Golf With Jay Delsing - - Dan Hicks

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. On The Range is brought to you by the Gateway section of the PGA. Hey, good morning.

This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay Perley. Give us an update, man. We can't keep track of you. We have no idea where the hell you are. What are you doing? We know you have a fishing pole connected to you somewhere along the line.

I'm up in Monocqua, Wisconsin. It's raining like cats and dogs, so that means the flashlight comes out tonight, the worm bucket, and I'm going night crawling tonight to catch my night crawler if you go use those for bait tomorrow. Meat? He's just living the life.

What in the hell? Must be nice. When's the last time I night crawled? You should have asked when's the last time I went night crawler hunting?

And it was many, many years ago, and it's a blast. We're not talking about that night crawler hunting. I don't know what. You're going to get a shovel and dig up a bunch of worms in the middle of the night? All right, all right.

I know the fish like them, and I love to fish. No shovel necessary. Let's move on. All right, cool.

Let's move on for sure. All right, so we formatted a show like Around the Golf. The first segment is called the On the Range segment, and it's brought to you by Vehicle Assurance, 866-341-9255. Sherry Smith is just a terrific person over there. She is running this company. If you need a new warranty or you need some sort of additional coverage for your vehicle, call them today. They are terrific people.

They will take care of you. Pearl, you've got 10 seconds for an update on our social media. It's going really well. You've had somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 downloads of your podcast, and I think we're trending up. Okay, good.

I also want... Those updates get better and better every time. If Pearlie has a couple more Michelob Ultras at the beginning of the show instead of waiting until the 19th, we'll be over a million by tomorrow. Yeah, that's all right. Who's checking? We don't know anything. We're close, aren't we?

Yeah, exactly. Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue Painting and Refinishing are terrific people. They can refresh the inside of your home, the outside of your home.

They've got great professional painters and refinishers doing terrific work. 314-805-2132. Bob and Kathy, thanks for supporting the show. All right, John. Dan Hicks today. Pretty cool guest, man.

I still remember some of the calls. I mean, I remember the last time Tiger won the U.S. Open. This is Father's Day today. Happy Father's Day, by the way, Pearl.

Happy Father's Day to you, somebody. This is Father's Day, and this is also Sunday of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Last time we were at Torrey Pines, Pearl, the PGA Tour was there. The U.S. Open was there. Tiger Woods took down Rocco Mediate with a broken knee and a leg and all sorts of drama, and it was just incredible.

And Dan Hicks was right in the middle of that with Johnny Miller, and this year he'll be right in the middle of that with Paul Azinger. It's such a special place. It's so fun to watch it on TV. You and I were discussing how much the course has changed through the years.

I guess whether you want to call it updating it or PGA Tour or proofing it or whatever it may be. But I think no matter whether it's back in my time, your time, or present time, it's a pretty cool place. Yeah, it's just absolutely beautiful, and I think back Father's Day and the U.S. Open and those great memories. Pearl, some memories that I had with my dad and your dad fishing and things like that were not necessarily tied to the date of Father's Day, but they all come gushing. We both lost our fathers and some special, special times. I probably didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I wish I had at the time, but I sure relished them now.

They are fantastic. Yeah, it's pretty special across the board, and it did correspond with the Canadian fishing trip all the time. When you get to watch the U.S. Open from the cabin up in Canada, it was just an absolute blast. Some of the best times was when your dad and my dad and you and I were up there together. I think you and I did a pretty good job of realizing how special those times were. We've missed plenty of things in life, but I think we got that one halfway right.

Yeah, I think we did a halfway decent job. My dad was probably 10 or 15 years older than your dad or so. We could both see the writing on the wall as my dad was getting a little older. It's almost impossible for me to think of my dad without thinking of golf and sports. My dad was a professional baseball player, but sports just dominated the landscape of our family, even having three older sisters. We all participated.

I'm still grateful for that. I obviously love the game of golf and hopefully trying to grow it and tell people about it, but just the sports and just the privilege of being able to play it as long as we did is awesome. Golf is way special and a little deeper than most others because of the camaraderie. John Spoltz, we had on the show a couple weeks ago, talked about some of the neatest people he's ever met that have been on the golf course. Absolutely.

He had a lot of, well obviously it's huge in his life right now how dedicated he is trying to get his golf game to the next level. And so it's cool. Yeah, just positive across the board. I'm glad you did a little extra on the Father's Day. I appreciate that.

Yeah, no worries. Torrey Pines is going to be a beast, Pearl. I don't know if we even want to talk about it.

It is going to be a beast. The one thing that I want to tell folks that they may or may not know, but we are Midwestern kids. We go out to Southern Cal. It's not always all that warm by the water, especially in June, Pearl.

