Golf With Jay Delsing - - Joe LaCava Rewind

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 Pro-Am Golf. Hey, good morning, St. Louis. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. I got Pearly with me. John Pearlys, what's going on this morning? Just glad to be here. Another show.

Let's get rolling. All right, we formatted the show like a round of golf. And the first segment is called the On The Range segment brought to you by Pro-Am Golf.

If you need anything for your game, go check out our friends at Pro-Am Golf. They've got monitors over there. They've got launch monitors. They've got all the latest computers, all the gear you need.

And the Degrands are terrific people. Check out our social media outlets. Pearly, do you want to handle this social media? No, you do a good job of it, Jay.

You handle it. That's because Pearly doesn't even know what social media is. And Twitter is at Jay Delsing. Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing and Jay Delsing Golf Hospitality. LinkedIn is just Jay Delsing. And we have an Instagram account that continues to grow. And we don't announce it because... I boycott the social media stuff. Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix and you'll know exactly where I'm coming from. Yeah, you've been talking about that a little bit, hey? I'll tell you what, man, that's scary stuff.

Scary stuff. I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue. 314-805-2132 is their number. They do great stuff around your house. If there's something that you need, the home refinishing and painting, which they specialize in, it's just, you know, it's really, really busy right now.

Give Bob and Kathy a call. They are great peeps. All right, so cool show today. We took an old interview that I had with Joe LaCava. He's, first of all, a world-class human being. Hell, he's a world-class caddy too. Caddy Hall of Fame. Caddy for Fred Couples for years. Now he's caddying for Tiger Woods. Little DJ mixed in there.

A lot of people might not know that name. I'll tell a really fun story about Ken Green up at the Canadian Open. And yeah, so that's what we've, that's what our show looks like today.

Love it. Let's go. All right, so the tour is down in, down in Jackson, Mississippi, Pearl. Are they playing the same golf course you played? No, we used to play to play a Jack Nicklaus design called Ann and Dale.

Right. Okay, and now they're playing Jackson Country Club. But I will say this, this is the Sanderson Farms. Sanderson Farms has been a phenomenal supporter of the PGA Tour.

And given that region just loves, you know, the game down there. I flew in one year to Caddy for you and I'm wandering around the airport. You couldn't get out there, so I'm trying to figure out how the heck am I going to get from the airport to the golf course. And I run into Andy Bean and he could tell I was walking in circles and he's like, you need a ride to the golf course.

And so I said, yeah, thanks a lot. So we go through right away, he's hungry, so we go through some fast food drive-through window situation. He says, what do you want? I said, nothing, I'm fine. He says, I'm buying.

And you remember, he was a great big guy. So he had a couple burgers himself and a couple orders of fries and stuff. He says, I'm buying. You tell me I'm buying and you don't want anything?

I said, Andy, I appreciate it, but I'm really not hungry. He says, I never see anything like it. He's also the dude that bit the golf ball in half back when they were in college. Remember the ballada ball? And wrestled the alligators. That was always his thing. I only knew him as a real nice man, I'm assuming he was. And he was one of those big, first great big hitters.

And he was just a kind of a mountain of a guy. Yeah. And you know how we kind of screw up our dates and times and uh, uh, we would go ahead. Yeah. Well, you've screwed it up again because it's not Sanderson Farms. It's the Shrider's Hospital in Vegas. Do you have any stories for that one? Oh yeah.

Well, can you tell any? Well, one year we were there and had an earthquake and you and I are standing in our underwear out in the hall trying to figure out what the hell we're supposed to do next. We're staying in the Golden Nugget and we're standing under like, like the hotel's going to come down and the door jam's going to protect us. And I'm looking outside the window before we did that and the pool is shaking out of the pool.

The water's shaking out of the pool. And you and I are running around in circles trying to get under some door jam on the floor. Man, that was right. God, that was, that's not a pretty sight. Yeah, that's not a pretty sight. But I wanted to talk one, when we go back to Sanderson Farms and we talk about Annandale.

Wait a second, they're not playing there you said? No, not this week. That was, but it's still a good story. Oh boy. So let's be under the bus after he puts the schedule together, Meat, but he's just determined to tell his story. I guess we'll listen to the story. Whose show is it, Meat?

Golf with John Perlin? Yeah. All right. All right. So I may have told you this, I don't know if I told the story on the show or not, but tell it again. I'm playing with Boo Weekly. Oh boy. And just hysterical. And I'm, I am putting so poorly, I don't know what, I don't know what, what to do.

And Mike Caddy, who's Michael Connell, who's brother Chris is the instructor for Matt Kuchar, just a great kid from Quincy, great family. He says to me, have you ever tried putting with your eyes closed? I said, give me two balls.

He's walking. He says that Michael Connell, but I've literally got the feeling I can't make it from a foot. So I'm trying anything. I go on the putting green. I put two balls down. I close my eyes, put two balls from like eight feet. One goes in, the other was like six feet short, you know, and he stubbed it. And so I go, well, I'm ready.

I'm ready. And so we go down to the first hole and a Boo is a hell of a ball striker and hits a good drive down there. And I hit a, I think I've hit a three wood just so I could find mine.

