Hale Irwin - Part 5 (Final Tour Wins and the 1994 President's Cup)

Hale Irwin, 3-time winner of the U.S. Open, concludes his look back on his PGA TOUR days by recounting his final few individual and team wins. As a 45-year-old Hale prevailed at the 1990 U.S. Open at Medinah with a comeback for the ages. He has fond memories of the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah, not because of the result but because of the camaraderie and grittiness displayed by both sides. Hale derived much satisfaction from his final win at the 1994 Heritage Golf Classic, his third win at Harbour Town. His appearance as the only President's Cup Player/Captain in 1994 capped off an incredible regular Tour career and set the stage for great things to come, "FORE the Good of the Game."

Transcript

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

So we go to nineteen eighty-five, and uh you're probably coming up on uh your fortieth birthday by this point when you win your second memorial.

Hale Irwin 0:24

Uh yes, that's not too far away, maybe a few days away. Yeah. Pretty close.

Mike Gonzalez 0:30

Yeah, so you beat uh you beat uh Lanny Watkins by one, and that's sort of of course the the the same year that the Writer Cup was played uh there, and I've referenced how Lanny felt about that loss later that fall.

Hale Irwin 0:46

Well, you know, Lanny was uh he was a heck of a player, and he he had that uh devil may care attitude. Excuse me, devil. I don't mean to go in on your your kingdom here, but uh but you know Todd, he he had a uh uh a tenacity to him. He he didn't back up. You know, if it the flag was over there, I'm gonna hit it the flag. And that's the way Lanny played. And so he took all those victories and losses uh with uh as much excitement as and despair as anybody else. And he he was into the game uh in a very, very emotional way, and that that was that was good to see. Because sometimes you get around players that that may not show that emotion, you kind of think are they where are they? But uh with Landy, you you understood where he was, and he was always on that aggressive side, play this way, and and and and when if you were a teammate of his, I appreciated that because I I knew what to expect. And he and I played in quite a few matches together and won a lot of those matches. I don't think we ever lost when we played together. Um but the 85 was a again a great great week. I played very well, I very much enjoyed that. It was my second win there, and I'd lost two playoffs. So, you know, and in theory, I could have won four times at the memorial.

Mike Gonzalez 2:04

Yeah, I'll come back to uh Bruce's question from earlier. We go from 85 that win at the memorial to your win at Medina in the 1990 U.S. Open. So, what was kind of going on in those uh in those years from age 40 to age 45, other than getting older?

Hale Irwin 2:20

Well, uh I had started getting into the design game. Uh very much enjoyed the golf course design, still do. It's uh it was a part of me that was looking to expand itself. Because every golf course I'd go to, I'd think, well, why'd they do this? That I would I went to all that and I finally put it in motion and got started. And so the a lot of the attention to detail that I was putting into my golf game was finding its way over into the column that was golf course design. So I was not the player I once was, I was becoming a participant. So I'd go to a tournament and I wasn't a player that I was before. I was participating, but I wasn't playing. And but I was enjoying the other side, and after four and a half years, now I'm approaching that really ripe old age of 45. Um, I sat down in the winter of uh 89 between the tours, and I pulled out a yellow pad and I wrote down the tournaments I had won. And what were my thoughts? If I could remember what the thoughts were. And I went back to the 71, which we've covered, and I thought, what was I thinking that week? Oh, I was thinking about posture. 73, what was I thinking? And I went all these, and if I couldn't remember, I left it out, I left on my desk, and I come back to, oh, I remember what it was. I was looking at alignment then, or maybe it's grip pressure, or you know, whatever thought it was. And that, just call it a stroke of luck, if you wish, started formulating the player mind again. It started feeding that machine. So when we started the 90 season, I could feel feel the game coming around. Yes, I was still capable of hitting the shots, but I wasn't hitting them with purpose or with the dedication to the focus that I once had. So when we get to uh, and then that's that was right after the memorial went in '85.

