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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Bob NIS's from cold Spring, Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: I golf at aj Jolly Golf Course in Alexandria, Kentucky.

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Welcome to Golf Smarter.

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Speaker 3: Hi. This is Bob Cordero from Haverford, Pennsylvania, and I

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play at the Shore Club in Kate May Courthouse, New Jersey.

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This is Golf's Smarter Number one twenty five.

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Speaker 2: The Masters has these limited edition garden Nomes. They're about

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a foot toll in classic Masters fashion. They don't tell

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you a lot of things about what goes on behind

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the scenes. They don't tell you how many of them

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they issue per year. But I tell a story where

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as a millennial he lives in suburban Georgia, bought the

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garden Nome. The first year it was thirty nine dollars

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and fifty cents in twenty sixteen. He sold it in

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twenty twenty four for eighty nine hundred dollars. So that

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tells you number one, Anything with a Master's logo on

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it is worth something. You can travel anywhere in the

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world and people know what the Master's logo is about.

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But it also it's one of the ten principles I

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talk about in the book how do you use scarcity

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to create value? They've perfected that you can only buy

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their things seven days a year in person.

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Speaker 1: I dream the world could be more like the Masters.

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With author of the Augusta Principles, John Sabino, this is

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Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf

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minds to help you lower your score and raise your

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golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to

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the Golf Smarter podcast. John.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Fred, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for reaching out again. Now it's interesting I'm saying,

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welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast, but you haven't

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been on since two thousand and eight and episode one

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hundred and fifty nine, and the listeners that were that

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were here back then, and there are some you may remember.

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We never learned John's name. He was anonymous at the

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time because he was on episode number fifty two in

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two thousand and six, episode number one hundred and eight

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in two thousand and seven, and then episode one fifty

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nine in two thousand and eight, and what we were

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doing at the end of each year you had I

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don't know how you found me, but it was early

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on in podcasting days, and you reached out to me

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to say, I'm trying to play the best golf courses

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in the world, the top one hundred courses, and so

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you gave us a recap of your year of what

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you were doing. And I do distinctly remember in two

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thousand and eight, I think it was you felt like

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there was one course you would never get to.

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Speaker 2: That true. That's it took me. Uh it took me,

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I think twelve years to play the top ninety nine

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in the world, and it took me another three or

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four to get on Augusta. But I had given up.

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I thought, okay, ninety nine is pretty good. I had

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been to the Masters and walked the course. That's pretty

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close sort of ninety nine and a half. But then,

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out of the blue, to the company I worked for,

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they invited the CEO to play, but luckily there was

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a board meeting that week and he couldn't go. So

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he called my boss, who lives in Charlotte, but he

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had played it already, and he did the most gracious

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thing anybody could do, and he said, well, John needs

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to play. Let's give it to John. And that's how

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I got on and I ended up.

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Speaker 1: Did they know you were going? You were your quest

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to get it?

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Speaker 2: They knew about it, Yeah, it was. It was widely known.

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That was a different company. The reason I came on

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your podcasts anonymous before is the company I worked for

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at the time, Morgan Stanley, didn't really want any publicity,

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you know, they were very shy on everything. But when

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I worked for Capitol One, which is where I got

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the invite to Augusta, they didn't. They didn't care as

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much about that, and I ended up. Yeah, I ended

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up playing. That was the last course I played, obviously,

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and I played with Marco Mera the day before the

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Masters in twenty thirteen. Yeah, it was. It was quite

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an event. And we played on the front nine Mark

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and I played alone, and then on the we were

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going and on the tenth tee Jose Maria Olthabo came

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off the practice putting green and said, oh, do you

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guys mind if I join you? And Mark said, it's

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okay with me. Let's see if John wants you to

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join or not. So he turned to me and he said,

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is it okay if John joins? And what am I

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going to say? Fred, Like, Yeah, we're in a groove here. Mark,

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let's just keep going. So I played the back nine

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with two Masters champions and it was phenomenal because they're friends,

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and you know, there was a very comfortable pairing and

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they would each drop a ball on different greens and say,

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when I won the Masters, here's the pot I had

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on thirteen, and they recreated shots for me. It was

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there's only one way to end a quest, to do

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what I was doing, and that's the way I did.

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I tell people now, I'm probably the only golfer maybe

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in the world that doesn't want to play Augusta because

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nothing I could do with top the experience I had.

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So if I ever got invited again, I would I

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would pay it forward and invite a couple of my friends. Yeah,

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I have a living you wanted hand up the others

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drop out, Fred, I'll slought you in Okay.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, Morgan Stanley. You know they didn't want

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the publicity. They also probably would have to get a

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team of lawyers and compliance people to make sure that

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you didn't say anything. I was like, so, yeah, but

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you wanted to remain Yeah, you had to remain anonymous

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by being on the podcast. But you were so nice

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to come back but then you disappeared. I reached out

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to you and I never heard from you again. So yeah,

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well that was pretty awesome. We got three years. I

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wonder whatever happened, and your name came up to me

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in twenty ten when I was playing at Harding Park

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with the two crazy Kiwis.

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Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, Jamie, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Michael and Jamie. So these kids were traveling around

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the world and we're going to play a different course

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for three hundred and sixty five days in a row

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yep and circumvent the planet Untilda and play golf. And

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they did it. And so when they stopped in San Francisco,

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I played with them at Harding Park and they told

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me that they played with you, and they told told

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me your name was John. I'm like, I didn't know that.

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He's like, what do you mean he never told me

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his name? When I asked, He's like, no, I can't

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really tell you.

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Speaker 2: That's funny.

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Speaker 1: I'll just tell you my stories, but that's all I

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can do. Yeah, Yeah, they were fun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Where did you play with them?

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Speaker 2: I believe it or not. In Melbourne in Australia. I

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met them. I was playing Walton Heath and I think

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one of the cat He said, oh, you have to

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meet these guys. So I met them down there. We

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played a couple of holes, and then when they were

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coming through the US, I played with them. I hosted

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them in New Jersey a couple of times and helped

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them out getting on different courses where I could. Yeah,

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they were they were I forget how well, maybe twenty

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three at the time, and I told them they were

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going to ruin their lives. They picked too early. You can't, Like,

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that's right. Think about think about how great that is

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to play golf for sixty five days in a row.

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Speaker 1: But you got to be twenty three to have that.

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Speaker 2: Exactly that, yeah, exactly, just go.

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Speaker 1: Out every single day. It's like, couldn't do it today.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't either. My back couldn't do it.

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Speaker 1: No, absolutely not, absolutely not. But I'm curious. I'm going

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to go back to Augusta in the time that you

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played with two Masters champions. Yep, how was your game

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at the time.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't bad. I shot to my handicap. The highlight

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of the round was I played amen corner and even parr.

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I parted eleven. I birdied twelve, which is one of

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those iconic holes in the world where you think about

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if there's holes you want a birdie, you know, Cyprus

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point sixteen, TPC Saws seventeen, you know, with the water.

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But Augustus twelfth is pretty high up on that list.

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And then I bogied thirteen. So yeah, I played to

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my handicap. You know, Mark was very gracious. You're extremely

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nervous when you play Augusta under any conditions, of course,

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So on the first two holes he played the members

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teas with me instead of playing the proteas, just to

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sort of, you know, help me get into the situation

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and make sure I wasn't too nervous, which I was.

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But I hit the first fairway, I parted the second hole, Yeah,

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I did, Okay, I played to my handicap. The greens

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are insane, They're extremely difficult, and they were tournament speed.

