Bernhard Langer on Augusta National, the “Big Five,” & His Life in Golf

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a brid.

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Speaker 2: Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Fridagg Fridagg brid Egg.

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Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson. Today I am thrilled to be joined by one of golf's all time legends, Bernard Longer. Bernard won the Masters two times obviously, has been one of the most prolific golfers, had one of the greatest careers, particularly when you consider the longevity in the history of the sport. So was really excited to chat with him ahead of this year's Masters about his career, his experiences at Augustin National, and you know, just a lot about his golf life. So could have done this for hours and hours. Really excited for you guys to have listened to this one, and thank you for listening. As a reminder, we will be out on Sunday with our preview for next week's Masters. I can't believe it's here. We have been hard at work in the lab the last few months getting ready for this. I would urge you to go check out the Frida egg dot com. We just posted a whole by hole of Augustin National and it's cool. We put some time and energy into the website design on this one. It kind of breaks down the history of each hole, the strategy of each hole, famous shots on each hole, and has a wonderful set of photos from present and past. That's at the Frida egg dot com. Go check that out. That's kind of kicking off all of our coverage of the first major this year, so be sure to check that out. Before we get to Bernard, let's talk about our partner, Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz offers a wide range of SUVs from compact to full size with up to three rows of seating, all with flowing lines and precise edges to balance elegance with aerodynamics. You can further customize your driving experience, whether it's a vast array of interior and exterior options or the hundreds of in vehicle settings that can be personalized to fit your needs. Innovative mbux Ai learning capabilities can recognize your habits and driving preferences to create your unique driver profile. The Burmester three D sound system creates an immersive acoustic experience, with some models including optional speakers right into the seat experience the power and precision and versatility of Mercedes Benz SUVs. You can visit mbusa dot com slash the dash masters for more. That's mbusa dot com Slash the dash masters for more. All right, let's get to Bernard longer. All right, Bernard, I I've got a big birthday coming up, and I'm hoping that golf and relatively high level golf for for my my expectations are part of my life as I as I age, I gotta ask you off the top, what are what are your keys to longevity of playing golf at extraordinarily high level.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a lot of things. I always say, it's like a puzzle. There's lots of pieces that have to fit together. I think I have pretty good genes. I think I have got given talent, a good work ethic. I've worked out all my life. Enjoy working out, I enjoy practicing hitting balls and all of that, and I enjoy competing. So you need all of that and probably more to be successful. Because you know, I say, the champions Tour is maybe the most competitive tour there is. And you may not agree, but I tell you why, because there's only seventy eight guys from the whole world who can play on this tour. Seventy eight guys. There's no fallback. There's no other tour, you know. The European Tour has a few senior events, but it's not even comparable to the competition or the prize money or any of the other stuff. So everybody that can play golf very well over fifty will try and get on the Champions Tour. And there's always young guys coming and some of the other guys have to leave when you know, like last couple of weeks ago we had Sec Johns and join us Ben Crane, you know, And there's every other week every month, there's a few new ones, and it's difficult to hang on to be one of those seventy eight. But I've enjoyed it immensely. I still play a pretty full schedule and just enjoy the camaraderie we have on this tour. As I said, I work out, and you know, I practice a little less than I used to. My body can't take it. I can't hit five six son of balls anymore, I would be hurting, So I spend more time recovering and more time stretching and trying to loosen up and be ready when the tournament starts.

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Speaker 3: The thing about the Champions Store too, I imagine, And I'm curious your perspective on this is that different players are at different points in their career. Where you have some guys that are coming out there that haven't had the huge accomplishments of others. Do you see a different level of competitiveness depending on you know, obviously people's mental archetype, but also what they've done in their career.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, then you know, there may be five or six guys out here that have had tremendous success when they were younger, and they benefit from that and they may not be quite as competitive. But I would say three fours off the field or more are extremely competitive. They're hungry, they want to extend their career. Some of them may even need the money, I don't know, and they need to perform. They need to finish in the top thirty six to have a job next year, and that's hard to do when you play against Hall of famers and major winners and very accomplished players from all over the world.

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Speaker 3: You just hit on that you worked out basically your whole career. What you were hitting the gym in the eighties. What percentage of the players your peers would you say.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: We're working out regularly?

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Speaker 3: And how do you think your fitness regimen has changed over the last you know, forty years?

00:07:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. I think in the eighties there was maybe thirty percent of the guys who were working out seriously. Now I would say ninety five. So it's changed dramatically. And I call that the Tiger Woods effect because when he came out and dominated, everybody was trying to find out why and see so good? Why see so long? Why see mentally so tough? And you know, every percentage you can gain somewhere in your game may save a stroke and may make you more successful. So that's when people really paid attention. I mean, Gary Player showed us the way many years ago, and you can see the benefit now. If you compare Gary Player to Check Nicholas. You know, Gary player is still very mobile, very fit for his age. He's ninety years old, but the guy can still do all sorts of things like a thirty year old. It seems like while most ninety year olds they can hardly walk or shuffle along and just they're not flexible, they're not strong. So Gary Player was really to me. He was always my golfing idol, and I think he set a great example that many of us are following now.

