Roger Gunn & How To Be A Great Golf Instructor-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, and I'm sitting with my buddy, John Perlis. Perli, you're an author. You're a successful business person. You were a college All-American, but most importantly, you got the caddy for me.

I know that makes you feel pretty good right about now. Hey, when you're sending out some of those accolades, you always stumble out of it a little bit. Why are those hard for you to say? Well, do you want me to be truthful, or should I just give you the... No, this is the Golf with Jay Delsing show. We have to be truthful. We're not accurate, but we're truthful.

Okay. I love the fact that accuracy and truthfulness aren't combined. I sit there and I think about some of the idiotic things that you and I have done together in our lives, and it just makes me chuckle. I start thinking about the other positive things we've done, and I'm like, man, it's amazing.

We've actually accomplished a lot. You being an author, that thing just gets me, man. Every time I say that, it just makes me smile. Well, I'm glad it makes me smile too, but I also have shared with you, that's one thing about being an author. You're an author, I suppose, but there's about a half dozen or a dozen people around you to make any of that happen, which by the way, is pretty much how our golf career happened and anything else that happened good in our lives is surrounding ourselves with good people. Yeah.

Pearl, the term that takes a village is really indicative, and I've actually got a gentleman that's approached me about writing a book, and I'm like, anyway, so let's get back to the show. We formatted the show around the golf. This initial segment is called the Beyond the Range segment, and guys, if you're interested and you need some ammo, like tailor-made golf ball type ammo, send me an email, Jay at jdelsongolf.com. Each week, compliments of TaylorMade and our buddy, Jeff Thornhill at TaylorMade Golf. We are giving away a dozen TP5 golf balls, brand new. They are beautiful.

Send me an email, jatjdelsongolf.com, and we'll put you in the drawing, and we will send them out to you. We sent out 52 dozen last year. I got emails back from people. They were delighted about them. They said the balls didn't go straight. I said, look it.

I keep the straight ones, and I'm giving you guys the ones that curve a little bit. So that's what we got. All right, Pearl, let's jump back into the show. We had the Sony Open just happen this week. Seewoo Kim gets his fourth win since 2021, John. That's pretty damn impressive for the young South Korean.

It's very impressive. He's a heck of a player, and I think he shot my theory down to dust because I think he just got married, and I'm always talking about when guys just get married or just have kids, that their games go to heck, but not this guy. He had a big shebang in Korea with getting married. He walks out on the tour the next week or so and puts on quite a performance and won a finish. I think Hayden Buckley, who I think thought he might win or at least get in the playoffs, got a little shuttle shocked at the end. Well, yeah, I mean, Seewoo Kim chips in on 17 from just off the edge and then two putt birdies on 18. I mean, how about the fairway bunker shot he hit on 18, Pearl?

I mean, that's a, oh man. I sit there and watch him tee up that three wood so high on 18. I'm like, you're going to swing under this thing. But I'm just, I'm just amazed at the young kids, how good they are. And with a little bit of magic dust, a little bit of confidence, John, these guys just get after it.

Well, it's funny to watch them tee it up, Mike, is you and I coming down the stretch and especially under pressure and I, that they got lower and lower and lower. I didn't hardly need a tee by the last hole. Oh, Pearl, you have the same, just throw it on the ground. I wanted to use the ground and everything else I could to kind of trap the ball and try to get it to go straight, which of course it didn't do very often. But you know, Jen, while I, the golf course at while I always leaned seems to lend itself to some wild finishes or wild comings and goings. I mean, the golf course in the modern day era is extremely short, but Pearl, they've got that, that kind of wiry common Bermuda rough. And it's one of the only of one of the few places that PGA tour players nowadays have to try to deal with flyers and have to try to deal with controlling their ball in some undesirable situations. There's so I'm glad you brought that up because it is a throwback golf course. There's just so many things. The wind just seems to shift enough out there to really wreak havoc.

It's not a hard course really. So they know coming down the stretch, they know they've got to shoot some low numbers, but there's enough holes that are just awkward enough to, to make them think. And, you know, try to hit that fairway on 18, given the, the angle that it is with the, with the wind and the Palm trees to the left. But Hey Jay, I want to make sure we get a comment from you on, on Hayden Buckley. Let's talk about him a little bit because here you got a guy, you know, you see all these unbelievable swings out there and actually you had a couple coming down the stretch between Chris Kirk's, whose swing is a little bit unique, but not as wild as, as Hayden Buckley's, but man, he can golf his ball. I gotta tell you, it just puts a smile to my face when I see someone, I mean, it's hard to call him unconventional, right? But I, it just puts a smile on my face when I see somebody that looks like an athlete out there playing golf. Well, he was a big, he was a pretty, pretty big time baseball player.

