Lance Barrow - Part 3 (Masters Moments and Tin Cup)

In Part 3 of our captivating four-part conversation with legendary CBS Sports producer and Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductee Lance Barrow, we explore the heart-pounding drama and behind-the-scenes brilliance that define some of golf’s most iconic moments.

Barrow recounts the unforgettable 2019 Masters and Tiger Woods’ emotional triumph through the eyes of a producer who knew exactly when to let the moment speak for itself. From the powerful silence after Tiger's final putt to the poignant replay of his 1997 embrace with his father—juxtaposed with his 2019 hug with son Charlie—Barrow reveals the planning, instinct, and teamwork that create television magic.

We also relive the famous chip-in at Augusta’s 16th hole, a shot so perfect it felt scripted. Barrow takes us inside the production truck, where split-second decisions, a well-placed camera stabilizer, and one fortuitously delayed button push combined to capture an immortal image.

Lance shares what it takes to "define the moment" rather than be defined by it, paying tribute to colleagues like Jim Nantz, Steve Milton, and legendary cameramen whose instincts and preparation brought the game to life.

The episode also takes a lighter turn as Barrow recounts his role in the film Tin Cup, from unscripted lines to unexpectedly quotable fame, and fond memories of post-round meals at Augusta's French Market Grille.

With stories that range from heartfelt to hilarious, Lance Barrow offers a masterclass in storytelling, humility, and the art of capturing greatness—on and off the screen.

Don’t miss this remarkable inside look at golf broadcasting from one of its true visionaries.

Transcript

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

So we we talked before we came on about uh some of these many iconic moments you guys have uh you and your teams have shared with us over the years. And there are moments like I'm sure happened with Tigers chipping at 16, or like happened several times perhaps during the 1986 Masters, where the picture is telling the whole story. And uh you said that uh that several of the greats had the instinct, uh the presence of mind, if you will, to understand what was happening and not have to say anything. Uh share with us some of those moments and and and perhaps ones where you wish they would have been quiet.

