The Doug Pike Show 11-2-24

In this episode Doug talks about the opening season of Duck and Deer hunting. Why are you not hunting today? Hear what some of the listeners have to say. Do we need rain? What is the most important parts of hunting water fowl? What are some affective duck calls? What is the most affective rhythm in duck calling? Doug and the callers talk about all of the questions listed above. Plus, tarpon, blue marlin, croppie fish, and lighting talk. What do golf clubs and fishing rods have in common? How can you stay safe when your hunting outdoors? Doug gives you some great tips on safety. Plus, an interview with Hal Sutton.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Doug Pike Show, brought to you by
American Shooting Centers Guns Shooting at Instruction since nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now here's Doug Pike. All right.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Here we go.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
The long awaited day, opening day. Here it is. This
is it opening day to day for duck.

Speaker 5 (00:25):
Hunters, for goose hunters, for deer hunters who are shooting
rifles and aren't on mL. The rules and regulations regarding
hunting seasons, especially deer season, are somewhat complex. I think
maybe for somebody who hasn't been around in a long time,

(00:47):
because when I started deer hunting, there was just there
was deer season, and then it was not deer season.
And over the years, I think, beneficially to the state's
population whitetails, the rules have changed to be actually more
more inclusive, more inviting, more available, And I think what's

(01:13):
driving that bus really is the fact that we've got
a boatload of deer in this state. We have got
its north of three hundred thousand white tails in some
years it's a little closer. It's higher than three hundred
and fifty thousand, I believe, and to or no, that
may be our harvest number. I'll have to go back

(01:35):
and look real quick. But I believe I left a
zero off of our deer population because I think it's
the harvest number. That's about three hundred, three hundred and
fifty thousand a year. We got a couple of million deer,
and we have to take a lot of them out
every year. Why you ask, it's a simple, simple thing.
It's because if we don't take them out, then they

(01:56):
will overpopulate, and they will end up with greater potential
for disease, greater potential hold on them. Deer pop eulation
for Texas, I know it's like three three and a
half million something like that. I don't know why I
left a zero off. Oh excuse me, it's come up

(02:18):
even more. I'm sorry. Texas has an estimated five point
three million white tail deer. Not only did I leave
off of zero, I left out about I don't know
what about thirty percent of the population two hundred and
fifty two of the two hundred and fifty four counties
in this state. I would surely the counties where there

(02:42):
are no deer are both out in West Texas. That's
all I can figure far far West Texas. Everywhere else
whitetail deer and plenty of them. So if you want
to be a part of conserving and protecting our white
tail deer population by all means, by yourself a license,

(03:02):
find yourself placed to hunt, and go take one or
two out each season. We have very generous limits on
deer in Texas. As deer hunting goes, we also have
a very generous season. Talked about it a couple of
times leading up until opening day of the general season today.
The fact that this year was one of those quirky

(03:24):
calendar years in which we actually started We started deer
season at the end of September and then it went
through bot season October, the November December, January, and the
last day of this prescribed deer season lands in February.

(03:46):
So technically six months of the year with just general hunting,
not even MLD stuff. Six months you have an opportunity,
well not all of us, because there are some very.

Speaker 6 (03:59):
Specific people and whatnot.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Youth hunting comes into play in this, and there's all
kinds of seasons we have now. Bottom line is they're
trying desperately, well not desperately. It's an enthusiastic bunch. We
deer hunters in Texas, but they're trying to encourage us
to get out there and harvest, take kill, shoot, whatever
you want to call it. Get a bunch of deer

(04:22):
out of that population so that there's enough food for
the ones that are left to make it through a
potentially hard winter. Every winter is potentially hard until about
the middle of April, and at that point we can
all breathe a sigh of relief, flip one more page,
and then start worrying about hurricane season again. But we'll
get through this one, and hopefully we will all all

(04:45):
of us who are so inclined, we'll have a very
successful hunting season.

Speaker 6 (04:50):
That's what I'm looking for. Very successful hunting season. Take
a few deer.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
By now, anybody who's into all of it has already
made a few dove hunts and probably been successful. There
one of the best dove seasons early that we've had.

Speaker 6 (05:07):
In many, many years.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
The Parks and Wildlife Department predicted that there were a
lot of birds, lots of birds out there, and most
of the places that are managed, most of the places
that are well, I'm just most of the operations, the
professional hunting operations that base their success on how many

(05:30):
hunters they can set out there, and actually those hunters
will have opportunities to maybe take a limit. They're all
feeling pretty good right now. They've all had a lot
of birds. There were plenty of young birds early. The
state population of or white tails and mourning doves was
good above average. And then on top of that, all

(05:53):
the way up through the flyway, doves are migratory birds,
in case you didn't know, all the way up the
flyway also good conditions, good hatches, good recruitment, and lots
of birds moving down this way every time the north
wind blows.

Speaker 6 (06:09):
Already seen some of that.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
That same north wind that we had a few weeks
ago and delivered quite a few waterfowl. Every time it
turns around and comes out of the north again. Those
migratory birds that are still up north are gonna head
this way, and the more the merrier bring them on.
I've got a duck hunt scheduled for not that long
from now, really depending on how the schedules fall out,

(06:35):
and I'm kind of hoping we make it early in
the season. I would like to see two more good
coal fronts come through here before we get out. It's
just a little just a tickle before Thanksgiving, and it's
gonna be it's gonna be a little on the early side.
But I have a hunch with the people. Well, we're
gonna go down to Waterfowl Specialties. A former neighbor of

(06:57):
mine when I was in high school, all the way
back to then, a neighbor then called me just out
of the blue about a week ago and said, hey,
I'd like to set up a duck hunt, a good
duck hunt, and you set it up, and I'll take
care of you and your son, and I'm going to
bring my grandson and we're all just going to go
have a good time.

Speaker 7 (07:16):
Now.

Speaker 5 (07:16):
I think somebody else might join us too, Maybe one
of his daughters might join us. So anyway, the bottom
line is we're gonna go whack them down at Waterfowl
Specialties sitting a duck blind. I don't know who's gonna
guide us. I hope Mitchell can do it for us.
If he can't, that's okay. I understand that too. It doesn't.
What matters as much as anything on a good waterfowl
hunt is where you are where you are number one.

(07:41):
I would say location, location. This is just like real estate.
If you're not in the right spot, you're not selling anything.
But if you are in the right spot, there's a
pretty good chance that a guide who's not good and
I'm not none of those guys down at waterfowl specialties
are anything but good to great.

Speaker 6 (08:01):
So I'm not worried about who we hunt with.

Speaker 5 (08:04):
What I would worry about if I was somebody going
to some random place is how well that person can
call birds, and if that person knows when to be quiet.
That's one thing I learned over fourteen years of doing
this or doing that guiding duck and goose hunts on
the prairie out west of town, back when there were

(08:25):
birds out there, I learned when to be quiet. And
the birds will tell you. The birds will tell you
exactly what they want to hear or not hear. You
just watch the first few flights that day and you
call to them, and you see if they react to
the call, and they if they don't change their approach

(08:47):
pattern at all on the way in, then you're doing
something okay. If they really accelerate on the wind then
on the way in, then by all means, keep doing
what you're doing. If they're coming right at you, you're
okay to keep calling a little bit.

Speaker 6 (09:04):
I wouldn't overdo it.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
If the birds are coming at you, and in fact,
in some instances, if they're coming at you before you
even start calling, don't call. Just let them come as
far as they want to. And if they finally peel
off and start to go away, then just whistle out
say hey, come back here. Come back gently at first,

(09:26):
and then become a little bit more. Increase the sense
of urgency in your call, like, hey man, you guys
are going to be missing out if if you don't
come back here. It's a very simple, simple process once
you once you kind of learn duck language goose language,
they will tell you exactly how much or how little

(09:46):
calling they want to hear that day, and most of
the birds will react similarly to the way those first
few groups do. I don't know what triggers all that.
I don't know what makes it work, but it does.
Seven one three two point two five seven ninety Email
me Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot com. I'd ask to hear
from opening day hunters this morning. There might be a

(10:08):
couple of duck hunters with their phones on. I doubt
that anybody in a deer deer stand is I hope
they're not looking at their phones, not looking at video
reels on YouTube or anything.

Speaker 6 (10:20):
But most of them are in their blinds already.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
It's only a few minutes from shooting time actually, sunrise
in Houston seven thirty six, so in fact we're at
we're at it now. Yeah, we're at shooting time around here.
Of course, nobody's hunting in Houston.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
A little bit earlier to the east of town, a
little bit west, or a little bit later out there
on the west side.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
If you're not hunting the day and you wish you were,
you really wish you were, calling fill in this blank.
I didn't get to go hunting this morning because what Melvin,
that'd be easy for you, right, I didn't get to
go hunting this morning because I'm not a hunter?

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Is that right or wrong? That would be right?

Speaker 8 (11:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (11:04):
You just don't.

Speaker 6 (11:05):
You have it. You didn't grow up hunting, did you, No,
I didn't. I grew up fishing. Yeah, I grew up
fishing with my dad. My dad was not a hunter
at all.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
I didn't take up hunting until I was in high
school when a friend asked me to go and go.

Speaker 6 (11:18):
With his dad on a goose hunt. And that was
way before decoys.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
It was way before tearing bed sheets into rags to
put over the rice doubble. We stopped at a convenience
store I think it was a seven to eleven and
bought two Sunday papers and went out into this rice
stubble field and just opened up those papers and put
the single sheets over, just kind of draped them on

(11:46):
the rice double and here they.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
Come, Hong Kong, Kong, Bang Bang.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
And we knocked a few down that day, and I
just I just was in utter amazement that you could
just take newspaper and it out. And the best part
about the one hundred years ago newspaper spreads was that
they bio degraded. You didn't have to pick them all
up and haul them all out of the field at
the end of a hunt. They just they just kind
of became part of the land. Amazing times back then.

(12:16):
And so actually where I hunted was not far past
Oh it was a little It was off of ten
ninety two west of town and maybe maybe.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
Five six miles tops west of Highway six. That's it.
We were what would be now somebody's backyard.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
We'd have awakened a lot of neighbors if we'd have
done the same thing this morning. Oh my, let's get
a first break in and keep moving from there. I
didn't get to go hunting this morning, because it looks
like a pretty good weekend too. We'll talk about that
when we get back.

Speaker 9 (12:56):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety online as sportsnet dot
com now the more Doug Fite seven nineteen on Sports
Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
Lature on this volume up just a little bit so
I can hear myself talk.

Speaker 6 (13:11):
Not that I enjoy that. By the way.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
I got to play Hal Sutton's new place, Darmore Club
this past week on Monday actually with four other media
guys and Hal and his head golf professional out there,
Nick Donogan, and man, we had a blast and it's
it's such a it's a very unique facility. Actually, I've

(13:35):
gotten the opportunity to be on two really good courses.
And I talked about the first one, a more distant
one a couple.

Speaker 6 (13:47):
Of weeks ago when I well, it was gosh, it
was I bet it's been a month now that I
was up there, Holy Cow.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
And then anyway, so I got that one taken care
of and now today, I'm going to talk with how
at nine o'clock, not only about his new place, the
Dharmore Club, but about just kind of his life as
a professional golfer, his life as an instructor, his life
as a golf course architect, which in which he he

(14:16):
he clearly knows where he stands among golf course architects,
but I think he actually when he in doing so,
he kind of underestimates his talents a little bit because
he came up in the game and knows so much.

Speaker 6 (14:32):
That's one of the.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
Reasons I'm going to have him on for about a
half an hour, starting at nine o'clock, solid two segments.
I'm sure I want to talk a little bit about
his place and a little bit about his career. And
he has one distinction in his career that maybe he
probably wouldn't want, but we talked about while we were
up there.

Speaker 6 (14:50):
It was kind of funny.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety Email
me Doug Pike at iHeartMedia dot com. I was I
was asking the question, and let me see if I
may have an email or two. I'll check that real quickly.
See what I've got to tangle with here. Oh, Wow,
that's brighton. Oh no, that's all from yesterday. Never mind,
let me just.

Speaker 6 (15:12):
Pop up to the top. Yeah, Cap Scott weighed in
almost shooting time. Almost, it was almost shooting time.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
Philip, I gotta take care of I'll take care of
that in a minute. Oh wow, big buck, Rick's son.

