Speaker 1: This is Phil Shub from Ely in Cambridgeshire in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, and I play at Ely City Golf Club.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smart episode nine to seven to six.
Speaker 2: I was in Oregon last week doing a training like
Speaker 2: you can spit off in fifteen seconds what it is,
Speaker 2: and you just have a couple catchwords for them like welcome, Matt,
Speaker 2: like something that they understand, and then they're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you're just like karate. Yeah, yeah, levels move them through.
Speaker 2: Everybody starts a white belt, and the days of like
Speaker 2: explaining a lot to people, at least in my experience,
Speaker 2: are so far gone. It's like, if you don't have
Speaker 2: something good to say in twenty or thirty seconds, they're
Speaker 2: going to tune you out. And if you want to survive,
Speaker 2: you got to be good at your fifteen twenty second
Speaker 2: elevator pitch. A turning point for us was when we
Speaker 2: changed our name. We used to have a really long
Speaker 2: name that didn't make any sense, and then we went
Speaker 2: to another name that didn't make any sense, and another
Speaker 2: name that didn't make any sense, and our fourth name,
Speaker 2: Operation six. I remember pitching it to a couple members
Speaker 2: at the course to see if they understood what it
Speaker 2: was and they're like, oh, okay, so you're on a
Speaker 2: operation to try to shoot thirty six and you start
Speaker 2: close and you move back. That makes sense. And when
Speaker 2: the member repeated that back, I was like, all right,
Speaker 2: we got a name.
Speaker 3: The Welcome Matt to golf for beginners of any age
Speaker 3: Operation thirty six with founder Ryan Daily. This is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 3: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 3: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 4: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Ryan.
Speaker 2: Hello, Fred, how are you? I'm great? Another great day
Speaker 2: in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Ah, how often it's just a you know, kind of
Speaker 3: a given, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Another great day in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: It's a place to be if you love golf.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: A couple a couple episodes ago, I was having a
Speaker 3: conversation with Joel Suggs, Master PGA Instructor, and.
Speaker 4: Operation thirty six came up and I'm like, wait, what's
Speaker 4: Operation thirty six?
Speaker 3: And he oh, it's a great way. It's like, all right,
Speaker 3: have I gotta have that guy on the show. So
Speaker 3: he introduced us and here we are. I'm so excited
Speaker 3: to hear about Operation thirty six. Why don't you give me,
Speaker 3: give me your not even an elevator pitch, just give
Speaker 3: me the overview of what it is and how you
Speaker 3: got it started.
Speaker 2: Sure, so, myself and Matt Reagan, another PGA professional, started
Speaker 2: in two thousand and ten together working on this. There's
Speaker 2: a pretty long backstory. We don't have to go into
Speaker 2: a ton of it on why we started, how we started,
Speaker 2: but we had a goal of bringing kids to the
Speaker 2: golf course at a golf course that didn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of people using it at the time, right after
Speaker 2: the real estate recession. We pitched an idea to the
Speaker 2: president of the university. The president of the university approved it.
Speaker 2: We started with three kids. I think in the program
Speaker 2: we had twenty parents in front of us at the
Speaker 2: golf course. We pitched what we were going to do,
Speaker 2: and basically what it was was gymnastics or karate for golf.
Speaker 2: We were just bringing them out every Monday. At the time,
Speaker 2: there wasn't really a consistent junior golf program that ran
Speaker 2: throughout the year. Back in twenty ten, the main thing
Speaker 2: was like summer camps. So like if you had a
Speaker 2: son or a grandson and you wanted to get them
Speaker 2: into the game, you'd bring them to a summer camp,
Speaker 2: and the only other option was to take a private
Speaker 2: lesson with a PGA pro, and those two options didn't
Speaker 2: seem to do as well as what other sports were doing,
Speaker 2: so we borrowed some concepts from them to get started,
Speaker 2: and then got really frustrated after our fourth or fifth
Speaker 2: year doing it because we had a ton of kids coming.
Speaker 2: We had like eighty kids coming once a week, not
Speaker 2: all at the same time, at different class times, for
Speaker 2: eight months out of the year, but nobody was really
Speaker 2: like falling in love with playing the game of golf
Speaker 2: like they would come because their parents brought them, But
Speaker 2: it was like pulling teeth to get them to really
Speaker 2: like enjoy the aspects of golf that really hooked us,
Speaker 2: and for me in particular, it was the walking outside.
Speaker 2: It was trying different clubs, It was hitting the ball
Speaker 2: in the hole and listening to that sound like I
Speaker 2: think about that when I was a kid, and those
Speaker 2: things really resonated with me. Playing with the older men
Speaker 2: at the golf course was really fun for me to
Speaker 2: learn from them, and there wasn't a great avenue in
Speaker 2: our area to do that, and we certainly after four
Speaker 2: or five years, didn't do very well at that either.
Speaker 2: So we had to retool everything we did to figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, instead of taking them on the driving range
Speaker 2: as their first experience in the game of golf and
Speaker 2: teaching him the grip and teaching him how to stand,
Speaker 2: which is not fun for anybody, even the golf pro.
