August 19, 2025 • 48 mins
Rich dives into the history of the PGA of America, its hey day, and how the association can get back to how it was back then.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Rich Gombogo show again. I had an unplanned
vacation last week. They're not vacations, just so you know.
But I'm glad to be back with you. I am
going to fly solo today, but what I would like
and since I'm I have such a large ego, I'm
going to tell you that what I say is actually
(00:22):
really important. So everybody's gonna hang on every word. But
we are going to talk a little bit today, actually
a lot today about the PGA of America. I don't
know how much everybody knows about the PJ of America,
and I don't know if everybody knows what's exactly happening
(00:43):
not happening, but it's kind of like an undercurrent, undertow
of sentiment about about the PJ of America. So I'm
just going to go over some facts, you know, some
some written words that that will set the stage for
for what I'm what I'm going what I'm going to
talk about. So, the PGA of America was founded in
(01:05):
nineteen sixteen, and it is just it's a it's a
great organization. Let me start there. I'm a member of
the PJ of America. I've been a member of the
PJ America for over twenty five years. I am a true, true,
true believer in the PGA of America. I am a
(01:25):
true believer in the impact the PGA of America and
its member professionals can have and do have on the
game of golf and the landscape of golf and all
that fun stuff. But you know, the only way to
(01:46):
start this is to go back to the beginning and
the mission of the PGA of America as it reads
is the mission of the Association is to promote, is
to promote the enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf,
and to contribute to its growth by putting providing services
to golf professionals and the golf industry. The Association will
(02:12):
accomplish this mission by promoting the profession the profession of
golf professionals, enhancing the opportunities for amateurs, employers, manufacturers, employees,
and the general public. In so doing, the Association will
elevate and enhance the skills and standards of the professional
golfers vocation, promote the common business interests of golf professionals,
(02:39):
stimulate interest in the game of golf, and promote the
overall vitality of the game. Okay. So there's a lot
of words, a lot of words, okay, summarize, okay, to
provide the enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf.
(03:00):
Accomplish this mission by promoting the profession of golf professionals,
enhancing the opportunities for amateurs, employers, manufacturers, employees, and the
general public. The Association will elevate and enhance the skills
and standards of the professional golfer's vocation, promote the common
(03:23):
business interest of golf professionals, stimulate interest in the game
of golf, and promote the overall vitality of the game. Okay,
I read it twice, just number one to prove to
you I can read but a little bit of oral history, okay.
And because I truly believe the crossroads we're at right now,
(03:43):
we're starting to be constructed. In nineteen sixteen. In nineteen sixteen,
a department store magnate owner named John Wannamaker. If anybody's
from Philadelphia, Wannamaker is a huge, huge, huge, big, massive
department store in the early twentieth century, late late nineteenth century,
(04:08):
early twentieth century, much like Kaufman's much like Saxo Fifth Avenue, large, huge,
huge department store. As a matter of fact, that the
original Wannamakers is in Philadelphia. If you ever get a
(04:29):
chance to go into it, it's like walking back in time.
It's unbelievable. It's awesome. It's really awesome. Multiple stores stories.
Excuse me. I would tell you that the interesting thing
is is the original Wannamakers is a lot like if
you ever got to go to Kaufman's in downtown Pittsburgh. Unbelievable,
It's unbelievable. It's all gone now, Kaufman's is, but it's
(04:54):
just it's unbelievable. So anyway, mister w Maker called some
local golf professionals in Philadelphia, so I need to talk
to you. He said, I believe in the profession of golf.
I don't know what he said actually, but it's kind
of an oral history here, but I believe in your profession.
(05:25):
I also believe that you should organize to strengthen your association.
I will even go so far, mister Wannamaker said, to
put up prize money in a trophy for you to
(05:51):
play for as the culmination of your annual championship and
as the benchmark of your associates competitive nature. That trophy
is what they give the PGA champion every year. Still
(06:12):
want to make a trophy. Now, if you hear my
part of that story, or the first part of that story,
you hear a very successful businessman actually expanding or organizing,
help organize and association of golf professionals for the betterment
of golf, and all those nifty things. Those words I
(06:33):
just read, which I do believe. We try to live
up to those words. But like the old saying, quid
pro quo, mister Wannamaker wanted something in exchange for that?
What do you wanted in exchange for that really nice trophy?
(06:54):
And it is a nice trophy. And the names on
it are Whoa, Whoa, Hagen Kopka, mister Hogan Snead. There's
not a major name, the exception of Tom Watson and
Arnold Palmer. There's not a name on there that is
(07:16):
not There's not a top twenty player of all time.
His name is not on there. Bobby Jones' name is
not on there. He was an amateur. It's professional, so
all right, So he said, in exchange for all these
nifty things in this organizational meeting, in this prize money,
in this really new trophy, you guys agree to let
(07:38):
me sell golf equipment in my in my department stores.
And we said yes. So at that moment in time,
we wrote down that mission that I read all the
(08:01):
while knowing that a NONPGA member had a way better
sales floor, way better sales pitch, could reach much more
people than we could. But that's okay because we have
a trophy, and we have a prize pool, and we
(08:22):
have cash, and we have an association. Now that's pretty
much how it started. Now, that's that's how it started.
Pretty much that's how it started. So that's nineteen sixteen,
and you know, you get into nineteen twenty nine, the
(08:44):
depression hits, and you know, things get you know dark
in this country because obviously that guy over in Germany
was doing stuff and you know, started in thirty whatever,
thirty six or whatever. So we were kind of embrilliant
in all this. But pg of America continued on and
we continued on to be the front lines of golf.
(09:08):
If you walked onto a golf course in this country,
the person running the golf operation was a PGA member.
Now think about that for a minute. You walked onto
a property in nineteen sixteen, nineteen ninety one, whatever, you
(09:30):
encountered a PGA professional. Now, you know, let's think about
this for a minute. You know, everybody's seen the greatest
game ever, the greatest game ever played with about Francis
we met in the US Open and all that fun stuff. Right,
there's a PGA professional there too. Stuart Maiden was the
(09:55):
PGA professional Eastlake Golf Club that taught kid that became
Bobby Jones. I can trace PGA professionals back to helping everybody.
Our current our current world number one and world beater,
(10:15):
Scottie Scheffler is taught by a PGA professional, Randy Smith.
It's awesome. That's awesome. So why am I talking about
all this Well, because behind the scenes, I personally I've
(10:45):
been on now just so you know, just to kind
of clarify a little bit more, the PGA America has
broken up into forty one sections. I currently am employed
in the Tri State Section, which is part of Maryland,
part of western Pennsylvania, all of West Virginia. You know,
(11:07):
there's the Colorado Section, which is all of Colorado and
some pieces of I think it's Idaho. I should know
that on the top of my head. There's a New
England section, which is you know, all of New England.
