April 28, 2025 • 49 mins
Dino Antenucci is a Senior Club Fitting Analyst with Titleist and is currently traveling and working with professional golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour. His contributions have significantly impacted Titleist’s reputation for personalized club fitting and performance optimization. Dino shares stories and insights from working with professionals and delivers sound advice for amateur and recreational golfers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the my golf source podcast.
Welcome to my golf source.
I'm Darren, I'm Noah.
Back at it again.
I think this is week 12.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, and the weather has definitely changed from
good to great.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And better.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, oddly enough, just came from the golf garage.
We're still slammed in there ona Monday, which is not normally
a busy day, so I think the golfbug is officially in full swing
in Southern Oregon.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And Sunday was busy too, I hear.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, it definitely was.
We did an awesome deal where wehad some pizza, beer and a bay
for 20 bucks.
How good is that.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Dude for an hour, Half an hour.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
No for an hour.
For an hour and you could bringyour friends.
Just Sundays have been a littlebit slower.
In the afternoons I'm likelet's drive some traffic.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Not with that deal.
No.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
No, no, it was good, and so we'll probably do more
family stuff here in the future.
I'm really excited aboutgetting it all out, but how
about you?
What's new with you?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know still coming off the high playing running
why?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
In Klamath Falls last weekend.
So funny, A lot of fun.
I was showing somebody in alesson today who didn't have a
lot of mobility and they weremaking golf swings and just
moving all over the place andfinally caught one and I was
talking to him about his balanceand ultimately talking about
balance at impact and howimportant that is.
But after you've hit the ballit's not as important.
So I talked to him a little bitabout Arnold Palmer and showed
(01:34):
him a couple Arnie swings as heaged gentleman 70, you know in
his late seventies.
So pretty funny when I showedhim early Arnie versus now Arnie
and he's like okay with it.
Now you know, just knowing thata great golfer did it and so
who cares?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Some of the best golfers I know personally have
the most unconventional swings.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Like your son, toby's got a little bit of
unconventional.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
He's not near as unconventional as a lot of a lot
of the guys.
I see there's another guy.
I won't say names, but Icompare his swing to Daryl
Strawberry with the littleloop-de-loop on the back.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Pounds driver, probably when he gets it.
He does.
He does the extra windup yeah,that's awesome.
Well, let's get right to it.
We've got an extra specialguest with us today, coming all
the way down from SouthernCalifornia, works for the
largest manufacturer of golfballs in the world and he gets
(02:32):
to work with some of the bestgolfers in the world in fitting
them.
Please welcome Dino Antonucciwith Titleist Golf.
Welcome to the show, dino.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah.
So, dino, before we get started, I want to tell a quick story
about how I met you andultimately, I was in Ohio and I
didn't want to be in Ohio in thewintertime, like no one wants
to.
I think you grew up there and Iwas currently on the board of
the Northern Ohio section PGA atthe time and your dad was the
(03:07):
executive director at that time.
And ultimately, ultimately, Iwas coming down to California to
um try out some clubs fromanother company and your dad
said, hey, you should go see myson while you're down there.
And I said, oh, where's yourwork?
And he said, hey, you should gosee my son while you're down
there.
And I said, oh, where's yourwork?
And he said, oh, he's a fitterat Titleist.
(03:28):
I'm like, oh, I'm there, I loveTitleist.
So, um, obviously, your dadconnected us and you, open arm,
basically, were like, let meknow when you're there, if I'm
there, coming in.
And that was the coolestexperience I've ever had at any
tour department because, if yourecall, bob Vokey decided to
give us a tour fittingexperience and you, he allowed
(03:51):
us to watch first of all, whichwas incredible.
And the tour players were weregreat too.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, it's a.
It's a pretty special place,for sure.
Or they're at the titlesperformance Institute and, again
, like you said, at any givenmoment you could see a tour
player, you could see Bob Vokey,many of our unbelievable
engineers that helped design thegolf clubs out of the West
coast operations.
So it's, it's a pretty coolplace.
You never know who you're goingto run into while you're out
(04:19):
there.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Dino, do you remember when I entered that I had a hat
under my armpit?
I kind of brought this up inthe last podcast but I was.
I was pretty gun shy when Irealized that a Callaway hat on
in Titleist and it was no morethan boy 90 seconds.
I think you guys were sick inyour sniffing dog on me.
(04:40):
But somebody is like hey,what's in your armpit?
And I was like kind ofsheepishly pulled it out.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Literally 30 seconds later I had a Titleist hat on,
so he should have said it wassomething he found in the
parking lot.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, exactly Right, no Well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I mean that's for sure.
I mean it's uh, we always wantto make sure everybody's taking
care of and yeah, presenting theTitleist, uh the banner as well
.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
That's so cool.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhere you've been recently and
what you're doing, because whenI was with you before, you were
at Titleist solely doingfittings, and now you're on the
road correct, correct, yeah, sofor the past seven years I've
been the manager of golf clubs.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Promotions out there on the Corn Fairy Tour, so week
in and week out.
Wherever the Corn Fairy Tour is, myself and uh, promotions out
there on the corn fairy tour.
So a week in and week out.
Wherever the corn fairy tour is, uh, myself and my team are out
there just helping out theplayers and making sure they
have all the product ready to gofor a Thursday, friday,
saturday, sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Man, that's awesome.
So I've had a little bit ofexperience um corn fairy and PGA
tour, but it's pretty unique tosee what the players want.
They're so different andultimately, um, I'd be curious
like you don't have to namenames, but what is the the most
(05:57):
amount of clubs you guys havehad to build for one player in
an event and like go throughthat process.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, I'm not going to say that we sit around and we
look through the order systemand come up with those numbers
on our own or anything but no,you know it's funny throughout a
year, gosh, you might getsomebody up there with 20 or 30
different golf clubs and againit's it's.
It's typically the unique golfclubs, it's not the core set of
(06:24):
irons.
Sometimes a player is thinkingabout reworking the wedges in
their bag, so they'll go througha couple of different wedges.
Maybe they started off with a50, 54, 60, and now they're
thinking about adding a 56 and a52.
And so you're making some ofthose changes.
But I would say our most work ona weekly basis tends to be in
(06:44):
the long end of the bag.
Not necessarily those changes,but I would say our most work on
a weekly basis tends to be inthe long end of the bag, not
necessarily the driver, butfinding a three-wood that they
can utilize for that course,potentially looking at a
five-wood.
Or the hottest club these daysare seven-woods, Long utility
irons.
I think everybody out there,from the amateur all the way up
(07:05):
through the tour player, theywant to play a three iron, they
want to play a four iron, butthey're not always the easiest
golf clubs to hit.
No they're not Introducing themto hybrids or seven woods or
utility irons that are differentfrom that of what they have in
the rest of their set.
So that tends to be the mostwork that we do out there.
So yeah, I mean you could seeguys.
(07:29):
You get some guys that honestly, all they do is they come in
the truck and have their loftand lies checked, and then you
get other guys that are outthere every week searching for
something just to give them thatlittle bit of edge to push them
to the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
There's a little bit of a backstory to this, and Noah
and I go rounds on this.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But what is the highest lofted degree wedge you
guys have ever custom fit forsomebody?
We used to carry a 64 degree.
That was a stock club in ourline.
Every once in a while you'd getsomebody sneaking that to 54
and a half Right now.
Currently we seem to find thatsweet spot at 62 being the
highest lofted club.
But it's funny, a lot of thesecollege kids, you know a lot of
(08:11):
these kids, come out of collegeand their coaches, you know,
suggest and recommended themplaying 58s and learning how to
play 58.
So, honestly, moving them intoa 60 once they start to get to a
tour caliber golf course, it'sa lot of loft, you know.
And then they have thecapability of adding loft to
that as they, you know, move theclub through the ball so rarely
.
But yeah, I mean there thereare definitely a lot of you know
(08:34):
a couple of 62s out there.
But, you know, every once in awhile you'll see somebody
sneaking it a little bit closerto that 64 nowadays, but not too
much.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, so ultimately, let's talk about that, because
you are a tour fitter and theway I look at loft is it can be
utilized in so many ways.
Um, a tour player is totallydifferent than an amateur golfer
, and so when you're out thereand, like you said, trying to
get them ready for tour golf,why do you think they go to a 60
versus a 58?
Obviously, I have some ideas,but what's your biggest
(09:08):
reasoning that you've seen thatthey're going to 60 or 62
instead of staying at 58?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I think a lot of it starts off they feel like they
need to have the 58 degreebecause of the gapping.
If they look through their set,the majority of clubs are
anywhere from three to fourdegrees in between golf clubs.
Sets are getting strongernowadays so you tend to see guys
kind of move into that 58.
When they get out to the PGATour or the Corn Fairy Tour in
my case, the greens start tochange a little bit.
(09:37):
The pin placements start tochange.
In some cases the courses theyplay in college are unbelievable
golf courses and tough, but thepin placements aren't poor pin
placements and when they startto see those and they get
short-sighted they're lookingfor just that faster stop.
Sometimes we can take care ofthat with just making sure that
one they're in the right golfball.
(09:58):
Potentially they might be inthe wrong ball, but it's amazing
how many guys this season havecome to us and said you know,
gosh, I haven't been fit in fiveyears.
I've never been fit, you know,and so sometimes they just don't
know Right and they're.
They're just looking for thatlittle bit of edge.
But again it it comes down, Ithink, a lot of times to the pin
(10:19):
placements and the green speedsthat they're seeing on this
level, that they just want tomake sure they get the best
stopping power that they can.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So what is the number one shaft you're fitting a tour
player into for a wedge thesedays?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know, bob did a test years and years ago when he
first started with a companyand tested a variety of
different shaft companies,different flexes.
The shaft that stuck out to himand to a lot of the people he
tested was the Dynamic Gold andit happened to be the S200.
And that's why you see a lot ofour stock shafts going to the
(10:56):
consumers in the Dynamic GoldS200.
We'll call it a wedge flex butthat's essentially what it is.
As you start to move up intohigher speed players, you know
they might move into an S is.
As you start to move up intohigher speed players, they might
move into an S3.
A lot of the players on tour usean S400.
Just again, because of theweight, the feel it stiffens it
up a little bit.
The difference between an S2and an S3 is really just the
(11:18):
weight of that shaft.
But as the shaft gets a littleheavier it gets just a little
stiffer and guys like that, asBob always said, for those
touchy-feely shots around thegreens.
Now, with that being said,there are a variety of different
options out there on tour.
We have players using steplessshafts like C Tapers and Project
Xs.
We've got Nippon players usingNippon shafts and KBS players
(11:41):
using KBS shafts.
But I think if you look at anyof the Daryl surveys or anything
out there, dynamic gold isprobably the dominant shaft when
it comes to that, and it mightbe mostly because of a default.
You know, players have justalways kind of gone that way and
sometimes they just don't know,but it seems to be a choice
that people are happy with.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So a lot of people who have trouble getting their
driver and hitting the ball intothe air, getting decent height
off the driver and theyimmediately go to.
I need more loft on my driver.
I need a 10 degree versus a 9degree.
I know that a change in shaftcan help them accomplish that a
lot.
Can you explain how thatprocess works?
