Ep. 156 - LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan

In this episode of the Clubhouse with Shane Bacon, Shane is joined by LPGA Commissioner, Mike Whan, to talk about the LPGA's return to competitive golf at Inverness Club. Mike shares how the LPGA has handled the pandemic, the relationships with sponsors, and how the LPGA has approached and educated themselves on the social justice movement.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Clubhouse with Shane Bacon, a production of
I Heart Radio Welcome to the Clubhouse with Shane Bacon.
I am your host, Shane Bacon, and a good one.
This week, lpg A Commissioner Mike One joined the show.

(00:20):
He was he was on before. A little bit different
this time considering everything that's happened over the last few
months with COVID and with quarantine and and now the
LPGA Tour returning this week at at Inverness in Toledo,
Ohio for the LPGA Drive On Championship. This is their return.
The PGA Tour, of course has been back for a
few weeks, but this is gonna be exciting. I mean,

(00:41):
a chance to see the lpg back on one of
the most unbelievable golf courses that I've had a chance
to to call events on. We had the Junior Amateur
last year that Preston Summer has won in dramatic fashion
at Inverness, and of course a lot of history at
that golf course. But I was blown away when when
I when I got to Toledo for the first time
in a chance to drive around uh this golf course

(01:02):
in a golf cart. I think I face time to
Andy Johnson and the fried Egg on about the fourth
hole and just said, hey, this this is as good
as I think it is, right and he said, oh,
it's it's unbelievable. I mean, it's It's one of those
golf courses that I feel like, if everything wasn't able
to happen somewhere, say a US Open was in San Francisco,
or you know, a p J Championship was in Vermont

(01:26):
and some natural disaster happened, I feel like you go
to Inverness the next day. The golf course is long,
the rough is is thick, and it is an unbelievable
place with some great finishing whole So excited to watch
and excited for Mike to join. I mean, just a
great conversation about everything he's gone through. You know, we
talked about this on the pod. The the LPGA Tour
was dealing with COVID in January, you know, when when
they had to cancel some events in Asia, and so

(01:48):
they were really the first ones that had to take
on the challenges that we've seen over the last few
months across all sports and across society in general. And
so Mike has obviously kind of firsthand experience on what
to do and what's been going down and and he
shares that with us. So I hope you enjoy the
chat with Mike. I surely did just quickly if you
if you haven't checked out Get a Grip. It's my
other podcast with Max Homa of course of the PGA tour,

(02:12):
Get a Grip with Max Holm and Shane Bacon and
Max had a great week this past week at three
m so jump on. We we recorded on Sunday and
it's up now anywhere you get your podcast, give it
a list in. Max share some unbelievable perspective about you know,
a few weeks of struggles, missing cuts by one shot,
getting down on himself, his attitude not being where he
wanted it, and then flipping it this past week and

(02:32):
really trying to approach approach the week, the event, the holes,
the shots completely differently, and of course that worked out
as he finished tied for third. So I hope you
guys and are enjoying that podcast. We've got another clubhouse
this week with the Court of Sisters with with both
Court of Sisters that will probably drop Thursday morning. So
just because you're getting a clubhouse earlier in the week.

(02:53):
Don't think that that's stopping us, because we're gonna have
another one with a couple of guests on Thursday, which
will be awesome. You know, Nelly Quarter now second in
the world, so she has quickly moved up the ranks,
is at a very very young age. Excited to chat
with them about not just growing up together and competing,
but what it's like now to be two of the
best players in the world that are sisters. It's a
it's very very unique story. So that'll be exciting. And

(03:14):
again that'll probably be Thursday morning on your telephones when
the podcast drops, so check out and look for that. Okay,
that's enough for me. Let's get to the pod and
welcome back into the clubhouse. Mike won the LPGA Commissioner.
You can follow him on Twitter at LPGA commission and Mike,
I just want to start LPGA returns this week in Toledo.

(03:36):
You just picked the dog track Man Inverness, you know,
one of the best golf courses in the country. I
was lucky enough to get a chance to call the
US Junior there last year when Summer Hayes won. That
place is just unbelievable and it feels and I know,
I know you're not there yet, but it feels like
a major championship venue and I can only imagine this

(03:57):
week is gonna feel majorie for everybody getting back to golf. Yeah,
I mean I'm in Ohio and so I went to
school in Ohio. I know Inverness, and uh, it was funny.
One of the players called me she's from Europe during
the during our break here, and when I announced invern
she goes, well, that's not fair. What do you mean
that's not fair? She goes, How am I gonna not
come back and play Inverness? Especially with Solheim Cup twenty

(04:19):
one taking place there. So I didn't mean it to
be unfair, but I did want it to be special.
You know, we've all sat for a long time, but
I wanted to return to feel, to feel different than
you knew right from the beginning. It'll be cool to
to show me a TV two different Inverness golf clubs.
I mean, one's gonna be no fans, no pro ams,
you know, only a really small handful of volunteers. So

(04:40):
Inverness like you'd see it at a member guest, you know,
with no build out, and then a year from now,
over later Labor Day weekend, you'll see you'll see Invernice
with a hundred and fifty thousand fans of a lot
of painted face and singing and dancing going on. So
we'll see the same course twice in the next year,
but in very different circumstances. Yeah, I'm not really sure
people know that us, but I'm gonna guess you're the

(05:02):
first commissioner that really had to deal with COVID. I mean,
going back to January, you had events in Asia that
were canceled, and then of course that was how things
started to roll out and other sports we saw everything
get canceled at one point, and then we obviously have
seen sports struggle to get back. Considering you were dealing
with this pandemic well before other commissioners had to kind
of face it on, did you get approached by other

(05:23):
commissioners asking you how you handled it? Is there like
a text chain that you guys are all on. How
How does that work in terms of how you discuss
your sport and what you're doing with the LPGA tour,
with not just the PGA Tour, but possibly the n B,
A MLB other sports organizations out there. Yeah, you're right,
we were talking coronavirus before it was really being discussed

(05:44):
dur in America. I guess it was late January. UM.
We were on our way to Australia the first time.
I got an email about it from from one of
our tournament groups in Thailand and Singapore and said, we
need to talk about coronavirus. I've been honest with you,
I had to google coronavirus. I wasn't sure what they
were talking about. And we we started getting on the phone,
and the more people we talked to in the more
regions we realized we were dealing with something that was

(06:06):
really UM, I would be honsket with you, and we
canceled our events in February. We canceled them more from
what we didn't know how we didn't like to answer
to our question. Remember remember one health officials saying to me,
if somebody in your tour were to get the virus
while you're here, will simply quarantine you in your hotel
for back then they said twenty one days. And I
remember saying, you know, quarantine is kind of an interesting word.

