The Hole Story - Golf Podcast

The Story of Golf Creative Co. with Robbie Wooten

• BestBall • Season 4 • Episode 29

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Robbie Wooten shares his 30-year journey in golf marketing, emphasizing storytelling, digital content, and community relationships to grow golf courses and brands. Discover how innovative visuals, social media, and authentic storytelling can transform golf marketing strategies.

https://golfcreativeco.com/

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SPEAKER_02

We are big time storytellers and you know you need to tell a story. That's what connects, especially today with the younger millennial golfer. It's it's all about experience, and they love these stories.

SPEAKER_00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Whole Story Podcast. Robbie here. Jonathan was having some technical difficulty, so he was not able to be on the entire podcast. He was there at the beginning, but had to drop out, or internet forced him to drop out either way, but had an incredible chat. It ended up just being the two Robbies. So myself and Robbie Wooten, the mastermind and creative guy behind the Golf Creative Co. Uh, you'll learn all about that, the cool things he does for golf courses and brands helping to tell stories through different marketing, uh, marketing aspects. So awesome interview. I mean, we we finished the recording half an hour ago when I'm recording this now, and we've just been chatting. He's just the nicest guy in the world, uh, which anybody that is listening to this that knows Robbie knows exactly what I'm talking about. So uh go check out what he's doing uh with the golf creative co. Uh, you know, Demplehead Golf is his Instagram handle. We'll have all links to all that stuff in the show notes. But just a kind, kind person and another reminder of just the kindness and the great people in this game of golf. So love this interview, love what he's doing. Uh, y'all are gonna like this one for sure. As always, thanks to our friends at Summit Golf Company, uh, or Summit brands, uh, they the B Dra Addy Zero Restriction, Fairway and Green. Uh, they do awesome stuff. Uh, we just got some more stuff with uh new branding on it, and it's man, it's uh they do such a good job with it, and they're very kind to us to support us with all that we do. So anytime you see us uh doing a podcast out on the course, things like that, we are so honored to be representing them as one of their brand ambassadors. So they don't do it because we're good at golf, they have plenty of uh folks that they work with that are really good at golf, but they are kind enough because we love galling golf stories. They have a great story, and it's just it's a good partnership. They have great people there that we get to work with. So let's uh let's jump into this episode with Robbie Wooten with Golf Creative Co. Y'all enjoy joining us today on the Whole Story Podcast, another Robbie. Uh Jonathan, this has to be the first time we've had a second Robbie on the podcast. Mr. Robbie Wooten. Robbie, thank you for uh for coming out today. Robbie, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02

Uh yours is spelled with a why. I'm I. And usually when uh you know somebody asks me when I, you know, how do you spell your name? Is it with a why? I'm like, no, it's IE. I always get the why question. But no, it's great to great to be on and great to meet you guys.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I get the uh, hey, can you change that? Because you've already spelled it wrong. So they don't most of the time they don't even ask. I they just assume it's the other one. So yeah, uh, but yeah, so Jonathan Tube Robbie's here. We're gonna have fun with this today. But um, Robbie, you do some really awesome stuff in the world of golf, and we're gonna talk about that, but we we've got to get to kind of how you got into this game. We were just chatting beforehand, we're recording this a week before the Masters, and we were just having some good conversation about different stories about going and things like that. And obviously it means a lot to you and your family. And so we want to know though, when uh when did golf become something for you? Uh I I know your bio says you've been doing stuff like this for 30 plus years. You don't look like you've been doing something for 30 something years at this point, but tell us uh tell us your history in golf.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, great. Yeah, well, 56, yeah, I'm you know thankful to have my dad's jeans, I guess, but uh been around way too long, I think. So yeah, I got my dad introduced me to the game at a very young age, um, played a bunch of sports, though growing up, uh fortunate enough, yeah. I went to a very small private school in Winston-Salem, uh, North Carolina, and small enough where you could play basketball, baseball, golf, and well, I'm not gonna count cross country as I I ran it, but I only did it to get shaper basketball, was not very good at it. Um, but the others, you know, I had a lot of fun with, and um, you know, just uh blessed with again. My dad was pretty athletic, and so I was able to pick up the game pretty quickly and easily. And uh baseball was kind of my thing though, uh going through high school and was gonna go play in uh college and tore my quad in half in my halfway through my senior year trying to beat a throw out to first base. So I went back to over to I was going to high point, it's now High Point University, which is you know was very well known last week in March Madness. Uh, but it started as High Point College for me my first three years, and then it changed names the last year. But I went to the golf coach and you know, being a small private school there too, I said, Hey, baseball's done. Um, can I walk on, you know, for the golf team? And uh he said, we may actually have a spot for you after watching me play. And so made my way on, obviously, way on the team, played all four years, uh, had a great time, great experience. Uh, went to the national championships one year, which our school had never ever done. Uh, had just a little band of misfits that just you know could scrape it around good enough. And then uh after college, I decided to I majored in computer information systems, so I was writing a lot of code late in the night after getting home from practices and graduated, and there really wasn't a lot of opportunity around Winston-Salem where I was from. I really wasn't interested in moving to Atlanta or some of the bigger cities that had tech opportunities at the time. And a great friend of mine that I played on the golf team with got hired to be an assistant pro in Orlando with a club pro out of Lexington that we both knew really well. And after about three months down there at their new club, he called and said, Hey, do you want to get in the golf business? And I thought, well, I got nothing else going on. My dad when I were trying to run a small town golf shop, and I did a lot of club repair and regripping in college for extra money. And so we started doing some of that on the side. He was retired and bored, and I was bored, so we had some fun with that. But then my dad's like, you need to go get on your own and get out to Florida and went to Orlando and uh wanted to try to play a little bit on the mini tour and and try to work, but that just doesn't, you know, uh doesn't equal out. You know, you just cannot do both and be successful. So uh started working my way up the corporate ladder with a management company there. And at 25, they they moved me back to Raleigh, North Carolina to be a GM of a club there, which is no longer uh anymore. It's a real estate development, Wake Forest Golf Club, which had the longest par five in the world at the time. I think a 711-yard opening hole. Opening hole. Wow. Opening hole, yeah. Uh opening hole. And the first time I played it, my assistant, you know, uh switched head covers up on my Callaway Warbird, and I hit three wood off the first hole, and he's like 60 yards by me on the 700-yard hole, and he looks back and starts laughing. But yeah, but I I did that um for a couple of months there, and I really um they they wanted to um I was gonna replace the head professionals role there who had been there forever, and he was a staple to the golf community. Taught Chip Beck as a junior and Scott Hoke, and very beloved. And some members came to our leadership and said, if nothing against Robbie, we like him a lot. And uh Ronnie was just an old school old guy and older guy, and they said, But if you get rid of him, we're leaving and following wherever he goes. So they asked me to kind of take a little bit of a um a training role for him, keep him there, and they want to move me around the country. And I'm like, man, if this is what the golf professional life is like, and then I read an article, I think PJ magazine came out and said the average PJ pro moves, I think back then it said 11 times or something in their career. And I'm like, that's not for me. So I started dreaming up this whole idea of golf marketing. I my father owned a printing company who worked primarily with advertising agencies. So all of my summers from about 14 on, I would kind of tag along with my dad and sit in these conference rooms and listen to these ad execs and talking about all the things they need and campaigns and always enjoyed that. And so I did get a minor in marketing in college. And uh the National Golf Foundation came out back there in the early 90s and said, we need to build a course a day for the next 10 years to keep up with demand. And so when I got to Orlando, all of you know, you started seeing a bunch of these golf communities popping up for people to sell houses around, you know, golf course and make a bunch of money. And then they would dump the golf course once they sold the last house. And so that left, you know, brought in a bunch of new competition into places that never needed marketing before because they were about the only play in town. Now there's six others, and everybody went from playing 55,000 rounds to 32,000, and they're like, well, how are we going to get that business back? So my crazy brain started, you know, clicking, thought, well, you know what, there's nobody doing marketing for golf. I did a bunch of it for the management company on my own and would call my dad, having print up coupons and all kinds of stuff to ship to my club. So um I decided, you know, to jump ship after four months of being at Wake Forest and um started the company in 1995 and just celebrated 30 years last fall.

