♪ >> Hello.

Welcome to another episode in our Canada Files series.

I'm Jim Deeks.

As a life-long golfer, I'm especially excited to have Mike Weir as our guest on this edition.

Mike is arguably the best male professional golfer ever to come out of Canada.

The only Canadian to have won the Masters tournament in 2003.

For many, the Holy Grail of pro golf.

Turning 50 last year, Mike quickly joined the PGA's Champions Tour.

Where he's attempting to turn back the clock and rekindle the glory years.

>> Mike, I'm going to start with a question that some interviewers might save until the end.

Was there ever a time over the last few years when you might have thought that the Mike Weir story had already been written.

Or is there still some achievement to come on the golf course from you?

>> I can't say it hadn't crossed my mind.

But the way I'm built, there's not much quit in me.

I have this saying that Dan Millman who wrote, Way of the Peaceful Warrior... and had a movie about it too.

"A warrior doesn't give up what he loves."

"He finds love in what he does."

I translate that to golf.

I never want to give up golf.

I love it too much.

I'm passionate about it, still at my age.

I still love to compete and practice hard.

I love to play with my friends and enjoy the game.

The state I was at with my game, it wasn't fun.

I wanted to find that love in the game again.

Bring it to some assemblance so I could enjoy it again.

It's turned into even better than that.

>> I ask that question because since your victory in the Masters in 2003.

For our audience who may not be golfers, the Masters is one of 4 majors on the PGA tour each year.

It may be the tournament that most pro golfers want to win most.

You won it in 2003, with a couple of victories after that.

After 2005, there were people, particularly in the media, who said it looks like Mike's career is going downhill now.

But you never seemed to subscribe to that theory.

You kept fighting back and persevering.

Now, to the surprise of many, you are on the Champions Tour, back in competitive golf.

Were you angry that many people did write you off after 2005?

>> I don't know if "angry" is the word.

Maybe, disappointed.

I realize that most media don't know who I am, don't know the kind of effort and work ethic that I have.

Golf is a game that's very fragile, many ups and downs.

I've had that since my early career, in the 90s when I first turned pro.

It took me six years to get on the PGA tour.

I was playing a lot in Asia, Australia, the Canadian tour.

Trying to find my way in this game.

I knew what struggle was.

I reached the pinnacle of winning the Masters in 2003.

But I never forgot how hard this game was.

When I started having struggles, I know what this is.

I know how to dig myself out.

This last little bout has been harder to dig out, through injuries and other things.

I'm all about that and not afraid to dig deep to try to find a way out.

>> Let's go back to where it all began.

You grew up in Sarnia, Ontario across the river from Michigan, northeast of Detroit.

Most kids in Sarnia in the 70s and early 80s weren't dreaming of becoming golf pros, much less winning the Masters.

Did you have those dreams?

>> I think my dreams were like most kids in Sarnia, in the NHL.

To be a hockey player in the NHL.

I knew before I was a teenager, I wasn't good enough to pursue a hockey career.

We moved across the street from Huron Oaks Golf Course, when I was 11 years old.

There was a great golf pro, Steve Bennett, and his assistant, Dave Bredour.

I had a summer job there.

It was a great culture for golf.

A lot of kids there my age at that time.

We worked a shift and played all afternoon, or played all morning and worked an afternoon shift.

Picking the driving range or working in the back shop.

A great competitive culture at a young age-- we had that from age 12 to 18.

I think people watching may not realize how passionate Canadians are about golf.

We love our golf when the weather starts turning nice.

Everybody is excited to get outside--no different in Sarnia.

I would say I did have thoughts of winning the Masters.

I was really enthralled with golf and professional golf.

Jack Nicklaus did an exhibition at Huron Oaks in 1983.

He played a match with Steve Bennett, our head pro.

They had this match and I saw Jack Nicklaus up close for the first time at 13.

Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986 at age 46-- really sparked my passion for golf.

Also going to the Canadian Open for the first time.

In those early years, I started dreaming-- I loved sports so much, that golf might be the path, not hockey.

