Ep 1236: Live Show 10/10 - Celebrating First Tee Award Winners

0:00Welcome to the pod and this encore presentation of the Utah Golf Radio live show that aired previously on the Rocky Mountain Golf Network flagship station ESPN 700 in Salt Lake City. I am your host Paul Pugmeyer. In this show we celebrate winners of the first T Utah annual awards given at the first T Gala. Before we tee off I'd like to give a big shout out to our incredible sponsor Golden West Credit Union for making this podcast possible. Golden West believes in supporting dreams and building strong communities just like the ones we find on the golf course. Check them out at www.gwcu.org for all your financial needs because at Golden West they'll take care of you. This is Utah Golf Radio for the next two hours. We'll give you the best coverage of Golf and Utah.

1:05Now bringing you inside the ropes. Here's Paul Pugmeyer. Good morning. Utah Golf Radio coming to you live today from the beautiful downtown studios of ESPN 700. We are in the mothership getting you inside the ropes on all things golf in Utah. In partnership with Utah's leading golf organizations, the Utah Golf Association, the Utah Section PGA, Fairways Media, the Utah Golf Foundation, the Utah Golf Course Superintendent's Association, the Utah Junior Golf Association and first T Utah. I am Paul Pugmeyer, your host and president of first T Utah. I'm sitting here with a Utah Broadcasting legend and my good friend, Wesley Ruff. Wesley, good morning. Good morning Paul. Thanks for having me on today. Gosh, I am so glad to have you here with us. Wesley, tell us what you've been doing since you retired. Golfing? And I spent a lot of time golfing. And then I'm not doing that. I go golfing. That's great. I retired on June 21st. That was my last day after 41 years at Channel 4. And two days after I retired, I got a hole in one and thought I should have quit sooner.

2:14And Channel 4 went off the air of course. Oh, did they have it left? Yeah, so I don't know. Because with no Wesley Ruff on Channel 4, why bother? No, they probably didn't even miss me. No, it's been good. I've enjoyed retirement. And yeah, it's I should have quit a long time ago. That's hilarious. Jardinase should have quit. Okay. I like that. It is kind of funny as you're sitting here saying I retired. I went golfing or golfing on it. In another context, people say, well, that's kind of cliche. But not here. Not not on Utah golf radio. Not amongst us geeks. We're going. Yeah. Yeah. So. And your point is. Randy Dodson's keeping me busy too. Because I write columns for Fairways magazine and do videos for them. So that's keeping me busy as well. And yeah, we should talk about that.

3:14Because you can you you actually in my world are showing up more. Because you don't have the constraints of showing up at Channel 4. So you've been going to these tournaments. You've been doing the the stand-ups for Randy and writing for Randy, Fairways magazine and Fairways media on their videos. You and Randy are developing this new Fairways product called Rough Stuff. Tell us about that. Yeah. So to your first point, yeah. Like I go when I worked at Channel 4, I would go cover the Utah State Amateur. But I'd only be there a couple of days. Because I had high school football or whatever else was going on that we had to cover. So I'd only be up there for a day or two. And this year, I was up there all week. And it was great. Yeah. And I see it. And it's a different experience. Being there for the whole week and getting the flow. Exactly. Yeah. I rarely I can only think of a couple of times I was up there on Sunday or Saturday for the final Sunday back in the old days.

4:17Saturday for the final rounds. And then sometimes I had to shoot it myself. I'd see you out there doing like Jeremy Ranch when Mitch Gow was was winning. And you were doing your first start of your plot at the live stream. And I was out there shooting, you know, I can only shoot for a little while and get back to the station and get the rest of the show on the air. But so now it's a lot better to go, you know, be there all week long and get the feel of how the tournaments are going. With Randy and Faroys media, we're trying to do rough stuff golf is I don't know why we call it that, but it's because you can. Yeah, we're just trying to do different things and maybe get a YouTube channel eventually. And just, you know, cover golf and do some fun stuff with it. I like that. I like that. And look, in my view, now look, I know you've qualified for retirement, but in my view, you are a young guy. You are not. No, you are energetic. You are capable. You still have a whole bunch to give. And we still have a whole bunch that we want you to give.

5:24And so the idea of you developing this new project with Randy Dodson and Faroys media, the idea of you taking it to a YouTube channel where, and the first thing there is everything would be archived in one really cool simple little place to get to. I love it. And keeping your particular talents and skill set, but pointed toward golf. I like that. And it's, it's what Craig Thorpe, formerly of the Salt Lake, who's been doing with Randy Dodson taking his skills, his talents and pointing them toward golf and his retirement. I think it's a really great model. And I love that we still get you guys involvement and your perspective. And we still get to see the results here work. It's great working with Garrett Johnson. Oh my gosh. Speaking of talent. Yeah. What a wizard. He is with the camera and editing. And yeah, it's like I'll shoot stand-ups and we'll shoot stuff. And then I'll see the finish product. And you're like, oh my goodness. That's way good.

6:28Or the night thought I was going to be. I'm not good. He is. He's a wizard with the camera and editing. So that's it's fun to work with and, you know, and Randy doesn't get any better than that, right? No, no, it does not. And so this actually brings up something now that just comes to mind a couple of weeks ago. We celebrated the 35th anniversary of Fairways magazine and took the whole show and dedicated the whole show to a conversation with Randy Dodson and Garrett Johnson about the 35 years of Fairways. Magazine and one of the things that we tried to talk about and really stumbled over candidly because it was such a hard question and I'm going to be unfair to you and hit you with this cold. Was okay favorite image favorite story favorite thing from 35 years of Fairways magazine. Now I'm thinking about this. I'm just kind of curious. What pops out for you, Wesley? Oh, wow. That's a good one. You know, I've been a part of it for a long, long time, even, you know, when Randy first started and I didn't know him that well.

7:35I would he asked me to write some columns early on and then and now I've just become a columnist last what eight years, seven years, something. Well, that's a good question. He's got he's had so many good. I know I like to say we we actually were prepared for it. We heated up with each other in advance and we got there. We're going, uh, well, there's this. Yeah, that's a good. My favorite one that I wrote. Yeah. The one coming up. I'm I like, but the one that I just finished or the one that aired and aired broadcast background. The one that was probably in the last issue about the guys who you would have thought would have won the state am, but did not. Yes. And that and I got to talk to all these guys that and every single one of them with the same thing. It's like, I don't I only think about that like once a week like for the rest of my life, I just think about it. Yeah. Yeah, they missed out on on the Utah State am and it was so fun to talk to them. Then we did a sidebar story with the women state am, you know, who who came close and didn't win. And it was the same thing. They're like, yeah, just it. It doesn't haunt me, but it kind of haunts me like they remember the shots.

8:45And then the one I'm writing the one that's coming up in this next issue while we're waiting for Zach Blair and Patrick Fishburn and Danny summer haze to win on the PJ tour. Right. And I talked to guys who did win about their first win on the PJ tour like Mike Weir and John Boat and J Don Blake and Dan Forzeman and Mike Reed. And that was just bad. I love talking to those guys about that. That was really fun to hear their stories about when they first won on the PJ tour and what it was like and what they had to overcome to get there. I really enjoyed that. This is in Fairways magazine. That's coming up next issue. Okay, folks to get a fairways magazine. Pretty simple. Join the EGA comes with your UGA membership. You've got to be a member of the UGA and get fairways magazine that alone, fairways magazine alone. Aside from all the other benefits of being a member of the UGA Fairways magazine alone is reason to be a member. But you're talking about PJ tour. Let's let's turn our attention back one week. We got to put a wrap on the Bank of Utah Championship PJ tour in Utah. Holy cow. That's fun. Love saying that.

9:53Our hometown event. Yeah, it is really something Austin Smotherman won first T kid. I love that. He's an alum. The first T of Sacramento. And he currently is an ambassador on the PJ tour for first T's national organization, the first T ambassador. And so Austin Smotherman wins it, but we had a lot of Utah players in the field. And got there by a variety of means. Wesley, what what jumped out of you from the Bank of Utah Championship Black Desert last week? The fact that we had so many locals was a 10. Yeah, in the field. That was just it was so fun. I think crackthort pointed out that it was like a sixth of the and the BYU connection. I think they're like six hundred and twenty golfers or whatever. And so like a six of the field or whatever. I'm not good at math. But there yeah, there were six BYU connection. Yeah. But yeah, so just it's fun to have the locals and you know, and we know them right.

