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Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

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Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

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Speaker 2: And when I find my ball.

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Speaker 1: In a bried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg,

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Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg Lie,

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Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and my

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Speaker 1: guest today is Shane Bacon. Shane is the host of

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Speaker 1: the excellent podcast Get a Grip, a friend of the

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Speaker 1: Friday Egg, and now a children's book author. Shane's new

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Speaker 1: book is called The Golfer's Zoo. It was published by

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Speaker 1: back nine Press and you can order it right now.

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Speaker 1: So Shane and I are going to talk about this

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Speaker 1: book and about the occasionally fraught relationship between parenting and golf.

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Speaker 1: But I also thought we'd discuss Shane's background in writing.

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Speaker 1: He actually got his start in golf media as a blogger,

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Speaker 1: and he has some interesting takes on how the media

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Speaker 1: landscape has shifted in the past fifteen years or so. Now.

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Speaker 1: Shane is the first of a few book authors we're

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Speaker 1: planning to have on the podcast in November and December.

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Speaker 1: I figure it's getting cold outside in a lot of places,

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Speaker 1: golf season is winding down, and it's a good time

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Speaker 1: to bring some new books into your life. So we'll

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Speaker 1: give you a few different options over the next couple

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Speaker 1: of months. All right with that, let's go to Shane Bacon.

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Speaker 2: This is, you know, kind of middle of the book

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Speaker 2: is when I get a little I get a little

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Speaker 2: frisky with the book and I try to take a

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Speaker 2: little digs. It's some of the moms and dads that

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Speaker 2: are potentially reading to their kids that aren't the best golfers.

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Speaker 2: Golf uses animal terms like eagle and birdie and holes

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Speaker 2: that are dog legs, move left or right. On the

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Speaker 2: seventh and eighth lives a family of owl's who ask

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Speaker 2: who with some serious fright And you can see, uh,

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Speaker 2: you can see the beautiful A V L illustration there

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Speaker 2: with the al He just crushed it. But yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 2: you know, that's pretty surreal to continue to kind of

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Speaker 2: look at it and see this thing actually in hand.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've only Garrett, I've only had this in

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Speaker 2: hand for like four days. So to uh get an

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Speaker 2: opportunity to like see it and actually read it out

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Speaker 2: loud to you. You're the first person I've read this

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Speaker 2: book to as I've opened it up. I just want

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Speaker 2: you to know that.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, so you haven't read this to your

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Speaker 1: kids yet.

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Speaker 2: So my my my wife did, uh my wife when

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Speaker 2: we got the book.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I saw you tweeted about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my wife. My wife grabbed a

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Speaker 2: copy and she went and laid on the bed and

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Speaker 2: I went in there and sat with them. And I

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Speaker 2: think it's, you know, I live in a in a

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Speaker 2: in a world where I'm supposed to enjoy the spotlight

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Speaker 2: being on me, you know. I mean, it's it's part

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Speaker 2: of being you know, up front on TV and in

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Speaker 2: the media and those types of things. And I don't

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Speaker 2: believe I'm the most comfortable with the spotlight on me.

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Speaker 2: I mean, even in those kind of personal moments where

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Speaker 2: you know, we have the book that I wrote and

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Speaker 2: reading it to my son. So I don't know if

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Speaker 2: my wife knew to be proactive and grab it and

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Speaker 2: go read it to Henry for the first time. But

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Speaker 2: that was that was one of those moments, you know,

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Speaker 2: as a professional or as a journalist or whatever you

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Speaker 2: want to call it, that I'm going to remember for

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Speaker 2: a long time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet all right. So first of all, maybe

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Speaker 1: just give me an overview of what the book is about.

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Speaker 1: It's called The Golfer Zoo. What's the basic premise here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So wrote a children's golf book called The Golfer Zoo.

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Speaker 2: As you mentioned, I've been working on it for about

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Speaker 2: the past year with the Back Nine Press group. Jim

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Speaker 2: and his team are awesome and they've done a great

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Speaker 2: job of helping me, you know, navigate a world that

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Speaker 2: I don't quite understand. You know, I'd never published a

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Speaker 2: book before. I was, you know, I'm in the golf world.

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Speaker 2: I get a lot of golf stuff sent to me.

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Speaker 2: I was shocked at how little amount of golf books

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Speaker 2: there were for kids. And so when I would take Henry,

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Speaker 2: who's my three and a half year old son, when

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Speaker 2: I would take Henry to the golf course, and Henry's

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Speaker 2: not into golf yet. He doesn't I cut down golf

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Speaker 2: clubs for him. He doesn't care. I have a putting

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Speaker 2: green in my backyard. He lays on it and plays

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Speaker 2: on it, but he doesn't quite care about the golf

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Speaker 2: part of it yet. When we would go to the

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Speaker 2: golf course, he was obsessed with the animals. And this

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Speaker 2: actually all kind of derived from a conversation I had

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Speaker 2: with Joel Klatt years ago about how Joel got his

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Speaker 2: boys into golf. He's got three sons. He said, he

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Speaker 2: would go to the golf course, they'd play a hole

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Speaker 2: as golf, and then they would play a hole whatever

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Speaker 2: the kids wanted to do. And a lot of the

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Speaker 2: time it was go to the pond and look at

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Speaker 2: the turtles, or go throw rocks in the water and

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Speaker 2: see if the fish moved. And so when those types

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Speaker 2: of things were floating in my brain, I thought about

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Speaker 2: the zoo that is the golf course. I mean, every

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Speaker 2: region of the world, every region of our country has

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Speaker 2: different animals that live on the golf course. You can

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Speaker 2: see snakes if you're in Arizona, you can see alligators

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Speaker 2: if you're in Florida. There are a lot of different

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Speaker 2: types of animals. And we were in Montana a few

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Speaker 2: weeks ago for a wedding, and I mean, i am

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Speaker 2: I'm head on a swivel looking for bear. I'm just

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Speaker 2: like hoping to see a bear at some point in

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Speaker 2: the golf course. So that's where it started from. The

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Speaker 2: idea is mom and Dad go to the golf course.

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Speaker 2: They leave the kids at home. What are they going

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Speaker 2: to do? And the whole idea of the book is

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Speaker 2: to open up this world that is the golfer Zoo,

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Speaker 2: which is a golf course, but really it's a habitat

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Speaker 2: for animals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I like to that emphasis. And you know there's

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Speaker 1: a golf as an experience of nature. Is something that's

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Speaker 1: kind of cool to introduce to kids. But also it

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Speaker 1: fits with the genre of a children's book, right. Many

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Speaker 1: children's books are kind of these taxonomies of animals, so

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Speaker 1: there's sort of a fit there with the genre of

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Speaker 1: the book. Kids are interested in hearing about animals.

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Speaker 2: They love animals. You asked me to kind of think

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Speaker 2: about my three books, my favorite children's books. We'll get

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Speaker 2: to in a bit, and it was interesting. I figured

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Speaker 2: when you asked me that question, I would go animal

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Speaker 2: heavy because I like reading about animals. My son loves

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Speaker 2: animal books. You'll hear later that it is a different

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Speaker 2: direction actually are the ones I picked. But it's an

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Speaker 2: easy way to introduce people to things, especially kids. They

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Speaker 2: love animals. They love all sorts of animals, they love

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Speaker 2: pictures of animals, and our illustrator Reviel. I mean the

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Speaker 2: stuff he did with this book and some of the

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Speaker 2: imagery he did. I mean, there's there's an image you'll

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Speaker 2: see in the book if you buy it where they're

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Speaker 2: reaching into a pond, and the illustration is from the

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Speaker 2: pond up, so it's from basically in the water up

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Speaker 2: seeing the hands come in with the fish in the water.

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Speaker 2: I mean the golf course is I mean it literally

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Speaker 2: is a park, you know. I mean not the Malcolm

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Speaker 2: Gladwell level of park where he wants to bulldoz every

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Speaker 2: golf course and make it a park. But golf courses

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Speaker 2: are parks. I mean they're animals that live there. You know,

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Speaker 2: every superintendent, Garrett, have you ever met a superintendent that

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Speaker 2: didn't have one or two dogs on the golf cart

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Speaker 2: driving around like this is a part of the experience

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Speaker 2: of going to a golf course. As you see birds,

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Speaker 2: you see turtles, you see snakes, you see deer. That's

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Speaker 2: part of what you do. You take pictures of these

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Speaker 2: things when I play golf. Now I am taking pictures

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Speaker 2: more of the animals I see on the golf course

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Speaker 2: to show Henry later on that I am actually the

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Speaker 2: golf holes that I'm.

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Speaker 1: Playing, yeah, And we love animal content here at the

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Speaker 1: Frida Egg. We talk about it all the time with

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Speaker 1: the PGA Tour telecasts. You know, whenever there's an alligator

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Speaker 1: on the golf course and a golfer interacts with it,

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Speaker 1: that's golden content right there. So we've concentrated that in

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Speaker 1: this book here. You mentioned that I asked you to

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Speaker 1: think about books that you have enjoyed reading to your kids. Now,

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Speaker 1: now you have two kids, right, yeah.

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Speaker 2: I have a three and a half year old son

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Speaker 2: and a seven month daughter. Seven month old daughter.

