Dottie Pepper during the U.S. Women's Open Championship at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., June 2, 2001 (Brandon Malone / Action Images via Reuters) Dottie Pepper during the U.S. Women's Open Championship at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., June 2, 2001 (Brandon Malone / Action Images via Reuters)
In my latest Q&A, I have talked with Dottie Pepper about golf — what a privilege, what a pleasure. To hear our podcast, go here. Seventeen times, Dottie won on the LPGA Tour. That includes two majors. Since then, she has been a voice of golf: a broadcaster, an analyst, etc. She is the lead on-course reporter for CBS Sports.
As she puts it to me, “I’ve got the best seat in the house. . . . I get to hear it, smell it, see it, interact with it.”
She is married to my friend David Normoyle, who is a golf historian and writer — and a very good amateur golfer. I ask Dottie, “Have you ever let him beat you?” She answers, “Oh, my gosh, no. No.”
Earlier this season, Dottie made national waves when she spoke up about the pace of play. It is simply too slow — disrespectfully slow — on the PGA Tour and elsewhere in the game.
To read a news article about this, go here.
Dottie is from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where she and David live today. Actually, Dottie grew up in the nearby town of Wilton. Her dad, Don Pepper, was a baseball player — signed out of high school by the Detroit Tigers (my team). He once appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with Johnny Bench, among others.
In golf, Dottie was a natural — but she worked very, very hard at the game. Workaholism runs in her family, she says. She had a wonderful teacher in George Pulver — who had retired from golf but who agreed to teach Dottie. His wife, Martha (a very good player), had just died. Teaching Dottie was good for him; learning from Mr. Pulver was good for her.
Mickey Wright was one of the best golfers ever, male or female. Her swing was admired by Ben Hogan, among others. It was certainly admired by Dottie Pepper. “You had to watch and hear that woman hit a golf ball,” she says. “It was just different.”
Among today’s players, she mentions Ludvig Åberg, the Swede. That guy’s swing is — textbook. “The guy is going to win multiple major championships,” says Dottie. (He is 25.)
One of my favorite questions for professional golfers is: “What do we amateurs do wrong? Well, a thousand things — but name one or two big things.”
Amateurs don’t know how far they hit their clubs, says Dottie. They don’t know their average distances. Typically, they think they hit a club farther than they do. Also, they have trouble getting out of a bunker in one swing. (The first rule of sand play, I learned long ago, is: “Out.”)
If they can do those two things, says Dottie — know how far they hit their clubs and get out of a bunker in one swing — they will be much, much better off.
There is a debate that’s many years old now: Who’s the GOAT? Who’s the Greatest of All Time? Jack or Tiger? Dottie says: Each man was the best of his generation. What more can you do?
I agree. So did Jeff Hart, a longtime senior editor at National Review, and a distinguished professor of English. He knew a lot — a lot — about sports (and was a fine tennis player, early in his life). As I recount to Dottie, Jeff would say something like this:
No fair comparing across sports: Ty Cobb vs. Muhammad Ali, say, or Oscar Robertson vs. Pete Sampras. Also, no fair comparing across eras. All you can do is dominate your era. You can’t compete against those who came before you; you can’t compete against those who will come after you. All you can do is dominate your era.
Dottie tells me something interesting — and a little surprising, too:
“I learned something that took me forever to learn as a player, and it’s only been reinforced with 20-plus years in broadcasting: There are a lot of players who play lousy golf and walk away with a first-place paycheck. You don’t play perfect golf when you win.”
I think of a famous book by Dr. Bob Rotella: Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect. I also think of something that Hogan said: “All the perfect shots I ever hit could fit into one barrel.”
Dottie Pepper has been around great players her whole life — and she’s up there herself, for heaven’s sake. She would not likely be awestruck, by anyone. But has she ever been?
She mentions an event she played in: the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge. The year was 1992. She was in a group with Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples (who had won the Masters that year). (Jack had won it six times before.) Dottie was nervous. Sensing this, Fred put his arm around her and said, “Come on, kid, we got this old guy.”
Eventually, we get to courses — and Dottie says that, if she had one round left to play, she would play it at the Salem Country Club, in Peabody, Mass. (She played her first U.S. Open there.) It is a classic Donald Ross layout, from 1925. Pure.
And here’s a wrinkle: If she could walk a course for the last time, she would go to Muirfield, in Scotland. “It is just the most magical piece of land.”
A final word, from Dottie Pepper (I’ll paraphrase, just a little bit):
“Golf at its simplest is golf at its best. There’s always this big push to go play these big-name places, in perfect conditions, and all that. But I think golf at its best is golf at its simplest — when it’s just you and whoever you’d like to spend time with. You don’t even have to bring a full set of clubs. Just go enjoy being in and around the game.”
Amen.
Again, to listen to this Q&A with Dottie Pepper – an excellent conversationalist — go here.