Need A 4th?! Ep. 12 with Hale Irwin

being here. Before we get to a spectacular guest and Hill Irwin, who is so wise and so droll and so much fun, we just wanted to tip our cap to Echo Golf Shoes, who have been a sponsor all season long and who have helped make this podcast possible. So thank you so much. Echo, Michael, did you have something well, I know one of your favorite golfers one wearing Echo shoes this week. Effortless charm comes to mind, both for the Echo shoe and this particular golfer. Take

it away on Oh yeah, Lydia Ko. I mean, I'll praise to John Rom, but I think Lydia Coo might win more tournaments this year though Ram has a head start. I mean, she just got married. She looks very happy and settled, and it is such a mega talent. And I've said this before when I love watching Lydia play because it's like she's dancing out there. She's like Ginger Rogers,

you know, with a golf club. She's so light on her feet and I actually, yeah, people talk all the time about a golfer's footwork, and to me it seems a little overblown. But I do notice it with Lydia, just the way she moves and and her grace. And I don't know, maybe it's the shoes, because she's always wearing Echo shoes and my eyes go there. So congrats to Lydia. Thank you Echo for helping launch her into another stratosphere and for making this podcast possible. Now let's

get to Hale Irwin. Hello, this is Alan Schipnuk back for another Need of Fourth podcast, which myself, Michael Bamberger, and Jeff Ogally take turns surprising each other with guests. And we have a great one today. One of the few humans on planet Earth who can say they've won more opens and Jeff Ogilvie uh also a protagonist in Michael's wonderful book Men in Green. I know he's been a long time hero to you, Michael, Um does do we know who this person is? Do we have any guesses?

Could be? Could be Jack Nicholas, could Curtis could be Curtis, you know, be Curtis. Okay, fine, both Jeff and this guest have won national championships at one winged foot golf club. Does that Does that help? It's not Billy Caspers. Um, I'm gonna go with it. I'm gonna go with Hale Irwin. Yes it is. It is Hale Irwin, the man himself, three time US Open champion, Hal come on down, welcome

to this at NITA fourth podcast. Mister Hale Irwin. Thank you for saying yes, yes, uh differentiated from maybe okay, I could follow that with you, Ellen, I could follow that, yes, okay, that's a relief. So this is a very exclusive club. The number of men who have conquered wingfoot in the United States Open, that's as macho as it gets. Is there a special kinship there? Even more than every every US Open champion I'm sure has a grudging respect for

the other guy. But when you do it on the same course as that kind of extra special well, I don't know about what Jeff thinks, but for me, I conquered man. I don't think any of ever conquer a golf course, much less wingfoot of true test of golf there's I found that when Bryson won there several years ago, I didn't recognize some of the shots coming in the change the entry to the greens a bit. And I played it perhaps a year or so afterwards, and sure

enough the entries to the greens had changed some. So I didn't quite recognize the golf course on television at least. And I don't know about Jeff, but I thought Wingfoot prior to those those changes was one of the most difficult golf courses you could ever play, particularly under open conditions. No, it's incredible. It's like, um, Harry Cult describes Swinley Forest as his least bad course, you know, which is a

fantastic way to describe his favorite bit of work. But I think when you win the US Open at Wingfoot, you do the least bad you know. Um, it's just a fight. Like sometimes I'm sure Hill conspected that you finished a tournament and you're like, I played really well. I didn't really feel like I played that well at Wingfoot. I just didn't do as bad as everybody else beat you. Wingfoot comes but brings it swipping stick out there, and

it it beat you. And like Jeff says, there are tournaments you win you think, yeah, I really played well. I was on top of my game. But every time I played woot, I go back to the locker thing. Oh my god, if I got work to do, you know, I feel like a puppy that's been whipped. Now it would probably be an appropriate time to remind the listeners that Hale shot a last round seventy three and one at seven over part see I beat that. I was five. I've I wasn't on, Yeah, Ramon wasn't cold. The massacre

yours was the massacre at wing Foot Rot seventy fous Yes. Yes, does that remain the hardest the golf course you've ever played? Hale? That that's set up that week barring wind conditions. You know, we can throw wind in anywhere on the planet and it makes a golf course very difficult. But we had virtually no weather to speak of, you know, breezes, but no maybe a sprinkle or two, but weather. It was

not an issue at any time. And you know, we've all played open conditions across the way, and you go down in Australia and play some of those great courses they have down there, and when the winds up. It's nearly impossible, but they are weather related to But wingfoot and seventy four is hards golf course I've ever played,

bar none. Hell, how much do you subscribe to the theory that they went crazy in the setup in relation to the seventy three US Open when john Johnny Miller shot the sixty last round sixty three, Well, yeah, you don't know what was in their mind, but the knee jerk reaction seems to be after Johnny's final round. And give Johnny credit for a great round of golf. Plate We had ideal conditions there to money had rained the night before, the greens were receptive. That doesn't mean that

Johnny played and he was lucky. I mean he played really, really well. He stuck his irons close, he made a lot of puts. Now fast forward to the next year. Was the USGA thinking about that? Oh they had to be. There's just it would be inhumanly possible not to think about it. So I'm sure the setup was. It was terrifying, It really was. I remember the doom and gloom in the locker room after practice Round one was you could

hardly breathe. You could cut it with a knife, and I remember thinking, my goodness, all you have dudes beat seventy percent of the fields already checked out, they're gone. There's just thirty percent of the guys here are going to try most of the fields gone. And sure enough, that's kind of what happened. Obviously, Hail, the US Open suited you, and I think you were in an era where there's no question it was the biggest tournament on

the planet. It feels like maybe in contemporary times, for whatever reason, the players are get more excited about the Masters and it's become a little more of a spectacle. But can you speak to in your era just the meaning of the national championship to the players? Well, I think certainly here in the United States it was it was the Probably I won't speak for everybody, it was

probably the biggest event. You'll have the subscribe to the Masters, you certainly have those, and rightly so subscribe to PGA, and you can make an equal and maybe stronger arguing about worldwide would be the Open Championship. It's been going on longer, it's it encompasses the world, initially more so I think than the US Open. Now, Jeff could probably speak to that better than night because when living down in Australia, he probably when't you talked Open, it could

have been the Open and not the US Open. For all I know, it could have been Australian Open. But I think each country kind of had its favorites, and certainly for me as a kid growing up, it was the US Open. But I'd be curious what Jeff thinks. Well, yeah, I mean it's similar to that. I mean we we audolized the Open Championship growing up, being the British one. Peter Thompson had won five, Greg won a couple when

we were a kid. When I was a kid, it was that was the sort of considered that I don't know, the World Championship of golf, I guess for an Australian, you know, that was like as big as it got, although the Masters was always something so sort of special and unique and you only got back in those days what you've got about four hours of coverage for the whole weekend, and it was sort of so sort of

mystique about the whole thing. But the feeling as Hale would get and all US players would get when they played the US Open, we have that same feeling when we play the Australian Open. You know, it's just something about your national championship. It doesn't need to be the biggest tournament in the world to be special. And I'm sure the South Africans are the same. In South Africa and the Canadians. I mean that we've seen some of the Canadians how big the Canadian Open is for them.