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Speaker 1: Great, Okay, so you are in the thick of it

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Speaker 1: right now. My friend, I have two kids as well,

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Speaker 1: but they're a little bit older. They're eight and five,

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Speaker 1: so we're out of the woods a bit. So all

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Speaker 1: respect to what you're going through at the moment, But

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Speaker 1: in any case, I asked you to think about books

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Speaker 1: that you have enjoyed reading to your kids. And I guess,

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Speaker 1: in particular, your son at three and a half is

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Speaker 1: going to be getting into different types of books at

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Speaker 1: this point, So what what have you read to them

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Speaker 1: that you've enjoyed.

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Speaker 2: So the one animal book that I picked was good

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Speaker 2: Night Farm. I love good Night Farm, classic book, very

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Speaker 2: easy to read, a lot of animals involved. Henry's a

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Speaker 2: big fan, so good Night Farm kind of popped through

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Speaker 2: my mind when you asked that question a couple of

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Speaker 2: days ago. They're okay. The one thing that I really

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Speaker 2: enjoyed doing when I read books to Henry is we

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Speaker 2: have a lot of Doctor Seuss books, kind of passed

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Speaker 2: on from my sisters that you know that have older

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Speaker 2: children now, and I find it almost like work practice

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Speaker 2: to read Doctor Seuss books. I have like personal challenges

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Speaker 2: of like no mistakes, you know, as I'm reading the

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Speaker 2: entirety of a Doctor Seuss book, don't mess one thing up,

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Speaker 2: because I feel like Doctor Seuss tried to mess you

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Speaker 2: up as you're reading it. And the one that's the

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Speaker 2: hardest for me is there's a Walket in my pocket,

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Speaker 2: and so I pull that book a lot. When Henry

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Speaker 2: asks for Doctor Seuss, which he's been asking for more

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Speaker 2: lately than if I go with Walking in my Pocket,

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Speaker 2: I know it's going to be a real test for

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Speaker 2: me to get through the entire book without screwing up something,

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Speaker 2: because basically doctor Seuss was trying to get you tongue tied, right,

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Speaker 2: So that's number two. I love that book. I think

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Speaker 2: doctor Seuss is an absolute genius, especially going through this

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Speaker 2: process of trying to rhyme things and to see how

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Speaker 2: unbelievably easy he made it seem not that easy, by

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Speaker 2: the way. And then Goodnight, good Night Construction Site is third.

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Speaker 2: Henry loves it one of our go tos. He's really

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Speaker 2: into trucks, has been into trucks for the last couple

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Speaker 2: of years and so that's an easy one because he

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Speaker 2: likes to get into it. And then honorable mention is

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Speaker 2: The Big Book of Trucks. If you can see a

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Speaker 2: theme here. Henry likes trucks a lot. The Big Book

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Speaker 2: of Trucks simply because Henry now reads that book to me,

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Speaker 2: which is a when you start to transition from me

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Speaker 2: reading the book to him to him reading it to me.

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Speaker 2: A little less work on dad's end.

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Speaker 1: That's always a delightful moment when the kid knows the

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Speaker 1: book well enough to read it to you. But beware,

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Speaker 1: at some point the kids are going to want to

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Speaker 1: read on their own, and that is a that is

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Speaker 1: a bit of a sad moment because you just feel like, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, what's my purpose here?

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Speaker 2: We had a Garrett. Garrett, we had a moment. So

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Speaker 2: so my mom, who is just the most lovely human

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Speaker 2: that exists, comes out quite a bit to help out

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Speaker 2: and to be around the kids. You know, we don't

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Speaker 2: have any family up in Connecticut, so when we need

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Speaker 2: somebody to come up and watch, we typically reach out

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Speaker 2: to either my mom or Cindy's parents first and foremost.

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Speaker 2: And my mom got Henry a bus not too long ago,

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Speaker 2: probably a year ago, and Henry called it Nana bus, right,

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's Nana and it's the bus that Nana

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Speaker 2: got her. And the other day he was playing with

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Speaker 2: the bus. And now he's three and a half and

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Speaker 2: he just called it a bus. And I heard. I'm

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Speaker 2: listening to my wife and Henry interacted in another room

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Speaker 2: and Cindy goes, no, no, that's Nana bus. And he goes, no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: it's just a bus. And like my heart, you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, no, no, no no. This is for

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Speaker 2: the for the rest of eternity. This is supposed to

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Speaker 2: be Nana bus. And when you start to hit those

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Speaker 2: moments as a parent, when you don't, they don't. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't matter to the kid, right, I mean, it's not

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Speaker 2: emotional for the kid, but to you, it's literally hearing

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Speaker 2: your child grow up. Those are those are moments that

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I love the moment or if

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Speaker 2: it's just part of it. But I'm not gonna be excited,

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Speaker 2: Garrett about the moment when they want to read the

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Speaker 2: books alone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. No, you know, listen, you fool,

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Speaker 1: this is just a bus. I realize that this is

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Speaker 1: a buss. There are Yeah, there are so many stages

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Speaker 1: like that where the magic just kind of, you know,

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Speaker 1: the innocence kind of gradually goes away. But it's a

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Speaker 1: long process. So you've still you've still got got a

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Speaker 1: lot of time from three and a half forward. So

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Speaker 1: you've mentioned a couple of times the illustrations in the book.

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Speaker 1: The words are obviously yours, but the illustrations are by

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Speaker 1: an artist named Avl basel Am I pronouncing.

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Speaker 2: That right, Yep, yep, that's good.

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Speaker 1: So what went into the process of creating those illustrations.

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Speaker 1: Did you communicate with Avil and kind of come up

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Speaker 1: with ideas and things like that. I've always wondered how

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Speaker 1: that works.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. That was probably the hardest process, Garrett,

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Speaker 2: to be honest, with you was to find the right illustrator.

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Speaker 2: I mean we reached out to a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: We kind of first reached out to golf artists, you know,

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Speaker 2: people in and around the golf space, and you know,

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Speaker 2: some guys didn't and girls didn't have enough time or

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Speaker 2: they'd never done something like that. And as we were

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Speaker 2: getting closer and closer, because we wanted to release the

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Speaker 2: book before the holidays to give people an opportunity to

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Speaker 2: buy it as a holiday gift for anybody in and

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Speaker 2: around their family. And so as we were kind of

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Speaker 2: getting closer and closer to crunch time, Jim and I

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Speaker 2: basically went into a list of illustrators that have done

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Speaker 2: stuff like this before. And you know, Eviel's international, I mean,

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Speaker 2: he's not an American illustrator. We weren't totally sure what

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Speaker 2: we were going to get when he started to send.

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Speaker 2: So what happens is you give notes on what you want,

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Speaker 2: and you send the copy and then they send like sketches.

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Speaker 2: I mean they're black and white sketches, basically penciled out sketches.

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Speaker 2: And the first one we got it was like, okay,

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Speaker 2: this is it, no brainer. He gets it. He knows

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Speaker 2: what we want to do. He you know, I mean,

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Speaker 2: these are beautiful. I can't wait to see what they're

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Speaker 2: gonna look like in color. And so it was a

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Speaker 2: couple of two or three months of finding the right person.

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Speaker 2: But like I said, the first basically one page back

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Speaker 2: that we got was a win. And you know, I mean, listen,

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Speaker 2: you write a children's book, and it's important, but the

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Speaker 2: illustrations are way more important than the words on the page.

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Speaker 2: And he, as I said, I mean to say, he

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Speaker 2: knocked it out of the park. I mean, this is

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Speaker 2: like shooting fifty two. I mean, it was perfection. It

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Speaker 2: looks so you know, it just looks so professional. You

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Speaker 2: haven't I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know

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Speaker 2: I really know what I'm doing in life in general. Right,

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Speaker 2: It's basically doing a book is like being a parent.

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Speaker 2: You start out and you have guides and you've seen

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Speaker 2: people do it before. You're like, oh, this guy wrote

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Speaker 2: a book, I can write a book. Or this girl

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Speaker 2: wrote a book. I can do it. If they can

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Speaker 2: do it. This person's a parent, they have three kids,

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Speaker 2: their kids are alive, Like, surely I can follow along

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Speaker 2: and hammer out and make sure my kids aren't going

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Speaker 2: to be too screwed up. But you know, once you

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Speaker 2: start to get into the thick of it, you have

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Speaker 2: to learn day by day and to try to figure

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Speaker 2: it out yourself. And so to see it kind of

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Speaker 2: come to life. And the way it did from his

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Speaker 2: illustrations was, you know, a special a thing as I've

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Speaker 2: done in my profession at this point.

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Speaker 1: What made you say to yourself? You know, I have

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Speaker 1: this busy TV career, I have a popular podcast, active

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Speaker 1: social media presence. You know, we know how much time

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Speaker 1: goes into dealing with people on the internet. What made

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Speaker 1: you say, what I really need right now is to

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Speaker 1: write a children's book?

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Speaker 2: How did you?

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Speaker 1: How did you get to that point?

