January 24, 2024 • 63 mins
It's an 'all in the family' and unfiltered episode as Uncle Bill joins CH3! At 73 years old, Billy just picked up the bag again at the American Express, caddying for Bill Haas. The youngest Harmon brother began caddying for Bill's father, Jay, in 1978 and sheds light on their unique friendship. Plus, Billy shares entertaining stories from a lifetime of golf memories, including — getting paired with Jack Nicklaus during his first professional loop, how he managed Curtis Strange and funny anecdotes about the colorful Lanny Wadkins. And there's no shortage of life lessons with sentimental words of wisdom by Jackie Burke, Claude Harmon (the original) and Billy himself.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to
you every Wednesday. I'm your host, Claude Harmon.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This week's guest.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We've had him on back in twenty twenty one. My
uncle Bill Harmon, one of the best teachers on the planet,
my dad's fourth brother, so the youngest of the Harmon brothers.
But the reason why I wanted to get him on
is at age seventy three, he went back on the
bag for Bill Hass last week in the MX caddying
on the PGA tour. Caddied for Jay Haas for so
(00:34):
long and as much as being a player and was
part of Billy's DNA, as much as being an instructor.
As part of his DNA, what is the biggest part
of his DNA is.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Being a caddie.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And I thought it was fascinating to talk to him
about that experience with Bill last week and to kind
of get his views. He's an old school guy, speaks
from the hearts from the hip and it's a good one.
But before we get to Billy, our friends at Cobra
Golf have a new driver out. It's the Dark Speed
three models this year tailored for different types of players.
(01:08):
The LS model that's low launched, low spin, So that's
going to be the one that if you're trying to
get that spin down, if you're hitting down on that
golf ball it's spinning too much, the LS will be
the one for you. They've got an eight degree LS
model eight degree launch are Loft, which they kind of
think of as their kind of race car. It's their
(01:31):
fastest one. So if you're looking for speed, if you're
looking for distance, that eight degree in the LS take
a look. Then you've got the X, which is kind
of combo of both worlds. It's got low spin, it's
got super fast ball speed with a lot of stability.
It's got a new forward weight which is going to
help people kind of maximize where that spin is and
(01:51):
maximize the spin they're getting off the driver. And then
you've got the MAX which is the most forgiving of
the three highest MOI, and that's going to be the
one that if listen, if you're not hitting it in
the center of the face all the time, that's going
to be the one that you're going to want to get.
Cobra Golf their drivers. I like them, I really do.
I like the way they look I like the way
(02:12):
they feel, and I like the way they perform. If
you're looking for a new driver in twenty twenty four,
give the Cobra Dark Speed a good look. And now
let's go ahead and get to a really, really fun
and informative interview with my uncle Bill Harmon. My guess
(02:33):
is my uncle Bill Harmon Philly. We had you on
the pod in the first year in twenty twenty one.
And you know, there's so many stories going on in
professional golf right now, and it seems to be all
about money and fighting, and I think your.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Story about you know you going back at how old
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
What do you?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
What do you?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
How old?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Now?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Seventy three, seventy three?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You caddied last week on the PJ Tour for Bill
Hoss at seventy three years old. It's me it's amazing.
I mean there's nobody out there caddy and that's your age.
I mean there's some old guys out there, but there's
nobody caddy in that at your age of.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I think Hiller Coffy has me, uh Fluff might be
might little older than I think I am, but there
weren't too many I didn't see anyway.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
How did it come about.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, obviously the history, we've talked about it before,
but when did you start caddying for Jay Hoff?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
You know, I started with Jay in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I've worked for.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
My brother Craig at Oakhill in the seventy seventh season,
and I got just totally soured on the country club business.
My dad told me that I had a thirty mile
proer brain and a hundred mile prour mouth, and I
seem to prove that at every job I went to.
(03:56):
So I actually left Craig early. I couldn't finished the
season because I was just disenchanted with the Gulf Inness
and I went up to the Russian River area of
northern California to find myself, and unfortunately I did and
(04:18):
I ran out of money. And there was a guy
who played at wake Forest but J named Lex Alexander,
who was working for my dad at the time at Wingfoot,
and Lex called me up and said Jay just won
the San Diego Open. Looking for a caddy he's exempt.
I don't know if you've ever heard this whole story,
but so I came down to the desert and I
(04:39):
met him, and he told me to meet him at
Orlando in two weeks at Rio Pinar's where they played
the tournament in Orlando. And I got off the plane
with my luggage and I had forty dollars to my name,
and it was a twenty dollars cab fair. And I
got to the course on a Monday, and I saw
(05:01):
somebody that I knew, and they asked me what I
was doing there, and I said I'm Caddy and they
said for who Jay Haas, And they said, well, we
just found out that he failed to commit. So now
I got twenty dollars to my name, I got no job,
got my shoecase with me. At this time, I'm overtaking
your father as the biggest jerk in the family. It
(05:22):
was I going into this thing, which in the.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Old days, you know, I mean, obviously we.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
All complished that even with him, and obviously we all
know who my dad is now and who he's become.
But if you think about the four brothers, you know,
my dad, Craig, Dick who sadly passed away and left
us too early, and yourself, you and my dad were
the black sheep, and Craig and Dicky were the straight arrows.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And you wouldn't think.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I think a lot of people listening to this podcast,
you see who my dad, who Butch Harmon has become now,
they don't realize what a what a He was a
lost soul and.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
A rebel, sure, you know, and you know didn't have
it easy and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So it's no surprise that in the seventies that you
and Buchie were well fighting for low Man on the
Totem hole.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They had a Monday qualifying, so I was looking to
see if I just knew anybody because I had to
get one hundred dollars from somebody. I mean, I couldn't live,
I have no job, I don't have a place to stay.
I got a suitcase. So Terry Deal was from Rochester
every Deals, Yep. I'd played junior golf with them. I
knew Terry. I've played many tours with him. So I
went out on the course and lo and behold, Lynn
(06:35):
Strickler was caddying form. I'm not really ashamed of this story,
but the truth is that I did have a good
bag of weed from northern California with me, and Lynn
was four caddy in on this hole, and I thought
I'd introduce myself by asking him if he wanted to
smoke a joint. So this is how this caddying things start.
So I finally talked to Terry, tell him I'm shooting bad.
(06:59):
Lynn thinks on the greatest guy in the world, and
I still love him to this day. And Terry says,
you know, I just got a new car in Rochester,
New York. I'll fly you up there. I'll give you
a couple of credit cards and you can drive it
down to Durrel. So now I have a week of living,
which when you have twenty in your pocket is a
heck of I feel like a millionaire. So I fly
(07:19):
up to Rochester and I tell Craig my story. Of course, this,
you know, goes through the family. Another Billy story, not
a Butch story, this time of Billy story. And when
I left Rochester in August, I thought I had fifty
dollars in the bank. Well, when you only got twenty fifties,
looking pretty good. So I went to the bank I
(07:40):
had five hundred. Man, I'm liking this tour, you know.
So in the meantime Craig had called Dad to say
he can't believe what Billy did. He showed up in
orlandover twenty dollars and the whole thing. And now he's
up here going to drive Terry Dial's car. My dad
says to Craig, will give him one thousand dollars. I
don't want him walking around with nothing, and I'll write you, okay,
(08:00):
which my dad is a very genderous man. So now
I got fifteen hundred. I'm liking this tour well, fifteen
hundred and twenty, I guess technically, so don't forget the twenty.
So now I pick up Terry's car and I'm driving
down to Miami. I've got plenty of time to get there,
and I swear to God, about an hour outside of Manhattan,
(08:23):
I started getting the sweats because I'm saying, okay, they'll
just drive straight over that bridge. Do not take a left,
Do not take a left. Do not take a left,
because I have many childhood friends who lived in the
city and do not take a left. Do not take
a left, do not take a left foot I go left,
took a left, So I stay there three days. I
(08:45):
remember I spent six hundred, so that wasn't too bad.
So I still had nine hundred and twenty. But now
I have to drive straight through. I'm tired, I'm beat up,
and I'm so disgusted with myself. Why did I make
this decision? And just see my whole life. I couldn't
make the right decision. I'm not going to drive straight too,
and I'm tired. I got no shot really to do this.
(09:05):
And I drive across the George Washington Bridge and I'm
just joked and self loathing and hatred. I see these
two college kids. A little cardboard sign says Fort Lauderdale.
I pull over and I said, you're my guys. I said,
there's only one stipulation. I'm paying for everything, but I
(09:25):
ain't driving. You two were driving, and we're driving straight through,
and I'll be rolling the joints in the backseat, and
we're going straight through to Fort Lauderdale. And that's how
my caddy life started. In the very first tournament ch
we were paired with Nicholas and so that was my
(09:47):
basically my first week on tour, other than, of course,
you know, catching clubs like Javelin's coming at me, heading
for your dad in the sixty nine Canadian Open. But
that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, you know, when you look at what the
PGA tour has become today with all this talk about
live and the money and all of this stuff. I mean,
the PGA Tour is still just it is an amazing organization.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
It's an amazing product.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know when you look at caddying in the seventies
versus going now in twenty twenty three. So PGA Tour
event where there's courtesy cars and free laundry and there's
I mean.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Bones and everything.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Bones mackay has made so much money caddy and he
could probably fly private.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Oh I thank you, probably could. The caddying has become.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
But I think, h when we were when I started,
I think the first three tournaments at j one that
I caddied for in first place was forty thousand. But
forty thousand was a lot back then, and so if
first bridge is forty, that's what first prize is. And
so and I look back on those days. None of
(11:07):
us had any money. The caddies, we took great care
of each other. If someone needed a hundred to get
out of town, you gave it to them. Many weeks
we slept three or four in the room, and there
was a camaraderie there that happens when people are poor.
I mean that, and you bond together in different ways
(11:29):
when you're there for each other. Plus we didn't know
any different and so we would pack four in a
car that couldn't fit for and we drive through the
night to some tournament. And I mean, the money today
is great. It's a much greater life. And I wouldn't
trade anything for those first three or four years because
(11:52):
all of those people that I traveled with today are
still lifelong friends. And I think we're lifelong friends because
we didn't have all the advantages that they have today.
And I think the advantages today are fantastic. I wish
I was still caddying, but I'm kind of like Bob
Goldby told me one time, the first three tournaments Bob
(12:13):
won in the sixties, his total winnings was seventy five hundred,
and he said, you know what, that was more money
than I ever had. And I was a truck driver's son,
and I was winning tour events and I was playing
golf for money. And he never begrudged the players the
money they made one bit. I don't begrudge the caddies
what they make one bit, or the players. I do
(12:34):
think they're spoiled, though to be honest with you, I do.
So it was kind of funny last week I was there.
I didn't know hardly any caddies, maybe four, so a
lot of them are kind of looking at me like,
who's this boso, you know, And I'm thinking to myself, PayPal,
this is my seventh decade, so he just better back
it up a little bit, you know. But those were
great days, and I think back on it. The caddyan
(12:59):
on the PGA Tour your greatest job I've ever had
in golf. Like I said, to this day, I still
have the friends that I had then. I love them,
and I think part of it is Jackie Burke said
one time that humor usually comes from four people because
they use laughter to get through the day. And I
think we use laughter a lot because nobody really had
(13:21):
any money. I mean, I guess if you won ten percent,
you want four thousand. Caddy today can't Marcus Ball with
four thousand dollars. That'd be a bad week for him,
you know, a great week. I had a blast. I
wouldn't try.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
How was it? How was it?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I mean, listen, I mean I've I've I was lucky
enough to caddy on who were twice in my life.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Once for my father in the Quad City Open.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, he didn't make the cup.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And what what was it? It was the old Peak
die course across.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
The Yeah, yeah, it was a monkey course. I caddied
for him there too, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And then I counted once for Steve Elkington the week
before he won the first Players Championship back when which
you worked in New.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Orleans, Man, And.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is the true story. We got paired with Scott
Hoke and Chip Beck, right, and on the first hole, Scott.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Holm, one of them is the eye, had tole and
the other one's mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
On the first hole, Scott Hoak's got like a forty
footer and it doesn't go in and he's just livid.