And I popped it up on the green about 15, 18 feet from the hole, stood over with my eyes closed, rolled it right in the hole. Nice. So now what do you do? I'm just completely freaked out. Oh, I'm in.

I'm doing this, but I am so completely freaked out because as soon as I close my eyes, I'm like, what's going on? Right. So long story short, I'm five under for the day or six under for the day.

And I go to the 15th holes of par three and I had a really nice iron shot in there about eight feet. There's probably 20,000 people around. And what I've been doing is closing my eyes, putting and keeping everything close until I hear either people clap or Boo. Right. And so I'm getting a little nervous because I'm certain of matters.

Yeah. So I hit this putt from about six feet and it seems like it's taken a really long time and I'm not hearing anything. I'm like, Oh, I must've missed it. And then all of a sudden the people start clapping. I look up and it just falls in the hole.

I guess it was just the wobbler down there and it just fell in. So I'm six under par, make a couple more birdies. Long story short, I'm coming to 18th par five, water everywhere. And I'm eight under par four. You close your eyes off the tee then too.

Exactly. So I hit a really nice drive out there. I hit my three wood straight over the flag stick and I've got about a 30 footer for Eagle to shoot 10 under par. And I'm thinking I'm going to shoot 10 under par today. Closing my eyes putting, I'm never going to not putt with my eyes closed.

Right. So there's, I don't know, there's a bunch of people around the 18th green, thousands of people. And I, and I hit this putt and I'm waiting for them to clap and waiting for them to, and I don't hear anything. And I look, I'm like, Oh, I knocked at about three and a half feet past the hole.

So I'm like, that's no big deal. I've made every single one of those today. So a boob puts out and whatever, and I'm getting my thing down there, do my deal and hit this putt and I'm waiting for people to clap and there's, Oh boy, no clapping. I must've pulled it or missed it.

I just missed it. And I'm like, well, still shot 64. But the, the interesting thing is folks, if you ever try this, you've got to try this in your game when you're putting poorly because I actually suggested you try it a couple of weeks ago because what it does you guys as it takes away, first of all, it sends fear through your entire body. Like, Oh my gosh, it basically gives you a new problem. Yeah, it does. And what it does is it leaves you with nothing but feel because now it's like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to miss this ball.

You swing your putter and you hit the putt and you go, Oh, I hit that on the heel, but I hit it. It gives you tremendous amount of feedback. And it also strips your mind of all sorts of crazy, like all sorts of, Oh, my elbow. Oh, this right. These sets what did for me. Yeah.

There's definitely some positive things to it. Well, what's his, uh, uh, here, here I go with the names again. Fox Fox. Jordan Spieth actually was closing his eyes once in a while. Uh, not that long ago. He was looking at the hole, wasn't he? He was looking at the hole. This goes better for the story.

If you say that he closed his eyes, he was closing his house. Yeah, we got that settled. Yeah.

Thank God. Um, but what it does, it's the same. I do that.

I do that drill all the time and recommend it to folks that I try to help with their putting where either close your eyes or look at the hole at the end because you stop looking at the ball and you plug into feel and putting is so feel. Yeah. Yeah. So um, all right, so that's going to wrap up the, on the range segment, but don't go away because we're going to have about 15 minutes of Joe LaCava, world-class Caddy Joe LaCava, um, on golf with Jay Delson. W X O S W X O S HD one East St. Louis one Oh one ESPN for 67 years. Lufus has been the ride to take 15 brands at 11 locations. Lufus automotive. We are St. Louis workouts more fun than this. Well, if they are, then I want to sign you to an endorsement deal with Michelob ultra.

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I'm Pearly with me. Brad Barnes is taking great care of us here at the ESPN studios, and we are going to The Front 9, brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic. Just hang in there with us, folks. We're going to get PGA Tour Golf back in town next year.

It'll be worth the wait. Yep, it'll be great. Norwood will be a great venue, and you're going to get to see a lot of great golf. Jim Furyk has been one for one at his senior events. We've got Philly Mick one for one, so who the hell knows who might be playing there next year. It'll be a lot of fun for a couple of years on that, bringing in some of that new blood like that.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to thank Whitmore Country Club for sponsoring the show again for this second year. 636-926-9622 is their number. Call Bill Brungart. He is the membership director. He's a terrific guy. He will show you around. He'll let you play some of the golf. They're doing something really special with their social distancing and opening their outdoor patios.

And they're just rocking out there. Their membership numbers are up. People are playing more golf. When you join out at Whitmore, you get access to 90 holes of golf. You get the 36 there at the complex.

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He's a treat. And they do a spectacular job of running golf leagues and skins games, members events, a couple of events. You just got to go out and see them at Whitmore Country Club. You can visit them at whitmoregolf.com. All right, I got to say something. You know, every time you do that Whitmore commercial, I love it. And you talk about it's not extra for a cart and it's not minimum food and that kind of stuff.

You're not getting nickeled and dimed. When I was growing up, I was lucky enough to be a member through my parents at a country club. And everything we would do as kids, you know, golf balls, chit, range balls, chit, hot dog, chit, fries, chit, you know, the little chits you had to sign. And those chits would get sent home at the end of the month. And there'd be just a pile of chits. My father, he would look at that. And at one point there's four or five of us running around that club signing chits.

