Chris Zimmerman STL Blues-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. I like it. Fake news.

It's all fake news. Anyway, so guys, welcome to the show. We formatted a show like Around the Golf. This is the On the Range segment. The On the Range segment is brought to you by my friends at TaylorMade Golf. Send us an email. Jay at jdelsinghgolf.com.

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They will beautify the inside or the outside of your house. Folks, it's springtime. Pandemic hopefully is in our rearview mirror so we are going to be getting out playing golf, going to your clubs, going to your munis, your driving ranges, coming over Wild Crush and having a cocktail with us here out in West County. But call the Donahue's. They're great people.

They'll help you out. 3-1-4-8-0-5-21-32. Alright John, Chris Zimmerman. Got an interview with Chris Zimmerman. What an accomplished guy. First of all, currently the president of hockey operations for the St. Louis Blues. He's been the president of the Vancouver Canucks.

What I was most interested besides this is a really cool human. Chris Zimmerman was the president of Nike Golf between 1996 and 2006. Right in the middle of Tiger Bean at Stanford turning pro and launching the Tiger Woods phenomenon, the Tsunami on the PGA Tour. Yeah, exciting time. It was so fun listening to the interview and anybody that likes sports, he's had one of the dream jobs or multiple jobs that were all dream jobs in the middle of things. It makes you think of course he was obviously making things happen as well which is why he was in those positions. Fascinating interview.

I'm looking forward to everybody listening to it. He's had her surgery. Things went extremely well. She's looking for a full recovery. Obviously she's been down for a while on different medications and surgeries so it's going to be a while. But if not one of the best lady players in the world, she's on the mend which is fantastic for her, fantastic for all of the golf fans and fantastic for the golf world.

Yeah, no question about that John. If we can keep her healthy, this is going to be a fun ride. This is going to be a fun ride to watch her do what she's going to do out on the LPGA Tour. And there's something about, and I've said this a hundred times and people are probably tired of me saying it, but I mean it sincerely. There's something about her playing that just looks right. It almost looks poetic.

It almost looks like you could put music to it. It almost looks like it's just beautiful. The way she plays the game. She's strong, comes from a great athletic background, but she plays the game with such style, grace and professionalism. It's really awesome to me.

Well, I think you've seen the whole package which is why you're impressed with it. We don't see it that often, but we're seeing it with her. So we're looking for, keep getting better Nellie and we're looking forward to seeing you out there again. Now I'm working, since you brought up Nellie, I'm working behind the scenes to try to get her on the show.

I got my girl Julie, I got my girl Julie Inkster doing some work for me. She's going to be dispelling all the rumors that everybody knows about me and everything else. And saying, no, no, not only believe half of that, or only believe three quarters of it and see, I want to get her on the show. I think it would be fantastic. And maybe we could pump her up a little bit when she's in the middle of all of her rehab. Well, and we've talked about this a little bit, but we'll take any family member of hers, by the way, because they're all superstars at different sports and things going on. But yeah, that would be fantastic if you could get her.

That'd be a lot of fun. Well, her sister's still playing the tour and playing very well. She had a top 10 finish not too long ago. Her brother's playing out on the tennis tour and her dad was a long time player out on the TPA, right?

Yeah, we better not leave out mom and I don't remember what what her sport was, but her mom was wonderful as well. We're going to take a break. We'll pick up the interview on the front line to the tip of the cap. We're going to do the tip of the cap segment here.

I want to tip my cap. And first of all, the tip of the cap is brought to you by my friends at Dean team Volkswagen of Kirkwood. Colin Burke, great guy. He will help you with any sort of vehicle. His number is 314-966-0303. But if you have trouble getting in touch with Colin, which you shouldn't, but if you do give me a call, send me an email.

Jay at jdelsongolf.com. I'll introduce you personally to Colin and he'll take care of you. The tip of the cap is for all of the physical therapists out there.

We're talking about Nellie Korda earlier. We watched Tiger do extensive rehab to get himself out on the course. There's chiropractors, there's all sorts of the old term, it takes a village, there's all sorts of people out there helping us get these old bodies moving and, and so that we can enjoy another year on the golf course. Better golf, more stories, and the like. So thanks to all you men and women that are helping us get back on the course and playing our best golf.

