A Visit with Sir Bob Charles

Over the weekend, Sir Bob Charles, the first left-handed golfer to ever win a major professional championship, the 1963 Open Championship, became the first person inducted into the New Zealand Golf Hall of Fame. The new hall of fame was inaugurated in honor of the 100th anniversary of New Zealand Golf.

We here at Whiffling Straits are intrigued by Sir Bob – and not just because he won the first major championship contended in my lifetime. It's also because he's not really a "left-hander." He's a natural righty who plays golf, as he prefers to call it, "backhanded," standing on the right side of the ball and hitting to his right. Recently, we had the honor of speaking to Sir Bob in his native New Zealand – about his backhanded approach to golf and his big win in July 1963.

(Image: Condon/Getty Images, via pgatour.com)

Whiffling Straits: How did you come to be a right-handed person who plays golf left-handed?
Bob Charles: Well, I’m just doing something that comes naturally. It’s instinctive for me to grip with one hand, to pick things up, grip anything with my right hand. But when it comes to putting two hands on anything, I automatically put the left hand below the right hand. For example, if I pick up a rifle, I put the left hand belowthe right hand. If I pick up a pool cue, I put the left hand below the right hand. A spade, an axe, everything I do with two hands, I put the left below the right. And swing obviously … with an axe I swing it over my left shoulder, a rake … you know, that’s just natural. 

WS: I had read in Sports Illustrated that your parents were both golfers and lefties, and that’s how you came across your first set of left-handed clubs, is that correct?
BC: Well, yes, that’s correct. Actually my mother started out as a right-handed golfer and she switched to becoming a left-handed golfer. My father is the same as me. He’s right-handed with one hand, but with two hands he puts the left hand below the right. 

WS: Was it because of them that you started playing left-handed?
BC: Why did I start playing golf standing on the right side of the ball? It felt the most natural way to me. I play all ball games. I’m fascinated with all ball games. I’ve got my own tennis court here on the farm, I’ve got my own pool table in the house, I have a ping pong table, so … my father was a very good sportsman, and had a good eye, instinct for ball games. He was just playing what was natural for him. He played cricket, he was a good cricketer. He bowled right-handed, batted left. If you use baseball as an example, he and I both would have been right-handed pitchers and left-handed batters. 

WS: Do you think there’s an advantage for a right-handed person to turn things around and play left-handed golf?
BC: I think a lot depends on whether you’re left-eyed or right-eyed. You see, I don’t consider myself a left-handed golfer. I’m a back-hander. I prefer to use backhand, I play a double-handed backhand. I stand on the right side of the ball, I hit the ball on the right side of the clubface and I’m hitting to my right. Now when I’m lining up a putt, I’m looking at the hole and the ball with my strong right eye. So, I’ve got a feeling … well, it’s not a feeling. I’ve got a theory I suppose is the best way of describing it. If you’re left-eyed you should be a right-handed putter, if you’re right-eyed you should be a left-handed putter. I think you get a better perception, better depth perception. If I’m looking to my right, to my strong side, visually I get a better picture looking right than looking left. 

WS: What do you remember most about that (British Open) victory?
BC:There’s a lot of things. Let’s put it in context, we’re going back how many years? Well, 47 years, aren’t we? Of course, the field: the best players of the day were there. Nicklaus was there, Palmer was there, Player was there, Peter Thompson was there, Kei Nagle. They were the leading players of the day. I had won at Houston just the month before, so I arrived there full of confidence, having won my first tour event in the United States. So in effect, those five players I mentioned were probably the only ones I had to beat.
     Nowadays of course things are quite different. What I’m saying is, the quality was there but there was no great depth to the field. Whereas today, instead of just five players, you’ve got 50 players to beat. So, as a fact, [I arrived] full of confidence, I had a great week. Putted particularly well. And of course the 36-hole final [playoff] with Phil Rogers was a little bit of an endurance contest, as you can imagine, playing 72 holes in two days. And I think I was the fitter of the two. Then, Phil Rogers would never consider himself to be one of the fittest people in the world. And my putting continued through the final and I think I won by, what was it, seven shots.

The Year in Pictures

How cool is this photo?

