Why Community-Backed Golf Programs Change Lives

What if golf didn’t start with a paywall? We’re laying out a bold, workable plan to raise $2M that turns access into a promise: open facilities, real clubs kids can take home, and a clear coaching path that doesn’t end when a camp does. Our focus is Southern Oregon’s underserved counties, but the model scales—scholarships fueled by interest, referrals from any local pro, and partnerships with Boys & Girls Clubs and YMCAs that solve the toughest barrier of all: transportation.

We get practical about what changes outcomes. An equipment library transforms “someday” into “right now,” while PGA‑led coaching turns first swings into lasting habits. We talk honestly about fundraising—why a few aligned community backers beat a thousand small checks—and how we’ll keep the principal working so support never dries up. We also explore adaptive golf with David’s Chair: gyro‑stabilized seats that let athletes safely swing on slopes, roll onto greens, and rejoin the game they love. Watching a player shoot in the 70s from a single‑rider chair reframes ability and reminds us why inclusion matters.

Performance is part of belonging too. We share why proper fittings routinely add 30 yards for players who’ve never been fit, how vendor display walls and demo systems make choices simple, and why a league that honors full handicaps makes competition fair and fun. Women’s rules clinics show that knowledge is a stroke saver—nearest point of relief, stance relief, and smart drop options turn confusion into confidence. And with a video podcast on the way, we’ll bring training aids, drills, and adaptive tech to your screen so you can see how access looks in action.

If this vision resonates, help us spread the word. Subscribe, share the episode with a golfer who cares about community, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Your voice can put a club in a kid’s hands—and keep them coming back for a lifetime.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the My Golf Source Podcast. Good morning. Morning. Happy Friday.

The $2M Youth Access Goal

Breaking Barriers: Facilities, Gear, Coaching

Beyond Camps: Continuity And Transport

SPEAKER_00 0:22

It is. We're starting early now, aren't we? We are. Coffee. I kind of like it. Coffee instead of whiskey. That's the new tagline. That's good. Hey, so we've got some big news coming up at Golf Garage. We have the West Coast Golf Association casino night for the kids this next Friday, a week from today, from five to nine. So we have this amazing vision in Southern Oregon now that we're going to raise two million dollars over the next year and a half. That's huge. Four kids in four area counties. So it's a totally different thought process. Plamath, Jackson, Josephine, Douglas. Yep, exactly. Exactly. Um, very underserved areas. Um, I serve on the Boys and Girls Club board as well. There are over a thousand kids that we serve, and I think it's 70% of them are on the free lunch program or need something um more. And golf has a stigma, right, that it's expensive. It's elite. It's yeah, there it still has that. And I I find it super odd because there are so many programs out there and so many ways to play the game at a very nominal fee. And in our area, there are so many opportunities for kids through our golf academy and what we offer. Uh, we don't, we it's like that no kid left behind thought process. Right. And it's we will always make it work, even if that means that we're not taking something from a parent so a kid can play. And so that's our goal with this is that we're giving number one access to a facility because that's a barrier, right? Equipment that the kids can actually take home with them. That's a big barrier. And they trade it in, library checkout system. It's it's a new thing, and it's also empowering, right? I now have a set of clubs. I want to go use that set of clubs when I see them. That might be my new toy, right? And coaching. You have a safe place to come to get some coaching from the best PGA coaches in the country all together, and we have a stair-step approach to help them, right? But it doesn't it's not just for golf garage. What I love about this program and this nonprofit is it's actually going to be an application based where professionals in our area can let us know that they have someone in need at their golf course, and that person can apply and get the funds they need for whatever it is. So we're trying to grow this globally, right? So you go region to region, and so as golf garage expands, West Coast Golf Association expands with it and it fits the mold. And after the raise has been met, the interest that it accrues year over year will go out in scholarships. So unless something really weird happens, that interest will always be what is paid out. And so anything from$50,000 to$200,000 a year, most likely given you know the state of the economy. And that's a lot more than when we get these little thousand dollar, you know, donations from a national um organization, which again is amazing to get that, but it doesn't serve the need. And now we've created the opportunity to serve the need with a little bit of help, you know, from our community.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So there's a lot of national programs, a youth on course and and things that are similar to it. Um a lot of the local courses will have youth membership programs that are extremely affordable. But what are they doing for the kids that are like under the age of 12, under the age of 13 who you know can't really go out on a course alone without their parent?

