No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1125: Finances of Being a Pro Golfer

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

For this episode we're graced with the return of Denny Cash to talk about the finances of professional golfers across all levels of the game with interviews featuring PGA Tour veteran Steve Wheatcroft, Korn Ferry Tour player James Nicholas, aspiring Korn Ferry Tour caddie Ryan Murray, and LPGA Tour veteran Lauren Coughlin. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Titleist Rhoback Pinehurst If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast, presented as always by our friends at Titleist. The first hour of this pod is going to be ad-free,

thanks to those very friends at Titleist. Just want to give a quick shout-out. They just posted Neil's playing lesson with Russell Henley on YouTube. Lots of cool nuggets in there. Go check out. out. Today's episode is on a topic I've wanted to dive into for a long time. The finances of professional golf. PGA Tour money list. It used to be the end all, be all determinant of success in professional golf. And it kind of goes against everything we're taught in society about money,

which is that you shouldn't talk about how much money you make or how much you spend. In professional sports, it's different. Earnings are mostly public. And I'm definitely guilty of just assuming because someone has made $10 million on the PGA. tour that they're set for life. People just look at the big number. Like, how much did you make on tour? It's like, yeah, I made that much technically, but. I was a lot older than I'd like to admit when I started to learn a little bit more about

the expense side of being a touring professional. Flights, hotels, caddy fees, coaches, mental coaches, physical therapists, country club fees, rental cars. The expenses really do add up. My last year on the corn freight tour, like I said, I made $108,000, but I probably spent $108,000 to do my job that year. So it's like, that's a push. In this episode, we're going to break down a ton of this stuff.

You're going to hear from a lot of people. First up is going to be our old friend, Denny Cash, who is sort of a catch-all representative of all the interviews we did anonymously for this podcast. If you didn't listen to the prior Denny Cash episode that we did, the quick synopsis, look, it's a lot easier to get some of the behind-the-scenes golf people to tell you stuff if they don't have to put their name on it and speak it into a microphone. Not a lot of agents or managers want to be on a microphone talking about their players, specifically about how much money they're making.

So to kind of add a layer of vagueness to all of this, Denny is going to be kind of playing the role of five or six different interviews that I did for this podcast, all kind of combined into one. Just call them an industry expert agent. Again, this will make sense when you start listening. We also added an extra layer of vagueness, remove some names, specific names of players, as you might imagine, for some additional anonymity.

But we talked to Denny about a lot of stuff, but specifically how much these players are making off the course. a lot of different examples, spanning multiple tours, spanning both the men's and women's game. You also hear an interview with longtime tour pro Steve Weakroft, who was an open book about essentially everything when it comes to finances. I remember when I did go through a nice run, looking at my checking account one day, and there was $975,000 in my checking accounts, doing absolutely nothing for me. Corn Ferry Tour Pro James Nicholas, who documents a lot of financial stuff on his social media

channels. If you need something, you get it. I don't care how much it is. I don't care what it costs. I don't care where you have to go for it. If it's going to make you better, you got to get it. Aspiring Corn Fairy Tour caddy, Ryan Murray and his journey to try to get on a bag on the corn fairy tour and how the finances work at that level.

Last year, it was more so just I would spend money on my credit card and my wife would tell me to stop. Also, DJ tracked down our old friend Lauren Coglin for a few brief questions at the end. So, with Johnny for the delay. Thank you everyone for tune in. We're going to kick things off here with Denny Cash. Denny, it's great to see you. As always, you know, when we first visited with you, you talked a lot about your deep storied career on kind of the sell side, the sponsorship side around professional golf events.

But you've also been an agent for players, professional golfers of all skill levels for what, 60, 70 years as well. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Chris, great to see you again. Love being on the show. You guys are doing a great job. Love what you guys are doing. Yeah, golf's a small world. You know, you touch a lot of points.

You meet a lot of the same people. It's a lot of hotel bars, you know, where that you're running into people and you're just kind of bouncing around this crazy industry from job to job. And, yeah, it's good to be able to talk a little bit about player representation today. A lot of disclaimers on this, of course, we are blending a lot of different interviews, conversations we've had spanning a lot of different years into this one character of Denny Cash. I don't know what you're talking about. Any names that we use here, you know, we'll tell you when we're getting specific on a name, potentially. and then we might be being super vague, holding random names that are, of course, of course, not clients of Denny, of course. Of course.

You don't stay in this industry for as long as I have, you know, burning those kinds of bridges. All right, Denny, talk to me about what the range of off course income looks like for professional golfers. And let's start on the men's side. Sure. Not going to surprise you here. The range is wide. It is a big spectrum of how much players earn off the golf course. And I think without giving you any names, of course, you know that.

I'm just thinking of names that pop into my head. I know I know of one multiple major champion, we'll call them. Makes easily over $15 million off the golf course. Another one that pops in, another multiple major champion, probably 10 to 15 million in that range off the golf course. You know, another client of ours I'm thinking about, to a multiple time winner on tour, probably right around $10 million. And then you have some, you know, you go down the spectrum to some of the lesser accomplished

players, the lesser visible players. I'm going to pull some names. These are not my clients. Don't mean for you to take these names literally, but let's just examples. These are just examples. Let's say someone like a Doug Gim, a Ricky Castillo, Alex Smalley, guys that are are nice players, you know, accomplished plenty in their young PJ tour careers, but maybe not quite as visible as some of the guys you're watching every week on Sunday afternoon. They probably have deals, you know, that add up around half a million dollars. I think that's probably a good general rule of thumb for this conversation.

And, you know, again, it's so oversimplified. It's going to vary from person to person. But a good rule of thumb is probably a replacement level type player on the PJ tour probably makes about $500,000 a year in sponsorship money off the course. How much does the world ranking matter when you're trying to sell a player? Is it as easy as looking at the official world golf rankings going down the list and assuming that it goes in order from there on how much you make off the course? Success helps, obviously.

You know that, but it's not as tightly correlated as you would think. I think it's probably more about marketability and other factors. I think there's some guys and you know, you'd be surprised there are probably guys that are like top 20 guys in the world that have been very visible that can sometimes just be a little bit more difficult sells. Some of the European players, this is probably not a surprise, a little harder to sell, particularly to U.S.-based companies, you know, than players that are maybe of a lesser success level, sometimes even lesser talent. let's take a guy like Rasmus Hoygard I do not rep this player of course just pulling a name but Rasmus is a you know a proven winner rider cup or done a lot of stuff I would guess he's probably a tougher sell than someone ranked near him you know on the world rankings take a a Mav McNeely who they're both top 50 players but Mav is a sponsorship dream right he's a

very well spoken he's great at corporate days he can he can do a lot of of stuff that a lot of these companies are looking for. And so I think that's one example of maybe world ranking, not necessarily correlating directly to off the course success. How much does, you know, sponsorship dollars, how much do they vary from, say, the Corn Ferry Tour to the PGA Tour? I mean, you know, some of these guys that bounce back and forth between those probably have a pretty good, you go down a level,

not only you're playing for less purse, but I'm guessing the sponsorship dollars go into that. Do you build the contracts like that in a specific, way to say, hey, this is my exposure level at the PGA tour. Here it is at Corn Ferry. And are those different prices? They are. You're, you're probably seeing a trend developing here, Chris, it varies. And so, you know, for one instance, I'm just thinking about one of my clients who went from on the Corn Ferry tour, probably making 250, 300K off the course to, you know, it gets a PJ tour card. And overnight, that kind of flips to 500, between 500 and 750, I would say. And a lot of that's, you know,

you know, it's just interesting, right? It's the same guy, uh, same marketability, same everything. It's just, it's just a different tour, which I think is, is understandable. But a lot of that can also be incentive based to, to your question, you know, if he plays well, a lot of it's based on world ranking checkpoints and performance metrics. And I mean, all of that translates to visibility for the company, right? And, and how, how marketable, how visible is this player going to be? But they could push that 500, 750 up to a million dollars if they, if they, if they, if they, play well. So there is upside for the player. There's a little bit of risk mitigation for the companies. It's a pretty good system that seems to work out for both sides. We talk a lot on this

podcast about wanting guys to participate in things, wanting them to be a part of extra content and things like that. You as an agent representing players, what do you do in terms of encouraging your players to be forward facing in content? And how does that help you in deals with different sponsorship groups? It's complicated. It's complicated. Because it's It's a massive part of the world that we're living in. And I think you see the upside when you see a player who does it really, really well. You know, Max Homa is not a guy that I rep, but let's just take him as the crystallized example of a player who developed a great online personality and parlayed that into a lot of fans and probably a lot of sponsorships, right? That can also, I'm not saying that this is what happened with Max, but like, that can also be a double-edged sword if you're a player who's chasing that kind of stuff and taking,

your eye off the ball. And, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, like, a lot of this is just based on how well are you playing on the golf course, right? I mean, you can, you can't shortcut your way to success in this just by amassing a bunch of Instagram followers. I think you can do that, you know, that helps, but it is a balance, right? Like, you can't, you can't go all in and put all your eggs in this basket of being a pro influencer. Otherwise, I think you'd just be an influencer. And so my job is kind of like trying to figure out that balance and, and how players can keep their eye on the ball while also trying to maximize the things

that some of these companies are looking for. Have you seen players go off a certain end of the spectrum in the wrong direction? Totally. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you see guys, you know, and women as well, for that matter. Like, you can, yeah, you can chase the wrong metrics, right? I mean, at the end of the day,

it's how fast can you get the ball in the hole is kind of the only thing that matters and all the other stuff is sort of icing on the cake. And so when you see players lose that, perspective on that. I think it can warrant maybe some tough phone calls and some advice that's sometimes well received and sometimes not. But I think the, you know, the overarching thing as much as you don't want people to get distracted is like, man, it is a valuable aspect to why these companies sponsor these players, right? I mean, there's a reason why you have

a logo on the hat. And it's because if you show up in a YouTube video, you show up in an extra interview here, you show up in some clip that goes viral or something. Like, that's, that's kind of the reason these companies are paying to be associated with you is for the eyeballs that come from your visibility. And so it is a push and pull for sure. You want, you want players to be open to those sorts of things without kind of losing sight of, you know, the actual long game here. Some of these numbers we've talked about on the men's side, how do they compare to the top names on the LPGA tour? Chris, you know what I'm going to say. It varies, of course.

I think what's interesting in the women's game, and this is true of the men's game too, as we were saying, but you can be a player in the women's game who's very, very marketable and not necessarily a tip-top top-five player in the world. And I think some of those players, if you do things the right way, can make $2.5 million,

maybe even more, off the golf course through just smart partnerships. And then I think if you look at the tip top of the market, I mean, obviously that's a player like Nelly or specifically Nelly. Again, not one of my clients. But I'm so I'm just kind of making an educated estimation here. But she's probably making north of $10 million off the golf course a year. I mean, she's obviously got serious blue chip sponsorships. And then with someone, you know, like Nike, probably her most visible sponsorship, a lot of their contracts are based in incentives like we were talking about earlier. And so. In 2024, she had a monster year, right? She had to make a lot of money off the golf course just based on those incentives and all the upside in those deals. And so 2025, she didn't win. You know, it's a little bit of a down year by her standards.