Speaker 8 (15:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (15:31):
Rick just sent me a picture of a buck. Let
me see, he said, his son let it walk. Let
me see ooh oh, no, excuse me, not a white
tail an elk. I don't know if I could have
let that one walk another step. Oh my gosh. He
looks kind of old too, he really does. That's an
old looking bull elk. No, I don't know if I

(15:51):
could have done that. But now his son's been elk
hunting for a very long time and seeing a lot
of good animals, So maybe I don't know.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
I don't think I done that on that one. Rick.
Oh mercy, So gosh.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
I really do want to hear why I had to
stay out because I had to work. I could have
taken the weekend off, and I know some people who did,
and more power to them. But I just had a
week off not that long ago, and I want to
save some time for the holidays. So I'm kind of
I'm using my days judiciously, hopefully wisely, and we'll see

(16:29):
how it works out. What I'm gonna try to do
kind of like when I take my vacations, I'm gonna
kind of time them so that I can get in
some outdoor stuff and holiday stuff without making anybody mad.

Speaker 6 (16:41):
Hey Mike, what's up man?

Speaker 8 (16:43):
Morning?

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Young man?

Speaker 6 (16:44):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 10 (16:46):
I wanted to tell you, first of all, the reason
I'm not hunting today is because it's still too darn hot.

Speaker 6 (16:53):
You know, there is validation.

Speaker 5 (16:56):
I'll validate that because it just doesn't seem right to
be sweating in a deer stand.

Speaker 10 (17:03):
Yeah, I don't like hunting and shorts and T shirts,
you know what I mean. Yeah, I wanted to relate
to you about bird hunting. When I first started dove
hunting back in the eighties. Yeah, I used to walk
out my back door out of the house here in Sharpstown,
start loading up the car to drive over to Dili

(17:26):
and I'd look up on the telephone wires in the
backyard and there'd be at least i'd say two to
three limits of city doves up here.

Speaker 6 (17:38):
On the line.

Speaker 10 (17:40):
One of them I'd swear they were up here just
shaking their head.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Going, just laughing.

Speaker 5 (17:46):
I'm surprised they're not laughing so hard they fall off
the wires.

Speaker 10 (17:50):
I'm sure they're going, Boy, we're safer here than we
are in here. Gonna guarantee you that you're gonna.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
Drive a half a take of gas to go look
at the same dirn birds you got.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
In your backyard.

Speaker 5 (17:59):
I'm telling you, I understand one of the greatest concentrations
of mourning doves in the entire state of Texas for
many years. And I kind of, once I got in
there and saw what I saw, I kind of would
go over there every every fall, late summer, early fall,
around August or early September and just see if it
was still the same. And that was the University of

(18:20):
Houston down to or not downtown, but it's it's regular
campus down south of town, and there were a million
doves on that place, and they were just happy as
little larks.

Speaker 10 (18:31):
Yeah, as long as we got food, they'll stay.

Speaker 6 (18:33):
You know what I mean, No doubt, man.

Speaker 5 (18:35):
I had a bunch of them in my backyard when
I was when I was bird feeding and all and shooting.
I shot a lot of pictures back there too. It
was very interesting how close you could get to some
of those birds after they became a little bit accustomed
to being around. And it's not I didn't get close
enough that I started recognizing individual doves or anything.

Speaker 6 (18:54):
But I did have it.

Speaker 10 (18:55):
Go ahead, I'm looking I'm looking forward to hearing Sutton talk.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Man. He really is.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
We had a lot of fun out there, man, he does. Yeah,
it's a beautiful club.

Speaker 6 (19:06):
It really is. It's an absolutely gorgeous club.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
And it's it's totally different from anything that I have
seen built in the past thirty years. And that's saying something.
It's Nope, no.

Speaker 10 (19:20):
I love it already.

Speaker 8 (19:21):
No.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
And the widest fairways you'll ever see. It's like hitting
on a driving range. But here's the kicker, though, Mike.
If you don't, if you don't pay attention to where
you're hitting it out in that expansive fairway, you're gonna
wind up in some sort of trouble. Now, there aren't
There plenty of native areas out there, and native area
means grass up to your your kneecaps. But it's not

(19:47):
there's not so much of that that you even notice
it until you hit it in there.

Speaker 10 (19:52):
Yeah, I'll tell you that's the reason I still use
yellow and.

Speaker 6 (19:56):
Orange ball honey is something that beeps disp you. Thanks
make good sure man, audios. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:08):
I had plenty of days when I could have taken
the limited doves in my sugar Land backyard, No question
about that, man, No question about it. Wasn't necessary this year.
There are doves all over this state. And like I said,
coming in that, the people who have who lease land
and scout that land and know how to prepare it

(20:30):
for dove hunting and have done so.

Speaker 6 (20:34):
All of them.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
So far as I know, I haven't had anybody call
me and say, you know, any outfitter. I haven't had
any outfitter call me to tell me it was just
a horrible, horrible dove season, not a chance. Teal season
was what it was. It was also pretty good. There's
always there's always risk during teal season that the place

(20:56):
where you have your little pond or your little flat
just isn't where they want to be. And it did happen,
as it always does happen to some hunters. But by
and large, it was a pretty good kickoff, a pretty
good preamble to what we've got today, which is opening
day of the waterfowl seasons. I doubt that there will
be many snow geese shot south of I twenty, but

(21:19):
I would be willing to bet that there are enough
ducks to go around, probably a fair number of specklebellies
in a lot of the places where there is good
agriculture set up. I'm pretty confident about what's going on
southwest of Houston, down there, around as far down as
El Campo and whatnot, because there was a little extra rice.

(21:40):
I had a good conversation with Mitchell from Waterfowl Specialties
this past week as a matter of fact, about that
while I was trying to set up this hunt for
a little bit later this month, and hopefully hopefully everything
will fall into place. We can use this rain. All
of us can use this rain. The deer hunters need it,
the duck hunters needed the goose hunters need it.

Speaker 6 (22:01):
We all need it. We all need this stuff. It's
going to be okay.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
License, make sure you got your federal stamp if you're
a waterfowl hunter, your rifle, your shotgun, your AMMO, and
the latest addition to things you have to have when
you leave the camp your phone boy when we went
deer hunting, guys like Mike and me a hundred years ago, well,

(22:29):
there was no phone to take with you, and if
you if you got turned around or you got lost,
you just had to rely on yourself to figure out
where you were and how to get back. If you fell,
there was no phone call to make. I've fallen in,
I can't get up. You just had to figure it
out and hope that somebody back in camp recognized that

(22:52):
you weren't there when you were supposed to be. And
there's something that every deer can it probably does, and
if they don't, they should, and that is to have
a board of some sort or a list of some
sort that's made that morning to tell exactly where everybody

(23:18):
else is going to be hunting. And if anybody walks
out the door without looking at that list, shame on them,
because they may decide to get out of the stand
and walk around a little bit, maybe go sneak up
on that pond over yonder to whatever it is. And
if you get out and you walk into the area

(23:39):
where somebody else is hunting, and shame on you for
disrupting their hunt. And hopefully they know better than to
sling a bullet over at that rustling in the brush.

Speaker 6 (23:50):
But everything, everything that.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
You do on the way out the door to go hunt,
should be a mix of how can I I have
my best experience today and how can I keep from
messing up somebody else's experience?

Speaker 6 (24:06):
Because I'm I get antsy.

Speaker 5 (24:08):
In a deer stand after a little while, and every
now and then I'll get out and I'll walk. If
I know that there's nobody else within two hundred acres
of me, I'll get out and I'll walk around and
just go kind of start scouting for the afternoon, maybe
see if I can find something interesting, maybe whatever.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
I might get out and walk around a little bit.
Pretty good about scent control.

Speaker 5 (24:33):
I don't feel like I'm messing up the woods and
Lord in South Texas nowadays, I don't think any one
person could could change the amount of human scent that's
just wafting on the breeze down through.

Speaker 6 (24:46):
There a lot of areas.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
God, Lee, it's already seven point thirty, Melvin, Where is
this time going?

Speaker 8 (24:53):
Man?

Speaker 5 (24:54):
It's typical. This is like this is opening day. It's
opening day for me too, and the time's going fast.
And I hope that wherever my hunting audience members are.
I hope that they're getting good licks this morning too,
and that the time goes fast, and that they're all
having a good time and a very safe time. I'm

(25:15):
not gonna be safety sally today. I'm going to stay
off of that a little bit. I think, unless somebody
calls and makes me do it, there's a reason to
do it. But by and large, I'm gonna respect this
audience's ability to conduct themselves safely in the woods and
on the water and everywhere else we go outdoors. Sometimes

(25:38):
when I do that, I feel like I'm kind of
preaching to the choir, and but that's okay. I think
it doesn't hurt me to be reminded if somebody came
up to me this afternoon and said, you know, when
you're out there in the woods with that rifle, be
really careful where you're pointing that thing, because you know,
anything down rains there might get hit by a stray bullet.

(26:00):
Say thank you, thanks, thanks for being safety conscious. You
can tell me you can tell it, tell it to
a tree, because when you tell it to a tree,
you're also telling to yourself. All right, we gotta take
a little break here speaking of shooting.

Speaker 9 (26:14):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety, Facebook dot com, slash
sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (26:20):
Back to the Doug Fike Show we.

Speaker 6 (26:23):
Met on top on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (26:26):
Okay, I'll be the first to admit everybody who hasn't
ever heard that song in their entire life, raise your hand.

Speaker 6 (26:33):
What is it?

Speaker 11 (26:34):
You know what?

Speaker 8 (26:35):
Now?

Speaker 6 (26:35):
I recognize that part.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
Is that I wonder if that's a different version of
a song that I've heard, because that who Do You
Love comes from somewhere else as well.

Speaker 6 (26:49):
I know it does. Okay, So what was that titling artist?
That was Bo Diddley? Bo Diddley. Yeah, of course, of
course I don't know why.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
Seven one tree two two five seven ninety email on me,
Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
Captain Scott sent me a picture.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
Might have been the final tarp end of the season
for me, kicking around, maybe slipping down to Port Mansfield
to see if I can intercept the migration for one
more shot.

Speaker 6 (27:18):
And why wouldn't you, Scott? Why wouldn't you?

Speaker 5 (27:22):
Nice retired guy, does little guiding, does a little deer
hunting and fishing, just nothing better to do than.

Speaker 6 (27:28):
Have a good time in the outdoors. Congrat man.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
I'm I'm ragging on you a little bit, but I
couldn't be happier for you because I know, I know
what you did before you were a fishing.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
Guide and a hunting god, and.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
I know that wasn't easy, and you deserve every bit
of good time you can have.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
Man. Good for you. Good for you.

Speaker 5 (27:50):
That's a nice sized fish too, that one's not looking
looking at the picture boat side. And thank you, by
the way for not dragging that thing halfway out of
the water to take it picture and raking its belly
along the along the gunnel of the boat. Leave the
fish in the water, especially a big fish like a
tarp and there's no need to hang it up like

(28:11):
you got it hanging from the rafters. Leave it in
there so it can all its enters stay where they belong.

Speaker 6 (28:18):
That's a good sized fish.

Speaker 5 (28:20):
Probably, I don't know. I don't want to guess. I'm no,
I'm not gonna guess. I might send you a guess,
And if you send me what you think it weighed,
I'll tell you straight up whether I was within ten pounds,
then I bet I will be anyway, it's a great
size fish. It's a fun fish. It's gonna be one
that'll fight you hard, but not all day. And at

(28:41):
my state of fishing, I think I've caught my last
blue marlin for sure. Yeah, I know I have, and
I don't regret that. I will happily pass the rod
to someone who has never fought one of those fish.
I think that ought to be on everybody's bucket list
who calls themselves a fisherman.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
Try to just catch one. And it doesn't even have
to be a really big one.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
And in fact, a smaller one, maybe two to three
hundred pounds, is probably gonna beat you up a little
bit more than a bigger one will. It's kind of
like you're you're fighting, You're you're doing a tug of
war with now a tugle war's not right because the bigger,
bigger fish would have the advantage. It's the difference between

(29:27):
trying to wrestle a teenager and an old guy this
gut a big, old belly.

Speaker 6 (29:34):
You can probably you can probably take the old guy
with the big belly, most of you can in this audience.

Speaker 5 (29:40):
But you can't take that teenager because he has got adrenaline,
he's got testosterone. He's a little and I wrap that
in quotes, because I'm talking about two hundred to three
hundred pounds.

Speaker 6 (29:52):
Little blue marlin will give you all you want. There
are strong, light little bulls and just go berserk at
the of the line. It's been my experience anyway.

Speaker 5 (30:03):
The bigger one, the biggest one I ever dealt with,
actually bringing to boatside or bringing into a bow. It's
about six fifty something like that, And that's a that's
a tugboat of a fish.

Speaker 6 (30:14):
They're huge, absolutely huge. And to to.

