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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Richard Ladadio from North Caldwell, New Jersey. I

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play at Montclair Golf Club, established in eighteen ninety three.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter.

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Bill Farmer from Cincinnati, Ohio, and I

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play at Sharon Woods Golf Court.

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Speaker 2: And this is Golf Smarter number one thousand and nine

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Gary player who is one of the most gregarious, friendly

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people you could ever meet. Loves to talk, loves to

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live life to the fullest. At eighty nine years old,

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he'll be ninety in November, and he is a true

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scratch golfer. I had the thrill of a lifetime playing

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with him in May. Watched him shoot seventy three like

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it was nothing and hit his drive two hundred forty

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to two hundred and fifty yards at eighty nine years old.

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But the thing that he told Adam and I when

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we played with him, he was not that level of

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friendly when he was playing tournament golf. He was focused.

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He didn't talk the way he talks now, and he

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was focused on winning tournaments and nine major championships on

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the regular tour, nine major championships on the Senior Tour.

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He won the Grand Slam on both tours, the only

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player ever to do it. He has that track record

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to show for that. Laser focus.

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Speaker 1: Serial golf entrepreneur Mark Bender shares his views on the

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best courses in the world. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories,

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tips and insights from great golf minds to help you

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lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host,

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Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Mark.

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Speaker 2: Great to be here with you, Fred, Thanks so much

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for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to you. We had a really

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interesting introduction to one another, and we had lunch together

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at the Masters on Wednesday. At the Masters, eating in

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the founders what do they call it, the Founder's n Cafeteria.

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Speaker 2: Founder, the Founder's Room, Live, the Founder's Room.

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Speaker 1: The Founder's Room. Yeah, And there were what half a

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dozen people sitting at the table. My host Chet was there,

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and you were with one of your partners, and there

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was another couple guys there and Charlie Yates, who was

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our host, my host. How did you know Charlie.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great story. Yeah, yeah, So Charlie has

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been a good friend now for many years. And the

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golf world is very small, and there's a phrase that

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is out there that's pretty accurate, that says the golf

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world gets smaller every day. And the short version is

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Charlie and I have a bunch of mutual friends and

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we both follow a lot of different discussion boards with

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regards to golf course architecture and the fun debates that

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exist with regards to what golf course is more interesting

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than another. And do you like the older historic courses

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or do you like the newer modern style courses tree

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line courses that are tight with really challenging greens most

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of the time sloping back to front with little nuances,

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or do you like modern architecture where you have so

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many of the great top tom Fasio courses that are

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out there and what have you, where the greens have

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a lot more shelves and terraces and different sections that

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allow for faster green speeds without the topsy turzy what

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they like to call potato chip shaped greens. So that's

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how we got to know each other. We have mutual

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friends and we became fast friends. And obviously his touch

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to history in golf with his dad is really incredible.

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Hearing the stories and his passion for people who are

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passionate about golf is terrific and he's one of the

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great people that I know.

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Speaker 1: Now I'm curious about these debates about golf courses. Where

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do you stand.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I can appreciate the beauty of the

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historical courses and what makes them so different than the

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way golf courses are built today. As my really good

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friend Steve Smiers tells me, who's a golf course architect,

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and some of the courses in his resume include Old

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Memorial down in Tampa, which is a fabulous place founded

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by the owners of out Back Steakhouse, and his course

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aile Worth, which has been around since Tiger really lived there,

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and Steve was hired to basically Tiger proof the course

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and get it ready for him to be his home

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training ground. And as he always shares with me, you know,

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green speeds back one hundred years ago did not have

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the equipment for agronomy that we have today, and the

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average green speed was between three and five on the stimpmeter,

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And people just don't realize how different that is from today,

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where most golf courses try to get their greens at

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least over ten and that includes public courses and resort courses.

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Sometimes if they're any faster than that, it leads to

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very long rounds and slow pace of play, which of

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course affects everyone. So when you include private clubs that

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have a faster pace of play, those greens often today

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run twelve plus on the stip meter. But if you

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take a course that's one hundred years old and you

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run those greens at a twelve and they were designed

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to run a three and five, it's really fun for

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match play, but it can be really difficult and painful

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in stroke play when you have to hit it in

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the hole because you could have six feet above the pin,

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and it doesn't matter what you do if you don't

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make it. Basically you could have twelve feet coming back.

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So people tell you oftentimes here's my advice for you,

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fred leave it below the hole. But then what you

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realize is a lot of the older style courses were

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built in a way that greens are elevated in front,

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making them all carry and you can't really run it up,

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and then they slope from back to front. So if

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there's a pin that's in the middle or front of

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the green and somebody tells you keep it below the hole,

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keeping it below the hole usually winds up meaning short

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of the green, because if you keep it below the hole,

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you have really very little margin to do that, and

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most of us aren't at that level where you have

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that precision within a couple of yards, and more often

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than not, what winds up happening is you wind up

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twenty feet above the hole and then you take your chances.

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So fast greens are awesome. I love fast greens, but

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if you want to know where I come out on it,

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I can really appreciate where greens teeter on playable versus

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less playable really around the concept of when they were

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built and how they were designed based on green speeds

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during that era. So if greens you know of courses

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were built in the nineteen teens, nineteen ten to nineteen twenty,

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and nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty, when so many golf

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courses were built before the Great Depression, what happens is

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you have greens that were three to five on the

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stint meter, and then all of a sudden, you have

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them run ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and you wind up

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getting yourself in a situation where it becomes really tough

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to score. And it can be a different kind of challenge.

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But you talked about Pinehurst before we came on the

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air here today, and you know Pinehurst number two. Those

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greens are upside down saucers and that course has been

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around for I'm sure about one hundred years or so,

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probably a little bit longer, and they're upside down saucers

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where when those greens were rolling at five on the

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stint meter. They're very playable because balls would actually stop

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on the sides of hill or hills or tiers and

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you can hit those putts a little bit harder and

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not have to worry about them going twelve feet by.

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But one of the things you'll hear from the great

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putting instructors that are in the world today, whether it

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be my long standing thirty year friend Darryl Kessner who's

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one of the best putters in the world, best putting

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teachers in the world, that deep Dale Golf Club were

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in modern day times, Brad Fax or mister Sweeney who's great,

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or David Orr, these are Stan Utley. Those are really

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the top putting gurus in the world today and they'll

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all tell you the same thing when you're over a putt.

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The most important thing to understand this speed, but also

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matching the line with the speed, and you really want

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to try and come in on the high side of

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the hole. But what happens is if you are playing

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greens that are so severely sloped and you hit it

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on the high side of the hole, what that usually

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means if it misses is that you have three, four, five, six,

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seven feet left instead of twenty feet left. If you

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miss it on the low side, it doesn't mean that

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you can miss on the high side and it's just

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going to cozy up to six inches or a foot

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or a foot and a half and you're just going

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to have a tap in. So where I come out

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is I love the old courses, I love the new courses.

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I love studying golf course architecture, but it's really important

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that golf course set up enables you to have that

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playability where you feel like it's conceivable to get a

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put close to the hole.

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Speaker 1: So you talk about the way golf course architecture has changed,

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especially on the greens, when did we see I see

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old videos and you'll see, you know, Nicholas getting down

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for one of his putts long ago, and you can

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just see how thick the grass is there and how

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already has to hit it with his little blade and

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it's barely rolling. Where when we were at the Masters,

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I was blown away that these guys were making a

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tap that was looked like a five foot putt and

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it went thirty five feet.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: When did all of that change on greens occur?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say that I

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think really the turn of the century or the millennium

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in two thousand is when agronomy and technology really took off,

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which allowed a combination of grasses that could maintain and

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sustain green speeds that were much faster and firmer turf

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where they didn't have to be over watered as much,

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which makes them softer. And also where the rollers that

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they used today which compacts the grass and has the

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ball roll that much smoother. And really I describe it

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as the ball glides across the grass moor, which is

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exactly what you were referring to, which you saw at

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the Masters. That really has been in the past twenty

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five years. And there's a great golf digest little thing

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that you can search up and find that will show

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you what the green speeds were in nineteen ninety seven

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and What that shows is that many of the courses

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that you today know to have some of the fastest

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greens were at a totally different speed relative to what

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people perceive them to have been back in nineteen seventy seven.

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So to give you some examples, I just pulled up

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the chart here. Congressionals greens were six foot four inches

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on the Stemp meter in nineteen seventy seven. It says

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that the Masters was seven feet eleven inches just under

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eight on the STEMT meter. Harbortown, one of Pete Die's

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signature courses, Jack Nicholas's first design that he did with

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Pete Die back in I believe it was back in

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the sixties or seventies, the greens average rolling a five

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point one on the Stemp meter. Oakland Hills, fabulous course

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outside of Detroit, has hosted many, many major championships, and

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it's set to host many more. I still remember in

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nineteen ninety six Steve Jones winning the US Open there

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and beating Davis Love the third, who was charging and

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I think might have finished second. The greens rolled eight

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feet five inches. And as we just saw the US

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Open at Oakmont a couple of weeks ago, which always

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is sort of the gold standard for green speeds. Those

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greens rolled nine feet eight inches in nineteen seventy seven

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and today they average well over thirteen on a regular basis.

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Pinehurst Number two six feet ten inches in nineteen seventy seven,

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Shittacock seven feet two inches, San Francisco Golf Club seven

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feet two inches, and the famous wing foot seven feet

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five inches. So think about the difference between green speeds

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then versus now, and each year agronomy just advances more

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and more. If you look at some of the great

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companies that provide the equipment for maintenance, two of which

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I can think of as Toro and John Deere, their

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equipment allows for the compassion of grass to be greater.

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The irrigation systems are phenomenal and really given credit where

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credit is due. The savviness and expert of golf course

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superintendents is the best it's ever been. I always think

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if you talk about the most thankless job you could

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think of, being a green superintendent, golf course superintendent is

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one of them. Because everybody wants firm, fast conditions, everybody

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wants perfectly rolling greens, but nobody wants to risk losing

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their greens or pushing them too far, and then when

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you get heat and humidity and moisture all coming together

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at the same time, you certainly risk running into a

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situation where greens can teeter on the wrong side of

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that aggressiveness and you could really lose your greens for

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an entire season. So hats off to all the superintendents

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out there that work countless hours. They're up before dawn

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and oftentimes they're there until the twilight hours.

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Speaker 1: Amazing. And so who do you think in those years,

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I mean, you're talking about how around at the turn

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of the century, So then post that would be the

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Tiger era, who do you think was hurt the most

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by those changes in green speeds being and grasp being thicker.

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It's probably rolling truer now than it ever did before

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from all those changes. Who do you think on tour

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from your perspective and you've watched closely, who has impacted

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the most and suffered from it?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting question. I would say that the

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way most analysts, top teachers in golf, top putting gurus

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would explain it is that I know, for me, putting

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has always been the best part of my game, so

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I love fast greens. If you give me greens up

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to twelve or twelve and a half on the stint meter,

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I feel like I have great speed control and I'm

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going to output most people that I play with in

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terms of my putting stats and data. However, or if

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you give me greens over thirteen that have serious undulation,

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then I start to lose speed control because they're just

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so fast. And if you give me greens that are

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under ten on the stimpmeter, I'm gonna look much more average.

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So what the conclusion to that insight gives you is

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exactly what the experts in putting and teaching will tell you,

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which is a poorer putter will always put better on

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slower greens, and a better putter will always excel and

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put better on faster greens. And the reason for that

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is getting your ball on the green within a three

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foot circle on slower greens is a lot easier than

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on faster greens because the margin of error is greater.

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You can hit a ball a little bit thin and

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it'll probably stop three or four feet past the hole.

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If you hit a ball a little bit thin on

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super fast greens that are going straight downhill away from

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you past the hole, you could have a ball roll

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completely off the green, and that's the difference. So it's

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really the poorer the players who have a poorer short

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game in terms of pitching, ability to spin the ball,

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understanding how to land the ball with the right trajectory

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and how it's going to react out of bunkers, really

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understanding on a leg put what goes on past the hole.

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A lot of people that read greens will look at

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what's going on until the ball reaches the hole, but

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they may tend to forget what happens three feet after

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the hole. So the toughest pins on fast greens, for sure,

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are the ones that are on top of a little

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knob or on top of a little hill, because you

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have to hit the ball up to get to the hole,

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and then it looks fine as it's slowing down, but

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sometimes two three feet past the hole, the ball runs

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away from you and then all of a sudden you think,

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oh my goodness, that's not what it looked like it

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was going to do, and then you feel very silly.

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So there's this program out there now that's called easy

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Hole Locator that gives you all the best pinnable positions

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to cut a hole, and sometimes they look like they're

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right on the edge of a green and years ago

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no one would ever use those pins, but the area

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surrounding the hole is actually pretty flat and usable. What

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you want to make sure you do there is not

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short side yourself, because if you do getting twenty twenty

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five feet to be the best you possibly can. And

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again giving my great friend Steve Smyers some credit, who

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has really studied a lot of the data out there,

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and he follows decade Golf online, which gives you a

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lot of great insight in terms of how to play

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smart golf and how to save shots where you can.

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Since we all know there are lots of things in

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golf that are out of your control, especially your missus.

