Speaker 1: This is Greg from Clinton, Illinois.
Speaker 2: I play at North Green's Golf Course in Atlanta, Illinois,
and you are listening to Golf Smarter one thousand and five.
Because of the splintering of men's professional golf, majors have
become more major because we get the best players under
one roof. Again, there's the venues you're talking about, Augusta
and Quail and Port Rush. Port Rush is literally a
home game for Rory, and then you got Oakmont. I mean,
this year and these majors and the idea of splintering
of men's professional golf, and the guys like Bryson and
rom and Brooks and Patrick Reid was in the hunt
and it's a Ryder Cup year. So this is buckle up.
I'm not watching men's professional golf, nor am I actually
compelled to do so. For whatever reason, they've kind of
lost me and they lost the plot on sort of
the fans first, but the majors and that major that delivered.
Speaker 1: The evolution of golf Meetia from print to TV took
podcasts with Matt Ginoa. This is golf Smarter sharing stories,
tips and insights from great golf minds to help you
lower your score.
Speaker 2: And raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 1: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Matt, thanks for having me, Fred, always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much. We just have way too
much fun when we do this together because we're kind
of cut from the same cloth. These radio kids right
growing up wanted to the radio guys and ended up
doing golf media. But once you say golf media, then
we go completely different directions because you are legitimate media.
I'm a podcaster so well.
Speaker 2: I mean that we have talked about this, but I
started in radio. My dream was to be in radio
for life. I thought the romantic nature of delivering people
in information as an audio experience and sort of painting
the picture for them as they listened in. You know.
In my ultimate dream would have been to have been
the play by play announcer for the San Diego Padres.
As a kid, That's what I really wanted to be,
and at some point got sidetracked and ultimately ended up
at Sports illustrating the photo department, and then Golf Digest
in the photo department. Then got a chance to start
writing after my master's degree, and then broadcasting Golf Channel.
Then came back to having my own podcast, which in
my mind was a true return to my roots creating
an audio experience. So I love podcasters. I love that
type of storytelling, and I appreciate the fact that you
have a similar root base as I do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so Cal and so your play by play dreams.
Did you do play by play as a kid when
you were like watching TV or you know, going again?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to make up games for my dad,
who commuted from Santa Rosa to San Francisco every morning
on the bus, and I would create these little, uh,
these little event in my mind, I had created Padres
Giants games. And then I did play by play at
Saint Mary's College. I did work for kl o N
at Long Beach State my freshman year and was actually
I got on the air at KALE and I mean,
and then I worked at KSRO in Santa Rosa, California
doing some news updates. So a KSMC was where I
really did a lot of play by play for the
basketball football that time they had a program. Yeah, so
I was. I was very you know, I have a
bunch of tapes laying around that are all you know,
calling games. I called Jason Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, you know,
those guys were all coming through the West Coast conference
at that time.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever told you this or
reminded you of this. The as the president of the
CEO of uh Seymour Golf putter Company Seymour Buttters, he
did play by play at Stanford. Oh cool, and he
was doing play by play when on radio of Stanford
Football at the play were playing cal He's like, yeah, yeah,
Joe Starkey's famous.
Speaker 2: Joe Starkey's call is something I cag to forever. Joe
Starkey was a Bay Area legend obviously, Oh absolutely, and
I huge fan.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where is he now?
Speaker 1: I think he retired?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think he's. John Miller is a big
uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Does the best impression of Vince Gully doing a baseball
game in Japanese. That's just like the greatest piece he's
ever done. It's so good.
Speaker 2: Vin Scully to me is top of the mountain. Obviously,
no question. I hated the Dodgers, but Vin Scully I
would listen to him just forever. I mean, that was
what a gift to an audio experience as a play
by play and color commented, just something that's not done anymore.
Speaker 1: So I've told you about the project that I created
through the eighties and nineties called Fantasy play by Play,
where fans got to go to a booth at the
ballpark and do play by play and take home a
video of them looking like they were actually on TV,
but they weren't. It was just recorded on the tape.
And when I was just getting it started, I just
so happened was sitting across the table from Vin Scully
at my brother's bachelor party and told him that you
were the impetus, You were the idea of why I
started doing this. He was quite flattered.
Speaker 2: I also have heard I have a friend, a really
dear friend of mine who knew the Scully family and
grew up in LA and said that, And everything I've
ever seen, heard or read is that Vin was an
incredible human being and was never bothered or put out
by people saying, I mean, how many people went up
to Vin Scolli and said, you know, I'm a huge
fan or I'm you You're the reason why I'm in
Like how many? I mean thousands? Right? Like sure? And
apparently he never ever, that was never an issue to me.