On the first hole on Thursday in the morning. And
on Friday Chip Beck lipped out a three footer to
miss the cut and he said to his caddie.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Smiling, you remember smiling. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So on the other day he said to Smiley, you
just gotta love having a chance to make the cut
out here.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
That's it, yeah, And that's it is forced.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But that's the spectrum, right, And how was it? I mean, obviously,
Billy at your age in your early seventies carrying, I
mean carrying the golf bag.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
I mean those bags are not Did he give you
the full staff back.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Or did you know he didn't. I'm in good shape.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
I work out twice a week with a trainer. I'm
I've lost about twenty pounds it it wouldn't have been
a problem for me. My shoulder might have hurt, but
my legs and everything now, I'm I'm blessed to have
good health, you know, as you know, I beat throw
cancer and alcoholism and addiction, and so I'm my last
two mulligans I hit down the middle of the fairway.
So I'm in good shape.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
So did you go big bag?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I just look like I'm not.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Did you go big staff bag or did you go
carry back?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
He brought a carry bag, a little pless carry bag,
you know, with the stand and everything. So there was
a part of me that really wanted the big bag,
because you know, I wanted to prove that I could
do it. But it didn't. It didn't bother me that
I had the little one.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Your relationship with Jay Hoss has been you know, he's
one of your best friends. It's been a lifelong friendship.
I know, you love him like a brother. And you know,
Bill Hoss is named after you, and your first born
son is named after j Jahas.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
So I would say, in some respects Thh that the
public doesn't know that I call you c h because
you notice, but I've called you that my whole life.
It just comes out naturally. I was actually in the house,
the Hoss home, when Bill Hass was born, and I
was somewhat responsible because.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I went back to.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
The room that I was staying in and it was
across from Jay and Jan's room, and Jan was very
pregnant and she was making these like unbelievable noises and sounds.
I just never heard noises like this painful stuff. And
so I went out to Jan and I said, boy,
I think Jan is struggling. He said, Ah, they're just
labor pains. No big deal, said he ain't no labor pains.
(16:57):
Sound he was born thirty men mites later. Wow, he
was about to come out right then. So in some
ways it's hard for me to caddy for Bill or
j because I'm too close to him. They mean too
much to me, So it's hard for me not to
get emotionally involved with him. I'm good at it because
(17:19):
I've done it all those years, three hundred and fifty
tournaments with his dad, and I'm good to turn him
that on and off. But you know, if they have
a bad day, you know, your emotions are that of
someone like your son. You know, you just feel bad,
and you know you can't do anything about it. If
you're caddying for a guy that you really don't care for,
(17:40):
and it's just a business. He really doesn't bother that
much for the guy when you're leaving the course, you know.
And so it's always hard for me to caddy for
for either Bill or j because I am too close
to him, you know, and I'm rooting so much as
a friend for him. I never think of what it
means to me. And I told this story the other
(18:03):
day on the Golf Channel, but what no one really knows.
I don't think I ever told you this story. But
when my first son, Zach was born in Rhode Island,
you know, I was still drinking and drugging, and I
remember this day looking in the back seat of him
though even though Robin and I had the seat turned
the wrong way, and I saw this little thing that
(18:27):
was a day or two old and I never felt
more in love in my life as something. And I
remember looking out the window and excre's my language. But
I never felt like a bigger piece of shit. You
know that this kid's dad was an alcoholic and a
drug addict, and that's where the I think that's where
my bottom started. I'd love to say I quit that day,
but it was about ten weeks later when an intervention
(18:48):
was done. But about two weeks before the intervention, Zach
broke up in the middle of the night like he
always did, around two in the morning, and Robin would
go feed him. And I had been drinking that night before,
and it bothered me that he woke me up. How
about that. That's a good guy, that's a good dad.
I remember as soon as Robin woke up, I felt
(19:09):
like the most worthless piece of shit on the planet.
I'd self loathing that if she wasn't there, I wouldn't
have been able to take care of That's the bottom line.
He would have been an inconvenience to me. That's what
alcohol and drugs do to people. And we lived right
above the eighteenth Green in the clubhouse at Newport Country
(19:29):
Cover where there's balcony, and she went back to sleep,
and I went out in that balcony and I contemplated
doing a swan dive. I didn't have the guts to
do it, but I felt like I didn't want to
be around anymore. Now we'll fast forward to June of
twenty twenty four, which is coming up. The Senior Open
(19:52):
is at Newport Country Club. You can't make this story up,
no way, Patty for Jay in the eighteenth Green sits
right below the balcony that nineteen ninety two I was
going to commit suicide on. And if anybody's struggling with
alcohol and drugs and thinks that your life can't turn around,
(20:13):
I'm going to look up at that balcony and I'm
going to think, Man, what a lucky guy I am,
because there was a day.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So I don't think.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I'm not a religious guy would say I's spiritual. I
don't think a human being could write that story because
they wouldn't. Hollywood wouldn't accept it as too corny.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
They could write it, nobody would believe it.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
That's a factual statement. So the same guy that showed
up at twenty dollars in Orlando wanted to jump off
this building, you know, in the year twenty twenty four,
we will end our county relationship right below that balcony.
You can't make that up. So I'm a really lucky dude.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
To say the least, it must be amazing for you
to caddie for a player like Bill who. I don't
think Bill gets enough credit for being as good a
player as he was.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I mean, I think we.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
All think given the talent Billy had, Bill had as
a player, you know, to have only six wins, I
mean he won the first FedEx, but I mean he
was such a like a natural talent.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, you're cautying for someone that you watched.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Be born.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
In your seventies.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And now you're on the tour and yeah you're in
and and and again. You couldn't write the script write
Palm Springs. You're caddying for Bill Hoss and Palm Springs
where you grew up, I mean you you grew up home. Yeah,
it's an amazing story. Is caddying different today, Billy than
it was when you started? You know?
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I think the.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You know, the game is show different. The players are
so different, and nowadays, you know, if you look at
the way the game has grown, I don't know. I'm
going to just say the last thirty years with the
aja GA, you know, the junior tours, they play more tournaments,
(22:15):
and pros play, and they have college recruiters out there,
so everybody's doing something for someone when they're teenagers, so
they get used to this, and then they get recruited
and they go to college and everyone's doing something for them,
and it seems like and you've been out there a
lot more than I, but a lot of these good
college players will bring one of their college teammates out
(22:35):
caddy form. And if you're playing in a major college
as a college player, even if you don't get your card,
you're still a good player. So you know the game
and you know the player. And so I think the
caddying part of it has changed dramatically in that sense
that good young players are bringing good young players out
(22:58):
to caddy form and then once they at the drift
of all the ins and outs. But you have so
much information today, which is good, and so I think
the obviously, I think the quality of caddy and has
probably improved, just as the teaching is improved and stuff
because of information. But you were lucky and your dad
and I were lucky. You see, we learned to teach
(23:19):
before we had this information. So you and I and
your dad have the benefit of using our eyes before
we had all this stuff, which makes you doubly good.
And so I think the caddies today it's a more
of a profession to us, to be honest with It
was a big party, it really was. And there wasn't
that much money. We were, you know, every town was.
(23:40):
We were in the circus.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I think it was more fun then, but for the
living they make now, and uh, you can see it,
you can see it. We played with Chess and Hadley
and Is caddy Barry bw they called them. He's great caddy,
very professional, really good. I watched to him, I watched
him interact. I like watching that interaction. As you know,
(24:04):
all the years you've been out there, Brooks has had
a great caddy for a long time.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Ricky Elliott one of the best, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And I think what people don't realize about caddying is
there's a rhythm to it, and every player has a
different rhythm. And every when I caddied for Curtis Strange,
he would uh no, stone would be unturned on a
(24:33):
selection between an eight and a nine iron. You know
it'd be a discussion like Warren Peace or something. But
if the next week I caddied for Lanny, I you know,
I'd get the ordage. I'd say, all right, we got
one seventy to the front. That's one eighty six to
cover the left bunker. It's what do you like? Wait
a minute, I haven't even gave me the final you know,
I mean, I mean tell you where the pin is?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well do you like?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
And so you have to get into a rhythm. And
if you don't caddy for a guy like with Bill.
You know, I caddied format the President's Cup in Australia
when he won the fed Ex Cups. I don't know
what's that fifteen years ago or whatever it was. I
don't even know how long ago. So you're always a
little bit uncomfortable because you don't know when to step
(25:18):
in and say something. So when I caddy for Jay,
I knew when to say something. I knew when to
shut up. I caddy enough for Curtis to always shut
up Lannie. I tell the story that we were in
South Africa. I think it was maybe the first sun
(25:42):
City event that they advertised a million dollars winner take all.
I think everybody got a hundred. We played in the
Skin Game in Durban, I believe the weekend before with Payne, Stewart,
Curtis and Bernhard Langer, and Lanny won about two hund
and fifty thousand there. So I was already up, and
he's he's tied for the lead after two rounds with Longer. Now,
(26:04):
Lanny's the fastest fire in the world, and Longer is
the slowest fire, you know. And it's you've been down there.
It's one hundred and ninety degree it is. It takes
his skin off your ears. And the second hole was
a par five and Langer drove it in the junk.
It's one of my great stories of all time. And
(26:25):
Lanny hit a beautiful drive and that long narrow green
with these necks in it, and the pin was way
in the back right, two eighty six to the flag,
but it's elevated a mile, so it's you know, two whatever,
two fifty or something. And he said, really like Billy
Bow and I saw I at three wood left. We'll
have a nice angle to pitch to it, you know. No,
he says, I can peel a driver off that bunker
(26:46):
and you get it close. He says, you know, it's
such a lanny comment, but he means it though it's
not bs for him. So I'm like, what does guy
just say he's going to hit a driver for a
million dollars? You know, he's going to get a deck.
And he hit the best shot I've ever seen in
my life. Maybe he started exactly where he said he
(27:07):
was going to hit it. It started cutting. The green's
like sixty yards deep. It lands about ten yards into
the green, and it starts rolling at the hole like
a putt, and it's getting closer and closer. Next thing
you know, the people go nuts. He lips it out
two feet by the linger has chipped out. He hits
like afore iron on the green about forty feet and
(27:28):
he makes it for Bertie. So Landy gets in there
with this kind of interesting setup. You know, he's probably
gonna get upset. I'm gonna tell the story. But the
day before we were on the putt and green, he
asked me to hold their umbrella over him. It was
so hot, and I'm holding this umbrella in South Africa saying, boy,
I've really come a long ways in my life. And
(27:51):
he said, how's my setup, Billy boy? And if you
ever remembered, every one of his angles was different, I said,
what ho you button?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What ho?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You man?
Speaker 4 (27:59):
He started doing all this on page Yeah, I'm in
a lot of tournaments that, I said. I know, I know,
it's just joking, you know. So he gets in there
and he misses it, no way, and he reaches over
the backhanded.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
He misses that.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
He makes five. Langer makes three.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
You've been over that course, haven't you? No TV though, anyway,
the third hole is very tight, and he would hit
a four wood and if it's one of those holes,
if you drove it out of play, you make triple.
So of course his driver head cover was made out
of mink. You know what I'm talking about. I put
(28:38):
the pin in and the first thing I see is
the mink head cover on by the bag. He's not
going the layup, you know. So now I don't really
caddy for him. You know, I've caddy for him a
few times. But am I in a position to give
him a speech?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
You know? Right?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So I said, I'm thinking, as I'm walking to the tee,
you know, maybe he's just hot. Now I can hand
him this wee wood or do something. Well. He's standing
on the other side of the tee, which means I
don't want to talk to anyone so much for this
this story. So he had these slacks made, you know,
(29:15):
tailored slacks, I think from a company in Cincinnati called Hamilton.
We've got this kind of memory. And he had a
pocket where he kept a ball. He had a ball
pocket and a coin. The ball fit in there perfectly.
Tell me this is this is such a Lanny Watkins story.
So I love Lannie, by the way, He's great. And
(29:36):
so I'm watching them over there. He's not looking at me,
you know, he's not looking at me, like, please talk
me out of this bad decision.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
So Langer, after taking twenty seven minutes to hit his layoup,
Lannie walks on the tee and he pops the ball
out of this pocket like a pimple, and the ball
starts rolling towards the tea mark. It's rolling and he's
walking after it. And where it stops is where he
(30:05):
hits it from with the driver off the deck, off
the deck, doesn't tee it up nothing, and hits the
exact same shot he hit on the second hole. The
brittish shot you ever saw.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
On your light.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
So now I'm thinking, you know, we got thirty four
holes shot back. You know, I'm going to be Bob
Rotello before Bob Rotello, you know. So I come up
with this brilliant speech. I said, I come on, Landing,
you know we're really playing good. You know all the
bs that you'd say rolling one back got thirty four holes.
