Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today I am joined by Patrick Boyd. Patrick is the
Speaker 1: co founder of National Custom Works and founder of Boyd,
Speaker 1: Blade and Farrell. Besides making custom irons, Patrick is also
Speaker 1: a golf course architecture addict and was the longtime GM
Speaker 1: of Sweeten's Cove. This will be another two part podcasts,
Speaker 1: with part two dropping on Tuesday. Enjoy it and I
Speaker 1: wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: I miss a green for example. I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 4: A bride egg, Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 4: Frida egggg Frida Egg, bride egg, Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hup course. How
Speaker 1: did you get into club making?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I got into club making. It was
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, and I, you know, I'd always
Speaker 2: really been into golf clubs, and I just decided I
Speaker 2: had some time on my hands. I found a guy
Speaker 2: that had a custom shop that was pretty close to
Speaker 2: where I was working. I was working in a law
Speaker 2: firm at the time, and I wrote him an email
Speaker 2: and just was really kind of interested in learning about
Speaker 2: building clubs and everything else, and I just happened to
Speaker 2: catch him at the right time. He'd been in business
Speaker 2: for about a year, and he had all these shafts
Speaker 2: that he'd pulled out of clubs, and I was basically
Speaker 2: the back room bitch for this guy for like months.
Speaker 2: And when I kind of got through everything, he kind
Speaker 2: of taught me how to build clubs and how to
Speaker 2: fit clubs, and I mean that was really kind of
Speaker 2: my introduction to the golf of the golf equipment business.
Speaker 2: I'm still in touch with the guy too. He was
Speaker 2: he was a great mentor for me. His name is Leith,
Speaker 2: Leith Anderson. He's in he's in Indiana. But I mean,
Speaker 2: it was just, you know, it was one of those
Speaker 2: moments in my life where it was, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: something I'd always kind of wanted to look at doing,
Speaker 2: and you know, it was either you have this opportunity
Speaker 2: now to do it. I was, you know, I was
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six at the time, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know just kind of dove into it. You know it.
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's been an interesting rabbit hole, to say
Speaker 2: the least. But it's kind of taking me all over
Speaker 2: the place living and and as far as just having different,
Speaker 2: different hats and doing different things in golf. It's it's
Speaker 2: been a really fun ride. And obviously, you know, there's
Speaker 2: nothing I'd really change about it. But yeah, I was
Speaker 2: just kind of an auspicious start in the back room
Speaker 2: of a custom club shop in Palo Alto, California.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating. I uh, I grew up in on Wenesia
Speaker 1: Club in Lake Forest. They always had a club maker
Speaker 1: club fitter all the way back to like the old
Speaker 1: days of when that was the way it was and
Speaker 1: they're famous. Guy was a Hubby hub John who is
Speaker 1: who's finishing up. But but outside of that, it was
Speaker 1: for a long time, I feel like the the mass
Speaker 1: production just overwhelmed the handcrafted work.
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent, I mean, and the timing was
Speaker 2: really you know, this was like two thousand. It's like
Speaker 2: two thousand and three. So I mean you had places
Speaker 2: like there's you know, like John Riley's in Monterey, and
Speaker 2: you had you know, Henry Griffits kind of did a
Speaker 2: custom fitting deal, and they had places all over and
Speaker 2: they're you know kind of manufacturers had tried to have
Speaker 2: fitting systems. Zevo was another one that had a fitting system,
Speaker 2: but you know, manufact I just tried to have fitting
Speaker 2: systems and it just never really worked out. And all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, this you know, kind of its kind
Speaker 2: of whole other deal started opening up with you know,
Speaker 2: guys that had the ability and the equipment to fit
Speaker 2: people for shafts and for specs and to really understand
Speaker 2: what somebody needs. And I really kind of changed the
Speaker 2: paradigm of how people bought golf equipment. But it was just,
Speaker 2: you know, it was interesting to kind of get into
Speaker 2: that really in its infancy when businesses like that really
Speaker 2: hadn't been around that long. I mean there were businesses
Speaker 2: before that were they were buying cheap clone equipment and
Speaker 2: assembling it and selling it, you know, selling cheap sets.
Speaker 2: But I mean this was this was a legit you know,
Speaker 2: this was a legitimate performance deal. This was going in
Speaker 2: working with the latest technology. And I mean we had
Speaker 2: in his shop, we had a few different devices, but
Speaker 2: I mean there was one really old school one man
Speaker 2: where it was literally like you hit through a couple
Speaker 2: of lasers and it would just like spit out numbers
Speaker 2: that were somewhat accurate, but I mean having options for
Speaker 2: people to try and you know, kind of the birth
Speaker 2: of launch monitors. It was really you know, really this
Speaker 2: was kind of the beginning of it, and it was
Speaker 2: it was interesting to be you know, kind of kind
Speaker 2: of there looking at and seeing that kind of change
Speaker 2: things and just really the evolution of where things went
Speaker 2: from there, you know, because they're there. Weren't at that time,
Speaker 2: there weren't any clubs with shaft changing technology. You know,
Speaker 2: Nakashima was the first company to have that, and that
Speaker 2: was like two thousand and five, and then you know
Speaker 2: that really kind of changed the way fittings were done.
Speaker 2: And then all these all these connect systems really kind
Speaker 2: of got good, and you know, club connect systems got
Speaker 2: really good and and and really easy for people to
Speaker 2: work with, club makers to work with to build a
Speaker 2: fit cart, for people to to really hit, you know,
Speaker 2: hit a lot of different different shots and clubs to
Speaker 2: see what they needed.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was fascin you know, the guy
Speaker 1: I went to this guy a long time ago. You know,
Speaker 1: I've gotten fit. You know, he it was in high school.
Speaker 1: I had to be in high school. He's doing this
Speaker 1: out of his out of the garage of his his
Speaker 1: house in the northern suburbs of Chicago. His name was
Speaker 1: Dennis Pine. I don't know if you recognize that name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dennis is like I know Dennis.
Speaker 5: He had he was part of Club Champion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew him before he was part of Clubs Champion,
Speaker 2: so that there they were there were Yeah, I know Dennis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like that. That's so I was. I got
Speaker 1: I went to his garage of his house when I
Speaker 1: was like I was a high schooler, and then it
Speaker 1: became Club Champion and he had an offshoot. But it's
Speaker 1: just crazy how this boom has happened with custom clubs
Speaker 1: and then you know, you're on the all the way
Speaker 1: on that one end of the spectrum now with National
Speaker 1: Custom Works, where you're doing you know, the custom irons,
Speaker 1: which I think adds a whole nother layer and interesting
Speaker 1: aspect to the club making process.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because I mean we're taking you know, we're
Speaker 2: taking all that information that somebody is going to really
Speaker 2: garner through a fitting, figuring out the length, lie shaft,
Speaker 2: the specs that they really need, and we can really
Speaker 2: take that fitting to the next level as far as
Speaker 2: crafting the club's most specifically the bottom of the golf
Speaker 2: clubs of what they need to kind of match up
Speaker 2: with their specific tendencies, their preferences, and the conditions that
Speaker 2: they play in. There's there's really a lot that we
Speaker 2: do that's on that side of it. That's kind of
Speaker 2: really what the focus is. Obviously, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: little aesthetic details that are really kind of tailored to
Speaker 2: a client's preferences. But really the goal and we fit
Speaker 2: somebody for irons and wedges is just figuring out exactly
Speaker 2: how the bottom of that golf club needs to work
Speaker 2: for that person for what they like to do at
Speaker 2: the golf club and what they do at the golf club.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's com sorry good.
Speaker 1: I'm not a gearhead at all, so you know, for
Speaker 1: all the listeners I am, I'm out over my skis
Speaker 1: here talking with this. So I'm going to ask a
Speaker 1: lot of basic questions and.
Speaker 2: Stuff.
Speaker 1: We are going, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. But I'm interested in club, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to get a little more of a baseline.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I get fit, I put them in
Speaker 1: my bag, I forget about it. I don't even think
Speaker 1: about new clubs. I refuse to hit people's clubs because
Speaker 1: I don't even want to try it. But I'm curious.
Speaker 1: So with getting all this is this fitting, you know,
Speaker 1: and in having the different souls and how much of
Speaker 1: an impact, like does that can that have on play?