There's South Florida, there's North Florida. There's Carolinas. There's Middle Atlantic,
(11:29):
which is you know, some Maryland, some Virginia. There's the
met section, which is New York City and surrounding New
York area. There's Western New York, which is outside of Buffalo.
And you guys don't need to give you a geography lesson. Okay,
there's forty one of them. Okay. And I as a
(11:53):
PGA member, A proud PGA member, I am. I am very,
very very proud to be a PGA member, very proud.
I'm a member of the Tri State PGA. That's my section.
I've been on the board of the Tri State PGA.
I've won awards from the Tri State PGA. I'm very
proud of the Tri State PGA. I'm very proud to
(12:15):
be a pg member. But in the immortal words of
well somebody way smarter than me, I see things as
they as they are. I don't ask why. I see
things as they should be and ask why not. So
(12:37):
let's go backwards a little bit more, not before nineteen sixteen.
I promise I actually were getting closer today. The height
of the of the PGA of America. The height of
the pg of America, I believe, I believe was the
(13:01):
nineteen fifties through the nineteen seven sixties, fifties all the
way through the nineties. Okay, fifties through the nineties. That's
when you know again, every green grass facility you were
(13:23):
at had a PGA professional there. He probably owned the
golf shop. I actually, I tell you he did own
the golf shop. Didn't get paid a lot of money,
taught all the lessons, played sometimes competitively, sometimes very very
(13:49):
very well, ran the entire golf operation. Was the singularly
most important person on that property. Every day. I work
for a guy in WI Williams Williamsport, Pennsylvania named Tom Chophy.
(14:14):
He drove a white blazer. Every time that drove on
the property. He got out. I was like, there's the
most important person on the property for the well being
of the facility. For the well being of the facility.
(14:36):
Now he would tell you, and I would tell you
that the well being I mean, the most important person
in the property, on the property members customers, all that
fun stuff. Okay, I agree with all that, but I'm
talking about the PGA of America's scope here, So that's
(15:04):
when the height happened between the fifties and the nineties. Yeah,
I'm not so old that I remember the fifties and
sixties and seventies of this, but I've talked to enough people,
and when we come back from this break, we are
going to talk about the heights and what they looked like,
(15:26):
and then we're going to talk about what it looks
like now. And I'm just going to ask a question
at the end of all this and see if I
can answer it for you, and probably ask you to
answer it as well. This is the rich Como Gulf Show.
Welcome back to rich Como Gulf Show. As I said
earlier today, I am flying solo and we are going
(15:49):
down history lane a little bit and talking about the
PGA of America today. So here is the here's where
we left off. We left off. We started out the
mission statement and the oral history of mister Wannamaker, et cetera,
and the and then the what I deemed to be
(16:16):
the height of the profession, which is the fifties through
the nineties, the height of the PGA of America and
our massive impact and one of the things that made
us made the pg of America the experts and all
this is because we were the experts in playing, merchandising, teaching,
and operations. All of it. Worked a lot of hours,
(16:42):
but we were in charge of all of it. Like
we fixed golf clubs, we sold equipment, we fitted equipment,
we taught, we played very well. Those were all all
part of it. The number of tour players that went
(17:04):
on to be club professionals and were notable club professionals.
Johnny Palmer, not Arnold Johnny. You know he was at
the country Club at Tulsa, Taulls the country Club, excuse me.
Horton Smith won two Masters. Johnny Palmer by the way,
(17:24):
one of the Canadian Open, in the Western Open, Horton
Smith won the first Masters and the third Masters went
to Detroit Golf Club. You could find them. You could
find them that this was a career for them when
they're when they're when the opportunities started to go away
on the PGA tour, they would come to clubs and
(17:46):
they would do great jobs, because if they didn't do
a good job, they get fired because clubs needed and
golf courses needed experts. So wasn't at the fact that
Horton Smith could won the first and the third Masters.
If he hadn't taken care of the members of Detroit
Golf Club, they would have said to him, no, let's
(18:06):
greet you won the first and third Masters. Get me
somebody in here that can do this because you can't. So,
in other words, instead of letting that happen to him,
Horton Smith became the expert in teaching and merchandising and
golf operations. So then if you weren't them, if you
(18:32):
weren't them, if you weren't Horton Smith or Johnny Palmer
or the numerous other ones I could mention Lou Worsham.
Lou Worsham won the US opened became the headrofessional Oakmont.
If you weren't them, then you had to become the
(18:52):
expert through work, through effort, through education, through determination. That's
how you kept your job. You were the expert at
your facility, whether it be x y z x y
(19:15):
Z public or x y z private or a practice
facility like a range. Think about that for a minute.
What did I what did I not mention. I'll get
to that in a minute. But what did I not mention?
(19:37):
I did I not mentioned. I did not mention off course.
I did not mention off course because you had to
be at a range at a golf course to be
that had to be had to be so you were
(20:06):
the expert. So if you didn't have that playing resume,
you had to become. You had to earn the job
and the knowledge and the respect of the membership or
the customers or your patrons to hard work and commitment
and dedication. And from that hardware, commitment, dedication came legends.
(20:32):
Horton Smith was already a legend, but he became one
of the PJ of America. That's where we got people
like Sam Deep the second maybe a junior now a
junior then, but Samdy the second, Sam Dy the third
is over Hickory Heights right now. He's a PGA professional too.
(20:53):
Sam's father, unbelievable golf professional. Guys like Phil new Camp
were at Saint Clair Country Club for a long time,
Guys like John Reck before them, Ted Luthor at South
Hills Country Club in Pittsburgh, Rush Sherbet who was at
(21:14):
Valley Brook, and Rolling Hills and Ted Luthor, who's a
South Hills Country club. You have to understand that that,
like I say, these guys' names and like I know,
you don't know them, but anybody that was around those facilities,
(21:36):
anybody Mike Pavella at Lindenwood, anybody who's around those facilities
at those times experienced legendary PGA professionals experienced them. And
(22:01):
one of the things that would that did indeed separate
them from others is, yeah, the playing ability was there,
and John Record is a tremendous player. Tremendous player at
one time. Was their dedication to their job, to their facility.
(22:31):
Their goal was to make their facility better every day,
and they used the education that was required from the
PGA of America, the experience that was required from the
PGA of America, the mentors that they had to become legends.
