Art Chou From Rapsodo--Golf With Jay Delsing

This is golf with Jay Delsingh. A two-time college All-American at UCLA. A participant in nearly 700 PGA Tour events.

Seven professional wins to his credit. Over 30 years of professional golf experience. This is Golf with Jay Delsingh. Good morning, this is Golf with Jay Delsingh. I'm your host Jay and I have an interview this morning with Art Chew. He is the General Manager of North America for Rapsodo. Gosh, I can't wait for you guys to listen to him. Let me introduce my longtime friend in Caddy, former UCLA Bruin.

Caddy had over 100 events on the PGA Tour. John Perlis, Perli, what's going on this morning? I'm doing fantastic. I'm really looking forward to talking about, we have a big show today. Yeah, we really do. Well, we formatted a show like Around the Golf. The first segment is the On the Range segment and it's brought to you by TaylorMade Golf. And TaylorMade is the key innovator on the PGA Tour right now.

They are doing some great stuff. This stealth driver, fairway woods look just fantastic. We are giving away a dozen TP5 golf balls. All you need to do is email me, Jay at jdelsinghgolf.com and you will be entered to get that dozen balls sent to you. Yeah, TP5 Perl, that's a nice thing to get in the mail.

Absolutely. I'm looking for mine every single day. I'm thinking maybe my mailbox isn't big enough. I'm not sure what the issue is. But so far they haven't gotten here.

You must not have sent me that email. Perl, give us a little quick update on META and our social media outlets because I know you are keen on this. Still tracking them down, baby. Still tracking them down. They're playing games with me. I'm looking forward to Congress changing all the rules so that we can get social media where we quit getting canceled. That's what I'm looking for.

When we're canceled, it's hard to backtrack. I do want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue because I know what this means. They are at Donahue Painting and Refinishing 314-805-2132.

They will beautify the inside or the outside of your home. They're great people. Give them a call. Alright, so today Perl, they are wrapping up Sunday's round at Bay Hill.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the fun stories and some of the fun. I mean, it's a place that Arnold built, right? It's the house that Mr. Arnold Palmer built. It's a phenomenal tournament. It's easily argued. It's like Tiger's Playground. I mean, I think he's won the event eight times. It's just been one of those events, John, where the majority of the guys on the tour will circle that and play almost every year. It's a huge attraction to show respect.

But what do the guys think of the property? Absolutely, it is, John. I think it's the entire package. I mean, it's almost hard to separate. You know what I mean? It's because there's so many. I mean, when I think of this event, I think of the 18th green and Mr. Palmer walking out there with his jacket on.

It just brings back memories. I can remember, John, you caddied for me at Bay Hill several times. Nice tournament going. I don't think I finished it off very well on the weekend, but we wound up playing with Bob Estes, who wound up finishing second or third, didn't he?

I think he finished second, yeah. And we saw some of the greatest short game, particularly within four or five steps of the putting green, that I'd ever witnessed in my life. It was a clinic. Yeah, it was really awesome. I had the opportunity, John, three days in a row in a non-PGA Tour tournament environment to get to play with Mr. Palmer. And just what a thrill. I'll never forget walking up to that first tee.

And this was just on a Tuesday sometime. And he asked me to play, and I'm going to the range, and I'm just firing adrenaline like you can't believe. And I stand there on the first tee, and I look over at him, and we have our caddies.

And I'm thinking, I don't know if I should genuflect or go shake his hand or do, you know, I can feel like I could do 50 push-ups. I had so much, I just couldn't believe this was actually happening to me, and it was so cool. And it's interesting, because once you got into it with him, wasn't he just kind of an easy-going, calm, regular guy, if I could possibly say it that way?

I mean, absolutely. And that's one of the things that I'll never forget. When he came to St. Louis years, probably about two months before he passed away, I got the opportunity to do an interview with him.

He was the first recipient of the Musial Awards. And so I brought a camera and a cameraman, and I was just getting ready to jump on the Fox golf team. And so I thought, gosh, what a cool way to jump in and talk to Mr. Palmer. And I said to him, I said, I can remember I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 years old.

I had a little 14-inch black and white TV with terrible picture and reception. And I can remember seeing this guy sitting on a tractor selling some sort of oil. And I remember looking at this guy and go, this guy's really cool. And I didn't know anything about golf. I'd never touched a golf club at that time.

I didn't know anything. And I said to him, how did you do that? It was almost like you had a personal relationship with the entire country. And he said, he looked at me and he grabbed my knee as I was sitting next to him in a chair. And he said, I never represented anyone or anything that I didn't fully believe in. And I wanted that to come across in all of my ads, my commercials, anything I did for them. Well, that's authentic. And you mentioned his name, and I'm thinking Clint Eastwood and John Wayne and Arnold Palmer. They all would have had about the same feel if they were riding that tractor or a horse or whatever the case might be.

Yeah, it really did. You know, John, we got to lead. We're just going to wrap up this on the range segment, but we've got to talk. I mean, this Rob Soto technology. Archie, first of all, is a cool guy, was in golf with Titleist for so long.

He was also with Rawlings. So he's been in sports his entire life. But this technology we touched on it last week on the show.

There's there's just no avoiding it anymore. The applications are such a broad based in the game of golf. You've got to get your hands around this technology and figure out how to use it to help you play better golf. Well, Rob Soto is kind of telling you if everything else that you're wrapping up here, the equipment, the ball, your swing, et cetera, if it's all in alignment, isn't it? So this is a great interview. And I think it's a great subject matter for for right now. It's springtime.

