My Golf Source
Attention Golf Enthusiasts! Level up your golf game with hosts Darren Penquite and Noah Horstman, PGA as they keep you up to date on the latest trends, equipment, training aids and more. Learn tips and tricks from PGA Professionals to lower your score and grow your love for the game of golf.
My Golf Source
Golf, Business, and Building Community
The MyGolfSource podcast hosts Andy Baker, owner of Pacific Franchise Advisors, to discuss the franchise potential of Golf Garage and what makes a business franchise-worthy.
• Golf Garage builds community by creating a family-like atmosphere where people form genuine connections
• Indoor golf facilities offer unique advantages with year-round accessibility and multi-purpose use
• Successful franchises require low barriers to entry, clear differentiation, and solid ROI
• Golf creates natural relationship-building opportunities without awkward beginnings
• Golf Garage complements traditional courses rather than competing with them
• Multiple revenue streams through events, food/beverage, and additional services strengthen the business model
• Franchise opportunities must appeal to potential owners on both passion and business levels
• Golf training aids work best when recommended by professionals for specific swing issues
• Tempo and balance are more important than technical grip for most golfers
• Having a winning mindset is crucial in both golf and business
If you're interested in learning more about franchising opportunities, visit pacificfranchiseadvisors.com or contact Andy at abaker@pacfranchise.com.
Welcome to the MyGolfSource podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome to MyGolfSource. I'm Darren Noah man. Have you seen those girls at Augusta play yet?
Speaker 1:No, not yet. I know I was going to watch the drive chip and putt this weekend.
Speaker 2:It's so awesome right now. I mean, they've added so much to the masters. They have the women's amateur there. They have the drive chip and putt there. They have the par three contest there Uh, we're actually copying it. We're going to have the par three contest at golf garage on Wednesday uh, all day long, and we're gonna have prizes for low score. Well, you're watching the official par three contest. That is so cool. And then we're going to have a four person scramble on Friday, so you can watch the masters on the big screen and you can still play Augusta, and then you're going to pick your player and you're going to add that to your four-man team score. So we're limiting it. There's only going to be 10 teams. We're going to start opening that up here in the next day. It's going to fill up fast.
Speaker 1:It's going to be an awesome time. It's going to be so much fun, yeah.
Speaker 2:So looking forward to Augusta week. It's always special. There's the Rogue Pro-Am in town as well, so it's four days of golf to at grants past golf club to at rogue Valley country club. It's one of the bigger local events here. Um, I know when Ryan was on a couple of weeks ago we kind of talked about that as well and how there's some really good ones.
Speaker 1:Where else can you do something like that, where you have TVs, you have audio, you have 10 SIM bays to play golf and watch golf and kind of have your own little party?
Speaker 2:Uh, not many. Uh, golf garage probably and kind of have your own little party Not many. Golf Garage probably is one of the only in the world that allows you to do it in the open space that we have.
Speaker 1:It's pretty special, one of the only in the world, for now.
Speaker 2:That's right and kind of leads us into our guest, and a really good friend of mine taught his kids and we actually met through our PGA Junior League. Andy Baker is our guest today. Hey, andy.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I just actually came from the golf garage.
Speaker 2:Nice. Did you play golf or what were you doing?
Speaker 3:No, it was perfect. It was a business meeting. We just went down there, grabbed some lunch and then swung the clubs a little bit in the bay, did a par three course, about three times which nine, you know nine, nine holes at the end of the day. But you know, it was perfect because we, you know we had to call it good and head home, but it was great.
Speaker 2:Nice. So you're taking care of some business with the golf garage. That's kind of the goal of mine is for people to do that here locally and regionally and use it as that as a source. You know, one of starting the show was we were talking about what Golf Garage could be and Darren kind of alluded to you know, maybe not the only one, and you know you're the owner of Pacific Franchise Advisors as one of your many businesses and you know I'm just kind of curious, like we're working together a little bit on what it could look like to copy and paste this. And you know why do you think Golf Garage is a good fit for that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, when you look at it from a real simple standpoint, when you want to franchise a business, it's got to be appealing, right. I mean it's something that people want to run, want to be part of, and I think that's the biggest thing that you have at the Golf Garage, especially as I walk in there with a buddy of mine who doesn't, who's not a member there, who hasn't been there as much as me, and he's already at the bay five, 10 minutes before me, because I'm hanging out and talking to all the people that I know there walking in like it's a home, like it's like it's family, right. So you're there, it's this community that you've built and that's part of the experience. And so I think that when you really think about it, when we're in the world of social media and all the other things that distract us and pull us away from people, I think this is just the greatest business from that standpoint of building that community.