Speaker 1: On like your play?
Speaker 2: It's pretty I mean it, First of all, it depends
Speaker 2: on how well you know the equipment that somebody is
Speaker 2: playing actually fits them, because.
Speaker 1: Like a baseline fit, So you've got the shaft that.
Speaker 2: Baseline fitting that you just went through to figure out
Speaker 2: all these details of your shaft, your length, and your
Speaker 2: life's not taking into account the bottom of the golf club.
Speaker 2: I don't really know other than us, And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a couple other wedge manufacturers that offer some custom wedges.
Speaker 2: You know, we really kind of look at golf clubs
Speaker 2: a little bit differently, you know, And and the larger
Speaker 2: manufacturers when they're making golf clubs, they're targeting a market segment.
Speaker 2: They're they're trying to make a golf club that casts
Speaker 2: a wide net as far as the number of people
Speaker 2: that it's going to fit. Obviously, there's a little subsets
Speaker 2: within that you've got game improvement, super game improvement players, cavities, blades.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's all these little subsets. But the way
Speaker 2: they kind of engineer and design the bottom of those
Speaker 2: clubs is really kind of designed to cast a wide net.
Speaker 2: And they they all are kind of interesting too when
Speaker 2: you really kind of look at the some of them,
Speaker 2: because every manufacturer kind of has a tendency to how
Speaker 2: they set up those souls. There's a couple of manufacturers
Speaker 2: that put a lot of bounce on their irons. There's
Speaker 2: you know, manufacturers that don't put a lot of bounce
Speaker 2: on their irons. Some manufacturers have sharpish leading edges, they
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of camber. They're all a little
Speaker 2: bit different as far as how the bottoms of the
Speaker 2: souls are set up. There's not a not a standard
Speaker 2: per se. You've got a pretty wide range of things
Speaker 2: out there. And you know, say I get I get
Speaker 2: a client that I'm working with and he knows all
Speaker 2: those details, but you know he's got a specific tendency. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, we talk about that tendency. What's going on
Speaker 2: with with what you're playing right now, is it is
Speaker 2: it going to the ground too much? So are you
Speaker 2: hitting everything thin, what's what do your divots look like,
Speaker 2: what's you know, what's really kind of going on, and
Speaker 2: really look at it from from that perspective, and then
Speaker 2: take into account what they're playing with. So, I mean,
Speaker 2: say I get a guy that tells me he's missing
Speaker 2: everything thin, Well, automatically, I'm not going to think that
Speaker 2: he's a sweeper, has a has a narrow or a
Speaker 2: shallow angle of attack. I'm going to want to look
Speaker 2: at what clubs he's playing. If he's you know, if
Speaker 2: he's got an iron that has a lot of bounce,
Speaker 2: I can understand right away why he thinks he's a sweeper.
Speaker 2: He's you know, leading edges too high, the club's not
Speaker 2: really get into the ground for him. So those tendency
Speaker 2: is going to be to miss a thin and you
Speaker 2: know vice versa. You get a guy that you know
Speaker 2: thinks he's really steep and you talk to him in
Speaker 2: the clubs he's playing don't have any bounce or camber,
Speaker 2: and he's taking these huge divid's with him and he
Speaker 2: thinks he's really steep and he's really not. It's you know,
Speaker 2: it's every it's just it's it's the fascinating thing to
Speaker 2: me and is like every every client I work with,
Speaker 2: it's like a different puzzle that you have to kind
Speaker 2: of piece together because you know, golf is such an
Speaker 2: individual game and people play it so many different ways,
Speaker 2: and you know, everybody swings like a fingerprint, and beyond that,
Speaker 2: you know, just just how people like to play is different.
Speaker 1: So that makes so much different to me because like
Speaker 1: when people ask me for recommendations, like about like clubs
Speaker 1: or about balls I'm or stuff like that. I just
Speaker 1: think it's so personal because what works for me doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily work for anybody else.
Speaker 2: Oh exactly percent. It's just it's just so fascinating too.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been I've been like an equipment geek
Speaker 2: for most of my life. I'm forty one now, and
Speaker 2: I kind of really got into equipment when I was
Speaker 2: like ten eleven years old. Just you know, I was
Speaker 2: just like obsessed with all equipment, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: like twenty years ago, you go crazy like some you know,
Speaker 2: some some club would come out and it would be
Speaker 2: out there. If there's an all per case in Point
Speaker 2: Pink came out with their first metal driver, the Zing
Speaker 2: two came out, everybody was saying it was thirty yards longer.
Speaker 2: It was this amazing driver and you just couldn't wait
Speaker 2: to get your hands on it and buy it.
Speaker 5: And I don't really know that.
Speaker 2: No, No, this was like this was actually this was
Speaker 2: their first metal driver. They came out with this metal
Speaker 2: driver and Jim Colbert was playing it and Michelle McGannon
Speaker 2: was playing it and they had I walked. I was
Speaker 2: a tour championship in ninety like ninety two, ninety three.
Speaker 2: I followed Billy Mayfair had one in his bag anyway.
Speaker 3: But you know, you go, you hear about these clubs.
Speaker 2: And I subscribed to golf World because I wasn't, you know, degenerate,
Speaker 2: and I'd see all these clubs that were winning every week,
Speaker 2: and you'd want to go buy stuff.
Speaker 3: And I don't really know that that's the case these.
Speaker 2: Days, where you know, this club is one ex people
Speaker 2: people are much more I think, in tune with what
Speaker 2: they need now than they've ever been with equipment. And
Speaker 2: I think that I think people to a wider extent
Speaker 2: understand now that you know, you should play with what
Speaker 2: fits your game versus what fits somebody else's game. And
Speaker 2: you know, I I was talking to someone at golf
Speaker 2: WRX and we were we were discussing, discussing, and he had
Speaker 2: this really great phrase where his Johnny Wonder and he
Speaker 2: had this great face where was taking ownership of your game.
Speaker 2: And I think, to an extent, that's kind of what
Speaker 2: that is. And I think, you know, people are more
Speaker 2: so interested in taking a look at that now. And
Speaker 2: it's just you know, as we've talked about, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the last time I talked to you, just
Speaker 2: in general, just just the depth that golf is gaining.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know that we're getting any bigger,
Speaker 2: but the guys that really love the game, that are
Speaker 2: really into the game, they're they're looking for different ways
Speaker 2: to interact with the game and to go further down
Speaker 2: that rabbit hole now than I think ever before, because
Speaker 2: there are so many resources available to go down that
Speaker 2: rabbit hole. You know, you're you know, the Friday being
Speaker 2: one of them, obviously, but I mean there's there's a
Speaker 2: there's just so many more conduits to kind of get
Speaker 2: into that stuff now than there was twenty five thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, which is part of the thing that's interesting
Speaker 2: to me too, is the guys that you encounter that
Speaker 2: are into this is like you have these younger guys
Speaker 2: that are like in their twenties and early thirties, and
Speaker 2: the same token, you have these guys that are like,
Speaker 2: you know, in their fifties sixties, that have been around
Speaker 2: golf their whole life, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they have just this vast amount of information available to
Speaker 2: learn even more and they're getting even deeper into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the Internet, the Internet was made for
Speaker 1: to allow people to nerd out. That's like the greatest
Speaker 1: thing about the Internet is you can get like as
Speaker 1: nerdy as you want about certain subjects like golf clubs,
Speaker 1: golf course, architect.
Speaker 2: Just about just about any subject. Although you know, man,
Speaker 2: there's there's definitely there's there's definitely a bottom of that
Speaker 2: whole point. There's certain there's still certain things that you
Speaker 2: can't really find out a lot of information about online,
Speaker 2: including kind of what we do and as far as
Speaker 2: you know, designing golf clubs and the sol golf clubs,
Speaker 2: that's not really anybody talks about. There's not really a
Speaker 2: great resource for it really anywhere, and you know, as
Speaker 2: Don likes to say, there's not really a school for it.
Speaker 2: It's really Uh, it's just, you know, it just kind
Speaker 2: of is what it is.
