Golf With Jay Delsing - - Story Time with Perlie

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 Vehicle Assurance. Hey, good morning. This is golfer Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay Delsing. I got John Perlis with me. Perli, how you doing this morning?

I'm doing just fantastic, Jay. Ready for the show. Ready for, uh, it's all about us today. There are no guests, huh? All about us today. Nope, there's no guests.

We format the show like a round of golf. This first segment is the On The Range segment. It's brought to you by Vehicle Assurance. You can call them at 866-341-9255.

If you need a warranty, you need some additional coverage for your vehicle, call them. They're great people. They've been in business for 10 years.

Uh, over a million satisfied customers. Perl, quick update on our social media. Go. Going, everything's going really well, Jay.

Okay, cool. I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue Painting and Refinishing, 314-805-2132. These guys are such nice people. I met with Kathy a couple weeks ago. Just a great human being.

Love spending time with her. They are absolutely swamped. They're doing stuff for inside of houses, outside of houses, and the work they do is just incredible. So, uh, give them a call. 314-805-2132. The Tip of the Cap segment is brought to you by the Dean team of Kirkwood.

314-966-0303. And the Tip of the Cap goes out to the PGA Championship. We've got the PGA Championship this week. It's the second major of the year. You know, they moved it to May. We're playing at Kewa Island. We're going to have a full force of spectators out there, and we're just glad to have it back. I want to thank Colin Burt, my buddy over at the Dean team of Kirkwood, and his right-hand person, Brandi, for helping us, for supporting the show.

And if you need any sort of vehicle, please call them at 314-966-0303. Yeah, so Pearl, don't guess this show. Just you and I. Uh, here we go. And so here's the topic that I came up with, and this is, I think this is going to be fun.

Hopefully, the listeners will think it's fun too. The only thing that we really can count on is change in our life, right? I read something the other day that Jeff Bezos said, people, how did this go, John? I think I read this to you where he was saying, people are saying, you know, how do you deal with, oh gosh, I don't remember. How do you deal with all the change? And I think he said, or how do you do this when nothing stays the same? Or how do you, oh no, how do you predict the next great thing? And he said, I'm trying to figure out, you know, what's not going to change.

And he was trying to, that didn't make any sense, did it? Anyway, if you're wondering about that quote, we'll throw that in the old stats bucket. It's close enough.

Yeah, we're not hurting anybody with that. But the big thing that I wanted to bring up was the change that's happened over the last 25 years, John, that we've seen in the golf industry. And it's been unbelievable. It's been, it happens seemingly gradually, I guess, but go back 25 years in almost every aspect of golf and it's all wildly different. It's just incredible.

It's, I mean, where do you want to start, John? When we played, when we were growing up, and that's obviously been more than 25 years ago. But one of the things that was, stood out to me first and foremost was walking versus riding a cart. We never rode a cart, ever, unless we were just out completely, you know, screwing around. Yeah, it's definitely a piece that for anybody learning the game, strongly encouraged, don't ride a cart. I think it's two different games, personally, riding in a cart and playing and walking and playing, and maybe even a third game, walking with a caddy and playing.

So if you get to any level of the game at all, to where you're working on it, improving and playing in any competition at all, it's a completely different game, walking versus riding. You know, John, one of the things that I'll never forget, the differences that I noticed from walking versus riding is that when you walk, you walk up the face in the front of every single green. And John, I swear that helped me read the greens better. I swear that gave me a much better idea of what I was facing putt-wise on that green. And the other thing is, John, that's one of the reasons why nobody fixes any ballmarks.

Think about that. The gigantic majority of the ballmarks all land in the front third of the green. I'd say 80% of them land in the front third of the green. When you're riding a cart, you're always entering the back third of the green.

Well, that's obviously true, but that's still a lame excuse. Not fixing ballmarks is another crazy maker as far as I'm concerned. You got to tell the story a little bit about, you know, I was always taught to obviously fix your ballmark, but when we played for UCLA, tell them the story about fixing ballmarks and carrying that sand bucket with us. You got to throw the sand bucket in there, don't you? You love that sand bucket story. You knew you were going to throw the sand bucket story in there. I'm glad you got over it. It still doesn't piss me off at all anymore. All of a sudden, I feel like I got a temperature.

So me, check this out. I wonder if they ever drained that pond. Oh, there he goes. He's going to bring everything.

Now we're draining the swamp. All the details, yo. Wow, we can't keep anything sacred anymore.