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Speaker 2: It was it was a kick in the ass for

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Speaker 2: my wife, honestly. I mean, I'm one of those people,

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Speaker 2: like so many out there, that have a lot of ideas,

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Speaker 2: throw them out there, write them in a notes app,

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Speaker 2: but don't always execute them. And it was kind of

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Speaker 2: my wife saying, let's you've been talking about this for

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Speaker 2: a while, why don't you do it right? And so yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I mean I was doing it

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Speaker 2: over the last year. You know, our summers at Golf

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Speaker 2: Channel are the busiest time of year with the major

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Speaker 2: championships that we have and just basically the golf, you know,

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Speaker 2: back to back to back, So it's very busy. I

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Speaker 2: mean a lot of this stuff is notations on the

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Speaker 2: road or emails on flights. But I've realized in my

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Speaker 2: life as I've gotten older, is if I'm not pushing

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Speaker 2: myself to try new stuff that I get I don't

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Speaker 2: know if it's depressed, but I definitely noticed that I

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Speaker 2: get a little down, and so I'm always trying to

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Speaker 2: kind of look at new things to do. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it might be a new workout, you know, it might

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Speaker 2: be going and doing something at the gym I've never done.

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Speaker 2: Maybe I've been chipping a lot one handed lately. Shout

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Speaker 2: out Fred Couples. I've been shooting chipping one handed, just

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Speaker 2: to try and see because I actually think I might

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Speaker 2: be a better chiper one handed, especially in and around

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Speaker 2: the greens. But it was just a push. It was

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Speaker 2: trying out something different, to see how it would go,

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Speaker 2: to see if it could make any sense, to see

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Speaker 2: if I could actually execute it. I think that was

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Speaker 2: one of the main reasons to try to get it

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Speaker 2: kind of wedged in the schedule. As you mentioned.

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Speaker 1: Was there partly a desire here to use the book

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Speaker 1: to explain golf to your own kids? Is something that

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Speaker 1: you had kind of thought about before writing the book,

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Speaker 1: like how do I describe to my children what I'm

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Speaker 1: devoting my life to.

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Speaker 2: I think it was a hope of, you know, at

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Speaker 2: least sparking some sort of interest. You know, I mentioned

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Speaker 2: to you that Henry's not a big golfer. He hasn't

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Speaker 2: gotten into it yet. He hadn't got hooked like my

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Speaker 2: buddy Ashton. I mean his son Max, similar age. I

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Speaker 2: think Max is three months older on the dot to Henry,

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Speaker 2: and I mean Max has this beautiful swing and it

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Speaker 2: looks great. And I mean Ashton was an incredible golfer.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's my four back partner and played professional

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Speaker 2: golf for a while. But I see, you know Max,

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Speaker 2: and of course, as you know, I mean, you always

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Speaker 2: compare your kids to other kids, right, just like we

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Speaker 2: compare ourselves to other people. And I just wanted some

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Speaker 2: sort of hook. It's not that you have to be

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Speaker 2: obsessed with golf, but to maybe show a little bit

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Speaker 2: of interest in going back to the golf course. And

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Speaker 2: I think that was my hope with the book was

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Speaker 2: maybe there's a kid or two out there that their

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Speaker 2: parents read him the book and then they asked to

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Speaker 2: go to the golf course with mom and dad. And

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Speaker 2: if that's the hope, you know, we hear the term

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Speaker 2: growth the game lot. I'm never really in the growth

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Speaker 2: of game business. I mean, I hope people like golf,

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Speaker 2: and I hope people find golf, and I hope people

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Speaker 2: love golf the way I love golf. My hope with

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Speaker 2: this book is that it sparks some imagination inside children

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Speaker 2: to where maybe they'll want to go to the golf

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Speaker 2: course once or twice with mom and dad. And of

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Speaker 2: those kids, if five of them take up the game,

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Speaker 2: then I feel like it's a win.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious, you know, when your kids came along. So

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Speaker 1: this book is about parents who go out to play

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Speaker 1: golf and right sort of describing it to the child

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Speaker 1: that they have left at home to go do this,

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Speaker 1: And so I'm curious about whether when your kids came along,

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Speaker 1: whether your relationship to playing golf changed absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I actually wrote about this in the Golfers Journal,

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Speaker 2: you know about kind of navigating Garrett. You know this

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Speaker 2: when you work and live in the golf space, and

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Speaker 2: I've been doing golf media for quite a while and

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Speaker 2: I know we're going to get into that in a bit.

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Speaker 2: I've been in golf for a long time and I've

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Speaker 2: seen so many iterations of golf, from caddy into playing,

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Speaker 2: you know, to now working in it day to day,

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Speaker 2: and your love can fade a little bit. I mean

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Speaker 2: your love in terms of winning, go to the golf course,

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Speaker 2: wanting to go out and practice. I mean that's something

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Speaker 2: that I'm really really lacking in in terms of dedicating

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Speaker 2: my time to my actual golf game. Is I think

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Speaker 2: there was a level of trying to get me back

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Speaker 2: into it a little bit, and I think, you know,

404
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Speaker 2: my next iteration of golf. I mean I went from

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Speaker 2: junior golfer that wanted to play collegiate golf to amateur

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Speaker 2: golfer that wanted to play professional golf, to a professional

407
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Speaker 2: golfer that didn't realize that he was good enough to

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Speaker 2: do that for a living, to back to amateur golf.

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Speaker 2: Right now, it's competing in mid AM's and trying to

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Speaker 2: qualify for USGA Championships and things like that. You know,

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Speaker 2: my future in golf is going to be golf with

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Speaker 2: my kids, and if it's not Henry, I think it's

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Speaker 2: going to be Charlotte. Charlotte will sit on the putt

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Speaker 2: and green and watch me putt. She'll watch the ball

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Speaker 2: leave my putter and go in the hole or miss,

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Speaker 2: and then she'll watch it come back. Right. I can

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Speaker 2: tell that there's a little bit more interest in her

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Speaker 2: eyes than I think there were was in Henry's eyes

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Speaker 2: at that age. And so I think my whole future

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Speaker 2: of golf is going to be golfing with my children.

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Speaker 2: And so yeah, maybe this was the first step in

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Speaker 2: that next chapter of what golf's going to look like

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Speaker 2: to me.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean for me, it was really useful to

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Speaker 1: read the book and kind of imagine a conversation with

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Speaker 1: kids about why I'm going to play golf, Why I'm

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Speaker 1: leaving for five hours exactly to go play this game, right,

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Speaker 1: because you know, one of the things that I dealt

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Speaker 1: with when I had kids was the sense of guilt

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Speaker 1: when I would leave to play golf totally, you know,

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Speaker 1: and I still have not completely resolved this, and frankly

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Speaker 1: it got worse during the pandemic when everybody else was

433
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:49,399
Speaker 1: returning to the golf course. I played less than I

434
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:52,920
Speaker 1: I think I have ever played, because there was never

435
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:55,720
Speaker 1: a good moment for me. I felt like to stand

436
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:59,320
Speaker 1: up and say, all right, see you later, kids, I'm

437
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:03,240
Speaker 1: going to play a game for five hours. I'll be

438
00:20:03,359 --> 00:20:05,800
Speaker 1: back after that. But you're you're on your own with

439
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:11,040
Speaker 1: mom in the meantime, or you know, I mean post pandemic.

440
00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:12,920
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe mom will go with me and then we'll

441
00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:15,720
Speaker 1: get a babysitter. But that's still like a tough thing

442
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:19,920
Speaker 1: to communicate. Why am I doing this? But the way

443
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:22,080
Speaker 1: that golf is portrayed in this book is that it's

444
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:27,400
Speaker 1: a kind of healthy, regenerative visit to nature, right, and

445
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 1: that is that is something that's useful. It's not just

446
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 1: a selfish game that you're playing. There is there is

447
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:38,080
Speaker 1: something that you know golf does for people that is important,

448
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:42,119
Speaker 1: and communicating that to kids that you're leaving behind to

449
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,600
Speaker 1: go do this is important as well.

450
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:48,240
Speaker 2: Well. First things first, Garrett, I got to say, I

451
00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:50,400
Speaker 2: think this might be the first conversation I've ever had

452
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 2: with somebody about that golf guilt that you talked about,

453
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,720
Speaker 2: because I feel it so much, you know, anytime I leave.

454
00:20:56,520 --> 00:21:01,080
Speaker 2: I went to Southampton on Saturday this past Saturday. You know,

455
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,320
Speaker 2: in Long Island is a two hour drive each way

456
00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:05,520
Speaker 2: for me. Right, So my buddy Ryan and I, you know,

457
00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 2: get in the car at eight in the morning or

458
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 2: seven in the morning for a ten thirty tea time.

459
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 2: You know, we're driving over there. We're playing golf bucket

460
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,639
Speaker 2: list golf course. For me, I'd never played it before.

461
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 2: Super excited to go over there and do that. You know,

462
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,040
Speaker 2: you sit around after then you drive home and I'm

463
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:21,480
Speaker 2: home and I barely saw my kids all day. I

464
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:23,720
Speaker 2: mean I got to see Henry as he was going

465
00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:27,160
Speaker 2: to bed, right, And so I've basically lost an entire

466
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 2: day as a dad, you know, in my That's kind

467
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 2: of how I look at it at times. And it's

468
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,320
Speaker 2: such a hard balance for me because I want to

469
00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 2: go play golf. I want to go experience these places.

