I love the topic for today. So you want to own a golf course? I love that
Yeah, I think it's a great, you know, just a little bit behind the scenes, but you know
Sit back and get ready to take off with dynamic golf
Welcome back our dynamic golf listeners. I'm your co-host Tim McElvan and with me today is Sean Klotz today
We've got a great subject Sean
Why don't you enlighten us a little bit what we're gonna kind of talk about today and and and have a little discussion with
Yeah, team. I could do good talk to you as always great to talk to our listeners from dynamic golf
You know, we we've been talking about this for a while now
We've been talking about this for a while now about the dynamic golf course and the dynamic golf course
And the dynamic golf course is a great way to get your golf listeners from dynamic golf
You know we
We have so many different topics that we can talk about in the golf world. You know what Scottie Shuffler did over the weekend
Yeah, it's just amazing as I mean, he just comes out again team act. He's got this new grip, which isn't really that new, right?
Absolutely, and and he's winning by four or five strokes on the PJ tour, which is a is a pretty good win
Against the top 20 in the field. I mean we're not talking about you know, you know playing against your local Muni
I mean we're talking about the top 20 in the in the field and he's beaten by four or five strokes with a new grip
Top 20 in the world. Yeah top 20 in the world talk to the world
like he said, he's not playing me you and
And Ron Crump he's playing he's playing Justin Thomas and the boys and it's funny
I mentioned that and this is even our topic which is great
I'm glad we get into this a little bit because it's a good preamble, but I'm talking to my brother
You know last night brothers PJ pro. He's been on the show a couple times. Yeah
And what he's doing now T Mac is it reminded me of what Tiger did at the Pebble Beach in the US Open?
He won the US Open by 15 shots like they're all playing the same golf course. They're all playing the same tees
He's not playing further up Scotty Scheffler. Yeah, he's winning by
And you could see it on Saturday
I happen to watch just a little bit of Saturday in between football stuff and
And you see him kind of creeping up a little bit right because he Justin Thomas was there and it just Thomas had the lead
And then I didn't even watch much of Sunday until last three holes because he just kind of know. Okay
Well, he's within one or two. He's probably gonna win and he's well, like you said one by six, maybe five
Yes, something like that. I mean, it's an impressive win against a field like that
I mean I was thinking you know when I first turned it on on the weekend
I think oh this could be a great one for a playoff
Yeah, you know one or two and he just I mean by the back nine. You're just watching, you know, dominance basically and and
I think we need to kind of take a moment and say
He could be you know in time if he keeps this stuff up. He could be one of the greats as well
Yeah, I mean he's his resume the last two years is ridiculous and I
Certainly never thought I'd see somebody to dominate the tour like Tiger did now again
He still got a long way. Yeah, Tiger was on the was the number one player in the world for I maybe eight straight years or something
Some number of weeks was just incredible
So he's still got a way to go. He's kind of like Patrick Mahomes versus Tom Brady. He's still he's putting down some unbelievable
Benchmarks, but you know still go but it's just it's fun to see and I know
There's some credit not criticism. I mean, he's just you know, wow, he's too boring. Yeah, that's what we're all striving for
Absolutely. Absolutely boring golf is good golf. I mean we I want to play boring golf. That's our goal
We want to hit it in the middle of fairway. We want to hit the middle of the green or close to the green
And we want to chip cut it in and go and that's that's what we should
Strive for people like Seve, right?
Think about sort of the good short game people in the world Nicholson
Unbelievable short game didn't hit as many greens as Tiger did
Tiger, you know Tiger did a lot of greens also great short game, but you get my point like yeah
Short games great, but if you don't have to rely on short games
That's even better. Absolutely. I mean, I I think Scotty kind of reminds me a little bit like Jack Nicholson
And that Jack Nicholson is he's just fairways greens fairways greens
And I think a lot of people got used to many years of seeing, you know
Tiger Phil and and even Seve out in the trees making these spectacular shots that you know
Obviously our highlight reels all the time
But if you can just put it in the fairway and put it on the green and beat people by five
That's the way to win. Yep. I think Bryson's figured that out a little bit lately. I mean he's
You know, he he is the
Just such a unique talent and and developed his talent over the last five years like
He can hit it so far. So he puts it in places that the golf course was the architect wasn't thinking about. Yeah
To be to be a spot for a landing area
So he's he's got you know, the
But he's also really become a good putter and and uh, you know the wedge shot he makes to
The wedge shot out of the bunker he makes to win the u.s. Open this year against like
He that's you could stand there all day long with that bucket of balls and not hit that shot. So uh,
Yeah, it's uh, it's it's it's gonna be an exciting 2025 coming up for uh, I think some of these guys are
Xander and Justin. It's good to see Justin
Thomas play well and some of these guys, you know, Rory's Rory's still Rory. He's not going away
I would love you know, would love for both tours to be
Closer, you know playing in more events together
And we'll see how that all shakes out. But uh, yeah, it's it's there's just a lot of good golf in the world and you
You should watch them. You should watch the girls. You should watch the ladies play
See how they do it because it's so much more relatable to us. Yes
And uh, and and you know, i'm getting excited thinking about it going hit balls right now in the 38 degree weather here in massachusetts
Absolutely, and then we've got the masters creeping right around the corner and everybody's getting into into into place for it
So I find it, you know, the turn of the year is always an exciting part
You're waiting for the uh, was it the 18 t pebble beach?
