Golf With Jay Delsing - - Paul Tesori Part 2

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. He's suffering out in Arizona and so we're gonna act like we don't miss him at all. Who is that again?

What's his name? Yeah, wait till he comes back. We'll just rail on him.

If he ever, maybe he's not coming back to me. You better bring some souvenirs or something. I know, you better bring your, instead of that, you know, just a nice tan one.

A bottle of wine? For sure. The show is formatted like a round of golf. The first segment is called the On The Range segment and it's brought to you by 20 Minutes of Fitness.

20 Minutes of Fitness just once a week. It works for me. You gotta check us out on our social media outlets. Our Twitter handle is at Jay Delsing. Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing and Jay Delsing Golf. LinkedIn is Jay Delsing and Instagram is, we don't tell you the Instagram thing because first of all, we don't know it.

And second of all, for whatever reason, a lot of people are signing up on that Instagram account by not naming it. So we'll just keep not naming it. Alright, so we've got a great show today.

I think it's a great show. I hope you guys enjoy it. We are going to have another 30 minutes or so of Paul Tesori. He's going to continue telling us stories from the tour, some catty tales. Talk a little bit about some of the things that happened at the President's Cup.

Tiger Woods, there's a nice mix in there. And we're going to jump into a couple of things that are current right now in the world of golf. Last week we started talking to you, I started mentioning to you about the study, the Distance Insight Project that the USGA and the RNA completed.

It was a two-year study. And basically what came out of that, folks, was that both entities decided that there's got to be some sort of end to this power game that the players are playing. Meaning there's too much distance, the ball's going too far. And there's a couple of things.

The one thing that I thought was interesting, I'd like to share with you. They talked about, for the amateur, guys are playing a set of tees that doesn't really jive with their handicap. And what's happening is the rounds of golf are taking too long. I am a huge proponent of getting the rounds of golf back under four hours.

Huge proponent. And the tour has been awful at that. They'll get a twosome once we move to the East Coast and start playing. And a twosome in the last group will take four plus hours to play, almost five hours to play. Too long.

We've got to get people ready to play and get going. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the situation that the European tour had with GMAC, Graham McDowell, and giving him a bad time for stopping to take an interview with Sky TV. And that's a little bit different, but there's got to be a little bit better focus and a little better policing and a little better attention on the length of time that it takes to play a round of golf.

Nobody needs to be out there that long. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Here's my take on this whole USGA thing. First of all, there's cause for the tour player to not just jump right in and fall in love with what the USGA says.

Period. We've had incidences. The Dustin Johnson not giving him a penalty at Oakmont when he won the US Open in 2000.

I think that was 2017. And we've also had that debacle in 2018 at Shinnecock where there were two bad pin placements on hole locations on Saturday and the balls wouldn't stay near the hole. So there have been some cause for, oh man, for just to not necessarily jump in and endorse anything that these guys have said because there's been some missteps along the way, I'll say.

Here's another thing to consider. The USGA had the first bite of this cherry years ago with what they call the COR. And it's a fancy word, coefficient of restitution. But all that is, folks, is how thick the club face on your driver is. And what they're trying to control was the amount of trampoline effect that would come from a ball hitting those drivers.

And obviously a thinner face is going to spring that ball further off of the face. What they did, however, when they made the rulings years ago on this trampoline type effect is they either had a flaw in their research or they limited it in a poor way. Because they never imagined that these players in this short of time since that ruling would swing the club so fast.

So they did not take this test and move it up into the 120 mile per hour area, 125 mile per hour, even 130 miles an hour in the golf swing speed because they would have known that something needed to be done because these balls were going to start going crazy amounts of distances. So then Phil had a nice, as he does, it's kind of like Phil is absolutely fun to follow on social media. He's fun to listen to an interview because you really don't know what he's going to say.

So there's kind of the good and the bad. And he just came out and said he doesn't believe that the USGA is credible because they're not close enough to the game and they're not professionals. They're all amateurs and they don't understand that they're not close enough to this tour game.

And you know that's hard to argue with because they are not and their track record is not all that great. So the bad thing is when you think about Phil's position in the game, in the last 25 years he's one of the top two players in the game carrying the water for the tour. 43 PGA Tour wins. I think he's got four major championships.

Just a Hall of Fame player. Maybe, just maybe he should guard what he says a little bit better. I mean those are the sort of things that Phil says is nothing you're ever going to hear Tiger Woods say, Jack Nicklaus say, or Arnold Palmer say. And I'm talking, I realize I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here because I also love the theater that Phil provides with his comments. It's absolutely interesting and entertaining. You just never really know what Phil's going to do, how he's going to play. So he kind of talks a lot about, talks in a similar fashion to the way he plays.

It's very freewheeling, it's very open. He was out at Pebble Beach last week and in the last group, played a phenomenal round of golf on Saturday to get himself in contention. A couple strokes behind Nick Taylor playing in the final group on Sunday. It's interesting, Phil was trying to defend the AT&T championship that he had won in 2019 and he played a superb back nine. I think he shed 600 par in the back nine in very windy but rainy conditions out of Pebble Beach.