Let's let's get our the whole package put together correctly. And the thing that's so neat about this product is it's small. It's compact. It interacts with your phone. It uses features on your phone like the GPS and things like that to to give you this incredibly powerful device right at your fingertips, right on the driving range.

I mean, and at a really affordable price. Well, it's fun. And again, we'll talk about it relative to the interview. But Jay, you can relate to this 20 years ago when you're out on tour walking out of the driving range and some of the first technology came out versus versus now, like you said, it fits in your pocket. I mean, we used to haul bags of stuff out there in the past. Oh, my gosh, John. And to your point, I mean, it was almost like remember the sizes of of speakers for music or television.

I mean, it would take you and I to carry a big if there was a big screen TV invented back when we were kids, it would have taken a truck to haul it around because it weighed a couple thousand pounds. Like I said, that's going to wrap up the on the range segment. The tip of the cap segment brought to you by my friend Colin Bern at the Dean team of Kirkwood three one four nine six six zero three zero three and count. I love my SUV.

Thank you so much for that vehicle. I'm tipping my cap to the men and women, the pioneers of the game of golf that spent years playing the game, teaching the game, growing the game, getting zero recognition for the work they did doing it for one reason and one reason only, because they loved it. And they were getting it spread into their families and kids anywhere that would listen. I think about Bob Golby passing away not long ago and he and his friends, founding the champions tour being also a great Masters champion.

The reason they did that is they love the game and they grew the game and today's game wouldn't be possible without all those men and women. So I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank Colin at the team of Kirkwood three one four nine six six zero three zero three.

That was the tip of the cap segment. And this is going to wrap up the on the range segment. Come back for the front nine. This is golf with Jay. On the range with Jay Delsing is brought to you by tailor made. This is golf with Jay Delsing.

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 three one four nine six six zero three zero three 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 a Dean team of Kirkwood. Colin has an entire parking lot full of new and used cars. You don't want a VW?

That's no problem. They have Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, anything you want. Colin and the Dean team of Kirkwood will go get it if they don't have it. Call them at three one four nine six six zero three zero three or go to Dean team VW Kirkwood.com.

The Dean team for all your car buying needs. Marcon is sponsoring a fantastic new giveaway for only $10 you can get a chance to watch a blues game from their suite at the enterprise center and wait for it with Danny Mac and me Jay Delsing. Go to backstoppers.org slash delsing and Mac raffle slash and watch your St. Louis blues finish out the regular season and prep for the playoffs in a suite with Danny Mac, the voice of the Cardinals and me Jay Delsing food and beverage is included. The date for the first giveaway is Monday, April 4 versus the Arizona coyotes.

That's backstoppers dot org slash delsing and Mac raffle slash for $10. Watch the blues with Danny Mac and Jay Delsing. 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. Visit us at the ascension charity classic.com. September 9th through the 11th at Norwood Hills Country Club, Pro AM spots, hospitality packages, VIP tickets and more available now at Ascension charity classic.com Attention golfers. Do you want to improve your game? Of course you do.

The first step is getting to diagnose the area or areas that need your attention. Visit rapsodo.com. That's rapsodo.com. It's a portable launch monitor that interacts with your phone. Nothing better for you to use when you are practicing indoors in the winter. You will know your ball speed, your club at speed spin rates, dispersions, everything you need to know is on this device. If you check out if you enter the code delsing, you will receive $100 off the price of the rapsodo launch monitor. That's right. Enter my last name delsing when you check out and get $100 off the price rapsodo.com.

That's rapsodo.com. Thanks for getting to golf with Jay delsing for golf tips, news on the latest equipment and everything golf. Log on to golf with j delsing.com. The front nine is coming up. How would you like access to 90 holes of golf? Well, that's what happens when you join it with more country club. There's also the Missouri bluffs, the links to Dardin and the golf club of Wentzville.

And guess what? No cart fees included in that deal. There's no food and beverage minimums.

There's no assessments. They have a 24 hour fitness center, two large pool complexes, three tennis courts, year round social calendar includes holiday parties, picnics, date nights, live music. There's a kids club for your children and much, much more. There's junior golf, junior tennis, and swim teams available. This is a family friendly atmosphere and they have a wonderful staff. If you get out there, you got to poke your head in the golf shop and say hello to my friend bummer.

He's a terrific guy and he will help you with your game and show you around. And don't forget their golf leagues, skins, games, members, tournaments, and couples events available all year round. Visit whitmore golf.com. That's whitmore golf.com. This is golf with Jay delsing. The front nine is presented by the Ascension charity classic, September 5, through the 11th at Norwood Hills Country Club.

For tickets, Ascension charity classic.com. Hey, welcome back. This is golf with Jay delsing and we're entering the front nine. And I've got this amazing interview with art chew.

If you're interested in technology, you got to stay tuned. Have a listen. I am sitting down this morning with our chew from Rapsodo golf art. Thanks for joining me this morning. Hey, Jay. Great to be here.

Thanks for having me. I look at your story. And I know that you're currently involved with stadia ventures and rub soda. But let's go back. I know you went to University of Pennsylvania. And I think you did your, your graduate work at Drexel. But let's get back to how you got involved in sports. And now more importantly, for the show, I guess golf.

Yeah, I mean, this goes back to have one we first met. We've been way back in the in the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, I was at my Philly guy, high school, college grad school. I was working in defense department, but putting golf clubs together on the side. Just golf is one of the only things as an engineer that you can tinker with the equipment.

