Cigar Aficionado

Mark Wahlberg is one of the biggest names in movies, with a diverse series of roles that range from slapstick comedy to riveting drama. Whether fighting against the raging Atlantic in The Perfect Storm, talking to a sarcastic stuffed animal in Ted or portraying a no-nonsense Boston law enforcement officer in The Departed, Wahlberg’s roles have resonated.

But there is far more to the Wahlberg story than acting. He is also a film and television producer, with movies such as The Fighter and television shows such as “Entourage” and “Boardwalk Empire.” He has also taken on one business segment after another, opening restaurants, investing in bottled water, fitness clothing and much more, such as the Flecha Azul Tequila brand. His is a story of resilience, rising from the streets of Dorchester, Massachusetts and overcoming many pitfalls of youth to emerge with both critical and financial acclaim.

Wahlberg sat down in the New York City offices of Cigar Aficionado in early June, only days after his 52nd birthday, with editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken for a wide-ranging discussion about his life, his business and his views of the entertainment industry.

Shanken: When I did the review of your life I thought of the Ugly Duckling. Your life’s story. You started off with a very dysfunctional childhood and then you became this beautiful swan, poetically speaking.

Wahlberg: I wouldn’t go that far. Sounds nice.

Shanken: You had a lot of challenges and somehow you turned yourself around. Looking back on your childhood, I’d love you to speak to how you became who you are today.

Wahlberg: I have a lot of real-life experience to draw from. I would say it definitely gave me all the motivation to want to grow, to be better, to accomplish something in life, to make my parents proud, to bring people together. It was an environment that was conducive to drugs and gangs and trouble and you just kind of went with the flow. I was always the young guy trying to fit in with the crowd and I was easily influenced and at a very young age I started becoming under the influence but as soon as that reality hit me in the face and I got a clear look of how my life would look in the future if I continued down that path I wanted to change. I think I have been very blessed to be able to hopefully prevent other kids growing up in other similar situations to have an easier path with more opportunity to be successful in life as human beings.

Shanken: Was there one thing that happened where you hit the wall, or was it a gradual transition to focusing on changing your life?

Wahlberg: It was a process. Now what may have seemed like a lifetime was certainly a short amount of time between getting out of trouble, having an opportunity to have a record come out and working with my brother once I got my opportunity, my shot, I was not going to do anything to compromise that.

Shanken: Talk to me about that opportunity that got you your first shot at being in film.

Wahlberg: I had moderate success in the music business, I had a record that came out, I had a No. 1 single, I had a successful platinum album, I was about to do another album, and so there was interest in me for whatever reason. I don’t think anybody envisioned me having a serious acting career, but I loved cinema. And my love of cinema came from my dad who was a teamster, he was a truck driver who drove a truck in Boston. He also delivered school lunches during the summer. I was the youngest and was home and he would always take me to the movie theater. So I had a love for cinema, and I had an appreciation for cinema, and I also had a knowledge of cinema that most people my age didn’t have, whether they were in the movie business or not.

And so I was intrigued, but not by the opportunites that were being presented. You know, it was like play the white rapper in Sister Act II, or play the evil kid on the skateboard in a roller blade movie, things that weren’t going to afford me the opportunity to have a real career.

But then I got a call saying Penny Marshall wants to meet you. I said Penny Marshall? “Laverne & Shirley,” oh my God, and Danny DeVito from “Taxi”—I grew up watching them. I felt like it would be too good of an opportunity to pass up meeting them, even though I had no interest in being in the film. So I went, I sat with Penny and Danny and I could relate to them right away. Danny’s from Jersey, Penny’s from the Bronx, very neighborhood, down-to-earth, humble, normal people. Very different from the experience I had had meeting with other people around Hollywood. So I fell in love with Penny and she convinced me  to go and audition for her, and I proceeded to start auditioning for four different roles [in the movie Renaissance Man]. And then when I got the role [as Pvt. Tommy Lee Haywood], I said, ‘oh my gosh I gotta really do this.’

I just started watching all the movies that my dad had taken me to, and looking at all of the guys in film that either reminded me of my dad, or some people that I could relate to or identify with. So I watched a lot of [James] Cagney, I watched a lot of [Steve] McQueen, a lot of John Ryan, lot of Edward G. Robinson, and it was kind of just studying film. And when I made the movie I just found myself hanging out on the set every day, whether it was with Penny, watching her, and watching everything else that everybody else was doing.

