Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 1: eg Frida Egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 1: run off the golf course.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 3: I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today We've got an
Speaker 3: awesome episode.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: This is really centers around the APGA Tour, which, for
Speaker 3: those that do not know, is a tour that's really
Speaker 3: focused on inclusivity and diversity in the game of golf
Speaker 3: at the highest level at professional golf. So the ap
Speaker 3: GA Tour has been around for over a decade. It
Speaker 3: was all started by Ken Bentley. He's the first of
Speaker 3: our two guests. We also have Aaron Beverly. Ken goes
Speaker 3: into just kind of starting a golf tour, what his
Speaker 3: original goals were and what has become. It's become something
Speaker 3: really pretty incredible and you know, become a great place
Speaker 3: to play and a great place to develop diverse talent
Speaker 3: in the game of golf, which I think is super important.
Speaker 3: Our second guest is Aaron Beverly. Aaron Beverly played on
Speaker 3: PGA Tour Canada as well as the APGA Tour this year.
Speaker 3: Great guy lives in Sacramento, met him earlier in the
Speaker 3: year and wanted to get him on the pod to
Speaker 3: just talk golf in his career. So I spent this
Speaker 3: week Sunday through Tuesday out at the APGA event down
Speaker 3: in Pebble Beach. It was the Cisco Invitational. It was
Speaker 3: It was a historic event in terms of the APGA.
Speaker 3: It was played at Spanish Bay and Spyglass and it
Speaker 3: was the first ever fifty four whole event for the APGA,
Speaker 3: and it had the biggest perse ever in APGA history,
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand dollars went
Speaker 3: to the winner, which was why at Worthington. You you've
Speaker 3: probably recognized that name from the PGA Championship. He's qualified
Speaker 3: for a number of PGA Championships. He shot sixty four
Speaker 3: in the final round at Spanish Bay, which for anybody
Speaker 3: that's been out there, there are disasters waiting at every
Speaker 3: turn there. It is a really tricky golf course, a
Speaker 3: really uncomfortable golf course, and sixty four is a really
Speaker 3: great score there to win. He beat a slew of players.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of talent. I played. I played in
Speaker 3: the pro am, which was it was kind of cool.
Speaker 3: It was during the round of golf. It was during
Speaker 3: the second round of the tournament, so I was playing
Speaker 3: with with a couple guys, Marcus Bird as well as
Speaker 3: Jared Garcia. I played with those guys and we it
Speaker 3: was during their second round of competition, and it was
Speaker 3: it was really neat. I mean, both guys were super impressive.
Speaker 3: Jared was three under through three ended up shooting I
Speaker 3: think one under on the round. And then Marcus Bird,
Speaker 3: who you might recognize that name. He was the Charlie
Speaker 3: Sifford exemption to Riviera this year. He actually won the
Speaker 3: Lexus Cup, which is like the APGA Player of the
Speaker 3: Year race. That he won that and he'll get full
Speaker 3: status on the PGA Tour Americas, which is Canada Latin
Speaker 3: America next year. Definitely a name to watch. He hits
Speaker 3: the crap out of the ball and really really magnetic personality.
Speaker 3: But along with that, you know, they I spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time with the players. You know, it was
Speaker 3: just fun. You know, you go to these PGA Tour
Speaker 3: events and and nobody wants to talk to you as
Speaker 3: a media member. And at the APGA event, it was
Speaker 3: just it was so nice to just talk with with players,
Speaker 3: hear their stories where they where they played college golf,
Speaker 3: at how they've been playing on the tour, and uh,
Speaker 3: it was super fun. So you know, that was a
Speaker 3: it was a really great experience. Uh. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the companies like Cisco, Farmers other companies that
Speaker 3: have really put some financial backing behind this tour deserve
Speaker 3: to be applauded for what they're doing really advancing the
Speaker 3: game of golf. I plan to pay a lot closer
Speaker 3: attention to the APGA Tour moving forward, and I hope
Speaker 3: to see some of these guys make it to the
Speaker 3: highest level of the game. I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: I obviously go to the majors. I go to a
Speaker 3: couple PGA Tour events a year. These guys hit the ball,
Speaker 3: you know, at a level that they can they can play.
Speaker 3: It's about putting it together and I think Ken talks
Speaker 3: about it, and I agree, it's about providing an opportunity
Speaker 3: for them to develop and play. And you know, I
Speaker 3: talked to Marcus Bird after his round and he was
Speaker 3: telling me about how after college he was working at UPS.
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy was in the top one hundred
Speaker 3: of the world amateur golf rankings and he was he
Speaker 3: didn't because he couldn't put the money together to play
Speaker 3: professional golf. And it wasn't until COVID happened. He still
Speaker 3: had exemptions and he played some amateur events with the
Speaker 3: money he was making caddying and working at UPS, and
Speaker 3: he played a few amateur events the next summer and
Speaker 3: then he got some people to put some money behind him.
Speaker 3: But like, you know, the thought of like a top
Speaker 3: one hundred amateur player not being able to even pursue
Speaker 3: a professional career. Think about that in like the context
Speaker 3: of any other sport. Think about it into the context of, like, hey,
Speaker 3: this is one of the one hundred best NFL prospects
Speaker 3: and he's not going to get a chance to play
Speaker 3: in the league because he can't, you know, afford to
Speaker 3: play you know, developmental and you know football, it doesn't work.
Speaker 3: It's not Apple's Apples comparison, but it makes sense, like
Speaker 3: there needs to be places of play that support the players.
Speaker 3: And I know, like you don't want to make these tours,
Speaker 3: destination tours. You don't want, you know, it to be
Speaker 3: a place that you know, you can make a living here,
Speaker 3: like a great living here, Like you want the highest
Speaker 3: level of golf rewarded. But like just the nature of
Speaker 3: golf is it is very difficult unless you have financial
Speaker 3: means or access to financial means. And I think that's
Speaker 3: one of the things that is great about what's happening
Speaker 3: with the APGA is that it is providing a bridge and
Speaker 3: an opportunity for people to get better without you know,
Speaker 3: fifty to one hundred thousand dollars expenses a year and
Speaker 3: allowing them to play for some cash. Like you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, why at Worthington making fifty thousand, that's going
Speaker 3: to really change his life. So, without further ado, let's
Speaker 3: get to Ken Bentley and Aaron Beverly and thank you
Speaker 3: guys for listening. All right, Ken, I'd love to hear
Speaker 3: how you got into golf personally.
Speaker 1: Well, I was working at Nestley, and I was an
Speaker 1: executive at Nestley, and I've been a tennis player all
Speaker 1: my life. I went to college on a tennis scholarship
Speaker 1: and I found that I was missing out on all
Speaker 1: the meetings, the guys were playing golf, and I swore,
Speaker 1: I was never gonna play golf. It's too slow, was it,
Speaker 1: you know, my kind of game. But then I found
Speaker 1: I was missing all all those meetings, those four hours
Speaker 1: on a golf course, and so I decided I would
Speaker 1: just play and learn well enough so I could play
Speaker 1: in those just corporate out And the first time I played,
Speaker 1: I was so bad. You know. Again, I swore and
Speaker 1: never do it again. And then I went out again
Speaker 1: and took a lesson and I hit a couple of shots,
Speaker 1: and then I was hooked. I just I just fell
Speaker 1: in love with the game, gave up tennis, just went
Speaker 1: to I mean, when I first started playing, I was
Speaker 1: single at the time, and so I would go to
Speaker 1: the driving range after work every night and I'd hit
Speaker 1: two hundred balls, and the guy who worked at the range,
Speaker 1: he would say, okay, you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: stay afterwards, you can hit balls till midnight if you
Speaker 1: wanted to. And I would actually hit balls until midnight.
Speaker 1: I chise, I just love the game, and I still do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still, you know, I think about it
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm one of those golf junkies. I
Speaker 1: buy all the latest clubs, and you know, I love
Speaker 1: talking about golf. And the funny thing is all the
Speaker 1: guys I grew up playing tennis with are now playing golf,
Speaker 1: and so uh, it's just been. It's just been. It's
Speaker 1: a sport of a lifetime. I hope to play for
Speaker 1: us as long as I live.
Speaker 3: Were you living in LA when you were when you
Speaker 3: started playing? Yeah, it was it by chance. The Westchester Range. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I spent many a nights of that range. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to go to Westchester and I used
Speaker 1: to play that which was crazy. It was like almost
Speaker 1: like a video game playing that course at night. Did
Speaker 1: you ever played at night?
Speaker 3: I didn't ever play it at night. I was just
Speaker 3: I was just going there for the range.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so I love that range. Actually, but
Speaker 1: when you play Westchester at night, they actually have the
Speaker 1: worst lights in the world and place balls are flying
Speaker 1: all over. So you take your life in your old hands.
Speaker 3: And then you got the planes. The planes are going over.
Speaker 3: It's a yeah, that is a it's listen. That range
Speaker 3: is just if if you want to if you want
Speaker 3: quintessential l a golf, that range is is just you
Speaker 3: got every every type of every profile of Los Angeles
Speaker 3: golfer in in one place at that range is Uh,
Speaker 3: it's an incredible experience. I I I remember I've lived
Speaker 3: there in my twenties for a little bit and I was,
Speaker 3: you know, a golf junkie and that was the that
Speaker 3: was the range that I went to all the time
Speaker 3: during the week.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love that place. A great putting area,
Speaker 1: that big, big pudding green.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. When you were described when you said the lights,
Speaker 3: and I was just like it had to be that range.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the music going, it's a it's an awesome, awesome spot.
Speaker 3: It's a Hey. Speaking of tennis, you being a big
Speaker 3: tennis player already, did you watch bunch of the US
Speaker 3: Open and uh, you know a resurgence of American tennis
Speaker 3: this year?
Speaker 1: Oh, big time. Yeah, I was glued to the TV. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Americans have really made a statement and as we
Speaker 1: as we talked earlier, I mean it's intentional. They have
Speaker 1: a great player development program. I mean they looked a
Speaker 1: few years ago and American tennis was down so far,
Speaker 1: especially on the men's side, that the USTA invested in
Speaker 1: a lot of money in player development and you've seen
Speaker 1: the results of it today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's incredible to see just the young talent.
Speaker 3: I as somebody who recently moved to the West coast,
Speaker 3: the US Open unbelievable for anybody that lives on the
Speaker 3: West coast. Maybe not the best on the East coast,
Speaker 3: but those matches that especially you get in those quarterfinal matches,
Speaker 3: and there's nothing better than that light match that you're
Speaker 3: you're enjoyed, you know, it's under the lights and everything.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk about your your work at
Speaker 3: golf and with you founding the APGA. Obviously, I think
Speaker 3: it's a tour that has gained a lot of momentum,
Speaker 3: a lot of exposure over the last few years. But
Speaker 3: I want to go back to the start. What made
Speaker 3: you want to start the APGA and can you tell
Speaker 3: us about, you know, kind of the early days of
Speaker 3: the APGA.
Speaker 1: Well, I used to, as I said, I was a
Speaker 1: tennis player, but so once I got into golf. Twice
Speaker 1: a year I would get my friends together and maybe
Speaker 1: he would be thirty forty guys and we would go
Speaker 1: to different parts of the country and play golf. We
Speaker 1: would raise money for charity and those places where we
Speaker 1: would go and so at one of these we call
Speaker 1: them gatherings. And one of these gatherings, I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with a friend of mine, Adrian Stills, who had
Speaker 1: played on the PGA Tour, and so we were just
Speaker 1: talking about why there weren't more African Americans on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour, and he said, when he came along, there
Speaker 1: was a United Golf Association Tour, which was kind of
Speaker 1: the Negro leagues of golf, and he had a chance
Speaker 1: to hone his game. He built camaraderie with players, and
Speaker 1: he felt like if we could start something where guys
Speaker 1: had a chance to play and develop their games, we
Speaker 1: could get some guys on tour. So I went to
Speaker 1: two companies I was associated with. I was at NESLEI
Speaker 1: at the time, so I got a grant from Nestle
Speaker 1: and I'm on the board of Farmers Insurance. I got
Speaker 1: a grant from them, and I put some of my
Speaker 1: own money in it. And we started in twenty ten
Speaker 1: with three tournaments. And I'll never forget that first tournament
Speaker 1: at Rogers Park in Tampa, and we didn't know what
Speaker 1: to expect, right, it was just a whole new concept.