This year, in 2020, it was very windy but it was hard and baked out. And all of the things that Phil did on the back nine last year were exactly what he could not do this year. He played his last 11 holes Sunday's final round in five over par. Phil off the pace set by Nick Taylor, wound up finishing third.

And it was really interesting to watch. And this is a statement again on how difficult golf is because even when Phil was in good position off the tee, he absolutely 100% knew what he was trying to do, how he was trying to control the golf ball, how he's trying to flight. So what we're talking about is windy conditions. You need to flight your ball a certain height with the correct amount of spin on it. If the ball shoots up in the air like it did on his second shot from 100 yards on number 11, it's going to hit the green. It's going to spin out of control and instead of having a birdie putt from 100 yards out, Phil was three steps off the front of the green 50 feet from the hole, comes up to the next hole on number 12, and it's a five iron 43 yards over the green.

43 yards. I mean, you cannot play in the PGA Tour hitting balls over the green. He gets up to the next hole, the 13th hole, he makes bogey on 12, gets up to the next hole on 13 from the middle of the fairway 126 yards and hits it about 25 yards over the green.

And so even with his short game and all the wizardry that he has, it's just some of the stuff he does is just incredible. But he was back up against the wall, could not pull it off, wound up finishing like we said five over par on his last 11 holes. And Nick Taylor captures his second PGA Tour title and the shot of the day, the shot of the tournament was Nick Taylor's chipping in from just short right of the green on the 15th after he made a mess of the 14th hole making a double bogey. So that was what kind of stabilized that last round and Nick Taylor went on to win his second championship on the PGA Tour.

I've got a great Kevin Costner story that I want to tell you about. It happened at Pebble Beach, but we'll go ahead and wait for that. Come back. That is going to be on the 19th hole.

That wraps up the On the Range segment. Come back for the front nine. We are going to listen to the politics or interview. The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association is a proud sponsor of golf with Jay Telsing. 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 am your host, Jay, and we are on the front nine. As I mentioned, I've got another 30 minutes or so with Paul Tesori. Paul is carried in the 2012, carried the bag for the victorious Webb Simpson in the 2012 US Open and Olympic Club and just recently won their sixth tour championship in the Phoenix Waste Management Open.

So let's go check in on Paul. You know, Paul, it really showed the unity that you guys had this that week really showed in sometimes as an observer. I'm not in the room with you guys, but as an observer in the Ryder Cup, it looks like that is not necessarily the case.

I'll answer that two ways. The captain sets the atmosphere. The atmosphere in 2012 under Davis Love at Medina was the greatest experience I had ever had in golf, including winning the US Open until we won the players. Winning the players for me in my hometown, the way Webb did it, coming back from the depths of despair with the belly putter, the putting man, that was still my number one highlighting golf.

But the 2012 Ryder Cup, which if you don't remember, we had a four point league going into singles. It's the greatest European comeback in history. We end up losing, but it was the greatest experience I ever had. The team unity, team camaraderie, the closeness, the hugs, the tears, the successes, the cheers, all of it was incredible.

2018 underneath Jim Furyk in Scotland was the exact same thing for me. Jim did an incredible job. The team was close. We laughed. We played. We celebrated.

We just got our butts handed to us. They picked an unbelievable course, an unbelievable venue, one that fit their type of play, which they should have done. I love the home course advantage. We have it in the NBA. We have it in the NHL. We have it in Major League. We should have it in golf too. And they picked a tight, high rough golf course that minimized our guys' length.

And they just beat us. Now, 2014 in Scotland was a different experience for me. They chose Tom Watson as the captain, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a man and as a player. However, that week as a captain, I had no fun at all. There were no drinks allowed. There were no ping pong tables. There was no fun happening.

You felt like you were on edge the entire week. And I don't blame Tom Watson. I actually blame the PGA of America for naming him the captain and his generation and his demeanor just very, very different than the new generation, the new demeanor. He ruled a little bit more with an iron fist, where we're used to Freddie couples and Davis love. And God's a little bit looser.

That kind of allows us to do our thing. You know, Freddie never lost. And, you know, Davis should not have lost.

He should be 2-0. We didn't do our job in singles in 2012. And obviously, he had a successful comeback in 2016.

But so I've had those experiences. I really believe the losses in the Ryder Cup have nothing to do with team unity. I just think it has to do with more anything with, first of all, home course advantage. We should have won in 12. We did win in 16. They beat us handily in 14 and 18. I think we're going to win again in 2020 on our home turf. And we're going to have to figure out a little bit more what to do, I think, on their home turf.

Maybe get there a little earlier to get used to the time change, to get used to the golf course might help. But as far as I'm concerned, again, I've had only three Ryder Cups, nine President's Cups. Eight of those have had great team unity, one didn't.

I think it starts with the captain. You know, Paul, I'm changing my point of view then entirely because, you know, I'm just going from what I see and, you know, golf's a hard game and I agree with you wholeheartedly. The Euros have done a way better job of choosing venues that fit them than we do. I mean, when we actually go, we had a great win at Hazeltine, but the Euros have played Hazeltine as much as we played Hazeltine. The difference is the people, right?

Yes. Yeah, the people and the setup. We still set the golf course up the way we wanted it set up. We widened the fairways.