Maybe not quite north of $10 million, but I have to think 2024 was. And I think what's interesting with Nellie specifically too, again, not my client, is that if you kind of put the pieces together, Nike traditionally buys up a lot of the quote unquote inventory, right? I know Nellie's a little bit of a unique example because she has a sponsored hat where you have kind of the Goldman logo and the Taylor Made logo and some other stuff

and she's got a bag logo and whatever. But you think about a player like Scotty Sheffler, what sponsorship do you think of when you think of Scottie Sheffler? It's Nike and Taylor Made to an extent, right? But mostly it's Nike that's very visible. And so with a player like Nellie, she has all that Nike real estate kind of bought up,

but she also has a lot of other partners kind of quote unquote behind the scenes right so she's doing a lot of other corporate days she's doing a lot of other just obligations and so i think for as much as people like to maybe knock her for for not playing the Asian swing you know for instance to start the season uh some of that i think is is fair but it's it's interesting in that she probably has a lot more going on off the golf course than people realize which either gets jammed into the very short off season on the LPGA or, you know, she needs to do some of that during this time where she's not traveling to Asia. And so all those days have to come from somewhere is my point.

And especially in the women's game when you're trying to max out your top end earning days. I mean, I understand kind of why it looks that way. And then as far as, you know, Nellie's and the top players are one example, but more like rank and file the quote unquote replacement level LPJ players. Again, it depends. There's a range. I think a lot of the Asian players can get really solid deals with, you know, Asian banks and Asian financial services companies and similar things like that. You see a lot of those sponsorships, which can maybe probably lead to around a million dollars or so in off course earnings.

But then again, the replacement level kind of American and European players probably more in the like 200 to 500K range. So probably splitting somewhere between the Corn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour. What's an example of a way a player could make themselves more marketable? What's a dream client look like for you? I think the first one that pops to mind is probably going to be someone that would pop to mind for a lot of your listeners as well as kind of an obvious answer. But let's look at someone like Joel Damon. Needless to say, of course.

Not a client of mine, of course. But I would say if he was a client of mine, pre-netflix, boom, pre, you know, Joel Damon takeover of the golf culture world. For a player like that, we're probably looking to get around 100K for a patch. Call it, you know, this all varies even has its own little nitty-gritty minutia, but, you know, hat, collar, sleeve, chest bag, like a patch like that, we're probably looking about 100K. I bet post-netflix, that number's probably up around like 250.

And so that's just very real exposure leads to more. more money type of estimation there. And so, I mean, I feel like all in, you add all those together and off course appearances and, you know, whatever. I bet Joel probably makes in excess of a million dollars off the course. And nobody loves Joel more than you and I, Chris, of course. But I think he's, he would say he's been a below average tour player the last couple of years, right?

And so for a below average tour player to make over a million dollars is that's a pretty crystal clear example of, you know, being marketable and what that can do for you because he's a positive brand that people want to be associated with, people want to be involved with. I actually reached out to Joel to get an answer on this exact topic. Sully knowing up crew. I appreciate the invite and the questions. I would say my bump from being just kind of a bucket hat wearing journeyman golfer on the financial aspects for being on Netflix has been incredible.

I would say after the first year, immediately I went like 3x to 4X even. And instead of, you know, maybe searching and hoping and reaching out, a lot of calls were coming in. and we had the opportunity to negotiate and say no to some people and find the best opportunity on that. So financially probably three and four X honestly for me off the golf course, but also the opportunities on top of that as well of just meeting more people, doing more cool things, and being in an elevated world, I would say, outside of just like an average journeyman golfer,

as my career has kind of been. It's been really special. It's an unbelievable opportunity, and I'm happy to capitalize on a lot of that. Also, as I say on that, the power of saying no is very interesting. And most golfers and most people don't have that. But it's been nice, but then also being able to arrange contracts for longer than one year or six months or 18 months. It's like, hey, you can actually form relationships with these people. You can have long-term deals and you can form relationships and friendships

and knowing that this can be longer than, like I said, 18 months or a year or whatever some of these contracts are. So you can really formulate a plan for the future of who's going to be on your team and who's going to go forward and how it all kind of pieces together on that. So hope this helps. If not, I can try again. Cheers. Talk to me about golf outings. is honestly something, despite all my years of doing this, it doesn't compare to your years doing this, Denny,

but all my years doing this, I'm kind of just learning about the full scale and scope of golf outings. Like players go get paid to play golf with people, the excess of just regular corporate days. What do they get paid for something like that? Yeah, man, you should have seen the outings in the early days, Chris. Listen, the outings are easy money. Straight up. This is an easy moneymaker for a lot of the guys out there. I think even, I think people would be surprised, even some of the other.

of the mid-tier, I keep saying replacement-level players, but some of those guys can probably pull 50K for a single day, 75K for a single day with the right partner playing 18 holes, yucking it up with clients and customers, maybe doing a little fireside chat in the evening. Beat the pro, stand on one of the T-boxes, something like that. 100%. I think for some of the top guys, that's probably around 100K, can push even north of that, which I think this part's going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out. I think some of those top guys, even for that amount of money, quickly start budding up against, is this worth my time?

And that question, because it sounds easy. Go tee it up, play 18 holes, do a little dinner chat for 100K. It is easy. But man, those guys can overcommit themselves very quickly. And for a guy who's making tens of millions of dollars a year between on course, off course earnings, it is more complicated than that. When you start adding up the compounding effect, these are usually, you know, a lot of times a Monday after a tournament when you're already pretty burnt, you want to go home and sleep in your own bed. It's another day on the road.

It's another night a weird sleep probably flying out that night. It's another day away from your kids or your spouse or your house or your dog or your whatever. It might shorten the next week. If you have a tournament the next week, it might affect your prep for, you know, going and trying to win four million dollars at a signature event. it just is not quite as simple as let me just stack up as many of these corporate days as as I possibly can. But it's also a balance there too. And this is where I think, you know, players need to have good advice is we've all seen

a million examples of guys who look like completely different players from year to year, right? People who fall off, they make a swing change, they make a coaching change, they make whatever, and they lose it. And they might make $10 million one year and they might make $2 million the next year. and you never know when that's going to happen. And so it is a delicate balance for a lot of these top guys of how do I keep the train rolling and make sure that I am performing at the tip top of my abilities every possible

time I tee it up. And also, I don't know how long it's going to last. And so how do I smash the glass and grab as much cash as I possibly can during the limited earning window of my life here? So it's a tough balance, but corporate outings are a good lever for that. It's hard because we are talking serious, serious dollars here, but as we'll learn throughout this episode as well, and as we've learned over the years,

expenses in professional golf are real. Taxes in professional golf are real. And I guess I could be a little surprised at times that guys are willing to do things for relatively small amount of money when it compares to their career earnings and keep doing it into their 40s, 50s and 60s. Yeah, it's an interesting. one because like you said, the, you know, the taxes are a little bit of a double-edged sword, right?

You're only paying more taxes if you're making a lot more money. And so it does go hand in hand. But like you said, a lot of times the number on the sheet, even the number on the contract is not really the number that's going into the bank account. And so you just got to be pretty smart about not chasing shiny objects, not getting blinded by, you know, is this really $100,000 to go show up to this event? Or does that mean I have to find another flight home? Does that mean what am I paying in taxes?

What am I thinking about for expenses? Is anybody staying along with me? Am I extending lodging? Am I do? Like, it's just there's a lot that goes with it. And again, I know this can sound ridiculous because these are exorbitant amounts of money that we're talking about here. But just trying to illustrate that it's not all quite as simple as it probably seems.

Obviously, the equipment industry is a big one as it relates to professional golfers. How do you balance something that has such a great, impact on the performance of your actual clients. Yet also, it could be some pretty easy guaranteed upfront money. We see guys change equipment companies all the time. We see them chase dollars at times. We've seen it effect play. We've seen very effective changes from one equipment company to the next.

But how do you deal with that? And do you kind of sometimes end up veering into career on course golf advice towards some of your clients? Again, a tough struggle because you're going to get paid off. that equipment deal. Of course. Of course. This is a, it's a little bit of a test of, of the agent's incentives, I think, here, right? Because you've, like you said, you have a lot of power to give advice. You have a lot of power to give bad advice. And you have a lot of power to let your own interests get in the way of, I should say your short term interest get in the way of potentially

your long term interest. Because, you know, if your guy plays as good as possible, you're going to make as much money as possible. It does really come back to that at the end of the day. And so, These can sometimes be, they can be very distracting, I think, for players. And I think what I would love, the dream for me would be for a player to come to me and say, I'm a Titleist player. Or I'm a tailor-made player. I'm a tailor-made player. Like, whatever their company is.

Yeah, Titleist. Yeah, Titleist is, you know, I know you guys have worked with Titles for a long time. I would love for a player to come to me and say, I'm a titleless player. Get me as much money as you can from Titleist. I'm going to play their clubs. I just, I don't need to entertain other offers. I don't need the distraction. Because like you said, I've learned this lesson the hard way.

You know, I've been around for a long time, Chris. Learn this lesson with more than one player. The upfront money can be very tempting. It's not hard to convince yourself that the equipment's really similar. The irons are basically the same. I've hit the driver. I might even be hitting the driver better. Who knows if I'd make this change and that change.

You know, this shaft. It's very easy to squint and convince yourself that this is no difference than what I've been playing the whole time. And I've just seen it happen enough times that I really try to convince my clients that if it feels like tinkering, if you're thinking it, it feels like tinkering, just don't mess with it. Just play the stuff that is going to make you confident that's going to make you play your best golf. And I think what's kind of interesting from like a business perspective is with the increased spend from companies on NIL stuff, like at that level, junior college amateur type golf. I think the thinking is for a lot of companies, okay, if we can, you see a lot more players taking equipment

much more seriously and saying, I don't want to change. I just want to play my best golf. So it's kind of like if we can head that off at the past, if we can sign this young potential stud when he's 15, 16, 17 years old, maybe the thinking will be, well, he's not going to want to change when he's 23, 25, 27, 30 coming into the prime of his career. And maybe we can get that guy or gal at a,

at a little bit of a deal. So that's kind of an interesting one to watch. But I guess we'll see how that kind of plays out over the next five years or so. All right. The question everyone wants to know about. Talking about the PJs, the private jet travel.

Who's flying private? These guys are all, everybody's flying private all the time. Isn't that right? Great question, Chris. No, I don't think everybody's flying private all the time. I do think, I would say, slightly more people than you would,

think are flying private. It's kind of how I would I would characterize it. A lot of the, a lot of these private aviation deals are interesting. They, they oftentimes, almost always, I would say, translate into essentially like hours, you know, think about it like credits for, for these flights. So let's say somebody signs a $200,000, quote unquote, deal with a company. It's basically just $200,000 worth of hours for that private jet, you know, so there's very, there's very little cash exchange here. And so what a lot of these people, you know, a lot of these players will do is they'll take a look at their schedule for the upcoming year and basically decide like, how are we

going to use this X number of hours? And so they'll look for choke points. They might live in, I don't know, they might live in Dallas or Arizona or whatever. And they look at Hilton Head and they say, God, it's going to be a pain in the ass to get from Scottsdale to Hilton Head and back. You know, if I'm not playing the week before, I'm not playing the week after, whatever it is. And so they'll say, okay, I'm going to burn some hours there.

