If learning the game has been on your “to do” list, our Classic 5 LPGA pro Julieta Stack of Baltimore Golf Academy at Pine Ridge shares with Nestor the feeling of hitting that perfect shot. A nice time to fall in love with the game when the weather is perfect and the pace is right to pick up a club and get back on a course or the range.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
LPGA pro, golf lessons, junior golfers, Maryland crab cake tour, golf academy, top tracer, gamifying practice, Justin Tucker, golf techniques, golf challenges, social aspect, golf benefits, golf technology, golf competition, golf perfection
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Julieta Stack
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are a positively into another football week and another baseball off season. Around here, Luke will be out in Owings Mills all week. All that brought to you by our friends at Jiffy Lube MultiCare as well as royal farms, powering us up, just like Justin Tucker with that fried chicken and coffee in the morning, we’re going to be getting back out on the Maryland crowd. On the Maryland crab cake tour, not just this week for my birthday. We’re going to be pizza Johnson in Essex, celebrating my birthday as well as Luke’s birthday. On Friday, we will have scratch offs in the Maryland lottery giveaway, but we will be celebrating all season long with Maryland crab cake tour. We’re going to be at a nacho mamas. We’re going to be back at Pappas. We’re going to be at Faith Lee’s. We’re going to be a we’re going to be everywhere we go Cocos. But for now, pizza, John’s crinkle cut fries and some gravy. I’ll tell you what little nip in the air. It’s a chilly out, and I so many people play golf in my world, and they go out on these godforsaken hot, awful days, or they go out in these godforsaken cold days where they’re out there goofing wearing shorts in February, you know, clan and around this to me, the leaves start to fall. My cat likes to see it. This is the time if you’re going to learn golf, it’s comfortable and you don’t miss any baseball doing it either. Juliana stack is here. She is an LPGA professional. She did some things back in the day as a golfer. She now does things every day, teach young people, as well as some grown individuals like myself, the great game of golf. She’s part of the academy here at Pine Ridge as part of our partners at Classic five golf and big doings. There’s tournaments going on, all sorts of stuff, but you’re working with people like me that used to hold the club like a baseball bat, and teaching them how to work it like a golfer. Correct? Julietta,
8
Julieta Stack 01:46
that’s correct. Yes, we, we specialize, really, in young players and newer golfers. We teach a lot of people in the area who are coming back to the game, maybe after a break, people are coming to us who have had some injuries and want to get back into it. And this is actually probably the best time of year to take your lessons and to play, because you’re not dealing with the heat like you said, you’re not dealing with the bugs. So we do a good amount of fair amount of business this time of the year. And I just want to say one thing, I want to give props to all of our junior golfers who are going to be playing in the districts, and that’s the Baltimore County Public Schools, and there are high school players. And, you know, I almost look at our success in in terms of how our how our sort of teenage players are doing, by how many of them are playing on their high school teams? You know? And
Nestor Aparicio 02:43
Sundar have a golf team. I need to know, you know, as a Dundalk high alum, do we have a golf team?
02:48
Yeah, they might. That’s kind of out of our range. We we, I mean, we do have kids from Dundalk, Essex, Middle River, that come to us, but they’re probably taking their lessons over on on the other side of town.
