For 77 of his 88 years on the planet Alex Mercer’s life has been dominated by golf.
A good player in his own right before a back injury early in his career, Mercer turned to coaching and having worked with the likes of David Graham, Steve Elkington, Brendan Jones and Michael Campbell (among others) successful doesn’t begin to describe his career.
His deep love of the game, keen mind and gift for communicating complex concepts in a simple way are all on show in this wide ranging interview with Rod Morri.
the play today NextGen nft collection is an Australian first it’s your chance to buy a digital collectible of one of golf’s Rising Stars 100% of all proceeds go directly to the player so you can help a young golfer chase their dream head to play today nf.com [Music] hello and welcome to episode 73 of the thing about golf the podcast series from golf Australia magazine that explores that internal question what draws people to this crazy and infuriating game my name is Rod Murray and I’m glad you could make it for this episode because it’s one that I’ve been wanting to record for quite a while we think of professional golf as one a morphous mass but the reality is there are two worlds of professional golf there’s the one we see on TV the one inhabited by the players that we’re all familiar with but there’s the other world of pro golf which is intimately connected with that one and that is the world of the coach my guest on this episode is one of the best coaches Australia or indeed the world has ever known and the proof of that is not only in his longevity but the Loyalty that his players have shown to him so effective is Alex Mercer as a communicator that not only did Steve elington rely on him throughout his PGA Tour career but flew to Australia with his own son promising young am Sam for Mercer to impart his wisdom across Generations from David Graham to Michael Campbell Brendan Jones and Steve aler Merc has worked with some of the best players to emerge from this part of the world but more important than that he’s helped countless thousands of Club players to get more enjoyment out of the game his philosophy is simple but not simplistic he’s teaching easy to understand without pretending that the game’s not complex in short he is a gifted coach at the age of 88 Alex’s Health isn’t what it used to be but his passion for the game hasn’t dimmed and his mind has not been DED and we as golfers are the better for it it’s been a lifetime uh for me uh I was brought up next to a golf course before it was actually built I was born where the clubhouse now is at North right uh and then eventually they somebody bought the ground started to make a golf course and my family were moved about 200 me along until we got into Bridge Street and we were probably with the third house from the golf course so with my older brothers all playing then naturally once the golf started they and we had eight kids and and Scottish migrants and one wage and and and and my dad was was doing well until the depression came and that flattened a lot of people um so we we went and uh looked for golf balls sold them to the members uh we C it if we could get somebody to because the bags were never big in those days they only canvas bags with about six or seven clubs most people used to use and if they paid you a shilling or one and six to carry 18 in holes you’re doing well we’ll come back to that let’s first clarify you’ve sort of aged things there how old are you Alex if it’s not too rude of me to ask I’m 88 88 and how many of those 88 years do you reckon you’ve been mocking around with golf and golf clubs uh until I had this problem at the moment that’s flawed me I’d say uh about 77 years and what is it then about golf can you put your finger on it why I imagine you’ve had multiple interests that have come and gone over that time but golf’s remained a constant why well it was just part of our growing up and my elder brother Dave who was pro at Kar for 42 years he used to drag me out of bed in the early hours of winter morning and the creek that ran along the middle of the golf course used to get sometimes a film of ice on the top wow here in Suburban Sydney yeah and well yeah that far west used to we used to often have ice in the houses but we used to to break the ice on the top to jump in with short trousers and collect the golf balls because when it froze overnight the water went really clear and you could see the balls doed on the bottom right so we we’d get those before anybody else ared it’s an early in the day so that’s how we started the day in Winter and we had those balls polished up to sell to sell to the members St or six or something to the members yes you mentioned the the depression in a time and which is an unthinkable thing I think for most of us who’ve been born after a certain time the thought of what a depression was what were those times like and where does golf fit in that period in history well we we were told that golf was a rich person’s game that’s because most people that we knew playing golf had come from England or overseas but in in Australia not a lot of people had a lot of money mhm so itough it was still for the very rich by our comparisons here they did encourage kids I had an old chap I CED for and how I started he bought a couple of Hickory shafted clubs out of his wardrobe because he said steel shafts were coming inh he wasn’t convinced but he was he thought they were coming in and that’s how I started to play when I was a little fell about nine or 10 it’s on a bit of a side note but that loss of the caty as part of the golf landscape in Australia yeah well buggies coming in yeah took away a lot because the big clubs like the Australian and New South Wales Royal Sydney uh they used to have a whole team of Cades and uh the members there were pretty wealthy often and they made a living out of it plus they they learned a lot about the game one of the important things about being a a professional player was to have a good caddy take somebody who knew the game still true Alex still true 2022 still true it’s the making of some players isn’t it oh yeah some players uh mentally wouldn’t make it without the Cy they’ve got and others reading uh Club selection under real pressure is a problem because you get pumped up your heart rate goes up and it’s no trouble for a good player to take one Club too much and fly the green and he scratches his head and thinks I can’t hit a six on that far what whatever Club it was but Arnold Palmer used to say that he could feel this coming on and he will automatically then take one more iron to the greens or one one less I mean he knew yeah he would go for a strong Club yeah cuz he knew he’d be pumped up there’s some issu there’s some things they will talk about about playing the game and Under Pressure because Bob Jones of course always said there were two types of golf there was tournament golf and then there was all other do you agree with that yeah two different attitudes although some people try to take it both ways and I don’t think that really comes out I think you either you’re having a lot of fun out there with some members or you’re playing the other guys for money although in in my day when I first turned Pro even though you turn pro and you playing pro tournaments we used to drive the cars we had then weren’t like they are now we used to drive to places like deniliquin Parks uh Aly to play a proam for the weekend and if you won first prize you’d barely pay your your hotel and your petrol but we played to be the best player we played to win the tournament that was much more important to us than the money was there was there a we see this with the rder cup captaincy if you become the rer Cup captain that doesn’t pay anything but having been the rer Cup captain you can make a lot of money having been a rer Cup captain was there