470
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I don't like losing days

471
00:21:40,119 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 2: with my kids, you know, I don't like I don't

472
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 2: like having an entire day and entire Saturday where I

473
00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:47,359
Speaker 2: don't see Charlotte and Henry. Right. And so I didn't

474
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 2: know that was the thing everybody else felt. I didn't

475
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,160
Speaker 2: know that that guilt out there is like a thing

476
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 2: that a lot of parents feel and it's the same

477
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:56,840
Speaker 2: reason why. And I know it's like a joke, and

478
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,359
Speaker 2: it's a joke on social media, but the whole wives

479
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:01,640
Speaker 2: getting mad at their husbands for being obsessed and wanting

480
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:04,680
Speaker 2: to go play golf. But I understand it because it's

481
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 2: not four hours. It's six hours, right, and if you've

482
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 2: got to drive somewhere, it's eight hours. I mean it

483
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 2: is an entire day for the most part, depending on

484
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:14,199
Speaker 2: when the tea time is. And so yeah, I mean

485
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 2: I think in a way, you know, the whole idea

486
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,360
Speaker 2: behind the Golfer Zoo is reminding people that it's not

487
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 2: just golf, that it's a great walk, it's camaraderie. It's

488
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 2: experiencing things with somebody that you love. You know, in

489
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 2: terms of this book, it's a husband and wife going

490
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:31,080
Speaker 2: out to the golf course. But you know, even going

491
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 2: out with a good group of friends, right, I mean,

492
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 2: you know, getting a chance to be a part of

493
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:36,359
Speaker 2: the Friday eg event at S six a month and

494
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:37,919
Speaker 2: a half ago or something. I mean, play it an

495
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 2: entire day with Andy, you know, Andy's a good buddy

496
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:42,440
Speaker 2: of mine. I mean, playing an entire day at golf

497
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 2: with Andy It's more than a round of golf, right,

498
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:46,679
Speaker 2: It's more than a day at golf. It's getting a

499
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 2: chance to spend hours on the golf course or hours

500
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 2: walk in a park with the friend of yours you

501
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 2: don't get to catch up with much, So you know,

502
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 2: in those instances, I feel less guilty. But to just

503
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 2: go play in the money game on Friday, I feel

504
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 2: the guilt. I feel that parental guilt.

505
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to make it worth it somehow, but

506
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,120
Speaker 1: I guess that, you know, you just have to get

507
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 1: to a point or speaking for myself, I have to

508
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: get to a point where I say, you know, it's

509
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: okay to do this. It's it's okay to go spend

510
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,959
Speaker 1: a big portion of the day doing something that is

511
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: you know, healthy for me and and you know makes

512
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 1: me kind of feel better and feel more ready to

513
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 1: come back home and really be present and value my

514
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 1: time there. But I'm not sure I've totally worked through

515
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: golf guilt myself, and so I was just curious to

516
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: hear where you're at in this process. I mean, your

517
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: kids are younger than mine, so you know, this is

518
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: an even kind of fresher question for you. But do

519
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 1: you feel like you've kind of gotten better over time

520
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: of you know, sort of saying like, there's the golf

521
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: part of my life, and there's the part of my

522
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 1: life where I'm a parent and I don't have to

523
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: be a parent all the time time, you know, every

524
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:04,679
Speaker 1: single hour of the day. Sometimes I can go do

525
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: something that's that's kind of more for myself.

526
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 2: I haven't gotten totally there yet, but I definitely understand

527
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 2: the point of in a way, almost forgiving yourself for

528
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 2: wanting to go have fun alone. Right, I'm going to

529
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,440
Speaker 2: go do something I want to go do. It's not selfish.

530
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,439
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the time that term floats around,

531
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, golf can feel very selfish when

532
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 2: you go do it without anybody in your family or

533
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 2: anybody involved in and around. You know, you're four or

534
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: five hours out on the golf course. But at the

535
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,120
Speaker 2: same time, it's something that I love and it's something

536
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,199
Speaker 2: that I want to go do. You know, for me, Garrett,

537
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 2: the thing that I've noticed over the last couple of

538
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 2: years is the most fun experiences I have on the

539
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,959
Speaker 2: golf course, It's not golf course, it's not my play,

540
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 2: it's the three other people in the group, and so

541
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 2: I've noticed that I'm way more interested in playing those

542
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 2: rounds of golf when it's gonna be with like true

543
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 2: groups of friends of mine, you know. I mean this year,

544
00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, what is it, November three? I mean

545
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 2: this year, some of the most fun rounds I've had

546
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 2: were up in Montana. My buddy Russy got married a

547
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 2: few weeks ago. I was playing with Rusty and my

548
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,360
Speaker 2: dad and then another good friend of ours and Rusty's,

549
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 2: you know, my best friend in the world, and playing

550
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 2: golf with my dad. I mean, we're playing with rental clubs,

551
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 2: like regular shafted whippie rental clubs, And those were some

552
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 2: of the rounds I'll remember the most from the year

553
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: because the people involved were the reason that I had

554
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 2: so much fun out on the golf course. I didn't

555
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 2: see a bear by the way, which is a bummer,

556
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 2: but I mean Russy's beard was as gnarly enough to

557
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 2: where it might have looked like a one, you know,

558
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: But I I just that's when I don't feel as guilty.

559
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 2: I think is when I'm out there, you know, walking

560
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 2: for four hours with people that I love, you know,

561
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: with people that I want to be around and with

562
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 2: people that I call my close community. I think that's

563
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 2: when the guilt goes away the most.

564
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess that that is part of how

565
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: you can work towards a relationship with golf that is

566
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: even better post kids than it was before, because you know,

567
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: before I had kids, I could just go do anything

568
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: with my day and not really think about it, not

569
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: really think about the opportunity cost of going spending a

570
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: day doing something completely useless.

571
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:09,680
Speaker 2: Right.

572
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that when before I had kids.

573
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a way in which having kids

574
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: in your life makes you value time a bit more

575
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: and ask yourself, is what I'm doing today worth it?

576
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: And if you can make the golf worth it through

577
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: this social aspect that you're talking about or something else,

578
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: if you can, if you can make those experiences really

579
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: kind of intense and valuable, then your golfing life kind

580
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: of improves even Yeah.

581
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: The sleeping the sleeping dragon here about this whole conversation

582
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 2: is obviously what you and I are both hitting at

583
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 2: is the fact that our golf games are not nearly

584
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 2: as good as they used to be because we're not

585
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 2: or never playing or never practicing listen, Hane, you had

586
00:26:58,040 --> 00:26:59,160
Speaker 2: a golf game to lose.

587
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: I mean, like you, you were a really great golf

588
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: and remain a very very good golfer. I have never

589
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: been a particularly good golfer.

590
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 2: I played, uh, I mean, I played so bad at Southampton.

591
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 2: I was so excited to go play golf and you

592
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: know you it's it's interesting. I was. I was trying

593
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 2: to explain this to to Cindy one day about when

594
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 2: you're in the golf space and when you when you

595
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 2: live in this world of like media and you know,

596
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: I don't want to say being known, but you know,

597
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,159
Speaker 2: being a notable human that does golf media. Right, Whoever

598
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 2: you're playing with for the first time is expecting something

599
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 2: out of your golf game, and so you're really never

600
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,120
Speaker 2: having a quote unquote casual round. And again, I think

601
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 2: there's a level of those casual rounds being so exciting

602
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 2: when you do play with your buddies that know you

603
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 2: and know your golf game and play it like golf

604
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 2: with you. But when you're just going and playing with

605
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 2: somebody that you might never play with again, there are expectations,

606
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 2: even if you don't want them to exist, right, even

607
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,160
Speaker 2: if I want to show and go, Hey, I haven't

608
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 2: played golf in a month. They're wanting to see long

609
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: drives and birdies and a low score. And when you

610
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 2: can't quite provide that, even if they don't mention it

611
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 2: at all, you feel it internally. So I think lowering

612
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 2: those expectations is something I'm still struggling with in golf, is,

613
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 2: you know, finding what is my golf game? Now? You

614
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 2: know what am I expecting to get out of this

615
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 2: when I go out on the golf course, Because for

616
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: so long, and to your point, pre kids, the entirety

617
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 2: of my happiness on the golf course before I had

618
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 2: kids was what I shot, you know, I mean, was

619
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: it a good round or a bad round? And that

620
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: was all I thought about. I didn't really think about

621
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 2: much else besides my selfishness and what I'm going out

622
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 2: there and executing an accomplishment as a golfer. And now

623
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 2: a lot of that has flipped, and I'm still trying

624
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 2: to understand what that is.

625
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: It's probably a loss of consistency when it comes to

626
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: your playing ability, right, Shane, Because yeah, I would imagine

627
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: that you still have days when you shoot in the sixties,

628
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: but there are other days when it might go the

629
00:28:56,760 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: other direction. And so there's it's it's hard to know

630
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: what to expect when when you're not practicing and when

631
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: you don't play very often, it's hard to know what

632
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: to expect from your golf game. And I guess that

633
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: part of what you know, part of what we're trying

634
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: to do at the Fried Egg is give people a

635
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: way to enjoy golf when they're not focusing on their games,

636
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: when they're not focusing on getting better, you know, go

637
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: enjoy golf course architecture. I suppose that's that's where I

638
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: get some of my purpose and writing about golf course architecture.