Lance Barrow 0:55

Yeah. You know, I was fortunate, and I'm not saying this because I'm doing this and I'm you know, whatever. I was fortunate. Most of my career I got to produce football and golf with Jim Nance. And before that, on football, when we got the NFL back, it was Vern Lundquist. And they, you know, it's a great line in the movie Ten Cup. You can define the moment or the moment can define you. And I use that line a lot in my career because you're needing to be the one that defines the moment. You don't let the moment define you. And Jim Nance, the best maybe ever, knew what the moments were. Always understands the moment, especially, you know, I I don't want to say especially golf, because he he could do any sport, and he has. Um, you know, he's the only guy who's ever done this the Super Bowl, the masters in the Final Four in six weeks' time. And he he knew the moment. Vern Lundquist knew the moment. Uh Pat Summerall was obviously the greatest at knowing the moment. Uh, you know, you look at other announcers I got to work with, Dick Inberg knew the moment. You watched that iconic call that he did at Pinehurst with Payne Stewart when he won the U.S. Open, and it gives me chills every time I hear it when he said Payne Stewart is the U.S. Open champion. Oh my! And then he laid out, you know, Al Michaels, which I just heard Rick New Heisel on his radio show when I was coming in on Sirius, we're talking about great calls. And he, you know, like, do you believe in miracles? You know, that with the U.S. beating the Russian team in the Olympics in Lake Placid. And, you know, I could go on and on and on, but it also deals with great teamwork. And like I'll use the 2019 Masters. Tiger is about to hit his second shot. Nance says, We're gonna lay out. And I said, That's great. Lay out. And I would remind him, but it was really Jim Nance that said, We're gonna lay out, and he says, I will be the first one to speak when it's all said and done. And I said, That's that's great. And so, and Nick was Sir Nick was all in in on it also. So it's not I always say it's teamwork, it has nothing to do with I'm this great producer or you know, Jim Nance is a great announcer, but I don't give myself that much credit on it. It's it's teamwork, and it's everybody working on the same level, and that's defining our moment at the time that that we're defining it. And it also, in the case of Jim Nance or announcers, it's like I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be the moment. The guy who's the men or women who are playing in this sport, I'm gonna let them be the moment. And I'm gonna report what we're seeing. You're watching it on TV. So you're seeing what's going on. And there's a lot of times, and that's I would say most of the time, you don't need to say anything. You just sit back and the you know, Nick Faldo always jokes of how people would tell him how great it was after Tiger won that they didn't speak for like nearly three minutes. Yeah. And he was like, Yeah, that's my greatest moment. I didn't speak, and I'm an announcer. My job is to speak. And it's kind of ironic, but that is also makes it great because we didn't need anybody to speak. Tiger's doing his thing. He walks off the green, hugs his family, his mom, his daughter, and just like he did in 1997, he hugged his dad, his son Charlie hugged him. And then we walked with Charlie and Tiger and his daughter and his mom down that long walkway with people yelling and screaming, and then when he gets to the scores area and you see the golfers who were waiting for him, nobody needed to say that. And that's where I'm fortunate that I get to sit in a seat and produce it, which I wasn't really producing. I was just getting out of the way. The only thing I really did was, uh wow, stay there, stay there on that shot. And every once in a while I'd I I remind, don't say a word. And then do we have Tiger hugging his dad? Video. And that's the one that people would ask me about that tournament. They'd say, those announcements Jim and Nick didn't talk for nearly three minutes. That must have been something. And then how did you get the Tiger and His Dad video called up so quickly? And I said in 1997, when they hugged after that final round, we had had it on a real at every golf tournament we ever have done. Like we joke all the time doing football. When Tom Brady got hurt back many years ago, we had always joked that we have Tom Brady's injury on a machine. Because you never knew when you needed it. And that was one of those, again, we defined a moment because we knew one day, and that was 1997, all the way to 2019, that we needed that that video of him hugging his dad like he hugged his son. And, you know, that's great teamwork from our videotape people, our our engineer people, uh, our technicians, our director, our replay producer, our associate director, everybody else, everybody involved. We're all on one page, and everybody is a let's don't forget Tiger hugging his dad. Let's don't forget about this, let's don't forget about that. And then it's, you know, it's not my job, but I guess it is. As I always say, the producer is the bus driver, and you're dropping people off along the way. My job is to decide when you put it in. And and, you know, I get a lot more credit than I deserve, and I probably get less credit than I deserve sometimes, but it's all teamwork. And we have men and women who have been together for years that understood what we were doing in that golf tournament in 2019. And a lot of it goes back to what we learned from Frank Chekinian and Chuck Will and people like that back in the day.

Mike Gonzalez 8:39

Yeah. I I know we've got other favorite moments we're going to talk about, but uh looking back on your body of work, would you say you're most proud of what we as the viewer heard or what we as the viewers saw?

Lance Barrow 8:55

You know, that's a tough question, Mike, and honestly, I have never thought about that. I think I would hope that my legacy would be he treated people well. And he and I was um I was someone that cared about my crew, cared about my company and CBS. You know, I started in 1976, and I'm still doing a little bit of work for CBS as kind of a mentorship. I do about 15 events, and you know, I just started my 50th year for them, and that's unusual in our business to be, especially at one network for so long. Um you know, I I think probably both to answer your question, what you heard, I think is very important because I think that brings the viewer inside the ropes or inside the stadium or the arena or the racetrack or whatever you want to say. And but then you also we're in a visual medium, and so what you saw and how you presented it, how we presented it, that's important also. But the thing that I would hope that people would say we enjoyed working with him, he was fun to work with, uh, he always cared about us, and he also, you know, also I think about the partnerships that we had with PJ2 or the PJ of America, Augusta National, NFL, and all the way down, NCAA basketball, NASCAR, all the way along. I would hope that not only those organizations would say we enjoyed having him about because he cared about our sport, probably to the extreme. And also the partnerships that we had with sponsors, I would hope that they would say, we we went to talk to him, we knew we had a partnership. You know, I always say to people, CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, ESPN, Turner, whomever it is, we're paying to be there. So we have nothing to do with the media. We're not part of the media. We're not newspapers or local TV or people like that. We're paying to be there. We're paying a lot of money to be there. So we're partners with the organizations that we put on sporting events. Uh, because, you know, and then also the sponsors. And so, like in any business deal, which is what it is, if everybody is having a good partnership, it's all going to run smoothly. And that's what I hope that I did as much as any, that people enjoyed working with me, people had fun working with me, we did great work, we had a great team, and we were great partners.

