A Short-Game Wizard vs. a Ball-Striking Prodigy at the 1938 PGA Championship

The Fried Egg Golf Podcast

thefriedegg.com

Golf, Sports

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For this mid-week PGA Championship episode, we go back to 1938, when the tournament was still a match-play competition. In that year's final match, a 26-year-old Sam Snead, one of the most imposing ball-strikers the game has ever seen, faced off against the diminutive, short-hitting Paul Runyan. What happened that day is at the heart of Little Poison, John Dechant's new biography of Runyan. John joins Garrett to discuss Runyan's hardscrabble childhood, unusual playing style, short-game genius, success on the Depression-era PGA Tour, and showdown with Slammin' Sammy in 1938. John Dechant, Little Poison

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mr. Green, for example. I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
0:05.0	And when I find my ball in a fried egg.
0:07.0	Fried egg. The dreaded fried egg.
0:09.0	Fried egg. Fried egg.
0:10.0	Fried egg. Fried egg.
0:11.0	Fried egg. Fried egg.
0:12.0	I'm about ready to run off the golf course course.
0:30.0	Welcome to the fried egg podcast.
0:35.0	I'm Garrett Morrison. Hope PGA Championship week is going well for you so far.
0:40.0	Looks like Oak Hill is playing pretty firm.
0:43.0	And we might get some wind this weekend.
0:45.0	And those are both really good things.
0:48.0	We'll see how it turns out.
0:49.0	A lot of people have noticed that there's not a huge amount of hype going into this major,
0:53.0	especially compared to some recent ones.
0:55.0	But that could all change if we get some spicy conditions this week.
0:59.0	So I'm hoping for the best.
1:01.0	All right, we're going to do a little historical deep dive in this episode.
1:05.0	One of the most memorable PGA championships happened in 1938 when it was still a match play tournament.
1:12.0	The final match that year was between a young Sam Sneed and a short game master by the name of Paul Runyon.
1:20.0	I've always found Runyon to be one of the most fascinating players in the history of the game.
1:25.0	So I'm very excited to talk to my guest, John Deckent, who is the author of a new biography of Paul Runyon called Little Poison.
	...

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