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Speaker 3: With Gary Player being your idol growing up. Like, what was it about his game that drew you to him? I obviously am in the Tiger era, and I could go on about what I loved about Tiger growing up, But what about Gary Player for you growing up?

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Speaker 1: Was the thing that drew you to him?

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Speaker 2: Well, there were a number of things. First of all, when I met him, he was very kind to me and very helpful. But he was my size. He swung a little flatter than most people did in those years. He comes from a country where golf is not very popular, and he had to really work hard to make it, you know, to Europe, to America, to the highest stage. He had to travel all over the place to get there with wife and kids in those days with apartheid, extremely difficult for him. So I just kind of identified with him a little bit. And fitness was a part of it. You know, I'm only five eight and he was about five eight or something like that. We're competing, trying to compete against these six two sixty four athletes who have a huge advantage just by size. But those were the main attractions. And you know, now we're both believers in Jesus Christ and family people and other things were philanthropic. We realize how much we've been blessed and we give back and help those that are in need.

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Speaker 3: With with growing up in Germany obviously not particularly before you you know, rose to the top of the golf world, not at all a golf hotbed. What was it like growing up in a place where golf was a very you know, unpopular sport and becoming a golf icon and seeing the country's golf popularity grow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very different than I remember when I was about ten years old. We didn't even have one hundred golf courses in Germany, and there was a very leadish kind of game. We had maybe, as I said, eighty ninety golf clubs, and they were all very private, so difficult to get into the game. On top of that, it was expensive and people had no idea what golf was. You know, if you said, well, I'm I'm a golfer. They thought you're playing putt putt or miniature golfer, you know, something like that. So it was not easy to break through. I give you a quick example. When I was fifteen, I finished my basic schooling of nine years and went to the Institute of job Placement. I had my two parents with me. I was fifteen. The guy across the desk was the so called you know person who was going to advise me. So he asked me, what do you want to do with your life, young man? I said, I want to be a golf professional, and he looked at me like I'm from a different planet, he said. He left the room and came back and said, actually, it's not a recognized profession, and I highly recommend for you to learn some decent so you know, that's what golf was like in Germany.

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Speaker 3: And we have any recommendations for you. Was there a job he recommended you do instead of being a golf thro.

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Speaker 2: Well, he said, why don't you learn a proper trade, you know, and get something, learn something, and then in three or four years of five, whenever you've achieved that and you still want to be a golf professional, maybe you can do that, and I said, I want to waste three or five years. I had a job offer as an assistant pro in Munich, and I somehow convinced my parents. I guess I was pretty stubborn. That's all I wanted to do. That was my dream. And they drove me over there, got the interview, and then got the job.

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Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's been forty four years. Really, you know, obviously there's been two years in there that you didn't.

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Speaker 1: Play the Masters.

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Speaker 3: How are you feeling about returning to Gusta National without playing for the first time in forty four years.

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you in a couple of weeks. It's going to be bittersweet. I imagine it's going to be strange to, you know, go out near the putting green or the first tea without the golf club and just be walking around knowing you're never going to compete again in this wonderful tournament. But I knew sooner or later it would be time to call it quits. I didn't want to make a fool of myself out there. The Cortius gotten very, very long. I'm't getting shorter. They mow the fairways from the green toward the tea box, so the grain of their fairways into you. The ball doesn't run as much as it does in other places. And the greens are really designed to be hit with eight nine irons, shorter to medium irons, and I don't have any of those clubs anymore, and they're around the gust. I'm hitting three woods and eyebrids and the ball just doesn't stop. So I hit a perfect shot, it hits the green somewhere and bounces over and that's you don't want to be over those greens.

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Speaker 3: No, but some bad spots over the greens. What would you say is the worst spot to be at Augusta nashvill What if you if I if I placed a ball for you, and you know this is the worst you could possibly place a ball.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's many of them. Depending on the pin position, you could pretty much choose one on every green, like for instance, number sixteen. If you miss the green right and the pin is right, you have no chance. You just you're in the bunker, or you're lucky to keep it on the green and it doesn't go on the water. If you hit a good chat and it's like that fourteen, if the pin is left, you miss the green left, you're facing a chip that slopes away from you and you have no green, and it goes forty to fifty sixty feet. Similar on nine if you go along there. I potted off the ninth green once the pin was up front. It's a three tier green. I was in the back. I hit it maybe three inches too hard afore and it went forty yards down the fairway. I mean, it makes you look like a fool, but it's a fine line there.

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Speaker 3: Why is it that we see more experienced players have such an advantage at Augusta National all the.

00:16:08
Speaker 2: Very reasons I just told you. You have to position your second shot. It often starts with a T shot. If you hit the T shot in the right part of the fairway to the right side or the left side, you have a better angle. I think Augusta was all designed about angles initially. Then they introduced the semi cut, or I call it rough. So the fairway is about half the size now than it used to be, so they took some of the angles away. But angles are still important because you have a better angle into these screens, you can position your second shot. If you hit it perfectly or execute it well, you can position it below the hole or at least levels, so you don't have too many downhill putts, and that's the goal. It's really to me a second shot golf course, or it used to be. Now now it's pretty tight driving as well, because of the introduction of planting five thousand trees some years ago made it a lot tighter, and then the inclusion of the rough, which also makes it harder to put spin on the ball. So those are the things that are extremely important. And somebody's played the Masters several times of the course understands that and knows, well, if the pin is here, I can't go there. I got to play on this side of it or short of it, or whatever it is to have a chance to make two pots to get up and down.

