Speaker 1: When he was in high school, his golf coach said
Speaker 1: to him, Brian, you know more about golf trivia than
Speaker 1: I've ever met, but you will never make a living
Speaker 1: on this. And and the fact I ran into his
Speaker 1: golf coach in the grocery store and I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're married aware about Ryan's doing. He said,
Speaker 1: I am. And I said you remember what you said
Speaker 1: to Himn't? He said no? And I said, he he
Speaker 1: did say that, But I mean, fifty thousand people follow him.
Speaker 1: It's just an every single day, isn't. He said, He's aware,
Speaker 1: and he's so thankful. He's just overwhelming, and he will.
Speaker 1: I don't think he will ever lose that, man, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think he will. Another logo nobody he h
Speaker 1: Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Janella. Thanks for
Speaker 1: spending time with us again here at the Pit. It's
Speaker 1: been a crazy stretch as Alan, Schipmunk, Alex Upeggy and
Speaker 1: I continue to build out this modern media network of
Speaker 1: content creators. Much more to come and soon, but let
Speaker 1: me start by thanking links soul who I know will
Speaker 1: approve of and appreciate the higher ware announcing with this
Speaker 1: podcast what is links Soul. Here's Jeff Cunningham, who, along
Speaker 1: with John Ashworth, our co creators of the lifestyle brand.
Speaker 1: I've worn on and off the course for over eight years.
Speaker 1: I think Links sold. You know, we've always called it
Speaker 1: just an idea that we we just tend to. When
Speaker 1: we finally got chewed up and spit out of enough
Speaker 1: corporate gigs, we decided to do this thing ourselves, um,
Speaker 1: the right way, because we just don't fit into that
Speaker 1: culture anymore. And Links Soul, now that you know about it,
Speaker 1: it just it's not meant to be in that It's
Speaker 1: not a it's not a plant that grows in the
Speaker 1: corporate settings, so you know, and a handshake in my
Speaker 1: backyard on March third, oh nine nine, we shook hands
Speaker 1: and decided to do it this way, our way. Go
Speaker 1: to link soul dot com and use promo code fire
Speaker 1: Pity for discount on your next purchase. All right, now
Speaker 1: to the news. From a TV fire to the fire pit,
Speaker 1: we welcome Ryan French to the collective, a robin hood
Speaker 1: of golf and media. The humble and thoughtful stay at
Speaker 1: home dad found a platform and a purpose while tending
Speaker 1: to the responsibilities of a daughter and a son who
Speaker 1: at the age of eighteen months was diagnosed with Kari malformation,
Speaker 1: a rare brain condition that required surgery. With a support
Speaker 1: of family and friends who he made along the back
Speaker 1: roads of scruffy mini tour venues, French launched a Twitter
Speaker 1: handle at a case of a golf one more commonly
Speaker 1: referred to as monday q Info, which recently surpassed fifty followers.
Speaker 1: One of those is Cede Hawker Smith, who's a thirty
Speaker 1: six year old mini tour player who French has caddy
Speaker 1: for over the years. It's unbelievable, Like he's by far
Speaker 1: the best person for you know, for the job in
Speaker 1: terms of just running the account, because you know, like
Speaker 1: you said, he's just he's like, you know, just alt
Speaker 1: of the Earth, like one of the best guys. UM
Speaker 1: uses his platform so well, especially to what it's kind
Speaker 1: of turned into now with you know, um connecting like
Speaker 1: teams in need with you know, equipment gear and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's it's really been cool, um to
Speaker 1: just see everything kind of come about and whatever followers later. Um,
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing. Meanwhile, the likes of Aaron Rodgers and
Speaker 1: other successful fans have slid into his d m s
Speaker 1: in order to help donate resource is to high schools
Speaker 1: and Monday qualifiers in need of support. Monday Q info
Speaker 1: is one of the best stories in golf right now,
Speaker 1: and it's because of the stories he's compelling all of
Speaker 1: us to care about. See Michael Vassaki, Corey Connors and
Speaker 1: the guitar playing Lasso champion who competed in the Byron
Speaker 1: Nelson pre Qualifier. What's French's relationship with the PGA Tour? They,
Speaker 1: like everyone else, are taking notice, as we all should be.
Speaker 1: It's been crazy. I wrote an article for you guys,
Speaker 1: for us, for us, I gotta say us no, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I have always been a golfer
Speaker 1: in man. I mean, I will tell the story of
Speaker 1: my dad's sitting next to me. My dad's a huge
Speaker 1: part of my golf life, A huge part of my
Speaker 1: life obviously, but but my golf life especially. So Um.
Speaker 1: I say in the article that that I became a
Speaker 1: golf nerd on the day our TV started on fire.
Speaker 1: So um. We were watching a Stanley Cup Finals game.
Speaker 1: I was seven. The only thing I remember about it
Speaker 1: is my so our our TV was in the basement,
Speaker 1: and uh, our living space was on the on the
Speaker 1: middle floor, and then upstairs with all of our bedrooms,
Speaker 1: and my dad yelled up to my mom, go get
Speaker 1: the fire extinguisher, and my mom yelled back, I can't
Speaker 1: lift it. You remember those moments like yesterday and we
Speaker 1: you know, our our TV was in our basement and
Speaker 1: it just all of a sudden, it just went. I
Speaker 1: was upstairs and it just went kind of boom, and
Speaker 1: you know, Howard yelled at me and I couldn't find
Speaker 1: the I mean, it was kind of it was just chaos.