11:00We know these guys and what's amazing. We knew them when they were kids absolutely playing junior golf, UGA events playing high school golf. And most of them not all BYU golf, but even like Boeing Moss and Boston Bracken who went to ASU. We know these guys. We still follow them that they issue. It was it was amazing. Yeah, it was it was so that that was the thing that stood out to me. I like how. More and more better players are starting to come to it. Okay, no question about that. Yes, it's you know, it's tough. Just false series. We're never going to get Rory McElroy. You're never going to get Scotty Sheffler because their seasons are done. And they had to spend an extra month, you know, with the rider cup and or the president's cup in September. So after the torch, it was done and they do that. Then now it's their vacation, right? Because they're they're set for next year. They don't need to play chase some points. Exactly. Yeah. But but some of these other guys are and and some summer playing just because they've heard how what a nice event this has turned out to be.

12:04Okay, that is a really that is a thing. And and first of all, the context on tour is word of mouth among the players matters. And when they start saying to each other, Hey, this is this a good tournament. It's well run. It's a fun course. It's interesting. It's beautiful country. But where it really starts to change people's plans is when they start saying. I cannot believe how well my wife and family and my team were treated and how much fun they had. And then the players start going away to find taking my family on this. This is actually good for a dozen reasons off the golf course. And so that's that's really a thing. And it's changing the field. And if you were if you were in Utah at the time when the senior tour was going on, the champions going on. And you know, they used to take great care of the families up there and take them fly fishing and have expeditions for the wives. And so the senior tour players love coming here because it was a fun event. And as you just mentioned, the families were well taken care of and Patrick Manning down at Black Desert.

13:04And very first year they had this. He said, we are going to take make sure this is a good event for the families for the wives for the girlfriends, whatever. And it was at the time. And I don't know if it still is. It might be the only tour event where all the players could stay on property. It is all the players staying right there on property. I think San Antonio might might have a similar kind of resort situation. But nonetheless, here I am struggling to remember for sure. We do know Black Desert not only is is our resort with a hotel on property. It is. Yeah. Right. It is so sweet. Yeah. And they just it is such a great property. They do such a good job. And there is no question that it matters to the players bringing their families and the families have a great time. It was kind of fun walking around down there. You saw him. You saw the women out there pushing. And a lot of these players are young and young families and you knew exactly what was going on.

14:04Players don't have to drive, you know, 15 minutes and traffic to get to the course, make their tea time. They just walk out the door and they're there. So yeah, that it's a special event. And I hope it just continues to grow. This this was year three of a four year deal. So I hope I hope it continues. Hope so as well. As we all know, there's 7,000 variables. And the decision makers don't know. Now we had Patrick Manning on the show last week. And along with Patrick Manning, of course, the managing partner of Black Desert Resort and Ashley, they were on the show and we talked about this with them. And look, first of all, they don't know in no small part because the PJ tour doesn't know. It's changing, right? Things are coming. We are talking about 2028. We do know 2027. It's under contract. There will be a bank of Utah Championship at Black Desert 2027. And we know the dates. It's October 4 through 10. So put it on your calendar, folks. It's online.

15:07So we do know 2027 is set 2028. There's a whole bunch of dominoes that need to fall. Correct me if I'm wrong. They have every tournament have to bid now, right? Yeah. So so Patrick Manning would would make a bid and sit and hopefully get a tour event earlier in the year, not necessarily the fall series. But that requires a lot of money. Yeah. And well, yes, money, but it's more than money. And this whole thing we were talking about with the players experience that will be a part of the bid. That will be a part of the reason that the tour may say, hey, listen, we're hearing from folks they like going to Black Desert. So there's so many variables on this summer straight forward with numbers on them, summer settle, nuanced. And we'll see how that plays out. One thing we do know and we do like is that one of the decision makers, one of the, one of the people in the room. Thank you. Lin Manwell is Tyler Dennis from Salt Lake City grew up a local kid who is who is number two at the PGA tour.

16:11Let's just real quickly review the players here on this, this past year, pardon me, this past tournament. There were 10 Utah players. You're just going to go through them real quick. Tony Fina was that Blair Patrick, fishburn, key, hey, Kena, Bowen, Moss, Zach Johnson, Boston. Back in Tyson, Shelley Carson, Lundell, and right, Rasmussen, holy cow, what a great list. What great players of those couple of highlights on this Tony who was there this year, first time he played it because he was searching for points, missed the cut. And he slipped from number 100 to number 104 by missing the cut. And he is straight up. He's got status. He, because he stacked wins a couple three years ago. So he is good to play in 2027. Not a problem. But he, he didn't use the word pride in his pre conference, pre tournament press conference. But I heard him imply it where he's saying, I want to earn my way in on to play my way into the top 100. And I could just tell this is a guy who's been a president's cup or he's been a writer cup or he's six time winner back to back winner, one of the top players in the tour, when the top players in the world.

17:23And you could just tell it was bugging him that he was outside of the top 100. He wants to play his way in status or not. Yeah. And I remember talking to him about the pride thing a couple years ago when he's made the writer cup team and the president's cup teams in the past, but never qualified by points. He's been a captain. And while he's flattered about that and has, you know, he's been close enough in the points that it was an on almost the non automatic pick. He's also one of the guys that can play with anybody. So he's a good pick anyway. Yes, but he said he wanted to make it on points hasn't done that yet. So, you know, to your point of of your pride. Yeah, he's he's got that he wants he wants to do things and earn his way into the writer cup, presence cup and earn his way not just because he's got wins. He wants to have enough points to qualify for the PGA tour. And I absolutely respect him. And you know, he great. You finished, you know, he had he had he bogey the last hole on Thursday. And that ended up costing him.

18:26And the next day he went had a bogey free round 68 and looked like he was going to make the cut hanging around cut line. Then it dropped to I think he missed it by two. Yeah, he did. He was at minus four cut line came in at minus six. And yeah, so so Tony Tony missed the cut. The three players who Utah players who made the cut was at Blair Patrick, Fishburn and Kihei, Keena. The way it all played out. Kihei had the best finish. He finished in the top 10. He was solo ninth shot minus 22 64 on rounds of 67 67 65 65. That's good golf. How did you not win three rounds? I know lower than 60. That's crazy. And with that top 10 finish, he gets himself a ticket to the next full field event, which is in Bermuda. And they can get out of his classes. He said he said he was concerned about getting out of classes. I texted with his coach Todd Miller and Todd didn't seem to concern. And Todd also confirmed that Kihei will be playing in the big 12 match play, which starts Monday up at the country club.

19:34Whether permitting. Okay, there's that. I came below. But it's on my calendar. It's real. But anyway, what Todd was saying was that he did not think Kihei would be able to make the preserve college tournament that follows on the schedule. So we'll see how that all plays out. And he picks up some points on that was it the PJ. Okay, PJ Tuerrex, celebrated. He currently has 10 with this. He got two points at black desert. He got a point for making the cut. He got a point for finishing in the top 10. Then that put him to currently in third place. That doesn't matter. It's a points thing. Any number of people can get it. He's got 10 points of the 20 that are needed before his senior year in order to make to get a PJ Tuerrex card. He is on his way folks. This kid is real. We had a chance of course to talk with Kihei following his Sunday round. Let's roll that tape. Here's Kihei, Kihei.

20:38Okay. Kihei, really solid finish. Your third PJ Tuerrex star and looking like it'll be your best finish on tour. Just overall thoughts on the week. Yeah, it's a great week to be back here in Utah again. Just really lucky to have the privilege to be able to play here for the third time. And you had to be able to play well. It's pretty awesome. Can you talk about the support of all your family and friends? You have a huge crowd out there that we're following you today. Yeah, the support from all the people all over Utah. You're nice to met so many new people this week. It's been awesome. And it's really cool to have a bunch of family here. Down to watch my grandparents, all my uncles and aunties. Yeah, it's really cool. Kihei, you talked to me about last year not even making the cut to this year finishing top 10 and making all of you top proud. How are you feeling right now? Good. Yeah. I definitely feel a lot better than I did last year. Yeah, just another great experience to be able to play on a PJ Tuerrex. Yeah, it feels great to be able to put four solid rounds together.