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Speaker 3: You won your first Masters and your third appearance of the Masters. What do you think you understood about augusta earlier than most players.

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Speaker 2: Well, I got a very harsh lesson the first time I played. I missed the cut by one. I had eleven three puts and they had the ten shot. So if I wouldn't have three potted in the first two rounds, I would have been tied for the lead. But I was eleven behind the leader and I missed the cut. So when I as I look back at my two rounds, I'm going, this is crazy. You've never had eleven three pots in thirty six holes. You've got to study these screens and figure out why this happened and you know how to avoid that in the future. And that was the key when I paid much more attention to where to place my second shot, so I wouldn't three pot, I would hopefully one pot more than three.

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Speaker 3: Put what's an example of a hole where you know positioning really matters at Augusta in your opinion.

00:18:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, and I would say every one of them, every single green. I'm not kidding. You know, you take a simple hole like the third hole, a short part for you need to be left of the hole. If so, you have an apple putt. If and if the pin is on the left side of the green four yards from the edge, it's hard to be left of the hole right you have four yards to mess with with a nine iron or something coming in or wedge whatever. So it's literally you know, first green, you want to be shorts, you have an upple putt. If you long, you have a download putt. Same on the second third you got to be left. Fourth, you've got to be short and left. It's on and on and on, same on the sixth to part three and the seventh. It's pretty much I would say sixteen out of the eighteen greens where you have a huge advantage or disadvantage depending on where your ball ends up with iron shut. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I you know, I was watching you last year play. You know, one of my favorite things to do is to go out and watch the more experienced players play Augusta because you know, like at the length you're playing, and as you described the greens that aren't receptive, you have to play to the best spots in order to score.

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Speaker 1: And it amazed me.

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Speaker 3: On the second hole, you know, the pin was kind of kind of in the back left bowlish area, and you played, you laid your ball up, so is the furthest right I've ever seen somebody lay the ball up, and you kind of got jammed because the fringe held your approach shot up from funneling back in. But I just saw it was just an amazing mastery. Like as your power diminished, as.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: The the the the golf holes got longer.

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Speaker 3: Were there holes that you felt like changed the most for how you had to play them.

00:20:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely when they introduced more links. You take the whole number seven, they lengthen it by seventy five yards. It used to be in my prime, I would hit a one iron off the tee and a nine iron o wedge. Now I'm hidden driver for sure. And I got a five iron off a downhill lie into an uphill green that is twelve to fourteen yards deep, and that's very punishing. That's another example. If you go along there you have nothing, You got nothing. You know, you gotta be short. Maybe in the front bunker you might have a chance to get up and down, but if you're long, you pretty much have bogie written on the score card. Not the whole would be number five. They've lengthened that tremendously. That used to be a drive and eight iron. Now I'm hitting drive a three wood just about every time. The last year it is. And that's not a green to come in with a three wood, just tough. It's similar eleven. You know, eleven is on the best day of four iron on the worst day. Last year, I had a hit driver driver one time and I got it to the front edge. And you have water left and all sorts of trouble. So it's it's that long. You know, some people even seventeen and eighteen, it's often anywhere from a three wood on eighteen to three iron into the green, and seventeen is anywhere from a six iron to a two hybrid into greens that are meant for eight and nine irons.

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Speaker 3: Obviously, you had the first best cut at the Masters, you go on to win, you know, two Masters later, three years later. You know, we've seen players that seem to have this charmed existence at Augusta National over the course of their career. I would place you in this bucket. You contended deep into your career where you had chances to win late in your career. You will obviously won two Green jackets, while others it becomes somewhat of a torture chamber for them in the sense of like everything goes wrong. You know, you think about the likes of Ernie Els and some of the bad beats he had, Rory McElroy until he won, until he won last year. You know, people had described it as this is this is a horror horror, a place of horror for him. What and obviously you know, famously Greg Norman would would come to this, come into this group.

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Speaker 1: What about it.

00:23:30
Speaker 3: Creates that dynamic where certain players it seems like everything goes right and other players that can just you know, it just goes wrong for him.

00:23:38
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful question, and I'm not sure I have the answer, but you mentioned some names. You know, Greg Norman, he was definitely one of the dominating players. He had the game, and so does Ernie else. But that course, uh, they hit the ball long, they hit it high, they can spin it. They got a wonderful touch around the short the short game, you know, the potter. They're both world number ones and at times in his career and had chances to win, and specifically Greg Norman, you know, he blew several chances there. And I'm not sure why. You know, there's like you said, maybe it gets harder and harder the longer you don't win. You know, the bad memories come back and haunt you, and it's hard to stay focused. But as I said at Augusta, the golf course, it's a very fine line of shooting sixty five and maybe seventy five. You could play really good golf and shoot seventy five and you look back and go, man, I've played great golf. What happened? You know? Just you were foot off here, a couple of inches there, you made a bad judgment here or something. It takes very very little. It's just that fine of a line around those screens. And then you know you have breaks like remember Fred Couples when he won. You know, when the ball stayed up on twelve. I mean that ball goes in the water ninety nine out of one hundred, actually one hundred out of one hundred, but his student and he made par and he won the tournament. If that rolls back in the water, he makes probably double or something. And you know, mentally that's hard to digest. Who knows what would have happened. But you need a good break here and there to win. I had a wonderful break in eighty five when I I went for the green on thirteen with a three wooden of a bad line in the fairway, and it never got highed. My three wood never got hired in two or three feet off the ground, and it's heading toward race creek and it hit little pump there, a little hill to short a race creek bounced over the creek onto the green and I made about a forty foot or some for eagle. You know, if that ball doesn't hit that hill, I might make par or bogie or something, and the whole thing would it turned out differently.