SPEAKER_00

How about that? What uh what was the name of the company now? Because I know we're calling it Golf Creative Co. now or company now. And I don't know if that's a rebrand or a new project, but what uh what what's it been for the last 30 years?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it was impact golf marketing. Okay. And we decided with a lot of new things that we're doing today, you know, we're kind of solutions providers. Um and we just, you know, I thought, you know what, we just need to breathe some new energy into the to the company. Uh, we're doing some exciting things, especially in the social media creator influencer world, content creation space. And um, you know, we've always kind of prided ourselves on the fact that we we're not a cookie cutter company that just you know has one box, one size fits all. And so we've always been very customized in our approach for everyone, which you really have to be if you're gonna be successful in marketing. And we just, you know, I don't know, it was you know, 56. I just needed a new challenge, a new opportunity, something new to to uh get excited about. And uh I had hired uh our new director of social media, Taylor, back last year ago, February, and she was really gung-ho about it, and she kept me locked in and wanting to do it and finally talked me into it. And and so now we're golf creative co um uh still in High Point, North Carolina and servicing all of our existing clients well, but yeah, just went through a great rebrand. It's been received very well from clients, a lot of encouraging words, and uh everybody loves the the logo and wanting stickers and all that fun stuff, just like you guys, you know, sell a million of and and handouts. So, yeah, it's been fun. That's awesome. So, how big is the the team? So I have five people, and I have some other contract help as needed. I have um uh full roster of you know, you know, content creation team, visual artists, you know, with with drone, photography, videography, production teams, um, you know, all of those we hire out on an as needed basis. Uh we're getting we're hiring more and more out as uh the days progress because the need is great and social media has changed so much and changed the game for so many, which I'm sure we'll talk about for a couple of our folks here later. But it's been um, you know, very we we stayed small for a reason, Robbie, because I uh my mom and dad were at every major event in my life, and my dad was a business owner, and I did not want to be that guy that was always gone. And having to manage so many people, I was spending way too much time at work and not enough time with my kids. And so uh I really just wanted to maintain a family approach. You know, a lot of marketing agencies, the model is you layer up with a lot of staff when you land big accounts, and then if you lose them, you lay everybody off. My wife was a graphic artist, she's lived in that world forever. We've seen it. Uh, I watched it you know through my dad's lens and tagging along with him. And we just didn't want to be that type of company. We want to be very relational, uh, approachable, um, not, hey, you know, we sold you, but I'm gonna hand you off to this junior team of marketing people and we'll see you later. Uh there have been times when I'm like, man, I wish I had gone bigger, then the place could run a lot more without me around. I could at 56 would be taking a little more time to play some golf. Uh, but you know, I love it, and I wouldn't I wouldn't trade it. You know, I've got a great relationship with my kids who are now in college, and um, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade those years of really dialing things back and keeping it small just to to be at home with them and and my wife and uh make sure I'm not on the road and living out of the suitcase all the time like I was there for a while early, right after the kids were born. So uh yeah, maintain small. I mean, obviously though, now with the rebrand, we're actually trying to grow and do some bigger things and actually build a bigger company at this point, uh, now that kids are out of the house and uh moving on their own. So uh some exciting times.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I get that about wanting to be uh wanting to be present because the kids are only at that certain age and doing things once, and it's it flies by mine or both in college. And so I I completely get that. I my parents were the same, they wanted to be at everything. I wanted to be at everything. I used to tell people uh my my favorite thing in the world to do was to watch my kids do whatever, right? Like I would love to go, and and it still is like I I love being a part of whenever they have something, and uh, and I think that's really cool. So well done there. And I think uh I think the you know the business will be blessed because of that, and obviously you're you're at the point now where it's it's gonna grow. So let's let's talk golf marketing. Uh you mentioned a couple things uh about things you might be doing or adding to or you know expanding on, but kind of when it all started, like what did what did the origin of marketing for golf courses and brands look like? I guess when you first started doing this.