They might look at, you know, I don't know, family vacation they have coming up because like it's one thing to travel by yourself, right? It's another thing you hear players talk about like, man, you start traveling with three kids and a spouse and maybe a nanny and yada, yada, yada. And it can just be a lot of like a lot of moving parts trying to get to the airport and get through a TSA screening or whatever. So I think some of the players will look at like weeks where they're traveling families, weeks where they're even going on vacation, right? you know, a family vacation is supposed to be relaxing from, you know, compared to traveling to go play pro golf. So that might be a time where they want to go use some hours. And so it's up to different players on how they want to use that stuff. But that's, I hope that answers your question, Chris, as far as how some of that gets used.

It does. And it's the interesting factor I've maybe viewed a little differently over the years. I was like, man, you really pay in 50K extra or whatever it might. Because guys will also on top of some of their deals spend some money on private jet flights. and buy some hours through some of these companies. But it's to say, you know, all right, if getting me home this night cost me $50,000 in cash or $50,000 in credits or whatever that might be on the private jet,

if it gets me home this night, I wake up in my own bed, gives me two days of rest before I get back to here on this day or it gets me back from whatever event. And I'm rested and I make one more put in the top 10 in this next week. It has already paid for itself. I've even heard players describe it

as on the flip side is less getting home and more just like getting to a tournament, right? Like let's say that they played, they played, you know, the night before they finished late on a Sunday, maybe they were in contention and they're playing the next week. And it's like, okay, if I, there's no flights that leave Sunday night. So that means I got to leave mid morning on Monday because I don't want to get up at 4 a.m. after burning it all week on the golf course. Does that mean, okay, now I'm going to have to connect and I'm not going to get, I'm not going to be able to play a practice around. on Monday when I get to the tournament.

And so now I'm behind. That means I got to play Tuesday and Wednesday. And then I'm a little more burnt for Thursday. And then maybe I finish one or two shots. Like you can see, you see the train of thought on my thinking versus, oh man, if I can take a jet whenever I wake up on Monday morning,

I get there, you know, at a much better time on Monday afternoon. I can go play the front nine on Monday, do all my normal work. And then I can go play the back nine on Tuesday, do all my normal work. I can take Wednesday off, basically, you know, go hit balls, do any pro-am stuff I got to do, just make that a 30% of, you know,

the day that it could be prep-wise. All of a sudden, you're a lot more ready to go on Thursday. And it's just easy to see the conventional thinking there about how, again, I know we're talking about huge numbers here, but how 50 grand can start to feel worth it is when you're playing in a $20, $25 million golf tournament, it's like, man, that adds up quickly. if you can shoot one or two shots better. And so that's the gamble is whether or not it's going to pay off. Do you as agents, do you touch all the money that comes in the doors?

Do you guys pay the caddies? Do you pay the coaches, stuff like that? I mean, I'm just wondering how far the agent's tentacles reach. Rarely, rarely will that pop up. We as agents take in the sponsor deals. We run a lot of that kind of account management, so to speak. And so we'll run all the payment and processing on that. and we'll take our cut of that.

But the rest is usually flowing through financial advisor, business manager, you know, someone like that who's kind of doing more of the other, what almost seems like more life stuff, right? They're doing a lot of that stuff. And so we're here to be agents, right? If players need help with stuff, we're here to help them with stuff. They need us to handle travel booking. You know, we can take care of things like that.

Just little things like that. If they need someone to make their life a little easier, we're here to help with that stuff. But most players honestly do a lot of that themselves, or they'll have, maybe they have their wife handle it if they're traveling with the family, you know, it's easier because maybe she's coming in and out of the Airbnb. It just makes more sense for her to book flights and lodging and some of that stuff.

So we're here to help, but a lot of it pretty much sticks to sponsorship stuff. What's something that people maybe wouldn't expect in terms of expenses or the lifestyle of professional golfers? And this answer, of course, can vary amongst PG. tour, Corn Ferry Tour, PGA Tour, America's LPGA Tour, Epsen Tour, what would what's something people maybe wouldn't expect?

It's a good question, Chris. One of the interesting things that I think, much more specifically on the LPGA Tour, especially the Epson Tour, the Corn Ferry Tour, basically tours that are not the PGA Tour, it is such a big thing. Food is the

big one. And just kind of thinking about meals and where the margins are, And if you think about like when this becomes very evident when you start following a players, you know, when you're on site following a player, like you just realize how much they end up eating at weird times kind of vis-a-vis meals, right? If you're teeing off at 10 o'clock, like that's great. That's a very easy time to prep for or whatever. But what do you eat lunch? Are you eating lunch on the golf course?

You eat lunch after the round. And so a lot of times it's like players really like to think ahead on like, all right, what's the food situation at? 3 o'clock when I come off the golf course, do they have lunch for me at the course? Is it just going to be cookies and box cereal that's sitting out? Do they have breakfast at the course beforehand? Like, players legitimately think about all that stuff and they plan their schedules around, some of it as well. Like you hear, you know, if it's marginal, whether a player should play an event or not,

these are kinds of things that truly can make a difference. Some of these like softer, softer features of a tournament. And I think the other thing is that that would maybe surprise people or maybe not if they really thought about it for a second is just this idea of like journeymen and how there's journeymen on the corn fairy tour because the money is good enough. Right. Like you see players who are 45, 46 kind of still trying to grind it. Can I get one more year of PJ tour status or whatever? You don't you don't see journey women on the Epson tour because there's just straight up not enough money to keep doing. it. All that stuff is very much just built on the promise of maybe I'll make the LPGA and

all this stuff will be worth it. And you see people kind of have to pack it up at a certain time. There's rarely even journey women on the LPGA tour. You know, I think players are much faster to kind of hit that point of, okay, maybe this isn't, this isn't for me. But at least there's enough money on the LPGA to kind of say like, you know, all right, if I broke even last year, I can give it another shot. But on some of those mini tours, it's, it's tough. It's really hard to operate on the margins. And so I think that just kind of speaks to maybe this whole conversation is like there's a very clear gap between the haves and the have-nots.

You know, the players who have everything going for them right now, particularly those players on the PJ tour, players on Live, everything is great right now. Things are really, really good. They're playing for a ton of money. But shit, man, fields are getting smaller. Schedules are getting tighter. things are getting more and more and more competitive than ever. The eye of that needle is just getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And there's going to be fewer players that kind of get let through. And then you think about the pressure that that puts on players because you get used to a certain lifestyle when you're playing really well. You know, you get used to, oh, I bought this house. I've got this mortgage. I've got these kids and, you know, college costs. Like, you know, kids don't get free colleges because you played pro golf. That's not really how it works. And so, you know, especially for these players who are not Scotty Schaeffler,

Xanders, Schofley, Colin Morr, George, Speed, like these guys that are truly set forever, some of those guys at the younger tier, like start to think about the things that you and I think about every day in our daily life, you know, families and how we're going to take care of things post-golf. And because when it's good, it's crazy, crazy good, right? But when it's not, it can get really, really claustrophobic, I think. And it gets real pretty quick. you and I both have known people that, you know, I've gone up to the PGA tour,

had a little cup of coffee, had some success, had some top fives, made some big paychecks, and, you know, haven't been back to the PGA tour in four, five, six, seven years and they're still grinding it out with conditional status. And I just look at that and I wonder, how are they making ends meet, man? Honestly, like I, you know, with the travel and the kid, those expenses at home don't change. They don't go down when you go drop down a level. A hundred percent. But it's also like, you.

you're, you know, if you are going to make it, you have to be just insanely, irrationally, confident in your own skill. And if you don't have that, you're probably not going to make it anyways, right? And so it's like, if you do have that, it's probably pretty, pretty damn hard to, to give it up. And so it's interesting, man, but that's why we love it, Chris. That's why I've been in this industry for 70 years. And, uh, and I hope another 70. Well, Danny, I took up more time, uh, then I said I would.

Always pleasure to be with you guys. I can't wait to hear part three with you and we'll figure out a different part of your career that we'd never even do about. Yeah, I'm thinking about getting into golf course architecture. Maybe we can talk about that. Well, Denny, of course, we really, really appreciate your time. You've given us all you possibly could.

Of course, none of those players were your clients. Again, I don't know if we mentioned that. That's a disclaimer we got to put in there. But I want to transition a little bit here. If you don't mind, we talked a little bit about players bouncing back and forth between tours. We got a lot of different interviews here on the back half of this episode talking to some players with firsthand accounts, some caddies as well,

with firsthand accounts of how finances work in professional golf. And next up is a chat with our friend Steve Weakroft, who spent many years on the PGA tour, many years back and forth on the Corn Ferry Tour as well. He's got some great perspective to share with us. How would you describe the lifestyle change between the PGA Tour and the Corn Ferry Tour? The expenses don't change a whole lot. The money coming in goes down by 94%.

So the hotels are the same price, whether I'm staying in Wichita, Kansas, or I'm staying in Charlotte for Quahalo. The dinners are the same price. You don't get a discount. You don't get a 94% discount at the Bonefish Grill because you're on Corn Ferry Tour. Yeah, I mean, nothing really changes.

You just make a whole lot less money. Is it relatively easy? at the beginning of a year to budget what your estimated expenses are going to be, or does it fluctuate greatly over the course of the year? Obviously, the caddy payout is going to be dependent on how you play, but are the rest of the expenses relatively constant, would you say? Yeah, I would say they're pretty well fixed. I mean, you can get a good idea.

If I got off to a great year, if I win Sony, obviously maybe my hotel bill goes up another 10% for the year, but maybe I start staying in some nicer places or rent a house here and there when I normally wouldn't, but for the most part, I mean, if I was traveling alone, I didn't care, as long as I had a nice bed, a nice shower, and, you know, it was in a good part of town. I didn't really care where I stayed. So I was trying to keep those expenses as low as I could. Did you ever feel like any kind of a push and pull relationship with this, this money spent might be a great investment in my golf game, but it might not be. And I don't know if I want to

spend this money on this right here. And gosh, that'd be a lug, if I was a top 10 player in the world, I'd absolutely do it, but where I'm at, I can't justify it. Did you ever feel that at your level? Yeah, yeah, a lot. You know, you go to some of these events and guys are just spending money left and right, and you see what they're buying, whether they're buying cars or watches or diamond rings for their wives. And I remember kind of a funny side story.

We were at Greenbrier the one year, and we were walking through the little shopping area down below. And I just happened to stop by this, like, watch jewelry place. And I'm just looking in there. And they had brightling watches. And I always just loved the look of a brightling watch. and I was showing my wife and I think my parents were there. I was just showing them.

I was like, I just, it's one of those things. Like, I'm not a watch guy, but I just love the look of that watch. And they're like, you should buy that. And I'm like, I've made like $7 on the PGA tour this year. Like I'm not going to spend $10,000 on a watch. And they're like, well, make yourself a deal. If you make X amount of dollars this week, you have to buy that watch. I'm like, fine.

