Golf With Jay Delsing - - Capt. Joshua Peyton

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. Good morning, this is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. I've got Pearly with me.

John, good morning and happy. This is our 4th of July, even though it's going to be July 5th. Our July 4th show. Love it. Are we watching baseball? Don't get me started. Oh my God, this pisses me off. You're such a huge fan.

I'm not. I'm never going to watch another game is what I'm thinking. The fact that they're not playing and the bottom line is it's over money.

And it drives me crazy. I'll tell you what we are watching now. We're watching golf, baby. We're watching golf. Golf made it happen. Well, welcome to the show. We format a show like a round of golf.

The first segment is called On The Range segment. It's brought to you by Pro-Am Golf. And you can check us out on our social media outlets. Twitter is at Jay Delsing. Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing. Jay Delsing Golf. LinkedIn is Jay Delsing.

And Instagram, forget it. Alright, so I want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue. They've been with us for a while. Great folks. If you have something that you want, something in mind that you want your home to look like, you need some improvements. You've got to check these guys out.

They are terrific. Bob Rotella, you used to sit into these sessions with me and Rotella said, do you see the shot? I said, yeah, he goes in, paint the shot. Paint the shot the way you want to see it. You see your house a certain way? Call Bob and Kathy.

They'll paint it the way you want it. Love that. Great analogy. Alright, I've got an interview today, 4th of July show on July 5th with Joshua Payton. He's a captain in the United States Army, three deployments, 20 year service veteran. He's also the CEO of the Veteran Golfers Association and a ranger. This is a badass dude.

And he is a golf lover. And this is going to be so much fun. So I can't wait to listen to Josh. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the 4th of July and some of the things that I've been so, oh man, privileged to be part of over the years.

With my friendship with David Farity, I'm kind of like the player to be named later for some of the things that he can't do. So I'll go down and host and emcee some shows and things, not shows, but some programs and things like that. All for his Troops First Foundation. They'll do things with the George Strait concert.

Just some really cool stuff all in the name of raising money for our fallen heroes and helping them when these men and women come back either physically or mentally hurt. And I got to tell you, and this guy will be coming on the show. One of the first people I met was Sergeant Major Tom Capel. He's from North Carolina, I believe.

He's about 5 foot 9 or 10 and chiseled out of granite. African American dude and loves the game of golf and can't play it well, but just loves it and to go out and play with him and have him tell these stories and what they're doing, John, is they're using golf in multiple ways. First of all, these guys and gals would much rather go out and shoot rifles, you know, and go shoot targets and skeet and things like that. But they get out on the golf course and they interact with people. And I was one of the fortunate people that got to play with a group of these guys each day. So I played with four guys each day.

And I've done this multiple times, but on several occasions, I'm playing with a hero that has no leg or no arm or no arm and leg or no eye. And I can tell you, for sure, the most positive people I've ever met looking at life. First of all, these dudes would go back over today if we needed them. That's amazing to me.

That's amazing. I believe they would. I know they would.

They look you in the eye and there's something about their presence and there's something about this commitment that they have. Oh, it's hard not to get emotional. They've seen a side that we haven't seen, fortunately or unfortunately, sometimes.

I don't know that I wanted to see it, but when you see kind of how that steeled them, how that firmed them up, how that clarified life for them is pretty cool. So one guy, oh man, his name was actually Josh and he had no left arm. He had no left eye. And inside his shirt collar, I could see wild scars.

And so after a couple holes, these guys are great guys. And I said, Josh, you mind telling me what happened to you? He says, yeah, I stepped on a mine and I stepped on it with my left foot. He also had no foot from the left knee down. So his left side just got wiped out. And to watch him play golf, he's got an apparatus set up. Part of his arm is probably four inches from the shoulder down is still there. They fixed up some sort of prosthetic arm and fixed up a grip that's got special grips on his club where this artificial handle is on there and then he's got his right hand on there. He's got his head cocked in an unusual direction so he can see the ball. And he's just a blast. Just a blast and a pretty damn good player.

Probably about a 15 handicap. But that tells you something about the game. I mean, so much of the game is what you said before. It's about being out there with other people. It's about being outside.