something like that with your talking about in your day or was it simply that that Legacy to be the the best player or to have won the trophy all of our good players in my day like Kell Nagel uh Eric kman Norman V uh when they were young they weren’t going to make any real money playing here but they had to build up a big enough name to be able to go and play in Britain and the European circuit a few tournaments started to grow and eventually when America came in and they took up golf a lot later than than Australia and England and Scotland they’d been playing for a 100 Years of B 200 some of them so when when the whole world changed and this might happen to other sports was television MH because suddenly sponsors were prepared to put decent money up and bring worldclass players to play in their event because they could get television advertising but in the days before television there wasn’t a lot in advert ing through golf it was a part-time job wasn’t it being a professional most of the best known names of an ER would have a club job everybody had Club jobs yeah Kell Nel was at pimble pimble and Billy D eventually went to Fox Hills uh my brother Dave Frank Phillips worked at he worked at Concord uh he didn’t have the main Pro job but there and I I was at Royal Sydney after 5 years of Blacktown where black town was actually better because I could I could practice nearly every day out there there was and then weekends it went like a a circus but different customer base to Royal syney wasn’t it imagine yeah but that didn’t matter I could I was used to that so uh uh that’s what I I I can look back and I can say that the the whole world of golf changed uh when television came in for Prof professional tournaments there would have been no uh us PGA Tour there’d have been no PGA Tour in Australia I mean what was the point of trying to get a tour going for players only when there was very little money coming in for advertising to fill the field let’s go back a bit Alex you mentioned that as a school used to collect golf balls and somebody gave you some clubs had anybody previously in the Mercer family played golf because of course yourself you mentioned your brother David you had other brothers and a sister I’m not sure that she played golf but all of the others played didn’t they and yourself and David both professional yeah my my eldest brother who got polio uh myus in both legs when he was a young boy I remember cing for when I was about 11 and he was in the bgrade championship of the club and he would hand me his crutches and I’d give him the club that he asked he hit the shot and he give me the crutches or he give me the CL subub bag and I give him the crutches and that’s how we got around playing and he still got to the final of the big grade Championship so they and and my second eldest brother Jim he was the best Amit around uh Wong uh Central Coast for years uh and he won quite a lot of tournaments and Club championships there and then of course there was Dave and uh he played very well and uh became probably The Benchmark for keeping a club membership happy and running the type of pro shop that his members wanted because he was there 42 yearsa Golf Club on the and they they just love Dave and and uh he earned their Respect by providing a good service good assistance he was a good player uh and got his name up there and every so often and nearly always in the smaller tournaments he’d be somewhere near it and uh the whole thing sort of Grew From there so Kevin my younger brother he was a good Amit and my youngest brother they were both good ERS they played for R param Junior penis when they were young and Kevin was down to about four and and didn’t really apply himself enough but he was good player just as same plenty of ability but there were more things in life I G than playing you don’t want it that’s right you got to want it don’t you that’s right yeah well I I did lots of other things but I golf was sort of in my blood and uh but I enjoyed everything I played uh a lot of other sports and uh I enjoyed school I was well that’s unusual yeah yeah I I love sport but I love I love school and uh what about it what what about school did you I just like learning right I liked having other play other guys that learned of say I played Cricket at school I played football that’s how I H my lower back playing football at High School in my final year so uh playing rugby but I enjoyed the whole lot to me and then I I I had a scholarship to University and I did uh enroll at law and I worked at the State Crown Law Office and did my my uh lectures at the uh law school on Philip Street uh until I I went at a national service in 19 what was it 53 that’s a long time is it it is was that mandatory National 1953 yeah three months I had to do that there and uh then then the uh the other system afterwards I went into that where you had to go and do weekends and so forth but uh well captain of the Fort Street High School which is one of Sydney’s more prestigious academic schools actually always has been hasn’t it so you clearly no slouch in the academics oh no I I got through all the years all right pretty well and uh and I just loved it there were so many good guys met at school and and Sport you had to play sport at Forth Street they were a great academic school and you couldn’t get there because you wanted to go you in your primary school you had to do enough to get to sit for another exam to go there well I did this partly because I love school and I luckily for me the good Lord put some brains inside me and I could do it uh but my family didn’t have a lot of money so I won a biry to go to Primary School uh opportunity school and I won a birer to go to Forth Street and I B won a burer at intermediate and I got a commwell scholarship to go to university so I had to work in a funny way Alex you’ve competed your all life your whole life academic whole life’s been a competition competition and I love sport because I love competition yeah and uh and and golf I I’d come home from school at quite a young age and I’d go straight out the golf tour practice golf course what sort of age did it become obvious that golf was going to be your future that it wasn’t academic it wasn’t one of the other sports that golf is what you wanted to do um I wasn’t sure I was going to be a lawyer at first I was going to be a doctor then I was going to be a lawyer you go through all this when you were a kid but I played golf I just took it for granted golf was part of my daily routine it was always there I meet up with some of my old law student law school mates who were law students when I was and one of them said I would give anything on Earth to do what you did yeah but I couldn’t play sport well enough and I said but look at you got a double house down the spit and a big boat you got drive a damn Mercedes car he said I’d give the whole lot away he said you don’t have to Vlog yourself to go to work in the morning do you I said no I wait for the sun to come up and that’s my day started and he said well he said I go to work and I have for years but he said I have to make myself think of going to work I don’t want to and he said many a time I don’t want to and he said you don’t have that problem I said no that’s the best place I know it it’s a bit of a cliche Alex and all of us would have heard it a million times this notion of I’d give everything and from people who’ve done very very well in life there’s something quite serious in that though isn’t there you would have come across a lot of people you’ve done a lot of coaching in your time from touring professionals right to I would imagine handicapp golfers and you would have met many successful quote unquote people who were miserable plenty plenty well I had to be miserable because they were so upset if everything didn’t work out according to to plan and I