From the hearth - It's no wonder Don Wade's And Then. . .books are so popular. The anecdotes embellish the game in the best tradition showing not telling. The gentle underlying humor, positive spirit of golf and upbeat message may strike some as slightly behind the times. Nothing but fairways and greens, his finds steer away from the second cut of rough - the decidedly unfunny poke in the chest derogatory jokes on one side and the posturing mystical bleating on the other. Whether the well continues to provide, whether, say, the current crop of pros can be expected to keep pace with the likes of Demaret, Trevino, Marr, et al, seems a tall order, to say the least. Here's hoping. We talked about this, among other things, including a touching caveat to Ben Crenshaw's brief stint as golf analyst while Don shared some of his favorite tales gathered during an estimable career with Golf Digest and CBS.

THR: Don, a loaded question. Are the stories as easy to come by from the current generation of professionals?

Don Wade: Well, I think you have to remember that the players back in the Hogan, Nelson, Snead era, even up through the 50's and 60's, they traveled together with their wives by car. They just spent a lot more time together. Also, the players today all pretty much come through the amateur ranks. They all play college golf to one degree or another. So they tend not to have the experiences that a Jimmy Demaret had. So as a result you don't tend to get the same kind of stories.

THR: There doesn't seem to be the interaction between the players and the media in the way there perhaps once was - and it almost seems at times as if it's by design.

Don Wade: Well, it's not a design of the tour. It's just kind of the way the game's evolved. It used to be, even back when I started covering golf with Golf Digest in the late 1970's, you would go to a tournament. In the evening you would go to the hotel, go to the bar and the players would be down there and Dan Jenkins would be down there, and the writers and some of the television guys. People knew each other on a much more personal level.

Somebody asked Fuzzy Zoeller recently what he thinks of the new players, do they have it easy. And he said, "What kind of life do they lead? They eat their bananas and carrots and drink their fruit juice and then they go home and go to bed." It's just a much different lifestyle. The guys are playing for so much money and the competition is so intense, I mean, the difference between a guy who makes a really comfortable shot at the top 125 and a guy who has to scramble is oftentimes a stroke or half a stroke a round. So you can't afford to go out and spend time…

"What kind of life do they lead? They eat their bananas and carrots, drink their fruit juice then go home and go to bed?" Fuzzy Zoeller
THR: A number of Texans turn up in your books, and rightly so. Hogan still seems to have almost a physical presence here. People still tell Hogan stories as if he were still around. There seems to be a whole genre of stories about players asking him to look at their swings. Not a good idea, was it?

Don Wade: You have to understand people always said Hogan was aloof and cold. He was really…I interviewed him three times. Ken Venturi, who I'm pleased to say is a good friend, was very close to Hogan. And he said if Ben knew you and was comfortable with you you saw a whole different side of him. My experience with him was that he was a very funny man in his own way. The first time I interviewed him was about Oakland Hills. The PGA Championship in 1978 was at Oakland Hills and I called him up. I happened to catch him on a day when he felt like reminiscing and talking. Somehow the subject turned to his victory at Merion. And I asked him about the famous shot, the final shot to the 72nd green, the immortal Hy Peskin photo. And he said it was difficult because he was undecided between hitting a one-iron and a four-wood. I said, "Excuse me, Mr. Hogan. Usually you carry either a one-iron or a four-wood. What did you leave out of your bag?" And I think he said a seven-iron. And I said, "Why was that?" "Because there are no seven-iron shots at Merion."

THR: Are these apocryphal stories - about George Fazio holing out for an eagle in a U.S. Open and Hogan questioning it when it came time to attest the card - and the one about Claude Harmon. . .

Don Wade: The real famous story is Hogan and Claude Harmon are paired in The Masters, I believe, in 1948, when Harmon won. They come to the 12th hole and Harmon makes an ace. Hogan makes a birdie. They're walking off to the next tee and Hogan says, "You know, Claude, I can't remember the last time I made a birdie there." And that's just how he was. He just got into a zone where he was totally consumed with what he was doing.

THR: At his induction into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, Don Cherry told a story about Jimmy Demaret. Don was singing in some club, a sea song. Demaret snuck a foghorn in and waited until a particularly propitious moment to let loose with a blast. This was a variation on a theme, I take it.

Don Wade: Demaret was a great, first of all, a great golfer and probably underrated as a player. Dave Marr told me that when Dave first came out on the tour, he'd drive from event to event with Demaret. And he said, you know Demaret would take the writers aside. A lot of times the writers covering golf, especially in smaller markets, didn't know much about the game and Demaret was sort of a one-man publicity tour for the tour. The same was true with Sam Snead. When Snead, Hogan and Nelson were out there - Hogan hated to do radio interviews and didn't much like doing newspaper interviews. Nelson would do them but he was a far more private person and he didn't enjoy it. But as Byron said, Sam would talk to a door jamb if he thought it would get publicity.

Demaret was sort of a one-man publicity tour for the tour…and Snead made the idea of senior golf viable. Sam doesn't get the credit for not only helping promote the tour but also [promoting] the game in general.

THR: I guess he's allowed one dirty joke at the champions dinner?

Don Wade: I guess they let him have one. But it's true, Sam doesn't get the credit for not only helping promote the tour but also the game in general. He used to do all these exhibitions for Wilson all around the world. And then of course when the Senior [PGA] Tour started, Sam was the big draw. All you have to do is look back to the early days of The Legends [of Golf] at Onion Creek. Sam played so well in the first one that he made the idea of senior golf viable. And I don't think he ever got the credit he deserves for that.

