April 29, 2025 • 48 mins
Dave Shultz, the CEO and founder of NextLinks, joins Rich to talk about how the recession sparked the idea for NextLinks, the struggle to keep people from stealing his concepts, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Rich Komal Goof Show. Last week we
were we were very fortunate to have Steve Weacroft on
with us, a former PGA Tour player and now in
charge of the are the CEO and the founder of
the Mulligan Foundation, which is doing tremendous amounts of good
for athletes and some mental relief and some some mental
(00:24):
I don't want to use the word repair, but repair.
But moving on from Steve, we are joined by Dave
Schultz this week. Dave is the CEO, the found and
the founder of Next Links and Dave's got a really, really,
really cool story. Dave can be considered a bit of
a disruptor, but Dave is actually just an extremely passionate
(00:48):
guy about a lot of things. So we're going to
talk about that, but and all that. But first off, Dave,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks Rich, I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No problem at all. So talk to me about as
I start with everybody, tell me where it all started
for you in the very beginning, and how you actually
became even a little bit acquainted with or very closely
acquainted with the game of golf.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well it was my grandpa, right, So I was probably
the first time I was associated with golf in anyway,
was at the Ohigh Valley Inn Country Club. I don't
know if you've ever been there, but it's a really
cool place. My grandpa used to go there with my
grandma and my dad and he were playing golf. This
was probably nineteen seventy two, so I would have been
(01:34):
like eight, and you know, I didn't get to play,
but Grabs would throw a ball like near the green
and let me chip it and let me play a
couple and you know, I got the bug in my head.
And then I didn't really play much after that until
sort of my probably junior senior year in high school.
(01:56):
And I used to skip school quite a bit. So
I would skip school and go to the golf course
and i'd pick up a game at like seven in
the morning. And funny enough, nobody ever asked me why
I wasn't in school like that. I just had fun
picking up with groups, and you know, I had a
(02:17):
natural aptitude for the game, and so the people like
playing with me, and you know, I just was really
hooked ever since then.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
That's cool. And then, so did you play Did you
actually go to school enough to play in high school
or did you just keep skipping school and play with
those guys.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
No, I just kept skipping school and playing those guys.
But then I went in the Navy, right. I joined
the Navy when I was seventeen, and I was stationed
up in Washington on an island called Whiby Island, in
the town called Oakcarbor. And there was a group of
retired guys that played on the navy course and they
(02:53):
called themselves the Barracudas, and they played for money. So
I worked the night shift, and so I would go
out and it would be a pickup game maybe you know,
sometimes fifteen, sometimes twenty guys would show up and we'd
play skins games and groups games, and you know, you
could lose it one hundred bucks, win one hundred bucks.
And you know, I was only making about three hundred
(03:15):
bucks every two weeks, so that was a lot of
money for me back then. And it was just, you know,
I just got hooked on the whole competitive nature of
the sport and also sort of the camaraderie that golfers
feel with each other. Right, it's a it's a special game.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So yeah, it is a special game. So so how
long did you stay in the Navy.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I was in every six years, eighty three to eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I went about two and a half years floating mostly
in the Indian Ocean on the USS Constellation. I did
avionics repair on a six and F eighteen Fighter jets.
I was on the first deployment with F eighteen, So
that was kind of cool. Worked with them Donald McDonald,
Douglas guys. And you know, the Constellation was my ship,
(04:04):
and it was America's flagship, and you know, got to
go all over the world and see places I never
thought i'd see and meet people there. And and when
we'd go into port, I'd play golf in those places too,
golf and tennis.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That's that's pretty that's pretty awesome. So then you spend
six years, then you go to college. What what do?
Where'd you go? You went San Luis, California, San Louis, Bispo. Correct.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, so, I you know, I was a pretty poor
student in high school, as.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You might have got, well you're skipping school, man, I mean,
like just a chance.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah. So my senior year, I think my attendance rate
was like less than fifty percent. And you know, most
people in their senior in high school. They don't have
any classes I had. I had sick classes and two
work experience just to get my diploma so that the
Navy would accept me. And then and then I went
into sort of the advanced electronics repair program in the Navy.
(04:58):
So the first two years was all school and learning
how to you know, use electronics equipment like acilloscopes and
stuff like that, and learn how to repair circuit boards,
you know, at the component level. And I was pretty
good at it. So when I got out, you know,
I was married. Then I got married while I was
in the Navy, and so when I got out, I
(05:19):
was either going to be an accountant. And my wife's like, no,
she said, you were so good at fixing those things,
you know, why don't you just keep them doubt So
I got my electronic engineering degree from count Poly San
Elizabespo and ninety five I graduated.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So you're actually a pretty smart guy, you just downplay
it pretty well. Well.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I finished first in my class in college, so I
went from barely graduating to the top of my class.
So I do have. I do have, like I called myself,
like curious risk taker, right, And so when I got married,
the risk taking was okay, I better figure out how
to provide for my family. And so I took college,
(06:00):
you know, very seriously, and I and I did well
because I worked hard, and I didn't do well in
high school because I didn't work hard, right, So I
definitely had the mental skills and the and the mindset
to do well. It's just having the motivation to apply myself,
you know, was always the challenge. And you know that's
why when I ultimately left everything to you know, grow
(06:24):
the game of golf with sort of my life mission.
When I left, I realized, I'm like, wow, I could
spend my whole life doing that, and it would just
be like having a hobby, right, I could be like
Vin Scully right and never want to never want to retire,
And and that is how I feel. I've been doing
it for a decade now, and I honestly don't. It
(06:44):
feels like I don't even work right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Right. So so okay, so before before we get to
that point so that you actually did you graduate and
you got it and you got to I guess what
we call.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, they'd do a job, and that not electrical engineering
where you're like at power plants, but electronic engineering, where
you're doing you know, circuit design and for the computer design,
that kind of stuff, the stuff that's inside computers. And
so I went and got a job in a town
called Mindon, Nevada, a small town with a really great
(07:18):
company called Bentley, Nevada that made vibration sensors for the
oil and gas and energy sectors. And so General Electric
was our number one customer. And then about five years
into that, gig Ge bought that company and then I
became a Ge employee.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, so wow, So and you would have been okay
just doing that forever.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know. My goal was to just focus on something
that I was good at until I had enough money
to retire and play golf. And then two thousand and
eight happened and that was the end of that, right,
So I took a global job, moved to Boston, bill Rick,
a little bit north of Boston, and in two thousand
(08:10):
and seven, so we owned our house in Mendon, still
bought a new house in New Hampshire. It and all
of my savings was in real estate. So I got
what's called being aided. Right. A lot of a lot
(08:30):
of people my age are familiar with being o aided.
So so my given plan didn't work anymore, right, because
there's no way I was going to There's no way
I was going to recover. And that happened to be
when you know, so, I was Navy during Reagan era
and I loved it, right, proud American servant for Ronald Reagan,
(08:51):
who was a great leader. Never never voted Democrat. Everybody
thinks I'm sort of a Democrat kind of guy because
of what I do on LinkedIn and stuff, But I
never voted Democrat until two thousand and eight. And the
only reason I did it then was because of Sarah Palin,
because she came in and ran with John McCain, who
I really thought was a great guy. But I didn't
(09:12):
think Sarah Palin was serious, and I liked what Obama
was preaching in terms of his messaging about hope and
change and all that. It turns out, right after I
got awaided was his first date of the Union speech
and he gets up there and he says, look, you know,
I worked really hard to get this job. Right. He's
about the same age as me, and he basically called
(09:35):
out anybody who wasn't given there all to try and
you know, give back or do you know, be a
better human or whatever. And I was sitting there thinking
to myself, I'm like, wow, I feel like I give
like ten percent of my capability to my job. I'm
making two hundred thousand dollars a year. I wonder what
would happen if I really applied myself right, kind of
(09:58):
like what we were talking about before we call it.
And I really and I realized I was never going
to apply myself unless I found something I really cared
about to work on, because it's just my nature to,
you know, go find something fun to do rather than
you know, just busy work. And so that's you know,
two thousand and eight is when I really began thinking about,
(10:22):
you know, okay, I'm going to have to find something
to go do. And twenty fifteen is when I finally
had the idea to basically top top golf, if you will.
I saw Top Golf, I saw Top Golf growing, and
I thought, maybe they'll just give me a job to
work in, you know, their skunk works department and build
(10:42):
them a better game. It turns out Top Golf isn't
really a real business. It's it's more of a it's
more of a money laundering company, right, right. It seemed
like it was a business to me, I didn't know
any better. But in reality, it's a it's a real
estate game. And so they didn't have any interest in
hiring a guy that wanted to actually grow the game
(11:05):
because of that. They just weren't They weren't really that
kind of company, and so they became my competitor. At
that point, I'm like, okay, well, if they won't, you know,
if they won't hire me, then I'm going to have
to build something better than they can do. And I
you know, I had this great idea, which essentially, if
you want to know what my idea was, it was
what became TGL last year. That that the indoor golf
(11:28):
ly right, that they built in Florida. That that's essentially
what my idea was is the world needed a game
that had used all of the same skills as real golf,
so that it became practice, right for those of us
that want to go play the traditional way, but you
could play it on a much smaller footprint. And I
(11:48):
had already played on the golf simulators, you know, for
a long time by twenty fourteen, right, and so I
kind of knew. I kind of knew their flaws, right,
I'm like, wow, there's when you get down the touch
and the putting, there's just nothing there. So I just thought,
what if you built the big expansive short game and
coupled it with you know, a simulator for the full
(12:09):
swing shots and actually built, you know, a real game
that a golfer would enjoy playing. And that's what TGL
is supposed to be. I don't think they quite nailed
it with the technology. The pros were still complaining a
little bit about accuracy and stuff. But you know what
was what was really key to me is that every
(12:30):
single shot had to have real shot value, as if
you were playing on a traditional course, because then you'd
get the real golfers in there, you know, when they
can't get out for four hours, right, and you know,
and you could really do something with that. And so
that that was a really fundamental requirement for me, is
the game had to be truly authentic to the traditional game.