I don't know how far he made it, but he was pretty serious and pretty solid baseball player, whether it was through high school or maybe even college, but Jay, it's kind of cool just to your point to see him play as you would call it, bat and ball, get away from all the crazy technique. There's the ball in this case. It's your club is your bat and just go play it.

That club is moving all over the place. He's got that exaggerated funky takeaway. I love his action though, man. He, he makes me want to play when I see him hit it. John, I agree because we're so programmed into trying to teach golf swing instead of trying to teach people to just get the ball around. And that's what it looks like sometimes when you stand there and that's his interpretation and look at what he does. I mean, look at what he did.

He almost won a PGA tour event. Well, cause I love the, you know, we all have different personalities. It's kind of like fingerprints. There's no two the same.

And so for all of us to try to swing the same, especially under pressure and over time really doesn't make sense. So here's the guy that's kind of figured it out. It kind of matches his personality.

I love the cat, his caddy story as well. How he just kind of picked up this gentleman, what, towards the end of last year or something like that. And they had a really good finish or actually the actual win with something. So they just kind of a match made in heaven. They'd never met each other and all of a sudden off they go.

And now they've got to each have a tour win under their belt. It's kind of a throwback story. I love it.

I think we need more of it. Uh, same, same with Chris Kirk. Jay, you played with Chris Kirk a couple of times and he, and back in the day, at least when we played with him, he bombed it.

Oh hell yeah. Pearl. He bounced it. I, he pissed me off cause his rhythm was so good. That backswing looks like he's fallen asleep on the way back.

Pearl. So smooth, so calm, so relaxed. And then you look at Hayden Buckley. It looks like he's taking the club back a little Allah, Matthew Wolf, a little Allah little less, but a little Allah, Jim Furyk.

And that cause the club goes, you know, completely out to the North outside somewhere out there. And I got to tell you down at impact, it just looked pure and uh, yeah, Chris Kirk's a hell of a good player. Good story. Battled alcoholism, some other demons that he's had. I just, I just love the comeback story, John. Well, but tell him, tell me a little bit in the listeners. Where does Chris Kirk get that power?

Jay? I mean, I don't, I just don't see that much of it. You don't see a whole, his follow through is a little bit unique. His takeaway is, is soft and relaxed.

And man, I remember playing with him down in, uh, Australia someplace. He hit some swinging draws that, you know, we would think coming off the tee. Oh, that was a good one. We'd walk out there. He's 80 yards past us. Stop that to John. Quit bringing that up. 80 yards past us.

It was into the wind for you that day. That's right. Um, you know, John, what he still, so what I would say, he's got this quiet power. And what I mean by that is he moves so efficiently.

There's very little wasted motion, John. And he's also a tall kid. He's, he's, you know, for PGA tour standards. So that's where I've, I believe he gets it. And he twitches extremely fast. And so, um, yeah, I I'm, I'm, I'm amazed at, at that one other thing I noticed before we hang, before we move on to the next subject, Kurt firearm again, uh, for this weekend, I thought he kind of came to the next level.

It was another tournament under his belt. I thought it was phenomenal. And I, I think it starting to happen just what you and I were predicting. He's taking kind of more and more of a lead and I thought he really helped the whole, the whole, uh, telecast blend. Oh, I agree.

Just a super solid, super, uh, super calming influence to that, to that team. And I, I, and I really, I really love the way he's doing it. Pearl. That's going to wrap up the, on the range segment. I'm going to do my tip of the cap. It's brought to you, our buddy by our buddy, Colin Burt, 3 1 4 9 6 6 0 3 0 3.

We are talking about Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood. And this week I'm tipping my cap to the charitable organizations within our community. I know I did one not long ago in the fall, but I just had a meeting today with the children's miracle network and these women are doing some great work. I want to thank Sue Richter for getting me hooked up with Melissa and with Krista today, these guys donated a million dollars to each of our large hospital, uh, here in St. Louis, Cardinal Glennon and children's hospital. And they continue to do just fantastic work and they're spread. There's there's people like children's miracle network spread out all throughout our region and through the region where you're listening. And I just want to thank them.

I appreciate the work they do in the community and keep going, please. It's just fantastic. That's the tip of the cap. It's brought to you by Colin Burt. He is Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood, 3 1 4 9 6 6 0 3 0 3.

Any vehicle, anything you need. Colin's got it. That's going to wrap up the on the rain segment.