Mike Gonzalez 12:11

You know, there's been a lot of great uh golf shots struck over the years and replayed a zillion times, like Jack Nicholas's one iron on 17, like Payne Stewart's putt at Pinehurst that you mentioned. Has anything been replayed more than Tigers Chip-in on 16 at the Masters?

Lance Barrow 12:33

Yeah, I don't have a record of how many times, but it's it's been there a lot. It's been there a lot.

Mike Gonzalez 12:41

You wish you got a nickel for every time somebody replayed that, huh?

Lance Barrow 12:44

Yeah, I you know, it's kind of like I always say I get like a quarter of a penny for every time the movie Ten Cup shows. I wish every time they showed Tiger winning the Masters or the PGA or making that putt at the PGA where he's pointing a finger in the playoff with Bob May. Um I I would love yeah, to get a nickel for every time that showed. Yeah, I would I would be uh I you know I'd be able to buy all you guys at least an iced tea somewhere.

Mike Gonzalez 13:12

There you go. Maybe the best Nike commercial that was ever produced.

Lance Barrow 13:18

Yes, yes, it was. Yes, it was. You know, it's people always when I speak, the third question usually is you know, they want to know my greatest Ven ever, and they wanted to know about that shot at Tiger at 16. And I I explained to them what goes on in the truck, you know, I said we're looking at 250 TV monitors. My job is once we get to the 16th hoe, our director Steve Milton's job is to cut around the cameras. I'm not even watching what we're putting on the air because if I start watching it, I'm starting, I'm gonna become like a fan. And it's like us watching it on TV in our living room. And so I'm looking at all the other monitors, I'm trying to figure out what we're gonna do next. Are we gonna stay here? You know, DeMarco, Chris DeMarco had a putt, Bertie, that depending on what Tiger did on that chip, the whole golf tournament could have changed right there. You know, or who knows what's gonna happen to Tiger's shot? Is it gonna roll in the bunker? Is it gonna roll in the water? Is it going to go in? Is it gonna do there's probably eight different things that could happen with that shot? And so I'm trying to figure out, or should we go to 17? Should we go to 18? What should we do at two, three, four steps down the line? Sitting to the next to me is Jim Ricoff, who's covering all the other golf shots and has ISO camera on DeMarco, has probably four or five different cameras on Tiger and Steve Williams and stuff like that. And when Tiger hits the ball, I'm not even looking at the shot. I'm trying to think, okay, what we're gonna do next. Where are we going next? Should we, you know, am I gonna say to Steve Milton, stay with Tiger? Because if he hit it off the green or whatever, which is a possibility, as Bruce Devlin knows on that hole, that's a great possibility. And pretty amazing. Jim Rickoff hits me in the shoulder so hard that and I looked at him and I went, What? And he goes, That's the greatest shot I've ever seen. I go, what? And then I look at Steve Milton and he says to me, I'm sorry, Lance, I missed it. I go, what do you mean you missed it? And Frank Sha Kenyan pounded it into my head, into Steve's head, into Jim Rickoff's head. Nothing's more boring in a golf telecast than a stationary ball. So the minute that ball stopped on the lip, Steve Milton did the right thing. He said, cut the camera, you know, 12. Well, Norm Patterson, God rest his soul. For whatever reason, I always joke because I graduated from Abilene Christian and I went to chapel every day, and I went to church Sunday morning and Sunday nights and Wednesday night, and we had Bible class at Abilene Christian, that the good Lord gave me one. You know, gave me gave me one. Um second. I don't know, I'm not saying that it that the good Lord didn't. I'm just saying that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. But Norm Patterson, for whatever reason, minute that ball stopped, Steve did exactly what he should have done and what we were taught to do, cut the Tigers' reaction. For whatever reason, Norm was a little slow on the button, and we got the ball rolling into the hoe. And and you know, then we cut the tigers' reaction, and he and Steve Williams are missing the high fives and you know, going all crazy and and stuff like that. And um uh, you know, it's I don't think it was lucky. I think it was just the way it was. And there wasn't there wasn't uh, you know, Steve Milton did the right thing, I did the right thing, Jim Rickoff did the right thing, Mark Dibbs did the right thing, you know, telling us all, you know, when all this was going