(12:55):
So that's my journey, right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You decide, you decide to do this, right, okay, so
try you try to jump on board with top golf
and and and you know, you start to realize very
quickly that as you put it, they are a money
changing hand company.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Correct, And so.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
All right, so you're gonna Tom.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I caught Tom Benison at Club Corp. So Club Court.
Club Corp. Was the biggest public company with golf courses
in the entire United States, Right. I didn't realize. I
didn't realize that the entire golf ecosystem all reported to
Ponta Vidra. Right, So that was that was another naives
(13:35):
part of my education. Right. So Tom entertained me a
little bit. We had a good conversation, but you know,
they introduced me to David Pillsbury not long after that,
and and David Pillsbury became my first assassin. Right. So,
the the way the system, the way the system works
(13:56):
in golf is an innovator like me comes in and
the vultures see that and they let you do your work,
they let you create, and then they find a way
to steal it from you. And so David Pilsbury was
the first guy to come in and try and steal
from me. And I didn't realize what a big deal
(14:16):
he was because when I met him, he was working
at a brewery. He had left, he had left the
golf Industree. Later I realized that he had done Tiger
Woods contracts and that he worked for Trumpet Doral, Right,
so I'm like, oh, he's really an insider. But he
didn't really let me in on that, you know, over
the years, so he really came in earnest. You know,
(14:39):
he got the job to run Club Corp coincidentally not
long after that, and then and then Apolo came in
and took Club Corp private. And all of that was
because of my idea.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They wanted your stuff, They wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Me to figure it out, and then they wanted to
steal it, and and I had filed for a so
they they thought, you know, I was certainly advertising that
I had this patent and that this patent was going
to save me. They were they thought that was really laughable,
right because one the whole systems of monopoly, and two
(15:17):
they've got more legal might and they don't mind suing people, right,
So they they didn't worry about it. But what they
didn't realize is that I didn't view the patent as
something that I would go like get legal support to
you know, sue them when they when they copied me. Right,
I didn't do anything to try and sue when TGL
(15:37):
came in, what I wanted. What I wanted is for
them to try and steal from me and then for
me to go find somebody else that wanted to compete
with them. And and that's where the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia came into play. So I found I found the Kingdom.
I met them in twenty fifteen. Also I flew to London.
(16:00):
I went to the London Golf Show. I met a
great guy named Neville Gaunt and Tony Westwood, who's a
really big golfer. They were writing a book. The book
was called or Is Your Mind Fit for Golf? We
we got on really good. They had me sign the
back cover of their book. I read the book and
I thought, wow, this is a really good book. So
(16:20):
they invited me to come to the London Golf Show
and I went ahead and flew out there. I met
the founder of Top Golf. There. I met Andy Heisman
there who is a media guy that connected me to
a pro named Peter McAvoy. Peter. Peter just passed away that.
The thing about Peter is he was the US He
(16:42):
was the British amateur champion at this at the same
time Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta Nashville, was.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The US champion.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yes, yes, but I didn't realize is the only reason
I met those guys is because they were already they
were already armed me, right, because I had already you know,
I had already injected myself into the system, so they
were already following me. So they wanted me to find Peter.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Right. So so what we're gonna do now is we're
gonna stop right there because now we're at the injection point.
So we're going to tell you commercial break. When we
come back, we are going to talk about what happens next.
Is this is fascinating. This is the rich Comwall Golf Show.
Welcome back to the rich Komwall Golf Show. We're speaking
with Dave Schultz, who is the CEO and founder of
Next Links. And when we left off, Dave had gone
(17:31):
from you know, a traditional job at General Electric and
Engineering and fun things like that, and is now kind
of morphed into his passion, which is creating an entity
that we can go inside and much like everybody's fantasy,
has a really cool, massive, all encompassing golf facility. So
(17:54):
that's what we are so, Dave. Now you've got to get. Now,
you got to grow. Now, you've got to grow this idea, right,
you got to get and obviously what's going to grow
it is money, So talk to me how we go
about that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, So I did a lot of research, right initially,
so between Saint Patrick to day when I had the
idea and sort of the summer when I got funded. Right,
so about six months I was just studying and one
of the people I found was a guy named Keith Bank.
I don't know if you're familiar with his name, but
he's sort of the technologies are for the whole golf
(18:27):
industry out of Chicago KB Partners, and I got into
review my deck and he sent me back and he
said it's never going to work. He gave me some
ideas to make it better, and so by summer I
was ready to get money. And I had a colleague
from Hong Kong at General Electric that was running a
(18:48):
science and technology part so it was a really good
fit and we started talking and lo and behold, he
wrote me a check for seventy five grand and that
got me started, and I started hiring creatives sort of
put the vision together using that money and then so
one thing led to another. The next money came in
about six months later, about seven hundred thousand dollars, and
(19:12):
then I used that money to you know, show up
at the PGA at the Golf Industry Show in San
Diego February twenty sixteen, and I spent about two hundred
thousand dollars because I wanted to just blow everybody away, right,
So I met Darius Rucker, right, I was working with
the National Golf Course Owners Association, Jake Karen and those guys, right,
(19:34):
because I'd already found all those guys from my research.
And that's that's how I ended up booking into that spot.
You know. Along the way, I met Robert Trent Jones,
two architects, and had dinner with you know, his son
who's in the movie business, and we had a really
cool exchange, you know, at the steakhouse. And you know,
so I was just having fun being an entrepreneur, right,
(19:56):
But it got serious after that, after I showed up
at the Golf Industry Show and really sort of plunk
down a big chunk of change and sort of let
everybody know that I intended to be here to stay.
And then I intended to bring this thing to market.
I didn't know that. I was, you know, working inside
of a monopoly, you know, a big empire.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So so now you're inside this thing and you're not realizing,
but this is basically knives out, right, I mean literally
knives out.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And I'm totally blind to it, right because I'm just
having fun as a newbie sort of entrepreneur after a
twenty year corporate career. So I had no idea that
I had no idea that knives were out until August
of twenty three. So for eight years, everybody was trying
to kill me, and I just wouldn't go away. I
(20:48):
just took everything they threw at me and I used
it to grow. Right, I'm like, Okay, you don't like that,
let me figure out how to do it better. Right,
But nobody would ever give me money except for that
first guy that gave me seven hundred grand. He ended
up running sixty more checks for me over five years
until I spent six million dollars. And it turns out
(21:09):
that's because he had a real estate company on the
other side and he was working with the insiders. So
they were just all using me to develop the tech, right,
and so I spent six years of my life and
six million dollars sort of perfecting what became TGL, and
then when it got good enough, that's when they tried
to steal it all from me. But fortunately that's when
(21:30):
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia showed up and came to
my rescue.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Okay, so talking about talk about that rescue. What did
that look like?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah? So Brando Chamblee and Augi Pisa, right, Augie was
involved with TGL two. You guys know Brando, right, So
they became the face of my company. They showed up
at the PGA Merchandise Show in January of twenty two
and basically did a big old shindig and took my
(22:02):
idea and ran with it with my permission, right because
I still had this patent that I was planning on using.
So I was kind of letting everybody, you know, do
their own thing, right, Hey, it's creating exposure. So what
else was going on right at that exact time was
live golf was becoming a threat, right, right, So January
(22:24):
twenty two, nobody had heard of live golf yet. But
February of twenty two was the Genesis Tournament Tiger's tournament,
and that was when all of that was turning into fire.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Right, right, it was actually burning. Now now we're going
oh it.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Was no, No, it was burning. That's when people were
threatening to go. And that's when Jay Monaghan was saying,
if you go, your band for life, right, And I'd
already been talking with DJ's people and all. I mean,
I was an insider by that point. I remember I
spent six million bucks and every single day I I
put updates on my social media platform. So people were
(23:04):
following me. So Tiger's team sent an agent out and
met me on the course, and I also ended up
at a party that Jim Nantz was hosting at the Genesis, right,
So I was clearly on the radar and they didn't
take me seriously, so they all that's what that was
(23:24):
sort of the origin of what became TGL. TGL was
supposed to be the answer to Live golf, Right, they're
really nothing like each other. So a lot of stuff
happened between February and June of twenty two, And in
June of twenty two is when the first live tournament
happened in Portland, and seven days before that tournament, I
(23:46):
get a text message from Magic Jamon al Sor, who
was the top guy for Golf Saudi direct Tech message
to my phone, Hey, why don't you come to Portland? Right?
And I said, well, yeah. He wouldn't give me any details, right,
I didn't tell me where they were staying. It was
basically a back door thing. So I so I bought
a ticket, showed up in Portland, texted him to night
(24:09):
I got there, he said, oh, come over here to
the back door. They printed me out some VIP badges.
I got to spend three days watching the tournament and
do all this stuff. And that's when I pitched them
on disrupting the whole system. I said, you guys, I said,
you guys, If you guys just take down Top Golf,
everything else will fall with it. I said, I'm telling
you they've got all their eggs in that one basket.