Speaker 3:It's around golf, it's around family too. I mean you can take your family to go swing golf club and observe people hanging out outside the bay and having some lunch or having a drink or whatever it is. You can't really do that with, say, basketball, right, or any other kind of sport. I mean, this is really the sport that brings people together, and I think you really hit the nail on the head when it comes to building community around golf, and so, uh, that's where I really feel like there's a lot of benefit, a lot of value to franchising this, this business potentially.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that and it's funny. So the last two days, um, and again we talk a little bit outside of here you know pretty good friends and we, we bounce ideas off each other and it's awesome. But, like um, we just had staff training the last two days because all the coaches are now becoming employees of the golf garage and it's a totally different shift in the model, um and the makeup of what golf garage is, which you hit the nail on the head. We're, we're creating a culture, but I, we talk about family and, like SOU, golf is family first and that's our model.
Speaker 2:But it's a community, right? So golf garage is a community and it's that feel that you get, in that sense that you get of being at home. And that's my ultimate goal with this golf garage is how do we keep that forever in that feeling? And again, a feeling isn't necessarily I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, you know why you would franchise it, but if it's going to bring people back and it can be a successful business model, um, I, I am excited about it because you definitely have changed my mind to um, the potential of what it could be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's where that potential is right. I mean, a lot of people come to me like I want to start a franchise. It's like, oh great, where do you want to start? Like what do you want? You know, and so many people talk about I want to do something good in my community, I want to help my community. It's like, okay, well, I don't know what that looks like to you, but to me it looks like bringing people together and building relationships and building that community, and I think that's something where I think it appeals to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things too. If you really look at Southern Oregon, there's not a lot of places you can go after hours, either, you know, on a date night, or bring your family to. I mean, there's the traditional bowling alleys and the movie theaters and all that stuff, and that gets old after a while and like, where can you actually have a conversation? Right, and I would just say some of the best conversations I've ever had are on the golf course, but that is eliminated by daylight. And so now you know you go have dinner and you're like, where do we want to go? I would love to hit my driver. You know, let's go to the golf garage. So I think there was just so much different thought to it. Um, and again they are starting to pop up.
Speaker 2:But you know, I like to think that there's nothing like the golf garage anywhere in the world and I haven't seen anything quite like it yet. So you know, it's one of those things that you know I I'm really excited to work with you. Um, you're, you're a true professional in what you do. Um, you know, I've heard stories about, you know, other franchises that you've brought to fruition, and I know it's a process. So what do you like for someone going into that franchise and you just kind of brought it up what? Because, again, southern Oregon needs to continue to grow. So, for the Southern Oregon folks, what do you look at with them? What's like a step-by-step, just in a nutshell, of creating a franchise with you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually building a franchise, saying I want to replicate my business and make it a franchise, is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:We have a lot of small business owners right, so maybe they don't even know they should be doing this, yet how do we educate them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the first thing is if you have a replicatable business right and it's something you want to scale and in some cases scaling a business isn't necessarily I, you're limited to your audience and so if you're looking to grow your business and you have something that's doing well and you can replicate that, then let's go put it into another market. But that doesn't mean you necessarily have to do that yourself. You know, for example, a friend of mine outside the state wanted to replicate his business and we went through the process of franchising. Because why not? Why put your money out there to grow your business if you don't have to? And so that's really one way to do it.
Speaker 3:And actually one of the ways that how I've heard it said to me was it's like going public, but not, it's one of the fastest ways to grow your business without taking in outside investment. So you don't give up more of your business, but you do have people saying, yes, I want to be part of this, I'm going to give you money to be part of this, and then you support me in my growth, and so as you look at it and you think about, hey, this is a business that I'm passionate about, but I want to grow it and I want to share it with others and I can help other people realize the dream that they've always wanted, which is to own their own business. And if that resonates with you, then that's where I think you need to think about franchise.
Speaker 1:Andy, can you give us a good example of a franchise model that maybe you've worked with or just seen or heard about? That is a perfect example of something that you know just explodes once it franchises, and maybe an example of a business that somebody wanted to franchise that you knew from the get-go would be a failure because it just wasn't the right model to franchise.
Speaker 3:That's a failure opportunity. So, yeah, I mean, there's a franchise I work very closely with it's in the youth sports franchise, because I, you know, youth sports is something that you know I'm passionate about. I run a local AAU program around here and you know so many programs out there focus on one time, one sport all the time, and I think that's not particularly healthy. And so this one actually does season by season. So there's a very distinct difference between this one and many others out there in the franchise world. And it's low cost as well, and so you can get into this business and you can actually. The ROI is solid as well, because you can actually ramp it up fairly quickly. Expenses are low, and so that one to me and that's kind of almost the boilerplate of a successful franchise right, low barrier to entry, good differentiation strategy, and then you can just kind of go with it and run with it.
