Golf With Jay Delsing - - Sunday Storytime Round 1

25 years on the PGA Tour and a lifetime member of the PGA Tour and PGA of America, Jay Delsing brings you his perspective on one of the world's greatest games as a professional golfer and network broadcaster.

It's the game that connects the pros and the average Joes. Brought to you by Whitmore Country Club. Golf with Jay Delsing is now on 101 ESPN. Good morning, St. Louis. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay Delsing. With me is my buddy, longtime caddy, John Perlis. Good morning. Good morning, Jay. I'm already starting to laugh about our subject matter today.

Yeah, this is going to be fun. Well, we format the show just like around the golf. Our first segment is called the On the Range Segments brought to you by Golf Discount, where St. Louis shops for all its golf needs. Don't forget, probably the most important thing we do all day is talk about social media, our outlets. Twitter is at Jay Delsing.

Facebook is Golf with Jay Delsing and Jay Delsing Golf LinkedIn is Jay Delsing and Instagram is still out there. Okay. Perfect. What do we got today? Well, I mean, you know, when you showed up this morning, Meat and I were thinking, that's pretty cool. Probably made it two shows in a row. How many times have I got to get my chops busted for missing a show like three months ago?

What do you think, Meat? No days off. That's what Bill Belichick says, right? Right on. Come on.

Well, Antonio Brown's getting a few days off. Wow. What kind of- Forever, apparently. When you talk about social media, have you just absolutely stepped in it in a way that you can never get out? I mean, it is on you.

What- What do they say? If you text 25 times while you're at a bar, you need a ride home. Yeah. Yeah, he needs a ride home. He needs a ride home. I love that.

I have not heard that. Yeah. And actually, I think it's like five times, but 25 is definitely an indicator that you need a ride home. All right. So, we'll take a look at our show. We've got- we're kind of keep calling this an extreme show, Pearl.

We are going to talk about some of the coolest, weirdest, funniest, oddest things that have ever happened to us on a golf course, and- Oh, just on a golf course ever happened to us? Well, you know- We got a couple we got to expect. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I mean, we're just kind of- If we saw a golf course or something. Yeah, that's right.

Or we were coming from, or two, or something like that, yeah. And we're covered. We've got another version of Whack and Chase, which is going to be fun. I want to remind folks about the Champions event that's coming to St. Louis. You're going to get to see the best players over 50 play here for four years in a row.

That's great stuff. And did you confirm whether or not you were allowed to tell us where- I just did. We're going to go to Nor- they're playing at- I know. You told us that, but then you were going to find out if you were allowed to, or if you got in trouble for telling us. I might have gotten in trouble for that. This wouldn't be the first time.

We're going to have to figure that out. So, what do you want to talk about? One of the things, when I was putting this down, I was like, what is the most nervous I've ever been in my life on the golf course? I can remember that this was probably the most embarrassed I've ever been. Well, nervous or embarrassed? That's two different subjects.

Not necessarily. They're related because I go to- I'm thinking I'm really cool. I'm 18 years old, 17 years old.

If you don't think you're cool when you're 18, you're never going to think you're cool, so that's okay. Senior in high school, and I go to my recruit trips. I'm going to all these recruit trips.

I got cool trips to South Carolina and Texas, Arizona, and I'm in L.A. C-U-C-L-A. I got my sweet triple knit light blue pants on. And I'm sure you thought they were good looking too. Man, I don't know what else to think of.

They were disgusting. Anyway, I got like 15 colors in the stripe of my shirt. No one would know I'm a golfer.

Not with that outfit on. Walking down the first hole at Bel Air. Never played Bel Air before.

I have no idea, but this is like so cool. Areas right in the middle. And I got, you know, got my bag on backwards like we did. Had my hands in my pockets like we did.

Step in a hole that's at least a foot deep and go down in the dew, 730 in the morning, my light blue pants. Now, I got my hands in my pocket. I got my shirt. I got my face. I got a face.

You know, it's the golfer's version of a face wipe. Oh, man. What a great start to your college career. I looked down at my light blue pants. Blue and green? Oh, man. I got green stripes.

I got green stripes down the knees, and they're there all day. Who were you playing with? I was playing with Eddie Merrins and Gary Wiren. You remember Gary?

He's a master, just a great guy. I was just excited to be out there. Sure. What did they say? I didn't tell anybody. I don't know if they saw it.

They obviously saw it. They didn't say anything. What are you going to say? I think at lunch… We ought to sign you up. You can't walk down the dang hill.

I think at lunch he goes, man, you played okay, but you maybe had trouble walking. Little did I know. Yeah, so I went, oh, man.

That's a brutal way to start. And then I wound up going to… I didn't know. I'm thinking I just… How'd you play, by the way, when you… I think I played pretty well. I didn't hit one fairway.

Well, you knew that. I mean, I didn't hit a fairway. I don't think I hit a fairway in that golf course until my junior year.

I was going to say I don't think so either. I went to a similar thing. I didn't fall down the hill, but I played really well, and it was a lot of fun. And it's the reason I would say why I even got to go out there, because unlike you, I didn't really earn a shot to go play with them.

I had somebody know somebody who knew somebody, and I got a chance to play with them, and I played really good. The weird thing that happened to me that day is I was actually going to shoot even par, 70. And first time I'd seen a golf course, which I was playing really, really well.

And in the last hole, I got about a two-and-a-half-foot straight-up pillar to shoot even par. And I hit it about one foot. And he's looking at me. Eddie's looking at me. Coach Marin's looking at me. My dad's looking at me like, what the heck? And the guy that sponsored the situation is looking at me.

Ed Steidle. Yeah, exactly. Good memory. I looked down at my blade, and I had a piece of… Sand? Or fertilizer?

