Golf With Jay Delsing - - Paul Azinger

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 and welcome to the show. We have formatted my show just like around the golf.

The opening segment is called the On The Range segment and it's brought to you by Pro-Am Golf. Let's talk just a little bit about the show. I've got an incredible interview with Paul Azinger.

Just a terrific little sit down conversation with Paul. But I've got to tell you folks, obviously strange times we're living in with this coronavirus, so much uncertainty. There's just so much unknown and so many people are really, really scared. Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone, the frontline workers, the people that have been infected and just everybody that's trying to adapt to a new way of life.

It certainly is not easy. On a lighter note, we want you to be able to tune to this show. You'll be able to tell most of the interviews are taped well in advance just around the guest schedule and so that's the case today with Paul. And before Paul and I were on, we knew nothing about any coronavirus, so keep that in mind when you listen. Also, please keep in mind, we have a new showtime.

We're moving from 830 on Sunday morning to 9 o'clock, so we'll be going from 9 o'clock till 10 o'clock on Sunday mornings on 101 ESPN. Yeah, so let's just go straight into that Paul Asinger interview. This is a 12-time PGA Tour winner, a victorious Ryder Cup captain, a victorious Ryder Cup team member, a major championship winner, and now he is the lead analyst on Fox Sports golf team as long as the NBC Sports golf team.

So, enjoy Paul. When you're watching a practice round, guys are out there with their wives or their girlfriends and the entourage. Everybody brings about 10, 12 guys inside the ropes.

It looks like a parade out there. Yeah, some of the practice rounds do. I've seen practice rounds now with, of all people, Tiger Woods. I counted 14 people on the green. Might have been 12 people on the green in a Tiger Woods practice round. Never would you have ever seen that back when he first showed up, I'll tell you.

He would have snarled them right back in behind the ropes, wouldn't he? He just wouldn't have ever had that. It's just changed so much, even since Tiger came out. Really, the whole social media thing didn't start until 2008.

That would have been 11 years into Tiger's career. And then, you know, that's why I just think it's harder to play. I think I would have cared too much about if I had to brand myself. Self-branding and marketing and all that has just changed the game.

I feel it makes it harder peer pressure wise. You've got somebody that can send negative stuff to you, but you're trying to build your brand through a social media. I really admire these players, Jay. I've got to tell you, they hit it great. And they hit it far. And they hit it high. And you and I both know, you've got to have some courage to put it up there in the air for 10 seconds. You know what I'm saying?

It's not without risk. I just can't believe how they're good. I don't know if I could have done it because can you imagine if you show up without your entourage and without all that, how you're going to beat those guys? Zing, how was I going to get an entourage?

I had to go buy one. What do you think they're doing? Those guys aren't showing up for nothing. It's awesome to watch though, because you know, they still make mental mistakes and they still, you know, they'll make bad decisions and they'll miss putts. But it's the same game that we played.

And you know, really the scores are kind of the same. I just think mentally they've got an advantage over the entourage guys. That's why they hang on. I think longevity seems to be something even with all this money, they're going to be able to go and go and play and play and play.

Zing, let me ask you this. One of the things I noticed from the best players who ever played with is they hit their long stuff high, not as high as these guys do, but they hit all their short stuff low. And that's the one thing I don't see many of these guys do now. Some guys do, but not very many guys bring their wedges in very low. You were a master at that.

Well, you know what though? I mean, honestly, I was taught that the greats will hit their long irons high and their short irons low. I was taught the same thing. I had patches where I could hit my long irons really nice and high. I remember a week that I won at Muirfield Village, I was able to hit a one iron really high that week.

For me, for whatever reason. But what an advantage. And that's what Tiger Woods had over maybe Greg Norman because Norman couldn't hit his wedges that low either. He hit his everything high. Tiger hits his long irons high, short irons low.

Jack, long irons high, short irons low. Watson hit everything high. Didn't you feel like Greg Norman had such a problem taking his foot off the gas pedal? I mean, I felt like he just kept trying to hammer everything. And to your point, his short irons spun so much and they're always up in the air and lack of control there.

Yeah, yeah. The old adage a lot of times was, you know, the tighter the hole, the harder you should swing. You know, just so you wouldn't steer it, I guess.

Maybe that was a psychological message or something. But you know what, if I'd have hit it as nice as he hit it, I probably would have shot for every flag too. How do you take your foot off the gas? Now, you're talking about that little take something off it shot?

Yes. He didn't have that. He did not have a zing. He got in between clubs and didn't know anything but the gas. He couldn't take a little eight and fit it in there.

He was always smashing that nine. Yeah, I've been in that trap before though. And you know, you can get in that trap where all you can do is swing hard. And you and I both played where we fell in love with finesse too. Where we'd hit a rip snorting nine iron and we'd hit a little nine iron and cover about a 20 yard area with one club. And I think Greg got stuck sometimes where he only had about a six or five or six yard area sometimes with one club because he only had one speed.

And Tiger never fought that. Ever. But I'd get trapped with my swing sometimes where all I had was full out.

That's when I knew I was starting to get in trouble. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. And I think about some of the opportunities we had with some of the players. I thought Greg Norman was one of the best drivers of the ball I ever played with.