(24:32):
And then and then Madget said, well, if we do this,
we want to own it, we want to control it.
And I said, you guys, you can have it right now.
So I basically gave them all of my assets, my patent,
my brand, which was next links. By that point that
I knew Brandal and Augie were trying to take the market, right.
I said, you guys can have it all right then,
(24:54):
and then Mage Magic said, well what do you want?
I said, well, what I really wanted just to get
paid for the value I've created, which is stored in
this patent. And then I also really just want a
job because I just want to keep doing this. This
is what I've decided I want to do with my life.
And I got blacklisted like five years ago, and nobody
will even let me work in this industry. So I
(25:15):
offered to move to Saudi Arabia and be the janitor
for them. I said, I can tell you guys you're
serious me let me go to Saudi Arabia and grow
the game with you guys, right. So he didn't take
me up on that because I said also, I said,
but by the way, I know just about every single
leader in this entire industry intimately, and I could probably
(25:37):
be very valuable to you guys in the US marketplace.
And they took me very seriously, and so we made
an agreement during that tournament and I basically retired and
Magic told me to just basically be a thorn in
the side of Jay Monahan. That was my mission. So
from January twenty nine to twenty two when I gave
(25:59):
all this to the Saudi's and today my only job
was to be a squeaky wheel and throw fire at
the leaders of the PGA tour. So one of the
kind of cool stories is Dean Beaman. You guys know him, yes, yes, So,
so he was three commissioners, Dean Beamon, Tim Pitchen and
(26:20):
Jay Monahan and and so Dean came out with an
article and inside the article he was just remember they
were like talking about nine to eleven and like the
Shaudis are killers, and you know MBS is a murderer, right,
and and brandis spitting all that fire louder than anybody else.
(26:41):
And so all that was going on, and Dean Beaman
wrote an article or somebody interviewed him, and in the
article he said, the Saudis have more money than brains,
and it's because they had given Jared Kushner two billion dollars. Right. Well,
from that moment on, every time I referenced Team Eman
on LinkedIn, I put in the middle of it in quotes,
(27:03):
the Saudis have more money than brains, being the Saudi's
have more money than brains, right, Yeah, that's so he is,
that's so he is to me. So that I obviously
put a big target on my back, but it also
helped me sort of spur on the Saudis to keep fighting,
right I'm I'm like, I'm I'm on their team one
(27:24):
hundred percent, right, And and so here we are today
and the Saudis have control of the game with SSG Group. Right.
So SSG Group came in and funded you know, the
PGA tour and and now they have control over it.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So I'm sorry. So I am going to finally get paid.
So my exit is coming imminently, and it's going to
be really the value of the patent, whatever that is now,
and I think it's going to be a lot. And
then I'm also going to get a top job in
the industry, right, a leadership job.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Okay, So I got to ask you if you have
any idea of what that's worth.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
If I had to guess, I'd say a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
They used it, they used it as the disruption, right,
So the patent became the disruption. So the reason TGO
exists is because Mike McCary got my deck in twenty
eighteen at the PGA merchandise show, and inside that deck
was also all kinds of evidence that I had protected
(28:27):
it right with my patent, and rather than even offer
me a penny for it, they just started stealing it
and swiping it. So remember remember the timelines is I
told you I met with them face to face in
June of twenty two. Well, Tomorrow Tomorrow Sports got announced
in August of twenty two, and the day before that
(28:50):
Top Golf or Callaway changed its name to Top Golf Calaway.
All that was all that was happening because of the
disruption associated with my patent. And it turns out that
my patent was really valuable because I never even moved
it into the company, right it came in the mail.
I followed for it before I started the company to
(29:10):
protect myself, and then when it came in the mail,
my partner didn't make me put it in the company.
So even though he was playing me, he made the
mistake of letting me keep it as my personal asset.
And because it was my personal asset, it became a
really valuable anchor as a cryptocurrency anchor, right, so they
(29:30):
can actually monetize against it like a you know, like
a gold brick. And so for the last two or
three years, his excellency Yasser Aramyan, who everybody knows now
has been has been selling licenses to that brick all
around the world. They were owned control of it. Remember
(29:56):
I gave them full of control. They insisted. I said,
I said it's yours one thousand percent take it. And
then and then I made the mistake of saying, nothing
can surprise me anymore about human nature. And so they
used me as live bait for the next two and
a half three years. So they they tried to put
(30:17):
me in a looney bin to get the patent. So
after the SSG investment, So the SSG investment came on
December seventh, and and something went inside that investment that
was part of the patent. And so three or four
months later they were trying to, you know, thought all
their eyes and cross all their t's and deliver what
(30:38):
they promised to the SSG group. But the SSG group
knew they didn't have the patent already, right because they
were already working with Yasir, So to try and get
the patent, they literally tried to drive me insane and
so they could assign it to my wife to get
her to do a deal with them, because I promised
that I had already given it away. I had like
(30:59):
I was just sitting bait, right I could. I couldn't
tell anybody. But the fact is I had given it
to the Saudis already, and so these guys were trying
to get something that didn't exist, and they were trying
to put me in a look. My wife took me
to the VA hospital. They tried to prescribe me antipsychotic medications.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well, I survived it because I saw it coming. And listen,
the only reason I saw it coming is because my
dad had died six months earlier, in August of twenty three,
and on his deathbed, he told me that my sister
was part of this conspiracy against me, right in front
of her.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Oh my god. Wow, So I knew.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Remember, So I knew at that point, and I also
knew what the Saudis were doing using me as live bait.
And so from that moment on, I knew the game.
And so I sort of triggered this thing because I
could feel them coming at my son, coming at my wife.
You know, in ways that was going to ruin my
relationship with them and ruin my marriage. And I'm like, oh,
(32:05):
I just got to come out. And so I told
my wife all this stuff that my dad had told me,
and she said, you're crazy, and that's why she drove
me to the honey Been hospital, right and then and
then the hospital was all in on it. It was
a good I'm telling you, this is a big game.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
They wanted they wanted that patent rich, they wanted it bad.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Okay. So now so now, okay, I know when we
are now now we have another commercial break, and now
we're going to talk about when we come back from
this commercial, we're going to talk about your current existence
is basically a disruptor, because that's what that's what we're doing. Correct, Correct.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The whole thing is getting blown up and and there.
So there's a big show in Belfast that's supposed to
happen in May, and people are already canceling left and
right because I have disrupted. It's already over rich. It's
like today, you know, the timing of your interview right
now is timed with the disruption. So I have a
full team now in overseas that's been funded. I mean,
(33:08):
it's the disruption is behind us. It just hasn't become
public yet.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Perfect. We're going to talk about that right after this
commercial break. This is the rich Comwoll Golf Show. Welcome
back to rich Comwoll Golf Show. We are joined by
Dave Schultz this week, and he is the CEO and
founder and the chairman of Next Links and so he
basically has created a lot more than this, but very
(33:34):
simply a massive indoor all golf thood beverage fun stuff
like that, and has that run in two very hard
into a couple of pretty large knives out games with
people that have multiple knives when he doesn't have one.
(33:54):
So now basically we're on a path to disrupt and
all we want to do is grow the game of golf, correct, Dave.
That was the whole purpose of all this.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
My entire life was dedicated to growing the game of golf. Today,
I had this idea, I said, that's all I'm going
to do as long as I'm alive. And so I
had to create the disruption because they were trying to
throttle the game right, they didn't want it to grow.
That's one of the things Peter McAvoy told me. He said,
I said, it's not that hard, Peter, how come the
(34:27):
game's not growing, he said, because the people in charge
don't want it to grow. I'm like, well, that's stupid, right. So,
but by the time I met with the Saudi leadership
one June of twenty two at the Live Portland, it
was clear to me that they were serious about disrupting. Right.
They started to Live so that very purpose, the entire
reason Live exists is to disrupt the PGA tour, right
(34:52):
And so I'm so I made a deal with the
with them on the spot, they were very serious. They
showed me a level of respect that nobody in the
golf industry had ever showed me. It was clear to
me that they'd been studying my game. I knew several
years earlier that Yasser had already hired a DC lobbying company,
and he gave them my numbers, the first number to call,
(35:15):
And so I was ready to make a deal with them.
And on the spot, I said, just take everything I have.
I swear to you I will not do a deal
with those guys. I'd rather die, But you have to
disrupt this industry because it cannot grow unless you do.
That was it?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Wow? So okay, So what's the next step in growing it.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So when SSGU came in, I'm certain that they were
already aware of the patent and the risks to the
status quo because of it and the Saudi leadership's interest
in it. And so that's what that billion and a
half was. And if you guys recall, there was a
big footnote that said, we really want to work with
(35:59):
the Public Investment Fund on the next trench and so
Jamdan didn't want that to happen because of all the
old Ponta Vidra stuff, and so he's been slow playing it.