Just got to be patient. He looks at me, said Bill,
(30:37):
I'm going to clean it up. But he says, hey,
it's the podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
You can say that.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
The billy boy patience is for fucking losers. Don't ever
tell me to be patient. I want it fucking right now.
So I said, Okay, in the last ten minutes, I've gone,
oh for everything, everything that I'm thinking and as good
is wrong. Everything that I've said to him is basically,
(31:05):
get as far away from as as you can here, chuck.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That was my best Landy's story, And I loved him.
He was great to work for, uh me, he was
great to work for it really, and his bottom was
truly real, really truly real, and he could hit the
shot that he was talking about. He could always back
it up, and he been a good putter. I'd say
he was an average putter for a great place. And
(31:32):
I think it's hard to be a great player without
being a really good putter anyway, wouldn't you say that?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I just don't think.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
You know, there may be bej but on the whole,
if you're an average DJ would be able to get
it that good, you know. So I thought if he,
if he ever was a good putter man, he would
have won double the tournaments he wanted to think because
he was actuate.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
So you talk about the rhythm and about you know,
if you don't caddy for someone all the time understanding them.
So the obvious question, seats is what do you think
makes a great caddy?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Questions? A very easy answer, A great good player.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Well, I say this and some of my true caddy
friends don't like it because every now and then I'll
put it on Facebook, er shop. This is how I feel. Well,
you've been out there, so you can dispute it. You
know more about this stuff than I do.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Hey, Hey, I learned from I learned from my dad.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But but you told me early on find good players, right.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Okay, bad player, good caddy, bad player, Okay, good player,
bad caddy. Good player, good caddy, good player, slightly better player,
That's what I would say. But if you and play,
(33:00):
don't make a difference how good you can put.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So I look at I look at the relationship that
I've been lucky enough to watch up close, you know,
both from Brooks and Ricky Elliott, but also from DJ
and his brother one right, AJ, Right, I mean absolutely,
I think they I think both of those two, Ricky
and and and Austin.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think they're both world class caddies. I think they
do a great job.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I think they have a great understanding of the player. Obviously,
the AJ has a great understanding of his brother.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I think Brooks and Ricky Elliott at this point might
as well be brothers.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I mean, they're as close as you can get.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Let me, let me speak.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I only I've never met Ricky. I've met Brooks. He
couldn't pick me up, pick me out of a lineup.
So I don't really know either one of them at all.
Five Majors. But okay, so I figured out one time
that caddies asked at least a thousand questions of tournament,
and you can't say I'll get back to you in
(34:01):
five minutes on that. So you have to have an
answer right like this all the time. So think of
the back nines on Sundays that Ricky has caddied for
Brooks and the great decisions as he's had to make
that Brooks has trusted him with and he has to
(34:22):
make them like that. And so you know, if you're
playing the seventeenth told Augusta on Sunday and the pins
in the back right and you're tied for the lead, sure,
let's go for it. Let's get it back there. But
if you go six inches too farts on the eighteenth
(34:43):
t and you make six with a good shot, by
the way, So as a caddy, what do you do there?
I think you have to protect going long and hope
the pre eighteen getting a playoff. But that decision has
to be made just like that. Their intense scrutiny, an
intense pressure. So at that point he's reading Brooks, he's
(35:06):
reading the yards. Maybe they have a perfect yardage, and
that happens a lot when players win, and you know that, yeah,
you get the looks, you bet and last week and
Bob Hope, I call it the MX bill and I
had in between the yardages fifty times I say, you know,
to the wrong pin placement, So you know, Claude, a
(35:28):
lot of the players the ball doesn't curve as much now,
but they don't really like hitting easy shots into left pins,
not for the most part, because they'll.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Be in the hanging out for the right.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That's a really interesting statement. They don't.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
They don't, and they might not like hitting hard shots
into right pin placements. So these are looks and these
Ricky has to know all of these tendencies with Brooks,
and then he has to know him on the back
nine on Sunday because that might be different. And so
what Ricky's done with Brooks is brilliant. What Stevie did
(36:05):
with Tiger brilliant, okay, And so you have to know
so much about it, and you have this much time
to process this information.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And you're expected if they're asking you, if the player
is asking you, he's expecting you to be right.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
I don't think any of the golfing public has any
idea how hard it is to caddy in the sense
that you could ask you could answer nine and ninety
nine of those questions correct and then give the wrong
club on eighteen. There's no other profession in the world
that you get a ninety nine point nine and maybe
get fired, maybe get fired, so that the caddies are
(36:46):
under intense pressure. That's why I loved watching Barry and
Chess and Hadley work because I know what it means.
But I will tell you when I started caddying, there
were a bunch of old caddies out there. Hall and
laid the lynch in these guys, they almost hated each other.
They because they didn't have all the information you had
(37:10):
to get your notes yourself. And I remember sitting in
a bar, I think we're in Orlando, and a guy
named Roy, older caddy. Roy was caddying for Andy Bean.
I'm not going to mention the caddy that I was
sitting with because I don't like to knock them off
their pedestal a little bit because he was a great
caddy and he caddy for major winters and stuff. But
(37:32):
Andy Bean hit this ball over the green. Now I'm
just sitting there watching it on TV. This guy went
nuts with happiness that Roy gave him the wrong club,
and I realized that they were actually competing like the
old players were competing. So they didn't really love each
other back then. I said to David Graham one time,
I said, why do you think you guys were so tough?
(37:53):
He said, we weren't tough.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
We were broke.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
So those caddies were always broke. So they were actually
happy if Big Griff pulled the wrong club because that
many couldn't caddy. See I've got no guts, she couldn't caddy. Well,
it's not easy to pull the right Colory time.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
We're talking, we've talked about the you know how caddying
is different today versus now.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I mean you've seen I don't think there's probably.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
In the last forty years of guessing up close, there
isn't a great player.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
That you haven't seen in the heat of the battle.
Not many.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah, OK, And I'm talking because you've caddied in President's Cups,
within the Tiger generation, caddy when Tiger was playing. So
what is a common denominator, Billy, of all of the
great players that you've been lucky enough to see, all
the great champions are is there something that they all have?
Speaker 4 (38:59):
I would say a great portion of them had the
ability to take the information in that their caddy was
given them and then stand on their own two feet
and make that decision. I've spoken to Fluff, Stevie and Joelicabo.
All three of them told me that Tiger was very
easy to caddy for never blamed them one time for
(39:21):
bad club. So Tiger created an environment where it was
okay to fail, so you can't. I always thought players
that intimidated the caddy was they were hurting themselves because
now the caddy is always going to make a conservative call,
so he didn't get his asked to that. Joe and
(39:44):
Stevie and Fluff all told me that, you know, and
Jay has is that way. You know, they want to
stand on their own two feet. Now, there are some
that liked to be coddled, as you know, but I
always felt they're really great ones. Trow Frank Beard told
me something. And you're out there, you're out there and
you see these great young players. He told me one time.
(40:07):
This is before you had all the information, that he
never met a great player that didn't trust his intuition.
That's Delani trusted his intuition when he said, no, if
I peel a driver off that bunker, I can get
it close. See what I actually told him was the
smart play, but he could feel he could smell this shot.
(40:30):
You get visualize it, you could smell it, you know,
And he just he looked at me like, come, Matine,
I got this close and he did it. You know.
So I think, you know, golf is a solo sport.
You know, I'm a big rickey fowler fan. I don't
like this wee stuff in interviews.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I just don't.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I don't know why. I just I'll tell you what
my you know what Peve is. I'll tell you what
my pet Peeve is. And I saw it this week
and it drives me nuts. It's these putting stations that
they all put up, how much of a grinder they
take up, which kind of means I'm not allowed to
putt it that hole even though I'm trying to warm
(41:07):
up before the round. That's your hole. Now. Can you
imagine what would have happened in the olden days, guys
who would have been sculling chip shots into these players' heads,
they would have been cutting to these holes on purpose
and making a scene and getting right up in their
grill and say, listen, Pali, you don't own this goddamn
(41:29):
hole for all of us. But I think it's very selfish,
I really do. I think it's very poor etiquette. It's
not a practice around. It's fifteen minutes before the tournament,
and you're looking for a hold of plot too, and
you can't find it. And they got these elaborate things,
and they got the levelers, and then you get the
caddy and the player doing aim point from two and
a half feet and they're backing up by you know,
(41:50):
they're doing the Macarene or something. You know. I mean,
it drove me up a wall, I'll tell you that
right now. Boy, And I wish there was an old
timer out there that were just start chipping balls into
these people. Just bore one right into the guy's stomach. Oh,
I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was your hole. I
didn't see your name on that hole, you know. So
I think it's really poor etiquette. It's selfish and self centered.
(42:13):
That's my rant for the day.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
We'll go to something. We'll go to something positive.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Billy, what's the best shot you've ever seen in competition
from a player you weren't caddying?
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Boy, that.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Probably two and it was because nobody else could do it.
And you've seen that, you've seen it with Jay Tiger. Yeah,
the first one was at Augusta. In the second hold,
Jay was paired with the Sevy. What year, oh boy
(42:52):
was in the I want to say early eighties, okay,
And he drove it kind of down left center, but
he drove it on the down sofa one of those moguls,
and the pin was over it in the back blocked,
so he got nothing. Hitting a three iron, you know,
if you can put it in the middle of greenish,
great shot, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Because back then they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I mean when in the eighties you were, you would
go into some of those holes with longer cloths.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Well, yeah, he's hitting a three iron now, and so
i'm i'm you know, I'm imagining what he's trying to do.
I think he's going to try to hit something low
and maybe run it up in between the bunkers and
either bunker's going to be fine, either bunkers. And he
hits his shot and as you know, there's some huge
trees up there to the left. He hits it over
(43:41):
the trees or a cut three hundred feet in the
air and he stops at like ten feet from the hole. Now,
you couldn't get an l wedge. They didn't have L
wedges back then. If you were on the if you
were hitting an L wedge from the left side of
the fairway from eighty yards, you couldn't have got at
(44:02):
that post. So he not only did you have to
have the talent, you had to have the imagination, but
there was another factor. You had to have the guts
to try it to Chops. The other one was it
was right before they had the open, maybe a year
or two before they open the Tory Pines, and they
(44:23):
lengthened the course. So Jay's playing with Tiger the last round.
You know, Jay's like forty nine years old, looks like
he's got the head cover on his driver when he
hits it. Compared to Tiger, what year is this, I'm
going to say, oh four maybe, okay, oh four yep.
So I'm gonna say it was maybe a year or
two before they they just lengthened it.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
It was unbelievably a cloudy, cold day at Torry Pott
and Jay birdied eight nine and ten and that put
Tiger in Jade about tide for fit. But they were tied.
You know, it's kind of cool as even hanging with
the guy, and it was I remember, like it was
just there was two hundred and thirty seven downhill and
the wind's coming in left or right. I mean, it's
(45:04):
just everybody's nightmare. Elevated tea into the wind with a slice.
And at the time Jay had a five wood and
like a three iron, but it was like a two
and a half iron. We are trying to figure out
every way imaginable can we get a three iron on
the front of the green and just try to make
a par because we don't want to hit the five
wood up in the air because you can just see
(45:25):
this thing floating over to the thirty creek or something,
some big toe pop up over there or something. There's
no way or you're seeing anything good even as a caddium.
Come on, put that thing ten feet behind your right foot.
And finally, j being the cool guy that he is,
said Okay, I'm a tour pro. I should be able
to hit the five with So he hit a beautiful shot,
(45:46):
kind of drew it back into the wind pin high
about thirty feet left of the whole pin. Hi beautiful shot.
It was there the whole way. And one thing I
always loved about Jay, Jay always knew who was better
than him, and he admired it getting beat by people.
He didn't think they were as good as him. But
he understood the Watsons and Trevino's Jack Tiger. He knew
(46:06):
that they had physical capabilities. He didn't, not that he
wanted to lose to him, but he understood it. So
Tiger took out this foe iron and he hit this shot,
and I swear that clubs stopped at waist high. You've
seen him do it, and DJ can do it too.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
He just does it.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
And he hit this thing. It looked like it was
about twenty feet off the ground and it just started
out as the hole and it stayed at the hole
and it never got higher. And he carried it in
there about twelve feet from the hole and it was
like the first time you saw a giraffe. He didn't
believe it, you know. And we were walking off the
(46:50):
tee and because Jay would always do this, he went
to me, how about that shot, which was his way
of saying, I give So we get down there and
Jay's putting from the left, Tigers lining up his putt
and I've always gotten along with Tiger, you know, because
I met him when he was young for your dad.