Speaker 1: We send notices out the guys, and here were sixty guys,
Speaker 1: mostly African Americans on the driving range, beautiful swings, you know,
Speaker 1: all fired up, excited about this opportunity, and we had
Speaker 1: no idea where this was going to lead. So we
Speaker 1: started with just three tournaments, four thousand dollars first prize.
Speaker 1: I think we had. Our whole budget was like forty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars that first few years. And if you fast
Speaker 1: forward to today, we got eighteen tournaments, over a million
Speaker 1: dollars in prize money and bonus money. We're playing on
Speaker 1: iconic golf courses, places that host US Opens and PGA
Speaker 1: Tour events. So, yeah, we've come a long way. And
Speaker 1: I had a person one of our sponsors, asked me
Speaker 1: yesterday if this has been more than I envisioned back
Speaker 1: when we had that conversation, And yeah, it's been. I
Speaker 1: never dreamed. I thought we'd just have some tournaments, right,
Speaker 1: we'd have a few tournaments on inner city golf courses.
Speaker 1: But I had no idea in fourteen years we'd be
Speaker 1: where we are today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the beautiful thing. I would say
Speaker 3: that this is entrepreneurship. About entrepreneurship is you start something
Speaker 3: and you kind of have an idea of where it
Speaker 3: could go. And I'm sure in your in the back
Speaker 3: of your head you might have believed it could be this.
Speaker 3: But you you kind of go on this road and
Speaker 3: and a lot of things happened that you know that
Speaker 3: are you know, just big moments, and then you get
Speaker 3: to these places and you you say, I never imagined
Speaker 3: that this was going to get here with the early days.
Speaker 3: Are there any humorous stories from like the courses, or
Speaker 3: purses or or or players early early in the APGA
Speaker 3: that gives of kind of give kind of color of
Speaker 3: of what the tour was when you started up.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, it's a couple stories. One,
Speaker 1: we were out at Chester Washington, right is it's kind
Speaker 1: of a legendary golf course where they used to it's
Speaker 1: the road going into Chester now named after Charlie Sifferd
Speaker 1: because he played there. But we would we go out there,
Speaker 1: and again you just have no idea. But but those
Speaker 1: guys won't go to Riviera. The people that play at
Speaker 1: regularly at Chester, they don't go to Riviera to see
Speaker 1: professional golf. So when you're sitting around there, they're talking
Speaker 1: about Tim O'Neill, you know, they're talking about Willie Mack.
Speaker 1: Those are the guys that they talk about that are,
Speaker 1: you know, professional golf. That's professional golf to them. Because
Speaker 1: they actually got a chance to see those guys, they
Speaker 1: follow them and I think, I think it's amazing how
Speaker 1: those guys, our players resonate with those guys. And another
Speaker 1: another story, I'll give you two one to show you
Speaker 1: how important I think diversity is in golf. So we're
Speaker 1: at Tory Pines and Farmers had a clinic and so
Speaker 1: they had Willie Mack, they had Billy horschew Ricky Fowler,
Speaker 1: and one other player I can't bubble watch it. I
Speaker 1: think doing the clinic, and so they had fifty kids
Speaker 1: and there were three African American kids out of the fifty,
Speaker 1: and so they allowed the kids to self select what
Speaker 1: line they went into and what player they would actually
Speaker 1: get instructions from. And the black kids immediately went to
Speaker 1: Willie Mack. Now they hadn't seen him on TV, but
Speaker 1: when they heard he was a professional golfer who looked
Speaker 1: like then they stayed in his line the whole time.
Speaker 1: They were so fired up, and I think it was
Speaker 1: just so great to see how excited these kids were
Speaker 1: to see a professional golfer. The other one is kind
Speaker 1: of a sad story. We're at We're in Texas, in
Speaker 1: Dallas at a tournament at Craig Ranch. We played the
Speaker 1: first We played the first round and then we noticed
Speaker 1: that they're punching the greens in the fairways. So we
Speaker 1: go in the pro shop and we said, you know,
Speaker 1: we're having a pro tournament out there, and they said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: your guys won't notice the punch greens and the punch fairways.
Speaker 1: So it's crazy we had to play the second round
Speaker 1: with punch fairways and punch greens. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: that would never happen today. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: more respect for our guys. There's a you know, there's
Speaker 1: a general feeling that you know, our guys can play,
Speaker 1: and they've proven it over time. So I think those
Speaker 1: early days too, I couldn't get phone calls returned. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it was just that that idea that people
Speaker 1: just didn't think we could be successful. Now just like
Speaker 1: a whole different world.
Speaker 3: Did you ever have your own doubts about whether you
Speaker 3: could be successful at that point?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: The thing I I well, I think we made a
Speaker 4: turning point for us. There's been a couple turning points,
Speaker 4: And you asked me if I had doubts.
Speaker 1: I had doubts about whether I'd be able to get
Speaker 1: a whole bunch at corporate support. So we made a decision.
Speaker 1: Probably three or four years in, we were having trouble
Speaker 1: getting corporate sponsors, and so we I went to some
Speaker 1: of my friends and I just said, you know, if
Speaker 1: we if you guys believe in what we're doing, then
Speaker 1: we got to put our own money in and we
Speaker 1: got to get it to a point where people will
Speaker 1: believe in this. And I think that was a big
Speaker 1: turning point.
Speaker 2: Souse.
Speaker 1: I got a bunch of my friends together to put
Speaker 1: in money, and so we were able to add a
Speaker 1: little prize money. Also, the PGA tour came on in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and it was a it's a weird situation
Speaker 1: that we got a check in the mail from them
Speaker 1: for like six years in a row. Just know, we
Speaker 1: never met with them. They just sent us a check
Speaker 1: every year in January, but the check, but the fact
Speaker 1: that they believed in us enough to invest money was great.
Speaker 1: A big turning point in that relationship was in I
Speaker 1: think twenty eighteen, I get a call from Alison Keller,
Speaker 1: who's the chief operating officer over at the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, I noticed that we've just
Speaker 1: been sending you this check every year and we don't
Speaker 1: know what we get for. We don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about the APGA. So either we're gonna stop get sent
Speaker 1: in a check, or we're gonna invest heavily in the APGA.
Speaker 1: So you got to come in. You got to talk
Speaker 1: to all of our executives. You got to tell us
Speaker 1: what you're doing and what your vision is for the future.
Speaker 3: You just been getting a check. Yeah, check it round
Speaker 3: and six years later we asked you to come in.
Speaker 1: Right. It was crazy, but you know it was the
Speaker 1: reception once we went in and presented our vision was amazing.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And they've been an unbelievable partner for us.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. What do you think initially drew them?
Speaker 3: Did you ever find out what initially got the check
Speaker 3: coming in and then what were what was the big
Speaker 3: thing that they they do? You think resonated about the
Speaker 3: APGA with the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Well, Steve Mona, who was head of the World Golf Foundation,
Speaker 1: he had contacted.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He came to one of our tournaments and uh, he
Speaker 1: was really impressed with what we do. So he called
Speaker 1: a friend of his at and I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: it was he contacted, but he contacted our friend somebody
Speaker 1: at the a P at the PGA tour and that's
Speaker 1: how we got to check and they just you know,
Speaker 1: we tried to make contact with somebody over there, but
Speaker 1: we just never did it and got to check in
Speaker 1: the mail. But I think what there are a few
Speaker 1: things I think that resonated with them. One, we had
Speaker 1: sustained success over we had been in existence then for
Speaker 1: about six or seven years, and we had started the
Speaker 1: players had started to play better, you know. I think
Speaker 1: they saw the passion that we had. And by then,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a big vision for the APGA.
Speaker 1: After we had been in around for six or seven years.
Speaker 1: I saw this idea of where we could be, you know,
Speaker 1: I saw the I had the vision of where we
Speaker 1: could take this organization. And I think they were they
Speaker 1: were impressed by by the passion that we had and
Speaker 1: also that the vision we had for the future.
Speaker 3: What what was the I guess do you do you
Speaker 3: recall was there a moment where your vision became this
Speaker 3: grand vision for the APGA and from you know, just hey,
Speaker 3: we're trying to do a couple of tournaments as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: at some city courses. You know, when did that change?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it started to develop when we
Speaker 1: got the opportunity to have a tournament at Tory Pines
Speaker 1: alongside of the PGA Tour event. When the Farmers Jeff Day,
Speaker 1: who was the CEO of Farmers at the time, and
Speaker 1: I had a conversation and I told him about the
Speaker 1: APGA and he thought it was a great idea. It
Speaker 1: took us a while to sell it to you know,
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour and to Century Club. But once we did,
Speaker 1: you know, once our guys got on site and there
Speaker 1: the amazing thing was there. You know, Tory Pines has
Speaker 1: a north courtse in the south court, so our guys
Speaker 1: were on the north course while the PGA guys were
Speaker 1: on the south course at the same time. So you're
Speaker 1: walking the same fairways with Tiger Rory and you got
Speaker 1: the signs up. There's thousands of people there and to
Speaker 1: see and have all those people asking about the APGA
Speaker 1: and to see our guys in that environment, I think
Speaker 1: that's when I really started to say, hey, this thing
Speaker 1: could be really unbelievable. And then when we got the
Speaker 1: final round televised live a few years later, I mean,
Speaker 1: that was another breakthrough moment to see our guys on
Speaker 1: national TV in a live tournament. So I think the
Speaker 1: I think getting to Tory Pines was a watershed moment
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 3: Going back to the early days. I think anybody that
Speaker 3: started something generally longs for the some parts of the
Speaker 3: early days. Is there a specific aspect of the first
Speaker 3: couple of years of the APGA that you really miss
Speaker 3: now that you've become this you really developed tour, you know,
Speaker 3: nationally recognized tour, a tour with, as you said, over
Speaker 3: a million dollars in prize money. Is there something you
Speaker 3: missed from those early days where you're just kind of
Speaker 3: thrown together tournaments?
Speaker 1: You know, I miss going to those inner city golf
Speaker 1: courses because, as I mentioned, you know, our guys were
Speaker 1: heroes out there. You know, we connected with the community.
Speaker 1: There was a different feel and I miss that. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't get the the same feeling at Chester Washington
Speaker 1: that you get at Valhalla, right, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: different it's a whole different vibe. You don't get the
Speaker 1: community as involved. But you know, you can't prepare guys
Speaker 1: for the PGA Tour if you're playing Chester Washington every week,
Speaker 1: so you have to have it. But I I really
Speaker 1: think we got to go back to some of that.
Speaker 1: I think we if we're going to help grow golf,
Speaker 1: we can't play all of our tournaments on you know,
Speaker 1: those so far away from the community. So I think
Speaker 1: you'll see us in the future bring some.
Speaker 2: Of that back.
Speaker 1: We still got to prepare the guys for the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: so we'll still have those iconic golf courses, but I
Speaker 1: think we'll sprinkle back in the Chester, Washington's and the
Speaker 1: Rogers Park.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and hopefully in the next few years,
Speaker 3: the you know golf movement of some of these city
Speaker 3: golf courses getting worked on and elevated continues. I know
Speaker 3: one course that's that's about to start a big renovation project.