So the National Open is the National Open. I don't think it matters what everybody else thinks of it, like it's really special, and the US Open is sort of I guess that the unique in that just the way it's tested. It's on the best courses in the US, which it's usually on some of the best courses in the world. It's been won by everybody who's almost anybody who's ever been sort of historically relevant golfer, they've all

sort of won the US Open. And I didn't really appreciate, I guess the US Open, how big it was and how impressive a tournament was until I got to it. I mean, the Masters is nice and it's intimate, and it's kind of small in a way, and it's got its own sort of charm. But the US Open is just on a scale that's hard to imagine until you get there, just how big it feels, and how important it feels, and how tough the course is, and what

it does to the players in the locker room. In the locker room in the US Open, like Hay'll just mentioned before, it's quite an interesting place. There's USGA people would be best not to go in there. I think it's it's just a fantastic tournament. I think yeah for me. I mean, the Open Championship was the major that, like I was as a kid, I thought it was the most special. But when I got to the US Open um, I was hit in the face with how big a

deal and how special it was. Hell, you had you had a stretch in the in the seventies where you were top five four years in a row at Augusta and you know that. Did did you feel like you could win there? Did? Did? Was it a different style of golf? I mean, you're so sononess to the US Open, but you had your chances. You finished tied for second at the Open Championship. I mean, you're knocking on the door.

That's some of the other ones. But was it just a different kind of golfer and it just didn't go your way. Well, I think, uh you can. I think Jeff makes a really good point when you talk about your national championship. For me, it seemed to pique my interests, my competitiveness, my spirit, whatever you want to. Augusta was a place that I truly loved. I really did did. I I think give it in the same terms as the US Open. Non, nor did I think of the

Open Championship in the same way. The PGA was different. They're all different. But for me, Augusta was a place I really did want to play well, and I did. I had some good, good tournaments there. I led it a couple of times, but you got to get to the finish. The thing about Augusta to me was that there were critical holes that you know, where I was probably average in length. If you just average plus five yards,

you had a distinct advantage. And I referred to holes mostly the par fives, but you can say number of five. Back then, you could just drive it a little bit farther. Going into that green with a mid iron or a shorter iron than a four iron or five iron or three iron was so much easier. If you get a little bit farther at eight, get up that hill a bit, you might have a chance to get it up to the front edge of the green eleven. The same in

thirteen fifteen. Those holes, that just a couple of extra yards makes a big difference on how you can approach those greens. With one or two less clubs or par fives, you might be able to get it on into And that's what I lacked. I lacked that that extra o. Could I hit it far enough? Yeah, but I didn't want to sacrifice the accuracy just to try and get it out there farther. Plus, I think my game was always predicated on give me the tightest fairways out there

and put big tall trees right next to them. And I led defined my target when I got to an open championship or a little bit at a gust, because the fairways aren't pretty generous, I kind of had a hard time picking my target. That was for me psychologically and mentally more difficult than it was driving it down a really tight fairway. Yeah, the sky, little gust, there's hard to get your head around when you first get that there's nothing that I'm at. The fairways is so wide.

I mean the second shot to the second hall, you've got football fields you can hit that ball into, like, and it's sort of hard to sort of it makes you forces you to sort of pick small targets, and it's really difficult because the scale is so big. Like you said, hey, when you're in traditional US Open setups, or it's obvious I'm there and if you're good enough, if you hit it there, you'll be good, you know, um,

And each each presents its own challenge. I think sometimes ultra wide fairways at Augusta, at places like that, the big scale can be just as awkward in a different way. And then I found that for the Open Championship too. You get there and you've got a relatively flat horizon other than it might be in the dunes, but you don't have big trees, you don't have big hillsides, you

have just the roles and the mounds. And you go to Saint Andrew's, for instance, and you know there's probably five eighty bunkers out there, but you can only see three of them. And so for me it was here's the fairway, but you're always supposed to play left, and I couldn't never separate that in my own mind, and I think a lot of it was how you approached playing.

You know, Jeff may have a different way of approaching playing Wingingfoot than I. We were both successful at it, but there might be different avenues in which to play. But I just couldn't never get my mind or wrapped around playing away from a target or seeing something that's relatively flat. Hit at the church spire, see that that cloud flying by those were I just I had a hard time with that. Can I go back to something

Jeff just said a minute ago? You know he was talking about the locker room at Wingfoot and how you wouldn't want the USGA, wouldn't want to be in there. I'm curious to know about the evolution of the USJ as an authority figure in both your lives. And this is kind of a theory. I don't know if it's true, but like my mind, like when Hale was coming up in the game and Hale's told me about going to it, I think the sixty US Open was maybe your first US Open that you went to as a fan. Is

that right, Hall, Yes? And like this is how I came up and imagine held the same the USGA and Alan I have joked about this over the years. They were like the stern father that you need in your life. And they told you how many clubs and what the rules were, and you just kind of respect to them, and they gave you the golf course and it was hard, and yeah, you might complain about it, but it was

the USGA. And then so Hale, I'd like to hear you on that, and then Jeff, I'd like to hear if it's any different for you, And then i'd love to hear you both talk about whether that's evolved, because like if you think about that US Open at Oakmont a few years ago, where you know, there was uproar over the USGA and how they handled Dustin Johnson's you know ball thing on that putting green, and now it's I don't think there's that blind acceptance of the authority

figure and I think it's hurt golf. I know it's a long we did question. I'm sorry for that, but I hope that warms you guys up for maybe addressing this broad question. Well, Michael, I wouldn't expect a short question from you. Sorry, it's got to be long winded, but I think you make a very very valid point.

