Lee Trevino & JR Remspecher-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. Hey, good morning. This is Golf with Jay Delsing.

I'm your host Jay. I got Pearly with me. Longtime caddy. Pearly, 100 tournaments under your belt on the PGA Tour.

Author, successful business person, quasi-retired world traveler. Let's see, I'm trying to stay upbeat and not like diminish your accomplishments. How'd I do today? Well, why do you have to worry about diminishing my accomplishments? Why is that hard?

It's not hard. I thought I did a great job, stayed up real high energy, you know, because you said it sounded like I was kind of trailing off on you the last couple of weeks. I love it. I love it.

You're inspiring me about me. Thank you. Anyway, the Golf with Jay Delsing show is brought to you by Darty Business Solutions. We want to thank Ron Doherty and his team.

They are just great community stewards and we appreciate them sponsoring the show. Folks, the last Sunday of every month, we are going to start doing a live remote Golf with Jay Delsing show at Wild Crush Wine Bar. Next Sunday from four to five, February 26th, we'll be at Wild Crush and we are going to be doing a live show. Come in. I'll buy you a drink. We'll have some fun. I'll give some golf giveaways. So we're going to do a show next week from Wild Crush.

So that's going to be really fun, Pearl. Well, I'm thinking best on whether the audio is working the way it's supposed to or not. So far, it's kind of a 50-50 toss up, but we'll see. I appreciate the fact that you're saying 50-50 is much better than I would say. I've been working on this thing and I have zero amount of confidence in my ability to work tech. You know how that goes.

Hey, I suck at that. We get Danny Mac in there, then we know everything will work just right. That's right. We're getting the great Danny Mac. So anyway, guys, when we formatted the show like a round of golf, this first segment is called the On the Range Segments brought to you by the Gateway section of the PGA. A great sponsor, great people, over 300 men and women in the area working right now, bad weather, bad weather for our benefit to make the game and our experience much better. So we really, really appreciate them. We also appreciate Jeff Thornhill with TaylorMade Golf. Thorny supplies us with a dozen TP5 golf balls to give away each week.

So we just sent out four dozen from last from last month, January. Send me an email, Jay at jdelsongolf.com and you'll be entered into the drawing. Folks, we'd love to hear from you about the new format of the show. Two weeks ago, we had David Faraday drop ins.

Last week we had the great Tom Watson. Today we've got Lee Trevino, Jay at jdelsongolf.com. I'm excited to hear from you. The podcast I'll be doing is with Danny Mac, four time Emmy award winner, Danny Mac, and it's called Beyond the Fairways with a Nest. So we'll have great guest interviews, some innovations, a lot of really fun stuff.

So Beyond the Fairways with a Nest, subscribe wherever you can, please. All right, Pearl. So we got to sit down this week with a Mary Max, Lee Trevino. Man, I got to tell you, John, this was really a thrill. As you know, Lee was part of the celebrity shootout at last year's Ascension charity classic along with coach Perubi, captain Ryan O'Reilly, Hale Irwin, Nancy Lopez. And this is what Lee had to say about his return to Norwood Hills Country Club because Lee Trevino in 1972, John won the greater St. Louis golf classic.

Well, and I wanted to say one thing. I didn't recognize the golf course much, but I'll tell you this. I don't know when they redid the golf course, but my hat's off to the membership and the architect and the people that were behind it because they did a hell of a job. It is wonderful. I really enjoyed coming back and playing the clubhouse is immaculate. And it was, uh, the members are lucky to have it. I'm telling you that right now. Yeah. His kind words about Norwood are not lost on me.

Norwood is such a sleeper, don't you think? You know, I love that place. Uh, they've done a phenomenal job, uh, kind of reworking a little bit of the clubhouse and the golf course has always been fantastic.

It's one of those places I hate when I hear them talking about making changes. Cause I think it's fantastic already. So John, a lot of people had asked me this about Trevino that he, you know, he had guest appearance in the, in the movie, happy Gilmore, such a fun movie. Adam Sandler did just such a great job, but great job.

But the rumor had it that Lee wasn't happy about about that movie. So I had to ask him about it. I've never seen it from, I've never seen it really, uh, you know, all the way through, but I wasn't used to all the bad language and, and I'm, I kind of been a protector of bad language around ladies and around kids. And um, it kind of disturbed me a little bit.

Now today, no, no problem. I could do a movie now, you know, but that those words are used so much now that nobody would laugh. You know what I'm saying? I mean, but back then that was a kind of a different thing. And I, I, it kind of bothered me a little bit, but that's interesting.

Isn't it? I didn't even think about what the reason that he was a little reticent and to being in that movie. Yeah, I have to say, uh, from one or two of my experiences, I'm surprised at that, but I'm glad he's, he's talking that way.

Uh, it's, it's traditional and it's, uh, the right way to look at golf. I had also heard that Lee was not a huge fan of locker rooms, bro. I also heard this, that he was changing his shoes in the parking lot at Augusta. So I said to Lee, what's up with locker rooms? Well, I thought, I think it's a waste of time. You know, I, I, I, I spent, listen, listen, when I started the tour, I would go and play and I'd go two and a half, three hours early. I'd hit balls for three hours. Did I go play the tournament?

