Dan Rooney Folds Of Honor-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. Hey, good morning. This is Golf with Jay Delsingh. I'm your host, Jay. Sitting down this morning.

Long time buddy. Caddy. College roommate. We never were roommates, Pearl.

Why do they say that? Just on party weekends. Just on party weekends. Oh, that's right. You used to love to stay over at McCulloch's.

Anyway, we'll go into that some other show. John, welcome. Good morning. Good morning, Jay. Looking forward to talking about a big week of golf at the Memorial.

Yeah, lots of great stuff. Well, we formatted the show like around the golf. The first segment is called the On the Range segment. The On the Range segment is brought to you by our friends at the Gateway section of the PGA. Please join me in thanking the over 300 men and women across the area that are tirelessly working to enhance our golf experience. I so appreciate the Gateway section jumping back on this year.

We are still giving away a dozen TP5 golf balls. Thank you, Jeff Thornhill, you rock star. Just send me an email.

Jay at jdelsongolf.com. And you will be entered. Put balls in the subject line somewhere. You got a chance to win a dozen of them. I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue painting and refinishing 314-805-2132. Guys, call them. It's a perfect time to get some work done on your house.

The inside or the outside. They are terrific people. Kathy is getting this new certification in color. They're just great people. They will help you make your home turn into home of your dreams.

314-805-2132. Today, we're talking about American Dunes, Folds of Honor, Patriot Golf Day that just passed. So the good news is we were still able to give them a little push and a little bump to make a bunch of money for Patriot Golf Day. But always love when Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney comes on the show, Pearl. Absolutely. Guys get so much energy.

He's all over the place networking. And then for them at the end of the day to put that golf course together, which I guess we're going to talk about a little bit. Fun place and really encourage people to get up there. I told you I got up there with buddies last year and played. Really enjoyed it and was really wanting to get up in years to follow as the golf course, you know, grew in, matured, etc. It's quite a test. As a matter of fact, I had a good buddy who played that Sand Valley up in Wisconsin.

And was comparing it to the Dunes course and the Dunes American Dunes is he thought substantially tougher, but he enjoyed both the properties immensely. John, a couple wild weeks. Just a brief recap. A couple of wild weeks on the PGA Tour. JT winning the second major championship, the PGA Championship down at Southern Hills, Pearl. The winner of that week other than JT was definitely the golf course man.

That golf course just beat the pros to death, didn't it? Yeah, it's that wind, right? It's the wind.

It's the different temperatures that came through, the different systems that came through. It was wild for those guys. But Jay, talk for a second because you've experienced this. You know, you go prepare for a golf course and you're kind of walking into it. You even know there's only prevailing winds, right, that they designed the course to set up against. All of a sudden, when you have a week where the temperature is varying all over the place, hot to cold to windy, the wind direction is changing drastically. How does that affect your game plan for the week?

Oh, Pearl, that's a great question. I mean, some of the things we're going to talk about on the show is dealing with some crazy unpredictability within the round. The conditions are really, really tough. John, when I was doing the TV for Fox, we were at Shinnecock.

Brooks Koepka was the champion. Man, I had a great group the first day. I had Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson. Talking to the staff early in the week and doing our prep, there was a certain wind direction that makes the golf course play nearly impossible. And we got two and a half days of that wind during that U.S. Open.

So to your point, there are certain conditions that really, really raise the scores. We know wind is one of the things on the PGA Tour that make it really hard, fast greens make the scores go up and rough will make the scores go up. But folks, just so you know, rain is the golf, a professional golfer's best friend. Softens the conditions, makes the ball stay in the fairway much more.

And you can just throw darts at those greens when the greens are soft. So wind is the biggest variable, the hardest thing to predict. We can talk about that at Colonial as well, John, because the wind was blowing, had gusts up to 30, 35 miles an hour.

And it absolutely played havoc with the fourth round of the Charles Schwab Challenge as well. Well, when the wind is gusting, it's tough to plan for that, literally shot to shot. But when the wind is changing directions, you know, one of the hard parts, you get a picture of the golf course. And many of you guys would plan it out in your heads, almost shot by shot, many of the pros on how they're going to play a given golf course. And when you get up there one day on a whole, let's say you're banging away and hitting your driver and just going with it.

And the next day or the day after that, the wind changes and all of a sudden it's an iron. It's just hard to look at those same holes with two, three, four different club distances in your hand. And it's tough to get your head around that, let alone how your ball's coming into the green and et cetera.

So that's why when we're seeing it, I totally agree with you, Jay. Wind is the number one equalizer and especially when it's fluctuating all over the place. Just you and I, the number of times I'd be out there and we'd be trying to figure out the direction of the wind because the golf course obviously isn't back and forth necessarily.

It's all over the place. So you're always trying to figure out, is it a little help wind? Is it a crosswind? Is it a downwind? And it sounds like it should be easy, but there's plenty of times I think because of the trees, the contour, the greens. It's not very easy and it can mean the difference between having a birdie putt and trying to get up and down out of the googly googly somewhere.

No, there's no question. I mean, John, that's a cool point. One of the things that we did is that I was always looking at the wind at the beginning of the day. And unless something extraordinary happened, John, we never came off of that, regardless of some of the stuff that we'd be feeling down in a certain corner or cove of the golf course.