You know, we knocked the rough down a little bit. You go through the Europeans, basically one to 12. They are very accurate drivers.

Go through our guys, basically one to 12. And we are very powerful drivers of the golf ball with accuracy, maybe being a little off. 2012, we did the same thing at Medina. We widened the fairways and again, sorry, and again, the captain did his job.

The setup was perfect. We just, you know, Seve had passed away that year. I think the Euros were playing. You had Ian Poulter that I think is the greatest accomplishment in teams. But 5-0 against the lineup that we put out that week and against the way we were all playing, he single-handedly won the Ryder Cup for the Europeans. And there was a lot going on that week that might have been outside our control.

And I just think that it'll go back to whistling straights that you're going to see us be really successful again. And to remind everybody, you go back and look at 2016 when we won and you listen to the European writer or the European press conferences afterwards, you watch the European demeanors throughout the week. They didn't seem as close. They didn't seem as tight. There was some complaining. Justin Rose complained afterwards about the pin placement on number 17 on the par three.

It was more of an amateur pin placement. Well, that's whining. That's complaining. And I think all you see is no one likes losing. And you're going to see a different demeanor. You go back and watch the Utah Jazz lose against Michael Jordan's Bulls again, and you'll see some shrugged shoulders.

You'll see some defeat. You go back and look at San Francisco, the 49ers. If you watch, you know, Kansas City Chiefs this year kind of in those midways where they couldn't get anything going, the offense was slumping. The shoulders were down, and then all of a sudden they catch fire and they're walking around. Their chests are puffed out. Their heads are high. They got a little step in their, you know, little pep in their step.

And then you watch San Francisco. I think it's just the nature of what we call momentum. Tiger used to talk about momentum all the time in golf. And I think we still see it that when you start to get down, you start to feel pressure. I think it shows. And again, I really like our chances in 2020. I think the home course advantage is strong, and we're going to have to figure it out going forward overseas. That's a lot of disappointment that you're reading in those body languages, right, Pauly? I mean, here we are at these massive events that everybody's keen to win and they're prepared for.

And sometimes because the game is so hard and the opponent is so good, things just don't go your way. Right, exactly. And, you know, Webber and I even talked about it. You look at, you know, Web in Phoenix, and I know you and I will go into that, but in Phoenix just last Sunday, so just what, three or four days ago, you know, we make bogey on 15.

And Web is positive. He still thinks he has a chance to win. But, you know, you don't see me and him joking and laughing when we hit it in the water on 15.

We lay it up in a sand divot. We hit it to 35 feet and two putt, and we're two down with three to play against the guy that is playing at a high level. And Web had played great all day, made one mistake. And, you know, as we're going to 16, you know, we're reminding each other step by step, it's not over. But you can't fake momentum. You just can't like go, yay, I just made bogey. You're not going to celebrate that as you're going to the next hole. And I think that's just the nature of sport.

It just happens. And I think that that's what we see the massive momentum switches. You know, one of the greatest theaters that we'll ever seen was at Hazelton with Patrick and Rory through those first eight holes. I think they were both six under par. Well, people forget the last 10, they were one over both of them. And Rory talked about it. They just spent all of their energy and over like the last 10 holes.

They were like zapped. But then you go back and you watch Sergio and Phil, who both shot nine under par through 18 holes and the highest pressure. I think I think Sergio made 10 birdies and a bogey and Phil might have made nine birdies and eagle and two bogeys. And it'll probably be the greatest display of golf that no one really talks about because they just kind of play great the whole day and no one really talks about it. So I just think momentum in sports is just real.

It's normal and you can't really fake it. And I think the home course advantage of the fans, which you brought up when you had 80,000 fans yelling your name, it is going to produce some momentum even if you don't have it. And the fans definitely lift you across the finish line. I think you look at sports like NCAA football, what the winning percentage is at home. You look at the NBA winning percentage at home, not as much in baseball and hockey, but you look at some of these other sports.

You look at basketball in the NCAA, a drastic change at home. And it's that energy that the fans are able to give you that we are definitely going to experience in 2020. And I don't even want to go to 2024 in New York. I don't know if it's going to be the biggest black eye the sports ever had or going to be the greatest event sports ever had. When we go and see what's going to happen in New York in 2024. So it's going to be interesting for sure.

Hey, Paul, one of the things that we can kind of transition to Phoenix, one of the things I want the listeners to know as a player. So Webb is in this pressure pack situation, something he wants to do well in. He makes a mistake at 15. That hits it in a divot and bogeys inevitable, right?

I mean, he could have made double, but yes. So you're walking over to 60 and you guys are reminding yourself. But as a player, it is so important to know that your man, your caddy is going to stand up on the 16 T and go about his business as a professional and do it in the manner in which you did. And I watched that. And that is so crucial because if you get down, Paul, if you show your disappointment that you're obviously feeling, it affects me.

Yes, it does. And then you never then you're never going to make those birdies and never going to win, are you? You're exactly right. And, you know, Webb has has always said, but Paul, I don't know how you do it.

He goes to that two and a half years. The anchoring man, you never got negative, you know, and when things aren't going away, you never get negative. And I tell him thank you. But I mean, I'll tell you right here inwardly. I have the same thoughts that he goes through. I get frustrated just like he goes through.

