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UNITED STATES GOLF ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 10, 2006

Hale Irwin

CRAIG SMITH: Hale, thanks for taking the time today. Let's go back and start with 1974.
HALE IRWIN: You really think I can remember back 32 years ago (laughter)?
CRAIG SMITH: I know you can. We had the rain delay at the Senior Open. You were sitting there, I recall walking past, hearing you say, "That's still the toughest course I ever played."
HALE IRWIN: That's just because I read Massacre at Wingfoot.
CRAIG SMITH: The 17th and 18th hole, I think they were probably holes that you can remember very well to this day.
HALE IRWIN: Well, I think having played in more than just a couple of U.S. Opens prior to Bethpage, the '74 Open at Wingfoot was the most difficult setup that I have encountered. Once we got into sort of the new ball, new era, I think the courses have been set up certainly longer. Bethpage I thought was very long. Some of that had to do with the weather and some of it certainly had to do with a couple holes in particular, starting the rough lines out there at 250 yards or more, requiring that kind of a carry just to get to the fairway.
But having played in a couple of Opens since Bethpage, they were more moderate. I say "moderate" meaning Pinehurst and Olympia Fields. So I would still have to put Wingfoot of '74 up there in my experience in the top three or four most difficult Open venues in which I've played.
CRAIG SMITH: Hale, on 17 you put the drive in the rough, then took a wood, then a wedge, 1-putted. Then you hit what I have read is one of your best shots, the 2-iron to the 18th green.
HALE IRWIN: Well, you have to go back a little bit in time 'cause, you know, we didn't have the luxury then of having a scoreboard at every hole. It was not possible to understand or be able to see where your position was in the field at that time.
I was playing the 17th hole on the assumption that I was in or tied for the lead. I did not know what Forrest Fezler was doing up ahead of me. So the drive into the -- just off the fairway but into the rough at 17 looked disastrous enough certainly because I just took whatever I hit just to chop it out. It may have been a 4-wood. It could have been a wedge. It didn't matter. The ball was going about the same distance.
But what I was trying to do with the 4-wood was if perchance I caught it, I could get it up closer to the green. From there, I did hit a wedge into about, oh, I think 12 feet from the hole, making sort of a curly little putt for a par, still not knowing, because there wasn't a scoreboard there.
I walked to the 18th tee, a marshal told me that I had a two-shot lead. Well, I did not want to disbelieve him, but I certainly learned early in my career that you don't listen to people that are marshals that may be misinformed. So I just assumed that I was playing the last hole at worst tied and perhaps at best a two-shot lead, but maybe one shot. In any event, whatever I needed to do, I needed to put it in the fairway at the last hole.
The last hole at Wingfoot was perhaps one of the hardest holes on the golf course. Anywhere you drove it, anywhere you put the ball out of the fairway, was difficult at best. To the right of the green was a low area that really was just a tangled mess down there. Even if you got the ball in there in two, there was no guarantee you could get it up and down in two more. I mean, double bogey could easily happen. I don't want to tell you I had all these negative thoughts. I'm saying I was very positive that I had to put it in the fairway, which I did.
Then a 2-iron. In today's game that might have been a 4-iron or 5-iron. At that point in time with the equipment as it was, it was a 2-iron. There was a little breeze left to right. I was slightly uphill, probably 193 or 5 or 8 yards, whatever it was. I just -- it was a 2-iron. There was no doubt in my mind, I had to go through the mechanics of, you know, hitting this 2-iron under extreme duress one might say.
The moment I made contact, I knew it was a great shot. The ball flew perfectly to where I wanted it. It had a little left-to-right drift with the wind, came right over the top of the flag. I was probably about 25 or 30 feet behind the hole.
CRAIG SMITH: Your memory is still splendid. We'll open it up for questions. Gentlemen, take it away.
Q. You talk to players who played that year. They said they could sense where this was headed right from Monday, this prevailing sense that this was difficult if not over the top in terms of setup. Do you recall what your first exposure was to the golf course that week and what your first impression of how difficult it was?
HALE IRWIN: Oh, what I recall was once I got there and had my first practice round, I, like everyone else, was pretty much -- I think we all came in sort of deer in the headlights, "What do we do now?" But I quickly came to the realization that it wasn't just me, it was probably everybody else, but perhaps I just handled it a little better than some of the other players.