Speaker 1: They say the secrets and the dirt, you know, that
Speaker 1: famous saying, but it's really the secrets, secrets and the
Speaker 1: soul for golf clubs. Absolutely, maybe that should be your
Speaker 1: new say, But uh, what it so, I guess being
Speaker 1: a noted gearhead and you've seen just the technological explosion
Speaker 1: in golf, I'm curious, what would you say are kind
Speaker 1: of the five or three to five biggest Yeah, equipment
Speaker 1: innovation breakthroughs in the last twenty five years, in the.
Speaker 2: Last twenty five years. That's okay, that's a good question.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you could list ten if you want it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2: You know, there's I mean, there's there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of kind of milestone points, you know, I mean going
Speaker 2: back obviously, I mean, you know, early metal woods weren't
Speaker 2: really any better than the persimmons that they were replacing.
Speaker 2: I was actually thinking about this this morning, was like,
Speaker 2: nobody had really won a major with a metal driver
Speaker 2: until I think Olethabul in ninety four. I think that
Speaker 2: was guys were still hitting persimmon up until then. There
Speaker 2: was still some there were still some holdouts after you know,
Speaker 2: you know Davis Love, I think in in Leonard being
Speaker 2: the last two I was watching.
Speaker 1: I was watching the ninety six Vegas Invite the other day,
Speaker 1: the Tigers first win, and Davis Love was playing with
Speaker 1: a Persimmon driver. I was I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: He had a Cleveland TC fifteen in his bag.
Speaker 2: He played that thing forever. The crazy thing is Freddy
Speaker 2: played an old M eighty five. Freddie played like a
Speaker 2: Persimmon driver that was from like the fifties. Forever, like
Speaker 2: forever he played that driver. It was unbelievable until he
Speaker 2: had a big Berth in his bag, and I think
Speaker 2: that's what finally kicked it out. But he played that
Speaker 2: thing forever. So back to your question, So you know,
Speaker 2: obviously I'd say probably Big Bertha was like the first
Speaker 2: growing up that that and like the eighty x two
Speaker 2: hundred were like kind of a kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2: Like this is like late eighties and you know, early
Speaker 2: nineties for Bertha, because you know, you were starting to
Speaker 2: get these heads that were engineered that were a little
Speaker 2: bit bigger. They were putting different materials and heads of
Speaker 2: them were used before you know, until then it was
Speaker 2: metal and wood, and you know, graphite chefs and were
Speaker 2: nowhere near as good as graphite chefs are now. They
Speaker 2: were pretty high torque and kind of unpredictable, and so
Speaker 2: that would be kind of a kind of a stepping
Speaker 2: stone there, and then uh, you know, I would say, man,
Speaker 2: the nineties were a crazy time for golf equipment. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of interesting stuff that kind of came out
Speaker 2: in the nineties, but that that next, maybe the next
Speaker 2: big step from that was really when wound balls started
Speaker 2: to give way to the multi layer balls grew up
Speaker 2: the strata. The strata the top flight Strata was the
Speaker 2: first one of those balls that was out in the market,
Speaker 2: and it was dude, and it was such a weird ball.
Speaker 2: I remember I bought I bought a dozen of them,
Speaker 2: and I was going on a trip and I'd played.
Speaker 2: I mean, man, I played Ballota forever I played, I
Speaker 2: played the HT, I played the Tour Ballotta, I played
Speaker 2: the professional. The last generation HT they made had a
Speaker 2: year thane cover, so it was kind of durable. And
Speaker 2: then Max Flay had this really awesome ball called the
Speaker 2: Ram that was like the last gasp of great ballata balls.
Speaker 2: It was like late nineties, early two thousands, and they
Speaker 2: were like they were like sixty bucks a dozen, and
Speaker 2: this is almost twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: You know what I bought the other day for four dollars.
Speaker 5: I saw that's the sleeve, the sleeve of two or
Speaker 5: one hundreds.
Speaker 3: Dude, golf. The thing that the funny thing is when
Speaker 3: you think about.
Speaker 2: This, like golf golf ball manufacturers would love to go
Speaker 2: back to that because you think about what golf ball
Speaker 2: prices were like twenty five years ago. They were about
Speaker 2: to say that they were now. But golf balls are
Speaker 2: so disposable. You get a bad shot with one of
Speaker 2: those balls that it was done gone, I mean even gone,
Speaker 2: just gone. Even if you were striking those balls. Well,
Speaker 2: if you got a round out of a sleeveable lot
Speaker 2: of balls, you were you were feeling pretty good about it.
Speaker 2: And then the professional came out and that was like
Speaker 2: the first ball that you could play more than a
Speaker 2: round with and it would still you know, it would
Speaker 2: still kind of hold up and eventually the cover kind
Speaker 2: of shred and get beat up. But you could play
Speaker 2: that thing for a while. But the strata was like,
Speaker 2: you know, it did like the weirdest thing in flight.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have so many memories of that ball,
Speaker 2: like in flight, like you could just hit this bullet
Speaker 2: with it, and on the way down it would just
Speaker 2: kind of like drift like it would like drift left
Speaker 2: and it would drift right. It would just kind of wobble.
Speaker 2: I remember, it was just like wobble on the way down.
Speaker 2: It was. It was really weird.
Speaker 1: It had like a weird feel around the greens too,
Speaker 1: as I remember.
Speaker 2: They were just clicking as hell just basically, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a distance ball with another you know, with
Speaker 2: a with a layer in between the cover and the core.
Speaker 2: And then obviously you know about that time too, you know,
Speaker 2: the great big titanium drivers started coming out. So the
Speaker 2: great big Bertha came out, which was like two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty see seeds that came out like late nineties,
Speaker 2: and then like two thousand, the biggest big Bertha came out.
Speaker 2: There was three hundred cecs, and you had, you know,
Speaker 2: you started to have these really good titanium drivers. But
Speaker 2: like the thing that really like was always really interesting
Speaker 2: to me growing up was like when you're playing that
Speaker 2: smaller headed driver, I mean, you really had to hit
Speaker 2: it well to get it to perform, and you know,
Speaker 2: I mean growing out playing junior golf. I mean, I
Speaker 2: wasn't like the longest kid out there, but I was.
Speaker 2: I was relatively long, and all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 2: you start getting this new stuff that's coming out, like
Speaker 2: these larger heads, and all of a sudden, I wasn't
Speaker 2: that long anymore, and the kids that I was twenty
Speaker 2: thirty yards by were pretty close to me. And before
Speaker 2: I you know, before you knew it. By the time,
Speaker 2: everything had really kind of changed, like I don't know,
Speaker 2: mid two thousands, I mean that that advantages didn't exist
Speaker 2: anymore because you didn't have to you didn't have to
Speaker 2: hit it on the screws every time to get as
Speaker 2: much out of it. You just had you had some
Speaker 2: some margin for aer but you know, you started to
Speaker 2: see stuff grow, and then heads started to get bigger,
Speaker 2: and then you know, I mean, I think the thing
Speaker 2: that that really kind of it's interesting me, was there,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a certain point in the road when
Speaker 2: golf equipment was really designed to be accurate, and at
Speaker 2: a certain point they decided that it was time to
Speaker 2: engineer it to go far. And that was, you know,
Speaker 2: really been the last oh the last ten years or
Speaker 2: so really with irons that you've seen that, but.
Speaker 1: It's that's the thing to me with irons is that
Speaker 1: people market how far they hit it, But like the
Speaker 1: point of iron is to hit it close.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean that's I mean one hundred percent. I
Speaker 2: you know, to me like that that you know, what
Speaker 2: defines a good set of irons is, you know, consistent.
Speaker 2: They do the same thing every time they you know,
Speaker 2: you know, even if you miss it, it's going to
Speaker 2: do the same thing every time. Consistency is that's you know,
Speaker 2: that to me is the name of the game? Cares
Speaker 2: what club you hit? If you can hit at the
Speaker 2: same distance every time, I'm sure you wouldn't really care either.
Speaker 1: So so I got a question for you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think about this. My cousin carries a uh still carries
Speaker 1: his fat shaft five five? Would where does where's the
Speaker 1: fat shaft rank? And in terms of maybe worst innovation
Speaker 1: ideas of all.