don’t think we’re meant to have everything work out to plan and we’ all just Frizzle up the challenge is what keeps us going I’m sure and uh if people can’t stand a challenge and some of these people were born into big positions in their family which I don’t mind that’s that’s good luck to them but some of them had a different attitude to others some expected everything to be just put in their lap and when they came for golf lesson I knew quite a lot of people like that who would book a lesson and I knew I’d have a different approach to them to what I’d have to somebody else so part of my teaching was very quickly to understand that you can’t teach you can’t teach anything you teach the one person who’s standing in front of you at that time you can’t teach him what’s written in a book or what everybody thinks is correct because the only thing that’s correct is what works for you there’s something very interesting in what you’re saying there isn’t there it’s a it begs the question what is a coach what is a teacher because you’re right there are textbooks aren’t there there’s been books written about all of the mechanical elements of the golf swing that produce a good golf shot but none of it’s actually got anything to do with playing golf does it in many ways no well I just had a chap oh last week came along I hadn’t SE for years you’re still teaching Alex is you’re tell now people now and again R me and I I’ve had pups that I’ve taught 30 40 years ago wow H and Steve Elon still sends stuff across on the computer for me to if he’s going to go and play golf anywhere uh at his age it’s just invitation to playing things uh with older people seniors uh but he’s still serious he still wants to play well so he’s a competitor isn’t he if he’s playing well that’s why I picked him out at about 13 years of age as a as a future player because he can play as a kid better than he should have been able to at his age but apart from that he hated losing like poison and I thought well if you if you hate losing enough you probably be a winner in the end so he he wasn’t a bad tempered guy and he wasn’t he had his moments but he he wasn’t sort of a guy where had beat him had made him better as as good as he was the thing that made him get a little bit better than most of the other kids was he wanted to win more than they did and he didn’t do anything nasty or fight them he he just it was something inside him that said no you can do better than that boy and I love that most people if they were to talk about Steve elington Alex would have pointed to his swing which is held up by so many people is just such a beautifully a beautiful mechanical motion it is it’s a beautiful thing to watch but you didn’t you picked out something else about him which is interesting yeah but we worked on the swing too because he had also the other thing that caught my eye immediately he had a sense of rhythm uh and a a sense of balance that you you can’t be as good as he was if you didn’t have that can you learn that can that be taught yeah you well I think if you go to the right coach and the right teacher you can see teaching I think is putting a a picture in somebody’s brain making them practice till that picture is clear and then making them forget it so that when they played they were playing golf they weren’t thinking something out of a book or a theory so I’ve got I I reasoned that very early in my own Golf and uh I could play I could hit the ball right a few things went wrong I had a lower back surgery when I was about reaching my best and that was the time 1961 when Von and devil and I died but I was sort of having some good rounds virtually anything so uh on my back and that was a football injury from high school and that came back and I found after I had the operation for that I got strong again but it was too hard to practice as hard as I wanted to practice uh and then I got the club job at Royal Sydney and they wanted me to teach that the teaching became so popular down there for me that uh I had what would I have about four or five weeks in advance I’d be booked every day from 8:00 till knock off time 16 lessons a day some days because the members demanded it yeah but I wanted to go out and practice but I couldn’t so so your own golf it no doubt so um that that doesn’t do you any good with your golf but that it was what put me on my neck part of my career because I I still wanted to play but I I couldn’t play if I didn’t practice enough I could play but I couldn’t play well enough to to do what I should be able to do but I loved the teaching once I got into it and I found I could make people play better and uh I got a few Pros David Graham came to me and he you know when he really struggling and we worked very hard with David for a couple of years until he was right and he took off and did his own thing and he’s still the only Australian to win two majors in America so um he was he was a success out of hard work he was reasonably talented nothing like El elington was very young but his work ethic was mindboggling well he switched from left to right-handed did he not quite late before I knew him quite late in playing career in that yeah that’s right when he was about to turn pro yeah but uh now he he was struggling and he came to me I was playing in the the Australian Open at Royal Queensland and uh I had never met him he knocked on my motel room one night and I was just about to turn it up and be ready for the next day and uh he said I’m David grah for we met and he said I I need help with my game I want to play better I can’t sort of he a lot of people have given me advice and I’m struggling he said I watched you play today and I want to hit it like you hit it today I said all right I can’t promise you that and I haven’t seen you play but when we go home you ring me at Royal Sydney and I’ll find time for you and that’s how we started and when we started I thought well this kids got some good things but but his game technically needed a fair bit of understanding he didn’t really know clearly what he was trying to do that’s the way I read it and I gave him a few things to work on I said well I want you to get yourself some decent practice balls I want you to go home and then when you practiced that hard enough I want you to ring me come back next week we’ll make it a weekly thing so he came back and he started to improve a bit and the next time he came back couple of weeks later I was out in the front of the shop and he was on the back bench with a Stanley knife he was peering calluses off his hands oh wow I said what are you doing with your hands you can’t play go what are you doing off the golf course he said I’m doing nothing I said well how do your hands get like that he said well I get up early and I take my practice balls and some clubs down this Paddock he had or open space he had down near near crala somewhere in those days and he said I hit the balls and I pick them up and I do what you tell me to practice and I do that and I pick him up again he’s in lunchtime I go home and I have a lunch and uh I drink and then I come back and I do that all afternoon I said every day he just every day wow I thought well this guy driven he at his age he was only about 23 24 I thought he’s got to make it it doesn’t matter what I tell him he’s going to make it if he does that so somehow somewhere does that work for everybody no it doesn’t work for everybody not everybody’s wired that way AR no not everybody but see he he was like Steve he had what Steve at any more so he said to me I have to be successful at golf there’s nothing else I know how to do right that’s it it’s this or this or nothing yeah so he he decided that was it or it was finished quite the motivator isn’t it yeah and that’s a good motivator I didn’t argue with him I thought it was fair enough I’ve never seen anybody practice like he did