No, fertilizer. Yep. And it had just… I've done that.

I've done that 100 times. And it parted right there. So, of course, my dad's thinking, you know, you just choked on that thing. And so, Marin's… I remember him saying, well, you know, kind of, what happened there, champ?

You know how you do that? And I showed him my blade, and he just kind of nodded. We both kind of laughed. I was like… But it was really a bummer because I was having such a good day.

I just… I didn't see the fertilizer on my blade. Yeah, I can remember that people were saying to me my first couple of years, like, I don't even remember playing with you. I remember shaking hands with you on the first tee, and then I saw you on the 18th green.

I don't think you hit one fairway. And I'm like, are we supposed to? The first time I ever played with you, I played with you and Stuart Smith out there. Oh, man, no.

Stanford, Stu. You didn't see either of us at all. I literally… I remember this. I literally did not see either one of you guys in play for 18 holes.

Yeah. I shot, like, 68-69. I shot my Pat in 76 or 77.

I'm kind of more or less down the middle, not making any putts. You guys are just really whacking it all over the place, shooting the 60s. That was quite the introduction. I didn't know that people paid that much attention, you know? Like, dude, you didn't hit one fairway.

You don't have to pay attention. I just never saw you. Normally, you play in a group with guys.

You talk to them once in a while. Yeah, and you also go, like, are we supposed to be hitting… I was just trying to hit it as hard as I could, you know? You were. Yeah, I think I did. Yeah, I think I did.

Yeah, so, when I got on tour… So, what's the most pressure? Was that awesome? The biggest… that felt like it, but it wasn't. So, I'm playing at the TPC. That was our biggest purse spot.

TPC, Florida TPC. Yeah, the Players' Championship. And this is when we played it in March, like it's played now. So, you can get dicey weather.

We had dicey weather. And I get up to the 17th hole, and I'm probably in the… right around 10th. Big, big dollars. If most of the tournaments, Pearl, were $500,000 purses, this was a million and a half.

Big deal. It always is the biggest. And so, you know, there's water everywhere. And I look at… they moved the T on 17 way to the left, so you couldn't even see the little pot bunker.

They also had a back right hole location. So, I'm like, aim it left, dude. And I'm trying to figure out, should I hit a little eight, or should I try to hit this hard nine?

I mean, it's only 100, but the wind's blowing into us about 15 miles an hour. And I'm like, I decide to go for the little eight. And I hit it about a groove and a half thin. So, she's flying low.

Could be kind of perfect, though. She's flying low, and I'm thinking, I don't know how to root for this. It might not land right. You're flying into the wind, a blot of ball.

I'm thinking, I don't know how to root for this thing. So, I'm anxiously, you know, I'm blowing, go ball, go. And it gets… it lands on. So, I'm like, oh, man, sit. Now I'm thinking, I scolded a little bit, you know, sit. And all of a sudden, I hear some applause. And I'm like, just stay on the green. And it did happen to be right at the flag. I was gripping the daylights out of that eight iron as this was happening. You know, it seems like now, as I describe it, it took like three minutes long.

It's all in about eight seconds, right? And you have all these people around Pearl. There are 10, 20,000 people around this green, because they're just looking for blood. You know, there's going to be blood. Looking for that car crash.

There's a car crash. And I'm thinking, now I hear, there's more clapping and more clapping. And all of a sudden, it is thunderous. And I'm like, stayed on the green.

This is very cool. Now I'm thinking, be close enough. So close. I can't miss it. Just be so close and I can't miss it. And, you know, it's a long walk around that pond, Pearl. So, I get my putter, great. I'm thinking, 30 seconds ago, I'm thinking I could be dropping.

First on the front end. Now you're shot on the back. Now you want to make the birdie putt.

Now I've got to act like a pro. You know, tipping my cap. Oh, this long walk.

And I'm wondering, how close can this be? Can you please be in there where I can not miss it? So you make the turn. You can't see it because there's a dip in there. And you have to kind of walk to the back. I walk to the back and you enter the green, almost like the third quadrant in the back of it over there. It is literally, it almost went in.

It's literally three inches from the hole. You got that. I was like, I don't need any.

I don't need any. That's cool. That's very cool. A lot of stories in that hole, baby, through the years. Yeah, that's when it went my way. Some other times, I can remember playing with Hal Sutton in the second to last group down at Colonial, which is down in Memphis. And I was having a good tournament.

Went to the, for the par 5, 15th and 2, and didn't go so well. Like, did anybody see my ball? My kid's like, I don't think it carried the water. I'm like, I didn't see a splash. He's like, I didn't either, but I didn't see the water.

See it splashed. So we went up there and Hal Sutton's like, you know what, man, your ball didn't cross over here. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think it did either. Had to go back. That was my first time I felt, you know, like I was really in contention. I think, I think I dumped a little 79 at him. Ooh, that hurts. You know what Hal shot?

65. You know who won the tournament? Hal.

He, he won in the playoff. That's awesome. Well, you were right in the middle to see kind of how it looks to make it happen.

Yeah. I, um, man, I was, you know, I was nervous just that whole day. I just had a hard time getting, you know, comfortable.

And you know how your starts when you, you don't get off to a great start and you're just kind of like, oh. But that's one of those places that you haven't been before when they say you got to be there a bunch of times to make it happen. And we've talked in previous shows about these young guys that, you know, you think, well, they haven't been there before, but they're winning. Well, in some ways they have been there before because they've been playing on the world stage, amateur college, et cetera. So they're kind of there. But that's, uh, that's important.

