Unplayable Lies: (The Only Golf Book You'll Ever Need) Read online

  CAPTAIN BEN CRENSHAW: I want all of you to know I feel good about tomorrow. I’m a great believer in fate. Fate’s gonna take care of us.

  MALE VOICE: What can fate do about our shirts?

  BEN CRENSHAW: What do you mean?

  MALE VOICE: We’ve been wearing olive drab, black, brown, and gray all week. I’ve taken a sneak look at our uniforms for tomorrow. Our shirts look maroon and they got splotches all over them.

  JUSTIN LEONARD: I think that must be the color Francis Wee-may wore when he beat Vardon and Ray here.

  PAYNE STEWART: I think it’s Francis Cue-may, Justin.

  BEN CRENSHAW: It’s Francis Wee-met. And he upset Vardon and Ray right here at The Country Club, like we’re gonna do tomorrow.

  DAVID DUVAL: Who are Vardon and Ray?

  JULIE CRENSHAW: Since the subject of our uniforms has come up, I would like for everybody to know I had only $275,000 to work with.

  BEN CRENSHAW: I know some of you are gonna hear that our shirts look like a spaghetti Bolognese, but I think they’re neat. Those splotches are pictures of a lot of our past Ryder Cup teams—and it doesn’t bother me too much as a Longhorn that they’re Aggie maroon. Shirts don’t swing the club.

  FEMALE VOICE: I can’t believe y’all are sitting here talking about shirts. You’re getting your brains beat out by a bunch of European waiters and dishwashers. I mean, who are these people?

  JEFF MAGGERT: Nobody, man. We’re still the twelve greatest players in the world, even when we lose.

  TOM LEHMAN: We need to get the crowd into it early.

  HAL SUTTON: Fist pumps help.

  TIGER WOODS: I don’t know. I did a fist pump Friday and almost threw my shoulder out. Nobody cared but Michael Jordan. I guess it would have helped more if Lehman and me hadn’t been two down to the dishwashers.

  PHIL MICKELSON: It’s not easy to play your best when the crowd’s yelling, “Go, Sergio” … and … “How do you like this exhibition, rich guy?”

  AMY MICKELSON: That was so ugly. I can’t believe anybody would say something like that to Phil.

  DAVID DUVAL: Who’s Phil?

  BEN CRENSHAW: Sergio’s a great kid. Close to the best in the world, too.

  TIGER WOODS: I wouldn’t go that far.

  JULIE CRENSHAW: I don’t see how they can be so far ahead of us. We have way more Bushes here than they do. We have President Bush, First Lady Barbara Bush, Governor George W. Bush, and Governor Bush from some other state.

  ROBIN LOVE: People, may I have your attention? I want to read you something inspiring. It comes from Harvey Penick. He says in his little red book, “Take … dead … aim.”

  Long pause.

  STEVE PATE: That’s it?

  ROBIN LOVE: I think it’s very inspiring.

  STEVE PATE: Take dead aim at what?

  DAVID DUVAL: Who’s Harvey Penick?

  Applause as Texas governor George W. Bush makes a surprise entrance.

  GOV. BUSH: You fellows aren’t in as much trouble as the heroes of the Alamo, but maybe you can take heart from what Colonel William Travis, the brave commander, said to his troops in the middle of that gallant battle.

  BEN CRENSHAW: I invited Governor Bush to speak to you and lift your morale.

  GOV. BUSH: If I may proudly quote the colonel: “I am besieged with thousands of troops under General Santa Anna. We have sustained constant bombardment and cannonade. The enemy has demanded we surrender and lay down our maroon shirts with splotches, otherwise we will be put to the sword or left with Mark O’Meara as our only hope. I have answered with cannon shot, and our black, brown, and gray shirts of the first two days still wave proudly over the wall. We are determined to sustain ourselves as long as possible or die like brave men who never got to wear the red, white, and blue.”

  BEN CRENSHAW: Thank you, Governor. Now before we go to war tomorrow, I want to say this one more time. I did not have uniform discussions with that woman.

