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 and Golf. Hey, good morning, St. Louis. This is Jay Delsing.
I got John Perlis with me, and welcome to Golf with Jay Delsing. Perlis, good morning. Good morning, Jay.
Good morning. Looking forward to another wonderful show here with some interesting interview. Right on. All right. We formatted this show like a round of golf.
The initial segment is called the On The Range segment. It's brought to you by Pro and Golf. And we've got to give you our social media outlets. Twitter is at Jay Delsing. Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing. And Jay Delsing Golf. LinkedIn is just Jay Delsing.
That's a lot of Jay Delsings. And we don't have, we have an Instagram tag, but we don't know what it is. And anyway. Okay. So we've got an interview today on our show. We've got an interview with Scott Langley. Scott.
You chuckle, you chuckle when I say it kind of pauses and say, interesting. This guy got some interesting stuff in there that I didn't quite know how to qualify. No, no. 100%. 100%. I didn't. I was thinking about something else.
I won't tell you what that is. I'll just keep on going. We want to thank Bob and Kathy Donahue at Donahue Painting and Refinishing for supporting the show. If you can eat any sort of work done on your show, on your house, on your show or your house, or your show house, but don't put that on them.
Right? Wow. Please, Bob and Kathy, call me and help refinish my show.
Please help me finish my show. No, they do great work. They are great friends and I appreciate their support. We're going to give a plug again to the St. Louis Junior Invitational to be held July 30th and 31st at Norwood Hills Country Club, stlgolfjr.com.
That's how you get ahold of these folks. They're looking for 72 boys and girls ages 14 to 18 to play. They have a Bob Phillips Shining Light Player Scholarship where they use GoFundMe pages and different sources of revenue to help families offset the cost of this thing. So, do not let cost be the reason that you're not signing up for this event. It's a very cool event.
All right. So, Pearl, we have Scott Langley. A lot to talk about with Scott. We also have, last week, the tour started.
And we're excited as hell about that. I can't wait to get the PGA Tour back and running. So, Pearl, if you were to guess in, we have been out of golf for what, over two months, right? So, what, about nine weeks or so? Something like that.
Seems like a couple of years, but that's probably about it. Yeah, somewhere. Well, that's close enough for our show.
We get it somewhere in the vicinity. How much money do you think, prize money, was lost throughout the PGA Tour, the Champions Tour, and the Corn Ferry Tour? How much money do you think was lost that the players did not get a chance to participate and play for? Yikes.
I don't even know where to begin on that one. A lot. Yeah, it's a big number. It's like, it's somewhere between $100 and $130 million.
Well, I got one for you. How much money to charity has been lost by the tour, not being up and running? And I think, and you know what, Jon, I think that's a bigger, you know, we talk about that. I know. And we talk about that almost every show in some form or another. And that is, it's just a huge deal, man.
It's just a huge thing that, where people are, you know, there's so many people out of jobs and there's just so much uncertainty. And man, it's just tough when you have these charitable organizations that really focus their entire efforts around one week a year. Oh, and the tradition of it, the tradition of it, people looking forward to it. You know, we talked about the volunteers for these events because they're so critical to the events, but they love it. I mean, they love it. They anchor their spring around it, maybe their whole year around it. And so they didn't get to do that stuff too.
And I mean, this is just called fright. This is just the peripheral stuff. There's so much more important heartfelt stuff out there, but yeah, it's just all these little things that are getting missed, but maybe it makes us appreciate it more. So when we get to do them next time.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, a couple of weeks back, we announced that Normandy, Normandy Golf Club has been reopened. Our buddies at the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association, Kurt Roy and, and Tommy O'Toole Jr., along with the folks from Beyond Housing, worked together to get Normandy, they call it the Rock Open. And if you'll remember on the show, the Normandy was one of the first four courses in the city to be part of the Missouri Golf Association in 1905. It's absolutely crazy, but I ran across a article in the St. Louis Business Journal that has the USGA rated, hardest golf courses in St. Louis, and it has them ranked. And Pearl, the number one course on the list will not surprise you when I tell it to you. But it will surprise a bunch of our reader listeners, I'm almost certain. The hardest golf course in the area is Fox Run Golf Club.
Oh, I was that would have been my guess for sure. And what I love that place. And it is hard.
I mean, if you go back these, it's really hard. Oh, we got it. We got a big grin and meat is shaking his head.
Meat looks like a bobble doll right now over here. So Randy and I played Fox Run maybe a month ago. It was right around all this COVID stuff when it started. And I think it was on the back nine, one of the last holes, the green. Randy was on the left front side of the green, put it around. It took an entire loop all the way around and rolled out the right side.
I did the exact same thing right after it. The greens there are atrocious sometimes. They're maddening. They've got a lot of slope out there, don't they? What a beautiful setting that golf course is out there. Yeah, because the clubhouse is fantastic.
