ExclusiveBarry Bonds, Tiger Woods, and the Art of the Interview, With Mark Soltau

Our Bay Area Innovator today is Mark Soltam. Mark traveled and worked with golf great Tiger Woods for two decades. Even though I'd been around golf my whole life, I'd never seen anybody do what he was doing at that young age. You know, there are a lot of good players out there, but when Tiger was on, nobody could beat him. And contributed as a writer for the San Francisco Examiner for 16 years. He's also the author of Right Place, Right Time, which offers unique insights into his amazing experiences with the most influential figures in sports history, such as Barry Bonds, Joe Montana, John McEnroe, Steve Young, Ronnie Love, Jimmy Connors, Charles Barkley, John Elway, and many more. And they said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I'm here to do a story on Barry Bonds. And they all laughed and said, well, he's not going to talk. I mean, you have no chance. And as I walked away, the writers had been watching me. And they came running over because they wanted to know how in the world I'd gotten him to talk. And I said, guys, you can read about it tomorrow. This is Bay Area Innovators, and I'm your host, Steve Espos. Mark, welcome to our program. Well, thank you for having me. So Tiger Woods, arguably the best golf player ever. Jack Nicklaus is there as well. Mark probably went, Tiger went over, what, 72 titles in PGA golf, 15 majors. Jack Nicklaus at 18, but still arguably probably one of the best players. You spent a lot of time with him. You worked with him for 20 years. Please tell us, give us a sense of what it's like to spend time with him, to work with him at that close relationship. Well, you know, I always, I'm careful about comparing the greatest of all time because I think every era, things are a little different. And no question, when Jack Nicklaus played, he was the best of his era. And the same with Tiger. You know, in his era, nobody's come close. Now, if you want to say greatest of all time, Jack has so far won one more major and came in second more than any other player in majors. So he was always in contention. Tiger demolished fields when he played. He holds the record for largest margin of victory in the US Open, which is 15 shots. And he won the Masters by 12. So Jack didn't really care how many he won by. Tiger liked taking names and winning by as many as he could. So nobody has been that dominant or consistent. But, you know, my introduction to Tiger came when he went to Stanford in 1995. He was the most highly recruited athlete in golf in the country. He could have gone anywhere. But his mother, Tita, really wanted him to go to a place that stressed academics. And Stanford obviously hit the bill on that. Plus, they had a very good golf team. And she kind of, I think, probably had the last say on it and convinced him that it would be a good spot. And I did the first story on Tiger, the first one-on-one story with Tiger his freshman year when he came to campus and spent some time with him on the driving range and watched him hit and was in awe of this skinny 18-year-old kid who, even though I'd been around golf my whole life, I'd never seen anybody do what he was doing at that young age. The sound that his ball made, just the ball flight, the confidence he had. And we just, we sort of clicked. And after about an hour of watching him and talking to him, we went out for lunch and spent a couple hours talking and hit it off. And he was a Southern California kid. I was born and raised in Northern California. So he didn't know a lot of people. And I knew most of the people in the golf world in Northern California. And so I became somebody that he trusted and a sounding board. And it kind of went from there. And then two years later, he turned pro and decided to start a website called tigerwoods.com. And I was asked to come in as the content editor for tigerwoods.com, which was based in Florida. And my primary job was to document every round of golf he played and write a monthly first-person column with Tiger for his website. And so for 20 years, 20-plus years, I traveled around the world with him and covered pretty much every event he played in and then wrote about it for his website and got inside the ropes with him. Share with us maybe some of the most memorable times with him. You covered that in your book and a lot more. And we suggest this book for the audience to read. But a couple of memories that you have with him that stand out. Well, he was a rock star from the very get-go. I'd covered a lot of famous athletes, including Joe Montana, who were superstars. But Tiger was a worldwide superstar. And everywhere he went, people wanted a piece of him. And it was hard to get him through crowds because people wanted his autograph or they wanted a picture. And it was a lot for a young kid. And even though he'd grown up at an early age around the media, it was still a lot. And plus, he had to perform. So I saw him do things on the golf course no one else has ever done. I mean, the shots he could hit, the power, the mental toughness, his clutch shot making. He made some putts under pressure that very few people could ever do. And his standard was so high that he expected to win every tournament. And that didn't always rub the other guys the right way. Because there are a lot of good players out there. But when Tiger was on, nobody could beat him. And he had a stretch of 10 years where nobody could beat him. And he almost never missed a cut. He prided himself on consistency. And he never gave up in a round, no matter how bad he started or if he had a bad round, he would find a way to save the round so that it wouldn't throw him out of the tournament. And as a result, he won a lot more. His winning percentage was almost 30%, which in golf is unheard of. I mean, with that many players, that many good players, to win 30% of