(12:19):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean again, I'll start by saying this you
know, if you're looking at yourdifferent variables and you know
, five, ten years ago peoplereally didn't understand launch
conditions.
They did things by eyesight andso they see the ball low.
Let's go to the higher loftthat's going to get the ball up
in the air.
I'm not going to play a softshaft because that's what
(12:41):
somebody you know, less skilledthan I, played.
It was a lot ofmisunderstanding of equipment.
With that being said, you know,if you're looking at your
launch conditions and you wantto affect spin, your spin's too
low.
Yeah, loft is the fastest wayto affect spin.
I always looked at the shaft asyour control.
Yes, there are shafts that willlaunch it a little higher and
(13:04):
spin it a little bit more andshafts that will keep that down.
But again, shaft to me is whatkind of steers the ship.
It's what keeps you within theboundaries of the fairway.
So I always say that you wantto find a shaft that one feels
good to, the player, gives themthe best control.
And then, when you're startingto look at it from variables,
yeah, I mean, every company outthere seems to have a color code
(13:28):
system.
A lot of your red shafts tendto be the shaft that you're
looking for the most height outof.
Blue tends to be kind of in themiddle.
Your blacks, your whites, theytend to be a little bit of that
lower ball flight.
So yeah, if you see somebodywho's height challenged they're
not getting a lot of launch andspin out of the ball and they're
using a black version of thoseshafts, you might want to look
(13:49):
at a blue or a red and again,that's going to help those
variables.
But the one variable that themonitor can't determine for you
is how does that shaft feel?
As they're loading the golfclub, as they're on their way
down in their downswing, arethey feeling that shaft kick
properly so that they know theycan deliver the face of the club
to the ball when they expect to?
(14:09):
So it's kind of a balance.
You can't have one without theother, just like when you're
looking at track band numbers orforesight.
You can't look at just launchor just spin.
You always have to look atthose numbers together and how
they work together to look atthose numbers together and how
they work together.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know I always used to say the shaft is player
preference.
You know and I still use thatanalogy a lot because you're
hitting the nail on the head youknow I fit indoor now, so much
more Dino and ultimately I wouldsay five, six years ago I
probably wouldn't have at all,at least with driver, just
wanting to see that I feel sogood about it.
Now I mean we've got we've gotFalcons at golf garage and I
(14:47):
have quad and then if it'ssomebody I'm not sure of or
something, we'll take themoutside um down the road and I
think it is a good testregardless to to do that If you
have the ability to.
How do you feel about indoorversus outdoor um?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
for the average golfer.
I know you're fitting more tourplayers now, but what do you
think about that?
I mean?
Let's first start off by saying, just like everything within
golf, the technology has gottenso much better in recent years.
I remember some of the firstbays that were indoor.
One, you always felt like youwere going to hit the ceiling.
Two, you felt like you had tomanufacture a swing to make it
look right on the screen.
But in today's world you aregetting much better consistent
ball flights.
Obviously, the differentsystems out there that monitor
(15:32):
the golf ball really help withthat system.
So I think getting fit indoorand outdoor is at this point
when you're looking at a drivercan equally be the same.
It can definitely give you agood understanding.
I am one of those players thatalways feels that you got to
take things to the course.
You got to see how they work.
You got to get tight inside ofthose tree lines, like you can
(15:54):
get up there in the Oregon areaand even out in Ohio where you
feel trapped.
And how does that club react inthose situations?
Again, I think like a drivingrange, sometimes being in a bay,
you just let it go right.
It's a video game.
You maybe aren't reallythinking about it.
And same thing on the drivingrange you know, hey, it's not a
fairway, it is a big, huge fieldthat you're hitting out into.
(16:15):
You know whether it's a drivingrange or a practice facility
and you sometimes make adifferent swing than you would
on the golf course.
So, yes, I think you know,first of all, foremost, always
get a custom fit, whether it'sindoor or outdoors, and then
have the opportunity to take itonto the golf course.
Is is killer, because thatreally allows you to see how you
can work it around the golfcourse.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What you're saying makes so much sense.
As a recreational golfer myself, I know it took me months to
get accustomed to swinging inthe bay because I'm I'm six foot
three, I'm and I'm a tall guyand you know, you feel, I know
that I'm not going to be hittingany equipment or the walls in
the bay, but it doesn't feellike it.
(16:56):
So it's hard to just kind of,you know, let loose and crank at
it in in a bay for you.
You got that claustrophobicfeeling and it took me months to
completely get over that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, I mean the first bays were basically just
screens shoved into an existingroom and so that room was
designed for aesthetics as faras the people walking in and out
of the building.
Nowadays people are buildingbay specifics.
I mean, even our bays out atthe Titleist Performance
Institute that we've justrecently put in our renovation
(17:29):
are significantly higher thanthey were prior to that.
Again, just not having thatunderstanding.
Those original bays were builtfor robots, so robots didn't
care, and then once you startputting people inside of them,
they're like well, this is alittle tight, let's give
ourselves a little bit of room.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now again, as a recreational golfer, I I don't
think I don't know this for sureI don't think I generate enough
club head speed to reallywarrant a stiff shaft on a
driver.
Maybe I do, maybe I don't, butI do know that.
You know noah talks a lot aboutshafts being player preference.
If I swing somebody else's clubwho has a regular shaft, I
can't get the club face tolaunch the ball.
(18:11):
I I feel like the club face islagging too much and I feel it's
it's for me.
It's it feels too whippy, it'sjust not a comfortable feeling
for me.
I much prefer the stiffer shaft.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You know, fitting is such an art and and everybody
out there that that fits, youknow, kind of brings their,
their philosophy into thefitting that you're going to.
You're exactly right, you know,if I give somebody a soft shaft
they're going to be like oh,this thing's going to spin off
the planet, it's going to launchto the moon.
(18:45):
But if I load the shaft in acertain way I might get that
face to a dynamic loft.
That's way less than what theactual loft of the club is.
So by the time you deliver itto the ball it's lagging so far
behind that you're getting a lowball flight kind of just a
squeeze out type shot.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's how I feel with the regular shaft yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, you know, and you look at a lot of these
things, when, when, when theshaft companies put things in
paper, on paper so people canread them in print ads, you know
and they say, oh, this is tohelp reduce launch and help
reduce spin.
You know, I always tell myfitters don't paint yourself
into a hole because of the waysomeone loads a shaft.
It may not perform exactly thatway.
You might not load the shaftenough.
(19:25):
In a stepless shaft, forexample, to get the ball to
create that lower launching,lower spinning flight, you might
hold that loft all the waythrough impact and therefore
you're actually launching it upeven higher.
So, every shaft, you know again, those guys that are playing
those extra stiff shafts, withthe extra stiff profiles, that's
typically because they'reloading the shaft so hard that
(19:48):
they need it to stabilize so itdoesn't overload.
And then somebody who maybe hasa different tempo and a
different move from the top.
They're not creating that loadand they need that help.
So, yeah, it's very playerdependent.
And you're right.
I mean, we used to have afitter years ago.
So you know what shaft should Iuse?
What color do you like?
Let's start there, because youcan do a lot of things to the
(20:11):
shafts and there's a lot ofthings we do on tour that you
know the average consumer maynot know that we do or not.
It's you know we'll tipstraight into the driver head.
Well, with the tour player wemight cut a half inch or an inch
or an inch and a half off thetip section before we even put
it into the head.
So it almost changes theprofile a little bit just to
(20:33):
give them a feel that they'relooking for.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing.
Do you know?
I'm on the national fittingcouncil for another company I
don't know if I told you thatand, um, the things that I've
gotten to see, and then alsobeing in the tour trailer at the
PGA championship a couple ofyears, um, after you and I met,
um, it's just incredible to me.
You know terms like hot meldand whatever else that they're
(20:57):
using.
You know, and, and you guyshave everything.
It's so cool to get into a tourtrailer if you ever get the
chance.
Um, and it's just like I knowyou guys are so busy all the
time and you guys get upsdropped off.
Nobody knows the life you have.
I mean, your life is a tourplayer.
Only it's harder because you'vegot to make them perform and
that's.
You know how your company does.
(21:18):
Well, it's such a such a uniqueopportunity, but also like a
very stressful job, in a wayright, trying to get into the
minds of dozens of tour players.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Oh yeah, I mean, you know so much of our job.
Uh is obviously helping theplayers on a week to week basis.
Sometimes it's talking them offof a ledge Uh, I use the
analogy Sometimes it's justscratching an itch right Like
they, they, they have thisfeeling that they think that
possibly, maybe there's a chancethat they should be putting
this type of golf club in theirbag.
(21:50):
And you just have to try it andsee.
A few years ago I had a playerat the Ohio State tournament,
just before our tourchampionship, who was going to
the PGA Tour and he said youknow, hey, I'm going to the PGA
Tour.
I know the greens are firmer, Iknow I'm going to need the ball
to stop more.
I need a seven wood.
And I kind of chuckled at him alittle bit.
He's like what I go?
Well, let's try that Knowingfull well that he's already got
(22:12):
high ball flight.
And as soon as I gave him aseven wood, he hit that thing
and it looked like a 60 degreecoming off within one swing.
He turned around yeah, no,7-wood's not the club for me.
I was like, no, but we'll findsomething that's a little more
appropriate.
Maybe it's a hybrid, maybe it'sa special utility iron I'm like
, but you don't need a 7-wood.
But again, it's trying thosethings out.
(22:34):
As far as the stress level goes,on my end I'm going to tell you
something.
I really enjoy my job.
I've had some unbelievablementors over the years
throughout the industry,throughout mentors over the
years throughout the industry,throughout Titleist, that have
really helped.
I love what I do.
It's not stressful, it's funtalking to those players.
I'm not the type of personthat's going to go back to my
house or home and play thoselittle you know phone video game
(22:56):
, puzzle games.
My puzzle game is working withthe players and just trying to
figure out really what fits tothem.
And again, some of the bestadvice I ever got as a fitter
was you know, it's golf, right,it's not brain surgery.
Have fun with it.
If you make a mistake today,that's okay, we can fix it
tomorrow.
You know, maybe we think, ohgosh, this guy needs a 10 degree
(23:18):
and this model head, this isgoing to be absolutely perfect
for him and it's not.
We have many other options andyou just try that.
So it's, it's fun, I reallyenjoy it and the guys are great
and especially when you'redealing with corn fairy tour
players.
They're coming out of school,they're all excited for their
next part of their life and youknow they're very open to
suggestion and listening andlearning and that's that's the
(23:39):
best part of the job is justhelping train these guys get
ready for it.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So at the pro level, you've got so many dynamics at
play with each player, you'vegot the player.
They maybe have multiplecoaches a speed coach, a
performance coach, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
They have their caddy , they have their fitter.
Do you ever find that there'sconflict between what the player
comes to you saying they wantand what, and the direction
their coach is trying to takethem?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
oh, absolutely.
I mean, I've I've got manystories of coaches walking in
the truck and saying my playerneeds this hybrid.
And then you bring the hybridout to the player and they're
like I, I don't want this, Idon't, I don't want a hybrid.
Uh, you know, you get parentssame things.
Uh, agents, players themselves,you know again, it's yeah, you
do you have a lot of thatchatter.
(24:30):
I always prefer to talk to theplayer.