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Golf is a game of misses, and if you can

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understand that and live that, you can appreciate that some

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of your best rounds will be the rounds not where

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you hit your best shots or the largest number of

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your best shots, but actually when you control your missus

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the best. Some of my best rounds have had the

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best misses. Very few, if any, of my best rounds

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have been me just hitting the ball the best they've

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ever hit it. So to that point, what happens is

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you aimed for the middle of the green, as my

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friend Steve Smyer says, and rely on your leg putting,

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and you're gonna always be in great shape if you're

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a good leg putter. Then firing at a pin that

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short sides yourself and gives you very little chance to

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get up and down. And here's a little fun fact

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for you. Many know but some don't, that the Tiger

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Woods is arguably the best putter ever to play golf,

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and if he's not, he's as good as any putter

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ever was. And the reason for that is that you

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may not even see that in his putting data in

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terms of, you know, his average putts per round. And

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the reason is that he aimed for the fat part

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of the green more than any top player. And he

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would always say that if he got really close to

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a pin that was tucked, he probably didn't hit the

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shot that he was trying to hit. So he may

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have hit some of these heroic shots where a pin

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was cut three paces from the right edge of the

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green with a deep bunker right to the green if

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you miss it, and he may have aimed thirty feet

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left and tried to work the ball right and cut

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it into the hole, and basically the ball would bounce

339
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and spin towards the hole and take the natural terrain,

340
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or he might have overcut it a little bit and

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it gets close. But when all's said and done, he

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was really happy to have fifteen to thirty five footers

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all day long, hit more greens and regulation than anyone

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else out there, considering he's one of the best iron

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player of all time, iron players of all time, and

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just rely on being an incredible putter.

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Speaker 1: What's fascinating about this conversation so far, and we have

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a lot more to go about. Fascination is that you're

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a You're not a golf instructor. You're a golf businessman

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and you have been for decades, and we're going to

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get into the variety and the variety of businesses that

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you have that are recognizable. But I'm just curious. You

353
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know that you've been around the industry for a long time,

354
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but you're a golfer. You're not a competitive golfer that

355
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I know of the you know. I mean, you may

356
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play in local tournaments whatnot, but we're not watching you

357
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on the tour. We're watching you in the background doing deals.

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What's the hardest course you've ever played?

359
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Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. I would name there's three

360
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or four that based on conditions, can all fit that answer. Okay,

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I would say that since it's so timely, what you

362
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saw happen at the US Open at Oakmont is consistent

363
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with what you see on a day in the day

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out basis. Maybe the rough isn't quite five inches like

365
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:43,119
it was, but I could tell you the green speeds

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are probably even faster than they played during the US Open.

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They had a couple of weather delays and elements that

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put moisture in them, which slows down the speed, and

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the greens always grow throughout the day and they probably

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get a foot slower as the day goes on. So

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Oakmont is a golf course that is just It tests

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every part of your game. It tests your patience. You

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could certainly see that by some of the players reactions

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and showing their full range of emotions during the US

375
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Open and basically which you don't see on a regular

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tour event. You know, Oakmont is as hard as any

377
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golf course in the world because it tests every part

378
00:21:20,799 --> 00:21:22,799
of your game. No matter what you could be hitting

379
00:21:22,799 --> 00:21:27,000
the ball really well. Tests. I played Oakmond three times,

380
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:31,000
three times. Oak Hill, which hosted the PGA Championship a

381
00:21:31,039 --> 00:21:33,680
couple of years ago when Brooks kept Goa won. That

382
00:21:33,759 --> 00:21:37,319
golf course was renovated by Andrew Green, who really modernized

383
00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:39,279
it in a lot of ways. It's got some fairway

384
00:21:39,319 --> 00:21:42,079
bunkers that are super deep and same kind of thing.

385
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:45,559
It just tests every single part of your game. If

386
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you go internationally, you can look at you can look

387
00:21:51,079 --> 00:21:54,319
at a rural county down and you can understand that

388
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:58,359
those fairways, regardless of what the width is in terms

389
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:03,000
of pure yards, on a technical basis, it effectively plays

390
00:22:03,079 --> 00:22:05,640
much more narrow because having a twenty five to thirty

391
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:07,680
mile an hour winday, you probably get a third of

392
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,000
the days out there, and the turf conditions overseas in

393
00:22:11,039 --> 00:22:13,960
Ireland and Scotland are so much firmer than they are

394
00:22:14,039 --> 00:22:15,839
here that if you have side spin on the ball,

395
00:22:16,039 --> 00:22:18,400
your ball may start landing in the fairway, but it

396
00:22:18,559 --> 00:22:23,519
oftentimes winds up finishing in if you're lucky, light fescue,

397
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:28,039
and if you're unlucky, dense, thick, knee high grass and

398
00:22:28,079 --> 00:22:30,839
that's really hard to recover from your your hacking out

399
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:35,039
if you find if you find your ball exactly you know,

400
00:22:35,079 --> 00:22:38,319
and then coming back coming back stateside, you know. Obviously

401
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,359
I could also include Carnusti, which takes pride in all

402
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,640
their ballmarkers say the hardest links course in the world.

403
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:50,519
It is really hard. Pine Valley, which by most measures

404
00:22:50,599 --> 00:22:52,920
is the number one rank course in the world. It

405
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,200
is my favorite. I think it's the best golf course

406
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,799
in the world. The thing that makes Pine Valley hard

407
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,359
is that the fairways are plenty space, the greens are

408
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:05,559
plenty large, but if you leave the fairway, it's one

409
00:23:05,599 --> 00:23:08,519
of the hardest courses to recover from. So they give

410
00:23:08,559 --> 00:23:11,680
you spacious fairways, but you better hit them. And if

411
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,960
you look at the visual intimidation, since it's really set

412
00:23:15,079 --> 00:23:17,640
up and designed in a way by George Crump where

413
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:21,119
you're going island to island, it's fairways that are cut

414
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:26,920
in an entire sandy dunes environment and topography and land

415
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:31,839
and uphill downhill side hill stances and lies, and basically

416
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,559
you have to you have to hit the ball straight

417
00:23:34,839 --> 00:23:36,440
and you have to be able to land it into

418
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,920
the greens pretty high and soft, and the greens are

419
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:42,519
no bargain, but they're fair. They're very puttable. I don't

420
00:23:42,519 --> 00:23:45,119
think anyone leaves the golf course and says it's unfair.

421
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,720
You just have to hit the shots so you finish

422
00:23:47,799 --> 00:23:50,079
that round. There's really no lucky breaks. You shoot what

423
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,720
you should shoot every single time. And I think I

424
00:23:53,759 --> 00:23:56,000
think that's great. And if you look at a modern

425
00:23:56,039 --> 00:23:58,440
golf course, since I named all older courses, there are

426
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:03,759
two gentleman named Bob Gwynn, who is an amateur architect,

427
00:24:03,839 --> 00:24:06,839
just a passionate golfer like me, built his own golf

428
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,839
course in West Virginia called Pikewood National, and it's really

429
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,160
amazing what he did. He built eighteen unique holes and

430
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,319
they are all inspired by different design elements, many of

431
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,599
which are from some of the most famous architects over time,

432
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,680
one hundred year old architects. And they have holes that

433
00:24:24,799 --> 00:24:27,759
you probably know, fred have names. You know. There's Cape holes,

434
00:24:27,799 --> 00:24:31,640
there's Dan holes, there's Eden holes, and there's a Cape

435
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:35,559
hole that Pikewood National that's fabulous, a par five, and

436
00:24:35,599 --> 00:24:38,640
there's every other type of hole you can imagine. And

437
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:41,480
that is unquestionably one of the toughest courses in the world.

438
00:24:41,559 --> 00:24:45,319
Thick rough, really tough walk, but one of my favorite

439
00:24:45,319 --> 00:24:48,119
places for a course that's built within the past thirty

440
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,839
forty years, and they did a fabulous job, and that

441
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,440
course has become more and more noted and improved in

442
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:58,920
the rankings and deservingly so. And by an amateur architect

443
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,839
who just studied golf course architecture and did a fabulous job.

444
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:07,119
And then, of course, another modern course that everyone's familiar

445
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:11,000
with is TPC Sawgrass. The difference at TPC Sawgrass where

446
00:25:11,039 --> 00:25:14,200
Pete Dye designed this course with Dean Beeman back in

447
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,359
the early eighties to try and be a stadium course

448
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,920
that had that thrill factor. Everybody that knows golf and

449
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,160
follows golf on TV knows what the finishing three holes

450
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:27,480
look like at TPC Sawgrass, A dramatic, reachable par five

451
00:25:28,039 --> 00:25:32,200
in sixteen a Devilish Island Green Part three and seventeen

452
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,920
where it's debatable whether the effective green size is too

453
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,799
small or it should be bigger. A lot of people

454
00:25:38,799 --> 00:25:40,559
will tell you it should be a couple thousand square

455
00:25:40,599 --> 00:25:42,319
feet bigger. A lot of people will say these are

456
00:25:42,319 --> 00:25:44,079
the best players in the world. They can hit a

457
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,000
gap wedge or pitching wedge with precision. But what you

458
00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:50,240
don't necessarily see on TV, but you see when you're

459
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,920
there in person, is that it's like a wind tunnel.

460
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,240
So when that wind is gusty, you hit a shot

461
00:25:57,279 --> 00:25:59,599
and you're just praying that you're getting the distance to

462
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,200
the center the green. I don't know anybody who's firing

463
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,079
to the pin there, because each section is so small

464
00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:06,799
that if you hit it in the center of the green,

465
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,160
there's a good chance by accident, you're going to get close.

466
00:26:09,279 --> 00:26:11,519
And if your ball winds up anywhere on that green,

467
00:26:11,759 --> 00:26:14,240
I think it's pretty much too puttable from anywhere on

468
00:26:14,279 --> 00:26:17,480
that green. So that hole is totally dramatic, and the

469
00:26:17,519 --> 00:26:21,400
fact that it comes on the seventeenth hole just proves

470
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,359
that Alice and Pete Dye came up with an unbelievably

471
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,200
dramatic concept there that's withstood the test of time. You're

472
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,400
talking over forty years now, being in twenty twenty five, right,

473
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,519
And then the eighteenth is one of the most incredible

474
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,119
finishing holes that really as a nail biter, you can

475
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,599
decide how aggressive you want to be. If you lay

476
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,079
back and leave yourself two hundred yards the fairways wider,

477
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,599
and if you take on the most narrow part, there's

478
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:46,119
a heck of a good chance you're going to wind

479
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,599
up in the right trees. Because the last thing going

480
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,640
through your head, consciously or subconsciously, is don't hook it.

481
00:26:51,759 --> 00:26:54,720
Because when you're in that water, you're looking at double bogie.

482
00:26:54,759 --> 00:26:57,160
It's not the classic. You hit it in the penalty area.

483
00:26:57,519 --> 00:26:59,799
So take your drop and try and just put it on.

484
00:26:59,839 --> 00:27:02,599
It is not that easy. It's a heck of a

485
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,960
finishing hole. So when you get the wind blowing at

486
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,039
TPC Sawgrass and you get the rough up higher, that

487
00:27:10,079 --> 00:27:13,240
golf course can make a scratch golfer shoot ninety. I

488
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,839
can tell you from first hand experience. I've shot seventy

489
00:27:15,839 --> 00:27:18,599
five there and I've shot eighty seven, And on that

490
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:20,920
eighty seven, I didn't think I played too badly, but

491
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,200
I caught it on a day there was two three

492
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,960
inches of thick bermuda rough And the most important factor

493
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:28,680
for you is it was a two and a half

494
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,240
three club wind and I played there two weeks before

495
00:27:31,519 --> 00:27:35,039
the Players Championship, So that's a time that they grow

496
00:27:35,079 --> 00:27:37,400
the grass pretty high in the rough and then they

497
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:39,160
can cut it down if they need to. But as

498
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,880
you probably know, there's no magic button like a switch

499
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,000
that you could turn on to densify rough. You can't

500
00:27:45,039 --> 00:27:48,119
just make it thicker right before a PGA Tour event

501
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,599
that's arguably the fifth major. So that's my long winded

502
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:53,440
answer for the toughest courses I've played.

503
00:27:55,920 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: Well, you clearly have a deep, deep appreciation of golf

504
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:07,799
course architecture and you have access so which is really

505
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,400
rare for you know, a golfer, you know, but again

506
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:15,759
being a businessman, So what is it that you base

507
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,039
your opinion on what makes a great golf course that

508
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,640
you've played? Is it your score or is the architecture

509
00:28:22,839 --> 00:28:26,680
or that day? I mean, how do you come up

510
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:31,640
with the answer of what's your favorite course? Yeah? So hey,

511
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:33,640
when people ask me what's your favorite course.