Don't go anywhere. I will be back with my interview with teacher extraordinaire Roger Gunn on the front nine. This is golf with Jay Delson. That was on the range with Jay Delson for news on the latest golf equipment tips and to ask Jay a question, log on to jdelsongolf.com coming up.

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Find out more at ascensioncharityclassic.com. Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delson. I'm your host Jay and Pearly's with me and we're headed to the front nine. And thanks to the Ascension Charity Classic this year. Can't wait. September 5th through 10th, Norwood Hills, baby, be there, be square.

It's going to be great. All right, we are going to get straight to our, my interview with Roger Gunn. Roger is a fellow teammate of Pearly's and I'm at UCLA. He graduated in 1985. He is the Teacher of the Year in Southern California. He's the Club Fitter of the Year in Southern California. He's played in two U.S. Opens. He's played in the U.S. Senior Open.

He's also a member of the California Teaching Hall of Fame. Please enjoy the first half of this interview with Roger Gunn. Roger, good morning and thanks for being with me this morning. Good morning, Jay. How you doing this morning? Doing just fine.

Thanks. Hey, Rog. Gosh, it's been a minute since we've played any golf together and seen each other, but we had some great, great memories at UCLA back in the day.

Well, that's for darn sure. The one thing I would say about guys like you versus guys like me is that you were pretty much a superstar in college and I was struggling to get on the team at all and you guys were so supportive. Guys like you and Mickey Okoye and just really helping us young guys who didn't know what we were doing and a lot of us ended up being pretty good players and it was largely because of your help and support and, you know, I mean, my golf game didn't know anything about your golf game, but when I first got to school, but you know, that's changed over the years practicing and playing with you guys.

When I think back about how much fun, how competitive, what good players. I mean, the state of California, you guys, there's so many good players that would just keep coming and coming and, you know, the competitiveness of our team and our love of competing really carried the day for us for a lot of years. Yeah, it was really something, you know, the gosh, I'll never forget the, the, we had a second team tournament that I went to one time and our second team comprised of Steve Pate, who is a multiple Ryder Cup member Duffy Waldorf, who was the college player of the year when he was a senior John Perlis, who was a multiple all American, Brad Bell, who played on the tour a couple of years, all American. And I was first team all packed in. That was our second team. So we would go and go win tournaments by, you know, 60 shots. It's so true because you and Mickey McCoy and, and Corey Pavan and Jeff Johnson and Louis Barletti were, you know, the, the, the top team.

So it's a tough team to break into. Raj, I can remember us, you know, getting back together on the weekend and going, well, we got two more trophies, you know, this team won this one and that team won that one. But you know, when I look back at that, we, the game of golf is, you know, I'm 62 years old, you know, we've, we've aged and we don't really want to talk much about that. But the game of golf has just been such an incredible giver and it's been, it's just incredible. It created so many opportunities that the, my family, uh, has been supported through it.

Your family's been supported through it. All the names you've mentioned, these guys are all doing things involved in the game. And how do we get so lucky, man?

Gosh, I want to share here the answer to that one. I mean, it's, it's such a hard game to get started. And then once you get past the achy part where you, you know, you can't seem to hit it too well. Um, it's just a lot of fun and, and you know, players of different abilities can go play together and have a blast. I mean, a brand new golfer can play with tiger woods and have a great time, but you know, if I'm going to go out and rally with Roger Federer, I mean, we're just going to be chasing balls the whole time. Exactly.

Better have a lot of them too, because I won't be able to hit one of them, I don't think. So, you know, it's, it's really unique in that regard. And you know, one of the things I love about it for, for kids is, um, it's this amazing dynamic where, you know, they're hanging out at a golf course, you know, and, and members of golf clubs are usually successful business people and whatnot. And so here you can have a 12, 13, 14 year old kid that is basically revered by the, the CEO, because he, he wishes he could play like that and swing like that.

And, and so they have, you know, time together on the golf course. And, you know, I was always able to, to speak to people of any age when I was a young person, cause I've been doing it since I was a kid. So, you know, gives kids a lot of confidence and you know, it's, um, really great. I guess it's better than being on the phone, you know, Oh my gosh.

You're on your tablet. Yeah. So it was a really, it's just an amazing thing.

Okay. So you could sit back for a minute cause I'm going to tell the folks about some of your accomplishments and it's going to take a while. Um, we, um, you mentioned that you were a first team, all pack 10, uh, class APGA professional, uh, two years you spent on the European tour playing three years on the corn ferry to her plane.

