WEBVTT - The Club Pro Crisis - Part 5 "PGM Programs w/ Dr. Brian Soulé" 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.400 The club expects their golf proth and their assistant pros 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:05.960 to make sure everything's perfect. 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:08.399 We want a club row that can play like Tiger, 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.520 teach like butch merchandise like Ralph Lauren, and tell jokes 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:13.080 like Bob Hope. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.920 Right, it is absolutely The problem is the amount of 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:17.000 pay for the amount of work. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.760 It doesn't mesh for clubs. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.119 If you don't make these changes, you're not going to 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:22.959 get the people you want. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.200 Your product is going to suffer. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.000 People are not going to want to come play there, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.159 They're going to go elsewhere, and you're eventually going to 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:28.880 go out of business. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.040 Is seth while helping He's the right guy in the 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.800 driver's seat, But is there a vehicle he can drive 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:38.600 that can make it any better? 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.839 People are put on earth to make everybody's lives better, right, Like? 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.080 How can he not want to be surrounded by those people? 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:46.280 Right then? 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.720 And that's what our PGA professional is. 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.600 You know, it's not perfect, We're not perfect times far 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:53.320 from perfect. 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.720 We're moving the needle, making a lot. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.560 Of progress and I hope people are noticing it. But 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.640 that's not the point either, right. The point is leaving 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.000 the room better. And I'm going to keep fighting to 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:10.400 do that every day. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:19.839 Put another log on the fire Nobody here is given time. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.720 Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Janella. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.640 We're back for the fifth episode of this podcast series 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.160 on the club pro crisis. This week we're looking at 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.400 it through the lens of the PGA of America's Professional 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.959 Golf Management. University programs one of two paths to becoming 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.040 APGA member. For more on both paths, go to PGA 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.880 dot org. Forward Slash membership in a four and a 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.360 half to five year program involving classroom courses, paid internships, 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.360 and opportunities for player development. There are currently sevenine teen 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:06.120 nationwide universities that offer these PGM programs while students simultaneously 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:11.399 get a bachelor's degree in marketing or business administration, hospitality administration, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:16.200 recreation and park management. One of the participating universities is 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.280 Penn State, and today we're talking to doctor Bryan Soul, 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.320 an associate teaching professor at Penn State for fifteen years. 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.640 You'll hear Soul say that for the one hundred one 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.120 hundred and twenty students in their program, they get five 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:35.079 to eight internship offers per student. If you missed Part one, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.400 you missed some history of club pros from people like 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:39.399 Butch Harmon. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.040 The old days, when you've got a good job, you 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.640 just stayed there forever, and the members treated you like 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:46.160 a member. 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:48.200 You were great with them. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.120 And so I think what's evolved now is the club's 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.560 down all the amenities. They own, the pro shops, they own, 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.320 the cards, they owned, the backrooms, they own the driving ranges. 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.799 Pros are paid a salary and a little percentage of stuffs. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.520 It's a different incentive world for guys to get into business. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:05.720 You know. 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.959 The people said to you all the time, well. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.280 You've been a golf pro your whole life. When you 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:11.680 were a club pro, you must have played a lot 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:13.880 of golf. No, not really. You're always working. You work 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.919 every holiday, you work every weekend. It's a hard job. 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.240 Now you have corporations on these clubs. They got the 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.680 pros punch and time clocks. You know. Well, hr says 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.680 you can only work forty hours a week. Well, heck 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.000 we we being a golf pro my whole life. I 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.840 turned probem to sixty five. We worked the sun when 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.799 the sun was up, we worked when the sun went down, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:35.640 and we went home. That's not the way it is anymore. 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.200 It's a totally different environment. I'm not saying it's good 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.080 or bad. I'm just saying it's not the one that 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:42.720 I grew up in and the one I lived in. 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.200 We've heard from Rick Riley of Wiltshire Country Club for 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.040 over thirty years, whose father is in the pg of 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.160 America's Hall of Fame. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.600 It's a great place to be, but you know, once 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.600 the end, you got to put in the hours. You 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.720 got to have a love for it. I mean, my 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.640 dad always said there's two to be a good PGA professional. 