You know, if I do get a caddieor a coach or a trainer or
whoever approaching me about it,my next call is usually to that
player just to confirm thatthat's what they're looking for.
And then to find out why they'relooking for it and that might
help us in some cases.
Maybe somebody does want a7-wood, or need a 7-wood in
their bag, but they're lookingfor that lower flight or certain
(24:54):
speed to it.
So I'm not going to build it ata standard length.
Maybe I'll go a little shorterso they can get more on top of
it.
But it's also great to havecoaches there, because sometimes
the coaches are working onsomething within the swing and
today they need a club that'sgoing to help them produce the
ball flight.
So this kid can go out and playin a tournament for the next
four days Knowing full well, youknow, yeah, three or four weeks
(25:18):
later they might be at thatspot and they don't need that
7-wood anymore or that club.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So do you remember Grant Callahan?
Do you know that?
Oh absolutely so.
I, I, I didn't meet Grant untilhe was with foresight and
obviously he's not there anymore, but, um, that's where I met
him in Columbus, ohio, atMuirfield, and he told me we
became friends and he told methat he worked with the young
guns at Titleist.
So he actually worked with Bobquite a bit and I'm sure you,
(25:45):
you know, with you and whoever.
But ultimately what was reallyfunny was he told a story that
kind of goes hand in hand withwhat you're saying, where he's
standing behind Bob there on thetour T PGA tour I believe at
the time.
Um, because the young gunsobviously, the way I understand
it correct me if I'm wrong wasall the new up and coming tour
(26:05):
players, like rookies, correct,of the guys that were out on the
PGA Tour.
And so you know, Vokey's likehey, take notes on what this
player wants.
And he's standing there andhe's writing all this stuff down
and Vokey's listening.
He's like, ok, sounds good, yep, I'll make that wedge for you
right now.
Um, vokey's listening, he'slike okay, sounds good, yep,
(26:26):
I'll, I'll make that wedge foryou right now.
And I think the player wantedsomething like uh, we'll just
use the S grind.
And he wanted you know, youknow five degrees of bounce and
you know nothing realistic,right.
So he goes back to the starts,walking back to the tour truck
and and um, grant's starting toread it off to him and he's like
, yeah, that's not what he needs.
Hold on a second.
And he's like, just take note.
And he goes in and builds himsomething completely different
(26:50):
than what the tour player askedfor, comes back out and he says
here you go, here's the wedgeyou wanted.
Hits it, peers.
It says oh Bob, this is great,this is exactly what I wanted.
You're like right, Maybe, maybenot, yeah.
But, but ultimately Grantliterally was in awe, like it
was one of those aha momentsCause he was kind of a rookie at
(27:11):
the same time.
I believe it was like his firstyear.
So it's just like incredible tome that, like you're saying,
it's an art and a science.
You know in fitting andultimately to have someone like
yourself that is a truly amaster fitter.
You know to really go downmaybe a rabbit hole with a
player but at the same time knowwhen to stop and know you know
(27:35):
how to talk to them to make themplay the best golf that week.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Right, so there's a little bit of psychology in what
you do.
Oh, a hundred percent.
I mean, these players havegotten there for a reason.
They're great players.
Um, sometimes when they comeout as rookies or their first
season, or maybe they're comingback to the corn fairy tour,
they're a little nervous anddejected and not really sure if
(27:59):
they belong.
And you have to remind themsometimes.
I mean, I had a player lastweek where I just kind of looked
at him I'm like dude, you're,you were one, you were one time
the number one junior in theworld, like, come on, you know
what to do.
And he had a great tournamentthis last week, you know.
So you just sometimes you justgot to talk to these guys and
pump them up and you know, yourstory about bob is is absolutely
(28:21):
.
You know, bob is bob's one ofthose treasures in golf, like
like so many you know before him, and it's they know, you know,
they've seen it, they've done itall.
You know, they've worked withhundreds and hundreds of people
and Bob's biggest gift andunique gift is he doesn't forget
a fitting.
He will remember a fitting hedid with you three, four, five
(28:43):
years ago and it's it alwaysimpresses the player when he you
know Bob pulls that informationback.
So it's really awesome, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
So who is your limelight fit Like?
Who was like the highestprofile fitter coming through or
a player that's come through,titleist that you fit?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh, I mean.
Well, you know when I, when Ifirst started at TPI it was
green, I had gone through allthe fitting seminars and I knew
how to fit for this and that I'dspent a couple of years on the
Titleist Science Van.
So driver and ball fitting wasgood.
But when I got to Oceanside andall of a sudden the names of
players that I grew up watchingstarted showing up, I mean to be
(29:24):
able to be on the T and workwith, with Davis Love and Ernie
Els.
You know, heck, I had NickFaldo out one time.
Sir Nick Lee Trevino came outwith his, you know, with his son
, and just to listen, because heand Bob are very good friends
and had been friends for manyyears.
But to hear the banter of thosetwo back and forth, telling
(29:45):
stories of you know Bob's oldworkshop and Vista and you know
Trevino working the frontcounter.
So it's it's, you know it's nodifferent than anybody who's in
their, you know, mid forties tolate fifties.
It's the people that we grew upwatching and you know to be
able to have them kind of lookat you and go wow watching.
And you know to be able to havethem kind of look at you and go
(30:06):
wow, I never thought of that.
Like, are you kidding me?
You know, explaining ballflight to a, uh, a Curtis,
strange right, you know, like,like, like, like, I'm going to
tell him something he doesn'tknow.
You know I'm, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This process is so fascinating and I can only
imagine it's very difficult towork with the demands of players
that are at such a high level.
But do you find it easier to towork with those demands with a
player that can just swing andhit the ball so consistently to
get them fitted, versus anamateur?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah.
What what do you?
What do you?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
find easier or more or more enjoyable as an
experience for you.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'll tell this to any fitter that's out there you
learn as much working with thehigher handicap, the new golfers
and the recreational golfers asyou do with the tour players.
So much of what I do on the teewith the tour players is
referring back to those days.
It's no different.
The golf club doesn't knowwho's swinging it.
Ball flight is ball flight.
(31:08):
If you saw a trend with a 15handicap and it fits with a tour
player, you go with it.
Right, you go down that road.
So you know you can't put thetour players so much in a box
and say it's a unique fitting.
It's very similar.
You're still, you'recommunicating, you're listening
(31:28):
and I'll say listening one moretime, because that's the biggest
key as a fitter.
So often as a fitter, whensomebody walks in the door you
assume they're ready to blow uptheir entire golf bag and if you
just stop and listen to them,you might realize it's one or
two clubs that really need to befocused on.
So is it easier with one or theother?
(31:48):
It really isn't.
It's the same.
Everybody has the uniquepreference.
There's consumers out therethat want to hit three irons.
There's tour players that wantto hit three irons and neither
one of them, you know, should behitting a three iron because of
whether they don't have thespeed, the skill or the ball
flight.
So it's, it's really nodifference on who you're fitting
it's, and that's why I enjoythe fitting aspect of it.
(32:10):
You get to meet so manydifferent people.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Oh, without question.
So this is an interesting one,because you're obviously out
there a few days prior to theplayers playing in an event and
you're following them around.
Where does putter come intohere?
Because obviously that's themost important piece or tool Got
to get the ball in the hole.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
They're all good hitters, even crossed my mind
right, I mean like what?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
and even when I was there obviously you know title
list partners up with the putter.
You know specific brand.
There's, everyone knows, scottycameron and it's not even
located at your department.
So I was just curious like how,where do you guys come into
play in the putter realm and howdo, how do you guys help those
guys?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
yeah, you know it's.
It's a little more unique onthe corn ferry tour than the pga
tour.
Uh, we do have a putterspecific rep that's out on tour
with us.
Uh, that works with thoseplayers.
He, you know, hangs around thegreen.
Um, he, he probably hangsaround in the truck more than he
would like.
He would prefer, prefer to bemore out on the green working
with players, showing themproduct and helping them out.
Uh, but you know, between the,you know changing the weights
(33:19):
and you know cutting down theshafts or reshafting something,
uh, heck, it might be as much.
As you know, my top line isblack.
I really wish it was red.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Um, you know it's, it's those little nuances
Because his friend told him thathis was red and he really liked
it right.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Has he ever poured sand down the shaft of a tour
player?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I'm not going to say that they've never done that,
but you don't see it as muchanymore.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I poured salt down a shaft once.
Did you?
Yeah, I did yeah.
Yeah, it's amazing.
It probably melted with water.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But I mean, here's the thing, you know, that's,
that's the things that we had todo when you didn't have the
right tools Right.
So, years ago, here's yourshaft, here's your putter,
here's your club.
Well, I just don't think it'sright.
I mean, guys would step on theputter heads and bend the shafts
to get their lie angle to wherethey think the putter would sit
, Right.
They may have just affected theloft as well, but hey, the lie
(34:10):
angle is perfect.
That's what I'm looking for.
Yeah, player, you know, Iremember being an assistant golf
pro.
Yes, we would take sand anddump them down the shaft to give
it a little bit more weight.
But now you've got differentmaterials that we can utilize.
Heck, we got different shafts.
I mean, let's be honest.
I mean when would you have everused a graphite shaft in a
putter?
You know, 20 years ago.
Well, it's so prevalentnowadays.
(34:32):
It's just, you know, thingshave changed and, thank goodness
, you know, the companies areout there making the product, so
it makes our job a little biteasier.
Going back to your originalquestion on putters, it's a
vital part, I mean, there's nodoubt about it.
I don't spend a lot of my timeworking on putters unless our
putter rep doesn't happen to bethere that week.
But again, you know, yeah, it'swhat gets the ball in the hole.
(34:56):
It's the area that everybody isfocusing on as we start to
creep into the June Julys of ourseason and we start getting
close to the tour championship.
It's amazing how many peopleyou see start to change putters.
I think just make one more putt, you know, and and maybe it's a
head shape, Maybe it's trulynow asking the question of what
(35:17):
they should be using.
Okay, I'm, I'm tired of metelling you, let me you tell me.
Yeah, it happens definitely inthat middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, do you know?
I mean, it's incredible to tohear these stories of the up and
coming, and you have one of thecoolest jobs ever.
I think I would much rather beon the corn ferry than the PGA
tour.
Like you said, it just seemslike the personalities aren't
quite there.
The same way, as far as havingto maybe deal with someone
(35:46):
that's made it, um, butultimately, um, you have this
opportunity to see someone thenext year, or maybe halfway
through the year.
They've already gotten theirtour card because they've won
three events or whatnot, andthat's just so special, um, you
know, I guess, since you'reprimarily in the States, when
you guys are probably travelingaround for corn ferry, um, the
(36:09):
turf conditions are totallydifferent around the country,
though.
So what are you touching alittle bit on, what you're
primarily changing as you gofrom a Bermuda grass to a rye
grass, to a desert golf course,to Kikuyu right?
What are you looking at, um, orwhat are the players looking at
, I guess, from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, Well, again, you know you, you take the core
middle part of the set, which isthe irons, and there's not a
lot of change.
That goes on from there fromweek to week.
Depending on the grass, it'sthe wedges and it's the upper
part of the bag.
Players are looking atdifferent bounces.