You know in january it kind of gets your juices going and then you know, you're you're you're getting into it
Right bay hill and uh, all that stuff. So I know it's it's it's going to be exciting. Um,
So switching the gears or whatever for the topic of the day
I think this is going to be a good one team back
This is almost one where you'd like to get some, you know, uh audience interaction and maybe we'll get some people to start
Send us some us some questions through youtube or our online platform type of thing. Um, I I
Bottom line, you know, we were talking about the social media
So you want to own a golf course? That's that's the topic of the day. You want to own a golf course?
Meant to be a little bit sarcastic when we say it that way
Um, you know, I I know that we've both got some different stories of where we've been at where we're currently at what's currently happening
In our golf courses. Yeah
You know just
There's so many things that go into owning any business
No questions. I think it's a good one. I think it's a good one
So we don't go into owning any business. No question about it
But golf courses are unique because they're so
Predicated on weather. First of all, yes, you know, uh you own a business indoors. You're selling electronics
In a store, you don't have to worry about weather. Yeah
You know, so I think that's a big thing. I think there's you know employees
to get the right mix of employees, which is kind of the restaurant business model.
Yep.
There's so much more technology now than there was 10 years ago, 15 years ago in our businesses.
Absolutely.
And it's developing all the time.
Yep.
But whether it's more, you're kind of more specific to teaching.
I do teaching as well.
I do quite a bit of teaching, not as much as you, but during this winter time I was going
to.
So we got to be up to date on all the technology of that part of it.
Point of sale systems.
Yes.
You know, insurance, like there's just so many tentacles of owning a golf course that
I think it's an interesting topic for us to explore a little more.
Correct.
And I'm sure you've heard it from a member or buddy of yours that goes, man, if I own
this golf course, I would do X, X and X, right?
And you know, you just look at it and go, yeah, that, you know, the million dollars is going
to get you the golf course.
And then the dream that you have is going to be the other two million that you're going
to need.
And then people just don't, don't concept.
They just think that once they own it, they'll just magically make it happen.
Money is going to roll in, right?
Yeah.
Yep.
Uh, the, the irrigation leak won't happen.
Correct.
Uh, weather's going to cooperate.
Right.
Yep.
And, uh, the carts aren't going to be damaged by the members or by the public players.
Like, yeah, the, uh, it's just, there's just so many factors.
I think, um, I think one of the things that, again, we want to keep this as like a broad
topic for kind of an insight into what we're going through, but at the same time, kind
of like, it's just a indicator of what can happen at any golf course in America.
Talk, talk to us.
I mean, Florida, Tampa, you know, you guys had some storms that came through in September
and October.
Yeah.
And how, how did that, I mean, personally, how did that affect your teaching?
And then more big scale, how has that affected, uh, Silverado Golf and Country Club over the
last what, three months now?
Yeah.
So, um, we've had the unfortunate factor of having a couple of big storms, hurricanes
come through, uh, with, uh, a ton of rain, um, with the community building up what it
is.
Water's going in places that never has, uh, Silverado itself is still underwater somewhat.
Um, you know, the, the, this is December, this is December 9th.
That storm was in September.
Is that right?
Uh, it was in October.
I want to say the beginning of October.
Um, but to be honest with you, the course was already flooded prior to that, uh, with
a storm that came through there earlier and, and they were starting to make some, some
serious progress.
But when you get whatever it was, 16 inches or something like that, 24 hour span, you
know, there's no, there's no blueprint.
There's no, Hey, this is what we need to do.
If we get this amount of rain, you know, there's, there's nothing to do there.
So Silverado itself is, is, um, I would have to say is probably right now written off as
a big loss.
They lost all their equipment, um, their carts, their, um, you know, all the equipment, their
tractors and everything like that.
Um, and that doesn't even count for the, uh, damage that was done to the greens and all
the other places where the water still lays.
Um, and is it operational now?
Is there people playing now or no?
No, there's, there's nobody playing, but they still have Brian out there, uh, keeping him
busy mowing, I think five or six or seven greens out there to kind of keep it possibly.
Um, but, uh, you know, the, the big thing for me is that, uh, I used to teach there
on the driving range.
