Golf With Jay Delsing - - John Is Back from Vacation!

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. Good morning. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I am your host, Jay Delsing, and I am here at Beat. I've got a stranger sitting next to me.

Call security. All tanned up, ready to roll. I'm not seeing much of a tan. I mean, I'm thinking if I spend six weeks out in Arizona, I'm gonna melt my hair off, you know.

He doesn't look like he's done that. It looks good. It's good to have you back. Thank you. Well, I'm barely feeling welcomed back, so thank you very much.

We had a real elaborate welcome back party for you and then we scrapped it. Good. Probably a good plan. Yeah.

Budget issues. Exactly. Yeah. Well, no, Pearlie's back with me and welcome back, Pearl. The show's formatted like a round of golf.

The first segment is called On The Range and On The Range is brought to you by Pro-Am Golf. You can check us out on our social media outlets in Pearl. I'm not gonna put this kind of pressure on you to call our social media outlets after a long vacation like that. Like I knew before I left for the record.

I know, which was absolutely fun. But Twitter is at Jay Delsing. Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing. And Jay Delsing Golf LinkedIn is Jay Delsing.

And the Instagram, nobody knows nor cares. All right. So, Pearl, we put together some fun stuff today. And the thing that I wanted to start show off with was, you know, kind of what's new in golf right now. What's going on in golf right now. And it's impossible for us to not talk even a little bit about Patrick Reed. He just won the World Golf Championship down in Mexico City. I want to talk about that.

He played spectacular. That's what I want to talk about. This man, okay, we got a whole closet full of issues with this dude. He brings a truck full of drama with him wherever he goes. None of it's new.

Some of it's new, but it's the same old story. Yeah. Went from Captain America to Captain Controversy everywhere he goes. However, he knows how to close the golf tournament down. Yeah. He's tough, man. He's tough. Yeah. He's tough.

It was a great finish too. Bryson DeChambeau. He's tough.

Is not going to go away. No. And he's made a complete body transformation. He's gained what?

Almost 30 pounds, I think. Yeah. I was actually up close and personal down at Tiger's Tournament down in the Bahamas.

Oh, that's right. You were at the Bahamas too. Were we at the Bahamas? Yeah, I did not get that invite. No, I didn't either. Hey, listen.

There's seats on that plane I was flying down there on. Is that that missed phone call that we had? I guess. I thought I missed a call from Pearly, but it was like three months ago.

Yeah. By the way, it was an invite from an old college teammate. So, Alberto didn't... I thought maybe you were invited. You just couldn't make it.

Alberto Valenzuela. We're just giving you trouble. Anyway, so go ahead. But up close and personal. Up close and personal. First of all, what a personable guy. I'd never spoken to him. You see him on TV.

They make him out to be this mad professor and stuff like that. He just kind of comes walking up to our table, sits down, has a cocktail, and we're just kind of talking stuff. He couldn't have been calmer. Alberto knew him fairly well, so they kind of carried on a conversation. Just a nice guy. Yeah, in person, he doesn't look like the Hulk, but he's obviously beefed up.

I think there's a lot of people, as usual. Well, why is he doing that? He shouldn't do this. He shouldn't do that.

Well, guess what? He's hitting it further. He's done what he wants. He believes what he's doing.

And it's just a matter of time for him to break through again. Pearl, our good buddy Brando Shembly, who has never been one to not say whatever the hell he wants or what's ever done in his mind, said something to Rory. I remember, it was probably a year ago now, though, where he goes, and look at what happened to Tiger when he got so... And I'm thinking to myself, what happened to Tiger?

He's the best player... He got hit in the head with a nine iron. Well, he got hit in the head with a nine iron, but that didn't have anything to do with him lifting weights. He was comparing Rory getting too bulked up to what...

I know. Getting bulked up to Tiger's game, what it did to Tiger's game. And I'm thinking... By the way... I think it did a lot of good for Tiger's game. And Rory's got to be thinking, I hope that happens to me. Well, I was going to say, by the way, Rory has absolutely trimmed it up, beefed it up, and done whatever the heck you do to get like that.

And he looks like he's kept his flexibility and everything else. And he's just out there bombing it. I think Rory likes to just walk out and just bomb it. Well, if you hit your driver, if any of us in the room hit our driver one one hundredth as good as this guy does, it's ridiculous. I want to hit it in this room right now, if I could, just banging off the walls a couple of times. Gary Woodland said... And he was not happy about this comment.

This is great. He said Rory's hit it by him a couple of times because Rory hits it higher, not because he hits it further. So let's frame this a little bit. Down in Mexico City, they're playing at altitude. They're playing at almost 8,000 feet. Yeah.

Okay, so that's the equivalent to like Vail, Colorado. And Gary is a low-ball hitter. That's why he's, you know, forced to be reckoned with when the swing turns to Florida and gets windy. Rory is not. And when that ball launches up in the air like that, Gary said, Rory hit it by me a couple of times 80 yards past me. And you could tell he was not happy about that at all. He's not used to that. Anyway... But anyway, Reed also, Reed doesn't hit the ball far.

No. Reed's got some funky things going on. But that guy can play and he is a competitor.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. I got to tell you, when I was doing the U.S. Open for Fox at Oakmont, the Dustin Johnson year he won, I had Bryson DeChambeau on, I think it was a Friday. And he came up to me because I was talking to his caddy. He came up to me, knew who I was, called me Mr. Delsing, which really... That's appropriate. He's a gray hair, I suppose. Really good.

Taller than he is or something like that. Distinguished. Yeah.

Nah. Well, distinguished. I meant to say that too. Yeah, that too.