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Like on eighteen, I hit above the hole and I

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just tapped the pot to try to get it to

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the hole, and it ran off the front of the

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green and then Jose Maria comes up and it drops

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the ball and he says, there's just nothing you could do.

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There's no speed you could hit it to stop it.

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He goes. The lesson is you just can't be above

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some of these holes. So yeah, it was. It was

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really interesting.

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Speaker 1: So what's the difference between the members teas and the proteas.

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Speaker 2: The members teas, I think are sixty six hundred, and

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god knows what the what the proteins are these days,

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probably seventy four or seventy five hundred. They keep lengthening it,

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but yeah, sixty six hundred is manageable for the average golfer,

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which I was at the time.

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Speaker 1: Is it true that you cannot post or the course

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is not rated?

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Speaker 2: It doesn't have a slope rating, that's correct, it doesn't

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have it. Yep, yep.

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Speaker 1: So you just it's just a story you get to tell.

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Speaker 2: Just a great round of golf that you remember forever,

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but you can't post the score.

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Speaker 1: Right, and it lasts and the story lasts longer than

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your twenty rounds exactly.

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Speaker 2: And I'm still telling people that I birdied twelve. So

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thanks for giving me the opportunity to do it again.

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Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I'm going to give you a lot of

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opportunities to brag about this because it's such an amazing story.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: And just wait, when you were saying you were playing

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your handicap, Come on, give me more than that.

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Speaker 2: My handicap at the time was sixteen. So I did

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break one hundred, but not by a lot. Wow. Yeah,

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Like certain holes just didn't suit my eye. Like sixteen

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I hit into the water I had left into the water.

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Seventeen I hit At this time the Eyesenhower tree was

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still there. I hit it with my drive. Eighteen I

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just had I just butchered up ten. I had a

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really hard time on. I ended up in that big

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bunker at the bottom of the hill and had a

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hard time getting out. And part of the reason for

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that was on the ninth hole, Tiger Woods had just

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teed off and he saw us and he came walking over.

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So Mark introduced me. So I got to meet Tiger

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and had a little chat with him. So even though

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I threw the first eight holes, I was fine after

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meeting Tiger. It took me two holes to settle down,

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Like I was hyperventilating. That Caddy saved me. He's like

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he came over. He said, Okay, just take deep breaths.

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It's gonna be okay. Don't worry about it. And luckily

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I rallied frame end quarter.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And were there moments there like that

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you were incredibly self conscious being his sixteen handicap playing

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with these pros on the course.

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Speaker 2: Yep. And it gets even worse. I had worse. It

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was the sixth hole. Yeah, the sixth hole. We walk

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up to it and there was these two older gentlemen

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sitting in a golf cart and there were two like

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teenagers about to tee off and Mark Mark says to me, goes, oh,

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let me introduce you to these gentlemen. One of them

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was Bob Goldby, who won I think in sixty seven,

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that's the with the incident with the Argentine Tinian golfer

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who disqualified himself. And then he said, this other gentleman

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is Bob is it Bob Ford? Doug Ford? Excuse me?

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So we we uh. They let us play through. We

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hit our shots, and down at the green, I said,

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I said, I recognize Goldbie's name, but who is Doug Ford?

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And he said, well, he won the Masters in nineteen

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fifty seven. If you could imagine, I'm like, how how

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is this person even alive? So yeah, I pulled that

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shot pretty good too, because I had a couple of

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Masters champions watching on that. But if you let it

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get in your head, it's intimidating. I mean I had

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played obviously around the court core world on very good

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courses and sometimes playing with golfers that were plus two

243
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and plus three handicaps, which can be a little bit intimidating.

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But I think because it was Marco Mira and he's

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just such a gracious person, a nice man, it was

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just the nerves weren't as bad as I thought they

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were most of the round.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious to know how you hooked up with Marco Mirra.

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I mean, like they said, i'll let John play this,

250
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but how at what point did you know that it

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was going to be with Marcomera.

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Speaker 2: Well after after they invited me, I knew right away.

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Capital One spends a lot of money on golf related things,

254
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and it's sort of a way that they they pay

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it back, you know, when they get opportunities to have

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people that sponsor tournaments and spend a lot of money

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on golf, they give them those kind of perks and

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and you know, I guess there was just an opportunity

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that came up and I was lucky enough to get it.

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Speaker 1: So you're playing there the day before.

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Speaker 2: Twenty thirteen Masters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so what was this on a Wednesday? Was Tuesday?

263
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Speaker 2: No, it's the Saturday, the Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Okay before everybody, excuse me.

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Speaker 2: The Sunday, the Sunday before. So the tournament, the practice

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rounds start on Monday, so we say it was the

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Sunday before. Yeah, and the only the only people allow

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on the course of that day or former champions and

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they're allowed one guest each.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, so I twenty twenty five, I got

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to go on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was mind

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blowing for me. But one of the things that really

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kind of not shook me up, but I was just

274
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so surprised. It's just like there's no rough anywhere. Yes,

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you know, I mean the one thing about the greens

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being I would see guys take a stroke that would

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be for like a five foot putt and it would

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go thirty five feet. Yep, there was that. But the

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fact that like the second cut, which is you know

280
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what everyone else would call it rough, seemed to be

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like most of the putting greens that I play.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, aside from hitting into the water, you

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can't really get in a lot of trouble. I mean

284
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you could, you could hit onto the pine straw. That's

285
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a little difficult to hit at. But you're right, the

286
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fairways are in perfect condition. The first cut he's very

287
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easy to hit at of not very thick most of

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the courses. The difficulty is the approaches to the green.

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Can you hold the green if you're coming in from

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the wrong spot, And most of the time the answer

291
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is no. And then once you're on the putting greens,

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if you're not in the right spot, it's very difficult

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to put because they're very fast. That's the challenge of Augusta.

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Speaker 1: I would think that the challenge of the Gusta is

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the intimidation factor.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes it is. It is very intimidating. Yep, no

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doubt about it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, okay, now we've got that established. That's not why

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you're here today. You've just written a book that I

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thoroughly enjoyed, and thank you. I promise you there will

301
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be copies given out this holiday season to a number

302
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of my friends who are not only golfers and a

303
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you know, but they appreciate what Augusta is and what

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the Masters is in the world of sports.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

306
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Speaker 1: But they're also in business, and so you took this

307
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approach on the book, and why don't you give me

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the overview of what you think the book is and

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then we can go on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've been to the Masters, and even for

311
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people that haven't been to the Masters, they get a

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sense of obviously how perfect the course is watching on

313
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TV and it's also the best broadcast of the year

314
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for a variety of reasons. So the thing that strikes

315
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me when you're actually on the property Augusta, and I've

316
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been lucky enough to go nine times, wow, is it's perfect.

317
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There are so many things that they do well. You know,

318
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the attention to detail is the one that most people

319
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pick up on. You can't find any weeds on the property.