(47:10):
And I don't bother him and never asked him for
an autograph. I know how to leave him alone, and
I know, but he's very nice to me if he
sees me. He couldn't be any nicer because I'm not
a threat to him. I don't bug him, you know.
And so he's kneeling down reading this putt and I
kneel down next to him and I said, you know, Tiger,
you really haven't been on tour that long. Really, I said,
(47:32):
you might not want to be looking in our bag
on part of threes. We're shot makers.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
And he goes with a He's.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Got a great smile when he smiles when he's in
comfort Zony with a big smile of his he said, man,
I didn't know they made fairoy woods. It went dead short.
But if I can tell one more story, Tommy Lamb,
who used to caddy for Bob GOLDI anyway on Jay
at this point he's canty for Faction and they're tied
(48:04):
with Tiger going to the last round of bay Hill.
You know what kind of a shot maker's paradise. And
I got to preface this story by I think the
next week was maybe the players. Tiger shot sixty six,
Brad shot seventy five. Tiger told Jay, he said, I
saw the worst round of golf I've ever seen in
my life on Sunday with Brad Faction, the worst ball striking,
(48:27):
he said. As I was going back home, I went
through Brad's round. He shot seventy five, and I thought,
if I had my best short game ever, I would
have shot eighty one. He shot seventy five. So I
kind of heard this story, didn't think much of it,
(48:48):
so I don't know. A year or so later, I
said to Tommy Lamb on Thomas, how do you get
get paired with Tiger Mutch? To get along on his
ow was great? So let me tell you the story
about bay Hill. Well, I already kind of heard this story,
he said, bad facts and playing. You can't even believe
bill where he says, he's hitting in the concession stands,
He's hitting it all over the place, He's shooting ninety
(49:09):
and we get to the last hole and somehow we're
still in third place. And as you know, that's a
you can make anything on that hole. He says. In
my mind, I'm begging him to drive it in the
rough so we can pitch out and the worst we're
going to make his five and we're going to get
fourth place. See, and I'm going to drive out of there,
(49:31):
and I hope I don't get arrested. So we're between
six and seven iron, and I'm not giving him a
seven iron. No wait, because he didn't hit a ball.
So I talk him into six and he hits the
only solid shot of the day and it carries into
the back bunker, which is fine with me because I
know you're going to get it up and down. So
I run up to pick up the divot and somebody
(49:52):
hits me on the calf for a club and I
look up and it's Tiger. He said, type Sho has
got a big smile and his base and said, I
bet you didn't see that shot coming. He said, how
do you caddy for this guy? And Tommy said, just
the way I did. Safety first, you know, so as
(50:14):
you know the interactions between the players is I always
wanted to be on the bench at a baseball game,
or on the dugout, or on the football game. And
when you're a caddy or a coach, you are the bench.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Nick dunlop An amateur winning a PGA Tour event.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
What a story.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
And I thought I thought he was going to struggle,
and he had a little wobble. But I mean JT
and Sam Burns were the ones that were struck down
the stretch.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
I think it's all you need to know about golf.
When I met Jay Hass, he told me his story
his first west Chester Classic. Alex Alexander was over at Wingfort,
so he went over to see Lex. You never met
my dad, so you can imagine what that was like.
He said, boy, your dad was great to me. I
couldn't believe how much he knew about my amateur career.
I said, it was his business. He knew who was good,
(51:05):
you know. And he was giving a lesson and turned
that grip over.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
You know what he was doing.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
He was imitating my dad with his hands. You know.
He had a plaid coat on and stripe pants and everything.
And he said he was getting ready to leave. I
was sitting in the cart with him. He kind of
hit me there, right, get out of here. I got
to go, and he said. He started to drive off,
and he stopped and he said, Jay, I just got
one thing to tell you. He said, I don't know
(51:30):
what he meant by that's why I'm asking you. He said,
what's that? Mister Harmony says, the clubbing ball don't know
your name. He left, and so he said, what does
that mean? He said that actually was his way of saying,
you can be as good as you want to be.
(51:50):
Because Nicholas and Palmer and Watson and Travino, they don't
have a patent on shooting sixty seven. They're not the
only ones that can do it. So the club and
ball doesn't know who's swinging the club. And that was
his way of saying, you're good and believe in yourself. Well,
the club and ball didn't know he was an amateur.
(52:13):
Now the beauty of golf, and you know this is
no matter how good you are, you have to perform
every shot, every shot. Sam Byrn's world class player, world
class player. You know what, he made too bad swings.
You know what it's happened to every player that's ever lived.
(52:34):
You make wrong, bad swings at the wrong time. And
the club and ball didn't know that Dunlop was an
amateur and he made good swings and he grinded it out.
But you you came up with the key there. It
was a passing comment, but it wasn't. He overcame adversity
early on, and that's what you can't teach, right, Yeah,
(52:55):
that cards as soon as it happened. Oh he's going
to start falter.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
You know what he did?
Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yeah, little pitch shot on eight, you know, in there
like that, And as you know as a coach, sometimes
the nerves will show on pitch shots. Yeah, where you've
got to have great touch. And he came right back
in a beautiful shot. So your comment was passing, But
to me it wasn't. It meant that he had whatever
it took inside. And I'm not too sure you can
teach that. You can make people better at it, but
(53:23):
the people that have it naturally, I don't know. You know,
Brooks is the only player I've seen since Tiger that
will say I'm going to win this thing tomorrow and
a major championship.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
And he has that in it.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
No, he does, and he's the only one that will
say it, and it bothers people because then he backs
it up. But I don't think you can teach that.
You told me that when he came on tour. He's
not afraid of anything. No, he never asked me to
pick him for the Presidents Cup team. We had a conversation.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I don't tried to get it.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Hadn't done enough, you know, for whatever reasons whatever, But
you said that to me. See, I remember this stuff
because I actually look at people's insides more than now
than I look at their swings.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
No, why because you can't be on tour and have
a bad swing. We really can't. You can't be good
enough to have one of those two hundred cards and
have a bad swing. No, it might not look good,
it might not have well, you know, as an old
pro from the Northwest, Jerry Mold said, well, you know,
some Sam Snead would have They would have thought he
(54:24):
had a bad swing when the symmetry police showed up
and started drawing the lines.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
So I'm a I have such respect for the talent
of these players. It's unbelievable how good they are anything.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
I mean, they're they're coming out there younger and younger
and they I mean, I've said this a lot recently.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
There's no apprenticeship now.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I mean you remember when you played, when when you
when you were trying to play, when my dad was playing,
and then when you were caddying early if somebody was
a rookie, there was a two to three.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
Year apprenticeship maturation, need to.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
Learn the role tournaments or they're good and you.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Know, And it's not like Jay hows when he turned
pro he'd won.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
A boatload of college tournaments.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
He won the double A well.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
I mean it was an amazing But I think the
kids this generation, they have so much access to information
to fitness, but they just have so much more and
they can dial the equipment into basically just match whatever
they do and they have no fear.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
They just don't eat because I.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
Haven't been to a tour event in quite a while,
and you're out there all the time. So maybe when
pick up on it as much as I do, there
was a time when there were about four or five players.
When they were on the range, you knew that the
sound of their ball was different. Yeah, And your back
(55:54):
could be to them and you'd say that Tiger's hit
an iron shot over there, yea, Or let's Trevino buzzing
some wedge. You could even be a wedge. And Bill
was on the range first day practice around hitting balls
and there's a guy about fifteen yards away, but he
was kind of a little bit in front of me,
so I couldn't really see you. It was now, I'm
(56:15):
telling you, this ball was coming off his club and
this guy was this strap and looking guy, and I'm
watching these shots and I'm listening to them and they
are just so good. Wyndham clark Us opened it and
I said, why am I? Hey, I didn't even recognize him.
I've seen in my life other than on TV. And
(56:35):
plus he was ahead of me, so all I could
see was his back, and I was just like, Wow,
this is what the game has become. It's really something.
The quality of golf today is incredible, and I believe
that they do set the courses up too easy for
the abilities that they have. I really do. I don't
(56:58):
really like watching thirty under them. Yeah, I don't like
watching your driving a wedge. I just don't like it.
You know, Wingfoot, a great player, had a great week.
E Chambeau the only guy that broke car yep, and
you know what, tied for tenth six over Jean and
wing Foot played short. Remember the ball it was run,
(57:21):
was up, but it was running. They didn't driving wedge
to the ninth tall six yards, but they made you
drive it straight and they made you plan from there.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
So I don't really like.
Speaker 4 (57:36):
Watching thirty thirty five hunder. I really don't. I like
to see, uh. I like to see somebody have to
make four powers on four hard holes coming in to
win a tournament, that's right. And so I've kind of
become disenchanted with watching pro golf, and I'm disenchanted with
all the noise and all that stuff, and I've lost
(58:02):
a little bit of just every holes are driving a
wedge and every hole, every part finds are driving a
six iron. I don't know, it's just and they can
all do it. It's not like fun guy's doing it.
Everybody hits it long. You know, Jill hits the three
hundred yards and he's like one hundred and Thirtieth's joke
(58:24):
really is we were playing with Shoffley and Canley in
a practice ground and you know, Bill says, yeah, they're
you know, doesn't look like much. They're twenty yards ahead
of me, but that's two clubs. Yeah, you know, they're
going to get their wedge closer than my seven iron.
Every time w's four rounds. It's a kind of a mismatch,
you know so, but you see it and you're you're
(58:46):
part of it, and you teach it, and you know
the power game, and so it's cool for me to
watch it up close. And I have great respect for
how good they are. They're really good.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, and you're going to I mean, the story in
Patty and for Bill this week or last week and
then getting to Caddy for Jay with all the history
at New Poor Country Club. It's it's a pretty special
life that you've been lucky enough to live.
Speaker 4 (59:11):
Well, I've said this a lot, and I'm old enough
to look back on it and realize this. You're kind
of in the middle of it, and I hope you
realize it at all. The Harmon brothers and you at
our four we're pretty ordinary people and we've lived an
extraordinary life because of golf. Yeah, we really have to
(59:32):
forget your accomplishments. As a teacher, I don't like the
word accomplishments. I like the word experiences. You know, I
saw you when Brooks wanted Aaron Hills, and I saw
you hop in the cart. I didn't think about how
much money you made and all that stuff, how much
money you made. I thought about how cool. It must
(59:54):
have been. That's part right now. I mean that, And
those are the things that you're going to remember. I
believe when my dad was dying, I was in the
hospital room with the one time I was too sure
what he was going to say to me. I'm sure
your brother, Butch wasn't either when he was alone, and
he was the opposite of what I thought. And he
said to me, and I'll never forget this, he said,
(01:00:17):
you know, Bill, I lay here and I know what's
going to happen. And I can honestly tell you I
never think about one of the masters. I never think
about being the pro wing foot or sending all that stuff.
All I think about is family and friends. All the
other stuff that I thought was important is stuff. But
that ride in the cart that's important. It is it
(01:00:39):
is get a big check and you get all this stuff,
and that's great. But was that your first major with him?
It was yeah, yeah, see, and I knew that. And
so when I look at that stuff, those are the
things that you're going to remember. You'll spend the money.
You know, eventually one of your rolexes will break, and
(01:01:00):
hope you get it. You never forget that moment. And
that's what it really is all about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
To me, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
It's been great talking jests.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
We we missed you and we'll hope to see you soon.
In good job last week.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Okay, I'll accruit a lot of stories in the next
three years when you have me on again.
Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
You got it. I love you, brother to you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
So that was my uncle, Billy Harmon. Billy was always
my favorite uncle. And you know, when you get to
talk to someone, you know he's in his early he's
in his early seventies. He's been around the game his
entire life. He has seen so much of golf instruction.
He was a great player, but I thought his insight
into kind of caddying and what it kind of takes,
(01:01:52):
what it's like. As I said in the intro, Billy
is a golf instructor. That's what he's known for. But
the DNA of of who he is as a as
a person was forged by the years that he cardied
on the PGA Tour. And anytime I can talk to
somebody like Billy, that kind of old school kind of
Raycantur type, you know, storytelling, it's just it's amazing for
(01:02:16):
me and I think you can hear how much I
was laughing in the interview. Billy's always been my favorite uncle.
He's been out of all my dad's brothers, he's been
easily been the most supportive.
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Of me in my career.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
And you know, I can't thank him enough for everything
he's done for me. And I think it's just a
cool story. I mean, he's had a very unique life.