Speaker 3: It's Cops Creek and Philadelphia, and that golf course, you know,
Speaker 3: if you read back to when it was built, was
Speaker 3: one of known as one of the best golf courses
Speaker 3: in the world. Another project would be in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: With their three courses with East Potomac lengths, and you know,
Speaker 3: those golf courses getting work done could elevate them to
Speaker 3: a spot where a hosting a tournament wouldn't be you know,
Speaker 3: we aren't taking a step down, you know. And I
Speaker 3: think that's something just in general with golf, is that
Speaker 3: you know, inner city golf. It shouldn't be different as
Speaker 3: somebody who lived in a city and played at city
Speaker 3: golf courses in Chicago and in Los Angeles like you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: It shouldn't have to be as uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: playing city golf versus going out to the suburbs and
Speaker 3: playing suburb golf. Right, there shouldn't be a difference, just
Speaker 3: in general with the golf. I think that you know,
Speaker 3: these golf courses have enough play, enough support that they
Speaker 3: should have, you know, better facilities in general. So what
Speaker 3: do you think about the the APGA and you think
Speaker 3: about just individual success stories, is there is there one
Speaker 3: or two that stand out to you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: I think the two big success stories for me. One
Speaker 1: is Willie Mac. I mean, Willie Mack is amazing, amazing story.
Speaker 1: Here's the guy who was homeless six or seven years ago,
Speaker 1: living in his car and you know, you talk to
Speaker 1: Willie Mack and he had to play tournaments every week
Speaker 1: because you know, for us when we stand over a
Speaker 1: four foot putt and we talk about the pressure of it,
Speaker 1: you know, for Willie Mack, it meant the difference of
Speaker 1: whether he had dinner that night if he made that
Speaker 1: for a foot. But so that's real pressure. And to
Speaker 1: see Willie Mack now a full member of the corn
Speaker 1: Ferry Tour, you know, it just it really really does
Speaker 1: make me feel good and makes all this hard work
Speaker 1: worth it. And Io and Tim O'Neil is the other one.
Speaker 1: I mean, Tim O'Neil was with us when we first started,
Speaker 1: played in our first tournament. His disappointments and tour school
Speaker 1: to school has been well documented. He you know, he
Speaker 1: just was on this grind for twenty five years, a
Speaker 1: good player but couldn't get to the next level. Played
Speaker 1: with us for thirteen years, and now he's a full
Speaker 1: member of the Champions Tour. He's one of almost four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars on the Champions Tour. And it's great
Speaker 1: to see Tim just in those kind of lights, considering
Speaker 1: all what he's been through. And Tim was the great
Speaker 1: thing about Tim is that he was such a big
Speaker 1: mentor to our guys. They looked up to him because
Speaker 1: Tim was a real professional. You know, he took every
Speaker 1: time he stepped on the golf course, he treated it
Speaker 1: like it was a US Open. You know, he was professional.
Speaker 1: He went about his craft with a professional attitude. And
Speaker 1: it's so great to see him now on the Champions Tour.
Speaker 1: I think another one, the last one for me, is
Speaker 1: one of the most inspirational guys I ever met is
Speaker 1: Kevin Hall. I mean, here's a guy who his parents
Speaker 1: found out he was deaf. I think he had meningitis
Speaker 1: or some illness when as a kid at two years old,
Speaker 1: lost his hearing, and the parents made a decision right
Speaker 1: then that Kevin Hall would not be a kid that
Speaker 1: people would feel sorry for. It would be someone that
Speaker 1: would pursue his dreams and would be able to do
Speaker 1: something that everyone else did. And to watch him, you know,
Speaker 1: win twice this year, be our Player of the Year
Speaker 1: a few years ago, always has a smile on his face.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just a true inspiration. I remember playing
Speaker 1: he played in the Genesis the Charlie Sifferd Exemption, and
Speaker 1: Kevin was walking off the green I think it was
Speaker 1: the fourteenth green and this little kid came up to
Speaker 1: him and he handed him a ball and Kevin, you know,
Speaker 1: was making emotion like do you want me to sign it?
Speaker 1: And the kid said, no, read it and the ball
Speaker 1: said you are my hero and he handed it to Kevin.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's just moments like that that
Speaker 1: just give you chills when you see, you know, what
Speaker 1: the impact our players have had on golf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think the thing with with
Speaker 3: kind of the stories that you've you've brought up, the
Speaker 3: players you brought up, and it, I mean, professional golf.
Speaker 3: So much of the coverage goes to the phenoms, the
Speaker 3: players that are immediately tour players, right, But one of
Speaker 3: the you know, wonderful aspects of professional golf is the grinders,
Speaker 3: the guys that you know that make it out to
Speaker 3: the tour for the first time at age thirty eight,
Speaker 3: age thirty nine in the in the you know, Tim
Speaker 3: O'Neill working his ass off until the Champions Tour is
Speaker 3: a great example of somebody perseverance. And I think one
Speaker 3: of the hardest things about professional golf is finding places
Speaker 3: to play golf that you can you can turn a
Speaker 3: profit to keep the dream alive to you know, and
Speaker 3: Willie max case to to have a meal to eat,
Speaker 3: but also a place to play golf, to get ready
Speaker 3: for the corn Ferry Tour. And I think, like obviously,
Speaker 3: I think one of the challenges with professional golf for
Speaker 3: anybody that's even considered pursuing it is the monetary burden
Speaker 3: that it presents. What have you guys done to try
Speaker 3: to you know, bridge that monetary gap that you know,
Speaker 3: the monetary kind of mountain that faces any aspiring professional golfer.
Speaker 1: Well, four or five years ago, we surveyed our players
Speaker 1: and we found out that most hadn't been fitted for clubs,
Speaker 1: that they were practicing on first tea courses, that they
Speaker 1: weren't taking lessons from top name professionals. So we start
Speaker 1: did a player development program and we take the guys
Speaker 1: that we feel have the most potential to make it
Speaker 1: to the PGA Tour, and we pay for all that.
Speaker 1: We pay for lessons, We pay for them to join
Speaker 1: a club, we paid for make sure they have the
Speaker 1: right equipment. We also pay for them to go to
Speaker 1: Q School. We pay for them to do five Monday
Speaker 1: qualifying and a PGA Tour corn Fair event. We've got
Speaker 1: a psychologist that works with them, and so we've been
Speaker 1: and we did a deal with full Swing. So each
Speaker 1: one of the guys in our program has a full
Speaker 1: Swing Launch monitor. So we're trying to fill those gaps that,
Speaker 1: you know, the the financial gaps that these guys have
Speaker 1: and through our player development program.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's obviously you think about
Speaker 3: other sports and this isn't necessarily a challenge that other
Speaker 3: sports or its face in terms of, you know, the
Speaker 3: financial burden. Is there any sport that you guys look
Speaker 3: at and try and draw from from what they're doing
Speaker 3: to support players and and use some of their tactics.
Speaker 1: Well, I think tennis is a classic example because I
Speaker 1: think the the player demographics for tennis are similar to golf,
Speaker 1: and you know, the the equipment is not nearly as expensive,
Speaker 1: but the travel and the tournaments that you have to
Speaker 1: play and the lessons and everything are right are similar
Speaker 1: to golf. And so what tennis has done is they
Speaker 1: created a diversity program a number of years ago and
Speaker 1: they decided, look, we're gonna make tennis available to everyone.
Speaker 1: We're going to take cost out of the equation. And
Speaker 1: so if the tennis player shows promise. The USDA paced
Speaker 1: for every thing for them, They pay for all the travel,
Speaker 1: their lessons. They have these performance centers around the country
Speaker 1: that kids can go and take free lessons, And I
Speaker 1: think that's why you see so many kids that grew
Speaker 1: up playing on public tennis courts now at the highest
Speaker 1: ranking in tennis, and both men's and women's tennis. You
Speaker 1: don't see you don't necessarily in tennis have to come
Speaker 1: from a country club in order to make it to
Speaker 1: the top levels because the USTA has put so much
Speaker 1: of their resources into it. So that's what we use,
Speaker 1: and I look at that model and try and replicate
Speaker 1: what they're doing.
Speaker 3: And just in general, when you get beyond the APGA
Speaker 3: and beyond your tour, what does you know, what are
Speaker 3: the big benefits of having greater diversity in the professional game.
Speaker 3: What will that do for golf in the long run?
Speaker 1: Well, I think you know a couple of things that'll
Speaker 1: do for golf. I think, and again you see it
Speaker 1: in tennis. You just it brings more people into the game.
Speaker 1: You know, when you talk to our guys, they all
Speaker 1: and you say, well, why did you get into golf?
Speaker 1: And they say, I saw Tiger. I saw Tiger win
Speaker 1: the US Open, I saw Tiger win the Masters. I
Speaker 1: saw you know, I saw Tiger. And that's the kind
Speaker 1: of you bring more people into the game. You have
Speaker 1: on a business side, you have more consumers that will
Speaker 1: buy the goods. I think America is changing. The demographics
Speaker 1: of America's changed, so you can't continue to survive if
Speaker 1: you have one demographic playing golf. And so I think
Speaker 1: we've got to reach out to everyone. I mean women,
Speaker 1: it's great to see more women playing. You know, you
Speaker 1: go out to a place like Westchester. We talked about Westchester.
Speaker 1: Westchester looks like America every day on the driving range,
Speaker 1: and that's the beautiful thing about it. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're trying to get golf too, to look like Westchester
Speaker 1: all over the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I uh, it's it's definitely as a different you
Speaker 3: know when you there's all these different spheres of golf
Speaker 3: in different ways that people experience golf, different places that
Speaker 3: people experienced golf. With the APGA, I think obviously you
Speaker 3: you've grown to an incredible place in recent years as
Speaker 3: you as you alluded to earlier in the podcast, what
Speaker 3: are your goals for the next five years, do you
Speaker 3: have any grand ambitions and where do you continue to
Speaker 3: see this tour grow, growing and getting to.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's interesting to ask that we
Speaker 1: have a committee now that we call APGA twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: So we we uh, we got one of our board members,
Speaker 1: Keith Hulamard, who was the president of the Jordan Brand.
Speaker 1: He's heading that project up and we're looking at all
Speaker 1: aspects of our organization and to see where we want
Speaker 1: to be. You know, what if I had a crystal ball,
Speaker 1: you know, I look, one thing I think we have
Speaker 1: to do is we have to have a women's component
Speaker 1: to our organization. You know, we can't bring greater diversity
Speaker 1: to the game if we're only focused on men. I
Speaker 1: went to the mac Champ Championship that Cameron Champ does
Speaker 1: for the top minority kids in the country, and so
Speaker 1: I went there and one of a father came up
Speaker 1: to me and he said, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old son, and my son all he talks
Speaker 1: about is one day playing the APGA Tour and he
Speaker 1: gets so excited. He follows the results and you know,
Speaker 1: he can't wait till he graduates from college and can
Speaker 1: play the APGA Tour. He said, but my daughter is
Speaker 1: sixteen and she's an even better player, and she says,
Speaker 1: why isn't there an APGA Tour for me? What am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? You know? And how fair is that?
Speaker 1: And so the dad said, you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: think about that. And so since I had that conversation
Speaker 1: with him, I think about it all the time. I
Speaker 1: think the future's got to hold a women's tour for us.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think we need more tournaments. We
Speaker 1: certainly have eighteen. We don't need more tournaments. I think
Speaker 1: we need more development money. We need to have these
Speaker 1: guys play more tournaments outside the APGA Tour. We need
Speaker 1: to get to the younger kids. We started the Cisco
Speaker 1: Junior Series. We've got to put more resources into developing kids.
Speaker 1: So I see, the other thing that's a tough conversation
Speaker 1: is I don't want the APGA Tour to be a destination. Now,
Speaker 1: that's the danger in the prize money that we have,
Speaker 1: that guys can make one hundred and fifty two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand on the APGA Tour. It's a blessing and a
Speaker 1: curse because you know, there's not many tours around the
Speaker 1: world that you could make one hundred and fifty two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand on.
Speaker 3: So yeah, if you're doing that on the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 3: you're you're going to the PGA Tour. Yeah, you're going
Speaker 3: to the challenging. I have a friend that's been on
Speaker 3: the corn Ferry Tour for six years running and he
Speaker 3: barely makes a living. Is like, what do you do.
Speaker 3: You're you're one or two good weeks away from being
Speaker 3: on the best tour in the world, but you're not
Speaker 3: in a you know, as you put it, a destination tour.
