Bob Uecker was a baseball guy. But he loved golf, too

Ed. note: Bob Uecker, who died Thursday at 90, was many things to many people. Maybe you knew him as the beloved voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. Maybe you remember him from his role in the “Major League” films (“Juuuust a bit outside”). Or maybe you associated him as the guy from the Miller Lite commercials or for his stint on the popular 80s sitcom, “Mr. Belvedere.”

Uecker, or “Ueck” as he was often called, was at least one other thing, too: a golfer. He took up the game when he played for the Milwaukee Braves in the 1960s, and whittled his handicap down to about a 12.

In 2020, GOLF’s Chris Nashawaty spoke to Uecker about his golf passion, and much more. That interview is reprinted below.

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GOLF: You’re 86. When did you start playing golf?

BOB UECKER: Way back when I was playing pro baseball, my teammate, Clete Boyer, and I used to go out during the off-season. It was pretty frustrating at first. The ball’s sitting up on a tee and I’d hit it out of bounds, or hook it or hit a grounder. It’s not like you’ve got some guy throwing a pitch 100 miles an hour at you. You can swing and miss that. That’s understandable. But when you swing at a ball that’s laying on the ground and nobody’s talking, there’s really no excuse.

Maybe you just needed hecklers, like at the ballpark…

Maybe! I guess I need people screaming obscenities about me and my family, like when I was catching in the big leagues.

Are you any good? What’s the lowest your handicap has been?

I got to about a 13, a 12. I don’t hit the ball far anymore. I mean, I could put a stick of dynamite in my driver and I still might only hit it 200 yards, but I don’t care. It is a little embarrassing, though, when somebody catches me hitting from the kids’ tees in the middle of the fairway.

What’s the best golf tip you’ve ever got?

To put my clubs away.

You finished your major league career with a .200 batting average. Are you a little relieved that you didn’t get one more at bat?

I never paid much attention to that stuff. I did manage to hit 14 home runs in my career, though, and a couple of them off Hall of Famers. When I see Sandy Koufax, I always apologize to him because I thought that might keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

You were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 65 times. Why did you guys hit it off so well?

I don’t know, because he could never make me laugh. We were good friends. And none of it was scripted or planned. He asked me one night if I needed the notes that were on his desk. And I said, “No, I thought they were for you!”

Celebrities

You ad-libbed most of your lines in the movie Major League as well, right?

Yeah, the director told me, “Say whatever you want to say; use your own stuff.” So things like “Juuust a bit outside” were off the cuff. “Ball eight,” “Ball nine” — all of that stuff.

Could Charlie Sheen really bring the heat as the Wild Thing?

Charlie was good! All I had to do was watch him wind up and I knew. He could really throw!

How much fun were those Miller Lite commercials to shoot in the ’80s? I mean, you, Billy Martin, Rodney Dangerfield, John Madden…

It was like a week of insanity with all those guys. Rodney used to be late to the shoots a lot. I did one with [Boston Celtics coach] Tommy Heinsohn, where we were both looking for Halley’s Comet, which comes once every hundred years. We were on a mountain top, and I started talking to him about, “Now would be a great time for a Miller Lite.” So I bend down to get the Miller Lite and I missed Halley’s Comet.

Not a lot of people can also say that they’ve been choked by Andre the Giant in their careers…

Yeah, while I was announcing Wrestlemania. He scared the crap out of me. He did that on his own. He was just supposed to rant and rave and talk about Hulk Hogan, and then all of a sudden he started choking me! It was fun…I guess.

You’ve been the voice of the Milwaukee Brewers forever. How strange was it for opening day to come and go this year without baseball?

This is going to be my 50th year with the Brewers, and my 65th year overall in baseball. It’s what I do. It’s where I’m supposed to be. So it’s sad.

What do you think will happen?

We’re going to eventually start up again, but it will probably be without people in the stands. Now, I don’t care if you’re a baseball player or Tiger Woods, players feed off of the adrenaline of the fans. To think about playing baseball in an empty stadium, it just doesn’t seem right.

Well, hopefully we’ll get baseball back soon and we see you back in the booth.

I’m hoping so, too. Thanks, pal.