Joe Schwent, A St. Louis Treasure-Sunday, -Golf With Jay Delsing

This is golf with Jay Delsing, a two-time All-American at UCLA, a participant in nearly 700 PGA Tour events, seven professional wins to his credit, over 30 years of professional golf experience, a member of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Golf with Jay Delsing. That's Jay Delsing. I'm Dan McLaughlin. We are presented by Darty Business Solutions. Coming up, our guest in studio will be Joe Schwint, director of golf, the country club of St. Albans, but first and foremost, my partner.

He played in over 700 PGA Tour events. Jay Delsing, always great to see you. How you doing? Good, Davey. Hey, the listeners don't know, but you and I got out on the golf course just a couple of days ago together, and that was a lot of fun, man. You did a lot of good stuff out there. I'm grimacing a little bit because it got a little ugly at the end, but you helped me. And we were short game.

Short game, man, all day. It was a lot of fun. So the courses are still a little rough, but the weather's getting better. We need some warm. We need a little bit of rain. But yeah, I can't wait.

I love this time of year. So I thank you for helping me out. You probably went from, for me, a 25 to a 20, knowing my handicap. Oh, baloney. No way. Well, that's how... You're not getting that many strokes from me.

We're not doing that. I was talking with somebody the other day about home field advantage in sports, and you're playing in the Ascension Charity Classic at Norwood, where you were carrying bags as a kid. You grew up on that course. Is there a home field advantage in the game of golf? Because you have played so many times there.

Definitely. I mean, Danny, even for an example, when I would... I qualified and played in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. The fact that I played Pebble Beach over 100 times, maybe over 200 times, a gigantic difference, because even though they brought the fairways way in and things like that, I knew greens, I knew where to hit it, where not to hit it. You go play at Oakmont or take Shinnecock or to all these other great old courses that we play majors at, it's tough. You only get one or two practice rounds to try to know the course. Man, you really got to be on your game to be able to compete. That's why you see the best players in the game sneaking out and playing Augusta three and four and five times or Oak Hills where we're going to have the PGA this next month.

That's why they do it. So I'm jealous playing at UCLA like you did. You're on one of the best college teams literally ever assembled. Although you guys didn't win the national championship, how I don't know what the names... By the way, give the names that were on that team. So was myself and Corey Pavin, Steve Pate, Duffy Waldorf and Tom Pernice. How did you not win?

I don't know. We finished third one year. We finished fifth one year. We won probably over 60 tournaments. Wow. My last two years there and we won the Pac-10s. Danny, here's a story.

We go up to the Pac-10s my junior year. We've got six guys playing, five guys counting. It's a 36 hole day. Steve Pate gets food poisoning the night before.

Might not have been food poisoning, but anyway. So he couldn't play 36 holes. So we had to count all five scores.

So nobody got to drop out. We were leading by 37. Wow.

That's amazing. So the original point of my question here or making a point was in LA, you probably played some of the best courses in the world. I mean, you're talking Pebble Beach. You're in California, but where were some of the other places you played? Well, we played Bel Air Country Club on Mondays and Fridays.

That's still one of my top five favorite all time courses. We got to play Riviera on Thursdays. We got to go practice at LA Country Club. Tough life. LA, I know, right? And I was this kid from North County hood. I'm like, man, what's California like? It's pretty cool.

We'd have matches at LA Country Club. And, you know, you're going through this, Danny, as an 18 year old, 19 year old. And I'm just trying to take so much in, not really knowing who, what, why.

And I look back, I'm like, it was unbelievable. Let's go back to last weekend. So the team format, it's Davis Riley, Nick Hardy. They split $2.5 million.

They win that. What was your takeaway from watching that format and just watching last weekend? There's just so many good players. There's just so many good players.

I mean, you get a, I think our pick was Morikawa and Homa, and they didn't even make the cut. They're just so many good players on the PGA Tour now. And to see, you know, Riley's a guy that we've had our eye on and our betting segments were beyond the fairways. We've made some peeps, some money off him before. And so no surprise. And Hardy's a kid that's been knocking on the door for quite a while to a good, a good player.

I'm really fascinated what you think about this. So John Daly, David Duvall, they were a team. John Daly is now 56 years old.

David Duvall is 51. So they play in the Zurich Classic. They shot a 75 on Thursday in the best ball format and 83 the next day in the alternate shot format, including a 45 on the front. So my question to you, they were 14 shots over par, 30 shots behind the leaders. Is this truly what the PGA wants? There's still a draw. I love watching John Daly play.

I'll watch him at the Ascension. It's still a draw, but is it really what the PGA wants? It's too much. I mean, I think, I think really, Danny, that's too much golf course for those guys. You know, John Daly's long and will always be long, but he's not long in terms in terms of PGA tour standards. He's just not, you know, John's had some health issues.

He doesn't look so great. I mean, I'm sure there were people there that were glad to see John in the field. Some of the biggest crowds are following those guys.

And that's why I bring it up. I mean, I know they're terrible in their results, but is it good to have interest with these two guys? You know, I guess at the end of the day, we'd probably have to ask Zurich, you know, Zurich throwing the party and they're the ones that invited him.

I mean, how about this? I think it was either last year or the year before Jay Haas paired with his son, Bill, who we're going to get both of these guys on the show. Great guys. He made the cut at 69 years old in that event. And Jay Haas is, we used to call him the human ATM. He would just make money playing golf.