320
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Everybody's cheery, there's just you know, everybody's well behaved while there,

321
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while they're on property, And every time I left Augusta,

322
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I said to myself, how do they do this? You know,

323
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this is a perfect place. And then you get out

324
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of Augusta and people are rude and it's loud, and

325
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everything is commercialized and everything is not perfect. So the

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idea behind the book was to deconstruct what what it

327
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is that goes into the Masters. How are the members

328
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of Augusta National, how have they what's the secret formula

329
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that they use? And I reverse engineered and they didn't

330
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have access to any members or to the club. I

331
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did a lot of research. I read for months and

332
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months everything I could about about the Masters and what

333
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goes into it. So most books that have been written

334
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about the Masters are about the tournament, are about their

335
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about the course itself. This is the first book that's

336
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really about what makes it special. And originally I was

337
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going to write it as a business, as a just

338
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a golf book, but then as I started to get

339
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into it, I asked the question, and this was really

340
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the driving force behind the book, why can't the world

341
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be more like the Masters? Right? It's it's just a

342
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lot of people describe it that have been there as

343
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an adult disney Land and to many in many respects,

344
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it is nobody has a bad day when they go there.

345
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Everybody is going out of their way to please you,

346
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and just the way that the patrons behave and the

347
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civility behind it. So I went through and I deconstructed

348
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what makes it such a great tournament? That was the

349
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idea behind it and the reason I decided to make

350
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it a business book is certainly I'd say, you know,

351
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the majority of the book, probably eighty percent, talks about

352
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the Masters and what they do right, But then I

353
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also said, okay, are there other businesses and are there

354
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other examples where other companies who take the same philosophy

355
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and the same approach can make the world more like

356
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the Masters. So that's that's the idea behind it, to

357
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try to spread the formula that they have for people

358
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that are in business or making decisions. What can they

359
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do to make their businesses operate better, or to treat

360
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customers with more respect, or to create a more civil environment.

361
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So and as you know, there's a lot that can

362
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be done in the world to improve things, and we

363
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could talk about some of the specifics.

364
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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean early on in the book you

365
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establish and page twenty four you say, AUGUSTA National's principles

366
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can be replicated yep, And yeah, you know you're it

367
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from there.

368
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things that one of the

369
00:20:56,519 --> 00:21:03,200
things that so like take attention to d detail. They

370
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:10,039
they hand clip the edges of the of the grass

371
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near the bunkers to make sure that they're perfect. The

372
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:17,960
pro shop if you pay in cash. All the cash

373
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and the pro shop are brand new bills. They won't

374
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give you a bill that's been used before. Now that's

375
00:21:23,319 --> 00:21:25,759
a quirk that Cliff Roberts set up. He didn't like

376
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dirty bills. But you know, they still abide by that.

377
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When they cut the flower bed in Founder Circle, which

378
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is at the end of Magnolia Lane, they have a

379
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horizontal ladder that they use so that they don't tramp

380
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down on any of the flowers. I mean, it's things

381
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that it's an insane attention to detail. But you know,

382
00:21:46,519 --> 00:21:50,720
let's take two examples. Outside of Augusta. Ritz Carlton also

383
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does a fantastic job on attention to detail. You know,

384
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partly they do that by empowering their employees. Partly it's

385
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just part of their culture and their those So that's

386
00:22:01,079 --> 00:22:04,400
one example, and people are going to think, Okay, yeah, sure,

387
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:08,440
Augusta has a lot of money. Ritz Carlton's a very

388
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expensive hotel. If you have a lot of money, it's

389
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a lot easier to pay attention to detail. So I

390
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also made sure that a bunch of the examples that

391
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I gave in the book were not companies that are

392
00:22:20,599 --> 00:22:24,759
high and only and my favorite example is a company

393
00:22:24,759 --> 00:22:32,119
called BUCkies. BUCkies runs convenience centers slash gas stations slash

394
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:37,279
superstores along highways, primarily in the South, and BUCkies is interesting.

395
00:22:37,319 --> 00:22:40,839
The reason I put it in the book is another

396
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thing Augusta does really well. If you've ever been to

397
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the Masters and you go to the bathroom, they have

398
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:54,319
an attendant that cleans the stall after each use. It's insane, right, like, it's.

399
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,880
Speaker 1: Definitely going to the bathroom is one of the highlights

400
00:22:57,920 --> 00:22:59,160
of my two days there.

401
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:03,559
Speaker 2: Right, you're greeted by an attendant. There's people in there

402
00:23:03,599 --> 00:23:08,400
cleaning everything all the time. And what's what's a good

403
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,079
example is one of the things that Bucky's has made

404
00:23:12,079 --> 00:23:14,720
part of their mission statements. They say they have the

405
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cleanest bathrooms in America. Right, so for gas stations on

406
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,319
highway rest stops, how do you do that? Right? You

407
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,400
do that by committing you have an you want to

408
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,519
have an attention to detail. They take the time to

409
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make sure that that's part of their culture. They train

410
00:23:31,279 --> 00:23:34,920
their associates to do that, and the place has a

411
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cult following. It's it's if you've ever been in one.

412
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:43,400
If you haven't, I recommend visiting they have it's very

413
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,119
similar to Augusta. They have tons of branded gear and

414
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,200
merchandise that they sell. Everybody is upbeat and cheery. It's

415
00:23:50,319 --> 00:23:55,039
just a really good example of yes, there are ways.

416
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:58,079
Not everybody's not going to be perfect all the time,

417
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,880
but pick something, pick a couple things, and you can

418
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,400
really help to drive business and make it. And it's

419
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,759
a cult brand. People will drive an hour out of

420
00:24:07,799 --> 00:24:10,400
their way to go get their gas at Bucket's because

421
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,279
they know that they're going to get a clean restroom.

422
00:24:13,319 --> 00:24:16,680
So that's just one example that is a way to

423
00:24:16,759 --> 00:24:18,279
replicate what Augusta does.

424
00:24:24,799 --> 00:24:27,759
Speaker 1: Have to share. My experience in the bathroom, I was

425
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,480
like around I think it was around whole number four.

426
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,240
I had to go to the bathroom. Pull my buddy,

427
00:24:33,519 --> 00:24:35,599
I'll be back in the night. After the bathroom, and

428
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,799
there was this young man with the greatest energy and

429
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:43,480
the biggest smile saying, if you gotta go number one,

430
00:24:43,559 --> 00:24:45,640
get in line here, you gotta go number two, just

431
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,680
wait against the wall, and he was like he just

432
00:24:48,759 --> 00:24:51,920
repeated it that his enthusiasm every single time that he

433
00:24:52,079 --> 00:24:53,960
repeated It's when I got to the front of line,

434
00:24:54,519 --> 00:24:57,319
I was, you know, I was like, did you audition

435
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,720
for this job? You know? I said, do you enjoy

436
00:25:00,839 --> 00:25:04,359
repeating you? He goes, I love this job. I've been

437
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:07,599
doing this. He couldn't have been more than twenty five

438
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:09,799
years old. He says, I've been doing this for seven years.

439
00:25:09,839 --> 00:25:11,519
I absolutely love doing this.

440
00:25:11,839 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 2: Yep.

441
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:16,079
Speaker 1: But I also saw that in the parking lot as

442
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:17,920
soon as you got out of the car, there was

443
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,759
a friendly person saying welcome to the masters.