I get, you know, maybe slightly negative in my heart, in my in my gut. But my job is to display at all times. It's a it's a business. We're moving to the next hole.

It's step by step. We preach all the time. It is a marathon. You know, we shot 71 the first day. We were in 90th place.

We're outside the cut line. We read the greens horrifically the first day. We were minus like two point six the first day putting.

We know the scores are low. You know, we had played in the morning and, you know, that's usually when you get your scores, all these things. But we reminded ourselves we had a great talk Thursday night about maintaining confidence is going the next day. And we're only two under par with eight holes left on Friday.

And the cut's going to be one under. And like, you know, we got to play good coming in. And the front nine that tough closing stretch with some hard golf holes. Five, six, seven, eight and nine are tough and middle of nowhere. Webberty six of the last eight holes. She's eight under par. And now we have a chance to win the golf tournament and, you know, play the next 24 holes, 14 under out of the middle of nowhere. Like, but we gave ourselves the opportunity to be 14 under through 24 because we didn't hit the panic button.

We didn't get down. And, you know, we have always said I'd be a terrible poker player because you always would know what's in my hand. But as a caddy, for some reason, I'm able to kind of shield whatever's going on inside and just display that constant positivity. Move on to the next hole.

Step by step. He has etched into every one of his wedges knowing that it's 72 holes and it is a marathon. That's not a sprint. Very rarely does the first round leader win the golf tournament and just trying to remind ourselves. And it happened again in Phoenix with three holes to play with two down with three to play against one of the best players in the world who is playing incredible. You know, we don't birdie 16 after almost holding it off the tee shot. Now we're two down with two to play. Tony can hit a three wood on the green and we're just remind ourselves all we can do is take care of business.

Our goal is to finish birdie birdie and see what happens. And I didn't think it'd be good enough the way Tony was playing. And, you know, Tony made a little bit of a mistake on 17, but played two really good shots and hit a good putt on 18 that didn't go in. And we were able to somehow muster up two good reads on 18 both times and pull off a win after some really harsh losses. We had four seconds in the last five months and two other losses by one that we finished third. Tyler Duncan in Sea Island, you know, birdied the last two to force a playoff that we lost. And Sony, we had a 12 footer on the last hole to get into a playoff that we left about a revolution short in the middle. And then this was our next tournament. We were able to get it done.

It felt like a relief more than anything else. And I think, Paul, it just shows you how many opportunities as a player and a caddie that you need to give yourself because it is so difficult to actually close that door and to get that win. And you know what else is impressive is the way Webb stated you and Webb stayed in your with your plan at Scottsdale, because that golf course is one that doesn't pardon me, that doesn't necessarily favor the bombers. And you guys took advantage of what your strengths were.

Yeah, exactly. You know, we try to find the courses where, you know, while length is always a good thing, where it's not a necessity. There are probably about almost half the courses nowadays that are being built to only suit one style of player. And that's someone who can carry the ball a certain distance. The courses that we try to seek out are ones that where length is an advantage and it should be. Length is still a skill.

A lot of times it's been given from birth. But Webb's ability to regreen is something that's been given as well. But we try to go to golf courses. I think the biggest error that we see in golf course design and I think it's a travesty is this term forced carry, which is where you step into a hole and if you can carry the ball 300 yards, the fairway widens the course, the hole shortens. But if you can't carry it that far, you head into a tighter area or you're laying back, you're hitting more club into the green. And I don't know what happened in golf course design where that became the norm. But if we can go back and look at how Donald Ross used to build golf courses, they were with a lot of doglegs, small, firm greens with massive, massive drop off the ability to work the ball right to left, work the ball left to right. Put spin on the golf ball, control it with distance, with distance control.

That was the way the game was supposed to be made. You go to the old course in St. Andrews and you have to place your ball around the golf course. And I just think that the golf course design has gotten away from. So when we see a course like Phoenix, which has one through 18, just an incredible display of golf, you know, the way the course was designed, anyone can win there at any time. Is length an advantage?

Yes, but it should be. But we just feel like they should have to hit it into an area that at minimum is as tight as ours, if not tighter. And that'll help protect the golf courses. So for Webb, you know, we were able to step up on 18 in regulation being one back and then in a playoff and hit a three wood off the tee, knowing that we can shape it with that fairway, leave ourselves a nice full sandwich and from 120 yards. And put some spin on the ball where if they hit driver, they're not going to be able to control their spin as much and the fairway narrows slightly up there. So, you know, we used it to our advantage and it worked out.

All right. That's going to do it for the front nine comeback. We'll wrap up that interview and we'll have a few comments on the back nine.

This is Golf with JW. One hundred thousand watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports driven by auto centers, Nissan, home of the 30 day return, WXOS and WXOS HD1E St. Louis 101 ESPN. 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 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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USA Mortgage has closed over $500 million in loans in nearly 30 years in the business and over $2 million alone to Delsings. Everyone is looking for the extra edge and Jay Delsing is digging deep to find it. It's the Leading Edge on Golf with Jay Delsing. Hi, I'm with my buddy Pepe. He is the proprietor, the chef at Pino Italian Soul Food, 7600 Y Down and a cool little part of Clayton called the Morelands.