But pars were going to be very good scores. This was going to be an over-par golf course. There were just so few birdies to be had out there that I looked at it from the standpoint, you know, take a birdie when you can get it, just feel very, very good. Take a lot of pars because you're going to make bogeys.
I'm kind of giving myself this coaching: Don't feel badly if you make a bogey because everybody else is going to be making them. It's going to be a week of a lot of anxious moments, a week of a lot of frustration because this is not going to be your ordinary week of golf, this is going to be a week that's going to tax us to the limit.
I may have made this -- I shouldn't say "may." I did make this observation that I think part of the success I enjoyed that week came from some of my football background, you know, just I think I put my nose to the grindstone and kind of toughed it out perhaps a little bit more than the other players. I certainly didn't necessarily play better. I just don't think I gave up quite so quickly as perhaps some of the other guys did. I just wasn't ready to holler "uncle" at the time. I just think some of that college football discipline that I had a little bit of still at the time worked in my favor.
But there was an overriding sense of almost panic with some players in the locker room because everyone was talking about it. That could have been part of the problem, was that the players started talking negatively about their chances at Wingfoot and, hence, maybe we all played to that.
Q. Obviously the great theory out there that this was a direct response to what had transpired the year before, what is your feeling about that?
HALE IRWIN: Well, that could have been part of the setup, yes. I don't think the USGA looked kindly upon one of the their setups being done in with a 63. You know, let's remember that there was a thunderstorm that night, too, and the greens were just like shooting darts. Johnny Miller was one of the best dart throwers that we had at the time. I think it a bit unfair to take it literally that this was -- that Wingfoot was a direct correlation to what happened the year before. Certainly an indirect one. But I don't for any means think it was a direct response to Johnny's 63.
Q. The 3rd hole, 15 years before you won at Wingfoot, Billy Casper laid up all four days in that tournament and made par each time. I'm just curious how much of a factor was that when you guys played it in '74? How much were you aware of it? Did it ever cross your mind to do it? How did you play that hole?
HALE IRWIN: Well, I can't tell you exactly my scores on that hole. I think every time -- I'm sure I made at least one bogey. Each time I did it, I thought maybe Billy had a good idea (laughter).
I think that if you look at what Billy has done in the past, and I'm going to kind of skip coasts here, the 16th hole at Cyprus Point, he always laid up, never went for that green. I think Billy, he was playing to his strength. His strength was more likely to be able to get the ball up and down rather than hitting that green. He certainly wasn't trying to make birdie, obviously. That green was not the kind of green that you would -- if you got lucky, you could hit the ball perhaps 10 or 15 feet from the hole. That did not ensure a birdie by any means. I think what Billy was doing, he was laying up somewhere in front of the green, staying out of the bunkers, pitching it and trying to make his par from there, which he did.
That's not necessarily the overriding strength of everyone. I do believe that when you play a hole like that 3rd hole, you have to say, okay, what do I feel like today. Is it a 4-wood, a 2-iron, 3-iron. What am I going to do. I never thought about laying up. I cannot fault that theory, but it was not the manner in which I chose to play that hole.
Q. The 10th hole, famous hole with the house behind it, what are your thoughts on that hole that is considered maybe his best par 3?
HALE IRWIN: A great hole, especially when the tree was there. It just framed it so nicely. I understand that tree is gone.
Q. Yes.
HALE IRWIN: It was the kind of hole that you really had to put it on the surface. If you did not, it was a very difficult up and down. Not because it was an impossible shot, it was just the length of the hole, the contours in the green, and then if you did roll off the green, the kind of pitch you had to play back to get the ball near the hole to save par. Just sort of each shot in and of itself was not extremely difficult, but each shot required a great deal of skill to manufacture.
I think that's why he may have said that was one of his best shots because it did have great -- each shot was great shot value. If you missed the first one, the second one didn't make it easier, it was a comparable shot value all the way through. So par on No. 10 was a great score. If I remember, I think I birdied that hole in one or two rounds. I think I skated through the 10th hole extremely fortunately.