He's battled adiction and you know, he has turned his
life around, and you know he is a deep, deep thinker.
And hope everybody enjoyed that one, because I know I did.
(01:02:51):
Son of It, which comes to you every Wednesday, Rate Review,
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks everyone for listening.
We will see you next week.
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to
you every Wednesday. I'm your host, Claude Harmon.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This week's guest.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We've had him on back in twenty twenty one. My
uncle Bill Harmon, one of the best teachers on the planet,
my dad's fourth brother, so the youngest of the Harmon brothers.
But the reason why I wanted to get him on
is at age seventy three, he went back on the
bag for Bill Hass last week in the MX caddying
on the PGA tour. Caddied for Jay Haas for so
(00:34):
long and as much as being a player and was
part of Billy's DNA, as much as being an instructor.
As part of his DNA, what is the biggest part
of his DNA is.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Being a caddie.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And I thought it was fascinating to talk to him
about that experience with Bill last week and to kind
of get his views. He's an old school guy, speaks
from the hearts from the hip and it's a good one.
But before we get to Billy, our friends at Cobra
Golf have a new driver out. It's the Dark Speed
three models this year tailored for different types of players.
(01:08):
The LS model that's low launched, low spin, So that's
going to be the one that if you're trying to
get that spin down, if you're hitting down on that
golf ball it's spinning too much, the LS will be
the one for you. They've got an eight degree LS
model eight degree launch are Loft, which they kind of
think of as their kind of race car. It's their
(01:31):
fastest one. So if you're looking for speed, if you're
looking for distance, that eight degree in the LS take
a look. Then you've got the X, which is kind
of combo of both worlds. It's got low spin, it's
got super fast ball speed with a lot of stability.
It's got a new forward weight which is going to
help people kind of maximize where that spin is and
(01:51):
maximize the spin they're getting off the driver. And then
you've got the MAX which is the most forgiving of
the three highest MOI, and that's going to be the
one that if listen, if you're not hitting it in
the center of the face all the time, that's going
to be the one that you're going to want to get.
Cobra Golf their drivers. I like them, I really do.
I like the way they look I like the way
(02:12):
they feel, and I like the way they perform. If
you're looking for a new driver in twenty twenty four,
give the Cobra Dark Speed a good look. And now
let's go ahead and get to a really, really fun
and informative interview with my uncle Bill Harmon. My guess
(02:33):
is my uncle Bill Harmon Philly. We had you on
the pod in the first year in twenty twenty one.
And you know, there's so many stories going on in
professional golf right now, and it seems to be all
about money and fighting, and I think your.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Story about you know you going back at how old
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
What do you?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
What do you?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
How old?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Now?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Seventy three, seventy three?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You caddied last week on the PJ Tour for Bill
Hoss at seventy three years old. It's me it's amazing.
I mean there's nobody out there caddy and that's your age.
I mean there's some old guys out there, but there's
nobody caddy in that at your age of.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I think Hiller Coffy has me, uh Fluff might be
might little older than I think I am, but there
weren't too many I didn't see anyway.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
How did it come about.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, obviously the history, we've talked about it before,
but when did you start caddying for Jay Hoff?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
You know, I started with Jay in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I've worked for.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
My brother Craig at Oakhill in the seventy seventh season,
and I got just totally soured on the country club business.
My dad told me that I had a thirty mile
proer brain and a hundred mile prour mouth, and I
seem to prove that at every job I went to.
(03:56):
So I actually left Craig early. I couldn't finished the
season because I was just disenchanted with the Gulf Inness
and I went up to the Russian River area of
northern California to find myself, and unfortunately I did and
(04:18):
I ran out of money. And there was a guy
who played at wake Forest but J named Lex Alexander,
who was working for my dad at the time at Wingfoot,
and Lex called me up and said Jay just won
the San Diego Open. Looking for a caddy he's exempt.
I don't know if you've ever heard this whole story,
but so I came down to the desert and I
(04:39):
met him, and he told me to meet him at
Orlando in two weeks at Rio Pinar's where they played
the tournament in Orlando. And I got off the plane
with my luggage and I had forty dollars to my name,
and it was a twenty dollars cab fair. And I
got to the course on a Monday, and I saw
(05:01):
somebody that I knew, and they asked me what I
was doing there, and I said I'm Caddy and they
said for who Jay Haas, And they said, well, we
just found out that he failed to commit. So now
I got twenty dollars to my name, I got no job,
got my shoecase with me. At this time, I'm overtaking
your father as the biggest jerk in the family. It
(05:22):
was I going into this thing, which in the.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Old days, you know, I mean, obviously we.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
All complished that even with him, and obviously we all
know who my dad is now and who he's become.
But if you think about the four brothers, you know,
my dad, Craig, Dick who sadly passed away and left
us too early, and yourself, you and my dad were
the black sheep, and Craig and Dicky were the straight arrows.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And you wouldn't think.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I think a lot of people listening to this podcast,
you see who my dad, who Butch Harmon has become now,
they don't realize what a what a He was a
lost soul and.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
A rebel, sure, you know, and you know didn't have
it easy and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So it's no surprise that in the seventies that you
and Buchie were well fighting for low Man on the
Totem hole.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They had a Monday qualifying, so I was looking to
see if I just knew anybody because I had to
get one hundred dollars from somebody. I mean, I couldn't live,
I have no job, I don't have a place to stay.
I got a suitcase. So Terry Deal was from Rochester
every Deals, Yep. I'd played junior golf with them. I
knew Terry. I've played many tours with him. So I
went out on the course and lo and behold, Lynn
(06:35):
Strickler was caddying form. I'm not really ashamed of this story,
but the truth is that I did have a good
bag of weed from northern California with me, and Lynn
was four caddy in on this hole, and I thought
I'd introduce myself by asking him if he wanted to
smoke a joint. So this is how this caddying things start.
So I finally talked to Terry, tell him I'm shooting bad.
(06:59):
Lynn thinks on the greatest guy in the world, and
I still love him to this day. And Terry says,
you know, I just got a new car in Rochester,
New York. I'll fly you up there. I'll give you
a couple of credit cards and you can drive it
down to Durrel. So now I have a week of living,
which when you have twenty in your pocket is a
heck of I feel like a millionaire. So I fly
(07:19):
up to Rochester and I tell Craig my story. Of course, this,
you know, goes through the family. Another Billy story, not
a Butch story, this time of Billy story. And when
I left Rochester in August, I thought I had fifty
dollars in the bank. Well, when you only got twenty fifties,
looking pretty good. So I went to the bank I
(07:40):
had five hundred. Man, I'm liking this tour, you know.
So in the meantime Craig had called Dad to say
he can't believe what Billy did. He showed up in
orlandover twenty dollars and the whole thing. And now he's
up here going to drive Terry Dial's car. My dad
says to Craig, will give him one thousand dollars. I
don't want him walking around with nothing, and I'll write you, okay,
(08:00):
which my dad is a very genderous man. So now
I got fifteen hundred. I'm liking this tour well, fifteen
hundred and twenty, I guess technically, so don't forget the twenty.
So now I pick up Terry's car and I'm driving
down to Miami. I've got plenty of time to get there,
and I swear to God, about an hour outside of Manhattan,
(08:23):
I started getting the sweats because I'm saying, okay, they'll
just drive straight over that bridge. Do not take a left,
Do not take a left. Do not take a left,
because I have many childhood friends who lived in the
city and do not take a left. Do not take
a left, do not take a left foot I go left,
took a left, So I stay there three days. I
(08:45):
remember I spent six hundred, so that wasn't too bad.
So I still had nine hundred and twenty. But now
I have to drive straight through. I'm tired, I'm beat up,
and I'm so disgusted with myself. Why did I make
this decision? And just see my whole life. I couldn't
make the right decision. I'm not going to drive straight too,
and I'm tired. I got no shot really to do this.
(09:05):
And I drive across the George Washington Bridge and I'm
just joked and self loathing and hatred. I see these
two college kids. A little cardboard sign says Fort Lauderdale.
I pull over and I said, you're my guys. I said,
there's only one stipulation. I'm paying for everything, but I
(09:25):
ain't driving. You two were driving, and we're driving straight through,
and I'll be rolling the joints in the backseat, and
we're going straight through to Fort Lauderdale. And that's how
my caddy life started. In the very first tournament ch
we were paired with Nicholas and so that was my
(09:47):
basically my first week on tour, other than, of course,
you know, catching clubs like Javelin's coming at me, heading
for your dad in the sixty nine Canadian Open. But
that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, you know, when you look at what the
PGA tour has become today with all this talk about
live and the money and all of this stuff. I mean,
the PGA Tour is still just it is an amazing organization.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
It's an amazing product.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know when you look at caddying in the seventies
versus going now in twenty twenty three. So PGA Tour
event where there's courtesy cars and free laundry and there's
I mean.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Bones and everything.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Bones mackay has made so much money caddy and he
could probably fly private.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Oh I thank you, probably could. The caddying has become.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
But I think, h when we were when I started,
I think the first three tournaments at j one that
I caddied for in first place was forty thousand. But
forty thousand was a lot back then, and so if
first bridge is forty, that's what first prize is. And
so and I look back on those days. None of
(11:07):
us had any money. The caddies, we took great care
of each other. If someone needed a hundred to get
out of town, you gave it to them. Many weeks
we slept three or four in the room, and there
was a camaraderie there that happens when people are poor.
I mean that, and you bond together in different ways
(11:29):
when you're there for each other. Plus we didn't know
any different and so we would pack four in a
car that couldn't fit for and we drive through the
night to some tournament. And I mean, the money today
is great. It's a much greater life. And I wouldn't
trade anything for those first three or four years because
(11:52):
all of those people that I traveled with today are
still lifelong friends. And I think we're lifelong friends because
we didn't have all the advantages that they have today.
And I think the advantages today are fantastic. I wish
I was still caddying, but I'm kind of like Bob
Goldby told me one time, the first three tournaments Bob
(12:13):
won in the sixties, his total winnings was seventy five hundred,
and he said, you know what, that was more money
than I ever had. And I was a truck driver's son,
and I was winning tour events and I was playing
golf for money. And he never begrudged the players the
money they made one bit. I don't begrudge the caddies
what they make one bit, or the players. I do
(12:34):
think they're spoiled, though to be honest with you, I do.
So it was kind of funny last week I was there.
I didn't know hardly any caddies, maybe four, so a
lot of them are kind of looking at me like,
who's this boso, you know, And I'm thinking to myself, PayPal,
this is my seventh decade, so he just better back
it up a little bit, you know. But those were
great days, and I think back on it. The caddyan
(12:59):
on the PGA Tour your greatest job I've ever had
in golf. Like I said, to this day, I still
have the friends that I had then. I love them,
and I think part of it is Jackie Burke said
one time that humor usually comes from four people because
they use laughter to get through the day. And I
think we use laughter a lot because nobody really had
(13:21):
any money. I mean, I guess if you won ten percent,
you want four thousand. Caddy today can't Marcus Ball with
four thousand dollars. That'd be a bad week for him,
you know, a great week. I had a blast. I
wouldn't try.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
How was it? How was it?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I mean, listen, I mean I've I've I was lucky
enough to caddy on who were twice in my life.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Once for my father in the Quad City Open.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, he didn't make the cup.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And what what was it? It was the old Peak
die course across.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
The Yeah, yeah, it was a monkey course. I caddied
for him there too, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And then I counted once for Steve Elkington the week
before he won the first Players Championship back when which
you worked in New.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Orleans, Man, And.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is the true story. We got paired with Scott
Hoke and Chip Beck, right, and on the first hole, Scott.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Holm, one of them is the eye, had tole and
the other one's mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
On the first hole, Scott Hoak's got like a forty
footer and it doesn't go in and he's just livid.
On the first hole on Thursday in the morning. And
on Friday Chip Beck lipped out a three footer to
miss the cut and he said to his caddie.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Smiling, you remember smiling. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So on the other day he said to Smiley, you
just gotta love having a chance to make the cut
out here.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
That's it, yeah, And that's it is forced.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But that's the spectrum, right, And how was it? I mean, obviously,
Billy at your age in your early seventies carrying, I
mean carrying the golf bag.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
I mean those bags are not Did he give you
the full staff back.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Or did you know he didn't. I'm in good shape.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
I work out twice a week with a trainer. I'm
I've lost about twenty pounds it it wouldn't have been
a problem for me. My shoulder might have hurt, but
my legs and everything now, I'm I'm blessed to have
good health, you know, as you know, I beat throw
cancer and alcoholism and addiction, and so I'm my last
two mulligans I hit down the middle of the fairway.