I, when I finished and they'll tell you this. And then when I finished, I would go to the driving range and I'd hit balls to dark. Then I would drive my car to a fast food place.

I'd get a milkshake, two hamburgers and some French fries. And then I would look for a driving range and then I would hit balls till nine or 10 o'clock at night. And I did this all the time. Besides that, I ran three miles at the track every day.

I'm, I'm suffering from it now because I've got bone on bone on my knees. But, um, this is, this is what I did. I don't like to do anything that waste time. I, when the sun's out, golf balls meant to be hit. And gosh, Pearl, that's funny.

I don't like to waste time, man. That rolled right off the top of his, uh, tongue. He's, he's pretty strong on that.

Talk a little bit about he's a little different relative to the whole socializing out there. He was no socialite. Was he?

No. You know what, John, that's a good point. Even though he was, he was a character and he had this persona of that, he really wasn't. I mean, he's, I'm not saying lead to Reno's not approachable. He's a hundred percent approachable, but he had a little edge to him and I think that's what made him such a good champion.

Absolutely. But I mean, he was very accommodating on the golf course, but I think away from the golf course, he didn't necessarily hang a whole bunch with the other guys and do things. Wasn't he kind of on his own? Oh yeah. He was a hard, hard worker.

Holy smokes. You know, Janet Butler national golf club in the suburbs of Chicago during the Western open, Lee Trevino was actually struck by lightning on the 13th green. That really difficult par three kind of set me back a little bit.

Nobody really knew too much about, you know, lightning and it kind of ended. I was with Jerry Hurd, which I thought was one of the finest players I'd ever been up against. And he never played again. I mean, this guy would have, would have set some records. He would have won some majors.

I mean, it's not much telling what he could have done. And I was with Mike Fetchik, which was a big club pro out of New York, but he was a tremendous player. He had done played on the senior tour and done whatever he had to do, but the three of us were the, I think it was a par three, 12 or 13 there at Butler.

And at that time they didn't have the sirens and the warnings and all that stuff about you know, about lightning and in the air. So we, we just, they called the tournament because it was cloudy and it was fixing the rain. So we stayed there on the 13th hole and I guess the lightning bolt, we, what we figured it, it hit the lake and the rays bounced in other words, sideways and caught me, Bobby Nichols, Arnold Palmer golf club, uh, Mike Fetchik, believe it or not, didn't, didn't have any problems.

Well, it's amazing that he'd leave and live through that job. Well, thank goodness he did, but that's been kind of the watermarks for the rest of the golfers ever since that hasn't achieved as far as paying more attention as the tour got more serious about it. I think in general golfers like fishermen are great about getting off the golf course or get off the water. It's nothing to mess with.

It's, it's just not a laughing matter. I was playing up in Hazeltine and I am walking down the, I am in the middle of the 10th fairway of John. That's the worst weather I've ever been on a golf course for.

And if you can imagine the way I grew up, we didn't pay too much about the too much attention to the weather. And I looked at my caddy and I said, Bob, we're out of here. Let we're going in.

He goes, what? I said, there's a rule. If I feel like my life's in danger, I can leave.

I said, I was playing with Bobby Watkins and Dave Rummels. Never forget this Pearl. And I said, those guys, guys, I grew up in this Midwestern weather. This is no good. It's dangerous. I'm out. They turned around, they said, we're out to John literally within 15 minutes.

And you can look this up on Google. Seven people on the 11th tee, John, just about right where we were, we're struck by lightning and killed in the U S open in 1991. Yeah, it's, it's serious stuff. I vaguely remember that story with you. It's, it's just got to be dealt with and it's dealt with a whole different way.

Isn't it now on tour? Oh yeah. We have the, the four guards Pearl. We have such great, um, warning systems. And, and so the, the, you know, everyone's life is so precious.

It's nice that they've done that they've done such a good job. And I hated as a sidebar, I got to meet Jerry heard. It was a really quality person. And I hated to hear that that lightning absolutely derailed his career. Lee said, spoke so highly of him saying that he probably would have been a major champion on the, on the PGA tour. Yeah, I certainly remember the name, but I guess I didn't remember that, uh, that, that ended his career.

That's too bad. And the last question I got to ask the great Lee Trevino who won six major championships and 29 events in really less than 13 years on tour, such a short period of time, Lee said this about the length of his career. A lot of people ask me all the time. They always say, you know, they, they think that I had a, a long career, but I did not. I played 13 years and then I hurt my back. I got hit by lightning as you well know in 75 and then I was out for another year. So I really didn't even play 13 years. And then I, uh, I, I didn't have anything to do.

So I had no options. I had to get my body back in shape and get back out there. But yeah, 13 years was it. Uh, I won six majors, 29 tournaments in those 13 years. You know that, that all that means is that I hit a hell of a lot of practice ball. The great Lee Trevino.