Fundraising For Impact, Not Fatigue

Why Golf Builds Cross‑Generational Community

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, and I would just say that that is one of the biggest issues with any program out there right now. And I'll use the first T as the example. The first T I've had the opportunity to help and volunteer at, not only in Phoenix, Arizona, but in Akron, where LeBron James is at. I had to throw that one in there. The Cavaliers fan. And a good friend of mine was the director in Akron, and he did a phenomenal job of fundraising and did a phenomenal job of coaching. But the way the first T was run was here's a camp, come to it. There's a little buy-in where you might have to spend to get in, um, you know, and the most of it was scholarshipped. But after that two or three day camp where the kids were just glowing, there wasn't necessarily a follow-up step to be had to get them back because again, how do you get them to the course? Right. And are the families buying in? So locally here, we have a unique opportunity because of the boys and girls club connections, the YMCAs, um, you know, and I I think, and more, but because of those, some of those actually have transportation. And so it's not like you can just start this program from scratch. You have to have a lot of logistics in place um and a lot of strategic partnerships in order for it to be successful. And I think that's just like any business that you're in. People think, oh, I'm gonna go and be a golf pro today. Oh, yeah, cool. That that's great. Good for you. I just I just want to teach and coach golf. Yeah, we all do. That's awesome. Uh so now what are you gonna do in this situation, you know, and then the next situation? And you just start asking the questions of, you know, how are you gonna do that? And then and then they realize, oh, there's more to it than I just have to look at somebody and stand back there and and you know, lean on my club or lean on the counter, uh-huh, right? I'm a I'm a mental coach, I'm a physical coach, I'm a yeah. So going into the nonprofit side of it as well, it's just super exciting what we're able to start to promote, right? We're not we're not in this deep fundraising process yet, but we're about to be, especially after this event, where we're trying to get more and more word out to finding the few donors in our community that really just want to say, Man, I want to see this happen, here it is. That's the ultimate goal over trying to ask for$100 here and$100 there. That's insane. You'll just pull your hair out and it'll take you forever to get to the goal. But if you can sit down with somebody that truly cares about the community and the kids in the community and loves golf, and that's a home run, and that's kind of what we're after, is just finding that person. And getting the kids out on the courts together with other kids. Well, I think that's that is absolutely part of the mission, right? So golf is one of those awesome animals where you can play with anybody. So not only kids to kids, but when I was growing up, I would just join a group and it might have been 60-year-olds, or it might have been I I had a family I played golf with. This is no joke, over at Stuart Meadows as a kid. I'm washing carts and I got done, and it was a two sum. So I joined them, and it was a husband and a wife, and they were probably in their late 20s. Um, I hadn't seen them in six months, and I knew that they were you know pregnant, expecting, and they come back, and they played and they came up to me and they're like, This is our baby, and we named him Noah after you. And I'm like, What? I'm like 16 years old. They just said they liked how I handled myself on the course, and I they had a great time with me, and they liked the name. And I was like, wow, and I never thought about that until like way later. I was like, Oh, that's cool. Somebody name their kid out. It was pretty unique. I've never, I mean, I haven't had anything like that since. So, but as a 16-year-old, just to jump in there, um, you know, playing with the old boys at the country club, I was in a youth sponsor program, like what your son is in, because my my parents didn't even play golf, they didn't belong to the club, they were busy working, you know, you're a business owner, it's the same thing. So, end of the day, um, I was up there on my own a lot or with some other kids, and uh getting to play with the old boys was wonderful because they would actually always bring me golf balls and you'd like to teach me some colorful language. I would I would learn a lot about what not to do on the golf course, that's for sure. And then I would do it and I would get in trouble. So that didn't work out too well. But going back to kids with kids, after being in that youth program for a little while, right, there was not any like clear direction. It was like, hey, we can use the facility, that was it. Um, and a lot of us that were in it finally realized who all was in it, and we would exchange numbers. And then it was always one of those, hey, we'll meet you 155, make our groups and go. And there's usually two or three groups of us, especially as we got into high school. So we were always playing competitive golf against each other, but it started with just getting to the golf course. So it's it's a huge opportunity. Same thing with golf garage, you know, and I'll use your son again here. This is fun, is Toby's out here more than most juniors, and uh he'll just go up to somebody in a bay and say hi and literally help them if they need help with something. And then the next thing you know, they're playing golf together in the bay, or they're hitting balls or having a competition on the range, and you're just like, this is exactly what you want from a community, is everybody's willing to play. You know, everybody's willing to help. Everyone's willing to help, and they're just all out there for the same reason to just enjoy themselves, which is awesome. And all of a sudden you've built a relationship, man. That's even more fulfilling.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

