The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Rob McNamara Joined Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller Live On The Jerry & Jerry Show!

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Rob McNamara, Keswick Club General Manager and Director of Golf, joined Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller live on The Jerry & Jerry Show! The Jerry & Jerry Show airs live Tuesday from 10:15 am – 11:15 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Jerry & Jerry Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday morning guys. My name is Jerry Miller and thank you kindly for joining us on the Jerry and Jerry show. It's a pleasure to connect with you guys in downtown Charlottesville and our studio in the Macklin building and the heart of central Virginia, a dynamic and sophisticated and market that is just absolutely crazy and rabid about golf. And today's show has that theme with Rob McNamara in the house of Keswick. Rob is a, if you live in central Virginia for an extended period of time and you play

golf, Rob's a household name. He's a guy that you like to be around. He's a guy you like to hang out with on the practice screen or the driving range or maybe belly up to a bar with and shoot the you know what. Rob McNamara, it's absolutely our pleasure to have him on the Jerry and Jerry Show. Judah Wickhauer's behind the camera.

If you can go to a three shot and I'll pass the pitching wedge over to Hootie Radcliffe here as he's welcomed yet another stellar guest to the Jerry and Jerry Show. Yeah, I was excited that Rob accepted our invitation to come. Incredible man in the golf world. Everybody knows him that's picked up a club. And we're going to talk about some of his exploits, early exploits today.

But he grew up in Kentucky and went to LSU and was all American there. And he's been in professional golf, great teacher at Farmington, and now out at Keswick Club where he heads up to golf. And just a fantastic guy and a fun guy to be around. And we'll bring him on here. Rob, my friend, US Open around the corner. And we have to celebrate UVA golf as well.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners. Yes, thank you so much, Jerry. My name is Rob McNamara. I'm from Keswick, Virginia. I'm proud to live in Keswick now. And I am the club manager and director of golf at Keswick Club at Keswick Hall. So

Delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. It's absolutely our pleasure. How long you've been playing golf Oh, goodness gracious. My grandfather was a pro and got me started. I have pictures of me when I was hitting chipping over his Walkway into a bird's bath He would tee up balls. I was about five years old. So I've been, I've had a club in my hand for a long time, given it a whirl. I love it. And these two have known each other, Hootie, 30 years? Easily, yeah. Yeah, look, I moved here in February of 94. And I don't know, I think right from the beginning,

I may have conjured up a story somehow. I remember taking a journalism class in high school, so I always try to help my, whoever's doing the story, write the story. I want to give them something interesting to write about, so we'll come up with something here to have a theme to this conversation this morning. And he always had, and when I started thinking US Open, and I covered about 12 US Opens in my career, and one of my favorite ones was at Oakmont, and where it is this week, up there now.

And Rob has a distinct history with the US Open, and we'll get him to tell us some great stories, but at the time, what year was that Rob? So that was in 1983. I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. And I remember when I was 16 years old at my little public course, I played at the public course during the week in a country club in Frankfurt across town.

So I could walk with kings and keep a calm in touch. You know, that was my mantra in life. And I remember a guy telling me, he says, you know, I just got back from the qualifier. Missed it by a shot. I said, qualifier for what? He goes, well, the US Open.

I said, you can qualify for the US Open? He goes, yeah. So literally, I'm not exaggerating. Every single night for a year I visualized qualifying for the U.S. Open is the craziest. I didn't know what manifestation was. I wouldn't have known anything about that. I had been hypnotized before and I kind of visualized doing this. And sure enough, I go through the qualifier. I go through the two stages just like they have now. And I beat a Bob Lohr who was a PGA Tour player in a playoff to get the final spot to get

in. I was literally 156. I looked at my number, I brought my little scrapbook to show you guys to prove it because a lot of people don't believe it as bad as I play now. They're thinking there's no way this – I give hope to all. This guy can play in the US Open, anybody can. Anyway, it was a great experience and got a chance to do that. Olivia Branch saying hi to Rob.

We got a lot of Keswick watching the program right now. Olivia is the person that keeps me straight. I love Olivia Branch more than you know. She is, she takes care of the pro from Kokomo, which is always great. We love Olivia as well, don't we, Hootie? Yeah, she watches the show all the time. What Rob didn't say, he was 17 years old at the time.

And at that time, he was 17 years old at the time and at that time he was the second youngest player in US history to qualify for the US Open. The youngest was Jack Nicklaus. So that's some pretty high cotton we're talking about there. That is true. That was, it was a pretty cool experience. ESPN had just started getting off the ground as a lot of people that are younger that may not appreciate this. Cable Networks really just started in 1979, so we're four years into ESPN being a network and they had just started doing four-day coverage

of the US Open. And Jim McKay had me on an interview. So I did three interviews with ESPN and the Jim McKay had me on an interview. So I did three interviews with the SPN and the Jim McKay interview, which was cool to be part of that. But the neatest thing, like a lot of my life, I ran my race too soon and I played great practice rounds. When by the time the kickoff came,