In the meantime, SSG and the PITH have been circling
around behind the scenes and coming up with an equation
to create a new company that's going to cut out
(36:21):
Panta Vidra and then Pontavitra is going to be gone,
and that's the next thing that's going to happen. They're
going to come up with a new so PGA to
our enterprises was my idea. I pitched it in November
of twenty two, but I pitched it with a different
leadership team, right, and Yaser's been building that leadership team
since November of twenty two, and I believe that the
(36:43):
PITH and SSG are about to launch that new company
that's going to essentially leave the nonprofit behind along with
all their skeletons, and create a new company that's ready
to grow the game.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So that would mean if that okay, So then tying
two things together. Obviously you know they're different, but the
PGA touring, the pg of America, the PGA of America
has to be in on this, correct, Well.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, they're in on it with Top Golf, right, so
they've got equity in Top Golf. It seems like the
worst cup secret in the world. Right. So when Calloway
bought Top Golf, that was all already a big collusive
thing with the PGA of America. You know, Craig Kessler,
who was their CEO, became the top guy at the
PGA of America. Don Ray got a job as secretary
(37:32):
because of me. Right. I met I've met Don Ray
at that first industry show in twenty sixteen, and then
I met him at a project we were doing in
Phoenix in twenty twenty and I'm like, that's another guy
that's trying to kill me when you talk about the
knives out right, So he came on the scene and
was telling everybody, Oh, yeah, the PGA of America is
(37:52):
going to go the game. We love everything, we love
Dave Schaltz. And then I would call him and he
wouldn't answer the phone, and I'm like, oh, there it is.
He's gonna tell everybody else he's to grow the game guy, right,
But he's not gonna deal with the guy that's actually
been working his ass off to grow the game for
six years and spent six million dollars of his own
money to do it, or other people's money, but still money,
(38:16):
real money. And so that was the game is to
shut me out. But I got blacklisted by the Bobby
Jones family in twenty seventeen. I mean, this is a
sinister world inside this golf industry. They you know, they
bring you in, they make you feel good, and then
(38:36):
they make some excuse. So the reason I got blacklister
is that I didn't buy lunch when Doctor Bok took
me out to lunch. And I didn't buy lunch because
I thought he was the patriarch and I'd let him
buy lunch. Right. So a week later I get a call,
You're if anybody ever says you want to work with
them inside the golf industry. We're going to tell them
not to do business with you. Literally, I got a fall. Why, oh,
(38:58):
everybody knows you got to lunch. I'm like, you've got
to be a kid in me.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
This is about lunch. It's about lunch now.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And so but I wouldn't go away, right,
I said, Well, I'm going to keep trying to disrupt.
It's because I really wanted to see the game grow.
I wanted to free the game to grow to its potential.
And now I've got a team in place that's doing
just that. So I'm certain that this disruptions already behind us.
I mean, I mean we're literally talking days before some
(39:29):
of these announcements that I'm talking about are going to happen.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, So who's on your team?
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I got a guy named Francois Houghton, and he's an
African but he lives in Northern Ireland. Now, so you know,
the Irons came into the Super Bowl in February of
twenty two, twenty three and invested a bunch of money
behind my idea, and so a lot of stuff's been
going on in Ireland to grow the game. And you know,
(39:58):
so Francois is my main guy. Franz Waiugh, everybody loves him,
everybody trusts him. He's all he wants to do is
grow the game, just like me. I joke with people.
I'm like, you can take my brain and put it
in his body. You could take his brain and put
it in my body and we'd be the same human being. Right.
So what we did is we did just that. I said, well,
Frank Laill, everybody wants to work with me, and that's
(40:21):
what we've been doing for the last eight months is
working with a lot of other people. And just like
I said, they all want to work with me right
up until the time it's time to write a check
and then they say, well, we can't work with Dave,
right because I've been blacklisted. Well, Franflaill was already aware
of that game, right, and he swore to me he
wouldn't leave me behind. And so I put my life
in his hands and he came through for me. So
(40:43):
he's got a guy named Joe mcnight. We've got a
guy named Nile mulvaney, right, So the are all international guys,
but we've all been huddling up for the last eight
months every week and building a tribe of our own.
That's now I'm pretty certain Francois hasn't told me for sure.
And then we've also got a ghost writer named Steve Mitchell.
(41:06):
Some people have heard of this Bainbridge Diaries. I don't
know if that come.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Up on your radar and all.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yep, what he's got all the inside knowledge of all
the real knives out stuff, and he's been documenting it.
He's three books into it now over six years. So
that asset is part of my team. It sounds very
clear to me that Richard Branson is also involved at
this point. So I mean we're talking big players.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Holy cow. All right. So so okay, so if I
said to you, you know, take the temperature of the
PGA of America, where do you stand. I'm a PG professional,
so this is really interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
No, So I've been today. We're doing their dude? Did
they taught me two years ago? And I could tell
they really wanted to bust up their own leadership because
they don't like it either, right, So I was like,
just help me bust it up and then we'll figure
out how to make the PGA of America the best
thing ever right to act. We work for the pros
as it's supposed to, right. I said, I've got this
(42:04):
great idea, the great idea of belongs on golf properties. Right,
if we're all working together, the PGA of America is
the best organization in the world. And so I've got
insiders kind of preparing to disrupt the leadership at the
top of the PGA of America for at least two
or three years now, and it's about to happen. I think.
(42:25):
I think Don Ray has already been pulled out to
be honest with you, like yesterday. I mean, we're at
that kind of timing.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Really.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh yeah, Remember this is how I'm going for ten years.
This is all I think about, all I do, my
life is committed to growing the game. So I kind
of know intuitively because I've created my own language with
the key insiders. We don't talk directly to each other.
We sort of talk in Indian code, right. But between
(42:54):
all my resources that I have, I can put two
and two together and I can see what's happen happening,
and I'm pretty dark certain that Don Ray doesn't have
a job much longer.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Wow, wow yeah, so so like so you so Jake Carret.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
You know what Jake Carrett is.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I sure do, so I had him on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Oh so he's firing one at me on WhatsApp just
like two days ago because he's got a big conference
in Ireland in May. And they reached out to me
two days ago and asked me what I thought, kind
of asking if I wanted to go. I'm like, I
don't even think that's gonna happen. I'll be surprised if
Jake Carrett has a job, right. It was just that simple.
(43:40):
It wasn't anything big. Next thing, I know, I got
Jay Kerren coming at me on WhatsApp saying, why do
you telling people that I'm gonna lose my job? And
I said, well, because that's what I think's going to happen, right,
I said, why is this guy taking me so seriously?
There have an answer from that? I said, you gotta
you got, you gotta hunted. Sixty people signed up for
(44:01):
that thing, it's rock solid. Why would this guy be
worried about me? Right right? And so he didn't have
an answer for that. So that's one of the telles
right right right?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And why why is he even blasted me on that
if he's not worried about me, why was he coming
back and blasting me on Whatsop saying why are you
throwing me under the bus with the guy that's running
the conference? Okay, I mean I was literally just it
was literally one line. It wasn't like I was slamming him.
I just I was just being honest. I think it's
all getting disrupted, just like I'm being honest right now.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So what So what's your take on a guy like
Andrew Wood.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I love him. I think I think I think he's
right on. I think he's part of the I think
he's part of the disruptors.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah, he's he's He's written two three or four articles
on LinkedIn and then that Golf Business magazine just just
not destroying, but destroying the PJ of America, McMahon, Florida
is just every day.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Well, remember, as soon as the leadership's out, the goal
is to circle back and create the value that the
that the thirty thousand members deserve. Right they're they're they're
being mistreated. And this is the conversation I was having
two years ago with the people inside the pg of
America when they were asking, well, what would you do
if it all blew up, I said, I'd figure out
(45:24):
a way to fix it right, Right, It's important.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, you got to put You have to just buy
a big bottle of glue and figure out where the
pieces go.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Well, it's great as a corporation. You know, there's a
lot of new tools coming to teach the game. I
don't know if you know a guy named Jim Shallhoo,
he used to work for Callaway, top sales guy, top
notch guy. He's got a new he's got a new
product called square Face. You think about robotics, like in
the auto industry, you can kind of picture out they're
putting cars together. This this thing mounts to the floor
(45:59):
and it guides you through. Right. Now, they've got a
complete product with a chipping swing and if you put
somebody on there, it gives them the feel for how
to do a chip in like ten or twenty strokes.
And then you take them off the machine and they're
dunking shots, right, and they've never played before.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
The club face square the whole thing, the whole thing square.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Right, right. So that's going to fundamentally change how people teach, right,
instead of everybody having their own way, it's going to
be Okay, we have AI and we have these computer
assisted tools. So now we need you to be mental coaches, right,
We need you to help people get excited about the game.
So it's a little more you know about that than
(46:43):
it is about hey, you know, turn your hips this
way and put that right. So there's going to be
a lot more consistency in the future for how to
get people to come square to the ball without any
kind of advice from a coach, which is gonna, yeah,
going to disrupt the world happens. Oh yeah, Now Jim
(47:03):
thinks that, you know, I'm disrupting. Jim's like, I got
a product that's going to disrupt the world.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
They were trying to delude They were trying to delude
him last week. And he's like, no, I found a
way out. I'm keeping this thing. They're not going to
get me this time.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So okay, So this has been fascinating talking to you.
So here's what we're going to do. In two or
three weeks. I'm going to have you back on here
and I'm going to see We're going to see how
what what's next? I am because I have it. This
is this is incredibly interesting to me. So you know,
you put up with me for fifty two minutes and
(47:39):
you know, so now I will call you, I'll get
on LinkedIn. We'll connect in about two or three weeks,
I'll have you back on and we will roll that way.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah. Well, let's do a lettle say due right, how
many things did I predict it actually happened exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I will listen to that as soon as it comes out,
and then I will make a list and we're going
to talk about that list and about three weeks. Okay,
And I.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Don't and I don't not being wrong. I'm not going
to be right on everything, right. The part of growth
is just asking the hard questions right and having people
that want to answer them.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Also, you are correct, Dave Schultz. I cannot tell you
how much I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
All Right, you too, man, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
All right, talk to you soon, all right later, Okay, bye.