Speaker 3: And that's something that the PGA Tour has been very
Speaker 3: you know, reticent about, is keeping it the you know,
Speaker 3: prize money low in order to not make it that And.
Speaker 1: I think that's what we've got to look at. We've
Speaker 1: got to make We've got to make the APGA Tour
Speaker 1: a past group. The guys play five to seven years,
Speaker 1: get their cards, go to the corn Ferry, do something else.
Speaker 1: But we've got to make the mindset. And I tell
Speaker 1: the young people that get on the APGA Tour, I
Speaker 1: don't want to see you here past five years. Take
Speaker 1: the APGA Tour, take advantage of all the resources we
Speaker 1: have and then move on. And I think we've got
Speaker 1: to we've got to really hone that message and we've
Speaker 1: got to give the guys the resources to make sure
Speaker 1: that they're ready to make it to the next level.
Speaker 1: And that's the big challenge for me, is to give
Speaker 1: them all the resources they need and then get them
Speaker 1: to move on to the next level.
Speaker 3: How do you guys go about identifying players that are
Speaker 3: fit for the APGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Well, we have an application process that this year we
Speaker 1: turned away probably one hundred players that applied for membership
Speaker 1: on the APGA Tour. We feel like with our infrastructure
Speaker 1: that we could handle seventy members and then once you also,
Speaker 1: you know, we wea this year. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: we set a standard that you have to shoot a
Speaker 1: certain score in order to retain a membership. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the old days, we were fighting for people to
Speaker 1: play our tournaments. So you know, we had guys shooting
Speaker 1: eighty five ninety and we cut all that out, so
Speaker 1: you have to shoot a minimum score in order to
Speaker 1: play the APGA Tour and that's up the quality of
Speaker 1: the play and it's also reduced the number of people
Speaker 1: we have playing and we're okay with that because we
Speaker 1: want the quality to be.
Speaker 3: Where it is, I imagine. I mean you always see this,
Speaker 3: and with any sport where there's more money in the sport,
Speaker 3: you know, you get better athletes going there. I think
Speaker 3: that's something that's very true about golf in general with
Speaker 3: Tiger Woods. Have you seen a similar thing with the
Speaker 3: APGA and the quality of players interested in playing since
Speaker 3: you have had kind of a lot of success on
Speaker 3: the corporate and the perse side of things.
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. I mean we have a number of guys
Speaker 1: now that would probably be playing basketball or baseball or
Speaker 1: something like that that would there are really really special athletes,
Speaker 1: and I think you see it in the swings and
Speaker 1: how they approach the play. I mean, these guys are athletes.
Speaker 1: But I think the next thing for us is the
Speaker 1: mental aspect of it. Kirk Triple, who plays on the
Speaker 1: Champions Tour, came out and watched our guys play and
Speaker 1: he said, they hit the ball. If you if you
Speaker 1: if person went out to a PGA Tour event and
Speaker 1: went to one of our events, they wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to tell the difference in how guys hit balls. Because
Speaker 1: our guys can hit the ball. I think it's the
Speaker 1: The next evolution for us is did you know how
Speaker 1: you approach it? And we have a psychologist that works
Speaker 1: with our guys, and I think that's where we'll put
Speaker 1: a lot of resources, you know, getting top level coaching,
Speaker 1: talking to our guys about the mental aspect of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, so much of golf as self belief, and
Speaker 3: so much of self belief just comes from being in
Speaker 3: big moments and achieving things, or not even achieving things,
Speaker 3: but being in the moment. And the only way you
Speaker 3: get there is with opportunities. Going back to we talked
Speaker 3: a little bit about junior golf and development. How how
Speaker 3: can the junior game and how we as a golf
Speaker 3: ecosystem develop and identify players improve and really I think
Speaker 3: like fun players. We talked a little bit about tennis,
Speaker 3: the idea of when somebody shows promise and putting economic
Speaker 3: support behind them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we got to get to that point.
Speaker 1: I think we have to. We have to. We have
Speaker 1: to start the kids early when they start to show promise.
Speaker 1: The Cameron Chanp Foundation does a really good job at that.
Speaker 1: They they really do a great job of identifying the
Speaker 1: top minority talent in the country. Jeff Champ has a
Speaker 1: database and he tracks all those kids. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the next step for us is, now that
Speaker 1: we've identified those kids, is to provide the resources for
Speaker 1: them again like tennis does, so a kid won't have
Speaker 1: to drop out of golf because they can't afford to play.
Speaker 1: You know that, that to me is one of the
Speaker 1: if you talk about one of the things that disappoints
Speaker 1: me most about golf, and in our time at the APGA,
Speaker 1: I think of a guy like Josh Wooding. Josh Wooding
Speaker 1: was an All American at SC, did really well out
Speaker 1: on the Mini Tours initially and just ran out of money.
Speaker 1: You know, at twenty nine years old, just ran out
Speaker 1: of money. Couldn't He had to give the game up.
Speaker 1: And he's doing really well as a stockbroker. But if
Speaker 1: you ask him, I think he would still love to
Speaker 1: go back and play, and I would want to. I
Speaker 1: don't want in the future guys to say I had
Speaker 1: to give up because I didn't have the money. I'd
Speaker 1: like for them to say I'm gonna leave the game
Speaker 1: knowing I had the resources, I had the opportunity, I
Speaker 1: just didn't make it and I'm gonna go to something else.
Speaker 1: I don't want him to say that money and resources
Speaker 1: were the reason why they left the game.
Speaker 3: I think that applies to every level of golf, too, right.
Speaker 3: I think you think about anybody that watched the Netflix
Speaker 3: show The Full Swing. They talked in detail about Tony
Speaker 3: Finow and the sacrifices his family made just for him
Speaker 3: to be able to afford to play tournament golf. I mean,
Speaker 3: you think about, you know, what goes into tournament golf
Speaker 3: as a junior, and you know that that's where you
Speaker 3: get recognized and where you get the opportunity to move
Speaker 3: in play at college a college program. And the better
Speaker 3: you play in these tournaments that are you know, terms
Speaker 3: you have to travel to that cost money to get into,
Speaker 3: costs money to travel to. The better you play at
Speaker 3: those tournaments, the better chance you have of playing at
Speaker 3: a better program that will continue to prepare you. I
Speaker 3: mean it's a stepping stone type of uh, you know, pursuit,
Speaker 3: you know, and the toughest thing about anything. And I
Speaker 3: think it's becoming greater. The burden is the financial burden
Speaker 3: of junior and amateur and professional golf is just becoming
Speaker 3: more and more difficult as the tournaments get further away
Speaker 3: and bigger and have a bigger entry fee.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I agree with you. I do think that
Speaker 1: there's there's a recognition that there is this barrier, and
Speaker 1: I think people are trying to knock the barrier down.
Speaker 1: It's just not coming down fast enough for us. You know,
Speaker 1: we're we're trying our best. But you know, you again,
Speaker 1: you got to go back to it's not only resources,
Speaker 1: financial resources, it's opportunity to I think you've got to
Speaker 1: get these guys have to have the top level coaching.
Speaker 1: They have to have the opportunity to play on the
Speaker 1: great golf course, to practice on great golf course, because
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't expect somebody to make it to
Speaker 1: the PGA who are practicing a first t courses. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't if they don't have the proper equipment. Sean
Speaker 1: Foley was telling us that, you know, PGA tour guys,
Speaker 1: they changed their wedges almost every month, you know, because
Speaker 1: there's they've factored in that if you got new wedges,
Speaker 1: you know, you could be so much more precise. And
Speaker 1: so our guys had had wedges five six years old,
Speaker 1: so you can't ask them to compete with guys that
Speaker 1: are that have brand new wedges. So I think all
Speaker 1: those things come into play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you made a great point too about courses.
Speaker 3: I I remember as a kid, you know, qualifying for
Speaker 3: the state tournaments, Like qualifying for a State Am. One
Speaker 3: of the most exciting things was you knew it was
Speaker 3: going to be held at a big time course. And
Speaker 3: as somebody who grew up at Lake Bluff Golf Club,
Speaker 3: a UNI that didn't have like the best, it didn't
Speaker 3: have good dreams. You know, they were spongy, they were slow.
Speaker 3: There was always like a shock when you went to
Speaker 3: these courses at the pace, at the speed of the game.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think, like we've talked a lot about tennis,
Speaker 3: I imagine when you move up a level in tennis,
Speaker 3: the biggest thing that's to struggle is the speed of
Speaker 3: the game, the athletes, the pace, the balls. Coming back
Speaker 3: with golf, it is it is a big step up
Speaker 3: when you go and play a State Am. It's a
Speaker 3: bigger step up when you go and play a US
Speaker 3: AM or US Midam. Just the pace, the setup of
Speaker 3: the golf course. And it goes back to you know,
Speaker 3: these club like even at the State Golf Association level,
Speaker 3: these clubs opening their doors and providing opportunities to play
Speaker 3: at the venues that could host you know, big tournaments
Speaker 3: for kids like ajor, Oh, a junior am at a
Speaker 3: state level being held at a very good golf course
Speaker 3: is important because it gives you know, a kid an
Speaker 3: opportunity to go play high level golf and understand the
Speaker 3: difference that they're going to see it and if they
Speaker 3: want to play a college at a college level, the
Speaker 3: difference in golf course they're going to see. Right. It
Speaker 3: allows them to go play, get their you know, they
Speaker 3: might get their ass kicked, but they come back and
Speaker 3: they go, oh, because this is the way golf works.
Speaker 3: You play a tournament, you get your ass kicked, and
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, I need to get better at X,
Speaker 3: Y and Z. But if you're never given an opportunity,
Speaker 3: then you don't get those learning experiences.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I agree with you. I I you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you play Chester and practice every day
Speaker 1: at a place like Chester and then you go and
Speaker 1: play Baltish roll, yeah, you know, it's like a whole
Speaker 1: different world. And the thing that was interesting about our
Speaker 1: guys at Tory Pines, they didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: play a practice round all the South course.
Speaker 3: You're playing PGA Tour conditions too, which like people, I mean,
Speaker 3: it is it's insane what regular rough is for them.
Speaker 1: And then it was rainy and cold and wendy, and
Speaker 1: you play in a golf course you've never seen before.
Speaker 1: It's so it was a it was an eye opener.
Speaker 1: And so you know, some people say, you know, what
Speaker 1: was it beneficial given that the guys couldn't play a
Speaker 1: practice around. I said, yeah, it's totally. So you know,
Speaker 1: you get that that experience, you'll play better. You just
Speaker 1: want more experiences just playing in those kind of conditions.
Speaker 3: So let's uh kind of on the way out here.
Speaker 3: What who are a few players that you're you know,
Speaker 3: really excited about maybe from their just their personal story.
Speaker 3: You've talked about Tim and Kevin and uh Willie Mack.
Speaker 3: But you know a few players that are you know,
Speaker 3: on the tour now that you're either really excited about
Speaker 3: from their personal standpoint or from just the play the
Speaker 3: level of play you've seen.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that the main guy this year who's
Speaker 1: kind of dominated play is Marcus Bird. I mean Marcus
Speaker 1: he is one of the most talented guys. You'll see
Speaker 1: he hits the ball long. He's got great hands. He
Speaker 1: became a YouTube sensation at Tory Pines on a par
Speaker 1: five he was too eighty out, had to go over
Speaker 1: water and hit a driver off the deck to ten feet.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of guy he is. He's I think
Speaker 1: he's got to tone some of that down because you
Speaker 1: don't want to hit a driver off the deck over
Speaker 1: water too often. But he's just a really talented guy.
Speaker 1: He's won four times this year. Chase Johnson is another one.
Speaker 1: Chase was on the corn Ferry Tour for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, had some injuries and just lost his confidence.
