Speaker 1: The club expects their golf proth and their assistant pros
Speaker 1: to make sure everything's perfect.
Speaker 2: We want a club row that can play like Tiger,
Speaker 2: teach like butch merchandise like Ralph Lauren, and tell jokes
Speaker 2: like Bob Hope.
Speaker 3: Right, it is absolutely The problem is the amount of
Speaker 3: pay for the amount of work. It doesn't mesh for clubs.
Speaker 4: If you don't make these changes, you're not going to
Speaker 4: get the people you want. Your product is going to suffer.
Speaker 4: People are not going to want to come play there,
Speaker 4: They're going to go elsewhere, and you're eventually going to
Speaker 4: go out of business.
Speaker 1: Is seth while helping He's the right guy in the
Speaker 1: driver's seat, But is there a vehicle he can drive
Speaker 1: that can make it any better?
Speaker 5: People are put on earth to make everybody's lives better, right, Like?
Speaker 5: How can he not want to be surrounded by those people?
Speaker 1: Right then?
Speaker 5: And that's what our PGA professional is. You know, it's
Speaker 5: not perfect, We're not perfect times far from perfect. We're
Speaker 5: moving the needle, making a lot of progress and I
Speaker 5: hope people are noticing it. But that's not the point either, right.
Speaker 5: The point is leaving the room better. And I'm going
Speaker 5: to keep fighting to do that every day.
Speaker 6: Put another log on the fire. Nobody here is given time.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the fire pit with Matt Janella.
Speaker 7: We're back for part three of this series on the
Speaker 7: club pro crisis. In parts one and two. Through the
Speaker 7: process of talking to current and former PGA professionals, From
Speaker 7: talking to people like Butch Harmon and Shane Ryan, who
Speaker 7: in May of twenty twenty two wrote a story for
Speaker 7: Golf Dies entitled the Club pro Crisis, We've been able
Speaker 7: to piece together the issues. It's a work life balance,
Speaker 7: too many hours for not enough pay that's simply not
Speaker 7: working for this next generation. There's the Internet and free
Speaker 7: acts to information and instruction. There's an awareness issue in
Speaker 7: that leadership at some clubs, some memberships, certain clientele of
Speaker 7: courses across the country, and in my case, the media.
Speaker 7: They we are not aware that a problem exists. It's
Speaker 7: not common knowledge that clubs and courses are struggling to
Speaker 7: find and keep good help. Not enough people know PGM
Speaker 7: programs have been closing throughout the country, and I'm not
Speaker 7: sure enough people know how and why. COVID exacerbated all
Speaker 7: of the above. Before we get to some possible solutions,
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Speaker 7: three of this series where we left off in part
Speaker 7: two with Shane Ryan on COVID's impact on the industry
Speaker 7: and his thoughts on where we go from here.
Speaker 4: It got worse and it exposed a problem that's been
Speaker 4: existing for a long time, but it magnified it and
Speaker 4: exposed it. And I think, you know, things like I wrote,
Speaker 4: and I'm certainly not the only one. People are being
Speaker 4: far more outspoken on this now. And so yeah, it's
Speaker 4: come to the forefront of attention. And yeah, like I
Speaker 4: said before, it gets to the question of now, what
Speaker 4: do you do now, how do you fix it?
Speaker 7: If you can fix it, and what are your thoughts
Speaker 7: on that after all of your reporting and listening and learning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in terms of fixing it. You know, the really
Speaker 4: interesting thing I found when I started this, I thought
Speaker 4: it would be a money thing that you know, they
Speaker 4: weren't making enough money. That's really not the case. You know,
Speaker 4: some head pros make really good money. Money for assistance
Speaker 4: even has gone up, you know quite well in the
Speaker 4: last five to ten years. The problem is time. The
Speaker 4: time is the thing that's killing them. And especially for
Speaker 4: young people, either who are still in the industry but
Speaker 4: thinking of getting out or the ones who did get out,
Speaker 4: they're looking at the head pros. They worked under who
Speaker 4: may have had the dream job right that they said,
Speaker 4: this is where I want to be. And what they
Speaker 4: see is that that head pro never sees his children,
Speaker 4: that head pro got divorced, he's an alcoholic, he's depressed,
Speaker 4: whatever the case is. They go, even the dream jo
Speaker 4: doesn't look good. It's kind of terrible. And so time
Speaker 4: is the critical issue. So you need to instead of
Speaker 4: paying your assistant twenty thousand dollars more in your head
Speaker 4: pro twenty thousand dollars more, you need to hire another assistant,
Speaker 4: which is more expensive. Right, But that's the thing. More
Speaker 4: people is the only thing that reduces the collective hours
Speaker 4: that everybody has to work. And the solution is simple
Speaker 4: in that sense, but not simple for these clubs to
Speaker 4: actually do because it is obviously a budgetary cost.