Speaker 1: And Mr French, do you do you remember the burning TV? Yes,
Speaker 1: call me Howard plays that it makes me more comfortable. Yes,
Speaker 1: I certainly did. We had a finished basement and the
Speaker 1: TV exploded and fires and the as Ryan described it,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it was. And it was you know,
Speaker 1: I've never faced a fire at that time. Uh, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't very fine. And then as as he was explained,
Speaker 1: we had no intention of going in twenty years with
Speaker 1: the whole TV and we were well known around the
Speaker 1: community for crazy people that don't have a TV. I
Speaker 1: don't know that Howard Night. I mean, it was just like, well,
Speaker 1: let's wait a week. And then we said, well, let's
Speaker 1: wait a month, and we waited twenty nine years, and
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was very interesting because it
Speaker 1: was I think embarrassing for our children, and he didn't
Speaker 1: have a TV and we just never gave in, so
Speaker 1: he just never had one, and they'd have to go
Speaker 1: to grandma Grandpa's if they had an assignment, and that's
Speaker 1: the way it was. Obviously, this is pre internet. So
Speaker 1: I got all my sports information from the Detroit Free Press,
Speaker 1: which was delivered to our house each morning. I read
Speaker 1: it from cover to cover. And we lived on a
Speaker 1: golf course, so golf became my favorite sport. And and
Speaker 1: I always say, like, I don't remember the age, probably
Speaker 1: around ten. I remember Monday mornings just flipping to the
Speaker 1: back page and if you'd have to be our age
Speaker 1: to kind of get this, but in the back page
Speaker 1: was the only day you could find the full field
Speaker 1: scores of a PGA Tour event or whatever it was
Speaker 1: called at that time, the Night Tour or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I remember just reading those and saying, like, I wonder
Speaker 1: how these guys make it. Ryan French of Alpino, Michigan
Speaker 1: was seven when his TV caught fire. They lived on
Speaker 1: the Alpina Golf Club, and thus golf has been his life.
Speaker 1: My dad was the CEO of a company that put
Speaker 1: mentally and physically handicapped people into the workplace. But he
Speaker 1: tried his best every day to come home at five
Speaker 1: o'clock and we would We lived on a small municipal
Speaker 1: course and on the third hall. We were members. And
Speaker 1: what we would do is Dad would come home and
Speaker 1: change and we would go out and start in the
Speaker 1: fourth hole and around dark on the third hole at
Speaker 1: our house, come home and and uh and do and
Speaker 1: and and we did that five or six times a week.
Speaker 1: We kept our scores on the back of our basement
Speaker 1: door and average them up and all those kind of things.
Speaker 1: But but I think, Matt is that game was so
Speaker 1: important to like I love golf. It was important. But
Speaker 1: my dad and I were best friends. Ryan was a
Speaker 1: very good golf for even as a little boy, and
Speaker 1: he would go out to the golf course during the
Speaker 1: day and no one would play with him, No adult
Speaker 1: would play with him. Um and he wasn't allowed on
Speaker 1: the golf course by himself when he was seven for eight,
Speaker 1: and he would wait at the golf course on all
Speaker 1: day to play, and then his father would come and
Speaker 1: play with him at five o'clock. No, I mean, I
Speaker 1: can see him to this stage. Just come, I just mom,
Speaker 1: nobody will play with me, you know. And his dad
Speaker 1: came home and did it. It was just a part
Speaker 1: of their life. It was wonderful. There was fights on
Speaker 1: the golf course, nothing to do about about golf. There
Speaker 1: was conversations about real world things that happened. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was in his life or my life. And uh,
Speaker 1: it just became a special place for us. It's where
Speaker 1: we you know, Um, my dad's health is not great
Speaker 1: now he's sitting next to me, um, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was we were best friends and that relationship on
Speaker 1: the golf course taught us a lot about life. Looking back, obviously,
Speaker 1: when I was young, I didn't know what the hell
Speaker 1: I was doing out there. But we had a conversation
Speaker 1: about grades and girls and friends and you know, anything
Speaker 1: anything that that was going on in the world, and
Speaker 1: and and it it is. It's a special part of
Speaker 1: our relationship. As we get into my story, will just
Speaker 1: can it has always been a part of who my
Speaker 1: dad and I are. Uh, you know, today I haven't
Speaker 1: seen him in a couple of months, and you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about golf. It's just it's been a huge
Speaker 1: part of our relationship for sure. Howard French suffered a
Speaker 1: stroke and has been dealing with dementia. But welcome to
Speaker 1: the opportunity now to talk about his son and golf.
Speaker 1: We're very proud of Brian. Uh. He's done a wonderful job.
Speaker 1: I take absolutely no credit for UM. I liked the
Speaker 1: golf um and it was so convenient because it was
Speaker 1: in the backyard, and we always liked it to storm
Speaker 1: from uh oh anywhere from noon to about four o'clock
Speaker 1: and everybody got off the course and then we Brian
Speaker 1: and I are known for a very quick players, uh,
Speaker 1: and we could fish around and we could finish around
Speaker 1: in uh thirty five minutes with that a lot of
Speaker 1: attention to anything else to get the ball in the
Speaker 1: hole and go over the next hole. UM. So it
Speaker 1: was a tremendous boost for us as a family. My
Speaker 1: life was certainly patient with us, and that was good,
Speaker 1: uh and we love her for that. And it was
Speaker 1: really a bone of contention in Howard's in my marriage
Speaker 1: that Howard never let him win. He never let any
Speaker 1: of his children win. And it was not what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I wanted him to give in. I wanted him to
Speaker 1: lose to him. I wanted a kid to come home
Speaker 1: not upset, and he said, no, he's got to earn this.
Speaker 1: And it was just below And I will never forget
Speaker 1: the day that he beat his father. I will never
Speaker 1: forget it. And it was like, I mean, before the
Speaker 1: ice cream Sunday, he ran in the house, you know,
Speaker 1: and said, Mom, I won. You know, I beat dad,
Speaker 1: and um, I think from they and they just continued
Speaker 1: that relationship and it was the only thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: he could do that with his grandfather and his father
Speaker 1: and him, and it was a bond and it was
Speaker 1: just amazing. It was one thing to beat his dad
Speaker 1: at Alpina and he was having some success in high
Speaker 1: school and in like so many others, French received a
Speaker 1: reality check. You know. I grew up in a small
Speaker 1: northern Michigan town and I was like I always say,
Speaker 1: it's like a big fish in a small pond. You know.