So, what we have coming up, like I said, is we've got this nonprofit. We're gonna raise$2 million. That's the goal. Got a few board members coming out, um, you know, and just looking forward to having some access for these kids, getting all of this streamlined to a point of that it's just clockwork and we're done fundraising. And that's that's what I'm most excited about. One one less thing to have to try to do, and then, you know, really cruise on, you know, more time with family, cookie cutter. So those are some goals I have this year for sure with with some things outside a golf garage that'll really grow the game of golf at the highest level and get more golfers into the game than anywhere else in the world as these things expand. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

The nonprofit side is huge for the future of the sport and huge for, you know, the underprivileged people in our, you know, Tri-Counties area.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Well, let's let's switch gears on nonprofit because we had the David's chair event, which your good friend, Steve First, is is running the well, heading up all of this fundraising effort and executive director of of that, correct? So um that event, you know, if you want to touch on it, because you played in it a little bit more and just kind of it was well run. I mean, they he he did a great job of getting people in.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

He does a lot of fundraising events, so he's he's got a great network of donors and people to donate things for auction. Um so that yeah, that went off really well. I I think he was able to raise some money, and I think it aligns so well with your vision of people being able to play golf from what age to what age?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Three to ninety-three.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Three to ninety-three, you know, and and and David's chair aligns very well with that and allowing people who have mobility issues to get out on the golf course. Um, Justin Ayers, who who played in the in the tournament, is um paralyzed, I believe, from the chest down. But man, I've seen I've played with him out on the course before over at Stone Ridge, and he shoots in the 70s. That's amazing. It's it's incredible. Did you get a chance to watch him hit?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I did. I took a few videos of him. I got him some balls um to chip with, and and uh what made me so happy was I go up to him and I'm like, hey, we haven't tested the weight of this on the green, you know, if you don't mind not driving it on the green yet because there's foam underneath. And he was like, Oh yeah, yeah, no problem. And then I'm like, but hey, chip as much as you want, whatever. He's like, Oh, I could stay here all day. I'm like, that is awesome to hear, and obviously we welcome that. I mean, that is that's amazing to me. Just he is in his happy place.

Indoor Access And Next-Gen Mobility Chairs

SPEAKER_01 13:32

He is, yeah, and he used to be a stunt biker or motocross racer or something like that, and he was injured. Um, so I I know I've I've talked to him and he talks about that depression of being an athlete and having that taken away from you. But this golf chair that has gyro stabilizers in it allows you to get out on a course even on hills and uneven lies and do a full swing without the worry of this chair tipping over. Um being able to having those big soft wide tires to be able to go out on the greens is is incredible and it it's it kind of gets you choked up when you watch it. Um and these chairs, the goal is I mean, these chairs are like thirty-five, thirty-six thousand dollars because they have a lot of technology in them. Um and being able to place these chairs at different golf courses that are there for people to use at no charge is you know just just such a great service um to allow people to get out there with their family members and enjoy activities that they otherwise could not do. Um but it's not just about the golf chairs, it's about the track chairs that get people out in the out on hiking trails, out in the woods hunting and fishing, um, out on the beach. You know, there there was a video I saw recently of of an elderly person who had no mobility being able to be out there on the beach for their granddaughter's wedding. And I, you know, it it's it's such a great cause to allow people who aren't mobile to be mobile and participate in so many of the activities that the rest of us take for granted.