Speaker 5 (30:19):
The biggest one I caught, wasn't that big? Like maybe
three fifty three seventy five somewhere in there still a
nice fish. Well, why am I talking about that? On
opening to have deer season?

Speaker 6 (30:28):
I just get I get wrapped up in these moments.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
I don't, Holy cow, I'm flashing back to all kinds
of places I fished them. I fished them gosh off
the Bahamas, off Puerto Rico, all up and down the
west coast of Mexico, all up and down the coast
of Texas, and around the Gulf Coast, halfway up the
East coast, a.

Speaker 6 (30:50):
Couple of more. I'm trying to think of where else.

Speaker 5 (30:52):
There was a few places, and every one of them
memorable trips.

Speaker 6 (30:57):
Even the trips that don't really turn.

Speaker 5 (30:59):
Up a blue Marlon are almost always, especially off the
Texas coast, they're going to turn up something. The disadvantage
we have here and then I'll get off of Blue
Marland fishing on opening day of deer season is the
boat ride up here on the upper coast of Texas.
You're looking at eighty to one hundred and fifty on
some of the guys that are running two hundred miles now

(31:20):
to where they're fishing some of these floaters out there
in the Gulf of Mexico, and that's a long ways
to go, long boat ride, but when you get there,
it's worth It's kind of like when I was waterfowl
guiding and there was a guy named Mike Willie. He
and I would take our guys down to a place
we had near Eagle Lake. Everybody else wanted to hunt

(31:41):
around up there around Katie Brookshire, up some up north,
a little bit down south, but all pretty close to town,
and Mike and I very quietly would just take our
people down down to that place on the way to
Eagle Lake where it was pintail heaven for a hunter.
Pintail hunting, unbelievable, goose hunting. Sometimes we just kept it

(32:05):
kind of quiet and we'd come in real late with
our people, and nobody else wanted to go.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
Because it was just so far, and we would we
would emphasize that, yeah, it is pretty far down there,
but I'll go. I'll go, all right, I'll go to
break now. I'm sorry, Melbourne.

Speaker 12 (32:21):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety, a Houston sports fan
on air and on Facebook at contact.

Speaker 7 (32:28):
Back to the Doug Fike shown.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
Seven point fifty on Sports Talk seven ninety that Doug
Park Show.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
Thank you for listening. Certainly do appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
I'm watching somebody on I think it's PGA Tour Network
fishing at some golf course somewhere. A couple of them
out there doing what a lot of them do in
their off time. There's three of them. There's three of
them out there fishing. I don't know who they are.
I don't recognize them, but nonetheless they're out there. Jordan Speith,

(32:58):
a big fisherman. He there's a lake at Golf Club
of Houston on the tournament course that I am told
he calls his favorite out there, and I know why too,
because I've seen it on a good day and I've
caught I don't know, at least six or eight fish
in the five to seven pound class out of that

(33:20):
lake in a single day. It's been a little tougher
the last couple of times I've been up there, and
it's been a while actually, when we go up there
for the Saint Jude Tournament on December ninth. By the way,
if you have not registered for that yet, I hope
you will. The Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital over in Memphis,
we have been doing a tournament for them for ten

(33:43):
years now. This will be number eleven, and there is
still room for not a lot of teams, but we'd
love to go ahead and sell it out as fast
as we can. There also are some sponsorship options still available,
not that many we've had thanks to some really good
partners over these ten years. The eleventh year is filling

(34:06):
out nicely, but there are still some opportunities if somebody
wants to get involved, and you don't have to do
a whole lot except just contact me. That'll make it easy.
I'm on the board of this thing, and i'd be
more than happy to help make your entry possible.

Speaker 6 (34:24):
We do a nice little goodie.

Speaker 5 (34:25):
Bag too if you don't if you want to be
involved with that part of it, we always try to
get something really special in there, get you a little
something to drop in the pro shop. And I don't
know exactly all what's going to be in there this year.

Speaker 6 (34:39):
But I know it'll be good. We've been We've been
batting around a few items.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
A couple of them that you may not see in
the average goodie bag for sure, And anyway, it's a
fun thing for a great cost. Last year, between the
golf tournament and the radio fun.

Speaker 6 (34:56):
That week we hit it.

Speaker 5 (34:59):
Are goals set at a million dollars and we got
just a little north of that just for that one week,
and a lot of that came from the golf tournament.
And we're hoping to increase the golf tournament side this year.
And I don't know why we shouldn't. It's just such
a fantastic cause. I got to tour that hospital years ago.
I was over there for three days with some of

(35:21):
the people from Sonny over there as well, and what
we learned and what we saw it convinced me. It
changed my life. It literally did to be at that
hospital to see the kids to realize that all of
the work that's going on there, all of the investment
in research and in top quality medical talent, all of

(35:44):
that is totally free to the kids who need it
most in their families. They don't pay for transportation, they
don't pay for food, for housing, for treatment, none of that.

Speaker 6 (35:56):
What struck me is totally unique in this world. Two things.
Number One, every bit of research they do there is shared.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
With any and other any and every other medical facility
facility that wants the information. They learn something new about
treating a pediatric cancer, they share it with the world immediately.
And they also have zero They have no billing department
in the entire hospital, no patient billing in the entire hospital.
Once you're in, you are in, and if that same

(36:27):
disease ever comes back again, you're still in. They'll go
back and work on you again. While these kids are there,
they have access to everything. They have access to dentis
and whoever, whatever they need in the medical world, they
get taken care of, and their parents don't have to
worry about anything but taking care of their own kids.

(36:48):
I'm gonna go talk to Brandon here, see what's up?
Hey Brandon, what's going on?

Speaker 6 (36:51):
Buddy?

Speaker 13 (36:52):
Good morning?

Speaker 6 (36:54):
You know I'm doing all right.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
I'm getting fired up at hunting seasons open, fishing.

Speaker 6 (36:59):
Is wide open.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
I got I got the golf tournament coming up in
a month, and I'm fired up, I am man.

Speaker 13 (37:07):
What day is the golf tournament?

Speaker 6 (37:09):
In December ninth?

Speaker 13 (37:12):
Oh it's Christmas? Christmas?

Speaker 6 (37:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
Yeah, We've got got a month and a week is
what I've got. We've got five weeks left and that's
it before.

Speaker 6 (37:22):
That tournament where you guys run, We're gonna go.

Speaker 5 (37:26):
Up to my mother in law's house. We'll hang out
up there. That makes it easy on her. My wife
and me and my sister in law and her husband
will go up there rather than risk her.

Speaker 6 (37:42):
She's getting a little older.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
She doesn't need to be driving on I forty five,
So we'll go up there.

Speaker 6 (37:48):
What time is she live in She just well, she's
just north of Houston. I don't want to see up
in the woodlands.

Speaker 13 (37:57):
Hey, that's where when Conroy is.

Speaker 6 (38:00):
Yeah, almost almost to Conra. I was talking to fella yesterday,
the guy played golf with yesterday, got family up in Conro.
He's going to be going up there. So he's got
a about a twenty thirty minute more drive than I do.
How about you? Where are you going to be?

Speaker 13 (38:15):
We'll be here doing thanksgivings.

Speaker 6 (38:18):
Yeah good.

Speaker 13 (38:20):
We're gonna have family coming.

Speaker 6 (38:23):
That's what you need. Man.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
So now that the Astros are done, are you more
focused on the Rockets or the Texans?

Speaker 13 (38:31):
I'm doing both teams.

Speaker 6 (38:35):
If you have to pick one, which one would you pick?

Speaker 13 (38:39):
I'm doing Texans and then the Rocket.

Speaker 8 (38:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
What happened to him last week against Green Bay? They
just didn't look sharp, did they?

Speaker 13 (38:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:53):
I was hoping for a better result against the team
that's only got team wins.

Speaker 13 (38:58):
Yeah. I was like, we were, we were winning the.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
Melvin then Melvin correct me? Did I say something other
than the Jets? What did I say?

Speaker 8 (39:13):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Well that was two weeks ago. Yeah, that one worked
out a little bit better and never one.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
Yeah the Jets, Yeah we can win.

Speaker 8 (39:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
So anyway, okay, So and where do you see them
ending up, Brandon?

Speaker 6 (39:27):
Are they going to be in the playoffs? The Texans?

Speaker 13 (39:31):
I hope?

Speaker 8 (39:32):
So?

Speaker 13 (39:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (39:34):
If they look like they looked up until this PASSCA
up until Thursday night, i'd say yes, but after Thursday night,
I'm kind of I'm kind of stepping back just a
little bit. Not all the way back, but I'm stepping
back a little bit. They're gonna have to really come back.

Speaker 5 (39:50):
They got ten days of rest now, and they're gonna
have to really come back strong.

Speaker 6 (39:55):
Okay, I'm gonna take your word for it.

Speaker 13 (39:58):
We won. My game was that I think it was
the last game for Thursday. We won Thursday.

Speaker 5 (40:16):
Yeah, they'll get there. Hey, I got a run man
at the top of the hour.

Speaker 6 (40:21):
You know how that.

Speaker 8 (40:22):
Goes dayan laiter?

Speaker 13 (40:26):
Okay, I'll say, well, then that's right or rock wait okay,
good went in for Brian?

Speaker 5 (40:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. I was listening
on the way in. I said, that doesn't sound like Brian.
All right, Brian, we got a roll, buddy.

Speaker 6 (40:40):
I'll see me. Audios.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
This is the Doug Pike Show, brought to you by
American Shooting Centers, Guns Shooting and Instruction since nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Now here's Doug Pike. Doug Pike, all right, welcome back.

Speaker 5 (40:56):
Doug Pike Show on fours Talk seven to ninety. Quick
reminder that at nine o'clock that traditional time when we
talk about a little bit about golf. I want to
talk a lot about golf with a guy who knows
a lot about it. That would be one house Sutton
and I had a nice opportunity to spend some time
with him this past week, and I and a few
other guys in my industry, and we got to go

(41:19):
play his new golf course and we got to go
have lunch at his house, which was really kind of cool.
I think I posted that picture from his trophy room already.
I hope I did it Facebook. I'll check during the
next break seven two two five seven ninety. Email me
Doug Pike at iHeartMedia dot com a quick reminder that
tonight you gotta roll those clocks back. Got to roll

(41:41):
them back. Seven o'clock becomes six o'clock, ten o'clock becomes
nine o'clock.

Speaker 6 (41:45):
And it's boy.

Speaker 5 (41:47):
It used to drive us crazy during waterfowl season when
I was guiding, because the first day, opening day daylight
saving time almost always falls right on opening weekend of
hunting season, and and that first day you get to
get out of bed at a certain hour and you
go through the first day of the season with actually
people you've got a ferry all over the prairie, and

(42:12):
then that next morning's coming along and you realize that
you have to get out of bed an hour earlier.
You're exhausted from the day before, you're just whipped. You
had to stay out late scouting to figure out where
everybody was gonna go, and you're just not not in
the groove yet of the new timeline. Saw something funny
on Facebook just yesterday this there's this woman working at

(42:33):
her desk at home and she's a tap.

Speaker 6 (42:35):
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
She's like, good, okay, that's that's nice.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
Now I can and outside the window, that's it's broad daylight.
And she said, well, the afternoon's finally here is stopping time.

Speaker 6 (42:48):
And it was a.

Speaker 5 (42:50):
Little joke on how it's going to be during daylight
saving time. And just as she closes her her laptop,
she got I've got time to get in nine holes
before dark. And just as she closes her laptop, it
just goes dark outside. It looks outside, and what she
says I can't repeat on the radio.

Speaker 6 (43:11):
But I think it is a legitimate expression of how
all of us who have for the last what six
eight months.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
I don't know how long daylight savings time lasts. It's
not long enough as far as I'm concerned. We should
just push the clocks forward an hour and leave them
there so that there is a little more time in
the afternoon. But then that makes it harder on the
kids because they've got to get up and stand on
the school bus corner in the dark.

Speaker 6 (43:40):
And I don't like that either, So I'm not sure
how to do it. Maybe kids can have different.

Speaker 5 (43:45):
Time than we have. Wouldn't that be confusing? Seven one, three,
two two five seven ninety email on me, Doug Pike
at iHeartMedia dot com. Be sure to set those clocks
back this evening. So I mentioned earlier, the forecasts this
weekend calls for rain both days sixty percent chance, and
once again, sixty percent chance of rain is just ten

(44:08):
more than fifty and fifty is fifty to fifty just
as good a chance, almost as good a chance now
for the next three days that it won't rain as
that it will. So don't don't be too quick to
cancel outdoors plans on a week like this, especially if
it has anything to do with the opening day of.

Speaker 6 (44:28):
Hunting season and sprinkle in the forecast.