Shanken: You were a minor player in the movie. What was it like working with Danny DeVito? Was he friendly to you? Was he distant? We’re talking about a long time ago.  

Wahlberg: He was very, very friendly and he was very open and very much took me under his wing and would share with me any questions that I had. Very inquisitive about the process, what was going on, whose job was what, not to mention picking his brain and all the things he had done up until that point. But yeah, he really kind of took me under his wing.

Shanken: So that was your first movie. Then Boogie Nights.

Wahlberg: Boogie Nights came after Basketball Diaries, Fear, Traveller, then Boogie Nights.

Shanken: You gotta tell me: When they presented this idea to you what was your first reaction? And did you question whether or not you should do it? Because that’s as controversial a movie as you can ever be in.

Wahlberg: When I first heard about the film the subject matter was not appealing to me. I came from the whole Marky Mark thing, pulling down my pants, Calvin Klein underwear—I didn’t know if this was just the next level of exploiting me and now all of a sudden we have to lose the underwear. My agents kept pushing me. So I read the first 25, 30 pages, and I kind of put it down. I was like this could be something great, or this could be absolutely terrible. So I agreed to meet with [director] Paul Thomas Anderson and we sat down and we hit it off right away. I knew he was an emerging young talent.

Shanken: So you did the movie. Did you have any regrets afterwards?

Wahlberg: No, no, not at all.

Shanken: And isn’t that a movie that you got critical acclaim for?

Wahlberg: Yeah that was the movie that really set things in motion. I had done the lead in Fear, co-lead, but yeah that was the kind of thing that set the wheels in motion.

Shanken: Do you know how many movies you’ve done?

Wahlberg: North of 50.

Shanken: So, in your heart of hearts, which movies are you most proud of?

Wahlberg: Different movies for different things, but I always defer to the true stories. The Perfect Storm, The Fighter, Lone Survivor, Father Stu, Invincible.

Shanken: The Perfect Storm: I watched it again two nights ago. There’s no way you could have done the acting on the boat in those waves and those storms. How did they make it so real?

Wahlberg: That was tough, that was one of the toughest shoots I’ve ever done. We were out on the water for quite some time, and then we shot in Gloucester [Massachusetts], I stayed in the actual Crow’s Nest, and then spent lots of time with the family, lots of time preparing, going out on long liners, sword boats. With the storm itself, we would move to Warner Brothers and they would have the big tank there, and that’s where you have the boat on a gimble, and then you had the wave machines, dump tanks, water cannons, green screens—

Shanken: Unbelievable.

Wahlberg: The scene where I’m supposed to be the last one in the water, alone, I’m in the dump tank, you got a crane with a long lens, so focus is critical. I’m supposed to be staying in position while the waves are going back and forth, and all this commotion, so they had divers come underneath and hold me in position, to keep me in focus. And they can’t tell where I am in relation to the surface so they’re just trying to hold me in position and the waves are just going over me and I can’t breathe and I’m taking on water and all kinds of shit. So that was probably the most physically demanding shoot—

Shanken: And it looks so real.

Wahlberg: But I was young then, I didn’t give a shit. I loved every minute.

Shanken: [laughs] It was so real it was like you were actually in those tidal waves.

Wahlberg: Everything we do we try to make it as real as possible. I was always gung-ho, especially early on, to try anything and everything as an actor, as the guy who wanted to be in camera, feel like the audience was watching me and not a stunt guy.

Shanken: So the other one that I was curious about was The Fighter. You got the crap kicked out of you in those fights, and I’m not naïve. I assume no one hit you but it sure looked real.

Wahlberg: Oh we did lots of hitting in that one. Lots of hitting. The only way to make the movie different and better than any of the other boxing movies out there was to actually fight. So we hired guys that were real fighters. That movie took forever. I wanted to look like a guy who could win the welterweight title. I didn’t want to look like a guy who, all of a sudden, you cut to a stunt guy. I said why don’t you let me take the movie out, I want to put David O. Russell in to direct, he was at a low point in his career, I fought to get him in the movie. I got Christian Bale in the movie. I was then producing the movie; we got independent financing, altogether like $11 million. Shot the movie down and dirty.

