A GOLFER’S LIFE PETER LONARD
The two-time Australian Open champion heads to St Andrews for the 2018 Senior Open this month in the hope of recapturing the form that saw him finish third in the championship 12 months ago. Here, one of the hardest working players of his generation discu
Jimmy Emanuel chats with the two-time Australian Open champion about his injuries and illnesses, anchored putting and the responsibility of Australian players to the game in their home country.
The Senior Open was a nice start. I suppose there is a great advantage when you’re 50, if you’ve been playing the whole way through. I was lucky enough, my back didn’t go till I was about 41, then I had to take a year or so o. Then I was lucky I had enough money to have little certain exemptions that I could play the Web.com.
Obviously, I didn’t have the firepower to play that good on the Web.com and they definitely didn’t play courses that suited my sort of game. But you know just the fact that I kept playing all the way through, once I got to the seniors, it wasn’t a tough ask. Because I hadn’t had six years o like some guys had.
My back’s shot, if I didn’t take antiinflammatories every day I couldn’t play more than two rounds in a row, which I suppose most of the guys are like. But I’m in reasonable shape. I’m a bit overweight and all that but of course if I manage to get my senior tour card then I’ll knuckle down again.
It’s one of those fine lines, I want to go play because I love playing golf and I love playing tournament golf. Money I’m reasonably ok with because I was reasonably careful with my money when I won it. So it’s not about money, but also I know that I’ve been on the road for 30 years and if my worst case scenario is relax in Australia and give a few lessons or something, and go to the footy every weekend well I’m ok with that as well. It’s not like some guys, it’s like their lives depend on it. I’m a 50-50, but I was like that the whole way through.
There is something incredible about playing tournament golf. I’m not a great student of the game or anything like that. I sort of know how my swing works and that sort of business, but I just love playing tournament golf. My whole life I practised a lot, and it’s just a lifestyle. Up until recently it was very normal I’d spend all day at the golf course just hitting balls and chipping and putting, and chipping and putting and hitting balls. But that’s what I have done since I was 19 years old.
When I was 18, I was a trainee, I never realised how hard you had to practice, and then somewhere along the line I went I’m not very good, and then the more I practised and the more I practised the right things, the better I got and it fed o each other, and so it became a lifestyle. It’s like you either practise all day or you sit on the couch and do nothing all day really if you haven’t got a job, so it’s just what I’m used to and I like doing it. And there is nothing better than having to hit a quality golf shot under the pump. There is no better feeling than that.
If I play continuously, I know I’ll have probably one week where I can’t play or I’ll just chip it down the fairway and can barely walk and all that sort of stu. But I’ve learnt to look after my back far better than I used too. Every night I’m lying on ice. Every morning I’ve got a heat pack on the way to the golf course, I’m taking antiinflammatories, I’m stretching, I’m doing all these exercises, at the end of the day I’m going to have days where its crap and days when its ok, but to me it seems like the more I play, as long as I don’t over stress it, the better I am. I get worse if I have time o.
As it (his battle with Ross River Fever) unfolded, strangely, it’s like if I had of stayed in Europe and not done any good that would have killed my career. Because the Ross River stopped it all together, and I was lucky enough to go back to Oatlands Golf Club, where I’d been a junior and all that sort of stu, and I knew all the members, I did a traineeship there, and I was lucky enough to have a committee that let me go and play a bit. So, it just gave me time to put my health back together, and with the help of some good doctors etc. it all came back together and I started playing great.