21:53Kihei, if you would for St. George News, tell me a little bit about your local journey in terms of high school product, a loan peak, college product, a BYU. Here you are in the PGA in St. George. Talk about just how good the progression of golf is for young golfers here in Utah. And how you feel like your own career is kind of a reflection of the quality of Utah golf. Definitely. Yeah. I take a lot of my roots from here in Utah, even though I'm from Hawaii. But I went to high school here and I'm obviously in college here in Utah. So I hopefully can send an example for some of the Utah junior golfers out there. I definitely, you know, I've seen that Utah junior golf is making their way up right now. So it's really cool to see that. And I feel like Utah golf is in a pretty good spot right now, for sure. Kihei, did the experience of Puerto Rico fighting for a top 10 help you today? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit of a different pressure than, you know, playing a regular round or, you know, fighting for a cut.

23:02Yeah. That experience definitely helped me. I definitely kind of relied back on that today. And I think that helped me finish finish pretty good today. And so do I assume that if the whole top 10 holds up, you'll go to Bermuda? Yeah. We'll see if I can get excuse from class, but hopefully. In Puerto Rico, you had your BYU coach Todd Miller on the bag. He is a remarkable asset in terms of playing the course and executing the game. This week you did it more on your own. What was the difference? What was that difference like for you? Yeah, I just I wanted a caddy that I was going to feel comfortable with. I know that my game is good enough to compete out here. And I just needed somebody that I was comfortable with. And that would keep me grounded and pretty level throughout the day. And, you know, I've known Lincoln and his family for a long time. And he did a great job out there this week. There were already low scores by the time you got to the tee. So you knew you needed to go low. Did you view that as a challenge, pressure, opportunity? Because you came out again and made three on the first hole.

24:11Yeah. I looked at the leaderboard a little bit. I think once before team off. And I saw that there are already some low scores out there. So I knew I had to put out a low one. And yeah, Bernie on one always helps. And the birdies are huge, but also to make one bogey on the weekend. Talk about the consistency. Yeah, a little bummed out on that bogey. So I wanted to go bogey free. But yeah, to play 36 holes with only one bogey is impressive. And I try to, you know, I try to do that every time I see it up. Tell us about your second shot on 18, 72nd hole to put a cap on everything. Yeah, my drive had gone a little shorter than I expected. So I had a little bit further for the coming in. So it was just another perfect mini driver, which I've had so many times throughout the week. So I felt really comfortable with that club. I think we were trying to hit like a 275 shot a little bit into the wind. And yeah, I hit it a little bit further right than I wanted to, but you know, to get it up on around the green pin high was a great shot.

25:23Yeah, I have the leaderboard stands you would top 10 into the Bermuda tournament. Did you know that and what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I knew that. I try to keep them the back of my head all day and just try to play golf. And whatever happens now is just golf, but I'm still proud of the way I fought out there today. Okay, speaking of things you might know by my calculation, this is point nine on PJ tour. You accelerated almost halfway to a tour card. Are you tracking that? Are you aware of that when you're doing this stuff? A little bit. Yeah, yeah, this is in the back of your head. Like I said, but you know, at the end of the day, you just got to, you know, play golf. And that's what I did this week. You sure did. Okay, I like that he's aware of what's going on, Wesley, not overwhelmed by it back of his head, but he's aware. This a remarkable kid. Yeah, he really is and to be able to shoot that 65 on a final round with knowing what he, you know, thinking about the things that he had to think about and still play golf and still be able to do that. Yeah, it's he's got a future.

26:38Real thing. More to come. Okay, Keena. All right, we need to do ourselves a little U-Pod update. We're going to play for us by girls go golfing play golf. Make friends have fun. Join girls go golfing on Facebook. All right, we've gone over this a little bit. Let me just highlight a couple things as we noted. Key, hey finishes the top of the U talk contingent at the Bank of Utah championship. Following him, Zach Blair was T21 minus 17 to 67 on rounds of 66 70 65 and 66 Patrick, Fishburn also made the cut. He was T32 minus 15 to 69 on rounds of 66 68 69 and 66.

27:43Pretty cool. See three three Utah players making the cut first time Fishburn's made the cut first time fish has made the cut in his in his post round. They asking about that and he was kind of indignal. It's about time. I need to play well in this term. It's fun to watch Zach because he's all right. I can just love to play golf. He's just out there playing all the time. And this Tom Wisecoff designed golf course fits his particular. His particular skill set Zach has two superpowers in his game. Number one, he keeps his driver in front of him and on grass. Black desert requires and is non-negotiable. You got to keep a driver in front of you and on grass. Number two, it emphasizes a wedge game. Wesley, who has the best wedge game? He's got the best hands. Anybody have ever met. But it's funny because he drove that par four that short par four. He drove it. Yeah. And you wouldn't think that Zach Blair would be able to do that. But he steps up and does it. He can do that. He can do that. It's amazing. This week Tony went over to Japan to the Bay Current. He's guaranteed points because he's guaranteed. There's no cut event.

28:52He currently stands at T 47 minus two two eleven on three rounds because of the time difference. He's got a difference. A rounds of 71 68 and 72. He is projected to move from 104 to 103. So he's not. You see what happened to him yesterday? No, I'm the third round. I mean, he was three under on the front on front nine. So at 33. And in the back nine, he had a double. I think it did. He had two doubles. But he finished he finished bogey double bogey bogey. So he was three under and then it ended up shooting one over. Yeah. So you know, he'd probably drop from like T 20 down to whatever he is now. T 33. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that was T. Well, mine might know T 47. Yeah. It's disappointing. It is. Can I go back to the bank of Utah? And the two guys I wanted to highlight. Heisen Shelley's first round. Okay. It was impressive, right? Because he hasn't been to pro that long. This was his first P.J. tour around 66. 66 in that situation was impressive. And you know, as well as anybody, how hard it is to put back to back good rounds together.

29:52It's hard. It comes, you know, shot 79 missed the cut. But still that was impressive to shoot 66. And I was impressed with Zach Johnson. You should be Zach Johnson. Yes. Thank you. Because all the section guys, you know, usually go down there and they're like, my goal is to make the cut. And it's it's hard to do. Yeah. Like every time I hear those guys say, my goal is just to make the cut. And like, you're playing against P.J. tour guys. You play every week in this. Yeah, you say you're saying you want to be in half of them. Yeah. So that's that's tough. But Zach, what a steady rent. I'm 70 73. Yeah. For a guy that's, you know, usually behind the desk at Davis Park as the head throw there. Exactly. Yeah. I just I was really impressed. I appreciate you calling that out. Yes. You are so right. On the corn fairy tour this week, it is the corn fairy championship. Zach Blair is playing in that. He's got point. He's got a pathway on both the P.J. tour and the corn fairy. This isn't working out though. He's currently at 233 minus 3139 on rounds of 72 and 67. He projects to slip from 36th in the point list to 38th. He needs he needs a T2 in order to get into the top 20. I don't think it's going to happen.

31:00Yeah. That first round really hurt him yesterday. I played well in the second round. Yeah. Okay. I heard him. And just quick note, Mike, we're had to WD from the Fureycon friends. We hope he's okay. We'll check on that. All right. We need to send some love to Austin Smotherman. He is the Bank of Utah player of the week presented by the Utah Golf Association Austin Smotherman. It's the win at the Bank of Utah championship. All right. We got to take a break. We come back on the other side. We're going to talk with UGA executive director East and Folster about the new Legacy Fund. This is a pretty cool thing. You want to stick around and hear about it. You are listening to Utah Golf Radio powered by T-Box on the Rocky Mountain Golf Network. You're listening to Utah Golf Radio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Utah Golf Radio. Getting you inside the ropes on all things golf in Utah in partnership with Utah's leading golf organizations, the Utah Golf Association, the Utah Section PGA, Fairways Media, the Utah Golf Foundation, the Utah Golf Course Superintendents Association, Utah Junior Golf Association and first to Utah.

32:19This first hour of the show is presented by Salt Lake City Golf at SLC Golf.com or the Salt Lake City Golf app where you can make T-times on any of the great Salt Lake City Golf courses and lists of courses at Hurricane. Do the best you can. We are powered as eyes by T-Box at TVX.Golf where they have cracked the code on the whole Golfer experience with clubs, coaching and community. Get yourself to a T-Box. It'll help your game and you'll have fun TVX.Golf. Is that the dog day song? Oh, nice. Our producer Zach Robinson gives me a thumbs up. It's the dog day song. Nice. Zach Scott, he's got good bleed in music. He's serious. Yeah, I like this song. Nice. That's Wesley Ruff. You're listening to there. Utah Sports Broadcasting Legends sitting in with us today. So glad to have you here with us. Thanks for having me. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I so appreciate you being here. I always love sitting down and chatting some golf with you. Wesley today. We're just putting a mic in front of us. There you go. That's kind of the nature of the show. I want to tell you. Yeah. I was playing golf with somebody yesterday and they talked about you and said, how what a good job you do. Oh my gosh. Unsolicited. My gosh. Okay. Somebody who's who knows he's been. Yeah, he's in one of the power brokers in the game. Well, now I just do we dare. Do we dare say who? It was Mike Bailey. Oh my land. Mike Bailey. I love Mike Bailey. Gold Club winner.

