Golfers Golf and Travel - What Does It Cost to Play on Tour

A break down of what it costs to play on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours weekly and how does the upper echelon use private planes and how much does it cost. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Where we are today. Another great tournament in the book. From Harbortown. We're only eight days past uh the masters, and we're always wishing that we're back on the golden, beautiful, green grounds of Augusta National. And uh one thing about that, uh the behavior there is a lot better seemingly than on the regular tour. With me today, young James at Rabble Rouser coming to us from Massachusetts. James, when you go to a golf tournament, uh do you drink and embarrass yourself, or are you there and taking notes and having a good time?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, no, I do not I do not drink and embarrass myself, unlike the uh fans apparently at uh the tournament over the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Well, it never never stops me. You know, it wasn't terrible over the weekend, you know, you're gonna get that Ryder Cup USA, USA hogwash. Um which is fine. I mean, it's it's good. I mean, it's all good right up until the point. Now, over the weekend, supposedly they did not holler anything in the middle of the backswing of any of the players, which is great. But if you compare that to the week before at the Masters, all the patrons at the Masters, you know the the Masters doesn't tolerate that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

No, they sure don't.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And weirdly, when you're paying thousands of dollars for a ticket and uh yeah, and you get a set of rules, apparently all of them can, you know, behave. Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, it is weird.

unknown 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

How's that happen?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's uh a better class of people that are attending the masters.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

I don't think so. It's it's the same people. It's uh you're gonna get some people that don't have the you know uh there's so many new people in the in the world in golf right now. You know, I hate to say we have to educate those. About 40% um well there's been a big been a big increase of of people in the world of golf, and a lot of them are young, and a lot of them like to go and they like, you know, they've been to hockey games and you know cage fights and football games and you know they're on Twitter and you know, if you ever everybody thinks that they own the right to say anything they want on any platform they want. And um unfortunately when they get to a golf tournament, they do not find the mute button.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So no, unfortunately. So so here's a here's a uh a rules question for you.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

When when something like that happens, right? You know, somebody yells out something in the middle of the backslid. So if it if it disrupts the player, causes them a mishit or whatever, is there a rule to address that? Or is it just too bad, so sad, you've got to go find a ball in the woods?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yep, that's the way it is. Yeah, and too bad, so sad for the guy that did it, because he's he is if they find out who it is, and then the other fans will point to him. I mean, the fans don't tolerate that stuff.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

No.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Um, if I was and I've been at tournaments where guys have had bad behavior in the past years, and you sit there and you go, seriously, dude, you know, that this is not a bull fight, you know. This is golf. Right. And uh these guys are playing for a lot of money, and this is their office, and you gotta respect it, you know. And if not, we will find a way that you are not gonna be part of this. And then then people get, you know, that's very aggressive language on my part. I get that part. But I was raised on respecting the game, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Um yeah, no, it's the masters. You're just you know, I think they just vaporize them. I think there's all you all you see is that pink pink mist, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Right. Never be seen or from again.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Nope, they're done, they're out of here. So they did kick a golf professional out of the masters this year because he thought he could take his phone. They also kicked uh some youngsters out because they thought they were tricking them by taking those, I think they're meta glasses that have video, you know, in them. And the people go, Do you think they're stupid? I mean, you know, do you think that they're you're gonna go to a lot of untrained people letting you in at the masters that, oh my god, you know, they didn't know that people would wear glasses that they could do photography in, that that would just be you'd be the first person. No, all they do is they just say, nice try. Uh you can keep your glasses, but give us that that ticket you have around your neck because you're going home. So however many thousands of dollars that cost you, it's a very expensive, very nice glasses, though. Thank you for coming. And uh but the masters were great. Rory did we did not have the masters recap because everybody had that masters exhaustion last Monday. I mean, it you know, it just sits. I mean, we sat for four days, Joanne and I watched every stroke and taking notes, and you know, watching Rory win for the second time is just I mean, here's a guy, I mean, h knowing his whole story, the documentary that came out, telling his story from being a kid, which I didn't I knew some of it, I didn't know all of it, and parents that worked two jobs to support his golf growth as a very young kid, very humble people, and you know, from factory jobs to doing whatever it took to take Rory from here to there to everywhere, and everybody knew he was great as a as a very young kid, and and they they dedicated their whole life to their one child, uh Rory McElroy. And what a fine human being. And uh Harry Diamond, uh a couple years ago, um maybe meh two years, three years ago, Rory had a bad tournament, and I think it was down in the US Open and Harry is caddy. Um I don't know. They they blamed they blamed it on Rory or on Harry calling out, you know, some bad numbers or whatever, and then they said, you know, it's time for Rory to change caddies. There was gonna be about as much chance of him changing caddies as uh, you know, you turning in one of your one of your any human being that means anything to you in your life. Not gonna happen. Uh his caddy has been a lifelong friend of his going all the way back to when Rory was a young kid. Yeah, he's like a big brother, Rory being a single child. Harry is um like a big brother. Um they've been each other's best men in their weddings. Oh wow. Yeah. And uh, you know, they're he's truly family. So if you think he's gonna give up Harry as a caddy, not happening, you you just waste wasted some really good brain cells thinking about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