If I make 50 grand, I'll buy this watch. And sure enough, I had a put on Sunday on 17 is a par five and 17th hole. and I had like eight feet for Birdie, and I'm looking at the leaderboard, I'm like, if I make this, I think I'm inside that 50 grand number. And sure enough, I jam it like four feet by, miss it coming back,

and then I hit it to a foot on 18 for Bertie. And I walked off, and sure enough, I made like $52,000 that week. I finished like 18th or something like that. And I wasn't even going to do it. I was like, nope, I'm not doing it. No, I kind of gagged that finish home. Like, no, you made yourself a promise.

You have to go do it. So I went in and the woman's like, look, you guys get 40% off this week as a courtesy anyway. So like even if you don't want it tomorrow, sell it. You're going to make money on it. So I bought the watch. But that was one of the only expenditures I ever did. And the only reason I did is they basically made me do it.

Yeah, I was going to ask what your biggest splurge ever was after a good week of pay. Did you ever, you know, never, never splurge or anything like that? I'm trying to think, I don't, I mean, I never really had that huge pay day. I remember the biggest payday I had. I finished second in Palm Springs, but it was like a seven-way tie, so I only made like 400 grand. And even then, I was just,

I probably went out to a nice dinner or something. That was always a big one for me. It's like, if I played well and I cashed a nice check, I usually went out and had like a good ball of wine and nice steak and just tried to enjoy it with whoever was around me at that point. But no, I wasn't a big, you know, I didn't spend a whole lot of money on myself. I just, I've never been that guy.

And I think the other part of it is when you grow up playing mini tours and you go through that realm of like four years where, you know, I think we probably talked about this in the past where I remember calling my mom one time. She's like, are you eating well on the road? And I was like, yeah, I've got $50 set aside for dinners. And she's like, 50 a night. And I was like, no, no, 50 for the week. Like I can go to Subway and it's like footlong sub, bag of chips and a drink with seven bucks.

That time seven and $49. And she's like, now you spend that on a glass of wine, you know, at the right places. but like when you live that lifestyle of being so frugal on the road because you know that you need that money for entry fees or for gas to get you to the next event, even when you get to the PGA tour and I'm sure we'll talk about this coming up. It's like you want that cash on hand because you never know when the next run of 10 missed cuts in a row is going to be. And you just want to have that bucket sitting right there. Even if you like there was a few times I had way too much money in the old checking account. But it just felt like it was safe to me that like just knowing that it was there. And if I went on a horrible run, or at least I had cash that I knew where it all was. Aside from like golf related expenses with a job that your week-to-week performance fluctuates greatly and your income fluctuates greatly and you could be on a different tour as of next year at all times, how do you personally budget your own finances, your car, your house you're going to live in and it was all the uncertainty around that career. What is that struggle like?

I had absolutely no budgeting skills whatsoever. I just flew by the seat of my pants. I know that's probably not the answer you want, but it was just a, I don't know, however much it costs us, it costs us. Like, how much are we spending per month? I have no idea. I knew we weren't living an extravagant lifestyle, you know, when I'm married and have two kids, like we just, we paid for our bills and we do, you know, an extravagant, you know, like a vacation here, vacation.

But like, I knew I can kind of see the overall picture and knew we weren't spending outside of our means by any means. So, but as far as budget, like I had no idea how much I was spending per month until after I retired and watched all my money go away. And I'm like, okay, how much are we spending a month? Like, maybe I should start to dive into this on what the food bill actually looks like or what, you know, what is our total expenses every month that we have to have to live versus, you know, discretionary versus extra.

And yeah. So, yeah, but I did not have a budget. No, I just kind of ran with it. When you did walk away from playing professional golf, did you feel like you had enough money to retire on? Like did you feel like you're no? No, absolutely not. And even still, I mean, I retired after the 2019 season and my best golf was played in 2015, 16, then 17 and 18 were okay.

And then, I mean, I had a decent year on the corn fair in 19. I think I finished like 44th on the money list. I made like $108,000. But I knew that that was going to be gone quickly. And it went away really quickly. obviously when you started a new job and my next job in the finance world was all commission based

so it wasn't like I had a set salary coming in which if I could go back and redo it all over I would have done it completely different because I needed some store of stability it would have been nice to have like an actual paycheck coming in every week or two weeks but no I knew when I was done that it was never going to be like a hey you're set for life

no God no it was the exact opposite of that it was my God I have to get some money back in the door quick here like I have a little bit of a buffer but I was shocked at how fast that went away So you had between corn fairy tour and PGA tour over the course of a career looks you had about $4 million in career earnings. How much do you think you would have had to earn on the course to have been able to walk away from golf and been fully comfortable being retired? Like not work again? That's a hard.

Yeah, I guess so. I know almost everybody works in some capacity after leaving golf either in media or doing out, you know, whatnot. It, but 20, 25. And which are your listeners are going to absolutely laugh at, right? So I took what I did on there. I had $4.1 million in career earnings on the course. And let's say I made another $1.2 million off the course in endorsement deals, right? So there's $5.3 million.

And then I broke that down over a 14-year stretch. It came out to like $398,000 a year, minus $125,000, we'll call it. it a year for expenses. Average, you know, Corn Ferry and PGA tour, some went up, somewhere down. And then then taxed that. I think I did 25%, just kind of a median over, you know, some years where I was in the 30, whatever, 5, 38%, some years I was in whatever. But it came out to, I think it was like $191,000.

Again, these are rough estimates on all this stuff, but $191,000 a year job for 14 years. If you did that job, do you think you could retire after that was done? And by the way, you haven't paid, you haven't paid any bills at home yet. I was going to say, definitely not with what three young kids costs. Yeah, I've got two kids. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not, I don't have three, but I've got two. And it's, yeah, if you're making $191,000 a year and you haven't paid any of your bills at home,

you haven't paid your mortgage, you haven't paid your electric, you haven't paid it. And like, no, you can't retire on that. You're just hoping that'll cover the year, right? So no, it's, once you start to look at the numbers, it looks great when people go on there and they're like, wow, you may, I wish they would change, like, total earnings to total earnings divided by how many years you played, you know, times tax rate, something on there. Because everybody's like, dude, you made four million. I put something online a couple weeks ago about it. I was looking for help getting Indiana tickets for the national championship game.

And I had 4,000 people write me back on Twitter saying, you're so cheap, you made $4 million on the PGA tour. Go buy your own tickets. I was like, all right, man, if you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of this, we can talk. But no. It's like, yeah, it looks great. $4 million is a lot of money, but spread that thing out over 14 years and tax it and take your expenses out. And that's 14 years at $125,000 a year in expenses alone.

There's 1.25 of it gone right out of the gates. Then take, you know, another 25, 30% of that and taxes away. And then by the way, you got bills at home too. So, yeah, that's where that 20 number would probably come in. Because if I, you know, it's one of those things. if you had retired, if I'd gotten done with golf in 2019 and I had had $6 million in the bank still, then, yeah, we can make some things work with that, right? You can invest that and you can find some place that you can make 8 to 10% on that

and live on interest the rest of your life if you really wanted to. But, you know, I had a big hedge fund friend of mine tell me that one time. He's like, yeah, we just need to get you to $6 million and we'll get you, I can get you 10% doing this. That's great, Bill. I'm $6 million short, so I'm going to need a little help getting to that $6 million. sounds like a great plan. I love the idea of having $6 million in the bank.

I'm just around $6 million short of that number. So if you could help me get to that point, that'd be awesome. But, yeah. Hey, if you were in debt, you'd be more than $6 million away from that number, right? Exactly. I don't know. It could be worse. I just, I loved that conversation when he said that though.

I was like, that's awesome, man. I'm exactly $6 million short. So if you could help me get that. What, what, what, Can you tell me how the PGA Tour pension works for you in particular and what you know about it from a, from a wider span? Yeah, I didn't really get into a whole lot of that when I was playing. I just knew that I could defer whatever the number is now. It was right around $20,000 a year.

I could take that and put that away. That was the max we could be putting into a deferred comp plan with the tour. I know that it went into a bunch of different buckets. Once you get, once you play five years, you get vested. So basically every cut you made on the PGA tour, you got a certain dollar amount set into your retirement as well. Just for making the cut, you got, it was $4,000. And I'm sure it's up to $7,000 or $8,000 now.

But yeah, that money would just, every cut you made went in there. And then after you got five years at 15 events a year, that money was vested. It was yours and that was getting put away. So once I hit 45 years old and stopped playing professionally, you know, playing five events a year, you had to start taking disbursements from that. Some, in some fashion, I don't remember how I even structured it, but usually they'll let you take it for, you know, a certain year,

a certain amount of years or things like that, however you wanted to structure it. So, but then the rest of it, you know, there were certain buckets that paid out at 45, certain buckets at 50, and then the main one was 59.5, just like any of the other, you know, required minimum distributions. stuff like that. So what do those distributions look like for you now? What would you have coming through now? I'm taking, there's distributions coming from three different plans right now. I can't tell you exactly which one is which. One was $1,000. One's $900 and one was around $6,000 a month, which is great when you're starting a brand new nonprofit and you're not paying yourself anything

as a salary. So at least you have something coming in. So it has, it is, the timing of it has been nice that I've at least had some other money coming in. But yeah, so that was something that I had to start taking. But yeah, the rest of it is just sitting in there. And I will give the tour a lot of credit. They do a very nice job with whatever investment strategy they're doing here. But there was a time I remember in, in, where was I at, Vegas? I was out playing on the golf course and I got an email on my phone and I checked it.

I was like, this is wrong. I guess it was about the investment or the retirement plan. And I literally had to call, I think it was Ross Berlin at the time. I called him out there. I said, hey, there's a problem here. I shouldn't probably say anything, but I think we have too much money in my retirement account. And he came back to me like, I don't know, 45 minutes later. He's like, no, it's just been a really good year.

Everybody's made a lot of money. Just the investments that they jumped on were going through the roof. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to complain. But, yes, the tour has done a nice job of investing. So I will give them that. What did for someone at your level, what did off course sponsorship look like? How much does that fluctuate from a PGA tour to Corn Ferry Tour level look like? Who does the negotiating for that?

And kind of how did you, how did that help supplement things? And how did that fluctuate based on how you're playing, whether incentives based in any of that? Yeah. I mean, I'd love to give you a perfect answer. I can tell you that my first year on the PGA tour and, the year i mean i i had no business being on the pj tour i think we talked about this in one of the you know no laying up pods here a couple months ago i knew i didn't belong on the pj tour i finished like 206 in the money list that year i made 310 000 before i ever hit a shot

i thought i was the richest human ever right um and then in 2018 which was my seventh year on tour my fourth consecutive i couldn't get a club sponsor to to pay me anything like title is Callaway. I was like, hey, 50 grand for the irons, the bag, the hat, no, we're good, thanks. So the money obviously changed throughout the years. And I know, granted, I know that I wasn't the best name in the world at 42 years old and I wasn't some young, up-and-coming star. But it was definitely that the heyday of it was back in that, you know, 2005 to 11 maybe window. But yeah, the ball shoe glove deals are interesting out there. I always thought that was a fun one for a lot of these young college kids.

because they signed with an agent. And the agent's like, okay, well, I've got, you know, title list. They're ball shoe glove deals, $40,000 on the PGA tour. Well, then the agent would take, you know, 10% of that or 15% of that, which I'm like, it's a standard deal for rookies. Like, it doesn't change. You know, if you're Tiger Woods, it's one thing or if you're some, you know, Jordan Speath, maybe it's a lot more, obviously.