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.840 You got five points. You got to be a player. 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.040 You got to be a teacher. You got to be 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.320 an administrator, you got to be a rules expert. Probably 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:12.200 most important, you have to be a people person. You 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.160 cannot survive on my side of the business if you 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.520 don't interact with people well and take care of people. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.760 And we've heard from Shane Ryan, author of the golf 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.560 digestory entitled The Club pro Crisis, which was published in 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.120 May of twenty twenty two. Ryan on the harsh reality 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:28.880 of the industry. 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.039 It felt like I was learning, on one hand about 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.960 an industry that is fundamentally broken in terms of the 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.520 working conditions that club pros exist under that there is 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.960 so much demanded of them that there is a system 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.640 in place where this was you know, I won't say 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.560 it was fine with people, but it was standard and 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:48.720 it was expected. And all of a sudden, a new 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.040 generation is coming up saying we don't want to work 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.599 like this, and so, you know, places are losing their pros. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.920 But they're faced with a reality where to meet the 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.960 to meet the standards of what people how they want 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:04.920 to work now saying Okay, maybe you know, you get 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:06.719 a weekend off once in a while, maybe only work 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.360 fifty hours a week instead of seventy or eighty. It 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.280 would mean hiring more people, and that's something that they 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.279 don't want to do for obvious reasons, right because that 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.160 affects their budget and their bottom line. But the reality 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.359 is the clubs who are not doing that are falling 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.800 behind because either they can't fill positions or when they 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.320 do fill positions, they're not filling them with the best people. 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.240 And so you have this unbelievable sort of schism between 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.880 what is expected, whether you're you know, the board at 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.440 a club or the manager of a club versus what 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.960 is the reality of what club pros want to do 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.360 with their jobs, and so were the gap between it 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.280 is so wide, and it got worse during the pandemic, 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.200 and it's hard to see sometimes how it gets better. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.680 Meanwhile, in Part four, Seth Waugh, the PGA of America's 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.359 CEO since twenty eighteen, talked about what he's doing to 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.400 try and leave the room better than he found it. 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.560 I think we've flipped the prism on the game. And 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.560 I think you know, the greatest thing about what's going 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.240 on right now, Matt, is the game has had its 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.920 ups and downs, for sure, but for the first time, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:13.000 and it's it's it's history. Golf is cool, and golf's 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:18.040 never been cool, right, and and that's awesome, and we 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.560 need to make sure we continue to promote that right 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.520 and have all these different ways to consume it now. Right, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.240 you have top golf, you have putt putt and all 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.400 kinds of different forms you've got, you know, simulators you've got. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.919 And again, I've always believed, like you know, if you 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.200 go shoot hoops in your backyard, you played basketball that day. 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.000 It wasn't five on five with reps, right, but it 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:46.279 was it was it was hoops and and so you know, 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.800 if you put on your carpet today you play golf 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.760 and and you know and you took it. You know, 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:54.760 check out your swinging in a mirror like you played 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.360 golf that day. And we've got to embrace it in 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.840 every form we possibly can't part threes, three holes, you know, 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.719 hitt and balls in the way like yes, like work 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.560 for all of it every day. Anything that is good 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.440 for the game is ultimately good for our professionals. And 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:13.600 so we're going to promote it and every way we 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:15.280 can and celebrate it. 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.600 Before we get to my conversation with doctor Soule and 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.240 we hear from one of his former students, I want 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.920 to thank a few sponsors, starting with ag one by 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:29.040 Athletic Greens Nutrition made powerfully Simple. You've seen the ads. 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.840 It's your daily supply of nutrients and gut health. 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Or go to the Pit shop at Firepitcollective 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.440 dot com and order one of our Dormy Gift boxes 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.840 which includes a new firepit headcover and matching Dormy stash bag. 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.320 Plus you get a Firepit sweater, hat and T shirt. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.000 My name is Brian Soulet. I'm a PGA professional and 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.720 an assistant teaching professor at Penn State University with the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.000 PGA Golf Management Program. I've been here for fourteen years. 