When I get a player for thefirst time coming to me at Ocean
or to our Pedals PerformanceInstitute before the season even
(36:52):
starts, they've never been onthe corn ferry One of the things
I always make sure they do iswalk away with two lob wedges.
Let's find a wedge that hassome bounce to it and let's find
a wedge that has minimal bounce.
So you know, hey, this lastweek we played in Dallas, right?
So Texas, it's going to be firm, it's going to be hard, it's
going to be firm, it's going tobe hard, it's going to be
compact.
Everybody's beating us up theweek prior to, you know, like,
(37:15):
hey, give me my low bounceoption, I need to be ready for
next week.
And then they get four days ofrain and the course is soft and
they have to revert back totheir lab wedge.
So I always tell guys, you know,like, yes, the usga states that
you have to.
You can't play with any morethan 14 golf clubs.
You better show up to thesetournaments with 16 or 17.
(37:35):
You know you might need ahybrid versus a long iron.
You might need a wood versus ahybrid.
You may need, you know, ahigher bounce wedge versus a low
bounce wedge.
I'm a big believer in if you'retaking something out of the bag,
you better be putting somethingback in the same quadrant.
(37:57):
I'm not a fan of taking a wedgeout of play to put a two iron in
the bag.
At some point you're going towish you still had that wedge
that you took out.
So as long as you're justmoving things based on bounce
and quite frankly, nowadaysyou're seeing more and more
players using higher bounce intheir gap wedge, in their sand
wedge, whether it's 54 or 56.
(38:17):
It's the lob wedge when theyget close to the greens and
they're trying to hit thoseprecise shots that they're going
to change between a low bounceand high bounce, and you're
right.
You know the PGA Tour ismanicured pretty much the same
week in and week out, dependingon what course you go to.
Yes, there's differentvarietals of grass but they're
cutting and manicuring it thesame when you get to the corn
(38:40):
fairy tour, when you get to theaverage consumer, when you get
to collegiate golf, it changes.
So yeah, you're doing yourselfa disservice showing up to those
events and not having an optionin a lob wedge.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You know, I I carry 17 clubs in my bag, yep, and
when I'm playing in a tournamentI gotta take a few out.
And I'll tell you the ones Inormally take out.
I take out my five wood and ifyou look at my five wood, it's
like it looks brand new.
It's six years old and it I Ican.
You know I've only hit it ahandful of times.
I use my three woodconsistently.
(39:08):
Right, I take out my four iron,unless it's a heavily wooded
wooded uh course, where I'mgonna have to be hitting, you
know, low punch shots I'll teachyou how to hit a nine iron
lower than your four iron right.
Do you know we can do that okay,let's, let's do that, and I I
carry the infamous 69 degreewedge.
Yeah, wow, there you go and Iand I'll tell you what that's.
(39:32):
That's the new favorite club inmy bag, because I get to hit a
flop shot without having to hita flop shot, right because I'm
not that skilled to manipulatewedges like the pros are so yeah
, I mean.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Let me say this you know like our primary focus week
in and week out is to make surethat we can be there to loft,
line and re-grip golf clubs.
I would much rather say that Iwent through an entire week and
didn't have to work on anybody'sclubs on the range, trying to
fit a tour player into a golfclub on a Monday or Tuesday and
think that they're going to have100% confidence in that golf
(40:08):
club, even if they absolutelyhit it perfect on the range.
Confidence in that golf club,even if they absolutely hit it
perfect on the range.
When they get that heat ofcompetition on a Friday trying
to make a cut, or Saturday orSunday trying to move up the
leaderboard and they've only hadone or two rounds with it, it's
hard to really fathom thatthey're going to be able to hit
that properly.
So I would always prefer tohave that work done.
Like you said, show up with 16clubs.
(40:29):
You've hit that club, you'vepracticed with that club, you
know what that club's going todo.
Obviously there's emergencycases week in and week out, but
the best players they're,they're, they're not spending a
lot of time with me Monday,tuesday and Wednesday because
they're ready to go.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
That's such good advice, literally worth the
price of admission right there.
Do you know?
I mean, that is gold rightthere, what you just said.
Hey Dino, we're going to wrapup a little bit here.
I just wanted to thank youagain for being here with us.
Your family is incredible.
Your mom, eileen, and your dad,I mean they ran the Northern
(41:08):
Ohio PGA for how long was that?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Over 20 years.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
And previous to that, your dad and your mom ran a
golf course together, correct?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, my, my father was a club professional at a at
a few golf courses in theCleveland area.
He was the head professionaland my mother was.
My mother was the buyer for thegolf shop.
Uh, well, before you know, wesaw a lot of women buyers out
there, so she always had a verysuccessful golf shop because
women would come from all overto shop her goods.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
You guys were ahead of your time obviously your
whole family and did you workfor your dad at all?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
You know I did.
I swore I never would Just like, just like he never gave me
lessons because I wouldn'tlisten to him.
But yeah, right out of collegeI did spend a season working
with him out at Fox Meadows.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Oh man, that's awesome and I mean what's really
weird?
I obviously came from Oregon,married my wife and we were in
the Willamette Valley area.
A lot of good golf up there too.
But moving across country toCleveland, I had family there
but I had never played golf.
Moving across country toCleveland, I had family there
but I had never played golf.
The amount of golf and goodgolf in Northeast Ohio is
(42:17):
mind-blowing.
The private clubs in that areaI think there's six within 10
miles that are all pre-1923.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
It's amazing.
We can sit there and talk aboutthe country clubs in Northeast
Ohio all you want, but thepublic courses are amazing.
I mean to think you've got aDonald Ross Manikiki golf course
.
When I lived back in Clevelandyou could play 18 holes for $24
with a cart.
You know, I mean it was yeah,Donald Ross.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
who's that?
If you don't know who DonaldRoss is, please Google them.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Just look at Pinehurst, number two.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, that'll be all right right.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
So Dino you're on the road, very, very blessed.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
What you do is a grind.
You're out there on the roadall the time.
You're traveling with the CornFairy Tour.
Do you have time to play thesespectacular courses while you're
out there?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
We do.
Sure, you know, I mean,especially when you're talking
about the Midwest in the summerand you get lucky enough to see
daylight until nine, you know930 at night, we'll go out after
we shut down the truck at fiveo'clock and play some of these
courses.
You know, I'll admit you know,when I was in Columbus I had to
sneak over to Scioto and playthat redesign.
But yeah, you know you do andtrust me, my first couple of
(43:35):
years I had a truck, I had a bagon the truck and it was there
every week.
You start to tire down, youknow, get a little older, it's
like, yeah, the hotel doesn'tsound too bad after a full day
of work, but you do, you get theopportunity, you get to play
some unbelievable golf coursesno-transcript.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is your all-time favorite course?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Oh geez, that's a tough one for me, I just enjoy
styles.
That's a tough one for me, Ijust enjoy styles.
I mean, living in SouthernCalifornia for the last 27 years
, I really miss the type of golfcourses you see back in Ohio.
You know what's my all-timefavorite golf course Gosh.
You know, all day you've givenme questions that I've been able
(44:29):
to answer and that's thehardest one to answer.
I'm probably going to have tosay Firestone, just because I
absolutely love that style golfcourse.
Which one, though?
You know what?
That's a great question,because everybody would
automatically assume it's theSouth, which I would say.
In this case it might be, butthat North course is just as
good as anything.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
The North course is incredible.
That Island green on 17.
Oh, my well, it's not an Island, but it's pretty close
peninsula.
Yeah, it's brutal peninsula.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know it's again it's.
There's just so many good stylegolf course.
I miss tree line golf courses.
If I'm going to say my favoritegolf course, it's a tree line
golf courses where I've gotboundaries, I, I, I can hit the
ball sideways sometimes, but assoon as I get in the boundary I
play so much better golf.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I got that.
I played.
I missed my tree-lined courses.
I played Coeur d'Alene Resort acouple years ago.
Yeah, very much tree-lined, butyou also have the water, you
also have the island green.
It was like the best ofeverything kind of wrapped into
one course.
It was so cool.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
You know, you need to come up to Oregon.
Man, you got a place to stay.
Anytime you want, let's go.
We'll go up to Northern too.
We'll go play pumpkin.
Columbia, royal Oaks, all thoseyou want, tree lined that's,
that's good, and it's not quiteas wet as Seattle, so that's a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
So after a long day after a long day of work in the
truck.
Where's your favorite place togo eat?
What do you look for?
Speaker 2 (45:50):
but uh, my favorite place to go eat is something
local um I spent three years onour science.
I spent three years on ourscience van traveling around uh,
california to detroit and goingto chipotle and chilies, and
outback all the time and saidare you kidding me?
We're in texas, how are you nothaving barbecue?
(46:10):
Or kansas city?
So, honestly, my favorite placeis anything local that has a
good rating.
I'm going to give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, dino, where are you up to next?
Where are you headed?
Speaker 2 (46:21):
So the next event that we'll be heading out to is
Kansas City in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Nice.
It's going to be a little,probably actually good time of
the year to go.
There might be a little warm.
Where um are you coming up to?
Oregon or the Northwest at all?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Not anymore.
Um, you know, we used to havean event there at pumpkin Ridge,
um, and, and now it's it's nomore.
Um, that was always.
I loved it, you know.
I mean it's uh, coming fromSouthern California and being
able to enjoy the beer down here, it's fun going up there and
trying to debate who's got thebetter breweries, but yeah,
(46:57):
oregon at Pumpkin Ridge wasphenomenal and my sister lives
up there, so it's always a goodexcuse to go up to Oregon.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'm a frequent player at Sandpiper Golf Club in Santa
Barbara, California.
Have you been there?
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh, how beautiful is that golf course.
I mean Santa Barbara is atreasure in itself and, yeah,
that that sandpiper is so coolfor a, for a public golf course,
to be able to just go out thereand play that and be right on
the ocean.
It's, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
It's like a cross.
It's like a cross betweenPebble Beach and Torrey Pines
and it literally sits right inin between them.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And it literally sits right in in between them.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I mean it's if you started offin San Diego, you know, with the
family, and you take them tothe zoo one day and you go play
Torrey Pines and you just workyour way all the way up North.
There's some unbelievable yeahCoastal golf courses that you
know, it's Sandpiper'sphenomenal, yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Hey, dino, we appreciate it.
Man, I know you're busy, yougot a young family too, and I
think you were saying you werejust maybe driving them home or
whatnot, earlier today.
So it's been a true pleasure.
You are full of education.
We hope to have you on the showagain in the future.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
But thanks for taking the time.
No, thank you for having me.
It's been an absolute pleasureand, uh, you know, hey, I love
this job and I love talking golf, and what a great platform.
So thank you so much for havingme thanks, dino.
Have a great day my friendshave a great one, all right bye,
noah.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
What do we have to look forward to next week?
Speaker 3 (48:24):
man, we've got a couple things to look forward to
.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Um excited to most likely get into talking about
ball fitting a little bitdefinitely we're gonna have a
lot about clubs, but there's somany high quality golf balls on
the market now that just weren'tthere a few years ago yeah,
it's.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
It's the thing that we cared about back in the day.
The ball curved so much morethan it does now.
You played the the tour balladI would cut.