Speaker 2: Time, it certainly wasn't a great one. I mean it's
Speaker 2: just the whole, the whole, the whole, Like the whole
Speaker 2: premise with those was like they're just so thick they
Speaker 2: don't tork. It was like just supposed to be just
Speaker 2: you know, but certainly not a great Yeah, certainly not
Speaker 2: a great one.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. He brings it out and he never
Speaker 1: hits it. He carries it. I don't know why he
Speaker 1: carries it.
Speaker 2: Have you hit it? Have you like taken it out
Speaker 2: of his bag and hit it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the fun Yeah, the funniest thing is
Speaker 1: swinging it. When you're practice swinging and hearing the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like swingy Hickory. You almost get's like
Speaker 2: almost like a similar like auditory deal with that. But
Speaker 2: you know, kind of going back to what, you know,
Speaker 2: what what we were talking about. You know. The thing
Speaker 2: too that that's fascinating to me right now is I've
Speaker 2: been around golf a long time and and just lately
Speaker 2: like just how much interest there there is in playing
Speaker 2: with older equipment. You know, like ten years ago or
Speaker 2: so was just kind of a funny novelty. But I
Speaker 2: mean there's guys that are really into it, and it's
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think I know you've been playing
Speaker 2: with that that driver, that.
Speaker 1: Uh golf driver man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Jeremy the driver that Jerryman gave you. I mean,
Speaker 2: how's that? I mean, how has that been for you?
Speaker 2: Has that been like?
Speaker 3: Because I mean I I had a pretty I had
Speaker 3: I had about like two.
Speaker 2: Thousand and eight to twenty thirteen. I could not hit
Speaker 2: a four hundred and sixty cc driver, and I gave
Speaker 2: up trying and I played precison. I played per Simmon
Speaker 2: pretty much all the time like for that, and it
Speaker 2: like gave me like this, I don't know, gave me
Speaker 2: a deeper understanding for architecture playing with that stuff, because
Speaker 2: you really did have to hit good t shots because
Speaker 2: you know that twenty five thirty yards of carry distance
Speaker 2: that you're losing with that really puts a premium on
Speaker 2: hitting at the right planting in the right place, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the bunkers and details that you
Speaker 2: weren't thinking of with the metal driver are like, oh,
Speaker 2: like it's just it's a different it's just like a
Speaker 2: different deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's been It's been awesome. I love it. I
Speaker 1: think like what I've found that's been fascinating is is
Speaker 1: like stuff that I never would even see with like
Speaker 1: when I'm when I've got my regular equipment, like my
Speaker 1: you know, if I was I don't even see these
Speaker 1: bunkers and you know. It was eye opening. Is if
Speaker 1: you can pair it with like the older golf equipment,
Speaker 1: it's even like it's crazy. I mean when you're hitting
Speaker 1: like two twenty five drives and you're accustomed to hitting
Speaker 1: at three hundred, it's it's insane. You the appreciation you
Speaker 1: have for the game. Like I played National Golf Links
Speaker 1: with with a Hickory and a Ballata ball and it
Speaker 1: was the maxifly ht actually, and it.
Speaker 2: Was were you playing when you're playing your gamer irons
Speaker 2: or what.
Speaker 5: Iron gamer irons, But like the ball, you're still losing it.
Speaker 2: You're still losing at least a club.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's like it was like twenty five yards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like the the way and then when you're
Speaker 1: hitting into the wind, it's just a whole different game.
Speaker 1: It's it's just.
Speaker 2: Because the ball because the ball spun had those ball
Speaker 2: spin like.
Speaker 3: It's like a wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like if you hit you yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's very it's very very different playing with that stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's it's been an interest I play. I play
Speaker 1: that Hickory driver with a regular ball and it's like
Speaker 1: forty yards if I go back with the Ballatta it's
Speaker 1: like eighty seventy five yards. It's just a and it
Speaker 1: breaks makes the architecture so much more, you know, fascinating
Speaker 1: because like what I think is I was talking with
Speaker 1: somebody today about this. Is it like you just can't
Speaker 1: overpower a golf course. You have to have the full
Speaker 1: array of skills, which to me.
Speaker 2: Is it's just that's how it was, and that's how
Speaker 2: it was. You know, one hundred years ago you had
Speaker 2: to have a full you had to have everything to
Speaker 2: play good golf. Yeah, and with everything now, I mean,
Speaker 2: the game is just I mean, you know, it's you know,
Speaker 2: I was kind of going on with you on Twitter
Speaker 2: the other day. It's just like it's so glaringly one dimensional.
Speaker 5: I think I had this awakening.
Speaker 1: I had this awakening. I was playing the State Am
Speaker 1: two years ago. It was a twenty seventeen Illinois State
Speaker 1: Am and we're playing a sixty seven hundred yard course
Speaker 1: that's a par seventy, and like I'm midway through my
Speaker 1: second round and I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: like I haven't hit more than a nine iron into
Speaker 1: a green, Like what is what is going on? You know?
Speaker 1: Like what like this is not the game that I
Speaker 1: grew up playing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, no, the game you grew up playing. You
Speaker 2: use your whole bag, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, and it's it's frustrating for like I think,
Speaker 1: like where I get frustrated and this is all like
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest problems with with golf
Speaker 1: is people have a hard time removing their personal bias.
Speaker 1: And like one of the things I've done well in
Speaker 1: golf is like long iron play, and it's so insignificant.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I'm the sign of the same boat man.
Speaker 2: My long irons used to be my favorite. You know,
Speaker 2: there's still my favorite clubs. They were like weapons, but
Speaker 2: now there's like whatever, like.
Speaker 1: You see it as Sweeten's Cove, Like Sweeten's Cove is
Speaker 1: a good example, Like it's such an awesome course because
Speaker 1: of the way, you know, the birdie and triple bogie's
Speaker 1: always in play. But like the thing that happens is
Speaker 1: like with the way the ball is in the clubs,
Speaker 1: like you could you get wedges into a lot of
Speaker 1: those greens. And there's very rarely a long iron unless
Speaker 1: it's a second shot into par five.
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on how you play it. I
Speaker 2: mean I actually hit a lot of long irons out
Speaker 2: there off the tee. Uh huh, I mean there's I
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know, man, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 1: I played that driver everywhere.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: I hit driver everywhere.
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm I just like I you know, I
Speaker 2: hit driver out there. I hit driver on three, I
Speaker 2: hit driver on six, and that's usually about it. If
Speaker 2: I'm feeling really good and the ball's going I all
Speaker 2: hit driver on one. I mean, I don't even think
Speaker 2: about it. On five, I don't think about it. On seven, eight.
Speaker 2: I kind of have a spot that I really like
Speaker 2: on the right side. That's you know, drivers a little.
Speaker 2: I don't need to kind of overkill I could. The
Speaker 2: way I play that golf course, I hit a lot
Speaker 2: lot of three four five irons and spots, you know,
Speaker 2: three irons a club in my hand walking up to
Speaker 2: seven te box. But I mean that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: the fun thing about Sweden. Excuse me, that is the
Speaker 2: fun thing about Sweden's is there's so many different ways
Speaker 2: to play. I've I played the golf course with Rob.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't even tell you how many times.
Speaker 2: And I always laugh because like we go up to
Speaker 2: we walk up to the t. He's got a driver
Speaker 2: in his hand. It's like, dude, can I just like
Speaker 2: play one round with you where I just have you
Speaker 2: hit in spots because Rob's Rob's got some game and
Speaker 2: he just always he just brings a big number and
Speaker 2: play like just it's just automatic. He's got driver in
Speaker 2: his hands. But I mean that's you know, it's funny
Speaker 2: that golf course. Man, If I.
Speaker 1: Play competitively, I play, I hit I just three iron
Speaker 1: to death courses. But if I'm not playing pintively, I
Speaker 1: just I hit driver everywhere because like I'm like whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, listeners that don't know you, you've gained quite
Speaker 1: the Internet fame because of your role at Sweeten's Cove
Speaker 1: and you've been you were the GM there for a
Speaker 1: number a number of years. How did you get how
Speaker 1: did you even find Sweeten's Cove? How how did you
Speaker 1: get there?
Speaker 2: I don't know about fame.
Speaker 1: Man, Your vavimans precede you.