You played in two U S opens a senior open, uh, your golf magazine, top 100 alumni, uh, Southern California P PGA teacher of the year, as well as a club fitter of the year and a member, just a little throw in a member of the California teaching hall of fame. So Raj, I'm exhausted. You know, that's why you sleep so well at night, man, you have been working your butt off for all these years. So Raj, let's talk a little bit about teaching the game and how important it is when you love the game. Like we do, you want to game to thrive. It really matters to you to try to make people better. Doesn't it?

You know, it's, it does. And it's a, it's a win, win when that happens because if you're trying to help somebody, it's, it's very gratifying and fun, you know, so, so I win and they win too. So we're both happy and having a great time and you know, if you're not able to help somebody the way you want, then it's, then neither one of you are having fun. So, so anyhow, yeah, it's, it's a passion just because I love the game so much and I love learning, you know, techniques and, and things that have been discovered about the swing and how it really works and things like that. And not only just for my own, you know, hitting shots and, and recognizing what makes somebody better or what makes me better, you know, that's, I'd probably be doing that if I wasn't a teacher, I'd be trying to figure stuff out and, and thinking, Hey, this is cool. But you know, when you add to it, the dynamic of, you know, standing in front of somebody who's there because they want your help, you know, it sure is, is nice when you can help them out. And to me, it means so much more to me that I'm going to go see Roger Gunn, who's played in the U S open, he's played in a major.

He's no, he knows what it's like to, to hit good shots, hit bad shots and try to figure it out. And that's important to me. Yeah. You know, the, I, I think that's important too. I know my longtime coach, Jim Hardy felt that that was a big deal. You know, I mean that there's certainly plenty of excellent teachers who have never hit a shot in the U S open. So I mean, I'm not sure you have to do it, but it's a, certainly a nice thing to be able to speak to, um, you know, golf at its highest levels and, and understand what that's about. Roger, you mentioned Jim, we, we both love Jim. My gosh, I took lessons from Jim for years. Um, let's talk about the people that were instrumental and kind of developing your golf brain and your golf teaching brain, because I know who you are. I know the kind of human that you are, and you're always trying to learn, aren't you a hundred percent, you know, um, I'm never not learning in this game. I think that, you know, we mentioned social media a little bit ago, but I've met some wonderful coaches and learned some really cool stuff, you know, little twists on whether it be a bunker shot or, you know, some, uh, impact characteristic, uh, with club head speed, you name it. There's a bunch of stuff, but, um, yeah, you know, I was in front of the computer yesterday learning from Dr. Kwan at Texas women's university.

He's a great biomechanics guy learning about speed and, and so, yeah, it's like you say, it's, it's fun to, to learn this stuff and, and helps me hit a little farther and, and my students too. So yeah, it's a constant process. I'm sure you are too.

It's just how it's in our DNA, I think. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, and I think the one thing that is kind of nearly diabolical about this game is that no one owns it ever.

It's a rental process and you have to un unfortunately you have to re, you know, turn it back in and on the back nine of our lives right now, the game seems way, way harder than I ever remember it. Well, it's funny. Um, I, I was with a lady once I was very successful business woman. I told her basically that I said, you know, you never really master this game. She looked like I had just shot her with a gun. She was just like, what? Like, oh yeah, you don't master golf.

I'm like, not even close. No, no. They don't like hearing that.

Do they? No, no. But here's the funny one. You know, stepping back for just a minute, the 14th hole at Bel Air Country Club is a par five and a kind of straight away and a little bit downhill. I think it was five 75 and in all my years at UCLA. So here are these, you know, 18 to 22 year old young men all smashing it as hard as they can. I saw one person in all my years there even go for the green and that was you on a Santa Ana day. And so it's blowing 50 miles an hour downwind and you just crushed one one of your patented two yards fades. Uh, just a top spinning rocket. I remember it got to the, to the second bridge, which nobody even thought of. And then you hit a four iron.

Okay. To the, to the green. Now that was, that was the only time I ever saw anybody even try to go for it in today's game. I've asked some of the UCLA players, does anybody go for that green? And they'd laugh at me talking about, you know, they fly at 300, which means it rolls to three 30, which means they have two forties of the center of the green and they've got a, you know, two 25 front edge. That's a five iron.

I hate those guys. Oh my gosh. It is. I tell you, I, I, um, I suppose maybe, I don't know how much credit we should take, but I, in, in that regard, I am somewhat proud of our generation that, that the following generation is so much better than we were. And I think that's cool. You know, it's, it's like, okay, we, we did our job, you know, they, they know more about the swing, they know more about, you know, physical fitness and it's this blend and, and you know, you rarely see somebody with a bad golf swing anymore.