But uh yeah, Rory wins again. Now next year, pressure will be nobody's ever three-peated. So the question is, you know, Rory, what do you think? Well, the one question you never want to ask a professional golfer is if he's never won, when do you think you're gonna win? Well, who the hell would know the answer to that question?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Exactly. Uh the answer would be I think I'm gonna win every week.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, there was I saw that asked, who was it? Oh god, the guy played at Seymour Putter, but he never really did win. And I was near him when somebody asked him that, and you would have liked a thought that um the guy that asked it just got lasered. He had holes coming out of his out of his system. Um don't ask that question. Um somebody asked a similar question to Scotty over the weekend, and Scotty, as nice as he is, goes, Oh, that's a terrible question. Just don't get next to me. Nobody who's gonna say, I don't know I'm gonna win again. You tell me and then I'll show up that week, you know. Idiot. So anyway, uh do you have any clue how much it costs to play on tour?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Uh no. I'm guessing it's probably a lot, but I I don't know the uh I don't know the details. But I bet you do.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Well, I'll tell you what. It's uh, you know, Rory has finished and not Rory, Scotty has finished second in the last two tournaments, one being the Masters and the one being Harbortown. Harbortown, by the way, is one of my most favorite places in the world. It is the vacation after the Masters. It is beautiful. It is in the low country, uh Calabogie Sound wraps around the golf course, and all the players that go there. Now, this is what they call an elevated event. They're playing for about $3.6 million first prize.

unknown 9:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Um Matthew Fitzpatrick did win yesterday, beat uh Rory, or God, what is it? Rory and he beat Scotty in a playoff. Scotty does his normal thing, comes from nowhere, like uh, you know, don't ever tug on Superman's cape on the weekend because the mask will come off, and it is Scotty Scheffler coming out of nowhere. But Scotty came back in the last four holes and picked up three shots and at the end of the 18, had to go to one hole playoff, which Matthew has hits his beautiful four-iron to within about uh, I don't know, 10, 12, 13 feet, something like that. And is terrible. I mean, into the wind, left to right, there's trouble on the left. Uh it's been a hard green to hit. Um, and everybody's been blowing it out in the right into the rough and so forth and so on. Anyway, Matthew hits his beautiful shot over a sand trap, hits on the green, ends about 13 feet away. Great shot. Shot of the year. And uh Scotty didn't, and anyway, Matthew wins in the playoff. Uh so he's now won twice on tour this year.

unknown 11:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Uh Scotty has won once on tour this year. Scotty has finished second in the last in eight days, he finished second twice. Um Meredith is the sweetest woman in the world, but I'm telling you, finish second. Um, you know, I can't even make a stern joke about it. I was gonna make a joke. You know, she he was now gonna be giving him giving him diaper duty because he's got two babies. So it's here, you take care of them. Can't finish first? Why are you wasting your time? Scotty and Meredith got the most functionally wonderful people in the world. Had their new baby just a few weeks ago called Remy. And um their their oldest son has captured the hearts of everybody already. And uh, but no, what fine human being Scotty Scheffler is. I mean, he just is completely completely solid individual. And he goes home and he forgets golf and he takes care of his family, and Meredith, I swear to God, you know, packs him a box lunch to take to the course. I mean, it's it's just beautiful, beautiful family. Anyway, who I'm talking to is James Algio. He comes from Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth. And uh have you had your uh selection of tornadoes yet that uh that we had here a couple nights ago?