Speaker 1: I won the club championship, in the men's club championship
Speaker 1: at sixteen. I thought it was a big deal. Now
Speaker 1: looking back, there was probably five or six guys that had,
Speaker 1: you know, any sort of real golf skill. Uh. But
Speaker 1: I mean I thought it was you know, I thought
Speaker 1: it was I was big ship and then uh and
Speaker 1: then no, no schools recruited me, and I was like, what,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought it was. I thought it was
Speaker 1: pretty good. So I went to a community college, Lansing
Speaker 1: Community College, and it was like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's such a thing. It's kind of an oxymore, but
Speaker 1: a good junior college program. And we went to National's
Speaker 1: twice in the two years I was there, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm still okay. And then I
Speaker 1: tried to walk out of Michigan State. And I always say, Matt, like,
Speaker 1: I walked in there and I was like playing pretty
Speaker 1: good golf for me, And I mean I had no shot.
Speaker 1: You know, I was gonna be of the twelfth man
Speaker 1: on a five man team. And at that time, Michigan
Speaker 1: State was a pretty bad golf school. So it was
Speaker 1: my wake up call that I had I had no
Speaker 1: business in this game. And and looking back to now
Speaker 1: what it was, it was, it was definitely my wake
Speaker 1: up call of how many talented guys that were out there. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it was. It was eye opening because I
Speaker 1: was shooting, you know, seventy four on seventy two on
Speaker 1: a good day, seventy seven on a bad day, pretty consistently,
Speaker 1: and I had no shot. He might not have had
Speaker 1: the ability to play professionally, but French was still willing
Speaker 1: to help others to try to get to the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: In all of my years of covering Buddy's trips and
Speaker 1: father and son traditions within the game, I've never heard
Speaker 1: of an annual father son caddy trip, which the French
Speaker 1: boys did several times a year. From two thousand three
Speaker 1: until two thousand ten, my parents still lived in northern Michigan.
Speaker 1: I was running a group of restaurants restaurants in southern Michigan,
Speaker 1: and you know, we wanted to find a trip that
Speaker 1: we could make to like kind of connect So, um,
Speaker 1: my dad and I did a caddy trip. And I
Speaker 1: always say, is now this is the Internet days. I
Speaker 1: found this was the McKenzie Tour now, but it was
Speaker 1: called just the Canadian Tour. I found a tournament that
Speaker 1: was close in Toronto that we could drive to. I
Speaker 1: called the caddy master and I said, hey, you I
Speaker 1: see her looking for caddies, and he was so excited
Speaker 1: when he found out that I had played college golf,
Speaker 1: and my dad knew what was happening, and so we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll make it a trip. There was no intention of
Speaker 1: making it a yearly trip or anything. We just went
Speaker 1: out to caddy on a mini tour. And so definitely
Speaker 1: that trip and the following trips are what why this
Speaker 1: account exists. If I didn't go on those trips, I
Speaker 1: would never be sitting in this chair talking about these stories.
Speaker 1: And it was eye opening. And what I say two
Speaker 1: respects is one, how many good players are out there
Speaker 1: that weren't on the e J Tour. This was a
Speaker 1: mini tour in Canada. And to the lifestyle that they lead,
Speaker 1: and that is essentially what the account is about, is
Speaker 1: how good these guys are and the lifestyle they lead
Speaker 1: isn't what you see on TV. When they went candying,
Speaker 1: I mean I sent them off into places without cell phones,
Speaker 1: I and I was, I mean, I just went the
Speaker 1: stories and I thaid, oh my god, I'm gonna what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen here? It was amazing. They came home they
Speaker 1: loved it um and I mean they I mean trains
Speaker 1: going through was awful, but it was you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: those are those are memories that are just forever with him. Definitely.
Speaker 1: What I learned most on that trip, Matt, that first
Speaker 1: trip is the off the course stuff. And I tell
Speaker 1: him the story is a week Our tradition was a
Speaker 1: camp every year, and so Dad and I set up
Speaker 1: our tent and the next morning I went in to
Speaker 1: brush my teeth the community bathroom and and next to
Speaker 1: me was a player, and and I just like it
Speaker 1: was I just didn't know anything about off the course
Speaker 1: life for these guys. And I really like stunned of
Speaker 1: why a professional golfer was next to me at a
Speaker 1: thirty five dollar a night U campsite when he had
Speaker 1: a golf tournament the next day. It just like it
Speaker 1: really boggled my mind. I really had no thought that played.
Speaker 1: I just didn't think of the financial side of of
Speaker 1: golf or off the course stuff. And that moment sticks
Speaker 1: with me because it really was the moment I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, this is not the pro golf
Speaker 1: that I know. At some point this part time Caddy
Speaker 1: became a life partner. Yeah. So I was in Chicago
Speaker 1: and uh, Yeah, we met. I was running a group
Speaker 1: of restaurants, and yeah, my my wife is is an
Speaker 1: amazing lady. And a friend introduced us here and and
Speaker 1: she had I always tell a story about my wife
Speaker 1: and golf. Her only relationship with golf was that she
Speaker 1: tried out for the high school team in order to
Speaker 1: meet a boy. She had never played golf before, but
Speaker 1: the boy that she was interested in was on the
Speaker 1: golf team, so she tried out for the girls team.
Speaker 1: Obviously was terrible as she had never picked up a club,
Speaker 1: didn't make the team, didn't get introduced to the boy,
Speaker 1: and and has never played golf before in my life.
