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INSPERITY CHAMPIONSHIPMay 4, 2013Raymond FloydJohnny MillerLee TrevinoTHE WOODLANDS, TEXAS PHIL STAMBAUGH: Just an opening comment about being back here in Houston to play in this event. LEE TREVINO: I'm excited because he's here and Raymond's here. Last year we had, what, nine players. We had three threesomes. Around any made that 25‑footer. I'll never forget what I said. I'm standing there and I reneged on the deal, because he's standing over that 30‑foot putt and some of you guys might have been standing there, and I said: All of these people are here, all of the players came out of the clubhouse to watch this and I said, I'd give a hundred dollars if he made this, and damn if he didn't hole it. He was lying, I said, I lied. But I think it's great. Johnny, we watched him, what, 24, 25 years, NBC, and I left in '89 and he walked right in and has done a fantastic job but he hasn't played much since, and the public has not seen him play and I think they are going to be thrilled to see him play. JOHNNY MILLER: A lot of the players and myself‑‑ to have them win that thing, pretty amazing, wasn't it. LEE TREVINO: I actually thought we were the favorites or Stockton's team was the favorites and when we looked at the board and they were coming to 18 in our heyday, we would have been hitting irons in there. We were hitting hybrids in there and they all put it on that green. And I think the people enjoyed it. We had a tremendous crowd last year, tremendous. Hopefully it's just as big this year. Probably won't be but they do a hell of a job here. You've got to understand, I played the Senior Tour since 1990. We got terrific crowds in the 90s and then when we started kind of slacking off a little bit and not playing as much, the galleries diminished a little bit. But last year, this was like playing a U.S. Open here. It was 25,000, 30,000 people out there. It was tremendous. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Tell me some thoughts about being here. How did it come about? JOHNNY MILLER: As Lee said, golfing, hitting the ball myself, I'm a bit of a rare commodity. That's good in a way but better than shooting 80 and playing every week. My game, I just never know. One day I can play really good and another day really bad. So probably in the last 20 years, I've averaged maybe a hundred holes a year. So you can imagine how that's not counting the corporate outings when you stand on one tee and hit all day. But I just don't really play that much golf, basically lower legs aren't too good. But I've been doing a lot better lately with the knees and lower legs and my back's better, so I'm thinking about trying to play occasionally. In the father and son I think I'm going to play, which I have not played for a while. We always came close to winning when I played. And I had a champion's challenge out in Utah that a lot of the guys came, Lee came one time and Jack came every year. So I had not really played much at all but I'm going to have a good time with Dave and Tony Jacklin. So this event's amazing how it's run. Just to be around these iconic guys, guys that are getting up there in age. Precious just to see some of these guys before who knows what might happen‑‑ it is, even for the players to come out and see‑‑ and a lot of guys want to see me probably play terrible because I've been taking a few shots at the guys. So if I shank a few, there are not going to be a lot of tears falling. But it's nice to be around Raymond and everybody and Lee and get to see them again, even though I do see them occasionally. So especially guys like Gene, I have not seen him in a long time, and some of the guys are getting up there in age. It's pretty cool to see the guys and see that Don January is still as lucid as ever, smart guy, sharp. And we have some people that are struggling a little bit I guess, like a Miller Barber or Ken Venturi, I feel bad that he's not feeling too well. I'm hoping the best for those guys. LEE TREVINO: If he can walk in the locker room without getting blind‑sided, because we were all retired when he went in the booth. He can't do that at the other tour, you know. He calls it like it is and that's the way he's got to do it. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Raymond, I'm having everybody give a comment just about being here for this Greats of Golf Challenge. First time for you in this tournament. RAYMOND FLOYD: It is, and echoing probably what you've heard, what I got the end of Johnny here, but it was pretty special to walk into that dinner the other evening and see Don and Gene, especially, because it's probably been a good 15 years since I've seen either one of those guys. And as Johnny said, I see Johnny occasionally and Lee and I bump into each other occasionally and of course guys that have won the Masters, I see them at our dinner every year. The Open Champions, we get to see each other at that dinner and The Ryder Cup champions we get to see each other‑‑ The Ryder Cup captains. But to get all of the guys, or certainly not all, but a group of the guys together is very special. It's like a select fraternity meeting. Q. Do you expect to hear from text or e‑mail any TOUR players that might want to critique your swing today? JOHNNY MILLER: Actually my relationship with the players is a lot better now. I've been pretty easy on the guys‑‑ not that I was trying to kill everybody, for a couple years now. The younger guys, you have to know that the young guys that are under 30, they grew up with my announcing before they were on TOUR, and to them it's a little bit more X Games type of commentary. There's a little bit of pat‑a‑cake going on, too, which is fine. You have to have a combination of soft and very positive and then you've got to have somebody that will‑‑ of course Brandel Chamblee is probably even tougher than I am by far now. You need a nice mix of commentary to have a good team, and so I think most of the guys know where I'm coming from. It probably helped when I got interviewed by Feherty and they know where I stand and what I'm really trying to accomplish, and to grow the game and grow the TOUR and make it interesting. I always say the secret to commentary is really saying things you don't expect me to say or something that you learn something from. Otherwise, what the heck am I even saying it for, you know what I'm saying. If you just say, by the hole‑‑ I know that, tell me something else. That's sort of my goal. Just to keep you guys from taking an afternoon nap is my other goal. Q. If you can just weigh in on the joy you get from playing golf today; you have nothing left to prove but can you reflect on being on a golf course, the sights and sounds and feelings of when you hit a good shot, how that he's evolved at this stage of your life? LEE TREVINO: Well, one, once you drive in the driveway, you