From the hearth: Shortly before we spoke, Bud Shrake was playing golf at Pedernales, Willie Nelson's rustic 9-holer in the Texas Hill Country outside Austin. The rules there are legendary. Among them, a favorite: if you can catch the ball before it hits the ground you can hit it again without penalty. Bud happened to be playing with singer Steve Fromholz who shanked an 8-iron. It caught him squarely on the cheek, an eventuality not covered by Willie's rules.

The story of the red Scribbletex notebook is no less miraculous today, now part of publishing as well as golfing lore. (Interestingly, the colors of the Harvey books in Europe are different, and the Japanese version inexplicably contains illustrations and graphics, which Harvey deliberately eschewed.) If you're scoring at home, Harvey Penick's Little Red Book is still the largest selling sports book in history.

THR: I guess Harvey never mentioned that you should stand beside or behind other golfers.

BUD SHRAKE: That's the one thing that I thought was not necessary to put in that book, that anybody would have better sense then to stand at a 45-degree angle to the right of a golfer who has considerably less ability than Tiger Woods.

THR: The 18th at Augusta National is a perfect example. You've got people lining the fairway leaning back looking at the tee.

BUD SHRAKE: It's ridiculous. It's really amazing that nobody's been killed. These people don't realize that Tiger, as great as he is, is after all human and he could drive a ball clear through their head.

Tiger is, after all human, and he could drive a ball clear through their head.

THR: What did Dan Jenkins tell you?

SHRAKE: He said that even back in the days when Dan was playing with Ben Hogan he would never stand any farther than parallel to Hogan, either behind him or parallel. So he said 'if I wouldn't trust Hogan, I don't know why you'd trust Fromholz.'

THR: It's an occupational hazard for anyone who writes a lot, or even a little, about golf - they kind of assume you know what you're doing. I guess your friends have given up expecting golfing greatness from you with respect to your association with Harvey.

I can't tell you how many times people ask me "Hey, you ever read that book?"
I cut them short. "Listen. Whatever I do, don't blame it on Harvey."

SHRAKE: Well, I can't tell you how many times since that book came out that people, strangers I'd play golf with, at some charity event or something, who said, 'Hey, you ever read that book?' Now, I cut 'em short on the first tee. If it's a group of people I don't know, I say, "Listen, whatever I do, don't blame it on Harvey."

THR: You've met a lot of interesting people through the years. You ever run across anybody quite like him?

SHRAKE: No, never. Harvey's the closest person I ever met who actually lived his life by the Golden Rule. You know, he always tried to do unto others. And it really paid off for him. He was as a teacher actually more concerned with the pupil than he was with getting himself on the cover of a magazine, or something like that. He was just a very unusual and great man.

THR: I don't know if you were aware of it, but after the books hit a chord there was the inevitable backlash. People seemed to think it was all some kind of con. Were you surprised?

SHRAKE: As a matter of fact, I've heard very little of that. I guess nobody would mention it to me. But I tell ya: if people thought that it seemed so simple… But if you go back and reread the Little Red Book, which I did not long ago - after the last time somebody told me I should read it - I discovered that everything that is in every other instructional book I've ever read is in there somewhere, all the important things, I mean. Is that what you meant?

THR: No, people seemed to think it was some kind of ruse, that he was putting something over. Dan Jenkins did a column about it, that every pro suddenly had his own "secret" - take LIVE aim, or the Little Yellow Book and so on. But of course they couldn't do it.

SHRAKE: I take that really as a form of flattery because if they all think they can do it that well, they can't. I've never read another golf instructional book that comes close to it. Like the Hogan book, which has been the steadiest selling instruction book for 50 years now, has got some stuff in it that if you do it just like it says you won't be able to play golf at all.

THR: Did you have inkling of the success that was coming?

SHRAKE: No, none whatsoever. I expected the Little Red Book to sell… I knew there was a large cult, kind of an underground cult, of Harvey fans that were spread all over the world after he'd been teaching for so long. And I thought the book would sell steadily for a number of years but I had no idea it would take off like it did.