444
00:25:20,839 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 2: Isn't it crazy? Yep? And you hear that about twenty

445
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,240
times even before you get in the gate. Yep. The

446
00:25:26,279 --> 00:25:29,759
security guards. There's members in green jackets. People think that

447
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,039
AUGUSTA members are aloof and you never see them. I mean,

448
00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:38,119
they're captains of industry. They're very successful people. But there

449
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,960
are three or four members who are assigned to the

450
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,559
parking lots and that's what they you know. And before

451
00:25:43,599 --> 00:25:46,440
you get through the gates there they're saying hello, and

452
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,799
they're welcoming and welcoming you in again. Like you look

453
00:25:49,839 --> 00:25:53,200
at there are businesses that do that. Buckets happens to

454
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,240
be another one where you get a warm greeting. Another

455
00:25:56,279 --> 00:25:59,319
one I have in the in the book is Public's

456
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,400
supermarket chain. Also in the South, and Publics has what

457
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,240
they call they have a couple rules. They have a

458
00:26:05,759 --> 00:26:09,400
ten second rule, which is every customer has to be

459
00:26:09,519 --> 00:26:13,759
greeted within ten seconds of coming into your department. And

460
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,119
it just makes a big difference, right, it's that same

461
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,079
and you know it's supermarket, it's not it's not a

462
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,200
golf tournament run by a lot of affluent people. But

463
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,400
it makes a huge difference, and they have a huge, uh,

464
00:26:27,559 --> 00:26:30,799
you know, customer satisfaction rating as a result. That's just

465
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:32,839
that's just one of the small things that they do.

466
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 1: Just one of the small things. You you briefly dropped

467
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,680
his name in, but we need to talk more about

468
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,440
Cliff Roberts. We hear a lot about Bobby Jones, obviously,

469
00:26:43,559 --> 00:26:46,799
especially on this show because doctor Bob Jones, the fourth

470
00:26:46,839 --> 00:26:49,880
his grandson, has been a regular on this show, nice

471
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,079
and telling stories about his grandfather, who he refers to

472
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,440
as bubb for the last number of years. But we

473
00:26:58,519 --> 00:27:01,920
really don't hear a lot about the thumb print that

474
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,440
Cliff Roberts put on Augusta National.

475
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, I talk about a lot of the things

476
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:15,680
that Roberts does in the book, and one of the

477
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,400
things I speculate about is he was never diagnosed with OCD,

478
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,799
but in my opinion, he definitely had it. So, you know,

479
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,960
aside from only, he hated dirty money, so he made

480
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,240
sure there is only clean and brand new bills there.

481
00:27:32,279 --> 00:27:36,200
He also made sure that every picture in the clubhouse

482
00:27:36,799 --> 00:27:39,440
has to have two hooks on it so that no

483
00:27:39,559 --> 00:27:42,960
pictures are ever crooked. They make sure that the pine

484
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,599
straw around the trees is raked in a clockwise fashion only.

485
00:27:48,319 --> 00:27:53,640
So if you look at at the Masters, Jones was

486
00:27:55,799 --> 00:27:59,720
the reason most people came to the tournament. Both fans

487
00:27:59,759 --> 00:28:02,880
came to the tournament, and that's the reason it got

488
00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:07,319
established as a major, because the pros came to honor

489
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:13,400
Bobby Jones. But everything behind the scenes was really Roberts.

490
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,440
Jones really operated at a high level, let's say thirty

491
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:23,759
thousand feet. Roberts got into the detail of everything and

492
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,200
one of the reasons that the Master's broadcast to this

493
00:28:28,319 --> 00:28:32,039
day is still so good. Those are the things that

494
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:36,960
Roberts laid down as the law. Right. He didn't want commercials.

495
00:28:37,039 --> 00:28:40,359
He didn't want it commercial. He set it up so

496
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,519
that the agreements with the broadcasters are year to year,

497
00:28:44,279 --> 00:28:47,680
so if they don't like what is going on. They

498
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,839
have control over it. And he would sit down with

499
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,359
CBS executives after every year and he would critique and say,

500
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,559
I like this, I don't like this. So again, one

501
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,359
of the reasons he he made the TV broadcast so

502
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,880
good is he said, look, I don't like chatty conversation.

503
00:29:07,279 --> 00:29:10,480
I don't like broadcasters talking all the time. And for

504
00:29:11,319 --> 00:29:14,279
any of your listeners that watch golf, which I'm sure

505
00:29:14,279 --> 00:29:17,920
most of them do, it's very annoying. It's it's it's

506
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:22,960
sort of like the broadcasters feel like they can't have

507
00:29:23,039 --> 00:29:27,720
any dead space, they can't have any quiet there.

508
00:29:29,039 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: This business.

509
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,799
Speaker 2: And Roberts said, the last thing I want is quote

510
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:38,960
unquote chatty conversation. I don't want that. Golfers want useful information.

511
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,400
So a good example of that is if you go back,

512
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,279
I know you've had Jim Mantz as a guest on

513
00:29:45,319 --> 00:29:47,680
your show. If you go back and look at his

514
00:29:47,759 --> 00:29:53,720
most famous call, which was eighty six when Jack Nicholas

515
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,200
was charging for his last green jacket. That is where

516
00:29:57,240 --> 00:29:59,599
he says the bear has come out of hibernation. If

517
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:03,440
you actually go and you listen to that, there are

518
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:12,160
long pauses and periods of silence even throughout that. After

519
00:30:12,279 --> 00:30:16,240
Nant says the bear has come out of hibernation, he's

520
00:30:16,319 --> 00:30:19,920
silent and nobody else talks. And the same thing if

521
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,559
you look at the most famous call with Tiger woodshot

522
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,680
on the sixteenth hole, where Verne Lunquist screams in your life,

523
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,799
have you ever seen that? After that, nobody says anything

524
00:30:30,799 --> 00:30:35,920
for twenty seconds because they knew. You know that those

525
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,759
are the types of things that Cliff Roberts instilled in it,

526
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,519
And the fact that there's four minutes of commercials makes

527
00:30:41,559 --> 00:30:47,200
it fantag fantastic. Roberts was just dead set against commercialism.

528
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:49,920
And I think I have a quote in the book

529
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,279
on this where one of the former chairmen said, we'd

530
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,640
rather shut the tournament down than have it be the

531
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,799
pizza hut masters. They just they don't they don't want

532
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:03,839
commercialism to be a part of it. And that goes

533
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,960
back to to what Cliff Roberts said he was, he

534
00:31:08,079 --> 00:31:09,039
was the detail man.

535
00:31:09,519 --> 00:31:12,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you you repeat multiple times throughout the book

536
00:31:12,839 --> 00:31:14,000
that it's not about the money.

537
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 2: No, it's not, it's not about the money at all.

538
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,240
If you look at if you look at like take

539
00:31:20,839 --> 00:31:23,079
take the ability to buy anything. I notice you have

540
00:31:23,119 --> 00:31:26,480
a Master's set on. The Only way to buy a

541
00:31:26,559 --> 00:31:30,160
Master's brandy gear is to go and buy it in

542
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,240
person at the Masters. Certainly you can buy it in

543
00:31:33,279 --> 00:31:36,839
the secondary market on eBay or other websites, but you

544
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,160
know you're paying a huge markup. Now, Augusta, they could

545
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,960
flood the zone. They could. They could make Masters items

546
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,960
available throughout you know, they could, they could, anybody could

547
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:50,599
buy it. They don't want to do that, they don't

548
00:31:50,599 --> 00:31:53,440
need the money. They could certainly raise the price of

549
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,240
a sandwich, right instead of costing two fifty or five

550
00:31:56,279 --> 00:31:58,359
dollars for a beer, they could double or triple those

551
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:02,400
and people would still buy them. It's just it's it's

552
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:07,279
they it's again, it's part of the ethos and they

553
00:32:07,359 --> 00:32:11,240
they Yeah, it's just a core part of the club.

