Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: This is Gerar Daleman's from Booie, Maryland and I play
Speaker 2: at Enterprise Golf Course.
Speaker 1: This is Golf.
Speaker 2: Smarter number nine hundred and seventy two. I tell people
Speaker 2: all the time the Limp model. If you've ever been
Speaker 2: to one that I've been to several, and they're really fun,
Speaker 2: they're exciting, the players are excited to be there. And
Speaker 2: it's a team concept. Team Golfworks, who've had the tour
Speaker 2: partner with them from the beginning. And let's say, let's
Speaker 2: do this. Let's have an Irish team, Let's have a
Speaker 2: South African team, Let's have a Mexican team, a Spanish team,
Speaker 2: a South Korean team, a Canadian team. We'll have a
Speaker 2: Texas team, We'll have a Sea Island team, We'll have
Speaker 2: a California team, and fourteen times a year we will
Speaker 2: get together. And this is kind of like a Ryder
Speaker 2: Cup instead of it in USA and Europe. And all
Speaker 2: these teams from around the world are coming to play
Speaker 2: the Irish team. How many T shirts and acts of
Speaker 2: that Irish jerseys which you sell, and no one understands
Speaker 2: the licensing concept behind this. I think five point seven
Speaker 2: billion dollars is spent every year in college football licensed
Speaker 2: purcha ducks. Ever been a licensing opportunity in golf until
Speaker 2: this There is with the Ryder Cup, which happens every
Speaker 2: two years. We'll think about having an event at Bethpage
Speaker 2: Black and it's the Americans Texas, Sea Island, Scottsdale Versus Ireland.
Speaker 2: Here comes Rory McElroy and Sean take the best players
Speaker 2: from those countries like we do at the Ryder Cup
Speaker 2: and do it fourteen times a year.
Speaker 1: Is the PGA Tour doomed? And we're going to get
Speaker 1: some controversial insights from golf agent Mac Barnard.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
Speaker 2: great golf minds to help you lower your score and
Speaker 2: raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Mac Hey, thanks for letting maybe have you come on. Brett,
Speaker 2: It's good to meet you.
Speaker 1: It's good to have you on. This is really special
Speaker 1: because I've never had the opportunity to speak to a
Speaker 1: golf agent before, and so now that I've let that
Speaker 1: out of the bag, explain it is to me what
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, after me, you probably won't have one on Again,
Speaker 2: our business as an agent is a little different than
Speaker 2: what a baseball or football or basketball agent is. They
Speaker 2: sign a kid from college and then they sell him
Speaker 2: to a team. That's their job. There may see be
Speaker 2: some little a few other deals they may do, but
Speaker 2: that's pretty much their job. Golfers, they'll have a high
Speaker 2: school coach, to have a college coach. When they turn pro,
Speaker 2: they are on their own. They have no peers, no bady.
Speaker 2: So we're agents in the sense that we are trying
Speaker 2: to get deals and create some revenue. We're also the
Speaker 2: manager or the gm We're the ones that manage the caddies,
Speaker 2: the teachers, they're trainers, they're psychologists, all trying to pull
Speaker 2: together for them. Most of these kids have never had
Speaker 2: a job, much less run a company, and so now
Speaker 2: they've got three, four or five employees. They have to
Speaker 2: have an accountant they have, so we're the guys that
Speaker 2: kind of oversee all those things. We do all their logistics,
Speaker 2: so we their hotels, flights, cars, whatever they need, we
Speaker 2: handle that and pretty much in our company we do
Speaker 2: everything but hit balls form when it comes to golf.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a little different than just being that
Speaker 2: you know, suit and tie agent going in and you know,
Speaker 2: trying to negotiate these deals. There's a lot that goes
Speaker 2: into it. And from you know, from thirty four years
Speaker 2: of this, the stuff that we do there has more
Speaker 2: effect on their performance than anything else that we do.
Speaker 1: I would think. So it's interesting because for the years
Speaker 1: that I've been doing this, I've frequently talked about how
Speaker 1: a professional golfer is their own team. We don't talk
Speaker 1: a lot about what happens on the tour. We may
Speaker 1: talk about the people on the tour, but we don't
Speaker 1: talk about what happens on the tour last week and
Speaker 1: what's going to be next week and with the gambling ons,
Speaker 1: That's not what we talk about on this show. It's
Speaker 1: how do we become better golfers, smarter golfers. And I've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about how, you know, professional golfer is it.
Speaker 1: He's got to do all of it and manage it himself.
Speaker 1: So I've always been fascinated by that concept, where, like
Speaker 1: you said, baseball, football, basketball, these agents got to come
Speaker 1: in and make promises to these kids and their parents
Speaker 1: of what they're going to be able to de liver
Speaker 1: and try to become their best friend, right, And in
Speaker 1: a way, those agents have to look these kids in
Speaker 1: the eye, look the parents in the eye, and feel
Speaker 1: comfortable about lying to them in this in like making
Speaker 1: promises that you know, I'm going to be your number
Speaker 1: one guy. I'm there for you all the time until
Speaker 1: the next phenom comes along, and then they've got to
Speaker 1: move on and grow their business and get other agents. Well,
Speaker 1: he's going to be working with your son now and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be moving you know, happens all the time,
Speaker 1: but that's not how it works for golf. So it's
Speaker 1: fascinating to know that you're not coming in to say
Speaker 1: we're negotiating a deal with PGA or live for you. No,
Speaker 1: that's not what you do. No.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, on the contrary, you know, these agents
Speaker 2: that are having to quote lie to these guys. They
Speaker 2: may have a client for four, six, eight years. I
Speaker 2: have clients for thirty years. Wow, I'm interviewing them as
Speaker 2: much as they're interviewing me. These are people that we
Speaker 2: are close to, I mean as close as my family.
Speaker 2: And so you can imagine we have a rule that
Speaker 2: you know, I've had to let a couple of clients
Speaker 2: go because I see their name pop up on my
Speaker 2: phone and my stomach turns and life's too short. And
Speaker 2: when you've got fifty clients or fifty three clients, this
Speaker 2: is a partnership with us. They make bogies. We make bogies,
Speaker 2: so you know when you're I always tell people I
Speaker 2: won't sign a client if I can't take them to dinner.
Speaker 2: And why said, well, I want to treat see how
Speaker 2: he treats people that serve him, because I'm going to
Speaker 2: be serving him and I want to see his reactions
Speaker 2: and how he does things because I don't want to
Speaker 2: be locked into a relationship. It isn't about the money
Speaker 2: and just to go whoever can make you the money.
Speaker 2: These are people that I mean, you're going to have
Speaker 2: to go sell them, market them. You've got to believe
Speaker 2: in them and who they are and what they are.
Speaker 2: And you can bypass a lot of problems in the
Speaker 2: recruiting process, but not signing those people that are just
Speaker 2: going to be really pains in the ours. And so
Speaker 2: it's a little different. Just it's not a transactional thing.
Speaker 2: Now there is groups in my business that they they'll
Speaker 2: come in and say, look, I'm the best in the
Speaker 2: business and I'm going to be your main guy. And
Speaker 2: I tell these people there's no way he's going to
Speaker 2: be your main guy. If you've got this player, they'll
Speaker 2: say that, they get them into contract and they ship
Speaker 2: them off, and that happens a lot. Now we're a
Speaker 2: lot different. There's a bunch of us in the business.
Speaker 2: You may have somebody you may want to be your guy,
Speaker 2: and you can have it. Somebody wants me to be
Speaker 2: their guy. They call me all the time. But in reality,
Speaker 2: you're going to see a lot of different of us
Speaker 2: out because you know, there's a lot of GOP being
Speaker 2: played and we're all around the world. So that's the
Speaker 2: different part. There are people that get in our business
Speaker 2: that think it's like that I'm going to woo this
Speaker 2: guy and I'm going to convince him to sign with me.
Speaker 2: We're going to see a kid on Tuesday in Florida,
Speaker 2: and they're like, what are we telling? I said, we
Speaker 2: tell him who we are and how we do our jobs.
Speaker 2: We wanted to pick kit. We want him to pick
Speaker 2: us because he knows who we are. We don't want
Speaker 2: to try to tell him what he wants to hear
Speaker 2: to sign him, because then you're in that whole different
Speaker 2: dynamic of the relationship. And there are no promises in golf.
Speaker 2: The people might make them, I can't tell you what
Speaker 2: you're going to do, so it's a little different.
Speaker 1: Winning on the tour once is a big deal for
Speaker 1: a player's career.
Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing if you want to. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of one time winners, and then that list
Speaker 2: of two time winners goes down, and then five time
Speaker 2: winners go down, and people ask me what is that,
Speaker 2: and I said, well, I've got a guy that we
Speaker 2: use this terminology called talent minus. Talent minus distractions equals performance,
Speaker 2: and distractions are a lot. I got a twenty two
Speaker 2: year old kids, got not a care in the world,
Speaker 2: and then he gets married, then he has a kid,
Speaker 2: then he has another kid, then he wins a golf tournament.
Speaker 2: Now he's got new friends. Now he's got more media request,
Speaker 2: now he's got more contracts. So all these shirt, these
Speaker 2: logos you see on these players, that's not just the logo,
Speaker 2: that's time. So all those logos may have two, three,
Speaker 2: four days a time. So now they're distracted, they're not
Speaker 2: practicing like that twenty two year old free willing. Then
Speaker 2: they buy a couple million dollar house, get them a
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars a month mortgage. So they're just all
Speaker 2: these things that happen they win that first time. But
Speaker 2: really the main thing, and I just had this conversation
Speaker 2: with a kid, is expectations will destroy you faster than
Speaker 2: anything you have. And we try to convince them that
Speaker 2: when you win a golf tournament, it doesn't mean the
Speaker 2: next week you play, you're going to play well. I
Speaker 2: think you know, Davis Love was in client for a
Speaker 2: long time and Davis won twenty one times in his career.
Speaker 2: Now that's pretty amazing, right.
Speaker 1: That's a phenomenal career.