Speaker 2: It's not very fun because nobody's getting it in the air,
Speaker 2: we said, why don't we put them on the golf
Speaker 2: course first and see what happens? And we did. We
Speaker 2: put them on the tea box, and that was extremely
Speaker 2: frustrating beginner golfers from the tea box taking twelve strokes
Speaker 2: to get in the hole. So then after a year
Speaker 2: frustration of that, we said, well, what if we started
Speaker 2: them like basketball, start with a layup instead of starting
Speaker 2: with a three pointer, because we were basically starting a
Speaker 2: three pointer at the tea box. So we started them
Speaker 2: twenty five yards away from the hole. We said, after
Speaker 2: a while of trial and error, we said every hole
Speaker 2: was a part four. If you make a three, it's
Speaker 2: your first birdy Ever, if you make it two, it's
Speaker 2: an eagle. And why don't we throw a number around, Okay,
Speaker 2: thirty six, let's see if you could shoot thirty six
Speaker 2: for nine holes. And trying that for four or five
Speaker 2: years up until right before COVID was really successful. And
Speaker 2: when I say successful meaning folks fell in love with
Speaker 2: playing the game, and when we weren't there teaching class,
Speaker 2: they were there with mom and dad playing and we
Speaker 2: had something that worked because it wasn't just because they
Speaker 2: were signed up for a class. They were coming out
Speaker 2: when there wasn't a class. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: anything we do is like rocket science. A lot of
Speaker 2: it is just we tested things that didn't work, got
Speaker 2: really frustrated and didn't give up, which we could have
Speaker 2: given up, and we tried something else, and tried something else,
Speaker 2: and tried something else and it ended up working. And
Speaker 2: then other coaches in the state of North Carolina started
Speaker 2: contacting us because they wanted to do what we do
Speaker 2: and making a long story significantly shorter, there's now eight
Speaker 2: hundred facilities in fifteen different countries, and there's like twelve
Speaker 2: or fourteen hundred coaches running out thirty six throughout the world.
Speaker 2: And like some great stories of kids and now adults
Speaker 2: that do op thirty six where they the biggest skill
Speaker 2: that they learn for it is like you go out
Speaker 2: and you shoot a forty five, and you figure out
Speaker 2: how to deal with disappointment, deal with no reaching the goal,
Speaker 2: which is the whole point of the program. The point
Speaker 2: of the program is not to beat thirty six in
Speaker 2: your first try. The point of the program is to
Speaker 2: go out and not beat thirty six and challenge yourself,
Speaker 2: I can get better. And that's really why OP thirty
Speaker 2: six works because people look in the mirror and they
Speaker 2: say I can do this, I can get one stroke better,
Speaker 2: and then they do it with the help of a professional,
Speaker 2: with their facility during their practices, or with mom and dad.
Speaker 2: And we're trying to compete with video games. It's not easy,
Speaker 2: no at all. So we just try to go for
Speaker 2: like small wins and if we can get players to
Speaker 2: get one stroke better every couple weeks, that's our best
Speaker 2: chance to try to compete with video games.
Speaker 3: Have you ever tried to develop an Operation thirty sixth
Speaker 3: video game.
Speaker 2: We have gone down that path twice. We haven't gotten
Speaker 2: to the finish line yet. We do have an app
Speaker 2: people use in OP thirty six where they they take
Speaker 2: their lessons online. They can watch videos of different parts
Speaker 2: of the curriculum. There's a pretty cool GPS on there
Speaker 2: where if you went out to the course with me
Speaker 2: and let's say you're playing from twenty five yards, you
Speaker 2: and I would walk out to twenty five yards, it
Speaker 2: would buzz and say, hey, drop your ball here and
Speaker 2: I'll tell you exactly where to drop it on the course.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 2: But we've been down the video game route twice for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, we haven't finished the journey yet. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: be starting it again. I'm not sure. That's a pretty
Speaker 2: big animal to tackle.
Speaker 3: Yes it is, Yes it is, But you want people
Speaker 3: out on the golf course.
Speaker 4: You don't want to keep them on the video.
Speaker 2: Game, right, correct, one hundred percent. Yeah, And at the
Speaker 2: majority of our facilities we're starting to run into If
Speaker 2: you were asked me, like, what's the biggest challenge right now,
Speaker 2: there's so many people at the golf course where they're
Speaker 2: running out thirty six Now we're dealing with the golf
Speaker 2: course being too crowded, which if we rewind to twenty ten,
Speaker 2: right after the recession, that would be a problem all
Speaker 2: of us would have been excited to have because nobody
Speaker 2: a golf course at that time, not nobody, but significantly
Speaker 2: less than now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what about since COVID when golf exploded, did
Speaker 3: what happened with OP thirty six?
Speaker 2: Then our participation rates skyrocketed because we're a beginner golf
Speaker 2: program and there were a lot of folks who had
Speaker 2: never played golf before and they wanted to get started
Speaker 2: in the game of golf. And we just happened to
Speaker 2: have the right marketing at the right time. And when
Speaker 2: people plugged online into Google, it says, I want to
Speaker 2: learn how to play golf. I'm a beginner golfer. OP
Speaker 2: thirty six popped up and by that point we had
Speaker 2: five or six hundred facilities, and we just kept getting
Speaker 2: notes from our coaches. Hey, Ryan, we're full. You can't
Speaker 2: send any more people to us. We're full.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's participation rates have grown steadily from COVID
Speaker 2: as well. So it's an interesting industry challenge that we
Speaker 2: have now, is that.
Speaker 4: And it's continuing to climb.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we were up twelve thousand enrollments this
Speaker 2: year from last year something like that. So it's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's phenomenal, it's great.
Speaker 2: It's it's when we get in when we get in
Speaker 2: conversations with like industry leading companies and organizations like USGA
Speaker 2: Golf Course Owners Association, it's like, guys, we probably need
Speaker 2: to at some point build golf courses to start keeping
Speaker 2: up with this demand. But then they're like, well we
Speaker 2: and they go through the litany of things that make
Speaker 2: it a challenge to continue to build more golf courses.
Speaker 2: So then it goes to the indoor question, right, indoor golf,
Speaker 2: And yeah, the industry is in an interesting spot, a
Speaker 2: good spot, very healthy, a lot of participation, equipment sales
Speaker 2: are higher than they've ever been. So yeah, it'd be
Speaker 2: really interesting to see what happens to golf in the
Speaker 2: next fifteen or twenty years with this much demand.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier you spoke to the president of the
Speaker 3: university and which university and were you intending to create
Speaker 3: a curriculum?