You're talking about a great place at the end of the round to go have a beer or a glass of wine. Just wonderful. And I still one of my favorite times, Kevin, for you, Jay, is when you went to U.S. Open qualifying through there and made it and your mother walked the whole 36 holes. And I think it was 112 degrees at that. I think she had calluses on her fingers from saying the rosary that day, didn't she, Pearl? Oh, my gosh.
Is that the thing she was dragging around? Oh, man, my mom. So I can tell you exactly how old she was. She was about 77.
Wow. And she plowed around there. And how many times did she walk right down the middle of the fairway? And we were like, you know, she couldn't hear. She was trying to make the point that that's where you're supposed to hit it. You never did understand.
No, no, I'm trying to understand, I'm trying to tell you. I told my mom, Mom, whenever I'm up first on the tee, the safest place you can walk is down the middle of the fairway. There's a lot of places I'll hit it probably won't be there.
So that's what she was doing. A lot of great courses on here. But here's what sticks out. Bell Reavis is rated number two hardest. Here's what sticks out in my mind.
It's really interesting, folks, and you've got to pay attention to this. Aberdeen golf clubs, a public facility is rated number three. Aberdeen is a great place to play golf. There's some I mean, I go up and down this list, the country club is St. Albans, which is really special to me, the Lewis and Clark courses is tied for third with Aberdeen and Meadowbrook. Lake Forest is a good course out west. Peavely Farms is in the top 10. Another public, you know, golf course. So lots of great stuff. I always struggle, John, when I'll go down the list, I'll read the top 10.
But I'll make my point afterwards. Fox Run Golf Club is number one. Bell Reef Country Club to Aberdeen Golf Club and Country Club is St. Albans Lewis and Clark course are tied for three tied for third. Meadowbrook Country Club is fifth. Lake Forest is sixth. Peavely Farms is tied at seventh with Wing Haven. The Country Club at the Legends main course is nine tied with Old Warson.
That rounds out the top 10. We've got Boone Valley, the Country Club of the Legends, Gateway National, Norwood, all run out kind of the top 15. But I always struggled with those with people rating those courses, John, because I feel like they all present problems in different ways. And so much depends on where you play them from. Oh, I think that's true. But also we're kind of what type of player you are.
So that's probably where it can really kind of get under your crawl. But you know, person hits it far versus the person that hits it shorter, person hits it straight versus a little bit crooked. You know, I think these are always fun lists to look at.
But I don't know how much stock to put in them. But those are all nice golf courses. I love when you point out how good some of the public courses are that you have. And I think most cities have that situation.
There's a lot of great public courses around because the agronomy is so much better. They can make these places so much better. Back in the day, it cost them an arm and a leg and they couldn't get there.
Yeah, absolutely. They just around the city. When I grew up here, we had no public golf courses to play. There was Forest Park was the main public facility in St. Louis. And then we'd have the one that I grew up on was public, but they called it a Country Club. It's called North Shore Country Club, which was a really lousy golf course, but a pretty decent place to go sleigh riding in the winter.
And then they had another course up north called Paddock, which is now called Old Florissant. But we've got some great public golf courses and facilities. And I'm in the process of doing a putting a program together where I can get out there and maybe interview the pros and talk to them and and and boost them up a little bit. So it's a really kind of cool and really kind of fun idea to do. I love that idea getting out there and you you've been plugging the and rightfully so the the junior event coming up July 30 31st.
I wish you could get out there and interview some of those kids and some of their parents and guardians. I think that would be some fun and maybe we even do some whack chases out there. You know, Pearl, that's a good idea. What we've got to try to figure out in this whole environment is what is deemed safe.
You know, the it's it's you saw about a month ago or so at the at the tailor made driving relief that, you know, Steve Sands was interviewing everybody from six feet away. And, you know, whatever is right, whatever protocol we need to put in place, we will. But it would really be fun to get a get a listen to some of the junior golfers and some of their perspectives about the game. I think it's just wonderful.
And the next, you know, generation of people coming up and playing and supporting it for sure. For sure. Yeah. So gosh, I was thinking about our guest Scott Langley. I was thinking about him. And what an interesting guy, the only player ever to get a PGA Tour card that came out of the first out of a first tee program. He came out of the first tee program here in St. Louis, which was always special to me and made it out on the PGA Tour.
It's pretty damn cool. He went to know him very well, Jay, as he was coming up. No, I you know, age wise, Pearl, I am almost 30 years older than he is. So I did definitely knew who he was. He's a left hander swings the club beautifully. He went to the University of Illinois. He's a product of the Mike small machine over there of great golfers. He was went to Parkway South High School here in St. Louis. And so we're going to get to go to him.
You know what, that's going to wrap up the on the rain segment. But come back, we're going to go to the Scott Langley interview and that'll be on the front nine. This is golf with Jay Delsing.