639
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: Here's something to appreciate no matter how your golf round

640
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: is going. I guess that's an important aspect of this

641
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: for me, because yeah, you just don't know how you're

642
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: going to.

643
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 2: Play, You really don't, right, I mean that's something that

644
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: from you guys like you and A and D and

645
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 2: Will and the crew. I mean that's something that I've

646
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 2: taken away from what you guys put out there is

647
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 2: I pay more attention to that stuff now than I

648
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 2: ever did before. And so for me to play as

649
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 2: six right with Andy and just a list to Andy

650
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 2: talk for a few hours about what makes this great

651
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 2: or not great. I mean, it really is like you're

652
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 2: in a collegiate class, you know, It's like you're at

653
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 2: a university listening to you know, professor lecture about journalism

654
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 2: right or business. I mean, to be in that kind

655
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,959
Speaker 2: of dome, in and around a brain as good as

656
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 2: Andy's about golf course architecture, and to just literally get

657
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 2: to walk and talk with them about those types of

658
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 2: things is quite a special experience. And from you and

659
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 2: from Andy, and from Will and from some of the

660
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 2: other people and online, and to do such a great

661
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 2: job with this type of stuff, it has opened up

662
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 2: this whole other world of like playing Southampton the other day.

663
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 2: And I know I've gone back to this a few times,

664
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 2: but playing Southampton and playing like a dog, I'm not

665
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: as focused on the way I'm playing because I'm wanting

666
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: to look at all the Seth Rayner stuff that I

667
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 2: would have never thought about ten years ago.

668
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: Yes, And you know, to bring it back to your book.

669
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: Part of what's happening in this book is that mom

670
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: and mom and dad are enjoying nature, right they are.

671
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: They are playing a game and and that's fun and

672
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: funny in some ways, and sometimes it doesn't go very well,

673
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: and even that sort of humorous. But the main thing

674
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: that's happening is a is a visit with h with nature,

675
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: which is you know, I think that's very similar to

676
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: appreciating the architecture. It's just another way of lifting your

677
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: eyes up instead of kind of narrowly focusing on the

678
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: on the game, you're looking around, right, You're seeing where

679
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: you are, and you're kind of being present in that

680
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: moment on the golf course. Appreciating nature, you don't even

681
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: have to look at the architecture. You can just kind

682
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,959
Speaker 1: of look at the landscape and the animals and and

683
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: that's that's fun you know that that kind of refills

684
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: the tank a little bit.

685
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's the new age. Stop and smell the roses,

686
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 2: like stop and feed the fish. I mean, you know,

687
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: just let's let's let's find something out there to take

688
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 2: our mind away from the mass of frustrations that can

689
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 2: happen when golf isn't going the way you hoped it

690
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: would go. It's so funny that that score is such

691
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: an obsession, especially Stateside, right, I mean, we have to

692
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: have a number, we have to post scores. I mean, now,

693
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 2: if I play golf at my club and don't post

694
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 2: my score, you get an email about it, you know,

695
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: I mean, there is so much pressure now about making

696
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 2: sure that number is posted. What did you shoot today?

697
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 2: And a lot of the time now, especially you know,

698
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: you go to the golf course and I don't want

699
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,479
Speaker 2: to think about my score, right, That's the last thing

700
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 2: I would hope to think about, even if I'm never

701
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 2: going to totally be able to detach from that.

702
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast is brought to

703
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: you by the Frida Egg Pro Shop. It's at proshop

704
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: dot Thefrida Egg dot com. We've got a lot of

705
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,479
Speaker 1: cool stuff in there, including some new additions to our

706
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Speaker 1: print shop. We've recently added photos of sand Hills, Mirfield, Sciota,

707
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: the Hoopy Match Club, Oak Hill, Huntington Valley, and Presidio

708
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: Golf Course in San Francisco. You can order these photos

709
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: on canvas or mounted on metal, and any of them

710
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: would make a great gift for the holiday season if

711
00:32:57,960 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: you're planning ahead.

712
00:32:58,840 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 2: Which is wise.

713
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: Also in the pro Shop, we have all the layers

714
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: you need for fall in winter, from long sleeve polos

715
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Speaker 1: to quarter zips and hoodies, all that and more at

716
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: pro Shop Dotthfrida egg dot com. So, Shane, you have

717
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: worn a lot of hats in the golf world now,

718
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: including children's book author, but you've also been a caddy

719
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: at Saint Andrew's. You've had this varied career in media,

720
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: and for a couple of years you played professionally on

721
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: the mini tours. And I'm curious what I want to

722
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: mostly kind of talk about your your career in media,

723
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: but was there a particular moment in your competitive career

724
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: when you said to yourself, you know what, I think

725
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: I might have to figure out something else to do

726
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: with my life.

727
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was my first professional event first round. Well, okay,

728
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 2: I'll tell I'll give you two stories, both firsts, by

729
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 2: the way, my very very very first pro event, my

730
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 2: first event that I was checked the professional box was

731
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 2: a PEPSI Tour event out in Arizona, and my dad

732
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 2: came out to caddy for me. My dad flew out

733
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 2: from Texas and you know, I mean, we don't know

734
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 2: anything about many tours at the time, right, I mean,

735
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 2: it's carts like this is so non serious, but of

736
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 2: course it's a big deal to us, and I remember

737
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 2: I was standing on seventeen tea and my dad said

738
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 2: to me, you're the only guy in the group that's

739
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,479
Speaker 2: made of bogie today. So that was one of those

740
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: kind of smack you in the face type of moments

741
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 2: where you're like, oh, oh, that's probably not a great sign.

742
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 2: And then my first Gateway Tour event, I shot sixty

743
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 2: eight and remember looking at the leaderboard and I think

744
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 2: I was in like forty eighth place and I played great.

745
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 2: I birdy my last two holes to shoot sixty eight,

746
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 2: and that was a really good score for me. And

747
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 2: when I realized literally in my first you know, you

748
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: pay for the whole season, right, and I realized right

749
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 2: away that sixty eight wasn't a very good score as

750
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 2: a pro, that was really scary for me because I

751
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 2: was never excellent at going crazy low. I've shot crazy

752
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 2: low scores before back and you know, my heyday, but

753
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 2: I was never one of those guys that kind of

754
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 2: just like blindly went out and shot sixty five, right.

755
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 2: I mean I had to really have the putter going

756
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 2: to do that, or had to close grade or something

757
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 2: like that. And so to see where I stood after

758
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 2: what I thought was a great round, was a bit

759
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 2: of a reality check. So those were really the two

760
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 2: moments A little a little, a little daunt team considering

761
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 2: they were both firsts. But I guess it's better to

762
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: realize earlier than to realize too late. So tell me

763
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 2: about going from struggling mini tour pro to og golf blogger.

764
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: A lot of listeners might not know that you were.

765
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: You were one of those original golf bloggers from from

766
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 1: the late two thousands self run blog you started with

767
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: called Dogs that Chase Cars. What do you remember about

768
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: getting that started? What made you think like, Okay, yeah,

769
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: I can I can write.

770
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: I went to University of Arizona and I remember they

771
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:54,439
Speaker 2: had a they had a really good student newspaper there

772
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 2: called the Daily Wildcat, and I read a few copies

773
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 2: early into my freshman year, and I just went to

774
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 2: the Basically, I went to their newsroom and said, I

775
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 2: want to write, you know, sports for you guys. I

776
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 2: think I could help out a little bit, and and

777
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 2: so you know, I mean I spent four years doing that, right,

778
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 2: I mean, I was a journalism major. But as you know, Garrett,

779
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff you really learn, like a

780
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 2: lot of the life lessons come from outside of the classroom,

781
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 2: and so I learned as much doing that as I did,

782
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: you know, from my degree there at Arizona. And so

783
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 2: you know, I think early into that I realized that

784
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 2: I might have a little bit of a I might

785
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 2: have a little bit of skill in the writing department.

786
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 2: And then when I went and tried to play. It

787
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: was when I was done play and my buddy Andrew

788
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 2: reached out to me and said, hey, you need to

789
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 2: get back to writing, like You've got to find a

790
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 2: place to do this, And so I started a blog.

791
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 2: I was I was working kind of a nine to

792
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 2: five job in Denver, Colorado, and most of my time

793
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 2: spent doing my quote unquote job was just blogging for

794
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 2: dogs at Chase Cars and my big break. There's a

795
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 2: there's a fellow named Ryan Wilson that still writes in

796
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 2: fl and does a great job. But Ryan was was

797
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 2: working at AOL at the time, uh for the FanHouse

798
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 2: Capital H and he uh he would link remember blog roles,

799
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 2: Remember when you would like link to stories and it

800
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 2: would just be the blog would just be the like

801
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 2: one line and a link to the story. Uh. I

802
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 2: would get those Google alerts and he linked to me

803
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 2: a few times from some of the goofy stuff I

804
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 2: was doing, and uh, and basically reached out to Ryan

805
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 2: and said, is there any chance I could write for

806
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 2: you guys you know golf? And that was when kind

807
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 2: of the paying opportunity started.