You know, I went as a youngster. I was. I just lived in Boulder, outside of Denver, but I was relatively new to that environment and I just went down there kind of an interesting I really didn't know much about it, although I'll have to admit that it really

piqued me. The thing. Two things I remember most about Denver just kind of how impressionable a young person can be, was watching Oh yeah, Ed what's his name, it doesn't matter, hit it off the first tea in a practice round and the ball went out through where I remember mine falling out of the here. He just kept going, Porkey, Oliver. That's it. Way to Ed, Porkey Oliver hit it out there to kept going. And then I saw Ben Hogan on the practice he dump a shag bagful of brand

new balls, brand new balls, a shag balls. Wow. But I did go on to play in the sixty six US Open as an amateur at Olympic Club, and as you say, the authoritative figure was there. I was fortunately made the cut and I was first out the next day, and the USGA was there reading me my rights about how fast we had to play. We were the number one out and they were going to be watching us on every hole and it you know, it put the

fear in me. Now, if someone were do that in today's game, you'd look at him and say, you know, leave me alone, go away, Which I think is sad in a way because I wish the USJA would go back and make the rules a little bit more stern, make them not as encompassing of everybody, because Jeff knows

this as well. The professor sort of level game where we play us the same equipment, it's a different level of competition, it's a different level of talent and taking the same rules to apply throughout from the very best to play the game at the professional level to the club level, it's very difficult. So why not have two separate rules, two separate rule book? And I just think that the players that play the game professionally, I don't

have their own rules. Australia with the USGA was this other body that we heard about because we grew up under the RNA in Australia and by a sort of relationship the Australian Golf Union, who certainly had that stern, sort of strict headmaster type attitude towards us when we were kids. But that was just part of it. And like as much as we sort of bumped heads with the authorities when we were kids, it was part of

the sport and it was kind of cool. It's kind of always cool to have this, you know, strict boss at the top. But I don't know. I mean, I think the USGA, I mean they did some funky stuff along the way. I mean, I've read a bunch of golf books. I don't think Sam Sneed was too friendly with the USGA. They used to give him some dodgy t times in the US Open, and they sort of made up the rules as they went along a little

bit from what I understand from history. But I mean there's still there's still a bit of respect them, and it's different. The world has changed so much. I mean, with keyboard warriors on their phones and high speed cameras getting Dustin's ball moving, and those things have happened forever in golf, you know, It's just that now everybody's watching and everyone has an opinion on what the right and

wrong thing to do in the situation. And I'm very very happy that Dustin won that tournament because I thought he got pretty hardly done by there. And they changed the rule because of it, which was interesting. Yeah, I mean,

I think they ultimately have basically the respect. I mean, I don't think professional golfers are the right people to ask about the USGA really, because we only had one real exposure to him every year, and that's the US Open, and that's not that's sort of not something that's going to make you love for people who set it up, you know, um, so you shouldn't ask us. But I think, all in all, I think the rules thing I think

is interesting that Hoyle brought up. I think when they changed the rules, I knew the rule, every rule in golf up and down until a few years ago. Now I don't have a clue like they keep changing them and um, all in the effort to speed up play, but fundamentally, if people just play faster, it'll get faster. It's not because of how high people drop the ball from.

I used to read the rule, but because I saw afraid I was gonna have an infraction of a rule that Like you, I knew the rules up one side, down the other, and I read them on a plane or back of the room. I just feared having to get in a situation where I didn't know the rule, and like you, Jeff, I don't know how to drop a ball anymore. It feels so odd dropping it from my knee. And then what is They're not waterheads was anymore?

They're penalty areas well. You can have that in the middle of fairway if you're in a divit, you know. I just don't. I just wish we'd go back to defining the rules what they really are and leave them at that. Not that I want to go back to stymies and where you don't ever touch your ball, but I do think that we need to tighten up the rules so we all can play under the same banner of rules rather than these loose kind of interpretations. I have a funny story from excuse me, that Oakmont situation.

You know, it was the last few holes were playing out. No one knew it was going to happen with Dustin, how it was going to affect his score. The entire tournament was thrown into chaos, and I was asking people, where's Mike Davis. He'd gone totally underground, and so finally someone said, I saw him in the locker room. So I ran into the into the locker room at Oakmont and there was Davis. He's walking around in a towel.

He just he'd just taken a shower so he could be fresh for the for the trophy ceremony, and he's tying his tie and he's not on his phone. He was completely unbothered by this whole thing. I mean, the tournament was on the brink of anarchy and he's in there messing with his winds or not. And I was like, man, this is unbelievable, Like I'm more stressed out about this

than Mike Davis is, and it's his tournament. And I've never forgotten that that attitude was kind of like it was almost callous and indifferent, Like I think there was a lot of ways that could have handled it, but they it was probably the worst possible way. And I'll never forget Mike Davis in his towel, just kind of hanging out in the locker room. Well, the us opens

crumbling around him. But anyway, I had to share that well maybe Mike, Mike knew then more than anybody else that he was leaving the USDA had to leave these problems to the next president executive director. Yeah, that was that was an amazing moment, as you surely know. You know. Linksoul is a clothing and a lifestyle brand. I've been wearing it for at least a decade. It's cool stuff, it's super comfy, and one of the Firepit loves it.

We're believers. If you go to linksol dot com and the promo code fire Pit twenty five, you will get twenty five percent off your purchase. You're welcome, and we're also giving away a two hundred and fifty dollars links Sold gift card per episode. So go to the fire Pit YouTube channel and leave a comment from this episode and say how much you loved it, because surely you're loving it. You're a golf fan. You have to be loving this. And the winners will be notified and promoted

on our Instagram and our Twitter feeds. So get involved. We're trying to have some fun. We also have to pay the bills here at the fire Pit Collective. So back to Nita Fourth. You know, obviously, Hale, it's part of your biography that that maybe younger fans aren't even aware of that you are a badass football player in college and at Colorado won some some accolades, and you know there's there's a lot of debate about our our

golfers real athletes or not. I would I would love to hear your take on this and how how being a football player informed you as a golfer. Well, certainly two different ways to go at it. Football for me, and we're talking about not football as they have in Europe, which is soccer as we know it, and and not that crazy game that he play in Australia. Oh god, that is nuts to play the reading rules football. But

to me it was away through college. You know, my mom and dad didn't have a lot of money, and whereas I was really at that time, my golf was I'd won the state high school, I'd won some state tournaments, but in the state of Colorade, we weren't blessed with a lot of players that can really play at a high level. So I really know what I could do with my game, and no golf school universities had come around with any interest in me being on a golf team.