  THE SPEECH

  TRANSCRIPT OF CAPTAIN Hal Sutton’s speech to the press after the USA suffered its worst Ryder Cup loss in history to Europe in 2004:

  Man, I can’t tell you how bad I wanted our little dogies to beat them European polecats. Why tarnation, we’re the greatest golfers in the world, us being from the United States of Amurka and most of Florida, while they’re from England and London and Spain and a lot of other places outside Russia. They probably had a Norwegian stuck off somewhere in case of an emergency. Several of my rawhides had never been around Europeans. To calm ’em down, I said, “You don’t need to have been to Europe to see what they’re like. Just spend two or three days up in New York City—you’ll be lookin’ right at ’em.”

  That got kind of a laugh.

  As our Ryder Cup captain this time at Oakland Hills in Dee-troit, I wanted to jump on the Europes real quick and stuff ’em in our saddlebags. That’s why I went out early with Trigger Woods and Thrill Mickelson, my two top ranch hands. They’re stronger than new rope.

  How was I to know they wouldn’t hardly speak to one another, and just in general play like hospital food?

  Somebody said Woods and Mickelson don’t like each other, and that’s why they didn’t have no chemistry on the golf course. I said, “Well, son, I been around this game longer than most rivers have been wet, and I ain’t never yet seen a test tube or a Bunsen burner make a birdie.”

  People asked me why Tiger Woods snubbed the press. Why he wouldn’t go to the pressroom after he lost three out of four matches the first two days. I said, “Well, I ain’t Socrates or one of them other teachers at Harvard, but I know this much: you can’t tell a cattleman what to do if he’s got a bigger spread than you do.”

  Phil Mickelson made me proud, I have to say. He went in the pressroom and took his medicine. He tore his heart out of his chest and throwed it on the floor. I was honored to pick it up and give it back to him.

  I congratulated my opposing captain, Bernhard Landers, even though he’s from Germany. And I congratulated Sergio García. Sergio went undefeated for the week, scoring four and a half points. Funny thing about Sergio. He does good in these Ryder Cups, but when he comes over and tries to play on our Tour, he can’t chew loose eggs.

  I also shook the hand of Colin Montgomers for scoring their winning point on Sunday. It must have felt awful good, seeing as how his wife went O. B. on him this year. I could identify with that. I’ve had wives go O. B. and others that DQ’d on me. Ever how many it’s been.

  Somebody said that when we got whipped 18½ to 9½ it was one of the few times Amurka has been held to single digits. Well, I say you can’t call it single digits if you count that doodad hangin’ on the 9.

  We’re lickin’ our wounds, but I still say we’re the greatest golfers in the world, and I wouldn’t take nothin’ for being associated with this bunch of ringtailed tooters, even though they turned out to be all hat and no cattle.

  THEY SAID IT

  IN THIS JOB there are quotes that rarely make print because in the moment of typing they didn’t fit the theme of the piece. But they never go away. They curl up in a corner of the brain and mind their own business, like an off-brand vegetable you quietly nudge to the side of the plate.

  Here’s a batch I’ve saved up that warrant more exposure:

  Gene Sarazen, during an interview when we were sitting on the porch at the Augusta National:

  “We owe a greater debt to Walter Hagen than we do to anything else that’s happened in this game. Walter took the club pro out of the kitchen and the repair shop, and put us on the map.”

  Sam Snead mulling over his tragic 8 on the last hole of the ’39 U.S. Open at Spring Mill:

  “I could have parred the dang hole with three seven-irons if somebody had told me what I needed. If I’d won that Open, I’d have probably won six more.”

  Ben Hogan on the subject of Snead:

  “If I could caddie for Sam, he’d never lose a golf tournament.”

  Jackie Burke, being instructive:


  “Never hit a hook. You can’t talk to a hook.”

  Byron Nelson in a telecast when asked by Chris Schenkel how he could tell that Raymond Floyd hit a four-iron from that far away in the fairway:

  “Well, Chris, I’ve always been able to see very well as far as my eyes are concerned.”

  Arnold Palmer to the writer Bob Drum, who had cowritten Arnold’s first book, Hit It Hard, when Drum asked him for a golf tip months later:

  “Didn’t you read my book?”