ever it’s easy in the modern game I would think for somebody who can really play particularly a young person to follow a lot of dead end roads there’s a lot lot more information probably available exactly how do how would you what advice would you give a young play of how to navigate all that particularly with the money in the game where there’s a lot of sharks in the pool isn’t there yeah but but the more you the more you feel your head the you’re given by by what happens by your way your body is put together you’re given between about one and a half and two seconds to start your back swing and finish your follow through now you’ve got to find out for you personally how many things can you learn and think about in that time that’s the first question I ask and they say oh not many I say well you’re just like everybody else the greatest genius in the world can’t think of the number of the things that people are trying to tell you to think of during during your swing at the same time hit the ball and they say well what’s the most important thing for me to remember I said you’ve got to visualize what you’re going to do and the first thing you’ve got to then do is learn how that feels because you you can’t visualize something you’ve never done so it’s no good you standing on The Fairway saying I’m going to need a soft fade five on into this green if you’ve never hit that shot you’re wasting your time standing there staring you might as well be staring into space so you’ve got to learn to hit all the shots that count by finding out how to do it and by standing on the practice Fairway I’ll stand there I’ll tell you but when you’ve really produced that perfect shot the most important thing is to remember in here what what it felt like the words I give you might help you but your image that you’ve put straight into your brain because it wants you to do it again your heart wants you to do it again if you’ve never seen it you don’t know what you’re looking for so you learn to play the shots that you require and you learn how to and you practice until you can do it over and over again then you the best thing then is to forget how because you’ve only got to look at the shot on the course and your brain says I remember how to do that Bang surely Alex that is far too simple for a world full of technology and TR well that’s what I’ve had a young fellow came to me from years ago from the Australian he would have been a good player his father took him away from me because he said I was too simple too simple I said that’s good I I don’t know how to complicate it anymore because golf on the course is not an academic game it’s a practical game the golf ball as I’ve told some people the golf ball doesn’t go to university no it’s doesn’t read by biomechanic books it goes where you hit it I don’t care whether you crossed your legs or what you do if you hit it where you want to hit it you’re a good player yeah yeah especially if you do it time and again and again you always hit it where you want so that your brain can picture that shot straight away oh I know how to do that well the snake was writing down how to do it this tells you tells your hands what it’s going to feel like the play today NextGen nft collection is an Australian golf first featuring Blake windred Grace Kim Harrison Crow and Kelsey Bennett it’s your chance to buy a digital collectible of one of golf’s Rising Stars 100% of all proceeds go directly to the player so you can help a young golfer chase their dream head to play today nf.com to find out more as a coach Alex and you’ve helped a lot of good players become better players we had Brendan Jones on this very podcast a month or two ago he still talks reverently about the help that you’ve given him he rang me in fact he told me the same thing about you he said oh no we’ve never talked about anything technical with Alex he just fixes my rhythm and then it works for me and he plays well he’s a fabulous player yeah um is the danger as a coach I imagine there’s a responsibility isn’t there not to mess up somebody like Cameron Smith and a Temptation in the modern for coaches I think it’s a danger yeah talk a little bit about that and how you kind of avoid that well you can’t avoid it you can as a coach you can you can uh in your own mind you can look at a fellow and you can work out if there’s a weakness that produces a particular shot that he’s unhappy with and he want he wants you to help him and you can see there’s a little weakness in some of the technical part of his swing or his grip or his posture or whatever it doesn’t matter there a million things but you can’t teach him that and three others at the same time you’ve got to you’ve got to make him understand how that one little thing connects to all the other things that happen subsequently and uh if you can do that then he got a very simple plan he knows this will connect to all that as long as he does this the very first thing but you can’t say what I know you can’t say if he does this he’s going to do that that that and that I don’t want him to think of all that I’ve got to know it otherwise I wouldn’t I wouldn’t pick out the key thing if I didn’t know how it was going to transpose into the swing but if if you try to tell the pupil every technical reason why everything he’s doing well how’s he going to fit it in one and a half seconds some people demand it though don’t they Alex they demand that you tell them from a to zed every point of what they doing I I’m afraid look look I’m not a nasty fell I know I can do my job I know all people can’t learn to play golf uh I know some of them can’t because they get in their own rad uh I think it’s marvelous when I was playing with members when I was teaching members and in playing friendly games with them uh I know that their game they talk about over a couple of beers in the clubhouse later is a far better game than they play on the go C I mean they could beedazzled me with technique and Science and just shot nauy off the stick so obviously knowing all that is great fun that gives them a great feeling mhm but they can’t play because of it the GU the best guys learn to play when they’re young they do their hard work on the practice range they pick up as much knowledge as required to produce the shots they want and that’s all they need technically then they need their head trained for golf what do you mean by that well people have said to me I’ve run up clinics in a country town and a big Club one day in Victoria and this guy said uh he said Ben Hogan said it was all left-handed he mind you I think he had a few points right I said no I’m sorry I said Ben Hogan said that if he was born again he’d like to have an extra right hand that’s what he said I said it’s not because his right hand was crippled it’s because he was sick of people saying you play one-handed so what he was saying is if you’re right-handed you shouldn’t be trying to eliminate it you should use it MH and this guy sat down and everybody in the room sort of looked around and that’s the sort of thing people think and uh and you you you just got to be and somebody said to me a woman got up and she said well we’ve listened here and it’s been absolutely marvelous but she said now what’s the worst fold in golf because you teach all these different people and Pros what’s the worst fault you’ve ever seen I said and I was thinking I said doubt and the whole room stopped dead there wasn’t a breath you could hear now she said no I want to know what’s the worst father I just hold it doubt to a reasonable player who’s got a reasonable swing and can hit good shots why he can’t do it in a tournament around the pressure is because he still has an element of Doubt so if you can eliminate the doubt from a player’s mind of being playing a shot under pressure or anywhere on the course you’ve made a big move forward so one thing