33:47I'm a president of the Utah golf. I just say talk about people who make a difference in the game. Yes, in Utah, but internationally. Mike Bailey, of course, formerly a member of the UGA executive committee on the board. Bailey is the one they sent to negotiate the now world handicap system with all the other all the other governing bodies around the country around the world. Pod being we think in terms of the RNA in the US. Yeah. And yes, those are dominant, but there's so many other governing bodies around the world. Mike Bailey had to make it happen around the globe. Yeah, you talk about. Well, he was in the room. He was in the room. Yeah, he I told him I was going to be doing your show. And he just said just unsolicited. Oh my God. Love Paul. Love what he does. He's just one of the well, thank hardworking guys. So. Yeah, thank you, Mike. I said such a deep affection and respect for Mike Bailey. We are joined now by East and Folster, the executive director

34:47of the Utah golf association last week. They announced a new program from the UGA that we need to dive into and understand more. East and Folster, good morning. Welcome to show. All good morning. He's grabbing me on. Absolutely. He's been thank you for taking time. I know you got family stuff this morning. We appreciate you taking a minute. We I want to get to the new logo in a minute, but let's start with the legacy fund. The Utah golf legacy fund. Important stuff and we need to learn more and know about it. Please tell us about the legacy fund. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and the platform to discuss it. You know, it's something that the board and I had been working on for a number of years leading up to at least in at least in thought. You know, our mission is of course to advance the game in the state of Utah. And so we've been looking for opportunities to do that. That's always, you know, part of our core mission is to find ways to grant greater access. This was an opportunity to do just that.

35:52You know, not not all that dissimilar Paul the work you're doing with first T or the work that Utah golf foundations doing with youth on course. It's really all about access and as we know golf can be expensive and so you know to be able to eliminate financial barriers for golfers is important. So diving into a little bit about what it is going to do and what it's going to provide to junior golfers in the state. We want all golfers competitive golfers. This is going to be a program that centered heavily on those that are playing high level tournament golf. We want all of those golfers that have a dream to compete one day at the highest level to be able to have that opportunity to be able to chase that dream without the limitations of at times as we've said golf, you know, can have a pretty high dollar amount. So if I'm not interjecting, especially elite competitive golf. This isn't a 2x thing. It's a 10x thing. It's 10 times harder for elite competitive junior golf for it to make work for some families. And so I just wanted to put the context on that.

37:06There are a lot of ways that kids can play golf. But when you're talking about the elite top in competitors, the travel and everything that's associated with that is so stupid hard. So that's where this really matters. I think he's. Yeah, yeah, thanks Paul. That's exactly right. And so we really just want to be able to help competitive junior golfers chase their dream. And so if there's families out there that have a talent to junior golfer that may have financial barriers or limited. That's where this program comes in. So it's going to be a grant reimbursement program. It can go towards travel costs, coaching fees, lessons, equipment. So we do feel like this is kind of the 1% in terms of competition or competitive golfers. It's kind of the 1% of junior golfers. And we feel like it's part of our mission to be able to support that 1% be able to chase their dreams. We still want anybody left on the sidelines that has a dream and is enabled to chase it because the funding wasn't there. And we recognize that golf is expensive.

38:14And so if we can do our part to help minimize the impact on families will do that. And there's going to be a number of families that we're hoping to start this program next year in 2027 and help them support their kids. And we hope to grow it. You know, this is going to be forever, you know, forever fun that we just got that maybe we can talk about. But you know, this is going to be something that's here in the state of Utah for decades to come and we look forward to continuing to grow it. Eastern former spring will red devil here Wesley rough. What's the money coming from for you guys to fund this? So yeah, part of our partnership with the Bank of Utah, which has been, you know, hopefully well documented at this point. You know, there's multiple pillars of that partnership. Obviously the exemption that Bowen Moscow into the Bank of Utah championship. You guys probably see, you know, the players of the week, you know, the champion in the month brought to you by Bank of Utah.

39:15So that was a big piece. They were a big contributor. Also, of course, the Utah golf association is contributing. They contributed $100,000 to be able to start this fund. The Bank of Utah championship. So more on the PGA tour side, they contributed $95,000. And then there was a, you know, brought to you by Larry H. Miller. There was a Utah youth sports giving day. They had a matching program that took place in September. And so they matched the funds up to $150,000. So quick math. You know, we're just over $300,000 in in seed money made possible by the Bank of Utah championship, the Utah golf association. Of course, the Larry H. Miller group. So we hope to continue that. I know the Utah golf association is going to be big contributors to this fund moving forward. And then we'll, you know, we'll fundraise to be able to get some additional funding and continue to grow this program. Yeah, incredible. Absolutely. Talk to us about what the application process will look like and how the decisions will be made.

40:24Yeah, Paul. We're right in the middle of it. Your questions perfectly timed. We're working on forming that. You know, as we speak, we want to debut this in January. We'll take applications through those spring months. You know, but we, this is going to be something that evolves, you know, over time. We want to be able to get it right. We don't want it to have, you know, everybody sold out applications that are just a pain. And it's just so complicated to be able to even fill them out that we don't want that experience. We want it to be seamless. We want it to be easy. But at the same time, there are going to be some checks and balances so that the programs aren't abused and that we're getting the dollars into the right players and the right family's hands. So we're still working on what that application process will look like. But we want it to be easy for families. But yes, we want some guardrails on there too to make sure the right people are getting the money. Yeah, that makes total sense. Will it be prescriptive? That is to say pay in advance or will it be a reimbursement following going to a tournament?

41:29Re-embursement. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to follow the reimbursement model. So, you know, there's going to be a variety of different. It's not just, you know, tournament travel or tournament fees. But if a kid needs help getting the necessary equipment, the training lessons, you know, those things are all going to be, you know, fees that can be reimbursed. And I love that aspect of it. You know, top of the list, the travel associated with with the elite tournament play is so hard. But I really appreciate that you're talking about equipment and instruction coaching. I think those are easy to get lost in the noise. And so I think it's important you've included those. Absolutely. Yeah, you know, and like I said, you know, this program's going to evolve over time. We're really happy with where it's at right now. We're ready to debut it in 27. But there's going to be, you know, upon getting feedback from families and junior golfers, you know, we hope to evolve this program to meet the need that families face.

42:31So this could change, you know, maybe there's additional fees down the road that I'm new to a golf legacy fund can help out with. But that's it's a good starting point for 27. How many people do you see you helping at the start in the first year? Great question. You know, I don't even know if I have if I have a good answer for that, you know, we're, you know, we're hoping that there's at least a couple families, you know, that will start in the first year. You know, I would say our hope is that, you know, a handful of families and then, you know, it's going to take some time to get the word out. But as we grow this fund, I hope that handful becomes, you know, multiple handfuls of family. So I don't know, you know, where we're going to be at in this first year. We want to spread the wealth as much as we can. But we'll see what the applications look like. It's our first time doing it. So it'll be exciting to see some of those applications come in and be able to provide that reimbursement grant. He's then as someone who benefited from the Utah golf association when I was in high school, I won a scholarship that you guys used to offer that got me that I was able to go to college and because I was in college, then I, you know, got into broadcasting.

43:37So I owe everything to the Utah golf association, which is why I try to get back to the game of golf. So as someone who benefited from money from the Utah golf association, I hope that people can take advantage of this and, and you'll find people like me who give back to the game from the people that you help. So I think this is just a great program. Yeah, well, that's really in fact, I appreciate you sharing that. And I do remember you mentioning that that's and then what a success story, right? So I agree, you know, we want to be able to find kids that they need the funding that, you know, can turn it into opportunity. And then what they do with that opportunity is, you know, certainly up to them. But we just don't want barriers. We don't want doors closed, you know, on, you know, for financial reasons. And so thank you for sharing that completely agree and we're excited to help out the next generations of junior golf competitive golfers. Wow, this is so cool. And nothing that could be added to Wesley's story.