This is the Rich Comwell Golf Show
Welcome to the Rich Komal Goof Show. Last week we
were we were very fortunate to have Steve Weacroft on
with us, a former PGA Tour player and now in
charge of the are the CEO and the founder of
the Mulligan Foundation, which is doing tremendous amounts of good
for athletes and some mental relief and some some mental
(00:24):
I don't want to use the word repair, but repair.
But moving on from Steve, we are joined by Dave
Schultz this week. Dave is the CEO, the found and
the founder of Next Links and Dave's got a really, really,
really cool story. Dave can be considered a bit of
a disruptor, but Dave is actually just an extremely passionate
(00:48):
guy about a lot of things. So we're going to
talk about that, but and all that. But first off, Dave,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks Rich, I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No problem at all. So talk to me about as
I start with everybody, tell me where it all started
for you in the very beginning, and how you actually
became even a little bit acquainted with or very closely
acquainted with the game of golf.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well it was my grandpa, right, So I was probably
the first time I was associated with golf in anyway,
was at the Ohigh Valley Inn Country Club. I don't
know if you've ever been there, but it's a really
cool place. My grandpa used to go there with my
grandma and my dad and he were playing golf. This
was probably nineteen seventy two, so I would have been
(01:34):
like eight, and you know, I didn't get to play,
but Grabs would throw a ball like near the green
and let me chip it and let me play a
couple and you know, I got the bug in my head.
And then I didn't really play much after that until
sort of my probably junior senior year in high school.
(01:56):
And I used to skip school quite a bit. So
I would skip school and go to the golf course
and i'd pick up a game at like seven in
the morning. And funny enough, nobody ever asked me why
I wasn't in school like that. I just had fun
picking up with groups, and you know, I had a
(02:17):
natural aptitude for the game, and so the people like
playing with me, and you know, I just was really
hooked ever since then.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
That's cool. And then, so did you play Did you
actually go to school enough to play in high school
or did you just keep skipping school and play with
those guys.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
No, I just kept skipping school and playing those guys.
But then I went in the Navy, right. I joined
the Navy when I was seventeen, and I was stationed
up in Washington on an island called Whiby Island, in
the town called Oakcarbor. And there was a group of
retired guys that played on the navy course and they
(02:53):
called themselves the Barracudas, and they played for money. So
I worked the night shift, and so I would go
out and it would be a pickup game maybe you know,
sometimes fifteen, sometimes twenty guys would show up and we'd
play skins games and groups games, and you know, you
could lose it one hundred bucks, win one hundred bucks.
And you know, I was only making about three hundred
(03:15):
bucks every two weeks, so that was a lot of
money for me back then. And it was just, you know,
I just got hooked on the whole competitive nature of
the sport and also sort of the camaraderie that golfers
feel with each other. Right, it's a it's a special game.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So yeah, it is a special game. So so how
long did you stay in the Navy.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I was in every six years, eighty three to eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I went about two and a half years floating mostly
in the Indian Ocean on the USS Constellation. I did
avionics repair on a six and F eighteen Fighter jets.
I was on the first deployment with F eighteen, So
that was kind of cool. Worked with them Donald McDonald,
Douglas guys. And you know, the Constellation was my ship,
(04:04):
and it was America's flagship, and you know, got to
go all over the world and see places I never
thought i'd see and meet people there. And and when
we'd go into port, I'd play golf in those places too,
golf and tennis.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That's that's pretty that's pretty awesome. So then you spend
six years, then you go to college. What what do?
Where'd you go? You went San Luis, California, San Louis, Bispo. Correct.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, so, I you know, I was a pretty poor
student in high school, as.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You might have got, well you're skipping school, man, I mean,
like just a chance.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah. So my senior year, I think my attendance rate
was like less than fifty percent. And you know, most
people in their senior in high school. They don't have
any classes I had. I had sick classes and two
work experience just to get my diploma so that the
Navy would accept me. And then and then I went
into sort of the advanced electronics repair program in the Navy.
(04:58):
So the first two years was all school and learning
how to you know, use electronics equipment like acilloscopes and
stuff like that, and learn how to repair circuit boards,
you know, at the component level. And I was pretty
good at it. So when I got out, you know,
I was married. Then I got married while I was
in the Navy, and so when I got out, I
(05:19):
was either going to be an accountant. And my wife's like, no,
she said, you were so good at fixing those things,
you know, why don't you just keep them doubt So
I got my electronic engineering degree from count Poly San
Elizabespo and ninety five I graduated.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So you're actually a pretty smart guy, you just downplay
it pretty well. Well.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I finished first in my class in college, so I
went from barely graduating to the top of my class.
So I do have. I do have, like I called myself,
like curious risk taker, right, And so when I got married,
the risk taking was okay, I better figure out how
to provide for my family. And so I took college,
(06:00):
you know, very seriously, and I and I did well
because I worked hard, and I didn't do well in
high school because I didn't work hard, right, So I
definitely had the mental skills and the and the mindset
to do well. It's just having the motivation to apply myself,
you know, was always the challenge. And you know that's
why when I ultimately left everything to you know, grow
(06:24):
the game of golf with sort of my life mission.
When I left, I realized, I'm like, wow, I could
spend my whole life doing that, and it would just
be like having a hobby, right, I could be like
Vin Scully right and never want to never want to retire,
And and that is how I feel. I've been doing
it for a decade now, and I honestly don't. It
(06:44):
feels like I don't even work right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Right. So so okay, so before before we get to
that point so that you actually did you graduate and
you got it and you got to I guess what
we call.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, they'd do a job, and that not electrical engineering
where you're like at power plants, but electronic engineering, where
you're doing you know, circuit design and for the computer design,
that kind of stuff, the stuff that's inside computers. And
so I went and got a job in a town
called Mindon, Nevada, a small town with a really great
(07:18):
company called Bentley, Nevada that made vibration sensors for the
oil and gas and energy sectors. And so General Electric
was our number one customer. And then about five years
into that, gig Ge bought that company and then I
became a Ge employee.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, so wow, So and you would have been okay
just doing that forever.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know. My goal was to just focus on something
that I was good at until I had enough money
to retire and play golf. And then two thousand and
eight happened and that was the end of that, right,
So I took a global job, moved to Boston, bill Rick,
a little bit north of Boston, and in two thousand
(08:10):
and seven, so we owned our house in Mendon, still
bought a new house in New Hampshire. It and all
of my savings was in real estate. So I got
what's called being aided. Right. A lot of a lot
(08:30):
of people my age are familiar with being o aided.
So so my given plan didn't work anymore, right, because
there's no way I was going to There's no way
I was going to recover. And that happened to be
when you know, so, I was Navy during Reagan era
and I loved it, right, proud American servant for Ronald Reagan,
(08:51):
who was a great leader. Never never voted Democrat. Everybody
thinks I'm sort of a Democrat kind of guy because
of what I do on LinkedIn and stuff, But I
never voted Democrat until two thousand and eight. And the
only reason I did it then was because of Sarah Palin,
because she came in and ran with John McCain, who
I really thought was a great guy. But I didn't
(09:12):
think Sarah Palin was serious, and I liked what Obama
was preaching in terms of his messaging about hope and
change and all that. It turns out, right after I
got awaided was his first date of the Union speech
and he gets up there and he says, look, you know,
I worked really hard to get this job. Right. He's
about the same age as me, and he basically called
(09:35):
out anybody who wasn't given there all to try and
you know, give back or do you know, be a
better human or whatever. And I was sitting there thinking
to myself, I'm like, wow, I feel like I give
like ten percent of my capability to my job. I'm
making two hundred thousand dollars a year. I wonder what
would happen if I really applied myself right, kind of
(09:58):
like what we were talking about before we call it.
And I really and I realized I was never going
to apply myself unless I found something I really cared
about to work on, because it's just my nature to,
you know, go find something fun to do rather than
you know, just busy work. And so that's you know,
two thousand and eight is when I really began thinking about,
(10:22):
you know, okay, I'm going to have to find something
to go do. And twenty fifteen is when I finally
had the idea to basically top top golf, if you will.
I saw Top Golf, I saw Top Golf growing, and
I thought, maybe they'll just give me a job to
work in, you know, their skunk works department and build
(10:42):
them a better game. It turns out Top Golf isn't
really a real business. It's it's more of a it's
more of a money laundering company, right, right. It seemed
like it was a business to me, I didn't know
any better. But in reality, it's a it's a real
estate game. And so they didn't have any interest in
hiring a guy that wanted to actually grow the game
(11:05):
because of that. They just weren't They weren't really that
kind of company, and so they became my competitor. At
that point, I'm like, okay, well, if they won't, you know,
if they won't hire me, then I'm going to have
to build something better than they can do. And I
you know, I had this great idea, which essentially, if
you want to know what my idea was, it was
what became TGL last year. That that the indoor golf
(11:28):
ly right, that they built in Florida. That that's essentially
what my idea was is the world needed a game
that had used all of the same skills as real golf,
so that it became practice, right for those of us
that want to go play the traditional way, but you
could play it on a much smaller footprint. And I
(11:48):
had already played on the golf simulators, you know, for
a long time by twenty fourteen, right, and so I
kind of knew. I kind of knew their flaws, right,
I'm like, wow, there's when you get down the touch
and the putting, there's just nothing there. So I just thought,
what if you built the big expansive short game and
coupled it with you know, a simulator for the full
(12:09):
swing shots and actually built, you know, a real game
that a golfer would enjoy playing. And that's what TGL
is supposed to be. I don't think they quite nailed
it with the technology. The pros were still complaining a
little bit about accuracy and stuff. But you know what
was what was really key to me is that every
(12:30):
single shot had to have real shot value, as if
you were playing on a traditional course, because then you'd
get the real golfers in there, you know, when they
can't get out for four hours, right, and you know,
and you could really do something with that. And so
that that was a really fundamental requirement for me, is
the game had to be truly authentic to the traditional game.