You know, it's just not a thing. So, um, you know, I, I'm, I'm, our, our legacy is not too bad in that regard. Oh my gosh.

I'm so proud of that as well. And you know, it's interesting, right? Because the quote unquote bad golf swings of some of the guys that came before us, you know, where you had the Lee Trevino's that were very rotary, and then you'd have the, the Don January's that were very upright or the Al Geiburgers. And, and you're like, wow. But all those swings were really effective. So there's a lot of ways to skin this cat.

There are. And, and, um, gosh, you know, it's kinda like, um, it's tricky as a teacher because, you know, you take someone like Matthew Wolf and, and if I, if you've ever seen the Matthew Wolf hit it, I mean, the earth shakes when he hits the golf ball. It's unbelievable. So he's just the compression on how pure he hits it. You know, and it's, it's like, he's got the weakest grip you've ever seen on a good player by far.

I mean, it's not even close with the golf club going into the North 40 on the way back. And so as a teacher, it's like, if he, if he starts hitting some shots that he doesn't like, is that when you say, uh, Oh, you know what? There, that thing that you that you're doing, it's finally caught up to you. And it's like, yeah, I've done it since I was eight.

I know Raj. So it's like, as a teacher, it's like, are you sure you want to touch that beginning of that backswing or that grip? It's like, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's tricky.

It's tricky. All right, folks, that's going to wrap up the first half and that's going to wrap up the front nine, but don't go anywhere. Pearly and I, and Roger Gunn will be right back on the back nine. This is golf with Jay Nelson.

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Hey, welcome back. Pearly's with me. This is Jay and this is golf with Jay delsing. We're on the back nine and that's brought to you by our friends at Pro-Am Golf centers. Get fitted folks.

Got to get fitted. Anyway, we're going to jump right back in to the second half of our interview with a great Roger Gunn. When you decided you were no longer going to play the tour and try to play at the highest level and then go into teaching, was there a moment or maybe several moments where you had some kind of aha's where you went, oh man, this is what I should have been thinking or this is what I should have done as opposed to kind of when we were younger men, we just kind of kept putting the floor in the car and running it into the wall as hard as we could. Well, yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of quite a few of those.

I mean, gosh, I've taught for 30 years now. So, you know, there's learning about turning, you know, how the how the body turns on an inclined plane and all that stuff. And so so many of these things good players did just naturally, you know, that's the nature of any sport where, you know, some people just get the hang of it.

But, you know, learning about internal and external rotation of your arms and the radial and ulnar deviation of your wrists and all this kind of stuff. So, you know, there's been a number of those as the years have gone on. And of course, a lot of that's due to track man, too, in terms of how the golf balls actually struck and what's actually happening when you're making contact and all that good stuff. So, yeah, so there's been quite a few of those over the years.

No question. Roger, I there's a, I could use you spoke of track man. And that's kind of where I was going next with the technology, the Tiger Woods effect on the game.

And and I wanted to cover the pandemic. But Raj, when the track man came out and folks, the the high speed ability of these cameras to slow impact down is something that never even was thought about being existed existing when we were playing. And so I'll never forget Raj, my teachers and good people, good, well intended advice. Whenever I was hooking the ball too much, I was never swinging out to the right enough. And I was so I was I needed to swing and started further right.

And further and Raj, I just hook and hook and hook more and more. And one of the things that that track man dispelled rumor wise was, man, that club face it impacts pretty dang important, didn't it? Yeah, it's what is the stat there that you can miss the the direction of the swing by like five or six degrees and still hit the fairway, but you can only miss the club face by two degrees. So you know, it's the club face is far more influential on what the ball's going to do, then the swing direction. And then you add to that toe and heel contact.

So I mean, if you remember those, the drivers that you and I used to use, which looks like today's hybrid, it really does. And you'd see those crazy marks on the toe of the club with the T that that is this arc on your toe. And it's like, what what is that? What kind of swing did I just make? And, and so that was just the club torquing because you hit it on the toe. And so it twisted open as it passed over the T it had nothing to do with you making some crazy swing. So you know, we didn't know that we had no no idea. Oh my gosh, Raj, when I was first taught that the light bulb went off. I'm like, that is why I can remember struggling so much.

My freshman year, I started off like a house of fire at UCLA and gradually was careening downhill throughout the rest of the year. And I was looking, I was just hooking and hooking and hooking. And I kept swinging further and further out to the right and hooking, hooking more.

