September 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Co-Founders Thomas Hackett and Rory Flanagan join Claude to discuss how PLATFORM Golf is reshaping the training and performance landscape by addressing the experience gap in simulator golf. In partnership with many OEMs, University programs, and PGA Pros, their technology is delivering an off-course solution that allows golfers to take full swing shots and sink real putts directly into a simulator experience.
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This podcast is brought to you by PLATFORM Golf — the first-of-its-kind technology transforming off-course golf.
Ever feel like practicing indoors never truly prepares you for real course conditions? PLATFORM Golf solves that. Their TrueSlope platform brings uneven lies and breaking putts indoors, fully integrated with most golf simulators.
It’s not just realistic — it’s immersive. From sidehill lies to sloping greens, PLATFORM creates an experience that feels like you’re actually on the course. Whether you’re a weekend player or a tour-level pro, this is the future of off-course golf.
Learn more at platformgolf.com and discover why I, along with many of the world’s top PGA teaching professionals, trust PLATFORM Golf to elevate teaching, training, and performance.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's the son of a Butch podcast. I'm your host,
Claude Harman. Before we get to it, this episode is
being brought to you by Platform Golf, the first of
its kind technology transforming off course golf. You ever feel
like practicing indoors never truly prepares you for real course conditions,
while Platform Golf solves that problem their true Slope platform
brings uneven lies and breaking pots indoors, and it's fully
(00:24):
integrated with most golf simulators. It's not just realistic, it's immersive,
from sidehill lies to sloping greens. Platform Golf creates an
experience that feels like you're actually on the course. So
whether you're a weekend player or a tour level pro,
this is the future of off course golf. You can
learn more at platformgolf dot com and discover y I,
(00:44):
along with many top PGA teaching professionals, trust Platform Golf
to elevate teaching, training, and performance, So go check it out.
My guests today are from Platform Golf, Thomas Hackett and
Roy Slanagan. Guys, we're in a really interesting time in
kind of the indoor simulator world, and I think if
(01:06):
you look at kind of how golf is being practiced
and kind of the demographic of golfers, you know, with
all of the new kind of top golf ranges, all
the new indoor stuff that you know, there are a
lot of these these companies in these facilities five Iron
in New York City. Where do you guys feel like
the indoor simulator world is going and how does platform
(01:29):
fit into that world and what do you guys feel
is kind of the direction indoor.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Golf is going, great question.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Our kind of mission is to be the platform enabling
golf technology and to transform.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Golf in the process.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So what we'd like to be able to do is
kind of three dimensionalize the experience that you get in
a city environment or in a home environment or after hours,
you know, or on a rainy day, so that you
can actually feel that uneven live feeling that you get
ninety six percent of the time once you're off the
tea in golf, and so that you can have that
(02:02):
made putt feeling in simulation. Those are the two things
and we believe that, you know, if we can do
that and have it integrated with a seamless experience in
a simulation space, that'll open up and unlocked from a
competition perspective, but really i'd like to think and you
and your contemporaries have said that it's an exciting thing
to normalize teaching from money demise as well COY.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So for people that don't know what platform golf is,
you know, give us the elevator pitch on what the
product is, Why you guys kind of came up with
this idea and how you think it fits in with
not only kind of the gamification of off course golf,
but also from kind of the world that I live
(02:46):
and from an instruction standpoint. But tell us what the
product is.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a it's a big question.
We'll take it one part of the time.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
You know. So the DNA of our company is in
the putting space.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So we were comping up a sign of by our
co founder, which was Rob Gibgolf Consulting in many respects
that became Perfection Platforms that we really recently rebranded as
Platform Golf Perfection Platforms, and what we were was very
much a putting focused company. What we have done more
recently is we wanted to make sure that the technology
we had from a pudding perspective could be brought forward
(03:19):
and utilized for all elements of golf. With that said,
and where the environment and where golf is right now,
there is a real movement towards indoor golf. And what
we've focused on is what we like to say is
like winning the last twenty or thirty feet of indoor golf.
And as Thomas alludes to, majority of shots ninety six
percent of all shots once you get off the t
box or played off uneven lies, whereas when you're hitting
(03:41):
a ball indoors one hundred percent of shot off even lies.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
So we want to try and.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Replicate as much of the outdoors indoors and we feel
like Platform Golf is that product and we're the company
that can sort of bridge that gap.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Basically.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So what we've created over the lat number of years,
and you know, we've got some great traction as Platform Golf,
but it's something we've been working on for you know,
over a decade, is we wanted to make sure we
had a product for every sort of demographic of the
total addressable market.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
So now what we've presented with the market is.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
We've got a true pr which is a.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Ul swing and only platform which looks like in essence
the size of a driving range hitting day. We have
a putting specific platform called True Break, which is our
og and what the sort of the roots that enable
the company is in. And then we have True Slope,
which is the really exciting one that we launched the
PGA Show as you saw earlier this year, well as
a fully integrated offering which allows golfers to sund on
the back of our platform, hit into a simulator. You know,
(04:33):
the ball lands in the fairway the platform and just
automatically I've virtual of the technology we have into it.
There's no manual intervention, which is really important from a
game gamified perspective.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
The golfer that hits their next shot.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Often uneven live replicated to the slope that they're faced
within the game they're playing, and then onto the green
they step forward and they're able to make it put
as Thomas said, from twenty five feet and in our
biggest platform. So yeah, so what we're doing, you know,
hasn't really been done before. In MANU respect really excited
about it and as you've seen, this seems to be
a real appetite for this right now.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and I think for people that don't haven't seen
the product before. There have been companies that have basically
tried to take an indoor simulator and say, okay, through hydraulics,
through a system, the floor moved. So we've seen that,
I think, you know, in the last two or three years, guys,
you know, it's the PJ merchandise. So there were a
lot of companies coming out with products that the floor
(05:26):
was articulated so you could you could type in, Let's
say you wanted a putting, you wanted to kind of
have a two and a half percent break from right
to laugh, and you wanted that slope to kind of
be one degree down, kind of simulating what you're going
to get out on the golf course. So you went in,
the computer system adjusts that and then the floor adjust
So I think that technology has been around for a
(05:50):
couple of years, but I think it's very interesting in
taking that to kind of the entire the full game.
Right So where now, I mean every company out there,
and I think people are very familiar now with the
indoor kind of simulator golf product and obviously with the
TGL that came about on the PJ Tour last year.
(06:11):
I mean, I think we're seeing a big, big push
towards indoor golf. I think we're seeing a big push
towards kind of the gamifying of indoor golf. But for me,
and one of the reasons why when you guys approached
me it was interesting for me, is what we're trying
to do is golf instructors, guys is always kind of
simulate in practice what's actually going to happen out on
(06:32):
the golf course. And I think most people listening, and
it's something that I talk about on the pub a lot,
the balance between technique and execution. And I think golf
is hyper focused on technique and is hyper practiced in
block practice to where you're hitting off a flat surface,
you're hitting with one club, you're working on your game,
(06:55):
but the actual game is very random, right, And I
think we practice golf and it has historically been practiced
as a kind of I will not you go and class,
I will not you go and class. You're not learning
anything doing that. So what we're always trying to do
as instructors is try and take real world situations and
(07:17):
bring them to practice. So with this new product where
you can have the floor adjust for putting, but the
floor can also adjust for full swing as well. That's
going to kind of bring a total game experience to
one kind of piece of machinery.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I've heard it defined by some of your contemporaries as
in yourself as like when you go into a lab,
you want to get data and you want to get
a baseline from a data draw perspective, and then you
can move people. Yeah, you can then have a kind
of a zoo experience. You're moving people from the lab
into the zoo. And then ultimately, if we can create
(08:02):
the lies on all you know, all seventy two shots,
then we can create the wild so we can create
a whole new competitive environment for people to participate in.