512
00:28:33,759 --> 00:28:36,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the toughest questions. You're asking great

513
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,640
questions because, thank you, they don't necessarily none of them

514
00:28:40,759 --> 00:28:43,480
have a right or wrong answer. We all know that

515
00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:46,759
golf course architecture, your favorite course, your least favorite course

516
00:28:46,839 --> 00:28:50,119
is very subjective. For me, what I try really hard

517
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,599
to do is have no emotion impact my opinions on

518
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,759
golf courses in terms of the way I play That

519
00:28:57,799 --> 00:29:00,880
doesn't mean emotion will not come into if I think

520
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,960
something is just totally unfair, or I think the aesthetics

521
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,920
are awful, but the golf course architecture is good, or

522
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,160
on the same note, Probably the most debatable course in

523
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,680
golf course architecture is Pebble Beach. And the reason it's

524
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:18,039
debatable is not because everybody doesn't think it's fabulous. It's fabulous,

525
00:29:18,079 --> 00:29:20,079
there's no question about it. Is it a top course

526
00:29:20,119 --> 00:29:21,880
in the world. Of course, it's a top course in

527
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,720
the world. The question that comes up, and again I'm

528
00:29:24,759 --> 00:29:26,680
asking it in the form of a question, not giving

529
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:28,599
you an opinion, And it's something for every one of

530
00:29:28,599 --> 00:29:30,759
your listeners to think about. It's something for you to

531
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:34,599
think about. Something that I think about, which is how

532
00:29:34,599 --> 00:29:37,039
do the inland holes that are not on the ocean

533
00:29:37,119 --> 00:29:40,599
compare to the quality of the ocean holes. I think

534
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,759
the statement that holds true for everyone who plays Pebble

535
00:29:43,799 --> 00:29:46,839
Beach is that the six or seven holes that are

536
00:29:46,839 --> 00:29:49,880
on the ocean collectively are as good as any six

537
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,240
or seven holes in the world. They captivate you. The

538
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,079
architecture of them is off the charts phenomenal. I agree

539
00:29:57,119 --> 00:29:59,319
with the statement that The second shot on the eighth

540
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,960
hole at Pebble Beach is as good as any approach

541
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,839
shot on any hole in the world. You stand up

542
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,680
there and you almost wish time would stand still. Do

543
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:09,640
you want to take a picture? Do you just want

544
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,400
to walk around three hundred and sixty degrees and take

545
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,519
in the beauty and take a deep breath and say,

546
00:30:14,519 --> 00:30:17,440
of all the places I could be if I love golf,

547
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,240
there is no greater place than I could be standing

548
00:30:20,279 --> 00:30:23,359
than right here right now. I know that Jack Nicholas

549
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,200
feels that way. I know that almost all the tour

550
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,680
players that are walking up that hill on eight before

551
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,799
they see that dramatic drop with the green down below

552
00:30:32,079 --> 00:30:35,960
and a pretty long shot relative to a very small target.

553
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:41,720
Something most people don't really understand is that the size

554
00:30:41,759 --> 00:30:44,960
of the greens at Pebble Beach are really small, and

555
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,400
that's why the difficulty in scoring is what it is,

556
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,720
because modern day courses have much bigger greens. The greens

557
00:30:50,759 --> 00:30:54,119
at Oakmont are probably I think I saw a statistic

558
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,240
that the what a green was, and maybe it was

559
00:30:57,279 --> 00:31:00,200
the ninth green at Oakmont was the equivalent of six

560
00:31:00,319 --> 00:31:03,279
greens at Pebble Beach. Five greens of Pebble Beach combined

561
00:31:03,359 --> 00:31:06,240
something you can look it up and find it, and

562
00:31:06,279 --> 00:31:08,799
that does we all know oak lots super tough and

563
00:31:08,839 --> 00:31:11,599
Pebble Beach can be super tough. Now, the question is,

564
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,880
are the inland holes at Pebble Beach also fantastic or

565
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,079
would they be less fantastic if they weren't attached to

566
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,039
the same course that has six or seven of the

567
00:31:22,079 --> 00:31:25,519
greatest holes you'll find anywhere, all in one spot. And

568
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,440
I'm not here to give you that answer. I can

569
00:31:27,519 --> 00:31:30,000
ask the question and let everyone who's played Pebble Beach

570
00:31:30,039 --> 00:31:33,079
think about it, or who yearns to play Pebble Beach

571
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,640
hopefully get the opportunity and privilege one day to play

572
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,119
it and then make their own decision. I think the

573
00:31:38,119 --> 00:31:40,440
golf course is fabulous. I would never turn down and

574
00:31:40,519 --> 00:31:43,079
invite to go there, and it's clearly one of the

575
00:31:43,079 --> 00:31:45,200
great courses in the world. I have a lot of

576
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,160
friends that have played hundreds, if not thousands of golf

577
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:50,839
courses and it's their favorite course by far. And I

578
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:52,920
have lots of friends that say some of those inland

579
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,319
holes don't really do it for them, and they're entitled

580
00:31:55,319 --> 00:31:58,359
to that opinion. So for me, it's a golf course

581
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,799
that sort of takes me on a journey, captivates me

582
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,680
for the three and a half or four hours that

583
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,000
I'm out there, and it just makes me have that

584
00:32:08,079 --> 00:32:11,240
feeling when I get off the eighteenth hole. If my

585
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,240
time allowed me to, would I want to race back

586
00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:17,799
to the first tee and right then and there play

587
00:32:17,799 --> 00:32:20,519
the course again? Or do I say to myself, you

588
00:32:20,559 --> 00:32:22,759
know what, that was great. If I don't come back

589
00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:25,200
here for a couple of years, that's totally fine. And

590
00:32:25,559 --> 00:32:28,200
there are courses I could answer you in an easy

591
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,240
way by not naming one, but naming a handful that

592
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,880
give me that feeling when I finished the eighteenth green,

593
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,720
and they would be Pine Valley, they'd be Rural Port

594
00:32:36,799 --> 00:32:40,480
Rush that's hosting the Open Championship in a couple of

595
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,680
weeks coming up here. It would be Chicago Golf Club

596
00:32:43,759 --> 00:32:47,480
that has no difference between the weakest hole and strongest hole,

597
00:32:47,599 --> 00:32:50,920
meaning all eighteen holes that C. B. McDonald and SETH.

598
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,240
Rayner designed there are equally strong. If you sat in

599
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,880
the room after a round and you asked six people

600
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,599
who just played the round of golf there what their

601
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,920
favorite three holes are you very likely would have all

602
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,799
eighteen holes mentioned, and you don't get too many golf

603
00:33:05,839 --> 00:33:11,279
courses that say that. I think Marion is an unbelievable course.

604
00:33:11,599 --> 00:33:14,240
The routing on a small piece of property and small

605
00:33:14,279 --> 00:33:18,880
amount of acreages off the charts incredible. It's just second

606
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,240
to none in terms of the way that the land

607
00:33:21,319 --> 00:33:23,920
is used and not feeling like one hole is on

608
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,039
top of the other. And to do that and accomplish

609
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:33,319
the eighteen unique holes that were built there is really

610
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,839
just off the charts incredible. And in terms of just

611
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:41,200
looking at what Hugh Wilson did there as an architect,

612
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,079
it's pretty incredible. I think that if you look at

613
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:48,079
the fact that Hugh Wilson, I believe, only designed Marion

614
00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:52,440
and mister Founds only designed Oakmont, and the fact that

615
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,920
those two gentlemen were able to build two top ten

616
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,680
courses in the world, in the country, however you want

617
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:00,839
to look at it, we all know that they're that's

618
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,880
pretty incredible. But just to give you a fair answer,

619
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,400
because I don't want to really only focus on courses

620
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,679
to your point that everyone doesn't have access to. I

621
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:11,039
want to include some of the real public access courses

622
00:34:11,039 --> 00:34:14,440
and resort courses, because that's what's been great about the

623
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:17,840
past twelve thirteen years is there are so many courses

624
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:22,519
being built that are publicly available resort courses. You know,

625
00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:27,440
I think TPC Sawgrass is a fantastic challenge. It frustrates

626
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,079
you and gives you a thrill factor. It teases you

627
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:32,480
and lets you make a birdie, and then it takes

628
00:34:32,519 --> 00:34:35,480
it all away when you make a likely double bogie.

629
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,360
Pinehurst is iconic in the world of golf. They just

630
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,039
continue to invest in the property. They just built Course

631
00:34:43,119 --> 00:34:46,000
number ten, led by Tom Doak and his team, which

632
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,239
I haven't been to yet but I hear is fantastic.

633
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,800
Gil Hands did course number four and redid it a

634
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:55,920
few years ago. Bill Corn Ben Crenshaw are designing what's

635
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,840
going to be Course eleven. Rhys Jones, who is a

636
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,239
fabulous architect, has designed the course there. Tom Fazio has

637
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,000
designed the course there and he's one of the best

638
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,280
of the best, And you know, I think that from

639
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:11,239
that standpoint, there were so many modern courses that allow

640
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:14,400
everyone a chance to experience this architecture. Stream Song in

641
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,519
Florida has three courses. Phil Hands did one, Tom Doak

642
00:35:18,559 --> 00:35:21,280
did another, Bill Core and Bran Crenshaw did another. You'd

643
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,920
never know you're in Florida. It's got dramatic land movement.

644
00:35:26,039 --> 00:35:30,119
It's so much fun. It's available for anybody to play.

645
00:35:30,159 --> 00:35:32,639
If people want to hear a hidden jam. There's a

646
00:35:32,679 --> 00:35:36,679
place called Lossnia Lynks that is in Wisconsin that you

647
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:38,679
may never have heard of. It's a couple hour drive

648
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,360
from Milwaukee. It's about one hundred and twenty five dollars

649
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,880
for around the golf and it's fantastic. It's loved by everybody.

650
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,119
So there's one that hopefully should give people a treat

651
00:35:48,119 --> 00:35:51,280
if they just want to take a journey, you know, Whistling,

652
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,800
Straits and Destiny. Kohler has so many great courses. Everyone

653
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,800
talks about the Straits course and basically they have the

654
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,320
Irish links there that are great. Black Wolf Run that

655
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,920
Pete de did and he designed all the courses there

656
00:36:04,039 --> 00:36:07,760
and they're great and sort of finally for you, the

657
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,039
one that most people know about this hosting the Ryder

658
00:36:10,079 --> 00:36:14,159
Cup this September. Bethpage Black is as good as it gets.

659
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:18,039
Beth Page Red, which is not nearly as well known

660
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:24,079
as Beth Page Black, and Tillinghast who designed Wingfoot Quaker Ridge,

661
00:36:24,119 --> 00:36:28,920
Baltis Rowl, Somerset Hills, Baltimore Country Club and Philadelphia Cricket

662
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,599
Club designed all the courses at beth Page And there

663
00:36:31,599 --> 00:36:34,039
are lots of people that you could ask that are

664
00:36:34,039 --> 00:36:37,320
great golfers that really understand architecture that'll tell you beth

665
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,760
Page Red is every bit as good as beth Page Black.

666
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,280
But everybody knows about beth Page Black because they've seen

667
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,519
the two US Opens held there in two thousand and

668
00:36:45,559 --> 00:36:48,360
two and two thousand and nine where Tiger and Lucas

669
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,280
Glover won those US Opens, and then they saw the

670
00:36:51,519 --> 00:36:54,960
PGA Championship held there that Brooks Capca won, and then

671
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,679
they're going to see the Ryder Cup this year, and

672
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:58,639
all of that is featured on the Black course where

673
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,920
Rhys Jones did an incredible renovation in nineteen ninety eight.

674
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,840
And I know that because I had the thrill of

675
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:08,880
qualifying for the two thousand New York State Open at

676
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,840
Bethpage Black as an amateur, and that was an incredible

677
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:14,960
experience for me where I got to get beaten up

678
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,559
by the golf course and see that I was pretty good,

679
00:37:17,559 --> 00:37:19,559
but not nearly as good at golf as I wished

680
00:37:19,599 --> 00:37:23,159
I were, So you know, anybody can play Bethpage black

681
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,800
and Beth Page red and Bethpage yellow and blue, and

682
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,039
they were all fabulous. And I love all these golf

683
00:37:29,079 --> 00:37:32,119
courses that I just mentioned. So there is no single

684
00:37:32,159 --> 00:37:35,519
course I would give you as that answer, because and

685
00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:37,480
by the way, I'll give you one more. There's a

686
00:37:37,519 --> 00:37:40,199
course we work closely with at one of our companies

687
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:43,840
at Tea Times USA and Golf pack Travel called Southern Dunes,

688
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,920
right outside Orlando. It's thirty minutes outside Orlando, and we

689
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,039
book customers there all the time, and Steve Smeiers happens

690
00:37:50,079 --> 00:37:52,199
to have designed it. If he was on with us,

691
00:37:52,199 --> 00:37:54,239
he'd make a joke and he'd say it's his least

692
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,519
controversial golf course that he designed, because it's it's right

693
00:37:58,559 --> 00:38:01,440
in front of you. But if you think of Florida golf,

694
00:38:01,519 --> 00:38:05,239
many people who are golf course architecture officionados will tell

695
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,559
you that golf course architecture in Florida is pretty boring

696
00:38:09,599 --> 00:38:11,639
because the land is pretty flat and all you see

697
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,079
is lakes and bunkers that look alike. But I'll tell

698
00:38:15,079 --> 00:38:18,440
you something hidden, a real hidden gem is Southern Dunes

699
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:22,519
because that golf course is just fabulous. It's got movement

700
00:38:22,559 --> 00:38:25,239
in land, it's got some elevation changes, it's got great

701
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,199
bunker and great green complexes, and it's playable. Here's the

702
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:31,480
key point for you, Fred. If I wrapped up golf

703
00:38:31,519 --> 00:38:35,280
course architecture and what makes for a great golf course,

704
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,840
what I would tell you is it has the ability

705
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,480
to be playable for your fifteen twenty twenty five handicap,

706
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:46,039
but at the same time it has the ability to

707
00:38:46,119 --> 00:38:49,360
test to scratch golfer or a plus handicap, and to

708
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,000
find that balance is much easier said than done. There

709
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,679
are lots of courses out there that can challenge the

710
00:38:54,679 --> 00:38:56,920
best players in the world, but they may not feel

711
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,000
so playable to the twenty handicap. And since we all

712
00:39:00,079 --> 00:39:02,960
collectively that love golf want the game to grow, you

713
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,079
want to make golf fund for people, and in doing that,

714
00:39:05,119 --> 00:39:06,840
you want them to feel like they're able to finish

715
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,000
a hole. And that's one of the reasons why a

716
00:39:09,079 --> 00:39:11,920
lot of these modern courses are being built in a

717
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,559
way that have very wide fair ways and a lot

718
00:39:14,559 --> 00:39:17,880
of sandy areas that make the driving off the tea,

719
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:19,519
which is the hardest part of the game for a

720
00:39:19,559 --> 00:39:22,599
lousy player, many of whom have slices. It makes for

721
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:26,480
them to have the ability to find their drive, not

722
00:39:26,559 --> 00:39:29,960
lose many balls, but then have tons of challenge around

723
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,559
the green that can be hard for them but also

724
00:39:32,599 --> 00:39:35,280
hard for the scratch golfer. And that's why those modern

725
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,960
courses that have recently been built, and I'm sure Pinehurst

726
00:39:39,039 --> 00:39:41,000
number ten is the same way, which I hope to

727
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,039
get to play one day soon, where it's very forgiving

728
00:39:44,079 --> 00:39:47,159
off the tea, but very challenging around the green and

729
00:39:47,199 --> 00:39:50,559
striking that balances are really it's an art, not a science.