SPEAKER_02

Drastically different, right? Um I remember back in the day, like a bounce back coupon. You know, somebody would always tell people, like, your your best opportunity to market somebody is when they're standing in front of your face at the at the counter. So we would do this thing in Orlando where, you know, um you play and then we'd give you an offer to come back and play for, you know, I can't remember the time, maybe let's say half price, you know, within 10 days of your visit. And those worked extremely well back then. You know, uh we would print a bunch of rack cards and put them in hotels, you know, especially in a place like Orlando because we wouldn't get a lot of traffic from those places. Uh it was just very, very um print-oriented, uh print advertising. Um, you know, when I got in the business, the well, I'll backtrack just a second. My last year in in college, I remember our director of our computer information systems uh department said, we're gonna go to Wake Forest and we're gonna hear a speaker talk about something called the internet. So, you know, it was there, nice.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02

That showed us the uh, you know, this thing would pop up and showed a couple stock prices and the weather, and we were like, ooh, that's cool. But you know, by ninety-four, a couple of you know, golf courses would, you know, we were getting approached by some groups, hey, do you need a website? And we're like, I don't really know if we need a website, right? So it was at at the time I actually started the company, very few clubs in '95 had websites. And um so anyway, but you know, going back to the origin, it was a lot of um try to, you know, a lot of press releases trying to get golf magazines to write about the golf course. Um, you know, most courses, to be honest, even in 93, 4, 5, still had to, you know, call a week in advance to book a tea time in a lot of cases. It was a very popular place. But by 96, 7, 8, things really kind of flipped on their heads, and that's when everybody started looking around. They lost, you know, 10, 15, 20 percent of their play because more competition and the bounce backs weren't working like they used to, right? And so uh we watched it evolve to okay, now everybody needs a website. So the first website that we did was Tobacco Road, if you've played there. And uh we landed them as a creative account first to do a bunch of brochures, collateral, uh, print advertising pieces, because they had gotten ripped off by a high-priced agency in Raleigh and did not like paying five thousand dollars for a little trifold brochure just for the design. So they panicked, and a friend of mine connected me, and so we had a great, you know, first three months we were doing a bunch of that, and he calls me up and said, Can you build us a website? And I'm like, sure, I can build you a website. I hang up the phone, panicked. I'm like, we've never built a website in our life, so what are we gonna do? So I immediately drove to the Barnes and Noble in town and I bought a book on HTML, which really wasn't entirely different than what I had learned in college. Uh, you know, the language is a little different, but syntax is all the same pretty much. Um and so I built them a very, of course, at the time it looked pretty cool, pretty cool uh website, um, you know, in a matter of about three or four weeks of writing HTML code. And so that's how we kind of got started there, and then eventually, you know, grew enough to where I hired a full-time web developer to build everything for us. And then, you know, by gosh, you know, I'd say 20, let's see, well, Tobaccoad came back and and said, well, we've been collecting all these, you know, mailing addresses, and we started asking for email addresses. What should we do with them? I'm like, well, we need to email them. So I went to Office Depot that night, and luckily there was a software that would let you import an email list and you could blast out an email. So we tried it and it generated$17,000 in a week for Tobacco Road. And back then they were charging like$49 to play.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

And so that was a lot of rounds of golf. And so we're like, we're on to something. So uh at that point, the web and the email piece took off in the digital space for us, and we had, you know, 150 uh email clients, 100, you know, 110 website clients we grew to there. And then obviously as Google came on and and Yahoo being in all the search, everything shifted into a lot into pay-per-click, uh, in addition to you know, emailing the websites, which are all obviously still viable. And then, you know, the digital marketing space with um you know and social media, uh, everything's really uh just heavy, heavy digital. We do so little print advertising for clients anymore. I mean, it's all but none. Uh we do very little printing. We used to print probably$300,000 worth of product for people a year, and we might print 10,000. You know, it just doesn't uh you know, people just don't need that anymore. So, you know, being tech heavy, tech minded, you know, everything is shifting in that world, which is great for me. That's where my brain loves to solve problems and use technology to do it. And now with AI, which is a huge thing that we're we're jumping into, uh, and it's changing so fast, it's it's gone from paper to AI telling us what to do almost. So it's it's been a whirlwind in 30 years.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I I guess the the thing that hasn't changed through all that is you're selling a story, right? You're selling a place, you're selling a group of people, you're selling uh history and something special about whatever place you're talking to to get somebody to come to you now, right? Like, I mean that that hasn't changed. No.

SPEAKER_02

No, it hasn't. The you know the challenge for most clubs though, Robbie, is that um they don't think what they're they don't think about their story. And so their mindset of marketing is selling price. And so most often when we come into a club that's struggling and you know, needing business and a turnaround, uh, we have to help them craft a story because they've been just thinking price has been the sole driver. When in fact, and for I mean, for decades I've known this, you know, through research, price is usually around number three on the scale. It's not the first. Now, there's a certain demographic, the older, you know, has a very very price conscious, the senior market, which I'm heading towards a lot faster than I want to, you know, um, they're on that fixed income thing, right? So it's one of those things where they're they're hyper focused on it. But that's that's just a a smaller chunk of most clubs' business. And so we are big time storytellers, and you know, you need to tell a story. That's what connects, especially today with the younger millennial golfer. It's it's all about experience and they love these stories, which I think has just been part of the resurrection of golf since COVID. Uh, this group is coming along golf crazed, and they want the unique factor. They don't care about price, they don't care what they shoot on these, they don't care how hard the golf course is anymore. Back in the day, Tobacco Road, you either loved it or hated it. And the reason you hated it is because you shot 95. It wasn't because you didn't like the layout, it just beat you up. Now, guys go out there with their high noons and and transfusions, shoot 95, and laugh all the way around and have memories. With their friends and go home and they don't give a rip, you know. So uh, but tourist storytelling is is what it's all about. It kind of gets people excited to come. You know, what we've been able to do at Todd Hill Farm and that restoration project has been tremendous. Uh, Mike Strantz gave us an awesome story to tell there. And it just makes life a whole lot easier marketing when you've got something to tell that gets people excited about the journey they're about to experience. And so, yeah, storytelling is number one. I I spoke on this at the PGA show last year. Uh, first thing I told everybody in the room, you've got to have a story. If you don't have a story, start trying to dig up history and find things out. And and here's the framework of how to how to build that story out. And um, and that will certainly help drive, you know, every bit of messaging that you have and and start connecting with people on a different level, not just price.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh, you know, story uh, you know, history of a course, you talked about Todd Hill and tobacco, the Mike Strant's like factor, right? Like just the coolness of the things that he has done with golf courses or he did with golf courses. But you're taking that and you mentioned the printed side just doesn't really exist anymore. Um, but the the visual is still there. So incredible photography, uh, you know, drone work, like you were saying. How have you seen that help? I guess through through websites and then social media as well, YouTube and things like that, uh, help to tell the story, but also put uh you know, for lack of better words, put eyes on what people want to go experience.