Speaker 1: Here's Stephanie French, Ryan's wife, a nurse he met ten
Speaker 1: years ago. Was it love at first sight? What? What?
Speaker 1: What struck you about him? And said, Oh, this is
Speaker 1: my guy. This is so funny, So I will always
Speaker 1: remember this. We had a mutual friend that worked for
Speaker 1: Ryan at our in the restaurant industry that introduced us,
Speaker 1: and I had just moved to Chicago. Ryan had just
Speaker 1: moved to Chicago. And our friend that introduced us was
Speaker 1: a very um, very kind, wonderful man, but he was
Speaker 1: very sort of promiscuous with his love interests and he
Speaker 1: had just broken up with a man. And so I
Speaker 1: came into his apartment and Ryan was sitting on the
Speaker 1: couch and I was like, oh, Jacob's taste in men
Speaker 1: is really improved, Like how I could get on board
Speaker 1: with this, Maybe this one will actually last. And so
Speaker 1: I sat and I talked to Ryan and I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this guy is for me, not Jacob. And um, and
Speaker 1: so we just started hanging out as a group of friends. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think pretty quickly, yeah, we started dating. And
Speaker 1: I mean within I want to say, six or eight months,
Speaker 1: we were engaged. This is about the time when Ryan
Speaker 1: also meets cde Hawkersmith. The first year we met, I
Speaker 1: think we were just engaged. I said, hey, there's a
Speaker 1: mini tour event in town. It was actually a tour
Speaker 1: of the U S Pro Tour. Fino was the leading
Speaker 1: money winner and the owner stole everyone's money, which is
Speaker 1: another insight into the mini tour life. But they had
Speaker 1: an advantage Chicago. I think the last event they ever
Speaker 1: held before the owner disappeared with everybody's money. But they
Speaker 1: held a mini tour event in um in Chicago. We
Speaker 1: were living downtown at the time. In a small apartment
Speaker 1: and Uh I called the tour and said, hey, we'd
Speaker 1: like to house a player, and my wife's like, what
Speaker 1: the hell is this? You know we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: stranger in our house. Two thousand twelve, I was playing
Speaker 1: on the National Progolf Tour. UM and Ryan we had
Speaker 1: an advantage Chicago, and Ryan offered us UM offered a billet,
Speaker 1: UM which just host housing, offered us a room. So
Speaker 1: buddy and I took him up on it and stayed. Um.
Speaker 1: It was like it was basically a closet UM with
Speaker 1: two air mattresses. UM. And so that's how I first
Speaker 1: met Ryan. I think it was junior two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: and he can't He didn't caddy for me that event.
Speaker 1: He caddied for the other guy. But we just we
Speaker 1: hit it off. He took us up to it was
Speaker 1: a John Hancock building and UM up to the bar
Speaker 1: up top, and it was just it was a fun
Speaker 1: week and UM, we just we stayed in touch ever since.
Speaker 1: How what's he like as a caddy? Ryan's really good. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a good player himself, so that helps UM. But
Speaker 1: he's he's really good at like knowing what to say
Speaker 1: and when to say it or when not to say
Speaker 1: anything at all. Um, And I know him like our relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, like we we joke a lot, and so
Speaker 1: it's to have him on the bag. It's like it's
Speaker 1: it's really good because it keeps me, you know, calm
Speaker 1: and just loose. So but he's he's very good, very
Speaker 1: good Caddy. I've been so fortunately, so lucky just to
Speaker 1: know Ryan and just kind of have like a front
Speaker 1: row seat just see everything unfold. Um. And one thing
Speaker 1: that you know, obviously doesn't really get talked about on Twitter,
Speaker 1: but like his wife's staph is like she's awesome. Um.
Speaker 1: Every time I'm up there, uh for a qualifier or
Speaker 1: whatever and out with Ryan, it's just she's kind of
Speaker 1: doing whatever she can to let Ryan like have a
Speaker 1: good time because you know, like he he is at
Speaker 1: home all day, um, and he's he's busy doing work, um,
Speaker 1: putting out content. But she's just like she's super supportive,
Speaker 1: and I think it's awesome. You know. I would think
Speaker 1: Ryan would agree that most wives would be like, hey, Bud,
Speaker 1: like take the sweatpants off, put on a suit and
Speaker 1: go get a real job. But she's just been She's
Speaker 1: been great, so she deserves a lot of credit to
Speaker 1: my wife. Is uh. I mean, I haven't had a
Speaker 1: job for three years tweeting about golf, So to say
Speaker 1: that she is supportive is um is is an understatement.
Speaker 1: She's an amazing woman who's uh a nurse dealt with COVID,
Speaker 1: lost her dead in the last year, and um, she
Speaker 1: is a huge part of of what this is. For sure.
Speaker 1: Any French was born in her little brother, Jackson French,
Speaker 1: was born in and for the first year and a
Speaker 1: half of his life they couldn't figure out why he
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop vomiting. Our son, Jackson has what's called chiari malformation.
Speaker 1: And I'll try to give a quick version of what
Speaker 1: it is. Um. You know, part of his brain is
Speaker 1: down the whole hole in his skull. And for for
Speaker 1: different kids, that means different things. Uh. For jack it
Speaker 1: meant that he he vomited every day of his life
Speaker 1: when he was from the time he was a baby
Speaker 1: until time he had brain surgery. UM. And we didn't
Speaker 1: know anything that doctors didn't know anything. We went to
Speaker 1: numerous doctors to try to get some answers, and the
Speaker 1: only reason we found charity was like we thought he
Speaker 1: had a brain tumor. So yeah, we had done at
Speaker 1: gastro doctors and uh and everything. I went to a
Speaker 1: allergists and went back to our primary care doctor. They
Speaker 1: thought we were overfeeding him and uh, it was a
Speaker 1: it was a rough year and a half for sure.