your starts is almost ridiculous. But that's what he did. From your experience in talking to him, interacting with him, what was his driving force? What was that motivated him to come back every day and work hard to keep going? Well, he wanted to be the best of all time. I mean, very early on, that was his goal. I mean, he had a chart in his room growing up of Jack Nicklaus and it listed his major championships. And that was kind of his goal, was to eclipse what Jack did. And some of the early influences on Tiger, like Michael Jordan, who was the best there was at basketball, kind of taught him that to be the best, you have to have a one-track mind. You got to be a little selfish. You've got to be a little ruthless. It's not a popularity contest. You've got to go out and work. And Michael taught him that when you have an opponent down, you step on their throat. And Tiger thought that was a little harsh. And he said, why is that? He said, because the next time you're in this situation, that person will remember. And so that's why I think when Tiger started to get a lead, he was never comfortable. He wanted to go higher and higher and higher. And that's what helped him set these incredible records at the US Open at Pebble Beach and at Augusta at the Masters. And there's always a tendency, if you're ahead, to relax, right? And that's when you can fall back in. Now, you talk about this and many other things in your book. I want to talk about your dad next. You talk about that in your book. So your dad was Gordy Salta. He was a 49ers in the 50s. He was an all-time lead scorer for several seasons. He had a record of 26 points in one game that was eclipsed by Jerry Rice. Tell us about your dad, your relationship with him, and what you learned from him. Well, growing up, I was the oldest of three children and was lucky enough to see him play a couple games before he retired after the 1958 season. And immediately, you know, I would tag along a lot whenever I could or I would go to a practice now and then when I didn't get in the way. And I just loved being around athletes. I loved the energy and the excitement of it. And when I got a little older, when my dad retired, he became a broadcaster. And he, for more than a dozen years, did radio analysis and worked for CBS for 49er games. And by then, I was a little bit older and I could be around him a little more. And so for all the 49er home games at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco and at Candlestick Park, I would typically ride up to the games of them three hours early and quiz them on lineups. He had a board that he did for every game, which all the announcers now do for TV and radio. And it had all the lineups and positions and some facts. And so when we would drive the hour to the stadium going to games, I would quiz them on all these names and numbers. And then when we got to the stadium, he would take me down to the locker room and out onto the field. Some days I'd get to play catch with some of the quarterbacks. Some days I would just run around and, you know, just be a little kid. But I got to meet people and be around famous athletes. And I loved it. And I knew by the time I was in junior high school, I knew sports was going to be a part of my life somehow. And you always want to fall on your father's footsteps. And I was always hoping I could be a football player, but I was short. I didn't grow until I was older. And so after one year of high school football, I decided golf and basketball were more my cup of tea. But I knew somehow I would stay around sports. And I always liked to write. And so in high school, I did some writing for the school paper. And I did it again in college at Chico State, where I played four years on the golf team and had some success. But I knew I wasn't good enough to do it for a living. But I thought maybe writing could be the next best thing. And it would get me inside the ropes and in the locker rooms and keep me around the athletes. And lo and behold, it worked out. This Bay Area Innovators episode is sponsored by Peter Cassara Clothiers, an Italian menswear store that brings timeless European style with a modern edge to Sunnyvale and the Bay Area for over 50 years. From top Italian suits and shoes, the exclusive Tami Bahama line, they've got your look covered. Check out their website at petercassaraclothiers.com to find out more. And now, back to our interview. I'll come back to writing, but I want to ask you, what would you say is the most important thing you learned from your dad? Boy, I learned a lot from dad. I think that he was a very humble, smart guy, who, you know, just watching how he interacted with people. You know, he never, he treated everybody the same. He never big-timed anybody. And he was, you know, very popular on the streets of San Francisco or anywhere he went. People knew him because he was one of their stars. And the 49ers in those days were, you know, the darlings of Northern California. And so dad was really one of the first ambassadors of the team. He didn't start out trying to do that, but he just had such a good way about him. And he was so personable that people were drawn to him. And I just watched how he interacted with people and tried to pick up on as much of that as I could. And also being around his friends, many who were successful businessmen or in other walks of life, who made a lot more money than he did, but loved being around him, just liked knowing things about sports or knowing insights, but were never full of themselves. They were humble and you'd never know that they were so successful. And so those kinds of traits I picked up as a kid and tried to apply to my life. And then, you know, he was just a, he was a good guy. You know, I never heard anybody say anything bad about him. He was a tremendous competitor. He hated to lose. But once the game was over, you know, he would go have a