Our pal and golf pro Ed Miller of Pine Ridge and Classic 5 gets ready for another drive to Augusta to see the majesty of the azaleas, hills and the best players in the world this weekend as another Masters is set to tee off in Georgia. Of course, Nestor needs those pimento cheese sandwiches investigated this year…
Nestor Aparicio and Ed Miller discuss the upcoming Masters tournament and Miller’s experiences at Augusta. Miller, a frequent visitor to the Masters, describes the event as a dream come true, highlighting the lush greenery, the hilly course, and the tradition of past champions attending. They also touch on the affordability of the event, noting it’s the cheapest major sporting event. Miller emphasizes the use of technology like Top Tracer in golf lessons, making practice more enjoyable and effective. They also discuss the accessibility of golf at local courses like Pine Ridge, part of the Classic Five family, and the importance of promoting the game among young people.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Masters Tournament, Augusta, Ed Miller, Pine Ridge, Classic Five, golf season, pimento sandwiches, Top Tracer, golf technology, young players, Tiger Woods, golf courses, Baltimore, golf lessons, golf tradition.
SPEAKERS
Ed Miller, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. To find all of our work out of Baltimore positive.com, you can find all the crab cakes in my belly. We’re going to be a Costas on Friday. I will have the scratch off so the magic eight balls in the Maryland lottery. At some point, I’m getting the Back to the Future scratch offs. We’re going to be all over the place. We’re going to be at Beaumont and Catonsville next week, on Thursday, then on the 23rd we’re going to be up at Cooper’s north, which is really close to Pine Ridge. And we’re going to talk some golf here, get some masters in this week. Then we’re going to be down to Cocos, which is really close to Mount Pleasant. And we’re going to be doing that on the 30th of April with Marcella, as we have crab cakes all month, baseball all month, golf all month. Hopefully get some weather to agree with us. And you know, I look far and wide for people that have walked the 17th hole at the Masters in Augusta with the azaleas. Had the cheap food there. Ed Miller is that guy. He is the classic five representative of all things. You’re Pine Ridge this year. But you fix it. You’ve run all these clay you made these five. All classic fives, I know. And this is, this is a high holy holiday for you golf types, and specifically for mister PGA card guy who gets to go down and walk Butler cabin, correct. Ed, how are you? Man, it’s, it’s masters week already. It’s not even Easter. I
Ed Miller 01:31
heard that. Nestor, thanks for having me. I hope all is well. But yeah, that’s the unofficial start to the golf season. The Masters Absolutely. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 01:40
go ahead. Go on and on and on. Tell me how many times have you been? Give me the dream of being there. Tell me how much more hilly it is in person. Give me the whole thing. Because I still haven’t been to Augusta, even though I’ve turned down, I’ve had two or three Cha like, not chances. Like, maybe I could get in, like, come on down. And I’m like, I, you know, things could have gotten in the way. So tell me what I’m missing out on with these. This
Ed Miller 02:07
is going to be about my sixth time, I believe, going down now. So absolutely great. You know, Augusta is everything you see on TV and everything you’ve ever heard. It’s kind of like the Super Bowl of golf. It’s definitely a dream place. I mean, as soon as you walk onto the grounds, the lusciousness, the greenness, the flowers, the nature sounds, it is absolutely a treat. And the golf course, like you said, is TV doesn’t do it justice, but it’s hilly. It’s a big, complex, long golf course, but it is fantastic. The people treat you great. The weather is usually great. And of course, the golf course, there’s a reason why Augusta is constantly ranked as one of the top two golf courses in the world. So
Nestor Aparicio 02:49
do you like take dollar bills and coins to buy the dollar 50 pimento sandwiches and like all that stuff? Or No,
Ed Miller 02:56
I used to in the old days, but now it’s, you know, no cash at Augusta. You gotta use a car.