So I was buying components, you know, the old golf Smith catalogs, golf works and putting putting components together. And actually, a friend co worker saw that titles of running an ad for golf club engineer, and I ended up responding to it and getting the job just kind of out of the blue. So I started working to title this back in in 1989 up in Massachusetts, and we're there for seven years, you know, was it was a fantastic, fantastic place to really learn golf and learn how to be a professional. I think about that they're extremely, extremely professional, very well run.

I really learned how to be a professional. Titleist left there in 96 moved back to Philly to work with my dad in golf doing consulting work, and ended up consulting and then joining an organization called Pixel Golf. We had a golf startup, Palo Alto. I thought it was East Palo Alto, not the not the cushy part.

If there is a bad part of Palo Alto, this was a bad part of Palo Alto. But that's where I really learned the business side. I never got a business degree, but I tell people I got my MBA at the University of pixel golf, five years never cash flow positive. You know, we never had more than I don't want to say we had more than four or five months worth of cash in the bank.

For investment, having to tell people, you know, payroll wise, hey, here's your paycheck, but please don't cash this until next Friday, because you won't have any money in the bank, you know, things like that. So I really learned, you know, that the business side of it, I kind of got that that entrepreneurial bug a little bit working for pixel golf in a small startup, but it crashed and burned. We went down in 2004 that was created to go out to come after St. Louis. Actually, it was why we're on St. Louis for Rawlings. It was the left of the golf business gotten the team sports. Rawlings obviously big in in in baseball and team sports. And I was hired there to really bring some of the technical nature, the engineering work and the development work that we had done in golf over to baseball. I believe we were the first ones. I was the first one to call up track man to call those guys up and say, can you give us something for baseball? Do you have something to attract baseballs?

Because we wanted something to test to test bats instead of golf clubs. This is back in, you know, this is back in 2006 or seven, I think we called them. So I worked for Rawlings for 10 years in team sports. When I left them in in 2014, I ended up started doing having two different ventures. I started Stadia Ventures with a partner. Stadia Ventures is a sports tech accelerator program. We have a small investment fund, basically a venture fund that invests in sports tech startups and do Shark Tank style.

You come to a few of our of our Stadia events where we do two cohorts a year. We bring in industry executives, sports industry executives that get the sharks that help us determine who to invest in and then how to mentor them so that the investment actually becomes becomes positive. Started that in 2015 and then also I started consulting for this company, Rapsodo. Rapsodo at the time had had a golf launch monitor. They were selling up to Skygolf.

Skygolf is selling it and still selling it under the brand name Skytrack. So Rapsodo invented the Skytrack units and their founder called me up and was interested in getting into baseball. That's how we started talking about Rapsodo getting into baseball since 2015. Fast forward to 2017, that's when we brought on some new investors at Stadia Ventures which allowed me to step away and go full time into Rapsodo. So I became full time in Rapsodo and kind of an extremely part time kind of passive director with Stadia Ventures and I've been running Rapsodo since 2017 here in St. Louis. Rapsodo was headquartered in Singapore.

Founded by, fascinating story, founded by a Turkish gentleman, a Turkish engineer, brilliant engineer, was in Silicon Valley, transferred to Singapore. He couldn't see at the range hitting golf balls, couldn't see where they were going. He had depth problems with his vision and like any good engineer, he says, there's a machine that can help me tell where the balls are going, does some research, finds out these expensive dual Doppler radar systems, the Trackmans, the things like that, and just $20,000. I could do it better.

I could do it cheaper than that. So he designs his own launch monitor and it becomes Skytrack. It becomes what we think is the best selling in terms of unit volume launch monitor in the world today.

A lot of people use them for home simulation. That's kind of how it all got started. So he's in Singapore. We have an engineering office in Turkey, because he's obviously Turkish, so he knows the Turkish engineering industry. And then our sales, marketing, distribution is here in good old St. Louis, New Guinea.

Man, Art, I tell you, when I start thinking about the days when we met back in the 80s and Titleist and all the Wally Uline stories and all of the other friends that we met along the way and how this, I hate to use the word journey, but I can't, this trip that you've been on took you to the West Coast, you started at the East Coast, now you're back in the heartland. I love the technology with rep sort of, let's talk a little bit about what you think and how this can help our guys that are listening to the show, because there are so many different applications here. It is a fascinating time to look at technology.

Just give me an idea. When I first joined Titleist 1989, there were no launch monitors. We had a tracking system in order to test clubs and balls, where you had to draw lines, you took a Sharpie, you drew lines on the on the side of on the on the on the ball, basically put a grid on it, put it on to you had indoors, we had an indoor system that had all these cameras and strobe lights, you had to turn the lights down low because the lights because the lights were the flashes were going to flash. We had these camera system that was that was set up right alongside the ball just outside kind of looking face on view.

And you hit the ball. And you hear you heard like the old you know the flashes two flashes went off, you reach down, you pulled out the Polaroid and the old Polaroid. You pulled out the Polaroid, you had to wait the 15 seconds, right? You know, you had to pull it up, you had to wave it around, get it to dry off, right, blow on a little bit, then you had this Polaroid that had a double exposure had two exposures of the ball, and you knew exactly what the time was of the exposure. And you can and then you took a ruler and you measured the distance and the angle between the between how the two balls had rotated because you had a good system on them. So you could tell how much it had rotated protractor, you know, ruler and you drew lines and that and that gave you the launch angle, the velocity spin rate.