Speaker 2: And I think he's played seven hundred and sixty one tournaments,
Speaker 2: so he's lost seven hundred and forty times. Now, losing
Speaker 2: has got you know, and that's the other thing. You know,
Speaker 2: amateur kids are used to winning. Winning out here is
Speaker 2: creating a living. And it's not necessarily you know, winning
Speaker 2: getting trophies, but it's a special there's a special talent
Speaker 2: or a frame of mind to do what Tiger and
Speaker 2: Phil and these guys do that they can go win
Speaker 2: and they don't let the expectation bother them. You'll see
Speaker 2: a lot of guys I don't want to go. Max
Speaker 2: Holme is a guy that has shown up and really
Speaker 2: great player, and he's not playing well right now. And
Speaker 2: I don't know am I do not represent him, but
Speaker 2: I imagine the expectation that now every time he hits a shot,
Speaker 2: it has to be the best shot he's ever hit.
Speaker 2: I mean it drove Ian Baker Finch off the tour
Speaker 2: when he won the British Open a long time ago.
Speaker 2: So we try to keep the expectations. Once that tournament's over,
Speaker 2: you're back to square one and you react to what
Speaker 2: you're going to do. Now you can all of a
Speaker 2: sudden win one tournament and think, well I should win
Speaker 2: all and I have those kids go I'm not playing well.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're playing like you always do, Like you're
Speaker 2: doing just fine. But the competition keep people playing. But
Speaker 2: that list that goes from one winner to twice, winning
Speaker 2: five times and then to get to ten times, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's a miracle.
Speaker 1: It is when you talk about going out to dinner
Speaker 1: with them to see how they treat people. Early on,
Speaker 1: we did an episode a long time ago we were
Speaker 1: talking about doing business on the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the advice was never do business on the golf course.
Speaker 1: What you do on the golf course is learn if
Speaker 1: you want to do business with that person.
Speaker 2: Well, put will put. Yeah, your life can be a
Speaker 2: lot better if every client you sign you believe in.
Speaker 2: You have a trust in them, they have a trust
Speaker 2: to you. There's not this you know, what have you
Speaker 2: done for me lately type attitude. I mean, unfortunately for
Speaker 2: everybody in my business. And there may be some guys
Speaker 2: tell you I'm lying. How well you play determines directly
Speaker 2: how much money you make on and off the golf course.
Speaker 2: When Davis Love or Justin Leonard won a major championship,
Speaker 2: I just had to be by the phone. It was
Speaker 2: going to ring. And if you've got a guy shooting
Speaker 2: seventy five every week, I don't care who you call,
Speaker 2: you're not going to sell them. So most most of
Speaker 2: the deals that are done are incoming. There's not someone
Speaker 2: out selling. There's not somebody going door to door in
Speaker 2: New York City. Is that you have relationships with these companies.
Speaker 2: I'm always calling companies and saying I've signed these two
Speaker 2: players out of college. Bill, I know you're not looking
Speaker 2: for anyone, but these two guys. I want you to
Speaker 2: know who they are, so when they show up and
Speaker 2: I call you, you'll know what I'm talking about. So
Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time sharing companies my clients
Speaker 2: without selling them. I just want you to because I
Speaker 2: build relationship with you know, American Express, whoever. I always
Speaker 2: like to just introduce them to my new guys. I said,
Speaker 2: keeping eye on these kids and the watch and see
Speaker 2: if he fits what you want, because it's not. I can't.
Speaker 2: I don't. I see guys on tour. There's a player
Speaker 2: out there that's got to He's got an endorsement deal
Speaker 2: with a company, and I promise you he doesn't have
Speaker 2: how to use the product. And I don't like unauthentic
Speaker 2: endorsements because they're going to go spend time at these companies.
Speaker 2: In other words, you know, so Bass pro Shops, you know,
Speaker 2: credible company. I'm not going to put someone that doesn't
Speaker 2: hunt and fish with Bass Pro Shops because their appearances
Speaker 2: are going to be at hunting shows or fishing shows,
Speaker 2: and I want them to be excited about going and
Speaker 2: doing it. You know, the guys that love finance, I
Speaker 2: love getting them a deal with the you know with
Speaker 2: the finance company. So when they go to announting, they're involved
Speaker 2: in that element that they get to enjoy instead of
Speaker 2: it being I've got to go do this because those
Speaker 2: people become their family too, and I want them you know,
Speaker 2: if I say, look, you gotta go to you got
Speaker 2: to go to LA and spend the day with company ABC,
Speaker 2: I want them to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't wait to see those guys. And
Speaker 2: that's a much better than are you kidding me? I
Speaker 2: got to go all the way out there and do
Speaker 2: that for a day, day or something. So so a
Speaker 2: lot of that goes into what we try to do
Speaker 2: to make their lives own and off the golf course
Speaker 2: a lot more pleasurable.
Speaker 1: It's a funny minute ago you were talking about taking
Speaker 1: a client out. He says, I'm going to take you
Speaker 1: to LA and we're going to meet a company ABC,
Speaker 1: and you feel like you had air quotes around ABC
Speaker 1: as if it's a random company. But if you go
Speaker 1: to LA and you're meeting with ABC, that's probably a
Speaker 1: network exactly right, like oops, x X acts okay, so
Speaker 1: or ex would be a bad example as well. So
Speaker 1: how do you weed out the sponsors? How do you
Speaker 1: determine and I understand it's like you want them to
Speaker 1: be able to know the product. Like my I have
Speaker 1: a client that I to production for called Protivity, and
Speaker 1: I've been with him like fourteen years or something, and
Speaker 1: Protivity you can now see it on Matts Fitzpatrick's shirt. Yep.
Speaker 1: Now it's a good fit. They're an international consulting firm
Speaker 1: and they're really into spreadsheets and you know, the numbers
Speaker 1: and stuff. Well, Matt Fitzpatrick is kind of perfect for
Speaker 1: that because he's such a geek on his numbers. So
Speaker 1: matching him up with a product or with a sponsor
Speaker 1: that they understand the product is really what you have
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll give you an example. Lucas Glover is
Speaker 2: a client and I'm older than him, but I was
Speaker 2: having a problem with sleep apnea and Lucas said, and
Speaker 2: I said, but I don't have time to do a
Speaker 2: sleep test. And Lucas says, hey, there's a company I
Speaker 2: use because Lucas uses a sleep apne machine, has for
Speaker 2: several years, and they do a test. You can do
Speaker 2: it anywhere. They'll send you the test, it downloads, they'll
Speaker 2: tell you the diagnosis. They can then prescribe, send the product.
Speaker 2: So I do this. I go and I'm on the road.
Speaker 2: I do it. They come back, you got sleep at
Speaker 2: I knew I did. They say, here's what you got
Speaker 2: to do. I talk to a doctor. They send me
Speaker 2: the machine to my next tour stop. In the hotel.
Speaker 2: I use it for the first night. Best not a
Speaker 2: sleep I've had in thirty years. So I call that
Speaker 2: company and go, hey, why are you not advertising golf?
Speaker 2: Why are you not involved with this? Because this is
Speaker 2: and honestly, we're trying to work that deal out and
Speaker 2: it's not me going trying to make money. But I
Speaker 2: look at a company that says I didn't know about this.
Speaker 2: How many people travel that don't have the time to
Speaker 2: go to a sleep or sleep in a lab. You
Speaker 2: guys should be out here selling this thing, and we're
Speaker 2: trying to work on that. But a lot of that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, you know. I meet people all the
Speaker 2: time with companies and they think it's five million dollars
Speaker 2: to sponsor a player, and I'm like, oh gosh, no,
Speaker 2: you can get a lot tons less than that. So
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to clarify with companies what's available and
Speaker 2: what can they get out of it. You know, we
Speaker 2: don't use much ROI. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to tell
Speaker 2: you what's seeing a logo on somebody's shirt is. But
Speaker 2: we do know that in golf, the demographic watching golf
Speaker 2: has more spendable income, and so having your logoing golf
Speaker 2: does raise the company's value because you know this is
Speaker 2: a higher demographic. And that's not mean, but I bet
Speaker 2: the per capital of earnings of a golf fan is
Speaker 2: more than a wrestling fan. And it's not dot dot calm.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the companies you see, they just
Speaker 2: get a lot of it raises the awareness to probably
Speaker 2: a demographic that can afford it. And that's why you
Speaker 2: see role As, you see America Express, you see MasterCards.
Speaker 2: So but a lot of that, you know it. And
Speaker 2: again after thirty some years, I probably know everyone every
Speaker 2: one in these companies, you know workday and most of
Speaker 2: these executives, the CEOs, the reason they're in golf is
Speaker 2: they love golf.
Speaker 1: They love golf, they play golf. Yeah, that's with protivity
Speaker 1: as well. And when Matt Fitzpatrick won a major, that
Speaker 1: money morning protivities. They reported back to me that protivitis
Speaker 1: web traffic was massively increased.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean now with Google, you said, with
Speaker 2: your following, and you're sitting there and you see that
Speaker 2: what company is that you punch it in and that
Speaker 2: you never know? But that's why, that's why God has
Speaker 2: been so popular amongst those companies. And and you know,
Speaker 2: I've told people, you know, four minutes the ear to
Speaker 2: the masters, and you get four minutes of time with
Speaker 2: that logo. You've paid for ten years of that deal,
Speaker 2: just like that, and so but a lot of is education.
Speaker 2: But the great thing about it is like if you
Speaker 2: go to Augusta, if you go to the US Open,
Speaker 2: if you go to Pebble Beach, all those CEOs they're
Speaker 2: all right there and you can just walk up and
Speaker 2: talk to them. And I can't tell you a many
Speaker 2: times I've brought a player over to introduce them to
Speaker 2: a CEO. And you see the CEOs of multi billion
Speaker 2: dollar companies and they look like a twelve year old
Speaker 2: and they I've had. I had one CEO asked for
Speaker 2: an autograph, which blew me away, and it was the
Speaker 2: sweetest thing I've ever seen. And I thought, here's a
Speaker 2: guy I'm making more money you can ever spend he's
Speaker 2: this powerful guy and he wants this guy's autograph. I said,
Speaker 2: that is and that makes GOP cool, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean that's yeah, it doesn't make it cool.