We're not going to ruin thepodcast, but I'm excited to talk
with you about ball fitting andget some questions in and talk
a little bit more about sometips and tricks next week as
well.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Thanks Noah, Thanks Darren, We'll do it again next
week.
Bye Bye.
Welcome to the my golf source podcast.
Welcome to my golf source.
I'm Darren, I'm Noah.
Back at it again.
I think this is week 12.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, and the weather has definitely changed from
good to great.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And better.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, oddly enough, just came from the golf garage.
We're still slammed in there ona Monday, which is not normally
a busy day, so I think the golfbug is officially in full swing
in Southern Oregon.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And Sunday was busy too, I hear.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, it definitely was.
We did an awesome deal where wehad some pizza, beer and a bay
for 20 bucks.
How good is that.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Dude for an hour, Half an hour.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
No for an hour.
For an hour and you could bringyour friends.
Just Sundays have been a littlebit slower.
In the afternoons I'm likelet's drive some traffic.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Not with that deal.
No.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
No, no, it was good, and so we'll probably do more
family stuff here in the future.
I'm really excited aboutgetting it all out, but how
about you?
What's new with you?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know still coming off the high playing running
why?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
In Klamath Falls last weekend.
So funny, A lot of fun.
I was showing somebody in alesson today who didn't have a
lot of mobility and they weremaking golf swings and just
moving all over the place andfinally caught one and I was
talking to him about his balanceand ultimately talking about
balance at impact and howimportant that is.
But after you've hit the ballit's not as important.
So I talked to him a little bitabout Arnold Palmer and showed
(01:34):
him a couple Arnie swings as heaged gentleman 70, you know in
his late seventies.
So pretty funny when I showedhim early Arnie versus now Arnie
and he's like okay with it.
Now you know, just knowing thata great golfer did it and so
who cares?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Some of the best golfers I know personally have
the most unconventional swings.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Like your son, toby's got a little bit of
unconventional.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
He's not near as unconventional as a lot of a lot
of the guys.
I see there's another guy.
I won't say names, but Icompare his swing to Daryl
Strawberry with the littleloop-de-loop on the back.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Pounds driver, probably when he gets it.
He does.
He does the extra windup yeah,that's awesome.
Well, let's get right to it.
We've got an extra specialguest with us today, coming all
the way down from SouthernCalifornia, works for the
largest manufacturer of golfballs in the world and he gets
(02:32):
to work with some of the bestgolfers in the world in fitting
them.
Please welcome Dino Antonucciwith Titleist Golf.
Welcome to the show, dino.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah.
So, dino, before we get started, I want to tell a quick story
about how I met you andultimately, I was in Ohio and I
didn't want to be in Ohio in thewintertime, like no one wants
to.
I think you grew up there and Iwas currently on the board of
the Northern Ohio section PGA atthe time and your dad was the
(03:07):
executive director at that time.
And ultimately, ultimately, Iwas coming down to California to
um try out some clubs fromanother company and your dad
said, hey, you should go see myson while you're down there.
And I said, oh, where's yourwork?
And he said, hey, you should gosee my son while you're down
there.
And I said, oh, where's yourwork?
And he said, oh, he's a fitterat Titleist.
(03:28):
I'm like, oh, I'm there, I loveTitleist.
So, um, obviously, your dadconnected us and you, open arm,
basically, were like, let meknow when you're there, if I'm
there, coming in.
And that was the coolestexperience I've ever had at any
tour department because, if yourecall, bob Vokey decided to
give us a tour fittingexperience and you, he allowed
(03:51):
us to watch first of all, whichwas incredible.
And the tour players were weregreat too.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, it's a.
It's a pretty special place,for sure.
Or they're at the titlesperformance Institute and, again
, like you said, at any givenmoment you could see a tour
player, you could see Bob Vokey,many of our unbelievable
engineers that helped design thegolf clubs out of the West
coast operations.
So it's, it's a pretty coolplace.
You never know who you're goingto run into while you're out
(04:19):
there.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Dino, do you remember when I entered that I had a hat
under my armpit?
I kind of brought this up inthe last podcast but I was.
I was pretty gun shy when Irealized that a Callaway hat on
in Titleist and it was no morethan boy 90 seconds.
I think you guys were sick inyour sniffing dog on me.
(04:40):
But somebody is like hey,what's in your armpit?
And I was like kind ofsheepishly pulled it out.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Literally 30 seconds later I had a Titleist hat on,
so he should have said it wassomething he found in the
parking lot.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, exactly Right, no Well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I mean that's for sure.
I mean it's uh, we always wantto make sure everybody's taking
care of and yeah, presenting theTitleist, uh the banner as well
.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
That's so cool.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhere you've been recently and
what you're doing, because whenI was with you before, you were
at Titleist solely doingfittings, and now you're on the
road correct, correct, yeah, sofor the past seven years I've
been the manager of golf clubs.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Promotions out there on the Corn Fairy Tour, so week
in and week out.
Wherever the Corn Fairy Tour is, myself and uh, promotions out
there on the corn fairy tour.
So a week in and week out.
Wherever the corn fairy tour is, uh, myself and my team are out
there just helping out theplayers and making sure they
have all the product ready to gofor a Thursday, friday,
saturday, sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Man, that's awesome.
So I've had a little bit ofexperience um corn fairy and PGA
tour, but it's pretty unique tosee what the players want.
They're so different andultimately, um, I'd be curious
like you don't have to namenames, but what is the the most
(05:57):
amount of clubs you guys havehad to build for one player in
an event and like go throughthat process.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, I'm not going to say that we sit around and we
look through the order systemand come up with those numbers
on our own or anything but no,you know it's funny throughout a
year, gosh, you might getsomebody up there with 20 or 30
different golf clubs and againit's it's.
It's typically the unique golfclubs, it's not the core set of
(06:24):
irons.
Sometimes a player is thinkingabout reworking the wedges in
their bag, so they'll go througha couple of different wedges.
Maybe they started off with a50, 54, 60, and now they're
thinking about adding a 56 and a52.
And so you're making some ofthose changes.
But I would say our most work ona weekly basis tends to be in
(06:44):
the long end of the bag.
Not necessarily those changes,but I would say our most work on
a weekly basis tends to be inthe long end of the bag, not
necessarily the driver, butfinding a three-wood that they
can utilize for that course,potentially looking at a
five-wood.
Or the hottest club these daysare seven-woods, Long utility
irons.
I think everybody out there,from the amateur all the way up
(07:05):
through the tour player, theywant to play a three iron, they
want to play a four iron, butthey're not always the easiest
golf clubs to hit.
No they're not Introducing themto hybrids or seven woods or
utility irons that are differentfrom that of what they have in
the rest of their set.
So that tends to be the mostwork that we do out there.
So yeah, I mean you could seeguys.
(07:29):
You get some guys that honestly, all they do is they come in
the truck and have their loftand lies checked, and then you
get other guys that are outthere every week searching for
something just to give them thatlittle bit of edge to push them
to the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
There's a little bit of a backstory to this, and Noah
and I go rounds on this.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But what is the highest lofted degree wedge you
guys have ever custom fit forsomebody?
We used to carry a 64 degree.
That was a stock club in ourline.
Every once in a while you'd getsomebody sneaking that to 54
and a half Right now.
Currently we seem to find thatsweet spot at 62 being the
highest lofted club.
But it's funny, a lot of thesecollege kids, you know a lot of
(08:11):
these kids, come out of collegeand their coaches, you know,
suggest and recommended themplaying 58s and learning how to
play 58.
So, honestly, moving them intoa 60 once they start to get to a
tour caliber golf course, it'sa lot of loft, you know.
And then they have thecapability of adding loft to
that as they, you know, move theclub through the ball so rarely
.
But yeah, I mean there thereare definitely a lot of you know
(08:34):
a couple of 62s out there.
But, you know, every once in awhile you'll see somebody
sneaking it a little bit closerto that 64 nowadays, but not too
much.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, so ultimately, let's talk about that, because
you are a tour fitter and theway I look at loft is it can be
utilized in so many ways.
Um, a tour player is totallydifferent than an amateur golfer
, and so when you're out thereand, like you said, trying to
get them ready for tour golf,why do you think they go to a 60
versus a 58?
Obviously, I have some ideas,but what's your biggest
(09:08):
reasoning that you've seen thatthey're going to 60 or 62
instead of staying at 58?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I think a lot of it starts off they feel like they
need to have the 58 degreebecause of the gapping.
If they look through their set,the majority of clubs are
anywhere from three to fourdegrees in between golf clubs.
Sets are getting strongernowadays so you tend to see guys
kind of move into that 58.
When they get out to the PGATour or the Corn Fairy Tour in
my case, the greens start tochange a little bit.
(09:37):
The pin placements start tochange.
In some cases the courses theyplay in college are unbelievable
golf courses and tough, but thepin placements aren't poor pin
placements and when they startto see those and they get
short-sighted they're lookingfor just that faster stop.
Sometimes we can take care ofthat with just making sure that
one they're in the right golfball.
(09:58):
Potentially they might be inthe wrong ball, but it's amazing
how many guys this season havecome to us and said you know,
gosh, I haven't been fit in fiveyears.
I've never been fit, you know,and so sometimes they just don't
know Right and they're.
They're just looking for thatlittle bit of edge.
But again it it comes down, Ithink, a lot of times to the pin
(10:19):
placements and the green speedsthat they're seeing on this
level, that they just want tomake sure they get the best
stopping power that they can.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So what is the number one shaft you're fitting a tour
player into for a wedge thesedays?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know, bob did a test years and years ago when he
first started with a companyand tested a variety of
different shaft companies,different flexes.
The shaft that stuck out to himand to a lot of the people he
tested was the Dynamic Gold andit happened to be the S200.
And that's why you see a lot ofour stock shafts going to the
(10:56):
consumers in the Dynamic GoldS200.
We'll call it a wedge flex butthat's essentially what it is.
As you start to move up intohigher speed players, you know
they might move into an S is.
As you start to move up intohigher speed players, they might
move into an S3.
A lot of the players on tour usean S400.
Just again, because of theweight, the feel it stiffens it
up a little bit.
The difference between an S2and an S3 is really just the
(11:18):
weight of that shaft.
But as the shaft gets a littleheavier it gets just a little
stiffer and guys like that, asBob always said, for those
touchy-feely shots around thegreens.
Now, with that being said,there are a variety of different
options out there on tour.
We have players using steplessshafts like C Tapers and Project
Xs.
We've got Nippon players usingNippon shafts and KBS players
(11:41):
using KBS shafts.
But I think if you look at anyof the Daryl surveys or anything
out there, dynamic gold isprobably the dominant shaft when
it comes to that, and it mightbe mostly because of a default.
You know, players have justalways kind of gone that way and
sometimes they just don't know,but it seems to be a choice
that people are happy with.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So a lot of people who have trouble getting their
driver and hitting the ball intothe air, getting decent height
off the driver and theyimmediately go to.
I need more loft on my driver.
I need a 10 degree versus a 9degree.
I know that a change in shaftcan help them accomplish that a
lot.
Can you explain how thatprocess works?
(12:19):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean again, I'll start by saying this you
know, if you're looking at yourdifferent variables and you know
, five, ten years ago peoplereally didn't understand launch
conditions.
They did things by eyesight andso they see the ball low.