(22:52):
Now that's just a couple of guys I mentioned. There's
tons more, tons more, tons more. Two of the names
I mentioned started the Tri State PGA Junior Tour, which
is now the Isisley's Tour was the King's Tour because
if you remember back to the mission statement that I
(23:13):
read earlier, to promote opportunities to grow the game. They
did that. So those guys and that mentality coming out
of the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties into the nineties was
(23:36):
I don't know. That's how the PGA of America had
such a and I want to say the word strangle
hold on the golf business and the golf industry. Merchandise show.
Oh my god, it was massive. Go to Orange County
Convention Center, the largest three story building the United States
of America was filled from stem to stern with golf
(24:03):
for three days. I met Byron Nelson there, That's how
large it was. Byron Nelson is another one that quit
playing and then actually went the other way around, but
was a club professional and played. Mister Hogan was the
head professional at Hershey Country Club before he became wildly
(24:24):
successful on the golf course and didn't have to go
make ends meet with a club job because the persons
weren't that great. But like I met Barron Nelson, I
met Johnny Momore, talked to him, had conversations with them
because the respect that they had for me as a
PGA member meant something to them. It was it was,
(25:00):
it was unbelievable. We owned the we PGA members owned
golf shops. They owned the shop. I worked for Sean
Perriez at Rolling Hills Country Club. Seawn owned the shop.
I remember my friend Craig McCurry who I went to
(25:20):
school with Peter Sancha High School. We had to interview
somebody in a for a career thing. I think it
was like a tenth grade or something like that. He
made an appointment with John Reck at Valuebook Country Club
to interview him, and he asked me to go with him.
You would have thought it was it was like we
(25:43):
gained an audience. We gained an audience because he was
the expert on those twenty seven holes that that that
that acreage. So why do I keep going on on
(26:08):
about this because now I want to talk about the
state of the PGA of America today. Okay, we all had,
going back to the legend thing, we all had this education.
We had to go through. We had to go through
what they call them business schools. When I did them.
Now there that now you have to go. Now young
people have to go through go through training at in Frisco,
(26:34):
Texas where the headquarters are. And you know, but we
all we being people of a certain age that that
had a piece of that that high point that I
talked about that we all went through the same training.
(26:57):
There was a business school one business goal too. It's
an oral interview, and there's a playing ability test. Okay,
playing ability test. You had to go shoot play a
credible game of golf. The exhibit the ability to play
a credible game of golf, which at the time was
(27:17):
fifteen shots over the course rating times two. So if
your course rating was seventy point five times two was
one hundred and forty one, you had to shoot one
fifty six over two rounds of golf. You had to
break basically effectively break eighty twice in one day. Now
it sounds easy, but by the way, this isn't your
(27:40):
Saturday afternoon goof around here. This is you are counting.
Everything counts, rules are upheld. Well harder think it is
really hard for me. First we met it really hard
(28:03):
for me because all those traits that I mentioned before, merchandising,
teaching operations, all that stuff. Playing was mike. So it
is my weakest aspect of it. But I passed the
pat in Writesville, Pennsylvania. Mind you, so that's outside of York.
(28:31):
So we had these shared experiences. The other thing that
we needed were what they called employment what I call
employment credits. You had to work for a class APGA
professional in a designated golf operation for X amount of
hours before you received so in order to receive enough
(28:56):
credits to become a PGA member, school one, school two,
playing ability test, oral interview, and working credits. Now I'm
thinking about something for a minute. Okay, it was kind
of like a paid internship. But I'll tell you what
(29:20):
it really did. All those things. You had to go
away for a week. You had to do school one,
had to go away a week. You had to do
school two somewhere in there before school too. You had
to pass the playing ability test. Then you had to
do an oral interview. Guys sat across from you and
(29:41):
grilled you about being a PGA professional. We had all
that in common, and that all formed us kind of
uniformly the same way. We all kind of walked the same,
talked the same, thought the same, and we worked really
(30:04):
hard to make our facilities really really really good. Now
will be all massively successful. No, I know guys who've
been fired. I know guys who couldn't who didn't hold
on to jobs, they had to take different jobs. I'm
(30:27):
not saying everybody's perfect. I'm not saying that the old
way was the only way. I'm not saying that at all.
What I'm saying is I know that when you walked
into a room to interview for a job, everybody knew
what you had done and it was quality. It was quality.
You had worked for a class a professional, you had
(30:49):
networked your way through that. So when Tom Chophy called
a place for me, he was an upstanding class APGA professional.
That meant something. I wasn't just some fly by the
night guy. I had put in my time that Jim
(31:11):
Carrey show. I had done my time on Maple Drive,
whatever that was. But I had done it. I had
done it. I was proud of it. So that's when
that was going on. We were at the Heyday. And
(31:34):
when I come back from this commercial break, we're going
to talk about how we're not in the heyday anymore
and how we have to get back there. This is
the rich Como Go Show. Welcome back to the rich
comwoll Gas Show. As I said both segments, I am
flying solo this week and I am going to continue
(31:59):
on my fail down the road of the PGA of America.
So when I left off, I had explained to you
what everybody had done. You had to do, you know,
go to school one, school two, oral interview, playing ability test,
and what I deem to be the most important part
is the apprenticeship or the internship or the working with,
(32:25):
working with under or four a PGA professional class a professional.
So I'm going to tell you that where we are now,
(32:45):
you no longer have to work for a PGA professional.
You no longer have to work in a green grass
operation change, public facility, private facility, resort, semi private. You
(33:07):
do have to take education classes in Fresco, Texas. You
do have to pass playing ability test, but that is
actually now let's go back to that. We'll start with
the playing ability test. I probably won't get to one
exactly right because I didn't do proper research on this,
But you can take the playing ability test as much
(33:29):
as you want, and you're a lot of combined rounds
that they call super score, which means that if I
play so again, going back to my other thing, my
other example, if of course reading seventy one point five
double that that is one hundred and forty two. At fifteen,
it's one fifty seven. I have to shoot seventy eight
(33:51):
seventy eight. Passion playing ability test. I go take the
pat this week and I shoot seventy eight ninety. I
go back in three weeks and I shoot seventy seven
ninety four. I can super score the seventy seven and
(34:17):
the seventy eight. I passed my playing ability test. So
now instead of showing a credible game of golf, you
actually get to compile when you played your best and
just hope that you played your best on the days
a couple of days that you can pick and choose
when you're when you're what scores you count. That's simple.
(34:46):
So that already limits the respect and again that we're
respecting a couple of lot in the next few minutes,
respect that that people have for a play ability. I'm
just dead serious. It's a fact. You know, if somebody
can go shoot seventy seven and I don't care what
(35:09):
they shoot after that, and then come back three weeks
later and shoot seventy seven, I don't care what they
shoot after that, or better yet, they can go shoot
ninety seventy seven, ninety nine seventy eight and they pass
the playing penning ability test over the course of three months.