You look through the years, too, at that note. How many times did Tom Watson have to be there before he won? Well, what about, what about Payne Stewart? They said he was, he was, he was a choker and would never win. And, uh, uh, Nick Faldo, they used to call him Faldo.

And you know, nowadays you tell people that they're like, what are you talking about? He was always a superstar. No, they weren't always superstars.

They, they went through that process to pay their dues, get beat up and kind of learn how to win that next level. I remember that Payne Stewart, it was, I'm not going to remember what golf course, unfortunately, but long, tough par three water all over the place. And he hung in there and hit it close. And that was kind of his, there's almost a shot that puts you into that next level that you want to be. And I, and I wish I remember the name of the golf course, but I remember that shot and I'm talking about the competitors did a great job.

So, you know, here's the situation where this is normally when it gets him and he just froze something in there and all of a sudden he was a different, a different player. Do you remember, I can't remember him trying to win the Byron Nelson down in, um, at Las Colinas and he got to the 18th hole. He had a one stroke lead and he three putted and then he went in a playoff and hit it in a bunker and bladed the shot out of the bunker over the green. And I think, um, Rex Caldwell won or Bob Eastwood or somebody won and, and, uh, you know, like Bob Eastwood versus Payne Stewart.

I mean, who's, who's heard of those guys, but they were tough and they knew how to get it done. Well, that's going to wrap up the On the Range segment. Come back. This is a show of extremes in golf with Jay Delsing and we are going to be right back. This is one on one ESPN. Doster Olam and Boyle LLC are a proud sponsor of golf with Jay Delsing here on one on one ESPN. The firm was started in January 2015 by Mike Doster, Jess Olam and John Boyle, three veterans of the St. Louis real estate banking, commercial and corporate legal landscape. The firm was founded on the shared view that success should be measured by client and community satisfaction, not profits for partner. The firm's focus is on business, real estate, corporate finance and restructuring and succession planning. Since its founding in 2015, Doster Olam and Boyle have been involved in real estate, business and corporate transactions with a combined value in excess of over one billion dollars. For decades, Doster Olam and Boyle lawyers have been recognized as leaders in their practice areas by their peers. Doster Olam and Boyle LLC, extraordinary talent, ordinary people.

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Welcome back. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. Jay and John are here and we're going to the front nine. So we're doing our show of extremes. Before we get into some more of the fun stuff about being nervous, but just crazy things we've seen things we've done.

What are you looking forward to this year? Golf wise, what, what is there anything that comes to mind? Because I know what a fan you are of the game.

I know you watch it even more than I do. You know, Rory's won two FedEx cups now. Rory won player of the year. He kind of did it almost in a quiet way. Yeah, for sure.

You know, and where people were thinking, oh, it's Brooks, it's Brooks, it's Brooks. And again, Kefka wins another major. What are you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to President's Cup end of the year. I like the competitions. I like the situations when the players are out of their normal element. You know, we already know who can play the best in the majors for the most part.

We already know who can do this and do that. I just like it when there's different things. So if it's if it's majors, but the weather is a little bit different or when some more or less lesser known person hops into the. And so I like to just see kind of a different gig, throw the players out of their normal patterns. That's why I like different types of formats. That's why I like that they even changed some of the rotation on the tournaments. I think it makes fun. You and I went back and forth this year several times, but I really like the way that they've divided this up. There's six months of something to really look forward to the game and in each one of the months, at least like we talk about the wraparound season is whatever it's it's needed. It's out there. It's it's still positive. They're still raising tons of money for charity. Guys are cutting their teeth, getting to have a win, things like that.

So I would say I'm looking forward to that part big time. And, you know, Jay, maybe the last time it was this extreme with new young guns coming up to Pike may have been obviously unbiased, but may have been around our time going out of college. There was a switch to where all of a sudden there was 15 to 20 new names getting established out there. And traditionally, it's one or two names a year.

Well, not anymore. You've got all these guys and they're coming from all different parts of the world, which is making changes as well. I like that. I do, too.

I think it's really cool. Let me ask you this on the President's Cup real quick. Tiger going to pick himself? I don't I just don't think he can.

I think I think you think I think you said you thought he would. I think it'd be interesting. It's it's not really a first. Right.

Per se. But I think it's a kind of be a tiger thing. I'm a huge tiger fan just physically. I just don't see how his body holds up for this. And so I think it'd be really unfortunate if he goes out there and physically can't get it done. That's that's a problem.

Right. I mean, how would you also think about the duties of trying to juggle all this and play? You know, you know much more about that. I, I, I don't roll my eyes with the duties of the of the of the captain. It's kind of like here's 12 guys.

Here's who's going to go play who. I know we make a ton about it. We had Jennifer Monroe on there.

You've talked to Julie Inkster about it. And I know there's quite a few pieces to it. But I also know you can get a great, you know, co-captains and guys that, by the way, have been there before if you really chose to. And they could handle a lot of those duties. You could just kind of go play. So, you know, I think that's one reason it's going to be interesting.

There's a lot of side stories for President's Cup. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really cool. All right. So let's go back to this extreme, our topics.

All right. So I was thinking about this. Longest drive I've ever hit.

Playing with David Ogren and Howard Twitty, playing at the International, Castle Pines, first hole. I had just played the back nine. This is when they're stable.

We're using the stable for a system. And the only thing you don't want to do is make a bunch of pars. You want to go out and you can make five birdies in a triple bogey. And you're going to be right up on the leaderboard. I make eight pars and three putt eighteen. So now I got a black one and I am just on fire and I got to walk across the thing and I hit a drive. And I don't know if it hit a sprinkler head or what, but I hit we figured it was like four hundred and forty something yards.

This is in the 90s. I was one hundred and eighty one yards in front of David Ogren. And the way I know that is that he marked it off. And I hit an eight iron into that par five. Did you make birdies?