Nestor Aparicio 03:00
8Well, yeah. So I always tell the stores the stores the first time I visit with you, but you know, I know all the pros, RJ, everybody you know from classic five, by the way, I think it’s terrible. It’s waiting for too long for you to come on, so you got to come back again sometime soon. Balance things out. But I have all my old gulf war stories about, you know, taking lessons, the frustration, you know, all of those things as an adult, but as a kid in Dundalk, golf didn’t come to me. You know what I mean? Like, my dad didn’t play it. Same thing. I mean, I would say that about horse racing and things. Like, my dad was into what? My dad was into baseball, football, basketball, uh, boxing. Didn’t play hockey. My dad didn’t I played hockey, but my dad didn’t know anything about it. I think a lot of times it’s finding the game becomes what adult brings you to the game when you’re a kid, right? My neighbors played it, and they played over at Sparrows Point Country Club, but, like, there’s nowhere I could walk, and there weren’t a lot of no other kids played the game and not and my dad’s friends didn’t play the game. So I do think that there’s a point where, as I got older into my 20s, I’m like, people really play golf. It’s not just a thing I see on TV because it was unavailable to me 40 years ago in Dundalk, at least it felt that way to me. Well,
04:04
let me ask you something. This is sport. Person to sport, person I found, you know, people like Tiger Woods to be so compelling that even four year old, five year old, six year old children could sit and watch him. I had friends who were in their 60s and 70s who didn’t play golf, who would watch Tiger Woods play golf? Because,
Nestor Aparicio 04:22
well, that would be the reason I got out on the land. In 1995 I took my first lesson with Norm buchaski down at furnace Creek, down in Glen, Burnie and I, I played a lot of baseball. I played a ton of tennis, right? So I came in with habits that you’d want to shoot me. You know what I mean? I came because you want to pull your arms in like a baseball player, and that whole notion of keeping arms straight out and locked was just It took me months. It took me months to unhitch a baseball and a tennis swing that my elbow would bend, because it felt very natural for my elbow to bend. Yeah.
04:59
Well, and we actually have some techniques that we use with people like, I have a couple of I have a lot of young baseball players, and of course, they staying on that back foot and releasing the baseball, I mean, the golf club, as if it’s a baseball bat, and it’s a different release point, it’s a different weight shift. So what we do is we go through with them without a golf club. We show you something the way you want to do it with golf. But we’d have you throw a football, throw a baseball, overhand, underhand, and I’d videotape you, say three, four times, doing this, this motion that we want to see in golf. Then I put the golf club in your hand without a ball, and allow you to feel that motion. Show you the videotape, and you go through this over and over again until the player can begin to understand this. This. This is a different motion. This is a different way of striking. Now, it doesn’t happen right away, but it’s amazing how a lot of people, you have to get away from your from the golf club to get them to do it. So that’s what I would do with you, if you still had any of those old habits, is I’d bring in, you know, if you’ve thrown a football, I’d show you the motion from the right hip, the right if you’re right handed, right elbow, right hip, the shift, the turn the throw. It’s the shift the turn the swing. You know, it’s very it’s a similar sequential movement. And baseball, it’s happening off a different pivot point. So baseball hitting, baseball pitchers are easy to teach. Golf, you know, dancers, ice skaters, hockey players, difficult. Field Hockey, very difficult. Oh, hockey,
8Nestor Aparicio 06:37
of course. Hockey with a stick. It’s completely it’s the same, like your arms are in the same spot, but you can’t, you cannot hit a golf ball like a hockey puck.
06:46
Do you know what sport the most difficult? We don’t get many of them, but really good cricket players, because they bat across. You know? They hold on. Oh, it’s good cricket players. Very difficult to teach golf to. They like, drag that butt of the bat out. I Well,
Nestor Aparicio 07:03
we got old dogs and new tricks. Here. Julietta stack is here. She’s the LPGA pro at the Golf Academy with our friends at Classic five right up here at Pine Ridge. Couple things, because we’re on sports and because you started in on this football thing. And I’m thinking uncle Rico. But every kicker I’ve known and punters, to some degree. I mean, Kyle Richardson, some people that I’ve known, but more than that, Matt Stover, who I know, like family, and even Justin Tucker, when he misses kicks, or even when he makes kicks, in recent weeks, is talking about it being like golf and release point, where it is how you follow through. And I think we see that even if you know nothing about golf, you see that with every kick in the NFL, if you’re a football fan, because kickers talk about that,
