The Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick/Kevin Cook

This weekend, the author of Tommy's Honor, Kevin Cook is back on the show to talk about the fantasic life of Titanic Thompson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick here
on News Talk WGAC.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Pleasure to welcome Johnson Wagner back to the Augusta Golf Show.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
I feel like the beauty of it is that we're
taking the viewer down on the ground at these venues
and really digging into some of the shots of the day,
and it's no I've gotten so comfortable. I've gotten so
comfortable with it and setting up a shot that the
outcome of the golf shot is almost doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Compared to the setup and where we are and where
we're taking the view He.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Is also the voice of the Tennessee Titans. It's a
pleasure to welcome Taylor's Arzer back to the Augusta Golf Show.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
You know, I didn't get to see Jack Nicholas in
his prime. I guess that probably maybe Hogan or Nicholas
would be the closest thing to what we're seeing with
Scheffler's this ability to execute.

Speaker 6 (00:48):
Shot after shot after shot, and.

Speaker 5 (00:51):
We really haven't in this generation.

Speaker 7 (00:52):
We didn't.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
Tiger Woods's talent is above all else. I'll argue that
with anybody, I think he's the most talented guy to
ever play the game, but Tiger missed more shots than
Scottie does.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey, Hi, good morning, Welcome to this week's Augusta Golf Show.
I'm John Patrick. Thank you for being here this morning.
Hi to you. However you listen to this program, and
I hope you listen on GAC each week, but remember
these days. If you can't listen in real time when
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(01:24):
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(01:45):
Thank you for doing that. Want to reach out get
in touch with me, you can easy to do email.
Best way to do this John at Augustagolfshow dot com.
Hopefully you're following me on x at Augusta goolf Show.
I'm mentioning the website Augustagolfshow dot com just to let
you know. If you can't stick around for the entire

(02:05):
show this morning, you can catch up on the conversations
at Augustagolfshow dot com slash listen, okay, tell you about
the show this morning. I subscribe to a wonderful quarterly magazine,
The Golfer's Journal. Our friend Tom Coin is the editor
of the publication. In the latest issue, Kevin Cook does

(02:29):
a quick dive on the story of Titanic Thompson. Do
you know Thompson's story? Have you heard any of the stories?
Kevin wrote a book on Thompson about fifteen years ago.
If you don't know his story, stick with us this
morning and you'll know a lot more. Kevin's going to

(02:50):
join us in a couple of minutes for the entire hour.
As always, I will let you know where to find
the golf on TV this weekend and if there's time
this morning, and are why I love the segment. Jack Nicholas,
Junior Jackie, chairman of the Memorial Tournament, will tell us
why he loves the game of golf. All right, coming up, incredible,

(03:12):
unbelievable story of Titanic Thompson. Stay right there, Thanks for
being here this morning. You're listening to the Augusta Golf
Show on News Talk and Information WGAC.

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Speaker 1 (06:45):
If you'd like to comment about anything you've heard on
today's show, just send John an email. Send it to
John at Augusta Goolfshow dot com. That is John at
Augusta Goolfshow dot com.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Good morning, and we'll Welcome back to the Augusta Golf Show.
I'm John Patrick. Kevin Cook was a senior editor at
Sports Illustrated editor in chief at Golf Magazine. He is
the award winning author of Tommy's Honor, and his latest
book is The Tiger Slam. Kevin was on the program
last fall talking about that. He also contributes to The

(07:20):
Golfer's Journal. Pleasure to welcome Kevin Cook back to the
Augusta Golf Show. How are you, Kevin with you again?
Thank you, Thank you for saying yes to this. I
reached out when I read the article in this season's
edition of The Golfer's Journal. It is an article on

(07:41):
a fellow by the name of Titanic Thompson. And you
wrote a book almost like fifteen years ago on Thompson.
His story is fantastical, mythical, a lot of times unbelievable.
But I'm guessing that there are listeners this morning that
have never heard his story. Maybe they've heard the name,

(08:03):
or maybe they've heard a story, but not these stories.
And my goal today is to let people in on
some of that. That being said, Kevin, when did you
first hear of Titanic Thompson down through.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
The years, I heard references to him. One of the
things if you're with golfers of a certain age, and
there are many of them pretty old now you're talking
the PGA Tour champions level at this point, But back
in the eighties nineties there were still players who would,