Speaker 7: Here's Chandler Whittington again, a voice from parts one and two,
Speaker 7: Withington worked at Seminal Marion and Hazelteine, which is where
Speaker 7: he resigned from his post as head professional in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty one.
Speaker 2: There's this generational gap. And I told Seth and Pepper
Speaker 2: to twenty I said, you've got to get the leaders
Speaker 2: of CMAA, the club manders association the same room with PGA,
Speaker 2: and we need to understand each other better. You know,
Speaker 2: how are things changing? Who are we, where are we now?
Speaker 2: What are we going? And what is crucial art to
Speaker 2: our success and what will ultimately cripple us if we
Speaker 2: don't address it. So that article is meant to be
Speaker 2: awareness first education seconds. You know, we want the we
Speaker 2: want club pros understand like you know, Kelly Williams from
Speaker 2: Kentucky used the Big l work. We want to have
Speaker 2: it in there is like there's never timers right now,
Speaker 2: you know, not just club pros but superintendents to leverage
Speaker 2: yourself because the competition is dwindling by the day.
Speaker 7: More from Cody Sinkler, director of golf operations at the
Speaker 7: park in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's one solution other than.
Speaker 8: Us using our voices and making sure that we prioritize
Speaker 8: our own work life balance and make sure that we're
Speaker 8: working for employers who are going to do the same.
Speaker 8: And and I frankly don't think we should tolerate if
Speaker 8: if we're being expected to kill ourselves to speak, we
Speaker 8: just have to someone's got to just stop it. Say
Speaker 8: this is Enough's enough? And I want to work a
Speaker 8: forty hour week. I want to have two days off
Speaker 8: A lot to ask right day is off a week.
Speaker 8: But it's little things, so employers. So in my case,
Speaker 8: you know, we're a startup facility. We'll be adding employees soon,
Speaker 8: and one of the first I mean one of the
Speaker 8: first things that we'll be doing is assessing any ways
Speaker 8: we can the work life balance of anyone we bring
Speaker 8: on to our team and adding perks. I mean, I've
Speaker 8: seen job postings from high end private clubs. I counted
Speaker 8: one recently that had about thirty bullet points under responsibilities
Speaker 8: and qualifications and one bullet point under benefits and it
Speaker 8: just said competitive pay. So we need to realize that
Speaker 8: these people are trying to make a career. I mean,
Speaker 8: let's make sure we're giving them pay. We're giving them
Speaker 8: retirement with a match. We're giving them health benefits, We're
Speaker 8: giving them family benefits at the club or golf course.
Speaker 8: We're giving them two days off a week, two days
Speaker 8: off a week. I mean, it's little things that can
Speaker 8: add up to making a big change for our industry.
Speaker 8: Young people are not going to want to come in
Speaker 8: and work six and seven day weeks, sixty hour weeks
Speaker 8: and make fifteen dollars an hour. They just don't want
Speaker 8: to do it, and I don't blame them, by the way.
Speaker 7: And here's Connor Evers, who graduated from the PGM program
Speaker 7: at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. After several successful
Speaker 7: internships at elite clubs all over the world. His current
Speaker 7: job is expedition planning manager for Haversham and Baker, a
Speaker 7: company that describes themselves as quote the country a club
Speaker 7: of international golf travel.
Speaker 9: I would just say more more work life balance. I
Speaker 9: have a great friend here in Cincinnati. Uh he works
Speaker 9: at it's called Kenwood Country Club and he's he's actually
Speaker 9: a head professional there and a part of his interview
Speaker 9: and actually it's funny, I'm speaking to a lot of
Speaker 9: my my my friends are also PGA professionals at interviewing
Speaker 9: for different jobs. That's one of our questions now, And
Speaker 9: that was never one of my questions many of my interviews,
Speaker 9: you know, when I was you know, doing doing internship
Speaker 9: interviews a little bit different than you know, postgraduate stuff.
Speaker 9: But that's actually one of one of the questions now,
Speaker 9: like what what are these clubs doing for work life balance.
Speaker 9: You know, how many days am I expecting to be off,
Speaker 9: you know, per week? And how much golf am I
Speaker 9: able to play? Am I able to play with members?
Speaker 9: It's just more of those questions that I really don't
Speaker 9: think Matt you would ask, You would ask in an
Speaker 9: interview in the golf industry even three years ago, two
Speaker 9: or three years ago. So I think that's a great
Speaker 9: change in the right direction. But I would say, you know,
Speaker 9: magical line like yourself, I would say work life balance
Speaker 9: for sure. Kind of looking back at it.
Speaker 7: More from Robins mainly, who became a class A pro
Speaker 7: twenty years ago. He was an assistant pro at Breckinridge
Speaker 7: Golf Club for both decades. After getting married at the
Speaker 7: age of forty six, he left the golf industry to
Speaker 7: sell real estate.