So I'm in good shape.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
So did you go big bag?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I just look like I'm not.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Did you go big staff bag or did you go
carry back?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
He brought a carry bag, a little pless carry bag,
you know, with the stand and everything. So there was
a part of me that really wanted the big bag,
because you know, I wanted to prove that I could
do it. But it didn't. It didn't bother me that
I had the little one.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Your relationship with Jay Hoss has been you know, he's
one of your best friends. It's been a lifelong friendship.
I know, you love him like a brother. And you know,
Bill Hoss is named after you, and your first born
son is named after j Jahas.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
So I would say, in some respects Thh that the
public doesn't know that I call you c h because
you notice, but I've called you that my whole life.
It just comes out naturally. I was actually in the house,
the Hoss home, when Bill Hass was born, and I
was somewhat responsible because.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I went back to.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
The room that I was staying in and it was
across from Jay and Jan's room, and Jan was very
pregnant and she was making these like unbelievable noises and sounds.
I just never heard noises like this painful stuff. And
so I went out to Jan and I said, boy,
I think Jan is struggling. He said, Ah, they're just
labor pains. No big deal, said he ain't no labor pains.
(16:57):
Sound he was born thirty men mites later. Wow, he
was about to come out right then. So in some
ways it's hard for me to caddy for Bill or
j because I'm too close to him. They mean too
much to me, So it's hard for me not to
get emotionally involved with him. I'm good at it because
(17:19):
I've done it all those years, three hundred and fifty
tournaments with his dad, and I'm good to turn him
that on and off. But you know, if they have
a bad day, you know, your emotions are that of
someone like your son. You know, you just feel bad,
and you know you can't do anything about it. If
you're caddying for a guy that you really don't care for,
(17:40):
and it's just a business. He really doesn't bother that
much for the guy when you're leaving the course, you know.
And so it's always hard for me to caddy for
for either Bill or j because I am too close
to him, you know, and I'm rooting so much as
a friend for him. I never think of what it
means to me. And I told this story the other
(18:03):
day on the Golf Channel, but what no one really knows.
I don't think I ever told you this story. But
when my first son, Zach was born in Rhode Island,
you know, I was still drinking and drugging, and I
remember this day looking in the back seat of him
though even though Robin and I had the seat turned
the wrong way, and I saw this little thing that
(18:27):
was a day or two old and I never felt
more in love in my life as something. And I
remember looking out the window and excre's my language. But
I never felt like a bigger piece of shit. You
know that this kid's dad was an alcoholic and a
drug addict, and that's where the I think that's where
my bottom started. I'd love to say I quit that day,
but it was about ten weeks later when an intervention
(18:48):
was done. But about two weeks before the intervention, Zach
broke up in the middle of the night like he
always did, around two in the morning, and Robin would
go feed him. And I had been drinking that night before,
and it bothered me that he woke me up. How
about that. That's a good guy, that's a good dad.
I remember as soon as Robin woke up, I felt
(19:09):
like the most worthless piece of shit on the planet.
I'd self loathing that if she wasn't there, I wouldn't
have been able to take care of That's the bottom line.
He would have been an inconvenience to me. That's what
alcohol and drugs do to people. And we lived right
above the eighteenth Green in the clubhouse at Newport Country
(19:29):
Cover where there's balcony, and she went back to sleep,
and I went out in that balcony and I contemplated
doing a swan dive. I didn't have the guts to
do it, but I felt like I didn't want to
be around anymore. Now we'll fast forward to June of
twenty twenty four, which is coming up. The Senior Open
(19:52):
is at Newport Country Club. You can't make this story up,
no way, Patty for Jay in the eighteenth Green sits
right below the balcony that nineteen ninety two I was
going to commit suicide on. And if anybody's struggling with
alcohol and drugs and thinks that your life can't turn around,
(20:13):
I'm going to look up at that balcony and I'm
going to think, Man, what a lucky guy I am,
because there was a day.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So I don't think.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I'm not a religious guy would say I's spiritual. I
don't think a human being could write that story because
they wouldn't. Hollywood wouldn't accept it as too corny.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
They could write it, nobody would believe it.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
That's a factual statement. So the same guy that showed
up at twenty dollars in Orlando wanted to jump off
this building, you know, in the year twenty twenty four,
we will end our county relationship right below that balcony.
You can't make that up. So I'm a really lucky dude.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
To say the least, it must be amazing for you
to caddie for a player like Bill who. I don't
think Bill gets enough credit for being as good a
player as he was.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I mean, I think we.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
All think given the talent Billy had, Bill had as
a player, you know, to have only six wins, I
mean he won the first FedEx, but I mean he
was such a like a natural talent.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, you're cautying for someone that you watched.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Be born.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
In your seventies.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And now you're on the tour and yeah you're in
and and and again. You couldn't write the script write
Palm Springs. You're caddying for Bill Hoss and Palm Springs
where you grew up, I mean you you grew up home. Yeah,
it's an amazing story. Is caddying different today, Billy than
it was when you started? You know?
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I think the.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You know, the game is show different. The players are
so different, and nowadays, you know, if you look at
the way the game has grown, I don't know. I'm
going to just say the last thirty years with the
aja GA, you know, the junior tours, they play more tournaments,
(22:15):
and pros play, and they have college recruiters out there,
so everybody's doing something for someone when they're teenagers, so
they get used to this, and then they get recruited
and they go to college and everyone's doing something for them,
and it seems like and you've been out there a
lot more than I, but a lot of these good
college players will bring one of their college teammates out
(22:35):
caddy form. And if you're playing in a major college
as a college player, even if you don't get your card,
you're still a good player. So you know the game
and you know the player. And so I think the
caddying part of it has changed dramatically in that sense
that good young players are bringing good young players out
(22:58):
to caddy form and then once they at the drift
of all the ins and outs. But you have so
much information today, which is good, and so I think
the obviously, I think the quality of caddy and has
probably improved, just as the teaching is improved and stuff
because of information. But you were lucky and your dad
and I were lucky. You see, we learned to teach
(23:19):
before we had this information. So you and I and
your dad have the benefit of using our eyes before
we had all this stuff, which makes you doubly good.
And so I think the caddies today it's a more
of a profession to us, to be honest with It
was a big party, it really was. And there wasn't
that much money. We were, you know, every town was.
(23:40):
We were in the circus.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I think it was more fun then, but for the
living they make now, and uh, you can see it,
you can see it. We played with Chess and Hadley
and Is caddy Barry bw they called them. He's great caddy,
very professional, really good. I watched to him, I watched
him interact. I like watching that interaction. As you know,
(24:04):
all the years you've been out there, Brooks has had
a great caddy for a long time.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Ricky Elliott one of the best, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And I think what people don't realize about caddying is
there's a rhythm to it, and every player has a
different rhythm. And every when I caddied for Curtis Strange,
he would uh no, stone would be unturned on a
(24:33):
selection between an eight and a nine iron. You know
it'd be a discussion like Warren Peace or something. But
if the next week I caddied for Lanny, I you know,
I'd get the ordage. I'd say, all right, we got
one seventy to the front. That's one eighty six to
cover the left bunker. It's what do you like? Wait
a minute, I haven't even gave me the final you know,
I mean, I mean tell you where the pin is?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well do you like?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
And so you have to get into a rhythm. And
if you don't caddy for a guy like with Bill.
You know, I caddied format the President's Cup in Australia
when he won the fed Ex Cups. I don't know
what's that fifteen years ago or whatever it was. I
don't even know how long ago. So you're always a
little bit uncomfortable because you don't know when to step
(25:18):
in and say something. So when I caddy for Jay,
I knew when to say something. I knew when to
shut up. I caddy enough for Curtis to always shut
up Lannie. I tell the story that we were in
South Africa. I think it was maybe the first sun
(25:42):
City event that they advertised a million dollars winner take all.
I think everybody got a hundred. We played in the
Skin Game in Durban, I believe the weekend before with Payne, Stewart,
Curtis and Bernhard Langer, and Lanny won about two hund
and fifty thousand there. So I was already up, and
he's he's tied for the lead after two rounds with Longer. Now,
(26:04):
Lanny's the fastest fire in the world, and Longer is
the slowest fire, you know. And it's you've been down there.
It's one hundred and ninety degree it is. It takes
his skin off your ears. And the second hole was
a par five and Langer drove it in the junk.
It's one of my great stories of all time. And
(26:25):
Lanny hit a beautiful drive and that long narrow green
with these necks in it, and the pin was way
in the back right, two eighty six to the flag,
but it's elevated a mile, so it's you know, two whatever,
two fifty or something. And he said, really like Billy
Bow and I saw I at three wood left. We'll
have a nice angle to pitch to it, you know. No,
he says, I can peel a driver off that bunker
(26:46):
and you get it close. He says, you know, it's
such a lanny comment, but he means it though it's
not bs for him. So I'm like, what does guy
just say he's going to hit a driver for a
million dollars? You know, he's going to get a deck.
And he hit the best shot I've ever seen in
my life. Maybe he started exactly where he said he
(27:07):
was going to hit it. It started cutting. The green's
like sixty yards deep. It lands about ten yards into
the green, and it starts rolling at the hole like
a putt, and it's getting closer and closer. Next thing
you know, the people go nuts. He lips it out
two feet by the linger has chipped out. He hits
like afore iron on the green about forty feet and
(27:28):
he makes it for Bertie. So Landy gets in there
with this kind of interesting setup. You know, he's probably
gonna get upset. I'm gonna tell the story. But the
day before we were on the putt and green, he
asked me to hold their umbrella over him. It was
so hot, and I'm holding this umbrella in South Africa saying, boy,
I've really come a long ways in my life. And
(27:51):
he said, how's my setup, Billy boy? And if you
ever remembered, every one of his angles was different, I said,
what ho you button?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What ho?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You man?
Speaker 4 (27:59):
He started doing all this on page Yeah, I'm in
a lot of tournaments that, I said. I know, I know,
it's just joking, you know. So he gets in there
and he misses it, no way, and he reaches over
the backhanded.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
He misses that.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
He makes five. Langer makes three.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
You've been over that course, haven't you? No TV though, anyway,
the third hole is very tight, and he would hit
a four wood and if it's one of those holes,
if you drove it out of play, you make triple.
So of course his driver head cover was made out
of mink. You know what I'm talking about. I put
(28:38):
the pin in and the first thing I see is
the mink head cover on by the bag. He's not
going the layup, you know. So now I don't really
caddy for him. You know, I've caddy for him a
few times. But am I in a position to give
him a speech?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
You know? Right?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So I said, I'm thinking, as I'm walking to the tee,
you know, maybe he's just hot. Now I can hand
him this wee wood or do something. Well. He's standing
on the other side of the tee, which means I
don't want to talk to anyone so much for this
this story. So he had these slacks made, you know,
(29:15):
tailored slacks, I think from a company in Cincinnati called Hamilton.
We've got this kind of memory. And he had a
pocket where he kept a ball. He had a ball
pocket and a coin. The ball fit in there perfectly.
Tell me this is this is such a Lanny Watkins story.
So I love Lannie, by the way, He's great. And
(29:36):
so I'm watching them over there. He's not looking at me,
you know, he's not looking at me, like, please talk
me out of this bad decision.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
So Langer, after taking twenty seven minutes to hit his layoup,
Lannie walks on the tee and he pops the ball
out of this pocket like a pimple, and the ball
starts rolling towards the tea mark. It's rolling and he's
walking after it. And where it stops is where he
(30:05):
hits it from with the driver off the deck, off
the deck, doesn't tee it up nothing, and hits the
exact same shot he hit on the second hole. The
brittish shot you ever saw.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
On your light.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
So now I'm thinking, you know, we got thirty four
holes shot back. You know, I'm going to be Bob
Rotello before Bob Rotello, you know. So I come up
with this brilliant speech. I said, I come on, Landing,
you know we're really playing good. You know all the
bs that you'd say rolling one back got thirty four holes.
Just got to be patient. He looks at me, said Bill,
(30:37):
I'm going to clean it up. But he says, hey,
it's the podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
You can say that.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
The billy boy patience is for fucking losers. Don't ever
tell me to be patient. I want it fucking right now.