Speaker 2: So I worked at Campbell University, like the soup, Campbell's
Speaker 2: tomato suit, Campbell University, and we're just south of Raleigh,
Speaker 2: North Carolina. And in twenty ten we were called into
Speaker 2: a meeting in the basement of the religion building on campus,
Speaker 2: which typically means you're about to lose your job and
Speaker 2: I went down the elevator with my boss and sat
Speaker 2: in front of the knights of the roundtable and they
Speaker 2: basically said, you need to get people at the golf
Speaker 2: course or we're going to close our thirty six hole
Speaker 2: facility unless you have an idea of how to get
Speaker 2: people on the golf course. And as we were riding
Speaker 2: up the elevator after the meeting, my boss turned to
Speaker 2: me and said, hey, do you have any ideas? And
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, I kind of do. I've been working
Speaker 2: on this idea for quite some time. I've just had
Speaker 2: my first child in two thousand and nine. If you
Speaker 2: allow me to put this proposal together, I'd love to
Speaker 2: give it a shot. And I put together like a
Speaker 2: forty something page proposal, put it on his desk, and
Speaker 2: it sat for six to nine months, something like that,
Speaker 2: and then the president came down the hallway at one
Speaker 2: point and went into my boss's office. After he left,
Speaker 2: my boss came down and said, hey, you know that
Speaker 2: idea you had, I need you to try it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: That's how it started. And I knew I couldn't do
Speaker 2: it alone. I was working full time for the university
Speaker 2: as a faculty member, so I grabbed one of my
Speaker 2: students to help me, Matt Reagan, I think he was
Speaker 2: a sophomore junior at the time, and we just went
Speaker 2: at it. The nice thing is we were very lucky
Speaker 2: that neither of us had to make money. He was
Speaker 2: a college student, I already had a job. And if
Speaker 2: somebody asked what were some of the lucky things that
Speaker 2: happened to keep this going, that was probably number one,
Speaker 2: because every time that we made like five thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: we'd put it right back into the business. Make five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, put it back into the business. And we
Speaker 2: did that for I don't think we took a paycheck
Speaker 2: for six years, seven years something like that.
Speaker 4: Wow, well, at least you had that option that.
Speaker 2: You could one hundred percent. And I think if we
Speaker 2: had to make money and it was all about the money,
Speaker 2: we never would have survived. But it was more about
Speaker 2: It was more about the pursuit of solving a problem.
Speaker 2: Was so intriguing to us. It was so interesting to us,
Speaker 2: and every time that we ran up against a roadblock,
Speaker 2: it kind of got more exciting because it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: so you're going to throw that at us, Let's figure
Speaker 2: this out, and that's kind of our mindset early on
Speaker 2: was very good. It was very fresh, it was very exciting,
Speaker 2: and that's that got us through the first five, six,
Speaker 2: seven years. And now we've been at it for fifteen years,
Speaker 2: almost fifteen years we've been doing this.
Speaker 4: So wow.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of I was John Madden's courting engineer
Speaker 3: for a number of years and he always used to say,
Speaker 3: don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: And you are a perfect example of that.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, if you have this challenge, do you
Speaker 3: quit or you go around it? And you just barrel
Speaker 3: through it and you seem to have successfully done that,
Speaker 3: and it's you're very lucky because you didn't need to
Speaker 3: make that money. You could put it back into the
Speaker 3: business where some people will, you know, come up with
Speaker 3: a new tea and leave everything else behind, thinking that
Speaker 3: they can make a living on creating a new tea.
Speaker 4: This was congratulations on that.
Speaker 2: Thank you for I appreciate This was John Mann and
Speaker 2: the football guy. Yeah, oh wow, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was amazing.
Speaker 3: Anyway, have you had uh well, let me ask you
Speaker 3: about you said you were.
Speaker 4: A faculty member at this university, teaching golf.
Speaker 2: I was, yes, So there's sixteen. There was sixteen universities
Speaker 2: around the US that had PGA golf management programs.
Speaker 4: Okay, golf management, sure.
Speaker 2: Yep, where high school students can enroll. They can get
Speaker 2: a business degree and then their major would be PGA
Speaker 2: Golf management and they could graduate with their class APGA card.
Speaker 2: And when I graduated, I tried to play professional golf
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. Figured out that wasn't for me.
Speaker 2: I wasn't good enough. And then I taught for a
Speaker 2: while in Texas. And then when I came back to
Speaker 2: North Carolina, who was my boss called me up and said, hey,
Speaker 2: would you like a job. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: still trying to play. I'm still trying to teach. He's like, Ryan,
Speaker 2: you probably need to start settling down, and I was
Speaker 2: like okay. So then in two thousand and seven I
Speaker 2: started at the university. Loved it, loved teaching, loved being
Speaker 2: in the classroom, loved being around the younger students. That
Speaker 2: kept me young. Being around a college campus is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Ton of amenities, football teams, basketball teams. But I just
Speaker 2: kept being drawn kind of towards the end to running
Speaker 2: this program and felt like there was some there was
Speaker 2: some need in the industry that if we kind of
Speaker 2: let this thing fizzle out, probably not the best decision.
Speaker 2: So that was a tough call going in and you know, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to move on from this job
Speaker 2: that I really enjoyed, that I love that, I love
Speaker 2: the students, but in twenty sixteen it was time to
Speaker 2: walk away and do full time and certainly misteaching at
Speaker 2: the university level. But you can't have everything, So.
Speaker 4: You move on, Yes, you do. You must move on.
Speaker 3: Is this does your program compete with the First Tea program?
Speaker 4: Where is it a compliment?
Speaker 2: We are a little bit different than the First Tea
Speaker 2: And there's some First Tea locations that run off thirty six,
Speaker 2: so I wouldn't say that we're competitors. The First Tea
Speaker 2: doesn't unbollievably good job of teaching the life skills and
Speaker 2: getting folks to try golf and go through their curriculum.
