Jim Fickert (Builder Of PGA Tour Equipment Trucks-Sunday, -Golf With Jay Delsing

This is golf with Jay Delsingh. A two-time college 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. This is Golf with Jay Delsingh.

Good morning. This is Golf with Jay Delsingh. I'm your host Jay. I'm with Pearly this morning. Pearly, what's happening? Nothing much Jay. Just ready for a great show today.

There's so much to talk about. What a wild time for golf right now with all the big tournaments and the big money. Yeah, and the Tour Championship ended anyway. We formatted the show like around the golf.

This first segment is called the On the Range segment. It's brought to you by the Gateway section of the PGA. Love having them as a sponsor. We're also giving away a dozen TP5 golf balls. Send me an email j at jdelsinghgolf.com. Enter the word balls somewhere in the subject into the end of the message somewhere and we will put you in the drawing for those balls. We just sent out another four dozen for the month of August.

And now we start on September and new dozen headed your way hopefully. I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue Painting and Refinishing 314-805-2132. They will beautify the inside of your house, the outside, whatever you need, they can do it.

And they're great human beings. Alright John, fun show today. I got to sit down with a fella named Jim Fickert.

Jim is an account exec for Craftsman Industries. They make the tour trucks, the tour trucks that have all that equipment in there, all the shafts, all the grips, all the heads. They're like mobile hotels almost, John, you know, with so much so much room. And so that's really a fun angle. You know, on the show, Pearl, we're always looking to try to find ways and subjects that are just a little bit out of the box and are kind of interesting.

This this certainly is I love the interview. You know, I can remember being in the old trucks, if you will, but they weren't that fancy. They weren't that big.

And by the way, at the time, I thought they were the coolest things going. Walk in there, the guys are building the clubs for you guys and all that kind of stuff on the spot. And the new ones I have to say I've seen from the outside of the tournaments, but I've never been in one of the new big fancy ones that that you and Jim were talking about. Oh, Pearl, some of them have lounges.

So you sit in there, you have a coke or something waiting for it's like, it's super nice couches. And and the organizational level that those guys have. And I was trying to get and we talked about this in the interview where they are maximizing space in these things like crazy, you know, because there need to be so many different components to put these golf clubs together for all of their players, because everybody's got different specs and needs. Well, as you guys discussed, it's quite an investment for the these equipment companies. I mean, they're talking about, you know, million, $2 million for these darn things, which you guys talked about, which was awesome. So yeah, they better be effective and be able to get a whole lot of things done.

But but they are it is absolutely the way that things are happening going forward. Well, I wanted I wanted people to make sure you know, we kept talking about trucks we kept and I didn't want them to think like this is some old broken down pickup truck. Or something, you know, this is not a refabbed. This is state of the art everything you ever wanted. If you're a golfer to, you know, to go in there and you know, you could tell him I want a 10 degree stealth head with a graphite shaft with this sort of flex point with this sort of grip on it, and they'll make it up for you in 12 minutes.

I mean, it's just ridiculous. Well, as big as those things are, but then he's talking about the slides and how they go taller. So all of a sudden, this this this thing that's already big expands.

To itself again, or something in that ballpark. Yeah, it's a it was it was fun interview. And I think it's a perspective that awful lot of your listeners probably don't quite have on this. So it's kind of cool. Yeah, thanks. We also want to give another shout out to birdies for breathing this golf event which benefits the cystic fibrosis Foundation. This is an awful disease you and I know a little bit about we lost our good buddies wife Fran Pruitt from this this awful disease. So Lauren and Matt Ziegler are hosting this event.

Along with their daughter Alex. It's Monday, September 19 at the St. Clair Country Club. You could jump on Facebook to find out more a really cool event. Let's get everybody out there supporting it.

You can call them at 314-607-7202 or go to birdiesforbreathing.com. All right, John, let's just jump right into the tour championship. If you're Scottie Scheffler, you go and you've had first of all, you had an incredible year.

By the way, you and I both at our early season picks. Scottie Scheffler to not only get his first tour when we talked about first majors, and we talked about breakout seasons, and we were on the money on this. But damn, I gotta tell you, Pearl, he led the stupid tournament for 70 holes, finishing second. Yeah, you know what you could just you could just see it and feel it slipping. It was just it was just so tough. You know who I thought about because you've had him on the show a couple times was Ted Scott, Ted sitting there thinking what can I do to get this guy into the barn because he's so close. You could tell he didn't have his stuff. He didn't have his stuff much of the week, I suppose is fair to say, certainly not the second half. And you know, it you watch that and you think look at the kind of the guts, the everything in his bag to get these things up and down to make these butts to hang in there in such difficult situation. The other thing that I really think I saw and it might be a little hard for some to fathom because it's golf. I think he was just getting worn out.

I mean, I think the physically I think he was he was throwing the kitchen sink at the day. But bro, you know yourself as a player when you have such little control over your game. It's exhausting to navigate yourself around and and then and then throw that on a tour golf course with the kind of pressure and six shot lead. You know, so you're thinking, man, there's no way I can't get in this thing without, you know, without screwing that up.