I hear about these pros now, they play nine holes in their practice rounds. Shoot, one day I played 36 holes of practice routes I mean you talk about being stupid but one of them was with Arnold Palmer one of them was with Gary player Two of them were with Johnny Miller, so I had some cool Cool things happen with that you have Dave Rell watching the program in the Outer Banks He likes to he likes to shoot it in the red and keep it in the short grass at, he's watching the program. Dave is taking care of golfers as we speak right now. We have the hospitality wagon going full-on. Okay, he's not at his house. Yeah, he's actually

working. He's working. Okay, Dave, you're supposed to be working right now. I thought you were on your boat in the Outer Banks right now, my friend. I love Dave Burrell. He's one of the best. He used to have the Dippin' Dots franchise here. Yeah. I've done some work with Dave. Dave is so nice to everyone. And we love, we have such a good crew at Keswick. There are so many people there that are just

so kind and hospitable. So I love being part of that team and across the board, from the hotel to the club, Marigold, the spa. Just come out there if you want to have a great time. He's got some folks at Farmington watching that are asking him a question right now. Well, I love the Farmington people too. Dave, you love everybody. I do, but I really do love Farmington. That's all true.

Dave Varell says back to the mayor has got some really good stories. The Farmington guys are saying what's Rob's favorite major and why? Well it always has been the US Open because I suppose having played there. I'll tell you an interesting story about the US Open that I think people would appreciate how cool this is. I mean, in hindsight, I can't believe I did it. But so I got there on Sunday afternoon and Gary players out on the putting green.

I go to Gary and I said, hey, I'm Rob McNamara. I'd like to, anyway, we could play a practice round together. I mean, there was a little bit more foreplay than that, but I mean, we got to the chase pretty quickly and he said, sure. So we, 7.30 tomorrow we'll play in the morning. So we get out there at 7.30 and we play a round of golf and he's showing me all sorts of crazy stuff. I will tell you, my first sort of true eye-opening experience to Oakmont was on the second hole. He goes, come here, Robert, I wanna show you something.

So he goes to the back of the green, he takes a golf ball and drops it from about head high, just literally just drops it, no force on it all. The ball just lands, starts moving, rolls 30 yards off the green down to the front of the – you know, in the fairway. I'm thinking, holy smokes, Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. I mean, it was something else. So when we finished the round, he goes, he goes, Robert, would you care to have lunch with me and Commissioner

Beaman? I said, sure, I'd love that. That would be great. So Dean Beeman, who was the commissioner of the PGA tour, and Gary Player and I, we walked up to the top floor. There's sort of another floor up in the locker room, and we were at a table that was just like a little baby cocktail table, and we had lunch. And I don't remember saying much. I didn't remember mostly listening, which is probably very hard for me to do. But I'm working on that. But Gary Player said, you know, these young lads need a place to mature on the vine. He goes, my son Wayne and these young fellow pros of his,

they don't have a place to develop their game. They need a developmental tour. Six years later, the Hogan Tour started, which is now called the Corn Fairy Tour. And that's where it all began. Dean Beeman here and Gary Player talk about this right there. With me in the room, it's like a Forrest Gump moment. So, kind of cool. That's incredible.

That was pretty cool. Gary Player, by the way, is one of my favorite interviews of all time. I've interviewed him several times. One of the cool, just hooking you up with today at Oakmont, Mason Howell, a 17 year old from Georgia I believe, yeah outside around the Atlanta area qualified. The youngest qualifier since Cole Hammer in 2015 at the age of 15 and he shot, Howell shot consecutive rounds of 63, 18 under par in the qualifying at the Piedmont driving club in Atlanta to qualify. And what do you think his emotions are right now as he's doing some practice rounds up at Oakmont like you did?

That kid's got talent. Well, yeah, I mean, listen, I might have been pretty good, but anybody good enough to shoot a.63-63, I don't care what modern equipment you have. That's, I couldn't spell.63 at age 17. So that seriously, that young man must have some game. But, you know, what I would, if I had a chance to speak to him, I would tell him, I say, you know what, enjoy the ride. I'm 59 years old. I turned 60 in September.

And people still to this day will bring up this US Open story. And my life has turned out pretty daggone good. And I may not have made it on the tour. And I probably was just good enough to get your hopes up when it was all said and done with my golf game. But life, if you do the right thing in life, life will treat you pretty good for the most part.

And I've been blessed. So I would just go enjoy it as much as you can. And Johnny Miller told me something going down the 15th hole after watching me hit it all over the parking lot for a day and a half. He said, listen, he goes, whatever you got to hit off the tee, even if it's a five iron, he goes, hit it off the tee. He goes, you cannot play this golf course from the rough. So I would reiterate that statement exactly to Mason and say, whatever you got to do to keep it out of that rough, do it.

Because the rough is knee-high to a. This rough is legitimate. We almost lost a ball on the fifth hole with spotters out there in the tournament five yards in front of the fifth green. I've never seen anything like this rough in my entire life. Truthfully, I didn't play that bad when you take it in context. I shot 84.77 in the tournament. Each day, the first day I had a triple and three doubles. So I shot 14 over with a triple and three doubles. That wasn't terrible everywhere else. The next day I shot 77 with a triple and two doubles. I actually played pretty good the second day. You just got to avoid the train wreck holes is what it boils down to.