I ever saw. He could smash it straight. Yeah, he hit it unbelievable. And I don't think I'll ever see anybody drive it like that ever again. But now it's so different.

I don't know if they're going to be as accurate as Greg. But to watch the ball leave the way it leaves now is just blowing my mind. The first couple weeks when I was out here watching these guys on the driving range, Jay, the launch angle has gone up probably five to seven degrees since we played. I can't believe that, Jay. I cannot believe. Rory McIlroy, you and I could stand on the tee 30 yards in front of him and he could hit a 350 yard drive over our head. And 30 yards, he could hit it that high. Yeah, I know.

It's the weird thing. It's like learning how to throw a javelin to optimize your distance. And I guess as soon as you've had enough film speed or video or whatever to figure out RPMs and launch angle, that changed everything. And remember that happened while we were playing, too. I think Callaway was the first one to have built that golf studio. You remember that? And what a big deal it was to go there. And now they all have them.

TaylorMade, Titleist, they all have them. But the first time you could actually see impact, the driver smashed to the ball when the ball was flattened out on that one side. That was so cool.

And it morphed into this. USDA thinks it's all about, I don't know what they're all thinking actually, but it's not just the ball and it's not just the club head. There's a lot of math that went into this thing. Optimizing your trajectory and matching a proper spin to it.

It's really not an algorithm, but it's written out exactly how you can optimize your distance based on the trajectory and the velocity your ball leaves with spin. They got it. And now these guys can hit it 350. A big part of the reason is because it's like throwing the javelin. If you throw it too low, it's not going as far.

And they do it. And that's their whole thing is hitting it farther. Yeah, knowing the combination of the driver and the ball, the things turned into a missile. But Zing, back in the day when we were using those wooden drivers, launch angle? Hell man, I was just trying to find that little minuscule sweet spot in the middle of that Cleveland driver I had.

Hey, you and me both. I had an old McGregor driver back in the day. Remember that old Tony Penna driver?

It was beautiful. It was such a fun era and generation, but I thought it was hard. The premium was putting it on the fairway and it was just hard. Guys that could drive it straight, you know, Mike Reed or Kite or somebody like that, Curtis, they would just dominate. Hal Sutton.

Those guys would kill. And Jack had straight and long. Watson rolled in there. Watson could hit every fairway if you weren't careful.

And be long. So they all drove it nice. Trevino hit it unbelievably straight. But boy, it's almost as if, you know, the whole driving aspect of golf flipped since we started into the top 10 on the driving distance list, losing their cards to now they're the top guys. Zing, what about, it used to be drive for show, putt for dough. Now it's drive for dough. I mean, you're absolutely right.

The script has completely flipped. And the guys that are the best two players in the last 25 years have been the crookedest drivers going. Tiger and Phil. Yep. That's a fact. Um, but you still got to putt, you know, you can drive for an advantage and drive for dough, but you still got to make putts. Most of these events are still coming down to one shot here, one shot there. And even though, you know, they probably are making a mockery of some of these holes and not all the courses, but you know how the tour is so smart when they set these courses up, Jay? They put the holes in places that can protect the scores anytime they want. And, but the guys are hitting wedges on holes where you remember you go back and like, that should be a seven iron. That's right. You know? Yeah, that's exactly right. All right, so that's going to wrap up the on the range segment, but come back. We've got lots more of Paul Azinger and not that much more of John and I.

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Find us online at stlouisbank.com, connect with us on LinkedIn or call at 314-851-6200. 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 to Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host Jay, I've got Perle here with me and we are going to the front nine and the front nine is brought to you by the Ascension Charity Classic. Don't miss that great event this fall in St. Louis. Alright, we've got to talk about and thank our friends at Whitmore for sponsoring the show.

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Whitmore is just a family-centric, family-friendly place. You can call them at 636-926-9622. Alright, I don't want to waste any more time, we've got to go straight back into this Paul Azinger interview. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen and Zing, when he came back from that fourth surgery, the back fusion, because I've had one back surgery, and to get your back fused, it's really the career ender. I went to two different doctors here in St. Louis, they said your career is over competitively, we just got to get you out of pain.

Well I never did that because I was hoping I could still play a little bit. But Tiger came back and all of a sudden Zing, his speed was back. Yeah, he had more controlled speed. The key to his speed is that he got it in the right spot, it wasn't happening early, he quit jumping at every shot. And I think I said something about him, I don't know how much he loved baseball, but I compared him to Greg Maddox as he got older, and his fastball is 88, or less even.

He's still getting people out. Well Tiger's fastball is probably 88, and he's still going to win. Part of the reason is because it comes down to that putter, and I still think he's got the best memory bank of putts made in the mindset, a state of mind in putting. You and I both know putting was always, I always felt was more the measure of my heart than my technique, and all that stuff, that was all assumed. It was like a sequence of order in your head, if you putt well, and if you're screwing up the sequence of order, I always felt like, ugh, you're such a wuss.

It's so true man, it is so true. Did you think like that? I did think like that, and do you remember how when you'd come down under the gun, your palms are sweaty, everything is shaking, you need to make this putt, and you got it, and do you remember the adrenaline rush? Yeah, you know the thing is, I didn't get it as I got in contention a lot, a lot, a lot, but you could still get a jolt when a putt that you think is going in and you make a step and it's not in, and it had to go.