Speaker 3:The ones that I think are a little tougher to be successful in, the ones that don't have that differentiation strategy figured out yet, you can be a higher expense franchise. There's no problem with that. We all see them all over the place, typically fast food. You got a lot of real estate, you got a lot of equipment, you got a lot of staff, and those ones can be fairly expensive. But what everybody wants right now is hey, give me a Chick-fil-A franchise. I have to have that because it's busy. So there's certain things that can be successful even at that higher rate. But what you do have to think about is how much money am I putting out for it? And is that ROI completely there? And so I have seen some that have gone out there and said, yeah, we're going to build, you know, let's say, a restaurant, a small restaurant. That's going to be a million dollars, but our average ticket price is maybe 15, 20 dollars per customer. That's that the economics doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it totally makes sense as well and it kind of gets people thinking so, Andy, where are some places that people can find you if they want to get in touch with you, if they have this interest in franchising, whether it's local or global?
Speaker 3:Yeah, just real simple. Abaker at pacfranchisecom, we're going to look up pacificfranchiseadvisorscom as the website. I also have another brand that we launched and we continue to innovate, called Franflix, and that's just. You know. I know it's kind of cheesy play off of franchising and Netflix, but easy to remember for those of you that do things easy to remember, like me. But you know, what I'm doing is I'm interviewing a lot of franchises out there. So right now, if you go out and you research franchises, you're going to come across a lot of information out there. That's really surface level stuff, and what we're going to do, what we do, is I interview these guys. I interview a lot of the presidents of the franchise, the franchise development vice presidents, folks like that, and we just talk about the franchise and ask the same questions. You guys are just asking what are your differentiation strategies, what are your plans? How do you separate yourself, what's the cost, what's the territory look like? All these different things, and so that's a good place to get some information.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, andy, and I mean just another shout out to you and what you're doing with business in general in this area, and I know that you're doing it more. You know on a national and larger scale, but you know, for our listeners out there, I think it's really important to you. Know you don't want to find a used car salesman. Andy is not that. He will direct you and he's. He's amazing. I'm super excited to continue that relationship with you. Um, on a side note, golf wise um, you know I met you through PGA junior league, um, when I moved back in 2019 and, uh, you know your kiddos were just really getting into golf and ramping up. And you know your family's awesome. You know, one of the funny things that comes to mind recently is is you know your wife was never going to be a golfer and what happened a week ago? Where did she come into?
Speaker 3:She was there at the golf garage with her friends man, that was like a ladies night out.
Speaker 2:Dude, I'm telling you what I was. I literally like second guess that I'm like, oh, andy probably wants to start, and I called you. I'm like, hey, is Tara coming in with her friends? Like what, or are you coming in? And so hopefully she had a great time. I haven't chatted with her yet, but uh, you know, love love to see that.
Speaker 3:It was good. I think you might see them back here real soon. Man, that was. They had a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean every time we had a junior league match, Tara was out running the golf course or looking for golf balls.
Speaker 1:I think she probably had like a world record at one point between her and Gracie it was like 40 golf balls or something in like two holes. It's probably not far off, hey Andy. So as a businessman and a member at the golf garage, what? What do you see in the value and the experience here?
Speaker 3:at the golf garage. Man, I just think, like I said earlier, it's a community you walk in and it's it's people you know and you know the staff is awesome because you know we've built so many cool relationships there. And I don't remember the statistic. I remember doing, actually, a presentation in college, but we don't need to talk about how long ago that was, but it was about the value of actually. It was a persuasive speech on the value of golf when it comes to business and how many deals were done on the golf course and it's just golf in general is just such a good relationship building opportunity.
Speaker 3:You know you talk about. You know breaking bread with people is one way that's the most popular, right? I mean go out there and have dinner or go have a meal, and that's a great way to do it. Golf is just that, without that weird awkward start, right, I mean it's a great way to do it. Golf is just that, without that weird awkward start, right, I mean it's a little bit off that first tee, but at the end of the day you're out there golfing. You guys all acknowledge that. Hey, I'm not great at this. You know, none of us are as great as Noah Horseman, right, I mean, he's the one that's you know he's hitting the ball.
Speaker 2:Get out of here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, but that's what it is right. We all kind of go out there, we accept that, hey, we're all a little vulnerable here. None of us are perfect. Let's just talk, let's have fun, let's be friends, let's build that relationship, and I think there's some real value in that. And I think that's where the golf grudge really hits it, because it's a typical cloudy day out in southern Oregon and I'm probably not known to be anything other than a fair weather golfer. But I had a blast, Went out there and hung out with a good friend of mine. We caught up on life and it wasn't just sitting down at a restaurant, it was grabbing a bento box, having a little food while we played three holes at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, Andy, and I mean again, I think from your standpoint as well. You're a very busy entrepreneur and the fact that you can come in for an hour at a time and feel like you got your golf fix is kind of a special thing. So that's helpful, yeah, and I mean that's right on a on a side note.