The guy made more cuts and his retirement has got to be just so fat. He's just so steady and a really, really good guy. One of the people and another really good guy that we love in our community of golf here in St. Louis is Joe Schwinn, director of golf, the country club of St. Albans. He has been kind enough to join us in studio coming up. You don't find a finer guy running one of the best courses in our area.

Yeah, no doubt, Danny. And he's got history at Bell Reef. He's just got history in St. Louis. He grew up as a kid here playing a lot like I did.

We grew up, all three of us grew up a lot of the same way, just kind of playing Muni golf and picking ranges like you did and carrying bags. I think he started off as a caddy somewhere. He's just a high quality guy, learned from one of the best guys in Jerry Tucker out of Bell Reef. And he's doing the same thing that he learned from Jerry. I guarantee it, just helping people grow in the game, teaching pros how to be better pros and doing stuff for their amateurs.

I'm really, I can't wait to get into the hours that these guys put into it and what they have to do. It's not like you're just setting tee times. My man, you're doing everything at the golf course. You are.

You are in your early days, early mornings, Danny, and late nights. And when you're a young guy, they didn't make much money. No.

Nope, they didn't make much money at all. So hopefully Joe has improved on that part of his game. Yeah, I know he has. How about our tip of the cap before we head to our first break? Thanks. The tip of the cap is brought to you by Dean Team Volkswagen of Kirkwood, 314-966-0303. My buddy Colin Burt, fantastic guy. You can reach me at Jay at jdelsongolf.com. Send me an email. I'll personally introduce you to Colin.

He will hook you up with any vehicle you need. We're tipping our cap to these teachers, these club pros, these golf professionals. They're working long, tireless hours.

They're supporting the show. We've had Adam Betts on not long ago, and he's doing great stuff in the community. He's got, I think, didn't he say 10 teaching pros working for him down there?

Bobby G and Robbie Sadorschik and Blake and all those guys down there. So we're tipping our cap to those folks. Last week, we kind of tipped our cap to teachers, and not only golf teachers, but the ones that are teaching our kids in high school and getting them ready to turn them loose for the summer. So this is all about the golf professionals.

That's the tip of the cap. Coming up, it's Joe Schwinn. This is Golf with Jay Delsong, and we're presented by Darty Business Solutions. That was On the Range with Jay Delsong. For news on the latest golf equipment tips and to ask Jay a question, log on to jaydelsongolf.com.

Coming up, it's the front nine on Golf with Jay Delsong. Darty Business Solutions, the title sponsor of the Golf with Jay Delsong show, is a leader in our community in so many areas. Do they have over 2,500 teammates in over 30 states and three countries? Yes, they do. Are they the largest IT consulting firm in our area? Yes, they are. Are they the largest software developer in the St. Louis region?

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Find out more at AscensionCharityClassic.com. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. That's Jay Delsing played in over 700 PGA events. I'm Dan McLaughlin and we're presented by Darty Business Solutions. Our guest, Joe Schwinn, Director of Golf at the Country Club of St. Louis. Joe, it's always great to visit with you. You and I have talked a bunch, but great to have you in studio and thanks for coming in.

My pleasure. Glad to be here. So when you're running, just a general question, when you're running a golf course in your position and you're wearing all the different hats that you wear and now golf season is here, what is it like for you? Oh, it's great. I look forward to the golf season.

I hate the winter and not because of the cold. I hate it because I don't get to see my members. You know, I love it. I got to tell you, Joe, not just because you're sitting here with you. I've told you this privately.

I don't know how many times. There's no question in anyone's mind how much you enjoy the game, how much you enjoy your job, how much you enjoy the members. Some of the member guests, you know, I had the good fortune of representing Country Club of St. Albans. And so we got to do a lot of things together.

Your member guests, the fun stuff you do on the putting green where you, you'll create these kinds of obstacle course type golf courses for the members. And it goes on and on. And, and so many of the younger pros could learn this passion from you instead of just kind of mailing it in and just going through the motions because you don't do that. No. And thank you for saying that.

It's true though, right? I do love it. I absolutely love my job. I don't look at it as a job. You know, they say that if you, if you love your job, you never work a day in your life.

And that's the way I feel. This happens to be my day off. I'm happy to come by and guess where I'm going after this interview is I'm going to work.

Cause I love it. I love being around the club. When I retire, I don't see any reason to retire cause I'm going to be at St. Albans playing golf with the members instead of making sure they have a good place to play. How long have you been involved in the game of golf and how did you get into what you're doing now? I actually started as a caddy at Westwood Country Club mid seventies. It was great.

Absolutely loved it. Joe Dodick was the pro there, a world-class gentleman, and he showed me how to, how to treat people. And gentlemen is what he was.

And now from there, actually I went to college for a couple of years and met Mike Halkum in a golf game at a paddock. Remember paddock Jay? Oh, I sure do. Old floors.

I think they call it old floors now. Right. And afterwards, this was in 1981. We're playing cards like we did after golf. And he said, uh, Joe, you ever thought about getting in the golf business? And I said, sure, absolutely. He goes, well, why don't you come work for me? And I said, I'd love to. And he said, how about starting Monday?

And this was a Friday. So how long ago was that? That was 1981.

Wow. That's a long time ago. Well, you've had, you've had a career.

You've been with Bell Reeve. You've done, you've done so many things, but Joe, one of the things, and speak to this a little bit about what it's, you're a player as well. You know how to play the game at a high level that matters a lot to me.

It really does. And I think in order to become a PGA professional, you need to be a passive playing ability test. And Mike Tucker feels very strongly about this.