SPEAKER_01 12:40

No, we've been uh pretty good out here in PA. Um, you know, we had a nice little taste of summer last week. It was nice and warm, and now it's back to being a little on the chilly side today. But uh other than that, it's been okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Well, three days ago we had 81 degrees, sunny, got sunburn. Last night we had frost.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I wonder what's going on here. Matter of fact, there's uh some new shrubs and plants that I planted that I actually have to go cover with uh fleeting bags uh a little bit later on to stop them from uh getting frostbitten overnight.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, I was gonna complain. They mowed our yard yesterday finally. It was long just because they hadn't been able to get to it, so they mowed it about half down. Or they guess they cut the hay, would be a better way to say it. And then I got up today and I see the uh this white storm laying all over my green grass, and the president of the HOA lives across the street, and I'm always texting her in the morning as she gets up and does her walk. Crazy stuff. So this morning I said, uh, dear Madam President, I do not know what residue that the uh landscape company left behind in my grass yesterday, but as I walked around barefoot in my smoking jacket this morning, you know, reflecting with a cup of coffee in my backyard, it apparently is slippery. I uh I would I would like to submit a complaint that I don't like it. So please have this removed by noon. Well, apparently she was able to because the sun came out and went away. What kind of magic that was. Anyway, play on tour. Do not feel bad for Scotty Shuffler finishing second twice and uh first once, because this year um he's only seventh on the money list. Can that be right?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Really?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I can't be right. I'm gonna have to get an updated list. No, um the uh let me let me pull this up while we're talking here, because that that list has to be an old list, and it could be my fault, but generally I don't make any mistakes. Possibly made a mistake. So let's get the catamas. Well, it would be the first time uh this year, uh, but it is April and you know we do get older. Let's see, where is the money? Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Well, what I'm finding is it's got your second.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

I'm pulling it up right now. And you are right, sir. That's absolutely right. Well, that was a good catch of my part, and you just got to it ahead of me. Matthew's got nine point one million dollars in the bank, two victories. Scotty with his second places, and he's finished high all year, and he did win early in the year, which people already probably forgot. He's at 8.4 million. Uh Rory's at 6.7. And uh as you go down the list, we've already got millionaires all the way down to. If you're at 58 tied for 58th, you've already made a million dollars. Down there are people like Max Homa, Aldrich Pot guy, Gator, Geiter, Harry Hall, who's a great player, Brooks Kepka coming back to the tour at 1.2 million, uh, Jordan Smith, Michael Thorb Jarnson, known as Thunderbear. But it's you know, it's not bad. And then you go down and into the hundredth spot. Let's just see how much money they've made. Um Eric Cole, who is a great, great young man. Mother played on uh LPGA, dad played on the PGA tour. He plays every week. He's made 486,000, which to me, you know, that's amazing because he plays almost he plays every week. And if he doesn't find a PGA tournament to play in, he'll go find some little tournament in Florida he'll play in.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, like for a uh winnings of like 10 grand, and then you'll win it by 20 shots, and then he'll donate the money to whatever charities in town.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, he's a great, great kid. Um but guess what? There are costs to playing on tour. Has anybody ever divulged to you? We talked about it on one of our shows recently. And I thought I would go into um the Corn Ferry. Do you know what the Corn Fairy tour is?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Uh a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah. It's it's a developmental tour. Uh it's where when you go try to qualify again on the PGA tour, there's a lot of ways to play on it. Still have to qualify to play on it. Johnny Kiefer right now is a great player. He's made 830,000 this year. Okay. Uh Neil Shipley, great player. He's in fourth, 640,000. And those, and that might be a little bad. But you get sort of a uh an understanding that the difference. Okay, but now there is a cost to playing on tour. And I've often told people I've worked with that um you see the upper echelon players and they're flying around on private jets and all that, and we'll get to that in a minute. But the guys that are playing in the middle of the road, or you know, they got their card, and the guy's coming off the Corn Ferry tour. I'm not going to go into the explanation of, okay, you might get your tour card. Every year the Corn Ferry Tour has a number of cards that they hand out at the end of the year. You qualify to play in the PGA tour. So it doesn't mean you're going to get in every event. All it means is you now have a card, and there are some events that you're going to qualify for. And there'll be openings and spots. And the higher you finish on the Corn Ferry tour, those are the ones that get in first on the open spots. And a lot of them will be going over to the second, normally the second tournament of the year, which is over in Hawaii and on Oahu, and a lot of them go there because a lot of the veterans don't go all the way to Hawaii. Because they don't have to and they don't want to. And, you know, so that's where a lot of the Corn Ferry Tour players go. They get started. And if they continue to play well, they can qualify to continue to play in other tournaments. But a lot of the tournaments through the year now are called elevated events, and they're only for the real upper echelon to play, so they don't even have a chance to even enter to get into it to play.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Okay. So, but let's get into the cost. Let's say you're that guy that's just trying to, you know, go along, and it's a, you know, golf is golf. If if I go and I play golf in little tournaments around Illinois, or I did when I was younger, you have to get your room, you have to get your car, you have to get your entry fee in, you got to pay for your food and your lodging. You know, you got to keep your equipment, your golf balls, and all that. There's a there was a cost every weekend to go play in weekend events that were amateur events. You're not even playing for any money when I was growing up, you're just playing for pride, get the experience. But today, if you're a professional golfer and you're flying on the airlines, your typical flights, now this is before the war, I guess. Your typical, if you're now lining up your ticketing, it's between 800 and 1,500 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Okay. Now, if you somehow qualify for a tournament that you didn't know, and you got to get a ticket, well, of course, that last-minute ticket's going to cost you a lot of wahoo-hoo, more money.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

