“The Charlie Rymer Golf Show” Season 2, Episode 1: Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship & Ray Romano

The Season 2 premiere of “The Charlie Rymer Golf Show” kicks off with two-time major winner Dustin Johnson at his namesake World Junior Golf Championship at TPC Myrtle Beach, followed by part one of a two-part podcast segment with comedian and “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Ray Romano. Charlie then brings us back to TPC Myrtle Beach for the newest installment of his playing tips that are sure to help you improve your game!

Season 2 of “The Charlie Rymer Golf Show” is airing new episodes in 2022 on ESPN2. Be sure to check your local listings for air times and channels in your area!

 

 

Speaker 1 (00:03):

The Charlie Rymer Golf Show, starring Charlie Rymer. Hey, okay let’s pick up the tempo!

Charlie Rymer (00:13):

Charlie Rymer here and welcome to my new show where we do things my way! As a former golf pro and media personality, I know golf. This isn’t going to be your grandfather’s golf show. I’m bringing you conversations with celebs and golf greats, getting off the course and out on the water and even getting into some good eats. This is the Charlie Rymer Golf Show. Keep it in the fairway, folks!

Charlie Rymer (00:46):

It’s the 2022 Dustin Johnson World Junior presented by LA Golf. The best junior golfers from around the world have been invited to tee it up at TPC Myrtle Beach right next door to Dustin Johnson’s Golf School. As the juniors warm up for their practice rounds, we’ve hand picked some stars to go head to head with DJ in a short game contest.

So good morning everybody, welcome to DJ’s golf tournament. In this short game contest, I’m going to do what I do best, which is talk a lot and get these guys teed up. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to hit three shots. We’re going to hit a flop shot. We’re going to hit a bunker shot. We’re going to come right up here and hit about a 40 yard pitch. And we’re going to let DJ go first and maybe talk us through a little bit of how he’s going to play that shot.

Charlie Rymer (01:38):

And that’s not going to eat up a lot of time. I can tell you that because he doesn’t overthink anything. That’s one of the great things that watching him play golf. And then these three are going to have a contest. We got that big Tommy Morrison here who keeps getting bigger. I remember, you used to be this way now, it’s… I don’t know what they’re feeding you out in Texas, but you’re eating a lot of it. We got Ben James and we got Bailey Shoemaker here. So the winner of each one of the three contests that we have is going to get a DJ signed hat and some product from LA Golf as well. So let’s get after it, we’re going to start with a flop shot right here. Now y’all jump right in. This is your chance to dig in there with DJ. I think he’s probably got pretty decent short game would be my take on it.

Dustin Johnson (02:20):

It’s not great right now. I need to get a little practice in here before next week. But from here, pin’s not too close but it’s still on a downhill slope the whole way. So you’re just trying to make sure you land it short, but just judging how the ball’s going to come out, which is the hardest thing to do in the rough, the only way to do that is practice it. Everybody plays them a little bit different. I think you need to figure out what’s the best way for you to play him. In the rough, I tend to play it a little bit more back, even though I’m hitting a flop shot, obviously when I’m hitting a really high short one, I’ll move it up a little bit. But most of them I’ll play probably just back a center just so I can make nice contact. I hit a little hard, but… no, it was pretty good.

Charlie Rymer (03:05):

You’re first person that I’ve talked to and I’ve been fortunate to talk to a lot of folks about hitting flop shots, to talk about getting a little farther back in the stance. And I had never really heard that before. So that was interesting for me to hear. Do you go back in your stance?

Ben James (03:20):

I’m going to touch forward personally. Kind of lean on it, open the face, swing left. Just don’t dump in the bunker.

Dustin Johnson (03:28):

Exactly.

Charlie Rymer (03:29):

Let’s see it. Grab, pretty good. I think DJ still got you though. By the way, DJ, is that 60? Is that your flop?

Dustin Johnson (03:42):

60? Yeah. [inaudible 00:03:42].

Charlie Rymer (03:42):

Is that what you use most of the time around the greens?

Dustin Johnson (03:45):

Just depends. I mean, out of the rough, most of the time yeah. Bunkers, unless there’s a long one.

Charlie Rymer (03:52):

Is your next wedge at 56?

Dustin Johnson (03:55):

54.

Charlie Rymer (03:56):

54? I got you. How many times in a year are you going to swap out wedges?

Dustin Johnson (04:00):

I change my 60 a lot. Probably every three tournaments maybe I’ll change 60.

Charlie Rymer (04:06):

Do you make a batch for the whole year for you?

