Even though you were – and still are – based in the United States, you played in almost all the Australian events at a time when travelling between the two countries wasn't as easy as it is today ...
I had no second guesses about trying to help promote golf as an Australian and US Open champion. I played in as many tournaments as I could. Unfortunately there was a lot of jealousy amongst the ranks in those days because if someone like myself came back and got two free tickets with Qantas, a hotel room and maybe a US$5,000 appearance fee there was high resentment. Same thing happened when Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player played the Australian Open. Everyone was screaming bloody murder, saying that the money should have gone into the prize purse and that we didn't need them. [But] They made the Australian Open. Golf should be indebted to them for going all over the world playing for what these days isn't much money. [Appearance fees have] been a controversial subject for fifty years and I don't think it's ever going away. A lot of players have to realize that Palmer, Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are exceptions and without them you don't have a big tournament. It's the same old argument and it's never going to be resolved.
Aside from being one of only three Australians to win more than one major, you may be the only Australian ‘lefty’ to win a major [Graham was a natural left hander as a trainee professional]. What were some of the circumstances that lead to your decision to switch to right handed?
Well I didn’t make the decision, it was made for me. I wasn’t given a choice. It was all to do with the former head professional at Riversdale Golf Club in Melbourne, George Naismith. He was a very respected player and teaching professional and I was his assistant. He took me under his wing but I was the assistant there for close to two years before he knew I even played left handed. In those days, assistant professionals were golf club cleaners and floor sweepers and stuff like that. If a member was on the golf course, you had to keep the shop open so assistants didn’t get much time to play. One time, I shut the shop and was on the range and he was on his way home. He stopped the car and walked over, saying ‘I didn’t know you played left handed. Let me see you hit a couple of balls.’ I hit a few little left handed slices and he said ‘You’ll never be a good player playing left handed, son. You need to play right handed. Build yourself a set of right handed clubs tomorrow. I don’t want to see you playing left handed anymore.’ He just walked off, got in his car and left ... fortunately he lived long enough to learn that I won the US PGA. You know, I can still play pretty good left handed. I don't do it, but I could if I had to.