There's this thing called the Marine Layer, which is basically a gigantic, massive cloud bank that doesn't let anything in except a little bit of wind. And there's no sun and it's cold and you sit on that, you know, right at sea level and that ball doesn't go that far, I can tell you that. It's a very hard game and I'll tell you how hard it is.

One of the first times I played, it was with UCLA and we're playing in a group and we're waving the people out of the first green. That's how tough and how long it's planned. And one of our teammates, Brad Bell, hits his second shot and catches one of the guys I'm playing with right in the noggin. I'm not going to laugh because he survived it.

That ball came ricocheting down about 30, 40 yards back at Brad, which Brad was disappointed at. This poor bugger is down on his knees. I'm thinking, I knew this was a hard hole, but I didn't think it was going to be this damn hard. I didn't know it was going to have to come out and get stitches, for God's sake.

Hey, you know what? He was a trooper. He stood up, dusted himself off and kept on playing. Well, that's because, well, what was he going to do?

Jump on his cell phone and call for help? I mean, we're sitting out there. It was like, dude, we'll just leave you here to die. We got more holes to play. That's the hardest hole I've ever seen. Let's just put it that way.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I told our buddy Trevor Dodds, we'd give him a little plug. He has got an international team golf tournament that he's pushing. All expenses paid, trip to Portugal. If you go to IPGolfUSA.com, you can learn more about it. You can talk to your PGA professional about it. We've got a great new association with the PGA of America, our section pros, the men and women.

We're going to be talking a lot about them. And we would like anybody that wants to maybe head out for an all-expensive paid trip in October to Portugal. IPGolfUSA.com, learn more about it.

Talk to your PGA professional and grab a buddy and see if you can't qualify for this rascal. Well, Trevor's a great guy. I hope he makes it work.

Yep, he's pushing it hard. And, bro, the tip of the cap today was an easy one. First of all, tell the folks a little bit about your experience with Colin and Brandy over at Dean Team of Kirkwood. Well, they were fantastic. You know the way I was driving cars. I'm kind of like, I don't want to talk to anybody. I want to bring you a check.

I don't want any warranty stuff. And I just want to make sure that it's kind of perfect. And those guys were fantastic. Colin gave you a little cross-eyed here.

They're just accused me a little bit. And Brandy couldn't have been sweeter. And I'll tell you what, Jay, I love the truck. And as you know, I've been traveling all over the place. It's the first truck I've ever had that tows the boat instead of gets pushed by the boat.

So it's kind of a perfect combination. I love it. That old truck of yours sucked.

That thing was just so damn wobbly. What the hell? Thank God. Alright, so the tip of the cap today goes to our dads. You know, it's appropriate. It's Father's Day and I miss my dad every single day. These men we all looked up to very much.

We tried to emulate them in so many ways so that that goes, our tip of the cap goes out to them. And it's brought to you by Colin and Brandy over at the Dean Team of Kirkwood. Kirkwood 314-966-0303.

Alright, so that's going to wrap up the unrange segment. Don't go anywhere because Dan Hicks is coming your way on the front nine. This is Golf with Jay Delson. Hello friends, this is Jim Nance and you are listening to Golf with my friend Jay Delson. Did you know that the Gateway section of the PGA is comprised of over 335 members and over 200 facilities?

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Tell them Jay sent you for special pricing. Your therapy, our passion. Grab your clubs. We're headed to the Front 9 on Golf with Jay Delcie. The Front 9 is brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic.

Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delcie. I'm your host Jay.

Pearly's with me. Brad Barnes Meet is taking great care of us here at the ESPN Studios. We're headed to the Front 9 as brought to you by our friends at the Ascension Charity Classic. It is the newest, the latest event on the Champions Tour schedule.

It's September 6th through 12th here in St. Louis. And it is just fantastic. I can't wait to get the city involved. I can't wait to get the tour here. It's just going to be fantastic. Two weeks before the Ryder Cup.

Yeah, so thanks for the folks at Ascension for sponsoring the show. And man, I can't wait to play in it. Pearly, I can't wait to have you on the bag. It's going to be special. I'm out there jogging, doing push-ups.

I've got to get myself in shape so I can even handle it. Are you going to be taking a little bag, a little pencil bag, or are we going to be toting the Big Daddy? No, I think we'll probably tote the Big Daddy with some of my favorite books and stuff and lucky rocks in there too.

What do you think? Hey, meet, meet, meet. Make sure you're walking along the ropes just in case I go down. Oh, I'll be there, don't you? I'm first to fill in for you. We've got a caddy down.

That would be great. Guys, we've got the voice of NBC golf. Eleven Olympic Games she's been a part of, started in 1996 in Atlanta. He also has done work with the NFL. Just a great guy, Dan Hicks.

