Bob Harig on his book Tiger v. Jack, Bryson DeChambeau's future, & advice for younger journalists

You're joined by my next guest, Bob Herrig, veteran golf writer. You've read him everywhere, ESPN.com over the years, Tampa before that, most recently SI. And now he's freelancing, doing all kinds of different things. He's doing golf channel coverage of Golf's Longest Day. Bob, what don't you do? Don't play golf very well, unfortunately. But, yep, trying to keep busy, trying to stay with my head in the game. And that's the idea right now. So I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Well, speaking of heading the game, I look at what you've done recently. Your book, Tiger v. Jack Golf's Great Debate just came out this spring. As you look at this book, I was reading it last week and one of the anecdotes that really resonated with me, and you did the research on this, young players in 2018 during one of Tiger's really big comeback years had some amazing opportunities to get paired with their childhood idol. And I think of Joel Damon at the 2018 Quicken Loans National, but a lot of other players did too. And I'm just curious, what was that experience like writing that part of the Yeah, that was fun, actually, because, you know, 2018 was such a different year for Tiger. Coming back, he was so appreciative just to be playing. And, you know, because of his category as a major winner, he would, the first two rounds, typically be grouped with players he knew. You know, he was going to play with Rory. He was going to play with Justin Thomas. He was going to play with other major winners. But when he got to the third round or the fourth round, it's by score. And there would be some random people that he would get grouped with, guys who'd never played with him before. You know, uh, One of them was Sam Burns early in the year. Sam Burns was pretty unknown in 2018. He was just a year out of school, basically. And he played with him in the final round of the Honda Classic. Tiger had a good tournament there. I believe he tied for 12th, but Burns beat him that day. But obviously, it was like a big deal. And you mentioned Joel Damon at the Quicken Loans over the summer. And they were grouped together in the third round. And the place was out of its mind cheering for Tiger. And he told a story about Tiger making a putt on a green. Um, uh, you know, Damon said I couldn't even hear or talk to my caddy. It was so loud and, but he loved it and he was thrilled to get the opportunity to do it. And, you know, almost, almost all these guys to a man, like we're just, it's, it's, it's like, it's hard to describe what this would be like in any other sport. You know, there's this. You know, and Tiger was very gracious in most cases that I found. I mean, there was no, like, you know, these guys would ask for his autograph. I mean, it's incredible to think of that, you know, so. Bronson Burgoon, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he posed for photos after, that was after the fourth round at the same tournament, you know. And they posed for photos and, you know, he got the family in there and the caddy. You know, Tiger did all of it. He was great about it. Um, you know, there was just, there was, there was a good half dozen of those types of stories of guys getting grouped with Tiger and how big of a deal it was to them. Well, I think what was also a big deal was watching them, observing them, us as reporters, Bob, observing the younger players watching Tiger from afar. I remember at Quicken Loans that week, there was co-leaders that were going to tee off last. I'm thinking of like the Zach Blairs or guys very near the top at that time, Bo Hosler. When Tiger was teeing off, two, three groups in front of him on the first tee, and there they are on the putting green. To a man, they're all looking over. And they cannot take their eyes off a Tiger. You see what I'm saying? Like, to me, that part was fascinating as well. Well, you know, and that was, you know, Tiger was playing well that year. There was a lot of interest in that comeback from the spinal fusion surgery. And Tiger almost immediately had success, which was surprising. Because the year before, we weren't sure. We weren't sure if he was ever going to play again. And then to come back and have some success and see some of the old spark, Um, you know, it was a great, it was a great time for him. It was a great time for the events that he played at. Well, you've covered Tiger for gosh, 40 plus years. You've been around him so many different times. Well, 40 year career, I should say, as long as Tiger has been around, there's been so much time you've spent with him in terms of interactions. I'm curious what interaction at this stage really resonates the most with you or what's one that comes to mind from over the years? I think, you know, the one that stands out might be after he won the Masters in 19 and, you know, is in that big interview room in the new Augusta Media Center. Still relatively new. And, you know, it's hard to get to these guys now. It's hard to scrum. You can't. Like, the way it's configured, you don't get real up close. But I remember going up to him afterward. He was wearing his green jacket, and he was about to walk off, and I quipped something to him about, hey, you know, you're now exempt for the U.S. Open going forward. Like, there was actually some question about that that year, you know, because of maybe not 19, but the following year, because his exemption was going to run out. Uh, you know, for, for, uh, you know, he was, he just, you know, hadn't been playing. And so he got a kick out of that. He smiled, um, you know, but there was a lot of interactions with him over the years. You know, he was, he was pretty good about letting a few of us walk with him inside the road, strong pro-ams once in a while, or, you know, get a few minutes with him here or there. I mean, Tiger was not one to give a lot of interviews. He didn't do many sit downs. I rarely did that. But I felt like I had my opportunities and that was always appreciated. Yeah. Well, speaking of the opportunities, I can just remember off the top of my head, a congressional at Tiger's event when it was there in 2016, you and our late colleague, Steve DiMeglio, he would always make time. I feel like very good about making time for you two. You guys would tag team together and get some quality time with Tiger, I thought, at these tournaments. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think he appreciated the fact that we were there, you know, we were around, we followed him a lot, we pay a lot of attention to him. You couldn't help it. I mean, you had to. In the role that I had at the time, you know, I used to say, you know, use the line like, I need to be there whenever he's there. You know, in case he slips on a banana peel, you've got to be there because anything that happens to him, positive or negative, is newsworthy. You know, very big newsworthy in golf. It transcends golf. So I felt it was important to always be around, and so I watched a lot of his rounds, and he took notice of the fact that we were out there all the time. So it was obviously, you know, I just saw that as part of doing the job. You just, you were going to be there. Yeah, well, speaking of being there, you mentioned he wouldn't do many sit-downs at all, but you did get Jack Nicklaus for a great amount of time for your book. Tiger v. Jack. I just wonder, for golf fans at home, you know, you have the interactions and nuances. You observed him in that time he had for that sit-down with Jack. What was that like? Well, Jack was about as gracious as you could hope for. Just, you know, very accommodating, helpful, you know, gave full attention, gave detailed answers. I've said this before, but I thought I got a kick out of the fact that You know, I asked him something about his rookie year, which was 1962, and he decided to just kind of go through it tournament by tournament. You know, like he started at the L.A. Open, and, you know, he went through, and the next tournament, the next tournament, and there was one tournament there where he had a chance to win, and the caddy that he had, I believe it was, might have been the Houston Open. And back then, you know, he didn't always have his own caddy. They had caddies that they used. Uh, locally and he was, the guy had a hard time pulling the flagstick out of the cup and, and, you know, like the, the birdie putts come in and boom, it's getting closer and all of a sudden finally gets it. And the cup came up with it and the ball smacked the cup and didn't go in two shot penalty. So Jack should have probably had a birdie ends up getting a double and ends up being in a playoff that he lost. Probably should have won. You know, so, but he told that story in a funny manner, you know, and it's a fun little anecdote. Yeah, no, I mean, and I'm sure a lot of really good anecdotes came from your other interviews, maybe not just, you know, with Jack Nicklaus, one of the subjects, but Tom Watson played against him, Lee Trevino, you spoke with Randall Chamblee and Jeff Ogilvie, a number of other people for this book. I'm just curious what stuck out with you from those conversations as well. Yeah, I mean, look, all those guys are great. I mean, Tom Watson was great. You know, Watson and Trevino were, unlike Tiger, who had obviously people that beat him, but he didn't have anybody beat him very consistently. I mean, Phil did to some degree, but not really in the majors. There's really only one major, maybe two, where Phil won and Tiger was sort of in the mix. Um, you know, they were never really in it together at the same time that often, but I mean, Watson beat Jack twice. Uh, you know, he beat him at the British Open. He beat him at the Masters. Trevino is the only player to beat Jack in a major playoff. Um, uh, and also got him at a British Open, you know, like, like a couple of their majors were won at Jack's expense. And so they were very good about talking about the other side. You know, they tried to not be intimidated by Jack. They knew he was the standard. A guy like Jeff Ogilvie, Ben Crenshaw, too, I talked to him. You know, they're kind of golf historians. They were able to give the both sides. Brandel's very, very opinionated, obviously. He has a lot of great takes, a lot of interesting looks. He was somewhat tough on Tiger in regards to, you know, what could have been. He wonders if he hadn't changed his swing or changed coaches and obviously done some of the Navy SEALs training, you know, injuring himself possibly. All those things got in the way of Tiger winning more. You know, he missed a lot of chunks of his prime career. You know, going all the way back to 08, Tiger was only like 32 at the time. Missed two majors that year. In 11, he missed two. In 14, he's still not even 40. Missed two more. And then, you know, 16 and 17, after he's just turned 40, at a time when you could still be winning majors, you know, obviously he won one at 43, he missed eight. You know, so, you know, I just rattled off, what, 14 majors or so that he missed? Well, you know, if he just wins two of them. And it's quite possible he could have, but we'll never know. Look, I bring up other guys like that, too. Ben Hogan was the same. He won nine majors. How many might he have won had there not been a car crash? So how many more might Bobby Jones have won if he devoted his whole time to playing golf? He was an amateur golfer who had other interests. He was an attorney. He had to make a living. Perfect. So. All of that is sort of intertwined in the book. And, you know, I hope people walk away from it thinking no matter which side they're on, the other side has a