I've had jolts like blood rushes before, like to my face, like oh my god, maybe it's not going to happen, maybe it's not going to happen, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, it's just, there's no feeling in the world like that, you know, when you have the rush going and you can go ahead and crash your driver an untold distance, it's an easy outlet, but you got to be soft, and you have to be smooth with those hands on your putting, and that gets a little dicey. Yeah, isn't it the greatest combination of, you know, the polar opposites in a single event, you know, I guess baseball's got it.

Well, not as much. Golf, unlike any other sport, you have that full blown power off the tee if you watch Dustin Johnson, but he's got to get down there to that green a couple shots, you know, ten minutes away, five minutes away, and he's got to finesse something in the greens. I keep thinking about Oakmont, and how well he hit it there. And the putts that he made that he didn't make it Shinnecock because he hit it equally as well. Yeah, but the putts didn't go in that Shinnecock was a bear. Oh my gosh. That thing was all the wind blew from an odd direction that week.

Zing and how about we got wing foot coming up? Oh, I know. Oh, that's a that's a headache on every whole thing. I played in oh six I think they're Oh my gosh. I remember the just walking on the very first green all you hear about is wing foot this wing foot that and it was spectacular looking I mean kind of just old and nostalgic like you stumbled on, you know, a nice piece of farmland they turned into a golf course these beautiful majestic trees and this beautiful old brick clubhouse.

T's on the front teeth. I mean, you know how it's kind of understated until you get to where that first T is and you look out there and it's like, Oh, wow, this is wing foot and you get to the first green. I remember getting to the first green the first time in the US Open practice round looking around thinking, well, if evergreens right this, I'm out.

Yeah, I got a problem. I think he's in talk a little bit about Tiger down at the President's Cup and what what a job he did leading leading the boys. Look, I've said this a couple times now, but he should just be the captain from now on President's Cup and Ryder Cup after Stricker. He just had a calm and a trust and you know, his game was so sharp and it just shows you the his ability to switch gears and to compartmentalize I guess but he put himself with his players and all that and mindset that I'm just going to trust these guys because they're really good and that's exactly the same mindset. I had I put him in small groups. He might have done that.

I didn't really look that hard into it. But he you know, you got to trust those guys and when they got behind I asked a couple guys afterwards what that was like and I heard now I've heard Woodland talk about it publicly. He said, you know, he came in and we were all nervous how he would react when we got behind. He was really relaxed which was you know, he had the big smile on his face and he said, you know, I think what he said something like hey, hey, hey, relax, relax guys. What's so tight for we you know, we don't know the course and we still got jet lag something like that and you know the way I wanted to paint that for the two different teams was that Tiger trusted those guys and any other side or he had to say hey look you best trust me because I've got the course record here and you know, no one's played better.

This is a club you can hit off this tee you can hit this off this tee and that's the way you're going to play the course and they almost want it. It was brilliant, but two completely different styles of leadership. I think it would be I mean just feels like it should be Tiger every time until he decides to let someone else do it. You know Zing I had a completely different take of him sitting out that third day. I thought it showed incredible. I thought it was really ballsy and it showed the ultimate amount of trust in his gang and I thought that's what that was my take on it. Yeah, my thinking on that at the time was you know, what a disaster and we'll see if it works out because they're behind you know, so I think as an analyst in those situations. I mean, I'm trying to strike the correct tone for that and just you know, let the viewer know what's going on there, but it did take some heart for him to do that. Or some trust you're right some full-blown trust. He knew how his back felt you could tell he was getting tight.

I remember saying something like, you know, he looks like he's getting stiff and you know, you just can't speculate so they don't want us to speculate on stuff like that. But yeah, it was the right thing it turned out. It's pretty interesting Zing because you and I have aged and you watch Tiger you think he'll ever win a PGA Championship and I mean, I can't ever say no to this guy because I've had to eat crow so many times but that moving the PGA Championship into May and a lot of cooler weather. He had to deal with a bunch of cool weather in Australia down there too, didn't he? Yeah, surprisingly cool because it was a hundred degrees when we arrived and it was a hundred and four degrees two days after we left but we had cool weather high 68 or so every day. It was like Pebble Beach man. We were so lucky.

It was great. Yeah, I think it's just as cold in April at Augusta. I just don't think that should be a problem. I picked him to win it wing foot because he's the best putter and I think that Greg Maddox golf swing he's got it's going to dominate that joint. That's what I think. So I have to think he'll win there. He missed a cut last time but I just I'm like you I can't write him off. I just never could write him off. I remember the day he showed up pain and I got off the plane and here comes Tiger Woods flying in just one day. I remember the day he showed up pain and I got off the plane and here comes Tiger Woods flying in just one the US amateur that day and paying that on the tarmac trying to talk him out of turning pro.

We want to stay college. We had no idea right that he was going to be like that right. We miss pain Stewart. Don't we we got to give a little tribute to our buddy, you know, I got to play on a Missouri Cup match team with him.

He was from Springfield and a few years older than I was but the the world is not as much fun a place without paying Stewart in it. Yeah, I forget you Missouri blooded guys manage Missouri's like Texas it. I mean, it's like if you're from Missouri, that's a big deal Floridians is not like that.

