Birk Nelson, PGA Professional/Orange Whip Trainer
The primary focus of this episode centers on an engaging discussion with Birk Nelson, a distinguished PGA professional and representative of the Orange Whip Trainer. We delve into Birk's rich background, which includes his formative years in Oregon and his evolution as a golfer, leading him to significant tournaments and experiences, including his encounters with elite players such as Tiger Woods. Throughout the dialogue, Birk shares insights on the importance of maintaining an active training regimen, particularly utilizing the Orange Whip as a tool for enhancing rhythm, tempo, and overall swing mechanics. His reflections not only illuminate the nuances of the golfing lifestyle but also underscore the value of persistence and passion in achieving one's goals. We invite our listeners to draw inspiration from Birk's journey, as he exemplifies the intersection of dedication to the sport and personal fulfillment.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Orange Whip
- Westin
- Birdie Ball
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Club Glove
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores a golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in the short grass for the hackers, new sweepers and turf spankers.
Speaker A:Here's Jeff.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to Grilling at the Green here on Golf News Network and in Portland and Seattle and various other towns around the country.
Speaker B:How's your golf game this week?
Speaker B:Did you enjoy the Masters?
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:Today we've got a great guest with us, Burk Nelson from Orange Whip.
Speaker B:He also has played on the Senior Tour, among other things.
Speaker B:He's a PGA professional.
Speaker B:I met Burke this year at the Portland Golf show and had a good time, good chat, and I like his product.
Speaker B:Anyway, Burke, welcome.
Speaker C:Well, thanks for inviting me.
Speaker C:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:No problem.
Speaker B:So let's start with the.
Speaker B:With the resume a little bit, and then we'll get to Orange Whip a little bit later in the show.
Speaker B:How's that?
Speaker C:Like the history of Burke.
Speaker C:Is that where we're at?
Speaker B:History of Burke?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Tell us about that.
Speaker C:You know, Jeff, and I'm proud to say this, I'm an Oregon native, born and raised in Oregon.
Speaker C:And so I.
Speaker C:I grew up in eastern Oregon over in Penalon, out in the country, too.
Speaker C:So kind of a farm boy.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And for me, golf was a family thing.
Speaker C:Our parents would take us out to the golf course.
Speaker C:They're members at Pendaling Country Club, which is now Birch Creek.
Speaker C:But they would take us out there basically for daycare.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Drop us off, and they would play golf.
Speaker C:But we would go swimming.
Speaker C:We would hunt for golf balls.
Speaker C:We still have.
Speaker C:My parents still have hundreds of golf balls that we found at Penalty Club.
Speaker C:This is from the 70s, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And we would go fishing, raise havoc, and sometimes when we got a little bored, we would golf.
Speaker C:And so my summertime was just.
Speaker C:It was golfing, but also doing some farm work, too, you know, feeding the sheep, setting sprinklers.
Speaker C:And we also had some wheat farms, too, that we.
Speaker C:That we harvested.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I was going to say, you probably didn't have to set pivots, so.
Speaker B:Did you.
Speaker B:For the water?
Speaker C:No, no, we had.
Speaker C:We had actually had a hard line, so we had these aluminum sprinklers we had to drag around.
Speaker C:And my mom would say the formation.
Speaker C:Like the what, the h or the 4.
Speaker C:The f formation.
Speaker C:And so we go out there and get stung by bees because we'd always be barefoot.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:And honestly, this all kind of ties together, too.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We be barefoot, and there's a pasture.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:We had a couple Acres down in Pentalind and the wheat farmer somewhere else.
Speaker C:But in the past year, we had sheep.
Speaker C:And the sheep would obviously crap everywhere, and we'd step in the crap, and it'd be a mess, but the sheep would keep that pasture tight as a fairway.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so I used to hit golf balls there, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker C:And so it was great training for me.
Speaker C:It really was.
Speaker C:I still think about those days today.
Speaker C:Just like when I'm not.
Speaker C:When I'm not swinging very well, I think about that tempo and the.
Speaker C:And the.
Speaker C:And being fixated on that target on the far side of the pasture.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:We had a horse farm, and I drugged those damned aluminum pipes around like you were talking, you know, and I.
Speaker B:I kind of stopped having to do it one day when I ran over a couple of them with the pickup.
Speaker B:When my.
Speaker B:I was little and my dad was teaching me to drive, we had a three on the column Chevy.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And he.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And he said, hit the brakes.
Speaker B:And I hit the clutch and the gas, and we just ran right over this pipe and just flattened it in two spots.
Speaker B:You know, tire tracks.
Speaker B:I think that's the last time I had to drive.
Speaker B:Are drag pipes, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We all also had little obstacles like that going on in our pasture one time.
Speaker C:I'll never forget that we had a ram that wasn't very happy.
Speaker C:And so trying to avoid Hermey was his name was.
Speaker C:Was an endeavor getting those sprinklers done and trying to avoid her.
Speaker C:Me at the same time.
Speaker B:I love it now when you.
Speaker B:Once you got to put on some shoes and maybe hit balls at the golf course.
Speaker B:Did you think that this is your vocation going forward?
Speaker B:Is this what you wanted to do?
Speaker C:You know, I think like all.
Speaker C:Like all kids, you know, when they're young, they dream about everything, being football, baseball, basketball, everything.
Speaker C:And then as you go through middle school and high school, you start specializing, Right.
Speaker C:And so it started becoming clear to me that that golf is my thing.
Speaker C:I liked it.