He always had time for everybody. Bill Rafferty is the
same way for me, Dick vital same way. I got
to meet those guys and got to talk to them
and work with them. Actually, when I was at SI,
I was doing some I was like the stat keeper
at some games at Medicine Square Garden working with Rafferty
and Vitel, which can you imagine that was a dream
come true for me. Bill Rafferty is still going. Bill
Rafferty still and Dicky vs just continues to fight and
fight for his his life life and got back on recently.
But those guys, that's you know, that's that's special stuff.
Speaker 1: Some of the and there are artists in the sense
that going back to Vinnie, especially that you could paint
a picture with words that kept you in and you
were completely able to visualize what was going on because
of how he painted that picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in San Diego, now I've I've killed my dream
of becoming the Padres play by play announcer because Jesse
Agler is the San Diego Padres play by play announcer,
and he is a master. He's a real master at
his craft. I feel so lucky to be able to
listen to Padres games through the voice of Jesse Agler
and then you know, we're talking about Augusta Nashvill right
before we came on. But you know, didn't we miss
didn't we miss Verne lud Verne lund Quist this year
at the sixteenth hole in just the dulcet tones of
vern calling on the action. Talk about it, talk about it.
Talk about a voice that you know made a difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he captured moments unlike any other. Yeah, it
was amazing, It was amazing. How did you end up
getting that first job the photo department? It it was
a golf digest Sports illustrated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a very roundabout way, but uh, you always
have to know somebody, to know somebody. But my you know,
I'm gonna try to cut to the chaser, But my
grandfather was one of the original owners of the forty
nine ers. We had a box. Yeah, this is a
whole crazy story. Yeah I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's true story. Jim Janella one of I think at
the time, the more Beatle brothers were the owners, the
majority owners, and they had fifty five percent. They had
to get they had to get one hundred thousand dollars
together to become an NFL franchise, they had fifty five grand.
They went to nine friends in San Francisco at five
grand each, and my grandfather was one of those nine friends.
Franklin Muley was another one of those friends.
Speaker 1: Who yeh Warriors for years.
Speaker 2: I think my grandfather had a little piece of the
Warriors to at one point. But at that time they
were it wasn't it didn't mean what it means today.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, no sports in the investment at
that point. What it would have turned into today, I
can't anlage.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of billions of dollars. Yeah, uh, they got out
unfortunate when I was just a young kid. My grandfather
had passed before I was born. But in the in
the early seventies, the women who became an ownership of widows.
Honestly all the men had died and they sold to
Di Bartolo, Eddie d and but we had I remember
going to an owner's box. But in the sale we
ended up getting eight tickets. My dad got to, my
uncle got to, my other uncle got to, and my
aunt got to at the forty five yard line in
the rollout seats across the field. So we had those
seats growing up. Those were part of the we got
in the sale, so I got to go to forty
nine games. Well, cut to the eighty nine earthquake giants
A's World Series.
Speaker 1: I was there.
Speaker 2: The SI photographers spill out into the San Francisco, the city,
everything all hell's broken loose, and they need to find
a place to eat. They knock on my uncle's restaurant,
CAP's Corner in North Beach, San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I know that place.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and he lets him in. He lets him
in and they ended up partying, eating, drinking that night,
and my uncle becomes friends with Heinz Klutemyer. Heinz Klutmeer
was the director became the director of photography at Sports Oustraat.
He shot the Miracle on Ice cover for Sports O
Straet and Men, among many others. Heinz was a legend
in his own right. Just recently assed away Heinz. Heinz
became the director of Tigreby and at that time when
I go to college in the nineties, they needed a
seat for for Tigers. They used to put potigraphers in
different places around the stadium so they can get up
angles right they're kind of the drone shots you might
see nowadays. They Heinz called my uncle and said, hey,
can we use one of your seats from an up
angle for this playoff game against the Cowboys? And my
uncle said, yeah, sure, I'll give you my nephew's seat
if he can get down on the field. Can you
get him down on the field, you know, And so
Heintes said, yeah, we'll have them. Assist John Beaver, one
of the greatest sports photigraphers of all time. His father,
Vernon Beaver and John at the time very famously both
shot the Ice Bowl. I think John shot it from
his seats in Green Bay. And yeah, so Verna Beiever's
a longtime packers team for Tigers. So I assist John
Beaver carrying cameras for Sports Illustrated in the in the
nineties and did that on a regular basis. John would
call me every time he'd come to town. I would
go down, get paid to be on the field and
carry cameras for Sports Illustrated for Tiger's. When I graduated again,
I thought I was going to go to ESPN. I
was going to be a broadcaster. I was going to
be and a sliding doors moment I get offered an
internship at Sports Illustrated. I end up not going to ESPN.
I work at SI and you know, then I go
to Columbia Journalism school, I go to Golf Digest, I
start writing. I go to Golf Channel, off and running.
