The Rich Conwell Show - August 23, 2025

Rich flies solo once again this week, with an in-depth discussion on the overall state of golf.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the rich Como Golf Show.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Last week I flew solo, and this week I'm flying solo.
I had unfortunate cancelation in actually last minute. It was
actually a golf professional PJ professional, and a highly acclaimed
PJ professional. But I've rescheduled him, I believe, for two weeks.

(00:23):
And next week we have a really really really interesting guest.
Not that I'm that I'm not really interesting to sit
here and talk, but very very going to go outside
our comfort zone a little bit and learn some stuff
about a different aspect of the game of golf next week.
But this week I thought I would kind of go

(00:44):
backwards a little bit because I obviously, with the closing
of Wheeling Country Club at the end of twenty twenty four,
I migrated to Fort Cherry Golf Club in McDonald, Pennsylvania.
It's an eighteen whole facility, you know, sixteen twenty four
twenty four active hotel rooms, eighteen holes, practice facility, three

(01:10):
banquet rooms, one really large restaurant bar. And when I
walked in and it's still a very very very active
public facility. We went into it and we tried to
make it more of a of a customer based experience,

(01:33):
and I think we've done that. We sold memberships for
the first time. We have to earn fourteen of those sold.
We're playing a lot of we do member events, we
do demo days. We had a lot of first in
the In my first year at four Cherry for the facility,
we sold golf equipment, which we had not done in
ten or they had not done. We had not done

(01:54):
in ten years. We have member events now, which obviously
with the first your membership, that would be the first
time to have member events, So first time in over
ten years. And a lot of really really junior golf
program first might be the first one ever.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
There one hundred.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And fifteen kids, women's clinic, veterans, clinics, a lot of
really what I deem to be cool things, and so.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I moved from Wheeling Country Club, and my entire existence
has been I shouldn't say existence. My entire professional career,
with the exception of less than fifteen percent of it,
has been at private facilities or semi private facilities. This

(02:51):
was my first foray into strictly public golf. So I
received some words of wisdom from the those that have
spent their entire career. PJ professionals who have spent who
have spent their entire career in the public realm, most notably, UH,
Dave Wiley at linden Wood was super helpful, just kind

(03:15):
of laid out some things for me that I would
I was to expect the unexpected, and.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
He showed he told me what the unexpected would be.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So, you know, I've found myself very very very comfortable
in that realm. Uh it's I found my I found it.
I find that there's a unique feel to Fort Cherry

(03:45):
Golf Club, which I'm trying to seep that feeling into
everybody that comes on our property. And it smells like golf.
Everybody shows up there to play golf. You know, private,
private worlds. And I'm not knocking the prim world. And
I'll talk about that a little bit later how my
story started.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
But the.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know, when you're in the private world, people pull
into the building or into the facility for possibly four
or five reasons. Could be m get something to eat,
could be a swimming tennis, if there's any pickleball, any
of that. Socialize you pull into four Cherry Golf Club.

(04:34):
We do have banquets and social events. Yes, but you're
playing golf. You're doing something with golf. I'm taking a
golf lesson. Come a junior program called Ladies Clinic, Come
the Veterans Clinic playing golf. So it smells like that,
and I haven't I haven't experienced that.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I actually did experience.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
That my last year as the headman's coach at Wheeling University.
We went out to Granville, Ohio, which is in it
which is the home of Dennison College, and they have
a they have a dennis and golf club there and
it just smells like golf.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
It's awesome, and I'm trying to create that, or we're
trying we are trying to create that, and we have
created that at for cherryt. So this has given me
a unique perspective on the game of golf. It's been
an eye opener for sure. For sure, there's a lot more.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Speed. Things happen faster.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
In our exchanges between you know, customers, members, staff faster, faster.
Everybody's going somewhere, everybody's going to do something. It's it's
interesting to watch, it's interesting to experience. So fast paced