People love to see their balls, you know, go through the air and all that.
Um, and it has, it has significantly impacted my income.
Um, you know, not that, not that people don't want to learn at a studio, but there is a
lot of the, the old, I want to see, I want to hit a ball off grass.
I want to see it go in the air.
And you know, I get that.
I really do.
There's, there's a reward of knowing that I hit it well and I got to see it go well
instead of into a screen.
Um, but it has been a big transition for me, um, to teach in a studio.
And now when I find myself out on a range, it is a quite different feeling.
Um, you know, cause you get used to all that technology that we talked about, you know,
being in the studio.
Um, so it is definitely impacted me, but we're, we're, we're figuring out new ways to make
income on it.
That's for sure.
Right.
Uh, I mean, so I'll start with the business side, then I'm going to go back to your personal
side.
So the business side is that, you know, I think we've talked about this a little bit
before, but I was the general manager and the head pro at Silverado for 13 years, basically
from 2008 to 2020, um, you know, worked for Mr. Smith and you worked with me for, well,
we worked together five years, maybe about five years there.
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, worked in the golf shop together and, uh, we, you know, did the daily,
daily things of running the Zephyrals open, running the different leagues throughout the
winter time, you know, all the different parties we had, um, all the different rangers and
starters that worked there.
And it was just such a good family, right?
I mean, that was the thing of that golf course.
It was a farmer's family.
You know, that's how I always thought of it was a farmer's family.
That's how I always thought about it with Brantley.
Yeah.
We didn't, didn't work on Easter, didn't work on Christmas.
Obviously didn't work on Christmas or Easter because that was the, uh, direction that Brantley's
wife, Susan said, Hey, this is the family time.
Absolutely.
And we really respected that and, you know, appreciated that your, your kids were, you
only had one at that time.
Like your kids were young, your family was young, growing.
Yeah.
My family was, you know, kind of getting, we were kind of in the middle of their ages
type of thing.
Um, so, but, you know, and again, we've talked to, you know, Brantley's past, uh, 2019, uh,
18, I think actually, sorry, it's 2018 is when Brantley passed.
Yes, sir.
Just to one of the pillars of the community.
I mean, bottom line, right?
Absolutely.
And his brother, buddy, um, and they developed Silverado and the whole story is that when
the County came to, came to his dad, to Brantley's dad in like the mid eighties and said, Hey,
we're going to build this road in front of your property.
And they said, you can't, if you like, we've had this property since 1940, the water is
supposed to come from the high part of the County and it's supposed to go down through
the golf course or there wasn't any golf course at that point through this farm area.
The agricultural side.
And it's supposed to go out to Geiger road and down and keep going down towards Hillsborough
river.
Correct.
Um, and the County, you know, you're one small business owner versus the County who's looking
at development and you don't win.
No.
And right.
I mean, that's pretty much what happened.
And that, that road Geiger road acts as a dam for the water.
Yeah.
And that's the best way to describe it to people.
Yep.
And, and, and then they put Island Boulevard in there and then it really, I was, yeah,
exactly.
Island Boulevard.
You're right.
My bad.
I've got, but it was Geiger road at one point.
I mean, going down the side road, you're right.
I apologize.
Um, but yeah, so Island Boulevard gets, it just blocks up the, the, the water.
And it, it's funny because even when, you know, I worked there for, for, uh, who me
doy from, for two thought from 2000, 2003, when Brantley had sold the property, then
I come back and work for Brantley.
So we had been through, I'd been through two, we call them floods at silver Oaks, Silverado
during that 2000 to kind of 2020 timeframe.
Um, 19 front.
Yeah.
So nothing to what you guys have experienced over the last 10 weeks.
No, no.
I mean, I mean, not even close.
Yeah.
I mean, at this point, I think they're talking about, uh, the County coming in, uh, purchasing
it and turning it into a recreational park.
Oh my goodness.
So that's, that's the kind of rumors that I'm hearing.
I've heard retention area as well.
I've heard, uh, you know, so there, there's a lot, you know, but I really feel for the
homeowners, you know, um,
You know, they, they, they, they love that little golf course.
They supported that little golf course.
Um, and they, they, they bought into that community because they love that little golf
course.
Um, and it's a real shame to see that, that industry, um, that, that, that, that golf
course go.
Um, so it's, it's a real loss to the community and to the economy here for sure.
Oh, oh, I mean, that, and that was the, you know, again, getting back on track.
Back on topic, like our, I, uh, I, we had kind of put together a group of, uh, you know,
uh, uh, investors to purchase the golf course from Bradley.
Uh, Bradley, you know, we, me and Bradley had talked for 12 or 14 years about, you know,
and always kind of in a kidding fashion about trying to buy the golf course from him and
me and Jeff sweet superintendent, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna do that.