But comes down to my uncle knowing Heinz Klutemeyer, who
needed a spot at a forty nine er game. Goes
back to my grandfather owning the Niners and then being
getting seats to forty five. I mean, do you know
how this is?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Here, it's a career, It's it's something. I don't know
what it is, but it's something.
Speaker 1: Okay. I'm a little bit confused about the progression from
growing up listening to Padres games to spending all this
time in the Bay Area and having almost his family
in the Bay Area. Where's the disconnect for me here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Just people ask me. I'm a huge forty nine evan,
but I never liked the Giants. My dad wasn't a
huge baseball fan. We didn't go we went to every
forty nine er game. We didn't go to We didn't
go to a lot of Giants games. I didn't come
up from Sokeal No, no, no, no, I know I
was living in Santa We were born and raised in
Santa Rosa. Only recent you know, only got to San
Diego about five years ago, okay full time. My brother
went to USD, my best friend went to UCSD. I
went to Long Beach State my freshman year and got
seasoned take. My girlfriends got me season tickets to the
Potter's games when I was at Long Beach State. So
I drive down to go to Jack Murphy back in
the back in the nineties. But yeah, so I just
I fell in love with the Podreys listening to the
radio Cubs Podreys eighty four. Actually be I was a
fan before eighty four, but I remember really falling in
love when they came back to beat the Cubs in
eighty four and went to the World Series. I was
listening to all those games on the radio. That was like,
I remember being in a car. My my family went
into a restaurant and I stayed in the car to
listen to the baseball game on the radio, Cubs Padres
and when it's going crazy by myself, I mean I
was twelve, thirteen years old, and uh yeah, So Terry
Kennedy once gave me a ball. I was on the
I sat I got on the field streets. Yeah, Catcher
pod for the Padres, and I was wearing a Padres hat.
I don't know if he ever went on to be
a manager. Bruce Bochi went on to be a man.
Speaker 1: Manager of the Giants and won their three World Series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a Podres manager for a while. Didn't
love him as a Podres manager, but he did well
for the Giants and the Rangers. But anyway, Yeah, Terry
Kennedy gave me a ball on the field, I was
wearing a Podres hat. I mean, you know, it's just
Podres became my thing, and Tony Gwynn became my guy.
And I've gone on to do a multi part podcast
on the life and legacy of Tony Gwinn through the
voice of Tony gwyn Junior. And then I also got
Maddox Smoltz, Ryan Samberg, Ken, Griffy Junior, all these guys
talking about Tony Gwinn, which is cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna definitely check out that multi part series
on Tony Gwynn because I love Tony Gwynn, but I
also love your multi part series, which was where I
first got hooked, and that was on the Lab Goal.
Speaker 2: Oh, if you haven't listened to Tony Gwynn, Vince Sculli's
on there, Bob Costas is on there. You get a
little ted. Know I'm taking all these audio clips from
all these different people, and then it's and then it's
his son is and Trevor Hoffman is. I get Trevor Hoffman,
I got who else several several voices on Awesome, on
the greatness of Tony Gwynn.
Speaker 1: So Similarly, when I moved to the Bay Area, because
I grew up in Los Angeles, you know, Dodger fan,
but you know, I was more of a music fan
because I wanted to be in radio, so I was
like really focused on the music part. And then I
got to the Bay Area and nineteen I was working
in radio in San Francisco. Nineteen eighty one is Billy
Martin gets hired for to manage the Oakland A's and
I just became a huge Oakland A's fan with some
of the people I had worked with, and got hooked
to Bill King and Lawn Simmons doing play by play.
Bill King being one of those guys and he did
in Bill King right, he did the A's, the Raiders
did everything, and the Warriors like.
Speaker 2: Jim I just you just moving around in his.
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty seven Rambler all the time.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. That's cool. Yeah, voice, those guys are legends.
Speaker 1: Man, oh yeah, absolutely, that was That's so cool. So really,
your your progression starting with your first gig with s
H is all family and it's who you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got it, got it, got me that internship. Now,
I will tell you working for Heinz Klutemyer was that
was the Heintz Klutemer was the kind of guy that
would give you an opportunity to have a job, but
to keep that job was not easy. That guy was.
He was tough, was very kind, to say the least.
He he I endured. I mean the difference between how
how I think pretty much anybody can or does treat
employees versus how people treated employees back then, it's a
whole it's a whole different it's a totally different thing thing.
It's like the difference of how kids are being raised
by parents nowadays. It's just a different thing. It's I
don't know what's right or wrong. I don't know what's
good or bad. I just know it was different. And
I see, uh the way I was, you know, and
I'm not saying I was treated poorly. You know, for
the most part it was fair. But if you did
something wrong or if you made a mistake, you know,
you were getting yelled at, you were getting chastised in
a way that you know nowadays you'd go to HR
like you'd be like, this is ridiculous. Can't you can't
treat me this You can't. Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Mean yeah, and you know.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is is I worked seven days week,
you know, eleven hour day. I didn't. It didn't for
the love of it, well, because it wasn't work. I
was working, you know, I was working at Sports Illustrated.