Mike Gonzalez 4:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Hale Irwin 4:29

Um, so that period of time uh was spent in swinging a golf club rather than scoring with the golf club.

SPEAKER_05 4:38

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 4:39

Uh so when we got to the U.S. Open, and uh fortunately the USJ had given me a an exemption uh during that week, I mean during that year, I just felt the game coming around. I was starting to hit the shots where I wasn't terribly comfortable, I could feel it coming. But all I needed really was that that last day at the open. What I needed was, okay, I'm here on the USGA's invite, and I'll I'll play well. I don't want to embarrass their choice. But when I got to the final day and I'm saying, okay, I'm an hour behind the leaders, and Billy Ray Brown comes to me as I'm walking to the first T and he's coming to the Putting Green. He says, you know, hey parts, what do you suggest? How do I play today? And um I mentioned to him that uh well, you know, you're playing well. Uh my my feeling is that most of the time players beat themselves rather than outright winning. Uh, you know, play your shots, the shots that you're playing, play them. If you if you don't feel right, well then play a shot that you do feel right playing. You know, play within your your game. And I'm walking up to the T, I tell myself, well, why don't you do that? To myself, that's great advice. Why don't you try that? So we would get around and and uh I get to the 11th T and I look on the leaderboard and I'm one shot out of the top 15, which gets you into the following year. And I thought, okay, I'm I'm out of the top 15, one under from the 11th T in, that'll get me in. So I like that's where all this time it coalesced into that next hour and a half.

SPEAKER_05 6:23

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 6:24

And so I got focused, I hit a good drive, hit it about six feet from the hole, made a birdie.

unknown 6:29

Okay.

Hale Irwin 6:30

Re-evaluate the goal, top 10. Okay, and then a birdie 12. Yeah, okay. Top five. Uh birdie 13. I thought, well, let's keep this thing going. And a birdie 14. So I kind of go from indifference to now a birdie four holes row simply because I kind of re-evaluated and kept my goal out in front of me. I never said I've achieved it, I just kept it out there in front of me. So after parts of 15, 16, 17, uh, and I'm I can remember standing over that putt at 18 saying, okay, it's now and everybody. And goals were right in the middle of the hole. Uh but I guess, and I never thought that would win outright. I I never ever thought that. But what I had done was I had played the last eight holes of a U.S. Open Championship on a pretty good golf course at 500 par after being kind of back in the pack. I had established goals, I had met those goals, I had exceeded those goals, and I was very proud of those that moment.

Mike Gonzalez 7:30

Yep.

Hale Irwin 7:30

Umbody will forget it.

Mike Gonzalez 7:34

Well, it was an exciting playoff win against Mike Donald. Of course, uh, we'll remind our listeners they can go back to, I think we've marked that episode two with with Hale, where he talks about that win in detail. And uh uh you weren't done because uh I don't know, you you know this, Hale. I don't I don't know the answer to this, but how often as a U.S. Open winner, after all the energy and mind space spent that week, you come out of there just totally spent. You win the next week.

Hale Irwin 8:04

Good question. Uh well, we you know, having the the 19 holes on Monday, and just so everybody knows, this is what a U.S. Open champion eats after dinner, after a win, cold pizza in the car driving back home. That's how you celebrate. My wife and my daughter were there, my son was off playing in a junior tournament. So, whereas it was not the champagne and caviar that people might think it's cold pizza eating it in the car on the way home. But I knew that next day would be full. No, that's Monday. Yeah, and we're playing in Westchester now. Was the thought to withdraw ever in my mind? No, because I'd learned that long ago. You don't withdraw. You once you commit, you see it through. So I knew Tuesday would be busy with phone calls, etc., etc. So I was early in the morning, I got up and I made again those change those reservations, Bruce, that we talked about earlier. I changed the reservations. Uh I left quite early from St. Louis, uh, where we were living. Quite early Wednesday morning, I got to the Guardi airport. The tournament picked me up and literally took me straight to the golf course. I went straight to the 10th tee to make my pro-am time. Yeah. And just kind of I haven't caught my breath yet. And then I go out and play the pro-am and oh, now I go to the hotel, now I got a tee off. And you know, now before I know it, I'm back in the thick of things. But that was the good part. I was back in it. And I just come off of a very emotional, high, high uh stakes win. And this was I'm back in it, and it felt good again. I was still doing my thing. And um you put the emotion aside, you just boil it down to this moment, and it's it's another moment. It's it's not the big picture we're looking at. We're looking at this this little eight iron you've got to hit to this shot. Or it's this little the 10-foot putt you've got to have. And it's not the oh, the grandeur of winning. No, it's not that. It's keep it, keep it simple, stupid. That's always been my uh mantra is keep it simple, stupid. And I kept it simple.