compelling argument, too. 100%. Yeah, this is Tiger v. Jack, Golf's Great Debate by Bob Herrig, your latest book here that came out this spring. Where can the audience find it? Well, Amazon is probably the easiest place. You can order it and probably have it tomorrow. Barnes & Noble, you can order it online. It's in Barnes & Noble. Target. Pretty much the major bookstores have the book, and there's an audio version. There's a Kindle version. So all those things are available if you find it online. If you just Google me or Google Amazon and type in my name or Tiger V. Jack, it all comes up. Perfect. Just want to wrap the last eight to 10 minutes of this, just kind of talk about current events a little bit. And I know you and I were at Live Virginia. We chatted with Bryson DeChambeau on that Tuesday. Mark Schleybach, of course, was there too, the three of us. And I was just curious, like, what do you make, what was your temperature check with him? You know, to me, his manager said we have two minutes. He gave us seven minutes in the end. He seemed fairly open considering what's going on with Live right now. What's your takeaway of Bryson, where he's at right now? Yeah, look, I thought he was he was forthcoming. You know, he was maybe a little bit irritated. I felt, you know, he admitted that he was he was sort of blindsided by the Saudi PIF decision to pull out of LIV at the end of this year. I think they all thought they had a longer runway, you know, and the high level of spending was was going to go on for a while and give them a chance to. To try to make it on their own. Well, now they have to make it on their own without them. And, you know, he was given some options. You know, what about the PGA Tour? What about the DP World Tour? You know, he admitted he's looked into some of it. I do believe he's committed to LIV. I do think he wants to make it work. I do. I do. I believe those stories. I think he's probably, I think he's been out there trying, you know, to give this a go. I mean, but that doesn't mean you're not going to look out for the other options just in case it doesn't happen. So two things can be true. And, you know, he floated the idea of doing the YouTube thing and not playing tour golf if this doesn't work out. You know, I have a hard time believing that's the path he would ultimately take. I don't think that's great for his actual professional golf career. Um, but, um, you know, he's proven to be different in that regard. He still plays single length irons. Um, you know, he, he went to AI to, to work out a swing issue a couple of weeks ago. I mean, so maybe that's something that could, could benefit him or work for him. I, I, I don't know. I, I do think you need the competitive reps though, uh, to, to be good in the majors. He's shown that he's been good in the majors playing for live. Not this year. Last year, the year before, golfers go through ebbs and flows in their game. It's going to be interesting to see how he performs at the U.S. Open next week after some scrutiny. He's played pretty good in the live events since, and now the next step is to bring it at a major again. Totally. Well, speaking of bringing in majors, another big-time player that you've covered pretty much his whole career since 2009, Rory McIlroy. I'm curious, your thoughts on Rory? To me, he's always been kind of the superstar that at times can be very relatable. There's just such a human side to him, genuine side to him. Maybe he'll change his mind on a topic and be okay with that when new information comes out. I'm just curious, like, what has been your takeaway from covering Rory from over the years? I just think he's honest, you know, and he gets criticized for being honest or for changing his mind. Well, you know, people are allowed to change their mind. It's okay. I'd rather that he be honest and tell us, you know. We want these guys to give us answers, and we criticize them when we don't, and then we're going to criticize them when they give us an honest answer? No, I'm... I'm all for it, you know, it doesn't matter if you or I agree with him, but we should be happy that he tells us what he thinks, you know, and then let other people decide if his opinion is, you know, look, that's what it is, it's an opinion typically, and if you agree with it, he's a good guy, but if you don't agree with it, he's a bad guy, I'm not so sure that's the way to look at it, I appreciate the fact that he, you know, He's shared his emotions, that he talks about being nervous. You know, that, you know, he's taken us through the, the, you know, the, the difficulty of that back nine at Augusta last year, you know, what was going through his mind and, um, you know, he kind of wears it. So good for him. I think that's great. Um, he's, he's, he's been at the forefront of the game. I mean, he's been basically in the top 20 in the world for the better part of 15, 18 years, you know, I mean, it's just a remarkable run of, of, uh, Of consistency, 30 PGA Tour wins when you don't really play it more than kind of the minimum. You know, 16, 18 events a year, still plays a DP World Tour, 30 PGA Tour events. Not too many guys are going to get to 30 going forward. You know, Scottie Scheffler obviously has a great chance, but who after that? Who's getting to 30 wins? You know, Rory might get to 40. So if Rory gets to 40, who's even getting there? And then going back to Tiger, 40 is halfway to Tiger. So in this day and age, getting to these numbers is incredibly impressive, and we're just not going to see too many guys do it. Yeah, it's going to be tough for these younger guys. It's because there's a core of a lot of strong players. You mentioned Sam Burns. I mean, there's just a whole bunch of them. J.J. Spahn winning his first major. There's a lot of guys to contend with at the minute. I'm curious, with your work life right now, obviously