Speaker 1: It does make it cool, but it doesn't ensure the
Speaker 1: financial future of the game. And it seems as if
Speaker 1: the prize money continues to go up but may not
Speaker 1: translate to viewers on TV, which is probably where most
Speaker 1: of the revenue comes from. Right, Okay, So walk me
Speaker 1: through what's going to happen. How are they going to
Speaker 1: make this work where players can continue to generate a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of income from winning if the league, when
Speaker 1: I'll call it the PGA at this point, PGA Tour, Yeah,
Speaker 1: may not be able to afford to do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've had quite we've had quite a disruption in
Speaker 2: the last three four years with the thing called liv GOFF,
Speaker 2: which was a new team concept.
Speaker 1: Never heard of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the premise behind it obviously is different than
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour. So I just walked through, somebody through
Speaker 2: this about where we are on the money. So pre
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, the tour was probably growing at a
Speaker 2: five to seven percent rate. You know, they had Jack
Speaker 2: Nicholas and Arnold and then they had Greg Norman, John
Speaker 2: Daly came in. What a show that was. But it
Speaker 2: comes creeping growing. It wasn't nineteen ninety two. I had
Speaker 2: a client keep his tour card making ninety two thousand
Speaker 2: dollars for the year.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then this kid named Tiger Woods showed up. And
Speaker 2: that wasn't a draft pick by the tour. The tour
Speaker 2: didn't hold a big draft and draft Tiger Woods. Tiger
Speaker 2: Woods showed up, played in a tournament and obviously between
Speaker 2: him and mister Nicholas, two best players ever. And he
Speaker 2: brought in the to the tour that was never seen before.
Speaker 2: So here's this little five or seven percent uptick each
Speaker 2: year of growth, and it grew five thousand percent. Tiger
Speaker 2: shows up, and the Tiger effect was, I mean, contracts
Speaker 2: for all of them, like off course contracts, they would
Speaker 2: go up in tenfold. I didn't get any better negotiating it.
Speaker 2: Just he raised the market level. So they got on this.
Speaker 1: He brought eyeballs to the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like excitement that's never seen. No one has
Speaker 2: seen this kind of game. And so this went on
Speaker 2: for a long time and they rode this. I mean,
Speaker 2: the TV contracts went up and everyone benefited from Tiger.
Speaker 2: If anybody thinks the reason they make a lot of
Speaker 2: money is for any other reason, Tiger was the wrong.
Speaker 2: It was Tiger, and it gosh, Tiger made me a
Speaker 2: lot of money. I mean, just because my contracts for
Speaker 2: my clients went up. So that just kept going on.
Speaker 2: And so through time you kind of get and we use.
Speaker 2: I have two Navy seals that train train my players
Speaker 2: in performance, and they tell me that success creates blind spots.
Speaker 2: And the PGA Tour had a success beyond imagine, not
Speaker 2: because they did anything different. They didn't come up with
Speaker 2: a new way to show golf. They did Tiger. And
Speaker 2: this went on for a long time, and the TV's
Speaker 2: all rode it. Well, that Tiger effects gone, I mean,
Speaker 2: Tigers aged, and for some reason someone thought that that
Speaker 2: growth of the game that Tiger gave was just there
Speaker 2: because of golf. And so when this live thing came
Speaker 2: in and started a whole new process and raised the numbers,
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour somehow thought, well, well, that they're doing
Speaker 2: the right thing, we've got to pay more money. They
Speaker 2: really weren't looking at the bottom line. They weren't looking
Speaker 2: at their product. They weren't looking at is the product
Speaker 2: better than it was? They just look at we got
Speaker 2: to play guys more money and they matched, and I
Speaker 2: mean they can't afford it. It's unsustainable. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think Scottie Scheffler made sixty two million dollars playing got
Speaker 2: this year. That's wonder. Got a great kid, But it's
Speaker 2: not sustainable to the marketplace. And the viewership is down.
Speaker 2: Is it down because Tiger's not playing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Some?
Speaker 2: Is it down because some of the top players went
Speaker 2: to live some?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Is it because there's new streaming lines, or the viewership
Speaker 2: has changed how people watch golf. There's a lot of factors,
Speaker 2: but is it it's not sustainable as it is, and
Speaker 2: and they're making moves to this day and not one
Speaker 2: of those moves has been around producing a better product
Speaker 2: for the viewer. There's a group called the Savannah Bananas.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know who they are. It's
Speaker 2: a baseball team.
Speaker 1: Love I've been following them for four years and I
Speaker 1: love them.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I'm saying. Pro Baseball did
Speaker 2: not attack them and say you're selling out stadiums for
Speaker 2: more money than we can sell professional team that was
Speaker 2: a different element is a different game. Live is a
Speaker 2: different game. There's a shot going to start, there's music playing,
Speaker 2: it's a little more relaxed. It's a really fun, incredible
Speaker 2: fun event, and they want fourteen of them a year.
Speaker 2: The PGA Tour reacted like this was just an attack
Speaker 2: on them, when they probably should have figured a way
Speaker 2: to like partner, which is what they're now. They're doing right,
Speaker 2: and I think you're probably the next I don't think
Speaker 2: in the short future you're going to see an announcement
Speaker 2: that there's going to be some type of agreement partnership.
Speaker 2: A year and a half ago there was a framework
Speaker 2: agreement announced, and I think they're finally getting close. This
Speaker 2: is what I'm hearing. I don't have direct knowledge, but yeah,
Speaker 2: the game, the market that you pay these players to
Speaker 2: let someone else just dictate all of a sudden how
Speaker 2: much they're going to pay them without looking at your
Speaker 2: bottom line, looking at your product, at looking at your
Speaker 2: true revenues, just to protect a player. I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: it was a mistake and if it happened, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: have had to take the recent one point five billion injection,
Speaker 2: and they wouldn't be going after another two billion from Pith.
Speaker 2: My concern just throwing money at an issue doesn't solve it.
Speaker 2: And what they've done is they've constricted the play They've
Speaker 2: just announced they're going to go from one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five exempt players to one hundred exempt players. Well,
Speaker 2: every sport in the world is expanding. If one's adding
Speaker 2: teams college football went from poor playoff teams to twelve,
Speaker 2: there's And now the tour is constricting. And the membership
Speaker 2: of the tour is who the people that run the
Speaker 2: tour are running it for. And they're essentially laying golfers off.
Speaker 2: They're taking away opportunities, and there's some unintended consequences to that.
Speaker 2: As I said, the tour does not draft players. They
Speaker 2: show up. And if I was running a product, I'd
Speaker 2: want as many golfers I could get out there on
Speaker 2: that course, hoping that the next superstar was going to
Speaker 2: show up and give my ratings a boost and might
Speaker 2: give my product make my product better. And I think
Speaker 2: they're aheaded. I mean, I hate to be that way.
Speaker 2: And look, I'm friends with those guys. They're going exactly
Speaker 2: the opposite way they should be expanding opportunities. Now, maybe
Speaker 2: the money won't be as much, so maybe Scotty only
Speaker 2: makes forty million for a year, but let's face it.
Speaker 2: I mean there's families having a hard time buying groceries
Speaker 2: with the rank inflation. You're going to turn fans off
Speaker 2: if you've got these kids out there playing golf and
Speaker 2: they're just wanting more money. I mean, and you know
Speaker 2: money's not going to make you happy. I guess you
Speaker 2: got to get it to find out. But I think
Speaker 2: that it's unsustainable the model they have now. And even
Speaker 2: if they get more investment, if they don't look at
Speaker 2: their product as a whole. It's been the same product
Speaker 2: for a long long time. If they don't look at
Speaker 2: the announcers, if they don't look at the entire thing.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love about the Savannah bananas. If
Speaker 2: you ask that guy, they built their product for what
Speaker 2: the fan wanted. They wanted to give them. You know,
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs when Time said, I didn't build products that
Speaker 2: we were capable building. I built products that the public wanted.
Speaker 1: And I think but he also he also said that
Speaker 1: they don't know what they want. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do focus groups.
Speaker 2: There you go, well, I'll tell them yeah, And I
Speaker 2: just think that's the mistakes. And this sounds like I'm
Speaker 2: I'm not being against them. I mean, the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: has been a wonderful. They've given away billions of dollars
Speaker 2: and charitable I mean, and that's another thing. You know,
Speaker 2: forever it was about giving back. I mean, they bragged
Speaker 2: about it. I mean, billions of dollars they give the charity.
Speaker 2: This happens and they say, you know, never mind, we're
Speaker 2: going to go for profit. We're a for profit company now,
Speaker 2: and you're going to pay us for our players, and
Speaker 2: you're going to do these things. And they couldn't. They
Speaker 2: couldn't be doing the opposite of what I think they
Speaker 2: need to do. Again, they're running it. Maybe they're smarter me,
Speaker 2: But I'm out there with the fan. I'm walking in
Speaker 2: the ropes. I hear what people say. People tell me
Speaker 2: they will not watch golf anymore, whether it's live or
Speaker 2: PGA Tour because of the greed and what they perceive
Speaker 2: these players. I got to tell you, my players do
Speaker 2: not I've never had one say I'm not playing in
Speaker 2: that tournament because the purse is not known. These guys
Speaker 2: play golf for a living, and that they don't look
Speaker 2: at it like that. They play golf courses, they play tournaments,
Speaker 2: that they may be better at playing that course they've
Speaker 2: had good success at. I've never had one to this
Speaker 2: day ask me what's the purse of that event before
Speaker 2: I commit to it.
Speaker 1: Ever, many times I have asked guests who will rag
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the tour, what's going on
Speaker 1: in sports, what's going on anywhere or with instruction. But
Speaker 1: I've never been able to talk to somebody who's in
Speaker 1: the trenches in the way that you are in the
Speaker 1: business of golf, which's very different than the sport of golf.
Speaker 1: Perfect And I've said to them, Okay, I just got news.
Speaker 1: You've been made commissioner of the PGA.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So now I'm going to put it out to somebody
Speaker 1: who's in the business of golf. Mac Okay, you've just
Speaker 1: been made the commissioner of the PGA. What's the first
Speaker 1: thing you're gonna do.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do some research and find
Speaker 2: out what really our market, our value is. I'm going
Speaker 2: to find out what our product is worth. I can't play,
Speaker 2: I can't keep this going if I'm going to pay
Speaker 2: the players more than we can operate, and I'm sorry
Speaker 2: if you need to go somewhere else and make more money.