So when you get to kind of a full ride scholarship to play football, Okay, my dad was handing me the pen here son sounds good to us and I and that was fine. I don't regret it. For one moment. Most of the time, it taught me a lot of discipline. Because I was undersized, I had to do things in a very disciplined way. I had to really convinced myself that I was playing larger than I really was. I had to make those players opposite me respect me and

maybe much to my physical pain. But there's just certain things you had to do, and some of that I think flipped over to my golfers. I think specific of the discipline. I've never had a coach, I've never had an instructor, and just it wasn't available. I didn't have the money anyway, So I think there were things that I had to do within me internally to expose what talent I may or may not have. And that could

be the same for a lot of people. But you're right, football and golfers kind of a strange combination if you had baseball and golf, or basketball and golf. But I think a lot of kids in today's world are restricted to one sport or one activity and that's it. And I think there's a lot of things that could benefit those kids to have some cross training, mental and physical. Playing other sports, you learn how to accommodate in a team game. You learn how to accommodate yourself in a

golf for instance. So I encourage parents and your youth to play all the sports you can get, get a taste of all of it, and then you'll you'll weed it down to the ones you enjoy. Did you wear a leather helmet? Oh? Yeah, I folded it up and put it in my pocket. You know that was my winner, Beanie when I go back to the door. Oh, you're funny, Allen. But I would I would assume that was the most

manly era of football. I mean, the protecting the quarterback and receiver rules were those were way off in the future. The idea of targeting, all that stuff. I mean, and you were, you were playing the Texas schools, and I mean, just give us a taste of what just how how gladiatorial those football games were back then. Well, there was a certain team which will go un named, but they were in the Big Eight championship and they have to

be and still water Ocloma. I will not say who that team was, though they were at the time a very physical team and we had what we call late whistle practices, so we would go full speed during the week and to get ready for this. And if a runner went down, the whistle didn't blow for several seconds too, so you get accustomed to somebody coming in and still trying to block you, that the play still continued. But and I hated those. I hated those. But you learn

through different means how to accommodate each team. The physicality of football speaks for itself. There were some guys that were extremely fair but extremely tough. There were guys that played a little under the bonnet. You know, they took some cheap shots. But then again, that's the way it was, that's the way you played, and you had to be aware of that. And you know, okay, if I get that from you, okay, you can respect something for me here pretty soon if I have the opportunity. But again,

it's sort of like David Goliath. You know, I felt like I was David almost all the time. And you know, David wins out in the end. That's great. I have one for Jeff now down Under with the Aussie rules. Those guys are nuts, are they not. I mean, that's a tough, tough game. It is a tough game, like it's evolved a lot. You would have seen it back when I was growing up, back in the seventies and eighties and stuff. I'm sure it was tough. They were

big kids, they hit hard. There was only one or two umpires on the field, and they couldn't look at there's eighteen players on each field and a really big field, so when the umpires the balls up there, I mean they were given it to each other at the other end of the field. Like I mean, it was it was a proper battle. It was a bit like hockey, you know. It was just any hit was fair unless

it was sort of like really dangerous. But with all the cameras and there's more umpires now, and they have this thing called trial by videos, so like they video every player on the field and afterwards they all get suspended if they've come up with too many cheap hits. And it's like all sports has been taken over by sports science and they've worked out that it's more effective to score against teams if you're running more and you're not hitting as much, and so it's a little bit

friendly and now than it was back then. But yeah, back then, it was violent, like if you had all you take, he went drawing you know. Yeah, Well, Jeff made a good comment earlier that sports, all sports have come under the camera and the microscope of analysis, and those in those days we didn't have that. You you played pretty much on the honor system in golf, and were there players that probably took that and broke it. Yeah, they were probably singular in nature and we all knew

who they were. But for the most part, the players played very much according to the rules as we had the rules then, and the same for these other sports. But incomes to television and the media, and now there's a super analysis and say sports science and how to go about things that there's more of a specific target now and you can take that right to hitting a driver. You know. I watched young man not too for the

TPC Scotts Stale here, not too long ago. I was out there, well too long ago, probably three years, four years, and this kid had his teacher and he was bombing these drives and after every drive they went over and looked at the launch monitor and I'm thinking I would have taken any one of those, but his coaches almost berating him for not doing this and that. And to me, they were awesome, every one of them. But they played by the numbers. Now they don't really play by field.

They don't play by Hey. You know, I'll take that anytime on any hole and go on to the next one. It's got to be that perfect swing, hit the ball, launch, angle, spin rate, blah blah blah. And the feel of the game is gone. And I think in that in that sense the kind of what we're talking about in general, the feel of the game is not what it once was, and things are never static, they always move around. But I've kind of long for the day where we would get back to a little bit more of a structured

environment and keep all those well. Another story two No. Last year, I was at the Players Championship having lunch with the President of Championship, Miller Brady. We're up in the eighteenth hole having launched, and I'm looking down on the green and there were eighteen people on the green. Eighteen and I'm thinking, this is you gotta be kidding me.

There was the four players, the caddies. Okay, now you've got ten others that are what are they But they're walking on the greens or throwing balls back to the players, and they're this now to me, eighteen people to have one group. You got it, that's a joke, So that to me is overdone. But again they're talking to doing an old guy, well kind of, I mean Gray, I mean, I think these track man and these launch monitors are really good tool, but I think they become such a

they become the focus. I mean, they don't even watch the ball. Like Hale said, these kids will hit a driver and they'll look at the screen. They won't even watch the ball. And I'm sure if if you'd got Hogan or Jack or Trevino or something, they were a track man, I mean he could He couldn't have told you the specific numbers, but he would have told you if it was good or bad, and if it was spinning too much, or it was how he'd struck the ball. He didn't need a computer to tell him because he

just let the ball tell him what was happening. And I think, like Hale says, you lose a bit of feel for the game if you don't do that enough, you know. I mean, I'm sure it's a good tool to go back to and check stuff, and there's absolutely advantages to it, but it seems to have become such a crutch. These guys play practice rounds on tour with two guys carrying around launch monitors and putting him down behind every single shot. I'm not sure that's how you

shoot lower scores. I don't know, maybe it is, but yeah, it's definitely the flavor of the months. To do that. It would be much more fun, I think, to see these kids out there playing for one hundred dollars just with themselves, you know, and competing and getting under pressure and needling each other on the last few holes and stuff. I think that is far more the skill that you want to polish than having a plus three point five down swing or whatever these numbers they're chasing, you know.