But no, to your point, personable. A little crazy with his approach because it's so different, but I like it. Yeah. Well, again, it's kind of... Maybe crazy isn't the way to... We'll call it unique because it's not crazy because it's working. Right.

Right. And I'm just waiting for the next guy to come up through the ranks with all the clubs doing the same length and having his calculator in his back pocket. He's got a couple of wheels. Did you see the little... It's almost like a ring that's about, oh, maybe three inches thick. And he's got a couple of those on his back.

At least he did it at the time. And he's got all sorts of formulas and things written down on little cards. He talked to me his caddy because apparently his caddy needs to know some of those things. Relations and stuff like that.

You have to tell him when you're available. You didn't ask me for yardages. You sure as heck weren't gonna ask me for relations.

No, that's one of the things that's funny when apparently caddy for me. You didn't do the yardage book. That's one thing that wasn't good though, I think. Because when you can keep occupied with the yardages and all the other things going on, the bird chirping, you're in good shape. Right. I needed a distraction. Exactly. Well, no, you needed the right things to focus on.

You didn't need to be free to catch distractions. I always did think that was... Just his opinion, folks. He's the caddy. I don't know. Check the record. I think it's a pretty solid record. I think it is too.

We have to talk in Mexico. It sort of looked after three rounds like this was gonna be JT's event. He had a one-stroke lead after three rounds.

How soon do you think it'll be before Jon Rahm's world number one? Well, we've talked about this a little bit. To me, it's when can you take the next step towards maturing, calming down, self-control, calming his mind a little bit, something in that ballpark. The guy is... He just bombs it. He is just aggressive as can be. It just seems to get a little out of his head a little bit, and it doesn't take much out there.

The guy's spectacular. So I don't know, Jay, it could happen next week. But we've watched him, and he addressed it, what, better part of a year, a year and a half ago, that, hey, he said, I know I need to do some of this. So in the heat of the moment, can he do it? And he's starting to. He's getting off to some poor starts, coming back. He's stumbling, coming back. He's doing all the things that the great players do, because you know there's going to be issues when things get rough.

It's not going to always go well for him. And once he accepts that and realizes that's part of it, I think he starts winning left and right, because he's awesome. Well, to your point, he shot 61-10 under par in the third round last week to go right in the middle of the golf tournament. And if you looked at the leaderboard after about six or eight holes on Sunday, he had the lead.

So he reminds me, his golf swing reminds me the way he shallows on the way down, Pearl. Reminds me a little Sergio Garcia, a fellow countryman, a Spaniard. But great driver of the ball, Jon Rahm, for as long as he hits it. So Pearl, in your opinion, who's the best player in the world right now? I have to say Mark Roy.

For so many reasons. He is world number one also. Well, but just the way he carries himself. Just the way he walks. He sat there for the last couple years. He worked on his body.

He did some other things. He's kind of ebbing and flowing back up to the top. And you can tell the way, it's not Tiger-esque for sure, but you can tell the way some of the other guys talk about him, look at him, treat him.

It's Tiger-like type level to where they realize this guy's just got stuff in his game that other people don't have. Yeah. From a ball-hitting standpoint, I would absolutely agree with you. From a putting standpoint... Yeah, I don't like it. I agree with you. It's kind of a...

It seems like a hold-on drag to me, a little bit where the face gets taken a little bit to the left. You know, he went and worked with Fax, with Brad Faxon, trying to get on the show here. Did he listen? He did. He went the very next week and won the Bay Hill Arnold's tournament. Was it last year? I think he won by four or five.

Had a great closing back nine. But when I watched that putter, it just doesn't look flowy. It doesn't look... Like you said, there isn't a release.

There's not a release. It's a blocky kind of a hold-off sort of thing. However, when he does get hot, he pretty much runs the tables and everybody's playing for second.

Agree. It just seems like that type of stroke can also get cold and you'd be out there and you're not sure what's happening. Because you're blocking and sometimes it's a block with a little bit of a cut. So it's not releasing. So your speed isn't quite right. So to me, there's two or three things. Well, because you can block pull it.

I can... You can block anything. That's what I'm saying. And so I think it can get confusing.

Obviously, if he works with Fax, that's probably exactly where he should continue to spend more time. Right. Well, we'll talk about this when we come back. But there was an opposite field event down in Puerto Rico. Victor Haviland got his first PGA Tour win. And just we, you and I are both fans of him. We've mentioned him on the show before. It was great to see.

Interesting on how he went about it. But let's do that on the front nine. That's going to wrap up the On the Range segment. Thanks to Pro-Am Golf for sponsoring the On the Range segment.

Come back. Perle and I are going to be on the front nine. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association is a proud sponsor of Golf with Jay Delsing. The MAGA has been the USGA Allied Golf Association in the St. Louis Central and Southern Illinois region since 1992. The MAGA provides over 30 days of competition opportunities and conducts qualifying for nine USGA championships while supporting more than 140 member clubs with amateur golf services.

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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, this is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay.

I got Pearly here with me. Meat is taking care of us here at the ESPN studio, running the board and timing us and we're on the front nine, Pearly. Let's talk about Whitmore real quickly.

Man, they've been a great partner all of last year, all this year. If you are looking for a country club to join, that'll be just perfect for your family. You got to go to Whitmore Golf. You can find them at whitmoregolf.com. Bill Brundt is the membership director out there.

His number is 636-926-9622. He'll show you around, and there's 90 holes of golf. Not only can you play the 36er at Whitmore, but you get access to the Missouri Bluffs, the links to Dardeen, and the Golf Club of Wentzville. There's no cart fees associated with this membership. There's no food or beverage minimums. There's no food or beverage minimums.

There's no assessments, no nothing like that. He had a 24-hour fitness center, a large pool complex, tennis courts. You got to go in and see our buddy Bummer.