But it's just so hard. There's no way he said that, you know, and I know and a golf course like that with the greatest players in the world and some of the greatest players of all time chasing you. No, he wasn't thinking that he knew damn well he could screw that thing up, I think. And I think you just made a great, great point though. It is so exhausting to have to get up and down and to and also to sleep at night when you know you don't have your game. To a degree, meaning he just couldn't get into the barn at the open up and so here he is on the other side of this thing when he's watching this guy he's probably thinking to himself, I know what that feels like he knows he can't get this into the barn so if I can just get a few more good shots.

I'm gonna win this dang tournament. Pearl, he couldn't make a putt. He couldn't do it. It was just like everything was just enough off that it was kinda like, oh, this thing's gonna slip through my hands. And I'm sure he was hoping, like Ted was probably hoping, man, can we just run out of holes?

It was fun, something you and I have talked about, relative to kind of Rory being able to be there. He was swinging that putter head. There was no hold on. There was not that hold on poppy finish stroke. There's a couple that he released it on.

And I think, actually, a couple of them, it's easier to release that thing. He had a right to left putt. And there was a couple right to lefters that he had that were still kind of tough because they broke a little bit extra. But he really let that putter head swing. And I think that really, to me, it looked like it just clicked within him. Like he really started feeling that. And all of a sudden that hole opened up and he's like, man, I know I can make putts today. Well, yeah, you sprinkle a little magic dust and confidence on top of it.

And he's already a great player. I mean, and he is a machine with that driver. Holy smokes, that aggravates me. I feel like when I'm hitting my driver, I feel like half the time my legs are moving south, the other part of my body's moving north and nothing is going in the right direction. And I look at him and I feel like he's like a robot. It's so perfect. Well, you know, it is perfect, but it's also like a dance step, if you will.

It's not robotic at all. And what I really took away from that, as wonderful as he hits those tee shots, is the ultimate of swinging and letting the ball get in the way. There is no hitting at the ball. I hit at the ball, I can't say my words before I say what I'm about hitting at the ball.

And it just ruins everything. And so the way he just swings away and lets the ball get in the way, to me is one of the reasons he's one of the best drivers, if not the best driver of the golf ball in the world. It's so impressive.

I still go back to getting to walk around with him when I was with the Fox golf team at Oakmont and watching him hit these drives. And I'm like, I just walk around with my mouth open. I'm like, this is a pop-up, right?

It goes 350 yards. I mean, it's so high, John. It's just ridiculous. I can't even express it.

But you know, Pearl, that's gonna wrap up the Unrange segment. Let's do the tip of the cap. The tip of the cap is brought to you by our friends at Dean Team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood, and my buddy Colin Burt. 314-966-0303.

Send me an email if you want. I will personally introduce you to Colin. Pearlie's got a Colin vehicle.

I got a Colin vehicle from Dean Team of Kirkwood. They sponsor the tip of the cap segment. I'm tipping my cap to the hospitality companies, the men and the women that build the infrastructure for all of our sporting events, our golf tournaments, our concerts. It is just remarkable the hard work of these men and women, the long hours that they put in. I've been watching them do this for the last two weeks at Norwood.

And now we are, I mean, tomorrow we're qualifying at Norwood. And so it's so cool to watch them build this stuff. And it's such a pleasure. And I'm so grateful to be able to play in front of that.

And you know, John, how cool was it? How cool was the 17th green last year in Norwood with that little natural amphitheater with all the sky boxes around? I mean, it felt like it could have been at a major championship. Oh, absolutely. It had a great tournament feel to it across the board.

I thought there were several holes. They did a great job. But the whole complex felt wonderful as far as I'm concerned. And not overly stuffy. It was friendly, it was inviting, and it was professional. It was a great combo as far as I was concerned.

I think that's the feel they were going for and I think they nailed it. And the ACC, it's here. We've got the qualifier tomorrow. We hope you're ready. We're going to be ready. Anyway, we want to thank the Dean team, Volkswagen of Kirkwood, 314-966-0303. Colin, thanks for supporting the show. That's going to wrap up the Unrange segment.

Don't go anywhere. John and I'll be back for the front nine. Golf with Jay Delson. I want to officially welcome Darty Business Solutions as the new title sponsor of this show. So who are they? Well, first of all, they've been headquartered in St. Louis for the last 37 years. They're the number one largest IT consulting firm per the St. Louis Business Journal. They're also the number one largest software development company per the St. Louis Business Journal. They were voted number one top workplace in St. Louis for large companies.

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That's D-A-U-G-H-E-R-T-Y.com. Hey, this is Jay Delson for SSM Health Physical Therapy. Our golf program has the same screening techniques and technology as the pros on the PGA Tour use. SSM Health Physical Therapy has the title as Performance Institute trained physical therapist that can perform the TPI screening on you as well as use a KVEST 3D motion capture system.

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But no matter who wins, the real winners will be local area charities and communities. Tickets available now at ascensioncharityclassic.com. Good morning, this is Golf with Jay Delson. I'm your host, Jay. I'm with Matt Swanson this morning. Matt, thanks for joining me on the Gateway Spotlight. Thanks, Jay.

Appreciate you having me on. Hey, and another congratulations is in order. You successfully defended the Assistant's Championship event again this year. Yeah, I got lucky.

They kind of go back to back, which is really nice. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about that because the event was held this year at Forest Hills. It's kind of your home course right now. Yep, they held it at Forest Hills and Scott, our superintendent here, he's done a great job getting the course prepared for us and had a couple course projects here the last few weeks and they moved a little bit fast on those to make sure it's all in order for when we play, which was nice. Tell us what you shot and tell us a little bit about, you have rich, rich golf lineage in your family. You gotta tell us a little bit about that.