Speaker 1: He's won a couple of times on our tour. Really
Speaker 1: talented guy, really really talented. He won the John Shipping
Speaker 1: as well. He's a guy that I think we will
Speaker 1: be back on the corn Ferry Tour next year. Just
Speaker 1: a really talented guy. And then you you look at
Speaker 1: you know our a pg A collegiate guys. Uh Tory
Speaker 1: Taylor out of Michigan State. He was the number one
Speaker 1: guy in our a pg A Collegiate rankings. Really talented
Speaker 1: guy is His dad was a point four year starter
Speaker 1: at Point guard for Ohio State when Clark Kellogg was there.
Speaker 1: So he's from an athletic family. He's going to be
Speaker 1: a really good player, somebody you really need to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on. So they're there are a number of
Speaker 1: young guys out there, and I'm so impressed with the
Speaker 1: young guys. Roman Solomon's a young kid who's actually Bobby
Speaker 1: Bernia's son. Yeah, so he's playing at Peple.
Speaker 3: Bobby is still getting that uh that contract. I always.
Speaker 1: Bobby will be there, Bobby, and you know, Bobby has
Speaker 1: is so invested in his son's golf career that Bobby
Speaker 1: goes to every single tournament that his kid plays in.
Speaker 1: And Bobby's right there. Doug walk as well as he
Speaker 1: used to from all those home run trots he had.
Speaker 1: But but your Roman Solomon is a good young player.
Speaker 1: You'll we'll see how he competes with the pros. But
Speaker 1: he's sixteen years old. He's going to be a really
Speaker 1: really good player. So you'll get a chance to see
Speaker 1: him mentor at Pebble.
Speaker 3: Awesome. Awesome, that's great. And then last question, how can
Speaker 3: people help? What? What? What's the way just a regular
Speaker 3: guy can help? And how can somebody else help? The
Speaker 3: APGA in any way.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's a few ways. Of course, we
Speaker 1: always need money. You can go to APGA tour dot
Speaker 1: org and make a donation. We need we need financial resources,
Speaker 1: but we also need volunteers at all our tournaments. We
Speaker 1: need volunteer scores, We need people to come and help
Speaker 1: out in a variety of ways. And you can go
Speaker 1: to our website and find out the different ways you
Speaker 1: can volunteer. And the other way that I think is
Speaker 1: equally as important as the financial resources and to volunteer
Speaker 1: is when you see one of our guys, just tell
Speaker 1: them that you believe in them. Just tell them that
Speaker 1: you know you're there supporting them, that you you want
Speaker 1: them to do well. All too often our guys don't
Speaker 1: hear that, you know. So what I do as often
Speaker 1: as I can, as I tell the guys I want
Speaker 1: to see you successful. I'm going to put all whatever
Speaker 1: resources I have to make you successful because I believe
Speaker 1: in you. And if you can do that, if a
Speaker 1: person sees an APGA Tour player and they can just
Speaker 1: say something inspirational to them, that something's just as simple
Speaker 1: as I believe in you, I think that's as important
Speaker 1: to us as the money and the time spent volunteering.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think a lot of people listen to
Speaker 3: this or just golf nuts. I imagine that just just
Speaker 3: following along and and and being a fan is a
Speaker 3: lot too. Just you know, every tour needs more fans.
Speaker 1: Right, we could use more fans, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: All Right, Thanks so much, Ken for coming on and
Speaker 3: uh and and I look forward to uh following along
Speaker 3: as as your as the APGA continues to grow and
Speaker 3: UH and become more and more household name in golf.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for having me on and thanks for what
Speaker 1: you're doing for golf. I think you know your podcast
Speaker 1: and and just the work you're doing helps to grow
Speaker 1: the game and helps all of us that are involved
Speaker 1: in this game.
Speaker 3: All Right, that's it for Ken. Let's jump in with
Speaker 3: Aaron Beverly. All right, Aaron, I got to ask, you know,
Speaker 3: we when we met last year, we were talking about
Speaker 3: the hope of the Kings. It was it was kind of, uh,
Speaker 3: we weren't sure they were scratch of the surface. They
Speaker 3: obviously had an incredible season. I became kind of a
Speaker 3: fake Kings fan when I moved out to California, but
Speaker 3: a fan nonetheless, tell me what are your expectations. Do
Speaker 3: you just feel an exuberant about the Kings that you
Speaker 3: haven't felt in a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the best part of last year I
Speaker 2: went to Game one against the Warriors in the playoffs,
Speaker 2: and I've never seen so many people just downtown around
Speaker 2: the arena and just the energy, like I don't think
Speaker 2: any of us sat down the whole first quarter. I mean,
Speaker 2: the introduction was great. So it's it's awesome to see.
Speaker 2: My expectations for him this season is to take another step,
Speaker 2: you know, leap forward. I want to seize the bonus,
Speaker 2: play a little bit better in the playoffs, try to
Speaker 2: sert his dominance a little bit more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go as far as Western Conference
Speaker 2: finals because that's that might be a stretch, but death
Speaker 2: playing into the second round of the playoffs at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like they were the feel good
Speaker 3: story the NBA last year and they were just like
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe how fun they were to watch. And
Speaker 3: I think there's like an added level of as corny
Speaker 3: as the light the beam is, it adds this like
Speaker 3: level of fun and energy in the stadium. I mean
Speaker 3: that's the thing about that that I got to get
Speaker 3: out to a game this year. I was really kind
Speaker 3: of upset with myself that I didn't make it out
Speaker 3: to a game this year or last year. But this
Speaker 3: year I'm going to remedy that and play a little
Speaker 3: golf in Sacramento while I'm out there there.
Speaker 2: You go, just give me a call. We'll go golf
Speaker 2: and then go to a game afterwards. Because it is
Speaker 2: the light the Bean champs when they start in the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter. And whether it was at home or whether
Speaker 2: it was on the road, I mean, it just it
Speaker 2: was awesome to see just the whole city finally come
Speaker 2: around and just have something to cheer for, you know,
Speaker 2: and a winning team cheerfo because Sacramento fans have always
Speaker 2: been loyal, we just haven't always had the teams to
Speaker 2: you know, be proud of. So it's great to see.
Speaker 3: One question, how far could you see the beam?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Could you see it?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: You like across the city on a clear night.
Speaker 2: You can probably see if you're driving from Davis, which
Speaker 2: is about fifteen to twenty miles, Yeah, you can see
Speaker 2: it from a long way. Yeah, So it's you can
Speaker 2: see any part if you're in Sacramento. You can see
Speaker 2: it anywhere you're at, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Hey, I was reading some articles about you, and uh,
Speaker 3: I came. I stumbled across You're you're really into ballet
Speaker 3: as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, really into l.
Speaker 3: A how'd you get into it? And and what you know?
Speaker 3: Like what's being into ballet mean?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So it started my mom was dancing, uh, And she
Speaker 2: ended up taking me to class when I was three.
Speaker 2: And the way she tells the story is, for like
Speaker 2: the first thirty minutes, I was doing really well, and
Speaker 2: then for the last thirty minutes I just sat there
Speaker 2: and cried. So bless her heart, she ended up taking
Speaker 2: me back to the next line, and I just end
Speaker 2: up falling in love with just dancing in general. So
Speaker 2: I was dancing around the stores, dancing around the house,
Speaker 2: just kind of You couldn't like really stop me from dancing.
Speaker 2: So ballet was something I did from three to about seventeen.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun. I got made for
Speaker 2: made fun of for it in high school, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, it just makes you tougher. But I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: It taught me a lot about discipline, you know, gave
Speaker 2: me flexibility and just I think it translated perfectly into
Speaker 2: golf and kind of just athletics in general, because you
Speaker 2: have so much body awareness and body control, which is great.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm very thankful for my time doing it
Speaker 2: and still love to do it when I have time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you kind of answered my next question is I
Speaker 3: think like we've gotten into this space with athletics just
Speaker 3: in general, where everybody wants to specialize in things at
Speaker 3: a really young age. And when I read that, I
Speaker 3: was thinking, I was like, God, what a great activity,
Speaker 3: Like you never think about it, but like that's a
Speaker 3: great activity for golf because of the balance and as
Speaker 3: you said, balance, flexibility, body control. I imagine that there
Speaker 3: are just so many your body has, just muscles and
Speaker 3: the ability to do things that other people can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always say core strength is a big one, and
Speaker 2: obviously leg strength is huge. Obviously when you're jumping in
Speaker 2: ballet and you're trying to get as high as possible
Speaker 2: and you're doing pure wets and you're trying to turn
Speaker 2: as much as possible, you know, you're using muscles that
Speaker 2: like most athletes wouldn't think about, or most people wouldn't
Speaker 2: think about. So it's one of those things that at
Speaker 2: the time when I was doing as a kid and
Speaker 2: as a teenager, really wasn't conscious about, oh, this is
Speaker 2: going to help me further down the line of my
Speaker 2: golf swing. I just did because I loved it. But
Speaker 2: looking back on it, it's definitely one of those things
Speaker 2: that's for sure has had its benefits.
Speaker 3: Did you do Did you play any other sports growing
Speaker 3: up other than golf? In ballet or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, played basketball, played baseball.
Speaker 3: Do they consider a sport ballet?
Speaker 2: It should be consider an art form art form because
Speaker 2: there's no so sports is always a competition. The ballet
Speaker 2: is no real competition. You're just performing. So I just
Speaker 2: got to just go to art form.
Speaker 3: Okay, physical physically is.
Speaker 2: By far the hardest thing I ever did. Like the
Speaker 2: summer intensives where you were dancing for six hours a day.
Speaker 2: That like that beats thirty six holes in one day
Speaker 2: in golf without question?
Speaker 3: What what your you to golf from?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Compared to other sports? What? What was the thing that
Speaker 3: made you want to play golf in college and pursue
Speaker 3: it as a profession.
Speaker 2: I didn't have to rely on teammates for my success,
Speaker 2: and because When I played baseball, I was a pitcher
Speaker 2: and a shortstop, and you know, I'm not to brag
Speaker 2: of one of the better players on the team, and
Speaker 2: I could do all I could and we could still lose,
Speaker 2: and so that was always just frustrating, and so I
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to rely on my success being
Speaker 2: determined by other people. So that's what I love about
Speaker 2: golf is it's all on me and obviously caddy and coach,
Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, I'm the one
Speaker 2: hitting the shots and you know, hitting putts. So I
Speaker 2: just love the individualism of it.
Speaker 3: I feel like when you get more the more players
Speaker 3: are involved in a sport, the less an individual impact
Speaker 3: can have. Like, right, yeah, you know football, for example,
Speaker 3: you could have a really good football team and no
Speaker 3: real superstar you could have, But then you get into
Speaker 3: like the NBA, and and if you don't have one
Speaker 3: of the guys you got no. Yes, it's like the
Speaker 3: difference between five guys and a fifty three man roster, right,
Speaker 3: Like it's just amazing. And then obviously golf is in
Speaker 3: tennis or the two real you know, big individual sports,
Speaker 3: and it's I always fight it humorous. When I was
Speaker 3: watching a lot of US Open tennis recently. How like,
Speaker 3: you know, they got their coach is in the box,
Speaker 3: you know, and this guy's like yelling at their coaches.
Speaker 3: Is like, what are they yelling about? They're the ones
Speaker 3: getting the shots, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I like my example, I used this the
Speaker 2: other day, was I would hate to be show hey
Speaker 2: Otani and be by far the greatest player of a
Speaker 2: generation and we can't ever win. Like that would just
Speaker 2: really frustrate me. So I, yeah, golf is Mike Trout too, yep,
Speaker 2: and still can't We got two of the best players
Speaker 2: in the league, can't win.
Speaker 3: I mean, like that's what everybody was saying about Mike
Speaker 3: Trout before Otani, was like this is this might be
Speaker 3: the best baseball player we see for decades, and then
Speaker 3: Otani comes along on the safe team and they still stick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still can't win. That reminds me I was a
Speaker 2: kid and we had Barry Bonds and Jeff Canton. We
Speaker 2: still I mean, we got to World Series, but we
Speaker 2: couldn't win. So it just, yeah, frustrating.
Speaker 3: So you played golf at and Sacramento State. You had
Speaker 3: a really good career there. Your two time Conference Player
Speaker 3: of the year. What's your favorite colle golf story or
Speaker 3: one that you think when do you think about a lot?