Bill will take you into Bummer, introduce you to Bummer. Everything golf. He is running junior golf leagues.

He's running skin games, members tournaments, couples events. They've got everything you need golf-wise out there. They've got everything for tennis. They've got a kids club for your children. You drop your kids off, go have a cocktail, go have dinner, go play golf.

Your kids are well looked after. Whitmore Golf is your place. You want to play golf in 2020, go see them. I just love that they've got so many different courses to play. I just think that's a big deal nowadays. You don't need to just play one golf course all the time.

You can go and play a bunch of them. I think that's awesome. And how good is that for your game? It's phenomenal for your game.

Way better for your game. Change the scenery too. I love it. All right, Pearl. So, Victor Hovland.

Yep. He wins the Puerto Rican Open. Dramatic fashion.

Holds a 30, 35-foot putt. And folks, if you haven't heard the Norwegian golf call of this putt going in, it goes for probably a little too long. It goes for like a minute and a half, but there are two men on here screaming in some sort of Norwegian language that's just kind of like it's a complete cluster. They had so much excitement, which we're going to hear in a second. But I have to say, when I watched Victor walk off the green, I'm not sure he really knew what happened. He was kind of in shock. His caddy was all pumped up, of course, right?

Huge win, first win, et cetera, et cetera. But Victor, it's like his caddy had to shake him and hug him and push him around a little bit to where he realized what was going on. He was in shock. He looked like a deer in headlights, like he was stunned. And then all of a sudden, you could see it.

I don't know what the time situation was, how much time had gone on, but he was almost like, whoa. Plus, they didn't talk about this, of course, because the putt went in. If that putt misses the hole... It's still going.

It's still going. He'd better make it usually going back or he's going to really be bummed that he not only didn't make the putt to win, he would have had somewhere, what, J6 feet, 8 feet, maybe 10 feet. I don't know enough about the green. All right, let's take a listen to this real quick. So they are super pumped. And right at the same time, Victor's like he just got in complete shock, didn't know what was going on. Very, very cool story. Didn't know what happened. Yep.

Very cool. So this is a kid that went to school with Matthew Wolf, Oklahoma State, another one of these young guys... Who already had a win. Right. Matthew Wolf won his third event on the PGA Tour. This is Victor Hovland's 17th event and he gets his win. Who else do we have? We've got Nieman from Chile has won an event.

And we also have Colin Murakawa from Cal who also has a win he won out in Reno Tahoe. So it's a good group coming up, that's for sure. And these are young guys.

These are what? None of them is over 22, I don't believe. And Victor, he's got that little boy look like it's just so much fun to play golf.

And he's got some funky movement a little bit in his game, but he doesn't have any question in his belief or himself, I don't believe. And what you and I were talking about, he made a triple bogey earlier in his round, the 11th hole. A par 3 with no water. You know that golf course. Not that I really want to see that, but I'm trying to think out how would you make a triple bogey and a par 3 with no water?

Is there an OB over there someplace? Well, unless you shanked one. I mean, you could have, but I don't believe so. Let's not talk about that. But anyway, he survived a triple bogey and still comes back.

That's a big deal. You're talking about a level of confidence. In other words, you know you can go on a PGA Tour event, make a triple, and still win. We're not talking about a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday either. We're talking about a triple bogey on Sunday with only seven holes left and still win. So that's resilience. He's young.

He's got a great look. But my point is he knows he doesn't have to be perfect to win. That's a big deal because you don't have to be perfect to win, but until you win, you don't realize you don't have to be perfect to win. That's right. All right. So let's talk about this.

This is kind of fun. So I came across this article, this story. It was an old golf week about the PGA Tour versus the LPGA Tour and money and travel. So what this thing did was it took a player who finished 50th on each money list and broke down their money, their travel, their expenses. So the PGA Tour money list, it took the 50th player and the 50th player on the LPGA. European money list. And guys and women's European money list.

Right. And so first of all, the PGA Tour prize money list for 50th place on the money list was $2.15 million. They added another $600,005 for FedEx Cup bonuses and additional earnings through sponsorships and things like that. Now we go to the LPGA player. Their total prize money for 50th place was $420,000 plus an additional $60,000.

So this woman is making $480,000 and this man is making $2.75 million. Okay. I can't wait. I can't wait to see where you're going to go with this.

I just can't wait. Okay. So one of the things that I found so fascinating to me was the expenses.

Okay. Let's go over expenses. So here's what the guy's expenses look like. Hotels, $55,000 a year.

That's fine. So when you and I were traveling, we did not spend that kind of money in hotels. So I don't know where this guy's staying, but Motel 6, you can't spend $55,000. They're staying at a place $300 a night, bro. He would have owned Motel 6's. That was a week stay for the executive suites.

Yeah. We were usually staying, I mean, we stayed at like Red Roof Inn and Spas and we stayed at like the Motel 6 Racquet Club and things like that. I remember when Motel 6 was six bucks and there was four of us in there and we were fighting over who had to round out the dollars. That was in college.

Yeah, Bakersfield. I absolutely remember that. Me, you, Ken Teel, and some other schmuck who was sleeping in the closet. The first room hotel I ever stayed at on my first trip at UCLA, it was in Palo Alto. We were playing the Stanford tournament and it was called the Glass Slipper.

Don't even go there. Don't stay at the Glass Slipper. My mother came out one time for like a week, two weeks, and just kind of wanted to see what this is about. She'd come see me play golf once in a while, but she wanted to like travel. So, you know, we go to the practice round, we drive in, go to the practice round, go have a bite to eat, go to the Motel 6. The second night there, she looks at me, she's like, do you really like this? I said, what are you talking about? She says, look at this room.