>> When did you realize that you might have the talent to become a golf pro, and able to compete in major tournament golf?

>> A real breakthrough moment for me was in the early 90s.

May been in '94 when I qualified for the Canadian Open-- in the Monday qualifying.

I won in a playoff to get myself in the tournament.

I walked onto the driving range and there was Nick Price.

The driving range was full and there was one empty spot.

It was beside Nick Price, no.

1 or 2 in the world then.

I was hitting balls beside him.

Being a left-handed golfer, I'm looking right at him.

Just the sound of the ball coming off the club was a lot different from mine.

I had aspirations to be that type of player.

But I knew I'm so far away from that, at this stage.

Even though I was a professional golfer, there's different levels of professional golfers.

There's the major champions, the guys that just keep their cards every year, guys that win tournaments that never do well in majors.

I was only on that lower lower tier, just trying to break through.

I looked at Nick, "What is he doing?"

It started my path of exploring technique and fitness deeper.

To figure out how he hits the ball so well and consistently.

My game wasn't like that.

It was very inconsistent.

I could have days that were really good-- but not every day like a guy like Nick Price.

That was a real breakthrough moment for me to watch.

Helped me dive deeper into technique that improved my game.

>> Clearly something worked.

By the time your PGA tour career finished by the 2010s, you had won eight tournaments, competed internationally in the Presidents' Cup team, a bi-annual golf exhibition.

You beat Tiger in the Presidents Cup in 2007, in a well-remembered match by many Canadians.

You spent over 100 weeks in the top 10 of the World Golf Ranking for male professionals.

Which is an amazing achievement.

You were never a big guy or a particularly long hitter.

How did you manage to beat all those guys?

>> A few factors...consistency, like my Nick Price story.

I started building a game founded on consistency.

Not being a big guy, I couldn't overpower courses like Tiger, Davis Love, Fred Couples and John Daly.

These guys that could really take advantage of the par 5s.

Turn long par 4s into short par 4s.

An advantage with their length.

My game had to be playing out of the fairway, being a great putter, wedge player, being an ultra competitor, not giving an inch.

That kind of mentality was also key to my success.

That's how I did it... wearing the golf course down through consistency, repetition and having a great process that worked for me.

>> Let's talk about the Masters of 2003.

I think almost every Canadian over 25 years of age will remember that day that you won that Masters in a playoff.

It was one of the great Canadian sports moments.

Those of us who remember also remember that you have to sink a very scary 7-foot putt on the final hole just to get into a playoff.

Which you then won.

That was a amazing moment sinking that putt.

Have you ever thought of how different your life would be today if you had not made that putt >> I haven't really thought about that.

The way I look at it, I was leading that tournament from the get-go.

It was a strange week.

We were rained out on Thursday.

Had to start on Friday, play as many holes as we could Friday.

Play catch-up to 54 holes on Saturday.

Sunday, we were back to a normal schedule.

I was leading from the get-go, felt it was my tourney.

AT the 72nd hole, my first putt came up 7-8 feet short.

My mentality was this is my tournament.

I've been leading this from the get-go.

I'm not letting it go.

I'd been putting great all week.

That's what was running through my mind.

I stepped up, hit a great putt.

Golf's funny.

You can hit a great putt and it can miss.

In some people's eyes, my life may be different.

In my eyes, I've had a really nice career, even if I hadn't won that.

It's icing on the cake.

In a lot of golf circles, it would have made a difference.

>> Was winning that Masters your greatest golf achievement?

>> I think it is.

Definitely the highlight.

There's some close ones that are very memorable too.

The Presidents Cups...I have so many memorable moments.

Teaming up with Nick Price and Ernie Els.

Lots of great players that I've played with are great memories.

Winning in Canada... my very first win on the PGA tour at the Air Canada Championship in 1999.

Holing out a long shot on the 14th and the way the crowd responded.

Coming up that 18th hole, even though it was my first win, it felt like a major championship.

That was so special.

You mentionned the 2007 Presidents Cup match with Tiger.

Tiger was at the top of his game.

