Shownotes
The discourse presented within this podcast episode primarily revolves around the contentious topic of ball rollback in the realm of golf. We delve into the perspectives held by various stakeholders, notably Gene Parente, who articulates a sentiment of confusion regarding the rationale behind the proposed changes. The dialogue further explores the historical context of equipment advancements and their implications for the sport, with references to legendary players and their hypothetical performance with modern golf balls. We also contemplate the broader cultural dynamics within golf, emphasizing the need for inclusivity and enjoyment among players of all skill levels. Ultimately, this episode serves to illuminate the intricate interplay between tradition and modernity in the golfing landscape, while fostering a spirit of camaraderie and respect among enthusiasts.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Snell Golf
- Titleist
- TaylorMade
- Tito's
- Augusta
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
Welcome to Grilling at the Green After Hours, the conversation that took place after the show ended.
Speaker A:Welcome to After Hours here on Grilling at the green.
Speaker A:I'm J.T.
Speaker A:There's my notes.
Speaker A:I was going to tell you before we finished that last one I had, and I'm sure, you know, I'm Gene Parente.
Speaker A:We had a discussion about the ball rollback, and, you know, he's kind of in a very interesting spot because he's got that robot or robots.
Speaker A:He said, I can make him hit that ball exactly the same every time.
Speaker A:And he had the same take on the rollback as you do.
Speaker A:You know, it was like it made no sense to him.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it's very confusing sometimes.
Speaker A:I just, and I, and I've said this before and I don't know if I've ever said it to you, Dean, and I'm not being a turkey, everybody, but sometimes I wonder if, like the RNA and the USGA do this stuff to try to stay relevant sometimes.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's different.
Speaker B:It's a different.
Speaker B:And I've been doing this for 37 years now, and I think 30 of those 37 years has been a discussion of the ball going too far.
Speaker B:And at one point, they actually made a tournament ball.
Speaker B:It's back a ways, but I think it was out in Ohio and some company made something shorter and they did a tournament on it and nothing came.
Speaker B:But the discussion's been there for a long time and they're doing something about it now as, as a plan, whether it gets executed or not.
Speaker B:We'll see.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, and I also wonder, like, here's a question I've never asked anybody.
Speaker A:What if, what if Jack and Gary Player and Arnold and those guys, what if they had the quality balls that we have today?
Speaker A:Would they, Would they, would they, back when they played, would they still be saying, roll it back?
Speaker A:I, it's, you can't answer that question, but it's a, it's a good question, I think.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:They, I mean, back when they played, they were the long guys with, with the equipment they had.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And they won, you know, and they were also very good.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Those, those.
Speaker B:I, I do understand the, the length side to it and, and the length side to it is, is pretty significant, you know, and, and the Masters, as Augusta has pushed some tees back and tried to go.
Speaker B:But, you know, as much as the Masters pushed the tees back, you know, 12 under one, it wasn't like a 30 under wins, wins the tournament.
Speaker B:And the Winner shot even part of the last two days.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, you know, so you could set the course up to be, to be very challenging for these guys on tour because they're that good.
Speaker B:And then, and then move, move pins to the middle of the greens when we play on Monday.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:You ready for this stuff?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:They're different questions since you were here the last time.
Speaker A:What's the one song you want to hear on the radio when you start your car in the morning?
Speaker B:Oh, one song.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I'm a, I'm kind of a, A Billy Joel Matchbox 20 kind of kind of guy.
Speaker B:You know, old Led Zeppelin side.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:The, the, the, the classic kind of rock kind of side for me is.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:There's not one particular one on them most of the time.
Speaker B:Most of the time when I get in, if, if whatever is.
Speaker B:I'm not a huge music guy, so most of the time, whatever, whatever is on, if it's one of those, I, I put it on the classic stations, you know, and a little bit of country for my wife.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But I'm.
Speaker B:I'm kind of, you know, 3:00am it must be lonely.
Speaker B:Is.
Speaker B:Is what I, is what I do when I drive to work in the morning at 4:30.
Speaker B:So that's.
Speaker B:That probably works pretty good.
Speaker A:When I, When I started in radio when I was in college and I did the morning show, I was in la, and I would start them out with some Zeppelin and then we would go to maybe some Bob Seeger and then we'd go to Ozzy.
Speaker A:I might throw in some Jimmy Buffet.
Speaker A:And then we just kind of circled back around and the, the boss at the station said, why don't you, you know, the, the model is always kind of build them up and crescendo and then bring them back down.
Speaker A:And then you're at the top of the hour and you start over again.
Speaker A:I said, I do the morning show.
Speaker A:These people got to get their ass out of bed and get going.
Speaker A:I want to hit them hard, you know, right there.
Speaker A:So that's always kind of been my mantra in the music.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:What's your favorite color?
Speaker A:Lifesaver.
Speaker B:I like the red.
Speaker B:The red color.
Speaker A:That, that's, that's winning lately.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Survey.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's.
Speaker B:I'm not a big fan of the green one.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I can go on the grass and you can tee a ball up on it.
Speaker B:It's the guys I play with.