It's like everybody comes down here. So we lost our identity. Yeah pain was awesome though. I mean, you're right. He he could play to buddy.

That's the thing about pain. He had all that style and you know, I guess it was charisma. I don't know how many times you went out to dinner with him, but I went out to dinner with him plenty when not one person recognized him. I told him I said, how did you figure this out? It's almost like you gave yourself a uniform so that when you get out into public you're anonymous and he looked at me just with that, you know that little twinkle in his eye. I'm like don't give me that pain. You're not that smart. You know, it'd be this equivalent really of Roy McElroy wearing knickers and just you only saw Roy McElroy knickers and then you see him out to dinner and regular clothes.

You just walk right by him. Yeah, and that's what pain had and that was I really envy that, you know, you get to a point where you play so bad and you want people to recognize you get We've both been through that before. Yeah. Hey, tell tell the listeners a little bit about the first year at NBC had to be tough stepping in for Johnny Miller. I wasn't I'm a huge fan of Johnny Miller as a person. I really didn't like his his style of analysis, but boy sure was popular. Hey, Johnny Miller was great. The more I hear stuff that he says the more I realize, you know, he was right on. I mean, he crossed the line plenty of times. I'm sure you know, opinions about Johnny go all over the map. It was just a weird dynamic for me to walk in there and that, you know, as we set up in that trailer.

And there's a couple trailers that just was different. You know, it's weird for me to walk into there. It's quite a dynamic with all these people that have been together for 20 to 30 years and here I'm the newcomer and I was nervous.

I got to tell you, I was real nervous about it, but you know, we're all buddies. We all do the same thing. And but we never hang out together. You know how that is Jay you played tour for 25 years or 30 years. I played almost 30 years and you know, everybody on the tour, but you don't know anything about him at home.

So anyway, it's parity in there and coke in there and Roger in there and Hicks all these people bones is in there. Here I come. So I got through the first week of Phoenix where Johnny retired Saturday. I finished Sunday and got through that. I felt like I got, you know, my rookie season is over. Everything from now on is going to be familiar.

So I'm really happy about that. You know, one of the dynamics for me was tough was going back to Fox and doing the US Open. Last year, I had six weeks off between NBC, which I signed that deal. Then all of a sudden I show up and it's like, am I an NBC guy?

Am I a Fox guy? Then I had to go back to do NBC again six weeks after that for the Open Championship over there. We'll see.

One of the things for me is chemistry. You and I know how it works. The whole the whole thing at NBC.

You know how it works, right? Everybody's there to do everything they can to make the show better. Everyone's there to help for the most part. We're all there to help each other out and that attitude really works at Fox.

I think the goal is to make everybody around you better. NBC has that, but they're all just so polished and so steadfast in their ways. But when they hang around the trailer, they talk about stuff and it comes out on the air most of it. A lot of it comes out on the air and just how we formulate our opinions.

You know, Patrick Reed's story was a big one. After that whole incident there in the Bahamas, you don't just willy-nilly walk up in the booth and start talking. We're trying to figure out what was the right way to handle that whole thing. Finally, Tommy Royce said, hey, why don't you and Dan go out there and talk to him? We're hearing what everybody else is saying. Let's just hear what he has to say.

So that's how we approach them. He was happy to start talking about, you know, I knew the rule. He didn't think, you know, the camera angle was good still.

He didn't think he improved that high that much. Okay, I don't know what. And then he said he didn't see the sand move and he didn't feel it. So that's what we reported on the air. I just said, hey, look, the water is coming out of the water.

It's coming out of the water. That's what we reported on the air. I just said, hey, look, the worst player at your golf course knows better than to do that.

And he did it saying it was, he did it twice though. You know, if you did it, but of all the things you, you may have tried to do as a kid, you wouldn't even try to do that. You know, playing with your buddies.

It's so obvious to me. Well, I think that I want to do this. If you squatted down now that I think about it and just started flicking the sand away with your finger, because it's a waste area, how far down can you go? Yeah. That's the only, that's the only thing I don't know is like, well, did he just do it faster? I mean, could he have kept going? But you're not allowed to improve your lie. Either way, no matter what, whether you're flicking with your finger or your, you can't improve your lie.

You're not allowed to improve your lie. So it's a dicey, it's a tricky situation, but that was just so weird. And I can't even put my finger on how his mind worked that out to do that. You know, Zing, I loved what you said where he's really got to get it right from this time going forward because we've got cameras all over the joint now. Yep.

Yeah. You can't make mistakes out there. And you know, guys, I don't think anybody is malicious in their ways out there. I never felt that way. And, uh, I don't think Patrick Reed's malicious, but I don't know.

I don't know what's going on. Um, but I always kind of liked the guy. I still really, I think the players, you know, think he's okay. Some players can't stand him, of course, but he's not a royal pain to be around. He doesn't say, he doesn't say a lot. He doesn't say stupid stuff. He pretty much speaks when spoken to, I guess. I don't know. He's not annoying.

He just made some bad decisions, I guess. And that's going to do it for the front nine. Um, come back. We got more Paul A's here. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. The 100,000-watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports driven by AutoCenters Nissan, home of a 30-day return. WXOS and WXOS HD1, East St. Louis, 101 ESPN. Are you in the market for some new clubs?

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Tom is the best. He's been in the game for over 50 years, so you take that knowledge along with their state-of-the-art equipment and boom, your game will get a whole lot better. Visit them at Pro-AmGolfUSA.com. 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. I am with Gabe Alussi from the Private Club Agency, and this is the Leading Edge segment. Gabe, thanks so much for joining me, and tell the folks a little bit about what you do.

Jay, it's an honor to be with you, sir. Yes, as you mentioned, I have a company called the Private Club Agency, which helps clubs around the world with their membership development. And most recently, I started a YouTube channel called Let's Play Through, and that show is basically, if you think of Anthony Bourdain meets the golf channel, that's what the show is. So I travel around the world to interesting locations.

We check out the food, the culture, and of course we play some of the best golf courses on the planet. It's really cool. Sounds like a really tough gig, Gabe, and you know, people give me trouble for what I do, and so we're all kind of both in that same line. I know, I do have to, there is some jealousy for sure, but we try to make it fun, we try to be personable, and give people a taste of some of these locations that they can't get to, or they're thinking about going to eventually.

Hopefully it gives them some inspiration. You also do the Private Club Radio Show, which is probably a little bit more of the same, just another way to reach out to people. Yeah, so the Private Club Radio Show specifically is for people in the industry. Generally, club managers are my listeners, and we've been educating folks for over five years on the show now, just helping them better manage their clubs and get through trials and tribulations like we're all facing right now with this COVID-19 crisis.

Yeah, it's crazy times for sure. Gabe, tell the folks, because so many of our listeners, if they're not members of private clubs, they certainly know of them. Tell us a little bit about how you help them. So only 5% of clubs in the United States have a full membership, meaning they're full, they're on a wait list. The other 95% of clubs need members, and that's what our agency is set up to do.

So we run digital marketing campaigns, we've been instrumental in really educating the entire industry to get online, to use social media, and to use some of the new media outlets like podcasts, YouTube videos, and things like that. That will drive more eyeballs to their club. I think clubs over the years, they kind of got lost their way, especially in 2008 with the economic downturn, the last economic downturn. Clubs were in a really tough position, and we were there to really move them into the 21st century and helping them build their membership. You clearly have a love for the game. Is that really the why on how you started this company?

It absolutely is. My father was a former PGA professional. He was a club pro, not on tour like you, but he was a club professional in Massachusetts. So I grew up playing golf.

I started playing golf when I was three years old with my dad, so it was always our thing. But for clubs specifically, I was living on a little remote island in the Philippines, and I was completely disconnected from anything American, and I found a club there. It was actually a little tennis club, which became my community, and that became my why to build these communities, because that's all golf clubs and country clubs and private clubs are. They're communities of like-minded individuals that are there to help connect with each other and build lifelong friendships. So that little club on that little island sort of saved me from a lonely place in my life, and I want to build more of those communities around the world.

Man, I love that story. Gabe, golf has done so much similar to me and given me such a great opportunity. Tell the folks where and how we can get in touch with you. Well, the best thing for folks to do would be to subscribe to my YouTube channel or check out the YouTube channel if you're into golf, into travel, into food. The show is called Let's Play Through, and you can visit youtube.com slash let's play through with a U, not spelled out, but with a U, and you'll find the channel there.

We'd love for you to subscribe and follow us on some of those adventures. USA Mortgage is doing it again. Joe Scissor and his staff have lowered rates again this month, and they will waive closing costs if you want to refinance to get cash out, lower your rate, shorten your term, or eliminate that costly, unnecessary mortgage insurance. If you are purchasing a property, they can issue a pre-approval letter within minutes. They are the largest mortgage company in the state of Missouri, and their volume allows them to quote the lowest rates. Don't waste your time with the national online brokers. USA Mortgage is employee-owned and operated right here in St. Louis.

USA Mortgage has closed over $500 million in loans in nearly 30 years in the business and over $2 million alone to Delsings. I'd like to thank Whitmore Country Club for sponsoring my show Golf with Jay Delsing on 101 ESPN. Whitmore has been a great partner as I enter my second year. If you are considering a great place for your family to hang out, you've got to go over to Whitmore Country Club. Go in the golf shop.

See my friend Bummer. He'll tell you all you need to know about the kids' club, the golf, the tennis. They've got swim teams and leagues. There's anything you and your family could want at Whitmore Country Club. Visit them at whitmoregolf.com.

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 to Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay Delsing, and I've got John Perlis here with me, and we are on the Back Nine brought to you by St. Louis Bank.

Let's go right back to that Paul Asinger interview. You know, Zing, talking about having cameras around, I remember playing with you in Doral. I don't know what year it was, and you had to lead after two days and got disqualified because of moving some rocks with your feet on 18. Do you remember that? Oh, do I ever.

That was one of those weird deals. I hit it in the water, but the ball was kind of half in, half out. It was oscillating. When I got in there, I took my stance and my right foot was underwater, and you know, it was a bunch of little rocks. It's coral there. It's all coral shelf. It drops straight down off this, it's literally a coral shelf. But my ball's up on the high part, so it's oscillating. I stand on it, and I stand on a rock that goes right under the ball of my foot, and I just flicked it out from under my foot, under the water. The rock was under the water.