League Nights, Handicaps, And Competition

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So yeah, it's huge. What a what an amazing cause, and obviously Steve is so passionate about it, and really big things to come. He was telling me about um this new chair that is actually for indoor golf, that's a smaller chair, and that he's looking at seeing if he can try to get us one here. That would be so cool. I'm like, I'm all for it. I mean, the the hardest part about our space is the size of the chair and where do you put it? And we obviously had it up front to promote the event, and I thought it was so cool and watching how it still worked in here and that you could get around fine. But yeah, if you could have a smaller unit, it you know, not only for storage, but just in general, you'd feel a lot easier. It's not like we're going up and down big slopes in here either, where you need all of the additional stability and uh the cost of those, I think we're about yeah, you know, half as much, if not more. It sounded like it was around 15 to 20. So that's a huge opportunity as the indoor space grows too. So we'll make that happen. Got to raise some money. Yeah, it's it's definitely time to do that. How so go ahead. How did your team do in league last night? Well, we weren't in the playoffs actually. So the previous it's this was a weird league. I played in like two. So I was traveling so much to the PGA show and to two tournaments and all the stuff in the winter, and I didn't even realize when I'm booking this out that it was like back to back to back 23 of 30 days gone, which is as a business owner, you don't want to be gone. Maybe a week here, then stay for two and then be gone if you need to. But 23 of 31 is insane, especially with an 18-month-old business. So I uh had to have subs for those. And then last night, for some reason, I was thinking last night was the the final night to get into the playoffs. I wasn't even thinking, it was the night, it was the week before. Yeah, it was the first week of playoffs, and the week before one of my college players locked their keys in their trunk. So as I'm leaving, I'll show you this. I'm supposed to be here. I'm ready to go. And I ended up sending someone else in my place, so I didn't even get a play in that league either. So we missed it by like I think we were the first alternate, and I didn't get a play in any of them. So I think we're coming for everybody next time. I think everybody's fired up on our team right now.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

The team my son played on was the first alternate.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

We were first alternate, we were in it the previous week. Um, and then we got knocked out. So, but we were all I know that I know that your son's team was also really close to ours. And honestly, I don't even look at the standings half the time. I'm just like, okay, whatever. I shot, you know, this. I shot under par uh two rounds and even the other. And then yesterday, what was cool about it was um one of our members came in to play, and you know, look, if it's not competition that I'm in, I'm not motivated at all. And I just wanted to hang with the guys, like that was the fun part. So, you know, a couple a couple holes go in, and we were super slammed at the bar, slammed at sushi, and and then um I'm like, you know, hey, you know, why don't you come over and play in our group? You know, the doctor that walked in, and then you get to meet a few other guys that are members. I said, we'll alternate shots. You hit, then I'll hit. You know, we're not playing for anything other than skins and whatever. So uh I just I had a call I needed to make anyway. I walked away and he's there and they're starting to get along. I'm like, I just stayed away. I like let him play the whole time for me, and I went and um just bust tables. You probably saw me a couple times walk by. That was fun. I was like, man, I need to bust tables more. It's actually kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Our team, we were in first place the week before finals, and on the on the last, on the last league before we went into finals, we fell from first to third. But we won our match play last night, so we move on to the finals. And I won some skins. Whose team are you playing against?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Ryan Kakula. Yeah, yeah. Good.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

You should beat those guys and actually ask him to make sure that's better because he's Ryan is the one who is in charge of the handicap.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