Speaker C:I was good at it and started focusing in on that.
Speaker C:And so that was really kind of my sophomore year, and I think that's probably the first year I shot even par.
Speaker C:But I was.
Speaker C:I was starting to like, hey, this is something I can do.
Speaker C:And I loved it.
Speaker C:I started reading books about it.
Speaker C:I started playing my first tournaments.
Speaker C:Now.
Speaker C:Now, here's the thing is I didn't play a ton of tournaments because being from Penalyn, there weren't a whole lot of tournaments to play in.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:It wasn't like I was living in Portland, going down to Salem and up to Vancouver or anything to play golf tournaments.
Speaker C:I only had a handful of tournaments and I remember one, I got my license.
Speaker C:My parents sent me away to the Dalles and I went to the dalles and there's 18 hole tournament.
Speaker C:I've never played the course in my life.
Speaker C:And it blew, it blew so hard.
Speaker C:And I grew, you know, being from Penalyn, I grew up in the wind, so that wasn't a big deal.
Speaker C:And I, I shot 75.
Speaker C:I didn't feel that great about the round, but when everything said, said and done, I won.
Speaker C:And so I, I drove home, my parents trust me for the first time with the car and I drove home and I get out of the car and they said, how'd you do?
Speaker C:I said, I won.
Speaker C:So and you know, yeah is really what kind of set me like on that course of this is where what I want to do.
Speaker C:This is so much fun.
Speaker B:Did you go directly from the wheat fields to Oregon State?
Speaker C:I did, I did.
Speaker C:I have no idea how I made it to Oregon State's golf team.
Speaker C:I didn't have a scholarship, I just had a spot on the team.
Speaker C:But I, I remember that the head coach at the time, Todd Rothfuss, came out to watch me.
Speaker C:He watched me play in the Oregon Amate.
Speaker C:He watched me play one hole and I hooked it in the trees.
Speaker C:I'll never forget this hole.
Speaker C:I hooked in the trees at Waverly.
Speaker C:I hooked in the trees.
Speaker C:I hooked it out of the trees, over the green, and then I chunked my chip and then I made the putt for par.
Speaker C:And then he just, he walked away.
Speaker C:That was it.
Speaker C:That's all.
Speaker C:That was my audition.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You impressed the hell out.
Speaker C:Oh, man.
Speaker C:And so before I knew it though, I had a spot on the team.
Speaker C:Well, at least so I thought.
Speaker C:And it came to be that Todd Rolfous got let go that summer and then Steve Altman became the head coach.
Speaker C:But Steve Altman didn't know me.
Speaker C:He didn't recruit me, and I didn't know if I had a spot on the team.
Speaker C:I didn't know if Steve Altman had the notes from Rolfus that Burke's on the team.
Speaker C:So I show up to school early and I'm sitting there with another kid who thought he had a spot on the team.
Speaker C:And we wait for Altman to come into the golf course and let everyone know what's going on.
Speaker C:And he said, burke, you have a spot on the team and the other kid didn't.
Speaker C:And I don't know why to this day, but I took that position at Oregon State and ran with it.
Speaker C:It was great.
Speaker C:And in fact, what was.
Speaker C:I feel like this was part of my success at Oregon State is I was hungry.
Speaker C:I came out of Pendalon High School not playing a ton of tournaments, not playing a ton of junior tournaments.
Speaker C:And now I have this opportunity to practice and play to my heart's content.
Speaker C:And I was just a pig in mud, right?
Speaker C:All these other kids, you know, they've been playing golf their entire life, junior golf, they've been playing tournaments all summer long.
Speaker C:And they may have been a little burned out, but not me.
Speaker C:And so what that led to was a.
Speaker C:A really good practice routine.
Speaker C:I was.
Speaker C:I practiced all the time.
Speaker C:You know, people ask me what my major was in college, and I said it was golf.
Speaker C:Yeah, it was what I spent my time doing.
Speaker C:And so that freshman year wasn't.
Speaker C:Wasn't the greatest year, though.
Speaker C:At Oregon State, I.
Speaker C:I qualified for the first tournament and I played pretty good, except I was a.
Speaker C:You know, being a rookie, you're gonna make a rookie mistake.
Speaker C:And I made the ultimate rookie mistake.
Speaker C:This is at Dayton Valley down in Carson City.
Speaker C:I feel like I got the course name wrong, but Arnold Palmer Golf Course.
Speaker C:And I hit the wrong ball on a hole, which.
Speaker C:Which is fine, two stroke penalty.
Speaker C:But what I didn't know is I didn't know I was hitting the wrong ball.
Speaker C:And I hold out with it on that hole, and you're.
Speaker C:If you hole out with the wrong ball, you're disqualified, right?
Speaker C:And so I got disqualified from that round.
Speaker C:And so I had to, hat in hand, I had to come to my coach and say, you know, tail between my legs and say, do you know what?
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I played pretty good today, but I got disqualified.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So I didn't see another event until the end of the season that freshman year when I played the PAC 10 championship.
Speaker C:And this is another interesting story, Jeff, that, you know, I practiced all year long, and the pac tennis comes up and we try to qualify for it, and Phil Mickelson's in this PAC 10 championship, right?
Speaker C: This is: Speaker C:1992, excuse me, at Tristan 3.
Speaker C:And I didn't make the top five guys to qualify for the event.
Speaker C:And so I felt bad, but whatever, I kept on practicing at the golf course.
Speaker C:Well, lo and behold, the fifth guy on the team injures himself in mountain biking.