That was the tip of the cap. It's brought to you by the Dean team Volkswagen of Kirkwood 314-966-0303. Pearly and I both have Dean team of Kirkwood vehicles. Pearly, how's your truck? It's absolutely wonderful. Every time I get in it, I love it.

Like I said, it's the first truck I've had that pulls the boat so that it gets pushed by the boat. So it's beautiful. Yeah, and I just was backing out of my garage and blew out the back window of my SUV because I thought my door was all the way up and oh yeah, I didn't want to put that on there, did I?

Okay, just did. Anyway, Colin, I won't be coming to see you because I got glass all over the back. That's going to wrap up the On the Range segment.

Don't go anywhere, folks. We're going to have the front nine. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. On the Range with Jay Delsing is brought to you by TaylorMade. This is Golf with Jay Delsing.

The front nine is coming up. 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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Ascension Charity Classic dot com. Good morning. This is golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. I am sitting down this morning with my buddy Chris Zimmerman, the President and CEO of Business Operations for the St. Louis Blues. Chris, good morning. Good morning, Jay. It's good to be with you.

Looking forward to talking about golf and other fun stuff that we both have a big passion for. Such a pleasure and a privilege for me to get to dive into folks like you and your career. I didn't know that you were a hockey player and you played hockey at the University of Vermont and then you kind of cut your teeth a little bit as a coach at Babson College when you were getting your masters there. You know, hockey has been a great passion of mine.

I grew up outside of New York City and started playing when I was 10 back in the days when ponds froze a lot more often than they do. I got the chance to go play some college hockey at the University of Vermont, which was an amazing thrill. I had a great time. We had a couple good years.

We were top 10 in the country at 1.1 season. Played with some great players, but also knew that once college hockey ended, I wasn't going to get paid to continue to do that. So, sort of built off of that amazing experience for a lot of things I ended up doing later in life.

It's interesting, isn't it, how well sports and the competition and the camaraderie can prepare us for different things in life. And you jumped in at a high level with Saatchi and Saatchi with some advertising. My family, my mom and my stepfather, they've both been in the communications world and public relations actually. And that sort of exposed me to that world. And yeah, I ended up starting my career in advertising and learning about building brands and recognizing that so much of what that was all about was about creating relationships. I spent 10 years in the advertising business and that thought about how every company and every brand was ultimately about relationships with your customers, with your employees, with all your stakeholders. Those fundamentals have played a big role really in pretty much everything I've done throughout my career. Boy, don't you feel like, Chris, that you can lose, that so many folks lose track of that relationship?

And we've seen some spirals downhill from that point. Yeah, well, I think, you know, it's interesting. One of the big things that the business world and really beyond the business world, I think the sports world as well talks about much, much more than we used to as culture. And culture is all about, you know, what does it feel like to be part of an organization? What does it feel like to be part of a team?

You know, how do you show up as an individual? And then how does a group come together to really perform at a high level? And certainly in my professional career and working on the business side of sports, I've always been a big advocate that essentially this is a team sport and everybody has to understand their roles and respect different points of view and how people attack their work. But ultimately, it's really it's the companies and the organizations that do come together, find the ways to maximize people's talents and do it in a way that shows humility and shows really fundamental care for each other. And I think, you know, when you can bring that many of those things that are so critical to championship teams to the workplace, I think you often are able to have a lot of success.

Tiger Woods did for golf beyond the great play, beyond the showmanship, beyond his flair was he opened doors that have been closed for so long. And it's great in the NHL to see so many African-American players or some different ethnicities playing the great game of hockey as well. And those doors just need to be open for everyone regardless of the sport. Forget the color of your skin.

Forget how much money you have. It needs to be open and everyone needs to be welcome. It's interesting, quite honestly, in some ways there are a number of parallels, I think, in terms of the golf world working to become more inclusive as well as the sport of ice hockey. You know, both cases, fundamentally, they tend to be sports that require facilities, facilities that often cost a lot and somewhat translate into what it takes to participate. And I think just the ability to reach into communities that have not traditionally had the same amount of opportunities. That was certainly one of the motivations for Tiger as he's gone through his career. It was from the early days of Nike signing him after his third U.S. amateur win, which happened all of 15 miles from the Nike world headquarters out in Oregon out of Cookin Ridge. Right from the start there was a recognition he was likely to be an iconic, great golfer.