And you can imagine this is all done by hand one shot at a time in a big room, and you had to turn the lights down low, it was several minutes per shot, right in terms of start to finish, figuring out what the what the numbers were, by the time I left I listed 96. They had that system down to portable unit that was about the size of a microwave oven. And that was a portable launch monitor. I remember we had that out on tour back in the early mid 90s, where you take it out on tour, and you had to put it down there and people would hit and it was on this rail. Because as people would take as you take visits, we had to keep on sliding it back and slide it back but you wanted to make sure it was it was lined up properly. So it was on this little rail, and you kind of slid it back but it was a it was a multi person job, you know, one, two people to lift it up and things like that.

So it was 96. And then now nowadays, you know, without mobile launch monitor, you basically get the same type of action of technology in your phone. So basically, we're taking it down to an optical system that utilizes the computing power and the video power of your phone to get pretty close to the same accuracy in those types of, you know, launch launch condition numbers. So it's just interesting, really fascinating how far technology has come. It was I saw it in the big room, what turned down the lights and now it's in your pocket, you know, art, I so appreciate from a kid that just was looking at the ball and hitting it.

And that's pretty much the mentality that I have that people appreciate people like you that want to take things apart, and figure out how they work and put them together and build a better mousetrap, man, that is a hell of a deal. With reps are utilizing everyone's cell phones. It's really a brilliant, it's a genius stroke of technology, isn't it?

Because everyone has one. Yeah, I mean, if you look at it, that really is the direction that that all of our technology, I mean, we do have a lot of different sports technology, certainly with my first day of interest, and you see so much of it trying to utilize the power in your phone, because it does have a ton of computing power. And then everybody has not only are we utilizing the say the camera technology in your phone, but a cool part of it is when you take our mobile launch monitor out to the range, the first thing it does is the GPS turns on your phone. And it automatically zooms in and you have this great satellite view of where you are on the range.

And it asks you, are you right here? Okay, basically, you can pick the day which day you are in the range, and then you pick your direction. And then and then after you're done, because we have the GPS record of where you're at, we can plot all of your shots actually where they ended up on the range from this place you're hitting on the range. Or if you got on the golf course, you actually choose which tee you're on, which we which way you're shooting down. And we can tell exactly where your shots are taken out of the evening sometimes when it's ready at best out here for sales on our back nine. And I'll drop a few balls and nobody's out there. I'll hit ball and I can't see where they're going. Because it's too dark. But then I'll look at my phone and my phone will actually tell me where the balls ended up.

I can go I can go retrieve them. That is insane. It's really fast and that GPS on your phone. You know, Art, when you think about how far we've come, my gosh, when you're talking about the days of technology and the R&D at Titleist and how one shot at a time and it was took multiple multiple minutes to figure this stuff out. I can remember when we were trying to do some club testing, it was an all day affair.

And if you wanted to try a couple drivers, you know, it took you a day to put an entire driver driver together and let it sit and let it set and you had to pin it and whip it. And nowadays you come in with a bucket full of heads and a whole lot of shafts and you it is it is simplified the process immensely. It really has. It really has.

It's funny because I would say both of us have been around a while. Let's say that a lot of the technology that exists now existed back then. But it just wasn't that easy to use. You know, movable weights.

We would have movable weights in a driver head. But it was. But this is 20, 30 years ago. But it was done. It would have to be done really, really, really carefully. It was not durable. It was not for production use. It was for testing.

Yeah, you're right. You test testing different shafts. It would take you a while to we had to set up different shafts. You would have to make up a whole bunch of different heads and a whole bunch of different chance permanently epoxy them. And then basically hope that the heads were all pretty similar and the shafts were the only difference so that you could test you could isolate the variable and test the shaft. But yeah, it's just the technology has made it a lot more efficient, a lot faster, a lot easier. I mean, club fitting nowadays. Yeah, you go out there and get a good club fitter can get everybody added yardage, added distance with the driver fitting pretty quickly.

Or talk about the coaching component of the Repsoto. I don't think people understand how cool it is to be able to get a remote lesson and use this technology. We talk about being able to provide the full cause and effect, right? So if you think about it, we're setting this launch monitor up. We're setting it in back of you. You have the down the line view. It's using your camera. So you have a video of your swing. So you have a video of your swing. We have a shot trace.

We can tell exactly the shape of it and trace the ball just like you see on the PGA Tour on the weekends on TV. So we can tell you the shot shape. We give you all the data so we could tell you how your smash factor, ball velocity, launch angle, things like that, and then your distance.

So you have all that, which is the full cause, your swing, which is the cause, and then the effect, which is the shot. So the idea is that we started talking to teachers, teachers from a remote learning point of view. Teachers have been trading videos back and forth for years and years being able to trade videos, but you haven't been able to match it up with data. And if you can match it up with some data in two different styles, maybe you have a Trackman or a Flight Scope or a DC Quad up there and then you have video, if you can do that, you don't really know where the ball is going.

So good video is not really tracking the ball. So here we're putting it all together and allowing teachers to utilize that as a way to trade back and forth. So we created Coach Connect. Coach Connect is the system where you can automatically send your Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor shot videos directly to your coach and then they can mark it up. They can do a little voiceover, they mark it up, draw lines on it, tell you what you're doing.

They might have some drills that they're recommending and then they send it right back to you. So it's almost like a little WeChat back and forth that you have between you and your coach based on this swing video that has all of the shot data. So we provide this little closed loop there where you can trade it back and forth and still keep in touch with your teacher. It doesn't replace the teacher, but it helps complement the teacher.