Nestor Aparicio 03:01
Oh, really, okay. I thought things were so cheap. They still, like, use, like, legal tender there. I didn’t, oh, yeah,
Ed Miller 03:09
you know. But it is actually still, it is the cheapest sporting event or venue that I go to on anything, you know, you Oriole games, Raven games, anything else it’s, I
Nestor Aparicio 03:18
know, Katie graves trying to get the pricing down here at Birdland menu. But they can’t touch the Masters value menu. Huh?
Ed Miller 03:25
No, sir. They cannot Absolutely. Ed Miller is here. He’s hitting
Nestor Aparicio 03:29
them straight up at the Pine Ridge, a part of the classic five family. We have promoted classic five for years and years. My thanks to the maroon team and and Tom and everybody at Classic five the Masters this week. And on the course, off the course, the live thing, and all the politics that goes into that, you fly down, you go and do this. Give me your course. Way of if I were to go with you, you fly into Charlotte. You fly in Augusta. How do you get there? You go. And when you go there for the sixth time, it’s like people saying, hey, you’ve seen Springsteen so many times. Why do you go? What are you looking for? Well, I’m always looking for a new song, a new thing, a new you know, a new wrinkle. When you go to the Masters several times that you’ve been what your experiential walk, what attracts you to it. What gets your attention other than the Golf itself when you arrive?
Ed Miller 04:23
Well, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a more intimate tournament. It’s really interesting. In terms of most tour events, you have 140 players that start the Masters being invitation only, or, you know, certain qualifications obviously get you in there. But it’s, it’s a smaller field, and, you know, the commercials kind of make it funny, a tradition like no other. Everything is set up the same every year that I’ve gone. It’s not like anything changes. They do make improvements on the golf course and and all that kind of stuff. But it’s you get to go, and it’s always the top 5060, golfers in the world. So you’re getting the highlight, and you’re getting to watch just those special. Players the tradition of having past champions there. It’s kind of neat. I do enjoy that a little bit, you know. I do think at some point, you know, some of the guys do need to retire. The golf course is kind of, it’s kind of hard and nasty as you get older. But I do think that’s a neat tradition. You know, once you win one masters, you’re allowed to come back and play forever, hence why some of the guys are still playing the masters. That’ll be 60 years old this year. So now you’ve never played the course correct? No, that is correct. Okay, alright. Don’t have connections deep enough for that one yet, and I don’t hit it as straight as you might think. So they might not want me out there anyway. See,
Nestor Aparicio 05:35
that’s the craziest thing is, I got offered to play on it as well as, like, show up and I don’t play well enough to play on it. And the other weird thing is, Ed, my family and I’ve done this trip in the we talked a few times last summer, but I did this trip about a year and a half ago. I went down to Abbeville, South Carolina, which is very close to Augusta. My mother was born, raised all of her family was in Abbeville, South Carolina, but her brother moved to Augusta, lived in Evans, and they don’t call him Martinez, even though it’s spelled like Dennis Martinez or tippy Martinez. It’s Martinez Georgia, and it’s right next to the golf course. I’ve been by the gates there many times as a boy, because I spent summers in South Carolina and Augusta and that whole area in that part below Clemson and Spartanburg. And that’s a beautiful back roads kind of part of the world. I mean, if you make that drive, especially, I know people have gone into Charlotte or into Columbia and go over. It’s a beautiful part of the world this time of year, magnolia trees. Oh,
Ed Miller 06:45
absolutely it’s everything is always blooming. I mean, even here at Pine Ridge, our flowers and stuff are starting to bloom. But down there it’s, I’m sure it’s beautiful already. And like you said, the drive is nice. I actually don’t fly. I drive, you know, you drive all the way down. Yeah, well, I do stop and play a little golf on the way there,
Nestor Aparicio 07:03
but, yeah, I got you south of the border. You can do all that stuff on the way down,
Ed Miller 07:07
absolutely. And like you said, it’s, it’s an amazing down there, because everything is pretty even though I do think the location of Augusta is one of those neat things too. It’s, since you’ve been down there, you drive down a five lane,
Nestor Aparicio 07:20
dude, it’s like Richie Highway. It looks like Richie highway, and I’m sure they’ve widened it since then, maybe, but it was just like a road with a TJ Maxx. And it just like, literally, like Richie highway.