I did. Just barely. Slopped in a little four-footer after hitting my eight iron over the green. But got out the next day, hit a drive. Nice drive. Hit it good. I laid up with a four iron.

Wow. What did you hit? You must have hit something out there. I hit something, but I couldn't find the mark on the ball. So I don't know.

Maybe I didn't look. So I just wanted to think it was one of those drives. Shortest drive. Worst drive. So one of my growing up.

This is this is just fun as hell. Growing up, we're playing in the morning and get my drive out there. My buddy hits a drive, hits it off the heel low. It gets the white tee marker. Those were the times when it was a little bitty ball about the size of a baseball.

Hard as a rock, though. Dead square. And this ball is rocketing back at us and goes behind us out of bounds. Tough play from there. Three tee, baby. I guess what's the difference between hitting a 300 yarder out of bounds or a negative 50 yarder out of bounds?

I guess it's the same thing. Right. I did play with Greg Norman down in Memphis and saw him top a drive 40 yards. He was the best driver of the ball in my generation. I will tell you, between he and Fuzzy Zeller, they were the best drivers of the ball.

Long and straight. Norman was longer and a little straighter than Fuzzy. Fuzzy was a really underrated ball hitter. But Greg Norman hit a drive about 40 yards.

Never got off the ground. I actually felt great about that. The best players in the world can absolutely miss them. TV makes you guys even look better. For the most part, they don't show the terrible shots. If you're not playing well, it's like you're not even in the tournament. Yeah, they don't show you the weeks when you see that.

You made a great point. You have done some behind-the-scenes work for NBC for the Ryder Cups. Three Ryder Cups, right? Ah, four. Four Ryder Cups.

Sorry, four. How about when you're playing and you're on that team and you've earned your way on that team, but you're not playing well, you cannot hide. When you're playing on the regular Tour Pro and you're having a lousy week, you're either at the back end of the bus, barely making the cut before TVing gets on, or you miss the cut entirely. That's the beauty of it. Right. I remember my wife, Sally, worked at one of the Ryder Cups as well.

She didn't know golf that much. All she had to do was keep and score. Yeah. Did you just say all she had to do? Yeah. Sorry about that, Sally.

We'll make sure you hear this. She had a tough time with that because the weather was horrible that day. Was that in Valderrama?

No, that was terrible weather, too. Where did Maggert play? Was it Brookline?

I think it was Brookline. Anyway, so we get over to the first 18. We've got to hustle around. It's fun, but it's a lot of work. So Sally's doing 36.

Yeah, she's going to do 36. Trooper. So we just sit down to have a little box lunch. We're sitting under a tree before the next matches start. And she said, why is Jeff Maggert in this tournament? I said, well, what do you mean he's one of the best players in the world? Oh, I thought he was an amateur. I said, Sally, he's one of the best players in the world.

I said, what are you talking about? She said, he hit it in the trees of the water on every hole. But that's the thing about the Ryder Cup and these events. He may have played great two years ago to qualify.

Right. And then he's just not on his game, but it's like, you're up. First of all, if they're playing that bad, they're probably not going to play in the tournament that week. Let alone just go out there and play bad. As you said, if they do play bad, they're not going to get seen.

They're going to miss the cut. Now you're on the world stage. Go play. So that was something. I got to see a lot of that. Wayne Levy, he almost set out the entire matches one year he was playing so poorly.

I don't know if it was the war at the shore where Dave Stockton was captain, but it was one of those. And he was, it's like you said, this is a two year points are compiling and you're earning the spot. So you earn it. They can't really take it away from you, but man, they really don't want to play you. Yeah. And you might not want to play.

I mean, they're all competitors, so I guess they want to get out there. But you know, if you don't have your game, you don't have your game. And didn't you say that was the case with Curtis Strange when he was playing at Brookline? Oh yeah.

Because he was a captain's pick too, right? Yeah. It was, it was kind of brutal to watch and he was playing Faldo in the last match. And fortunately I got that, another story. But it was kind of what I said, it looked like it was going to be all over. I said, if it's going to matter, it's going to matter with this match. And Faldo could not find the club face.

Yep. And Strange just could not make the ball go where he wanted either. And Faldo just wedged him to death and goes out and beats him.

So it's tough. But I remember Curtis walking down, here's a very, very, very accomplished player. As you were walking off the first hole at Bel Air and fell down the hill, he didn't have his hands in his pockets and he wasn't clearing his clubs. And I didn't know if he was going to make it down the hill. I just saw maybe the most nervous person I've ever seen in my life. And he just was really having a tough time with that. And you know, Faldo just edged him out on that last hole. We've heard some of the stories and heard some of our friends talk to us about how nervous those team competitions are.

You know, where there's that extra weight where you feel like, damn, man. But they're out of their element. Right. You're not playing. This isn't like my game. My game sucks. Like you said, if I'm playing this poorly, I'm not going to show up and try to beat the best players in the world. You go work on your game and, you know, but you don't take it. You get the flag on your clubs and you got your flag on your back and, you know, it has a different meaning.

And hopefully you try to convince yourself that's not the case, but none of them seem to be able to do that. It's just hard. Yeah, very hard. Okay, so back to our fun topics about extremes. I got to tell you a story about I was down at Disney playing at the... Orange, Orange, Orange Tree?

No, I was playing at MAG. What are you going to tell the Orange Tree fishing golf story? Oh boy, we got to tell that. I'll get tossed right under the bus.

Hopefully we haven't told that on the show. Anyway, so Pearl, I got three amateurs with me standing on the 16th tee at the MAG. You know, it's a straight away par four, pretty short.