And that's why when we were at the PGA show
presenting this year, Rory, I don't know, five ten people
walk up and maybe more said, is this like TGL
for everybody? Because like you know, obviously people aren't going
(08:23):
to go out and build a five million dollar studio
in their back and five million just on a golf
tech of that incredible Sofi center, But we can give
them kind of that same experience, even more so because
of the moving floor on the on the bull swing
shots and have a real ability to say, all right,
I shot seventy two today.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That really does parallel.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
The seventy two I would have shot if I played
in real life, So exactly right. But we think that
the competitive experience needs to catch up to what is
awesome on the software side, from the visual perspective and
from the ball captured perspective on both the radar and
the you know, photometric ball capture side, from these golf
technology companies. We just think that you know, I don't
(09:05):
know how far my seven iron goes on a three
percent up till lie, I don't really know how far
that goes if it's just a bump on the float,
and how that should work. So it'll be very interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, I think if you look at launch monitor technology guys,
and if you look at the simulator technology, the ability
to track the ball has become you know, way more realistic, right,
you know, I think everybody that watches golf on television,
I mean it's very rare now that we see a
player hit a shot on TV in a broadcast where
there isn't a shot tracer, and when you do have
(09:37):
a swing where they don't have a shot tracer around you,
so you can see what the ball is doing on
the monitor. It's very very strange now, But Rory, most
golfers don't see golf as being randomized. They don't see
golf as being all over the place. They think it's
going to be very, very specific. They think the stuff
(09:58):
that they're going to work on on the driving range
off of a flat lie with one club, off of
a really good surface, you're going to try and find
the best piece of grass you can have to hit
a shot off of a very flat surface. And I
look at this year with DJ. I mean, we've been
struggling a lot with DJ on uneven lies this year
(10:18):
because when the ball is above your feet, or the
ball is below your feet, if it's uphill or if
it's downhill, it really does affect how your body works
in the rotation. So one of the things it's interesting
that we've been trying all year to get DJ. You know,
I've been saying to him, you know, off an uphill,
he's been missing it to the left, or if the
ball's a little above his feet, or on the up slope,
(10:42):
he's been missing the green to the left. If the
ball's below his feet or it's a little on the
down slope. He's been missing it to the right. And
one of the things his brother Aj, his caddy Austin,
and I have been saying to DJ all year, Listen,
we need to kind of practice a little bit more
off of the slopes so that we can make sure
that you keep your body going. Because the thing that happens, guys,
(11:02):
when the ball is not on a flat surface is
gravity affects how your body can rotate, right, so the
ball being above your feet. And one of the things
Rory I do from a teaching standpoint is if someone's
a slicer of the golf ball in there, you know,
have that massive into out path with the golf club,
(11:23):
the first thing I do is go try and find
a slope where I can get the ball above their
feet on the driving range, because what that does is
it makes the golf swing become less steep and they
have to follow the slope. So yes, I love the
gamification of what's happening from a simulator standpoint, But for
me as an instructor, I've got you know, I work
(11:44):
at my dad's academy here in Florida, and then I've
have two academies in Dubai and in Thailand under my brand.
We're always trying to figure out ways that we can
use the tech to help players get better. I love
the fun aspect of it, the game part of it.
But for me, I look at all technology is okay,
if I'm going to use this as an instructor, how
(12:07):
can I effectively use this to help make changes faster?
Do you see kind of a push in all of
this tech that is kind of has algorithms and visuals
and stuff like that. Are you guys thinking, Okay, yeah,
we want to gamify everything, but we also want to
make it usable for instructives.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, I would say, you know, one of the north
stars we've had from day one as being the stars
behind the stars as we call them. You know, it's
the PGA teaching pros and it's making and hopefully making
you and your contemporaries better at what you're doing and
giving you a better environment to create a better offering
for you as a coach, but also for the output
(12:49):
former students. And that's something we've really doubled down on.
So we can talk about the glitz and glamor of
indoor golfs and the migration from outside to inside and
all but fundamentally what we're doing. And if you look
at you know, look at Bryson's reaction after the Masters,
how a motive he was talking about. You know, he
didn't practice often even lies. I'll give you an anecdote
of our We have a showroom a Precision Golf at
London and one of our partners there, Simon Cooper, who's
(13:11):
like a PGA teaching crowd club fitterer, you know, one
of the best in the visits of the UK.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
The guys are awesome.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
He said two three weeks ago when he was hitting
balls indoor and he was playing, you know, on our
fully integrated truth slope and he was playing with the
fifth hole at Port rushis the first time he ever
felt nervous indoors on a simulator because he had to
bring some of his outside swing thoughts inside. You know,
as we said, it was just a driving range. Tee
it up and just smash it, not really think about
the consequence. Whereas that was the first time because of
(13:38):
slope something felt different. And that's what we're trying to do,
is you know, we turn its singularity and bringing the
outside in and exactly you know, the more depth you
have when it comes to your environment. And Darren May
is a great example one of our ambassadors that we
work with, and you know, he's all about the dynamic
range and teaching off slope into prevailing winds and kinesiology
and the movement of the body. And I think if
(13:59):
you're not really be thinking about those things, you're probably
like behind in many respects, you know. So it's not
that it's it's it's uncharted ground. It's very very relevant now.
So I think you talking through that with DJ and
working you know, with Wink and with Austin and the team,
and how that sort of impacts his game is just
it's just very much commonplace and right now. And I
(14:20):
think where that's going to go is just that will
become mass market. I mean what we're doing as a business,
you know, we're part of proposals where people are looking
like fully integrated and moving driving ranges, driving range base
at every single spot across them, you know, So people
are thinking this way.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
So it's definitely a movement towards it.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So I mean if you look at kind of you know,
driving simulators, you know, I mean there used to be
driving so but I think the advent with as popular
as F one has gotten. I think we you know,
people are following all the Instagram sites for one, they're
looking at kind of the simulators that the F one
drivers are on that have hydraulics on, that have movement
to them, which is trying to create as much of
(15:03):
a real world experience for an F one driver. And
you know, I saw something where max erstaff On on
his off weeks. They say, basically, all he does is
get into the similar And the other thing that I
wanted to lead into this is Max races against other
simulator drivers when he's at home. He's the best F
(15:24):
one driver on the planet, right, He's the world champion.
In his off time, he's in his own home, he's
at the factory on a singular racing other novice people
that aren't F one drivers. So this idea to where
you guys are trying to gamify everything. Talk to me
(15:45):
about these concepts, because I know you're in talks with universities,
high school programs and stuff like that. You say, listen,
is there a way through tech and through everybody connected socially,
can we have competitions glowe off of.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
This suchuch technology? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Perfect, So Claude I grew up playing at a PGA
tour course called Enjoy, where your father was a champion.
Pretty cool up BC Open, and now it's the Dick's
Sporting Kids Open, so it's a great place I used
to I was a member there for one hundred and
eighty bucks. It was the cheapest childcare in the world.
I think my mom dropped me out there in the morning,
(16:25):
picked me up at night, and played thirty six or
forty five holes a day.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
With a couple of hot dogs along the way.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
But from end of October all the way through to
mid April, end of April, I lost ground on all
the southern kids that were literally grinding all through the
winter long. And by the time we actually actually had
state championships in New York at Cornell, it was like,
all right, here's two weeks, good luck.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And if you didn't have like a family with a
Florida home, you had no chance.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
So I mean what we did in the winter was
like we hit into a net and it was like
it was terrible. Now this seem technology has gotten better,
but just think about it like this, what you're saying
there on the formula one side is exactly the vision
that I have and we have a shared collective vision
as a company where because of the ability to create
that hyper realistic, you know, experience that the players are
(17:15):
going to want to be playing in their home on
the setup that most replicates what course is coming next.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right, So like if I'm playing a practice round at
any tour.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Event and I get to a hole where it's like,
this is kind of a shot that I didn't like.
I tried to hit three or four shots, but you
know there's groups behind us. I can't really grind and
work through that experience on that shot because you can't
practice on the course. But we're giving you the ability.