I don't think anyone gave me a chance, except for those closest to me or knew me... that I could beat him that day.

I remember Peter Thomson, one of our captains, said, "It's like feeding a lamb to the lions...this match."

I took that personally.

We had a chuckle and smile after that.

I said to Peter who was there, "You gave me fuel for the fire for that match."

A lot of great memories in my career and I'm grateful for the way it has gone.

>> Who were some of the players you most feared when you were playing on the tour 20 years ago?

>> When I saw Tiger, Phil, or Ernie.

Jim Furyk is a heck of a competitor.

Those guys were very tough competitors.

If I was in contention in a tournament and those guys were too, I knew I had my hands full.

I had to use all of my mental capacity to stay focused on my game.

Golf is funny that way.

If you get too drawn into what the other guys are doing you probably won't play well.

It's your ability to keep within your own game.

Keep your focus on yourself.

If those guys were in contention, I had to bring my concentration up to a different level which ultimately brought my game up to another level.

>> So much has been written about Tiger's ability to inspire fear in other players.

When he was at, or near, the top of the leaderboard.

When you were playing your best in the early 2000s, did you inspire fear in other players?

>> I've heard that from some other players that I was intimidating to play with sometimes.

Maybe because I would get so internally focused on my own game, and not disrespectfully, I wouldn't pay attention to what the other guys were doing.

When I was at my best, I was able to block things out well.

Which seemed to other players, that I never got rattled.

I have been rattled plenty of times.

When I got in that space in my head-- very focused, a concentrated deep state such that other players found that intimidating.

Some guys have relayed this to me over the past few years.

>> After 2007 and your last victory, your down years .

You struggled to regain your form and to overcome injury.

You got involved with a different swing technique.

What was your biggest challenge back then: confidence, continuing to persevere, financial worries?

Were they tough years to go through?

>> They were very difficult years to go through.

Not sure one is tougher than the other.

I would say... not being able to perform.

I tore the extensor tendon on my right elbow when I hit a tree root at Hilton Head in late 2000s.

Golf is very fragile.

When you're not able to set your wrists normally when you have an injury.

I had to have it surgically repaired then rehab.

Things just never felt the same as the way I swung before.

I had to find alternate ways around my limited elbow and wrist movement.

That was very difficult.

I couldn't fall into a consistent technique so I had all kinds of problems.

Looking back, I wish I had taken more time off through the injury I tried to get back too early.

I fell into some bad habits.

Because I was very hesitant to hit the ball.

I would almost flinch at the ball because I didn't want to hit the ground because it hurt.

I was too stubborn.

In hindsight, if I'd taken maybe a year or longer off to fully rehab and assess things-- take a step back.

I tried to plow through.

That wasn't the smartest thing.

You lose confidence, ability to connect with the target.

You're constantly thinking about your swing instead of playing the game.

Things can spiral quickly.

>> Did you think about packing in tournament golf in those years?

Take a nice pro job at an exclusive country club?

You could have lived a very comfortable life based on your past career.

>> It crossed my mind.

Is it worth digging out of this hole again?

To persevere and push through this.

The answer was always yes.

It was always when I woke up every day.

Some days more excited than others, but most days to get back to work, to figuring it out.

To try to find a way to get back.

Find a new way into the game.

>> If you could take the Mike Weir of 2003 and magically transport him onto the PGA Tour today, how do you think you'd do?

>> I think he'd still do very well too.

Yeah.

It's definitely a power game.

I don't know if the 2003 version of myself would get to No.

3 in the world, like I did.

I'd still be a very good player on the PGA tour.

I'd be in contention a lot.

>> The long players on the tour now are 50 yards longer then back in 2003.

The 18th hole of the Masters in 2003, you hit a 4-iron into the final green.

Today players are hitting 9-irons and wedges.

That's a huge difference!

Do you think the quality of the longer players is hurting the game of golf because theoretically, they make golf courses shorter with their hitting length?

>> The quality of the play on the PGA Tour is even a higher standard than what it was in my days.

There's so many long players and they hit the ball very straight.

It's a function of the technique evolving better on the PGA.