I say to all my Pros playing for money you don’t play a shot in doubt and you don’t second guess yourself if you you looked at the yardage and you’ve looked at the wind and you’ve looked at the lie and you think it’s a six on you hit a six on you can’t hit a 5 and a half or a 6 and a half because there’s a lingering doubt if it’s wrong you’re human that’s why you got a short gun you got to play short you got to be a good Chi and putter yeah but you can’t play seriously well in without in your mind about your own ability to produce the shots or if you’ve got any uh ability like some people and I watch it on TV this fascinates me I don’t say anything to Shirley but no she don’t like this no she I wouldn’t I’ll be in trouble but they they they ask these I give them an alter Al turn three question answer and they pick one of the three answers out as the correct one and I’ll mention one straight off but then I’ll mention may be the another one this and then they then they’ll pick the second or third one they’ve been given but the first one that they brushed over is always correct the right one yeah can’t feel the Instinct yeah well golf’s like that you you know if you make up your mind that it’s a certain shot even if it’s not you’re better off to go with what you think I’ve often thought Alex that golf should be renamed easier said than done oh yes it’s easier said yeah it’s hard well it’s hard and I’ll tell you why it’s hard to and why all the this is just my my this is what I’ve lived on in my in my work it’s futile having I I’ll tell you a little story in a moment it’s futile having biomechanics physics and all these Sciences into a golf swing because on the golf course you have downhill lies uphill lies left foot higher right foot higher uh all the way around on some courses you don’t have one level stance now how do the mathematics stand up if you try to build that machine on a non a non level stance so your imagination your feeling is what cuts one foot off from what’s Happening and adds to the other one I mean your body is the same as walking up and downstairs if you had to stop and think about the mechanics of lifting your left foot up and then your right foot up the next step people would break their neck be dead people all over the place the stairs would be full of people lying on there it would be you said you were going to tell a little story what was the story oh a little story I had a chip one day and I hope he doesn’t either this he went anyway he he he came for L and we had a little listen for about five or 10 minutes uh and work out he was pretty good and I just said look there are two things that I’d go away and practice if I were you I’d practice this and I’d practice that and I showed him why then hit a couple of balls they went nicely and then he said uh look he said I’m a what was I’m a surve or or an architect or something and that doesn’t make sense because if this this and this and this he went on and on and I said look you’re paying me for half an hour now I’ve just had 20 minutes of lesson that I’m not paying you for so there’s something wrong here cuz you’re going to pay me for half an hour and you’ve had five minutes but I’m not paying you and you just give me 25 minutes so either you want to learn to play golf or I want to learn to be a whatever it is and he’s stood there and and he was a member of a major Club there uh but I just had enough of this and I thought and they read books and they listen and then they have they in their own business they they try and Link it in and I felt like saying you how do want five minutes for each swing this this this this the ball won wait it’ll get old I have never had a golf ball out of the packet yet has been to University the day you do is the day we should probably all give up you mentioned the lady earlier who asked about the biggest fault and you said doubt what’s the biggest and you must have come across this a lot of times people have’ taken up the game perhaps a bit later in life and become obsessed obsessed with the game convinced and they’ve got to get better at it what are the dangers in that you would think that that should be a very good attitude to take into improving golf yes as long as you don’t go and have du lesson from this Chap and listen to something on television and then look at your computer and pick up something else and then go down the street and have listen from somebody else because while you’re doing all this trying to get better and better cuz you’re trying to get more and more knowledge into your head you’re Mak it harder and harder to play because the one thing you forget totally and these people do I know I teacher they forget the most important thing of all is to bring the club face back to the ball in the right position to hit it so they buil thinking of elbows shoulders turning the hips doing this but the LA I said when did you what part of your wing did you remember to drive the face of the club back against the ball Square ah they just open their eyes and look at you I say well that’s 90% of the game the rest you’re allowed is 10 SEC 10% but 90% you’ve got to be determined and pumped up to hit the ball properly on the face of the club you can’t play if you don’t do that so they think if they have all these movements but they don’t know where the club at is they can play no way the wrong way around it’s the wrong way around and that’s why in every Club in Australia that I’ve been to over the world probably the same you’ll get a guy walk in he lives out of town doesn’t have any pros around him to teach him no phone no computer no goes and hits a balls few balls in the paddock now and again and he’s got a natural incl instinct and natural uh coordination to bring the club face through the ball square and this guy will walk out without any knowledge and he’ll win the Club Championship or something and it happens everywhere and the guy just knows how to do it he he’s picked up the most important thing of all if I’m balanced and I’ve got a bit of rhythm going and I bring the club back to the ball at the right position it’ll go straight you’re absolutely right I think about the own the club champion of 20 plus years at the last Club I was remember it could not tell you how he did it and it didn’t look terrific as a golf swing to watch but it went where he looked well good play that’s right he chipped it in three times around occasionally he’d shoot seven or eight under off a handicap of two or three yeah around the little course he could play golf it was he could play golf couldn’t tell you anything about golf wasn’t all that interested in golf Beyond his own Weekly game but he could play golf yeah well he had a lot of fun didn’t he yeah very much playing the game see his challenge was to get it around the course in a good score yeah some of people take up the game and I think the challenge is to have a perfect swing but nobody knows what it is I was in America with eling at a a place called Oak Oakmont it’s a great course difficult Golf Course Great Golf Course yeah downhill granden and a putting green at the clubhouse yeah the ninth Green in the putting for one big service isn’t it yeah yeah and uh Ben Hogan was reputed years ago to was the only one who mastered it but uh the other fellow who won the British Open the American youngster uh I’m getting old I forgotten his name but he had a great score to win a tournament there Johnny Miller Johnny Miller you’ve got it I’m you you’re my history man there’s a lot of people know a lot more than me trust me but uh this course you know it’s it’s just a marvelous course there but the pro he was on the teaching committee uh this Pro I don’t know whether he pro at that course he was a pro anyway and he walked down introduced himself he said dear mind if I take a video of you working with kingon I said no not the slightest