on, Mark Dibbs was saying, don't forget Chris DeMarco has a putt for Bertie, 10 feet. So you can't forget that, and you can't get wrapped up in the moment because you got to get back. And the greatest thing about that, our technicians always people are always inventing something to help them with something. And here's a lens that is 1001 or whatever it was on the camera on the tower with Vern Lundquist, Bob Wishney, who legendary camera operator, who did 16, who also did our cart camera on all the NFL uh down on the field for many, many years, on top of other legendary shots and NASCAR auto racing and uh basketball. He was given by a neighbor or someone a steady, it called a steady part where you put on the lens because a big lens, the closer you get to a subject, the more jumpier it gets and more out of focus. Well, this stabilizer he put on his lens, and so the closer he got to the ball when it was laying on the lip, it looked pure and clean and no no shakiness in the shot, and then the ball went in. And so, like I said, it was one of those moments, you define the moment, or the moment defines you. And we were up to the task. And if you watch that shot again, one of my great friends, many, many years head of the Royal Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Peter Dawson, was in charge as a rules official on that hoe. And the tree behind Tiger, Peter is standing up against the tree. And I guess Bruce and Mike, I bet I saw it this shot ten times and never saw behind behind this. Finally, I saw it. Everybody's going crazy, and Peter is just standing there as attention as you would expect him to be, uh, and his role as a rules official. And then about the third or fourth time we showed the replay, over inside the ropes, everybody's going nuts. And there's these two pretty hefty guys about my size, one with like a green shirt on, one with a red. They're sitting next to each other, they're all jumping up and down, and they look at each other, and then they look at each other again, and then they start hugging each other, and they're jumping up and down. And um, you know, and then you get Vern Lunquist's call. You know, one of the there's been a lot of great calls at 16. And Vern Lunquist's call, in your life have you ever seen anything like that? And which from then on, every time David Faraday saw Vern Lunquist, his opening line to his to him was always, in your life have you ever seen anything like that? And so, you know, that story took five minutes or whatever it was to tell that story. All of that happened with a snap of a finger of all that happening. And so, you know, you think about when people criticize people doing sports or doing anything on TV, that story took whatever it took, and I Always tell people that story took you know three, four, five minutes to tell. It all happened with me probably faster than me snapping my finger. And so Jim Rickoff had to make those decisions on replays. Steve Milton made the decisions on camera cuts. Norm Patterson sitting there cutting the cameras. I'm trying to figure out where we're going. Mark Dibs is reminding me, along with Sellers Shy, who's sitting behind me as our associate director, is reminding me that Chris Marco still has a putt, an important putt. The tournament's not over, and all that's going on in a matter of snapping fingers. So when people criticize what goes on in the air, I would like, you know, it'd be like me going and tell somebody how to, you know, I don't want to compare me to an open heart surgeon, but it would be like me going, you know, I'm not for sure you did that right today. Um I mean I'm not comparing ourselves to people who save people's lives, but you know, it all happened within a snap of a finger. Yeah. All that happened. And it goes to how the men and women at CBS Sports that do these events, first and foremost, it's great teamwork. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 23:26

Thank goodness for one slow finger push.

Lance Barrow 23:29

Yeah. That's right. Yes. Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 23:33

What we would have missed.

Lance Barrow 23:34

You know, if my mom gets me into heaven, which I hope she does, because I figure she's she's talked to God and Jesus enough that they're probably tired of hearing about me. Um, I will say when I'm passing through the gates, I'll go, hey, by the way, thank you for that.

Mike Gonzalez 23:54

At the Masters. So you brought up uh you don't you brought up Ten Cup, we didn't, but we sure were going to. So this this is really the year before you kind of uh jump into the golf seat, and you have a an appearance in the movie Ten Cup in 1996.