808
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Before that break happened, were there moments when you were

809
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: writing the blog when you thought nobody is reading this,

810
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: this is not.

811
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: Anywhere time all the time, or you know, I mean

812
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: it was like Blogger days, right, like Blogger dot com.

813
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: Yes, and was literally on the on the platform Blogger.

814
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: It was that that Yeah, it was the that was

815
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: that was a Google company, right am I.

816
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they bought it yep. And uh and

817
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 2: you know, like I remember like teaching myself at h

818
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 2: you know, like HML stuff like where I could co

819
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 2: which was super basic stuff like how to bowld and

820
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 2: how to strike through and yeah, you know, I mean

821
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 2: this is this is when you had to like click

822
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 2: into that to do those types of things with coding,

823
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: how to link to your to your stories. Yeah all

824
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:13,760
Speaker 2: the time. I mean I would write all these stories

825
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 2: and there'd be no comments, or there'd be one comment,

826
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 2: and I'd be all excited. I click on it to

827
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 2: be a friend of mine, you know, and you're like,

828
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 2: oh god, you know this, this is my idiot buddies

829
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 2: that are reading this stuff. Nobody else is and uh

830
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 2: and I think you know when it was when I

831
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 2: started to see those types of links pop up, and

832
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 2: then you know, I was really proactive, Garrett. I mean

833
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:32,800
Speaker 2: I reached out to Will Leach at dead Spin and

834
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: I wrote major championship previews for dead Spin. Very early

835
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 2: into the dead Spin days. I wrote some stuff for

836
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 2: with Leather. Do you remember with Leather? That was a

837
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 2: very early blog, Sports by Brooks. I think I did

838
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 2: a couple of posts for Sports by Brooks back in

839
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 2: the day about golf. I mean, I was anybody and

840
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 2: everybody that would take me, I would. I would write

841
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 2: for them. Pay me or don't pay me. I didn't

842
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 2: really care, So yeah, I was I was just trying

843
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 2: to see interest. I was just trying to see somebody

844
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 2: find my stuff, you know, worth the read or worth

845
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 2: the click. And of course, you know this was even

846
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 2: pre Twitter days or like write when Twitter days were

847
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 2: starting to gain a little bit of traction, So you

848
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 2: didn't even see if people were reading it through that

849
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 2: through that platform.

850
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, you know, the early blogging space. I guess

851
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: not early blogging space, but you know, when blogging was

852
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: was really a big thing. There was kind of a

853
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: freedom about it, right that there was there was a

854
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: way for writers to break in without having to go

855
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 1: through the usual process of establishing themselves as you know,

856
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: official journalists going to JA school or whatever. You could

857
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: just start writing a blog and you would sort of

858
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: get to know other bloggers. Social media has I guess,

859
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: kind of replaced that. But I wonder if you ever

860
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: miss the kind of blogging community, you know, when that

861
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: was really active.

862
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 2: Well, I mean absolutely, and that was it, right, the

863
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 2: blog in community was it? I mean, you know this was.

864
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 2: I mean it's funny. I pulled up Safari the other

865
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 2: day and I still on my because I don't use Safari,

866
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 2: I still have on the like the blog bar, like

867
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 2: all these links to these blogs, and I mean half

868
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 2: of them probably don't even go to anything anymore, you know.

869
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 2: I mean, this was there was such that community of

870
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 2: you know, thirty forty fifty websites that you would frequent

871
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 2: that you would try to get the one of the

872
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 2: RSS feeds on your on your outlooks, so that it

873
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 2: would update you when a new when a new link

874
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 2: was available. I mean I remember sitting in the back

875
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 2: of journalism classes with my buddy Kevin Stamler at Arizona,

876
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: refreshing page two on ESPN to see if Bill Simmons

877
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 2: had posted something new. I mean, there was really that community.

878
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 2: I was covering the men's basketball team at Arizona, which,

879
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 2: of course, the men's basketball team is always good, and

880
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 2: I was covering it, reading a Simmons article, and I

881
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 2: remember a guy walked by and goes, if you like

882
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 2: Bill Simmons, you'll like this, this website called dead Spin,

883
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,479
Speaker 2: And that was how I was introduced to dead Spin,

884
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 2: you know. I mean there was a real small community

885
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 2: of people that were sess with writing about golf, and

886
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 2: the humor was there, and the freedom was there, and

887
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 2: I mean I could post anything, Garrett, you know, you

888
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 2: could write anything about anybody. You could take images from anywhere.

889
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 2: Nobody cared. It was. It was a very strange world,

890
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 2: but it was in a weird way. It was a

891
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 2: very respectful world. You know, if you got an article

892
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 2: from somebody, nine times out of ten they would add

893
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: the link at the bottom of the story. And that's

894
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 2: not necessarily the case now in twenty twenty two.

895
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very true, And something that maybe people don't

896
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 1: really remember is that blog posts could kind of, in

897
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:39,280
Speaker 1: a weird way, go viral through being shared by other blogs.

898
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: That was kind of the way that things went viral.

899
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: They didn't go viral on Twitter because Twitter was, you know,

900
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 1: kind of in its infancy when you started blogging, and

901
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: you know, the way it really happened was other bloggers

902
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: linking to a certain article and discussing it. And I

903
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: guess the thing that I kind of miss about blogging.

904
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of blogging myself, not on

905
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: golf actually, but you know, the thing that I miss

906
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 1: about it is the kind of casualness of a blog post.

907
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: It didn't have to be a masterpiece. It could just

908
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: be like a link and a little bit of funny

909
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: discussion or a joke or something, and you'd post that

910
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: and people would read it and that would be it.

911
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure that something like that exists

912
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: any longer. I mean, there is Twitter, there is Instagram,

913
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: but I feel like the way that people present themselves now,

914
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: or kind of self fashion on the internet is more

915
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: polished and a little bit less fun than it was

916
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: in blogging. And maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but that's

917
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: kind of the way it seems to me.

918
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 2: I feel you. I mean, I remember, Garrett, I wrote

919
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,920
Speaker 2: one of my most trafficked, you know, blogs on dogs

920
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 2: that chase cars, was I noticed that Chris Berman had

921
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 2: like one salmon shirt that he would wear every year

922
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 2: at the Pebble Beach pro am, you know, And I

923
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 2: was like, I remember one year, I'm watching the pro

924
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 2: am and I'm like, I was like, dude, I feel

925
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 2: like he's wear the shirt before, and so I go

926
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 2: into Geddy and sure enough it's like the same shirt.

927
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 2: And so I just wrote, like a blog post was

928
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 2: like Chris Berman only wears one golf shirt, you know,

929
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 2: and it was I don't even know, there might have

930
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 2: been thirty words written in the post. It was like

931
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 2: eight pictures of him over the years in the different shirt.

932
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, you talk about hitting the

933
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 2: nine blogg A sphere right in the heartstrings with a

934
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,479
Speaker 2: Chris Berman post, it's you know, taking a slight dig

935
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 2: at them. I mean, dead's been posted to it and

936
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 2: with leather posted to it, and all of a sudden

937
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: you're getting thousands of clicks through to see your article,

938
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 2: and it was such a win. It was such an

939
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 2: honest victory back then when something was successful, because, like

940
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 2: you said, the only way to know if it was

941
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 2: successful was from traffic. If the traffic came in, you

942
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: knew someone somewhere linked to what you did, which means

943
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 2: someone somewhere liked what you did.

944
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: I love that the Chris I can actually picture that

945
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,879
Speaker 1: Chris Berman shirt. But that's like a classic blog post, right.

946
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: I'm not sure people kind of do content like that anymore.

947
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: It would be it would be condensed into a tweet

948
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 1: or an Instagram post or I don't know, maybe there's

949
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: something that the kids are doing on TikTok that would

950
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: replicate it. But that that is that is sort of

951
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: the perfect example of the of the blog genre. So

952
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,279
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you you kind of got a break

953
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: into paying work on mainstream websites. You worked at AOL

954
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: I believe, Yahoo, CBS, bunch of places. What kind of

955
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: work were you doing there so.

956
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 2: I would blog about all sports. When I got the

957
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 2: full it was, it was interesting. I mean, you talk

958
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 2: about you know, being very lucky and getting very very

959
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 2: lucky breaks knowing the right people. I remember when AOL

960
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 2: was like making it AOL fan house and it was

961
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: going to be a sports website. They reach out to

962
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 2: me the week I was thinking about quitting my day

963
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 2: to day job in Denver. They reached out to me

964
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 2: about a full time position. And so I went and

965
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 2: blogged about every sport you know. I mean the rule

966
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:58,839
Speaker 2: in journalism is if you don't know the sport, tell

967
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 2: them it's your favorite, right, and then just figure it

968
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 2: out on the way, you know, through throughout the process

969
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 2: of it. And so I would blog about football and

970
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 2: college basketball and college football and anything and everything. I mean,

971
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 2: I did a lot of golf. But you know, you

972
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 2: would see your name and it would have a link

973
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 2: to all the sports that you were doing and how

974
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: many articles you'd done that month in that year. And

975
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 2: I was pretty much willing to do any of that,

976
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 2: and so I was writing. You know, you would get

977
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 2: these emails. I mean, again kind of going back to

978
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 2: how simplistic things were. You know, we had like a

979
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 2: list serve, and when a hot thing was happening, you know,

980
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 2: if some team was cutting a player, or some guy

981
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 2: got arrested, or some golfer was was you know, w

982
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 2: D and you know, I remember when Jerry Rice w

983
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 2: D with the rangefinder at that Cornferry event. You know,

984
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 2: you'd get an email to the list serve of the

985
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 2: sport and it was your job to grab the story.