Speaker 3: I think also a thing that could be done better
Speaker 3: is that one than all these management companies have for
Speaker 3: the most part of taking over the shops. So there's
Speaker 3: very few pros that own the shop. But you make
Speaker 3: it part of the package, not what you grew up with,
Speaker 3: but you make it where the where all the members
Speaker 3: own the shop, all the PGA members, And yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a higher cut for the head dog. But there's a
Speaker 3: you know, then I'm trying hard to sell a driver
Speaker 3: out on the range, and I'm coming in for more
Speaker 3: club fittings because there's I'm regripping more clubs because I
Speaker 3: have a piece of the action, and I think that's
Speaker 3: where then the shops I think would make more money
Speaker 3: because all the assistants are pushing harder. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're just paying them an hourly wage, they're just going
Speaker 3: to come in and do their job and leave. So
Speaker 3: if there's a skin in the game, you always work harder.
Speaker 3: You know, you guys are starting your own thing, and
Speaker 3: all of you are working harder than you probably did before.
Speaker 3: But that's because there's skin in the game. And I
Speaker 3: think that could be the ultimate solution because then if
Speaker 3: the pro shop grows and more sales, then it's not
Speaker 3: coming out of the operator's expense.
Speaker 7: And here's Josh Doxentter, general manager at Harbor Shores Resort
Speaker 7: in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Speaker 10: Don't.
Speaker 11: I don't think it's an easy or equip fix because
Speaker 11: you know, we're we're members of an organization that has
Speaker 11: no say into our operations and ownership, right, so we
Speaker 11: work for either an ownership group of board or management companies,
Speaker 11: but the PGA does not own in the facility, so
Speaker 11: there's only so much that they can do. I think
Speaker 11: being in you know, I was in the Southwest section
Speaker 11: for eleven years. I was in the Wisconsin section four
Speaker 11: and a half years. Now I'm in Michigan. Been in
Speaker 11: this section for over three years. And what I've seen
Speaker 11: is something in every single section is that the typical
Speaker 11: PG member feels like there's they don't have a voice,
Speaker 11: like they don't they're not being heard, and is there
Speaker 11: some truth to that?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 11: I think, you know, I have the opportunity, because of
Speaker 11: the Senior PGA Championship, because of other things, to have
Speaker 11: maybe more of an inside look. I sit on the
Speaker 11: national board for PGA works, you know, and be able
Speaker 11: to kind of see what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 11: But I would also say that if you if you
Speaker 11: want to be a part of change, you have to
Speaker 11: put yourself in that mix, right If you want to
Speaker 11: have a voice, you need to start running for your board,
Speaker 11: you need to start, you know, doing different things to
Speaker 11: get involved in the PG of America. Do I think
Speaker 11: that Seth has done a great job as CEO so far. Absolutely,
Speaker 11: he's really he's been the first one in a while
Speaker 11: that's really taken to heart what the PGA members are
Speaker 11: seeing and really trying to find ways to get around
Speaker 11: some of the challenges that they face for decades.
Speaker 7: We'll get to more on Seth Wall later and he
Speaker 7: gets his own episode, but for now, it's back to
Speaker 7: Cody Sinkler.
Speaker 8: I know right now, as these numbers drop, as less
Speaker 8: people are getting into this profession, we can be more
Speaker 8: selective with where we work option A versus option B.
Speaker 8: If you're going to offer me a five day work
Speaker 8: week and you're not, I don't want to work for you.
Speaker 8: So we need to be more selective, and employers should
Speaker 8: just try to do every little all these little things
Speaker 8: can add up every little thing they can to improve
Speaker 8: work life balance and put it at the forefront. Be creative.
Speaker 8: One weekend, day off a month, I mean two days
Speaker 8: off a week. There's a lot of things floating, holidays.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of things we can do that can
Speaker 8: add up. But the pg of America has been a
Speaker 8: positive voice, but the onus is on the employers for sure.
Speaker 7: Here's Butch Harmon and his thoughts on where we go
Speaker 7: from here is the pg of America helping? Is Seth
Speaker 7: waw helping? Do you see some sense of hope and
Speaker 7: progress going now back in the right direction direction?
Speaker 2: Well, as you know, I've.
Speaker 1: Never been a member of the PGA my whole existence,
Speaker 1: and people ask me why, and there is no real reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I'm just kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit of a rebel, I guess, and I do things
Speaker 1: the way I want to do it. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying the PGA is bad because it's not. Seth why,
Speaker 1: I think is the best guy they could have in
Speaker 1: charge of the PGA of America right now, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: He's a guy you and I know very well. He's
Speaker 1: the guy that loves golf. Yes, he was a great
Speaker 1: businessman with Deutsche Bank and stuff, but he's been involved
Speaker 1: in golf and around golf his whole life. So he's
Speaker 1: the right guy, is there. But just because you have
Speaker 1: the right guy, how are you going to change this?
