WEBVTT - The Many Shane Bacons 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.480 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.320 And when I find my ball. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.920 In a bried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg, 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.880 Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg Lie, 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:35.880 I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.600 to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and my 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.880 guest today is Shane Bacon. Shane is the host of 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.519 the excellent podcast Get a Grip, a friend of the 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.199 Friday Egg, and now a children's book author. Shane's new 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.080 book is called The Golfer's Zoo. It was published by 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.800 back nine Press and you can order it right now. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:55.800 So Shane and I are going to talk about this 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.080 book and about the occasionally fraught relationship between parenting and golf. 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.560 But I also thought we'd discuss Shane's background in writing. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.319 He actually got his start in golf media as a blogger, 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:08.800 and he has some interesting takes on how the media 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.759 landscape has shifted in the past fifteen years or so. Now. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.000 Shane is the first of a few book authors we're 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.440 planning to have on the podcast in November and December. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.320 I figure it's getting cold outside in a lot of places, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.200 golf season is winding down, and it's a good time 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.920 to bring some new books into your life. So we'll 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:27.880 give you a few different options over the next couple 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.080 of months. All right with that, let's go to Shane Bacon. 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.920 This is, you know, kind of middle of the book 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:39.839 is when I get a little I get a little 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.679 frisky with the book and I try to take a 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.080 little digs. It's some of the moms and dads that 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.320 are potentially reading to their kids that aren't the best golfers. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.559 Golf uses animal terms like eagle and birdie and holes 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.960 that are dog legs, move left or right. On the 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.240 seventh and eighth lives a family of owl's who ask 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.840 who with some serious fright And you can see, uh, 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.360 you can see the beautiful A V L illustration there 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.480 with the al He just crushed it. But yeah, I mean, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.320 you know, that's pretty surreal to continue to kind of 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.760 look at it and see this thing actually in hand. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.640 I mean, I've only Garrett, I've only had this in 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.240 hand for like four days. So to uh get an 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.320 opportunity to like see it and actually read it out 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.720 loud to you. You're the first person I've read this 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.079 book to as I've opened it up. I just want 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:28.799 you to know that. 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:30.760 Wait a minute, so you haven't read this to your 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:31.400 kids yet. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.200 So my my my wife did, uh my wife when 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:35.880 we got the book. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:37.440 Yes, I saw you tweeted about that. 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my wife. My wife grabbed a 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.600 copy and she went and laid on the bed and 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.079 I went in there and sat with them. And I 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.080 think it's, you know, I live in a in a 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.280 in a world where I'm supposed to enjoy the spotlight 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.440 being on me, you know. I mean, it's it's part 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.560 of being you know, up front on TV and in 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.919 the media and those types of things. And I don't 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.480 believe I'm the most comfortable with the spotlight on me. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.840 I mean, even in those kind of personal moments where 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.120 you know, we have the book that I wrote and 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.400 reading it to my son. So I don't know if 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.680 my wife knew to be proactive and grab it and 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:13.440 go read it to Henry for the first time. But 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.840 that was that was one of those moments, you know, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.440 as a professional or as a journalist or whatever you 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:20.679 want to call it, that I'm going to remember for 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:21.280 a long time. 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.600 Yeah, I bet all right. So first of all, maybe 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.720 just give me an overview of what the book is about. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.079 It's called The Golfer Zoo. What's the basic premise here? 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.440 Yeah, So wrote a children's golf book called The Golfer Zoo. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.440 As you mentioned, I've been working on it for about 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.920 the past year with the Back Nine Press group. Jim 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.000 and his team are awesome and they've done a great 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.280 job of helping me, you know, navigate a world that 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.640 I don't quite understand. You know, I'd never published a 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.720 book before. I was, you know, I'm in the golf world. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.120 I get a lot of golf stuff sent to me. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.000 I was shocked at how little amount of golf books 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.360 there were for kids. And so when I would take Henry, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.360 who's my three and a half year old son, when 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.200 I would take Henry to the golf course, and Henry's 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.920 not into golf yet. He doesn't I cut down golf 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.640 clubs for him. He doesn't care. I have a putting 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.000 green in my backyard. He lays on it and plays 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.040 on it, but he doesn't quite care about the golf 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:13.640 part of it yet. When we would go to the 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.520 golf course, he was obsessed with the animals. And this 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.480 actually all kind of derived from a conversation I had 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.600 with Joel Klatt years ago about how Joel got his 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.040 boys into golf. He's got three sons. He said, he 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:26.880 would go to the golf course, they'd play a hole 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.359 as golf, and then they would play a hole whatever 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:31.680 the kids wanted to do. And a lot of the 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.480 time it was go to the pond and look at 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.120 the turtles, or go throw rocks in the water and 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.240 see if the fish moved. And so when those types 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.800 of things were floating in my brain, I thought about 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:43.960 the zoo that is the golf course. I mean, every 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.960 region of the world, every region of our country has 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:48.880 different animals that live on the golf course. You can 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.440 see snakes if you're in Arizona, you can see alligators 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:53.920 if you're in Florida. There are a lot of different 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:55.680 types of animals. And we were in Montana a few 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.720 weeks ago for a wedding, and I mean, i am 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.680 I'm head on a swivel looking for bear. I'm just 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:02.240 like hoping to see a bear at some point in 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.719 the golf course. So that's where it started from. The 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.159 idea is mom and Dad go to the golf course. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.880 They leave the kids at home. What are they going 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.000 to do? And the whole idea of the book is 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.080 to open up this world that is the golfer Zoo, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.640 which is a golf course, but really it's a habitat 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:17.200 for animals. 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.920 Yeah. I like to that emphasis. And you know there's 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.839 a golf as an experience of nature. Is something that's 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.640 kind of cool to introduce to kids. But also it 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.080 fits with the genre of a children's book, right. Many 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.960 children's books are kind of these taxonomies of animals, so 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.360 there's sort of a fit there with the genre of 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.880 the book. Kids are interested in hearing about animals. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.400 They love animals. You asked me to kind of think 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.160 about my three books, my favorite children's books. We'll get 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.279 to in a bit, and it was interesting. I figured 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.280 when you asked me that question, I would go animal 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.360 heavy because I like reading about animals. My son loves 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.239 animal books. You'll hear later that it is a different 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.120 direction actually are the ones I picked. But it's an 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.800 easy way to introduce people to things, especially kids. They 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.240 love animals. They love all sorts of animals, they love 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.200 pictures of animals, and our illustrator Reviel. I mean the 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.080 stuff he did with this book and some of the 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.120 imagery he did. I mean, there's there's an image you'll 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.240 see in the book if you buy it where they're 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.960 reaching into a pond, and the illustration is from the 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.400 pond up, so it's from basically in the water up 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.000 seeing the hands come in with the fish in the water. 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.560 I mean the golf course is I mean it literally 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:33.840 is a park, you know. I mean not the Malcolm 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.320 Gladwell level of park where he wants to bulldoz every 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.560 golf course and make it a park. But golf courses 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.560 are parks. I mean they're animals that live there. You know, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.120 every superintendent, Garrett, have you ever met a superintendent that 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.120 didn't have one or two dogs on the golf cart 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.880 driving around like this is a part of the experience 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.040 of going to a golf course. As you see birds, 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.520 you see turtles, you see snakes, you see deer. That's 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.560 part of what you do. You take pictures of these 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.479 things when I play golf. Now I am taking pictures 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.359 more of the animals I see on the golf course 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.039 to show Henry later on that I am actually the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:05.880 golf holes that I'm. 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.920 Playing, yeah, And we love animal content here at the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.600 Frida Egg. We talk about it all the time with 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:15.360 the PGA Tour telecasts. You know, whenever there's an alligator 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.800 on the golf course and a golfer interacts with it, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.280 that's golden content right there. So we've concentrated that in 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.600 this book here. You mentioned that I asked you to 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.560 think about books that you have enjoyed reading to your kids. Now, 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.600 now you have two kids, right, yeah. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:32.880 I have a three and a half year old son 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.840 and a seven month daughter. Seven month old daughter. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.160 Great, Okay, so you are in the thick of it 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.560 right now. My friend, I have two kids as well, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.520 but they're a little bit older. They're eight and five, 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.280 so we're out of the woods a bit. So all 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.840 respect to what you're going through at the moment, But 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.360 in any case, I asked you to think about books 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.000 that you have enjoyed reading to your kids. And I guess, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.280 in particular, your son at three and a half is 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.560 going to be getting into different types of books at 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.280 this point, So what what have you read to them 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:06.680 that you've enjoyed. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.360 So the one animal book that I picked was good 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.600 Night Farm. I love good Night Farm, classic book, very 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.480 easy to read, a lot of animals involved. Henry's a 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.560 big fan, so good Night Farm kind of popped through 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.560 my mind when you asked that question a couple of 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.320 days ago. They're okay. The one thing that I really 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.800 enjoyed doing when I read books to Henry is we 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:30.880 have a lot of Doctor Seuss books, kind of passed 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.000 on from my sisters that you know that have older 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.200 children now, and I find it almost like work practice 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.920 to read Doctor Seuss books. I have like personal challenges 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.560 of like no mistakes, you know, as I'm reading the 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.480 entirety of a Doctor Seuss book, don't mess one thing up, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.080 because I feel like Doctor Seuss tried to mess you 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.400 up as you're reading it. And the one that's the 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:53.640 hardest for me is there's a Walket in my pocket, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.680 and so I pull that book a lot. When Henry 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.439 asks for Doctor Seuss, which he's been asking for more 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.280 lately than if I go with Walking in my Pocket, 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.440 I know it's going to be a real test for 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.720 me to get through the entire book without screwing up something, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.959 because basically doctor Seuss was trying to get you tongue tied, right, 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.400 So that's number two. I love that book. I think 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.320 doctor Seuss is an absolute genius, especially going through this 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.800 process of trying to rhyme things and to see how 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.040 unbelievably easy he made it seem not that easy, by 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.040 the way. And then Goodnight, good Night Construction Site is third. 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.880 Henry loves it one of our go tos. He's really 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.760 into trucks, has been into trucks for the last couple 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.000 of years and so that's an easy one because he 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.080 likes to get into it. And then honorable mention is 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.560 The Big Book of Trucks. If you can see a 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.240 theme here. Henry likes trucks a lot. The Big Book 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.120 of Trucks simply because Henry now reads that book to me, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.560 which is a when you start to transition from me 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.920 reading the book to him to him reading it to me. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.280 A little less work on dad's end. 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.480 That's always a delightful moment when the kid knows the 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.560 book well enough to read it to you. But beware, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.240 at some point the kids are going to want to 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.599 read on their own, and that is a that is 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.439 a bit of a sad moment because you just feel like, well, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.600 you know, what's my purpose here? 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.800 We had a Garrett. Garrett, we had a moment. So 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.720 so my mom, who is just the most lovely human 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.839 that exists, comes out quite a bit to help out 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:17.000 and to be around the kids. You know, we don't 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.079 have any family up in Connecticut, so when we need 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.559 somebody to come up and watch, we typically reach out 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.880 to either my mom or Cindy's parents first and foremost. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.280 And my mom got Henry a bus not too long ago, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.080 probably a year ago, and Henry called it Nana bus, right, 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.520 I mean, it's Nana and it's the bus that Nana 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.480 got her. And the other day he was playing with 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.200 the bus. And now he's three and a half and 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:38.679 he just called it a bus. And I heard. I'm 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.200 listening to my wife and Henry interacted in another room 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.840 and Cindy goes, no, no, that's Nana bus. And he goes, no, no, no, 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:46.960 it's just a bus. And like my heart, you know, 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.160 I'm like, no, no, no, no, no no. This is for 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.559 the for the rest of eternity. This is supposed to 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:53.920 be Nana bus. And when you start to hit those 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.680 moments as a parent, when you don't, they don't. It 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.720 doesn't matter to the kid, right, I mean, it's not 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.800 emotional for the kid, but to you, it's literally hearing 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.600 your child grow up. Those are those are moments that 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:08.440 I don't know if I love the moment or if 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.520 it's just part of it. But I'm not gonna be excited, 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.000 Garrett about the moment when they want to read the 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:13.720 books alone. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.160 Yeah, I love that. No, you know, listen, you fool, 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.520 this is just a bus. I realize that this is 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.080 a buss. There are Yeah, there are so many stages 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.800 like that where the magic just kind of, you know, 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.800 the innocence kind of gradually goes away. But it's a 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.080 long process. So you've still you've still got got a 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.360 lot of time from three and a half forward. So 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.400 you've mentioned a couple of times the illustrations in the book. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.120 The words are obviously yours, but the illustrations are by 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.840 an artist named Avl basel Am I pronouncing. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.120 That right, Yep, yep, that's good. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.679 So what went into the process of creating those illustrations. 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.480 Did you communicate with Avil and kind of come up 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.679 with ideas and things like that. I've always wondered how 0:11:58.679 --> 0:11:59.160 that works. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.400 Yeah, it was. That was probably the hardest process, Garrett, 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.479 to be honest, with you was to find the right illustrator. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:05.880 I mean we reached out to a lot of people. 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.440 We kind of first reached out to golf artists, you know, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.200 people in and around the golf space, and you know, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.000 some guys didn't and girls didn't have enough time or 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.760 they'd never done something like that. And as we were 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.679 getting closer and closer, because we wanted to release the 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.240 book before the holidays to give people an opportunity to 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.960 buy it as a holiday gift for anybody in and 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.120 around their family. And so as we were kind of 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.800 getting closer and closer to crunch time, Jim and I 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.440 basically went into a list of illustrators that have done 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.880 stuff like this before. And you know, Eviel's international, I mean, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.280 he's not an American illustrator. We weren't totally sure what 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.120 we were going to get when he started to send. 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.040 So what happens is you give notes on what you want, 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.440 and you send the copy and then they send like sketches. 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.400 I mean they're black and white sketches, basically penciled out sketches. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:55.600 And the first one we got it was like, okay, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.880 this is it, no brainer. He gets it. He knows 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.400 what we want to do. He you know, I mean, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.120 these are beautiful. I can't wait to see what they're 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.240 gonna look like in color. And so it was a 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.560 couple of two or three months of finding the right person. 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.719 But like I said, the first basically one page back 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:14.240 that we got was a win. And you know, I mean, listen, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.120 you write a children's book, and it's important, but the 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.280 illustrations are way more important than the words on the page. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.200 And he, as I said, I mean to say, he 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.160 knocked it out of the park. I mean, this is 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.920 like shooting fifty two. I mean, it was perfection. It 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.400 looks so you know, it just looks so professional. You 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:33.880 haven't I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.160 I really know what I'm doing in life in general. Right, 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.679 It's basically doing a book is like being a parent. 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.319 You start out and you have guides and you've seen 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.720 people do it before. You're like, oh, this guy wrote 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.200 a book, I can write a book. Or this girl 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:47.719 wrote a book. I can do it. If they can 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.080 do it. This person's a parent, they have three kids, 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.760 their kids are alive, Like, surely I can follow along 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.120 and hammer out and make sure my kids aren't going 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.200 to be too screwed up. But you know, once you 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.240 start to get into the thick of it, you have 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.200 to learn day by day and to try to figure 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.040 it out yourself. And so to see it kind of 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.040 come to life. And the way it did from his 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.160 illustrations was, you know, a special a thing as I've 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:10.800 done in my profession at this point. 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.280 What made you say to yourself? You know, I have 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.320 this busy TV career, I have a popular podcast, active 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.280 social media presence. You know, we know how much time 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:26.080 goes into dealing with people on the internet. What made 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.120 you say, what I really need right now is to 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:30.400 write a children's book? 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:30.920 How did you? 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:32.560 How did you get to that point? 