But beyond that, there was an opportunity for him to really help expand the game and just motivate and inspire people of color really throughout the world. Chris, let's talk a little bit about when you left the advertising world. Yeah, so when you grow up an athlete, a college athlete, obviously I love sports and I get into the marketing world and, oh gosh, I've been at it a little over 10 years and Nike was actually doing a review of their advertising agencies over in China, well really throughout all of Asia. And somehow I got lucky enough to be asked to go over to Hong Kong and work for a week helping people prepare for these presentations.

So I was involved in that. I get introduced to some of the senior people at Nike and a role opened up about six months later heading up advertising for North America. And just even the thought that I might have the opportunity to go work for this great athletic sportswear company that puts such a high premium on product and on athletes and on marketing, it literally was, for me that was a dream opportunity.

And so I was lucky enough to get the role and Emily and I, our second child, Ted had just been born so we got Kate and Ted together and picked up our lives and moved across country to Portland, Oregon. And I was with Nike for over a decade, got in a number of different roles and obviously it's sort of, I guess that's the next level of creating a foundation moving from just a marketer to moving to a sports marketer and being able to not only work in the communications zone but also later in my time at Nike get the chance to actually lead businesses. Amazing gift that has really shaped much of my professional life and given me these amazing opportunities to work within zones of sport that I'm extremely passionate about. Well, and I know you love the game of golf and this is where you and Tiger and the PGA Tour, the whole thing kind of comes together. Yeah, so my first three years I lead advertising and actually from Tiger, as I mentioned, he was playing at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course just outside of Portland and he was going after his third consecutive U.S. amateur title. I tell people I've seen a lot of, I've had the good fortune to be at lots of great sports events including, obviously, my favorite on June 12, 2019 when we won the Cup. But that day at Pumpkin Ridge, Tiger goes into the 36-hole championship U.S. match against Steve Scott and I guess with 16 holes left he's five down and watching him come back, I believe it was on the 17th hole that he makes a long putt to tie it.

They go into a playoff and he wins. And Nike had all their intentions to sign Tiger as he was going to turn pro that week. And in my role then, this is now 96, I've been at Nike a year running advertising, and we show Tiger Woods in the dining room while people are celebrating outside what would be his first Nike television commercial later that week. And so really from day one of Tiger signing with Nike, I was involved with him. I was involved with the marketing over the first several years and in January of 2000, I moved over to head up the U.S. golf business for Nike. And so for really about his first eight years, I was involved in certainly all of the advertising and then later his product lines as well as the very interesting move of Tiger Woods from playing a Titleist golf ball, which essentially probably 90% of the tour was playing at the time, the Titleist professional, to getting him to switch over to the Nike tour accuracy. This is Golf with Jay Delsing, I'm visiting with Chris Zimmerman.

He is the CEO and President of Business Operations for the St. Louis Blues. You know what, Chris, when you think about instant credibility for Nike, you can put a swoosh on Tiger Woods and have him come right out to the PGA tour and start winning and dominating a few years later. That doesn't get much better for a company, does it?

Yeah, well, it's interesting. So let's turn the clock back a little bit because he signs, he wins his first Masters in 97. So as you mentioned, that's an amazing thing in terms of putting Nike on the map. Maybe one could debate this, but there was a bit of, you know, Nike obviously was in the footwear and apparel business, but we really believe that we needed credibility in the equipment business for the golf world to really accept us, assuming they were ever, and I still say we and us at times because I have a lot of that in my heart still. But the challenge was the first product, those first few years, Nike had a view and Tiger bought in early on that the Tiger was going to be the next Michael Jordan. And so the product, both where the golf shoes and the early apparel was, it was trying to be younger.

It was collarless shirts long before the golf world was ready for collarless shirts. And the first few years there was brand awareness, but quite honestly, on a business level, the product was a major failure. And part of it was that whole thing of trying to be younger and hipper and it just wasn't, the golf world wasn't ready for that. And it wasn't ready for Nike or Tiger to do that. And so around 2000, when I moved over the business, we did, we completely built a new strategy around making his footwear, making the apparel he wore much more classic, much more acceptable. And then we got, working with some great golf ball engineers, we got involved in helping make the transition to the solid ball.