This is Dan McLaughlin TV voice of the Cardinals. St. Louis is one of the best sports cities in the country. We also have a tremendous history of supporting professional golf. We're excited to bring professional golf back to St. Louis with the inaugural ascension charity classic September 28 through October 4 at beautiful Norwood Hills Country Club legends like Ernie Els, Fred couples, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and many more will be in St. Louis for tickets and sponsorship information. Head to ascensioncharityclassic.com. That's ascensioncharityclassic.com. Are you tired of forking out the big money 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 Delsing 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 Dardene and the Golf Club of Wentzville. And the cart fees are already included in your membership. There's no food and beverage minimums.
There's no assessments. They have a 24 hour fitness center, large pool, complex tennis, and they've just got great family oriented stuff. And if you get over there, you got to go in the golf shop and you have to say hello to my friend Bummer. Bummer is just a delightful guy that would love to help you and your family with your golf game. He and his staff out there run golf leagues, skins games, members tournaments, couples events are available all year long.
If your family is looking for a place where you can hang out, have fun, enjoy good food, golf, sports, just a family friendly atmosphere, you got to go to Whitmore Country Club, you can reach them at 636-926-9622. We're all experiencing very trying times right now. But hopefully, we can reflect a little bit on the things that matter the most to us, like family and community. At St. Louis Bank, we want to wish you and your family safety and good health. We're a part of this community and we are all in this together. In such uncertain financial times, you've probably never needed your bank to step up and support you more.
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Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I am your host, Jay. I've got Pearlie with me. We've got Brad Barnes taking care of us with the buttons and the knobs over here. And we've got to give a shout out to Whitmore Country Club for supporting the show again or second year.
These guys are terrific. Man, the fact that you have 36 holes, the fact that you can go there and you've been over me a couple of times in the last. I haven't been. I haven't been. Can you turn Pearlie's mic off for just this thing? Anyway, did you not text Pearlie last weekend when you and I went quiet about that? I said to be quiet about all those beers we had.
We were talking about him. It was fun, wasn't it? The multiple cases of golf balls you gave me.
I said to give Pearlie a sleeve. Not a surprise. Once again, at my expense. I appreciate it.
Not a problem. Where were we? Oh yeah, me. How you doing? All right, cool. We got Whitmore.
Thank you so much for sponsoring the show. The fact that you have 36 holes, here's how it's going. It's almost impossible to not find a place to jump in and play. Let's say you show up at 5.30, grab a beer and there's, you know, you go at the back nine of the north, you go the front nine of the south. Bummers, what they do so well is they're like, yeah, just going out over there, play nine holes, have a blast, don't worry about it. And I feel like it's every couple holes, it's almost like you're on a completely new course.
You'll be playing through some houses, then you're on top of some water, then you're going uphill. It's just a gorgeous course with so many things to offer. Yeah, there's no food and beverage minimums over there, no assessments, a 24 hour fitness center. Pearlie, this place is great, man. Next time me and I go over there, we'll take some pictures. We should have sent some pictures inside. We should have. Oh my gosh. Maybe next time we go. I even got a delicious cheeseburger halfway through that round the last time I was out there.
You wouldn't have liked it though. You know what I'm going to do, I'm just going to team up with Bummer and then you can drink meat and then we'll see how that goes. You got the wrong end of that one.
He turned his mic off. Anyway, there's a large pool complex, tennis courts. Anyway, we just talked about Bummer. Guys, Whitmore Country Club is a great place to join. They offer everything for your family. It's family centric.
There's nothing that if you have someone interested in tennis or golf, clearly, but there's the pool, fitness, it's a great place to join. Call them at 636-926-9622. All right, so we've got an interview with Scott Langley. St. Louisan, Parkway South high school graduate. Went to the University of Illinois.
Mike Small will be on the show. He is one of the top golf coaches in the country, without a doubt. And they have put together a world class golf program at the University of Illinois. And a couple of distinctions. So let's go right into this interview with Scott Langley. We're kind of in this holding pattern where we're, you know, social distancing, and we're self isolating. And it's a it's a strange world right now. How are you and Christine Kennedy? I know you guys live in Arizona.
Yeah, thanks. We're, we're doing fine. It's definitely a big adjustment for for us, as I'm sure for pretty much everyone out there getting used to this new normal for the time being. Our daughter is in virtual school.
And, you know, so she, she basically FaceTimes in with her teachers every day and does, does her best to continue learning and doing school stuff. And, you know, my golf has, as many of you probably know, is on hold, along with all the other major sports. For the foreseeable future, you know, that the it's a really weird time. You know, it's hard to really look at any thing that's happened in our certainly my lifetime. You know, that you could look at as a roadmap for how to deal with something like this, how to how to, you know, make sure everyone's safe and stop the spread and also think about, you know, how do we get back to some sense of normal life. It's really kind of uncharted territory for for, you know, all of us.