400, 420, something like that. And getting ready, the group clears in front of us. And I look, I'm standing back there and I look at my caddy. Nick DePaul was caddy for me at the time.

And Nick DePaul won the British Open with Seve Balsteros twice and Nick was hell of a caddy. And I said, Nick, look at that over here. Something's in the left rough moving towards the fairway.

And I, and it was 20, 25 feet long. And I said, what is that? And he goes, holy, man, that is a snake. And I said, so I call an official, Slugger White, great guy, good friend, was right behind the 15th green.

I said, Slugger, look at that. He goes, whoa, I've never seen anything like that big. I go, you got to get down there and make, and he goes, I don't want to get, you know, your first reaction is, send a caddy. Send a caddy and let him know, hey, is that snake poisonous? So he goes, oh man, I go, you got to get down there and make sure this thing just shuffles off into the bushes and doesn't, you know, get, go after some people. He came back, so we waited and we're literally watching this thing slither across the fairway. It didn't take nearly as long as you might guess either and walk his way right into, you know, how swampy that property is.

Great fishing and stuff out there too. But he came back and said, he has never seen anything that big and that frightening that wasn't in a zoo. What kind of was it?

Do you remember? He said it was, he said black and I'm like, I don't, I mean, they have Python issues in Florida in general in every grade. Apparently some people let some go, you know, years ago and that's not quite the same area, but I'm wondering if it's, Oh, it could have been, I don't know, but I, I, I, I wouldn't want to get anywhere near that.

Oh my kid. I'm not really one of those people all afraid of snakes necessarily, but something like that is just like, what do you, what do you do around that? And then I'll, I'll tell you one other story. In 1985, we're down in Pensacola and this is, you know, the tour is just new for me, my rookie year. And there is a 13 foot alligator just strolling around, like literally we're walking, I'll never forget, I'm walking down this par five and I look over and I'm like, it looks like a dinosaur.

And it's got a midwest boy goes south and sees that the Florida boys could care less. They would run up there and tap on the, on the tail. Completely freaked me out. Completely freaked me out. I was like, no way. This thing was, you know, longer than your car and about as wide as a refrigerator.

I'm like, Oh, no way. If you got any, if you got a story, like an animal story on a golf course or anything that, one time I caught a trout with my wedge up at, at Edgewood. Yeah. I was, no, it was, it was just flipping around. I think it was spawning season and I went down there and you know, me fishing, you're the best fisherman I've ever been around.

I go down there and it's about a one and a half, two pounder. And I just walked down the water's edge and I had my wedge in my hand and I reached down and you know how you kind of scoop a ball out of the water type of thing. You know, when you're looking for, I just went there and it, and I just flicked it. That thing came fluffing up right up on shore. There you go.

I didn't have a license or anything. You tossed it back? I tossed it back. Very good. Very good. Well, that's going to do it for the front nine.

Come back. We've got more of our Xtreme show on Golf with Jay Delsing. This is 101 ESPN. Quick note. We just got a call from our friend Joe Sieser at USA Mortgage.

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Welcome back, St. Louis. This is Golf with Jay Delsing. I'm your host, Jay. I got my buddy, Perley, here and we are headed to the back nine.

Perley, let's talk just a little bit about Whitmore. They're the title sponsor of our show. It's just a great membership. 90 holes of golf.

You got 36 at Whitmore. You got the links of Dardane, the Golf Club of Wentzville, the Missouri Bluffs, and it's kind of a big deal. They include the golf cart fees in that membership so you're not getting hit for additional cart fees. I love not getting nickeled and dimed when you're a member. I love it.

I love it too. They got a great 24-hour fitness complex, a great pool, three tennis courts. But the biggest part that strikes me about Whitmore is the opportunity to play golf. You got the various golf courses to choose from and then you've got the family aspect. So there's junior golf, junior tennis, swim teams, and swim leagues for your kids. There's this kids club that's really awesome. You drop your kids off, you go play golf, they can do what they do and you can reconnect later.

Bummer and the staff over there are some of our favorites. They run golf league skins games, members tournaments, there's husband-wife events, there's all sorts of different fun stuff to do over at Whitmore. One of the things for amateurs to really have their game get better is to play different golf courses. And when you're stuck at a membership where there's only one course, it's not as good for your game. Definitely for the game, getting to meet people, check things out, keep it fresh. A lot of good parts.

So go visit them at whitmoregolf.com. Alright, so this is our Xtreme show. We talked a little bit about being nervous, we talked a little bit about some of the longest drives. What's the most nervous you've ever been caddying for me? Caddying for you? I remember one time when we were playing in Tucson, you were playing really well and teed off on, was it the par 5 where there's water left on the back?

Yeah, I think so. Tough first swing of the day to say the least and it's one of those holes where you're doing a good drive, it's kind of an auto birdie. And I remember, I wasn't nervous, we're walking up to the first hole, up to the green, and you turn around to me and say, what's wrong with you, are you nervous? I looked at you and I said, I'm just carrying your bag, I think it might be you.

And you just got your game in a dalton, you gave me a dalton, hairy eyeball. I'm trying to think when I was nervous carrying your bag. You know, I'll tell you what, you could tell if I was nervous because I would get really quiet.

Because I'm like, I don't want to disrupt anything. I would say probably Jay a couple of times. I've never noticed it by the way, I've never noticed you being nervous other than what I said on that tee and obviously it was because I was nervous. Yeah, I just don't remember too much with that. I remember if there was any time, sometimes it would probably be with some of the guys we played. We played with Stewart Sink and Kenny Perry one time and I was actually kind of buddies with Kenny because I had played some mini tour golf with him. But I was always a little bit nervous there because it was those times where I really wanted you to shine to kind of get to that sense of playing with these guys and playing up with that next level of people and that kind of stuff.