I had to call HBO ’cause of my relationship with Ross Greenburg [former president of HBO Sports] and Richard Plepler [former HBO chairman and CEO], who you know, I had to call them and ask for a million favors. I had to ask them if I could use all their cameras, all their camera operators, the director who shot the Ward-Gatti fights. I wanted to shoot the fights like you shot a real fight. When you do Rocky or whatever you have guys throwing punches at the camera—I didn’t want any of that. We had three days to shoot all of those fights. We shot the whole movie in 33 days. I said we’re going to do it like a real fight, but we’re going to show them what we do beforehand. And then if we have to, we do it again and again and again, and we had 12 hours to do it instead of the 35 or 40 hours it would normally take.

Shanken: The Departed. Unbelievable cast. Were you part of the creation, or did they bring you in? It’s a classic.

Wahlberg: I was originally supposed to play a different role. A guy from the studio said ‘no, I don’t want Mark Wahlberg.’ Marty [Scorsese] and Leo [Leonardo DiCaprio] really wanted me. The guy from the studio wanted Matt Damon. And I agree, Matt Damon was really good for the part, because he’s a Boston guy like myself. I didn’t have an issue with Matt. So I said it’s their movie, no big deal, I’m out. And then Ari [Emanuel, Wahlberg’s longtime agent] calls Marty. Marty says I like Mark for Sgt. Dingham, I guess Ari just told them I would do it, but I never agreed to do it. So Marty calls me out of the blue, I’m up in Toronto shooting Four Brothers, and Marty goes, oh I’m so excited that we’re doing this. I said I ain’t fucking doing that.

Shanken: [laughs]

Wahlberg: Dead silence. He’s like Ari said—I said I don’t give a fuck what Ari said. He hangs up the phone, Ari calls me five minutes later: What are you doing? How the fuck can you do that? I said I’m not doing that. He says please just go to New York and talk to Marty. And then I happened to read the script on the way back and I just started thinking. I said you know what, this is a good fucking part. This is a good opportunity to show these guys what I do. So I said to Marty, ‘look you gotta let me do my thing.’ It was already a fantastically written script, but you gotta let me do my thing, you gotta let me improvise you gotta let me fucking steamroll everybody. That was the character, and this is actually a good thing.

Shanken: I’m skipping around. I’m trying to hit some of the highlights to better understand. “Entourage.” How do you describe that as a focal point of your career?

Wahlberg: That’s about how I got into business with Ari, I made a documentary with a bunch of my friends who wanted to be rappers, lots of different things. Ari is starting Endeavor, we already had a film career going, we wanted to be producers. We figured what better way to get into producing than through television. So when I made the doc about me and my friends and the craziness of it all and reality television was starting they were like hey why don’t we just follow you and your buddies around with a camera? And I said why the fuck would I do that? That’s just gonna incriminate me and I don’t want to do that. I said I’m going in the other direction. But we said OK, what about a show? We pitched it to HBO.

Shanken: Tell me the difference between being an actor and being a producer.

Wahlberg: I started becoming a producer out of necessity.

Shanken: What is a producer?

Wahlberg: Well, a producer is somebody who maybe finds the material, finds the financing, it really depends. There’s many different ways and functions of a producer. When we started in television we started out of necessity, we learned how to produce movies based on television. When we started in television you had less time, you had less money so by the time The Fighter came around, we knew how to make a film that had some scope and felt like it was epic even though we had very limited resources. We learned how to shoot fast and down and dirty.

But the reason why I started producing was because I didn’t want to sit around waiting for Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or whoever was already established before me and were the guys at the time, and Leo [DiCaprio] to go and pass on a movie until I could get my hands on it. I was always proactive in trying to find material and things that I could produce, that I knew was right for me, create my own destiny. And have control, having creative control because the second your name is above the title you reap the rewards of success but you also bear the brunt of the failure. So if I’m gonna be in that position I want to be behind the wheel, going 100 miles an hour. If you’re going down the highway do you want to be in the back seat without a seatbelt or do you want to be behind the wheel?

Shanken: You work with so many great actors. Do you have favorites that you’ve worked with in the past and you want to work with again in the future? And are there actors that you’ve never worked with that you want to do a movie with?