And, you know, you definitely see in that with the sports world. Scott, are you able to get out and play in practice at all right now? So the golf courses are open in Arizona. But I haven't been going I've been really weighing just, you know, what's the right thing to do? And, you know, the thing about golf, you know, I still have a lot of time before our next tournament.
They've come out, you know, to this point and said, basically, like, towards the end of May is when we're going to start playing again. So I kind of weigh these two, these two situations when I think about going out to practice. Number one, you know, the the more important thing is, I think, practicing responsible behavior. And, you know, like many people my age, there certainly have been exceptions, there have been people my age who have gotten really sick from this. But statistically speaking, people my age aren't super worried about acquiring this virus. But it's about the older people in your life. And, you know, we without, you know, getting too deep into the weeds, we live in a condo building with many older residents. And even with practicing good social distancing, if I were to go to the golf course and practice and somehow come in contact with someone who had it and then come home and you know, I'm in the elevator, I'm inevitably going down to the mailroom, there are still some things I have to do.
I certainly would not want to give it to some somebody in my building, someone that is, you know, an older person that could be a lot more at risk for developing some really bad some bad things from this. So I've really been just trying to weigh, you know, doing the right thing. And also, like keeping in mind that, you know, I do still have time to prepare for whenever my next tournament will be.
So I haven't been rushing back, I've been really trying to be smart. And like I said, kind of do my part. Yeah, and that's, you know, there's as golfers, we're kind of on islands, so to speak, you know, where we're kind of out there by ourselves.
But with what's going on in our country, it's hard not to see us kind of as a try to be a united front on this thing. Yeah, yeah, totally. And, you know, people look to athletes, not necessarily myself, but athletes with more of a following as, you know, for better or worse, examples of what to do. And I think you definitely seen, you know, a lot of guys across all sports kind of step up and creatively show the ways that they're trying to stay in shape and, you know, spend their time at home, rather than going out and practicing whatever it is that they do normally. So hopefully, that's helped to encourage, you know, people who don't necessarily play sports to still acknowledge like, hey, this is a really big deal.
And, you know, even if people's first priority isn't others, it's still, I think out of self interest, I think it's still important to stay home because that's the only way life that's going to get back to normal, somewhat quickly, is if this thing really calms down and we allow our testing abilities and medical response to be able to kind of catch up to everything that's already happened. Yeah, no doubt about it. Scott, has the tour said anything to you guys on the corn fairy tour about how this year is going to shape up with so many events that have already been lost? There have been some some private conversations.
So I, I serve on the PAC of the corn fairy tour, the PAC stands for player Advisory Council. And, you know, a lot of that is, is, is confidential stuff that they asked us to keep a pretty tight lid on it. But, you know, all I can all say is that the tour is run by some really bright and caring people and good people. And they want to do the right thing.
They want to do whatever they can to protect their players and their, their employees and the people that come to golf tournaments. So, you know, they're, they're being really smart about it. I think, you know, there's, there's a good chance they've never worked harder on, you know, exploring all the many different ways they could, you know, deliver golf as soon as possible.
You know, and the trickiest part is that the information with this virus seems to change every day. Something some new little nugget will come out or some new CDC guidance will come out. So I really, I really sympathize with the leaders of sports because, you know, that behind the scenes, they're working tirelessly to try and formulate a new plan.
And then, you know, the CDC can say one thing, and then it kind of, you know, torpedoes the plan that had worked on for the whole two weeks, and then they got to start over. So it's, it's a crazy time. But, you know, I can definitely say our leadership really cares and they're really, they're good people. And they're certainly going to do the right thing for all our stakeholders. Okay, that's gonna wrap up the front nine.
So come back. We'll wrap up the interview with Scott Langley on the back nine. John and Jay are here and it's Golf with Jay Delsing. Are you in the market for some new clubs, maybe a bag and the latest style of sweet new shoes? Is this the year you decided to stop listening to your buddy's advice and get some real golf instruction? If any of these appeal to you, then go to Pro-Am Golf today. Pro-Am Golf has all the latest gear from all the major manufacturers. Call Steve today at 314-781-7775 and schedule a lesson with Tom DeGran. Tom is the best. He's been in the game for over 50 years.
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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.
Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. I got John Perlis with me and welcome to the Back Nine sponsored by St. Louis Bank. And I forgot to mention the Ascension Charity Classic which sponsored the Front Nine and people are probably sick of hearing it but we can't wait.
Perlis, you're going to get it for me. That event is going to be terrific. Let's go to the second half of the Scott Langley interview. Typically, Scott, this time of year is my all time favorite time because the Masters, this is Masters week that we're doing this or taping this interview and you know, the start of Major League Baseball has just begun and we've got the NHL playoffs and there's just, you know, great sport, drama and theater on TV and so now it kind of throws you back into, at least me, you go back and think of some of the past things that you've witnessed and experienced just to try to get some sort of fix on the sports that were missing out. Yeah, myself included.