Mike Malaska, one of the top teachers in the country, Mike was one of the guys that really helped us fine-tune it and troubleshoot it. And the way he put it was he's out in Arizona and he said, look, I have people that come in and fly in and spend a weekend with me and I'm working on them and then they fly home and six months later they come back and I have no idea what they're doing for that six months. I've given them drills, but I don't have any record of what they're doing.

I don't see how they're swinging. And so a lot of it is we almost have to start all over based on when they come back. So what he does is he uses it every way to keep in touch with his regular students so that he can kind of monitor them and communicate with them between the physical lessons that he has. Oh, and Art, we both know that nobody on the PGA Tour goes too long without seeing their coach or their swing guy.

I mean, and this can kind of give you these little refreshes that everybody needs. Yeah, and that's why you see so many of the guys out on tour now. They all have something, right? They all have a TrackMan or a G-Soup quad or a flight, you know, or they can afford the more expensive systems. And a lot of them have a video camera set up as well or their coach or the caddie is taking video. You bet.

Everybody wants to have their own data nowadays. And that was our chew from Rapsodo. And that's going to wrap up the front nine.

Don't go anywhere. We'll bring you the rest of that interview on the back nine. This is Golf with Jay Delson. Hi, Jay Delson here for my friends at SSM Health Physical Therapy. The St. Louis Golf Expo is March 18th to 20th, signaling spring is just around the corner. SSM Health Physical Therapy will have members of their golf program at the expo. They will answer your questions regarding your game and your body. If you mention my name, you'll receive special pricing on their golf screening and you'll have a chance to win a free K-Vest evaluation.

That is really a sweet evaluation. There are 80 locations in the St. Louis area. Call 800-518-1626 or visit them on the web at SSMPhysicalTherapy.com.

Your therapy, our passion. 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. I know you know the name, but I'm not sure you know what they really have to offer. They have everything a seasoned golfer like myself could need all the way down to what a beginner would want. Pro-Am Golf Center has the lowest price in the area for custom club fitting. I just went and visited CJ.

He is terrific. If you call them now, mention my name, Jay Delson, you will receive a discount on that already low club fitting price. Their number is 314-647-8054. Ask for CJ or you can visit them at ProAmGolfUSA.com. That's ProAmGolfUSA.com. You're listening to golf with Jay Delson for golf tips, news on the latest equipment, and everything golf.

Log on to golfwithjdelson.com. Powers Insurance and Risk Management is sponsoring a VIP St. Louis Blues game experience for two lucky winners. Enter to win a front row seat behind the visitor's bench and join me, Jay Delson, along with Tim Davis from Powers Insurance as we take in all the action on March 17th against the Pittsburgh Penguins. That's right, Sid Crosby will be in town. All you have to do to enter is go to PowersInsurance.com slash Go Blues and sign up.

I'll announce the winner the week before. Powers Insurance is a family-owned agency here in St. Louis. They specialize in robust insurance policies designed to provide coverage that is tailor-made for your personal needs. That's Powers Insurance and Risk Management.

Again, sign up for these great Blues tickets at PowersInsurance.com slash Go Blues. This is golf with Jay Delson. To learn more about the game of golf, latest equipment, and golfing tips, log on to jdelsongolf.com. The Back Nine is presented by Pro-Am Golf.

Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delson. Jay and John are here, and we're on the Back Nine brought to you by Pro-Am Golf. We're going to jump right back into this Rapsodo interview with North American General Manager, Art Chiu. From a business perspective, give us a sense of how you're doing.

What's the biggest challenge that you guys are facing right now? Yeah, it's really interesting. So what we're doing is we're kind of riding two different waves. One is just the increased usage of data, and that's not just in golf. I think that's in all sports. It's also in baseball as well, and people are utilizing data to figure out ways to get better.

Baseball is probably the best example, but I think in golf, you look at things like strokes gained, different metrics like that. You're finding even professional golfers looking at their data in a way that helps them figure out what they should be working on and where their strengths and weaknesses are. So this increased data, number one, is kind of this wave that we're participating in. And I think the main challenge there is data for data's sake, basically not having too much data. The first path is, well, we've got to have more data.

You have more numbers, we have more stats, we can create more metrics. And if you have too much and you don't have actionable insights, if you cannot tell people exactly what to do, then I think you're actually doing them a disservice. You're going to paralysis through analysis.

You're going to become inundated with too many things, too many thoughts, and you're not going to know what to focus on. So the challenge with the data side of it is really focusing on what data is important and then delivering it in a way that is actionable and easy to understand. So that's why you see, for us on the mobile launch monitor, everything is very visual. It's a very visual interface on your phone.

We're trying to explain things to you in as simple, visual, easy-to-understand ways as possible. And that is the challenge, I think that's the challenge that everybody has in sports. Everybody. Down to, I mean, you have an Apple Watch now and you don't know how much data you're getting out of your Apple Watch if you go for a walk or a run. More than you need.

Way more than you need. So it's really, what is it going to tell me that helps me do something better or improve? So that's a big challenge there. The other challenge, the other way is technology getting more efficient. It used to be, like I said, it was a room at Titleist and it was a microwave oven and now it's down to the size of your phone and it's several hundred dollars. And several hundred dollars worth of equipment nowadays gets you extremely good accuracy. Now we get within one, two percent of total numbers of, say, a Trackman or a Flight Scope or a DC Quad, you know, these $16,000 to $20,000 units. And one, two percent is generally good enough for most of us.

