July 11, 2025 • 11 mins
CT Open Champion, Jackson Roman, joins the show to discuss golf, winning the 90th CT Open, and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Back on the Rob Deviles Show. Ben Darnell in Your
Afternoon Drive defending champ Connecticut Open joining us on the
hotline now, Jackson Roman, he's from Berlin, Connecticut. He goes
Loyola down in Maryland Amateur to win it. So, Jackson,
when you won the tournament last year, what was it
like to be like a local kid and win the tournament?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely it was definitely a pretty
cool week. I mean, you know, I grew up playing
in the b SGA event, so you know, just growing
up playing like the Connecticut am Connected Open, driving in
and like you know, you see all those like posters
of past winners. It's like, definitely it's been like a
dream of mine growing up to be able to like
(00:44):
win a SGA event, especially the connect cout Open. I
mean that's their biggest event, so you know, being able
to being able to go up against like the pros
I saw on those posters growing up, and also just
some of the young guys who are really good right now.
It was definitely like just a really cool experience to
be able to, you know, say I won that event,
(01:06):
and it'll be really cool to see my own poster
driving in you.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Know, this year so awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're talking the twenty twenty four champ of the Connecticut Open.
You're the first amateur to do it since two thousand
and eight, which is just an incredible accomplishment. It really
is surreal to think about, just for you like a validation,
total validation. When I was in school, man, I had
a couple of boys that were college golfers, and I
was always so jealous of like their lifestyle and then
(01:34):
getting out to compete with people way older than them
during the summer in some of these amateur tournaments to
really like measure themselves up when you win something like that,
and then you go to Loyola for your college golf,
like you've got to be walking around with your head
held high, Like it has to add some extra juice
and confidence to your game when you bring home a championship.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, for sure, although golf is
a crazy game, you know, it's there's a lot of
ups and a lot of downs, So definitely like not
taking something like that for granted, it's definitely like a
definitely some validation that came out of that. So hard
to win in golf at any level and sometimes you know,
(02:19):
you go so long without winning or having the top finish,
but when you do, you know, when you start playing
some good golf and you win or you have a
great finish, it definitely is a huge confidence booster, just
knowing that you're like, you know, doing the right things
in your practice and and you're on a good track,
you know.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Talking to Jackson Roman, he is the reigning champion of
the Connecticut Open and the ninety first Open is coming
up will be played at Blackhall Country Club in Old Lime,
let me ask you about your Type one diabetes and
and what does that do to you during these tournaments.
Obviously you got to watch that all the time, but
(02:59):
but how is it keeping your energy up for four
or five hours during one of these rounds.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely not It's not easy, that's
for sure. But it's like a learning experience every day.
I mean, every every Type one diabetic knows no day
is the same. But the more I play, you know,
the more I learn. You know, I'm not a master
at it yet, you know, having to deal with it
watching or blood sugar is at understanding. You know, maybe
(03:27):
have the weather of the day super hot, super cold,
you know, adrenaline too. If my adrenaline is up, that might
affect my blood sugar. So just kind of keeping it
all in mind, and sometimes it kind of helps having
something else to think about on the golf course. You know,
you've heard stories like Neil Shipley doing maths on the
golf course to distract himself. I guess I'm technically also
(03:49):
doing some math out there figuring out how much info
I need or carbohydrates I need to eat, which kind
of gives me a little bit of break from the
possible pressures up if it's of the tournament I'm playing in.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I love that you turn it into such a positive
man keeping your mind off the actual golf. Explain to
us this, like we talked to the travelers guys about
this all the time as far as amateur status and
now with like the world of nil and you can
possibly get paid for your name, image and likeness, like
you could go have a golf clinic like the Jackson
Roman Golf Clinic, make money off your name or win
(04:24):
a tournament. Why do golfers continue to keep amateur status?