It's really really not you know, I don't know. I
(35:30):
don't think that you get to do that. You know,
you don't get to take if you run a if
you run a mile in high school track or a
college collegiate track, you don't get to pick your best
first lap, second lap, third lap, and fourth lap over
the season to put your best laps together to get
(35:51):
into the conference championship with the conference finals of the
Olympic team. But we can, we can. So let's put
that one aside because that actually diminishes the respect that
we have for ourselves and others. And we're no longer
the experts now, see, we just minimize our expertise a
(36:15):
little bit. We don't have to work for a class
APGA professional anymore either, so now none of us have mentors. Okay,
so I will tell you what a mentorship means. My
(36:38):
first head professional position, I got it right after I
worked for Tom Trophy in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and there was
an education seminar at my facility that I was at,
the new one, and I made sure that I did
(37:03):
a good enough job in hosting that that Tom wouldn't
have criticized me because I went to him after it
was over, said hey, how do you know everything? Okay?
And he was like, hey, he's great, awesome, but he
I didn't give him the opportunity to say, wow, it
(37:25):
would have been better if because he would have because
he's my mentor. He's supposed to do that. He's supposed
to do that. We don't have those anymore. You don't
have to work for anybody anymore. You don't even have
to work at green Grass facility. I could put as
(37:47):
a twenty two year old kid, I could put a
simulator in my parents' garage. And I'm not minimizing anybody. Actually,
I'm just stating it. I could put a simulator somewhere
and say I'm working towards becoming a Class A member
the PGA of America by giving golf lessons in a garage?
(38:11):
Is that really what we want the PGA professional to be?
Do I really want a PGA professional to have the
same credential as I do? That? Did that really? So? Okay?
(38:39):
So now people that are in that landscape that don't
have to have a mentor don't have to earn credits
by working for a Class A member any of that. Now,
(39:10):
since they don't have to do that, they get the
same employment employment bulletin as I do. Or you know
somebody who has old school experience. I guess. So, now
what does that do to the candidate pool for whatever
(39:31):
job we're going for. It waters it down. So now
we have less capable PGA Class A professionals trying to
obtain jobs where they have no earthly shot at being
(39:52):
the experts that I outlined. We've done a disservice to
them by saying, hey, you can be a Class A member,
but you only have to do this, this, and this,
and you know, we'll let you in and it'll be great.
And look you're in the room and this is great,
and we'll get your job, and hopefully we'll get your job.
And so when they realize that they're over their head,
(40:14):
or they realize that they don't want to do what
they thought they wanted to do, and they leave the
facility that they got the job, or they close up
the simulator in their garage, we've lost a PGA professional
and we have not been strengthened. So now what I
(40:50):
have a friend of mine is a golf PG professional
in Philadelphia, and there was a young man that he's
actually grown in. He's go in the position into a
director of golf. So he needs to hire a head
professional because they have thirty six holes. And he came.
(41:13):
He called me and said, you're not gonna believe this.
I got a resume from a young man who's a
Class A member who has never worked a day in
a golf shop because he's a trick shot artist. And
(41:36):
you can do that too. You can be a PGA
member when you do that too. You can be a
PGA member if you do a if you do media
like I'm doing right now. So those are the resumes
we see. Those are the resumes club c Those are
the resume's golf courses ce. So that cress that's the
(42:01):
PGA of America is now watered down. Now we're bringing
less qualified individuals to be Class A status. You know
the old joke, what do you call the guy who
finished his last in medical school? You call him doctor?
That's right, you do. But he still went through the
(42:22):
same schooling as the guy who finished first. We're being
asked to call Class A members class A members that
didn't go nearly through the schooling and the and the
education that I did. I'm offended by that, not like
(42:51):
somebody hitting my car with you know, their car, but
I'm offended by that. I'm saddened by that. Now I
look around that, I say to myself, Hmmm, we can't
(43:12):
find any assistant golf professionals because why, well, you don't
pay him a whole lot of money. I'll be honest
with you. I made three hundred dollars a week when
I work for Tom Trophy. I worked nine months for him.
I do the math as eighteen thousand dollars a year.
(43:35):
I made ten eight thousand dollars in golf lessons every
year last two years. I was there because it worked.
He taught me how to do it. He made me
a golf professional. It wasn't what the money. He was
(43:56):
about the desire to be a golf professional. We've created
a situation where, oh, by the way, I'll be a
class A member of the PJ of America. Looks pretty
easy to me. Great, that's the kind of people we want.
And I'm not disrespecting anybody. I'm not. I'm saddened by
(44:22):
what our association has become. I liked Don Ray. Don
Ray's President pg of America. I would like to think
he's my friend, but it doesn't matter. I've had him
on the show twice. He's a good guy. But I
(44:43):
know in order to be the force that we once
were and could be again. See that's the thing I
got to get through it to everybody. We could be
that again, we could be that again, we have to
react or actually acknowledge that we're not that. For us
right now, we've allowed ourselves to be weakened. And I'm
(45:08):
not going to get into diversity in inclusion. That's not
what I'm talking about. Coal about just a flat simple
what rigors does it have? You have to go through
to be a Class A member of the PGA of America.
(45:32):
So now what we've done is now we've actually said, okay,
in order to play for the money that the sections
raise from sponsors, you have to be a certain aspect,
certain level of education towards your Class A membership. Well,
(45:54):
the education is really easy, so that that that holds
no water. There's no teeth in that. Soon as to
stop the guy from down the street in his parents'
garage hitting golf balls into a simulator for being a
golf professional. I propose that I ask a question, how
(46:30):
do we restore the brand of PGA professional to its
once great level. I think the first thing you have
to do is you have to make it harder to
be a class a professional. Second thing is we have
(46:50):
to come into some sort of supervisory development, internship, whatever. Again. Third,
we have to acknowledge we're not what we were. I
believe ted Luther has passed away. I know that mister
Sam's father, Sam Deep Second, has passed away. Sean Pertize
(47:13):
who I work for, has passed away. Rush Sherbert, who
I mentioned earlier, has passed away. Lou Worsham, whom I mentioned,
has passed away. If you ask those four people I mentioned, yeah,
four people to come back and analyze PGA professionals in
the state of the PJ of America right now, I
(47:36):
don't I hesitate to think that you might have to
cover your ears what they say. So I want you
to know I'm trying to change it from within. I'm
trying to make the pg of America better. I appreciate
you listening to me, and I know this might be
my fight and I might be you know, don Quixote
(47:56):
to tipping into windmills, but I truly believe we can
do it. Thank you for listening. This is the Rich
Comogov Show.
