Fore Play - An Alternate Universe: The Golf World in 2022

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Trent and Frankie man the show and Dan Rapaport joins (15:23) as PGA Tour changes are announced just before recording. More elevated events, guaranteed money, travel stipends, changes to the PIP, and more. Tiger and Rory collaborate and form a new tech-infused team golf league. A “sounds of the universe” clip was released, and it’s horrific. Trent and Frankie discuss golf course maintenance, creation and much more with four different golf superintendents around the country from Long Island to Arizona (49:27).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. I feel like I'm in a TV show where, you know, the bad guys, quote-unquote, you know, if we're talking about Live or whatever, they started to win. And it was like, man, I think the bad guys might just, what they did is going to end up working. And that's going to be how the world is. And now we're in the last 15 minutes of the show where Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy show up. And they're like, we're not letting anything happen. It stops right here.

Four play presented by Barstool Sports. It's Thursday. It's Frankie and Trent Day. Riggs is traveling. He's on his way to Toronto. He's not landing until later tonight. So it's Trent and myself. I am also going to Toronto.

So right after this podcast, I'm flying in Toronto. First time to Canada. Actually, second time to Canada. But first time officially to like a big city. I went to Niagara. I got into some weird shit on the other side of the. the border. This is my first time actually going to Toronto. I'm very excited. Trent Daddy, we've got a ton of news today. We're going to try and have kind of a crazy show where like we're

going to have some call-ins, hopefully. We're going to talk about some grass later. You and I always have some weird shit to talk about. But how are you doing on this fine Wednesday morning when people are listening on Thursday? I'm doing great. Yeah, you and I, we went back and forth last night with the travel and like who's going to be where, where, who can record the podcast, when can we do it? And you and I decided we'll bang it out in the morning because you guys got a hectic travel day to the north. So we decided to do it now. And we were kind of like, what are we going to talk about? That's always the conversation between you and I.

And then right as we hit record, all of this news started coming out of East Lake. Jay Monaghan is there for the tour championship. And he put out this memo. He put out this press release. He was giving a press conference. And there are a ton of changes coming to the PJ Tour. and this is all coming off the secret meeting led by Rory McElroy and Tiger Woods just outside the BMW championship.

Seems like Tiger took the changes that they wanted, went to Jay Monaghan, was like, this is kind of what we want. And over the last week or so, they've been banging out all these changes that the PJ tour is going to make. And there's huge changes coming. And not only are they coming, but they're coming pretty much immediately. Like these aren't happening in two years or three years. these are being implemented for the most part either right now or when the 2023 season starts.

So this is a big day for the PGA tour. We're going to run through a few of the changes because there's just so many and I think we should probably talk about them. Yeah, there's a lot of changes. And, you know, I talked about this the other day. It's fucking crazy that it took what has actually happened with Phil Mickelson. He wanted to change the tour. I wanted to be a pioneer.

He wanted to lead this rogue group. of golfers and try and change the landscape of golf. That's like what he acclaims, but really he was just trying to pay his debts. But at the end of the day, he did make massive amounts of changes, or he paved the way for guys who were in the PGA tour, who were part of that collective that stayed.

He allowed them to have leverage over guys like Jay Monaghan and all the PGA tour to be like, we want change now, or else your entity does not exist anymore. So they did it. They fucking bent the knee. Jay Monahan's like, oh yeah, we've got millions of dollars in this reserve that we can just give you guys that we've been holding hostage

for all these years. And now we're going to start doing like league minimums for corn fairy guys and all these top earnings. So yeah, I mean, we can go through it. I don't know if you want to read them like word for word, but it's pretty fucking crazy what they're doing. I love the $500,000 minimum program that's going to be going for Corn Ferry Tour category if you saw that way. Right. So that one's super interesting. And it's it goes against a lot. their earnings. So no matter what, they're going to make $500,000 as a minimum. And if you win a tournament, but like your earnings for the year, if it doesn't add up to $500,000, like let's say it adds up to $370,000, then the PJ tour pays the $130,000 gap. So they're going to make $500,000 minimum if you are at a certain point on the rankings in terms of like where you stand with the tour. That is incredible. That is just a change that we never thought would happen. And like you said, the Phil Migglesons of the world, regardless of how you think that they went about their business, it did work. It definitely worked.

Now, he's on the other side of the fence. And Jay Monaghan was asked, like, has there been any conversation about will you let the live guys back? We know that there's been a suspension in place right now. It's an indefinite suspension. And he simply said, no. He said, no, they've made their decision. Anybody who has played in a live golf event will not be welcome back to the people. PJ tour. But the changes that are taking place are because of a guy like Phil

Mickelson. I don't think Jay Monahan will ever say that. But it forced the hand of the PJ tour and it allowed the guys who are still in it, the Rories, the JTs, the Tigers, the Rikis to say we want these changes. And they're happening. The PIT program, that's also changing. It was 50 million last year that they divided out between the top 10 guys. That is now 100 million. And it's divided out between the top 20 guys. So that program has grown. It is very interesting, and I'm sure this is going to be the response from a lot of people, how much money the PJ tour found. How much money they found to supply all these programs, make these programs bigger. I mean, they doubled up the PIP program, 50 million to 100 million.

That is crazy. And I mean, the purses are going up. Now there's these 12 elevated events. There's that the top players have to play 20 of them. So we're going to get 20 events. if I'm reading this correctly. And again, I'm not great at reading these things. I just kind of go through them and hope that I'm reading them correctly.

But what it looks like is there's events that the top players have to play in that are mandatory. There's a minimum. So what that means is we're going to get these huge events that are going to have incredible fields. Like that's like guys can pick and choose. Obviously, they've been able to pick and choose. But now there's these set events where you have to play a certain amount of these, which means those fields are going to be fantastic. That's another change.

These are all good changes. And it changes at every level, right? Like the PIP program is for the top players, the big money earners, the guys who make an impact, the guys who should be making more money than the rest. But then the minimum that we talked about, that helps the people near the bottom. So these changes aren't just happening to keep guys like JT and Rory happy. It's trying, they're trying to keep everybody happy because they don't want the pipeline to live to not only take the big name.

like the Brooks's and the Bryson's and the DJs, they also don't want them to take their youth pipeline away because that's where the game actually grows. You get a next generation coming up behind these guys and you don't want live offering them millions upon millions of dollars and just being like, hey, jump over with us. With this minimum program, with the increased purses, they are able to keep some of the younger talent

that is going to keep the PJ tour relevant. And one of the things they're doing, which has been insane that they haven't done this, because when you hear about the amount of money that they've had in reserve and that they're able to just include now once everyone started complaining, something like this where the non-exempt members from the 126 rank to the 150th rank category players will now have access to a new travel stipend program, which provides $5,000 for every miscut to assist with travel costs and other tournament-related expenses, the fact that they couldn't muster up $5,000 for these guys who were professional golfers from $126 to $150th ever, And you had guys that were legitimately losing money.

Max Homa, when he won last year, or this year I think it was, he said he made like $11,000 total money, not including all the expenses that he had to take and occurred throughout an entire season of playing on the PGA tour. The fact that now they're covering these guys' asses, I mean, in this day and age, like a flight for you and your coach and your wife or like your kid is like almost $5,000 right now. They're back. I mean, depending on where. they're going where they're coming from it's crazy and they have hotels they have food they have

all the stuff that they have to do so this is a really good thing for the guys that are on that that bubble the 126 to 150 that like want to keep grinding they want to get into the top 125 they want to be able to do that but they also like can't do it because they can't make ends meet sometimes bang now of a sudden you have this stipend program which is huge this is what happens when you're not the only game in town anymore when you're the only game in town you can pretty much do whatever you want. People forget, but before all this lived stuff happened and it started to semi-work where they're taking these players away, like the people didn't love the PGA tour. It's just been in the last 12 months where there's been this shift, where there's been this rogue league

that has popped up, where the PGA tour for a little bit was in a good place where people were like, no, we want to stick with the PGA tour because they are the ones who made us. They're the ones who made us rich, all of those things. But before that, people wanted changes. like these, but the PJ tour was not willing to do that because they can look at those people and those rankings that you're talking about and be like, where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Are you going to go to Asia? Are you going to go to somewhere else? If you want to be here, we're not going to give you $5,000 per miscut. That's just not going to happen. But because of Liv, and it's absolutely obviously because of this, that these changes are

being made. And guys who otherwise would really, really struggle to afford trying to become a professional PJ to our golfer, it lightens the load a little bit. And that is, it's good. I mean, we're not on either side of it. So we just want to see guys be treated fairly. And it seems like it's very much heading in that direction. Lighten the load. I can't stop thinking about semen when you say something like that. When I say light and the load, you think about semen? Big time. Just because of load? Yeah, dude. Yeah, the 20 events is what's really getting people going. I saw Danny Rappaportle over Twitter, and like this is actually happening.

It's demand. I mean, so they're going to have 12 elevated events. You have a total of 20 minimum. And they actually listed all of them. So you're going to get the Century Tournament of Champions, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer. You've got the Memorial Workday. I'm sorry. The Memorial, the WGC Del Match Play, FedEx, St. Jude, BMW, and the Tour Championship.

And then they're going to add four more events to those elevated events that are still not determined. yet. I mean, you might get some random ass tournament that they want to put in there that all of a sudden the best players in the world are committing to playing. I mean, imagine they just put the John Deere Classic in there and all of a sudden the top 20 players, top 60 players on the tour are just playing in it. If they, if Jay Monaghan does that, I will kiss his feet the next time I see him. I will rip his shoes off of his feet. I will rip his socks off and I will kiss his feet. I don't think it's going to happen, but that would be incredible. The one, the last change that I saw was that players will earn lifetime membership immediately upon reaching 20 wins before that. It was a 15, you had to be on for 15 years before that. So like Rory, boom, 21 wins on the PJ tour. He's got a lifetime membership now. So it's, it's all good things. And, you know, it took a while to get there. It took a pretty wild route to get there. But it seems like the changes that are happening are good. And the players are going to stick around and you know it is interesting for the guys who played in these live events were on the

outside looking in now they're like yeah we wanted these changes to happen while we were there but you know we had to force the hand of the PJ tour by jumping on and playing live events and now we just can't go back it's it's a very strange situation for them these are powerful important changes and you know what else is powerful what the woo yeah i mean there's so much power behind that little band that sits on your wrist, whether you're golfing, whether you're on the peloton, whether you're running, whether you're sleeping, whether you're working. Doesn't matter. You can wear it 24-7. You can charge it while you're sleeping because he charges right there on your wrist. The whoop is the world's most powerful, personalized digital fitness and health coach, an official fitness wearable of the

PGA and LPGA tours. I mean, remember when COVID was going crazy and they was handing these things out like freaking hotcakes to all the PGA tour players and all of a sudden everyone was realizing if they had COVID or if they didn't have COVID it was a crazy time for whoo it's like holy smokes they just came we we could no one no one in the world like we couldn't even get testing to work like you had at home testing you'd go to testing you'd get false positives and all of stuff all of a sudden whoops like no we're just going to like track your wrist and see if you have elevated like sleep and like your heart rate goes up when you're sleeping then we're just going to know that you have a sickness right they kind of stumbled on to COVID testing that was legit because it was because I got COVID

you got COVID and one of the main indicators that I was like man I might be getting COVID was looking at the whoop and then having elevated levels while you're sleeping and you know 99 out of 100 times if you had that you were sick and at that time it was likely COVID so yeah they really they somehow stumbled upon the technology that was tracking COVID and it just tracks everything like you're saying it tracks your sleep it tracks your strain it uh I love the sleep because I just like to know how much sleep I get per night. I don't like to just eyeball it. So the whoop is great.