986
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 2: I got it, and then you would write it and

987
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 2: get it up as quick as possible, because that was

988
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 2: the key back then was you had to get it

989
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 2: up as fast as possible for Google SEO. And so

990
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 2: that was basically my job. I mean I was writing

991
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 2: eight to ten articles a day, maybe more times. It

992
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 2: was really on your computer, you know, six seven eight

993
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 2: hours a day, you know, really dialing into what was

994
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 2: happening in real time and trying to get that up

995
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 2: on the main page. And if it made the front

996
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 2: page of Yahoo, for goodness sake, so the front page

997
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 2: of AOL. It was a really really big deal. And

998
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 2: I mean there were bonuses involved in the most trafficked

999
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 2: stories you could write. So it was really a kind

1000
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 2: of chase the carrot type of approach to the media world.

1001
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 1: All right, so you were a an internet writer, you know,

1002
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: you were you were one of those people hunched behind

1003
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 1: the computer. How did you end up making the transition

1004
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: to TV work?

1005
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was crazy. I always I mean

1006
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 2: my dream job when I was a kid was to

1007
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 2: be on TV. I wanted to be on Sports Center,

1008
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 2: you know when I.

1009
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: Was Yeah, you know, you wanted to be Dan Patrick,

1010
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 1: Keith Olberman, like one of the everybody of our age, Shane.

1011
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I those are the coolest dudes, or were

1012
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: the coolest dudes in the universe. Uh, that that was

1013
00:46:57,560 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: the job you wanted.

1014
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you wanted to be a you wanted to

1015
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 2: be Rick Riley. And if you wanted to be on TV,

1016
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 2: you wanted to be Dan Patrick Olberman and or Stuart Scott, right.

1017
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 2: I mean that was the dreams as our kind of

1018
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 2: very late millennial world lived in. And and so you know,

1019
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 2: I went into journalism, you know in terms of like

1020
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 2: print and writing with the hope and the dream of

1021
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 2: eventually getting into TV. And really it was a break.

1022
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 2: I mean it was I think it was twenty fourteen.

1023
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:27,280
Speaker 2: Somebody reached out to me from the back nine network

1024
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 2: and they were going to try to take this idea

1025
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 2: and turn it into a TV network on Direct TV.

1026
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 2: Would I have any interest in doing it? And you know,

1027
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 2: i'd i'd kind of I'd kind of felt like i'd

1028
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 2: landed about where I was going to land in terms

1029
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 2: of writing, you know, I wasn't. I wasn't kind of

1030
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 2: going up in the space. I was pretty stagnant. And

1031
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 2: so I flew out to Connecticut. Connecticut is the state

1032
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:54,280
Speaker 2: I keep returning too for some reason. And I interviewed

1033
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: and they offered me a job. And I was dating

1034
00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:59,240
Speaker 2: Cindy at the time, and I was like, hey, I

1035
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to be on TV. I'm probably gonna

1036
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 2: take this job at Connecticut. Do you have any interest

1037
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 2: in going? And She's just like, yeah, I'd love to.

1038
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 2: So we moved out to Connecticut and that was basically

1039
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 2: my break in the TV was a startup network, Channel

1040
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 2: two forty five on DirecTV, you know, and and from

1041
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 2: there it from there, I mean, more opportunities came. Really,

1042
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 2: I mean, the opportunity to go with Fox. I would

1043
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 2: not have been able to accept the job with Fox

1044
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,479
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen if Back nine Network hadn't gone under.

1045
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 2: And so again kind of talking about you know, moments

1046
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 2: in your life and your career that kind of changed

1047
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 2: the trajectory of what you're doing. I mean, I was

1048
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 2: gonna have to say no to an opportunity to go

1049
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 2: work with Fox Sports with that USGA contract because I

1050
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: was doing the back nine Network stuff and then back

1051
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 2: nine Network went under and that opportunity was still there

1052
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 2: with Fox.

1053
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: Oh wow, when you started being on TV, what were

1054
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: some of the things that you had to learn, Like

1055
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: when I look at people and when I look at

1056
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: you on golf today, now I just get I can't

1057
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: imagine like doing that, and and and so what did

1058
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: you Yeah, what did you have to adjust about the

1059
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: way that you communicated with people with the camera and

1060
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 1: learning how to do that.

1061
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:15,879
Speaker 2: I mean all of it, honestly, Garrett, I mean all

1062
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 2: of it was new to me. You know. I hadn't

1063
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: had a lot of experience doing much of like teleprompter work,

1064
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 2: so there was a lot of you know, making sure

1065
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 2: that I was kind of hitting the right cadence with

1066
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 2: the teleprompter. It is addressing the camera when you're doing

1067
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,479
Speaker 2: an interview, so you make sure you're bringing the people

1068
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 2: at home into it and it doesn't just feel like

1069
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 2: you're in you're kind of spying on two people talking,

1070
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 2: you know. It was it was hosting. The show was

1071
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 2: called The Turn, and I had two co hosts with

1072
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 2: me and it was making sure I got Erk in

1073
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 2: here or got Lou in there, taking it to break

1074
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 2: the right way. I mean, it was it was learning

1075
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 2: it on. You know. It was literally real time class

1076
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 2: for me day to day. You know. The one thing

1077
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 2: I did that I urge anybody and I tell people

1078
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,279
Speaker 2: and they email me or DM on social about how

1079
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 2: do I get into this is you just kind of

1080
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 2: can't say no. And I early into my back nine

1081
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 2: network experience, said yes to all the other shows all time,

1082
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 2: anytime you need me to come on. If it was

1083
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 2: going on with John McGuinness and Jeff Rude, absolutely, if

1084
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,520
Speaker 2: it was going on with Maddie Blake and his show, absolutely.

1085
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 2: I was willing to do anything to improve at the

1086
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,759
Speaker 2: craft because I had no craft. And so if there

1087
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 2: was anything I could do to be around people that

1088
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 2: had done TV more than I had, or just simply

1089
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 2: brought a new energy or new perspective to it, I

1090
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 2: was I was going to say yes. And so the

1091
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,400
Speaker 2: question of what did I have to learn? The answer

1092
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 2: is all of it, And you know, just trying to

1093
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 2: find out what you're good at and what you're bad at,

1094
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 2: and then what you're bad at to get better at.

1095
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 2: While you're not forgetting to continually to try to, you know,

1096
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 2: sharpen up the stuff that you're good at.

1097
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: So basically, the overall picture here that I have had

1098
00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: of you for a long time is that this is

1099
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: a man who has done just about literally every job

1100
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: in golf media. You know, and we haven't even talked

1101
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: about how you got into podcasting. And you know, you

1102
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: have a popular Twitter account and so you're in the

1103
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 1: social media so I think you're probably the best person

1104
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: to ask about this. How do you think, you know,

1105
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 1: since you started, how do you think the golf media

1106
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: landscape has changed? And do you think it has changed

1107
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: for the better?

1108
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,760
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you could probably say sports media

1109
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 2: and not just go with golf, even though I know

1110
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 2: obviously we're very focused on golf. I mean, the media

1111
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 2: world has changed so much. I think a lot of

1112
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 2: it is a little bit of what you said about

1113
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 2: the old blogging days. Was the old blogging days, you know,

1114
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:47,359
Speaker 2: the olden days, if you will, on the Internet. It

1115
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 2: was a lot about fun and the payout wasn't necessary.

1116
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 2: And to me now media feels like the payout is

1117
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,360
Speaker 2: a must, like I've got to get something back for

1118
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 2: this or it's not quite worth my time. I feel

1119
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 2: that personally at times, you know, where you know, maybe

1120
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 2: this week I don't want to do a podcast, but

1121
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 2: I know I have to, or I don't feel like

1122
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 2: I have the energy to go check track down this

1123
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 2: person or that person for comments or quotes or even

1124
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 2: off the record stuff. You know, it's such a the

1125
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 2: payoff is almost more necessary than the work that goes

1126
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 2: into what you're trying to do. And when I first

1127
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 2: started doing this, it was all about just trying if

1128
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 2: I can get one person to smile, laugh, be entertained,

1129
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 2: you know, that's the goal. And for me, over the

1130
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: last couple of years, I've really tried to return to

1131
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 2: that mentality, is to go back to the way I

1132
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 2: used to think about golf. Where I mean, if you

1133
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 2: look at my Twitter, it's pretty much entirely mebia and silly, right,

1134
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 2: because I feel like that's how I am normally is

1135
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to have a little bit of fun

1136
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 2: with what I'm following or what I'm watching or what

1137
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 2: I'm covering. And it's not so easy to do that anymore,

1138
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 2: And so do I think it's changed for the better.