SPEAKER_02

You know, that's that's a great um question because you know, if you if we're talking about the before and the after, um, back in the early days, you we would actually have to rent a helicopter and send a photographer up, and that was hugely expensive. As you can imagine, now you can just put something in your palm of your hand and it take off and go take some stunning um visuals. You know, photography, videography has always been one of the key components of great storytelling, you know, to draw people in. And so the um everybody seems like they're a drone operator these days. Like we get requests almost weekly, you know, can we come shoot your golf courses or be a part of your portfolio to offer up? Um, excuse me. So, yeah, it's it's you know, it's everything. I I just remember some of those early tobacco road ads with the uh they had some stuff done before we got involved that was aerial and showing the stuff carved out of the sand pits of of uh Sanford there. And every time we ran those people, it just blew people's minds. Uh it drew them into that advertisement. And so that's never changed. The quality of that stuff has never changed. And with the quality of the drones today and and the equipment today and the affordability of it all, uh, you can capture some amazing things that uh help. Todd Hill is a great example. I'll just use them as they're kind of my uh poster child at the moment for modern day marketing, in that we we spent zero dollars on traditional marketing uh the last two years there. And have had the two biggest years in their history. Uh we invested heavily in drone videography and photography. And basically, if if your portfolio is strong and you want to come trade some golf or visuals, we would come on. And we built up probably about 15 months of content from all of that that has been captured, and we leverage that across social and the website, and it's what draws people in. You know, you see this flying over these rock formations at Toddale Farm and down over this double green at 10 and 12 and flowing from the top of the hill down the bottom in the pond, and and uh people just you know mesmerized by it. It's gorgeous. You know, how can you not be? And and so uh those things are, you know, I call them mission critical, which is why I said, you know, we were investing heavily in into the content creation world because most clubs don't have the resources, the time, or the you know, to do it well, and uh they just have a member that pops out and has a drone they do on for fun and they just you know wrong time of day and all that. So it doesn't carry through well like some really, really high-level uh visuals. And so we we believe we've seen it with Todd Hill. When you can drive that much business just by social media presence only and no other marketing shows you the power of you know having strong visuals. So um it's it's a major piece of the of the marketing mix these days.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And there's the domino effect of that too, right? Like you've invested in the incredible drone work and you're surrounded by uh great people that can do that, and we can talk about some of these guys uh here as well. But you you do all that on the front end, you build up a social media catalog where you are professionally showing off this stuff. And then you said the past two years you've had two of the best years uh that they've ever had. And then the domino effect is people will come out and they all have these, right? They all have phones and they're taking pictures and telling their friends about it through their own personal social account. So then all of a sudden you're getting this free marketing and and like the, hey, you need to go play here, or hey, we're gonna go back and I'm gonna bring, you know, X number of different people. And so it just does it keep rolling? I mean, have you seen that? It really does.

SPEAKER_02

You know, the UGC, the user-generated content is um, you know, about as powerful as the stuff that we post because you're showing one thing in our world, you want to show authentic content. You don't want to show something that looks over commercialized. People can see through that now. And the UG Seq is super helpful in that regard because the guys are showing, and the ladies too, are having fun with their friends on the golf course, making and making memories. And so it plays a major role in the success of social media. And what's fun is when we deliver some of these visuals, it will inevitably we'll get 10, 12 comments. We're coming in two weeks, we'll see in a month, you know, we're coming in three months. We can't wait. And, you know, we're getting so excited every time we see these pictures. And so it they have all these visuals in their mind before they ever set foot on the property. And it just gets them excited. And when they're excited, they come in, they're gonna spend money in the golf shop. I mean, they're gonna make it a day, you know, the the the the breezy, the have a day, you know, that you see out there. That's that's the mindset of the the golfers that show up at these places that want an experience. And the you know, the visuals set the tone for that. Um, you know, interviews. Uh we we were fortunate to have a lot of content of Mike Strance when he built Todd Hill Farm. So we repurposed all of that. Um, other than Tobacco Road, which has some, nobody has more content of Mike Strance building a golf course than Todd Hill Farm because we had a very over-eager owner that shot over 40 hours of VHS coverage, and we were able to digitize all of that. And you could, you know, Mike would get frustrated some days. He'd like, oh, here he comes again. You could see his frustration as the camera's getting in his face, but Mike would always put on a smile and talk about what he was doing. So, you know, that type of content helped us um well as well, you know, as we're trying to tell that story of the restoration and what Mike was trying to, what he was thinking when he built the golf course. So a combination of historical footage and the new drone photography and all the user-generated content, it just keeps, man, it's just keeps going. You know, and to me, that's that's the only way it's that you can really grow social media and and maintain strong engagement in the golf space is you gotta have ways to continue telling your story because if all you've got some great drone pictures and a few great videos, they they don't last but so long. So uh yeah, user-generated content. We're pushing a lot a lot for that for uh customers when they get there. Snap, tag us, and when we share it, they share it, and then people like, I've got to go play that place. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I finally got the chance to experience uh Tot Hill this past fall. I went with the uh Restoration Club guys and the uh Twilight guys, they did the hatchet there, and that was uh my first time, and it won't be my last. That place uh it was incredible. So had I again because I had seen all the videos, I had seen photos, I had, you know, I know a ton of the folks that probably you've used for a lot of your content and stuff. So I was I was ready. I had studied the course, I was excited for the experience, and it it definitely delivered. So uh well done on uh building up my expectations and then everything there delivered. So I want to make sure we deliver.