I'll give you the first, the first takeaway. I didn't know that about the length of his career. I do remember injuries and things like that. Uh, I remember how wildly competitive he's what he was. He's a gamer, he's a showman and he's a little bit of a con guy too.

I think inside there somewhere he's a character and you don't grow up the way he does. You're not pulling anything over on Lee Trevino. There's no way in no way in hell and um, um, maybe on the 19th hole I'll tell a Lee Trevino story about my experience on the PGA tour. But right now, Pearl, I'm going to tip my cap. The tip of the cap is brought to you by the Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood and our guy, Colin burn three one four nine six six zero three zero three or send me an email. J J Nelson golf.com. I'll introduce you personally to count.

He's that good a guy. I am tipping my cap to the groups like the Phoenix Thunderbirds and any other tournament organizations like the one we have here in St Louis. John that runs the ACC, the Ascension charity classic, our team at HNS with Tim and Connor and Michael Alonzo and Maggie and all the groups.

And now I'm forgetting some. These folks work all year round to have an event come together in one week of the year, Pearl, and they absolutely smash the event, raise ridiculous amounts of money for folks in need in our community. They just do great work and some tipping my cap to them. And again, I want to thank Colin Burt and the Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood.

You can reach them at three one four nine six six zero three zero three Pearl. That's going to do it for the, on the range segment, but don't forget to subscribe to beyond the fairways wherever you get your podcasts, Pearly. And I'll be right back as our month long series on teachers and golf instructors continues with family golf and learning centers on JR Rams Petra. This is golf with Jay Delsing. And of course it's brought to you by Darty business solutions that was on the range with Jay Delsing for news on the latest golf equipment tips and to ask Jay a question, log on to jdelsinggolf.com coming up.

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Find out more at Ascension Charity Classic dot com. Good morning. This is Jay and I am with JR Remspeckert this morning. He is teacher extraordinaire down at Family Golf Center JR. Thanks for joining me this morning.

Well, it's my pleasure. So let's talk a little bit about you have a tremendous love for the game obviously and for coaching and teaching. Let's talk a little bit about how you got involved in golf.

I would say my first experience in coaching and teaching was as a caddy that I was actually reprimanded for. I remember caddying for a woman at Algonquin Golf Club here and she required a shot that would curve around a tree and I said, well, if you set up this way, point the face this way and just kind of make your normal swing, I bet you we get it right around that tree. And she certainly hit it right around the tree and it worked. Yeah, it worked.

It absolutely worked. I remember hearing about it from the head professional a few weeks later, you know, because, you know, Mrs. So and so went into the golf shop and said, Oh, this caddy did a nice job get me to curve it around that tree.

And I was promptly told as a 12 year old that the golf professional would do the instruction there. Wait a second. So you were 12 years old Jr. 12 years old. Correct. Yep.

How did you man that's it. That's an amazing amount of awareness for a 12 year old. Well, growing up caddying, you know, helped a bunch just kind of see the requirements of playing the game and understanding a little bit, you know, just, just the very littlest bit about path and face and how to get the golf ball that curve. Gosh, I look back at the way that we were taught the game and when we were hooking too much Jr. And people are probably tired of me saying telling this story, but we were always taught that we just weren't swinging far enough to the right.

And we never, ever related anything to clubface. Sure, that's, you know, a benefit of having the technology that we have today that all that has been cleared up, you know, that it's a, you know, way more about face and you know, where the face is pointed to start where the golf ball is. And, and then path is a secondary influence. Right.

So that's a great thing that we're probably jumping ahead a little bit. But Jr. Talk to tell the people to tell our folks that are listening in your opinion, how important face is compared to path. I'm not certain of the exact percentages, but I believe it's 75 to 85% of the start line, dependent on club if you have a wedge or a driver is going to be where the face is pointed. So we need to have face awareness within the path because as the path moves in one direction or the faces come along for the ride as well. And in typically speaking with if the path goes one direction, the faces headed the other correct. Correct. Yeah. Because that's the way most humans would naturally match up in order to get the golf ball to fly to their intended target. Yeah. So what I mean by that folks is if, if you're swinging a little more out to the right, you're going to shut the club face down a little bit to get it to have a chance instinctually to get your ball back on target. And I would say in most instances, instances, it's the other which way around. Most people are cutting across the golf ball and then having to manage the face and how open they keep the face, you know, to kind of hit that weaker deflected shot.

They kind of keep it online. That's the shot that I'm sure as a teacher, you see more and more right handed golfers, left handed golfers are slicers in general. Yep, absolutely. So talk to us a little bit about playing. How much playing did you do?

And what was that like for you? So I played all sports growing up. Didn't play, I played high school golf, didn't play golf in college.