(06:28):
Maybe something's lost in translation. I think quarantine something very
military like locked in a tent and he goes, no,
same thing, that's what we mean. That's how would you
quarantine a tour? And they said, what, We'd actually keep
you in your hotel for three weeks and we test you.
Um and at the end of those three weeks, if
nobody was sick, we'd let you move on to your
next city. And I said, you know, for a quarantine
in the hotel in Thailand for three weeks, I mean,

(06:48):
they'd be international news. And literally maybe a month later.
It was was our first cruise ship coronavirus. And then
we started hearing about these other quarantines, so we canceled Thailand, Singapore,
and China pretty early in the year. And you know,
and then even when we did that, I remember thinking, well,
it's too bad, we're gonna miss Asia in the spring
this year, but we'll be good to go and Phoenix

(07:09):
in l A when we get back, we'll just start
up our season. Of course, by the time Phoenix and
l A rolled around, the virus is no longer just
over there, but a global challenge. So yeah, it was
it was unique and um, yeah, we definitely talked to
a few other tours. Tod tennis had been in Thailand
and a a similar time for US. Our first dialogue was
with the w t A and some of the folks
from the Tennis Association. And then yeah, as things became

(07:31):
more and more evident in the US, it became a
closer knit group. I mean, I wouldn't tell you we
spend a lot of time with the NBA or Major
League Soccer or the NFL, But in the middle of
this virus, we were we were sharing more information than
certainly shared in my living years as commissioner. Yeah, I mean,
I'm sure it's one of those things where you're always
consuming information from whomever out there is talking about it,

(07:53):
and you're trying your best to take the good ideas
from j and the PGA tour, and the ideas maybe
you didn't love from the and some stuff that Major
League Baseball has done well, or maybe Major League Baseball
hasn't done well. I mean, I can you mentioned eleven
years and I was gonna bring that up a little
bit later. You've been been with the LPGA, Torson's two
thousand ten this. I mean, there's no reason for me

(08:14):
even ask if this is the hardest thing you've had
to go through, but I do wonder how much are
things changing, how fluid is the situation day to day?
And even in your sports business journal op ed that
you wrote that was great. I'll post that on Twitter
when we post this episode. You know, you said there
have been ten versions of the schedule that you've gone
through and changed. I bet that number grows each and

(08:35):
every day. Yeah, I mean March, April and May was
it was a crazy time. I mean, you bosually go
to bed every night, think you haven't solved for now,
wake up in the morning, open your computer, and because
it's always known somewhere else in the world, you'd realize
that everything you thought you saw there's you know, it's
like a big Jenga puzzle and somebody pull a log
out and the whole thing would come down in virtually
every day. I remember every night feeling like I had

(08:56):
to give a cup talk to my team just because
I knew they felt like I, which is, every time
we thought we saw something, um, the next thing came
that was even more challenging than the last. I would say,
in the last thirty days, it's become a little bit more.
I wouldn't say calm, there's no such thing as calm
and COVID. But I think we all sort of know
what we're dealing with now we've got our hands on.
Back then, when you're trying to build a schedule and

(09:17):
trying to think how to get playing again, we really
didn't have our head around what testing was available, when
was it going to be available, how would we test,
what were our partners in terms of contact tracing, and
how we make sure that we can keep our our
tour and our staff safe. I mean there was a
lot of guessing in the early days. Now, having watched
so many other tours and other sports get ready UM

(09:38):
and us being able to share those information, I mean,
now we have choices in terms of how we were
going to test and and different different third party resources,
a lot of our We've added five or six new
sponsors to the LPGA that are all part of our
new safety call safety protocol of sponsors. So you know,
what felt pretty lonely back in March and maybe April,
Now it feels like you've got a pretty like I

(09:58):
feel like I got a pretty good team. I mean,
every time I have a medical question, there's ten different
people I can ask, including ten different other sports that
have probably asked the same question. And and one of
the best things I think have come out of this
is I said many times my last decade here is
Commissioner has really been a time of collaboration and and
coordination on golf. I mean, the way the PGA tourgets

(10:20):
along with the LPGA gets along with the European Tour,
that r and a European Tour, USGA, etcetera. We all
are pretty close anyway. I think the Olympics really helped
bring us together. But thankfully because of that Olympic buying
that brought us together back in two thousand nine, this
this virus really put that to the test. And from
the very beginning we've all been working on this deal.