554
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,359
And again I give throughout the book, I give credit

555
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,839
to all the chairmen and members of the club over

556
00:32:17,839 --> 00:32:20,319
the last hundred years that have stuck to that. It's

557
00:32:20,359 --> 00:32:22,759
one thing for Jones and Roberts to say that, it's

558
00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:27,680
another thing for the club to live up to those principles.

559
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: And it's the Old South.

560
00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:33,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the Old South very much. I agree, and

561
00:32:33,799 --> 00:32:36,839
it's created some crazy things. One of one of one

562
00:32:36,839 --> 00:32:39,960
of my favorite things in the book is I don't

563
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,799
know how much people know about these The Masters has

564
00:32:42,839 --> 00:32:46,880
these gnomes. They have limited edition garden gnomes. They're about

565
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,559
a foot toall. They won't tell you how many of

566
00:32:49,599 --> 00:32:52,599
them in classic and classic Masters fashion. They don't tell

567
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:54,799
you a lot of things about what goes on behind

568
00:32:54,799 --> 00:32:57,240
the scenes. They don't tell you how many of them

569
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,680
they issue per year. But I tell us story where

570
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,599
and I actually spoke to this individual. It's a millennial.

571
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,880
He lives in suburban Georgia. He bought the garden home.

572
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,960
The first year it was thirty nine dollars and fifty cents.

573
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,920
In twenty sixteen he bought it. He sold it in

574
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,880
twenty twenty four for eighty nine hundred dollars. So that

575
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:23,559
tells you a couple of things, right. It tells you,

576
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:28,519
Number one, how much people really value what you know.

577
00:33:28,559 --> 00:33:31,720
Anything with a Master's logo on it is worth something.

578
00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:34,359
You can travel anywhere in the world and people know

579
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,000
what the Master's logo is about. But it also it's

580
00:33:38,119 --> 00:33:40,200
it's one of the ten principles I talk about in

581
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,680
the book, which is how do you use scarcity to

582
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:49,279
create value? Right? They've perfected that you can only buy

583
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:53,960
their things seven days a year in person, that's you

584
00:33:54,079 --> 00:33:57,759
use scarcity and things create value. And the company in

585
00:33:57,799 --> 00:34:02,400
the book that I use as an example where other

586
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,559
companies can do it outside is Ermes, the French high

587
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,840
end fashion retailer. You know they make the Birken bags

588
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,519
and they also limit those and they don't you basically

589
00:34:12,559 --> 00:34:14,960
can't buy them, but they won't tell you how many

590
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:19,320
they make. So again it's just another example of how

591
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,760
you can take some of the things that Augusta does

592
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,679
and replicate them. But imagine buying something for thirty nine

593
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,599
fifty and selling it for almost nine thousand dollars. I mean,

594
00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:32,000
hedge funds don't even have that rate of return.

595
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 1: So I need to share like my purchasing history when

596
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:46,039
I was there this year, And it still makes me

597
00:34:46,159 --> 00:34:51,760
laugh when I do it, because I knew that I

598
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:56,719
wasn't aware that the scarcity mentality that they had about that,

599
00:34:57,159 --> 00:34:58,519
but I knew I was going to have to buy

600
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:01,360
gifts for people I'm you know, my friends. I don't

601
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:05,679
have the opportunity that I had, and so I literally

602
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:07,639
went online starting to look for it, like, well, I

603
00:35:07,679 --> 00:35:09,639
can get some hats cheaper and then I'll just buy

604
00:35:09,639 --> 00:35:11,239
them and give them my friends say. I was there

605
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:16,199
and there was nothing. I couldn't mind anything, right, And

606
00:35:16,679 --> 00:35:20,679
my son who he and I have been like who's

607
00:35:20,679 --> 00:35:22,320
going to go first? Who's going to go first? You know?

608
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:23,719
And I never thought I was going to get to go,

609
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,239
and he was convinced he was going to go. I

610
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,599
went Wednesday and Thursday. He went Friday and Saturday. But

611
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,760
I was the guest of a member. So he said,

612
00:35:34,039 --> 00:35:38,400
You've got to get me a hat from Augusta National.

613
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,559
That has Augusta National. I'm like, okay, I will, I

614
00:35:41,559 --> 00:35:45,599
will find one. So I the first as soon as

615
00:35:45,639 --> 00:35:47,719
we went through the gates, we went right to the

616
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,599
pro shop for the members that we got to go into.

617
00:35:50,639 --> 00:35:54,079
We had the special members passes, and I asked him

618
00:35:54,079 --> 00:35:56,719
when I said, do you have Augusta National hats? Like, no,

619
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,000
only Master's hats. And that was the end of the conference.

620
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,119
I'm like, oh, okay, Well, so I text my son, no,

621
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,519
there's no it's just Master is not a gust National.

622
00:36:07,079 --> 00:36:10,480
So I'm still looking around and I'm shopping, and my

623
00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:13,559
first shopping experience while I was there and I buy

624
00:36:13,639 --> 00:36:17,599
the hat that I'm wearing right now for you. And

625
00:36:17,639 --> 00:36:20,639
then my son, when I saw him two weeks later,

626
00:36:21,039 --> 00:36:25,199
he's like, where'd you get that hat? And I said, well,

627
00:36:25,199 --> 00:36:26,400
I bought it in the pro shop. It was the

628
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,400
one that I kind of liked it a lot and

629
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:29,920
it fit me really well. So yeah, I bought this

630
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,280
hat and he goes, well, that was only available in

631
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,480
the member's pro shop. Why didn't you get me that hat.

632
00:36:36,519 --> 00:36:39,760
I'm like, I had no idea. They just told me

633
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:41,920
there were none, and he's like, well, give me the hat.

634
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,760
I'm like, no, I'm not going to give me the hat.

635
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:45,840
I love this hat. I'm going to wear this hat

636
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:47,800
a lot. And I don't wear baseball caps, but I'm

637
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:49,159
going to wear this hat a lot because we know

638
00:36:49,199 --> 00:36:50,800
you got to give it. I'm not going to give

639
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,159
it to you. I love you, but I'm not going

640
00:36:52,159 --> 00:36:54,559
to give you my hat. And he goes, well, that's okay,

641
00:36:54,599 --> 00:37:00,519
I'll get it when you die. Okay, great, that's something

642
00:37:00,519 --> 00:37:03,320
to look forward to. Then that's all you're getting from

643
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:04,280
me is my hat.

644
00:37:04,599 --> 00:37:09,199
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, there's a whole most people wouldn't even

645
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:10,559
wouldn't even know, like.

646
00:37:12,199 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 1: Somebody offered me one thousand dollars in the market, a

647
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,920
trader Joe. Someone came up and goes, real, there're this

648
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:18,840
here and yeah, and he goes, I want your hat.

649
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:20,440
I'm like no, he goes, no, I'll give you a

650
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,320
thousand bucks. I'm like, no, my son wants it, and

651
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,800
he goes, I'll get and he followed me around the

652
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,760
market and we said goodbye, and then he came back

653
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:30,639
to my wife and he says, can you please get

654
00:37:30,679 --> 00:37:32,519
him to give me the hat. I'm like, no, you

655
00:37:32,559 --> 00:37:33,480
can't have that.

656
00:37:33,639 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 2: Wow.

657
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,760
Speaker 1: And my son's like, you didn't take one thousand dollars

658
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:39,719
for the hat, and I'm like, no, it's going to

659
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,719
give it to you. He goes, I'd sell it for those.

660
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: That's funny.