But if you're a standard guy coming out there to play on the tour and, you know, you're a corned freight tour rookie coming up, it's 40 grand. Whether you sign it or your agent hands it to you and then you still sign it, you want to pay your agent $8,000 to have him hand you a piece of paper. So those are the things I didn't really understand, not to get sidetracked there. But there wasn't a whole lot of money on the cornfairy tour. You know, if you got $20,000 or $30,000 before you hit a shot, it was decent between ball shoe glove and some club endorsement deals.

Actually, you probably get a little more than that, 30 or $40,000. And then any kind of endorsement, you could sell the hat for something or sell a sleeve, just try to, I mean, honestly, you just pawn yourself off that whoever will put a logo on you. You got to, you got to really sweet talk to people and some pro-ams and what, like, try to, you know, make some good partnerships that way. PGA tour is a little different. They're obviously a little bit more eager to spend out there. But even that dried up pretty quickly. There wasn't, you know, again, I may, I probably made one point, we'll highball it and say $1.5 million total over 14 years of endorsement money, right?

It's not like I'm just swimming in it. I mean, Scotty and, you know, Rory have $20 million for their shirts every year with Nike. So it's, it just depends on who you are. Those guys have a crap ton of their money is off the course. The rest of us were, you know, probably 70% of our money was on course. 20% to 30% was was off the course. On course cash, off course sponsorship. What other revenue streams exist out there for, for yourself or players like you?

Golf outings. Like, did you participate in a lot of golf outings that are that are paid? Is that, was that a, at your level, was that a significant income? No, I mean, honestly, the easiest ones were like the Monday proams when you were going to be there anyway. And it's like, hey, do you want to play this Monday pro am? Do you want to come in? You know, you'd come in six hours earlier. I was going to get in Monday night.

Fine, I'll get in Monday morning and play at noon. And they'd pay you $1,500 to $2,500, something like that. I think they're up to $3,000 now. But I'm like, I'm going to play a practice round anyway. Then I can just play that, make $3,000 or $2,000, whatever it is, then play nine holes Tuesday, take when they just hit balls. So I played quite a few of those. I played way too many Saturday proams after missing cuts.

I didn't know that was a thing. Oh, God, there's a bunch of them. San Antonio was always the best one. And I remembered looking at my wife the last year because they were the worst golfers ever. I can't remember who the – it was probably better. I can't remember who the sponsor was. But they would bring a group out there. And you'd play the – what was the Oaks course, I think it was?

the other one basis two courses on site. So you're staying in that JW anyway. And you could fall out of bed and then roll over to the other course and play in the morning. And you'd make the same thing. It's like $3,000 or something like that. But these guys sucked so bad. They were the worst golfers. And it's not the golf course to be on with them.

And I just remember I went out there and I played and I made it like three holes into the event. And I had been looking. I walked eight miles already looking for golf balls. And I texted my wife from the course. I was like, don't ever let me play in this Saturday ProM ever again. And she's like, I was going to say something last night, but you told me that it said the same thing last year. But yes, there were Saturday Pro-Ms that you could play off-site a lot.

Yeah, if you miss the cut and you were going to be in town anyway, they had off-sites that you go to. The players actually here in town used to do a huge one. And the only reason I know this because I lived in town, and if they were really struggling, for people, they'd call me and be like, hey man, you're local. You know, we still need a couple people. We'll pay you five grand to go play, you know,

Tim McQuana or, you know, Sawgrass Country Club or something like that. But they were paying guys like Sergio. I remember $60,000. Wow. To, you know, walk across the street and go play. And he's like, no, thanks. I'm good. And I was like, I'll do it for 10, 12.

But yeah, they had a lot of those. But the one here was always a huge one. But yeah, no other. I mean, you'd get the occasional, you know, he will pay you five grand to come play this one or that one. But, I mean, I did. maybe one or one of those a year, two of those a year maybe. You don't hear too many stories of pro golfers kind of blowing through their money.

And you don't have to name names with this. But have you seen that happen with guys that you think would have based on their on course earnings, like would it would be way better off than they currently are? Yeah, 100%. Um, guys love, um, guys buy really, really, really big houses for no reason. I think that that's the, that's the biggest one that I see. These guys did, you know, they have one child and they have a, you know, a 9,500 square foot house with seven bedrooms. It's like, you have a baby, man. I mean, do you even go to the second floor?

There's a lot of wine collections on tour. Wine collection is not a cheap habit. cars somewhat on cars nothing nothing too bad i guess but the one thing i see is a lot of times houses so they just buy houses and they take uh you know a lot of people flying private when you shouldn't be flying private it's like yeah okay man you've had a good six months stretch here let's not you know you don't need to be spending 20 grand to get to this place when you could get a couple first class seats for two grand um but yeah i mean i've definitely seen guys blow through their cash way faster than what they should be. I would think divorces would make up a fair amount of that as well.

I did not go down. I did not think that road, but yes, that's a great one. Yeah, and golfers tend to get divorced a lot. It's a weird thing. Obviously, it's the lifestyle, but I think more guys get divorced when they get done playing than they do while they're playing because then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is a different life. And oh, you're home, now you're home every week instead of being gone 20 weeks.

I liked it a lot better when you were gone 20 weeks. So yeah, you see a lot of that stuff. But yeah, that's a good point. Divorce is a huge one. If you could go back in time to like, let's say the Steve Weakroft of like heading out on the PJ tour for the first time and you could give that guy one piece of financial advice. What would it have been?

Don't be scared to invest some cash because I remember when I got, when I did go through a nice run, I remember looking at my checking account one day and there was $975,000 in my checking accounts. And I was like, I don't, I have a million dollars basically in a checking account doing absolutely nothing for me. And even if I did go on a horrific run here, and again, this goes back to like just making sure your cash is there for bad times. And I was like, I don't need a million dollars to do that. Like I should have peeled off half a million dollars of that and put it somewhere and try to make money on it for a few years while I'm spending the rest. But I just, again, it was my pretty little number. I liked looking at it and wanted to keep it there. And I knew that, you know,

I knew it was just sitting there. It wasn't doing anything for me. But I mean, I probably cost myself half a million dollars by not investing it back in the day. So I wish I was smarter about my money back then. But again, it just, you know, could I have told myself that at the time? Probably not because I was just so paranoid

about having cash to actually be able to go play golf that that's what I thought about all the time. I know the answer to this question. You've got a put in a PG&A. tour event on the 18th green and the difference is 10 grand in winnings. And you have a put against me at Tim Aquana on the 17th hole. And the difference is, say, you would maybe lose $450. Which one hurts worse to miss?

I'm more nervous over that put against you and it hurts more to miss that against you because I was always very good because everybody's like, oh, you cost yourself $200,000 with that finish. And I was like, did I? Like, that wasn't my money. It wasn't in my pocket yet. If I hand you $450, that's my money that I'm handing you. But when I boned the bunker shot at Canada and cost myself $400,000, like, I hadn't finished 72 holes yet.

So that, you know, it didn't matter if I did that on the first hole or the last hole. The tournament wasn't done yet. And like at the end of the day, after 72 holes, my position was here. That's how much money I made. but that money was not ever mine. When I lose to your ass at Tim Aquana, that cash is in my pocket, in my wallet, and I like it there.

Now you're taking my cash. That $10,000 put that I haven't missed yet on the PGA tour, like that wasn't my money yet. So that's all play money until it actually gets cashed. Can professional golfers get oversubscribed to taking appearance fees for things? Is that a hard thing to ever turn down and how do you balance that with your own schedule?

Yeah, I think 100%. And that's one of the first rules that somebody told me that too. And I don't remember who told it to me, but they said you have to get really good at saying no. Because when you first get out there, you just want to tell everybody yes, because you're going to have club reps come up. Like, hey, would you mind trying this shaft? You're like, we're not trying to get you into this. We just want your opinion on it. Like, yeah, Jerry, give it to me.

20 minutes later, you just been whaling on drivers with some new shaft for no point whatsoever, right? Same thing. Like, hey, would you mind coming to this dinner to do this? or we'll pay you a thousand to come speak at this or just come sit and yeah, yeah, I'd love to do it. Yeah, yeah, I do it. And then next thing you know, you're mentally just exhausted. And I do remember that because I said yes to everything

when you first get out there just because you're so eager to be everywhere. But yes, you can oversubscribe yourself for sure. So that's, I don't remember who told me that lesson early on, but I've told that to numerous people also. Like, make sure you're good at saying no. And if it's not something that's going to benefit you in the long run, you don't need to do it. Like your goal is to go out there and, you know, as much as I'm anti, you know, make it a business,

there does need to be part of it that is make it a business. And your job is to go out there and play the best golf and get your head in the best frame of mind you can at week in, week out to do what you're supposed to be doing. And the offsite dinners and those paychecks really don't matter if you're not playing great golf. It's such an interesting thing of like something on the surface can be very obvious. of like, would you like this amount of money to go to do this one day thing? And like, well, of course, that sounds amazing. And then you zoom out and you're, you know, you're budding up against, you might be budding up against something with that.

On a micro level, it's super easy to say, yes, macro, does this make sense? Right. The hooty and the blowfish, the Monday after the Masters thing. Like my agent one time was like, hey, do you want to come play in this? I'm like, fuck, yeah, I want to go play. It's hooty and a blowfish. Like, oh, yeah, it's my first year on tour. I'm getting ready to go to Hilton Head.

And so I played the Monday after the Masters. pro and we went up there Sunday we sat on some 100 foot yacht had some you know the whole service team taking care of us we're drinking the greatest wine I've ever had in my life and then we we partied all night with john daily on his bus and then you know next day played an eight hour round of golf at myrtle beach and then hung out in the that was the house of blues and just got smashed with darius rucker and john daily and all these athletes i mean had a blast hard to believe i shot a couple of 76 is at Harbourtown that week or something, right? Like, because I'm still hung over by Thursday.

But again, it's like at the time, I'm not going to turn that down. Like, hell, I looked up to John Daly and all these guys and I've would go hang out with them and party. And first year on tour, man, again, he'd lose focus. But I don't regret it at the same time. I mean, there's a bunch of stupid shit I probably did. But I also got to, you know, hang with Michael Jordan in the Aria Casino or Wayne Gretzky.

And I, you know, hung out with Wayne, half a bottle of Grey Goose and had to go play the round the next day in Scottsdale, even though, I mean, I shot 77. I was on my way home either way, but didn't feel great that next round. I can promise you that. I'm not going to turn down stuff like that at that point. You got to live a little while you're out there. You could shoot 63.