You know, we talk about it on the show all the time. My biggest nervousness was to make sure I didn't lose a golf bag before we teed off. If I made it to the first tee, I wasn't going to be nervous after that.

Your nervousness came the night before. Oh man, I think about that. That is something. If you had an ideal, you have to pick your foursome.

Oh boy. Who would you throw in there? Who would be yourself and who would the three people be?

God, I don't do this stuff well at all. Who would my foursome be? Oh man, I would pick my dad and my brother. It would be a no-brainer. I would probably pick you. It would be the four of us. That would be a lot of fun.

We had so much different times that way. Yeah, it would probably be, I guess if I had to, it would be more of my dad, me, Arnold Palmer, and maybe a professional from another sport or something like that. You like Michael Jordan? Yeah. MJ?

I don't know. He doesn't pay. My father would definitely be having a bet with him. He would probably win. He would get enough strokes. He wasn't going to beat him straight up.

It's true. He was a gamer. He would have won some of that.

No, I would do it for my father's sake. I would have done it then with, had Larry Bird play with us. Oh yeah. That was always my dad's favorite. Larry Bird was my dad's favorite too.

Yeah, that's pretty incredible. You didn't ask me before, but the most nervous I ever was when we played NCAA's senior year, first tee, San Joaquin. San Joaquin Valley Country Club. I about passed out, hydro-ventilating. I was in trouble. That's a tough tee shot too because it's elevated.

Anything hitting the golf ball, because it was the pinnacle for me. It was playing NCAA's. I thought our team had a chance to win. We did. We had a chance to win.

I was definitely lower man on the totem pole, if not lowest man on the totem pole. But I had a good tournament. And that's where I got, you know, the things that I got out of it. But it was a lot of fun. It was, I can remember, I have a couple holes into it. I calmed down somewhat, but it was probably the third round before I calmed down.

That's what I was going to ask you. So one of the things that happens as it goes, what I've experienced is with that nervousness that you get into it. Like when playing basketball and things like that, like we did, being able to run and being able to burn some of that or hit something or throw something. It's a real relief.

With golf, you don't have that outlet. And sometimes you can get that anxiousness and anxiety to burn off. And other times it's like, it's stuck on me.

It can be on me all day. And it's exhausting. Yeah, it was exhausting. I hated that part of it for sure. Although I have to say, again, the hardest part for me going through tour school. I did really well the one year, almost made it through.

When I got on the golf course, Jay, especially after the first swing, it was almost remarkable how calm I was. The in-between plan, it was horrible. You know, it's a six-round tournament. I was exhausted by the last two rounds. And that's really what got me. I was playing really well, but I didn't sleep well. I didn't eat. I was exhausted. I hate acknowledging it, but that was the bottom line.

Right. I was one of those guys that I could get back into my room and just kind of go, nah, this is... I mean, I could get anxious. But as I learned, and we're going to have Bob Rotella on the show, which will be really fun. You learned how to, and you know how to do that in a much better way now. When you can, you know, you almost have to transplant thoughts and seed your brain with the good things to choose from.

Otherwise, it'll go right back to these old tapes that you play all the time. And typically, they're the ones that toss you in areas that you don't want to go to. So here's an extreme question for you. What's the most mad, upset, hot you've ever been on a golf course? Oh, boy. That is a good one.

I know one that had to rank pretty high. Down in Alabama, going through... Oh, that is it. That is 100% in.

I've never been that mad in my entire life. So we've got to set that up. So we're playing in the Nationwide Tour Championship.

To the second round, I shoot. This is horrible weather we're having. Horrible weather. Tons of rain. Cold and damp, too, right, bro?

Yeah. It was just brutal. And we get out, got the lead after two rounds, and I need to finish... What do I need to... Pearl, I don't need to...

I need to finish somewhere in the top ten to get my card for next year, right? So I go to the Saturdays round, and it is a nightmare. It is raining. We're playing lift clean in place. There's puddles in the fairway. Half of the golf course was catching water. Completely underwater, and we plod through it. I think I shoot 74, 70, somewhere.

I don't know. Kind of go back up on the bubble. Yeah, so I go from leading by a couple to... And my first round was very mediocre, too. It was like another 74, and then I shoot like 62, and then 74, and it is unplayable, in my opinion.

I thought it was unplayable. We get out the Sundays round... But they were convincing you, oh no, Jay, we're going to finish.

I remember this with the... because you were asking the officials. No, no, no, we have to finish, and that kind of stuff. So we're like, okay, you know, it's good. Hey, what we're going to do... So I can remember on the seventh hole, that par five, we hit our... We can't reach... We can't hit a ball more than 230 yards. It's raining so hard, so wet. We lay it up there to about a nice little number for our wedge, 90 yards or so. And, Pearl, there's the entire fairway's water. And we call an official out, and he says, oh, here, come drop it over in the four-inch-per-meter rough, which means... Downhill lie.

I can't get it on the green, correct? And I said to him, I'll never forget this. I said, what are we doing out here?

This is ridiculous. And I do remember, if they canceled the third round, I'm in. I'm in.

Okay, so we're struggling along the thing. I think I'm even par. One under, one over, whatever it is, but right on the bubble. And we get to like hole number, and I just make a birdie, and we get to like hole 14, and the horn goes off. So they're suspending play, as we thought, suspending play. So we go in, and they can't, no, they did cancel play. And I was not, I was in on the course where I was with five holes left. I was just out after the three rounds. Without the round, right. We get in there, and it's the same conditions. Nothing has changed other than it's still raining. And they say we're wiping this fourth round out. The fourth round didn't occur.