I think the viewers would love to hear. I went 64 under the first round, 68 and then 69 in the second, played pretty solid both rounds. Started the second round off really good, birdied the first five holes. Whoa, Matt, that's something that I've only done a few times in my career and it's almost hard to go, do you know, you almost feel like as soon as you make a par, you almost feel a little let down.

It's just a weird feeling, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit uncomfortable. I don't think I've ever done that either and then I just strung that up with a few bogeys. Didn't have many pars the whole day, pretty colorful scorecard, but it was good. Both my mom and dad, they've been, my mom's still in the business, my dad was in the business for 25 years and my mom and I actually been doing some ladies clinics together, so it's nice teaching with her and her not teaching me, but she was down last week and we had her check out my swing a little bit, make sure everything was squared away and felt good going in, that's for sure. So how many did you win by? It's gotta be kind of interesting having your mom or even a parent as your coach. Yeah, I think I ended up winning by seven. I think Shane shot even, so me and him get to go represent the gateway section down in Florida, which is nice. Yeah, it's definitely interesting.

The amount of FaceTime calls I make to her, just late hours, just in my apartment thinking about something is, it's a lot, but she's always there for me, which is great. Now, when is the National Assistance Championship? Mid-November, I believe it's the 20th through the 22nd. I could be wrong on that. No, we'll follow you.

I'm not sure of the dates. Yeah, we'll follow up. Do you know where you're playing? Port St. Lucie again, the Wanamaker course. We'll host it there.

Well, Matt, congratulations. Tell us a little bit about what's going on at Forest Hills because I know the club is rocking. Club is rocking. It's very busy. A lot of members playing, which is great. A lot of course projects here getting done. We've regrading our putting green, get a little more use out of that, so that's wrapping up here. And then we also are building a little three green, four bunker short game area to the right of our first tee.

So that'll be really good going into the next year, for sure. A lot of opportunities there, clinics, practice, especially with our huge junior program here. No, I know you guys do a great job at Forest Hills. Well, this is Matt Swanson.

He is the two-time defending champion of the Assistance Championship here in the Gateway section. Matt, thanks for joining us. Congratulations again, and keep doing what you're doing over at Forest Hills. Thank you, Jay.

I appreciate the kind words. Thanks for having me. I am proud to welcome the Gateway section of the Gateway PGA, growing the game we love. Hi, this is Peter Jacobson, and you're listening to Golf with Jay Delsing. How would you like access to 90 holes of golf? Well, that's what happens when you join at Whitmore Country Club. You get access to the Missouri Bluffs, the links to Dardeen and the Golf Club of Wentzville.

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The Dean Team for all your car buying needs. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. The Front 9 is presented by the Ascension Charity Classic, September 5th through the 11th at Norwood Hills Country Club.

For tickets, ascensioncharityclassic.com. Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. Burley's with me and we're going to the Front 9 brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic. Hey, man, it is here.

Can't wait. We are going right now to my interview with Jim Fickert, who is with Craftsman Industries and the builder of the specialized BJ Tour trucks. Jim is the experiential account executive for Craftsman right here in St. Louis. Hey, Jim, good morning and thanks for joining me. Good morning, Jay. How you doing today?

I'm doing fine. Thanks, buddy. Hey, gosh, I'm so excited to do this interview with you because you guys make some of the coolest toys for golfers that has been around. You guys actually make all the equipment trailers or most of the equipment trailers on the PGA Tour.

Absolutely, yeah. We've been very blessed to get these guys as clients and we built them from, you know, we built Callaway, TaylorMade, Mizuno, Thrixon, Bridgestone. We pretty much built most of everybody's tour trailers. Jim, take us back to the timeframe about when you guys and Craftsman started getting involved in golf and what you guys do. It was probably about 13 years ago that I went to one of the golf tournaments.

Actually, it was in Whistling Straits. I think it was one of the major tournaments they had there and I knew they had had trailers to build clubs out of. So these are clubs that the pros get and they show up at the tournaments from Monday through Wednesday.

So they're allowed, every player is allowed to change their club from Monday through Wednesday. So what they do inside the trailer is they, whether it's a wedge, a driver, a set of irons or whatever it is, and they build those clubs. So when I first met the guys, most of the trailers were smaller trailers. They're what they call gooseneck trailers.

They were 30 foot long, but just smaller, maybe one slide up. The stuff we're building now are semi-trailers. They're 42 foot long because that's as long as the PGA will allow them to have, because once again, they're putting these trailers on a golf course.

So they're typically right around the driving ranges where they're parked at. Well, probably three years ago, we built the first trailer that goes up. So the TaylorMade guys came to us and said, hey, we went to the PGA tour and they said, we can't build any longer. So TaylorMade came back to me and said, well, what about if we go up?

And PGA was like, well, yeah, I guess we can allow that. So anyway, they came to us and we built this trailer that the top goes up and the sides come out. And they use their upstairs area for podcasts, just viewing, meetings. So it's basically a headquarters on wheels. So they have everything in there.

They can have meetings in there, and then obviously they build their clubs for all their tour players. And at the time when we did the TaylorMade trailer, they put a decal up on the roof, the best view in golf. So it's kind of cool because it's a two-story trailer, which has all glass on the top.