Dustin Johnson (04:09):

Well I have a drawer in the truck with a bunch of them in it.

Charlie Rymer (04:13):

He’s got his own drawer on a truck. Yeah. Anybody out there got their own drawer on the truck? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Bailey, do you have your own drawer?

Dustin Johnson (04:22):

[inaudible 00:04:22] does a good job taking care of me.

Charlie Rymer (04:24):

All right Bailey, let’s see what you got.

Dustin Johnson (04:25):

That’s it.

Charlie Rymer (04:29):

Fly in the hole.

Dustin Johnson (04:29):

Yeah, almost.

Charlie Rymer (04:30):

Man, that was all over, just a little bit long. All right Tommy.

Dustin Johnson (04:38):

Yeah. Almost made it.

Charlie Rymer (04:40):

Good shot right there. Tommy wins that first contest.

Dustin Johnson (04:43):

I don’t like messing up on my signature. Should have signed it underneath.

Charlie Rymer (04:47):

All right, let’s move into the bunker. All right, so walk us through this one DJ.

Dustin Johnson (04:51):

You know, in the bunker, depending on the shot kind of is where I play it in my stance. I’ll move it a good bit and very rare do I like to hit a bunker shot with a lot of spin, just because I’m trying to control it, control the distance. So a lot of times, I like to let it hit and roll. In the bunker, like this is a drill I do all the time is just so I can get the face rotating.

Charlie Rymer (05:17):

Yeah, and if you don’t rotate, that sand’s going to fall out early, right?

Dustin Johnson (05:20):

Right. Yeah. So I do this. It’s just a drill I do to work on my bunker shots. Didn’t play the right break, but-

Charlie Rymer (05:38):

No, that looked great. I’ve always tried to spin the ball and so I hit a lot of them thin, but getting that ball rolling almost like a put as soon as you can, that’s what the goal is for you, right?

Dustin Johnson (05:48):

Right. Obviously, I try not to hit myself in situations where you know you’re stuck, where the flag’s too close to you where you have to hit an unbelievable shot to get it close. I try to air on the far side of the green where I got more green to work with.

Charlie Rymer (06:01):

Yeah and one more question while we’re at it. You talk about practice. I don’t get the sense that you do maybe a whole lot of structure in your practice, but is it-

Dustin Johnson (06:10):

I’m actually really structured.

Charlie Rymer (06:12):

Yeah, what does practice look like for you?

Dustin Johnson (06:12):

But I just don’t practice for a very long time.

Charlie Rymer (06:15):

Okay.

Dustin Johnson (06:15):

I always try to go to the range with a plan, what I’m going to do and some days, it might be 30 minutes, some days it might be four hours. It just kind of depends on how long I can stay focused on what I’m doing. But as soon as I lose focus on what I’m doing, I’ll just leave, because-

Charlie Rymer (06:32):

Because then you’re just going to do damage, right?

Dustin Johnson (06:34):

Yeah, I don’t get any better. If anything, I make myself worse. So I’ll do a half hour of putting, a half hour of chipping and then maybe 30 minutes on the range. Just to really focus on what I’m trying to do and then I get out of there.

Charlie Rymer (06:47):

Perfect.

Dustin Johnson (06:47):

Or I’ll go play. So I like to play a lot.

Charlie Rymer (06:49):

Yeah, yeah. Perfect. All right, let’s see it Tommy. Nice.

Dustin Johnson (06:56):

That was nice. Good shot.

Charlie Rymer (06:59):

Well that’ll do. Really nice right there.

Dustin Johnson (07:02):

I was the guinea pig. I showed him the break.

Charlie Rymer (07:08):

A little heavy, it didn’t quite roll out. All right, let’s see it Ben. Boy, that had a great sound.

Dustin Johnson (07:15):

Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (07:17):

Good shot.

Dustin Johnson (07:18):

Just like me, just didn’t read it right. It looks like it goes right, but it actually breaks right to left.

Charlie Rymer (07:22):

Yeah, good distance. We got a hat winner right there. Let’s move right up here and we’re going to hit a pitch off some tightly mown. I see you got a nice line there.

Dustin Johnson (07:32):

Yeah. [inaudible 00:07:34].

Charlie Rymer (07:36):

All right. So DJ, this is a shot that scares a lot of people. We’re like 35 yards, over a bunker, tight line, what’s your approach to a shot like this?

Dustin Johnson (07:46):

I’m just going to play probably just kind of a normal pitch, let it check and then release to the hole.