Let's go to the higher loftthat's going to get the ball up
in the air.
I'm not going to play a softshaft because that's what
(12:41):
somebody you know, less skilledthan I, played.
It was a lot ofmisunderstanding of equipment.
With that being said, you know,if you're looking at your
launch conditions and you wantto affect spin, your spin's too
low.
Yeah, loft is the fastest wayto affect spin.
I always looked at the shaft asyour control.
Yes, there are shafts that willlaunch it a little higher and
(13:04):
spin it a little bit more andshafts that will keep that down.
But again, shaft to me is whatkind of steers the ship.
It's what keeps you within theboundaries of the fairway.
So I always say that you wantto find a shaft that one feels
good to, the player, gives themthe best control.
And then, when you're startingto look at it from variables,
yeah, I mean, every company outthere seems to have a color code
(13:28):
system.
A lot of your red shafts tendto be the shaft that you're
looking for the most height outof.
Blue tends to be kind of in themiddle.
Your blacks, your whites, theytend to be a little bit of that
lower ball flight.
So yeah, if you see somebodywho's height challenged they're
not getting a lot of launch andspin out of the ball and they're
using a black version of thoseshafts, you might want to look
(13:49):
at a blue or a red and again,that's going to help those
variables.
But the one variable that themonitor can't determine for you
is how does that shaft feel?
As they're loading the golfclub, as they're on their way
down in their downswing, arethey feeling that shaft kick
properly so that they know theycan deliver the face of the club
to the ball when they expect to?
(14:09):
So it's kind of a balance.
You can't have one without theother, just like when you're
looking at track band numbers orforesight.
You can't look at just launchor just spin.
You always have to look atthose numbers together and how
they work together to look atthose numbers together and how
they work together.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know I always used to say the shaft is player
preference.
You know and I still use thatanalogy a lot because you're
hitting the nail on the head youknow I fit indoor now, so much
more Dino and ultimately I wouldsay five, six years ago I
probably wouldn't have at all,at least with driver, just
wanting to see that I feel sogood about it.
Now I mean we've got we've gotFalcons at golf garage and I
(14:47):
have quad and then if it'ssomebody I'm not sure of or
something, we'll take themoutside um down the road and I
think it is a good testregardless to to do that If you
have the ability to.
How do you feel about indoorversus outdoor um?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
for the average golfer.
I know you're fitting more tourplayers now, but what do you
think about that?
I mean?
Let's first start off by saying, just like everything within
golf, the technology has gottenso much better in recent years.
I remember some of the firstbays that were indoor.
One, you always felt like youwere going to hit the ceiling.
Two, you felt like you had tomanufacture a swing to make it
look right on the screen.
But in today's world you aregetting much better consistent
ball flights.
Obviously, the differentsystems out there that monitor
(15:32):
the golf ball really help withthat system.
So I think getting fit indoorand outdoor is at this point
when you're looking at a drivercan equally be the same.
It can definitely give you agood understanding.
I am one of those players thatalways feels that you got to
take things to the course.
You got to see how they work.
You got to get tight inside ofthose tree lines, like you can
(15:54):
get up there in the Oregon areaand even out in Ohio where you
feel trapped.
And how does that club react inthose situations?
Again, I think like a drivingrange, sometimes being in a bay,
you just let it go right.
It's a video game.
You maybe aren't reallythinking about it.
And same thing on the drivingrange you know, hey, it's not a
fairway, it is a big, huge fieldthat you're hitting out into.
(16:15):
You know whether it's a drivingrange or a practice facility
and you sometimes make adifferent swing than you would
on the golf course.
So, yes, I think you know,first of all, foremost, always
get a custom fit, whether it'sindoor or outdoors, and then
have the opportunity to take itonto the golf course.
Is is killer, because thatreally allows you to see how you
can work it around the golfcourse.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What you're saying makes so much sense.
As a recreational golfer myself, I know it took me months to
get accustomed to swinging inthe bay because I'm I'm six foot
three, I'm and I'm a tall guyand you know, you feel, I know
that I'm not going to be hittingany equipment or the walls in
the bay, but it doesn't feellike it.
(16:56):
So it's hard to just kind of,you know, let loose and crank at
it in in a bay for you.
You got that claustrophobicfeeling and it took me months to
completely get over that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, I mean the first bays were basically just
screens shoved into an existingroom and so that room was
designed for aesthetics as faras the people walking in and out
of the building.
Nowadays people are buildingbay specifics.
I mean, even our bays out atthe Titleist Performance
Institute that we've justrecently put in our renovation
(17:29):
are significantly higher thanthey were prior to that.
Again, just not having thatunderstanding.
Those original bays were builtfor robots, so robots didn't
care, and then once you startputting people inside of them,
they're like well, this is alittle tight, let's give
ourselves a little bit of room.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now again, as a recreational golfer, I I don't
think I don't know this for sureI don't think I generate enough
club head speed to reallywarrant a stiff shaft on a
driver.
Maybe I do, maybe I don't, butI do know that.
You know noah talks a lot aboutshafts being player preference.
If I swing somebody else's clubwho has a regular shaft, I
can't get the club face tolaunch the ball.
(18:11):
I I feel like the club face islagging too much and I feel it's
it's for me.
It's it feels too whippy, it'sjust not a comfortable feeling
for me.
I much prefer the stiffer shaft.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You know, fitting is such an art and and everybody
out there that that fits, youknow, kind of brings their,
their philosophy into thefitting that you're going to.
You're exactly right, you know,if I give somebody a soft shaft
they're going to be like oh,this thing's going to spin off
the planet, it's going to launchto the moon.
(18:45):
But if I load the shaft in acertain way I might get that
face to a dynamic loft.
That's way less than what theactual loft of the club is.
So by the time you deliver itto the ball it's lagging so far
behind that you're getting a lowball flight kind of just a
squeeze out type shot.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's how I feel with the regular shaft yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, you know, and you look at a lot of these
things, when, when, when theshaft companies put things in
paper, on paper so people canread them in print ads, you know
and they say, oh, this is tohelp reduce launch and help
reduce spin.
You know, I always tell myfitters don't paint yourself
into a hole because of the waysomeone loads a shaft.
It may not perform exactly thatway.
You might not load the shaftenough.
(19:25):
In a stepless shaft, forexample, to get the ball to
create that lower launching,lower spinning flight, you might
hold that loft all the waythrough impact and therefore
you're actually launching it upeven higher.
So, every shaft, you know again, those guys that are playing
those extra stiff shafts, withthe extra stiff profiles, that's
typically because they'reloading the shaft so hard that
(19:48):
they need it to stabilize so itdoesn't overload.
And then somebody who maybe hasa different tempo and a
different move from the top.
They're not creating that loadand they need that help.
So, yeah, it's very playerdependent.
And you're right.
I mean, we used to have afitter years ago.
So you know what shaft should Iuse?
What color do you like?
Let's start there, because youcan do a lot of things to the
(20:11):
shafts and there's a lot ofthings we do on tour that you
know the average consumer maynot know that we do or not.
It's you know we'll tipstraight into the driver head.
Well, with the tour player wemight cut a half inch or an inch
or an inch and a half off thetip section before we even put
it into the head.
So it almost changes theprofile a little bit just to
(20:33):
give them a feel that they'relooking for.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing.
Do you know?
I'm on the national fittingcouncil for another company I
don't know if I told you thatand, um, the things that I've
gotten to see, and then alsobeing in the tour trailer at the
PGA championship a couple ofyears, um, after you and I met,
um, it's just incredible to me.
You know terms like hot meldand whatever else that they're
(20:57):
using.
You know, and, and you guyshave everything.
It's so cool to get into a tourtrailer if you ever get the
chance.
Um, and it's just like I knowyou guys are so busy all the
time and you guys get upsdropped off.
Nobody knows the life you have.
I mean, your life is a tourplayer.
Only it's harder because you'vegot to make them perform and
that's.
You know how your company does.
(21:18):
Well, it's such a such a uniqueopportunity, but also like a
very stressful job, in a wayright, trying to get into the
minds of dozens of tour players.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Oh yeah, I mean, you know so much of our job.
Uh is obviously helping theplayers on a week to week basis.
Sometimes it's talking them offof a ledge Uh, I use the
analogy Sometimes it's justscratching an itch right Like
they, they, they have thisfeeling that they think that
possibly, maybe there's a chancethat they should be putting
this type of golf club in theirbag.
(21:50):
And you just have to try it andsee.
A few years ago I had a playerat the Ohio State tournament,
just before our tourchampionship, who was going to
the PGA Tour and he said youknow, hey, I'm going to the PGA
Tour.
I know the greens are firmer, Iknow I'm going to need the ball
to stop more.
I need a seven wood.
And I kind of chuckled at him alittle bit.
He's like what I go?
Well, let's try that Knowingfull well that he's already got
(22:12):
high ball flight.
And as soon as I gave him aseven wood, he hit that thing
and it looked like a 60 degreecoming off within one swing.
He turned around yeah, no,7-wood's not the club for me.
I was like, no, but we'll findsomething that's a little more
appropriate.
Maybe it's a hybrid, maybe it'sa special utility iron I'm like
, but you don't need a 7-wood.
But again, it's trying thosethings out.
(22:34):
As far as the stress level goes,on my end I'm going to tell you
something.
I really enjoy my job.
I've had some unbelievablementors over the years
throughout the industry,throughout mentors over the
years throughout the industry,throughout Titleist, that have
really helped.
I love what I do.
It's not stressful, it's funtalking to those players.
I'm not the type of personthat's going to go back to my
house or home and play thoselittle you know phone video game
(22:56):
, puzzle games.
My puzzle game is working withthe players and just trying to
figure out really what fits tothem.
And again, some of the bestadvice I ever got as a fitter
was you know, it's golf, right,it's not brain surgery.
Have fun with it.
If you make a mistake today,that's okay, we can fix it
tomorrow.
You know, maybe we think, ohgosh, this guy needs a 10 degree
(23:18):
and this model head, this isgoing to be absolutely perfect
for him and it's not.
We have many other options andyou just try that.
So it's, it's fun, I reallyenjoy it and the guys are great
and especially when you'redealing with corn fairy tour
players.
They're coming out of school,they're all excited for their
next part of their life and youknow they're very open to
suggestion and listening andlearning and that's that's the
(23:39):
best part of the job is justhelping train these guys get
ready for it.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So at the pro level, you've got so many dynamics at
play with each player, you'vegot the player.
They maybe have multiplecoaches a speed coach, a
performance coach, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
They have their caddy , they have their fitter.
Do you ever find that there'sconflict between what the player
comes to you saying they wantand what, and the direction
their coach is trying to takethem?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
oh, absolutely.
I mean, I've I've got manystories of coaches walking in
the truck and saying my playerneeds this hybrid.
And then you bring the hybridout to the player and they're
like I, I don't want this, Idon't, I don't want a hybrid.
Uh, you know, you get parentssame things.
Uh, agents, players themselves,you know again, it's yeah, you
do you have a lot of thatchatter.
(24:30):
I always prefer to talk to theplayer.
You know, if I do get a caddieor a coach or a trainer or
whoever approaching me about it,my next call is usually to that
player just to confirm thatthat's what they're looking for.
