Olaf and Bernard Langer, even though they were master's champions, it took them a while to kind of get some traction here in the United States because the arrogance of the American fan was that if we've never heard of you, you must be terrible. And so I equated me being a journeyman pro in that same way, that, well, I'm I'm not good enough to go from college to the tour and stay there. I'm bouncing around, I must not be a very good player. And I took that to heart. I really believed that for a long time. And it was it was hard on me to try to kind of uh uh you know kind of reconcile the fact that I was a good player and that these other players are good players, even though you may not have heard of them. And so I think that's why I love playing overseas so much, because the fans appreciate the game, not necessarily the player. They appreciate the shot, not necessarily how the shot turned out. And uh I enjoy that. I enjoy playing in front of fans that understand the game, that respect the game, um, that know the challenges that the players like us, like me and Bruce, were trying to, yeah, we were trying to play. It was how we chose to make a living, but we were trying to entertain, to show off our skill, to show that the practice that we've done, you know, was gonna pay off in these big events, that you could close, that you could share your experiences with the pro-am participants that you played with. It was more than just playing the game. And that was the first thing I learned about the PJ Tour. It was incumbent upon me as a player, uh, you know, to represent the tour, to represent myself, to represent the fans, to represent my brand, whether it was Tylist or Callaway, whomever I was supporting. The game was way bigger than just me. Um, it was um to share my life with the with the with the young kids, to get them to play. You know, and that gets it gets lost now. And I think to go to fast forward to today, these are some of the things I've talked to Jay Monaghan about. I was like, you know, the guys are so busy worried about the money, this guy's got$600 million to sign with so and so, and and I'm over here playing, and the sponsors are some of the sponsors are losing out. I just go back to the beginning when it was as simple as sitting at that at the at the clubhouse there at PJ West. It's like, you know, represent yourself well, play the game well. Make sure the ProM teams have a good time. You know, honor yourself, honor your family by being a good sport on the course. Don't do anything silly away from the course that brings negative attention to not only yourself, but to the tour and what we represent. We represent the charities, you know. St. Jude, St. Jude is a is is a is a big part of my life. I I represent, I feel like I represent them being a Memphian. So, I mean, it's it's just I think golf is bigger than just Thursday through Sunday and how you play on the game. Now, I understand that the super stardom and things like that are important to many people. They're definitely important to sponsors because if you're not getting those players, how do you reach into your pocket and go to your board of directors and say, you know, I need this money. I need I need it. But well, we can't give you this money because we're not getting the stars. They're so spread out. So I always tried to play as many events as I could. I remember when I got hurt and I hurt my shoulder really bad. We were going back and having to calculate um basically how you do a medical is you go back, well, how many years, how many tournaments did you average in the prior three years? And I averaged 29. So 29 weeks a year is a lot of golf. Guys, now you can't even hardly get them to play 15 to be voting eligible, you know, because there's so much money now. Uh 20 events, maybe most of them play. And 20 events, by the way, is what every equipment manufacturer required you to play if you were going to get all your money. I don't know if that's still the same. So they wanted you to play at least 20 weeks. I was playing 29 weeks. So some we some years I was playing 31, 32, some years I was playing 27, 28. I always love to play, um, you know, I always love to play the game. And uh Lord knows I've done enough things on the to on the course. Uh I've definitely I've apologized several times to to fans, to to a fan with a son. I remember one time I said something, I turned around and I was like, oh man, I didn't see you there. I'm so sorry for saying that. And I remember where I was. And you know, I've tried to it's nobody's perfect, and I don't expect anybody to be. But I just as I've as I've kind of gotten to be 55 and I've removed myself from the game, even though I still play a little bit, I think about the things that I did. I was like, golly, I could have been better with the fans. I could have, but I look at my personality and I'm like, I just wasn't great because I wasn't very outgoing. I even today, golly, I'm not great about going up and introducing myself to somebody that I see across the room. I'm just I'm just not doing that. And I think that's where people think I get to be a little bit standoffish, you know, and I, you know, don't try to be. But these are the things that players inside the ropes, they they