My foot is soaking wet. I shoved it out of there and splashed it out, finished my round, played the next day. This is back when USA Network covered it. Remember on Thursday, Friday? It was the very beginnings of Thursday, Friday golf.

I think Kevin Landy and those guys did that work back then. Yeah, it could have been. That ended up being replayed, and some guy called the next day and said he moved a loose impediment and a hazard. So I finished my round and just happened to be leading. I finished my second round the next morning, but they knew. They had followed me around the last four holes, probably hoping I'd make a double or triple or something.

I'd be leading. And they showed it to me twice on video, and I didn't see the breach. I kept waiting to see my club tick the water on the way back or something like that. So watch your right foot. Maybe it was my left foot. I think both feet were in the water. Either way, I spawed my foot out of there and said, is that a penalty?

Yeah. Moving a loose impediment and a hazard. I was just taking my stance. I just popped out with, what if I'm digging in the bunker, in the sand?

What's the difference? But I didn't question the rule. I just took the penalty. You're not allowed to do that.

You're not allowed to push that rock out from there. I tried to make logic of it, and I decided not to challenge the rule, thankfully. I just took my disqualification home with me. It was awful. I felt terrible. It wasn't even me.

I'm thinking, what in the hell? You played so beautifully. It was a replay. It was the replay issue. I was one of the first victims of that, where you did something, I would say, earlier, that you didn't know it was a mistake, and then, bam, you get DQ'd as a result. Now, if they find you did stuff like that, and the replay finds it, they just add the penalty or score, and they don't disqualify you anymore. That replay thing, though, that is a pain. I don't like that in golf.

That's one of the few things I really dislike about it. Well, I'll tell you what. That girl on the Norquist, is that who that was?

They got our US Open over there, where she ticked the sand. You could only see it with the camera. You couldn't see it with the naked eye. That's one of the worst things I've ever seen. Yeah, you're right. It's part of it, though. If the camera sees it, it sees it.

Nobody wants to breach a rule on purpose, I guarantee you that. No, that was the year Brittany Lange, I think, went on to win that Open Chippie. Yes, she sure did. Yeah, that was fun. I like that little chipping contest thing we had in the pool, remember? We went to that little party, and they had these little floating greens out in the middle of the pool, and we were chipping little Velcro balls over there, having a couple cocktails. Didn't you dominate? I think that's why you liked it so much.

That's why I brought it up. Hey, Zing, what are you most excited about this year in golf? For me, it's Tiger. I just can't wait to see what he's going to do.

I totally agree. I just cannot wait to see Tiger and what he's going to do. As long as Tiger's around, he's going to be the lead story every tournament he enters, and he's got a lot coming at him right now, the chance to break the all-time wins record.

Think about that for a second. You know how hard it is to win on the tour? If you go for the all-time win record, how do you think that makes him feel? Do you think it makes him feel, I don't know, is it probably harder than trying to win his first ever major or trying to win his 1-0 because he won by 20 or whatever? How about trying to win his first ever tournament? He won in a playoff. What a feeling that must be for him to try to get loaded up to win this tournament.

I will say this thing. This kid, he's not a kid anymore, but when he came out and he played, it was so obvious to me that he had seen himself doing this already. I think it's already in the bank in his mind.

Probably, but if those other guys better not let him do it, that's all I'm thinking. Why does that record not get talked about very often? 83 wins on the PGA Tour.

Seriously? Yeah, it's the same people that won the majors, that play in the majors. It's the same field almost every single week, isn't it? Same guys, different courses, and they're not designated majors. And if you can win on the Tour, you can probably win any week. Some guys only win with a major, but you're right. 80, that'd be 83 wins.

That is just not, it's unfathomable. And I really think he could keep going. He's 44 now maybe?

Yeah, 44. I mean, I just want to see an x-ray of his back. That guy who did that surgery, I mean, it's got to have a name. It's like Tommy John surgery. Oh yeah, you can have Tiger Woods surgery.

Yeah, it's going to be like some bars and rods and things like that in there. But it's the most compelling. He hits the most shots with the most enthusiasm and the most excitement, and he hits shots with the most flair. And I don't think anybody really comes close to what Tiger brings beyond just the record books. For me, the part that's the most underrated about Tiger's game is his wedges around the green, his bunker play.

Remember how we used to talk about using the bounce and how we'd hit bunker shots together up in Canada and slapping the bounce and all of those things? He's so steady, so phenomenal. He makes the hard shots look elementary. Yeah, Tiger learned so much from the generation before us. Guys like Kite and Lanny and Floyd and teachers like Dave Pels. I think even working with my old coach, because I hit good wedges, Redmond, John Redmond, but the generation before us were the ones that really started to figure stuff out.

With high-speed film, sequence cameras, and they started to put it together. Now the generation before them were playing great, but they couldn't technically tell you what was going on. Tiger now is just setting the bar every time he tees it up.

But he didn't have to learn how to slap the bounce. Kite already figured that out, or Claude Harmon already figured that out. Or Harvey Penick or somebody like that. Yeah, those guys. So that's kind of what you're dealing with here with Tiger is all those guys ahead of them.