Look at this. I said, what about the room? She says, there's hair in the bed. I said, mom, I don't see the hair in the bed.

Don't bring that up, man. For the record, that's the last time she came out on the road. She's always very supportive and she'd come watch watch golf, but she wasn't going to travel in the Motel 6. And that's when it was only her and I in the room. I didn't tell the other three guys that could come, so she had it easy. Right, right, right.

She did. All right, so then we got $30,000 in airfare, which I'm not sure the 50th guy. You told me caddies weren't allowed to fly, so there's another misnomer right there. Burley took the train meet. He was on Amtrak. Greyhound.

Greyhound or train. The airfare, $30,000 could be the next category. We're skipping the caddy fees. No, we're not skipping the caddy fees. $200,000 gets paid to the, which caddy? I caddied for you for 15 years, it didn't come to $200,000.

Which caddy? I caddied for you for 15 years, it didn't come to 20 grand. No, I don't think you were that good. I was still waiting for my gas money when I drove from Amarillo to Newport that time.

I mean, come on. Amarillo to Newport. I don't think I played. I think you were working for somebody else. $200,000 caddy fees. $60,000 for your swing coach. See, I helped you a little bit with your swing too, and I saw none of that.

You didn't help me that well. $40,000 for the trainer. $50,000 for your mental coach.

Wait a second. $75,000. There was a problem right there, trainer and mental coach. $70,000. And you wonder why you couldn't have competed, why you weren't competing out there at the level that you wanted to?

You know, like I put mine together and I only had three categories, you know, and caddy wasn't one of them. No, I'm looking at $75,000 to your agent. You know what? I'd have gladly given 75 grand to my agent if he brought me all this dough, but I didn't have an agent that was doing that. $25,000 for meals. That's assuming we ate. Yeah. You can't spend that much money at Denny's and McDonald's. Period.

And then $5,000 for the accountant. I wonder where my bad cholesterol came from. Now I know. Okay, so man, you're taking a lot of heat for a lot of things for a lot of years. The write off.

So that's 500. You would sit in your room and when you would bring your paperwork and your accounting, your, your, your bills and stuff with you, I'm thinking to myself, you got to be kidding. We were supposed to be focused on golf. He's sitting up in bed at night. I'm trying to watch ESPN or some stupid show or sleep.

We're never going to get to the subject. You were so uptight. I'm doing my, my world. So I don't have to pay some accountant to do this for me. Oh my God.

We might make one more, two more putts that next day. And you wouldn't need to pay your account. You'd have more and more money. You wouldn't have to pay attention to it anymore.

What's he talking about? I'm staying out of this every night. I did all the work. You were worried about losing my bag and couldn't find the golf course and lost your tennis shoes and carried for the wrong guy and stuff like that. Anyway, $526,000 in write offs, $936,000 in taxes. The bottom line for the PGA tour player, $1.271 million.

Okay. Here's the LPGA. We've got hotels of $22,000 airfare of 11,000, which I don't know how, if you look at the LPGA schedule, you're going to travel on $11,000 to all the different countries. They go to half a dozen different countries, Pearl. They're all over the place.

I don't know how they do that. $5,000 for rental cars. You don't see that category on the, on the, on the, on the regular tour because we get a car every week. Meals of 10,000.

The girls aren't eating quite as much. $76,000 to caddy. And that's because they didn't earn as much. $15,000 for your swing coach and instruction. Mental coaches, 4,500 trainers, 5,000 and 12,000 goes to your agent and a little bit of accounting.

So we got 165,000 for write offs. She's paying 124,000 in taxes and her bottom line take home is 182,000 compared to 1.271 for the men. It's a great living. It's a great living. Both, both of them are great livings. Sure.

Yeah. I think the thing that, that, that just shocked me when I did this was the, was how much more money overall the PGA tour is playing for, is raising money. The PGA tour is, as we've talked about, just such a dynamic charitable engine.

It just makes all sorts of money. But man, this, this is a hell of a disparity between men and women. What's your take? I think it's appropriate. You don't think the girls should be playing for more?

No, I think it has to do with, you know, it's, it's capitalism, right? How many people are watching the girls play golf? Right. Phoenix. I'm just down in Phoenix, what, three weeks ago, basking in the sun for a month and a half, but we'll leave, we'll leave that behind us a little bit. Is she rubbing that in?

I think she's rubbing, I think I've felt it a little bit. Phoenix Open, I believe it is the largest attended sports event in the United States. No doubt. And I think, and this isn't to disparage the ladies at all, but I think you could probably put 10 or 15 their events and it doesn't total what happens at the Phoenix. So, you know, I think they've got to figure out how to promote it. They've got to figure out how to get more people interested.

If you've got, I don't know the numbers, Jay, and I wish right now that I would have done that. If their attendance is one measurement of people showing up or viewership on TV is one-tenth or one-fifth, well, these numbers are about right, you know, as far as how much money and stuff that they're playing with. So I think it's, I think it's relative.

I read, I read the article and so they're talking about which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I don't know. Somebody that rises up and has tiger-like stuff. So one of the things that I noticed, so, because I follow the LPGA tour, you know, I enjoy it. Alberto Valenzuela and his daughter, Albain is going to be a star out there, I believe, with the Stanford. She's in a rookie year, played a few events and doing okay.

But just the, just their website, you know, just some of the things that could be cleaned up. I've got an interview coming with Kay Cockrell. She's a UCLA All-American. She's a two-time US amateur champion, a stalwart on the Golf Channel from the very beginning.