Lance Barrow 24:13

Yep, yeah. You know, what happened was Kevin Cosner, who is a great athlete, didn't know how to play golf. And so they hired Gary McCord and Peter Costas to teach him how to play golf. And so Ron Shelton, who directed the movie Tin Cup, who also did Bull Durham and White Men Can't Jump and many, many other movies, would come out on the road with Cosner along with Gary Foster, who produced the movie Tin Cup, who the first time I met Gary, I asked him what other movies that he had produced in Hollywood, and he said the last one I did before I'm producing Tin Cup was a movie called Sleepless in Seattle. And I went, huh. I'm not for sure if that ever came out or not, but you know, everybody knows Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks and you know Meg Ryan, and one of the great movies of all time. And so they would come out and they would take and they loved golf too, so they were coming out to get lessons with Cosner also. And at in the afternoons, after they took golf lessons early in the morning, in the afternoon, when when McCord and Costas would come to work, they would come with them and they would sit in the TV truck with us, and Ron Shelton and Frank Jekinian were a lot alike in a lot of ways, and um they went back and wrote us into the movie, and so they asked us to be a part of it, and um, and so uh, you know, it it is hilarious because so many people that movie's on all the time, and it's really a love story between Cosner and and you know Renee Russo, but it's on all the time. I just had someone a couple weeks ago said, I'm watching this movie Ten Cup. I didn't know you were in there, and um um it was funny. Um I was sitting in our grill room eating lunch a couple weeks ago, and our president, Chris Cotton at Colonial, and a friend of his was going to go play in the member guest at Shady Oaks, and they asked about what time they were gonna leave, and and then they said something about somebody said, Where are you guys from? And they said, Well, you know, San Angelo. You know, we're from West Texas right by Floyd Ada. And I'm sitting there and I'm look up and I go, What did you guys just say? And they go, Yeah, West Texas right by Floyd Ada. We're from St Angelo. I go, where did you guys get that line? They go, you know, that was a line that was said in Tin Cup. I go, you know who said that line, don't you? They go, no. I said, me. And they said, you're in the movie Tin Cup? I go, yeah. They say, we say that all the time. That we're from West Texas, right by Floyd Data. They said, why did you say that? And I said, when I graduated from Abilene Christian, I was working for Pat Sumerall, but I needed another job. So I applied, one of my teammates at Abilene Christian was from this town, Floyd Data, about 40 miles northeast of Lubbock, town of 4,000 people. I saw on the wall at uh one of our offices at Abilene that they were looking for a chamber of commerce manager. So I went and applied for the job. As both Bruce and you know, Mike, it's Floyd Ada is the gateway to the high plains. Oh, absolutely. And uh, of course, you guys know that. Sure. Um, and I told them, hey, one day I'm gonna work for CBS full-time, but I need something to do. So I got paid a whopping like 6,500 bucks to go be the Chamber of Commerce manager in Floyd Ada. My main job was first bell of cotton, first load of wheat that came into the town that we gave the farmer 50 bucks and took a picture of him or her. And um, and then I would leave on the weekends and go work for Summerall. And and I moved from Floyd Data to New York City. But in the movie, Shelton and Gary knew what we did in the truck between Frank and I. They had a script, but they said, you guys just do what you do. And so they would set up the sh set up the scene, and so they go, Frank, you're not happy with this golf pro, this cut this driving rain pro leading the US Open, and you want your stars up on the board. And so Ben Wright did the call about you know, Roy McElroy from Salami, Salami, whatever, West Texas, and they cut back to us, and I go, Yeah, out in West Texas, right by Floyd Data. And Frank goes, Yeah, thank you, West Texas, thank you, Floyd Data, or whatever he said, you know, I want stars. And um, and so that be, you know, and I heard from friends of mine who, you know, you as as you guys know, you never really talked. I didn't talk about a lot of being in the movie. Like people would ask me all the time, are you really in that movie? And I go, Yeah. They go, How much are you in? And I go, you go watch the movie and then you tell me. Because if you say, Oh, I'm in it a lot, they'll come back and go, No, you weren't. Or if you say I'm not in it, oh yeah, you were. So I just said, you make your own judgment. And I remember Jim Nansen, all our guys got invited by Ron and Cosner and Gary Foster when we were doing the LA Open in February to come watch the rough cut of the movie. And so we went to this little studio, like you see, and the guy turns around to the guy in the projector. Hey, roll it, Jim. And we watched the movie, and it was still, and and even Shelton and Gary said, Foster, we're gonna have to cut out like 40 minutes of the movie. It's too long. And after the movie, Nance and I are sitting next to each other, and um he goes, Wow, we're in that movie a lot. I said, Jimmy, let's not say that to anybody. Because by the time this movie comes out in August, September, we might be cut out completely. So let's not talk about it. And so, but it was in the in a in a lot, and you know, I always joke, people will come up to me and not only will say, Man, it must have been fun doing that movie, or aren't you the guy in Tin Cup? Or I've even had people go, You're the guy in Tin Cup. I can tell by your voice. And I go, Wow, how many times have you watched that crappin' movie that you can tell by my voice? But it was one of the great experiences. Gary Foster, Ron Shelton, Kevin Cosner, Renee Russo, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, all the people, a part of that movie treated us like we were real movie stars. And I tell my two daughters, Katie and Caroline, all the time, because they might be with me, and somebody will go, excuse me, could I ask you a question? Are you the guy in Tin Cup? And I go, yes. I go, you know, your dad's a movie star. And they go, Dad, you're not a movie star. You're not a movie star, you know. And so it's a lot of, it's been a lot of fun and a and a and a great, it was a great experience and a lot of fun. And and it, you know, it was a movie about more than just a golf movie or a sports movie. You know, it's really more of a love story, so it's on all the time.