Let's go listen to this interview I had with Dan Hicks. Take some mighty lash out at the bottom. Can you get lucky and get the right distance? That's a pretty darn good shot. One last bullet for Rocco Mediate to try to avoid.

Expect anything different? Rocco, you've got Tiger for 18 holes tomorrow. Dan Hicks is brought to you by Golden Tee. My career feels so insignificant when I get to prep for guys like you. I mean, you've done 11 Olympic Games. You get to anchor almost every significant golf event. You know, on the PGA Tour schedule, the U.S. Open, the Ryder Cup, President's Cup, FedEx Cup.

You got to sit with Johnny Miller for years and now you got Zing. Notre Dame football, the NFL. Gosh, we could go on and on at your Olympic calls.

We'll get to that in a minute. Dan, just talk a little bit about, I know you love the game of golf. You've played for a long time. Talk to us about just the young part of your life and the journey of getting involved in the game.

Yeah, it's funny. I didn't really grow up playing a ton of golf. I dabbled with it, but I played, you know, baseball, basketball were my two big sports. I played a little football as well all the way through high school. And then after I, then I played in basketball leagues around town where I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. And I finally hurt my knee a couple times. And I just thought, you know what, I just need something competitive to kind of throw myself into.

And I live in Arizona. You can play golf year round. So I really started throwing myself into the game. And that's when I really discovered how much I loved it.

I always really liked it, but playing the game, as you know, Jay, you play at the highest level. But even amateurs like me and guys like me that don't really play that high a brand of golf, when you play the game, you realize how hard it is and how unbelievable these guys that play it on the PGA Tour level and the world-class level and the girls for that matter as well. So I kind of started falling into it when I, you know, even in Arizona, I just was so interested in it. I always did golf stories when I was at the local NBC affiliate there.

And I went to CNN after that. I used to cover the major championship, so I grew even further deeply in love with the game and covering it and just being involved with it. And then when I got to NBC, they hired me and they thought I'd be a good fit for golf.

So that's kind of how it all started. And I've told people many, many times that of all the sports I've done, if they told me that you could only do one for the rest of your career, what would it be? There'd be no contest. It'd be golf. Because I just think it's such an incredible game and even more fun and cool to broadcast. You know, Dan, you do such a great job. It's such a relaxing, soothing voice.

It's become part of the golf landscape. You turn on an NBC broadcast and you're there. Talk a little bit about Johnny Miller. I had the opportunity to play with him and I honestly, well, I just want to hear your opinion. He was abrasive to a lot of folks. Yeah, he really was. But that comes with a guy, and I've made the analogy many times in talking about Johnny, during his playing career, and you played with him and you know him and you know how he's played, he was very aggressive.

He went after flags. And that's kind of how he did his broadcast career. And when you go after flags, whether it's with a microphone or a five iron, you're going to make some bogeys and you're going to make some doubles. And that's kind of how Johnny talked about it.

And the more and more I thought about it, it's exactly right. So you are going – some of the things that you say when you take on that approach are not going to come off quite the way you wanted them, or they're not going to come out sounding the way you wanted them. So you are going to, for lack of a better word, piss off some folks, especially some players that think, well, how does he know what's going on inside my head?

That's the biggest thing that I got. But what I would always tell these guys, Jay, through the years was, you know what? You're entitled to your opinion. Johnny is paid to give his opinion, and he's paid to give his honest opinion. And that might not always jive with yours, but that's what we're talking, and that's what makes a great analyst who's not afraid to be totally honest, give his opinion, because that's what he's being paid for, and not worry about a player or a player's wife or girlfriend or grandmother watching the show.

His first and foremost responsibility is to those people watching at home. And I think that's what made him so popular. People picked up on that. He was serving them, serving them alone, not serving the players, and that's what made him such a popular guy. You know, Dan, it's so interesting, isn't it, because he was really kind of the first guy that ever quote-unquote told it like it was and without real regard to, like you said, pissing off the players, and he pissed off a lot of them.

Yeah, exactly. And it takes guts to do that, and not everybody wants to do that. And you see so often people just coming in like former players, and I don't care if it's golf, football, basketball, whatever sport, when they first start in the broadcast business, they have a hard time, as we say, crossing over that line. And what I mean by that is crossing over being a broadcaster.

You're not a player anymore. Some guys never get over it, and some women, for that matter, they just never make the crossover. So they're always kind of got one foot in the playing world and one foot, and they're happy to do that.