It's about challenging yourself, whatever level you're at. And there's just way more to it. We get into the clubs and swing technique and stuff like that. And that's part of it.

That's some kind of important stuff. But I don't think at the core, that's the most important stuff about what golf's all about. Help me out with why is it that golf unites people like it does?

I don't know exactly. I think it's different for different people and in different situations. But it gives us a place to kind of go out there. We're all exposed a little bit because no matter what level we're at, we want to play a certain way and do certain things. And we're outside. We're meeting new people, different people. Kind of doing something by ourself. Then we come together every once in a while on the green or on the tee.

And then after that, we're all scattered around the trees and the fairways trying to figure out where things are at. I don't know. I just think it's a little bit unique than anything else out there.

Yeah, I don't know what it is either. But we are bonded. So these guys call me, they text me. If they wanted clubs or anything, it would be done.

I mean, and if I would have a need, they'd do that for me. But what we got doing was, and we'll have to continue this on the next segment, but what we got doing as the round progressed more and more comfortable with each other, they just started talking about their injuries and started talking about this stuff. Let's come back. We've got an interview with a 20-year veteran in the United States Army.

Been on three deployments. His name is Captain Josh Payton. He's also the CEO of the Veteran Golfers Association.

And we want to tell some more of these stories. Beautiful. 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, head to TeamUltra.com for a chance to score awesome perks like Team Ultra gear and more. That's TeamUltra.com to enter. All those dollars on golf balls?

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You're going to love it. I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to Whitmore Country Club for sponsoring my show Golf with Jay DelFinger again for the second year. When you join out at Whitmore, there's 90 holes of golf. You get access to the Missouri Bluffs, the Links of Dardeen, and the Golf Club of Wentzville, and the cart fees are already included in your membership. There's no food and beverage minimums.

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You can reach them at 636-926-9622. Grab your clubs. We're headed to the front nine on Golf with Jay Delsing. The front nine is brought to you by the Ascension Charity Golf Classic.

Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, John. I've got Pearly with me.

Brad Barge is kind enough to be winging dials. I'm your host, John. Am I? What am I?

I think I'm your host, Jay, but I could be your host, John. Meat. Check the record on that, Meat. We don't have to. We could leave it. Is it the 19th hole already? Hey, let's get this rolling. Anyway, the one thing we do know, we're on the front nine. And the front nine is brought to you by the great folks at the Ascension Charity Classic, which will be happening this fall in St. Louis.

Big sporting event. I always ask you, are you ready? I want to know because I think I get the caddy. Stop asking me.

You do get the caddy. Stop asking me. Well, just say yes. You haven't said yes yet.

Because I'm not. Okay, okay. They never stopped you in the past. They never stopped you in the past. Boy, I wish the tournament was played today. Okay. We got to thank the folks at Whitmore for sponsoring the show again.

They have been just a great partner. Guys, if you're looking for a place to join, go join at Whitmore. You get 90 holes of golf out there, access to the 36 holes at Whitmore and three other golf courses. The Missouri Bluffs, the Lynx of Dardin and the Golf Club of Wentzville. No cart fees.

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Call them at 636-926-9622. All right. Let's go to this interview with our man, Captain Josh Payton. United States Army, three deployments, 20 years of service and now the CEO of the VGA, the Veteran Golfers Association.

So, Josh, I've had so many awesome people like yourself join the show and I sit here and prep for the interview and I've just blown away. Twenty years of service for our country. First of all, thank you for that. You're over there protecting our freedom so I can chase this stupid golf ball in the woods and things like that. My daughters live safely, but we really appreciate that service.

Well, it's my pleasure. Twenty years went by blink of an eye and three deployments to Iraq and it really went by really quickly. But it was an honor to serve our military and to serve our country. Josh, give everybody just a glimpse, a little bit of glimpse of what Iraq looks like. I mean, we all have certain images in our head about the terrain and things like that. But, I mean, three different deployments, man. You must have known that place well.