(06:06):
is different. I teach faster sounds weird, but I teach faster.
We get more done in short periods of time. Private
club you can kind of take your time. When I
was at Williamsport Country Club, we could not take our
time because we taught a lot there, a lot there.
But I'm gonna get back to that in a minute.
Back to teaching in a minute. But so it's faster,

(06:30):
and I feel like I'm on the front lines of golf.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
And it's right there.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
I mean, it's just it's it's every day.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
One of the things that you have to understand is
that I pride myself on when I worked at wherever,
being the first one on the property.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I love that feeling. I love that feeling. It's quiet.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
I go to work on Saturday mornings at five forty
five and I'm the seventh I'm the eighth or ninth
person there five forty five in the morning, our first
tea time six sixteen in the morning. Think about that
for a minute. So that took some getting used to.
That took some getting used to.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
That.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
That a lot of getting used to, and I think
my wife said, get over yourself, all right. That was
how I first got over it. So being on the
front lines. Uh, it's it's different for me. I like

(07:59):
the energy. I love the energy. I don't know if
anybody's actually been around me in person, but I'm a
pretty high energy human being kind of. I like to
think I have a decent amount of energy. I live
my life pretty fast paced, try to try to and
that is part of what makes me who I am,

(08:23):
I guess, and also part of what I kind of
battle every day. Which is a different conversation for a
different day. But so, how does how does golf look now?
From where I am? It's strong. Golf is strong. People
want to play this game. Support for what people owning

(08:48):
golf courses, running golf courses, opening doors to golf courses.
Support is strong. You know, all the surrounding and hilary
things to it are strong. The the PGA Tour is strong,
although it's lacking other than Scottie Scheffler, it's lacking marquee names,

(09:12):
so to speak. But if the tour is strong, viewership
is up. You know, we're starting to kind of get
to the point where.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
I truly believe.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
And this is a this is a topic of conversation
for a completely different day. Getting the point where we're
just start to realize that Live Golf actually wasn't an animey.
We just kind of got to get along with them
and then kind of fold them in and we're going
to be okay.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
I really do, I really do.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
And while I'm on that, shout out to Anthony Kim,
who was relegated from the Live Golf Tour and it's
which is sad, which means that basically he's no longer

(10:08):
on the Live Tour. Anthony Kim an incredibly talented person
who's gone through some serious financial struggles. You know, he's
not on that tour anymore, and he's not on the
PGA tour either, but he's gone through some recovery things.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
He's going through recovery.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
I was fortunate enough to talk to him. I just
received a message actually from Anthony Kim, and while I'm
sitting here, it's really crazy. I didn't know I could
do that, but well, I obviously can multitask. But I
was fortunate enough to speak with him at length about
his troubles and his addiction. And I have an addiction

(10:53):
as well, not his, we don't share the same one.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
But he he's gonna be okay.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
But but it was it was kind of that was news,
that was personal news, those human news from that live relegation.
You know, some guys got bounced off the tour and
they'll figure out where to go. But Anthony Kim, Anthony
Kim will he'll be okay. But we're just going to
make sure that he stays on that track. But anyway
back to you know, the tour, and I think they're
getting along with Live Golf now and I think they're

(11:22):
starting to see some inroads very.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Quietly as to how we're gonna meld all that together.
But golf in general is strong.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
A lot of activity, a lot of energy, a lot
of young people playing golf, a lot of young people
playing golf, a lot of not young people playing golf.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
But when I say young people.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
You know, I say, you know, thirty twenty five, thirty
thirty five years old. A lot of college kids, newly
minted college graduates playing golf on a regular basis, being