They're not comfortable going across. But what separates the really good analysts is the people that are able to cross over and do what I was referring to earlier, your responsibility, which is to serve the people and be a broadcaster. You're there because you played the game, and you can relate situations that no one else can because you had a five-iron with a major championship on the line, and you delivered or you didn't deliver. But your sole responsibility is to tell people what you thought, and that's what kind of separates those people that aren't able to make that crossover from those who do. Dan, at any point in time, did anything, because there's one difference that I've noticed in the tiny little toe that I've stepped in the broadcasting world. There's such a difference between us and professional broadcasters like yourself, polished. You guys know what's going on.

Were there any certain times where you might have held your breath and thought, oh, boy, I wonder what's going to happen and what are the repercussions are going to be for that situation? For what I said personally? For what Johnny would say. Oh, but we're still on the Johnny thing. Yeah, oh, yeah. To answer your question, yes, absolutely. There were numerous times when that happened.

But what Johnny was so good about doing was being able to kind of not cross that line. Sorry, we've got a dog barking in the background. Yeah, no problem.

That's perfect. But anyway, it's real life, right? But what he was so good at doing was not getting to cross that line to where it was really, really bad and that he might have needed to apologize. There were some times it did come up where, again, I think if he really knew what he was trying to say versus what came out, it was really not the same thing. But he was so good at getting to that line and not crossing it, it came very close at times, but that's what made him must kind of hear television, is that people were waiting to hear what he said next. And I'll be honest, and Johnny will be the first to tell you that sometimes he felt the pressure to say something that was almost controversial every show because that's kind of what the Johnny Miller brand was. And we talked about it, and I said, Johnny, you shouldn't fall into that trap. You should just be yourself, and if a show comes along or a tournament comes along where you're on the air for four days and you can't really kind of light something up to the way that people are used to hearing Johnny Miller light it up, that's okay.

And I think he listened to what I said and the advice I had, but he was one of a kind, and I miss him all the time. Paul Azinger has been fantastic. I don't think there's anybody else. In fact, I know there's nobody else that could have gone into Johnny's big shoes and made everybody I think at home feel pretty comfortable that they were getting another really high-quality analyst at NBC. So it's been a nice transition. Oh, it's a nice treat to hear Azinger, you know, what Zing has to say. But, Dan, one of the things that dawned on me is your ability to kind of manage these situations.

You know what I mean? And it's not an easy job that you have to do. First of all, you want the sport to be able to breathe and kind of tell the story, but you're kind of the ringmaster up there with the different personalities and going back into the holes and the guys on the ground.

Talk about that a little bit, because you do it so effortlessly and so beautifully, but that's not easy. Matt, thanks, Jay. It is an acquired, it's a real craft to be the traffic cop, and Jim Nantz does it as well as anybody's ever done it. Joe Buck, any kind of play-by-play guy that's done golf, it's a little different in golf versus the other sports because there are so many voices that have to be heard and need to be heard throughout the show, and you're kind of that conduit that all the traffic passes through because we have elements that we need to do and then we need to get it back to the course, and we're constantly transitioning from voice to voice. But the great thing about NBC golf, I think, is that it's not just me doing it. It's a running conversation between everybody, and what we've always prided ourselves on doing and kind of giving it that conversation piece going from Roger Maltby over to Gary Koch over to Zinger and me. It's almost like you're at home listening to a conversation between guys just talking golf, and I think that we know each other so well. All of us have been together so long, especially Roger and Gary Koch, and Zinger has just meshed right in, is that I can sense when Roger wants to talk, needs to talk, and I can kind of sense when – because we can't see each other, and so that's difficult in answering your question.

It's difficult to not jump on each other and give the event the breathable space it needs because it's so easy to fill it up wall to wall, right? I've told myself numerous times, thousands of times, let's take it back a notch here. I think we're talking too much. And a lot of times I'll get on the talkback with our producer, Tommy Roy, who's the best in the business in my opinion, and I'll say, hey, do you get the sense that we're talking too much? Don't you think we should pull back here? And so we all kind of reset, and we all kind of let the tournament breathe because people – we're there to enhance it, but we're not there to take it over.

The image is it's television, there's pictures, there's not a lot to add sometimes. You know, Dan, that's one of the things I was getting to is you guys, the chemistry that you have and you being the head kind of the leader of that, you get the sense of where to go, and sometimes you get personalities that can clash, and you guys do a phenomenal job of putting all that aside, and really, I had Farity on a while back, and he said this as well, that you guys are so committed to putting on a quality show, and it's the best – it just shows forth. Yeah, and Farity, by the way, has been an incredible piece with us, you know, in the years that he's joined us.

Tommy Roy, who hires everybody and figures out the chemistry, is so concerned, and rightly so, about making sure that it's going to be the right piece to complement the other guys that are already there, and Farity has been perfect. He's given us a real sense of humor. He's given us a real sense of irreverence sometimes. Maybe sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. He's just been an incredible piece to have, and you're right. You know, there are times to be serious, and there are times to kind of let your hair down a little bit and have some fun because this is sports, you know, and sometimes we might take ourselves a little bit too seriously, and Farity has been a great component of that to kind of lighten the mood a lot.

Oh, man, he is – as far as lightening the mood, you really never know what's going to come out of his mouth. No, you don't. You don't. You've got to listen. I find myself having to listen to Farity just about as closely as I had to listen to Johnny because if you're not listening closely, sometimes, you know, his stuff will go right over your head. It's so true.

All right, cool. That's going to wrap up the first half of this Dan Hicks interview, but don't go anywhere on the back nine. We'll give you the conclusion of our time sitting down with Dan Hicks.

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Visit AscensionCharityClassic.com. I am with my buddy Joe Scieser from USA Mortgage. Hi Jay, how are you?

Doing great Joe. Thanks so much for the support of the show. I really appreciate the opportunity. Congratulations. This is your third year and we're really proud to be a sponsor all three years since the very beginning. It's a great show and we look forward to it every Sunday morning.

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Thank you. I am speaking with David Cantrell this morning from down in Cape Girardeau on the Gateway Spotlight. David, tell us a little bit about the cool stuff that you have going on in Cape Girardeau with golf.

Well to tell you the cool stuff, there has to be a little bit of a leeway into it Jay. I've been a PGA member since 1998. Started out in Southern California before moving back to my hometown, Cape Girardeau, and being the head professional and general manager at Cape Country Club. I fell in love with the Navy, excuse me, I fell in love with the game of golf while I was in the Navy and actually retired as a Navy captain, a special operations officer for 30 years.

So when I heard of the whole program, it really obviously struck a chord with me because of golf and because of the service of the country. Unfortunately, two years ago, June 9th of 2019, a gentleman failed to yield and struck me at a 90 degree angle while I was on my Harley-Dakison and basically tore my leg off from my knee down. I was in the hospital for a month and a half, underwent nine different surgeries and was on crutches for a year while I had some other complications. And I finally got into my prosthetic of June of 2020.

And being in a mindset of a special operations officer, I just felt like, I'm scratching all that, the mindset that I have been raised with and was served with in the service and the special operations field is one of can do and can't stop. And so on June 20th, in June of 2020, I went to the driving range of the Dalhousie Golf Club, where I'm a member, and attempted to swing the club for the first time since the accident and actually hit the ball, first ball, relatively well. And it caught my breath, it truly did, because of where I was as pretty much a scratch golfer to what I was facing now with the prosthetic, left prosthetic leg. I just didn't know if I was going to be able to play again. And golf is a passion, like some other sports I have are passions. So the ability to swing the club and hit the ball kind of lifted, kind of gave me some part of my life back. And I thought of all the other people, like me, that I've never thought of before, because it's really not a club that you want to be in, but once you're in it, it's pretty tight. And so everybody kind of shares their experiences, and I wanted to share mine with you all. And I want to continue to share it with other adaptive players. I'm actually participating in a golf clinic tomorrow from one to three here, where I'm working with hanger prosthetics and orthotics, and they have patients that are coming to the range, and we're going to hit some balls and have some fun. I took my prosthetist up to St. Louis for the adaptive training that the PGA put on, and he became kind of a celebrity there because the pros were asking all these questions that he could answer as far as physiology goes and the equipment that they use and the things that they can do with the prosthetic that a golfer needs, like torsion adapters, the different kind of feet.

And so all these things, you know, they learned a whole side of it other than from the golf side. And what I kind of look at hope, the program of hope, because hope is what fuels the human spirit. And as long as you have hope, then all cannot be lost. And I'm kind of unique in the fact that I'm on both sides of the T now. I'm finding my own way, hitting balls and taping myself while helping others find their own way as well with the golf game as an adaptive golfer.

So for those reasons, I'm a really good holster boy. Wow, David, thanks so much for sharing that story. Congratulations. Thank you for your service, first of all, and thank you for doing what you're doing and growing the game of golf in Cape Girardeau.

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We're halfway there. It's time for the Back 9 on Golf with Jay Delcey. The Back 9 is brought to you by Fogelbach Agency, with Farmers Insurance. Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delcey. I'm your host, Jay. Pearly's with me. Brad Barnes is taking care of us, pressing buttons, and doing all sorts of stuff here at the ESPN Studios. And we're headed to the Back 9, brought to you by the Fogelbach Agency, with Farmers.

314-398-0101. If you need any sort of coverage for your business, for your employees, for your car, your home, Ed Fogelbach is just a really cool guy. He's a guy that's just new to the game of golf in the last two or three years.

And he's just having a blast with it. He's a terrific person, so give him a call. All right, so Pearl, we are going right back to the second half of the interview with Dan Hicks, the voice of NBC Golf. The Americans have to win golden here if Phelps is to keep his hopes alive of surpassing Mark Spitz in the greatest Olympics ever. Jason Lezak is going to have to make up some ground on Alain Bernard, who stands 6 feet 5 and can absolutely fly. Lezak is closing a little bit on Bernard. Can the veteran chase him down and pull off a shocker here?

There's no gap there. He's tightening up. Bernard is losing some ground.

Here comes Lezak. Unbelievable at the end. He's done it. The U.S. has done it. He did it. He did it.

He did it. Phelps just hopes alive. Dan Hicks is brought to you by Golden Tee. Dan, let's talk a little bit about the Olympics for a minute. You've been involved in 11 different games. I think you started in 1996 with the games that were down in Atlanta. But one thing that stood out in my mind, I'll never forget this call. I think it was in 2008, and I think you were calling the freestyle 4x100 Olympics. We had the Michael Phelps drama and all of his championship gold medals and everything.

Take us back a little bit to that call when the U.S. came roaring back. I don't know this guy's first name. Was it Lezak? Yeah, Jason Lezak.

I'll pick it up from there. Most of all, it was a lot of hype. Phelps had won eight medals at the previous Olympics in 2004 in Athens. He was going into China with another run at Mark Spitz's seven golds at a single game, which was thought to be at one point impossible to surpass.

Yet here is Phelps with a goal of doing just that. So that's the hype that preceded the whole thing before it started. He gets in the 400 IM on the first night, wins it with a world record, and that was no problem.

That was expected. But the second event was the men's 4x100 freestyle relay. It was on Monday night, and this was one of the eight races, one of two of the eight races that was really dicey. The 100 fly, which he later won by a fingernail in the last second, was what kept the streak going. But this was just as big of a question mark on his program that year. Anyway, the French team was like the huge favorites.

They came in, and I was breaking it down with Rowdy Gaines. He's one of the most incredible analysts I've ever heard. The passion he has for swimming is remarkable. He's breaking down the race, and basically what we say before they go in the pool in the four-man relay was, Jason Lezak, who's been this perennial guy who's been a part of Olympic teams at the professional relay races where a lot of people call him kind of tongue-in-cheek because he just didn't do anything individually and he hadn't really distinguished himself from any kind of big, huge moment.

He needed a lead over this guy named Alain Bernard to have any kind of shot at winning gold and keeping the pulps and hopes alive, right? So he gets in the pool, and lo and behold, he's got a lead on Lezak, and he's increasing the lead. And then all hell breaks loose, just to sum it up. The guy starts tightening up, the French guy starts tightening up, and Lezak starts pulling up on him, and we can't believe what's happening.

And if we go to a level on my, you know, throat as far as voice, as far as stress goes, of which I still haven't reached again and hopefully never will because I almost lost my voice for the rest of the Olympics. So Lezak beats him at the end by one one-hundredth of a second. The truck is going crazy. We're going crazy.

Rowdy's about falling out of his chair of the broadcast booth. It is the most unbelievable moment that I've ever been a part of in this business, and I've given a lot of them. But that electric moment there in Beijing, China, in 2008 was off the charts. And so he, you know, the rest is history.

He went on to win eight gold medals, and we'll never see anything like that again. I really, really believe that. Dan, I just have to frame this for our listeners because I'm not a swimmer.

I mean, I like a pool and a cocktail, you know? And for you, for that to stick out in my mind, for that memory, that was really special. And I'll never forget it. Yeah, people still come up to me, you know, that I don't know, that we'll bring that up. And they'll inevitably say, well, what's your favorite moment?

Or I get asked, what's your favorite moment in broadcasting? And there really are two that – and they were two months apart. It was Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in 2008 doing what he did. And two months later, Phelps running the table in Beijing.

And so I don't know what's in store for the back nine of my career here, but it'll be very hard to beat that summer of 2008 in those two months, which are just moments. And, you know, Tiger and Phelps remind me of one another in so many different ways and have the privilege of kind of taking both of their careers from when they first started off. We've been doing Tiger since he was an amateur champion, and Phelps, since he was a 15-year-old, to take him all the way through.

It's just been a ride of a lifetime. I'm visiting with Dan Hicks, NBC broadcaster. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. And, Dan, we just got to touch a little bit on Tiger because we all are sending him, you know, our very best in his recoveries. But he is done for our sport. Oh, my gosh, I mean, just for me personally to watch what he's done to – Jack and Arnold have absolutely put the sport on the map, but Tiger made it cool to play. And Tiger took us to an entirely different level, as far as I can tell.

No doubt about it. And it's hard to put it into – to quantify it, Jay. But, you know, you just ask the players, like you played, and you know how important it was to the game. You know the money that went into everybody's pockets because of what Tiger did and what he was able to generate from just, you know, people that never watched golf.

That's the true test, right? Those are the athletes that move the needle, that can get – that can draw people in, that really don't even care much about golf or don't make it a regular thing to watch it. He brought those people in. I cannot tell you how many times, doing a tournament through the years, the first question, they'll be like, oh, Dan, what's your next term?

I go, well, we're going to Bay Hill. And it was like, is Tiger playing? I mean, it was just like the first question. And if he wasn't playing, it was like, oh, well, you know, all right, I don't know if I'll watch.

You know, and then it got into the weekend. And if Tiger was in contention, the television ratings, the guy, as they've always said, you know, didn't move – he was the needle. And he was – you know, there's never been another golfer like that. And I don't think that there's ever been another athlete who's impacted his sport as much as Tiger has in golf. And that's saying a lot.

It really is, Dan. And if you think about the chasm that Tiger fell in personally, I mean, I asked Farideh this. I'd love to get your opinion as well. What would the record books on the PGA Tour look like? Have there not been that, you know, four or five-year, gosh, you could even say seven-year period where he just kind of fell off the planet? Right, right, with the injuries that ensued and, you know, the way he had to kind of go into hibernation and get his life back together.

But you know what? I think that that just feeds the legend and feeds the unbelievable story that Tiger has lived. And I said this after his accident, his recent car accident, which thank God he's alive, that if you went into a Hollywood producer's office and you wrote Tiger's life story and you included everything all the way through this accident and you gave it to him and this guy didn't know anything about Tiger Woods, he'd read it and say, this didn't happen, none of this stuff happened, did it? This isn't true. And you'd say, yeah, it is true. I think it's that unbelievable. This last unfortunate car accident just got me thinking, this guy is just on another level of the ups and downs and the twists and turns and the way he's been able to overcome so many different things.

If he's able to somehow get out of this, and again, that's not, you know, our first wish is for him to be able to walk and hang out and play with his kids and live a normal life, but if this is the last chapter and he somehow comes out of this, I mean, you're going to have to rewrite the last chapter of the Tiger journey, which is the most unbelievable thing we've ever seen in sports. And get the movie ready, right? I mean, everybody… Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah.

Yep. Dan, I so appreciate it. I know that you're busy with the French Open.

I know you're headed out to Torrey Pines to, this is kind of the anniversary of Tiger's last U.S. Open win in 08. I so appreciate you taking the time. Please keep doing the great stuff you're doing. We love listening to you and thanks for jumping on with me. Jay, my pleasure. Great to catch up with you.

All the best to you and look forward to chatting down the road with you again. All right, so, John, there's something about Dan's voice. Jim Nance does the same thing. It just makes me look around and feel like my TV's on.

You know, there's a tournament on. There's something that just kind of gets you in that mindset. It's pretty special. Well, that seems to be the trait behind the special commentators through all of life. For me, it was Harry Carey early on and you just wanted it on all the time.

Didn't necessarily listen to what they said, per se, sometimes. It was just nice to have it in the background. Obviously, what they have to say is awfully strong as well. He's had some phenomenal calls and it's fun to listen to him talk about some of his calls because he's just as animated now talking about them and reliving them as he was when he was actually making some of the sports calls. It's fun to hear those guys that passionate.

Yeah, Pearl, don't you feel like sometimes we forget that these guys are human? You know, it's like they're just winging it, you know, and all of a sudden this moment comes kind of out of left field, so to speak, and they're as much caught in the moment as we are. Well, I loved when he talked about the race, the swim race with Phelps, because he said, I was excited, Rowdy Gaines was excited, the trucks going crazy, the camera guys were going crazy. That just got me all fired up. I'm like, I can just remember it again because I, like you, I watched it.

All of America was riveted to it, and that's special times. As you said, the other commentators have said some of the same stuff, Jim Nance, just when he got totally into it. It's, yeah, they're fans along with us, but they just get to describe it, and they do a pretty good job.

Yeah, they do a great job. Well, that's going to wrap up the back nine, but don't go anywhere. We'll have more golf with Jay Delsing on the Michelob Ultra 19th hole. This is Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, and you're talking to Jay Delsing? Wait, I'm sorry, what was the name of the show? Golf with Jay Delsing.

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Grab your friends, a cold one, and pull up a chair. We're on to the 19th hole on golf with Jay Delsing. The 19th hole is brought to you by Michelobultra. All right, this is golf with Jay Delsing, and we are back. And we are back on the 19th hole sponsored by our friends at Michelobultra.

Man, this ultra tastes good. I know, Pearly, you got one in hand. And, gosh, the Dan Hicks thing, now that I've known Dan a little bit, there's something special about knowing how the job affects him. And the call that he talked about with Tiger in 08 at Torrey with Lezak in the 4x100 relays in 2008, and Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals and all that. And there's something endearing to me, John, when a guy like that kind of lets in a little bit of how special that really was to him. Yeah, absolutely. It makes him very human, very relatable. I thought he did a great job talking about that. And what a cool thing for him to have that awareness that he's kind of been talking about and explaining so much of the key moments of both Tiger and Michael Phelps' career.

I never put that together like that. That's pretty cool stuff because there's two goats, isn't it? Oh, no question. I mean, we got to get Michael on the show because he loves a game of golf, and no one's going to touch the records Michael Phelps has. I mean, he is just amazing. Yeah, pretty special times.

You know, Pearl, Torrey, since we're Father's Day Sunday, US Open Sunday, Torrey is just a beast. And it is – they redid it, what, probably 20 years ago now. And it's still breathtakingly beautiful, but man, is that a hard golf course to play. Jay, do the guys like it better with the changes, or would they have liked it to kind of stay the way it was?

You know, Jon, I don't think staying the way it was is even an option. With the way that the guys play, it wouldn't be appropriate to play a US Open there anymore. Yeah, true.

You know what I mean? They've done special things to it. It's a public track, which makes it, I think, even that much more special. It's fun to play. It's fun to be there. It's certainly fun to watch on TV. Yeah, I mean, and the landscape is just, you know, second to none. You see the Pacific Ocean out there. Black's Beach is right down there, which, you know, you and I know well from our days of plowing around Southern California.

And the whole Father's Day components, I mean, I just love the fact that the USGA has latched onto this date and never come off of it. Jon, one of the things that I want to talk about a little bit, and I know you've experienced this with me, and I'm sure you've experienced it yourself with your dad, you know, no longer being with us, is the people that come up to you. And they talk about how your dad had affected them. And you may not even know this person. You may not even know that this relationship happened or this whatever this experience happened that affected this person in such a positive way.

And someone did it to me just a couple days ago. And it just brought me back to my dad and this whole Father's Day thing and just kind of how I'm tying it all in. Well, I think it's cool, and I have been with you on many occasions when people would come up and say, hey, I watched your dad play ball.

He was fantastic. Sometimes didn't they give you a card, one of his baseball cards, want you to sign it, or some other memorabilia? And I always just thought that was so cool. You know, when you're growing up, you know, dad's dad, but you don't realize that they had another life and they have another life, their job, their career, whatever the case is. And they're not just influencing you as their son. They're influencing other people day in, day out. And it was kind of cool, because we're both lucky to have good fathers, to have people come up to us and say how impactful our father was in their life.

No, I mean, no question about it. I don't know if I've told this story on air or not, but I can remember I was in the last group at Hartford, which will be the tournament next week, the Travelers. And I was just getting ready to play. There were three or four minutes before I was teeing off, and I hear this guy go, J, J, J, J, J, you know.

And it was a New Yorker kind of New York accent. I was like, come on, you know, just let me play. I'm ready to go. I want to go.

I don't want to talk to anybody. I want to do my thing. And something happened, Pearl, in the group in front of us, and there was a delay. And so this guy was just relentless, J, J. And so I turned around and I said, hey, how's it going? And he said, I'm really sorry to bother you.

He had this scrolled up little holder, almost like the tube at the end of the saran wrap or the aluminum foil, with a picture of my dad on the 1949 Yankees team. Awesome. And I said to him, I looked at it, and obviously this was going on, and I felt like about a foot tall. And I said, wow, you know, thank you so much.

I put this in my bag. I said, I got to go play, but I really appreciate it. I said, are you sure you want to give this to me?

And he goes, I do. I thought you'd really enjoy it. I loved watching your dad play. That's awesome. And I was like, man, what a cool thing to do. You know, of course, leave it to me to be kind of pissed off about it before I got it. But, you know, the timing wasn't perfect. But, man, I so appreciate that stuff like that.

Yeah, that is going to do it. We got another show in the books. Well done. That's fun to listen to those stories and have another superstar on your show with Dan Hicks. And congratulations on another great show. Thanks.

What do we got coming up next week? We have got Mike Maddox, who happens to be the current pitching coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. Unbelievable human being, but he holds a distinction that very few people in the entire world do. He made two hole-in-ones in one round of golf. And everything he's done in his life, that's probably the highlight of his career. He loves it. He is a great guy.

I can't wait for people to meet him. But that's going to do it for this show. So, me, thanks for taking care of us, Pearlie. Go on fishing.

Go nightcrawler hunting, whatever it is you do. And hit him straight St. Louis. 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.

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