Speaker 2: Do they get them on the golf course as much
Speaker 2: as they would like know? And they would admit to that,
Speaker 2: and that's why they reach out to us for help
Speaker 2: in getting people on the golf course. A good way
Speaker 2: to view this is like OP. Thirty six is the
Speaker 2: welcome matt to the game of golf, and then after
Speaker 2: somebody gets somewhat proficient at playing the game, they could
Speaker 2: shoot thirty six from maybe let's say our first three
Speaker 2: or four levels. Step two would be PGA Junior League.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but that's
Speaker 2: a pg of America program. They do a wonderful job
Speaker 2: at over twenty five hundred locations around the country where
Speaker 2: you're in a two person team, two to three person team,
Speaker 2: you have uniforms on, and you compete at different golf
Speaker 2: courses around your area. And then step three in our
Speaker 2: kind of roadmap, Op thirty six PGA Junior League would
Speaker 2: be like your high school team or a local junior tour,
Speaker 2: like a US Kids Golf Tour type thing. And that's
Speaker 2: what we try to explain to parents is that I
Speaker 2: wouldn't try all of them at once. I would start
Speaker 2: without thirty six, Get your feet wet, get comfortable at
Speaker 2: a local program with your golf pro with your arm
Speaker 2: around you helping you. Then go to junior league, and
Speaker 2: then go to the next step.
Speaker 4: Interesting have you had.
Speaker 3: Have you been approached by sponsors, you know, a big
Speaker 3: name golf company saying we'd like to associate our name
Speaker 3: with this. Can we whether it be US Kids Club
Speaker 3: or Callaway or you know something titleist you know, put
Speaker 3: their name and if they approached you, would you be
Speaker 3: open to that.
Speaker 2: We have not been approached by an equipment company officially. Unofficially,
Speaker 2: we have a couple of times, and we are also
Speaker 2: in the process of coming out with a solution in
Speaker 2: the equipment space with a manufacturer, so that hopefully is
Speaker 2: going to continue to move down to the finish line.
Speaker 2: Our biggest person that had reached out to us would
Speaker 2: be Rory McIlroy recently reached out and did a spot
Speaker 2: for us on the Golf Channel on Golf Pass and
Speaker 2: he did a five I think it was five segments
Speaker 2: with Lauren Thompson from the Golf Channel on starting the
Speaker 2: game of golf using up thirty six. And Rory has
Speaker 2: a daughter that he's trying to get into the game
Speaker 2: of golf, and I think when he saw op thirty
Speaker 2: six he saw some of our metrics, like, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I can see all of us at out thirty six,
Speaker 2: can see of the two hundred thousand people around the
Speaker 2: world doing OP thirty six. You can see demographics, you
Speaker 2: can see ages, you can see scores, and our demographics
Speaker 2: are very girl friendly, lady friendly for adults. So I
Speaker 2: think when Rory started to hear about that, he was like, man,
Speaker 2: that's a great way to get my daughter involved. It
Speaker 2: was great to meet him and watch him do his
Speaker 2: thing on camera back in January and Florida. And that
Speaker 2: will probably be the biggest one bread.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is that is an incredible endorsement, and it's
Speaker 3: on your website.
Speaker 4: Operation thirty six.
Speaker 3: Dot golf is your website and you can see the
Speaker 3: Rory video there and it's wonderful and it makes it
Speaker 3: so easy to understand at that point they did.
Speaker 2: A wonderful job on production.
Speaker 4: They really did. They really did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's part of the beauty of this program
Speaker 3: is it's not that difficult to understand. You really have
Speaker 3: created something that cuts all you know, cuts out all
Speaker 3: the noise.
Speaker 2: The explanation and the understanding, as we have learned over
Speaker 2: the years, has to be spot on. It has to
Speaker 2: be an a plus if you're going to have a
Speaker 2: chance to survive. And so we everything from our name
Speaker 2: Operation thirty six to our tagline, to our twenty second
Speaker 2: elevator pitch, all of that has been refined. Like I
Speaker 2: don't even know how many times what version we're on,
Speaker 2: but like now when I get in an elevator with somebody,
Speaker 2: or I was in Oregon last week doing a training,
Speaker 2: like you can spit off in fifteen seconds what it is,
Speaker 2: and you just have a couple catchwords for them like
Speaker 2: welcome Matt, like something that they understand and then they're like,
Speaker 2: oh okay, you're just like Karate're like yeah, yeah, levels
Speaker 2: move them through. Everybody starts at white Belt, and the
Speaker 2: days of like explaining a lot to people like are,
Speaker 2: at least in my experience, are so far gone. Like
Speaker 2: nobody wants to listen to more than twenty seconds or
Speaker 2: thirty seconds, Like if you don't have something good to
Speaker 2: say in twenty or thirty seconds, like they're going to
Speaker 2: tune you out. And COVID accelerated that. I know that.
Speaker 2: I see it with my kids, like attention spans have shrunk,
Speaker 2: and if you want to survive, you got to be
Speaker 2: good at your fifteen twenty second elevator pitch. And a
Speaker 2: turning point for us was when we changed our name.
Speaker 2: We used to have a really long name that didn't
Speaker 2: make any sense, and then we went to another name
Speaker 2: that didn't make any sense, and another name that didn't
Speaker 2: make any sense, and our fourth name, operation thirty six.
Speaker 2: I remember pitching it to a couple of members at
Speaker 2: the course to see if they understood what it was,
Speaker 2: and they were like, oh, okay, so you're on an
Speaker 2: operation to try to shoot thirty six and you start
Speaker 2: close and you move back. That makes sense and that
Speaker 2: When the member repeated that back, I was like, all right,
Speaker 2: we got a name.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we left with a cliffhanger. And the obvious question,
Speaker 3: I hope not just for me, is what were the
Speaker 3: other names?
Speaker 4: What did you start out with?
Speaker 2: So the first name we had the best way to
Speaker 2: visualize this is we used to take paper checks for
Speaker 2: tuition from parents and they couldn't fit it on the line.
Speaker 2: It was so long. It was called it was called
Speaker 2: North Carolina, the state North Carolina, long Term Athlete Development.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, yeah, it's a couple of academics coming up with.
Speaker 2: A name, right. It's not creative people, No, it was not.