A great, great person. And we talked a little bit about this and there's just so many little things for the LPGA that would, could be cleaned up that can, I think could go a long way. And their website is one of them. It's just hard to get through. You can't, you know, you can't pull up what you're looking for and things like that. And I just, I just don't know if it's, if it's because there's, is it all money-based, Pearl?

Is there, is the reason that the website and things like that are lacking? No, this, they are not in poverty. There's no reason they can't have those things. And some of the cool things that they have done is they have that incredible international flair and how much they play in different parts of the world. They're doing a lot of right things. I love what you're saying, because to me, that's, that's business. If you don't take care of the little things and you want the big things to happen in business, it doesn't happen that way. So, you know, I haven't dug in the way you're talking about, but I think, and maybe that's something Kay can give her opinions on as well.

But if they're, if they're leaving a bunch of those types of things, not professionally done on the side, then that's stuff that they need to do to support whatever growth they do want to have. You know what? Let's take a break real quick. And we'll, we'll, we'll rejoin this conversation on the back night.

Come back. This is Golf with Jay Delson. In 1975, Pro-Am Golf began providing golf equipment to companies in the incentive and rewards industry. Now some 48 years later, Pro-Am Golf is still the leader there, but there is so much more. They now have their own retail outlet, as well as state-of-the-art computers and cameras that customize all of your personal fitting needs. Pro-Am Golf carries all of the major brands from Titleist, Callaway, Ping, and TaylorMade, to the latest fashion trends by Puma Golf. Whatever your needs, Pro-Am Golf will meet them and add the very best customer service in the industry.

Call them at 314-781-7775, or find them at ProAmGolfCTR.com. I want to take a minute to tell you about a law firm that has been with me since the inception of the show. I'm talking about Doster, Olam, and Boyle. The firm was started in 2015 by Mike Doster, Jess Olam, and John Boyle. These are three veterans of the St. Louis real estate banking, commercial, and corporate legal landscape. The firm has a talented additional roster of professionals with decades of experience to help you achieve your goals in whatever situation you find yourself in. The firm was founded on the shared goals that success has to be measured by client and community satisfaction, not just profits for the partners. These guys are involved in the community.

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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. Everyone is looking for the extra edge, and Jay Delcine is digging deep to find it. It's The Leading Edge on golf with Jay Delcine. I am with Kurt Rowie, who is the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association. So Kurt, I'm on your site. It's metga.org, and man, I just go up and down. We've got stuff on the World Handicap System.

We've got stuff about the 2020 U.S. Amateur Four Ball. We've got some honors from Shoghi that has been with us in the golf community forever and is just a character and a wonderful guy.

There's internships. Gosh, there's a little bit of everything for anybody who loves a game of golf on your site. Yeah, well, we feel that our site's kind of the hub for amateur golf in this region, whether it's people who are interested in playing in our championships or obtaining a membership. They can find out information from our member clubs. We've got 140-plus member clubs in the St. Louis Central and Southern Illinois regions. They can get information from there. And then, yeah, just always trying to update it and keep it fresh and show what we're out there doing and the services that we're providing to the clubs and golfers.

Yeah, that's right. And Kurt, so let's talk a little bit about your championships that are going to run. Tell us what the slate looks like. Yeah, so we've got, we'll do 11, I think 11 of our own championships in 2020. Everywhere from kind of our kickoff event is the Old Washington Cup, which is at Old Washington Country Club every year. It's our Match Play Championship. It features the top 16 players from last year's Player of the Year coin system.

So it's really the best players in the region for 2019 competing in that. We've got a Women's Championship, a Junior Championship, a Nine Hole Championship, which we started last year, which I think took off fairly pretty well. It was pretty popular, and so we're looking forward to that again this year at Ballroom Golf, of course. Four Ball Championship and a Senior Championship, in addition to three weekend events, Eastside Amateur, Southern Illinois Amateur, and Normandy Amateur. But our two flagship events are definitely our Open Championship, which this year is going to take place at Lake Forest. It's a 54 hole event that we're attracting golf professionals from 30 states, and they play for a very nice purse. And then our Amateur Championship, which is celebrating its 30th season this year, 30th edition, that's going to be at Meadowbrook Country Club in August. And that's really our flagship event that the even the Golf Association started on back 30 years ago. So a great lineup, a lot of great venues. I've mentioned O'Warson, Meadowbrook, Lake Forest, Westboro, Algonquin, St. Clair Country Club.

So we're very fortunate. Our member clubs are very good to us, and we appreciate them stepping up and hosting all of our championships each season. Speaker 1 Folks got to get onto your site and check out just all of the different opportunities. Let's talk a little bit about the gin system, the Metropolitan E-Club, which is a great opportunity. If you are not a member of a local country club, you can still get involved in this handicap system. And then the rollout of the world handicap system in 2020. Speaker 2 Yeah, so one of our key services that we provide to golfers and clubs is the gin handicap service, which is through the USGA.

And then that's tied into the world handicap system. So there's two ways you can obtain a membership, and that's one through one of the clubs in the area. So the private clubs all have it, and almost all the public facilities, you can go to one of them and get a membership and get that gin handicap service. Or you mentioned we do have the Metropolitan E-Club, which is strictly online. You can go right to our website and join that way and still get all the same benefits. Get the handicap index, get the eligibility to participate in all of our championships, including our amateur series, and several other benefits. Our newsletter that goes out eight times a year, twice a month to get an e-revision that shows your updated index.

So a lot of great opportunities. And for the listeners of the Golf with Jay Delsey show, we've got a banner ad right on the homepage now. You can click right on there.

That's going to take you directly to the registration site. And hopefully we can get some of these listeners signed up and get them on the path to maintaining an index here in 2020. Thanks for doing it for us. Keep doing it for us. And thanks for being involved in the show.