(10:41):
I've probably had as much as many calls with Keith
Pelly at the European Tour as I've had with my
own board in the last sixty days, just because there's
we have so much in common. Players small, over the world,
tournaments located on all the world, testing challenges that are
that are different in every country. I've said this many times,
but a lot of people think you you figure out
CORONAVI IRIS testing in a protocol and then you go

(11:02):
apply it to nineteen tournaments. But in my world, every
state is different, every county of every state is different.
And trust me when I say every country is completely different.
So you might have figured out how to play golf
in northwest Ohio, but that doesn't mean you've got a
solution for Scotland. And because you have a solution for
Scotland doesn't mean you have a solution for Naples, Florida.
So virtually every tournament is a is a renewed effort

(11:25):
in explaining your protocol and then adjusting based on what
the local government and health community requires. Yeah, Mike, I
was gonna say you didn't necessarily set yourself up easy
to start. I mean, you guys, go Ohio, fly a
charter to Scotland, and then your back state side. I
think in Arkansas, those are your first three weeks of
returning the LPGA Tour. You know, you could have just

(11:46):
done three in Ohio. That apparently works well for the
PGA Tour. Just go back to back at the same
golf course. Yeah, I've said, just movie ties with pre coronavirus. Overwhelmingly,
our best competitive advantage in the assect and in the
world of sports is are you know is the global
nature of us. You know, we're televising d seventy five
countries every week, players and fifty different countries. You play

(12:07):
in seventeen different countries. I mean, that is what makes
the LPGA that that is before coronavirus. That is the
typical reason other sports would call us. How do you
get so global? What were the challenges to get there?
Because most sports are pretty proud of their home region,
but they really want to have the world pay attention,
so they really want to sell their TV rights all
over the world. They really want to encourage growth for

(12:29):
their sport and all corners of the world. We've been
really proud of the fact that we're ahead of the
curve of most sports on that angle. But add a
virus to the mix where it's virtually different than every
country and everybody has their own way of sort of
attacking it, and being global isn't so isn't so great?
But I'm quite certain when the virus is behind us
once again, you know, being global and having such an

(12:51):
international footprint will be our advantage. But that's uh, you know,
that's the schedule we build, that's the commitment we make
to grow women's golf around the world. So yeah, I
think we'll play two in Ohio, which is nice to
players can come in, get one hotel room in a
one rental car. We'll play in Reiness the first week
and the Marathon Classic overt Highland Meadows the next week.
But after that, Yeah, the world of the LPGA as

(13:12):
we know it, which is playing strains and automobiles um
is in play and makes makes battling of virus even
more challenging. I think one of the reasons that people
just like you so much, in particular in terms of
a commissioner, is you know you're not scared to be
brutally honest you. I read arons Iraq article and you said,
you know, we're probably gonna cancel more tournaments coming up.

(13:34):
It's just part it's a it's a nature of the beast.
That's what we're gonna have to deal with. But I
read this quote from you, and I just loved it.
I thought it was I just thought it was a
great perspective you said in that Sports Business Journal article.
You said, quote, we view the decision to resume play
as a responsibility, not a race, And I just felt
like if I was a player playing under your tour,

(13:56):
I would feel like you were looking out for us,
and that through a quote like that, it just seems like,
you know, the most important thing here is keeping everybody
safe and everybody comfortable and feeling like it's going to continue,
and that has been your goal this whole time. You know,
I'd love the lie Da Shane and say that perspective,
that bigger picture perspective is is built in me and

(14:18):
it was part of my DNA. But the real truth
of the matter is when this all started and we
you know, we did, you know, come to a stop
and everybody was at home, I'd probably talked to fifteen
or twenty, maybe thirty players a day from all over
the world. I mean, just whatever their concerns were, their thoughts,
and I would just call some people sometimes goes because
I'm an extrovert and I don't like we're living in
you know, working in my dead by myself all day,

(14:39):
so um and I remember hanging up the phone and
I had these notes. I always take my team trying
to make fun of me, but great time I want
to call. I'm making just a bunch of one word
notes of things people said. I look at these notes
at the end of the eight from all these player conversations,
and almost all of them were safe. Slow be sure.
I mean, my players were saying to me, listen, like,
I know you. I know you're a competitive guy. I

(15:02):
know that you know watching this season and the schedule
go away has got to be tough, and so I'm
sure you're doing everything you can to get us back
out there. And then it would always slip the conversation.
But on behalf of me and a bunch of my friends,
you know this is not something you need to do.
You only have to prove this to us, get us
back out there when you think you can get us
back out there, and it would always shift too, And

(15:24):
I don't think of the fun I think, gosh, she's
twenty four, she's twenty two, or that person is thirty
one to just talk to I'm fifty five, and she's
guiding me, like like my parents, you know, guide me.
Were essentially saying, I know you're a competitive guy. I
don't want to rush to get back up there. You're
probably talking to other sports and everybody's talking about how
fast you can return. But I really felt like I
gathered that perspective from my athletes, from my caddies. You

(15:47):
know from my staff, which is just Mike, this is
not them. Nobody's gonna win in Remember one of my
board members said, you realize, right, Mike, that no matter
how good or how bad, it's not what you envisioned,
it's not when they envisioned. And nobody will look back
at you and say, man, that that was a good year. So,
knowing that, knowing it's the year of the asterisks, don't

(16:09):
you know, don't mortgage the future to have a good
The point was made is don't go back to all
these sponsors who contractually have to play an event, a
pull out some legal document, tell them what they do
or don't have to do. This is this is a
year that's uncomfortable for everybody, our our athletes included. So
let's make sure that when this is over, we don't
have a three or four year lag effect on how

(16:31):
really shut down the LPGA. So one of the things
I would tell you from that perspective is, no matter
matter when coronavirus is in our rearview mirror, I have
zero doubt, I mean zero doubt that the future of
the LPGA will actually be stronger than it was before
we entered because the relationship we've built with our sponsors
in a year in which they're uncomfortable and they're I'm
sure if somebody looks at me and says, Mike, I

(16:53):
just can't get comfortable playing, we don't play. My players
may not want to hear that. It's just a fact
because I'd rather be with that sponsor for the next
ten years then make them do something uncomfortable with in
the next ten weeks. It's just you know, losing the war.
So yeah, I wish I had big picture, long term,
you know, grandfather like perspective. I don't think hyper and
I'm aggressive and I'm competitive, but my athletes were smart

(17:15):
enough to recognize that and coach me through it. We're
gonna take a quick break and be right back. Even
talking about your sponsors, I know that that you're big