So I know a lot of people are into gambling and maybe this is a family show, but we'll talk about the betting. There's an over and under on what you're going to shoot to win the tournament. I think two under is the number. I actually think it will be under that. I think it will be under two under. If I were a betting man and maybe I am in my alter ego, I think I would take the undraw on that.

Colleen Tyler giving you some props on Twitter. Scotty Richards says tell Rob I said hello. He's watching the program. We have folks in Georgia watching the show, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, the panhandle of Florida watching the program right now. Talk about such a wonderful game of golf. Let's put what happened to Rory McElroy into perspective. Man wins the Masters for his career grand slam.

Then was it just this past weekend? Does not make the cut at the Canadian Open. It's a hard game. It's unbelievable. It's a very hard game. We have the best player in the world, wins the Masters. Missed the cut by 11 shots. It was not even close to the cut line. It's a crazy game. It's a crazy game. It's indescribable how hard golf is. I will tell you, looking

at my life and my journey, doubt is the enemy of golf. If anybody wants some advice about how to get better at golf, if you just can focus on your positive self-talk and do whatever it takes for you to feel comfortable, good and confident, because you can have the best golf swing in the world the minute you have any doubt and have anything go sideways on you, the show is over and the monkey died. It's over. So he, I don't know, I mean, listen, it's an emotional sport. You go and win the Masters, you have all this luck and all this success and all this, and then you just let your guard down for a split second, the game of golf will pop you. It'll pop you. So been there, done that, never won the Masters, but we've all had ups and downs. And bad swings follow. I mean, positive swings are only because in your head.

Once you start losing in your head and you start having doubt, the swing is gone. I'll just tell you that. It's made Dr. Rotella a very rich man, working on people's heads. And he is a great friend and so right. And I've been around him a lot. He is the smartest, common sense person I've ever known in my life. Because the things that he says are the most, when you hear them said, sometimes you think,

well, that seems easy enough. But how come no one else is thinking of him? He's way ahead of the curve. Bob Rotella is still playing a handful of rounds a week, guys, at Glenmore, the fabulous psychologist who works with Rory. I mean, he works with Rory, Bob Rotella. He's come on the network in our shows here, Bob Rotella. Talk UVA golf, U.S. Open. How about UVA golf this past season, Hootie? Yeah. And before we go there, I was just, he was talking about the rough at Oakmont. And the members there like the reputation.

It's the toughest golf course in the world. I don't know if it is. It's that and Shinnecock are the toughest courses I've ever played. And I don't know what your toughest courses are. It's a great question for Rob. But that, and I know you used to love the greens at Farmington when you were in charge of the Cassowick. They're running really fast but these greens they have to actually slow them down for the US Oak. That's true. They were 15 when I got there in 83 on the stimp meter. Yeah. And they slowed them down to like 13.

And now I think I've read yesterday where they're up to 14. Oakmont is conditionally hard. And all these golf courses are conditionally hard. But if it's firm and fast, it makes it play extraordinarily hard. If you look at the winning score as a judgment, going all the way back to 1925, and they've had to open,

I think this is what, the eighth or ninth time. Most of any course that's ever held the. If it's soft it makes it play exponentially easier. Exponentially easier. If it's firm and fast you know five over could be the winning score again which is what happened when Cabrera won. It was brutal but we've had a lot of rain. This east coast, we're getting a lot of rain. So everybody's getting covered up with that. My guess is it will play a little softer and I think that's going to slow things down and these bombers that have it curving, it hits a couple of times and still stays in the short grass. I'm Shinnecock, one of my favorite courses.

So hard. Love spending time in Southampton. I got some family up in Southampton. I believe five U.S. opens at Shinnococke. Shinnococke versus Oakmont. Shinnococke is actually harder in my opinion. I thought it was harder. I played Shinnococke one time when I was playing pretty good actually.

This was in 2005. And I remember I said I'm going to ‑‑ the member I was playing with, I said I want to play from the U.S. Open tees. It was going to be ‑‑ maybe it was 06 because the Open was going to be in 7. Whatever year that was going to be. That was 18. No, no. Going back further. Okay. The last one was 18. Then 2004 before that. So this would have been in the fall of 2003. So I literally played from a yard from the back of every tee box.

Thinking okay. So I ended up parring the last four holes for 81. I had made 11 bogeys and three pars in the first 14 holes. And I finished the round and I said, well, that just saved me $250. He goes, what do you mean? No, I said, that's a $250250. He goes what do you mean? I said that's a $250 round. He goes what do you mean? I said it just saved me $250. He goes for what reason? I said because now there's no way in the world I want

to play in this US Open. The last thing on earth I want to do is qualify for the US Open on this golf course. It was impossible. Yeah I agree. Jerry mentioned UVA Men's Golf coming off a historic year, played for the national championship. Now they've got five guys in the open this week. Denny McCarthy, Ben James, Brian Lee, Austin Troslov, who I'm not really overly familiar with. And I've never known how to pronounce this guy's name, George Dujumani.

We'll say that's right. We'll say George, big George over there. We'll go with big George. That's pretty impressive that UVA has become such a golf program now. I mean, I think we've gotten in the top eight four straight years. That's pretty impressive.