In charge of the handicaps. It's like, yeah, don't be biased, buddy. I was gonna say he's chopped our handicaps a ton, but I don't know if his has gotten down there that much. We'll see. I'm gonna throw that one out there. Well that's what my that's what my point is.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I'm gonna appoint you as the neutral source to uh set up next week. I think you just need to start saying that to him. Yeah, yeah. We need to appoint Noah for this.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, what I want to do with League, and this is probably the next thing too, is we need to have a league where we put out and you get your full handicap. I love that. So the next league, it needs to be changed up a little bit. It's gonna take an extra 10 to 15 minutes, but it doesn't matter. Everybody's excited to be here. Um, and now you're gonna see what it's really like. And survival of the fittest now. No, and again, you could have an inside of two feet gimme range for sure. That's fine. Right. But let's see what you do when you got to get inside that two foot circle playing Augusta. That's gonna be hard. Yeah, we'll keep the greens the same speed as the green our greens out here. Yeah, that way people can do it. But I think that's the go.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

So no two putt circle, just a small yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

It's literally you're putting until you get inside of two feet or five feet, right? That's what needs to happen. So if you hit the shot within five feet, you'll have that gimme, right? But it's gotta be something pretty small where people are hitting 30 footers, and you're gonna have to learn because all it's gonna do is make people want to come out and practice their putting on the sim, which is really accurate. It's just that you can't visualize that you're 30 feet from the hole, even though it says it, because the screen's 10 feet from from you.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

It's back to know your numbers.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Know your numbers, know your feel. Yeah, so it's good.

Women’s Rules Clinic And Real-World Gains

SPEAKER_01 21:15

I walked in here Wednesday night and it was packed. And Jessica was standing up on a bench holding a clinic for women. That was tell me about that. I'm I'm not sure exactly what it was. Oh yeah, but nevertheless, she had the attention of a lot of ladies talking about golf.

Fittings, Vendor Walls, And 30-Yard Gains

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, so we had the Stuart Meadows ladies um organization asked to have their kind of their early party um over. So we've done their awards a few times and whatnot. And it's really unique because we always like to try to give something back. So Jessica got with um one of their, I think their president. And said, Hey, let's we've done a clinic in the past. Let's do a rules seminar. It's early in the season. And so she was doing the rules at golf. And it's so much fun when you do clinics like that because one question leads to five. Right. So you're like, hey, here's a scenario. What would you do here? And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, now what if this happens? And then what if this happened? And you can do everything you need to with the rules at golf garage, too. So, you know, she did a wonderful job, obviously. And and people love that because they're always trying to figure out how to be better on the course. And the rules of golf can actually help you a ton if you understand how to utilize them the right way with where you can drop, how to drop, how to use the slopes in your favor, right? All these different things. And then on top of that, we uh we surveyed the ladies too to get a better idea and feel of like how they want to get better, right? So what are they looking for from player development? What are, you know, how can we help them with their golf games and getting them to think about us too, you know, at the same time. So it's it's a win-win. We donated, you know, obviously the facility there to have them in. Um, you know, I think they brought some food, but they, you know, used the bar if they, you know, wanted to. And it was more about just a little give back to the golf community. Um, I think the ladies are underserved here a lot, and I think there's a huge opportunity because a lot of ladies do like to play the game and enjoy the game. So yeah, I love supporting that for sure. Awesome. Anything else we need to touch base on? Yeah, dude. The equipment that's coming out is so good right now. I got off the phone with the Mizuno rep yesterday, and we're in the middle of first of all, I hate slat wall. I'm just gonna say that, but putting slat wall up, it's one of the only durable ways to hang something, a fixture, you know, that's heavy and big. You can like put your fingers on it and do pull-ups on it. Um, and and so we're creating this environment now of our fitting systems up on the wall, and where they're located, you can see them from anywhere in the facility. So we need our vendors to step up and give us certain things to promote their products. And um, Ryan's on Mazuno staff as well, and so we always try to keep our professionals a little bit dabbled into each different, you know, type of brand. Yeah. And and again, going into that, just because one staff are members on that brand, it doesn't mean that they're not fitting you for some other brand either, right? So everybody's got something good, and all it means is that we know what we're doing. If they're if they're on a staff program, um, there's some training involved there too. So they might have a little bit more feedback about that specific product, but for the most part, you're still getting fit appropriately, and there'll be some product types that might do something a little bit better than another product type. So going back into this whole thing, you know, talking to the rep yesterday, it was pretty cool because you know, originally with Golf Garage, it's like people don't know you're here. And then you're like, three months go by, you still hear people don't know you're here. 18 months go by, oh, this is my first time I've been in, and you're like, well, at least I'm not hearing it, you don't know I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

