Taylormade's Jeff Thornhill on Equipment Fitting - - Golf With Jay Delsing

Jay Delsing spent 25 years on the PGA Tour and is a lifetime member of the PGA Tour and PGA of America. Now he provides his unique perspective as a golfer and network broadcaster. It's time to go On The Range with Jay Delsing. Hey, good morning. It's golf with Jay Delsing and I'm your host Jay Perley.

What's going on? We got about eight inches of snow in St. Louis. What's Arizona looking like? That's good, Pearl. That's perfect. That's just great.

That's all we need to know. You got a tan. You probably got sunscreen on right now, don't you? I've got a little sunscreen residue.

I did wash up before the show. And just a quick update though. The Phoenix Open is just around the corner and it looks spectacular. It is going to be a jamming, happening place.

I predict that in the near future, the whole golf course will be like playing in a tunnel. There is so many stands up. There are so many things up. It is crazy. It is spectacular.

I got a plan for maybe talking to somebody about that. But anyway, so we formatted a show like A Round of Golf. The first segment is called The On The Range segment. It's brought to you by our friends at TaylorMade Golf. And we have Jeff Thornhill on this week who is the Midwest rep and is absolutely kick and ass for TaylorMade. But we really appreciate.

You got to check out the Stealth Driver. They're also giving away, and we are giving away each week, a dozen TP5 golf balls compliments at Jeff. So all you have to do to enter is send me an email at jdelsongolf.com. Put the word balls in there somewhere and you will be entered into the drawing pearl. We are getting so many emails about this.

It's really, really cool. Social media pearl, you've got eight minutes, eight seconds this week. Well, I'm glad I don't have eight minutes.

I really don't need eight seconds. But I think at this point, the world feels a little upside down. We got canceled again because we're speaking the truth. So we just have to hold tight while I look for some alternative social media sites. That's awesome.

Wow, that was the biggest load of crap. Okay, so we want to do thank Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue Painting and Refinishing 314-805-2132. Great people. They are doing great work on the inside of your house right now. Inside is better than outside.

It looks like Alaska here in St. Louis. But give Bob and Kathy a call. All right, Pearl. So I have an interview with Jeff Thornhill this week. Great guy. First of all, great guy, lover of the game, grower of the game and such a knowledgeable dude when it comes to all things golf. I loved it. I loved the interview. I'm looking forward to the listeners being able to hear it.

And again, the love of the game, the love of what he does, his intensity, his sense of purpose for it. It's fun to listen to. We got to give a shout out to Rapsodo.

They're a sponsor of the show. Guys, go to Rapsodo.com. Enter Delsing when you check out and you'll get $100 off of your Rapsodo Launch Monitor. This thing is super cool. It's got a coaching function. You could get a remote lesson from anybody in the world right on this phone and using this device.

Go to Rapsodo.com. It is really badass. All right, Pearl. I went to the memorial service for Bob Golby this week and I was just blown away. I got to see the Masters Trophy, touch the Masters Trophy. They had such cool memorabilia there. It was a great celebration of life.

There was also, and we mentioned this when we had Bob on the show. There was a letter from Bobby Jones written to Bob Golby saying, I'm sorry that you've gotten so much heat about the way that this Masters tournament went down. You're a worthy champion. You deserve it.

You didn't do anything wrong. You know, this guy, Bob Golby, all he did was go out and shoot 66 on Masters Sunday in 1968. Had Roberto DiVincenzo sign for an incorrect score. He signed for one shot higher. So instead of Bob and Roberto DiVincenzo being in a playoff, Bob won outright. And the public went crazy.

And it's really super unfortunate. But, Pearl, I got to see Jay Haas. I got to see Jerry Haas. Rob Strano was over there.

Our buddy Dillard Pruitt. It was just a really cool golf community celebration of such a life well lived, well played. Boy, Jay, I didn't know that the missigned card would have ended up in a tie.

I thought it was for DiVincenzo to win. So that's interesting as could be. And, yeah, only the media and the folks that don't know what's going on could give Golby a hard time for that. I mean, the rules are the rules.

The integrity of the game is why the game is what the game is. So, quite interesting. I'm glad that you cleared that up for me at least. Yeah, no, it was really something. And, man, the Masters trophy is this sterling replica of the Masters clubhouse. It's really not very big, John. It's only probably, oh, 14 inch square.

And it's only probably five, six inches tall. At least, you know, that's what Bob got. And I looked at some of the other trophies. He won the L.A. Open in 19, I think it was in 70, Pearl, or somewhere in the 70s.

And I guarantee you the L.A. Open didn't spend $8 on the trophy that he got. I mean, it was just incredible. We talked about the old day of the tour where those guys would go out and they would travel together and they would actually make their own pairings.

You know, so you and I would be in a car together and we'd call, you know, Steve Payton and say, hey, come on, the three of us will play together in the tournament this week. And it was just, yeah, it was really pretty crazy. Yeah, it was really pretty interesting. Did you ever play with Bob Golby? Just a little, a couple holes here and there. You know, never did get the chance.

I really wish, I really wish I would. He was such a cool person. Really, we called him like the godfather of golf here in St. Louis. And he's from the metro east over in Belleville.

But just a really great, I mean, one of the founding guys, Pearl, are the champions to her right now. And what we're seeing now is because of what he and Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer and all the big, big names threw together and got committed to doing. How was Dillard Pruitt there and how was his kind of take on the situation? Obviously, Bob had a beautiful life and all that kind of stuff, but it's still hard to lose somebody that you're close to. Yeah, it was. And Jay Haas's mom was there, who is Bob's sister. And she's, Bob was 92, John.

And Bob's sister, Jay Haas's mom, is older. I think she's 95 and she sat there and she had it all together. And yeah, it was just really cool. It was a casual format. It was over at St. Clair Country Club. We had Big Mike was there who was on the show earlier. He's a general manager, did a great guy.