Speaker 2:You know what you do is invaluable and I think my goal is that I'm seeing you in here in the conference room. You know, working from here every day, that's like my ultimate dream, with golf garages, seeing all the business professionals saying, hey, I'm going to work on here, I'm, you know whatever. And they're in here at the golf garage at a bay, two hours, take a break, play nine holes right, get back on your computer for another two hours, take a break, play another nine holes Right, and then they're networking, and then maybe there's a happy hour at two and then it's like, you know, bring the family down after school. You know, super fun for sure. And then, obviously, I want to get you on the course.
Speaker 3:Yeah, gone are the days of that standing desk. You just go out there and swing the club and have some fun.
Speaker 1:Andy, has the golf garage improved your game on the course?
Speaker 3:Oh, I would say so for sure. I mean, what I didn't know is what spin meant, what all the carry distance was that I had on each club, and I actually know stuff now about my game.
Speaker 2:Your driver spins a lot. Let's get you another 30 yards with that Sasquatch driver.
Speaker 3:I think he's got the Nike square head. Sasquatch is gone, man, oh that Sasquatch driver. I think he's got the Nike square head.
Speaker 2:Sasquatch is gone, man. Oh okay, that's been gone for a while, oh okay. Well, that was the original driver he had when we played in the Pro-Am down in California together.
Speaker 1:Andy, what's the best course you've ever played? What's your favorite course?
Speaker 3:Man, it's going to be right on point there. Noah just said we went down to the Fairmont Del Mar and played down there, and what was the place? We played the day before we played the Grand Del Mar. The Grand. Yeah, that's it, and the other one that we had, I think it's Phil. Oh, we played the farms, I believe, was it, the farms over there.
Speaker 2:In Carlsbad.
Speaker 3:I mean, both of those courses were just beautiful, and you know, and the Grand was, I think, probably one of my favorites, and the Grand was, I think, probably one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:It was like the most expensive hotel in California. Per room it was over a million dollars per room to build the Grand yeah, I think we had like the different mosaic tiles and the detail that was ingrained was pretty immaculate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we would hang out. I was like, yeah, you know what, it's early night, I got a million dollar room to hang outulate. Yeah, yeah, we would hang out. I was like, yeah, you know what Early night, I got a million dollar room to hang out and see you later.
Speaker 2:And you know it was a great thing sitting out there. There was like the outdoor, like bar area and the service was perfect. I love that.
Speaker 3:It was awesome.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I think the only other thing that we forgot to ask him is we're going to ask the what is your?
Speaker 1:Well, we ask people what their favorite food is, but I'm going to ask you, as a franchise professional, what is your?
Speaker 3:favorite franchise food. Ooh, ooh, my favorite franchise food.
Speaker 2:So now, I got to sort through all the what did you invest in last week, all the ones that he doesn't want to say, because it'll tick off some other clients. Dutch Bros stock is doing really good, if you can consider that a food.
Speaker 3:I mean, technically, coffee could be considered that. I mean, there's food served there. Gosh, that's a good question, guys. You put me on the spot with that one. I tend to probably on a busy work day, I just hop on the hop on the computer and order myself some a sandwich for for lunch. So that's going to go to Jimmy John's most likely Jersey Mike's, something like that Freaky fast.
Speaker 1:Jersey. Mike's is awesome. That's right, yes, that new sourdough and co is really good as well. Have you had that?
Speaker 2:I haven't had it. It sounds like I need to go down there.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, it's over by Trader Joe's.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Really good, well, awesome.
Speaker 2:I'll give it a shot, andy, thanks for being on the show with us today, excited for you to be back at the garage and excited to continue to work with you, buddy.
Speaker 3:Likewise Thanks guys for having me Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Andy Take care.
Speaker 3:All right, take care.
Speaker 2:Any predictions for the masters? Oh man, I mean, bryson DeChambeau just got hit in the chest with a football yesterday. Uh, it was the quarterback, it was a spoof, it was an April fool's joke on Instagram and um, oh Matt, uh, going blank now, anyway, they're like, hey, bryson DeChambeau is going to go out for football. And he's like, is he, he any good? And he just rifles one right at him and he goes out, turns for it right off the chest. He's like, yeah, we'll see what happens in the masters. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um, you know it's it's a long golf course and so you have to never rule out anybody that hits it. You know, 310 carry or more yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're always going to see those guys like a dustin johnson, bryson dechambeau you know baba won it that year. You know, rory mcaroy it would be fun to see rory do good. I mean, it's hard not to like him, regardless of how outspoken he is, because he's my height he just won the players.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2:I'd like to see Rory get a green jacket for sure man outside of that I haven't seen. If he is or he isn't. It's always a surprise, though.
Speaker 1:It's always a surprise when he shows up.