Yeah, I know it really well. I did two tours in the Baghdad area and I just kind of went through that area, didn't stay there very long. And so we kind of pushed out from there to some of the outskirts Samara area and up in the northern area, the Kurdistan area, Erbil, Iraq. The landscape, you know, in Baghdad areas is more like what you would find in a city. You know, a lot of buildings, a lot of concrete, cement, you know, asphalt. And then in the outer areas, the outer towns, it's more rural. So, you know, you see more of the desert.

You would see, you know, more of the agricultural areas. And most of those houses, those little huts, they're like rectangular. So there's not much, there's really not much definition like you would see in homes in America. They're traditionally rectangular and they don't have air conditioning for the most part. And so the reason why the houses are rectangular is because they put steps up to the roof so that they could sleep at night because the heat is ungodly. That's one of the biggest things that you recognize when you get to Iraq is, you know, 120, 130, 30 degree days. And the heat hits you, hits your body pretty quickly. And so you see different things like people sleeping on houses.

That's not normal. So, yeah, I would say if I was trying to paint a quick picture of that area, that's kind of what it would be like. Yeah, well, incredible with the three different tours over there. Some of the awards that you received are just, I mean, I don't know enough to even speak of them other than I'm going to announce them. The brown star, the Iraq campaign medal, the parachutist badge, the air assault badge, long range reconnaissance and combat infantry awards. And then you have the ranger distinction. Tell us a little bit about that.

That has to be such a feather in your cap. Well, I was very honored to make it through ranger school. It's the toughest thing that I ever did in my life. It's you had to go through three phases, the bending phase, the mountain phase and then the swamp phase. And you start off in Fort Benning, Georgia, was right outside Columbus, Georgia, down really, really close to the Alabama state line.

Really hot down there. We started with about 350 people in Benning phase. And when we got through the swamp phase, only 19 of us graduated.

It was, it was a, you know, a lot of people dropped out and don't make it through the program. And, and I think that's, that's part of the pride in the mystique that comes behind the ranger tab. Those people that wear it, you know that they never quit and that you can depend on them. So I think that's where, where most of the folklore comes from. Yeah. Boy, that is impressive. And man, I'm glad you guys are on our side.

I can tell you that for sure. So Josh, in 2011, you sustained a really severe injury. You got medevac to Walter Reed hospital in DC and spent a better part of a couple of years over there. Tell us a little bit about what happened. And this is, then we're going to kind of make this segue into golf and, and how much you love the game and what you're doing with the game and growing it.

Sure. Yeah, I was, I was in charge. I was a Curtis regional, Curtis regional liaison officer in Northern Iraq. And really my, my job was, was to provide security details for dignitaries that were flying into our area of operations. It just so happened that the secretary of defense at the time, Robert Gates was, was in, was in our area of operations. And so on this particular mission, we were providing security for, for secretary of defense, Robert Gates. And my, my driver, the roads there were really, were really poor, poorly built roads up in the Northern part of Iraq.

Typically they, they just focus, they focus on oil production. And so my driver, we were in an up armored suburban moving at high rates of speed and my driver hit a sandy patch in the road and our vehicle flipped 15 times. And I was trying to brace myself during the, during the rollover and my hand went through the, through the armor glass and it's sliced and crushed basically my, my index finger, my middle finger and my thumb on the right hand side. And so really, really bad injury, the helicopters came, it's kind of like the movies, the blood was everywhere. I kind of found my, you know, my fingers were kind of laying over there where they shouldn't be. So I stuffed them back in the hole. It was pretty gruesome. You know, I never passed out.

I just, I kind of tried to stay calm and, you know, make sure that I was, you know, going to be stable to, to take the, to take the helicopter ride. And then that was it. I, they whisked me away to a bigger base. They put me on a plane to, to Germany, Longshool, Germany, where they had some great doctors that did some initial, initial surgeries to my hand and, and then right on to Andrews Air Force Base right outside of D.C. And I spent two years at Walter Reed, but they tried to, they tried to do several different procedures to save my right hand from amputation. None of those were successful. And ultimately, they had to take bone from my right to, to, to re-instruct my hand, the bones of my hand.

And then that ultimately worked about two years later. So, wasn't a great experience. But, you know, there's, there's a lot of my brothers and sisters out there that had much worse injuries down the range. So I'm happy. I can hold a beer. I can swing a golf club.