deal with. And, you know, when you hear things, you become defensive. And when you become defensive, you group every single person outside the rope, just like that one person you heard. And so you then you don't give everybody the time. Now, I've always enjoyed signing autographs. Um, I love spending time with the kids. I will answer any question. And I told you yesterday that I'm an oversharer sometimes because you know, for one, I think it's cathartic to me, but also it gives uh I think people a genuine understanding of who we are as people. And uh, and all of us, whether you're a golfer or you're a broadcaster or you're an accountant, it it's always it's always the same, you know. Um people who they are, they're you know, you try to be someone you're not, uh, it's it's tough, and it's tough to play golf that way. I mean, I never was able to take away the stuff off the off the course, you know, and take it inside the ropes, uh, you know, and and forget about uh all of the happenings. You know, life was always with me. And uh a message that I share with with my team as an assistant coach of Butler is uh one of the first things I told them, and I could see them get dejected. Each of the kids gets dejected. I watch them, you know, whether it's Butler or whether it's Ohio State or it's Indiana or whomever. You know, I always say, I said, look, don't don't let the scores you shoot on the course determine the happiness off of it. Because I've been there. And that's you know, that's kind of how my life was. If I played great, I was fun to be around. I would go out with my wife, I would go out and I would do karaoke. I love karaoke, by the way. And uh I'm not gonna I'm not even good at it, but I but I like it. And and if I didn't, if I played well, man, I was great. I was fun. We were talking, I was answering questions. If I didn't play well, I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to go outside with my wife, I didn't want to do these things. And so that's my one message to people out there is that you know, don't don't let the scores you shoot on determine you happy. Off of it because uh it goes by pretty quickly and it's a terrible way to be, and it's it's pretty destructive. But uh again, things that I learned about myself as I remove myself from the situation. Um, you know, I still play competitive golf, but golly, I've I've certainly thought about a lot of the things that I've said, a lot of things that I've done. Uh and you don't oftentimes get a chance to redeem yourself. So you got to be careful with what happens while you're kind of going through this. You don't want to burn any bridges on the way up because there there won't be anything left for you to rely on when it's all over. And you look around, you don't have any friends, and you and you and you go back and look at your career, and you're like, well, that's why. So um, I've never been somebody that wanted to be number one in the world. I mean, of course, I want to be number one in the world. I never, after seeing what Tiger Woods went through, the the grind that he went, the sacrifices he made, many players trying, young, uh I mean, old players from the old generation, how many families did they lose because they were so busy just trying to play golf? And it was Lee Trevino said it. He goes, I didn't know my first family. You know, and so um how he has reconciled that with himself, I don't, I don't know. I mean, he's I love Lee, he's a great, great man. I just remember that story. And there have been a lot of others, and I wasn't willing to sacrifice. Uh I would come home when I wanted to. Uh like I said, I I made a commitment to my to my then girlfriend uh and fiance, Stephanie, that that when I was on the road, I was gonna call her every single day, no matter where it was in the world. And it was me and Mar when I couldn't remember that I'd missed the one day because I couldn't, the time difference and all this. So, you know, it just just a uh you know, a lot of things. Um again, I've kind of always loved the game. Um, but a lot of these things uh that that I that I think about now, I wish I would have thought of, you know, when I was growing up. I think it would have made my life, it would have my probably made my golf a lot better because I'd have been a lot more relaxed, a lot more accepting, a lot more relevant, um, you know, uh, you know, to to the fans. And uh, you know, so now hopefully it's not too late that I can kind of give back, you know. And and some of what I'm doing today, I think, uh is hopefully helped to some people, but even players that are like, golly, I don't want to be that way. I've seen this player, and and I and I tell my kids from Butler, you watch that kid and he threw his club. What did he look like? Don't do it, because that's what you look like. And and I've been there. So um, you know, it's it's it's you know, it's fun. And it's it's uh I have a lot of positivity, I have a lot of a lot of great things that happen in my life, and I have a lot of things that I wish I would have done differently. And and regrets, I don't know. You live life each breath, you know, and whatever you do, you know, it can't be undone a lot of times. So hopefully you have more good moments than bad.