(12:06):
involved in it, being the quote unquote in the know,
the mainstream golfer.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
You know. So golf is strong.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
There's pace, and with that activity is strong.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know, interest is up.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Getting going is a thing. We gotta get going.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
We gotta go play golf. We gotta go.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
We gotta go high energy speed, you know, go, go,
go go. Now where all that ends is on the
golf course because God pays.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
The play is bad.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
But that's not anybody's fault. And I'm going to get
into as to why that's happening here in a little
while in the next segment, But it has everything to
do with the snapshot of the golfer that we're seeing
now that is growing this game tremendously.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's awesome, but.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
There's also some things we need to kind of channel
to make it better for everybody, not just not just
newer players or younger players, or older players, or female
players or male players. It's getting to the point where
there's some things we need to do to maximize the

(13:18):
growth of the game, maximize people's enjoyment of the game.
But this first segment has been about just talking about
the strength of the game.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Golf is good.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's healthy now not to interject politics into this. One
of the downsides of what is going on in our
country right now is the fact that it is negatively
impacting the golf industry because of the economic stance, and

(13:54):
the President of the United States has put into play.
I'm not going to say good, bad, and different. I'm
just telling you it's a fact. Two and two is four.
Prices have gone up in the golf business.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
They have they have golf equipment.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
A lot of it comes from overseas. A lot of
it comes from China, Japan. The stricks On Cleveland Golf
is a Japanese company, so there's tariffs involved. That's all
I'm gonna say about that. It's just it's just a challenge.
It is. It's what it is. It is what it is.

(14:30):
But golf is strong. Support for golf is strong. Interest
in golf is strong. Interesting, the things around golf are strong.
Tour you know, people are being tour players are being humanized.

(14:51):
I was a kid six well, according to my son
five hundred and four years ago, but when I was
a kid, tour players were kind of mythic. They were
just tour players. He's a tour player. Man just look different.
And in my mind, because of course I was fourteen
years old, nineteen years old, twenty five years old. Now

(15:11):
they're humanized. Now Scotti Scheffer can say something like I'll
be happy until tomorrow, because that's not really the most
important thing.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
In the world.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
To win a golf tournament, it's to be, you know,
whatever he choose it to be his family or his
you know whatever, his other hobbies.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's none of my business.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
So yeah, so everybody's being more human now, tour players
being humanized, a game is being humanized. Used to be
goofy clothing and old people, it's not anymore. So when
I get back from this break, we're going to talk
about what the snapshot of the new golfer looks like,
and we're going to talk about what the challenges associated

(15:53):
with that are. This is the rich comwoll Golf Show.
Welcome back to the rich Combo Golf Show. We are
talking about about the state of golf kind of in
western Pennsylvania, but nationally as well, because I do actually
have contacts for nationally, which I'm going to talk about

(16:14):
in the third segment, because something kind of neat has
happened today but in my professionally personal life. But the
snapshot of the new golfer, Okay, and I'm not criticizing anything.
I'm stay again, I'm stating facts. I'm stating facts. Okay,
the snapshot of the new golfer as they are younger,

(16:37):
twenty five thirty five. They wear hats that have really
big letters on them. When I was when I was
that age, it was it was really cool to have
the logo, but it was you kind of knew what
the logo was, but you might have to kind of
look at somebody somebody's hat twice. Not anymore, not anymore,

(17:01):
you know what they're advertising, what their what their logo is.
As a matter of fact, you know, it's funny because
like I work at Fort Cherry Golf Club. If I
did a big hat logo, would just say the Fort
on it and the would be small, would just say
fort the amount of us open headwear Commemora where I've

(17:28):
seen with very large letters on it. Pretty shocking. Not shocking,
it's pretty. It's it's pretty rampant. So they that this
snapshot new golfer thing I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
They like those hats.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
They spend on golf equipment. This is my favorite story
about this. We did we put demo days in a
for Cherry Golf Club, right, so, so we had a
first one was Cleveland Golf which also stricks On and
tour Edge.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
It's a very good golf company. Shout out to all
both of them. They're really good golf companies.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
And we had a person come to the demo day
and was hitting a tour edge driver and the tour
dge driver sale price was four hundred and ten dollars
and then we have a demo day discount, so was