Speaker 2:I mean it would be great. I thought he had hurt himself again recently and had a surgery after TGL, so I don't know what's actually happening with him. News is hard to actually figure out if it's real or not, which is why part of the reason we had this podcast, you know, and we go to some of our sources um, you know it was. It's interesting, it was really great to have Andy on the podcast and, you know, I think some of our guests in the future are going to get a little bit more into that golf industry where they're working, working with some of the tour players. So I was just talking to my friend earlier today who's, um, you know, titleist rep and does a lot of the tour fittings down at TPI area. So down in Carlsbad at Titleist not TPI, sorry, it's just attached and you know there's other fitters that are out there as well, like with TaylorMade, and I just think, hearing from them, you're getting the inside scoop of what's really happening. Um, you know, and and again, I think getting out there and getting some of that tour life is going to be pretty exciting for sure, um, along with some of the caddies and whatnot. So we'll definitely, uh, encourage some of that as we move forward with this podcast.
Speaker 2:But I would just say that you know, when you get out there at that level, augusta is insane. It's all about your placement around the greens, right. So, even if you can hit it far, yes, that's a benefit, but I would say the end game is the person that's going to put it on the correct spots. On Sunday there's always that chase around a man corner and you know, you see a couple pars and all of a sudden you just see guys trying to rattle off birdies. Um, as they get into that, 13, 14, 15, right, um, 17.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you get lucky, you know, and you come into 18 and you're just like, hopefully I have a one-shot lead and I can pipe it because 18 standing on that tee. Um, when I was at drive chip and putt and I was caddying for one of my students and she was in it and we're standing on the 18th green and then we walked around. That is so much narrower than you would ever imagine. I mean, the TV makes it look narrow, but that is just I can't imagine.
Speaker 2:You know, tied for the lead or one down or one, you're just right in that contention and you have to execute and you know I do feel like more times than not, it's not a perfect execution on that hole. So it's pretty amazing to me how good these guys are at imagining how to carve one under a tree or around a bush in order to play it up, to get up and down for par right. We always see that sunday pin and they're playing it off of banks left and right. They hit it in a bunker and then they're playing it 20 feet away from the pin to get it down there by the pin.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's so fun I got a training, a question. Yeah, my um social media feed has been blowing up with this thing. Here it's. It's a hinged shaft that will break if your backswing yeah isn't good.
Speaker 2:Do these things work I have one of those, um, I think the one I have is a five iron and I haven't used it since I don't know the first year I ever taught. You know, I think the idea of those is good, you know. So if, like you, haven't played a lot of golf but, let's face it, every golfer is different Right? So if you're going to the first position, or P1, essentially is what they call it, and there's not a lot of definition but essentially, where the shaft is parallel to the ground on the initial takeaway and you take it away slowly, right, that shaft's not going to break, even if I go inside or outside. So if you take it away quickly, there's a potential for it to break. So there's a way to fool the training aid too, depending on how slowly you take it back. So, again, I think, if you know what the tool is used for, if a professional recommends the tool and they can explain why you need it and it makes sense to you, that's half the battle, right, when we look at a golfer and they have an issue, we're trying to find out, first and foremost, what is your goal, like, why did you come to me for a lesson? I can't tell you what you're going to need. You know it's so funny. It's like how much are lessons? Well, I've never even seen you, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I do an assessment, so let's start with an assessment. It's $99 for an hour, right. And then they come in. I find the root cause of their problem. In about five minutes. We have a long discussion about that. I get to know them. We continue some sort of a screening body screening and then we really discuss what the goals are, how much time they have to practice. The interview is really in-depth and really important and in that hour it's pretty easy to find out what type of personality trait they have, what type of learner they have, which coach may make sense for them to work with, if it's not me and I think that's also really important that you have to understand that you have to mesh well with the coach that you're with, build the relationship so you can trust that person, because all too often you're going to get questions nonstop about you know something that maybe they saw and they learned and they're not sticking to their process.
Speaker 2:So what I would say is this is if there's a training aid out there, it's not the worst thing in the world to get it and play with it, right. But you need to know why you're getting it. Don't just get it because the infomercial says fix your slice, right. How many of those do you see? Get it, yeah. Or ask a professional and say, hey, why would this be good for me? Or is it even good for me? And if the pro doesn't know and say, hey, get it, let's test it. You know, maybe they want to know too.
Speaker 2:And then, in a second or two, if it's a good teaching pro and that's a training aid, that pro is going to feel that training aid, see that training aid, use it and say, oh man, I can think of five things. This is good for you for, oh, that actually fixes the root cause of your problem. Don't stop using that Right. So again, training aids are designed to create a feel, as we know as instructors and as we know as a player you're a player. Feel isn't real right. We talked about that when I gave you that lesson in front of all the pros and you're like it just felt like I was moving so much further, like into the screen or whatever you said. And I said great, that's your secret. Don't tell anybody Like that's yours, that's not Toby's, that's not your playing partners. It probably won't work for them, because every player is different.