I'm like, yeah, I could shoot 88 too. Like, I don't know. But I know I'm going to go sit and hang out with Wayne Gretzky all night and share some really fun stories. Before we get to our next guest, I want to give a shout out to our friends at Roback. one of the reasons I love winter. It is layering S-ZN. It is time to bust out multiple rowback pieces.

When it gets hot here in the summer, I got to kind of stick to the Blitz T, you know, the grit shorts, the stuff that's going to breathe. But in the winter, man, do I have options? You know I love the Hesi hoodie. I wear it probably four times a week. It's a no-brainer. I got it pretty much in every single color at this point.

But I love to pair it with the Fulton vest. Throw the vest on over the hoodie. It's not too hot. It's not too cold. I love the look. I love the feel. I just feel cooler than I actually am when I wear that. The Summit fleece shirt jacket, one of the best pieces I have in my entire closet.

It's trendy. It stands out of my closet because I do not have a lot of trendy clothes in there. And it is one of my favorites. And lastly, I want to show out the Pace Performance Crew. All of their crew necks are fantastic. They've got so many great colors. But the pace, it goes with truly, you know, could be an on-course item, could be an off-course item. I wore this at Pebble during the AT&T Pelop Beach Pro Am.

Go to Roeback.com. Check it out. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. You can use code N-L-U at checkout for 20% off your first order through the end of the week. Again, R-H-O-B-A-C-K-com, code N-LU for 20% off your first order. Next up is going to be Corn Ferry Tour player James Nicholas.

This interview took place a couple months ago before his recent win down in Columbia. James documents a lot of his financial journey on his Instagram profile. We talked about a lot of that stuff. Enjoy this interview here with James. We appreciate his time. You released a full accounting of all of your finances for the 2025 season.

I'm curious, what compelled you to do that? Yeah, I always wanted to keep track of what was coming in and what was going out, right? The pro golf journey is tough as it is. And when you're on the cornflare tour, you rely on sponsors, you rely on people around you, people at your home clubs, getting to get you going. And then I've always just been that way where I want to know exactly where that money is being used, where, you know, where I could, I guess, not save money, but, you know, where I'm I could spend my money smarter.

So for me, it was just tracking everything down and then also making it easier just to pay my taxes and right off, you know, some of the offsetted losses at the end of the year. So you track everything for tax purposes. Is all of your expenses related to golf, are they all considered tax deductible? And does everyone do this good of a job of tracking it? Yeah. So I have, people don't don't do as good of a job, but they do probably have their own. accountants and whatnot and teams that are part of their agencies that help them. I have an accountant that helps me then. So I keep track of it all. She kind of looks through

it and is able to detect, you know, what's 100% tax deductible, what might be 50% tax deductible. I know that there's certain things that are, I guess, a higher percentage of acceptable than others. So that is above my pay grade, but that's the reason why I do it. I track it all that way. She has all information and is able to, you know, maximize my, or I guess, minimum minimize my tax liability. Talked a little bit about the balance between, you know, wanting to to play professional golf competitively, yet, you know, competing on the Corn Ferry Tour,

which is obviously less prize money than you would see on the PGA tour, where the balance of at times trying to save money, but at times also making sure you can be at your highest possible competitive level, what's something you necessarily won't compromise on and what are some things maybe you do to save money expense-wise? Yeah, my first year, I stayed in all the host hotels, and I quickly realized that I wasn't able to cook the meals that I wanted to. I had to rely on the player dining for breakfast and lunch, which doesn't meet my standards. I'm extremely healthy.

My wife is a health coach. So for me, the non-negotiables now are Airbnbs with a full kitchen. That way we can cook breakfast and lunch and dinner and not be reliance on going out or having to, you know, be totally up to whatever the tournament provides us. And some weeks are better than others, like Savannah and Colorado, they do an incredible job at, you know, making sure that there's clean options and healthy options for us while we're on the road. But that's one thing that I will not go back on. I'm not going to stay in host hotels. I'm going to try to find Airbnbs whenever I can. And that might be a couple hundred more dollars in the week. But honestly, it's been cheaper than the host hotels. If I go to Bogota and I stay in the host hotel, it'll cost me $1,200 versus the Airbnb they got for, I guess, in two weeks is going to cost me. $600. So there is, you know, it does save money sometimes, but I'm not doing to save money.

I'm doing it to maximize my performance on the golf course. So that's one of the things on flights, right? If I'm flying from Florida to Argentina, I'm not going to sit in the back of the bus and, you know, wake up 13 hours later with a stiff neck and not be able to perform. So investing, and that's what it, that's what it is. It's an investment. Investing in a better seat on a plane is going to be one of the non-negotiables as well, especially for those flights over four or five hours. I learned that when I played DP World Tour two years ago. That was something that was really important to me was making sure that my body was fully ready to go, fully rested, comfortable, and I didn't have those long trips, long journeys where I woke up with a stiff neck and then

had to withdraw. So those are two big things for me while I'm on the road. When it comes to making sure my body and my performance is that in its optimal form, I'll spend as much money as I can because that money is going to come back in, you know, prize money. You're playing this season in 2026 on the Corn Fairy Tour. I would have to assume a goal of yours would be to play on the PGA Tour. How do you balance to say like, all right, yeah, this, I want to, of course, make money in 2026, but the ultimate goal would be a whole heap of money, you know, exponentially more than I'm currently making for my golf on the Corn Fairy Tour.

Do you think, like, oh, you know, I don't need to obsess over. expenses at this level because there's a much bigger play at hand here of, you know, not only am I trying to make money to survive this year, but I'm trying to qualify and ladder up to the biggest financial opportunities. 100%. So I look at my year. I look at my sponsors and I say, okay, what money is coming in? This is my base.

This is what I can work off of and I can make $0 and break even if I spent this. So I have that number in the back of my head. And then I also know that I'm going to make some money on the cornflare tour. We're playing for a million dollars every week, right? The winner gets $190,000. You can make some money on the Corn Ferry Tour, which is a great tour, my opinion. People don't really realize that. But you are spending a lot of money.

I'm roughly spending $125,000 a year just for flights, hotels, caddy fees, rental cars. You name it. It's a very expensive feat. But there is that carrot at the end, right? You get a PGA tour card, and you're going to make a minimum of $500,000 through their new program that they have, where that's the player, I don't know what they call, but the player insurance program. And then on top of that,

you're going to make probably another 500 if you're a marketable guy, right? You're going to have all these sponsors, titleless and paying and tailor-made. You're going to have a club deal. But that's something that I've never chased. I don't really chase sponsors for the money if it's going to hinder my performance.

So I'm not going to sign a 14 club deal with X brand if I don't play any of their clubs, right? So to go back to your original question, I view the corn fray tour as the stepping zone to the PJ tour, not the, oh, I'm going to go make a bunch of money and, you know, that's that, right? The money comes to make to the PJA tour. And if you're able to make some money in the corn fray tour, that's great. But like you said, I look at the money that I'm going to spend for the year, try to at least break even with my sponsors and with social media deals that I do and all the extra curricular curriculars that I do. That way, whatever I make on the golf course is profit. And then I can use. use that for, you know, other things my life. Can you give us an idea as to what your income looks like from sponsors? And I'm curious if you know how that compares to some of your other peers on the Corn Ferry Tour.

Yeah, definitely. I'm not going to give anyway any numbers because my numbers, I are very different than anybody else like Corn Ferry Tour. I might need to be fact-checked, but I believe I've got the largest following across any cornfrey. I'm 99% sure that that's correct. I've had the largest following on socials. I bet the YouTube channel and I'm able to get a much bigger number from my sponsors than other guys on the Corcorporator might

because I'm promising them 6 million plus views across my platforms per month. And you know, multiple I bet by 12 and I'm getting 75 million views on their logos, on their brands, on, you know, all these different things. So if you're a Conferior guy and you get on a feature group, you might have 40,000 people watch you on the, and you win the tournament, you might have 40,000. people watch you on that that certain week. But if you're able to market yourself in a way, no matter what you do on the golf course, promise your sponsor 75 plus million views, you're able to get a bigger number.

And that for me has been a big reason why I do all the social media stuff, in addition to inspiring kids to chase their dream and trying to get the word out and trying to showcase pro golf and all that stuff. So for me, it's a little bit different. And I try not to share all those numbers because I don't want to give people this unrued unrealistic sense of what, you know, it could look like if you are on the corn

freight tour about getting sponsors. Because I have a lot of guys that come to me and they're, hey, how do I get sponsors? How do I go about finding them? And I have all those answers. And I talked about it on my YouTube channel. I talk about it with a lot of players. And, you know, you got to first look at your family and be like, hey, do you guys know anybody?

Are there any connections that we've had as we've grown up? Do you know anybody that has a company? Do you know anybody that loves golf and wants to help somebody out? And, you know, you can get five or $10,000. for a logo on your sleeve. But if you're a Marco, I mean, there's guys like Blades Brown and Neil Shipley

who have done, you know, amazing things. And for that, their numbers are a lot higher than guys that are lesser known on the cornflare tour. So the number ranges far more than I can even explain,

right? There's some guys that are paying, getting paid millions of dollars from companies like Callaway, right, coming out of high school, like Blades. I don't know what his deal is, but or guys like Akshay

coming out of high school and not playing, just getting, paid so much money because they're, you know, the next big thing. And then there's guys that or maybe 27, 28 years old that are rookies on the cornfrey tour have never done anything in their careers to prove that they're the next big thing. But they end up being the next big thing. But again, they're not getting those big numbers up front.

So it's a really hard conversation to have. And that's something that I've always wrestled with with sharing. But for me, it's like, it's so individual from person to person player. You got to find what your value is. And if you can provide more value, you're going to get paid more from the sponsors, sponsorship side. You also have, you know, the content you create, both on Instagram, YouTube. That requires an investment, not just of your time, but also a financial investment into

those channels as well, I assume. Oh, I mean, I spent $35,000 kick-starting my YouTube channel last year. And I didn't see any return on that income because in order to start making money on YouTube, you got to have over 10,000 subscribers. You need to have all these requirements. But now it's actually a big moneymaker for me. And that was a investment that had to make. I think it was probably actually closer to $50,000

at the end of the year when everything was said and done. And, you know, I had to buy equipment, how to hire a guy, how to pay him and his guys. So, yeah, it is. But that's the investment that I was willing to make. And now it's starting to pay off not only in AdSense on YouTube, but in the increased sponsorship money from my sponsors and club companies and whatnot. What's something that the best PGA tour players

have access to that you would love to have, like something they can afford that helps them greatly with their golf, but also only makes sense to have if you're making millions of dollars. It's got a little bit circular, a little bit of chicken and egg there, but what's something that, you know,

Scotty Schaeffler would have access to financially that you would love to have access to? That's a very interesting question. And I think it is chicken or the egg. And I've actually, I've talked a lot about this with guys when Morgan Hoffman told me this in the first,

My first day I turned pro, I asked Morgan, he's a close buddy mind. I go, Morgan, what is something that, you know, I need to know as a professional golfer. And he goes, if you need something, you get it. I don't care how much it is. I don't care what it costs. I don't care. Where you have to go for it. If it's going to make you better, you got to get it.