Does that like matter in college? Like, explain that to
us why amateur status still matters? To you instead of
just going pro, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I mean there are still rules around the amateur status,
so like I can only play college golf domin amateur.
There definitely is a gray area between NIL and being
a professional and earning money through winning tournaments. It does
feel like it. It's pretty similar where you could have
(05:04):
you know, some brand run an event and the winner
gets paid money for being a pro, but the amateur can't.
But then they can turn to you know, college players
an amateur and give them the same amount of money
they gave to the winner in NIL, but you know,
the amateur can't win it in the professional event.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Right That Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
No, not really, to be honest, but it's it's still
definitely like a working process for the whole NIL scene
in general. It seems it's kind of changing every day.
So yeah, it's definitely kind of a weird dynamic between
those two things. All right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
As far as Blackhall Club in Old Lime, how often
have you played it? What do you know about it?
And what's going to be like defending your title?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah? I actually I got to go out there yesterday,
which was pretty good timing for this, and i've played
there maybe once or twice, but it's been a few years.
The course is definitely a little bit different than the
course from last year. There's some open holes out there,
you know, where you can hit the driver, but there's
definitely a lot of holes where you got to kind
(06:11):
of navigate through the woods a little bit figure out
where to hit it. You got to hit in a
certain spots to make sure you got the best angle
into the green, and the greens are quite tricky too.
So yeah, I'm really excited to you know, trying to
defend the title and and yeah, just go out there
and play golf.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, you're already kicking butt. You had a great
career already at Loyal still one year to go there.
You're from Berlin, Connecticut. Do I say, Do I say
it right or wrong? In that time? Rightlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Connecticut.
Like what got you started in the game? And when
did you flip the switch to where like this could
(06:50):
be my profession and I could actually make the move
to go pro someday.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, I mean, I grew up playing golf. I started
playing golf probably when I was three or four. My
dad brought me out to the course I'd probably started
with just some plastic six.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I played you know, like junior like US kids, junior
golf events from the ages like probably five or six
up until twelve, and then played in like PTPGA or
small you know, junior tours. But it probably wasn't until
you know, maybe sophomore of high school where like I
kind of had a decision to make, you know, do
(07:29):
I want to really take this thing seriously because I
still wasn't you know, playing Division one level golf in
high school yet. So I feel like it was definitely
a turning point in high school, and hobnously COVID might
have helped junior or two because the only thing you
could do's kind of go outside and play golf. But yeah,
definitely just like started applying myself to the game. And
(07:52):
you know, I always tell people, you know, the number
one role I have is I got to be having fun.
Right It's it's the nerve wracking game you can really
get inside your head. So my goal every day on
the golf course is to have fun. And I think
that's definitely helped me, you know, sustain good golf for
for a long period of time and give me the
(08:14):
opportunity to be able to pursue golf professionally after school.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Talking to Jackson Roman, he is the reigning champion of
the Connecticut Open. All right, for young golfers like yourself,
college age, high school age, even younger, what are some
of the things you learned growing up that that helped
you become such a consistent golfer.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's the golf is just like a
long learning process. I feel like every single golfer can
agree that. Like you're it's never done, you know what
I mean, There's never a finish line. There's always something
you can do better. But I feel like, you know,
one thing that has really helped me and I've learned
throughout the way is kind of just being honest with yourself.
(08:59):
Sometimes it's hard to do that, especially when you have
maybe parts of your game that you don't want to
be you know, struggling in or sometimes you know, maybe
you missed a few short putts, but really it was
your driving that was that you were struggling with. But
just being honest with yourself helps a lot when you're
(09:19):
trying to improve, because you know, there's there's so much
in golf. You know, there's equipment. There's the swing, the
short game, the putting, especially in tournament golf. You know
there there's how to approach the golf course, how to navigate.