That's pretty impressive. Be an interesting side bet to see who the low cavalier is. I may put my money on Ben James. Me too. I think that Ben James to me, I feel like will get better as a pro. Some players, when they turn pro get worse. I think Ben James and just the dynamic of everything there will improve once

he gets on his own. He will even do better. That would be my Betty man call right now. If I was an agent I would be trying to get Ben James on my roster. What do you think, you follow golf, you know golf like the pope knows holy water here. What has made UVA materialize or evolve into now, I mean we can say golf at UVA is a national power. How have they, I mean the facilities are fantastic. They keep improving them. What do you attribute the success to? Well, I mean that's the only thing that changed, right? Everything else had been in place for a long, long time. But when once you build the facilities, I mean listen, a college golf program is successful because of the coach, the facilities, and the commitment from a budget point of view scheduling. So you're sitting there as a player thinking, okay am I going to go to school here and play golf?

Maybe a lot of good players didn't think they were good enough to get in UVA and think to academics. Maybe they've softened that too. I probably should throw that out there. I mean, I wouldn't even have dreamed of filling out a UVA application when I was a high school senior or whatever thinking about going to college. But the big difference is when you build the Birdwood facility, it makes a huge difference.

It's a hell of a spot over there. It's really nice. So I think that was the difference maker. Bowen's been there for a long time and doing a good job and deserves a lot of credit. And they've gotten clearly the support from academics that's allowing people in the school and they play in a schedule that's exciting for a young person who wants to go there.

Why would you not want to come here? I mean, I think that Northwestern won the women's, I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're in the north or south, they can go indoors and hit and they've got all these cool things and they travel, why not? So that's kind of my belief on the program and the golf there. What do you think, Cody? I totally agree with what Rob said.

That's the one thing that has changed is the facilities and the support. And I know there's some other guys, some of the older players that are affiliated with UVA Golf who've tried to boost that program as well. Even though Vinnie Giles played at Georgia, he's a big supporter. Curtis Strange played Wake Forest, he's a supporter. And then so many of the other guys who actually did play at Virginia back in the day, and

they're so proud of how far it's come. The one thing that all these players do that Bowen really deserves a ton of credit on, they all putt better. They putt great. And I think that whatever Bowen's doing, his little secret sauce over there is putting. And I think that that's the area that he has consistently produced putters. And Denny McCarthy's probably as good a putter as there is on tour. And I feel like that the players that I know, Benny Haggin is a young man that

I've been involved with for a long, long time since he was about 16 years old. He was a member at Farmington. And Benny, I've watched Benny develop. I think Benny will play better when Benny gets on his own, just given the shot to play because they're so good that sometimes guys that are as good as him may not get their fair shake where he'd be number one or two man on most D1 teams. So it's all pretty exciting. I think what it also points to is how good golf is in central Virginia and here in Charlottesville. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that people ever realize how lucky we are to have this many good golf courses in such a short, tight window

here. I think if you read the statistics from the National Golf Foundation, they will tell you that 50,000 people is what it takes to support a golf course. Well, I mean, let's, I don't know what the greater Charlottesville area is. Just under 300,000 for central Virginia. Well, that's probably a pretty big net, right and that big of net You've got a lot of golf course. Absolutely. I mean you have Farmington you have Keswick I mean, I think Keswick Club full cries an incredible course Farmington is clearly an incredible course this Birdwood course now that it's been redone

It's it's a terrific golf course. We've got a great public golf course. Even the people that play golf locally, Meadow Creek is still a very good public golf course. So, you know, you can go to Spring Creek. You can go to the public course Old Trail. You can go to Wintergreen, Green Hills. There's just lots of good places to play. Lake Monticello. Lake Monticello, the lake is, you know, there's an oar

for every boat here, you know, you've got something and the thing when you really study it, even Glenmore, I mean, everyone is successful. Everyone is successful. Nobody is failing golf-wise in this area and that is so hard to do. And they were- they were all surviving, I mean, maybe they weren't thriving, but everybody was surviving. Now everybody is thriving. We are certainly at Keswick thriving. We have redone 14 of the 18 holes since I've arrived. Our golf course is great. I mean we had the same designer that worked with part of the team that worked with Birdwood, Scott Sherman with Davis Love. Scott was on his own completely with us and he

was a disciple of Pete Dye. We hired him because you could tell him about any of the 82 Pete Dye courses. You could say, well, tell me about the 13th hole at Casa De Campo and he could tell you about it. And he's like a Pete Dye historian. So we hired him and he's just done a great job. So I just feel overall golf in this area is a big deal and recreation. People are lucky to live

in this town. Oh my gosh. I mean we've got so many great recreation opportunities. I mean I'm proud to live here. Yeah no question. We have questions coming in quickly and viewers and listeners put your questions on any social media platform you're watching upon. I will relay them to Rob live on air. This is a good question from Richmond, Virginia. OK. And CCV. Great. Can Rob put in perspective what the difference is in talent or margin from a top five player, a top 10 player,

and a top 25 player on the tour? Boy, it's getting tighter and tighter all the time. It used to be a little bit more defined. It's becoming more blurred is what I would say. The athletes today, let's just, if you go back and just look at these scores of what people are shooting, right? The equipment has evolved, the athlete has evolved,

and what is being taught has evolved. And the athletes today are just bigger, better, faster, stronger. The real benefit, in my opinion, of the Tiger Woods effect is not so much what he sold in merchandising, but Tiger Woods made golf cool. And the guy that would have been sitting on the bench in a basketball game that's 6'4' and a little slow is a stud athlete in golf.