say, what the hell am I doing here. And two, when it comes to practice‑‑ we've been at this for a long time. We're smart enough to know the reality, and we are smart enough to know that we can't compete anymore, regardless of how good we hit it on the practice tee, how far we hit it, whatever. I enjoy playing, I play with Herb Dunbar (ph), he's 88 years old, we play twice a week, three times a week and we certainly enjoy it. As far as trying to go out there and do this and do that, no. I play with my son in the summer. We played 52 straight days last year. He didn't get up until 6:30. It was 108 degrees, 52 straight days I played. But if I got to a hole that was against the wind, I didn't play it. That's where I'm at in my golf life. JOHNNY MILLER: World's best into‑the‑wind player‑‑ LEE TREVINO: Not only can I hear my ball land, but I can read my name on it. RAYMOND FLOYD: Well, I haven't played competitive golf. I played one tournament in 2007, or tried to play a couple and had to withdraw. I announced my retirement in 2008. But golf is in your blood and you love it. Unfortunately I don't play very much at all, through some physical situations. I've really shut down for about four years and the situation with Maria. But I love to get out and play with my sons when I do. I'll play with some of the members at my club and some of my buddies. But I'm more of a nine‑holer or maybe 18 every now and then. But I still love being out there. But as far as competitive, I've lost that whole thing. I laugh when I miss‑hit a shot. I was always pretty good around the greens and every now and then I'll belly one and lay a divot over it and I'll just chuckle because I can't practice and I don't care to practice anymore. But the game is truly a game of a lifetime, and that's one of the special things about it. JOHNNY MILLER: What they are saying, also, is every once in awhile you get a glimmer of the way you used to play. RAYMOND FLOYD: I don't. LEE TREVINO: And I try to make that swing, and damn, I hurt everywhere. That's what I mean. JOHNNY MILLER: You hit shots that are pretty embarrassing if you are really trying hard. But like yesterday, we played in very hard conditions, 20‑, 30‑mile‑an‑hour winds and the greens are running faster than Augusta, the Masters were this year, they were running in the middle 12, and with that kind of wind and trying to chip on those greens and putt, it was way past my skill level. But I did drive it well, so at least I got that going for me. Q. Can you weigh in on the anchored putting, what your thoughts are on that? LEE TREVINO: I talked to (Ted) Bishop, and I don't know about this thing. We are trying to get more players into the game. We are trying to keep the players that we have. I don't see anything wrong with, my opinion, with possibly disallowing it in professional golf, but not as far as leisure golf and members and whatever is concerned. I know what their concern is. What, four of the major championships that are being held now have been won with long putters or belly putters. Only 15 percent of the people putt with them. The younger generation now is starting to use them. I have two in my bag. In fact, I'm putting with one now. Can't putt worth a damn with it; it waves everywhere. But I don't know, I'm not smart enough to, that's the only opinion that I have. I don't know where it's going with this. I do believe this wholeheartedly: I think that the PGA of America is the ones that should get in there and make some of these rules. The USGA is making all the golf rules, which I respect tremendously and I held that trophy twice. But they go to work at 9:00 and they go home at 4:00. They give no lessons and they don't really, really push this game like the PGA Professionals. And he's the one that's really working it really hard. His father did it, I did it as a caddie, Palmer's dad did it. I don't know. I don't know where it's going, I really don't. JOHNNY MILLER: Fundamentally it's an advantage, because obviously when you putt, you go like this, it's a pull, and you go like this, it's a push and when you anchor it‑‑ it's the law of physics‑‑ which it's a big law. It won't bother me one way or the other whatever way they go with it. I was one of the first to win with it on TOUR and pretty much everybody laughed at me on TOUR. The guys on TOUR gave me a pretty hard time when they saw that thing but I never did anchor it. If they ban the anchoring, they will just use the long putter and hold it right here real firm away from their bodies. They are going to keep using the long putter, you can guarantee this. I used the long putter this way. So you're going to see guys start using the long putter, they are just banning the anchoring, that's all. I think the same guys with the long putter, the same amount will use it. They will hold it just barely away from their belly. You can sort of hold it right there away from your body and go like this. They are not going to stop using it, that's all I'm saying. RAYMOND FLOYD: My opinion there is: They allowed it for so long. I was on the board in 1976 and 1977, I was a player rep on the board and it came up in our meeting, and it happened that Bush 41 was in office and he had stopped playing golf because of the yips. He had stopped playing golf, and all of a sudden, he found the long putter, and went back to playing because he didn't have the rattles or the shakes or the yips. Now, my statement in that board meeting was: How in the world can we out law a putter that has just brought our active president back to the game of golf? As Lee said earlier, we are trying to grow and we are trying to get more people into the game. And if one starts yipping, and you can go another way and not yip and enjoy the game, that's the dichotomy here. And again, maybe in professional golf. They will work it through and I'm like Johnny there, let's flip the coin, I don't‑‑ it doesn't matter to me one way or another. JOHNNY MILLER: Orville Moody, worst putter I've ever seen, as a pro, leading money winner on the Senior Tour and leading putter. LEE TREVINO: In Charlotte we were playing No. 10 and Moody had an 18‑inch put and it flew the hole. How in the hell do you lip a ball up? He yipped it so bad that it went this way and actually put ten degrees of loft and the ball flew the hole. RAYMOND FLOYD: I'll tell you a very good‑‑ Orville Moody, again. Pebble Beach, I can't remember the year, I think it was late 60s, Orville had a foot and a half to beat Jack and I, we were in, and it was the Crosby then. And I was in the locker room and I was packing, and I knew you had no chance and he never touched the hole from a foot and a half and then Jack won the playoff. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Thank you very much. Good luck today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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