The average uh for a week, uh, and many of the uh the tour players will share homes and get them through their agent, they'll get them through the online places to go get your homes like any other vacationer would get. But your hotel and lodging, let's say you're staying in just a mid-level hotel. I'm not going to put a name on it, but let's say you and your wife are driving around the country and you want to go stay, you know, you're just driving and you want to find a nice hotel. You know, it might be a Hyatt property or you know, super eight, uh, you know, maybe something better than that. Who knows? But, you know, just a mid-level, nice property. Well, that for the week is going to cost you between a thousand to twenty five hundred bucks.

unknown 21:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So now we're, let's say we're up to four thousand daily living, food and daily living, five hundred to a thousand just to eat. Now a lot they can eat at the course. If you're on the PGA tour, they might have some breakfast or you know, lunches there. Uh, if you got a sponsor, they might take you out to dinner. But you've got to pay for a caddy, okay? They do not. Come free. They get a base pay pay typically two thousand for the week.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Okay, to get yourself a good caddy. Plus, if you make the cut, five percent of your earnings go to your caddy.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

If you are in the top ten, that goes to seven percent. If you win, ten percent. So Matthew Fitzpatrick wins yesterday three point six million dollars. Peel off three hundred and sixty thousand, give it to your caddy. Okay, so when Scotty won, it's not a bad weekend for our caddy, huh? No, and he's won twice this year. And well, anyway, you could you could sit and take, you know, what would we say? You made nine million bucks so far? Right. Take eight percent of that. It's caddy's made roughly three quarters of a million bucks.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

700,000. That comes out. Coaching and support. You got your coach that's gonna come take a look at you.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Okay. 500 to 2,000 bucks. And if you stand in there all four days, it's on the tab, baby. But you also have a swing coach, a putting coach, a physio trainer, a health and diet trainer, a mental trainer, people you might call up, that's not even in that $2,000 per week. Best part about it is they no longer charge for entry fees on the PGA tour.

unknown 23:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

But on the other tours, typically those entry fees on any other little tours, that really becomes the pot that you're playing for. So, like down in Florida, if you're playing a little what they call a satellite tour, and your entry fee is $500, you got 100 guys playing, you got uh $50,000 in the pot, that becomes, you know, take some money out for the uh people that run it, and the rest of it becomes your your prize pot. Your, you know. Okay. So a low-end grinder that we call it is gonna be paying about $5,000 a week. A full support player that's paying for all those other different things, they'll be paying anywhere from eight to ten thousand a week.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