Pearl Logan from the Effingham area that used to be at Effingham Country Club is now the head pro there. Great kid. Said to say hi to you and is doing just great.

Sure. That's awesome. I'm glad he got that location. That's fantastic.

Yeah, good guy and a good player himself. Absolutely. All right, so Pearl, that'll wrap up the On the Range segment. I'm going to do the tip of the cap. It's brought to you by our friends at Dean, team of Kirkwood, 314-966-0303. And the tip of the cap was just to the Golby family. Our hats, our hearts go out to them. It was a great community thing for us to all get together to celebrate Bob's life. And it was, I felt so special, so honored to be part of that group. Kevin Golby, Kai Golby, Bob's sons were there, just did a really, really commendable job. So the Dean team tip of the cap goes to the Golby family.

Kai, Kevin, the entire clan. If you need any sort of vehicle, and I've got a new SUV from Brandy and Colin and I just love it. Call them. They have great new vehicles. They have used vehicles, 314-966-0303. That'll wrap up the On the Range segment.

Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back for the front nine. Golf with Jay Delson. On the Range is brought to you by TaylorMade Golf. I want to give a shout out to my friend Colin Berndt over at the Dean team of Kirkwood. Folks, if you're looking for any sort of vehicle, I know it says Volkswagen of Kirkwood. Colin has a parking lot full of new and used cars.

I was just over there the other day. I bought a used VW Passat for my daughter, Jo, who just totaled it in an accident. She texted me, by the way, and said, Dad, I tapped a car in front of me. She tapped it so well that the car is totaled. Anyway, I talked to Colin and he is working out a new vehicle for us.

We went over and looked. There is a huge selection of cars over there. My buddy, Pearly, that does a show with me had bought a used Toyota truck from Colin and just loved the service and loved the vehicle.

314-966-0303. This is like dealing with family over there. These are great people. Colin is there.

His right hand person, Brandy, is there to do anything they can to get you in the vehicle you want. Give them a call today. Congratulations to this year's Musial Award recipients. Good sportsmanship will again be on display at the Ascension Charity Classic presented by Emerson. David Toms was our first champion, but St. Louis and local charities were the real winners at the inaugural event.

Together, we were able to donate more than $800,000 to area charities. Thank you, St. Louis, and get ready for professional golf to return September 5th through the 11th, 2022. Hi, Jay Delsing here from my friends at SSM Health Physical Therapy. St. Louis Golf Expo is March 18th through 20th, signaling spring is just around the corner. SSM Health Physical Therapy will have members of their golf program at the Expo to help answer your questions. Mention my name to receive special pricing on their golf screen and have a chance to win a free K-Vest evaluation. These evaluations are awesome. There's 80 locations in the St. Louis area.

Call 800-518-1626 or visit them on the web at ssmphysicaltherapy.com. Your therapy, our passion. Grab your clubs. We're headed to the front nine on Golf with Jay Delsing.

Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. Pearly is with me, and we are headed to the front nine.

It is brought to you by Ascension Charity Classic. Man Pearl, September 5th through 11th, Norwood Hills. Got to come out, check out the best field the Champions Tour will have all year in St. Louis. Cannot wait. Love it.

I can't wait either. I'm hoping you're playing. That's all I can say. All right, so here we go. Let's just jump right into the Jeff Thornhill interview. He of TaylorMade Golf.

He has a five-state area. Just absolutely kicking ass. This is Jeff Thornhill. Thorny, thanks for joining me this morning. Thanks for having me, Jay. I'm excited to talk to you and be on the show. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

We have so much to talk about, and you've done some incredible things. So you're not a born St. Louisan, so I'm not going to ask you where you went to high school and spare you all that stupid stuff. But you grew up in Michigan and started loving the game when you were a little kid, didn't you?

I did, yeah. We've been in St. Louis for four years. That's the length of time I've been with TaylorMade. Prior to that, I worked for Nike in the golf division for almost 14 years. Born and raised in Michigan, had a couple different assignments around the Midwest. But yeah, St. Louis is definitely feeling like home. It's a great town, and it's really exceeded our expectations since we moved here. So, Jeff, how did you get involved in the game? I always love this story, everyone's story, because there's always a different way that the game kind of bites you and then never lets go.

Yeah, very good question. I was always into sports and activities growing up. I'm 6'2". I was this height when I was in eighth grade, so basketball was always kind of in my DNA and played a lot of competitive basketball growing up and had a love for just kind of gear in general. And then my grandfather on my mom's side, they lived close to my kind of middle school. I would often go over there after school. And he was big into golf and kind of got me started and took me out to a golf course my first time.

And I definitely got the bug really quickly. Golf was kind of a hobby at first, and then it became really the deep passion of my life. And it kind of went from there where I started working at a small little driving range and then a golf retail store. And it just kind of grew from there where golf is definitely outside of friends and family obligations. Golf is probably the most important thing in my life. I love it, bud, because we can both geek out together when we're having lunch about you can get into some of your numbers or some of the other equipment stuff that we're going to talk about in a little bit.

But I love that kind of the same story. It just kind of bit me when I was young and I just wanted to be involved in it any way I could. Yeah, for sure. I'm competitive about my game. I'm not the greatest player, but I think of myself as a solid player. I'm constantly wanting to get better. I'm always thinking about the game and my game. Obviously, it's also my career and my craft, but I try and find time each day to work on my golf game or things like that where I can improve and get better. So yeah, Jay, I appreciate the friendship for sure, and I think that's where things have kind of clicked with us. Yeah, it's awesome. So, bud, let's talk about your coming to St. Louis and taking this job with TaylorMade because TaylorMade in this Midwest area where we are now was, gosh, it wasn't, let's just say it's come a long way. Talk to us a little bit about your numbers.