Q. Did you play with Watson?
HALE IRWIN: I did, the last round.
Q. I was curious during the week if anyone saw PJ Boatwright or Sandy Tatum during the week, what that was like?
HALE IRWIN: Well, I'm sure we saw them. They may have not wanted to see us. I don't recall that. I know we saw them. There may have been some discussion. I don't recall saying that. I didn't complain about Wingfoot. I kind of liked the way it was set up. I've always thought that U.S. Opens were supposed to be difficult, it was supposed to tax you, it wasn't supposed to be easy. I've never had a problem with that. I'm sure there were some players that at least tried to corner them.
Q. When people say now it's often referred to as the toughest test in golf, I'm sure it goes back many years, but I wonder if Wingfoot, '74, is kind of the poster boy, for lack of a better word, for that phrase?
HALE IRWIN: It may well be. It may well be. Certainly simply because, like I said earlier, I first played -- my first US Open was in 1966 as an amateur, then I played in the late '60s, however many straight I played until I didn't play any more.
During that time period, there was perhaps only Bethpage I can think of that comes to mind that was more difficult. That was done -- in my mind, they almost gimmicked it up with the rough the way they did. Now, Wingfoot, the rough started out there maybe 50 yards, a hundred yards. The rough grew anywhere from six inches to 16 inches. It was just a very tangled mess. If you got off those fairways, you paid the price. If you got above the hole, you had extremely fast greens, but they were green. They weren't like Shinnecock. They weren't dead. They were just fast greens.
So my approach the entire week was put the ball in the fairway, doesn't matter where the pin is, try to put the ball under the pin. Take a 30-foot putt uphill versus a 10-foot downhill putt any time. That's what I tried to do. That's what I stayed with the whole week.
Q. Do you recall who you played with the first two days?
HALE IRWIN: I do not know.
Q. I read somewhere where Nicholas in his opening putt had a 20-footer for birdie and a 30-footer coming back for par.
HALE IRWIN: He putted it off the green. I think that was sort of like -- the word went around the golf course in like five seconds and everybody knew about it. I think that's when everybody thought, "Uh-oh, we're in deep guano now."
CRAIG SMITH: Isn't there a story about the overnight toward the third round or last round where somebody drove over one of the greens, and you really couldn't tell with whether they had or had not?
HALE IRWIN: Well, it would be -- at the time, it would have been hard to tell. The greens were firm. You know, we didn't have weather as an issue that week. The only weather that even considered, I think there was a little bit of rain perhaps Sunday morning early. But it was more of a drizzle than anything else. Outside of that, we didn't have any days of heavy wind or any rain, thunderstorms, anything like that. This was just a golf course that played as the USGA wanted it to play.
We know from history, both before and years from now, that the greens are going to be firm and they're going to be very fast. In their minds, and I don't disagree with this, it brings out the player that has the best touch and the best plan and the most patience. That's really what it comes down to.
Q. Nowadays everyone expects the U.S. Open to have the toughest setup and the most difficult conditions. Was it any different back then or was this setup just so far out of the ordinary?
HALE IRWIN: No, it was -- all of them were difficult. You know, when I played -- I hate to keep going back to '66. But you're talking about a fresh little kid out of University of Colorado playing as an amateur in San Francisco at the Olympic Club, I'd never seen anything before like that in my life. I play a couple of them until I get to Wingfoot. Never seen anything like that in my life, and had not until I got to Bethpage. Bethpage the greens were not as firm because there had been some moisture, they weren't quite as fast, although they had some slopes in them.
I just think when you talk about the length of the rough -- the length of the course, the length of the rough, the firmness and speed of the greens, you know, putting all those things in the same kettle together, I don't think there was another setup that matched Wingfoot. The length of the rough, there has been none where the rough was longer, I know that for a fact. I recall distinctly going over, right before the 2nd hole, stopping short, I reached down and I pulled up some grass, and it was at least a foot and a half long. It was the longest grass I'd ever seen. That was not uncommon throughout the golf course. Certainly there were areas that had deeper rough than others, but it was not uncommon to have that tangled, matty look to it. Didn't matter if you had that grass growing with you, it always wrapped around the hozzle of your club.