It wasn't a priority at that time. When I went to college, I started playing more golf because I wasn't in school all day long. I had an opportunity to manage studying and in recreation in a different way. And I started playing a bunch of golf with somebody that was a state champion in the state of Maine and started beating them. And it's like that was not the experience or echelon I kind of competed in in high school. And as I focused on it a little bit more, it became more and more intriguing. And I moved back to St. Louis in between in between college a little bit and decided it's like, what could I do every day, you know, look at myself in the mirror, be happy with myself every single day. And getting into the golf business was, was a good priority at that point. Made sense for me. And Jr is so cool, because that's a life lesson right there.

Forget golf, forget anything. I mean, if you can do that, you pretty much have it. Lick, don't you? Whether I know we ever people get caught up in money and things like that.

But that man, the stuff that gets you out of bed is the thing that gets drives us all. Absolutely. And that's very fortunate to have a supporting family that understood that if you follow passion, follow dream, that the money will hopefully eventually come if you're, you know, doing your diligence. Yeah, okay, so cool. So So, obviously, look, I've got four children and and I know myself how I was your intellectual look at breaking down the golf swing at 12 years old was much more advanced than mine. So now you're you're going to start getting into teaching a little bit.

Sure. So I as I was cutting my teeth as a PGA professional, I was fortunate enough to work at banded dunes in Oregon, and I learned started to learn how to teach under grant Rogers there. He's a master PGA professional, has a very Zen like attitude. But I was up on that Oregon coast, you'll be said like, is that one of the prettiest places we're going to it is absolutely, absolutely gorgeous. And with how gorgeous and nice it is during the summer, it's wild during the winter.

So you get kind of, you have the juxtaposition between, you know, this very mild, sunny, but windy, you know, weather during the summer time, and then it gets wild during the winter time. So it's kind of fun. Oh, my gosh, I can tell you a quick story. I remember I was playing in an outing for the the Hope Hospital up in Chicago, and I met a guy named Michael Kaiser, sure, who I had no idea who he was. And he told me that he was into building golf courses, he was just going to get in there and he bought 1000 acres in a place called band in Oregon.

And I said, gosh, I, you know, UCLA days, we went to Oregon a lot. I don't know where bandon is. He goes, No one does.

No one does. Yeah. And then I saw him again, probably a year later. And he said, Damn, I wish I'd have bought more.

Right. And now he's the most successful golf course developer that you know of this generation, hands down bar nine. And it's interesting, Jr, his courses that he's developing are just absolutely spectacular. A lot of sand based and really, really fun, really neat. And watching and you say sand base, watching the golf ball bounces absolutely amazing.

It's something that here in Missouri, we get for weeks at a time, you know, only for you know, sometimes in the spring, maybe a little bit in the fall. And it's very interesting and very intriguing that helps really solidify my passion for the game is being able to have to hit different shots. When you're playing links golf. That's links golf is such a different animal, isn't it?

It's one of my favorites. Anyway, we kind of hopped off. Sorry about that.

This is kind of what our shows like anyway. So you were talking just about you're in band and you're kind of learning your game, some of the early influencers to help you kind of develop your sense. Yes. So Grant Rogers was the master PGA professional out there. I was very fortunate.

I was one of the only assistant professionals that was allowed and encouraged to teach. And I'm not certain if that's a skill that that they had seen in me, but I was able to help with the links lessons that we had in the golf academies that we had, which was not really extended to most of the other professionals, you know, had professionals were there, but none of the other assistants. So I really was able to, you know, start to get some understanding and just sit there and be quiet and listen to them, you know, spoke when spoken to, you know, see, you know, be able to recognize the patterns within what they're, you know, saying. And also, you know, have a little bit of input when there was a pattern that I would see, Jr, one of the things that's unmistakably folks, you gotta you've got to look, Jr up out of Family Golf Center, get a lesson just hang out with this guy because you have a vibe about you that is that is first of all is awesome. And what I'm going to say is you telling your story about how you listen and how you speak when you're spoken to, you know, those are not those are kind of throwbacks.

Those are kind of the things we were. We were taught when we were growing up and the fact that some of the master professionals, some of the influential folks saw at an early age that you had a gift to teach. That's that gets overlooked an awful lot in this world in general, doesn't it?

Sure. I mean, it's I'm only as good as the information that I've been presented. I mean, I can seek some out of my own. But I use anecdotes from a guy, Gene Miranda, he was a golf coach at Air Force Academy. And I won't share them here. They're anecdotes that are for lessons. But they were so sticky. This is 1617 years ago, they were so sticky, because they were from his knowledge base, which I had full respect for. And I hope that I'm building that same knowledge base to be able to give some of these little nuggets of wisdom to and ultimately gather the respect of those that I share them with. Yeah, absolutely.

So gosh. So when you look at your golf, life to this point, you've had some really great, kind of extensive experiences and travels from both coast to coast. We're talking about Maine, we're talking about band in Oregon.

Sure. The other, you know, I also worked at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs for a while, I was very fortunate to putt with the offensive wall and get some understanding of the history of the game that was there. And that was another place, you know, that allowed me to teach as an assistant, which wasn't, wasn't normal. And this isn't something, you know, to be very clear, this isn't something I sought out at that time. It was something that was presented to me, that's like, oh, you should do this, you know, I'm not certain if it was my, you know, ability to connect with other people communicate with other people. But it was presented to me that, hey, you should go teach Mr. so and so or Mrs. so and so.