Speaker 1:Generally speaking, what's more important, like the technical aspects of takeaway and how you're holding the club or tempo?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I would just say, more than anything, tempo, tempo is balance, balance is power. Right? How many guys hold it differently? Oh, so many guys. So how do you say that there's one grip? There's not. That's why we say that there's one grip. There's not. That's why we say there's a strong grip, there's a weak grip, there's a left-hand low, there's a cross-handed, there's all these things. I actually played with a guy named Gene Damani. He was a member at Centennial Golf Club. He was like 76 years old. He played cross-handed, he did about and he would shoot his Ager better almost every time at Centennial, but he played cross-handed. So his club, I mean, it looked like he was only swinging halfway and he would crush it. So again, why would you ever tell that guy he's playing wrong?
Speaker 1:And we all know a guy who on the top of his backswing he pulls a Darryl Strawberry and he does a little loop-de-loop with his club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it works for. Jim Furyk right it doesn't work for Charles Barkley, it works for Jim Furyk.
Speaker 1:I have. The one of the training aids I have is that the blue lag shot and that helped me with tempo dramatically. Oh yeah, it had nothing that didn't help me with contact on the ball or shot shape, but it did help me. It did help me with contact on the ball or shot shape, but it did help me with tempo. It stopped me being too quick on the takeaway.
Speaker 2:The best tempo training aid in the world is the Orange Whip Similar concept. Right, yeah, it is. It actually was out first. Everyone's copying the Orange Whip, essentially, and my good friend is the creator of Orange Whip. He actually graduated from Oregon State University. His name's jim hackenberg and that's why it's orange and black, because he played golf for the beavers arizona state. I think mickelson was there and he realized how good mickelson was and said okay, I'm going to move to oregon state.
Speaker 1:It was like some joker of a story that he'll tell and we've all seen the orange whip in every pro shop we've ever walked into.
Speaker 2:It is, I think, the number one training aid sold. It's. You know, his tagline is you got to feel it. And I've actually taught at section event where Jim was opener, I was middle and then there was a keynote and we've spent a lot of time together and he just keeps coming out with better and better inventions. But the orange whip is just one of those things that everyone can use it. They have junior ones, they have older ones. They've come up with a speed whip now and it has that flimsy shaft where you can feel the counterbalance. So his differentiator is that he has a counterbalance and no one can copy that. That's patented. So that's where that orange ball on the butt end of the grip comes in and it counterbalances and allows that orange whip to kind of pass the hands or the feeling of the release on the way through, and so you do have to feel it. That heaviness doesn't allow you to come over the top, it doesn't allow you, it makes you turn right. So sequencing becomes a better thing and um, there's so many drills out there to feel things like that. So, like and again. Training aids are great, but how many swings do you need with a training aid before you hit a ball.
Speaker 2:I was just having a lesson earlier today and the student he sent me a text and he's like hey, I just want to. I really want to go over where my weaknesses are. So in two seconds I go up, I look at the 20, 30 shots that he had hit because he had it all saved on the data. So in two seconds I go up, I look at the 20, 30 shots that he had hit because he had it all saved on the data. So now I don't have to spend his money and his time warming up. I just say go, warm up, I'll look at this. I have everything I need to know from what he did right there. As long as he puts in what club he used, it's super easy for me Go through it.
Speaker 2:I said you know what, mark, you need to hit it farther, plain and simple. And he's like yeah, I would agree with you. I said your swing is actually looking great. I said you're very uh quote unquote consistent, right, I hate that word, but like the things were happening very similar through impact, you know, and and the distances between pitching wedge and nine iron were spot on, and like the launch and the spin and all the things, and even he said, like the shot looks good too. And I said said well, we need to get you further. And he just had knee surgery and I showed him one picture that comes up.
Speaker 2:What I love about these foresight units is that with dots on the face they're called Fiji shuls the camera can pick up hit location within a millimeter lying, goal, with the ground interaction and what the club's doing at impact, where it hits, behind the ball and at the ball or in front of the ball. What I noticed was that he was adding so much lofted impact. Well, he had knee surgery on his lead side, which is the side you put all your pressure into. He's a, he's a lefty, so it's his right, right leg, right knee and he's still afraid to do it right or something. Transfer all the way to his. You got you gotta transfer that pressure in order to have right leg, right knee and he's still afraid to do it right or something.
Speaker 2:Transfer all the weight to his leg. You got to transfer that pressure in order to have stability or balance. Then you can actually right, you can actually move your hips into that side and you can rotate off of that once you do that. So it's all about pushing in the ground to be able to move your hips. And so, in a nutshell, what was really unique was I brought it to his attention and then he brought something else up and I said, ok, let's talk about how to make this change now, because you know part of process is accountability. I got to make sure in that time, when we make that adjustment, that you are clear and concise On understanding this is what we need to do. We need more shaft, lean at impact. So one of his things was well, that helped me with sequence and what happens the chicken or the egg hips or that and I said, well, your hips ultimately go first. So there you go, there's your chicken, right, but Both will help you.