I kept you know, I was stealing letterhead, was sending
stuff to my friends, going, I'm working at Sports illustrat
who you know, who knows if today is my last day?
But I can't believe I'm here. I get to be
you know. At that time, that news weekly mattered and
it was it was special.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like when I came out of college,
my first job was at KSA n Radio and growing
up in the Bay area probably aware of, but that
was the first free form FM rock station in the
country led the way and so I was like, I'm
here and I got to be on the air, and
it was like pure heaven. It was great, and we
really have been cut from the same cloth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know Golf digest I mean to go
to Golf Digist as a whole nut. Like Jerry Tardy,
who's a legend and icon in the world of golf
and journalism. He started Golf Die Just as an intern
and became the you know, the executive editor and the
bizarre of all things Golf di Just. He couldn't have
been more different. He was the most kind. I mean,
you know, if you if if he was upset at you,
you'd know. But the way he dealt with it, and
the tone and mannerisms in which he delivered information, the
way he managed human beings was night and day versus
the SI rough and rugged. It was s I was
like sandpaper man. I mean it was it was no
mess around me. It was a weekly deadline, but it
was you know, magazine was put together in a in
like forty eight hours, right over the course of what
happened on Saturday Sunday, then went to bed on Monday
and it was gone.
Speaker 1: You had to and this was this is an era.
I mean, people have to understand. This isn't an era
where there was no twenty four hours a news channel,
and there was no twenty four hour sports channels, and
there was no social media. It's like SI is where
you went each week to find out what happened in
sports that week, other than your local sports newspaper, the
sports section of your local paper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sports Illustrated very famously declined the opportunity to buy ESPN.
And what a huge mistake that was, right, Like, I
mean that was a big That was a big miss
and that was the big turning point because Sports Center
was coming on, but people were still reading their news weekly.
Just think about that concept, right, You're getting your news
from a weekly publication.
Speaker 1: Time magazine, news week, newsweekly. I mean all of it
was illustrated daily newspapers. So it was a it was
a different time and it mattered, and there was it
was the best of the bat. I mean, if you
couldn't handle it, someone else was coming in to take
your job. I mean you it was the best tivers
And by the way, film camera so we were flying
film all over the country, all over the world on
a weekly basis and having it get you know, uh processed,
and and we were we were I was editing film,
roles and rolls of film.
Speaker 2: All the others were on light tables with loops. I mean,
you were ripping through roles and rolls and rolls of
film every day. Not happening anymore.
Speaker 1: So now we get to the era of podcasts and
YouTube and you're still contributing to the media landscape in
that sense where you know, you're doing some amazing stuff
on YouTube and you've got the podcasts. Where is your
focus these days? And how are you delivering?
Speaker 2: So the podcast is I ended with the Lab the
Lab series and really put the podcast the fire Pit Podcast,
which you know, all those episodes still exist and it's
all still up and up and active. But I'm a
wonderful Yeah, I mean, I felt like I was laying
down history. I was finding good stories telling them and
you know through the you know, the voices of multiple voices,
you know, And and I really loved doing it, and
it is my passion and I would love to do
more of it. I just couldn't make a business out
of it right. I was very hard, and so I
kind of had to put the podcast on a hiatus.
I started after launching a production company. I've told this
story a couple of times and probably to you, but
launched a production company right out of Golf Channel feeling
like I had a sense of where media was going
with this splintering of distribution and felt like I wanted
to get out there. And I saw what Barstool was doing.
I certainly saw what no langwup was doing in the
golf space.
Speaker 1: I guess what Bill Simmons was doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean countless you know there was. It was like, oh,
it's very obvious that you didn't need to be a
part of one of the traditional media outlets to be successful.
And I felt like I love long form storytelling and
in order to do that, I had to get out
from underneath the confines and the guardrails of linear distribution,
which was Golf Channel at the time. I wanted to
be able to use all I said this a lot
of times as well. You know we'd killed the cow
and only eat the filet. Well, I wanted to use
all the parts of the cow because I was coming
back with a lot of cool anecdotes and information and
sound bites and visuals, and I felt like we were
only using a very small percentage of that. So I
wanted a production I wanted to I had baked out
the concept of a production company after COVID hit, which
was a month after I started my company. Then we
pivoted to a media company and I'd gotten some investment
in and had real you know, unfortunately, got too big,
too fast, made a lot of big mistakes, brought in
too many people without justifying the business end of it.