So this is like being really open, open minded when
it comes to everything and accepting that you know some
(09:40):
things are not going to be great at right off
the bend, some things you might be and just being
able to pinpoint what those possible areas where you need
the most improvement are will help help you know, help
you improve faster.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
He's the ninetieth Connecticut Open champion. Jackson Roman Connecticut Open
presented by a Send Bank again July twenty eight through thirtieth.
Rob Doubleshow will be live the first two days of
play twenty eighth and twenty ninth, That Monday and Tuesday,
Jackson were telling us too before we got started. The
Maryland am is coming up. That's when you've performed in
(10:15):
pretty well in the past. Plus your mates from the
Loyola Maryland golf team were going to be there, So
you guys are probably going to try to represent Loyola.
But how much do you represent Connecticut? Like playing in Maryland,
I know that's not too far south, but I know
a lot of those courses you play are in Florida,
in Texas, all over the South. When they see CT
next to your name, like, is it something like a
(10:38):
sense of pride, a chip on the shoulder because all
these other guys may think they're better than all of
us New Englanders because we only can play like so
many months a year.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, definitely, one hundred percent when I see it up
in a lot of defense. There are not too many
Connecticut players. Obviously, Connecticut has a very strong golf culture. Yeah,
everyone Connecticut knows that you go to the golf course
and any golf course he dried by on the road,
and it's always packed out there. But being being out
(11:08):
there and not too many Connecticut guys, I definitely got
a chip on my shoulder. It's awesome to represent Connecticut,
represent my club two Shovel Meadow.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I mean, there's there's not too too many competitive amateur
golfers out there from Connecticut right now. The ones that
are are really really good. Obviously, everyone knows Ben James,
He's been playing a lot of great golf. But but
there's a lot of junior golfers that I know, and
a lot of golfers who have already come through Connecticut
that are really, really accomplished, and I gotta chip on
(11:38):
my shoulder to play as a resident Connecticut but also
to be able to follow in some of their footsteps.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, hey, we'll see in a couple of weeks out
there at Blackhall. Good luck in the next couple of
tournaments you play in, And thank you so much for
your time, Jackson.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Thank you, thank you for having me on. I appreciate
Back on the Rob Deviles Show. Ben Darnell in Your
Afternoon Drive defending champ Connecticut Open joining us on the
hotline now, Jackson Roman, he's from Berlin, Connecticut. He goes
Loyola down in Maryland Amateur to win it. So, Jackson,
when you won the tournament last year, what was it
like to be like a local kid and win the tournament?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely it was definitely a pretty
cool week. I mean, you know, I grew up playing
in the b SGA event, so you know, just growing
up playing like the Connecticut am Connected Open, driving in
and like you know, you see all those like posters
of past winners. It's like, definitely it's been like a
dream of mine growing up to be able to like
(00:44):
win a SGA event, especially the connect cout Open. I
mean that's their biggest event, so you know, being able
to being able to go up against like the pros
I saw on those posters growing up, and also just
some of the young guys who are really good right now.
It was definitely like just a really cool experience to
be able to, you know, say I won that event,
(01:06):
and it'll be really cool to see my own poster
driving in you.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Know, this year so awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're talking the twenty twenty four champ of the Connecticut Open.
You're the first amateur to do it since two thousand
and eight, which is just an incredible accomplishment. It really
is surreal to think about, just for you like a validation,
total validation. When I was in school, man, I had
a couple of boys that were college golfers, and I
was always so jealous of like their lifestyle and then
(01:34):
getting out to compete with people way older than them
during the summer in some of these amateur tournaments to
really like measure themselves up when you win something like that,
and then you go to Loyola for your college golf,
like you've got to be walking around with your head
held high, Like it has to add some extra juice
and confidence to your game when you bring home a championship.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, for sure, although golf is
a crazy game, you know, it's there's a lot of
ups and a lot of downs, So definitely like not
taking something like that for granted, it's definitely like a
definitely some validation that came out of that. So hard
to win in golf at any level and sometimes you know,
(02:19):
you go so long without winning or having the top finish,
but when you do, you know, when you start playing
some good golf and you win or you have a
great finish, it definitely is a huge confidence booster, just
knowing that you're like, you know, doing the right things
in your practice and and you're on a good track,
you know.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Talking to Jackson Roman, he is the reigning champion of
the Connecticut Open and the ninety first Open is coming
up will be played at Blackhall Country Club in Old Lime,
let me ask you about your Type one diabetes and
and what does that do to you during these tournaments.