What?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

25-week season, which that's sort of that that's high. But typical players gonna be paying minimally $125,000 to $250,000 just to compete. What the hardest truth is this they miss 40 to 50 percent of the cuts. Those week those weeks, they make the same same amount as much, they make as same amount on the PJ tour as you and I do. We're tied at zero. So they get to still pay their caddy, their teachers, their lodging, their tickets, and the whole nine yards. Um yeah. The um the gap between the PJ tour and the cone for corn ferry tour is that you know, your costs get higher in a PJ tour, but you're playing for a whole bunch of money, you know. Pressure of the Corn Ferry tour is you're planning to survive.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

You know? Explain it to your wife where you you did not make it into the top 20 in the Corn Ferry tour at the end of the year and got your PJ tour card. And oh, by the way, you're gonna be going on the Corn Fairy Tour next year. And where do you go the first part of the year? Well, you go down to South America and you're flying around all over South America on your own, eating strange food, maybe with a caddy, you know, and that's where the Corn Ferry tour starts again.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

It's lonely, it's difficult. You're questioning yourself every morning, why am I here? You know, do I believe in myself? And you are maybe one of 800 people that could play as well as you are. They just didn't, you know, haven't got that far yet because there's just so many great players. So as they say, keep your day job.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah. So I mean it's really a a a labor of love in a lot of cases, right? I mean, it's physical, it's taxing physically, it's taxing mentally. I mean, it's but you know, those guys aren't out there just having a good time playing golf. They're really more fighting for survival in a lot of cases.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

No, they're fighting for survival in every case. I mean yeah, as I've often said, and it and you can see it the pat this year has been the year of the bad back. There's been some great players. It seems like in the with the stresses that are put on to hit the ball as far as they do, the backs blow out. And uh there's and I could go through the list, but there's been four or five prominent bad backs this year. Of course, we all know the problems that Tiger has had over his life. Sure. You know, torn Achilles, knee operation, I think five on his knee, maybe ten on his back, you know, just because he swings so hard and you know he got himself in shape, but then you had all that muscle nobody had ever done in the world of golf, you know, getting all that power. And it, you know, it just blew his, you know. His workout regimen was crazy. Workout regimen back in the 70s was let's go play golf, drink, go to sleep, womanize, smoke some cigarettes. You know, that's day one. Let's get up and go do it again tomorrow. And I could name names, but I will not. So that was a different way of life.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Different way of life. So, you know, some of those guys fly private planes. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

No, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Have you heard of Netchet?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

I mean, I mean, that's gotta be that's gotta be just a small percentage, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

No. No. They have now the kids in college are somehow somebody somewhere along the line is giving them private planes to fly from tournament to tournament.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

The top five. Okay. However, there is a cost to flying those planes, and the upper echelon players do have contracts with net jets, or like Rory owns his own jet. Tiger owns his own jet, and they cost anywhere from 65 to 100 million dollars a piece. And they are not inexpensive.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Okay. So let's let I what I did is I found out what it cost to fly those private jets. Because down at the down at the Masters, the airline air airport there was lined up with what we say, 300 private jets. Now a lot of those could have been patrons. But uh you know, you got mid-size jet, mid-size jet, mid-size jet, and normally you're tigers there, and then you got the tiger jet, which makes the other ones look like babies. Um the hourly cost, if you are um use I'm not saying this is netjets, but uh NetJets is a prominent provider of private planes. The tour, a lot of them have contracts with NetJets. A light jet, which means a small one, only cost eight to nine thousand dollars an hour to rent.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

That's all.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

That's it. Mid-sized jet, ten to twelve thousand an hour, larger jets, twelve to fourteen thousand. Okay. You're flying, uh, you know, let's say, okay, that's fine. Typical weekly travel, PJ Tour Reality, Florida to Texas. Okay. Two to three hours per leg, usually round trip multi-leg routing. Typical cost per tournament week, two and a half hours each way, that's five hours. At $10,000 an hour, that's the mid-sized jet. You're just gonna be ready to pay $50,000 per week. Okay?