Charlie Rymer (07:52):

Yeah, yeah.

Dustin Johnson (07:52):

Whatever the most consistent shot you can hit is, is how I play it. But this is another situation where it’s all about controlling your spin. So knowing how much your ball’s going to spin. Obviously practicing on the course you’re going to play on, so you can figure out how the ball’s going to react and what it’s going to do.

Charlie Rymer (08:10):

Obviously a little bit different from week to week. We were talking about your wedges earlier. Do you make adjustments on leading edge and bounce and that sort of stuff from week to week? Or is it pretty much the same all the time?

Dustin Johnson (08:21):

No, I use the same wedge all the time. Every course, no matter where I’m playing.

Charlie Rymer (08:25):

Yeah. Does it tickle you to see guys in there grinding their own wedges and sparks flying everywhere? That sort of stuff?

Dustin Johnson (08:30):

Yeah, but very… I mean there are maybe one or two guys that might do that. So well now the wedges are milled or companies make so many different types of bounces that you can find one that you like. And if you do, they’re always the same every day.

Charlie Rymer (08:46):

Replicate them every time?

Dustin Johnson (08:47):

Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (08:48):

Perfect. Let’s see it.

Dustin Johnson (08:49):

See if I can just make a contact. Sit. Sit. I hit it too hard.

Charlie Rymer (08:59):

Bailey. Before we get you to hit, I was wanting to chat with you a little bit. Where you going to go to school? Have you got all that worked out yet?

Bailey Shoemaker (09:07):

Yes, sir. At USC Southern California.

Charlie Rymer (09:09):

Wow. One of the top programs around right there.

Bailey Shoemaker (09:13):

Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (09:14):

I know that’s a great school academically too. You got to have some strong interest in academics there, I would think as well.

Bailey Shoemaker (09:19):

Yeah. Education’s so important to me, but of course I want to go to pro just like anyone else.

Charlie Rymer (09:22):

Well cool. Well let’s see this 40 yarder right here.

Dustin Johnson (09:27):

Well she cooked it nice. Hit it.

Charlie Rymer (09:29):

Oh, hit it. Almost rattled it. Tommy, talk to me a little bit about your plans. Where are you headed to school?

Tommy Morrison (09:35):

I’m going to play college golf at University of Texas at Austin.

Charlie Rymer (09:38):

Cool.

Tommy Morrison (09:39):

Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (09:39):

I know you’ve been committed to Texas for a while, haven’t you?

Tommy Morrison (09:42):

A couple years.

Charlie Rymer (09:42):

Yeah, yeah. You, we’ll say grew up, you’re still growing. How tall are you?

Tommy Morrison (09:47):

6’9″.

Charlie Rymer (09:47):

They’re making them big now, aren’t they DJ?

Dustin Johnson (09:53):

Yeah, I don’t feel short very often, especially on tour ever. Yeah, I feel short standing next to him. Sit.

Charlie Rymer (10:04):

That’s some good action there. All right Ben, come on up Buddy. Talk to me about your plans. What are you going to do for school?

Ben James (10:09):

I’m going to the University of Virginia in the fall, so I’ll be there for… I’m planning to stay four years and hopefully go on the PGA TOUR.

Charlie Rymer (10:16):

Talk to me a little bit about academics, what are you going to study while you’re there?

Ben James (10:19):

Either political science or sociology.

Charlie Rymer (10:21):

I thought about taking sociology, but I wasn’t going to study anything I can’t spell.

Ben James (10:27):

I can’t spell it either.

Charlie Rymer (10:30):

Well cool, let’s see what you got.

Dustin Johnson (10:31):

It’s going to work out.

Charlie Rymer (10:36):

Hang on, hang on. A little heavy but you got away with it, for sure. Well nice getting to know y’all a little bit more and it’s fun watching your short game here, and it’s going to be really fun to see what y’all at Texas, Virginia and USC. We look forward to watching the future unfold for these great players DJ.

Dustin Johnson (10:54):

Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for playing and really thank you for supporting my event.

Tommy Morrison (10:59):

Super cool.

Dustin Johnson (11:00):

Yes sir.

Charlie Rymer (11:04):

Welcome to the Charlie Rymer Podcast, where we talk golf life and whatever I want to talk about because hey, it’s my show. As promised, we got a super special guest this week. Somebody that everybody loves, Ray Romano and Ray, really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here on the show. We’re based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Appreciate you being on the show.

Ray Romano (11:29):

Thank you, thank you. It’s good to be here.