SPEAKER_02

That's you know, the the whole horse leading the horse to water thing, right? I told told I told all of our clients, you know, when we can lead them to the golf course, but you have to deliver when the lights come on. And yeah, the golf course has to has to be what we've shown in these visuals, right? Service needs to be you know, from the time they get there, they're investing a lot of money when you come to play an experience like Todd Hill now. And so a lot of guys have saved up and they're waited for months to come play, and you can't let them down. And so service is a major piece to that place, as all the other great golf destinations, you know, they they do all this very, very well too. Todd Hill's not the only one. Um, but it is you your marketing gets them to the door, but the time they have with you keeps them coming back. And we try all the time. You want them, you want customers leaving feeling like they've just left a club full of friends. They they have a hard time not coming back to a place they feel welcome and and have friends, and that's what we try to do.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they're doing it well, and I think the more people uh don't worry about score and they just want the experience, then that that hands now will will keep them coming back for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's France's whole mindset. You know, if you read any of his commentary, he says, you know, um, you can't look at it, you know, as Alistair McKenzie said in his book, Spirit of St. Andrews, from the card and pencil point of view. You know, you've got to look at it as an experience. And you may have a tough day, but get up on the hardest hole and the most visually stunning hole and you make a birdie and you never forget it. You know, you forget all the bad because you pulled off that one shot. And that's what Mike was wanting to give people the opportunity to pull off something that they would never forget at at his golf courses, not just Todd Hill, but Tobacco Road, Caledonia, True Blue, New Kent, all of them, and um, which is what made him so unique and helps with that storytelling, right? And we get a lot of people that this golf course destroyed me, but over here on this hole, you know, with that user-generated content, they say I buried this sucker, you know. So it's um, yeah. So that's that's the fun part of of uh the digital space today gives you the ability to uh reach more people faster and your story can travel a whole lot faster, as you guys know as well, and in all that you do.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Well, uh, so let's talk a little bit more about some of the things you offer for these golf courses or places. Um, and I guess it differents different, uh, it can be different for each one, but all the way down to even managing the social media, right? So when somebody thinks they're interacting with Tahill Farm, it's not the guy behind the counter, but it's maybe you guys. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02

That's correct. Yeah, and you know, a lot of pros uh or I would say GM director of operations um, you know, they just don't have the well, the staff doesn't have a lot of time to focus on those things, um, nor are very few have been well trained and versed in that because you can post something that you think's fantastic, but your caption is very offending and you don't really realize it, right? So um we help protect clubs in that regard. And um, so we in that case with Todd Hill, uh we will turn stuff over and ask staff to answer certain questions via DM that come in that uh are related more to either course conditions or things that you know we I mean, we're just up the road from there, so it's easy and we're down there a lot, so we kind of know everything that's going on. But sometimes it's best for the staff to jump in and and chime in. Um but what we try to do is get them to have their heads on a swivel looking for content and shooting with phones and sending to us. So they do play a role. Um, but there's a whole strategy behind everything that we post. And uh, you know, we do handle and and work on all of that here in our office, and then we coordinate that with the team there to make sure we're all on the same page. But, you know, like I said before, everything we do here is custom for facilities. I don't go in and try to sell our entire bucket of services to every prospect that comes, you know, to us. Uh the first thing I do is I just listen. Uh the customer will tell you what they need. And what I have found in 30 years is be a good listener, fill the gap where they have the gap or gaps, uh, be a great partner, you know, as my dad always taught me, do what you say you're gonna do, when you say you're gonna do it. And partnerships will flourish from there. And we've been very blessed. We've got we've had clients, I've got one client that's 27 years with us now, um, several that are over 20, a bunch that are over 15. Um, I just believe in great partnerships, not vendor relationships. Vendors get fired, partners work together to solve problems and and to help each other. And so that's been our focus. And so when we go in, um, you know, we'll sit and listen to what their needs are and then try to fill that gap with our services, which could be as small as, hey, we just need to, somebody needs to handle our email marketing. We we don't send out any emails anymore, maybe once every three months and lost connection with our database, to hey, we need a website built, uh, to we need um some strategy, we need some help with social media. We've got somebody on site. If you could develop the social media plan and the assets they need to go shoot, we trust them to go do that. That staff does, um, all the way to a Hilton Head Island or North Carolina Outer Banks Tourism, where they actually hire us to do everything soup to nuts. So we write the grant request to receive the tax dollars for marketing, and we build a marketing plan based on those dollars, and then we execute everything, report back on everything, and then you know, file all the reporting with the government agencies to show the proof and transparency of it all. So we can do very light lifting to super heavy lifting. Um, but uh we we do love the tourism space, the destination experience type facilities. Uh they just they're a lot of fun to to work with. We love all of our clients, obviously. They all have um, you know, they they they get our juices going with their needs. Uh, but there's certainly every business has sweet spots and the uh tourism and destination space is a is a big one for us.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean you're selling a whole lot more besides just the uh the grass and uh and teeing it up, right?