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.800 This idea that there is a club pro crisis. Do 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.800 you buy into that concept? 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:49.360 I think so. I think. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.240 In the past decade or so, we've seen a huge 0:08:54.240 --> 0:09:02.040 shift from golf facilities being able to pick and choose 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.559 their employees and really get a lot of applicants for 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.800 great positions. And in recent years we've seen that flip 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.559 so at Penn State, we have about one hundred to 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.319 one hundred and twenty students, and we're getting between five 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.800 and eight positions posted with our program per student just 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:21.679 for internships. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:23.360 So we have. 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.079 Up to one thousand facilities that will contact us each 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.280 year asking for access to our one hundred students. So 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:36.720 the industry clearly is hungry for good new talent, and 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.319 we're starting to see the benefits of that for our students, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.160 which is great. You know, it's giving opportunities for them 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.760 to pick and choose the best jobs in the industry. 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.520 But that's on the flip side. You know, your green 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.319 grass facilities specifically are the ones who are struggling because 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.439 they're struggling to find really good qualified help. 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.839 And yet I'm also hearing and reading about and learning 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:04.640 of about PGM programs closing all over. You know, at 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:06.800 one point there wasn't a lot of them, then there 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.920 was a lot of them, and now there's less of them. 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.880 There was an influx of programs, So Penn State was 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.040 one of the first four and that was what it 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.640 was for decades until the early two thousands. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:21.360 It took off. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.920 I think at the peak there were twenty PGA accredited 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.600 university programs. Now we're down to seventeen, and it feels 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.440 like that's a leveling out. I'm a Clemson graduate and 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.760 we're the most recent program to close. It was Clemson University. 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.360 It was kind of the perfect storm there of the 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:43.720 COVID crisis of rising costs and higher education right and 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.840 them looking for programs that were a little bit under enrolled. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.040 So I think we're probably at a leveling off now. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.880 We're starting to see an uptick in student enrollments across 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.959 the country, So I'm hoping that that means that that 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.439 kind of the level that we're at right now is 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.480 where we'll stay for the for the foreseeable future. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.320 From the time that you went to Clemson to what 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:13.000 you are now teaching, how has the education of the 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:19.360 club pro the PGA pro evolved. 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:19.520 In your mind? 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.439 That's a good question. It So I graduated in two 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.199 thousand and five from Clemson. The PGA's curriculum back down 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.800 was training very specifically for the students to become green 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.120 grass head golf professionals. So we were studying merchandising, teaching 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.240 the game, customer relations, and there was even a test 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:45.680 Matt of physically going to a lab, pulling apart a 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:51.960 golf club and assessing somebody's grip size and re building 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.760 that club, and somebody was watching you pull this thing 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.800 apart put it back together. You actually had to train 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.040 to do club repair back then. So what we've seen 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.240 in the past decade, let's call it, is an advancement 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.559 in the education where they've dropped some of the more 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.400 very traditional club pro education and they've become much more specialized. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.400 So what we're seeing now is that we've got students 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.240 who are tracking very specifically, just saying early in their 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.880 college career, I want to be a teacher, or I 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:21.760 want to be a tournament director, or I want to 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.560 be a merchandiser. And they've i think, built a really 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.760 good education program now where they're really specializing and allowed 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.240 allowing people to pick and choose their path a little 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.280 bit more specifically, rather than pushing everybody into that old 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.559 school green grass golf pro kind of mold. 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.640 Which is cool, but also does that make it tough 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:49.679 on PGM programs then, because you have a sort of 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:56.400 a splintered set of teaching going on, and then how 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.720 do you have a program to get enough students in 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.880 each one of those different verticals, right, Like, you've got 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.800 to have teachers in those different works, then you have 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.320 to have enough students to justify a splintering of those verticals. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.560 Is that also kind of part of the problem too. 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.920 No, I think it's been a pretty cool change. So 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.120 each of the university programs kind of has its own strength, right. 