Jay, it's our pleasure. The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association is a proud sponsor of Golf with Jay Delsey. The MAGA has been the USGA Allied Golf Association in the St. Louis Central and Southern Illinois region since 1992. The MAGA provides over 30 days of competition opportunities and conducts qualifying for nine USGA championships while supporting more than 140 member clubs with amateur golf services.

Find all of their information at metga.org or call 314-567-MAGA. We're halfway there. It's time for the Back Nine on Golf with Jay Delsey. The Back Nine is brought to you by St. Louis Bank. Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsey. We are headed to the Back Nine brought to you by our friends at St. Louis Bank.

And okay, so Pearl, let's jump back into this conversation. We're comparing monies and travel and things like that LPGA versus PGA Tour players. There's an old Golf Week magazine taking the 50th ranked player on each tour. And the thing that hit me first and foremost was the difference in the cash, you know. But when I, you know, so playing the tour, I've actually finished 50th on the money list one year, and I made just less than 300 grand.

You know, and hell, I thought I was. There was a ton. It just felt like it was a ton.

And I look at some of these expenses. One of the things that happens, folks, you go out to a PGA Tour event and any of you guys that had the opportunity to go to Bell Reef, watch the PGA Championship in August of 2018, you probably noticed walking down the fairways in a practice round on the PGA Tour and the PGA Championship, for a threesome or a foursome, there's anywhere between 35 and 50 people walking down the fairway. And one of the reasons is, you know, guys are bringing their girlfriends to a practice round.

Guys are bringing their trainers out on the golf course with them. Their mental coaches, their agents are out there. It's become so big.

And so I used to... It's their team. It's their team. It's their team. And they talk about that. And I get that. And look, one of the reasons there is a team, and I do too, is because this cat made $2.75 million last year. And he finished 50th, okay? Terrific.

He needs a team and all this. It's wonderful. But from a playing standpoint, Pearl, I hated all that crap going on during the practice round. There were times where I was way distracted in practice rounds, and we get to play with buddies and have fun and things like that. But typically, we were playing. We were either gambling or we were seeing the golf course for the first time or the second time, trying to make notes. When you were catting for me, I felt like we got a hell of a lot out of our practice rounds. We definitely did.

We definitely did. It worked a lot in the short game around the greens, absolutely. One of the things that I help some of the younger guys that are coaching and stuff now is to go to a spot or look for things that are kind of atypical from what you see, generally speaking, but are found all over the place at this particular course. For example, if you go down to Pinehurst, okay? And you're going to have to try to figure out how to hit some sort of sandy little bump and runny sort of shots because that's everywhere out there. Somewhere along the line in the course of a 72-hole event, you're going to hit your ball in those spots.

And we did a great job of that, I think. Every course has its little idiosyncrasies. And as you're saying, for the most part, it's within 40, 50 yards of the green, that if you're not plugging into that, it's not going to be a good week.

You remember the time when we were in New Zealand and they had the weirdest fringes over there. So, folks, the first two feet right off the edge of the green was cut down low and it was just fine. But they had almost four yards of like what we would call like an intermediate rough that was probably like two and a half or three inches long, which was not like too treacherous necessarily. But we noticed right away that the ball would sit in some odd ways. And so we started playing three woods out of there. I do remember spending a lot of time with that and then going in the tournament, having that come back and pay dividends straight away. On one long part three, we had a really good-looking shot in there that just went over the back and had this hairy little downhill shot and we handled it. And I remember going, that's why we spend so much time doing that. Anyway, so my takeaway on this is I really believe when I started looking at this article and when I came back with our two different things, I really believe I'd really love to see the LPGA play for more money. I really love to see they're doing some phenomenal stuff. They're the sponsorships for some of these women have when they take maternity leave.

These companies are honoring some of their commitments and saying, yeah, we're going to pay you through having this child so that you can get back and represent us. And that happened to Stacy Lewis and Brittany Lincecum and things like that. And something that we would never have to deal with on the regular tour. But I hope that the LPGA can take themselves to the next level in terms of, and I really hope that somewhere along the line, we get a U.S. player that can light the world on fire and compete with some of the, basically, the South Koreans because they're just so dominant. There's plenty of good U.S. players coming up. We mentioned Alban Valenzuela.

Obviously, she's very new coming out there, but there's quite a few really good ones. I don't know, at the end of the day, Jay, I hope they make more money because I hope everybody makes more money, but I'm not going to watch them anymore if they're playing for twice as much money. It doesn't really matter to me. No. No, I just mean in the terms of my girl, dad. I know that my daughter's in the workplace.

It's never been a better time to be a woman in the workplace, but they're still not getting dollar to dollar to the men. But I think there's other things we can talk about another time, but you've got some of the best players ever just walked away from the game because they wanted to do other things as far as families and stuff. So, if Tiger would have walked away halfway through his career, if Phil would have walked away halfway through his career, I think that would have hurt the two. I know it would have hurt the two of them. We know it would have hurt the guys to her. Lorena Ochoa, she walked away. She wanted to get married and have a family.

Monica cut her career much shorter than we would have expected. It was good for them. It's fantastic that they had the opportunity to do that, but when you're talking about building a brand and getting followers, and you have the top people in your given sport. Michael Jordan walks away two-thirds of the way through his career.

Kobe Bryant, two-thirds of the way through his career. It's going to change what money is coming in. So, I mean, relative to, again, I think who's paying attention. I'm sure the money is probably correct relative to that. And I don't know what they do about those other brand issues, but you can't just take your top, draw people and have them disappear suddenly and expect everything to be okay financially. Yeah.