We've been wearing it for a couple of years now. And I'll be wearing it probably for the rest of my life as long as they're around, which I think is going to be a very, very long time. Yeah. So the whoop 4.0 also is smaller, smarter, and designed with new biometric tracking, including skin temperature, blood oxygen, and the new haptic alarm. So if you want all of this, which is what we have and we love it, Go to whoop.com and enter the code for F-O-R-E to save 15% at checkout.

It is amazing. You have to try it. So just make sure you also put in that code for because we love it so much and we want everyone to know that you got sent from us. I'm looking through Twitter. I also have, we have a couple things to get to today aside from all this stuff from the PGA tour. I want to get to this golfer that got jailed for having a fake handicap in Europe. He literally went to jail for it. there was a funny group in the USAM actually I can just get to this one

did you see that this pairing in the USM this year was Costanza Kramer and Newman no it was fucking psychotic I don't know how it didn't go more viral I saw it on like golf Reddit and they're like how is this even real and it was real like I actually went back and checked it Cassanza Kramer and Newman unless I'm being duped maybe it's pretty rare for something to happen that doesn't come across my desk because I'm on Twitter so much that I see every little bit of it like But I'm going through my brain right now, and I never remember saying anything about a Kostanza group it. The other thing we're trying to do.

So it is the Trent and Frankie show. So I'm trying to make things happen. I'm going back and forth. We just wanted to go through all that PGA tour stuff. And I'm reading Danny Rappaport's tweets as I go through him. And why not just call the guy and see if Danny Rappaport can actually just talk to us about what's actually happening? And now he's on the show. He just, as I'm talking about it, he's now just joined the show.

Danny Rappaport, you are the man from Twitter that we were just reading. reading his tweets and now you are now on for play welcome to the show i'm the man from twitter i'll take it you are the man from twitter um we've done this before we've had you jump in i think the last time we had you jump in was after tiger melted your brain we just had to talk to you after that yeah this this is a this isn't a more like we need information because we just as soon as we hopped on here all this news started to break out of east lake and we were reading through the changes that were being made we did our best but we're like not nearly as plugged in as you are. So if you, looking at this release and all these changes that have

being made to the PJ tour, what sticks out to you the most? What are your biggest takeaways from this? I'm surprised how quickly they acted. I expected them to be to announce like one or two things today, right? Maybe like the PIP going from 10 players to 20 players and 50 million to 100 million. And I expected Monaghan to be like, you know, we're aware of the meeting that took place. were determined to listening to our guys. Instead of that, they just went nuclear. They just basically did everything the guys were asking for. You basically had a crew of the top guys who came to them last week and said,

we want this, this, this, this, and this. And they said, okay, we'll do it. And we'll figure out how to pay for it and how it's actually going to work later. So look, the top players have more leverage than they've ever had before because of Liv. We can't ignore Liv's role in this. and realized how much leverage they had. Tiger Woods, you know, the big boss flew in, was like, all right, let's actually get this deal done.

And they have created basically a new PGA tour. This is a really, really significant difference, right? You know what the top 20 players, what events are going to be playing. You know, as a TV person, you know, if we pay for this PJ tour package, we're going to get to see this group of players play each other 20 times instead of like five last year. So it's just amazing. what can happen and how quickly things can happen when you have all the big cars, you know,

united in one position. Where do they find all this money, Danny? Where'd this money come from? I mean, I think a lot of the money comes from. They have this like rainy day fund. They have this like basically a bunch of money set aside for whenever they need it. And they used a lot of it during, during COVID to pay for tests and pay for, you know, all of the logistics that you needed to put a tournament on during the pandemic.

and they're using it again today. But I also think that by promising this, they're going to be able to get more money from their sponsors because if you're sponsoring one of those big tournaments now, one of those elevated events, you know who you're going to get and you know you're going to get the top 20 players in the world. They made the PGA tour a much more exciting product today.

And I think that they will backfill some of that money they use from that kind of slush fund with additional money from investors, but also it's like, you know, a lot of the money is going to a smaller group of players. So yes, it's a bigger pie, but the pie is also being sliced up differently. More of the money is funneling to the top players. And whether that's right or wrong, that's just sort of a natural evolution of the state of the game now. One of the things that I saw that I think is going to make a huge impact, and you've been on the grind and on the beat for so much longer and you know exactly these guys stories but the $5,000 stipend program do you think that's going to make a

really big impact on those guys from 126 to 150? I already had two guys text me saying that's like am I reading this right? Like are we getting money now when we miss a cut because it's expensive. It's you know, between golf and between the NBA's the NBA players don't pay for shit. They don't pay for their food. They don't pay for their physical trainers. They don't, I mean, If you get your tour players pay for all of that. And it adds up. And if you miss a cut, you lose money for the week. And that sucks.

Doesn't matter how much money you make. Imagine you did your job for a week and you didn't do it very well and you lost money. You just didn't get paid. And not only do not get paid, but you had to pay to commute into the office. And you had to pay for lunch. And you had to pay for all these things. And there was no money to offset it. So, yeah, I do think it's going to make a big difference.

I think, you know, guys get a sponsor invite into a tournament now. they know that even if they don't miss the cut, they're not going to lose money for the week. So, yeah, look, these are like kind of low-hanging fruit that for whatever reason the PJ Tour wasn't addressing and now they are. And I think it's cool that, you know, I think the tour players, the top guys who met last week

probably asked for that. You know, they probably, they did look at the guys a little bit, you know. And I think that's what's so good about having someone like Rory McElroy, you know, leading this charge. And from what I'm hearing, And he, him and Tiger are really one and two in this, right? Tigers, of course, the alpha male. But Tiger's not playing on the PGA tour very much.

Tiger's not playing in those 20 events next year. I can guarantee you that. Rory is sort of the face of the PGA tour right now. And we know, and you guys know, how good of a guy he is, and how big picture he thinks. And how, you know, he is just genuinely a very good person. He thinks about people who aren't himself. And that's not always the case with superstar athletes.

How many of these top guys you think have sent a text message to Phil Mickelson just like with a sarcastic thank you being like, yeah, thanks, bud, like we're fine now. This is, you know, he's going to feel a little bit better about himself, I think, you know. This is kind of what he was wanting, kind of what he was asking for. Did he go about it the right way? Probably not. But he will definitely sleep a little easier tonight knowing that there are a bunch of guys on the PG-Tour top players who are probably happier now. than they were two or three years ago. They've got a better situation now.

They're going to make more money. They know exactly what they're going to play, and every tournament they play in is going to have that buzz. That's what's so cool is like, and all these guys play against each other, like I think about Riniera, right? Even though it's not a major, even though it's not the players,

you've got all the top guys playing against each other on a really good golf course, a tournament with history, and there's buzz, and the players feel that. And I think sometimes if you're a top player and you go play in one of these events that isn't one of those big events,

you're like, this is flat. Like there's not that many people here, the golf courses, whatever. I have a lot more PJ tour events that feel big. And I think that's awesome for the tour and for fans. It is funny to think about, we talked about this little bit last show where, like, Patrick Cantley, who I don't know if he was ever going to go to live, but it seems like he's a PJ tour guy. He's committed to it.

And it is funny to think about a guy like that who was never, ever going to jump to live. And then the best thing, the changes start to happen. And you're like, oh, I, you know, I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to, you know, almost sacrifice my. reputation and the PJ tour is just better and I'm probably going to make more money doing it. It's Patrick. You know, Matt Fitzpatrick, I think he's a good example of that. You know, his dad was going to disown him.

There was no chance he was going to go despite rumors, but there are rumors about everybody. And yeah, he's one of these guys who played his way into that sort of top players category this year, right? Like, he probably wouldn't be considered a top player last year, but, you know, want to major this year finished in top five and another one he's in the top ten in the world and you're right he basically just keeps quiet does his thing and now they're like okay we're going to give you all this more money and you're going to know exactly we're going to play and welcome to the club and he's like yeah fuck this works for me it's amazing it really is have you heard anything about um this stadium

series idea that tiger woods and rory like i was trying to wrap my brain around how they're going to do that have you guys see they did that thing at city field right have you have you guys seen that Well, that's where fans hit from like the stands, right? And you have to hit targets. I guess they're going to do that also. I mean, what else? Like drivet drivers into the crowd. I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm thinking like, I mean, it's going to be hard to sell out like Yankee Stadium and have a putting competition. But that would actually be pretty cool like a one-on-one. The lights are on them. But I don't know how you're going to fill that place up with 50,000 people with just golf, trick shots or skill competitions. I don't know. It should be interesting, though. I have no idea what that's going to look like

But that announcement came out That's where my head went was So that like city field thing where like you could $50 like to second base Yeah And when I Had to sit and watch I don't know

I remember I went to a Wisconsin football game once When I was in college and they had Steve Schricker I hit a ball From like the top deck To middle field and it was really electric People were really balls Oh shit You know obviously it was a Wisconsin

Madison football game people were smashed and hammered, but it was, it was a cool moment. I'll give them, giving that. Going into East Lake real quick before we let you go, do you have any thoughts? We always have the same thing each year, like, Can't Lay starting at 10 under, and the next guys at 8 and the next guy's a 6th? How are you feeling going into this year? Do you think it's become normalized, or you still kind of weirded out by it? It seems like the guys are weirded out by it. I'm a little weirded out by it, but I think it's kind of like an unfixable problem. There's no way to have a tournament that,

accurately rewards or a system that accurately rewards like season long play and produces final tournament like it's either going to be kind of unfair to the guys who like will is alt torts going to finish 30th right that kind of sucks he was third going in a third um not fair but again if you had him up there finishing fourth or fifth it would be you know not great for the tournament itself so you know i'm kind of partial to like the english premier league system where it's like you just do the whole thing and if it's exciting at the end it's exciting at the end um that's sort of more fair for the year long but i but again it's a tv product so i just don't think there's any good way to do it the best way i think maybe would be like have this tournament

where it is staggered start and then have like the top four advanced to matchplay it does feel like it would be really really cool to have matchplay with that much money on the line if there was one event where match play would be cool you've already determined where number you know five through 30 are going to finish and then you have the top four guys come together and play a matchplay tournament for $18 million. That would be really cool. That would be awesome. Can you guys see this staying like this forever?

It just doesn't feel like they quite hit it. No, because the general public is constantly, whether you're on Twitter or you're just talking with your buddies, no one understands why it's happening. Like there's a general consensus that it's weird. So I just don't think something like that holds for much longer. You know what I mean? It just hasn't caught on every year that they're trying to introduce it. It just doesn't hit.

So I do think that there's going to be some changes, some manipulating of what they want to do. I love the idea of keeping it the way it is. And then the last four have to go out and play like a playoff match play. Yeah. That's really cool. I don't know. It'd be like Lori versus Scotty and I don't know. Cam Smith would be also super spicy this year versus, you know, someone who got hot this week and played their way into the top four, like a step straca.