00:26:11
Speaker 3: When you reflect on your career, I mean, what you just hit on is one of the crazy things about you know, there are a lot of crazy things about the profession of a playing competitive golf for a living. One thing that you know, as someone who watches weekend week out that is illuminating to me the more and more I watch is the idea of how like random bounces often dictate tournaments and you get yourself in contention and it's a break here or break there at the right time that seemed to do it. As a player, has that gotten easier to kind of come to grips with when you fall short as you've gotten older, or or does it drive you as crazy as it did at a younger age.

00:27:02
Speaker 2: Well, it always drives you crazy when you get a bad break. You know, you hit a beautiful seven nine, hit the flag stick and it bounces off and goes in the water and you make double bogie. You know, if it had missed a flag pole. He might have made birdie something like that. But I think you learn as you get older that you're going to get good breaks and bad breaks, and hopefully they'll even out somewhere down the road, and so you you just have to take it there. There's no other way, you know, It's the game of golf. You can hit a tree and sometimes it bounces away and goes out of bounds. Next time it bounces in and ends up near the green or on the fairway. It's out of our control. And as I said, they'll probably even out over your career.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: That's the way I try and look at it. Is it evens out.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: Is there one terrible break that you got in your career that still you still think about today?

00:27:58
Speaker 2: Oh, there were several. I remember one time playing at the Belfry in the regular tournament in England, and I hit the flag pole three times with a full shot with a six iron or venture and none of the three stayed on the green, not even on the green. They all came off in the same round, sorry, in the same round, in the four rounds in the tournament. I but you don't hit the flag pole three times with a full iron usually you know that might happen once, but so that was kind of weird. And then I remember playing Augusta a few years back, not too long thirteen again the pot five round the corner. I hit a beautiful t shot and I had a two hybrid and I struck it beautiful. I mean, when you're pro, you just know when you hit in the sweet spot. And it started online and it took off fantastic, and about as it was fifty yards in the air, it hit this tiny little twin that overhanging tree, and the branch came down and at a time that the very end of the branch, the twig was no more than a quarter of an inch or half an inch. The ball clipped that twig and it went forty yards left in the trees, and I lost ball. If it had made seven, if it hadn't hit that twig, it would have been on the green and I would have potted for eagle, probably made birdie. You know, those are the breaks that drive you crazy when you hit a really beautiful, solid shot, And that happens when you hit a bad shot while you deserve to get a bad break.

00:29:37
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty five, Curtis Strage famously spoke, you know, this is the year you won, about how everything kind of changes and how everything changed for him when he got on the tenth tee on Sunday at Augusta. How would you describe the feeling of entering that back nine with a chance to win.

00:30:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's an amazing feeling knowing that you know you got nine holes left, you got to play your best golf to maybe win a win a major. When the Masters get a green check and have a lifetime exemption, there's so much on the line at the same time, when you have the lead, like Curtis did you know there's it's it's the same thing. You try to protect that lead to some extent, but it's a golf course where it's hard to protect anything because if you start playing safe, you end up in the wrong places at times and get punished quickly. It's just the back nine at Augusta is probably as exciting on nine holes as you'll ever see on any golf course. You have water, you have tough, tough greens, you have two pa fives that are possible eagle chance, but also the way you can make a seven just the same and just very exciting finishing holes where a lot can happen, you know. I remember walking off seventeen at eighty five and I just birdied seventeen. I looked up at the leaderboard and I had a two shot lead over Sev and Curtis Strange, I think mostly Curtis, maybe three over Sevy and Raymond Floyd and Sevi. As we walked to the eighteenth screen, he puts his arm around my shoulder and goes, Bernard, well done, congrats, this is yours. Go get it, you know, and I'm looking at him saying, you know, thanks, but heck, I got one of the hardest part fours in the world to play. I mean that t shot coming out of that shoot. You know, anything can happen there, and I didn't want to do. I think it was Arnold Palmer who lost it once on that hole, and so I appreciated his kind gesture, but I still had a tough hole ahead of me, you know.

00:32:01
Speaker 3: So eighty five you come back, obviously, Curtis struggles on the back nine, You come out of the pack like a real It's actually a really great Master's to watch rewatch on their YouTube channel. You know, there's a heap of great world class players that you come out and you win your first Masters in ninety three.

00:32:21
Speaker 1: You're playing with the lead.