Speaker B:I look over like, why do you have all green Lifesavers in your Pocket.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker A:What's the first thing you reach for when you're done with a round?
Speaker B:Probably my Tito's.
Speaker B:I, I like to have a couple of adult beverages when we play.
Speaker B:So grabbing, grabbing something from, from the cart during the round and then when the round's over, take it, go right to the 19th hole.
Speaker B:And you know, 19th hole for me is just as fun as the golf is.
Speaker B:I, I really enjoy the, the, the members and friends that I play with and a great group, group of guys at both courses that I belong to and, and I, and I, I'm a big fan of.
Speaker B:Even in, back in Massachusetts in the winter when we don't play our same group on Wednesday nights.
Speaker B:We've done it for 30 years.
Speaker B:We, we all, the whole, all the guys go up there, we, we got a table and solve the world's problems with a couple of drinks and we've done it 30 years.
Speaker B:And it's, you know, I really enjoy the 19th hole as much as the 18 that you play.
Speaker A:Isn't that the point of it?
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Name who.
Speaker A:You think Dean is an unsung hero in the world of golf.
Speaker B:Good question.
Speaker B:Unsung hero.
Speaker B:I, I think, I think late, I think I've actually become, and I, and I wasn't a fan before and I think he's stepping up now is.
Speaker B:I've actually become a fan of Bryson DeChambeau lately for golf because I think he's, he's, he's changed his whole way and become very fan oriented and people enjoy watching him play.
Speaker B:He's not so arrogant, he's not so worried about how far he's going to hit it.
Speaker B:And then he's expanding into some of this social media stuff that's, that's kind of fun to watch as well, you know.
Speaker B:And he's played well in some of the mages and stuff, so.
Speaker B:I mean, I know he made some mistakes younger, but man, I, I think he, he deserves some credit now to.
Speaker A:Oh sure.
Speaker B:To really say what's happened, you know, with the game, the game and how it's going today and, and the growth that's going on, even though he's moved over to live, you know, which seems to be a little bit falling apart.
Speaker B:But he, he still to me is, he deserves a lot more credit than I think he gets.
Speaker A:He doesn't look so, I'm not talking about his golf swing, but he doesn't look so stiff.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:He seems, he seems like he got some good coaching from somebody and he's developed a personality that, that connects with a lot of the, the people that watch the game.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:If you could play around a golf with one of your golfing heroes, who would it be?
Speaker B:Just golf.
Speaker B:I've been fortunate enough in the, I've been fortunate enough in my time with, with Titleist and Taylor made to play with a lot of the, a lot of the top players in the world.
Speaker B:I would probably take it outside of the true golf side to it.
Speaker B:And I've always been a big bobby or fan.
Speaker B:You know, he sees I'm a hockey guy and a hockey player myself and he's why I played hockey.
Speaker B:I've got to meet him a couple of times.
Speaker B:But you know, I would love to, I would love to play, you know, play in a group, you know, with, with maybe like a war Tom Brady and, and maybe a Larry Bird or something to hear the three Boston, you know, studs in their field, how they really, how they really went about being athletes in the Boston area, which is not a, not a tough place to play.
Speaker B:I mean, not an easy place to play.
Speaker B:I'm sorry.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Do you, speaking of hockey, do you think we should be able to put a body check on an unruly spectator?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think there should be a penalty box on every hole.
Speaker B:And if somebody, what would be funny is with all respect to basketball players because they're extremely fit athletes, but when you got a bunch of people standing between you every time someone follows you and you act like you want to fight somebody, I think it would be pretty cool to, you can go at it and just like hockey and then you go sit down, you play four on four for a little bit and five minutes later you come back out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we kind of see who rises to the top on that.
Speaker B:But, but yeah, it's interesting because I went from playing hockey where, you know, you had thousands of people screaming at you and some sometimes spitting at you, and the old ranks didn't have the glass, they had the chain link fences and you know, with a puck that's coming 100 miles an hour on a quarter inch blade to a sport where you can't talk with a ball sitting on a tee and you can't say a word and nobody can move, you know, so it's just, yeah, golf, golf needs to be a little more, a little more fun and flexible, you know, outside of the tour side to it.
Speaker B:But people, you know, I, I, I, I listened to what you said before about, you know, and enjoy it and kind of be kind to People, and, and that's, you know, there's a lot of hate that gets out there with slow play or someone in front of someone moving or talking.
Speaker B:And come on, guys, you know, we're amateur golfers playing with our friends, having a drink and playing a little NASA.
Speaker B:Let's enjoy it and not be so stiff about it.
Speaker A:You know, I've always thought that was a big oxymoron kind of dean, that we continually talk about expanding the game and want be more inclusive, bring people in and that.
Speaker A:But when they get on the course and they're just learning, you know, they've had some lessons in that, but they're, the newer players are going to be slower.
Speaker A:They're indecisive.
Speaker A:We all went through that.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:You know, and now people are jumping on them.
Speaker A:And I see it on the public horses at least two or three times a year where older guys actually march up to them and give them some crap about stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm like, why are you doing that?
Speaker A:You know, all this stuff we said we want to do and we're trying to do, and, and that, and then that just put a bl.
Speaker B:You don't make them feel welcome at all.