And we're going, the results will stand after three rounds. And how many times did they tell us, you heard them. I was there. I was there. Yeah, you were hot. They told us, oh man, I can, oh man. You were marching up and down the road.

You were just beside us. I didn't know what to do with myself. It was such a huge deal in your life.

You know, you got kids, you got a family, you're supporting them. And all of a sudden, you have your card, now you don't have your card. Well, I was trying to figure out what to do with this. When you're telling us you're doing one thing, and then going ahead and changing the rules mid-stroke was really hard to handle.

Yeah. That was, I... What's the most pumped up you've ever been on a golf course? Oh man, I can remember almost winning Memphis without hitting that golf cart and having my ball going into the tree. It was one where, when I shot 61, I shot 61 on a Sunday.

It was one of the most fired up. It was almost like, can I just play, if I can play three more holes, I know I can birdie all three of those. I got to, I had a finish at the Bank of Boston in Sutton, Mass. We used to play that tournament up there. I finished, on Saturday's round, I finished with five threes. I finished and played, you know, finished with five threes for the last five holes.

Oh, that's awesome. And on Sunday's round, I'll never forget, I was playing with Curtis Strange. I was trying to catch Azinger, and I... He was rooting for you.

Yeah, oh yeah, Curtis was like, who are you? Anyway, I went, I birdied 16, I birdied 17, and I was charging, you know, I had all this momentum, and I hit it in this greenside bunker in two, going for the green in two, and remember just, I'm like, you got to make this wedge shot, and I hit it, and I'm thinking, oh man, and I hit it up there about an inch. So I birdied the last three holes to wind up finishing second. But you know what, Pearl, that momentum, and we see this all the time in sports, you talk about the Cardinals and the Cubs series, you know, last weekend and stuff, and how you can just see that momentum, and as it runs, it's such a powerful thing. And I look about, and think about how many times I derailed myself because I didn't respect it enough in my game, where I should have said, I don't need to take any risk, put the ball in the green, things are going your way, you're liable to hold another putt.

I would change that if I could in the way that my approach to the game if I could. A lot of fun when you've got it rolling in the right direction. A huge high. Yeah, so that was great. This was really fun. We kind of put this show together with some extremes. We've got some more we can do another time. I like this.

Yeah, absolutely. But that's going to wrap this up. This is the back nine. This is Golf with Jay Delsing on 101 ESPN. Urban Chestnut Brewing Company is proud to be an official sponsor of 101 ESPN's newest show, Golf with our friend Jay Delsing. Just like Jay, Urban Chestnut is born right here in St. Louis. With three local brewing and restaurant locations, you won't travel far to sample straight from the source. If you're heading out to the links this weekend or if you're just in the mood for a classic German style beer, grab a four pack of our fresh, refreshing Zwickl Bavarian lager wherever craft beers are sold.

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This ensures you will always get the perfect fit you're looking for. Visit Golf Discount today. It's time for the 19th hole on golf with Jay Delsing. Welcome back, St. Louis.

We just finished 18 holes of golf and we are going to our favorite segment, the 19th hole. Let's just run straight into this edition of Whack and Chase. All right, guys, time to solve everybody's problems.

Jeff is on the line for another edition of Whack and Chase. Well, good morning, Jeff. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. How are you, gentlemen?

Good. Where are you calling in from? Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So, Jay, I would say how many of the states have we got covered now that South Dakota is calling? We've got to be close to 10. Oh, I don't think so. Maybe like four.

Oh, I was thinking 15, but I was up to 10. We'll get there eventually. So, Jeff, tell us a little bit about your golf game and what specifically are you looking for, Jay, to help you with? Well, Jay, I'm a single-digit handicap.

Nice, Jeff. Thank you. I'm struggling with getting the ball close at a rough that's fluffy and type of a flyer lie with a 56- and 60-degree wedge. Well, I understand that problem. That does not sound easy.

What about the shot that got you into the rough? Is that not a problem? Yeah, I guess that is a problem, too. Well, when we start talking about golf games, I mean, where do we start when it comes to problems?

It's like, well, you know, yesterday I thought I was putting well, and today not so much. So, Jeff, while Jay is kind of digesting that challenge that you put in front of him, we always like to ask the callers just a couple of questions to maybe stump them, maybe encourage them, maybe this to kind of ramp up the conversation here. So, let me see here. Where should we go with you? Tell us a little bit about the best shot you've ever hit. The best shot I've ever hit was on number 10 at Spring Creek Golf Club. I love this guy. He knows his shot. He knows his favorite shot.

Go ahead, keep going. Spring, what did you call it? Spring Creek Golf Club. It's in Harrisburg on the border of Sioux Falls, hole number 10, 285-yard par 4, made an ace. What?

That's awesome. What are you doing calling in on our show, man? We need to be calling you to figure out how to make an ace on a par 4. So, tell us about the shot. What did you hit? Where did it land? You got to give us a little bit.

Yeah, we did. Were you able to see it go in? I wasn't able to see it. So, this hole is a short par 4 with trees all down the left side and right side, and they shape the fairway kind of in a half moon from right to left. It's real hard to hit the green because there's a road on the left.

They don't want you trying to hit it over the trees, but I have a high ball hitter, and I just took my driver out and hit it as high and as hard as I could. The guy that I was playing with laid up in the fairway, so we went to his ball. He hit it up on the green. Really never saw my ball land.

I thought it would be close to the green if not on. We looked over the green, short of the green, searched the rough, and that's a joke. The guy says, let me go look in the hole. So, he walks over, and there it is in the hole. We were screaming, jumping up and down, and he photographed me taking it out of the hole. That's awesome.