Charlie Rymer (11:31):

It’d take me 30 minutes to go through your bio, comedian, Emmy award winning actor. When I get to the part that’s my favorite, no one has ever played a wooly mammoth better than you. Your character Manny and the whole Ice Age series of films. You were born to play a wooly mammoth and I got to watch it over and over, I love it.

Ray Romano (11:55):

Yeah, I’m going to take that as a big compliment.

Charlie Rymer (11:57):

I think you’ve done pretty well with your voice. Okay, so we’ve got the whole bio thing out of the way. Now we can get to the really imp part of this interview, how’s your golf game?

Ray Romano (12:12):

If you asked me four months ago, I would’ve said my lifelong goal was to break 80 and I broke 80 for the first time.

Charlie Rymer (12:22):

Congratulations.

Ray Romano (12:23):

In my life.

Charlie Rymer (12:23):

That’s awesome.

Ray Romano (12:24):

Thank you. In my life, first time ever and if anybody knows me, I play by the rules. I’m very anal. I’m very OCD. So if I broke 80, I broke 80. And I finally did it four months ago. Now, I’m having a hard time breaking 95 now. It just went on my like it always does, you know? I mean, let me ask you. I know your versions are different, but when you lose it, when it just goes away, what do you do? How do you start? Do you start from ground zero? Because literally I’m standing over the ball and I’m like, “I don’t know how to take this club back right now.”

Charlie Rymer (13:07):

What I did is get a job as a golf announcer.

Ray Romano (13:09):

Yeah, yeah.

Charlie Rymer (13:11):

That’s what I did. Well I’ll give you the greatest golf tip that I ever heard. When it goes really bad, it’s tension what’s getting you, right? This is a simple golf tip. So when you go to the golf bag and you pull a club, as you’re walking over to hit the shot, you hold the club by the grip and you just waggle and you try to make the head of the club feel as heavy as you can. And when you do that, all the tension goes out of your hands, your arms, it goes through your whole body and then by the time you get ready to hit, your back into swinging a club, rather than hitting the ball.

Ray Romano (13:55):

That’s worked for me on occasion. Just take all the tension out. Just feel no tension in your arms, yeah.

Charlie Rymer (14:03):

Yeah, because tension is your enemy. But let me ask you, back to break in 80 for the first time, you had to have called a lot of people that first time you broke 80. Who were the first couple of people that you called that day you broke 80?

Ray Romano (14:15):

Well it was definitely Hank Haney, because when I did his show, our goal was to break. That was the theme of it. It was to break 80 and we never got there. And I told Hank, I can’t fake it. I can’t fake it for the cameras. If we break 80, we break 80, but I can’t live with myself if we do a fake break 80. And I don’t know if he liked that too much. But every time I had a putt for 79, I’ve had about probably eight putts for 79 in my career and I missed them all. But every time I would text Hank like a hole before I would be, “I’m on 18.” If I get a bogie, I’d break a… and he would constantly tell me, “This is what you should not be doing. You should be…” But when I broke 80, I needed to go birdie par to do it on the last two holes.

Ray Romano (15:14):

By the way I was by myself. I was playing by myself, so I had no one to film the putt. So what I did was I filmed the ball and I filmed how far it was from the hole, and it was a 25 footer. And I just said, “This is what I have to break 80 again for the first time ever.” And then I put the phone away, I made the putt and then I filmed myself. I go, “Let’s go, let me show you where the ball is.” And I went and it was in the hole and I started screaming. “We did it.”

Charlie Rymer (15:43):

That’s awesome.

Ray Romano (15:44):

I told my wife and my wife said, “Yeah, that’s nice. When you come home. There’s a dead mouse in the garage.” So she didn’t care. It meant nothing to my wife.

Charlie Rymer (15:56):

What golf course was that where you shot that 79?

Ray Romano (15:59):

Lakeside.

Charlie Rymer (16:00):

Lakeside in LA?

Ray Romano (16:01):

It’s tiny little greens. Have you been on it? Have you been on Lakeside?

Charlie Rymer (16:04):

I haven’t. They don’t let people like me play nice places like Lakeside. They got standards and rules.

Ray Romano (16:10):

They’ll let you. You just got to change the shirt. If you change the shirt, you’ll get-

Charlie Rymer (16:14):

Hey let me tell you, when you wear a shirt this size, you don’t get to choose what you want. You get what they got.

Ray Romano (16:20):

Yes. Exactly.

Charlie Rymer (16:21):

I know you haven’t been here yet. We’re going to get you here some time.