661
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, but one of the lines that you have here

662
00:37:53,079 --> 00:37:57,000
just hit me right between the eyes. It was paid

663
00:37:57,039 --> 00:38:00,000
one hundred ninety two. So excited to attend the Masters,

664
00:38:00,199 --> 00:38:03,840
and I'm sure if they will ever return. Patrons sometimes

665
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:08,599
lose their senses, they do. That was me. That was me.

666
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,119
I went shopping four times in the two days that

667
00:38:12,199 --> 00:38:15,880
I was there. I bought a home, only the little

668
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,840
one because they were out of the big ones and.

669
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 2: I went the big one's the big ones fell out

670
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:22,239
the door. Yeah, the big ones.

671
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,039
Speaker 1: They do have a small one. And I spend I

672
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:27,400
and this is of course, I know I'm never going

673
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,639
to play and I you know, if I go shopping

674
00:38:30,679 --> 00:38:33,360
in a pro shop because oh I'm never gonna play

675
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,199
this course again, or I had a great round or

676
00:38:35,199 --> 00:38:37,480
something like that, I'll go right to the sales rack

677
00:38:37,559 --> 00:38:40,440
and if I have to, I'll move beyond that and

678
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:45,159
spend ninety dollars. I spent eighteen hundred dollars YEP in

679
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,400
four trips. Luckily they let you go back to your

680
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:49,440
car and come back.

681
00:38:50,039 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 2: Yes, they also went nuts. They also allow you to

682
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,400
They have a UPS shipping station there. You can just

683
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,320
walk out of the pro shop. They'll box it up

684
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,559
and and you can send it to yourself. The average

685
00:39:03,599 --> 00:39:09,239
spend is four hundred and fifty dollars more or less

686
00:39:10,119 --> 00:39:12,559
there and they asked, I have this in the book too,

687
00:39:12,599 --> 00:39:18,599
because again it's that whole scarcity factor. They asked one

688
00:39:18,679 --> 00:39:22,559
of the ladies that was working check out, what's the

689
00:39:22,599 --> 00:39:27,159
biggest purchase she ever saw, and she said twenty thousand dollars,

690
00:39:28,559 --> 00:39:31,039
So that could be there's a lot of people that

691
00:39:31,119 --> 00:39:33,360
just go to the Masters and get tickets just to

692
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,119
sell on eBay. She said, basically they bought like three

693
00:39:37,159 --> 00:39:40,760
of everything. To me, that sounds like a reseller, which

694
00:39:41,199 --> 00:39:44,599
at some point, you know, it's very very difficult, if

695
00:39:44,639 --> 00:39:48,840
not impossible, to resell Masters tickets now they're all coded

696
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,559
and if you try to sell them, they'll deactivate the ticket.

697
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:54,800
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they do

698
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,199
the same thing with people that are trying to resell,

699
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,199
because they really One of the things that they do

700
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,320
exceptionally well, and I go through this in the book

701
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:07,119
is nothing is more important than the brand. You alluded

702
00:40:07,119 --> 00:40:09,559
to it, right, It's not about money. They could certainly

703
00:40:09,599 --> 00:40:12,280
make more money by doing a lot of different things.

704
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:16,000
They could start to charge the broadcasters, for instance, but

705
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,360
they are just very protective of the brand, which in

706
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,039
the long run makes all the sense in the world. Right,

707
00:40:23,119 --> 00:40:25,280
look at that little logo on your hat. How much

708
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,599
that's worth. That's the brand, exactly right. It's not always

709
00:40:29,599 --> 00:40:31,320
about money, yeah, but.

710
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 1: They also get the right people to do this. You

711
00:40:34,639 --> 00:40:38,719
talk about in the book about how they their national

712
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:43,800
the chief Merchandise and Creative Services Officer correct, give you

713
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:44,519
a little bit about that.

714
00:40:44,639 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 2: Yes, So I would say the most frequent comment I

715
00:40:49,039 --> 00:40:54,000
hear from people, even when you're on property or after

716
00:40:54,079 --> 00:40:59,679
the fact, is it feels like an adult Disneyland. And

717
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:05,559
part of that is there everybody's aim is to have

718
00:41:05,639 --> 00:41:09,159
you feel good that day, and everybody, like you said before,

719
00:41:09,679 --> 00:41:12,559
bathroom attendance, people that are checking you out after you

720
00:41:12,599 --> 00:41:16,480
buy your permento, cheese sandwich, et cetera. But one of

721
00:41:16,559 --> 00:41:20,360
the things that they do exceptionally well that I think

722
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:22,920
they don't get enough credit for is the way they

723
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:27,920
manage talent. And the example I give is they hired

724
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:33,119
someone who ran the merchandising operation for Walt Disney, and

725
00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:35,280
I think that person's been at the club for a

726
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,679
dozen years or so. And if you look at what

727
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,480
they've done in terms of merchandise and what they offer

728
00:41:41,679 --> 00:41:47,519
over that dozen years, they've greatly expanded the size of

729
00:41:47,599 --> 00:41:50,840
the of the pro shop that you go into buy

730
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:56,119
Master's gear, and they now do brand partnerships with selected

731
00:41:56,159 --> 00:41:59,599
brands that are only high quality. That's just one example.

732
00:42:00,119 --> 00:42:04,039
So obviously, you know, the three hundred members of Augusta

733
00:42:04,119 --> 00:42:07,519
are all very successful people. They can't do the day,

734
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,199
the day today, and when you go, if you sit

735
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:13,679
down and you have lunch, you know, to a person,

736
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,840
all the people that you're dealing with are cheerful. And

737
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,880
I don't I don't know any other company or brand

738
00:42:22,119 --> 00:42:25,159
or location in the world. You know, Disney's probably the

739
00:42:25,199 --> 00:42:30,480
closest where everybody is that good. So again I couldn't

740
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,719
find out what they do exactly in terms of their

741
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,920
training program. But I don't know how you get every

742
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,119
single person on a location to be that up beaten,

743
00:42:41,199 --> 00:42:44,880
chirpy all the time. It's it's it's an exceptional part

744
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,480
of what they do, and to me, they don't get

745
00:42:47,599 --> 00:42:51,119
enough credit for that. But again, I think it's talent management.

746
00:42:51,159 --> 00:42:53,719
It's going out, it's finding the right people, it's paying

747
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,239
them well, it's grooming them and taking care of them.

748
00:42:57,039 --> 00:42:59,840
There's there's just so many and that again, that's one

749
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:03,360
of the reasons when where I started out as a

750
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,360
golf book and then transitioned over. You know, it's still

751
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:11,800
seventy eighty percent golf and golf fans will will really

752
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,519
enjoy the book, even if they're not, you know, into

753
00:43:14,599 --> 00:43:19,079
making business decisions. But it's just really interesting some of

754
00:43:19,119 --> 00:43:22,039
the decisions that they've made. The other thing that they

755
00:43:22,079 --> 00:43:27,320
don't get enough credit for. Right, It's it's essentially a

756
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,000
lot of wealthy people that are successful. They're not young,

757
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,360
you know they and I give an example, they have

758
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:38,280
a technology committee and the average age of their technology

759
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:43,840
committee is sixty five years old. But arguably they are

760
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:49,360
one of the best users of technology in the world

761
00:43:49,519 --> 00:43:53,719
across any industry. If you use the Master's app, if

762
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,559
you look at what they do in terms of their broadcast,

763
00:43:56,679 --> 00:43:59,840
or you can go and you can just watch Amen Corner.