Speaker 1: Um And and I say in the article, is you
Speaker 1: know I I'll never forget that. So we had an
Speaker 1: m r I brain m r I, and for some
Speaker 1: reason I wish it didn't happen, but it did. That
Speaker 1: the person who read our our m r I gave
Speaker 1: us the report. And so for those that have never
Speaker 1: been through this, and hopefully most of you never will,
Speaker 1: is a doctor doesn't read your m r E. There's
Speaker 1: a person who specifically read your m r I, and
Speaker 1: then you go to a doctor down the road. Whether
Speaker 1: it's emergent you need to go right then or a
Speaker 1: week or a month whatever. But you're not really supposed
Speaker 1: to see a report because it's not a medical doctor
Speaker 1: who reads it. And so for some reason they gave
Speaker 1: us out of the report and it said KR malformation.
Speaker 1: And although my wife was a nurse, we'd never heard
Speaker 1: of it and never google a medical condition. Uh that's
Speaker 1: my advice to everybody. We came home kind of assumed
Speaker 1: it meant brain surgery, and the next four days until
Speaker 1: we got into a pediatric neurologist was you know, a
Speaker 1: pretty pretty rough, rough part of our life because you
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know what's coming. And so UM,
Speaker 1: finally met with John Rougie, who is is a hero
Speaker 1: in our life. UM, and he told us our sundated
Speaker 1: brain surgery. It was really hard. Um, it's still scary
Speaker 1: for sure, but we are so lucky. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we spent that time in ic you and I think
Speaker 1: right has tweeted about it recently, Like we met a
Speaker 1: lot of families who they never get to take their
Speaker 1: kids home. And I see it at work a lot,
Speaker 1: and then to go through it personally really just drives
Speaker 1: at home. So I think, above all, we're just so thankful. Um.
Speaker 1: Jack is healthy and smart and crazy five year old
Speaker 1: that drives us up the wall, but in the best
Speaker 1: kind of way. Although I hate that Jack had to
Speaker 1: go through what he did, and he's fine out and
Speaker 1: hopefully you know, there might be some complications down the road,
Speaker 1: but if you met him, he'd be a pretty normal kid.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I'm I don't know if happy is
Speaker 1: the right word, but I definitely learned a lot about
Speaker 1: life in those two weeks. We were fortunate that as
Speaker 1: Rise platform has grown, he's worked with UM, the Bobby
Speaker 1: Jones Kiary Foundation. UM. We had no idea that this
Speaker 1: legendary golfer like also had Ciari malformation, and so that
Speaker 1: was kind of a cool thing to connect like Rise
Speaker 1: love of UM, you know, golf and everything that that
Speaker 1: means to his family to what we're going through now.
Speaker 1: So that was neat. Even though the great Bobby Jones
Speaker 1: had Kiari malformation and there's a foundation raising aware us
Speaker 1: about the condition, it took doctors eighteen months to get
Speaker 1: Jackson a diagnosis, and now French finds himself in a
Speaker 1: position to make a difference. I call it a perfect storm.
Speaker 1: Is uh jack head brain surgery. We had a long
Speaker 1: term nanny, Paulina, an amazing nanny that was with us
Speaker 1: for years. Uh graduated from college and was going to
Speaker 1: go get a real job in the restaurant group that
Speaker 1: I was working for. One bankrupt and so the start
Speaker 1: of the account was I was gonna stay home for
Speaker 1: a couple of months, and literally that was it, Like
Speaker 1: I was gonna I was gonna stay home for a
Speaker 1: couple of months and look for a job that fits
Speaker 1: right and get a new nanny and get Jack back
Speaker 1: to health and we and we would move on. He
Speaker 1: never went back um, and he like very casually one
Speaker 1: day like mentioned to me, like, oh, I started a
Speaker 1: quitter account to talk about golf. I was like in
Speaker 1: the kitchen making dinner, and I was just like, okay, whatever, Well,
Speaker 1: like I hope you like get like this will be
Speaker 1: good for you because I I don't have the like
Speaker 1: his ability to remember detail for sports is it's like
Speaker 1: mind boggling. And I have teased him many times like
Speaker 1: if he could use that brain power to like cure
Speaker 1: cancer or like you know and you know, climate issues,
Speaker 1: the world would be a better place. I really started
Speaker 1: this account to have an adult outlet. We have a
Speaker 1: seven year old at the time of four year old,
Speaker 1: so a four year old and a two year old,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to watch cartoons all day, and
Speaker 1: so I have had these experiences through golf. But the
Speaker 1: original part of the account was I was just gonna
Speaker 1: post Monday qualifying scores I had met or played with
Speaker 1: or you know, been in the group with so many
Speaker 1: guys at this point that I was checking many tour
Speaker 1: scores and my nerd, my golf nerd had never left.
Speaker 1: I'd always done that through my life. It had created
Speaker 1: more and more relationships. So I was looking at you know,
Speaker 1: Outlaw Tour, in the Golden State Tour and West Florida
Speaker 1: Tour to see friends or people who had stayed at
Speaker 1: our house or people ID caddied for Ben in a
Speaker 1: group with so that never left. And then about two
Speaker 1: weeks before Jack surgery, I caddied uh for CD Haggersmith,
Speaker 1: who I just talked about in that stayed at our
Speaker 1: house and I said, hey, I'm thinking about starting this account.
Speaker 1: Here's all the things going on in my life. And
Speaker 1: he said, hey, man, you know, uh, why don't you start.