Speaker 2: You have the vave clouds that are actually on the
Speaker 2: ballpark blueprint. I'm talking to Tom that did that. He's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: look like there's a cloud on the edge of the
Speaker 2: deck on the blueprint. I'm like, dude, come on, you
Speaker 2: look really close and they're actually as a cloud. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so the first time I saw Sweetens was November. I
Speaker 2: think it was November fifth of twenty and thirteen. You know,
Speaker 2: I had a business called Scratch Golf with my partner.
Speaker 2: Ari's one of my partners in National Custom Works. But
Speaker 2: we had Scratch Golf and we were in we were
Speaker 2: in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we'd moved the business here from
Speaker 2: Eugene in two thousand and nine, and we we'd moved
Speaker 2: everything up to Michigan in twenty thirteen. I'd moved up
Speaker 2: there August of that year, and I was down here
Speaker 2: to get my wife to move her up there. And
Speaker 2: we we'd driven the day before out to out to
Speaker 2: uh out here to see her and just my friend
Speaker 2: Ari is like one of the greatest golf degenerates that
Speaker 2: I know. The So the night before we're getting ready
Speaker 2: to leave, he's like, where do you want to play
Speaker 2: on the way down, and I list off a couple
Speaker 2: of places I thought might be fun to stop. I think, Camargo,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember where else. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember where else. I was saying we
Speaker 2: could stop and he's like, uh, ay man, let's go
Speaker 2: play Oakmont. All right, well let's nowhere near on the wave,
Speaker 2: but all right, cool, so we go. We played.
Speaker 3: So we leave, We leave Detroit at like four in
Speaker 3: the morning.
Speaker 2: We drive to Pittsburgh. We play Oakmont, We get in
Speaker 2: the car and we drive from Pittsburgh straight to Chattanooga.
Speaker 2: And the next morning we've got we've got a meeting
Speaker 2: with Rob and the superintendent. It looked at my on
Speaker 2: golf Club at the time of a guy named Mark Stillwall,
Speaker 2: who's who Me and Ari were still good friends with Mark,
Speaker 2: and he, uh, he was the one that was going
Speaker 2: on and on about it.
Speaker 3: We've we've seen pictures and stuff.
Speaker 2: On on g C, a of of of Sweetens as
Speaker 2: it was kind of coming together, and kind of knew
Speaker 2: kind of knew it was out there, but we hadn't
Speaker 2: you know, hadn't really gone out there and checked it out.
Speaker 2: At that point. It was still you know, still kind
Speaker 2: of in the early stages. Well, I mean this is
Speaker 2: when I saw it on GCA. It was well anyway,
Speaker 2: So so Mark really got us in touch with Rob
Speaker 2: and we met Rob. We were robing that the next
Speaker 2: morning at Sweeten's and I'll never forget it, man, I'll
Speaker 2: never forget pulling up in this van and there's this
Speaker 2: golf course just spread out and it's mostly finished. I
Speaker 2: think the first time I saw it, it probably hadn't
Speaker 2: seen a mower for about at least four or five months.
Speaker 2: There was sand and probably fifty sixty percent of the bunkers,
Speaker 2: but it was, you know, it was at a point
Speaker 2: where if nothing happened, that was pretty much going to
Speaker 2: be going to be it. And we walked the golf
Speaker 2: course with Rob, and we didn't the.
Speaker 3: First time we walked it.
Speaker 2: We didn't bring our co We just went out there
Speaker 2: walking with Rob and his two dogs, and we're just
Speaker 2: kind of going on and talking, talking with Rob as
Speaker 2: we're kind of noticing and seeing all these things. And
Speaker 2: that the fascinating thing to me was was talking to
Speaker 2: Rob and really kind of picking his brain about the
Speaker 2: golf courses that he'd seen and what his influences were,
Speaker 2: and other than going overseas and seeing some golf in Scotland,
Speaker 2: he really hadn't seen that much golf in the US
Speaker 2: at that point. He's seen quite a bit more since then,
Speaker 2: but you know, he really hadn't seen very much, and
Speaker 2: in front of us were all these really cool little
Speaker 2: details and strategic elements that you know, we've both seen
Speaker 2: at other courses, and it's just just the way everything
Speaker 2: was arranged and put together was just really interesting. And
Speaker 2: here's here's a here's a person that's seen pictures of
Speaker 2: you know, seeing pictures of this hazard, seeing you know,
Speaker 2: seeing Tenant PV, seeing the Devil's asshole. You know, just
Speaker 2: just how everything was arranged with just you know, just
Speaker 2: kind of his instincts and his creativity, and it just,
Speaker 2: you know, I was just really really impressed with the
Speaker 2: golf course. And we got done walking around it, and
Speaker 2: I still have I still have all these pictures the
Speaker 2: first time I saw it that I still look at
Speaker 2: once in a while. And we get done and he
Speaker 2: just kind of looks at it and he says, y'all
Speaker 2: want to go play? And we and we are like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 2: we want to go play. So we grab our clubs
Speaker 2: and we run out, and I think we played. I
Speaker 2: think we we looped at I think we looped at
Speaker 2: three times, and we forgot about the time change and
Speaker 2: he had to he had to fly out, and I
Speaker 2: had to drive back then we've like I think we're
Speaker 2: on like three or four, and we just like realized, crap,
Speaker 2: we got to get out of here, and you know,
Speaker 2: we kind of left and just you know, the whole
Speaker 2: way home, we were just talking about the golf course,
Speaker 2: and he and Rob got really he got involved with
Speaker 2: the project in Rob as far as getting getting the
Speaker 2: lease of the golf course going. They were able to
Speaker 2: secure a lease on the course. It's like March I
Speaker 2: think of two thousand and fourteen, and then I was
Speaker 2: up in Michigan, and and then my wife didn't really
Speaker 2: want to live in Michigan anymore, so I moved her
Speaker 2: down here in July of fourteen. I moved down here
Speaker 2: in October of fourteen, just just the beginning of the month,
Speaker 2: just before the golf course opened, and I came out
Speaker 2: for opening day, and Ron Whitten was there, Adam Lawrence
Speaker 2: was there, there were a few other folks that were there.
Speaker 2: Rob's partner, Tad came out and we played the golf
Speaker 2: course and just, I mean, dude, it was so it
Speaker 2: was so tight. I still laugh at how I mean, dude,
Speaker 2: like opening day it was. It was so good. But
Speaker 2: I digress. But what had happened at that point was
Speaker 2: they'd gotten the golf course finished, they gotten the golf
Speaker 2: course open, and they ran out of money. And I
Speaker 2: mean basically closing day they was the well was dry
Speaker 2: and that was it. So the people that had you know,
Speaker 2: really you know, helped get the golf course ready to
Speaker 2: go and ready to get open. That was pretty much it.
Speaker 2: And Rob called me, I think the next day after
Speaker 2: after that, and he, uh he said, well, uh, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you got going on, but I
Speaker 2: need somebody out to run the golf course. And you know,
Speaker 2: would you be interested in would you be interested in
Speaker 2: coming out and keeping an eye on it and you know,
Speaker 2: and being the manager. And I said sure. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of how everything started. And you know, the next
Speaker 2: day I was out there and we started off. We
Speaker 2: had a we actually we had a tent. It was
Speaker 2: up above uh there's a power poll up above the
Speaker 2: back to you on one. We had a ten up
Speaker 2: there for about two or three weeks and it blew
Speaker 2: away and then we got the shed. And that first winter,
Speaker 2: that first winter I was out there. It was it
Speaker 2: was me and Rob and we were you know, I
Speaker 2: was sitting up there and he was out on the
Speaker 2: sand throw he was out doing maintenance stuff, and it
Speaker 2: was it was a two of us, and it was like, man,
Speaker 2: what you know, how's this, How's this going to work out?
Speaker 2: How's this going to go down? So we, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: we just kind of sat around that winter and came
Speaker 2: up with some ideas and got the golf course opened.
Speaker 2: And you know, the first year wasn't you know, we
Speaker 2: didn't kill I wouldn't say we killed it our first year,
Speaker 2: but you know, started to get some notoriety and people
Speaker 2: started to come out, and then you know, the following year,
Speaker 2: it just did it really did a really snowballed, you know,
Speaker 2: as far as how that place kind of was released
Speaker 2: into the wild. It it just kind of really snowballed.