So I think it's every sport's happened though. I mean every sport has been taken over by sports science people who initially go in to improve the game, and they do, but I think it just takes over to such a level that the focus of the game is now good numbers on a screen, not low scores, you know, not being able to read a lot. I mean golf, you just can't science tournament golf. I mean every lie you

ever have is different, every day is different. I mean, my ball goes a different distance every day, like even in Arizona, Like it's cool one morning, it's going nowhere. By lunchtime, it's going twenty yards further. You know, Like I don't know how you do that on a launch mournament, but if you play golf every day, you can just tell, well, my seven nine is going to go one hundred and

seventy five. It just feels like it, you know. Um, I think if you lose that connection one hundred whatever that is, you get a long way away from it downhill. My seven ns like you're five one though, right like it's it's um. I actually have quite conservative lofts. I have sort of semi old school lofts. I have the lofts that I grew up with, like a forty eight degree pitching wedge and a forty four degree ninine, but I mean nineins forty degrees. Now I don't look at

the numbers on the bottom of the club anymore. I just really they say, well, you've got two hundred and three yards and he's hitting an eight yard Huh, how do you do that? But I think Jeff makes a great point. It's it's become so numerized that we forget how to play and how about just a four and a half hour practice round. Wouldn't that be something I remember back when I was I'd try to be the first one on the golf course just to get out

there and end. Yeah, I didn't want to spend six hours watching some guy chip and button button, chip and hit and hit and hit. And they said, well, do you only play one ball in practice round? At the US Open. That didn't stop very many players. I still played in six hours practice round. So I think, of all the things we can talk about, I think the speed of play has the biggest negative influence in my opinion,

then anything else we could talk about. I think if we don't pick up the speed of play and the chitter chatter between player and ketty that goes on and on and on, it may make good sound bites, but boy, it takes a long time, and people tune out after that. They in today's world, they want things to happen now and not later. They want to see that shot now and not lay. And I think we have to keep

that in mind. Well, what one counterpoint to what what you guys were talking about is on this show, we had just in the last couple months, we had brandall Shambli, and we had Gary McCord, and both of them said basically the same thing that they were They had tremendous success as juniors and in the college game, and they came out onto the tour and they had kind of no clue what they were doing, and they lost their way and they were never able to find it as

professionals because they didn't have the information, they didn't understand their swing. They tried to emulate other players. And so I'm wondering for you, Hale, as a guy who's never really had an instructor, who didn't who just kind of did it your own way, do you think if you had access to the information and some of these tools, you could have been significantly better or do you think it would have hurt your sort of natural way of

playing the game. I would have to say it probably would have hurt the way I naturally played the game. And I think Jeff said it basically said, the ball tells you what you're doing. If a ball courge left or right, we'll just sit down and figure why is the ball curve left to right? Why is it curved

right to left? And say, okay, there's this rotation that rotiation is why isn't it spin up in the air well, And you go back and say, the club at impact had to be in this position to get there, that my body had to be in this was to put the club that way. You just trace it back and say, oh, that's just a simple little here and in this swinging there was. It's very simple. But we so overcomplicated that the natural tendency of a player is overrun by the

numbers what the launch monitor is saying. And I just I think there's a lot of players out there, and we're seeing thousands of these kids come out of high school and colleges that want to be number one in the world. Well, they're not going to get there if they don't listen to themselves first and quit playing by the numbers all the time. I just I just think it's the wrong way to go about it, you know. And all to your point about out about what Brando

and mccordy were saying. I remember Hale telling me years ago he learned golf on the PGA Tour and one of the end I was sort of thinking about this when you're talking about Mike Davidson locker room, he saw Arnold and big Jack in the locker room. And here's Arnold with his big chest and he hit the ball with his chest. And here's Jack with these big thighs and he hit the ball with his thighs. And then hell,

tell me if I'm not getting this right. But like your body tells you how to play golf your way, and Hale Orwin's you know, built differently than Jeff Ogilvie, They're going to go out of different ways. So it really comes from inside the golfer. And I think for anybody our age and older, you were drawn to that that was just that the golfer figured it out for himself,

and we are losing that. Well. I think if somebody saw my body build versus Jeff, for instance, I think Jeff probably has a closer body build, you know, taller tram like today's player versus Mair. They were shorter players and probably spent more time at the bar they did on the practice team. But the fact is these kids now he kind of come back to his golf. For athletes, I'd say yes, because today's player has to be an athlete. You have to be able to go out there and

do some of the things they do with athletic proudness. Now, are there other things you'd pick up from other sports? Yes, but I think today's player and you can go down and and maybe ask Dustin Johnson if he was a good athlete. Yeah, he's a good basketball player. You know, go down, you pick him. Whomever they are, let's talk

about us open chambers. Ask everyone of them what they've done in the past, and I'll almost guarantee that they've played other sports along the way, maybe not at the high level, but they have introduced their mind and their bodies to other activities. Yeah, I agree. It's well when you play out the sports, you're sort of learning how to use you in your mind, like you say, like in a different way, like you get weary one track when you just play golf. But I think this, I

guess we can't just be like complete naysayers. I mean, the level of golf played at the top now is outrageous, Like it's really good. There's a lot of really good But the fiftieth best player now is like he looked like the number one golfer in the world twenty years ago, right, Like, I mean, there's a lot of good players now, So

you can't poo poo, the whole approach. I just think, yeah, it's very dangerous territory for a for a person who's sort of one of those analytical type people who's going to work really really hard and chase every little thread. This technology is pretty dangerous, right because you've just got any number of different sort of sort of avenues you can go down to sort of flood your mind with overthinking.

I think for guys like Dustin Johnson and those guys who can just sort of take a bit of information, say that's mine, and then just go off and play golf like Dustin Johnson, I think it's a really ball to all this stuff. I just think it's it's it's risky for this. I've seen a lot of golfers over the last and I'm sure how I'll saw it through his career that as soon as you start, there's there's a certain type of personality that if you get down

that technical path, like you're not coming back. You know, you're just going down and down and down. And I think that door is wider open than it's ever been, you know, because there's just so many different ways you can analyze the sport. I think you have to a coach's true job really, because it seems like you're not allowed to play golf without a coach anymore, not many do. But a coach's true job is to teach a player how to teach himself and to become redundant. I mean,

the best coach becomes redundant the fastest right. And guys like Butch. Butch for out of out of Area seems to have done that really really well. You know, he gives a guy a couple of things. You know, what your best when you do these sort of things, and then he just leaves them alone. If you've ever been on the arrangement, butchers teach any of his good players. He's just standing there telling stories. He's not really telling them too much, you know, he's just Jessy playing well

to day, DJ. Look how well you're hitting it today, DJ, And he's just telling stories. That's a great coach. Whereas the guy who's the players calling up after I mean, I've played lots of practice rounds with the guys who are calling their coach on the fourth hole, going what am I doing? I'll just hit it in the right trees on the third you know, like that's a bad spot to be. And the nature of the sport at the moment is it's very easy to get that way.