And what we did at Port Rush was just pick
a spot, go out to that spot, practice, hit up,
(17:45):
hit twenty thirty forty balls on that spot, and then
go on you know what I mean. So the idea
is ultimately that yes, all of I'd like to think
and I've talked to a lot of our programs I
just got back from Illinois and Mike Small and have
them have the ability to play against, you know, every
other team in Division one, so that there's a kind
of a democratization and there's like an off course championship
(18:07):
where everybody can play on the same course under the
same conditions and see where the chips fall.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You know, it'd be a very interesting thing for the
first time ever to do that.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
And then one step further, you take tour players, whether
it's LPGA, PGA live, and put them playing on the
same environment as everybody else in the world. As long
as there's standardization of the technology and you know that
people are hitting from those on even lies, and you
have like an inklinometer like our technology does to tell
you that, then you can have games where you have
thousands and thousands of competitors at the same time in
(18:37):
the same environment.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
That's a really it's a really important point to Thomas Knix.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
It's something you touched upon in one of your earlier
questions where you said this technology has been around, you
know where there the ability to sort of make up
otter create some sort of slope. But what hasn't been
around is the ability to qualify a score time and
time again. So if you think about this situation we're
facebook right now. When it comes to indoor golf, a
lot of it is AUTOCALC two puts you move on
to the next hole. There's no there's no repeatability, and
(19:02):
a lot of it is due to like structural integrity,
you know, the ability to qualify or replicate the environment
time and time again.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
You know, these.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Surfaces move, et cetera. You know, I'm from Ireland, obviously,
it's why I say aluminium. You guys say aluminum, but
we use an aluminum substructure and that allows us to qualify,
you know, and have that repeatable environment which hasn't been
maybe there or prevalent before in the past. So when
you're thinking about you know, why hasn't why isn't there
an off course handicap system, Why aren't people competing?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Why isn't there gambling?
Speaker 4 (19:29):
For us, it's because we haven't been able to replicate
the environment at different locations time and time again. And
that's what we're doing. So when you look at Max
and what he's doing, that's our vision, as Thomas says,
is to actually have the likes of the DJ.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Or a Rory or a Brooks or whoever it.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Is, competing online in the comfort of their home because
you and I, but we all know when pros are off,
they're off, but they're always looking to scratch the h
of golf. So if you can set that up for
them in their house. It's win win for everybody, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So I think everybody's familiar with the fact that you
can go to a simulator or buy a simular or
they have them in public spaces now and then you
could go play Pebble Beach, right, you could go play
an eighteen hole.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Round of Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So is the technology that you guys have available to
where if you set up to go play Pebble Beach
on the simulator and you hit one to the left
of the hole in the rough, and it's going to
simulate that you were in the rough and it's downhill,
it's below your feet. So let's say you were going
(20:31):
to play, you know, a course that was a tour
course that kind of has a massive sloping fairway from
right to left, and you hit it up there, it
can simulate where you are the ball being above your
feet based off of the actual real golf course that
you're playing.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, exactly one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And so what I would say is that like everything
in life, there there are limits to technology and the
total percent slope on a true pr we can get
over seven percent, but on a twenty two by eleven.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Moving something that.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That high is a lot more difficult, But yeah, for
the gaming size platform, the recommended size, we can get
it up. And what we can do is we can
hit the maximum slopes allowable by the us GA and RNA,
which is four percent on a green and beyond that
by a few percent on the full swing.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So yeah, it creates extremes.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And just like Rory said, when when you get up
on that platform and you're hitting that approach shot, it'll
feel like thirteen in Augusta.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You know that that hanging lie or you know, it'll feel.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like the seventeenth at Port Rush when you're on that
big down slope there, it's gonna it's going to totally
challenge a different level of your kind of psyche indoors
than it ever has. And the other thing that I'm
the most excited about is.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Like like the teaching day that we're building.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I don't know if we want to tell the world,
but like down there in Dubai, but like the ability
to have the downrange.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And for you as a coach to be able to
move people around.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I'm so excited for you to have that kind of
capacity and then turn out and putt. It's all in
one right there, and yeah, the extremes are going to
be there. The other thing that you should know is
that we're working with one of the top turf companies
in the world right now and creating some really really
cool rough and hitting matt structures that are going to
be able to, you know, take it even that much
(22:17):
further instead of just allowing for the simulator to calibrate
it to a percentage, We're going to have some really
cool rough structures that are going to be able to
you know, it's going to take some time on testing
to get the tracking of the ball out of rough
because you know, they need to be able to pick
up the whole ball and if there's some challenges there.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
But we're getting there. But it's really coming together nicely.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You know. The real world application of this guy's So
I was giving a golf listen yesterday to a guy
who is a very good competitive mid end player. He's
a member at o'kill Country Club up in Rochester where they,
you know, Brooks won the twenty twenty three PGA. They've
had Ryder Cups there, so it's an iconic golf course,
right but weather wise, this guy hits a lot of
golf balls at home in a simulator, and it's a finance.
(23:00):
He's working stuff, so he can't always get to the
golf course. So one of the things he flew down
yesterday to the Florida. I see him on a regular basis.
He comes down about, you know, every.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Couple of months.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But one of the things that was I find really
interesting about all of the guys that live up in
the Northeast or work a lot on simulators is their
aim is horrendous because they're all on the simulator, right,
and they're never really thinking about where they're aiming. So
this guy's aim gets all over the place because he's
(23:31):
just doing one repetitive thing. So I think the power
in that tech that you guys have is the ability
to say, Okay, we're going to adjust this. Lie not
anything crazy, right, We're not going to put you on
a four percent slot. We're just going to adjust this
a little bit. And then in a controlled environment, in
a simulator environment, we can have you have to offset
(23:56):
the fact that we've changed the ground. And then guys
the other power in this specifically from a putting standpoint,
almost everybody I work with and see dramatically underreads their potts, right,
they just do right. So you have them take a
look at where they're aiming and there are two three
(24:19):
balls four balls out. So when we were at the
Open Championship and you guys put the platform in for
sky Sports and their big kind of you know, all singing,
all dancing open zone, right, what was really cool is
the segment that I filmed for you guys. I went
in there and what we tried to do was simulate
(24:39):
a pin a pin position on the golf course. So
the sixteenth pole, the part three at Royalport Rush with
you know the valley down to the right of it.
We looked at the we looked at the pin sheet
and the pin was cut three from the left, four
from the front, and we looked at one the greens
(25:00):
books and we looked at the slope. We were just
able to type that in and then go look at that.
And the segment I did was I think everybody tends
to practice putting off of a again block practice. They
practiced three foot puts on a straight putt, but it
might be guys until the back nine till you get
(25:24):
a flat three footer that everybody practices. So For me,
I think the ability to randomize the practice is something
that I think I've probably done more in the last
ten years than I did in the early part of
my career to try and have somewhat of skill acquisition
(25:46):
as opposed to just block practice. So this merging of
the way players practice the way we are trying to
gamify their practice. Play this out, guys in five years.
I mean, if you look at TGL, looked like it
was a success last year, that facility looked amazing. I've
(26:07):
got to think they'll start to replicate those right, But
where do you, guys see the long term vision not
only for the company, but the long term direction of
kind of indoor simulator golf. Is it this kind of
quest to kind of have the feel of a real shot,
the feel of a really made putt in a real situation.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, I'm kind of every day trying to pull myself
back into the day because I love thinking about the
future and in a lot of ways, and and I
would I would think about it like this.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
TGL is very similar to what we're trying to do
in that like, you know, if you if you want
to go and do a French Alps tour, and ride
the Tour de France.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
You can, but you can also do it on a peloton,
and so we're very similar to the peloton experience. If
the pelotons experience scot to learn from you know how
to handle supply chain, do it to do some other
cool things. But give you access to the best spin
cycle instructors in New York instead of Instead of giving
you access to the best spin cycle instructors in New York,
we're going to be giving people access to people like
(27:13):
you and people like Brat.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I mean, like, think about that for a second.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Having you know a few people out there in the industry,
incumbents like a skillster, you know, coaching things you know
that are in the market. This is going to be
able to give you the experience of working with you
while you're doing a live lesson on your platform and
you can do it from your home and take in
what you're saying and try to enact it in real time.
(27:37):
And all you need is really about fifteen by twenty
space with ten foot iigh ceilings and you're good to go.