He might have played baseball, might have been a pitcher. I mean, you know, all of a sudden he's a beast. He's 6'3, 6'4, strong, stretch, get flexible. They learn to grip the club correctly. Once you learn to grip a club correctly, your chances of playing good golf go up about a thousand fold versus trying to have a Harley Davidson grip and try to play this game. I mean, and so they learn to put their hands on the golf club right and next thing you know, they're, they're scratch golfers and these good athletes are getting to be scratch in 15 months or less from starting golf. Once, once a kid goes

through puberty, you can find out how good someone's going to be. If you don't get to be scratch in a year and a half, you're probably not going to get to be scratch ever. That's just the way it is. Comments, this is a good one, local. There's Rob, and this is a good one for Hootie too. Best golfer to come out of Charles Forrest Central Virginia, fellas. Wow. Well, Will Strickler got his tour card. I mean, you have to give Will a lot of credit. Will played at the University of Florida on scholarship. He started taking lessons from

me when he was seven years old, and his parents came to me when he was 14. And Will said he wanted to quit tennis and become a full-time golfer. He got his tour card his first try. I mean, that's not bad. He might be the only guy from here that's ever did that. From here that's played on the tour. That's not the only measure of how great a player is by any means, but. Mikey Moyers.

Michael Moyers that are green. David Bell back in his time. David Passerelle, Phil Mahone. Phil Mahone is amazing. Phil Mahone deserves a lot of credit. Phil. Yeah. Phil's one of those guys that he played tennis in college

and later started playing golf and just kept grinding, grinding. I mean, he's so committed. He has so much drive. I mean, I am very impressed and proud of Philip to have watched him develop over the years and become a very good player. He won the state senior amateur. He's another terrific deal.

But we're talking about apples and oranges for somebody like Will that got his tour card. I mean, Will made six cuts in one year on tour, and then he played another couple of years on the corn fairy tour or whatever it was called then. Some other good ones, Dustin Grove, who's now an assistant coach there you go Pemberton coach at William & Mary I guess he's still the coach there Dustin Groves I believe a Monticello High School product I believe played for when I was working for you I think coach Pam Bradley was the golf coach Monticello High School now an assistant under Bowen at UVA. He's a fantastic golfer

We just have an embarrassment of riches in Charlottesville in Central Virginia with golf. It's really it's it's such a nice place That we all just are fortunate to live here. I'm delighted to live here. I was going to show you please Something if somebody somebody doesn't believe it, you know, they might see me hit it and say, there's no way this guy played in the US Open. This is maybe one of the best scrapbooks, by the way, I've ever seen. Who did that for you? Did your mom do that? My sister did this.

My sister has a little side hustle. I don't know if you can get it. Judah, give us some instruction. Up a little higher. Yeah, there we go. Very nice. There we go. And then I'll show you just a cool photo to prove that was me

graduating my high school date. This was in the way back. You got your prom picture in there too, Ron? I did actually. I actually went to prom. Can you believe that? Listen, 156, that's me. That's my number.

It was sad. But here I am with Gary Player. That's kind of cool if you can show that. That's awesome. That's great. That is so cool. That's kind of cool if you can show that. That's awesome. That's great. That is so cool. That's just incredible.

How about a favorite player for Rob, past and present? Well, David Thoms was my favorite tour player because he was my roommate in college. And now he's still doing terrific. I marvel at how good David has done with his career. I mean, a guy that probably doesn't. I bet in his peak, I bet David's clubhead speed never exceeded 107 or 8 miles an hour. He's probably 100 miles an hour right now and can still. I think he won on the Champions Tour last year.

The guy can still golf his ball. If they were playing with wood, wood, belata balls, and still shafts, he would still be playing the regular tour. Because a lot of guys that you think are great now, you give them that equipment and you wouldn't know their name. But anyway, that's just my theory on, I don't care how big and strong you are. So the equipment and with some of their crazy golf swings,

even though they work with metal, they don't work with a ballotta ball and a steel shaft and wood, wood. But anyway, that's another story for another day. My favorite player in yesteryear started out being Johnny Miller. I love Johnny Miller. Played two practice rounds with him at that US Open. Then it went to Tom Watson. Then I tried to focus on myself. Then it became David Thoms. And I never got on the Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson bandwagon on either one so I'm gonna go with Justin Thomas is my favorite

player. He's a great player. Before we go too deep, I want him to tell that Arnold Palmer story played a practice round with Arnold the King there at Oakmont. Well so day two I played my first day with Gary Player day two when I was totally had run my race right. Mr. Palmer's coming up the the ninth hole the practice green and the ninth green at Oakmont or this giant green it's probably about 80 yards from front to back and here he comes with Johnny Miller and Peter Jacobson in a three ball. So I'm not afraid of much on that category. So I go down there and go sell myself again. I introduce myself, Mr. Boyd until they put