00:32:23
Speaker 3: You kind of touched on this, but what's the difference in the dynamic of playing with like a somewhat substantial comfortable lead at Augusta National versus other golf courses. And I'm curious in your in your career, have there been any corollary courses that have a similar feel to Augusta in the sense of like that kind of razor thin edge of a golf course.

00:32:49
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure there is other courses that are somewhat similar. But we see a year after year at Augusta where you know, somebody goes five under on the back nine or four or six under who knows, And it's easy to go couple over as well. And so the swing changes or the lead changes can happen in a span of a few minutes. I had a foreshot lead on starting that Sunday, and most people would say that, well, foreshot is a lot, you know that's going to be hard to catch. Well, Greg Norman lost with a six or seven shot lead by a lot, and I almost got caught. My foreshot lead went down to one with nine to go, and I really had to get a grip of myself and play aggressive and good golf on the back nine to not let this be taken away from me.

00:33:45
Speaker 3: You've been a prolific winner in your career, to say the least, you know your whole career. What are your strategies for playing with lead?

00:33:57
Speaker 2: Like?

00:33:58
Speaker 1: What are you trying to do in your mind? Does it you know?

00:34:02
Speaker 3: Because we see I feel like we see so many people struggle playing with a lead on Sunday, Like, what did have you learned over the course of your career of closing out a tournament?

00:34:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's never easy to tell you the truth, but I think the more you put yourself in that situation, the easier it gets. And I think that was one of Tiger's big advantages because he was in contention just about every week. He eat it up and it becomes normal and natural, while somebody who's only in the lead once a year or twice, it's a lot harder. But I give you an example. I was nineteen, I was leading the Irish Open by two with nine holes to go, and I hit a beautiful t shot on ten and I'm walking toward my ball, and I'm thinking, well, what are you going to do with all that money you got to win? And what are you going to say at price gaming. I've never given a public speech. I'm eighteen years or nineteen years old, and thoughts like that, and that's the worst you can think. Okay, but I was just inexperienced, and sure enough, about four holes later, I wasn't leading anymore, and I didn't win the tournament. So what you do, Well, it's that phrase, you know, one shot at a time, and it sounds so simple and so boring, but that's what it is. You know, you got to stay in the presence. You can't let the circumstances overwhelm you. You got to try and block out all that stuff and just focus on the next shot, in the next shot, And you still got to play aggressive most of the time. You may be able if you have a big lead to play kind of safe the last few holes, but if you don't have a big lead, it doesn't work. So you still got to hit the shots. You got to make the putts and stay in the presence, don't get ahead of your shelf.

00:35:57
Speaker 3: I think that staying in the present is one of the most challenging things to do on a golf course.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: It is it sounds so simple, just stay in the president, but.

00:36:06
Speaker 2: It is because we have we have so much time. Right you walk to the ball. You got a couple of minutes. You know what is your brain is always thinking something. It's never just dull. And in other sports tennis or or other sports that there, they're reactionary sport. Well, we don't react. We have to act and the ball is just sitting there waiting for you to be hit. Uh, it's it's yeah, it's a different dynamic and not easy.

00:36:37
Speaker 3: What's your favorite way when you when you feel yourself thinking ahead to get yourself back.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I see my my mind go where it shouldn't go, then I'll just kind of have a self talk and say, hey, this is this is not good. You know, come come back here and let's focus on what's at hand. You got whatever eight holes to go. You know, I have my own little game here. Let's if I shoot two hunderd the next eight holes or something, nobody can catch me if I'm three ahead or something a foe ahead. So it's trying to stay with a similar game plan that got you there because obviously it was good. Otherwise you wouldn't be in the lead. So don't change things dramatically. If you have a lead, you don't need to take huge chances. You know, if the pin is four steps from the water, water is on the left, you're not going to go at that pin with a foura and you just try and hit the middle of the green and you force the chasers the other people to take the risk and maybe make mistakes. You have, you know, the possibility to play safe on a couple of holes. But then when you have a chance with a pitching wedge or some other clubs where you feel comfortable and you you can go straight at it and hopefully make birdie and put more pressure on the other guys.

00:38:06
Speaker 3: That idea of challenges, Like you said, like you know, if I play the next eight holes two under, do you think about that kind of stuff throughout a fifty four or seventy two hole tournament?

00:38:17
Speaker 2: Not really usually not. It's more so let's say I get off to a bad start and I'm two over for six or eight holes, and I might just at some point say, okay, let's stop here. You got ten holes left. Let's see if we can shoot the next ten holes two or three under and bring the score back to a respectable, respectable result. So I'm trying to forget the past and focus on my next ten holes thinking something positive, and that has worked very well in my career.

00:39:04
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break to talk about our partners.

00:39:08
Speaker 1: It's springtime.