But you know, Pepe, thanks for joining me. We've talked about your restaurant and how important food is to you, the way you grew up with it and your family and things. But let's talk a little bit about something else that's important to both of us, our community and how we're trying to get back a little bit.

Most definitely. Grew up in a little community in St. Louis called Dogtown. So kind of grew up with all the things that we needed. The barber, the bars, the movie theater, the grocery store. So I'm going to date myself a little bit. The dime store. The dime store. You love the dime stores and I'm older than you.

Beauty parlor. So, you know, that feeling of smaller or local has always been with me where we've gotten bigger and box and commercialized. And I think that, you know, going back to the sense of community and relating life skills and business to me, I have to do that. I mean, you know, I think that if we don't give back to our communities, we won't have any communities anymore.

And it's happening. Yeah. You and I were talking about this when we were together last. And I think when you lose that sense of the end of like you grew up the same way I did. I was in North County, though, and there was more of that sense where people were relating to each other more. And I feel like the big box and all that stuff loses that personal touch.

Yeah. You know, some of that, I think, might come from the way the country has moved in certain political views and things. But at the end of the day, I think that a lot of like even with food, like it'll go back to the past. Music will go back to the past.

Fashion goes back to the past. And I think community has to come back. For us, being in a smaller neighborhood, I've always did places that were community first neighborhood, then the neighborhood would take care of me. And that for me is why I've been successful, I believe, in some of my places. The other reason I've been somewhat unsuccessful is not focused at times. Again, in any business, I think you focus and necessarily sometimes you lose focus when you just want to say, oh, let me just make some money or let me think that success is money. And I think that success is some challenges that we overcome.

Johnny Miller, his quotes. And I think it's the truth. And once you go through some of that stuff, you kind of regress and go, hey, man, this is what it's about. It's about you and me, not me and me.

Right. And when I come to your restaurant, it shows so much in the way that the food's prepared and presented. And taking that and extending it out to the community is, I mean, it's just a really cool way of showing that you care. Well, I think, you know, I think you'll see more of that. And I think that, you know, what's going on in anything in the world.

I mean, you know, people have to realize that we live in a day where advertisement and money and becoming famous is more important than taking care of your neighbor or taking care of your elderly people. And I think that, you know, it starts kind of with whatever we do, you know, whatever we do in life. I mean, for me, it's just a restaurant.

I don't expect, you know, anything more than that. I'm just a cook. But at the end of the day, there's some diligence that I have to do. And, you know, if I don't take care of my community I'm working in and the one I'm living in, then I become part of the problem. The same thing, Pep.

I hit a golf ball around. Really? How profound is that? It's not.

It's all about what we do with it. 7600 Y Down. I love the name of your place.

One of my favorites, Pino's Italian Soul Food. That's going to do it for the leading edge. 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 Delsing. The Back Nine is brought to you by St. Louis Bank. Welcome back to Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay, and we are on the Back Nine. And I got to tell you about my friends at Whitmore Country Club.

They have been a terrific partner in the show last year and this year. There's 90 holes of golf at Whitmore. You get access to the Missouri Bluffs, the Links of Dardeen, the Golf Club of Wentzville. No cart fees at all. They're all included in that membership. There's no food at beverage minimums.

There's no assessments. All those are extremely positive in today's world of golf, ladies and gentlemen. They have a 24-hour fitness center.

Large pool complex tennis courts. Their year-round social calendar is really, really fun. The holiday parties. People are still talking about how much fun they had at their holiday parties. They have picnics, date nights.

There's live music. A kids club where you can drop your children off. They can hang out with other kids, play video games, go to the pool, play tennis, play golf while you go have a cocktail or you and your significant other or spouse go out and do whatever the hell you want to do.

It is a really good deal. There's junior golf, junior tennis, and the swim team is available for your children. The family-friendly atmosphere.

That is what Whitmore is known for. Got to go see my friend Bummer in the golf shop. He is there to help you with your golf game and to help you and your kids understand and fall in love with the game. And that staff runs golf league skins, games, members, tournaments, couples events all year round.

They just do a phenomenal job. Go visit Bill Brungart. He is the membership director at Whitmore Country Club. You can go to whitmoregolf.com and check it out.

You will not be disappointed. All right, let's do the remainder of the Paul Tesori interview here on the back nine. Any tournament that you play in, you and Webb have a very thought out, strategic way of how you need to play the course. But you still have to execute and execution is only as good as your putting that week more times than not.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know it showed. Now Webb had a spectacular week. He finished first in the field on strokes gained approach to the green, second in ball striking for the week. He finished only 15th in putting. But it's a little bit skewed because the first day we were over minus two and a half putting. So over the last three rounds, we were second in the field in putting over the last three rounds. So if you lead the field in strokes gained approach and you're second in the field in putting, you're probably going to do well that week.

And Tony obviously matched us with some of those stats. So you're right, you're only as good as the putting. And we showed that because, you know, when the putting fan came down in 2016, we switched a year early to try to avoid some of the media and press that was going to come out. And, you know, very quickly we fell from being a top 20 putter on tour to being in the mid 170s and both 2015 and 16. And we were one hundred ninety second on tour in 2017 until Tim Clark came up to us on Wednesday afternoon at TPC. And he just said, hey, Paul, can I go say something to Webb about his right hand grip?

