RUSH: I just want to extend my congratulations to 21-year-old Jordan Spieth, who won the Masters yesterday and set numerous records in the process. He was the leader in all four rounds. He held the lead from front to back. He was challenged by some of the game’s best. He has a mental toughness and commitment obviously that is extraordinary.
I can’t tell you, I watched the whole thing on Saturday and Sunday and I made it a point to hang around and watch the green jacket ceremonies. I was just really impressed with the class and the maturity and the manners of this young man. It was actually inspiring for me. It was uplifting to see that we in America are still raising people like this, still producing people like this.
I mean, you know that we are, but you don’t see it as much. Our focus in pop culture media today is on victims and people to whom we are told we should feel sorry, people who have been victimized by one or another horrible aspect of this country. And it was just refreshing to see somebody who’s well-mannered, raised well, loves his mom and dad and his sisters and brothers, and was devoted to being the best he could at the game and has an attitude commensurate with championship performance. It was just great to see.
I was really proud. I don’t know this family. I’ve never met them. I don’t even remember this young man from last year. They said he was in the final group last year, and I don’t know what I was doing last year with the Masters, I don’t remember it. I don’t remember Bubba Watson winning last year. The thing that bothers me, I can’t imagine not having watched the Masters last year, but I must not have, or if I did, my head must have been somewhere else because until this year’s Masters I’d never heard of Jordan Spieth, and yet he was in the final group last year. And I didn’t know that Bubba Watson won last year.
I knew Bubba Watson had multiple wins, so I spent a lot of last night trying to figure out where was I a year ago? What was I doing a year ago that I didn’t know what happened at the Masters? That’s unreal.
Anyway, at the same time, I want to congratulate Augusta National. They have their traditions. They modernize some of them and they evolve, on their timetable. They’ve been pressured to be who they aren’t for a long time, and they hang tough. They have a tradition in this tournament that they have done everything in their power to maintain and protect. And despite what comes and goes in our country and our culture, the Masters is always what you expect it to be every year.
And everybody who goes, every player who plays, has a reverence for the place and the tournament, and it hasn’t changed. Its mystique, in fact, even grows. So for that reason I feel the need to give out a couple of shouts to Augusta National and I just, again, want to congratulate Jordan Spieth and his family, and just express what an absolutely joyful experience it was to watch yesterday.
Mickelson, I mean, everybody who gave it a run, Tiger had his best golf in I don’t know how many years in a round yesterday. Everybody rose to the best and rose to the occasion and it was just a great day. And I don’t know why, but I felt inspired by it, and when it was over yesterday I made a mental note to come in here and make mention of this young man, what class. I mean, 21 years old. I could not believe I was watching a 21-year-old.
When I was 21 I had no clue. I’d left home, been away from home for a year, but I didn’t know anything. I certainly didn’t know how to handle myself in front of cameras and microphones. I had no reason to, either, but I had not any of the ability I saw in this 21-year-old.
He’s not the only one. Some of these young bucks on the PGA Tour, I’ve played with them, Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler, they’re all amazing. They’re so much more mature than I was at their age. They know so much more, obviously as golfers they’ve been around the world, which is explanatory. They all come from great families. They all have a great sense of tradition that they are hoping to not only capitalize on but sustain. So it was really cool. It was really good.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to grab a phone call first before we go to the break because I started the program an hour ago by offering congratulations to Jordan Spieth, the winner of the Masters, and I admitted that this was the first year I’d heard of him, and he was in the final group last year, and I don’t remember him. And I said, “I don’t remember Bubba Watson winning last year.” And I was trying to figure out, “Well, how can that be? I watch the Masters every year, how could I not know?” And we got a caller who said that I do know, and it’s Sam in Nashville. Hi, Sam, I’m glad you waited. Great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Very good. Thank you.
CALLER: Yeah, I remember specifically ’cause it was kind of a big deal at the time, the media kind of went crazy the fact that Bubba Watson, after winning the Masters, went to Waffle House, you know, and this was a big deal on the left, that he would choose such a place like Waffle House. And you had a good time with it on your radio show, so I wanted to just remind you of that, that you did indeed remember him.
RUSH: Yeah, I remember that now.
CALLER: Yeah.
CALLER: I am.
RUSH: Was it his second or third green jacket last year?
CALLER: I’m not sure. I think it was his second. He’s won a few Majors, but I’m not exactly sure. I think it was his second.
RUSH: Let’s just say it’s his second. If I’m wrong, somebody in the multitudes will correct me as they love to do. Anyway, second green jacket or third and he went to Waffle House. Now, there’s a dinner Sunday night on the grounds for everybody. I don’t know how traditional it is that the winner shows up, but I think it is. So I don’t know when he went Waffle House. He could have gone to Waffle House that night after winning, or the next day, whatever, it doesn’t matter when he went. The press found out about it and they made fun of him for it.
“What is this? The Masters champion, and he celebrates at the Waffle House?” Well, you know, they did the same thing, Cam Newton, the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers goes to Waffle House after games on Sunday, or something like the Waffle House. It might be IHOP. I don’t know, one of those places. And they couldn’t believe that. Here’s a guy, a multimillionaire, NFL quarterback going to the Waffle House after a game? “Hey, I like it,” he says. “Me and my family like it.” That’s what Bubba said. And Bubba said (paraphrasing), “You can feed a lot of people in there for not much money.”
