Golf With Jay Delsing - - Let's Crank This Up To 11

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.

I've got my buddy John Perlis here, pearly Sunday morning, the TPC. We gotta do, we gotta do, we're gonna do this entire show on the TPC and preview, talk about the golf course, talk about the community, talk about all of it. Yeah, just a great event to watch. All the excitement coming down the stretch, but the history behind it, the constant talk about it being the fifth major, just all those exciting things. It has absolutely made some players and it has absolutely broken some players.

No doubt, no doubt about it, no doubt about it. Well, we've formatted the show like a typical round of golf. This is the On the Range segment brought to you by 20 Minutes to Fitness.

20 Minutes to Fitness once a week. It works for me. Well, Perlis, the players, I see it in my mind as the fifth major. It'll never probably be added as a major, but best field of the year. Kind of messes up everything else if they try to add it as a major. I mean, the whole slam thing that this and all the guys that they can't compare you to then. Yeah. I don't know, but I mean, they change things in other sports and other rules and stuff, but I don't know.

I think golf with its tradition, I like just keeping it a close fifth, if you will. Right. I agree with you.

I think that's the only way to do it. And I think, you know... Where do we start on this? Jay, talk about some of the beginnings of this. I mean, they didn't even play this golf course, did they, when they first went down there?

No. The Players Championship was created because Jack and Arnold thought that the players should have their own championship. Is that who came up with it? I mean, that's just classic.

It's clearly cooler than hell, right? And they used to play it right across the street at Jacksonville Country Club. Brutal golf course in its own right.

And then Pete Dye came along. The tour bought this swampland. I don't know if you've been to Ponte Vedra. Swampland? Yeah. Wow.

This place. I mean, we're talking 1982 was the first year we played over there at the TPC Sawgrass. So back in the 80s, they bought this land for nothing.

And oh man, is it something now. It is way more than... And so Pete Dye, kind of his signature golf course he came out with. And I can remember in 82, a couple of features that were immediately changed because you really don't know how a golf course is going to play until you get a tournament held on it, see how the best players in the world are going to handle. So even when you have world-class architects, and I'm glad you brought that up because there's tons of examples.

We could do a whole show on this. But world-class, they know what they're doing. They go out there, they put this together, and then really for the next two years, four years, five years, they're blowing holes up and redoing things. You know, I think when you see locally, I know some of your golf courses, Norwood has done some things and talked about other things, and going and making these changes. It's tough to make these changes and get it right, even if you're the best of the best.

I totally agree. So the eighth green, it's par three, that can play about 230 yards. That's about as long as it can play. In the beginning, Pearl, there was a 50-foot mound in front of the green, just right in front of the green. So the entirety of the green was blind. A bunch of players love that.

Oh, everybody loves that. I don't know why they got rid of that. And then the other change, the most dramatic change, I mean, they changed the 18th green a lot because it was way too severe. That dip in the middle left, balls would just get on the green, roll right into the water. The 16th green, Pearl, the front left edge, so that's the hole, was it last year or two years ago, Brooks Kepka made an albatross there. He made a two on the par five. The front left portion of that green, Pearl, was probably 10 to 12 feet higher than the rest of the green.

Wow, really? So you'd hit this long iron in there with all of our lousy equipment and that ball, it was like hitting a trampoline and balls would just rocket into the water. So guys stopped going for it in two and started trying to figure out a way to make pars there. So there were a lot of changes. I also remember it being so long.

Oh, correct. You know, they had the wind and stuff, but I just remember some of the early years, it just seemed to play for forever. Have they changed the length or is it the players and the equipment that have made that thing? They did change the length and the golf course still was a bear, but now enter the modern era and it's just turned everything on its head. But back in 1982, you'll recall Jerry Pate won that event. I think he played with a yellow ball.

He jumped into the lake on 18, threw the commissioner in the lake, you know, threw anything he could into the lake. And that was kind of that. But the biggest thing, Pearl, and I played when the players used to be in March, the players moved from May to March. Monumental difference weather-wise. Now, I don't know if you've been to Jacksonville in, is March considered springtime? I think so down there. We might want to, we might want to think it here, but it's going to be, it can be cold, especially in the mornings. And bigger thing is wind. That golf course will play.

And the other thing that you've got to remember, Pearl, they're not going to be able to overseed like they can when the weather gets warmer. So they're going to go ahead and there's, those are three monumental challenges for the players. And it's, oh man, it is, it's going to be all kinds of different when we get there this year. You know, and well, this week, I mean, it's, we're going to see the finish today and it is going to be, oh man, it's going to be difficult. So tell us a little bit about some of your personal experiences being down there.

I mean, did you like it? Oh, well, the first, let's talk about the golf course still a little bit more and we'll talk about some individual holes. The first thing that they came up with, John, was they had stadium seating.

What does that mean? They actually built into the ground, into these mounds, seats, you know, just there'd be some railroad ties and some flat areas and railroad ties and flat areas. And so you see these in the, so it literally stadiums on the sides of the greens. That was the first?

First one ever. And people are like, what? And you're like, man, you come down to the 18th green and you all of a sudden, it's a natural amphitheater sort of thing.