Speaker C:And so now coach needs to fill that spot.
Speaker C:And who's he looking at?
Speaker C:He's looking at the only guy that didn't stop practicing once the season was over.
Speaker C:And that was me.
Speaker B:That was you?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so I went in and I played great.
Speaker C:That PAC 10 championship, in fact, that turned out PAC 10's turned out to be a really good tournament for me overall, where I had a good freshman year.
Speaker C:My sophomore year I finished fourth, My junior year I finished second, and my senior year I finished second.
Speaker C:I can never quite win it, but.
Speaker B:I was always right there, always in the run.
Speaker B:Hey, we're going to take a break and Burke and I will be back here on Grilling at the Green in just a minute or so.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, JT here.
Speaker D:You know, every week on grilling at the Green, we bring you a travel tip, and that is brought to you by the Westin dealerships.
Speaker D:I've known those guys since I was a kid, and they have one way of doing business.
Speaker D:It's called the Westin way.
Speaker D:It's family oriented, and there's no better people to deal with.
Speaker D:Check out Weston Kio on Southeast Stark in Gresham, Oregon.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:I'm jt.
Speaker B:I want to thank some folks here that make this show possible.
Speaker B:The folks at Birdie Ball.
Speaker B:If you need a practice putting mat, check out birdieball.com they've got lots of choices.
Speaker B:And be sure and get a dozen birdie balls to practice with in your backyard or wherever you might to have a chance to practice.
Speaker B:And also the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker B:We've got Burke Nelson with us today.
Speaker B:I met Burke at the Portland Golf show this year.
Speaker B:I don't think we'd met prior to that for some reason.
Speaker C:No, no, we haven't.
Speaker B:But we are.
Speaker B:Burke is with Orange Whip, also a PGA pro and all that.
Speaker B:And so before we get back into that, Burke, this is the part of the show where I always ask somebody for a travel tip, especially for golf.
Speaker B:A lot of people say, you know, protect your club heads or whatever, and that's fine.
Speaker B:But we've also had some interesting ones, like wrap your underwear around, you know, your driver or something like that.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:What Burt Nelson's travel tip.
Speaker C:This is a good one.
Speaker C:You got.
Speaker C:You got me off guard a little bit here.
Speaker C:So I got to think about it.
Speaker C:You know, you already said protect your golf clubs.
Speaker C:And one of my travel tips is, you know, I work for the Orange Whip trainer, which is a.
Speaker C:The absolutely best training aid, but one of the benefits of the orange whip trainers is 47 inches long, which is just a smidge longer than your driver.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So the Orange Whip also serves as a club protector in my golf bag, too.
Speaker C:So when I do travel with it.
Speaker C:But I don't want to do that because that's kind of a layup already, Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I got to think about this with the.
Speaker C:With the golf bag, because I do travel a lot with my golf equipment, and, man, I.
Speaker C:I get on a scale, and I make sure that thing is 49 pounds, not over 50 pounds, but I get everything in there that I can for shoes, obviously, golf balls, rain gear, umbrella, extra golf clubs.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I put everything in that bag.
Speaker C:I wrap everything with a towel.
Speaker C:I usually bring two golf towels, and I wrap my.
Speaker C:My golf clubs are so important to me, especially my irons.
Speaker C:I don't want them clicking back and forth on the right.
Speaker C:And so I definitely wrap them all with a.
Speaker C:With a.
Speaker C:With a nice towel.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:The best golf club company I've ever, ever been around as far as travel equipment is a club glove.
Speaker C:Club glove.
Speaker C:They have just the best travel.
Speaker C:I got a couple of their travel bags.
Speaker C:One for my small bag, another one for my big bag.
Speaker C:And then I have my suitcase, which is club glove, and it works in tandem with my golf bag.
Speaker C:So I can just go through the airport, like a little.
Speaker C:Little tiny train with my bag and my golf club all connected together.
Speaker C:And then I have, like, a little matching laptop bag that goes with it, too.
Speaker C:So that's.
Speaker C:That's my greatest little travel.
Speaker C:I feel like I'm just, like, all set up nice and tight and ready to go.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've drugged golf clubs through the airports many times, and sometimes it's not much fun.
Speaker B:Sometimes you get lucky and you just get them checked or whatever, and boom, boom, you know?
Speaker B:And then other times, not so much.
Speaker B:So I want to thank the folks, my good friends over at Weston Kia in Graham, the number one Kia dealer there in Oregon, and they do things the Weston way in Gresham.
Speaker B:Go to Weston kia.com.
Speaker B:so we're talking about.
Speaker B:You're coming up through the ranks.
Speaker B:And you.
Speaker B:You also played TW at one point, and not too many people can play him survive to talk about it.
Speaker B:But you did, right?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Tiger and I played together, actually three times together, which is great.
Speaker C:We played over in New York was the first time we played together.
Speaker C:There's a tournament called the Porter Cup.
Speaker C:And then a few months after that, we met at a tournament that was Just televised this last week, college term called the Western Intercollegiate.
Speaker C:Now I was part of a, supposed to be a feature foursome with Tiger, myself and Aaron Oberhauser.
Speaker C:And I somehow made that foursome because I won two big tournaments that summer before and that was the PNGA Championship and the Pacific Coast Amateur.
Speaker C:And, and so Aaron Oberhauser decided not to play with us in that tournament.
Speaker C:He didn't want the pressure because there's going to be televised for the first time this sure.
Speaker C:Tiger effect, right?
Speaker C:And so Aaron doesn't play with us, so we play some, their number two guy from San Jose State.