Speaker 1: It's a good idea. You know more about golf than
Speaker 1: anyone should. Um and uh. I always used my brother's line,
Speaker 1: he said, if imagine what you would be an astronaut
Speaker 1: if you knew this stuff much stuff about space. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you just very casually mentioned I'm going to start this
Speaker 1: Twitter account. U c D was a was like a
Speaker 1: pro golfer that he caddied for has become friends with
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, c D and I just
Speaker 1: kind of kicked it around and it's just gonna be
Speaker 1: someplace I can be like a golf nerd with a
Speaker 1: few guys. And I was like, that sounds great, because
Speaker 1: then maybe you won't try to get me involved in
Speaker 1: these conversations that I cannot remember. And so he started it,
Speaker 1: and like it was just one of those things where
Speaker 1: like a week or two I go by and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, I have a hundred followers,
Speaker 1: and then I have if a hundred followers would have
Speaker 1: been a lot um. I remember calling I never called
Speaker 1: my wife at work. She's a nurse who dealing with
Speaker 1: like life and death. I remember calling my wife when
Speaker 1: I got to a thousand at work and saying I
Speaker 1: just went over a thousand followers, and I was like,
Speaker 1: are you sure they're not like confused, like they know
Speaker 1: this is not like what's happening. And it just has
Speaker 1: like slow and steady, kept growing um and so you know,
Speaker 1: here we are. Every moment in this account has been
Speaker 1: so surreal. And I say it all the time, is
Speaker 1: if I made a list of the craziest things that
Speaker 1: would happen at the beginning of this account, none of
Speaker 1: the things that have actually happened would have been on
Speaker 1: that list because the stuff that's happened is is literally
Speaker 1: too crazy to even comprehend. For example, like give me,
Speaker 1: give me a couple sure. Yeah, last night I was
Speaker 1: messaging with Aaron Rodgers h and he is sending money
Speaker 1: to a high school team that I am helping. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: that is just I don't even he's a follower of mine.
Speaker 1: We've messaged back and forth some talk about needing an outlet.
Speaker 1: In the middle of all that's going on with Green
Speaker 1: Bay and the Packers front office, Aaron Rodgers is helping
Speaker 1: Monday qualifiers. So the story of Aaron Rodgers like, I
Speaker 1: was streaming that Scottsdale Open during COVID. It was like
Speaker 1: the only golf tournament going on in the entire world,
Speaker 1: and I was streaming it and I saw him Like
Speaker 1: people that get on your stream, you know, they show up,
Speaker 1: And I was like, Aaron Rodgers, like what, I didn't
Speaker 1: know he followed me whatever, And then I noticed he
Speaker 1: followed me. I was like, this is crazy. And then
Speaker 1: about two or three months later he sent me a
Speaker 1: message was like, hey, I saw that player needs help,
Speaker 1: I'd like to do it. I just like stare at
Speaker 1: my phone like is this really happening? And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: We're like texting. We're like, what are buddies? Meanwhile, Ryan
Speaker 1: French is an avid Detroit Lions fan. So the last
Speaker 1: last Aaron Rodders story, so he sent me this thing
Speaker 1: before I responded like I had to collect myself that
Speaker 1: he sent it, and he's like, how can I help? Uh?
Speaker 1: And I said it to my buddies and I and
Speaker 1: my buddy replied, what you say? And I said, uh, oh,
Speaker 1: I sent him a message and I said I've been
Speaker 1: a lifelong Lions fan, so please fuck off. And he's like,
Speaker 1: did you really say that? I was like, I didn't
Speaker 1: really do it. He's d M with Aaron Rodgers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's crazy. It's just crazy, he said, Detroit
Speaker 1: Lions fan. He wanted to tell Aaron I don't need
Speaker 1: your help. I don't want your help. You know, stick it.
Speaker 1: I hope he did not say that. He did not
Speaker 1: say that, but he wanted to. He was joking. Yesterday
Speaker 1: I was on Golf Channel, talked to Aaron Rodgers. I
Speaker 1: funded to my followers, funded two high school teams in need.
Speaker 1: H Mackenzie Hughes, who was at the Masters this year
Speaker 1: UH sent seven boxes of clothes and equipment and things
Speaker 1: to a school in need in UH North Carolina. H
Speaker 1: a guy today. It was a golf coach of a
Speaker 1: team in Florida got five thousand dollars from somebody to
Speaker 1: fund his entire year. That's that's happened in the last
Speaker 1: two days. I don't I don't even know. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what to say. I asked Ryan's parents and
Speaker 1: his wife where they thought he got his motivation for
Speaker 1: a career dedicated to stories about the little guy and
Speaker 1: kids in need of resources. I also asked Ryan a
Speaker 1: couple of parts to that, man is is my mom is?
Speaker 1: You know, was a drug and alcoholic counselor for many years,
Speaker 1: and you know, UM helped people in so many ways
Speaker 1: and just have always been you know, she talked and
Speaker 1: put into me. My dad put mentally and physically handicapped
Speaker 1: people into the workplace and could have left for a
Speaker 1: job that paid more, you know, as the CEO of
Speaker 1: this small company for thirty five years and could have
Speaker 1: left for a better paying job. It's just part of
Speaker 1: who my family was. UM. But I think two parts
Speaker 1: of that is I think I ran a group of
Speaker 1: restaurants I was. I was young and making good money,
Speaker 1: and I think I was pretty selfish. Uh at that
Speaker 1: point in my life. UM, I met my wife, one
Speaker 1: of the most unselfish people I've ever met, and really
Speaker 1: changed who I was. And she has been amazingly supportive
Speaker 1: of what this is UM on a much bigger scale
Speaker 1: once it started to grow. That was the conversation my
Speaker 1: wife and I had is we have to use this
Speaker 1: for good. I love that you know, players have followers
Speaker 1: have given players. There's a guy who has given players
Speaker 1: dollars he was a follower of mine to continue to
Speaker 1: chase his dreams, no strings attached, and that is amazing
Speaker 1: and wonderful. I'm very proud and happy. But to give
Speaker 1: to talk to the golf coach I did today and
Speaker 1: know that this guy was blueing golf bags together to
Speaker 1: make his team and now he has five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to go buy what he wants. Uh. I think if
Speaker 1: you have a platform, then it's in a small part
Speaker 1: you have to use it for good. So you must
Speaker 1: love the idea that the tour has just decided to
Speaker 1: arbitrarily start giving out forty million extra dollars to the
Speaker 1: guys who are already very, very wealthy and have accomplished
Speaker 1: a ton of like. You must love that concept. You
Speaker 1: must think there's no better way to spend this forty
Speaker 1: million than just simply throw it at the already rich, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to be fair to the tour. They've come
Speaker 1: a long way, you know. I think they never cared
Speaker 1: about Mondays. They have never cared about the back fillers
Speaker 1: of that story, and I think the tour has never
Speaker 1: given a fair shot to tell those stories and and
Speaker 1: make it interesting. They always say, oh, Tiger, And obviously
Speaker 1: I understand Tiger and the top five get it. But uh,
Speaker 1: when you when you see guys, I'll use a player.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he wants to mention, so, uh.