Oh, I won't tell anybody. So, Brad, when we got to UCLA, Bel Air Country Club is a fabulous, it's still one of my top five courses I've ever played. It is fabulous. And we were all truly, we never, maybe every day we didn't act like this, but we were truly honored to be able to play there. It was awesome. And a badass course. Just very demanding.

My game improved so much, I didn't hit a fairway my entire freshman year. And then John can vouch for that and I'm sure he will. But it's some other show. And you've got the who's who walking around everywhere.

Everywhere. Oh yeah, all the celebs. And Pearly was walking around, a future celeb. But one of the things our coach came up to us and said, I want you to fix five ball marks on every green that you get on. Let's start, wait a second, wait a second, Meade. I don't know that you don't want to cut that. Cut the mic, I think.

You cut that. It was two ball marks per hole, but go ahead and continue. No it wasn't, it was five ball marks per hole.

Pearly is a terrible listener. It was five ball marks per hole. I went the extra mile then, Meade, I want to say.

He was just a slacker, that's what it was. I fixed five ball marks per hole. But then came the thing that just tipped the, you know the old straw that broke the camel's back?

This was the one that broke the back. So I thought that was a great idea. I actually still try to do that today. Not two, five ball marks per hole. And I played today and I did that today, Pearly.

Anyway, so somewhere along what, Pearly? Our third year out there? Our coach had this great idea that we were going to carry around a bucket. A real bucket full of sand to fix, to fill in divots while we played. And Meade, that didn't sit well. Sounds easy. It didn't sit well with me.

It didn't. It's just a look, you know, carrying around a bucket. I'm like, come on, man. Let's set the stage here for a second.

So here we are, Bel Air Country Club, just a couple miles north of Sunset Boulevard, which goes into Hollywood, California, in Westwood, just off the campus. Here's a guy from the middle of the United States, St. Louis, Missouri, getting paid to go to school. Nothing costs him anything. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a second.

Living in a mansion. And the coach says, hey, would you carry this bucket while you're playing to fill in your divots? And that was just like offensive to him. I did hear that you had it pretty good. I know. I did have it good. Actually, a lot of things probably said was not wrong.

But let's not, you know, we've never been that factually based on this show. But what happened was, I don't know what happened, but what happened was I had a little bit of a temper back then. And those buckets became, you know, they took a beating a couple of times, a couple of times there. Yep, they got hit. Oh, no. They got broken. And all of a sudden, I didn't have a bucket. Oh, wow. And I felt, you know, kind of bad about that.

I didn't have a bucket. And I can remember coach coming to me on the, it was like the 14th hole pearl. And he said, hey, Mr. Delsing. Eddie Maritz was from Meridian, Mississippi. He talked slower than syrup falls out of a tree. And he'd say, Mr. Delsing.

So when Eddie recruited me, he called me on the phone because we didn't have the internet or anything. And he'd have these long pauses. And I thought he was finished talking. So I started talking. He was just taking a breath.

And he'd say, I was on the 14th. I said, Mr. Delsing, I don't see your sand bucket. And I said, nope, I don't have my bucket anymore. He said, where is that bucket? And I said, I think it's at the bottom of the eighth lake. I think it's at the bottom. You did not say that.

You didn't say that. You thought you left it in the bush or something. I don't remember what I said, I guess, but I know where it was. It was at the bottom of the lake on number eight.

Cause I broke it and I beat the hell out of it with my sand wedge and threw it in the lake. And so it sunk down to the bottom and he made me walk in from 14. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

What? Yeah. He made me walk in.

Yeah. We had a couple of battles, Coach and I. He obviously didn't understand me.

I knew it couldn't slip down by pearly. I just was a hothead and I didn't like anybody to tell me what to do. That was what it was.

I'm going to rebut that as well. I don't remember you as a hothead. Not that we all didn't lose our temper once or while. You didn't want anybody to even think of telling you what to do.

That's where the issue was. Didn't I just say that, Meat? Bucket or no bucket. Okay, so I wasn't really a hothead, but I did not like to be told what to do. Like if someone said, don't take a left, Meat, all I could think of was, what's over there?

What's the left? I'll let that be. What's the hell? You know? We used to do that. Yeah.

Well, all right, so that's going to wrap up. Did we cover anything on the front? No, I don't think so.

On the range segment? I don't think we did. What was the subject? I don't remember. I don't think so. But we might, folks, don't go anywhere because the front night's coming up and we might cover something there. We might not, too.

Probably not. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Hello, friends.

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I got Pearly with me. Brad Barnes is taking great care of us here at the ESPN Studios, and we're headed to the front nine. The front nine is brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic. I can't wait for this.