it out at least, right? Mr. Palmer, my name is Rob McNamara. Could I play the back nine with you all? What's he going to say? People are ten deep on everywhere you can look. A place is packed with people. Sure, come on. So I had to weasel my way through the crowd. I literally had to get on all fours and crawl underneath the ropes to get through there. My caddie had worked his way through there, get up on the tee and literally look down the tenth hole and people, I'm not exaggerating, are 10 deep for as far as you could see. And my heart is pounding out of my chest and you could just feel all the eyes on you. So I rear back, hit this driver and I hit this

thing dead solid right in the center. This ball takes off, it's going right down the middle of the fairway and about 125 yards out, decides to make a hard left hand turn right towards the crowd and everybody on cue. That's my old Palmer story. They'd kill anybody thank goodness we have no uh. I can imagine your heart pounding like that. The closest thing I even have to that is I played a got to play with Curtis Strange over at Wintergreen during a state, Virginia's for Lovers tourism promotion and we had caddies and all that and walking down the fairway. We didn't, they weren't dead, but we did have a gallery. And that's the most nervous in sports I've ever been in my life.

And then he finally just said, calm down. It's just like playing with the guys back on the, wherever you play. He was telling jokes and stuff, trying to lighten the mood for me and the other guys because he knew we were all petrified. But that's, I can imagine what that was like.

I played in another U.S. Open in 1990. I was actually caddying on tour for a stint in my life. I was debating, am I going to go be a stockbroker? I'd be really bad at that. Or what was I going to do with my life? So I'm caddying for about six months on the tour and I qualified for three tour events plus the U.S. Open. After I qualified for the U.S. Open, I figured I'll go back and try golf again. But I'm at Medina and in the first round, I'm one under par. I'm actually sort of on the leader board. It was the morning we played that morning. You get to the 12th hole and the 15th hole at Medina and you share the same tee box. So walk up to 15, I'm one under through 14 holes. And who's on the tee at 12?

Jack Nicklaus. And sort of the kind of the deal is whoever first can play goes first. So I mean, I'm closer, I'm about as far away as maybe me to you. And there's the bear himself. And you could feel his blue eye staring at me. I mean, the same feeling. So I kind of put in the old memory box, well, you still got this because you've done this before.

And of course, I hit this one down the middle of the fairway and I came up out of there with like a whew and he looked at me and gave me the Jack Nicklaus wink and I thought, yes! How about you've alluded to this briefly, the equipment and the advancement in technology and where it's taken golf. Pros and cons of that. I hate it. I hate it in every category. It's like love the one you're with. If you didn't know that it existed, you wouldn't know that you missed it. And now what's happened is, I mean, if we had always had ballotta balls and steel shafts and wood heads, you would never know that there was something better, right? And I mean, people are sitting at home and I would – it's a different school of thought. I get it that, well, I wouldn't be playing

golf. Yeah, you would. You'd still play. Just the golf courses wouldn't be 7,400 yards long. Back in the day, golf courses were really long if they were 7000 yards. It was brutal. Augusta National was 6800 yards long and that was totally fine for a while. Well, now we've made it where we've just gone the other way. We're going to have to make 8000 yard golf courses to make it where you make a pro have a driver and a five iron or driver and a four iron or driver and a two iron in their hand to hit a long par four. They can't make them long enough. And so that's the problem. The other thing that happens, two other major

things that have happened as a result of the golf ball. Number one, it doesn't curve off line. It's very hard to curve a ball off line. So if these guys are hitting these, you know, and they give you one of these like I've hit it in the next county, think about how bad that would be with a ballada ball that's really spinning. A ballada ball would spin at about 4,000 RPMs. The modern golf ball spins at about 2,000 RPMs. So the spin is saving you or hurting you, depends on how you want to look at it. The other thing is that around the green, because the ball doesn't spin as much, makes chipping and pitching so much harder today than it used to be.

So they have all these sort of new ways you've had to learn how to chip a ball with a ball that doesn't spin. And the greens, simultaneous to this, are firmer and faster. So you kind of got a lot of things going that the, if a person was really good in 1980 and they woke up in a time warp and they came to the golf course and they brought them a set of clubs, modern golf clubs with modern golf ball on a modern golf course, what is that, 45, 50 years later? They'd be like, holy cow, I was great then

and I'm not very good now, what happened? You have to play the game differently. And whether or not a person's golf game evolved, and that's one thing it took me a long time to learn as a player and as an instructor. I mean, the game evolved because the golf ball was in such flux flux and it took about 20 years to get it to where it is today. They just inchworm their way and the ball manufacturers were in cahoots with the club manufacturers because they would jimmy rig the ball. All of a sudden now you had to get the golf club to match the ball. They do that for four or five years and the next thing you know they've j've Jimmy rigged the ball again. Now that guy's club doesn't go as far because it doesn't

match up to the golf ball. They've got to be partners in this. When does it stop? How does it stop? What's the tour do? Well I mean I don't know what everybody's agenda is. You know you obviously want more people playing golf and that is a great thing for all of us as golf operators and owners of courses and et cetera. But it also is making the game very uninteresting to only watch guys hit driver sand wedges. When the tenth hole, I heard Xander Schauffele say yesterday that if it's firm, it will hit a three wood and a gap wedge to the tenth hole at Oakmont. There's just no way that he's going to hit, if it's firm, it'll hit a three wood and a gap wedge to the 10th hole at,

at, at Oakmont. There's just no way that that's humanly possible. Yeah. It's like, are you kidding me? And I was in good shape. I mean, so this is just about, this is not like, well, he's a better athlete. Listen, I was, when I was young, I was in good shape. I'm not like I am now.