Speaker 8 (44:31):
So what.

Speaker 5 (44:34):
I had many days out there on the prairie, the
Katie Prairie went, it sprinkled a little bit, and even
rained pretty good sometimes most of the time. I already
had my hunters in plastic parkas white Plastic Park is
to emulate the the snow geese we were hunting and
the decoys we had out, so that that bit of

(44:56):
water wasn't an issue. And as long as you you
know how to take care of your gun after a
rainy day hunt, then you shouldn't have too much trouble
getting through it. Lightning a totally different story. Lightning a
totally different story. I don't like lightning, and if it
starts cracking around me, no matter what I'm doing or
where I am, I'm probably gonna punt until it kind

(45:19):
of goes away. Hear that little horn on the golf course,
that obnoxious, gosh awful loud horn. When you see the
you see the clouds, and maybe you in the distance
you saw a little flash of light but the horn
didn't go off. You think, good, it's as far enough
of way, it doesn't matter. And then there's that dreadful

(45:40):
sound that means everybody is supposed to get off the
golf course. And I don't care where you are. On
most golf courses around here on the way in, there
are gonna be guys out there who who either are
hard of hearing or they just don't care about living
to see tomorrow. Because I've seen I've seen pictures of

(46:00):
what a bolt of lightning will do to a bag
full of golf clubs, especially ones that have have graphite shafts,
And it's not pretty.

Speaker 6 (46:10):
Same with fishing rods. If you want a little lesson
in what could happen if you ignore lightning, then just
go online look for look up pictures of.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
Fishing rods hit by lightning, pictures of golf clubs hit
by lightning, and just imagine yourself attached to either.

Speaker 6 (46:32):
One won't go well for you. I promise. What kept
you out of the field?

Speaker 5 (46:37):
I asked that in the first hour. I'll ask it again.
What kept you out of the field this morning? Why
did you not go on opening weekend? I didn't get
to go hunting this morning because and that could be
all kinds of reasons. I can think of several I
really can't. And I had that list to things that

(46:57):
maybe you've forgotten. We've talked about that before, but it's
always kind of fun to go over and somebody knew
usually confesses to forgetting something important. The must haves really,
for say, for a duck hunt or a goose hunt,
or a deer hunt, you've got to have that hunting
license for the waterfowl. You need that federal stamp. Then
you got your firearm, your rifle or your shotgun. You

(47:20):
got to have AMMO and your phone. That's the new
one that we all have to have. That we never
did growing up in.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
My age class.

Speaker 5 (47:29):
But everything else, really, everything else is just accessories you
don't have to have.

Speaker 6 (47:35):
You don't have to be dressed in camo to hunt.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
That might change your outcome, but you don't have to
You don't have to wear boots to hunt. It might
change your comfort level, but you don't have to. All
of that's to everything else, everything else calls. I guarantee
you that somewhere out on that prairie right now, there
are people just blowing their tongues through their call. They're

(47:59):
just on it constantly, quack quack quack, hong kongk honk
at every bird that they can see, and they're scaring
far more birds at a waterfowl biologist parksing waldlife guy
sat out there in a truck with me one morning.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
I didn't have a hunt.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
I was riding around scouting and I saw his truck
and I pulled over and I hopped in the cab
with him, and we were just sitting there listening with
the windows rolled down because there was a nice breeze
and it was keeping the mosquitoes down. And we sat
there listening to the prairie kind of come up on
a Saturday morning. And this is back in the heyday
of the KD Prairie, where there were hunters on every

(48:39):
piece of water.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
There were a hunter on every green field, no matter
what it was.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
There were a lot of activity out there and all around.

Speaker 6 (48:47):
Us quick quick, guag wack quick, all kinds of calling
going on.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
And he turned to me and he looked at the
square in the eye and he said, you know what,
I'm pretty convinced, Doug, that the duck call is the
greatest conservation device ever invented, because so many people scare
so many birds away by overcalling, that those birds get spared,

(49:14):
they get educated. Chances are they're not going to come
back to something that doesn't look the way. Whatever that
place is that the sound starting comes from, They're not
going back there because these people just they're convinced, they've
convinced themselves that if you're not calling, you're not trying.
And I had to explain that to a lot of

(49:34):
hunters when I was guiding. Why aren't you calling those birds?

Speaker 6 (49:38):
Man?

Speaker 5 (49:38):
Well, because the last five groups that have come in
here came in dead quiet. I never made a peep,
So why would I start blowing this horn when birds
are coming toward us. The only time I like to
really call is when they're going away. I might do
some kind of a little murmur or something like that,

(49:58):
just a little feed chuckle for the ducks. We're a
little kind of a murmur for the geese. But I'm
not honking and I'm not quacking unless they're leaving. And
then there's reason to say, hey, get back here. I
talked about that in the first hour. Get back here,
and maybe they'll listen, maybe they won't, but at that
point you have nothing to lose when the birds are

(50:19):
coming toward you, especially if they've locked their wings. Even
a couple of them out of say ten a couple
of them lock up like that, then they're all they're
feeling pretty comfy. And so just keep that in mind
next time you go, if you do get to go
this weekend or maybe next week or whatever, keep that
in mind. Don't overdo it. Less is more in a

(50:39):
lot of parts of life, and duck calling and goose
calling is one of those places.

Speaker 12 (50:45):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety, breaking sports news on
Facebook twenty four or seven.

Speaker 7 (50:50):
We'll get that information to them. This is the Dog
Pike Show.

Speaker 6 (50:54):
Welcome back a twenty one on Sports Talk seven nine
at Doug Pike Show.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
Thank you for listening on opening day of deer season,
well the regular deer season anyway, a lot of people
have already got one couple of deer, maybe in the
freezer on the books.

Speaker 6 (51:10):
Ducks and geese opened up this morning. I don't know
how many of either we had.

Speaker 5 (51:14):
On the the prairies down here on either side of
the city and either side.

Speaker 6 (51:20):
Of I ten.

Speaker 5 (51:21):
But nonetheless, that wouldn't keep anybody that I know, anybody
who I know, from coming on out and getting out
there and mixing it up with the birds.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
See what's up opening day.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
It's it's like a fire drill for the birds, I'm sure,
because everybody tries their best to tiptoe out there and
not make a whole lot of noise and not have
a bunch of headlights going across flats where the birds
might be sleeping and roosting and whatnot.

Speaker 6 (51:54):
But they still don't do it very well, and there's
a lot of noise.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
There's a lot of chaos on that prairie for the
very first time before daylight since these birds arrived. Typically
pretty quiet out there where they live, and all of
a sudden, on every street corner out there, well, every
asphalt road, every farm to market road corner, there are
four or five vehicles parked up. There are people tramping

(52:20):
through the woods, or not through the woods, but through
the fields. There's dogs running around and some of them barking,
some of them not. There's guides blowing whistles to get
their dogs back underfoot, and all kinds of things going on,
and it totally disrupts the birds. And so for the
next couple of days they're going to be in in

(52:44):
chaotic state where they're not sure where to go or
what to do.

Speaker 6 (52:47):
They'll they'll fall into a pattern, probably quickly, really by
next weekend anyway, and they'll be a little bit more
easy for the guides and outfitters to predict. And it'll
get better from there, and more birds will come, and
when they get here, they'll be they'll be already they'll
hang they'll be hanging out with already acclimated birds, and

(53:10):
so they won't be quite so skittish as the ones
that got here early. Forrest, what's up, my friend, Douglas mortarmer,
how's it going on? You know it's not so bad, man.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
We're mulling through here, got some I got a confirmation
that somebody's up and running and feeling better, and that's
good news.

Speaker 6 (53:30):
What's going on in your world? I'm down?

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Or that I feel like living proof of life after death?

Speaker 6 (53:35):
Oh my gosh, what's going on? That's one of my reasons,
doctor hunt.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
Now, I got this head crud that you know, you
start sneezing up so much stuff, you start taking his
brain matter.

Speaker 6 (53:44):
Oh my gosh, that hurts.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
I'm waiting on my waiting on my female doctor to
get out of the deer blind. And she says she
beat in her office and told me with some kind
of random magician.

Speaker 6 (53:54):
So only in East Texas. Huh wait till I get
out of the deer blind. So I'm sorry. One of
my reasons I'm not Honey, I'm.

Speaker 5 (54:02):
Sorry, faux bro. You're gonna have to wait till I
get out of my deer stand. I'll see about noon,
I know it.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
And I'm not here hunting this morning because the POA
would frown on me firing off of thirty six in
my backyard.

Speaker 6 (54:13):
So uh yeah, well you yeah, you could too, couldn't you.

Speaker 8 (54:17):
Yeah, I probably probably get it.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
I'd probably get air bow back here and do pretty good.

Speaker 6 (54:21):
Be careful.

Speaker 8 (54:24):
Duck.

Speaker 6 (54:24):
Oh no, yeah, what about ducks? You see any ducks
on the lake?

Speaker 8 (54:28):
Man?

Speaker 6 (54:28):
It has been, Uh, it's been.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
I haven't seen much on Livy said, haven't been out
really at the key time yet. Of course it's not
opened up here yet, so that's one reason I'm not
hunting up here. But but I was on curve let's
see Friday, and uh man, there were redheads. So there'saw
a few few pairs of ruddy ducks and uh good,
pretty good groups of gadwall and four hundred.

Speaker 6 (54:51):
And seventy two thousand coop. Oh my gosh, but that's
a high Drittle Lake.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
So the cooter you mean you could, you can, you
can scale it, shoot a limit one shot.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
So wow.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
But as far as you uh so, that's my reasons
for not being out there today. But you were talking
about duck calling and stuff, and I guided part time
for twenty five years up here some of the area
of lakes like that, And and the best thing I
could ever get on calling, and you hit on it
pretty good, is one thing I learned. If they're coming
to you, they're already doing what you want, and what

(55:24):
do you do to make them not do that?

Speaker 13 (55:26):
You know?

Speaker 6 (55:27):
Yeah, all.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
You can do is mess it up at that point exactly.
And what I do call it after they only only
called after they passed me. I only call it their
butts of their sides. That's the only time I had
to call it. But I've killed more ducks under the
duck commander Mallard Drake call early in the morning, just
hitting that Mallard Drake call real soft, foggy morning.

Speaker 8 (55:50):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
But uh but the two best calls I use is
because I grew up watching Phil Robertson back in the
Whole Book Men days before it came commercial. Lives with
all these college kids. But uh, there's there's one called
a paralyzer call that works good. And basically that's just
like you emphasize that first note. So when you see
them out there, it's like that first note. They're locked

(56:15):
them wings every time.

Speaker 6 (56:16):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
But then when they turn on the side, I hit
them with and you probably know, kind of like a
comeback cost us real quick.

Speaker 6 (56:26):
And that's that's usually all you got to do. Yeah,
you don't have to do a whole lot. And I
that was especially true with pintails.

Speaker 5 (56:33):
First of all, my pintail call was a little bit softer,
a little quieter than anything I would blow from alleys
and and I just I used it very sparingly. The
penttails they're gonna take twenty passes before they come in anyway.
And if every time you blow it, every time you
blow that call, you risk having them bail, You risk

(56:55):
scare at them. And as long as they're doing just
like you said, as long as you're not looking at
their backside, let them work, let them let them slide around, man,
let them go ten times more more important to be hidden, exactly.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
We got one spot up here. He's got pretty good
pin tails. My nephew. My nephew will get excited. You
sitting there, first bite of the sandwich. See pens, pen tails,
Go and finish your sandwich. They ain't going they gonna
be shirting with you. Got time sandwich, that's a good
bye to look at it. Yeah, okay, yeah till teal
like you, you can't even get a bite. You can't

(57:29):
even you can't even open that.

Speaker 5 (57:30):
You get the sandwich out of the bag before the pen,
before the teal are gonna work. Little pintails. Yeah, you
got time to go to water Burger and get some
toakeedos man. That's what I used to send. I used
to send guys back, and the pintails tended to work
late at that place. I was talking about earlier out
in out past Sealy, between Sealy and Eagle Lake, and

(57:51):
it was like a nine o'clock switch flip, and these
guys would be griping all morning.

Speaker 13 (57:56):
H man.

Speaker 6 (57:56):
All we got a teal and a spoon bill and
it's eight thirty.

Speaker 5 (58:01):
And I'd look at whoever griped, and I said, look,
you you're going back and getting us taketos at water Burger.
And when you get back, if there aren't pent tails flying.
I'll pay for the taketos and I never I never
had to pay for taketos.