No idea. No, it's true. I mean, that's, that's part of the challenge of golf is that when you swing too much to the right, you're putting that counterclockwise spin on it and, and all things being equal, you're going to hit some big hooks. And so your instincts say, Oh, well, I'm going left. Clearly I need to swing more right.

And it just gets worse. Slicer deals with that every day. You know, he swings too far left. And so there's the club cutting across well instinctively. And even if we don't know it, even if we know it intellectually, it's like your instincts are telling you, well, I'm sick of going right. Better aim and swing left. And so there's the slice.

Oh my gosh. I tell folks it's really, and truly a game of opposites when you start breaking down some of the teaching ideals and, and, uh, axioms of, of what make the ball go straight for sure. Talk a little bit about witnessing and experiencing the tiger Woods effect and how it brought so many different people into the game, open doors, Roger. And I know we think the same way that should have been open long before they should have been in terms of color race and stupid things like that.

And then I want to touch on the pandemic and I'll let you go. But, um, the tiger Woods thing, man, the power with which the, the PGA tour players play with today is just ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, he was, uh, truly a different beast where, you know, he, he showed us a couple things. It's like, what do we learn about playing? Well, we learned that you hit it pretty much as hard as you can.

You just tear the golf, the cover off the golf ball. And you're, you're completely fearless where it's like, he was not, he was never intimidated of the guys on the tour at all. You know that that was different. I mean, it used to be, gosh, you better be out there for two, three years before you even think about winning. I mean, that's just not even a thing where a real young guy steps up and wins a lot. I think if you and I were to, to, to write a character for a book, that's what we would do is say, okay, he's got like almost a perfect golf swing. He's physically unbelievably strong and fast twitch muscles. He's incredibly good looking and guess what?

We're going to name him tiger. And it's like, oh no, come on. And but I mean, that's what it was. You know, I mean, you picture a guy and this is back to Matthew Wolf where, you know, someone like tiger who's swinging a seven iron, if he wants at 110 miles an hour, which is right where a lot of guys drivers were back then. And he's hitting it with perfect compression.

So you, you hear the sound that you just don't hear. It's like, what, what is that guy's hitting a seven iron with perfect compression at the same speed as a driver. And so he was also a guy that, and I bet, I bet even you to this day would say, you know, cause this is the way tour players think. I mean, tour players are you know, they were the best player at their club, best player in their town, best player in their state, you know, best player in the nation a lot of times. So they're not used to saying that anybody's better than they are. Now they, they might say that someone's playing better. You know, it's like, I'm not sure if you ever thought that Tom kite was better than you are.

It's just like, he knows what he's doing and I got to dial my stuff in, but I can totally hang with him or Curtis strange or whatever it is. But tiger was a guy where guys were saying, yeah, he's just better than I am. I can't do what he does. Ernie Els was saying, forget it. I mean, here's the guy getting a three iron, 270 yards on the carry, you know, landing like a butterfly.

I can't do that. And so that was just a whole different thing via the racial barriers that he broke. Like you said, something that should have been done a long time ago. I mean, I, I never thought of it in terms of race a whole lot myself, but any more than I would think of his hair color, but you know, just a great ambassador for the game and, and grew the game like crazy because a lot of kids were saying, whoa, that, that is a cool dude right there. And they wanted to be like him.

And, and so many of them, uh, you know, are sort of in that mold. Some of the offshoots that we talked about earlier in the interview or because of, of him, the, the track man, all of these, you know, all of these advanced metrics, you know, and a lot of the way these players played like hell, you know, now tigers, uh, increase the, the purse levels on the BGA tour. I don't want to play football. I don't want to play basketball. I'm just going to stay with golf.

Cause now I can make a boatload of money and have a much longer career. Yeah, no question. I mean, it just, um, so yeah, so much of the money that you play for now is because of tiger, you know, I mean, he just brought people to the game in droves.

You know what I mean? Like I say, it's like the coolest character, character you could, could ever imagine here is he's real. You can go watch him play. So it's pretty, pretty amazing.

I loved what you said about writing a book and it's so darn true. This is Roger Gunn. He's my guest of the golf with Jay Delsing show.

He is a teacher extraordinaire in Southern California, UCLA, um, teammate, Roger. I want to wrap it up with this, a global pandemic, something you and I, man, I'll just speak for myself, never in my wildest dreams that word or thought or ever enter anything. I didn't even drive past anything that should have it.

But what is done for the game in the United States is pretty remarkable. You know, it was, it was, I won't say the only, but one of the only activities you could do the where you were socially distance, go out and actually have a good time doing something. And I mean, who would have thought, you know, when, when, when our range closed, um, I think we were closed for a month or two and the owner said, if we are closed for two more months, we are closed forever. And all of a sudden it opens back up. And now we have a giant range with so many stalls.