You know, it may not be good enough for the top tour players, but it's good enough for most of us. So that the cost of technology is coming down, which makes it easier for us to democratize that, basically spread it out to a wide variety of people. But then as we do that, the challenge is that a wide variety of people are looking at this technology in a different way. So now, instead of selling this piece of high-tech equipment to somebody that really wants it and is doing their homework and really knows what to do with it, now we're selling a piece of pretty high-tech equipment to people that have no idea what it does. And we have to educate and really hold them by the hand.

Otherwise, they're going to buy it, they're going to try it, they're going to take it around the range, hit it a few times, and they're going to shove it in the drawer in the closet and they're never going to use it again. Which is what happens if you don't know what to do with the technology and it is not helping you on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. You know what, Art, I love that because there's that tipping point, right, between not enough data and too much data.

And then there's also who helps the average guy, the average gal decipher this for their game because our ultimate goal is, like you said, we need to get better. It's funny because I remember my old presentation day, the Titleist. This was when you're coming out as an engineer taking your all-hot stuff and I remember giving presentations and really trying to focus on explaining what was going on to non-engineers, realizing that most people don't like math. Most people do not want to see a graph.

The graph reminds them of the math class that they did not like in high school. So you have to explain it in ways that they understand. We talk about it all the time internally about SOTA, whether it's our golf team, our baseball team, our softball team, is that we started off by selling equipment that gives you data. But really what our goal is, is we want to become the analytics department in your pocket. So when we sell to MLB teams, they know what to do with it. They tell us, fine, we'll get the data.

We don't need your help. We have a whole department. We're good. You talk to top D1 schools and they say, yeah, we're fine. We have an analytics department.

We're good. But then everybody else, the other 95 percent of the pyramid doesn't really know what to do with it. You get down all the way to the bottom of the consumers.

The average golfer does not know what to do with it. So we need to be, we call it the analyst department in your pocket or the caddy in your pocket. Basically, you take the swing, we'll tell you what to do afterwards. And I think that it needs to be that easy and then it needs to be that effective. It actually has to work.

You have to actually use it and hopefully get better in order for it to be sticky. When someone comes and buys this unit and they're hitting balls, is there a way for them to reach out to you to have this deciphered? How does that, what does that next connection level look like? Yeah, it's interesting.

It's a great segue. Thanks. So what we did with the first generation was, here's all your session data, right? Here's all your sessions. You hit 15.7 irons, you hit 12.9 irons, and you hit 22.3 woods. Here's all your average data. You can throw out the bad ones that you missed. And here's your average distances, launch angle, smash factors, all that. The next generation of that, which we just introduced this past December, is insights.

So basically, we'll take that back session and then we'll be able to give you insights on it. Hey, did you know your average miss with your nine iron is short left? Your average, your typical miss with your pitching wedge is long right. If the hole is shaped this way, in general, you should tend to miss, you would want to miss this way, so use this club. Here's a club suggestion for this typical miss or that typical miss. It gives you insights in terms of club gapping. Here's all your average distances and your kind of variability between each one and lays it out club by club. So here's where your five iron and four iron are basically the same club, and you shouldn't be swinging both of them.

Things like that. So we give these insights into what the data means, and it's trying to give you some actionable insight into, okay, all I have to do is go out and hit my normal bucket of balls, go through my bag, my routine the same way, and it'll be able to tell me, hey, this is what's happening this time compared to what happened last time. I'm losing a little bit of ball speed on my driver. I don't know, why is that?

So now I can look at it and understand what's going on and figure out what to work on. Bernard, I didn't mean to laugh at, I wasn't laughing at you, but I had a thousand images wash my brain where I've told people, these three clubs are one club. You can take these two out, put in a different wedge or put in a different utility club, but you don't need them because they all go about the same distance.

Is you guys providing, oh my gosh, are you guys providing this sort of information from them changes the game? It really, you know, your set makeup back in the old days, the old eight and three, you know, buying the eight iron, three woods, and then the packet, you know, it's so, it's been so blown up. I mean, most of us average people, most of us average golfers, you know, five iron, I don't even know how many hit a five iron. I should have a few hybrids in there. When I go out to buy my hybrids, I should go out and I hit them on the range and I should be measuring how far they carry. Everybody thinks how far they hit it and it hits, carries and rolls and it rolls downhill, hit the sprinkler head, hit the cart path and ends up way down there. And that's their distance with, you know, with their fairway, whatever the hybrid.

And what you really need to know is how far it carries and make sure that your carry distances are gapped properly. And yeah, I think for most of us, then we would probably stop at six iron, maybe five iron, and then have a few higher lofted hybrids in there. And that's one of the things, that's also another piece of technology with the hybrids that have really made the game a little bit more fun for the average golfer.

When people get to this level, they break down their games. They're going to realize how many shots they're spending from a hundred yards on in. And if they want some different help, they're going to start looking at different wedges that fill gaps more precisely instead of an extra hybrid, I think. That's one of the uses.

Actually, that's one of our local advisors, Helen Curtin. You're one of the great pros here in the St. Louis area. Helen helped us out by the first time taking these out, she was doing wedge clinics with her classes. So basically taking out and saying, you know, we're just going to do short game wedges.