What rock have you been under?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, so but at least you're coming in now, but I'm not hearing that I haven't heard about you, I'm just hearing this is my first time in. And so with adding these other assets and creating this environment of feeling like we have everything within 50 feet and seeing it and being able to get a fitting from someone and create that relationship and then get them to hit the ball 30 yards farther, because that's what we're seeing. If somebody's never been fit with a driver, we're seeing 30 yard gains. Yeah. So it's a really important thing. And if you think that, well, I don't want to pay for a fitting, well, I would say, well, what would you pay to get 30 yards? And they'd be like, uh, like hundreds, thousands. Perfect. That's what we're gonna bill you because you're gonna get 30 yards today. No, we're gonna bill you 50 to 100, right? But you also get a discounted rate because that's what we do here. We want to make sure that you're getting the best. Um, so with that being said, you know, we're getting the display wall from Mizuno now. Um, Callaway's on the way. We've got the titleist one hung. We've got the Taylor made, the Cobra one hung, um, waiting on our ping one. Srixon one came broken, so they're sending us a new um new display for that. But it's gonna look so good in here in a week. And then all of our advertising-based sponsors and partnerships are coming up. We're redoing our website right now. Um, we're in the middle of creating this branded loyalty program for our members only. Members get a discount on everything. That is what I always say. Like, you should, if you're paying for X, not only do you need to come in my facility and you get to do this and you get to grow the game of golf at golf garage and you get to be better and you get to build relationships, and it's good for your business and everything, your family's welcome. But now the community organizations that are out there that are members are also buying in to say, well, I want to be, I want those people to come to me. That's a captive audience in Southern Oregon. I want to go, you know, if I have somebody, for instance, like Joe at Quench and Drench. I want to extend the preferred discount to other members. Right. Here's 20% off. Right? We just we actually it's like partner with everybody, figure it out. We're all gonna grow together. And then now we're stimulating our local economy with a little discount. Now they're spending with another person that's a good business owner, that's a local business and not some big, big thing, right? And it's allowing our people to grow, right? And then there'll be members here, they'll continue to play golf, so it stimulates the golf economy too. So I don't think people are thinking about economic development in the same way as they should, unless you're a developer. But it's it's it'd be really interesting to find out like how much spend over a lifetime this loyalty program would actually create. And I don't know if there's a true way to track that. I just think you're you can estimate it just based on word of mouth around the golf garage. Exactly, or do a survey or something. But but it is it is really, really exciting to think about what's coming for our members and the continued partnerships in the golf industry.

Loyalty, Local Partners, And Golf Economy

SPEAKER_01 28:47

All right. Two more things. First, in a couple of weeks, we're gonna be transitioning this podcast to a video podcast. Yes. So we'll be able to show you videos from within the golf garage, videos of um training. Some of the training aids we've been talking about, you'll get to demonstrate those on the video podcast. So that's super exciting. Uh, look for that in just a couple of weeks. And lastly, a rules question. I saw Jessica kind of covering this, but I didn't stick around long enough to hear the entire explanation of it. When you drop, when you when you are eligible to take a drop, do you have to drop from a very specific point or do you drop one club length from the nearest point of relief?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