Wahlberg: Oh plenty. Plenty on both fronts. You get to work with Danny DeVito, you get to work with Jack [Nicholson], you get to work with [Robert] Duvall, you get to work with Jimmy Caan, you get to work with—God, I’ve worked with so many talented people. A lot who are no longer here. I’ve been very, very fortunate. Denzel [Washington], Bill Paxton, God rest his soul. James Gammon, Luke Askew. I was always a student of the game. Bill Paxton, he gave me the job to co-star in Traveller because we went in for a meeting and we started talking. Name actors that you like. I started naming actors that he was shocked that I knew. But this was me just going back to watching movies with my dad, and a lot of them if I didn’t know their names I knew the parts they played. George Kennedy. Cool Hand Luke. Ellen Burstyn. Faye Dunaway. Jessica Lange. And then, of course, all the young greats too.

Shanken: What’s a typical day like for you? When you get up in the morning, what’s your routine? I don’t want to put words in your mouth but I’ve heard that you have a very long day.

Wahlberg: It really depends on what I’m doing at the time for work. It just revolves around family and work. People have always harped on the getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning, praying, training, I got to have my alone time, my prayer time.

Shanken: Is that true though?

Wahlberg: Absolutely.

Shanken: You get up at 2 am?

Wahlberg: If I go to bed at six. If I go to bed at seven I get up at three. I have to get eight hours of sleep.

Shanken: I had heard you go to bed at eight and you wake up at four.

Wahlberg: I do that too. So yesterday I went to bed at 7:30 and I woke up at 3:30.

Shanken: And you work out every day?

Wahlberg: I had worked out straight for 100 and something days, this is the first time now I’m taking a week off just to recover. So rest and recover, especially now at my age are equally important.

Shanken: And prayer?

Wahlberg: Prayer every day.

Shanken: Explain to me, because I don’t know anybody else that prays every day.

Wahlberg: Well, you better start praying for them Marvin.

Shanken: Explain to me what that’s about.

Wahlberg: Well look, when I open my eyes I have a lot to be grateful for. So first and foremost I express my gratitude, and then I have a reminder of all the things that I need to do to continue to grow to be a better person, to be a better servant of God, to be a better father, to be a better husband, to be a better brother and uncle, a leader, a follower. I think all this stuff has happened for a reason, and it’s not my plan, it’s not my strategy, it’s his plan.

Shanken: So I asked two mutual friends to talk to me about you. Arnon [legendary Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan of Regency Enterprises] said he pays for his meals. But he went on to say that Mark plays by the book, he’s a pleasure to work with and I wish that I could make more movies with him. Arnon is special and he has a tremendous amount of respect for you.

Wahlberg: It’s mutual.

Shanken: And Richard [Plepler, former head of HBO and now a producer for Apple] said there’s very few people with Mark’s staying power as a star. And he also said nobody would ever outwork Mark Wahlberg, and he compared you to Michael Douglas. That you have an incredible work ethic and the two of them find you very special as somebody to work with. That’s a very unique kind of comment that they were more or less in sync over. You obviously take your work very, very seriously. Was that from your childhood? Where did that come from? That inner commitment and strength to putting in a full day plus a full day in the same day?

Wahlberg: Well I got a lot of gratitude. Anybody who’s ever given me an opportunity I don’t want to disappoint them. I want to deliver. I don’t want to deliver, I want to over deliver. I just feel an immense gratitude to have ever been given an opportunity. If somebody’s willing to take a chance on me, this bum kid from Dorchester who could easily have been written off a long time ago? That means a lot to me.

Shanken: I think that our reader is going to find it very refreshing to hear a no-bullshit, from-the-heart conversation like the one we’re having right now. I’ve interviewed a lot of people and I hear you speaking from your heart and your soul. And it’s uplifting for me to hear you.

Wahlberg: People get inspired by ordinary people who look and sound just like them who have been able to do something extraordinary. If it’s somebody you can’t relate to—or identify with—in a way then it’s hard to draw inspiration from them. But I know a lot of people who were successful when they weren’t supposed to become successful. They had all of the odds stacked against them. One thing they had was the drive and the consistency to never give up and to never take no for an answer. And I understand we’re in the business of rejection, failure, and they’re always looking for the next thing.

Shanken: Is there anything in the world of film that you’re longing to do that you haven’t done yet? On your bucket list.

Wahlberg: Direct. Working with some of the other great talents. Working with the next batch of great talent—

Shanken: Did you just say that you want to direct?

Wahlberg: Yeah, possibly.

Shanken: You obviously have the connections and the credibility to be a director.

Wahlberg: It’s just a different level of commitment and time. Going off on location somewhere for three, four months is already a big enough commitment, never mind 18 months, two years of your life. All this time in pre-production, all this time in principal photography, all this time in the editing room and everything else, post production it’s a massive commitment. The right thing at the right time.