And, uh, it didn't work out for multiple reasons.
Um, Bradley always wanted too much.
She always thought it was worth a little more than I, than I thought it was.
And you know, I had the numbers, I had the P and L statement from the past 12, 15 years,
and I kind of knew what we could generate and you know, without the emotion part of
it, the price, the price type of thing.
Um, so, so it didn't work out and you know, it now retrospect, you're like, oh my gosh,
if that, if that had worked out, what would have, where would you be at now?
Right.
You'd probably be stuck with a, with a, with a mortgage of some sort and, uh, you know,
a piece of property that, you know, you, you, you don't know what you're going to be able
to do with it, which I'm sure the new owner is probably uncertain as well.
Wow.
It's, it's so sad cause I, and now you come at it from the, from the employee side, from,
from your particular side, like for, you know, we generated a lot of, um, revenue money,
charity money for the people in that community through that golf course.
That's one of the things I look at.
And I, and I think you should kind of touch a little bit on that, how much the charity
dollars that, that you were able to generate.
I mean, you put a lot of functions together for that community, you know, from meals on
wheels to what was it?
The Thomas promise, the Thomas promise.
I mean, what a huge, yeah, right.
The Ruderman tournament, right.
Which was the children's, uh, hospital down in St. Pete, we gave money to, um, obviously
all the little, you know, softball league tournaments and church tournaments.
Um, just it was, I counted it, T-Mac.
So I was, did the, you know, I did the, I was sitting in church one day literally and
the pastor says, what are you going to do outside the four walls of this church to make
a difference in the world?
That's where that whole thing came from.
That's exactly, I'm not overstating that.
I'm telling you the truth.
That's exactly where that came from.
And, uh, I went to Brantley and I said, Hey, uh, I've got an idea on kind of a, you know,
we'll call it a business model for lack of a better term.
Um, I'd like to start giving back to the community.
And he was so on board with it.
Couldn't have done that without his right, without his blessing.
Yeah.
Um, going to show you who Susan and Brantley were.
And uh, yeah, I said, Hey, there's a way for the golf course to make money, but also there's
a way for us to be able to golf course, make money and, and give out some money throughout
the community.
Uh, Zephyrhills is one of the, that's partially why I drove there for 13 years from Tampa
from Brandon, because it's probably one of the most giving communities that I know of
in that area.
Um, they just take care of their own.
Um, all the businesses do.
Um, Kevin Barr and, and, uh, made Thomas and John Kinsman and I, I'm going to leave out
17 different people.
So I don't want to keep going, but I mean, it's, it's the community was what it was.
It is what it is.
Um, so yeah, so we, you know, the Ruderman, David Rudman tournament, which again, you
know, was a NASCAR driver that was a nephew of Brantley.
Um, so it was a hundred and $117,000 in the first two years that we did this each, each
year was around 115 grand.
And then Ruderman got big, the Ruderman tournament got big and that was like $38,000 in just
the one fell swoop.
And when he was like 2012, 2013, so yeah, where, where does, where you're right.
Where does meals on wheels go now?
Where does the, um, where did the churches go?
Where did the rotary go?
Right.
Yeah.
Rotary and chamber commerce and, uh, yeah.
You know, and I'll be honest with you, they're, they're not, you know, I just, I haven't,
I haven't seen any of these, these scrambles or charity events.
And to be honest with you, the, the, the people that do kind of run it here in the community,
there's a little bit more greed than there was giving, let's put it that way.
And that's, that's something that, you know, I, I kind of, you know, I really wish that
the community would kind of get back to a little bit.
Cause there's a lot of, a lot of people in this community that need our help, especially
after these storms.
That's for sure.
I was going to say, it just got exacerbated from what's happened over the last 10 weeks.
I'm sure.
So, um, no.
And then personally, like you said, you know, one of, one of our best attributes as golf
pros, uh, PJ pros is, uh, is flexibility.
We have to be able to be flexible in our environment because you remember going to the education
classes team back when, when you're getting your like class, like level one, level two,
and they've got these nice little videos and doc, like videos of, well, what are you going
to do in this situation?
Mrs. Smith has, has broken the shaft on her club and she's playing in a tournament in
two hours.
How are you going to fix that situation?
Like it just sounds so, you know, perfect.
Absolutely.
How are you going to diffuse the situation?
How are you going to handle this?
I mean, I think we watched probably in the three, you know, sections that we had to do,
at least for me, 90% of it was how do you handle a situation where I really wish it
was a little bit more like, how do you run a golf club?
Because I'm going to need to know that too.
Yeah.
It doesn't happen that that's simply and succinctly.
No.