Speaker 2:And then I went into some detail on why that was. So now I take him out of the bay, I go up to a 90 degree angle of one of my pillars in golf garage and I said we're going to work on learning how to set the club on the way back in a chipping motion which is loading the wrist, essentially, and rotating through and creating as much exaggerated shaft lean as possible and getting that club face square to that post. I said do this four or five times there's no real right or wrong to how many You're trying to remember what the feel is and I'm going to go get you an impact bag and then we're going to do something else. So we have him do it. He doesn't even like make it enough times before I come back. And then he hits a ball and I said hey, how did that feel? I said, how did how did the feeling change when you were doing this rehearsal? And he says oh well, I, I felt like I could get into my lead side more. I felt like I opened up, like sequenced a little bit better. I said perfect. I said so you hit the nail on the head. I said we just figured out what you wanted and a root cause, right. And then we created a feeling based on a half a swing where you identified clubface with squared impact based on the pole was in the way and a forward shaft lean to get the feel into. We're going to take that same exaggeration and we're going to hammer the impact bag two or three times.
Speaker 2:And he did it and his arms got disconnected and I said, hold on a second, let's videotape that. And then I'm going to hit one and you're going to roll the video and I'm going to show you the difference of what I want you to do. And he was like oh my gosh, oh, that's what you want me to do. His very pitching wedge swing went 20 yards farther, I mean as far as when I wasn't there. So his first one, I think it was like 10. And then, um, and then when I, when I walked away, he's like, hey, I left you a little little gift on the screen and it went 20. Wow, and I was like that's pretty awesome. And he's not swinging more than about a mile an hour uh, faster, but he has less lofted impact, which makes that ball go a lot farther.
Speaker 1:Right. So we watch tour players on TV that hit a nine iron 185 yards and they make it look so effortless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean their. Their swings are efficient and they create a lot of effortless power because of the efficiency. So tempo and balance right. So someone like me I'm 125 to 127 pounds, soaking wet. I'm five foot seven, just a little over right.
Speaker 2:Why is it that when I'm rolling, I'm flying the ball to 75, I can roll it out to 310 if it's a firm fairway, right, that's far enough to play, absolutely. I mean, I'm not going to be able to go carry the bunkers on tour, but it's long enough to play a tour golf course. And it's because I've learned to use the ground properly. I've learned my efficiencies and inefficiencies and I understand how to feel them very quickly. So if I don't play golf for two months, because of all the time and work I put in understanding my golf swing and my craft, it's allowed me to get back to um in playing shape. Let's call it in probably six days. I've always said, you know, I only need about six days to get ready to play in an event and as long as I'm mentally prepared, I'm going to shoot under par in that event. That's what I believe right. And so a tour player with that confidence in that event, that's what I believe Right.
Speaker 1:And so a tour player with that confidence and that mindset to any tournament is going to help you out too.
Speaker 2:I think you have to. I think you have to have thick skin in this game. I think you have to have thick skin in life and I think, with everything that you do, you just have to go and say and I'm going to win. Why would you ever go into play? Second, I had a marketing professor, um, in college and knew I was a golfer and we talked business as my senior year. And he's like how are you feeling? And I he's like you know how, you know, what do you think is a good finish? And I said I don't know, I'd probably be happy in the top, you know two or three or whatever in this event. And he's like stop. He's like don't you want to win? And I said, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's like why would you ever think differently than that? You're going to win if you're going to go play in an event. And I literally was floored. I'm like my marketing professor just gave me some of the best advice I could ever have, and this was like senior year and I had already won, like I knew how to win tournaments, but I was never thinking about I'm going to step on your throat mentality Like we've all heard about Tiger Woods and what his dad does, right and and his mom really kind of said hey, tiger, you get the lead and you step on their throat. Right, you're Tiger, you go and you extend and you extend and you extend. People don't know how to do that. They're afraid of hurting someone else's feelings or they're worried about what it feels like to have the lead. And what if I lose the lead? And the what ifs and the expectation at that point, the best marketers in the world get that.
Speaker 1:Though they get it, they're not going to go out and market a product that they're not a hundred percent convinced to. Behind that, this is going to change people's lives for the better. We'll give them something, people, something that they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without question. I mean, if you look at what golf garages in general right, this is a huge risk to take on and build a building in Southern Oregon. You know there's 150,000 people here. There's 300,000 people in the County. It's not a big Metro. In a Metro, this thing would be full, this thing would be like beyond that. Right, we'd be building a second one. But this is hometown for me. This is I need to show belief. I want to prove this concept that it can be super successful. Successful in a conservative area, for the most part ultra liberal and some conservative and other.