Speaker 2: But our product, one of the product that we have,
Speaker 2: is what we've been doing forever. And if you decide
Speaker 2: you need to go somewhere else and play for more
Speaker 2: money as other baseball teams, as Soto from Is said,
Speaker 2: every teams available, then you've got to go do it.
Speaker 2: But our product is this. We're not we're five of
Speaker 2: one c six. We're a charitable organization. Our job is
Speaker 2: to provide opportunities for our members. So yeah, we might
Speaker 2: be playing for a little bit money, but we're going
Speaker 2: to be here for a long time doing it. I
Speaker 2: would create the corn Ferry Tour, which is the developmental tour,
Speaker 2: And this is one of the problems I have with
Speaker 2: the tour. People don't realize that the average age of
Speaker 2: the PJA Tour player is younger than the average age
Speaker 2: of the developmental Tour. Wow, that's the problem. Well, he's
Speaker 2: got a lot of guys former champions in their forties
Speaker 2: that are playing to prepare for the senior Tour. But
Speaker 2: your pipeline of talent comes from that developmental tour. First
Speaker 2: thing I would do, I'd do away with all sponsor exemptions,
Speaker 2: all medical exemptions. I would have a qualifier of twenty
Speaker 2: to twenty four people a week for the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 2: so that somewhere this next superstar might find his way
Speaker 2: into the ecosystem and play his way on the tour,
Speaker 2: and then I can go sell them to the next
Speaker 2: TV deal. I would create more opportunities for the players.
Speaker 2: There's more demand for professional golf now than there's ever been.
Speaker 2: The tour just went from one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: exem players to one hundred. They laid off twenty five players.
Speaker 2: I would go to one hundred and thirty five. These
Speaker 2: guys time to develop. It takes three to four years
Speaker 2: to develop into a player on tour when you get
Speaker 2: out of college. It's not overnight. The average career length
Speaker 2: of a PGA Tour player is two point seven years.
Speaker 2: When they go from one hundred and twenty five to
Speaker 2: one hundred, they may have just reduced that to two years. Well,
Speaker 2: two years may not be enough to find your next
Speaker 2: talent line. I mean, I'll give you Zach Johnson, who
Speaker 2: lives on this island He's won two majors, the British Opening,
Speaker 2: the Masters. He played for four or five years on
Speaker 2: a thing called the Hooters Tour. No one's ever heard
Speaker 2: of it, but that's where he got That's where he
Speaker 2: learned how to compete. It takes a long time to
Speaker 2: compete at that level. I mean, there's so many new
Speaker 2: things you've got to learn. I mean college kids coming
Speaker 2: out of college now they fly private to tournaments. They
Speaker 2: all brag about their practice facilities. Used to see these things.
Speaker 2: They're taj Mahal practice facilities. Everything is laid out for them.
Speaker 2: They got teammates, they got peers. It's just a wonderful environment.
Speaker 2: They turn pro, they're in a hotel room, not an
Speaker 2: ice one, driving a tahoe, playing in some tournament that
Speaker 2: there's a g pro event. They pay one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: to play in it and to earn fifteen thousand if
Speaker 2: they win. But they need that experience. So if I'm
Speaker 2: the tour, I build three levels of tour. I build
Speaker 2: double a ball, triple a ball in the tour underneath
Speaker 2: the corn ferry, I would have almost a college, a
Speaker 2: place for college kids to come and start playing professional
Speaker 2: golf and then they could work to the corn ferry,
Speaker 2: and then the corn ferry to the tour. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that people don't want to see the best players
Speaker 2: play every week against each other, but let's face it,
Speaker 2: the four majors are what build legacies. That's what builds legacies.
Speaker 2: The other places is where they get They cut their chops,
Speaker 2: they learn how to play under pressure, and they earn
Speaker 2: a living. I think the PGA Tour started thinking because
Speaker 2: a Tiger that well, we kind of control golf. We
Speaker 2: should have the best product, and they should have a
Speaker 2: good product. But they just would. I would probably before
Speaker 2: I would lay off twenty five Tour players, I'd probably
Speaker 2: lay off a lot of people at PGA Tour headcreters.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I'm sure that that gets out. People
Speaker 2: are going to say I'm wrong, but and I could
Speaker 2: be wrong. I'm not. My opinion of from where I am,
Speaker 2: knowing what I've seen in thirty four years, the tour
Speaker 2: has never gone out and recruited a player. They show
Speaker 2: up and then if they show up, well, they sell them,
Speaker 2: and they sell them until they're not sellable. And I
Speaker 2: had a client Boo weekly, Boo weekly, and I think
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight Ryder Cup. People never heard of
Speaker 2: Boo and after that, Boo was probably one of their
Speaker 2: biggest stars for like three or four years. I mean,
Speaker 2: commercials everywhere, right, but it doesn't last. This is a
Speaker 2: tough game. Very few guys have careers like Davis Love
Speaker 2: or Lucas Glove or Phil Mickelson. It's just there's a
Speaker 2: lot of names you start throwing out and you go like,
Speaker 2: what happened to that guy? Well, God, it's a it's
Speaker 2: a hard sport. You got injuries. I mean, you got
Speaker 2: you know, you've got a lot of things that goes wrong,
Speaker 2: and I mean there's a million of them. If you
Speaker 2: ever say what happened to those guys? There's a guy
Speaker 2: named Hunter Mayheon. Remember this kid was I mean, got
Speaker 2: lee and where is he? Well, I mean that's what
Speaker 2: these careers are. They're not long careers. So if I
Speaker 2: have a product that I know the career average is short,
Speaker 2: and I know that I'm selling the talent that is
Speaker 2: playing to the sponsors and to the TV deal, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get as wide a net cast as possible
Speaker 2: for the best possible talent. I wouldn't say, well, we're
Speaker 2: just going to go with this particular talent. And and
Speaker 2: that's what I do, is PO PGA Tour Commissioner. I
Speaker 2: would create more opportunities for my members, not less.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing that's so fascinating about golf versus other
Speaker 1: sports is you know, you don't have you rarely in
Speaker 1: golf have a dominant player, right. It's parody among all sports.
Speaker 1: It is parody, is what golf is all about. Because
Speaker 1: it's so hard to win more than once. That's why
Speaker 1: the Tiger effect was so huge for such a long time,
Speaker 1: to the point where golf courses were being built like
Speaker 1: crazy during the Tiger effect. Yeah, and then when he started,
Speaker 1: when he started injuring himself and getting bad press, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, there's no courses being built anymore exact,
Speaker 1: and courses are closing all over the place. And then
Speaker 1: COVID happens. OVID and top golf happens, and people are
Speaker 1: flocking out to go do these things. Now are more
Speaker 1: people playing golf because of top golfer. They just goofing
Speaker 1: around with golf because of top golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a phenomenon. You know, we've said the
Speaker 2: two biggest things that happened to golf in the last
Speaker 2: thirty years where Tiger was in COVID. COVID took participation
Speaker 2: of golf to a level that you know, it was
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, okay, not to be working from
Speaker 2: home and getting around to golf in every day and stay,
Speaker 2: I mean this island I live on is I mean
Speaker 2: the influx of people here and the people you see
Speaker 2: every day playing golf. I think participation in the game
Speaker 2: is at all time high. Women's golf, I mean I
Speaker 2: watch women's golf as much. I mean, honestly for people
Speaker 2: like us, more relatable, how far they hit it, how
Speaker 2: they play, stuff like that. But so's the that's the
Speaker 2: tough problem is maybe people aren't watching golf as much
Speaker 2: because they're out playing it. One's the no one skips
Speaker 2: watching the Braves play to go play baseball. So I
Speaker 2: would want to know why viewership is down? Is it
Speaker 2: the product? Is it the viewership has changed? But that's
Speaker 2: what I would be looking at as the PGA Tours.
Speaker 2: Our product needs to be as good as it can be.
Speaker 1: And golf on television on television is now better than
Speaker 1: it's ever been because of things like top Tracer, where
Speaker 1: you can follow the ball instead of just seeing this
Speaker 1: little white dot flying through the air and not knowing
Speaker 1: what it's doing.
Speaker 2: Right, Yep, things like that.
Speaker 1: So golf television is great. It's I would much rather
Speaker 1: watch a tournament on TV than be there because it's
Speaker 1: so fast paced, there's so much going on and you
Speaker 1: can really follow what's going on. Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. We were talking about the you know, the Ryder
Speaker 2: Cup the other day and the Ryder Cup's going to
Speaker 2: be in New York, and there was some throwback that
Speaker 2: I think one day ticket for the Ryder Cup is
Speaker 2: seven hundred and fifty dollars and people that's outrageous. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, it's fourteen hundred dollars to go stand
Speaker 2: at the Yankee Stadium to watch the World Series. This
Speaker 2: is the biggest event in golf. I mean bat and
Speaker 2: the Masters, the two biggest avents in golf. Sure, And
Speaker 2: there was some throwback and I said, well, if you've
Speaker 2: ever been to a Ryder Cup and you really want
Speaker 2: to watch it, watch it on TV because you're gonna
Speaker 2: see every shot. You go to a Ryder Cup, Man,
Speaker 2: the the excitement of being there. I tell everybody you've
Speaker 2: got to go once. I mean, you got to feel
Speaker 2: I've got the opportunity with Davis being captain twice and
Speaker 2: being inside the ropes, and you can't measure the energy
Speaker 2: you're seeing guys that are millionaires, that are so good
Speaker 2: at golf, nervous shaking like you see nervous. Not many things,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the Majors and the Ryder Cup
Speaker 2: are the only things that can evoke nervousness in these
Speaker 2: powerhouses that we watch these guys. I mean, it's serious, right,
Speaker 2: so in the sense that the viewership and the game
Speaker 2: growing and all the opportunities. The only thing, like to say,
Speaker 2: the TV product, there's too many commercials, I mean, show
Speaker 2: some golf. The other thing I have a complaint with
Speaker 2: is I want to see real golf because you know,
Speaker 2: you see the three guys winning that week and they
Speaker 2: are on fire. Right right, there's a guy shooting seventy four.