They said, “What do you mean, you just won the Masters.”
“They haven’t given me the check yet.” These media people are funny. But he’s right. I do remember that. I just don’t remember Jordan Spieth being in the final group. I don’t remember him being in contention. I don’t remember watching the Masters last year, but I had to have. (interruption) There was a lot going on? Like what? (interruption) Oh, come on. I would not have not watched the Masters because Russia was invading Ukraine. There has to be something else that was going on on the Masters date last year, ’cause, you know, I got the best memory in America, and I don’t remember what I was doing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s William from Indianapolis. It’s great to have you, sir, on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Good. I’m your same age, and I’m a golfer, and I go back to you with that mouse and the Pam in the trash can.
RUSH: (laughing) That’s back to day one.
CALLER: A couple of things. Watching that tournament yesterday, watching great strategic golf is like watching a young Ben Crenshaw, and I’m all fired up, and at the very end, I channel surf and I see Hillary’s logo, and I thought, what is this arrow pointing to the right? I mean, I know that they do all sorts of studies —
RUSH: It looks like it’s the logo to the emergency room to me. It looks like a hospital emergency room logo, Hillary’s, it does. And plus, it is pointing to the right, which is odd.
CALLER: Yes, it is. And I understand you used to say the political spectrum is a circle. (laughing) It’s really interesting.
RUSH: Well, you’ve got a good memory. Boy, you do go way back, the political spectrum is a circle, not a straight line.
CALLER: Yeah, the same age as you, and you started out in New York right when I started out in my business.
RUSH: So you remember the mouse in the trash can.
CALLER: Yeah, Kansas City, they didn’t pay you nothing, and I remember when you were dating online.
RUSH: No, I never did that.
CALLER: (laughing).
RUSH: You’re confusing — that’s when the staff wanted pictures of female callers —
CALLER: Oh, okay. (laughing)
RUSH: I wasn’t dating online. I never did that.
CALLER: (laughing).
RUSH: No, no, no. Don’t tell people that. That never happened.
CALLER: That’s when you started your binders full of women.
RUSH: No, it wasn’t me. I’ll tell you, it was Mario and Bo Snerdley that did that.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: That was not me. They tried to get dates out of it, but I didn’t. I was above that. Don’t lump me with that.
CALLER: You’d just gotten to New York and the Internet was new.
RUSH: It was new. You probably remember when I lost my furniture moving to New York.
CALLER: (laughing) Yeah.
RUSH: The driver just got ticked off, walked off the job at a truck stop someplace in, I think it was Kentucky. It took Mayflower three weeks to find the truck.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And then they found it in Customs or FBI had to get it because it had been abandoned, they didn’t know what was in it. Yeah, I didn’t have furniture for three weeks after moving to New York. Anyway. You mentioned Crenshaw. This is another thing, I don’t quite know how to express this. Actually I do. Let me be bluntly honest. Given the way things are in the country, I am well aware that if I tell you exactly what I felt and thought watching Crenshaw on Friday, his last round at the Masters, and everything that happened with that, his interview afterward, and if I tell you about Spieth, what I thought, which I did in the first hour, I guarantee you the left is gonna come out and make these usual charges of bigotry and so forth.
They just can’t wait for it because they’re gonna think my comments are rooted in race. And they aren’t. That’s how successful, in a way, the left has been in succeeding the notion of intimidating free speech. The reactions I had watching the Masters both Friday when Crenshaw was interviewed and watching his final round and his final closeout on 18, there’s no classier individual than Ben Crenshaw, I think, and I’ve played golf with him a couple times. I’ve had a chance to meet him, and he’s exactly the way he was, it’s the great thing about him, just a class individual.
My only point is it just stood out so much, whereas it used to be common. What we saw from Jordan Spieth, the humility and the respect and the reverence for what he had done and where he had done it, winning the Masters and all that, used to be common. It used to be common whenever we would see people, champions in sports or in anything else, interviewed. Now it’s not. It’s rare, which, to me, is a shame, but it’s still comforting to see it.
If you’re just joining us, I had to open the program today with a congratulations to Jordan Spieth for winning, and I just made the observation that obviously he comes from an absolute wonderful family, it was obvious. His family has been a tremendous influence, just a class individual, a humble individual, all the way through, respectful of what he had done and where he had done it, how rare what he had accomplished is. And yet he was brimming with confidence, but he was not braggadocious. You never worried about one offensive word coming out of his mouth, not one obscenity, nothing. And the same thing with Crenshaw on Friday.
And Augusta, you know, they’ve maintained their traditions. It’s been a very tough thing to do, because the forces of change have been tremendous in this country, and these forces of change have been arrayed against many of the traditions and institutions that define this country’s greatness. And to me it was just uplifting, inspiring, just to watch this 21-year-old young man. When I was his age, no way could I have — he came across as somebody who’d lived to be age 40, he was that experienced, that seasoned, that mature, and it was just terrific to see. And Crenshaw, when Crenshaw speaks, it’s automatically authoritative. Just commands respect. And you know you’re listening to somebody of great, great character. I had the same reaction listening to Jordan Spieth.
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