(17:37):
as you should be on on pumping up the sponsors
in and around the LPGA, and and you know, I'm
a big LPGA tour fans, so I'm happy to help.
And I'm gonna focus on one here and then you're
you can you can run with all the sponsors in
the world. You want to give some love to. I
have another podcast I do called get a Grip. I
do it with Maxima the PGA Tour, and we've been
pumping all year the a On Risk for Word Challenge

(17:57):
because Max has been close to the lead and we
talked about on every episode. We have a little bit
of fun with it. And I found out that first
of all, one thing if people don't know that a
On does, which I very I think is very cool,
is the prize on the LPGA Tours the same as
the prize on the PGA Tour. It's a million dollars
to the winner. What they've done differently this year with
the LPG and everything that's happened is they basically have
have given you guys that million dollars to split up

(18:20):
in the purse. So all the players that make the cut,
that are going to make money that week and throughout
the weeks get a little bit of the a On money.
That's cool. What else are sponsors doing for you guys?
What else are you guys doing with sponsors that is
very unique and very different than what you've done in
the past considering what's going on. Yeah, yeah, And it's
a great example. I mean, it's funny. When I had

(18:41):
my first conversation to day On and I said, hey,
would you consider rather than me handing one player a
million dollar check this year, me handling all of our
players a little bit of a million dollars to help
us get through. And their answer was great, which was,
we don't have a problem with that, Mike, but it's
important us we treat the men and the women the same,
and the men are going to have a million all
the winner this year, so it's uncomfortable not to have

(19:02):
a woman's winner. And I thought that was a great answer, Like,
I mean, I love the fact that they didn't want
to look like they were offering less when they weren't.
And I said, well different. I mean the PGA Tour
as a wrapp around season, they're much farther into their
season ending. We've played four events, you know, so we're
you know, we're not isn't in the books. And I said,
you know, if, if, if, that million dollars can help

(19:23):
everybody get playing. So this first event we're playing, the
Drive On Championship at Inverness, is really funded by people
like a On and other tournaments that didn't play this
year that actually said to us, I'm not going to
play this year, but here's some money. Please make sure
you use this to help the athletes get through a
tough year. So, whether you're talking about cp up in Canada,

(19:43):
whether we're talking about meyer Dow, these are all people
that couldn't play their event this year for whatever virus
impacted reason. But still said to us on the way out.
By the way, all of those sponsors, including a on
that I've mentioned in the midst of extended their agreement
with the LPG. I tell the players all the time,
the coolest thing about dealing with the virus is when

(20:04):
somebody on the other end of the phone says, MICUs
just can't work for me, and here's the reasons why.
But I want you to know, and I want your
athletes to know I'm not going anywhere, and if you
want to extend our deal longer, right it up and
send it to me. I don't think I know a
sponsor who isn't playing this year who hasn't already extended
their deal longer than however it was before. So I
think that's kind of the the coolest thing about you

(20:25):
know what's happening this year. The other thing on the
sponsor front is, you know we had partnerships with companies
like NBC, a big lestronics company, and we did all
kinds of things together with ANYC, shot tracers and that
kind of stuff, things that were pretty golf. But when
you get into a pandemic, we reached out to NYC
and said he can you help us through? And so
ANYC has given us essentially these mountable iPads that a

(20:45):
player walks up, looks at the iPad, it recognizes who
she is, takes her temperature without touching anybody or anything,
and make sure that she's okay to walk into player dining,
of the locker room, wherever else she's moving to him
Now in our offices at the LPGA headquarters as well,
where they were just a partner for us in other
kinds of technology, but in this kind of moment um,

(21:06):
and you know that list goes on. In Canbia is
our title sponsor in Portland's has been for many years,
but as a health care company, they came to us
and said how can we help? And now they're the
official mask and sanitizing provider to the LPGA. Everybody's gonna
be wearing a Canban mask and we return again. Good
partners anyway, but great partners in the middle of a
real crisis. So what will you do with the LPGA

(21:29):
tour that is the same as what the PGA Tour
has done throughout the last six seven weeks of returning
to play? And what are you guys gonna do that
is different than what we've seen with the PGA Tour.
I think I think from an outsider perspective, you'll probably
see more of the same. I think if you're a
little closer to it, um, you'd regging nize differences. So um,

(21:50):
outside wise, very similarly, no one's really going to play
their way off the tour. So my athletes know, um
that no matter how much or how little you play
this year, Semector Tour, l ET, lp J, any of
our tours, your spot that you had when began is
your spot in twenty one. And so what I got
to said the players at the very beginning is I

(22:10):
am not going to be the guy that creates a
disincentive if you want to stay home this year, if
you don't want to fly around the world, if this
isn't for you, if you live with a eighty year
old relative and this just you know, this scares you,
and all kinds of front, stay home, don't need you,
doesn't affect your career. There will be no Q school.
We're not repopulating our tours. So I think that's pretty similar.
And I know I from talking to j and certainly Keith,

(22:32):
that that's a pretty similar statement where we're you know,
if if you if you, if you skip this year,
you're not usually in golf, unlike you know, basketball football,
we have a five year deal and a three year
no trade cause and in golf you've got to play
every year and keep your spot next year. We've we've
eliminated that stress. Similarly, we'll be doing a lot of testing,
although our testing is our our testing approach and our

(22:53):
testing partners are different. So in our case, we're doing
saliva testing. You know, you're kind of spitting the tube.
You send that tube in the next morning, you know,
get your results, We get your results back. Um, there's
some pros and cons of both kinds of testing. But
but you know, everybody had to find their own testing
partner as it relates as it relates to playing, We're
we're going to try in our first seven events. I

(23:15):
think we have one proram. Um, we're gonna try to
pro am we're gonna test all the participants in the program.
I think if if we feel like we can. You know,
most of our players quite frankly, most of my staff
is playing a lot of golf right now, um, and
they're playing with other people, So most people feel pretty
comfortable and safe to play golf outside with social distancing, etcetera. UM.
And obviously, as you no shame, pro ams are key