Shanken: We started off with people watching movies in the theater, then watching movies on TV, and it’s progressed and now we’re at a place with streaming, you can watch on your iPad, your iPhone—what do you see in the future? You’re doing more and more films with Netflix, Apple and God knows who else. Does it concern you? Does it excite you? What do you see as the future landscape for film in the next 10, 20 years?

Wahlberg: Well things are changing. With Covid, people didn’t want to go out of their house, theaters were shut down, people were watching lots and lots of streaming. People will still decide when and where to consume their content. They can watch on an iPhone which [picks up his phone] will be terrible, ’cause it’s so small, and you want that full experience with an audience, strangers sitting beside you, laughing and crying and reacting together. Nothing will replace the theatrical experience. Now, people are starting to go back to the theaters. So I think it will just continue to grow and change and you always gotta be able to grow and stay nimble as well and you gotta stay ahead of the curve and be willing to adapt. I love the convenience of being able to watch something at home that I might not be able to run out to the theater. Pre-Covid, I went to the movies three, four times a week.

Shanken: Did you ever go to see your own movie to see what the audience reaction might be?

Wahlberg: Sometimes. If it’s a movie that you were just an actor for hire, you went, you made the movie, you kind of distanced yourself from it, you’re off to the next thing, you go to promote the movie, you kind of have to see the movie to know what you’re talking about, what you’re discussing through the process of promoting the film. Other movies you want to go, if you’re producing a movie you want to gauge it and test it. I’m really a firm believer in testing films, because I think the audience will always give you the most information and honest feedback. It really depends. I kind of make them then I’m on to the next, but yeah, with testing a movie or seeing how a movie is performing before it comes out, or we need to make some changes, we just did a week of additional shooting for Our Man From Jersey.

Shanken: Let’s talk about that movie for a second.

Wahlberg: We had this idea of creating our own version of a James Bond, but a blue-collar James Bond, the guy who’s plucked from the neighborhood who is all of a sudden thrust into a world of secret agents and spies. Netflix loved it. And Halle Berry was fantastic, she plays the person who brings me into that world, but we happen to be high school sweethearts and then all of a sudden 25 years later we’re back together. And I’m still living with my mom, still got the same job, the same friends, hanging out in the neighborhood bar, always kind of holding out for the love of my life and she comes back into my life and thrusts me into this world, and it’s a kind of love story where a guy would do anything to make his gal happy and impress her. It’s funny, it’s got humor, it’s got great action, it’s a fish-out-of-water story.

Shanken: How long from beginning to end did it take to film it?

Wahlberg: Oh gosh, we shot last year in London. I think we started in the winter, we finished in the summer, came to Jersey in June, shot for a week, was shut down for a month and a half, two months until tourist season was over in Europe, we shot in Slovenia, Croatia in September, so we finished there maybe in October, then came back, did another movie, finished that then we had to go back and finish it up.

Shanken: So if you don’t have enough to do with film, you also have a business side. I don’t know which of your businesses are important or not important—

Wahlberg: All of them. Oh, all of them.

Shanken: So let’s start with Tequila. Flecha Azul. What got you into that Tequila brand?

Wahlberg: I’m a serial entrepreneur. Tequila was taking off, driven by the celebrity Tequila brands like Casamigos. Having met Abe [Abraham Ancer] and Aron [Marquez] and our mutual friend Shelly Stein identified this as the next great Tequila that should be the next great product . . . . They came to me, asked me to get involved and I said the only way to get involved really is to put the guys that created the brand at the forefront of it, very much like “Entourage.” Here’s two guys who are very successful in their own right: Abe Ancer, top 25 golfer in the world, Aron Marquez, oil and gas guy, border town kids, came over here, picking onions with his family, taught himself English, put himself through college, wanted a taste of home, created this Tequila because they didn’t have anything that reminded them of real, authentic, all natural, additive-free premium Tequila.

They created the product, it was an award-winning product, we met each other, started really getting to know each other, and then they invited me to come into the business. I said I’ll cut a big check, buy a piece of the business and then I will go out and be the voice of educating the consumer on what real, authentic Mexican Tequila is supposed to taste like. It’s Mexican owned, Mexican created and so I think people are really resonating to that, the authenticity of who they are, where they came from and why they created it. It’s really resonating with customers.