Me too, with that sentiment. Matter of fact, I was just texting one of my good friends about the rewind of the Masters that's going on today. The 2005 Masters where Tiger had the chip in. I had actually never seen that live. I was playing golf at Peavely Farms when it happened and my good friend who I was texting was working in the shop at the time and he was sending out messages over the golf course GPS system, updating all the players on the golf course as to what was happening and I remember he sent out a message in all caps that Tiger had chipped in. I think it was maybe to take the lead or to tie for the lead at the time with, I think it was Chris DiMarco and I was telling him how excited I was to watch it today because I never got to see it live. It'll be the first time I've gotten to see it kind of with all the lead up and all the events that transpired before the chip in. So yeah, I'm excited to watch that.
It's nice that they got together and were able to put together some Masters for us to watch from years past this week. Hey Scott, tell us about your music background. I know that you love music and that you play the violin. That is, I don't think I've ever, I'm not sure I've ever met anyone that played the violin.
I have a lot of friends that would like to but one that comes to mind in particular but she does not play it. It's one of her favorite instruments but how did that all come about? Yeah, well, I think it's more accurate to say I played the past tense, the violin, rather than I play currently but yeah, I got started in third grade at Oak Brook Elementary where I went to elementary school and in the Suzuki program started learning violin and just really liked it. A lot of my friends were in the class. My parents encouraged me to continue with it so I continued playing all through middle school and high school at Parkway South. I played in the orchestra and some of my best high school friends were in the orchestra so it was really fun. We got to play some really fun stuff, some pop culture stuff. I remember playing the Pirates of the Caribbean score one year for a concert and some stuff for movies that were really popular at the time and it was just cool.
It was really challenging. You know, the violin, you have to be so precise. It actually kind of mirrors the golf swing a little bit because there are quite a few variables with playing the violin. The posture in which you hold it, the angle at which you apply pressure with your fingers to produce notes, the tension that you put on the bow and the angle at which you apply the bow to the strings. It's really, really precise and it's a really demanding instrument to play but yeah, it was definitely something I really enjoyed. Yeah, it's a challenging instrument.
If I were to try and play right now, it would be not so great. We'll give you a beer and we'll give you a little something. What could you make that thing sound like? Oh gosh, I don't know. Nothing that you would probably want to hear over a beer.
Maybe something that you would want to hear over like a really fancy glass of champagne or something. I never really got into the devil and went down to Georgia because that stuff is really hard. I bet it is. I just wanted to touch on one other thing. You are a product of the University of Illinois and the phenomenal program put together by our good friend Coach Mike Small. Talk to us a little bit about that program and some of the great players like yourself that have come out of there. I mean you won the NCAA championship, I think, your last year in 2010. Was that your senior year, I think, wasn't it? That was my junior year.
Your junior year, okay. Yeah, I mean Coach Small is just, in my opinion, the best college coach in golf. Obviously, I'm biased because I learned from him and he coached me and I didn't play for any other coach.
I can't imagine anyone being better. He really cares about his players and he always had this ability to really get us ready for the big event. It always seemed like our team really peaked and the chips are on the table. Big 10 championships, NCAA regionals. Unfortunately, as a team, we underachieved a little bit, I think, at Nationals.
I think our best finish was we made it to the Elite Eight in match play one year. I always felt like we could have done better as a team at Nationals, but in terms of the big tournaments in our conference and our Big 10 record, it was certainly really strong. Coach's experience as a player, his knowledge of technique and coaching physically with golf swing, combined with this blue collar mentality, he really instilled in all of us. We always would play with a healthy chip on our shoulder. Being a Northern school, we really felt like we had something to prove every time we teed it up. I think it was a product of the hunger that Coach put in us to really go out and try and achieve something special and show that a Northern school could compete with anybody, even though we couldn't play on the golf course all year round. Yeah, it's just really great stuff.
I'm not sure the folks around the Midwest can appreciate what a great program they have there. Well, Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show with me. One of the things that's always stuck out in my mind is your association with the First Tee.
You're the only player thus far to go through a First Tee program and make it onto the PGA Tour. We just wish you all the best of luck, man. We can't wait for you to get playing soon and come back by St. Louis and hang out. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate it. I really appreciate all the support I always get from all my friends in St. Louis.
I look forward to coming back soon and hopefully playing some golf in St. Louis next time I'm in town. Hey, John. So here's a guy. Tell me, tell me that that disposition and that personality isn't like ideal for playing great golf. I mean, that's all I was thinking about listening to the interview. That's all I was thinking about is, and it's, it's so not like me and I'm thinking, you know, that he's just, he's just calm. It's just smooth.
It's, uh, it's just low key. Um, yeah, that's exactly the way I was looking at it, Jay. Yeah.
So here's the thing. What about when he dropped the violin on you? I mean, when I, when I thought to myself, now I know where our problem was. Anything to do with the violin and then he gets into more of the techniques and the details.