730
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,199
Speaker 1: You have really thrown me for a loop here, because

731
00:40:00,199 --> 00:40:03,440
tension was to dig into your businesses and I'm still

732
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,440
planning on doing that, but this is so fascinating, so

733
00:40:06,519 --> 00:40:09,199
interesting to me to talk to someone who has such

734
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:13,199
great access as just a golfer. I'm assuming you're a

735
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,400
very good golfer, but still you're a golfer, right. But

736
00:40:16,559 --> 00:40:20,960
what you haven't mentioned in all of this is where

737
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:25,480
we at at Augusta National. How many times you played it?

738
00:40:25,519 --> 00:40:28,280
How many times have you been the Masters? And what's

739
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:29,440
your opinion of the course.

740
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 2: Sorry to ask three questions, that's a good one.

741
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: Good answers, so I'll let you rip.

742
00:40:35,519 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, look, I've been very lucky that

743
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,880
I've been able to play Augusta National before. I've played

744
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:44,599
a couple of rounds there. And what I could tell

745
00:40:44,679 --> 00:40:47,800
you is that, so, first of all, I call it

746
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,480
a one handicap day in and day out, and like

747
00:40:50,559 --> 00:40:53,760
anyone else understanding how the handicap system works, my average

748
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:57,360
scores around seventy five. Because the handicap system takes your

749
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:03,199
best eight scores twenty exactly, it's really your potential. And

750
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:05,320
I think that's a good thing because most people wouldn't

751
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,320
think I'm working hard enough if my handicap or average

752
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:09,559
score or any lower.

753
00:41:10,079 --> 00:41:11,559
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's a good thing when it

754
00:41:11,599 --> 00:41:13,320
comes to the gambling part of it. I think that

755
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,559
should be your average score, not your potential.

756
00:41:15,639 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 2: Right, I'm with you. I'm with you. That's a debate

757
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,760
for another day. But you know, I try when I

758
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,440
give those answers not to just give the obvious ones

759
00:41:25,519 --> 00:41:28,199
that have been talked about so much. And you know,

760
00:41:28,199 --> 00:41:31,239
Augustin National as a golf course, if you really study

761
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:35,199
the history of it, has evolved tremendously over the years.

762
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,400
There's been a lot of changes that have been made

763
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,159
to keep up with modern technology. If you look at

764
00:41:40,159 --> 00:41:43,719
the distance of the course when Tiger won his Masters

765
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,119
with a record score, I think it was eighteen under

766
00:41:46,599 --> 00:41:51,239
back in nineteen ninety seven, you know, right after Sir

767
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,679
Nick Faldo won in ninety six, when he won his

768
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,039
third Green jacket. I think that the golf course was

769
00:41:57,079 --> 00:41:59,880
about sixty eight hundred or sixty eight fifty from the

770
00:42:00,119 --> 00:42:03,480
back tees and now it's about seventy five hundred. And

771
00:42:03,639 --> 00:42:07,800
the holes play very differently for some and the way

772
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,880
that they were designed to play by Bobby Jones an

773
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:16,039
Alistair McKenzie, in terms of the original design. You know,

774
00:42:16,119 --> 00:42:19,880
I'll leave the debate of where that shakes out for

775
00:42:20,079 --> 00:42:22,639
traditionalists that want to have the course the way it's

776
00:42:22,679 --> 00:42:25,280
always played versus those who think that it needs to

777
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,519
be protected and modernized. I'll leave that debate to others.

778
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,559
I would just say to you, that's an incredibly special place.

779
00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:37,559
It just has, you know, a feeling like none other

780
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,880
when you're on property, and that's separate from when the

781
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,639
Masters is going on, but also when the Masters is

782
00:42:44,639 --> 00:42:49,000
going on. I think the golf course has everything you

783
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,960
could ever want. It's got downhill lies, uphill lies, downhill holes,

784
00:42:53,039 --> 00:42:57,920
uphill holes, flat holes, dramatic holes, holes that test every

785
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,800
part of your game. You have to be very patient.

786
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,280
You have to let the golf course sort of dictate

787
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,280
if you take your medicine, if you get in trouble

788
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,239
in terms of some of the pine trees. But one

789
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:10,519
of the things I absolutely love about it is the

790
00:43:11,639 --> 00:43:15,800
thrill factor of watching your ability to recover. I want

791
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:17,920
to make sure I get this quote accurately, but I

792
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:21,440
think Bobby Jones said something the likes of which that

793
00:43:21,559 --> 00:43:24,639
the great test of a golfer skill is their ability

794
00:43:24,679 --> 00:43:27,559
to hit a recovery shot. And a recovery shot can

795
00:43:27,599 --> 00:43:29,960
be defined a couple different ways. It could be a

796
00:43:30,039 --> 00:43:32,400
chip out when you have to take your medicine, because

797
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,199
that's the high percentage play, because trying to hit the

798
00:43:35,199 --> 00:43:39,039
heroic shot just as two lower percentage chants. I've definitely

799
00:43:39,039 --> 00:43:41,880
been victim of playing too aggressively at times, and I

800
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,320
kick myself after. I always say that I'm not the

801
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,559
sharpest knife in the drawer as a golfer, because my

802
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,119
goalie round has nothing to do with scoring. It has

803
00:43:52,159 --> 00:43:53,559
to do with if I can get through a round

804
00:43:54,079 --> 00:43:56,400
feeling like I made no mental mistakes, and believe me,

805
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,239
we could have a whole episode for you on the

806
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,639
mental side of game. I've been lucky enough to get

807
00:44:01,639 --> 00:44:04,280
to know Bob Ritella over the years, and you don't

808
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,119
even need to know him. You could just read his

809
00:44:06,199 --> 00:44:09,079
books and it would help everyone if you understand it.

810
00:44:09,119 --> 00:44:10,960
You know, if you understand that golf is a game

811
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:14,159
of missus, what do those words actually mean? They're not

812
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,519
just words. It's understanding that you don't want to go

813
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,480
from bad to worse in golf. You want to go

814
00:44:21,519 --> 00:44:25,119
from bad to recovering. Give yourself a chance to save par,

815
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,760
but make a bogie worse. I think for any golfer

816
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:31,480
at any level, if you can avoid no worse than bogie,

817
00:44:31,559 --> 00:44:33,599
if you're a low handicap, it's never going to hurt

818
00:44:33,639 --> 00:44:36,039
you too bad. If you can avoid no worse than

819
00:44:36,079 --> 00:44:39,239
double bogie, if you're a lesser skilled golfer, it won't

820
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,880
hurt you as bad as a triple or quadruple. And

821
00:44:42,079 --> 00:44:44,440
the easiest lesson to learn in golf is that it's

822
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:46,840
a heck of a lot easier to save shots than

823
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:50,119
to get them back your birdie to bogie ratio is

824
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:52,840
really not going to match up unless you're a top

825
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,960
hundred player in the world. So if you can avoid

826
00:44:56,599 --> 00:44:59,840
double bogies and just make your share of birdies, or

827
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:02,320
of avoid triple bogies and make your share of pars

828
00:45:02,639 --> 00:45:05,679
if you're a twenty handicap, that'll help you a lot.

829
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:08,000
In terms of the Masters, there's no experience like it.

830
00:45:08,039 --> 00:45:10,079
I've been very lucky. I've taken my dad to the

831
00:45:10,119 --> 00:45:13,920
Masters numerous times and it's been our greatest memories. You

832
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,960
could possibly imagine. You're just in an environment where look

833
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:21,320
at how you talk about agronomy and how it's evolved,

834
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:24,320
look at how technology has evolved. You know, where do

835
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,719
you go where for eight nine, ten straight hours, you

836
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,280
don't have a cell phone in your pocket. You are

837
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,039
just sitting there. There's no phone ringing, phones ringing, there's

838
00:45:34,119 --> 00:45:37,920
no your pocket isn't vibrating, you're not hearing the noise

839
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,519
of a text message. You're just in the open air

840
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,760
on a historic golf course. That's one of the two

841
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,320
golf courses that Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur golfer of

842
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:50,719
all time, had a hand in designing, and the other

843
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,719
one by the way is Peachtree, which in that regard

844
00:45:54,039 --> 00:45:57,679
is absolutely as favorite of course I have as anywhere,

845
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,800
So I didn't mention that earlier, but you know, it's

846
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,719
one of the two courses that Bobby Jones had a

847
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:07,119
big hand in designing. He designed Peachtree with Robert Trent Jones,

848
00:46:07,119 --> 00:46:10,320
and that golf course is near perfection, if not perfection.

849
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,599
But going back to the Masters, everything about the way

850
00:46:14,119 --> 00:46:18,960
the event is run, from what Chairman Johnson did to

851
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:23,199
Chairman pain to now Chairman Ridley, it's just how many

852
00:46:23,199 --> 00:46:26,760
things can you say as a sporting event somehow up

853
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,159
to their game and gets better every single year, Very

854
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,639
very few. Right, The super Bowl is an iconic event.

855
00:46:32,679 --> 00:46:35,559
It's incredible. Everybody gets all excited, you have the two

856
00:46:35,599 --> 00:46:39,280
weeks off leading up to it. Nobody watches a sporting

857
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,320
event more than the super Bowl is watched. But the

858
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:46,719
event itself is very similar year after year. There's different teams,

859
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,519
and there's a different venue and that city where the

860
00:46:49,599 --> 00:46:53,920
venue is highlighted, and the Masters takes place at the

861
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,239
same site every single year. But on the same note,

862
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:00,920
you have something that gets better and better, and from

863
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:06,119
a patron experience, you have nothing like it. It's spotless,

864
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,679
the snacks, the food and beverage, the sandwiches, it's affordable

865
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,400
for everyone. The system in which you can get tickets

866
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:15,719
where it's a lottery and everyone can enter the lottery,

867
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:19,000
and they're very clear in terms of making that lottery

868
00:47:19,039 --> 00:47:22,239
accessible and everyone knows when it starts, and yes, it

869
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,800
is what it's called. It's a lottery. So you might

870
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,679
have years and years of being disappointed, but if you

871
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,000
actually get a ticket and a chance to experience it.

872
00:47:31,679 --> 00:47:35,400
The parking, there's enough spots for everybody to be able

873
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:37,360
to park a car there. If you want to go

874
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:41,000
by ride share and go by that form of transportation,

875
00:47:41,119 --> 00:47:42,960
you can get dropped off at a central point and

876
00:47:43,039 --> 00:47:45,800
it's an easy access in and you look at just

877
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,199
the practice facility and it looks just as good as

878
00:47:48,199 --> 00:47:51,280
the course. And if you love golf and you don't

879
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,519
love the Masters, you need your head examined.

880
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: The fact that it's in the same location every year.

881
00:47:57,159 --> 00:47:59,639
But with Jim NaNs and I talked about on a

882
00:47:59,639 --> 00:48:06,599
episode one thousand, is how the Masters has become the

883
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:11,039
right of spring. It announces that golf season is here,

884
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,960
and it's even become more important in the sports world

885
00:48:15,039 --> 00:48:18,519
than spring training, which used to be really important, seems

886
00:48:18,559 --> 00:48:23,800
to have faded a bit, but the Masters continues to

887
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,719
grow in importance in the golf world and in the

888
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:29,079
sports world every year.