Speaker 2: And I think if you were asked, Matt, I think
Speaker 2: I kind of voted for that as an academic right
Speaker 2: because you're trying to make it sound great. But and
Speaker 2: then to try to put that on a T shirt,
Speaker 2: to put that on a hat like that was absolutely
Speaker 2: not a win. And then the next name we did
Speaker 2: was the Edge E D G E. The Edge. And
Speaker 2: the challenge in our local area is that I think
Speaker 2: there's a plumbing or electrician that's also named like the
Speaker 2: Edge plumbing. So it was completely confusing with.
Speaker 3: The famous guitar player. Yeah right, wasn't he on YouTube?
Speaker 3: Guitar player for YouTube?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, Okay, And why the
Speaker 4: what did the edge supposed to mean?
Speaker 2: We were trying to appeal to too many things. We
Speaker 2: were trying to show parents that we would go over
Speaker 2: nutrition and fitness, that we would go over golf, that
Speaker 2: we go over athletic skills, and go over something else.
Speaker 2: So we tried to figure out, how can we show
Speaker 2: them that we were over the edge or up to
Speaker 2: the edge on training something like that.
Speaker 4: It didn't work, It still doesn't work.
Speaker 2: It's not great. And then we did.
Speaker 5: Let's see so in twenty fourteen, fifteen sixteen, the thing
Speaker 5: was to put the letter I lowercase I in front
Speaker 5: of whatever you did to kind of like apple right.
Speaker 2: So we were I grow golf, I go golf for
Speaker 2: a little while, but that didn't make too much sense,
Speaker 2: especially when we started to expand outside of North Carolina
Speaker 2: to other states and training other coaches. It just didn't
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense. We were, by trial and air,
Speaker 2: figured out a way to narrow the name down to
Speaker 2: Operation thirty six Golf, and the stick is that like
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand people around the world are on the
Speaker 2: same operation, the same challenge as you. You're all trying
Speaker 2: to beat the golf course. You're not trying to beat
Speaker 2: each other. Which that line to moms is super powerful
Speaker 2: because the mom who's getting their daughter or son into
Speaker 2: the game, their biggest fear is that it's going to
Speaker 2: be too competitive and they're not going to fall in
Speaker 2: love with the game. So we try as best as
Speaker 2: we can to say it's not Fred versus Ryan, it's
Speaker 2: Fred and Ryan versus the golf course. And I want
Speaker 2: Fred to beat thirty six just as much as I
Speaker 2: want to beat thirty six. And if Fred beats thirty six,
Speaker 2: I want to give him a high five because I'm
Speaker 2: excited for him, and if I do it, he's going
Speaker 2: to do it for me. So it creates this environment
Speaker 2: like golf course which is pretty cool where like twenty
Speaker 2: or thirty people show up every Saturday night to play
Speaker 2: in a nice whole event and it's not ultra competitive,
Speaker 2: it's more encouraging. Might be the better way to say it.
Speaker 4: What do you mean every Saturday night? What is that?
Speaker 4: What did you just throw in there?
Speaker 2: So in OP thirty six is a program, right that
Speaker 2: you would sign up for somebody would sign up for.
Speaker 2: And in this program, there are two things that you do. One,
Speaker 2: the coach is going to have a one hour class
Speaker 2: with you, small group class with five or six people
Speaker 2: looking on short game, working on full swing, whatever the
Speaker 2: curriculum calls for. And then the second thing that that
Speaker 2: coach does is they put on a formal nine hole
Speaker 2: event twice a month. So at our golf course here
Speaker 2: in North Carolina, on Saturday night, every other week, we
Speaker 2: have a nine hole event where twenty or thirty people come,
Speaker 2: the golf professionals. The course runs an official nine hole event.
Speaker 2: We have scorecards, and if we beat thirty six during
Speaker 2: that official nine whole event, then we move from level
Speaker 2: one to level two, so you can't move on and
Speaker 2: out thirty six playing casually. We have found through testing
Speaker 2: that when you let folks go out with their grandparents
Speaker 2: or they go out with their parents, you don't have
Speaker 2: as much control of the rules. Maybe the best way
Speaker 2: to say it. So when they beat thirty six, sometimes
Speaker 2: you're like, did they really beat it? So then we said,
Speaker 2: all right, it's got to be in a formal nine
Speaker 2: whole event that the coach puts on for you to
Speaker 2: advance through the different levels.
Speaker 4: Yep, okay, okay. So it's not just for kids though.
Speaker 3: You have adults who are also being introduced to golf
Speaker 3: who are stepping onto that welcome Matt and I love that.
Speaker 3: By the way, that's probably the name of this episode
Speaker 3: is something about the welcome Matt. But you have adults
Speaker 3: being able to participate as well being introduced.
Speaker 4: To the game. Yeap.
Speaker 2: That wasn't our intention. Fort really was the kids. Because
Speaker 2: my son was born, I wanted to have an environment
Speaker 2: for him to grow up in with other kids. It
Speaker 2: was like in year six or seven, a couple of
Speaker 2: the moms tapped us on the shoulder and said, hey, Ryan,
Speaker 2: my son loves this. I've never seen him love something before,
Speaker 2: like he loves golf. Can you teach us how to
Speaker 2: play the game of golf the same way that you're
Speaker 2: teaching my son. And originally we were like, you know what,
Speaker 2: we're just a kids organization. We stick with juniors. But
Speaker 2: then when like three moms come up and they say, hey,
Speaker 2: the three of us want to take a class together,
Speaker 2: will you please do this for us, and we're like,
Speaker 2: all right, we'll do the same thing we do with
Speaker 2: the kids with you. And they loved it. Like they
Speaker 2: went out and they played on a Saturday night. They
Speaker 2: shot like a forty three their first time out. They
Speaker 2: took that scorecard, but they shot forty three. They brought
Speaker 2: it home, they showed it to their husband, who can't
Speaker 2: shoot forty three. They loved it, and they came back
Speaker 2: next week and they said, coach, I can't wait to
Speaker 2: shoot forty two, forty one, forty and visualize this for
Speaker 2: this is from twenty five yards away, right, So they're
Speaker 2: taking like a pitching ledge and they might chunk it,
Speaker 2: which is okay, we all do that. They might lay
Speaker 2: it on the green and then they might miraculously tuput
Speaker 2: from ten feet and they've made their first par Ever,
Speaker 2: we've had people like blade it hit, the pin goes
Speaker 2: like a foot away, they knock it in for their
Speaker 2: first eagle and they are just ecstatic. Right, So we
Speaker 2: all we've done is just taken this beautiful game of
Speaker 2: golf and just shrunk it down to this small, bite
Speaker 2: sized beginning step in hopes we don't succeed one hundred
Speaker 2: percent of the time, but in hopes that somebody will
Speaker 2: enjoy the true joy of golf, which is shooting a
Speaker 2: number and coming back going I think I can do
Speaker 2: better if I practice a little bit more. And then
Speaker 2: they practice a little bit more, they shoot a thirty nine,
Speaker 2: and the day they shoot thirty six, they're super excited.