Yeah, I appreciate that. So definitely ebbs and flows to, I would say, every business, especially the golf industry itself. So there were a lot of changes that happened in the golf industry. You could connect a lot of that to Tiger Woods in a lot of ways, but I had a lot of friends that worked at TaylorMade and always admired the brands and the strength of the product. What you saw on TV on the PGA Tour and whatnot, and Jay, you played a lot of TaylorMade products over the years with your career. So I definitely had kind of an attraction to the brand, you know, full disclosure. So I worked for Nike for a long, long time when Nike got out of the golf equipment business, the hard goods business that really changed the landscape in a lot of ways. And, you know, equipment is my passion, if you will, of the golf industry. And so I wanted to be a part of TaylorMade. I knew some people within the company and this marketplace opened up, gosh, start of 2018, and we've been here ever since. And I got to tell you, when there's a shift, like what happened with Nike and Nike getting out of the business as they did, there's a shift in another opportunity. And that's kind of what happened here, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely. So I like to use this statistic, but back in, you know, 2016, Nike had 18 contracted athletes on the PGA Tour playing, you know, equipment throughout the bag. Within two weeks of them exiting the equipment space, 14 of those 18 players switched into a TaylorMade driver.

The average player gained seven or eight yards off the tee with one player gaining over 12 yards. So I just kind of knew at that point that that was something that I wanted to be a part of. And then Jay, you kind of asked about, you know, the business in the last couple years. I'll just give you kind of top level, you know, we've been really fortunate that obviously as the game has grown, we've grown as well. And we're in a really good spot. So really optimistic about the future, especially excited with the upcoming launch of our stealth family of carbon woods.

Oh, my gosh, I can't wait to talk about the stealth. But I gotta tell you, there was a time where TaylorMade didn't even have a ball product to offer anybody even, you know, even I'm not talking about just the tour players, you guys have made big strides in the ball market. Yes, that's very accurate. We're up to a really nice number in terms of market share. We've grown a lot in the last couple years, I just think about the number of facilities that are doing really nice golf ball with business with us. So yeah, we are really bullish on the future of our golf ball business in the United States. And it's been fun to grow it and be a part of it. We're definitely you know, a top player in the ball business. Our product is selling incredibly well.

So yeah, it's been a fun ride for sure. And folks, if you're wondering how here at the golf with Jay delsing show, we're able to give away a dozen TP five golf balls every single week by just, you know, sending me an email. It's Jeff right here, and he's responsible. So when you get that dozen TP fives in the mail, you can thank Jeff Thornhill and TaylorMade golf for sure. That's why we did it and how we're doing it.

And Jeff, we appreciate that little bit too. Yeah, I'm excited for sure to partner with you guys on that and just help get you know the TP five and more players hands. It's a great ball and and same here.

So I am in the process. I just got fitted with the program golf CJ over there. It's a great guy and got fitted and I'm going to get the new 770 TaylorMade irons and man I'm excited about these irons.

Yeah, they're fantastic. So 770 was really born off of the success of the P790 iron that we launched in 2017 with the first generation. So really redefined or defined this players distance category where P790 was originally designed for kind of a mid handicap player and above. And it just kind of exploded on us where we got really avid tournament players into the product, even up to high handicap players because it's an aspirational look. The performance of it is off the charts.

It's a hollow cavity iron supported by what we call speed foam inside the face to enhance the sound, the feel and the ball speed and then we mix it with tungsten and a really unique recipe and it just it performs for a lot of different player types. So we took that feedback. We even had wins on the PGA tour with full sets of P790. So, you know, some of the better player feedback that we got was, hey, I love this iron, but I'd love to see it in a smaller package.

And so the P770 was born. We call it compact players distance. But for somebody that, you know, likes to play a lot, that is a little bit more discerning on what they like to see in their products.

That's where the 770 comes into play. So yeah, Jay, I look at a player like you. I mean, you grew up playing muscle back blades.

It very much has that type of shape and look at a dress. But man, under the hood, it packs a lot of help and a lot of forgiveness and will also help you, you know, hit it a little bit further with every club in your bag. And so Jeff, this is so cool. Talk a little bit about why this is so important. The fitting process in getting an iron like the 770 or something similar in the hands of even a 10 or 20 handicap guy is so important or gal for that matter. Yeah, really good question. So you hear it a lot on TV or in print digital advertising in the golf space about getting fitted and the importance of it. And, you know, there's some barriers to that.

You know, it can be a little bit of an intimidating process for somebody that hasn't been through it before with, you know, someone kind of analyzing and watching every swing and every impact that you make. But I just use this analogy to kind of make it a little bit simpler. You know, I talked about myself and how tall I was at a young age. I think about shoes like we all wear different size shoes.

And if you're going, you know, for a walk or a run, you certainly don't want to do that in a shoe that's the wrong size or not right for you. And when it comes to golf equipment, you know, unless your body type is drastically changing or the way that you deliver the club is drastically and I say drastically is drastically changing. You're going to do the same motion most of the time. And so there's two types of things that we look at.

We look at it from a static standpoint when you're not moving and then dynamically when you're moving. So, you know, with golf equipment, if you've ever been to one of our fitting events here around the area, we have, you know, the whole kit and caboodle with a track man and lots of different flavors of shafts. And it can be a little overwhelming. The long and short of it is there's a few combinations that are going to be right for every player type, depending on how you swing the club, the speed, your transition from the top of your swing to the bottom of your swing, your downswing transition. And that's where fitting comes into play. You know, Jay, we've played a few times together and I'm not at your level, but I'm good enough. And, you know, we would play very different equipment because we swing the club differently.