The players are fitter.

They know how to train.

Smarter and save their bodies instead.

The theory when I was growing up was dig it out of the dirt, hit tons of balls.

You had to over-work.

Now the guys are working smarter and gaining a lot more.

They're working with their coaches and bio-mechanic experts in how the bodies move.

You throw in the equipment being better.

These incredible athletes are hitting the ball incredible straight distances.

Yes, I worry about the length of the golf courses.

The skill of the game is hitting all the shots in the bag-- your driver, long irons, wedges, touch wedge shots, putt great.

Hit fairways.

A good example was the US Open this year.

Bryson DeChambeau won the tournament A couple of top players--Matthew Wolf on Saturday and Sunday, they hit less than 30% of the fairways.

They're shooting mid-60s at a very difficult golf course.

I don't think that's the way the game should be played.

If you're missing fairways like that, you should be penalized.

If you hit it long and straight, you should be rewarded.

If you're missing fairways, you shouldn't be hitting a wedge on the green and score really well.

There's a fine balance that the USGA R&A need to figure out.

>> Is there a golfer in history that you would have liked to have been?

There's a few I wish I had played with.

I played with Jack Nicklaus a couple of times.

As I mentionned, Jack played at our home club when I was young.

Our head pro, Steve Bennett, loved Jack Nicklaus.

So I loved Jack Nicklaus.

He never disappointed.

Any time I've been around Jack, I know his sons well.

I've played a lot of mini-tour golf and some qualifiers for the PGA tour with his sons.

He and Barbara were always out following them.

Jack is a guy I've always admired.

The way he's been the best player in the world but have a great balance in life with his family.

One person I've had a kinship with and read a lot of books about is Ben Hogan.

A smaller guy that dug it out of the dirt.

Didn't have a lot growing up.

Had some hardships but was just gritty and tough.

And found a way to get it done.

I've always admired how he went about his game.

Those are two guys from the past that I really admire.

Arnold Palmer, I love him of course.

>> Just about everybody wanted to be Arnold Palmer.

You also have a personal history with Jack, at age 11 or 12.

Tell us that story.

>> My first Canadian Open I watched, as a junior golfer.

I was 12 years old when I saw Jack and Johnny Miller, Tom Kite and all these great players.

I thought this is cool but there's no lefties!

No left-handed players.

My dad and I had this great idea to write Jack a letter to ask if I should switch to right-handled.

I'm young enough, 12 years old, Should I switch if I want to become a professional golfer.

He was writing for Golf Magazine at the time.

So I wrote him, in care of Golf Magazine and I got this letter back a few months later saying, "Mike, I've always believed that if you're a natural lefty, you should stick to that."

It's a great story.

I brought the letter to Muirfield Village, when Jack hosts the Memorial Tournament and I showed him the letter.

Over the years, we've gotten a kick out of that.

He has said, "What would have happened if I'd told you to switch to right-handed?"

"Maybe no-one would have heard of you!"

We get a kick out of that story.

>> So he can take full credit for your career.

>> Yes...basically.

>> I'm going to ask you a question that I ask all our guests on Canada Files.

You've played with, competed against, and travelled to many different countries around the world.

Played with international players.

You live full-time in Salt Lake City.

But you're still proudly Canadian.

What does being Canadian mean to you?

>> What being Canadian means to me is a tight-knit camaraderie amongst all of us Canadians.

I remember when Bianca Andrescu won the US Open, competing against Serena.

Though I'm in Salt Lake City, I have a Canadian shirt on.

I'm watching the tennis on the tv.

I'm cheering her on.

We have that amongst us.

Even if we're in different parts of the world, we cheer each other on.

The World Juniors hockey was just on.

I was watching, cheering the young fellows on.

We just have that real pull and camaraderie with one another That feels really special.

That's what I feel being Canadian is.

We cheer for each other, very strongly.

A really special feeling.

>> You've been a fine representative of Canadian sportsmanship and achievement.

Thanks very much for joining us on Canada Files .

>> Thanks Jim.

>> And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next time with more Canada Files .

♪