And it always turned out to be pretty, pretty fruitful. I'm visiting with Jr runs, Patrick Jr. One of the things that's interesting is that the teaching is a gift. There's a tremendous amount of communication skills that you are listening to your story. It's so interesting, because we as students receive information differently, don't we?

Sure, sure. There's many different learning types. You know, there's people that can hear instruction and can execute right away.

People need to see it. Some people that just are fully field based. The model that we work through as PGA members is kind of in three parts as far as the learning is concerned, we would kind of have words, knowledge concept that be, you know, step number one, then we create a second one, which would be image and feel. And then once you can get number one and number two, done with 100% competency, then you can step on to number three, which is autonomy.

And that's what everyone's looking for. I want to be more consistent. You know, we want these changes that people make to actually get in their golf swing and stick. Now, there's always going to be some, you know, return to pattern if we're not working on stuff.

But if you can do one, which is image words, concept perfect, or pardon me, words, concept perfect, and then the second one is image and feel perfect, then you actually have a chance to get that to stick for the long term. Aren't we interesting as humans where we would much we're going to be inclined to much revert back to something that's comfortable, even though we know with all of our being that it's not going to be effective. Sure.

It's a old comfortable shoe or I was just recently shared this way to describe it as running home to mama. Yeah, right. There's comfort in there. Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's it was maddening for me because I would be like, I'm convinced. You know, I'm working on this and I'm doing it and I've overdone it.

And then I get on video and go, I haven't done it enough. Sure. And so that's the feel on there's the saying on the PGA Tour is your feel ain't real. Absolutely.

And I mean, that's alive and well for everyone, isn't it? Well, the golf swing, you know, round swing has happened in a tenth, a quarter of a second. That's fast. That is really fast. And so if we can set ourselves up for success, you know, in the in the pre swing to make certain that we've done everything posture, grip alignment properly, and then we get to in swing when things are happening fast.

We have to make some major exaggerations for minor adjustments at time. Absolutely. You know, that's going to wrap up the front nine. But don't go anywhere because I'm going to come back with JR and we're going to talk some more golf and lessons. This is Golf with Jay Delson. That was the front nine presented by the Ascension Charity Classic.

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

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See what Pro-Am Golf can do for you. Hey, welcome back. This is Jay.

I've got JR Remspetcher with me and we are headed to the Back Nine. Gosh, JR, this is fascinating. I so appreciate you hanging here with me for another segment. So we're talking about where I'm trying to give folks just a sense of how to be more prepared to take a lesson. Sure. Well, if a student is willing to change, that's the first thing that we need to understand. And change within with delayed gratification.

I don't believe that golfers need to get worse before they get better. They have to be understanding of the process. And I always tell people process, process process. You can trust the process and commit to simple changes.

The results will follow almost immediately. So the way I like to teach people is to give them points of assessment. It's like, okay, we're working on this skill in swing. And since things are happening so fast, as we talked about, if they can give themselves a scale, a score on a scale of one to ten, and to say, okay, I've executed this skill at a four and executed the other skill at a seven, they'll have a fair enough shot for themselves. Now, if they execute both of them at seven or higher, they're going to hit a shot and have a result that's of quality that they that they like. Now, part of that is the assessment is not allowing any sort of self deception.

They're not calling a three or two a seven. Yeah. Well, there's always that when when there's the self evaluation, we all have a little illusion that illusion in there, don't we?

Correct. Yeah, we don't have to be, you know, hard on ourselves. We just have to live in reality, which is hard for some of us anyway. So let's talk a little bit about personalities. Because not only are you skilled in the game, and and breaking things down, but this is really about people. At the end of the day, we're talking about another human, you're going to interact with, and you're going to try to take their way of learning, and give them new information and try to make it work. Absolutely. The biggest thing that I have to do is relate to people on a human side.

And if I can get them to buy in that I'm there for them 100% and I'm committed to their improvement. That makes the instruction aspects can more sticky. Yeah, oh my gosh, that's that's so important. And I can tell you there was Dave Pels did a short game clinic for tour players. And I was with Colin Montgomery, Robert Carlson and a couple other guys and listening to him give us information and then watching us try to interpret it Jr. Oh my gosh, I can tell you one thing. Colin Montgomery went one way and Robert Carlson went almost the 180 degrees opposite with the same, you know, this this the same message was portrayed to all of us. And our interpretation is very seldom the same. Yeah, that's a great point. There's a lot of, you know, within our own listening skills, there's a lot of translation that goes on, or this is what I heard. And that's part of the learning process, too, especially with me as an instructor, is to make certain that the student is telling me exactly what they heard. Because if there's a disconnect between what they what I said and what they heard, or if there's a something that's lost in translation, there can be a detriment there. But if they want to put it in their own words, that's great. That's part of our own learning process. We just have to make certain that there's a congruence between what I'm trying to convey and what they're actually trying to do.