00:39:09
Speaker 3: The Masters, I feel like for all Midwestern and East Coast dwellers is like the kickoff to golf season. That's when you're starting. You know, you get those cold mornings, maybe it's thirty degrees out, but it warms up to fifty five. You're thinking about golf. This is the time to upgrade your game, and there's no better place to do it than Golf Galaxy. Get dialed for the latest clubs up and down the bag at Golf Galaxy. It's easy and convenient with an in app booking you know capabilities, or just stop by your local store to schedule. Bring in your full bag of clubs. Their team of thoroughly train fitters will optimize every club in your bag to get you playing your best golf. Visit your local Golf Galaxy and download the Golf Galaxy mobile app. Speaking of getting your game dialed to get your game dialed is by getting the right yardages. Just yesterday, I was playing with a pro golfer who showed interest in this rangefiner Cobalt, the Cobalt QZ six range finer. It's got this optical zoom. It's unbelievable. So you can go six x to twelve x zoom. You can see balls. Like if you're playing a little money game and you are wondering, hey, who's got PROCs, who's got pros? This thing can help you see who's got pros. It can help you decide, hey do I need to do? I need to take on this pin a little bit more, Even though some people say never take on a pin, but hey, if you've got a couple couple presses going a role, you might want to play a little bit more aggressively. It makes it easier to clearly see the pin, read the background, and pick out targets. I can attest to this just from my round yesterday. You know, a couple times I had some branches and I was able to use the zoom to like miss the branches. Like you know how you get that sometimes where you like you're shooting, but you're like, oh, this little branch is in the way with the zoom you can get you get closer so you're able to really shoot the pin.

00:41:21
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00:41:22
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00:42:30
Speaker 2: I think they do. I think there's some people that you feel more comfortable or you're rather with than some others. I'm not sure I was overly comfortable with sev because we had a big rivalry in Europe. It was a for a number of years, like Micholson and Tiger if you if you know what I mean, and you know, we played for the same titles and there can only be one winner, and nobody likes sinning second. So we kind of had that relationship for a number of years. But at the same time we played on the same Ryder Cup team many at times representing Europe playing against the Americans. And that reminds me what Sabby, what Sabby said on the first tea. So we get introduced and we hit our t shirts on number one on Sunday in nineteen ninety three, and we walk off and he comes near me and walks next to me and says, Bernard, let's make sure one of us wins this tournament and not these American Yankees behind us. You know that that was his He just wanted to beat the Americans. That that was his big goal. He he just had that in his heart. Somehow. He wanted to win the right a Cup and he wanted to beat the American I don't know, the Americans. I don't know if that goes back to the Americans receiving appearance fees when they came to Europe and he didn't for a while and he fell that was wrong because he was as good as them, maybe better, So there was a chip on his shoulder in that regard.

00:44:08
Speaker 3: I I wanted to talk about that, that group of players. I think I've seen it referred to as the Famous Five, yourself, Ian Muslim, Sandy Lyle, Savvy, Nick Faldo. What do you think made that group tick and and why did did golf and and just that era work for everybody?

00:44:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they did a wonderful job. I think you can watch it on YouTube called the Big Five. And they went to our hometowns to interviewed people that you know, helped us grow and how we got into the game and why we became so good. My view is we all have different backgrounds. You know, Sandy Lyle lived on a golf course he grew up. His dad was the golf teacher, golf professional in that club. It was easy for him, He just stepped out of his front door and he was on the course. For some of us, it wasn't that easy for Woozy and myself and even Sev We had no access to golf courses. We didn't have the money to be a member anywhere, We couldn't afford lessons. We were more self taught and very hungry and eager to play this game the hard way. But we all made it to the top, you know, all of us, and fascinating stories. And I think what really helped us is was we're all the same age. We're all born within twelve months of each other, all five of us. So we competed at the very highest level for about fifteen twenty years against each other, and that made us better. You know, when I competed against Sevi and Faldo and Woozy and Lyle, and I saw Seve win majors, and he's won majors. I've beaten him several times. Why am I not winning majors? You know, that kind of attitude really pushed us and helped us to work harder and get better and believe in ourselves.

00:46:10
Speaker 3: Do you have a favorite European Tour memory from that era?

00:46:15
Speaker 2: Oh, there's there's so many. It's we don't have the time. But you know, in the early days, it was very different. I got on tour when I was eighteen. Okay, there were no courtesy cars. No, the range bowls were so bad. When you hit a five iron, the ball was hooking, slicing, straightening out, and then slicing again, and you didn't know was that you were was it the ball. So we all had check bags of maybe fifty titles with us. We traveled with him, and then you had twenty caddies on the range picking up your own range balls because I didn't want to lose my fifty time listen, I didn't have any for the next day to practice. So that was very you know, dangerous for those caddies and hilarious at times to see how they dodged the balls and ran around and it was crazy really. On the other hand, as I said, I was eighteen, I couldn't rent a car till I was twenty three. So how do I get There were no courtesy cars. Nobody cared about us, really, So I flew to Madrid and I'm stuck at the airport. How do I get to the golf course. I had to take a bus or train with my suitcase, my shack bag, my golf clubs, all the stuff that I had because I couldn't rent a car. I didn't have a car and then how do I get back and force every day? You know things. I mean, you can take a taxi, but I couldn't afford a taxi. I didn't have the money to do that. It was very complicated, very difficult. One time I was in England, I was looking for the golf course and it was a weird name and I couldn't say it properly. And I asked three people and they didn't understand me. Okay, they said, now this place is nowhere near So I finally wrote it down. I showed it. Oh yeah, that's right around the corner. It's just a lack of pronouncing the word correctly. Things like that. But it goes on and on.