Speaker 1: How are you going to take you know? They love
Speaker 1: to say I don't know how many members they have
Speaker 1: twenty seven thousand or are you hear it? At the
Speaker 1: PGA for all the twenty seven twenty twenty eight thousand
Speaker 1: PGA members. Okay, you have all these members, how are
Speaker 1: you going to create an environment that's going to make
Speaker 1: their life better. That's going to be hard for this
Speaker 1: organization to do this. And the PGA of America should
Speaker 1: be like a union. They should take care of all
Speaker 1: their members. Remember when COVID hit oh who was it
Speaker 1: that had all the discount stores A Dix They had
Speaker 1: all these discounts, so that had all these young PGA
Speaker 1: pros working there as teachers. They fired them all the
Speaker 1: government of all of them. So all these young people
Speaker 1: that were involved and teaching in the Dick's stores, in
Speaker 1: their teaching base and stuff, who were supposedly working to
Speaker 1: be a PGA member, and a lot of them were
Speaker 1: PGA members, were gone. And do anything about that. They
Speaker 1: didn't go to Dick's and try and fight for them
Speaker 1: and say hey, no, you need to be here. So this,
Speaker 1: this company, the PGA of America, needs to take care
Speaker 1: of it it's people better. And I think Seth is
Speaker 1: a guy who can do that. But how do you
Speaker 1: do it? I mean, it's gone, it's gone downhill for
Speaker 1: so long. And please, for all of your PGA pros
Speaker 1: out there at head professionals. I'm not knocking you. We're
Speaker 1: just talking about what the system has become, not you
Speaker 1: as an individual. I know you guys are great golf pros.
Speaker 1: You do the best you can with your job, but
Speaker 1: you're caught in an industry now that doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: really care about you.
Speaker 7: Back to Chandler Withington, why would or wouldn't there be
Speaker 7: a unionization of of PGA club pros.
Speaker 2: It's becoming a reality. I mean, let's look at Amazon
Speaker 2: and Starbucks. You know, it comes a point where employees
Speaker 2: are like, we actually, you know, we're in a position
Speaker 2: to make the terms now, and that's what we're trying
Speaker 2: to kill you willms using that leverage where tell the
Speaker 2: pros like, you're actually at a point where you actually
Speaker 2: now have the leverage use it, you know, And you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's like you need to take people
Speaker 2: to the shed on it, but it's just creating realistic
Speaker 2: and accomplishable expectations across the board that like Visa the standards,
Speaker 2: we're not going to work more than fifty five a week.
Speaker 2: You know. After then it's the law of diminishing return, right,
Speaker 2: so you don't need to ask for everything you can't
Speaker 2: get everything, but what's really most important, and what we
Speaker 2: just kind of learned from that was it's not more money,
Speaker 2: it's just more time away, you know, having a sustainable life.
Speaker 5: That's all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, seems fair.
Speaker 2: You'll like to think, right like, I'm sad that I
Speaker 2: had to leave to find it, but I was at
Speaker 2: peace immediately, even though we didn't know where we where
Speaker 2: we were.
Speaker 5: Going to go.
Speaker 2: It was a My wife saw it, you know, when
Speaker 2: I kind of was like, that's it, we're moving on.
Speaker 2: It happened quickly. She's like, you're totally a peace with this,
Speaker 2: I said, I am. When I start thinking about all
Speaker 2: that I'm not going to deal with. I'm going to
Speaker 2: miss a lot of it. But the stuff I'm not
Speaker 2: going to miss, you know, I know it's going to be.
Speaker 2: It's going to get weird here for us. We don't
Speaker 2: know where we're going. We're gonna move whatever in kids,
Speaker 2: and but you're going to see a lot more of me,
Speaker 2: and that's what we've gotten.
Speaker 7: Shane Ryan on the possibility of unionizing.
Speaker 4: It would take an incredible act of collectivization, right. It
Speaker 4: would take a collective labor act that would be very
Speaker 4: difficult to get all these people, like you said, in
Speaker 4: these siloed disparate clubs to do it would certainly help them.
Speaker 4: And you know, this is far from the only industry
Speaker 4: where you can say this, but you and I talking,
Speaker 4: it's hard not to leap to just what you said. Boy,
Speaker 4: how useful would a labor union be if they could strike, right?
Speaker 4: I mean, if they could do these things even, you know,
Speaker 4: if they could you know, talk to each other and
Speaker 4: say like, okay, you know, this is what we all make,
Speaker 4: here's the standard. How do we fight for it? And
Speaker 4: you shouldn't accept thirty thousand dollars even if you're you know,
Speaker 4: in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania or something like that.
Speaker 4: There's all these things that would be good to do.
Speaker 4: The question of can they do it? It would take
Speaker 4: a separate organization, I think from the PJA of America.
Speaker 4: I don't think that would be the unionizing force. It
Speaker 4: would take them organizing it themselves, and it would take
Speaker 4: incredible buy in. And that's you love to dream of it,
Speaker 4: but it's I guess I'm probably a little cynical about
Speaker 4: whether that can or will happen.