But I thought you brought up a really good point earlier is that, you know, golf courses
are one of those things that if you went to target or Walmart, you don't negotiate the
price or complain about the employees too much or say, Hey, that guy shouldn't be folding
a shirt in aisle too.
But you get to a golf course and people, you know, they get a little opinionated, I guess
you could say.
Oh, wouldn't you agree with that?
You're being gentle.
You're being so nice.
You're being diplomatic.
Everybody's got an opinion.
They all know how to grow grass.
They all know what the best price is or the price that they should pay.
And it's not, you know, obviously it's not industry wide.
There's some golf courses that are super appreciative of everybody that works there and don't have
opinions.
But I don't know if I've been the one that I haven't heard somebody say to me, Hey, Sean,
you know what you should do?
Right?
Dot, dot, dot.
Like, yeah, it just doesn't matter.
Still in the blanks.
You know, yeah.
And he could be a super successful CEO of a, of a restaurant chain.
He could be somebody who can grow grass in his backyard.
So he thinks he can grow grass on number seven and the green, you know, it, I see you listen
and it's part of our job to listen and you try to nod and then, you know, you definitely,
there's just a, yeah, there's, there's certainly golf is challenging in that way of, of also
the negotiating, you know, haggling might be a better term of like, you know, you put
the price out there for the putter at one and nine.
What's my price?
Yeah.
Nope.
Again, I don't go to target and say, Hey, I see that it's three 29 on this.
What can I pay for it?
Yeah.
What's the best deal you'll get?
Give me for this.
How about the price on the, on the, on there, you know, how about that?
You know, that is the best price.
Actually sir, we've already had this conversation prior to putting the price tag on the item.
Yeah.
So we've already figured that part out.
If you don't want it, it's no problem.
No hard feelings.
Cause then if you give them, you tell them it's the same price that, Oh, I'm going to
just lose.
Okay, great.
It's not emotional.
What did the walk away?
It's okay.
Yeah.
You know, you can walk away.
I mean, it's just, you know, everybody wants to negotiate.
Everybody thinks they get a separate deal as you think and stuff like that.
And there's just that emotional attachment to a golf course, you know, compared to your
local, you know, whatever store it is.
So, yeah.
So you got to pivot now you got to pivot to, um, and I, and I totally understand what you're
saying, especially cause I taught outside for 15 years and then I taught, you know,
exclusively inside for three years and I'm teaching kind of both and it's, it's, I would,
you know, whatever, not advice to you, to you Mac is just the advice is that, uh, or
the thought process.
They're going to go, Oh, now I sound like the customer.
No, that's great.
Hey, here's what I would do.
But I do have a little experience in this world.
Um, you know, the, the technology is being embraced by everybody.
Meaning the more people that, you know, they, they want their numbers, they want their video,
they want their things.
Um, they want to see what they're doing.
And if you can, if you can become the expert, which you already are, you already are the
expert in the field.
They're going to come to you anyways, and you just embrace the fact that when they say
to you, well, I want to see what it does outside.
Okay.
Totally understand that.
No problem.
We can go to the range where it's a $10 bucket, or we can use the $20,000 piece of equipment
that they use on tour to evaluate your swing.
So you tell me which one you think is going to be more effective and then we'll go from
there.
But
And the big thing is, is, is explaining what the numbers are to our students.
You know, they look at all these things and it, it probably looks like a, a Mac truck,
you know, dashboard to them.
And they're like, what are all these buttons, you know, and then you explain, you know,
there's out of the 20 that you see there, there's probably three or four that we're
really zoning in on.
And once they do that, they start to have an understanding and stuff like that.
So
So, so, so funny.
You say that what I've done to you Mac in the past three months, I've been starting
to teach a lot more indoors because of the weather obviously up here.
Yeah.
I literally, and I, something I didn't do until the last three months, but at my studio,
at the store, I would put up my kind of eight D numbers.
Cause I thought I wanted to really look smart and intelligent to people and explain what
launch angle was and explain what ball speed is.
Dynamic loft.
Yeah.
If you come in for a lesson now to you Mac, I might put four numbers up.
It might be a club path, face angle, carry distance, and maybe, maybe, um, ball speed,
but I'm trying to get people to focus on the four most important things instead of having
the other numbers up there.
Yeah.
And if you get somebody, you know, you get somebody who's okay, well the height is low.
Well, then you can go back and click the little height thing.
It still records all the numbers for everything.
Yeah.
But you just don't confuse them.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
I use this angle of attack a lot.
Um, you know, that that's the one that I kind of use the most because once you explain to
people that you got to hit down with irons and up with a driver, it's like a light bulb
goes off.
Yeah.
So, and again, we all do different.
I, I use low point more than attack angle because low point is a physical number of
in front of or behind measured in inches, easier for them to see it on the ground rather
than trying to feel what negative two down feels like.
Yeah.