unknown 30:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah. Multi-stop tour level, more realistic. Guy might want to go home for a couple days.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Pick him up, take him around, got a friend here, got a friend there. You know, it's always like there are players that live in the same place, and it would be like, hey, uh, Scotty, I know that jet's provided to you by you know ABC. Why don't if I hop along? And I think they do that, except Scotty's plane already has Meredith, Meredith and Bennett and Remy, and you know, that's his family, and then he they got mom and dad, and you know, what they got. I don't know, maybe a cook, you know, maybe a nanny, who knows what else is on that jet. I'm sure as nice as air, you know, uh if Uncle Randy would go and say, Hey, can I hit your ride to Dallas? Uh, the answer would be, Are you serious? No. Yeah. Find the nearest airport, dude. Um yeah, it can cost them that. If you get a jet card membership, the you know, which is a whole never like joining a country club for private jets, that entry is two hundred to two hundred and fifteen thousand, and for that you get twenty-five hours of flights. And that's uh, you know, cost it saves you a little bit, but you're paying, you know, a couple hundred thousand up front. Um what the top players, and this is at the Scotty and Rory level per week, 75,000 to 150,000 each. One to three million per year just on flights. Rarely fly mid-level PJ players, the mid-level PJ player, rarely fly private full-time. They mix commercial with occasional private cost. The biggest insight is though, is that um it really helps on your body. You know, these guys they train, they're tired, they don't get to go home that long. When you think about it, they got done playing yesterday. 5 o'clock our time, 6 o'clock Florida time. Um Matthew is playing with his brother in this week's tournament down in um Louisiana. It's a partner tournament. So his brother, who won over on a DP World Tour, again, he's a great player on his own. But anyway, Matthew gets me, where's he gonna go for one day? You know, is he gonna go home? Maybe if he lives in Florida, maybe yes.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Um, so let's say you get to go home for a day. So you go home for a day, you do your wash, pick up your new shirts, look at your contracts, look at your mail. Uh Tuesday is a practice day, Wednesday is a pro-am day, Monday is just your travel family day, you know. Coach the kids in soccer, go to church, do your wash, give your wife a kiss, have one good meal.

unknown 33:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Have a nice Monday. You're back at it Tuesday, working on your game, practice, you know, doing your pressers at the tournament site. Wednesday you might have to do a presser and then play in the pro am, and then Thursday you're back competing.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Okay. So am I painting a beautiful picture? You want to be a golf professional yet, James?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

It's a tough world.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Doesn't sound quite as glamorous as uh as you would think, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

No, it's tough. Gary Woodland, who is coming back from brain surgery, as everybody knows, what a great story. Yesterday on the 18th hole, this terribly difficult hole. Um, and of course, we're akin to all the things he's going through because of my son's situation coming over the past 20 some odd years, who's now perfectly healthy, doing great. I just had breakfast with him this morning. And we always have our recap on where he's at. But very blessed to have my own son be alive and back in 05, very honestly, terminally ill from viral encephalitis, made a miracle recovery. But there are residual things when you have head trauma that uh we learned back then that are prevalent in head trauma cases. Gary Woodland, of course, everybody knows that uh Gary uh number of years ago uh found a lesion or they found a lesion. He was having some anxiety troubles, led to having brain surgery. And and if you don't know the Gary Woodland story, please look it up. It's just a tremendous story. Gary Woodland is a former U.S. open uh winner, and he had this where he admitted that he was having panic attacks even this year, about six weeks ago. And he comes out and he wins the Texas tournament a couple weeks ago. Hugely great story, wonderful guy. This Sunday, terribly difficult hole, the 18th, wind blowing everywhere. People can't even get it on the green. He pops his shot, the last shot of his tournament, over the sand trap, hits on the green, rolls in the hole for an eagle.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Oh wow, I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Oh my god. What a and you sit there and you go, what couldn't happen to a better guy? And um, so it's it's pretty cool. But um, no, playing on tour is um is just a uh it's a difficult life, and these guys have so much talent and they work so hard all the way from diet, exercise, stretching, you know, getting their mindset that they can win, they gotta fight the devil, you know, and you know that it's so rare to win. You know, every week there might be 120 guys tee off, there'll be one winner and 119 losers.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

You know, and those guys down at the bottom, those guys that went to Hawaii this year, I did look up early in the year, you might win money in that tournament, but it's gonna be 19,000 bucks. That was last place. Now in Hawaii, you and most of them take their families. I mean, they're again, sure, you know, they're staying there, they're eating the food, they're traveling, you know, 4,000 miles to get to Hawaii. It's a long flight. 4,000 miles meaning from I think Chicago. I think if I want to put that in perspective. Haya is the most isolated place on earth, and it's expensive in 19,000 bucks after you pay your caddy fees, after you fly there. There's no way that's gonna be a positive thing for you. Other than get the experience.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yep, you are definitely losing life.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