THR: I'm guessing that at one time there might have been shorter lines for the oracle at Delphi. Michael Jordan came down, right? I remember Ernie Banks talking very excitedly about his lesson with Harvey. Who else?

SHRAKE: Oh, gosh. All kinds of pros. I can't recall any names offhand but people showed up from Canada, Alaska. People would get in their cars and drive all the way down there and park in front of Harvey's house.

People from Canada, Alaska, would get in their cars and drive all the way down there in park in front of Harvey's house.

I'd go over there after the book first came out, there'd a line of maybe forty or fifty people, standing in line waiting to get into Harvey's house so he could sign that book. People would bring their families and just want to see him. Harvey'd be sitting there in his living room with maybe 500 or 600 books on the floor and insist on signing all of them. And it took him quite a while to sign each one so each one was really a personal act toward the person who bought it.

I'd go over there after the book first came out and there'd be a line of maybe forty or fifty people standing in line waiting to get into Harvey's house so he could sign that book.

THR: I think my favorite might be, I call it, the blue book, The Game for a Lifetime, the last one.

SHRAKE: You know that might be my favorite too.

THR: Lots of good stories in there. Were there more notes, more scraps?

SHRAKE: There are still more…several shoe boxes full of notes and things of Harvey's that Tinsley has got but not enough. We could possibly get another book but I think we've pushed it far enough. A lot of them are sort of repetitious.

THR: Where is the Scribbletex notebook now?

SHRAKE: I think it's in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco. You know, Harvey left that thing lying around his house. He'd loan it to people after the book came out, I mean, the original little Scribbletex notebook and people would pick it up and carry it around and everything. And then one day somebody called me from New York and said, "You know, there's golf collectors out there who would pay $200,000 for that book." So I went over and told Harvey. And I said, "You know I wouldn't let people be taking that book and walking around your house, if I were you." I told him what it was worth and of course he didn't believe me. But the family did so they put it where he wouldn't have easy accessibility to give it to somebody else.

He'd loan the original Scribbletex notebook out, leave the thing lying around the house…I told him what it was worth and of course he didn't believe me.

THR: You can go back to those books again and again and again, can't you?

SHRAKE: You really can. Like I said, I read it again after several years and I was just amazed at the number of things that were in there. There were some things in that book that Harvey had told me that I didn't even understand at the time but I put them down because that's what he said. But later on, years later I'd read it and say 'Oh, that's what he meant.'

Which was the same thing that frequently happened when people took lessons from Harvey. When it was over they'd say, 'well this is kind of a con. This guy didn't tell me anything.' And then maybe six months later they might realize, 'Oh, wait a minute. That's what he meant.'

And, of course, Harvey wouldn't say anything to people if he couldn't think of the right thing to say. He wouldn't just spout golf instructor jargon just in order to make the student feel like he'd gotten his money's worth. If he saw a swing that he didn't think could be fixed, he'd just say "I'm sorry," and go away.

THR: I'd hate to think someone might have to head back to Fairbanks or Juneau or wherever without getting what they felt was a real lesson.

SHRAKE: Well, Harvey would make allowances for people who had come that far. Maybe take them aside and start them off very slowly, go back to the beginning, like, for example, he'd tell people who couldn't hit the ball at all, he would spend the whole lesson time, from five minutes to two days, depending on how long he thought it would take, spend the whole time on their grip and then they'd keep wanting to hit balls and he'd say, "No, no, don't hit balls. Just go home and practice on this grip for a week and then hit balls." At least they'd learn something.

THR: I love the description of the golfer, it's in The Game for a Lifetime…Leapin' Lucifer. Harvey described his swing as "a man with an axe attacking a charging wild beast." It puts a vivid picture in the mind.

A swing like "a man with an axe attacking a charging wild beast." I thought for a minute that he was talking about me.

SHRAKE: Well, it was vivid to me because I thought for a minute that he was talking about me.

THR: Do you have a favorite story from these books? Or about the process of visiting with Harvey and doing them?