beer with you or talk to you, or, you know, was just somebody that everybody really liked being around. And, you know, quite honestly, he was a tough act to follow. Now you mentioned writing. So you wrote for the San Francisco Examiner for 16 years, and then you joined Tiger Woods. What clicked with you as far as writing? What is it that made you start to go into writing? Yeah, you know, even back to junior high school, I liked creative writing and I always kind of got pulled to do sports because nobody in the high school papers really wanted to write sports. They didn't want to cover the teams. And so, you know, the journalism classes that I took, some of the teachers said, well, you ought to write for the paper because you're good at it and, you know, they need somebody. And so I kind of did it by default. But then when I got to college, I realized that, you know, there could be something here. I mean, if sports doesn't work out, you know, newspaper writing could be something fun and keep me around the game. And so I did an internship my senior year at the local newspaper in Chico and covered high school games and Chico State soccer games and kind of got a real love for what it was like to cover these live events on deadline. And I loved it. I love the idea of, you know, being right where the action was, interacting with players and coaches, and then having to, you know, make a story out of it that would be entertaining and interesting to the readers. Now, I know we talked earlier how you follow the Watergate scandal at the time. And, you know, for us, for most reporters, that's one of the most significant classes that one can take in investigative reporting. What did that do to you? Well, you know, it was interesting. Growing up, I would read a couple sports pages in the morning. And then I took Sports Illustrated and couldn't wait for it to come every Friday. I read it cover to cover. So I love reading about sports. But my senior year in high school in Palo Alto, when Watergate was breaking, I became interested in it because of the reporting. Because they had obviously covered it up. And these two writers, you know, from the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein, did some incredible cloak and dagger behind the scenes reporting and enterprise, and were able to fish out the story. And even though the government denied that any of this had ever gone on, Nixon was the president, I was fascinated to see how tenacious they were, how they would cultivate sources and find ways to get information. And that intrigued me a lot. And even though sports was my love, it made a big impression on me that, you know, whether you cover hard news, sports, whatever it is you cover, you know, all of this can be useful. And so I think when I did become a newspaper writer after college, when I had to, you know, do some digging on some stories or report on some tough stories, I always kind of went back to that knowing that, you know, if you don't see a way into a story, keep trying, you know, try to be creative. Think of other ways that you might be able to get a person to talk or, you know, use your, you know, use your imagination to find a different source because you just never knew. And I did that my whole career. Most of the people that, most of the athletes and coaches that I talked to were very willing to do it. And while I wasn't a homer, as you would call it, I tried to be a positive writer and, but still be fair and critical when it was called for. That reminds me of one of the stories you mentioned in the book when you interviewed Barry Bonds. Yeah. Maybe you can share that with us. Sure. I see a similarity in what you're talking about. Yeah. Well, Barry obviously was one of the best baseball players in the major leagues. And when he came to San Francisco, he kind of rejuvenated the franchise and was the home run king. But he had kind of a surly personality. He didn't like the media, didn't like being interviewed, didn't like people prying on his life, just want to play baseball. And, you know, unfortunately, if you're an athlete, a pro athlete, bottom line is it's entertainment and fans pay a lot of money to come see you play and they want to know more about you. And sometimes it's, you know, it's kind of a head-on collision. And some writers can figure out how to make it work, some can't. And in Barry's case, he basically told the regular writers that covered him in San Francisco, I don't want to talk to you. He'd been burned a couple of times and he just didn't want anything to do with them. So this was in the early 2000s when the new ballpark opened up in San Francisco in China Basin. And I was assigned to cover Barry to do a story about the new season and the new ballpark. And typically the way it worked was you would, you know, you would get a press credential from the Giants and then go to the locker room the day of the game two or three hours early and hang out and hope that the athlete would talk to you. So you would be able to get into the locker room? We would have to get credentials from their public relations department, which we all could do because we all wrote for national magazines or newspapers. And then it was up to the player. You know, you could beg, but if the player didn't want to talk, he didn't have to talk. And so the day that I went in to interview Barry and I hadn't covered a lot of baseball. I knew baseball, but I'd never dealt with him. I'd seen some of the writers who regularly covered the team and they said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I'm here to do a story on Barry Bonds. And they all laughed and said, well, he's not going to talk. I mean, you have no chance. And I said, well, maybe not, but I'll give it a shot. And they laughed and I hung out by Barry's locker, which in those days, rather than just have one locker, because he was a star and kind of a prima donna, he