Not us so much because our age. Yeah, he probably watched and just thought that guy won. That's probably what he was thinking. But he learned a lot from those guys, I think. They contributed a lot in the process to where it is now, where it's all about literally, I mean, what do they call them? Analytics. I mean, they're using analytics and they're using strokes, gains, and all that stuff.

And as a broadcaster, it makes you lazy almost. You can just look and see how he's putting by how many feet of putts he's made. You know, it's just unbelievable. They got all the numbers now. And that's going to do it for the back nine. You got one segment left and a little bit more left of this Zinger interview.

So don't go anywhere. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Come back for the 19th hole. The 100,000 watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports driven by Auto Center's Nissan, home of the 30 day return.

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USA Mortgage has closed over $500 million in loans in nearly 30 years in the business, and over $2 million alone to Delsings. I want to thank Donahue Painting and Refinishing for supporting the show. When I was out playing golf, in my mind I would see a picture that I wanted, and I'd try to hit the shot the way it was painted in my mind.

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. All right, welcome back to Golf with Jay Delsing.

John and I are here. We are on the 19th hole, and we've got to go to the tail end of this Paul Lazinger interview, and then we're going to break it down a little bit. Zing, you got a problem with the distance? Are you concerned about how far everything's going? I know the USGA just finished a study. I just read a great article that Nick Price wrote about it.

What do you think? I think it needs to stop, whatever the gaps are, but at the same time, what's more exciting than being able to get more distance? It's a tough sell. They have to give up the idea of growing the game through distance. How do you sell clubs that don't go farther?

That's hard. So you've got to deal with that aspect of the sport. And at our level, I don't think it goes too far. Let's say from the 60s to the 2020s, it was always par 72 courses. Now they're all par 70 because the ball goes so far.

What's the difference? Right? You got to maybe add a few yards to a few holes, pick the right holes, take a couple wedges out of our hands. But when we played Jay, you and I both know we'd hit eight to 12 wedges every single day.

And they're doing it still. There's some tournaments, I count them every week. They're only going to get seven or eight wedges. So it's really the same in that regard, even though the ball's going farther. They've added the tees and the whole nine yards. I gotta tell you, it's so exciting to watch these guys. It really is the entertainment factor of the power and the birdies. And it's all about birdies and the PGA Tour. But man, when you and I were playing, you had to figure out how to play a flyer.

And these kids don't even know what that is. Yeah, flyers are a whole nother breed of animal that Bermuda rough. I'd like to see the rough a little higher. But what who you're going to neutralize when you make the rough higher, when you change how you normally do the courses, then you've got these superstars on top that are playing the way they play with the way they're normally set up. And I still think every course is different anyway, Jay. The bunkers are different, the grass. The turf in Hawaii is so different than the turf at Pebble Beach this week that if there's no rough at Pebble, you and I both know how easy it is. The amount of rough at Hawaii I thought made it treacherous.

It was just the right height where it couldn't quite hold the weight of the ball and it went down to the bottom most of the time. And I remember playing around the Bermuda rough, though, where you couldn't advance it five yards, right? And those days are long gone. The tour gave up on that because I don't think the players want. They don't like that. So that part of the game has changed. But it's still exciting to watch.

If you love golf, you still watch them. Well, Zeke, we love hearing you on the air. We love the fact that you're on two networks now and we just love your style. Me personally, I love your style. I feel like I'm sitting right next to you. The vernacular that you use, it's just it's terrific. Well, hey, you know how I am as well as well as anybody.

I'm loving it. The NBC is different. It's it goes fast. Tommy shows a lot of shots and there's a sequence of order. And we have the same sequence of order at Fox.

And it's just I don't know if they're all different, but they're all the same. In some capacity. And in the end, you just got to let the picture be descriptive. And you try to be informative. That's what I hope I'm doing.

I hope I'm not telling you what you just saw. But I probably do sometimes. I like doing it, though.

And it's a real privilege to get to do it, man, because I can appreciate what they're going through. That's the best part. Right. Right. You've you've been through that you've had all that feeling that runs through your body and you know, you got to pull off this, you know, this six foot putter else.

Nothing else is going to matter. You're not going to win. I know how it feels to be horrified, terrified, scared to death. And I know what it feels to feel like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe how relaxed I am right now.

Winning both ways, both sides of it, and everywhere in between. Tiger. He's relaxed probably every time. I mean, seriously, after so many. I got to where being in contention enough, I felt like I was pretty relaxed.

And then I just kept thinking, watch the tiger after I remember how I felt, how relaxed I got being in the last group and stuff. I was thinking, if I could have gotten that relaxed in the short and a few amount of times that I got there compared to him, he's going to just beat everybody like a drum. And he did.

And he's still doing it. And you know what's amazing about him, Zing? He slows everything down. He slows his walk down into the putt. It's amazing when you watch him really, really closely.

Yeah, I focused on his walk. I always talk about walking pace, but him, I heard Tony Jacqueline made some comment about him as he, he even blink slowly, he blinks like a giraffe. And if you look, you know, his blink is just so slow.

And you know, most of us, Tiger walks fast. And I think he loves getting his adrenaline pumping his fist and doing all that. But when it's time to slow it down a mock, what if he's just blinking slower than everybody else and bringing it right back down to where he wants to be?

Yeah, that's that kind of thing that if he did that, and I didn't know about it, I'm going to be so mad. I know it. It's something about blinking. Come on.