But just, just different again, you know, just different.
So yeah, I know we're getting a little off topic, but I think it's all part of the same
topic.
We're all talking about golf courses better and you pivoting just a little bit.
I wanted to ask you a question.
I was very interested in this.
I was on the Facebook page there at Oakley country club and it seems like you guys had
a little excitement, a little fire.
What happened over there?
What's going on at my country club?
Wow, I mean, again, 1895, you know, 1898 was when this place was incorporated in 1895 and
the date is 1898 as far as when it was started and, um, Donald Ross being there in 1900 and
there's a ton of history here at Oakley.
I mean, it's just the way it is, you know, first, first Donald Ross design.
So Friday morning around 4am, again, you want to own a golf course.
Yeah, here you go.
4am just like they do at 2pm in the afternoon.
You know, it always happened between nine and five.
That's not the way things happen.
Um, typically I would say also the other thing I'd say about owning the golf courses, I don't
think I've ever had a computer problem or something bad happened to me between 8am and
5pm on a Monday through Friday.
Right?
Right.
All of our stuff seems to break.
The Greensmore goes out at Saturday morning when the guy's trying to get ready for the
144 player golf tournament, whatever.
Yeah.
It's not the way we work.
It's not the way our world goes.
So unfortunately, capital U on Friday around 4am, uh, somewhere in that ballpark, there
was a electrical fire in one of the closets upstairs at Oakley country club.
Uh, that's all I know.
I don't want to, I don't really know anything else.
I just know that there was some type of fire that was started at, uh, from this particular
room.
Uh, thankfully the suppression, the sprinkler suppression system worked perfectly to, to
get rid of the fire or to stop the fire.
Um, or at least minimize it until the firefighters got there from the two neighboring towns.
Right.
And they did their job perfectly, which is to get rid of the fire, stop the fire.
So when you, the, the, the fire damage, minimal, the water damage and the rest of it is pretty
major, pretty major.
So the way that water works is it goes to the bottom.
So water starts at the third floor and then it goes down through the ceiling to the second
floor and then it goes down the ceiling to the first floor.
Yeah.
So that's essentially a half of the building of this country club that was built six, seven
years ago.
Uh, that's inoperable and can't occupy it.
And again, for purposes of today, we'll just go with the idea that, uh, you've got a December,
you got a December 7th, December 6th, uh, you've got, I mean, hundreds of thousands
of dollars of revenue coming through the next three weeks with Christmas parties.
You've got, you know, you've planned your office Christmas party at Oakley country club
for months to have your employees come in and have a nice time.
Um, you have a gala, gala, whatever that is.
Um, I believe it's a, I don't know if it's 125 years in the making.
All I know is that typically 300 members show up every December for a event where they give
out the year end prizes.
Um, that's arguably, you know, a hundred and a hundred thousand dollar a night for the
club.
It's all gone.
Like it's all, there's no, you can't, you can't operate.
You're done.
Yeah.
Um, so we, you know, the superintendent on Friday morning, we went and kind of toward
the place right after the fire, like around 10 o'clock and him and his crew, luckily,
cause they get there at 5 a.m.
They were able to get into the building after the firefighters were there and they were
able to recover.
I mean, historical documents going back to 1903.
Um, you know, a lot of Ross library type of stuff, books and stuff like that.
I'm sure, right?
Pictures, books, uh, papers that are all, yeah, they're all, when you go into the big
rotunda ballroom area, they're all on different tables, floors, seats right now being literally
dried out and aired out.
Um, cause the water got, so it's a sad, you know, again, you want to own a golf course.
You don't expect, uh, uh, I mean, a monumental, uh, I don't even know how to describe that
flood that happened up at, uh, down at Silverado.
Like you said, 16 inches of rain in 12 hours.
An act of God, I guess.
Yeah.
Never happened before.
Uh, and then you got the, uh, you got this, you know, a fire that just happened and it's
just stuff happens in the world and insurance is great and that will probably take care
of this, but how do you take care of the staff members who are down there, uh, expecting
to work currently for the next few weeks before Christmas.
Um, depending on that for the holidays, right?
I mean, a lot of employees depending on that, right?
That's what I was going to say, team back there.
They're compensated for their hours that they work.
Um, that's how they normally, you know, pay their bills.
And then Oakley is one of the most giving, generous clubs I've ever been at.
So when you and me and our wives go down to the pub for dinner, you know, on a Tuesday
night, we're probably going to give the server an extra 50 or whatever for, Hey, thanks for
your help all year.
Yeah.
Uh, it's all gone.
It's all gone.
Um, so there, you know, I, I'm not trying to be dire about it, but it's, it's the reality
of what it is to own a business, own a golf course, um, own your facility to, to think
about it 24 seven.
Yeah.
There's no off time when you don't think about your facility.