And we're going to do so you can get a video of your swing, full swing, three quarter, half swing. And so you know exactly how far you can get it back and then exactly how far the shot ends up going. So now you can dial it in. So now you don't want to think of yardage. Just think, here's how far I'm taking it back. And I know how far that's going to go. And so she would run these wedge clinics and short game clinics using our launch monitor.

And it was very, very successful. So, yeah, it doesn't always have to be how far pull out driver and try to figure out how far to hit it. A lot of it is just understanding your yardages, understanding whether it's a half shot, three quarter shot, full shot, understanding how far it really is going. Well, it's so true and hard for the folks that really want to get better. This tool is a necessity because it will break it down and give them all the necessary data as you spoke. But it will also tell them, you know, for the guys that just want to hit it further. Yeah, you know, you probably don't need this.

But for the folks that are interested in lowering their handicap, shooting better scores, this tool is so dynamic for them. Yeah, I remember when I was back when we were about both back out on on tour together, you on one side of that, that's me on the other. I remember I was we got to work. We kind of got to work with Peter Costas.

Peter, whether advisor decided to never forget Peter. When we were talking, he said, remember, our practice doesn't make perfect practice makes permanent. So if you're at the range and you're just hitting ball, all you're doing is grooving whatever whatever move you have. And you're just moving that in deeper and deeper and deeper. And you're much better off hitting fewer balls, but working on working on the right group, making sure that you're hitting the right thing. And that always stuck with me. And we talk about that all the time when we when we're talking about our mobile launch monitor, because it is a practice device.

It is a device out in the range. And here, finally, if you're most of us go to the range to work on something, right, we're going there maybe to relax, but we're working on something on our game. And so now you have some some actionable insights to really work on it, as opposed to just groove whatever move that you currently have. I so appreciate people like you that have this insight into the game and want to get in there and tinker because it makes it so much easier for people like me that don't have a clue about that sort of stuff.

I really appreciate your time. And I really appreciate what you're doing. It's fun. Hey, we always say that we are those of us in the industry. We sell hope because we're all we're all we're all golfers. We're all frustrated golfers. We all want to we all are.

You know, we all remember the good round that are trying to just recover more good shots. And and we should all hope but hopefully we sell a way that's a little bit more than just hope in terms of that strategy to get a little bit better. Well, thanks so much.

I really appreciate the time and folks need to follow you. They need to let us know how they can they can find this this tool and get some help with their game. Yeah, please visit us.

You know, website obviously the best that Soto dot com r a p s o d o dot com. You'll see it. You'll see our golf technology. There are our time in sports baseball football technology.

They read our story. And yeah, you really need to do yourself a favor and learn a little bit more about how data can can help improve your game. I think it does make the game a little bit more enjoyable to know more about about the lives of what's going on with it with your swing where the ball's going. And that's going to wrap up the art you interview and it's going to wrap up the back nine.

Don't go anywhere. John and I will break it down on the Mickel of Ultra 19th hole. This is golf with Jay Delson. Attention golfers, do you want to improve your game? Of course you do.

The first step is getting to diagnose the area or areas that need your attention. Please listen up. Rapsodo dot com. That's Rapsodo dot com. It's a portable launch monitor that interacts with your phone.

Nothing better for you to use when you are practicing indoors in the winter. You will know your ball speed, your club at speed, spin rates, dispersions. Everything you need to know is on this device. And at checkout, if you enter the code delsing, you will receive one hundred dollars off the price of the Rapsodo launch monitor.

That's right. Enter my last name delsing when you check out and get one hundred dollars off the price. Rapsodo dot com.

That's Rapsodo dot com. Hey, St. Louis, the Ascension charity classic presented by Emerson is back this September. Don't miss the excitement. The PGA Tour's best will 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 Ascension charity classic dot com. 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. 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 is Golf with Jay Delsing. To learn more about the game of golf, see the latest equipment, get golfing tips from a PGA Pro. Log on to jdelsinggolf.com. The 19th hole is presented by Michelob Ultra.

Hey, thanks for staying with us. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. We just finished 18 holes. We're running into my favorite portion of the show, the Michelob Ultra 19th hole.

Are you ready? All right, so John, what stood out most to you? This interview with Art, this technology, it is a tidal wave. What stood out most to you?

The whole thing. I just really appreciated where he came from. He's walked the walk through technology for many years from many different aspects.

Brought the credibility way, way up. And it's cutting edge. I guess the thing is, if I had to throw one thing out there to answer your question, it's that he believes that it's cutting edge information that we can get with an unbelievably strong price. And he's right on the edge of bringing that to the average person. Yeah, the top teaching pros have it, some of the top players have it, but now we all get to have it and it's in our pocket. It's right in front of us. It's kind of the next, it's when the iPhone started getting cool in that world.

So I think that's what's probably the most exciting, but I love the whole story. Well, John, when you start thinking about the cost of a track man, you know, the tour player is walking in and out of his hotel every single day with a $25,000 piece of equipment that is the size of your, you know, your laptop that you travel with. When Art starts talking about how close they are to the accuracy of that in a little bitty unit that fits in your pocket, I mean, you're really talking about something. So this Rapsodo product is $499.