You know, and you have one guy in there who doesn't belong, but he's playing for the week of his life. I think it would be really cool. but I don't think it would be great if it was like the whole thing was matchplay because WTC match play isn't that compelling to watch because a lot of matches just aren't very good. But I think four who are already playing well. They've already put themselves in that position to have one day. You can do it all in one day. I think that'd be really cool. All right.

We're going to let you go. But last thing for me is Cam Smith gone. Do we have anything? What's the latest on that? On Cam Smith? Yeah. Gone. Okay.

I mean, I mean. brilliant team um you know i nine 98 percent that between what i'm hearing between his non-denials between him not being at that meeting read between the lines yeah fair that's for sure no that's that's just writing on the wall at this point well danny thanks we know we surprised you with like a just come on the show we were done reading your tweets wanted to hear your voice so thank you for coming on and making this show a little better since we didn't have rigs today we're like holy shit we got to get someone that actually knows the hell they're talking about. I appreciate it, boys.

I'm sure we'll be talking again soon. Yeah, thanks, Danny. Thanks, Danny. So that's Danny Rapaport. He's always just, he's the perfect, the perfect, he just knows exactly what's happening. He's the perfect person to speak to when it comes to these situations. You're just like, because we're the idiots that just read it and we react.

We're like, wow, look at all this stuff that's happening. He's like in the meetings and like he's at the fucking golf events. He's talking to fucking agents and all these players and all this. stuff. So yeah, it's really cool to get that insight. And I mean, you could just tell that he had a buzz about this news because he's heard it from the players. And you've even heard like he's gotten text messages about the stipend and all this stuff. There's a buzz now. Like PGA tour feels like it's rolling over the last couple days. And that's a huge change from where it was like, I feel like two weeks ago where we were like, man, Liv has all the momentum right now. Things are happening.

They just got Cam Smith. You know, they're playing all these events. They're getting stuff that's going viral on Twitter and all this stuff. And now all of a sudden, PJ Tour is like, here's the money, here's the hammer. We're going to stay. We're going to be here for a long time. Yeah, I think Liv has had the momentum for the last month. For the last month or so, it just felt like, it felt like sand going between your fingers for the PJ Tour, where it's like, you guys are trying to keep these players here, but you're operating with an old system.

Live is this new, fresh, you know, flush with cash league that is just going to take. these guys and they've got this team system. The team thing I don't think is fully caught on. I also don't, you know, they haven't had a live event in a while. I think they're going to start up again here pretty soon. But like the team thing hasn't totally caught on. But they still had this thing where it's like this is new. And we're getting players that we didn't think we were going to get.

And the PJ tour didn't know, we didn't know what they were going to do. Boom, Tiger and Rory hold this secret meeting. They make all these changes. They take them to J. Moni. And he's like, we're going to do that right now. And like you're saying, now there's a buzz, you know, across the spectrum on the PJ tour, you know, things are people, guys are in a better place. So I agree with you. There's a buzz going right now.

And, you know, they took control. The big guys took control and they got it done. And you know what else you have to take control over is your personal finances. And that's curve. Curve is going to allow you to take control over your finances, managing them all in one place, no matter whether it's dollars of crypto or earning extra rewards on top. with all that money, all on Curve. So Curve combines your entire wallet into a single card.

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Tiger Woods and Rory Macquarie. This has just been tweeted at us. Hold on now. The TGL. Tiger Woods and Rory Macquarie represent TGL, a high-tech golf league featuring six teams made up of the top PGA tour players

kicking off January 2024. Did they just make it live? No, there's a teaser. That's also along with that. I'm starting to watch it right now. I got no sound. It's very big. and it's flashing tiger and it's flash and Rory.

And there's a, it says a new stage for golf. Bro, what is happening here? There's cameras everywhere. A fusion of sports. I mean, this is legitimate. New stage for golf. Entertainment, media, fan experience, and interaction. I'm just reading this teaser as it goes.

This is golf. It says, remix. What the fuck is this, dude? Two hours. Your favorite players, live. Team golf. golf designed for a primetime showdown three verse three. All right here.

I got it. I got it. Okay. I got some water. Tiger Woods and Rory Macaroys T-T-Morrow Sports. By the way, it's a nice little play on their names. T-M-R-W is all there. It's T-W and R-M-M-M to get it.

You know what I mean? Okay. You get it. Rory Macquarie-Mackroy's Tomorrow Sports Today. That's a lot. Tiger Woods and Rory Macquaroy's Tomorrow Sports today announced TGL, a new tech-infused golf league in partnership with the PGA Tour. TGL will showcase team matches fusing advanced tech and live action from a custom-built

venue in primetime on Monday nights, which will complement the current PGA tour schedule. Dude, I feel like I'm living in a fucking alternate universe right now. Woods and McElroy are the first two golfers. committed to compete and the league's inaugural season will start will kick off in January of 2024. The announcement was made today by Woods Macaroy and Tomorrow Sports CEO and founder Mike McCarley. TGL the Golf League of Tomorrow's Sports will feature six teams of the three of three PGA tour players.

Tech infuse venue, a first of its kind experience for golf enabled. Wait, wait. What the fuck? All right. A first of its kind. experience for golf enabled by a data-rich virtual course, complete with a tech-infused short-game complex. High-energy, greenside fan experience with every shot live with a two-hour primetime

televised match. The season is 15 regular season Monday night matches followed by semifinals and final matches kicking off in January 2024. This is fucking nuts. So this feels like one of those like primetime, like, like Ninja Warrior shows, like where their lights are going to be on them. They're going to be hitting like, I mean, they kind of do this with like the NHL All-Star game. Like outside of, outside of Vegas, they had like everything all tech and they were like shooting pucks through like digital squares and trying to get the amount of points.

Are we going to see that every single Monday? Is Tiger Woods on our TV every single Monday for 15 Monday starting January 2024? Kind of sounds like that, right? A two-hour primetime show with Tiger Woods playing golf. every single Monday for 15 weeks in a row. Dude, you know, you said you feel like you're living in a simulation. What this feels like to me, this whole thing, I feel like I'm in a TV show where, you know, the bad guys, quote unquote,

you know, if we're talking about live or whatever, they started to win and it was like, man, I think the bad guys might just, what they did is going to end up working and that's going to be how the world is. And now we're in the last 15 minutes of the show where Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy show up and they're like, We're not letting anything happen. It stops right here.

We're going to hold a secret meeting that we're going to take the Jemontah, and he's going to change the PJ tour. And we're going to put out this new 3V3 tech-infused golf series every Monday night that is working with the PJ tour. And that is how this is going to go. We are no longer not in the driver's seat. We are taking the driver's seat back and we are going to make the changes. The fact that all this is happening at once is a lot to handle. It is fucking a weird world right now. So, I mean, I'm picturing neon lights.

I'm picturing blacked out stadiums. I'm picturing hopefully a ton of fans and hopefully it's not a huge bust where it's like 15,000 people in a big-ass stadium and they spread them out and they always, I feel like the PJ tour always tries to like fake the fan experience. They definitely did that at like the President's Cup and they do weird things like that. I hope this is like a genuinely cool Monday night primetime event that that worked. I'm rooting for Rory Macquarie and Tiger Woods. I will say this, like completely honest. I don't know that they've ever really nailed anything non-golf course related. Like Tiger Woods always does weird things like this.

It doesn't really, I don't know that, like, when he's not on grass, it doesn't really take off. You know what I'm saying? Like Tiger doesn't really, we talked about, I've talked about this before with the Michael Jordan comparison. Like Tiger just didn't take off off of the golf course as much as like the other goats and like legends of the game like like Michael Jordan is like the coolest motherfucker that ever walked the earth and anything he does even if it's not him shooting a basketball we haven't seen Michael Jordan shoot a basketball in years and he's still the motherfucker he's got the shoes he's got the shirts he's smoking the cigars anything that guy does if Michael Jordan came out and did a prime time

Monday night thing you're like I have to watch that right Tiger Woods whenever he's wearing the baggy jeans and the weird shirts it's like all right is this going to be weird and awkward whenever he's had to do like a press conference or talk about stuff he does weird dad jokes It's like, is this going to be hard to watch? Is it going to be cool? Like, Tiger Woods is at his best when he's fist pumping and draining putts on the 18th hole at Augusta National. That's when he is Tiger Woods. This should be interesting because he is an awkward cornball sometimes.

There's no denying it. I think, yeah, Rory is cool enough, though, right? Super cool. Like, it's good that I like that these two have decided to team up. And I think it's partially, like, Tiger is the alpha male in the room every time. Rory himself said that like a week ago. But I think Tiger knows what his weaknesses are, and they are what you just said. All those things are his weaknesses.

And Rory's cooler. Rory kind of overlaps and he can be the cool guy. He can make the speeches. He can make things cool. Tiger's presence, Tiger's name, every time that is on something, it's like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And then you're right. As you get further along with it, it's kind of like, man, I don't know about Tiger.

He just doesn't have it sometimes in terms of coolness. Rory does. And I think it's a good pairing in that way. his entertainment off the golf course is always just a little bit off. So the fact that we're going to be doing this for 15 weeks on Monday nights, I think we're going to get a lot of, you have to see how awkward these moments are. But I'm looking forward to it.

You also have 15, what was it, teams of four teams of three. So you got a lot of players, you've got 12 players playing on different teams. So there's going to be a lot more characters that you're going to see. You're going to see a lot more personality out of this. So it's definitely all good stuff for the PGA tour. Tiger Woods saw what Greg Norris. was doing and he's like, I'm just going to do it my own way and we're going to create a buzz our own way. This is exactly what we said. Like, why can't they just create their own live tour? Why can't

you see what they're doing and just do it yourself and put your own spin on it? That's exactly what they did. They took their own. I mean, they're the richest people on the planet. They were able to get as much money as possible. Tiger and Rory were able to get this new venture and now it's just going to be a thing. And it's starting in 2024. I cannot wait to see how that goes off. It's just a weird world we're living in Trent. It's a very shared world. Roy and Tiger have decided to just patch all the holes that live exposed on the PJ

tour. Every part of it, they're just like, there's a hole, there's all, there's all. We got to pay the corn fairy guys. We got to make a minimum. We got to give the bigger guys more money. We got to have them commit to more events. All the guys playing at once. So the TV deals will get bigger. The sponsors will pay more. They're just patching up

holes. And it'll be very interesting to see what Greg Norman and the live crew decided to do. I don't know what they can do at this point. They make changes on the fly. It's also tough for them because they don't have a TV deal. It's still just on YouTube. I don't know what the viewership has been in the last couple events, but not having a TV deal, not having that exposure for your talent in your tournament is tough. It's a tough hill to climb, especially now that Tiger and Rory have decided, no, no, no, the PGA tour is the one who fucks. So they're just in a tough spot.

It'll be interesting to see what they do. Now, this has been crazy amounts of punches from PGA Tour thrown at live these past couple days, specifically today. I mean, today is just an overwhelming amount of new news. And yeah, I mean, they're doing everything they can. And this is the response that you wanted to see. And luckily, it didn't come from Jay Monaghan, who I've been like anti-Jemontahan this whole time because I think the way he's handled the situation is fucking insane. And finally, the guy stepped up. Rory McRae stepped up.