So it's it's a lot different and we don't have
to you know, go and build a you know, a
football stadium.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
To get it done right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
It's a little different than that because I don't think
there there's a few of your clients and a few
of our clients that could do that, but nobody's realistically
going to do that their at home practice.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right. Did I miss anything there were? I mean, I think.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
That's I think you know you mentioned obviously the open
zone sky, and it was it was an amazing experience
for us to be involved in that, and obviously you know,
you're much more use of that environment and live TV
and everything that comes with it. And what was really
fascinating to me outside of the shanganner you get a
cameraman with when Pete Kann was giving me a lesson
on the platform off uneven Liss, But was that how
(28:25):
some of the players in the field when they came
over to their segments, how they were reacting to actually
hitting balls off slope.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
And we're not going to name and shame anybody. Some
of the people adopted it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Very very quickly.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Some people didn't, and there was some really really big
misses and their reaction was not I just don't practice
off slope. It's like, how can you go and compete
appropriately to the best of your ability if your preparation
for a course like Port Rush, which is like an
undulated golf course, not the most undulated golf course in
the world, but there are some parts of that golf
course where there's extremes. You know, how can you expect
(29:00):
to go there and compete to the best of your
ability if you're not practicing all of those lines. You know,
So you're talking about it, you know, I'm being an
exponent or proponent of over the last of a decade,
I'd say you're probably a little bit ahead of what's
considered the norm.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know, it's much more.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Relevant to the now and how people are teaching, and
you see it on facility design as well, and how
people are trying to incorporate slope and you know, and
the ability to allow their talent to hit off on
even lies because you know, people have some cash to spend,
and some people who join these fancy clubs expect that
extra sort of one or two percenters, you know, that
really differentiates their couple of the others. And I think
(29:36):
this is the next stage of it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And on your spect.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Guys, lastly, you mentioned that I think when launch monitor
technology came out, it wasn't what it is now.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Now I have.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Sixteen year old kids coming in with a thirty thousand
dollars launch monitor. So launch monitor technology went from something
that was very very obscure, very very niche, and now
it is a major part of every single broadcast you
But my point behind that was I think one of
the things that got launch monitor technology kind of into
the mainstream was all of the manufacturers. You would know
(30:09):
that Cobra Tailor made Titleist and stuff, they had bought
thirty launch monitors. They were doing everything with this technology.
And as soon as that happened, if all of the
club companies are using this technology, then I think people
started to go, Okay, well it's here to stay. We're
going to start using it. So the relationship that you
guys have had with the manufacturers with the different companies,
(30:31):
I know you put a system in Cobra, I know
you put one in at Taylor, made that relationship. Why
do you think the manufacturers are so interested in partnering
with you guys in getting the systems into their facilities,
into their test facilities. And where do you see that
relationship going? Also with the US college university programs that
(30:54):
I know you guys are involved in it as well.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
My first install, when I was in a non executive
board member of the original Perfection Platforms, was at the.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Kingdom in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
The tailor made facility.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, the tailor made facility And it's a funny, funny thing.
When we were installing it, we always added an extra
actuator because sometimes they can get damage and shipping. I
drove over the Sierra Nevadas all the way to Papago
to the Arizona State facility because we.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Left an extra actuator there in.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Our manufacturer didn't send one with this the biggest build
at the time ever, and so anyway, we got it
back in, we.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Plugged it in. It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
And the reason I tell you that anecdote is because
Arizona State we formed partnerships to these programs and tell
them what's coming, and we try to stay out in
front of things so that the coaches are educated by
us and they're not just sold things by us. So
when we installed that, John Rahm was at the ribbon
cutting and it was very exciting. Well, then at Taylor Made,
he was there getting putter fitted by Dwayne Anderson, a
(31:55):
kind of a known putter fitting guru, and it was
found pretty quickly once they him on the left to
right lie in twenty twenty. That wasn't doing great at
making left to right putts and that was a gap
in the way he is putting. Whether it was the
putter or the stroke, I don't want to comment on that,
but like they figured it out. And then if you remember,
he wanted Tory the US open and he made two
(32:16):
fifteen footers on left to right lies, which was exactly
what they worked on at the Kingdom, and it was
kind of like holy moly. So we kind of got
there from our relationship with Arizona State and that new
bird that Phil and the guys built there.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
We were one of the original partners there.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Then they put us in with the Kingdom and then
you know, in twenty two him, DJ and Colin were
all fit.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
There were number one, two, and.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Three on the WAGGER or the not Wagger, the WGR
rankings last time they were unified.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We're all fit for their putters on our platform.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So having the best fitting experience possible for the players
and the best R and D.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Capability to test technology is what these OEMs.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Want, and so we had to have high integrity of
our products, our percentage slow, and you know, I think
that they love that. And from a commercial perspective, I'm
a commercial guerrilla myself. You've got to have a while
factor to differentiate yourself when you're downstream fitting people and
you're downstream actually creating experience. When you cover the home office,
you want to see like you're stepping up onto a
(33:16):
platform and getting that baseline data capture. It can't just
be on a flat piece of turf in an office somewhere.
You have to really feel like you're doing something that's
similar to what what we call like a blood draw,
like it's clean, it's perfect, and it gives you the
exact slopes on the software is what is in real life.
So I think downstream, the OEMs are going to continue
to learn a lot about what happens to club waiting
(33:39):
when you work off of one even lies, especially in
the irons.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
And then I think also you.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Look at the future of you know, how you support
your PGA pros that are on your staff, you.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Know, subsidizing the you know, products.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Like ours to really drive influence in markets of doing
proper fittings. I think it's going to be a big thing,
whether it's at the jib pro level for those OEMs
or Dicks or a big box retail.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
I would just add on the OEMs.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I think b you know, let's say ten twenty years ago,
it was there was obviously a clear sort of goal,
set of standards when they came to some of the
club fetters and also of club manufacturers and you know,
who were the chosen for you. Whereas now there's a
there's more, you know, there's much more choice and the
pursuit of perfection to try and be like differentiators as
to you know, what what's better and what works is
really really important. But I think, you know, we're working
(34:28):
with a lot of the OEMs, and we're about to
work with some more, and they're just trying to find
it's the pursuit of perfection, you know, they're trying to
find those additional one percent, you know, like when it
comes to not only just like a driver fitting, but
even from like a wedge perspective.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
We're working with.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
An OEM now that's specific to you know for or
famous for their wedges, and they want to try and
find those extra levels, you know, those extra sort of
one percent that really differentiate themselves from the market because
it's it's tied out there as you know, you know,
there's a really really there's some quality equipment available to everybody,
and that's why we're sort of adding that extra value
(35:01):
add to them and that experience as well.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
You know, I think the applications and also for universities.
You know, for college golf programs, there are a lot
of players you know now choosing to go to college
golf programs that are not in Florida. They're not in
Texas where you're going to be practicing in the sunshine.
So the college golf programs, the best ones in the country,
are trying to replicate in an indoor situation if they
(35:25):
are weather dependent. You know, guys like Mike Small and Illinois,
all of the kind of the Big Ten, kind of
some of the Big East schools, they're going to need
indoor facilities to offset the fact that they're not in sunshine.
You can't practice outdoors three hundred and sixty five days
a year. So I think that combination of being in
(35:47):
not only the manufacturers but also with the college golf programs,
and then you know, having people like myself, it can
take advantage of it from a instructional standpoint. Guys, where
can people find out more about Platform Golf.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
The website is platform golf dot com and obviously our
instagram is Platform Golf. So yeah, that that is that
is the easiest way to get at us. And we'll
obviously send you information on the depth of our products
if you add your email. And I'll say one last
thing plot on that on that subject is that I would.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Venture to say that you like to use the launch
monitor in most of your lessons. We would like to
believe that eventually in the next three to five years
that pros will it'll be a differentiating value proposition where
you'd want to go to your pro that has the
ability to teach off of one even lives as the
same way, we wouldn't go to somebody without a TrackMan
(36:40):
or a Foresight or a REPSOD or whatever it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Is you know, or true golf system. So like, we
want to change the standard is what we're trying to do.