Speaker 7: Why would you say you're cynical? You know, hearing from
Speaker 7: so many or what where does that come from?
Speaker 4: The cynicism would be that to have a union, you're
Speaker 4: going to have to have people pay union dues, right,
Speaker 4: So you're going to have to ask for money from
Speaker 4: the club pros and you're going to have to get
Speaker 4: a buy in of over fifty percent.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 4: And again we're looking at there's nothing joining any of
Speaker 4: these organizations together except they're all golf clubs. Right. There's
Speaker 4: no fundamental commonality other than that, and so that's hard
Speaker 4: to get people to do that even in you know,
Speaker 4: you can look at any other like the auto industry
Speaker 4: in the US, right, There's it's tough for unions to
Speaker 4: thrive even in that because it's very easy for people
Speaker 4: to sort of propagandize against unions by saying, what are
Speaker 4: they going to do for you? You know, just deal
Speaker 4: with management. We're friendly. And let's face it, if you're
Speaker 4: an assistant pro at some club where you like to
Speaker 4: be and you don't want to move, and the idea
Speaker 4: is you're going to join a union and antagonize for
Speaker 4: higher wages, well, the union you're going to join is
Speaker 4: going to be full of people that aren't from where
Speaker 4: you're from right, it's going to be this network that
Speaker 4: you have, but the people you're dealing with every day
Speaker 4: are your bosses that you literally see every time you
Speaker 4: go into work, and so that's it's a tough situation.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's the problem with unions everywhere, so
Speaker 4: getting that on a large scale together when there's no
Speaker 4: framework for it yet, right, It's not like there's an
Speaker 4: old club, you know, club pros union that just needs
Speaker 4: to be reactivated. There's literally nothing, and so I think
Speaker 4: that's very very high bar to clear.
Speaker 7: Back to Robin's manly of Breckinridge, unionizing is something that's
Speaker 7: been mentioned but seems incredibly unrealistic considering the the fragmentation
Speaker 7: of the PGA of America isn't in control here. It's
Speaker 7: course by course, club by club. There's no there's no
Speaker 7: true way of trying to get together like the masses
Speaker 7: to organize, right. It just almost seems oddly unrealistic completely.
Speaker 3: I think I was involved in unionization and Ski Patrol,
Speaker 3: which is a very similar It's funny that I was
Speaker 3: in two businesses that were work their tail off and
Speaker 3: we're grossly underpaid. But Ski Patrol has they've been able
Speaker 3: to form union. Veil resorts own so many resorts that
Speaker 3: they've been able to unionize because it is just a
Speaker 3: ski resort, the same employee running. I don't know how
Speaker 3: much you have ever skied, but so I'm in the
Speaker 3: thralls of that as well. But there's zero chance of
Speaker 3: being able to have a unionization of golf professionals. I
Speaker 3: can't possibly see how that could. Yeah, I or call
Speaker 3: it impossible.
Speaker 11: Josh Dockson, I don't know if it's completely appropriate. I
Speaker 11: think to me again, it's it's more of help educate
Speaker 11: everybody around you what the job of pg professional is.
Speaker 11: It's not coming into work and you know, hanging out
Speaker 11: for a couple of hours playing golf and then you know,
Speaker 11: having a couple of drinks at the bar. That's not
Speaker 11: a PGA professional, right, And it's really helping people understand
Speaker 11: what that looks like. I know the PGA did some
Speaker 11: campaigns in years past about thank your PGA professional and
Speaker 11: stuff like that, but I think it's more than that.
Speaker 11: It's more of an education to be like, hey, this
Speaker 11: is what we're here for. We're here to serve. That's
Speaker 11: ultimately what PGA professionals. We're here to serve. We're here
Speaker 11: to grow the game. We're here to make sure that
Speaker 11: you know, if we're truly the experts in golf, that
Speaker 11: you can come to us anything golf related, and we can.
Speaker 10: If we don't have the.
Speaker 11: Answer, we can at least steer you in the right direction.
Speaker 11: And like I said, my biggest focus is trying to
Speaker 11: make sure that we have less bums coming up through
Speaker 11: the Apprentice program and more stars Channler Withington.
Speaker 2: Look, I think the point about like, look, you know
Speaker 2: there are a lot of club pros that can't break
Speaker 2: eighty is valid, But I also understand the reasons why
Speaker 2: I can. I want to give you that whole history,
Speaker 2: going back to Alan Robertson talk about when did things shift,
Speaker 2: you know, and how did you take club pros like
Speaker 2: Bob Ford in the eighties who was qualifying for the
Speaker 2: US Open and playing it whiles he's hosting it to
Speaker 2: now forty years later, Like you'll never see that again.