Speaker 2: Oh, I got two. I got too because this first
Speaker 2: one I brought up the other day. We replaced my
Speaker 2: sophomore year playing at Washington State's home tournament at Polose Ridge.
Speaker 2: And it's my seventy first hole and I think I'm
Speaker 2: like five or six underd a tournament like seeking in
Speaker 2: the top ten somewhere, and I had this downhill putt.
Speaker 2: It's like twenty feet and my parents are off watching,
Speaker 2: kind of like twenty thirty yards away. Hit the putt,
Speaker 2: race it by nine feet and my dad says it.
Speaker 2: He says, doesn't he know it's downhill? And he didn't
Speaker 2: realize that. He said it loud enough to where I
Speaker 2: could hear it, and so I looked at him. I
Speaker 2: was like, yes, I know it's downhill. I just hit
Speaker 2: it too hard. And then I made the comebacker and
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, see that one is just as good,
Speaker 2: and so we walked to the next hole of him
Speaker 2: and I were just laughing. So that's always just a
Speaker 2: fun memory. And then my other one was winning conference
Speaker 2: with my team's senior year. I ended up winning individual,
Speaker 2: and it was one of those rounds where I was
Speaker 2: leading going into it, and then a freshman from Northern Colorado,
Speaker 2: kolbe Welch, he couldn't miss a putt on the front nine,
Speaker 2: and I think he ended up taking like a three
Speaker 2: shot lead in every hole. I was just he'd make
Speaker 2: a twenty footer and he make a thirty footer and
Speaker 2: I looked at my dad. I'm like, is this going
Speaker 2: to continue all day? He's like, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: you're gonna need to start making birdies at some point.
Speaker 2: And so we get to the last hole and I
Speaker 2: had one shot lead. He hits it to thirty feet
Speaker 2: and I hit it to like seven, and he hits
Speaker 2: his putt on watching it, I'm like, that's thinner cut again,
Speaker 2: and he'd hit the back of the cup and it
Speaker 2: popped out, and I was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this kid is unbelievable pudding. But thankfully, I think with
Speaker 2: just a two button win, we won as a team,
Speaker 2: and it was great because we had lost by two
Speaker 2: strokes the year before, so that that meant a lot.
Speaker 3: There's uh, there's nothing worse than when you're playing with
Speaker 3: somebody and like and you just you just like expect
Speaker 3: every putt to go in and then hitting putts like
Speaker 3: it's rolling, especially what you get in match plight situations,
Speaker 3: like oh yeah, well you're just terrified.
Speaker 2: I'm just sitting there because I kept hitting good shots
Speaker 2: and he ended up making birdies and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is incredible. But yeah, that was That was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun.
Speaker 3: When did you decide that you wanted to pursue professional
Speaker 3: golf as a as a career.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was probably about six or seven, somewhere in there.
Speaker 2: We watched Tiger. I mean every weekend, every Sunday, we'd
Speaker 2: played golf in the morning, played with nine holes and
Speaker 2: a little short course that was like twenty minutes away. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: Tiger always had usually an afternoon tea time on Sundays,
Speaker 2: so so we come back, we have breakfast, we do
Speaker 2: some chores, and then sit down and couch and watch
Speaker 2: them for four or five hours. And just I remember
Speaker 2: being so captivated as a kid, just watching obviously the
Speaker 2: fist pumps and and everything about it, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to do that when I get older.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's uh. I think that most people in our
Speaker 3: our age range and probably fall into the same bucket
Speaker 3: with with Tiger Woods being a driving inspiration and any
Speaker 3: level of golf that you played, and or you're just
Speaker 3: general interest in the game of golf. Do you have
Speaker 3: a favorite Tiger moment from your childhood? Is there something
Speaker 3: that sticks with you. I get a couple, and I'm
Speaker 3: just curious what yours are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, I got two again. So the first one.
Speaker 2: The first one is a lot like the corny story.
Speaker 2: But when he won the Masters in five and had
Speaker 2: the chip in on sixteen, we were watching it, and
Speaker 2: we watched the chip in and I was so excited
Speaker 2: watching that. And the way my home course, like Practice Green,
Speaker 2: was set up, had this huge slope, and so I
Speaker 2: went to the course, grabbed like five balls, and I
Speaker 2: sat trying to hit the same chip for probably three hours,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't good enough like rolled up the hill
Speaker 2: and wins the whole. It had to try to stop.
Speaker 2: And there's for three hours of sitting there trying to
Speaker 2: get the ball to stop on the lip, and I
Speaker 2: think I maybe did it kind of once. So I
Speaker 2: just remember that. And then the one that's like really
Speaker 2: minuscule that no one would really think about he was playing.
Speaker 2: I want to say this is seven or oh nine.
Speaker 2: He's playing at Firestone in the final round. He has
Speaker 2: a match or he's battling with Padrick Harrington, and I
Speaker 2: think it's either fifteen or sixteen Tiger. I think it's
Speaker 2: part five. Tiger's a good driving it's an eight irons
Speaker 2: to like two feet or a foot and a half,
Speaker 2: and Padrick's kind of some trouble. He hits a bad shot,
Speaker 2: then he hits it over the green, then he hits
Speaker 2: it into the water, then he's got to go take
Speaker 2: a drop and waved back in the fairway, and the
Speaker 2: whole time I'm thinking, oh, Tiger's just gonna tap him,
Speaker 2: but he's just standing on the edge of the green
Speaker 2: waiting for project to finish. And I think Padrick ends
Speaker 2: up making a seven or eight on the whole, and
Speaker 2: I just remember thinking, I'm like, wow, he just the
Speaker 2: intimidation that he put on him by hitting shot to
Speaker 2: two feet was incredible. And then I think I had
Speaker 2: a high school match, probably like a week later, two
Speaker 2: weeks later, and the same like type of situation happened
Speaker 2: where I hit a shot close and other kids off
Speaker 2: hitting it into the water and taking them drop and
Speaker 2: hitting it back and forth and he's like, man, you
Speaker 2: can go ahead and finish, and I said, no, I'll
Speaker 2: just wait, and so I just that's one of those things.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why that one sticks out in
Speaker 2: my head so much, but it was just one of
Speaker 2: those moments where I was like, Okay, this guy is
Speaker 2: really intimating to everybody he plays with and that's pretty
Speaker 2: cool to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing. I'll never forget. I was
Speaker 3: watching live from that. I think it was Saturday night
Speaker 3: of the of the Masters that he won in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: and David duval everybody was making their picks on who
Speaker 3: was going to win, and David Duvall was just like
Speaker 3: tigers winning and they're like why, and he was like
Speaker 3: I saw the look in his eye and I haven't
Speaker 3: seen that look in his eye in a long time,
Speaker 3: and he's winning the tournament and it was just like
Speaker 3: it's like wild, Like it's just a wild thing when
Speaker 3: like a guy that was in the in the arena
Speaker 3: with them, Like I'll never forget that call because of
Speaker 3: like just the conviction and the way like everybody's got
Speaker 3: he is, like, you know, you're picking somebody to win
Speaker 3: you got these reasons just like I just saw it
Speaker 3: in his eye like I is you know, and I
Speaker 3: mean just intimidating, I dominant like there. It's just a
Speaker 3: crazy thing. It had to be a crazy experience, obviously,
Speaker 3: a crazy experience. Gave the Charlie Siffer exemption a few
Speaker 3: years ago into Genesis and then get to spend some
Speaker 3: time with Tiger. What was that? What was that?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Was it was?
Speaker 1: It? Was?
Speaker 3: It like just I explained to me, like the lead
Speaker 3: up of that and and then in the moment how
Speaker 3: that was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was. It was interesting. So the week
Speaker 2: guys showed up. I got there on Sunday and then
Speaker 2: Monday I had to play in the Call of Jam
Speaker 2: in a group, and so I showed up to the
Speaker 2: course at like six o'clock and the guy kind of
Speaker 2: runs everything. Mike Antellini stopped me as I was walking
Speaker 2: to the range and he goes, hey, you know how
Speaker 2: we said you were going to do a little media
Speaker 2: session or interview. I said, yeah on Wednesday, right. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: I said, well you're gonna do that with Tiger now,
Speaker 2: I said what He's like, Yeah, it'll be the two
Speaker 2: of you at a panel and it'll probably take about
Speaker 2: an hour. I said, I you have to tell you
Speaker 2: this right now, said now the rest of Monday and Tuesday,
Speaker 2: I'm screwed because I can't think of anything else other
Speaker 2: than having to sit in front of cameras and on
Speaker 2: the stage next to Tiger. And then Wednesday comes along
Speaker 2: and they said, all right, we want you to have
Speaker 2: a chance, you know, to meet him beforehand and get
Speaker 2: a chance to talk and everything. So they end up
Speaker 2: walking me up to the third story at Riviera, which
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it had three stories in the building,
Speaker 2: and he was doing an interview in the room and said,
Speaker 2: all right, please just wait, you know, right here, he'll
Speaker 2: be done the second I said, okay, so I'm making
Speaker 2: short conversation with everybody that was there.
Speaker 3: Are you really nervous right now?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: My hands started sweating. I was like I can hear
Speaker 2: my heart beating and my neck, which was really weird.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, like I'm in like mid
Speaker 2: conversation with these people, and then you just feel I
Speaker 2: don't even know how to describe it. You just feel
Speaker 2: like a presence. And all of a sudden, he walks
Speaker 2: around the corner and I just remember looking I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: he has really broad shoulders. That was like my first thought.
Speaker 2: And then he walked up he said, Hey, I'm Tiger.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I know, Mare. He didn't know, and
Speaker 2: so he kind of laughed, and then he asked a
Speaker 2: couple of questions about the course and how I was
Speaker 2: planned on playing it and stuff, and it was really
Speaker 2: just a normal conversation from which I thought was pretty neat.
Speaker 2: And then obviously we did the press conference, and I
Speaker 2: remember sitting first. I remember walking into the room. They
Speaker 2: opened up the doors and I said, oh Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: there's way more people than I expected, and like eighty cameras.
Speaker 2: And so we walked onto the stage and I was
Speaker 2: so happy that there was water on the stage because
Speaker 2: my mouth was dry and had no idea what was
Speaker 2: going on. And I just remember sitting there when they
Speaker 2: were asking a bunch of questions and I would look
Speaker 2: over and I just felt like, in a dream, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's really Tiger, just sitting right there.
Speaker 3: So do you have any regrets? Is there something that
Speaker 3: you wish you had asked him, or or something you
Speaker 3: wish you had said in that moment?
Speaker 2: Not really, I'd ask him a question on how to
Speaker 2: play the fifth holest part three because green sets up
Speaker 2: strange to me, right fourth Yeah, yeah, yeah, fourth A.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, green just sets up the wrong way for
Speaker 2: such a long iron shot. And because he had asked
Speaker 2: me what I like my ballflight normally is, I said
Speaker 2: it's usually kind of a draw, and he goes, oh,
Speaker 2: that's perfect. I was like, yeah, but on that whole
Speaker 2: it runs away with the draw, so like every time
Speaker 2: I hit it, it just keeps going to the back
Speaker 2: or over the green. And so we talked about hitting
Speaker 2: a high cut and everything.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was neat yeah yeah. With uh, with
Speaker 3: playing professional golf, what what's been the top this thing
Speaker 3: from going from a very good college player to playing
Speaker 3: professional golf. What's spend the biggest challenge in terms of
Speaker 3: just being a professional golfer.
Speaker 2: I think it's just the self discipline you have to
Speaker 2: have because when you're in college, you know you're you know,
Speaker 2: the team's working out Monday, Wednesday, Friday at six am.
Speaker 2: That was always our schedule. Your tournament's already booked for you.
Speaker 2: You know, you have five in the fall of six
Speaker 2: or seven in the spring. Yeah, you're you know where
Speaker 2: you're practicing at every day, you know, like our coach
Speaker 2: and gives drills you qualifying. You know, you just have
Speaker 2: a set schedule and you know what you're doing. And
Speaker 2: so in terms offessionally, it's now it's just all on me.