Obviously you got to watch that all the time, but
(02:59):
but how is it keeping your energy up for four
or five hours during one of these rounds.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely not It's not easy, that's
for sure. But it's like a learning experience every day.
I mean, every every Type one diabetic knows no day
is the same. But the more I play, you know,
the more I learn. You know, I'm not a master
at it yet, you know, having to deal with it
watching or blood sugar is at understanding. You know, maybe
(03:27):
have the weather of the day super hot, super cold,
you know, adrenaline too. If my adrenaline is up, that might
affect my blood sugar. So just kind of keeping it
all in mind, and sometimes it kind of helps having
something else to think about on the golf course. You know,
you've heard stories like Neil Shipley doing maths on the
golf course to distract himself. I guess I'm technically also
(03:49):
doing some math out there figuring out how much info
I need or carbohydrates I need to eat, which kind
of gives me a little bit of break from the
possible pressures up if it's of the tournament I'm playing in.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I love that you turn it into such a positive
man keeping your mind off the actual golf. Explain to
us this, like we talked to the travelers guys about
this all the time as far as amateur status and
now with like the world of nil and you can
possibly get paid for your name, image and likeness, like
you could go have a golf clinic like the Jackson
Roman Golf Clinic, make money off your name or win
(04:24):
a tournament. Why do golfers continue to keep amateur status?
Does that like matter in college? Like, explain that to
us why amateur status still matters? To you instead of
just going pro, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I mean there are still rules around the amateur status,
so like I can only play college golf domin amateur.
There definitely is a gray area between NIL and being
a professional and earning money through winning tournaments. It does
feel like it. It's pretty similar where you could have
(05:04):
you know, some brand run an event and the winner
gets paid money for being a pro, but the amateur can't.
But then they can turn to you know, college players
an amateur and give them the same amount of money
they gave to the winner in NIL, but you know,
the amateur can't win it in the professional event.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Right That Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
No, not really, to be honest, but it's it's still
definitely like a working process for the whole NIL scene
in general. It seems it's kind of changing every day.
So yeah, it's definitely kind of a weird dynamic between
those two things. All right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
As far as Blackhall Club in Old Lime, how often
have you played it? What do you know about it?
And what's going to be like defending your title?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah? I actually I got to go out there yesterday,
which was pretty good timing for this, and i've played
there maybe once or twice, but it's been a few years.
The course is definitely a little bit different than the
course from last year. There's some open holes out there,
you know, where you can hit the driver, but there's
definitely a lot of holes where you got to kind
(06:11):
of navigate through the woods a little bit figure out
where to hit it. You got to hit in a
certain spots to make sure you got the best angle
into the green, and the greens are quite tricky too.
So yeah, I'm really excited to you know, trying to
defend the title and and yeah, just go out there
and play golf.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, you're already kicking butt. You had a great
career already at Loyal still one year to go there.
You're from Berlin, Connecticut. Do I say, Do I say
it right or wrong? In that time? Rightlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Connecticut.