Welcome to Rich Gombogo show again. I had an unplanned
vacation last week. They're not vacations, just so you know.
But I'm glad to be back with you. I am
going to fly solo today, but what I would like
and since I'm I have such a large ego, I'm
going to tell you that what I say is actually
(00:22):
really important. So everybody's gonna hang on every word. But
we are going to talk a little bit today, actually
a lot today about the PGA of America. I don't
know how much everybody knows about the PJ of America,
and I don't know if everybody knows what's exactly happening
(00:43):
not happening, but it's kind of like an undercurrent, undertow
of sentiment about about the PJ of America. So I'm
just going to go over some facts, you know, some
some written words that that will set the stage for
for what I'm what I'm going what I'm going to
talk about. So, the PGA of America was founded in
(01:05):
nineteen sixteen, and it is just it's a it's a
great organization. Let me start there. I'm a member of
the PJ of America. I've been a member of the
PJ America for over twenty five years. I am a true, true,
true believer in the PGA of America. I am a
(01:25):
true believer in the impact the PGA of America and
its member professionals can have and do have on the
game of golf and the landscape of golf and all
that fun stuff. But you know, the only way to
(01:46):
start this is to go back to the beginning and
the mission of the PGA of America as it reads
is the mission of the Association is to promote, is
to promote the enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf,
and to contribute to its growth by putting providing services
to golf professionals and the golf industry. The Association will
(02:12):
accomplish this mission by promoting the profession the profession of
golf professionals, enhancing the opportunities for amateurs, employers, manufacturers, employees,
and the general public. In so doing, the Association will
elevate and enhance the skills and standards of the professional
golfers vocation, promote the common business interests of golf professionals,
(02:39):
stimulate interest in the game of golf, and promote the
overall vitality of the game. Okay. So there's a lot
of words, a lot of words, okay, summarize, okay, to
provide the enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf.
(03:00):
Accomplish this mission by promoting the profession of golf professionals,
enhancing the opportunities for amateurs, employers, manufacturers, employees, and the
general public. The Association will elevate and enhance the skills
and standards of the professional golfer's vocation, promote the common
(03:23):
business interest of golf professionals, stimulate interest in the game
of golf, and promote the overall vitality of the game. Okay,
I read it twice, just number one to prove to
you I can read but a little bit of oral history, okay.
And because I truly believe the crossroads we're at right now,
(03:43):
we're starting to be constructed. In nineteen sixteen. In nineteen sixteen,
a department store magnate owner named John Wannamaker. If anybody's
from Philadelphia, Wannamaker is a huge, huge, huge, big, massive
department store in the early twentieth century, late late nineteenth century,
(04:08):
early twentieth century, much like Kaufman's much like Saxo Fifth Avenue, large, huge,
huge department store. As a matter of fact, that the
original Wannamakers is in Philadelphia. If you ever get a
(04:29):
chance to go into it, it's like walking back in time.
It's unbelievable. It's awesome. It's really awesome. Multiple stores stories.
Excuse me. I would tell you that the interesting thing
is is the original Wannamakers is a lot like if
you ever got to go to Kaufman's in downtown Pittsburgh. Unbelievable,
It's unbelievable. It's all gone now, Kaufman's is, but it's
(04:54):
just it's unbelievable. So anyway, mister w Maker called some
local golf professionals in Philadelphia, so I need to talk
to you. He said, I believe in the profession of golf.
I don't know what he said actually, but it's kind
of an oral history here, but I believe in your profession.
(05:25):
I also believe that you should organize to strengthen your association.
I will even go so far, mister Wannamaker said, to
put up prize money in a trophy for you to
(05:51):
play for as the culmination of your annual championship and
as the benchmark of your associates competitive nature. That trophy
is what they give the PGA champion every year. Still
(06:12):
want to make a trophy. Now, if you hear my
part of that story, or the first part of that story,
you hear a very successful businessman actually expanding or organizing,
help organize and association of golf professionals for the betterment
of golf, and all those nifty things. Those words I
(06:33):
just read, which I do believe. We try to live
up to those words. But like the old saying, quid
pro quo, mister Wannamaker wanted something in exchange for that?
What do you wanted in exchange for that really nice trophy?
(06:54):
And it is a nice trophy. And the names on
it are Whoa, Whoa, Hagen Kopka, mister Hogan Snead. There's
not a major name, the exception of Tom Watson and
Arnold Palmer. There's not a name on there that is
(07:16):
not There's not a top twenty player of all time.
His name is not on there. Bobby Jones' name is
not on there. He was an amateur. It's professional, so
all right, So he said, in exchange for all these
nifty things in this organizational meeting, in this prize money,
in this really new trophy, you guys agree to let
(07:38):
me sell golf equipment in my in my department stores.
And we said yes. So at that moment in time,
we wrote down that mission that I read all the
(08:01):
while knowing that a NONPGA member had a way better
sales floor, way better sales pitch, could reach much more
people than we could. But that's okay because we have
a trophy, and we have a prize pool, and we
(08:22):
have cash, and we have an association. Now that's pretty
much how it started. Now, that's that's how it started.
Pretty much that's how it started. So that's nineteen sixteen,
and you know, you get into nineteen twenty nine, the
(08:44):
depression hits, and you know, things get you know dark
in this country because obviously that guy over in Germany
was doing stuff and you know, started in thirty whatever,
thirty six or whatever. So we were kind of embrilliant
in all this. But pg of America continued on and
we continued on to be the front lines of golf.
(09:08):
If you walked onto a golf course in this country,
the person running the golf operation was a PGA member.
Now think about that for a minute. You walked onto
a property in nineteen sixteen, nineteen ninety one, whatever, you
(09:30):
encountered a PGA professional. Now, you know, let's think about
this for a minute. You know, everybody's seen the greatest
game ever, the greatest game ever played with about Francis
we met in the US Open and all that fun stuff. Right,
there's a PGA professional there too. Stuart Maiden was the
(09:55):
PGA professional Eastlake Golf Club that taught kid that became
Bobby Jones. I can trace PGA professionals back to helping everybody.
Our current our current world number one and world beater,
(10:15):
Scottie Scheffler is taught by a PGA professional, Randy Smith.
It's awesome. That's awesome. So why am I talking about
all this Well, because behind the scenes, I personally I've
(10:45):
been on now just so you know, just to kind
of clarify a little bit more, the PGA America has
broken up into forty one sections. I currently am employed
in the Tri State Section, which is part of Maryland,
part of western Pennsylvania, all of West Virginia. You know,
(11:07):
there's the Colorado Section, which is all of Colorado and
some pieces of I think it's Idaho. I should know
that on the top of my head. There's a New
England section, which is you know, all of New England.