44:42You're you're you're going to send kids to college with this kids will earn college golf scholarships because of what they'll gain through this. And it will create lives like Wesley ruffs pretty impressive, pretty incredible. We got just a couple minutes left, Eastern tell us about your new logo. Yeah, this is something we're really excited about at the Utah Golf Association. Something that's been, you know, I would say brewing for a number of years. Obviously came you know, came to a head this this last year and had some momentum behind it. You know, it was it was well timed in that we were in need of a of a new website. You know, I think it was time for you know, essentially a facelift for for the association just to bring it into the modern era. Any time, you know, I'll acknowledge you know, any time you rebrand or you update a logo, of course, people are going to be nostalgic about the past and that and that logo carries, of course, a lot of history.

45:45We look forward to continuing gone or for decades to come and it'll certainly pop up here and there and in different facets, but you know, we felt like it was time to modernize. You know, to carry you to a golf into the next generation and so this project had been brewing for a little while. You know, put a lot of work into it this year. You know, I'd encourage everybody, you know, that's listening to go check out our new website. You know, we hope that it's more user friendly that the user interface is easier. And so we're you know, we're excited about we feel like kind of turning a page on you know on an arrow while. Certainly honoring the history and maybe I can touch on that a little bit. It was important to us as much as it was a rebrand that there were elements in the logo that spoke to you talk offers. Our previous logo there wasn't necessarily a call back to anything that made Utah golf association specific. You know, and so obviously including you know, some of the landscape pieces with with the mountain and the snow cap mountains, but also the flag, you know, representing 1899.

46:48You know, I think we were a little bit slow and in honoring that that you know, we have the longest and oldest continuous tournament held in the world that began in 1899. I don't know that there's a more special you know, aspect to the Utah golf association than that. And so you know, having elements that honor our past, it wasn't you know, turning a page and forgetting about it. It was honoring the past while also giving you the modern look. You know, we feel really good about it. We're excited about it. We've gotten some good feedback. Obviously anytime you know, you you change a logo. You're not going to please everybody. But I think for the most part of the golfing public, you know, understand that they're excited about and we're excited to unveil it really over the next over the next year. I think a rebrand is hard. I've been through one before. Yeah, you cannot understand how hard it is till you try to do it. I think you guys did an excellent job. Everybody go to the UGA's website, uga.org and check it out. It's really, really cool. And I I love the 1899 stuff. Yeah, that's cool.

47:49Yeah, most most times you do teams do a rebrand and it's just to sell merch right to get more merch out there. But this isn't that. This is just sounds like a just a new facelift. I do think he's to you should merch up on those 1899 hats. I think they're really cool. I've got one. Yeah. Yeah, the feedback on those hats was was a man. So now I think it does kind of highlight that cheese. We have this. Really cool kind of piece of history that I think we were just a little bit. Obviously we've always celebrated the moniker being the oldest continuously. Alternament that hasn't been hidden anywhere, but I think the year that that actually started in 1899s maybe. Been in the background a little bit. So we just wanted to bring it to the forefront to your point with hats got. You know, some great reviews. And so maybe instead of selling it will you know we'll do another order and we'll give it out to you. Talk golfers and we'll celebrate it together. I love that. I love that. And yes, it was not hidden. Everybody knew this, but where in it is fun. I like it.

48:49All right. Great job. And in terms of getting the word out on this, the legacy fund. Let's talk about this more as things develop. Let's talk about it more here on Utah golf radio. This is an important and I believe will be highly impactful initiative. And I want to keep the conversation going. Thanks a lot, Paul. Yeah, thanks for the coverage. Look forward to unveiling things as they come and will update the listeners for sure. But yeah, thank you for the platform to discuss. It is important and we're excited for what the next year holds. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right. That is Eastern Folster Executive Director of the Utah Golf Association, the new Utah Golf Legacy Fund. Wesley, I love that you were here this morning and you could tell your story in this context. I wish I could tell you I did that intentionally. I just asked you to come on the show because I wanted to sit and talk golf with you. I love that connection. Thanks. You got your start in a similar thing. You did. Yeah, I remember speaking to the Utah Golf Association up at Logan Country Club for something in the late 80s.

49:55And I mentioned that they that I'd won a scholarship and after they came up and said, did we used to do that? And then they started in their school. I was on the committee for that for a number of years until it ended. But yeah, I love I love I'm seriously that's why I do what I do in golf because I the only way I could go to college. I had a half an academic scholarship but with that Utah Golf Association scholarship, I was able to go to college and because I was in college, that's when I picked my major and got into broadcasting. So I kind of blame the Utah Golf Association for my career. But I'm very grateful and just I thought a long time ago, like if I could ever give back to the game of golf or what they did to me, I would do it. Here we are. So good. All right, we got to take a break. We come back on the other side. Things and stuff with Mike Allerman of you into golf. You are listening to Utah Golf Radio powered by T-Box on the Rocky Mountain Golf Network. You are listening to Utah Golf Radio.

50:57I'm doing stuff. Things, things, things. Things, things, things, things, things, things, things. Things, things, things, things, things. It's stuff. Stuff. Things, things, things. Stuff. We might just let this spin for a minute, lastly. Classic for a reason. Grat you by Zach Robinson, our producer. Just told me he's got a good music brain. Down with that. Right? You're right. Utah Golf Radio. Didn't you inside the ropes on all things golf and Utah in partnership. Utah's leaving golf organizations, the Utah Golf Association, the Utah Section, PGA, Fairways Media, the Utah Golf Foundation, the Utah Golf Course Superintendents Association, Utah Junior Golf Association and first T-U-Talk. This first hour of the show is brought to us by Salt Lake City Golf at SLCGolf.com and the Salt Lake City Golf App, where you can make T-Times at any of the great Salt Lake City Golf courses.

52:00And we are powered as always by T-Box at T-B-X.Golf, where they have cracked the code on the whole Golfer Experience with Clubs, Coaching and Community. Get yourself to a T-Box. We are joined now by Mike Alliman from Uintagolf. Mike, good morning. Welcome to the show. Good morning, guys. So glad to have you with us, Mike. Mike, my stupid weather app, tells me that we might be getting some weather here coming up shortly. Now, just to be sure here, okay, folks, the weather channel, weather.com, they've got it all wrong, Wesley. All the time. All the time they've got it wrong. They make it so complicated. It's not. There's only two kinds of weather. There's golf weather and there's good golf weather. So I like that. So what we are staring down the barrel of here is just golf weather, which means we might need some rain gear from Uintagolf. What you got, Mike?

53:10Yeah, I was thinking, hopefully, my weather app was broken, but I think you just confirmed that I saw the same thing that you did. So I'm supposed to play on Monday and it's not looking great. I think I need a new cart cover. Oh, there you go. You know, that's something heading into this season, whether it's raining or, you know, just a little chillier. A car cover will help keep your warm dry and you pair that with a little cart heater, which we sell as well. It's a little propane powered light. It kind of looks like a little satellite dish and it fits in a cup holder of a cart. And, you know, in the colder weather, a little bit rainy. If you have a cart cover in one of those heaters, it'll feel like you're playing in a hundred degree day. Those things are so great because you don't need them for most of the time until you need it.

54:12Remember when you and I play down in this section, I do. Oh, my goodness. That was so cold. It was so cold. And loved having that cart covers in the heater. It's sitting in the line saying it's your turn to get you. Yeah, the heater, it gets it so warm. You can probably just turn it on for a little while and turn it off and then maybe turn it back on a little while later. That heat stays inside the cart cover so well that it almost gets too hot sometimes. So, yeah, cart cover in the heaters is essential for the coming months. You know, if courses are playable without snow, um, umbrellas. We have countless umbrellas for the rain. And yeah, rain gear, every offer should have rain gear even for the middle of the summer. You never know when a pop-up storm is going to come up and, yeah, rain gear is essential.

55:15And you can have your rain gear for anything outside of golf to, something waterproof to keep you dry. Totally essential cold weather stuff. Cart mittens for colder weather, you know, in between shops, get your hand inside those men. You'll keep your hands nice and toasty and golf beanies. Yeah, you name it. We were getting some cold weather stuff in for this time of year. Hey, Mike, I was just in your shop a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago now, because my wife, Sue and I were heading to Boston for vacation and a no-reaster was coming. So I was, I was, I was, I went to looking for rain gear because as you mentioned, it's not just for golf. You can use that for anything and we needed it. Yeah. That's a really good point. Okay, so you got all the stuff.