JR when I was taking lessons from Jim Hardy, who, in my opinion, is one of the most knowledgeable golf minds that I've ever been with. He would say to me, Do you see what I'm saying? And I used to laugh initially, but I really appreciated it because what he was looking for was almost for me to regurgitate the thoughts so that he knew that we were thinking the same way. Sure. And what I hear there as an instructor, do you see what I'm saying? That's the bridge between skill one that we talked about as far as words, concept knowledge, and bridging the gap to two, which is image and feel Do you see what I'm saying? Are you able to incorporate that into into emotion? Yeah, it's, and I'm a visual guy. So I would tell someone if we first met, and you're going to give me a lesson, I would say, Jr, if you can show me where you want my body to be, I'll get myself there. Because I had that much confidence in my ability to move and things like that.

And that was acquired, obviously. But yeah, gosh, there's so much more to this than really meets the eye and getting a lesson and receiving the information, isn't there? Absolutely. And I always appreciate active learning from students, whether that be taking notes, because that's part of their learning style, or taking pictures, we do use video and have some sort of photographic feedback when we're doing this. It's, I'm not there to, to preach or to dictate exactly what the student needs to do. We have to have a relationship to where we're meeting in the middle, to where I can understand what my role is going to be.

And that student will understand what their role is going to be. Absolutely. All right. So let's get into one of the coolest things that's happened to St. Louis in the last five years of Family Golf and Learning Center. What Adam has done, Adam Betts is our proprietor, dear friend down there. What what he has put together and your team is really special.

Talk, talk to the listeners that may not have been by yet. Sure. So we have what is a top 50 in the nation standalone range, we have dual, dual deck hitting area, we have two grass tees, one that we have a membership function on one that we have for the public, par three golf course as well. And we have about a half acre putting green that has, you know, a bunch of swoops, swales, you know, everything that every shot that you could imagine around the green, as well, as well as a indoor facility that is second to none in St. Louis, very easily with three different simulators and indoor practice. Green with bunker place to hit. Also a gym restaurant and a fully loaded golf shop as well.

Yeah, so something like this we haven't seen to this level. This is a world class facility. Great balls. One of the things that I look for all the time is what's the grass like? You know what I mean?

And I look mats are fine in the winter. Not my favorite, but but we do what we do because we live in, you know, weather hell here. But for what Adams created, and what you guys are doing on a daily basis, it's really making people better. And and this is not just elite golfers. Sure, this is golfers of all skill levels from very beginning golfers, we have junior clinics, we have adult clinics for very beginning golfers, and learning in a group environment when you're just starting there with the understanding that the game is difficult. Seeing other people seeing other people's successes, but also other people's challenges that are there as well, can really help one to understand that game is difficult. It's rewarding if you know played at a level that gets close to your own expectation. And anytime you can exceed expectation, that's where the real enjoyment, the real love starts to come from. Yeah, and I'm sure as an instructor, when you get to see someone, it's something like that, you walk away with a smile on your face, I have a feeling you do that most days anyway.

Because you know, it's a process. One of the things that you guys have accomplished at Family Golf and Learning Center is the full Monty, so to speak, we're talking about, we're talking about fitness, we're talking about nutrition, we short game, we've got all bases covered. That is it has been an absolute pleasure to be there. I've known Adam for a number of years.

And when they brought me on to do clinics a few years ago, before I was a full time instructor, I was very grateful. The compliment I give Adam and and the team all the time is we're pulling all the levers. Nothing's left out there. We're not trying to be complacent with any part of the game. And that will benefit golfers and St. Louis hands down.

No clue, no question. And just sitting next to you, I the the love you have for the game that you know, we both share that that true love for the game and that want to kind of share that love and to kind of help help people enjoy the game better is is it means a ton to you. The reward to watch people improve is something that I guess only a teacher can understand. Now there's frustrations at time. There are, but with frustration with challenges, great reward.

And I would never let my frustration show. Golf was frustrating enough for the golfer themselves. But anytime that there's a challenge there, that's an opportunity for me to get better. And I hope that the golfers look at the same thing as I'm challenging them for certain skills. They meet that challenge with the understanding that that will get them over the hump and make them a better golfer. And hopefully, you know, with some of the junior students, hopefully makes them a better human being, you know, I can teach a six year old how to be the best seven year old possible.

They're standing a chance. There's so many life skills intertwined with a game of golf and the meetings I'm sure you learned I did as a caddy, you know, where you're with people that that are teaching you things you didn't even know you were learning about at the time, and it's just absolutely wonderful. I think when I think about the the Family Golf and Learning Center, one of the things that I love about the facility is that there's so much activity around almost 24 seven, anytime I go there, you've got high schools practicing there, you've got colleges practicing there. You've got six year olds, as you said, you got 80 80 year old folks, there's even with the lousy weather, we've got heat, we've got we've got different base to protect you from the wind. So this thing's up and running all the time.