In your OEM comment was exactly right. They had all
the forty.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Dollars track mans before it was brought to the brought
to some of the consumable levels. So yeah, I like
to think that we're going to hopefully change the game
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Well, I'm really looking forward to the system we're installing
in Dubai and we'll give you guys some good feedback.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Guys, best to Luck.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Thanks for talking to us, and I'm excited to see
which direction everything goes in the future.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Thanks, Love, appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I appreciate that Son of Which comes to you almost
every week. Thanks everyone for listening.
It's the son of a Butch podcast. I'm your host,
Claude Harman. Before we get to it, this episode is
being brought to you by Platform Golf, the first of
its kind technology transforming off course golf. You ever feel
like practicing indoors never truly prepares you for real course conditions,
while Platform Golf solves that problem their true Slope platform
brings uneven lies and breaking pots indoors, and it's fully
(00:24):
integrated with most golf simulators. It's not just realistic, it's immersive,
from sidehill lies to sloping greens. Platform Golf creates an
experience that feels like you're actually on the course. So
whether you're a weekend player or a tour level pro,
this is the future of off course golf. You can
learn more at platformgolf dot com and discover y I,
(00:44):
along with many top PGA teaching professionals, trust Platform Golf
to elevate teaching, training, and performance, So go check it out.
My guests today are from Platform Golf, Thomas Hackett and
Roy Slanagan. Guys, we're in a really interesting time in
kind of the indoor simulator world, and I think if
(01:06):
you look at kind of how golf is being practiced
and kind of the demographic of golfers, you know, with
all of the new kind of top golf ranges, all
the new indoor stuff that you know, there are a
lot of these these companies in these facilities five Iron
in New York City. Where do you guys feel like
the indoor simulator world is going and how does platform
(01:29):
fit into that world and what do you guys feel
is kind of the direction indoor.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Golf is going, great question.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Our kind of mission is to be the platform enabling
golf technology and to transform.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Golf in the process.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So what we'd like to be able to do is
kind of three dimensionalize the experience that you get in
a city environment or in a home environment or after hours,
you know, or on a rainy day, so that you
can actually feel that uneven live feeling that you get
ninety six percent of the time once you're off the
tea in golf, and so that you can have that
(02:02):
made putt feeling in simulation. Those are the two things
and we believe that, you know, if we can do
that and have it integrated with a seamless experience in
a simulation space, that'll open up and unlocked from a
competition perspective, but really i'd like to think and you
and your contemporaries have said that it's an exciting thing
to normalize teaching from money demise as well COY.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So for people that don't know what platform golf is,
you know, give us the elevator pitch on what the
product is, Why you guys kind of came up with
this idea and how you think it fits in with
not only kind of the gamification of off course golf,
but also from kind of the world that I live
(02:46):
and from an instruction standpoint. But tell us what the
product is.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a it's a big question.
We'll take it one part of the time.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
You know. So the DNA of our company is in
the putting space.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So we were comping up a sign of by our
co founder, which was Rob Gibgolf Consulting in many respects
that became Perfection Platforms that we really recently rebranded as
Platform Golf Perfection Platforms, and what we were was very
much a putting focused company. What we have done more
recently is we wanted to make sure that the technology
we had from a pudding perspective could be brought forward
(03:19):
and utilized for all elements of golf. With that said,
and where the environment and where golf is right now,
there is a real movement towards indoor golf. And what
we've focused on is what we like to say is
like winning the last twenty or thirty feet of indoor golf.
And as Thomas alludes to, majority of shots ninety six
percent of all shots once you get off the t
box or played off uneven lies, whereas when you're hitting
(03:41):
a ball indoors one hundred percent of shot off even lies.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
So we want to try and.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Replicate as much of the outdoors indoors and we feel
like Platform Golf is that product and we're the company
that can sort of bridge that gap.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Basically.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So what we've created over the lat number of years,
and you know, we've got some great traction as Platform Golf,
but it's something we've been working on for you know,
over a decade, is we wanted to make sure we
had a product for every sort of demographic of the
total addressable market.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
So now what we've presented with the market is.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
We've got a true pr which is a.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Ul swing and only platform which looks like in essence
the size of a driving range hitting day. We have
a putting specific platform called True Break, which is our
og and what the sort of the roots that enable
the company is in. And then we have True Slope,
which is the really exciting one that we launched the
PGA Show as you saw earlier this year, well as
a fully integrated offering which allows golfers to sund on
the back of our platform, hit into a simulator. You know,
(04:33):
the ball lands in the fairway the platform and just
automatically I've virtual of the technology we have into it.
There's no manual intervention, which is really important from a
game gamified perspective.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
The golfer that hits their next shot.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Often uneven live replicated to the slope that they're faced
within the game they're playing, and then onto the green
they step forward and they're able to make it put
as Thomas said, from twenty five feet and in our
biggest platform. So yeah, so what we're doing, you know,
hasn't really been done before. In MANU respect really excited
about it and as you've seen, this seems to be
a real appetite for this right now.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and I think for people that don't haven't seen
the product before. There have been companies that have basically
tried to take an indoor simulator and say, okay, through hydraulics,
through a system, the floor moved. So we've seen that,
I think, you know, in the last two or three years, guys,
you know, it's the PJ merchandise. So there were a
lot of companies coming out with products that the floor
(05:26):
was articulated so you could you could type in, Let's
say you wanted a putting, you wanted to kind of
have a two and a half percent break from right
to laugh, and you wanted that slope to kind of
be one degree down, kind of simulating what you're going
to get out on the golf course. So you went in,
the computer system adjusts that and then the floor adjust
So I think that technology has been around for a
(05:50):
couple of years, but I think it's very interesting in
taking that to kind of the entire the full game.
Right So where now, I mean every company out there,
and I think people are very familiar now with the
indoor kind of simulator golf product and obviously with the
TGL that came about on the PJ Tour last year.
(06:11):
I mean, I think we're seeing a big, big push
towards indoor golf. I think we're seeing a big push
towards kind of the gamifying of indoor golf. But for me,
and one of the reasons why when you guys approached
me it was interesting for me, is what we're trying
to do is golf instructors, guys is always kind of
simulate in practice what's actually going to happen out on
(06:32):
the golf course. And I think most people listening, and
it's something that I talk about on the pub a lot,
the balance between technique and execution. And I think golf
is hyper focused on technique and is hyper practiced in
block practice to where you're hitting off a flat surface,
you're hitting with one club, you're working on your game,
(06:55):
but the actual game is very random, right, And I
think we practice golf and it has historically been practiced
as a kind of I will not you go and class,
I will not you go and class. You're not learning
anything doing that. So what we're always trying to do
as instructors is try and take real world situations and
(07:17):
bring them to practice. So with this new product where
you can have the floor adjust for putting, but the
floor can also adjust for full swing as well. That's
going to kind of bring a total game experience to
one kind of piece of machinery.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I've heard it defined by some of your contemporaries as
in yourself as like when you go into a lab,
you want to get data and you want to get
a baseline from a data draw perspective, and then you
can move people. Yeah, you can then have a kind
of a zoo experience. You're moving people from the lab
into the zoo. And then ultimately, if we can create
(08:02):
the lies on all you know, all seventy two shots,
then we can create the wild so we can create
a whole new competitive environment for people to participate in.