Ed Miller 07:30
Absolutely, grocery store right across the street. But once you cross into the property of Augusta, it’s like, you don’t realize there’s a world outside of it. It’s a little like Disney World. Absolutely it is wild. It is, I definitely think it’s neat. Alright,
Nestor Aparicio 07:42
well, you know what? Maybe this is a good segue for the classic five courses, because you’ve driven into all of them. And you know, when I have RJ on over Forest Park or saying that there’s this beautiful golf course in West Baltimore that you have to know about. And same thing would be said for Mount Pleasant, where my wife and I were, like, going down to Coco’s couple weeks ago. I’m like, Yeah, this, you know, like Clifton Park is that, you know, the Carroll Park, all of this Pine Ridge where you are is in the hilly, forested area, and you’ve got a lot of benefits to being where you are, just north of the beltway and really in the county, but, but also you get all of this space where you do these top traders, just a different kind of experience. And for anybody out there that’s Country Club oriented or golf that it’s a impediment to be able to play. Kid falls in love with the Masters this weekend wants to go out and play. Your courses are really designed to be, you know, I would say, from Dundalk, you’re spoiled going all these masters because anybody can afford to play and get a bucket of balls at Pine Ridge or any of the classic five places, right? It’s the different level of where the Masters is and where. Hey, I just want to play some golf and learn how to play. And it seems like a fun thing to do, because everybody be watching golf this week, and it really is. It’s the bright, shiny light for your industry as well as your love of the game, yep,
Ed Miller 09:01
yep. I almost consider it like NASCAR. You know how the Daytona 500 starts the year? It’s almost the same way in golf. You know, the first big tournament is the masters. It’s early in the year, so it definitely starts off the year. And like you said, you know, Pine Ridge, we like to consider that maybe a slight a gust of the North. You know, we have a, we have a driveway that’s a couple miles long as well. It’s not, not lined with the Magnolia. You gotta figure
Nestor Aparicio 09:24
out how many taking no Uber up to your place. I gotta figure out every time I come in there, I think I’m closer, and there’s another sign, and I’m like, this is that’s my sense back here,
Ed Miller 09:33
absolutely. And it’s very beautiful. You know, it’s picturesque. I’m obviously a little bit biased, but we surround the reservoir. We definitely have some hilly terrain. We got beautiful trees that are out here that never
Nestor Aparicio 09:45
have a day in your life where you don’t see a deer, right? Or like a fox, right? Litter, Fox,
Ed Miller 09:49
turkeys. We have wild turkeys out here, raccoons, yeah, we got a couple of them too. Yeah, yeah. When
Nestor Aparicio 09:55
I visit, you get one more Turkey up bears having trouble hitting to go. You know, I need a guy like. Do that. Lessons are what really and really you’re every time I’ve ever been to Pine Ridge, there’s been a lot of kids running around and like, playing on the machines. And, I mean, it’s a little bit at East Point mall, we had the Aladdin’s Castle Casino. We put our quarters in, we played the video games like all that. It feels to me like there’s a whole generation of young people, soccer kids, lacrosse kids, baseball kids. Hey, I had Viviano on this weekend. I’m yelling, baseball’s dead. He’s like, not at subvert a park. We got all these kids playing Little League. And I’m like, I come up to your course anytime in the spring and summer. There’s a lot of young people.