07:47
8I would, you know, I have to say one thing that if, if I, if I had one thing to say to a great athlete like Justin Tucker, and you know, you’re talking to release points and all these different things, and Where you plant and and where you’re getting your energy. You know, I’d say one thing to him. I’d say, eye on the ball. I’d say, Justin, just keep your eye on the ball. Like, do your like, whatever. The thing is that keeps his his eye quiet as he does his thing, because that moment a player looks up a little early and often for good athletes, is that they’re anticipating the Miss. It’s not so Miss. They’re anticipating, oh, I just made that putt, or I just nailed that field goal. And they’re looking up early. When you miss that first one, all of a sudden you’re like, oh, did I miss the second second one? So it’s when you have quiet eyes. You keep your eye on the ball. And a lot of times you’ll hear parents, or, you know, players, say, keep your head down. And I don’t love that phrase, because it anatomically you don’t want to keep your head down. You just want to keep your eyes quiet, your heads quiet, so that everything can move around it. And with Justin, he knows how to kick that ball better than anyone. So I would, I would say, and I’m telling you that last field goal he kicked on Sunday, I really, I don’t know maybe it’s my mind, but I thought he kept his eyes and his head kind of extra quiet going through that ball. And it would be, I would love to ask him and talk to him and say, was there anything mechanically that you did, or was it just in your head, or was it just you didn’t think at all? Because that’s what’s interesting to me. I think
Nestor Aparicio 09:19
when you’re that good at it, you don’t think about you know that there is a point where you’re considering shots and watching the greatest golfers on on a day by day basis. There’s clearly a different level of connection to the ball, and having done it a million times, right? And listen, I don’t want to insult you as a golf person, but I insult all my golf people to say, I play tennis and baseball, the ball moved. And golf, the ball doesn’t move. Theoretically, it’s it should be easier, and that’s the way I always came at it in my 20s, when I first grabbed the golf club, is saying the ball doesn’t move. If it you screw up, it really is on you. You can’t blame the pitcher. Nobody’s throwing you fast. Ball. Nobody’s taking throwing a change up. It literally is about you and the ball. And I think that that, that’s the beauty of golf. I think, right?
10:07
Yes, it, but it’s, it’s the thing. Think about shooting pool. You’re shooting pool. You’re in a you’re in a place. It’s, you’re having fun with your buddies. All of a sudden, you throw, you know, $20 on the table, and you start to play the little shot it the ball’s not moving. But all of a sudden,
Nestor Aparicio 10:21
environment, right? You hear the trees, you hear the birds, something, right? Everything.
810:26
I mean, great. Willie Moscone used to get absolutely sick and riled up, and probably had ulcers because he would get so nervous before shooting pool. You know, I’ve studied a lot of the great performance, athletes, dancers, singers, to see, you know, what do they do before they go out? What do they do during when they lose their nerve, when they get when they feel sick inside? Because you have to deal with this. I had to deal with myself. And now I’m trying to help my, my my competitive golfers deal with those nerves and how to how to channel that energy. Because it’s actually a beautiful thing to have to have the adrenaline and have all the all the nerves. Because how many things, how many times in life do you actually get to feel that? And when you feel it, you know, channel it and use it. And I think that’s, that’s what amazing thing, like Lamar, he’s, you know, I was, I was at Jake’s barbecue coming back from Oregon ridge, and the game was on, and the guys in there were having a fit with Lamar, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m not going to say a word, but I’m thinking, don’t lose faith in this man. This guy’s got chops, you know, he’s just believe in him, just, let’s see what he does. Well, luckily, you know, a mistake was made, and he got a chance for redemption and things like that. But you know, it’s about believing in yourself as an athlete, believing, if you look at Justin Tucker, that the players have to believe in Him, your coaches have to believe in you. You feel it. But if they, if they lose faith in you, where do you? Where do you get that comes from deep inside, and you don’t get that unless you have done it a gazillion times you’ve put the work in. So it’s really interesting, isn’t it,
Nestor Aparicio 12:02