Yeah.
I mean, for me at my golf store, um, you are, you know, and you're, you're just, um, we'll
pivot we'll change, you know, it'll, it'll, it'll become good in the future, but right
now they're talking about, I mean, excessive damage.
I don't want to give a number and excessive timeframe for the golf course being closed.
I don't want to give a number cause we don't know, or we just don't know, but, um, yeah.
So I think it's been a great topic for the people here inside.
I'd like to have one more question with you.
How has this affected you teaching and moving forward with this, this fire?
What has this done for your brand and your business there?
Yeah.
So, um, in a great way, uh, basically around, um, November 15th, I had started a program
called the gift program, which was game improvement focused training.
That was my little acronym.
I love it.
Game improvement, game improvement focused training.
And um, it was a five lesson package and the mandate was that you would come in for a golf
lesson and then you, I would give you, um, in homework to go do in between the lessons,
um, specifically geared towards track man.
So you're going to work on attack angle.
Like you talked about, we're going to work on club head speed, whatever.
And then you're going to come back for your second lesson, probably two weeks later.
And then you're going to keep that rotation for around a 10 week period.
Um, so in a great way, I sold 50 of those packages.
So I had people that were great.
I've been giving, yeah, I've been giving 10 to 15 lessons a week in the past four to five
weeks and track man's shut down right now.
It's closed.
Yeah.
Was the track man ruined at all or anything like that?
Or was it safe?
No, no, luckily it was on that side of the road or that side of the building that was
not affected.
Okay.
So that whole room is fine, but you still need the CEO.
You still need the certificate of occupancy to get back in the building.
Yeah.
Right.
Again, this just happened Friday.
This is Monday.
Like there's, there's going to be some things that are going to take place hopefully over
the next two to three months that'll kind of rectify this.
Um, and again, like Pete talked about T-MAC, that's one of the best things we do is we
pivot.
So we were flexible.
So Scott Johnson, the head pro myself, we talked about, well, we can, once those holidays
are done inside the pro shop, we can put the screen up inside the pro shop, move the displays
and put track man in the back and kind of make, we can turn it into a hitting studio
and at least give people the opportunity to come in and practice and, you know, take some
instruction and kind of get ready for the season.
Cause again, I think that's, I keep going back to that, but that's what we do as, as
PGD members.
We are, uh, you have to be, you can't be black and white.
Absolutely.
You got to, as you said, you got to learn how to pivot.
I think, um, a lot of people don't understand or don't think of us as business people, but
you know, in the world of business, if I had a competitor or a company go down, these companies
have to turn and pivot and turn it a different product or a different, you know, resource.
And that's what we do.
You know, we find a problem, we hit it.
And then we have to turn that into, you know, making lemonade out of lemons.
The reason you're a good instructor is because you don't give the student one way to grip
the golf club, one way to make a backswing, one way to make a downswing.
You have to, as an instructor, be able to give maybe the same message five different
ways.
And one of those ways is going to click with that particular student.
Yes.
And that's really just a microcosm of what we do in our daily lives of like, if you just
taught, Hey, I've got to teach Ben Hogan's grip and you can't move on until you get master
Ben Hogan's grip.
No good.
You know, if you only took the club back a certain way, if you only made a pivot, obviously
there's parameters.
Obviously we want to make sure we start our downswing with our lower body or whatever
the thing is.
Like there's parameters, but there's different ways to explain that to people.
And like I said, microcosm of our daily life and a golf pro world of, you know, Mr. and
Mrs. Jones walk up and the first tee is full and it's 9 15 in the morning.
And Mr. Jones, would you like to be on number 10?
Well, yeah, that'd be great.
Can I get started?
Yep.
Absolutely.
Get started down there.
We've got an 11 15 that's available on the front nine.
So when you make the turn at 11 15 golf course will be clear.
Like it sounds so simple, but it's also not simple.
It's those things that, you know, make the experience of the, of the, whether it's the
customer in the public setting or the member of the private setting, make them enjoy their
day.
You've got to make looking, you gotta, you gotta make it look like thinking outside the
box is a normal reality, right?
You know, you've got to, you've got to have that and people just, okay, that's great.
And you know what goes behind the scenes to make that happen, but you never let them see
that, right?
It's like a, like a vaudeville show almost.
Yeah.
And then you're, you're, once you send, you know, typically this is done prior to, but
you kind of call superintendent and say, Hey, can I, can I get somebody up the back night
at nine o'clock and very sheepishly too.
Yeah.
So, I mean, again, there's a team that like, it's a, it's a teamwork of a different, a
lot of different people working together.
Yes.
It's a superintendent on board.
Oh yeah.
My guy's almost done finishing up cutting hole number 11.
Just give him five more minutes.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Great.
