Steve Elkington - "1995 PGA at Riviera" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to hook just the wee we been.

Mike Gonzalez 0:17

Let's go to the PGA Championship then because you mentioned your win at Riviera. What a great place to have a major win.

Steve Elkington 0:24

Yeah, I knew the course well from playing at Riviera in the LA Open. Um it's on Kaikuya. Um I was a sweeper of the ball. Bruce knows all about what Kaikuya grass is. It's a particular strain of grass, it's very spongy. Growing up on it and Wagga, you know, you can't you can't dig into it. You've got to sort of sweep it. And and it everything suited me about that course, and and I knew that I would have a chance there, because as good as I was playing coming out of Riviera, I mean sorry, coming out of uh St. Andrews, but again, I was a few back on Sunday, but I was I was only about two groups away from the lead. Ernie Ells, I think, had a six-shot lead, but I I found myself standing in a fair way at the 12th hole, a birdie twelve to go seven under for the day on Sunday at the PGA, and that's where I just said, okay, let's I was six back and now I'm two up. And I rode it as hard. I I had my foot to the hand to the pedal the whole way in. I hit it every flag, and I'm like, if we're gonna break it, we're gonna break it going in there. So looking back on it, it was it was great. I mean, it couldn't have been bad. And then I birdied the first hole in the playoff to beat Colin Montgomery. So I knew I knew I knew I had to birdie something because he's not he's not going backwards. That guy was unreal when he got going.

Mike Gonzalez 1:42

Birdied seven of the first 12 holes, so you got you came out like a house of fire. And uh, you know, 64 on the final day, that's pretty strong. You know, hearing you talk about that round uh reminds me of the conversation we just had with Lanny Watkins and the mindset he sort of had as well in terms of closing tournaments. And course uh you might remember his his scoring at Riviera as well. He seemed to really excel at that golf course. And he hearing you talk about that, it just it it it's it it sounds all exactly like the way Lanny described his mindset there.

Steve Elkington 2:15

I remember when Lanny won to Bob Hope and then he won then he won Riviera right back to back. Uh and he came to Houston, he was working with Claude Harmon senior at Lochenbar, and I saw him and he's this is a guy, a tour player that just won two weeks in a row. And I think they rode around and Mr. Harmon watched him play for two days and they're having lunch, and I was sitting on the side, and they he said, I got two or three things that you need to work on, Lanny. And Claude Harman, with that way he talks, he's like, the first one was first thing you need to do, he says, when you go to the course, you may do you gotta make sure you have your clubs. That's number one, he said to me. The second thing you need, he says, you need to change the way to go to the bank every once in a while in case someone's following you. That was the second thing he told us. And uh I'll never forget that Lanny came down to get some big tip from Mr. Hyman. Those were the two two tips he got.

Mike Gonzalez 3:18

We hope you've enjoyed this short track of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 3:41

Whack down a fairway. It went smack down a fairway. When it started just like just smacked off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My candidates, as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.