Mike Gonzalez 32:38

You know what the real tin cup story was, don't you?

Lance Barrow 32:41

Oh, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 32:42

Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Featuring uh my uh my co-host here.

Lance Barrow 32:46

Yeah. Yeah. I I I know that, and also there's a chipbeck part of it that's part of it too. And there's there's a lot of stories about how they came up with Tin Cup.

Mike Gonzalez 32:59

I think as uh as Azinger was preparing to air, was it the maybe the last US Open at uh Torrey Pines? Yes, I I texted him uh the link to the little short video audio clip we did where Bruce described for me his experience. Is that the 18th green, Bruce? 18th pond on the left? Yeah, yeah. And and and Zinger was quite happy because he used it.

Lance Barrow 33:30

Yeah, Devlin Billabon, is that how you pronounce it, Bruce?

Mike Gonzalez 33:34

Devlin Billabong.

Lance Barrow 33:36

Yeah, Devlin Billabon. I I at the champions dinner this year at Colonial, Bruce was there. I didn't get a chance to say hello to me, say hello to him. He was out, but Bruce Crampton was there. Yeah, Bruce Crampton was there. Yeah. Bruce and his Bruce Crampton and his wife, Bruce said to me, and this was I've known Bruce for Bruce Crampton forever, because when I was caddying in the Milwaukee Open, back then they didn't have driving range, and so Bruce was going out to hit balls, and I walked up to him and I said, You want me to shag the golf balls for you? And Bruce Crampton goes, Yeah, sure. And he gave me 20 bucks, which I thought was the most money I've ever seen in my life at the time. And um, but he asked me about Crampton's Lake there off to the left. Colonial. Colonial. He said they didn't, you know, when they redid the course, they didn't put the plaque back. And I he said, Can you help me with that? And I go, Yeah, I I don't know what kind of power I have here, but I'll bring it up to the powers that be. He goes, you know, because of Devlin's uh Bellabon there at Tory Pines, and I go, you know, it's amazing we got the two Australians in the room that have lakes named after them.

Outro Music 34:55

Yeah, isn't that funny?

Mike Gonzalez 34:59

Well, uh just a couple more things on the masters. Of course, we could talk about the masters forever, but uh one being the bird sound soundtrack. Uh help us with that one.