St. Louis has got professional golf back in town, September 6 through 12 at Norwood Hills Country Club. Ascension is a community powerhouse, rock star. What other superlatives can we throw on this, John? They've just been great. They're just great. They're getting it done. They are getting it done big time.

Yeah, so we thank them. And all right, so Pearl, we're talking about changes in the game of golf in the last 25 years or so. All right, and we talked a little bit about carts, walking versus riding. One of the things I got to say, I mean, Tiger Woods and this power game, Tiger got everybody lifting weights. I mean, how crazy is that on the PGA Tour? He brought, I mean, how about the physical physiques of the professional golfer, John? Can you remember, Jay, in college? So I'm glad you brought that up.

I didn't know it was Tiger, not a surprise to me, obviously, but I didn't know that. You remember in college, not that we were running to the gym by any stretch, but the couple of guys that did, they got in trouble. They absolutely said, you cannot go to the gym. You cannot be lifting weights. You can't do this. I remember early, early days, Keith Clearwater changing his body.

I think he was the first one of any note that changed his body, went to the gym, did that kind of thing. But absolutely. I mean, we were absolutely told it's the wrong thing to do. It won't work.

It'll hurt your game, et cetera. And by the way, I don't necessarily disagree with that if you do it wrong. I think there's a right way to work at it and get strength and change your body that way. And I think there's a wrong way to do it. Oh, there's no doubt, John.

And think about that. You know, the TPI, Titleist Performance Institute, all of these things that have come about because of Tiger, what Keith did was all pre-Tiger. I mean, it's, you know, and his game did not get better. I don't think so. By the way, he was one hell of a heck of a player.

And I agree with you. I don't think it did get better. I saw ultimately, you know, he gets to do what he wants to do with his body.

It's his game, but I'm not sure it helped his game. No, I think so. I think so. So, man, what are the things, John, and this is so dumb, but I got to bring it up anyway. One of the things that comes back to me in spades was I can remember one time when I was actually leading the Phoenix Open, I was staying at your mom and dad's house.

I think Mackenzie, my oldest, was just a little baby. And I can remember having to iron our clothes. Remember all of the heavy cotton shirts, the heavy cotton pants? And I know that sounds so, you know, meaningless, but gosh, this new material is nice.

It's meaningless to people that never went through it. But when we played college golf, we'd get those beautiful foot joy. I think they were called classics.

Metal spikes. And they were, you know, I think they weighed four pounds each until you played in the rain or in the morning dew, and then they got up to about 12 pounds each. And like you said, then all of a sudden it's raining or the dew and the heavy kind of Docker-like pants with cuffs that we had on them, those gained about a pound and a half as those cuffs sucked up the moisture from the rough that we were messing around with. And then the shirts, by the time we got done, given our unbelievable physique and our unbelievable chest bulging out, ended up being drooping down somewhere closer to our hips or our pockets. Yeah, you brought that up.

It's so funny you bring that up. It was wildly different. It was, I mean, just the end of the day, the clothes in the rain now, shoes included, versus if you play in the rain today, then versus today, you're probably talking four to six pounds.

And I don't think I'm exaggerating. Pearl, what about, what about, forget the rain? What about when it was hot?

Remember it was like he had a burlap blanket on, you know, thrown over you with those, with those shirts. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. But let's talk about a couple of things that are a little more meaningful. Pearl, how about the golf ball? Think about the golf ball. First of all, how many golf balls when we were in college and we're playing the balada, right?

This is before the 394 and all the, the, the, the, the cool products that Titleist came out with. How many balls did you go through every round? Well, at least two or three.

Not that I could afford to change them out, but you sure as heck needed to between the scuff marks and the, the cuts in it. Yeah. You, you, you could hit a pretty decent shot and it would have a smile in it.

No, I mean, a hundred percent. I mean, those balada balls were, were incredible. When's the last time you took one of these new balls out because it was quote unquote unfit for play like back in the day. Hey, if I haven't lost this. Exactly, I said to you, I think I said to you in the notes and we, we were prepping for this. I'm like, the only problem is the Pro V ones, they don't float, you know, otherwise we can, we had a shot of finding them. Yeah. When it comes to equipment, John, I feel like golf has gone, I mean, I don't want to say off the deep end cause that's, that would as such a hugely negative connotation, but it's gone into the abyss at least. Hey Jay, when we were freshmen or sophomores, what, what was the golf ball? What, what was it called at that point? I just remember a balada, but what, it was 384, it was 384 and then they had the low trajectory came out when we were like freshmen or sophomores. And then they had the high trajectory came out and nobody played that. And then Pearl, they went to the three 94, I think, or they went to the professional next.