Ed Miller 10:36
Absolutely. You know, we’re the, we’re the head of Baltimore Golf Academy here, and we, we just had our first big Junior clinic this past Saturday. Four hours of kids. About 80 kids came through. But you’re absolutely right. We run camps schools. We had high high schools practice here. Obviously, that’s the future of the game, so we like to promote it. And I think the top tracer has been a good, beneficial training aid for the younger kids that are kind of tech savvy anyway, and they get to play games. And
Nestor Aparicio 11:04
I think people be blown away by the top tracer thing, like I’m blown away by and you know how my l3 and my l4 are right now? And you know, my friends at Planet Fitness have got me like aligned and Dr, Steve, so I’m feeling good. But there’s never a time where I’m seeing kids not whack the ball and thinking like, I, you know, I’m old school. I’ve told you this a million times norm. Bucha gave me the club showed me the right way to do things. I love the sound of hitting it solid. I love the sounds that Woods make more than, you know, more than the irons. I mean, I like that. I like that clunk and, you know, I like that whip and get the graphite going, like and all that stuff, not like Fred Flintstone with the, you know, with the old clamshells. You know, they’re different kind of clubs and those old Wilsons I got back in the 60s. But I would just say, when I see top tracer, and I think about embracing the game in a new way, if my wife were to pick the game up tomorrow morning, doing it on that top tracer would be the only way you would teach it, right? I mean, literally, right. That is the teaching tool for to measure everything other than norm. Sitting behind me back in 1994 saying, Well, you know, you’re throwing yourself open here a little bit if you want to get better at golf, and I always say this, the ball doesn’t move. I’m not insulting you as a tennis and baseball guy. Ed, you know, but the ball doesn’t move. You, you can get better at golf.
Ed Miller 12:27
Absolutely, it’s and, like said, it’s, you can practice anytime. And golf, you know, that’s the neat thing you’re talking about kids. Well, we have senior days out here, so I see 85 year olds still playing golf. So the cool, the spectrum of golfers that come out, you can be anywhere from six years old to 85 years old, and you can have a good time, enjoy nature, learn golf. The other thing about top tracer is it starts to, you know, nobody likes practice. You know, I don’t want to throw an Allen Iverson that thing out here, but, you know, we’re talking about practice, but the top tracer helps make practice fun. There are definitely games, and I think that’s one of the things that the kids definitely embrace. And definitely embrace and some of the younger clientele. But yeah, you can learn faster because you got some technical data. You can learn more enjoyable. And then, like I said, it makes practice more fun in the long run. And then, not to mention, you know, we have an F and B service up there. We’re in the works of making it a more fun atmosphere. F and B, you got food and beverage, right? Yeah, yeah, yes, sir. And then we’re trying to put some music up there and stuff like that. This summer, we’re going to try to make it a fun place to hang out and and practicing. You know, enjoy company with your friends while getting better.
Nestor Aparicio 13:34
Listen every time I come up, I spray myself for the mosquito stuff. I come up, I see people happy hitting the ball, clunking it, making a mess, but old people like me, you mentioned you got 85 year old people. When older people come out and see the technology piece of the game. I’m not talking about people that have been hitting it for years. I’m you every day you encounter somebody that says, I want to come back to golf. I’ve got more time. I’ve got a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a thing, a kid, somebody that wants to pick up a club for the first time in a while. Um, I’ve there is a blown away part of the technology piece to show them their game if they get a lesson the way lessons are. I mentioned my pal norm from 30 years ago. But the way you give a lesson, even a guy like you’ve been given lessons for 2030, years, the way you give lessons has changed dramatically, right? Oh,
Ed Miller 14:28
yeah, absolutely, like I said, there’s still some video using, you know, we’ll video swings and we’ll talk about that, but the technology of telling you your path angle and stuff like that, or how fast the ball is going, or you can see where you’re hitting the ball in terms of whether you’re hitting the sweet spot stuff. It definitely just helps. It’s a you get to see it, you get to see the video. You get to see the top tracer. It gives you all the information. And it definitely helps you progress quicker. And then, like I said, 85 year old guys come back. You’re thinking that, what do they need to learn? Or they’ve already played golf before, even them, it helps them to get back into golf. And like I said to me, it’s it makes golf to practice more fun. You know, like Ed