Lance Barrow 35:10

Uh you know, I don't know where that rumor started or how that rumor started. You know, we have we had great audio people, and they would put microphones in trees and they'd put microphones all over the place. And uh that's that's a bad rumor. That is a bad rumor. And uh I remember being down at Houston one day surveying woodlands back when we did the Shell Houston Open, back when it was the Shell Houston Open, and there was an older member that played there that was part of the committee, and he said to us, look up in the sky, there's a bald eagle. And we looked up and it was a bald eagle, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, there's not a bald eagle in Houston. Well, I guess there was one. And he said it has a nest out on the whatever hoe it was. And I go, you know, people would say to us, there's some kind of bird sound that those birds are not in Hilton Head or they're not in Fort Worth or whatever it is. I go, well, now I can say it, hey, there's a bald eagle in Houston. I guess there could be birds anywhere. And um, I don't know anything about bird sounds, but I I know that we never piped in bird sounds anywhere, any place, anytime, uh, as far as I know. And as I as they say, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Mike Gonzalez 36:39

Bruce would have Bruce might have experienced this a couple weeks ago when he was here at a new place, and uh my wife bought one of these little things for the bathroom upstairs. You walk in and the birds start chirping.

Lance Barrow 36:50

I think I'm at the masters every time I go to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah. No, not that I know of.

Mike Gonzalez 36:56

Okay. All right. Second thing uh my dad and I, my two brothers, we went to the Masters just for practice rounds, never for a tournament round. Every year in the 90s. And we always managed to get over to French Market Grill on probably Tuesday night. And invariably we saw Frank, you, one of the crew, the announcers, Nance, Summerall, whoever, right? You spent a little time there?

Lance Barrow 37:21

I spent a lot of time at French Market Grill. You know, there was two of them, one right down the road from uh Augusta National, and then there was one on the other side, not far from Westlake Country Club, that Frank Chickinian was part owner in.

Mike Gonzalez 37:36

That's the one we would go to.

Lance Barrow 37:37

Yeah, the one on in the strip mall over by the uh entrance of uh Westlake. And um spent a lot of time there. Matter of fact, I wish I had some of their sausage and cheese platter that I would open up um uh every every time I'd go there. I wish I had some of that right now. It sounds good. The gumbo was great, the bread pudding was great, the specials were great. You know, back in the day, you know, Augusta, Georgia was really a military town, and there wasn't a lot of places to eat. And the French Market Grill, and it is really great, was uh one of the few places to eat in in Augusta. And now they have some great restaurants in Augusta, like Frog Hollow and Shein's and and um um you know French Market Grill still there. Um there was one like 1845 or something in the same same area as uh French Market Grill. And um, you know, but that was that was big time eating for me at the French Market Grill back in the day.

Mike Gonzalez 38:54

Yeah, well, our golf pro up in Chicago at my club was a fellow named Chuck Kletke. Of course, you recognize that that last name because uh that was uh uh Uncle Bob, as he would say, was sort of our go-to guy on where to eat in Augusta.

Lance Barrow 39:10

Yeah. Yeah, Bob Kletke and Dave Spencer, the two longtime pros.

Mike Gonzalez 39:15

Yeah, dynamic deal. Very unusual arrangement to have co-professionals like that, but they made it work for many years, didn't they?

Lance Barrow 39:21

They did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're they're great guys. They, you know, what I I always go by, I I always said, and I don't know if this makes sense, it you know, I I had a dear friend out at Pebble Beach who was from Dallas Fort Worth. Oil man made a lot of money uh for Ben Hogan in the oil business over the years, Gary Laughlin and his wife Sandy. Gary has passed away since, but everybody, everybody knew uh Gary, Gary Laughlin. And I always said that Gary and Sandy invited me to dinner before anybody ever invited me to dinner. You know, when you get a certain position, you get invited to a lot of things. And but they always invited me to to great to play golf at Cyprus, to go eat at Cyprus, to do other things. And that's the way Bob and Dave were at Augusta National. When they was when I was coming up through the ranks, they always treated me like they treated me when I got in the chair when Frank retired. And so I always I have fond memory of those two great men because they always treated me and welcomed me like I was as important as anybody else in the building.

Mike Gonzalez 40:45

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.