And Titleist, as you know, at the time was all about the Titleist Professional and a wound ball. As we tested for a year with Tiger over and over again, working with every element of the ball to the point where he started to, he clearly felt like he had more control, particularly around the greens and in all that testing, just as we thought he was ready to make the switch. The last thing the engineers had to work on was the sound because he'd gotten so used to a certain sound from his golf ball that he did want really to replicate what he was familiar with. You know, it's interesting because I talked to John Cook, I'll never forget this conversation when the Nike ball was coming out and John was hanging out with Tiger down in Orlando. Tiger had moved to Isleworth before he went down to Jupiter and they would hang out, play some practice rounds and things like that. And John said that Tiger's ball was so particular and so specifically made for him that when John hit his ball, he couldn't keep it in the air for more than 200 yards. Tiger wasn't going to switch. First of all, he had a contract with Titleist. He happened to have a contract that gave him an out if he found a better product.

There was no more money involved. This was about winning golf tournaments. And I remember I got to go down, I wasn't involved on an ongoing basis in the testing, but I went down to Isleworth for one of the last sessions before he was ready to put it in play. Much of it was working around the greens and his ability to get the ball to check up. And I remember him hitting a couple of shots, you know, chip shots not too far off the green and then turning to Kel Devlin, who was our sports marketing guy, working with him in just amazement. And it was that sort of at that point that we knew that we were in good shape.

Now, one last story about that transition. First tournament he plays, he goes over to Germany, plays with the ball. And sure enough, he has one of his worst rounds. He puts it in the water, I think on two different holes. We're all back in Oregon on the edge of our seats and we get this call and he says, listen, I just hit it back.

That wasn't the ball. He then goes on, I believe it was pebble. Yeah, it was pebble, I think was his first major that he put it in play.

And he goes on to win the Tiger Slam after changing his golf ball to a company that had never been in the golf ball business before. So yes, that was an amazing ride. I grew up with Kel Devlin, Chris. And what a really nice man, son of Bruce Devlin, the great Australian champion. And he would kind of give me some ins and outs and say, man, you're not going to believe what this kid can do.

And I said, yeah, I understand already. I've seen him out here a little bit. And when he went to Pebble Beach, I believe he won by 15 strokes and didn't have a three putt the entire week. And that says a lot. That was a phenomenal year. I don't know, I think certainly in golf, marketing and product history.

And then over the next several years, probably Tom Stites as well had worked down in Fort Worth for Ben Hogan and became the lead designer for the Nike Golf Club line. And we sort of went through the same stages with that. Again, driver testing months and months of testing, getting close to the end, they go down, they take four drivers. He hits them each. And after hitting them a few times, guys asked, what do you think? And he says, well, let's definitely take out the heavy one. These were all finely tuned in every possible way. And they go back afterwards and they weigh it.

And it's essentially the weight difference is that of a dollar bill. And that was that was the kind of freak that he was in terms of his understanding and his feel for his equipment. It just it was a really intriguing and interesting journey for sure. Well, that's going to wrap up the first part of the Chris Zimmerman interview, but don't go anywhere.

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I got Pearly with me and we are on the Back Nine brought to you by our friends at Pro-Am Golf. Let's just jump right back into the second half of our interview with Chris Zimmerman. This is Chris Zimmerman. He is the president and CEO of business operations for the St. Louis Blues. We're talking about his time when you were with Nike. I can remember, Chris, when so many of my friends that didn't quite make it as players that were working on the PGA Tour started migrating over to Nike. As you guys started building your sales force and your team over there.

I remember Mark Thaksin, who is a great friend, and several other guys. They really, really enjoyed their time at Nike. You know, it was fun.

I had a blast. We viewed it as we were building a company within a company. As a matter of fact, that was one of the important strategies. I think early on Nike Golf tried too much to be like other parts of Nike, a lot of it which is very much focused on a younger teen audience.

We just said, hey, this isn't right. We have to find the balance between being Nike and having a certain reverence and energy. But also making sure that the product is right. The thing about sporting goods and certainly the equipment side, you can't fake it.