Mike Gonzalez 10:23

So coming out of 1990, we go to 1991, and uh lo and behold, you make another Wyder Cup team. And this one was a pretty exciting one in uh just north of Beauford, South Carolina. Yeah.

Hale Irwin 10:38

Oh, yeah. What the uh what the uh the press I want to say inappropriately described as the war at the shore. Uh I I blanched at that. I didn't like that because uh people remember we're our U.S. troops were uh in the Middle East in Kuwait and uh and kind of a war footing and and and some active uh hostilities going on. And playing golf is not war. I thought it was disrespectful. Uh I understand the term, and maybe I'm taking it too seriously, but I the last thing I'll ever do is disrespect uh the troops that are out there fighting for our our rights and our freedoms. So having said that now, um this was now after the the UK Europe team had pretty much uh seized control in the 80s of the Ryder Cup. And uh they've got a very powerful team, and but we've assembled a pretty good team too. There's a couple old guys on there. There's some guy named Hale Irwin, there's another guy named Ray Floyd. Uh I think we probably had one of the older teams that might have uh ever graced the the uniforms of the U.S. Rider Cup team, but it's a very experienced team. Um and unfortunately for us, the the just before the evening before the opening um T-shot, there was an accident in which Steve Pate, riding in one of the lemos, uh, was injured and um couldn't play. Uh and Steve was having a very good year, and of all the players on our team, Steve might have been playing better than anyone. So as I look at it from my eyes, I think uh we lost our our best player at the time. Now we're we're down to 11. Now, just so the people understand that every match the captain puts a player in the envelope. That's in case there's illness or injury or something. Uh that player is not played, so they split that point. So it's uh it's it really becomes 11 on 11. That's why you have guys set out. Uh I'm not in favor of that myself. I I think everybody should play all the time. But anyway, that's aside. Um, so now we've not only lost Steve, but uh we're now the rest of the team now has to pick up the slack that Steve's leaving. Uh not of his choice, of course. And you can just kind of see how as determined as we are, that other side again, they're determined on our soil now, so now they're determined. But prior to all of that, my son and I had gone down to Kiowa, and uh I'd play probably played a few more practice rounds than the rest of the team and and went out with Pete Dye one year. And Bruce, you know, you know Pete, he was uh a remarkable architect, uh built some uh arguably interesting golf courses. Uh you could love them or hate them, but uh he never left you with uh you're never unemotional when you played a Pete Dye course. And uh Pete kind of told me some stories that were very entertaining. I I love Pete. Uh but I kind of got a not a an insider's look, but I kind of got a feeling of the golf course. And so anyway, as we're the week progresses and the matches are coming around, and we're having our some really close matches, some good times. There's a little bit of a tift always with Sevi and and uh uh Aisinger, they kind of got into it a little bit. Uh there's always a little bit of that when Sevi was around because I think he too was very competitive, he was very proud of his team, and he he pushed it. Um anyway, as you know, Zinger's he doesn't back up either. Um I love Paul for that. But he uh so anyway, we so we start the last that night when the when the pairings