Cause I know nothing about a violin and all the moving parts and all the things in the different angles. I'm thinking, that's why this never worked out. Somebody I was listening to AC DC and you know, we weren't listening to Led Zeppelin and he's like, there's no wonder at my, uh, my temple gets a little wacky. I, I, when he talked about devil go down in Georgia, now I could relate a little bit to that, but he said, that's not what he does.
I'll figure, well, I can't relate to that. No, that's right. You could relate for one minute, but, um, um, what I, what I want to talk a little bit about John is the fact that Mike small coach small and the university of Illinois, they built a powerhouse program with developing an incredible nationwide reputation, even worldwide reputation now as a great program, Champaign, Illinois.
Yeah. Not, not a Mecca for golf by any stretch, but make sure what we're talking about this a little bit, what a great player Mike is. I got to play with him one time and I, I knew he was good. He's won the club pro series, whatever those different things are. He's played on tour. This guy's world-class player.
I guess he just, that's not the lifestyle he wanted. No, no, he's really, really good. He's played some on the champions tour, had a little bit of success, kind of got screwed a little bit because of the numbers and the way that the championship is closed up. But, um, yeah, the, what they're doing over there, Justin Barge is a former, uh, Missouri state amateur champion and is now working as one of their head recruiters for Mike small.
Yeah. I'm going to have Justin on the show. I got to tell you another thing that Scott Langley reminded me of Chris Nagel. I played golf with Chris Nagel about a week ago from the back tees at Norwood on a cool blustery day. He fired a little 65, no bo bogey free 65. And I went, I'm not even familiar with that game anymore.
That is, it was just spectacular to watch. And unfortunately I had to dig in my pocket a little bit and I did not like that. John. So now why does that guy not make it? Well, you know, he, ah, it's hard to it's, that's all, that's a head scratcher.
I am a gigantic Chris Nagel fan and he's going to be on the show also. I don't know. I don't know. He is. He struggled for years and years with his putting, and we actually worked a little bit together with his putting, and now he is, and I'm not taking any credit for that, but we have talked about putting and, and we have spent some time on the putting green and he is just playing great.
He is just playing great. He, he finished a hundred. He finished 90th in money last year.
The top hundred are exempt, but they do this. They have a point system now in the corn ferry and he found a finishing like 103. And so he wound up kind of getting shuffled out of there because of the points and not the money. So yeah, but really good player. Maybe he's a caddy to get him around the course a little bit better. So if he could hit it that good and putt that good something, something just one little spark left to get him rolling. Yeah. He, and he hits it long.
Oh my gosh. He had one, one driver hit pretty good. And he had one, I go, did you hit that any good? He goes, yeah, I hit it real good.
About 55 yards in front of me, Pearl. Yeah. I'm glad you know how it feels. So there you go.
Yeah. I didn't like it much. How does it feel to you when I did that to you? No, no, no, no. It's appropriate that it happens, but it never feels right.
It never does. Nope. I kind of, I started looking at my ball and like, it's just some wrote this ball. Well, no, not that ball. Not the sniper. No, there's nothing wrong with the sniper ball. I wouldn't know. Meat likes his.
I snuck a few over to Meat a couple of weeks ago. Best ball I've ever had. Yeah.
He probably enjoyed it in Whitmore too. That's all you, well, you know, that was in between lunch and dinner. Oh my gosh. Well that's going to do it for the, the back nine. Stay with us. We got, we got Doc on whack and chase on the 19th hole.
Uh, we'll be back. This is golf with Jay Delsing. This is Dan McLaughlin, TV voice of the Cardinals. St. Louis is one of the best sports cities in the country. We also have a tremendous history of supporting professional golf. We're excited to bring golf back to St. Louis with the inaugural Ascension charity classic September 28th through October 4th at Norwood Hills country club. Don't miss your chance to see PGA tour champion legends. Proceeds will benefit St. Louis area youth, including the urban league, Mary Grove, the boys and girls club, and more for tickets and sponsorship information.
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The way you see your home is what Donahue Painting and Refinishing can make your home look like. 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 Sniper Brand Golf. Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing.
I'm your host Jay. I've got Pearly with me and we are headed to the 19th hole that's brought to you by Sniper Golf. You've got to get out and try the F20DR golf ball. It is fantastic. And, Meade, how do you like that logo? Oh, it's freaking phenomenal. It is a cool logo for golf.
It's a little Sniper crosshairs. You guys, you've got to try it. It's really cool.
And nobody else on the course has it. Nope. Nope.
It's really cool. So, what do we got? Nobody else on this show has it. Meade, what do we got?
Gosh, I thought Pearly's mic was off. What do we got? Who do we got on Whackin' Chase today?
Jay John, Whackin' Chase is back. Yet again, Doc is on the line with us. Hey, Doc. Hi, guys. Hey, Doc. How you doing? I'm doing well.