Tigerwood stepped up. The leaders of the PGA tour stepped up. They made, I mean, Jay Mountain Ham wasn't even in the meeting. And they're like, let's figure this shit out. We're taking this thing to the moon. This is what we've built. Tiger Woods built this tour. Like the tour that he is currently talking to, he built this thing.

He's the reason why they're all making the money. He's the reason why they're going to be making even more money. So the fact that he took the reins, got this shit done. Now I'm just all on board with what they have planned. I cannot wait for this series. I hope we can go to some of these. these like are they just going to like travel around the fucking country just playing golf and stadiums on monday nights it's going to be fucking electric we'll be there if they are if they

come anywhere near us well or we'll just travel wherever they are i want to go see one in person um i want to talk about real quick um we're we're going to get to i've got like some different plans for this show like we we kind of just came on here all this news is starting to break Danny Ripeort came on. We're talking about everything on the PGA tour. One of the things that I wanted to do on this show that's a little bit different since it's just you and I was I was going to open up the show to some superintendents because I've got a history with behind the greens where I'm starting to like really, really, really. And I always should have had this, but I have a really strong respect for all of the behind the scenes guys when it comes to golf courses. We're friends with a lot of superintendents.

We love our guy Luke. At our new club, Colonial. We got our guy Gene. And it's really cool. I mean, and Rabidoo, see Rabidoo over at Wingfoot. We did that amazing video on YouTube with him. It's just really cool to see how much work goes into it. And these guys legitimately give their life to the grass of these golf courses and the maintenance and how hard they have to work.

And I just don't think that they get the light shined on them nearly enough. Now, they all are very well compensated. If you ever meet like a golf course super dent and you're like, holy shit, these guys are fucking making some catch. but it's for good reason. They deserve it. I've got this new house and this new backyard and I can't even keep my lot of land. Like I got crab grass all over the place.

It's half of it's burnt. Half of it's and everyone's like, oh, in this heat, you can't get it done. Like once the crabgrass comes in, it takes over the whole backyard. And it's like, well, then how do they fucking do this at Colonial and Beth Page and all these places in Augusta where it's like, how are you keeping that shit perfect? I heard a rumor that you might have a super come over to your backyard and just take a look at it and be like, what do I got to do with this to make it not be as shitty? Well, dude, I have a landscaping company that comes in and cuts like once a week because we're traveling so much. And they also like laid grass and they also like tried to kill out weeds during the fall or whatever it was getting prepared for the winter or the spring getting prepared for the summer.

And it just didn't work. I guess it's been too hot. And like our backyard sucks. Like there's like the grass is all over the place. It's a fucking jungle back there. And I talk to Luke. I'm like, how do you get this thing dialed in? He's like, oh, like, during the off season, like, we'll get you dialed in.

He's like, I got some stuff like, whatever it was, two inch vertical cut coming in every, a quarter of an inch a month. I'm like, I don't even know what you're saying anymore, but I need it. I need all the chemicals. I need all the grass seed. I need everything. So, yeah, I mean, I'd rather have him come in to look at my grass than the fucking 18-year-old kid wearing the tank top listening to fucking Harry Styles. He comes in, rips around my backyard. He dries over all of our sprinkler systems and he gets the hell out of there.

It's like, what the fuck did you just do? You just ruined our day. No, it's smart. You got to, you're essentially bringing in a grass scientist who's going to come in and be like, here's what you got to do. I think it's a very, very smart move. So I've sent out a tweet saying that if you're a superintendent call in, I've got a bunch of responses.

I've got a guy from Florida. I've got a guy from Arizona. And I've got our local super gene from. Colonial waiting on the line. We're going to send them out emails. I just think it'd be cool to see the difference in how they maintain their golf courses in different climates. You've got Florida, Arizona, and New York legitimately go all over the map of America.

How are they attacking their grass? It actually be pretty cool to have them all on at once. All the super is kind of talking, you know, like, how do you do it? That might be a lot. It's a lot. We're going to go individual. I'm just spitball in here. But before we do that, I want to talk about BioLite, which is what I need right now.

I'm looking around for liquid. with, I need my biolite, which is downstairs in my refrigerator, because I'm parched, I am dehydrated, you can hear it in my throat. Bio light is the best drink of all time. Listen, when you're on the course crushing drives and crushing beers, having a great time, the last thing you're thinking about is hydration. And that is true. I had my buddies over for the fancy football draft the other night. First time we had like a real shindig inside the house. Last time it was outside, a lot of beers consumed and also a lot of biolite consumed. I pass them around. gave them to all 11 guys that were there.

And we all drank them in between, like having beers and alcohol and all this stuff. And then you wake up, no hangover. It was awesome. You're actually hydrated. You're feeling really good. That's what you have to be thinking about when you're drinking. You have to be thinking about hydration. That's why you need biolite, the IV in a bottle.

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It's the best. The ivy in a bottle contains the same amount of electrolytes as an IV bag. You'd have to drink. Six and a half. Sports drinks. Not water. Sports drinks. Just to equal one biolite.

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For play, 10% off your first order. Go get some biolite. I guess we'll just start sending this thing out now because I also have to make a flight to Oh, Canada, our home and native land. And I got to get there pretty soon or else I'm going to miss my flight. And now I have this recorded. And Lisa is going to know I miss my flight because I was doing this instead of traffic, which I can usually use as an excuse.

This is work. I know. So we're going to start off with our hometown guy. We're going to start off with Gene. I just sent him out the email. So we'll see when he comes in. It is, you know, it's just I really do think we take it for granted. I think we show up to golf courses.

They're perfectly green. Their greens are running perfect. and you see all these guys watering shit and you're like mad at them when they're in your line and you're on the tee box, they're in the middle of the fairway and you're like, look at this fucking asshole, he's out there digging in the dirt. It's like, well, they're doing something super important.

They're actually out there maintaining the earth. You're taking care of the biggest animal possible. It's the earth. And you have huge, huge areas of land that they have to keep in a great condition. And if they fuck one thing up, and it can ruin the entire. season. So it's a delicate job. It's an important job, especially if you are a golfer. And I think

you're right. I think we take them for granted in a big way. I'm just going through all these responses we have for Gene here. We've got a ton, man. We've got so many superintendents that follow our show. They saw my tweet and it's just the list goes on and on and on of people saying they want to come on. So we might have to do this more often and not just off the top of our head right before the show. I mean, think about how many golf courses there are. That's, oh, my God, it's insane. And there he is.

We've got, we've got Gene Contino. How do you say that? Is it Contino? Yes, Contino. How are you guys doing? Great. Thanks for joining the show. We're kind of just going off the top of the head here, just kind of riffing talking

about golf courses. We were talking about supers a little bit. You know, Trent and I, we're now members at Colonial, and we get to, we get to experience the amazing work that, you know, you get to experience the amazing work that. you and your crew do. I just want to get, you know, we have you on. Then after you, we're talking to a guy from Arizona. And then after him, we're talking to a guy from Florida. So I kind of want to get like, you started at Colonial pretty recently, right? Yeah, about four or five years ago. I mean, okay, so four or five years ago. And then, so when you go into a new golf course, you know,

this is like your, it's your, it's your artwork. You're able to like manipulate it and change it however you want. What was your goal or agenda with Colonial? Like how did you attack that new project with going to a new course? Well, I think, you know, you kind of have to come in for a feel with, you know, what the goals of the organization are like anything else. I mean, you know, you got a lot of different variables in golf out there and, you know, whether they want it just to be green and pretty, if they want conditions, if they want, you know, you know, maybe they want, you know, a lot of floral work. I mean, it really depends on what you want. So you kind of have to hear out what your membership wants and, you know, what they want to see out there. And then you have to come up

with a plan for how do we get there. You know, and I think we started out, you know, a couple of years ago, and we had a lot of soil issues and things that we had to do to get water to go through and grow some healthy turf and get it so that we could condition it so that we can have great conditions. So I think it's all going to start with what do they want, you know? Every club's certainly different. Every club has different needs. So you kind of have to start there. You know, it's really, as much as it's like, oh, well, you know, you're the artist, you are. But, you know, it's, it's their palate and I have to deliver what they want, you know. So, you know, it's, it's part of the business, you know, it's what you got to do. What are some of the biggest obstacles that you have to,

you know, hurdle over when it comes to working on a northeast golf course. It's so hot out here on Long Island, you know, it was almost, it was basically a drought that we've had out here, no rain. You guys are just pumping water onto that golf course. So what is, what does, what happens when stuff like that starts to happen with the climate and the environment. Well, I mean, you have to move on your feet. You know, it's, you know, obviously water is a huge factor in what we do. And certainly, you know, to keep the plant alive and keep it healthy and keep it green so that we can endure through the season is a big factor.

And a lot of those inputs change day to day. You know, we could come out with a plan. This is what we're going to water. And then, you know, you guys have been out there and you see how the wind picks up around here and that gets drier. And, you know, we've got to throw more water than we anticipated, you know, you know, we're constantly adjusting and reevaluating the weather and the conditions out here. You know, sometimes, you know, I can come up with a plan for three hours from now,

and I'm changing it 30 minutes from now because the weather has changed that drastically. And when you talk about water and water is definitely a big aspect of what we do, because, you know, too much, it's too soft, you know, too little, it's too dry, it's firm, and then it doesn't look very good. You know, we're constantly playing that middle ground, trying to find a balance between playability and plant health. And when you do that, you know, sometimes you get a lot of humidity, then you have to kind of spray to make sure you don't get disease. And certainly up here in the Northeast with Bengrass Greens, you really have to watch that.

You really have to take care of yourself and know the conditions. Know as different temperatures change and different humidities come in. You're going to have different disease pressures. And that can change every couple days. It can change every couple weeks. And it just you have to constantly have your finger on the pulse of what's going on on on your property. You're constantly driving around, watching, looking at turf, hey, that looks a little different today. what's going on over there?

And you ask yourself to write questions to kind of give yourself an investigative report, if you will, to what I need to do next, you know? How much of it is like the eye test and how much of it is scientific numbers, math, equations, you're like actually setting a plan and you're going like a, well, with it. You know, you have to work your plan and then, you know, adjust as you go. You know, I mean, I could sit here and say I'm going to set up for this condition, which is all science-based. You know, this time of year, we're doing a lot of spraying.

We're doing a lot of watering. It's very detail-oriented. But, you know, the science is going to back it up. I mean, if I get a disease out there and I think, you know what, I got a pretty good idea what it is. I've seen it on this property before. You know, I'm going to go send it out to a lab, get tested, and get confirmation before we go, you know, do anything about it.

Make sure it's right. You know, everything we do, every decision we make is based off of the science. And the longer you're at a property, the easier it is. just to know, hey, you know, we've had this disease for the past four years. You know, there's certain spots in the golf course that are just hotbeds for certain issues. So you kind of know they're coming after you've been there for a little while, you know. So, but everything we do is based off science. And, you know, science is kind of like your law.