Q. How did it change 10 years later? How was the setup different?
HALE IRWIN: I think what they've done now, they don't let the grass get that long. They top it. They go and cut it at about four inches or three and a half, four and a half, whatever they determine. The ball settles down in there. It's not the long tangled stuff, it is more of the cropped top. But it's still very, very difficult.
As you can see in today's game, the players are very strong. The clubs are a little better. The equipment gets into the rough and gets out of there a little bit better. But, boy, even the best of players in '74 had a very hard time keeping those long strands of grass from just wrapping around the hozzle, just turning that club straight over.
Q. In '84, was it that much easier?
HALE IRWIN: '84, it was easier. '84 was not nearly as hard as '74.
Q. Skip ahead 10 years to '84. You were obviously in the mix that year as well. That year to a lot of people was defined by sort of a nightmare with traffic jams. I've seen your name come up in a couple of old reports, that was a deterrent right from the start for players. Do you remember that week in terms of how bad it was in the area, whether there was a thought that Wingfoot had been rendered obsolete in terms of having an event of that size in a small little area?
HALE IRWIN: Well, I don't think obsolete would necessarily be the right word from my perspective or a players' perspective. I think we still had visions of '74 when we played in '84. When we got there, we saw that the rough was not as tortuous as it was in '74. We did not have -- I don't think the conditions, whether they had been designed not to be as difficult, or the weather didn't allow, whatever the reasons were, we just didn't have -- the conditions weren't as difficult in '84 as they were in '74.
Q. I was referring more to stuff outside the ropes in terms of traffic jams, players in their cars trying to get to the golf course.
HALE IRWIN: I guess we kind of got caught in a political showdown. It was disconcerting. Certainly there were players that had to leave their cars and hoof it in. I was not one of those. I tried to get out there early enough. I do recall having to sit in the locker room or in the dining area for quite a long time because I allowed myself a lot of time to get to the golf course.
I personally did not get involved in any of those significant traffic jams where I had to get out of my car and walk in. I know there were some players that did. That could have come also from poor planning. Disconcerting, yes. Too bad that it came to that. But, again, I was there to play golf and not get involved in the political firestorm that was going on in the City of Westchester.
Q. What was your perception of what that political showdown was?
HALE IRWIN: I thought it was something between -- I don't know this. I'm just guessing. Memory may serve me incorrectly. I thought it was something that had to do with the police union and the City of Westchester, Rye, whatever it was. Other than that, I really don't recall that much.
Q. Did you have any interaction with Claude Harmon in '74? Any thoughts on how he was able to finish in the top five as the club professional in 1959?
HALE IRWIN: I did see Claude during the week very briefly. Again, I didn't know Claude that well so I didn't spend a lot of time with him. I certainly saw him to say hello. Then at the end of the week, I wrote to letter to the club, thanked them, thanked Claude for their services. I didn't really see a whole lot of Claude.
Going to his abilities as a player, I can see where Claude Harmon would have great success around there. He certainly knew the golf course. He was a very accomplished player. Whatever Claude Harmon did in '59, is that when you mentioned, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see a guy of that caliber sort of playing in his backyard do what he did.
Q. I hope this isn't too dumb of a question. You mentioned Wingfoot up until Bethpage being the hardest U.S. Open you played. I assume that was because of the way the USGA set it up. Is that the case? Of the Opens you've played, can you pick a course that was the hardest course, period, regardless of the setup, in other words, maybe the hardest course you would play week in and week out throughout the year?
HALE IRWIN: They took major venues. It wasn't like we were going to some little old golf course and tricking it up. They went to Wingfoot, Oakmont, Oakland Hills. They went to those courses, which had great reputation, everyone on a day to day to day basis. It was not like you were playing a pushover golf course and it was just tricked up. These were difficult courses even under the easiest conditions. Then when you put the USGA formula of difficulty to it, it became a pretty sizable mountain. It really didn't matter which course you were playing, you knew this is what was going to happen.
Q. Which did you find to be, just by looking at it, harder? Wingfoot, Oakmont, Oakland Hills?
HALE IRWIN: Just on a day-to-day basis?