I love that. There was a little bit of that around, Riviera had that obviously for forever, things like that. No seating, but they did have the hills and that amphitheater type look that's really cool. So they built that in.

Yeah, that certainly wasn't natural from a swamp. And what they were, it was the first attempt to try to make the events more user-friendly, more spectator friendly, you know, gets, you know, maybe someone had a crystal ball and said, man, this thing is going to be big one day and we got to get a bunch of folks around here. The other thing that's significant, huge purse, always one of the top purses on tour, always. And I think it's the richest purse on tour.

It's always hard to know with Augusta because they never tell you what the purse is until like a week after or Sunday of or something. But they wanted to make it special. So special amphitheater, special designs, extra money, the whole thing to kind of get the guys into it. Yeah, absolutely. And so that was definitely something that needed to be dealt with. And the golf course had its changes and things like that.

And it was fantastic. One of the things that sticks out in my mind there, John, is the practice facility. It is world class, like nothing you've ever seen before. It's got a driving range where it was the first driving range to ever use both ends, where they had areas on both ends. It's got a short game area, world class, nothing you've ever seen.

Bunkers, tight areas to pitch and chip on and spectacular. One of the things I did was when I was on my quest to understand the short game, I remember going, I hung out with Fred Couples back at the short game area, hung out with Corey Pavin, I hung out with Brad Faxon and just picked all their brains. And picking Fred and Corey's brain was not an afternoon endeavor. These guys are world class, great short game players and have no idea how they're doing it. Plus just unique in a lot of ways. I got to play with Fred one time and obviously Corey a hundred times. And as phenomenal as they were, as they are, I'm not sure how you quite copy that. I remember talking to Corey about that part and how he uses lower body, how he sets up to it. I'm thinking, man, this is so different than what I was taught, what I'm doing. And you can't call it wrong when they are world class.

I mean, how many years is Corey arguably the best short game player in the world? But that's kind of interesting. I think it tells you there's a lot of ways to do it, but it's tough to go with their method.

Yeah, it's tough to translate. I mean, look, they're trying to describe a feel and they've obviously not done a dissertation on this. They just are proficient at it, right? And so they're just, here's what I think I do. This is what I believe and this is a feel I want and they would go with it. There's obviously some serious power to that because those guys both played phenomenal under pressure.

They sure did. We'll get back to that, but I want to jump over to Justin Hoagland, our friend at Golf Tech, PGA professional and city manager to continue our series on the basics. We're talking the short game.

Let's have Justin talk about the basics. So we've got the acronym GASP and the S stands for stance. And what we find with players with their stance is that, well, first of all, they're not that recognizing of what they're actually doing or aligning with their stance and how fun their feet are and how that affects them. Just in a nutshell, the stance width does affect how a player rotates or doesn't rotate the body. The narrower the stance, the better they rotate, the wider the stance, the more apt they are to want to swirly.

And swimming is a pretty big issue with most amateur players. So in general, what we're looking for is a stance that gets wider as the golf club is longer. Just look at it as far as the stance width in between your feet being a little wider than the shoulders in general, two to three inches wider than the shoulders with the driver in the fermi woods.

And then on down, increase it about an inch, inch and a half as you get from the middle lines down to the shorter irons. Thanks, Justin. That was Justin Hoagland from GolfTEC. And that's going to do it for the On The Range segment.

Don't go anywhere. Perle and I are going to go to the front nine. This is Golf with Jay Delsing on 101 ESPN. Dr. Olam and Boyle LLC are a proud sponsor of Golf with Jay Delsing here on 101 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.

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Jay and John are here to bring you the segment we call the front nine. Thanks for your questions and your comments. Keep these emails coming. Each week, if we select your email and read it on air, you will win Golf or Two at Gateway National Golf Club. Really nice course down just on the east side of town. Compliments of Walters Golf Management. This week's email comes from Carol. I met you this past fall at the Julie Inkster event and loved how passionate you were about women playing more golf and feeling comfortable enough to take the leap and jump in as a beginner. What is the most important thing for someone, especially a woman, who has just begun who is just beginning?

Hey Carol, thank you for hanging out with Julie and I and thanks for the question. I do remember you're relatively new to the game and yeah, you know, what I see, huge supporter of female sports and you know, dad of four daughters, love the girls, love, I just, I've told you this I don't know how many times, we've got to get more more women playing the game. We just have to and one of the things that I, there's this intimidation factor I think of the old boys network, whatever that is, that is seems to me from the people that I've talked to, to be the biggest hurdle and the funny thing is the men don't play any better than the gals do. They don't. They're just less conscious about how they play. I guess it's the way they play it. They're just like, you know, I'm going to wing this ball over here and for some reason the women are just a little, you know, more timid and like they want to put that out there but I, trust me, the biggest thing is to get over the thought that you're not going to be good enough.

That should not be the reason, Carol, that you're not starting the game and I know that's not the case for you but hopefully this hits some listener and rings true to them. Get yourself a decent set of starter clubs and you don't even need to get a full set. You really don't.