And that's why when we were at the PGA show
presenting this year, Rory, I don't know, five ten people
walk up and maybe more said, is this like TGL
for everybody? Because like you know, obviously people aren't going
(08:23):
to go out and build a five million dollar studio
in their back and five million just on a golf
tech of that incredible Sofi center, But we can give
them kind of that same experience, even more so because
of the moving floor on the on the bull swing
shots and have a real ability to say, all right,
I shot seventy two today.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That really does parallel.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
The seventy two I would have shot if I played
in real life, So exactly right. But we think that
the competitive experience needs to catch up to what is
awesome on the software side, from the visual perspective and
from the ball captured perspective on both the radar and
the you know, photometric ball capture side, from these golf
technology companies. We just think that you know, I don't
(09:05):
know how far my seven iron goes on a three
percent up till lie, I don't really know how far
that goes if it's just a bump on the float,
and how that should work. So it'll be very interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, I think if you look at launch monitor technology guys,
and if you look at the simulator technology, the ability
to track the ball has become you know, way more realistic, right,
you know, I think everybody that watches golf on television,
I mean it's very rare now that we see a
player hit a shot on TV in a broadcast where
there isn't a shot tracer, and when you do have
(09:37):
a swing where they don't have a shot tracer around you,
so you can see what the ball is doing on
the monitor. It's very very strange now, But Rory, most
golfers don't see golf as being randomized. They don't see
golf as being all over the place. They think it's
going to be very, very specific. They think the stuff
(09:58):
that they're going to work on on the driving range
off of a flat lie with one club, off of
a really good surface, you're going to try and find
the best piece of grass you can have to hit
a shot off of a very flat surface. And I
look at this year with DJ. I mean, we've been
struggling a lot with DJ on uneven lies this year
(10:18):
because when the ball is above your feet, or the
ball is below your feet, if it's uphill or if
it's downhill, it really does affect how your body works
in the rotation. So one of the things it's interesting
that we've been trying all year to get DJ. You know,
I've been saying to him, you know, off an uphill,
he's been missing it to the left, or if the
ball's a little above his feet, or on the up slope,
(10:42):
he's been missing the green to the left. If the
ball's below his feet or it's a little on the
down slope. He's been missing it to the right. And
one of the things his brother Aj, his caddy Austin,
and I have been saying to DJ all year, Listen,
we need to kind of practice a little bit more
off of the slopes so that we can make sure
that you keep your body going. Because the thing that happens, guys,
(11:02):
when the ball is not on a flat surface is
gravity affects how your body can rotate, right, so the
ball being above your feet. And one of the things
Rory I do from a teaching standpoint is if someone's
a slicer of the golf ball in there, you know,
have that massive into out path with the golf club,
(11:23):
the first thing I do is go try and find
a slope where I can get the ball above their
feet on the driving range, because what that does is
it makes the golf swing become less steep and they
have to follow the slope. So yes, I love the
gamification of what's happening from a simulator standpoint, But for
me as an instructor, I've got you know, I work
(11:44):
at my dad's academy here in Florida, and then I've
have two academies in Dubai and in Thailand under my brand.
We're always trying to figure out ways that we can
use the tech to help players get better. I love
the fun aspect of it, the game part of it.
But for me, I look at all technology is okay,
if I'm going to use this as an instructor, how
(12:07):
can I effectively use this to help make changes faster?
Do you see kind of a push in all of
this tech that is kind of has algorithms and visuals
and stuff like that. Are you guys thinking, Okay, yeah,
we want to gamify everything, but we also want to
make it usable for instructives.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, I would say, you know, one of the north
stars we've had from day one as being the stars
behind the stars as we call them. You know, it's
the PGA teaching pros and it's making and hopefully making
you and your contemporaries better at what you're doing and
giving you a better environment to create a better offering
for you as a coach, but also for the output
(12:49):
former students. And that's something we've really doubled down on.
So we can talk about the glitz and glamor of
indoor golfs and the migration from outside to inside and
all but fundamentally what we're doing. And if you look
at you know, look at Bryson's reaction after the Masters,
how a motive he was talking about. You know, he
didn't practice often even lies. I'll give you an anecdote
of our We have a showroom a Precision Golf at
London and one of our partners there, Simon Cooper, who's
(13:11):
like a PGA teaching crowd club fitterer, you know, one
of the best in the visits of the UK.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
The guys are awesome.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
He said two three weeks ago when he was hitting
balls indoor and he was playing, you know, on our
fully integrated truth slope and he was playing with the
fifth hole at Port rushis the first time he ever
felt nervous indoors on a simulator because he had to
bring some of his outside swing thoughts inside. You know,
as we said, it was just a driving range. Tee
it up and just smash it, not really think about
the consequence. Whereas that was the first time because of
(13:38):
slope something felt different. And that's what we're trying to do,
is you know, we turn its singularity and bringing the
outside in and exactly you know, the more depth you
have when it comes to your environment. And Darren May
is a great example one of our ambassadors that we
work with, and you know, he's all about the dynamic
range and teaching off slope into prevailing winds and kinesiology
and the movement of the body. And I think if
(13:59):
you're not really be thinking about those things, you're probably
like behind in many respects, you know. So it's not
that it's it's it's uncharted ground. It's very very relevant now.
So I think you talking through that with DJ and
working you know, with Wink and with Austin and the team,
and how that sort of impacts his game is just
it's just very much commonplace and right now. And I
(14:20):
think where that's going to go is just that will
become mass market. I mean what we're doing as a business,
you know, we're part of proposals where people are looking
like fully integrated and moving driving ranges, driving range base
at every single spot across them, you know, So people
are thinking this way.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
So it's definitely a movement towards it.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So I mean if you look at kind of you know,
driving simulators, you know, I mean there used to be
driving so but I think the advent with as popular
as F one has gotten. I think we you know,
people are following all the Instagram sites for one, they're
looking at kind of the simulators that the F one
drivers are on that have hydraulics on, that have movement
to them, which is trying to create as much of
(15:03):
a real world experience for an F one driver. And
you know, I saw something where max erstaff On on
his off weeks. They say, basically, all he does is
get into the similar And the other thing that I
wanted to lead into this is Max races against other
simulator drivers when he's at home. He's the best F
(15:24):
one driver on the planet, right, He's the world champion.
In his off time, he's in his own home, he's
at the factory on a singular racing other novice people
that aren't F one drivers. So this idea to where
you guys are trying to gamify everything. Talk to me
(15:45):
about these concepts, because I know you're in talks with universities,
high school programs and stuff like that. You say, listen,
is there a way through tech and through everybody connected socially,
can we have competitions glowe off of.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
This suchuch technology? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Perfect, So Claude I grew up playing at a PGA
tour course called Enjoy, where your father was a champion.
Pretty cool up BC Open, and now it's the Dick's
Sporting Kids Open, so it's a great place I used
to I was a member there for one hundred and
eighty bucks. It was the cheapest childcare in the world.
I think my mom dropped me out there in the morning,
(16:25):
picked me up at night, and played thirty six or
forty five holes a day.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
With a couple of hot dogs along the way.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
But from end of October all the way through to
mid April, end of April, I lost ground on all
the southern kids that were literally grinding all through the
winter long. And by the time we actually actually had
state championships in New York at Cornell, it was like,
all right, here's two weeks, good luck.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And if you didn't have like a family with a
Florida home, you had no chance.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
So I mean what we did in the winter was
like we hit into a net and it was like
it was terrible. Now this seem technology has gotten better,
but just think about it like this, what you're saying
there on the formula one side is exactly the vision
that I have and we have a shared collective vision
as a company where because of the ability to create
that hyper realistic, you know, experience that the players are
(17:15):
going to want to be playing in their home on
the setup that most replicates what course is coming next.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right, So like if I'm playing a practice round at
any tour.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Event and I get to a hole where it's like,
this is kind of a shot that I didn't like.
I tried to hit three or four shots, but you
know there's groups behind us. I can't really grind and
work through that experience on that shot because you can't
practice on the course. But we're giving you the ability.
And what we did at Port Rush was just pick
a spot, go out to that spot, practice, hit up,
(17:45):
hit twenty thirty forty balls on that spot, and then
go on you know what I mean. So the idea
is ultimately that yes, all of I'd like to think
and I've talked to a lot of our programs I
just got back from Illinois and Mike Small and have
them have the ability to play against, you know, every
other team in Division one, so that there's a kind
of a democratization and there's like an off course championship
(18:07):
where everybody can play on the same course under the
same conditions and see where the chips fall.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You know, it'd be a very interesting thing for the
first time ever to do that.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
And then one step further, you take tour players, whether
it's LPGA, PGA live, and put them playing on the
same environment as everybody else in the world. As long
as there's standardization of the technology and you know that
people are hitting from those on even lies, and you
have like an inklinometer like our technology does to tell
you that, then you can have games where you have
thousands and thousands of competitors at the same time in
(18:37):
the same environment.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
That's a really it's a really important point to Thomas Knix.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
It's something you touched upon in one of your earlier
questions where you said this technology has been around, you
know where there the ability to sort of make up
otter create some sort of slope. But what hasn't been
around is the ability to qualify a score time and
time again. So if you think about this situation we're
facebook right now. When it comes to indoor golf, a
lot of it is AUTOCALC two puts you move on
to the next hole. There's no there's no repeatability, and
(19:02):
a lot of it is due to like structural integrity,
you know, the ability to qualify or replicate the environment
time and time again.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
You know, these.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Surfaces move, et cetera. You know, I'm from Ireland, obviously,
it's why I say aluminium. You guys say aluminum, but
we use an aluminum substructure and that allows us to qualify,
you know, and have that repeatable environment which hasn't been
maybe there or prevalent before in the past. So when
you're thinking about you know, why hasn't why isn't there
an off course handicap system, Why aren't people competing?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Why isn't there gambling?
Speaker 4 (19:29):
For us, it's because we haven't been able to replicate
the environment at different locations time and time again. And
that's what we're doing. So when you look at Max
and what he's doing, that's our vision, as Thomas says,
is to actually have the likes of the DJ.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Or a Rory or a Brooks or whoever it.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Is, competing online in the comfort of their home because
you and I, but we all know when pros are off,
they're off, but they're always looking to scratch the h
of golf. So if you can set that up for
them in their house. It's win win for everybody, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So I think everybody's familiar with the fact that you
can go to a simulator or buy a simular or
they have them in public spaces now and then you
could go play Pebble Beach, right, you could go play
an eighteen hole.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Round of Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So is the technology that you guys have available to
where if you set up to go play Pebble Beach
on the simulator and you hit one to the left
of the hole in the rough, and it's going to
simulate that you were in the rough and it's downhill,
it's below your feet. So let's say you were going
(20:31):
to play, you know, a course that was a tour
course that kind of has a massive sloping fairway from
right to left, and you hit it up there, it
can simulate where you are the ball being above your
feet based off of the actual real golf course that
you're playing.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, exactly one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And so what I would say is that like everything
in life, there there are limits to technology and the
total percent slope on a true pr we can get
over seven percent, but on a twenty two by eleven.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Moving something that.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That high is a lot more difficult, But yeah, for
the gaming size platform, the recommended size, we can get
it up. And what we can do is we can
hit the maximum slopes allowable by the us GA and RNA,
which is four percent on a green and beyond that
by a few percent on the full swing.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So yeah, it creates extremes.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And just like Rory said, when when you get up
on that platform and you're hitting that approach shot, it'll
feel like thirteen in Augusta.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You know that that hanging lie or you know, it'll feel.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like the seventeenth at Port Rush when you're on that
big down slope there, it's gonna it's going to totally
challenge a different level of your kind of psyche indoors
than it ever has. And the other thing that I'm
the most excited about is.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Like like the teaching day that we're building.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I don't know if we want to tell the world,
but like down there in Dubai, but like the ability
to have the downrange.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And for you as a coach to be able to
move people around.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I'm so excited for you to have that kind of
capacity and then turn out and putt. It's all in
one right there, and yeah, the extremes are going to
be there. The other thing that you should know is
that we're working with one of the top turf companies
in the world right now and creating some really really
cool rough and hitting matt structures that are going to
be able to, you know, take it even that much
(22:17):
further instead of just allowing for the simulator to calibrate
it to a percentage, We're going to have some really
cool rough structures that are going to be able to
you know, it's going to take some time on testing
to get the tracking of the ball out of rough
because you know, they need to be able to pick
up the whole ball and if there's some challenges there.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
But we're getting there. But it's really coming together nicely.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You know. The real world application of this guy's So
I was giving a golf listen yesterday to a guy
who is a very good competitive mid end player. He's
a member at o'kill Country Club up in Rochester where they,
you know, Brooks won the twenty twenty three PGA. They've
had Ryder Cups there, so it's an iconic golf course,
right but weather wise, this guy hits a lot of
golf balls at home in a simulator, and it's a finance.
(23:00):
He's working stuff, so he can't always get to the
golf course. So one of the things he flew down
yesterday to the Florida. I see him on a regular basis.
He comes down about, you know, every.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Couple of months.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But one of the things that was I find really
interesting about all of the guys that live up in
the Northeast or work a lot on simulators is their
aim is horrendous because they're all on the simulator, right,
and they're never really thinking about where they're aiming. So
this guy's aim gets all over the place because he's
(23:31):
just doing one repetitive thing. So I think the power
in that tech that you guys have is the ability
to say, Okay, we're going to adjust this. Lie not
anything crazy, right, We're not going to put you on
a four percent slot. We're just going to adjust this
a little bit. And then in a controlled environment, in
a simulator environment, we can have you have to offset
(23:56):
the fact that we've changed the ground. And then guys
the other power in this specifically from a putting standpoint,
almost everybody I work with and see dramatically underreads their potts, right,
they just do right. So you have them take a
look at where they're aiming and there are two three
(24:19):
balls four balls out. So when we were at the
Open Championship and you guys put the platform in for
sky Sports and their big kind of you know, all singing,
all dancing open zone, right, what was really cool is
the segment that I filmed for you guys. I went
in there and what we tried to do was simulate
(24:39):
a pin a pin position on the golf course. So
the sixteenth pole, the part three at Royalport Rush with
you know the valley down to the right of it.
We looked at the we looked at the pin sheet
and the pin was cut three from the left, four
from the front, and we looked at one the greens
(25:00):
books and we looked at the slope. We were just
able to type that in and then go look at that.
And the segment I did was I think everybody tends
to practice putting off of a again block practice. They
practiced three foot puts on a straight putt, but it
might be guys until the back nine till you get
(25:24):
a flat three footer that everybody practices. So For me,
I think the ability to randomize the practice is something
that I think I've probably done more in the last
ten years than I did in the early part of
my career to try and have somewhat of skill acquisition
(25:46):
as opposed to just block practice. So this merging of
the way players practice the way we are trying to
gamify their practice. Play this out, guys in five years.
I mean, if you look at TGL, looked like it
was a success last year, that facility looked amazing. I've
(26:07):
got to think they'll start to replicate those right, But
where do you, guys see the long term vision not
only for the company, but the long term direction of
kind of indoor simulator golf. Is it this kind of
quest to kind of have the feel of a real shot,
the feel of a really made putt in a real situation.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, I'm kind of every day trying to pull myself
back into the day because I love thinking about the
future and in a lot of ways, and and I
would I would think about it like this.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
TGL is very similar to what we're trying to do
in that like, you know, if you if you want
to go and do a French Alps tour, and ride
the Tour de France.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
You can, but you can also do it on a peloton,
and so we're very similar to the peloton experience. If
the pelotons experience scot to learn from you know how
to handle supply chain, do it to do some other
cool things. But give you access to the best spin
cycle instructors in New York instead of Instead of giving
you access to the best spin cycle instructors in New York,
we're going to be giving people access to people like
(27:13):
you and people like Brat.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I mean, like, think about that for a second.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Having you know a few people out there in the industry,
incumbents like a skillster, you know, coaching things you know
that are in the market. This is going to be
able to give you the experience of working with you
while you're doing a live lesson on your platform and
you can do it from your home and take in
what you're saying and try to enact it in real time.
(27:37):
And all you need is really about fifteen by twenty
space with ten foot iigh ceilings and you're good to go.