That's what you got to follow. You know, I mean, you could guess, but it's like throwing darts at that point. What's your favorite part about being a golf course superintendent? I love that it's a different job every day. You know, I'm not doing the same thing every day. You know, I get to go mow grass. I get to go work with trees. And, you know, it's, it's, it's an environmental type job. We're trying to, we want to do the auto bond thing out here. We want to, you know, show that our green spaces are a really positive place for wildlife and, you know, the ecosystems, you know, and it's really cool that we get to contribute to that. You know, I love being outside. I mean, I've done this my whole life. So it's just kind of come second nature to me. So, you know, just love what I do. It's, it's been great to me. Awesome, Gene. Well, we appreciate you coming on. We love.

the course. The place is absolutely electric right now. It's in such good shape. When someone calls it like a hidden gem, is that something that you like to hear? Do you just want it to be known as like a gem? You know what I mean? I have to say it's pretty cool. You know, there's so many people we hear that from and it's like, because they don't know we're here. It's kind of tucked away over here, you know, it's kind of been a good little secret. It's pretty cool, man. Anytime you get good news, it's flattering. You know, we love to hear. We want everyone who comes here to have. a positive experience and, you know, take that on and bring other people back. Awesome, man.

Well, we appreciate you coming on and keep up the good work. Anytime, guys. Thank you so much for having me. Slow down those dreams next time we do Breaking 90 for this guy. I mean, some of them are just ridiculous. Have you watched the Breaking 90s? I have to love it. You guys do a great job.

So as the super of the course that we're playing, what would you say is his bit, like, what does he need to do? He shot in 92 last time. What do you think he needs to do that will help him? out there. You know, sometimes, you know, you can tell he gets nervous. He's got to relax, enjoy it, have fun. You know, I mean, you get out there on the golf course. You know what you need to do. You're taking all these lessons. You know how to put. You know how to line it up. Relax and have fun. Don't overthink it. Is there any part of you that's rooting against me? No. No, I think what you

do is awesome. You guys are great guys. You're great for the game. You guys have been great to us. We love you guys. You know, I want to see you get it. I want to see you do it. We've had some guys say they don't want him to break their course. But I think at this point, you've done it twice there. We've already shown that the course is difficult enough for it to slap you in the face around a couple times. And now it's time to do it there. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, thanks again, Gene. We appreciate you. Anytime. Thank you. All right. So that is Gene from Colonial Springs. Yeah, it's just the best group of people over there.

We got Dan who hooked them up with his iPad to get them on the screen there. I love talking to these guys because it really is. They are the backbone of what actually what we're doing here. And like you talk to them, it's just it's their life, man. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, truly anybody who's passionate about anything is interesting to talk to. And if you are a super at a golf course, you have to be passionate about grass and about how to keep a golf course healthy and running and looking in the way that they wanted to. So yeah, every time we talk to one of these guys, I really, I truly, I generally, I get generally, I get generally.

generally inspired, not even about golf, but just about like what we're doing, what I'm doing, because they have so much passion. Also, you get inspired to keep the course in better condition when you go and play it. Like, the more that I play these better courses, the more I have appreciation for what these guys do, you see how much money is genuinely is actually being put into this and how genuine these guys are about their job. You know, you grow up playing some of these dog track courses and it is what it is. Like, they don't put as much money in.

they don't have as much funding. It varies from course to course. But then you see a guy like Gene that has the ability to put money into it and how much he actually cares about it. Go fucking replace your ballmarks and put some actual seed inside your divvits. That's the thing I take away from it. And now we've got Matt who joins the show. Matt, kind of looks like Gene's brother.

They both got a great beards. Well, I think all supers have a look to them. Like all super is like you have a dog. Do you have a dog, Matt? Yeah, I do. And his name's Frankie. Oh my gosh, dude. But the only thing is it's actually a her.

So you kind of. Well, that makes sense because I have very, very feminine features, some people would say. And I will say, speaking of Frankie not named after me, I had a really embarrassing moment last night. I'll just say this before we get to Matt. And Matt, you're from, you're in Arizona, right? Yeah, I'm a super in Arizona at Desert Canyon Golf Club. And I'm also, I co-host a podcast called From the Jingweeds. It's basically our life.

It's our life as a golf course super. and tenant and also we are moving heavy into the beer reviews so look at you guys yeah two and a half two and a half years at it yeah what's against giving you got i hate giving you guys a pat on the back but it has a little bit to do with you guys and doing the golf end and i was like all right we need to talk what we're fucking doing so we need to get the word out yeah you guys doing a great job i appreciate that man i real quick i want to get to this story about the yankee game i say the Yankees had a guy named Frankie Montres pitch

Because I'm from Massachusetts Oh yeah He's got the Boston Celtics flag behind Benway up there Oh I could hear in his voice We're at the game And Frankie's pitching And this is the first inning

So I don't really know And like some people will like say Frankie like what up Like as you're walking through the hallways Or like you're walking into the stadium Some people will give you a dab Up take a picture Whatever it is what it is

We're sitting down And then we're about to watch the game And someone goes Let's go Frankie And I turn around Like thanks boy and it was just the pitcher Frankie. Frankie was walking by.

Like we were on the right field line. He was walking out of the bullpen. And I looked them like, and they were like, what? They looked at me and they were like, what was that? I was like, no, no, I was just saying like, let's go Frankie. Like, I was saying that too because I really enjoy him.

So that was a really bad moment. I wanted a fucking pukele over myself when that happened. Matt, so you're out in Arizona. You're from Boston, right? I'm assuming. Yeah, I'm from Central America. We just talked to Gene, who's, our superintendent over here in New York at Colonial Springs on Long Island.

We kind of got, we're talking to him about bent grass and we're talking to him about all the challenges going through a drought out here on Long Island. It's really tough to maintain. You got a water, you got a dump water. You're out in Arizona. You obviously grew up in the northeast and now you're out in the desert. What are some of the complications of keeping a desert golf course green and healthy and, you know, good enough for play out there for your golf course?

So basically the main issue that we have is we plant two golf courses. So we have a warm season Bermuda grass golf course from basically May to here in September 26th, five weeks away. We oversee the entire thing. So we rigs calls it kills it. We basically just slow it down and kind of brown it out a little bit. And we plant a whole entire golf force of cool season grass right on top of me. be closed for a month. That's a long time. But most public golf courses, which that's what I'm at, is about two weeks. And then you have cart path restriction, you know, carts going car path only, restrictions like that. But my owners have said, let's do it for a month, get a good grown in, and we won't have cart restrictions. So that's the biggest challenge is we go through, we call it basically June. It's transition and the golf courses out here. our dog shit because we really the bermuda grass really needs the humidity to get going and humidity doesn't really hit out here till we get the corner of the monsoons if they hit which is like

right now right now it's 84 degrees and 55 percent humidity and that's crazy humidity for us right it's typically you know 30 would be high on any other normal day so through august and into the beginning of september is perfect for us in which is a stupid fucking part. We always talk about how we just smash our heads into the wall over and over again. The golf courses, Bermuda-wise, are just about perfect. And in five weeks, I'm going to fucking destroy that and replant a wet, soggy new grass on the whole golf course. And that's when, you know, we get all the snowbirds and everybody travels out here.

So they all want to see it perfectly green. If we didn't do that, we'd either be painting it or it would just look like shit, like real shit. So there's a lot more golf courses. You know, Vegas is really coming on to not overseeding. They're just doing paint, but their window of dormant grass where it gets too cold for the Bermuda to grow, it turns brown on its own, is a little bit shorter of a window there. So we're a lot of golf courses out here. It's starting to look at different grasses. That's kind of the trend right now with the water issues we're having. You know, they're going to cut our allotments. The state, well, the feds are for the whole Colorado River Basin, which is Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, a little bit of New Mexico is in there. So that's going to be a challenge. And we're going to be a challenge.

in a big fight right now. We just had ADWR, which is the water resource out here. They just had a kid. I say kid, he's a guy, as a journalist from Hungary, that came over here to work in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and basically wrote a fucking paper and smashed the golf industry and the use of the water and how we're not stewards of the water. And we as superintendents will fight all day that we're probably one of the best.

we have to put out water to keep the grass alive, but also can't make it soupy soggy because we need a playable condition. Everybody knows firm and fast is what we're looking for. And so we're using less than 2% of the state's water. But the fact that people can look out their windows and see sprinklers running for no reason, what they think is no fucking reason,

we get put into a little bit of a corner and we're trying to fight our way out of it. But here is this guy comes in here and starts working for the Arizona Republic, basically writing a fucking paper. And it ends up front page on the Sunday paper. This guy writes this article, but he had been calling superintendents around here asking for, you know, our advice, our water numbers. Well, he got in contact with me and I wanted him on the podcast. I said, I'm not answering any fucking, I'm not answering any fucking questions to you unless this thing's recorded. So it went on and on.

and he never came on, but one of his responses, I'm not coming on there because I'm not an expert. And I said, then why the fuck are you writing an article, dude? Right. You know? And so that's kind of been, I don't know, it's a sore subject out here right now. And just as he hits the release button in Arizona Republic puts it out there, which is owned by USA Today. And kudos to them that they did publish this article. Our response to this article was published by Golf Week, which is also owned by USA Today.

at least they had the sack to throw it up there, you know, and kind of call themselves wrong a little bit, or at least listen to us because we wanted this, our response to go to the Arizona Republic, but there was no fucking way. That was going to happen. We weren't going to call them out. But in the meantime, this home boy's back in hungry. He sends in his term paper and gone. That's my personal feeling. That's my personal feeling how this all went down. Can we get the real answers? No, but somebody that comes in working for this international group and he was a journalist or he is a journalist over there, comes over here and gets in the Walter Cronkite School and randomly writes this article about something is no fucking clue what he's talking about. And it was simply for bad publicity on the golf industry. But yet no one knows that most of the state's water goes to, you know, obviously it's growing like crazy.

no mandates yet on how much grass you can put in your lawn. You know, so there are people running the school systems, the parks. They're running water all fucking day long. We've had plenty of rain and you drive around in the schools and the parks and whatever. Their sprinklers are on. Right. You're saying that going after them. As a group of superintendents, and this is a crazy thing that's going on.

So I'm really glad we had you on. We had no idea this was happening. Super interesting. You're saying that like you guys are professionals in maintaining and using the water. This is what you went to school for. is how you're you're scientifically like seeing exactly how much water should be used and you're also like on top of it because of budgets and all the money so you would be more trusted to be able to use this water than most regular people that are just like you said like publicly owned uh you know

libraries or i'm sorry like um government own libraries and schools they're just they're just dumping water on those places like crazy yeah exactly and we get you know we have homes all over the golf courses so we're easily seen you know No one's driving to the fucking alfalfa farms down in the shit hole part of southern Arizona and watching the amount of water that goes out there to grow alfalfa that hops on ships and goes to China. None of it's, none of it's used here. Right, right.

So why aren't they being because no one drives by a farm out in the middle of nowhere and watches water? It's simply they see these beautiful golf courses and think that we're the problem. we're an easy target and we're a small number so can we you know we need more of us to really stand up and fight for what we believe in in our jobs well there you go you got the right seminar we have seminars and shit out here and we'll get 40 people at them we have over 300 something golf courses here we have 40 people fight over the fucking water that's going to bring home paychecks and put a roof on your head well yeah you have you have a nice little bump right here Hopefully people will start to see the great water debate of Arizona, something that we did not know.