00:48:29
Speaker 1: With those, with your peers of that era.

00:48:32
Speaker 3: If you could have if you could have taken one aspect of.

00:48:38
Speaker 1: One of their games for yourself, what would it have been.

00:48:43
Speaker 2: Well. I kind of struggled early on with putting in my life, so I always thought if I could become a better potter, I would be a really good player, and so I was always chasing how to be a better potter or how to have a better short. Like in my third tournament, I finished tight fifths in the Madrid open, and I could see with the people I played against that my ball striking was as good or superior to theirs. But but my short game wasn't quite there. So, you know, Savvy was just the opposite, and at times he was brilliant with a powder and the and the wedges. So I tried to become better in that part of the game, and I knew if I could, I would be one of the best.

00:49:33
Speaker 3: You've you've referenced, you know the difficulty of of you know, lack of means lack of resources when you were up, when you were coming up in the sport in Germany, you know, the lack of golf cours is very private access. How did you become such an elite ball striker with you know, seemingly a not a lot of golf infrastructure around you? What made you such a great tee to green player?

00:50:10
Speaker 2: Well, I was self taught the first six years of my caddy life, Let's put it that way. I couldn't afford lessons and nobody was really offering lessons. And then when I became assistant pro at age fifteen, my head coach said, you know, I can help you with your technique if you want me to and I was all ears. Obviously I wanted to become better. I had a very strong grip. I learned as a nine year old, if you hook the ball, it goes further than a slice, so I try to hook everything to get more distance, to reach the path four in two instead of in three and stuff like that. But that I had to pay a price for that, because later, when I first got on tour and I was drawing the ball, that low draw didn't really worked too well on firm, fast screens in Spain and Portugal and other places. So I had to redo my grip, redo my whole swing to get the ball up in the air, and had to learn to hit a fade. All that was a long process, and I ran into a Truman coach by the name of Willy Hoffman. He became my coach for forty years from age eighteen till about age fifty eight or sixty, and he was very knowledgeable. He worked over here in America for the Gulf Dieicher School with Jim Flick and Bill Straspo, some of the very well known teachers of the game, and he knew a lot. So he helped me greatly, and he's once said, I'm not going to change your swing your grip drastically like some other people wanted to or saw that I need to. He said, We're going to change it a tiny bit every year, and in a few years you'll look at your grip and you'll be amazed how good it looks. And that's what we did. And he said, the reason we're doing it this way is that your DNA and I want you to be competitive throughout your whole career. I want you to be in contention all the time, so we're not making drastic changes. Then he said, you know, in the seventies we were taught to have the reverse sea finish, like Johnny Miller or Jack Nicholas or whatever. And he said, you know you now in your twenties, if you keep swinging like that, your bag's going to kill you later in your life. I don't want you that. I want you to play well in your forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. And initially I was thinking, oh, I don't really care. Then I want to be the best I can be right now, you know, but it made sense. So we changed my swing a little bit by little bit to cover the ball more, which is what they do nowadays. You know, the modern equipment, everybody seemed to cover the ball and clear through the shot, totally different than in the old days. So you had that knowledge and foresight and wisdom to guide me down that path, and it worked very well for me. As you said, you know, I was competitive throughout all my fifty years on tour pretty much. The only thing that helped me back at times was my putting. But my ball striking was generally pretty good throughout my whole career.

00:53:31
Speaker 3: With the putting, obviously, you went through a lot, you know, trying to trying different styles of putting.

00:53:39
Speaker 1: To figure out the struggles there.

00:53:43
Speaker 3: When you look back, do you think that that had in the long term a positive impact on your career in terms of like when you look at your longevity.

00:53:56
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I don't think so, but maybe it does. I wish I wouldn't have had to go through some of the struggle struggles, but I think you learn more in the bad times, but you know, I still would have had bad times load times. That's you know, the middle name of golf is frustrating or humbling, whatever you want to call it. So there's you're never or very seldom you play at your highest level. There's no perfect round of golf, because that would be a score of thirty six. We can reach every hole in two. If you hold out every hole, you would have a thirty six. The lowest score I've ever heard of was what fifty eight, So we're far away from perfection and nobody will ever achieve it.

00:54:48
Speaker 3: With going back to to your group of Europeans that I you know, had a huge impact on so many things, one of which being.

00:54:56
Speaker 1: The Ryder Cup.

00:55:00
Speaker 3: What do you think made your late eighties early nineties team so successful beyond just the sheer talent.

00:55:09
Speaker 2: Well, I think first of all, it was the hunger because the Americans were so much better, supposedly according to the media and everybody else, and they did beat us over and over and over in the fifties, sixties, seventies, and the other thing other phenomenon was the Big Five you know we had. Initially the Ryder Cup was Great Britain and Ireland against America. Then Jack Nicholas, after drumming the European team over and over and over, he said, you know, you should consider including the continent all of Europe because they're really not competitive you know, they have no chance. He said it nicer than that, but that's what he meant, and so they agreed, Yeah, let's include all of Europe, and all of a sudden we became more competitive. Okay, you had players from Spain, from Italy, Sweden, France, Holland, Germany, all over the place. And now he got the Big Five, which really made a huge impact on the Ryder Cup. You know, we were not scared of anybody. It didn't matter if you played against Nicholas or Trevino or Floyd or you name it. You know, we had confidence. We were winning tournaments, winning around the world. All of us won majors, and therefore we felt we're as good as them and that we could beat him. The other thing is, I think there were times when we only had three or four good players. I think in the eighties we started to have twelve fifteen good players and that's changed dramatically. Now I think the European Tour could field almost to Ryder Cup teams. You know, that's how how deep the tour has gotten, how big the game has has grown. And we didn't have that in the early years. Suddenly, not when it was great. Britain and Ireland.

