Tony Jacklin - "Damn Foreigners" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

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

Tony Jacklin 0:16

We touched on something uh that's when Lakadi lost a few weeks ago. Just like you, Bruce, and I know we used to discuss this uh well in times past, but uh there were a number of uh uh what shall we say, mean spirit uh mean-spirited individuals around on on this tour back then. Uh I'm not I'm not talking about the superstars and the Nicholas's and uh Trevenos and the Arnold Palmers, but there were those who uh weren't very worldly, they essentially didn't travel, and they made our life difficult. I certainly went out of the way to my make my life difficult, and I've played, you know, many times around when uh their conversation was never addressed to me. They would address me through the scorekeeper. Tell him tell him to do this, tell him to do that. Uh see, you know, I mean it was it was brutal.

Bruce Devlin 1:25

Yeah.

Tony Jacklin 1:26

And uh actually I I put it in a book twenty, thirty years ago, you know, it's uh and and I had you know, people react to it. Uh I mean Bob Bob Goldby was one of the w main characters. He was, you know, uh I played with Bob and he and he actually to his credit when he read that in uh in the book I did, this is thirty years ago, he came up and and shook my hand, he said, Maybe we maybe we were a bit uh a bit rough on you, you know. And uh I mean uh Dave Hill stood up. When w when we split from the PGA in 1968 and Dean Beaman had everybody in a big he was sat next to me, Dave Hill, he stood up and he says, I don't think foreign players should be allowed to play in America. I mean he actually said and I said, Sit down, you miserable sod I mean I mean we came flat out and said it. I mean, but that's the way they felt. And uh there were there was certainly no level. However that helped me toughen up. You know, it it helped toughen me up because you know, I get into this situation again playing with Palmer and Don January that final day. You're not gonna get through that unless you've got some mental fortitude and and those situations with those mean spirited individuals actually helped me develop um uh a rhino skin, if you like, you know, that uh every time I stood on a T I was you know, I was I I was in a mental uh a tough mental uh place.

Bruce Devlin 3:13

Just adding to what you just said there, Tony, uh we'll go back to the to you winning the uh US Open. And uh after you'd won the US Open, believe it or not, there were at that time six international or foreign players who were in the top ten on the PGA tour money list. And I was asked a question by a writer about the fact that we had so many foreign players in the top of the money list. And yeah, I said to him, Well, you know, uh it's my it's only my opinion. I said, but if you took the top ten foreign players today and the top ten Americans and we played them anywhere but in the United States, there'd be a chance that we could beat them. And uh next week was Cleveland. Uh Bruce Devlin won the tournament that week, but uh on the Wednesday I was walking down the stairs at Aurora Country Club where the uh Cleveland Open was played, and I got grabbed by the top of the arm by Dan Sykes, and he said, Hey, I want to talk to you. So we went up, we went up into the locker room, and I thought, well, you know, I guess what's gonna happen now is we're gonna get into a fight, but it didn't happen. But uh he said, you know, what's this opinion you think you could beat the top ten Americans? I said, look, all I can tell you is uh I see six of the top ten players at the moment on the tour that are foreign players, so uh I rest my case.

Tony Jacklin 4:57

Yeah, I mean of course they never they never would ever think that it was that much harder for us having to sort of leave our homelands and and uh everything uh uh about our childhood and come to a new place and uh so it's uh anyway, it's the way it was, and Dan Sykes was oh, he was a I played with him in the last round at Durrell one year and I was leading. And I'm teeing the ball up on the island green on the ninth, the water everywhere. He said, I played with Tommy Aaron here last year, he was leading and went in the water. He hit it in the water double bogey for TJ, what a charming chap he was that downside.

Mike Gonzalez 5:45

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