I wish my golf game was better. Well, that's why you're calling. You got the right spot. I hope so. So, Doc, well, first of all, thanks again for calling and thanks for listening to the show. So, what we do on Whackin' Chase is people call in and tell us some of the biggest struggles that they're having. And then John will ask some really important pointed questions. Thank you.
And you can decide on whether they're important or pointed when you're finished. And then we'll go to a solve. That sounds great.
Okay. So, Doc, what do you want to ask Jay? What's the big dilemma you've got going?
And let's let him have some time to stew on it and chew on it a little bit. Well, the biggest problem I seem to have is off the tee. And I don't know if it's because I got a longer club and I want to hit it farther, but it seems or feels like I'm coming over the top. And I'm coming over the top so badly that I've hit some balls so far left that the guys I'm playing with go, if you want to go look for it, you can, but we're not coming. Nice guys in that group.
You guys know each other for a while I bet. You know what's interesting about that, Doc and John, if you're playing with a bunch of strangers, guys you just got paired up with on the first tee, they're going to go over there and help you. But you're paired with friends and they've known you well enough, Doc, and they're going to go, nope, you're on your own over there.
I hit them so far left sometimes I don't want to go look. I've been there with you, unfortunately. Well, Doc, let me get a couple of questions out to you. First, tell us a little bit about your background relative to golf. When did you start playing? How long have you been playing?
And what do you shoot now? Well, unfortunately, when I was in high school, I was one of the better junior golfers in St. Louis. And I actually played at State and because I was one of the top qualifiers in St. Louis, I played my sophomore and junior year with Tom Watson in the first group. He was better than I was.
I didn't realize how much better. Then I went to the University of Texas and I found out that Tom Kite and some of those other guys were also better than I was. And I decided I better get an education. Doc, were you down at UT with Kite and Crunshaw? Well, Ben is two years younger, so Tom and I are the same age, which people know how old he is.
And unfortunately, they know how old I am. And so I went to medical school and I didn't play for about 18 years. And when I started playing again, like any athlete, I thought, well, this will be a no brainer. And the ball was going in many different directions. And I probably got down to about a nine handicap in my late 30s.
And then I would tell you after that, it just seems like every year it kind of crept up. As you get older, it seems like your brain starts to get in the way. And again, you think too much about what you're doing wrong. And I think early on, one of the bad things I did is I tried to correct it myself with what I thought was wrong, but not really knowing what was wrong other than the feeling I got that I was kind of coming over the top of the ball. Sometimes I would feel like, well, I'm swinging too fast. I'm not staying behind the ball. I'm getting too risky. And so I've done everything from going to bigger grips, to smaller grips, to wearing a golf glove on both hands.
It kind of reminds me, a 10 cup, I feel like maybe I should tie my shoelaces together. But I will tell you, the problem continues to exist and seems to be worse when you're playing a game with your friends. And that dollar, it's amazing how much that dollar will make you seem to grip the club tighter and swing faster and think more.
And like I said, it just has been a real problem over the last many years. Have you taken any lessons, Doc? I have, and they have really helped.
What do they help? Well, one of the problems that our pro, Darryl Hartig, had kind of shown me at Westwood was that I was getting the club too inside, taking it back. And so in order to try to catch up, that was causing the problem some.
And so that, I don't come over the top as much anymore. And that's what's frustrating because the good drives are terrific and the bad drives are still horrible. That's tough. That's tough. So they gave you some, after you got the lessons, did it help for a little bit and then kind of go back or did it just help in general and you improved a bit?
I would tell you in general, it helped and I improved. And it's that thing, and I hate to admit it, but it got down to the point where I would tell you 80% of my drives seem to be over the top. And at that point, rather than doing it when a third of them are, to go get that professional help.
And so it seemed rather dramatic initially. And again, you play and you feel like, well, maybe when I get tired, I'm doing it. And if I had anything I would suggest to people, the more lessons you take and the sooner you try to get things fixed, the better. Back when I was a teenager, most guys didn't have golf teachers or instructors. I mean, not like Tom Watson or Tom Kite. And so consequently, you tried to fix things yourself. And pros take lessons.
They have coaches. It must be a good idea. Doc, it sounds like, man, you've got a lot running through that brain of yours.
It's probably, what, Pearly, what do you think? 75 to 90% smarter than most golfers because he's a doctor who has bigger capacity than the rest of us. That's part of the challenge is what I'm hearing here. And I wrote down right at the top here when I started taking my notes from doc, no thinking allowed. Right.
Well, no. And you know, Jay once mentioned to me about Bob Rotella's books and I would tell you that clearly with my putting helped tremendously. And there's no doubt in my mind. So if you guys have a way of trying to explain to me how you can take your brain out of it, being a doctor, I keep thinking pills will do it. I just don't know which pills to take. You got to write yourself a prescription.