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.000 It was it was a kick in the ass for 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.040 my wife, honestly. I mean, I'm one of those people, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.480 like so many out there, that have a lot of ideas, 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.560 throw them out there, write them in a notes app, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.880 but don't always execute them. And it was kind of 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.360 my wife saying, let's you've been talking about this for 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.720 a while, why don't you do it right? And so yeah, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:53.360 I mean, you know, I mean I was doing it 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.200 over the last year. You know, our summers at Golf 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.120 Channel are the busiest time of year with the major 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.960 championships that we have and just basically the golf, you know, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:02.840 back to back to back, So it's very busy. I 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.080 mean a lot of this stuff is notations on the 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.320 road or emails on flights. But I've realized in my 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.400 life as I've gotten older, is if I'm not pushing 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.280 myself to try new stuff that I get I don't 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.560 know if it's depressed, but I definitely noticed that I 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.040 get a little down, and so I'm always trying to 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.160 kind of look at new things to do. I mean, 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:24.800 it might be a new workout, you know, it might 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.480 be going and doing something at the gym I've never done. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.000 Maybe I've been chipping a lot one handed lately. Shout 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.040 out Fred Couples. I've been shooting chipping one handed, just 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.080 to try and see because I actually think I might 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.480 be a better chiper one handed, especially in and around 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.760 the greens. But it was just a push. It was 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.360 trying out something different, to see how it would go, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.880 to see if it could make any sense, to see 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.360 if I could actually execute it. I think that was 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.040 one of the main reasons to try to get it 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.520 kind of wedged in the schedule. As you mentioned. 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.600 Was there partly a desire here to use the book 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.640 to explain golf to your own kids? Is something that 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.240 you had kind of thought about before writing the book, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.880 like how do I describe to my children what I'm 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:08.840 devoting my life to. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.320 I think it was a hope of, you know, at 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.680 least sparking some sort of interest. You know, I mentioned 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.240 to you that Henry's not a big golfer. He hasn't 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.240 gotten into it yet. He hadn't got hooked like my 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.640 buddy Ashton. I mean his son Max, similar age. I 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.080 think Max is three months older on the dot to Henry, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.800 and I mean Max has this beautiful swing and it 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.320 looks great. And I mean Ashton was an incredible golfer. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.320 You know, he's my four back partner and played professional 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.240 golf for a while. But I see, you know Max, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:36.640 and of course, as you know, I mean, you always 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.480 compare your kids to other kids, right, just like we 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.960 compare ourselves to other people. And I just wanted some 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:43.840 sort of hook. It's not that you have to be 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.440 obsessed with golf, but to maybe show a little bit 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.640 of interest in going back to the golf course. And 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.440 I think that was my hope with the book was 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.880 maybe there's a kid or two out there that their 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:55.680 parents read him the book and then they asked to 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.520 go to the golf course with mom and dad. And 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.400 if that's the hope, you know, we hear the term 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.120 growth the game lot. I'm never really in the growth 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.720 of game business. I mean, I hope people like golf, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.800 and I hope people find golf, and I hope people 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.000 love golf the way I love golf. My hope with 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.560 this book is that it sparks some imagination inside children 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.480 to where maybe they'll want to go to the golf 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.560 course once or twice with mom and dad. And of 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:19.880 those kids, if five of them take up the game, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:20.880 then I feel like it's a win. 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.760 I'm curious, you know, when your kids came along. So 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.520 this book is about parents who go out to play 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.480 golf and right sort of describing it to the child 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.720 that they have left at home to go do this, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.760 And so I'm curious about whether when your kids came along, 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.320 whether your relationship to playing golf changed absolutely. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.200 I mean, I actually wrote about this in the Golfers Journal, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.640 you know about kind of navigating Garrett. You know this 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.760 when you work and live in the golf space, and 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.320 I've been doing golf media for quite a while and 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:56.680 I know we're going to get into that in a bit. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.640 I've been in golf for a long time and I've 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.800 seen so many iterations of golf, from caddy into playing, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.160 you know, to now working in it day to day, 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.159 and your love can fade a little bit. I mean 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.879 your love in terms of winning, go to the golf course, 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.040 wanting to go out and practice. I mean that's something 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.520 that I'm really really lacking in in terms of dedicating 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.120