And I said, Tim, you can go tell Webb anything about anything you want with putting, because we've tried and we just can't figure anything. And he just gave him this right hand kind of saw grip that he has. I call it, I call it the poocher claw grip.

He uses the left arm lock and then the Tim Clark right hand grip, the claw. And immediately he put it in the play the next day without ever using it on the course. And from that point forward, TPC 2000 since May of 17 until now, February of 20, it's the best he's ever putted in his career. And I think he's fifth and putting over that stretch. So it just shows you that we always feel like we're so far away in golf. I think as business leaders, you always feel like you're so far away from the solution in golf and football and tennis and baseball and hockey. No matter where you are, you feel like you're so far away, but you're never as far away as you think.

And one little key. And immediately he went from being ninety eights in the world at that time to at the end of that year. I think we had moved up to around 50th. And now here we are at seventh in the world.

And one went away from being fourth in the world. And so much of that goes back to being comfortable with the putting. And then, like you said, Webb doesn't leave anything to chance. That's one thing that we kind of stole from Jim Furyk and Zach Johnson to shorter players that have had Hall of Fame careers. And, you know, we just watch what they did and they didn't leave anything to chance.

They maximized everything. Webb has transformed his body over the last two and a half years. He is still, you know, I used to call him a skinny fat kid.

I remember. You know, I used to make fun of him. And now he's ripped. He's strong. You know, he's gained nine yards in the air over the last two years and he's done it not through equipment. He's done it through hard work with his trainer, Cornell Dreesen, who he's hired and he spends a lot of time with. He's done it through work on his mind, through a mental coach. He's hired Pat Goss as a short game coach just to learn how to chip softer and spinnier.

To kind of fit the harder golf courses and just putting a plan into place. And his goal is when he hangs it up and if he never wins again, he wants to be able to look back and go, you know what? I gave it everything I had. I attacked every single angle of this game and I maximize my potential. And I think Jim Furyk will tell you that.

Jack Johnson will tell you that. And that's our goal right now, whether he ends up being a Hall of Famer with 20 wins, including that major in TPC. And if he wins more or if we don't win again, he's going to be able to look back and know, man, I gave it my all.

I have nothing, you know, but positivity to look back and no regrets. Now, Paul, let's talk a little bit of the personal side. I know how important the Tesori Family Foundation is. I know Michelle is kind of your rock. Let's talk about Alexis, your daughter and your son, Isaiah.

Yes. Now you're really touching my heartstrings. So the Tesori Family Foundation, if you need to check us out at Tesori Family Foundation dot org. But we started it in 2010 and for the first four or five years, we just really focused on the local community, helping out all the homeless shelters. We have a fun program called Christmas Tree Angel, where we buy gifts for 75 families who are homeless in the local area. We buy it for all the kids and adults. And we go, we purchase the gifts, we wrap the gifts and we deliver them. And it's become our favorite thing to do every year that we do.

You know, in the first part of December, around the 12th or 13th, we must have over 100 volunteers now. And everyone shows up with their kids. You go shopping for whoever you have. You spend your money, you buy what they wanted. Then you go to the wrapping station. We got coffee, we got donuts.

They're playing music back there. It's just, it's turned into a wonderful thing that is, it's truly a family feel. And it doesn't even feel like giving back anymore.

It gives us more joy than anything else. And then in 2014, a little miracle happened. We had a baby boy, Isaiah Paul Tesori. My name's Albert Paul Tesori and I was a fourth generation Albert Paul Tesori. And my wife said, I love you, honey.

I just can't wait to have a child with you. He is not going to be an Albert. We are going to change that Albert and we are going to go with a different name. And so we agreed on Isaiah. Obviously faith is very important with us.

So Isaiah Paul Tesori it is. And we did not know until he was born and whisked away in an ambulance. We didn't know if we would have him for more than a couple hours. Long story short, God worked a miracle, took away, unbeknownst to the doctors, they had no explanation why the bleeding on the brain went away, why the swelling on the brain went away, why the valve in the heart, everything went away. And we were left with one thing.

And that is a third copy of the 21st chromosome, a.k.a. Down syndrome. And for me, not really knowing much about it at the time, I started learning a lot. And here we are at a young foundation trying to figure out very quickly. We have our mission and that is the special needs community. So in 2014, we started turning our attention and we started, which is now probably our favorite program called the All Star Kids Clinic.

We do a clinic for twenty five kids with special needs. We bring one on one instruction with PGA Tour players, caddies and coaches. And we introduce them to the game of golf. We introduce them through some fun activities. We hit balls, we chip, we putt. We got something now called the golf Zillow where they hit balls into the big old blow up tube. They hit these little birdie balls, they call them and and try to make it. But it has just been incredible.

Tears every time from the parents. And up until last year, we only had four. And this year we're pleased to announce I think we had 19 now throughout the PGA Tour.