You can't fake that with great players. The fundamental ethic that Phil Knight, who founded Nike. If you ever want to read a great book about the history of Nike, read Shoe Dog, which is a fantastic story of the evolution of the company. But his whole thing was about creating great products that help athletes be better. It really was not just about marketing. It was the ethic. Nike was the first to admit when they were in a zone where the product wasn't good enough. I think that it's one of the great things that I respect and that I took on to the work I did with Bauer and certainly in other zones around the sports equipment business.

Oh my gosh, we could talk about this forever. I love these Tiger Woods stories. The interesting thing for me is that I was in the middle of my career while this was going on. You know, we're like, holy cow, Nike's going to get into golf. I mean, that was kind of the forebodance of what he brought to the game, isn't it? Just made the golf world so much bigger and so much more dynamic, so many more opportunities for everyone, even me. Well, I think in players like yourself who saw the changes, who saw the impact of the television ratings, the energy and the excitement he brought to the sport. Yeah, it was undeniably created, I think, a lot of the momentum that has now starting to even kick in more.

And sports also had some nice things that for a long time during these last couple of challenging years, it was the perfect activity to be able to do outside and actually feel comfortable being with people and, you know, lots of other elements. But yeah, Tiger, I mean, I think the other thing, one of the interesting things I always think about the early days of Tiger's emergence was Tiger became what I'll call really a global icon. You know, the time when he turns pro 96, it's really kind of the time when literally email and the Internet and communication is expanding and happening in ways that had never happened before. He became this global icon, was really exceptional. I remember being in a meeting with him.

It was not long after he won the first Masters. We would always spend time talking with our athletes, trying to understand their motivation, making sure we were being true to them in our advertising. And in some way, I asked him the question, well, you know, how can we help you?

What is it that you're looking for at this next stage? And he said, you know, right now, the biggest thing I'd like is to be able to go to a bar with three friends of mine like the old days and just hang out and have a beer. And and he said that really genuinely and and and maybe a bit naively even at that point. And this is early in his career.

And I thought, well, that's definitely not something either I can help and probably not something that's ever going to happen again. Again, as I said, the speed with which his celebrity miss, if you will, grew, it was exceptional. And I think a lot of it had to do with the time that he came came onto the tour and and and certainly lots of other areas of the world that had never seen a champion dark skinned golfer.

They really embraced that and found that to be very motivating. This is golf with Jay Delsing and I'm visiting with the president CEO of business operations Chris Zimmerman. Chris, the only person that may have benefited more directly from Tiger himself than Tiger was our commissioner Tim Fincham because man alive. It was it reminded me of the old Showtime days when I was in college at UCLA when Pat Riley would be coaching the L.A. Lakers and you had Magic and Kareem and James Worthy and Byron Scott and all you had to do is kind of roll the ball out there. And when I think of, you know, Tim Fincham being the commissioner of the PGA Tour and having a talent like Tiger come on the world and just swarming not only the golf world, but the sports world.

Just just swapping them with tidal waves of all this coolness. It could have been better for Tim Fincham. There's no question that was great timing. Celebrity, you know, matters in sports. We like our we like our athletes to be humble. We like them. Obviously, we like them to to show their character and all those other things.

But there is an element of, you know, a need for personality and some have it and some don't. You know, when I first got to Nike, the number one tennis player in the world was Pete Sampras. It was really hard to get people interested in Pete Sampras.

You know, and we created this contrast of him versus Agassi. Pete Sampras was by far the better player, but we had to find some other tool to tell a story because, again, amazing, great athlete. But Pete Sampras wasn't bringing people to the television. You know, you go back to probably the last great male tennis player that truly brought people to television, I think was John McEnroe. Again, I'm sure I'll get it if the tennis fans out there may feel like I've missed lots of other people. But anyway, it's but yeah, Tim Fincham and the tour and, you know, every player on the tour benefited from the fact that sports value, a lot of it's created based on the value of the content, the value of those television contracts. And they skyrocketed as did obviously the purses with, you know, the impact of how Tiger, you know, brought people to the television set. Man, I hate to get off this golf topic. You've done so many other really, really cool things in your career from golf. I think you went straight to Bauer, didn't you?