(08:40):
especially during a reign delay, tell stories about the Great
Titanic Thompson. Gary McCord, a friend of mine, was one
of them. He based many of the tricks in the
movie tan Cup on what Titanic had done, and he
talked about the master of the proposition that it's one

(09:01):
of those things that you hear enough about over the
years you think, well, some of that sounds just too
ludicrous to be true. The man dressed up as a
woman and got off the Titanic itself before it sank.
Turns out not to be true. I spent two years
finding out what was true about the Great Titanic Thompson
a man who was born in the Ozarks in the

(09:25):
very late nineteenth century, whose name was Alvin Thomas, but
who was misidentified by New York City papers many years
later as Thompson. And since it sounded like a Tommy gun,
like a Thompson, sun machine gun. He kind of liked that,
so he stayed Titanic Thompson ever after that.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Okay, let's go back. Let's go back to the beginning.
You wrote the book on him. Talk a little bit
about his childhood, is upbringing, and were their influences they
sent him down this path?

Speaker 4 (09:57):
There were the family lore has it that his father,
who was a big time gambler and a drunk, was
gambling the night that Titanic was born and didn't bother
to stop. Came home the next day. One day, the father,
Lee Thomas, decided to having a little kid around the

(10:19):
house kind of cramped his style, so he took the
last five dollars out of his wife's savings and skipped
down and disappeared, went gambling. Titanic grew up dirt poor.
His wife, his mother remarried, and he was unwelcome in
the house where he grew up with his stepbrothers and sisters.

(10:43):
He was never a good student, just loathed being in
school while other creatures are free outside. He never learned
to read effectively. In fact, later in his life, his
wives there were five of them, would read the newspaper
to him, but he was brilliantly analytical, understanding the odds

(11:04):
of poker, for instance, in a computer like way. Long
before there were any computers. He practiced manipulating cards so
he could deal from the bottom of the deck and
nobody could tell. He was a cheater as well as
a brilliant athlete and a great card player. He marked
cards very effectively. One reason that he never liked Las

(11:27):
Vegas is because Las Vegas has those shiny cards that
are laminated that are much harder to mark. He wound
up shooting in shooting for crowds in a traveling show.
He eventually took off by himself and figured he was
going to see how he could make a living with

(11:50):
his wits, and that's what he did throughout most of
the twentieth century.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
We're talking with Kevin Cook here on the Augusta Golf Show.
How did he how did he get started? What? What
was he doing early in life down this path?

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Well he was. He was a terrific card player and
became a gambler who took in in times when penny
any card game was was not just a cliche. People
who literally did play cards and addie a penny. He
quickly won enough money that he could, he could double

(12:29):
his bankroll again and again. He wound up partnering with
great gamblers like Nick the Greek Dan Delos, who was
a big card player. Like Minnesota Fats. Titanic was also
a great pool player, not at the level of Fats,
but he was smart enough to to work. That's his
way at the time. And it's hard to imagine that

(12:52):
one could do this today, But at the time, you
could go into a town, clean out all the gamblers,
go on down the road and nobody had ever heard
of you in the next town. And Titanic was a
master of that. As he got richer and better with
proposition bets, saying, for instance, I can throw this peanut
on top of the building over there, and he could

(13:13):
do it because he had preloaded the peanut with butt shot,
making a little heavier. Things like that, people would bet
on and they would, as angry as they might be,
they would pay off. Titanic wound up being a road gambler.
He had a big packard. He loved big fast cars.
He would win bets. One of the things that Titanic

(13:34):
would do he practiced everything. He would say, you know,
I'll beat you in a road race with my car
and I'll drive backward. He was good enough to drive
a more than one hundred miles an hour in reverse
and with races that way. He was also very clever.
One of Titanic's most famous proposition bets as he's driving

(13:56):
to some other gamblers in Missouri and there's a sign
that says John upland twenty miles. And he laughed and said,
it's no, twenty miles to Joplin. Can't be more than fifteen.
The other the other gamblers in the car saying, well,
the Highway Department's pretty careful about things like that. Five
hundred dollars says you're wrong, And as often happened, the