so he’s got over there where came and I was just tuning Steve up a couple of things I wanted to remember and uh then he said look there are about 20 Pros along here how about we walk along and have a look at them I said all right and every single one when they hit the ball youd you’d think he should win the tournament got to be the best player in the world every single one was hitting these magnificent shots everybody and we got to the end of the line he said who do you think’s got the best swing I said I’ll tell you on Sunday night he said what so I’ll tell you on Sunday night he said how come I said because on Sunday night they’re going to give the biggest check to some guy and if he hasn’t got the best swing for him this week he should give it back cuz they’re only going to give it on the scores I’ve got to give it on a on a swing or that you or I think is good he made his swing work this week that guy that’s where he gets the money yeah and this guy just shook his head walking away he said you Australians won’t give you anything that’s what he said why do you think we as golfers are so obsessed with the Aesthetics of the golf swing you would have heard lots of people B and Rhythm Adam Scott absolutely he was born with it he he could play any sport and he looked the same he had the he had that balance and Rhythm to do things that made it look easy yeah but he worked he and I worked very hard it was good when I started with him but he got better you said there you were tuning Steve hin prior to a big tournament so clearly he was a longtime professional at this age what does that mean what do you do with a player like Steve as a coach or a Brendan Jones or a Peter well with my players I know what to talk about right that is good for them to get in their heads and it’s a bit snaky sometimes because they ask you about a swing but you’re sneakily putting a bit in their heads about some thought that’s going to be important on that particular course or something and you don’t want to make a big issue of it because you want them to have as Freedom as much freedom in their mind as they can but tuning up is every good player has got some little thing sometimes that’ll creep in and I’ll just watch Steve hit I’ll say well how do how have you been lately when you’ve when you’ve had to hit a fade off the tea and he’ll say well I haven’t been managing it too well and I’ll say yeah this is why ah all right so we’ll had a couple just hit them down there and Le away that works good I say well that’s it you’ve forgotten that and that’ll be today’s tuning up tuning up see we when he won the open at the Lakes uh he hadn’t played on that new course at the Lakes and uh he came back from America and I’ve been asking for years to come back and play in the open but we sat out after the game and I said now you can win this tournament if you can hit a one IR or a two IR or a smallish Club all the way around the back nine and make H learn to hit shot a little fade because all the troubles going to be on the left on almost every hole and most of the holes the length you hit the W you don’t need a drive if you’re in doubt if you look down and you don’t feel comfortable with the driver take a three-wood take a two hour but hit her on The Fairway because if you hit of these Fairways you’re going to be a threat so he should we got a practice Fairway the next morning at the Lakes he said that I thinking it last night when I went to sleep I’ve got to hit on all these t- shots I’ve got to hit with a little fade I said you every one of them is the safest way to play The Back Nine and that’s the trouble nine all the water that you can kill yourself with is going to be on the left on most HS or at least if it’s on the right you can aim down the left and fade onto the Fairway so he said all right well how are we going to do that the balls were there I just a funny thing you’re asking can he said I can fight a shot but to stand up confidently and know I can fight it off the see what do I do I said or I hit a shot I said can you feel how much you turned your hips through the ball he said yes I said how about we turn them a little bit quicker and a little bit more you get this Fai I said I want you to put one thing in your head the more you turn left the more you’re going to hit the ball to the right the hardest thing to do is hit it left if you turn left before you strike it all right not up here I’m talk about his legs and hips so he got R the back nine every day in under the card by quite a bit and he played the front line pretty ordinary for for like that one the open the front line should have been easy for him but he played a couple of silly shots in the front line but the back nine he killed it every day and he was out I was watching him he was having a practice swing and he was just giving a little bit more of a tweak through with his bottom half and the bll was going doing what he said to me later that’s a good rule isn’t he said if you want to hit it if you want to stop hitting it left turn left I said that’s what you got to say so he’s telling his son young Sam he’s a very good player himself BS of things he brought him out here for me to teach him oh right okay yeah Sam wouldn’t listen to anybody else right he whoever taught my dad’s good enough for me that’s a that is delightful to think that that uh that that happened that Steve son wants you to to help him with his go yeah well he won’t turn pro CU he won’t be as good as his dad but he’s a good amator and he’s got a good job yeah and I said to him if you if you got any doubts about playing for money make a life for yourself get a good job work your way up in your company until you get to the top where you’re going afford to play when you want to that’s right and we’ll still practice on your game yeah then at some stage if you’re good enough you’re can turn the corner and play pro tournaments too you can make a lot of money being good at golf without turning professional in America am you get into that Finance world and if you can play golf yeah you can make a lot of money just by being able to play golf it’s graduation no Ste is he having Shirley’s just mentioned Alex ran the the national coaching in New Zealand for about n years and Steve ala was a pupil of his people who’ not heard Steve alka’s name before perhaps weren’t close fing and they certainly know it now what a second life he’s having the senior well he could always play as as well as he can now virtually almost you got older and but he’s stronger now he hits the ball stronger but I got him in the school a national school when he was too young to be there but the officials of of the of the amate association they said uh this kid we want you to put him in there’s a reason want you to put him in so I put him in the school and I realized straight away he was tenacious little so and so with a real good swing a good natural swing so then we had some fun and I used to put him with these big guys thought they could play and he would embarrass some of them when they went around the afternoon playing and uh he’s a good kid he he good kid he’s 51 51 made about $3 million this year if you’re if you’re 88 well I suppose that’s make a good point there everybody’s a kid a kid when you get to 88 that’s fair enough no but he rang me some time back when they were playing at playing at moona links yep and he had rung me from New Zealand he had come down to Royal Sydney first and I spent a few hours with him there and he came down to Muna lyx and uh I arranged to see him on the practice range there then he went home the following week and won the New Zealand PGA so and he such a terrific little fell he he played ice down Cup in France I know because I T all the New Zealand teams to their eyes now cups for about 12 years okay including when they won the only time Campbell Michael Campbell SC scill