came out, I told my wife, and I was looking at the pairings, and I I told her, I said, I because Dave Stockton was our captain, and Dave did a great job. And Dave came to me prior to that, he said, Do you care where I put you? And I said, No, Dave, just put me where you think it's best. Uh and so when the parents came out, he had put me last, and and I looked at the matches they're going before, and I I told Sally, I said, I got a feeling it's gonna come down to my match. Just the way things were lining up, and so I just got this feeling. And sure enough, as the the next day got on, the the matches were progressing and ending, and sure enough, it was pointing towards the last match. And I was not playing my best golf. And Kio Island, the course there, it it runs along the shoreline, and you go out for about four or five holes, then you come along back in the opposite direction for about nine holes or so, and then it turns and goes back in the opposite direction. So it's really kind of narrow, it's long, but it's narrow. So you have a wind direction starting out that was into a fairly strong wind, into your left to right. So now as you turn, you come back down, now you're right to left and down, then you turn, and now it's back into your left to right. And so I said, I have I've really got to hold my own on the because I'm not hitting the ball solidly, I'm just I'm just my timing's off. But if I can hold my own on the left to right winds and play more aggressively, if you want to call it that, but get on the up on the downwind holes before we turn. And that's exactly what happened. I I played even that way. I got two up on the downwind holes, and then we make the turn going back into the wind. And to Bernard Longer's credit, he had two up and downs that were really magnificent, you know, to wind holes. So that's why we're playing the last hole even, and it's virtually unreachable, par four, with the way the wind's blowing. And I I hit a drive that's it's left, it's not, it's gonna be maybe in the light rough, but it hits the gallery because it was really narrow because you there wasn't a lot of place for the the galleries to walk. And so it hit in the gallery, so I'm well back. I can't reach the green. I hit a three without to the right, short right. Bernard, I think, hits a one iron, perhaps. He's short of the green. I don't hit a particularly good pitch. He hits a pitch about six feet from the hole. Now, the winner of this hole wins the tournament or wins the rider cut. If we tie, the US wins. If he makes that putt, the European team wins. So I I had a kind of a weak little putt up there. I I didn't play the hole well. So but I it came to me as Berners lining up this putt, and the reason I say this because when I had gone down early, I'd picked up on the fact that that green from front to back or back to front, back to front, broke more than you thought. Either the grain, the subtlety in there, but there was more break to it. So now Bernard's got a putt that's a cross grain or left or right, and I'm thinking to myself, I hope he doesn't know what I know. And I told our my team in the in the team room, I'd said, if you get to 18, just be aware of this. And sure enough, I think he hit the putt where he wanted to, but it broke below the hole. Uh so it just points out some of the details that you you need to take in in a short period of time sometimes, are the big difference in what can happen. So, anyway, it was uh a very exciting finish. Uh to Bernard's credit, I went to the uh Germany with him the next week, played in the German masters. Who wins it? He does.