(14:16):
bets just go up and up and up. From there,
they get to Joplin, look at the odometer, it had
been fifteen miles, and Titanic didn't reveal to them that
he had paid a couple of men the night before
to move that signed five miles closer to town. These
are some of the delightful grifts that Titanic did all
through all over the country from the nineteen twenties into

(14:40):
their fifties and sixties and beyond.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Kevin was he charming.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
In a way he was I wound up. One of
the great sources who became a great friend was Jeannette Miller,
who was his last his fifth wife, Titanic married five times.
He liked to women to be very young and and pretty.
He divorced them four times, took care of them financially,

(15:08):
but did not want to be tied down. And Jeannette
is one of the ones who who told me charming.
He definitely had a certain charisma, but there was also
a dead eye. There was something like a shark about him.
You see photos of him, and and he's not someone
who was overflowing with the milk of human kindness, although

(15:32):
he did say that he never took anybody who wasn't
asking for it one way or another. He was clever
and able to come up with the most outlandish bets.
For instance, after he took up golf, he could play
left handed and right handed. He would he would let
you beat him by a shot right handed and then say, oh,

(15:53):
you were so lucky, I'll bet you ten times as much.
I'll e didn't play left handed, wouldn't find instead of
left handed clubs. He wasnaturally left handed. In fact, he
was the best left handed golfer in the world, probably
his time. He was asked, why don't you ever, why
didn't you join the PGA tour, And he said, I
couldn't afford the pay cut.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
You know, you mentioned the gambling that he did and
traveling from town to town? Did he and the reason
I asked if he was charming? He must have run
a foul of some nefarious folks.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
He certainly did. He killed a couple of them, one
man who he won a riverboat from, and then the
fellow was menacing Titanics first one of his first girlfriends,
and Titanic clocked him with a hammer and the man
fell overboard and drowned. Titanic said it his own fault

(16:50):
because he never learned his whim. He ran a foul
of the sheriff in that town, who told him, we
don't like people coming coming in in our our town
and killing people. Why don't you either willing to put
you in jail and try for murder or you can
just hand over the deed to that boat. That's how
Titanic got out of that one uh the other the

(17:13):
other people he killed, he killed the five men in total.
He always claimed was in self defense, and then he
said they would all tell you that that they had
it coming. He uh got in trouble with the law
and was chased by the FBI through the Freedom of
Information Act. I got telexis from the office of j

(17:34):
Edgar Hoover telling people again, there's no quick communication. A
telegram would tell the local sheriff the notorious gambler titan
Alvin Thomas, Alvin Titanic Thomas is coming your way, so
keep an eye out for him. Largely, when he would
go into big money matches, big money UH matches on

(17:55):
at the local country club, or big money poker games
that were ill legal, often the local police would look
the other way, but the FBI was after him for
years and years and never caught up with him.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Hang on, Kevin, We're gonna take a quick break here.
We'll continue with Kevin Cook in just a few minutes.
But while I have you, take a look at a
couple of the golf headlines from earlier this week. Headlines
are brought to you by Lionel Smith Limited. Lionel Smith
Limited to only the finest in men's clothing. Okay, changers
are coming to the Tour Championship. The Tour announced this

(18:33):
week that they're going to scrap the starting strokes format
that's been in place since twenty nineteen, and they will
just have seventy two holes of stroke play with everybody
in the field starting at even par. That change will
go into effect this fall. There is also talk that
this change could be just the beginning of changes coming

(18:54):
to the tournament in the future. No specifics were laid out,
but many in the game are expecting more announcements about
the future as we get closer to Eastlake this fall. Well,
Charlie Woods picked up a win this week at the
Ajaga Team Tailor Made Invitational at stream Song. Charlie shot
rounds of seventy, sixty five and sixty six to win

(19:18):
by three shots. The field included the top junior golfer
in the country, Miles Russell, along with four of the
top five juniors in the country and sixty of the
top one hundred players. Don't forget when you're logged into
your Facebook page, come on over become a fan of
our Facebook page. The Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick.
We keep talking golf during the week. Want to join

(19:40):
in on the conversation. You can if you follow me
on x at Augusta Golf Show. All right, we'll take
a quick break, but when we come back, we'll continue
the conversation with Kevin Cook talking about Titanic Thompson. Don't
go away. You're listening to the Augusta Golf Show with
John Patrick here on News Talk and Information WGACIX.