It was a bit of a rush job, if I'm
to be you know, candid, and looking back in that,
you know, where I was in my life and my career,
I wasn't you know, I wasn't in my twenties, right,
We weren't going to start, you know. Once at a time,
I felt like we had some names and notoriety and
let's let's go, I mean, and we dropped the Phil
Micholson book that Shipnook Alan Shipmok had written and it
kind of came out. That was one of the kind
of the first things we put out, and that went
globally viral, and it was like, oh wow, this is
going to be easy, right, Not that I actually thought
that it was going to be easy, but it felt easy.
We just didn't have a fill book every two weeks,
so pre produced too many things without having sold them first.
And ultimately now back to no more overhead, no more employees,
I've got production partners, back to a production company working
with a lot of clients that I really want to
work with. Youth on Course Laura Loma in the whole
country of Texas documenting the build of a new David
Kid Course, Crazy Mountain Ranch and Bozeman, Montana building a
core Crenshaw golf course there, documenting that we just did
the two part docuseries on pas Tempo on how Jim
Orbina and Justin mannon Earth Sculptures restored all eighteen of those.
Alistair Mackenzie Greens working with Coral Mountain in Palm Springs
on documenting another David Kid course there. Storyteller for youthon Course,
which is one of the greatest growth the game initiatives
that has ever come along, which is essentially subsidizing green
fees for kids at five dollars or less, which is
breaking down the core barriers to the game, accessibility and affordability,
so working with these types of client. You know, I'm
partnering with True Linkswear on some events that we're doing
telling the story of Gamble Sands, which will be coming
out here shortly on how that family has created this
legacy in central Washington that has now evolved into some
golf which is a lot of really good golf. Two
David Kid courses, a short course punting course. So this
is what I'm doing now, is working on these types
of stories in this type of content and its long
form and whatever form I want to.
Speaker 1: Do, and so up on YouTube among other places. Yeah,
the primary distribution, Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Website is the Firepitproductions dot com and we have a
fire Pit Productions channel on YouTube. We have fire Pit
Productions social channels. I have my social channels. So a
lot of stuff that I'm doing is going out on
my clients distribution channels social and website and otherwise. And
also almost every thing is also going out on my
channels as well.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. So I'm I'm interested in you know, when
when they're doing redoing a golf course, you know, uh,
there's a lot of money being spent on the redevelopment
of a golf course. And maybe not necessarily a budget
set aside for let's document this thing and turn it
into a you know, a YouTube piece. What's your what's
your pitch? How do you get to that?
Speaker 2: That's that? That there? It is right that that's the
no shock that you cut right to the heart of
the matter. But that's that's what I'm trying to explain
to these decision makers, that you can never go back
in time. I got it.
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta a special guest. My granddaughter's leaving
right now, and so she got to say goodbye, but
I'll see you in a couple of days.
Speaker 2: Bye, big blue eyes.
Speaker 1: She's gorgeous. We have three all three grand children here
this weekend. That's special.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry for the interruption.
Speaker 2: No, no, I know, no, no problem. Of course, it's
not an interruption, right, it's all that matters. But back
to your point of trying to sell these decision makers. Yeah,
because the funny.
Speaker 1: For remembering the point because it was totally flummet.
Speaker 2: No, the funny thing is is you'll see, oh, here's
a five million dollar restoration, and they balk at the
idea of spending fifty thousand on documenting their own story. Right,
they're spending twenty five million dollars on this restoration renovation,
but they don't have, you know, one hundred thousand dollars
to put into the actual storytelling and the marketing machine
that goes around what they've done, right, I it blows
my mind so absolutely, I'm trying to explain to these developers,
and I'm making progress that. Listen, you have a raw
piece of land, or in Pasa Tempo's case, you have
a special piece of land, a special piece of golf
history here with Alison mackenzie and Marion Hollins and Pass
Tempo and all that. It means a place where you
can go play a McKenzie original. It was like, hey,
you can't go back in time. Let us come in,
let us get the before, during, and after. We'll create
breadcrumbs along the way. On your social channels and ours.
We can create content that helps keep your membership informed
and at the end of the day, no matter how
many people watch it or whatever happens, you have it
in your archives forever. You know, here we are in
twenty twenty five, and you know, people are not documenting
their own stories, and they're still using these written one
page press releases that you know, oh look at what
happened here. This place just redid. There's a new course opening,
and here's five paragraphs that very few people are going
to read. No visuals, no video, They're not bringing it
to life. There's no soul. It's just this. You know,
this archaic form of information to me is absurd. So
I'm appreciative of the people who do believe in me
and us, my team and I to go in and
help document. I say this all the time, it's your story,
let us help you tell it, and that becomes material
for the marketing teams, the sales teams, the people who
are trying to sell greens fees. So Golden Gate Park
invested in us PASA Tempo early investors, Gamble Sands invested
in this early. A couple of these people took chances
on us early, and it's, you know, one brick at
a time. We continue to gain more momentum and more clients.
