My Shot: Jim Colbert

Interviewed By Guy Yocom
Photos By Darren Carroll February 2006

Age 64 • Las Vegas, Nevada

In 1997, I drew Kevin Costner as my partner in the Lexus Challenge. He had just finished making "Tin Cup." The 17th hole is a par 5 that Kevin could reach with two good shots, and he did. He made a natural birdie, net eagle, and we wound up finishing second. The next year, I drew Kevin again. By then the movie has been a hit, and we've got a big gallery. We come to the 17th hole with a two-shot lead, and Kevin drives it down the middle, right on the edge of the go/don't go zone. The gallery is screaming "Go for it!" and "Tin Cup!" Kevin smiles at me and asks, "Well, pro, what do I do?" I think hard—for about two seconds. "Take your 9-iron and lay up," I said. Kevin did lay up and made a par for a net birdie, and we ended up winning. The gallery groaned when Kevin pulled out an iron, but hey, first-place money for me was $180,000. Christmas was right around the corner. What would you have done?

When Andy North turned 50 in March of 2000, he asked me to play in the Legends of Golf with him. I was flattered and couldn't say yes fast enough. Inspired by Andy's confidence in me, I played great golf, and we won the tournament. Only after did I learn I was the ninth person Andy had asked.

I knew when I moved to Las Vegas in 1981 that I'd have friends coming in to visit, and they'd ask me to take them to the casinos. I figured I should learn how to play. So I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of people and became a passable blackjack and craps player. That doesn't mean I win every time, but it means I don't lose as often or as much. And when I win, I win pretty big.

Blackjack rule No. 1: Over time you'll lose more hands than you win. Period. You have only one edge over the house: You control the size of your bet. Think about that for a minute.

Blackjack rule No. 2: After you lose a hand, your next bet can never be greater than the original "base" bet you made when you walked in. Say you start with a $10 wager and win your first hand. Great. You're playing with the house's money and can bet $20 the next hand if you like. The key is, if you lose the $20 hand, you must go right back to the $10 bet. If you lose a bunch of $10 hands and lose your stake of $500 or whatever, so be it. It wasn't your night. Take the pain and get out of there. There will be other nights.

Let me get off the blackjack lesson for a minute and say that golf is just like gambling. If I birdie three holes in a row and I'm in the next fairway, you better believe I'm going for the flag. I'm not going to back off, thinking my luck is about to run out. You've got to have the courage to ride your streaks, and you've got to handle prosperity. If I hit my ball in the water on the next hole, I'm going to regroup and go back to my "$10 bet"—by making sure I'm in the next fairway and make a solid par, so I can get another streak going.

The same rule applies to craps. Awhile back I went to a casino with Dana Quigley, Jim Thorpe, Ed Dougherty, my wife, Marcia, and grandson Jimmy. Jimmy was a beginner, so I explained the betting principle. If I have one superstition, it's a belief in beginner's luck. Jimmy must have had 10 straight passes with the dice, and he won us a quick $4,000. The pros with us were whistling a happy tune because they were betting a lot more than Jimmy was. They were slapping him on the back like he'd just won the U.S. Open.

I was a decent player. I won eight tournaments, and 20 more as a senior. But I always wanted to win a major, and my best chance came in 1974 at the Masters. I started the back nine on Sunday in the lead or maybe a shot or two back. I missed about a three-foot putt for birdie on No. 10 but came back with a nice drive on the 11th. I was ready to pull my 5-iron for my second shot when I decided to consult with my caddie, a local guy.

"Well, Washington, what do you think?" I asked.

"I think the putt you just missed is the one we needed to win," he said.

I told Washington to put the bag down and walk back to the clubhouse. We fought for a while because he refused to leave. Finally I decided to just make the best of it.

On the 15th hole I was two or three shots behind and needed at least a birdie to stay in contention. My second shot was dead in between clubs—a 2-iron would fly too low and hot to hold that firm green and might go in the water beyond it. A 3-wood would give me a higher trajectory, but it was just too much club. I asked myself the question I always ask when the heat is really on: For all the cash, what shot would you play? The answer was a towering slice with the 3-wood, which would keep it from going too far. Right when I hit it, I knew it was the best 3-wood of my life. I actually got chills down my back and arms. Then in the course of one second I saw the ball hang up in the air while also feeling a puff of wind on my left cheek. The ball landed on the front edge of the green and rolled back into the pond. I made a 6, and that was the end of my best chance to win a green jacket. On the 18th hole, completely deflated, I hit an 8-iron second shot, and it goes in the hole for a 2. The gallery goes wild. I acknowledge the cheers, smiling, tipping my bucket hat and muttering under my breath over and over, "That ... f------ ... figures."