Like what got you started in the game? And when
did you flip the switch to where like this could
(06:50):
be my profession and I could actually make the move
to go pro someday.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, I mean, I grew up playing golf. I started
playing golf probably when I was three or four. My
dad brought me out to the course I'd probably started
with just some plastic six.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I played you know, like junior like US kids, junior
golf events from the ages like probably five or six
up until twelve, and then played in like PTPGA or
small you know, junior tours. But it probably wasn't until
you know, maybe sophomore of high school where like I
kind of had a decision to make, you know, do
(07:29):
I want to really take this thing seriously because I
still wasn't you know, playing Division one level golf in
high school yet. So I feel like it was definitely
a turning point in high school, and hobnously COVID might
have helped junior or two because the only thing you
could do's kind of go outside and play golf. But yeah,
definitely just like started applying myself to the game. And
(07:52):
you know, I always tell people, you know, the number
one role I have is I got to be having fun.
Right It's it's the nerve wracking game you can really
get inside your head. So my goal every day on
the golf course is to have fun. And I think
that's definitely helped me, you know, sustain good golf for
for a long period of time and give me the
(08:14):
opportunity to be able to pursue golf professionally after school.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Talking to Jackson Roman, he is the reigning champion of
the Connecticut Open. All right, for young golfers like yourself,
college age, high school age, even younger, what are some
of the things you learned growing up that that helped
you become such a consistent golfer.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's the golf is just like a
long learning process. I feel like every single golfer can
agree that. Like you're it's never done, you know what
I mean, There's never a finish line. There's always something
you can do better. But I feel like, you know,
one thing that has really helped me and I've learned
throughout the way is kind of just being honest with yourself.
(08:59):
Sometimes it's hard to do that, especially when you have
maybe parts of your game that you don't want to
be you know, struggling in or sometimes you know, maybe
you missed a few short putts, but really it was
your driving that was that you were struggling with. But
just being honest with yourself helps a lot when you're
(09:19):
trying to improve, because you know, there's there's so much
in golf. You know, there's equipment. There's the swing, the
short game, the putting, especially in tournament golf. You know
there there's how to approach the golf course, how to navigate.
So this is like being really open, open minded when
it comes to everything and accepting that you know some
(09:40):
things are not going to be great at right off
the bend, some things you might be and just being
able to pinpoint what those possible areas where you need
the most improvement are will help help you know, help
you improve faster.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
He's the ninetieth Connecticut Open champion. Jackson Roman Connecticut Open
presented by a Send Bank again July twenty eight through thirtieth.
Rob Doubleshow will be live the first two days of
play twenty eighth and twenty ninth, That Monday and Tuesday,
Jackson were telling us too before we got started. The
Maryland am is coming up. That's when you've performed in
(10:15):
pretty well in the past. Plus your mates from the
Loyola Maryland golf team were going to be there, So
you guys are probably going to try to represent Loyola.
But how much do you represent Connecticut? Like playing in Maryland,
I know that's not too far south, but I know
a lot of those courses you play are in Florida,
in Texas, all over the South. When they see CT
next to your name, like, is it something like a
(10:38):
sense of pride, a chip on the shoulder because all
these other guys may think they're better than all of
us New Englanders because we only can play like so
many months a year.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, definitely, one hundred percent when I see it up
in a lot of defense. There are not too many
Connecticut players. Obviously, Connecticut has a very strong golf culture. Yeah,
everyone Connecticut knows that you go to the golf course
and any golf course he dried by on the road,
and it's always packed out there. But being being out
(11:08):
there and not too many Connecticut guys, I definitely got
a chip on my shoulder. It's awesome to represent Connecticut,
represent my club two Shovel Meadow.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I mean, there's there's not too too many competitive amateur
golfers out there from Connecticut right now. The ones that
are are really really good. Obviously, everyone knows Ben James,
He's been playing a lot of great golf. But but
there's a lot of junior golfers that I know, and
a lot of golfers who have already come through Connecticut
that are really, really accomplished, and I gotta chip on
(11:38):
my shoulder to play as a resident Connecticut but also
to be able to follow in some of their footsteps.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, hey, we'll see in a couple of weeks out
there at Blackhall. Good luck in the next couple of
tournaments you play in, And thank you so much for
your time, Jackson.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Thank you, thank you for having me on. I appreciate
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