Tom Watson - Part 1 (The Early Years)

World Golf Hall of Fame member, Tom Watson, joins us to tell his story beginning  with his childhood years growing up in Kansas City and learning the game from his father at age six.  After getting cut for the Little League baseball team at age nine, golf became his passion. Listen in as  Tom talks about winning the 1964 Kansas City Men's Match Play event at age 14 which provided him with opportunities to play in exhibitions the next two years with his two golfing heroes, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Halfway through his collegiate experience at Stanford, Tom wondered what he was going to do with his life when he got real serious about his golf, "FORE the Good of the Game."

Transcript

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started.

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game. And I'm not sure I've been any more excited about a guest since we've started this, Bruce Devlin.

Bruce Devlin 0:23

Well, he's a very interesting guest. And you know, uh, we've had the we've been fortunate to have uh probably one of the greatest players uh recorded a couple of weeks ago by the name of Jack Nicholas. And having this gentleman with us this morning, well, this guy reminds me back 44 years ago when he and Jack Nicholas were paired together the last 36 holes of the open at Turnbury. And I want to tell you they were the greatest 36 holes of head-to-head golf that I have ever seen in my life. Both shot 65 the third round. Nicholas holds the 40-footer on the last hole to shoot 66. And T.W. Watson, Tom Watson, hit his second shot in a couple of feet from the hole and beat him by one shot. And we are so happy, Tom, to have you with us this morning. Thanks for coming. Well, thank you, Bruce. Thanks, Mike.

Tom Watson 1:17

It's uh gonna be it's gonna be a fun uh uh period of time talking about uh the uh my experiences going way back. If I can remember them, you're gonna have to prompt me, you know. Join the club.

Mike Gonzalez 1:33

Well, we appreciate you joining us, Tom. And uh I think the open is a great theme that we could uh cover this morning because we all know we've got the open championship coming up next week at uh Royal St. George's, and we're anxious to hear your reflections on your entire open championship career. But maybe you could just lay the foundation for us first and talk about growing up uh as a young man in Kansas City, uh, how you got exposed to golf and that sort of thing.

Tom Watson 2:02

Well, I like so many other players, I'm not sure whether Bruce, your dad taught you to play. My dad taught me how to play the game. Um and it was pretty simple right from the beginning. He taught me how to hold on to grip the golf club. He taught me to finish with my belly button facing the hole. That was that was kind of his first lesson to me. Then he then he got a big kick out of uh teaching me how to hook it and slice the ball. I mean, I'm six years old learning learning how to curve the ball. And that was uh uh that's how my dad took the game. He took it very seriously. He had a great passion for the game. And I got the great, uh, I I inherited that passion. Yeah, I just it was uh uh I love playing golf with my father and my older brother Ridge, who uh three years older. He was the he is he was the uh the person that probably inspired me more than anybody else because I wanted to beat his butt. Sure.

Mike Gonzalez 3:00

So that uh sounds familiar to you, Bruce, because you learned it from your dad. Of course, I did as well, a little older. I was age eight, but uh you picked it up from your dad after his accident.

Bruce Devlin 3:09

Yeah, I did. He was uh he lost his right arm in an accident, uh, and then uh was uh actually was a left-handed player and wanted to uh continue to play golf. And he was he asked for uh somebody to go play with him and then he nominated me to do it uh because I was a hockey player in my early days, so uh that's how I got started. He taught me, and then we had an old Scottish pro at the golf club that he was a member at. Uh a gentleman that used to take a little sip too often, but knew a hell of a lot about the golf swing, and he's the one that really set me on my path. I had the same thing.

Tom Watson 3:47

I had a golf pro by the name of Paul Wilder, uh, who um he he was the he was the pro at the Kansas City Country Club, and then Stan Thirsk, who uh really became my mentor and uh great friend. We played a lot of golf together. We played in tournaments together, actually. Uh we played in the in the team championship on the tour. I invited him to come to play in the team championship with me down at Disney World when they had the uh on the PGA tour.

Intro Music 4:14

Right.