Speaker C:And, and, and, and we had a great time.
Speaker C:It was so much fun.
Speaker C:And I got some stories from that.
Speaker C:I even got some video from that because someone has given me the footage I got on, on VHS tape and I still, it's, it's so fun to watch.
Speaker C:In fact, one of the, one of the videos I do it, I show it during some of my presentations.
Speaker C:It's on the 16th hole, kind of a famous hole at Pasa Tampa.
Speaker C:It's a three tiered green and I hit my shot in there and it hits the stick and rattles the flag and ends up about 12ft away.
Speaker C:And then Tiger comes over and gives me a high five and everyone's like, oh, that's amazing.
Speaker C:So mad respect, right?
Speaker C:Mad respect.
Speaker C:And so I always like that.
Speaker C:But, but Tiger and I met a few weeks after that at the PAC 10 championship.
Speaker C:And this was at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, California.
Speaker C:And we were in the final round together and the final group, the final round.
Speaker C:And when you play a Tiger, the number one goal is you want to beat Tiger, right?
Speaker C:If you're going to play a Tiger, you want to beat Tiger.
Speaker C:And so this is a great opportunity for me to beat Tiger.
Speaker C:Final round, final group.
Speaker C:Everyone's going to look at what those players shot when they come in.
Speaker C:And long story short, I beat him that day.
Speaker C:I shot 68, he shot 71.
Speaker C:I got him, right?
Speaker C:I got him.
Speaker C:And it felt so good.
Speaker C:But here's the problem, Jeff, is I took second to him in the tournament, so I beat him by three for the day, but I took second in the tournament.
Speaker C:And a question I always ask everyone is like, how many shots do you think I lost by?
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:And so I'm going to give you, I'm going to have you guess.
Speaker C:How many shots do you think I lost by?
Speaker C:I beat it by three in the final round to take second to him.
Speaker B:I'm guessing because I never I didn't read any of this beforehand, so I'm going to say 4, 14.
Speaker C:You're 10 off 14 shots.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:And so I thought that was so funny because, you know, at the US Open, I think he won by like 13 shots or something like that or anything else, but 14 shots.
Speaker C:And I played.
Speaker C:I played my guts out in that tournament, and I thought that was so funny to beat it by three shots in the final round and to lose by 14.
Speaker C:But I knew going to that final round, I was down by 17 shots, right.
Speaker C:And I thought to myself, if I birdie every hole today and he shoots even par, I'm going to win this tournament.
Speaker C:And, Jeff, guess what?
Speaker C:I went out and birdied the first hole, and I thought, it's going to happen.
Speaker C:Well, it didn't happen, but, you know, that was.
Speaker C:That was a Tiger effect, too.
Speaker C:It was really humbling.
Speaker C:Here I was.
Speaker C:I thought I was an extremely good player.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I was winning some big tournaments, and.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I played great in the Pac 10 championship, and I lose by 14 shots.
Speaker C:You know, I didn't play bad.
Speaker C:I played very good.
Speaker B:Yeah, but he was on another level a lot of times in his career.
Speaker C:He was on another level.
Speaker C:Yeah, he was on another level.
Speaker C:I mean, it was just.
Speaker C:It was different.
Speaker C:He played different golf.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Than anyone else.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:But it was definitely awesome playing with him.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And that's what brought me.
Speaker B:Oh, gonna take.
Speaker B:We're gonna take another quick break, but Burke and I'll be back right after this.
Speaker B:More starving artist stories.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker B:We'll be right back.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, it's J.T.
Speaker D:you know, I talk about painted hills all the time, and we always say beef the way nature intended.
Speaker D:But it's more than that, because each bite of Painted Hills will make your taste buds explode.
Speaker D:Big, bright smile on your face, and whoever's at your dinner table will have a big, bright smile on their face.
Speaker D:And you can thank me for that later.
Speaker D:Just go to painted hillsbeef.com and find out more.
Speaker B:You won't regret it.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grill Anti Green.
Speaker B:I'm JT and we got Burke Nelson with us today from Orange Whip Trainer.
Speaker B:We also like to thank the guys up at Birdie Wrap.
Speaker B:If you ever get a little sore spot or nick on your fingers and you get old, like I'm old.
Speaker B:Even though Burke's got a gray beard, he is not as old as I am.
Speaker B:I know that for a fact.
Speaker C:I got a neck on my finger.
Speaker B:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker B:And that birdie Wrap stuff is really good.
Speaker B:It's kind of like K tape, but it breathes better and is stretchy.
Speaker B:So go to birdy wrap.com right there.
Speaker B:I've got it on my bag.
Speaker B:I use it all the time.
Speaker B:Anyway, we're.
Speaker B:I want to talk more a little bit and then we'll get into the Orange Whip trainer.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:A little bit more about the starving artist stuff.
Speaker B:So what was the, the, the epiphany or when you finally said, okay, I got to get a real job?
Speaker B:You mentioned this in the last segment.
Speaker B:I got to get a real job.
Speaker B:But where does.
Speaker B:I mean, people would think normally you would go, okay, let's go be a club pro.
Speaker B:Or let's, you know, there's certain things you kind of check the boxes on when you think about pro golfers.
Speaker B:You know, you're a tour player, you're a club pro, you're a head teaching guy, whatever, but.
Speaker B:And you've done kind of all of that, but you also are in business, real business.
Speaker B:Outside of that, what was the epiphany when you said, okay, I gotta quit, and how do I go about finding this other line of work?