So basically when you're out at a driving range, you're two stories in the air that you can see what's going on. So that's kind of where it all started. And then we built the first trailer for Mizuno. And since then we've built, I guess, probably 10 trailers for all the different companies. And like I said, they've grown from a gooseneck to a trailer that is a semi-trailer that goes up and down.

It's pretty crazy. It's funny and not a surprise to me that TaylorMade was kind of on the creative edge with your trucks as well, where they're kind of pushing the boundaries. Because in terms of innovation, TaylorMade leads the way on the tour. Yeah, I would say that they were definitely, they were really cutting edge. Those guys always wanted something different. And they were definitely cutting edge of where it was at. So when they did that one, it was unheard of. Nobody had a trailer like that. Now, Simpson Calloway's built one.

And Calloway did add some neat features in it. They put a putting green in it, which we kind of at first thought, what's every golf course have? Every golf course has a putting green.

So I was surprised that they wanted to put that inside the trailer. But since they've done that, and what they do is they have their monitor that tests when they're putting what everything's going on, the different stuff, how their stroke is, how hard they're hitting the ball. But since then, they get more people inside that trailer, meaning of the tour players, because everybody wants to know what the count is. So, you know, how many putts in a row did you make? And the first tournament I was at was at the Masters with them. And it started off, you know, they would come in and one of the golfers would come in and he made 15 in a row. So that was the number, that was the buzz around the golf course. Well, the such and such made 15 putts. Next thing you know, it was 25 putts. So now I don't even know what they're up to.

I think the last I heard was like 45 in a row. And I think John Roms caddy made it. So it's been kind of a cool thing that it really generated a lot more people to come through their trailer with that putting green on the inside.

Now, Jim, we gotta make sure we clarify this. So folks, when you're thinking of a trailer, this isn't like a trailer that you see in the back of a hitch somewhere. This thing is state of the art with multi high tech features to it.

Jim, give us an idea, without getting too much into the weeds, what these things cost these manufacturers. Right, so this is what we call a semi-trailer. It's got an air ride system on it. The Gooseneck's are more of a smaller trailer that can be pulled by a pickup truck. These are pulled by semi-trucks. And the only reason why they're 42 foot long is like I said, that's what the PGA said, the maximum length they can be. But yes, to your point, these things, they have a self-contained generator on them, air conditioning, heat, everything inside this trailer to build a club, but also to have drinks, food, to have meetings at. And the one we just built for Callaway was just a little bit over 1.5 million. So that's a little bit about what's all in them. It's a lot, there's a lot of stuff that goes in them. It's almost a five month build for us here at Craftsman to build them, something like that.

The other ones we can turn about four and a half months, but yeah, a big one like that's a good five, five and a half month build time. You come in and I play X shaft, you play Y shaft. This is what I have in my driver. I have a different shaft in my three wood, a different shaft in my five wood, and a different shaft in my putter. These folks are loaded with a variety of different shafts.

How about grips? There's 15 different grips that all the players like. There's so much storage space and there's so much time that you guys, and I know you have over 170 Craftsmen and women that are designing these things, but there are so many little compartments and cool storage areas and that space is maxed out, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. And for the avid golfer, when you walk into this trailer, it's like a kid in a candy store.

There is, just like you said, Jay, there's every different shaft, every different iron head, different grips, all kinds of different stuff. And the Craftsmen team, when we do a project, we assemble a project manager, we assign an engineer and we sign a graphic designer for them. So it was a labor of love.

It was a great, great project that they all have done, but the two big trailers for TaylorMade Callaway have really been some really cool ones. So what happens here is a client comes in and they have a vision. We make sure we put renderings together and then turn them into actual drawings and build the project. So yeah, like I said, it's a five and a half month build. So it's definitely a labor of love and it's exciting.

The team gets excited when they see the trailer on TV. It's a lot of fun. I use a TaylorMade driver and I also use a Titleist Voke SM9 Spin Milled Wedge. So when I need to go get some driver work done, I walk over to the TaylorMade trailer. When I need to get something else done, I'll go to the Mizuno or the PXG or the Shrixon trailer and every one of these things that you built is not cookie cut, but it's very similar with maximum space efficiency in all of these different products available for the tour players.

It's ridiculous. And to that point, Jay, everybody has something different. So TaylorMade has what they call curing cell. So whenever they put the epoxy on a driver, they put it in this heated curing cell and within like two minutes, you can take it out and hit the driver range. Most everybody had got to wait half an hour, but Callaway's got a special bender that they use. So every company has little pieces of equipment that are just for what they do. Shrixon's got an old weight balancing system that they use.

And I think that's from back when Cleveland Golf was around, when Roger Cleveland owned Cleveland Golf. So to your point, nothing we do is cookie cutter. It's everything is different. All the golf trailers are different. Each one of the manufacturers have something, you know, that sets them apart from the next guy.

So it's definitely highly, highly engineered and highly custom. You know, Jim, what comes to mind is the difference back in the eighties and the early nineties when these things weren't around. We had nowhere to go. We'd have to find a local shop or maybe go see Lou or somebody like that to get this stuff fixed. This is a big deal.

Absolutely. So, you know, Dustin Johnson, it was probably, oh, I guess it was late last year, you know, on the driver range, a bogus driver. And, you know, any other time, I don't know what you would have done if they wouldn't have had a trailer. And there, it seems like the biggest thing that they're always tweaking are the wedges. The guys are in there.