And hopefully by the end of 2022, we'll be in over twenty five. And it's just beautiful to watch these kids, the amount of joy they get from someone playing golf for the first time and others doing a lot. We just had ours out in Phoenix with Amy Bacher study and anybody that follows golf knows the famous story with her and Gary Woodland and the U.S. Open win.

And we did the clinic on Monday with myself, Ted Scott, Amy, and it just went off without a hitch on on Monday out in Phoenix. So that's another one of our programs. And we also co-sponsor this Friday with Tim Tebow. He does an event called Night to Shine, which is where we do a prom type atmosphere for kids and adults with special needs, where we give them limo rides, red carpet, they dress up, they come out and we just spoil them for the night. And this is Tim's idea.

We don't take any of that credit at all. But we started co-sponsoring with him a few years ago and now we do it with the local community. But one hundred and fifteen thousand guests we will have that have special needs that will participate. Two hundred and thirty thousand volunteers, over 700 churches in a bunch of different countries.

So all of that being said, is this. Check us out on sasorifamilyfoundation.org. We've been fortunate enough to we will get by the end of 2020, we will have given back over one point five million dollars in gifts and services. And for a little caddy foundation with me and Michelle and what we've done, we're really proud of that. Not to brag.

That's not what that's meant for. But it's a true family atmosphere. We couldn't do any of this without the volunteers and the local community and the golf community has been so kind to us. And has accepted Isaiah since birth. And my last little part for anyone out there that either does not understand Down syndrome, a.k.a.

trisomy 21, the third copy of the 21st chromosome, try to spend time with these kids. They are amazing. And I'll get a little emotional here as I talk about it. But, you know, faith is really, really important to me. Isaiah is not a mistake. Isaiah is made just the way God made it. And my favorite piece of scripture, John nine, one to three. And the disciples are walking with Jesus and there's a blind man on the corner and the disciples ask the way most people would ask. So what did he do wrong to deserve to be blind, whether his parents sins or his sins? And Jesus just smiled and rebuked him and says, no, it's sort of the works of my father can be displayed through him. And if anyone's met my son or anyone that has Down syndrome, all they do is bring joy into this world.

And we have countries right now that are celebrating the eradication through abortion of Down syndrome. And all I can say is you guys are missing out. Just go to Isaiah the photographer on Instagram.

Go check out those smiles. Ask anyone that knows him. And he has changed my life. The boy has taught me more in six years than I learned in my first 42 years. And if God gave me a chance tomorrow to change his diagnosis, to change his genetic makeup, I'd say, nope, I'll keep him just the way he is because he is a six year old boy as stubborn as all get out. Doesn't want to listen, just like every other six year old kid he's just got.

I think we're all missing the chromosome because he's got more joy than I know what to do with. Paul, I got to tell you, first of all, Tesori is spelled T E S O R I. It's Tesori Family Foundation dot org. I also want to get your social network handles out there so people can can reach out to you and donate. They can volunteer. I know you're not going to turn anybody or any sort of aid that they want to give you down. But when I was my second year on tour, my good buddy from Australia, Wayne Grady, and his wife, Lynn, had a little girl named Samantha, and she was a little Downey baby.

And I've never looked. I have four daughters. Love them dearly.

Love them to the point that I would step in front of a bullet or a train for them. But this Down syndrome daughter of Wayne and Lynn's was so special to me because she just exuded so much love. Amen.

Praise God. And and you see what these children and not only Down syndrome, but kids with autism and everything else to see what they do to their parents. You look at Ernie else and you look at his life before, you know, he had a child that has autism.

You look at it now. The guy just is so focused on giving back. He built an incredible school down south that is changing the world for people with autism and is just bringing to light so many of the different things. And you really look at my life pre 2014 and now and again, what my son has taught me is just I can't end it. And what he's brought to attention, even through the foundation, the things that we're able to get back now because of him.

So yeah, thank you. I actually didn't know that about Wayne. I didn't know Wayne. I know of Wayne, obviously, a heck of a player and a good man.

But again, like you just said, just nothing but joy and by far the world's a better place with these young people and now young adults in it. Yeah, right on. So give us your social media networks, but your Twitter handle anything that you want to get out there so we can reach out to you. I'm really, I'm really, really easy. My wife does this because she knows that I can't handle a lot of difficulty. I'm a Florida Gator grad.

So, you know, she likes to make things as simple as she can for me. But Twitter at Paul Tesori. My wife is at Mrs. Tesori, so not too tough. And then our Twitter handles at Tesori Family Foundation.

And then as far as Instagram goes, I'm a newbie just now getting in to it. But again, at Paul Tesori. I think it might be Paul underscore Tesori.

But if you search me, you'll find it. My wife's at Mrs. Tesori. And then we have at Tesori Family Foundation. So you can check those out. And then again, the website Tesori Family Foundation dot org.

You can get on there. You can see a mile in my shoes where you just try to you can pledge just on how many miles I'll walk each year. And you can do as little as a penny a mile, you can do as much as a dollar a mile, that would be a lot.

So be sure you know what you're doing if you do that. But also just through prayer, support, encouragement, or even volunteering a lot of the sites that we go. We need it all.