You can get a driver and some sort of utility wood. You can get a 3-5-7-9 iron and some sort of wedge and a putter and a second-hand bag so you don't have to invest a lot in there and then once you are fully committed because somehow this game has this way of jumping on you and and not letting go, then you can make the investment into some better clubs and you'll know the difference. You really will be able to tell the difference but the biggest hurdle is mental, I believe, and for the women out there just know that the men don't play nearly as well as you think they do.

I promise you they don't and I think they're comfortable with the game and I think that might be part of her question here too. So, you know, part of it is go out early in the morning. Go out in the evening where there might not be a bunch of other people. Go ask somebody to play with you that does understand the game, the pace of the game, and things like that. At the end of the day, if there's one thing that people don't want to play with, people that don't know how to kind of play fast and kind of move along, don't be afraid in some cases. Pick up your ball. Move to the next hole. Keep the pace of play up.

I think anybody would want to play with you at that point because that to me is the number one detractor is if somebody's out there and they can't find the ball and they're just holding everything up. When you hit on the nail where my next point was going to be is find someone that can help you understand the flow of the game. Whose turn is it?

How does all that work? Because there is an etiquette involved in there. Now the rules of the game, don't be too freaked out about it because most of the men break all the rules anyway. We've got a whole new slew of rules that everybody's breaking, even tour players aren't comfortable with.

And we've got to figure that'll come. But to your point, Pearl, the way the game rolls, whose turn is it? That could give you a tremendous... Not stepping in line, how to mark your ball, just all those little subtleties that I promise you, anybody that truly understands this game would love to help you with that. And if they don't, then they don't really understand the spirit and the nature of the game. The other thing, Carol, to understand, this is not going to take you six months to learn. It's going to take you two times out of the golf course max, and you're going to understand it. And then you're going to be with some like-minded people that are going to help you with the flow. And look, we're also changing some of these etiquette things where you don't necessarily play out. There's no way to play out of turn anymore because they're wanting to play what's called ready golf to just speed up the round anyway.

So it's a great question. The other thing is jump in, jump in, don't be afraid to jump in. It's never a bad idea, especially the very first time out, to get a lesson, try to help you get your hands on the club correctly, and just kind of help you get the ball positioned correctly and things like that.

It's not a bad idea. And not everybody has to always play 18 holes either. So part of it too is just go out there and be comfortable with that. I played nine holes a couple of times in the evening with somebody that has played for a while. And boy, you can really find a ton of enjoyment. That's one of my favorite times to play anyway. It's so funny to me how few people play and how wide open the golf course often is.

Oh, me too. You know what? Grab a cocktail. Grab a cocktail, grab your husband, your boyfriend, your son, do whatever, and go play three holes.

Who cares? Hit a couple of balls if there's no one behind you. How do you decide if you grab your husband or your boyfriend?

How does that go? I guess whoever's in town. No, but find someone that's going to make this experience kind of fun and go have some fun. Man, this is going to be fun. Remember, you may not play as well as you'd like right away, but you're at a beautiful place. You're outside, and there's a lot to enjoy about that.

Well, Pearl, let's get back to this TPC. I'm really excited about this. One of the things that sticks out in my mind was the corporate and the community involvement in that event. They do a phenomenal job there.

What's different? I mean, just in they were one of the first ones to do it big time, or are they separate themselves currently? So think about this. When they were building the golf courses, this golf course, that was done with that in mind. So they were one of the first people to have a television compound area. This is where we're going to put the trucks, because as you see the game growing, you're like, well, wait a minute, where do we put the because you go out to Riviera, and it's so tight. And the golf course is not meant to have, you know, millions and millions of dollars worth of video equipment out there. And the TPC was designed that way with places hidden. So the trucks are over here, the compound is over there. We've got concession stands built into the terrain.

Just it was really well thought of and really ahead of its time. Great point. I mean, you hear about all the things like the Masters down in Augusta, what they do and all the land they're trying to buy around them to kind of accommodate parking, the whole thing.

So you're saying this was all staged. And so there's just a flow across the board, which is why people want to come out. And it's you're not getting bust across town and some of the other tougher things that still are worth going to a golf tournament for.

But why not make it easier? One of the other things, don't forget, this thing is a dynamo when it comes to making money for charity. It produces, oh, man, it throws off millions and millions of dollars for the local charities.

Why so much more? Just because the nature of the beast, the fifth major, that type of thing? It's also our headquarters have been in Jacksonville. It's kind of been the center of the PGA Tour since the PGA Tour and the PGA of America split. And it's a great venue. Jacksonville's been a really, really growing city. And you don't hear that much about it, but it's really doing some cool things. That area out there in Ponte Vedra Beach, it is spectacular.

Beautiful area out there. So they did so much right with the foresight that they put in there. They bought the land at the right time. They created this. It was kind of like if you build it, they will come sort of thing.

And they did that. If you've never had a chance to go play there, you've got to get there. I have not played there and I haven't catted there.

So I've missed out so far. The 17th hole is on your mind. It's one of the few holes that's on your mind the entire day. The entire day.

That's amazing. It's a wedge or nine iron or something in that ballpark for you guys. And it's in your mind the whole time. More so than, what is it, 17 at PGA West? More so than that island? Yeah, because you got to remember, this is one of those venues now. This is the home of the players. It never changes.