Speaker 1: But when the pitch gets going and you're like, okay,
so how much is it going to cost? Then you
give a number, whether it's fifty thousands, like for what
what does that mean? Where are you coming up with
those numbers, right, it's all about days and delivering it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we and we've gotten much better at explaining
its number of days and what do you want to
be delivered? So you're gonna own You're gonna own this
raw material. So that's that's the base that now. You know,
at Golf Channel, we used to come through tell a
bunch of stories. But when we own, Golf Channel owned it, right,
they were left with nothing. And you know, now all
these places have their own social channels, they have their
own websites, they have their own archives. They want to
have a piece of that action. So what I was seeing,
and that was an issue for me, is like, how
can we make sure that they own their own story
At the very least, you're gonna own your own story. Now,
do you want a long form piece? Do you want multiple?
You know, Hero Hub and Hygiene. So Hero is the
long form, Hub is the kind of two to three
minute versions, and Hygiene is the social version.
Speaker 1: So to me, I'm going to deliver options.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you're always going to get a Hero, and
you're going to get some Hubs and you're going to
get some hygienes. How many of those? How long do
you want the hero that'll dictate how many hubs and
hygiens you get, how many stills do you want, how
much raw interviews do you want, how many people do
you want us to sit down? How many days are
winning beyond site, how many trips are we going to make.
That's all going to determine how much that we charge.
Speaker 1: And then when you come back and tell them and
I've had to do this, it's like, yeah, it comes
out to about twenty grand per minute of content, and
they're like what it's like, you know, you can't make
a mistake if there's one frame off. I mean, it's
very detailed work. And if there's one frame off in
the video, everybody notices and I've got to pay attention
to all of that. And you've got a team of
people doing all the work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a big team. So it's just me
and my production partner. And then I've got I got
some people helping me post things to website, and I
got a graphic designer who helps create some of the
graphic elements. But at the end of the day, there
is no more. I don't I At one point, or
fire Pit Collective was up to like fifteen sixteen employees.
Now it's me and I have a key. Joel Weeb
is based in Seattle. He is my production partner, so
he does the shooting and editing. But I got to
go through and create the scripts and write the scripts
and find the bites and you know, I mean, that's
storytelling to me. I still and the reason why I
can't afford to do the podcast is the way I
did podcast just took too much time. I mean, twenty
five interviews for the lab nine episodes to be able
to piece that all together. That that took me. I
mean that was weeks of and you.
Speaker 1: Told me you did it in longhand you didn't even
use transcriptions.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't like using transcriptions because I
have to listen back over and over and that way
I know the story see it.
Speaker 1: And now I need to place this here and put
copy and paste everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't. I don't transcribe any interview. I listen.
I listen because I listened to it once and then
I listened to I listened to it live obviously when
it's happening. Then I listen to it again. Then I
start forming a story, and I listen by the time
I'm done with an interview that then becomes a story,
it's always at least three, four or five sometimes six
time I can get to the point where I can recite,
I can I memorize the interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why I love just doing these interviews
as is, throwing them out there, having interruptions from the grandchild. Right,
I just put it out there. I'm not going to
spend and I mean, I can create one minute pieces
out of it, and I'll let somebody else do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and I get it. And that's obviously
it's a much more cost and time effective way of
creating a podcast. I mean, I listened to SmartLess, right,
those guys are great, three guys, one guest, good conversation,
cut send. You know what I mean? And I get it.
I just can't. I can't bring myself to doing it.
I can't do it. I feel like the minute I
hear them say another name, or they go down the
story or that, I have my instincts to get another voice,
another perspective, another I have to keep layering in. And
then that to me, was the way I loved doing it.
Now that was just me, but it also meant that
in order to afford to do it, I just I could.
Speaker 1: Didn't make sense.
Speaker 2: No, not if I'm independently wealthy, and it doesn't matter.
I'll go back to doing that and it'll just be
my it'll be my passion project. But I can't afford
to just have passion projects anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, it was your passion project. I mean, how many
interviews did you with Labi?
Speaker 2: And I had no idea going in, and I.
Speaker 1: Took a small handful of him and Mac Barnhardt's been
on the show multiple times because I heard him on
your show, and now he's become a friend and had
him on and met up with him when I went
to the Masters, and yeah, and then other people as well.
Some we had scheduled it didn't work out, It didn't matter,
But yours, your series was a great source for me
of great content of just letting people go. Yeah, so
thank you.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of There was a lot of great,
great people talking about about that story. And again I'll
started with Lucas Glover, you know, essentially curing his yips
by way of Lab, and and then so many, so
many people getting involved, and then the simultaneous story of
Lab and the intersection of Lab Fucus and then that
transformation and of his professional career because a lab is amazing.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you noticed, but this year
during the Masters, uh, the Golf channel was on and
and wait a minute, you know, Uh, there's an ad
for Charles Schwab about Sam Han. Did you see that?