Speaker 6 (58:15):
I never did. Got got to have food to blind
no matter what it is. Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt
man food. My favorite on the way out.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
My favorite duck call all though, is when you got
them duck commander yuppie types out there. They think they
know they bought everything there is to buy for duck hall,
yet to blow a duck call, and they start out
there doing that daffy duck thing, and me and my
nephew had just hold right.

Speaker 6 (58:41):
Tell what we had. If we've had a few Bob
dropped off if well. One of the one of the
best little things that one of our guys did. He
was an older guy. I don't know how he'd be now,
but anyway he was.

Speaker 5 (58:53):
He was pretty seasoned, and he would get out there
when he had somebody who was clearly shouldn't be blowing
a duck call. He'd get into this little casual speech
about how important the pitch was, just that pitch has
to be just right, you know, and yours is just
a little bit off.

Speaker 6 (59:09):
Would you mind if I pitch your call for you?
And that Oh sure, man, please please do And.

Speaker 5 (59:14):
He'd take that thing and he'd throw it as far
as he could into there on his pitch.

Speaker 6 (59:18):
Now just throw it out in the middle of the flat.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
You know, I have to use that when that needs
to be done. You know people ask you all the time.
You even if I blow my duck call, I said,
if you don't mind not shooting ducks? Yeah, you's going
to come out here and pay money to blow a
duck call. You want to shoot us totally empty your money,
save you a lot.

Speaker 6 (59:35):
I am exactly who all right, it's good to hear
from you.

Speaker 14 (59:40):
Man, Keep me posted here to get out there next
weekend real quick. Crappier, no copy right now. Crappier starting
to do their thing. I had Bubby Mont call me, yestery.
He was up there with you and I were at
and then he went.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Out there about half a day and called about fifteen
looked pretty good. So a lot of time day and
we're already seeing white mass and good hybrid up in
the the Trainity River above the lake.

Speaker 6 (01:00:02):
So wow, okay, well I might have to drive back
up that way sometimes soon. That'd be fun, man, I'll.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Tell them Bellian you and did him come up and
we'll do that lane stupid every cast thing, this this winner.

Speaker 6 (01:00:12):
Okay, I can hear that.

Speaker 8 (01:00:14):
I can do that.

Speaker 5 (01:00:14):
You know what the challenge would be to bring bring
a couple of crappie poles and see how many we
could catch just on croppie poles.

Speaker 8 (01:00:22):
Oh, that would be fun.

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
And I got two I can bring. I'm not scared
to bring him up there. It'd be fun. Oh yeah,
that'd be fun. I like your challenge.

Speaker 5 (01:00:31):
Yes, sir, all right, man, good to hear from you, folk. Bro,
Thanks buddy, how do you bet?

Speaker 8 (01:00:36):
Bye?

Speaker 6 (01:00:37):
All right, Jeff, I promise when we get back. Oh yeah,
I know, yeah, I know what you want to talk about,
and I want to talk about it too. That'll be
a good conversation.

Speaker 12 (01:00:48):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety Houston sports Online at
sports seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:00:54):
Back to the Doug Fight Show.

Speaker 5 (01:00:57):
As promised, I'm gonna go straight to Jeff. He held
through the break. That's a long time, Jeff, what's up,
my friend Mortan?

Speaker 15 (01:01:03):
You mentioned the Katie Prairie several years over the years.

Speaker 6 (01:01:06):
I think I know where it is, but what happened
to it?

Speaker 15 (01:01:09):
Does it goes as far as attics and was an
old rice country and I'll I'll let you take it
away and tell me I've never been on it, and
did it have to be drained?

Speaker 8 (01:01:18):
What went on?

Speaker 15 (01:01:19):
It seems to have just disappeared.

Speaker 5 (01:01:21):
Yeah, the Katy Prairie is no longer in its original
iteration at all. It's been developed and developed and developed.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
To where now all that land from.

Speaker 5 (01:01:34):
More or less from let's call it Highway six west,
all the way out even way past Brookshire, all the
way out up north to Hockley, down south to Boyd Wharton,
I don't know way just way out there was almost
all rice fields and soybean fields and peanuts and corn

(01:01:56):
and all these great crops that waterfowl loved.

Speaker 6 (01:02:00):
And slowly but surely it got whittled and whittled by development.
And the only way it gets developed is when the
farmers can't make any money anymore. And when the.

Speaker 5 (01:02:13):
Cost of rice went to nothing, and that was the
main crop out there, and those places, you got second
generations of kids coming through there who were inheriting these
big chunks of land, really big chunks of land, and
developers came out there and said, you know what, nless
you want to be a farmer and be beholden to

(01:02:34):
the temperature and the rainfall and disease and all that
stuff for the rest of your life. Like your parents were,
why don't you just let us write you a big
giant check and you can live fat off the hall
for the rest of your life and your kids' lives.

Speaker 6 (01:02:47):
And that was very tempting, and they started selling.

Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
And a lot of those a lot of those residential
areas out there now are places where I and all
my friends actively hunted waterfowl. There named after the families
who owned the properties. And I recognize all those names
out there.

Speaker 15 (01:03:05):
But is there no litigation? Not that I'm a big
environmental federal court guy, but that's a lot of land,
and it's auto viewerships, and a lot of the homes
developments out there are okay. But I remember driving path
Addicts and all of a sudden, you're in this prairie country. Yeah,
under this marshy land on both sides, and it's gone.
This is forty years ago, but it's you know, it's

(01:03:27):
you're driving to San Antonio.

Speaker 6 (01:03:28):
You see it. Yeah, going out, well, going out I
ten it was.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
It was pretty clear when you got to the prairie,
because that was really it started about just outside of
Katie there where the Igloo factory is now, there was land.
There still is land between Igloo and I ten and
I had I probably hunted that little piece of ground

(01:03:52):
very successfully, mind you, in late winter. I hunted that
piece of ground probably a dozen times over the years,
and guides in our outfit hunted as well, because that's
where the geese got in. There was still food there
toward the end of the season. It was not a
comfortable place for them, but they wanted food and that
was there. Couldn't even take your dog because the dog

(01:04:14):
might chase a goose across Ien and that wouldn't have
worked out well.

Speaker 6 (01:04:18):
So anyway, the long and the short of it is
all of that where Igloo is now.

Speaker 5 (01:04:22):
Iglou is just one tiny little warehouse surrounded by gigantic
warehouses for almost as far as the eye can see,
several miles on out and then up north of there,
it's all housing developments and neighborhoods and swing sets and
little kids in the backyard that used to just be
rice fields.

Speaker 6 (01:04:42):
And it's crushing and there is mitigation there. There is
some land still out there, but I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:50):
We're probably giving up twenty acres for every one that's
set aside.

Speaker 8 (01:04:55):
Did you just park and a walk out there? Did
you have to get rights from the farmers?

Speaker 10 (01:04:58):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:04:59):
Absolutely had to get right from the farmers.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
They made good money off that, off of hunting rights too.
That was a good significant part of their incomes for
a lot of years.

Speaker 8 (01:05:08):
You had to get rid of the local folk corps.
I appreciate it very much.

Speaker 6 (01:05:12):
Oh, you're quite welcome. Yeah, I did. It's I lived it.
It's just history for me. It's not focalhore man.

Speaker 8 (01:05:20):
Thank you, Jo.

Speaker 15 (01:05:21):
It was kind of Texan, and I guess it is
history for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:05:24):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt, Thank you man. I appreciate it,
sure boy. I could go on about that Katie Prairie
and how much it changed. I took my son out,
and I've talked about this. I took my son out
years ago, years ago, when he was just five or
six years old. I said, I want to show you
this prairie where I used to hunt. This is twelve
years ago or so. He's seventeen now. And it took
him out there, driving home from my mother in law's house.

(01:05:46):
I think it was and we just cut out five
twenty nine on to that prairie and during winter. It
was in either late December or early January, somewhere during
wintertime when the prairie would have been at its fullest
with waterfowl. I drove around that prairie for an hour
and we saw I think it maybe a dozen or

(01:06:07):
two dark geese.

Speaker 6 (01:06:08):
I think there were cannadas in a field, and then
a half a dozen, maybe a dozen pintails on a
little mud hole next fairly close to a county road.
And that was the only waterfowl we saw.

Speaker 5 (01:06:22):
On a prairie that normally would have held I don't know,
half a million birds somewhere in there, maybe a million waterfowl.

Speaker 6 (01:06:32):
On a good day.

Speaker 5 (01:06:34):
Pretty telling how much change there's been out there. If
you ever saw it in its prime, you wouldn't believe
how many birds had been out there. I still have
one photograph that shows how many birds are. Maybe I'll
post a copy of it to Facebook or something. I
can't find the dog on. Originally I want to find

(01:06:55):
the It would have been just a negative, a photo negative.

Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
It wasn't a digital photograph. This happened long before that
was even there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
But it.

Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
I would argue that it has more geese in it
in that one single frame than any other frame of
geese ever taken.

Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
And I'd bet somebody I've bet a lot of money
on that. All Right, we gotta take a little break.

Speaker 12 (01:07:19):
We are Sports Talk seven ninety Are you ready listen
online at sports seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:07:25):
Now more Doug Fike?

Speaker 10 (01:07:28):
What then?

Speaker 5 (01:07:28):
Welcome back dog Bikes you on Sports Talk seven ninety
eight fifty, Which means we're only about ten minutes from
getting to talk to how Sutton, and I'm looking forward
to that. I really am maybe eleven minutes because I
gotta take care of I gotta take care of my
buddies at rafter V Services. That would be Preston and
his crew who came out and did a good fence
for me. I'll take you more about them in a

(01:07:50):
little while. I'm still oh, I still miss opening weekend
of waterfowl season. To be perfectly honest, I'm not gonna lie.
I wish I could be out there doing it. I
wish I could be out there guiding again. I had
greatly enjoyed that. I loved having little kids out there
with us. I loved having first time shooters of any

(01:08:13):
kind with us, and it was just so refreshing to
see them. This was before cell phone, so I can't
say not on their electronic devices, but they were.

Speaker 6 (01:08:27):
Especially really then. I think the kids appreciated it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:30):
More almost because they didn't have such tremendous so many
options and distractions in their everyday lives as they do now.

Speaker 6 (01:08:42):
This was a real treat for them.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
And I've since been around a few kids who seemed
almost to treat a hunting trip or a fishing trip
like kind of a speed bump in the in their
day on Snapchat and Instagram and all those social media sides.

(01:09:07):
Every time there's a little break with some of these kids,
they reach for their phones and they don't even put
their phones away when they're fishing. Some of them they
keep them in their pocket. You can't miss a phone
in a kid's pocket. And as soon as as soon
as there's a little break, as soon as there is

(01:09:28):
any sort of disruption in the in the actual activity
of fishing or hunting, they reach for that phone and
see what they missed, which is really nothing, and they
just don't understand that yet. It's a little bit frustrating,
a little bit frustrating seven one three, two, one two
five seven ninety email me dougpick At, iHeartMedia dot com
as many have. Allen's in here, him and his new guns.

(01:09:51):
Holy cow, Let's see what's going on. Oh man, He's
got three of the men here for me. I'll start
with this one, the one this guy always like pictures.
Let's see what's oh man? Who nice dear, nice dear?
Is there an explanation? Hold on, I gotta go back
and see if there's an explanation for that buck East

(01:10:12):
Texas last week? Woodville? Yeah, I know Woodville pretty well.
Holy cow, that's a darn good buck for Woodville too,
for anywhere. Really, let's see what this is. But ten
rounds on this at one hundred yards twenty mile an
hour wind at American Shooting Center. One round was the

(01:10:35):
final adjustment of the front sight. Nine rounds for accuracy.

Speaker 6 (01:10:39):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
Alan kind of knows his way around a rifle. I'll
tell you right now, that guy rifles. For me to
say he knows his way around a rifle would be
for me to say that Jay Leno knows his way
around a car.

Speaker 6 (01:10:54):
That makes sense. Melbourne. Oh, he's talking on the phone.
I'm sorry. Let me go see what with Matt before
we get out of here. We got time, Matt. What's up, buddy?

Speaker 8 (01:11:04):
Hey, how are you, Doug?

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
I'm good, Thank you.

Speaker 11 (01:11:07):
I'm the one that called you bout John Paul Landing
in a while back.

Speaker 6 (01:11:10):
Yeah, okay, I was wondering if you ever got up there.
I have not yet. I wish you need to get
up You need to get up there. I'm going to
make another note right now. I am I you.

Speaker 11 (01:11:23):
You've been talking about the Katy Prairie.

Speaker 8 (01:11:25):
Yep.

Speaker 11 (01:11:26):
I lived back in the nineties.

Speaker 8 (01:11:28):
I had.