Mike Gonzalez 19:04

Yep.

Hale Irwin 19:05

Um it's a great trip, but I I think it just shows kind of the composure that Bernard's shown through all the years and how he he turned down a very disappointing, I know you want to call it a loss, a disappointing results, uh into uh goes back to his home country and and wins and uh establishes the dominance that he's had thus far. But uh it was uh a very emotional win, but again, once that's over, all that competitive spirit that's prevalent during the time the teams are apart brings you together in that evening and that celebratory dinner that we all had, celebration for some, maybe this one for others, is quickly gone, and you're now teammates. But I'm walking back to our hotel with Payne Stewart, he's just on my left, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him go straight up in the air, and I'm thinking, what in the world? Kind of I'm shocked. And Ian Wosnom had come up behind him, and Ian, not being very tall, but he's as strong as he can be, put his head under uh Payne's legs and lifted him up on his shoulders just in a heartbeat. And that's the kind of camaraderie that you get, and the the dispelling of all those maybe negative opinions of each other during the week are quickly gone. And and I'll never forget that moment. The that when I saw Payne go up and Ian was there and and uh and the friendship started all over again.

Mike Gonzalez 20:38

Yeah, yeah, what a great competition, as you mentioned. A lot going on that week. Most of it probably fueled by the press, I suppose. If it was just left to the competition, uh maybe the memories would be a little different. But uh uh it was a good result for the U.S. uh Bernhard certainly took it like a champion because as you said, he goes goes over to Germany, wins the next week. I guess in retrospect, Hal, as you look back at how that all played out, and then you look uh look back to the record you and Bernhard have both posted on the senior tour. From your perspective, did it come out about right?

Hale Irwin 21:14

Well, you you you can't control the destiny of another player. Uh you can only control your own. And I I think from Bernard's, he's uh he's he's wired. He's been a professional since what he's like 14 or 15 years old, I think. He turned professional. He's been at the game a long, long time. He practices as diligently as anybody I've ever seen. He plays uh he prepares for every golf course that you'll ever play over and over again. He'll take last year's notes, but he'll kind of forget them and make new notes. He's got a great caddy uh that's kept with him for a long time. They've built a great rapport. So the that unit that they have is very, very effective, and he's at the tender young age of Of 64 or 5, whatever he is, he's still playing excellent golf. Yeah. Um, and I think there are those of us that perhaps could have done the same thing, but other things come in to to play. You know, like we talked at the beginning, your life. Yeah. Do you want to continue playing or do you want to have a life away from golf?

SPEAKER_05 22:19

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 22:19

And I think he he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna continue playing and then I'm gonna have my life. And some of us make that decision earlier.

Mike Gonzalez 22:26

Yeah, yeah. True. Well, let's take you, let's take you back to your last uh regular win on the on the PGA tour. This is your third win at Harvard Town by two over one, Mr. Norman, as you were probably at the time approaching 50 years of age.

Hale Irwin 22:44

I was. Uh, and I I felt uh for me uh I I didn't I I don't like the term go out in a blaze of glory because I don't think you ever go out, and I didn't want to be ablaze. I just wanted to I knew I could still play. Uh Harvard Town was where it all started for me, and I thought if this is going to be my swan song on the regular tour because I was going to be turning 50 the following summer, uh, and I wanted to play on the then senior tours now, the PJ Tour Champions, uh, I wanted to I wanted to go out with a bang. And I I think one of the shots that I remember the most about that week was playing the 16th hole, and Greg was on the T at 17 looking back, and uh I may have had a one-shot lead at the time, but uh I hit a shot, a short iron in there about a foot from the hole. And and I I remember saying to myself, you know, yeah, you know, you take that. And he was on the T and saw it, and he just turned his back to it and and went on his business. What that was, I don't know. But it's one of those times where I felt it was a pivotal moment for me at my age where I was to say to the rest of the golfing world, hey, I still got it. Yeah, I still got it. Look at that shot, I still got it. Yeah, and I think that's sort of what I took to later on to the to the senior tour. Is that um because my birthday was in June, and the way, and Bruce, you remember, if to get quote, status on the senior tour, it was by money. You had to finish in the top 10 or 15 or whatever it was to kind of have that status, to determine whether you want to play in both pro-ams or one pro-am, whatever it was. And so it just that was my goal to get status. So when I I played the regular tour up until June, and then I pretty much wanted played the senior tour because I was thinking I would like to play back and forth. I wasn't ready to give up the regular tour. But by virtue of being in June and only had essentially four months or so to get status, I really had to dedicate most of my playing time to the senior tour to get that status, which I did. Uh but then the following year said, okay, now I'll play a little bit on the regular tour. But I didn't. Uh it just it's just too hard. I tried a little bit, but different personalities, different, it's just too hard to I I didn't have the focus to do that. But that win at Harbor Town in '94 really to me was sort of the okay, you started here, you end it here. Let's just be happy with that.