Nestor Aparicio 15:09
Miller is the the pro you’re trying to make it fun for everybody. He’s up at Pine Ridge, uh, he’s part of our classic five family. We’re going to be talking about all sorts of things. And I bring you guys on during the major weeks. And I swear I had you on a calendar this week. And I said to my wife, when’s the masters? Is like the Easter. And I’m like, this week, it’s here. It’s already the Masters week. So, uh, for the tournament itself, and for where we are life after Tiger Woods and Phil and all of that. Where are you with the tournament itself, and who’s going to play in it? How good it’s going to be. We’ve got this whole second thing with the live thing now that sort of is confusing to a neophyte like myself about who’s playing where and when and for how much money and why. This is old school,
Ed Miller 15:59
absolutely. Yeah, the whole live thing, I’m getting dizzy about it myself. It’s starting to get confusing. I’m not sure where they’re going with this, but the masters that I mentioned earlier, the best thing about the Masters is you’re getting the top 50 players in the world. You’re getting people who have actually won tournaments all around the world, so competition is still going to be great. Yeah, we’re past Tiger. We’re past Phil, especially after Tiger’s injury this year, but I think the tour is pretty lucky this year. And you know, we got the closest thing to Tiger in the last 10 years with Scotty Scheffler, who’s rebounded from his hand injury, and he’s starting to play good golf. You’ve got Roy McElroy playing really good golf this year. He’s already got a couple of wins. So you got the number one and two players in the world. And the one neat thing, and I think technology has helped them as well. We have a lot of young, talented pros this year coming out, and not just in the United States, but all over the world. I think I saw a stat last week about seven or eight new winners this year, and all under 30 years old. So technology has helped the younger players get better faster. And it’s just, to me, it’s a wide open field. I think anybody can win that’s Well, anybody in the top 50 in the world can absolutely win at the Masters or win a tournament any given week now. Ed, that is
Nestor Aparicio 17:11
the amazing thing, as I talk to experts like you, teaching people the game, and even, you know, we talk about old farts like us, learning new things and technology and stuff. I watch baseball, and just watching Ben McDonald look from the baseball side, of launch angle and spin rate, and all of the things that golf would want to you know, why someone, why John Daly, drove the ball further? Was he stronger, bitter, bigger? Was it the ball? Was it the, you know, the speed is it? The torque, all of those things are so measurable now that I think younger people in all of the sports some sports science, whether it’s nutrition, whether it’s training, whether it’s rest, all of these things that go into coaching and the headspace, the mental game of golf, it’s still, I don’t need to tell you, you know, aside from all of it, but these games about precision and speed and science and Measurement and Geometry and math, they’ve all really become very nuanced to the point where the next version of Tiger Woods is going to have a Technology advantage to go along with whatever the gift is that comes along with being a gifted athlete, right? Yeah,
Ed Miller 18:26
absolutely. You know, that’s one of the things I think Tiger did change about golf. You have more athletes playing golf, and you know, I’m glad you mentioned all the science behind it. You know, that’s one of the things that I didn’t really say about the top tracer, but you’re right. Gives you the launch angles, the spin rates, the speed. So as a manufacturer, they’re able, once they get a couple numbers in terms of how fast you swing and your launch angles, we can start putting you in equipment that will maximize your level and like, like we said, the tour players now, they all have that stuff. That’s one of the reasons why I think the tours become so competitive is, yeah, they obviously have some talent. They’ve made it to the PGA Tour. Like you said, the part of the tiger, influencing the diet, the nutrition, all the exercise Golf has become wide open, and the technology has absolutely helped. That, I can tell you, as being up here and watching some of the high school teams play,
Nestor Aparicio 19:17
they’re just better players than they were 15 years ago. Yeah, absolutely.