764
00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:04,880
You can watch every shot of any player they're on.

765
00:44:05,679 --> 00:44:10,079
I think it's fifteen different social media channels. I mean,

766
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,159
you know, you and I aren't aren't Spring chickens either.

767
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:17,679
But they're huge users of TikTok. Right. The average age

768
00:44:17,679 --> 00:44:22,280
of a TikTok user is is high teens, right, and

769
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:25,800
most most TikTok users are in Asia or Latin America.

770
00:44:26,519 --> 00:44:30,199
They're very sophisticated in terms of how they use technology.

771
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,519
And it's and it's one of the lessons that to

772
00:44:33,599 --> 00:44:37,760
me that really came out as I started to analyze

773
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,280
the company. And frankly, when you go outside the Master's

774
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:48,599
most you know, Masters only uses technology to help you.

775
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,840
And most technology and I use a couple of examples

776
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,800
in the books. Try calling your cable company or your

777
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,760
power company or ups. First of all, you're not going

778
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:00,719
to get anybody. You're going to get at some phone

779
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,239
tree that's mind numbing and it's going to take you

780
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:05,519
five minutes to get through that. When you get through that,

781
00:45:05,599 --> 00:45:07,800
you're going to get to some chatbot that doesn't work,

782
00:45:09,039 --> 00:45:10,719
and then maybe you're going to be put on hold

783
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,639
for twenty minutes. That's the way most companies use technology.

784
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:19,079
They're using it to prevent you from getting to a person.

785
00:45:19,159 --> 00:45:22,400
They're using it to save money. And again there's a

786
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,440
huge lesson in there about how you don't have to

787
00:45:25,519 --> 00:45:29,599
do that. And I use a company in of all places,

788
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:34,400
a pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, called you Line, and they sell

789
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:39,079
shipping supplies and cardboard boxes and stuff. When you call

790
00:45:39,199 --> 00:45:44,000
you Line, the phone never rings. Go look up their

791
00:45:44,039 --> 00:45:47,079
eight one hundred number and dial their number. I guarantee

792
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:51,800
the phone will in a second or less. The head

793
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,760
of the company says, we pick up the phones faster

794
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:57,039
than nine one one when you dial nine to one one,

795
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:01,440
and he's right, it's incredible. That's that's an that's a

796
00:46:01,599 --> 00:46:05,199
brilliant use of technology. So again it's a it's a small,

797
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,519
relatively small, privately held company. It's just another good example

798
00:46:09,599 --> 00:46:14,039
of how if you use technology wisely, you can actually

799
00:46:14,119 --> 00:46:17,199
help people and create a better environment. And it's another

800
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,400
good example of how the world can be more like

801
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,360
the Masters if more companies and decision makers decided that

802
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,119
it was it was a good goal and worthy to

803
00:46:27,159 --> 00:46:27,440
do that.

804
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 1: To me, what stands out about your book what I

805
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,800
enjoyed so much is how you take a business view

806
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:46,159
of something that all golfers and many non golfers appreciate,

807
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:51,039
and that is what The Masters represents, not only to

808
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:55,159
the sport, but also to the passage of time. It's like,

809
00:46:55,199 --> 00:47:00,280
when the Masters happens, it's ah, it's springtime. It's time

810
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,559
to start thinking about and going out and playing golf again.

811
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,239
Why is it in the book that you felt that

812
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:14,079
the Masters would fly over the heads of private equity people.

813
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:16,800
Going back into the business element of.

814
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, one of the things I did is so

815
00:47:19,519 --> 00:47:24,719
if I look, I have something like twenty twenty two

816
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:30,119
or twenty four companies that I compare The Masters to.

817
00:47:31,039 --> 00:47:35,280
So it's it's it's Disney it's you line, it's Bucky's,

818
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:39,239
but it's also you know, places like publics and stuff.

819
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,320
And one of the things I did when I started

820
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,840
to analyze it, even though publics is a huge supermarket,

821
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:49,159
it's employee owned. And eighty percent of the companies that

822
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:54,039
I ended up comparing to from in the book were

823
00:47:54,079 --> 00:48:00,920
either employee owned or privately owned, and the other twenty percent,

824
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,280
and frankly most I give a lot of examples of

825
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:06,960
companies that do a horrible job, almost all of them

826
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,400
were owned by they're either public big public companies, or

827
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:13,800
they were owned by private equity. So it's not something

828
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,039
I came in and said, this is something I want

829
00:48:17,079 --> 00:48:19,079
to try to prove or disprove. I just looked at

830
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,280
and analyzed as I went through it, and I think,

831
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,000
fred it comes back to just money. If if you're

832
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,480
in private equity and you're investing in something and you

833
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,880
want to get a return on it, what's your time horizon?

834
00:48:33,159 --> 00:48:37,519
Right Augusta's time horizon. They're looking at twenty thirty years

835
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,679
and they're thinking about the brand. They're not thinking about money.

836
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:46,119
So same thing. If your employee owned, you're going to

837
00:48:46,199 --> 00:48:48,440
do everything you can to make sure that the company

838
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:51,760
is successful, because if the company does well, you do well.

839
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,880
It's just a matter of the incentives, I think. And

840
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,519
obviously there are public companies like Disney that do a

841
00:48:58,519 --> 00:49:02,039
good job. But my experience, the bigger the company, the

842
00:49:02,039 --> 00:49:08,480
more bureaucratic, and companies that are that are owned by

843
00:49:09,079 --> 00:49:12,599
private equity and and and other owners that are just

844
00:49:12,639 --> 00:49:15,599
looking to milk it and make money out of it,

845
00:49:15,679 --> 00:49:18,320
to me, they don't. They don't live the principle. Certainly,

846
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:20,480
there's going to be exceptions. I'm sure I'll get calls

847
00:49:20,519 --> 00:49:25,000
from people that are in private equity complaining about that comment,

848
00:49:25,079 --> 00:49:27,800
but as a general rule that that's what I found

849
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:29,519
as I analyzed.

850
00:49:29,079 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 1: The book interesting. You also, and I hope it's okay

851
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:36,679
to talk about this. You were quite revealing about your

852
00:49:36,679 --> 00:49:41,559
personal story. Yes, you even said I've lived two lives.

853
00:49:42,159 --> 00:49:47,519
Speaker 2: I have. Yeah, yeah, I think the way I describe

854
00:49:47,559 --> 00:49:54,159
it is the first life was I mean, I was.

855
00:49:55,199 --> 00:49:59,079
I was wildly successful, given you know, I didn't excel

856
00:49:59,119 --> 00:50:03,039
at school. I was fantastic at sports, but I ended

857
00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:07,480
up doing very well in business. I have a fantastic family.

858
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,599
I played the top hundred courses, right, I mean it

859
00:50:11,639 --> 00:50:14,840
was a dream life, and then in twenty eighteen, I

860
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,760
was diagnosed with leukemia and my first life ended in

861
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:23,719
one day. Leukemia is cancered the blood, and I had

862
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:31,400
a particular strain that is very deadly, unfortunately, so they

863
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,679
put me in an ambulance. I went to the hospital.