As someone who loves photography, I really enjoyed browsing the "2010 TOUR Photos of the Year" galleries at pgatour.com. The editors asked their three staff photographers to each pick their favorite 10 photos from the 2010 season. The photo above of Arnie, Jack, and Gary is by Chris Condon, taken at the Big 3 fund-raiser for the Mountain Mission Kids at the Olde Farm Golf Club on June 8.
     "These guys don't get together very often and it was a pleasure to be a part of this event that raised a record amount of money for charity," Condon comments.
     You can view the rest of the pictures, along with comments from the photographers, from all three galleries (including those of photographers Stan Badz and Caryn Levy) here.

Mike Small is Big Time

Steve Stricker says his former teammate Mike Small is doing an "unbelievable" job as coach of the Fighting Illini men's golf team. If Steve says it, it must be so – and the stats back him up. Small's Illini, the two-time defending Big Ten Champs, finished the fall season ranked 9th in the country in the Golf World/Nike Coaches Poll and claim the reigning NCAA men's individual champion and Big Ten Player of the Year, Scott Langley, among their ranks. In 2010, Small was named Big Ten Coach of the Year for the third time (2002, 2009).

     On the course, Small is two-time defending champ at the PGA Professional National Championship – he's won the tournament a record-tying three times overall. He's also won a remarkable nine titles at the Illinois PGA, including the last eight straight.

     That's why the staff here at Whiffling Straits was so honored to have spoken recently with Small about playing, coaching, and what the future holds, both for him and for his exciting Fighting Illini team. 

UPDATE: Coach Small made the cut on the number this week at the Children's Miracle Network Classic at Disney World, the final official event of the 2010 PGA Tour season. He shot a 2-under 70 on Thursday and followed that up with a bogey-free 71 on Friday. He held fairly steady on the weekend, shooting 71-74 to finish at 2-under for the week in a tie for 65th place. Nice job, Coach!

(Image: Small with his 2010 PGA Professional National Championship Trophy. Montana Pritchard/The PGA of America.)

Whiffling Straits: Is it unusual for a college coach to play as much competitive golf as you do?
Mike Small: I don’t think anybody does it to my level. A lot of [college coaches] played in the past, on tour, but they seem not to have success once they start coaching. When I started coaching, I didn’t think I’d be playing this well or this much. So I didn’t really plan on it. But the way I’ve played, it just kind of evolved.

WS: What kind of challenges does that present?
MS: It actually presents a lot of them. It makes things really confusing. But I think there are a lot of positives that come out of it that outweigh the negatives. The negatives are, obviously, family time, away from home, I’m gone a lot. Coaching is my number one gig, my full-time thing, that’s what everything kind of revolves around. But at the same time, playing at my level, or trying to play, is an advantage to our program. It’s a niche that we have that kind of helps separate ourselves from other schools. I tell people we don’t have the ocean, we don’t have the [warm] weather, that a lot of other programs have … but every program has to kind of have a niche, a fit. And we run our program, approach our program from a player’s perspective, somebody who’s still playing. [Because] all these kids aspire to play on tour someday.
     The positives behind it: being out there and still being in the game, competitively, learning the new stuff that’s on the cutting edge in golf when you’re on the PGA tour, playing in events, equipment-wise. I’m bringing information and knowledge back to the players that most coaches get second-hand. So to get that first-hand is always nice and it helps our development.
     I always do my schedule around my coaching, but I have a very understanding AD – and my players are very understanding; they get a kick out of it. So when conflicts do arise, I have to make the decision based on what’s happening. But if we’re playing in a tournament that’s not as big or as prominent, or I can be gone when I need to play in a tour event, I usually can go. But that doesn’t happen very often at all. I try to have coaching be number one and playing be number two. And that’s the way I schedule my time professionally.
      But with the family, and being gone a lot, it is tough. But they get a lot of advantages, too, being a coach at a major university, and also being able to play on tour. Like this next week we’re going to Disney World for the tournament. The whole family is going. So it will be fun to go down there and spend some time, kind of relive the old days of playing, and then our fall season is done. Where it gets tricky is with recruiting. Because coaches recruit every day, all day, almost. And I do that on the road, juggle two things at once.
     But to wrap this whole answer up, personally I think it makes me better at both. Because if you do something all the time, 100% of the time, you get a little stale and burn out on it. I think coaching, if I’m coaching all the time with the guys, all spring, and I know I have some tour events coming up, or the PGA of America event coming up, in early summer, it kind of gives you something to look forward to and it gives you a fresh clear picture … you don’t get stale. There’s no repetitive stuff, there’s always something to look forward to, and vice versa. When I’m out playing for a week or two, I’m always looking forward to coming back and talking to the guys and see how they’re doing, and see what we can do with their game. I think my patience is better, I think I’m fresher at what I do with both of them. I’m not on edge or stressed out with just one job.