pressure is a privilege, as they often say. Julie had a stack is an LPGA Tour. Uh, LG, LPGA Pro. She can get you on the tour, and get your kids on the tour and tell you, tell anybody about Pine Ridge, because I think it’s special. I was up there when the first top tracers came in, and the day I was up there, John maroon had brought me up, and I was up just There were reporters there. It was like a new thing, technology and stuff. And the first thing I thought, literally, is I It was summertime when I saw it, and there were kids around, and I thought I didn’t have this at the bowling alley. I didn’t even have this for Pac Man and video games and Donkey Kong, back in the 80s, when I was playing games and doing things, that there would be a computer way of doing this. And then even, like for my wife, who, if my wife ever wants to get on the links, I’m sending to you, because if you’re right up the road, she always, she said to me when I married her 20 she’s I’ve played golf. I can hit a golf ball, and I wouldn’t brag about my golf game in the least, but like, I thought it was something we would might do. And I said, you might need some lessons. I took her out, you know, to hit some balls. And I’m like, you know, but that’s where you come in. And I think that even I’ve used her as a case example, because there’s 20 years ago that we went out and hit some bucket of balls. We lived on the east side of town, or whatever, and I don’t enjoy four hours of golf. Anybody tell you, my personality is not like that. Now, I hit balls. I play putt, putt at old pro down in Ocean City Pro. But when it comes time to doing it and being a part of it, I would think at this point, if I really were serious and it mattered to me, and I’m 56 and I’m old and I’m old and I’m broken down. I got a bad back, but if it mattered and I wanted to get good at it, because you don’t want to go out and play and not be good at it, that’s one thing. Hey, ness you go out and do business together, you get on the golf course, you’ll meet the right people. And I’m like, Well, not if my game sucks, you know, not if I’m losing the ball everywhere. Um, the top tracer thing to me, felt like if I were a kid and that were at the Kmart up the street and they had a club and it was a quarter to throw in, I probably would have been a whole lot more apt to do that than even doing a batting cage with baseball or something like that, because you you don’t need anyone. I needed somebody to play tennis. When I played tennis, I needed somebody else was near the wall. Baseball was like a neighborhood thing. Golf would be a thing. You could go up at any point and really get a lot better, and you don’t, no offense to Julietta or any of my pros. You don’t need you looking over. You can literally grade yourself. You have a computer once you get some lessons and you’re doing it right, I would think that top tracer could make you much better, much quicker. And I told my wife that when I came home like, Hey, have you ever picked golf up again? Built the Pine Ridge because they got this thing that’s going to help you. And it’s like a game. It’s even it’s for a kid, it’s a game, I think, for an adult, it’s a it’s a knowledge machine
14:51
well. And the thing is, in in all of instruction these days, one of the most important things they they say, is gamifying your. Practices. Gamify it for the kids to make it so they want to come back. Gamify it for the adults, otherwise they don’t want to keep practicing. So what did top tracer do? Is it totally gamified practicing to the point that okay? So this, this summer, during camp, we had a day where had rained hard all morning, and it was time we had the course to ourselves. So I had 30 kids. Alright, how many of you want to go out on the course? Because we can go to any hole, it’s all wide open out of 3020. Wanted to go out on the course. 10 wanted to stay back and and use top tracer so that that shows you, I still would rather see the kids out on the course, then they’d rather be out on the course. And the top tracer, now it’s got things like Angry Birds and games that kids can play, but when we use it for coaching, like I would take you, let’s say your goal was, I want six months and I want to be a 20. I want to play to a 20 handicap, right? What we do is we would do a like a like a 1220, hole shot, sort of assessment, and we would give you this assessment using top tracer, and we would see, where’s your short game, mid game, long game. It doesn’t really do the putting at Pine Ridge, but we could figure that out easily enough, and then I would know where to spend our time. And that’s ball flight. You know, I’m big on the physical, on what your body is doing in order to make that happen. And remember, you’re still on a mat, you can hit fat shots and get away with it when you go to the course and it’s a wet day like last week, I really saw with our kids. I saw them struggle when they hit the ground first hitting a fat shot. When you hit the ground before you hit the ball, it’s because you’re staying on your back leg too long. You’re not shifting, you’re maybe gripping too tight. So those are the things a golf professional might be able to help you with, whereas with maybe the machines, top tracer and any of those things, it might not exactly tell you that. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 17:02
8the ball’s always flat at top tracer, right, like, like, the lie of a ball anywhere on a hill is never going to be, you know, you get a one in 50 that it’s going to be flat. And, you know, out in the middle of nowhere, other than tee shots, right, right?