864
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:35,920
I wasn't allowed to leave for thirty days. I had

865
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:41,639
a bone marrow transplant and since then, you know, there's

866
00:50:41,679 --> 00:50:44,840
a lot of complications. I'm lucky to be alive. Let

867
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,400
me just say first and foremost that I'm not complaining

868
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:50,880
about anything. Every day is a gift. I'm happy to

869
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,800
be here. But you know, I deal with a lot

870
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,960
of issues from the bone marrow transplant. And it sounds goofy,

871
00:50:59,119 --> 00:51:02,239
but you know, when I was in the hospital and

872
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:04,760
I had some moments that were not so great, and

873
00:51:05,039 --> 00:51:06,679
you know, I obviously wanted to get out to be

874
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,679
with my family and my friends and so forth, but

875
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,519
I also dreamed about one day, like returning to go

876
00:51:13,639 --> 00:51:16,599
back to the Masters. As odd as that sounds, because

877
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:19,400
you know, I'm stuck in After you have a bone

878
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:23,320
marrow transplant, It's sort of like the Seinfeld episode with

879
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:27,000
the bubble Boy. You're stuck in a room. When nurses

880
00:51:27,039 --> 00:51:30,000
and doctors come in, they have to put on special equipment.

881
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:32,559
You're not allowed to leave the room for thirty days.

882
00:51:32,599 --> 00:51:36,360
You know. I'm hooked up to five or six different

883
00:51:38,119 --> 00:51:41,840
monitors and ivs and so forth. It's such an antiseptic

884
00:51:42,039 --> 00:51:46,800
environment and it really just crushes the soul. And to me,

885
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,719
the best place in the world. And you've been there,

886
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:53,280
anybody that's been there. When you're standing by the thirteenth

887
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:58,679
Green or you're near Amen Corner, it's heaven. And I

888
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,440
just you know, one of the things that motivated me

889
00:52:01,679 --> 00:52:04,760
to write the book is I just wanted to know

890
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:07,079
more about it. I wanted to go back, and I

891
00:52:07,119 --> 00:52:12,800
did a couple of years after. You know, my doctor said, no,

892
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:15,400
you really can't go. You can't fly. You don't have

893
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,679
a good immune system. You know. She was hemming and

894
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:21,320
horn and eventually I say in the book, I say,

895
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:24,800
you know, like most people don't know a lot about golf,

896
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:27,440
the majority of people out there, but they know what

897
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:31,599
the Masters is. And you know, she's seventy years old,

898
00:52:32,079 --> 00:52:35,840
my oncologist, she has no clue about golf, but she

899
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,320
knows what the Masters is. You know, she recognizes the

900
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:42,239
theme song and she'll watch on Sunday. That's the only

901
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:45,440
golf she ever watches. So she gave me permission and

902
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:49,760
we ended up going back and I said, you know,

903
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,320
that's when my mental healing began. You know, the doctors

904
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,280
that treated me did a phenomenal job. I'm forever grateful

905
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,320
to what they did, but it just beats you down

906
00:53:00,199 --> 00:53:04,480
spiritually and mentally, and for me, everybody's got something different.

907
00:53:05,159 --> 00:53:07,480
That's one of the things I really wanted to do.

908
00:53:07,679 --> 00:53:12,199
So call it an obsession about Augusta National or the Masters,

909
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:15,039
whatever you want, but that's one of the things I

910
00:53:15,119 --> 00:53:17,719
dreamed of and I've been working on the book for

911
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:20,039
three years and it's just been a dream project for

912
00:53:20,159 --> 00:53:23,800
me because I can't get enough things Augusta. I just

913
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,559
love everything about what they do because, as you know,

914
00:53:27,639 --> 00:53:31,679
you've been there, and hopefully you know, people listening if

915
00:53:31,679 --> 00:53:35,079
they haven't been able to go and keep trying the lottery,

916
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,199
eventually you'll win. I won the lottery last year for

917
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,960
the first time ever. It took fifteen years to win,

918
00:53:44,079 --> 00:53:48,199
so there's hope for anybody to go. And it's I

919
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,360
think it should be a life goal of anybody because

920
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:57,159
you know, Disneyland is for kids, but Augusta's for adults.

921
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,199
And it's hard to describe right, as much as I

922
00:54:00,199 --> 00:54:02,119
try to do it in the book, unless you have

923
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:07,000
actually been on property and experience at firsthand, it's very

924
00:54:07,039 --> 00:54:10,239
difficult to relate that, which is why people are so

925
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:12,639
insane when they come back from the Masters and they

926
00:54:12,639 --> 00:54:14,400
lose their minds when they go into the pro shop,

927
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,239
because it's like you're a kid at a candy story.

928
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,039
You're like, I finally made it, and I might never

929
00:54:20,159 --> 00:54:22,679
come back. So I'm going to buy everything, and I'm

930
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:25,119
going to give a gift to everybody I know. Yep,

931
00:54:25,199 --> 00:54:27,320
it's not uncommon, Fred, not uncommon.

932
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 1: Well, good gee, that makes me feel better. Well, here's

933
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:33,199
a little gift for you. John.

934
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 2: Oh awesome, best song in the world.

935
00:54:39,039 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there are probably I can think of

936
00:54:43,119 --> 00:54:47,960
three life goals for golfers. One would be a hole

937
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:54,800
in one yep. Two getting to witness the Masters in person. Yeah,

938
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,840
And to me, my ultimate one now is someday shooting

939
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:00,360
my ag.

940
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:05,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a good one too. Yeah. Yeah. So it's.

941
00:55:07,199 --> 00:55:11,280
Speaker 1: I hope you're well now, Yes, thank you. I'm so

942
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,679
sorry about all the troubles that you've been through and.

943
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 2: I consider myself lucky in many respects. But thank you.

944
00:55:18,159 --> 00:55:21,800
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and I consider myself lucky because I

945
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,039
got a chance to talk to you again and about

946
00:55:24,119 --> 00:55:29,559
this book again. I think if anybody listening, if in

947
00:55:29,679 --> 00:55:32,960
fact you have or are part of a business that

948
00:55:33,039 --> 00:55:36,159
you want to help grow, yeah, to look at this

949
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:41,480
book and take it seriously. It's called The Augusta Principles.

950
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,119
Speaker 2: Right, yes, thank you, Fred.

951
00:55:43,199 --> 00:55:46,159
Speaker 1: Please please share with us how to find more about

952
00:55:46,159 --> 00:55:49,239
the book about you where to get it.

953
00:55:49,559 --> 00:55:51,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a website. I think I sent the link

954
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:56,239
with this episode. There's a website called the Augusta Principles

955
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:59,679
that people could visit or google or the books available

956
00:55:59,679 --> 00:56:01,920
on am on a lot of people buy it on Amazon.

957
00:56:02,119 --> 00:56:03,440
But thank you for that, Fred.

958
00:56:03,599 --> 00:56:09,159
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely, John, it was great to catch up again

959
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,039
after so long. I can't believe the Gulf Smarter is

960
00:56:12,079 --> 00:56:14,480
still going on and that we were able to reconnect

961
00:56:14,519 --> 00:56:15,880
after so many years.

962
00:56:16,159 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 2: Ye. Well, your podcast is so good, that's why you've

963
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:20,320
been doing it for so long.

964
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 1: Fred, No, I'm just I've got that, you know, the

965
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,480
OCD thing that we talked about with Clip Roberts, like

966
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,039
can't stop just can't stop because if I do, I'll

967
00:56:29,079 --> 00:56:34,280
never come back. I gotta keep going. But it's it's

968
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:37,239
been an incredible journey, and I'm so glad to have

969
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:40,559
you help me put it all together. On both sides.

970
00:56:41,159 --> 00:56:42,119
Speaker 2: Oh, pleasure is mine.

971
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:43,599
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Thank you, Fred