SHRAKE: Harvey sitting at his house signing all of these books. And, like I say, there'd be 500 or more books on the floor and a line out on the sidewalk. My assistant and Harvey's nurse got together and got a stamp made that said Take Dead Aim, Harvey Penick. And you couldn't really tell it from Harvey's signature at all. So they took it in and said, 'Look, Harvey, we're going to start stamping these books.' And Harvey just threw what for Harvey would be a fit. Absolutely not. Get that thing out of my sight. All these books will be hand signed.

They did sneak a few away from him and stamp them. Now I use the stamp just to show people what Harvey's writing was like. But there were so many books around his house that at one point they lost an order of, I think it was, 60 books, that had come from some country club someplace. Harvey had signed them and they'd lost them. They searched all over and never found them. Finally, I don't remember how much later they found them. They were under the bed.

THR: I remember asking him if he could teach me how to hit a stymie and he looked at me very archly and said, "You don't need to know how to do that." There must have been people who left scratching their heads.

SHRAKE: Oh, yea. They'd say, I spent 30 minutes with this guy and he hasn't told me anything. All he told me was how to hold the club and said a couple of these homilies like 'you're working by the hour so don't be in any rush' and square up the ball and clip the tee and a few things like that. I don't know what they thought, that being in Harvey's presence was going to be some radiant light shining on them from heaven and all of the sudden they'd be hitting the ball 280 down the middle.

THR: Is it an apocryphal story that he thought he had to pay to get the book published?

SHRAKE: No, that's a true story. The first time that he asked me if I would get the book ready for publication for him and he showed me the little red book and I got in touch with my agent who got in touch with the publisher. I sent an email to the publisher describing who Harvey is and luckily there was someone at the publishing house who knew of Harvey. And, so, anyway, they made this offer and I called the house and got hold of Helen and told her that we had this big offer for the book - I told her how much the money was - it was $100,000.

We had this big offer, $100,000. . .They didn't sound very excited. I couldn't understand it.

They didn't sound very excited. And I went over there the next day and they were still pretty gloomy and I couldn't understand it. I said, "What's the matter? I don't get this." And, Harvey said, "Bud, listen. I'm in bad health. I've never made a lot of money as a golf pro. And there's the nurse. Helen and I talked about it all night. I didn't get any sleep worrying about this. We just can't afford to pay Simon and Schuster that much money to have my book published."

THR: What did you say?

SHRAKE: I said, "Harvey they're going to pay you." He said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yea, I'm sure." And he said, "Well, let's get going."

THR: Why do you think, in hindsight, the books were so successful?

SHRAKE: Because I think Harvey's soul showed through, that thing I was talking awhile ago about the Golden Rule. I think it showed through that these were the words of a kind man who had the best interests of the student at heart, and he taught in parables. It wasn't so highly vastly technical that so many instruction books are now, or have always been, and he talked about the V's a little bit but there were no photographs, no illustrations. It didn't look like Mechanics Illustrated. A lot of people bought that book who don't even play golf and read it for the little parables Harvey made between golf and life.

Harvey's soul showed through. These were the words of a kind man who had the best interests of his students at heart…It didn't look like Mechanics Illustrated.

THR: You write very movingly about the events preceding his death and then Ben winning the Masters. Looking back, it's just hard to imagine a scenario quite like that.

SHRAKE: Impossible, impossible to imagine a scenario like that. That day, that last day of the Masters, I was so…I was never so moved by a sports event, I guess maybe, hardly any event in my life, as watching Ben win that Masters that day. I was walking up and down in front of that television set and when he hit that ball into the woods and it bounced out and one of the announcers, I guess Ken Venturi, said, "I bet Harvey kicked that out there," and I was thinking the same thing. It was an incredible thing.

THR: Well, I certainly wish you a speedy recovery. I guess there's no Willie [Nelson] rule covering a trip to the ER, is there?

SHRAKE: No, it's every man for himself when blood starts to flow. -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
Talking Points - Edition X - Don Wade