Q. Yes.
HALE IRWIN: I think Wingfoot stands out in my mind as I won't say clearly the best course, but I think it had -- my eye, the way I looked at the golf course, I felt more comfortable playing that than I did Oakland Hills or Oakmont. Not to say their courses were bad, it's just that I picked up more positive vibrations from Wingfoot than I did, say, those two that we just mentioned. Other players might have said something else. It's sort of do you like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, what flavor do you like? In this case I thought Wingfoot set up visually for me a little bit better than did the other two that we just spoke of.
Q. I wanted to kind of understand after the four days at Wingfoot, the sense of accomplishment you felt afterwards. Have you ever been able to duplicate that in all the ones that you had?
HALE IRWIN: Oh, sure, sure. I don't think -- it wouldn't be exactly duplicated simply because, you know, the cast of characters, the location, all that is different. The sense of accomplishment was fantastic after Wingfoot. I remember very clearly after it was over getting back to the Westchester Hotel, not really knowing what to do. I ended up having room service with my good friends Dale Douglas and his wife Joyce, in my room, the three of us kind of sat there. Certainly I was the winner, but Dale and Joyce were I think just as keenly excited as I was. My wife was home getting ready to have our second child, so she was not able to be there.
Going back to '79. Again, a different set of circumstances. My family was with me there. It wasn't as big and difficult a golf course, although even par did win. Just sort of different. It's easy to play the last two holes with a five-shot lead than it is to play the last hole not knowing what kind of a lead you've got.
Then in '90, that was just an altogether different thing, coming back from nowhere, going into Monday, having 19 holes to win. A little different than any of the other two.
Each has brought a tremendous amount of satisfaction, but each has to be sort of taken on its own. Can't be really compared to the others. Just the way it laid out. I wouldn't want them to be the same either. The joy of winning one is fantastic; two is even better; and three is more than anyone could ever ask for. Each had its own qualities and its own satisfaction.
Q. In 1984, 10 years after your win, you were in contention again. I believe you played with Fuzzy in the final round. Greg Norman was one group ahead of you. Just gotten over to the States a couple years before, wasn't on the national stage till that championship. What was your early impressions of him as a player? We would learn later on some of the struggles he had in majors. What were your early impressions of Greg as a player back in '84 when you saw him play Wingfoot?
HALE IRWIN: I don't think we knew much of Greg other than having -- if you played in Australia, you certainly heard of Greg. If you played in Europe, you heard of Greg. He was sort of a new guy on the scene that had a lot of -- certainly had a great ability but had a lot of promotional stuff behind him. The buzz was the Great White Shark, he's done this, he's done that. I think there are those of us that were playing at the time who were saying, "He may have done that, but what has he done here?" I don't think anybody in this country was ready to heap all the praise on him that perhaps the international community was.
He went on to prove and has continually proven that he certainly deserved a great deal of those plaudits and has achieved great stardom. At the same time, I think at the time in '84, he was still relatively new to the scene. While you respected who he was and what he was doing, you couldn't look past some of the other players at the time either.
Q. The USGA is talking about how the rough will be graduated this year; the farther off the fairway you are, the more you'll be penalized. As a three-time Open champion, do you think that's a good idea?
HALE IRWIN: Well, I've suggested to them that I think it would be great if they narrowed the fairway even more and made the first cut relatively tame and then graduated from there, really put a premium on putting the ball in the fairway. Obviously there's a point up to the ropes where you can do that. Once you get outside the ropes, then it becomes very quickly trampled down. You kind of lose the farther away from the fairway you get theory because once it gets outside that, unless you're in trees, which again I haven't seen Wingfoot since they've taken down a lot of the trees, the trees in '74 were a major obstacle as they were in '84. I don't know if that's the case now. Just haven't seen it.
That could be what they're doing, is trying to say, okay, the farther offline you are, the greater the penalty. There's a point to where that stops, just happens to be right where the rope line is. Once you get down to where the grass is downtrodden, if you have no trees in your way, it becomes relatively a straightforward shot again. They say they're going to extend the ropes out farther than customary to accommodate it. I think that's good. That might try to harness some of these big long bombers that are going to pump it out there regardless of where it goes.
CRAIG SMITH: Hale, thank you very much for your time.
HALE IRWIN: Thank you.

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