You know, they're sending swings, they're taking a swing, their caddies holding the phone behind them on the thirteen and they're taking a video and they're sending it back and they're getting a lesson before they get to their second shot. You know, that isn't playing golf. That's not you playing golf. That's getting somebody else to tell you what to do.

So I think it's a dangerous direction. But as I said when we started this, the level is so high at the moment of the best golfers you can't really pick at the approach because they are getting very, very good. Well. Having said that, though, let's go back to review who the winners have been, primarily over the last several years. It's going to be kind of the same names like they were in the past too. The best players are

going to emerge one way or another. And is there anybody that's ever played the game at the level that John Roman is right now? And we get to how about Scottishcheffler last last year? You know we have those guys. Did anybody ever play the game at the level of Tiger Woods. Well, it could have been a guy named Jack Nicholas. You know, you can pick out those players or that group of players that were always the best,

and they were always the best. And there are other front runners, and there are ones that want to be part of the show and they are, but not in the traditional long term sense that we're talking about right here. Well, on that note, I looked at the Senior Tour leaderboard yesterday and it was Ernie Els and Fred Couples and all these guys we've been doing it forever, but also

got named Bernhard Longer at the top. And he got the win and he tied a certain record that's held by a certain guy on this podcast for most career Senior Tour victories. And I think that's it's it's always been a neat part of your biography, Hale, is that you got the Senior Tour and you went to a level that no one had ever really reached. All the Peter Thompson had had one heck of a year as well,

and you've you've took that record from him. But the longevity, the excellence, and the grit and the determination to keep wanting to go forward and prepare and to win. How much did your senior success mean to you? And what would you say about Bernhard longer now that he's he's matched the wind total. Well, you know, for me, golf was it was my vocation. It was not my advocation. It wasn't something I spent a lot of time at home doing. When I was home, I was home. I

wanted to be with my family. I wanted to be I wanted to take the kids to school. I wanted to do the things that most people consider mundane, but I thought they were so neat because it didn't get to do them. And you're traveling all the time. And I think once I got to a point on the Champions Tour, I just kind of took stock of where I am, where do I want to go? Not that I'm running out of time, but you have to have some idea of longevity and you don't know how long

that will be. In that what do you still want to do with your life? And interestingly, I think when I started thinking that I felt my game level off, I just I lost a little of that focus. I lost a little of that willingness to prepare each and every week. It was getting more difficult each and every time. I think anybody's ever played the game at some level of success. Whatever you do, not just golf, but whatever you do, and you've achieved some major of success, I think,

how long can you keep that up? What are you happy with? Now? See? I found that I was once I made kind of that started that thinking process. Now I'm I'm finishing twenty fifth, I'm finishing thirtieth, I'm finishing. Boy, I played great. I finished fifteenth. That's not where I wanted to be. That's not where I had been. And what age was that hill? Seventy six? That was probably a good ten years ago? Twelve years ago. I just felt like I could still play, I can still hit

the shots, but I wasn't in it. My heart wasn't in it, my mind wasn't in it. I can go out now and I can hit golf shots, although the green seemed to be a little further way than it used to be. But it's not that I can't. It's just that I don't have that willingness to do the things that you need to do. And Burnard has done that. He's kept himself fit. He plays a lot of golf, but could I have gone on to win forty six or seventy Yeah, in my mind undoubtedly. Now could I

don't know, but in the belief that I could. But that's not where I wanted to go. I wanted to make a turn in my life and spend more quality time with my family doing the things that I still had to check those boxes. And I didn't want to leave this world not having experienced some of those things. And I found then by level of efficiency on the golf course started dropping, and it was more mental than anything. But then again, I've had some physical things. I've had

some left knee surgery. I've got some foot problems on my left side. As Jeff can tell you, you get something on your leading side, go off, you can't drive it the way you used to. It becomes a little flick of the risks and oh, that's an ugly shot. But it's just things like that, little things, but they mount up, and that's that's why some players succeed the little things they do well, and other players can do most of the things well, but they don't do the

little things as well. Hence you get those guys that repetitively win all the time. Hell, you went the US Open at age forty five. Age I think, Jeff is, now, what do you think it is in your character that allowed you to be as good at golf at thirty five as you were at forty five. That's probably the

I had the willingness. And I go back to that, Michael, simply because in nineteen eighty five, I was forty years old and I had just won the Memorial Tournament, and I started and Jeff knows this, he's in the golf course design. I just started my golf course design company. And there's only so much time you could put into each one of those. And if I was one hundred percent into playing, now I had to extract from that

some time and effort to put over here to design. Well, there's that level that falls on the playing side that now makes me just another player. And I went that way for about five years. So now I had gone from you know, being a very good player forty years old and now back then remember four years old, My gosh, you're over the hill to can't play anymore. There's this thought process as well. You better, you know, start doing some janitorial duty somewhere, because you can't be a play

golf anymore. So I at the winter of nineteen eighty nine, I sat down at my desk and I wrote down termis I had won and what thoughts I had because I had and I really enjoyed the design process and we were successful at it, and it was really a lot of fun. I enjoyed the heck out of it. But there's still a part of me and saying, Okay, if I'm going to give excuse me this playing one more year and if it's no good that I'm done. So I sat down and wrote the tournaments I had,

what thoughts I had. So I went back to my first win, and if I couldn't remember something, then I'd leave it and I'd come back to it. But what that did. It spurred me into thinking like a player again, not just somebody out there playing golf, but somebody that had won, and what were those championship thoughts? And we started the ninety season, I could feel my game starting to come around. The preparation was a little more intense, the specifics of what I was trying to do became

a little bit better. And so when we got around to open at medinah Oh, I told my wife two weeks before the tournament that well, I didn't like that, but I just felt like, I'm I don't feel a stranger here. I've been here before. And when I went out that day, as you know, let's play a good round, try and finish in the top fifteen, which gets you invited into the tournament the next year. Because I was invited that year, the USGA gave me free pass into the tournament, so I didn't want to have to I