Speaker C:Well, you know, I, I know I wanted to stay in golf, right?
Speaker C:Because my passion, that was all my experiences, everything I ever did.
Speaker C:And, and so when, when the realization came to me, it was really easy.
Speaker C:I had a lot of good connections around the state, but I was in Eugene and beyond.
Speaker C:I went to Oregon State in Corvallis.
Speaker C:So Eugene wasn't like my native terror.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You were in the DMZ down there, buddy.
Speaker C:I was, I was, I was so.
Speaker C:I felt like I was kind of a Mormon on a mission, just trying to spreading the gospel.
Speaker C:Oregon State University and in the city of Eugene.
Speaker C:But I went around to different golf courses and basically I dropped off an application and lo and behold, I get a phone call back from Diamond Woods Golf Course.
Speaker C:A golf course is kind of out of the way near Junction City Golf Course.
Speaker C:Fantastic.
Speaker C:Owners of Jeff Doyle and his wife Liz, and his brother Greg Doyle.
Speaker C:And he called me and he made me an offer to be the head pro.
Speaker C:I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker C:You know, I have no experience, but Jeff was a baseball star and he played for Oregon State and then he went and played Major league Baseball.
Speaker C:He's an awesome person, but he knew my history and he made some phone calls and he felt secure bringing me in as the head pro.
Speaker C:So Jeff, after retiring from baseball, he used his, you know, the money they made from baseball to buy some Property and develop a golf course.
Speaker C:You know, a diamond in a Ralph or diamond woods, like base, like a baseball diamond.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:It was.
Speaker C:It was beautiful.
Speaker C:And so it was.
Speaker C:I tell you what, it was fantastic.
Speaker C:There's.
Speaker C:I worked out there for six years.
Speaker C:I had so much fun as the head pro at that golf course.
Speaker C:It was great.
Speaker C:And that's when I joined the pga, got my membership.
Speaker C:But here's the thing is, I quickly realized it's hard to be a head pro and also a father at the same time, you know, because you work weekends, you work holidays, you work all summer long.
Speaker C:And so it dawned on me that, you know, what I am.
Speaker C:I'm not going to be.
Speaker C:It's hard to be too hard to be a good father and work at this golf course, in this golf business at the same time.
Speaker C:And so I got out of golf.
Speaker C:I quit golf for about seven years.
Speaker C:I worked in the IT world, company called CBT Nuggets.
Speaker C:And it was the first time in my life where, you know, it's like a change in identity because I was a golfer, and all of a sudden, I wasn't a golfer anymore.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so it didn't take me, you know, it took me seven years.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But you realize, like, you know, enjoyment in what you do in life is.
Speaker C:Is super important.
Speaker C:You know, if you could find something that you enjoy doing, you can make a living at it, and you're good at it.
Speaker C:You found happiness in life.
Speaker C:And I knew golf was my calling, but I knew I didn't want to be behind the counter anymore at the golf shop.
Speaker C:My kids are too important to me.
Speaker C:So I used to sell a product in my golf shop called the Orange Whip.
Speaker C:And the Orange Whip was invented by a teammate of mine at Oregon State University, Jim Hackenberg.
Speaker B:Yay.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so that's when I gave them a call.
Speaker C:I said, hey, I'm PGA professional.
Speaker C:I'm here over on the West Coast.
Speaker C:You guys know me.
Speaker C:Is there any way I could come on board and help this product out that I.
Speaker C:That I love so much?
Speaker C:And they said, yeah, it'd be great.
Speaker C:And so, man, I think that was about eight years ago, and it's.
Speaker C:It's been a great partnership ever since where I.
Speaker C:I help them out with sales, I help them out with marketing, I help them out with education.
Speaker C:So I go to different teaching conferences and talk to other PGA pros about our products and how to use them.
Speaker C:And it's so much fun because it's using my skill set, getting me out in front of the people that I know and respect and selling a product that I absolutely love.
Speaker B:I know, Burke, that there's knockoffs of your product, right?
Speaker B:Because I actually had one at one point, and then when I.
Speaker B:All seriousness, I chucked it after I met you, because I picked it up.
Speaker B:I came home one night from the golf show, and I went in the closet and got it, and I picked it up.
Speaker B:And the next day I picked one of yours up and swung one of yours at the golf show.
Speaker B:Yours was heavier and more like swinging a real club instead of a stick with an orange ball stuck on the end of it.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:Now, that's our.
Speaker C:That's our patent, though, right?
Speaker C:So there's lots of copies of the Orange Whip, but nothing can copy the counterweight.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:Counterweight is the patent of the Orange Whip.
Speaker C:And so what you'll see in some of these golf shops, they come from China, right?
Speaker C:And so they're long.
Speaker C:They have a yellow or a gray or green ball on the end of them, but they don't have a counterweight.
Speaker C:Sometimes they try to look like they have a counterweight.
Speaker C:They have a colored end on the end of the grip, but they don't have a counterweight.
Speaker C:And without that counterweight, that's the important part of the Orange Whip.
Speaker C:That's what brings the balance in.
Speaker C:Like you're talking about, it might be heavier, but it swings more like a golf club.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:But more importantly, what that counterweight does is when you're swinging an Orange Whip back and forth, that counterweight makes sure that club stays on the same plane.
Speaker C:It's a lot like a bicycle wheel rotating.
Speaker C:What do they call that?
Speaker C:Rotational inertia.
Speaker C:And so when something is rotating, it doesn't fall over until it stopped.