(18:30):
three sixty I think forty ten percent to ten three
seven whatever, right, three seventy right.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
He bought it, hit it well, he bought it.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
And when he bought it, he ordered it, bought it in,
bought it and said, you know, two days before your
demo day, I bought another company's driver. I just hit
that one better. So in the span because it's for

(19:06):
two weeks to get the golf club that I sold
him in in the span of sixteen days. This young
man who was and I asked him, he was twenty
four years old, employed, nice guy, had friends around, seemed
to get I have a lot of friends. Seem to
be a pretty social guy. He had spent nine hundred

(19:28):
and sixty dollars on two golf clubs in seventeen days,
sixteen days, almost one thousand dollars on two golf clubs.
Now that includes tax. Now they spend on equipment.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
They do.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Have a. We have a golf shop manager at Fort
Cherry Golf Club and his very very.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Very good player.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
By the way, his name is Jim, and Jim always
likes to say, we like the core customer that comes in,
pays for his greens fee and cart buys a dozen
pro v ones.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
And goes next door.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Into the restaurant and buys a six pack or gets
two transfusions. Now, as I mentioned, I alluded to it
before with Anthony Kim. I'm an alcoholic, so I don't
I don't do anything with alcohol. I do it, but
I'm around it, but I don't I don't know what
the new drink cool drink is. I don't know what
craft beer is. I don't know any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
We sell it. I order it, I price it. All
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
I can make it, but I don't drink it. But
the cool thing now is the transfusion, which is grape juice,
vodka and sprite seping up right.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
So that's fine. But but I'm like, and I.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Said to I said to Jim, I said, yeah, they're
good customers, that's that's great.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
And He's like, no, they're the.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Best customers because they don't ever ask how much anything is.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
They don't.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
They don't ask how much anything is. They just tap
their card.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
And go literally, and that's fine, that's great. It's the way.
That's the way the world.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Again, I'm not criticizing anybody.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
It's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
They spend on greens fees. They spend on equipment. I
say equipment, I mean golf equipment. They they they tried,
They demo things, and they buy them. Sometimes they buy
them without demoing them. I community of the day told

(22:01):
his friends he got a new potter. It was three
hundred and eighty four dollars at Dick Sporting Goods and
he used it on there. He demoed it on that
artificial putting green they have in Dicks. He said, yeah,
he said, about twenty minutes and felt really good.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Okay, four hundred hours. It's expensive. I don't care who
you are. It's expensive. So they spend on.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Golf balls, they spend on equipment, They spent on greens fees.
They spent on food and beverages. As they alluded to before,
they they are they are unique in that realm. Now

(23:01):
they do not they do not spend on improvement.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
They don't. So you ask, you ask yourself.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
You have to ask yourself when when you're looking at
the landscape here, why do they play. They play for
They play out of habit because in COVID there was
nothing else they could do, so they started to play golf.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Great.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
When I say they, I mean I'm not saying everybody.
I'm not saying all young people. I'm saying I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Older people do too.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
They started to play because they couldn't do anything else.
Tennis was gone, pickleball was gone.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
I don't know. I think it's because it was close quarters.
Golf was not.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Golf boomed exploded. So they play for socialization. They play
out of habit. They play for fun, which is great
because God knows, there's.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Not enough fun in the world. I'm telling you there's not.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
There's way too much serious in this world. All you
do is turn on television. But they don't play this
game to improve truly interesting to me. It's interesting to me.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
So so they play music. They play music on the
golf course. They have speakers. They put them on the
on the mount, the windshield mount. It's magnetic, and they
play music and they go around and they all play
together and they have fun. And it's you know, I
saw somebody the other day on my first tee after
giving me.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's a fact.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
The case sixty five dollars for their carton greens fee.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
They bought two sleeves of.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Pro v ones, which were thirty dollars, and he bought
two transfusions, one for himself one for his friend.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Okay, it's twenty more dollars.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Okay, so I'm not that good at math, but sixty
five and thirties ninety five and twenty sounds like one
hundred and fifteen dollars to May drove down to the
first t and missed the golf ball swung and missed
at eight o'clock in the morning, so he wasn't drunk.
And then when he did hit it, he advanced it

