It's really interesting. Driving all the way up for the last round, coming up from Salt Lake, getting ready for the final day. You’d think you’d be nervous. I wasn’t. I was as calm as I’d ever been. I mean, I wasn’t anxious to get to the golf course. I just kind of felt calm, even though I knew I was going to try to do something that hadn’t been done—win this Open as an amateur. At that time, it was like a Korn Ferry Tour event.

The Utah Open would draw 5, 6, or 7,000 people for the last round, and it was a pretty big deal. Pulling in, they had all the guards and everything set up because they only let the players park in the parking lot. So, on the drive up to the golf course, it was me and my caddie, Mark Ruff, in the car, getting there, getting ready, and heading out to the course.

I hadn’t looked at the paper that morning, but my dad gave it to me before I left the house. The article was about me and the tournament, but it said I had very little chance of winning because I hadn’t won anything big. I was playing with a couple of tour players, and there were seasoned players right behind me. That article actually calmed me down because I thought, "Okay, these guys don’t think I can win, so I have nothing to lose." It was just, "Go out and play. We’ll see what happens." I didn’t have the pressure of “you’re supposed to win,” or “you’ve won a lot.”

I felt like it was a “can’t lose” situation. I mean, if I didn’t play well, and let’s say I finished sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth, I’d still have played well. I would be the low amateur in the Utah Open, which was a big deal. I had all of that. So, I was just out there playing. And I think maybe that mindset, where I didn’t feel like I had to win, allowed me to play to win, but I wasn’t worried if I didn’t.

Even if I didn’t win, in my mind it was still a big accomplishment for how well I played. And I think that’s what people have to understand about competitive golf. You’re ready to play, you give it your best, and whatever happens, happens—you just learn from it. It’s when you put big expectations on yourself, and you want to win so badly that you get too focused on trying to win and become defensive, that you don’t play well.

I wasn’t defensive at all because that article made me feel like, no matter what I do, I’m winning. If I played well, great. Win the tournament, awesome, big deal. If I didn’t, I’d still have plenty of accolades for what I’d accomplished. So, I’m sure that mindset helped me play well because I didn’t feel like there was any way I could lose. That kind of mindset is how you reach your potential in your game—where you feel like, no matter what, you can’t lose.

If you start thinking, "I really should win this tournament" or "I should play well today" or "I should beat this guy in match play," or "This is an easy golf course, I should play well on it," anytime you get into those kinds of thoughts, it puts too much pressure on you. You get too focused on the future, and you don’t just go out and play.

I’m sure that article was a big reason I had the mindset I did going into the last round.

So let’s talk about why we’re even here. Fifty years ago, I won the Utah Open here. I was the first amateur to do it in, I think, 35 or 40 years. It hadn’t been done for a long time. It was like what we’d now call a Web.com event. There were big crowds, and Smith’s Food King was the sponsor. It was one of the biggest tournaments in the United States, outside of the tour.

This golf course was my home course—I went to Weber State, and I played here all the time. It was just a really good golf course. I always liked it. Visually, it set up well for me.

So this is about talking through some of those shots I hit during the last round. I remember every shot. I could tell you every tee shot. I could tell you every club. I could even tell you where I hit it on the greens on all 18 holes, which is interesting—how your memory works.

This is really about, okay, here we are 50 years later, still playing competitive golf, and still involved in the game. Golf is a game for a lifetime. If you do it right, if you practice, and you take care of yourself physically—which is what the M-System is all about—you can play this game as long as you can walk. And even if you can’t walk, you can still play. There are guys playing in wheelchairs now; they’ve got special apparatuses on carts. Golf is one of the few games where, as long as your arms can move, you can play. And because of the handicap system, you can be competitive.

It’s a lot of fun for me to come back here. I mean, I walk onto this property, and I’m sure Jack Nicklaus had the same feeling at Augusta and at a lot of the places he won. Every tour player, when you ask them about courses where they’ve won, will tell you—there’s a certain feel when you come back. It feels like home. You’re comfortable. You’ve had success.

So, we want to go through and talk about a couple of shots—what I was thinking, the process, what happened. Where did I hit my tee shot? How did it affect my round? Things like that.

It’s just fun to be back. Fifty years later, sometimes it feels like it was just a week ago, and I’m here doing this. Other times, it feels like it was an eternity ago, like it didn’t even happen. It’s just revisiting those old memories. Hopefully, some of these reflections will rub off and help you as a player.