56:15Another thing I would highly recommend that you have in your bag, in your car, whatever, have them handy is a set, a set, both hands of rain gloves. Not only will it keep your hands warmer, but you'll be able to grip the club when it's so hard to keep the grip dry. I highly recommend having a set of those handy. And the handy gloves are huge when, when it's wet. It's almost like the weather they get, the better they get. Yeah, I agree, Paul, definitely gets a set of those. And I like the covers for bags that have the little flap that you can, you know, cover the head, the, the clubs in your bag, but you let that flap up and pull it to the club out and put it back down. I like those. You got to go to a you into it. Get yourself tooled up for this coming weather stores in Riverdale, Sugar House, Sandy, Orm and St. George. Thank you so much, Mike. We appreciate you joining us.

57:15All right. Thank you guys. Have a great day. All right. You into golf. We got to take a break when we come back on the other side. We're going to be turning our attention to the state championship in not division, classification, classification 2A. They had the state championship. We will be talking with the winning coach from Waterford, Jeff Insta Ford. He repeated. He'll be with us when we come back on the other side. You are listening to you talk off radio powered by T box on the Rocky Mountain Golf Network. You're listening to you talk golf radio. Yeah, yeah. You try to tell us something. I think there's a little less conversation. Oh, there's that conversation.

58:15Zach, I want you to know I made my pilgrimage to Sun Studios a couple years ago. I've been there. I've been where I was recorded these things. Memphis, Tennessee. That is really cool. You talk off radio. Getting you inside the ropes on all things golf and Utah in partnership. Utah's leading golf organizations. The Utah Golf Association. The Utah Section PGA. Fairways Media. The Utah Golf Foundation. The Utah Golf Per Superintendents Association. Utah Junior Golf Association. And first to Utah. This second out of the show is presented by the ranches. If you have not played the ranches in the past year, you have not played the ranches. You need to go. They made some changes and improvements out there. I drive by it all the time. Wesley, it looks so good. It's been a while since I played there. You need to go. You can get on the T-sheet at the ranches golf club.com.

59:15That's the ranches golf club.com for T times at the ranches. This, we are powered as always by T-box at tbx.gov. Where they have cracked the code on the whole golfer experience with clubs coaching and community. Get yourself to a tbox tbx.gov. We need to talk about the two-a state championship this year. And I want to have them as an example. I want to have them back to the show. I want to go. I want to go back and see them. They are excited about what we are going through. What we are going to do is do so by bringing in the coach of the winning water for a team that is coach Jeff InstaFord. Coach, good morning. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely. Coach, you just repeated as state champs. Congratulations, man. How you doing? Doing well. do one more and you can't say three-peat because Pat Riley has copyrighted it. But you can't. But the fact is you are two-time state champions in the 2A classification. Tell us about this

1:00:19water-ford team. Well, this team is just very skilled. They're highly dedicated to golf. If you'd let them, they'd golf 24-7. I like these kids. These kids are really something. They practice hard. Every drill we ask them to do. They'll do it. They understand the intent of the drill. We're in years past. We didn't always have that focus. But these kids, they played well. Probably not even up to our regular season scores, but not too much worse. They just did a good two days of golf. You had three players in the top 10 individually. That's normally a good formula. Mac Jones finished second. Hank Donnelly was T3 and then Quentin Hayne was T9. Looking at that well and then just scanning down a little farther. Adam Hayne was

1:01:24solo 11th and Sebastian Guest was solo 12th. So in the top 15, there's your team and you get the team championship. With horses like that, you had to know that you were in good shape going in, didn't you? Yes. We felt very comfortable going in. After the first day, we had the third, I believe it was a 13 stroke lead. Made it a little easier than last year where we only had a two stroke lead going into the second day. But with that lead, I think they actually started a little tense because they we played the first two holes, not real well. We don't play two-day tournaments very often. I think having that big a lead actually put a little pressure on them. That's a good point about not playing two-day tournaments. Wesley, what?

1:02:25Well, I just think it's good coaching, right? Back-to-back state champs. That's just good coaching there. Got to be. I'm interested in how you coach the kids and talk to them about needing to go 36 holes and sleep on a lead or perhaps sleep on being down. Those are different dynamics and different questions that are being asked of you. How did you walk the kids through this coach? Well, one of the things we talked about before we went on the second day out for the second day was that playing for parts. These guys are good enough that they can get birdies and especially on that course. There's a lot of birdie holes. Yeah, you were in a metal brook. Yep. We told them, my coach, Cicicoche Kevin Siemens and I, we told them, let's play for parts. If you got all parts beaver, in this case, would have to be 1,300 to tie you.

1:03:33Just play for parts and you'll get your birdies. You guys are good enough. You're going to sink a 20 footer. You're going to stick a wedge. The birdies will come. Just don't let holes turn into double bogies and triple bogies because you shoot for the birdie and have a wayward t-shot or something along those lines. That was one of our big emphasis on going into the second day. Goth must have changed in high school because when I played, you mentioned the word drills. We didn't do drills. We just went out and played. Where's your home course, Jeff? Where do you guys play? We play at Mountain View. We practice at River Oaks. Okay. Very good. So, yeah, when I played way back last century in high school, same thing. We just went out and played golf. That's what it was. So, I'm impressed with, first of all, just using the math and saying,

1:04:38okay, you guys make parts, we're 13 up. They've got to go 13 down to break even. Big, big lift and not likely to happen. But obviously, your kids performed, but I'm interested still in the conversation. How did they react to that? You're telling a kid like Mac Jones who shot minus two for the tournament. You're telling him play for parts. How did he react to that? They understood it. I think they knew that they would get their birdies, especially on that back nine, that if they could just get through the front nine, even par one over that the birdies and maybe even an eagle or two, we're going to come on the back nine. So, I think they responded to it pretty well. Other than, like I said, those first couple of holes, I think they played a little

1:05:40tense impact our freshmen, Quentin Hane, his tee shot on one out of bounds. And then played one over from there. There we go. Okay. He settled down. All right. Well, golf is so much different than when I played. When I played at Springville, the first two years, golf was in the spring. And I think all three years for you, Paul, when you played in high school, yeah, golf is in the spring. And so we were only playing nine hole matches and sometimes in the snow. And then they moved golf. When I was a senior, they moved golf to the fall. And I don't think people realize what a difference that may be because with daylight savings time, now you're playing 18 hole matches, the weather's great. High school golf now is so much. It is different. It absolutely is. It's night date. Well, when we when I first started back in the 90s, we were we were one A school. And just like you said, we played in sleep. We put the snow and cold temp. Now it's completely

1:06:44different having to walk in 100 degree temperatures. You've got a high grade. You've got, I mean, there's a whole other aspect to playing. And like I said, 18 holes versus nine holes. Yeah, interesting. And back in the day, you probably, you know, in the night, it was probably tough to get enough kids at a one A school or a two A school to even make a team, right? And now golf is so popular that you're turning people away. Tryouts. Yes, we, I remember when we first started, there were years that if we got four kids, if we had a team, if we had, before they went to playing with eight for varsity, we have six or seven kids. He just made the team. Your six or seven kid at our level was probably shooting, you know, 110 in the hundreds. And but over the years, that has completely changed. And right now, what we have coming up through the ranks that

1:07:45talking to some of the parents and so on, their kids in middle school, we're going to have a lot of numbers going forward each year. Well, coach, it's quite an accomplishment to win one of these things. It's even bigger to win two of them. Congratulations. Yeah, really well done. So I'll have to come up. If we win next year, I'll have to come up with a different, no, you three P using make make Riley come after us. I'll say it. All right. Thank you so much coach. Thank you. Appreciate you joining us. Yep. Thank you. Absolutely. That is coach Jeff Instaford, the winning coach for the victorious Waterford High School team. They won the two A state title. The individual side of this tournament. This was pretty interesting. McCoy Jones from Enterprise High School up up Snow Canyon outside of St. George. He wins it. He was at minus five 139 on rounds of 70 and 69.