THR: Dave Marr is fondly remembered on both sides of the Atlantic. You tell one story about his standard line to reassure pro-am partners. . .

Don Wade: Dave was wonderful. Of course he was a great announcer and a wonderful player. But he was very, very good . . .when he was working for Nabisco especially doing these pro-ams, these customer outings. He'd just stay on a par three and hit a shot for each group that came through. So this group comes through and this one guy's very nervous and he says, "Don't worry. Listen. There isn't a shot you can hit that I haven't seen." The guy literally laid the turf right over the ball. And Dave looked at him and said, "I take it back. That's one I've never seen before."

Then, there's another time…there was a pond in front of the tee and the tee markers were way up in the front and this guy hits a shot and it goes in the water. The steam is rippling out of his ears. He walks over, grabs the bag of clubs and throws it into the pond. And Marr says, "I can't believe you just did it." And one of the other guys standing there says, "You can't believe it? They were my clubs."

But there's a perfect example. Dave was a guy who even when he was playing, he would come down to the hotel bar or go out for dinner with the writers, with Dan Jenkins or Bud Shrake or whoever it was. They'd trade stories back and forth. And Dave was a great guy for me. I met him when I was 27 years old and he used to call me 'cub,' as in cub reporter. We had a wonderful relationship and not only would he steer you towards a good story, he'd steer you away from a story if you were heading down the wrong way.

There was a tremendous sense of trust between the writers and players back then. I'm not so sure that exists as much anymore. A lot of the writers are out to make names for themselves, and if it means burning a source to do that, well, sometimes they do that.

There was a tremendous sense of trust between the writers and players. I'm not so sure that exists as much anymore.

THR: Have you ever stopped to wonder what explains the success of these books?

Don Wade: Dave Marr, actually, told me…when the first book came out, he called me and he said: "I picked up your book in the Houston airport. I loved it." And he said, "If somebody had a wife or a girlfriend or significant other who didn't understand why golf has such a hold on people, if they read this book they'd understand it because the books sort of cover the playing field: there's funny stories, there's sad stories, stories of courage, stories that are dramatic - that's one reason. They're an easy read. We're not talking about War and Peace here. And they've just been very successful. I'm at the point now where people will write in with stories or I'll go to a tournament and I'll see some players and they'll say they've got a good story for the next book.

THR: We're coming up on The Masters, and there are a couple of stories you relate, from behind the scenes when Greg Norman was having his collapse to Nick Faldo. An interesting ripple effect, players getting out of town fast…

Don Wade: Yes. I remember very vividly - for about 15 years I worked in Butler Cabin for CBS - and I would work with, whether it was Brent Musberger or Jim Nance - we'd talk about questions and story ideas. And the year Norman collapsed, Ben Crenshaw was working with Jim Nance in the cabin. And we were watching it…it was painful to watch it play out. And, finally, there was one point it was clear that Norman had totally booted this thing and Ben took off his microphone and he walked out; there's a little sort of patio behind Butler Cabin. And he just went out there by himself and he had tears just flowing out of his eyes and just smoked a cigarette. He was just absolutely…his shoulders were sagging. You've never seen someone so devastated for a fellow player.

Ben [Crenshaw] took off his microphone and walked out…tears just flowing out of his eyes…his shoulders…sagging. You've never seen someone so devastated for a fellow player.


THR: Is it true that Lee Trevino played in a PGA sectional event one year in El Paso Masters week?

Don Wade: Well, yea, but, put this in perspective. People always say Trevino wasn't comfortable there because he grew up in poverty, he was Mexican-American. The truth of the matter is that Trevino always understood that for him to win at Augusta, it required very soft greens because he was a low ball hitter. He always said I'm a great mudder. If it's muddy, I can win on any golf course. But he was so smart that he realized that there were players that would come to Augusta National and try and change their swing to loft their ball up in the air and, oftentimes I always thought that was sort of what happened to Hal Sutton. He would try to get the ball up in the air more for Augusta and he would hurt his swing for the long term. So the real reason Trevino never really felt comfortable at Augusta and he skipped it for so many years had largely to do with the fact that he really believed that his game wasn't particularly suited to the golf course. And I think that's really a mark of his genius.

THR: What's the first thing you do at The Masters, or the first thing you think of when you get there?

Don Wade: I always think of Bob Jones. And if you're of a certain age you can't help but think of Jones. I never met him. I never saw him in person but even today he's pervasive. Several years ago when I was at Golf Digest we did a story on the fifty most influential people in the game, I think it was fifty. It was the usual suspects: Deane Beman, Jack Nicklaus, Karsten Solheim and so on. And I looked at the list and I said to Jerry Tarde, the editor, "You know who's missing from this list? It's Bob Jones." Even then, twenty-five years after his death his example of sportsmanship and how to play the game and his record is still pervasive. It went from Jones to Nelson, Hogan and Snead to Palmer to Nicklaus to Watson to Tiger today. And one of the great things we should be thankful of when we talk about Tiger is that the lessons of sportsmanship and how to conduct yourself that he learned from observing Nicklaus carry on to this day. And I hope young players pick up on that example. -0-

© THR, 2001

Talking Points - Edition I - Ron Green
Talking Points - Edition II - Dr. Patrick Cohn
Talking Points - Edition III - Bradley S. Klein
Talking Points - Edition IV - Doug Sanders
Talking Points - Edition V - Curt Sampson
Talking Points - Edition VI - Geoff Shackelford
Talking Points - Edition VII - Bryan Gathright
Talking Points - Edition VIII - Tim Rosaforte, Ray March and Gary Player
Talking Points - Edition IX - Dave Pelz