If you entered the name Delsing in a checkout, it'll save you a hundred bucks. So you could basically get this product for $400. I mean, when you think about what your iPhone costs now and what your driver costs now, this thing's standard equipment almost. Well, and not to get too much into the weeds in this, but just think of when he talks about how, what you can do with it and get the information and easily transferred almost in a zoom type of a setting, with your instructor, there's many ways to look at this, that all that stuff's going to save you money left and right relative to getting instructions, relative to the quality of what you're going to get, relative to the depth and the consistency, what you're going to get. Because one thing I think we should point out a little bit, Jay, golf pros, tour pros, they don't get like a lesson every other month or a couple times a year. If they're not feeling great about it, they're flying their guy in and he's watching every single shot, or even if they're feeling great about it, he's watching every single shot. This is the amateur's opportunity to take it to the next level and get away from those once or two times a summer, getting a lesson from the pro. We can get a whole lot more out of the pro now when it's made this easy.

Oh, there's no question. John, that's my favorite component about the Rapsodo is the coaching segment. When you can transfer that sort of information, you can get a lesson by just filming it, but you're not going to have nearly the interaction and the possibilities until you hook the Rapsodo up with it.

And I mean, in a day and age where, you know how it is when we're hanging out with golfers and there's not a time that people don't come by and ask me how I can improve my game, how can I lower my scores, how can I do this? You need to know what to fix before you can even jump in. You use that a lot in your business model. If you don't know where you're beginning, you don't know where you're going to go, so to speak. It's all based on awareness. You're right. And that's obviously the business foundation. And it's the same.

It's the same with everything. Where are you? Where do you want to go?

And then what actions should you take? And this gives you that opportunity, that information, and then communicating with the pro. Just imagine some of the old videos we'd shoot even with our phones and send it here, there, and about.

You could only see so much. Now you're sending this over there with X amount of metrics. And I love what he talked about there, too, by the way.

We don't need to know 12 different metrics in most cases. We probably need four or five, three or four to pay attention to or whatever you're working on with your pro. That's a big piece of this thing as well. But then you put those pieces of the pie together, and it makes so much more sense of what this is really about. And it's not just about gripping it, ripping it, swinging it as hard as you can. It's a combination of the pieces that really makes you get the results that you want. And, you know, John, here's what's fascinating to me, and here's what I think the average guy can pull away from this.

The dispersion. Most people don't really know, you know, that when they pull their 3-wood out, the majority of their misses are this way or that way. Just by filming these sessions and using this thing, it's going to record these shots and give you a database of what your misses look like.

Just that information alone can be eye-opening. When you realize you missed 90% of your 3-woods to the right, and you get this one hole that's a bugaboo for you that you keep pulling your driver left and hitting it in the water, you pull your 3-wood out and go, I don't hardly ever hit this thing left. This is my club for this team.

That just makes just a boatload of sense for that. I think the other thing is relative to any of us, but we'll say the average player out there, is the old feel isn't real. So this is going to tell you what's going on with your club face, with the ball speed and stuff. We might feel, oh, no, there's no way I closed at that time.

Well, guess what? The ball told you you did, and now Rafsoto told you you did. I think that's a place that can really help a lot, because when we're out there as amateurs trying to make this thing go where we want it to go, if we can't get that true information and we're just trying to trust our feel, and even in the case of trusting our eyes, it's not going to work. Technology is going to help you get over that hump and just say, hey, your club face is still closed or it's still open. It just is. So you can start identifying and tracking your feel with that. John, it's just information, using the information the right way. For you folks that are intimidated by this, try to get over it.

This is a really, really simple way to really help you understand how to improve your game. It is super important. John, this is going to wrap up the 19th hole. I want to say this is our last week for entering the tickets between the bench giveaway with Powers Insurance of St. Louis. You get to go to the game with Tim Davis, who is a COO of Powers Insurance, a great guy, scratch golfer, by the way, and myself, and we get to sit in between the benches and watch the Blues play Pittsburgh Penguins and watch Sid the Kid play at the Enterprise Center. That's on March 17th, so this will be the last week we can advertise this and get you some of these tickets.

So powersinsurance.com slash go Blues. And before we go, I want to announce this week's golf ball winner. You get a dozen TP5s coming your way. Neil Margis. They're coming your way for Pearly. This is Jay Delsing. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. We'll talk to you next week. It up straights St. Louis. Powers Insurance and Risk Management is sponsoring a VIP St. Louis Blues game experience for two lucky winners. Enter to win a front row seat behind the visitor's bench and join me, Jay Delsing, along with Tim Davis from Powers Insurance, as we take in all the action on March 17th against the Pittsburgh Penguins. That's right, Sid Crosby will be in town. All you have to do to enter is go to powersinsurance.com slash go Blues and sign up.

I'll announce the winner the week before. Powers Insurance is a family owned agency here in St. Louis. They specialize in robust insurance policies designed to provide coverage that is tailor made for your personal needs. That's Powers Insurance and Risk Management. Again, sign up for these great Blues tickets. At powersinsurance.com slash go Blues. Folks, if 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 Byrne. 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?

That's no problem. They have Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, anything you want. Colin and the Dean team of Kirkwood will go get it if they don't have it. Call them at 314-966-0303 or go to DeanTeamVWKirkwood.com.

The Dean team, for all your car buying needs. This has been Golf with Jay Delsingh. To learn more about Jay and the services he can provide any golfer, visit jaydelsinghgolf.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.

That's jaydelsinghgolf.com. Peloton, let's go. This holiday, with the right music and the right motivation from world-class instructors. We're going to pick it up a notch.

It's the holiday season. You might just surprise yourself with what you're capable of. Work out to thousands of live and on-demand classes. From running to cycling to yoga. Try Peloton risk-free with a 30-day home trial. New members only. Not available in remote locations. See additional terms at 1peloton.com slash home dash trial. Peloton. Motivation that moves you.