17:15
And, I mean, they have, they have some of the, I can’t remember the names of them, but some of the simulators actually have undulation and things like that, and they can make it like there’s wind and things like that. But
Nestor Aparicio 17:31
undulation so, you know, I do know what that means, but yes, but there is a difference. But I think my point was just from a starting point. My point was, hey, if you took lessons and it was boring, it was bad, or you lost balls, or whatever, there’s a way now for you to train without just being in a cage and hitting a bucket of balls. You can, you can do a whole lot more than that,
17:53
and and it’s great because it does make you want to go out there with someone else and say, Hey, let’s let’s play. Let’s have a little competition. Let’s go do this or that. Hey, what? How pretty. You know, we had a long drive competition this summer, and it was terrific to see the kids and the parents. And, you know, you had parameters. You have to hit it straight. You can’t just hit it far. But, man, could some of those guys mash the ball, I think 330 or something like that, wanted and, and it’s just fun to it’s fun to see the kids and the adults. You know, it’s, it’s a great date night activity. And now we have a food truck at Pine Ridge. And so David Brown, our manager, offers happy hour. I don’t know if you can call him happy. Everybody offers specials in the evening, and every hour’s
8Nestor Aparicio 18:41
happy hour when I’m there, I’m always, I
18:42
think so. I couldn’t agree more. But I know we have a terrific, you know, we have a terrific restaurant, Lee and the ladies up in the up in the in the clubhouse, make a wonderful breakfast and lunch, and you grab that, you go up there and hit your balls. It’s just a good place to hang out. You know, even if, even if you’re not a great golfer. We do the we do the level one classes, right? And after, after two hours, we find people are coming back because the putting greens, it’s free to use like you love mini golf. Why in the world wouldn’t you be at Pine Ridge in the mornings or in the evenings when you have a minute and using our greens, they’re free at Mount Pleasant Carol, I mean, Clifton, you go to any of our courses. Um, forest, sorry, Richard. And you would absolutely love just forgot him
Nestor Aparicio 19:27
two times ago too. I, I try to go through the car Carol mount butt far, you know, like and I always forget one. I There’s one. It’s a lot of times it’s Pine Ridge, and that’s the one close to home for me. But yours is much more bucolic, much more countified, and I think also it’s probably 20 minutes from everyone that’s listening to me right now. And it’s also a place, it’s not a far drive, but you feel like you’re kind of in the forest, kind of far away, right?
19:53
8That’s the first time I ever went into that long driveway. I was like, what? Where am I going? Yeah, exactly. I. And I got there and I knew, I mean, I had just moved to Baltimore, you know, just getting around in with one of my friends came up from Virginia, DC, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the place. This is where I want to be. I’ve always been a Muni, you know, publinks golfer and teacher, and I found this place. And I was like, I don’t care what they do, you’re going to have to take me. They’re going to have to figure out a way to make me on the staff. And it took them. It took them about a year after I put in my resume, but finally I got lucky, and the executive director took me in. He said, alright, what are you going to do for us? And I have not left. I mean, I’m there almost every day. I love this place, and I play all over the world. I play the I played the port Stuart, what you’re looking at behind me in Northern Ireland, played all over the world. I love Pine Ridge. I think it’s one of the best courses you could play bang for the buck. There’s nothing like it. Last thing
Nestor Aparicio 20:49
for you, before I let you go, because I think we go all night, and then that’s before the first lesson. What do you love about golf? Tell everyone what you love about golf, and what they’ll love about golf if they come out and and hang out with you, because I’m fully admitted, it’s a long day for me, and really for me, I have an l4 issue that anything I haven’t been bowling ski. I haven’t I just I was hurt for two years, and surgery for me, for my wife, looking for you know, all my wife likes the woods, she likes competition. She sits and watches LPGA golf. I catch her three times a year, on a Saturday or Sunday, some something on TV, something’s never College. Certain things, these aren’t interesting to her. Golf is always like, if it’s on, she’ll watch it and measure it, and she can’t name any of the golfers remember, but she likes watching golf. Yeah,
21:42
it’s, it’s, it is, it’s, it’s relaxing. I think the thing about golf is to actually hit a ball, to feel how effortless it is to hit the ball far, to hit a shot. And everyone who hits their best shots always say that felt like an I felt like I didn’t do anything, you know. And they want to capture that feeling of effortless movement and how to make a ball go far by doing that, that’s what catches people. And you can always hit that one good shot. You hit that one shot. It brings you back. For me, it’s, it’s the it’s, it’s a combination of, you know, you’re getting your exercise, you’re walking through the park, all that. But it’s also the challenge. Every day it’s different. Every day you’re trying to get a little bit better, tweak the swing, you know, fix your shoulders, do whatever, and just to see if you can get a little bit better. And it’s, it’s a lifelong study. So it’s the social parts of it. Man, I love how our seniors keep each other going, you know, and and you can move up in teas, so you don’t have to keep playing those white, those blues, those whites, whatever. You move up a little, get the scores down, and it’s fun again. So the social aspect, the health aspects, and just the challenge of an ever changing game. Hey, I wish to imagine Justin Tucker with the field goals changing. Imagine LeBron James, every time he went down the hoops changed heights or moved around. How hard would that be? You know,
Nestor Aparicio 23:08
challenge never ends for you, does it? Man?