1139
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 2: I don't want to sit here and say it's changed

1140
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 2: for the worse. I just think it's different. I mean,

1141
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 2: I think the media in the nineties versus the media

1142
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 2: when I was coming up was very, very different. And

1143
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 2: I'm sure the people in the nineties went, oh God,

1144
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 2: this sucks, this is this is way too irreverent. You know,

1145
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:12,279
Speaker 2: this is way too loosey goosey. These people don't know

1146
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 2: what they're doing. And I would say, now, there's a

1147
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,400
Speaker 2: way smarter group of people doing this, you know. I

1148
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 2: mean I think about you know, I've mentioned you and Andy,

1149
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 2: and obviously you know I'm a big fan of you guys.

1150
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 2: I mean I consider you guys friends first and foremost

1151
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 2: before I consider yourself, you know, golf media people. But

1152
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 2: I mean I look at people like Dan Rappaport, who

1153
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 2: is a young guy in the business who I think

1154
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 2: is really smart and does a hell of a job

1155
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 2: at what he's doing. I look at people like you know,

1156
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 2: Paige Sporanic, who has had to kind of navigate the

1157
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 2: golf landscape in so many different ways, and to look

1158
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 2: at what she's doing with it now, I find it

1159
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:49,239
Speaker 2: very impressive. I mean, for her to to continually put

1160
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 2: herself out there and also understand that poking fun at

1161
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 2: yourself is a part of the job. Is not the

1162
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 2: easiest thing to do, and it could it could doom

1163
00:53:57,719 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 2: a lot of people. I mean, it could knock a

1164
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 2: lot of people out of this profession. And so there

1165
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 2: are so many people I think day to day we

1166
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 2: see in the media landscape that maybe we don't appreciate

1167
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 2: how good they are at what they do. Think about

1168
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 2: no laying up and you know, think about that in

1169
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, Hey, we've got five buddies, We're gonna

1170
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 2: quit our jobs and go write about golf and video

1171
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 2: about golf. And to now look at where they are

1172
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 2: and how big they are in this media landscape. You

1173
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,239
Speaker 2: don't have to be an ex player, you know, you

1174
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 2: don't have to have played or caddied or coached or

1175
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,960
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. If you're smart and you're honest

1176
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 2: about what you do, there is opportunity for you in

1177
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 2: that world. And for that, I think, in a way,

1178
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 2: you could almost argue it's better.

1179
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: Returning to your earlier point about the entrance of money

1180
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,839
Speaker 1: into all of this, that's really interesting because I agree that,

1181
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: you know, independent media outlets now have a path to

1182
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 1: kind of to success and to hire distribution and can

1183
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: kind of establish themselves in different ways. You know, I

1184
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:02,320
Speaker 1: think that the way that I came into media wouldn't

1185
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 1: have been possible in the nineteen nineties. I was a teacher,

1186
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:10,400
Speaker 1: that was my career, and I just sort of, you know,

1187
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 1: got to know Andy by being on Twitter and writing

1188
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: some things on a personal blog that wouldn't have been

1189
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:21,160
Speaker 1: available to me in the nineties at all. I would

1190
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:22,799
Speaker 1: have had to if I had wanted to work in media,

1191
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: I would have had to do it in a very

1192
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 1: different way. And so I think that that, you know,

1193
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: way in which people can kind of carve out a

1194
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,760
Speaker 1: space for themselves is significant. But at the same time,

1195
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: once it becomes your full time job, once it's no

1196
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:42,240
Speaker 1: longer kind of casual and like whatever anything goes, I'm

1197
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: doing this blog when I'm you know, sitting at work

1198
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: and supposed to be doing other things, that feeling of

1199
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: kind of just like freely doing this for fun. Somehow

1200
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: we've got to like hang on to that feeling a

1201
00:55:55,920 --> 00:56:00,800
Speaker 1: little bit, because it's exactly what was great about early

1202
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:04,879
Speaker 1: podcasts and early blogs, right that people weren't doing it

1203
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: for brand partnerships or for an income they were just

1204
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: doing it because they liked doing it and liked making

1205
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 1: people laugh, and liked building a community around their interest.

1206
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: And so you know, once money enters into that equation,

1207
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: it becomes really hard to maintain that sense of the

1208
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:28,800
Speaker 1: kind of wildness and free wheeling nature of what independent

1209
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 1: media was like fifteen years ago.

1210
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 2: It's just a reminder. I mean, I think this is

1211
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 2: probably a life lesson is you know, when things aren't

1212
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 2: the easiest, or when things feel like work, or when

1213
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,359
Speaker 2: things are stressful, it's reminding yourself why you're doing it.

1214
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 2: And normally it's because you loved it. I mean, you know,

1215
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 2: especially for us, right, I mean, we're in the golf space.

1216
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 2: We're in the golf media. We love golf. You know,

1217
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,279
Speaker 2: even if weeks feel like work, and you know you're

1218
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 2: on the road and you're staying at a hotel and

1219
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 2: your flight gets delayed and you're going to miss your connection,

1220
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:01,799
Speaker 2: you're not gonna get home to see your kids. You've

1221
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 2: got to find a way to remind yourself of why

1222
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 2: you love it. And you mentioned the early podcast days.

1223
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 2: I mean I remember getting a sponsor on the Clubhouse,

1224
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 2: like my first golf podcast. I mean, I would love

1225
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 2: to I will tell you offline how much they paid me.

1226
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 2: It is very little. At the time I was I

1227
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 2: couldn't believe that somebody was going to pay to sponsor

1228
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 2: this podcast. I remember how easy it used to be

1229
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 2: to get guests, you know, when I first started doing

1230
00:57:28,160 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 2: the Clubhouse. I mean I could get anybody. Justin Thomas

1231
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,240
Speaker 2: came on a couple times. I had Rory. I remember

1232
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 2: I broke news with Rory mcclroy on the Clubhouse and

1233
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 2: it was on the bottom ticker of ESPN and it

1234
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 2: said the Clubhouse was Shane Bacon and I'm like, this

1235
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: is so surreal to be seeing these types of things.

1236
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 2: And now to your point, there's so much that goes

1237
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 2: behind the scenes to get things to go the way

1238
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 2: they go, and most of that is money. So for me,

1239
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 2: when the flights are long and they're delayed and the

1240
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:01,440
Speaker 2: hotel's not great, I remind my self of the open

1241
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,919
Speaker 2: this year, right, I was sitting on the live from

1242
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 2: set working for Golf Channel at Saint Andrew's. I mean,

1243
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 2: this is a place that I would loop for, you know,

1244
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 2: anybody and everybody. When I got out of college in

1245
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 2: O six, I mean, this was a place I worked

1246
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 2: in one capacity, and fast forward to twenty twenty two

1247
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 2: and I'm sitting on a set with Mark Rowfin and

1248
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 2: Heimi Diaz, you know, two of my favorite people in

1249
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 2: the golf media world coming to millions of people's television screens.

1250
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 2: I mean, that is that's the that's the dream, right Like,

1251
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 2: That's why I did this. That's why I started dogs

1252
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 2: at Chase Cars. That's why I reached out to what

1253
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 2: Ryan Wilson and said, can I write a FanHouse? That's

1254
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 2: why I was hitting will Leech up back in the

1255
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 2: day and said, can I write major championship previews for

1256
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 2: dead Spin that were probably getting one hundredth of the

1257
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 2: traffic that most of their articles were getting. All of

1258
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 2: that was to get to a point where maybe one

1259
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 2: day you could be on TV, or you could be

1260
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 2: writing for Sports Illustrated or Yahoo dot com or Golf

1261
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 2: Channel dot com and someone out there was interested in

1262
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 2: what you had to say. And so I think for

1263
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 2: all of the bullshit that we go through in this business,

1264
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 2: I'm reminded a lot that it's such a dream that

1265
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 2: we get to do this and it's not work if

1266
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 2: you really think about it. And you know, for me,

1267
00:59:17,400 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 2: It's like I go back to the old course so

1268
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 2: much because that was one of the most fun work

1269
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,959
Speaker 2: weeks I've had maybe in my career, was just being

1270
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 2: there on site getting to be a part of the

1271
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 2: Open Championship at Saint Andrews. And if you'd have told

1272
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 2: me that No. Six, that I was going to get

1273
00:59:31,120 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 2: to do that at some point in my career, I

1274
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:34,920
Speaker 2: wouldn't have cared what you'd asked me to do to

1275
00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:36,240
Speaker 2: get to that point. I would have done it.

1276
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: Shane, Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

1277
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: Tell people where they can get your book.

1278
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, The Golfer Zoo is available back nine press dot com.

1279
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 2: That's the number nine, not written out back nine press

1280
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:53,840
Speaker 2: dot com, backslash Bacon like my name, like the food.

1281
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:56,880
Speaker 2: You can order it from there, and I appreciate it

1282
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 2: if you would. If you do it and you read

1283
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 2: it to your kids, please in a picture to me,

1284
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 2: because that's been the best part of doing the book

1285
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 2: is seeing literal pictures of parents reading it to their kids.

1286
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Speaker 1: This episode of the Friday Podcast was edited by Meg Atkins.

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Speaker 1: If you haven't already, i'd encourage you to rate and

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Speaker 1: review our podcast on iTunes. Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: listening and supporting, and we'll be back again soon