And in the end, it's going to pay itself back, right? I know that there's some things in life that, okay, hey, I'm going to go on credit card debt. I'm not saying do that. But maybe, you know, you're tight on cash and you don't know whether or not to buy a GC quad or a trackman or, you know, a new set. of wedges, because you don't have a club sponsor, whatever it is. If you're serious about this and you know you're good enough and this is going to be your career, you got to do it. And you got to take a leap of faith. And then I actually asked Harry

Higgs, I played with him the first week in the Bahamas a couple weeks ago. And I said, Harry, you know, what is your big thing in pro golf? Like you've been on the PJ tour, we've been on the corn fray tour, you kind of bounce between the two. And he goes, Airbnbs for me are the biggest thing. I want to spend my money at Airbnb's. If I'm spending an extra $1,000, extra $2,000 a week on Airbnb's. At the end of the year, what is it, $20,000? For some people, that's a lot, a lot of money. For Harry, he's been on the PGA tour, he's made it,

but he said it's going to make you feel better, it's going to make you play better. And then on the equipment side of things, like the GCQQAWAS and the trackmans, it's going to help you prepare better. And then in turn, that's going to help you get further in your career. And like we said, the carrot is at the PGA tour. You can go and be in the red every year,

$20,000, $30,000. But then one year in the PGA tour and you wake up and you're like, wow, I've got a lot of, you know, a lot more zero as my bank count that I used to. So I've, and I don't want to talk for other people because it's much easier when you have a great backing, right? I came from a great family and my parents supported me right out of college and I'm not going to lie and pretend that, you know, I could just spend money that I didn't have. It's like, hey, what do you need? Let's get it for you.

Let's make sure that you, you know, you got rent to be paid in Florida where you can practice. But I ended up getting my corn fray tour card, my first year is a pro. So that reliance on them ended after two months. You know, I turned pro in August and I got my corporate tour card in December three, three months. And the mental side of it where I know if I fail, I'm never going to be out on the street, right? I will have that financial support if I need it. And that's something that I don't take for granted. And it's something that definitely helps people perform, right?

when you're playing for status and not for money, I think it is way easier to play your best golf. What does your mind ever, I've never heard a pro golfer say, I'm thinking about money all the time while I'm playing, but does your mind ever wonder on the golf course about, you know, on certain shots, or you get into certain situations about what that might impact

your income financially for the week? Or are you able to completely separate the money aspect while you're actually playing the golf? Yeah, on the Corn Ferry tour, it's sort of if you don't win, the money's not going to change your life. Right? So I finished third last, at the last minute of the last season, I made like $70,000, which is amazing.

But is it going to change my life? No. So I think that's why I'm not really thinking about it when I was in sixth place of the U.S. Open this year. And, you know, the sixth place took home $1 million and exemption into next year's U.S. Open. Yeah, now I'm thinking about a little bit more, right? Like that's a little bit different.

But at the end of the day, it's like you said, We're chasing a PGA tour card. We're not chasing a financial gain right now. That would be great if it happens. That's great, you know, if it comes along with it. But I doubt it, a guy like Johnny Kiefer last year on the corn factory, who absolutely tore it up was thinking about, you know, if he was making $50,000 or $70,000 versus on a putt, right?

It's like he knew he had a PGA tour card after a week like eight last year. And at that point, it's like, I'm going to make, you know, if you play well and he keeps on doing it, you're going to make a lot of money. Can you tell me a little bit about how caddy fees work and are you covering expenses for caddies? Do players cover expenses for caddies on any tours and kind of how their situations work? Yeah. So in the PGA tour, I don't think anybody would be covering any sort of expenses. On the Corfrey Tour and PGA Tour Americas, it's a little bit different.

You'll see a lot more buddies and, you know, friends or girlfriends and wives, caddying for players on the Cornfrey Tour and PGA Tour Americas. and in those cases, it's typically, hey, I'm going to cover all your expenses. You're not going to have anything out of pocket, but then I'll give you a percentage of my earnings. The way I do things and the way that I would say 70% of guys, maybe 80% of guys do it, is they pay their caddy a base fee and a percentage. So I pay my guy 1,500 plus 8% for the events that happen in the States, and then 1750 plus

8% for the events that happen out of the country. And then he's on his own for all of his. expenses, his flights, his hotel. So again, you know, he can do it as cheaply as he wants or as expensive as he wants, but he knows what's coming in and that, you know, percentage potential that he might be able

to earn. This might be kind of a silly question, but I think you'll understand where I'm coming from here. Do you play golf for money? Like, do you play pro golf for money? Is that why you're doing this? In terms of like the different tours, right? Like, I play in the DP World Tour. I play in the

Corn and Ferry tour. Not to two my own horn, but I would be making a lot more money doing something else if I, you know, if I was doing this for the money. So if I'm out there chasing money, that I'm doing something completely wrong, I kind of asked myself, like, why am I playing this game? Why, why am I playing golf? And it's because when I was eight, nine, 10 years old, I'd be, you know, on a putting green somewhere, talking to myself being like, this is, this is, this plus to win the US Open, this plus to win my first PJ Horbin, this puts to win. It wasn't, oh, this plus to win $5 million in, you know, an X event, Right. So when we, when I think most players are in the same boat, you know, some players have great degrees and certain things that they can go out and find a job. But we're doing this for the love of the game. We're doing this to further our careers. And then, yes, like, if there wasn't any money in it, do I see all of us playing working as far as we can? Probably not. Like, you do need to make money to support your family to sport your life and and X, Y, Z. But when it boils down to it, it's like when I'm on 17, like this week and I have a, you know,

15 foot of a par, the wind's blowing 50 off the left, and I'm just trying to survive out there. I'm not thinking that, you know, if I make this pie, I'm going to make $8,000 versus $10,000. It's, oh, I'm going to make 15 more points and that's going to get me higher in the points list, and that's going to be higher to a PJ tour card. And then at the end of the year, I'm going to be in the PJ tour, trying to chase down, you know, top 50 in the world against the majors, and then trying to chase down number one in the world. So when it comes down to all these expenses, yes, it costs a lot of money to chase your dream. It costs a lot of money to play pro golf.

But at the end of the day, you're investing. And the way I look at it, it's like you're investing in the stock market, but you got a little bit more control over it. You know, it's like I'm investing in the stock that's James Nicholas, and hopefully in a couple years of time, that stock's gone through the roof and it's pink dividend. So that's sort of how I look at it, and it's kind of helped me perform and play my best.

Before we get to our next guest, I want to remind you, it is the time to visit Pinehurst Resort. At the cradle of American Golf, Pinehurst is more than, in fame number two, an anchor site of the U.S. Open. It is Tom Doak's masterful number 10. Four historic hotels and newly built luxury cottages at Pinehurst number eight, the one-of-a-kind tidalist shop at Pinehurst and the new Peter Millar shop, a trio of dynamic dining experiences in Station 21, plate, and the upcoming wiregrass.

Pinehurst blends timeless charm with the very best in the game today. Visit Pinehurst.com to plan your stay. Next up is a caddy on the corn fairy tour by the name of Ryan Murray. Ryan is currently hustling to try to find a bag on the corn fairy tour. And I wanted to talk a little bit with him about what the dynamics of that look like and how that works for him financially. So how would you describe caddy life on the corn fairy tour, both for yourself and just catty life in general? I started on the corn fairy tour last year. And because I'm so brand new on the tour, the majority of players that I've been seeking to work with are more so like conditional status guys or guys that are Monday qualified.

into these tournaments. And so for me, caddy life on the corn fairy tour is actually pretty hectic. I spend a lot of time getting last minute confirmations of, yeah, come help me out. And then, you know, let's say we let's say I work with a player for one week and we finish in the top 25 during the season. Well, they're guaranteed an automatic start the next week and the next tournament. And then if they ask me to come take care of them again that following week, now I'm having to make all of my travel plans and all of my arrangements the day of or the day before I actually have to get on the road. So for me, it's pretty hectic for sure. But come on, the players pay for everything for the caddies, right? They're covering that change flight cost for you, right?

Yeah, yeah. I'll say this. I don't want to fully call that a misconception. I'm sure that there are plenty of caddies on plenty of levels that have that happening for them where their players are covering their cost. Either I'm too dumb to have figured out how to make that a reality or I'm just too naive and too inexperienced. But I feel like if you're a veteran caddy coming off of maybe like the PGA tour or the Champions Tour and you have over 10 years of experience carrying the bag for some very well-known golfers, you're probably going to be able to have a little bit of leverage to justify your

player covering your travel expenses and then also paying you on top of that. But again, speaking for myself, I'm in that situation where I'm working for conditional guys that might be on the alternate list that week. And they don't actually know if they're going to get into the tournament. And so for me, all of those expenses come out of my own pocket because this is a passion that I am pursuing and I'm trying to be there for the players. And so whether some people agree with it or not or some people think I'm stupid for doing this or not, I look at it as an investment in the long term. And I'm ultimately trying to get to the PGA tour as a caddy for somebody that's a very, successful golfer and if I have to spend a little bit of money out of my own pocket right now to put myself in a position to get to that end gold then I'm all for it how does that work from a from a

budgeting standpoint like for the year for you like you said you view this this what you're doing as an investment do you have you planned how much runway do you have to to kind of pursue this you know and are you I think there's a balance there both for players on the corn fairy tour and caddies of how much is this me trying to earn the money that I get from the corn fairy and how much of this is laddering up to the potential that I, you know, could earn if I advanced to the next level. Yeah, that's a great question. I'm, again, take it or leave it. I'm kind of a leap before you look kind of person.

I don't actually. Yeah, I'll figure it out as I go. Like one of the videos that I posted a couple weeks ago in the Bahamas, I was talking about expenses. And I said that my food expenses for the week were going to be a TBD because I had no clue how much money I was going to spend on food that week. or those two weeks. And I've just gone into this knowing that it's going to cost me money. I try to earn as much money as I can every single week,

but most of that depends on how well the golfer plays that week if I even get hired. So I actually don't have any kind of a budget per se for this. Last year, it was more so just I would spend money on my credit card and my wife would tell me to stop. And then this year it turned into a little bit more of an intellectual decision where I created an LLC. I actually formed a business for me to be a caddy as an independent contractor. And so I opened up a business bank account. I opened up a business credit card with Capital One that has no limit, which sounds awesome. But at the same time, it's kind of scary because I have to pay that bill at the end of every single month. So right now it's just kind of, you know, I'm just taking every single week as I can.

And I'm using this year as like a learning experience. And what I learned from this year, I'll put towards next year and then I'll get a little bit smarter each year is kind of how I'm looking at it. I know expenses can vary greatly on a week to week basis in terms of where you're going, especially for the international events. But can you take us through maybe like what a typical week would look like and we're coming off the Bahamas somewhat recently as we're recording this? I would guess that's on the higher end of expenses. And then what maybe a more traditional corn fairy tour stop might look like?