Hungary versus Matt from Arizona. Maybe it'll be the next Supreme Court ruling that we'll be seeing. There is kind of a little problem. They don't let me in those rooms because I'm going to sit here and say it how I want to say it. We appreciate you hopping on here, Matt. That was really interesting. I hope everything works out. Keep us updated on how it's going.

What's the podcast again for anyone that wants to continue on? along with your story. It's called from the jing weeds. J-I-N-G, the jing weeds, the shit. You rip it in that stuff all the time. So that's where it's from. What's your biggest? A group of superintendents out here, we go on a golf trip every year, which is coming up.

We leave on Sunday to go to Tahoe. And we call it the Jingweed Invitational. And this is our year eight of, I'm sorry, year seven of doing it. And that's how, when I named the podcast, it was like, fuck it. This is what I'm naming it. Awesome. What's your bit, right before we let you go, what's your biggest pet peeve with golfers?

The entitlement, probably. You know, I always say, I say this all the time, and I've said it a zillion times on the podcast, and I say it to a lot of people. Something happens to the human brain, and I want, if you guys know anybody that's going to do, you know, going to college, maybe a psych major, do a thesis on what the fuck happens to someone's brain,

the minute they grab their golf clubs in their garage, ready to load into their car. For you, I and most everybody I know it's going to be sweet. I'm going on with my buddies and I'm going to have a fucking great time. Mostly it's I'm a rich kid for the day and I'm going to have this, you know, this persona of being somebody that's going to be taking care of at the country club, yet they're going to a public golf course. So they expect us to fill the divets, us to continue raking bunkers.

You know, COVID out here is, oh, it's over. You know, so rake the fucking bunkers. whole goddamn flag stick out and do your thing, fix a divot. When all that happened is about the point where everybody stopped doing anything as far as etiquette to the golf course. And in return, it makes it worse for everybody. So you hear people, oh, that golf course is dog shit. There's ballmarks everywhere. Well, it's probably you that didn't fix one or two or, you know, as many as you can.

It's because you're hybrid three wood from coming from fucking one. 50 out skids across the green and you never see any ballmark. I love it. I absolutely love it. I love your passion. I think you're great. I think your podcast is probably electric when it comes to talking about all this stuff every single week.

So best of luck with you. Best of luck with all the water fighting and have fun on your golf trip. I really appreciate you coming on the show. That was really amazing. No problem, boys. Anytime you guys need me. And next time Rigsie's out here, send them back out to my golf course. He did his review and gave us a,

a fucking 74 and I think he did it in June in the worst part. So maybe we'll get a redemption story. And bring you, bring your drone. I want behind the greens on a golf course of like our style of me and my seven dudes that take care of this place. All right. Because your shit's real good.

I mean, you do awesome golf courses. You know, it's a whole other thing. It'd be cool if you guys just went kind of just on our level and then obviously take it to the big ones. but yeah good to give the scrubs like me that don't have a real you know you look at me and it's just like that dude's a fucking superintendent yeah covered in tattoos big grizzly beard my mouth like a fucking

real new england yeah yeah well thanks man appreciate you thanks again and hopefully we'll see you guys see you all right thanks man anytime call me later yeah um so that is matt from arizona that's fucking that's a great one um you know this is what we this is what we're talking about Trent This is you just got to go from place to place and see the difference in all of these guys and all their different takes on their job. It's their lives, man. It is their fucking lives. This is what this guy's fighting for his life out there in regards to water. Right.

He was, yeah, he was ready to go to war for water. And that is what these superintendents are all about. That's the thing. When you shine a light on these guys, you just get these little stories that no one really knows about except them and the people that they're fighting. So it's very interesting to hear like some of the obstacles they have to go through or that they encounter being a superintendent, like being a superintendent in Arizona, water obviously is a huge deal. Water is a huge deal for superintendents everywhere. But the war that's going on for water where Matt is, it seems like it's getting pretty serious. And, you know, I want to talk real quick before we go to our next person.

I want to talk about truly hard Celsius. This is a from the gallery question. We love from the gallery. we love truly truly hard seltzer is a clean crisp and refreshing hard seltzer with a hint of fruit there's over 30 flavors so there's something for everyone my favorite is the strawberry hibiscus that we drank with uh nade chat it was awesome i love that drink i drink it all the time all these cans have under 110 calories one gram of sugar and naturally gluten free find your truly hard seltzer near you at truly hard seltzer dot com make sure you're searching for truly hard

sell so you'll see them in all the stores you're going to love them you're going to drink them my from the gallery question is in regards to um the superintendent talk and it actually has to do with the person we're about to talk to next i think his name is sean um do you think that if you were given all the resources and the abilities given to you what we're in regards to money and manpower and equipment do you think you'd be able to build a golf course no like route it like do you think you you'd be able to route a golf course like no you don't think so no i do i think i could i really do think i could because i did it on you you've kind of done it i've done it on pj tour and i know that sounds crazy pj 2k 21 had a course builder and it's so fucking realistic in the fact that you

have to do the routing that you even like you start to do the walkways and the cart pass and like make sure that it all makes sense or else it doesn't like it doesn't work when you're building it like I genuinely think that there are architects that we're able to go on that video game and build a course. And I only say that because I think like anyone that plays the game of golf, I think the amount that we have has a feel for like what a golf course does. You know what I mean? Like you have a feel for like the way it routes and like where part three should go and like what the long par five should do and like a certain part five, like how many bunkers it should have and what a green should look like. I do think like you're just saying no off the top of your head. I think if you gave more thought to it,

you'd be able to kind of like, even if it was a dumb sketch, you'd be able to figure out the way the course works. Yeah, I guess I've never really thought about it. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure I could do it well enough.

But like, then you got a whole, like, we're talking about a real golf course that you're going to give, you're going to get manpower and money. Then you've got to make sure it's good and it's not a shit track.

Right. You have to. No, absolutely. I'm just saying like, if I sat in a boardroom and I was like this is like what I'm kind of thinking in regards to this golf course and then you have like professionals around you could you route a really good golf course I think I think with help and with manpower I think I could get it done I genuinely do

I wouldn't be able to sculpt the fucking thing I wouldn't be able to like know exactly what is going into each T box elevation but I'd be able to say like this is where I want the part three I think I'd make a pretty cool one and I'm saying that because um we've got to this guy and now he's like not hopping in but he says that he's building a brand new 18 hole golf course in new jersey right now if you'd like to hear about it he's a super there and i was like yeah hop in this would be perfect i'd love to hear about building a golf course that'd be a nice little addition to this show and he's not answering now so now i'm just trying to say words until yeah this is these are the these are the warts that come along with a show we're kind of putting together

on the fly. Yeah. No, it really is. I mean, in the meantime, we had a guy from, we had our guy at Colonial, we had Matt in Arizona, and then do we have a Florida guy coming in? It was a Florida guy, but he also just isn't answering me either, Trent. You know, I kind of sent you want to come on now and he just never answered. I would have loved to talk to him about that, but he's also a super and these guys are always out in the golf course, so he might not be seeing it. Right. I would love for this guy, Sean, to just answer. In the meantime, though, and I'm also like, I miss this flight, by the way, which is insane. No, you're going to be fine.

Do you have to go through crazy international stuff on the way out, or is it all on the way in? I mean, I've never gone to Canada, but any time we travel internationally, usually I feel like it's, when you get there, it's not so bad. But like, I don't think, I think once you land in Canada, you're probably going to have to go through some things,

but like the initial from like getting to the New York airport and getting to the terminal i don't know if it's that much okay i see um so yeah i mean i'm going to be cutting it close i'm going to have like 35 to 40 minutes if we if i leave by no if i have if i leave by 12 which is in 27 minutes i'm going to have like 35 minutes before boarding starts to get in to my to get on my plane i think you're going to be that's what we're dealing with i mean that's just that's the that's the lay of the land How long we've been doing the show?

I don't even know. I mean, I've been recording for an hour and 25 minutes. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's really good. I do want to talk about the sounds of the universe real quick. I wanted to get to it the other day. And someone recorded a black hole, the noise of a black hole from like 200 million light years away. I think that was the number.

Was it 200 million light years away? This misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a vacuum providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've actually picked up sound. Here is amplified and mixed with other data to hear a black hole.

Let's have Alex put the audio in right here. All right, so I think you've just heard the sounds of the universe. Truly a fucking nightmare is what that is. I mean, it sounds it sounds like a nightmare. That is what hell I think sounds like. As you're falling into the depths of hell,

you hear all these, wow, not good, dude, your face is getting like stretched apart from gravity and you're falling, like you're in inception. Space continues to be the scariest place ever.

And I've had this debate with one of my friends before where they're like, no, the ocean is way scarier because it's deep and you don't know anything in it and we're like,

we're in it. Like we're like we're on top of the ocean. You don't even know like they don't even know what's at the bottom of the ocean. It's too dark and too deep. I believe Barstall Chief has had that, that argument on Twitter for a while, I think. And I think there's like I'm very scared of the ocean.

So I think it's there's a valid argument that what goes on deep, deep, deep, and the deep parts of the ocean that we don't know about. Like there's, there's mutations of beings and species that if you saw, it would look like something out of stranger things, I would imagine. Like you go deep enough where there's no light, but everything's just mutating. And we know what the surface level animals from the ocean look like. There's sharks, there's jellyfish, like, oh, that shit's kind of weird.

If you go deep down there where things are just happening that we can't see, I think you would find scary shit. Like obviously space we don't know a ton about. So that's what makes it scary. There could be things out there that look like the things out of strange things, but we just don't know that. But we're like 99% sure that there's crazy shit going on in the deep parts of the ocean. So I think there's a legitimate argument that the ocean is scarier than space. I still don't know what side I fall on, but there's an argument to be made.

It would have also with the sounds of the universe, like what did we think it was going to sound like? Like when they turned that volume up, it was going to be da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like a or like the Beatles is playing or something like that Right. It was always going to be. What the fuck is that? Is that John Lennon? It was always going to be horrific.

It was always going to be horrific. So. Yeah. No, it's bad. It's bad stuff. And like, yeah, I guess I guess it's all scary at the end of the day. It is all scary. It's all just, we're kind of just doing it.

We're surviving. Kind of like how we're surviving until we get our next. guest on here. I asked Luke from Rockville to pop on here real quick because it's crazy to have a superintendent conversation on our show without probably one of our best superintendent friends. Luke and I've known him for years now, four or five years at this point, four years. And I still don't have to say his last name. It's either Knudson or Knutson. I feel like it's probably Newtson. Yeah, I think I say Nutson. I don't think he likes that. So I just sent him over the link. He's at Rockville Links. This is the place where the infamous bunker incident has happened twice now.

The fifth hole, we could talk about that. But first, I want to talk about Shopify real quick. And here comes Luke real quick. And he's going to have to sit through our talking of Shopify, because Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform to start run and grow your business. Shopify gives entrepreneurs and resources once reserved for big business. So upstarts, startups, establish businesses, all alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in-person sales, effortlessly stay informed. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services, including payments, marketing, shipping, and customer engagement tools. Connect with your customers, drive sales, manage your day to day.