So you're in the world of auto racing. Do they have sponsors in auto racing?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Oh, sure. That's the that's the lifeblood of auto racing.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

So tell me how that works. Somebody sponsors a car, do they get a percentage of the wins, or do they do it for grins and giggles? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

No, the sponsors don't get a percentage, they get other stuff. They get advertising and activation, meaning whatever they you know, they use it in a marketing program, and they get the advertising, they do entertainment, they entertain clients, prospects at the track. It's uh there's a lot of different uh opportunities and things that they can use sponsorship for, but they don't recoup any of that money. So the winnings, the winnings go to the team, um, and different teams split it up differently. You know, the driver always gets a percentage, of course, and then uh the rest of the team gets some, and of course, the team gets some. Um but yeah, but I mean racing teams only live or only work because of corporate sponsor. You know, I mean like you know, that the one of the things they say in auto racing is you know, one of the how do you how do you make ten million dollars in motorsports start with twenty million dollars?

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Because it's it's very expensive unless somebody, you know, I mean, you know, Michael do Michael Jordan owns a team, right? He's a billionaire. Um and they have tons of corporate partners that run that team. So, you know, even even Michael that would you know spend one well they have they run two cars, um average probably 10 to 12 million dollars a year per car. So, you know, say 25 million dollars plus to run that whole team for a year, you know, if that's coming out of his pocket, that's just money that's going out the door. The percentage that comes back in wins is very small percentage compared to what you're putting out. So if it wasn't for those corporate partners, those teams would be losing tons and tons of money every year.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Wow. Amazing. Well, it's sort of in the same way in golf. Uh you know, a country club kid will be a great player. He comes there, he's the assistant, then he goes out and he starts winning the things in the state. And let's say a kid goes out and he wins this, you know, the state tournament, which is always big almost in any state, certainly in Illinois, California, your southern states, Texas. You win those as an amateur, then they jump to the next level and they become a PJ Pro and they can win, you know, the Illinois Open or the Texas Open or California Open. And whatever club they're at, you know, there'd be members go, man, you know, you got to go to tour. Well, that's fine, except you don't have money. So, you know, guys will sit around, well, let's sponsor them. So, what does that mean? And sometimes, in some old cases, they tried to come up with a way where the sponsors would get paid back percentage of the earnings. And honestly, the best way to do it is that if you're thinking of sponsoring somebody on tour, do it in the fashion of race car driving. Give them the money, you know. If you got a hundred grand, there's two things you can do. You can do it this way. You can give it to the kid and try to help him make a career, and you know, somewhere along the line, if he's making money, I guarantee you that money will come back to you. That kid will write the check and give you your money back. There'll be no agreement, there'll be no written agreement, but that's just standard. I mean, very few that don't. But if in reality, if you're sitting around and, you know, hopefully you don't have too many cocktails in you on a Friday when you and your three other buddies decide to sponsor this kid for a year, and again, you're gonna have to give him a half million bucks, give him a shot in the car ferry tour just to get there.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

Right, sure.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Okay, let's say he gets there. Okay. You want to take the pressure off. Well, there's still gonna be pressure, but uh consider that money gone. You know, you could sit and you know, take your hundred grand each, set it on fire, throw it out the car window. That's as much chance you got getting it back as you do giving it to a kid to make it on tour.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

You know, not gonna happen. It's just it's to catch the lightning in the bottle. So don't want to discourage anybody. If you're good and you're got it, you're gonna get it. You're gonna get there, you can go qualify through, you know, U.S. Open, go to the U.S. Open. A lot of guys have done that. They've made a, you know, there's other places where you can play your way on. But if you take a look at the guys that win the U.S. Open, you're gonna find that those are the guys that are playing on the PGA tour, you know.