Speaker 2: We we tried initially when we got everything started, we
Speaker 2: tried some pretty traditional advertising and marketing stuff. We did.
Speaker 2: We did some print ads, we did some radio stuff,
Speaker 2: and we even we did some TV ads. I think
Speaker 2: I think we did those in twenty sixteen. We did
Speaker 2: those around the majors, but really kind of where we
Speaker 2: where we saw the best. And you know, obviously the
Speaker 2: most organic, you know, growth of the golf course was
Speaker 2: through social media through Instagram, through Twitter, and just it's
Speaker 2: just it's just a it's just a new world. Man.
Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable how things how things grow these days
Speaker 2: that you know twenty thirty years ago, you don't you
Speaker 2: don't know what would happen.
Speaker 1: It's just That's how I found out about the course
Speaker 1: was a buddy of mine had seen the Instagram page.
Speaker 1: Who you know this guy had This guy worked at
Speaker 1: for a golf management company and he ran their social media.
Speaker 1: So he was like so in tune and he had
Speaker 1: seen the pictures and it was you know, and then
Speaker 1: I looked at him, I'm like, oh, man, I got
Speaker 1: to get out of here. This place looks unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The best for the phone calls that we used to
Speaker 2: get because we we had, like, know, the pictures we
Speaker 2: had on our website. Man, I get people who would
Speaker 2: call and they literally like questioned me about the pictures
Speaker 2: on the website and if they were real or not.
Speaker 2: It was like, Oh, there's there's no way, y'all. Exis
Speaker 2: you're in rural Tennessee and you've got Broomsedge and your
Speaker 2: golf course looks like that like it actually does, and.
Speaker 3: That that was like probably to me.
Speaker 2: I was out there. So I was at Sweden's from
Speaker 2: two thousand, middle of October twenty fourteen up until the
Speaker 2: beginning of October this October, and we hired we hired
Speaker 2: Nash out there. The thing that never got old Andy
Speaker 2: was watching people on their first time out there. You
Speaker 2: pull up to this parking area, there's a shed, and
Speaker 2: right in front of you is this gem and just
Speaker 2: the look people would get on their f it's just
Speaker 2: like almost disbelief. And you know, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've you've you've met John Al, You've met
Speaker 2: midtown Chico.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So he's he's been a regular at the golf course
Speaker 2: kind of since since it opened, and he for years
Speaker 2: would just like he would just love bringing people out
Speaker 2: there they've never seen it before. And just almost every
Speaker 2: time i'd see his car pull up, I just keep
Speaker 2: an eye on the guys getting out of the car
Speaker 2: and they just like sit there, put their hands on
Speaker 2: there on their sides and just kind of sit there
Speaker 2: with their mouths open. But uh, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: it's just unbelievable though, going back, you know, going back
Speaker 2: to it just unbelievable to me watching that place really grow,
Speaker 2: you know, from just a you know, just a seed
Speaker 2: to kind of you know, where it is now and
Speaker 2: the and the golf twitter Attie. It's it's you know,
Speaker 2: maybe one of the more fulfilling things I guess in
Speaker 2: my life is is is you know, really watching that
Speaker 2: grow and being a part of it. And you know,
Speaker 2: I look at it a lot now where I think,
Speaker 2: you know, four years ago kind of where this where
Speaker 2: all that's really started. I had a I had a
Speaker 2: tremendous around of a belief in the golf course, and
Speaker 2: I had a lot of belief in rob and it
Speaker 2: it it just, I don't know, it made it an
Speaker 2: interesting proposition to get involved with the golf course when
Speaker 2: I did, and obviously it really wasn't my plan when
Speaker 2: I moved back here from Michigan. It was, you know,
Speaker 2: I I was doing some stuff for Scratch and this
Speaker 2: just kind of happened. And you know, it's it's hard,
Speaker 2: it's hard kind of moving away from that and just
Speaker 2: being a part of it. But I have a soon
Speaker 2: to be three year old at home, and you know,
Speaker 2: the last four years of a lot of hours of.
Speaker 5: Work, lots of time in that show, lots of.
Speaker 2: Time in that shed, and it's just, you know, it
Speaker 2: was just it was just time to time to spend
Speaker 2: you know, time to spend some time at home. And
Speaker 2: I'm still I'm still involved with the golf course. I
Speaker 2: talked to Rob still like every day, and I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm still involved. It's just I can't. I just can't
Speaker 2: live in that shed anymore. I mean there were some
Speaker 2: great times, man. I mean almost every day someone would
Speaker 2: come up and ask me, Hey, man, like, how often
Speaker 2: do you go out and play? I'm like, could you
Speaker 2: sit up here all day and not go play?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Seriously.
Speaker 2: But the same time, the funny thing is that there's
Speaker 2: guys in the golf industry that they do exactly that
Speaker 2: they look at a golf course all day and when
Speaker 2: they're off, they go home. I mean, it's.
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, it's it's nuts. I walk a lot
Speaker 1: of golf courses, you know, but every time I'm walking one,
Speaker 1: I have the itch to play. But when I walk
Speaker 1: them is like when I don't have the time to play,
Speaker 1: you know, Like if I have to go see three
Speaker 1: in a day, I'll walk them, you know.
Speaker 5: But it's just you gotta get it.
Speaker 2: Maybe get into that speed golf stuff. Man, start start
Speaker 2: working on your running. Maybe that's maybe that's the solution
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: I need to do that, you know, I need to
Speaker 1: start running more. They've been just living this blog life
Speaker 1: you can't like And the thing.
Speaker 2: The thing too, is you can't jump in a car.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just I mean you're just not going
Speaker 2: to really see You're not gonna see a golf court
Speaker 2: jumping in a cart. Yeah, you don't, You just you
Speaker 2: really don't. I mean, that's you got to feel it.
Speaker 3: You got to walk it.
Speaker 2: I mean that's you know, that's really where you learn
Speaker 2: a place is just you know, on foot, you're you're
Speaker 2: a base level seeing what's going on. You're not you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right. I like, you know, if I'm trying to
Speaker 2: like binge, if I'm trying to play fifty four seventy
Speaker 2: two ninety, you know, one hundred and eight in a day, whatever,
Speaker 2: cart's cool, But like otherwise, man, i I'd much rather,
Speaker 2: I'd much rather just walk because you just you've just
Speaker 2: learned so much more about the golf course walking.
Speaker 1: That's how you look around and you just you you're
Speaker 1: thirty yards off of tee and you might see something
Speaker 1: on another hole that you're just like, oh.
Speaker 2: When would you ever have that? When would you ever
Speaker 2: have that glimpse of the cart? That wouldn't you never?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't eat you can't you play better?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you play better too.
Speaker 2: I just to immediate least, like you just you know,
Speaker 2: you're walking in between shots, you're thinking about what's now,
Speaker 2: You're just I.
Speaker 5: Don't know, you're in a rhythm to me, just you
Speaker 5: are you getting?
Speaker 2: You get in a much better flow when you're walking.
Speaker 1: I also, I believe that four walkers is faster than
Speaker 1: four and two cars. That is a belief that I
Speaker 1: will go to the grave with.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, from running a golf course for
Speaker 2: four years, I wouldn't argue with you. I mean, especially
Speaker 2: if we're talking about if we're talking about better players
Speaker 2: and guys that are playing ready golf, and absolutely yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean obviously you get you know, you get those
Speaker 2: that foursome walking once in a while that you know,
Speaker 2: like they walk in a group together up the fairway.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just kind of like you know, to me,
Speaker 2: it's like a good force and is like okay, you
Speaker 2: hit your T ball you scattered, You meet up on
Speaker 2: the green and you for a second before you go
Speaker 2: hit your next team.
Speaker 1: All that's it.
Speaker 2: I played.
Speaker 1: I played. I played a fivesome on a Monday this
Speaker 1: year with a bunch of guys that get it. We
Speaker 1: walked and we played in two and a half hours.
Speaker 2: You can do it, Baron, Yeah, it's it's you can
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: It's people were just hitting it at will.