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Speaker 2 (23:20):
Welcome back to the Augusta Golf Show. I'm John Patrick.
Let's continue the conversation with Kevin Cook. We're talking about
Titanic Thompson. Okay, Kevin, you mentioned five marriages. You know,
when somebody gets married, they begin to kind of settle
down and stay in one place for a while. Did
Thompson settle down? Did he stay in one place for

(23:42):
a while?

Speaker 4 (23:43):
He never did until the end. I mean he lived
in Pittsburgh for a while. He lived in southern Indiana
when of all things, there was an oil boom there
and had one of his associates her where Cokes was
the most dangerous man around there. And of course, of
course they teamed up and took other people in pool

(24:05):
and and cards and other games. But Titanic was literally
what he was called and called himself was a road gambler.
So the moment he married someone and his wife may
may have wanted him to stick around for a while,
he could not. He got back in his car and disappeared.

(24:26):
He would leave a suitcase full of money in the
closet he later, after he divorced one of his wives,
who had one of the two sons of Titanics, whom
I met and who were also good sources who became friends.
He left the deeds to the oil wells that he
had won from oil men, and those wound up there's

(24:50):
they're still paying off to this day.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
In the five marriages, I know he was married to
his last wife when he passed away, wasn't.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
He well, she had technically she had divorced him so
that his social security would pay better or something like that.
But they were still together. She still looked after him,
and she was with him when he died.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
So the five marriages kind of spanned from when to
when was he did he get married in his twenties and.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Back in yes, yes, back in the nineteen twenties, all
the way into the seventies. The Jeanette, his last wife,
told me that she was not what she considered the
love of his life. That would be Alice Kane, who
was seventeen year old pickpocket in Pittsburgh and they met

(25:47):
in v Que. It would be in a movie. She
was picking his pocket and had her hand on his bankroll,
which you know, a lot of gamblers were proud of
a bankroll if they had one hundred dollars bill on
the outside andress might be five singles. Titanic at Hunters
all the way down. He grabbed her wrist while she

(26:08):
was picking his pocket and wouldn't let go and until
she let him buy an ice cream cone, which was
still a relatively new thing at the time. Alice was
very handy with a gun. She helped him shoot out
get away from games that he would that he would

(26:29):
win and clean out the whole town essentially, and some
of the losers didn't appreciate it and would come after
him shooting. She shot back, and so did he. She
was eventually killed in Pittsburgh in a car accident. A

(26:50):
car hit her. She was walking, and there is talk.
I believe it's substantive, but I couldn't prove it. Al
Capone was behind that because Titanic had taken al Capone
on his way out of Chicago one day, and Capone
didn't appreciate that at all.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
What did he get from Capone?

Speaker 4 (27:14):
Oh, he won five hundred dollars from Capone, which to
him was practically nothing. But he went he wanted to
show you who was boss. And this was this was
part of It's not quite charm, but it's certainly an
important characteristic he had. He needed to be the big
dog in any situation. And if you're in Chicago in
the twenties and thirties, you're not going to last long

(27:36):
if you were on the wrong side of Capone. So
one of one of his bets that he won that
led to a whole caravan of gangsters in cars driving
to Jackson Park nine hole er in Chicago. I used
to play sometimes in the middle of the summer. Titanic
would say, you know, I'm the only man who can

(27:57):
hit a golf ball five hundred yards. One knows you
can't do that. You're using hickory clubs. Okay, Well, I'll
take the money. Well, i'll take the bets right now.
I'm not telling you when I'm gonna do it. Well,
he waits until January, waits until the middle of the winter,
leads them all down to Jackson Park, tees up a
ball and then turns away from the golf course towards

(28:20):
Lake Michigan, knocks the ball into the frozen lake and
it's still going to this day. That's another one of
Titanic's famous grifts. And uh and Gary McCord and company.
Ron Shelton adapted that for a Team Cup And I
think was was it Kevin Costner or Don Johnson who

(28:42):
hit the ball onto the onto the road, bouncing farther
than anybody could imagine.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I think it was Kevin. We're talking, by the way,
with Kevin Cook here on the Augusta Golf Show. Let's well,
let me ask you this before we get into golf. Particularly,
was he ever captured? Did he? Did he ever spend
any time in jail?