That's fantastic. Let me ask you this. So, we've made hole-in-ones before and things like that. How come we never, unless we see them going, how come we never look in the hole first?

Yeah, never. We're so used to the damn ball not going. And why are we so surprised? We're trying to do it our whole lives. If we finally do it, then we're surprised. I know.

And it finally goes where we want it to, and we don't look there. Amazing. Amazing. Okay, well that's part of it, Jeff.

So, now tell us, what's the most frustrating? You play any tournament golf, Jeff? Any competition? Do you ever play Nassau's?

Anything with your buddies? Yeah, I do play. I play Nassau skins, nines, and I do play in some competition. I played in the Sioux Falls City Championship. It was probably my biggest one this year.

Oh, cool. So, when you're playing competition, what's the most frustrating experience you've had on the golf course? Hitting the ball into a situation, for example, this year, had an 8-iron into a green, and the ball was caught in the wind.

It flew into the tall grass behind the green, prairie grass. Tried to play a shot, couldn't get it out, and buried it deeper in the tall grass. Took a couple whacks at it, ended up taking an unplayable lie, went back out of that penalty area, and, you know. Well, this is a tin-cup story. A little tin-cup story it sounded like here.

That's brutal. I made a great putt to save a nine. Our college golf coach used to come up to us when we'd have a bad hole. He said, well, champ, eight's better than nine, isn't it? And that never helped me, Jay, when he said that. No, it pissed me off a little bit.

Well, I know it didn't help you, and you would kind of keep that stewing for like a while too. Well, now what you're supposed to do is keep all the bad stuff in the forefront of your mind so you can screw up a bunch of other shots. Yeah, I can remember someone saying, I cannot believe you made an eight on that hole. How in the hell did you make an eight? And I heard a guy say, I made about a 10-footer.

Yeah, that's how I made that eight. It didn't seem that hard at the time. It's all relative. It's all relative on that. Okay, so let's get back to Mr. Jeff's question, Jay. So he was asking, hitting that middle wedge, the 60 out of the fluffy rough, so I'm guessing the ball's not sitting all the way down.

It's kind of fluffy. And he's trying to hit that shot. It kind of reminds me a little bit of when you and I would do the work and we'd talk about whether you could get to the ball or not get to the ball. Right, so Jeff, single digits, great stuff that your game is so good. So the first thing that we do is we try to read the lie.

Okay, so you've got to go in and look at what you're dealing with. Whenever you get a lie, Jeff, where the back of the ball is kind of clean, where there's not going to get a lot of grass that's going to get between you and the club face, then you're going to have a few more options. Okay, so you can actually hit your 56 or your 60. You can play a low shot, etc., for whatever you're most comfortable with.

But it sounds to me like what you're struggling with is you said kind of a hairy, kind of the ball sitting in between, and that poses a completely different issue. So what happens on stuff like that, Jeff, is that your club face never really touches the ball. You hit a bunch of grass and then you hit the ball. And so what we decided years and years ago, and this was one of the turning points in my short game, when I read those lies, Jeff, and I can't hit it, I go to – You can't get to the ball without hitting grass. Right, what I mean by can't hitting it is I can't get a clean back of the ball on that club face so that I can get some spin or get some grip on it.

I go and hit my bunker shot. So I'll go and play that shot almost exactly like it's in sand. So the ball's got to go up in my stance. Jeff, it's going to be a much longer swing, slower swing. And one key component is you've got to add some angle on your backswing so that your angle of approach and your angle of attack on the ball is where you want it to be in that grass.

And what I mean by that is you don't want – there's no situation that I can think of that I want to be taking six to eight inches of sand or grass. I want to be taking three to four and while knowing that, Jeff, it's going to let you know how hard to swing. And so as we summarize, but I want you to get a bunch of angle so the club is going to be lifted on your backswing. And what that's going to do, it's going to give you a little bit of a chop almost feel to it. But a good player like you, I'm sure you know how to use the bounce and you keep turning through that and the ball's going to go up in the air because of that angle and come down soft.

And you're going to be able to have that to play with and figure out how to get that thing up and down. And I think also maybe, Jay, what do you think about moderate expectations a little bit? I mean this is a tough shot. You're not getting to the ball first. There's a lot of different things that you can't know exactly. You're taking the angle attack as close as you can to hit the ball, but you're still going to hit grass.

So keep the expectations. And you and I talked about that a lot because you can get in trouble in these situations. Then there's a bunch of trouble. Just get the dang thing out and if it goes fairly close, fine. And then work on that shot that puts you in the rough to begin with.

I'm still stuck on that one. No, that's the way. And, Jeff, typically these things are when we're short-sighted, meaning we've got a really short, tight pin.

And this is going to really help you get the ball up in the air and land it soft. Makes a lot of sense. I can see it. Well, thank you, Jeff.

Appreciate the time. Appreciate South Dakota. Mark that up. I think that's the fifth different state. What do we got? We need to get a map. I'm thinking ten.

I like it five. I'm sure I'm exaggerating. We need a map with like ten pins is all we need for the rest of the year anyway. I know we did it. We had someone from Arizona and from Texas for sure.

And Florida. Hey, Jeff, the way we sign off on Whackin' Chase is if this advice helps you, tell everybody about Whackin' Chase. Tell them about what time we're on. Tell them about the podcast.

If you keep hitting these things crappy and hitting them in the rough and everything, tell them we never talked. You got it. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. Have a great day. Thanks, guys. I love these Whackin' Chase collars.

They're really fun. Man, that's going to do it for another show. Pearly, thanks for being with me. Meat, as always, thanks for keeping us together.

If you want to take credit for that, that's totally up to you. But another fun show. 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.