(12:55):
So that's my journey, right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You decide, you decide to do this, right, okay, so
try you try to jump on board with top golf
and and and you know, you start to realize very
quickly that as you put it, they are a money
changing hand company.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Correct, And so.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
All right, so you're gonna Tom.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I caught Tom Benison at Club Corp. So Club Court.
Club Corp. Was the biggest public company with golf courses
in the entire United States, Right. I didn't realize. I
didn't realize that the entire golf ecosystem all reported to
Ponta Vidra. Right, So that was that was another naives
(13:35):
part of my education. Right. So Tom entertained me a
little bit. We had a good conversation, but you know,
they introduced me to David Pillsbury not long after that,
and and David Pillsbury became my first assassin. Right. So,
the the way the system, the way the system works
(13:56):
in golf is an innovator like me comes in and
the vultures see that and they let you do your work,
they let you create, and then they find a way
to steal it from you. And so David Pilsbury was
the first guy to come in and try and steal
from me. And I didn't realize what a big deal
(14:16):
he was because when I met him, he was working
at a brewery. He had left, he had left the
golf Industree. Later I realized that he had done Tiger
Woods contracts and that he worked for Trumpet Doral, Right,
so I'm like, oh, he's really an insider. But he
didn't really let me in on that, you know, over
the years, so he really came in earnest. You know,
(14:39):
he got the job to run Club Corp coincidentally not
long after that, and then and then Apolo came in
and took Club Corp private. And all of that was
because of my idea.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They wanted your stuff, They wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Me to figure it out, and then they wanted to
steal it, and and I had filed for a so
they they thought, you know, I was certainly advertising that
I had this patent and that this patent was going
to save me. They were they thought that was really laughable,
right because one the whole systems of monopoly, and two
(15:17):
they've got more legal might and they don't mind suing people, right,
So they they didn't worry about it. But what they
didn't realize is that I didn't view the patent as
something that I would go like get legal support to
you know, sue them when they when they copied me. Right,
I didn't do anything to try and sue when TGL
(15:37):
came in, what I wanted. What I wanted is for
them to try and steal from me and then for
me to go find somebody else that wanted to compete
with them. And and that's where the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia came into play. So I found I found the Kingdom.
I met them in twenty fifteen. Also I flew to London.
(16:00):
I went to the London Golf Show. I met a
great guy named Neville Gaunt and Tony Westwood, who's a
really big golfer. They were writing a book. The book
was called or Is Your Mind Fit for Golf? We
we got on really good. They had me sign the
back cover of their book. I read the book and
I thought, wow, this is a really good book. So
(16:20):
they invited me to come to the London Golf Show
and I went ahead and flew out there. I met
the founder of Top Golf. There. I met Andy Heisman
there who is a media guy that connected me to
a pro named Peter McAvoy. Peter. Peter just passed away that.
The thing about Peter is he was the US He
(16:42):
was the British amateur champion at this at the same
time Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta Nashville, was.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The US champion.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yes, yes, but I didn't realize is the only reason
I met those guys is because they were already they
were already armed me, right, because I had already you know,
I had already injected myself into the system, so they
were already following me. So they wanted me to find Peter.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Right. So so what we're gonna do now is we're
gonna stop right there because now we're at the injection point.
So we're going to tell you commercial break. When we
come back, we are going to talk about what happens next.
Is this is fascinating. This is the rich Comwall Golf Show.
Welcome back to the rich Komwall Golf Show. We're speaking
with Dave Schultz, who is the CEO and founder of
Next Links. And when we left off, Dave had gone
(17:31):
from you know, a traditional job at General Electric and
Engineering and fun things like that, and is now kind
of morphed into his passion, which is creating an entity
that we can go inside and much like everybody's fantasy,
has a really cool, massive, all encompassing golf facility. So
(17:54):
that's what we are so, Dave. Now you've got to get. Now,
you got to grow. Now, you've got to grow this idea, right,
you got to get and obviously what's going to grow
it is money, So talk to me how we go
about that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, So I did a lot of research, right initially,
so between Saint Patrick to day when I had the
idea and sort of the summer when I got funded. Right,
so about six months I was just studying and one
of the people I found was a guy named Keith Bank.
I don't know if you're familiar with his name, but
he's sort of the technologies are for the whole golf
(18:27):
industry out of Chicago KB Partners, and I got into
review my deck and he sent me back and he
said it's never going to work. He gave me some
ideas to make it better, and so by summer I
was ready to get money. And I had a colleague
from Hong Kong at General Electric that was running a
(18:48):
science and technology part so it was a really good
fit and we started talking and lo and behold, he
wrote me a check for seventy five grand and that
got me started, and I started hiring creatives sort of
put the vision together using that money and then so
one thing led to another. The next money came in
about six months later, about seven hundred thousand dollars, and
(19:12):
then I used that money to you know, show up
at the PGA at the Golf Industry Show in San
Diego February twenty sixteen, and I spent about two hundred
thousand dollars because I wanted to just blow everybody away, right,
So I met Darius Rucker, right, I was working with
the National Golf Course Owners Association, Jake Karen and those guys, right,
(19:34):
because I'd already found all those guys from my research.
And that's that's how I ended up booking into that spot.
You know. Along the way, I met Robert Trent Jones,
two architects, and had dinner with you know, his son
who's in the movie business, and we had a really
cool exchange, you know, at the steakhouse. And you know,
so I was just having fun being an entrepreneur, right,
(19:56):
But it got serious after that, after I showed up
at the Golf Industry Show and really sort of plunk
down a big chunk of change and sort of let
everybody know that I intended to be here to stay.
And then I intended to bring this thing to market.
I didn't know that. I was, you know, working inside
of a monopoly, you know, a big empire.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So so now you're inside this thing and you're not realizing,
but this is basically knives out, right, I mean literally
knives out.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And I'm totally blind to it, right because I'm just
having fun as a newbie sort of entrepreneur after a
twenty year corporate career. So I had no idea that
I had no idea that knives were out until August
of twenty three. So for eight years, everybody was trying
to kill me, and I just wouldn't go away. I
(20:48):
just took everything they threw at me and I used
it to grow. Right, I'm like, Okay, you don't like that,
let me figure out how to do it better. Right,
But nobody would ever give me money except for that
first guy that gave me seven hundred grand. He ended
up running sixty more checks for me over five years
until I spent six million dollars. And it turns out
(21:09):
that's because he had a real estate company on the
other side and he was working with the insiders. So
they were just all using me to develop the tech, right,
and so I spent six years of my life and
six million dollars sort of perfecting what became TGL, and
then when it got good enough, that's when they tried
to steal it all from me. But fortunately that's when
(21:30):
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia showed up and came to
my rescue.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Okay, so talking about talk about that rescue. What did
that look like?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah? So Brando Chamblee and Augi Pisa, right, Augie was
involved with TGL two. You guys know Brando, right, So
they became the face of my company. They showed up
at the PGA Merchandise Show in January of twenty two
and basically did a big old shindig and took my
(22:02):
idea and ran with it with my permission, right because
I still had this patent that I was planning on using.
So I was kind of letting everybody, you know, do
their own thing, right, Hey, it's creating exposure. So what
else was going on right at that exact time was
live golf was becoming a threat, right, right, So January
(22:24):
twenty two, nobody had heard of live golf yet. But
February of twenty two was the Genesis Tournament Tiger's tournament,
and that was when all of that was turning into fire.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Right, right, it was actually burning. Now now we're going
oh it.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Was no, No, it was burning. That's when people were
threatening to go. And that's when Jay Monaghan was saying,
if you go, your band for life, right, And I'd
already been talking with DJ's people and all. I mean,
I was an insider by that point. I remember I
spent six million bucks and every single day I I
put updates on my social media platform. So people were
(23:04):
following me. So Tiger's team sent an agent out and
met me on the course, and I also ended up
at a party that Jim Nantz was hosting at the Genesis, right,
So I was clearly on the radar and they didn't
take me seriously, so they all that's what that was
(23:24):
sort of the origin of what became TGL. TGL was
supposed to be the answer to Live golf, Right, they're
really nothing like each other. So a lot of stuff
happened between February and June of twenty two, And in
June of twenty two is when the first live tournament
happened in Portland, and seven days before that tournament, I
(23:46):
get a text message from Magic Jamon al Sor, who
was the top guy for Golf Saudi direct Tech message
to my phone, Hey, why don't you come to Portland? Right?
And I said, well, yeah. He wouldn't give me any details, right,
I didn't tell me where they were staying. It was
basically a back door thing. So I so I bought
a ticket, showed up in Portland, texted him to night
(24:09):
I got there, he said, oh, come over here to
the back door. They printed me out some VIP badges.
I got to spend three days watching the tournament and
do all this stuff. And that's when I pitched them
on disrupting the whole system. I said, you guys, I said,
you guys, If you guys just take down Top Golf,
everything else will fall with it. I said, I'm telling
you they've got all their eggs in that one basket.
(24:32):
And then and then Madget said, well, if we do this,
we want to own it, we want to control it.