My former partner at Bell Reeve, he feels like you should have to pass a planeability test after you've been a pro for 10 years and 15 years and 20 years, he thinks you should keep your game sharp. And I do too. And I'm going to tell you that I, um, I let my game go.

And now that I've got it back, I mean, I love it. I absolutely do. And you should, now I heard Jay Clayton's over 700 PGA tour events. I caddied in over seven. I just want you to know.

Joe, I'm curious too. I said, you know, you wear a lot of hats and people here, Joe Schwinn, director of golf at the country club of St. Alban. So when I say you wear a lot of different hats, you do describe your job and what you do day to day. It's a lot of hats. It is, but, uh, I love them all. Obviously there's merchandising. Fortunately, I have a gentleman that's, uh, my head professional Kurt Gauss that does such a great job.

Uh, he really does. I don't have to worry about stuff like that. My passion is tournaments. So when it comes to seeing, making sure that the nine and 18 whole ladies leagues are taken care of, we have 119 ladies in our nine hole league. Wow. Imagine that.

That's amazing. And about half of them are playing every Thursday and we have about 90 in our 18 hole ladies league. So huge programs. And then we have men's league and we have tournaments, uh, virtually every other week. I just love every aspect of that. One of the things that probably do know, what may not realize, you know, 36 holes adds a lot to, to your plate. It really does.

So I I've said this before. So Mike Tucker and I were the co-head professionals at Bell, Reeve and 18 hole facility. When I accepted St. Alban's as the director of golf at a 36 hole facility, it wasn't twice as hard.

It was about 10 times as hard. But again, if you love it, it's not work. It is a lot of moving parts and, uh, but it's a great place to great golf courses. Those golf courses really are almost underrated in my estimation.

If you play those a lot, man, you really get a really good appreciation for, uh, different aspects. You know, the Weisskopf course is bigger and it's, it gives you a little, it's a little less demanding off the tee for the most part. Then you go to the Hertz and fry and man, if you wander off the tee, you're, you may lose, they may not find you out there.

Right. It's off of the tee. It's like sometimes hitting down a bowling alley, right? It's a little tight, but it's one of my favorite courses in the state is Tavern Creek because it's so beautiful. And Lewis and Clark is a championship course.

We actually have a mini tour event, the Metropolitan and open, uh, in, uh, mid may a hundred thousand dollar event, and it's going to be great. So you love your job, but there's challenges with your job. What are the challenges that you have? Because I can guarantee there are pros and directors of golf that are saying, okay, Joe, there are a lot of long hours and a lot of challenges. Well, let me tell you what the challenge is right now. So, um, COVID obviously has going to ask you about this.

Sure. It happened in 2020. And, uh, so we lost all of our Monday outings, obviously until the fall and what we did. And obviously our members that were social members, they couldn't come out because the club was closed. So what we decided to do as a staff is let's open up the golf course on Mondays. So we were open seven days a week and it was fantastic rounds of golf went up 30% and single writer carts. Now that was the second year for our golf carts and it kind of continued that way. So these golf carts are on their last leg and I would say six, seven, eight phone calls a day. We get, Hey Joe, can you come out to number 11 on Tavern Creek? So we have a new fleet, uh, coming in, uh, next month, right next month.

And I, that can't happen too soon. And Joe people don't realize that those golf carts store, that's not like a regular automobile. They don't last that long. No, no.

And, and again, because they got so much use, you know, I mean, it's 40, 50% more use and they are, they are fading quickly. How have you seen COVID change the game of golf in your business? You know, I think it's done nothing but a great things for the game of golf. Absolutely.

It's the only thing that you could do, you know, outdoors. Now, some people have asked me, what do you think about Topgolf? I love it. Anything that exposes the game, uh, to anyone, I think it's fantastic. Do I think what's happening at Topgolf is golf?

No, but it's great. It's getting a golf club in somebody's hand, hitting balls. And those people, they may or may not come out to St. Albans. They don't need to, but at least they're interested in golf and maybe they'll pick it up when it's on TV. Joe, the National Golf Foundation is, is got the data and that it is showing that Topgolf is actually bringing people into the real game because they're enjoying that experience at Topgolf so much. You know, the music, the video game aspect of it has for the, for the younger folks and a cocktail or two. And you're, are you seeing some of that carry over to normal play? I think guys are listening to music more in their carts.

And you know, when we were kids, there was no way that's happening. Right. And certainly we have members that feel that way, that they don't want to have anything to do with music in the golf carts. And with our member guests coming in June, we actually have a music policy that, uh, if the people in your group would, would like, would allow you to listen to music, then you can. But if they have a problem with it, there's no music.

And that's certainly a little bit of a sticky subject for the traditionalist. You mentioned some of your influences that you've had, but if you're any good at your job, you're always still learning from others. Who are the, some of the, the, the people that you say, boy, they're doing a good job and I want to emulate how they're doing it around town or even nationally.

It's mainly around town. You know, I don't, I don't get out much when it comes to the pro shop. Right. Exactly. But, uh, you know, what I wish I could do, I wish I could give back more and I really can't. And that's terrible to say, but the, the guys that are helping out with the veterans and the kids with PGA reach, I really wish that I could spend one or two or three or four days a month helping those programs that we have.

And I just can't. So I really appreciate the guys that are taking the lead on those programs. Yeah. You may not be out there actually with a PGA reach or the hope that the PGA hope things and stuff, Joe, but you've been president of the section before you support that in large part, just by some of the, the meetings and things like that because the gateway section does a lot of philanthropic stuff like that.