Speaker 2: I gotta be I got to schedule, you know when
Speaker 2: I'm playing and where I'm traveling to, and just have
Speaker 2: to be disciplined enough to say, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get up on a workout and these are the things
Speaker 2: I'm going to do. I'm gonna eat right. No one's
Speaker 2: you know, cooking my meals for me. Now, don't get
Speaker 2: to just go to the the cafeteria. So I would
Speaker 2: just say that that self discipline is probably the hardest part,
Speaker 2: but it's one of those that's rewarding too. When you
Speaker 2: see everything work out the way you want it to,
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, I know I'm doing the right things.
Speaker 2: I'm taking care of myself, and it's I'm good to go.
Speaker 3: You've played on the APGA Tour since the early twenty
Speaker 3: ten pretty long time. What's been you know, I mean
Speaker 3: I imagine the growth how it's changed has been remarkable.
Speaker 3: What do you think is the big The biggest thing
Speaker 3: that you look back on is like, wow, I can't
Speaker 3: believe that's the same tour as it is today.
Speaker 2: I just the courses, I think is the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: And the level of competition now is incredible. I mean
Speaker 2: every week someone's always going just group of guys is
Speaker 2: always going low. It's not like we just have one
Speaker 2: person that you know, predominantly shoots ten to twelve under.
Speaker 2: We got a whole gang of guys that can shoot,
Speaker 2: you know, anywhere from sixty eight to sixty three. So
Speaker 2: the competition level and then obviously, I said, the courses
Speaker 2: and have the ability to play the TVCs, whether it's
Speaker 2: DC Sugar Loaf Louisiana Vegas, having the Farmers Invitational out
Speaker 2: at Tory Pines, and then obviously now the Cisco Invitational
Speaker 2: being at Spyglass in Spanish Base. Like you take where
Speaker 2: we were playing, you know, Chester, Washington in LA and
Speaker 2: a couple of other courses, and you look at where
Speaker 2: it is now is truly remarkable. And I know that's
Speaker 2: something that we're all very thankful of that we get
Speaker 2: to play these championship courses and have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: say okay, this is where they play on tour, and
Speaker 2: this is how I stack up, and so it's neat.
Speaker 3: What's been your favorite course that you guys have played.
Speaker 2: Honestly, my favorite one was probably Balti Straw. It kicked
Speaker 2: my ass, but it was really a great test of
Speaker 2: golf and just mental fortitude because I never I never
Speaker 2: played a course where if you just hit am like
Speaker 2: just slightly bad shot, you screwed and it turned into
Speaker 2: double so fast. So it was neat to be put
Speaker 2: into that challenge in that atmosphere. And then TVC sawgrass
Speaker 2: because I've seen so much on TV, so that was
Speaker 2: cool just to play seventeen in the tournament.
Speaker 3: It's so I think that's one of the great things
Speaker 3: about golf when you're developing or trying to get to
Speaker 3: the next level is those moments where you clearly take
Speaker 3: a step up. And a lot of times it happens
Speaker 3: that in the tournament sense, whether you're junior and you
Speaker 3: play in a stadium, or whether you're an amateur you
Speaker 3: play a USGA event. I imagine at the pro level
Speaker 3: it's like I'm playing in a PGA Tour event right
Speaker 3: at Riviera, Like that's a huge step up. But when
Speaker 3: you do that, you walk away from those tournaments, whether
Speaker 3: you play well or play bad, you get such a
Speaker 3: nice barometer on where you're at. When you played that,
Speaker 3: you talked about Baltistrawl, you know, being just this level
Speaker 3: of golf course. What did you walk away from that?
Speaker 3: You know, you said it kicked your ass, but what
Speaker 3: did you walk away from that thinking about your game
Speaker 3: and what you needed to work.
Speaker 2: On the first thing I thought of was mentally how
Speaker 2: I was able to just stay in it because I
Speaker 2: think the first round I shut forty one or forty
Speaker 2: two on the front, but had five verties in a
Speaker 2: row going on the back. So it was one of
Speaker 2: those things where I know my younger self after a
Speaker 2: bad front Nove would have just probably checked out and
Speaker 2: been frustrated and just wanted to get off the course.
Speaker 2: But I was able to stay in it and stay focused.
Speaker 2: So that was one of those moments I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, good for me. I can you know I
Speaker 2: can still whether it's a bad start or I get
Speaker 2: off to a good start, I'm always in it. I
Speaker 2: don't mean I can't take myself out of it. So
Speaker 2: that was that was good, And then I was like
Speaker 2: I need to work on my wedges to make sure
Speaker 2: I can hit them a lot tighter, because if you
Speaker 2: do hit it in a bad spot and you have
Speaker 2: to bail out, you want to be able to, you know,
Speaker 2: hit a wedge in there, the inside ten feet and
Speaker 2: give yourself a flick a car.
Speaker 3: I think that. Yeah. To me, that's one of the
Speaker 3: crazy things about really high leveled golf is just how
Speaker 3: when you get out of position, then you have to
Speaker 3: hit great shots to get into position to save a
Speaker 3: par Yeah, and it's extraordinar how easy the top tier
Speaker 3: players in the game of golf make this look, but
Speaker 3: how challenging it is in real life. Right, It's just
Speaker 3: and the discipline, the discipline of understanding when you have
Speaker 3: to take your medicine or versus risk taking a risk
Speaker 3: is is just such a difficult thing to weigh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. And it's one of those things.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing it as a coach when I helped
Speaker 2: out a sax State and you see these kids getting
Speaker 2: get into trouble, and you know, you play it in
Speaker 2: your mind as if you were a player, because you're
Speaker 2: kind of playing caddy at the same time, and you
Speaker 2: you know, you give them the safe option, just because
Speaker 2: that's like, this is the smart play. There's no no
Speaker 2: bad thing that will have worse case we make bogie.
Speaker 2: But you know, as a player, you look like I
Speaker 2: see that gap in the tree. It's a little nine.
Speaker 2: I can get through there. And and you just have
Speaker 2: to have confidence in your player all the time. And
Speaker 2: so it's you weigh it and hopefully if you can
Speaker 2: execute it well, then then everything's great.
Speaker 3: You were you just hit on this. You were assistant
Speaker 3: coach at Sacramento State. How many years did you do that?
Speaker 2: Two and a half? COVID kind of cut it most short.
Speaker 3: What were the biggest advantages for your personal game from
Speaker 3: that experience?
Speaker 2: You just see different ways of playing golf. Like we
Speaker 2: had five kids, and all of them played five very
Speaker 2: distinct ways of playing golf. One kid could hit it
Speaker 2: really far like myself, and another kid was short but
Speaker 2: always hit a bunch of fairways and a bunch of
Speaker 2: greens and it was good with his wedges. And then
Speaker 2: one kid was super creative, could hit these low shots
Speaker 2: and these big swoopers, and so it was just interesting
Speaker 2: to see five different ways of how to try to
Speaker 2: get it done. And so you try to take pieces
Speaker 2: of that and like, okay, well, I know, if I
Speaker 2: get nervous on a T shot, I can hit that
Speaker 2: low one like he hit, and it's you know, the
Speaker 2: driver might only fly to seventy, but it's two seventy
Speaker 2: and it's going to go down the middle of the
Speaker 2: fairway every time. And then there's advantages obviously to just
Speaker 2: hitting it far and maybe a slightly crooked, but if
Speaker 2: you can, you know, hit it far and have a
Speaker 2: wedge end, that's an advantage. So it was it was
Speaker 2: neat to see where you could pick a piece and
Speaker 2: take something from everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's uh, what's your favorite moment from the early
Speaker 3: days of the APG.
Speaker 2: A favorite moment from the early this is this is
Speaker 2: a good ish bad story. So we're a tournament in
Speaker 2: Arizona and I show up and see all the guys
Speaker 2: and see one guy that I had seen in college
Speaker 2: and went to north Ridge and obviously I went to
Speaker 2: sax State. And I'm looking at him and I can't
Speaker 2: remember his name, and it's killing me. I'm just staring,
Speaker 2: like God, I don't know what his name is. I'm like,
Speaker 2: hopefully he doesn't come say anything to me. Yeah, as
Speaker 2: soon as I grab my putter and I go to
Speaker 2: the hole, he walked over, Hey, Aaron, how you doing.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, what's up, man, how you been?
Speaker 2: And goes, no, no, no, no, you gotta say my name.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh no, and I'm like, I'm staring,
Speaker 2: I'm looking thinking, so I'm gonna be honest me. I
Speaker 2: don't remember. He goes, it's Aaron. I was like, oh god,
Speaker 2: I overthought the hell And now those Aaron Grimes And
Speaker 2: now him and I are pretty much best friends and
Speaker 2: we travel all the time together. So it's just funny
Speaker 2: that we had seen each other in college. We'd always
Speaker 2: said Helow and for whatever reason, my mind went blank
Speaker 2: and I was overthinking it because he had the same
Speaker 2: name as me.
Speaker 3: So there's nothing worse than that moment.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was horrible.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, the name. I'm not good. I'm
Speaker 3: not good at names. I'm not good.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty tried to get I've tried to get a
Speaker 2: lot better after that moment.
Speaker 3: Specifically, it's uh, so you you had status on PGA
Speaker 3: tour Canada this year as well? What how was it
Speaker 3: balancing to tours? So you have the APGA schedule Yeah,
Speaker 3: the Canada schedule, I imagine it probably was difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's one of those things you just try to
Speaker 2: weigh what is what's most important, like if I've play
Speaker 2: and how I figured it in my mind is that
Speaker 2: if I play really good golf on both tours, which
Speaker 2: one benefits me the most? And I looked at it
Speaker 2: as playing well on Canada, if you finished in the
Speaker 2: top five, you're automatically moved on to the Cornbier and ABG.
Speaker 2: If you finished and be the top player, then you
Speaker 2: get full status on what's now going to be PJ
Speaker 2: Tour Americas. So I waited and I decided Canada was
Speaker 2: probably the better stretch, and that's what I did. This
Speaker 2: was last summer, and so I ended up playing seven
Speaker 2: tournaments up there, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it's
Speaker 2: four day tournaments are more of a challenge than two
Speaker 2: day tournaments obviously, because two day tournaments from like a sprint,
Speaker 2: and the four day tournaments are I mean, in Canada,
Speaker 2: they're pretty much like a sprint marathon because everybody scores
Speaker 2: so low. But yeah, it's an interesting balance. But it
Speaker 2: was nice to play up there and travel up there
Speaker 2: and then with the times I could come back and
Speaker 2: play on the tour. It was really nice to come
Speaker 2: back and play on the APG because it felt like
Speaker 2: I was coming back on my family and it was
Speaker 2: really happy to see all the guys and everybody. So
Speaker 2: that was that was neat.
Speaker 3: What were your big takeaways form the PGA Tour Canada.
Speaker 2: You gotta make a lot of berries. I mean, we
Speaker 2: had one cut where it was six under par. Was
Speaker 2: the cutter seven under par? And so, I, you know,
Speaker 2: I play, I like to just play boring golf and
Speaker 2: not you know, if it's drivable, I'll weigh my options.
Speaker 2: But usually i'd take play up and hit a wedge
Speaker 2: and so I you know, I'd shoot a bunch of
Speaker 2: one under two under rounds and that just wasn't low enough.
Speaker 2: And so it taught me that you just have to
Speaker 2: be aggressive. You got to keep the pedal to the
Speaker 2: metal at all times, and and really important to leave
Speaker 2: the ball below the hole. And so you can have
Speaker 2: uphill buds so you can be aggressive birdy budgs.