  Peter Jacobsen during the 1988 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts:

  “The Country Club. Couldn’t anybody think of a name for this place?”

  Jay Hebert in a moment when he became a good fortune-teller. This was in 1957 and I had asked him what in his estimation were the main attributes that were turning Ken Venturi into the next great player.

  “Ken Venturi’s not the next great player. Arnold Palmer is.”

  Bob Rosburg at a Tour stop when he was still a competitor:

  “I saw the pairing of Marty Furgol, Jerry Barber, and Doug Ford today. They were playing three onesomes.”

  Fred Corcoran, while running the 1973 World Cup in Marbella, Spain, when I asked him who a certain busybody French official was:

  “Just another guy in a five-and-a-half shoe.”

  Jack Lemmon on being rejected for membership at Bel-Air Country Club because his wife was Jewish.

  “I said all I want to do is play golf—I’ll eat in the car.”

  Don January on his friend Miller Barber half bowing and saying “How are YOU?” to foreign officials when competing overseas:

  “That’s his French.”

  Tom Weiskopf on the British Open before he won one:

  “The British Open’s not a golf tournament. It’s camping out.”

  Lee Trevino on Jack Nicklaus:

  “Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player who ever lived, or ever will live. But he can’t chip. God doesn’t give you everything.”

  Ed Sneed, on a practice range in Florida when asked how his game was shaping up:

  “My wedges aren’t nestling.”

  Ken Venturi, telling the first golf joke after the moon landing:

  “Hear what Neil Armstrong really said when he stepped on the moon? That damn Trent Jones.”

  Jack Nicklaus, after making a quadruple-bogey 7 at the 12th hole and then making four straight birdies in the 1991 Masters:

  “You have to put such things out of your mind.”

  Tom Place, when he was in charge of the press, noticing that the media tent at the 1974 PGA at Tanglewood was built on a slope:

  “This is the first time you’ll have to play a downhill break to get to your typewriter.”

  Hord Hardin, when he was Masters chairman, repeating what he said to Gene Sarazen after Gene told Hord he no longer wanted to hit a ceremonial drive—he was starting to feel like an exhibit in the museum:

  “Gene, the people don’t want to see you play golf, they just want to see if you’re still alive.”

  Kathy Whitworth on winning more tournaments than any other lady:

  “I wasn’t Babe or Mickey, but I could get it in the hole around the greens.”

  Jimmy Demaret on the subject of certain pros trying to combine playing the Tour with announcing on TV:

  “They need to come down off the tower. That tower restricts your backswing.”

  George Low, the world’s greatest putter, on making a living at it.

  “I never bet Ky Laffoon on the putting green. He was part Indian. He could see in the dark.”

  Hale Irwin whiffed a 2-inch putt on the last green in the third round of the ’83 British Open at Birkdale. It would have ultimately given him a tie with Tom Watson. Now while watching Watson needing only an easy two putts to win on the 72nd green, Hale said:

  “If he doesn’t two-putt this, I’ll kill him.”

  Dave Marr, upon hearing that one of Arnold Palmer’s good friends, a dentist, carried a ball marker he’d made out of the gold from Arnold’s teeth:

  “We’re just happy he’s not a proctologist.”

  THIS OTHER GUY SAID IT

  BACK WHEN FREE speech wasn’t against the law in this country, I was allowed to write:

  A Round of Golf

  A round of golf should never take more than three hours. Anything longer is not a round of golf, it’s life in Albania.

  Big Moment in Journalism

  So this guy came up to me in a hotel bar one time. He was wearing the blazer of a tournament sponsor. He said, “Aren’t you Dan Jenkins?” I said I was guilty. He said, “I’ve read some of your stuff. Man, you’ve got a problem.”

  I said, “No, you’ve got the problem. I’ve got the typewriter.”