Speaker 1: He finished very high in the Latin American Tour, had
Speaker 1: a great year one whatever whatever. He sent me his
Speaker 1: balance sheet. He made twelve dollars net, you know, take home.
Speaker 1: I think he finished fourth on the money list on
Speaker 1: the Latin American Tour. And he has he has four kids,
Speaker 1: and twelve thousand dollars probably goes maybe a month, you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half months, three months and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think to be very fair. Uh, obviously, I think
Speaker 1: that the forty million could have spent ben spent elsewhere.
Speaker 1: That the corn Ferry Tour persons are the same that
Speaker 1: they've been for seven years. The guy who has finished seventy,
Speaker 1: who is probably a top four hundred or five player
Speaker 1: in the world, Ah, can't make a living. Steve Wheatcroft
Speaker 1: is a perfect example. Like Steve, I was like, what
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going back to the corn Ferry Tour.
Speaker 1: I have a family. On Monday June, Michael Kasaki made
Speaker 1: it twenty part to qualify first spot in the Valspar
Speaker 1: Championship at Innisbrook and Florida. The video of the Saki's
Speaker 1: called to his father to tell him he made it
Speaker 1: has one point five million views. This is the sound
Speaker 1: from the Saki's press conference. Do you have any sense
Speaker 1: of why your story seems to be resonating so widely?
Speaker 1: Why so many people are tweeting about and cheering on Instagram?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people give up on their dreams,
Speaker 1: probably because they can't avoid it. Um. I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be with my parents and being able to
Speaker 1: help me out. Sometimes two keep leaving it, and I
Speaker 1: said it today in a tweet, Matt is there just
Speaker 1: happened to be a camera there this week? That happens
Speaker 1: at almost every Monday. I talked to Neil Johnson, who's
Speaker 1: who's who's helped me along the way, and it's now
Speaker 1: starting to grow his own thing. He's like, Ryan, I
Speaker 1: I want to qualified for the Puerto Rico Open, you know,
Speaker 1: four years ago, And I sat in my car and bad.
Speaker 1: He's like, no one ever saw that there just happened
Speaker 1: to be a camera there. Uh, there's not very Monday,
Speaker 1: very many Mondays that a career defining. Maybe it's the
Speaker 1: like maybe Michael Velsaki will never get to the PGA Tour. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe he'll never make it to the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 1: but he'll always have that moment. I use a guy
Speaker 1: all the time. His name was Tad Belcon. No one
Speaker 1: has ever heard of Todd Belkin. Uh, no one will
Speaker 1: ever hear of Todd Belcon again. He was a pizza
Speaker 1: store manager and made it through the Byron Nelson two
Speaker 1: years ago pre qualifier and then made it through the
Speaker 1: Monday qualifier. And he probably has no chance. I mean,
Speaker 1: he didn't even attempt to play pro golf as a career. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's I think he's an insurance salesman now and he
Speaker 1: will always be able to tell his kids that he
Speaker 1: played on the PGA Tour. And I think it's such
Speaker 1: a cool thing in sports. It's like, I always people
Speaker 1: laugh at this analogy, but there's no free throw contest
Speaker 1: to play for the Lakers, There's no there's no breakaway
Speaker 1: contest to play for the Red Wings. And that's what
Speaker 1: a Monday qualifier is. It really is. I mean, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, if you have a two
Speaker 1: point oh handicap or below, you can play on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. End of story, like you get through a prey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no strings, there's no one to tell you you're
Speaker 1: you're not fast enough, for strong enough, you don't hit
Speaker 1: the ball far enough. Eighteen holes is like it's a
Speaker 1: free throw contest. It really is. You can beat a
Speaker 1: very good developmental Tour player, can beat a PGA Tour
Speaker 1: member and eighteen holes and no doubt about it. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It happens all the time. It is such Michael vel
Speaker 1: Saki moments happened at almost every Monday. Back to cde
Speaker 1: Hawker Smith on where the Monday q info handle is
Speaker 1: now and where it might go from here. I think
Speaker 1: this week was really huge with the I think Michael
Speaker 1: Vasaki is his name the Monday Qualifier at VAL's bar.