Ed Miller 19:20
It’s scary to see how far some of these 1516, year old boys and girls hit the ball. And you’re going, Oh, they’re gonna have to make golf courses. I didn’t hit it like that when I was 15, right? Yeah, well, you know, yeah, the older I get, the better I was though. Nestor, you
Nestor Aparicio 19:34
know? Oh, I know. I know. I mean, I feel the same way, you know, I can. I can’t throw a party right now, but I come up there and cheer for y’all so Ed Miller is here. He is up at Pine Ridge teaching young people and old people how to play the game of golf better. It is a golf celebration, um, you know, I will think of you this weekend. I might get me open my mother loved her pimento sandwich that spread, oh boy, and the fried green tomatoes and all that stuff. So listen, I’m going to give you a little. Tip. All right, so you’re driving down, that’s where I swear this when you either on the way down or on the way out, if you’re leaving in the morning, there’s a little diner in Abbeville, South Carolina, I will pay. I’ll make him rain up in here, if you mule me back some proper mac and cheese and some proper sweet potatoes from the Abbeville diner in Abbeville, South Carolina, on the way out. I’m telling you right now I’m buying if you’re flying, so if you’re driving. So I told my my wife, I said I’d sell my soul to get back in the car, because the woman makes them the way my mom made them. Oh, and so you know what I’m saying, and there’s a way, you know, you can only get that in the south. So when you’re down there, go get them. I don’t know that I’m ever going to make it to the masters. I don’t know that I’m ever going to move to a point in my life where I get invited back and I was a fool for not going back when I didn’t go. But I want you to have all the fun for me and eat the pimento sandwiches. How about that?
Ed Miller 20:56
I will do my best. I will do my best. For short, Nestor, even though I’m not going to lie, I’ve not had a pimento cheese sandwich since the first year I did it for the tradition.
Nestor Aparicio 21:07
You know, it’s like these people that eat the fish on On New Year’s night and the Black Eyed Pea. No, no, I don’t need any good luck. I need stuff that tastes good. That’s right, by the way, it’s a good plug for me. This summer for our 27th anniversary, I’m going to be doing my 27 favorite things to eat and locally, in restaurants locally, they’re here. There are few that are rest in peace that we no longer serve, like Burke’s onion rings and Nacho Mama salson, some things that have gone away very sadly in recent times, but pimento sandwiches ain’t going to be on that list, I promise you that. And neither is the fruit cake that my mom, my mother, ate all sorts of weird stuff, speaking, but those sweet potatoes in that mac and cheese. Imma tell you right now, Ed Miller is going south to Augusta for the Masters, making his sixth trip. And you know, he’ll bring all of that wisdom and knowledge and none of the pimento sandwiches back up to Pine Ridge next week, where he will happily assist you with your game. All of our friends at Classic five, they do this around the beltway. If I start naming them, I’ll forget them. Forest Park, Mount Pleasant, Carroll Park, Pine Ridge and I left one out. I knew I was going to leave one out. Which one that Carroll park? There you go, the short track, Clifton Park. Did I leave Clifton Park
Ed Miller 22:18
out? Yeah, the oldest golf course in Baltimore, yes, sir. And
Nestor Aparicio 22:21
the one that I discovered first because the number 22 bus drove right through Clifton Park past Eddie Lauer’s house off of Bel Air road there and and I say it right Blair Edison, I say it the right way over there. Ed Thank you. Love having you on. Man. Have a good time this week. Alright?
Ed Miller 22:36
Nestor, thank you so much. You’re great, and we will do our best and
Nestor Aparicio 22:41
listen really close when you’re down there this week. I think the sounds are fake with the birds. I’m just saying, make sure you investigate that for me, if you see Jim dance, tell him I said, Hello.
Ed Miller 22:51
Will do? Will do? Hello, friends. I am
Nestor Aparicio 22:55
Nestor. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking. Baltimore positive, get yourself out on a golf course. You.