unknown 42:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

And uh occasionally there will be occasionally there'll be a hot shot that comes out of that. Um Justin Rose, who is now 45, playing wonderfully, started very, very young. I think he was 18, played in the open, just the British Open and did well. Anyway, enough of that. Uh what it costs to play, you know, now that everybody's depressed and they're giving up their dreams of playing on the PGA tour. That's all. Just want to paint that picture. So when you go to a tournament, we're gonna dial it all the way back to this behavior. When you decide that you're gonna go to a tournament and yell in the guy in the middle of a guy's backswing, take a look at all the things that could go bad. He could miss the shot, miss the playoff, he could stop quickly, wrench his back, hurt his wrist.

unknown 42:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

It could be a career-ending shout in the middle of his back.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Okay. If you think shouting mashed potatoes, people like to hear that because you want to go back home and you're recording the tournament, you want to go back home and uh hear yourself on national television. Nobody cares. All you are is an irritant to everybody around you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Very true.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

And if you want to get noticed, you know, buy a ticket, go to the masters, find yourself a spot on the 16th hole, right behind the T. You know, and like this year, we had these two guys wearing plaid sweaters that, you know, they wanted to be noticed, so they were on every shot, couldn't miss them. And you stand there quietly, and not only can you say nothing, but you can be seen on TV. Now, what will that get you? Nothing. Zero.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

You could wear your sweater, look in the mirror, and have the same amount of gain in your, you know, in your life, career, thoughts, and promises of what the world. So we do have something pretty exciting coming out in our next uh in the next couple of weeks. We now are going to have a platform for our golfers, golf, and travel magazine where we are and we are now putting up the sites being built. It's called our Shop My Site. And there'll be a link that you can go to Golfers, Golf and Travel Facebook page within the next week and get a link to our site where you're gonna see the preferred relationships that we have around the world for golf, travel, dining, sipping, recreation, family fun, sports, and spas, where what we are going to put up there are people that we've dealt with, people we know, or companies that we have really a lot of respect for, and we're gonna put links to the products that we either have used closely or have seen at the PGA show that we highly recommend. Because like obviously we can't buy everything that we see at the PGA show. That'd be wonderful. Did you ever get in a spot? I think you didn't know anybody that could buy the PGA show. Uh no, well, it would be billions. I think they said this year there was a level of about that the PGA show was gonna be responsible for about three billion dollars of money going into the world of golf. Yeah, pretty cool. But our shop my site are gonna be in there, they're gonna be any anywhere from um in Tea Espresso, which has an amazing product for teas and infusions and gifts, which is an amazing company. Um golf towels from another fine young lady, Par Blue Golf out in California. Um there's another one that just uses Ted and Kate. What a great Ted and Kate.com. Has nothing to do with Ted or Kate, which I think is the name of their dogs. But uh she makes uh incredible uh you send her your your golf card with uh your country club routing on it, and she makes them into wall hangings and beautiful prints and very reasonable, like 30 to 35 bucks. And not only that, she's just a really cool individual. Um yeah. So all of those that are gonna be in our golfers, golf and travel magazine have have what we call shelves on our platform where you have links actually right to our website and right out of our website, right into those products. And uh golf simulators, even pickleball, because that's entering the world of golf. Anyway, you got anything else, worlds of wisdom for this time of day, James?

SPEAKER_01 46:47

No. No, unfortunately, wisdom is uh not comments amazing on them.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Well, it's just overrated.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Well that that's it. That is well.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Yeah, well, I really appreciate you joining. I guess we're gonna be coming back later in the week. We really want to thank everybody that's been listening. We know that there's been well over since uh for the the week of uh the masters, we had well over a couple hundred thousand people listening to our masters episodes. You can find them on all the good things in life dot com, which is one of our websites, the vehicle style. If you want to do that, we can go to golfersgolfandravel.com, flips into our media site, see a lot of good things there, and uh we really enjoy getting together and just talking about you know just some of the things other people don't talk about. So we really appreciate you listening. Also, if you can go to iHeart, Spotify, any of the 19 major podcast channels, maybe you're listening to it now. Go to our YouTube site, which is under Live EcoStyle, go to our Vimeo. If you can't find us, you can't find ants in your own house. Put it that way. Anyway, that's all I can do. James, thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Alright, and you be safe out there, and everybody, as my grandfather said, always leave a better footprint because that's just the right thing to do. Talk to you later. It's been a presentation of Distillery Channel Media LLC. Be safe out there. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_04 48:34

I've seen a smile turn stranger to family.