Yeah, Bahamas definitely tends to be one of the more expensive trips for the year, but I don't know. I either got lucky or I timed it really well, but my travel expenses for this trip just to me did not seem like they were very expensive. I mean, I bought a one-way ticket to NASA and it was like 280 bucks. I mean, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I can't even fly to Phoenix, Arizona for 280 bucks like on Southwest Airlines for crying out loud. So, you know, I think in total for two weeks in the Bahamas, I was maybe a little over $4,000 in expenses, which to me, to me, this doesn't seem like a lot. I mean, $4,000 is a lot of money, but to go to the Bahamas for two weeks on two different islands with three plane rides and two hotels, like it just didn't seem like it was that much. I will tell you that one of the things that a lot of caddies, I would say almost every caddy on the corned ferry tour tries.

to do this every single week and they try to share housing as much as possible. So you'll have guys that'll get an Airbnb and you might have four or five, six guys in one Airbnb splitting that cost. For me, I was fortunate this year. I was able to split a hotel room with two other guys in Nassau at the Alanus Resort. So, you know, a large hotel bill got chopped in a third, which was huge. And then the second week when we were in Abaco, I was able to split a hotel room with one other guys. So, you know, like an $850 hotel bill for an entire week gets cut in half and now I'm only paying like $475.75.

So that's one of the ways that a lot of us try to manage our expenses as much as possible is sharing housing whenever we can. What did the income look like for you for that two week stretch? I made a big fat $0 the first week. I was not able to work with any players that were in the actual field, which is okay. I mean, I knew that that was a huge possibility and I was kind of taking a chance going out there, last minute. I got super fortunate that I was able to work for Bryce and Nimmer week two in Abaco, Bahamas. Incredible dude. I mean, I know it's not a money related answer, but that guy is genuinely loved by almost every single person on the Corn Ferry tour. So if you ever get a chance

to meet Bryson Nimmer in person, definitely take advantage of it. He's an awesome dude. I kind of took a stance not too long ago that I don't want to share like the exact details of how much money that I'm making currently for a few different reasons. But the main priority or like the biggest reason why I don't want to do that is I'm actively trying to find a golfer that I can work with for this season. And I feel like trying to share those details on social media or in interviews right now is probably going to hinder me in that endeavor. So I will say that I did make some money in the second week. I took a net loss on the two weeks. And we'll leave it at that. Net loss on the two weeks, but do you view it like, do you view it as a success overall?

You know, I mean, you're, you're trying to ladder your way up there. I imagine there's some networking that went into that first week. There's cost of doing business, you know, and I imagine not everything is straight dollars and cents on a week-to-week basis for you. Yeah, such a great point. I definitely looked at it as a net gain, a net profit on the whole trip for sure. Financially, sure, I lost a little bit of money, but I can't put a price tag on experience. I can't put a price tag on being able to be involved in tournaments.

you can't put a price tag on being in front of the golfers. This is an industry where everyone that I look up to that has been doing this for longer than me that has kind of coached me along through my career has told me if you're not at tournaments and you're not in front of these golfers, everyone will forget you and no one will think of you. And so again, I took a loss monetarily, but profit-wise for the whole experience, it was massive. I mean, to be able to work with a guy like Bryson Nimmer that finished in the top 50 in points last year on the corn fairy tour has full status this year for the first time on

the corn fairy tour is loved by so many people on the tour the amount of other golfers and other caddies that I was able to meet that week in abacow working for him is priceless can you walk us through what your income and expenses look like in 2025 yeah so i'll i'll give you a perfect example um i'm currently trying to finish up all of my finances from last year caddying on the corn Ferry Tour. I worked a total of 17 events for three different golfers on the corn ferry tour last year. And I also did caddying on the side when I was at home and I wasn't at tournaments. And my total income last year was roughly $31,000. It's all pure cash. So like there's no 401k or health insurance taken out of that. And my current expenses right now. And I still

have a little bit to go, but my current expenses are like $26,000. So I would say I'm probably going to either break even around that $31,000 mark or I might even take a little bit of a loss last year total in caddying. So for me, I would say like a break even point 35K. If you're making $35 grand out here, you're probably going to be breaking even on your expenses as a caddy. And honestly, that's probably low because there's 25 events throughout the whole year. So if you get a full-time bag and you're at every single event, you're probably going to have to break even around like $50,000. So what do you do when you are off when you're not working a week out on tour, do you do? Do you caddy at home?

Do a lot of Corn Ferry Tour caddies just caddy at other local clubs? And how does that work? Yeah, when I'm a, so I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and when I'm not on tour and it's not like a frozen tundra like it is right now because this disgusting weather that we have in January. Yeah, I caddy at a couple different local private clubs, Belmead Country Club out here and then Trubidor are the two places that I loop at when I'm not out on tour, which is nice because I can I can earn as much or more in a week doing.

that as I would if I was working for a guy on the corn fairy tour. I do know that there are other caddies on KFT that do the same thing. I know a handful of guys have come out of places like sawgrass and some other guys come out of places in like Arizona and stuff like that. So it is a pretty common thing for us guys like during the offseason especially or, you know, throughout the year when we're not on tour to do that. So one one thing I've heard of happening is and I'm curious if this is ever arranged between caddies on the corn fairy tour and their players is, you know, you have a great season on the corn fairy tour. You have the same guy on the bag for the majority of events, if not all of them.

You graduate to the PGA tour and guys step up and maybe want to make a different hire. Maybe you want to hire somebody that knows the PGA tour golf courses. Does that happen? Does that happen frequently? And it kind of is that part of the risk of even if you get on a great, you know, bag that's headed towards the moon on the corn fairy tour that you could get left behind? Yeah, so I don't have personal experience to that. So my answer is going to be a little more anecdotal and just kind of like what I've heard while I've been out there. And that is absolutely 100% of reality.

You know, as a caddy on the, as a caddy for professional golfers, it doesn't matter what tour you're on. I look at it personally like every week is my last week. There's never going to be a guarantee that I'm going to be carrying the bag for the same person the next week. Because at any given moment, they, they have to make. decisions on what's best for them. And the brutal reality of being a caddy on professional golf tours is that sometimes you're not what's best for that golfer.

And a lot of times that could possibly happen when a guy gets promoted and gets a chance to go play on the PGA tour because he earns his card up there. I mean, you're going to be playing completely different golf courses that you're not used to playing from the corned fairy tour. There could potentially be, you know, for example, there could potentially be caddies that we're on the PGA tour for years and years and years and years, and they've got tons of experience on all the courses that the guys are going to play out there. And so I think in those moments, a lot of times players,

they're always just coming down and making a decision on what's best for them. Sometimes those guys might think that a caddy from the PGA tour with experience on those courses is going to suit their game better and it's going to help them be more successful up there. And then I know of people personally that have, you know, been able to stay on the bag of their player as they got promoted in the PGA tour. And I think that's the one thing that we're all hoping for is caddies on KFT is we're hoping that we have a good, strong enough relationship with our player and that we work well enough together that if they earn their PGA tour card, they're going to keep us on the bag.

But I think if you're really, really humble and I think if you're realistic about what this job is, you don't ever set an expectation that that will happen. Well, if you get fast forward to the end of the year, what would be, we're starting fresh for 2027. Where would you like to be? What would be a goal you're working towards? Yeah, so kind of like answering this in two ways. My main priority for 2006, my only goal is to just find a player that I can caddy for for the whole season. So I think what I would be looking for in 2007 is to have found that player that I could work for consistently and have them want to keep me on the bag.

for the year of 2007. Like that's, that's my goal. I'm, I don't know, maybe I'm a sicko, but like I could care less about the money aspect of it.

Honestly, like I'm doing, I'm doing okay without that. I just, I just want an opportunity. I think that I really believe in what I bring to the table. I think I'm extremely confident

in the fact that I can help people be successful. I love being around people that achieve great things. And I just, I just want an opportunity. And that's what I'm trying to put. myself in position to get. Lastly, DJ caught up with our old friend Lauren Coglin with a few questions about how her life has changed with recent success.

So before you broke out on the LPGA, how would you describe kind of your financial situation as a professional golfer? Before I broke out in 2024, I mean, I think for most people I had, I was okay. But, you know, if I had one bad year, I was not going to be doing okay. It's kind of how I think I could describe it. You know, my expenses would drain my savings down pretty good if I didn't have a good year. I mean, my rookie year on Epson, both on Epson in 2017 and then rookie year on LPGA, I made about a total of $20,000 in two years.

At one point, I had to ask, you know, just for business purposes, you know, my husband and I kept our finances separate just because so I would pay all my goals. off stuff and then he would kind of take care of our home expenses, I guess you could say. But I mean, you were down to our last 500 bucks, I think, at one point. You know, I had to borrow $1,000 from him so I could pay my credit card bill on time. So now I'm in a very different, different place, I would say, thankfully. And luckily, so. So we can see, like, what your on-course earnings always are.

but how did you're, you know, playing better golf? How did that change your off course earnings? Yeah, I would say my expensive have increased over the years just because, you know, it's just like running a business, the more money you make, the more you can put back into it just because you can. And so I do, one, my caddy is always going to be the highest, I would say, expense you're going to have because if you play well, they're making money too.

And so that's going to be your biggest one. but I mean, I would say my first few years, you know, on Epson, on the LPGA, when you're really trying to, you know, save as much money as possible, my expenses were probably between like $50,000 and $100,000 a year. Now they're more like $200 to $250 probably, but easily. But a lot of that's caddy because you're paying them a percentage of your earnings. So just so he has it, how do kind of normal catty arrangements work on the LPGA? I would say, so, you know,

Yeah, so most of them, the very, very top players might be on salary, but the average caddy out here is going to be getting a weekly fee, I guess you could say, a weekly stipend. And that's probably going to be between, at minimum, it's going to probably be about $1,700 a week. And then most of them are going to be 8% for a made cut and 10% for a win. Any lifestyle changes since your big breakout? Jup Life?

Yeah, jupe life is definitely one. You know, we have our house in Charlottesville, Virginia still, I guess technically Rutgersville, Virginia still. And then we did just buy a condo down in Jupiter for winter, snowbird, juplife, all of that. Bought a condo down there. I bought the car that I always wanted. I got a 2025 Toyota Forerunner. And then I got my husband a boat as well.

He's a big fish guy, so. What kind of boat? What are we looking at? It's a 2020, 25-foot Carolina Schiff, light blue. What's the name? So it's kind of for services rendered when he caddied for me at both Evian and Chevron last year, or in 2024. Obviously, I wasn't paying him because he's my husband. And so I kind of told him in exchange for what he would have made in percentage, I would buy him a boat.

And so, you know, obviously played really well at Chevron, and that's when I told him I would do it. And then after he carried for me at Evian, and I did really well there too, I kind of told him, I was like, well, I guess it's got to be a bigger boat now. And then... Your Jaws situation. But yeah, so we're going to call it, though,

in honor of both the Chevron and Evian, we're calling it the Chevion. I like it. I like it. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to another episode of the No Laying Up podcast. This episode was edited and mixed by Charlie Van Kirk. If you'd like to provide any feedback on this episode,

you can always email me, sally at no laying up.com. We will continue to do deep dives like this into different parts of money in the golf world. If you have any questions or any ideas for future episodes or anything we did not cover, neither this part or the sponsorship episode we did last year.

Please let me know, sally at no laying up.com, and I will certainly get eyes on it. We greatly appreciate you listening and we'll see you back here next week.