You only go and play the stadium course out in Palm Springs maybe once every four years. You've got this thing down and you are looking at it. I got to tell you a quick story. So the guys have seen crashes and burns. They're thinking they got to be able to hit the green, but they know in the back of their head it could get bad. It could get ugly.

There's no question. It's just one of those things where if that first ball doesn't catch land, now you've got your head just, the wheels are churning in there. It's almost like hitting it out of bounds, right? Yeah.

No, it basically is. There's a drop area, but that takes you around to the left. It changes the whole perspective of that green. And you drop the ball on the ground and there's a whole bunch of pieces to that. So almost just from an emotional standpoint, a pressure standpoint, yeah. But it might be just put white stakes around the green and go play that. That's probably about the way the player interprets that. Right.

There's been heavy drama. We saw Ricky Fowler just dominate that hole years ago. I think he made, he birdied it two or three playoff holes in a row against Kevin Kisner. And coming down to stretching regulation, I think Ricky went birdie birdie to get into the playoff. And that. Well, that put him in a whole nother level back in the day.

I mean, when I'm saying this, that hole made people and it broke people. He was kind of quote, the overrated guy. He hadn't won or he hadn't won the big stuff or whatever the case is.

What's going to happen? Well, he pulled it off that day in a big, big way. I got a question for you now.

This is unusual and I've always wondered this. This golf course produces some odd winners too, John. Odd winners, Craig Perks, Steven Ames, Nadja.

Why? One of the things I've thought about, I mean, it's the, there's a quirkiness to this golf course, a non, in a non-traditional sense. But maybe that's why, because you know, we talked about this, the comfort level of the, of the tour player.

I think when you take some of that week in, week out comfort, it can mess guys up a lot. And I think you take that out and then you add in a little bit of wind and the quirkiness. And I think that's a great observation. I hadn't thought about that before, but I I'll place my bet that that's kind of where that comes from.

Fred Funk won this golf tournament in 50 years of age. What? That just doesn't happen on the regular tour that there's, there's the, the part that gets me, Pete Dye had this thing called VD that he talked about, visual distortion. And that when I first went there, I was so intimidated.

We'll talk about this later in the show, but so intimidated because of my cat. He said, well, yeah, don't worry about that Lake over there. There's more, there's more land.

I'm like, what? It doesn't look like there's any place for you to hit your ball. And okay, back to why, why, why do we get the odd winner there on occasion? So is that also new to the tour? I mean, there'd be a hole here and there out on tour, but you're saying that's kind of all day long out there.

Yeah. I mean, once you learn how to play the golf course, it is an entirely different experience, but your first few times around there, it's not easy. And that's where a place where I don't foresee a whole lot of first time winners, unless there are some, you know, it's a Florida kid that's hung out there and played there a bunch because the learning curve is, at least it was for me and I'm, you know, there's nothing upstairs here in my chair, but what happens is the learning curve is, it was not easy because of the slopes of the greens and everything. So you'd see this flag sticking, you're going, how am I going to get my ball over here? And I'd be shooting straight at the flag stick and everybody else was playing over here and letting the slope work it in. And it's much safer playing. So I learned, I saw it after playing it the first year, but you still got to execute. I mean, everybody's got a pretty dang good idea where they want to go with the ball, but you still got to execute. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I mean, that's the name of the game. And it doesn't really quit out there.

No, it doesn't. It's kind of on you the whole time. No, it's like the first time, you know, you play there, you're like, I can make a double bogey on any single hole.

And I think I probably did. Yeah. Well, that's going to wrap up this front nine segment. This is golf with Jay Delsing.

Don't go anywhere. We're going to head to the back nine on one on one ESPN. four seven to one golf.

You can find them online as well. golftech.com dash St. Louis play better swing better golf tech. I got a big shout out and a thank you to Whitmore Country Club for supporting my golf show. I don't know if you know what more country club has 72 holes of golf. There's a 24 hour fitness center and has a extremely large pool complex. This is a family friendly country club to belong to. There's a kids club in the main clubhouse right near the fitness center. There are golf league skinned game members tournaments, couples events are available all year long. If you join at Whitmore, you also get access to the Missouri bluffs, the links of Dardin and the golf club of Wentzville. The cart fees are already included in that membership.

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Or you can call Whitmore at 636-926-9622. After 25 years on the PGA Tour, Jay Delsing takes you behind the scenes from the eyes of a pro. Now back to more golf with Jay Delsing on 101 ESPN. That's the brothers Osborne, this is Jay Delsing, my buddy John Perlis is here, this is golf with Jay Delsing and we are headed to the back nine. Well this is our TPC, the players championship preview and I got some stories.

Love it, love your stories. A couple stories. We had, I was playing with Greg Norman, Steve Pate, human volcano. I think he broke two clubs this practice round. Brad Faxon and I and we had a hundred dollar no bogey event and we had a little $25 game going. Threw up balls, I got Fax, Pater, Norman against Fax and I. I go to the second hole in my drive, hits tree, lose my ball. I'm out of the no bogey after two holes.

I'm like this sucks. I gotta root for all my buddies to make a bogey. Anyway, no one won the no bogey. That's a hard golf course to go around. Anybody get past the front nine? Fax did I think and he was hole in everything as he does and I think he bogeyed number 12 which is one of the easier holes out there so that that's the TPC for you. But what I remember about that was there was a Hall of Famer in that group, Greg Norman, who skipped out on us after 11 holes.

I think his back was tight but what I remember most about that pearl is that Fax and I were three units up. I did not like that. You're not going to let that go are you? How long ago was this approximately? A couple weeks ago. How many years ago? About?

25. I don't know. I wouldn't let it go.

I'd hang on to that for a little longer. You know we talked about all these multi-millionaires going out to the golf course not having any money. Maybe Greg didn't have any dough. I don't think so but yeah it's interesting. We got in and we were kind of like well who's paying for Greg and you know Peter said not me. Oh yeah no no that's not coming from there. Peter will pay for himself but he ain't paying for someone else.

No if he's not going to play for anybody else. So yeah that was kind of an interesting way to jump in there. So rookie you're on tour. I have a great tournament in Hawaii.

Finished ninth. Made $13,000 with my second tournament. It gets me off the money list into the TPC. So I'm like holy cow this is very cool because the week before I played at Bay Hill talked about a little bit about that on a prior show. Played with Johnny Miller and Hale Irwin and I'm thinking well this tour has got some characters. Go to go to TPC and I don't know how to describe in good enough words to say I was overmatched by a golf course. I was overmatched by a golf course. First of all I couldn't hit a fairway with my driver if you know that.

I was long but I was wrong as they say long and wrong. I couldn't hit and not really wise enough to back off like I should have and I think I posted either a pair of 77s or a pair of 79s. Either way not wear the hoot and the winner of the championship that week was one of the best players on tour. Calvin Peet he had trouble too. Minus 19.

Also one of the shorter players on the tour and at the time that's playing a pretty darn long golf course. 1985 Calvin Peet 1900 and I'm thinking to myself how am I gonna do this? Wrong occupation maybe. That's what I'm thinking I'm like maybe I should get another job. Maybe I could call you you could put me to work for your company. Did you have a company at that time yet? Not one you could have come to work for but I can remember a little bit about first of all how great Calvin Peet was playing but if I remember right he was hauling off a lot of woods into greens and you talking about playing the slopes and all that kind of stuff.

He was absolutely fearless. I played numerous rounds of golf with him. Was he a good guy?

Interesting. He was almost kind of a moody person you know I played with him out of the hope one time and he stepped in my line on the front nine and I said hey Calvin this is what we're wearing spikes. Hey Calvin he's like oh man I'm sorry I didn't know you're there. We get on the we got to like the 13th hole and almost got the size nine again and he's putting his foot down and I went and just grabbed him by the side of it and I said ah hey he's like what I'm like I'm over here. We talked about you know again when you're new on the tour you got to stand up for yourself and you gotta you know gotta scream and shout gotta do whatever you can because you know walking in someone's line hole man brutal.