They do. And actually we're hosting the PGA reach tournament in October and we do some fundraiser razors at our club for folds of honor that we do locally. You know, I'm not talking about a tournament coming in where we'll have a member tournament so that we could give some money that way. And that way I do feel like I'm helping out a little bit, but our, our general manager, Andy pro is, is, uh, Andy Crow is very much a pro folds of honor.

2019 name the host slash professional staff of the year by the metropolitan amateur golf association. What did that mean to you? You know, it's great. Uh, I'm going to tell you what I like, especially about it.

It was the first year for it. It's always good. It's always good to be first, but, uh, I guess it really just speaks to that. We, we like to take care of people, you know, that's, we, we have a servant's heart and, uh, and it basically showed that it's great. You know, I just, I know this is radio, but I wish people could see we've never had a guest in here that smiled more than Joe has.

Joe has got, we ask him these questions and smiles. Everything you're doing is it just shows the passion that you have. Joe, one of the things Danny and I were talking about, we had Lee Trevino on the show a while back and we both dropped our microphones after and said, I can't, this guy's 82 years old, and we were like, how's he do it? I mean, he was still like sunshine and we got to hit golf balls. And I mean, you're, you're not 82, but you got the same amount of passion. I just love it.

Yeah, it's great. And you, you asked about another gentleman. I probably a week doesn't go by that. I don't get an email from Brian Maine, another gentleman over at Whitmore where we're talking back and forth about things that we do at our club and a way for us to, again, make the experience better for the members. It's really a fraternity Joe.

It is. I mean, when I, when you think about the Bob Fords of the world who has kind of done what you're talking about more on a national level, where he was at Oakmont in the summers and then Seminole in the winters and things like that, there's that fraternal thing where he's doing the same thing you're doing. He's grooming people. You've, I don't know how many people you've groomed in your shop that I see at Bell Reeve.

I see them all over town. Paul is Paul Montano. Our good buddy is now going to be running the director of golf, I think at Fox run.

Right. And so there's a lot of ways to give back other than just, you know, maybe that lesson to the veteran and Jerry Tucker in my mind was the best. If you look at the people that worked underneath him, Mike Tucker, Joe Schwinn, John Hayes, the list goes on and on about great professionals.

And that's not by accident. Jerry was that great professional. Joe Schwinn, director of golf, the country club of St. Albans is our guest. We're going to talk about getting kids, young kids, maybe those teenagers that have never picked up a club involved in the game of golf. This is Golf with Jay Delsing presented by Darty Business Solutions. That was the front nine presented by the Ascension Charity Classic.

Coming up, it's the back nine and more of golf with Jay Delsing. This is Jay Delsing. Did you know that Marcon is the largest authorized appliance parts distributor in the world? That's right, the largest in the world. Did you know that Marcon is based right here in our backyard of St. Louis, Missouri?

Well, that's pretty impressive. What's more impressive is the way that they get back to the St. Louis community and our region. CEO Jim Sowers has donated service dogs to the wounded service men and women of our armed forces.

Sweets at St. Louis Blues games have been donated and auctioned off in which all proceeds were given to the backstoppers. Then there was the Marcon police and firefighters viewing deck at the Ascension Charity Classic this past year. It was a huge success, so much so that it's being implemented on other tour stops around on the PGA Tour. To Jim Sowers and his incredible team at Marcon, we want to say thank you.

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I'm Dan McLaughlin. Our guest, Joe Schwint, Director of Golf at the Country Club of St. Albans, been kind enough to come in studio and we tease the fact that we're going to talk about getting kids involved in the game. We mentioned earlier, COVID got a lot of people involved in the game and I'm assuming that trickled down to the young kids and trying to teach them and get them involved.

So how did you do that? It absolutely did. So we've always had a very nice boutique-like junior program where what I would say is there are some other clubs that have 200-300 kids in their junior program and we always had 60-80 kids, something like that, which allowed the golf professionals to do all the instructing and we really didn't need parents. This program came along a couple of years ago called Operation 36 and when I heard about it I thought, man, this is great.

I wish I had created this. And basically what it does is it starts the kids 25 yards from the green and you have to shoot 36 to move back to 50 and then you have to shoot 36 to move back to 100 and then 36 to move back to 150. And the sales pitch that got me, which it didn't require that, I just thought it was great to begin with, it focuses obviously Jay on the short game, which that's how you score.

And the best way to lower your game, to get people involved in the game, that's it. We had Curtis Strange on, by the way, not to interrupt you, but yeah, remember what he said, Jay? He said, if I could do it over again, and Andy North said it too, he said instead of pounding balls after my round, 90% of my time would be spent on the green and around the green.

I was listening to your show when you talked about it and it made me think of Operation 36. And so again, the sales pitch that they gave me was, imagine going to school and never having to take a test. How do you know when you're ready for the next grade?

Well, yeah, and the test score is 36. Now, I don't like everything. I like to add my own twist to everything.

If you knew me much, you'd know that to games, whatever, it doesn't matter. So I added a twist to the Operation 36 and Jay and I know growing up and playing junior golf, what goal did we have? It was to break 40. That's what we, when we're playing in a high school match, we want to shoot in the 30s. So for me, Operation 36 is 39 or better. If you shoot 39 or better, you get to move back to that set of tees. And the reason why I like that number is, again, it's a great goal as a junior golfer to break 40. But also it got more kids going back a little bit.