So this is always um I know if you're on a cart path. So it's always nearest point of relief um is is going to be the drop. And and again, when we go over rules of golf, you need to really understand the definitions before you can say, oh, well, it's just this. So you need to know where the person is on the golf course. Are they through the green? They're not out of bounds, they're not in a penalty area, right? So if we're dropping from an obstruction, cart path, sprinkler head, right, where you would not have a penalty stroke, and Kurt, it would be a free drop. Right, that would be a a one club length. From that exact point from nearest point nearest point of relief, correct? Not closer to the pen. Not closer to the hole. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

So and you're so for example, if you're on the cart path, I'm a right-handed golfer, a cart path is running parallel with the fairway. It's on the left side of the cart path, but on the concrete, I can pick it up and either go backwards and to the fairway side, or I can go across the cart path. No, take that point.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

I'm gonna stop you right there. So if you are on the cart path and it's running parallel to the hole, right? It's the parallel to the fairway, so you're going with it and you're standing, you're a right-handed golfer, and you're standing off the path, and that ball is closer to where your feet are. If you divided the cart path in half, you'd have to drop on the side where your feet are. If that golf ball is closer to the fairway side, then you would drop on the fairway side. That's your nearest point of relief.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

As long as it doesn't take you closer to the pen.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Yeah, correct. And then So you can go to the fairway side, but kind of backwards. As long as it's as long as it's the nearest point of relief. So again, you might have to measure which side of the path your edge, you're closest to, and decide that, right? And then that's when you would get your full relief, which means if it's to the fairway side, now you get a club length, but you also get your stance relief, right? Because you can't drop a ball and then to be standing on the car path. You haven't taken full relief. Correct. So that's why you see people taking a stance with their golf club, putting a T in the ground, and then adding the club length to it from there because they need a full relief as opposed to the other side of the path where their feet are already off. It's just one club length. They don't, you know, they're because their stance is already off that side. So it's the opposite for lefties, obviously. So you can, you know, the other thing is you could play it from the cart path. I don't think a lot of people realize that. And I was playing in the U.S. Open qualifier at Royal Oaks when I was in college, and I I hit one left on 10, which was just like the weirdest place in the world. And my ball's in the middle of the cart path is where it came to rest. And had I dropped it right or left, I would have been in brush. So just fortunate enough that it went up and rolled back down the path and stopped. And I had a hallway right at the pin and I knocked it to 15 feet.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Had I dropped it, I would have had to take an unplayable. So it is great to know that because some people just say, hey, you're on the path, you have to take relief. That's not true. No, you can play it as it lies, and so that saved me a couple of strokes, probably, because I didn't have to then take a penalty with an unplayable lie.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

So on a cart path, you have to take a stroke to get relief.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

That is not true. No, it's free relief, but had had I dropped, I would have been dropping in bushes. Oh, okay. Because again, that's my nearest point of relief. Nobody says that you get relief from the bush. So then I dropped it in there, then I would have been I love these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

So last week in Simley, we played Tobacco Road in North Carolina, I believe. Yep, right by Pinehurst. So we I ended up in rocks. No matter what direction I tried to hit this club, it was bouncing off of rocks straight up or God knows what direction. In real life, you take an unplayable. If you're twenty feet into the rocks, what I mean, what do you do? How do you handle that situation? Yeah, so treat it as a lost ball, because in reality, I probably would have never found the golf ball in real life.

Moving To Video And A Rules Deep Dive

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah, because unplayables, though, you can you can definitely take it back, you know, on the line. Yeah, staying within the course. Yeah. So you'll you're usually gonna find a spot or the two club lengths. Um, so it's very rare that you can't find a place to get relief when you need it. It just might be 400 yards away, but uh usually it's gonna be within 20, 30 yards at the very worst.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

So what distinguishes the difference between taking two club lengths relief or going all the way back to the T-box? Well, you have to decide.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

You decide that you're taking you know a penalty stroke, right? Either way as you do that. So the second you decide to do that and you pick up your ball, there's no going back. You can't replace it and say, Oh, I don't want to do that anymore. So you got to mark it, and then you you have that decision of those are your choices. Those are the choices the rules of golf have given you. So it's up to you. I love it. As always, thank you. Yeah, man, have a great day. Let's get out there and golf.