823:11
And y’all keep me on my toes. You keep me young. So you come out and see me. I can’t wait to meet you and your wife. Let’s do a media day. Let’s talk. Let’s talk to the maroon guys about doing a media day. Bring you out to our my wife does not
Nestor Aparicio 23:23
want me evaluating her game. Trust me,
23:27
we’ll do it. We’ll we’ll evaluate you. Just come out. Bring partner, come on out, and we will take good care. I
Nestor Aparicio 23:33
8do remember when you say how good it feels to hit it perfect. I have done that, and I it’s the only bragging point I have in any of my golf participation. You know, we had golf tournaments here for years. We did charity golf tournaments for Ed block and for juvenile diabetes and different things. Raised hundreds of 1000s of dollars back in the 90s. In the autumn, one of my partners love golf and and we would do the course and sell tickets and bags and goodies and like all of that kind of stuff. But it the 2005 Super Bowl. It was in Jacksonville on a Tuesday night. They had the media out to the golf course to saw grass and cool they part of the deal was that night is you got to hit a tee shot on 17 across the water, okay? And it was dark, hooting. The blowfish was playing that night. They were the band for the NFL. So before we went out there, and I had like, somebody with me who fancied himself a real golfer, and because he was, but there were four of us from the radio station, we went out shot into the water, shot a little long. All, you know, hit bounce went off. You know, in the water somebody else shank bottom is probably Ray Bachman. And then I got up there, and I had been playing a little golf at that point, and I had been going, really, quite frankly, with my son a lot, to just hit buckets of balls, you know, because that’s what I did, much more so than playing nine or 18 or playing captain’s choice in some charity tournament. You. And I got up and I did all those things that that Justin Tucker didn’t do when he misses the field goal and he does when he makes it. Got to breathe in. Made sure I had the right three wood, whatever I was hitting, and boom, up, up. It was, it was the perfect shot. It came like six feet from the cup, like people were cheering. Wow. It was out. It was and there’s no video of it, but the witnesses, well, two of the three still like me. They know that I did it. They saw it. And I thought to myself, I dropped the club in front of the golfer, guy in front of me, and I’m like, I’m never touching a club. I’m
25:35
done.
Nestor Aparicio 25:36
I’m never touching a club again. That’s
25:37
a happy memory. And for every time you play, if you can leave with that, I think that’s, that’s
8Nestor Aparicio 25:42
what’s I don’t even think I was going to tell you about that story, but, my God, you start talking about a perfect shot, and I’m thinking one time I threw the ball over that mountain. You know, Julietta stack is here. She can be found at Pine Ridge. She’s an LPGA Pro, uh, She’s clearly a raven fan, or at least an aficionado. And if she’s not going to hit golf balls. We’re going to have her kick field goal. So find her up at Pine Ridge. Our friends at Classic five golf they do it all over the air. Let’s get all five out now. Off top my head, Mount Pleasant. Carroll Park, Forest Park, Pine Ridge and Clifton. Clifton Park, I always forget that one. That’s the one my bus went through when I went to 33rd street when I was a kid.
26:20
Lawrence could have a fit with you. Hey and happy birthday. Happy early birthday to you.
Nestor Aparicio 26:24
I’m getting younger. Thanks
26:26
8for having us on and come visit people. Oh yeah, Baltimore Golf Academy, check us out.
Nestor Aparicio 26:32
Baltimore Golf Academy, how did I not have her on all this time? So Joey had a stack is here from classic five golf always pleasure to have my golf friends on especially now that baseball’s over and y’all are bored and looking for something to do other than gamble on football games on Sundays. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive crab cakes in our Maryland crab cake tour. We’ll see you pizza John’s on Friday. You.