Ray Romano (16:25):

My wife has been down there and she’s never picked up a golf club in her life. But you know, I know that’s one of the Meccas of golf, so I do want to get down there.

Charlie Rymer (16:37):

Come on. We’ll be happy to roll out the red carpet for you. We’ve got more than 80 golf courses and that’s 70 miles. So we got plenty of golf.

Ray Romano (16:47):

I’m in Charleston. I’m at a wedding in Charleston, so let’s see if I can squeeze a day out of there. Maybe it’ll happen.

Charlie Rymer (16:52):

All right, appreciate you taking your time to be with us here today on the Charlie Rymer Golf Show. Thank you so much.

Ray Romano (16:58):

All right guys, thank you. See you later.

Charlie Rymer (17:00):

Thank you Ray. We appreciate it. For our entire interview, you can find that at playgolfmyrtlebeach.com. Nothing beats golf in Myrtle Beach. I’m showing off and playing some of our best courses, all while giving you some advice for your game. This is Charlie’s Golf Tips.

Charlie Rymer (17:24):

This is the 10th hole here at TPC Myrtle Beach. It’s a par four that measures just 360 yards. Now I’m going to go ahead and hit driver, but at 360 yards. I don’t need my big driver and I think a lot of people don’t understand that you can have more than just one swing with your driver. I’ve heard Bubba Watson talk about having 17 different swings with his driver. That’s a little bit extreme, but I have a couple. I’ve got one where I tee the ball up really high. That’s the one that I’m going after. I’m trying to max out the distance. In this particular case, for my normal teeing height, I’m going to take this ball down just a little bit. And the other adjustment that I’m going to make in my swing is I feel like I’m going to make just a little bit shorter swing. Maybe a little bit smoother.

Charlie Rymer (18:09):

By teeing it down and going a little bit smoother, I’m going to get a ball flat that’s a little bit lower. For me, it’ll peel a little left or right. Not going to max out the distance, but what I like about it is if I miss it a little bit, it gets on the ground quick. I give up a little bit distance, but the dispersion is just a little bit tighter. Let’s see what we get. Tee down lower. I’m going to think about making a three quarter swing. Keeps it low, right up the left side, cutting a little bit. That’ll do.

Charlie Rymer (18:46):

Okay, so here’s the situation, my ball’s in the left side of the fairway. I got 110 yards to the hole. That’s a bad number for me. That’s in between clubs. So I got to either hit a little something or a big something else, but that’s not the way I look at it. You see that flag stick? I can see all of it. That means the wind is going right to left. So what I can do here is I can take the club that goes a little bit farther and try and cut it and hold it up against that wind, that’ll take some yardage off. Or I can take the club that goes a little bit shorter and I can try and hook it and let it ride that wind, and that gives me a little extra distance. In this case, my natural shot’s a cut and I’m going to take one more club. I’m going to try to slice it just a little bit and let that wind hold it up. Damn, I’m good.

Charlie Rymer (19:46):

A lot of people struggle with reading greens and here’s why. I’m walking over to this green from the cart. And I’m looking at this green and what I see, my ball’s higher than the hole, guess what? That means I got a downhill put and I’m seeing the green look a little glassy. That tells me the grain is going that way. So most people, when they’re walking up to a green, they’re texting, they’re checking their score, stocks, they’re going blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah with their buddy. If you play golf with your head up and look at the overall terrain and get an idea of what would happen if there was a foot of water on this green, which way would it drain? By the time you get to the putt, I’m going to tell you what folks, I’ve already read this putt. I know what it’s going to do. It’s hard to hold back talent folks.

Charlie Rymer (20:47):

Sometimes in golf, you hit a perfect drive right down the middle of the fairway and it ends up in a big old nasty divot. And sometimes you slice one off into the woods on the right, it hits a tree and comes back right in the middle of the fairway. Well you know what? Life is exactly like that. All we can do is hit it and go find it again. And it’s how we go about that task that defines who we are. Hope you’ve enjoyed the Charlie Rymer Golf Show and it keep it in the fairway folks!

Charlie Rymer (21:22):

Gun. Gunnar. I got him trained real well, don’t I? Tie your zipper up too. Get loose. Stretch out and everything. I do this. I do a lot of stretches before I do TV work. Probably some of the same things you do before you head out to the golf course. You want to stretch with me like?

Dustin Johnson (21:45):

Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (21:48):

See, don’t you feel better now?

Dustin Johnson (21:50):

Yeah, I feel so much better.

Charlie Rymer (21:51):

Yeah, breathe it.