I think that's exactly what they did. What was, what was previous to the three 84? Do you have any, I don't, I don't recall. I don't know.

Okay. So whatever that was, whatever that was before the three 84, I seriously would love to see the tour players have to play whatever previous to three 84 was. Cause that was a big change, but the previous to three 84, it was a completely different game. You didn't think straight. And I remember, I remember the instructors, you tell you, you can't think straight. You got to curve it this way or you got to curve it that way. There wasn't really a straight thought of hitting a straight shot. No, no.

You know what, John? Quite honestly, that ball didn't fly straight. That ball did not fly straight. It had to be the ball.

It must've been the ball's fault. Right. Yeah.

So yeah. So interesting, John, you know, what a couple of weeks ago when we had Craig can on, who was just a great guy. He talked about being one of the first folks, you know, at the golf channel and being one of the original broadcasters, the original six down there and stuff. John, one of the things that I wanted to bring up was what about the agronomy? What about the, the, the actual equipment that they maintain golf courses with and what that looks like?

I mean, can you imagine? I think, I think Ferdy said a couple of weeks ago, if Jack Nicklaus in 1975, when I hit his putt as hard in 75 is, or in today's world as he did in 75, he'd have been on the 17th tee on the 16th where he hold that putt, that long putt up the, up the face of the green there at 16. And then he gave his nice little Henry Longhurst impersonation, but that's been a big deal, Pearl.

It's a, it's an absolutely huge deal. The number of times I can remember specifically, I think he went through the same qualifier LA open, probably an 84 or something like that. We played a golf course to qualify to play in the LA open that the greens were so bad. You might as well have chipped them all the way around. And I don't mean, I don't mean blade your sandwich. I mean, chipped it. Where were we Pearl, Los Arenas?

Green Valley or green river, something like that. But the point was, you know, I can remember cutting for you being blown away by the number of times the golf course is wearing somewhere between mediocre and God awful condition. And you know, TV could make that kind of go away a little bit, but as a, as a, as a player, you guys were dealing with stuff for them like, Oh my gosh, how do you play this? Uh, it, it, it's changed so much it's, and by the way, it's still not perfect out there, which is another thing TV doesn't let us see really.

But that's part of the mental part of the whole game is, is there's plenty of imperfections out there. You can hit the perfect pun and it, it, it won't go in Pearl. I can remember the first time it went down to new Orleans. I played in the, uh, I think it was USF and G was our title sponsor, whomever down there. And I got to like the 12th green in the practice room and there wasn't a blade of grass on it. And then when I, uh, when I came out, cause I wasn't in the pro amps, my friend, my rookie you're on tour and I came out there on Thursday and all the sand was painted green. There you go. And I said, how the hell do you read sand? And he's like, yeah, I don't know.

Good luck. Yep. That's just a big part of the game, you know, that's the greens and then you can back it up and talk about the fairways and then when the ball just sits again, you can't see it on TV, but when the, when the grass is standing in the fairways and the ball is just basically sitting on dirt, uh, there, there's just a lot of those things, which to me tells you how great those players are on tour because it's not perfect.

I mean, it's, and it's a lot harder to play when it's not perfect. Pearl, do you remember the first time you played on Ben Kress compare compared to a Zoysia Bermuda and how down the ball set and how squirrely the ball flew out of wet, uh, Ben Kress? Well, I, I remember different conditions through the years. I remember as a Midwest kid, go down and play in the university of South Florida outside of Tampa.

My first year going like, what do I do? The wind's blowing all the time. Every time I looked, I looked down at the ball fairway or not is sitting in some level of sand and all the greens are elevated and turtle backs. I'm thinking I'm going to shoot 85 every time I tee it up. Well, let's, you know what? That's going to wrap up the front nine, but let's, uh, end that there and may meet, make sure we pick up pearly shooting 85 every time we place on the back nine, this is golf with Jay Delson.

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How are you? Doing great, Joe. Thanks 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.

Well, thanks a bunch. Tell us just a little bit about USA Mortgage and what you can do for people. Well, USA Mortgage is a ESOP. It's an employee owned company. So over a thousand families here in St. Louis work for the company.

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The Back 9 is brought to you by Fogelbach Agency with Farmers Insurance. Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delcey. I'm your host, Jay. I got Perley.

He is waving at me, sitting right next to me. Perley, what's up? Well, I'm going to throw you a curveball, a complete curveball here. Here we are on the Back 9 of the Golf with Jay Delcey show.

