The golf gods want us to play the game with something at stake. I have always played informal rounds with some money on the line—a couple bucks when I was in high school but a little more after I turned pro. It’s just the nature of the game. Sure, I still get a thrill from hitting an iron shot stiff on eighteen, but it’s more fun winning $20 doing it. Besides, I can needle my friends with more gusto if I use their money to buy lunch for everyone after the round.
I learned about money golf when I was teenager in Richmond, Virginia. My father was an assistant pro at Meadowbrook Golf Club and I loved the game from the start. When I was 13 years old one of the club members, a local car dealer, asked me to partner with him in matches against his friends. At first I had no idea the men were betting but I enjoyed the challenge of playing them. I soon began to appreciate the art of money golf, however, especially later, when my partner bought me my first car in 1965 when I was 15. It was a nice thank you for helping him win so many bets. I have liked playing for a little something ever since.
I turned pro in the fall of 1971 and had a good first season the following year on tour, breaking the rookie earnings record. My career really took off in 1973, though, when I won twice and ended up fifth on the money list. Thinking back, the money games I played during practice rounds helped me improve my game. As Mike describes in chapter 6, Bert Yancey and I played Arnold Palmer and Tom Weiskopf almost every week in '73 with a little spending money at stake. Tom won the British Open that year and five other tournaments, but Bert and I beat the two of them like tom-toms. We kept playing those games for years and I loved taking Arnie’s cash whenever I had the chance.
Back in the 1970s, the PGA Tour didn’t have the carnival of events now scheduled during the early part of each tournament week. Playing practice rounds for a friendly wager was fun and we looked forward to those games. Nicklaus would even send me telegrams to make sure I was available for a game. He’d write, "I got Hale Irwin against you and Raymond Floyd."
I want to make one thing clear: I never bet during the actual tournament and no one should. Practice round matches, however, set professional golf apart from other sports. You don’t see the Yankees and Red Sox playing a couple of casual innings before a three-game series. They are all business, all the time. We professional golfers, on the other hand, know how to separate business from pleasure in our sport.
At my home course, Preston Trail in Dallas, I have played money golf over the years with my friends, just as millions of other golfers do every weekend. The competition has always been more important than the money. But some of our "get-even" bets on nine and eighteen were scary enough to have made me glad to get back out on tour the following week.
I play golf by the rules, try my best to be a gentleman during matches, and always play for money—but never bet more than I am comfortable losing. Just as Sam Snead once said, the game might be boring without something at stake.
Lanny Wadkins
Dallas, Texas