Rinker’s Golf Tips August 10th Guest Darius Rucker. Darius Rucker started playing golf at the age of 14 with his best friend and father, and they ended up giving him his first set of clubs. I asked him how long it was before he started breaking 90 and he said it took awhile, 10-15 years before he broke 90 for the first time. The best tip he ever received was “swing hard, and it’s all about tempo.” He thought tempo meant slow it down. Figured that one out and it helped a lot. I asked Darius what he focuses on in his swing and he said, “Keep the left arm straight and be in my left side at impact,” his keys to being more consistent.
Darius has done a lot of charitable work with golf. PGA Tour Charities asked him to write a song for their advertising campaign, Together Anything’s Possible, and that became the title of the song. All proceeds, including Darius’s publishing, go to PGA Tour Charities. We had a caller call in and thank Darius for all the money that had been raised through the Monday After the Masters tournament for Junior Golf in South Carolina. Darius said that all five starters on the Clemson Golf Team, that won the 2003 NCAA Golf Tournament, went through their program.
We had a caller call in and ask Darius’s his favorite place to play music in Nashville and also his favorite place to play golf in the music city. Darius said Nashville changed his whole outlook on musicians, country music is much different. Rock and Roll, hardly ever can get great guests to play on your records but in Nashville, you can run into someone at a restaurant, and they are recording on your record the next day sometimes. I asked him about one of my favorite Hootie songs, “Not Even the Trees,” and his mom had died, he was going through a rough period, and he wrote the song for a relief. “My mother single-handedly made me the man I am today. I’m just a kid from South Carolina that got lucky twice and I thank God every day for the life I get to live.” Al Green was an early influence and he used to listen to AM Country Radio and flip through the stations until he heard a song he liked. The biggest influence on Hootie & the Blowfish was REM.
There were many people who didn’t think Darius could get a country record deal, never going to make it, and even DJ friends told him they would never play him, a lot of doubters. With three #1 singles and winning the Best New Country Artist at the CMA’s, Darius had a platinum selling album. It’s hard to follow up a successful first album and he did with two more #1 singles on his second solo release. His third album, “True Believers,” had the #1 song, “Wagon Wheel,” which won a Grammy. The industry is getting what he is doing. He always tries to write songs that would be fun to play live, so he continues to stay very active and on the road, and playing golf wherever he can! For information on Darius go to www.DariusRucker.com.