Speaker 2: People be like, you'll never see a pro at a
Speaker 2: club like that qualify for you, So well, why keep
Speaker 2: in mind, like and you probably know that some of
Speaker 2: the qualifications like and this may be something pre to
Speaker 2: talk with Seth about. I think I've talked about this
Speaker 2: with Seth, but I'm going to talk to Don Rey
Speaker 2: at the annual meeting. But I don't know how much
Speaker 2: really the PGA can do. Right Seth has been banging
Speaker 2: the drum like he's been at met meetings and our things,
Speaker 2: trying to tell club leaders like, look, this is your
Speaker 2: opportunity to fix this. We can't fix it for you.
Speaker 2: We oversee the professionals. But unless professionals unionized, which isn't
Speaker 2: out of the realm. I don't think that's a crazy
Speaker 2: thought anymore. But until then, like, the PGA really can't
Speaker 2: force any work.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: How work is handled, right, That all comes it's club
Speaker 2: the club. Every culture is different, but the qualifications to
Speaker 2: be a PGA member. I passed my playing ability test
Speaker 2: on the same day that pains to Or died in
Speaker 2: October twenty sixth, nineteen ninety nine. I you know, plast
Speaker 2: playmabilly test. Now I am here a PGA member twenty
Speaker 2: three years later, and I've never had any standard of
Speaker 2: my playing since it doesn't matter if I can't break
Speaker 2: one hundred right now, I'm still a PGA member, right
Speaker 2: So I hate to kind of throw it in this context,
Speaker 2: but like very much the same as live. Right, what's
Speaker 2: the motivation to play well in more when it's all guaranteed, right,
Speaker 2: my salary and my contract's not tied to how well
Speaker 2: I play. I think if you actually do some digging
Speaker 2: on this, from what I understand, maybe things have changed.
Speaker 2: Australian PGA does have a standard playing requirement, like you're
Speaker 2: indexcess to always be like a three or something like that,
Speaker 2: so that people look at Austrian and PJ players they
Speaker 2: know what they can play. Now the business is completely
Speaker 2: different in Australia, but like playing on my strong, pg's
Speaker 2: put it a high emphasis over the last thirty years, PGA,
Speaker 2: like clubs and board leaders been like we don't care
Speaker 2: if you can break seventy, Like who's going to run
Speaker 2: that outing on Monday? You know who's going to sell
Speaker 2: that membership, Like you know who's going to run the Ladies' night. Right,
Speaker 2: It's become more of the admin and the staff and
Speaker 2: the service level less about helping us play the game,
Speaker 2: because we've got teachers who are you know, one hundred
Speaker 2: percent full time teachers who can help us with that
Speaker 2: use the club pro We don't care if you can
Speaker 2: play more you do this and it's gotten kind of
Speaker 2: a fragment a little bit. And I think that's when
Speaker 2: you see people getting out. It's like like, you know,
Speaker 2: we all got into this because we love playing the game,
Speaker 2: and then it's just over the years, like it's gone down.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 2: Look, if you worked for Bob Ford like I did,
Speaker 2: he told you like the minute you start posting scores
Speaker 2: in the eighties and tournaments, just take my name right
Speaker 2: off the resume.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 2: So we've always been like pushed by Bob to like
Speaker 2: maintain our game. And I'm glad I did. Like I'm
Speaker 2: not a pro anymore, Like I'm still trying to play better, right,
Speaker 2: But I think that's what you've just kind of seen.
Speaker 2: Like again, you weren't wrong, but I just want you
Speaker 2: to understand how do we get here, you know, because
Speaker 2: that wasn't the case thirty forty years ago.
Speaker 7: More from Shane Ryan. I was talking to a couple
Speaker 7: of own, you know, assistant pros who have now gone
Speaker 7: on to other industries. And if you've got these assistants
Speaker 7: who are good people people and they're they're making friends
Speaker 7: at these clubs, and these people are then you know,
Speaker 7: our CEOs or or you know, own or part of
Speaker 7: in a position to pluck these people out and bring
Speaker 7: them into other industries. You know, that's good for these
Speaker 7: assistant pros. They're they're utilizing this this this platform, so
Speaker 7: to speak, and getting jobs and other industry. But that's
Speaker 7: bad for the industry because now you just lost your
Speaker 7: best people because they're not being paid. Now they're going
Speaker 7: to get It's so easy to get them out of you,
Speaker 7: Like I can double your salary if your salary is
Speaker 7: thirty grand. It's pretty easy to double someone's salary as
Speaker 7: a position or triple it and say come work for me.
Speaker 7: And so that's a benefit for these people, but a
Speaker 7: bad thing for the industry.
Speaker 4: It's true. And you know, the interesting thing is the
Speaker 4: reason all these people got into the industry is because
Speaker 4: they love golf. Right, you don't get into it because
Speaker 4: you're like, oh, I'm going to become a millionaire or
Speaker 4: anything like that. And so a lot of that I
Speaker 4: like you. I talked to a lot of people who
Speaker 4: had left the industry and they're glad they left because
Speaker 4: the stress was killing them. And then they have more
Speaker 4: of a family life. But almost all of them have
Speaker 4: a sense of regret. It's not like, you know, they
Speaker 4: still want to work in golf, that that was the dream.