I didn't like that. Well he was a heck of a player and I specifically remember watching that event and he tore it up. Oh he did tear it up and he as I recall he got a lesson from Jack Nicklaus about he used to get really close to these tournaments Pearl and not be able to to close the door not be able to figure out how to win and Jack Nicklaus was I remember reading something that he told Calvin he said when you get on the greens you have to be much more aggressive when you're nervous because you'll hit your drives further folks when you have all this adrenaline but you hit your putts shorter and that I have found that to be a hundred percent true and I'm not sure why that is but you can smash your drives further and you can hit your seven iron you know an extra five or ten yards further when you get all this adrenaline you get up your putts and they don't go anywhere. Tough to swing that putter head when you're when you're hanging on too tight. Yeah it really is and so what I noticed and we talked about this earlier but the more you play to TPC the more that golf course got doable and the more I learned the lines to take the sight lines to take here's where I'm not playing I'm not messing with that over there that is a I'd rather miss the green to the right then then pull a shot of half a step left and have it go over there because I can't get that up and down and it and I really really became fond of the golf course love the event the the the whole nature of the event all the money it raised for charity the spectators it was the coolest event and I finished ninth one year the year that Steve Elkington won I'm not sure if that was 93 95 but I do remember this had I played the 13th hole at plus two for the week I believe I'd have won the championship I played it at plus six I started off with a triple bogey made a double bogey made a bogey and the last day I came in with a par and I felt like I just conquered Everest three or four more rounds you were you were there we just didn't play enough golf that's that wasn't your fault completely I know I ran out of golf that should have been 108 holes or something that's tough that's tough is it a hole that you were uncomfortable with in practice round or was it a surprise no it wasn't the the the issue is what the guys are playing now are eight to nine irons off that tee and we are playing fours and five irons and you look I one one one shot was to a front pin I hit my four or five iron just a little thin it just didn't stay in the air we were playing in March at the time and just you know and once you start dropping around there in the drop zones it's no picnic at least it wasn't for me so I can remember playing that whole five over par the first two days and I was still in the championship I played my butt off other than that hole and but that's the kind of golf course it is it lends itself to some weird stories and some some weird numbers you know you can hit a bad shot at the wrong time and go oh boy I may never get off this hole because there's there might be no OB you got to either find your ball or 3T like you said you have so many opportunities out there to make a bigger number and so many of the quote water hazards hazards whatever they call them now play much more like OB than they do kind of the traditional water hazards the year I was coming in where I had a good chance to win the tournament or my best chance to one maybe not a good chance but the best chance to one I remember birdie in 16 and I was kind of playing down one from the right but it was difficult to hit the fairway just a hard birdie so I made a birdie go over to 17 so what they did in the day pearls they would take your tee instead of having it where it is now where it faces dead on to the green the fourth day they would rotate it over to the left about 30 degrees and now all of a sudden you couldn't see that little pot bunker you couldn't and that day the wind was pulling straight in our face off the right little authorized straight on our face and I remember going man this thing is either a really solid nine or a little eight and I got this wind and I got this wind and I'm thinking I don't know what to do my caddy wasn't where the hoot at the time to help me it wasn't me it was not you no it wasn't his fault because this was one hard shot and I can remember man why does this green look so small all of a sudden the screen looks so small so I decide to hit the eight I'm going to take a little eight and I'm going to just try to hit and the flag sticks in the back right I'm going to just try to hit a take a little off of it get it out there left of the flags and hopefully get them well I make this swing and I hit it a groove or two thin with the eight with the eight thank goodness and I'm thinking oh yeah oh oh and it's going just a little left of the flexor I'm thinking this thing could fly to the flag and bounce over the green it could plug in that the the side of that hill there cannot care I'm I'm not thinking anything like what happened so I'm thinking I'm watching this thing and it's all happening so fast I can this is the tournament you're you're going to make a nice check you're right in the hunt relative to a nice check and this thing goes in the water and all of a sudden you're looking at it right less check a lot less check a lot of less check and so I'm going oh man I don't even say anything and it lands I see it land on the green I'm thinking well that's it got over the water that way now is it going to go in the back water and all of a sudden there's some some applause or some applause now there's a round of serious applause so I'm you know not giving this thing away put my club back to my caddy it kind of tipped my cap like that's the kind of way I plan now I'm walking up there you know it's quite a walk you walk around to your left and I'm thinking please be in there close please be I get up there pearl it was so close you couldn't miss it it was supposed to me I don't know I just thought that might sound good it was three or four inches from the water and I went that's awesome oh man the golf gods were just smiling on me and I'm thinking please smile one more hole because I got to get so I tap in to make birdie on um on what kind of for a second though the kind of kudos on hitting the eight that's one reason you hit the eight that's one reason you play that it had it had more opportunity to be a good shot uh if it's not perfectly struck you said if you don't really strike that nine it's not going to get there so you're kind of an all or nothing there and in our next segment we are going to talk on our tip this week we are going to talk about course management and that's one of the things we're going to talk about that's why I told this story here at this time because take more club there's a way better chance of good things happening if things don't go exactly the way you plan them and I finished up that round I remember smashing a three wood off of 18 because I knew I couldn't hit my driver in the fairway and had a three iron into 18 so you played 18 into the wind then straight into the 17 was into the wind 18 was in the wind driver or three wood three iron put it on the far right edge of that green two putter down there tiptoed out of town with a nice big fat check and uh oh man that that that that stretch 17 and 18 were nerve-wracking well especially into the wind you know one thing I think you talked to Ricky Fowler uh fairly soon after he had won that event and one thing he mentioned was hey 18 was was downwind uh for him and you know I think he said down or a little bit across and it made it easier kind of set up but you're looking at one of the toughest holes on the tour and then that puppy's into you that's tough that's real tough really tough and um yeah it was um you know that 18th hole there is so visually intimidating you know you got that water runs right off the left edge of that tee and comes continues all