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Adding to the experience, experiencing on and off the golf course. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, how um how do you grow? Like you talked about the rebrand, you talked about like wanting to bring on uh new partners. Uh so how do you do that? What do you uh besides word of mouth and uh the trust that you've built with with certain people, but what's uh what's the game plan?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's um the secret sauce, right? But yeah, you know, we it's funny, uh, for years I used to joke with my staff, we're this, you know, big marketing firm in the in the golf space, not necessarily the size of people, but our reach. But we had no marketing plan for our own because we had so much coming in from word of mouth, or you know, tobacco road was a big account for us. So when people said, who does your work? they would feed them over to us, right? Same with a number of other clients. And so we had more than we could handle. So I'm like, I'm not gonna go out and spend more money and bring more clients in that we can't support. Again, trying to that delicate balance of work-life balance and maintaining that. So for us to grow, um, really what we're trying to accomplish moving forward is uh finding these uh bigger accounts that are interesting, you know, that obviously understand and fully appreciate the need for storytelling, uh, content creation, social media, uh reaching the next generation as I'm telling customers uh there's a great, great opportunity. And I haven't seen this probably since the start of the internet for you to tap into the next generation of millennials that are golf crazed or spending a lot of money. Um, they're your customers for the next 20 to 30 years. Um, so you better start speaking their language. And um, so we're looking, you know, we have a lot of opportunities in that space. We get calls from still from very small clubs that need help. And I have a very kind of soft spot for them because they're longtime great clubs in their communities. And you know, we jump in and we'll help anybody. You know, I just I don't I don't typically turn anybody down, um, you know, unless they just mo, you know, sometimes, well, I need all this stuff, but I don't have a budget. So, you know, yeah, hard to work for free.

SPEAKER_00

Uh I need the cheapest and best.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's the yeah, I don't, you know, when when and again, I don't I don't speak poorly of any competition, but you know, when golf now came around and started giving away everything for free, that kind of shifted some mindsets in our space to thinking that you know all marketing should be very, you know, affordable. But it's good marketing. You know, my talent here is not cheap by the hour. I'm they're very, you know, expensive employees and well worth every penny. Um but you know, that's you know, there's there's a lot of things that, you know, we do, we call invisible hours that these clients don't see us doing to protect them, protect their brand, help them grow, um, help them kind of stay out of their own way. You know, there's a lot of little things that we do that come along with our partnerships with these facilities. So we're looking to grow again in the in the um you know, the the big destination experience space. Um, you know, we want to we want to tell stories in a bigger, more special way. Um golf, as you guys know, there's nothing like it. I mean, the stories alone, like you know, golf trips, we we've we run into these groups with some of our clients that have been coming to these places for 20 years, and they've had one of their you know um the longtime guys on the trip pass away and they do something really neat to honor him. And there's there's so many incredible stories. I'm working on a project now with something similar to that, uh, that we're gonna you know talk to these groups and how did you get started? Why do you keep coming here? And and those are fun, fun things to do. So for us, that's that's step number one. Continue servicing our clients here. And um, you know, obviously we're not looking to shed any of those to make room for new. Um, you know, we we love all of our clients and we want to, you know, continue to service all of them well, and which we continue to do so. But uh to me, that's that's our biggest focus. Uh, we've we've gone through a pretty in-depth program here with a a great friend of mine that is uh a kind of a CEO mentor that can kind of get me out of my bubble here and stretch my limits thinking and and growth and scale. And uh the last nine months I've been spending in that world too. So a lot of exciting things to come, uh certainly over the next, oh gosh, the next 12 months, we've got a lot on the plate and you know, start coming out that's really, really exciting.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. It'll be fun to uh fun to watch. Well, yeah, I mentioned it and we'll talk briefly um because I want to respect your time and uh start to wrap up. But the Carolinas, like I just I I tell people like that the amount of creative talent in the Carolinas is is incredible, right? Like I we've talked to Josh Stevie, Dave Basin, we've talked to so many people, you know, interviewed Billy Richards recently, and um, you know, just it we can go on and on and on. Matt Jr., like so many people that do incredible work from the photography, drone work, and I'm sure a lot of these folks have have partnered and work with you on a lot of those things. What's your take on the, I guess just the creative uh creative space in the Carolinas right now from folks like that?

SPEAKER_02

I'll tell you what, it makes our job easy having access. I think back to those early years, like we mentioned before, um, I would hire a photographer from California and then pray that the weather was good, you know, or else I'm out of a lot of money for them to come over and spend all that money and travel. And, you know, it rained for three days that we had planned for their shoot. Um, so it's great to have a Billy Richards. I've used Billy and I have partnered a lot on uh his work's incredible, and he's so close. You know, we can we can, hey, tomorrow the weather's not looking great. Fine, we'll pick another day. It's so easy. And I've got there's there's a pool of so many incredible people in the Carolinas in Virginia with Cam Curry and doing some cool uh FPV drone things. It's um there's no shortage of it, and it makes our life a whole lot easier knowing that, oh, back then the day there's like four people that you called for golf photography, big names. And now, and you were hamstrung by their busy schedules, and you know, you had one shot to get them, and if you didn't get them, you were out. Uh, I don't run into that problem. So if Billy's ready, Billy's busy, you know. Um, I call, you know, uh Jeff Marsh. If you've run across Jeff, you know, well, he was restoration. Yep, you know Jeff. Uh, when he's available, he's he's done some great things at Todd Hill as an example. Um, Matt Gibson has done some things for us. He also does a lot of Pioneer's Resort. Uh Ryan Burnett. I mean, there's no shortage. Dave Basin's actually a neighbor and a great friend of mine. Um saw just past him driving in the office. This morning, he and his wife walking in the neighborhood. So uh man, you can call them up for especially based in such a great guy. He he's done some, he res he resurrected the Todd Hill Farm logo, you know, that Strantz had pencil drawn, that we had the original sketch, and he uh digitized that and along with some other things that have helped our branding there. And so, man, I I mean, I'm spoiled here in the Carolinas, um, as are many clubs that have used these incredibly talented people. I don't think they realize how good we have it here sometimes. But if you go back to 20, even 20 years ago, like I said, there was a pot of maybe four to six people that you really could trust that was going to, you know, come in and shoot your golf course very, very well. Um and now it's it's a plentiful, you know, it it's really, really fun. And and what's you know what I really like, Robbie, is the fact that most all of them have their own unique style and approach. Um build and they all stand out, right? I know Maddie Jean's work when I see it. I know Billy Richards' work when I see it, Jeff Marsh's. Uh, you know, you just as soon as I see it, I know who shot it because they all they all are so creatively minded, they they want to be different. So one guy's visuals might be a little more warmer in tone, you know, others may be more historic, vintage looking, you know. Uh some are like Billy just super popping and vibrant. And so yeah, gosh, I'm you know, that's that's part of the reason we built this network up that you know, people call us all the time. Do you have a good photographer? Do you have a great drone? Yes, we do. We have plenty. Tell us your style. And you know, we're down now. What's your style? What are you looking for? And we know how to handpick them. So yeah, they're the best. And they're great people too, which makes work.