We always stayed with that predominant wind direction that we got before we got to the golf course and then we used it as we played. And that helped immensely to me. That was a huge help. I remember one time I got a big smile on my face. I remember one time when we were playing in Vegas and we're playing one of the golf courses that had one of those monster, monster hotels.

Las Vegas Country Club number 17. I'll never forget this one. It's howling at us, but what we don't necessarily know the effect is how much is it building affecting after the ball gets off the tee. We were back and forth between somewhere between like a three iron and a six iron. We were just so unsure. And I remember we were like, well, we can't be short because the bunkers are where the pitch was. And the water.

Yep. And I remember you hit that shot and we're like, where did it go? People on the green didn't even turn around. It went so far over their heads, over the green and even over the deck. We had a 70 yards over the green. We had to take a yardage for our second shot on a par three.

I went up there. I'm like, did you see my ball? And people are like, we saw you swing, but your ball never came down. I think I hit a four iron, John.

And I think at the end of it, we figured we should have hit an eight. That's what happens when you get an amateur caddy on the bag. Oh my gosh. Well, and an amateur pro as we look back at what happened at Colonial.

And you saw Harold Varner, who I'm a huge fan of, trying to work on getting Harold Varner on the show. He is just scratching around, Pearl. He's right around knocking off that first victory. And he again, again, he's just right there and he's tied for the lead seven holes left and he finishes the last seven holes nine over par. John, I've had this happen to me personally where I've been the one that was filling up my pants, hitting balls all over the place and couldn't get the round over with, couldn't close it out. I've also been on the other end where I'm actually playing well and my partner goes in into the back.

I mean, he just falls apart and it is incredibly unraveling in terms of there's a certain momentum that you play with. There's a certain rhythm that you play with. And as players, you feed off of your playing component, your playing opponent and your playing partners. There's just a rhythm to the round. Your round specifically, there's a rhythm to the group. And how many times, John, on the PGA Tour have we been with some sort of disruptor? And sometimes intentionally play a little slower than he typically would speed up to kind of wreak havoc with everybody in the group. Yeah, I think sometimes it is on purpose and I'm not going to, not that we should name names anyway, but I know there's a few guys through the years where it was just a whole different experience. When you kind of meshed with somebody like you do with Jimmy McGowan or Kelly Gibson or a host of other guys, it was just a completely different feel. And you're out there for a lot of times, right, the first two rounds. So you're paired with these guys for the first two rounds and you're out there four and a half, five hours with them.

It's tough to just ignore the situation and it can be tough. And sometimes it's not intentional, but their mannerisms, maybe the slowness of their play, how they go about putting, et cetera, can wear on you. What about Omar Uresti? Playing with Omar is like a two shot penalty.

He's an extremely nice man. He goes through all of these gyrations and all of this stuff, every single shot. And by the third hole the first day, you're tired. You can't look at it. I mean, Pearl, I intentionally wear a different pair of sunglasses when I play with Omar. And as soon as he goes through his stuff, I put my sunglasses on and I'm looking the other way.

It is brutal. That's a good point. I think looking the other way is important.

And I think there's plenty of guys I can remember talking with you. I didn't want you to ever watch them swing because their rhythm was so much different than yours. And also if they're both starting to go sideways, who wants to watch that? There's a lot of discipline in what we're focused on out there. I'll tell you one thing I was watching the other day.

One, I think it's getting too slow out there again on tour personally. Maybe there's time in them. But man, sometimes it seems like forever. And the putting in between the caddies and the players straddling the hole and the three finger thing. And everything else is like, oh my gosh, hit the putt. I think that's the wrong thing for the game. I know I'm getting a little off topic here. But that's probably why it bothers me is one, it's the wrong thing for the game. And I think we need to tighten that up a little bit.

Yeah, you're talking about aim point when you refer to the three finger thing. And there's just gotten so much. There's no way in hell that the best players in the world in a two ball should be playing in over four hours.

There's just no way in hell. And it's taken way, way longer. So folks, send me some emails that our mailbag is getting full again. And we'll spend some time on that very soon. Some great questions and some great situations and scenarios out there that you folks are relaying to me.

And I appreciate that very much. We have more of this that we'll catch up with. John, I got a great Mac O'Grady story that you won't believe happened on the PGA Tour, but it did because I saw it.

But we're going to go through the tip of the cap segment. The tip of the cap is brought to you by the Dean Team Volkswagen of Kirkwood. My buddy Colin Burnt. Pearly and I are both driving Dean Team of Kirkwood vehicles. We both love our 314-966-0303. Folks, if you need a vehicle, any sort of vehicle, Colin's your guy. Call or email me at jdelsongolf.com. I'll introduce you personally to Colin.

He's that good a friend and that kind of person. We are tipping our cap today to the Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney's of the world, and not that there's very many of those. Or the David Faraday's of the world, the Neil Racker's of the world, the Jim Sowers with Marcona of the world that do so much to support our first responders. These men and women are military.

The men and women in blue are police forces. We just had Patriot Golf Day, the Memorial Day weekend where we're honoring the people that sacrificed so much. Their lives, the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live in this great country that we do. We just really appreciate anybody that is supporting those efforts and we appreciate them all.

The tip of the cap, again, is brought to you by the Dean T. Volkswagen of Kirkwood, 314-966-0303. Thanks so much, Colin. Folks, that's going to wrap up the On The Range segment.