the SI golf got shuttered a couple weeks ago. That obviously affects you. What have you made of kind of the response from your peers since then? It's been very gratifying. It's been very nice. A lot of people reached out. A lot of people in the game, you know, I mean, you just sort of take for granted the fact that, you know, that people notice your work. You know, I didn't think of it in those terms, you know, but I'm just very, you know, grateful that people have recognized that, you know, I've been around for a while. They seem to respect the work I've done. Hey, look, you know, nobody ever gets it right all the time. Certainly not me. I make plenty of mistakes, but I think they appreciate the effort, and it's been nice to get that feedback, and I'm looking forward to, you know, keeping it going. Yeah, and I know you mentioned to me recently that you don't want to be sour about something, you know what I mean? Like, yes, it's unfortunate that this happened to you, but you seem to have a good head on your shoulders about not letting it deter your mindset, right? I'm more I'm more disappointed that. Not so much myself. I mean, obviously, I'm not happy about that. But, I mean, you know, there was a fairly significant financial setback for, you know, the owners of the company that we work for, MinuteMedia. And, you know, as happens today in business, what do they do? Layoffs. It's the easy way out. But what made it worse was that they decided to shutter golf at SI of all places. And I think it's short-sighted, you know, I mean, it's, and it's also scapegoating. Like we had nothing to do with the fact that they had this horrific, you know, thing occur to them. You know, we're just one little aspect of an online publication, mostly that was kind of punching above its weight, I thought, you know, and for this to be their knee-jerk reaction. And, you know, I'm not talking about me, but other really good people lost their jobs over that and they don't have the. You know, they've not been doing this like I have, and so they don't have an opportunity like I'm getting right now with you. So, you know, it's really disappointing how harsh of a decision that was and how, you know, really cold, frankly. So, um... So, but I'm, I'm, you know, I, again, I had a great time working there. I had great colleagues, Jeff Ritter, John Schwab, Michael Rosenberg, who wrote about golf, you know, and, um, it was a terrific place to work. You know, it's just the, this, this is life. This is what happens in big business today. And so, you know, you just got to pick up and move on. Totally. And I think about, you just mentioned too, like you've established yourself as a journalist from over the years, maybe more so than others that you've had a chance to work with and not realizing it. And I'm just curious, everybody, every journalist has their own style. And I know you and I spoke about this on the phone, maybe 12 or 13 years ago, that you feel like when you do a phone interview with a player, you really want them to be as comfortable as possible. So you won't put it on speakerphone. Thank you very much. And you'll just type, you'll be by your computer and you'll type out their answers. And I'm just curious, where does that come from, that idea and mindset? Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing a lot of people are fine with interviews being recorded. They probably should be. It's for their own protection. But, you know, when I'm on the phone, I just prefer to take notes via my laptop. You know, first of all, it's easier to have it right at your disposal in any way. You don't have to go back and transcribe it or re-listen to it. And I think it makes me concentrate on what they say also a lot better. So that's just sort of a thing that I've done for a long time. And it's easier than writing notes, you know. And, you know, there are some laws about recording phone conversations depending on what state you're in. You know, it's like, I don't even know where everybody always is, you know, like, is this really like what I should be doing? So I think it's just, uh, it's probably the better way to go. That's why I've been doing it that way for a long time. Yeah. Well, you've also, in my observing you in, I've been lucky to cover golf for 15 years since 2010, you're very good about creating genuine, authentic trust with your subjects. And I'm curious, what would be your advice to young reporters as to how to foster that? I think the way to foster it is to be there. Be there front and center. Even if you're not asking questions, they need to see you. They need to see that you're around. Then you do need to ask questions when you can. You try to ask as good of a question as you can. You might introduce yourself if possible. You kind of need... These guys have a lot of different media stops. They don't necessarily know who it is who's asking them the questions. It's good if you get them to know who you are. You know, even if you're, you know, at the very, very bottom, if you're, if you're an intern or if you're new, like, you know, they're never going to know you if you don't, if you don't try. And if you ask them a good question, they might have a pretty good chance of remembering yet. So, you know, mine is more due to the fact that I've just been around a lot, you know, I've gone to a lot of tournaments. I've asked a lot of questions. I'd like to think for the most part, they're, they're, most of them are probably pretty basic. They're legitimate. They're the types of things they should expect to be getting. And, um... Uh, and, and, you know, you just take it from there and over time it builds. Well, it's built a lot for you over these 40 years, Bob Tiger V. Jack is his latest book, Golf's Great Debate and Bob appreciate the time. Thanks for visiting as always. Appreciate you having me. Thanks a lot, Garrett.