Tom Watson 4:15

Uh but Stan could really play. He was a great player and he had a passion for the game uh that rivaled my dad, I guess you might say. And and uh we spent uh you know you know countless hours together on on and off the golf course. It was a great relationship. And you know and I had a great relationship with Byron Nelson. Uh Byron came to me in 1974 and said, Tom, uh, if you'd ever like to work with uh with me with your golf swing, I'd be more than help happy to help you out. And I took him up on it uh a few years later, and we became very close. And and uh God, what a player he was. I couldn't carry his shoes uh ever uh swinging the golf club and hitting the ball as straight as Byron Nelson. So I was very fortunate to have people around me who had the great passion for the game, but also could really play. And you know, you know, you you learn by uh inspiration, but you also learn by uh uh you know copying their golf swings or doing what they do. In fact, when I joined the tour, Bruce, in uh 1971, I asked all the local pros with whom I played a lot of golf with, with Stan. Stan, you know, the clubs were closed on Mondays, and we would uh uh we would go out and play golf together. I never forget the first phone call I I got from Stan. I was a kid, I don't know, I was 13 years old or 14 years old, and uh he calls me up and he said, Tommy, you want to come out and play with us pros this morning? Uh that was on Monday morning when all the clubs are pros. And I said, Would I? Like this. I said, I couldn't wait to get there. And that started uh that started uh uh a pretty consistent uh uh uh day on Mondays when the pros got together, they would drink, they would gamble, they would they would tell stories, and I'm a 13, 14, 15, 16-year-old kid, just you know, getting this all in. These guys had played the tour. Stan played the tour, he played in, I don't know, 15 major championships, the PGA and U.S. Opens. Uh, the other the other guys had played and uh uh Herman Charlotte he he won the Green Bar, he beat Sneed of the Green Bar one year. It was it was uh uh it was so they guys could really play, and boy, did they have stories? That's how I grew up uh in that environment and in that kind of inside the curtain, you know. You know, yeah, getting to know the game from the professional standpoint, the tour standpoint, and when I turned pro in 1971, the one question I asked everyone said, tell me one thing I should do when I get on the tour. Every one of them said the same thing. It wasn't a group answer, it was individual. They said, You go out and watch the best players play. You glean from them how they play the game, how they play golf courses, how they swing the golf club. You'll learn from them. And that's what I did. Of course, what player did I go out to look look at, look for? JWN. Yeah. Pretty pretty good one to watch, right? Pretty good one to watch, is right.

Mike Gonzalez 7:27

So tell us a little bit about how your game developed. I mean, starting at six, did did you get right into playing, or were you pulling trolleys and carrying bags for a little bit too?

Tom Watson 7:39

Well, I uh I was a little bit too young to caddy. I started caddying when I was about eight, uh, and making my $1.25, and hope hopefully I got a 50 cent tip. Uh but I uh I played I played some golf in the summer, but I love baseball. And I tell people baseball is the reason I really became a golfer because I love Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra and the you know the great players, uh uh you know, the Bob Fellers, the Sandy Colfaxes, Don, you know, Don Drysdale's. And I was all I was eaten up with it. And uh I wanted to be a baseball player in the summer, go and play baseball. And I did. When I was eight years old, I played on a team here in Kansas City. It was a it was sponsored by a grocery store chain here called the Hen House. We were called the Hen House Chicks. And uh I wasn't much of a baseball player, but I could throw it, and I was fast, couldn't hit very well. Uh so the next year I went out with for another team where all my buddies had had played uh when they were eight years old, and I tried I tried out for that team. And what happened? I got cut. I wasn't good enough. And uh so I didn't play baseball that summer. And so I basically concentrated on playing golf. I mean, I had another game to play, and I was fortunate enough, my dad's belonged to a golf course where I could I could go out and play in there during the summer. And um I I started playing and started playing some competitive golf at nine years old. Um I uh I never I never forget playing in the uh Kansas City junior medal play at a course that was a par 60 course, and uh shooting a pretty good score there and uh uh at nine years old. Uh and then yeah, my my game progressed enough. Uh and when I was 14 years old, uh I played in a in the Kansas City men's match play. People asked me what tournament was my most important tournament in my career. I go back to that tournament right there. When I was 14 years old, I played in the Kansas City men's match play and was fortunate enough to win it. And why why was that so important? Well, it started to give me the dream. Started to give me the dream that yeah, maybe someday I could be like my hero, Arnold Palmer. Uh and uh and yeah, being around pearls, I caddied for first for a stand when he played with Billy Casper and Jean Gene Littler in an exhibition at uh Hillcrest Country Club when I was 10 years old. I got 10 bucks to caddy. He gave me $10. I'll never forget that. And uh but the you know that tournament right there, uh 1964 Kansas City Men's match play, it was the it was the impetus of of of my professional career because a year later I was in the den with my mother uh and she got a phone call, and she called it goes like this on the phone, hello? Oh yes, it's nice to see it's nice to speak with you. Yes. Well, just a minute, I'll have to ask him. So she turns to me, she said, Tommy, would you like to play with Arnold Palmer? And you said what? I said, Mom, you're you're kidding. You're kidding. He said, No, I'm not. This this charitable this charity group wants you to play with Arnold Palmer in an exhibition. And I said, Yeah, you know, so I got a chance to play with my absolute hero when I was 15 years old in an exhibition. And then not a year later, I come home, I came home from school, my mom's in the den there again, and she's she looks at me, hey son, she got this grin on her face, she said, How would you like to play with Jack Nicholas? Like this, looking at me. And I said, Come on, mom, give me a break here. She said, No, no, they have an exhibition in Topeka, Kansas. They want you to come and play with Jack Nicholas. And of course I did, and you know, I so winning the match play when I was 14 got me the invitation to play with both Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas as a youngster. And if that didn't set my sights for the professional golf tour, nothing did. Nothing else even matched it. And that's why I called the Kansas City match play with age 14 in 1964 the most important tournament ever I ever won.