889
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:33,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure it does. And Jim coining the phrase

890
00:48:34,119 --> 00:48:38,639
a tradition unlike any other is spot on as you

891
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:42,760
can get because if you like golf, when the first

892
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:45,199
week of April comes along and you know that next

893
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:49,599
week the Masters is coming around, it just kicks off

894
00:48:49,639 --> 00:48:53,239
the golf season and it just sets the tone in

895
00:48:53,679 --> 00:48:56,360
a way that nothing else does. And my whole life

896
00:48:56,599 --> 00:48:58,599
I've wanted to actually be believe it or not a

897
00:48:58,599 --> 00:49:03,599
golf commentator, I just idolized Jim in terms of the

898
00:49:03,639 --> 00:49:08,119
way thank you, in terms of the way he captures

899
00:49:08,159 --> 00:49:11,840
the moment. And you know, it is true that some

900
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:14,719
people may think it's corny or what have you, but

901
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,800
when he says hello, friends, you really do think that

902
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,039
he's talking to you, and then he says, welcome to

903
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:23,679
the Masters, A tradition unlike any other. You know, when

904
00:49:23,679 --> 00:49:26,480
you have the music in the background, then you really

905
00:49:26,599 --> 00:49:30,559
just have the feeling that you don't have anywhere else.

906
00:49:30,599 --> 00:49:33,559
And the way it works with past champions, if you

907
00:49:33,599 --> 00:49:37,159
grew up in the era I did. And you watch

908
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:41,480
Nicholas and Palmer and Sevi Balisteros and Bernard Longer and

909
00:49:42,039 --> 00:49:45,480
you know Sir Nick Faldo, and you know all the

910
00:49:45,519 --> 00:49:48,880
heartbreaks for Greg Norman and Ernie Els and David Duval

911
00:49:49,039 --> 00:49:52,239
at the Masters, three guys right there that everybody thought

912
00:49:52,639 --> 00:49:55,079
would possibly win a Masters. And then in ninety eight

913
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,519
when Marco Mira birdied the last two holes to win

914
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,480
his first Major Chanceampionship, and then he followed it up

915
00:50:02,039 --> 00:50:05,039
a couple of months later winning the Open Championship to

916
00:50:05,119 --> 00:50:07,800
win his two majors. You know, he's the first person

917
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,519
ever markomert A birdie the seventy first and seventy second

918
00:50:11,559 --> 00:50:15,000
hole at the Masters to win, And you just think

919
00:50:15,079 --> 00:50:19,880
about what that means to everybody in terms of the

920
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,840
players that you're most drawn to, and the fact that

921
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:27,119
those players play well into their sixties and try everything

922
00:50:27,159 --> 00:50:29,440
they can to compete on a course that gets very

923
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:31,960
long for them very quickly as they age, but they're

924
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,360
still allowed to. And Freddie Couples, you know who in

925
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:38,440
golf doesn't love Freddy You think about how meant to

926
00:50:38,519 --> 00:50:41,039
be it was when his ball hung up on the

927
00:50:41,079 --> 00:50:43,480
twelfth hole in the final round of the Masters in

928
00:50:43,559 --> 00:50:45,559
nineteen ninety two for him to go on to get

929
00:50:45,639 --> 00:50:47,760
up and down and win his one and only major.

930
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,719
So just these conversations, If you bring up the Masters

931
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,079
to anyone who loves golf, you'll have this conversation and

932
00:50:53,079 --> 00:50:55,199
we could take up the whole show talking about it.

933
00:50:55,199 --> 00:50:58,159
So that tells you right there, how special an event

934
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,960
it is compared to any other event really in sports,

935
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:02,000
but certainly in golf.

936
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,079
Speaker 1: I promised you we were going to talk about your businesses,

937
00:51:11,079 --> 00:51:13,599
but this has been so fascinating to talk to you

938
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:17,000
as a golfer about your love and appreciation of so

939
00:51:17,119 --> 00:51:19,760
many golf courses that we've only heard about and can

940
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:24,800
only dream about. But you've got you're a managing partner

941
00:51:25,119 --> 00:51:28,679
with all these different companies. I don't even know where

942
00:51:28,679 --> 00:51:34,320
to start. I'm going to let you start with where

943
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,480
would you start when you talk about your various businesses

944
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:37,960
in golf?

945
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, Look, I appreciate the opportunity for it. It's

946
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:45,159
great to be able to talk about what we've done.

947
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:47,760
So you know, my background is I'm a lawyer by

948
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:51,119
training and have a legal background, and then I worked

949
00:51:51,159 --> 00:51:55,039
for a family office for about eight years right out

950
00:51:55,039 --> 00:51:57,679
of law school, all of which happened by accident. I

951
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:00,679
was all excited to be either an entertainment lawyer, or

952
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,239
a trial attorney or a corporate attorney. And then, just

953
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:08,880
through some contacts and connections in golf, somebody who I've

954
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:10,920
casually played golf with a couple of times asked me

955
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:12,880
if I meet with the patriarch of a family, and

956
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:16,880
I went and wound up having a conversation with him,

957
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:19,440
and he told me he respects me already because he

958
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,320
absolutely hates golf because it's the most frustrating game in

959
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:24,400
the world, and he doesn't like doing anything he's not

960
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,039
good at. And if one I'm good at golf, and

961
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:29,559
two I have the patience to play it, that's a

962
00:52:29,599 --> 00:52:31,920
positive in his mind. But he hates the sport, and

963
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:34,360
I just told you why. So I worked with him

964
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:38,119
for about eight years and worked my way up to

965
00:52:38,159 --> 00:52:40,800
become a part of the senior management team there and

966
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,440
continue to build out my golf network through some of

967
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:46,800
the people that I met over the years, and that's

968
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:51,519
how I really got into spending time studying golf course architecture.

969
00:52:51,559 --> 00:52:55,239
And then I wound up working for a couple of

970
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,440
other Wall Street firms, and then a really good golf

971
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,719
buddy of mine going back to the late nineteen nineties,

972
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,280
Adam Walker, who's my business partner today, came up to

973
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:05,320
me and he approached me and said, hey, I found

974
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:08,480
a business that we should buy together. And the company

975
00:53:08,559 --> 00:53:11,679
was called Tea Times USA. It's been around since nineteen

976
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:15,119
ninety one. It works in the world at the time

977
00:53:15,519 --> 00:53:19,719
with packaging golf courses and lodging and rental cars only

978
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,480
for golf trips to the state of Florida. Now keep

979
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,360
in mind that you're talking about ninety seven ninety eight

980
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:28,800
percent of the Tea Times USA customers that are getting

981
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,880
on an airplane, so they're booking their qualifications far in advance,

982
00:53:32,559 --> 00:53:34,920
and being able to have access to the t sheets

983
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:38,039
of these courses to get those customers the courses that

984
00:53:38,079 --> 00:53:40,320
they want, when they want, on the days of the

985
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,960
week that they want is a real advantage when you

986
00:53:43,119 --> 00:53:46,360
factor in that as a company, Tea Times USA has

987
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:50,320
no service fees and we get paid by our partner properties.

988
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:53,360
We collect the money from the customers and we transact

989
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:57,119
with customers, but basically we don't charge them anything for

990
00:53:57,199 --> 00:53:59,599
our service and we have the beauty of being able

991
00:53:59,639 --> 00:54:02,559
to give them unbiased advice. And the vast majority of

992
00:54:02,599 --> 00:54:05,440
the Tea Times USA customers figure eighty percent of them

993
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:07,719
are on a budget. So they'll tell us they have

994
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:11,440
one thousand dollars to spend for four nights and four

995
00:54:11,559 --> 00:54:14,800
or five rounds of golf, and they want to maximize

996
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,119
that budget as the best as they can. That budget

997
00:54:17,119 --> 00:54:19,760
does not include airfare. We don't do airfare at all.

998
00:54:20,199 --> 00:54:22,639
And basically, at the time, this is going back to

999
00:54:22,679 --> 00:54:27,119
twenty thirteen, Tea Times USA only sold these golf packages

1000
00:54:27,159 --> 00:54:30,159
to the state of Florida, so three hundred golf courses,

1001
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:34,159
two hundred lodging partners, so five hundred total properties. And

1002
00:54:34,199 --> 00:54:35,920
if you said to me, hey, Mark, I've got one

1003
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,320
thousand dollars, not including airfare, what can you get me

1004
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,719
for it? And if I showed you what we could

1005
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,079
get you for that thousand dollars, you wouldn't believe it

1006
00:54:43,159 --> 00:54:46,000
because if you pay, if you had that same trip

1007
00:54:46,079 --> 00:54:48,519
somewhere else in the world, it may cost you twenty

1008
00:54:48,519 --> 00:54:52,119
five hundred dollars. So we're able to extract a ton

1009
00:54:52,159 --> 00:54:55,920
of value based on our experience, our knowledge, our partnerships,

1010
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,679
and understanding where we can get customers a lot more

1011
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:02,280
value you than they could potentially get on their own,

1012
00:55:02,559 --> 00:55:05,679
which is kind of timely and cool because with everything

1013
00:55:05,679 --> 00:55:07,800
going on in the world with AI today, you would

1014
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:11,400
think our business could be quickly eliminated, but it can't.

1015
00:55:11,639 --> 00:55:13,159
And one of the reasons to that is we have

1016
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,280
access to a lot of the t sheets with the

1017
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:18,599
courses that we work with much further in advance than

1018
00:55:18,599 --> 00:55:21,920
the public would have access. And remember we're working with municipal,

1019
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:25,360
public and resort golf courses mainly in the US. So

1020
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,119
long and short of it is, in twenty thirteen, after

1021
00:55:29,159 --> 00:55:32,159
spending a few days analyzing this business, Adam and I

1022
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:36,119
bought and acquired Tea Times USA and very quickly, within

1023
00:55:36,159 --> 00:55:39,599
a month we expanded to offer vacations to Scottsdale and

1024
00:55:39,639 --> 00:55:43,000
then Las Vegas, then Palm Springs, then Myrtle Beach, then

1025
00:55:43,079 --> 00:55:46,000
Hilton Head and then all of the bucket list courses

1026
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,480
that you're familiar with, from Pebble Beach to Whistling Straits

1027
00:55:49,519 --> 00:55:52,800
to Sea Island. We already worked with TPC Sawgrass, but

1028
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:55,880
that's certainly a bucket list course and many others, so

1029
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:58,960
we have some of these other destinations that we've added

1030
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:00,599
over the years. We've worked worked with some of the

1031
00:56:00,639 --> 00:56:04,480
courses in Texas. We're adding Saint George, Utah to our offering,

1032
00:56:04,519 --> 00:56:07,039
which has some great courses. We work with Traverse City

1033
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:10,639
in Michigan that has some great courses, And we just

1034
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:14,039
love to bring customers as much value as we possibly

1035
00:56:14,079 --> 00:56:18,199
can with truly unbiased advice, because we make basically the

1036
00:56:18,199 --> 00:56:20,960
same amount of money wherever we send our customers, so

1037
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:22,800
we want to send them to the places where we

1038
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:26,719
think it's going to match their personalities, their skill levels,

1039
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,039
and what they're trying to accomplish with their trip. Are

1040
00:56:29,079 --> 00:56:30,800
they trying to just play as much golf as they

1041
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:33,400
can at the best courses they can, or do they

1042
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:36,280
really want the championship courses that are the greatest test

1043
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:40,159
of golf for highly skilled golfers. So that's how Tea

1044
00:56:40,199 --> 00:56:43,400
Time's USA came about. And I left Wall Street Cold

1045
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,960
Turkey at that point, and it was like a pluck

1046
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,360
and play. I left on a Friday, started with Adam

1047
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:50,599
on a Monday, and the next thing I knew, we

1048
00:56:50,599 --> 00:56:53,280
were commuting from New York to Florida every week for

1049
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:55,760
the next seven months to try and get our arms

1050
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,440
around the business that was based one thousand miles away

1051
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:02,679
from home. So we did that for three years, and

1052
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,119
then a company called golf Pack Travel, which was our

1053
00:57:05,159 --> 00:57:08,679
biggest competitor. The owner was in his late sixties and

1054
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:12,119
wanted to retire and kind of hounded us to acquire him.

1055
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:15,400
And short version of a much longer story is we did,

1056
00:57:16,079 --> 00:57:19,000
and as I speak to you today, we own both

1057
00:57:19,039 --> 00:57:22,559
golf Pack Travel and TI Times usay pretty similar companies

1058
00:57:22,559 --> 00:57:24,480
in terms of what they do, but a very loyal

1059
00:57:24,599 --> 00:57:27,480
following to their brands. So we have a lot of people.

1060
00:57:27,559 --> 00:57:29,719
Our average person in sales has been with us over

1061
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:34,519
ten years, tremendous experience, really cares about our customers, and

1062
00:57:34,559 --> 00:57:38,639
again they're not pushed to They're not positioned to push

1063
00:57:38,719 --> 00:57:41,440
certain properties more than others. We definitely have properties that

1064
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:45,159
we think deliver the best customer experience, so we push those,

1065
00:57:45,679 --> 00:57:47,760
just trying to make sure customers feel like they have

1066
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:51,440
great value in what they do, and we work with

1067
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:54,119
a thousand properties now in the US and the Caribbean.