Speaker C:And when you swing an Orange Whip on that swing plane, it likes to stay on the swing plane.
Speaker C:So if someone is fighting, coming over the top or getting shallow, if they swing one of those little Chinese knockoffs, it's not going to stop them from doing that.
Speaker C:But if you swing an Orange Whip, it's gently going to guide you into that proper swing plane back and forth.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:I actually, I need to get.
Speaker B:I got my.
Speaker B:I got my producer, my editor, an Orange Whip from you at the golf show.
Speaker B:But I didn't buy myself once to.
Speaker C:I get to get you an orange.
Speaker C:I'm making a note right now making.
Speaker B:Get a.
Speaker B:Give me an Orange Whip there.
Speaker B:One of the things that I found fascinating about it, where we live and if you're not in the.
Speaker B:The daily routine, of going to the course and hitting balls or whatever.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Up here in the northwest, we tend to sit on our butts a lot during the winter because of the weather.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's some covered, like where I live.
Speaker B:Langdon Farms is not far away, and they've got a covered range there, you know, you can stay at.
Speaker B:But most of the courses, you're out in the open, and a lot of people won't do that.
Speaker B:And so what?
Speaker B:And we all think we're going to get up and we're going to go to the pool or we're going to go walk five miles or whatever the hell we're going to do, but we.
Speaker B:Most of us don't do it.
Speaker B:But one of the things I found fascinating in talking to you at the golf show was it's a good way to kind of.
Speaker B:The orange whip is kind of a good way to work into getting back, you know, getting your swing back, getting the muscles stretched out, getting a little bit of exercise without thinking you're going to suit up and go to the gym for two hours.
Speaker B:That's what that was.
Speaker B:One of the takes I got from it was it's a good way to go out on your deck or wherever you've got room, you know, and.
Speaker B:And make 10, 20 swings, whatever.
Speaker B:Just kind of start the process for the year.
Speaker C:So, Jeff, this is what I've come to the conclusion, playing with so many good players over my career, and it's real easy, is the people that play the best golf, especially at my age, where I am right now, the people that are playing the best golf are the ones that are constantly training, constantly playing, practicing, swinging the golf club.
Speaker C:And sometimes that entails them going down to the desert to go work with a golf instructor, go play golf down there.
Speaker C:But inevitably, they're all playing and swinging more times than I am throughout the year, right?
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:So I realized that this last season, and.
Speaker C:And so I'm like, okay, so here.
Speaker C:Here's the problem.
Speaker C:I understand that if you want to get better at anything, at life, you need to put in more reps, right?
Speaker C:If you want to be better at darts, you got to throw more darts.
Speaker C:If you want to get better at shooting free throws, you got to shoot more free throws.
Speaker C:If you want to get better at golf.
Speaker C:Golf, it's all about making more golf swings.
Speaker C:But the problem is, I don't want to go to the golf course and hit balls off mats.
Speaker C:I hate hitting off mats.
Speaker C:I hate hitting.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I don't want to hit in the rain.
Speaker C:I Don't want to hit in the wind or the cold or the mud, and I'm getting too old for that.
Speaker C:I don't want to go out there and do that again.
Speaker C:It'll last for a half hour and it's in there and it's no fun, right?
Speaker C:I used to do it in college, but I don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker C:But, but the problem arises that I want to get better at golf, right?
Speaker C:These guys are out working me, and they're playing better than me, and, and how am I going to beat them if.
Speaker C:If they're putting in the reps and I'm not?
Speaker C:Well, what I did, not this winter, but the winter before, is I made a dedicated workout routine during the winter time that, you know, I do a normal workout, but every day I'm swinging an orange whip.
Speaker C:I'm swinging the orange whip right hand.
Speaker C:I'm swinging the left handed.
Speaker C:So I'm getting my reps in, right?
Speaker C:So I'm getting my reps in.
Speaker C:And I had some motivation.
Speaker C:I was.
Speaker C:I qualified for the US Senior PGA Championship, right?
Speaker C:Summer.
Speaker C:So this was, this was last year.
Speaker C:And so I knew I was kind of prepping for that.
Speaker C:I knew I wanted.
Speaker C:I didn't want to take too much time off the game prepping for that tournament.
Speaker C:So I, I got my reps in preparing for that.
Speaker C:But lo and behold, right after that Senior PGA Championship, I also qualified for the senior U.S.
Speaker C:open.
Speaker C:And so I had.
Speaker C:I had some really good things going on.
Speaker C:And I felt deep down that I was.
Speaker C:I put in the time and deserved to play well.
Speaker C:Well, the funny thing is, I didn't play that well at the Senior PGA Championship.
Speaker C:But at the senior U.S.
Speaker C:open, there's a different story.
Speaker C:I came out, I.
Speaker C:I knew what to expect.
Speaker C:I felt more comfortable out there, right?
Speaker C:And, and all of a sudden, you know, I'm.
Speaker C:I'm playing.
Speaker C:I'm on the putting green with Vijay Singh, right?
Speaker C:I'm on the putting green with.
Speaker C:With Darren Clark or Steve Stricker or Bernard Langer.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I'm with all these guys out there preparing for this tournament, you know, and I felt.
Speaker C:I'll be honest, I felt like a fish out of water.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker B:Well, I'm sure, yeah, they call it.
Speaker C:What, an imposter syndrome.
Speaker C:But I also know that it's not me against Vijay.
Speaker C:It's not me against Lee Westwood.
Speaker C:It's not me against Steve Stricker.
Speaker C:It's me against the golf course.