Speaker 2: I did not see that.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, they're doing Sam hunt.
It's a Schwab commercial. Whoa is it?
Speaker 2: Because? Is it because he's a game Are they going
to do a series on him as a game changer series?
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're doing a series, but they
you know, it was clearly him Sam on Lab Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, it's no Sam. Sam's the man. Bill
Pressy was obviously the original sort of guy who came
up with.
Speaker 1: Uh with the design and the science behind it, But
it was Sam who turned.
Speaker 2: Out the revealer. Yeah when Yeah, and but but Pressy
as a business guy was failing big time. And it
wasn't in till Sam came in as a businessman as
an investor and brought in the marketing and the machine
behind it that it became ultimately successful. And man, what
a story it is. And it continues to be a great, totally,
totally how many I'm putting with I'm putting, I'm putting
with the labor. I'll never I've got the d the
d F three, the the little version, right, so, uh,
the little version of the original and then it scoops
the ball when you put the ball. But I yeah,
I don't think there's any way I ever putt with anything,
knowing what I know. And again, I'm not an equipment guy.
I know, no, don't change. But there's no way I'm
ever not putting with a lab putter knowing what I
know and hearing what I heard and seeing what I've seen.
It's just that's that's that to me, is eliminating one
of the three aspects of what a putting stroke is.
If I cannot have to worry about returning that putter
face to square and not having to worry about mitigating torque,
and now I'm just learning about I'm just trying to
figure out you know, uh a line and pace? Those
are you know? If you're that to me, is I
can I can? I can? I think I can figure
out line and pace, or at least I can give
it a go. Not having to mitigate torque in that
putter face is it's elimiting one of the true sort
of variables of what's going on every time you take
the putterback.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sold. Oh that's right. I already have four labs.
Speaker 2: I only need one one.
Speaker 1: I'm going I'm trying. I'm using the the OS one now,
the col Scott design. So you mentioned before that fire
Pit Collective, Firepitproductions dot com, the Firepitproductions dot Com doing events.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean just on the back end of
these production partnerships that I make. So at Pasa Tiempo,
we're putting out a bunch of content. At Positive, Let's
have an event. Come come, come play the place I've
just been telling you about, Gamble Sands. We're gonna have
a bunch of content. You know, We're gonna We're gonna
have an event at Gambell Sands, Laura Loma in the
Hill Country, Texas. I'm really trying to figure out a
way to have an event at Laura Loma. So you're
gonna see the David Kid course being built. Come out
and play it. Experience that David kidb there that you
know music, I host a buddy strip every year called
the Uncle Tony Invitational Abandon Dunes. We've gone to excuse me,
We've gone to Pinehis, We've gone to Sand Valley. Someday
we'll go to Ireland, you know, for a big anniversary.
But we go to Bandon Dunes and at the Uncle
Tony Invitational, I've learned about what people want in terms
of of an experience a trip. I always try to
bring someone who plays live music around the fire pit.
I like having a competitive round the morning and a
fun round in the afternoon. That is a tournament within
the tournament. And so I'm building all of that into
I'm bringing the Uncle Tony Invitational and the production partnerships
and making that we were calling it bonfires. Right now
we're on the verge. I'm having a meeting today in
about forty five minutes with True Links where and I'm
going to partner with them and they're gonna be They're
going to bring their community into our events, and our
events are going to come into their community, and they'll
help with the gift bags and we'll create more content
for them and the destinations. I really love Jason Moore,
Ryan Moore, I love their whole team. I've loved that
brand from the beginning. A partnership of brands makes a
lot of sense in this world of golf that's happening
all over the place. So if I can partner with them,
and we're going to be I think we're going to
be calling them Enjoy the Walk Gamble Sands. That's their tagline,
and it matches with what the vibe I've always believed in.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna have to show up one of these
I'm going to have to crash that party.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're gonna have live music, great gift bags,
great value architects, round tables, fire pits, you know, and
good experiences. And we keep them small. I want to
keep them.
Speaker 1: I wanted to find small.
Speaker 2: You know. Let's say forty max, forty people max. Twenty
teams of two.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that.
Speaker 2: Would be that that would be my sweet spot. If
there are twenty four teams of two, that's still great.
Speaker 1: H that's ambitious.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty teams of two, twenty four teams of two.
I mean if Uncle Tony is twelve teams of two,
so twenty four people is that's that feels intimate and special.
But it's probably be a little bit bigger than those.
Speaker 1: All right, let's make a turn here because you mentioned
for An Lundquist earlier as we were talking, uh, and
you missed him at the Masters this year. But where
do you rate this year's twenty twenty five Sunday at
the Masters on television?