Shanken: [Takes a sip of the Tequila] It’s delicious.

Wahlberg: Yeah, it’s fantastic. And so, you know, I said I’m going to use all my resources and go out there. Nobody works harder than me, we’ve done 65 appearances in three months, we visited 15 states, we’ve done on-premise events, bar takeovers. I’ve been to every retailer, I show up and knock on the doors, whether it’s Publix, Walmart, Giant Eagle . . .

Shanken: Total Wine in Palm Beach.

Wahlberg: Total Wine, ABC, everywhere. Liquor Barn in Kentucky, you name it.

Shanken: Also your presence on social media is extraordinary. You must spend a lot of time on that.

Wahlberg: Yeah, but look, it’s organic to what we’re doing. We’re getting people to taste the product, once people taste the product it’s a 1,000 percent conversion rate. And people want to know the difference. Everything that we do, every single thing that we do, whether it’s Municipal [apparel brand], whether it’s the content that we create, whether it’s what we’re doing at F45 [fitness centers] or Wahlburgers [the hamburger chain] it’s all aspirational. So we want to create a great value proposition for someone that’s out there working really hard. Everything we create is aspirational, the everyman that works hard, the everywoman, they deserve the best, so we’re trying to educate them on what that is and make sure we provide it for them.

Shanken: I’ve never been to a Wahlburgers so I guess they’re out west.

Wahlberg: There’s only 100 of them Marvin.

Shanken: Are there any in the east?

Wahlberg: Oh yeah. We started in Boston. New York was a tough market for us. [The New York City Wahlburgers closed in November 2018.] Every business that I’ve gotten into has been a learning experience.

Shanken: Do you have a company that manages all these investments, or are they all individual investments?

Wahlberg: They’re all individual. I’m in the car business with car people, I’m in the television and movie business with movie people and I’m in the spirits industry with spirits people. And I’m involved personally with every one. In every capacity pretty much. That’s where the challenge comes, with juggling the time. That’s why I get up [so early] in the morning.

Shanken: So, you’re 52. Happy birthday. You’ve accomplished so much, and you’re so young. The next decade or two, what are your goals? Do you ever see yourself cutting back? You’ve created so much you really don’t have have to work anymore but yet you work harder or as hard as any person I’ve ever met. What’s the end game?

Wahlberg: Well I’m certainly working harder now than ever. Certain businesses, you kind of build them, pass them on or you exit. Hopefully my kids, we’ll see what their interests are, but I don’t think that I’ll be acting that much longer at the pace I am now. That’s for sure. Because that’s the most difficult thing. We’re building a studio in Vegas, we’ve got this tax credit pass, and we’re going to build a studio in Summerland, in Nevada, that’s right down the street from my house. Making films is where the biggest sacrifice comes because I have to leave my wife and my kids and go to all these various locations. Ideally if I could work from home then you know I would love to continue to work in some capacity but certainly not at the pace at which I work now.

Shanken: So your end game is not an end-game per se, it’s a slow-down game, maybe.

Wahlberg: A down shift.

Shanken: Do you see any of your kids getting into your business?

Wahlberg: In various businesses?  Yes, possibly. My oldest is at Clemson now, she’s kind of figuring out what she wants to do. My youngest is an equestrian, she knows exactly what she wants to do, she’s doing it every day. I have a son who is an aspiring golfer, my other son is going into his senior year of high school.

Shanken: You brought up something I wanted to bring up, we gotta talk about golf. We were supposed to play. I hear you’re a single-digit handicap.

Wahlberg: Yeah, I can bang it around.

Shanken: Where do you normally play?

Wahlberg: God, I’m a member at more clubs than you’re allowed to have in the bag. In Boston I’m at Boston Golf Club, in New York, Liberty National, Manhattan Woods, Friar’s Head, which is one of the greats, Vegas I play at the Summit, Gaza Ranch, Grove XXIII in Florida, at Riviera in LA.

Shanken: What a tough course. Too hard.

Wahlberg: Oh I love it. That’s the golf course I’ve played the most golf. The first time I ever played golf I played at Riviera.

Shanken: Listen, I thoroughly enjoyed this time together and I thank you on behalf of all our readers.

Wahlberg: Likewise, I appreciate it.

Shanken: And maybe this summer you’ll take some of my money on the golf course. Cause I’m not going to beat you!

Wahlberg: It would be my pleasure.