yes Steven scill scy Hill uh tarangi tarangi on the PGA tour and commentator now you hear him quite often yeah good Blake feel lovely little Blake and they all came through from Juniors right through with me until I now then they turned Pro and Michael Campbell won the US Open he came along as a youngster too he came along in fancy Duds and he was a song and dance kid he used to go down doing uh shows when he was a young kid and uh he was good but he didn’t he didn’t appear to be as talented as some of the others but he had such a way about him that if things worked out he was above the world he was a performer in many way he’s a per performer if things were working out and he was going well he would really thrive on that yeah so I was State coach for the New South Wes em team for 32 years wow and seen some players over that I’ve seen a few through and at the same time I coached Brisbane the queenslanders at the same time as you were coaching three or four years yeah goodness me and I did the South Australian ladies team I used to go over to Western Australia to work with them and do a lot of golf schools for them to get them going and uh gr yeah gr Marsh came through those schools and quite a few of the play and then U and then I was doing New Zealand not long after that they came from New Zealand and big me to go over and do it there so then we then I had a fullscale coaching stuff so I had nothing else to do I I I didn’t have time for anything else virtually lots of good players Alex a would find the idea of trying to teach other people and particularly handicap golfers they’d rather extract their own teeth without anesthetic put up with that and B many of them wouldn’t actually be very good at it what do you think’s the difference been for you why do you think you cuz you were a good player and you’ve been an even better Coach I would suggest and well I I was forced into coaching full time when my injuries and stuff and and my obligations to get money from my wife and children to me that that was more important to me than it was winning golf tournaments so I just went along the track that my that my heart wanted to go I would have loved to had nothing better to do than go and practice to become better and better uh but I’d seen it I’d beaten the best players in the world on a good day and I’d played with them and against them who did you play it’s a it’s a privilege to be a professional golfer for a living isn’t it it really is it’s a very privileged lifestyle to have opportunity who did you play with over the years cuz you did play with some oh I just got all of them you know different times uh Arnold P came and gave Shirley a kiss at the British Open what a surprise that must have been for everybody Arnold sweet talking the ladies yeah he was a champion and kill Nagel say I I I wag school to watch kill Nagel play an exhibition with Bobby log at at Concord wow yeah my Headmaster gave me 10 shillings to get in is that wrong he said you can pay it back when you come back fantastic I didn’t ask they called me out of class I thought what have I done wrong cuz it a pretty strict school yeah what have I done wrong I said in school uniform and everything he said now you should be at conquered Golf Club I just read the paper and there’s a big exhibition on golf today Mr Nagel and Bobby lock from South Africa he’s a world famous player he said and I think you should be there cuz I had just won the school boy Championship uh and they were pretty proud of that at the school and I was 15 I think so he gave me 10 Bob so I could get the bus and I could get there wow so I walked around Concord at 15 watching Bobby lock play K what did you make of Bobby lock there wouldn’t be too many left who’d seen Bobby lock play in person I wouldn’t think bit about the game well see he had what Ben hogen called ball control K would hit it 5050 yards past him and kellwood magent striker in those days uh that’s before he went to England and decided to cut it all back and just go down the middle he was pretty good at that but um they called him the crusher didn’t they the pimble crusher Crusher they called him yeah that’s what I’m talking about those days he was oh he was mindboggling and um it wasn’t that long after they came out of the army say 1945 well this was about 50 49 or 50 mhm and uh a lot of them just had to make their way back into what they wanted to do and uh what a tumultuous times I just I wonder Alex do you think it was easier or more difficult in the past we see how much money’s in the game now how much assistance is available if you’re a talented youngster the access you get to technology and to coaches and to all of those things in some ways has it made it more difficult be successful as a it’s a numbers game purely now uh and the golf club manufacturers have change the game because the public want to see people hitting it a long way you if you tell somebody to buy a new set of golf clubs and let the ball 20 hours further they’ll sell their house to buy they’ll buy them yes now the golf club manufacturers right at the end of when I stopped playing seriously I suddenly found the standard set of clubs was already going up in length cuz I used to use clubs about an inch and a half longer than S and I was a bit taller than I am now and uh I didn’t need them anymore because I’d get a new Zeal the clubs made and uh I’d ask him to make him an longer but they didn’t need it cuz they were bringing the Sha length up it was already getting longer and then the Loft I’ve got up in my shed up the E of all Golf dobs and stuff I couldn’t part with they got a little bit of something special about it but I I looked at a five iron in a set up there the other day and it’s a dead set seven iron in the new clubs oh man the seven iron in yeah yeah absolutely it’s got the five iron loft these what used to be a 5 IR is now a 7 IR there’s no question of that and that’s why when they hit the ball like I look at these us tournaments they they will hit three4 of the power fours with a N9 or a wedge they’ll even hit power five with a with a uh what do you call the thing in between a wedge and a pitching wedge gap wedge yeah but more important than that Alex they now have a sense of entitlement where they’re staggered if there’s a par five that can’t be reached in Two Shots and there are many players who believe that’s unfair Yeah just they reckon they should have I tell people I say if you could get a set of the old clubs that we we I don’t mean mug clubs I mean real good clubs that we played with like 45 50 years ago and use a Balada covered ball with a W Center and see how well they play those goes it’s a totally different game the best players would adapt pretty quickly would they not oh they fig they figure out to take more club and they figure out that the ball was going to move a lot more so they better they better not try to move it about too much as a spectacle the professional game would be more interesting would it not if the ball didn’t go as I think people I think people and the players enjoyed more seeing a 450 yd power for knowing that unless they flushed their Drive they’d be eating a a two or a one on or a fairway would for their second shot to a par four but nowadays that that’s unheard of when you watch the golf the modern golf these days there are still some players who stand out I think who you could pick would be the ones it wouldn’t matter if you gave them a shovel they can move the ball they can play who Do you enjoy watching of the men and of the women as well imagine did you you would have watched women’s open this past week yeah some of the girls swing the club beautifully I I think men men Le is it she’s a some of the Korean girls swing the club so well balance and Rhythm perfect and with the men there are some great swingers a lot of them but some of the guys I like