And what it does is it tells you what sort of challenges that tour has and be the player has. So, this woman's going to say, what the hell? I'm going to keep playing golf and forego a family? I mean, who the hell wants to have to choose that? Which is what the men don't have to do. But the ladies don't have to do that. There's plenty of ladies that can have a family. And doesn't Julie Inkster have a family?

And she kept playing and she's coaching. Well, it's a choice, but it's a personal thing. Like Julie has figured, felt like she could do that with the support that she had or where she lived. You know, there's a lot of things that go with that. Plenty of guys playing mini tours that didn't quite make it or journeymen.

They quit because it was too tough on their family. So, I mean, it goes both ways. I understand what you're saying.

It's more so for the ladies, but there's still those challenges both sides. Yeah. What I'm saying is that we didn't, I didn't have to have, I didn't have to bear the children. That's a hole when you make your living playing.

Oh, that's not that big a deal. Well, that's going to wrap up The Back Nine. We've got an episode of Whackin' Chase. Come back and listen to Matt.

This is a good one. But that was The Back Nine brought to you by St. Louis Bank. Come back for the 19th hole. This is Golf with Jay Delson. The 100,000-watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports. Driven by Auto Centers Nissan, home of the 30-day return. WXOS and WXOS HD1.

E. St. Louis 101 ESPN. In 1975, Pro-Am Golf began providing golf equipment to companies in the incentive and rewards industry. Now some 48 years later, Pro-Am Golf is still the leader there, but there is so much more.

They now have their own retail outlet as well as state-of-the-art computers and cameras that customize all of your personal fitting needs. Pro-Am Golf carries all of the major brands from Titleist, Callaway, Ping, and TaylorMade to the latest fashion trends by Puma Golf. Whatever your needs, Pro-Am Golf will meet them and add the very best customer service in the industry. Call them at 314-781-7775 or find them at ProAmGolfCTR.com.

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, head to AscensionCharityClassic.com. It's time to get the scoop on the St. Louis golf scene. Here's Jay and Kurt Rowie with the Metropolitan Minute.

Hey, Jay. Good morning, listeners. Hey, this is a big week coming up this week, the first week of March for the Metropolitan Golf Association. First off, our posting starts today, March 1, so if you get out there and are able to play today and you're a member of the Golf Association, make sure you get those first scores posted and we'll start to see those handicap indexes change in the season. And secondly, this week is the opening of registrations for Metropolitan Championships in our amateur series event. They will open tomorrow, March 2 at 9 a.m., so you can get out there, get into the website, METGA.org, and check out our schedule of events, and you can start registering for any of our Metropolitan Championships in our amateur series. And for those that haven't dug you yet or are still looking for a home and a way to be a member, check out the Metropolitan E-Club.

It's also available on the website at www.METGA.org. The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association helps support this show golf with Jay Delsing, and they do so much for we golfers here in St. Louis. Let me tell you about a strength training program that helped me, and it can improve your golf game and overall fitness as well. And all it takes is 20 minutes once a week. 20 Minutes to Fitness targets the muscle groups used in golf. Because you work with a trainer on physical therapy equipment, it also reduces the chance of exercise-related injuries to almost zero.

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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'm a long-time listener, first-time caller, and I actually have a couple questions about... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second, Matt.

Slow it out a little bit. We got a system here. Matt, Pearly gets very sensitive if you don't talk a system here.

Pearly loves hearing the sound of his own voice, and if you jump a gun like that, he's going to not be happy. Matt, we need to know a couple quick things about you. Where are you from? Where are you from? Okay. I'm originally from Springfield, Illinois, but I live in Chesterfield now. All right.

Chesterfield. And what's your handicap? Oh, my God. My game is in shambles. I don't even know what my handicap is.

I'm kind of an anomaly, John. I love to watch the sport and watch the pros, but I'm not as big of a player... Awesome....as I am a watcher of the sport. Fan of the sport. Well, we like that.

That's a little bit unique. So, thank you for indulging me in those questions to kind of get things kicked off here. What is your question for Jay? Yeah. So, first of all, Jay, I've known you for a few years now, and I've always admired the fact that in the sport that I call the purest sport in the world, if you don't crack the top 125 every year, you are not going to get your tour card, and you did that for over 20 years. I find that to be so impressive and amazing. So, congrats to you for that.

Oh, well, thanks, Matt. Wait a second. Wait a second.

Am I related to you? Matt, are you impressed with the consistency? So, John and Jay, here's my kind of question that I'm curious about... No, you've got to answer my question first.

Gosh dang it, Matt. Now, hang on a second. Are you impressed with the consistency? Is that what you're saying, his consistency over 20 years? Yes. Now, you don't bring up my consistency about the tour, though.

Why don't you do that? Wait. So, John, I'm about to get into your consistency. Okay. Just for the fact of the matter, Jay had his card for 20 years in a row.

I didn't have my card for 20 years in a row. So, we have that in common. Right, right. That's consistent. It is, right.

It's so consistent. And you guys, here's what I've kind of admired about the whole tour. You guys both have been a team, and I've always been curious about this, the relationship between the caddy and the golfer, where it's 100% commission, and that caddy is reliant on his golfer to make his living. And when you get that 10% of the golfer's earnings, I just feel like it's wrought with the potential for some, hey, I want to upgrade to a better pro to try to make more. Oh, that's true. You got that right, Matt. You know a lot about the game. That's a great call.

Heck yeah, we all want to always upgrade. Consistency, if you look at it, doesn't do you heck a lot of good on this tour. You want guys that are out there winning money. I'm not looking for a guy that's out there keeping his card for 20 years. Matt, do you know how many times I offered pearly services to some of my fellow players? Hey, and Matt, be careful on throwing around those percentages. It's 10% if you win. So unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often. And let's see, the times I was out there, it happened, let me think, one and a half minute, zero. So yeah, I never saw 10%.