(23:37):
to our business. Will feel PGA, We're not going to
play many when we get started, but we want to
figure that out. So with Marathon, we're gonna do a
pro am, We're gonna test all the participants and then hopefully,
you know, that's something we can get back to in
a little bit greater degree in the fall. In the
short term, no fans, no program, And I think it's
six of our seven first events. But like I said,

(23:57):
I think if you're watching on TV, you'll say a
lot of of miliarities. I think if you're probably in
the bubble with us, you said there's some there's some
things we do different than the PGA tour advice versa.
Exactly how we'll handle a positive case or contact tracing
will be will be consistent, but not but not identical.
And that's um, neither is right nor wrong if since
everybody's got a slightly different philosophy, and how we how

(24:19):
we handle those situations. How have you I mean you
said it, You said you wake up every morning and
I can only imagine the phone check. You know, in bed,
you look at the phone, look at your emails. All right,
I gotta get my day going. Let's let's see what
we've got to tackle today. What have you done to
kind of get away from it? How have you been

(24:41):
able to distance yourself from this at times and just
be a sane human being? Because I can imagine if
if you've been dealing with this since January, it can
be massively overwhelming to the point where most of us
who are dealing with this because for our families, our jobs,
things like that, you know, we don't have a whole
two or to deal with. So how have you been

(25:01):
able to step away? What have you done to just
get away and clear your mind? You know, it's funny.
I've got a twenty three, twenty five and twenty six
year old son, all of which we're gone in different cities,
in different places before coronavirus, and all of which probably
thought next time they'd see Dad would be Christmas and Thanksgiving. Um,
and all have been home since the middle of mart
So um, which has been the greatest gift for me

(25:23):
and probably the biggest nightmare for them, you know. So um.
You know, one came back from University Virginia, want to
just graduate from Notre Dame, and um, you know, it
was in the middle of kind of job job interview process.
One's a lawyer up in Atlanta. But they're all back
here because every all their places are are closed to
so as. My wife will chuckle sometimes and I can
be as stressed as I wanted to be. But if
I walk out, you know, if I walk out at

(25:45):
breakfast and there's three twenty something's having breakfast arguing about
you know, whatever they argue about. But I promise you
they're arguing about something, it's hard not to just you know,
it's hard not to just get out of the moment
for a second. We live, like most for the Ridians.
I live on a golf course, so I can kind
of walked through the trees in my backyard and beyond
the six t and just you know, played nine or
nine holes or something. So I would tell you I've

(26:06):
played more golf. Um, it's funny. I played golf about
seven o'clock at night because the golf course here it's
been pretty crowded, and my my day doesn't really slow
down until about them at seven o'clock. From seven day
thirty at night, we'll go out there, me and the
boys and sometimes take a new puppy, which also through
a bunch of uh inability to kind of stay stay
mad too long. So yeah, I mean golf in a

(26:28):
weird way. It's gonna help me. I haven't played as
much golf as commissioner as I you know, as I
probably thought I would. But this year has been a
little different. And having the whole family home just just
adds perspective to be honest with you just when you
need it, you know, because you know, maybe my problems
aren't the biggest problems in the world, and they don't
really care, you know, what's stressed over. You know, they

(26:48):
just want to beach you in ping pong, Yeah, beach
and ping pong or takeing down on the golf course.
It's it's it's interesting, you know, first the first month
of you know, the stay at home order. I live
in Arizona, and I have. I have a one year old,
so it's our first kid. And my wife sent me
a message. It was just it's been a couple of
days and he'd been going through a leap week and
he was pretty fussy, and my wife sent me in

(27:10):
one of those Instagram you know, feel good story things
from somebody that said, you know, if I could, if
if somebody would give me a time machine. This is
from a from an older mom. And instead, if somebody
give me a time machine and I could go back
and be stuck at home with my one or two
year old, you know, there there's no money in the
world that I wouldn't pay for that moment. And you know,
it reminds you that while there, if you can perspective wise,

(27:32):
look at all the negatives that are happening with all
of this and find a silver lining, like a chance
to hang out with your three boys, which, as you said,
the last place they want to be his home for
good mistakes there in their twenties, you know, they want
to be, you know, being bad out seat in the world.
I mean, that is something that you'll remember for the
rest of your lives. And it's again, it's it's it's
nice to remind yourself sometime that there is something somehow

(27:54):
positive and all this craziness that's gone down in two
thousand twenty. Yeah, I have a title sponsor who's who's
also a very good personal friend. And he made a
comment to me. This is back in March, and he said,
I believe every once in a while God does something
that forces you to remember what's really important in life.
I hope it's not a virus, because if the virus
is brand new at the time. But he said, I

(28:15):
don't know about you, but in the last thirty days,
I really got reconnected with what's really important in life.
And I said, it's funny you say that, because I
mean it's you know, my life can be pretty um
can be. I guess it's unfair to say out of
my control because it it really isn't my control. I
just don't control it. But when you're playing in seventeen
countries and you know, thirty five different weeks a year,
and at the same time, you know you're really trying

(28:36):
to secure all the business you need for for future years.
You got two thousand teachers from all over the world.
I am I'm never comfortable being here, meaning home. I
always feel like I should be somewhere else representing the
brand and the tour and and doing you know, doing
what I'm paid to get done. So after ten years
of doing it, like you know, it's it's physically demanding,
it's a little mentally demanding, but more importantly it's um,

(28:58):
it's just a significant guilt ride. You know, you say
to yourself all the time, this is important. I think
my kids are watching, they see dad doing something he
loves and really cares about. My wife God Lovers has
put up with a with a guy who's way too
hyper about his work his whole life. But but I
mean the guilt factor is usually pretty high. You know,
you're trying to face time, you know, a good night
with your with your wife, You're sending texts, text messages

(29:21):
to your boys, and you're telling yourself I'm still a
good dad. You know, I remember the texting tonight, but
there's that's not the same. So yeah, in a strange way,
I mean that it's really at a really key point
in my career. It's really helped a guilt factor and
like I said, a dad who thought probably his quality
time with his kids was it was over. Um, I
got this sort of I got this sort of six
month gift, and it's been pretty nice. Who wins between

(29:45):
you and the three boys on the golf course? Golf
golf wise? Golf wise? Dad, Dad wins every night. Every
every other sports? Well, I mean I take my game
a lot more serious than you know than three recent
college said. But almost any other sport that I could
usually have questioned when they were kids like we play.