WS: Does it help you feel like one of the guys?
MS: Yeah, I think so. Normally I only play about four or five events a year. So I don’t really play a lot of tournaments, but I space them out so I stay involved. But it’s weird, the last 7, 8, 9 years, I’ve played so well in the PGA of America events, and the Illinois events, the Illinois Open, the Illinois PGA, I’ve been winning them. And it’s always in the news, and people are reading that and thinking I’m always playing. But I’m really not. I play four or five times a year.
Now this year I’ve played more. And next year I’ll play more. And like in 2006, I played more, because when I won the National Club Professional Championship – or the PGA Professional National Championship, what it’s called now, the PPNC – I get all those exemptions the following year. So I’ll play 11 or 12 events in those years, and this coming year, because of the exemptions. I’ve been fortunate to play well and get some media attention, so it seems like I’m playing a lot.

WS: Is it tough to keep your game sharp, to find time to practice?
MS: Yes. It’s getting harder and harder. I’m getting older. My kids are at an age now there are more things to do with them at night, school, and their activities. And yes, finding time to practice the last few years has gotten tougher.

WS: At this level of the college game, what do you primarily work on with your players?
MS: It’s probably more mental game, course management, scoring – scoring attitude and aptitude they have to have. But we’ll work individually on their golf swings if we need to. But if you’re a top 20 team in the country and you’re recruiting kids where you need to build golf swings, you’re recruiting the wrong ones. At this level … major college golf is not a golf academy. We need to teach these kids how to be players. And how to be tournament players and how to score and deliver a score. The golf swing is obviously a portion of that, but they should hopefully have good fundamentals when they come here.

     What we spend a lot of time on is ball flight, distance control, short game, getting command of our short game, increasing the number of shots they have. Most of them have five or six different shot around the green when they come in, if that many. You need to have 20-25 to be good. We [work on] how to handle course conditions, the mental approach to the game, mental toughness, mental competence, how to handle different situations. And I think that’s where we tie it all together.

Happy Birthday, Gary!

Gary Player turns 75 today. Earlier this year, I predicted:

Gary Player, the Jack LaLanne Perry Como of professional golf, will celebrate his 75th birthday on November 1 with a 40th anniversary release of his album, "Gary Player Sings."

As far as I know, this is not going to happen. In the absence of a Gary Player serenade, however, here's a link to an interview at golf.com, which includes this enlightening snippet about Martin Kaymer:

"I like his manner, and the way he shaves every day."

Yes, Gary Player is unique, a man with his own way of thinking and of doing things. After I made the above prediction, I posted this reflection on "The Legend that is Gary Player." An excerpt:

I find Player absolutely fascinating. He has an inspiring backstory, having grown up dirt poor in South Africa, where his father was a miner. His mother died when he was 8. He's gotten where he is today by working harder than anybody in the history of the game (even Hogan, by my estimation), both on and off the course. The winner of nine (yes, nine!) major championships, he was an amazing player, even as he labored in the shadow of Palmer and Nicklaus. Because of the "golden era" in which he played, I think he sometimes doesn't get enough credit today for what he accomplished on the course. Who knows how many majors he would have won had he peaked in, say, the 1980s?

That's two more majors than Arnie! Yet, who comes more readily to mind as one of the greatest players of all time? Probably Palmer over Player – a common perception that's really not supported by their respective records.
     So happy birthday, Gary! May your stature one day grow as large in the minds of fans as it already is in your own!