I KNOW WHETHER I PLAY OR NOT IN AUSTRALIA MEANS BUGGER ALL NOW, BUT IN THE OLD DAYS, YOU’RE AUSTRALIAN, SO YOU PLAY IN AUSTRALIA. – PETER LONARD
You know if the committee said, “No, you can’t play”, well then I was stu ed anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to play, so the fact that they let me play and then I had a few lucky bits and pieces here that kept me going and o we went … so that probably made me better in my 30s than I would have been perhaps, but you just never know. I was a big practicer and when I went to Europe it was di cult to find somewhere to practise on your weeks o and di erent weather. So as far as practise goes, I did none. If I had a week o I just didn’t play. I might go down to the local golf course down the road and buy a bucket of balls and hit balls o the cement and that was it, in the rain or whatever. Once I moved to America, I bought a house in a golfing community. You back the golf cart out in the morning, chip for two or three hours, then I would go home and have breakfast or something then I would go and hit balls for two or three hours then I would come home and jump in the pool and have a sandwich. Then go out and play 18 holes. Because I loved practising, it was so good, you can’t not play well. Every week you go to a tournament so prepared to play and then of course you go to the tournaments, particularly in America, where they look after you so well, the conditions are so good, I just loved it. And I was lucky I got o to a good start, made a lot of cuts and it just snowballed into all of a sudden I didn’t believe you could miss a cut. I got there at the perfect time and the snowballing of somewhere to practise continuously, it all sort of came together.
Once they decided they were going to make anchored putting illegal, I just went to the short one. I used to use some short ones and some long ones and mixed and matched, the one win in America I won with the short one, there was two others in Australia that I won with the short one. And with the short one, I was far more erratic but when I was good I was really good and when I was bad I was really bad. Whereas the broomstick I was very consistent.
As far I was concerned, they’d made it illegal so I’ll just use the short one. But I never grasped the concept of guys still using it with such a hairline gap between legal and not illegal. Does it touch their bodies? Do we have to stand there all day and look at them and go it did or it didn’t? And then
they go it’s not my intent.
I think at the end of the day they stu ed the rule up, I think that’s the only basic way you could say it. To me they’ve either got to make up their minds and say do what you want or it’s got to be the shortest club in your bag, and then it’s all over and there is no grey area, and there is no carry on about it brushed his shirt.
I’ve taken the broomstick out a couple of times just to fiddle with it after seeing a few of the other guys. To be honest with you I’d never watched a senior event in my life, so when I got to the Open event and everyone’s using them, I was like wow. So, I used to rest my forearm against my left breast basically, so the club never really touched my body but my forearm did, which is illegal. But you can get the same feel by just having the hairs on your arms touching your shirt. Like it’s a very similar feeling. So to me it’s a bit cheeky. I know whether I play or not in Australia means bugger all now, but in the old days, you’re Australian, so you play in Australia. To me it’s a no brainer, you know “I need a rest”, like it’s three weeks of the year for God’s sake and the really good players probably play 20 times a year, so you know, how rested do you need to be?
I used to love coming back, the courses are more the style of golf that I like to play. In the old days in particular, they were firmer and bouncier and you had to control the bounce of the ball and that’s the sort of golf that I love to play, but if you’re Australian you play in Australia. To me that’s a no brainer.
The sports psychologists and that tell them you can’t play more than three in a row or your head will fall o, or your legs will fall o or whatever it is, but before sports psychologists and all the other experts, guys would play nine in a row and you wouldn’t even think about it. And life in those days was far tougher than it is now. So I think the most important thing you’ve got to teach the Australian kids is you play in Australia. I think I was proudest that I managed to win a tournament every year over a fair stretch of time, and I played pretty consistently in between that and I played a lot of golf. The ’97 Australian Masters was big for me, because I had actually decided that I wasn’t leaving the club job (at Oatlands Golf Club) unless I won a tournament. Tiger Woods was playing that week, it was like the second time he had been to Australia, we were all playing for second place according to everybody and I thought there is only one more tournament left in the year, so if I don’t win the next one I’m in deep trouble. So, of course to win that was fantastic for me and it was great for my club that had been so good to me as well. Presidents Cups were incredible, just rubbing shoulders with the greats. Gary Player was our captain, Jack Nicklaus the US Captain and it was interesting to have the greats of the game just being there and you know some were nice, some were a bit rough but it was just an incredible experience.
It would be nice (to play well after 50), I don’t think my life depends on it. I’d love to play well in those (Senior Tour events) but I would also love to be able to come back and still be competitive in Australia. The last few years I’ve sort of finished mid field in most of them, because probably my short game’s probably not good enough and I’m definitely 20 or 30 yards shorter than I used to be, not that I was a long hitter in the first place. I’d love to give a couple of kids a bit of fright coming down the last few tournaments some time before I pull the pin. But sometimes you dream a bit too beyond your means, but who knows.