1068
00:57:54,559 --> 00:57:57,679
And golf Pack Travel has been around since nineteen seventy five,

1069
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:01,480
the year I was born, so they are the original

1070
00:58:01,559 --> 00:58:05,400
golf tour operator, and the difference between what they do

1071
00:58:05,679 --> 00:58:08,519
and what Tea Times USA does versus a travel agency

1072
00:58:08,599 --> 00:58:11,079
is that we are a seller of travel, not a

1073
00:58:11,119 --> 00:58:14,360
travel agency, and we don't charge our customers any service

1074
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,760
fees at all for what we do. Customers book groups

1075
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:20,000
and they have changes and we let them make as

1076
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,079
many changes as they need to, and we don't charge

1077
00:58:22,119 --> 00:58:24,840
them any change fees whatsoever. So we have a lot

1078
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:27,159
of patients, we have a lot of overhead that we

1079
00:58:27,239 --> 00:58:31,119
carry in terms of our sales team, our terrific admin team,

1080
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:34,679
our management team, and we do that just to make

1081
00:58:34,719 --> 00:58:37,639
sure that we can just be the industry leader in

1082
00:58:37,719 --> 00:58:41,280
service really throughout all our companies, but certainly on the

1083
00:58:41,320 --> 00:58:43,880
domestic side within the US and the Caribbean.

1084
00:58:44,559 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: And where did that lead to next? What was the

1085
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:47,639
third company?

1086
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 2: Yeah? The third company travel Company. No, we actually have

1087
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:55,559
a golf gift card called Go Play Golf, which that

1088
00:58:55,639 --> 00:58:58,960
will lead us into a whole other conversation because we

1089
00:58:59,039 --> 00:59:02,159
have a partnership with PGA of America on multiple levels,

1090
00:59:02,559 --> 00:59:05,199
one of which is that golf card is sold at

1091
00:59:05,199 --> 00:59:08,840
over thirty five thousand retail stores. So in the US,

1092
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:11,920
if you go to your local pharmacy, you go to Walmart,

1093
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:14,559
you go to Target, you go to whatever the supermarket

1094
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:19,079
market chain is in your area, whether it's Kroger, whether

1095
00:59:19,119 --> 00:59:23,360
it's Albertson's, whether it's Publics. If you're in Florida or Georgia,

1096
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:26,079
you will see our gift card on the gift card

1097
00:59:26,119 --> 00:59:29,039
wreck you'll see about twelve Starbucks gift cards, and then

1098
00:59:29,079 --> 00:59:32,320
you'll see a gift card that says golf in bright Green,

1099
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,280
and that gift card will stand out and it's the

1100
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,719
anything everything golf gift card. It could be used to

1101
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:43,039
play golf at five thousand public or resort courses, So

1102
00:59:43,079 --> 00:59:45,480
wherever anyone lives, there's an option to use it to

1103
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:50,400
play golf locally, there is the option. It's great online.

1104
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:53,239
You have the option to redeem it with our terrific

1105
00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:56,599
partner at worldwide golf shops where you can redeem it

1106
00:59:56,679 --> 01:00:00,159
online for the latest, greatest merchandise with no restrictions. Can

1107
01:00:00,199 --> 01:00:02,920
redeem it for golf balls, an accessory, a training aid,

1108
01:00:03,039 --> 01:00:06,519
a wedge, a potter, a driver, a set of irons,

1109
01:00:06,639 --> 01:00:07,199
you name it.

1110
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: This is amazing because just recently my daughter in law said,

1111
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:12,880
I need to buy a gift for a golf gift

1112
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,119
for a client of mine. What should I get? I'm like,

1113
01:00:16,639 --> 01:00:17,800
I now have something to.

1114
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 2: Go play golf gift card is your answer. So it

1115
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:24,239
can be redeemed for a lesson with a PGA pro

1116
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:27,480
So we work with the PGA of America to facilitate

1117
01:00:27,519 --> 01:00:30,400
that it can be redeemed and converted to Top Golf,

1118
01:00:30,559 --> 01:00:32,880
which is so much fun. So if you're an off

1119
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:35,679
course golfer that really wants the entertainment side of things

1120
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:37,920
or a bar and grill, you can take it and go.

1121
01:00:38,039 --> 01:00:40,039
We can go to top Golf and you can redeem

1122
01:00:40,039 --> 01:00:45,159
it there. You can redeem it for a pinned rangefinder online,

1123
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:48,280
so you have a distance measuring device, which is great

1124
01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:52,000
because it speeds up the pace of play and it's

1125
01:00:52,039 --> 01:00:55,280
pretty versatile. So there's a lot of things that it

1126
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:58,360
can be redeemed for. And that's a company that we

1127
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:02,840
acquired back into and eighteen and.

1128
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: What was the next company.

1129
01:01:04,519 --> 01:01:07,280
Speaker 2: Next company was my shirt right here Hidden Links. So

1130
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:10,159
right after COVID began, that was a tough time in

1131
01:01:10,199 --> 01:01:12,960
the industry for international travel because, as you know, coming

1132
01:01:13,039 --> 01:01:15,480
from the US, you really couldn't go to many places,

1133
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:19,679
certainly not internationally and we acquired Hidden Links and that

1134
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,079
was really, I would say, the missing piece to our

1135
01:01:22,119 --> 01:01:25,519
puzzle in terms of our domestic travel brands, because it

1136
01:01:25,559 --> 01:01:28,639
was the perfect compliment. We actually did through golf Pack

1137
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:33,679
Travel have an international arm called golf Pack International, and

1138
01:01:33,719 --> 01:01:36,360
then we had one called golf Pack Scotland and Ireland,

1139
01:01:36,679 --> 01:01:39,440
which was really just a rebrand. But the reality is

1140
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:43,920
that we were not anywhere near the presence we wanted

1141
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:46,199
to be. We were a very tiny player in this space.

1142
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:49,400
And then when the opportunity presented itself to acquire Hidden

1143
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:51,800
Links right at the beginning of COVID five years ago,

1144
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:54,199
we jumped all over it and we were just very

1145
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:57,320
lucky to be able to successfully get that to the

1146
01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:00,559
finish line. And here we are five years later. The

1147
01:02:00,599 --> 01:02:04,199
business has a much bigger presence in the marketplace. It's

1148
01:02:04,239 --> 01:02:07,280
a much higher end type of customer because by definition,

1149
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,719
the trip is just much more expensive. But taking a

1150
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:13,840
trip to Scotland and Ireland, or England or Wales to

1151
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:17,599
play golf is like none other because it allows you

1152
01:02:17,639 --> 01:02:20,119
the opportunity to understand the history of golf where it

1153
01:02:20,119 --> 01:02:23,239
all came from, potentially play Saint Andrews and the home

1154
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:27,039
of Golf were lucky enough to be an authorized provider

1155
01:02:27,039 --> 01:02:29,760
that allows us to sell some guaranteed tea times on

1156
01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:32,639
the Old Course at Saint Andrews. And what's really nice

1157
01:02:32,719 --> 01:02:36,480
is that's a very regulated price point and package, so

1158
01:02:36,559 --> 01:02:39,039
anyone that you book it with should be selling it

1159
01:02:39,079 --> 01:02:42,320
for the exact same But it's quite costly, and it's

1160
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:45,360
quite costly because there's only a small percentage of the

1161
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:49,360
total tea times that are available to be guaranteed. Everyone

1162
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:52,760
else goes into one of the types of lotteries where

1163
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:58,360
you can basically be in a have fair competition with

1164
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:00,880
everyone else to get on the Old Court. But we

1165
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:03,320
work with so many courses that have been around for

1166
01:03:03,440 --> 01:03:06,519
hundreds of years and we just love it more than

1167
01:03:06,559 --> 01:03:09,480
anything because, just like the name would sound hidden links,

1168
01:03:09,519 --> 01:03:12,440
we're giving our customers a lot of hidden gems that

1169
01:03:12,519 --> 01:03:16,000
go above and beyond the most famous courses that everyone's

1170
01:03:16,039 --> 01:03:18,119
heard of, whether it be the Mere Fields or the

1171
01:03:18,119 --> 01:03:21,039
Old Course at Saint Andrew's or Carnousti or Rural Port

1172
01:03:21,119 --> 01:03:24,719
Rush or Rural County Down or Turnberry or Rural Truon.

1173
01:03:25,119 --> 01:03:27,880
Most of those courses people have heard of, but there's

1174
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:30,480
a lot of courses we work with that people haven't

1175
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:33,039
heard of, and many times because they don't have high

1176
01:03:33,039 --> 01:03:37,519
expectations for a course that they're unfamiliar with, those courses

1177
01:03:37,559 --> 01:03:40,400
become some of the favorite parts of everyone's trip. And

1178
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,760
it's a great way for us to add rounds to

1179
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:47,199
people's packages and they get to have a longer trip

1180
01:03:47,519 --> 01:03:51,000
and get to play these hidden gems. And we work

1181
01:03:51,039 --> 01:03:53,079
with plenty of customers that are on a budget that

1182
01:03:53,239 --> 01:03:57,519
want to essentially put the majority of their budget into

1183
01:03:57,559 --> 01:03:59,960
the best golf courses they can play and the most

1184
01:04:00,239 --> 01:04:02,880
number of rounds they can play within a reasonably short

1185
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,360
period of time to experience what for many is a

1186
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:08,559
once in a lifetime trip. And in other cases, we

1187
01:04:08,639 --> 01:04:10,480
have customers that want the best of the best. They

1188
01:04:10,559 --> 01:04:14,000
want five star lodging and accommodations like our fabulous partner,

1189
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,800
the Rusas Hotel that's on the eighteenth hole of the

1190
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:21,920
old course at Saint Andrew's, or they want to just

1191
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:25,599
have five star dining, five star accommodations, and five star golf.

1192
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:29,000
And then the real piece of the puzzle that's the

1193
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:33,960
most exciting is when we're able to include transportation, for

1194
01:04:34,079 --> 01:04:38,000
which we offer multiple types. We have chauffeur drivers that

1195
01:04:38,079 --> 01:04:41,039
are in the equivalent of a Mercedes Sprinter, where it's

1196
01:04:41,239 --> 01:04:44,480
a pure life of luxury for a week, let's say,

1197
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:47,559
or eight days or ten days, and the drivers have

1198
01:04:47,599 --> 01:04:50,039
tremendous experience and they give you a whole history tour

1199
01:04:50,119 --> 01:04:52,519
throughout the trip. So you may have a two and

1200
01:04:52,519 --> 01:04:54,760
a half hour drive from Royal Port Rush to Rural

1201
01:04:54,840 --> 01:04:57,199
County Down, or Royal Port Rush to Dublin, which of

1202
01:04:57,199 --> 01:05:00,960
course is a fabulous city in Ireland. That driver may

1203
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:05,199
give you an entire history education throughout that drive when

1204
01:05:05,199 --> 01:05:07,840
you're in the coach, and people just love it. But

1205
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:10,000
if somebody doesn't want to pay the added cost to that,

1206
01:05:10,039 --> 01:05:13,440
since it doesn't come free, there could be just point

1207
01:05:13,480 --> 01:05:15,480
to point transfers that will go out of our way

1208
01:05:15,519 --> 01:05:18,199
to drop customers off at a particular point. We'll pick

1209
01:05:18,199 --> 01:05:20,159
them up and drop them off for golf each day.

1210
01:05:20,519 --> 01:05:22,639
They'll be centralized in a town where they can just

1211
01:05:22,679 --> 01:05:24,880
walk out of their hotel and have lots of local

1212
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:27,719
restaurants or pubs that they can go visit and they'll

1213
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:29,400
just have a great time that way, and they'll be

1214
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,159
saving a lot of money. So there's tons of value

1215
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,559
that is embedded in that trip for every customer we

1216
01:05:35,599 --> 01:05:38,960
work with, regardless of how big or small their budget is,

1217
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:41,480
but we just want to make sure everyone has a

1218
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:45,760
great time. And right after shortly after acquiring that company,

1219
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,440
about a year into it, we partnered with Sir Nick Faldo,

1220
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:52,159
who became our global ambassador, and that's just been a

1221
01:05:52,199 --> 01:05:55,599
fabulous partnership for us. We're in our fourth year of

1222
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:58,800
working with Sir Nick and we've gotten to see a

1223
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:01,679
side of his personality in a positive way that many

1224
01:06:01,719 --> 01:06:03,559
didn't get to see when he was on tour as

1225
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:07,639
a world number one, because he had tremendous laser like

1226
01:06:07,679 --> 01:06:13,280
focus where he really couldn't toggle between being super friendly

1227
01:06:13,519 --> 01:06:17,000
and playing world class, world number one golf. So he

1228
01:06:17,119 --> 01:06:20,679
had that laser focus and we've had many a conversation

1229
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:23,960
with him about how he was that focused, and he

1230
01:06:24,079 --> 01:06:26,360
explained why he needed to be in order to be

1231
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:28,400
a world number one. And I think we can all

1232
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:32,039
agree that Tiger Woods had that laser focus, and VJ.