Life's pretty good. Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, so this is going to kind of transition us, Josh, into golf. And I know you used golf to kind of help heal you. So you tell us about your love of the game and where it came from and, and now the, the VGA. We're excited to hear about that. Sure.

Yeah. My dad was an Air Force officer, so I grew up as an Air Force frat. And he just happened to love Jack Nicklaus. And in the Air Force, they golf a lot.

I don't know if you know that or not, but they do. And so I just kind of grew up with, you know, golf clubs in my hand, and there's a way for my father and I to bond. He was working an awful lot.

Desert Storm went on during his, his service. And in one way that we would connect is, is on the golf course. And so while I was recovering in Walker Reed, I met an organization called the Salute Military Golf Association, and they were kind of using golf as a recovery tool. I don't know if you know Jim Estes or not, but Jim Estes kind of founded that program. And he's a golf professional. He played in the Senior PGA Championship.

Yeah, I sure do know Jim. So, so anyway, that, you know, Jim became my instructor and gave me several lessons and then I got an opportunity to play for the Wounded Warrior Ryder Cup team. That was incredible.

It's called the Simpson Cup. We took 12 combat wounded vets from the United States. And we went over to Royal Lithium St. Anne's in England in 2013 and competed against 12 other combat wounded vets from the UK. It was just an incredible experience. You know, when I stepped on that first tee box, have you ever played Royal Lithium by chance?

I have, yeah. So, you know, the first hole is kind of awkward because it's a par three, you know, and so, you know, they're announcing me, you know, representing the United States of America, Captain Josh Payton. I felt my knees go weak.

I typically don't get nervous. But that was, that was a, that was a pretty, that was a pretty intense moment. And I wish, I wish you could hit driver, you know, something you've got to be a little more loose with. But I had to put, you know, five iron on a green that was 175 yards away and I couldn't feel my legs. So we ended up, I hit the ball on the green. We ended up having that match against Great Britain that day.

But when it was all said and done, they beat our butts pretty bad. But I never remember, you know, playing on the singles match. I'll never forget I was playing on singles matches with a guy that had one arm and he just used one arm and he hit the ball, beat my butt up and down the golf course with one arm. And it was just an incredible experience. And so on the way back from that trip, we were flying back to the United States and I knew I was coming up on 20 years in the military. And I thought that other veterans might be out there that could use a similar competitive experience that I had just experienced in England. And so we founded the Veteran Golfers Association in 2014.

And our mission is to enrich the lives of veterans and their family members through the sportsmanship and camaraderie of golf and specifically we focus on competitive golf for veterans and their family members. All right, that's going to wrap up the front nine. But don't go away. Pearly and I are here. We're going to hear more of this Josh Payton interview, our captain from the United States Army. And we also got the ultra 19th hole coming.

So come back. This is Golf with Jay Delson. WX OS, WX OS HD one East St. Louis 101 ESPN for 67 years. Loofus has been the ride to take 15 brands at 11 locations. Loofus Automotive.

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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 St. Louis Bank.

Hey, good morning and welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Perley is with me and Mead is here and we're on the Back Nine brought to you by my friends at St. Louis Bank.

Great folks at St. Louis Bank. Thank you for supporting the show. We're going to go right to the back half of our interview with Captain Josh Payton from the United States Army. Josh, you have over 7,000 members. You've run over 350 tournaments a year. Since its inception, over 1,500 events and the list goes on and on. Over 100,000 rounds played by the veteran community. I'm so impressed at how you started from basically nothing but took your experience and tried to give that to the others.

Are you seeing the same benefits that you received from these other heroes? Well, I think when we first started the organization, we didn't know what kind of impact we would have. We started it with our own money that we had saved from deployments. We received almost no outside help and it quickly grew from 300 members the first year to 700 members to 1,500 members to 3,000 members and now to 7,000 members. It's been incredible to see the growth of the organization, but the biggest thing that I'm proud of is that we have a problem in the military community and the veteran community with suicide.