Speaker 2: But the cool part is once they beat thirty six,
Speaker 2: they know that the next goal is to go back.
Speaker 2: Yardage makes the golf course harder, So they go back
Speaker 2: to fifty yards and they try to do it again,
Speaker 2: and then one hundred yards, and they keep going back,
Speaker 2: and we've had some people go all the way back
Speaker 2: to the back teas at the course thirty five hundred
Speaker 2: yards and they've been in the program for seven, eight
Speaker 2: nine years, just continuing to work back to the tea
Speaker 2: box at the golf course.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm thinking about my wife who doesn't play golf,
Speaker 3: because she keeps saying I don't care.
Speaker 4: About putting a ball in the hole. You know. It's like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like because.
Speaker 3: She's not competitive in any in that way, but I
Speaker 3: can see her getting excited about but I did it.
Speaker 3: I got a par for twenty five yards, because then
Speaker 3: it's like within her skill set, right, I mean, like,
Speaker 3: she goes, I'll play nine hole with you. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but if we're going to play nine holes, I want
Speaker 3: you to go hit some balls first. I don't want
Speaker 3: you to just walk on the golf course without it.
Speaker 3: And she goes, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, then let's not do this, please, let's
Speaker 3: not do this. So but once they achieve thirty six
Speaker 3: on the nine holes at twenty five yards, they.
Speaker 4: Do move back trying to achieve thirty six each distance.
Speaker 2: Yep, is that how that works? Yeah? So we have
Speaker 2: ten total levels. So if you think about the belt
Speaker 2: system in karate, I think they have twelve belts. We
Speaker 2: have ten levels. Somebody starts at twenty five yards level one.
Speaker 2: That means every hole for nine holes is approximately twenty
Speaker 2: five yards away. Okay, Now, if the superintendent puts the
Speaker 2: pin like really far back, it might be forty yards.
Speaker 2: If they puts it really far forward, it might be
Speaker 2: fifteen yards. It's about twenty five. Once they beat thirty six,
Speaker 2: it might take them three or four attempts. They go
Speaker 2: back to level two fifty yards to the center of
Speaker 2: the green, and then they keep moving back one hundred yards,
Speaker 2: one fifty, two hundred front tees, silver teas, all the
Speaker 2: way back to We have ten levels in the program,
Speaker 2: and I would say the most popular levels is people
Speaker 2: usually go one through five and then they move on
Speaker 2: to either private lessons, or they move on to PGA
Speaker 2: Junior League, or they move on to the next step.
Speaker 2: But for the first year or two, we do a
Speaker 2: I think we do as good of a job as
Speaker 2: anybody as making that first year or two really fun
Speaker 2: for somebody and gets them hooked on the game. When
Speaker 2: they're at Christmas parties, they can tell people that they've
Speaker 2: played golf and they've shot a decent score, and they've
Speaker 2: had a birdie and they've had a par They don't
Speaker 2: have to be that guy that says, I'm horrible at golf.
Speaker 2: I shoot one hundred and fifty. But the interesting thing,
Speaker 2: and I'll bring it up to you, is like we
Speaker 2: do very well with juniors, We do very well with ladies.
Speaker 2: The demographic that we don't do great with, which I
Speaker 2: completely understand, is men. They don't want to start close
Speaker 2: to the whole. They want to be on the black teams,
Speaker 2: even if they shoot one hundred and ten. But we're
Speaker 2: slowly getting in roads in the men's demographic, especially in
Speaker 2: Florida with the older crowd that feels like maybe they're
Speaker 2: not they don't hit it far enough to enjoy the
Speaker 2: course anymore. We're having success at facilities and getting people
Speaker 2: restarted in the game at twenty five yards away then
Speaker 2: fifty in one hundred.
Speaker 3: That way, No wonder if seniors would appreciate having that opportunity,
Speaker 3: and seniors who've been playing golf long time. You just say,
Speaker 3: I think that was kind of the idea of play
Speaker 3: it forward, like right, yep.
Speaker 2: And I think the only thing that we did differently
Speaker 2: than play it forward was we expanded fast enough that
Speaker 2: we attached a number to it. But then we also
Speaker 2: could say, Fred, you're not the only person doing it.
Speaker 2: There's eighty other people here that are doing there's two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand around the country that are doing this. Like
Speaker 2: you're not the only one play it forward. I think
Speaker 2: was tough because you didn't want to be the only
Speaker 2: one moving forward. But if there's twenty people out there
Speaker 2: Saturday night, like pace a play is awesome. Like these
Speaker 2: folks play in an hour and fifteen minutes, Like they
Speaker 2: play fast and they get done and then they have
Speaker 2: a meal at the course with their family and the
Speaker 2: golf course loves it. Why because food and beverage goes
Speaker 2: up because every Saturday night everybody wants to celebrate and
Speaker 2: eat at the course, and rounds are up at these places,
Speaker 2: and it's it's been fun to watch, it really has.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like it only works on nine hole courses.