Don't go anywhere. The front line's on its way. This is Golf with Jay Delson. On The Range with Jay Delson is brought to you by TaylorMade. This is Golf with Jay Delson.

The front nine is coming up. Folks, do you need a new car, truck, or SUV? Then the Dean team of Kirkwood is the place for you to go. 314-966-0303 and go see Colin Burke. He just got me into a new SUV and I love it.

Boy, did they make the experience painless and super, super easy. Most dealers don't have any cars in their lots, but at Dean team of Kirkwood, Colin has an entire parking lot full of new and used cars. You don't want a VW?

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For golf tips, news on the latest equipment, and everything golf, log on to GolfwithJayDelson.com. The front nine is coming up. I want to tell you about my friends and longtime supporters of this show, Marcon. Yes, they are incredible community stewards.

Yes, they are the largest distributors of GE appliance parts in North America. What you don't know, they are spearheading, led by owner and St. Louis and Jim Sowers, a new service dog program with and in conjunction with David Farity and the 24-7 Battle Buddy Program. Jim and Marcon are ensuring that a minimum of two service dogs a year will get partnered with a veteran hero in need. These dogs are expertly trained, connected with their veteran master, and then magic starts to happen.

These dogs are retrained to meet the specific needs of their warrior and to help them successfully navigate everyday life. You can learn more on Facebook at Troops First 24-7 Battle Buddies or reach out to me at Jay at JayDelsonGolf.com, and I will fill you in on more of this program. It's time for the Gateway PGA Spotlight on Golf with Jay Delson.

Learn more at GatewayPGA.org. Good morning. This is Golf with Jay Delson. I'm your host, Jay, and I'm sitting down this morning with Ali Wells, who's the executive director of the Gateway section of the PGA, and Fernando Molina, who is our program manager. Guys, thanks for joining me.

Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

We're so excited for year two. We're going to have the Gateway Spotlight section of our show return. Ali, I'll start with you, please. Tell us why this is so important to you. Well, first of all, we absolutely love our partnership with you, Jay, and know the impact that you have not only in the St. Louis community, but nationwide. Obviously, you know, we are golf. We love golf, and we do what we can for the betterment of the golf community and growing the game and awareness of golf and serving the PGA professionals, the men and women that own, operate, and teach and coach at golf facilities all over the bi-state Missouri and Illinois area. And we're excited to come back for year two, because we just have so many stories to tell, and our PGA members do so many fantastic things in the community, that we love this partnership as an opportunity to share our story a little bit and grow awareness around the community of all the awesome things, the section, the PGA Reach Gateway Foundation, and our PGA professionals do on a day in and day out basis. There are so many men and women that are out there, you know, in the crack of dawn, making our golf experiences better, and we're not even talking about the Ozzie Smith and the reach portion. We're not even talking about the Gateway League, all of these other terrific things that we will talk about at some point in time.

Yes, absolutely. The reach that our PGA professionals have through the section and the foundation and in their individual facilities is remarkable. You asked why we're excited for year two. We just barely scratched the surface of all of the great things we do last year in year one, and we're excited to continue with more of those stories and spotlights here this year. Fernando, welcome. First of all, welcome to the Gateway team, and thanks for joining us this morning. Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for having me again. Tell us a little bit about what you're going to be doing for this section, Fernando. Yes, so my work is going to focus mostly on member services. I'm also going to be working a little bit with the foundation, specifically with the PGA help programming and new initiatives that might come up. I'm going to be working closely together with them. And like I said, member services, helping them with careers and employment and helping our members, and that's basically what I'll be doing.

No, absolutely. You better stay on your toes because that woman sitting right next to you, she has a lot of ideas and creates a lot of new opportunities for our folks around town. This is a new opportunity for me. I don't know if I mentioned this to you earlier, but this is, I was with the Gateway section back in 2018 as the first PGA Awards fellow, and then now I'm back with Ali, and I keep telling people the same thing.

When Ali Wells calls you, you answer the phone call, and I'm so happy to be back with her. The leadership that she provides for our staff and for our section is immeasurable, so I'm more than happy to be back here. Fernando, tell us a little bit about the fellow program.

Tell us a little bit about what that means and what that was like for you to go through and then kind of rejoin the team. So the PGA Awards Fellowship, its purpose is to introduce golf and the golf industry to people of diverse backgrounds, not necessarily people of different ethnicity like myself. I'm from Guatemala, but people that normally wouldn't be in the golf industry.

The purpose of the fellowship is for the PGA of America to look like the America that looks like today. I have never worked in the golf industry before. It was all brand new to me, and it's still brand new to me.

I do brand new things every single day. But that is the purpose of the PGA Awards Fellowship, is to introduce golf to people that wouldn't normally be interested in golf, and it took me one year to be hooked into it, and I'm into it. I'm here. I see myself working for the PGA for a long, long time. Congratulations, Ali. I don't know about you, but that just gives me goosebumps to hear Fernando with his passion and his excitement. It's got to feel great to you because these are doors that should have been open so much longer ago, and congratulations on this.

Thanks, Fernando. I mean, he downplays himself a little bit, and he's a humble guy, but he really led the way out of the gate. He was our very first PGA Works Fellow when the program started back in 2018. We're now on our fifth Works Fellow, and we're actually excited to say that all of our Works Fellows, since they've left the gateway PGA, have stayed in the golf business, and to your point, Jay, it gives me goosebumps. It's incredibly rewarding to see all of these individuals introduced to a business that they might not have considered and to enjoy it enough to decide to stick around. So you and I, we know we love this game. We know there's a lot of special things about it, and to be able to share that with people that might not have considered it is extremely rewarding.

