I had a very interesting and in depth conversation with a former journeyman PGA Tour player this week. I could.. but feel best not to mention his name as the context of our conversation was strictly off the record…so I will respect that.
His background and accomplishments are commendable to say the least.
Held PGA Tour card for 12 straight years…. 1974 through 1986
Won one time on the PGA Tour
Finished 9th in the Masters, 11th in the PGA Championship twice, 12th in the US Open
Came out of retirement after 11 years of being a sales rep and won 3 times on the Champions Tour
We were introduced through a mutual friend, and the conversation started basically about his accomplishments, his time growing up around the game, his military duty in Vietnam and his heros and golf idols growing up.
I then asked him about what he thought about the modern game. This is when the “F” bombs started to fly. To say he was pissed off would be a huge understatement. He was absolutely livid.
He was so angry at the USGA for allowing golf to be compromised like this, the integrity of the courses destroyed, and how his generation has been totally thrown under the bus and disrespected.
I asked him why the players of his generation don’t speak out about this much and he said “What can you do? We all are still in the game that we committed to and loved, gave our lives to golf, and most of us still have some kind of association with equipment companies, corporate outings etc.. and we just can’t come across as angry grumpy old men. It doesn’t look good. But let me tell you, the disgust for the USGA amongst us is unanimous.”
So I said, if you are out to dinner away from the clubhouses, courses etc… with one of your contemporaries, is this a hot topic? “Absolutely, it’s almost all we talk about. How did we get here (Golf)?
Then he started throwing out stats.. about how the longest hitter in the late 70’s early 80’s was Dan Pohl, and I mentioned John McComish also. “They were averaging just over 270 which was really long. The average tour player was 252 and he was around 243”. “We could still compete with the longest hitters because the balata ball was high spinning and they would just miss more fairways and be in trouble more often. It evened out pretty well”.
I can’t even type here how he was describing the folks governing at the USGA. But if you write a list of every possible obscenity repeated 5 times you would get the idea. He said the USGA were absolutely compromised by $$$, bought out and sold out… and he started naming names, most of which were not familiar to me… but were key players in the compromising.
One of the great stories was about how in his 2nd Masters appearance, he was paired with Gene Sarazen and Jackie Burke came over to talk to Gene and saw his bag with some Ping Irons in it. “Jackie picked up my irons, looked and Gene and said “What the __ is this __” Then he turned to me and said boy? you play this ________? Let me tell you something, you’ll never know how good you might have been… then walked away”.
He then told me ….
“I do think about that from time to time, and I felt that those Ping’s did help me, but I do wonder if they were right in hindsight”.
I asked him who was the best ball striker he ever saw… he said “George Knudson”. “A horrible putter and a terrible alcoholic, but his ball striking was incredible. I used to just watch him in awe”
Then he said “I never met or saw Hogan hit balls in person”. He also said Trevino was incredible, but Jack was by far the best player.
He also talked about how the younger generation (now) has little or no interest in the players of his generation. The game has changed that much. “They feel we are completely irrelevant”
I really felt sad to hear that… it really is horrible.
Can you imagine the era of Watson, Miller, Seve, Price, Faldo, Strange, Crenshaw etc having no interest in Jack, Gary, Arnie, Casper, or Hogan, Nelson Snead.. or even Hagen, Jones, Sarazen?
To think a fine player, so accomplished would feel this way about the game he grew up with, loved, committed to as a life’s work could possibly feel so angry, deceived and disrespected.
There was a lot more of course and we spoke for about two hours. I really learned a lot, and really enjoyed the insight into the life of such a player from that great generation. To be fair, I actually find the journeyman players to be most interesting, because they are the ones who really played purely for love of the game. They just squeaked out a living, nothing fancy, maybe would own a modest middle class home, support a wife and a child or two, but that even was hard at times. Nothing like the money the players make today. Very few players back then made enough on tour to retire to the countryside and live off their winnings and pensions.