Speaker 4: But you know, the crazy that the the other thing,
Speaker 4: the craziest thing that I've seen, the craziest thing that
Speaker 4: I've seen, like in golf this year was so so.
Speaker 2: Tyson Lamb came out like and it came out to
Speaker 2: Swedens in August and he brought He brought like seventeen dudes.
Speaker 2: They were like eighteen of them all together. These guys
Speaker 2: banded together.
Speaker 3: Eighteen of them and they went out and they played
Speaker 3: all kinds.
Speaker 2: Of these games and dude, they were getting around in
Speaker 2: an hour and a half pretty consistently. I went out
Speaker 2: like one to nine with them, and I kid you not,
Speaker 2: there was a threesome and there was a threesome that
Speaker 2: slowed us up.
Speaker 3: I mean it was, it was the craziest.
Speaker 2: It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. It was
Speaker 2: so much fun because they would go out and they'd
Speaker 2: play like, you know, they'd play two man scrambled, they
Speaker 2: played cards scrambled. It was just did it was. It
Speaker 2: was crazy. But that's like the furthest that's the furthest
Speaker 2: thing from what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: But yeah, something the craziest that this.
Speaker 1: Year, something that I think is crazy about Sweetens is that,
Speaker 1: like the it seems like the majority of the business
Speaker 1: at Sweetens is from out of towners. And it's like,
Speaker 1: how is it a destination now? A destination nine hole
Speaker 1: golf course? How does that work?
Speaker 2: I think it does. You know, it's just like the
Speaker 2: fascinating thing is so you know, we're the golf course
Speaker 2: is about depending on where you are on Chattanooga, it's
Speaker 2: anywhere from about a half hour to about forty five
Speaker 2: minute drive out there. We're about an hour and a
Speaker 2: half from Nashville, and at least half of the traffic
Speaker 2: that goes out to Sweden's Code is from Nashville and
Speaker 2: surrounding areas. There's more people from there that come out
Speaker 2: there than Chattanooga. I don't know, man, it's it's a
Speaker 2: really I've lived all over the country and it's just
Speaker 2: it's just kind of a different place for golf and
Speaker 2: just it's just a different it's just a it's just
Speaker 2: just a different deal. And the thing that.
Speaker 3: So so, like I say, probably about half half of.
Speaker 2: More come from nash Will, maybe twenty percent come from Chattanooga,
Speaker 2: and like immediately local, not a lot of not a
Speaker 2: lot of immediately local. And the rest are coming from Atlanta,
Speaker 2: they're coming from Knoxville, and they're coming from out of state,
Speaker 2: some of them from way out of state. The thing
Speaker 2: that like last winter, like the phone rang a lot,
Speaker 2: and it was guys up in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin
Speaker 2: looking for a break from the snow. And there were
Speaker 2: a lot of guys that drove that would literally drive down,
Speaker 2: spend a spend a day just killing themselves playing and
Speaker 2: would go back to work or whatever they had to
Speaker 2: go back to work for.
Speaker 3: Butch is crazy for for you know, for a nine
Speaker 3: for a nine o golf corn.
Speaker 1: That's is crazy, that.
Speaker 3: Place, dude.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's I feel dirty just calling it a nine
Speaker 2: hole golf course because I think that place really transcends
Speaker 2: how you think of a number of holes, because I mean,
Speaker 2: like the nuts and bolts of it. We actually down
Speaker 2: one day and we wrote, we wrote everything out, and
Speaker 2: there's like there's like seventy eight holes out there that
Speaker 2: we play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it so like why I was sitting at
Speaker 1: the ring or talking with a buddy of mine from
Speaker 1: New York, and I was like, and I live in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking to myself, like, if this place
Speaker 1: was within an hour of Chicago, it'd be impossible to
Speaker 1: tea time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we would. We'd like, we could charge one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for it all day and guys would you know,
Speaker 2: guys would be happy.
Speaker 1: To pay it. Why why happen in Chattanoos Because.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's because that's how the golf market here is.
Speaker 2: The golf market here is more value driven than it
Speaker 2: is quality driven.
Speaker 1: But it's not even expensive.
Speaker 2: For this area. That's pretty much just about the peak
Speaker 2: of what people pay for golf in this area, for
Speaker 2: public golf, believe it or not, that's a out that's
Speaker 2: about what people pay at the very high end for
Speaker 2: public golf in this area. And you've got you know,
Speaker 2: really I mean outside of us, and you know, Sawani
Speaker 2: is a pretty decent little track. But uh, you know,
Speaker 2: there's really nothing even remarkable or notable around Chattanooga, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's we still andy, you know, here we are, here,
Speaker 2: we are four years later. I mean, once in a while,
Speaker 2: you still get somebody that you know rolls up and
Speaker 2: you know, ask how much it is, and they leave
Speaker 2: because they think it's too many. I think they think
Speaker 2: it's too much money. And we've kept the we've kept
Speaker 2: the walking or the walking rates have always been cheap
Speaker 2: out there because I mean it's we've kept the walking
Speaker 2: rates cheap out there. But in this area really, up
Speaker 2: until the last year or so, I really didn't get
Speaker 2: a lot of walkers. Like maybe I get like a
Speaker 2: dozen twenty walkers at the very most, like in a
Speaker 2: week a couple of years ago. But I mean for
Speaker 2: this area though, that's that's about as much as people
Speaker 2: are willing to pay for golf. And you know, the
Speaker 2: mentality is just different, you know. I mean, you get
Speaker 2: you get the guy that rolls up that sees the
Speaker 2: golf course has never seen anything like it, goes out,
Speaker 2: falls in love with it, and to him it's, you know,
Speaker 2: the greatest deal around. Conversely, you get that guy that
Speaker 2: goes out there and never see anything like it, plays,
Speaker 2: it doesn't like it. I mean it's I don't know.
Speaker 2: Swedens does a very good job of kind of calling
Speaker 2: out and finding its clientele, because the people that fall
Speaker 2: in love with that place, they it's like their hotel California, man.
Speaker 2: I mean they they're there like every weekend or every
Speaker 2: chance they get to be there.
Speaker 1: What uh, what would you say in terms of like
Speaker 1: why why is it with golfers? It seems like the
Speaker 1: natural tendency when when they don't when they haven't seen
Speaker 1: any golf course like it, why is always the reaction negative?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like that Mackenzie quote right about. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't know, because you know a lot of people grow
Speaker 2: up playing bland, uninteresting golf into them That's that's golf.
Speaker 2: We were talking earlier about how personal your views are
Speaker 2: to golf, and I think it goes kind of into that.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you grew up, if you grew up
Speaker 2: playing a you know, a nondescript golf course, it was
Speaker 2: tree lines, didn't you know, had greens that didn't really
Speaker 2: have a lot going on, not really any bunkering, And
Speaker 2: that's what you knew was golf and someone took you
Speaker 2: out to Sweden's Cove or you know. The other comparison
Speaker 2: I always draw with that place is like Prairie Dunes
Speaker 2: in Kansas, because like you have like this this wild,
Speaker 2: this wild golf course. It's just like this kind of
Speaker 2: a regional club. It's just like or a low excuse
Speaker 2: not even a regional club, just like at the local
Speaker 2: country club. It's like, what do people think in Hutchinson, Kansas?
Speaker 2: It go play other golf courses and then go play
Speaker 2: that place I removed from, Like it's just so far
Speaker 2: removed from like what you know is golf being Yeah,
Speaker 2: like what.
Speaker 1: About that guy that's remember at Prairie Dunes from Hutchinson,
Speaker 1: that like he doesn't even know how good he has it?
Speaker 2: You know, you know that's like it's going to place
Speaker 2: somewhere else and he's like what the hell is this?
Speaker 2: Like it's it's it's a pretty simil It's a it's
Speaker 2: an interesting parallel, right. I Mean, you have like, you know,
Speaker 2: just so so outside of the norm for you know,
Speaker 2: so so out outside the norm of what of the
Speaker 2: other gulf in the area is like you know, it's
Speaker 2: just it's just some people, just some people celebrate that difference.
Speaker 2: Some people don't understand that difference. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's such as life, man. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: people aren't gonna like everything, and you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 2: lose your ass and go crazy trying to make everybody happy.