That doesn't mean that you're not going to get stuck back there at 100 or 150 or 200. That's okay. It's still, it's a nice goal. Joe, who created that? And did you guys just drop a set of tee markers down at 25? Exactly. So Paul is the one that discovered this, even though obviously it had been out there for a couple of years, I think. And he would go out every morning, five o'clock in the morning, and he'd be setting the tee markers out there.

Yeah. I love that. I've said this, Joe, and I don't know if you agree with it, kind of a comp, is that with MLS coming to St. Louis, we're going to see this influx of kids that are playing so much soccer. Now, they were already playing it here in what I think is the soccer capital of the world.

But now you're watching it on Saturday nights and kids that are young are saying, oh, I love it. I don't necessarily need to be the next Ozzy. I don't need to be the next Michael Jordan.

I want to be the next MLS star. I wonder if we're going to get that with golf, too. After COVID, so many kids got involved and coming out of a cold weather city like St. Louis, if, let's say, 10 or 15 years, we're going to see the next Jay Delsing, that next pro, that next Jay Williamson that comes out of this area.

I think so. I mean, it certainly seems like we're getting a lot more action here in the greater St. Louis area. Mike Suri from Illinois, he was recognized as having the second largest PGA Junior League program. It's like 130 kids in his PGA Junior League. We got two teams and there's 12 on a team, which, again, is great.

And I wished I'd have created that as well. PGA Junior League, such a great idea. It's nine-hole, playing two-person scramble. You're playing against other kids. It's three three-hole matches.

It's fantastic. There's uniforms, Joe. There's numbers. It's all this thing that's made it really social because once you get a little more developed in the game, it can be social. But when you're starting off, it's hard to be social because you're kind of overwhelmed. You're not proficient at anything. You don't really know how to play, how to act, where to stand. And they take that kind of away and make it so much easier for the kids.

It's so great. Obviously, Jay, you and I love golf, so we didn't need what I'm about to suggest. But imagine if we would have had scrambles for the kids when we were playing. We would have had 10 times as many kids playing golf.

There's no doubt we would have. No, for us, it's, you know, go out there and play and, you know, you make an eight on a hole. Too bad, so sad. That person may not be coming back the next week.

It's so true. Joe Schwenk, the director of golf from the Country Club of St. Albans is our guest, been kind enough to be in studio with us. This is Golf with Jay Delsing, presented by Darty Business Solutions.

So you've been in the business, you said, for over 40 years. What are the biggest changes you've seen in the game of golf? Probably equipment. You know, the golf ball is going so much farther. Your bad shots turn out so much better because of how they're making the golf clubs.

I have sitting right on the opposite side of my golf counter, golf clubs, I have the two persimmon woods and I have some irons from about 70 years ago. I love it. And every once in a while, I'll go out to the range and hit one of these two or three at McGregor. Oh, yeah.

With the copper face. I'm telling you, I can't hit that three or more than about 140 yards and it's going dead right. I don't know how I played golf back then.

I don't either. How do we get up? I used to have a one iron in my bag and I look, it's in the basement. I look at it, it scares me. I put it in the corner or away from all the other clubs. How about the first tailor-made metal wood, which is the size of my fist.

And now, you know, it's more like the size of a beach ball. No doubt. Equipment and the tech Joe is ridiculous. What's happened, what's really fun to watch. And I'd love to get your opinion about them kind of backing the golf ball out and see if they're going to do that because there's fraught with disaster. Like where does it start to the high schoolers, do it to the college players, do it with the athletes that are playing the game.

That's a really difficult one. I understand the reason why they want to do it because it's making some golf courses obsolete. You know, it's not as much of a challenge.

So I certainly understand that. I guess I can certainly see it if it's only for the professionals, which that does certainly doesn't help the, uh, the manufacturers. I don't want to play a ball that's going 90% of the distance it normally does or whatever number they're going to come up with, but I think it actually could work because that shorter hitter is also going to lose the distance. And so he's going to be hitting the drive shorter and he's going to hit the iron shorter.

So certainly in theory it will work, but that doesn't, I love birdies. So I certainly love major championships and all that when you're shooting around par, maybe a couple of over, but there's nothing wrong with letting the birdies fly. Well that's kind of what the PGA tours marketed itself on in the last, you know, six, eight, 10 years, it's low scores and you know, chicks dig the long ball sort of mentality, which means don't roll it back.

That's right. What's the most important aspect when you talk to your members and let's say a guy or a gal is a single digit and they're trying to get better and better and better outside of like lessons and continuing to play. What's the most important aspect to continue their game?

Cause I know there's a lot of people listening wondering, how do I just get that little bit better? Dan, it's so great that you asked that question. I wish you could see me interact with our members, kids that are on high school teams. I'll make it a point to go out to them when they're, when they're arriving at the club.

Cause we have quite a few high schools that are playing matches out at our place. My son just did one. So thank you very much. You bet. And, and I'll ask him, so, Hey, how's your game going? It's going great. And I said, Oh great. I said, go work on your short game. Like I said, it's going great.

I said, yeah, go work on putting and shipping. I said, it's never good enough. That's never good enough. That's a perfect line. You, you need your golf, your golf ball striking is going to be good or good or bad based on how you woke up that morning.

You cannot afford for your short game to be good or bad. Always has to be. It's so true. I tell everyone, Joe, that's the glue that holds your game. It makes your bad rounds.

Not as bad. It makes your good rounds way better. You know, Jerry Tucker, when I went to work for him, it was probably the third round of golf. Jerry didn't mix words here. It really didn't about our third round of golf. He goes, Joe, he goes, you know what? He goes, you got the short game of a touring pro, but you got the long game of about a 12 handicap.

Start working on your game. That's great. And you know, he had the infamous Tucker short game. He did. Did Lee Trevino have the lowest score? I forget.

I know Stan Utley was up there too, but I think Lee might've because I know he tested some very famous person had a, the low score. And in this Danny, Jerry took this thing to Nth degrees shot under a tree back or something, you know, and it was like, I'm like, Jerry, why do you want me to do this? I know I hit it here a lot. Why do you want me to say, well, this is important to, you know, so we're out, we're out doing it. Well, they have Tucker's trail now at bell reef. So that's an ode to the Tucker's and working on the short game.

I'm curious about this too. What are you most proud of as you reflect on 40 plus years of helping people in this game of golf? Well, it's not going to be fair. I am most proud of my family. That's good one.

Yeah. I have 10 grandkids. Oh, four daughters.

You're too young to have 10 grandkids. So that's what I'm most proud of. But, but from a professional standpoint, it's really, it's just being a golf professional. I make it very clear by the way, I'm not a professional golfer like Jay.

I am a golf professional apples and oranges. What we can say though, is between the three of us, we have 10 daughters in that the truth. Holy cow. Holy cow. But Dan, I'll tell you one thing that really makes me proud is when I have some of my fellow professionals reaching out to me, it's like, Joe, what do you think about this?

And how would you handle this? So that makes me proud. And I can tell you, I do that to Jerry Tucker.

There isn't a probably three months that goes by that. I'm not reaching out to Jerry. Hey Jerry, what do you think about this? I love that fraternity and Joe, one of the things that was a thrill for me is I think it was, was it the 2013 whenever we had the senior PGA championship at you, I think you were club president, the, I mean the section president. And so you were on the 18th green down on the jacket. It was a proud, proud moment. I'm sure it had to feel good too, to be able to go back to Bell Reeve where you had so much, so many friends and so many, so many great memories and, and to kind of host that, so to speak. I absolutely love going back to Bell Reef. It holds such a special place in my heart. I think the world of the, the members there that I still know, I actually played with a Bell Reeve member yesterday at St. Albans, had them out for lunch and we played golf, Jeff Drew, the King, and we had a great time.

So I still think very fondly. I go on golf trips with Bell Reeve members once a year. So there's a lot of those young guys that are doing what you've done for 40 plus years. What's the advice you give them? Well, it's, you have to love going to work.

I never try to scare anybody off when they're getting ready to get into the business. I'll tell them, I hope that you're going to want to work the days that everybody else gets off, which is weekends and holidays. So if you love, yeah, if you love working then, but golf, you know, working in the golf business is so much different now. And we, we just hired two new professionals because, you know, Paul went over to Fox Run.

So did Zach Potts. He's going to be the head professional. They're very happy for both of them. What I will tell them, Hey, if you have something coming up, if you have a wedding that you need to go to out of town, you just let me know. We'll get your hours covered. Don't worry about it.

And that was not the case when I was working for Mike working 80 hours a week, open to close $700 a month. You know, it's like the uphill to schools in the snow. Yeah. Joe, it reminds me of the, they, they talk about the NFL all the time, Danny and the Belicheck tree.

That's right. You think about the Jerry Tucker tree and that how you're, you know, you're carrying that forward. It's, it's really cool. Paul and Zach will do a great job out at Fox and that's a wonderful place. Do you still teach much?

I really don't much. If I'm teaching somebody, I just hired a director of instruction. Ryan Martin came to us from a sunset in Forest Hills. Great guy. He actually, what's interesting is Mike and I hired him and Brett Mumey to be our assistant pros back 20 plus years ago at Bell Reef. And now Brett Mumey is the head professional over at Algonquin. Right. He's the man there. So how can folks get ahold of you if they're interested in St. Albans or they want to talk to Joe Schwinn?

What's the best way? Really St. Albans. It's, it's in the, it's in the phone book. And what I'd like to tell them is it's not that long of a drive to St. Albans. It's not.

It's a misconception. It is. I live in St. Charles. It takes me 35 minutes to get to work every day and I just love it. It's so beautiful when you come over that hill and you see the white picket fences and you see the golf courses, it's worth the drive.

It's only 10 minutes farther than forest hills. I got to tell you a real quick story. When I was bringing some, you know, I would bring some groups out there and things like that. And when you make that turn and you start seeing, I said, guys, this is where the properties begins right along this, you know, this fencing, my guests had their mouths open, you know, we drive in and there's the castle and they're like, there's 36 holes here. And I said, yes. And we had a beautiful lunch and one of them said to me, is it over a hundred grand to belong here? No. And I said, not even close.

No. You know, it's funny just talking about how long it takes to get there. And we do have room for a few more members. We're starting to get up there, but plenty of room on the golf courses. I think that's our biggest selling point.

Sure. We got two top 10 courses in the state, but we have places for people to play. I say this to prospective members all the time. It's like, here's, what's so great about St. Albans. The golf experience is great, but if I'm hosting the couples member guests or the junior golfer, the nine hole ladies, 18 hole ladies, men's league, you name it. And I'm in an 18 hole facility means you're not playing golf. If you don't want to be a part of that at St. Albans, if you don't want to be a part of that, you all go play the other great golf course.

Joe Schwinn has been our guest director of golf at the country club of St. Albans. And I'll tell you this is great as you are as you at your job, you're a better person. So I love our relationship for so many years. And I know Jay, you feel the same way. Absolutely keep doing what you're doing. You know, as we get older, we love to grow the game and try to keep the game in good hands.

It sounds like you're doing just a great job. Thanks, Dan. Thanks Jay.

It's it's great game. Joe Schwinn has been our guest and this is golf with Jay Delsing presented by Darty business solutions. 19th hole is coming up. This has been the back nine presented by ProAm golf.

We'll make the turn into the clubhouse and head into the 19th hole. That's next on golf with Jay Delsing. Darty business solutions, the title sponsor of the golf with Jay Delsing show is a leader in our community in so many areas. Do they have over 2500 teammates in over 30 states and three countries? Yes, they do. Are they the largest it consulting firm in our area? Yes, they are. Are they the largest software developer in the St. Louis region?

Of course they are. But here are a few other important things to know about Darty business solutions. They are the presenting sponsor of the Ascension charity classic. They are the presenting sponsor and we're the first presenting sponsor of the advocate professional golfers event at Glen echo that will be held there this year as well. They are also the founders of access point.

This is a community game changer. It builds diversity in the IT workforce. Hundreds of mostly African American women are getting 50 to $60,000 a year jobs right out of high school.

That's right right out of high school. Ron Darty company founder chaired the 2023 heart ball this year. It's supported the local American Heart Association chapters and raised over $600,000 in one evening.

These are more examples of the many things that Darty business solutions does in our community. The legends of golf returned to St. Louis in 2023. You won't want to miss one of the strongest fields in golf Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Bernard Langer, john Daly and many more when they compete for the 2023 Ascension charity classic title September 5 through the 10th at historic Norwood Hills Country Club. All proceeds benefit area charities.

Together, we were able to donate over $1 million to those most in need last year. Visit Ascension charity classic.com Hey, this is Jay delsing for SSM Health Physical Therapy. Our golf program has the same screening techniques and technology as the pros on the PGA Tour use SSM Health Physical Therapy as the titleist performance institute trained physical therapist that can perform the TPI screening on you as well as use a cave s 3d motion capture system proper posture alignment, etc can help you keep your game right down the middle. We have 80 locations in the St. Louis area call 80518 1626 or visit them on the web at SSM physical therapy.com.

Your therapy, our passion. You're listening to golf with Jay delsing. To connect with Jay delsing, log on to j delsing golf.com. You'll see the latest in equipment, find the latest innovations in golf and get tips from a PGA professional. That's j delsing golf.com.

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Our thanks to Joe Schwinn and Joe does an incredible job, director of golf at the Country Club of St. Albans. That was fun to visit with him. You know what Danny, he's such a great guy. He really is. He's so damn genuine. You can't see this because it's radio but he smiled the whole time. He lights up when you ask him what he's doing at the club.

His answers are so, Joe. You know, he's gonna spend the rest of his life there and feels like he's lucky to have it. You say there at St. Albans you played it a bunch, two 18s. That's kind of a hidden gem right now in the game of golf in St. Louis. That is a fantastic place to go play golf. It really is. It's a great facility. The people out there make it even better. Joe's got such a hospitable staff and the golf courses are two of the top-ranked courses in the state of Missouri.

It is really good. It doesn't matter who we put on the show. It could be a PGA professional, a tour player like yourself or Joe Schwinn or others. We've had really big guests.

Curtis Strange. We've had others that talk about Tom Watson. If you want to improve your game, we keep harping on this. Do the short game. It is, Danny. I keep thinking if we could probably get a hundred sponsors for this but we should probably have the short game moment or something on the show where we just keep knocking on people's heads to get that in their head because it really does help.

It'll help their game. I want to get into this and we did have a question at jdelsongolf.com and if you want to email Jay a question, we'll answer it here on the air. But this is from Jane in South City. It relates to short game. Jay, I've heard you talk so much about your putting drills but what about being around the green and chipping drills? What are the best chipping drills that you have? I love Jane.

She sends me an email every other week or every week or so. There's a couple of things. I think we call it like the ladder or step drill. So you just get yourself about three or four steps off the edge of the green and lay a couple of clubs down on the fringe of the green and then one a few feet closer to the flag stick that you're going to and then what you want to do is pitch the ball and land them in between these different clubs and the reason and again it might hit the club and the reason is is we need to pitch the ball to a spot Danny. We need to hit it a certain height because a lower shot is going to have more run out on it. A higher shot is going to have less run and a little softer and that's the way you get better at your short game and judging it like I was just out we were working with your son I was working with Luke yesterday and we're talking about how high and what's the spot and it doesn't have to be a tiny spot. Pitch to imagine a hula hoop.

We mentioned I had four daughters. I used to take the girls hula hoops out there and pitch to that spot. I knew that if I landed the ball in that spot with the height that I wanted it was going to work out really really well. I've seen people pitch with a 60 primarily. I've seen well I've seen 64.

I've seen just about everything. You've got a 64 don't you? I do. I don't hit it well. I scull it a lot but I like having it in my bag. I probably have an illegal bag but that's all right.

That's all right. So what is the primary though primary wedge that you want to use when you're around the green? Yeah so I would go with first of all the one that you're most comfortable with but I would recommend starting with the wedge that you have the most loft with. So let's just say an L wedge or a 60 degree wedge.