And I said, you guys, you can have it right now.
So I basically gave them all of my assets, my patent,
my brand, which was next links. By that point that
I knew Brandal and Augie were trying to take the market, right.
I said, you guys can have it all right then,
(24:54):
and then Mage Magic said, well what do you want?
I said, well, what I really wanted just to get
paid for the value I've created, which is stored in
this patent. And then I also really just want a
job because I just want to keep doing this. This
is what I've decided I want to do with my life.
And I got blacklisted like five years ago, and nobody
will even let me work in this industry. So I
(25:15):
offered to move to Saudi Arabia and be the janitor
for them. I said, I can tell you guys you're
serious me let me go to Saudi Arabia and grow
the game with you guys, right. So he didn't take
me up on that because I said also, I said,
but by the way, I know just about every single
leader in this entire industry intimately, and I could probably
(25:37):
be very valuable to you guys in the US marketplace.
And they took me very seriously, and so we made
an agreement during that tournament and I basically retired and
Magic told me to just basically be a thorn in
the side of Jay Monahan. That was my mission. So
from January twenty nine to twenty two when I gave
(25:59):
all this to the Saudi's and today my only job
was to be a squeaky wheel and throw fire at
the leaders of the PGA tour. So one of the
kind of cool stories is Dean Beaman. You guys know him, yes, yes, So,
so he was three commissioners, Dean Beamon, Tim Pitchen and
(26:20):
Jay Monahan and and so Dean came out with an
article and inside the article he was just remember they
were like talking about nine to eleven and like the
Shaudis are killers, and you know MBS is a murderer, right,
and and brandis spitting all that fire louder than anybody else.
(26:41):
And so all that was going on, and Dean Beaman
wrote an article or somebody interviewed him, and in the
article he said, the Saudis have more money than brains,
and it's because they had given Jared Kushner two billion dollars. Right. Well,
from that moment on, every time I referenced Team Eman
on LinkedIn, I put in the middle of it in quotes,
(27:03):
the Saudis have more money than brains, being the Saudi's
have more money than brains, right, Yeah, that's so he is,
that's so he is to me. So that I obviously
put a big target on my back, but it also
helped me sort of spur on the Saudis to keep fighting,
right I'm I'm like, I'm I'm on their team one
(27:24):
hundred percent, right, And and so here we are today
and the Saudis have control of the game with SSG Group. Right.
So SSG Group came in and funded you know, the
PGA tour and and now they have control over it.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So I'm sorry. So I am going to finally get paid.
So my exit is coming imminently, and it's going to
be really the value of the patent, whatever that is now,
and I think it's going to be a lot. And
then I'm also going to get a top job in
the industry, right, a leadership job.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Okay, So I got to ask you if you have
any idea of what that's worth.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
If I had to guess, I'd say a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
They used it, they used it as the disruption, right,
So the patent became the disruption. So the reason TGO
exists is because Mike McCary got my deck in twenty
eighteen at the PGA merchandise show, and inside that deck
was also all kinds of evidence that I had protected
(28:27):
it right with my patent, and rather than even offer
me a penny for it, they just started stealing it
and swiping it. So remember remember the timelines is I
told you I met with them face to face in
June of twenty two. Well, Tomorrow Tomorrow Sports got announced
in August of twenty two, and the day before that
(28:50):
Top Golf or Callaway changed its name to Top Golf Calaway.
All that was all that was happening because of the
disruption associated with my patent. And it turns out that
my patent was really valuable because I never even moved
it into the company, right it came in the mail.
I followed for it before I started the company to
(29:10):
protect myself, and then when it came in the mail,
my partner didn't make me put it in the company.
So even though he was playing me, he made the
mistake of letting me keep it as my personal asset.
And because it was my personal asset, it became a
really valuable anchor as a cryptocurrency anchor, right, so they
(29:30):
can actually monetize against it like a you know, like
a gold brick. And so for the last two or
three years, his excellency Yasser Aramyan, who everybody knows now
has been has been selling licenses to that brick all
around the world. They were owned control of it. Remember
(29:56):
I gave them full of control. They insisted. I said,
I said it's yours one thousand percent take it. And
then and then I made the mistake of saying, nothing
can surprise me anymore about human nature. And so they
used me as live bait for the next two and
a half three years. So they they tried to put
(30:17):
me in a looney bin to get the patent. So
after the SSG investment, So the SSG investment came on
December seventh, and and something went inside that investment that
was part of the patent. And so three or four
months later they were trying to, you know, thought all
their eyes and cross all their t's and deliver what
(30:38):
they promised to the SSG group. But the SSG group
knew they didn't have the patent already, right because they
were already working with Yasir, So to try and get
the patent, they literally tried to drive me insane and
so they could assign it to my wife to get
her to do a deal with them, because I promised
that I had already given it away. I had like
(30:59):
I was just sitting bait, right I could. I couldn't
tell anybody. But the fact is I had given it
to the Saudis already, and so these guys were trying
to get something that didn't exist, and they were trying
to put me in a look. My wife took me
to the VA hospital. They tried to prescribe me antipsychotic medications.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well, I survived it because I saw it coming. And listen,
the only reason I saw it coming is because my
dad had died six months earlier, in August of twenty three,
and on his deathbed, he told me that my sister
was part of this conspiracy against me, right in front
of her.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Oh my god. Wow, So I knew.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Remember, So I knew at that point, and I also
knew what the Saudis were doing using me as live bait.
And so from that moment on, I knew the game.
And so I sort of triggered this thing because I
could feel them coming at my son, coming at my wife.
You know, in ways that was going to ruin my
relationship with them and ruin my marriage. And I'm like, oh,
(32:05):
I just got to come out. And so I told
my wife all this stuff that my dad had told me,
and she said, you're crazy, and that's why she drove
me to the honey Been hospital, right and then and
then the hospital was all in on it. It was
a good I'm telling you, this is a big game.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
They wanted they wanted that patent rich, they wanted it bad.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Okay. So now so now, okay, I know when we
are now now we have another commercial break, and now
we're going to talk about when we come back from
this commercial, we're going to talk about your current existence
is basically a disruptor, because that's what that's what we're doing. Correct, Correct.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The whole thing is getting blown up and and there.
So there's a big show in Belfast that's supposed to
happen in May, and people are already canceling left and
right because I have disrupted. It's already over rich. It's
like today, you know, the timing of your interview right
now is timed with the disruption. So I have a
full team now in overseas that's been funded. I mean,
(33:08):
it's the disruption is behind us. It just hasn't become
public yet.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Perfect. We're going to talk about that right after this
commercial break. This is the rich Comwoll Golf Show. Welcome
back to rich Comwoll Golf Show. We are joined by
Dave Schultz this week, and he is the CEO and
founder and the chairman of Next Links and so he
basically has created a lot more than this, but very
(33:34):
simply a massive indoor all golf thood beverage fun stuff
like that, and has that run in two very hard
into a couple of pretty large knives out games with
people that have multiple knives when he doesn't have one.
(33:54):
So now basically we're on a path to disrupt and
all we want to do is grow the game of golf, correct, Dave.
That was the whole purpose of all this.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
My entire life was dedicated to growing the game of golf. Today,
I had this idea, I said, that's all I'm going
to do as long as I'm alive. And so I
had to create the disruption because they were trying to
throttle the game right, they didn't want it to grow.
That's one of the things Peter McAvoy told me. He said,
I said, it's not that hard, Peter, how come the
(34:27):
game's not growing, he said, because the people in charge
don't want it to grow. I'm like, well, that's stupid, right. So,
but by the time I met with the Saudi leadership
one June of twenty two at the Live Portland, it
was clear to me that they were serious about disrupting. Right.
They started to Live so that very purpose, the entire
reason Live exists is to disrupt the PGA tour, right
(34:52):
And so I'm so I made a deal with the
with them on the spot, they were very serious. They
showed me a level of respect that nobody in the
golf industry had ever showed me. It was clear to
me that they'd been studying my game. I knew several
years earlier that Yasser had already hired a DC lobbying company,
and he gave them my numbers, the first number to call,
(35:15):
And so I was ready to make a deal with them.
And on the spot, I said, just take everything I have.
I swear to you I will not do a deal
with those guys. I'd rather die, But you have to
disrupt this industry because it cannot grow unless you do.
That was it?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Wow? So okay, So what's the next step in growing it.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So when SSGU came in, I'm certain that they were
already aware of the patent and the risks to the
status quo because of it and the Saudi leadership's interest
in it. And so that's what that billion and a
half was. And if you guys recall, there was a
big footnote that said, we really want to work with
(35:59):
the Public Investment Fund on the next trench and so
Jamdan didn't want that to happen because of all the
old Ponta Vidra stuff, and so he's been slow playing it.