Speaker 2: I want to see those shots too. Show me. God,
Speaker 2: I don't need to see Scottie Scheffer type in a
Speaker 2: three foot for par unless he misses it or something.
Speaker 2: But he ain't going to. I want to go see
Speaker 2: the guy just shanked one over in the woods.
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's like watching our game. Do we
Speaker 1: probably want to see what we.
Speaker 2: Do outreach steel better. I mean, these guys the best
Speaker 2: in the world, and they the ball, They shank balls,
Speaker 2: they missed two photos, they make mistakes. And I always
Speaker 2: tell people how hard this game is. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to quote a staff but from one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five yards, and I'm going to the average distance put
Speaker 2: a tour player has for the year. I mean every player,
Speaker 2: for every one hundred and twenty five yard shot. And
Speaker 2: I have people go nine feet seven feet, it's twenty
Speaker 2: four feet. So I played with guys and we're one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five yards and they hit it thirty
Speaker 2: feet and they lose their mind, and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: that's incredible. You just did. What do you well?
Speaker 1: On TV?
Speaker 2: This guy hit it three feet in a row. I said,
Speaker 2: that's the guy winning. He's unconscious. He doesn't know it.
Speaker 2: I said, in two weeks, go watch him. He's not
Speaker 2: gonna do that. But I would like to see that
Speaker 2: kind of And again this is going to sound bad,
Speaker 2: but there's there's a guy named John McGinnis, and nobody's
Speaker 2: ever heard of this guy, and he's probably one of
Speaker 2: the smartest guys in the game. But he played the tour,
Speaker 2: really good player. You know, I would have him in
Speaker 2: the eighteenth Tower. This is the funniest guy. He was
Speaker 2: the game, He's played the game. But yet they take
Speaker 2: guys because of their record. They're playing record. He's won
Speaker 2: three majors. Let's let him talk about it. Well, you
Speaker 2: don't no offense, but just being great that GoF does
Speaker 2: not make you fun to listen to. And I've always
Speaker 2: seen too. Yeah, I mean you see the thing with
Speaker 2: the Eli Manning and those guys, and watch that's fun right,
Speaker 2: it's just playing. But that's what I keep saying, is
Speaker 2: that they got into this paradigm of like, okay, well
Speaker 2: our announcer needs to be a major winner or he's
Speaker 2: got to be this. They don't look and say, we've
Speaker 2: got a guy that played the tour that you put
Speaker 2: him in that booth. You will just cackle, you know
Speaker 2: this laughter. And he's not being mean. It's like Gary
Speaker 2: McCourt or Gary david Ardy. I could see what I
Speaker 2: can see, what shot was hit. You don't need to
Speaker 2: tell me what happened, tell me something funny about it,
Speaker 2: or tell me you know. And that's why I I
Speaker 2: want to European Tour in the morning. I love to
Speaker 2: watch because those announcers that was a dreadful shot, that
Speaker 2: was horrible, you know, because it was and these other
Speaker 2: guys they'll say, well it slipped, obviously you had you know.
Speaker 2: But again there's the common commentary needs to improve. And
Speaker 2: I'm getting this not because of me. I just like you.
Speaker 2: I'm being in the business. You wouldn't believe how many
Speaker 2: people want to talk golf to me, and they will
Speaker 2: tell me, Man, there's got to be less commercials. Man,
Speaker 2: they got to show more golf. They got to quit.
Speaker 2: So all this I've done is not just me coming
Speaker 2: up with an idea. These are the golfer general public
Speaker 2: that I'm around all the time, sitting around at a
Speaker 2: bar listening, and I think the PGA Tour should listen more.
Speaker 1: You talked about how COVID was so good. There were
Speaker 1: two industries that really succeeded and thrived during COVID, and
Speaker 1: that was golf and podcasting. I was on an island
Speaker 1: pretty much by myself for many years before COVID, and
Speaker 1: then when COVID came out, all of a sudden, there
Speaker 1: are so many golf podcasts out there, and it's true
Speaker 1: It's amazing what's going on and what people are saying
Speaker 1: about it and the interest in it, and you're right
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. I'm curious to know your
Speaker 1: thought on why there is such a negative attitude towards Live.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was because of financial or political?
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people are calling it sport
Speaker 1: washing that they kind of muscled their way in and
Speaker 1: took some of the big names, which you know, I can't.
Speaker 1: I really have a difficult time when people complain about
Speaker 1: athletes getting paid a lot of money, because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: should the money just be in the hands of the
Speaker 1: owners of the team. I mean, you know, these guys
Speaker 1: are the product, and sure they should get paid because
Speaker 1: everybody's making money here. But with something like this, Live
Speaker 1: came in and said, we're going to throw all this
Speaker 1: money at these guys who you know, listen, you're playing
Speaker 1: to earn a living. Well here, we're going to guarantee
Speaker 1: your living now. And I may be misinterpreting this, but
Speaker 1: we're going to guarantee your your grandchildren are and I
Speaker 1: are going to have to work. And it's like, how
Speaker 1: do you walk away from that? Going yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that because I just want to win
Speaker 1: a major. So what was it that was done wrong?
Speaker 1: What if you had to redo, if you had a
Speaker 1: mulligan on starting live again? How do you do it
Speaker 1: so it doesn't upset so many people and you make
Speaker 1: it work?
Speaker 2: The simplest question in the world. People don't realize that
Speaker 2: for years. This has been around for a while. This
Speaker 2: concept has been around in the marketplace five six years.
Speaker 2: And what people may not know is that this group
Speaker 2: went to the PGA tour and tried to have a
Speaker 2: meeting and say, listen, we went into the ecosystem, We've
Speaker 2: got money, here's what we're wanting to do. How can
Speaker 2: we work together? And some people say that the tour
Speaker 2: didn't take it. I said, the tour didn't take a meeting.
Speaker 2: They never took a meeting. So you want you want
Speaker 2: to ultimate do over take the meeting. I always tell people,
Speaker 2: if you've ever read the book or to War, before
Speaker 2: you compete, before you attack your enemy, you should know
Speaker 2: who they are. And this was serious stuff. So that
Speaker 2: started it. That not taking the meeting was the original sin.
Speaker 2: That's where happened. Second thing is they didn't they didn't
Speaker 2: know it was true. They didn't know what it was real.
Speaker 2: They for some reason stuff they're head in the sand
Speaker 2: and said, well, this is never going to happen. These
Speaker 2: players are not going to do that.
Speaker 3: The PGA said that, yeah, yeah, I think there's a
Speaker 3: there's i think an on air comment that said somehow
Speaker 3: the players won't leave because they know what we'll do
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 2: And and so that happened. And then this next thing
Speaker 2: was instead of once it happened, calling them up and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: this is real. Let's find a way. This is fourteen
Speaker 2: events a year now, this is not fifty events, and
Speaker 2: it's a new product. It's different, and I'll get to
Speaker 2: it in a second how this product could really work.
Speaker 2: But their reaction to the tour the playbook was well,
Speaker 2: we're going to run down the players at leave. We
Speaker 2: will publicly admonish them and tell them they're kicked out,
Speaker 2: they're banished. And those are the guys that you were
Speaker 2: selling for your TV product. Remember we go back to that, like,
Speaker 2: these are the guys that you didn't build this guy,
Speaker 2: these were your products, Price and d Chambeaux, Brooks, DJ Sergio,
Speaker 2: these were personalities. And so that started, and then they
Speaker 2: just said you know what, We'll go after the source
Speaker 2: of the money. This is Saudi Arabia. Okay, we'll go
Speaker 2: after them because they do not eleven. Saudi Arabia was
Speaker 2: behind an eleven. Well, I don't think so. I think
Speaker 2: we'd a bomb them if they were behind it. I
Speaker 2: think there were Saudi Arabian citizens on it that were radical,
Speaker 2: but that was their The tour essentially mined their own regress.
Speaker 2: In other words, they were the ones that turned it
Speaker 2: into such a negative thing. They are the ones that
Speaker 2: said this is blood money, I remember this and this,
Speaker 2: and they put all the rhetoric out there. They hired
Speaker 2: protesters to come protests from nine to eleven. Jay went
Speaker 2: on I think he went on some Jim Natz and said,
Speaker 2: you know one thing is you will never have to
Speaker 2: be embarrassed to play for us. So they did it
Speaker 2: to themselves. They're the ones that made it such a
Speaker 2: dirty thing because Saudi Arabia is not just a ally
Speaker 2: of America. They're married to us. I forget how much
Speaker 2: they just spent with Raytheon, how much they mean they
Speaker 2: their partners with America. I mean Aramco is the Arabian
Speaker 2: American old company. So the tour did it to themselves,
Speaker 2: and so they're the ones that turned the public tide.
Speaker 2: I have people that come to I have one player
Speaker 2: in the old tree that plays on LIB. I didn't
Speaker 2: sell them to him. He was never tour member. He
Speaker 2: earned his way. And I have people telling me enjoying
Speaker 2: that blood. I've had pretty people here go you're enjoying
Speaker 2: that blood money, and I'm like, what in the world
Speaker 2: are you talking about. So they're the ones that created
Speaker 2: it all, and that's why it's so shocking. A year
Speaker 2: and a half ago, they make an announcement, well, we've
Speaker 2: got a framework agreement now to partner with them.
Speaker 1: Well what's those shocking systems.
Speaker 2: When they partner with them? The same people that you
Speaker 2: banished from the tour for taking their money, now you're
Speaker 2: going to take their money because you made a lot
Speaker 2: of bad decisions. So yeah, the do over was take
Speaker 2: the meeting. And it goes back to their success created
Speaker 2: blind spots, and so let's go to the LIB model.
Speaker 2: I tell people all the time, the live model. If
Speaker 2: you've ever been to one, and I've been to several,
Speaker 2: and they're really fine. They're exciting, the players are excited
Speaker 2: to be there, and it's a team concept. Team GoF works,
Speaker 2: but we're the team GoF. I think they made a
Speaker 2: mistake is had the tour partner with them from the beginning.
Speaker 2: And let's say, let's do this. Let's have an Irish team,
Speaker 2: Let's have a South African team, Let's have a Mexican team,
Speaker 2: a Spanish team, a South Korean team, a Canadian team.