(25:25):
not very far, but that was okay because he was
doing what he wanted to do. I'm glad they do
that rather than I don't know whatever else is out there,
but I just wish they would ask for a little
bit of help, because the game is so much more
enjoyable when you're pretty good at it, not even pretty

(25:49):
good at it, when you're getting better, which is why. Also,
as I said, my entire life was in the private,
private club world.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
But like this is how I earned. Like I learned to.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Play golf starting about age well eleven, my brother Jim
took me on a golf course and told me never
run on a golf course.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
So that was my first.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Because I was a kid, I just ran after the
golf ball. When I turned fourteen, I started fourteen. I
started a candy to private club, Rolling Hills Country Club,
that's where Peter Stuchak High School was. Now I caddied
for a guy that played golf at Purdue, played in
three US Amateurs, unbelievably good player and how and every

(26:37):
week it was always like he said something to me.
One time I asked him. He was far removed from
college at this point.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
He had a family.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
I asked him, I said, you know, I asked him
who he played against, and he's like, I played against
Ben Crenchhaw in college. I played against you know, John
Cook in college Ohio State. You know, guys like that,
long time tour players. I said, when did you play
your best golf? And he looked at me. On whole

(27:11):
number seven at Rolling Hills Country Club, they were waiting
for the group in front of the par three, waiting
for the group in front of us to finish. When
I when I asked him that, and he looked at
me because I don't think I have yet.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
And see that's plugged in my head. I gotta keep
getting better, keep getting better, keep getting better.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But like our golfer today, I don't know that that's that,
that's there. I don't know that that's there. They hit
golf balls to warm up, so I know that they're
they've got something. But I think it's interesting that they are.

(27:52):
You know, I'm gonna leave the food and beverage out
of it. They have no problems spending on equipment, a
lot of money, as I outlined, golf balls, a lot
of money.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
But they they don't go.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
To get they don't try to improve, they don't try
to improve, and it's just it's weird. It's it's that's
that's my that's my learning curve. My learning curve is
how can I help them improve without like by increasing
my understanding of what their motivations are. I think they

(28:32):
play for socialization more than they do improvement. They also
play for entertainment, and that's it. That's that's that's a
weird thing for me. Too, because here's the thing, you know,
top golf is entertainment, simulators, entertainment, which we're working on

(28:53):
getting in it for Cherry Golf Club. But so that's entertainment.
It's less time to and it's entertainment. So that's my
that's my learning curve. I've gotta I've got to understand,
you know, I can't understand that I do because in

(29:17):
order to do my job better, I need to understand
what the what the mainstream or snapshot customers looking for.
You know, I'll tell you another group that that and
I did not mention that that is making major inroads
in the game of golf today.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
This post COVID is young females.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Very very very especially ones that played sports in high
school and college. I was talking to a young lady
last night that never played golf growing up because she played.
She played basketball in college. Very athletic golf swing, really
enjoys it. And that's neat too. So I mean, that's

(30:06):
the snapshot. But I will tell you the difference between
in my experience and actually I'm sure it's everybody's experience
because I'm not this unique guy.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Everybody's experience is.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
I believe that that young female player, the athletic player
wants to get better. I also believe the young athletics,
athletic player who played baseball in college, or football in college,
or hockey or tennis or whatever in college.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Wants to get better at golf.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
But it's those ones that spend on the equipment and
then I just I'm just trying to learn to study
their motivations. That's all because I think I can. We
can service them better at Fort Cherry Golf Club and
golf and golf can service the better. If we understand
their motivations, we can help them. We can help the
day go past faster. We can make make them play faster,