00:57:13
Speaker 3: In the course of your career, was there a moment where a player and their like their skills made you kind of stop in the track in your tracks and watch with the first time you saw him hit a ball.

00:57:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some of them, obviously, they all had. You know, Savvy's short game was phenomenal. Uh you had foul Those comes.

00:57:36
Speaker 3: Real quick with sevi short game. What from you know, as most people here probably didn't ever watch Savvy and that are listening watch Sevy in their prime? What about his short game was so magical?

00:57:49
Speaker 2: Well, they should go back and watch some movies. It's worth watching.

00:57:54
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:57:55
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he could go in a bunker with you and and he'll go in with a three iron and beat you out of the bunker, out of a greenside bunker with a lip, he'll get it closer to the hole than most of us with a sandwich or lobwoich. He was just that good. That was one thing. He could play the flop shot. He could skip and run it. He had the imagine and imagination and a touch and same with a potter. You know you he would hit his t shirt somewhere in the rough for in the trees, and you saw it. Well, I got him now, and then he'll by the end of this hole. You look at the score and he tied you or he beat you by one, and you go, how did that happen? You know? Tom Layman tells the story he played him in the Ryder Cup. I think it was at Rochester. He never saw him. The first nine holes, Savvy was left or right and Tom was down the middle. Played very solid. After nine holes they were even. I mean, it's just he said, it was unbelievable the guy. I never saw him till he hold out and the whole kind of thing. And yet I wasn't up on the guy. So that was Savvy's specialty. Obviously, he could play very good from tee to green as well, at times extremely good. And he had that one iron that could go straight up in the air. Actually, the greatest shot I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen a lot of great shots would have been Savvy hitting a three wood out of a fairway bunker at PCHA National when we played the eighty three Ryder Cup. He drove on eighteen. He drove it in the bunker. I was already finished. I walked back to support my team and I was walking back on eighteen. I see seven the bunker and his opponent on the fairw and I'm going, oh, this is no good. You know he's going to lose this almost likely. And I'm looking at his line in this bunker and I'm standing, I'm thinking, well, if this was me, I would probably hit a seven or eight iron because there was a lip and lay it up and then hopefully wedged and you know, make make birdie. It's a part five. Well, Seby goes in there, takes the three wood, a person in three wood with a steel shaft. He aims out in the water, which is water all the way down the right side of those of you who know PGA National the last hole. He hits this high draw here is at about two hundred and forty with his personmin steel shafted three wood, flies it onto the green and wins the hole. And my eyes got so big. I didn't have that shut. Well, as I said, I was scared. It's seven iron or six iron with the lip there was, and he took three wood. So though you know different players have different talents and different gifts, Sandy Lyle was the same. He could hit a one iron so far and so high. It was scary, I mean, ridiculous. But he had this amazing power in his swing and Woozy, you know, Woozy was is by four at his prime, and when he won his Masters, he flew that eighteen's t shot. He flew it over the bunker. That's that's enormous distance, and then he had a wedge in there. So there's some stuff that is just exceptional, and that's why these guys were the best at the time.

01:01:29
Speaker 1: What's been the most fulfilling moment in your golf career.

01:01:34
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a that's a tough one, because I've been blessed with over one hundred and thirty victories worldwide, and you know, obviously the Masters jumps to mind immediately, but then even winning my first Chairman Open, my first German Masters, my you know, eleven majors out here on the Senior Tour, or eleven money titles, things like that, it's a player of the year. There were so many amazing things that when I look back, I almost have to pinch myself and say, wow, this is crazy. You know that all this happened to you. There's so many great players and so much talent and gifted guys out there, you know, how were you able to win these championships. So I'm very fortunate, very blessed, and it's hard to just pick one, you know, even things like getting the pain Steward Trophy very emotional, or being inducted into the Hall of Fame of Golf. Coming from a village of eight hundred people in Bavaria where golf was nothing. It's crazy, you know, it's just really incredible and I'm very very very grateful.

01:02:55
Speaker 3: Forward well, Bert, thank you so much for joining the show, giving us some of your time, and it was a real pleasure to speak with you and look forward to seeing you at the at the Master's milling about.

01:03:09
Speaker 1: We'll be sure to stop by and say hi.

01:03:12
Speaker 2: Thanks Andy and enjoyed us all the best, God bless.

01:03:26
Speaker 3: All right, big thanks for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. As a reminder, we will be back on Sunday Sunday, it'll be in your feeds to get you kind of rolling for the Masters week.

01:03:39
Speaker 1: I can't believe we're here.

01:03:41
Speaker 3: Very excited for this year and thank you for coming along with us.