Since the VGA was founded six years ago, we've lost zero VGA members to suicide. I think the biggest impact that our organization is making is relationships, allowing other veterans to get out of their house, to connect on the golf course, to build friendships, and to hold other VGA members accountable so that they can have goals. When you set goals, if you're cooped up in your house and you have nothing really to live for, but now you can set a goal for yourself, I want to go play in the VGA Championship at Pinehurst No.

2. I want to make the VGA Championship at Olympic Club. I want to be the VGA Champion of the Greenbrier. We try to give them a platform to set goals that will ultimately give them meaning and purpose for life. It's incredible what this organization has turned into. We have over 100 state directors that are volunteers that go out and create schedules for the entire state of whatever state that is.

For example, in Missouri, we have Joe Eccleton, who's a state director there and puts about 10 to 15 golf tournaments a year together for Missouri residents. It's just turned into something that I'm so proud of. I'm just really humbled that I get to be a part of this. Josh, you've got to check out this website. It's VGAgolf.org.

First of all, besides being very informative, Josh, it's a badass website. I love that initial panoramic view of everybody saluting on the steps. Oh my gosh, I'm not exactly sure where it is, but it is awesome. It almost looks like Olympic Club or something. It is Olympic Club. Our VGA National Championship in 2018 was hosted by Olympic Club and TPC Harding Park. Yeah, and then you talked about the Greenbrier, you talked about Pinehurst, so you're going to some great venues.

You're putting on some great events. How can our listeners jump in and support you guys? Whether it's time, whether it's money, whether it's equipment, anything, I'm sure you're not going to turn anybody away. How can folks reach out to you?

Well, sure. They can go to what you said. They can go to VGAgolf.org. They can send us an email to info at VGAgolf.org. And if they're looking to get involved, if they want to become a member, you know, if they served in the military or they are family members or any of their family members has ever served in the military, then they're eligible to be VGA members and go out and compete and get to see, you know, other VGA members out there on the golf course.

So you can you can go to the website and sign up if you want to just follow us on social media. You can go to at VGAgolf on Instagram, on Facebook, follow us there and just get involved with the community, especially if you're a golfer, you love the game like every single VGA member does. You know, we were talking earlier, Jay, about how golf has this innate ability to bring people together, and it's definitely doing that in the VGA. Josh, it's just incredible.

You and I, you know, have never known each other. We have connected here recently, you know, through the game, but we have such a common mission. It's really cool.

You've done much more substantial things in your life than I have. But the fact that you're coming around and doing, bringing this golf, it's been such a great game for me and my family and to our veterans and helping them is just incredible, man. Well, I think, you know, when I hear VGA members pull me to the side and say, you know, the VGA has saved my life.

Thank you for putting this organization together. You know, the VGA wouldn't exist without, you know, hundreds of volunteer state directors and regional directors that they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They're putting these golf tournaments on because they love the veteran community. They love being a part of this organization. They love the game of golf. And, you know, to see the smiles on people's faces when they get a birdie. We had two albatrosses last week in our organization.

I saw that I can. I gave me a double take, Josh, because they're so difficult to come by. Never had one in six years that I'm aware of.

And then we had two in one weekend. They're just ready to get out of their house and get the golf ball because of, you know, all the coronavirus pandemic and everything going on. So seeing the smiles on the guys in both phases while they're out there doing something that they love. It's a privilege to be a part of.

Yeah, it sure is. So, Josh, what do you guys know? Has the coronavirus affected this year's championship?

And, you know, what do you have? What's next for the VGA? So, yes, we typically our season runs from March through June. And the coronavirus did affect this this year. We had our national championship slated to be hosted by Trump Doral down in Miami. And so we had to cancel that. That was supposed to be in September. So we've canceled that event. And then we've extended the regular VGA season through through October of this year. So we were stopping at state championships. We're trying to make sure that we're keeping VGA members safe. We're trying to discourage interstate travel across state lines to go to other VGA events.

But really, we just don't know how this pandemic is is going to play out. And so we're really taking a lead from our sister organizations like the USGA, the AJGA, the PGA Tour, PGA of America, kind of watching them. You know, I saw that, you know, it was kind of neat this past week to watch the pros tee it up again, you know, and to see that little that little live moniker in the lower right hand screen. You're watching golf live right now.