There's South Florida, there's North Florida. There's Carolinas. There's Middle Atlantic,
(11:29):
which is you know, some Maryland, some Virginia. There's the
met section, which is New York City and surrounding New
York area. There's Western New York, which is outside of Buffalo.
And you guys don't need to give you a geography lesson. Okay,
there's forty one of them. Okay. And I as a
(11:53):
PGA member, A proud PGA member, I am. I am very,
very very proud to be a PGA member, very proud.
I'm a member of the Tri State PGA. That's my section.
I've been on the board of the Tri State PGA.
I've won awards from the Tri State PGA. I'm very
proud of the Tri State PGA. I'm very proud to
(12:15):
be a pg member. But in the immortal words of
well somebody way smarter than me, I see things as
they as they are. I don't ask why. I see
things as they should be and ask why not. So
(12:37):
let's go backwards a little bit more, not before nineteen sixteen.
I promise I actually were getting closer today. The height
of the of the PGA of America. The height of
the pg of America, I believe, I believe was the
(13:01):
nineteen fifties through the nineteen seven sixties, fifties all the
way through the nineties. Okay, fifties through the nineties. That's
when you know again, every green grass facility you were
(13:23):
at had a PGA professional there. He probably owned the
golf shop. I actually, I tell you he did own
the golf shop. Didn't get paid a lot of money,
taught all the lessons, played sometimes competitively, sometimes very very
(13:49):
very well, ran the entire golf operation. Was the singularly
most important person on that property. Every day. I work
for a guy in WI Williams Williamsport, Pennsylvania named Tom Chophy.
(14:14):
He drove a white blazer. Every time that drove on
the property. He got out. I was like, there's the
most important person on the property for the well being
of the facility. For the well being of the facility.
(14:36):
Now he would tell you, and I would tell you
that the well being I mean, the most important person
in the property, on the property members customers, all that
fun stuff. Okay, I agree with all that, but I'm
talking about the PGA of America's scope here, So that's
(15:04):
when the height happened between the fifties and the nineties. Yeah,
I'm not so old that I remember the fifties and
sixties and seventies of this, but I've talked to enough people,
and when we come back from this break, we are
going to talk about the heights and what they looked like,
(15:26):
and then we're going to talk about what it looks
like now. And I'm just going to ask a question
at the end of all this and see if I
can answer it for you, and probably ask you to
answer it as well. This is the rich Como Gulf Show.
Welcome back to rich Como Gulf Show. As I said
earlier today, I am flying solo and we are going
(15:49):
down history lane a little bit and talking about the
PGA of America today. So here is the here's where
we left off. We left off. We started out the
mission statement and the oral history of mister Wannamaker, et cetera,
and the and then the what I deemed to be
(16:16):
the height of the profession, which is the fifties through
the nineties, the height of the PGA of America and
our massive impact and one of the things that made
us made the pg of America the experts and all
this is because we were the experts in playing, merchandising, teaching,
and operations. All of it. Worked a lot of hours,
(16:42):
but we were in charge of all of it. Like
we fixed golf clubs, we sold equipment, we fitted equipment,
we taught, we played very well. Those were all all
part of it. The number of tour players that went
(17:04):
on to be club professionals and were notable club professionals.
Johnny Palmer, not Arnold Johnny. You know he was at
the country Club at Tulsa, Taulls the country Club, excuse me.
Horton Smith won two Masters. Johnny Palmer by the way,
(17:24):
one of the Canadian Open, in the Western Open, Horton
Smith won the first Masters and the third Masters went
to Detroit Golf Club. You could find them. You could
find them that this was a career for them when
they're when they're when the opportunities started to go away
on the PGA tour, they would come to clubs and
(17:46):
they would do great jobs, because if they didn't do
a good job, they get fired because clubs needed and
golf courses needed experts. So wasn't at the fact that
Horton Smith could won the first and the third Masters.
If he hadn't taken care of the members of Detroit
Golf Club, they would have said to him, no, let's
(18:06):
greet you won the first and third Masters. Get me
somebody in here that can do this because you can't. So,
in other words, instead of letting that happen to him,
Horton Smith became the expert in teaching and merchandising and
golf operations. So then if you weren't them, if you
(18:32):
weren't them, if you weren't Horton Smith or Johnny Palmer
or the numerous other ones I could mention Lou Worsham.
Lou Worsham won the US opened became the headrofessional Oakmont.
If you weren't them, then you had to become the
(18:52):
expert through work, through effort, through education, through determination. That's
how you kept your job. You were the expert at
your facility, whether it be x y z x y
(19:15):
Z public or x y z private or a practice
facility like a range. Think about that for a minute.
What did I what did I not mention. I'll get
to that in a minute. But what did I not mention?
(19:37):
I did I not mentioned. I did not mention off course.
I did not mention off course because you had to
be at a range at a golf course to be
that had to be had to be so you were
(20:06):
the expert. So if you didn't have that playing resume,
you had to become. You had to earn the job
and the knowledge and the respect of the membership or
the customers or your patrons to hard work and commitment
and dedication. And from that hardware, commitment, dedication came legends.
(20:32):
Horton Smith was already a legend, but he became one
of the PJ of America. That's where we got people
like Sam Deep the second maybe a junior now a
junior then, but Samdy the second, Sam Dy the third
is over Hickory Heights right now. He's a PGA professional too.
(20:53):
Sam's father, unbelievable golf professional. Guys like Phil new Camp
were at Saint Clair Country Club for a long time,
Guys like John Reck before them, Ted Luthor at South
Hills Country Club in Pittsburgh, Rush Sherbet who was at
(21:14):
Valley Brook, and Rolling Hills and Ted Luthor, who's a
South Hills Country club. You have to understand that that,
like I say, these guys' names and like I know,
you don't know them, but anybody that was around those facilities,
(21:36):
anybody Mike Pavella at Lindenwood, anybody who's around those facilities
at those times experienced legendary PGA professionals experienced them. And
(22:01):
one of the things that would that did indeed separate
them from others is, yeah, the playing ability was there,
and John Record is a tremendous player. Tremendous player at
one time. Was their dedication to their job, to their facility.
(22:31):
Their goal was to make their facility better every day,
and they used the education that was required from the
PGA of America, the experience that was required from the
PGA of America, the mentors that they had to become legends.