I was fit and the equipment has just made people longer. Hootie Radcliffe, comments continue to come in here. We got baseball you wanted to talk to certainly about here, but should we get some picks of who's going to win the open? Oh wow, we could. I'll allow you to go first. I'm going to make a dual entry. I'm going to make a dual entry, heart and head. Dual entry says heart is Justin Thomas, head, Sepp Straka. Wow. You're a huge fan of Justin Thomas over there. Yes, I am.

And you're right. The over under is at two. Two under. The betting line for what the winning score is going to be. Scotty is a clear cut favorite to win this. I mean, who's touching Scotty? I'm not going to pick Scotty because that makes me a front runner. Bryson, the second favorite, Rory, the third favorite, John Rahm in the fourth slot. Xander is so talented. I'm going to go Tommy Fleetwood on this one. Tommy Fleetwood.

Tommy Fleetwood. That's a good pick. I'm gonna go with Scotty. I used one like three out of the last four tournaments. You've got to give us some weight if you're going Scotty over there. I try to give your betting audience a chance to make I think it's like 40 to 1 at least. Trying to make them a little... We're not picking favorites when we go to the track. I mean, come on. I'm a Kentucky.

We bet horses. We bet on the longs. I also like Cameron Young. There's another guy right there that's a little... You know, that's not a bad pick. Cameron Young's a qualifier. Right. And a tight window.

Right, right, right. And he's playing good golf right now. I'll be rooting for Rory though I'd like to see Rory do it. I've always liked him. I covered him in 11 when he won so easily at congressional and I Had to actually fly out And cover to Virginia in the College of World Series in Omaha So I only got to cover the first two rounds, but he already won the tournament in the first two days.

But I've liked, he made a strong impression on me then, and I've liked him ever since. It's gonna be a good one. Rob, we gotta welcome Rob back. Oh, absolutely. You're the best. You make this so easy. Thank you for having me.

I hope that everyone benefited in some way. If we gave you a winning pick, if you take Sepp Strock or Justin Thomas, I mean, just send me a little love at 701 Club Drive at Keswick. Thank you so much, everybody, and I wish everybody great success and proud of you guys for what you all have accomplished here in Charlottesville. And I'm coming back to work guys, so I'll be there in 30 minutes. I'll straighten up. Dave Burrell, come on. You're still watching Dave Burrell.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Rob. Jude, if you want to go to the studio camera, that was just an absolute awesome interview. Thank you, Rob. That was an awesome, awesome interview, Hootie.

Yeah, Rob's always been an awesome interview. It's been fun. I've had a lot of guys that cover local and state golf or used to be when people used to actually cover golf. They don't do that anymore, except on the national level. They were always envious of me because I had like I said the quilt machine he was always giving great quotes out at the state open and Which he won by the way, of course and who year was that rock?

95 and so good see you rock All right, they were they were always obvious of me getting great quotes from Rob because some of the guys were so uptight, they would freeze up a little bit when you asked them about their rounds. But not Rob. He was loose as a goose. What a good evangelist for Keswick and golf locally. Absolutely. And for the state of Virginia. Yeah absolutely. We got baseball to talk about. Yeah. Goodness gracious.

The new cycle that is Virginia athletics continues to to gain momentum and this is normally a slow period. We got the baseball team, all the talent and the transfer plural. We got a short list for Virginia baseball that got a little shorter with what? The Wake Forest coach getting caught on national TV saying something that he shouldn't have. Got Brian O'Connor being initiated and announced to the Mississippi State Faithful.

What an incredible crowd that you drew out there. That's a microcosm of what's to come. Goodness gracious. Yeah. We got paid. We know what Coach O'Connor is going to make. Second highest paid coach in America in college baseball. Second highest paid coach.

Mississippi State makes that salary and compensation and the contract readily available. Don't need a FOIA. No. Most schools don't. Right, right. Where do you want to begin with baseball hooding? Well, yeah, I think the fact and again, Tom Walter, the Wake Forest coach, like you said, was caught making a homophobic slur during their game with Tennessee. I imagine that probably cost him dearly, who knows these days, but I think that probably puts the focus on

Chris Pollard at Duke now as probably somebody that Virginia has its eyes set on if they didn't already. They lost last night to Murray State, one step away from Omaha. But I got to know Chris back when he brought his Appalachian State team up and played Virginia in the regionals a few years ago. And he told me then that, having grown up in Amherst County, he grew up a Virginia baseball fan and tried to pattern things, how he would

build his program the way Brian O'Connor did at Virginia. So certainly he would be somebody to look at. He's been at Duke since 2013, been coaching in college since 2001 everywhere he's been, and he's developed 46 major league baseball draft picks during his career so that really good guy I've gotten to know him a little bit over the years and Certainly, he'd be a terrific replacement for Brian O'Connor

Virginia baseball is is I mean frankly Looking to right the ship right now. I mean, frankly, looking to right the ship right now. I mean, you got a how many players in the portal now? I think it's 27. The most of any school and the whole roster basically baseball. Yeah. And some of those guys have followed O'Connor to Mississippi State. Tomas Valencia, Joan Jones, James Nunley, Aidan Teal, are the four at the moment.

