How did you go from being a very good junior golfer to a 10-11 marker who occasionally walks onto the tee without a club or ball?
At what point in your golf career did course architecture appreciation usurp the card & pencil?
Mark or Steve Waugh?
What is the most outrageous thing you have ever worn on stage?
Why don't you rate Jimmy Page more highly as a guitarist?
Have you ever met Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd? If so, please do share the story!
You are given a five-song opening set for the band of your choice. Which band and what songs would you play?
What magazines have you rated for?
Which course is the biggest missed opportunity in Australia?
Hi Scott,
How’s the snow going? It has been so hot the last 2 nights it’s been hard to sleep here.
My golf firstly went down hill in my 20’s when I started touring as a guitarist. It enabled me to play many of the great courses around the world, but it also meant I was unable to play regularly. The next thing that killed my game was my ongoing knee injury over the last 8 years or so. I’ve just had knee surgery, but I won’t be holding my breath for my game to come back when I start playing again next March.
I probably stopped caring about my score sometime in my 20’s. I remember a day at Prairie Dunes where I was hacking it around shockingly, then it occurred to me, “I’m playing Prairie Dunes. Why should I care about the score.”
Mark or Steve Waugh? You know the answer to that one. My opinions about them are like chalk & cheese. I have a lot of time for Steve. He is good company & an extremely good man.
I wore a lot of outrageous garments while I was touring. It went with the territory. A few looked more like ladies lingerie & I still love my red suede high heel boots. Of course, I was extremely thin back in those days, so leather pants didn’t look so bad. Unlike Yngwie, I have put the leather pants away for good.
Jimmy Page is one of the most overrated guitarist of all time, even though I quite like Led Zep. His solos were never much more than Pentatonic based & his phrasing was often poor. His was also technically messy. I have always been a fan of Dave Gilmour though.
I was playing Wentworth West with a mate & the two ball in front asked if we wanted to join them. They were talking about airplanes & one of the guys was definitely a pilot. On the 5th hole one of the guys asked what I did for a living. I said, “Musician”, he said, “So am I”. “What do you play” he asked, I said “guitar”, he said, “So do I.” I asked if he had a band & he looked at me strangely & said, “Yeah! A little combo called Pink Floyd.” I then realise I was speaking to Dave Gilmour. It was one of those surreal moments, because if you showed me a picture of Dave Gilmour I would know who it was immediately. He found it hilarious & we had a great day. I don’t think he is into golf that much though.
I was pretty disillusioned about my time as a panellist & I burnt my bridges quite thoroughly, so I am probably best not to go into details.
The biggest missed opportunity in Australia is St Michaels. Not only is the land better than the routing would suggest, but at the time they were designing it Eric Apperly was working next door at NSW. With the amount of collaboration we read about on some of the great courses designed in the 20’s & 30’s (especially in America) it has always astounded me that they didn’t at least ask his opinion.