Speaker 11 (01:11:29):
I had a house right in the heart of the
Katy Prairie.

Speaker 6 (01:11:33):
Man, how could you sleep at night listen to all
those geese?

Speaker 11 (01:11:37):
God there, I mean all around there was nothing, but
it was nothing but white.

Speaker 8 (01:11:44):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:11:45):
You you remember it like I do. It was so
amazing and nobody out there now would have any idea what.

Speaker 9 (01:11:51):
That was like.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
No, no, not a clue.

Speaker 11 (01:11:53):
I mean I used to just drive around and look
at different water holes to see how many different type
of type of dog.

Speaker 8 (01:12:02):
Yeah, I see.

Speaker 11 (01:12:05):
I used to hunt twice a day every day during
duck Sea.

Speaker 6 (01:12:10):
Oh my gosh, good for you.

Speaker 11 (01:12:12):
Yeah, and I had I had a a black lab
that was, uh, he was world class. I had Larry
Gore's people wanting to buying.

Speaker 6 (01:12:24):
He was so good, that's out there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
He was.

Speaker 11 (01:12:30):
There was times where I go to a blind and
before I'd get to the blind, he would have my
limit in cripples.

Speaker 5 (01:12:38):
Oh holy cow, Yeah, I can understand that. Yeah, you
turn out there. They don't care whether you shot it
or not. If they can find it, bring it, do you.

Speaker 8 (01:12:46):
Oh yeah, Oh.

Speaker 11 (01:12:49):
Some of the some of the retrievest this dog made
would just blow your mind away.

Speaker 5 (01:12:56):
The funny thing about my dog is after every hunt,
speaking of atreaving everything, after every single goose something we made.
Once he got to be about three years old or so,
he would take off to up and down the rice
levies and I'd look over and yea, I'd see him
just digging. There'd be there'd be dirt flying everywhere, and
two or three minutes later, from two three hundred yards

(01:13:17):
away wherever he had to go to get it, he'd
come back with a big old rat in his mouth, like, Oh,
thanks a lot, dude.

Speaker 11 (01:13:23):
This uh, this dog I had was he It was
impossible to get him out of the kennel in the
back of the truck.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
To back when he got impossible.

Speaker 11 (01:13:35):
Yeah, because he.

Speaker 6 (01:13:36):
Was ready to go again. Yeah yeah, just sleep on
the way there and then hunt all day.

Speaker 11 (01:13:40):
But yeah, Katy Curry, Man, it's it's totally changed.

Speaker 8 (01:13:45):
Yeah, I had changed.

Speaker 6 (01:13:46):
When was the last time he drove around out there?

Speaker 11 (01:13:49):
About about a week ago?

Speaker 8 (01:13:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:13:51):
How fun was that?

Speaker 8 (01:13:52):
Not much?

Speaker 6 (01:13:53):
Probably it stunk.

Speaker 8 (01:13:55):
I know.

Speaker 5 (01:13:56):
I hate that, you know, and for the for the
guys who are there's still some pretty good duck hunting
out there, and there have to be a couple of
places where you can go shoot some geese through the
course of a whole season. But you and I saw it,
and everybody who was out there then saw it, and
in a display that just can never be equal again.

Speaker 8 (01:14:16):
Oh, it was unbelievable.

Speaker 11 (01:14:18):
I I had our company out in San Filippi and
we had a slew out pact and it was just
filthy with teal and in wood ducks.

Speaker 13 (01:14:34):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:14:35):
Oh, you're bringing back some good memories, man, you really are, man.

Speaker 8 (01:14:39):
Yeah. Yeah, it was at my house.

Speaker 11 (01:14:44):
It was it was Brokshire Residents. Well my house. I
could shoot, sit in my tailgate and shoot geese flying.

Speaker 5 (01:14:51):
Over the fall Pass, shooting in the fog again you
were you wouldn't be the only guy who did.

Speaker 6 (01:14:56):
That out there. I guarantee you.

Speaker 11 (01:15:00):
I just past shoot them in the fall.

Speaker 6 (01:15:01):
Hey, I got a run, man, But you bought you
bought me some great memories. Man, Thank you for calling.
I appreciate you. Bet you bet take care uh huh
Audio wow, oh man. Uh. Cheers to all of us
who have those memories.

Speaker 5 (01:15:16):
And sorry for all of you who still love waterfowl hunting,
and more power to you because I still love it
as well. And you still have some of the best
duck hunting around, so there's nothing wrong with that. But
it was just different then.

Speaker 6 (01:15:30):
And oh man.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Anyway, this is the Doug Pike Show, brought to you
by American Shooting Centers Guns Shooting, an instruction since nineteen
eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Now here's Doug Pike. All right, nine o'clock.

Speaker 5 (01:15:47):
Hour starts right now, and as promised, we're going to
get in something pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:15:51):
We're gonna talk now.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
With a man who carved out an amazing career as
a professional golfer. Fourteen wins on tour, a mage, two
player championships, on and on, Captain of the two thousand
and four Ryder Cup team too, since his playing days,
which he he says are done now after several pretty
tough surgeries that got him up and down around some

(01:16:13):
of the all his joints say he walked I don't know,
probably a thousand miles on golf courses.

Speaker 6 (01:16:20):
Had to take it out of anybody.

Speaker 10 (01:16:22):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:16:22):
The one he's he's getting around most recently is called
Darmore Club. It's just a little north of Columbus, off
I tend and I got to play golf and visit
with him on Monday, along with a couple of other
guys in my business. And with that I will welcome
mister Hal Sutton to this program. How are you this morning?

Speaker 6 (01:16:38):
Man? I'm good, duck, and you you know, you know
I'm doing all right. I really am.

Speaker 5 (01:16:44):
I played yesterday and stunk it up a little bit,
but that's pretty normal for me these days.

Speaker 6 (01:16:49):
So it's it's okay, It's okay, man. I let's talk
first about it. By the way, I've got like two
and a half pages of questions and some of them handwritten,
some of them are rode out on the machine. So
I might jump.

Speaker 5 (01:17:02):
Around a little bit because I got a lot I
want to cover with you today. But let's start with
the club which officially opened. Darmore Club opened back in June,
maturing pretty nicely. The way I saw it, you you
partnered up with the original landowners of that place more
than Todd Bardon, who among you guys, was the first
to lean in and say.

Speaker 6 (01:17:21):
You know, there ought to be a golf course on
this piece of ground.

Speaker 16 (01:17:25):
Well, I think Todd was the guy that leaned in
and said that. He called me and asked me if
i'd come out and look at this property. I thought
there could be a golf course on it. And I
came out and looked at it, and I said, there
are several golf courses. I think we just got we
won't and oh wow. Anyway, you know, it's a great

(01:17:45):
piece of property. Of the canvas was nice and.

Speaker 6 (01:17:51):
Anyway, yeah, it turned into something very nice.

Speaker 5 (01:17:55):
I got the impression I sat there and had a
little breakfast with Todd before we got started and got
to talk to him some, and.

Speaker 6 (01:18:02):
I strongly felt like from day one he really.

Speaker 5 (01:18:06):
Just trusted you to turn those two or three hundred
acres into a pretty unique layout.

Speaker 6 (01:18:11):
And if he didn't, I know he knows it already.
But I'd tell him exactly, that's exactly what you did.

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
How much of what's there now as the golf course
was how much of that could you see the first
couple of times you drove around that property.

Speaker 8 (01:18:28):
Well, I could see all the holes that we put
in the mind area.

Speaker 13 (01:18:33):
You know.

Speaker 16 (01:18:33):
My goal was to make it feel like we just
dropped the god course in on the mind area and
we didn't mess with any of the script mining where
it had been mined one hundred years ago. So you know,
I saw all those holes, the holes that went down
by the river and with the last six holes, you know,

(01:18:56):
we basically created all of those, and you know, the
land was moving nicely. So we had some nice movement
in the land that was just what goes where.

Speaker 5 (01:19:07):
Basically, And back up a couple of steps to the
mining reference. Because the Barton family is sand and gravel, right.

Speaker 16 (01:19:16):
Yeah, they you know, that's what he did for years
was band and gravel. And he bought this land twenty
years ago thinking that he would mine it because he
knew it hadn't been mined out, and he fell in
love with the property and decided to never mind it.
He had plenty of other places that he was mining,
So this had just been kind of on the back burner,

(01:19:38):
and he had always enjoyed golf and always thought, you know,
I'll maybe do something in golf one day, And the
day came where he wanted to build a golf course,
and we did it.

Speaker 6 (01:19:50):
By gosh, you did, and in grand fashion.

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
I might add, it looks from driving around there and
playing the golf course now that he really didn't have
to move a lot of dirt or take down a
lot of trees or anything to create it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:02):
Is that about fair to say?

Speaker 8 (01:20:04):
Yep, that's fair to say.

Speaker 16 (01:20:06):
I think I only took down three what I would
consider fairly mature trees.

Speaker 6 (01:20:11):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 16 (01:20:14):
You know he had always taken care of the big
mature trees here. Even when I saw it when it
was a cattle ranch, I was amazed at what good
shape that all the big live oaks were in. And
it's just he I wouldn't call him a tree hugger.
He's not a tree hugger, but at the same time,
he loves trees.

Speaker 6 (01:20:32):
So yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 8 (01:20:36):
He took care of him. So you know, from the
day one, they were visible to me and I needed
to work around them. Yeah, and that's what I did.

Speaker 6 (01:20:45):
That makes sense too.

Speaker 5 (01:20:47):
There's a lot of historic value in that place, not
the least important of which, and you've incorporated it around
the golf course too.

Speaker 6 (01:20:55):
Is that railroad that just ran right smack through the
middle of it? Basically?

Speaker 8 (01:20:59):
Yeah, uh, well, you know.

Speaker 16 (01:21:03):
Railroads ran through uh, Scottish golf courses, you know, and
we you know, this has a very lenksy look. So
when I saw the railroad, I wanted to try to
incorporate that into.

Speaker 8 (01:21:19):
What we were doing.

Speaker 16 (01:21:20):
You know, this golf course has no water on it either,
and that's also very lenksy, uh in Scottish. So I
tried to hang on to all the things that lent
itself to copying Scottish golf courses. Basically, I mean, and
this is not a copy.

Speaker 15 (01:21:39):
This is more of a.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
I want to call it.

Speaker 6 (01:21:44):
I want to call it a tribute to Scottish golf courses.

Speaker 8 (01:21:47):
That's that's exactly what.

Speaker 6 (01:21:49):
Okay, yeah, it really is.

Speaker 8 (01:21:52):
People that don't understand templates. Templates are not copies.

Speaker 16 (01:21:57):
They are a guideline that she be McDonald and seth
Renner came.

Speaker 8 (01:22:02):
Up with that. Basically, you try to use whatever.

Speaker 16 (01:22:06):
You can of that based on the land that you
have to create something that's similar, and you know, you
know a lot of people think templates are copies and
they're not.

Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
You talked about how you wanted to bring players at
Darmore Club back into their heads, force them to think
their way around rather than just go bombs away, like
a lot of courses are kind of set up whether
they wanted to be or not these days.

Speaker 6 (01:22:35):
Why did you want to do that?

Speaker 16 (01:22:38):
Well, I just think we've become one dimensional players. You know,
it's interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine
in Florida this morning. I've had this conversation probably three
different times with him where he's trying lightweight chafts because
he wants to hit the ball further, you know, and
he realized he's not as accurate them. And I mean

(01:23:01):
three times we've been through this conversation, and I keep
saying the later it gets, the harder it is to
tell where the club face is at. I mean, there's
just so few people that really understand golf at a
deep level, and you know, they're they're persuaded by the
manufacturers who the almighty dollar is what's on their mind,

(01:23:22):
not the game of golf basically, and you know, they
have sagned everybody into believing that everything is about distance,
and so all the golf courses are built for distance.
They're all built where the greens are elevated to some degree.
They're cut real tight, rejecting all the balls off. And

(01:23:45):
everybody's got a twenty yard pitch shot that landed on
the green and came back off the green, and they're
trying to lost something up and elevated green off of
the tight line. And you know, it's the game turned
into something that people are having a hard time enjoy
it because as we.

Speaker 8 (01:24:03):
Hate, we're going to get shorter, not longer.

Speaker 16 (01:24:05):
Yeah, am I seeing that the manufacturers can do about that.
It's just it's the evolution of an aging golfer. And
you know, so I tried to build a golf course
out here that was fair and that there were more
to it than just carrying the ball a certain distance.
And you know, we don't have GPS. I mean, I

(01:24:26):
want people to use the land to maneuver the ball,
not just the curvature of the ball, which doesn't curve
that much anymore because it's all low n You know,
I'm speaking a lot here because I'm trying to educate
people that might be listening a little bit. I mean
they may be frustrated about golf, not realizing what's going on,
but maybe after this podcast they are us being on

(01:24:50):
the air, they might realize, hey.