This is great. You know, I know there hasn't been anything live on and so long. So it was so I was kind of glued to the TV this weekend, but really, you know, you saw that there's no spectators there and, and kind of going off of the lead of other golf organizations around the country. Follow, you know, kind of following them trying to stay up to date with what they're doing so that we can kind of incorporate that with the VGA season. So we did cancel the championship this year, but we are hosting state championships.

And then we look to resume our our national championship schedule next year. Well, Josh, man, thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule. Thank you for the service and and congratulations on the awards and then the VGA. I mean, we got to make a point, but to stay in touch and to have some regular updates about the VGA, we I love supporting the veterans.

And I've had been fortunate to been with a couple of groups that have bought a couple service dogs for my buddy at troops first with David Faraday's group and we just found out we have another group that's going to buy a couple more. So we're trying to do our parts in a little bitty ways. But man, your connection to the game and to your fellow heroes is impressive, man. And we just want to stay in touch.

No, that's that's great. We love to have you at any event, if there's an event that you see on the schedule that's in the Missouri St. Louis area, please let me know. We'll get you out there and meet some of the guys and girls that are VGA members in that state. But just really appreciate you having us on and giving us this platform to spread awareness about our organization because it really is a grassroots program that has grown significantly over the last few years. Man, I just love that interview. I just love the the strength and that guy's voice.

Man, am I grateful he's on our side. That's going to wrap up the back nine pearly you and I'll talk a little bit more about some Fourth of July stuff that's been golf related and important to us in our life on the ultra 19th hole. So come back to Golf with Jay Delsing.

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Joe Caesar has closed over $500 million in loans in nearly 30 years in the business and over $2 million alone to Delsings. Everyone is looking for the extra edge, and Jay Delsing is digging deep to find it. It's The Leading Edge on golf with Jay Delsing. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay, and we are at The Leading Edge segment, one of my favorite segments in the show.

And I have the pleasure of sitting down with Kathy and Bob Donahue from Donahue Painting and Refinishing. Good morning, guys. Hello.

Hi, Jay. Guys, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much for supporting the show. And Kathy, tell us a little bit about Donahue Painting and Refinishing, please.

Thanks, Jay. We love being part of your show. We are a family-owned business. We've been in business together for 17 years now. We do mainly residential work. We do also some custom commercial work, but our focus is primarily residential. We do painting, refinishing, wallpaper removal, wall repair. We do lots of things that other painting companies don't do. And guys, one of the things that stands out to me in my mind, and I want the listeners to know about this too, is that you're not just picking up a man or a woman off the street to come in and either paint your house or take care of your home and make it beautiful. You guys have professional, insured people working for you, don't you? Yes, we do, Jay. We have a process that we go through in hiring where I think one of the most important things to us is the character of the person as well as their skill level.

But I feel like we can take someone of good character and train them to be a high-quality painter and to do things the way that we like to do. And as far as our insurance goes, we are fully insured, $2 million coverage of both workman comp and liability insurance. Well, and that's also really great peace of mind for our folks out there that are looking through this difficult time, you know, with COVID and things like that to know that they're having quality people come into their home. Talk a little bit about some of the trends. What are you seeing in the marketplace? Because I know right now your business is really booming.

Yeah, it is. And what we're seeing now is that more people are spending a lot more time in their home, way more than they're used to. They're working from home and they're finding that their current environment just isn't conducive for what they have to do in their home now. The lighting isn't sufficient.

They don't like the color. And they're making these kinds of changes just to make things better for them, to improve their environment. Nothing makes you feel better than putting a fresh coat of paint on the wall or upgrading your lighting. And those are the kinds of things we're seeing now. Well, the thing that I love about you two guys, and I think it comes through in this message is that there's such a personal touch with you two, you guys really genuinely give a damn about this, don't you?