There's probably a couple more guys that's gonna go there. But it's gonna be a challenge for whoever takes over the program. They're going to have to probably rebuild the entire roster, or at least most of it. After we did the show last week, I asked you the question of put the year in perspective. And you've been covering Virginia athletics for how long? Since 1982. Since 1982.

So we're talking darn near, what, 43 years? You've been covering UVA athletics. And you said you've never remembered a year like this from a tumultuous standpoint. And then after that, I try to put a timeline of events, just facts, that we published on the I Love Seville Network. And that went viral. And after I was just putting those facts down on my keyboard here and on the I Love Seville Network and that went viral. And after I was just putting those facts down

on my keyboard here and on the computer screen, I was like, goodness gracious, this has been a wild ride for Wahoo fans over the last 12 months. This hire, you are the pro here, you're the hall of famer. Put the importance of the baseball hire into perspective as we transition into football season and a need to fill Scott Stadium, where UVA was in the bottom three or four spots of the Atlantic Coast

Conference in average attendance. Well, it's certainly one of the sports of Virginia that gets a lot of attention, even though disarooned park only seats about 6000, there's still lots of other people that follow it. The program, they may not always be at the games, but it's an important hire because the community I think is tied to the baseball program in a lot of ways and It's been one of the premier programs in the country What Brian O'Connor built here was?

magnificent Not many people can say they went to the college World Series 3 out of the last four years prior to this season. So what he's done is remarkable. And you certainly don't want to see the program fade back into mediocrity. So I think it's important to get the right guy in here, somebody who can develop players and who can recruit. And keep the close ties to the community that O'Connor built by going to pancake breakfasts and various social clubs and civic clubs in the city and county.

You're absolutely right. We will follow it closely as Carla Williams has got a really important hire on her hands here folks, especially heading into a football season where Virginia has purchased a lot of talent for that football roster and where Virginia is trying to shed a label of having the worst record of any power football team over the last three

years. Hootie, the Sam Brunel news to Tim Taylor and the Naval Academy as an assistant coach with the women's basketball team. I found that very exciting, very positive. Happy for Sam. Same. Obviously there are close ties between those two and Tim coaching up there at Green County for a while and has done a really good job with Navy women's program. I'm sure she'll be a boost to that

program and very happy for her. A couple of other developments in the community over the weekend. The Frank Well family making a $5 million playing gift to Virginia Athletics. I've known Frank for a long time. Played golf with him in a Hall of Fame event several years ago and always been a great guy when he was not only as a player but when he used to broadcast with Warren Swain doing the Virginia football broadcast. That was a great team. They were a great team together and Frank's just a good guy. Always been a pillar of the community and done what he could to help all facets of the Charlottesville community, even coaching little league football with the talent

and knowledge that he shared with with kids. Happy for him. He was tight with Doc McHugh, so they're gonna put his his name on the I think the entrance way to the Olympic Sports Complex that they're finishing up over there which is attacked attached to the the back of the McHugh Center which it's gonna elongate that building almost down to 29 but to Emmett. But it's just happy for him and his family. They're good people. What are you following here as we're halfway through June? Well, we're still keeping our eye on the baseball coaching search.

And there'll be news coming in, I guess, all summer on the transfer portal incoming. It'll be interesting to see who the new coach is and what kind of staff he puts together and what kind of players he can attract to the program and we'll be keeping our own golf in various aspects including the US Open this week. Some other great golf stories, Bill Battle we all know knew. Terrific guy in the community as well helped bring Birdwood along and was former president of the USGA and we got to know him over the years and named the local competition that Rob mentioned when he was on air

between local golfers. We named that the Battle Trophy and Bill was so gracious to allow us to put his name on that and he would often show up and make the presentation to the to the champion of the the trophy. And he has just been elected to the Virginia State Golf Hall of Fame, which was a great honor for him and his family. Yeah. Jerry Radcliffe, guys, set up the interview with Rob

McNamara today on the Jerry and Jerry show. He's an absolute pleasure to conversate and chat with. And same with Hootie Radcliffe. And I would encourage the viewers and listeners to watch JerryRadcliffe.com and this, this, to read JerryRackliff.com as we follow this, this coaching search. Move forward. Will Duke Pollard be named the next head coach of Virginia baseball? Only time will tell. The skipper over at Connecticut with the Huskies on a potential short list as well.

We'll follow it closely at JerryRackliffe.com. Appreciate you setting up the interview with Rob. It was a lot of fun. It was great that he was able to take some time out from his schedule out of Keswick to join us. He's always a fun guy to be around. I've never had a dull moment around Rob McNamara. Same, same. Judah Woodittkower behind the camera. Appreciate Judah getting everything set up for the third guest. And thank you viewers and listeners for watching the

show. We're back Tuesdays at 10, 15 AM. And of course, the I Love Seville show is up at 12, 30. So long, everybody..