Speaker 8 (01:24:52):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 5 (01:24:53):
Yeah, going around Armore Club, I found myself and this
is just this is a snapshot. Is the first time
I'd ever around the course. But I had help from
you and Nick and kind of saying, Okay, now there's
where you would think you would go if you were
just a bomber, you just throw it over all that
stuff there. But if you do that on that course,
if you try to do it and you don't execute

(01:25:15):
one hundred percent perfectly, there's a big penalty.

Speaker 6 (01:25:18):
But if you maybe pull out. You saw me a
couple of times.

Speaker 5 (01:25:21):
I pulled three iron off the tee to put the
ball where I wanted to put it three wood a
couple of times as well, and it turned out to
be a really good decision because that gave me not
that much longer a shot in, but a real comfortable
shot as opposed to you know, I'm not that accurate
anymore and I don't drive it that far anymore, so

(01:25:43):
I can't.

Speaker 6 (01:25:43):
I can't play that way, and it was actually kind
of refreshing.

Speaker 8 (01:25:47):
It was, well, you know, there's a bunch of te's
out here, there's plenty of golf.

Speaker 16 (01:25:54):
It goes all the way to seventy four hundred yards,
so you know, I tell everybody the fairways are really wide.
There's no water hazards that you've got to carry it over,
so you know, it's a second shot golf course. Yeah,
with the fairways being pretty wide. You know, my experience
was playing in pro ams was if.

Speaker 8 (01:26:15):
You could get a guy off the tee, didn't feel defeated.

Speaker 6 (01:26:18):
Right off of the Yeah, so that makes sense.

Speaker 8 (01:26:21):
Anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:26:22):
Yeah, I felt like I had a chance all the
way around, and I blew some of those chances. But
I had the chance, you know, and I love that. Hey,
we got to take a break here real quick. Can
you stick around for a little bit, I hope sure.

Speaker 6 (01:26:34):
All right, man, I'm gonna put you on hold and
we'll be back with Hal Sutton in just a minute
or two. All right, welcome back, Thanks for listening.

Speaker 5 (01:26:42):
Doug Fight shown spots talk seven to ninety talking to
a man who played in four Ryder cuffs and captained
another one back there in two thousand and four.

Speaker 6 (01:26:51):
That would be how Sutton. Let me get him back
on the phone. I'll slick on.

Speaker 5 (01:26:55):
That and there he is.

Speaker 6 (01:26:56):
What's the weather like out there this morning?

Speaker 16 (01:26:58):
Hell?

Speaker 6 (01:26:59):
Are you guys going to be able to get people
around today?

Speaker 8 (01:27:03):
People are out there right now? Play yeah right?

Speaker 5 (01:27:06):
You know why because they're grinders. Even if it was
sprinkling a little bit, they wouldn't care.

Speaker 6 (01:27:10):
Would they.

Speaker 16 (01:27:12):
No, these are basically the people out here are traditional golfers.
So they they loved the game. You know, that was
point of the I tell everybody that's your criteria for
joining out here.

Speaker 8 (01:27:23):
You just got to love the game Boy.

Speaker 6 (01:27:25):
And it sounds so simple, but I think you it's
not even just the game you have to love.

Speaker 5 (01:27:31):
You have to love the traditional game of golf, because
new golf is different.

Speaker 9 (01:27:36):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:27:36):
The more we talked out there, and the more I
saw how you'd laid this place out, it's very different.
I'm not knocking any other courses out there right now,
because I've gotten to play some really good ones, and
they all are good in their own right.

Speaker 6 (01:27:49):
But you just did something different out here, man, and
it's refreshing.

Speaker 16 (01:27:54):
Well, I tried to take people back thirty years you know,
when we fell in love with the game, we didn't
have all of the technology that we have today. Technology
and if you correctly, can be helpful, but if you
use it wrong, it's only confusion, like what is supposed
to be right? I mean, that's kind of where we're
living in right now. But we used to know the truth.

(01:28:16):
We used to I mean, we used to hear things
that we thought were the truth. Now we listen to things,
whether we're talking about God or politics or whatever we're
talking about, and we're wondering, you know, what's the truth
in that? You know? And I just I feel like
what I was trying to do out here was take

(01:28:38):
people back to when we had a red marker for
one hundred yards, a white marker for one hundred and
fifty in a blue market for two in our yards.

Speaker 8 (01:28:46):
I'm not having to.

Speaker 16 (01:28:47):
Trust a something, I'm having to trust myself. Yeah, that's
all we had to work with thirty years ago was ourselves.

Speaker 12 (01:28:56):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:28:56):
Yeah, you talked about the journey. It's a person journey, Yes,
it is.

Speaker 5 (01:29:01):
You talked about teaching kids and how frustrating you got
with some of them because they weren't.

Speaker 6 (01:29:07):
As soon as they hit the ball, we'll talk. You
tell me talk about what they do now.

Speaker 16 (01:29:14):
Well, they're so dependent on data, you know, that's the
world that they've grown up in. That is our world
right now that they don't really want. In the case
of golf, they love track man, they love anything that
will give them data. They hit the ball and instead
of watching the ball to see what the ball is

(01:29:35):
telling them, they're looking back well with the ball in.

Speaker 6 (01:29:38):
Flight, to see what the data says.

Speaker 16 (01:29:41):
And I used to say, watch the ball till it
hits the ground, because the ball is telling you the
same thing that this data is telling you. So you
need to have something to relate this data to while
out on the golf course, because you can't take this
data with you out there, and you know, it's just
it became very frustrating to me.

Speaker 5 (01:30:02):
So yeah, I can understand that, and I think you've
settled into the right place for you. Honestly, this is
just absolutely beautiful clubs. I talked about some of the
things you won in that room. That amazing room in
which we got to eat lunch kind of puts a
spotlight on your accomplishments. There's one metal that you should

(01:30:25):
have gotten that you probably didn't, and that would be
the greatest comeback player of all time.

Speaker 6 (01:30:30):
After what PGA Tour magazine? Did you want to talk
about that.

Speaker 8 (01:30:33):
A little bit? Well, yeah, you know that was kind
of weird.

Speaker 6 (01:30:39):
Uh.

Speaker 16 (01:30:41):
Trevino called me on the phone and said, hey, He said,
I'm glad you answered the phone because I just read
your obituary in the PGA magazine. He said, I need
to make sure this black suit still fit if you
didn't answer the sou that was a little unnerving to read.

(01:31:01):
You know, they got me confused with uh my good
friend Jackie Burke. Yeah, anyway, long story short. Uh I
even had my life insurance policy call or text or
wrote a letter to my kids and said that they
could produce my death certificate.

Speaker 8 (01:31:17):
They were funds.

Speaker 16 (01:31:20):
I was a little no kidding, Yeah, not really. What
you want to wake up and read is your own habitual?

Speaker 6 (01:31:29):
No, not at all.

Speaker 5 (01:31:30):
Let's let's talk a little bit about ryder cup stuff.
When you captain what what are some of the best
and worst stories that care or one of each A
great story that came out of that in one like
oh man.

Speaker 6 (01:31:41):
That that shouldn't happen.

Speaker 8 (01:31:47):
So you might should have given me some heads up
on that.

Speaker 6 (01:31:50):
We don't have to answer.

Speaker 5 (01:31:51):
Oh yeah, that that is a little bit deep, isn't it.
Let's just let's not wait in that deep then. So
I got a question for it. Back to the golf course.
When when somebody, you guys out there playing right now,
they're making their way around, when they get out of
the car and head home, what do you want them
to be thinking about the golf course they just played.

Speaker 16 (01:32:11):
Well, I hope that they saw different ways to play
golf once they have played this golf course. Everybody it's
so into carrying it a certain distance. I mean, the
manufacturers have sold us that distance is the utmost and

(01:32:31):
foremost and it should be in everybody's mind. And you know,
I want as much distance as I can get, but
I'm a little bit savvier in the game and realize
that I can only get so much and anything more
than that, I'm trying to get what I can't have.

Speaker 8 (01:32:50):
You know, it's going to cause me to get quick.
It's going to cause me to do things that I.

Speaker 16 (01:32:57):
Wouldn't normally do, and you know that that's not the
way you play golf. And so I hope that they
see that. Hey, if I get on the right t uh,
I don't have to carry the ball over hazards and
everything else. So I want to use the ground to
maneuver the ball to get it closer to the hole.
And they think about that going home and say, I

(01:33:17):
hadn't done that in a while, and that was fun.

Speaker 6 (01:33:19):
Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. You've had
You've had fingerprints out on a lot of great golf
courses in this state. Uh, do you feel like this
is this is the one, This is.

Speaker 5 (01:33:30):
Where you're gonna You're gonna stay or are you going
to start getting into more architecture in your career.

Speaker 16 (01:33:37):
No, I'm not going to get into more architecture in
my career. You know, I do this differently than most architects.
I'm here every day when we're building it, and yeah,
most architects show up, you know, once every five or
six weeks, and you know, I take it very personal,
and you know, there's.

Speaker 8 (01:33:55):
A reason why I did everything out there.

Speaker 16 (01:33:57):
And you know, I get really close to the shaper
and the project manager and become friends with them, and
I tell everybody, let's try to come up with a
better product than everybody.

Speaker 8 (01:34:09):
Else, and you know whatether we do or whether we don't,
at least we put the effort in to do it.
And you know it wasn't.

Speaker 16 (01:34:18):
You know, if you're an architect you only show up
every five or six weeks, you're no better than the
shaper's going to allow you to be.

Speaker 6 (01:34:24):
That's a good Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 8 (01:34:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:34:27):
What about the Hall of Fame twenty fifteen Hall of
Fame induction? What did what did that mean to you?

Speaker 8 (01:34:38):
Which you're not talking about you talking about Louisiana Hall
of Fame.

Speaker 6 (01:34:43):
Yeah, that's well, hits your home statement.

Speaker 16 (01:34:48):
Yeah, it meant a lot to me because you know,
I grew up there, I played got there my whole life.

Speaker 8 (01:34:55):
I didn't leave Louisiana until I was fifty six years old, So.

Speaker 16 (01:35:02):
Flew in and out of Streeport my whole life, which
probably wasn't the easiest place to play out of for
the tour couldn't non stop anywhere but Dallas and Atlanta,
and we only played two partments.

Speaker 5 (01:35:15):
We talked about that Atlanta airport too, didn't weah a favorite?

Speaker 16 (01:35:19):
You know, it's tough, you know, if I were telling
the kid, now, go someplace where you can non stop
most everywhere that you're going to play because it's traveling
is hard. I don't miss the travel part of it.
And I had to leave the light on in the
bathroom every night because you couldn't remember what city you

(01:35:41):
were in and whether the bathroom was left or right
when you got out of the bed.

Speaker 5 (01:35:46):
Oh golf, Yeah, and that's just the whole the whole
travel concept I think for golf is something that people overlooked.
The wear and tear on you guys emotionally when you're
out like that. And back when you were playing, you
guys didn't have entourages around to monitor your every step

(01:36:07):
and every where you had to be win. You guys
were pretty much on your own, weren't you.

Speaker 8 (01:36:13):
We were, And I, you know, I.

Speaker 16 (01:36:16):
Try to educate young people that are thinking about finding
a career in golf. It's the loneliest sport.

Speaker 8 (01:36:23):
You can play well and.

Speaker 16 (01:36:26):
You're no better than your last round, and you know
it's you need to have people around you that love you,
because you know, golf is tearing you down a lot,
and you know, we don't play good all the time,
even though we're working our rear end off to try
to conquer the game. I think that's what makes go
off so much fun to everybody. We feel like we

(01:36:48):
should be getting better. We're trying to get better, you know.
We we feel like it's there for us to get better,
but it's it's a long journey get better.

Speaker 5 (01:36:58):
I felt like that for the last twenty years, Ol,
every day, every single day.

Speaker 16 (01:37:04):
Well, I have you know, as I told you Monday,
I spent my whole life trying not to be mediocre,
and I am plenty of mediocre.

Speaker 9 (01:37:12):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:37:14):
Yeah, I think you're a sandbag and that's what I think.
What happened Monday.

Speaker 5 (01:37:18):
You still got a lot of pop in your bat Man,
don't sell yourself short.

Speaker 8 (01:37:23):
Well, it's not what he used to be, Doug.

Speaker 6 (01:37:27):
I understand that I do.