Speaker 3: You don't do this on eighteen whole courses. And are
Speaker 3: they mostly you know, I can't imagine, you know, private courses,
Speaker 3: resort courses, country clubs. Some country clubs may have a
Speaker 3: nine whole course that they can participate. Tell me the
Speaker 3: scope of what kind of courses that you get involved
Speaker 3: and do you approach or do they come to you?
Speaker 2: Okay, So the course. There are eighteen hole, thirty six
Speaker 2: hole fifty four hole facilities that do OP thirty six.
Speaker 2: They just do it on one of the nine holes
Speaker 2: I see right, So they maybe like, we have three
Speaker 2: nine hole courses here at our facility. So maybe in
Speaker 2: the month of November we play the Orange course in
Speaker 2: the Black course, maybe the next month we play the
Speaker 2: White course. In the Black course, we just do nine holes.
Speaker 2: We put markers in the fairway for folks to play
Speaker 2: from the different yardages, and they just walk up and
Speaker 2: play from those yardages. Are three courses do very well
Speaker 2: with OP thirty six, even the ones that are artificial turf,
Speaker 2: they do a very good job with OP thirty six.
Speaker 2: Resort courses, you nailed it. That's a little bit harder
Speaker 2: for us, just because the golf pro doesn't see the
Speaker 2: person more than maybe that weekend or more than a
Speaker 2: week But our split private versus public golf courses is
Speaker 2: stronger in private facilities private golf courses than it is
Speaker 2: in public currently. Why because public golf courses right now,
Speaker 2: for the most part, are very very crowded, and to
Speaker 2: get beginners on the golf course or to find a
Speaker 2: teaching pro, because that's currently, you can't do OP thirty
Speaker 2: six officially unless you do it with or through a
Speaker 2: golf professional of course. So like private golf clubs, for
Speaker 2: the most part in the US usually have a pretty
Speaker 2: good staff of assistant pros teaching pros that they could
Speaker 2: run a program like this, we're running into challenges at
Speaker 2: public golf courses where maybe they just have a head pro,
Speaker 2: they don't have an assistant or a teaching pro. But
Speaker 2: we are seeing just observing the market and as it's
Speaker 2: talking to us the independent contry, people that raise their
Speaker 2: hand and say I want to teach are starting to
Speaker 2: increase at public facilities where they'll approach a golf course
Speaker 2: and they'll say, hey, I want to run OP thirty six.
Speaker 2: Can I pay you a revenue share of what I
Speaker 2: do and I'll run up thirty six. So it'll be
Speaker 2: interesting again to observe how the market ads and flows,
Speaker 2: but mostly we're at private courses. Publics are starting to
Speaker 2: grow a little bit more and the way that people
Speaker 2: start in OP thirty six is a golf professional. We'll
Speaker 2: call us or go on the website and they'll say, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to run OUT thirty six. Our sales team
Speaker 2: will go through and give them a demo to see
Speaker 2: if it's something that they want to do. And we
Speaker 2: also have moms and dads that'll reach out to us
Speaker 2: and say, Hey, I live in Spokane, Washington. My daughter
Speaker 2: really wants to get involved in the game of golf
Speaker 2: throughout thirty six. But I look on your map and
Speaker 2: there's no facilities. Will you guys reach out to Spokane
Speaker 2: Country Club and we'll pick up the phone and we'll say, Hey,
Speaker 2: there's a family in your area that wants OP thirty six.
Speaker 2: This probably means there's other families in your area. Can
Speaker 2: we give you a short demo of what OP thirty
Speaker 2: six is and then they'll try to kind of move
Speaker 2: them along and see if it's a good fit.
Speaker 3: And you've had success in doing it that way.
Speaker 2: Yes, and no more so more so when a coach
Speaker 2: is already ready to go right right and we're running
Speaker 2: into this in every industry, or we go to a
Speaker 2: restaurant now hiring, we go to the local police department,
Speaker 2: they're hiring, same thing. In the golf industry. We're short
Speaker 2: on coaches, we're short on golf pros. So when we
Speaker 2: call up Spokane Country Club and say, hey, would you
Speaker 2: like to run the program? Sometimes these facilities go yes,
Speaker 2: I would love to front the program. I just don't
Speaker 2: have anybody to run right. So we've been in good
Speaker 2: talks with the PGA of America to try to figure
Speaker 2: out ways to bridge the gap hiring and getting more
Speaker 2: people into the game as golf professionals. But certainly after COVID,
Speaker 2: that has been a challenge to find really good golf coaches.
Speaker 2: So when you do find an OUP thirty six program
Speaker 2: that's running right now, we're pretty confident there's a really
Speaker 2: good coach who's running it.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 3: Great And what has the PGA of America. How have
Speaker 3: they responded to this program?
Speaker 2: They are they've been very very supportive. We're PGA members,
Speaker 2: myself and Matt, and they really Steve Tanner has been
Speaker 2: a very supportive. He's the PGA Junior League director, and
Speaker 2: he really sees the light on. Welcome Matt. Top thirty six.
Speaker 2: PGA Junior League is step two that's really helped them
Speaker 2: as well. So I would just say, for the most part,
Speaker 2: on the whole, PJ of America has been very supportive
Speaker 2: of OP thirty six and helping grow the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, good job, good job.
Speaker 3: So I got to believe that when you were talking
Speaker 3: about doing it at night, you know you have to
Speaker 3: have classes around it.
Speaker 4: That you.
Speaker 3: Can't do it when other golfers are on the course.
Speaker 3: You've got to pretty much dedicate that nine whole course
Speaker 3: for operation thirty six Op thirty six so it doesn't
Speaker 3: mess up with other players at the same time.
Speaker 4: Is that how that you could do it?