And then to find out why they'relooking for it and that might
help us in some cases.
Maybe somebody does want a7-wood, or need a 7-wood in
their bag, but they're lookingfor that lower flight or certain
(24:54):
speed to it.
So I'm not going to build it ata standard length.
Maybe I'll go a little shorterso they can get more on top of
it.
But it's also great to havecoaches there, because sometimes
the coaches are working onsomething within the swing and
today they need a club that'sgoing to help them produce the
ball flight.
So this kid can go out and playin a tournament for the next
four days Knowing full well, youknow, yeah, three or four weeks
(25:18):
later they might be at thatspot and they don't need that
7-wood anymore or that club.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So do you remember Grant Callahan?
Do you know that?
Oh absolutely so.
I, I, I didn't meet Grant untilhe was with foresight and
obviously he's not there anymore, but, um, that's where I met
him in Columbus, ohio, atMuirfield, and he told me we
became friends and he told methat he worked with the young
guns at Titleist.
So he actually worked with Bobquite a bit and I'm sure you,
(25:45):
you know, with you and whoever.
But ultimately what was reallyfunny was he told a story that
kind of goes hand in hand withwhat you're saying, where he's
standing behind Bob there on thetour T PGA tour I believe at
the time.
Um, because the young gunsobviously, the way I understand
it correct me if I'm wrong wasall the new up and coming tour
(26:05):
players, like rookies, correct,of the guys that were out on the
PGA Tour.
And so you know, Vokey's likehey, take notes on what this
player wants.
And he's standing there andhe's writing all this stuff down
and Vokey's listening.
He's like, ok, sounds good, yep, I'll make that wedge for you
right now.
Um, vokey's listening, he'slike okay, sounds good, yep,
(26:26):
I'll, I'll make that wedge foryou right now.
And I think the player wantedsomething like uh, we'll just
use the S grind.
And he wanted you know, youknow five degrees of bounce and
you know nothing realistic,right.
So he goes back to the starts,walking back to the tour truck
and and um, grant's starting toread it off to him and he's like
, yeah, that's not what he needs.
Hold on a second.
And he's like, just take note.
And he goes in and builds himsomething completely different
(26:50):
than what the tour player askedfor, comes back out and he says
here you go, here's the wedgeyou wanted.
Hits it, peers.
It says oh Bob, this is great,this is exactly what I wanted.
You're like right, Maybe, maybenot, yeah.
But, but ultimately Grantliterally was in awe, like it
was one of those aha momentsCause he was kind of a rookie at
(27:11):
the same time.
I believe it was like his firstyear.
So it's just like incredible tome that, like you're saying,
it's an art and a science.
You know in fitting andultimately to have someone like
yourself that is a truly amaster fitter.
You know to really go downmaybe a rabbit hole with a
player but at the same time knowwhen to stop and know you know
(27:35):
how to talk to them to make themplay the best golf that week.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Right, so there's a little bit of psychology in what
you do.
Oh, a hundred percent.
I mean, these players havegotten there for a reason.
They're great players.
Um, sometimes when they comeout as rookies or their first
season, or maybe they're comingback to the corn fairy tour,
they're a little nervous anddejected and not really sure if
(27:59):
they belong.
And you have to remind themsometimes.
I mean, I had a player lastweek where I just kind of looked
at him I'm like dude, you're,you were one, you were one time
the number one junior in theworld, like, come on, you know
what to do.
And he had a great tournamentthis last week, you know.
So you just sometimes you justgot to talk to these guys and
pump them up and you know, yourstory about bob is is absolutely
(28:21):
.
You know, bob is bob's one ofthose treasures in golf, like
like so many you know before him, and it's they know, you know,
they've seen it, they've done itall.
You know, they've worked withhundreds and hundreds of people
and Bob's biggest gift andunique gift is he doesn't forget
a fitting.
He will remember a fitting hedid with you three, four, five
(28:43):
years ago and it's it alwaysimpresses the player when he you
know Bob pulls that informationback.
So it's really awesome, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
So who is your limelight fit Like?
Who was like the highestprofile fitter coming through or
a player that's come through,titleist that you fit?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh, I mean.
Well, you know when I, when Ifirst started at TPI it was
green, I had gone through allthe fitting seminars and I knew
how to fit for this and that I'dspent a couple of years on the
Titleist Science Van.
So driver and ball fitting wasgood.
But when I got to Oceanside andall of a sudden the names of
players that I grew up watchingstarted showing up, I mean to be
(29:24):
able to be on the T and workwith, with Davis Love and Ernie
Els.
You know, heck, I had NickFaldo out one time.
Sir Nick Lee Trevino came outwith his, you know, with his son
, and just to listen, because heand Bob are very good friends
and had been friends for manyyears.
But to hear the banter of thosetwo back and forth, telling
(29:45):
stories of you know Bob's oldworkshop and Vista and you know
Trevino working the frontcounter.
So it's it's, you know it's nodifferent than anybody who's in
their, you know, mid forties tolate fifties.
It's the people that we grew upwatching and you know to be
able to have them kind of lookat you and go wow watching.
And you know to be able to havethem kind of look at you and go
(30:06):
wow, I never thought of that.
Like, are you kidding me?
You know, explaining ballflight to a, uh, a Curtis,
strange right, you know, like,like, like, like, I'm going to
tell him something he doesn'tknow.
You know I'm, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This process is so fascinating and I can only
imagine it's very difficult towork with the demands of players
that are at such a high level.
But do you find it easier to towork with those demands with a
player that can just swing andhit the ball so consistently to
get them fitted, versus anamateur?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah.
What what do you?
What do you?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
find easier or more or more enjoyable as an
experience for you.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'll tell this to any fitter that's out there you
learn as much working with thehigher handicap, the new golfers
and the recreational golfers asyou do with the tour players.
So much of what I do on the teewith the tour players is
referring back to those days.
It's no different.
The golf club doesn't knowwho's swinging it.
Ball flight is ball flight.
(31:08):
If you saw a trend with a 15handicap and it fits with a tour
player, you go with it.
Right, you go down that road.
So you know you can't put thetour players so much in a box
and say it's a unique fitting.
It's very similar.
You're still, you'recommunicating, you're listening
(31:28):
and I'll say listening one moretime, because that's the biggest
key as a fitter.
So often as a fitter, whensomebody walks in the door you
assume they're ready to blow uptheir entire golf bag and if you
just stop and listen to them,you might realize it's one or
two clubs that really need to befocused on.
So is it easier with one or theother?
(31:48):
It really isn't.
It's the same.
Everybody has the uniquepreference.
There's consumers out therethat want to hit three irons.
There's tour players that wantto hit three irons and neither
one of them, you know, should behitting a three iron because of
whether they don't have thespeed, the skill or the ball
flight.
So it's, it's really nodifference on who you're fitting
it's, and that's why I enjoythe fitting aspect of it.
(32:10):
You get to meet so manydifferent people.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Oh, without question.
So this is an interesting one,because you're obviously out
there a few days prior to theplayers playing in an event and
you're following them around.
Where does putter come intohere?
Because obviously that's themost important piece or tool Got
to get the ball in the hole.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
They're all good hitters, even crossed my mind
right, I mean like what?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
and even when I was there obviously you know title
list partners up with the putter.
You know specific brand.
There's, everyone knows, scottycameron and it's not even
located at your department.
So I was just curious like how,where do you guys come into
play in the putter realm and howdo, how do you guys help those
guys?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
yeah, you know it's.
It's a little more unique onthe corn ferry tour than the pga
tour.
Uh, we do have a putterspecific rep that's out on tour
with us.
Uh, that works with thoseplayers.
He, you know, hangs around thegreen.
Um, he, he probably hangsaround in the truck more than he
would like.
He would prefer, prefer to bemore out on the green working
with players, showing themproduct and helping them out.
Uh, but you know, between the,you know changing the weights
(33:19):
and you know cutting down theshafts or reshafting something,
uh, heck, it might be as much.
As you know, my top line isblack.
I really wish it was red.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Um, you know it's, it's those little nuances
Because his friend told him thathis was red and he really liked
it right.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Has he ever poured sand down the shaft of a tour
player?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I'm not going to say that they've never done that,
but you don't see it as muchanymore.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I poured salt down a shaft once.
Did you?
Yeah, I did yeah.
Yeah, it's amazing.
It probably melted with water.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But I mean, here's the thing, you know, that's,
that's the things that we had todo when you didn't have the
right tools Right.
So, years ago, here's yourshaft, here's your putter,
here's your club.
Well, I just don't think it'sright.
I mean, guys would step on theputter heads and bend the shafts
to get their lie angle to wherethey think the putter would sit
, Right.
They may have just affected theloft as well, but hey, the lie
(34:10):
angle is perfect.
That's what I'm looking for.
Yeah, player, you know, Iremember being an assistant golf
pro.
Yes, we would take sand anddump them down the shaft to give
it a little bit more weight.
But now you've got differentmaterials that we can utilize.
Heck, we got different shafts.
I mean, let's be honest.
I mean when would you have everused a graphite shaft in a
putter?
You know, 20 years ago.
Well, it's so prevalentnowadays.
(34:32):
It's just, you know, thingshave changed and, thank goodness
, you know, the companies areout there making the product, so
it makes our job a little biteasier.
Going back to your originalquestion on putters, it's a
vital part, I mean, there's nodoubt about it.
I don't spend a lot of my timeworking on putters unless our
putter rep doesn't happen to bethere that week.
But again, you know, yeah, it'swhat gets the ball in the hole.
(34:56):
It's the area that everybody isfocusing on as we start to
creep into the June Julys of ourseason and we start getting
close to the tour championship.
It's amazing how many peopleyou see start to change putters.
I think just make one more putt, you know, and and maybe it's a
head shape, Maybe it's trulynow asking the question of what
(35:17):
they should be using.
Okay, I'm, I'm tired of metelling you, let me you tell me.
Yeah, it happens definitely inthat middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, do you know?
I mean, it's incredible to tohear these stories of the up and
coming, and you have one of thecoolest jobs ever.
I think I would much rather beon the corn ferry than the PGA
tour.
Like you said, it just seemslike the personalities aren't
quite there.
The same way, as far as havingto maybe deal with someone
(35:46):
that's made it, um, butultimately, um, you have this
opportunity to see someone thenext year, or maybe halfway
through the year.
They've already gotten theirtour card because they've won
three events or whatnot, andthat's just so special, um, you
know, I guess, since you'reprimarily in the States, when
you guys are probably travelingaround for corn ferry, um, the
(36:09):
turf conditions are totallydifferent around the country,
though.
So what are you touching alittle bit on, what you're
primarily changing as you gofrom a Bermuda grass to a rye
grass, to a desert golf course,to Kikuyu right?
What are you looking at, um, orwhat are the players looking at
, I guess, from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, Well, again, you know you, you take the core
middle part of the set, which isthe irons, and there's not a
lot of change.
That goes on from there fromweek to week.
Depending on the grass, it'sthe wedges and it's the upper
part of the bag.
Players are looking atdifferent bounces.
When I get a player for thefirst time coming to me at Ocean
or to our Pedals PerformanceInstitute before the season even
(36:52):
starts, they've never been onthe corn ferry One of the things
I always make sure they do iswalk away with two lob wedges.