Speaker 4: It's not like they're you know, in their sales job
Speaker 4: or whatever. They may be happy and they may be
Speaker 4: more content, but there is something lost there. In other words,
Speaker 4: if you treat these people correctly, you know, and give
Speaker 4: them a little bit of work life balance, they want
Speaker 4: to stay in the golf and they don't want to
Speaker 4: be blocked by the club member. They want to be
Speaker 4: where they are. It's just that the situation becomes untenable
Speaker 4: and they and they start to see for my family life,
Speaker 4: from my mental health, I better get the hell out
Speaker 4: of here or my life will be miserable.
Speaker 7: Brad Sniper, I.
Speaker 10: Work somewhere where one of their former assistant pros hit
Speaker 10: it off with one of the members and the member
Speaker 10: ended up paying for him to go to law school
Speaker 10: and he works at his law firm. Now there you
Speaker 10: hear all these stories about you know, professionals getting into
Speaker 10: that side of the industry, you know, getting close with
Speaker 10: a member or someone who works at the club, or yeah,
Speaker 10: like you said, just connecting with someone through golf, whether
Speaker 10: it's a club or outside of the club, being a
Speaker 10: golf professional. It kind of it forces you to be
Speaker 10: that kind of even if it's not your natural kind
Speaker 10: of inclination. It forces you to be a people person.
Speaker 10: It forces you to step out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 10: And it's really hard if you're not able to see
Speaker 10: the person walking up to the tee, if you're starting groups,
Speaker 10: start a conversation, find something to relate to, whether it's
Speaker 10: a logo on their shirt, Oh did you play XYZ club?
Speaker 2: I was there a couple of weeks ago, whatever.
Speaker 10: It's It teaches you how to make those connections, and
Speaker 10: that serves you pretty much anywhere in life. You know,
Speaker 10: if you can adjust to a different environment, whether it's
Speaker 10: golf or not being able to put yourself in an
Speaker 10: environment that might not be your comfort zone and still
Speaker 10: adapt and thrive there, that serves you anywhere in life,
Speaker 10: not just golf. So I feel like what we do
Speaker 10: does kind of prepare you for just life in general
Speaker 10: and succeeding anywhere. And there are these stories, yeah, of
Speaker 10: people getting their start in the industry in green Grass,
Speaker 10: but kind of either tagging along with someone somewhere else
Speaker 10: finding success in another business, industry, whatever it may be,
Speaker 10: because of that foundation of skills that you get as
Speaker 10: a golf professional.
Speaker 9: For sure.
Speaker 7: Connor Evers again, who graduated from the PGM program at
Speaker 7: Methodist University in Fayettville, North Carolina.
Speaker 9: There's so much any stories so or I went to
Speaker 9: went to school. There's a thirteen hundred alumni from the program,
Speaker 9: and they've had the PGM program there since I believe
Speaker 9: they started in eighty six. They used to know all
Speaker 9: the stuff off the top I had when I worked there,
Speaker 9: but now I don't. But so to eighty six, a
Speaker 9: little over thirteen hundred alumni, and there's so many stories
Speaker 9: of you know, people in their mid twenties, really thirties,
Speaker 9: their goal one day is to be a head professional,
Speaker 9: director of golf, director of instruction at a top club.
Speaker 9: And they meet someone and they're the director of you know,
Speaker 9: beer or wine sales for a huge distributor in Chicago,
Speaker 9: and they're done. You know, it happens that way because
Speaker 9: you know, a lot of these top executives at clubs,
Speaker 9: that's their getaway is being at the golf course and
Speaker 9: being a member there and they're a little bit more
Speaker 9: relaxed and have a conversation with someone and that's where
Speaker 9: the conversations start is in spark around the golf course
Speaker 9: and around the club. So so yeah, you just never know,
Speaker 9: you never.
Speaker 7: Know exactly Robin's manly. It could still an entry point
Speaker 7: to something that's so unrelated from golf, but it starts
Speaker 7: in golf, and then golf continues to have to try
Speaker 7: to figure out how to piece this all together.
Speaker 3: Huge absolutely correct, especially in the private sector. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're a good assistant, you're gonna you're going to
Speaker 3: have a member that enjoys your work ethic and enjoys
Speaker 3: how you communicate with people and and organizational skills and
Speaker 3: all that that you can take to another another job.