(31:07):
we help them play better. We can help them play faster.
Then come back out again. You know, I just, I
just I find myself studying this demographic a lot, and
it's really neat demographic. But they're just it's a learning
curve for me. It's a learning curve for me. So

(31:30):
when we come back from this commercial, we are going to.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Talk about.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Some some things that are going on on the lesson
t for the folks that I'm fortunate enough to teach,
and some of the things that are going to happen
in the hopefully in the near future at Fort Cherry
Golf Club. This is the rich Conwo Golf Show. Welcome
back to the rich Gomwoll Golf Show. I want to
quickly summarize the second segment, and I was talking about

(32:00):
today's demographic of new golfers, which is younger, high energy.
I want to spend money on equipment. I want to
spend money on socialization. I want to spend money on
golf balls, not so much a real high priority to
get better at golf. I wish I could, I could

(32:22):
make it a little higher priority for them, because they
would enjoy it so much more, and they would play faster,
and they would have to spend a have to It
would cost them less time.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Playing eighteen holes of golf.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
But you know, that's a that's a not a battle.
That's just a small hurdle.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
I think you understand.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I think we're all better off if we understand customers' motivations.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
We really, really, really are.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean, Walmart understands customer motivations. They want things inexpensively,
that's simple. But anyway, I just I just think it's
interesting that it's kind of like the summary of my
first year in the some my private.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Slash holy public golf facility.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
It's just it's all about golf, which I love, which
I love, and it's all about activity getting out there
doing it, which I love too. Because it makes golf
less intimidating, I think that's all. That's probably my big
takeaway is it's way less intimidating to younger players. You know.

(33:33):
The phrase I heard was, you know, my my own
son said to me, I just I'm not very good
at this. I like it, not very good at it.
I'll never be very good at it, but I still
like it. That was always my problem. My problem is
I couldn't I couldn't do that I got. I got
a certain level of good and then I couldn't get
any better and I just kind of I got down
on that instead of just enjoying how good I got,

(33:57):
whatever level that was. So but anyway, that's kind of
my take on the on the current demographic. The older
people are willing to try to, you know, take they
come and take it. They ask me questions about golf,
swings and golf and things like that. But so that

(34:20):
younger demographic kind of has that in common and spend
money on equipment, spend money on golf balls, spend money
on food and beverage, and I'm not really concerned about
I'm not doing all that so I can get better.
I'm doing all that just to do it.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
So.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
But anyway, moving away from that, and that was not
it was not meant to denigrate anybody. I love everybody who.
I love the fact that people come play our golf course.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
I do. I love it.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I just I'm just trying to understand them. So in
keeping with this mindset that I am a PGA professional
and I do like people to get to get better,
and I take pride when they get better, I wanted

(35:07):
to use a couple of minutes of this for a
couple of shoutouts. Young lady by the name of Ellie
that I teach. I've taught for a while now. She's
from the Wheeling area. She just won the drive chip
and putt at Nemacola. She gets to go to Laurel

(35:27):
Valley next. If she wins at Laurel Valley, she goes
to I think she goes to Augusta.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I do.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I think she goes to Augusta. That's pretty cool, it's
pretty cool. I don't know if they take her instructor
to Augusta, but that'd be pretty neat. That's really kind
of neat.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
There are several there's a young lady playing Bethel Park.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I'm not going to use names because I didn't ask
them for them. There's a young lady playing Bethel Park
High School. She came to me a couple of months
ago she was gonna try out, and she's made the team.
She plays on the varsity team, which is great. I'm
really happy for a really good softball player. But she
decided to play golf, and she try golf, and she
wanted to she wanted to go ahead and and try

(36:21):
to make a team, and she did. I'm really happy
for I really am, really am. There's a couple of
there's a couple of.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Other players. Young man playing for.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Also playing for Bethel Park, who hits it hard, is
really good lacrosse player. He came to the other day
to try to square some things away in his golf swing,
and we did that and he seems to be really
happy with that. I numerous numerous youngsters. I had a