So I said, Okay, in the last ten minutes, I've gone,
oh for everything, everything that I'm thinking and as good
is wrong. Everything that I've said to him is basically,
(31:05):
get as far away from as as you can here, chuck.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That was my best Landy's story, And I loved him.
He was great to work for, uh me, he was
great to work for it really, and his bottom was
truly real, really truly real, and he could hit the
shot that he was talking about. He could always back
it up, and he been a good putter. I'd say
he was an average putter for a great place. And
(31:32):
I think it's hard to be a great player without
being a really good putter anyway, wouldn't you say that?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I just don't think.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
You know, there may be bej but on the whole,
if you're an average DJ would be able to get
it that good, you know. So I thought if he,
if he ever was a good putter man, he would
have won double the tournaments he wanted to think because
he was actuate.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
So you talk about the rhythm and about you know,
if you don't caddy for someone all the time understanding them.
So the obvious question, seats is what do you think
makes a great caddy?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Questions? A very easy answer, A great good player.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Well, I say this and some of my true caddy
friends don't like it because every now and then I'll
put it on Facebook, er shop. This is how I feel. Well,
you've been out there, so you can dispute it. You
know more about this stuff than I do.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Hey, Hey, I learned from I learned from my dad.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But but you told me early on find good players, right.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Okay, bad player, good caddy, bad player, Okay, good player,
bad caddy. Good player, good caddy, good player, slightly better player,
That's what I would say. But if you and play,
(33:00):
don't make a difference how good you can put.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So I look at I look at the relationship that
I've been lucky enough to watch up close, you know,
both from Brooks and Ricky Elliott, but also from DJ
and his brother one right, AJ, Right, I mean absolutely,
I think they I think both of those two, Ricky
and and and Austin.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think they're both world class caddies. I think they
do a great job.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I think they have a great understanding of the player. Obviously,
the AJ has a great understanding of his brother.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I think Brooks and Ricky Elliott at this point might
as well be brothers.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I mean, they're as close as you can get.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Let me, let me speak.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I only I've never met Ricky. I've met Brooks. He
couldn't pick me up, pick me out of a lineup.
So I don't really know either one of them at all.
Five Majors. But okay, so I figured out one time
that caddies asked at least a thousand questions of tournament,
and you can't say I'll get back to you in
(34:01):
five minutes on that. So you have to have an
answer right like this all the time. So think of
the back nines on Sundays that Ricky has caddied for
Brooks and the great decisions as he's had to make
that Brooks has trusted him with and he has to
(34:22):
make them like that. And so you know, if you're
playing the seventeenth told Augusta on Sunday and the pins
in the back right and you're tied for the lead, sure,
let's go for it. Let's get it back there. But
if you go six inches too farts on the eighteenth
(34:43):
t and you make six with a good shot, by
the way, So as a caddy, what do you do there?
I think you have to protect going long and hope
the pre eighteen getting a playoff. But that decision has
to be made just like that. Their intense scrutiny, an
intense pressure. So at that point he's reading Brooks, he's
(35:06):
reading the yards. Maybe they have a perfect yardage, and
that happens a lot when players win, and you know that, yeah,
you get the looks, you bet and last week and
Bob Hope, I call it the MX bill and I
had in between the yardages fifty times I say, you know,
to the wrong pin placement, So you know, Claude, a
(35:28):
lot of the players the ball doesn't curve as much now,
but they don't really like hitting easy shots into left pins,
not for the most part, because they'll.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Be in the hanging out for the right.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That's a really interesting statement. They don't.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
They don't, and they might not like hitting hard shots
into right pin placements. So these are looks and these
Ricky has to know all of these tendencies with Brooks,
and then he has to know him on the back
nine on Sunday because that might be different. And so
what Ricky's done with Brooks is brilliant. What Stevie did
(36:05):
with Tiger brilliant, okay, And so you have to know
so much about it, and you have this much time
to process this information.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And you're expected if they're asking you, if the player
is asking you, he's expecting you to be right.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
I don't think any of the golfing public has any
idea how hard it is to caddy in the sense
that you could ask you could answer nine and ninety
nine of those questions correct and then give the wrong
club on eighteen. There's no other profession in the world
that you get a ninety nine point nine and maybe
get fired, maybe get fired, so that the caddies are
(36:46):
under intense pressure. That's why I loved watching Barry and
Chess and Hadley work because I know what it means.
But I will tell you when I started caddying, there
were a bunch of old caddies out there. Hall and
laid the lynch in these guys, they almost hated each other.
They because they didn't have all the information you had
(37:10):
to get your notes yourself. And I remember sitting in
a bar, I think we're in Orlando, and a guy
named Roy, older caddy. Roy was caddying for Andy Bean.
I'm not going to mention the caddy that I was
sitting with because I don't like to knock them off
their pedestal a little bit because he was a great
caddy and he caddy for major winters and stuff. But
(37:32):
Andy Bean hit this ball over the green. Now I'm
just sitting there watching it on TV. This guy went
nuts with happiness that Roy gave him the wrong club,
and I realized that they were actually competing like the
old players were competing. So they didn't really love each
other back then. I said to David Graham one time,
I said, why do you think you guys were so tough?
(37:53):
He said, we weren't tough.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
We were broke.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
So those caddies were always broke. So they were actually
happy if Big Griff pulled the wrong club because that
many couldn't caddy. See I've got no guts, she couldn't caddy. Well,
it's not easy to pull the right Colory time.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
We're talking, we've talked about the you know how caddying
is different today versus now.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I mean you've seen I don't think there's probably.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
In the last forty years of guessing up close, there
isn't a great player.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
That you haven't seen in the heat of the battle.
Not many.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah, OK, And I'm talking because you've caddied in President's Cups,
within the Tiger generation, caddy when Tiger was playing. So
what is a common denominator, Billy, of all of the
great players that you've been lucky enough to see, all
the great champions are is there something that they all have?
Speaker 4 (38:59):
I would say a great portion of them had the
ability to take the information in that their caddy was
given them and then stand on their own two feet
and make that decision. I've spoken to Fluff, Stevie and Joelicabo.
All three of them told me that Tiger was very
easy to caddy for never blamed them one time for
(39:21):
bad club. So Tiger created an environment where it was
okay to fail, so you can't. I always thought players
that intimidated the caddy was they were hurting themselves because
now the caddy is always going to make a conservative call,
so he didn't get his asked to that. Joe and
(39:44):
Stevie and Fluff all told me that, you know, and
Jay has is that way. You know, they want to
stand on their own two feet. Now, there are some
that liked to be coddled, as you know, but I
always felt they're really great ones. Trow Frank Beard told
me something. And you're out there, you're out there and
you see these great young players. He told me one time.
(40:07):
This is before you had all the information, that he
never met a great player that didn't trust his intuition.
That's Delani trusted his intuition when he said, no, if
I peel a driver off that bunker, I can get
it close. See what I actually told him was the
smart play, but he could feel he could smell this shot.
(40:30):
You get visualize it, you could smell it, you know,
And he just he looked at me like, come, Matine,
I got this close and he did it. You know.
So I think, you know, golf is a solo sport.
You know, I'm a big rickey fowler fan. I don't
like this wee stuff in interviews.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I just don't.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I don't know why. I just I'll tell you what
my you know what Peve is. I'll tell you what
my pet Peeve is. And I saw it this week
and it drives me nuts. It's these putting stations that
they all put up, how much of a grinder they
take up, which kind of means I'm not allowed to
putt it that hole even though I'm trying to warm
(41:07):
up before the round. That's your hole. Now. Can you
imagine what would have happened in the olden days, guys
who would have been sculling chip shots into these players' heads,
they would have been cutting to these holes on purpose
and making a scene and getting right up in their
grill and say, listen, Pali, you don't own this goddamn
(41:29):
hole for all of us. But I think it's very selfish,
I really do. I think it's very poor etiquette. It's
not a practice around. It's fifteen minutes before the tournament,
and you're looking for a hold of plot too, and
you can't find it. And they got these elaborate things,
and they got the levelers, and then you get the
caddy and the player doing aim point from two and
a half feet and they're backing up by you know,
(41:50):
they're doing the Macarene or something. You know. I mean,
it drove me up a wall, I'll tell you that
right now. Boy, And I wish there was an old
timer out there that were just start chipping balls into
these people. Just bore one right into the guy's stomach. Oh,
I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was your hole. I
didn't see your name on that hole, you know. So
I think it's really poor etiquette. It's selfish and self centered.
(42:13):
That's my rant for the day.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
We'll go to something. We'll go to something positive.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Billy, what's the best shot you've ever seen in competition
from a player you weren't caddying?
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Boy, that.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Probably two and it was because nobody else could do it.
And you've seen that, you've seen it with Jay Tiger. Yeah,
the first one was at Augusta. In the second hold,
Jay was paired with the Sevy. What year, oh boy
(42:52):
was in the I want to say early eighties, okay,
And he drove it kind of down left center, but
he drove it on the down sofa one of those moguls,
and the pin was over it in the back blocked,
so he got nothing. Hitting a three iron, you know,
if you can put it in the middle of greenish,
great shot, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Because back then they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I mean when in the eighties you were, you would
go into some of those holes with longer cloths.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Well, yeah, he's hitting a three iron now, and so
i'm i'm you know, I'm imagining what he's trying to do.
I think he's going to try to hit something low
and maybe run it up in between the bunkers and
either bunker's going to be fine, either bunkers. And he
hits his shot and as you know, there's some huge
trees up there to the left. He hits it over
(43:41):
the trees or a cut three hundred feet in the
air and he stops at like ten feet from the hole. Now,
you couldn't get an l wedge. They didn't have L
wedges back then. If you were on the if you
were hitting an L wedge from the left side of
the fairway from eighty yards, you couldn't have got at
(44:02):
that post. So he not only did you have to
have the talent, you had to have the imagination, but
there was another factor. You had to have the guts
to try it to Chops. The other one was it
was right before they had the open, maybe a year
or two before they open the Tory Pines, and they
(44:23):
lengthened the course. So Jay's playing with Tiger the last round.
You know, Jay's like forty nine years old, looks like
he's got the head cover on his driver when he
hits it. Compared to Tiger, what year is this, I'm
going to say, oh four maybe, okay, oh four yep.
So I'm gonna say it was maybe a year or
two before they they just lengthened it.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
It was unbelievably a cloudy, cold day at Torry Pott
and Jay birdied eight nine and ten and that put
Tiger in Jade about tide for fit. But they were tied.
You know, it's kind of cool as even hanging with
the guy, and it was I remember, like it was
just there was two hundred and thirty seven downhill and
the wind's coming in left or right. I mean, it's
(45:04):
just everybody's nightmare. Elevated tea into the wind with a slice.
And at the time Jay had a five wood and
like a three iron, but it was like a two
and a half iron. We are trying to figure out
every way imaginable can we get a three iron on
the front of the green and just try to make
a par because we don't want to hit the five
wood up in the air because you can just see
(45:25):
this thing floating over to the thirty creek or something,
some big toe pop up over there or something. There's
no way or you're seeing anything good even as a caddium.
Come on, put that thing ten feet behind your right foot.
And finally, j being the cool guy that he is,
said Okay, I'm a tour pro. I should be able
to hit the five with So he hit a beautiful shot,
(45:46):
kind of drew it back into the wind pin high
about thirty feet left of the whole pin. Hi beautiful shot.
It was there the whole way. And one thing I
always loved about Jay, Jay always knew who was better
than him, and he admired it getting beat by people.
He didn't think they were as good as him. But
he understood the Watsons and Trevino's Jack Tiger. He knew
(46:06):
that they had physical capabilities. He didn't, not that he
wanted to lose to him, but he understood it. So
Tiger took out this foe iron and he hit this shot,
and I swear that clubs stopped at waist high. You've
seen him do it, and DJ can do it too.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
He just does it.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
And he hit this thing. It looked like it was
about twenty feet off the ground and it just started
out as the hole and it stayed at the hole
and it never got higher. And he carried it in
there about twelve feet from the hole and it was
like the first time you saw a giraffe. He didn't
believe it, you know. And we were walking off the
(46:50):
tee and because Jay would always do this, he went
to me, how about that shot, which was his way
of saying, I give So we get down there and
Jay's putting from the left, Tigers lining up his putt
and I've always gotten along with Tiger, you know, because
I met him when he was young for your dad.
(47:10):
And I don't bother him and never asked him for
an autograph. I know how to leave him alone, and
I know, but he's very nice to me if he
sees me. He couldn't be any nicer because I'm not
a threat to him. I don't bug him, you know.