(22:52):
Now that's just a couple of guys I mentioned. There's
tons more, tons more, tons more. Two of the names
I mentioned started the Tri State PGA Junior Tour, which
is now the Isisley's Tour was the King's Tour because
if you remember back to the mission statement that I
(23:13):
read earlier, to promote opportunities to grow the game. They
did that. So those guys and that mentality coming out
of the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties into the nineties was
(23:36):
I don't know. That's how the PGA of America had
such a and I want to say the word strangle
hold on the golf business and the golf industry. Merchandise show.
Oh my god, it was massive. Go to Orange County
Convention Center, the largest three story building the United States
of America was filled from stem to stern with golf
(24:03):
for three days. I met Byron Nelson there, That's how
large it was. Byron Nelson is another one that quit
playing and then actually went the other way around, but
was a club professional and played. Mister Hogan was the
head professional at Hershey Country Club before he became wildly
(24:24):
successful on the golf course and didn't have to go
make ends meet with a club job because the persons
weren't that great. But like I met Barron Nelson, I
met Johnny Momore, talked to him, had conversations with them
because the respect that they had for me as a
PGA member meant something to them. It was it was,
(25:00):
it was unbelievable. We owned the we PGA members owned
golf shops. They owned the shop. I worked for Sean
Perriez at Rolling Hills Country Club. Seawn owned the shop.
I remember my friend Craig McCurry who I went to
(25:20):
school with Peter Sancha High School. We had to interview
somebody in a for a career thing. I think it
was like a tenth grade or something like that. He
made an appointment with John Reck at Valuebook Country Club
to interview him, and he asked me to go with him.
You would have thought it was it was like we
(25:43):
gained an audience. We gained an audience because he was
the expert on those twenty seven holes that that that
that acreage. So why do I keep going on on
(26:08):
about this because now I want to talk about the
state of the PGA of America today. Okay, we all had,
going back to the legend thing, we all had this education.
We had to go through. We had to go through
what they call them business schools. When I did them.
Now there that now you have to go. Now young
people have to go through go through training at in Frisco,
(26:34):
Texas where the headquarters are. And you know, but we
all we being people of a certain age that that
had a piece of that that high point that I
talked about that we all went through the same training.
(26:57):
There was a business school one business goal too. It's
an oral interview, and there's a playing ability test. Okay,
playing ability test. You had to go shoot play a
credible game of golf. The exhibit the ability to play
a credible game of golf, which at the time was
(27:17):
fifteen shots over the course rating times two. So if
your course rating was seventy point five times two was
one hundred and forty one, you had to shoot one
fifty six over two rounds of golf. You had to
break basically effectively break eighty twice in one day. Now
it sounds easy, but by the way, this isn't your
(27:40):
Saturday afternoon goof around here. This is you are counting.
Everything counts, rules are upheld. Well harder think it is
really hard for me. First we met it really hard
(28:03):
for me because all those traits that I mentioned before, merchandising,
teaching operations, all that stuff. Playing was mike. So it
is my weakest aspect of it. But I passed the
pat in Writesville, Pennsylvania. Mind you, so that's outside of York.
(28:31):
So we had these shared experiences. The other thing that
we needed were what they called employment what I call
employment credits. You had to work for a class APGA
professional in a designated golf operation for X amount of
hours before you received so in order to receive enough
(28:56):
credits to become a PGA member, school one, school two,
playing ability test, oral interview, and working credits. Now I'm
thinking about something for a minute. Okay, it was kind
of like a paid internship. But I'll tell you what
(29:20):
it really did. All those things. You had to go
away for a week. You had to do school one,
had to go away a week. You had to do
school two somewhere in there before school too. You had
to pass the playing ability test. Then you had to
do an oral interview. Guys sat across from you and
(29:41):
grilled you about being a PGA professional. We had all
that in common, and that all formed us kind of
uniformly the same way. We all kind of walked the same,
talked the same, thought the same, and we worked really
(30:04):
hard to make our facilities really really really good. Now
will be all massively successful. No, I know guys who've
been fired. I know guys who couldn't who didn't hold
on to jobs, they had to take different jobs. I'm
(30:27):
not saying everybody's perfect. I'm not saying that the old
way was the only way. I'm not saying that at all.
What I'm saying is I know that when you walked
into a room to interview for a job, everybody knew
what you had done and it was quality. It was quality.
You had worked for a class a professional, you had
(30:49):
networked your way through that. So when Tom Chophy called
a place for me, he was an upstanding class APGA professional.
That meant something. I wasn't just some fly by the
night guy. I had put in my time that Jim
(31:11):
Carrey show. I had done my time on Maple Drive,
whatever that was. But I had done it. I had
done it. I was proud of it. So that's when
that was going on. We were at the Heyday. And
(31:34):
when I come back from this commercial break, we're going
to talk about how we're not in the heyday anymore
and how we have to get back there. This is
the rich Como Go Show. Welcome back to the rich
comwoll Gas Show. As I said both segments, I am
flying solo this week and I am going to continue
(31:59):
on my fail down the road of the PGA of America.
So when I left off, I had explained to you
what everybody had done. You had to do, you know,
go to school one, school two, oral interview, playing ability test,
and what I deem to be the most important part
is the apprenticeship or the internship or the working with,
(32:25):
working with under or four a PGA professional class a professional.
So I'm going to tell you that where we are now,
(32:45):
you no longer have to work for a PGA professional.
You no longer have to work in a green grass
operation change, public facility, private facility, resort, semi private. You
(33:07):
do have to take education classes in Fresco, Texas. You
do have to pass playing ability test, but that is
actually now let's go back to that. We'll start with
the playing ability test. I probably won't get to one
exactly right because I didn't do proper research on this,
But you can take the playing ability test as much
(33:29):
as you want, and you're a lot of combined rounds
that they call super score, which means that if I
play so again, going back to my other thing, my
other example, if of course reading seventy one point five
double that that is one hundred and forty two. At fifteen,
it's one fifty seven. I have to shoot seventy eight
(33:51):
seventy eight. Passion playing ability test. I go take the
pat this week and I shoot seventy eight ninety. I
go back in three weeks and I shoot seventy seven
ninety four. I can super score the seventy seven and
(34:17):
the seventy eight. I passed my playing ability test. So
now instead of showing a credible game of golf, you
actually get to compile when you played your best and
just hope that you played your best on the days
a couple of days that you can pick and choose
when you're when you're what scores you count. That's simple.
(34:46):
So that already limits the respect and again that we're
respecting a couple of lot in the next few minutes,
respect that that people have for a play ability. I'm
just dead serious. It's a fact. You know, if somebody
can go shoot seventy seven and I don't care what
(35:09):
they shoot after that, and then come back three weeks
later and shoot seventy seven, I don't care what they
shoot after that, or better yet, they can go shoot
ninety seventy seven, ninety nine seventy eight and they pass
the playing penning ability test over the course of three months.
