By Michael Arkush
I reached out to Hale Irwin a few weeks ago, just before he was about to turn 80 years young.
And braced myself.
I had been told by a radio interviewer – I was promoting my new book, “The Golf 100,” where I ranked the top 100 players of all time, men and women – that Irwin was upset he wasn’t higher than 54 on the list.
I was misled, apparently.
Not true, he insisted, and quipped: “It’s better than 55.”
I was glad to see he still has a sense of humor, which I believe has long been underrated. I’ve liked Irwin ever since I started covering the senior tour for Golf World magazine in the mid-’90s. And, as I wrote in my book, no one was more competitive than Hale Irwin. Not Tiger Woods. Not Jack Nicklaus. Not Ben Hogan. Not even Pete Rose. Strike that, maybe Pete Rose.
I listed a few examples, but one example I didn’t put in the book occurred in the 1996 Tradition at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Ariz., one of the four senior majors.
Irwin was up by two strokes with seven holes to go. He was in wonderful position, and then he wasn’t.
On the 12th hole, Nicklaus, just off the green about 25 feet from the pin, chipped in for an eagle while Irwin made a bogey after missing a 6-footer.
Irwin was now down by one and wound up losing by three.
Boy, did he seem ticked off when I interviewed him afterwards. His strategy, he said, sarcastically, was an “opportunity to prolong the legacy of Jack Nicklaus.”
When we spoke recently, I brought up that final round.
He still seemed ticked off. At himself. That he didn’t put that bogey behind him. There was still plenty of golf to be played.
It was time, I figured, to pivot to some fonder memories. Such as the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot – the “Massacre at Winged Foot,” as the well-known sportswriter/author Dick Schapp put it. Irwin prevailed by two strokes with a score of seven-over 287 for the first of his three Open triumphs. (The others were in 1979 at Inverness and 1990 at Medinah).
Irwin had a big advantage from the start – mentally, that is – over his peers who were complaining about one thing or another. This was the U.S. Open, he thought to himself. It is supposed to be a test.
The whole week he didn’t think of the flag. All that mattered was to keep every ball below it.
I also asked him what he would have done in life if he failed to make it as a professional golfer.
The nerve of me.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said. “I don’t mean that to sound that way. I don’t go into something just to see if I can make it. I go into make it, to do it.”
Come on, I said, you’ve obviously failed at something, right?
“I try not to remember my failures,” he responded. “I try to remember my successes and build on that.”
Which reminded me of something else Irwin told me when I interviewed him for the book. It had to do with the noted golf psychologist Deborah Graham. Irwin said Graham met with him back then.
Not to give him any pointers. Rather, to get pointers she could pass on to others.
Another thing I liked about Irwin was that he didn’t feel the need to socialize with his peers. While he certainly enjoyed their company, he wasn’t one of those to go over every shot afterwards.
Golf was his career but it wasn’t his life.
He still tees it up every so often but it isn’t the same. How could it be?
“To just go out and not have an objective,” he said, “is kind of hard.”
I asked him what it feels like as he was approaching the milestone of 80 years old.
A good thought for us all, don’t you think?