Absolutely. And even in times where we don't have the grass teas, we have turf hound mats that are excellent there, you know, the feedback on them is good, you know, again, you have to make certain that the player is not deceiving themselves. ball first contact, these needs to happen, you get a little bounce factor. You have to understand what that ball first contact sounds like.

Because if you look at a shot, you know, to where it gets in the turf a little bit, that's not going to be the same when you're hitting off grass. I did interesting Jr. because and I know you do this because sound is everything isn't it when you're not when you're not holding the club. It's everything because you can judge a lot by the sound and your ear gets trained, whether you kind of wanted it to or not.

From my understanding, if you remove sound from the player, and this is done via testing from the manufacturers, I believe this was knowledge that I had from from the ping manufacturer, if you put your phones on and have remove all sorts of sound, that the amount of feel that the player actually has to their hands is not as strong as we would want to think. And I tell people all the time, you know, when they hit a good shot, within this parameters that we're working on, and it makes it makes that sound that they'll look back and it's like, Oh, did you like that shot? And I'm like, you're the one holding the tuning fork, not me, right? It's like I can tell via the tone via the sound that's coming out. Yes, that's what we're looking for.

But you have the tuning fork. That's where some of the learning takes place. Some of the conditioning takes place to say, Oh, I can stick with process.

If I stick with process, I can produce results. It's interesting, isn't it? Because this is a great point. When you talk about sound, and then we're also talking about feel.

I mean, it's gonna it's, it's going to be described and experienced on different levels for every single person. But when you you want that positive feedback where you do hit that one shot, ball first contact the right ball flight, the right flight shape at the target, you want to be able to relate that back not only to the field that resonated in your hands, but through your ears so that you can you know what to repeat. Sure, one of the things that I like a lot that I've tried to incorporate into teaching as I've matured as a teacher as post shot routine. You know, if you hit one and you hit it right on the button, it sounds right, feels right, you better hold your finish and stare that thing down. And I always joke with students, it's like, I want you to say, I'm Jr. That's what I do. I hit good shots, you know, or insert their name. And then if you hit a funny one, guess what, you should still be holding on to that finish anyhow, because you should be imprinting a solution. So imprinting emotion when you hit a good one and printing solution when you hit a poor one.

Yeah, that's interesting. So tell the folks how they can reach out to you how they can get connected to you and family golf and how they can spend some time with you. Sure. So if you go to family golf online.com, we have a lessons profile there each each one of our teachers will have a bio you can go on to my bio and read what my philosophy will be to parse it down into just real quick. I'm gonna teach things pre swing teach things in swing.

Right? pre swing we do them with detail and discipline. They have a good chance to do the in swing things better.

Because in swing as we spoke about things move fast. Absolutely. Well, Jr. Thank you so much for joining me today and keep doing what you're doing growing the game and and and and I know that the folks what you're doing at family golf is just making St. Louis better at golf.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a pleasure. Thank you. This has been the back nine presented by pro and golf. We'll make the turn into the clubhouse and head into the 19th hole. That's next on golf with Jay delsing. 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 title is Performance Institute trained physical therapist that can perform the TPI screening on you as well as use a K vest 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. 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 longer, 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 Robert Price with elite mind. And you're listening to golf with Jay Delson.

This is Jay Delson. And if you're like me, you're always looking for the best ways to improve your game. That means getting the best, most up to date equipment you can find in golf. You can find that equipment at Pro Am golf. Pro Am golf is located in Brentwood.

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They're the best in town and make sure you ask for CJ. That's Pro Am golf. Visit Pro Am golf usa.com. That's Pro Am golf usa.com. This is golf with Jay Delson. And let's head to the 19th hole.

Hey, welcome back. This is golf with Jay Delson. I'm your host Jay. I got pearly with me.

And we're headed to the 19th hole pro go ahead and open one. JR I gotta tell you what I enjoyed just sitting down with this young man. He has got a vibe about him, John. That makes me want to listen to him and makes me want to hang around him.

Absolutely. You know, reminded me a little bit of our buddy who you interviewed several weeks ago, Roger Gunn, very articulate, very, very into what he does very good at what he does. I thought it was one of your best interviews, Jay.

Oh, that's kind of Pearl. One of the things that I don't I only want to hang around people in my life that have passion for what they do. And I mean, this guy, he's right there. I just his approach, his, you know, he has this seriously calm demeanor with a very intellectual and an athletic approach that is not easy to combine, John. Well, that's what's so impressive. He just had the sense just even just only through the interview.

I don't know the gentleman I've never met him. I hope to he's got all the parts working together is what it seems like to me. Yep. And he's understanding that this is a mind body physical, you know, he's putting all of these different dimensions and without getting too weird together. And it's I mean, I love it. And it doesn't surprise me that he's having such success. Jay, I love the road he traveled to get to St. Louis, of all places, both coasts, phenomenal in between.

What was it? Broadmoor somewhere. Just a great path to get there. And now he's in what you consider a very special place in St. Louis, teaching at a remarkably high level. What Adam Betts and that and his team down there are doing.