(36:56):
very A downside of this is is that I have
enough of them. But I'm not gonna use their names.
I have somebody playing at Eden Christian, which is great.
I don't have them there, but I help somebody who's
and I'm getting I'm still getting a lot of kids
come to see me from my junior program. And I

(37:20):
know I really haven't talked about my junior program a ton,
but I do need to. I do need to reiterate
that I had one hundred and fifteen kids in the
junior program a Fortune golf Club.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
This year.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
We taught thirty hours of instruction five weeks, fifty minutes
each session, different age groups. You know, kept the student
teacher ratio down pretty low. Had a lot of fun,
learn a lot, learn a lot. Frustration level was low,
a lot of laughter. I got to tell you that

(37:53):
that makes me really happy, really happy. And I do
have to tell you that as I told all their
parents that yes, there's a fee for this program, but
I teach anybody under the age of seventeen for free.
I see a young man tomorrow from Bargetstown High School
Tomorrow morning, eight o'clock. I see him see another young

(38:18):
man who's going to go into high school next year
at Fort Cherry, who will make the team. He's going
to be an easy in eighth grade, now be ninth
grade pretty soon. Super nice kid. I teach him for free.
The young lady from Bethel Park, the young man from
Bethel Park. I teach him for free. I do not
take money from people, not from kids. It's my job

(38:40):
to grow this game.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
There are some PG professionals out there that would like
to shoot me right now, and I know that that's okay.
They give back in their way. I'm going to tell
you that one of the reasons that I do that
that is because somebody helped me. Obviously, you know, I

(39:04):
didn't come up with my on my own. But I
do have to say that, you know, every so often
something happens.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
And you and you get really really really kind of neat.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
That that people were paying attention, and people take a
moment two.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
To say, hey, way to go.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I had a young man that I was teaching the
other day and I was talking to him about, you know,
his mom, and I'm like, hey, listen, you'll always be
good to your mom. And your mom works really hard,
you know, to try to get you to come out here,
and you know, it gives your rides and things like that,

(39:54):
and the young man's grandmother was there that day and
sent me a message and said that it was super
nice of me to mention that because that young man's
father had died two years ago and he just he's
having a hard little bit of a hard.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Time, and just kind of it was just really neat.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
For for for somebody to take it, take it an
interest in them, even if it's about golf or whatever,
because we always talk about grades when I deal with
a little kids, with younger kids, and so that's kind
of why I do it, because sometimes you know, you
don't even know you're helping, and you are, but but

(40:34):
you know, it is important for me to to mention
these people.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
To have a wall of fame, you know, I have.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
I have a member who is a obviously not a child,
not a child, uh and she's won three member events
in a row at our place, playing better than ever.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
That makes me happy. You know. The goal.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
And her name is Jens, and the goal for her
is to get better. She's another competitive human being, she's
a competitive softball player. She wants to get better and
she's getting better and it's just nice to see results.
It's nice to see smiles. Basically, if that it is

(41:19):
people are happy when they when it happens, you know,
and and it seems to be when they're into it,
you know. I seem to be able to latch on
and get them a little bit better and make him
understand some things. This young man that's moving to Dormont
and I just started teaching him last week and he's

(41:40):
you know, he's not a child, he's a professional, but
he's I saw some smiles out of him the other
day because he had never hit golf balls like that before.
That was really neat. That was really neat. That's that's
really kind of cool. And that's kind of my motivation,
you know, to get people to really see that they
could be They could be pretty good at it. They