I have a tech rep team underneath me with a full timer as well. There's about 173 events across my marketplace in 2021, but we really try and make the fitting process a true consumer experience where you can learn from it. And once we get you in the right combination, man, it's the benefits are off the charts. And I'll kind of close by saying this, like, you know, going through a fitting, if you've never been through it before, we're not going to take you from shooting 95 to 85 overnight. But what it will do is it'll get the golf ball starting online and staying online better and then also more consistency throughout your set. So if you're going to become an avid player and play on a regular basis, you're going to spend the money because golf equipment is not cheap. As we know, if you're going to spend the money, you should do yourself a favor of going through the fitting process to get what's right for ultimately the way that you swing the club. OK, that's going to wrap up the front nine.

Don't go anywhere. We'll have the second half of this Jeff Thornhill interview on the back nine. This is Golf with Jay Delson. Marcon Appliance Parts Company of St. Louis, Missouri, would like to recognize and applaud the thousands of companies and volunteers who donated their time and money to make Wreaths Across America program a national success on December 18th, 2021. Wreaths Across America is a national wreath laying program to decorate the graves of our beloved veterans and national cemeteries across the country. Marcon Appliance Parts is proud to be a local sponsor and sent volunteers to participate at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. For more details, visit wreathsacrossamerica.org.

Marcon Appliance Parts Company is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and is the largest distributor of major appliance parts in North America and a proud distributor of General Electric parts. Hey guys, I know you've heard golf is booming, and it really is. There are more people playing golf today than ever before.

And you know who else is doing great? My friends at Whitmore Country Club. I don't know if you know about their membership, but if you join at Whitmore Country Club, there's 90 holes. They give you access to the links of Dardeen, the Golf Club of Wentzville, and the Missouri Bluffs. And the cart fees are included in the membership, so you're not going to get deemed for a cart fee.

There's no food or beverage minimums, no assessments, no nothing. Just great golf, great places to eat. They have a large pool complex, three tennis courts. They've got a kids club.

You can drop your children off you and your significant other. Your wife can go out play a little golf. You can call them at 636-926-9622. And when you go over there, poke your head in the golf shop and say hi to my friend Bummer. He is terrific.

He wants to help you with your game, and he'll show you around. David Toms was our first champion, but St. Louis and local charities were the real winners at the Ascension Charity Classic presented by Emerson. Record setting attendance, some of golf's greatest legends, an exciting finish, and with the help of our partners and all of you, we were able to donate more than $800,000 to area charities.

Thank you, St. Louis, and get ready for professional golf to return September 5th through the 11th, 2022. Jay here, and I'm here to tell you about my favorite strength training program that has helped me play better golf, and I think it'll help you. That's right, I'm talking about 20 minutes to fitness. 20 minutes once or twice a week is all you need to stay strong, flexible, and in shape to play your best golf. 20 minutes to fitness targets the muscle groups used in the golf swing because you always work with a trainer on physical therapy equipment. And that causes a reduction in your chance to get exercise-related injury.

It knocks it down to almost zero. Folks, I've been doing this for over eight years now, and I am in the best shape of my life. If you have never worked with a trainer before, you've got to give it a try. It's a game changer. But don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Your first session is free.

That's right, it's absolutely free. There are two locations to serve you. One in Chestfield, one in Clayton. Visit 20minutestoffitness.com to learn more.

20 minutes to fitness works for me, and it can work for you. We're halfway there. It's time for the Back Nine on Golf with Jay Delcie. Welcome back. I'm your host, Jay. I've got Perley with me. We are headed to the Back Nine, which is brought to you by my friends at Pro-Am Golf. Guys, get fitted.

I'm telling you, it helped me so much. Go see CJ. 314-647-8054 or reach out to them at pro-amgolfusa.com.

John, I've got over 10 people have reached out to me, and we're trying to get this coordinated with CJ to get them fitted. And you're on that list, Pearl. You're number 11. You have got to get on this list.

These guys will help so much. I think I need to be fitted for a helmet that shocks me whenever I'm sticking negatively, but maybe they can add that too. I got something for you. Yeah, you can use Cooper's dog necklace. We'll turn it up to 10, and we'll just fry your neck. That's perfect. I need something.

I definitely need fitting, but I also need a fitness or a shock collar or an element. All right, so let's go to the second half. While you guys are thinking about pearly shock collar, let's go to the second half of the Jeff Thornhill interview with TaylorMade Golf. Jeff, I can't tell people enough.

That's kind of been my mantra early this year in 2022. This stuff is so important, and just having gone through it myself and having this remarkable light come on for me, knowing that the clubs that I have been playing for the last eight or nine years, the shafts are too strong for me and too light for me. It's made a huge difference, and I'm not trying to sell clubs here.

I'm trying to increase people's enjoyment in the game, and I know that's a big deal for you too. Yeah, I mean, if you look at what the pandemic has done to the golf industry, it's brought a lot more players into the game. As an equipment manufacturer and a premium golf brand, I feel like one of our responsibilities is to try and keep people in the game, and that's where playing the right equipment makes such a difference.

Jay, you talked about yourself, and you're not as young as you used to be. Neither am I, but I look at my equipment, for example, and I went to a slightly heavier iron shaft towards the end of last year, and it's really helped my swing stay more consistent where I'm able to hit more greens. It repeats a little bit better. I maybe am leaving a touch of distance on the table, but kind of looking at the numbers on TrackMan, the benefits were so much greater of having something that's significantly more consistent than something that's going a touch further.

So yeah, it's critically important to playing good golf but also having a better time on the golf course because that's what it's all about. Oh my gosh, 100%. I'm going to keep harping on this, but we've got to move on because we have so many other cool things to talk about. Let's just jump right into the stealth. So one of the things, Jeff, please talk about this because you come from a much better point of understanding than I do, but the amount of money and time and expertise that you and your company are putting into this is just front and center and display with the stealth, isn't it?

Yeah, it's pretty darn cool. So TaylorMade was founded as a company in 1979, so we're talking 43 years ago at this point. And the company was invented, came about because of the first product we brought to market, the original one or the first steel-headed driver. You know, back then everything was made of natural wood, persimmon was hand-shaped, beautiful designs, but really from a technology standpoint, didn't really do a ton to help with performance.

So a salesman actually named Gary Adams came up with this idea out of McHenry, Illinois on the north side of Chicago to invent a metal-headed driver. We're talking 1979. And it really kind of took the golf world by storm. You know, the advancement in technology and innovation ultimately led to a lot more distance off the tee.

So that's all the way back, you know, 42, 43 years ago. If you look at the golf equipment space over that period of time, the last few kind of marks in the sand, if you will, of innovation. So the next one was when titanium came to be in drivers, fairways and rescues. So titanium we discovered was a lighter material than steel. So the first thing that happened is club heads started to get bigger.

Well, when club heads got bigger, they ultimately got more forgiving. And then we learned about titanium that because it's lighter and stronger, you could make the material, the face itself, thinner. And that led to kind of the advancement of, you know, hot-faced drivers, thinner-faced drivers. If you look at the way TaylorMade is connected to that, you know, we had the 300 series, which in the early 2000s was the first design where more than one driver was right for each player.

We had three different drivers for three different player types. From there, we iterated to the 500 series, the first titanium driver with what we call inverted cone technology, or a multi-material face to improve the performance outside of the center of the face. So we've been on this journey ever since then. Our people have firmly believed, and this has come about for a long time, but we firmly believe that titanium-faced drivers have reached their limit of performance. So I kind of talked about, you know, TaylorMade is an innovative company.

That's what we were founded on. We've been on this journey for over 20 years. We've kind of known for that period of time that titanium was going to reach a limit. And so we've got an incredibly talented group of R&D folks in Carlsbad, California, and they knew there was a better material out there. So carbon has been incorporated into driver technology really for the last 10 years, the crown, the sole, some different geometries. But our people have been trying carbon in the face of a driver for over 20 years, a bit of a start-stop process. Carbon is a lighter material than steel or titanium. It's also a stronger material. So carbon has been used, you know, in airplanes and Formula 1 cars, but man, golf with a driver at impact is kind of a high-speed collision.

So definitely had to figure out how to make that right. But kind of the long and short of it, so this carbon face that we've incorporated with stealth, it's significantly lighter than what metal or titanium faces have been in the past. It's about 40% lighter. So what this has done, and I'm not a physicist, so I can't necessarily explain the technical aspects behind it, but at impact, because this face is lighter, it's getting more energy or speed through the golf ball. And that result is that the ball speed, the speed at which the club, the ball leads the face, has increased pretty drastically.

Every player type that I've had hit this product on a launch monitor device has seen added speed, a measurable amount, which means more distance. So the company that invented the metal wood 42, 43 years ago, we are no longer making metal woods. We are making what we call carbon woods. We believe in this technology so much that we're putting a stake in the ground and making this big shift from the metal wood company to the carbon wood company. Tony, what a great way of explaining that.

Thank you for all the background. Barney Adams, oh my gosh, I remember Barney. And when you're an innovator like he and like his fellow folks at the early days of TaylorMade, man, that was an uphill battle.

I can remember people thinking he was nuts. Yeah, yeah, so Barney Adams was with Adams Golf, which became part of TaylorMade, but Gary Adams was actually a salesman in the upper Midwest that kind of came up with this idea and ran with it. I meant Gary, I'm sorry, but I do remember Barney is with Adams Golf as well. Thank you for correcting me. That's why you're telling that story and I'm supposed to be listening.

All good. So the stealth, I got to hit the stealth driver with you and, man, it is definitely a fast, hot phase, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I mean, it looks different. So we colored it red on purpose so it's visual so you can see it on TV, but the red phase creates a contrast between we've taken the driver and the finish is all black.

It looks really rich. We haven't had an all black driver since 2015, but what we kind of found is if it's too blacked out, it's hard to square it or align it. So we purposely made the face a slightly different color just to draw awareness and attention to it. But, yeah, it's the first time you hit it, it's an eye opener. We worked really hard to get the sound and feel right as well.

We went through like 13 different iterations on kind of the inside of the club to produce kind of that traditional rich, tailor made sound and feel that we've been known for for so long. So we didn't want to go away from that, but we wanted to highlight this technology. And then the other thing that we should touch on is the carbon space. You know, you may be wondering, man, carbon, that sounds like it's really thin, really light. It's actually a thicker face than what titanium was. It's 60 layers of carbon really made in a very precise way to maintain some of those technologies that I talked about prior, the inverted cone to maximize the performance on off-center faces, the twist face technology that we introduced in 2018, changing the shape of the face, how it shapes on the tail and the heel to help with off-center hits. So it's 60 layers of carbon and we've done extensive durability testing on it. Like I said, carbon is a stronger material than metal and we're really confident we wouldn't bring something to market if we didn't think it was going to be fantastic. And yeah, that's cool that you have that feedback from hitting it. I'm biased because, you know, this is what I do every day. But man, everyone I've showed this to, number one, is blown away by the look.

But once you hit it, it's really cool how it comes off the face, for sure. And what have been your early sales numbers looking like? Are you able to start taking orders yet?

Oh yeah, yeah. So I've had this product in hand since early November. I was out selling it to my marketplace kind of right after Labor Day, gearing up for the spring.

So yeah, I've been booking this product for, gosh, three, four, five months now. And the excitement around it, especially we lucked out, you know, Tiger coming back, everyone is really excited about. But when he came back for the PNC, we had been talking to him and he was excited to see this driver. He wanted to play it, which was really cool. So the timing was perfect where, you know, right before the holidays there, kind of a slow football weekend as well.

A lot of people were excited to see Tiger back. So that's really helped build the buzz. And the release dates, the launch date of the stealth family of Carbon Woods is actually Friday, February 4th. So we're not too far away from it. So it's been building up for a long time. You know, I can tell you in my marketplace that all of my customers, the golf courses, the golf retailers are super excited.

Hopefully we've got the Odor Book in a good spot and we'll kind of see what the consumer demand is. But yeah, we've done everything we can to get it ready for launch and we're almost there. Oh my gosh, Jeff, thank you so much. This is Jeff Thornhill. He is with TaylorMade Golf. This is the Golf with Jay Delsing show and we are talking all things TaylorMade, all things innovation and technology wise. I don't think, as I look back at this in my career and what I know and what I don't know, I don't think there's been a more creative, technically technology-based company than you guys. Maybe Callaway comes close, but you guys have always, to me, led the innovation. Yeah, I appreciate that.

I think that's a compliment for sure. I mean, that's what the company was founded on, kind of this disruptive innovation. We view ourselves as the best performance brand in golf. And we don't bring a product to market unless it's measurably better in performance than what the past product was. We also believe when we have a revolutionary step in technology and if you think back to all the major changes in the golf equipment space, we've been at the forefront of that. When something's revolutionary, we'd really like to put a stake in the ground and rename it and name it a new franchise. When you look at Stealth, like we were talking about, that was actually our kind of internal code name for a number of years as we worked on this project. And it just kind of made sense for that to be the product name when we came to market.

So certainly appreciate the compliment. I know our people in Carlsbad, that's something they work for as well. So it's a cool time for TaylorMade and we feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface of where we can go. Well, Thorny, as we wrap this up, tell folks how they can follow the TaylorMade products, how they can follow you or stay in touch with you or see if there's a fitting coming someplace near them or even a demo day somewhere where they can get a look at this cool TaylorMade equipment.

Yeah, great question. So the easiest way, if you go on our website, www.TaylorMadeGolf.com, it's a really clean, easy website to navigate. But there's a tab at the top for fitting. You can search on that. So there's a tab on the top labeled custom.

Underneath that, there's a tab for fittings. You can search for our fitting events within your zip code, change the distance radius and kind of see everything that's around there. So any public-facing fitting event is up on our website.

Consumers can sign up for fittings in advance. The cool thing is when you come to one of our events, my tech team, every appointment is in our iPad. When we get there, we have every shaft option. We either have a Trackman or a GC quad with us.

It's a great experience. We're there to help find better equipment for you, and we're pretty confident that once someone goes through that, that they're able to see the measurable gain and ultimately, hopefully, want to buy our product. I try and be as visible as I can within the marketplace, cover a big area. So yeah, I hope to cross paths with a lot of consumers at fitting events, but I've got a really strong team of fitters underneath me that does a great job. So we're definitely gearing up for spring. It's kind of seasonal with the weather. We'd love to be outside right now, fitting people into stealth, but Mother Nature won't cooperate, it seems like, here in January. So our outdoor events are really going to get started in the marketplace in late March, April, May, June are our busiest months for sure. But in the meantime, we're doing some indoor events at some of the retailers around town in our fitting parts. So our demo clubs with all the different shaft options have already landed at our key partners around the marketplace. So they have all the stuff that they need to sell a stealth product. If you want to try something prior to the weather kind of breaking here, a lot of our key partners, and you mentioned Pro-Am, they've got their heads and shafts in stock and can get to work on letting consumers test it out and hopefully buy a stealth carbon wood driver.

Folks, if you've never done a demo day situation, it's like Christmas morning and you're eight years old again. It is, for a golfer, it is the coolest opportunity to get to try all these different shaft-head combinations and to have all of that modern technology. You mentioned the GC Quad and you mentioned the Trackman. I mean, these are state of the art. These are what the tour players use.

And folks, and Thornton, I think you'll like and appreciate this. When I talk to people about equipment, the guys and gals that are serious about the equipment, I say to them, look and watch and find out what the guys and gals that play on Sunday are playing. They're not going to play inferior equipment.

They're not going to have a club deal that doesn't give them the best opportunity to make and play their best. And that says it all for what TaylorMade is doing right now. Yeah, I think that's really well said. The one thing I will say is the demo day model of the past has definitely changed because of the pandemic. So, you know, the days of every company setting up on a range with their tent and being able to kind of walk the line and try everything, unfortunately, you know, those days have kind of come and gone. So we try and have these events be more targeted. We want it to be a more intimate experience where you're working one on one with a fitter as opposed to, you know, a large group of people around you and you're just trying to hit a driver from each company and kind of move on. So most of our fitting events tend to be kind of private environment.

You know, TaylorMade only type fitting events for that reason where, you know, we want to control the flow of people that are coming to try our stuff. You know, there's a lot of people that want to try it. But we also want to do it in a safe environment where, you know, we're not gathering in a large, small space with a lot of people at once and a lot of, you know, touching and contact on the equipment itself. So my tech team, you know, it's evolved as COVID has gone on, but we really do our best to sanitize the space and do it responsibly as well. So, yeah, it's a great experience.

It's not as open ended as it used to be for obvious reasons, but I think we're all kind of dealing with that and figuring it out. But, Jeff, that's a better experience anyway. I mean, how many if you're looking for a driver and you're going to walk the line, which I've seen so many people do, you're exhausted after two companies because you're hitting 10 or 15 drivers. I mean, this is a much better way to suss out a product. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, as an avid consumer, if I didn't work for this company, I mean, I would go to one of these or go into a golf season with a few products I would want to try. But, man, if you're going through that exercise of trying everything one after another after another, it can become information overload.

And it's hard to remember what you tried and what ended up working. Like I was talking about earlier with our platform, we call it My Fitting EXP. But the cool thing is anyone that goes through one of our fitting events, every single shot is tracked. So you, the consumer, gets a copy. Myself and my team get a copy and the facility that you're at also gets a copy. So after the fact, you can log into your profile on TaylorMade's My Fitting EXP and you can view your session and you can see every shot you hit. We change the club configuration within the system. If you, you know, have a competitor 7-iron to start with versus our 7-iron, every time we change a shaft or a head, we notate that. And it really spells out what the performance difference is. So at the end, you know, when your session is kind of winding down, we can say, OK, Mr.

Customer, with your current driver, you're hitting it this far with the best combination from TaylorMade that we recommended. You can see we're hitting it this far and we've gained, you know, XYZ. So it's really, you know, we talked about the price and cost of equipment. Like if you're going to go through this, it's an investment.

Like you want to do it the right way. And that's that's what we're trying to do with our platform. Amen. That's Jeff Thornhill. He is with TaylorMade Golf.

You can go to TaylorMadeGolf.com and find out when in your area, in your zip code, there is going to be an opportunity to check out this great stuff. Thornhill, thank you so much for doing what you do for the game in our area. Thanks for what you've done for me personally. I love our friendship and thanks for jumping on the show. Jay, I really appreciate it. It's fun to get to chat with you here on this forum and I look forward to continued partnership down the road. All right, Pearl. I was blown away by, first of all, this guy's passion, his love for the game, his growing of the game.

What did you think? Well, same thing, Jay, with the passion. It's just interesting to me how a guy stays that passionate about equipment over all these years.

And you've got to have the right mindset. But he certainly is about the latest product that they're showing out and displaying to everybody. And I'm looking forward to it. His passion is contagious. It's certainly got me. All right, folks, that'll wrap up the Back Nine.

But don't go anywhere. I'll further break down the Jeff Thornhill interview on the 19th hole. This is golf with Jay Delson. Hey, I know you've heard a lot about club fitting, but I need you to go visit my friends at Pro-Am Golf. They're a family owned and operated golf discount shop in St. Louis that's been operating for over 40 years. They have a top quality fitter in CJ over there and a very qualified staff with the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art technology in the industry at all. They've got a really cool ball program coming that will help you fit your swing speed to the right ball. But most importantly, they have the lowest prices in town on this fitting. And you know what's really special? They take the price of the fitting and roll it into the new clubs that you purchase over there.

So basically the fitting costs you nothing. Visit Tom DeGrant. He's been in the business for over 40 years and a great guy. And they'll watch you hit balls in their simulator.

So stop by and ask for the Delson discount, and they'll give you even more money off their already low price. That's Pro-Am Golf, a family owned business here in St. Louis. David Toms was our first champion, but St. Louis and local charities were the real winners at the Ascension Charity Classic presented by Emerson. Record setting attendance, some of golf's greatest legends, an exciting finish. And with the help of our partners and all of you, we were able to donate more than $800,000 to area charities.

Thank you, St. Louis. And get ready for professional golf to return September 5th through the 11th, 2022. Have you heard about the resurrection of Tony Pena Golf? No?

Well, listen closely then. Harpan Brand Holdings is reintroducing this iconic brand back to the golf world. And with it comes the legendary I-O-Matic feature. Some 50 years ago, Tony Pena was renowned for making world class equipment played by many of the world's best golfers, including the great Jack Nicklaus. Go to TonyPenaGolf.com right now and check out the gorgeous selection of putters, drivers and wedges they have available. I'm currently using the Jupiter Tour Select Series putter as I practice this winter, and I just love it. Its milled face gives this putter that really soft, super soft feel that all tour players love. The only thing you'll like better than the look of these clubs is their price. Go to TonyPenaGolf.com and check it out. You can get a gorgeous milled Tour caliber putter for a fraction of the cost. That's TonyPenaGolf.com.

I want to welcome Rapsodo Golf to the Golf with Jay Delsing show. Folks, this device is super, super cool. It's small, just a little bit bigger than your cell phone. It works in conjunction with your phone to help track your shots. It talks about launch angle, spin rate, dispersion, how far the ball goes.

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And they're working with all 30 major league baseball teams now. So this is a viable product, but if you want to practice in the winter and you want to get better, and you want to stop figuring out where that ball went after you hit it into the net, get a Rapsodo and check them out. You will love it. Go to Rapsodo.com.

Rapsodo.com. Powers Insurance and Risk Management is sponsoring a VIP St. Louis Blues game experience for two lucky winners. Enter to win front row seats at center ice and join me, Jay Delsing, and Tim Davis from the Powers Insurance company as we take in all the action while the Blues are playing the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 17th. That's right, Sid Crosby will be in town. All you have to do to enter is go to www.PowersInsurance.com backslash Go Blues to sign up.

Powers Insurance is a family-owned agency here in St. Louis that specializes in robust insurance policies designed to provide coverage that's tailor-made to meet your personal needs. We've done one of these giveaways. The seats are awesome. The game was awesome. The Blues kicked the Calgary Flames ass. Enter now PowersInsurance.com backslash Go Blues.

Grab your friends, a cold one, and pull up a chair. We're on to the 19th hole on golf with Jay Delsing. Hey, welcome back. Pearl, favorite part of the show. Michelobaltra 19th hole. You got one? Beautiful, beautiful sound effects.

Who needs real technology? Anyway, Pearl, Jeff Thornhill. This guy loves the game of golf as much as you and I put together, I think. Yeah, no doubt about it. When he talks about it from an early age, caught up into it and love the other sports, I think that's interesting as well. There's just so much of it to that. You and I have watched the evolution of golf equipment for the last, whatever it is now, 50 years of our lives.

And I've never been that into it. And to listen to a guy that passionate, that is into the nitty gritty, the details of every piece of it, I just find fascinating. I'm glad there's guys like that out there to keep driving for another improvement.

Well, when he starts talking about the different layers of this new composite driver that's coming out and he starts talking about, you know, and he said, gosh, I have a lot more numbers, you know, but I didn't want to get too far in the weeds on all the numbers. But, John, I can tell you just from a personal standpoint, he was kind of humble. This guy has knocked TaylorMade's numbers up to 300% since he's got in the area. He's developed relationships, he's forged relationships.

You know, that's not that easy in St. Louis, John. Well, he's got a huge territory and he's coming into more of a staid, you know, Midwest mindset, you know, pumping out what sounds like phenomenal equipment, but it's also a heck of a cost. But again, Jay, when a guy walks in, whether it's to sell golf clubs, to give lessons, to sell cars, whatever, all the people you have on your show are those folks, are those passionate people, are the ones that are willing to do the work. They really love what they're doing. And it's contagious.

And without it, there's no way he's going to have the success he could have. No, it's for sure. It's for sure.

When he started talking about, I love the fact that he's so interested in everybody's fitting, you know, because TaylorMade does fitting as well, and they've taken it to such a personal, customized level. It's just fantastic. Anyway, we could go on and on. I don't know if the folks want to hear us, you know, ramble about that, but I thought it was really fun. Absolutely.

Absolutely. The number of, I couldn't remember how many outings you said, or what do you call it, demo days that they have. But you've got, you know, full-time crew out there nonstop. You've got to get the exposure. All the different club manufacturers, obviously you're coming out with the new equipment.

They're all trying to pump their stuff out there. So, you know, the true test is when you pick it up and if you like it. At the end of the day, I don't know about you, but it has to look good to me and it has to feel right. You can tell me all the other stats and numbers and everything else. But if I look down on that thing and I'm thinking, man, this looks like it's point left or point right, or it has a funky look to it.

I don't have much of an interest in playing it. Yeah, no doubt about that. And, you know, they've only, they're only dumping their entire metal woods. They were the founder and basic creator of metal woods. They don't make metal woods anymore. They're all out of carbon now. I love that story.

Yeah, I love the story that you guys were telling on the kind of the foundry of that, of the whole metal woods situation. The other part that kind of got to me was, you know, he was deep and committed to Nike and then Nike dropped their program. That's a tough situation for a guy with a family to make that change to go with another company.

You know, and realign allegiance and get into their culture and understand to be bought into that. I thought that was short. And that happens to all of us, right? We all have terms in the road relative to life and career.

And it sounded like he handled, like Jeff handled that extremely well. Carl, I got a Luke Liz story for you. I'm playing well. I'm about, I'm 49 years old, just ready to try to turn 50.

And he is a kid, brand new. We're playing at the TPC of Stonebrae out in San Francisco. And I'm, I don't know, I'm in the top, you know, 6 or 8, 10 in the tournament. We're coming down the stretch on Friday's round. And this dog, long downhill dogleg right par 5, all the right side is Kerry. And I hit this drive out there pretty good.

And I'm feeling good about myself here. And I hit this drive out there and I know I can reach the green in two. This Luke Liz stands up there and aims it 40 yards right of where my ball came down. And he must have been hitting a pitching wedge into this par 5.

And this was the, just bombs it and pearl. This was the second, almost the ending of the second round. I can't tell you what I said to him. But I turned around because he was the last to hit. And I was beating him by, I don't know, half a dozen shots or so, which was probably the last time I ever beat him. But anyway, I turned around and looked at him and it was like, there was, it was a colorful presentation by me and what I said to him.

And you know, this kid was freckle faced and probably 20 years old and probably hadn't heard a whole lot of that kind of language that often, especially after such a good shot. But I was just blown away at how far he hit this thing. And we shook hands at the end of the day. I'm a huge fan of his. It was impressive. But he hit this ball and I was walking. And when it came down, I turned around, had both hands out of my pockets and was gesturing to him in a way that he knew I was impressed with that drive.

Yeah, for sure. He's impressive. He carries himself very well. Bombs it. And boy, he's been close for quite a while.

And he got over the hump. So it was kind of exciting to see. Yeah. So let's talk about the bunker shot. You don't see balls that close together in the fairway bunker that often.

But I've, we've had that situation come up a bunch in my career. Well, I get that, but walk us through it. When the caddy grabbed the rake and started raking a fraction of an inch from the one guy's ball. And the fact that Sartorius' ball is affected by Luke List's sand blasting out.

And it was clearly affected. And yet he didn't pick it up and replace it. It made no sense to me. I didn't understand that either because he certainly was entitled. I mean, the rules are written that if his shot affects the lie that you're, you know, that you're faced with, then you by all means can, can, I think it's called replicate the original situation. And I don't know.

That's a shocker. They didn't. And he was still able to hit the shot out of there. But here you have an official in the middle of it because he ended up actually doing some raking. You've got the official with the commentators up in the booth or remotely in the booth, however they looked at that.

You've got two of the top officials in the game and maybe I got it wrong. But they kept saying you need to replicate it. And there was so much sand around the base of his golf ball. There was no way it was the same situation.

I just didn't get it. I just thought and I just was imagining myself as a caddy in a playoff to win a tournament. I'm going to grab a rake and rake within a, I don't know, quarter of an inch of a golf ball. No way.

Not a chance at all. I would have picked up a rake. I would have knocked you out. I would have knocked you completely out.

Yeah, I might not be able to hit the green with a seven or about to hit you across the back or something with it because there is no way in hell. That's going to wrap up another show. We got another show in the books. Love to hear that Jay. Fun, fun talking to you about this stuff. A lot of a lot of more good information and stories to talk about in the next show. Next week, we got the great Slugger White coming on with golf with Jay Delsing. Hit them straight St. Louis.