I remember it was a year or two ago, I was in the Callaway trailer and everybody was up at the nose end of the trailer and I didn't know what was going on. Well, Phil's up there grinding on his, and he was literally grinding on me. I mean, he had the wedge out, was sitting on the grinding wheel. So a lot of the golfers are tinkers, you know, Jay, I don't know how you was when you played, if that's where you were, but you know, they like to come in themselves and tinker on the clubs and do different stuff. Yeah, for an average golfer like me, you know, I hit what we have, but those guys, they do.

They take their game real serious and there's a lot of stuff that they change on the clubs. Hey, I hope you enjoyed the first half of that interview. Don't go anywhere. Jim, and the second half of that interview, we'll be right back on The Back Nine. This is golf with Jay Delson. Boy, is this housing market tight right now. Are you tired of having the second best bid on your dream home? Call my friend, Joe Schiezer at 314-628-2015. Joe's been helping my family and I for over 30 years. He closes millions of dollars of business every year, and he will help you understand the importance of a pre-approval letter, inspections, and pricing your home or your offer just right. If you need to buy or sell your home, Joe is your guy. 314-628-2015.

That's 314-628-2015. After my knee replacement, I was able to swing the golf club again without any pain. SSM Health Physical Therapy guided me through the rehab process, and when I was ready, one of their specially trained KVEST certified physical therapists put me on the 3D motion capture system.

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Tell them Jay sent you for special pricing. Your therapy, our passion. The Ascension Charity Classic returns September 6th through the 11th. Once again, St. Louis will host golf's greatest champions, players like Bernard Langer, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, John Daly, and returning champion David Toms. But no matter which legend wins this year, the real winners will be North County charities because all proceeds from the tournament stay right here in St. Louis to benefit our communities.

Tickets available now at ascensioncharityclassic.com. Hello friends, this is Jim Nance and you are listening to golf with my friend, Jay Delson. I want to tell you about a family-owned and operated golf business that's been right here in St. Louis for over 40 years. I'm talking about Pro-Am Golf Center. That's right, Pro-Am Golf Center.

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He is terrific. If you call them now, mention my name, Jay Delson, you will receive a discount on that already low club fitting price. Their number is 314-647-8054. Ask for CJ or you can visit them at ProAmGolfUSA.com. That's ProAmGolfUSA.com. This is golf with Jay Delson. To learn more about the game of golf, latest equipment and golfing tips, log on to JayDelsonGolf.com. The back nine is presented by Pro-Am Golf. Hey, Jay here, Pearly's with me. This is golf with Jay Delson. We are headed to the back nine and it's brought to you by our friends at Pro-Am Golf. Guys, call CJ, 314-647-8054, simple message. Pearl, people have been inundating CJ with getting fitted and you are next. You're getting fitted and we are gonna get you some new clubs and it's gonna ruin all of your, no more excuses.

Uh-oh, that's the only thing I'm holding onto these days. You know, anyway, guys, this is the back nine and we're going to the remainder of our interview with Jim Thicker. You know, Jim, for me, I knew myself all too well and I did love to tinker and there were certain things I do and then there were certain things that I would not do because my skill level was extremely low on that wheel. If I got in there grinding my wedge, man, I'd be going to get a new wedge every five or 10 minutes because there's a real knack to getting that stuff done. There is and each one of the trailers has usually anywhere from four to five technicians on there on board and it's from anything from the club to even golf balls. You know, I mean, putters, changing the pitch to the putters, until you really get around these guys, you don't realize how much different things that they can do to the clubs to tweak everybody's game.

It's very in depth, for sure. So Jim, this is an interesting story. I got a new set of clubs and I was having trouble with my four iron and I was on the Mizuno staff at the time and I said to Harry Taylor, I said, Harry, there's something wrong with this four iron. He goes, what do you mean? I said, I don't know, there's something wrong with it. It feels off, something's off on that four iron. And I said, and he said, why? And I said, because it just doesn't feel, the rest of the set is gorgeous, beautiful, everything.

The four iron looks good, it's just not right. And he said, well, I don't know, you know, our quality control. I said, look, I'm telling you, something's wrong with it.

So he went in and said, you gotta be, he came back with this look on his face. I said, what's wrong with that thing? There's something wrong with it. He goes, you can't, you can't be sure that there's something wrong with it. I said, I'm telling you, when I swing that thing, it doesn't feel right. He said the swing weight was off two points. And he said, how would you know that?

I said, I didn't know what it was. I just knew something was different. But Jim, a swing weight, one point of the swing weight is the weight of two $1 bills. So what happens when, you know, you get nut bags like us that play golf every single day, you really develop a feel and a sense for what you want your stuff to look and feel like. And when it gets off, man, if you don't have these trucks there, you can't go.

You just, I would play, I would have played around my four iron and not hit it. And you know, to that point, Jay, and I'm sure you probably do this too, you know, obviously they put tape down on the shaft before they put the grip on. And I was in one of the trailers one day and they were showing different tapes and he was taping. And he's like, oh yeah, you know, look at this sheet. He wants three rolls here and one roll there. And I'm like, you know, what are you guys doing? He goes, oh, this guy likes three rolls of tape here, but only two rolls of tape here. Right. And I'm like, really?