Speaker 4 (29:01):
He did. He was actually in jail at the time
that Alice was killed in Pittsburgh. He was in jail
and in the middle of nowhere, and by the time
he got out, she had she had died. But he
was never in jail for very long. He did it.

(29:23):
He did a little time in Arizona years later, But
essentially he got away with the things that other people
certainly would not.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Have primarily the beds would have been different. But I
guess in many cases they just wanted him out of town.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Yes, and and once he's out of town, nobody, you know, nobody,
here's here's from him. Again, the country was big enough
and and the frontier was wide enough. Without much communication,
there's no end of towns that that he could make
a lot of money. And he spent a good deal

(30:02):
of time playing cards in San Francisco, where there was
a famous card club, and that's where Nick Dandelos, Nick
the Greek, was his partner. But he was really all over.
I mean he was in New York City is where
he became famous by taking Arnold Rothstein, who was the

(30:28):
biggest crime boss in the world at that time, and
who was who was in Boardwalk Empire. Michael Stolbard played
in Boardwalk Empire. Rothstein is the man who fixed the
nineteen nineteen World Series. He was called the brain, the
biggest crime boss of all and of course Titanic when
he hits New York City at the height of the

(30:49):
Roaring twenties, is going to have to take Rothstein down
a peg, which he did. They bet back and forth
again and again. Finally it's a poker game that amounts
to three hundred them thousand dollars because Titanic double crossed
him and cheated with another player. He was supposed to
be partnering and cheating with Rostein, but he double crossed Rostein.

(31:10):
Rostein refused to pay the three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
This is not something you can do among the gamblers
of the nineteen twenties. So there was a man whom
I later discovered was the fellow named Hyman Biller was
sent to collect from Rothstein. He's armed, Rostein doesn't cooperate.

(31:33):
Rostein gets plugged and dies. Refuses to identify the killer.
But in the subsequent trial, which was called the Crime
of the Century, the trial over the Crime of the Century,
that's where Titanic testified where he was, where he was
named Thompson rather than Thomas. And the great newsman Damon Runyon,

(31:56):
who also knew Rostin very well, one of the right
Titanic life story and Titanic told him, mine's not the
kind of business publicity helps. And so Runyan based his
most famous character on Titanic Sky Masterson, who's the hero
of Guys and Dolls. The gambler, hero of the Proposition,
Bet and Marlon Brando played in the Guys and Dolls

(32:17):
in the movie Was.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
You know that era Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and
Dylan was Did he have any fame at all? Or
was it all sort of behind the scenes and quietly
spoken about.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
He had what we'd have to call it underground fame.
Golfers knew of him. Some of his scams featured Ben Hogan.
Ben Hogan was a young Texas golfer. Titanic recognized what
an asset he could be. So Hogan might pretend to
be a caddy and Titanic would lose and then say,

(32:54):
we got to play for far more than that. I'll
take this caddy over here and he'll be my partner.
He traveled with Lee Elder, who was a convincing caddy
since there there were mostly black caddies at the time.
Lee Elder, of course, uh has becomes a hell of
a player, but before anyone had ever heard of him,

(33:17):
he was one of the ones the Titanic would say, well,
my caddy can beat you, agul uh and and as
the bets go up and up and up, he makes
makes his way out of town and it splits his
money generously with people like Elder and and Hogan. Uh.
He once he once played the purest snow Byron Nelson

(33:41):
in a match. Elson's backers, of course, had a whole
lot of money on the match. Didn't tell Byron about that,
and Byron was very pleased that that he uh beat
Titanic by I think it was two strokes and uh,
you know, Titanic only mentioned later that the backers had
given him three.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Hang on, Kevin, another break one more. I promise we'll
wrap up the conversation with Kevin in just a few minutes.
But while I have you, take a look at the
golf on TV. This weekend Golf on Television brought to
you by Forest Hills Golf Club, the area's premier public facility.
Golf Channel gets coverage started DP World Tour. The Austrian