What's the most fascinating Back 9 you ever played? Oh, I know. I know that. I know that.

I know that. But first of all, I got to give props to my man, Ed Fogelbach, because he's sponsoring this Back 9, and the Fogelbach Agency with Farmers. Oh, this is going to be good. Please reach out to Ed, 314-398-0101.

He will help you with any of your insurance needs. Pearl, I played at the Canadian Open one year, and I played my last four holes five under. Nice. Nice. Oh, man. Nice. I'll never forget this, because I think I want to finish in third in the tournament, and I'm sitting in my locker and getting a shower, and Joey Sindler comes up and goes, Dude, where did you come from on the Back 9? I said, What do you mean?

He goes, I don't know. I was sitting there in fourth place all by myself, and then all of a sudden I see you pass me off. He was a great guy.

Joey Sindler was just terrific. But I remember going something like birdie on 15, eagle on 16, birdie 17, birdie 18. I was playing with Vijay Singh, and I stepped up on 18, Pearl, and I remember hitting this hard little draw off the tee with my driver, and I had been hitting fades most of the day, and he looked at me and like, I can't believe you can hit a draw. And I was like, Just keep watching, bro. No, I didn't see it.

I didn't see it. You don't understand me, Vijay. I can hit it anywhere.

You don't understand me, Vijay, and neither do I. So yeah, but oh, man, that was a fun, fun Back 9. I think I wound up shooting, I think I shot 30 because I think I was one under going into that, and snuck up on everybody when they weren't looking, Pearl. I like that. I like that a lot.

I got to tell you, maybe the one off the top of my head, my favorite Back 9. I'm playing, going through Canadian Open, Canadian Tour qualifier outside of Toronto, and I'm right on the bubble, which I should have been comfortable with, but not necessarily. So we got about six holes to go, and this unbelievable thunderstorm starts coming through, and they call us off. The lightning all over the place going absolutely nuts, so I go inside.

Right away, I'm looking for an official, and he's like, What do you want? I said, When we're allowed to get back out there, can I hit any balls in the range? And I think the answer was at the time I did it, whether or not he said I could, and I go out there and I hit a couple balls because I just needed to hit one free swing and not hold, choking that grip to death coming out of the stretch. So I got six holes to go.

I'm also a believer, for the record, that in the rain, the wind, when that's going to change, whatever it is, the ions, the eons of the atmosphere change. I felt different, all of a sudden I could swing away. I got two under coming down the last six holes, not only to get my card, but finish top eight, which they exempted me for the first half of the field. So it was just a sea change of not going through all that garbage at tour school and not get my car to getting it.

Hey, me, me, me. Do you remember asking Pearly about his best? I don't remember anybody asking about that.

The atmosphere is changing. Yeah, he did. He did. Pearl. Tell everybody. Tell the folks his story about the time you're going through Q school down in Houston.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You know what? I'm not going to tell you. You know why I'm not going to tell you? Because it wasn't Houston. So there. If you can remember where it was, I'll tell you.

It was somewhere other than Houston. Tell them. Tell them. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh.

Tell them that story. It was. It was. It was actually a CEDA golf course designed by Lee Trevino. Was it in Texas?

Pearl? No, it was in Florida. It was absolutely in Florida. It was out in the middle of absolutely nowhere in Florida.

They want those new properties that they put together. And I am, I am just on full grind mode and I'm going to get to the final two tour school. I'm in great shape going into the last round.

However, my bank account was still reflecting my previous successes. And so I was staying about 60 miles away from the golf course. So I get done playing. I went in. They didn't know the T times for the next day.

I said, fine. Got the phone number like we all do drive my 60 miles to get to my motel six somewhere out in the middle of some swamps of place and didn't have a phone in my room out across the street and phone calls. Oh my gosh, it's like a bad dream. So here's eight, 80 or 90 guys, all in a similar situation, calling right to get the T types. So I'm running outside my shorts, run across the street, put another dime or quarter or whatever it was, either of which I could afford it to the phone, into the phone booth, call up there, ring and ring and ring and nobody's answer. It's busy. It's busy. It's busy. We go back and forth, back and forth. I'm thinking, well, what the heck?

I'm clearly either leading, I'm certainly in the leader group. So it's gotta be an 1130 to 12 o'clock time. I'll call at seven o'clock in the morning just to kind of confirm, but everything's fine. So I go to sleep.