And I mean, it was waiting, waiting only at all times. And so, you know, people, teachers, golf courses, uh, golf shops and whatnot were reporting 30, 40% increases. And I mean, my, my, my heart, uh, so much goes out to the companies that, that had to go under or did go under because of it. So I, you know, my, my hat is in hand while I talk about this, but for golf, you know, it, it was, um, quite something.

And there's, you know, people who picked up the game at that point that are still playing today. So crazy. Who would have thought, you know, just nuts. It was, it was incredible because we have clubs here now that have wait lists to join and we, uh, and it's, and it's happening all across our region and it's, it's just remarkable. And you know what? The other thing, Raj is a top golf has actually done. If you read the stuff from the national golf foundation, you and I are golf nerds.

We read way more golf things that we probably should, but it's actually bringing people to the game and actually growing the game. Yeah. Big time.

You know, I, I, what did I see? I'm probably going to get the stats wrong, but it's ballpark. I think they had something like 56, uh, facilities and they brought in over a billion dollars. So, I mean, it's talking about waiting room only Holy mackerel. Those guys are just killing it. So, you know, it's, uh, and it's nice to, to get folks exposed to golf and, and, um, you know, in today's world where it's, you know, got to have it right now, you know, it's, uh, nice to bring them to a sport where it's like, it's a little bit of patience, you know, it's not going to just come to you.

You have to, you know, work through it and, um, you know, kind of build up to proficiency. Roger. Thank you so much for joining me and taking the time out of your busy schedule. I know this is one of your days off. I so appreciate it.

Tell the folks how they can follow you, how they can reach out to you if they want to get a lesson or, or, or, or anything, anything to help her game. Cause I know you're their guy. Well, thank you so much. And, uh, before I say that, I just want to say thank you personally so much for all that you did for me. So, you know, folks are going to hear you on the radio and, and just to say what, what just a great guy you are, you know, funny and nice and smart and, and you've done a lot for me there, buddy. So I really appreciate that. Instagram is probably the easiest and best one. I could throw out numbers and stuff, but you know, Instagram, you can direct direct message me.

It's at Roger gun golf. I try to put some nice content in there. So you might enjoy, um, some of the, some of that too. So that's, that's a real easy way to get ahold of me, just direct message on Instagram and the social media. We, we poke fun at it because you know, we, we, we're not lovers of it the way it's used for, for most people, but when it comes to the golf game in your golf videos and things like that, it comes in pretty handy. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. And I am also on skill list, which is a, um, remote app. So I give lessons to people all over the world, literally.

So a skill list is a great way as well. So someone can send me a film and, and let me look at your sling and help you get going there too. All right, folks, that's going to wrap up that interview and Pearly. And I'll be right back with the 19th hole and we'll have some comments and some breakdowns and some more stories from the old UCLA days. And Roger gun, this is golf with Jay Nelson. This has been the back nine presented by pro am golf.

We'll make the turn into the clubhouse and headed to the 19th hole. That's next on golf with Jay delsing. The official vehicle provider of the golf with Jay delsing show is the Dean team, the Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood. They provide me Pearly and our families with all of our cars. The reason we went with the Dean team is because we could trust them. We knew at the Dean team, they were going to take care of us. And they have they made the entire car buying experience so simple.

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Visit ascension charity classic.com. This is golf with Jay delsing. And let's head to the 19th hole. Hey, welcome back. This is golf with Jay delsing. I'm your host Jay. I got pearly may with me and we are headed to the 19th hole.

Pearl, Roger gun. Great. First of all, great human being. He worked his butt off in college, didn't he, john? Well, he's one of those guys, Jay, I was trying to think today when I knew you were interviewing him, who came to the team with less of a game. And I don't mean that as a cut to him. I mean, Roger just made it happen.

He there just wasn't much game there. He ended up having a wonderful career. He's one of the guys of our team that stayed in the industry very much in the industry teaching and playing. He really became an accomplished player. He was a heck of a player for Southern California for 2030 plus years after that, in the different PGA sectional events and things like that, let alone the majors he's played in. It's it's very impressive what kind of a player he built himself into.

Oh, absolutely. And you know, john, one of the things that I will say about Roger that sticks out in my mind, I'm probably remiss and not saying it to him on the interview was he his intestinal fortitude and he stuck stuck with it because like you said, there were some low times and to watch him improve and watch him play and perform and play in the US Open and and and and and love the game so much and give back to the game so much. It was wonderful, john.