(34:23):
Alpine Open coverage begins at seven this morning. Final round
coverage tomorrow morning will start at six thirty. Golf Channel
will then have the early coverage PGA Tour. The Memorial
Tournament coverage begins at two today, one for the final
round tomorrow. And don't forget there's the really early coverage

(34:43):
on PGA Tour live on ESPN Plus. Then CBS and
Paramount Plus will pick up the coverage of the memorial.
Coverage begins today different time five p thirty. Final round
coverage beginning tomorrow at two thirty. NBC Peacock have coverage

(35:03):
of the US Women's Open. Coverage begins at one today
on Peacock. NBC's coverage begins at three. Coverage of the
final round begins on both platforms tomorrow afternoon at two,
and finally, Golf Channel will have coverage of the PGA
Tour Champions Tour. The principal Charity Classic Golf Channel will
have some tape delayed coverage tonight at seven. Final round

(35:28):
coverage live tomorrow afternoon beginning at two thirty. All right,
when we come back, we'll wrap up the conversation with
Kevin Cook talking about Titanic Thompson. Don't go away. You're
listening to The Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick here
on News Talk Information WGAC.

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Speaker 2 (39:24):
Welcome back to the Augusta Golf Show. I'm John Patrick.
We're talking this morning with Kevin Cook, and we're talking
about the unbelievable story surrounding Titanic. Thompson. All right, Kevin,
I'm sure there are folks listening this morning that have
heard the story about the way Raymond Floyd and Lee

(39:44):
Trevino met. They were matched together to play each other
for big money. And it was Thompson that put that
match together, wasn't it.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Absolutely he was the one who was behind it. And
it's just one of the most remarkable golf stories of
all I think that that Raymond Floyd is the young
tour pro best player in the world, as he told it,
as he described himself to Titanic. Titanic at that point

(40:16):
is too old to be uh particularly competitive against world
class competition. So Titanic decided to back Raymond Floyd. And
he said, there's this kid who's an assistant pro down
in El Passel Horizon Hills Country Club. He's a he's
a guy who washes the carts and and sells the shoes,

(40:39):
and his name is Lee Trevino. Nobody ever heard him,
of course, And Floyd said, I can beat anybody I've
never heard of, and they stayed over three days for
enormous sums of money, a cataclysmic match. At one point
there there are gamblers and and and taters and backers

(41:03):
driving pickup trucks right down the fairways behind Floyd and Trevino.
It winds up a stalemate after three full days, and
that's when Raymond Floyd says to Trevino, Adios, amigo, I
can make easier money on the tour.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
It's been a fascinating story, made more fascinating by the
fact that this guy was involved. We are talking with
Kevin Cook here on the Augusta Golf Show. Okay, you
and I have been talking for a while. I'm sure
there's somebody listening who says to themselves, why don't I
know more about this guy? Why haven't I heard more

(41:40):
about this guy? Why hasn't there been a movie about
this guy? And you've you've got a story there, don't you.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
I fully agree with anyone who thinks that there's been
talking about movie ever since, ever since I began working
on the book, Because, as record puts it to Titanic
is the most cinematic sob who ever lived. But as
often happens, and I think listeners will recognize that. Sometimes

(42:14):
you hear, although there's a movie in the works, five
years later, where's the movie? It never happened. There's so
many things that can get in a way of having
a movie go from the original. Someone options your book,
then they're working on a screenplay, looking for directors, looking
for talent. Things can fall through at any moment. I
learned that initially helping my wife, who's a terrific screenwriter,

(42:39):
adapt my first book, Tommy's Honor, into a movie that
still shows up on the Golf Channel from time to
time and again and again. It was so difficult to
help the director, Jason Connery and the producers leap over
so many hurdles between optioning the book and then going

(43:00):
to the premiere. Finally, I think that day will still
happen with Titanic Thompson, just because he's one of the
most remarkable American figures of who ever looked of this planet.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
If I hear you correctly, Kevin, If if if someone
put your two books in front of you for the
sake of the discussion, you have more but Tommy's Honor
and the and the Titanic Thompson book. Wouldn't you think
the Titanic Thompson book would be the one getting made?