Speaker 3: So that's and and there's a huge number that have
Speaker 3: done that. I've got a ton of friends that got
Speaker 3: their their current job through going through golf. But golf
Speaker 3: needs people to stay. You know, if this growth, and
Speaker 3: you mentioned COVID and I that's when I that's when
Speaker 3: I was done good and bad. But it's but it's
Speaker 3: monkers and it's but it's not going to last forever,
Speaker 3: you know, the the I would have to think that
Speaker 3: as an average we're going to start start seeing a
Speaker 3: tick around down before it just can't continue. I don't
Speaker 3: think and then where where's that? Yeah, I don't Seth
Speaker 3: probably had some pretty good, pretty good answers and ideas.
Speaker 3: The problem is getting those ideas out and into the
Speaker 3: hands of the employer. The whether it's the management company,
Speaker 3: privately owned, resort, course, municipal course, it's the employer that
Speaker 3: has to know these problems. And I think as I
Speaker 3: was at the at the meeting and we were on
Speaker 3: a break, I was like, we've got to get these
Speaker 3: employers to some of these meetings. It doesn't do a
Speaker 3: great job for all of us pros to be here
Speaker 3: some of these employers. And I think I don't know
Speaker 3: if Seth mentioned that, but that would be a starting
Speaker 3: point for sure, would be the PGA of America saying,
Speaker 3: let's get the employers together and explain our side of
Speaker 3: the story so they understand it better. Because I think
Speaker 3: there's just a disconnect from the very tippy top down
Speaker 3: to that that assistant pro where if I keep using
Speaker 3: the word assistant bro. But there's club pros, heat pros
Speaker 3: that still aren't making great money. They're certainly making better money,
Speaker 3: but very very few are making the six figures Chandler Withington.
Speaker 2: All that needs to happen is for leader at every
Speaker 2: club to be like, you know, if you're the pro listen,
Speaker 2: you know when that's not here on Sunday or he's
Speaker 2: not here on Tuesday, he's with his family, and we
Speaker 2: support that, and you know, we're not going to be
Speaker 2: texting him, you know outside of the hours of nine
Speaker 2: to five, we're not going to be emailing outside ninety five.
Speaker 2: Our expectations for this person that change, and we're we're
Speaker 2: going to have a better and happier employee and you know,
Speaker 2: a longer tenure relationship because of it. There are no
Speaker 2: bad people in this equation. We just have missed to
Speaker 2: understand the shift in the priority of life. And it's
Speaker 2: not a bad shift, Like we'll all come out of
Speaker 2: this better if we just recognize it, hire a few
Speaker 2: other a few more employees to like to compensate for it,
Speaker 2: and and we'll have better relationships and better staff and
Speaker 2: better people and like a better product. Where I'd be
Speaker 2: sad for our association and the game. It's like we
Speaker 2: still have a lot of great people left in it,
Speaker 2: but we're losing people by the day and eventually, like
Speaker 2: we're going to wake up tomorrow and go where they
Speaker 2: all go, you know, and and you know, why didn't
Speaker 2: we do something about this sooner? You know, there's there
Speaker 2: should be people like me that are eighteen and wanting
Speaker 2: to be the pro. The pro should be that thing
Speaker 2: that people want to be. And I just don't want
Speaker 2: to see it get the black eye that it's getting
Speaker 2: right now. You know, I think we've got a chance
Speaker 2: to do something here. And look your microphone, chance, Shane's
Speaker 2: Penn and many others. You know, we collectively tell this
Speaker 2: story and try to get people look in the mirror
Speaker 2: and recognize what's going on. We'll be okay. You know,
Speaker 2: se Seth gets it. You know he's been talking about it,
Speaker 2: and you'll have a good conversation with him.
Speaker 7: Next up in part four of this series, My conversation
Speaker 7: with Seth Wall, former CEO of Deutsche Bank and CEO
Speaker 7: of the PG of America since September of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5: You know, I can't pay them more, but I can
Speaker 5: try to get people to pay them more by having
Speaker 5: them understand and then having them realize that they're not
Speaker 5: an asset, They're not a lever. You can pull their
Speaker 5: people right who have kids and colleges and tuitions, to
Speaker 5: pay and car payments and you know, et cetera, cetera.
Speaker 1: Right, and and.
Speaker 5: They work, you know, in a great industry doing something
Speaker 5: they love, but ungottly hours. Right, And it's a little
Speaker 5: bit you know, too much chocolate ice cream, right, Like
Speaker 5: it's great until you know you have you have too much?
Speaker 5: Like people say, well, do you play much, and go, no,
Speaker 5: I'm in the industry. I don't play at all, right,
Speaker 5: And it's kind of like, well that's crazy, Like if
Speaker 5: we can't play, like, who can, right, So I think
Speaker 5: it's a matter of freeing our pros up to do
Speaker 5: what they love. Is just a play more. Play with members,
Speaker 5: play with guests, play with you know with if you're
Speaker 5: at a municipal course, play in a you know, a
Speaker 5: Skins game or whatever it is you do, right, Like,
Speaker 5: how else are you going to you know, understand your
Speaker 5: customers better?
Speaker 6: Put another log on the fire. Nobody here is get
Speaker 6: the tie