It's a true family thing. We can't do this without the help of the golf community and the local community as well. Paul, I cannot thank you enough. Your story, Spud, we could do this every week and just blow this thing out. I mean, you've got to come back on. Just keep doing what you're doing. You have a gigantic fan here in me.

I think you know that already. And just thanks for being so real. Thanks for the time. And congratulations again on all the success, man. Jay, thank you so much.

Anytime with you. And let's make a deal. When we pull off that next W or that next team event or the Olympics or whatever, we'll do it again. Yeah, you got it.

That's a deal. All right, Jay, thank you for everything. And that's going to do it for the Paul Tesori interview. Come back and on our 19th hole, we're going to break some of this stuff down, talk a little bit about Paul's charity. Got to tell you a fun story from Pebble Beach.

Kevin Costner, if you're a Kevin Costner fan, you might not be when you hear this story when you come back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. The 100,000 watt blowtorch for St. Louis sports driven by Auto Center's Nissan, home of the 30 day return. WXOS and WXOS HD1, East St. Louis, 101 ESPN.

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, and welcome to all the listeners to this week's Metropolitan Minute.

A couple of things I want to touch on this week is first, we're two weeks away on Monday. Entries will open for all of our Metropolitan Championships, our amateur series of events. And then shortly after that, the entries will open for USG qualifying rounds.

So stay tuned for that. We'll be sending some information out, but all that's available on our website at METGA.org. And the second thing is for your listeners, if they are interested in joining the Metropolitan Golf Association, we've put a banner ad up on our website again, METGA.org. And they can click on that, takes them directly to our registration site, and they can join and get all the member benefits that we've talked about in the past, which includes most importantly probably that USGA handicap index to start tracking the handicap, and then everything else. And be eligible to participate in any of our events.

So they can find all that right at METGA.org. Stay tuned, that's another Metropolitan Minute brought to you by the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association. 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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Grab your friends, a cold one, and pull up a chair. We're on to the 19th hole on golf with Jay Delsing. The 19th hole is brought to you by the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association.

Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay, and we're at the 19th hole, one of our favorite segments on the Paltasori interview.

I know that was two weeks of Paltasori, but man, this is one guy you really want to know about. It's hard not to pull for him. His son Isaiah was born with Down syndrome, and he and his wife Michelle have just gone so above and beyond the call to support this cause all the way around the country. And he's just a great ambassador for the game and really, really a cool guy. And we are going to get some other caddies on soon. I've got a great list of folks that are coming on. I've got an interview with Kay Cockrell. I've got an interview with Paul Azier in the books.

I've got an interview with Bill DeWitt. Spring training's around, so we've got a lot of really fun stuff to talk about. But I've got to tell you this fun story. Pebble Beach just wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

And I've got to tell you this fun story. Back, oh, years back, Kevin Costner, the actor, was playing with Tiger Woods. And they're walking down the 16th fairway.

And all along the back nine, Kevin would go into the crowd where these, you know, nice looking young ladies were and start chatting to them and pull them under the ropes and have these women walk down the fairway with them while, you know, Tiger's playing and he's playing this whole experience, right? So, a buddy of mine, he's been out on tour forever. He used to play on tour. And he's been a tournament director for 30 plus years. A dear friend, his name is Slugger White. I'm sure if you watch enough telecasts, you hear a ruling come along, Slugger White is a name that's familiar to you.

Slugger's a big guy and is not intimidated by any sort of person or situation. And he comes to Kevin and he says, Kevin, come over here and he pulls him aside. And they're in the 16th fairway and he says, Kevin, we are hosting a championship here. In another three holes, a winner is going to be crowned. They're playing for over a million dollars. We have over 40,000 people watching Tiger Woods play right now. And the only thing that keeps them where they are, are these ropes. That's it.

And if they start getting the idea that they can disrespect these ropes and not stay on their side, we've got a huge problem. And Kevin Costner kind of looks at Slugger and he says, well, hell, maybe I should just walk right in. And Slugger was in a golf cart by himself and he passed the seat.

He says, you can ride in with me. And Costner looked at him like, oh, it was like the light bulb went on like, oh, I'm not really a player in this whole thing. And of course he didn't.

He played the rest of the round out, but definitely dinged his ego a little bit. It was really, really a fun story. And that Pebble Beach tournament, man, so iconic over the years.

When I first played it, it was called the Bing Crosby Clam Bake. And golf was not nearly as big as it is and didn't have the notoriety and the celebrities that would walk around. You know, you'd see Clint Eastwood walk around, Jack Lemon was there all the time, the great comedian and actor and the lover of the game and never, ever made the cut in like 20 something tries with his amateur partner. But it was really fun. And it reminds me of how much the tour has grown in a way and for the modern players, I'm sure they're delighted. But you lose some – there was a little more romanticism and a little more – people weren't so full of themselves and there wasn't quite the egos that we dealt with back in the day that we deal with now. And if that happened now with Tiger Play and or Brooks Koepcke of World Number One or Rory, there'd be security all over the place.

There'd be probably guns drawn and who knows what would happen. But that's just kind of what happens when a bunch of people love to watch and are playing for a hell of a lot of money. Well, that's all I got this week. This will wrap up another show. It's Golf with Jay Delsing. I'll talk to you next week.

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