watching I like that uh CH the guy that won all the tournaments is it Scotty Sheffer earlier this year the world number one yeah he he gets into some of the most unusual positions at time but he knows where the ball’s going he he can move it this way move it that way he’s got what I talk about to my players he can feel and he lets that control the feel you don’t fluke youate to world number one do you I know you got to be able to play and and the other thing is the the standard of putting I know the greens are probably a lot better I played tournaments on greens years ago that they wouldn’t P they wouldn’t play they play them as Fairways some of quite possibly Alex they’ and uh these guys you can’t just say the greens they are just brilliant Putters you look at Scotty uh and these guys uh Smith you mentioned yeah Smith is one and and Scotty Sheffer he doesn’t miss puts eight 10 Footers of gimmies now I remember Peter Thompson and I flying back from Queensland after playing in the Queensland aen years ago he said you know it’s a funny thing he says you and I have been brought up and live on how many Fairways in green shet he said the only way we can be satisfied that we’ve played well is if we hit just about every Fairway and every Green he said they go out there and they win some of these tournaments they these kids he said they had no Fairways no greens and they still have a better school than we do yeah he said the emphasis on short game has been growing and growing he said it’s really it’s taking over the whole game he said you don’t have to be a great Striker anymore and trumps said that to me why you back and the the bige headed drivers probably just really made that even more yeah you can hit it badly nobody’s a bad driver of the ball anymore you whack it up there there somewhere and you whack it up somewhere sort of near the green what’s your take on the modern state of the game Alex and before we turn the microphones on we mentioned the live golf thing that’s happening what’s your take on where Modern professional men’s golf is at the moment women’s golf’s in a different place I think but well I think the women’s golf is getting better and better because they’re playing they’re hitting the ball as far as the men used to hit it with the old equipment and they’re playing the sort of golf that we had to learn to play like 60 years ago 70 years ago and the golf courses is the the GOL courses are still mostly designed yeah more or less to suit that sort of game but to to make the golf courses suit the length e the all with the clubs that are being designed with the Loft they have the the uh titanium headed driver uh and I’d get a big head if I used one of those but they I mean they reduce the golf courses uh in a way that if they’re good enough on their short game and their short irons they can kill the course whereas you know when you look back over the years and years of golf it wasn’t like that you had to be a really good shot maker to get onto the green to be a to be a good but to look at golf now to somebody who’s been playing for a long time isn’t as good as it would have been if it the state it was to the people whove never seen it played the other way would they think this is the way you should play Power Falls 490 yard driv sand on including the players themselves now Alex we’ve now had two generations of players since anybody even saw a wooden headed driver let alone you used one that’s right there are players in the top 10 in the world who would never have competitively picked up a Pimon driver that’s right or a bada ball that’s a reasonably recent phenomenon up until the early 2000s that wasn’t the case but it really has changed the game what’s more important Alex professional golf or the rank and file Club member who plays every week for his whole life I think professional golf does a lot of good of the guys that going win money and look after their families and some of them make a a huge amount which they don’t need and and some are generous they give a lot back which is great but the average Club golfer I think there’s a lot of good in it for them if they’re using it as uh as an outlet when they’re running businesses or doing what they’re doing the chance to get out on the fresh air and in the open and play golf on the weekends or the days off must be something very precious I think to people and and I think it should be and they should they should have that attitude that I’m not here to make money I’m not even a pro I’m I’m here to enjoy the game how many of us do think that way Alex you’ve you’ve come across thousands of us in your life Club golfers we spend most of our time miserable don’t we because we don’t like the way we play well yeah I look I’ll say this you sound like a person I going to say this to most golfers look at top players and they think they should be able to do that too they forget they’ve been sitting in an office for 10 years while he’s been pounding practice balls all day for 10 years and he’s younger and fitter and he’s a better player that’s why we don’t like him Alex what’s the like about him he’s got nothing to offer the other thing that strikes me about us am golfers Alex we all say we want to be better don’t we we all say it constantly don’t we all the time yeah we’ll do anything we can not to have to work to do that won’t we we’ll buy a new buy some yeah you you think you can buy it yeah you can’t buy it we won’t work at it will we and you think you can by changing Pros here and there and listening to television and watching stuff on computers that you’ll play better but it’s easier than that really you’ve only got to get to the stage where you can make make the contact with the ball fairly reasonably and go and practice till you can trust that so when you play and you looking at the shot you you give yourself a real good chance of bringing it off you don’t say look I’d like to play this shot but I don’t know where it’s going but but we’ll have it go at it anyway because why wouldn’t you that’s why we play well you mentioned the p word there which is very rude of your practice none of us am do want to hear that Alex you’ve heard that before that can’t possibly be the answer I’ve taken more of your time I meant to it’s been fabulous to catch up with you we haven’t even touched on a quarter of the topics I wish I’d talk to you about but it’s been terrific of you to take some time really appreciate it it was good f look talking golf to me now is about as much as I can do with it but but there lot of young people come and ask me questions that I’m sure they need to know the answers to and I enjoy talking to them pros and young pros and people uh in the game because if they’re put on the right track now they’ll get some benefit later on when I’m dead and G they’ll still be getting some benefit from you’ve made a career and a life of doing that fabulous thanks very much M really appreciate it thank you a common theme emerges when you interview somebody with the wisdom and experience of Alex merer and that is that you always walk away feeling like you only got a fraction of the story I’m sure that’s true and I’m sure it’s true in this case too but I’m glad that we’ve captured what we did with Alex and I hope that that you enjoyed it as well that’s all for episode 73 but make sure to come back next time because we’re in for a real treat from John huggan on episode 74 one of the most interesting things were at the end of the night he shook my hand as we were leaving and wished me good luck in my career and he said Paul just remember in my career I’ve spent 90% of my time losing at this game and 10% winning and I’m the most successful has played the game it’s a tough sport you know be ready for it be ready for losing how did Paul McGinley come by that advice from Jack Nicholas find out next time on the thing about golf [Music]