1:08:52Then the top five Mac Jones as we noted, Hank Donnelly from Waterford as we noted, they were second and then T3 also at T3 Cameron Bat from North Summit and then rounding out the top five Bryson Irving from American Heritage and Stratton Hollows from North Severe along with Will Brady from American Heritage. We had a chance to talk with McCoy Jones, the individual champion following his victory. Here is McCoy Jones. McCoy State champ. How you feeling? I'm feeling really good. Tell us what it was like out there today. It was a grind. Definitely a mental battle for sure. I'm just glad I was able to keep my mind in the right place but yeah definitely a grind. Where was the right place for your mind and had to stay there? Just focusing on the next shot and just forgetting about the bad in the past. Just kind of going with that next shot moving forward. You had a lead going into the final round but did you know where things stood throughout the

1:09:56final round? No and I didn't really want to either knowing kind of where I'm at. I didn't want to put any more pressure on myself and so I just kind of went kind of focus on myself, my own game and went from there. Tell us about Enterprise High School golf. Where do you play? How did you get this good? Oh we play at Dixie Radhill's in St. George. We don't have a course in Enterprise so for practice every day we got to drive 40 minutes just to get to our nearest course. Sometimes that's what it is in traffic in Salt Lake you know. Yeah I know but yeah so it's a lot of work and I'd say our golf teams all just kind of for the vibes. We've got some some pretty decent players but yeah we definitely like to have fun. What was working especially well for you especially coming down the stretch when even though you weren't following the scoreboard you had to know it was getting real. Yeah I would say again just keeping my mind in the right spot and then

1:10:58my putter was doing great. My swing wasn't all there today but just kind of focusing with my putter my putter was doing great. Fantastic all right and then what are your plans now? I got an ameter at my home course at Dixie Radhill's tomorrow and that's right you do. So I got four days of 18th horse gonna go home get a lot of sleep and then do it again tomorrow. I love that congratulations this is a really nice win. Thank you so much. That is McCoy Jones of Enterprise High School wins the two-a state championship individually nice nice kid nicely played. I love high school golf watching these kids is just an app scoring. They're good they are good they can play the three-a four-a five-a and six-a state championships will be played this week we'll have more for you next week on Utah golf radio. All right we need to talk about somebody who needs some relief.

1:12:03I need relief brought to us by Duro Health check them out at DuroHealth.com this innovative back therapy program will help you swing faster hit farther play better and feel better check out DuroHealth. I'll tell you who needs some relief Wesley bank repsy lawyers that live is that snarky of me? No I yeah I don't feel I don't feel that I can even talk about. I never liked it never like never wanted to be a part of it I remember the CW-30 had to live contract for a while and that was owned by ABC and run our same building as ABC4 and they asked me to do some promos for it and I said no I won't I won't do it I'm not gonna do it I'm not gonna do it I you

1:13:06know I'm a on-remember the tessex and pga and I'm not doing it I'm not gonna I should fire me if you want but I'm not gonna do that and I didn't so I love that I love that I think this has always been inevitable and their chickens are coming home there you go watch it all this unfold I'm just thinking oh my gosh those bank repsy lawyers are in so deep well you've got all these these type a alpha personalities that are that are playing in this in this film fun stuff all right let's talk about somebody on a says on a says brought to us by copper rock copper rock is born to be played check him out at copper rock golf calm this championship golf course is open to us it is fun fun fun I love this place go to copper

1:14:07rock I'll tell you who's on a says okay I love this kid blades brown on a says for a couple years he's been on a says for a while but he is standing on the precipice of tomorrow becoming the youngest player ever to secure a card for the pga tour through the corn fairy tour he currently sits number 13 in the in the point system on the on the on the corn fairy and he is in the mix for this championship he will get this card he will become the youngest player ever not much older than than Jones okay so blades brown goes straight from high school he just decides no I got the game I'm gonna skip college I'm gonna play pro golf and he's he went out to the he qualifies your cue school to get on the corn fairy and then he goes out on the corn fairy and he just plain places way into the top 20 he will score a card he is 20 years old that's great that was it last year at the at Ogden he played well he was in the mix in Ogden yeah absolutely I followed

1:15:12him a couple days his kids real it's a couple of good looks on the pga tour when he got invited yeah no he's he can fly yeah well years old that's depressing oh come on it's fun to watch yes it is all right we got to take a break when we come back on the other side I'm gonna take a point of personal privilege we're gonna celebrate some of the accomplishments of first tea kids as honored in the first tea gala that was held last night you are listening to Utah golf radio powered by t-box on their Rocky Mountain golf network you're listening to Utah golf radio right now he's got the so dancing with a beach blonde champion you're you got a real variety of things you're spinning here Zach very nice you talk off radio getting you inside the ropes

1:16:16and all things golf in Utah in partnership Utah's leading golf organizations the Utah Golf Association Utah section pga fairways media the Utah golf foundation the Utah Golf Course Superintendents Association the Utah Junior Golf Association and first to Utah Paul Pugmire and Wesley Ruff with you today the second hour the show is brought to you by by the ranchers checking around at the Ranches Golf.com get yourself to go play the ranchers if you haven't been out and played the ranchers recently you need to go see it they made a lot of changes out there you got to go play the ranches the ranchers golf club dot com we are a paradise by t-box at tbx dot golf where they have cracked the code on the whole golfer experience with clubs coaching and community get yourself to a t-box um Wesley last night was a pretty significant night in the life of us first t types we had the first t gala we held it at Stonebridge and first of all props and

1:17:19golf claps to the crew at Stonebridge they really know how to put on an event down there next job yeah they do we we were filling around a little bit with the format and so we rather than have a sit down dinner that we've done more than once we got feedback we do a little survey following our events each year we were getting feedback last couple of years from people saying what we liked the best was the stand-up perception part we like talking to people we like to have in time to deal with the items on the the auction table um so we decided to dispense with the sit down dinner we did the whole evening as a stand-up perception i like to eat so that surprises me okay well there was plenty of food okay in a in a in a buffet format with um that that you could go get what you wanted throughout the evening it was refreshed throughout the evening and a variety of different uh different foods that you could get it just wasn't a plated traditional dinner no

1:18:21rubber chicken and um yeah but but it it was it was a nice night and then and then and then we would stop every half hour to make our awards and we give out three awards and i want to talk about them for a quick minute and one in particular first of all we started with the volunteer of the year award which went to the fresh family um Andrew fresh Jennifer fresh and their daughters Taylor fresh and Brooke fresh and their daughters have been first two kids with us uh they just they're graduating this year um they're and so this is this is it they've had the tournament uh your little tournament for the last couple of years yeah yeah you've had them up there they are they getting shots for people and that's a part of the point this whole family that shows they were they dad was there yes um they they are there to help us with with things that that are visible like you say the girls would go out and hit shots at the classic that we hold up at the country club each year and so you've met them you've seemed to rift at kids yeah great kids and um

1:19:28and so there there's they do things like that that are visible but they also they do things that are behind the scenes um helped us set up for the evening oh wow and and uh their dad Andrew helps us with he's he's an IT guy and he has helped us with uh fixing fixing some things on our wife high at the office okay stuff that is is just a pain in the butt nobody sees and yet it matters these are people who show up and they've done it for years and it was high time that we recognize this great family with our volunteer of the year award Andrew fresh Jennifer fresh Brooke fresh and Taylor fresh uh it was such an honor to say thanks you guys and then the second award we give is the developing Utah youth award and this is an award we give to adults and it is for people who really step up and do something significant or do something over time to help the kids along the path

1:20:29of growing up and we honored Cody Lopez the head golf professional at ochre hills in Twilla and the city of Twilla okay hills is a city of Twilla course and uh Cody Lopez and ochre hills it started when Christian Scott who is now the owner of golf the round when Christian Scott was the head pro and at ochre hills um ochre hills is uh has been with first to Utah from the beginning that's awesome they were the first place that's awesome the way but programming and it the city of Twilla has always supported what we're doing and in so many ways and it was such an honor for us to have the mayor with us there last night and to have Cody with this last night and to honor uh this this great golf professional and Cody Lopez this golf course ochre hills in Twilla and the city of Twilla for what they do to support the kids of Twilla

1:21:34with uh with with uh supporting the first tee there and then our final and most significant award that we give each year is two a first tee kid and this is the billi-casper youth humanitarian award named for of course one of the great champions in you in in golf history remember the world golf hall of fame billi-casper and let's just review that for a quick minute 51 tour victories three major championships eight times a rider cupper as a player and he scored the most a record that stands today 23 and a half points earned in the rider cup it remains the most ever earned by an American player and then he co then he was captain for a winning rider cup team member the world golf hall of fame and lived in mapleton for a hot minute he chose to to complete his life in

1:22:36mapleton i actually got to spend a day with him at his home in mapleton shortly before he passed away in 2015 it remains one of the treasure days of my life his son bobby was on our golf team and so i was up there a lot okay right yeah love billi-casper that okay i didn't know that connection that is really really cool so so billi chose as an grew up in San Diego but chose as an adult to come to mapleton and he completed his adult life in mapleton and his kids they they local local mapleton kids so we want to do a couple things with this award first of all we want our first t kids to know about the great billi-casper we want to know about him is them to know about him as a champion but here's the thing for all of his accomplishments on the golf course billi-casper's lasting legacy was as a humanitarian the hallmark of billi-casper's life is that he spent it in service to others throughout his life and he is an example of the highest order of humanitarianism and of other

1:23:41orientation and of getting off your butt and doing work doing things to serve other people billi-casper yep absolutely there is a kid in beaver who is graduating this year from beaver high who is a first t kid in our first t program at beaver his name is kobi moss and it is hard to really grasp what a great young man kobi moss is here's this this story unless you were living under a rock this past year you know that beaver has a community has faced severe challenges first of all in June the fires that came through the the cottonwood fire that the governor Spencer Cox said is the most devastating fire in Utah in Utah history it focused on the city of beaver and it was devastating to that community in the surrounding area but nature wasn't done and shortly

1:24:42thereafter a month later the rainstorms came and dropped water on those denuded hills led to flooding in beaver bam bam double whammy on that power outy wonderful community power anages and here's the real point it also knocked the city's water system out for a while the city provided water for its residents cases of bottled water they trucked them in but there weren't it was hard for some people to make it to the distribution point to get the water kobi moss 17 year old kid saw the need took it upon himself to organize delivery of water to people who couldn't make it to the distribution point his orientation of service to his community first of all his ability to see this Wesley amazing 17 years old 17 years old and he sees what the need is in his community and then from there what do you do he took action and did work that's awesome

1:25:46and on top of all that he grabbed shovel and went and helped people dig out from the mudslides came kobi moss is the billy caster youth humanitarian award winner for 2026 i'll tell you this kid is something special and he is everything that we try to teach and we try to be at first tea and we are so proud of kobi moss we had a chance following the award following awarding him this recognition last night to have a conversation with kobi with his coach jason paulard who is both the coach at beaver high as well as the lead coach for our first tea program in beaver and also his parents ashy and jared here is that conversation with kobi moss kobi you just received the first

1:26:48teas billy caster youth humanitarian award how are you feeling i feel amazing and it's an absolute honor to perceive this award i'm very grateful for my coach jason paulard and my parents for willing to sacrifice all they have for me and i'm grateful for the character that i've become and yeah thank you coach paulard you've watched this kid grow up and you've told me many times you weren't surprised by what he did tell us about this guy yeah the kid works hard he's got great parents good upbringing he has a strong character for helping others so as a senior on my team he's one of the first individuals to want to help my freshman and my sophomores develop their game sometimes your seniors don't want to do that they want to just hang with them there are buddies but kobi's always been the one to offer an assistant actually coach says parents to me that means mom tells about your son here well i i definitely can't take the credit for kobi um i'm going to get

1:27:55emotional here but i feel very blessed to be his mom i've learned a lot from him especially the senior year i'm about resilience and about serving and looking outside of yourself that's one thing that kobi has had from the very beginning is looking out for others his heart is so big and he wears it on his sleeve and that's one of the amazing things that i love about kobi is that he's willing to look outside of himself and see others and if there's a need he's willing to step in and fill the need and oftentimes it's in our home but i'm glad that he was able to other people were able to recognize that outside as well in our community so that's been great does he make you the kool-aid mom? yes Jared any any surprise that kobi did what he did? uh no i think kobi's character is from a young age he's he's been a kid that's uh very driven and very focused if he if he wants something he really

1:28:55puts his mind towards it and through golf through coaching and first he's helped him as well like building his character setting goals and trying to accomplish those goals this year one of his goals was to to play at state and he fell short by four tenths of a stroke which is heartbreaking to watch as a dad but he's um you know it's it's like we tell kobi it's how you respond to those events that happen in life the determine who you are and his character he's been taking it like a champ i think mom and i are more for our broken about it than he is this week but just just an amazing kid who set set his goals and worked as hard as he could to achieve him kobi what you did was remarkable uh at many levels i'm interested in learning about the process by which you recognized the need and decided to take action so i think it the first

1:29:58thing was that a lot of neighboring homes around my home was very affected most of them were washed away and i feel like for me i needed to go help whatever way i can whether if it's water cleaning up their home trying to find whatever they've lost or simply trying to take away debris that's come off the mountain but um i feel like that's for me i've just always been a helper and i it was i can my soul i needed to in a situation like this the work is never ending uh yeah you help people get water and boy that's just life necessary in the moment but what's it been like since um since it's been better there's some people that still need help and i'm always there to help out with whatever they need um i think in the future years there's gonna still continue to be some effect but um i will be there um i will continue to help even no matter what rants nor sleep or hell i'll be

1:31:06there they're probably on their way you know yeah probably yes so graduating senior what are your plans after that well my plans uh after senior year is go serve uh lds mission for two years and return home and uh try to play college golf i mean i've i feel like it's every golfer is strange to go play college golf but for me um it would be an absolute blessing too and if not that's just you learn and continue to serve of course of course coach put a bow on this what's it what's gonna be like to tell this kid goodbye oh it's gonna be heartbreaking uh you only get a Kobe once every ten years uh you get a lot of good kids i'm lucky in beaver that uh we have such a close community like kobi talked about there's uh there's a lot of great golfers as well as great individuals we had uh i think our first cleanup i think there were twenty two hundred people

1:32:10from cedar city filmor richfield uh minorsville milford that came up to assist in the recovery and cleanup efforts so for me uh i don't worry too much about beaver uh i worried about some of the city kids a little bit more i think this is the stuff that builds character uh when he's out there four or five of my other kids heard that he was out there so they went out and assisted as well he had other friends that were coming his brother was uh assisting so it's a cascade effect that's great kobi congratulations i'm really impressed by and grateful for what you did thank you pa mom and dad job well done thank you thank you we appreciate you in your recognizing him yeah such a prestigious award and and and don't forget coach also helped take that hold that whole golf team also went out and did service to right all of those boys kobi might have been the first

1:33:12one to take his call i'd say yes but everybody jumped in everybody helped and that the whole team is just just amazing everything you do is a team event right you got it in my soul to serve wow so cool like 17 year old kids most of them the world is like two inches away from their face and that's all they see for him to look past that and see a need and then to actually do something about it incredible when i was 17 i was trying to burp the alphabet how to go still working on this congratulations to kobi this this kid that's he is so special real deal wow all right um what's next wesley or what's next segment we gotta come when we come back on the other side we will tell you what's coming up next and you talk off you are listening to you talk off radio powered by t-box on the Rocky Mountain Golf Network what's next what's next what's next what's next

1:34:13what's next what's next when i ask what's next the means i'm ready to move on to other things so what's next yeah yeah yeah you talk off radio putting a bow on the show telling you what's coming up next and you talk off brought to us by the you talk off association be sure to check out their new logo it's both next and now go to uga.org then check it out interested to see what y'all think about that i like it coming up next in you talk off the red hills am you heard the two a state champion mccoi Jones say he's playing at this weekend red hills am that's happened in this weekend as we noted the kf the corn fairy finals this weekend zack blare currently sits 36 i think things are on to reach for him but the america's tour final is coming up next week wesley conner how currently sits 16th and he can play his way into the top 10 on that keep your eye on the

1:35:13america's tour final um three a four a five a and six a state championships will be held this week mad props to the Utah section pga puts these on in all the categories you go great job on that it's just like work i go to these things and i see i see air and goodman i see kassy campos and you see you see the whole crew there i'm thinking oh my gosh they are working but the real thing is you see all these teams all these players you see all these parents out there it is such a community gathering and such a community event it is so good for the game but it's good for the state i love high school goff love love covering that and yeah the section does such a great job making sure that they they make the players feel like this is a big time event they make it a big time event it is so cool that's coming up this week so we'll have more on that next week

1:36:17we want to thank you for listening thank you for being a part of our show this is Paul pugmeier saying don't whiff it like wessley don't put it like paul okay that's actually good advice thank you for listening today please replace your divots fix your ball marks and for Andy Curtis don't spit sunflower seeds on the green absolutely i know this grows so worse you are listening to Utah golf radio powered by t-box on their Rocky Mountain Golf Network it seems like everything costs more these days so if you're looking to catch a break and get something for less let golden west insurance services save you up to 35% on your home and auto insurance your local insurance expert will independently shop your policies and get you the best coverage at the best price we shop you save that's insurance at credit union rates get a free quote today at gwcu.org golden west insurance services we'll make care of you

1:37:20you