Bruce Devlin 12:39

Well, it does make sense. Is there anything that you can remember that you gleaned from either one of them, either Arnold or Jack? One particular little thing.

Tom Watson 12:48

Uh Arnie was just uh he he was great. I tied him on the front nine. I shot two under in the front nine, and I had this putter called the PG-150, and the head was a solid brass head, and it was about that that long, like that, a real small head like that. And I made a birdie in the first hole, then I made this big, big breaking putt on the fourth hole, and and Arnie says, I mean, look at that. You know, he goes, It looks like that, you know. He said, That's pretty good. You know, like that. Uh I shot 40 the back nine, he shot 34 to 68. So, but anyway, uh I you know just being around Arnie. The one thing that uh from Arnie was the question that my dad asked him. Arnie was had a tire, he had taken a shower, was naked, he had a towel wrapped around. My dad said, Hey Arnie, what one thing would you suggest my son do to be a better golfer? And Arnie, without missing the media, said, have him play as in as much competition as he can. Yeah. And what that really meant was, hey, hey, get used to the pressure. You have to learn how to play in competition under pressure. From Jack Nicholas, another uh what I gleaned from Jack, I watched him on the first tee at Topeka Country Club do a clinic, and I couldn't believe how high he hit his long irons. You remember that, Bruce? I sure do. He put that, he put a one iron up in the air, a two-iron up in the air like this. I couldn't do that. And I came back to Stan, Stan Thursters, the pro and I said, Stan, he hit the ball so high with the long irons. How do I do that? He said, Well, this is how you do it. You know, we're gonna have to go a little bit more upright on our back swing, and we're gonna have to, you know, we're gonna have to, you know, stay behind it, and we're gonna have to put that ball up in the air and cut the ball up in the air. And that's what I did. Yeah, I changed my swing because of that uh exhibition when I was, yeah, but I think it was just turned 17.

Mike Gonzalez 14:53

So some great uh great influencers. Would you say that you learned as much through observation as you did through just direct teaching?