I don't think too much of it. Get up the next morning, seven, seven 30, make a phone call. And again, I'm 60 miles away, right? And they call and finally, sometimes it rings through the pro shop and I said, Hey, I'm checking my tee time, John Perlis, uh, X amount of whatever my score was at the time. And I said, I think I'll be in the leader group. He said, yeah, you are, you are in the leader group and they're going off at eight 10. I said at seven 30, what do you mean eight 10? I'm in the leader group.

Well, they, they deemed that the grit, the grass and the conditions were so difficult and unfair to the leaders that they're going to put you guys first today so that it's more fair. And I'm like, I'm 60 miles away. I'm literally, I'm, I'm breaking into a sweat. I'm panic.

I'm thinking, where do I get a helicopter, you know, and, and be able to pay them like 50 cents to take me there. So I just, I just went, I went back into my motel, sex, laid on the bed. I don't think I cried, but I moaned and then I'm thinking, how do I explain this to my sponsors, to my parents, to my friends, et cetera. And yeah, so I didn't make the, uh, the fourth round, uh, to get into the tour school finals.

I think all I had to do is break 80 and of course that I was, you know, a couple under par at for the first three rounds. And, uh, I, I just booked another flight and flew home. That's amazing that you told that story because that wasn't the one I was talking about. I had a feeling there was a different level.

What the heck were you asking about? I thought there was one in Texas where you woke up in the middle of the night and you're like, I got to hit some balls. Oh yeah. That wasn't in Texas. Yeah. That was Lake Conroe. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's the year that, why are we talking about me? But that's the year that I got into tours, tours, two o'clock in the morning, I wake up next to a friend and I said, I don't, I don't think that I can hit the golf ball. And she's like, what are you talking about? I said, I don't think I can make contact in my swing.

What are you going to do about it right now? I said, give me some golf balls, I got to get him some shots. So we go off the back patio.

She happened to live on a, on a, on a Lake, Lake Conroe. And we, I dropped three balls of this heavy, heavy Bermuda grass and I just pureed them. I'm like, okay, I can go to sleep. So I think I went back to sleep. And what was your next day like? It was great. The next day was great. Every day was great after that.

Every day was great after that. All right. Cool. Hey, let's get back to our topic. What is our topic? All right. So Pearl, yeah, that's our general topic. Oh my gosh. That was fantastic stories by Pearly. Now you guys know why Pearly's out of the golf business.

Could be, I don't know. All right. Pearl, how about lessons? When you think about how lessons have changed, when, when, when we were getting a bunch of lessons, you sat around with me getting a bunch of lessons. I don't want to throw a bunch of people under the bus, but what do you, has, has the instruction gotten better?

John? Yeah. And I'll tell you, Jay, obviously it's gotten better and we understand it better because of a video and slow motion and things like that.

So I don't think you want, I don't think we're throwing anybody on the bus. It's like anything else, business, life, how we approach things, it's changed for sure. I have to say when, when a couple of weeks ago when Faridee mentioned, Dave Faridee mentioned taken, or being tutored underneath Phil Ritson at Disney, I actually took a lesson from Phil Ritson. And I remember quite a bit about that lesson. And also specifically for another conversation, Mo Norman was the next person after me to take a lesson from Phil Ritson, which when I look back at that, that's kind of an epic situation that happened. That is, that is epic. I would have loved to sat in on that with Phil.

Phil's from South Africa, I think, Pearl, right? And listen to that conversation with Mo. Well Mo comes up and I'm hitting balls and Mo's right behind me because it's his turn next. And he kind of wanted it to be his turn then.

Of course he did. He's just smoking these things behind me and all of a sudden you hear him go, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. And Phil's like, Mo, what's wrong? Ooh, aiming for the two, going over the five. Mo said everything two to three times. And he's talking about the 250 sign, he's hitting bloody drivers over it and he's going over the wrong number and he's upset about it. I'm thinking I'm trying to keep it under range. Yeah, that's right.

It's serious. And I can remember Phil, I very specifically remember Phil Ritson saying, Mo, I'll be right over there. We'll straighten it out right after I finished working with John. And I knew Mo Norman a tiny bit from the Canadian tour because the guy that taught me the game was actually friends with Mo for many years before, so I hadn't seen him for, I was in college at that time, so I hadn't seen him for a good 10, 12 years. And he certainly didn't remember me, but it was just interesting to watch an all-time historic player like Mo Norman take a lesson. It was fascinating because I think Phil Ritson just played along because there's really nothing you're going to tell Mo.