Speaker 4 (43:31):
I would. It's it's American, Uh, it's it's also. One
of the things that makes movie projects happen often is
who wants to play this role? Well, this is an
irresistible figure to play. He's he's handsome, he looks great
and uh, you know Fedora in the in the great
outfits that people would wear in his day. He's there,

(43:55):
there's gun fire, there's gambling. I think that that it
truly is a story that has to become a movie
at some point. And yes, Tommy's honor, as close as
it is to my heart, we're talking about a period
story from over one hundred and fifty years ago, set

(44:16):
in Scotland at the dawn of professional golf, talking about
things that even today's many people who are have followed
golf their whole lives, did not know. I think that
would have been a taller order if you took both
books and said which one is going to be a movie?

Speaker 2 (44:36):
For it to be a movie, Kevin.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Does it?

Speaker 2 (44:40):
We look, does it have to be a star that
plays it? Is that one of the byproducts of how
these things get made.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
I think it's not absolutely necessary, but it certainly helps.
If Clint Eastwood, I mean he as I understand at
least considered at one point, this is many years ago,
if he was done ideal, he looked a lot like
Titanic or Titanic or vice versa, and had and had
that laconic You can imagine his saying many of the

(45:11):
Titanic's lines. If if something like that happens, then so
many other things fall into place. Uh. You you have
a star attached to the project that can that can help. Uh.
At the same time, I think if there's, uh, there's
a charismatic, handsome actor that we've never heard of, this

(45:34):
might be a starmaking role for a person like that.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Just and I'm not going down this rabbit hole, but
that's what I would prefer. I would prefer someone that
we didn't quite know because because if you get a
big star, and I think in the article in Golfer's Journal,
Leo Leonardo DiCaprio gets gets mentioned. I just have a
hard time looking past Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, I I

(46:00):
would like to I'd like to see somebody we're not
quite familiar with.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
I think there's a lot to be said for that also,
because this has to be somebody who comes into town.
Nobody knows who that is. This is this man is
a mystery. He blows into town like a gust of wind,
and then the next thing you know, he's down the road.
So his anonymity was part of his racket at the time.

(46:26):
So as long as as long as there's a really
good actor who can pull it off, I think that
that might be a good way to have Titanic get
his biopick at last.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
I don't know when you when in your research you
spoke to his last wife, But I'm curious if you
had done a lot of research before speaking to her,
if you had sort of an idea as to the
guy you were writing about when you spoke to her,
did she tell you anything that surprised you, Did she
tell you anything you didn't know, And did she tell
you anything that maybe formed an opinion of him with you.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
She told me many things. One certainly was that Alice
Kane was the one that he talked about and considered
the love of his life. She also told me fascinating
things about the latter part of his life, and how
competitive he still was. He was still Titanic all the time,

(47:25):
that even after his hands were almost too arthritic for
him to deal cards, he would go and play a
par three course. He couldn't hit the ball far enough
to play a full pledged course as he approaches eighty,
but he would play a part in a local par
three course. One day he made two holes in one

(47:47):
doing that, and she's marveling, my goodness, two aces in
one round, and he shrugged and said, well, that's what
I was aiming at. He was also the honorary host
of the very first World Series of Poker, and I
wound up finding out more about that he had adventures
in Las Vegas and never liked Las Vegas at all,

(48:09):
because he'd rather have the edge his way rather than
have the house Habit.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Is the book? Is your book on Titanic Thompson still available?

Speaker 4 (48:20):
It is? It certainly is. Amazon has copies, and one's
independent bookstore. I don't know if you dropped into your
independent bookstore if you find a copy that's now been
colly as you said, almost fifteen years since it came out.
But it is still available. And I love to like
talking about Titanic with you today. That's a highlight for me.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
He is Kevin Cook. Again. If you subscribe to The
Golfer's Journal, you'll find his article on Titanic Thompson in
this season's edition. But again, as Kevin said, the book
is available out there on Amazon. Go get it. Kevin,
thank you so very much for spending so much time
with me this morning. I deeply appreciate it. It's good
to catch up again.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Thank you, John. It's always good talking with you.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
There you go, Kevin Cook. By the way, the title
of his book is Titanic Thompson, The Man Who bet
On Everything. Now, he published this fifteen years ago, but
it's still out there and it's still available on Amazon.
Titanic Thompson, The Man Who bet On Everything. Don't go away,

(49:27):
We're coming right back. You're listening to the Augusta Golf
Show with John Patrick here on News Talking Information WGAC.