Yeah, I did. Nike owned Bauer. Bauer is a hockey company. There's actually only a couple that really dominate the business and have been around forever. And that was my first chance to be president of a company. It was a small division at Nike and wasn't doing very well.

And I mean, what a gift. The fact that I assure you, I never really thought for a minute about working in the hockey business despite my exposure growing up in part. It's not in some ways, it's not that big a business, certainly on the equipment side. And anyway, Bauer was based back in New Hampshire. So we moved back across the country and to Exeter, New Hampshire. And it was great. It was a small team that was really felt like they were at the bottom of the Nike food chain. They were really struggling and weren't making, getting the investments they needed and product and some other things. And so I went back there and had a chance to do a little bit of a turnaround.

And we had a lot of tough decisions to make and sort of on my own for the first time because not that many people are watching because in the scheme of things, it's a smaller division. And we just really had a fun time turning it around, focused a lot on product again that you need, you can't fake it. So we made a couple of big bets on getting the Bauer skate line and actually composite stick, which were becoming the predominant product.

Bauer wasn't really in it. And so some investments in the right talent and a focus on making better product really turned the business around. And it's continued to where they're back really the dominant hockey brand. Chris, you spent some time in Vancouver before you came to St. Louis. What, as the president of the Vancouver Canucks, what is it that intrigued you about St. Louis? Because I look at some of the things you're doing, you and Emily, your wife, your wonderful wife, you guys are so involved in the community. I look at some of the boards that you guys are on and some of the things that you guys do. And these are only the ones that people hear about because I know there are so many others. But the St. Louis Sports Commission, the St. Louis Regional Chamber, Blues for Kids, Downtown St. Louis, Inc., Legacy, Ice Foundation, you're also on the NHL Business Advisory Council.

And those are just to name a few. What was it that intrigued you and brought you to the Midwest? Because you've been on both coasts prior to this. Yeah, we've bounced around a lot.

And like any family that does that, Emily has been the rock that's held our family together and done a lot of the heavy lifting. And yes, we've been primarily West Coast and East Coast. St. Louis really was an opportunity to come and be part of what we knew was a great hockey town.

As you know, the business of the Blues historically has been challenged and not lived up to, if you will, some of the success the team had on the ice. So there were some ways we certainly thought we could help impact that. But beyond that, and really some of it, I think, is once we got here, we just recognized that this is a place that you really need to be all in. We believed and believed that the sports teams play an important role in bringing energy and keeping young people excited about the opportunities in St. Louis. So I think, in many ways, we've gotten opportunities to do work here that we haven't had in other places.

You know, Emily has, in addition to some of the things that I've got involved, she's involved with the Urban League on the Christian Hospital Foundation Board. For us, I think it's just a recognition. Some of it's where the team can help, and some of it is just how we can help as individuals in a place that we care about and that we have seen the ability to make a difference in some zones.

Well, I feel like the community has wrapped, you know, if they could have three arms, I think they'd wrap all three of them around you guys because of the things that you've done. I mean, being part of the Enterprise Center, and you were kind of spearheaded the multi-million dollar renovation of that building and a new title. I never will forget you guys, and I know you were the head of this as well, bringing the winter classic to St. Louis. Ed Bush Stadium was so much fun, and then now the Centene Ice Center that's built out in Maryland Heights is a beautiful facility.

Gosh, you have to go a long way around the Midwest, Zim, to find anything close to that place. Well, we're really proud of the facility. A lot of people made a huge difference. My good friend Patrick Quinn, who's maybe one of the most passionate individuals I know, helped drive that project in a massive way.

I can tell you, because I've seen almost every similar facility in the country, and it's already been rated in the top ten, I think it's one of the top three, if not the best facility in the country. And the important thing is that it's already bringing the types of events that are good for our local economy and just are helping make the game more inclusive. I know that the USA Hockey has a number of different divisions.

They call them the Disabled National Championships. We'll be hosting that in the near future out there. We've got this amazing Warrior Hockey program that we've been able to help start for veterans. That's an amazing group that in two years has over 100 players involved and a waiting list for me, for Emily, the work we do. How do we keep pushing forward?