He goes, oh, absolutely. They all, they're very finicky about them. And now the grips are changing a little bit, but still they, so when they tape that club before they put the grip on, that's, it's, that's, that's scientific that they get to that little bit of changes. So it's crazy. Well, Jim, one of the other things that happened is if you don't know how to put that tape on underneath a grip and it wrinkles, we can feel it.

Even though you put a grip on top of it. And some of the guys, you know, back in the day, again, before Tiger came to the scene, this wasn't available. And so we were gripping our clubs and doing all that stuff ourselves. And oh my gosh, I think about the trailers. There are, are there any companies, Jim, that actually have multiple trailers, like for different tours?

And do you do stuff for the ladies tour and for the champions tour? Yeah, so, so to your point of that, TaylorMade has their one trailer that goes up and down and we're building them another one right now that's 42 foot in length also, semi with two slide outs, but it does not, it doesn't go up and down. And they're building that for the corn ferry tour, some of the major senior events and some of the major women's events. And I'm sure, as you all know now, the live tour is starting up. So, I mean, there's a possibility that guys are gonna have to do that. So they do have pretty much every, the main manufacturers have at least two units.

I love them, Titleist has three. That's just in the States. Then they obviously have some of them were in Europe. So as the golfing business is growing, and I think the same way with every sport, golfing is now starting to go down towards that younger level to try to get the next Tiger Woods. So they're even going to junior PGA events to see what the youth is. So the U.S. amateur was just happened, I think it was a week or two ago, all the big boys were at that.

Oh yeah. Probably two, none of them would be there. So it's, you know, they're all looking for that next, you know, star golfer. And they're looking past, you know, below college.

They're looking at high school, how good these kids are in high school. You know, Jim, when we had the PGA championship at Bell Reeve in 2018, I had so many friends call me and say, gosh, the tournament was great, but the practice rounds were even better because we got to look at the trucks and the trucks were over near the, gosh, I forget where their trucks were that week, if they were near the driving range or if they were on the parking lot. Cause Bell Reeve is as big, as beautiful as Bell Reeve is, it's very confined space-wise, especially around the driving range, the driving range is not large. But when avid golfers, to your point earlier, get to see these trucks, they have, I mean, the look on their face is like, I just fell in love.

Yeah, it's like you said, it's just, I think I said this before, it's like a kid in a candy store. If you're an avid golfer and you walk in there and there's anything you can imagine for golfing is in there. And it's, and then obviously these trained professionals are in there that could build anything you want. So they can shape it, cut it longer or cut it shorter or add a tip weight to the end of it.

And they could do all of it right there. And a quick, funny story. So the one TaylorMade built me a set of irons. And for me, that cool thing was, is that it was built from a torture, you know?

Oh yeah. You can get a set of irons anywhere, but you get a set of irons built for off the torture. That's pretty cool. I think Adam Wainwright bought three sets at Bell Reef. The TaylorMade guy was telling me that he came in and had three sets of golf clubs built, which I thought that was pretty cool.

I know Waino loves the game too. Yeah, yeah. So he came in and the TaylorMade guy was telling me that, yeah, you know Adam Wainwright?

I said, yeah, he's pretty iconic here in our area. But so, you know, what they've done now is each one of the manufacturers is taking these trailers and doing a little bit more than just building the clubs for the pros. They're going to the Dick's Sporting Goods. They're going to the Grassroot Clubs, you know, a club like Bell Reef. And they're bringing it in and they're having a Dembo Days. The Demo Days used to be a guy in a Sprinter van.

And that was it. Right. And you might have got measured, but you might not have got your clubs for two, three weeks. Well, they roll in with these big trailers now to these events and you go out and you get fitted and they'll go and build your clubs in an hour.

So you walk out of there with your golf clubs built already. So they're starting to use this more of a tool to generate new business too, other than just taking care of the pros. You know, I'd be remiss, Jim, if we didn't talk a little bit about some of the iconic companies that you also do business with. As I was studying up on you guys, Boeing, Amazon, Kellogg's, Verizon, Lyft, AT&T, United States Air Force, which is interesting, McDonald's, Starbucks, Samsung, Energizer. You guys have some huge clients. We do. We're truly a custom manufactured company.

So I've been here for 12 years. And when I got here, a lot of our business was generated by marketing companies. So a marketing company would come to and Boeing and say, hey, you know, we have ideas for you to market your product. And then Boeing would say, okay, what's it gonna cost to build that? Well, then they would come to us and we were the guys that built it. So kind of nobody knew about us.

Over the last probably five to six years, that has changed. And that part of our business is now more of a B2B business. So like in the golfing business, we're doing business directly with TaylorMade. We're doing business directly with Callaway, with Srixon, guys like that. So it's a unique business. Craftsman's a great place to work. If you're a guy who likes to do different things, likes to weld one day, maybe do a little electrical one day, we're the place. We rule things out of here that's unbelievable.

Every time you walk through the shop, if you walk through the shop every couple of weeks, something's different in here. We built a mixer truck that looked like a concrete mixer. And it was for a company called Monkey Shoulder.

And it literally had the booze that could come out of there, but it looked just like a concrete mixer. So it was, we built some pretty unique things. We built the first Oscar Meyer Wienermobiles. We built them, so yeah.

So pretty iconic stuff. We really, we got a great group of guys that work here. Great leadership. And to put a little plug in for Craftsman, we're always looking for new employees. And like I said, if anybody's out there that's looking for a job that's something different every day and you're gonna get challenged, we're your place for sure. Jim, didn't you guys just build a really, really state of the art, I know you're in St. Charles, didn't you just build a new, oh gosh, a new building that long ago?

Yeah, we've been in this one for, shoot, I don't even know 100%, at least probably 13, 14 years. But we also have a facility in Highland, Illinois. And then across the street is our sister company called Craftsman Trailer. So we have a couple different facilities and as far as Craftsman, I mean, we truly are accustomed. We have several verticals that we're in, we do industrial, we do the event marketing.

Like I said, we're doing B2B with golf, we do food trucks, we do food trailers. We're pretty diverse in what we do. It kinda comes down to there's only two things that stop us and that's budget and time.

Yeah. Because we can really, we can do about anything. And we've got a great staff of engineers, project managers that really can bring a project together. And we got two new designers that these guys are awesome. They're very creative. So when a client comes in, they say, yeah, we have an idea to do something.

They can sit down and actually design, put on paper exactly what it's gonna look like. Well, Jim, just starting tomorrow, the Ascension Charity Classic will be up at Norwood Hills up in North County. Ascension has just been awesome with this tournament. But I already saw the workout facilities, the workout trailers dropped off at Norwood. And I'm sure that there'll be plenty of equipment trailers there too. So folks, you're gonna get to see some of these things firsthand when you come out to the tournament this week. Yeah, absolutely. We're actually in talks right now with the PGA about building some new units for them for that, for the actual workout trailers too.

So yeah, come out and see the trailers. I'm welcoming any time to come by and see the facility. We're located at 3101 Elm Point Industrial Drive in St. Charles. And like I said, if you're a welder, electrician, or fabricator, just like to do stuff with your hands and like to do something different. You don't wanna be an assembly line worker.

Craftsman Industries is your place. Hey, Jim, thanks so much for jumping on with me. Thanks so much for these trailers.

Man, for a professional golfer back in the day, when you have a broken club or need some repairs done, these things were a godsend. And this is really cool and interesting stuff. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the call, Jay. And we'll talk soon. All right, Pearl, that's gonna wrap up the interview.

I'm gonna give you a last parting shot before we wrap up the back nine here. Just about the interview. I wanna hear more from you after that interview about the different mindsets out there on tour of equipment. Which guys overanalyze, which guys dig into it, the benefits to really knowing the equipment, the disadvantages to knowing the equipment.

I'm worse than you, but you were pretty bad at never really kind of getting into the details of that. I think maybe a little bit more of the details may have been better for you, but some guys way overdo it and they're out there adjusting between shots. So I'd love to hear what you see that happens out on the tour. Fantastic, that's gonna wrap up the back nine. We're gonna break that down on the 19th hole.

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That's D-A-U-G-H-E-R-T-Y.com. I've been looking for over three years for the perfect place to be the official 19th hole of the Golf with Jay Delsing show, and the search is over. Please welcome the Loading Dock to the show. What a great place it is.

It is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in beautiful Grafton, Illinois. Their patio is killer with seating for over 800. And every weekend the Loading Dock has the area's best live music.

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Hey, welcome back. Golf with Jay Delsing here. Jay and John are with you. We are headed to the 19th holes brought to you by the Loading Dock. And what a great place up in Grafton, Illinois, right where the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers get together.

618-556-7951. Peter Allen's a great guy. Go say hi to him up there. We're gonna do a show from up there this year, Pearl. Let's talk about what you said, your last comments on our back nine. So Pearl, we have seen it all when it comes to equipment and getting lost in some of these things. Our good buddy, dear friend, he's actually in town right now, Trevor Dobbs.

He's going through the qualifier with us tomorrow. He used to be, his nickname was Tinker Dods or Trailer Dods because he spent all day long, all day long, messing with grips and this is too thick and this is too thin and this is too wide and I gotta have more lead tape and I gotta have less lead tape. Probably about midway through my career, I had a market change for me in how I looked at this. Technology started coming like crazy.

Remember how we talked about every six weeks the Big Bertha would come back out with a here's the greatest Big Bertha, the greatest, greatest Big Bertha, Big Bertha's sister came out, the steelhead, the Hawkeye, the dad, the dad, you know? And I realized that all these other companies, when I realized that all these other companies, they were indeed coming out with equipment and their own things. I owed it to myself to make sure I kept some sort of finger on those, the latest and greatest, quote, unquote, so that I wasn't missing out on something that might really, really help my game.

Well, you had to, there was a point where you absolutely had to, but it was tough. I mean, that's not your gig necessarily, but Jay, talk a little bit about what is the cost to the player that is tinkering too much? Where does that end up hurting them on the golf course? So if we don't have enough understanding of the technology and we don't have the right stuff in our bag, obvious stuff, right, that hurts us. Right now I have such an antiquated bag, it's unbelievable. I mean, I'm 10 years behind, to say the least.

People laugh when I pull out stuff that I thought was cool, but it was cool 18 years ago, it's just not cool now. So, but what about the guy that overanalyzes? What do you see happens there relative to when it's crunch time to go play? Well, what happens, Jen, is that there is just, there's just so much on the table and the ability to score gets just completely covered up. You get so into spending your time and effort. And you know, we just talked about Scottie Scheffler and how exhausting it was for him to try to get himself around the golf course when he didn't have his good game and trying to limp this thing in and get it across the finish line.