All the girls at the swimming pool, at the tennis, doing the golf. And these chits were forever. So my dad, you know, he'd sit there and say, hey, you can't do so much of these, you know, back off a little bit, that kind of stuff. I had a friend, you know, this guy, Steve Moore.

His parents would sit them down, all the boys, there was four boys, and they would divide the chits up on who spent what and did what. And I'm thinking, oh my God, first of all, that meeting would take three days if it was us. But it's nice that they're not getting nickeled and dimed at this property and just can make it a whole lot more enjoyable.

You know what the heck it's going to cost you. Yeah, absolutely. And the golf numbers are up.

And so it's a fun place to go hang out. All right, so let's go to our interview with Joe LaCava. Joe LaCava currently caddies for Tiger Woods. He's been a long time buddy in the Caddy Hall of Fame.

He also worked for Red Couples when he won the 1992 Masters Tournament. So let's go hear from Joe LaCava. Is it his time? There it is! Can you believe it?

Joe LaCava is brought to you by Golden Tee. Man, we've known each other for over 30 years. Let's talk about life on the PGA Tour back in the 80s when we first met. Man, what a difference. Yeah, no, from a caddy perspective, it's crazy. I mean, you know, for us, things have gotten so much better and so much more positive in a lot of ways.

And same for you guys as well. You know, forget the fact that we're making better money as caddies and so on and so forth, which is obviously terrific. But you know, the way of life is better. You know, you can afford now to have one roommate instead of three or four. You can afford to fly places instead of having to drive everywhere. The accommodations at the golf course are nicer. You know, they've got nice food for us.

They've got indoor places with TVs and air conditioning in the summer and you know, maybe even eating like a pebble beef and places like that. So things have gotten a lot better for us in those 25, 30 years that I've been out there. And I think the tour brass with the new regime with Jay Monahan and so on and so forth. They are really looking out for us as well. And, you know, they feel like we're a big part of the show out there. And they're treating us very, very nicely very well at the PGA tour these days.

So it's kind of it's very nice to come a long ways from the days like you said back in the 80s when it was, you know, wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't like it is today. Well, Joe, I mean, back in the 80s, guys were driving to every event. And guys were, you know, sleeping four and five in a hotel room.

And, you know, there wasn't we weren't playing for any money. One of the things that I so admire about you is that, you know, you and Megan have been married for a long time, have two kids, and you you've seen it all ups and downs. Yeah, you know, great point.

Without a doubt. I mean, back in the day, when you first started, I would say maybe 10% of the guys had families. I don't know what the numbers are now. But I'm guessing it's certainly more probably more than half of that now.

Because like you said, you made a good point. You can afford still do this job now and have a family. Whereas back in the day in the late 80s, you know, you can make a living and survive, obviously. And obviously, the top dogs were making an okay living and could could do well and survive. But if you weren't working for a guy in the top 10 or 15, like I said, you were making a living and surviving, but I don't think you were making enough to support a family or certainly not support a family with kids. Nowadays, the tour, you know, retired come along the person going up. He's allowed us to make a great living and also have a family while we do this on the road.

So that in that respect, it's it's tremendous for guys like me that do have kids and family. So Joe, take us back to who was the first bag that you had on the PGA Tour? What was that like? My first bag was Ken Green tournament champions 1987. That was my first full time gig and had a great run with Ken, you know, we had three years together. He ended up winning I think three event three events on the tour actually back to back in 88.

And then he won another one in 89 and won a big tournament Japan. So it was a great three year run for him and for us together. And he always gave me my start and kind of, you know, I learned the ropes through him and always be grateful for that start for sure.

I always had a soft spot for green. I remember coming to I think Danbury was he and he had an event there. We raised some money for a local charity. That's the first time that I ever got to hang out with you a little bit. And man, people don't realize what a good player Ken Green was back in the day Ryder Cup player and he was absolutely he was a little crazy, but absolutely fearless. Very fearless, you know, very, very good player, great short game. And like you mentioned 1988, you actually won twice that year, which, you know, back then that was a big deal.

I mean, guys do it kind of regularly now. But back then, if you want two or three times you were pretty close to winning the mindless and player of the year kind of thing. He won back to back events for two wins and he actually lost two others in playoffs. So it could have been, you know, it could have been, you know, an incredible year, like I said, especially for back then when guys didn't win more than two or three times in one year. And yes, fearless, I would say was a great adjective for Ken Green. We won, you know, I'm not showing anyone.

I think he won five times in his career. But if he was ever up there, you knew he was going to give it his all to close the deal and get everything he had. He was not going to back down from anyone. No, he only knew the gas.

He did not know where the break was. Exactly. Good point.

Exactly. So, Joey, so talk about how you got hooked up with Fred and what a great run you had with Fred. Yeah, no, I mean, I love him like a brother over 20 years together. At the end of 89, Ken decided to bring his brother out, who was out of work at the time. And his brother was a little bit older than me and had a wife and a couple of kids. So I respected the heck out of that fact that he wanted to take care of his brother.

So we split. But, you know, we didn't Ken didn't figure this out until Disney tournament, which was the last term of the year. And back then, this is 1989. And so when he told me that week, I was always bummed for sure and frustrated. And so the first name that popped into my mind was, you know, Fred couples, because knowing earlier that year, Fred and his caddy had split. And Fred was trying different guys throughout the rest of that season, the second half of 89 in the host of hiring someone full time for the following year. Now, obviously, I didn't get that chance because I was working for 10 at the time, everything was going very well. But I approached Fred regardless.

I can't remember which day it was earlier in the week. And I mentioned to him that I was looking for work for the following year starting in 1990. And he gave me the old, you know, the token or give me a call over the winter kind of thing. And so I had his number and I call him, I want to say maybe Thanksgiving time, and left a message in here back, then I call him again, mid December, nothing back. And then finally, I called him around Christmas time. And I said, Look, you don't have to feel bad about telling me no, you don't want on any part of me or hired someone, I just kind of got to figure out where I'm going with this. I didn't really pursue anything else.

And obviously, this is back in 1989. So there's no texting, not even any cell phones, so you can't go all the guys in the off season. Did we even do we even have email then Joe? I don't even think there was email back there was I didn't have it.

I still don't own a computer. That's fantastic. So anyways, he so he finally gave me a call back, which was great.

And he gave me a four week shot. He's like, let's do the West Coast. I play for events. And you know, fortunate enough for me, those are some of his favorite events he played. He started the Bob Hope where he actually lives and was familiar with the golf courses. And he played Phoenix senior yoga in LA. And I think I think he had three top 10s. I know he had a win, but he had three top 10s and he won LA which I didn't know at the time was one of his favorite golf courses of all time. He shot 62 on that Saturday and went on to win the tournament. This is 1990. So you know, four great tournaments, which certainly had nothing to do with me working for him is just the fact that he was a heck of a player.

And those are some of his favorite events. And I to this day, I'm not sure he ever officially told me I was hired. He I remember he just wrote me a check and said, I'll see in Miami. So I didn't ask any questions figured I've got the job.

I don't know. At least I got through Miami. And then that lasted 21 years crazy enough. And like I said, we we became extremely good friends. I went to his wedding, I went to his 40th surprise birthday party, he was kind enough to come up to Connecticut for my for my wedding. So I'm great with my family, my kids, you know, incredible 21 years. We won a lot of tournaments, contended a lot made a lot of cuts. But more importantly, we got along great and he treated me you know, like family almost versus no like I'm his employee in the caddy. It was terrific. Well, Joe, not all those relationships go like that, as we know.

And that's that says a lot to you. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is what what give our listeners some sort of special story or some sort of something that just you'll never forget about working for Fred because I've just the level of golf that you've seen is remarkable. Yeah, no, I think what people always say to me is, is he great guys, he seems on TV seems so cool and not flustered this that and the other thing. You know, the thing for me that always sticks out in the back of my mind is how well and how nice he treated my kids when he come through like, when the playoffs first started, we play the first leg, which was in New York, and they go up to Boston, which wasn't till Friday starts, we had a couple days to kill. And he'd come up here and he'd hang out with the kids play catch with the kids, you know, hit balls with the kids baseball and softball they were into at the time.

Maybe we go to the local golf course and he would have two or three groups and he'd yuck it up and hang out with all my guys playing golf. You know, he doesn't he doesn't ever come across as, you know, an icon or a superstar in the sport. He was just one of the guys and everyone loves that about him. Just just like I said, a regular guy, no ears about him, even though he's a master champion in the Hall of Fame golfer and so on and so forth. So that to me was that to me, you know, I always speak highly of him for those reasons.

And he still texts my kids and my wife to this day on a regular basis. And he's just one of those guys. It's just a great, great guy. And I think, you know, people, people realize that but I think they see could see the other side of how he is with kids and people how he interacts with people. It's just terrific.

Yeah, that is that is an awesome thing to know. So Joe, tell us about you're on the bag for the 92 masters. Right? How in the hell did his ball stay up on number 12 when he hit a short right of the grid? You know, heck of a question.

I think I tell people it is it's a great question. I think I tell people the same thing I said, you know, Fred, very, really miss hit shots. And you know, he stuck this one in the ground a little bit for him, which I mean, isn't much of a miss it because he hits it so darn solid. I think the bigger break or not miracle, but the bigger break was the fact that on that line, it carried as far as it did, because like I said, he didn't hit it very well and kind of stuck in the ground.

And as you know, when he's sticking the ground, you know, a little high riser to the right, this doesn't travel very far. So the fact that it carried the water I thought was just as big a deal as the fact that didn't roll back into into the creek. I guess the story goes we had some storms there Saturday afternoon and we actually finished Saturday's run on Sunday morning.

And they got a pretty good storm on Saturday afternoon. So obviously the bank was kind of wet and muddy. And I think the fact that the ball hit hit soft was part of it.

I also heard after the fact that you know, as legend goes, I don't know this for a fact or not, but I heard they were out there trying to mow the bank on Sunday morning before the fourth round. And I guess it was so slippery that they called the guys off from mowing the bank because they didn't want anybody to get hurt or injured. And maybe that had something to do with it. But I think it was just more of a softness. And I think, you know, good guys deserve a break here and there. And I think that was it more than anything. Fred's a heck of a good guy and he deserved a break and got a break there. And then, you know, on Tuesday or Monday, that chip is very routine. Not so much on Sunday afternoon, but the fact that he hit it up there about eight, ten inches was awesome.

So people don't realize he did that as well. That's going to wrap up the LaCava interview and it's going to wrap up the front nine, but don't go anywhere. John and I are going to talk about Joe LaCava on the back nine.

This is golf with Jay Delsing. Are your workouts more fun than this? Well, if they are, then I want to sign you to an endorsement deal with Michelob Ultra. I'm looking for anyone and everyone who makes working out a blast. If that's you hit the team ultra.com for a chance to score awesome perks like team ultra gear and more. That's team ultra.com to enter.

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We're halfway there. It's time for the back nine on golf with Jay delsing. The back nine is brought to you by Fogelbach agency with Farmers Insurance.

Welcome back. This is golf with Jay delsing. Burley is with me and we are headed to the back nine brought to you by the Fogelbach agency with farmers.

Folks, if you need any sort of insurance products, the Fogelbach and Ed and his family will take great care of you. So John, you've caddied. How many events do you think you've carried on the PGA Tour? We've talked about this a couple of times.

I want to say 50, 60, somewhere between 50 and 75, something like that. So what's your perspective? So here's a guy and I got a hotel at Ken Green's story back in the day. We were playing the Canadian Open together in the last group. Because you're talking about Ken Green because that's where Joe Lukavich started.

Joe Lukavich started working for Ken Green. Yep. And that's a character right there. Oh my gosh. Florida Gator.

I can tell that story now. So Ken Green was an absolutely fearless golfer. He was a Ryder Cup player. He won four or five times on the PGA Tour and one of the fastest players you'd ever play with. He also putted with a putter that was about 22 inches long. Always?

Or was that just in spurts at the end? Not always, but it was one of his kid's putters and he realized, hell, I'm putting with this putter and I'm making a bunch of putts when he's out playing with his kids. And so he played with it on tour. We are playing, he's got a one-stroke lead over me and we're playing in the last group in the middle of July, whenever Canada Day is.

July 1st, I think. So we're playing and he goes, let's see, how does this go? He makes an unbelievable par, hits his ball in the water and plays out of the water, makes an unbelievable par on number nine and we're cruising along and I think I'm one or two strokes back and I make a triple bogey on number 11. We play one more hole and the skies open up and it is a deluge. No more golf that day. Typically, because half the field didn't play.

This is Glen Abbey. Right. Didn't finish. That round would be washed out and the tournament would be washed out and I would have finished solo second.

Ken Green would have won. But the next day was Canada Day, I believe. And so they brought us back. Pearl, we come back the next morning, 7 a.m. start. We went from 85 degree weather, beautiful sunny, warm, the kind of stuff I like to 35 blowing 35 storm came in rainy and now it's on and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I just, you know, I had a, can I have second place please?

I know. I had such a chance, you know, to win. Anyway, I go out the next morning and I finish, I think I wind up playing the last six holes like 200 or something.

I wind up finishing fourth or whatever. Still at a good event. But watching Ken Green, he had this huge lead. It was like four or five strokes and he four putts number 17.

Wow. Remember how aggressive he was with his putter? He had a really short, quick kind of jabby stroke. But man, hot. When he got hot, everything went in. And I'll never forget watching this. I'm standing there, you know, there's, he and I are the last two guys in the golf course and he just can't get it in the hole on the 17th and he winds up dropping his putter, kicking his putter, you know, all this stuff. And then goes and, and, and pars or birdies 18, the par five and winds up still winning. Just a crazy time.

But I do. The other thing that, you know, when you out on the PGA tour and you're playing on Sunday, there's all these people around. I'm in the last group. There's thousands and thousands of people around. And then you come back the next day. Monday's usually kind of a buzzkill, right? People are back to work.

Well, Canada is first of all, the Canadian people are some of my favorite people in the whole wide world. They come back the next day and there's just as many people out there and it is cold and it is looking like a day that you do not want to be outside in their life. This is nothing. And they supported that event. And, and Ken Green won that, that tournament.

And Joe Lacavo was on the bag for that. It was, it was bizarre though. Ken, a lot of crazy. Yeah. He had a lot of crazy, a lot of crazy stuff going on through his many times in his career. And, uh, not everybody liked the guy. Nope.

Nope. He was abrasive. He'd say stuff, trying to be funny.

Like, what are you going to do? Like I was going in the press room before he was after our third round. So we knew we were going to be paired together. I waited for, he finished ahead of me. So he was in the press room and they said, what are you going to do tonight?

He goes, I'll probably have a couple of beers and kick my wife around a little bit. And you know, and, and he's trying to be funny and he wasn't me. He said that, uh, an abusive guy that way.

But the people are like, ah, don't say that. Yeah. I knew a little of him because, uh, one of my friends went to a university of Florida as well with Gator.

So I, I knew some of the antics from his college days too. And he was, yeah, he was, uh, I think fairly often across that line. So yeah. Yeah.

That's a good way to describe it. So the reason I bring that up is so that's where Joe kind of gets his start. He gets to start with the guy that crosses the line from time to time. So he's got a, yes, a character and kind of a little bit different dude, but also like both you and Joe said, one heck of a player. Oh, one heck of a player. And I'm telling you absolutely fearless, fearless. He would hit any shot, any time and, and, and quite often pull it off.

But, um, so pro might sit my, I want your take on Joe. So you've been around the caddy world a little bit. You know, it's cool for you to be able to dip a toe into that kind of world and see how that's all you want. It's all you want is a toe because what, because back in our day, the caddies were treated not well.

Yeah. Well, it's, you know, second, secondary, but it's not like you sat there and said, oh, you know, I'm, I'm not being treated well. It's just you're, you're a caddy. But, but, but Pearl, was it because you weren't being treated well or because the tour was just not like it is now.

I don't think there was as much money in it. I have to say I didn't ever feel not treated well. It's like I knew what the gig was. If I come in this game, I'm not, I can't go in the clubhouse. I need to kind of sit back, you know, but Jay, you and I both caddied as kids.

We weren't allowed in the clubhouse. We were, have to act a certain way. We stood in a certain place. We did this thing.

We got done. We handled ourselves a certain way. So I don't know that it was anything, you know, other than that. And some people you worked for when you're a kid as a caddy, we're pretty good folks. And some kids, some people weren't such great folks.

So not a whole lot different. I'll tell you, you were always great to caddy for. I mean, we were buddies on top of that, but some of the guys that you played with had a different perspective. And you know, I was in a position where I didn't have to take it and I got more of a kick out of it than anything else.

Going like, yeah, okay dude, that's not going to happen. But yeah, dipping the toe in it, you know, I would reference where I would stand as caddy alley, you know, in some of the stories you hear from some of these guys. Cause when I first started caddying for you, it was, I would say at the end of that era. And you had, you had some crazy characters out there and you know, there was six to a car and eight to a room and that kind of stuff. And that's, and they were living hard. They were living hard, that kind of stuff. And that, that changed. I got to see that, you know, to some level through the years. We're not seeing that at all anymore.

I mean, we're not seeing that at all. You can't afford any of that anymore. And there's too much on the line. And you know, could you imagine if we were somehow, if I was able to squeeze my way on tour and have the length of career that I had, and I would have said to you, Hey, do you want to just caddy for me full time? You might consider it because I only mean it cause it's a hard life.

People don't realize how hard, even quote there, it's better. We'll call it or they treat you great now, whatever. But the life of a pro is a tough time. You're on the road 30, 40 weeks of the year. Yes, sales guys are too, but you're not tromping around outside.

You're not, you know, so I don't know. I just saw it as I thoroughly enjoyed it, but anytime I was out there more than two weeks, I was worn out, man. I was, I was done long days. You had a couple of rain delays in there. Phew.

That was a, that was long stuff. Tell everybody about the weight of the bag on how heavy the bag was when I was playing well, depending on your score, no doubt. I didn't know I had one on the back if you were playing good. And if we, if I let's put it this way, if we had nine holes to go and you weren't going to make the cut, I'm looking for wheels to put on. Can I leave some clothes behind the tree? Where's the heaviest you ever, do you ever remember? The heaviest and you're making the cut. So it wasn't heavy that way, but it was literally heavy because of all the rain and all the soak. And that was Caddy in 34 and a half holes at a Brown deer in Wisconsin that one year. I mean, it was 90 degrees humid. I was, I mean, I'm, I was still in pretty good shape.

I'm thinking, how am I going to make this thing? It was hard. I see some of those guys, they did look like they're in very good shape and very few, not too many Caddy downs. No, no, not too many Caddy downs. When, when was the hardest as far as carrying just virtually any time you weren't going to make the cut. I'm like, how fast can I get home and when can I get this thing off my back? Yeah, exactly.

You were good there too. I can't imagine missing a cut and not ha and having a player to stop a good guy or being kind of a jerk or, you know, throwing a little temper tantrum because it's hard for everybody at that, at that point. Cause you know, what's next. Now you gotta go clean up the locker room, go get in line, figure out how am I going to get a flight out? Cause I didn't book ahead of time. The flight cause I'm thinking we're going to make the cut. So then we're going to wait at the airport for God only knows, maybe it's a day or two that you can't even get out. So there was nothing. One of the things that we were terrible at is we never hung around.

I can remember when we were down in Mexico that one year we could have gone out and rented jet skis or had a Cervacer or two at an ultra or whatever. And we hightailed it out of there. And I remember getting on the airplane, go, why am I leaving here? It made no sense, but at the time I was running a company too. So if I wasn't like in there, my brain would go to the company and I'm, you know, back in the day where it wasn't as much email texting, easy to communicate and get things done.

Certainly no video conferencing. So if I wasn't there, I'm like, I got to get back at the company. Your sisters were always pissed off at me when I missed a cut.

I mean, you came home a couple of days early. They loved it when I was on the road. They called you to say they did. They'd call me and say, they'd go meet.

They'd go, Hey, when are you, when's John Kenny for your next? I'm like, Oh, okay. I got to get, we'll get some on the schedule. Yeah, that's, that's great. Well, that's going to wrap up the back nine.

Come back. We have the ninth, the Michelob Ultra 19th hole, and this is Golf with Jay Delsing. The 100,000 watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports driven by auto centers, Nissan home of a 30 day return WXO S and WXO S HD one E St. Louis one Oh one ESPN. In these extremely trying times, the management team at Marcon would like to give a shout out to our 500 plus employees and their families, their diligence and commitment to each other. Our process and our company are so good that we are obligated to state it publicly. We are so grateful for each and every one of you. You have all contributed to our success and your dedication is imperative to the continued growth of our company.

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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 Michelob Ultra. Welcome back this is golf with Jay Delsing.

I've got Pearly May with me and we are headed to the Michelob Ultra 19th hole. Okay I can remember finishing the story before we said when was the bag the heaviest. Oh yeah. I know it was heaviest for both of us certainly for you was when your ex-father-in-law would always you'd be packing up your bag and you'd have a couple pairs of shoes and we'd have an umbrella and you'd have your rain clothes and you'd end up with two or three extra dozen golf balls and who knows what else that would go in that. Now this.

I'd even put some laundry and stuff in there. Now you're a guy that's been between high school, college and pro golf. You've done this hundreds of times. You know it's gonna fit and that gentleman would stand there and say to you Jay I don't think it's gonna all fit. How often would he say that?

Every single time. He'd look at me and I remember. And you just missed the cut so I'm already thinking you know you shouldn't get that close to him right now because he's a gentleman but he can blow any second.

I do have to tell this story too. We're standing I think we're at Tucson and you're kidding for me and he comes over and he says to you how you doing? Doing just fine.

Doing just fine. He says the bag heavy and you're like it's pretty heavy and I can remember watching him. I remember this conversation.

I remember this like I get the water cooler. My heart's pounding right now. And I look at it and he he he holds the bag up like two inches off the ground and goes. For a second. Doesn't feel that heavy to me. And it was it was one of those rain things where there was rain this rain that. Yup.

But each house weighs about four and a half pounds at this point. Yeah. Yeah.

Now I can remember I hit my t-shirt and we're walking down this was a tenth I think right the tenth. Yes. At Tucson and I said what did my what was my what was he saying to you and he's like you don't want to know. He was he was a nice enough guy. Yeah. But yeah. So that was always a joke.

Now meet any time with Jay Cadyen or the years after that and that kind of stuff and we'd be packing up after a tournament whether it win lose draw whatever it may have been every time he puts his club in his travel bag I would say I don't think it's going to fit. I'm like man I mean either I better not take it. Oh my gosh. Pearl one of the things that for some reason my mom has been on my mind so much you know she passed away a couple of years ago. Do you remember her. My mom.

God bless her. My mom and dad would follow me. They never watched a hole of golf until I got on tour. No junior golf. You know it was like I remember playing junior golf and like how'd you do. I'm like I won. We're having dinner like oh that's nice.

You know I mean and all the UCLA days there at UCLA we didn't have the means to do any traveling and stuff like that. And so they come and watch on the golf course and my dad and mom would be on opposite sides of the fairway. You know my mom is wearing out the rosary.

You know Hail Mary. My dad's over there breaking sticks like you know while I'm putting poking his head around the tree right in my line of putting I'm like Pearl look at there's my dad. Can we get my dad out of there. But do you remember the time and I think it's the U.S. Open that you carried U.S. Open qualifier 36 holes out of Fox Run when I made it through to go to Wing Foot. And my mom who's extremely hard of hearing especially with her hearing aids in and when you took him out she had nothing and she would walk down the middle of the fairways and not realize that we were heading to the T-shirt. She realized it. She just wanted to make sure you knew she was there. Oh my gosh.

It was so funny. Because I also remember it was a long hot day because I was also coming off of surgery. Oh yeah. I was banded up like I just had gotten shot. You had some skin cancer removed.

Yeah so then I'm out there I'm sure that's what I was doing two days after I have that removed. But yeah I remember that was a long tough day. But your mother I don't remember her age at that point. She walked 36. Well yeah I can I can tell you that was oh six so she was 74. So she walked actually more than 36. No she was holding that 76.

Yeah it was a couple whole playoff too. Yeah. So she was out there she was a tough lady. Yep she was.

Oh there no question about that. But I can just remember Bernie Federca was canning for me one time out at Boone Valley and there were some holes to kind of you know where the spectators would cross and my mom would just kind of manage to stick herself right in the middle of it and stop. And we're like I said guys she can't hear him. Sorry just hit it overhead. Then they're like I don't think I should.

I'm like all right. So I hit it overhead and then I went up and said mom you got to come over this way. That's why we should do some show is tell mother, mother golf stories. Just our moms relative to our careers or things they said or whatever because my mom traveled with me one week one one time.

And after a day and a half it was enough she was trying to figure out how to get home. But moms are a big deal in all different ways. So maybe we should have a little segment some show on that. Yeah that's that's pretty cool. So I just I want to give the guys the the listeners some sense probably caddy the caddy and when you're playing on tour everybody looks at it now and it's and it's brought up now where there's it's a team deal you know it's Michael Greller and Jordan Spieth and and Jimmy Johnson and JT and all these Joe with Ricky and stuff like that. When you're there's there's also some sort of teamwork that goes along with the caddies where you know if we hit it in a fairway bunker you know and didn't hit a great shot out you know oftentimes you hit a fairway bunker a little fat. I just remember when remember when your bag was the heaviest. Sorry I have to go back to this. Very early in the round in Vegas when we're playing one of those side holes.

Oh no. And you hit it just short of a second. It was the very first hole. But you hit it short of the bunker and you got this ball perched up you could hit driver you could have hit a wedge. It's the most perfect lie you've ever seen in your life. There could have been a tee under it there wasn't but that's how pretty this thing was sitting. Gorgeous.

So part five right? Yep and so bumping over this bunker got plenty of room to work with on the green. This bunker might be ten yards deep maybe and there's lots of room and everything else. This is back in the day when the chipping was not your strength. And you chipped that thing maybe halfway across the bunker and plug it. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself oh my god that is the single worst shot.

This was professional but I'm thinking back in amateur years. Oh there's no question. Not only did I bury it I buried it under the lip and couldn't get it out.

It was one of the worst shots I've ever hit in my life. So you were done. The week was over at that point. Did I quit? No you never quit. I should have. I should have a lot of times. That week maybe you should have. As much as kids don't ever quit out there you should have quit that. Just if nothing else. If it was a title fight my corner would have thrown the towel in.

Oh my god it was just so painful. It wasn't. Yeah we'll leave it at that. Anyway so sorry you were going. Where were you going with that? I don't know what was I even talking about? The other caddish story. Well you just told me we've got four minutes left so you better remember where those two were.

I do remember. What I wanted people to understand though is that you guys help each other out there. You'll rake bunkers for one another. And raking a bunker is a huge deal on the PGA Tour.

Well I got hammered a couple different times. You know and I'd played a lot and I never knew anything about raking the bunkers the way those guys rake the bunkers. And it is a big deal. But yeah the coordination of the caddies now when you're out there for a while it's not rocket science.

But there's several different things. If one guy's in a bunker, not in a bunker, hit one out of bounds, who's putting first, all those types of things. And so there's a little bit of grabbing the pin, handing the pin off.

That's what I want to ask you. So let's just say you know we're playing in a threesome and we're all in a fairway and we all hit the green. Who takes the pin? How did that all work? Now you're putting me on the spot. I think the closest guy took the pin.

That's right. But you know I hesitated there because depending on how far away somebody was you didn't just grab it without making sure. Because somebody may have needed the thing attended or something. That's back in the day where the pin was a different rule. You couldn't put the pin in. So then you'd pass around. But there's also all different kind of considerations. So if one guy's just in the water and his clubs are all messed up and you know he's kind of halfway behind and stuff you would kind of take that into account.

And it was great. And I would walk out there, you know me, and introduce myself to the caddies and I would just say listen I am a more than raw rookie out here. Whether I'd been out for a while just to show them the respect that I think they deserve being out there all the time. And you know someone kind of roll their eyes and others but most of them for the most part go yeah cool we got this.

Any dust up? Anybody say something to you? Never a caddy but there was that player and I'm not even gonna remember. I wish I remember who it was because you kind of said something you know that happens again you know you're gonna get you know smacked or something like that. I remember just saying to you like this could get really interesting because I didn't I had no need to remember. I honestly don't remember.

I do remember that. It was a regular hothead jerk and it was just that type of thing and I think one of them was being rude to one of the lady scorekeepers so I was just looking at you go like okay this could get really interesting because I didn't have to play the game that the other guys did. If the guy was being a jerk I would have no problem saying hey you're a jerk you need to you know fix this up. So no but overall I thought the guys were fantastic they were inclusive and again I'm walking in there and the bottom line too I'm taking the spot of maybe one of their buddies once in a while who's doing it for a living.

So I wanted to be respectful and sensitive to that situation too. Do you remember the time that you came out I was I had a really good guy Tommy Sanderstrom was caddying for me and you came out I said Tommy you're on your I'm so we're gonna pay you the full amount and everything but you're on the bench give the bag to Pearly because you caddied for like the last yeah that was fun and folks I don't know if you know that but you can change caddy a hundred times a hole. You can get a brand new caddy in you can get as many caddies as you want.

You can pull a guy out of the stands and say hey man can you carry my old shoes just put a different one out if you want. Well that's gonna wrap up another show speaking of bad days. Thanks for being with me Pearly. Thanks so much for taking care of us over here and I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue 314-805-2132 is their number. They do great stuff around your house refinishing and painting which they specialize in. Folks we will see you next week this is Golf with Jay Delsing.

Hit em straight St. Louis. That was Golf with Jay Delsing brought to you by Whitmore Country Club. Tune in next Sunday for more from Jay John and the other pros and experts from the golf world. In the meantime you can find all of Jay's shows at 101 ESPN dot com as well as at jdelsinggolf.com.