We love Shopify. We are sort of like our own little small business here at Foreplay. We have merchandise. We have a tournament. We do all this stuff. We have the podcast. So the fact that we now are partnered with Shopify, that helps all the startups, the upstarts, and establish businesses alike. Get up and running. We love that. Shopify has thousands of integrations of third-party apps from on-demand printing and accounting to advance chatbots and to beyond.

Connect with your customers. Like I said, Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods, which is huge for any startup because you hate going to a place showing up, trying to cash in, whatever you have, your credit card, your debit card. They don't accept that card. No, if I'm coming into your place, you better accept everything. Shopify has you covered on that. Go to Shopify.com slash four, all lowercase, for a free 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. You have to try this out. It's 14-day free trial. You're going to be able to see all the amazing stuff that they have for you.

Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to Shopify.com slash four, all-lowercase, right now. Shopify.com slash four. We are now joined by Luke. It's got to be Knutzen. I said I've known you for like four years and I still don't know your last name. Canutson. Canutson?

No way. Yeah. Wow, a little English on that. Yep. Luke is at Rockville Links. We are no stranger to Rockville Links here. We've talked about Trent's attempts at breaking 100 and breaking 90. And then, you know, me, I've played there a million times.

I've had great matches with you there, Luke. not many that have ended with me winning them because you are kind of a stick when it comes to you at your home course but welcome to the show first time on the show which is I know you're a big listener so this is a big moment for all of us here on the show yeah no glad I could be on and we definitely get a play soon I need to go to the ATM here Frankie I know so Lucas been just watching on the side at me go from like an 11 to a 5 this off season a lot of that being because he's got Rockville so dialed in that when we show up there, I keep shooting 76s. It's insane. Just before we get into any of the stuff about Rockville and Trent's Breaking 90, talk to us a little

bit about, so you went to Michigan State and you went to the turf program there, right? So, like, talk to us a little bit about what it's like getting into those programs and like how, you know, because I know that it's a really, really cool tight-knit community. What is it like being in those programs at these major schools and learning about the turf industry? Yeah, I had an interesting trip through because I didn't go to school to go into this. And I ended up with a bachelor's of science and crop and soil science. So I had a lot more like soil science classes and everything. And my crop was turf grass, obviously. You know, they do a two-year certificate program and everything at Michigan State, too. So that's a little bit bigger than the people coming through

for four-year. So you're in a mixture of, you know, two-year classes, four-year classes. Mine was kind of advanced. I banged it out in two years because I switched in the turf after three years of college. Graduated like 48, too many credits. Great use of money. But, no, it worked out good. They set me up with an internship and everything, and that was at Deepdale.

Go with Frankie's hat right now. I've got the Deepdale's Players Academy hat on right now. This place is not real. I mean, that golf course is slick. Absolutely slick. Yeah. No, it definitely is daily the playing conditions there. just unreal. You know, it's greens are running. Those fairways are absolutely unreal. They could host an

event any day of the, you know, any day of the week. You know, they could be a fill in a spots notice, just conditioning and everything. Unreal. So that's a big one when you come from Midwest golf and everything. And then you walk right into Deepdale on day one and walk on those fairways and they look better than any green you've ever been on. So, you know, that kind of made me want to get back out this way and everything. But how many people in those programs are, is their ultimate goal? to be a superintendent or is there a whole mixture of professions that I end up or is it a lot of superintendents? I think I think it used to be a lot of superintendents, you know, kind of that late 90s, early 2000s at the golf boom because they're building so much you could kind of get one.

And those programs are kind of saturated at the time. And now it's not, but it's starting to pick back up. There's so many jobs. And it's went through like places like mine that now I now have three assistants. There's three guys of degrees here that work for me. And a lot of other course was at the same two or three where it used to be one assistant who had a degree or some education now it's a lot and you know i think a lot of people's goal still to be a superintendent but now also where like especially in the met area salaries have pushed so much for assistance that you know you can now make a living you know there's assistants making six figures and everything that's going to sound crazy to a lot of people around the country because there's certified

superintendents you know that's not even that average pay there but in the met area you assistants are starting to make good money and it's starting to catch up elsewhere. And there's other hotspots through the country, you know, Cali, Philly, Chicago. Florida is starting to blow up, especially Southern Florida for pay and everything. So it's something that you can live on, have a family on, support on and everything. And there's not a ton of movement right now in the industry. It's hard to get a superintendent job. Is that because guys are staying for so long or golf courses are just comfortable in what they have?

Like is there not, when you change over a super, you're basically changing over like the style of the golf course and like, because like you are the architect of each day, right? So that's a pretty big decision for each course. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge culture change. And that's what you see at every place. Because I mean, the clubs used to what they're used to. And, you know, when you interview for jobs, they're like, oh, are you ready for our culture? And it's like, no, you as a member, are you ready for the new culture change?

Because you fired a guy for a reason or a guy retired. and it's been this way for 30 years, you guys are in for the culture shock. So I'm doing everything different. And that's kind of the weird way to have to explain stuff. But I think the turnover is just there's so many qualified super's looking to move up from whether it's a public rank or the lesser country club up into that better job. And then so many qualified assistants and good assistants that are even at top 100s, you know, sitting at a wing foot, sitting at an Oakland Hills, sitting wherever.

just waiting for jobs and they're all competing against each other for the same thing. So there's a lot of very overqualified guys and a lot of guys that are very good. And then it's also, you know, every one of us in that room can grow grass and, you know, you're not interviewing with somebody who's an expert in your situation. You're interviewing with an accountant, a lawyer, you know, a CEO, something like that. And they know nothing about the agronomy. Right. So they're meeting with a lot of people who are experts and grow grass goods.

So a lot of it's not necessarily how good you are at doing your job to move to that next level. It's how good are you at relating to those members, conveying it, dealing with the business side of it, everything else. So in being able to gain their trust in an interview room for all that. So it's a little different experience than most industries interviewing for jobs because nobody in there is an expert but you. Right. What's been your biggest hurdle this year with the drought that's here on Long Island? Everything's been so baked out. Like what's been your biggest thing that you've had to overcome?

I mean, start of the year was kind of labor. And you heard that all over the place. And it's the biggest thing across the country. It was for us because you get the city paying a little bit more. It's now up to $15 an hour here. They were still paying people to not work extra and everything. You know, with unemployment, guys didn't want to come back. or they were working side jobs and cash and getting their full, you know,

their full unemployment checks with the extra bump from federal. So that kind of started out, you know, it was a slow start, you know, cold spring and all that. You don't, you don't get as much done and everything. And then from the end, last week of June, right on through now, it's been brutal. We've only got like three quarters of an inch of rain total, like eight tenths of an inch. And, you know, Monday was supposed to be a washout four inches. We didn't get one drop. it's just brutal when you're relying on you know we have a 30 plus year old irrigation system it doesn't

have great coverage doesn't have that you saw in all the videos you guys did when they flew the drone all the burnout spots where there's no irrigation and everything it it works in certain areas it doesn't and other um it's been a lot and then you know you're relying on a hose and uh a lot of guys dragging it around and it's uh I remind interns and younger assistants you know this is the worst time of year to be on a golf course you know it's great time everybody's playing golf all that. But when you work there and you're working weekends in the middle of summer and doing the same thing that you've done for the last five weeks, it's brutal.

And it's just really that grind. You know, it's usually the 100 days of hell, you know, Memorial to Labor Day. You know, we're getting close to the end of that. But it's been there. We're hanging in a hell. That's a lot of days of hell, man. This is what we're talking about. This is why we're doing a show like this because it's a fucking grind.

And I want to like when we show up to a new course and we hear like, oh, we just did this to the course or like we just took all these trees out or something like there's a 14 where you guys like did that um like where it combines from the t box to the green like that was a pretty cool project that you guys did like how how much work goes into something like that like if you go that that slope behind the green and how it all perfectly blends in and bleeds into the tea box like something like that tackling that one project what goes into all of that it's a lot of planning you know it's we we had uh jim urbina's been our consulting architect for the rest of And he was actually on grounds yesterday.

And we're looking at all those trees we lost in that microburst and tornado in November last year. And planning around that and change the fairway lines and stuff. So there's a lot of planning. We meet with the architect go over it. And we had some, you know, Greens chairman, a couple Greens committee members with it and the pros. And we're out there talking and you spend a day talking about it. And then there's some follow up and back and forth. But when we were restoring like 14 going into 15, that was we knew it.

Then you'd start shaping the green. and the T used to be about six feet up in the air there, 15T right behind that green. So we didn't want to see the T when you're playing the hole. You want that infinity look with our course to match up everything else. And it was, all right, we're going to bleed it in. And we may as well just make this all shortcut. And then we took the shortcut way around to the right of that trap and everything, too, to make it all blend in. And you start picking the lines.

Well, if we're doing this, then we may as well do all this or else it's going to look funky and look like we really tried to add it. Right. It's trying to make it look like it's been there. We're about to go into a centennial year, so trying to make it look like it's been there for 100 years. And then that area that you're talking about, we had to come back in 2019 and add a lot of drainage. And we did some Billy Bunker in the bunkers, which is drainage and a liner for that. After you knocked all that down and removed the trees from that area, it ended up holding water unlike any other part of the course. So we had to come back and add on.

And we do it a little different too because we were very involved at Derbina with like one or two shapers. and then me and my guys are doing all the work and making up for it. A lot of other places it's contracted out and you're bringing in one of the big, you know, the big guys that work all over the country, you know, McDonald's Sons, LaBar, Total Turf, something like that. You're bringing them in and they're coming in and doing all the work and you're just kind of keeping an eye on them and giving them one or two guys. But, you know, costs start to go up and everything then.

And that's not the way that we did it here. But we're starting to do that for some of the projects, drainage and stuff. Totally. And my last question for you because we got one more guy to get to and then I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss this flight to Toronto. So if I don't make it to the Barso Classic, I'm missing the flight because of this podcast. When you're talking about renovations and doing stuff,

what are you going to do to the fifth hole for Trent? What are you going to do to the fifth hole at Rockville Links? Are you guys blowing it up? And if you do blow it up, can he put a stick of dynamite on it? And literally blow it up. Right now we're not blowing up that one. Yeah. It's the worst hole to Trent.

I love it. I think I'm like career one under on the hole. It's easiest hole of all time. Trent is a career 15 over on this thing. It's 110 yards and I just can't figure it out. I told you you need to just come play it nine, ten times in a row or just play 18 holes of it. And then we need to just give you a bucket of balls in that back bonkers. We just need something for you to get over it.

That's a mental block. How frustrating is it for you? Because you drive on the side of the break in 90s with us and things are going well. He'll like par whole one and like both. whole two and then he gets up to five and he makes an eight and you're sitting there on the cart being like no way is that happening yeah yeah no i mean i'm rooting for you you know you know all of us have played what four or five rounds together i play little more frankie you know it's it's a guy that you play golf with that's trying to get better you're rooting for them you're

trying to help them out and everything then you're on the side helpless you know dude it's it's a bad scene that hole is just your bugaboo we're gonna have to come back and see if he can overcome it because he just shot 92 at colonial he's right there on the precipice of it. We're like ready to rock. But we appreciate you coming on here, Luke. Glad to have you on finally. And then, yeah, we'll see you out there, Rockville. Keep it, keep it

rolling. I appreciate it, I guess. Thanks, man. Appreciate it, Lou. That's okay. And then real quick, we got the last question segment here by cross-country mortgage, my friends. I had a question for you. Yeah.

