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BUILDING ON THE FUTURE
An
interview with Bob Estes from the pages of the Links Letter, November/December 1995, shortly after Estes won his first PGA Tour event, the 1994 Texas Open. In June 2001, Estes finally gained his second
victory, by one shot over Bernhard Langer, at the Fed Ex St. Jude Classic. He won again that fall.
LL:
You have been described as "expressionless" and "poker-faced" when you're on the golf course. After you won the Texas Open (in 1994), you apologized for not stopping to talk to people when you were playing. Why did you do that?
ESTES: It wasn't that I was rude to anybody. I was just very focused and intent on trying to win my first tournament on Tour.
LL: Was your win at the Texas Open a surprise to you?
ESTES:
It was exciting to win, no doubt. But it was a combination of a lot of different emotions. When you work that hard at something you've been doing for so long, in a sense, you expect to win. I don't work on my game and my conditioning as hard as I do to finish 45th or 30th or 15th.
LL: In the last two years, you have made 43 out of 50 cuts. How have you developed such exceptional consistency?
ESTES:
I try to be fairly consistent in my preparation and my lifestyle. I've always understood that consistency is one of the main keys to success. You can't be consistent in your play unless you're consistent in your practice. I've had people come up to me and say that they really like the way I practice. I practice with a purpose. It's focused and balanced.
LL: What does it mean to be balanced in your practice?
ESTES:
Earlier in my career, I could have spent six hours a day, every day of the week, practicing my putting. I might have even won more tournaments by now, but my ball-striking may not be nearly to the level it is now. I'm trying to raise every area of my game at the same time.
LL: You've mentioned how hard you work on your game. Do you practice everyday?
ESTES:
It's not that I practice and play everyday. But I try to cover all phases of the game everyday, even if it's only for five minutes. And a lot of times you improve your golf game by resting, not by practicing. I try to do something to better my golf and better myself everyday. I don’t have many days where I spend 10 or 12 hours in front of the television eating bad food. There are times when I could be practicing and improving my skills that I spend resting or working out. I try to build on the future.
LL: Do you have to push yourself to practice?
ESTES:
Golf is an individual sport. It takes an incredible amount of self-discipline to play consistently well on the PGA Tour. But golf isn't so much a game as it is a lifestyle. Everything you do, all day long, affects how you are going to play next year and down the road.
Some observers speculated that Estes' schedule and routine during his early years on Tour would lead to burnout. Estes himself recognized the need to watch out for
burnout, which he faced severely in college.
LL: How did you get burned out in college?
ESTES:
In high school, I'd always played golf six months out of the year and basketball during the other six months. Then when I entered the University of Texas in the fall of 1984, I played straight through for almost two years. During that time, I won my first college tournament my freshman year in Mexico and ended up making second team All-American. But it finally caught up with me at the beginning of my sophomore year. I was really burned out on golf and sick of playing. It was the last thing I wanted to do when I got up in the morning. When I should have been improving, I was playing the worst golf of my life, and I was miserable.
LL: When did things turn around for you?
ESTES:
A long break that winter helped revive my interest. But there was an even bigger problem in my life while I was in college. When I first started at the University of Texas, a teammate and I went to church that Sunday before classes began. However, that was the last time I attended church in Austin during my four years of college.
LL: Why was it important that you attended church?
ESTES:
When I was 11 years old, I accepted Jesus Christ into my life. My mother and father had a relationship with Him and many of my good friends that I grew up with did too. I think if I had been more regular about going to church while I was in college and spending time with friends who also knew Christ, I wouldn't have let my relationship with Him become such a low priority.
LL: Isn't it even more difficult to keep your priorities straight on the PGA Tour?
ESTES:
The first few weeks I was on Tour, I noticed a sign in the locker room. It was the sign they put up every week announcing the players' Bible study. I knew immediately that it was time for me to turn things around. If they didn't have that Bible study out there--as much as we're on the road--I think I'd still have my relationship with Christ on the back burner.
LL: Was the transition from college to the PGA Tour a difficult one?
ESTES:
When I started my first season on Tour, I really didn't know what to expect. It was like being a freshman again. As a rookie, you don't know how the others guys on Tour--the veterans--are going to treat you. But going to the Tour Bible study, I met guys like Scott Simpson, Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Morris Hatalsky, Rick Fehr, and Bobby Clampett. They all gave me a very warm reception. Of course, there's a bond that we share through Christ. But the love and acceptance that I felt from them and their wives made things a lot easier for me that first year.
LL: Whom do you admire most on the PGA Tour?
ESTES:
It would be easy for me to have some of the best players in the world as role models—the guys that are winning lots of tournaments and making lots of money—but a lot of these players don't have their priorities in order and don't have the type of balance in their lives that some of the other players do. I wasn't on Tour very long before I began to admire and respect many of the guys that I mentioned in the Bible study.
LL: Is there something wrong with winning lots of tournaments and making lots of money?
ESTES:
No, not at all. I plan on winning a number of tournaments in the future. But as you get older, you begin to think more about the meaning of life. You go through hard times and most people begin to realize that they need something else in their lives. Hopefully, they'll realize that what they need is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But even when you do have that relationship, it a whole lot more fun when you do something special to have someone to share it with. It's not the money and the wins that will make you happy, it's the relationships that make life special. If you're consistent in your relationships with Christ and other people, you could end up pretty lonely and self-absorbed.
LL: Is it lonely on the PGA Tour?
ESTES: It really is a lonely lifestyle. It's not quite what people think it is when they watch on television.
LL: Are you single?
ESTES:
Yes. One of the hardest things about being on the Tour is starting new relationships, and more importantly, nurturing and building the ones you already have. I may date someone for a year, but we actually only spend a couple of months together. But even if you're married, it can be fairly lonely, because you're separated from friends and family at home.
LL: How do you stay consistent in your relationships when you're traveling on the Tour?
ESTES:
I'll let my phone bill answer that question. But it's the only way I can keep in touch.
LL: How do you develop consistency in your relationship with Christ?
ESTES: That goes back to the daily Bible reading. I haven't been as good about that I the near past as I was the
last few years. When I joined my church in Austin near the end of 1992, I purchased a daily Bible. I had a regular Bible, but I knew I needed to begin reading and praying more consistently. It's the
same as with golf--everything you do, all day long, affects your relationship with Christ and how good it's going to be tomorrow and next week and down the road. It's important to starting doing
something everyday that improves your relationship with Him--even if it's just five minutes a day.
LL: You've mentioned building on the future more than once. What kind of a future do you want to build?
ESTES:
I don't know how long I'm going to play professional golf, but I feel like if I can keep myself in good physical condition, I may not play my best golf until I'm in my 40s—kind of like Hale Irwin. And, like I said earlier, I don't want to wake up when I'm 40 and realize that my life was all golf and nothing else. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand that there is more to life than just chasing that white ball. And even golf—with all its rewards—is not nearly as rewarding and long lasting as a relationship with Jesus Christ and the people He's put in our lives.
This article originally appeared in the Links Letter, November/December 1995.
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