1233
01:06:32,199 --> 01:06:35,119
Singh had that laser focus when he was number one,

1234
01:06:35,159 --> 01:06:36,960
and I think Jack Nichols would tell you when he

1235
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:40,480
was number one in the world, he had that laser focus,

1236
01:06:40,639 --> 01:06:45,480
which was just incredible and gary player who's one of

1237
01:06:45,519 --> 01:06:49,119
the most gregarious, friendly people you could ever meet, loves

1238
01:06:49,159 --> 01:06:51,639
to talk, loves to live life to the fullest. At

1239
01:06:51,679 --> 01:06:54,960
eighty nine years old, nearly ninety, he'll be ninety in November,

1240
01:06:55,440 --> 01:06:59,679
and he is a true scratch golfer at eighty nine

1241
01:06:59,719 --> 01:07:02,239
years old. I had the thrill of a lifetime playing

1242
01:07:02,239 --> 01:07:04,599
with him in May, just a couple of months ago,

1243
01:07:04,639 --> 01:07:07,039
and watched him shoot seventy three like it was nothing

1244
01:07:07,079 --> 01:07:09,239
and hit his drive two hundred and forty to two

1245
01:07:09,280 --> 01:07:11,840
hundred and fifty yards at eighty nine years old. But

1246
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:14,480
the thing that he told Adam and I when we

1247
01:07:14,519 --> 01:07:18,719
played with him is that he was not that level

1248
01:07:18,719 --> 01:07:21,320
of friendly when he was playing tournament golf on tour.

1249
01:07:21,599 --> 01:07:24,679
He was focused. He didn't talk the way he talks now,

1250
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:27,519
and he was focused on winning tournaments and nine major

1251
01:07:27,599 --> 01:07:31,760
championships on the regular tour later and nine major championships

1252
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:34,960
on the Senior Tour later. He won the Grand Slam

1253
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:37,440
on both tours, the only player ever to do it.

1254
01:07:37,519 --> 01:07:40,639
He has that track record to show for that laser focus.

1255
01:07:40,719 --> 01:07:42,800
So we've had a great partnership. Sorry, I got off

1256
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:45,000
on a tangent there but hopefully it was entertaining and

1257
01:07:45,079 --> 01:07:48,920
fun because we've had a great partnership with sir Nick.

1258
01:07:49,239 --> 01:07:52,360
He's been fabulous in our commercials. We just filmed what

1259
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:55,960
I think is our seventh commercial in Ireland that launched

1260
01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:58,440
on the Golf Channel during the US Open, where we

1261
01:07:58,480 --> 01:08:01,719
filmed it the spectacular Old Head, which rivals the views

1262
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:05,039
at Pebble Beach with many holes, meandering on a peninsula

1263
01:08:05,159 --> 01:08:09,719
around the ocean and right on an ocean setting, and dramatically,

1264
01:08:10,519 --> 01:08:13,320
Nick Faldo needs to skydive to make it to meet

1265
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:15,599
Adam and I of all people on the first tee

1266
01:08:15,599 --> 01:08:18,079
to make his tea time. And he's never late for

1267
01:08:18,119 --> 01:08:21,319
a tea time. So I'll leave it to all of

1268
01:08:21,359 --> 01:08:25,880
your listeners to go onto YouTube and watch our commercial

1269
01:08:26,079 --> 01:08:27,800
and see if he makes the tea time or not.

1270
01:08:27,960 --> 01:08:29,359
But I could tell you in order to make it

1271
01:08:29,359 --> 01:08:32,279
he needs a skydive and parachute to get there. So

1272
01:08:33,239 --> 01:08:36,359
it's pretty dramatic and exciting and a lot of fun

1273
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:40,199
and hopefully pretty memorable and gets everyone excited to want

1274
01:08:40,199 --> 01:08:41,439
to play a course like Oldhead.

1275
01:08:48,039 --> 01:08:51,159
Speaker 1: Your fifth business. You stepped out of your comfort zone.

1276
01:08:51,199 --> 01:08:53,720
You left the travel part, you left the gift cards.

1277
01:08:53,760 --> 01:08:55,960
I mean, the gift cards is a little aside, but

1278
01:08:56,359 --> 01:09:00,479
the whole travel section and you jumped on something that

1279
01:09:01,199 --> 01:09:05,439
is really well, you describe it. It's awesome.

1280
01:09:06,119 --> 01:09:09,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. Upper Deck Golf is pretty incredible, and there's so

1281
01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:12,800
many things about it that I love. The feeling that

1282
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:16,319
I get going to each stadium and the emotional attachment

1283
01:09:16,359 --> 01:09:19,880
that you have to a particular team, either good or bad. Right,

1284
01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:23,279
if you're a Yankees fan and we have an event

1285
01:09:23,600 --> 01:09:26,279
with the Red Sox stadium at Famway Park, you're probably

1286
01:09:26,319 --> 01:09:29,039
not so excited to be in that environment. And if

1287
01:09:29,039 --> 01:09:35,119
you're a lifelong Boston resident you are a Red Sox fan,

1288
01:09:35,239 --> 01:09:36,680
there's nothing like you better go.

1289
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,479
Speaker 1: Through security at Yankee Stadium.

1290
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:40,239
Speaker 2: If you're going there, you go exactly.

1291
01:09:40,239 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: You got to describe what what golf?

1292
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:48,720
Speaker 2: So Upper Deck Golf is a fascinating business. Three terrific people,

1293
01:09:48,880 --> 01:09:51,720
Brian and Carly Graham and Frank Brown founded this company

1294
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:54,079
in twenty seventeen, and it was just an idea that

1295
01:09:54,119 --> 01:09:57,439
they came up with to basically set up a Major

1296
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:02,119
League Baseball NFL or college as a nine hole golf course.

1297
01:10:02,520 --> 01:10:05,319
And we set up nine target greens right on the

1298
01:10:05,359 --> 01:10:08,439
field and you get to hit shots throughout the stadium

1299
01:10:08,680 --> 01:10:11,159
at every level, including going all the way to the

1300
01:10:11,199 --> 01:10:13,720
tippy top and hitting from the upper deck. And some

1301
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:18,520
stadiums have a higher tiered sort of altitude than others.

1302
01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:20,800
You know, we have Wrigley Field as one of our

1303
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:23,079
top partners, where, of course the Cubs play. I think

1304
01:10:23,079 --> 01:10:26,199
it's the oldest stadium in baseball if my data is correct.

1305
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:31,119
You can look that up and somebody can just there

1306
01:10:31,159 --> 01:10:34,479
you go. So we're actually doing two events at wrigley

1307
01:10:34,479 --> 01:10:37,000
Field this year. We did one, believe it or not,

1308
01:10:37,520 --> 01:10:40,159
how timely is this? We did one during the Masters

1309
01:10:40,199 --> 01:10:43,039
and had the Masters airing on the jumbo tron right

1310
01:10:43,079 --> 01:10:46,279
in the stadium, so people were playing golf in wrigley Field.

1311
01:10:46,279 --> 01:10:50,319
But Wrigley Field is the largest stadium that has only

1312
01:10:50,359 --> 01:10:53,079
two decks, so the highest point in wrigley Field is

1313
01:10:53,079 --> 01:10:55,279
not that high. And then you go to the other

1314
01:10:55,399 --> 01:10:58,079
extreme and you think of Dodger Stadium, which is the

1315
01:10:58,119 --> 01:11:02,000
only stadium in baseball that has four tiers. And we'll

1316
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:05,119
be at Dodger Stadium the second week in December this year,

1317
01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:08,479
and that stadium allows us to hit a shot from

1318
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:11,079
the tippy top that's about one hundred and forty yards

1319
01:11:11,119 --> 01:11:13,199
and it is so dramatic. You're hitting out into the

1320
01:11:13,199 --> 01:11:16,880
mountains that is behind the stadium, and when you do

1321
01:11:16,960 --> 01:11:19,640
it at night and you have the sparkling beaming lights

1322
01:11:19,680 --> 01:11:21,920
on you and you see that ball tracking in the

1323
01:11:21,960 --> 01:11:25,920
air forever. We have a fabulous partnership with PXG and

1324
01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:28,600
we have PXG golf balls that many people don't even

1325
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:31,760
know exist in the marketplace. But we've got two colors.

1326
01:11:31,800 --> 01:11:34,960
We've got white that's a super bright white for what

1327
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:38,279
it's worth, and a beautiful yellow ball and you see

1328
01:11:38,279 --> 01:11:40,960
it tracking in the sky. And these are premium golf balls.

1329
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:43,119
These are right at the level of all the other

1330
01:11:43,199 --> 01:11:46,039
top golf balls on the market. We've got PXG equipment

1331
01:11:46,399 --> 01:11:50,640
and all their latest and greatest wedges and Sugar Daddy

1332
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:53,439
wedges that are super soft and forged and have a

1333
01:11:53,439 --> 01:11:55,880
great feeling and great design behind them. And then they're

1334
01:11:56,319 --> 01:12:02,399
Wildcat wedges and they're black ops wedges and irons that

1335
01:12:02,439 --> 01:12:03,920
go all the way to an eight iron for some

1336
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:06,800
of the longer holes, and you get to hit at

1337
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,880
least two, if not three shots per hole depending on

1338
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:12,079
what package you get. You get a minimum of eighteen

1339
01:12:12,119 --> 01:12:14,279
golf balls. And if you get a package with what

1340
01:12:14,399 --> 01:12:16,159
we all wish we could have on the golf course,

1341
01:12:16,239 --> 01:12:19,279
you get four Mulligan balls. If you get a Mulligan package,

1342
01:12:19,439 --> 01:12:22,000
don't you wish Fred when you played golf you had

1343
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:25,840
four traveling Mulligans. I know, I know I do, because

1344
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:28,119
every time I make a mental mistake, I'd pull out

1345
01:12:28,119 --> 01:12:30,279
another ball and I'd be like, Okay, I am not

1346
01:12:30,720 --> 01:12:33,159
going to do that again. Well, let me tell you

1347
01:12:33,279 --> 01:12:36,039
when you come to Upper Deck Golf, the greatest bargain

1348
01:12:36,119 --> 01:12:38,119
we offer is the Mulligan package.

1349
01:12:38,279 --> 01:12:38,520
Speaker 1: One.

1350
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 2: Arguably, a mulligan in golf is priceless because they don't

1351
01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:44,560
really exist on a real golf course. Right, But if

1352
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:46,399
you can get a mulligan at Upper Deck Golf and

1353
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:48,119
you don't like the shot you hit to a target

1354
01:12:48,159 --> 01:12:50,359
green from one hundred and twenty yards, you get the

1355
01:12:50,439 --> 01:12:53,880
chance to hit another one. So our holes range from

1356
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:56,560
anywhere from really fifty to fifty five yards all the

1357
01:12:56,600 --> 01:12:59,720
way up to one hundred and forty yards at Dodger Stadium,

1358
01:12:59,479 --> 01:13:03,159
and it is the most immersive experience because most people

1359
01:13:03,199 --> 01:13:07,479
have never seen a stadium with less than thirty five

1360
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:11,439
thousand to one hundred and ten thousand fans screaming, and now.

1361
01:13:11,359 --> 01:13:13,239
Speaker 1: Unless they've gone to a game in Oakland when it.

1362
01:13:13,239 --> 01:13:16,119
Speaker 2: Was there, well, there you go, there you go. But basically,

1363
01:13:16,239 --> 01:13:19,479
what we have is the ability to we have the

1364
01:13:19,520 --> 01:13:22,600
ability to allow our customers to have really no more

1365
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:24,800
than five hundred to one thousand people in the stadium

1366
01:13:24,840 --> 01:13:26,920
at any one time, and you get a tea time

1367
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:28,680
at Upper Dick Golf just like you would on the

1368
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:31,520
golf course. I'll share for everyone listening out their little

1369
01:13:31,520 --> 01:13:33,520
insider's tip. You know, if you're a little bit late

1370
01:13:33,560 --> 01:13:35,640
to your tea time, we're still going to let you like,

1371
01:13:36,039 --> 01:13:37,920
so you're not going to miss your tea time or

1372
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:40,199
get a two stroke penalty. And that's one of the

1373
01:13:40,239 --> 01:13:42,560
things that just makes it so much fun because people

1374
01:13:42,600 --> 01:13:44,920
come and they come to the clubhouse and we've got

1375
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:49,760
a fabulous twelve hour music playlist that runs that's choreographed

1376
01:13:49,880 --> 01:13:54,319
specifically to the type of customer that typically comes at

1377
01:13:54,319 --> 01:13:56,319
a given point in time. So the music you would

1378
01:13:56,319 --> 01:13:58,600
hear our tea times usually run from seven in the

1379
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:01,840
morning till nine at nine, so we're open for fifteen

1380
01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:04,720
hours when we rent out a stadium, and the music

1381
01:14:04,760 --> 01:14:07,960
that is playing from seven to eleven in the morning

1382
01:14:08,039 --> 01:14:10,520
is quite different than the music that's playing from six

1383
01:14:10,560 --> 01:14:13,039
to ten at night, and the crowd that's there, it's

1384
01:14:13,079 --> 01:14:15,920
different and people are looking for something different, and you know,

1385
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:20,720
the bars are open, The stadium is super Our sort

1386
01:14:20,760 --> 01:14:23,560
of course is really well laid out. You can't wind

1387
01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:25,680
up in the wrong place. You get a great workout

1388
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:30,479
work walking from hole to hole. And most important to

1389
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,279
everything I just mentioned, we have an incredible partnership with

1390
01:14:33,359 --> 01:14:36,720
Stand Up to Cancer. So a very nice portion of

1391
01:14:36,720 --> 01:14:40,479
our profit and revenue goes to Stand Up to Cancer

1392
01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:42,399
in the form of a cash donation, and they've been

1393
01:14:42,439 --> 01:14:45,880
an incredible partner for us, and all their research that

1394
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:49,119
they're doing is just fantastic and it just makes us

1395
01:14:49,159 --> 01:14:52,399
feel great. So you'll feel all their branding wherever you

1396
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:54,880
go completely around the stadium is right next to our

1397
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:58,920
upper deck golf logo and they do a fabulous, fabulous job.