Mine's 58. Yours is 64 but it's basically the same thing and then we want the ball in the center of our stance. We want our hands very important on the front edge of the ball. Not way forward and not way behind because we want to regulate how much loft stays on that club right and then we just want to make a swinging motion where the head gets out of there and just returns back to the ball. We make a slight pivot to our left side and then the ball just gets in the way Danny. No hitting at the ball.

Our hands are soft and it makes that motion. It runs right up the face of the club. As you saw how much spin did you just naturally impart on those shots when we got the ball in the right?

We did very little for you. We got the ball in the right spot but we did mess with your weight a little because you had most folks when they want to hit a high shot Danny put all their weight on their back foot or for right-handed golfers that would be their right leg and what that does is it drops the club. The club will bottom out or hit way behind the ball and get you all screwed up. I think one of the things that Joe said that I want to ask a guy that played at the elite level was COVID and how that changed the game of golf. Even from your perspective of being a teacher, being a pro, 700 PGA Tour events plus how did you see from your perspective how COVID has changed the game of golf?

Well Danny I was stunned at the growth that we've experienced. I mean look the heart and soul of the game exists in the cities, at the munis, at the country club levels. Those are the people buying the tickets. Those are the people supporting the tour because they love the game.

That's the heart and soul of the game not the PGA Tour. And to watch our numbers, the National Golf Foundation, we're up over 30% across the board. The country clubs as you know in town you're plugged into this stuff. We talk about this off the air all the time. Almost every single country club in town has got a waiting list now.

It's incredible. Who would have thought global pandemic that killed millions of people would be a boon to our game like this. Yeah that's one if there was anything you take out of it in sports that was one of the things that as a golfer and we love golf, we saw an explosion of people playing the game. It got people outside Danny. I mean some of the things we're going to look back at almost horror at some of the things obviously yeah took away the the rakes and the bunkers. You couldn't touch the flag stick because we thought we were gonna get COVID from the flag stick. You know it was bizarre. We were just we were scrambling.

Yeah. You know we just didn't know but the game at the end of the day has become a big winner. Now the challenge is we got to keep people here right and hopefully folks a few of the folks that are listening to the show reach out and do some of the things we're talking about because it'll really help their game. What'd you take away as we wrap up the show here with a guy like Joe Schwinn? He's a lifer.

I love people that are lifers. First of all I take away that he loves the game. He's got a passion for it.

I hear you talk about it all the time. The other thing is most importantly he's a wonderful human being but what did you take away from our visit with Joe Schwinn? It just makes me smile to know that there's men and women like Joe out there that have such joy in their heart for the game and they want it.

It's infectious right and they want to give it to their memberships and if you ever go to an event that Joe Schwinn runs there's always something fun like I think he's even played the national anthem before one of his games. You know he does fun stuff like that. He keeps it fun.

There'll be multiple holes on a green somewhere to give you an opportunity you know you aimed at this one and you pulled it over there so you can putt. He keeps it fun. He keeps it relaxed, enjoyable and he's never going to stop.

No he will not stop. Hey buddy this has been fun. Unfortunately we have to stop but this has been great. We'll do it again next week.

I can't wait. I want to remind everybody that we have a national podcast Jay and I it's called Beyond the Fairways and we drop that every Wednesday this past week from the Golf Channel lead analyst Brandel Chamblee and that's Beyond the Fairways with an S. Jay as we always do how do we end it? Hit em straight St. Louis.

Thanks Danny. Darty Business Solutions the title sponsor of the Golf with Jay Delson show is a leader in our community in so many areas. Do they have over 2,500 teammates in over 30 states and three countries? Yes they do. Are they the largest IT consulting firm in our area? Yes they are. Are they the largest software developer in the St. Louis region?

Of course they are. But here are a few other important things to know about Darty Business Solutions. They are the presenting sponsor of the Ascension Charity Classic. They are the presenting sponsor and we're the first presenting sponsor of the Advocate Professional Golfers event at Glen Echo that will be held there this year as well. They are also the founders of Access Point.

This is a community game changer. It builds diversity in the IT workforce. Hundreds of mostly African American women are getting 50 to 60 thousand dollar a year jobs right out of high school.

That's right right out of high school. Ron Darty company founder chaired the 2023 Heart Ball this year. It supported the local American Heart Association chapters and raised over $600,000 in one evening.

These are more examples of the many things that Darty Business Solutions does in our community. Hey do you like wine? Have you heard about the hottest new wine bar in St. Louis? It's called Wild Crush Wine Bar and it's located in town and country on Clayton Road just behind the strops. Have you ever experienced self dispensing wine machines?

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Go to wildcrushstl.com and come have one with us. The legends of golf return to St. Louis in 2023. You won't want to miss one of the strongest fields in golf. Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Bernard Longer, John Daly and many more when they compete for the 2023 Ascension Charity Classic title September 5th through the 10th at historic Norwood Hills Country Club. All proceeds benefit area charities.

Together we were able to donate over 1 million dollars to those most in need last year. Visit ascensioncharityclassic.com. Hey this is Jay Delsing for SSM Health Physical Therapy. Our golf program has the same screening techniques and technology as the pros on the PGA Tour use. SSM Health Physical Therapy has the titleist performance institute trained physical therapist that can perform the TPI screening on you as well as use a KVEST 3D motion capture system. Proper posture, alignment, etc.

can help you keep your game right down the middle. We have 80 locations in the St. Louis area. Call 800-518-1626 or visit them on the web at ssmphysicaltherapy.com. Your therapy, our passion.