was not gonna do that again. I just too much respect for the organization and the tournament to do that. So I went out and in fact, I was paired with your rosie friend Greg Norman's the last day, and I remember Gregg and Birdie the tenth hole. I remember thinking, you know, another birdie or two. He You never know what's going to happen because the leaders are an hour behind us. So I just said, okay, forget it. And I looked at the leaderboard and I was one shot

out of the top fifteen. Okay, let's just focus on that. So I Birdie number eleven, that's okay, Top ten, I'm Birdie number twelve, okay, top five, Bertie thirteen, jeez. Then a Bertie fourteen. So now I've gone from kind of off the board on one shot back and so when we get around to a part of fifteen sixteen seventy. So that's why the big putt at eighteen got me in the lead in the clubhouse. But never did I

think it would win out right, I really didn't. It was that I just played the last eight holes in the US opened five hundred far and I got to a goal that I had sort of moving goals if you wish I'd kept moving and kept the bar hied and higher, but I got there. And that's that's where I think a lot of the previous years of the football, that discipline, the intensity, all that I think really kicked in and helped me a lot. The experience of having

been there helped me a lot. The next day, I have to say it was I didn't play nearly as well. You know, Mike Donald played very steady golf, but I was two shots down with three holes to play, and we made a great birdie at sixteen, and unfortunately for Mikey he made a bow get the eighteenth hold to put us into a real playoff, which I buried the

first extra hole. So all of that I think speaks to you can do a lot of things if you put your mind to it, and if you waver at all, then you better not be frustrated with the results because you have to be on point. You have to believe in yourself and you have to go out there and do the things that you know what you need to do, not what somebody else is telling you need to do. You have to feel it, you have to experience it, and then when you do it, it's a whole different feeling.

And Jeff knows exactly what I'm talking about because it goes to all of us. Jeff, have you ever tried something that was extremely interesting Hill? Jeff, have you ever tried something similar where you know, being at forty five and you have so many interests in golf, so many different interests in different aspects of golf, But that idea of going back to your tournament wins and doing a deep dive and where you were there and what you can take from that and a play to where you

are now, like Hell was talking about. Yeah, I mean I kind of do it all the time I thought of, I mean not quite as formally obviously sat down and said write the decision time, let's do this properly. But yeah, there's absolutely no doubt when I was doing well, and I think when any guys are doing well, it's it's almost sort of that zen like. It's a monk like approach.

It's the only one thing in your life and it's golf, and you've got a specific focus, and when you wake up in the morning, there's no doubt about what you're doing. You're going through your thing, and it can be hitting balls for twelve hours, or it can be just doing your one hour of practice, whatever it is. It's like you, like Hale says, if you know that makes you better when it's it's I guess it's clarity of vision and

there's nothing else involved. I think once you start having kids and getting a few other interests and wake up in the morning, you've got ten other thoughts and you do a couple of other things. I'll just go I'll go hit some balls later in the afternoon and stuff I just doesn't work, and not not for me at least. It has to be sort of a very singular, singular sort of approach, you know, like focus. When I wake up in the morning, there's no doubt I'm going to

go do this. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and it's all about becoming a better golfer. I think as a golf became harder, it wasn't really golf becoming harder. It was me just getting into more stuff, you know, and having more stuff in your mind. And so you start playing bad in the first three holes, in your head goes off to somewhere else because it's just easier to think about something else than it is

about golf. And yeah, it's it's valuable. How I'll described it is probably like one of the most powerful things someone can do, especially like when you've been good and then you start struggling a little bit sort of work out what it is. And golf has this funny sort of habit of making you think it's your putter or like your golf swing, or like you're not stretching your hamstrings enough or whatever it is. But it really isn't that.

It's a peaceful place in your head where you just you know what you want to do and you know what you have to do to do that, and it's it's a great place to be. It's just a pureness of approach or simplicity, and there's only really one thing you want to do, and it's I just do this and I'm going to get better. I think when you get to a golf tournament there's a piece in knowing that you've been doing all the right things too, when

you get there and you feel really well prepared. And as I said, it doesn't have to be hitting balls twelve hours a day like Hogan for two months. I think it's just doing what you know makes you better. You get there, there's just a bit more you play with a bit more ease, and you're a bit more patient with yourself because you know you sort of doing the best you can. And Yeah, everything that Hale said resonated really well. I think it's quiet wise and people

would be too very well to listen to it. This podcast has gotten deep. I love it. Uh Well, Hale's been very generous with this time. Before we before we let him go, Any any last questions you want to fire at him? Machael got any long winded one? Yeah, I don't even have you even fallen Hale forever. He was part of Men in Green, your your spectacular book about all your childhood heroes. I'll brag about Hale a lot of you know, all our listeners would know a

lot about Hale and his plank career. But Hale as a welcoming luncheon partner. I'll tell a quick story about that. But Hale and I were having lunch at the Memorial Tournament last year, and Tony Jacqueline was there, and Andy North was there, and Jordan Speet was one table over all these US Open winners and legends of the game, and like, what am I doing at this table? Obviously

snuck in somehow and don't belong here. And Hale kindly said to me, well, Michael, who who are What are some of the good swings you've admired over the years? Like wow, a generous way to get a ninety shooter involved in the conversation. So hey, I want to I want to thank you for that, and thank you for for this time and sharing such interesting thoughts. It was neat to see Jeff respond to what you just said on such a deep level, So thank you. Well, you're

tying well. I've enjoyed it, and Jeff's good to see it. I've always loved to speak to a fellow players and fellow champions, because I think we all have the same intensity in us. Some show it differently and it comes out in different ways, but ultimately it's how you play the game I think helps define what you're going to be. And you know, the thing I'll have to say is

hitting balls for twelve hours. I don't think I've hit practiced for twelve hours in any week, but my thought was always go hit as many balls as you have to to get done what you want to get done. If you get it done in fifteen minutes, go home. You know. I never left the practice ground or the putting green without hitting a good shot or hearing the ball going the hole, even if I had to putter from a foot away, and never left without hearing that Luca at the last. And I think that's the way

you leave something is on a good note. And with this, this has been a great time. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Ka Luka, there you go. It's been a pleasure. I will say when when Hale broke Peter Thompson's Senior Tour record for victories in a season, I was there covering it in Hawaii. This is a long time ago and for Sports Illustrated we convinced Hale to