the way down and it just kind of teases you because there's a little bit of room out to the right but if you miss to the right you're dead we've seen a lot of players miss to the right and there's not a lot of pars over there as well as tv does in so many instances I think that's one of the holes where unless you're there you can't totally appreciate it you know pebble yes it's even fantastic on tv but it's even more fantastic if you're standing there I think there's a lot of those holes reasons you want to try to get out to these golf courses at some time in your life that's um it's an interesting call because the 18th it pebbles does almost feels the same way as the 18th at tpc you know because it's it's much prettier that pebble and pebble's my favorite golf course in the world but it's just that you know that if if this thing starts left you know you typically you got some sea breeze but if that thing starts left and doesn't move you know you get to try this again but either of those holes when the when you're into the wind you're in a position where you got to do something off the tee you can't just sit there and hit some weak sister out there or you can't get anywhere near the green and if you weak it there's trouble out to the right in in both of those holes you know eventually if you weak it in the wind enough right it's uh oh man those uh they knew that's where it should be that's where it should be now they knew that you know a marginal shot's going to get get penalized and if you don't take uh a kind of strong aggressive line you're going to have a worse angle and you know you've got to ramp it up somewhere and hit hit a quality shot another three holes stretch that can have a four five uh shot swing coming down in a tournament which is one of the many reasons it's so wonderful to watch yeah i think it is well that's going to do it for the back nine we're headed to the 19th hole after these messages stay here this is golf with j delsing on 101 espn jerseyville carpet and furniture gallery are a proud sponsor of golf with j delsing they've been around since 1973 and it's been family owned and operated the entire way father danny cap started it all now sons matt and jared are fully involved and at jerseyville carpet and furniture gallery they host the area's largest selection of lazy boy and flex steel furniture plus you'll find a full service mohawk color center featuring carpet hardwood laminate and waterproof flooring everything is professionally installed at jerseyville carpet and furniture gallery plus easy delivery and setup of new furniture however and wherever you want it they'll also haul away all of your old furniture can't beat that deal going the extra mile that's what jerseyville carpet and furniture gallery is all about find them online jerseyvillecarpetfurniture.net or call them 618-639-9858 most people think to get fit you've got to be in the gym five days a week 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play well this week you have to you have to run this golf course the biggest thing that we've got to do to help folks manage their game is to get them to understand their game not everyone's built the same way when it comes to golf some guys are exceptionally long off the tee some guys are wild off the tee some people are great with the short game whatever the case might be you got to take a deeper dive into your own personal game and understand where you're losing your shots some of them are obvious one of the biggest things let's just say this the way it is you don't want one swing to cost you more than one stroke you don't want to wing that driver into out of bounds or off the golf course into the water and make that one swing cost you multiple strokes you got you've got to get a hold of that okay and if that means taking different clubs off of different tees and different aim points on par threes that have water on them then so be it but do it but do it that's part of managing it it almost feels sometimes pearl not male or not macho or whatever that might be because i'm not going to try to take this thing on but in the end of the day what we're looking for is a lower score not macho points well in the in the day and age of want to hit it further further further that makes it tough i remember i think you play the better part of a year without a driver i think johnny miller has got a famous for playing without a driver you know you got to get it in play off the tee you know we all want to pound it down the middle but to your point one one swing one stroke get that thing in play at the end of the day if it's in play at 205 yards instead of 255 yards not in play out of bounds behind a tree in the water you're way way way better off you still have a very much of a chance of uh making a par with that other one that's in play that's a huge piece of it 100 we had uh a while back quite a while back but we had at the time world number one brooks kepka talk about his tee his keys for slowing that negative momentum down during a round and the first thing that he talked about was getting something to put him in the fairway get you know eliminate that wild shot that drop you know that that unplayable lie so the other thing we got to get rid of and we talked a couple shows back about three putting we've got to get rid of three putting but on the on that single shot think in terms of even football how many times is that quarterback at the beginning of the game or if somebody gets hurt they put a new quarterback in and they want him to have something easy to get get his game going maybe just a little quick out passing the flat or maybe just even some kind of a pitch something like that to get that thing going think in terms of your round getting it going but even think in terms of every hole getting it going and being in the game don't shoot yourself in the foot on their first one you're not going to make birdie with the driver it's not going to happen you can set yourself up i get that but that's also a place where you can put yourself out of the hole and out of the day yeah they're well said nothing else needs to be said about that just you know this is a positional game it'd be great if we told you yeah this you make birdie because you hit driver wedge you get two birdies or three birdies for that you don't you want it's a three and if you hit a an iron off the tee and a seven iron in and you make it's a tie you know it's a three is a three and so um it's crucial to figure out if if it's putting then we gave you some putting tips if it's pitching chipping bunker whatever it is we've got to figure it out let me other thing let me just say this real quickly though we're talking about what our what's wrong with the game we also need to figure out what's right with our game where do your strengths lie because we're going to give you some tips on how to um minimalize the the weaknesses and get them better but we don't want to discard and forget about our strengths they've got to be maintained as well we don't want to just go i'm a great driver the ball not hit any drivers or i'm a great putter and not go to the putting ring you still got to pay attention to that stuff well part of paying attention is keeping a little bit of track i think it's pretty easy you're out there for four or five hours unfortunately sometimes and you get done and you start want to complain about your driver or this or that i remember you caddy for me in the u.s amateur one time yep i was so whacked out of my head before we even teed off on how i was going to get the ball off the tee my driver was a nightmare i had lost all my confidence you gave me a couple minute lesson i'll never forget this i drove it i'm not saying fantastic all day but plenty good to qualify way plenty good we get done i didn't come close to qualifying we get done and you say something to me like you missed 24 greens from the fairway inside of 150 yards now i had no sense of that whatsoever