That takes care of everything. No, I think what we're talking about here is there's a thing on the tour we used to call paralysis through analysis and you get to going through parts of this. John, you have been on the bag with me before where I will say something to you and we'll have this conversation. And then the next thing we know, we both look at each other like this.
This is the wrong area. We need to be diving into because it goes back to the sport aspect of a doc. What reminds me of the best thing that you said when you were in high school and you knew less about the golf swing, you obviously your body was a little younger. You played, you know, you were a little more supple, maybe a little more powerful, whatever. But there wasn't though you weren't encumbered by all of these thoughts and all of these. Sometimes taking lessons is really good unless you try to, you know, you try to work on something and blend it into what you have or you make that lesson bigger than everything else.
And we've seen this time and time and time again. The object of this game is to take this ball from the first tee and put it in the hole in as few strokes as possible, period. And I mean, you know, it was, it wasn't a perfect day in St. Louis today, but it was good enough to play golf.
And because it was a little colder and I couldn't think so much actually hit the ball pretty good. And I really believe that you probably hit the nail on the head. I honestly think that, you know, and everybody has those holes.
If they played the same course a lot where you get up there and if you have, you don't like that hole. So you start to think a little bit too much. And I really believe you hit the nail on the head. I think sometimes I get paralyzed over the ball thinking of what I've done in the past and what I need to do to hopefully not do that again. Well, doc, sometimes the task because our brain gets so engaged is it makes the task seem monumental. And instead you like, wait a second. When I was a kid, all I looked, all I did was look down at this ball and try to hit it as hard as I can.
And so the one thing that I will say for you for people that come over the top. So the game, and this is a lesson that I think you'll like because it's only, you can only judge it by the field. You've got to initiate your downswing with your legs, your lower body. So, so many times when I see amateur swinging and to come and literally do come over the top and the ball does start left like yours does it's because their lower body is almost dead. And if you think of a baseball player swinging a bat, or you think of a hockey player shooting a slap shot, or you think of a tennis player hitting a ground stroke and you think of a golfer starting their swing, the lower body is so similar, except in golf, we don't move the feet. We don't step into the shot like the other sports do, but the hips need to start doc and they need to clear and that will definitely get your balls started right of your target and coming back with that little draw that you're looking for.
Realizing that I'm smarter now, is there any kind of key that I can think about to start those hips? I mean, do you think about moving the left hip or do you think about the, you know, so doc, there's a, there's that little step drill that I like to tell people, but if you watch the players on the PGA tour doc, they have a little tilt in their setup. So their head and their, the buttons on their golf shirt tilt ever so slightly to the right for right-handed golfers. So what that is doc, is that sets you naturally slightly behind the ball at address. And if you're coming over the top of it, and you said this yourself, you feel like your right shoulder is fast, it's too far out in front and you don't have any thing behind the ball. That little tilt will help tremendously, but there's a step drill that we can, that we can talk about. Perle, you worked on this step drill.
Yeah, I love the step drill, absolutely. Yeah, get your feet together and take that step, leave the club back there and you're going to feel much more like a baseball player, but then you're going to feel that lag between the lower body and the upper body and you'll start bombing a few. Yeah doc, it goes like this, you put your feet about a foot distance apart okay, and as you start to take the club back, when the club gets to about waist high, you take your right-handed golfer, you take your left foot and step about a foot forward or to your left, down your line, while your club is still going back doc.
This reminds me Perle, every single time I think of this, I think of Sam Snead. Doc, Sam Snead in one of the first golf videos I ever watched, we were talking about how much he used his legs and when his backswing was going to the top, Doc, when he started his legs going to the left and starting his hip drive, the club ticked seven more frames to the top of his swing. So what that is, and John and I, we've talked about this a hundred times, that's the dynamic that we're looking for in our swing.
That's our body moving two ways at the same time and that gives you, creates so much power. Well it's going to be cold this weekend but I guarantee you I'm going to be out on that at least hit a few with that step drill. Well you got to call me and let me know how that goes.
I'll do that. Hey Doc, now this is how we sign off on Whackin' Chase. If John and I have helped you, we want you to tell everybody, all of your friends at Westwood, tell your wife, tell everybody that knows anything about us, tell the newspaper, but if you keep hitting that other, that lousy drive to the left, you got to tell them we never met. Well no, I'm going to, I'm going to see if I can get it in our newsletter. Let them know it's fixed me.
They get lots of calls. Fantastic Doc, thanks so much. Thanks Doc. Thanks for playing with us. Alright guys, thank you.
Guys, why another Whackin' Chase in the books and another show in the books. Perley, keep looking in the mail for those sniper golf balls. Yeah, well next time we call, see if I answer. Let's just do it that way.
Alright, cool. Meat, thanks so much for keeping us together, keeping us on time here and folks, thanks so much for listening. We will be 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 101 ESPN dot com as well as at Jay Delsing golf dot com.