It's right now. It's the preeminent place in St. Louis. And we've got some others up and coming. But but family golf and learning centers, man, it is that it is it is what everybody's shooting for, because you can all levels of the game you can take there and get and get better and get instruction for however you need it.

So that's pretty neat. I want to remind folks, John, the last Sunday of every month, so February twenty six at four o'clock from four to five golf with Jay Delsing will be live from Wild Crush Wine Bar that's out in town and country. And the last Sunday of every month, we are going to be at Wild Crush doing a live remote from four to five. So March twenty six will be the next time we're going to be out there. I am guaranteeing you somehow or another, the audio will be available this time. So you're going to get whether you want to hear us or not.

You're going to have to listen to us. So that's that's going to kind of be fun. All right, Pearl, we just had the Phoenix Open wrap up and we just got to put a couple of bows on that event because those guys, you and I have been going to that. You've been going to that event since the middle 80s and to watch this progression and to watch what a finely tuned chaotic machine that's become is really impressive. And those Thunderbirds, they work their butts off, Pearl.

They absolutely do. And they pass it along from year to year. It's just phenomenal what they've accomplished. It was great again this year. The conditions were fantastic.

The weather was we'll call it unique for the area. But for me, one of the most fun events to watch. Weiskopf did a masterful job, particularly coming down the stretch, but really the whole golf course. It's until you play it, it's hard to appreciate it as much as you need to.

As fun as it is to watch on TV, playing it gives you a whole nother level. Pearl, do you think the great Tom Weiskopf would have ever dreamed that Jordan Spieth would be hitting 81 yard, have an 81 yard shot into number 18? You know, Jay, I just can't even believe it. It's just, it's just unbelievable. Obviously they didn't design the course that way. However, it's still interesting how well the golf course is holding up, but they are having to make it tougher pins, firmer greens, and make it tougher, tougher. They just, those, the players now are just shrinking the golf course so much. It's, it's just remarkable.

Yeah, absolutely. It really, really is. And then this week on the PGA tour, John is probably, it's one of my top five courses in the world at Riviera. I, I have the fondest memories of playing Riviera in college and then also getting to compete and probably 20 LA opens was just absolutely spectacular for me. It's such a hard golf course because of the grasses, I suppose a little bit because of the layout, but, and then the Marine layer and a Marine in effect, it's such a tough place, but I'm with you, Jay. It's such a special place, but man, you have got to golf your ball. You don't fake it around this golf course.

It's really interesting. Pearl tiger is going to make his debut, uh, for competitive golf. He's coming back to play, you know, his foundation is associated with the event.

And so they are the recipient of a lot of the money that, that, uh, the LA junior chamber of commerce raises, uh, in that area. And that's really special, but having tiger come back just changes the game. I think an awful lot of the golf course is fairly flat, certainly not the first hole or the 18th hole, but I think it gives them a chance to walk the mans of the golf course beyond the slope is still a lot.

So it's going to be interesting to see how he holds up. You know, Johnny doesn't have a good record there. He's never won there. And those greens, you know, Pearl, they're never the best greens on tour.

They're certainly never the smoothest. And they remind me of pebble beach in so many different ways. They're the same grass, John, and even San Diego at Torrey pines. It's interesting because you look at tiger dominated at pebble, which is up north. He dominated at Torrey, which is down south, but then to come back and play this Thomas golf course here in Los Angeles, right in the middle, he doesn't, he's, he's never won or come close really. Well, Jay, as you say, it's because of the demand off the team relative to the trees. That's the only thing that it would really make sense to me because otherwise I'm not sure what the distinguishing factor would be, uh, between those three golf courses.

You know, John is good. It has to have something to do with the Cacou your grass because that is way more prevalent in Riviera than it is at, uh, at, up north at a pebble or down south at Torrey. And it also has to do John with, to your point, if you don't drive the ball in the fairway, regardless of how strong these guys are, John, you're never going to hit the 12th green from the rough.

You're never going to, you're probably going to have a hard time powering number 10, that 300 yard par four, if you don't hit the ball in the fairway or a green side bunker. So there's just a lot of management on that, on that golf course pro, especially off the tee also can play very different. Doesn't it Jay from morning to afternoon and from day to day, it's, uh, it's, it's kind of a different walk every time you're out there.

Yeah. And you know what else, John, what reminds me of something that's really in play there is the Marine layer layer. And you can get a, you can get a warm morning and a really cool, cool afternoon. And that is not typical except when you start playing around the coast. I think that's going to be another challenge for tiger because you, you and I both know, yes, it's sunny Los Angeles, but it can still be plenty cool.

And that moisture tough on your body. If, uh, if you need a warm date and warm up your body, Pearl, that's going to wrap up another show. Enjoyed it again. Jay really enjoyed it.

Right on Pearl. Well, we will be back with you next week with more golf with Jay delsing. It's brought to you by our friends at Darty business solutions. Thanks to them.

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