Mike Gonzalez 25:34

Yeah, pretty cool. And uh, of course, we've talked to a lot of players who played the senior tour, and we we asked them about those last five years or so. How many guys actually played their way right onto the senior tour by by can continuing to compete week after week? Some did, some didn't. Um, I've got uh one guy that we had on as a guest uh that had a little bit of perspective as to what your mindset was at the time. Let's uh listen in.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

So I remember riding in a car with Hale when he's probably from Hilton Head. You have a long drive from Hilton Head to Savannah, and I'm with Hale, and Hale's probably 47, 48 years old, and he's complaining about his back, and oh, I can't play anymore, and I, you know, I'm just gonna retire. And you know, I'm basically almost like he's sick of golf and you know, I hurt. And then he wins 45 times.

Mike Gonzalez 26:26

So there you go. That's Scott Simpson, of course, U.S. Open win.

Hale Irwin 26:29

Oh, I know. Yeah. Scott just doesn't get it yet.

Mike Gonzalez 26:37

Might have been that year coming off of that win. Who knows?

Hale Irwin 26:40

Yeah, it was uh you know, Scott was uh just one of the nicest guys on the tour, and I I think a lot of times there might have been more um kidding and espousing of supposed pain than there really was. Uh but I think it was uh for me, it was a determination I had to make. Uh, where was I going to put my efforts? Because let's just be realistic. When you turn 50, do you still have a game? Yeah. I've I I played the best golf of my life when I was 52 years old. But you know that that can't continue. Just Mother Nature is just not gonna let you continue on. And I didn't want to continue on at that pace that I was going. I wanted to step back, I wanted to play with the Bruce Devlins and the Dale Douglases, I wanted to play with those guys that I knew that were so instrumental in my success. I wanted to spend my last playing years with them. Yeah, and and I wanted to have a life as a grandfather uh uh away from all the the other stuff. Yeah, and uh that's what I did, and I again I wouldn't change it for anything.

Mike Gonzalez 27:48

Well, you were really honored later that year, and by this time you have turned 49, so you're thinking about the senior tour, but uh you've got a job to do, and that's captain the U.S. side in the President's Cup.

Hale Irwin 28:02

Interesting times. Uh because I had I had played quite well, and uh when the tour came to me and asked me if I'd be the captain, I said I'd I would be honored, it'd be a great, but I want to play first as a player. And if I'm gonna be on the team as a player. Now, if that means giving up the captaincy, that's what it's gonna be. I I I I just I want to play. And uh so eventually it came down to okay, I'd be a player captain. But I said, if that's the case, having seen what captains do, at least on Ryder Cup teams, they're busy. And I would need an assistant. And the dog, David Graham, was the captain of the first President's Cup for the international side. And uh we asked David, would that be okay? And he said, Fine. So who I was thinking, who would I like to ask to be the assistant? And at that time, uh Paul Eisinger was coming out of his his cancer treatment, and I I thought, and he's he's ready to go, and I'm thinking, how can we get a guy that's respected and admired back into the game? So I asked Paul if he'd do it. And it he did, he agreed to it. And I think his history will show is probably one of the best decisions I ever made because Paul A became a very effective Ryder Cup captain, but he really was helpful that week because it took the burden of being the the captain and the player. I could now, when I'm playing, I could leave it up to a very, very capable man to handle the the background noise, to tear take care of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, and uh and let him deal with that. And then when I wasn't playing, then I could assume that again. So that's how all this assistant stuff came about. Now we see assistants right and left and upside down. I think two and three and incredible how many assistants are in the game now.

Mike Gonzalez 30:03

Yeah, I guess everybody probably would assume. Well, you had two or three assistants back then.

Hale Irwin 30:07

Uh no, it well, there were no assistants at all anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 30:13

Uh until Paul was the first assistant that came into the scene. Because uh maybe that was the first playing captain there'd been on any of the teams thus far. But the the difficulty was the tour and trying for for this event to be successful, they were trying to kind of recreate another Ryder Cup. And and I was trying to not do that. I was trying to keep our players from having to do the same thing every fall, every every same thing, same, same, same, same. And so I fought as hard as I could and failed to make this a four-day event, not a three-day event, not put our players through the same kind of thing where now they they have something new to look forward to. And rather than sending players out, I said, let's play the whole team. Let's play four days. You know, I said you want to make it interesting for the press and the people, all right. Let's have the press andor the people choose the singles matches the first day. Let them do it.