SPEAKER_00

They are, they are, and that's that's the best part. They do incredible work. But um, yeah, they're just it's great people, fun to hang out with and just show kind. That's one thing that you know, we've we've been doing best ball for you know three and a half years and on our fourth season of this podcast. But the the amount of kindness that we've found in the golf community from everybody we've met is is just it that's the best part for us, like getting to meet uh and develop friendships and relationships with uh with so many new people.

SPEAKER_02

So it's a lot of fun. Yeah, that's I mean, you know, like you and so many others, just to sit down and have these conversations about the game that we all are very passionate about um and the and the relationships that we have formed from this game are are like I said, the game's second to none. And I love some other sports, but there's nothing like the game of golf and bringing people together. And yeah, when you you when you leave like some of these names we mentioned today after a conversation, you're like, my life's better because I know that person. Um and I can say that about hundreds of these people. And and that makes that makes, you know, doing 30, you know, when you're in a business 30 years, sometimes you get a little jaded and you can get a little, you know, like you know, grumpy. Uh when you're around great people like you all and the names we just discussed, it it just fires you up because um there's other creative people that want to help you tell your story, and you just it always keeps the juices flowing and it's fun. Man, it's just so much fun. So yeah. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00

It's a lot of fun. Well, we can we could continue talking uh for hours. I know we just need to find time to do it in person, but uh as we start to as we start to wrap up, uh, we ask everybody kind of a series of questions. The first one, and this is really how we started everything, we want to know the story of your most memorable golf shot. Most memorable golf shot.

SPEAKER_01

Man.

SPEAKER_02

I might have two real quick, but the first one was um I made a hole in one in a driving rainstorm uh one day from 204, and it started raining so hard, I just dropped the ball on the tee. I didn't even tee it up, and I said, This is it, boys, we're out of here. And I just walked up and just hit it, you know, two, I think it was 205 or 4. One hopped in the hole. Couldn't see it was raining so hard, I couldn't even see it going the hole, and got up there and saw the ball mark up two feet in front of it. And so we had to keep playing. And the same golf course later that summer, the very first hole, I um I made a double eagle second shot. I was three under after one hole. So that was Wow. That was a what course? That was uh Remlands Park golf course in Winston-Salem, a Muni over there, and I hit a five iron and and one hopped it in the hole. Um, and I got on the second T and it realized I was three under after one, and I started shaking. I'm like, what is going on? I don't you know, I couldn't understand what it was like to to be three under after the very first hole. So that was that was pretty memorable. Wow, very nice.

SPEAKER_00

Uh another thing we do is a quick nine. So it's kind of nine rapid fire questions. You can expound on them as much as you want. Okay. Uh first one, what's the favorite course that you've ever played?

SPEAKER_01

Favorite. Well, I would say um, there's so many.

SPEAKER_02

I love the ocean course at Kiowa. It destroys it, I mean it's so hard. Um and Harbortown golf links, it goes back and forth between those two. The challenge and just keeping your brain engaged for 18 holes. I can't just play something where I can just bomb and gouge. My I have to I have to try to think, and that's uh those two do it for me.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Uh I've played Ocean, I've not played Harbortown. Uh so that one's on the bucket list. So I gotta ask then what course is at the top of your bucket list?

SPEAKER_02

Let's go U.S. I I would say, you know, I've never played Pebble, but I want to get out to Bandon, you know, and take my son out to Bandon. Um and I know that's multiple courses, so I'm breaking the rules. But that's all right. Those are the two places I'd like to get to.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. You said US, or outside of the US, what's on the bucket list?

SPEAKER_02

Um I would love to play county down over in Ireland. I played golf over there, didn't get to play that one, but uh played some really, really good ones. But county down would be that one in St. Andrews um over in Scotland.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Uh what is your favorite course that no one knows about? Wow. And and I that's maybe that's dangerous asking a marketing guy because not that you haven't done a good job, but maybe like a hidden gem that hasn't used your services yet.

SPEAKER_02

Um, you know, yeah, I used to tell people all the time when they had the tagline and we'd come in the door, and their tagline was best kept secret, you know, in North Carolina. I'm like, well, if you're secret, that means nobody knows about you, right? So take that, get rid of it. Um man. I tell you, from a sheer number standpoint, um I love playing uh going out in the outer banks, and um I like Nag's head golf links out there. I mean, you know, it's um and I say that Nag's head, I mean, Outer Banks is just so far out, you know, like in our state, it takes me five and a half hours to get there. And most people that go there are only in you know from Virginia and and up that eastern coastline. Uh it is so much fun, and the wind just rips every day, and you have to hit golf shots. And I love trying to hit shots, and it's never boring out there. Um and also like Lexington Golf Club, which is a Muni here in town, um down in Lexington, North Carolina. Uh, I'm a little partial. I grew up playing a lot of golf there, but it's small town muni, uh, just a fun experience. I love it.

SPEAKER_00

All right, who's in your dream forcing?

SPEAKER_02

My dad, having him back. Um, Jack Nicholas, who, as we're celebrating the Masters here, and that I can't wait to see this new video they have come out with about him in '86 because that was the light bulb moment for me. And I was playing golf at a club which is no longer here, as a condo community now, and came in to watch the last four or five holes, and I went out and played till dark, and I was eat up with golf after that '86 win. So Jack, my dad, um tiger, sober tiger, um, you know, in his prime would be great.

SPEAKER_00

Very nice. Uh, all right. What is your favorite snack at the turn?