Absolutely, guys. Thank you so much for this partnership. I really look forward to getting to tell some of these fun stories. It's such a fun learning experience, and for all the men and women in the gateway section that are making our golf experiences great, we really appreciate you guys.

Thank you. We appreciate you, Jay. That was the Gateway PGA Spotlight on Golf with Jay Delsing. Learn more at GatewayPGA.org. I am proud to welcome the Gateway section of the PGA back to my show. Whether you're pulling into your favorite driving range, public golf course, or country club, there is an excellent chance that the staff there is part of the over 300 men and women PGA professionals at over 100 facilities that make up our Gateway section. I grew up watching so many of these fine men and women getting to the golf course at dawn, leaving at dusk, spending their entire day running events, giving lessons, and growing this great game. PGA Reach, Drive Chip and Putt, PGA Hope, and the fantastic PGA Junior League are a few of the examples of the programs run by these same PGA professionals. Go to GatewayPGA.org to learn more or to find your next PGA professional for your next lesson, go to PGA.com. The Gateway PGA, growing the game we love. 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. Golf with Jay Delsing here.

I'm Jay. Pearly's with me and we are stepping into the Front 9. The Front 9 is brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic.

Great folks. September 5th through 11th at Norwood Hills this year, guys. North County is going to have the best players in the world of over 50 playing in the tournament. Don't forget the Advocate PGA event.

That's at Glen Echo the same week. Right now, we're going to listen to the founder of Folds of Honor, fighter pilot, patriot, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney. Enjoy this interview. Dan, thanks for joining me today. Man, Jay, I'm blessed to be with you on the day the Lord is made. And let's make a pact that what we're going to talk about today is going to fill everybody up out there listening.

And when they finish listening to this episode, they walk away with at least one thing that has a lasting and positive impact on their life. Where do we start? We've got so many things to talk to. Let's start with the Patriot Golf Days.

They're ahead over the Memorial Day weekend. And this has been such a really cool program. And I'll kick us off with a story because everybody loves stories. But I gave David Farity an F-16 ride at the PGA Championship in 2007. And I was supposed to give Jim Nance a ride.

He had a back problem. So Farity shows up and he jumps out of his black limo with a brown t-shirt on and it says, I'm looking forward to regretting this on his shirt. And so that's Farity. That's our first interaction. At that point, as we were texting this morning, I was like, man, we were two young kids 14 and a half years ago.

And but God put us together for something bigger than ourselves. And so he proceeds. He goes, you go through your egress training, but we go out for a little lunch and he's all worried.

He's going to get violently airsick. And I'm like, you probably will have a little light lunch. And he orders a double jalapeno cheeseburger, french fries and a chocolate malt from Brahms. And I'm like, bro, no. And he looks at me with those beady Irish eyes. He said, he says, Noonan, I figured out how this is going to end.

So I wanted to taste good when it comes back. And so we go out there, man, I throw them in an F-16 and F-16 is I mean, it's a beast of a machine, Jay. I mean, we got more horsepower and one jet and the entire starting grid of a NASCAR race.

It goes zero to 50000 feet and under one minute top speed is Mach 2.4. So that's like St. Louis to Kansas City in like six minutes. Right. It's an insane ride. And so the quick version of the story is, you know, we take off and I pull up and do an unrestricted climb. So the jet goes straight up.

Right. And we'll go to 20000 feet in about 18 seconds. And when I pull up into the vertical, you pull about seven G's. And so for base, listen, one G is one gravity forces is what's hold you in your seat.

Seven G's is about fifteen hundred pounds of kinetic energy. The best way to describe it's like an elephant sitting on top of you. Right. And when I pull into the vertical on this Tuesday afternoon before the PGA championship, it sounds like a leprechaun is dying in the back seat.

Right. And so Verity is yodeling from his bow region behind me. And so I, you know, I get to altitude and level off and I'm like, you know, all excited. I'm starting folds and my mind just starts spinning. It's like I just killed this guy on CBS Sports.

Right. I'm like, David, do we need to land? What is going on back there, dude? He doesn't say word for like 10 seconds.

It feels like 10 minutes. And so what I don't know, because he's sitting behind me is we're going down the runway. He already starts to feel air sick. And so he goes diving forward for his air sick bag, which I put in his G suit pocket down by his left boot. And so as he goes forward, it happens to be I call it synchronicity or chance of the purpose the exact time I pull into the vertical. So I fold David on top of himself with fifteen hundred pounds of kinetic energy.

Right. And so all the yodeling because he is stuck in this position because once, you know, G force is on, you're not moving. And so I'm like, David, do we do we need to land? And he says, he says, Noonan, he says, I have no idea what the hell just happened to me. He says, but I can tell you for the record, I've been trying to get down there and do that to myself for forty six years.

So you can imagine where his head was in relation to his junk. And that's how Folds of Honor started 14 and a half years ago. So what do they say? Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. And here we are at the PGA Championship.

And to your point, I had no idea what God would do, how it would start. And the heroic journey we've been on to harness golf for good, educating spouses and kids to the tune of thirty five thousand of them. It was sent to school since that fateful day in the F-16 with Farity.

One hundred and sixty million dollars out the door. But brother, everything starts somewhere. And so it's a really nostalgic, cool week. I'm glad to be on with you to share a few stories. The thing that overwhelms me when I hear stories like this, it just fills me with such appreciation. And this game is such a giving game. It is it is done so much for so many people.

Now Folds and it's 14 and a half years later. I mean, just remarkable. Yeah, I mean, it is. And, you know, I have the support, obviously, the PGA of America. You saw a couple of weeks ago, the PGA Tour, USGA and LPGA have all signed on as official partners with Folds and Patriot Golf Day.

So that's a huge iteration. And, you know, one of the main reasons, too, on that is that of our thirty five thousand recipients, 41 percent of those are minorities. And, you know, we all struggle to find a positive path toward equality, especially in golf. Right.

We're way, way too white, way too male. You look at the power of the game. To your point is is being harnessed through Patriot Golf Day to have what I would consider one of the greatest impacts on equality is giving people an education. Right. That's that's the ultimate force multiplier, the only lasting path to opportunity in this country. But, you know, I also tell you in 14 and a half years when you throw out numbers like thirty five thousand one hundred and sixty million and these great organizations, we've been flying into the wind.

Right. I lit the afterburner with charity in my backseat and we always take off into the wind as fighter pilots and all pilots in general, because we have to have that resistance to ascend. And what I'm most proud of it folds is not what we've accomplished, but really in the spirit of the people we help. It's what we overcome. And so many people in life, brother, look at when you face challenge and resistance.

And that's the common denominator of all humanity. You're going to go through really hard seasons in life. And I openly share mine in my book, Fly into the Wind, you know, all the struggles that I had. But when you can realize and this is a pivotal point in life, when you realize that those challenges and resistance that are placed in your path, while not fun, are the most important thing. And it's not God trying to keep you on the ground.

It's how he helps you ascend to the place that you need to be in life. And we learn so much in these seasons of struggle and we evolve. And it's been a really hard 14 and a half years. And I'm so proud of that kid as I look back as a 35 year old.

What what we've done and stayed the course on a lot of days would have been would have been really easy to quit. And, you know, go fly for American Airlines and get have a normal life and and not deal with, you know, all the chaos out there when you're trying to do God's work and the devil that comes at us. And, you know, I've learned unequivocally, Jay, on this walk that you got to listen to your heart, because that's where God speaks to you and certainly don't listen to the voices around us. That will always be there to try to prevent you for the most part of chasing what's in your heart.

And often don't even listen to what's in your own mind and listen to what's in your heart. And God will do extraordinary things. All right. That's going to wrap up the front nine in the first half of the interview with Dan. Don't go anywhere. Golf with Jay Delson. Powers Insurance is a family owned agency right here in St. Louis that specializes in providing personalized coverage for the client who has a lot going on at Powers.

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That's PowersInsurance.com. Hey, St. Louis, the Ascension charity classic presented by Emerson is back this September. Don't miss the excitement when the PGA Tour champions best compete again all for charity. September 9th through the 11th at Norwood Hills Country Club, Pro-Am spots, hospitality packages, VIP tickets and more.

Available now at AscensionCharityClassic.com. OK, folks, I think it's safe to say we're all ready to get back to some sort of normal life. And for me, that means I want to travel. Triple A travel is your one stop shop for all of your travel needs. You feel like a cruise?

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Your therapy, our passion. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. To learn more about the game of golf, latest equipment and golfing tips, log on to jaydelsinggolf.com. The Back Nine is presented by Pro-Am Golf.

Hey, welcome back. Golf with Jay Delsing. And we are headed to the Back Nine, which is brought to you by our friends at Pro-Am Golf.

314-647-8054. You can visit them proamgolfusa.com. Call CJ, get fitted folks.

Call CJ and get fitted. I just can't tell you how important it is and how much fun and how much it will help your golf game. Alright, we are going straight to the conclusion of our interview with Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney. You know, Noonan, when we can get better at differentiating the noise between the one that we need to follow, boy, that is such a gift, isn't it? Yeah, it is.

It is. And don't be a prisoner of common assumption, as I always say, because that's what the world is trying to make you. But when you get on these ragged edges of life, that is where this divine light is. I've learned that as a fighter pilot, man.

We're way out there on the edge. I live in a dangerous world and a dangerous business and I've lost lots of people on the way. But as I've always told my wife, if something happens to me in the fighter jet, you know I went out. I was truly alive, not simply just living. And there's a big difference between those two things in life. And being alive is when you're congruent with what God puts on your heart, right? And that chosen path of combining what you do with who you are, man. And that is the gift. And no greater fear in my life than there is of being bored, complacent, so go chase it, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Talk a little bit about American Dunes.

Give us an update. We talked about it on the show last week. We're going to bring it up again, but I know it's the year anniversary. This place is special. Yeah, and my man, tons of St. Louis people have made the trip to Grand Haven, Michigan, which is due west of Grand Rapids, like 30 minutes. But folks from St. Louis know that coastline of Michigan is so pure, man. And we built a golf church there called American Dunes.

Folks weren't listening last year with my boyhood hero, Jack Nicklaus, who waived his $3 million fee to forever memorialize the birthplace of Folds of Honor. And that golf church is called American Dunes. And it sits there on the site of the former Grand Haven Golf Club, which was my parents' golf course and where we hosted the first golf tournament that would inspire Patriot Golf Today's and start Folds.

So that's our why. But as we got into this project, Jack kept looking at me and he's like, hey, man, noon and greatness rarely comes along in our lives. And when it does, you've got to have the courage and the faith and you've got to raise the money to chase it and translate it in Jack's world. And man, we dropped a bomb on this golf course that was in the dunes on Lake Michigan with insane relative elevation and deforested, you know, hundreds of thousands of trees, a hundred acres worth of trees, took every piece of dirt and topsoil off this site down to pure heavy dune sand. And I got to watch Jack go to work and contour every piece of this golf course. I've talked to Barbara Nicklaus and she'd be like, Dan, your plans are on our kitchen table forever. He made nine site visits up there to see this place.

And he always said this, Jana, I love this. And if there was one one word I would use to describe American dunes, it's this it's reverent. And that is being lost in this country every day. And it's reverent to God. It's reverent to our country. It's reverent to the game that we love.

And it is it's a place. And when I pitched the idea to Jack and as I said, he waived his three million dollar fee to do this, I said, Jack, we will build something that is unlike anything in the world of golf. And at opening day on May 2nd last year, I looked at him and I said, Mr. Nicklaus, have you ever been to an opening like this in your life? And he looked back at me with this big tear in his eye and said, Dan, I've never been to anything like this in my life.

Wow. I would just tell people, if you love this country, if you love God and you love the game of golf, you've got to make the pilgrimage to American dunes. It'll be a day you'll never forget the rest of your life. And now that you've got your new knee and you're getting off your right side, you have to come up to American dunes when it's 95 and 90 percent humidity off of the mighty Mississippi there in St. Louis this summer. Come up. It'll be room temperature, 72 degrees, no humidity in American dunes.

And I would be honored to host you. One of my favorite quotes associated with you guys and Jack Nicklaus was when he said, Dan, I love the game of golf, but I love my country more. And it's his way of honoring all of those things that you spoke of that are so near and dear to his heart, the way that he's lived his life, the way that he's kind of taught some of the tour players that came after him to try to keep carrying this torch forward. And it is really super special.

It is. And he's in a, you know, he's in a season where I don't think you had a way to your old, by the way, because, I mean, it's the choices we make every day or writing the legacy of our lives. Right.

Big and small. But Jack is in Barbara in this legacy season of life where it's not what they do, it's what they leave behind at 82. And this is a huge part of his legacy. And he's looked at me and said that this is where I dropped anchor on my love of country. And it will live on in perpetuity. And, you know, we honor a fallen soldier on every hole in American dunes and Jack was so moved, he said, Can I place one of my 18 majors on every hole next to them?

And I'm like, done. And it's a, it's a story. And, you know, the last thing I'll tell you about American dunes is when you go play, I'm going to ask you, Jay, what was your favorite thing? And as good as the golf course is, and I was just reading golf magazine, there's a huge two page spread in golf magazine.

And it says instant American classic, one of Jack's greatest. But when you finish, I'll ask you what were your five favorite things in the golf course won't be one of them. As good as the golf course is, because it's what the place stands for in the stories in the experience in the reverence of the golf church called American dunes. So Nunez, tell us just a little bit about Patriot golf days as we wrap this up. Yeah, it's golf's most heroic round.

I'm so humbled as I sat above my garage in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 14 and a half years ago. And you know, God gave me the idea for Patriot golf days. It's not my idea.

None of our ideas are our ideas, right? They're all a blessing. And I had no idea that, you know, we would raise through golf and Patriot golf days over $50 million asking people to go tee it up or Memorial Day weekend, go on their smartphone and donate a couple bucks. And it's that easy. Over Memorial Day, we recognize in this country that 1.1 million veterans have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

And there's a half a percent of the country that wakes up every day willing to die for our freedoms. And people are like, man, it's the it's the beginning of summer. It's Memorial Day. I'm going to the lake. I'm drinking my Budweiser.

All that stuff is great. But don't forget, without Memorial Day, there are no other holidays in this country as we know them today. You get to go play golf over those four days during that week.

I don't care. Go to PatriotGolfDays.com and make a donation in honor of someone that you know who has served, who has sacrificed or just simply saying thank you. And one of the things I love about Patriot Golf Days, Jay, is, you know, in this world, everything's got to be a red or a blue issue minus red, white and blue, brother. It is about coming together around the country we love and playing the game we love. And this year, as I mentioned, obviously the PGA of America, but having the PGA tour, the LPGA, the USGA, Titleist, Bushnell, the list goes on and on. All these folks supporting us, Volition America, PUMA, go play golf, make a donation.

What an awesome combination. And I'm a simple dude and I like to have fun and I think that's why Patriot Golf Days has worked. Because it's making a difference and it's having fun. I so appreciate you jumping on the show again. I so appreciate you doing what you do for the game of golf for our warriors and our heroes of men and women, their families. We got to jump on again.

No, man, I love it. I'll leave folks with one thing that I hope will fill their heart. It's the number one anthem in my life and I do it every day and it's go before you're ready. If you want to look at greatness in this world, there's one strand that ties it together and it's people that just go.

And that requires you to listen to your heart and listen to what's in there and you have the courage and faith to take action on your dreams. Because, you know, in the spirit of Ecclesiastes, man, we are here and we are gone. The mountains will be here.

The ocean will be here. No one will remember, you know, what you failed, how you succeeded. But go live your life and the way you do that is, man, you're not going to have it all figured out. Go before you're ready. Glorify God.

Help your family, your friends, the people in your life and love the gift of every day. Man, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, Jay, I love you, man. And I'll see you at American Dudes.

All right, Pearl, I'm going to give you one takeaway before we wrap up the back nine. Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, you can talk about American Dunes. You can talk about Folds of Honor, Patriot Golf Day.

Take a shot. I'd like to talk about the golf course because I got up there and experienced it. Built with passion, built with uniqueness, built for an experience. And I think if you're a little bit open-minded, because it is a little different that way, to not get overly focused and grinding away at golf, which sometimes we can do.

Get into the flavor of the place, feel the passion that went into building this facility. I think you can have just a fantastic time. And by the way, bring your game because it's a tough golf course.

We've heard a lot of good things. It's going to be fun to watch that golf course mature and to get the play. Folks, that's going to wrap up the back nine.

But don't go anywhere. We've got the 19th hole coming. This is Golf with Jay Delser. 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 Delser, 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. 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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He is a terrific guy and he will help you with your game and show you around. And don't forget, there are golf leagues, skins games, members tournaments, and couples events available all year round. Visit WhitmoreGolf.com. That's WhitmoreGolf.com.

Hey, St. Louis. The Ascension Charity Classic, presented by Emerson, is back this September. Don't miss the excitement when the PGA Tour Champions Best compete again, all for charity. September 9th through the 11th at Norwood Hills Country Club. Pro-Am spots, hospitality packages, VIP tickets, and more.

Available now at AscensionCharityClassic.com. I've been looking for over three years for the perfect place to be the official 19th hole of the Golf with Jay Delson 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. There's no reservations required, they have overnight lodging available, and they also have an ice skating rink in the winter months. And don't forget about the super cool Riverside Flea Market, which happens the fourth weekend of each month from April through October.

If you're into antiques and collectibles, you've got to check it out. The Grafton Ferry runs directly from St. Charles County to within steps of our parking lot. Go check out the loading dock and say hello to my buddy Peter Allen. He is a great guy, good golfer, and a lover of the game. Call 618-556-7951 or visit them on the web at GraftonLoadingDock.com.

For more information on their live music schedule, the Riverside Flea Market, and more. The loading dock, the new official 19th hole of the Golf with Jay Delson show. Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delson. I'm your host Jay Pearl. He's with me, and we are headed to the 19th hole.

Pearl, go ahead. The one thing that I want to talk about, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, the education that he's doing for the families of our fallen heroes, and the monies that they're raising, the companies that have backed us. It's amazing how charitable and how charitably giving this country is. It's unbelievable.

It's over the top. You think of that and the 9-11 effort tunnels the tower. There's so many great organizations that are pulling that together, and the amount of effort it takes and the commitment. The leaders of these different groups and many people within their staff have really given the rest of their careers to make this happen. My guess is we're more giving country than any other in the world by a long shot.

Actually, that's not a guess. That's a fact, and I think it's one of the things at our core that makes the country great. Our generation, we never did fight. We never even thought about enlisting. We never thought about, at least I know you and I, we've had this conversation multiple times.

You and I never have. The draft wasn't a thing for us, but it was for the generation just in front of us. I'm still amazed and I love the fact that part of this show is so dedicated to the backstoppers and the things that Danny Mac and I raised a little money for them. Neil Rackers and his brother taking care of the wounded blue and that whole thing. Jim Sauer's giving service dogs.

Dan Rooney's got all sorts of different opportunities for these families. Because, John, some of the vets that came back, especially back in the day, and it's probably even true still today, they're just almost forgotten and they're just kind of cast aside. Some of the stuff that they have to do to get back into society is not easy, man. It's a tough road for sure, and there's plenty of people in our generation that did sign up. We're obviously super, super, super thankful for those folks. I just wonder what some of the expectations are, too. You know, those guys and ladies made that decision to do it.

It was fantastic. It's interesting that there's plenty of organizations to help them out to the degree that you can. But I think in many cases, the sacrifice they've made physically and emotionally, there's only so much you can do.

It's just something that they've given up and kind of the ultimate sacrifice, even though they may have survived it. All right, John, I want to shift gears. We are talking a little bit about what it's like when you're playing with distraction. My rookie year on the PGA Tour, I'm a nice spot at Memphis. I'm playing with Hal Sutton.

I'll never forget this. And Hal Sutton starts going off on Sunday. And I'm a young player, and I'm not having the greatest of days.

It's just not quite going my way. And Hal Sutton, Pearl, went off and shot 65 and won the tournament. And it was an experience for me. It was disruptive. It took me off my game. All of a sudden, I was kind of caught into what he was doing. It just kind of swept me up. Well, if people talk about that playing with Tiger, you turn into a spectator. And when a guy's out there winning and he's got that certain mo-mo about him, that certain energy, that certain kind of look in their eye the way they walk the fairways, you can tell when a guy's kind of feeling it.

And so apparently that's what you saw that day. Well, how did you then years later when you're in that situation, what did you learn from that on how you kind of got past that? You have to stay in the moment and only handle the stuff that you can have control of.