Speaker 2: We'll have a Texas team, We'll have a Sea Island team,
Speaker 2: We'll have a California team, and fourteen times a year
Speaker 2: we will get together. And this is kind of like
Speaker 2: a Ryder Cup instead of in USA and Europe. Now
Speaker 2: we're going to show up at a Dare matter and
Speaker 2: all these teams from around the cunt world are coming
Speaker 2: to play the Irish team. How many T shirts and
Speaker 2: hats of that Hirish jerseys which you sell? And no
Speaker 2: one understands the licensing concept behind this. I think five
Speaker 2: point seven billion dollars is spent every year in college
Speaker 2: football licensed merchandise. Maybe it's four point seven, it's a lot.
Speaker 2: There's never been a licensing opportunity in golf until this.
Speaker 2: There is with the Ryder Cup, which happens every two years.
Speaker 2: We'll think about having an event. Let's say you hold
Speaker 2: an event at Bethpage Black and it's the Americans Texas,
Speaker 2: Sea Island, Scottsdale versus Ireland. Here comes Rory McElroy and
Speaker 2: Sean take the best players from those countries like we
Speaker 2: do with the Ryder Cup, and do it fourteen times
Speaker 2: a year. How about that Australian team show up to
Speaker 2: play the Australian team in Australia Ireland and you want
Speaker 2: to see the fan base because it would not make
Speaker 2: the Ryder Cup irrelement because the Ryder Cup is always
Speaker 2: going to be a Ryder Cup, but it would be
Speaker 2: a chance to each country to show up because it
Speaker 2: used to be the Ryder Cup was just against Europe
Speaker 2: or against Great Britain. There wasn't enough competition back then,
Speaker 2: so they said we'll add more people. Well, now there's
Speaker 2: stuff competition for every country to have a team. And
Speaker 2: then people go, well, these guys would have to play
Speaker 2: too much golf, and I said, wait a minute. There
Speaker 2: could be more than four players on each team. You
Speaker 2: could have eight players from Ireland on the team and
Speaker 2: they don't just like any other sports, they don't play
Speaker 2: every match. That would have grown the game. That would
Speaker 2: have taken stuff to South Korea coming in the TV
Speaker 2: product would have been off the charts. Who would not
Speaker 2: be wearing if you're from Ireland, would not be wearing
Speaker 2: their merchandise. Now, the naming, the majestics and the whatever,
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's going to work. I mean,
Speaker 2: the braves work and the match work, but I think
Speaker 2: we it needed to be a more national type situation.
Speaker 2: Now the Australian team is Australian and if you go
Speaker 2: to the event, they eat dinner together, they practice together,
Speaker 2: They're having so much fun they all eat together. It's
Speaker 2: a wonderful product, it really is. Does it replace the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour? No, it's different. The Savannah bananas does not
Speaker 2: replace the Atlanta Braves. It's a different product. But guess
Speaker 2: what it does. Someone that goes and sees anything in
Speaker 2: goth enjoys it grows the game. And that's where that's
Speaker 2: where all this went wrong, is what growing the game
Speaker 2: makes everyone's life better? Right? So the do over take
Speaker 2: the meeting several years ago. Don't look at it like
Speaker 2: this is an attack on our business. Look at it
Speaker 2: is what can they offer us? You imagine if they
Speaker 2: came in with the billions of dollars that they have
Speaker 2: put it into the hands of the PGA Tour and
Speaker 2: then through their contacts, went around the world and grew
Speaker 2: the game. Now I don't know if we can get
Speaker 2: the two passback in the tube. You know, I've had
Speaker 2: players tell me, well, Bryson D. Schambau wants to come
Speaker 2: play on my event, He's going to have to pay
Speaker 2: a penalty. And I'm like, wait a minute, if he
Speaker 2: plays in your event, the event's better, I said. And
Speaker 2: I told him, guy, I said, you probably got a
Speaker 2: better chance of having to pay Bryson D. Champeau out
Speaker 2: and the parent's fee to play in your tournament, then
Speaker 2: you do. He don't have me to play a penalty
Speaker 2: because you don't remember your product now, PGA Tour is
Speaker 2: a for profit, for profit, so why would someone pay
Speaker 2: penalty to come help your product better. It's been mindless
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. And no, and maybe there
Speaker 2: have been meeting a lot. I know Jay was over
Speaker 2: and I think he's been over in so Awid the
Speaker 2: ABA last week, and I hear things are moving along.
Speaker 2: But how do you get the public to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I know we said this is blood money but we're
Speaker 2: going to take it now because we're for profit and
Speaker 2: I still want to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone's gonna have to step in. Someone is going
Speaker 2: to have to step in and save this game. I
Speaker 2: don't know how it works. If it's the Augusta National.
Speaker 2: If I told somebody one time you think money matters,
Speaker 2: Augusta National could say, hey, there's no price, there's no purse.
Speaker 2: All you're playing for is a green jacket. Everyone shows up.
Speaker 2: You bet that's legacy. So and the other thing. Are
Speaker 2: any of my players worried about how much money they're making.
Speaker 2: I never hear it. These guys will all tell you
Speaker 2: I made more money. I could different dream of playing golf. Like,
Speaker 2: they're not in there going give me more money. I've
Speaker 2: had a client. Look, they want to make more, but
Speaker 2: what are they going to do with it? I mean,
Speaker 2: fly a bigger jet. I mean, and they play what
Speaker 2: twenty five weeks a year? I mean, I got cat.
Speaker 2: There's caddies making millions of dollars now and they're working
Speaker 2: twenty five weeks a year. Uh, I missed my call
Speaker 2: in I could maybe I could have caddied because I
Speaker 2: do about the same job so yeah, this, I don't
Speaker 2: know what happened. I don't know where it all went wrong,
Speaker 2: where nobody said, let's look at this in a more
Speaker 2: macro way. Maybe this isn't an attack on this, Maybe
Speaker 2: this is an opportunity to really grow the game. I
Speaker 2: just think again, I'll go back. Success created so many
Speaker 2: blind spots within the PJ tour headquarters is they didn't
Speaker 2: know how to react, and now did their reaction. No
Speaker 2: matter what they do now they're kind of trapped either way.
Speaker 2: They've mined their regress. They now that they take the
Speaker 2: money from over there, they've got to answer the questions
Speaker 2: why you and not them? How could you be so
Speaker 2: mad at Brooks Keptka taking money from them, and now
Speaker 2: you're taking Where did you get? Where is your rights
Speaker 2: different than them? So I don't know. And it's like
Speaker 2: I say, Kim, we get the two pace back in
Speaker 2: the tube. Because there's a lot of people to this
Speaker 2: day that tell me if they do a deal with PIFF,
Speaker 2: they'll never watch PJ. Tor Gain had that said to me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you know, I don't think you know,
Speaker 2: America is an incredible country, but I don't think we're
Speaker 2: I don't think we're like sinless in life. I don't
Speaker 2: We've probably done some things as bad as every other country.
Speaker 2: I just think, you know, I always tell people Japan
Speaker 2: bombed US in nineteen forty one, okay, and we have
Speaker 2: toyotas and we have Sony TVs and we time pass
Speaker 2: us and things change, and you know, I always tell people,
Speaker 2: you know, And I'm not gonna get in religion, but
Speaker 2: you know, forgiveness and had we turned our cheek in
Speaker 2: nine to eleven and said, you know what, we're going
Speaker 2: to strengthen our borders, We're going to let this happen.
Speaker 2: But to just go create more terrorists against us again,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into all that, but this
Speaker 2: is what I'm saying is where did you get to
Speaker 2: the point that where another goth league would cause you
Speaker 2: to react to a point before you hurt yourself? Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, it would make it, don't I don't talk
Speaker 2: to any business man that says this is the thing
Speaker 2: to do. And you know the funny thing about all
Speaker 2: this and this is so here's the tour and now
Speaker 2: they're going to they got one point five billion dollars
Speaker 2: in investment, and now let's go say they do a
Speaker 2: deal with with Lift and they get all this money.
Speaker 2: Who says another tour doesn't show, Well, who's there's demand
Speaker 2: any business that there's a man in. So I look
Speaker 2: at it as like, what happens if another competitor shows
Speaker 2: up with another tour? What do you do now? I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know. So it's one of those things that,
Speaker 2: again I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I'm
Speaker 2: going on based on my experience in the game and
Speaker 2: watching the game and watching players, is that it seemed
Speaker 2: to me the PGA Tour was more worried about keeping
Speaker 2: their jobs than growing the game.
Speaker 1: I can't recap everything we've just done, but the concept
Speaker 1: of team golf has not the way Live is doing it.
Speaker 1: I just I just never understood it. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing, but the but the idea of doing
Speaker 1: it regionally. Like you know, you said the Braves and
Speaker 1: the Mets, that's fine, but they're not the Coca Cola Braves, right,
Speaker 1: And they're not the New York Life Mets, they're the
Speaker 1: New York They're regional. So a team for each country
Speaker 1: makes so much more sense. And then in the United States, California, Texas,
Speaker 1: New York, Arizona. Yes, you have those teams, right, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, as you were clearly explaining here,
Speaker 1: it's a merchandise bonanza. Oh and that's the whole point.
Speaker 1: I mean, why did college football, you know, West Coast teams,
Speaker 1: the Pac twelve broke up because they were looking to
Speaker 1: generate more revenue. Okay, I can accept that, right, you could,
Speaker 1: and and most people can accept. Yeah, they want to
Speaker 1: make more money. But when someone throws money at it,
Speaker 1: they're against it. It really is mind blowing. But they
Speaker 1: did it wrong.
Speaker 2: We talked about in business schools for so long. They
Speaker 2: and again I'm not trying to be Look, I'm just
Speaker 2: stating the truth. It's wrong. They did it the wrong way.
Speaker 2: And if and if anybody can tell me it wants
Speaker 2: to call me and say, hey, let me show you
Speaker 2: what we did, right, I'll tell you. But I've got
Speaker 2: tour players that I represent that have less opportunities, that
Speaker 2: are in a living now on the PGA tour, which
Speaker 2: there are members of, and so how can you tell
Speaker 2: me that you're not serving your membership by taking away
Speaker 2: opportunities and that it's going to make it a better product.