Speaker C:And I have an advantage is I play hard.
Speaker C:Golf courses really well, and I play really well in the wind.
Speaker C:And guess what?
Speaker C:That U.S.
Speaker C:senior Open was really windy and the course was really hard.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so I went out and I shot 70 that first round, which was even par in the windiest afternoon you've ever seen.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But I knew if I could get through that 70 over that, that first round, it was going to get easier after that because the next morning, I was going to play the next morning, less wind, right?
Speaker C:And I shot 68 that next morning and made the cut easily at that Senior Open.
Speaker C:So now I am sitting there.
Speaker C:Now I'm really a fish out of water because I am.
Speaker C:I'm looking at the pairings.
Speaker C:I'm playing with Mark Hensby and Stephen Alker, right?
Speaker C:Stephen Alker won the Charles Schwab Cup.
Speaker C:He's the number one player on the Senior Tour.
Speaker C:And I'm paired with him in the third round.
Speaker C:And once again, it's not me against Steve Alker.
Speaker C:It's me against the golf course, Newport Country Club.
Speaker C:And I go around that day, and I'm just having an all right, damn one over after nine holes and, and lo and behold, I hole it out on the 10th hole for eagle out of the middle of the fairway.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker B:Oh, good for you.
Speaker C:It put me at 10 under, and I mean, excuse me, at 1 under for the day.
Speaker C:And I should.
Speaker C:And I'm.
Speaker C:I've.
Speaker C:I think I pared out from there the rest of the rest of the holes, which was great to finish.
Speaker C:1 under for the round, 3 under total for the tournament.
Speaker C:And then I'm like, holy cow, I'm in 20th place at this tournament, and I'm playing among these elites.
Speaker C:Who am I going to play with tomorrow?
Speaker C:Well, guess what?
Speaker C:I play with Stephen Ames and Padraig Harrington, right?
Speaker C:Once again, fish out of water.
Speaker C:This is Burke.
Speaker C:This is Burke.
Speaker C:This is Burke from Eugene, Oregon, who works from his couch in the wintertime while these guys are down in Florida or Arizona hitting golf balls with their golf coach.
Speaker C:But I had an advantage.
Speaker C:I swung that Orange Whip all winter long.
Speaker C:I was getting my reps in just like they were getting their reps in.
Speaker C:And so, and that's how I figure I was able to hang with these guys, was I may have taken the winner off from golf, but I didn't take it off from golf swings.
Speaker C:Yeah, Yeah, I went around that round.
Speaker C:I shot even par that round.
Speaker C:I beat Padre for the day.
Speaker C:I finished 16th at the tournament and made a nice check and, and, and felt really proud for, for representing the Northwest.
Speaker C:You know, I was the only player from the Northwest in the tournament, and so it felt great.
Speaker B:Well, good for you, Burke.
Speaker B:We're going to take one more quick break, and Burke and I'll be back to wrap up the show.
Speaker B:You're listening to Grilling at the Green on the Golf News Network.
Speaker B:We'll be right back.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, J.T.
Speaker B:Here.
Speaker D:If you need something to practice with in the inclement weather, try birdie ball.
Speaker D:Go to birdieball.com check out the actual birdie balls, their packages, their putting greens, which I happen to have a couple of those, and they work great.
Speaker D:Birdieball.com.
Speaker B:Welcome back to.
Speaker B:What's the name of the show?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, Grilling at the Green today.
Speaker B:We've got Burke Nelson with us.
Speaker B:Brook's gonna stick around for after hours and suffer.
Speaker B:Suffer that abuse with me.
Speaker B:Trust me, he doesn't know about that, but he will.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker B:Well, for some people, it's fun for me.
Speaker B:I don't know how it'll be for you, but if you look back on your career and to everything that's gotten, you know, I.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:Let me back up a step.
Speaker B:I am of the beliefs that you're where you're supposed to be in life because you've taken everything you've done, has put you where you are today.
Speaker B:That's for you, that's for me, that's for everybody.
Speaker B:Some good, some bad.
Speaker B:And I'm a big believer in choices.
Speaker B:But if you look back on your career, would you have changed anything?
Speaker B:You seem pretty happy with where you're at.
Speaker C:Well, do you know what?
Speaker C:I am happy because I feel like the secret to happiness, right?
Speaker C:I have a job in a career that I'm good at, that I have passion behind.
Speaker C:You can be good at something and not have passion behind it, but I'm good at passion behind it, and I can make a living doing it.
Speaker C:And that's what the orange wood trainer.
Speaker C:But I also.
Speaker C:I'm able to give back to the sport by giving golf lessons at the local golf course.
Speaker C:And that's really fulfilling for me, helping juniors and ladies out with a game of golf.
Speaker C:But I also play golf, too, and playing is my passion.
Speaker C:And so I really do feel like I've found the secret to happiness in this game of golf is I have this balance in life where I can be a father to my children, but also have balance throughout the game, which is fantastic.
Speaker C:And I love it.
Speaker C:You know, if I.
Speaker C:If I was on Tour, if I was given a membership on the Tour.
Speaker C:I don't know if I'd want it.
Speaker C:I don't want to go out there for three weeks and play.
Speaker C:I don't want to be away that long.
Speaker C:I like going down.
Speaker C:Like, this evening.
Speaker C:I'm going to go play pickleball down at the court and have a good time with my neighbors.
Speaker C:And so it's a.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:Being around home feels a lot better to me.
Speaker C:But with that being said, if I did one thing different, it was funny because golf was my major in college.