Speaker 5 (01:37:29):
But what I admire most about professional golfers across the board.

Speaker 6 (01:37:34):
Is that short game. And it's so important and it's
just just like you've talked about, it's lost on driving
the ball three hundred and fifty yards and short game
is gonna save you a heck of a lot more
strokes than being able to drive at three fifty. I'm
convinced of that.

Speaker 16 (01:37:51):
Yeah, Well, it's hard to it's hard to learn how
to hit it further, but we could all learn how
to chip and putt better. And yeah, that's it easiest
thing for us to work on, and we can accomplish that.
So hitting at twenty yards further, not everybody can accomplish that.

Speaker 6 (01:38:12):
Heyp my hands in the air.

Speaker 5 (01:38:14):
I can't get twenty more yards unless I move up
to a different tea box.

Speaker 6 (01:38:18):
That's all I can do well.

Speaker 16 (01:38:20):
And that's what suggest to everybody is is, hey, he
moved to a tee where you can actually enjoy the game. Yeah,
put your pride to the side, and just I mean,
let's keep enjoying the game. And if we got to
move up a tea to do that, more power to you.

Speaker 8 (01:38:37):
Move up.

Speaker 5 (01:38:38):
You know what was interesting yesterday? Hell, I played with
a friend of mine over at black Hawk, close to home.

Speaker 6 (01:38:43):
There's an old group, a group old guys.

Speaker 5 (01:38:45):
The man I played with yesterday is eighty years old,
so he plays from the forward tise. I moved up
there with him because we were a cart path only
and I didn't want it to be all complicated and whatnot.
And I didn't score any better or worse than I
would have if i'd have been too.

Speaker 6 (01:38:59):
Tea is back because I was.

Speaker 5 (01:39:02):
I was having to think my way around the course,
just like I did at Normore Club on Monday. I
had to think my way around and sometimes I made
some really dumb decisions.

Speaker 8 (01:39:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:39:11):
Well, it's a different golf course on the different tea
it is, and you know, you've got to pull different
clubs and you got to know what you're doing to
do that, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:39:21):
So I learned a lot, an awful lot going around
your place on Monday.

Speaker 5 (01:39:26):
I really did, Like I told you, It's just it's
a truly unique experience. You've got a unique membership option
out there. I don't want to I don't want to
have you go through all of that right now, anybody
who's interested enough and who really loves golf enough will
find you and they'll hear about that.

Speaker 6 (01:39:43):
And I wish you really, really well with that place.
I fell in love with it from the time I
teed it. Uh well, I got that tour with you,
what was it. Gosh, it's been six months ago.

Speaker 16 (01:39:52):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:39:52):
I didn't realize that, but I got that tour, and
I know time flies, huh yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:39:59):
Really realize we have no idea where the time goes,
do we?

Speaker 16 (01:40:03):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:40:04):
Honestly, and the older I get, the faster it seems
to go. Man, every time I got to get out
there with you though, every chance I get, I'm going
to take it. So yeah, I appreciate all you did
for me and I will continue to help you anytime
I can.

Speaker 8 (01:40:18):
My friend, Well, look forward to having you back out anytime.

Speaker 6 (01:40:22):
Thank you, thank you. Hell all right, Hell sudden boy,
if you don't know, if you don't know more about
your golf game right now, you might want to work
on some pickleball.

Speaker 15 (01:40:32):
Huh.

Speaker 6 (01:40:35):
I'll see.

Speaker 8 (01:40:37):
Getting hurt playing back.

Speaker 5 (01:40:38):
Oh yeah, man, that's that's the number one cause of
accidents and old people O golf, golf forever for me, Buddy,
I meet there all right. Hell thanks a lot man.
Darmore Club out there in Columbus, go check it out.

Speaker 6 (01:40:52):
Thanks buddy, audios man, what a great guy, man, What
a great guy.

Speaker 5 (01:40:57):
I I've gotten to meet some I'm really amazing people
in golf, and I don't know that I've ever had
the opportunity and been welcomed into being able to ask
some really frank questions and stuff that you know, I
don't want to talk about on the air because those
are things that he kind of shared a little more

(01:41:18):
dialed in, but yeah, he's a good dude.

Speaker 6 (01:41:21):
He absolutely is a good dude. He absolutely loves the
game of golf and wants to wants to keep it
alive in the manifestation of the game that he grew
up with, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's great
to think about trying to hit the ball twenty yards farther.

Speaker 8 (01:41:40):
It really is.

Speaker 5 (01:41:41):
I try every time I go out. I'm doing some
things now with my driver that probably will get me
a little bit more, a little bit longer down the
fairway if i can hit fairways with it. But I'm
not going to give up accuracy anymore for an extra
few yards, because I'm finding out and realizing that that

(01:42:05):
accuracy is far more important than distance on most golf courses,
especially most of the courses I play, most of the
courses I play, And if you get a chance to
go play Dharmore Club, you'll you'll realize that distance isn't everything,
and it's it's a truly it's a unique experience. It
really is no water on the entire golf course, by
the way, So the good news is I never had

(01:42:27):
to reach.

Speaker 6 (01:42:28):
Way out into the water because I could barely see
the top of my ball on the bottom and try
to drag it back. All right, we got to take
a little break here.

Speaker 5 (01:42:37):
Carter's Country has been around for good golly, how long
has Carter's Country been around?

Speaker 6 (01:42:41):
A long time? A long long time. Oh you want
me to do that now? Let me let me just
let me finish up.

Speaker 12 (01:42:51):
Are Sportstock seven nineties, Houston Sports where you go with iHeartRadio.

Speaker 6 (01:42:57):
Now now get more Doug.

Speaker 5 (01:43:00):
Look like you on Sports seven ninety. This is going
to be a short segment. I'm Elvin Holy mackerel. Yes,
thanks for listening. I could have gone for an hour
with Hal and I had I had other questions and
I couldn't get to him. I didn't want to mess
anything up for him. He's got stuff he needs to

(01:43:21):
do that's far more important than talking to me. And
I really greatly appreciate his time.

Speaker 6 (01:43:25):
That guy.

Speaker 16 (01:43:27):
He he.

Speaker 5 (01:43:29):
Loves the game of golf as it was played when
he was playing professionally, and it's different now, and he'll
acknowledge that. But what he's created there, I think is
something that I hope kind of will for those of you.

Speaker 6 (01:43:44):
Who get to go play out there at some point.
I truly hope that you.

Speaker 5 (01:43:52):
Just kind of take his words to heart and just
pause on every tea box and think, Okay, where do
I really need to hit this?

Speaker 6 (01:44:00):
Where do I really need to.

Speaker 5 (01:44:01):
Go to your tea I sent him an email text
message just a minute ago saying thanks for your time,
and telling him how greatly I appreciate what he did,
because he's got me thinking that way again too. And
that's one of the reasons I moved up to that
green box yesterday because I wanted to see the golf
course from a different viewpoint. I wanted to see it

(01:44:25):
from a different viewpoint and be forced to hit something
other than driver off all the par fours. And it's
just a whole hum here. We go on a lot
of golf courses now because they are so long. But
a golf course can be made very difficult even without
narrowing fairways, even without water, even without.

Speaker 6 (01:44:48):
One hundred bunkers on the way around. A little bit
of trouble, just a little bit of something to make
you think about where you better put that t shot
other than three hundred yards down there. Boy, there were
a lot of places on Darmore Club where I couldn't
even from the box we played, I couldn't carry the

(01:45:08):
trouble because it's it's not big trouble, but it's just
enough to make you think, I really don't want to
do that, And so you leave it a little short
of that, and you get down there and you realize
that you've still got.

Speaker 5 (01:45:20):
A comfortable club in your hands, that that will get
you to the green. It's not like if you lay up,
you're gonna have to hit three wood. You might have
to hit a five iron or a six iron. But
we've become so accustomed to playing from te's that allow
us to hit driver, wedge, driver, nine iron, maybe an
eight and in some longer holes of seven. But that's

(01:45:43):
not how the game was really made to be played.
Yet you got to use all the clubs in your bag,
and boy, that'll that'll make you do it if you
change mix up your tea boxes sometimes just for fun
and see how you play, and I I think you'll
enjoy golf a little more when you're having to think
about it a little more. That gives you more excuses.

(01:46:05):
You can work your way in all kinds of excuses
as to why you didn't hit that ball in the
right place. I guarantee you all.

Speaker 6 (01:46:10):
Right, holy cow, we got to take a break. This
is Sports Talk seven ninety on the goal. Oh yeah,
I think if we play this song at the end,
we'd be time to go. Holy cow.

Speaker 5 (01:46:22):
I I'm not fool that I could have done the
solid a solid hour I think with Hall, and I'm
so glad I got a chance to ask him about
that Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, because that's a big
deal to him.

Speaker 6 (01:46:32):
That's his home state. And that's how I kind of
first learned about how Sutton.

Speaker 5 (01:46:38):
I don't remember exactly when it was or under what circumstances,
but one of the things that he and I talked
about very early in our relationship was him being a
deer hunter, and he had some great stories of Louisiana
deer hunt.

Speaker 6 (01:46:53):
I remember that sitting. It was one of the outdoors
shows he came to many.

Speaker 5 (01:46:57):
Many years ago now, and we just kind of sat
down and talked about deer hunt for fifteen twenty thirty minutes.

Speaker 6 (01:47:03):
I don't even remember how long it was.

Speaker 5 (01:47:05):
And it just kind of grew from there where I
was able to get in touch with him and ask
him questions about the game and about his game and
his life and getting to sit inside that room, and
it's a generous room for all the right reasons.

Speaker 6 (01:47:24):
His trophy room, if you will.

Speaker 5 (01:47:25):
It's actually like a trophy casita, and it's decorated with
a lot of things from his career. I was going
to say everything, but I doubt that's true. I'm sure
he's got There are probably one hundred trophies from when
he was a little bit younger than during his professional
days that aren't displayed in there. But there's a lot

(01:47:48):
of history in that room, a whole lot of history
in that room, and it was really fun to walk
through there. I'll double check to make sure I posted
that picture, and if I haven't, I'll try to get
to it today and get it put out there. So
kind of recapping where we have been today other than
talking about that new golf course out there, and boy,
Texas is getting some really really nice places and they're different.

(01:48:13):
That's one of the things I like about all these
new course, relatively new courses anyway, is that they truly
are different, and they truly are the work of some
of the best in the entire business, no matter which
one you look at. And I'm thrilled to have had
the opportunity to play most of them. I'm sure there

(01:48:36):
are some I've missed. And I don't tend to travel
a lot for golf anymore, and that's cut down on
my new course testing.

Speaker 6 (01:48:45):
But I'm going to try to change it. Once my
son gets to high.

Speaker 5 (01:48:47):
School or gets out of high school, I'll have a
little more freedom to travel, and I'll probably start doing
that about the time.

Speaker 6 (01:48:55):
I can only hit at about two forty off the tee.
That'll be boy.

Speaker 5 (01:48:59):
It's frustrating waiting to really hit one good, even on
the range, and then watch where it falls, knowing that
not that many years ago, where I'm hitting most of
my golf balls, if there was any kind of a
favorable wind and the tea boxes were moved up a
little bit on the range, I could bang it.

Speaker 6 (01:49:17):
All the way to the other end, like holy cow.

Speaker 5 (01:49:21):
I actually recall very vividly one day when someone from
the pro shop came rolling out. I can remember just
rolling right up to me that, Hey, the guys on
the other end asked you to stop hitting driver. Boy,
you talk about feel puffed up proud. I yeah, okay, yeah,
I understand. I'm bracing the Shambeau.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
That's me.

Speaker 6 (01:49:41):
Yeah, I'm bombing it on down there.

Speaker 5 (01:49:43):
And in hindsight, the tea's were probably moved up farther
and the wind was helping more than it should have.

Speaker 6 (01:49:51):
But it still felt good to be that guy who
was hitting it to the other end. Been a while,
been a hot minute, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:50:00):
Opening weekend of dear season, opening weekend of waterfowl season.

Speaker 6 (01:50:04):
Quail season opened this past weekend. It is all systems
go full speed ahead right through boy. Several more weeks.

Speaker 5 (01:50:14):
We'll plod forward with everything open until the duck split,
and then we'll come back and keep going from there.
I will be back here tomorrow morning. I hope Melville
will be back with me. We'll tee it up at
eight o'clock tomorrow. Thank you all for listing. Get outside,
have some fun.

Speaker 6 (01:50:29):
With your family.

Speaker 5 (01:50:30):
There's a rain chance, but there's also a chance at
won't rain. Just stay safe doing whatever you're doing out there.
I talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you all for listening.
Audios