Tom Watson 15:03

You know, I I learned uh a lot through observation, but I also learned but where I really learned it what uh where I really learned my game the most is uh in the dirt. Bottom line. I practice harder than anybody. When my second year, third year in college, I I'm looking at uh you know, two, you know, the following year I've got I'm gonna graduate, I've got to graduate from Stanford. What in the hell am I gonna do? I mean, I'm not gonna be a clinical psychologist, I know that. That's what that was my major. Uh you know, that required required a lot more uh schooling, and I wasn't I wasn't involved with I I didn't want to do any more schooling after after I graduated. And my talent, the only talent I had was golf. So I just said I better give it a shot. Uh and the only way, the only way I knew how to give it a shot was to practice every day as hard as I possibly could. You know, Bruce, one of the things about growing up in Kansas City, uh, and in my family, uh, my father put up the golf clubs the first of September at the end of the summer. He didn't touch them until the first of April. Right. I did the same thing. I never touched a golf club uh from the first of September. I played football, I played basketball in high school and junior high. Uh I never picked up a golf club, never went out to the golf course. Like the kids today, man, they play golf all year round. They got indoor driving ranges, they got trackmans, they've all sorts of stuff, you know. And and uh no, I I didn't do that. Uh uh I've developed my body in other ways. I developed it, I had the strongest legs, possibly anybody on the tour except for maybe Jack. Um, you know, my legs are absolutely firepost, fire plugs. Uh I was fast and I was strong, and I hit a lot of balls. I was strong in my forearms, I was quick, fast through the ball. Um, and uh, you know, I hit the ball high. I mean, I learned how to hit the ball high right when I was 16, 17 years old. And uh and I could put the ball with the best of them, and I could chip the ball with the best of them. Stan Thurst gave me a lesson when I was 11 years old when he first turned when he first became the pro of the Kansas City Country Club. He we were around a green and uh he was giving me a chipping lesson, and I couldn't get the ball up in the air. He said, Tom, this is how you do it. He said, Open the face, weaken your left hand grip, take it on the outside, and slice across it. Boy, did that change my chipping game. I mean, it was yeah, it was absolutely the best thing, maybe the best lesson I ever had, sorry, tech technique lesson, because I became a great chipper of the ball. Great getting the ball up and down. I played a golf course at the Kansas City Country Club, it had push-up greens. You're always, if you missed it, you're always below. You had to, and they're small greens, so you had to, you know, you had to get the ball up and and stop it quickly. And I was really good at that. And I practiced that a lot. And uh so I got good at the chipping game. I was always a great putter. Uh, and that's something you can't learn. You know, learn to be a great, you either you got it or or you don't. I don't know if you concur with that, Bruce, but you know, yeah, yeah, great putters aren't made, they're born.

Bruce Devlin 18:28

Well, not only that, but you look at all the great putters, I don't think any of them do it exactly the same way. It's an inherent thing that they know and and can trust. And uh, I mean, just look at uh for for instance, the two guys that you played uh exhibitions with, yeah, Arnold and Jack. I mean, how different can they be the way they uh address the pot, for instance? Without a doubt.

Mike Gonzalez 18:55

Bobby Locke, Ben Crenshaw, they're all all way different, aren't they?

Bruce Devlin 18:59

All different. They're all different.

Mike Gonzalez 19:01

So that work ethic that you mentioned, Tom, in terms of how you developed your game, finding it really in the dirt, as they say, was that your nature, or is that something you came to learn that that's what you needed to do?

Tom Watson 19:14

Well, after screwing around in college for the my first two years, yeah, it I I finally had a uh had an epiphany, you might say. Yeah. But it's that it was really because what in the hell am I gonna do after I after college? And uh, you know, I have a I have a talent and I better not screw this up. And uh so yeah, and that's when I started uh really the you know working at the game. I always I always practiced hard uh during the summers on golf. I practiced hard and I I loved to uh you know, I loved to play competition. I played in usually in the summers, I uh uh back when uh from 17 to 21, I played in in four in four championships. I played most important was our national amateur, the U.S. amateur. And I qualified each of the last four years before I turned pro. I played in the Western amateur. That was a great term that had four rounds of metal play, and then you had four rounds of match play. I never progressed past the second round to match play, but I always qualified for the match play. Uh then you had the Trans-Mississippi, and it went different courses. You you qualified there to get in the match play, 64 guys, then you'd play. Uh, I never did too well there. And then the other one was the Missouri amateur, uh, a state amateur here. And uh I won that four times, uh, four out of five years. And so uh in college, I didn't have much of a record. I I won a few terms in college, but I wasn't uh I wasn't a world beater because you know I just I didn't take it all that seriously uh uh because college was brand new. I I I wanted to experience college. And you know, golf was kind of secondary the first couple of years, and then the fear factor set in, and I said, well, I better, I better put my nose to the grindstone and and see how good I can be. Uh and uh with with the side on turning professional.

Mike Gonzalez 21:16

Tell us about this ping pong thing in college.

Tom Watson 21:20

Oh, that's that's a total that's fake news. Okay, fake news. I don't know how it got in my bio. Uh I I said, you know, maybe you know, hobbies, uh ping pong. I think I may have put it at ping pong. But I'm no good at ping pong. I was pretty good at pool though. But I couldn't carry a stick to Bob Murphy, though. Bob Murphy was he a shooter? He could, yeah. Yeah, he was good. He put himself through college with his cue stick.