Speaker 2: And then they tell you they're doing this because of
Speaker 2: the pace of play. I go, wait a minute, you
Speaker 2: have rules against that. But you know what, I don't
Speaker 2: know how many people have ever been fined. But you
Speaker 2: find a guy here's coming down the stretch and he's
Speaker 2: he's slower, and he's getting ready to win two million
Speaker 2: dollars if you wins, and you're gonna find him ten grand.
Speaker 2: You think he cares, he and he goes get He's
Speaker 2: gonna get that fine a week later.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So now the new product in GoF is going to
Speaker 2: have to get faster, it's going to have to be
Speaker 2: more palatable to watch. You're going to see more golf
Speaker 2: and I don't know how they can get that. And again, look,
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you something. The PGA Tour when COVID hit,
Speaker 2: they did one of the best jobs in the history
Speaker 2: of anybody. They got those guys back out there playing.
Speaker 2: It was an amazing thing. I mean, j Monahan got
Speaker 2: that COVID hit. I mean, we're all out of work.
Speaker 2: I mean we're sitting here like everybody. Now they got
Speaker 2: they got God, we had testing. We were back playing
Speaker 2: golf so fast, which was great for people playing golf.
Speaker 2: And you would think, man, they've got it. This is
Speaker 2: so incredible that they could pull that off. And probably
Speaker 2: one of the best things that's ever happened in business
Speaker 2: followed up, but probably the worst thing that's ever happened
Speaker 2: in business. And there's nothing you can do to deny it.
Speaker 2: And I don't you know. People ask me what should happen.
Speaker 2: I said, well, they should just come out and say, hey, guys, everybody,
Speaker 2: we made mistakes. Let me sell you what we did wrong.
Speaker 2: We should have took the meeting, we shouldn't have been
Speaker 2: so vile, we shouldn't have attacked them, we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done these things, and we would like, we want you
Speaker 2: to forget this. And what we're gonna do now is
Speaker 2: we're gonna start up members of the PJ Tour. We're
Speaker 2: gonna do everything we can to create as many opportunities
Speaker 2: for you to play as possible, so as much money
Speaker 2: as possible, but not more money than it's possible. And
Speaker 2: that's where if I go back to if I was
Speaker 2: running the tour, first thing I do is say, okay,
Speaker 2: let's show you where we messed up. Okay, we're going
Speaker 2: to back up, try to get the public to understand
Speaker 2: what we did wrong. Do not be tear up Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia because that's where the money came from. When you've
Speaker 2: got how much money FedEx, which is the PJ Tour's
Speaker 2: biggest sponsor, how much business they do in Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: I just I just every time I look around, like,
Speaker 2: do you think this is not a global economy? And
Speaker 2: I know you don't want you know, we want to
Speaker 2: judge where money comes from and all this stuff, But
Speaker 2: that was nothing to do about where it was really
Speaker 2: coming from. That was just an attack point. They just
Speaker 2: were pulling things out the bag. How can we make
Speaker 2: them look worse? How can we destroy their product? We
Speaker 2: will not let them out. We're ranking points. We will
Speaker 2: do this. I mean that that's not good business. It's
Speaker 2: not good business. Now, maybe it works in the steel industry,
Speaker 2: or maybe it works if it's the mob, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't work in business. And now when you're when your
Speaker 2: customer is is the US public or the world public,
Speaker 2: everything you did should have been looked at how does
Speaker 2: it affect them? Like and if and if it was
Speaker 2: such a bad product as they said it never works
Speaker 2: and team GoF doesn't work, and if it was such
Speaker 2: a bad product. Then why did you compete with them?
Speaker 2: Let them go? And now we've got this new thing,
Speaker 2: you know, the Tomorrow's Golf League. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you know about what that is. You know, ye.
Speaker 1: Not. I haven't really dug into it.
Speaker 2: It's the Atlanta Drive Lucas Glover where Michelant. Lucas Glover
Speaker 2: is on the Atlanta Drive owned by Arthur Blank, who
Speaker 2: owns the Atlanta Falcons. There you go, Atlanta Drive. You
Speaker 2: should see the swag. It's cool. They're going to play
Speaker 2: indoor outdoor golf at a stadium on Monday and Tuesday
Speaker 2: nights in the winter. Tiger Woods is involved. Rory's in Bob,
Speaker 2: I don't. I think it's an awesome concept. I think
Speaker 2: it's going to be fun. But if team golf doesn't work,
Speaker 2: then why are we doing team golf? Like Lucas is
Speaker 2: on a team with Billy of Horshall and Justin Thomas,
Speaker 2: So none of it makes sense to me. I think
Speaker 2: team golf is the most wonderful thing in the world.
Speaker 2: And you know, they came out and said team golf
Speaker 2: doesn't work, and it's only three rounds. You can't define
Speaker 2: a champion in three rounds. I said, college golf is
Speaker 2: a team sport. It's been playing three rounds for history.
Speaker 1: So interesting amateur golf, you know.
Speaker 2: And so so where is it going to go? I
Speaker 2: really don't know. I think there is going to be
Speaker 2: an agreement between the two. But is it still a
Speaker 2: great product or have they just survived and their membership
Speaker 2: who they work for? Taking opportunities from these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: for thirty forty years on Wednesday for free players playing
Speaker 2: pro ams four or five hours of their day every
Speaker 2: day right before they go compete, Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer, Tiger,
Speaker 2: Phil Davis. They've been planning pro ams, building the brand
Speaker 2: of the PGA Tour for them, and it's to turn
Speaker 2: around and go like, well we messed up. We're for profit.
Speaker 2: I mean, there have been individuals that have saved PGA
Speaker 2: Tour events with their own money. I won't go into it,
Speaker 2: but they have so here they are. They put their
Speaker 2: own money to save this tournament for this community. So
Speaker 2: it gives so much back to the community and charitable dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm going to save it myself. And they've turned around
Speaker 2: now and tell these people, hey, if you want tousa
Speaker 2: have an event, you're going to have to pay us
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand. You don't have to pay us a
Speaker 2: million plus two percent of your gate, so that we're
Speaker 2: going to make money. And I'm like, I look at
Speaker 2: it and go like they take long term sponsors and say, look,
Speaker 2: if you don't give us more money, you can't play.
Speaker 2: I mean long term sponsors. I mean there's something about people.
Speaker 2: They've lost sponsors like Honda, Wells Fargo. So again, everything
Speaker 2: they've done, if it's the right thing, then it's going
Speaker 2: to be something that's ten years from now will go, well,
Speaker 2: look what they did, it was right. But I don't
Speaker 2: see how taken your membership that have given so much
Speaker 2: to build your brand and taking opportunity away from them
Speaker 2: is going to work.
Speaker 1: I'm curious of the stable of players that you represent,
Speaker 1: professional golfers, how many of them have either considered or
Speaker 1: have gone over to.
Speaker 2: Live I actually had no players considered going.
Speaker 1: Even consider it. You didn't have any DISCUSSI with any
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 2: Oh, I asked them all, No, Oh, tell me, like,
Speaker 2: how where do you fit in?
Speaker 1: And that I'm sure that you're the person there go
Speaker 1: I need to think about this. They're offering me a
Speaker 1: lot of money and the boy I'm really thinking about it.
Speaker 1: They would come to you for that conversation. I would
Speaker 1: think in their spouse, but you know, as their business partner,
Speaker 1: because they're the CEO of their company, right and you're
Speaker 1: the like CEO company. How do you present this or
Speaker 1: hold them back or where do you get involved in fast?
Speaker 2: Obviously they they you know, they made request for players
Speaker 2: I represented to talk to them, okay, and and I don't.
Speaker 2: I didn't say, well, how much do you have? I said,
Speaker 2: I'm not negotiating until I know he wants to do it.
Speaker 2: I don't do that. I'm not gonna. I don't want to,
Speaker 2: so I would I went to the players, and you know,
Speaker 2: my last player went, now, I'm good, I'm fine. Just
Speaker 2: wasn't any reasoning. They liked the PGA tour, they didn't
Speaker 2: care about the I play for enough money, I'm fine
Speaker 2: now on the context. So when the LID was kicking off,
Speaker 2: they were a little short of players. They and I
Speaker 2: had a kid named Mandy Ogletree who had won the
Speaker 2: US Amateur in twenty nineteen. He caught the COVID year Masters,
Speaker 2: so he didn't get to play in the April Masters,
Speaker 2: but guess who he got to play with Tiger Woods.
Speaker 2: So he waited as an amateur till November so he
Speaker 2: could play with Tiger Woods and the Masters. He was
Speaker 2: low amateur, which was wonderful. Turns pro. The next week
Speaker 2: plays in Mexico, which is the last event of the
Speaker 2: year on tour. He got to play one event played well,
Speaker 2: we go through Christmas, he plays, He's starting to play
Speaker 2: shows up in LA with a sponsor. Rexemption tears his
Speaker 2: labor as a five something. Tear in his labor. We
Speaker 2: fly him and me home to Andrews and Birmingham surgery
Speaker 2: out six months. Okay, it's pretty tough on kid. So
Speaker 2: as he's rehabbing and coming out, this kid's really good.
Speaker 2: He I mean, these kids are not rich people, right,
Speaker 2: and he got an opportunity. I reached out and we
Speaker 2: got an opportunity to get him to the first live
Speaker 2: event in London, one event in exchange for Asian Tour
Speaker 2: status because he didn't have anywhere to play. And he goes,
Speaker 2: I'm in last place was one hundred and twenty five thousand.
Speaker 2: That will go a long way to helping him get
Speaker 2: back on his career. He plays he's rehabbing, didn't play great,
Speaker 2: finished close to laughs. People, ah blah blah blah. The
Speaker 2: tour banding, what is he I'm a member of the tour.