Let's find a wedge that hassome bounce to it and let's find
a wedge that has minimal bounce.
So you know, hey, this lastweek we played in Dallas, right?
So Texas, it's going to be firm, it's going to be hard, it's
going to be firm, it's going tobe hard, it's going to be
compact.
Everybody's beating us up theweek prior to, you know, like,
(37:15):
hey, give me my low bounceoption, I need to be ready for
next week.
And then they get four days ofrain and the course is soft and
they have to revert back totheir lab wedge.
So I always tell guys, you know,like, yes, the usga states that
you have to.
You can't play with any morethan 14 golf clubs.
You better show up to thesetournaments with 16 or 17.
(37:35):
You know you might need ahybrid versus a long iron.
You might need a wood versus ahybrid.
You may need, you know, ahigher bounce wedge versus a low
bounce wedge.
I'm a big believer in if you'retaking something out of the bag,
you better be putting somethingback in the same quadrant.
(37:57):
I'm not a fan of taking a wedgeout of play to put a two iron in
the bag.
At some point you're going towish you still had that wedge
that you took out.
So as long as you're justmoving things based on bounce
and quite frankly, nowadaysyou're seeing more and more
players using higher bounce intheir gap wedge, in their sand
wedge, whether it's 54 or 56.
(38:17):
It's the lob wedge when theyget close to the greens and
they're trying to hit thoseprecise shots that they're going
to change between a low bounceand high bounce, and you're
right.
You know the PGA Tour ismanicured pretty much the same
week in and week out, dependingon what course you go to.
Yes, there's differentvarietals of grass but they're
cutting and manicuring it thesame when you get to the corn
(38:40):
fairy tour, when you get to theaverage consumer, when you get
to collegiate golf, it changes.
So yeah, you're doing yourselfa disservice showing up to those
events and not having an optionin a lob wedge.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You know, I I carry 17 clubs in my bag, yep, and
when I'm playing in a tournamentI gotta take a few out.
And I'll tell you the ones Inormally take out.
I take out my five wood and ifyou look at my five wood, it's
like it looks brand new.
It's six years old and it I Ican.
You know I've only hit it ahandful of times.
I use my three woodconsistently.
(39:08):
Right, I take out my four iron,unless it's a heavily wooded
wooded uh course, where I'mgonna have to be hitting, you
know, low punch shots I'll teachyou how to hit a nine iron
lower than your four iron right.
Do you know we can do that okay,let's, let's do that, and I I
carry the infamous 69 degreewedge.
Yeah, wow, there you go and Iand I'll tell you what that's.
(39:32):
That's the new favorite club inmy bag, because I get to hit a
flop shot without having to hita flop shot, right because I'm
not that skilled to manipulatewedges like the pros are so yeah
, I mean.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Let me say this you know like our primary focus week
in and week out is to make surethat we can be there to loft,
line and re-grip golf clubs.
I would much rather say that Iwent through an entire week and
didn't have to work on anybody'sclubs on the range, trying to
fit a tour player into a golfclub on a Monday or Tuesday and
think that they're going to have100% confidence in that golf
(40:08):
club, even if they absolutelyhit it perfect on the range.
Confidence in that golf club,even if they absolutely hit it
perfect on the range.
When they get that heat ofcompetition on a Friday trying
to make a cut, or Saturday orSunday trying to move up the
leaderboard and they've only hadone or two rounds with it, it's
hard to really fathom thatthey're going to be able to hit
that properly.
So I would always prefer tohave that work done.
Like you said, show up with 16clubs.
(40:29):
You've hit that club, you'vepracticed with that club, you
know what that club's going todo.
Obviously there's emergencycases week in and week out, but
the best players they're,they're, they're not spending a
lot of time with me Monday,tuesday and Wednesday because
they're ready to go.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
That's such good advice, literally worth the
price of admission right there.
Do you know?
I mean, that is gold rightthere, what you just said.
Hey Dino, we're going to wrapup a little bit here.
I just wanted to thank youagain for being here with us.
Your family is incredible.
Your mom, eileen, and your dad,I mean they ran the Northern
(41:08):
Ohio PGA for how long was that?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Over 20 years.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
And previous to that, your dad and your mom ran a
golf course together, correct?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, my, my father was a club professional at a at
a few golf courses in theCleveland area.
He was the head professionaland my mother was.
My mother was the buyer for thegolf shop.
Uh, well, before you know, wesaw a lot of women buyers out
there, so she always had a verysuccessful golf shop because
women would come from all overto shop her goods.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
You guys were ahead of your time obviously your
whole family and did you workfor your dad at all?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
You know I did.
I swore I never would Just like, just like he never gave me
lessons because I wouldn'tlisten to him.
But yeah, right out of collegeI did spend a season working
with him out at Fox Meadows.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Oh man, that's awesome and I mean what's really
weird?
I obviously came from Oregon,married my wife and we were in
the Willamette Valley area.
A lot of good golf up there too.
But moving across country toCleveland, I had family there
but I had never played golf.
Moving across country toCleveland, I had family there
but I had never played golf.
The amount of golf and goodgolf in Northeast Ohio is
(42:17):
mind-blowing.
The private clubs in that areaI think there's six within 10
miles that are all pre-1923.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
It's amazing.
We can sit there and talk aboutthe country clubs in Northeast
Ohio all you want, but thepublic courses are amazing.
I mean to think you've got aDonald Ross Manikiki golf course
.
When I lived back in Clevelandyou could play 18 holes for $24
with a cart.
You know, I mean it was yeah,Donald Ross.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
who's that?
If you don't know who DonaldRoss is, please Google them.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Just look at Pinehurst, number two.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, that'll be all right right.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
So Dino you're on the road, very, very blessed.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
What you do is a grind.
You're out there on the roadall the time.
You're traveling with the CornFairy Tour.
Do you have time to play thesespectacular courses while you're
out there?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
We do.
Sure, you know, I mean,especially when you're talking
about the Midwest in the summerand you get lucky enough to see
daylight until nine, you know930 at night, we'll go out after
we shut down the truck at fiveo'clock and play some of these
courses.
You know, I'll admit you know,when I was in Columbus I had to
sneak over to Scioto and playthat redesign.
But yeah, you know you do andtrust me, my first couple of
(43:35):
years I had a truck, I had a bagon the truck and it was there
every week.
You start to tire down, youknow, get a little older, it's
like, yeah, the hotel doesn'tsound too bad after a full day
of work, but you do, you get theopportunity, you get to play
some unbelievable golf coursesno-transcript.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is your all-time favorite course?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Oh geez, that's a tough one for me, I just enjoy
styles.
That's a tough one for me, Ijust enjoy styles.
I mean, living in SouthernCalifornia for the last 27 years
, I really miss the type of golfcourses you see back in Ohio.
You know what's my all-timefavorite golf course Gosh.
You know, all day you've givenme questions that I've been able
(44:29):
to answer and that's thehardest one to answer.
I'm probably going to have tosay Firestone, just because I
absolutely love that style golfcourse.
Which one, though?
You know what?
That's a great question,because everybody would
automatically assume it's theSouth, which I would say.
In this case it might be, butthat North course is just as
good as anything.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
The North course is incredible.
That Island green on 17.
Oh, my well, it's not an Island, but it's pretty close
peninsula.
Yeah, it's brutal peninsula.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know it's again it's.
There's just so many good stylegolf course.
I miss tree line golf courses.
If I'm going to say my favoritegolf course, it's a tree line
golf courses where I've gotboundaries, I, I, I can hit the
ball sideways sometimes, but assoon as I get in the boundary I
play so much better golf.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I got that.
I played.
I missed my tree-lined courses.
I played Coeur d'Alene Resort acouple years ago.
Yeah, very much tree-lined, butyou also have the water, you
also have the island green.
It was like the best ofeverything kind of wrapped into
one course.
It was so cool.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
You know, you need to come up to Oregon.
Man, you got a place to stay.
Anytime you want, let's go.
We'll go up to Northern too.
We'll go play pumpkin.
Columbia, royal Oaks, all thoseyou want, tree lined that's,
that's good, and it's not quiteas wet as Seattle, so that's a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
So after a long day after a long day of work in the
truck.
Where's your favorite place togo eat?
What do you look for?
Speaker 2 (45:50):
but uh, my favorite place to go eat is something
local um I spent three years onour science.
I spent three years on ourscience van traveling around uh,
california to detroit and goingto chipotle and chilies, and
outback all the time and saidare you kidding me?
We're in texas, how are you nothaving barbecue?
(46:10):
Or kansas city?
So, honestly, my favorite placeis anything local that has a
good rating.
I'm going to give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, dino, where are you up to next?
Where are you headed?
Speaker 2 (46:21):
So the next event that we'll be heading out to is
Kansas City in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Nice.
It's going to be a little,probably actually good time of
the year to go.
There might be a little warm.
Where um are you coming up to?
Oregon or the Northwest at all?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Not anymore.
Um, you know, we used to havean event there at pumpkin Ridge,
um, and, and now it's it's nomore.
Um, that was always.
I loved it, you know.
I mean it's uh, coming fromSouthern California and being
able to enjoy the beer down here, it's fun going up there and
trying to debate who's got thebetter breweries, but yeah,
(46:57):
oregon at Pumpkin Ridge wasphenomenal and my sister lives
up there, so it's always a goodexcuse to go up to Oregon.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'm a frequent player at Sandpiper Golf Club in Santa
Barbara, California.
Have you been there?
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh, how beautiful is that golf course.
I mean Santa Barbara is atreasure in itself and, yeah,
that that sandpiper is so coolfor a, for a public golf course,
to be able to just go out thereand play that and be right on
the ocean.
It's, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
It's like a cross.
It's like a cross betweenPebble Beach and Torrey Pines
and it literally sits right inin between them.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And it literally sits right in in between them.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I mean it's if you started offin San Diego, you know, with the
family, and you take them tothe zoo one day and you go play
Torrey Pines and you just workyour way all the way up North.
There's some unbelievable yeahCoastal golf courses that you
know, it's Sandpiper'sphenomenal, yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Hey, dino, we appreciate it.
Man, I know you're busy, yougot a young family too, and I
think you were saying you werejust maybe driving them home or
whatnot, earlier today.
So it's been a true pleasure.
You are full of education.
We hope to have you on the showagain in the future.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
But thanks for taking the time.
No, thank you for having me.
It's been an absolute pleasureand, uh, you know, hey, I love
this job and I love talking golf, and what a great platform.
So thank you so much for havingme thanks, dino.
Have a great day my friendshave a great one, all right bye,
noah.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
What do we have to look forward to next week?
Speaker 3 (48:24):
man, we've got a couple things to look forward to
.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Um excited to most likely get into talking about
ball fitting a little bitdefinitely we're gonna have a
lot about clubs, but there's somany high quality golf balls on
the market now that just weren'tthere a few years ago yeah,
it's.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
It's the thing that we cared about back in the day.
The ball curved so much morethan it does now.
You played the the tour balladI would cut.
We're not going to ruin thepodcast, but I'm excited to talk
with you about ball fitting andget some questions in and talk
a little bit more about sometips and tricks next week as
well.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Thanks Noah, Thanks Darren, We'll do it again next
week.
Bye Bye.
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