How do we do things that can help make us a better and stronger community? Maybe if there's a theme of this conversation, it's our ability to do those things through sport. It's really fun to see the work that Gregone is doing with the Ascension Classic. I'm a huge fan of that effort, and I think it's another classic way where we can use sport to help continue to strengthen St. Louis. I am privileged to be an ambassador for the Ascension Charity Classic, and Nick, Gregone, Steve Spratt, these guys are doing what you're doing in the world of golf. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the ownership group that Tom Stillman's put together, because I think that's given all of you great team members the backing to go out and run this thing the way it's meant to run. Tom and his group have done an amazing job.

As you know, it wasn't that long ago the last entity didn't work out. It's been a tough history, and Tom, he certainly made a number of key decisions early on and set the tone. Importantly, he set the tone about wanting to bring a championship and the Cup to St. Louis, and wanting what matters as being successful on two fronts. One is what we'll continue to do as we aspire to bring a second Cup here. And then the recognition that beyond that, that this entity really is a community resource and asset.

And so yes, Tom has given us all the resources we need and the opportunity for us to be in a position, Army, to drive the team towards another championship. You know, the work that I'm doing with the broader business team to hopefully create a great experience for our guests and our fans and then beyond that to reach into the community in every way that we can. I'm so sorry I've taken so much of your time, those Tiger Woods stories. I love hockey and I love sports and I love St. Louis, but I really wanted to stick with you and have you keep telling me the Tiger Woods stories. Chris Zimmerman, thank you so much for being on the show and we got to do this again. I have a feeling we just kind of scratched the surface with you and some of your adventures. Well Jay, this has been fun. Fun for me to look back at some of the experiences I've been able to have and just want to thank you for what you're doing in the community and your work around golf and how it can touch and make a difference.

So yeah, I'd love to come back on again. This is all good stuff. And that's going to wrap up the Chris Zimmerman interview. I hope you liked it, enjoyed it as much as I did.

Don't go anywhere. Pearly and I will be back on the 19th hole to break it all down. This is Golf with Jay Delson. 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 Titleist Performance Institute trained physical therapist that can perform the TPI screening on you as well as use a KVEST 3D motion capture system. Proper posture, alignment, etc.

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That's PowersInsurance.com. This is golf with Jay Delsing. For the latest updates on golf equipment, help with your swing and everything golf, visit JayDelsingGolf.com. The 19th hole is presented by Michelob Ultra. Hey, welcome back. It's golf with Jay Delsing.

That's right. We came back. I hope you did too. Pearly's with me. We're headed to the 19th hole brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Pearly, are you ready for the 19th hole? The Chris Zimmerman interview.

I've got to say a couple of things. The Tiger Woods stories. He sent me a couple pictures of Tiger helping him with his golf swing just to be in the mix on that. John, remember in the year 2000, it's perhaps the best golf that anyone's ever played.

Tiger won eight or nine tournaments. Chris is right in the middle of it. Let's go back. We're wondering about the quality of the equipment. And we had a story. The money was just starting to get crazy.

And I can remember the driver and the ball combination for me was going to pay me over $300,000. What do you have to figure out other than say yes? What are you talking about? I said yes to everyone.

I just had to figure out which yes I was taking. And they had to too. But what was interesting about it is that, you know, Nike had this ball.

And Kel Devlin has been a longtime friend of mine, Mark Thaxton, longtime buddy of mine. From back in our college days, they sent me that ball and, John, I couldn't play it. They didn't have enough variation in it for me to be able to sync a ball up for me to play with. But I do remember Strata coming out with a ball.

And I played the Strata ball one year and had a really good year and then went back and played Titleist. The bottom line of the story is, John, and what Chris Zimmerman talked a lot about was the evolution of these other golf companies. And Nike was leading the way.

Nike had never been in golf before. We were talking about credibility in the game and he's like, you can't fake these products. You can't just slop out a lousy product and think it's going to be good and think people are going to like it and think people are going to buy it even though you're slapping Tiger Woods' name on it. Even when you were getting a bunch of money for it, the bottom line is, it's such a fine line between winning and not winning out there, or second place and third place. And when the money is what the money is, and if the ball's costing you a half a shot a day, a shot a day, things like that, whether that's through confidence, through your mental position on the golf ball, or how it's actually acting, you know, is it really worth it? I remember when you called me up one time, and I want to say it was the Tour Edition.