Speaker 2: Never let him go to Q school again, never let
Speaker 2: him do anything, blocked him from creating a living for
Speaker 2: playing one event. Okay, I have a couple of retired
Speaker 2: general friends, so I before Andy made a decision to
Speaker 2: do this, I got in touch with one of them
Speaker 2: because I knew they ties to Saudi Arabia and I
Speaker 2: wanted to know I'm okay with this. This is going
Speaker 2: to come back and get me and that one of
Speaker 2: them said said, we're married to Saudi Arabia. We're not
Speaker 2: just allies. And I called Andy and said, hey, the
Speaker 2: research I have the best I can tell you. You're
Speaker 2: good to go do this. Well he was going anyhow,
Speaker 2: he said I don't care. And then people, this is
Speaker 2: great Andy, because they the tour put him on the
Speaker 2: list of banned players like he was one of theirs.
Speaker 2: He lost deals. Now I'm going to share something. When
Speaker 2: liv found out about that, they gave Andy money to
Speaker 2: put live on his shirt so he'd have more money
Speaker 2: to go play golf, and he went to Asia. He
Speaker 2: won three times. He won the Order of Merit, which
Speaker 2: got him a spot on Live. He earned his way
Speaker 2: on and we signed a team deal and he plays
Speaker 2: for Phil meckleson team the High Flyers. And if you
Speaker 2: call him and you want to ask how bad it is,
Speaker 2: you know what he gets to do every day. He
Speaker 2: gets to hang out with Phil Mickerlson, one of the
Speaker 2: best players ever played, helping him with his swing, helping
Speaker 2: him with his game, and Kim Trengalli and Brendan Steel
Speaker 2: his teammates. They hang out to go, they work with
Speaker 2: each other, and he's getting better just because of having
Speaker 2: these peers all of a sudden. So it's been the
Speaker 2: most wonderful opportunities. If you want to grow the game,
Speaker 2: you took a kid that I mean there was pretty
Speaker 2: a low point in his life and through his play.
Speaker 2: He played in the British Open last year, he played
Speaker 2: in the PGA last year. So for Live, do you
Speaker 2: say they didn't do anything good? Well they that kid
Speaker 2: right there that changed his life. So but yeah, I
Speaker 2: didn't have a player get signed a check to go.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I mean, I'm you know, in
Speaker 2: our business it's cyclical. I used to have. I'd have
Speaker 2: two of the players in the top ten, and that
Speaker 2: makes me really good. I'm a really important guy. I
Speaker 2: don't have top ten. Now I'm dumb. Now I'm not
Speaker 2: good at what I do. And now whoever whatever agent's
Speaker 2: got a great player and now they're this s mart one.
Speaker 2: So and that's the way that works. It's okay. It's
Speaker 2: called position power, not personal power. So I didn't really
Speaker 2: have a lot of guys that they were really wanting,
Speaker 2: but I did have a couple, and they just said,
Speaker 2: like I said, my guys were like, man, I'm playing
Speaker 2: for a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I don't care.
Speaker 2: I'm having a ball. They great family life. They I mean,
Speaker 2: they weren't saying, please, I need more money. I mean,
Speaker 2: you got guys making two or three million a year,
Speaker 2: working twenty five weeks a year. I mean, it's dang
Speaker 2: good fun and they're playing golf. So how does it work?
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, what Live did was contact agents like me,
Speaker 2: every one of them. They got Brooks's agent or whoever,
Speaker 2: said here's an offer, and so I just went back.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to have an offer, negotiate and then
Speaker 2: go see the player. I just thought that wasn't fair
Speaker 2: to live and so I just went and said, if
Speaker 2: they don't have the interest, I call him, Hey, thank you,
Speaker 2: but no thanks. And what is it?
Speaker 1: What is it that keeps players your players going, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I don't need I'm fine staying with the PGA.
Speaker 2: I am Look, I imagine. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: my players are from the Southeast and maybe a little
Speaker 2: different psychological but the they're making a lot of money
Speaker 2: and they're like, they were happy, the tour is fun,
Speaker 2: it's a great place. They were not unhappy.
Speaker 1: They and you can't win majors unless you're playing on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: Well, and see, yeah is that relevant. Yeah, somewhat relevant,
Speaker 2: but not totally. I mean, I mean you can play,
Speaker 2: you can earn your way into the British Opening and
Speaker 2: the US Open. Anybody can qualify for most of the
Speaker 2: I mean Lucas Glover when the US opened in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, he had to qualify on a Monday.
Speaker 2: He didn't get in because of the PGA Tour. He
Speaker 2: went qualified and wonted himself. And again that's the the
Speaker 2: whole thing is that you know, legacies are created by
Speaker 2: the majors, financial security, is created by wherever you play.
Speaker 2: And I think that my guys just the lifestyle they
Speaker 2: enjoy it their home. Traveling in America is much different
Speaker 2: than having to go to Singapore, to Hong Kong, to Malaysia, whatever. Right, So,
Speaker 2: but if you can argue about a person that would
Speaker 2: take money for a sport that he has got made
Speaker 2: himself to the point to demand the dollars, and then
Speaker 2: they do it, and they say, well, they're not going
Speaker 2: to be as good. I mean, they did everything you
Speaker 2: could to make it's just it's horse. It's I mean,
Speaker 2: Aaron Judd dropped the foul ball. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much he makes, but he makes a lot. You still
Speaker 2: make mistakes even though you get paid a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So now they're saying these guys are not as good
Speaker 2: because they're not playing against competition. It was just they
Speaker 2: were throwing everything they had out of the kitchen sink
Speaker 2: at this thing, trying to make it not be anything.
Speaker 2: And then they when none of that were, they go, Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll partner with you. I mean, it's ridiculous. Never seen that.
Speaker 1: Wow, this could possibly be the longest episode I've ever done,
Speaker 1: But I've never been so captivated. Yea, I have, but
Speaker 1: I mean I am so captivated by where you've been,
Speaker 1: what you've seen, what you've done, and I hope that
Speaker 1: I can call you back and bring you back.
Speaker 2: On the show because anytime it.
Speaker 1: Is absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2: Man, jord It.
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me talk well, thank you for joining us,
Speaker 1: and the best of luck, and we'll keep our eyes
Speaker 1: open and if something weird happens, I'm calling you.
Speaker 2: Some weird stuff's going to happen. I'll guarantee you in
Speaker 2: the next few months. Thanks for letting come on.
Speaker 1: I would love to get your feedback on this episode,
Speaker 1: as he was about as controversial and thought provoking as
Speaker 1: any guest I've ever had. Do you agree with his
Speaker 1: thoughts on what's happening on the tour? Did he influence
Speaker 1: any of your feelings towards Live. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are like I won't even look at
Speaker 1: a Bryson just Shamba video because he's on Live. You know,
Speaker 1: let's let's play nice, okay. And now he's well aware
Speaker 1: that he said some things that may not make people
Speaker 1: at the PGA tour headquarters happy, and during one of
Speaker 1: our commercial breaks, he said this to me.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I am out of him watches this because
Speaker 2: he'll be well, he won't call me immediately if you
Speaker 2: want to send it. He's not happy with me right now.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, please share your thoughts with me and keep
Speaker 1: an eye open at golf Smarter on social media for
Speaker 1: many clips from this episode, and they'll be video clips.
Speaker 1: So after our recording, we spoke for another hour and
Speaker 1: a half. It was kind of like living in a
Speaker 1: ted talk. Hopefully he will be back often. Interestingly, this
Speaker 1: Friday on Golf Smarter Mullak, we're going to feature the
Speaker 1: first of two twenty thirteen at conversations with one of
Speaker 1: the few PGA Tour players ever featured on our podcast,
Speaker 1: Matt every What was the last time you heard from him? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean he was a highly decorated college player and
Speaker 1: showed tons of promise on the tour, But now where
Speaker 1: is he? I want to thank this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador,
Speaker 1: ge or Our Daleman's from Bowie, Maryland, who received all
Speaker 1: three gifts for introducing today's episode. There's currently a way
Speaker 1: for you to get all our gifts at once, just
Speaker 1: by writing an honest review where you listen to golf
Speaker 1: Smarter and sending me what you wrote and where you
Speaker 1: posted it. I've read a couple of new reviews on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts this week which were incredibly kind. Thank you,
Speaker 1: but I don't know who wrote them. So please if
Speaker 1: you did, or if you're going to email me and
Speaker 1: let me know what you said so that I can
Speaker 1: track you down and then send you your thank you gifts,
Speaker 1: or if you'd like, you can still be a Golf
Speaker 1: Smarter ambassador by introducing an upcoming episode and we'll get
Speaker 1: a gift to you there too. Okay, I am ready
Speaker 1: to invite you to our next Golf Smarter adventure. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring Tara and Allen from TMI Golf on soon
Speaker 1: for a short episode to discuss all the details. But
Speaker 1: the web page is now available to reserve your spot,
Speaker 1: which is limited. Here's some details. We're gonna do this
Speaker 1: on March twenty sixth through the thirtieth. That's a long
Speaker 1: weekend starting on Wednesday going through Sunday with three rounds
Speaker 1: of golf on the Robert Trent Jones Trail near Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 1: We'll play golf on Thursday at Oxmore Valley Ridge Course
Speaker 1: Friday at the ross Bridge Golf Course and Saturday's round
Speaker 1: will be at Oxmore Valley's Valley Course. Again. Space is limited,
Speaker 1: but you can reserve your spot now at tmi goolf
Speaker 1: dot com. Come slash golf smarter. There's so much to
Speaker 1: share about this, and I'll continue to tell you about
Speaker 1: the details as we get closer. But I'd love to
Speaker 1: play with you as we get our first taste of
Speaker 1: their legendary Robert Trent Jones Trail again March twenty six
Speaker 1: through the thirtieth, twenty twenty five. Check your calendar right now.
Speaker 1: You should be available and you'll definitely want to join us.
Speaker 1: We're not going overseas. We're going to keep it as
Speaker 1: simple as we can, but we're going to play the
Speaker 1: Robert Trent Jones Trail. I've been wanting to do this
Speaker 1: for years. Get all the details at tmigolf dot com,
Speaker 1: slash golf Smarter, and I'll leave that link in today's
Speaker 1: show notes. If you have any questions, comments, you'd like
Speaker 1: to be on a future episode with where you're from,
Speaker 1: where you play in the episode number, or maybe you've
Speaker 1: submitted a review on your favorite golf podcast platform, or
Speaker 1: have a suggestion for an upcoming episode. Please write to
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com or click on
Speaker 1: the Heyfread button when you visit golfsmarter dot com