(30:05):
We played pool basketball, which is in our family is
full contact, there's no files, and you know when they
were when they were fourteen and they were afraid they
go up against Dad. I could win all the time
right now, as my wife would say, you playing pool
basketball one more time when I'm leaving, because the kids
were the kids beat me. You beat me senseless, and
I'm not smart enough to stop. But yeah, any other

(30:26):
sport they were golf golf is my is my last
hold up. If I'm on Getty Images in a couple
of weeks and I see you in a sling, I'm
gonna know what what happened to you. It would have been.
It would have been going for the dunk and gotting
getting rejected. Uh. I got just a couple more one thing.
I mean, you know, we we talked a lot about
coronavirus and and everything that's going on in terms of returning.
You know. The other thing that's happened in this country

(30:48):
is a huge movement for social justice. And I've always
felt like LPGA players have been more vocal than other
people in golf. They've done an unbelievable job of speaking
up and and just not being scared of of saying
and talking about what they want to talk about. What
do you say to players that come to you during
this and just ask you for advice on how to

(31:08):
approach it and what to say and and and how
to speak on an issue that you know it can
be polarizing, it can it can touch people you know,
certain ways, and it could be something that maybe at
times has made people uncomfortable to talk about, you know,
shameing the The the greatest eye open the experience for
me as commissioner the LPGA Shuts from the minute I
got here has been that I spend my life around

(31:31):
some of the greatest athletes in the world that all
are completely used to being the underdog and being sort
of underappreciated whole life. If you're a great female golfer
and you're fourteen years old at your club trying to
go schedule an eight fifteen tea time on Saturday. See
how many people will give you that spot or let
you walk on and we'll get a range spot at

(31:51):
nine o'clock on a Sunday, even though you're probably better
than nine or some of the people, if not all,
on that range. So, and they come from all of
of the world. If you're a great golfer from Thailand
and you've got great fifteen years ago, you probably didn't
see a lot of other women playing golf when you did.
And fill in any country in that blank. So what
I'm really impressed by these women from a long time

(32:13):
have understand I've understood how it feels to be different,
how it feels to sort of be downcast, and it
feels that a lot of people kind of vote against
you and not be able to see yourself. Um, when
you were a kid at some greater stage there, you know,
we're still growing women's sports and for a lot of
these young kids, Like I said, if you're a young
girl growing up in Taiwan and you wanted to see
another professional female golfer in Taiwan. Well, you probably had

(32:36):
to wait till Yanni Sudd came along because before that
there there wasn't anybody to look at. There wasn't any
trailblazers to follow. So it's already, I would say, it's
already in the LPGA's DNA and the Black Lives Matter
sort of an awakening if you will to This has
been harder for others than you probably realize, is Um.
I literally can put any player in that in that

(32:57):
sentence and say, if you think it's easy to become
a professional female golfer in any country, certainly in America,
you're wrong. It's just it's just not easy yet. To
your point about what do I say when people come
to me for advice, If I'm being honest with you,
I've I've gone the other direction. We've We've done four
or five video conference now with black golfers that play

(33:18):
on the lp j A, the Cemetry Tour, l et
UM and quite frankly, just to get talking and listening.
You know, we wanted to learn. You know, I knew
there were stories there. I probably didn't know, um, And
so when you just want to get in touch with
that too, is we wanted to say, you know, what
are we missing? You know, because we're clearly are missing thing.
Nobody's nobody's trying to be dismissed it. But I'm sure

(33:40):
there's times, you know, when we have them, and I
would tell you there's been some moments where you're hanging
up the phone and think, gosh, how did I not know?
How did I not see that I not learned? And
I think there's a there's a there's a real responsibility
that our athletes feel that. As a guy, I can
tell you I played football, basketball, baseball growing up, I'm
never worried about the future of my sport. I never

(34:01):
thought as a football player I had a responsibility football
better for my sons because football was going to be
there and if my sons were good at it, they
could pursue it. But meet a woman on the LPGA
and get her talking about, you know, the future of
the game and what she wants to do to make
sure young girls have a better shot than she did.
It's virtually one percent. So it's um, it's built right

(34:22):
in them. It's why we talked about drive on. They're
all about you know, driving on to leave the game better.
So me Black Lives Matter fits right into our DNA.
You know, we remember the first time Renee Powell told
me the story about trying to check into a hotel
with the LPGA and everybody had a reservation except Renee
Powell's was mysteriously lost. And I think it was Kathy Whitworth,
the winner to the front test and said, let make

(34:44):
sure you guys get this. Either she checks in or
none of us check in. And they were all standing
in a lobby with kind of a face off, and
the hotel said, oh, there's a reservation. And from you know,
that was forty forty something years ago, which may seem
pretty bold today it but you know, it's unbelievable to
think fourty years ago. So I don't think I have
to do much teaching on black Lives matter. Like most

(35:06):
white privileged leaders, I have to shut up on this
topic and learn more than I try to teach. Yeah,
it's uh, it's been it's been amazing to listen. You know,
it's been an amazing time too. As you said, sit
back and hear stories and uh. And you know, I've
been on a couple of of zoom calls with a
lot of people in and around the Gulf world. And
you know, you're just you hear these things. You think

(35:28):
this happened in two thousand eighteen. You know, it felt
like it's a story from nineteen seventy two or nineteen
fifty five or nineteen thirty one. You can't believe that
it was two years ago. And it and and it
and it opened drives even more. I mean, even if
your eyes have been open it it really will shock
you back. And I thought it was a great point
you made about about the LPGA players, you know, being
underdogs and always taking that role and and fighting for it.