But I mean, it was obvious that he was at such a different level. You know, the thing about golf too, Jay, you and I both know, especially with putting, but it's stuff like that blinking slowly instead of walking pace. Who knows? But you're seems like I was always in a quest to figure something out. I was just never gonna tell anybody about. If I would have ever figured it out, Zing, I probably wouldn't either.

I just never figured anything out. I know what that's. Well, yeah, you did. You played better than you say. Um, but yeah, that's how I felt about it. I was like, yeah, I want to work harder. I want to figure something out.

Nobody else knows and I'm gonna hold it tight to the vest. I think that's more of that old school thinking. I think those guys still feel that way. Actually, it's not changed that much.

What you change is the power, the popularity and the exposure and the social media and all that. The game itself, they're still grinding. They still don't know from one day to the next if they're gonna hit it great. They still lose sleep at night.

Jordan Spieth's safe house in Augusta. You can't shut that brain off. So yeah, it's the same. It's the same for them.

It's just maybe on a little bit different scale. Azing, don't you feel like the top guys in the game, the Rory McElroy's, the Jason Day's, they're just, Justin Thomas is just terrific. Besides great golfers, just terrific people. Yeah, a lot of them know how to behave. I mean, all of them really do pretty well on and off the course. But sometimes, you know, you hate that they're all social media friends. And, you know, you'd like to see more Dave Hill and J.C. Snead type of stuff, but it just doesn't happen anymore. Those guys don't even know who those people are.

They're ready to get the fisticuffs on the driving range. That was fantastic. That was fantastic. Well, Azing, I'm gonna let you go, man. I really appreciate the time. I really appreciate you hanging out with us and we'll keep listening to you. Hey, I appreciate it.

Alright, Pearl. That's a lot of Paul Azinger, but man, I could sit and listen to him all day long. Me too. Plus, you got the guy that's the premier color guy out there in all of golf now. That's just fantastic.

I gotta tell you, a couple of stories. He always refers to me as, how's his second best putting stroke I've ever seen doing? And I'm like, what are you talking about?

He goes, well, it's not quite as good as mine, but it's really, really good. When did that start? When did that start? Oh man, that started, there was a time when we, we came through the, went through the qualifying school together in 1984. So we have been friends for a long time and we seem to get paired a lot together in those first couple of years. And then once he won, he went into a different category, but the year that he won, we played together a lot. And so then, you know, you just want to spend a lot of time together. Good guys around him on the mini tours, as I'd mentioned a little bit, got to know his wife a little tiny bit, that kind of stuff.

Just a, just a good guy, fun guy, just a competitive. He just always had that kind of glit in his eye. Yeah. And then we were standing in the bunker and I was up there practicing my bunker shots at Glen Abbey.

Canadian opened, yep. And he said, Delcine, come on, how about a hundred dollars a shot, you know? And I turned around, I go, come on, get in here. And he kind of backed him down.

You're going to take that? I'm like, yeah, come on, let's go. And he's like, I don't, you know, and he just, I don't know if he was just fooling around or what, but it was, it was fun.

We got in there and just messed around. I liked back in the day when he kind of went eye to eye with Seve a couple of different times. And he, he, I think Paul kind of liked that standout.

Oh, John, the best story. So Seve, you know, the Ryder cup and the coughing and all this other stuff. So there, they hit a ball, a tee shot over the Hill, and there's a ball really close to a sprinkler head. And Paul goes up to that ball and he's like taking his stance and moving his feet around and everything like that and trying to make it so that he can stand on the sprinkler head. And Seve and Zinger goes, Hey, Hey, Seve, you think I deserve a drop from this ball right here? And he goes, no, no, no, you get no drop from there. And Zinger goes, good. This is your ball.

Now. I love that. I love that. That went through the tour like a hot knife through butter, man. Everybody knew that story.

Oh yeah. Because Seve was that guy. I got to play with this guy and he was phenomenal player.

When I worked a couple of Ryder cups, I had his group. So I'm kind of upfront, close and personal. And I saw the antics of the coughing, the dropping, the putter, the scuffing his feet. And it was just when you're watching it and you can kind of, you're right there and see it. It's so blatant.

You're not going to pick it up on TV. And that's why he gets the players riled up because they don't want to make necessarily a big deal out of it. He knows he gets under their skin and Azinger didn't have anything to do with it. He, you came right back at it, didn't he? Oh, he absolutely did. He absolutely did.

Well, man, that was a fun interview and thanks for listening. I want to thank Donahue Painting and Refinishing. You know, when I was playing, I would try to paint the image of a shot. I would see it in my head and then I would try to duplicate that shot. Donahue Painting and Refinishing can do that for your home.

They can make your home look like you want it to look with really, really high quality. I also have something coming out called the Delsing Report. It'll be on my YouTube channel.

It's going to be previewing clubs, equipment, all sorts of different stuff to try to help you with your game. You are social media superstar. Magnet, magnet.

That's what I meant. Whatever that is. Pearly, thanks for being with me today. Meat, thanks for running us, keeping us together. I'm not sure what you do, but we couldn't do it without you, that's for sure. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Get them straight, St. Louis. D-O-L-L-L-L-L-L-L