And so he's kneeling down reading this putt and I
kneel down next to him and I said, you know, Tiger,
you really haven't been on tour that long. Really, I said,
(47:32):
you might not want to be looking in our bag
on part of threes. We're shot makers.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
And he goes with a He's.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Got a great smile when he smiles when he's in
comfort Zony with a big smile of his he said, man,
I didn't know they made fairoy woods. It went dead short.
But if I can tell one more story, Tommy Lamb,
who used to caddy for Bob GOLDI anyway on Jay
at this point he's canty for Faction and they're tied
(48:04):
with Tiger going to the last round of bay Hill.
You know what kind of a shot maker's paradise. And
I got to preface this story by I think the
next week was maybe the players. Tiger shot sixty six,
Brad shot seventy five. Tiger told Jay, he said, I
saw the worst round of golf I've ever seen in
my life on Sunday with Brad Faction, the worst ball striking,
(48:27):
he said. As I was going back home, I went
through Brad's round. He shot seventy five, and I thought,
if I had my best short game ever, I would
have shot eighty one. He shot seventy five. So I
kind of heard this story, didn't think much of it,
(48:48):
so I don't know. A year or so later, I
said to Tommy Lamb on Thomas, how do you get
get paired with Tiger Mutch? To get along on his
ow was great? So let me tell you the story
about bay Hill. Well, I already kind of heard this story,
he said, bad facts and playing. You can't even believe
bill where he says, he's hitting in the concession stands,
He's hitting it all over the place, He's shooting ninety
(49:09):
and we get to the last hole and somehow we're
still in third place. And as you know, that's a
you can make anything on that hole. He says. In
my mind, I'm begging him to drive it in the
rough so we can pitch out and the worst we're
going to make his five and we're going to get
fourth place. See, and I'm going to drive out of there,
(49:31):
and I hope I don't get arrested. So we're between
six and seven iron, and I'm not giving him a
seven iron. No wait, because he didn't hit a ball.
So I talk him into six and he hits the
only solid shot of the day and it carries into
the back bunker, which is fine with me because I
know you're going to get it up and down. So
I run up to pick up the divot and somebody
(49:52):
hits me on the calf for a club and I
look up and it's Tiger. He said, type Sho has
got a big smile and his base and said, I
bet you didn't see that shot coming. He said, how
do you caddy for this guy? And Tommy said, just
the way I did. Safety first, you know, so as
(50:14):
you know the interactions between the players is I always
wanted to be on the bench at a baseball game,
or on the dugout, or on the football game. And
when you're a caddy or a coach, you are the bench.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Nick dunlop An amateur winning a PGA Tour event.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
What a story.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
And I thought I thought he was going to struggle,
and he had a little wobble. But I mean JT
and Sam Burns were the ones that were struck down
the stretch.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
I think it's all you need to know about golf.
When I met Jay Hass, he told me his story
his first west Chester Classic. Alex Alexander was over at Wingfort,
so he went over to see Lex. You never met
my dad, so you can imagine what that was like.
He said, boy, your dad was great to me. I
couldn't believe how much he knew about my amateur career.
I said, it was his business. He knew who was good,
(51:05):
you know. And he was giving a lesson and turned
that grip over.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
You know what he was doing.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
He was imitating my dad with his hands. You know.
He had a plaid coat on and stripe pants and everything.
And he said he was getting ready to leave. I
was sitting in the cart with him. He kind of
hit me there, right, get out of here. I got
to go, and he said. He started to drive off,
and he stopped and he said, Jay, I just got
one thing to tell you. He said, I don't know
(51:30):
what he meant by that's why I'm asking you. He said,
what's that? Mister Harmony says, the clubbing ball don't know
your name. He left, and so he said, what does
that mean? He said that actually was his way of saying,
you can be as good as you want to be.
(51:50):
Because Nicholas and Palmer and Watson and Travino, they don't
have a patent on shooting sixty seven. They're not the
only ones that can do it. So the club and
ball doesn't know who's swinging the club. And that was
his way of saying, you're good and believe in yourself. Well,
the club and ball didn't know he was an amateur.
(52:13):
Now the beauty of golf, and you know this is
no matter how good you are, you have to perform
every shot, every shot. Sam Byrn's world class player, world
class player. You know what, he made too bad swings.
You know what it's happened to every player that's ever lived.
(52:34):
You make wrong, bad swings at the wrong time. And
the club and ball didn't know that Dunlop was an
amateur and he made good swings and he grinded it out.
But you you came up with the key there. It
was a passing comment, but it wasn't. He overcame adversity
early on, and that's what you can't teach, right, Yeah,
(52:55):
that cards as soon as it happened. Oh he's going
to start falter.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
You know what he did?
Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yeah, little pitch shot on eight, you know, in there
like that, And as you know as a coach, sometimes
the nerves will show on pitch shots. Yeah, where you've
got to have great touch. And he came right back
in a beautiful shot. So your comment was passing, But
to me it wasn't. It meant that he had whatever
it took inside. And I'm not too sure you can
teach that. You can make people better at it, but
(53:23):
the people that have it naturally, I don't know. You know,
Brooks is the only player I've seen since Tiger that
will say I'm going to win this thing tomorrow and
a major championship.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
And he has that in it.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
No, he does, and he's the only one that will
say it, and it bothers people because then he backs
it up. But I don't think you can teach that.
You told me that when he came on tour. He's
not afraid of anything. No, he never asked me to
pick him for the Presidents Cup team. We had a conversation.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I don't tried to get it.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Hadn't done enough, you know, for whatever reasons whatever, But
you said that to me. See, I remember this stuff
because I actually look at people's insides more than now
than I look at their swings.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
No, why because you can't be on tour and have
a bad swing. We really can't. You can't be good
enough to have one of those two hundred cards and
have a bad swing. No, it might not look good,
it might not have well, you know, as an old
pro from the Northwest, Jerry Mold said, well, you know,
some Sam Snead would have They would have thought he
(54:24):
had a bad swing when the symmetry police showed up
and started drawing the lines.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
So I'm a I have such respect for the talent
of these players. It's unbelievable how good they are anything.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
I mean, they're they're coming out there younger and younger
and they I mean, I've said this a lot recently.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
There's no apprenticeship now.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I mean you remember when you played, when when you
when you were trying to play, when my dad was playing,
and then when you were caddying early if somebody was
a rookie, there was a two to three.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
Year apprenticeship maturation, need to.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
Learn the role tournaments or they're good and you.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Know, And it's not like Jay hows when he turned
pro he'd won.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
A boatload of college tournaments.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
He won the double A well.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
I mean it was an amazing But I think the
kids this generation, they have so much access to information
to fitness, but they just have so much more and
they can dial the equipment into basically just match whatever
they do and they have no fear.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
They just don't eat because I.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
Haven't been to a tour event in quite a while,
and you're out there all the time. So maybe when
pick up on it as much as I do, there
was a time when there were about four or five players.
When they were on the range, you knew that the
sound of their ball was different. Yeah, And your back
(55:54):
could be to them and you'd say that Tiger's hit
an iron shot over there, yea, Or let's Trevino buzzing
some wedge. You could even be a wedge. And Bill
was on the range first day practice around hitting balls
and there's a guy about fifteen yards away, but he
was kind of a little bit in front of me,
so I couldn't really see you. It was now, I'm
(56:15):
telling you, this ball was coming off his club and
this guy was this strap and looking guy, and I'm
watching these shots and I'm listening to them and they
are just so good. Wyndham clark Us opened it and
I said, why am I? Hey, I didn't even recognize him.
I've seen in my life other than on TV. And
(56:35):
plus he was ahead of me, so all I could
see was his back, and I was just like, Wow,
this is what the game has become. It's really something.
The quality of golf today is incredible, and I believe
that they do set the courses up too easy for
the abilities that they have. I really do. I don't
(56:58):
really like watching thirty under them. Yeah, I don't like
watching your driving a wedge. I just don't like it.
You know, Wingfoot, a great player, had a great week.
E Chambeau the only guy that broke car yep, and
you know what, tied for tenth six over Jean and
wing Foot played short. Remember the ball it was run,
(57:21):
was up, but it was running. They didn't driving wedge
to the ninth tall six yards, but they made you
drive it straight and they made you plan from there.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
So I don't really like.
Speaker 4 (57:36):
Watching thirty thirty five hunder. I really don't. I like
to see, uh. I like to see somebody have to
make four powers on four hard holes coming in to
win a tournament, that's right. And so I've kind of
become disenchanted with watching pro golf, and I'm disenchanted with
all the noise and all that stuff, and I've lost
(58:02):
a little bit of just every holes are driving a
wedge and every hole, every part finds are driving a
six iron. I don't know, it's just and they can
all do it. It's not like fun guy's doing it.
Everybody hits it long. You know, Jill hits the three
hundred yards and he's like one hundred and Thirtieth's joke
(58:24):
really is we were playing with Shoffley and Canley in
a practice ground and you know, Bill says, yeah, they're
you know, doesn't look like much. They're twenty yards ahead
of me, but that's two clubs. Yeah, you know, they're
going to get their wedge closer than my seven iron.
Every time w's four rounds. It's a kind of a mismatch,
you know so, but you see it and you're you're
(58:46):
part of it, and you teach it, and you know
the power game, and so it's cool for me to
watch it up close. And I have great respect for
how good they are. They're really good.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, and you're going to I mean, the story in
Patty and for Bill this week or last week and
then getting to Caddy for Jay with all the history
at New Poor Country Club. It's it's a pretty special
life that you've been lucky enough to live.
Speaker 4 (59:11):
Well, I've said this a lot, and I'm old enough
to look back on it and realize this. You're kind
of in the middle of it, and I hope you
realize it at all. The Harmon brothers and you at
our four we're pretty ordinary people and we've lived an
extraordinary life because of golf. Yeah, we really have to
(59:32):
forget your accomplishments. As a teacher, I don't like the
word accomplishments. I like the word experiences. You know, I
saw you when Brooks wanted Aaron Hills, and I saw
you hop in the cart. I didn't think about how
much money you made and all that stuff, how much
money you made. I thought about how cool. It must
(59:54):
have been. That's part right now. I mean that, And
those are the things that you're going to remember. I
believe when my dad was dying, I was in the
hospital room with the one time I was too sure
what he was going to say to me. I'm sure
your brother, Butch wasn't either when he was alone, and
he was the opposite of what I thought. And he
said to me, and I'll never forget this, he said,
(01:00:17):
you know, Bill, I lay here and I know what's
going to happen. And I can honestly tell you I
never think about one of the masters. I never think
about being the pro wing foot or sending all that stuff.
All I think about is family and friends. All the
other stuff that I thought was important is stuff. But
that ride in the cart that's important. It is it
(01:00:39):
is get a big check and you get all this stuff,
and that's great. But was that your first major with him?
It was yeah, yeah, see, and I knew that. And
so when I look at that stuff, those are the
things that you're going to remember. You'll spend the money.
You know, eventually one of your rolexes will break, and
(01:01:00):
hope you get it. You never forget that moment. And
that's what it really is all about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
To me, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
It's been great talking jests.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
We we missed you and we'll hope to see you soon.
In good job last week.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Okay, I'll accruit a lot of stories in the next
three years when you have me on again.
Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
You got it. I love you, brother to you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
So that was my uncle, Billy Harmon. Billy was always
my favorite uncle. And you know, when you get to
talk to someone, you know he's in his early he's
in his early seventies. He's been around the game his
entire life. He has seen so much of golf instruction.
He was a great player, but I thought his insight
into kind of caddying and what it kind of takes,
(01:01:52):
what it's like. As I said in the intro, Billy
is a golf instructor. That's what he's known for. But
the DNA of of who he is as a as
a person was forged by the years that he cardied
on the PGA Tour. And anytime I can talk to
somebody like Billy, that kind of old school kind of
Raycantur type, you know, storytelling, it's just it's amazing for
(01:02:16):
me and I think you can hear how much I
was laughing in the interview. Billy's always been my favorite uncle.
He's been out of all my dad's brothers, he's been
easily been the most supportive.
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Of me in my career.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
And you know, I can't thank him enough for everything
he's done for me. And I think it's just a
cool story. I mean, he's had a very unique life.
He's battled adiction and you know, he has turned his
life around, and you know he is a deep, deep thinker.
And hope everybody enjoyed that one, because I know I did.
(01:02:51):
Son of It, which comes to you every Wednesday, Rate Review,
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks everyone for listening.
We will see you next week.
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