SPEAKER_02

I'm not a real heavy, you know, hot dog, you know, heavy thing during play. It's, you know, college it used to be a coke and a snicker bar, you know, pretty simple, but a lot of sugar and I'd crash out after about 13 and never understood why back then. Uh, so I would I would go probably, it's boring. I'm I'm more of a uh power bar or a pack of peanuts and some water. So I'm pretty low-key these days on that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. You haven't talked your uh all your clients into like up in their like signature food items? Drinks we have, right?

SPEAKER_02

Everybody's trying to have a signature drink. Uh we haven't, I mean, I think you're starting to see some of that now with clubs making, you know, like it was down at the Harbortown Grand Opening back in November with our work down there in Hilton Head, and they've got a, you know, obviously they'd create a craft burger for the winner every year that's that's there on their menu for a year, and they created one for Davis Love III since he just restored uh Harbortown. So you're seeing higher-end clubs doing these unique sandwiches named. I we we haven't really gotten into that, but you know, we have certainly, you know, we we partnered uh with Todd or talked with Todd Hill about a craft beer at their place called Little Man. They they had a local brewery uh brewery.

SPEAKER_00

Had one of those.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Did you enjoy it? It was great. Yeah, Four Saints has has done a great job for us there with that. So you're seeing a lot of those, a lot of unique names for transfusions and having fun with the drink menu, but uh, we haven't done a lot on the food space yet.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. All right, next question. And uh and I I'll give you the out of you don't have to name any of your courses that you work with, but favorite golf course logo.

SPEAKER_01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02

I'm partial to my man Strantz, having worked with him um as well. And you know, Todd Hill and Tobacco Road, the the skull open bulls bay, uh, you know, all three of those are just very unique. Um I love them all. I would say Todd Hill's the newest one that we've we resurrected from the pencil sketch drawing, is probably my favorite. Um but I love the Harbortown Lighthouse too. Simple.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. It is simple. I I love the the basic, simple logos. Uh yeah, so good. Uh all right, favorite pro shop purchase.

SPEAKER_02

Well, my kids joke with me all the time that um you know, the uh trying to remember what was his name, the the Peter Merlar tour player said nothing touches this body but Peter Merlar. And so anything Peter Merlar, I'll just go with that. Nice. Probably the hoodie.

SPEAKER_00

This is like the hoodie. Oh yeah. Open-ended question here. What is one thing golfers should do?

SPEAKER_01

I would say have fun.

SPEAKER_02

I mean I know golf brings a lot of joy to people, but there's still a lot of us that are so competitive that we get lost in trying to shoot our best score and and just forget to take a look around at what we're getting to enjoy and the people that we're there with, you know, now with my dad, you know, gone a couple years, and I'd give anything to play golf with him one more time, right? Um, and I think back to all the times we played, and I was just in such a competitive mindset trying to not necessarily beat him. Maybe when I was 12, 13, yeah, you're trying to beat your dad, right? But as an adult, um I was still trying to grind for a great score instead of just taking in those special moments. So just just slow down, take time and enjoy it. Every every round has an opportunity to give you something to to last a lifetime and and the people that you're with, and even maybe you get paired up with somebody you've never met before. Uh if you're you're lost in your own little world, uh man, you can miss out on so much.

SPEAKER_00

Great answer. All right, last one. You gotta finish the sentence.

SPEAKER_01

The best part of golf is people like you.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, that's when I say that, I mean it's it's people that love the game but love the relationship building. And this is our first time we've met. I feel like I've known you forever. I don't know. Like we could pick it up tomorrow and go play golf and have the best. It's a Robbie thing.

SPEAKER_00

I think maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's a Robbie thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But I'm serious. It it's the that's to me is the relationships that I have made in 30 years in this game, I would not have gotten in corporate America. No way, no how. And uh the people that have been put in my path along this journey, I've got so many friends. Our clients become friends. I know, you know, we know each other's kids. We, you know, that's I'm a people person. That's what has kept me involved. You know, while this has been a great business, you know, I'm not, you know, you're not retiring Warren Buffett Rich in the golf business. Um, and there have been many times, you know, in the peaks and the valleys of 30 years of business and you know the 08 recession and COVID and on the front end, and you you have these doubts, but it was always the people like I've got to continue, you know, pressing forward because this club depends on me. This small Zim Zimmerman, longtime pro at Cedar Rook Country Club up in Elkin has depended on us for so long. And it's like you just you just keep plowing through because the people are so good. And uh that that to me is the best part about the game.

SPEAKER_00

Amen to that. Uh, Robbie, this has been uh a ton of fun, and I can't wait until we get to hang out uh some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. But tell everybody uh where they can find out more about golf creative.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Yeah, golfcreativeco.com. Um, or we launched a brand new website back in February at the start of the CPGA super show in Greensboro. Relaunched the brand. Everything that we do is in there, case studies and all the fun stuff we can do. Um, all right there. And obviously, you know, you can reach me through the website. Um, you know, we also have social media, golf creative co. and my personal at Dimplehead Golf, uh, where I share some of my golf stories. Not enough because I'm too busy doing all my clients' work, but we're gonna work on that in 2026. That's my goal. Yeah. Uh real quick, the the name Dimplehead, what what's that? Um, years ago, it was golf on the brain 24-7. You know, just it's just this overly creative thing that I I thought of one night, probably laying awake wide asleep, you know, wide as wide awake at three in the morning, and you know, some of these crazy hare brain things come to mind. Best ideas, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so, yeah, just I thought about you know, golf on the brain. So Dimple Dimplehead. Hello. And so that's what that is. There's no brand around it other than just the name of, you know, I haven't done anything with that, but that's my Instagram handle.

SPEAKER_00

So nice. Uh Robbie, this has been a lot of fun. We'll put links in the show notes for uh for all those things and highly encourage everybody to check out what you're doing. And especially if you're looking to grow your golf business to uh to give Robbie and the team a call. So uh sorry, Jonathan had some uh some connectivity trouble. He would have had a a lot of fun with this chat as well. But for Robbie, this is Robbie, and this has been another episode of the Whole Story Podcast.

Head Shot

Jonathan Hill

Co-host
Head Shot

Robby Woodard

Co-host