Absolutely. Something I learned a long time ago, and you hear people say it often, but I don't know that everyone does it, is that we try to treat everyone's home as if it was ours. And we talk to the homeowners about things that may be beyond what we do. Sometimes we'll recommend that they change their lighting or for that matter, their balusters on their staircases. One of the trends that's happening and been happening for a while is people are going with metal balusters or they're changing their hardwood floors to darker colors. And then the staircases don't match the hardwood floor, so we will refinish the staircases to blend in with the new floor color. You know, guys, and I don't want to harp on staircases, but I've been on your site, DonahuePainting.com, and some of the work you're doing on the staircases, it's remarkable what a difference it looks like when you get those redone. Staircases have been kind of a niche market for us for some time.

We do work for one of the largest staircase companies in town, and we do anything from a brand new staircase to, as I said before, changing the color on the existing staircase to blend in with the new floor color. Well, guys, tell the folks how they can reach out to you with a number, and I just gave your website, but give it to us again, please. Sure, our phone number, you'll actually reach me, is 314-805-2132, and our website is DonahuePainting.com.

Guys, thanks so much to you. Folks, that's Bob and Kathy Donahue. This is a family-owned business. If you want high-quality work done to your home and to make it beautiful, call them today.

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 am your host, Jay. Pearly is with me, and we are at the Ultra 19th hole. I like that. That's a great name. Is that perfect?

It's absolutely perfect. We want to thank the guys at Ultra and AB for jumping in and supporting the show, the 19th hole. Man, I wanted to go back and, before we break down, talk a little bit about Josh's interview. This is all in the same vein, really. When I got to play with those heroes down in San Antonio, I'll never forget this because one of them was, he didn't have any serious injuries like the other three had, right?

So we were looking at prosthetic limbs and things like that. And this guy was from North County, St. Louis. Steve Whittingham is his name, and he's a Navy Seal. Badass dude. Too handicapped.

He could play. And I looked at him and I said, Steve, and I think his buddies were calling him Whit, and I said, Steve, what happened to you? He goes, well, I was blown up four times. And I said, blown up? Like, what the hell? And he said, yeah, well, what happens when you're at war and you're in these situations, there's devices, there's bombs, there's things that contact the earth and explode around you and propel you to various places from where you were. And I said, gee, what the heck? And he's like, yeah, he goes, I got thrown up in the top of this tree, and then he arched his back in a certain way, Pearl, and it almost looked like he had a fin. And I said, Steve, and he goes, yeah, I took some shrapnel, I got shot, some shrapnel from getting blown up, and I found myself hanging up in this tree. So it took quite an effort to help get me down.

And there's a bullet lodged in my spine with a piece of metal that the doctor said, as long as you can live your life with it, we don't need to take it out now because it's not doing any damage. Yikes. Yikes. But I think the overwhelming thing that I take away, love yours too, is these men and women have unbelievable attitudes, the choice. So it just tells you that's the choice.

I mean, are you serious? You're going to look at your body and look at how disfigured it is and not wallowing that, but you're going to choose to look at the bright side or to look at the fact that you're still alive or to look at the fact that you still love your country, even though supporting your country and supporting freedom for all of us did this to you. Yeah.

Wow. Well, they say that's a choice, but boy, that'd be tough to make that choice because I think that there's an awful lot going on there. I can remember my father, though, who did serve in Korea, talking about some of this. I can remember one of the deployments, I don't remember what year it was, maybe it was Desert Storm, and I was just like, man, these guys have to be so nervous, you know, going through all this, knowing that they're going to get called up and different things like that. And he said, let me tell you something, he said, I'm sure they're a little bit nervous, but they're mostly jacked up, pumped up and absolutely ready to go. This is what they're trained for, this is what they believe in, they believe the cause of doing it for, they're doing it as a team.

And he said, trust me, they are way more pumped than they are afraid. Okay, so this leads me exactly into the story that I wanted to tell, when you and I and our dads were right around 4th of July on an airplane for that special fishing trip we took, and we get a hero. Folks, we get a hero, in his camouflage special gear, walks back into the airplane, and I said to Pearlie, I said, Pearl, here's what we're doing.

We're going to buy everybody in here at least one beer or cocktail in honor of this hero, and you're like, I'm in. So we did, we had more than one, and we sat back with this guy, and I mean, John. He was from International Falls, Minnesota, absolutely remember that, I remember sitting next to him and he's showing me pictures of being in Iraq. And I said, well that looks like kind of a green, kind of a nice place, no sir, and I won't use the word he used, but it was Poop, Sir. And I said, well what about this, what about, it was Poop, Sir. I said, it sounds like there wasn't a whole lot. He said, it is nasty, brutal, nothing that any of us ever want to spend any more time with.