So it's it's a lot different and we don't have
to you know, go and build a you know, a
football stadium.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
To get it done right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
It's a little different than that because I don't think
there there's a few of your clients and a few
of our clients that could do that, but nobody's realistically
going to do that their at home practice.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right. Did I miss anything there were? I mean, I think.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
That's I think you know you mentioned obviously the open
zone sky, and it was it was an amazing experience
for us to be involved in that, and obviously you know,
you're much more use of that environment and live TV
and everything that comes with it. And what was really
fascinating to me outside of the shanganner you get a
cameraman with when Pete Kann was giving me a lesson
on the platform off uneven Liss, But was that how
(28:25):
some of the players in the field when they came
over to their segments, how they were reacting to actually
hitting balls off slope.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
And we're not going to name and shame anybody. Some
of the people adopted it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Very very quickly.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Some people didn't, and there was some really really big
misses and their reaction was not I just don't practice
off slope. It's like, how can you go and compete
appropriately to the best of your ability if your preparation
for a course like Port Rush, which is like an
undulated golf course, not the most undulated golf course in
the world, but there are some parts of that golf
course where there's extremes. You know, how can you expect
(29:00):
to go there and compete to the best of your
ability if you're not practicing all of those lines. You know,
So you're talking about it, you know, I'm being an
exponent or proponent of over the last of a decade,
I'd say you're probably a little bit ahead of what's
considered the norm.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know, it's much more.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Relevant to the now and how people are teaching, and
you see it on facility design as well, and how
people are trying to incorporate slope and you know, and
the ability to allow their talent to hit off on
even lies because you know, people have some cash to spend,
and some people who join these fancy clubs expect that
extra sort of one or two percenters, you know, that
really differentiates their couple of the others. And I think
(29:36):
this is the next stage of it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And on your spect.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Guys, lastly, you mentioned that I think when launch monitor
technology came out, it wasn't what it is now.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Now I have.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Sixteen year old kids coming in with a thirty thousand
dollars launch monitor. So launch monitor technology went from something
that was very very obscure, very very niche, and now
it is a major part of every single broadcast you
But my point behind that was I think one of
the things that got launch monitor technology kind of into
the mainstream was all of the manufacturers. You would know
(30:09):
that Cobra Tailor made Titleist and stuff, they had bought
thirty launch monitors. They were doing everything with this technology.
And as soon as that happened, if all of the
club companies are using this technology, then I think people
started to go, Okay, well it's here to stay. We're
going to start using it. So the relationship that you
guys have had with the manufacturers with the different companies,
(30:31):
I know you put a system in Cobra, I know
you put one in at Taylor, made that relationship. Why
do you think the manufacturers are so interested in partnering
with you guys in getting the systems into their facilities,
into their test facilities. And where do you see that
relationship going? Also with the US college university programs that
(30:54):
I know you guys are involved in it as well.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
My first install, when I was in a non executive
board member of the original Perfection Platforms, was at the.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Kingdom in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
The tailor made facility.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, the tailor made facility And it's a funny, funny thing.
When we were installing it, we always added an extra
actuator because sometimes they can get damage and shipping. I
drove over the Sierra Nevadas all the way to Papago
to the Arizona State facility because we.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Left an extra actuator there in.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Our manufacturer didn't send one with this the biggest build
at the time ever, and so anyway, we got it
back in, we.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Plugged it in. It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
And the reason I tell you that anecdote is because
Arizona State we formed partnerships to these programs and tell
them what's coming, and we try to stay out in
front of things so that the coaches are educated by
us and they're not just sold things by us. So
when we installed that, John Rahm was at the ribbon
cutting and it was very exciting. Well, then at Taylor Made,
he was there getting putter fitted by Dwayne Anderson, a
(31:55):
kind of a known putter fitting guru, and it was
found pretty quickly once they him on the left to
right lie in twenty twenty. That wasn't doing great at
making left to right putts and that was a gap
in the way he is putting. Whether it was the
putter or the stroke, I don't want to comment on that,
but like they figured it out. And then if you remember,
he wanted Tory the US open and he made two
(32:16):
fifteen footers on left to right lies, which was exactly
what they worked on at the Kingdom, and it was
kind of like holy moly. So we kind of got
there from our relationship with Arizona State and that new
bird that Phil and the guys built there.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
We were one of the original partners there.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Then they put us in with the Kingdom and then
you know, in twenty two him, DJ and Colin were
all fit.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
There were number one, two, and.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Three on the WAGGER or the not Wagger, the WGR
rankings last time they were unified.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We're all fit for their putters on our platform.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So having the best fitting experience possible for the players
and the best R and D.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Capability to test technology is what these OEMs.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Want, and so we had to have high integrity of
our products, our percentage slow, and you know, I think
that they love that. And from a commercial perspective, I'm
a commercial guerrilla myself. You've got to have a while
factor to differentiate yourself when you're downstream fitting people and
you're downstream actually creating experience. When you cover the home office,
you want to see like you're stepping up onto a
(33:16):
platform and getting that baseline data capture. It can't just
be on a flat piece of turf in an office somewhere.
You have to really feel like you're doing something that's
similar to what what we call like a blood draw,
like it's clean, it's perfect, and it gives you the
exact slopes on the software is what is in real life.
So I think downstream, the OEMs are going to continue
to learn a lot about what happens to club waiting
(33:39):
when you work off of one even lies, especially in
the irons.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
And then I think also you.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Look at the future of you know, how you support
your PGA pros that are on your staff, you.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Know, subsidizing the you know, products.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Like ours to really drive influence in markets of doing
proper fittings. I think it's going to be a big thing,
whether it's at the jib pro level for those OEMs
or Dicks or a big box retail.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
I would just add on the OEMs.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I think b you know, let's say ten twenty years ago,
it was there was obviously a clear sort of goal,
set of standards when they came to some of the
club fetters and also of club manufacturers and you know,
who were the chosen for you. Whereas now there's a
there's more, you know, there's much more choice and the
pursuit of perfection to try and be like differentiators as
to you know, what what's better and what works is
really really important. But I think, you know, we're working
(34:28):
with a lot of the OEMs, and we're about to
work with some more, and they're just trying to find
it's the pursuit of perfection, you know, they're trying to
find those additional one percent, you know, like when it
comes to not only just like a driver fitting, but
even from like a wedge perspective.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
We're working with.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
An OEM now that's specific to you know for or
famous for their wedges, and they want to try and
find those extra levels, you know, those extra sort of
one percent that really differentiate themselves from the market because
it's it's tied out there as you know, you know,
there's a really really there's some quality equipment available to everybody,
and that's why we're sort of adding that extra value
(35:01):
add to them and that experience as well.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
You know, I think the applications and also for universities.
You know, for college golf programs, there are a lot
of players you know now choosing to go to college
golf programs that are not in Florida. They're not in
Texas where you're going to be practicing in the sunshine.
So the college golf programs, the best ones in the country,
are trying to replicate in an indoor situation if they
(35:25):
are weather dependent. You know, guys like Mike Small and Illinois,
all of the kind of the Big Ten, kind of
some of the Big East schools, they're going to need
indoor facilities to offset the fact that they're not in sunshine.
You can't practice outdoors three hundred and sixty five days
a year. So I think that combination of being in
(35:47):
not only the manufacturers but also with the college golf programs,
and then you know, having people like myself, it can
take advantage of it from a instructional standpoint. Guys, where
can people find out more about Platform Golf.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
The website is platform golf dot com and obviously our
instagram is Platform Golf. So yeah, that that is that
is the easiest way to get at us. And we'll
obviously send you information on the depth of our products
if you add your email. And I'll say one last
thing plot on that on that subject is that I would.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Venture to say that you like to use the launch
monitor in most of your lessons. We would like to
believe that eventually in the next three to five years
that pros will it'll be a differentiating value proposition where
you'd want to go to your pro that has the
ability to teach off of one even lives as the
same way, we wouldn't go to somebody without a TrackMan
(36:40):
or a Foresight or a REPSOD or whatever it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Is you know, or true golf system. So like, we
want to change the standard is what we're trying to do.
In your OEM comment was exactly right. They had all
the forty.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Dollars track mans before it was brought to the brought
to some of the consumable levels. So yeah, I like
to think that we're going to hopefully change the game
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Well, I'm really looking forward to the system we're installing
in Dubai and we'll give you guys some good feedback.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Guys, best to Luck.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Thanks for talking to us, and I'm excited to see
which direction everything goes in the future.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Thanks, Love, appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I appreciate that Son of Which comes to you almost
every week. Thanks everyone for listening.
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