Speaker 2: It is so rare for a Sunday at Augusta to
meet expectations. I mean, because people's expectations when they see
a oh wow, Bryson Rory or Phil Tiger or what
John Rop, Scottie sheffid what you know, it's very rare
that it meets expectations because one guy goes the other way,
another guy runs away either got a four shot lead,
or some guy comes from nowhere, and and it's always like,
oh darn it. Then then to exceed expectations, to exceed
the expectations of a Sunday at Augusta in which Rory
and Bryson are in the final pairing and within the
second hole a three shot lead is gone and we
got Bryson is in the lead, two shot leads, so
then it becomes a three shot swing. Bryson is in
the lead. The second hold. I mean the guy that
had two double bogies on Sunday, beat the guy that
had ten natural birdies. Wow, Justin Rose made ten birdies,
four pars, four bogies and lost. Rory McElroy had four
double bogies that week. That never happen. You don't win.
Make four double bogies and win the Masters. He made
two on Sunday and one every time he made a
mistake he recovered. The same guy who put it in
the water from eighty six yards two holes later hit
a two hundred and ten yard hook seven iron to
eight feet. Now, he didn't hit the hole with the pot,
he still made birdie. But this is the same guy,
The same guy who boged from a twenty yards at
the eighteenth fairway on the seventy sixth hole. Is the
guy who birdied on the seventeenth hole and knocked it
to four feet. I mean what.
Speaker 1: It was mind blowing. It was probably some of the
greatest golf television ever broadcast.
Speaker 2: Paul McGinley said it best, and I think we've all
known this for a long time and we've seen this
for a long time, But Rory cannot play defensive golf.
He's a horrible defensive play with the lead golfer's tweeting
live tweeting during the whole process. We always knew Rory
was going to probably have to come from behind in
order to break through and win the Masters or another major.
He was going to need to be the chaser, because
he's just better that way. He needed and so he
literally sabotaged his own success throughout that final round in
order to set up the scenarios in which he was
then coming back and overcoming that those failures that I mean,
but that's over time, I think he developed that thick
skin and that ability to do that by the amount
of failures. To his credit, he's become better at overcoming fails.
He's already run one three times this year, by the way,
he already has a Players and a Master's. And now
you've got uh, you got Quail Hollow, which he loves.
We know, he royal Port Rush, that's like a home
game for him. And you've got Oakmont, which favors long
and straight. I mean, this guy literally might go on
a heater in which unlike anything we've ever seen. I mean,
this is Rory McElroy. We put him to bed for
almost a better part of a decade thinking well, I
guess the game and the pressures and all this stuff
is just too much for him. Maybe it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, when this podcast is published, let me just say,
as we're recording this podcast, there's still two more majors
coming of you know, that we'll not know about, and
for any of it to exceed the expectations and to
deliver what the Masters did this year, the Masters is
going to be talked about for decades to come, and
hopefully there's more to talk about of what we've you know,
what is transpired in the last two majors that we
just finished one. You know again, as this gets published,
we've just finished the third major of the year. But
this is this is something that can be talked about.
It partly why I don't like to talk about golf
events on a podcast because it's old news.
Speaker 2: Well, if this plays out the way it could, I mean,
the other thing, Fredd and to talk about it from
thirty thousand feet in majors because of the splintering of
men's professional golf, majors have become more major, right that
because we get the best players under one roof again,
and so there's a little bit of that there's the venues, right,
I mean you're talking about Augusta and Quail and Port
Rush and again Rory has like shot like sixty one
there when he was like fourteen. I mean, Port Rush
is is quite literally a home game for Rory. And
then you got Oakmont. I mean this year and these
majors and the idea of splintering a men's professional golf
and the guys like Bryson and rom and Brooks and guys.
You know, Patrick Reid was in the hunt. Patrick Reid
almost won this tournam that was crazy. And then you
have you know, and it's a Ryder Cup here. So
this is it's this buckle up. I'm not watching men's
professional golf week to week. It just no longer and
I'd much rather go. You know, I got a seven
year old who's playing baseball. I got a family, I
got a I got a lot going on. I'm not
sitting around watching a lot of men's professional golf, nor
am I actually compelled to do so. For whatever reason,
They've kind of lost me, and they lost the plot
as far as I'm concern on sort of the fans first,
but the majors and that major that delivered real.
Speaker 1: I did really did well, Matt. I could keep going
and we could keep going, but we will at some
point and do it again. But I just want to
thank you for helping me celebrate getting up to one
thousand episodes and continuing on.
Speaker 2: There was a small you've done a thousand episodes.
Speaker 1: This is episode one thousand and five.
Speaker 2: That's tremendous, friend. That's congratulations, that's incredible, that's really cool.
That's that's a lot. I mean, that's a lot of work.
It's a lot of conversation. It's a lot of dedication
and preparation because I know you don't just wing it,
so I, you know, good for you. Congratulations, keep going.
Why stop now,