Maybe I've got it wrong. You called up and said I was just offered X amount to play the Tour Edition. What do you think about that? That X amount was a huge number. Yeah, it was a huge number, but I can remember asking the question that made it real quiet on the phone.

You always killed a lot of my joy with some of that stuff. I was all fired up. I'm like, somebody's going to offer me a quarter of a million dollars to play this golf ball. And all of a sudden you're like... Yeah, and I'm like, is it the best golf ball for you in the world or isn't it? I mean, at the end of the day, think in terms of a whole year, how many shots is a golf ball that isn't the best or best for you, if you will, because you were trying to really match it up with equipment and players and things like that.

Is it really worth it? When I asked that question, it got really, really quiet on the phone because I know what the answer was. The answer was, no, it's not the best ball, but man, do I want to have that quarter million dollars in my pocket. I think I went with the titleist.

I think I went with the titleist, the best ball. The whole Nike piece, all of a sudden they just were kind of thrust into the golf space and they had Tiger. And I can remember when Tiger first started wearing those mock collars, I hated dressing like the other players. I always wanted to do something different.

I'm like, oh yeah, this is for me. Hey Jay, what about the evolution? Because it was about that time. Previous to Nike getting in there, yes, there was the tour truck. Yes, they were putting new chaffs on and new grips for you guys and things like that. But is that about the time that really, really ramped up where guys were doubling down on their understanding of equipment and matching the golf ball with the clubs? Because I don't remember it previous to that.

It was still a big deal, right? You wanted the club. It was more about how the club face looked to you when you were addressing clubs is what I remember. It wasn't the technology from grip to shaft to club head to feel to matching up with the ball. Is Nike the one that you would give the credit to that really kind of ushered in that next level of tuning in with equipment and all the specs? That's a great question because I would say it was Nike and Callaway at the time. You remember Eli Callaway.

He was an innovator and a marketer. And he came out, remember, with the one iron when we were in college that was the hickory shaft. But it was a steel shaft painted to look like hickory. And he's the guy that changed all the lofts to make your seven iron or six iron but stamped the seven iron on the bottom of it. So everybody thought they hit their irons further.

So that's kind of the beginning of it. So then maybe Nike brought it to the next level of sophistication because it's just been tuned up ever since then. It would be unbelievable if you looked at some of the clubs guys played back in the day. But it was a different game because the golf ball was different. You worked the ball differently. It was so much more about feel. Now it's about, hey, I don't care if this looks good or feels good. Watch how far you can bomb it and do the things you can do with it. It's just different.

It's a different mindset across the board, I believe. Pearl, have you got a joke for us this week? I do have a joke and I think it's an appropriate joke.

Jane, maybe you can talk about it as a little conclusion at the end because it's appropriate for this time of year. But in general, it's the jokes called the right club. A hacker was playing so badly that his caddy was getting increasingly exasperated on the 11th. His ball lay about 160 yards from the green and he eyed up the shot and asked his caddy, do you think I can get a four iron there? Caddy said, eventually. That's exactly what my caddy Irish John said to me when I was playing out of Carnoustie in the practice round. And this guy showed up and I said, can I get a three wood there? And he goes, yeah, eventually. And I was like, what is this, a comedy hour?

I don't even know this guy. He set me up with this Irish caddy and he's already given me grief and I've only played like four holes. Yeah, but I can remember the number of times you would say in pro abs that the guys would just not play enough club. And that when you would give them a yardage or you would tell your caddy to give them a yardage, you'd say just add 15 or 20 yards, whatever you tell these guys. We always added one more club, John.

Amateurs almost never get the ball to the hole. Right, right. And folks, whenever you think it's a seven, take a six.

It's a hell of a good formula. Well, that's going to wrap up another show. Our golf ball giveaway. Steve Wilbanks, you got yourself a dozen TP5 golf balls coming in the mail, man.

Steve, stand by that mailbox. Jeff, thanks again for supporting the show with these great golf ball giveaways. It's a lot of fun. Well, another one in the books, man. It was fun, Jay. Look forward to the next week. Yeah, I do as well.

All right. That's going to wrap up another show. This is Golf with Jay Delson. Hit it straight, St. Louis. This has been Golf with Jay Delson. 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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