One, he wasn't going to listen, two, he didn't need to listen. Yeah, it's interesting, Pearl, because I've had lessons from David Ledbetter, I've had lessons from Peter Casas, I've had lessons from Rick Smith, all sorts of different people. And what's interesting is that in the modern era with these high-speed computers and these high-speed cameras, it's pretty much dispelled a lot of the things that we were taught as kids. We were taught that if you want to hit a hook, just swing more out to the right. No one ever mentioned club face. And so when you swing out to the right, if you shut your club face down, the ball's going to start left, doesn't matter. You know, and when, gosh, what, Pearl, 10, 12 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, when these newer products came out where they could slow and capture your swing enough, we realized that the club face was everything.

The club face is hitting the ball. We got to get that club face and that ball square to hit it this way or that way and make it work. So a lot of the things we were taught, you know, we'd swing farther out to the right, Pearl, but shut our face down and all of a sudden, hell, the ball would hook wildly farther left. Well, you know, Jay, it's easy to, like you're talking before, you know, to say, well, they taught us this or they taught us the wrong thing. Again, I think another analogy, which we often do on your show is to business. You know, business practices 15, 20 years ago, raising a child practices 20 or 15 years ago, everything's changed. We learn, hopefully, hopefully we learn.

Hopefully we evolve. Hopefully we try to try new things and keep trying to get it better and better without telling who it was, because that would be inappropriate. Talk about coming down the 18th hole at Pebble Beach when you're getting a final lesson from an individual that you'd worked with for a while and explain how that went. I knew enough at the time because I'd just flown in, I'd walked from the 18th green back to catch you guys.

It was a practice round and I knew enough that when I was about 50 yards away, I could just sense a tension and an angst that I knew to stay 50 yards away. Well, that's going to wrap up the back nine, but we're going to cover that. What do you want to call that?

That story? We're going to call that. It was not a wrestling match.

There were no blows. We're going to call that, we're going to call that, trust me, swing it to the right. That's what we're going to call that one. All right. We're going to pick that up on the Mickel of Baltimore 19th hole.

Don't go anywhere. For this fascinating story, this is golf with Jay Delsing. This is Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, and you're talking to Jay Delsing. And wait, I'm sorry, what was the name of the show? Golf with Jay Delsing.

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We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. We are farmers. I want to tell you about Dean Team Volkswagen of Kirkwood. My friend, Colin Burnt runs the store over there and he helped me buy a used Volkswagen for my daughter, Joe, when she turned 16. We've had the car for over a year. It's running great.

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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 Delsey. The 19th hole is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Hey, welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsey. I'm your host, Jay. I've got John with me. Brad Barnes is taking great care of us at the ESPN Studios. We are headed to the Michelob Ultra 19th hole, Pearl.

Let me set this up a little bit. So you're coming down the 18th hole. I'm walking from the green back. I run into Olin Brown.

He's just like, Pearly, I wouldn't go any further. I take a couple more steps and I can just feel the angst, the heat coming off. The caddies are kind of waving me back, like, don't get too close to here. And here we are at one of the most iconic places in the world, certainly in the golf world, 18 at Pebble.

Bright sunny day, waves crashing into the shore. Everything should be perfect. But something was, you were struggling. Your instructor, your teacher, well-known, was walking side by side with you and you were going for one final lesson. Yeah.

One final lesson is the key here. I can remember we were sitting out. I said to him, look, I don't know if you've been paying attention to my stats. I don't know if you're paying attention to my scores. I can't beat anybody. And he would say to me, you're the best swinger of the club that I have. And I said, I don't want to be the best swinger of the club.

I want to be able to play the game. I can't, I can't get this. I've got, what did I have? I had two, no, I had three shots. Here's the three shots guys. I could hit a hard pull hook that went 20 yards left of the target and probably 15 yards too far, which is not so good.

I had one that would go online. There would be at least a club and a half short. And then I had a little flare, a little flare out to the right and we'll go somewhere in between all those. Those are my three shots.

And I couldn't caddy for the first one. I was trying to play against the best players in the world and I'm standing out in the middle of the 14th fairway and I'm trying to explain to him, this to him. And we put this ball down, I hit, you know, I should be 40 yards in front of Olin Brown and I'm 10 yards behind him and I'm in the fairway somehow because I hit that fluffy little fluffy ball down the middle and he said, here's what I want you to do. And I said, if I do that, this ball is going to hit that mansion on the right.

And he goes, we'll just hit the mansion on the right then. And I said, all right. So we put the ball down and made the swing and it flew right into this, what we figure pro because the day before we took the, I took the, that place was for sale meat. I walked over there and I took the little for sale card out of that little placard thing that held it.

It was like $47 million. Oh, no big deal. Yeah. It's kind of like the place you live in now.