do a photo shoot. Took a fishing pull down onto the lava rocks and he was in Hawaiian shirt and it was a little cheesy, but he went with it. You've never seen anyone pretend to reel in a thousand pound fish the way it Hale did. The intensity like he just threw himself into this photos shoot, and I've always always made me laugh thinking about it. But the guys committed. I think that's I think that's something that

our listeners will get from this this podcast. As you got wife's worth, live and go live it, folks, go live it. There you go. Well, what a gent haill Irwin Um very underrated, droll since the humor he really makes me chuckle like he's just the delivery is so great. But what did you guys take from that conversation? Yeah, he's great when you I mean very wise about golf. Um clearly still loves the game. Um yeah, great, enjoyed,

enjoyed every minute. His stories are great. Um, the way he approached it, I'm trying to I'm putting my golf pro golf hat on, trying to learn a little bit actually be honest. Yeah, it was neat to hear hear you respond to hell a lot, Jeff. Have you spent much one or anyone in one time with with Hill? Yeah, a little bit along the way. I mean he's spent a lot of his time in Scott style, um, which I have too, so he like he mentioned TPC Scott style there a little bit, like he's popped up on

the back of the range there a little bit. And we'll end up at the sun golf like sort of outings and golf days when the pros are all there in Arizona and stuff I've sent him. But he's always a good chat just like that. Yeah, very wise and like I said, Alan, at first you think he's very serious, you know, like he's kind of intimidatingly serious. But he isn't you know, once you starts sort of chatting to him, he's actually he's got a great little quick little wit

and great stories. And he's been around. I mean, he's still he still seems so young, don't you think, Like he's just in such great shape and he's such a great athlete. Like he start mentioning that his first years open he went to was the nineteen sixty to go watch I know he was a kid, but that's where Hogan hit like fifty fifty one greens in a row or something like, um, Cherry Hills. Yeah, like that's a long time ago. I mean I read about that in books and he was actually there, so and he still

looks great. Yeah. Yeah, And he his college team made a trip to Wingfoot and Tommy Armor was there. So it's just neat that here here the you know, you goes younger than I, but here we are spending an hour with a guy who knew Tommy Armor, and Tommy Armor goes back to nineteenth century golf. You know, it's a pretty fast one hundred and twenty years. So we're talking about here. Incredible. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that was fun. Well, um, I'll praise to Hale. I mean,

what a career. I mean some twenty tour victories, three opens, and I don't think the Senior Tour can can really change a person's legacy very much, but I think in Hale's case, it really did elevate him because it just threw in a sharp focus what a competitor he was and the precision of his game and the longevity. I mean, to win forty something times out there and absolutely dominate. I mean eleven wins, eight wins, like that's neat. And he did it over a long period of time and

obviously you know longer now. Matching that record has brought Hail back into the forefront. And you know, it was just it's it was. It was quite a second act or a final act for him. And so beating I mean, beating whoever turns up to play against you for fifty years, like that's outrageous. I mean, playing six good holes in a row is good in golf, you know, and he's done it. He did it for fifty years, like it's incredible.

And for a guy who was a college footballer who didn't think he was that good, you know, yeah, it shows you the power of the mind and the like he said, the competitive nature of the thing. Really, Trump's like we were talking about all the science and all the technique and all that sort of stuff. I mean the competitive headspace, Trump's all of that. You know, He's obviously had it in spades. Is it an inspiration for you, Jeff?

When you think about him whining a US opening forty five and you being about the same age and where you where your own life could go. Yeah, I mean

I've thought about that sort of stuff. I mean, I haven't been playing that much the last few years, but I'm starting to play a little bit more and absolutely like I think what you lose I mean, golf a little different now, maybe because they hit it further, but I still don't think it really is what you lose in your young athletic body when you get a bit older, is you're you're constantly gaining wisdom in golf. I think, whether you know it or not, you're sort of picking

stuff up along the way. And as long as you keep playing, I think you can always sort of be dangerous. I think, especially in certain situations. Probably not maybe at Bethpage Black or something. I think those days are gone for me, but you never know, like there's certain places where I could probably do Okay, yeah, inspiration and look the scene is do a career too. It's like, I know it's not the same, but it's still competitive golf

against your peers. It's really that feeling of coming down the stretch, having coming up with stuff under pressure and feeling it is like the real joy of the game, and it doesn't really matter what everybody else thinks. If you can actually have that experience, and to realize that I could still have fifteen or so years of that sort of experience is kind of It's a nice thought. Yeah, I want to apologize for going blank but for a

moment there. But after Alan talked about Mike Davis and his towel, I started kind of was in a woozy place, and it should be all I get back. The key is not to picture in your mind. Michael. You gotta you gotta got banish the mental image. I know what he did. Want to ask you guys very briefly, but how would Hale and how would Jeff in the Mike Davis role, and how would Sandy Tatum have responded to

Phil Mickelson playing hockey at Shinnecock that year? I know Tatum would have thrown his ass out of the tournament. I think Hale would have. Jeff, I don't know what you would have done. I didn't mind what he did as much as I hated his excuse. His excuse was can play crap. Like if he'd come off and said, you know what, for twenty five years, I've been playing this tournament and I'm just sick of I'm messing it up by setting it up too hard. I just had enough,

like stop making bowls are all off greens. Stop it like instead of saying, well, I thought I was going to have a lower score, like you come up with such bullshit that that's the pot, I didn't lock the fact that he did it. I mean it's no different from daily at Podhurst and stuff like that. I mean, you play enough, he always opens at some point you're

gonna have a meltdown, like it's just gonna happen. And he had his little meltdown and then pretended like it wasn't a meltdown, like um, just going up to the meltdown, and I think everyone could have taken with a bit of a laugh. You know, you know who our next guess should be for need of fourth ogilvie. How good was that? That's a perfect answer. That was eight plus.

That's right, all right? Well, as I said, we've kind of thought of these uh these need to force and bunches and we're gonna take a little a little break but and retrench. But it's been an absolute pleasure and a joy podcast with both of you guys, and really

fun slate of guests, and this was an experiment. We don't know how it was going to work, and I would I don't want to presumptuous and speak for the listeners, but I know for us, it's been really fun and I've enjoyed both of you guys immensely, so I just want to put that out there. Good Thomas on the season, Tae, Yeah, exactly, all right. That was Hail Irwin and Jeff Ogilvie and

Michael Bamberger. I'm Alan chef Nick. Thanks is always for listening and that was needed for Oh my god, it's a dangerous group here.