Speaker C:I wasn't going to graduate in four years.
Speaker C:I was going to graduate in five.
Speaker C:And so my senior year, my fourth year, I decided to red shirt and.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:And so I played, you know, my.
Speaker C:My freshman, sophomore, junior, then I redshirted.
Speaker C:Then came back my fifth year to play golf.
Speaker C:I thought I was going to be able to develop physically, develop mentally and.
Speaker C:And really dominate this game coming back.
Speaker C:The problem, though, Jeff, is I started trying to.
Speaker C:Because I had a whole year off just practicing with the team but not playing.
Speaker C:I spent the whole year working on a golf swing, trying to perfect it that wasn't broken.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I was watching videos.
Speaker C:I was trying to get in positions.
Speaker C:I was already hitting the ball fantastic.
Speaker C:I didn't need to change anything.
Speaker C:So if I were to change one thing, I would have.
Speaker C:Maybe I would have Richard that year, but I definitely wouldn't have worked on my golf swing like I did.
Speaker C:I would have just played.
Speaker B:Yeah, I, you know.
Speaker B:Well, we saw Tiger do that a few times.
Speaker B:I mean, he.
Speaker B:Back in, you know, 97 through 205 or whatever it was.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:I think he changed his swing twice.
Speaker B:Who was.
Speaker B:Whose swing was better to begin with, I don't know.
Speaker C:But he may have had better people around him when he was changing his swing than I did.
Speaker B:Well, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Speaker B:But my question is, I guess it's something that he felt internally that he had to do.
Speaker B:But if you looked at it, the average person looking at it wouldn't have noticed that much of a difference.
Speaker B:He did Tour pros, did teaching, professionals, noticed little, you know, idiosyncrasies in the swing that.
Speaker B:That he changed.
Speaker C:But I think he's already playing great golf, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, he's the.
Speaker B:He's at the highest level you can probably get to at that time, you know.
Speaker B:And anyway, I'm just like, okay, you do what you do, you know?
Speaker C:So if I went back in time, I definitely wouldn't have tried to work on my swing.
Speaker C:I wouldn't have.
Speaker C:I would have just played.
Speaker B:Okay, so I want to go back to Orange Whip for a second.
Speaker B:How can people find it?
Speaker B:Find you?
Speaker B:Find out any more information about it.
Speaker B:I got to get that in the show always.
Speaker C:So, yeah, so the Orange Rip, fantastic product.
Speaker C:A lot of people use it for rhythm, tempo and balance.
Speaker C:And the beauty of it, it's so simple to use.
Speaker C:All you do is swing it.
Speaker C:But you can find it.
Speaker C:You can find it anywhere.
Speaker C:You find it online at Orange Whip Trainer.
Speaker C:You can find it at golf retailer.
Speaker C:So that's Dick's Born Goods or Golf Galaxy or up in the Northwest here it's going to be Putz Golf or Pro Golf Discount or Fiddler's Green or Red Tail.
Speaker C:In Portland, they all carry the Orange Whip Trainer.
Speaker C:We also customize Orange Whip trainers now.
Speaker C:So if you have school colors or anything you want to match, you can easily go online, adjust those colors.
Speaker C:It's already orange black for Oregon State.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker C:I don't have to change that and get it in there.
Speaker C:But it's a fantastic training tool and it's.
Speaker C:And it's easy to find.
Speaker C:Even get it on Amazon.
Speaker C:We manage our Amazon account.
Speaker C:So if you're buying from Amazon, you're buying it from us.
Speaker B:Well, that's cool you do that.
Speaker B:I noticed because we talked about this a couple weeks ago, you do the.
Speaker B:Kind of.
Speaker B:Got a patriotic theme too on one of them, right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's kind of cool looking.
Speaker C:That's a really cool one.
Speaker C:That went well.
Speaker C:So the PGA's really hit a home run with their PGA Hope program.
Speaker C:And so that's where they are putting veterans together, disabled veterans, to learn the game of golf.
Speaker C:And so the Orange Whip has been integral in letting them learn golf, even if it requires adaptive training.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:They might be missing an arm and still swinging an Orange Whip to help them understand how the rhythm and tempo is important.
Speaker B:Oh, cool.
Speaker B:Burk Nelson, Orange Whip Trainer Just south of me about 90 miles.
Speaker B:Been great to have you on the show.
Speaker B:Stick around for after hours.
Speaker C:I mentioned one thing.
Speaker C:If anyone's interested, follow me.
Speaker C:This, this summer I'm playing in the U.S.
Speaker C:senior PNG.
Speaker C:Excuse me.
Speaker C:The Senior PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club in Washington, D.C.
Speaker C:you need a caddy up in the third.
Speaker C:What's that?
Speaker C:Do I need a cat?
Speaker C:No, that's gonna be.
Speaker C:That's gonna be Jim Hackenberg from the Orange Whip.
Speaker B:Okay, good for you.
Speaker B:We will be following.
Speaker B:We'll probably.
Speaker B:We'll mention it on the show prior to the event.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:We'll get you some Love that way.
Speaker B:Burke Nelson orange whip trainer.
Speaker B:We'll be back next week with another edition of grilling at the green.
Speaker B:I'm J.T.
Speaker B:we want to thank Burke again.
Speaker B:He's going to be here for after hours.
Speaker B:Till then, go out, play some golf, have some fun.
Speaker B:But most of all, be kind.
Speaker B:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Grilling at the green is produced by JTSD Productions, llc in association with Salem media group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