Speaker 2: A couple different ways to do that. One is if
Speaker 2: you have enough players, Like if you have forty five players,
Speaker 2: you can have the golf course run a shotgun for
Speaker 2: nine holes because you're paying them green spees. You're not
Speaker 2: asking for free golf. So the golf professional is paying
Speaker 2: for the greens fees. If they have enough players, they
Speaker 2: can block off all nine holes. Or I would say
Speaker 2: in most cases they just do tea times, so you'll say, hey,
Speaker 2: can I get sixty times? Can I get eight te times?
Speaker 2: And then you would send them off in groups of
Speaker 2: three or four, And like I was saying earlier, the
Speaker 2: pace of play is really good, so it's not like
Speaker 2: they are being pushed by folks. They are actually pushing
Speaker 2: play a little bit, which is a great feeling to
Speaker 2: have as a beginner. That you don't have somebody behind
Speaker 2: you yelling, hey, go faster, you're actually the one that's
Speaker 2: pushing play. But there is a science maybe it's an art,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which word to figuring out how to
Speaker 2: get beginners on the golf course that doesn't interrupt play,
Speaker 2: doesn't bother current players, and is also feels good for
Speaker 2: the beginner as well.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 2: Oh, a ton of things, even down to like just
Speaker 2: driving a cart for a beginner, Like it's just different
Speaker 2: driving a golf cart. We've had to kind of create
Speaker 2: courses for players on driving a golf cart, getting range balls,
Speaker 2: What do you wear, what do you not wear? Like
Speaker 2: it's it's not like picking up a basketball or a
Speaker 2: basketball court. Like getting into golf is a little bit challenging.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the commitment, commitment, yeah kind of yeah, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And what's the minimum and maximum size of a group
Speaker 3: or a class.
Speaker 2: We recommend six to one. If there's two coaches, that
Speaker 2: would be twelve students. If it's one at six. There
Speaker 2: are some coaches that run out thirty six that only
Speaker 2: want four in a class. There's some that would like
Speaker 2: eight in a class. A lot of it's depending on
Speaker 2: the coach and how comfortable they are, but at the
Speaker 2: facility that we run here in North Carolina, we usually
Speaker 2: go six. Six is a great number to have, especially
Speaker 2: with the ladies. They have other people around them that
Speaker 2: enjoy doing it. You can pair up for different games
Speaker 2: you're playing, but for the weekly class, six is about right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense. Yep, this is so great.
Speaker 3: So you know, we've done multiple episodes over the past
Speaker 3: on you know, people saying, Hey, I want to get
Speaker 3: my kid into playing golf.
Speaker 4: What's the best way to get them started? So here's
Speaker 4: your opportunity. Make your pitch. I would.
Speaker 2: I would revert a little bit to the research that
Speaker 2: the majority of people that get into the game had
Speaker 2: parents that got into the game. So if you're a
Speaker 2: parent out there that doesn't play, I would join an
Speaker 2: OP thirty six program to play because that would help
Speaker 2: your kid play. That would be my first suggestion. Second
Speaker 2: suggestion would be go on Amazon. We've got a book
Speaker 2: called How to Create a Junior Golfer. I think it's
Speaker 2: seven bucks eight bucks. It's like an hour read one
Speaker 2: hundred pages, and we wrote it a couple of years
Speaker 2: ago based on the question that you just asked me, like,
Speaker 2: I'm a mom, I want to get my kid into
Speaker 2: the game. What should I do? And eight or nine
Speaker 2: chapters with stories of players from all around the country,
Speaker 2: little girls and boys and adults that started in the
Speaker 2: game of golf. And it's a I think that's that's
Speaker 2: the easiest way to start, because then the mom feels
Speaker 2: like she knows a little bit. I think the worst
Speaker 2: scenario is she goes into the shop, the dad goes
Speaker 2: into the shop. They don't know what to expect. So
Speaker 2: if you read that book seven eight bucks, that'll get
Speaker 2: you started on what is about to happen. And then
Speaker 2: if you go to our website OP thirty six dot
Speaker 2: golf find a program, you can find a program, hopefully
Speaker 2: within your area that that runs OP thirty six and
Speaker 2: if it doesn't, you can contact us and we'll reach
Speaker 2: out to the different golf courses to see But as
Speaker 2: long as somebody is not crazy rural like in the
Speaker 2: middle of Montana or the middle of Idaho, there's usually
Speaker 2: a golf course pretty close to where where folks are
Speaker 2: that they could get started in OP thirty.
Speaker 4: Six And what's the name of the book again?
Speaker 2: How to create a junior golfer. Okay, yep, I think
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 3: Oh that's okay, we'll find it and I'll definitely put
Speaker 3: a link in the show notes to the Amazon link.
Speaker 3: And you said OP thirty six dot Golf or is
Speaker 3: it Operation thirty six dot Golf or is it both?
Speaker 2: Either want to work? Okay, yep, either want to work yep.
Speaker 3: Well, Ryan, this is a phenomenal program. I'm very impressed,
Speaker 3: and clearly you've put a lot of thought behind it
Speaker 3: and made it work, especially with the name. Congratulations on that.
Speaker 3: I'm really glad that we were introduced to it. And
Speaker 3: you know, I work with the first t on helping
Speaker 3: kids fall in love with the game and learn the
Speaker 3: life lessons.
Speaker 4: But this I can see. I want to get my.
Speaker 3: Granddaughter starting to play golf, and my grandson, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is a great way to do it, because you know,
Speaker 3: they love I have a putting green in my backyard
Speaker 3: and so when they come to visit, it's like.
Speaker 4: Grandpa, can we go play golf? It's like yes. Of course,
Speaker 4: makes me cry every time they ask.
Speaker 3: But I think this is an amazing program and I'm
Speaker 3: sorry I've not heard about it yet.
Speaker 4: But I sure, I'm glad it's come across my table.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for the supprise, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. We can ever help it any way,
Speaker 2: Please reach out.
Speaker 3: Well A message to phill a Share above Eli, Cambridgeshire, UK,
Speaker 3: who did our opening in today's episode. You know that
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