He said something I want you to comment on because we've talked about this before. But I love the idea of him talking about the exposure that the game of golf got him as a young man. And while hell for all of us, john, we were able at a young age to interact with someone 3040 years older than us in a much higher sort of societal level than we were.

But the game of golf brought everybody back to the same spot. Well, it's one of the beauties of the game. I'm so glad he did bring that up. And I think it's one of the things we can be most appreciative of. How else is a 1617 1819 year old going to have the exposure we had let alone in college, the people that we had exposure to it and it's paid dividends, not too many people parlayed that into more business and opportunity than you did.

So you would know better than anybody. But, you know, we all benefited from it immensely. We were able to rub shoulders with those folks and learn from those folks. And and in a manner, as Roger mentioned, where we had respect as well because we were pretty good players, they admire that about us.

It's a great combination. You know, there's a lot of work that goes into it to get to that point. But and we didn't do it for that reason. But it was a it was a side benefit that we all really have enjoyed. You know, john, it's so true as we look at it. I mean, all we were out trying to do is compete and try and be the best we could. And what some of the lessons that life and golf and golf life taught us? My gosh, how did we get that lucky? I mean, so fortunate, you know, when you start thinking about it, and start thinking about being around the country clubs and being around those atmospheres. I mean, that is those are the life experiences, john, you can't pay for.

No, absolutely not. And you talked about the quality of guy that Roger is. And a lot of that is self created for sure. But he had phenomenal parents. Roger guns parents were just sweet, wonderful, accomplished people in their own right. And they were certainly wonderful supporters of Rogers, but they were they were solid citizens and just really, really solid people. And obviously, that's where Roger got a lot of his foundation from. Well, it's interesting, because off the air, I talked to him about his children, and their Sam and his daughter, Leah, they're just doing great. And, you know, great jobs and, and, and adding to society. And I said, you know, no big surprise there, because, you know, you set a great pathway for them.

Absolutely, for sure. He sure did. How about his story about the 14th hole at I can actually actually remember that day, when I hit that drive on 14, thinking I was hot smoke.

And now all these kids are probably hitting three one off the tee and popping it on the green with no problem at all. Yeah, the things have changed when he talked about that as well. And you know, he appreciates they maybe what we offer to the game, to kind of move it forward. I think he gave us a little bit more credit than maybe our generation deserved. But but he's seen some he's seen some wild changes, because he's been a player throughout that time, you competed throughout that time.

And he's been teaching these, these folks throughout that time. I think it's I think it's absolutely awesome. Yeah, it's really, it's really, really cool. And I love how, you know, his version of the tiger, you know, and even down to the name, I thought that was a really, really clever take on that story. And the Tiger Woods era and, and the Tiger Woods effect for that matter. Well, I love when he talks about how our second team because that was me for until my senior year, really, or at least halfway through my junior year, playing on the second team. And I can remember specifically one of the events he was talking about, we played out a big Canyon.

And that's a golf course, at least my recollection, there's about 1400 places where you can hit it out of bounds. And we went out there and just absolutely lapped the field that I had just come off the working with that sports psychologist Bruce Ogilvy. And so it was really kind of benefiting from that and starting to play better. And I had a really good event, we kind of come walking in and I was in the zone because that sports psychologist, and they had a nice high finish. And I do think we won by 46 shots or some crazy bloody number.

And we were the second team for crying out loud and playing against everybody else's first team. Pearl, I can remember some of the fun parties and we had a few where we were there were two trophies at the at the at the weekend party. And the beautiful thing, folks about our college experiences, all of our events, every single one of our events were from Monday to Friday. So we were back on campus just in time for Friday evening.

Let's not tell that to our kids strategic. That was Yeah, that was really something but Pearl, talking to Roger, bringing back the UCLA days, the stories really, really fun. Had no real true appreciation of what that was like and what we were doing until you know, we can look back at it now. Really fun.

Yeah, I like to think that I tried to suck it up while we were and let it soak in while we were going through the process, but probably did a pretty poor job of that. But it certainly is fun to look back and especially follow with a guy like Roger, because he stayed in the game and he stayed in that area for all these years. So he's got an interesting perspective. Absolutely. Pearl, that's gonna put another show in the books, man. How do we keep doing it?

I don't know, man. We just keep on. Just keep on cleaning it up. Keep on cleaning up.

Swing at it and try to go find the darn thing. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thanks for joining me, folks. We will be right at back at you next Sunday. With more golf with Jay dosing.

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