In the meantime, SSG and the PITH have been circling
around behind the scenes and coming up with an equation
to create a new company that's going to cut out
(36:21):
Panta Vidra and then Pontavitra is going to be gone,
and that's the next thing that's going to happen. They're
going to come up with a new so PGA to
our enterprises was my idea. I pitched it in November
of twenty two, but I pitched it with a different
leadership team, right, and Yaser's been building that leadership team
since November of twenty two, and I believe that the
(36:43):
PITH and SSG are about to launch that new company
that's going to essentially leave the nonprofit behind along with
all their skeletons, and create a new company that's ready
to grow the game.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So that would mean if that okay, So then tying
two things together. Obviously you know they're different, but the
PGA touring, the pg of America, the PGA of America
has to be in on this, correct, Well.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, they're in on it with Top Golf, right, so
they've got equity in Top Golf. It seems like the
worst cup secret in the world. Right. So when Calloway
bought Top Golf, that was all already a big collusive
thing with the PGA of America. You know, Craig Kessler,
who was their CEO, became the top guy at the
PGA of America. Don Ray got a job as secretary
(37:32):
because of me. Right. I met I've met Don Ray
at that first industry show in twenty sixteen, and then
I met him at a project we were doing in
Phoenix in twenty twenty and I'm like, that's another guy
that's trying to kill me when you talk about the
knives out right, So he came on the scene and
was telling everybody, Oh, yeah, the PGA of America is
(37:52):
going to go the game. We love everything, we love
Dave Schaltz. And then I would call him and he
wouldn't answer the phone, and I'm like, oh, there it is.
He's gonna tell everybody else he's to grow the game guy, right,
But he's not gonna deal with the guy that's actually
been working his ass off to grow the game for
six years and spent six million dollars of his own
money to do it, or other people's money, but still money,
(38:16):
real money. And so that was the game is to
shut me out. But I got blacklisted by the Bobby
Jones family in twenty seventeen. I mean, this is a
sinister world inside this golf industry. They you know, they
bring you in, they make you feel good, and then
(38:36):
they make some excuse. So the reason I got blacklister
is that I didn't buy lunch when Doctor Bok took
me out to lunch. And I didn't buy lunch because
I thought he was the patriarch and I'd let him
buy lunch. Right. So a week later I get a call,
You're if anybody ever says you want to work with
them inside the golf industry. We're going to tell them
not to do business with you. Literally, I got a fall. Why, oh,
(38:58):
everybody knows you got to lunch. I'm like, you've got
to be a kid in me.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
This is about lunch. It's about lunch now.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And so but I wouldn't go away, right,
I said, Well, I'm going to keep trying to disrupt.
It's because I really wanted to see the game grow.
I wanted to free the game to grow to its potential.
And now I've got a team in place that's doing
just that. So I'm certain that this disruptions already behind us.
I mean, I mean we're literally talking days before some
(39:29):
of these announcements that I'm talking about are going to happen.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, So who's on your team?
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I got a guy named Francois Houghton, and he's an
African but he lives in Northern Ireland. Now, so you know,
the Irons came into the Super Bowl in February of
twenty two, twenty three and invested a bunch of money
behind my idea, and so a lot of stuff's been
going on in Ireland to grow the game. And you know,
(39:58):
so Francois is my main guy. Franz Waiugh, everybody loves him,
everybody trusts him. He's all he wants to do is
grow the game, just like me. I joke with people.
I'm like, you can take my brain and put it
in his body. You could take his brain and put
it in my body and we'd be the same human being. Right.
So what we did is we did just that. I said, well,
Frank Laill, everybody wants to work with me, and that's
(40:21):
what we've been doing for the last eight months is
working with a lot of other people. And just like
I said, they all want to work with me right
up until the time it's time to write a check
and then they say, well, we can't work with Dave,
right because I've been blacklisted. Well, Franflaill was already aware
of that game, right, and he swore to me he
wouldn't leave me behind. And so I put my life
in his hands and he came through for me. So
(40:43):
he's got a guy named Joe mcnight. We've got a
guy named Nile mulvaney, right, So the are all international guys,
but we've all been huddling up for the last eight
months every week and building a tribe of our own.
That's now I'm pretty certain Francois hasn't told me for sure.
And then we've also got a ghost writer named Steve Mitchell.
(41:06):
Some people have heard of this Bainbridge Diaries. I don't
know if that come.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Up on your radar and all.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yep, what he's got all the inside knowledge of all
the real knives out stuff, and he's been documenting it.
He's three books into it now over six years. So
that asset is part of my team. It sounds very
clear to me that Richard Branson is also involved at
this point. So I mean we're talking big players.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Holy cow. All right. So so okay, so if I
said to you, you know, take the temperature of the
PGA of America, where do you stand. I'm a PG professional,
so this is really interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
No, So I've been today. We're doing their dude? Did
they taught me two years ago? And I could tell
they really wanted to bust up their own leadership because
they don't like it either, right, So I was like,
just help me bust it up and then we'll figure
out how to make the PGA of America the best
thing ever right to act. We work for the pros
as it's supposed to, right. I said, I've got this
(42:04):
great idea, the great idea of belongs on golf properties. Right,
if we're all working together, the PGA of America is
the best organization in the world. And so I've got
insiders kind of preparing to disrupt the leadership at the
top of the PGA of America for at least two
or three years now, and it's about to happen. I think.
(42:25):
I think Don Ray has already been pulled out to
be honest with you, like yesterday. I mean, we're at
that kind of timing.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Really.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh yeah, Remember this is how I'm going for ten years.
This is all I think about, all I do, my
life is committed to growing the game. So I kind
of know intuitively because I've created my own language with
the key insiders. We don't talk directly to each other.
We sort of talk in Indian code, right. But between
(42:54):
all my resources that I have, I can put two
and two together and I can see what's happen happening,
and I'm pretty dark certain that Don Ray doesn't have
a job much longer.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Wow, wow yeah, so so like so you so Jake Carret.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
You know what Jake Carrett is.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I sure do, so I had him on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Oh so he's firing one at me on WhatsApp just
like two days ago because he's got a big conference
in Ireland in May. And they reached out to me
two days ago and asked me what I thought, kind
of asking if I wanted to go. I'm like, I
don't even think that's gonna happen. I'll be surprised if
Jake Carrett has a job, right. It was just that simple.
(43:40):
It wasn't anything big. Next thing, I know, I got
Jay Kerren coming at me on WhatsApp saying, why do
you telling people that I'm gonna lose my job? And
I said, well, because that's what I think's going to happen, right,
I said, why is this guy taking me so seriously?
There have an answer from that? I said, you gotta
you got, you gotta hunted. Sixty people signed up for
(44:01):
that thing, it's rock solid. Why would this guy be
worried about me? Right right? And so he didn't have
an answer for that. So that's one of the telles
right right right?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And why why is he even blasted me on that
if he's not worried about me, why was he coming
back and blasting me on Whatsop saying why are you
throwing me under the bus with the guy that's running
the conference? Okay, I mean I was literally just it
was literally one line. It wasn't like I was slamming him.
I just I was just being honest. I think it's
all getting disrupted, just like I'm being honest right now.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So what So what's your take on a guy like
Andrew Wood.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I love him. I think I think I think he's
right on. I think he's part of the I think
he's part of the disruptors.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah, he's he's He's written two three or four articles
on LinkedIn and then that Golf Business magazine just just
not destroying, but destroying the PJ of America, McMahon, Florida
is just every day.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Well, remember, as soon as the leadership's out, the goal
is to circle back and create the value that the
that the thirty thousand members deserve. Right they're they're they're
being mistreated. And this is the conversation I was having
two years ago with the people inside the pg of
America when they were asking, well, what would you do
if it all blew up, I said, I'd figure out
(45:24):
a way to fix it right, Right, It's important.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, you got to put You have to just buy
a big bottle of glue and figure out where the
pieces go.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Well, it's great as a corporation. You know, there's a
lot of new tools coming to teach the game. I
don't know if you know a guy named Jim Shallhoo,
he used to work for Callaway, top sales guy, top
notch guy. He's got a new he's got a new
product called square Face. You think about robotics, like in
the auto industry, you can kind of picture out they're
putting cars together. This this thing mounts to the floor
(45:59):
and it guides you through. Right. Now, they've got a
complete product with a chipping swing and if you put
somebody on there, it gives them the feel for how
to do a chip in like ten or twenty strokes.
And then you take them off the machine and they're
dunking shots, right, and they've never played before.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
The club face square the whole thing, the whole thing square.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Right, right. So that's going to fundamentally change how people teach, right,
instead of everybody having their own way, it's going to
be Okay, we have AI and we have these computer
assisted tools. So now we need you to be mental coaches, right,
We need you to help people get excited about the game.
So it's a little more you know about that than
(46:43):
it is about hey, you know, turn your hips this
way and put that right. So there's going to be
a lot more consistency in the future for how to
get people to come square to the ball without any
kind of advice from a coach, which is gonna, yeah,
going to disrupt the world happens. Oh yeah, Now Jim
(47:03):
thinks that, you know, I'm disrupting. Jim's like, I got
a product that's going to disrupt the world.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
They were trying to delude They were trying to delude
him last week. And he's like, no, I found a
way out. I'm keeping this thing. They're not going to
get me this time.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So okay, So this has been fascinating talking to you.
So here's what we're going to do. In two or
three weeks. I'm going to have you back on here
and I'm going to see We're going to see how
what what's next? I am because I have it. This
is this is incredibly interesting to me. So you know,
you put up with me for fifty two minutes and
(47:39):
you know, so now I will call you, I'll get
on LinkedIn. We'll connect in about two or three weeks,
I'll have you back on and we will roll that way.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah. Well, let's do a lettle say due right, how
many things did I predict it actually happened exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I will listen to that as soon as it comes out,
and then I will make a list and we're going
to talk about that list and about three weeks. Okay,
And I.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Don't and I don't not being wrong. I'm not going
to be right on everything, right. The part of growth
is just asking the hard questions right and having people
that want to answer them.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Also, you are correct, Dave Schultz. I cannot tell you
how much I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
All Right, you too, man, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
All right, talk to you soon, all right later, Okay, bye.
This is the Rich Comwell Golf Show
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