had six lockers. And he also had his own TV and a bark lounger to lay in before games to relax or after games. And, you know, nobody bothered him. Well, there was a rule that I didn't know about. Nobody told me about, which I'll get into. And so when Barry came in that morning, finally, I walked over and he didn't pay any attention to me. He started getting undressed. And I finally introduced myself and he told me to get lost. And I said, well, you know, I'm here to do a story on the new season and the new ballpark. I was just really hoping to get a few minutes to talk with you about that. And he said, get out of here. And he wasn't friendly about it. And so I said, OK, he goes, you've crossed the line. And I said, well, I don't know what the line is, Barry, but you know what? Thanks anyway. You know, have a good season. Because my motto by then was, if somebody's being a jerk or not giving me the time of day, then I walked away and found somebody else to talk to. I just, I had no patience for that kind of treatment. As long as I was prepared and was polite and not pushy, I always felt, you know, it was in their best interest to talk to me because I'm going to give them good PR. But he didn't see it that way. So I started to walk away and I could see the other riders in the back of the locker room laughing because I'd been chased away. And they figured that was going to happen. Well, sure enough, as I'm walking away, I hear this, hey, come back here. And I came back and Barry says, you really don't know about the line? And I said, Barry, I have no idea what the line is, but you know what? Don't worry about it. Clearly, you don't want to talk. So, you know, maybe another time. And I started to walk away again. And he goes, no, no, come back here. He goes, you really don't know, do you? I go, I have no clue, Barry. Well, apparently there was, unbeknownst to me, a little semicircle in front of his locker. There was no line, but it was a little semicircle that he had created. Like six feet or whatever. And all the beat riders, the riders who covered him regularly knew about it. And they were not allowed to cross it. And if they did... They wouldn't tell you. And he wouldn't tell me. And if they did, they were chased away. So he said, he explained to me what this line was. And I said, well, Barry, I'm sorry. I don't cover a lot of baseball. I don't know anything about this line. But again, you know what? Don't worry about it. Have a great season. And he goes, well, wait a minute. He goes, what did you say your last name was? And I said, it's Soltaw. And he said, are you in relation to Gordy Soltaw? And I said, yes, he's my father. He goes, ah, he goes, I've met your father. He's a good dude. And I said, well, I've met your father, Bobby, who was a former Giants star. And he's a good dude. Barry started laughing. He goes, okay, what do you want to know? Well, from then on, he was an open book. I talked to him for 45 minutes. He answered every question I wanted. Couldn't have been nicer to me. And I got everything I wanted. And said goodbye, wished him luck. And as I walked away, the writers had been watching me. And they came running over. Because they wanted to know how in the world I'd gotten them to talk. And I said, guys, you can read about it tomorrow. That's an amazing story. It reminds me how the best salesman is not the pushy salesman. It's the more relaxed one. Yeah, and I have plenty of stories like that, where certain athletes were reluctant to talk. Because either they'd been burned by other writers, or they'd had bad games. And a lot of times, I think it's incumbent on the writer or the reporter, you have to kind of get a sense for what you're walking into. And if you sense that they're angry, or they need time, or they're not going to talk, then you don't push it. But there's other ways to do it. And you can wait them out until they cool off. Or you can talk to a friend of theirs who may know them, who can maybe say, hey, so-and-so is a good writer, very fair, you should talk to him. And so I always just sort of felt out the situation, and then tried to adapt the best I could. Now, let me ask you about this. I notice now in tennis games, grand slams, or I'm not sure, mostly grand slams, after the game, there's a press conference. And if the players don't show up to the press conference, I think they get fined, or probably even worse. What do you think about that? That's okay for them to not talk, or do you think they should be forced to? Well, my personal opinion is that they should want to talk, because that's part of their job. Because sports, whether you like it or not, it's entertainment. And the only way sports exists is fans and TV. And people want to get to know more about athletes, players, whether it's tennis, basketball, football, any sport. And in almost every pro sport now, you're required to talk to the media afterward, or you get fined. And it comes with the territory. Now, most sports have a cooling off period, where if you had a bad game, or a match, or whatever, they'll give you 15 minutes or 10 minutes to blow off some steam, or regain your composure, whatever it is, or talk to a teammate. But if you're a big-name athlete, you should talk to the media. There's no reason you shouldn't. And they should never forget that because of the fans, and the owners, and the TV money, you're making millions and millions of dollars. And without fans, you're nothing. Mark, thank you for being with us. I would love to continue this discussion on sports legends next time. Thank you for watching, and see you next week with another episode of Bay Area Innovators. Thank you for watching another episode of the Bay Area Innovators. If you have a suggestion for someone who should be on our program, we'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at sfbay.epochtimes.com. Thank you for watching, and see you next week.