so part of what i might suggest and throw out there is keep a little bit of track when you get done and you're at the 19th hole you're having your beer you're having your coke whatever it might be jot down how many drives did i have in play how many putts did i have how many chips did i have get to that true awareness not just what you felt not about that one that you wish you would have hit better but really start keeping a little bit of track so you can kind of identify what you're good at and what you're not so good at no question and here's something interesting folks that's going to happen to you you and i referred to this when we were talking about our own rounds is there's a rhythm to your round of golf okay and one of the most powerful things in sport is momentum in life your company's named for that yep and what's cool about that and what i have such a great appreciation now of momentum and when when that's on my side it's like katie bar the door i want to keep that i want to cherish that because i can do incredible things when i have that sort of momentum and when i was younger i ran my car off the track because i had momentum and i thought that meant give me this give me that i'm going to be aggressive i'm gonna oh just idiotic but what is going to happen is you start identifying these areas like i'm not hitting any greens with my you know seven iron on down and all of a sudden you start taking a little more conservative line you start simplifying your swing and say i just want to hit this ball solidly and all of a sudden you start noticing oh my gosh i have like four holes i'm i made four parts because i just hit the green and two putted here we go and there's a rhythm to that there's a momentum there's almost an excitement that happens to you that is part of this right absolutely absolutely i can remember when you were playing real well but you were struggling around the greens a little bit and when we just kind of got to some of the more basics of it you're playing obviously tough golf courses tough rough conditions that type of thing but we just said at one point hey let's just square it up let's get back to this simple part and if you're in a position where a squared up body position a squared up blade not trying to do anything fancy if that doesn't work then we're just going to accept the 15 or 18 foot or whatever it may be because we're going to avoid that floppy thing that ends up in the bunker or the wrong place or gets you know kind of kicked over the green type of a deal but it took relative the rhythm around i think it really kind of helped you ease your mind we knew what the plan was you weren't going to go out there stressed what are you laughing about i gotta tell this story this is the best story i was on a roll but i got you on a roll you're on a great roll and you're gonna like this even better because this is me under the bus do you remember caddying for me out in vegas you gotta remember this caddy for me on vegas we're playing with anna mcgee tom dick and harry no not this one we're we're the very first hole i we we've identified my short game sucks we have not identified i know where you're going okay so so guys we're good we get on this part five and i i should hit the green in two but i kind of wing one left a little bit i've got the most basic straightforward i've got to fly this ball 25 yards nothing even demanding about it i've got 10 yards to land it in and i've got another 20 yards to let it roll out to i take this wing dinghy swing at this thing undercut this ball adding loft to the bottom the ball goes about a third a halfway the distance it should it buries under the lip and i think i make double bogey on a reachable part five and i can remember i i can remember the i i can remember talking about the air going out of the room talking about no moment no momentum and no no no rhythm to the run but i can remember putting the gloves in the car afterwards and both of us hitting the i mean i think i i resurrected maybe an even par round on an easy course so they just gave away so many shots too but i can remember looking at you and i said man i couldn't possibly hit my ball i couldn't hit a worse shot and put it in a worse spot and you were just you broke out into this hysterical laughter and you're like of all the places i thought you might have hit the ball there's no way you could have buried it under the lip and made double bogey there oh man well but but part of knowing that part of the game unfortunately at that stage it could anything could happen and you could hit the foot that also happened where you sit there going give me a bucket i don't think i could do that again if i tried my dad would call my my short game son it's like uh penthouse or outhouse and i'm like gotcha dad need no other description of that um you know i and that was more of the uh outhouse i think and that was a little stinky down there no it was a tough one yeah pretty brutal but um okay so so we're gonna identify what our weaknesses are we're gonna spend some time on that if it's our pitching and chipping you know we're gonna work on that we're gonna talk about some some fixes for your pitching and chipping if it's your putting we've given some drills out on that we've given some fixes out on that if it's driving the ball in the fairway you have a tendency to slice we talked about that before too so there are there are reasons why your ball is going where it is and it's not just man it just doesn't feel right it might not feel right and i've said when i'm helping you with your game before good because you don't want that to feel right yeah if it feels right you're not making enough of an effort to make a big enough change yep so we but but folks don't throw your strengths in the bucket also keep keep those you know don't neglect those make sure you get out and take care of that a little bit and um it won't take nearly as much time on your strengths as it will on your weaknesses but usually with those weaknesses something to talk about quickly you're gonna have to make a change and you're gonna have to accept that the feel isn't gonna seem it's gonna it's gonna seem so odd and so off the rail to you that you you're gonna kind of blow your gaskets a little bit well part of kind of when you're taking an honest look at the whole thing too it's not the sexy part but the bottom line is most of the shots are within 100 yards 50 yards of the green so when in doubt the work work around there you know some of the folks i help a little bit and some pretty decent players i say to them just from 100 yards and in let's always have the goal that this thing is going to get on the green and if we can start working on that type of thing it's amazing back to the rhythm of the round the confidence the momentum how much can kick can kick in but when you're missing the green when you're chipping around the green that's when things go and boy does that feed the other way into the driver and the and the rest of the game same with the putter if you're doing the right things from inside of 100 you're not giving yourself 30 footers from the wrong side of the hole to where you could three putt very well said we're in the 19th hole folks this is where you take a look at your game jot down a couple notes while it's fresh in your mind enjoy your beverage enjoy your golf and man i enjoyed this show this uh flew by again probably thanks for spending your morning with me it was uh great big sis thanks for the board and um getting us through uh another show um please keep the emails and uh and things coming uh it's j at j delsing golf.com it's jay at j-a-y-d-e-l-s-i-n-g-g-o-l-f.com hit them straight taint louis that was golf with j delsing brought to you by whitmore country club tune in next sunday from seven to eight for more from j john and the other pros and experts from the golf world in the meantime you can find all of j shows at 101espn.com as well as at jdelsongolf.com