Speaker 2:we're not getting into politics on the show but, like, everyone can belong to golf garage, right, and that's what's so cool. It includes everyone. And again, we're looking and we're thinking outside the box on how to make this successful. We want to partner with every business out there. We want to partner with every business out there. We want to partner with every organization, nonprofit, try to help them make money, try to help them network, and then we become Southern Oregon strong, right, and I think that's what all these communities talk about, what these teams talk about, and I think one of the things at Golf Garage is this is the melting pot place that allows everyone to get together. You don't know who's to your right and who's to your left. We have Fortune 500 people in here, we have political people in here, and it's so cool if we were having some sort of business strategy sessions where we're like, hey, let's get some business people in here and let's just talk, let's learn from each other.
Speaker 1:So we all know anybody in business knows the term market analysis very well and understands what that is With the term market analysis very well and understands what that is With an unproven concept like this, with no market analysis really to go off of. Based on this concept, what led you, what gave you the confidence to jump in with both feet and go into a multi-million dollar business venture with no prior data to?
Speaker 2:support it. Yeah, field of dreams. If you build it, they will come. No, yeah, tell that to the bank.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, the funny thing is there. There's quite a bit of market analysis done, because I grew up here. So you know, knowing the area, knowing that there's not enough golf courses honestly in the area, based on the number of golfers.
Speaker 2:You know, knowing that the weather and knowing that the weather is eight months good, you know, four months not great, or four months Great. And then you also got smoke and other things. We just had snow again, like it's a weird weather year for us, and we're getting busier now because it's golf season. Because when we opened in July, I was nervous. I mean, the expectation of opening, you know, in the summer, wasn't the original plan, it was an October previously of opening. We were just waiting for permitting, and it took us another six months, and so it was probably one of the better things that could have happened, though, because it was a soft dish opening for three, four months. It allowed us to get our feet wet and it allowed us to understand what we were and who we are, and and then it allowed us to market even harder.
Speaker 2:And then I hate to use this, but you know, when the snow fell and other golf courses had some issues with their netting and some things happened, you know we had a lot more foot traffic in than what we would have gotten, because those people were already used to going to those facilities and now they didn't have a facility to go to.
Speaker 2:So now they had to come check out golf garage regardless, because if they wanted to play their golf, you know snow on the ground and whatnot. So, again, blessing in disguise with the weather this year to get people in the door Ultimately, again, there's a lot of belief here, and it's going to take a village for it to be. You know what I want it to be in this area, but I think now that we're starting to get reciprocal clubs right, I think that was a big deal too. I mean, we're up to six and it's really going to be a fun summer when you own a business that's an indoor golf facility, yet you've partnered with all these golf courses and you're taking people off your property golfing, but they're your members and you're showing them a great time, and it's those experiences that we want to share with them too, and hopefully they realize that that's the reason they want to be members of Golf Garage.
Speaker 1:You're not trying to take business away from a golf course. You're trying to make people better prepared to play on the golf course. We want to implement, yeah.
Speaker 2:We want to grow the game. You know, ultimately we're going to grow the game in any weather and we're going to take golf trips all over the place. Hey, if I had it my way, am I going to play golf in 50 degrees or am I going to play a golf garage where it's 70? Absolutely, Golf garage hands down, just because I don't want to go practice in that, Right. But if it's 65, I absolutely want to go play some golf outside. I think I think it's a benefit, but I also think that you can still have the best of both because, again, you have all the nighttime practice here that you want, and I think that's a huge benefit.
Speaker 2:So, um, the 24, seven concepts huge. The ability to partner with other golf courses is huge. The, the fact that we have an event space with the bar is huge. And again, we're we're evolving. Um, you know, we're adding in a private Pilates room right now, Um, and that's just because my wife's business is taking off with Pilates, and now we're trying to figure out a way where those um Pilates students can go in and use a reformer equipment without having to buy it and take it up space at their house. So now they're a member of her little Pilates studio as well, and so it's getting more people in the door and I would say 70% of her students don't golf and they're starting to talk about wanting to golf. So if it was just a Pilates studio down the road, why would they ever want to golf if they're not around it? Now that they're seeing it, Um, and maybe you know they're networking with people.
Speaker 1:Who, who play.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, without question, I think that that is going to be probably one of the ultimate great feelings when you start creating, um, new golfers, just based on having someone walk in the door and they just see it and they're like, well, it looks fun, let's try that, right. And then the other thing is these events, that these work parties, these other larger social gatherings, are a lot of non-golfers and we're getting repeat business because of this, and we've had some people join because of this, and I think that you know, continuing to build those relationships is huge and just getting people to understand what we are and you know what we're trying to become.
Speaker 1:What do we have to look forward to next week?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a couple of guys in the profession that we're going to look at trying to bring on. Definitely in the near future we're going to be bringing on someone from the club manufacturing side, so golf club industry and then master fitter I think that's somewhere where we're at and I think also a superintendent we got to talk about golf course agronomy baby. All right, man. Well, hey, good show. Go Raiders. We're playing in the spring classic this week. We're going to go try to take one down, Thank you.