Exactly. And I had a, I had a guest room that, and it had a five car garage and all that. And I flew it right into the middle of that, that compound over there. And I looked at him, I go, that's what I'm talking about. And he said, no, what happened there? And I said, no, no, that's not what happened there. What I did was what you said. And that's what I get when I do that. And he goes, give him another ball, says to my caddy, throw another ball down. Here's what I want you to do. And I said, it's going to produce the same shot and he goes, nope, nope.

It's going to go right down the fairway and guess what, twins right over into that compound. And it was on at that point I had had enough. And I said to him, I'm so tired of you not listening to me and you're not understanding what I'm trying to do here.

And that's an end. We didn't get to, we didn't get to a wrestling match. We, nobody threw a punch, but anyway, Pearly came in a lot, three holes later, everybody was scared to death. They thought we were going to go at it. I just, I would never get into a fight, but I'm not going to sugar coat it, man. You just, it just wasn't happening.

It wasn't happening. And that's, that's so tough. And part of the challenge is, and you would always talk to me about this. You knew you had to improve every year just to survive out there.

People would say, well, you know, you didn't win or you didn't do this. If you didn't get substantially better every year, or you weren't going to keep your card, you weren't going to get to keep playing. So you had to do that. You had to work with different guys. You had to try to tweak, challenge yourself and improve things. There was no status quo out there, you know, unless you're some absolute rocket superstar, but even those guys are working at it and changing and trying to get better.

You just couldn't sit on your laurels. Yeah. So I mean, the topic of the show is the change that's gone on on the tour, the lessons, the teachers' abilities to understand the swings better, understand the mechanics better. The difference between pro walking and riding, the difference between wearing like a burlap shirt and something that, you know, comes right out of the dryer and you can pop right on. John, I got to ask you, what would you say for you personally is the biggest change that's affected your beautiful golf game now as compared to 25 years ago? Other than the fact that I don't take it back more about three feet on my backswing, which is really quick, really quick from the top.

Yeah. Other than that. What's changed it?

Gosh, Jay, I'm probably the worst guy in the world to ask that because you know I was never into equipment. You weren't either until later in your year, which you knew you had to start really learning it and getting better at it. Other than the fact that I don't play much anymore, that's a big change.

So John, let me jump in here and you can kick this around a little bit. The biggest change, undoubtedly for me, besides the physical fitness of the other players and stuff, because I was on the back end of that Tiger ring there, is the driver and the golf ball combination, 100%. It made driving the ball so much easier. I can tell you this, John, my rookie year on tour in 1985, I finished in the top 10 or so in driving distance and I was 267 yards off the tee.

My last, oh gosh, I was probably 46 years old when I had a decent year, kept my card and I was, it was probably 20 something years later and I was at 297 in change and instead of being in the top 10, I was 78th in distance. So we fast forward 20 some odd years and I was 20 some odd yards longer and lost over 60 spots on the distance list. Yeah I think there's, you know, it's not relative to my game, but what I see out there is if I had one thing to point to, it'd be the golf ball. Just kind of what you said, it just flies so straight. And it's a rocket.

It's a rocket. Yeah, you just couldn't make that old one do that. Your very best shots weren't going to do what an average shot can do to this day. However, the shaft, mowing the greens, all the things we've talked about today absolutely play a part of it. And you know what, given the game is the shot here, it's a shot there. All those things matter.

They all matter a lot. And then throw onto that, Pearl, 25 years of better human beings, better physically fit guys, more of all of this combined to fit into a world that just is what they grew up with. Oh my gosh, you've got great athletes that are making a hell of a lot of money playing golf using better equipment and I think it's fantastic.

Oh, I think we're both fans. Neither one of us sit back and say, I would like to see they go play with the old golf ball just because I'd like to see it. I've just become a bigger and bigger fan of the sport as the years go by and I respect the daylights. It's easy to say, well, look at their physiques, you know, they're working. There's huge commitment on these guys, what they're eating, how they're living, how they're hitting the gym all the time, how they're building their teams. We always hear them say, aren't my team, we, you know, not too many times you hear guys just talk about themselves. It's a team thing. There's just a lot of changes.

There was a lot of team involved in the past, but it wasn't looked at it that way. No, that's absolutely right. Pearl, that's going to wrap up another show. Man. Wow. Wow.

Too fast. Stuff is flying by, Pearlie. Thanks so much for being with me. We appreciate it. Thanks so much for taking care of us here and we will be back next week. This is golfer Jay Delsing. And I'm straight St. Louis.