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Great Week at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

by Rush Limbaugh - Feb 13,2006


RUSH: Before anybody misunderstands, now, we had a call last hour about my interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox. It was a great interview. I had a great time. He and the whole staff of his show could not have been nicer. We had a caller call and talk about a particular question — how I invest — that seemed to catch me off guard, which it did, but it would be incorrect to allude to any ill feelings. It was a great time. Neil is a great guy, and I was thrilled to be in the same place he was. I can’t do remote television interviews because of my cochlear implant. I mean, I could do it if these shows had the proper hookups for me, but they don’t, and so I was out there and he was out there, so it was easy. I was hitting balls on the range at Spyglass where he happened to be on Wednesday and Thursday, so I was able to get up there and do his show.
But I don’t live with these shows come out of, and I’m just not going to do remotes, so that’s why I don’t do these shows as much as I used to. If the shows would come here, it would be a different story. I shouldn’t say that because now they all will. But nevertheless, it was a tremendous time, and I also, if you’ll pardon me for this — well, indulge me for one moment — I just had a great time at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and played better in a tournament than I ever have because of my sterling golf lessons with the great Jim Hardy in Houston. To give you an idea, Tom Pernice and I were partners, and Pernice, it was just sad to watch because he just couldn’t make a putt. If I made my living playing golf, I’d need a therapist twice a day to deal with it. These guys are missing putts by fractions of an inch. You know, and that’s their business, and the pro game is all putting.
They all strike the ball. They all pretty much hit it where they want to hit it, but if they’re not sinking 18- to 20-footers for par they’re in trouble, and Paul Goydos was having the same problem. He was the our pro in the foursome. He is a great guy, too. His mother, he said, was a socialist. So we made jokes, had a fun time discussing various autographed items I could send her. I’m going to go out and get a copy of the Communist Manifesto and autograph it for Paul’s mother. (interruption) Well… H.R. said there seemed to be more babes at the Bob Hope, a lot of babes at the AT&T. I mean, the biggest galleries are on Saturday at Pebble Beach. There were some babes at the AT&T. They asked me to sign them — not their books or their program, to sign them! You gotta be careful. You gotta (interruption).


Yeah, I did it. I make them turn around. There’s even a picture of that. We’ve got pictures from round three up on the website at RushLimbaugh.com. Anyway, Tom was plus six, six over par for the tournament. We started Saturday, started at ten under, and by the time we got to the 18th hole, the last hole, we were 19 under. I was putting out of my mind. It was just a great… We were one shot off the cut line. The cut line was 20 for the amateurs to make the cut with their teammate, in my case Tom Pernice. If he would have birdied the 18th, or if individually parred it for a net bird, then we would have made the cut and played on Sunday which is a whole different experience to play on Sunday in a PGA Tour event. But nevertheless we both blew our drives out of bounds, his in the water, to the left.
I was about two inches out of bounds on the right, and so we took sevens, and ended three off the cut, but this is a risky thing to do because they don’t do what they do to get thanks or appreciation, but the people at CBS Sports. I had the most fun at the AT&T that I have had. They put my swing on their little slow motion swing analyzer on the second hole. It was funny because as we’re leaving the first green, we all get to the tee box on #2, and I see these two cameras, and they’re unmanned, and I walked over to Ron Lane, who was my amateur partner in the other group, twosome that made up our foursome. I said, “Ron, be careful. That’s that slow motion swing analyzer equipment.”
He said, “Don’t worry about it. There’s nobody there. It’s way too early Saturday.” We were the second group off. It was like 8:40. “Don’t worry about it. They’re out there getting the pros.”
So the pros tee off back at their tee, then I walk up to tee off, and literally out of nowhere, like it was Field of Dreams, the two camera operators bop out of the bushes, and I said, “Where did you guys come from?” because literally the stuff was sent up behind a row of bushes. There was no place to sit other than the other side of the bushes, and the moment I start walking to the tee, here they come. I said, “Where did you guys come from?”
“From the darkness,” they said.
Okay, this is just cool. It’s the final round and I gotta set up and I gotta swing in front of the swing analyzer which means they’re going to analyze it as though they analyze all the pro swings, Peter Kostis, who himself is a great teacher and instructor with Gary McCord down in Arizona, usually does this. So, I mean, heart’s racing. This is not what I do for a living, “Kaboom kaboom kaboom kaboom,” stand up there, and I boomed one probably 275 or 280, and I didn’t see the swing analysis until later, and Kostis says, “Well, it looks good. Oh! Oh! I take it back, too narrow, not rotating the lower body enough, too narrow at the top, need more rotation on that lower body because that will make a wider arc coming down and you’ll get more swing speed, more club head speed.”


But the club head impacted the ball right where it’s supposed to, in the top half of the club head, and it was 275, 80-yard drive, and I said, “More power? How could I hit it any better than this?” But it looked good. I was lucky, because I had a good swing with the swing analyzer on. Then we went to 15. Fifteen is where they generally interview the celebrities playing golf. They set up there because there’s this group of fans called Club 15, “professional summary judgment for the amateur golfer.” It’s about 150 guys and no matter what the amateur does on the 15th tee, they cheer like he’s just won the tournament. So I got up there and I boomed another one. I boomed this one 30 yards past everybody, and these guys are going nuts, and that’s when they did the swing analysis from which was on the second hole drive, and said that (laughing) I needed to get more power with the lower body.
Then did an interview with David Feherty as we’re walking to the ball, and I saw later some of the coverage. I just want to thank those guys, because they made it more fun than I’ve ever had. Feherty was great, Jim Nantz and Lanny Wadkins at the 18th booth, and Ray Floyd was up there. I didn’t know that. He was up there. I got to know him a little bit down here. They were just great. I’m not used to having nice things said about me any time on television anywhere. I’m used to snide remarks: “Well, that one’s going to go to the right. Oh, Limbaugh going left!” The gallery shouts that at me when I walk by. I said, “You know how many times I’ve heard that today? Come up with something else next time I see you,” but the galleries were fabulous. It was (interruption). No. No. I can’t. Snerdley says can I “place the ball sometimes where I want.” No. It’s an accident when it happened. I’m an amateur. I aim. If it tends up there, I feel good. If it doesn’t, I’m an amateur. If I could place it, I’d be playing on the tour, Mr. Snerdley!
They can’t place it where they want it all the time. What kind of question is that? Can I place it wherever I want! Well, I place once or twice a week. I could get better at it. Let’s put it that way. It all came together this week. It’s the best tournament three rounds that I had. I want to thank the people at the AT&T and the Pebble Beach people. They were just tremendous. It was a fabulous time. Something else: I heard a couple of pros, and I forget who, said they weren’t playing in this event because they don’t like the greens. The greens are too bouncy and they can’t putt accurately. These courses were in some of the best condition I’ve ever seen them, and if I can sink the putts I was sinking, so can they. Paul Goydos had a funny line on Friday at Spyglass. He had a really long putt, almost the whole green, and he had to really strike it hard, and it bounced a couple times off his putter. He missed the putt by a couple feet and he said, “Well, it looked good in the air,” but it was just tremendous time and I just want to thank everybody for contributing to the enjoyment that I had.
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