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Get there, Hi, I'm Tom Watson. You're listening to the
Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick.

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If you enjoy the show, follow John online on x
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Speaker 2 (52:52):
Welcome back to the Augusta Golf Show. I'm John Patrick.
It's time for our Why I Love the Game segment.
It's the portion the show where somebody tells us why
the game of golf is so important and so meaningful
in their life. This morning. He is the chairman of
the Memorial Tournament. He is jack Nicholas Junior Jackie. Jackie

(53:15):
tells us why he still loves the game of golf.

Speaker 6 (53:20):
Golf basically touches so many different parts of my life.
I've competed in golf as an amateur, as a professional,
and back again as an amateur. I've caddied for my father,
traveled the world caddy for my father. I've been fortunate
to be on the bag when he's one a few big,
big tournaments I do. My profession is golf course design.

(53:41):
You know, golf is even more than that, is so
interwoven with our lives because golf is the Nicholas family,
and the Nicholas family is golf. Golf teaches you so
many great things, in my opinion, on what life's about.
Do you have struggles on the golf course as you
do in life, So you have to overcome those struggles

(54:02):
that teach you. Honestly, you know, if that ball rolls
and you cause that ball to roll in the rough,
nobody else sees that. There's not a referee to throw
a flag and call you out. You have to call
yourself out. So there's a lot about integrity that you
learned with the game of golf that I can honestly say,
I love the game of golf. Golf, It's been great
for our family.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Here you go, Jack Nicholas Junior and why he still
loves the game of golf. By the way, at the
Memorial Tournament, every year they honor somebody who has played
a huge role in the game of golf. At the
very first Memorial fifty years ago, they honored Bob Jones.
At the twenty fifth anniversary of the Memorial, they honored Jack.

(54:47):
This year, fiftieth anniversary the Memorial Tournament, they honor Jackie's mom,
Jack's wife, Barbara Nicholas, first Lady of Golf. I'm telling
you all of this to encourage you to go to
YouTube and call up the ceremony. Jack Nicholas sang a

(55:08):
song to Barbara during the ceremony. No, I didn't have
Jack Nicholas singing on my bingo card, but he did so.
If you go to YouTube and you look for the ceremony,
you'll hear Jack singing to Barbara Nicholas. Hey, don't forget.
If you would like to comment about anything you heard

(55:29):
on the show, good or bad, I'd love to hear
from you. Send me an email, John at Augustagolfshow dot com. Okay,
John at Augustagolfshow dot com, and don't forget to become
a fan of the show on our Facebook page, the
Augusta Goolf Show with John Patrick, follow me on x

(55:49):
at Augusta Goolf Show, and I will remind you if
you missed any of the conversation here this morning. All
of the conversations are up on our website as togolfshow
dot com slash listen. All right, that's the show for
this morning. I do want to thank my guest, Kevin Cook,

(56:11):
and I hope you learned a little something this morning
if you were not familiar with the story of Titanic Thompson. Again,
Kevin's book Titanic Thompson, The Man Who bet On Everything
is still available on Amazon. Thank you for listening. Please
make sure the other members of your foursome know about
the program, but remind them that these days the show

(56:32):
is available on demand twenty four to seven. It's on
the iHeartRadio app. It's available on a lot of the
devices you use to stream at home. Got the Wallace
and sun Lawn and Garden Show coming up next see
and See Automotive Show after that. This morning, Mary, Liz,
ab Jenna and I will be back Monday morning at
five point thirty. Have a great weekend. Thank you for

(56:55):
listening to The Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick. Please
stay well and please stay safe, and I will see
you next time. So long, bye bye.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
The Augusta Golf Show with John Patrick is a production
of the Murto Group, which is solely responsible for its
content Copyright twenty twenty five. The theme for The Augusta
Golf Show was written and performed by Jim Brickman. I'm
Jeff Lawrence and we'll see you next time.