Mike Gonzalez 46:48

Bruce, why don't you uh reflect on some of the things that Sean just shared with us because I'm sure you can relate to a lot of uh a lot of that as a life on the on the PGA tour.

Bruce Devlin 46:59

Yeah, I can uh he mentioned one thing and that stuck with me. And I was playing in uh I was playing in Asia and I got to I got to the ninth hole this day, it's par three, and has it in front of the green, and I I had a terrible shot and I took that stick sign that I had in my hand and give it a give it a helicopter up into the tree and it didn't come down and I walked underneath the tree to hell with it. I wasn't gonna even gonna, you know, and I go up and I finish out and hit my t-shirt up on the on the tenth hole, and a gentleman about 75 years old came up to me and he handed me the 79 and said, Sir, you may need this. That was so uh you do things that you regret, and that was one of them that I agree. And that's the only time it ever left my hand was after that I learned my lesson quickly. So yeah, but you know, I think the hardest part, uh Sean, and you you've mentioned it a little bit about, and that is the you know, even if you're a good player, uh I mean I've known some players that um that I didn't necessarily want to stand next to on the on the practice tee because they hit it so solid and I thought would just bury me. But there's more to it than just playing. It's you know, it's like you said, the travel, the place to stay, the friends you make. Uh you know, it's a new experience. And and a lot of guys that were very, very good players didn't make it because they couldn't handle the travel and all the extra uh uh stuff that you have to go through to to be successful on the tour.

Shaun Micheel 48:53

Oh, that's that's exactly right. I mean, there have been a number of players that uh have come from Memphis. Um, you know, that have Memphis has really kind of produced a lot of a lot of a lot of golf. I mean, there was you know, of course, Carrie Middlecoff. Uh there's me and Doug Barron and uh Casey Wittenberg and David Gossett and Vance Veezy made it onto the tour. Uh, we have uh Tim Jackson here, was uh uh uh won the state amateur a number of times, been uh big in the U.S. amateur golf, mid-am, different things like that. And uh, you know, I've seen it too where you know you've played guys played with guys on tour for a couple years and they never won and they eventually fell off. Uh I've played with club pros that could play the PJ tour, but they everybody chooses something different. Um, you know, whether you you um you don't like to travel or you're you're too busy going into the equipment truck and you're seeing a brand new driver every other week and you're trying new clubs. I mean, that's a disease. Um there's there's all sorts of different reasons why why players have long careers, or some people just just kind of find their way onto the tour a couple of times, and then there's you know guys that win once like me, and um, you know, so it's uh there's really no rhyme or reason really about it. I mean, everybody gets so caught up in you know kind of the swing and way it looks and and those types of things, but there are intangibles that people don't see. Um it's just the mindset, the what the way you think, the work ethic, um, the self-belief, um the grinding, and that and I'm by grinding I mean not throwing in the towel when you make when when you you you could make six, but you grind it out to make a five. Or uh it's something that I share with the with the team at Butler is that you know um you can't just give it give up on a shot because you never know at the end, you know, you might lose by one or whatever. So you always have to be fighting to make the best score. Some players have that, some players don't. Some people are like, oh, I'm gonna miss the cut, so why I'll just buggy the next four holes. When in reality, the wind came up and they could have they could have bogged three holes and still made the cut, but they threw in the towel early and they it's too easy to quit. It's kind of what I share with them and I share with my two kids that it's just way too easy to quit. So there's any number of reasons why players make it have long, long kind of Hall of Fame careers, or even guys that that played a long time that never won too much, but just were able to be consistent players. And uh I think the goals are always the same, and that's to stay out there because you love the game, you love to compete, um, and it's all you know.

Mike Gonzalez 51:28

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

Intro Music 51:53

It went smacked down the fairway.