(42:02):
can get a little better at it. They're not gonna
play on TV. But sometimes when you get people to
realize they can be better than they thought they could be,
it's a great thing.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
It's a great thing.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
It's really kind of neat.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
It's kind of neat, you know. And so I I
need to bring that out.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
And I'll come back to a professional, professionally personal moment
that I've had recently, but.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I need to.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
I just needed to say that that I know there's
some locally I've been doing at Fort Cherriet. We've been
doing we're finishing up this Monday with our Hope program,
which is our helping our patriots everywhere, and I it's
been awesome. It's been awesome. There's nothing better than help

(43:00):
people that want help, you know. And and those guys
they take it all in. We had a little challenge
match the other day. I gotta bring this up. These
guys probably listened to it. But four four on two scramble. Uh,
those four guys played against another golf professional myself. I
did not play. Bob Selera did play, and I I

(43:22):
just potted. I'm left handed, so I used a back
of Bob's potter. I putted left handed backwards. And we
beat them. We made we went par Bertie parr or
par par par Birdie so and they did not. So
we trounced them pretty good, which then makes me feel badly.
Bob and I feel badly because maybe we should have

(43:42):
thought him better. And let's think about that, you know,
and so so anyway, the the so that's that's but uh,
and then the only other thing I have in that

(44:05):
realm professionally personally is I was contacted this morning to
be to be a guest speaker at the Professional Golf
Management program at Farris State University in Michigan. That's a
big thing for me personally and professionally. That helps me

(44:26):
make an impact on some young professionals and things like that.
It's a great thing. It's a great thing. So I
just found out about that today. It's really kind of neat.
It's really kind of neat. So as we move forward,
as I said before, I will have multiple guests. You know,
it's almost September now, see, so we're almost done with

(44:49):
season is it three?

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Cory?

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yes, Reason okay, season three or Threeason Cee. I don't
know what it is, but season three, so not almost done.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
I mean we have we'll go till November one, but
I should hopefully.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
I know I'll have two weeks in a row of
really solid guests, and I'm building up more of them.
I've got calls out to six or eight people. I
might reach out to some people I've had in the
past who are nationally known, see if they won't come
back on and kind of give us an update as
to what they're doing or what they're up to. So, yeah,

(45:30):
I mean, I only I hope that I hope that
you enjoy the guests I have. I also hope you
enjoy kind of just me on the soliloquy here, just
kind of giving you a snapshot of what the golf
industry looks like and kind of the state of PGA
of America, as I did last week, and things like that.
And I guess I'll just wrap up this week with

(45:52):
a highly personal, highly personal, but some personal things. I
get a phone call the other day and this is
the this is the dad and me coming out. I
got two phone calls last week on the same day, actually,
and they promised me they didn't coordinate it. I got
a phone call from my son in the morning. He's
down in Washington, d C. In his professional career, and

(46:14):
he just called me and said, Hey, I just called
to say hi. Any wanted to talk about the pirates
and all that stuff, but it started with hey, I
just wanted to call and say hi.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
And that made my day.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
And then later on the day I got a video
call from a Hilltop winery in Austria and it was
my daughter and she said, hey, I know Mom's I
already called mom because Mom her mother was traveling, but

(46:45):
I just wanted to call and say hi. And Okay,
So for anybody out there that is that has kids,
you know that they'll mean a ton to you when
they move out. For anybody who has their parents still here,
do that call.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Him just to say hi.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Just remember you know they go just to reach out
to somebody and say hey. You know, and on a
professional note, I'll end the show with this. And this
is a professional note. My buddy Eric Kalina, who I've
had on this this show, is going through some professional
hardships right now, and you know, just.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
To shout out to him.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Great golf professional, great golf professional, and he is.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
He's going to do great things.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
He just separated from his facility and I know he's
going to do some great things. And I just wanted
to give him a professional shout out on this radio
show just to tell him, Hey, keep your head up.
I know you will, and the horizon is very, very
very bright for you.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Eric. So next week we'll have a guest. It'll be a.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Different type of the golf business, but it's going to
be really interesting. Thanks for listening. This is the Rich
Comwell Golf Show.