Speaker B:You know, they feel rushed now, and they feel it's, you know, or, you know, they, they talk back and, you know, stuff happens.
Speaker B:There's a problem.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:You're on the road a lot, and I know I, I, I spent, like, you 37 years traveling a lot.
Speaker A:Is there a place, though, you always look forward to going to when you're out doing what you're doing, promoting Snell and meeting with people and all that.
Speaker A:But is there one destination that you go?
Speaker A:Man, I like to go there every year.
Speaker B:Now.
Speaker B:I do like to go out to San Diego.
Speaker B:I lived out there for a while, so I don't go as much.
Speaker B:But the Palm Springs, you know, San Diego golf area, not so much la, but more the Palm Springs.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Area.
Speaker B:I, I just enjoy it out there.
Speaker B:I, I like the, the Greyhawk and, and Arizona.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:Kind of area as well.
Speaker B:You know, it's, it's, it's just kind of beautiful.
Speaker B:You know, I've been fortunate enough to go to some of the main courses of, and Oakmont and things like that.
Speaker B:So those are, those are okay.
Speaker B:But I think the overall experience, when you go to Arizona or to San Diego, with the climate and the Gulf and the desert kind of look to some of the courses, it's, it's just a pretty cool, pretty cool thing.
Speaker B:What I've never gone to is the Tahoe tournament that they have, which just looks like it's a bunch of.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I've never gone to that.
Speaker B:So that would definitely be.
Speaker B:To go out there and hang with the people and, you know, even play it or something like that would be.
Speaker B:That would be a pretty cool thing to do.
Speaker A:You maybe even get Brady or one of the Kelsey's to throw you a football or something.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:Can do that.
Speaker A:A couple more here.
Speaker A:Real quick.
Speaker A:Looking back, is there anything that you would change in your career if you, you know, if you had the foresight to say, there's a stumbling block here, and maybe there weren't any, but.
Speaker A:And I'm not one to live in the past, but sometimes I, Yeah, I wish I'd kind of done that different.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And my challenge that I had with my career was I worked for two of the best companies in golf with Titleist and TaylorMade in two different methods of management styles, two different ways to work with employees, two different levels of technical abilities on how they structured the research and development groups.
Speaker B:So I, you know, I was very, very fortunate to do that.
Speaker B:I think for me, the, the challenge, the biggest challenge that I had was Taylor Made was in, in California and titles was in Massachusetts, and that's where my family was.
Speaker B:So I, I struggled, you know, in the beginning being away and back and forth and, you know, taking red eyes back and forth and, and doing things like that if they were closer together.
Speaker B:But, but for working for the two companies, you know, the experience and the, the way the things that I was able to learn with them was, I have no regrets.
Speaker B:And then coming back and starting Snell Golf, I think we made a mistake in the beginning to put all our eggs in one manufacturing basket.
Speaker B:And then when things happen with the factories and the purchases and takeovers and material supply, you know, we kind of got shut out and didn't have any supply coming in and had to allocate.
Speaker B:So that kind of bumped the learning curve quick to have multiple resources and multiple factories and multiple material designs as backups to go.
Speaker B:And that's, that's, that's a process that's been about a four or five year learning curve for us.
Speaker A:So there you go.
Speaker A:Okay, last one.
Speaker A:Dean.
Speaker A:If I gave you a box with everything that you lost in your life in that box, what would be the first thing you would reach for?
Speaker B:My mind.
Speaker B:I've lost my mind quite a few times.
Speaker B:Fortunately, I found it a little bit, but I, I I, I think my parents, you know, I lost my parents at a pretty young age.
Speaker B:And, and, you know, the, my mother and father were very.
Speaker B:They didn't have a whole lot.
Speaker B:You know, they.
Speaker B:When I grew up, we grew up in a, in a manufacturer home, in a trailer kind of thing, you know, and I was fortunate to play, successful, play high school hockey, had a scholarship for college hockey, then tried to play a little bit after that.
Speaker B:And, and being at the position that I'm at now with the, some of the successes that we've been able to do, you know, over them, experience some of that where I could give back to them like they gave to me, you know, all those, all of those years really getting up and taking me to all these tournaments and hockey and Canada and everywhere.
Speaker B:That sacrifice they made for me to be able to give something back to them, that's, that's probably what I would.
Speaker B:I missed the most to not be able to do that.
Speaker A:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:Dean Snell.
Speaker A:Don't.
Speaker A:From Snell Golf.
Speaker A:Don't forget we've got the PR3 and the PR4 coming out within the week.
Speaker A:They'll be shipping orders shortly, so you can pre order now@snellgolf.com.
Speaker A:Dean, as always, it's a great privilege to talk to you.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker B:I appreciate it.
Speaker A:You bet.
Speaker A:We'll be back next week with another edition of what is the show.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Grilling it to green.
Speaker A:Gary Van Sickle, or as we lovingly call him, Van Cynical, will be on to give us his take on the Masters.
Speaker A:That ought to be something.
Speaker A:So until then, go out, play some golf, have some fun and be kind.
Speaker A:And don't forget to check us out on Golf newsnet radio.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