So go, go hit a couple of pots on the practice screen, head down to the first tee or 10th
tee by nine 15, you'll be perfect.
And I think you bring up a great point at least for if you're going to own a golf course
or run a golf course is I think in one word is communication right there, right?
Communicating with your staff, communicating with your members, um, and communicating with
your shareholders or owner, you know, right?
It's huge.
Yep.
So good stuff, sir.
It was a good one.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I enjoyed the chat.
Um, any, anything else you'd like to bring on up?
Uh, no, I think, you know, I think it's just, just, uh, when you walk into the golf shop,
when you, you know, just, just be, if you can be on that patient side, on that understandable
side, maybe we gave some people a little bit of insight into kind of why we make decisions
when they walk in the door, that things are not always, you know, sort of just the black
and white.
There are some parameters.
And again, like any other business people, like 95% of these people are, are great, just
awesome, excited to be there and, uh, and appreciative of what we do.
And, uh, yeah, just it's, you know, enjoy, enjoy your day.
Don't, don't get stressed.
Don't get frustrated at your day.
Enjoy the day.
Where our goals make your day better.
That's our goal.
Absolutely.
Every day.
Absolutely.
So, um, one to thank all our listeners.
Um, you know, if this, uh, if you like this, please think about liking or subscribing
to the channel.
It really does a, does help.
Um, and once again, thank you, Sean, really enjoyed the chat here.
Um, I think people got a great insight of the pitfalls and downfalls or, or the, the
traps of owning a golf course when it just seems so easy.
Right.
That's it.
Exactly.
Team.
I kept great talking as always, and, uh, we'll, we'll see you soon.
All right.
Have a great day.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
you
I'm right here sir are you doing?
Doing great, doing great. So are you in the car I take it?
Can you hear me Sean?
Yeah, give me one second sir hang on.
Okay, yeah.
Alright, I'm in the car driving I had the alarm set for 10 o'clock make sure I called you and didn't want that going off for the interview so anyways.
Gotcha, gotcha where are you driving to?
I am actually going to hit some golf balls in a heated facility kind of heated like heat behind you is currently less than 40 degrees I think on the temperature gauge.
Wow.
That's just what we do here in Massachusetts 42, 42 currently.
Getting used to it huh I bet that's a big change from being in old Florida isn't it?
I am not enjoying this part sir.
You guys had some black ice up there what about two weeks ago or so or something like that?
We've had some snow the last couple I've had two snowstorms, one snowstorm we'll call it one snow event or whatever yesterday morning, Friday morning, I don't know they all blend together.
But yeah, yeah I'm not getting used to it I'm not ever going to get used to it I'm going to try to head back as soon as I can but it is what it is right now.
Absolutely you know what I remember as a kid you know you or at least when I was up in North Carolina you get out of the hot room into the hot shower out of the hot shower into the hot car you know you just kind of plan your day around where heat is going to be.
Yeah, yeah, people keep telling me to buy a winter coat and I'm like I'm not buying, no, I'm not giving in, I just want to go from one spot to another.
I'm not planning on staying in the cold weather like if I have to go to a Patriots game I might buy something but at this point.
I don't think you got to worry about the Patriots making the playoffs.
No, no we're safe there.
I don't think you got to worry about the Patriots making the playoffs.
And then also I just I want to include some part of the, I feel like it's one of the most criticized businesses around.
So if me and you walk into Best Buy or Target, we don't question the pricing.
We don't tell the manager how things should be running.
And we don't talk about the layout of the store.
Like you just go do it.
But golf courses as you know are just so like, oh your greens should be, oh you know what you need to do to fix that, you know, say around whatever things called on the greens.
You know, or you know like, hey you should mark these two for one and then you get, oh great sir, that's good, thanks.
Oh yeah. And they want to talk about tee boxes, where they need to put car paths, you know, the guy shouldn't mow over there, you know, don't have the maintenance guys out on the course at this time.
I mean, it's endless.
It's good, right? I mean there's a bunch of topic right there.
So I think between those two things, I think you lead with or I'll talk to you, I'll kind of interview you for the first part about, so Tim, let's talk about what's happened at one of the local golf courses since September.
Kind of give me an update and kind of, you know, and then you kind of go through the different things that have happened over the last eight weeks.
And then you say to me, you know, hey Sean, you know, I'm on the Facebook page for Oakley Country Club. I heard something happened over the weekend.
Can you explain what that was?
Yeah.
So I think it, you know, it's going to be individual to our circumstances, but also we'll kind of make it as a broad stroke type of thing for golf courses in general and all the trails, you know, trails that come with it.
So absolutely. And I think you having over 20 years experience as a GM can definitely, you know, talk about the business highlights of it.
Yeah.
And what people, what people imagine can happen and what is reality.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right, so let's get started here.