(35:51):
It's it's an impressive thing. And the and the players
to be proud of the way they are, you know,
in and around this and before you you said in
that Sports Business Journal article, you know, if you than
seven percent of corporate sponsorships worldwide focus on women's sports,
and that's nearly eight of fans would be interested in
watching women's sports. That is again another issue that you
face is you go to go to sponsors and go

(36:13):
to companies and go listen, this is an amazing product.
All you gotta do is trust me here. I mean,
I feel like that's probably a battle you have to
face a lot. Yeah, I mean, if I'm if you know,
if I I's being honest, probably more than I should
be on a podcast. But I mean one of the
things that disappointed disappointed me, and you know my first
five or six years is I'd walk into these companies

(36:33):
and before we walk into see the CEO or the
board of the CMO, you'd usually go by the you
know whatever, their executive floors and they're hanging on the
wall somewhere and there would be our corporate values are ethics,
and would always talk about equality and treating everybody the
same and making sure that you know our commitment to
women and men is the same, and you know, it's
always the same thing written in a different way. And

(36:54):
I remember sitting across one CEO and I said, I
gotta be honest with you. I read your values before
I walked in here, and I get your values, but
you realize that of the three hundred million dollars you
guys spend in consumer marketing and sponsorship is on men's activities,
men's activities. And I'm sure you can talk to me
about reach and g RP and viewership numbers. I did

(37:16):
all that, but it's either your values or it's not
like if your values is to send a message that
equality as the core of what we do, because that's
why they give the value values at the core, then
you can't just make that about what goes inside inside
the building with fifty employees. You've gotta talk about what
you're doing with three million dollars to affect fifty five
million viewership and the exciting pieces. In the last four

(37:39):
or five years, that shift is happening. I can't tell
how many customers I'll talk to you now we will
say our spending portfolio is out of whack and it's
got to look more like what we believe as a company.
That's um that's a that's a home run idea for
for women's sports, and it's just now kind of becoming
part of the nacular. I think what people are starting

(37:59):
to realize we can't talk about equality and diversity and
inclusion the way we do and spend our money in
a completely different way. I've I've said this many times.
I mean, I get the argument. I was a sponsored
my whole life. You can talk to me about the
PGA tour having five times or viewership or what the
NBA delivered versus w V. I get that, I get
all of that. But you know, but title title nine

(38:20):
didn't happen because there was a vast change in viewership.
People just finally realized that telling young girls that they
should they should think about professional sports just like young boys.
But but your opportunities about one tenth size as your
brothers was just the b S answer. Like, at some
point that just became an unacceptable thing, and we may change.
I think that's what's going to happen here. I think

(38:41):
at some point shareholders are going to say two boards
of directors and leaders of companies, don't call it our
value if it doesn't affect the decisions we make and
how we spend our moneys. Mike, I have either a
good idea or a dumb idea. I'm gonna let you decide.
Is that Okay, Okay, I'm not sure I'm the right gage. No, No,
you heard me talk for a while. I'm not I'm
not sure I know the difference. To listen. You've got

(39:03):
your notepad there, you've got your pen and probably hadn't
seen much action during the podcast. But I'm throwing this
your way. You already mentioned that you have a new puppy.
Is that right? Yes, well my wife does. Somehow I
must have agreed that. Listen, it's yours too, man, it's
in the house, and it's it's your dog as well.
There's there's no barriers that keep that thing away from you.
So one thing I've noticed from my LPGA friends is

(39:26):
it seems like a lot of the players on your
tour travel with their dogs. Is that fair? Okay, So
since we don't have fans, here's my idea. You should
have at these golf events a designated dog area. You
could get it fenced in. You could set up kind
of a steady cam like a go pro, or put
one on the dog. I mean feels kind of dog.

(39:47):
You know, the dog ebowl what they called puppy bowl,
is that what it's called. And you could have It'd
be an easy cut in for the broadcast. Hey you
let's go check in on the dogs for two seconds,
for five seconds whatever. Everybody loves dogs, especially on the
golf course. And you could even have occasionally you can
have a little video where you know, Morgan Pressel's with
their dog, explaining who it is and the breeding, how long,
and what they like to do, and and there you go,

(40:09):
so hey, everybody watching gets a chance to see puppies,
which is a big bonus and a win. And second,
the dogs don't have to stay in the hotel all
the time and they get to be maybe off of
a fairway on four team. And I bet the players
like it because they get to walk by their puppy
all the time. You're welcome for the idea of the
dog cam on the LPGA. Well, it's probably a dumb
idea of the thing, and I know that because it's

(40:31):
something I for a couple of years ago. I went
to Kurina and pitched the same thing. I said, hey, listen,
it would be really cool for you guys to be
the official dog partner of the LPGA. As you probably know,
we have traveling daycare and the lp sports you know
kind of stretched and go traveling daycare. We we've got
traveling daycare since than I don't want to asthin to
make it to the pinnacle, pinnacle of her career and

(40:52):
have to choose between being a mom or playing. I
want the answer to be yes. And the Smuckers is
the official sponsor of our traveling daycare with peanutle Arangelia
treat you with you know, with peanut butter, the whole deal.
So I've loved that sponsorship from the beginning, and so
I didn't succeed with Karina. But I think maybe, listening
to you, maybe it's time for me to go back
and make another run at that you mentioned Morgan Pressel.

(41:13):
Morgan is the culprit of my current dog. So Morgan
and my wife are good friends. And I remember where
we were, might have been Evan or something, and my
wife sat next door Morgan at some pro m dinner.
And that night, I remember I was I was sleeping
in bed, and I woke up and my wife was
looking at pictures on her phone. And for most guys
that would be scary that you know your wife was
looking at pictures late at night, But she was looking
at pictures of dogs because Morgan had shared with her

(41:36):
the idea of a labordoodle. And that was the beginning
of the end for me in winning the no Dog fight.
It's sad. This is sad. I know the name of
Morgan Pressel's dog. That is how important that dog is
in Morgan's life. Zoe is awesome. Now I've got a
chance to spend a little bit of time with that dog,
and that dog is worth all of the fanfare that
comes with I'll ask question for you and then I'll

(41:57):
let you go. And I appreciate the time you were
a caddy back in your younger days. You you caddied,
And the more I run into people that caddied, the
more I think about how important it is in terms
of developmental at an early stage. What do you remember
about life as a looper and do you feel like
it was important for you to kind of see that
world early in your life? You know, I should. Your

(42:19):
description was so good, I should probably just leave this
alone because that makes me sound better than I was.
I was a horrendous caddy. I um. I mean, as
you can tell from this podcast, I talked too much.
I talked too fast, I walked too fast. There was
nothing about Mike one thirteen that made him caddy material.
The best thing happened for me is I caddied for
a summer. Hated it from the beginning to then, but

(42:40):
my dad told me, you know, you said you were
gonna be a caddy, so you're gonna caddy all summer.
So she had to do too. Every Saturday and Sunday
we were back in the morning and the bag in
the afternoon, and to me, watching somebody else play sports
when you're young was just never. But I met the
greenskeeper in the middle of that first year and he
said to me, hey, have you come back next summer.
I'll hire you. And I was thinking, greenskeeper like cutting
fair ways and greens and those guys look really cool,

(43:03):
you know, they're riding in golf carts while I'm walking
down the ferry with two bags on my shoulder. And
so I did. But he had this term called bunker boys.
In your first summer, you had to be a bunker BArch.
It's all you did was edge and weed bunkers for
three months. If you did that for one summer, then
next year he teached you the writing stuff. And uh.
In fairness, I made it through being a bunker boy
for one summer and ended up working on a golf

(43:24):
course on the grounds group until the day graduated college.
So I've changed pens, cut fairways, cut you know, cut rough, build,
built walls, repaved, repaid cart pass. So I know that
I know the golf course. It's always been a pretty
comfortable place for me. And it's kind of funny. One night.
I was sitting out on a little eighteenth patio on
a corporate sponsors deck. It was. It was in Phoenix.

(43:46):
It was just me sitting there. One of our rose
offistals came, but I was like, eight o'clock at night,
what are you doing? And I said, I know this
sounds really strange, but this time of night when they
come out and they put sand and all the divots
and you know they since they take on golf course
and got beat up all day and make it beautiful again,
is my favorite time of the day on the golf course.
I would. I was just sitting there watching the transformation

(44:06):
EP and and it's really exciting to watch it when
you're actually not the one having to do it like
I did when I was a kid, so a little
more and when it's a little not a good caddy,
but it got me. It got me to a really
good life in terms of love in this game. Mike,
all right, well, I appreciate the time. If you have
anything else before we go that you just want to share,

(44:27):
I'll give you the floor just on the week and
in the coming weeks and everything that that we should
see and expect to see with the LPGA tours return, well,
just know that we're gonna get right off the bat
with two and two in Ohio between Marathon bringing us
back in this drive on championship with Differness, and then
I really hats off to A S I and A
I G. The two companies will bring us out to

(44:47):
the Ladies Scottish and then us being able to play
with the Women's Open Championship. I mean, it would have
been really easy for Scotland to say we just can't
do it this year, and between what they've done, the
way the Scottish government and the UK government has embraced
are testing protocols when our players come back. It's it's
not easy to cross the border in a state right now,
it's certainly not easy to cross the country border. But

(45:07):
I think in fairness, you know, our players are still
looking at playing quite a few majors and I'm not
sure anybody felt comfortable saying that just sixty days ago.
So it takes the village and luckily for us, we've
got some incredible, incredible partners, both on the tournament side
and on the sponsorship side, and I'm hoping our fans
have missed us as much as they've as much as
we've missed them. Yeah, I'm excited. I it's just one

(45:28):
of my favorite UH sports organizations on the planet and
UH and I I root for the LPGA tour each
and every day and each and every week. So all
the luck and I and I know you'll you'll do
what you do, and so I'm excited to watch. I'm
excited to see the LPGA players take on one of
the best courses in the country and then you know,
on we go. So I appreciate the time, and I

(45:48):
good luck the rest of the year. Thanks you, and
stay safe, buddy. We're gonna take a quick break and
be right back. A big thanks to Mike Juan for
joining me and just a little behind the curtains. I
was having um issues with my computer. Shocking, I know,

(46:09):
I never had issues ever with WiFi or uh figuring
out how to post an Instagram live. I'm I'm you know.
This is the year I believe that I've kind of
started to lose the ability to be on top of
all the technological stuff. There's things that are shown online.
I don't really know what it is. There's apps that

(46:31):
people use I don't even have on my phone. I
don't I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm over the peak man,
I'm old. I'm old at thirty six, It's official. This
is the year. But Mike was patient and waited out
for fifteen minutes. So that's the kind of guy is
you know. He could have just told me we'll do
it another time, and he didn't. So a big thanks
to Mike for not just joining me, but for uh,

(46:53):
you know, dealing with my uh incompetence when it comes
to how to record a podcast that I've only been
doing for five years. So big thanks to Mike. Thank
you so much for listening. I hope you guys enjoyed it.
We'll be back on Thursday with the Court of Sisters
and that is that. I hope you guys are staying safe.
Hope you get out there and play a little bit
of golf. Will check back a little later this week.

(47:23):
The clubhouse was Shane Bacon as a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.