You watch House of the Dragon? I did watch House of the Dragon. Just a short review. Oh my God. Wait, I thought we talked about this already. Did we not? We talked about it in a way because Riggs hadn't seen it yet. Wow. All right. So last, the cross-country mortgage, last question of the podcast. And we have the guy from New Jersey waiting online, by the way. So we'll get into him really quick. We're going to tell him to give us the elevator pitch on what it takes to build a golf course.

I'm sure that's going to take 25 minutes. But cross-country mortgage, there are people helping people. Listen, it's the best of all time. When you're coming, when you talk about mortgages and loans and lending money and all this stuff, it gets all like weird and you get anxiety and you're like, I don't know who I should trust and what company is going to be taking advantage of me. Cross-country mortgage is a legitimate people helping people company. You end up knowing them personally. You talk to them. You can go visit them. The whole thing. They are real people that want you to get the best deal possible. Faster closing times than the competition. Innovative technology focuses on what's important to fulfill your loan needs. Access your equity to use for larger

expenses from debt consolidation to home renovations. So see if you qualify today. Visit ccm.com slash barstool right now. You have to go to ccm.com slash barstool right now. This is not a bad time to buy a home. In fact, for some, it could be the perfect time. Look with the no money down and the refi options that let you draw the line of credit with lower interest than a credit card. Cross Country Mortgage has all of your bases covered. They covered all my bases. I am covered by cross-country mortgage. So, visit cross-country mortgage, ccm.com slash barstool, cross-country mortgage LLC and MLS3.029, all loan subject to underwriting approval. Let me make this easier. Let me make this easier. Give me one prediction for the show going forward. Okay, I think the, I'm bad with the

names right now because it's so new, but the brother of the king is going to be a good guy. I think that the king's, what? That was going to be my prediction. Oh, yeah. No, I think that, I think the Kings, like, circle, like, wants him out because he's like, he's kind of a soft pussy king. And like, I think they, like, think that they can get to the throne. Um, so I think like his table will end up conspiring against him. And they want to separate him in the brother because the brother is so powerful and strong and like is such an abrasive asshole that he would stand in their way because he would protect him at all costs. Right. Like I think at a certain point, the infection on the back of the current king is going to kill him.

And then there's going to be that the girl, which I believe her name is Rainera. Rennara. Yeah. She is going to be the king or the queen, excuse me. And then I think the brother's going to come back and she's going to bring him into the fold. Well, here's another thing. The king's hand or whatever his name is, he like sent his daughter to go sleep with the king and like he's just trying to get an air.

Like that was a sneaky. Let me go get an air out of this guy right now. His name's Otto, which is a funny name. Yeah. Otto was definitely a bad dude. I mean, that was fucking weird. So, yeah, I guess if we want to talk about the last question, what did I think about Game Thrones?

I loved it. I thought it was great. I thought the last, is it the House of the Dragon? The House of the Dragon. House of the Dragon is amazing. I thought they set it up perfectly. I think it's set up for a really long, good run with, I think, the characters are great.

And yeah, I thought they did a great job. Anyone that's hating on, I think, is just a hater, just to be a hater. I think it's, I thought it was fantastic. And it's just fun to now have Sundays back. to like be in that like big moment again. You were great on Twitter. There's just nothing like having thrones in your life.

It's really like it. Oh, can you can bring in the guy from, if the guy from New Jersey is still in here, you can bring him in. I really want to get to this golfer who lied about his handicap, jailed for six months. Basically the story is, this champion golfer who swindled 26,000 euro in benefits

has been jailed for six months. Alan Bannister, who played off a handicap of six, claimed crippling arthritis and back pain meant it took him 15 minutes to walk just 50 yards a court heard. So basically this guy was collecting disability from his job and ended up saying that he couldn't even lift up a spoon or peel a potato. And they have video of him hitting a drive 260 yards off whole one. And like in the court hearing it says like he hit a drive 240 yards at the first tee and grabbed his golf bag and lift the.

it over his back and his shoulder and he went do do do do and they fucking said that he was i mean that's just fraud you can't you can't be collecting that much how much jail time did he get six months 56 years old hitting the ball 240 yards he was collecting unemployment since like 2004 and the guy's not supposed to be bedridden with injuries and they finally found him so his handicap i guess someone figured it out by his handicap he was claiming a six and they went to go see him they're like how is this guy's six handicapped if he can't even get out of his bed That's fraud, baby. So we're going to close out the show with Sean.

Sean is in New Jersey right now. Apparently building a golf course. Your golf course is what? This is a brand new 18 hole golf course. Sean, welcome to the show. Welcome to Foreplay. Yeah, what's going on, guys? Thanks for having me on here.

Yeah, so I'm down in Old Bridge, New Jersey. We're building a brand new 18-hole golf course scheduled to open probably August of 2023. Wow. So, you know, we're coming up against, I got to make a flight, unfortunately. Unfortunately, I'm like rushing to get to this airport right now. But I want to get like the elevator pitch on what are you dealing with building a brand new golf course? Like what was the land before that? What is it now?

And like what's going into this? Like what you have architects? Like what's going on? What's happening? Yep. So basically this was about 180 acre farmland that a family owned here for a couple hundred hundred hundred years. And they donated it to the township.

And the only thing that they were allowed to build here could be some sort of recreation. So baseball field, park, and then golf course also falls under that. So, you know, what ended up happening was that there was a couple people who wanted to come here, rezone it from farmland and build a golf course. So now what goes like this is like who comes up with the routing? And like you as a super, like where did you work before taking over this project? Like is this your first course that you're now managing as a superintendent? Or is this like a new project for you that you've never done before?

So yeah, this is a brand new project for me. This is what I call it is a growing superintendent's shop. Before this, I worked at due process down here in Coltsnack. I've worked at Plainfield Country Club and Wingsker. So, I mean, this is new to me. I mean, growing grass isn't new, but grown it from just, you know, shaping golf course into pretty much with dirt and, you know, whatever else the land was, you know, this is pretty new to me.

So as for routing, of course, we do have an architect. His name is Stephen Kay. He does a lot of golf courses around this area, and he pretty much fit in the 18 holes here. We're going to open up his daily free course. There'll be a driving range clubhouse. But we're working with the farmland, and luckily there's a lot of just natural rolling hills out here,

so we really didn't need to shape too much to give it a lot of character. So are you out there right now? Yeah, man, right now. Listen, I'll give you guys a little sneak peek. I got, we seeded our well green last week. I'll show you what it looks like. Yeah, let us see. I think that'd be super interesting.

Wow. So this is a heated green. Okay, so it just grows from these little seedlings. And, you know, it took only about four days, to be honest. So he was actually pretty good. We got dumped on the other day, but, you know, here I'll show you a little bit. Sorry, irrigation pond. We got it out here.

So we're pulling about we have about seven million. gowns in there. We've got the pump house going up over here. Dude, this is just dirt, man. This is crazy. Yeah, I mean, we're about a year out. So, I mean, it's really crazy to see, you know, what, you know, what a golf course looks like before it's actually a golf. Right. Now, how, how has this summer been, you know, and this is your first time doing it, so we wouldn't be able to know, I guess, but like, this has been kind of a tough summer in the Northeast when it comes to, like, it's been so hot. It's been so dry. And I know. A lot of these superintendents have been dealing with like, you know, weeds and all these bad vegetation, whatever you're going to call it.

Have you guys had any problems with this summer trying to build a brand new golf course from the ground up? So I'm going to tell you what. This is the absolute best summer possible to build a golf course because of how significant, you know, insignificant the rain has been here. I mean, it hasn't rained out here. I mean, a lot of golf courses are struggling out here. I mean, these guys are, I mean, these superintendents around here are busting their ass to, you know, give the conditions and, you know, keep up with expectations of the memberships around here. But for, for playing in the dirt and shaping, this is about as ideal as it gets out here. Right.

True. Yeah, I never thought of that. If it dumps rain, it starts to maneuver the way that you guys are shaping bunkers and greens. Wow. Yep. Can't really shape. Can't really get equipment out here. You almost, you know, you almost go backwards.

We will usually take the day if it's raining too much because you're really just going to make a mess out here. Wow. This is awesome. Is there like a signature hole that you guys have already picked out that like you're working on? Is there like one that you know is going to be the most beautiful? Yeah. So we have a part three our 15th hole. It's a 15,800 square foot green. To put that in perspective, most greens are probably three to five thousand square feet. It's going to be a BRITS green. It's going to be a BRITS green. So it starts up in the front. It dips down quite a bit and comes back up. The green. is absolutely massive. I don't think in all of our lifetimes combined, you'll see the same pin placement twice. Do you have a superintendent dog? Do you have a golf course dog? I do have a dog. I don't have him out here yet. He's a white golden retriever. He'll be gone home black and brown. Wife wouldn't like that. I mean, it's just, it's the culture, right? You have to have a dog. How do you train those dogs? Because they're so freaking good on the course, or do you just let them

live on the course and they just learn on their own? I mean, like, I've never seen. I've never seen a golf course superintendent dog not be trained perfectly. Yeah, a lot of these guys, there's a couple companies that kind of just train these dogs from puppies and they just, they're just trained to herd and they, you know, they chase all the geese away. And, you know, I mean, you know, they do it like any other dog, like good dog. I mean, they just, you know, they stick by, your side. They know, you know, they know they can't extend, you know, too far out. But, I mean, For the most part, like a lot of these guys' dogs are from these places that just breed golf course dogs. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Well, Sean, that's super interesting stuff. What's the name of the course again so we can keep tabs on it? It's going to be called Old Bridge Golf Club. Listen, if you ever guys, if you guys get time, you know, in the near future, you want to take it right out here. I'll love to take you around. Dude, I wanted to do it behind the greens of someone building a course. So, I mean, maybe if we can get out there, our schedule is so insane that we might miss some of it. but like if you guys are still shaping stuff,

I'd be pretty cool to go out there and film the beginning, middle, and after that. So that's pretty cool stuff. We haven't touched yet that need to be shaped. And, you know, later on.

Definitely message me. Message me. Well, I have you right now on DM. So we'll be in contact because that's a pretty cool thing to be able to film. At least if we can get like one hole. Like how do you build one hole on a golf course? We would love to film that beginning to end,

like when it's just dirt and we haven't shaped you yet. I want to contact you. I'll be out there for sure. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You got some epic drone shots out here, too. It looks pretty sweet from up top. Awesome, Sean. Well, thanks for hopping on.

We appreciate it. Good luck. And we'll be in touch. All right. Take care, guys. Thanks. Thanks, man. Thanks, man.

All right, Trent, Daddy. Well, I think that's a show. It's been about... I think that's a pretty damn good show. I guess one of our best shows to date. I mean, it's just... We got Danny Rappapaport. We had four super's on or three super's on?

Four superintendents on. We got different variations of their lives and all this stuff. Now I'm getting text messages saying I'm going to miss my flight. So I got to get going, Trent. That's been fun. Thank you to everybody. Hopefully you don't want to kill us for talking this long, just us and me and Trent.

And that's it. I mean, I got nothing else. I literally have to go. Yeah, get in a car and get to the airport. All right. That's all I've got. Hit it hard. Hit it hard.