And hey, for the record, I never saw six or seven percent either. I think I got a sleeve of golf balls and a pad on the back and some free breakfast, I think is what the deal was. But wait, Jay. He was still overpaid, Matt. Jay, did you ever feel pressure because you were basically putting food on John's table by how you performed? Well, you know, that's interesting. Not necessarily with John because he was a really successful business guy that came out and caddied for me, you know, for different reasons. But my wife, if that was the case, Matt, my wife should not have allowed me to care.

And you know what, Sally, who's a wonderful woman, wouldn't speak to me if that were the case. But no, Matt, to your point, with some of the other professional caddies that did this thing for a living... There we go, slamming me again.

Go ahead. It was a big deal. I mean, when we first started in the 80s, I felt like a lot of the caddies were just coming out and they were just hanging out and this was just something to do. You're picking them up in the parking lot. Right. We'd pick them up in the parking lot, they'd get a couple hundred bucks for the week for carrying the bag and then a percentage on top of it.

But that isn't how it is now. I mean, these guys, it's huge amounts of money. The caddies are making two, three, $400,000 a year. You know, they're in their 20s hanging out with one of their buddies who happens to be a world-class golfer and they're just banking serious dollars here.

But I think Matt has a great question. So in the earlier years, what kind of allegiance or what kind of concern did you have, if any, that, you know, they're going back to... No, I did. I mean, my rookie year, I had a steady caddy, Brad Whittle, great guy. And I think at one point in time, I missed like seven cuts in a row and like six of them were by a stroke. I mean, well, he was kind of balding anyway, but we were pulling our hair out and this was working.

Mine just kept growing back. But yeah, so what I would do is, you know, I'd give him an extra, back in the day, it wasn't much, I'd give him an extra quarter. No, I'd give him an extra 50 or a hundred bucks. Well, you didn't have any money either. And you had a bunch of kids.

Let's be honest. Well, I didn't have any kids in 85, but we didn't... It's better for the story if you just... Okay, I had several kids and a couple of wives and everything was in complete shambles off the course.

And so when I gave him an extra 50 bucks, man, I had multiple wives and kids pissed off at me. How's that? That's way better. Good job, Jay. Okay.

We'll do anything for ratings. So, but yeah, one of the things that I'm either blessed with or just cursed with is that I'm not a worrier, you know? So if I had to worry about my catty eating, much less me eating, oh my God, I would have, I'd been like, somebody's going to have to give me this three-foot putt because I cannot make it. So I really didn't think that much of it at the time. That's an awesome, awesome question though, Matt. And would you guys say a caddy in today's era is required to know more than a caddy 20 or 30 years ago? Are these all former players that played at a high level that really are bringing something to the table?

You're going to get to listen to Mark Long, Matt, on our show because he talked, we talked specifically about that. Mark Long is a caddy for 25 years. I think he had 13 wins, one with Fred Funk and won the Players Championship. And now these caddies are really good players. Some of them had cards at one time, but in my generation, no.

That was a little looser crowd. There were some guys that can play, but there's some that couldn't. But it obviously gravitated and as it is today where most of them are good players. And then he started putting these statistics out a couple of weeks ago.

How many guys have actually played on the tour that are now caddying? I mean, it's crazy. It's getting kind of crazy that way. But I think it speaks, I think it's one, I know it's one way. If Jay and I were just buddies and I wasn't a player, it would have been a completely different thing. I knew how to play a little bit. I certainly knew Jay's game from having played. So I could tap into that. And he could look at me and know that I've got a clue what we're talking about with this Knuck shot or what the options were or what this lie meant.

That meant the world to me. I mean, John was an All-American in college and played professional golf himself, Matt. And there's just certain situations where you're not really sure what this ball's going to do out of this lie or this condition, or you're doing the best job you can to try to figure out what this shot's going to play and the wind's blowing all over the place. So whether it's golf or business, you want somebody that has some experience that can kind of speak to that, that you can lean on a little bit. And I think that's why all the players are doing it. They're leaning because the guy's some kind of a friend a lot of times these days, but he's also a player. So there's that combination. But Matt, I will tell you one of the things that John and I did so well when we were together was weak, we're committed.

We did not leave stuff flying around. And when I was trying out new caddies and things like that, it was the first thing that I needed someone that could be strong and tell me with conviction. If you're coming down the stretch trying to win a tournament, you're between a four iron and a five iron or something, and you hear this indecision in your caddie's voice, it sucks.

It can't happen. It sucks. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks a lot, Matt, for that. I hope that answers some of the questions. And that was unique to Whack and Chase, but it was wonderful talking to you and appreciate the idea.

Yeah, Matt. And keep listening. And typically we say if we helped you, tell everybody you know, and if we didn't help you, tell them we never met.

But it was fun listening to Whack and Chase. That's what I guess we would say to you. Keep tuning in. Hey, I appreciate both of you guys and I enjoy listening to your show. Thanks, Matt. Have a great day. Okay.

We'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye.

Bye. That's some great questions by Matt. Really diving into your world there, talking about caddies and you looking to switch bags. And you were so happy to caddie for me all the time.

I was happy to caddie for you. And that's kind of, I love that. It's Whack and Chase and caddie tales all wrapped in one. That's perfect. That to me is what this is about. There's so many great stories from that caddie side. Yep.

So, well, that's going to do it for another show. Perley, welcome back. Absolutely. Great to have you back. It was a lot of fun. Meat, thanks for all you do. And I don't know how you do it, but keep doing it. And we will talk to you next week. This is Golf with Jay Delsing.

Hit them straight, Sam Lewis. 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.com as well as at jaydelsinggolf.com.