Mike Gonzalez 21:46

Yeah. I can relate to what you said about growing up in the Midwest as a Midwesterner, um, putting the clubs away and then essentially feeling like you have to relearn the game every spring.

Tom Watson 22:00

Well, it was always i I remember one spring, the first first round I played, I wanna say it was between twelve and thirteen. I think it was between when I was twelve turning yeah, I I turned thir thirteen or maybe it was eleven to twelve. I remember the first T ball I hit. I hit it in the neck, but it it got down there pretty far. I mean, I didn't expect it to go as far as it did. And then the second shot I had uh I had a uh what you know, I I thought it was you know just a nice comfortable seven. And I I blew it over the green about 20 yards. I had I had gained so much strength in in those, you know, playing basket, playing football and basketball uh in in junior high school. I had a lot of strength and and and uh you know the the game changed right there. I said, wow, this is this is gonna be fun now.

Mike Gonzalez 22:53

So when did the light sort of go on for you that said, All right, I'm gonna do this professionally?

Tom Watson 23:02

I was on a quail hunting trip with my father and uh and uh during Thanksgiving in my uh senior year, and I told Dad, I said, coming back, I said, Dad, I've decided I'm gonna turn pro. And that was a big decision back then because when you said you were gonna turn pro, man, the USGA made it their their draconian rules of of uh between amateur and professionalism. If you said you were gonna turn pro to anybody and they found out about it, you're a pro. I said it to my dad. I said, Dad, I'm gonna turn pro. And my dad, a man of uh yeah, basically a few words, he said, son, that's the right decision. Great. And he said, if you didn't make this decision, you would always have wondered if you could have made it in the tour or not.

Bruce Devlin 23:59

Well, we certainly know it was a great decision.

Tom Watson 24:04

Why heck, Bruce, I didn't know how I was gonna be as a professor. I had no no clue. I did know one thing. I could hit the ball longer than almost everybody in the tour, I could hit the ball higher than anybody, almost anybody in the tour, and I could put the eyes out and chip chip and putt. I wasn't exactly straight. I I made a lot of Watson pars from the from the trash with right and left, you know. I I mean, I I I and I'd break a lot of people's hearts with those Watson pars. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 24:34

What's your first recollection of uh coming across Bruce Devlin?

Tom Watson 24:39

I remember him on the tour. I'm uh I remember um Bruce, I remember you on the tour, and we looked at your grip there, that full Harley left hand on your on the golf club. And uh, you know, you we I I I can't remember what the situation was. You know, we were looking at that and said, you know, Bruce has got to change his grip. He's gotta have he's got he's gotta change his grip you know to make be a better player. So I remember when you did try to change your grip and you couldn't break an egg. Oh, it was terrible. You couldn't, you couldn't, you weren't making cuts, you couldn't, you were shooting 80s.

Mike Gonzalez 25:14

Yeah, I had a terrible time. When when was that, Bruce?

Tom Watson 25:19

You quickly, you quickly went back to uh you know your your proper grip.

Bruce Devlin 25:24

Well, I was you know, I I was able to win a couple of golf tournaments, and then you know, when you play just like Tom said, you know, when you play with all these great players and you look at what they're doing, and you then you look at your grip and you say, What the hell am I doing with a grip like that when they got a different grip? You know, one that's more neutral. And Tom is absolutely correct. I'm telling you, I tried to go pretty neutral with my left hand, and it took me 12 months before I could actually feel comfortable hitting a golf shot with it. I mean, I I top a three-wood off the fairway. Uh I mean, it was it was disgusting how bad it was. But you stuck with it. I did. I did, yeah.

Tom Watson 26:06

Well, Bruce, I'm sure you you heard the story about Herm uh Henry Pickard uh telling Hogan about his grip. Yeah. Hogan had that full Harley of the left hand line there, and his right hand was always on there pretty good, but there, you know, but the but the left hand he had the full Harley on there. And Pickard said, you've got to turn that left hand over and get that right hand a little bit more on top of the golf club, like this, to Hogan. And uh Hogan took it, you know, he took it to the to to the dirt, and like you know, that you it took you a year. Uh, it it takes you a long time when you weaken your grip. It's a lot easier to go from a weak grip to a strong grip than it is from a strong grip to a weak grip. I can tell you that. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Mike Gonzalez 26:54

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, it's along everybody.

Intro Music 27:19

It went smack down the fairway. It's the fly. Headed for two line.