Right, right. He was also going to visit his four month old daughter that he had never met before, and watching that, oh my gosh, crazy. But do you remember the conversation we had after thinking, this guy is a little bit nuts, and all jacked up about this. And he's excited to go back. Just for a couple days, I think he traveled four days to go home for two days, and he was anxious to get back. He was anxious to get back with his team, and that's all part of what the Faraday and that group does at Truth First, John. Is they understand that this mentality that these men and women have been trained for and in doesn't play when they come back.

There is no team. Now they're in neighborhoods, and it's... Hopefully they get realigned with a purpose, a thing, a team, a group, which is obviously what David Faraday's group does and many other groups do. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. In that experience, I thought it was cool with our dads, and then do you remember having the conversation with our dads? And your dad said to my dad, first of all, let's set this up a little bit. They didn't know each other really that well.

They'd played a little golf here and there. Obviously, we were very, very close through college and that kind of stuff. But yeah, but then go ahead, how it kind of happened in this little cabin, these two guys sitting across from each other. Yeah, and your dad goes, Jim, I didn't know you were in World War II.

And he goes, well, hell, I don't talk about it very often. And they started talking about stuff, and those are stories that I never heard. Yeah, two different words, but there was an instant bond. You could feel it in the room.

It took about two seconds. They were already buddies. Everybody's getting along, but all of a sudden, there was just a bond formed in a heartbeat. Yeah, and it's interesting when you have that common thread and you have that commonality.

Yeah. Oh, man. My father said that was one of the best times of his life. I can't relate to that.

I've had a very easy life because of my parents. But when he talks about Korea and some of the things, it didn't sound so good to me. But it was a time for him to grow up and get guidance and get direction and stuff like that. So all kinds of things happen when those guys are going through that. And here's the last part of this story. I'm going to bring my dad into this. I can remember us traveling and all the traveling planes, trains, automobiles to get up to International Falls. Frog Rapids Camp. Let's put a plug in for Frog Rapids Camp. Let's do Lookout Ontario. Absolutely. It's beautiful up there. Gorgeous.

Adele and her brother, Larry, they do a great job. But you and I had this tradition. Well, you do it because you do it all the time. I'd only been a couple of times. We'd go to the Border Bar and have a couple of beers. And we had had a couple of beers already. And we had had some. And I said to my dad. Now, my dad was, this was, he died shortly thereafter.

My dad was 78 years old. And I said, Dad, Pearlie and I are going to go grab a beer at this little place up here called the Border Bar. And right before I got finished, he goes, let's go. And your dad said, I'm going to bed. Oh, yeah. I was already sleeping at the table probably.

That's right. And so we go up there and we, my dad starts telling stories and we're drinking beer. And I think we even ordered a pizza.

Of course. It was like a second dinner for us. Border Bar at the border. And I just remember Pearl hitting the wall. I just remember going, I can't even, I can barely lift my arms. I'm exhausted. You know, I'll have one more beer and then we're going to go home. And it was about one o'clock in the morning, 1.30 in the morning. And I can remember we're finishing this beer, folks.

And my dad looks at John and I. And how old are we? 35?

40? And he said, boys, I'm a member of the veteran, the VFW. And I saw a hall down there.

I'm sure we can get a drink till about two or three o'clock. And we're both like, OMG. We went, we went, of course.

Time out, Dad. We went, of course. But, oh, we were so done and he was just getting his, he was just getting revved up. So we had to share that story with our dads. And both served our country.

And, you know, this has been kind of a different sort of show. I like that, the fact that we can do this sort of stuff. We didn't talk about golf a ton, but we talk about what it did.

And our fathers and the country and how lucky we are. And that's going to wrap this up, bro. So, thanks for being with me. Meat, thanks for doing this again for us. Come back next week. This is Golf with Jay Delsing.

Hit them 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 101espn.com, as well as at jdelsinggolf.com.