And what happens, we all know how difficult the game is, especially to play at this highest level. And if you have these other things, John, hanging on your shoulder, hanging in the back of your mind, hanging out there, they are just incredible distractions. Before you know it, John, five over par, you've ruined your round and you're weak and you've only played nine holes.

I mean, it just goes that quick. And there's gotta be some comparisons in the business world, aren't there? Well, I think there is across the board, but let's get just a little bit more in the golf. So you're saying the guy gets out there and that shaft felt good in the practice round and then he tweaked it and then he tweaked it. But if you're not playing with your equipment for a period of time, how easy is it so that you don't really get used to it, let alone used to it under the gun?

You talked about it all the time. Your seven iron in a practice round used to go whatever it went, 158, 160. In the tournament, it was absolutely, it was 10 more yards.

100%. So you're trying to get this equipment ready for tournament play, but you're not necessarily in a tournament. You go out there and all of a sudden that adrenaline's there and that shaft doesn't feel right. The ball came off the club a little bit different. Isn't that a huge piece of this? I didn't think of it that way.

You're 100% right. Until you play tournament golf, that is a true litmus test in the practice rounds. Remember how short I used to hit my driver in the practice rounds? It wasn't even the same thing. Two different guys.

It was so hard to map out golf courses. And you're not the only guy. It's when the flag went up. Some of the guys might not have been as drastically different as you, but the flag goes up. So I just think when you're out there, it's a new club. You feel that you've tuned it in, but all of a sudden you're out there playing and for whatever reason, maybe you're hitting more knockdown shots because the wind or something, and that shaft feels a little bit different and you kind of let one, some ball fly a little bit left or a little bit right because man, that doesn't feel right. Now that's in your head that maybe the shaft isn't what I needed. Maybe the flex point is in the wrong place.

Maybe the flex is wrong. Now you're in the tournament. You got a problem on your hands now, or you're playing three weeks in a row.

Now what the hell are you gonna do? It takes a special player to be, you know, it takes a special tour player to be able to adopt to that new equipment right away because most of them have already written the week off. You know how they get, they are. One of the things you have to remember that is so cool about the modern technology is that you can take the shaft out of an old driver that you love and put a new head on it. So you already know the shaft feels the same and which is crucial for the players. And then these heads just have different components and different characteristics that can change your ball flight. Bro, back in the day, we didn't have that. So if we went a new driver, it was new everything.

They didn't have those interchangeable heads. Anyway, I'm so excited to be able to go through this qualifier tomorrow. I'm really, you know, we had the Mark Maguire interview and it's had a profound effect on me.

I'll let you know if it has a profound effect on my golf day, but it's had a profound effect on my brain. And I have been getting back into visualizing and preparing for this round tomorrow. It's really, I'm really looking forward to the challenge. That's awesome. That's awesome.

I'm glad you're ready. How about you? How's the old Bob feeling?

Go Nelly, go. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be a lot of fun. You know, Pearl, that is gonna wrap up another show.

Jimmy Conrad, you are the winner of this week's Golf Balls. Our next show will be Sunday of. It'll be Sunday of tournament week. I'm hoping to have Lee Trevino on, which would be awesome to have Lee on the show. He's also gonna be playing Saturday at the Ascension charity classic on the back nine with Nancy Lopez, with Ryan O'Reilly, with Hale Irwin, with the chief Craig Berube, and with the great Ozzie Smith. That's gonna be awesome. There's gonna be plenty of fans out for that one. That's the who's who.

Absolutely. All right, Pearl, well, thanks so much for joining me and we will be here next week and make sure you caddy well tomorrow. It's on your shoulders. Oh, don't do that to me. Hey, by the other way, I had a dream and I lost my shoes but I couldn't make it to the first. I didn't lose the clubs or the golf ball or anything, but I couldn't find my shoes and it was a terrible dream. Just recently? Like three days ago, because the caddying job's coming. So did you sleep last night with your shoes on?

I slept with them tied around my neck, for crying out loud. That's awesome. Folks, thanks for joining us. Hit us straight, St. Louis. You already know that Marcon is a great corporate citizen, as well as the largest distributor of GE appliance parts in North America.

Well folks, they're at it again. This year at the Ascension Charity Classic, September 6th through 12th at Norwood Hills Country Club, on the 14th hole, Marcon is sponsoring the military and first responder viewing deck. This is a designated area for our military men and women, first responders, police and firefighters to watch the best champions tour players compete at Norwood Hills. The best part is, it is absolutely free.

Contact me at Jay at jdelsongolf.com or Connor Bradley at cbradleyatascensioncharityclassic.com for complete details. That's the Ascension Charity Classic and the Marcon military and first responder viewing area, September 6th through 12th at Norwood Hills Country Club. I'll see you at the golf course. Hey, do you like wine? Have you heard about the hottest new wine bar in St. Louis? It's called Wild Crush Wine Bar and it's located in town and country on Clayton Road, just behind the strops. Have you ever experienced self dispensing wine machines?

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So if you're tired of drinking wine that's been open for a few days, come into Wild Crush for the best and freshest wine selection in the area. Go to wildcrushstl.com and come have one with us. This has been golf with Jay Delsing. To learn more about Jay and the services he can provide any golfer, visit jaydelsongolf.com. You'll see the latest in golf equipment, get tips from a PGA Pro and you'll learn more about the game of golf.

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