  Masters Spectators

  It was more fun observing badge wearers in the old days—before every fan was checked out at the gate by the FBI, the CIA, and Delta Force. On the exclusive clubhouse veranda you could always find more than one guy in a baseball cap and a Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt wearing a badge that said:

  Clubhouse

  Schuyler Bevin Pendleton III

  Old Saybrook, Connecticut

  “Call Me Sergio”

  That’s what Sergio García told the press in an interview before the ’99 British Open at Carnoustie. Then he shot 89-83, missed the cut, fell tearfully into his mother’s arms, and earned a new name: “Call Me a Cab.”

  The Comeback

  Ian Baker-Finch was a surprise winner of the 1991 British Open at Royal Birkdale, then disappeared. When he attempted a comeback at Troon in ’97 he appeared to be a bit wild off the tee. His round consisted of 92 strokes, 4 dead, 55 injured, 67 missing.

  The LPGA

  There is serious talent out there, but they can use some advice in public relations. Why? Because a competitor’s idea of a good quote for the press is, “I thought it was a five-iron, but it was a six.”

  Name Change

  When Deane Beman was the commissioner of the PGA Tour, he sat still one day and let the TPC, the “fifth major,” become the Players Championship. It was about time. TPC sounded like something kids sniff.

  The Good Old Days

  The opening ceremony at the Ryder Cup used to include the anthems of each European team member. You could always tell Spain’s. It was the one that never ended.

  Rally Killers

  The USGA used to provide the best at U.S. Opens. We looked forward to the person conducting interviews every year. For example, if a tournament leader in the media center might reveal, “I’m getting divorced and marrying a set of Siamese twins and moving to Calcutta,” the rally killer was sure to say, “Fine. But let’s get back to the eight-iron shot at 16.”

  Hoylake, Lytham, Birkdale, Sandwich

  If you ever see people swimming in the freezing water at one of these seaside towns in England that hosts the British Open, you know they must have been in a shipwreck.

  St. Andrews, Troon, Turnberry, Muirfield, Carnoustie

  Memo to Americans going to Scotland: Never order the haggis.

  My Best Prediction

  I’m on record for writing that only two things could stop Tiger Woods. Injury or a bad marriage.

  A Fond Farewell

  Much of the conversation on the Augusta National veranda centered on the fact that this was Pat Summerall’s last Masters for CBS. Some spoke of it with such gloom you felt Pat would be taking one of the huge veranda trees with him to the Fox network. The subject got so out of control, one writer hysterically compared Summerall to Pavarotti, and went on to suggest that Pat’s “arias” were irreplaceable. That statement prompted many of us to dash out and buy Pavarotti’s famous recording of “Let’s Go to Sixteen.”

  The Print Press

  For the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, we stayed in a USGA-arranged hotel near the Newark airport. It was the one with the tall wire fence around it with barbed wire on top. More than one car handed over to valet parking was never seen again.


  That was also the Open of “Bus 178.” The trip from the hotel to Baltusrol normally took twenty minutes, but one morning it took three hours and thirty minutes due to a moron at the wheel. I was on that bus. So was my colleague Bob Verdi, who at one point during the journey came up the aisle saying, “Excuse me, I have to go shave again.”

  At the 2001 PGA in Atlanta we stayed in a PGA-arranged hotel that was scheduled to be demolished the day after the tournament. We went a week without hot water, room service, TV, or air-conditioning. Grand Slam.

  Of course, it’s an established fact that nobody has any sympathy for sportswriters. We get in free. All we need is a bed, a shower, and a phone to call Domino’s Pizza.

  A Goofy Open

  In a Calcutta pool at Oakland Hills, the winner Steve Jones would have gone for a dollar in a field with Alex Cejka and Javier Sanchez. Or as Ken Burger, a writer friend then working in Charleston, said of Jones’s victory, “This beats the odds on Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

  Another Goofy Open

  If Andy North and Lee Janzen can each win two U.S. Opens, so can Retief Goosen. That’s about all Shinnecock Hills proved in 2004.

  An Award by Any Other Name

  Does anyone else find it amusing that the Ben Hogan Award for the Top Male College Golfer of the Year is named for a man who never finished high school?

  Progress

  If Arnold Palmer once took the game to the people, can it now be said that John Daly has taken it to the trailer camps?