1398
01:14:59,119 --> 01:15:01,279
And that's a national partnership that we've had for a

1399
01:15:01,279 --> 01:15:04,239
long time. So we've got the charity element, and then

1400
01:15:04,359 --> 01:15:08,159
inside the clubhouse, we've got several contests set up that

1401
01:15:08,199 --> 01:15:10,720
go beyond the shots you get to hit out in

1402
01:15:10,760 --> 01:15:14,039
the stadium. We've got a close Lit to the Pin contest,

1403
01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:18,359
We've got a putting contest, and then we've got a

1404
01:15:18,399 --> 01:15:21,680
long drive contest. So all the latest, greatest PG drivers

1405
01:15:21,720 --> 01:15:23,800
are there for people to test with every type of

1406
01:15:23,800 --> 01:15:26,319
shaft you could imagine. And many of the events we

1407
01:15:26,399 --> 01:15:30,359
have a PHG specialist who's there from their local store

1408
01:15:30,399 --> 01:15:33,880
who helps fit people. And you can even get discounts

1409
01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:36,000
on a PHG fitting if you go through us. You

1410
01:15:36,039 --> 01:15:38,239
can get a dozen balls if you go for a fitting.

1411
01:15:38,600 --> 01:15:42,399
There's lots of things we do to really utilize the

1412
01:15:42,439 --> 01:15:45,119
partnership in a way that brings value to our customers.

1413
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:49,520
And they're hitting premium equipment. So Upper Deeck Golf is

1414
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:51,600
a lot of fun. We're going to do twenty events

1415
01:15:51,680 --> 01:15:54,720
this year that run the country. I'll reel off a

1416
01:15:54,760 --> 01:15:57,159
few of the stadiums for you since we're talking now,

1417
01:15:57,239 --> 01:16:01,720
mid Stadium Midsummer. Next weekend, we'll be at Cincinnati at

1418
01:16:01,720 --> 01:16:05,159
Great American Ballpark, home of the Reds. Then a couple

1419
01:16:05,199 --> 01:16:08,039
weeks later we'll be at Buffalo at high Mark Stadium

1420
01:16:08,079 --> 01:16:11,359
where the Buffalo Bills play. The week after we're doing

1421
01:16:11,399 --> 01:16:16,000
an event at University of Wisconsin where you have camp Randall.

1422
01:16:16,279 --> 01:16:19,039
That's a great college stadium. A few weeks ago we

1423
01:16:19,039 --> 01:16:22,600
were at University of Michigan for an absolute sellout, epic event.

1424
01:16:23,119 --> 01:16:25,600
It was so much fun I was there. It just

1425
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:29,239
was great to be able to hit golf balls inside

1426
01:16:29,479 --> 01:16:32,960
of Michigan's football stadium. It doesn't get much better than that.

1427
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:37,119
And we started the season indoors in Houston this year,

1428
01:16:37,359 --> 01:16:40,159
home of the Astros. It used to be called Minute

1429
01:16:40,159 --> 01:16:44,000
Made Park, now it's Dykin Stadium, and that was fabulous.

1430
01:16:44,079 --> 01:16:46,840
And then we've got an absolutely packed fall. I'm doing

1431
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:48,720
this all by Hartfred, so I'm not even looking at

1432
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:53,000
a sheets. So I'll tell you what was just fabulous

1433
01:16:53,399 --> 01:16:56,199
about the fall is that we've got a lot of

1434
01:16:56,239 --> 01:17:00,239
events one after another. The first week of August will

1435
01:17:00,239 --> 01:17:02,840
be at Fenway Park for a sold out event that's

1436
01:17:03,079 --> 01:17:06,960
literally six days long. Will be at Fenway. Most of

1437
01:17:07,000 --> 01:17:09,199
our events are two or three days, but some of

1438
01:17:09,239 --> 01:17:12,119
our most popular events we extend to four or five

1439
01:17:12,199 --> 01:17:17,039
or even six. And we basically go from Fenway Park

1440
01:17:17,159 --> 01:17:20,199
to Seattle, where we'll go to lumen Field, home of

1441
01:17:20,199 --> 01:17:23,319
the Seahawks. Will be there August twenty second and twenty third.

1442
01:17:23,640 --> 01:17:27,399
We'll be back at Wrigley Field September eighteenth and nineteenth,

1443
01:17:27,760 --> 01:17:31,239
and then we're going to head to probably head to

1444
01:17:31,279 --> 01:17:33,720
another event that we haven't announced yet, so I'll leave

1445
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:35,560
that for our team to put out. But then we

1446
01:17:35,600 --> 01:17:39,439
head to Coors Field in Denver, where the Colorado Rockies play.

1447
01:17:39,880 --> 01:17:42,319
And then we have a big one that we just announced.

1448
01:17:42,359 --> 01:17:44,039
We're going to go to City Field, home of the

1449
01:17:44,039 --> 01:17:47,279
New York Mets, my hometown, which is just going to

1450
01:17:47,319 --> 01:17:50,239
be pretty epic. Can't wait to get there at the

1451
01:17:50,319 --> 01:17:53,880
end of October for Halloween and that weekend. And then

1452
01:17:53,960 --> 01:17:57,439
Comerica Park in Detroit, home of the Tigers, one of

1453
01:17:57,479 --> 01:18:00,520
the oldest stadiums right there. Then kind of.

1454
01:18:02,359 --> 01:18:04,560
Speaker 1: Older stadiums for you guys.

1455
01:18:04,399 --> 01:18:06,520
Speaker 2: Older stadiums it's been around.

1456
01:18:06,600 --> 01:18:08,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because it's it's.

1457
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:11,319
Speaker 2: And it's not Rigging Field, and it's not.

1458
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,560
Speaker 1: About six years ago. I guess Top Golf kind of

1459
01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:17,840
started doing this. You've you've really developed it so much

1460
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:20,840
more than what they did. They did one in San Francisco,

1461
01:18:20,960 --> 01:18:23,800
and I went out with some listeners and we had,

1462
01:18:23,920 --> 01:18:26,319
you know, as they did their event where it was

1463
01:18:26,399 --> 01:18:29,279
just trying to hit targets. Like Top Golf, it wasn't

1464
01:18:29,319 --> 01:18:33,680
playing nine holes like you're doing now. But it was

1465
01:18:33,880 --> 01:18:37,199
so much fun. I enjoyed it so much, even though

1466
01:18:37,319 --> 01:18:42,079
I have a difficulty with hitting. I can't even hit

1467
01:18:42,119 --> 01:18:44,800
balls on the second deck of a of a driving

1468
01:18:44,920 --> 01:18:48,079
range because I just get anxious about heating up above

1469
01:18:48,119 --> 01:18:50,560
and hitting the ball. So being on top of Dodger

1470
01:18:50,560 --> 01:18:53,800
Stadium would probably make me throw up. But it's so

1471
01:18:53,960 --> 01:18:56,600
great that you know p XG, who's been a sponsor

1472
01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:59,119
on the show, that you're partnering with, and I think

1473
01:18:59,159 --> 01:19:02,680
Five Hour Entergy is partnering with some of these events.

1474
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:06,520
They've been a sponsor here. So I just love that

1475
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:08,720
this is going on. But I love that it's not

1476
01:19:08,920 --> 01:19:11,640
just a one shot and that you guys are developing

1477
01:19:11,720 --> 01:19:17,760
this and creating such amazing opportunities to do something very

1478
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:19,439
different and really fun.

1479
01:19:19,920 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty incredible. We have a tie

1480
01:19:23,520 --> 01:19:27,000
in at Upper Deck Golf where we've got a military hole.

1481
01:19:27,119 --> 01:19:29,800
We do a lot of things that support the military

1482
01:19:29,920 --> 01:19:33,159
with PGA Hope. So I touched on earlier in the

1483
01:19:33,199 --> 01:19:36,319
show today that we have this partnership with the PGA

1484
01:19:36,399 --> 01:19:40,399
of America. So they have a military program called PGA Hope,

1485
01:19:40,399 --> 01:19:44,079
which is just fabulous. It takes veterans and gives them

1486
01:19:44,079 --> 01:19:48,319
a wonderful path forward after their service to be able

1487
01:19:48,359 --> 01:19:51,399
to tie it into golf. And they've got a fabulous

1488
01:19:51,439 --> 01:19:54,399
program that we're partners with. We donate a bunch of

1489
01:19:54,439 --> 01:19:58,800
trips with our partners to their events and they use

1490
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:01,479
those trips for island and live auctions, and all the

1491
01:20:01,520 --> 01:20:06,239
money that they raise goes to support the organization. And

1492
01:20:06,479 --> 01:20:10,079
we have a PGA hopehole at every single event we

1493
01:20:10,159 --> 01:20:12,960
do at Upper Deck Golf. So that's a really great

1494
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:15,479
part of our partnership with the PGA of America and

1495
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:17,960
I can't say enough about how great a job that

1496
01:20:18,039 --> 01:20:21,119
they do. And wrapping up the end of the year

1497
01:20:21,159 --> 01:20:23,520
will be in Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park, will be

1498
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:26,119
in Atlanta at Truest Park, Home of the Braves, and

1499
01:20:26,159 --> 01:20:28,039
then as I mentioned, we'll wrap up the year in

1500
01:20:28,079 --> 01:20:32,079
December at Dodger Stadium. So Top Golf had this business

1501
01:20:32,079 --> 01:20:33,640
for a period of time and I'm sure they did

1502
01:20:33,680 --> 01:20:35,600
a very good job, and you know they did.

1503
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:36,840
Speaker 1: An advance doing it much better.

1504
01:20:37,239 --> 01:20:40,680
Speaker 2: Well. Look, Top Golf is a great partner of ours

1505
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:42,840
and I have nothing but great things to say about them.

1506
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:44,960
But we're just happy that We're going to do about

1507
01:20:45,000 --> 01:20:49,399
twenty events this year between college, NFL and Major League Baseball,

1508
01:20:49,439 --> 01:20:52,600
and we have some big plans to continue to grow

1509
01:20:52,640 --> 01:20:55,119
and expand at Upper Deck Golf. We've got a great team,

1510
01:20:55,159 --> 01:20:58,159
and I think the price to value perception for customers.

1511
01:20:58,199 --> 01:21:00,560
You know, our tickets priced anywhere from ninety to one

1512
01:21:00,640 --> 01:21:03,920
hundred and forty dollars, and people spend anywhere from three

1513
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:06,239
to four hours at each event, so I think that

1514
01:21:07,239 --> 01:21:10,920
really great value and it's a lot of fun. It's

1515
01:21:10,960 --> 01:21:13,680
a lot of fun. We have a very polished team

1516
01:21:14,399 --> 01:21:16,840
of about twenty five twenty six people that go to

1517
01:21:16,960 --> 01:21:19,399
all of our events, so we work closely with each

1518
01:21:19,439 --> 01:21:21,880
stadium and their teams, but we have our own full

1519
01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:24,560
time team that's like a traveling band, and they're just

1520
01:21:24,680 --> 01:21:27,520
absolutely awesome and I get excited to work with them

1521
01:21:27,520 --> 01:21:30,039
at every event that I go to, and we're just

1522
01:21:30,159 --> 01:21:33,000
very lucky to have a terrific business like Upper Dick Golf.

1523
01:21:33,720 --> 01:21:39,560
Speaker 1: Among others. Mark, I clearly you're a very very busy man,

1524
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:43,319
and I know getting your time is not easy. I

1525
01:21:43,520 --> 01:21:47,439
truly you've been one of the easiest guests I've ever had,

1526
01:21:48,399 --> 01:21:52,119
but highly entertaining, and I truly appreciate you sharing your

1527
01:21:52,159 --> 01:21:53,600
time and your stories with us.

1528
01:21:53,960 --> 01:21:56,680
Speaker 2: Hey, Fred, thank you so much for allowing me on

1529
01:21:56,720 --> 01:21:59,399
the show and giving me so much time to share

1530
01:21:59,399 --> 01:22:01,319
a lot of this. Anytime you want to come to

1531
01:22:01,720 --> 01:22:04,640
an upper deck golf event, we definitely have tickets for you.

1532
01:22:04,680 --> 01:22:06,399
We'll give you some mulligans and we'll keep you on

1533
01:22:06,399 --> 01:22:09,119
the lower levels so you don't have to do it's want.

1534
01:22:09,039 --> 01:22:11,359
Speaker 1: To be able to do this with some listeners. That

1535
01:22:11,439 --> 01:22:14,439
would be maybe for twenty twenty six. We can work something.

1536
01:22:14,600 --> 01:22:17,479
I can do some traveling and meet up with some

1537
01:22:17,600 --> 01:22:21,520
listeners and that would be mind blowing. Thank you.

1538
01:22:21,720 --> 01:22:24,279
Speaker 2: Sounds like a plan. We'll talk about it all.

1539
01:22:24,239 --> 01:22:26,760
Speaker 1: Right, Mark, thanks so much for being on the show today.

1540
01:22:27,159 --> 01:22:29,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely my pleasure. Fred. Hopefully we'll get to do it

1541
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:31,279
again down the road at some point