Speaker 1: Um like guys who are in the golf industry and
Speaker 1: obviously like his followers know. But but like what has
Speaker 1: happened this week with just the amount of attention that
Speaker 1: that has gotten. Um, Like it's, uh, it's really cool
Speaker 1: to see. But I think like it's it's a springboard
Speaker 1: for you know, what is to come and like what
Speaker 1: is possible the potential of you know, kind of what
Speaker 1: he has created. In the end, Ryan French was being
Speaker 1: compensated by the PGA Tour for writing for their website,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't much at all. In fact, if he
Speaker 1: elected to attend a Monday Qualifier in person, he'd lose
Speaker 1: money doing it. What is your relationship like with the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. Yeah, I mean, uh, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: tough dynamic because I was on a call with them
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago and they said, you know,
Speaker 1: we love ninety percent of what you do, we don't
Speaker 1: like two So probably they like of what I do
Speaker 1: and they don't like. That's probably my That's probably a
Speaker 1: guess is I try my best to keep it very
Speaker 1: honest about what these guys go through, what golf courses
Speaker 1: look like, that there's no purses that I think the
Speaker 1: corn forty. You know, I tried to be as much
Speaker 1: as I can that voice for the players, and the
Speaker 1: tour is not fond of that at times for sure.
Speaker 1: Um you know, the waste management has played at McCormick Ranch,
Speaker 1: which is like a factory. They the Monday qualifiers stay
Speaker 1: off Matt's and the greens aren't very good and those
Speaker 1: kind of things. And I'm going to tweet that, uh,
Speaker 1: I know that make the two are very happy. So
Speaker 1: um yeah, I I I have tried my best to
Speaker 1: What has worked in this account up to this point
Speaker 1: is tweeting what I think is interesting or important to
Speaker 1: be said. And I don't. Of course, it's in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind now that I wrote for the
Speaker 1: tour and those kind of things. But I just say
Speaker 1: what I want to say, and I don't want the
Speaker 1: tour to ever sense for me. That doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: tour doesn't doesn't people from the tour don't texture call
Speaker 1: me to ask why I tweeted something that they do
Speaker 1: for sure. UM, And my response often to that is,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys see that of my stuff is
Speaker 1: pretty positive, and I hope you go back and look
Speaker 1: at that. I mean, you go from a TV on
Speaker 1: fire to uh to joining the fire Pit Collective. Ryan French,
Speaker 1: welcome to the fire Pit Collective. Matt, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I really I Ah, I will tell how I felt
Speaker 1: about this moment. Um. Matt and I and Alan Rann
Speaker 1: to zoom call with Alex I don't know, a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and we agreed that we're gonna make
Speaker 1: this work. And I clicked leave the meeting and my wife,
Speaker 1: Stephanie was it was in a chair next to me,
Speaker 1: and it was just dead silence. After I got off
Speaker 1: the call, and she was crying, and I just was
Speaker 1: really like stunned that this is all come to this. Really,
Speaker 1: it's ah, it is very very surreal. My wife is
Speaker 1: uh amazingly happy. I'm like, I can't believe it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The line I wrote in the story is my dreams
Speaker 1: never got this far. That's just all there is doing. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you said, hey, what's your dream? If you could
Speaker 1: be in golf journalism. I wouldn't have ever thought that
Speaker 1: it would end here for sure. Well, we're just getting started.
Speaker 1: Let's go up. Before we get to Bryan French's favorite
Speaker 1: fire pit, I want to let you know about Part Points,
Speaker 1: a new scoring system for golf. This is Brandon Eibert,
Speaker 1: one of the developers of the concept and the app. Well,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago now, Kevin came to the
Speaker 1: office and was watching Morning Drive and he said, well,
Speaker 1: they were talking about how you teach your kids how
Speaker 1: to play golf. And my boys are seven and ten
Speaker 1: at the time, and he said, well, teach him how
Speaker 1: to play. Got tuble to shoot par And it's you know,
Speaker 1: start from twenty five yards and and you make sure
Speaker 1: you're consistently shooting part from that distance. When you do that,
Speaker 1: move back to fifty when you do that, moved back
Speaker 1: to seventy five. And it kind of hit me two ways.
Speaker 1: One is, I'm not a scratch golfer. I probably should
Speaker 1: play golf the same way. You'll find a distance on
Speaker 1: every hole where I can make par from and and
Speaker 1: and so we started practicing like that. When I take
Speaker 1: the boys to play golf, we would play forward and
Speaker 1: you know i'd play maybe from a tea box for
Speaker 1: a tea box. They play up and there was a
Speaker 1: time where my oldest son Corbin gets par from fifty
Speaker 1: yards and my youngest son Keaton gets parts from twenty
Speaker 1: five yards and Corban goes I deserve more points than
Speaker 1: my brother because I made part from from further back
Speaker 1: and that's what my ball went on. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have something, And then I realized I was having
Speaker 1: so much more fun playing golf when I was scoring
Speaker 1: than I was trying to navigate bogies and bars from
Speaker 1: you know, the blue tea boxes. If you will download
Speaker 1: the part points app now and go make part beyond
Speaker 1: your Twitter account? What is your fire pit? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I'll go back Matt to to my dad and
Speaker 1: eyes brown of golf and uh, it's not a fire
Speaker 1: pit at all. But every Friday. Uh, we used to
Speaker 1: play for a toughly Sunday from McDonald's and so um
Speaker 1: I lost often. Uh. I was a little bit mentally
Speaker 1: weak when I was a kid, and my dad was
Speaker 1: was competitive and would remind me that I was getting
Speaker 1: close to beating him, and I would often fold like
Speaker 1: a like a cheap tent and Uh, I spent many
Speaker 1: allowances paying for my dad's Sundays. But um, we would
Speaker 1: sit in the car and and eat our Sundays that
Speaker 1: I often paid for, and uh you know, talk about
Speaker 1: Like I said, it really had very little to do
Speaker 1: with golf a lot. It was about life. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad and I sit around and talk
Speaker 1: golf often. Ah, we'll do it today. Is health is
Speaker 1: not uh not not great, but we've had many years
Speaker 1: of amazing golf. And so yeah, he had a red
Speaker 1: Ford for us, if I remember right as his uh
Speaker 1: as his company car, and there was many conversations about
Speaker 1: golf and life, uh, sitting in that car and then
Speaker 1: McDonald's parking lot