Speaker 2: So it seems like you do your thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the inverse paradigm of of what
Speaker 1: happens in La, where the very best courses like Riviera
Speaker 1: L A c. C. Bel Air, they you know, the
Speaker 1: now Restore bel Air, like embrace the natural look of
Speaker 1: the area with the washes and the baranca and the canyons,
Speaker 1: and and then like all the other courses in La
Speaker 1: seem to try and like hide it. It's like they're
Speaker 1: try and be like these utopias that aren't in southern California.
Speaker 1: It's like, what, like, why wouldn't you look at these
Speaker 1: courses and take what they do well and bring it
Speaker 1: to your course.
Speaker 2: Or even think about it because they probably don't.
Speaker 1: What So when when'd you get like the architecture bug?
Speaker 2: You know, I would say, I mean kind of really
Speaker 2: I started to get interested in architecture, was like it's
Speaker 2: kind of like in my late twenties, I would say,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I you know, I was, I
Speaker 2: was kind of lucky growing up. I was, you know,
Speaker 2: the club Brad growing up. And you know, I grew
Speaker 2: up in northern California and there was a pretty decent
Speaker 2: amount of good golf around where I grew up up,
Speaker 2: and I think like probably like my first exposure to
Speaker 2: something that just kind of blew my socks off was
Speaker 2: like playing Posa Tiempo when I was like thirteen or fourteen,
Speaker 2: and it was just, you know, like we were talking
Speaker 2: about before, it was so different from the other golf
Speaker 2: courses that I played, like growing up, I grew up
Speaker 2: playing you know, kind of a tree lined, smaller green
Speaker 2: well buger golf course and then going out and seeing
Speaker 2: this place with you know, it's all kinds of wild
Speaker 2: to golf. It was really actually kind of different than
Speaker 2: it was than it is now. They've really done a
Speaker 2: lot of work out there, but I mean still it
Speaker 2: was just these wild greens and just all kinds of
Speaker 2: crazy movement. And you know, I mean, I I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I guess interested in it, but there just
Speaker 2: wasn't a lot of resources about it then, and then
Speaker 2: you know, kind of as I got in my late twenties,
Speaker 2: I kind of started to get more interested in it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think to an extent too. It you
Speaker 2: don't necessarily, I don't know, get interested in it or
Speaker 2: you're not really steeped in it until you've played you've
Speaker 2: played a lot of golf courses. I mean, you can't
Speaker 2: really don't. I don't. It'd be difficult to be into
Speaker 2: architecture if you play ten golf courses, but you play
Speaker 2: a couple hundred of them, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you kind of start seeing and noticing all these differences
Speaker 2: and understanding why things are the way they are and
Speaker 2: why you like certain things and dislike other things. But
Speaker 2: I joined I joined golf club at liss And I
Speaker 2: think two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 2: that was really kind of you know, that was kind
Speaker 2: of the the primmer that really kind of got me
Speaker 2: interested in it.
Speaker 5: Fall Nerd them, Yeah, because I mean it was.
Speaker 2: Just such a great race. It's still a great resource.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got all kinds of pictures, great opinions.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just you know, there's just so much
Speaker 2: information on there and it was just, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of an interesting thing. And then you know, and honestly too,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of the first kind of the first
Speaker 2: trip I took to band and kind of started a
Speaker 2: little bit of that interest as well. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and and six, I was out, I was still living
Speaker 2: in California and in Ari Ari was out working on
Speaker 2: something with me, and we went out. We played pebble.
Speaker 3: We played pebble on my.
Speaker 2: Birthday, and I remember being, I hope this doesn't have
Speaker 2: said anybody. I remember being so I was just I
Speaker 2: was underwhelmed. Like we played pebble, was like a six
Speaker 2: hour round. We were shepherded, like just just shepherd it
Speaker 2: around the golf. Of course, wasn't in great shape. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously there's some fantastic goals out there. We got done
Speaker 2: with a round and I looked at him, like, man, like,
Speaker 2: is it me or is this pretty overrated? He just
Speaker 2: kind of laughed and he said he's like He's like,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, man. He's like, in a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, like take about a week off, take a
Speaker 2: week off from work, and meet me up in Oregon.
Speaker 2: We'll go play We'll go play bandon and I got
Speaker 2: up there. I got up there about two weeks later,
Speaker 2: and I had a week off and I get up there.
Speaker 2: I drive up from from uh I was living in
Speaker 2: Menlo Park. Grow from Menlo Park up to Eugene. I
Speaker 2: get to Ari's house and he's sitting there in his
Speaker 2: living room and he's got like, I don't know, probably
Speaker 2: one hundred Hickory golf clubs on the floor around him, Like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing. You're putting my bag together to
Speaker 2: go go play, go play out of band I'm like, Oh, cool,
Speaker 2: do you have a bag I can play with? So
Speaker 2: my first trip to Bandon was one hundred holes with Hickory,
Speaker 2: Oh my god. And I think that gave me a
Speaker 2: much deeper appreciation for that place than I probably would
Speaker 2: have if I'd gone out there played it with modern equipment.
Speaker 2: And I just really just changed the way I looked
Speaker 2: at golf and how a golf course could really play.
Speaker 2: I hadn't really seen anything firm and fast fescue like that.
Speaker 2: I hadn't, you know, just how wild and natural it was,
Speaker 2: and the shots you could play on the ground. I
Speaker 2: just hadn't really seen anything like that before, and that
Speaker 2: really it was like a quantum leap to me and
Speaker 2: my my appreciation and understanding of golf was my first
Speaker 2: trip out to Bandon.
Speaker 1: It's and is coupled with the Pebble.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I had like the similar thing with Pebble this year
Speaker 1: at Whistling Straits where you know, it took us like
Speaker 1: six hours to play and I was just it just
Speaker 1: turned me so much. Yeah, there's so.
Speaker 3: Many it's like you get it's I mean, dude, it's
Speaker 3: just the marshals are like they're just there to just
Speaker 3: keep you moving pretty much, and like it's just I
Speaker 3: don't know, that's just not golf to me, man, that's not.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you find enjoyable about that.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny because I asked the caddies like, hey,
Speaker 1: is this normal, and they're like, you know, the fastest
Speaker 1: round we ever get out here is like five hours,
Speaker 1: five and a half. And to me, that's it's business.
Speaker 2: It's bad business, Annie because they're losing or they're missing
Speaker 2: out on those replay rates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's that's the thing.
Speaker 5: Is like.
Speaker 2: Even a four hour around four hour around of golf
Speaker 2: to me feels like forever.
Speaker 3: Well just it just it just it feels it feels really.
Speaker 1: Long, but that's the reality of so many golfers, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I caddied my whole life growing up, and like the
Speaker 1: four hours is fast for a foursome amount of weekend.
Speaker 1: Like and it's it's crazy to say that because we're
Speaker 1: two on the end of the spectrum, but that's the reality.
Speaker 1: Like four hours is pretty fast for some people. The
Speaker 1: thing that I found crazy, it's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: I could play Lossnia for like a fourth of the
Speaker 1: money and play twice as fast, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a better golf course.
Speaker 5: So like what am I.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? Man? I would I concur with you
Speaker 2: in completely, in total and entirely, Like it's I mean.
Speaker 3: It's I don't know, man, It's just it's such a
Speaker 3: different time.
Speaker 2: You know. The other thing too, is like it's just
Speaker 2: I think the proposition for a lot of people is
Speaker 2: changing as far as like when you go out and
Speaker 2: you play a golf course. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people are starting to start to embrace like having fun,
Speaker 2: Like you know, who cares if it's seventy five hundred
Speaker 2: yards and it kicks your ass, Like don't you want
Speaker 2: to just go have fun? Isn't that what you already
Speaker 2: playing got you into playing golf. You certainly didn't keep
Speaker 2: playing golf because it wasn't fun.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things need a lot of things
Speaker 2: need to change.
Speaker 1: But so you think Sweetens is certainly in the fun category.
Speaker 1: Abandon is a fun It's.
Speaker 2: Like being out there for four years completely changed my
Speaker 2: perception of golf, like how I value, like just how
Speaker 2: I appreciate and enjoy golf.
Speaker 1: What are the other most fun golf courses? You've been
Speaker 1: listening to the Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.