Chi Chi Rodriguez (and other old-school players) can still entertain fans at the 2008 U.S. Open

Sitting here tippy-typing away in the Lexus Hospitality tent, I overheard the following from a fellow bloody Mary aficionado: “After seeing Chi Chi Rodriquez and Johnny Miller up close, I have a whole new respect for these guys.”

The comment naturally led me into a small discourse on the difference between golf—and pro golfers—of yesteryear vs. today.

Here, I think, is the key: In the pre-cable and even pre-television days, players had to sell themselves to get sponsorships. They didn’t get hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year for just sewing a logo on their hat and showing up on TV. They had to make their sponsorship dough by glad-handing the public at events benefiting their sponsors.

In other words, they had to develop personalities, because their personalities made them more money than their clubs.

Seriously. Purses were not that big back then. Showing up at corporate tents, outings, and conventions were their bread and butter.

Today, a player can score a couple top 10s in a year, stitch a logo or two on his shirt, and viola, he’s a millionaire.

This all hit home in the Lexus tent, as Johnny Miller, Chic Rodriquez, and Raymond Floyd signed autographs, cracked jokes, and answered questions for the Lexus hoi-polloi.

It was very clear indeed that all of them—even the often prickly Floyd—knew that their duties lay in making nice with the people for a while. And they were damn good at it.

The best quotes came, as always, from Chi Chi. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Ray Floyd, what a great player. The thing I like about you is that you hit the ball like a truck driver. And you finished like Warren Buffet – with all the money.” (This one got Miller laughing so hard, he started to cough.)

“There are a lot of debates about who is the greatest golfer ever. But there’s no question about who is the greatest Puerto Rican golfer of all time.”

Chi Chi on Phil Mickelson: “Phil Mickelson needs two Boy Scouts instead of a caddie.”

Chi Chi on Johnny Miller’s knee trouble during his playing career: “How many surgeries did you have, Johnny? Four? You should have come to Puerto Rico. We would have cut you for free in a bar.”

Johnny Miller supported a story about Chi Chi that my grandfather had told me when I was a kid, about how Chi Chi could hit a rising fade, and then drop another ball and hit a hook, and collide the two balls in the air. I thought this was apocryphal, but Miller isn’t prone to hyperbole.

As I say, even Ray Floyd, who at times is about as cuddly as a hungover porcupine, was talkative and cordial to the small crush of autograph and photo-seekers. He explained another difference between players of today and his era: The mental game. He contended that they weren’t out there with their own money on the line and their livelihoods on the line day in and day out, so that when it came to crunch time, they simply weren’t hardened enough.

Floyd is one of the great big-money players in history, simply ruthless in high-stakes games. He told about how life used to be on the Tour:

“Tuesday was a big day for us. We’d have a lot of guys out there playing for $20 or $25 [a hole], and we’d play 27 holes. You could have a big money day—you could pay for your hotel room and your caddie on Tuesday if you had a good day. Today, that doesn’t happen.”

Johnny Miller agreed:

“I don’t know why guys don’t play well on Sunday any more, with a few exceptions. Maybe they’re thinking about what their sports psychologists told them. Lee Trevino once told me, ‘When you’re choking, hit it low, it won’t have time to get off-line.’ It’s true. Think how Greg Norman would have done if he’d had a punch shot, instead of that high block to the right.”

Ray Floyd laughed hard at this, and said, “Don’t sugar-coat it, Johnny!”

These guys had—and still have—personalities. So few of the players today do, or at least, they don’t have to make money with them, so they can keep to themselves.

Miller, Floyd, & Rodriguez entertain fans in the Lexus tent.