Mike Gonzalez 31:19

Yeah, yeah.

Hale Irwin 31:20

And then the captains will kick in, and if you want them, you because singles always seem to be where people match up. So if you and then the captains can make all the pairings from there, but if you want to, let them do it again on Sunday. You know, so I just tried to throw it a little different and let everybody play. Not 36 old matches, 18 hole matches. Right. Yeah. And I I think they might do that now. I think they might play four days in 18 old matches, but uh I don't know what they do. But that was my effort in trying to make different.

Intro Music 31:48

Yeah.

Hale Irwin 31:48

And so our players on on this side of the pond uh would have something new now for the international team. The the whole thing was going to be new. And the difficulty for them was bringing people from Japan or Korea or uh Africa uh all together and have a a common ground, but you gosh, you you might not even have a common language. You never knew.

Mike Gonzalez 32:15

Exactly.

Hale Irwin 32:16

It's difficult for that that to all happen.

Mike Gonzalez 32:19

Yeah. You had a couple of interesting captain's picks. Uh you picked a young pup uh who who turned out to be by far your youngest player, and then you had to pick an old guy so you didn't feel like you were the only old guy playing, right?

Hale Irwin 32:33

Well, uh uh you try to pick the players that A can play, have experienced the play, or have uh have the game have shown that they have that initiative of and the want to get out there and mix it up and play. And I think that uh and whoever that is, uh whether they bring that standing hand or whether they bring that exciting flair. Uh I I remember on the first day uh I told the five guys I sent out, I said, I want you to try and drive, it was a relatively short opening. I said, I want you to try and drive the first screen. I want the other team to know that we are not backing up. We're gonna go out and take this. And we took the morning matches 5-0.

Mike Gonzalez 33:21

5-0, yeah.

Hale Irwin 33:22

To to their credit. They came back that afternoon and spanked our bottoms. And it uh you know, I I felt throughout though that we still had the better team. Uh, but it was a close, close affair up until uh Fred Couples on the last day got our closing point. Um and I think I can't remember what the exact score was at the end, but uh it was very exciting for for me as a player captain. It was unique and very exciting.

Mike Gonzalez 33:51

Yeah. Of course, the the captain's picks I was referring to, Jay Haas on the senior side, uh, who hailed from uh Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis, and then uh uh young 24-year-old Phil Mickelson rounded out your picks.

Hale Irwin 34:04

Yeah. Well, you know, again, Jay Jay had a very had a he was playing well. I mean, he had a really solid game. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but he has a presence that is felt by all, and it's a very calming, mature presence. Then you have the the upstart Phil Mickelson, who's got length, he's got some uh uh dynamics to him that are going to add to the explosive factor, and he was one of the guys that put out very first and try and drive the first green. That's what I wanted to see, and that's why he was on the team.

Bruce Devlin 34:38

Yeah. So a hell, uh, thanks for being with us today. We uh we still have a little bit of your career to cover uh on the senior tour. My memory serves me there was a lot of victories there that we need to talk about, and we thank you for your time today and look forward to uh covering your senior tour.

Hale Irwin 34:59

Well, I think in in time we could cover a senior tour. And for those that uh might not know what that is, it's now the PGA Tour champions. Just to get it officially correct, you old guys just say senior tour out of the corner of your mouth all the time, so I have to correct you all the time. And I'm one of the old guys. It's a pleasure to be with you guys.

Mike Gonzalez 35:20

Well, thanks for thanks for joining us, and thanks for uh coming back to continue your story for the good of the game.

Hale Irwin 35:27

Okay, thank you, gentlemen. Talk to you again.

Mike Gonzalez 35:30

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.

Intro Music 35:54

It went smack and flood. It lets it make a fly.