You have no control of the other player. I'll never forget this, Pearl. One Sunday in Memphis, back in the middle 90s, I shot 61, which is 10 under par. And I was playing with our good friend Willie Wood. You know, we've known Willie since college days. And shoot, I knew Willie from junior golf days.

He shot 68 or 67. And he said to me, no one even came up and said nice round because of the way you were playing. I got so into what I was doing, Willie, I don't know what, you know, I always have fun playing golf with him. He's a great guy. He's a great player. He was always fun to play with.

Always had a nice sense of humor and fun to be around. But gosh, I can remember, gosh, Nick DePaul was getting for me and I hit my driveway right on 18 at Memphis. There was water left and I was 10 under par and I wound up knocking it on the green from the right. And I had about a four footer that I knocked. The hole was as big as a bucket that day. I mean, all I felt like I had to do was make my backstroke and then go pick the ball up. You know, it was like it was going in the hole. And so I knocked this four footer in. And I remember shaking Nick's hand and he's like, man, that's the best round of golf I've ever seen in my life. And I, you know, there's a numbness that you get into in this state of, you know, they want to call it the zone flow and all that.

But it's really true, John. I can remember kind of coming out of it going, wow, that was that was just remarkable. Well, it seems kind of easy. I haven't had quite that before, but I've shot a couple of 62, 63 and a couple of times in competition, Europe, that type of thing. For me, I was just kind of into it. And I can remember 18 just coming up seemingly out of nowhere. I'm like, wait a second.

Did we play all the other holes? And, you know, you just kind of into it from shot to shot, just the way you're supposed to be right into the moment. It's a wonderful feeling. It's the exact opposite of that 79 feeling when you like your moment to moment, but you know that it's crumbling down around you and that nothing's going to go good all day. You just get that sinking, funky feeling that's coursing through your veins just as much as you get that great feeling like I got this.

The other way to get rid of that, I got this is to start thinking that you got it, then you're in trouble. When for me, when I was just really kind of into each shot and just focused on each shot, that's when it went the best. Well, here's the irony about being in the zone. Everything slows down.

Do you see the game? It's like your swing. It's almost like it's an out of body experience. It's almost like you're a watcher of yourself and you watch this thing unfold and everything is in slow motion.

Yet the entirety of it seems to take no time at all. It's really, really true. For sure.

For sure. Hey, I want to give a little update on Nellie Corda, Jay. We've talked about her and we got the ladies open coming up and she's recovering from her blood clot.

Pretty private about what the cause of it was in the medical aspects behind it, which I personally think is good. It's nobody else in business, but it's just fantastic that we've got the number two player back in the field. Whatever happens is relative to how she plays, but it's important. You and I are obviously big fans of hers and she gets back out there, starts competing and shows the world what she's got, hopefully for many more years to come.

Oh, absolutely. We sure hope so. We wish her all, Nellie, all the best. You know, Jen, she's only world number two because she's been out for four or five, six months.

You know, I was wondering when I read that and I appreciate you clarifying that because, man, she is something else. But the other ladies will be ready for her and I'll be interested to see how long it takes for her to get back to form. Thanks so much for being with me. Enjoyed it very much, Jay. I look forward to watching golf this weekend.

I do too. Folks, have a great week on the golf course and hit them straight, St. Louis. I've been looking for over three years for the perfect place to be the official 19th hole of the golf with Jay Delson show and this 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 eight hundred and every weekend the loading dock has the area's best live music. There's no reservations required. They have overnight lodging available and they also have an ice skating rink in the winter months. And don't forget about the super cool Riverside flea market, which happens the fourth weekend of each month from April through October.

If you're into antiques and collectibles, you got to check it out. The Grafton Ferry runs directly from St. Charles County to within steps of our parking lot. Go check out the loading dock and say hello to my buddy Peter Allen. He is a great guy, good golfer and a lover of the game. Call 618-556-7951 or visit them on the web at graftonloadingdock.com for more information on their live music schedule, the Riverside flea market and more. The loading dock, the new official 19th hole of the golf with Jay Delsing show. Hey folks, get this date June 13th at Norwood Hills Country Club on your calendar. What's so important about June 13th? It's the annual SSM Health Foundation open because SSM Health has been helping support the St. Louis community for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

That's right, a hundred and fifty years. There are so many ways you can get involved. You golfers can tee it up at Norwood Hills and oh by the way, that's the same course that PGA Tour Champions played last September and will play again this September in the Ascension Charity Classic and you will support this great cause. You can also join the SSM Ambassador Program. You can also sponsor your own event with SSM or set up a corporate partnership for you and your team. Go to SSMHealth.org and help support this fantastic local foundation that is giving back to our community.

I will be at Norwood that day supporting the cause. Folks, are you in the market for some additional protection for your ride? You need to call my friends at Vehicle Assurance. Their number is 866-341-9255. Sherry Fain is the owner and president and she and her team are committed to helping you with your unexpected auto repair bills. They are committed to finding the right protection for you, your budget and your family. They only work with the top vehicle service providers in the country.

Get the protection and the peace of mind you deserve. That's Vehicle Assurance 866-341-9255 for a free quote. 866-341-9255. 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 strobs. Have you ever experienced self-dispensing wine machines?

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Go to wildcrushstl.com and come have one with us. 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. This has been golf with Jay Delsing. To learn more about Jay and the services he can provide any golfer, visit jaydelsinggolf.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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