It's really really not you know, I don't know. I
(35:30):
don't think that you get to do that. You know,
you don't get to take if you run a if
you run a mile in high school track or a
college collegiate track, you don't get to pick your best
first lap, second lap, third lap, and fourth lap over
the season to put your best laps together to get
(35:51):
into the conference championship with the conference finals of the
Olympic team. But we can, we can. So let's put
that one aside because that actually diminishes the respect that
we have for ourselves and others. And we're no longer
the experts now, see, we just minimize our expertise a
(36:15):
little bit. We don't have to work for a class
APGA professional anymore either, so now none of us have mentors. Okay,
so I will tell you what a mentorship means. My
(36:38):
first head professional position, I got it right after I
worked for Tom Trophy in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and there was
an education seminar at my facility that I was at,
the new one, and I made sure that I did
(37:03):
a good enough job in hosting that that Tom wouldn't
have criticized me because I went to him after it
was over, said hey, how do you know everything? Okay?
And he was like, hey, he's great, awesome, but he
I didn't give him the opportunity to say, wow, it
(37:25):
would have been better if because he would have because
he's my mentor. He's supposed to do that. He's supposed
to do that. We don't have those anymore. You don't
have to work for anybody anymore. You don't even have
to work at green Grass facility. I could put as
(37:47):
a twenty two year old kid, I could put a
simulator in my parents' garage. And I'm not minimizing anybody. Actually,
I'm just stating it. I could put a simulator somewhere
and say I'm working towards becoming a Class A member
the PGA of America by giving golf lessons in a garage?
(38:11):
Is that really what we want the PGA professional to be?
Do I really want a PGA professional to have the
same credential as I do? That? Did that really? So? Okay?
(38:39):
So now people that are in that landscape that don't
have to have a mentor don't have to earn credits
by working for a Class A member any of that. Now,
(39:10):
since they don't have to do that, they get the
same employment employment bulletin as I do. Or you know
somebody who has old school experience. I guess. So, now
what does that do to the candidate pool for whatever
(39:31):
job we're going for. It waters it down. So now
we have less capable PGA Class A professionals trying to
obtain jobs where they have no earthly shot at being
(39:52):
the experts that I outlined. We've done a disservice to
them by saying, hey, you can be a Class A member,
but you only have to do this, this, and this,
and you know, we'll let you in and it'll be great.
And look you're in the room and this is great,
and we'll get your job, and hopefully we'll get your job.
And so when they realize that they're over their head,
(40:14):
or they realize that they don't want to do what
they thought they wanted to do, and they leave the
facility that they got the job, or they close up
the simulator in their garage, we've lost a PGA professional
and we have not been strengthened. So now what I
(40:50):
have a friend of mine is a golf PG professional
in Philadelphia, and there was a young man that he's
actually grown in. He's go in the position into a
director of golf. So he needs to hire a head
professional because they have thirty six holes. And he came.
(41:13):
He called me and said, you're not gonna believe this.
I got a resume from a young man who's a
Class A member who has never worked a day in
a golf shop because he's a trick shot artist. And
(41:36):
you can do that too. You can be a PGA
member when you do that too. You can be a
PGA member if you do a if you do media
like I'm doing right now. So those are the resumes
we see. Those are the resumes club c Those are
the resume's golf courses ce. So that cress that's the
(42:01):
PGA of America is now watered down. Now we're bringing
less qualified individuals to be Class A status. You know
the old joke, what do you call the guy who
finished his last in medical school? You call him doctor?
That's right, you do. But he still went through the
(42:22):
same schooling as the guy who finished first. We're being
asked to call Class A members class A members that
didn't go nearly through the schooling and the and the
education that I did. I'm offended by that, not like
(42:51):
somebody hitting my car with you know, their car, but
I'm offended by that. I'm saddened by that. Now I
look around that, I say to myself, Hmmm, we can't
(43:12):
find any assistant golf professionals because why, well, you don't
pay him a whole lot of money. I'll be honest
with you. I made three hundred dollars a week when
I work for Tom Trophy. I worked nine months for him.
I do the math as eighteen thousand dollars a year.
(43:35):
I made ten eight thousand dollars in golf lessons every
year last two years. I was there because it worked.
He taught me how to do it. He made me
a golf professional. It wasn't what the money. He was
(43:56):
about the desire to be a golf professional. We've created
a situation where, oh, by the way, I'll be a
class A member of the PJ of America. Looks pretty
easy to me. Great, that's the kind of people we want.
And I'm not disrespecting anybody. I'm not. I'm saddened by
(44:22):
what our association has become. I liked Don Ray. Don
Ray's President pg of America. I would like to think
he's my friend, but it doesn't matter. I've had him
on the show twice. He's a good guy. But I
(44:43):
know in order to be the force that we once
were and could be again. See that's the thing I
got to get through it to everybody. We could be
that again, we could be that again, we have to
react or actually acknowledge that we're not that. For us
right now, we've allowed ourselves to be weakened. And I'm
(45:08):
not going to get into diversity in inclusion. That's not
what I'm talking about. Coal about just a flat simple
what rigors does it have? You have to go through
to be a Class A member of the PGA of America.
(45:32):
So now what we've done is now we've actually said, okay,
in order to play for the money that the sections
raise from sponsors, you have to be a certain aspect,
certain level of education towards your Class A membership. Well,
(45:54):
the education is really easy, so that that that holds
no water. There's no teeth in that. Soon as to
stop the guy from down the street in his parents'
garage hitting golf balls into a simulator for being a
golf professional. I propose that I ask a question, how
(46:30):
do we restore the brand of PGA professional to its
once great level. I think the first thing you have
to do is you have to make it harder to
be a class a professional. Second thing is we have
(46:50):
to come into some sort of supervisory development, internship, whatever. Again. Third,
we have to acknowledge we're not what we were. I
believe ted Luther has passed away. I know that mister
Sam's father, Sam Deep Second, has passed away. Sean Pertize
(47:13):
who I work for, has passed away. Rush Sherbert, who
I mentioned earlier, has passed away. Lou Worsham, whom I mentioned,
has passed away. If you ask those four people I mentioned, yeah,
four people to come back and analyze PGA professionals in
the state of the PJ of America right now, I
(47:36):
don't I hesitate to think that you might have to
cover your ears what they say. So I want you
to know I'm trying to change it from within. I'm
trying to make the pg of America better. I appreciate
you listening to me, and I know this might be
my fight and I might be you know, don Quixote
(47:56):
to tipping into windmills, but I truly believe we can
do it. Thank you for listening. This is the Rich
Comogov Show.
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