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.800 So at Penn State, we're located in the northeast. Most 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.680 of the facilities that our alumni go to are private facilities, 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.840 typically upscale private, so we're able to kind of cater 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:34.320 the way that we deliver the PGA's education towards that. 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.280 But then also we have an amazing on campus facility. 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.239 It's a three day, three bay teaching and coaching center 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.920 that has force plates and three D motion capture technology. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.600 So we've had a plethora of students in the past 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.640 five to eight years really go down that teaching path 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.200 because we're well outfitted to deliver. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:58.200 That part of the curriculum. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.800 I think the other programs each of their own strength, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.120 and that's where when students are thinking about which program 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.240 do I want to attend, Which university do I want 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.000 to go to, we tell them visit campus, you need 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:10.720 to see it. You need to meet the people, You 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.199 need to see what their expertise has to offer. And 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.120 and that's I think part of the process is early 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:23.200 on choosing the right university for you. So we're each 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.400 each program definitely has a niche. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:30.120 Bob for go back to Claude Harmon and and you know, 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.040 now guys like Rick Riley at Wilsher who's been there 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:38.720 over thirty years. You know, do you do we do 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:48.440 you think that that kind of figurehead mega mentor you know, multitasking, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.000 you know, leader of a of a golf shop? 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:54.200 Uh? 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.920 Is that adot? Is that literally kind of like about 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:00.920 to be extinct? And and it's going to be this 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:07.000 collection of specialists that may be overseen by a quote 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.240 director of golf or a president of a club or something. 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.040 Is that is that ultimately kind of we're where we 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:15.280 are or where we're headed? 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.280 I hope not, because and I don't think that we're 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.680 going in that direction because enough of the new generation 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:28.360 is being mentored by the Bob Fords, the Tony Pancake 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.640 at Crooked Stick, Scott and I at Marion Golf Club. 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.560 These folks are so good with people, and they've trained 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.800 their assistants who have then moved on to become head professionals, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.640 to kind of have that same way about them of 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.520 running a facility, being the figurehead, being a mentor. So 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:49.200 what's been really fun for me. I've been here for 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.080 fifteen years almost at Penn State. Now some of my 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.520 earliest graduates are in those positions, so they're in their 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.800 mid coming up on upper thirties. A great example is 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.480 a gentleman by the name of Jack Davis. He's the 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.840 head professional at Essex County Club, really cool Donald Ross, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.640 just north of Boston. He's just got a great program 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.720 up there. He's got a good group of assistant golf pros, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.160 he's got a great internship program. So I think that's 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.000 not going to die because those facilities need those types 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.640 of people, they need those figureheads, they need, you know, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:22.600 in a way, they're kind of like the heroes of 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.480 the golf industry, and I think that that's going to 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:27.520 stay healthy. There are plenty of folks who want to 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.880 go down that path still, but then there are also 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:31.720 people who are like, you know what, that's not for me. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.600 I don't want to be on property Saturday and Sunday 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.360 and every single holiday. I want to be able to 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.040 keep my own book right. So I'm going to go 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:41.600 down the teaching path, or I'm going to work in 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.360 New York City for an apparel company like Paulo Ralph. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.160 Lauren and have a more normal work week. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.680 So I think you're still going to have plenty of 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.800 folks who go down that traditional path and knock it 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:54.400 out of the park. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:59.640 My name is Jack Davis. I'm the head golf professional 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.080 County Club in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts, amazing old Club. 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.720 It's the sixth club in the USGA. Don Ross was 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.200 actually the head pro here over a century ago. It's 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.880 top one hundred club. It's a really really wonderful place, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.880 a leak golf program, a leave tennis rackets program. I've 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:18.720 been head pro here now. This is my seventh year, 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:21.840 and I worked for Jack Drew at Shinnacok for eight years. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.000 Part of that, two of which were internships when I 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.600 was finishing my time at Penn State through the PGM program. 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.840 Davis also did a few winters in Florida Jupiter Hills 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.480 for three years and worked for Bob Ford at Seminal 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.520 for one season. This is a portion of my conversation 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.600 with Davis. The PGM program that you went to that 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:47.520 you are now probably getting interns from or PGM programs 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.520 of course, Yeah, how do you think that's that sort 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.280 of the program then and now has evolved. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.560 The numbers are way down, for sure. I think that. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.280 And I'm really involved with the alumni, and I talked 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.320 to Brian and Birch and I'm very much like a 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:12.080 hands on alum. Each of the schools is different, right, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.080 They're offering different education and different geographic area. But the 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.120 PGA is trying to centralize everything, and I think it's 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.360 really difficult for some of the universities to get done 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.040 what they want to get done. At a bigger school 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.680 like Penn State, where you're fitting into a really large 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.280 ecosystem and PGM is such a small part of that, 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.720 it's hard to get things done. Maybe at a different 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.399 school like a Methodist or a Camel where PGM is 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.720 a bigger portion of your student base, you've got a 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.720 little bit more leverage as to programming, curriculum and stuff 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.440 like that. But I think the PGM programs are really 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.199 trying to get students, and the PGA is trying to 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:55.399 help the PGM programs work fruit But as this whole 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.480 podcast series is about. The article in Golf Digest is 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:03.919 about other than golf being in a great place on 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.160 a broad scale. I think it's hard for high school 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.040 students who know what they might be getting into to 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.040 sign up for it, if that makes sense, because the 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.280 idea of loving golf, Like when I was growing I 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.160 grew up in New Jersey, and when I found out 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.919 about PGM, I thought it was someone was lying to me. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.280 I was like, how can this really be what I 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.119 can go to college for, let alone a place like 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.480 Penn State. And it was an incredible, incredible experience for me. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.600 And it's still you explained where you went to college 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:36.680 and what you did, and people are still like, that's 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.080 a major. I'm like, yeah, it's a major. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:38.480 It's great. 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.480 I work at all I mean I work at Spyglass, 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.920 a Pebble Beach company. I worked at Plainfield Country Club, 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.280 I work at Chitnaicock. I worked at these great places, 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.119 and I was so driven and the students around me, 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:50.960 the class above me and the class below me, my 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.679 peers were so driven. And it feels different now. It 0:19:54.720 --> 0:20:03.040 feels like it's almost a a waiting program like people 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.879 do PGGM because they enjoy the game of golf, and 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:07.960 then they're going to transition to a different major, or 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.240 they're going to quickly transition to a different career path 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.480 or maybe a different career path within golf. It doesn't 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.440 necessarily feel, and not through the fault of the PGM programs, 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.040 like you're creating forty head pros a year. It seems 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.280 like you're creating one head pro year and then other 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.200 people who will have golf as part of their life 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:24.399 for the rest of their lives. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.560 What are your thoughts on where we go from here? 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.320 It's interesting. I wrote a paper that I presented to 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.399 the executive committee at the club here that was about 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.800 four thousand words that was essentially the state of the 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.840 golf business and particularly how it relates to Essex and 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.359 my life and our team's lives. And that was six 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.640 months before the club pro crisis. Article came out. That 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.119 came out, and the club president here sent that article 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.720 to me and said, you beat them to the punch, 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:56.879 But I think a lot of us beat them to 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:58.800 the punch, right. It was an amazing article. It was 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.159 I can't tell you the chatter that that created, But 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:08.080 now that chatter's gone. Or at least certainly muted compared 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.960 to where it was. I've been listening to your podcast, 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.880 and I think that everyone has really good points. It's 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.359 an odd situation that the PGA of America, while advocating 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.080 for us, isn't our bosses. They're not our bosses, right, 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.640 So any gains that I might get at essex, whether 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.360 it relates to my own situation or my team situation 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.080 or facilities, whatever those might be, that doesn't necessarily help 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.480 the professional next door. Right. There is no union, there's 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:40.520 no guild there. We have to fight these battles, if 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.040 you will, very quote fight these battles on a million 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.800 different fronts every day. So I think it's the more 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:48.840 that we talk to one another, the more that our members. 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.080 Again I work at a member on club, so the 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.800