Speaker 3: So it's a fascinating thing with all developmental tours, even
Speaker 3: down to the corn Fairy Tour, is we see you
Speaker 3: see this and you see players talk about this when
Speaker 3: they get up to the PGA Tour, just how drastically
Speaker 3: different the golf is on the PGA Tour because the
Speaker 3: golf courses demand more patients, demand more, you know, like
Speaker 3: understanding when to you know, versus you know, at the
Speaker 3: corn Faery Tour level Canada. You know, some of the
Speaker 3: Latin American courses are really tough, actually, but they those
Speaker 3: courses are there's just not repercussions for aggressive play, and
Speaker 3: they're shorter and in different like it's just such a
Speaker 3: different style of golf and I don't know really what
Speaker 3: the fixes to get. You know, there's just only a
Speaker 3: finite number of golf courses in the country that are
Speaker 3: a willing to host and be, you know, willing to
Speaker 3: test the top tier players in the game of golf
Speaker 3: at this point. But it is that is a challenging
Speaker 3: I think that resonates with like anybody that's been on
Speaker 3: those tours is just you know, and you see it
Speaker 3: like some some times the best better players on the
Speaker 3: corner ferry get to the PGA Tour and it just
Speaker 3: doesn't work and they're back down there and it's in
Speaker 3: some of the guys that aren't necessarily, you know, thought
Speaker 3: of as the best players on the corner ferry of
Speaker 3: the year before I get up to the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: and it's like, wow, these guys are studs, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I looked at it as like a
Speaker 2: couple of courses up in Canada, I just I would
Speaker 2: hit a bunch of two irons because they're a little
Speaker 2: bit more narrow, And I was like, they're shorter courses.
Speaker 2: But when I look at who would win, oh, he's
Speaker 2: hitting driver there. And you know, if you hit a
Speaker 2: good drive, then you're pitching versus my two iron, I
Speaker 2: might have ninety yards out eighty yards down. Obviously, the
Speaker 2: closer yards of the whole there's more chances you'll probably
Speaker 2: have to make birdie. So it rewards the aggressive straight player.
Speaker 2: And where I think on tour, a lot of the courses,
Speaker 2: like this week they're gonna be playing uh Silverado. You
Speaker 2: just you can't afford to be out of position if
Speaker 2: you're aggressive, so you're almost better off just laying back
Speaker 2: a few times iron and you know, taking middle of
Speaker 2: the green and two buddy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then there's a lot of variety in courses, right,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like I'm friends with Zach Blair, and
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, there's you know, twelve twelve courses
Speaker 3: a year that he's got to he's got to play
Speaker 3: well on because he's a shorter hitter, right, and Silverado
Speaker 3: is one that he's historically played really well at because
Speaker 3: it it really rewards some some accuracy off the tee, right,
Speaker 3: And it's uh, it's it's a really Uh it's an
Speaker 3: interesting aspect. You know, like what outside of the outside
Speaker 3: of the four rounds versus two rounds, were there any
Speaker 3: other big differences between the APGA and the PGA Canada.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're playing better courses on the APG A.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh. The travel is a lot harder in Canada,
Speaker 2: I would say, I imagine, yeah, just because you know
Speaker 2: and out when you play APGA Tour here, you know,
Speaker 2: we're in Atlanta, or in Chicago, Vegas, San Diego, Orlando,
Speaker 2: and so it's it's kind of easier and obviously you
Speaker 2: just know those places better. But when you're in Canada,
Speaker 2: you're in Victoria, and you're in Calgary, you're in Saskatchewan
Speaker 2: and places I never heard of, and so it's just
Speaker 2: it's harder to get to and I'm there with some
Speaker 2: issues with clubs and rental cars and just kind of
Speaker 2: just you don't know really what to expect, I would
Speaker 2: say all the time when you're traveling up there. So
Speaker 2: that part of it is can be challenging, but at
Speaker 2: the same time it can be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Like we drove through Bamf. I'd never seen Bamf before,
Speaker 2: and it was a nine hour drive and it might
Speaker 2: have been the most gorgeous nine hours I think I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in my life. So it's I try to
Speaker 2: make the most out of everything, and so it just
Speaker 2: you kind of you take those those moments of frustration.
Speaker 2: It's just good times to be able to tell a cool.
Speaker 3: Story, any crazy travel tales from from any any point
Speaker 3: of your your PGA, your your professional golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, buddy of mine. We were playing in Windsor, was
Speaker 2: right across the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit, and we rented
Speaker 2: an air or staying in Airbnb. We had the car.
Speaker 2: We played the first round and go to dinner, come
Speaker 2: to it's actually July fourth. We go to dinner, we
Speaker 2: see a couple of fireworks across the river, and then
Speaker 2: go back home, take some take our bags up to
Speaker 2: the car. But I had left my travel bag in
Speaker 2: the car, and you had left a couple of budges. Whatever,
Speaker 2: So we walked down the next morning. Car had been
Speaker 2: broken into. One of his shoes was stolen, just one
Speaker 2: of them and just one one shoe show yeah, but
Speaker 2: joy he had. The left one was stolen, the right
Speaker 2: one stayed in the car.
Speaker 3: They were right next to each other.
Speaker 2: They were right next to each other, and so one
Speaker 2: shoe was stolen, two budges were stolen. My travel hard
Speaker 2: case was stolen, which so we were trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how like it just was a funny image of
Speaker 2: somebody walking down the street with this hard case. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: And it was a hassle trying to get it everything,
Speaker 2: the insurance part of it and all taken care of.
Speaker 2: And I had to go play right after I played
Speaker 2: in the morning. He played in the afternoon, so he
Speaker 2: dropped me off. We're driving cars. Got a window that's gone,
Speaker 2: and funny enough, I think I shot twenty nine on
Speaker 2: the front line or something, because I was like, I
Speaker 2: just I was really not worried about the golf. I
Speaker 2: was more concerned about the cars. So I wasn't like
Speaker 2: really too focused on just playing, but it was that
Speaker 2: was an interesting, frustrating time.
Speaker 3: I feel like when your mind is extremely preoccupied, it
Speaker 3: can with other things. Golf goes into very different directions.
Speaker 3: It can either go extremely well or very poor, and
Speaker 3: there's no middle grounds.
Speaker 2: There's definitely no middle ground. I completely agree with that,
Speaker 2: completely agree with that.
Speaker 3: What do you look at your career thus far, what
Speaker 3: is what's the best stretch of golf that you've played,
Speaker 3: and what do you think was really really going well?
Speaker 2: Then? Scoring wise, the best stretch of golf I've played
Speaker 2: this past like three months, I think when I was
Speaker 2: looking at my scores, I've had one round over par
Speaker 2: in the last twenty rounds in tournament play. So that's
Speaker 2: been in terms of just like scoring average, it's been
Speaker 2: the best, and it's been been the best. I've driven
Speaker 2: the ball, best of iron distance wise has been good,
Speaker 2: Wedge distances have been good, short games vastly improved from
Speaker 2: last year. Now it's just a matter of putts falling.
Speaker 2: And my rounds of seventeen sixty nine turned into sixty
Speaker 2: six sixty five six before, So that's been a good stretch.
Speaker 2: I will say the best golf I've ever played for
Speaker 2: a week was my sophomore year at college. We had
Speaker 2: a match play tournament a Spyglass actually, the NCGA match
Speaker 2: Play tournament that's there every year, and I shot even
Speaker 2: on the first round and then four under on the
Speaker 2: second round qualify for the match play portion number one seed.
Speaker 2: Won my first match seven to six, won the next
Speaker 2: match six and five, won the next match four and two,
Speaker 2: in the next match two and one, and then got
Speaker 2: to the final match on Friday and was four up
Speaker 2: after the first eighteen and then ended up losing on
Speaker 2: the last hole of the second match. But it was
Speaker 2: just like this incredible stretch of golf where nothing really
Speaker 2: seemed to go wrong, Like I mean, I probably shot
Speaker 2: sixteen to nineteen under, I think in that stretch of
Speaker 2: all that golf. And my dad was caddying for me
Speaker 2: at the time, and we get done with the matches
Speaker 2: and we just smile and laugh. Becau's like everything we
Speaker 2: talked about in practice or whatever was just working for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, which was cool.
Speaker 3: What what what's your plans for the upcoming year? What
Speaker 3: are you what are you trying to do? Are you
Speaker 3: trying to do any of the Q schools? What's the
Speaker 3: what's the plan for twenty twenty four?
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four bunch of Mondays is my strategy, play
Speaker 2: all of APGA tournaments, but do at least twelve to
Speaker 2: fifteen mondays because I look at my style and my
Speaker 2: way I'm hitting the ball now is I just need
Speaker 2: one or two good weeks of getting hot with the
Speaker 2: putter and the rest can be you know, history. So
Speaker 2: I look forward to doing that and traveling that route
Speaker 2: and seeing you know, and making it, making it on
Speaker 2: to the tour that route, and my plan is to
Speaker 2: go Corey Connors with it and and money, qualify and
Speaker 2: win and just move on that way.
Speaker 3: That'd be a good way to go, you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I always thought there'd be a good business in like
Speaker 3: hosting tournaments in city like the city the tours in
Speaker 3: for like Tuesday Wednesday tournaments after a Monday qualifier. So
Speaker 3: then somebody's like, you're not going there if you don't
Speaker 3: make it, since there's you know, it's a whatever five
Speaker 3: or four percent or two percent success rate, right then
Speaker 3: you have a place where people can recoup cash, right y,
Speaker 3: you know, and and keep playing and it's like okay,
Speaker 3: like this isn't that hard, Like if you're going to
Speaker 3: set up a mini tour, especially the way that things
Speaker 3: are set up now, everybody wants to play these mondays
Speaker 3: and give themselves, you know, a chance. They've you know,
Speaker 3: there's so there's never been so much talent in the
Speaker 3: game of golf, and there's so little places to play.
Speaker 3: So it's like that would be a brilliant mini tour idea.
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, definitely, definitely. And it's interesting because
Speaker 2: I remember when I was in high school the mini tour. See,
Speaker 2: we always had two or three tournaments I think it's
Speaker 2: a Pepsi Tour back then that would come through and
Speaker 2: always play. And I know they had the Gateway Tour
Speaker 2: and the Hooters Tour and kind of just a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of a whole bunch of them, and now all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, there's like four, and it's it's weird
Speaker 2: that it's kind of is the most amount of golf
Speaker 2: ever being played, but the least amount of like opportunity
Speaker 2: to play, you know, a mini tour events and grind
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 3: It's uh yeah, and then almost all of like a
Speaker 3: lot of them end up being shifty and shady, shadily
Speaker 3: run tours, right, like the horrors of horrors of many tours,
Speaker 3: or the stories are just you know sometimes like the
Speaker 3: latest is the big money classic, you know, but.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah when no one gets paid. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: just is Yeah.
Speaker 3: Hey, Aaron, I appreciate the time and look forward to
Speaker 3: continue to follow your career. And uh and and we'll
Speaker 3: see you next week and uh in miner Ray.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I look forward to Andrews should be good
Speaker 2: and make sure you bring all good weather and not
Speaker 2: just you know, good vibes and we have a good time.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: All right, that's it for another episode of the Friday
Speaker 3: Golf Podcast. I will be back next week early next
Speaker 3: week with the Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup is here,
Speaker 3: so we will be doing a five Things about the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup with a familiar, a friend of the program,
Speaker 3: Trevor Immulman will be on. He'll be you know, a captain,
Speaker 3: a captain of Ant, the most recent international team in
Speaker 3: the President's Cup. I just thought he would bring a
Speaker 3: neat dimension. Obviously he's never participated in a Ryder Cup,
Speaker 3: but he has led a team into battle against the Americans,
Speaker 3: so I just thought he would be a great guest.
Speaker 3: And I thank you for him for coming on, and
Speaker 3: so he will be on Monday, well or maybe even Sunday.
Speaker 3: We might really said Sunday, so keep your ears out
Speaker 3: for that. Thank you to Matt Ruschis for editing and
Speaker 3: producing this podcast, putting this all together, and thank you
Speaker 3: guys guys for listening. I appreciate it. And we are
Speaker 3: on the precipice of the last massive event on the
Speaker 3: golf calendar and I can't wait to get into the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup week