#114 - Golf Digest’s Best Young Teacher: Taylor Crosby - Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we play golf.
Let me show you how we do it inthe pros. Welcome to Behind the
Golf Brand podcast. I nevermissed with the Seven Iron , a
conversation with some of themost interesting innovators and
entrepreneurs behind thebiggest names in golf. My
friends were the golf clubs. Ilived on the golf course, I
lived on the driving range fromPro Talk . You should learn

(00:21):
something from each and everysingle round. You play

Speaker 2 (00:23):
To fun from on and off the green. Why would you
play golf if you don't play itfor money? Just let me put the
ball in a hole. This is Behindthe Golf Brand podcast with
Paul Libert Tore . What's upguys? Welcome to the Behind the
Golf Brand podcast. This week Ihad my longtime friend Taylor
Crosby. You guys have probablyseen his content on Instagram
and on YouTube. He's a topinstructor. I mean the top 100

(00:47):
instructor for under 40. Notyet . Top 40 .

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You're gonna be there. Yeah ,

Speaker 3 (00:52):
For

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Under 40, which is quite amazing. Think about it .
'cause there's a lot ofinstructors out there that
would kill to be on the GolfDigest list. And this guy's on
it because he's that good. Sowelcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thanks for having me, man. I'm excited about it.
Can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So where are you located at?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
I am in Greensboro, Georgia. So we're an hour east
of Atlanta, hour west ofAugusta. We're halfway between
Masters and East Lake , AugustaNational and Eastlake. We're
halfway. That's

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Have you been to the Masters?

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Growing up we went all the timebecause I grew up in Athens,
Georgia. I mean an hour and ahalf from August. So we went,

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Went to uga a

Speaker 3 (01:29):
I did, I played golf at Georgia. And

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Did you really?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh my God . That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I had a, I had a roommate in college who was
like, parents met at UGA.
Right. So like I , they're likenice . Oh , oga , oga , oga .
And I was like, what's uga ?
But I mean, that was back then.
I know what UGA is now. Like ,oh , the dog , the Bulldog. Oh
, the

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Best dude . I mean ,

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Tell story of like, his parents like met, they were
like in some, he was in afraternity and he was in a
sorority. And the way they metis they were tied to a tree
together for some kind of like,hazing. What it . That
was the story. I was like,that's a weird story. I ,

Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's a great story. That sounds very Athens.
I like it.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
So you grew up in Georgia, so I always ask this
question, but it's gonna be adumb question. Obviously you're
a golf pro, right? I alwaysask, oh, you're a pro. And then
people are like, no, I'm not apro, I'm a whatever handicap.
So like, have you always, like,when did you start playing
golf?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
I mean, I had a , like a plastic club in my hand
from the time I could walk. Uh, my dad was a golf pro down in
St . Simon's. Uh, when he gotoutta college. My grandfather
was a really good player. Andso I've always been around
golf, but I wanted , growing upin Atlanta in the early
nineties, I wanted to play forthe Braves baseball . I wanted
to be a pitcher. Yeah . Like Iwanted to be Tom Gln. 'cause I

(02:42):
do everything left-handedexcept for play golf and pack a
dip can. Those are the twothings I do. Right-hand
, and that's about it. Soeverything else left-handed. So
I wore , I wore number 47 forTom Gln, like wanted to be that
guy. I mean, like, that's whatI've always wanted to do. But
I'm five foot eight and didn'tthrow very hard. So golf was
probably the better choice.
.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Did you, so did you like get lessons as a kid and
like the whole nine yards? Orwhen did you really start
taking golf seriously?

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Uh, I really probably didn't start taking it
seriously till I was, I don'tknow , eighth, ninth grade. Oh
really ? Like for real throughit ? Yeah. Uh , I mean,

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Not like, you probably played your dad. You
were probably like, okay. Yeah, but like, I

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Mean like we played, I was always Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Um ,

Speaker 3 (03:24):
But I didn't start playing like a lot of
tournaments. Like I'd play inlittle local nine hole
tournaments when I was 11, 12,right around there.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
That'd fun.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah. I mean it was more just, we gotta go out to
the golf course and eat chickenfingers and go to the pool was
more what it was about then.
And then when I was like ateighth grade, I started like,
okay, I could probably bepretty good at this. And so I
went.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Is that when you, like in

Speaker 3 (03:47):
On that

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Immensely, did you do a switch in your head like,
okay, I'm not gonna dobaseball. Or were you still
doing baseball and golf?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I mean, I still did baseball. I didn't play
baseball league league . No .
Yeah. I mean, I didn't play inhigh school. Um, our team in
high school is justridiculously good. Um, and they
still are. Yeah, I mean like,there's a bunch of guys, I mean
out of the, one of the highschools there that, I mean,
they're probably one of the tophigh schools in Georgia now.
And it's a not that big of aschool, but they

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Jazz . Well , like my high school is the same way.
Like, like in I was in Mesawhen I grew up, but like, like,
I mean like Che Revy went to myhigh school, like, you

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Know . Oh, chess

Speaker 2 (04:24):
. Yeah.
Crazy. Like it is a beauty.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
We're the same .
We're

Speaker 2 (04:28):
You

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Not play college golf against each other

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Really? I remember, like, I worked, when I first
got outta college, I worked ,uh, Amer West Airlines and his
dad was a pilot. Right. His dadwas a senior check airman,
like, like way, way, way upthere the thing.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
And I like hated my job. I hated him with passion .
And I was like right outtacollege. And I used to go into
his office every day. He was acompletely different
department, but I knew himbecause of my neighborhood. And
I like went and talked to himevery single day, like true
story. And he'd be like tellingme all about Che and like,
'cause like he was like, that'swhen he made it to the masters
. I think he made the Mastersas a freshman at ASUI think he

(05:03):
made it because he won theamateur or something. Yeah. And
it was like, what? Like I wasso crazy back then. But he's a
good dude, man. That's a goodfamily. They're really cool.
Yeah. Um, as a Taylor and Iwere talking about earlier in
the show, like, like tell tellthe, tell him the story about
Jim Furich . Like this is acrazy story.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah . So

Speaker 2 (05:21):
About normal people.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
We were just talking about just regular guys. Right.
So I was a freshman at Georgiaand it was my first first event
ever. I got in and I qualifiedand , and we were playing an
event at Sawgrass Country Cluband went down a day early and
played TPC and we got doneplaying and we were just kind
of play practicing around andstuff, just kinda messing
around. And we ran into JimFuric on the range on from the

(05:45):
range on the way to the parkinglot. I can't remember exactly,
but, you know, we startedtalking to him and by the time
we left, you know, all of usgot in the vans or in the vans
and we were going to the hoteland all was like, God , he's
such cool guy. Like just aregular dude, you know, just
he's a regular guy. And ourcoaches are like, yeah, they're
all just regular guy. They'rejust like you. They just happen
to be really good at golf. Likethey're really good, but

(06:08):
they're just regular guys. LikeJim was, I mean, he was
probably on his way home to gohave dinner with the family and
you know, put his kids to bed.
Yeah .

Speaker 2 (06:16):
It's a little crazy about golf. That's what I love
about doing this podcast islike, people can really see
these as normal people. They'relike cool.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah .

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know, and like, I don't know , like have a
better understanding of like,you get past the veil, right.
And you just see that they'rejust sure normal dudes doing
their thing. And so, all right. So you grew up in Georgia and
you got really good , um, youstarted getting lessons. Like ,
did your dad like help? Did hesee that you had a passion for

(06:44):
the game or you're just like, Iwant this ?

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Oh, I mean, yeah, he's probably saw that I had a
passion. He, so he is a reallygood player. He was super hands
off , like super hands off .

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do wanna mess you up or what?

Speaker 3 (06:54):
He just didn't want to . He was like, I'm not gonna
be that parent.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
He loved .

Speaker 3 (06:59):
He was , he was like, I always just wanna be
dad. Like I just wanna be dad,

Speaker 2 (07:03):
I wanna play with you . Hang out .

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah. I mean like, he was like, I wanna more like,
hey, if you wanna talk aboutyour round, we can talk about
your round, but I'm not gonnabe the guy that's like, alright
, I can't believe on 13 you didthis, blah, blah , blah . He is
like, no. He was like, justdon't act like an. He was like,
that's all I ask . Just don'tmake me look bad. I'm like, you
got it. Yes sir. Um , yeah .

Speaker 2 (07:21):
But

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, I mean, like when I wanted to start taking
lessons, I , I did from a guyin Atlanta who's who was really
good, George Kellen Hoffer , Ilearned a lot. He was way ahead
of his time with video and allthese kind of things. Like he
used to work with Duval when hewas in college and Charlie
Howell. Oh

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Wow .

Speaker 3 (07:36):
A bunch of guys , uh, there at his, I mean it was
a terrible drive . It was a 10cup driving range and .
But he had all this video . Itwas crazy. I've still got the
VHS tape , you know, we didthat. And then when I was , uh,
when I was in college, Iactually worked with a guy that
who played for a while and he'snow a , uh, a country music
guy. His name's Colt Ford. Um,but I worked with him and he's

(07:59):
a squares guy too. ,um, but Colt is he, I started
working with him. I worked withhim all through college and
then he went back into musicand started making music. So I
tell him all the time, it's hisfault. I didn't make it
professionally. 'cause I wasplaying my best golf when I was
working with him. And then hedecided to go live his dream
and I gotta play bad golf anddonate money on the mini tours

(08:20):
. But, but he is now,it's funny. Now it's come full
circle. I'm his swing coach.
Uh, so it's pretty

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Really Oh ,

Speaker 3 (08:27):
That's crazy. It's awesome. Does

Speaker 2 (08:28):
He live in Georgia or you just do it online?

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Uh , so he comes back

Speaker 2 (08:32):
To Nashville.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
His parents still live in Athens, but he lives
out in Oklahoma. Splits timebetween Tulsa and Nashville.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
That's cool. So like, it's coming that place
too right now. Right. Becausemy son who's like 10 is really
good at baseball, but he'sgetting burned out. Mm-Hmm .
Like , you know, doing traveland all that crap like that.
And I , I don't wanna burn himout. Right . It's

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Hard. Yeah . You

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Know , do do whatever you want, man. Like
I'm not gonna push you. And sothen he got lessons. He is
little, like nothing crazy, youknow, and he always liked to
play. And then like in thelast, like seriously the last
four or five months, like allhe wants to do is play golf and
I don't push it. Right . He'sjust like, I'm go play golf.
I'm gonna go play this littlecrappy nine hole. And he is
like totally in love with thegame. Like completely in love

(09:14):
with the game. All he wants to. That's

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
And my dad gave him some old hybrid and like, next
thing I know, he's like in thebackyard just swinging this
hybrid by himself. And I waslike, what's going on? Right.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's alright .

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And so like, I was like, this is cool. So then I
actually talked to my, one ofmy instructor friends and I was
like, he's really good juniors.
And I was like, Hey, would yoube willing to work with him ?
Like, I'll, I'm not gonna saynothing. And he's like, yeah,
he's a lot of kids that go allthe way. And I was like, he's
like, yeah, I'll do that. I'mlike, I'm like, do you wanna do
like together? Like, we havelessons together, like me and
him and you. And he is like,no, I want me and him and I

(09:45):
wanna focus on his game. Andlike, he's like, but honestly
man, he is like, you're notgonna , he'll make more gains
out playing golf with you thanhe will with me. He'll just
learn how to do it the rightway. And I'm like, perfect.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah .

Speaker 2 (09:55):
My , I had a dad that would like scream at me
from across the fairway, likekeep my head down Right. And
whatever. So I'm not gonna doit with my kid. But yeah ,

Speaker 3 (10:05):
I'm ,

Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's, it's interesting 'cause at that age
it's like, I don't know , likeit's cool to see passion. I
don't know. Right . In thegame. Like

Speaker 3 (10:11):
A hundred percent .

Speaker 2 (10:12):
You know , you just say when you , I feel like you
see passion as you get older asa kid or as an adult. Yeah . Oh
, I really love this game. Butnow with , I don't know , I'm
excited. I'm like, oh , this iscool. Like , that's

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
You have a better chance of going this way than
you do going baseball, dude.
Like basically the hardestsports to get in. So it's like,
I don't know , I think it'scool .

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I'm gonna

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Be earl on baseball . So then you What's that?

Speaker 3 (10:31):
I said, I'm gonna be Earl Woods on baseball with my
little boy.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Are you going to you like ,

Speaker 3 (10:34):
No, I'm not gonna really be .

Speaker 2 (10:35):
How old's your son?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
He's five .
Oh, we got time , bro. No , youcan do tee-ball .

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Have you had t-ball yet or no? Oh

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, I coached his T-ball team this past year. Did
you guys

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Go the way , did you get the, the ribbon ? Oh

Speaker 3 (10:46):
No. Well, we won every game, but it's because
there are no outs and we hadmore people on our team, so we
scored more runs . So we, we were undefeated.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
I did see , I did the same freaking thing. It's
like every kid gets the bat.
And regardless, I got yelled atduring t-ball because like it
was t-ball and you're still atee . And I'm like, these kids
are not gonna be playing t-ballnext year. They didn't know to
hit a ball. So like the firstgame or two, like we did
t-ball. And after that I waslike, no, I'm pitching to you
like I'm gonna do on my oneknee. I'm gonna like blob it
and whatever. And the othercoaches started getting all off

(11:15):
and like told the league. Oh .
And I was like, dude, you'renot helping 'em . And then by
the end of the league , rightby the end of the season, all
the coaches were doing, I'mlike, yeah , no. Duh. That's

Speaker 3 (11:22):
What , that's what we do in our, they get, they
get three tries. You get threeswings. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Exactly. Get too ,

Speaker 3 (11:28):
You get , and then you put on the tee and rip it.
Right. There

Speaker 2 (11:30):
We go. I mean it takes, it's like any much
longer than them hitting thefricking tee , you know? And
it's like, who cares? Like, butit's cool because they actually
see progression, right? Liketwo months later is hit balls.
Not like, oh , half the tee . Imean it's like next .

Speaker 3 (11:42):
And then one of those kids that, that first
time one of those kids hits itwhen you pitch it to 'em , it's
a freak out . They're soexcited. They're like, oh my
gosh . Oh

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah . They're like, so are you though, because
you're like hit in the facebecause you're like three feet
away . like, I got hitso many times, I didn't care. I
was

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Happy. Yes .

Speaker 2 (11:56):
What's crazy is like, my son was on his team
for a long time and he wentback to Little league this last
season and then on this teamwas one of the kids we get
t-ball with who was really goodtoo. So it's like kind of cool
to see like, you know, five,six years later it's like
they're still good. Like my sonwas really good. Like, I'm not
just saying that. Like he wasjust, Mike son was like
throwing balls in the air byhimself and like hitting it
when he was like two, like hewas so into , into baseball.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
I wish you could see my backyard right now. My son
back .

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Is it a baseball like area ?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
He's got a pitch back out there like a little
net.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Really? A five. Holy

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Crap. Yeah, he sits out there all day. I was like,
well, this way don't stand outthere in the heat. Like he can
throw it to himself. We're fine ,

Speaker 2 (12:29):
He loves it , he'll be fine . Like , see, like
that's awesome. Like he wantsit. Like that's the Yeah, I
dunno . That's one thing I findlearned with parenting is like,
don't force anything. Like if akid wants to do something, let
him do it, you know? No ,you're not gonna be a
professional basketball playerlike five two . Like, it'll
never happen. Right.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
So

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Like, yeah ,

Speaker 3 (12:44):
If

Speaker 2 (12:44):
You wanna go play, go play YMCA. It's all good.
Don't worry about it . Yeah .

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Just , no , my bloodline's not gonna be a
football player or , orbasketball player. We're ,
we're short and small and slow.
It's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
If you want pizzas, okay, that's my bloodline. Or
like some spaghetti, you know,like we can help you out there.
But other than that

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I can teach him the ways of bourbon when he gets
older. Like, I'm getting that .
I'm looking

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Drinking. Yeah . But like not to buy alcohol. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Sitting at the pool.
I'm really good at it. Like,I'm very good .

Speaker 2 (13:15):
So. All right . So then you, how'd you get, all
right , so like, did you startwinning tournaments in high
school? Or what happened? Like,like how'd you get like to go
play division one golf? Likethat's a big

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Rc . Yeah , I mean, I , I'm sure I did. I , it's
funny, I was telling somebodythis the other day, I don't
really enjoy winning that much,so I don't remember much of
those. I hate losing with apassion. Like, I hate losing, I
hate it so much. Um, I remembermore of those than I do the
wins . It's maybe , maybethat's why I'm not playing golf

(13:47):
professionally, but , um, butit always, like , that was what
always pushed me, right? Like,I hate , I always wanted to be
like, don't make the samestupid mistakes and, you know,
things like that. But, youknow, I I , I was good. I I
wasn't a world beater by anystretch. I was good. Um, you
know, I had offers to playdifferent places, but when I
got offered by Georgia, I , Iwas a walk-on like , walk-on,

(14:10):
at Georgia. I had scholarshipopportunities, but in golf, big
scholarship's, a halfscholarship. Um, but in Georgia
we have the , the Hopescholarship, which the lottery
covers everything except forroom and board. And I was, I
was a pretty smart kid. I , I'dmade real good grades. So I had
academic scholarship too. So Iwas like, well, in Georgia, I'm
on a full ride and I can be onone of the best teams in the

(14:31):
country. I was like, let's go. And it was in my
backyard. Exactly right. Imean, I've been around it for
forever. So I was like, I mean,I'm , I'm in with that. And
then I left , uh, midwaythrough my junior year. Uh,

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Why, what made you go to

Speaker 3 (14:46):
We were just , we were really good. I mean, we
were really good. All fiveguys. My junior year, that was
the year they won NCAAs atCaves Valley in 2005. Um, all
five guys were all Americans.
And we were only graduatingone. And Brian Harmon , Adam
Mitchell, and I think HudsonSwafford were coming in the
next year. And so I was like,you know, I was kind of the
sixth guy anyways. And we hadone qualifier that year and we

(15:09):
didn't have another one 'causethey were that good. Um, and I
was like, you know what? I'mnot gonna get any better just
sitting at home. I was like, Ihate sitting at home while
they're at an event, you know ,doing these things. I was like,
I gotta go somewhere where Ican play. And NC State had
recruited me in high school andI had always had a good
relationship with their headcoach. And then their assistant
at the time played golf atGeorgia, graduated the year

(15:31):
before I started. And so I'dknown him, I had a relationship
with those guys. So Itransferred up there midway
through the year and spent mylast year and a half at NC
State.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's interesting.
I don't think people realizethat too, of the college golf.
Like there's only so manyplayers that can play in a
tournament, right? Per school.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Most, yeah. I mean, you've only got five guys that
travel. You've usually gotsomewhere between eight and 12
on the team and you've only gotfour and a half scholarships,
so you gotta figure it out.
Gotta do math .

Speaker 2 (15:57):
I didn't realize any of that. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Like baseball's the worst with scholarships. It's
hard. Baseball's hard. So

Speaker 2 (16:02):
I mean, really, it's like if you're not in that top
five, it's like you don't getto play. Yeah . You to
practice. But like, yeah , it'slike, okay, well that , that's
not, how's that for , I

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Mean , you find other, you find other
tournaments to play inindividual type events, but
that wasn't why I wanted toplay golf in college. I wasn't
gonna play .

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah , because you don't need like a , you don't ,
you don't , you weren't lookingto be like, oh, I was part of
that team, you know, look howcool I was. It's like, no, I
want to be playing. Like that'swhy I'm here. Not I want to .
It's not a team sport. Golf'snot a team sport. Sorry. Nope .

Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Not. Nope .

Speaker 3 (16:29):
You

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Know ,

Speaker 3 (16:29):
It's individuals that add up to a team. Score

Speaker 2 (16:31):
A team. Yeah, exactly. So it's like a little
bit different. So it's notlike, oh, we win. It's like,
well, kind of . But really it'slike, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
The teams that win are the teams that, you know,
everybody, all five guys aretrying to win that tournament.
They're trying to beat the hellout of each other other ,
because if you're all

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Trying for

Speaker 3 (16:48):
That win , they

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Beat each other .
They win. Yeah , exactly .

Speaker 3 (16:49):
You're all track for that win . You're gonna be
pretty good.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's only one winner involved .

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Like Oklahoma State Spin . I mean, Oklahoma State,
a couple years ago when likeHolin and those guys were on
the team, they could've fieldedtwo teams that would've made
match play . They were thatgood. Like it , they were
crazy. Their nine guy would'veplayed one or two at any other
school almost.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
So what do you do?
What do you think you do ifyou're like a teenager and you
wanna play like college golf ,like, and you're good, but
like, do you think it's a kindof a risk then? I guess if you
go to like one of those likepowerhouse schools , like you
might not get to play. Likeyeah, you're part of that
system, but you might not getthe opportunity.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
It's a risk for sure. I wouldn't have changed
anything. I still would do it.
No, no. I mean, those guys arestill my boys. Um, I learned a
ton. I mean, heck, the guys onmy team, like Kiz Kiz was on
the team. We came in the sameyear. Uh , crazy. Then , then
you've got Chris, Kurt , Brenda, Todd, the year behind us the
next year was who's the nextyear ?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
I mean, then you've got Harmon Hudson Swafford ,
and then next year was HarrisEnglish.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
If you think about it, it's like, it's like top
echelon of like collegeplayers, right? Like, it's so
like cool players. It's not,this isn't a joke, you know,
it's not like, no , you playedfootball in college and it's
like you have like a 1% chanceof making the NFL , right? It's
a , it's like, it know, it'slike if you're winning
tournaments or you're winningthe NCAA tournament and it's
like you're pretty much gonna ,I mean, got a chance. What , I

(18:11):
guess what's, what happens? Solemme ask this because I'm, I'm
, I'm not trying to sound dumb.
I don't know how this processworks. So like, okay, let's say
you play college golf, whichyou did, obviously. And then
what happens? Like, so you wentto NC State and you played NC
State, you finished out yourcareer there in college. And
then what do you do when youget outta college? If you're a
, if you're a professionalgolfer who's really good, what
do you do next? I, I know youtri go with a tour, obviously,
but how does that process work?

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Well, I was a professional golfer, but
apparently I wasn't reallygood. Um, I donated a
lot, but you know, like, it'sliterally like now it's
different with the PGA tour,you and all that stuff where
you're getting guys that right,when they graduate, they've got
Korn Ferry status. Or now thatyou're gonna have a guy that
has PGA tour status or PGA TourCanada, PGA tour Latin America.

(18:52):
There wasn't any of that whenwe were in college. It was
like, you graduated in May. Imean, unless you were the like,
top, top guys, like, I mean bigtime like , uh, Ryan Moore or
uh , DJ Trahan , those typeguys, when they came out, they
were getting sponsorsexemptions to big tour events.
'cause they had won everythingunder the sun. Um , but unless
you were those guys, you'reprobably playing a mini tour.

(19:14):
Like the, when I was playing,it was the e golf tour over
here in the, in the southeast.
And then you got the, it wasthe Adams tour and the gateway
tour. Like you had all thesetours where you're basically,
there's all these tours

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Trying to , well you have to pay to play in it,
right? Like percent

Speaker 3 (19:28):
1200 ,

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Three per 1500

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Per tournament, plus your hotel and

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Plus flying there or driving there. You're in

Speaker 3 (19:36):
The whole whatever , 1500 to two grand a week and
you on a mini tour, you gottafinish top 10 to break e , top
15 to break even.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Holy crap.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
I mean it's, the mini tours are more, it's

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Hard,

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Like , oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Hard .

Speaker 3 (19:49):
I mean it's a , it's , it's more about getting you
ready for Q School . It's whatthey are. It's not a way to
make money. Um , back then youcould make more money than you
could now in the mini tours ,um, there were guys that made a
lot. 'cause we had 200 guysponying up 12 to 1500 bucks of
an event and it only cut to 60.
So you had 140 guys going home.
I mean, like a couple events ayear . I mean, I wanna say four

(20:11):
or five events a year. They had50,000 in the first place. I
mean , you get one of those,you pay for your year,

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Paid for your whole year, you're

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Good to go. Yeah , exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
It's then

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Everything else is profit, then you're good to go.
Um, and it's not quite likethat now. It's not, there's not
quite as much money in it nowbecause there's APGA tour,
Latin America, PG Tour Canada.
I mean, there's a Canadian touralways, but they weren't
through the PGA. Um, and sothat changed things with mini
tour stuff. But you know, thesebig time kids now, they're
gonna have Korn Ferry, PJ tourstatus, Latin America, whatever

(20:41):
it might be. They're gonna havesome type of status now.
Everybody else, I mean, yougotta scratch and claw, try and
find somebody to give you moneyto go , uh, to go give it a
shot

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Sponsor, right? Like the Yeah . You know , you're
working, which is impossible.
You're trying to , it's almost,it seems like it's a hard road,
right? Mm-Hmm . Because it'salmost like you have to win in
the first six months or you'rehosed or have a sponsor. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (21:02):
I mean, yeah . I mean, like, I've saved up for a
whole year , year . I was abartender in Athens, which was
a really fun job. Um, but , but I saved up for a
whole year, lived with myparents, didn't play in
anything. I just practiced,saved up for a year. And I was
like, look, this is my moneythat I got. This is what I got.
We're gonna see how long itlasts. And I mean, 'cause it
was right after 2008 with allthe housing money .

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
And like when I graduated college, I was a , I
had a , a degree in financialplanning and consumer
economics. Oh Jesus . And thatwas , so this is Lehman brother
. There was like no jobs Madoffand the real estate market went
.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah . So

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I was like, well , I , there's no jobs . Try and
play golf. I might as well tryand play. Um, so we, I , you
know, I saved up and I tried itand didn't work out, which is
fine. I , you know, I .

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So how long, so you saved up, you tried. So how
long did you do mini tourstuff? Like a year or two?
About

Speaker 3 (21:52):
A year and a half.
Almost two years . You

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Got burned out. Was it just

Speaker 3 (21:55):
No, I ran outta money . I , and I was
like , I , I always wanted todo it with my money. And it was
more that it wasn't just that Iran outta money. Uh , that's
the easy answer. But it wasmore that I had a stretch my
last, last time playing golffull-time professionally. I
played in events here and theresince then.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
But when it was my only job, I , uh, I had five,
four or five straight eventswhere I think my worst score
was 70 or 71. And I only madetwo cuts.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Oh my God.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
And I felt like I was playing , like, for me,
like, I mean, I felt like Ilook, I'm playing really good
golf. Like I felt really goodabout my golf and I'm 10 shots
behind the guys leading everyweek and I'm missing the cut.
And I was like, you know what,maybe you're not good enough. I
mean, like, it's okay. Um, andit sucked. I mean, I still
remember the last tournament Iplayed full time . I , I missed

(22:46):
a putt on the last hole thenthat was like seven under
through two rounds and missedthe cut and . I
remember going to the car and Ibroke my putter in the trunk of
my car. I just slammed it inthe trunk of my car, like just
put it in the thing and just, Iwas like, I'm out and .
But you know, right after thatI ended up going to caddy for
one of my guys who's one of mytravel buddies that we, we
traveled together, roomtogether every week. I caddy

(23:08):
for him. And he ended up makingall the way to final stage ofq
school . Mm-Hmm . . And so then he had a job the
next year. So I caddied on theKorn Ferry the next year. And,
you know, but that was , hecan't make money doing that
either. But , um, you know,that kind of led me down to I
really like golf. I mean, like,I wanted to do something in
golf.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
You love it. Yeah .
You're trying to figure outlike where do you fit?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah. I mean, like , I had to do something and then
I was a head pro up in thenorth Georgia Mountains for a
summer. Shout out to all thegolf professionals that sit in
a pro shop all day. 'cause thisguy can't do that. Um, I did it
for a while and I was like, Iwill get out of this business.
I'll find a way to sellinsurance. Do something. I
cannot do this, be in the shopis 75, 80 hours a week. I was
like, I'm out.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Can't do it . Yeah.
And then that's the thing too ,I have a buddy who's a golf pro
and he's like, it sucks dude.
He's like, you know, I mean,you know , they , oh , you're
the GM or whatever we call somedumb titles, not gm, but
whatever he is. But like,essentially he's working 80
hours a week Yeah . For minimumwage. And then Yep . He makes
his money on teaching hisstudents. Mm-Hmm .
when he can fitthem in, when like doing
inventory right . And doing ,getting their first thing in

(24:10):
the morning. You gotta get your

Speaker 3 (24:12):
P and i and all this stuff. I'm like, no .

Speaker 2 (24:13):
And he has to drive like cross town every day to
the golf course. I'm like, whata terrible, terrible, terrible.
Like what's, what's the upside?
Right? Like, oh, you know,someday I'm going to go to the
next. Like, I don't know . Ithink it's hard, dude. Like I
don't think people realizethat. That's super hard. That's

Speaker 3 (24:26):
A hard job. That's , it's , I mean it's , it's hard
to find people to work now inthe assistant pro gig, it's
just hard 'cause it's not ,there's no money. Um , like

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Mean more money being a bag boy or a walk , you
know , the end of for sure youcan make more

Speaker 3 (24:39):
A cat at a golf course. They have a caddy
program. You'd make more thanthe assistant than the first
assistant would. No doubt. AndI mean it's, that's, that's
kind of what led me to what Ido now. I was looking like,
what am I gonna do?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
What year was this when you were like doing 2011?
So you were just like, okay,this is, I don't wanna do this
forever, right? Mm-Hmm . Idon't wanna do caddying. This
is unless you get lucky.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
No , he had made a made to where I'd probably be
cadding still.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, exactly. Then you'd be like , oh, making good
money. It's worth the risk.
Right? Yeah . It's like,

Speaker 3 (25:10):
It's

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Like it's all it is . You know, you get your
percent

Speaker 3 (25:12):
And I was 25 and single , or , well, I
mean, I had a girlfriend, butwe didn't have kids, you know,
like now my wife, I wasn'tsingle, but you know, we didn't
have kids. I was 25 .

Speaker 2 (25:21):
, they're crossroad in your life,
you know, 25, 26. Like, what amI gonna, what am I doing here?
Right? Yeah . Am I gonna growup or am I gonna like No, I , I
totally get that. So then how,like, what did, what did you
realize like, hey, maybe I canteach, like, and how'd you get
hooked up with Jim andeverybody?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
So I grew up playing golf with both of Jim's sons,
John and Matt. Um, are youserious? Yeah, we're all about
the same. Because I mean, inall these national terms , you
end up seeing all the sameguys. Um, and John played at
Oklahoma State and TCU and Mattplayed at Wake Forest. Like I
knew who were , I

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Like Jim McLean , everybody in case you don't
know. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, Jim Cleen . Um , and I remember, you know,
like I always played in theDoral , Publix, and this is
when Jim had a school at Doraland his school is right by
number 10 of the blue monster.
10 11, and then 12 T comesright behind the school. So
he'd always kinda like pop outand watch. I remember I was
playing with John one one yearwith actually John and David

(26:13):
Ledbetter's son at the sametime. It's crazy . But
like, you see just Mr. McLeanand Mr. Ledbetter walking down
the fairway and you're like,these are like the guys I see
on golfs every week. Legend .
They're

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Legends.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
And I just remember that. Right. So I knew he had
golf schools and I know howrespected he is in the golf
industry and uh , especially asfar as teaching teachers. Um,
if you look at a top 100 listor the best young teachers
list, like if we were to sitdown and go through it more
than half, or Jim McLean peopleat some point in their lives .

(26:44):
It's crazy. It's crazy. Likeit's nuts how big his , I mean,
he makes Nick Saban's coachingtree look tiny , um, .
It's just, I mean, it's crazy.
And he's really good at it. AndI, I remember looking at it, I
saw a post on like pga.com orsomething that he was looking
to hire instructors. And I waslike, well, I'll reach out. And

(27:05):
ended up, I didn't really, Ididn't love the thought of
going to Miami. It's just notmy speed. It's not my, not my
jam. Um , I

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Can't see why.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah . .
It's not my jam. Um , but thenthey had an opening in Fort
Worth, Texas, and I was like,that's more my speed. That's
cool. Um , and it was then theyhad a junior academy tied to it
, a very boutique version oflike AIMG school. We had 15 to
20 kids every year. And I waslike, that I could really get
in . Like I, that was myfavorite thing of all the stuff
I did out there was workingwith our kids that were there

(27:34):
boarding with us. I was, thelast couple years I was there,
I was in charge of all theOnCourse instruction and things
like that. It was like, so thelast

Speaker 2 (27:42):
, you loved it. You fell in love. You
were like, oh, I love this . Itwas ,

Speaker 3 (27:45):
It was amazing. And I gotta go with them to
tournaments. And I ended upgoing to all these US girls
juniors, the US Junior, the USAm because of that. I got a
caddy in the US Open with oneof the guys. Like, I mean, it's
really, really cool. Um ,

Speaker 2 (27:56):
You guys bonds these kids too? 'cause like they
just, yeah. Like , and

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Now they're

Speaker 2 (27:59):
In this form for middle years too, where you're
just like, they listen to youand they look up to you and
they look , you know, it'slike,

Speaker 3 (28:05):
And now I , I'm all that's cool because they're all
getting married and they'rehaving kids and stuff. I'm
like, oh . And

Speaker 2 (28:08):
They're , oh, come my wedding. And you're like,
like , oh ,

Speaker 3 (28:10):
They're like sending me baby shower things. I'm
like, oh my gosh , that's notright. That's cool . ,
they can't be that long ago. Um, but you know, like that was
once I got there and the guyguys that I have out there, I
mean like two of 'em to thisday are still my biggest
mentors in golf. JoeyWartenberg , Justin Poynter ,
those two guys , like, I meanthey still, they crush it out

(28:31):
there. Justin works with a ton,a ton of, ton of girls in LPGA
Symetra. Wow . A bunch of, youknow, junior golfers. He's
helped groom a ton. Joey's thesame thing. I mean, he is got
some really, really greatplayers. And, you know, being
around them, seeing how muchthey love teaching and how good
they were at it. youknow, if I didn't learn

(28:53):
something, I I was an idiot.
Like, I , I had all theopportunities and it, it's

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Like you were , you were at the right place too .
Like to just absorb all

Speaker 3 (29:02):
That. And we were

Speaker 2 (29:02):
All knowledge and , and we were all fairly

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Young. I mean fairly young. Uh, Justin's the oldest
, uh, I don't wanna say how oldhe is. I can't remember. I
don't want to you to feel oldJustin. Um, but when I got out
there, I mean he was like 42,43 and he was the old guy

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Like your age.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah. Right. I mean he was the old guy and I was
26, 27. Oh,

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I know. Do hate that feeling.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Right. And so we were all in there and I still
remember the first couple yearswe were there, we had to wear
pants in the middle of thesummer there. 'cause he is
like, look, y'all are alsoyoung .

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh God , I

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Need you to look more professional. And then as
we got, you know, a little bitmore, a little older and our
faces look like we've been beatup in the sun, he is like, well
I guess y'all don't have towear pants anymore. Um ,
. But you know, thatwas, it was the coolest. I we
still will sit there and text

Speaker 2 (29:46):
It in Dallas. Where was this at Dallas.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
We were in, we were actually in Arlington. So we
were right near Cowboy Stadium.
Like we were right there. Wewere halfway between, I lived
in Dallas. A lot of them livedin Fort Worth. But um , that
was

Speaker 2 (29:56):
The cool stadium .

Speaker 3 (29:57):
It was awesome . It , it was, I had a blast. If we,
my wife and I really, the onlyreason we moved back this way
was 'cause we had our, ourfirst kid and we wanted to be
closer to camp Grandma andgrandpa.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah .

Speaker 3 (30:09):
I wanted free help .

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Exactly . Free daycare.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Well my parents live a mile from my house. There's a
reason for that. Like Yeah .

Speaker 3 (30:17):
My, my mother-in-law lives , lives like two miles.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah . Yeah. It's like, it makes sense, right?
Because daycare's expensive.
Like two

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Grand a month . Very . Yeah .

Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's so crazy. So then how long were you there
teaching in Dallas?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
I was there for eight years.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
So that's 2019 .

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah. I was there till , uh, Memorial Day weekend
2019. I still remember. 'causethat's when we drove the U-Haul
this way back this way . Andthe last six months I was there
starting in January. I wassplitting time between here at
Reynolds and there. And it wasmore that we knew Jim was
selling the facility. So all ofus were kind of, what are we

(30:56):
gonna do? How are we gonna go

Speaker 2 (30:57):
About this? Yeah .
He's , yeah . We're notsticking around.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
We we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do.
And I had an offer from a guyhere, I worked for him in high
school at one of the golfcourses. Um, and he's now our
director of a director of theKingdom at Reynolds. And he
called me and he was like, Heylook, I know you're priced to
looking at moving back toGeorgia. He is like, here's
your interview. You have thejob if you want it, just let me
know. I was like, okay. Um, Iwas like ,

Speaker 2 (31:22):
. And that's the one thing I don't
think people realize either. Atleast . I mean, I didn't
because I'm an outsider, butlike golf, the golf world is
like teeny, teeny tiny. Oh ,it's super tiny. It's tiny.
Like everybody knows eachother. Your reputation precedes
you. Mm-Hmm . bea good dude. Don't be a dba.
Right . And you say what you'regonna do, you go do it and
whatever. And that's why, Imean, for me, that's why we

(31:43):
grew so fa so fast becausethat's just how I am. Yeah .
And then I didn't realize thatlike, oh hey, like I'll
introduce you to this guy. Iobviously to that guy like,
'cause you just wanna like helppeople that are cool and like

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Are nice . Yeah .
It's a very small fraternity.
It's very small

Speaker 2 (31:57):
And you somebody off

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Like everyone gonna

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Know . Yeah. You're done

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Immediately.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
I'll I could . Yeah.
For reals. Like

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Immediately, which

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Is cool. I like that. So I mean, I think like,
I don't know , that's, I don't,golf's so small, dude. It's
ridiculous. It's ,

Speaker 3 (32:11):
That's why , I mean , it's , it's fun. Like I went
out to uh, Colorado a few weeksago for the US Girls Junior ,
not Colorado Springs with oneof my clients. She made it. We
were super excited. We're outthere with her family. Um, and
you know, we were going throughthe practice rounds and end up
running into all these collegecoaches and she can't really
talk to him yet 'cause she'sabout to be a sophomore. But

(32:32):
I'm sitting there talking tohim and you know, after the
round she's like, how do youknow all these people? I was
like, well one, I worked at ajunior academy, so we had
relationships. I was like, butmost of these coaches were
either coaching in college whenI played, they were playing in
college. Like at the same timeI was girls or guys or they
were playing with my sister.
You know, like , because mysister played through four
years behind me in , in collegeat Central Florida and Georgia.

(32:54):
I was like, it's not a bigspace. I was like, and then
plus all these kids we sent toschool when I was at Jim McLean
. Like we had, you know, abunch of big , uh, Bama and TCU
and like all these placesaround the country. And I'm
like, look, the coaches like ,we just know each other 'cause
it is that small and they alljust move around to different
schools. Um, I was like, it isthat small. And she's like,
wow. She's like, I mean it'sjust, she's like, you know

(33:17):
somebody everywhere, don't you? I was like, yeah, it , it
golf. It's small . It'svery small.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's super small.
Like, I just don't , I thinkit's so cool about it. So I
mean like the way that Taylorand I met each other was
through Bob at Squares. Solike, 'cause Bob, Bob was on a
podcast like a month ago and hestarted naming all these pl
like all these instructors thathe, you know, that Mm-Hmm .
uses product. AndI was like, I wanna talk to
Taylor, I wanna talk to Jim.
Like these are all people Ilike follow on Instagram. Right
. And I'm like, that's soawesome. But like why, like why

(33:44):
do you like square shoes?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
What makes it so it all came about from Cult Ford .
Um , when I actually, when Ileft Texas, I was , uh, I was
on staff with Titleist and sowe got, you know, FootJoy
shoes, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah . When I came here , um, Iwasn't on my staff deal, ran
out. And so I was looking togo, you know, like, Hey, who
can I get shoes from? BecauseTaylor made Adidas partnership

(34:07):
wasn't a thing. You know, like,so you didn't have that, that
look. So I was sitting there, Iwas like, I don't know what I'm
gonna do. Well Colt happened tobe in my bay one day and he is
like, bro, let me reach out toBob. He's like, I got these
shoes. He's like, they ain'teven, they , I mean they had
probably just come on of like,just come out. I don't even
know if they went to the PGAshow like

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Two years ago, like two and a half years ago.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
It's 2019.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh crap. So they just came out.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah. I mean like, they had just come out. Uh ,
yeah . And so he reached out toBob like, Hey, can you send
Taylor a pair of these things?
And I got 'em. And you know,the first generation of 'em , I
was like, these don't lookgreat, but they are
ridiculously comfortable. LikeI could wear 'em. And I was
like, I could teach in 'em allday. I could play golf and my
feet didn't hurt and I feltstable. And really, like what

(34:55):
brought me to 'em too is thelaces that don't move the
little state lock laces. It'sfricking genius. As simple as
it is , as simple as it is . Iwas like, I like this. And then
, you know, as it's evolved inthe last three years

Speaker 2 (35:04):
We've had that

Speaker 3 (35:05):
The shoe has become much better , better , better
looking

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Better .

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Right. Yeah . It's better looking . But it's also
like they didn't lose what thereason was. You know, like
performance ,

Speaker 2 (35:16):
It's a performance shoe. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Square toe box .
Your , your feet can sit outlike this, your toes can spread
out a little bit more . Andthat was, I mean, you know,
does it make you swing faster?
Maybe? I don't know. Um, Ihaven't tested it like that,
like they have. Right. But Ijust know that when I wear
them, they're super comfortableand I feel super stable. But I
mean, and for me it's just, Heylook, they're very comfortable.
Yeah. I can play golf in 'em .

(35:38):
My feet don't hurt. And youknow, and plus just like, Bob's
such a good dude. I mean, he,he's so funny. He, I always
tell him, I'm like, dude,you're like a living cartoon
character. Like you really are.
And like, and he isjust a riot. And like anytime I
call him and like in a , Heylook, can you help me out with
this? He's always like, Hey, Igot like, let me know I got
you. Got you done. And so itwas one of those things like,

(36:00):
hey, people like that. Like,and if he, likewise, if he's
asking me to do something, hey,yeah man, I got you. I'll put
something out for you. Whateveryou need. Um, and you know,
it's just, I I think it'sgreat. And I think I really do
like people gimme grief about'em. They're like, you know, I
can't believe you're wearingthose shoes. I'm like, well,
all right , that's fine. Well ,uh, we'll just see what the

(36:21):
scorecard looks like at the endof the day with like, my
clients and stuff. They gimme ahard time. I'm like, well yeah
, those, those Jordans do lookcool. And I love Jordans. I
wear 'em all the time. I don'twear Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (36:30):
You're playing basketball, bro. I didn't know
where to play basketball today. Like ,

Speaker 3 (36:32):
I don't , I've got Jays on right now, like, but
I'm not gonna play golf in 'em. That's not what they're for.
they're not even reallyfor playing basketball at this
point. They're ,

Speaker 2 (36:39):
They're horrible basketball shoes.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Um , but you know, like it's, it's one where like,
I , I think they, I think theyare really good. And like I
said, Bob has been unbelievableto me helping me out any way he
can. And so like that loyaltystuff like that, I'm like,
dude, that's a guy I'll helpout if he ever needs anything.
And one day he'll probably belike, Taylor , you know what?
You're not that cool. You'reout and that's fine. I doubt

(37:02):
that , but I'll, I'll stillwear squares. That's the crazy
thing. I've told somebody theother day, I was like, even if
I didn't get them for free, Iwould wear them. I would buy
them. Like I , I know thatsounds, I know. No , you
believe me. But I would wearthem tomorrow 100%.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
They work. That's a thing. Yes , they work. Yeah .
I mean , that's it. I love 'em. Like I don't wear 'em go to
the mall, but I wear 'em . Goplay golf because I want hit
the ball farther and I want tolike, have my feet not hurt and
all the other things. I meanthat's like, you know, it helps
me perform better on thecourse. That's, that's what it
comes down to. I wanna hit , Iwanna play better. Like, that's
it.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
I'm gonna drop bombs. I just wanna get it
farther . I

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Want , I wanna hit further and I want , I want , I
don't wanna spread everywhere.
That's like the two things Iwanna do . Sure. Man . Go see
Taylor. So then you went to thekingdom, right? What's the
kingdom? In case people don'tknow what the kingdom is.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
So TaylorMade has two sites. Their , their
original kingdom is out inOceanside, Carlsbad. Um, and it
was, the kingdom here wassupposed to be just the East
Coast version. So PGA tourplayers that were out here on
the east side could just cometo here and it'd be easier to
get to than go flying into SanDiego and, and doing all that.
And so that's what it was for along time until , uh, MetLife

(38:14):
acquired Reynolds Lake Oconee ,they bought it from the
Reynolds family. And when thathappened, it was re , MetLife
wanted to own the piece ofproperty that Taylor made owned
for the kingdom here because itwas , you know, they wanna own
the property. Well in thatthing, they still kept the
relationship with TaylorMade.
So we are, the kingdom here isthe only place that a retail

(38:34):
person, just anybody off thestreet can go get APGA tour
level kingdom level experiencewith their fitting. Um, so like
it's the same kind of, I meanwe have everything. We've got
two

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Publicized 'cause the kingdom, right

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Kingdom

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And San Diego Kingdom , it's

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Got , you're gonna have to be an influencer or a
tour player.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Influencer or tour player or

Speaker 3 (38:56):
That's the only

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Way you gonna to in golf .

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Right. See

Speaker 2 (38:58):
I didn't know that .
This is crazy. I didn't knowthat.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Um , like you can't just call up Taylor Ma and go,
Hey, I wanna go to the Kingdom.
You can come to ours out there.
Um, just like you can't go toOceanside for Titleist like
random Joe Blow can't go there.
Um, same with the Ely Callawaything out there in , in in
Carlsbad also. But it's onewhere like we have two retired
PJ Tour trucks. The one that'sout there right now is the last

(39:21):
one before the double deckerbus they have now. Um , but we
have two tour trucks. One of'em builds , uh, driver's ,
fairway, woods Hybrids, theother one builds Iron's.
Wedges. So complete fittingnow. Yeah, like, so like in a
fitting, somebody will come inand get it , say they're in
there for a full bag fitting,like we're going driver through
putter. Well, while the driverwill be the first thing we do,

(39:43):
the fairy woods and irons andthen putting and stuff like
that. By the time they're done,they're starting to hit their
fairway woods to get fit thatdriver's already built. And at
the, at the, like with them ,that driver's built, same with
the Ferry Woods . We go downnow irons, most times we order
irons 'cause we just don't haveenough room for inventory. Um ,
but we , if we do get, like westill get some Corn Ferry guys
and you know, symmetric girls,LPGA girls, things like that,

(40:05):
or like high , super high levelcollege kids that Taylor
TaylorMades taken care of forthem, you know, we'll usually
have something in stock that wecan build. They'll have all
their clubs that day. And Ialways tell people like the
ones like a , a retail person,you'll have your clubs the next
week you'll have five to sixbusiness days coming from,
coming from TaylorMade . Butevery club that has a head
cover, you're gonna leave withthat day. So it's

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Like the real deal.
It's not like, oh yeah, we'regonna ship it to you in two
weeks.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Oh no , I mean like you're leaving with those clubs
and you know, the cool partabout what we have mean like
there is like it's gonna becorrect 'cause our builders on
there are , are tour builders.
I mean like, they are legit.
Like even when we get somethingcoming in, if we get something
shipped to us for a Reynoldsmember, we've got it on the
truck, double checkingeverything, triple checking
everything to make sureeverything's correct before you

(40:49):
send it to him .

Speaker 2 (40:49):
When you went to there, you , so you moved there
in 19, right? Mm-Hmm.
. So you moved orto back Georgia to work there?
Mm-Hmm. . Nowwhat like, 'cause like how did
you grow so quickly? Because Imean you're , you know, I know
like Taylor really started likedoing the Taylor brand, right.
And in some ways, like a lot ofpeople don't do that. They just

(41:10):
kind of like, I'm an instructorand no one knows who I am. I
was part of this big machine orsomething like that. So like
when did you start like doingyour online instruction, your
influencing on social media,your YouTube, all that. Like
when did you start goingthrough that process. So

Speaker 3 (41:25):
I tried a little bit when I was in Texas, so I ran
the social media for our junioracademy. So I had an idea of
what I was doing. I mean, Istill didn't really know. Yeah
. I was just trying learn as Iwent. You , that's

Speaker 2 (41:36):
All you can do is learn,

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Fail and learn fail , right ? And so I was trying
to do it, it was a way to makea little extra buck when I was
out there, . I mean,like as a teacher, I was like,
yeah, sure, I'll, yeah, I'lltry it ,

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I'll do it maybe .

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Um , but then like in 19, it really started to
grow a lot like Covid. I mean,like, I had, I mean, didn't
have a choice. Uh , I couldn'tteach in person here, but I had
had a relationship with theguys from Skill Us , with Baden
. And, and I'd actually met himat the PGA show in 20 before
everything shut down. Um, wehad talked and, you know, we

(42:07):
had talked about getting thatgoing. And he's like, look, I
think it's the future. And Imean, dang sure is. I , I teach
people all over the world now,which is really cool. Um, but
you know, when it happened, Iwas like, well, I was like, I
got nothing to do, . Ican't, I can't teach people in
person.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah. I

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Can't teach people in person. I was like, I might
as well, you know, grow mysocial media and try and push
people to my online platformthat way. Like I'm , I'm gonna
push my Instagram. I know that. I know kind of what's going
on. And then, you know, I wasworking with a coach then, and
I still bounce ideas off ofhim. Shaheen Giovanni up in
Montreal and his brotherBrandon. Um, and I did a

(42:44):
mentorship thing with Shaheen.
And part of that was I did somestuff with his brother Brandon,
who runs all of his businessside of it. And he was like,
look, Taylor, we gotta, wegotta get your Instagram.
'cause my whole goal is to getto 10,000. 'cause at 10,000
then you could swipe up in astory and you could have
product placement things. Noweverybody can do it. But I was
like, I wanna be to 10,000 sothat I could put my skill thing

(43:05):
on there and people could swipeup and go straight to my skill
list . Or if I put a brand onthere, I could put on there,
they could use my code and gofor it. Right? Um , and so that
was what I told Brandon . I waslike, that's my goal. He's
like, all right , we gotta doX, Y, Z. And sure enough, from
like we were talking before wegot on here from March to June
or July, we went from like4,000 followers to 20, almost

(43:25):
25,000 followers. I'd be like,boom. Like , it was crazy. What
crazy. And now, I mean, I justkind of maintain it now. I
don't do as much with itbecause I am now. I'm just busy

Speaker 2 (43:36):
As hell.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
I'm really busy. I'm just really busy teaching. And
I enjoy teaching more than Itry to, than I enjoy putting
out content. I just .
It's just, at this point, I , Iwould you

Speaker 2 (43:46):
By teaching and not putting out content, like Yeah
.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
You know , I mean , I , it just takes so long. I
mean, it just does, like during, I ,

Speaker 2 (43:53):
I know if you don't realize, like, to make a good
reel or a good video, or a goodmean ,

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Your hours ,

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Whatever it takes four .

Speaker 3 (44:00):
During Covid, I could shoot, I could go up
somewhere and take sixdifferent shirts with me and I
could shoot, you know, if Itook an entire day, like where
I'm just like, all right ,look, I'm gonna go here. I'm
gonna shoot an entire day'sworth of videos. I could get,
you know, a month of content ina day if I really needed to.
And, but now I'm just like, mydays off that I'm not, because

(44:21):
I'm teaching from either eightto five, nine to five, eight to
six every five days a week. Theother two days, I want nothing
to do with it. . Like ,I want , like I wanna hang out
with my kids, go to the pool,you know, whatever. I don't
really wanna be trying to makecontent on my days off. Um,
'cause like now most of mycontent is just swings of my,
the kids I teach or the peoplethat I teach. Different things

(44:42):
like that, that the content'sin front of me. Um, now will
it, it's

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Funny, it's so funny to like, have this
conversation. 'cause like, Ifeel like, okay, 20 and 21 were
good years for content creationand like, whatever. Mm-Hmm .
. And I thinklike, 'cause we, people weren't
able to go play golf, right? No. Or like professionals, right?
Like yourself. And then it'slike, now it's like that
balance. Like what do I do?
It's like, you know, Imaintain, but can I grow it?

(45:09):
Mm-Hmm . I gottamaintain. And I still like, I'm
a husband. I'm a father too. Soit's like, it's like, before
you had like, well , I had nojob because I wasn't able to
teach .

Speaker 3 (45:17):
So it's like , how am I okay . Three months where
I had no job.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah. I'm gonna drive people through my
platform. Right? So it's like,it's like the balancing act.
And I, I don't , I think it'svery fascinating to like, hear
from that side too. 'cause Ithink about that like that ,
like that's the hardest thingto get good content. There's a
lot of bad content, but

Speaker 3 (45:32):
There's a lot of bad content. But yeah, I mean, good
content's hard and it's hardnot to like, just be super
repetitive. Um, and it's, youknow, like there's no new
information in golf. It's notthat much new information,
different ways to vocalize it,you know, like there's
different words, you know whatI mean ? Like, there's

(45:55):
different ways to say it.
There's nothing crazydifferent. And I think that's
why George has blew up so much.
S because it's different. It'sdifferent. He's got a different
vibe, different

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Style . I love you .
Chill

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Dude's so smart.
Like, he's so smart. And like,I respect the hell out of him.
He's done unbelievable. I mean,he's huge. He's probably the
biggest social media golfinstructor there is. Um, as far
as how he's turned it into whatit is without being a YouTube
guy, because he doesn't put outYouTube content. It was just I
Instagram, he

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Get crush did . He would crush.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
I mean , and then he's got his membership stuff .
Like he crushes it, dude. Andyou know, like, but he is
different. He's, he's a guythat, Hey, look, he is super
Callie . Like he is not gonnatry and be golf, you know,
buttoned up , dude. He's gonnabe in his slides, bro. Yeah .
You know, like, I mean, like,he's just him. He's a west guy
guy. Golf chain too .

Speaker 2 (46:44):
That's the thing too. I feel like it's like, as
new players come in, it's like,you don't have to be stuffy and
weird and like, no, I don'tknow . No wearing khaki pants
and a polo in your video andlike, you know. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (46:55):
I think that's part of the

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Reason . Go . It's like, you know, you go to PG
wearing , wearing khaki pants,you're like , oh yeah, those
guys, all those dudes are inthe PGA program, right ?
Wearing

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Their khaki pants and their blazers.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah. They're all throwing it up. They're like ,
what's up man ? I'm like,

Speaker 3 (47:09):
I'm not APGA guy. Um , not for any reason, but I
figured once I went through mystuff with Jim, there was no
reason for me to do it. I wasaccredited.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
I've you learned the hard way, right? Are you
learned ? I've you learned bydoing everything

Speaker 3 (47:20):
I need. Unless I want to go be a director of
instruction somewhere. And Idon't wanna be that, that's not
what I wanna do. I don't wannadirect , we

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Also learned teach , we also got a top in top, top
top instructor forever. That'sone of the most well respected
instructors ever . .

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah . I mean, to go teach somewhere, if somebody
knows I worked for gym for thatlong and he didn't fire me,
it'd be probably pretty good.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Um , yeah . They're like , oh , you're hired. Like
, you , you don't , you don'tneed a resume. Like ,

Speaker 3 (47:42):
You know . No , it's so funny. Like, like you're
said , like when I walk throughthe PGA show, I've got on, just
like, I'll have on a golf shirtor one of my T-shirts and jeans
and boots or, you know, likewhatever. Like I'm

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah , exactly .

Speaker 3 (47:52):
Looking like a normal dude. And everybody's
like, I'm watching everybody intheir jackets. I'm like, yeah,
I'm glad I That's not me, man.
I , I can't rock that.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Yeah . I had somebody, I had somebody
comment on my, one of myYouTube videos and they're
like, it was, I don't know , itwas like a product review or
something. And they're like,oh, like , swear to God. I
said, this is a really goodreview, but you're just a
typical YouTuber with yourT-shirt on. Like, you should
wear a polo shirt. That'sliterally what they said in the
comment. I was like, okay ,whatever. Like , cool back , I
, my back was , thank you somuch. And I wrote back, I'm

(48:21):
like, I so much appreciatethat. Like,

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Thank you . Like I ,

Speaker 2 (48:26):
It's like, thank you. Like thank you. It's
exactly, because I'm not gonnalike wear a polo. Well ,
actually

Speaker 3 (48:31):
That's probably , probably still wearing like
pleated khakis though. They'reprobably still wearing pleats
in their pants. ,

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Their mom bought 'em. Um , I went to a , I went
to shoot content when I was ata golf course, and my buddy was
like, I was wearing a T-shirtand like shorts or whatever.
And I was like, okay, I'm gonnashoot content on the , on their
back area. Like, not even withpeople. No , probably in a
private course. He's like, yo,bro, you gotta like , uh,
change your clothes. I'm like,are you serious? Like , I
thought he was joking aroundand he's like, no, this is
private. I'm like. It's likesemi-private. I'm like, not.

(49:00):
I'm like, come on , I'm really,he's like, no , like , for
real. Remember ? I'm almostlike, okay. So then like, they
like didn't have my size right.
So I had like double extralarge pants and a double extra
large sweatshirt or polo shirt.
I had to shoe content. My pantsare falling down. It's the ugly
shirt ever . Like, it was theonly shirt that was like , it
was ugly . That smaller doubleXL though . They hat I was so,

(49:20):
dude. I was so. I should watchthose . I should send those,
those videos. It's , you cansee 'em .

Speaker 3 (49:24):
That would be funny . That would be beautiful. What
, what ?

Speaker 2 (49:27):
I'm like, whatever, man. So like, what are you
doing now in terms of con likecontent? Are you just like ,
are you just showing your, yourstudents and like your
instruction with your students?
Or what are you doing withthat? You

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Know, I don't even put that much instruction with
my students. I do with some ,um, but it's more like, I use
it as a way to highlight, youknow, mostly just the kids that
I teach. Um, my 55 year oldmember doesn't care if I put
'em up on Instagram. He doesn'tgive a. Um, but like my 15, 16
year old kids, like when theymake it onto the story or into

(50:00):
the thing, they're like, Hey,that's kind of cool . Big deal.
Like , I mean, like,

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah , Hey,

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Taylor has a little bit of clout. He's got 24,000
followers. It's not that many,but it's more than most of them
have. But , you know,like, they're like, it's kind
of cool to get on there orlike, we'll play games. And
like, I always tell 'em like,my favorite thing to do is the
instructor wins. Like, 'cause Ijust, I just, I hate losing. So
I just like put the instructorwins. Like if I beat 'em ,
we're gonna take a selfie andwe're gonna sit there and I'll

(50:23):
be like, well, it happenedagain. Instructor wins. And so
they're like, I don't want toend up on that . I'm
like, that's Yeah,

Speaker 2 (50:29):
You did it fun and competitive, right? Yeah.
Without making it like hard andlike,

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah, like , I love , like there's nothing replaces
competition. Like that's howyou're gonna learn. That's how
you're gonna get better. Youget your butt whooped, you go,
what the hell is that persondoing better than me? I gotta
figure it out. Or you just rollover. And those are the ones
that, hey, they might play, butthey're not gonna be great. And
that's okay. It's fine. Doesn'tbother me. They're just not
gonna be the ones that aregonna be the elite. Right. And

(50:55):
they separate, you can playhigh school golf, you can have
fun with golf without being,you know, like that's, yeah ,
totally .

Speaker 2 (51:00):
95%

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Of my business is people who aren't elite. You
know, like I've got a verysmall sample size that are
elite and , but the other one'slike , Hey, I still wanna get
better, but I need to have funwhile I'm doing it. And so the
competition side, like, I mean, it's just talking smack or,
you know, we'll play, like withsome of my members, Hey, we'll
play for, hey, who's gonna buythe first round when we get

(51:22):
done? Right. Just in somethingsilly. Even if it's a chipping
game or we'll play for a dollaror hey , closest to the hole
for a dollar on a chip shotthat they struggled with after
like, we're on the golf course,I'll be like, all right , look,
this is how you want to hit it.
Right. And I , we will hit itAll right . We'll do close to
the hole for a dollar. Right.
And the fun thing is like,everybody thinks that I'll get
like, oh, I don't wanna losethese things. And I don't, but

(51:44):
I don't mind putting up the onethat the student won. If they
beat me that did my job, youknow , I've done my job.
They're getting better, I'mokay with that. Now I'm gonna
talk smack the whole way. If Ibeat 'em . Like, I'm like,
that's how I am . You

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Want them to beat you though, that's the thing
you want .

Speaker 3 (51:59):
I mean, I do, but I mean ,

Speaker 2 (52:00):
But you want them to, because

Speaker 3 (52:01):
I always tell I'm not gonna , I'm not gonna let
you win. I , I don't, I'm notgonna , but if you beat me,
great dude, that means we'removing in the right direction.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah. It's like, I think the biggest compliment to
a , any kind of instructor isto have your student like win
or whatever it might be. Like,I , I met , I used to be a
flight instructor a long timeago, and I had a student who
was a military pilot or ahelicopter pilot, and I was
just be so hard on him and hewas like twice my age, right.
And like, he wanted to get hispilot's license. And I was
like, for , he was a helicopterpilot and I was , I was so hard

(52:33):
on , so hard on him , and hewas like, man, we are so hard
on me. And I'm like, I'm like,'cause you need to know this
dude. And so then like, he tooka check ride and he passed with
flying colors. And he is like,oh , now I see why. He's like,
no ,

Speaker 3 (52:45):
It's easy.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Like now I see why you're so hard at me . I'm like
, yeah, because that's , if youcould pass me, that's gonna be
simple. Like, that's gonna beno big deal. And like that's c
average. If you could pass thetest, that's AC average, but I
don't want you c average , Iwant you a plus . Right ,
right. Because like, you'regonna have people in the
airplane with you and it'slike,

Speaker 3 (53:00):
C average is dangerous.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah. It's d like you passed, but like, that's C
minus . It's dangerous . Likeyou didn't

Speaker 3 (53:06):
Right .

Speaker 2 (53:07):
You know, and so I think it was golf the same way.
Right. It's like, that's thebiggest compliment's. Like, you
don't wanna be ACC averageplayer. You want me an A
player, let me, let me make youan A player. But Right .

Speaker 3 (53:15):
And if you wanna be AC player ,

Speaker 2 (53:16):
You have to be elite A plus . But like, but like ,

Speaker 3 (53:19):
If they wanna be AC player, I'm okay with that too.
It depends on how I'm wannateach 'em . It's , it depends
on how we're gonna

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah. How invested is that person, you know , like
their Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Right. How much are they gonna practice? What are
they gonna do? You know, likeit depends on what we're gonna
do in lessons. But you know,like I've got a girl right now
that, I mean, if she stays withit and doesn't get hurt, things
like that. She could be, shecould be pretty special. I
mean, she could be veryspecial. She's got the drive.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
She's the one that , that cool . You see somebody
like that though? Oh . Like ,you're just like, oh man, you
have it. Like, what the heck?
Yeah .

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Like she's got it.
And as she grows and getsbigger and does all these , I
mean, she's only 15 and, andwho knows what the hell .
That's the coolest thing in theworld. But she's like, she's
one that she'll come into thelesson, she's like, all right ,
look, this is what I have to dobetter. I'm like, you got it
. Alright . Yep . Let'sgo. Let's see what we gotta do.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah . She hang out for an hour because her dad
brought her and she didn'twanna go.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
I mean, like, and she's got all her stats. She
keeps all of her stats. She'slike, look, this is what is ,
she's not right. Right. Now'sso cool . I mean, like, and I'm
like, all right , cool. Thatmakes our my job easy. I mean,
it does. And it , and it makesit fun. Like most of the time
though, we're not grinding onsomething, we're just
maintaining, making sure it'sreally good and then we'll do
some other stuff. But, youknow, it's, it's just a lot of
fun. Like, I love teaching. Icould talk about it all day. I

(54:30):
love , I

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I So like when did you, when did you , uh, when
was the first year you gotnominated for the Golf Digest?

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Uh , I don't know .
I've been nominated a few .
This is the first time I evermade it. Um , really, and it's
, I think ,

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Explain , can you explain what that is in case
people don't understand?

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah. So it's the best young teachers list. Um,
you have to be under 40 , um,by the time, I guess the one
came out in January, right? Youcan't be 40 yet by then. Um ,
and it used to be the best four, the top 40 under 40. Well
there's just so many moreinstructors now. Like there's a
lot of people doing what I donow , um, all over the country
because a lot of golfinstructors have learned that

(55:08):
you can make more money doingthis than sitting in a pro
shop. But it's, you know, as wego through it, well we're
sitting there and I gotnominated for the first time, I
don't know , six, seven yearsago. Um, and I didn't make it.
So it was like three, threeissues ago. Right. Three times
ago. Because it's a two yearwindow.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Oh, is that what it is ? I didn't know that . Yeah
, over year .

Speaker 3 (55:29):
So this is like for 23, 24. Um , this is the last
time I can be on that list'cause I'll be over four . And

Speaker 2 (55:34):
You made it, it comes out again . Cool .

Speaker 3 (55:35):
I made it. I think the people at Golf Digest were
just like, you know what? Geez, this poor guy's been on here
too many times. He's gonna betoo old next time. So we'll
just put him on there. Um , . But

Speaker 2 (55:44):
No , they do .

Speaker 3 (55:45):
Yeah, I know. But it's one where you get
nominated by certain people andthen I don't, that one is more
of a golf digest that I don'tthink you've, maybe you do vote
on it. I can't remember. Ithink the people who have been
on the list before vote. I knowwhat the top 100, the top 50
is. 'cause I vote on that one.
Um, that's sent out to peoplewho have either been on a Golf

(56:05):
Digest list somewhere or beennominated for Golf Digest list.
Like the top 50 will come outlater this year. Um , and it's
looking a little different thisyear. The top .

Speaker 2 (56:14):
It'll pretty cool be the top 50 instructors, not
under four

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Top 50 instructors.
And then like, they have thebest in state and things like
that. They'll they'll have

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Those. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Um, that'll all come out later this year. Year.
'cause I know voting justfinished yesterday. Um, but you
know, like that one, I know howthat works. You, you vote and
it's, you gotta get a certainamount for you to be that guy.
Right. Um ,

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
And this year they're changing up a little
bit. It'll be really cool for alot of people. You'll see a lot
of new names on there and it'llbe really, it'll be really
cool. Um , I'm excited aboutit. But you know, this was the
first time I'd ever made it andyou know, but in the past it, I
know how lists work. I know howthey go. It's not the end all
be all . Um, it's not, but it'snice to be recognized .

(56:57):
You know , like it's just oneof those things that it's nice

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Validation to what you're doing with what you're
doing. Yeah . Like outside ofknew a third party validation,

Speaker 3 (57:05):
I knew I was a good instructor. I mean, I do, I
know I'm a good instructor. I ,I've paid my mortgage by doing
this for a while now. Um, butyou still want to like, Hey,
somebody recognized me. It'skind of cool. And so I didn't
make it two years ago and I waspretty, but I'm not gonna lie,
I was pretty, I was pretty madabout it. Um, I really felt
like I'd earned it andobviously I didn't. It's okay.

(57:27):
Um, but you know, this year Iactually found out I was going
to Mexico for my 39th birthday.
My wife and I were leaving. Iwent there instead of the PGA
show this year. It's alwaysduring the PGA show, I'll be
there next year. It'll be my40th. So whoever's down there,
we're gonna have a big partyfor my 40th during the PGA
show. So , um,

Speaker 2 (57:43):
You wanna I'll go.
I'll be there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Come on John . We'll get John in on it too.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
It'll be John Bob .

Speaker 3 (57:50):
It'll be a blast.
Um, but you know, it's onewhere we were on the way to
Mexico. My dad calls me, thisis January 18th, couple days
before my birthday, my dadcalls me and he goes, Hey,
congratulations. I was like,what? I , I thought he was
calling me. 'cause I like, wewere literally leaving the next
morning at four in the morningto drive to Atlanta , go to the
airport. I was like, what's hesaying? Congratulations to

(58:10):
like, I made it another year.
Like everybody, everybody Iknow be , I'm getting close . I
mean , I think everybody's overat this point. So he is like,
congratulations. I was like,thanks what dad ? He was like,
no, you made the best youngteachers list. I was like,
what? I was like, I had noidea. 'cause it hadn't come out
to us yet. He is , I mean he isbeen Golf Digest for forever.
And so they got the issue. Theyget on like the 15th of the

(58:32):
month. So he'd already had theissue. I was like, no way dude.
And he was like, well hold onhere, I'll send you pictures.
And you know, I mean he's 72

Speaker 2 (58:39):
So the pictures were , all,

Speaker 3 (58:40):
The pictures were all jacked up on there. But I
saw my name . He was

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Like Motorola phone.
I was big with big numbers .

Speaker 3 (58:46):
It was probably with his iPad and trying to figure
Yeah . With his Android . But you know, he sent 'em and
I was like, and I sent amessage to a couple of guys
that I knew had nominated me. Iwas like, Hey look, thanks for
nominating me. I found out thatI made it. And they're like,
how the hell do you know? I waslike, they're like, we haven't
gotten the email or anything. Iwas like, my dad just sent me,
told me that I made it. Theywere like , how the hell does ,

(59:07):
you know , they're like, oh ,it's not the digital version. I
was like, oh yeah, here you go.
I was like, well y'all areobviously on there, but you
know, it was one night I madethat, it made my trip down to
Mexico a lot more fun knowingthat I had made that. Um, but
you know, it's deal the way Itell everybody, I'm like, it ,
it is cool for me. It is . Butmy whole thing is I wanted to

(59:27):
bring like, okay, well peoplesee Reynolds Lake Oconee in
there. People have seenReynolds Lake Oconee in Golf
Digest for forever anyways. Butyou know, like, hey look, they
have instruction there. They'vegot high level instruction
there. Hey, maybe we should gocheck it out.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Uh , people Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Um , you know, we've got three greatest right ?
We've got a guy who played ontour for eight years that's in
there and once he gets healthy,he'll probably go back and play
Champion's tour. I hope hedoes. Anyways, I told him I
don't want him to teach muchlonger. I want him to go back
to play like , uh,'cause he is just too good. Um
, he deserves, you know , we'vegot a good group. We've got
another good group now. We goteverything to teach. How

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Many instructors are there?

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
We have three at the kingdom.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Yeah. We've only got, we only have two bays.
Yeah, we have three.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Oh . Um , the bays are pretty cool . I saw
pictures. I was like, holycrap. That's nice . Yeah ,

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
It's pretty sick .
And we've got a badass shortgame facility. I

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Bet's like ac I have like air conditioned and like
all that too .

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
It is , it is .

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
It's But once

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Open that bay, once you open that bay in Georgia in
July hot , it's still

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
95 in

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
The bay . It's so hot . It's still hot .

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
It's still hot. It's just blowing air. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
It's just, we

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Can't , we can't even do anything out here,
dude. It's so freaking hot.
It's not even fun. I wassupposed to go yesterday
morning to Martin's place, but

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Y'all have like , the entire month of July was
over 110. Did I see that? It'severy single day was over 110
in

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
July. Yeah. It's like, it like 6:00 AM It's like
95. You know what I mean? Soit's not even like nice out
when you go play early in themorning, it's like already hot.
You're like my , I usually playlike a nine hole with my dad
every Friday. And he's like,last three weeks he's like ,
you wanna go play? I'm like, no,

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Not really.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
'cause you're , you're tired. It's like, let's
do something else . Say nine .
Yeah. It's like , I'd ratherjust like do something else. So
breakfast my , don't get mewrong.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yeah . Let's

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Get ,

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Get breakfast. Like just hang out for an hour

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Or somebody goes, Hey, you wanna play golf this
weekend? I'm like, sure. Whattime's about 10 30 and I start
laughing . I'm like, you can'tget any other tea time. 10 30.
Right. So like, what? We're atnoon, one o'clock. We're in the
, we're on to turn. You'restupid. Get outta here. Yeah ,

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
I'm not doing that.
You're like, no, I don't wannaplay in 115 degrees, bro .

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I almost die . Like one time I played It's a dry

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Though . .

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah , dude . Like one

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
Time's dry too . Was it two years ago?

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Two years ago I was playing golf at the , um,
what's the colors called? Thebowl the boulders, which is
really fancy and nice and cool.
Just big boulder rocks. It's upin carefree ca freak . And like
, uh, I was guys from Deux .
What's that?

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Isn't that spring train isn't then spring
training up near like carefreeand stuff too , or baseball ?

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Well , yeah, there's like a , there's kind of like
Carefree is like Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Like it's

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Super like, and like it was a hundred and I think we
teed off at one o'clock. It wasthe stupidest thing ever, bro.
And like, it was, I think bythe time we were at 16, I quit
playing. Like I, I , I wasdrinking water, but I was like,
I'm , I just sat in the cartand watched these other three
dudes play because we were allperfect , bigger group. And I
was like, I'm done. I had theworst headache like ever. And I

(01:02:08):
drive an hour back home and Iwas like, I took all this
water, but like all the saltand stuff, like I was, I was
not okay dude,

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Get home. You're like, oh ,

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Oh, I was so sick that's went to bed . I was so
sick.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Just the heat kills you. But um, so then you, you
also do a lot of onlinetraining too, right?

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Mm-Hmm.
. I don't do asmuch now. I did for a while . I
don't do a ton. I still do someYou

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Have so many hours in a day, right? I mean, you're
teaching,

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Right ? I mean, it's not my focus to try and do
that, but I still teach someonline. Um, you know, a lot of
it still like now is a lot ofmy kids that I've taught here
that are now in college.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Oh , cool .

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
And so instead of them having to come back all
the time, like I already knowhow I'm gonna manage what they
do. Like skill is the way thatI use .

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Do you teach on

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
The line ? Like what's that process mean ?
People send in their videos andI can do all the analysis
stuff. I mean it's pretty cool.
It's actually pretty badass. Isit ? Um , now I don't have like
my track man and stuff likethat, but you can, I've watched
enough golf. You

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Can see what happens with the shot and why

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
The way it Yeah , I mean I know

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
What's happening.
Enough shots . Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
And a lot of it is, look , I have make sure that
they tell me, look, this iswhat the ball's doing on this
shot. This is what happened onthat shot. So I can go, okay,
these are the matchups thatcreate those things. Hey,
what's the miss ? Well I'vebeen hitting this weak right
ball. Okay. And this is the onethat was the weak right ball.
Okay. So let's see what'shappening there so we can match
it up and go. That's why thisis happening for you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Um, I like your Minnesota twin shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Yeah, thank you .
Yeah. Big, big twins fan as a Braves fan. Grown
up big twins fan. Um ,

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
I'm just kidding. We were in our joking around the
whole time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Way aware . He's giving me about my logo on my
shirt. Um, but uh , this isvery Phil Mickelson have made
Come on here and just be like,yeah, what's up bro? That's

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Taylor's logo. And we were just joking. This is my
logo . We were just around,shout

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Out to Jared , um, Brock Company. They designed my
logo for me and , and swingjuice by the way, man. Golf and
tacos. What's up

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Dude? I love , I like your logo. Your logo's
sick. You should do a puff hatlike that. That would look
sick.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
It's

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Black hat with puff . That would be sick. We gonna
get one of those . I'd buy that. It's

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
Gonna be, it's gonna be badass. That's

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Sick .

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
No, I just send you one. I'm not gonna sell 'em to
anybody. I'm just gonna sendthem away. I don't wanna deal
with the taxes. I'm just gonnabuy 'em and give 'em to people.
Taxes, . I'm just gonnabuy 'em and give 'em to people,
man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
So like

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
You ,

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
So like his shirt.
So like you like that's fromswing juice, right? I didn't
even , yeah , I forgot . That'sswing . They're doing polos
now,

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Dude. They're awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Swing juice makes the best T-shirts, bro. I love
swing juice. They're

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Awesome. Seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
John Mason is the man, one

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
Of my favorite humans on this planet. Um, love
John and love being able towear their stuff. It's really
cool. Um , John ,

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Like John is like the og like he was literally
the first one to do T-shirts ingolf. Like no one else was
doing T-shirts and he was doingthat stuff like back in 2012,
11, like the golf and hip hop .
And

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
He actually had a swing juice too. It was
actually ,

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
That's right. That's what he told me in the show.
Like , that was his related

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
That's

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
What we started . He had a drink, it was like,
that's how we started the name.
I was like, Mm-Hmm .
. He said hedidn't quit doing it, but Yeah
, it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
I know all the same people. It's so weird. Yeah ,

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
This stuff , it's

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
A small world, right? It

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Is . We're talking about it's a tiny

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Fraternity. Yeah .
It's because people, goodpeople wanna be around good
people. That's it. Right?

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Right. And so like we said, I don't have time to,
I don't have time to associatewith people I don't wanna hang
out with. I got,

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I don't wanna do that. I'm ,

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
I got no wife and kids. If I wanted to hang out
with people I didn't want tohang out with, that would just
be stupid. I'd be wasting timewith 'em .

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Um , well, I mean you , where can people find
you? Taylor?

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
So , uh, mostly you can find me on Instagram. Uh ,
it's at TC instruction.
Instruction. Find me on someTikTok stuff. I don't do much.
It's more for me to just bemindless and watch stupid toss.
Um, I've got some things onthere. I really just do most of
my stuff on Instagram. I I, Idon't do anything on YouTube.
Wasn't really my, that's notreally my scene. Um ,

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Don't really You do .

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
I'm not into the creation stuff. It's just not
my .

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Yeah, bro, all you need to do is like film a video
of instruction of whatever andthen kind of into a reel's also
,

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
You know what's crazy is like now though, I'd
have to have two differentthings filming because
Instagram's vertical andYouTube's, I don't , YouTube's
more landscape.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I swear to God, dude, you don't, you just have
to like, have your editor likeput it in landscape mode. My
honestly, you can , you can dothat.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
You mean me ? I can talk to you about that.
. You meanme my editor? Yeah . Me. I got
it. I'll, I'll I'll get on himreal quick. I'll be like, Hey,
look dude, you need , yeah . I

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Mean you , yeah, yeah , yeah, yeah . Forget
that. You better learn how todo this . I , I have no idea
how like I I I have somebodythat does it for me. 'cause I
could not figure that out. Ican't even figure out
Photoshop, dude . I'm not eventouching that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Oh, see , like I learned that by myself when I
was doing the social media. Iknow how to do Photoshop and my
wife does that too. She's aninterior designer, so like she
does that to Oh,

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
You , oh , that's cool. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
Yeah .

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
I wish I knew that stuff. Or AI files. I wish I
knew all that crap mean my life.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
Oh, I've been messing around with that. That
stuff's kind of cool, man.
That's creepy though. But it'skind of cool.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
It's super cool actually. Like, it's really
cool . The illustrator, like,you can make some cool stuff.
It's very basic. Like, it'slike not basic and

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
It's not that hard to use. It's really not even my
dumb.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Just when you have time to learn it, right. That's
the whole problem. Right .
You're a dad, you're a husband,you teach probably 60 hours a
week and you try to makecontent when you have time. But
no , I get so you're on also

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Every once in a while ,

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
But then also if they go to the kingdom, like
how do they find it ? Do youhave to request you at the
kingdom or what?

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Uh , no, just sends it to our front office and
they'll be in touch with mystuff. Um, the best one , I
mean like, it's the kingdom atReynolds, lake Oconee , uh, you
can find it actually probablyon either the Taylor made site
or our site at Reynolds. But ifyou start typing into Google,
the kingdom at Reynolds, it'llpop up . Can

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
They request you?
They go there. Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Yeah. Okay,

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Yeah. Oh yeah. And I'm, I'm always there. I'm
there Tuesday through Saturday,so somebody's there. Um,
I'm usually alwaysthere, but you know, it's, it's
a , it's an awesome place toteach and we get people better.
I mean, that's the whole job,right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
That's the best part.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
I like keeping, getting people better and if I
don't then that's my fault andwe'll figure it out. I'm not
gonna let it be my fault forlong.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
I played golf like two weeks ago with a buddy of
mine, or two weeks ago. Itwasn't three weeks ago, and I
played him for a year. I'mpracticing a lot and I've been
like in construction and likeall this crap, right. And I,
like, I was at 25 last yearwhen I quit my job and like now
I'm a 15. Right. So that's abig swing. It's

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
A big difference.
It's a big jump .

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yeah. And like , I'm trying to get down to nine.
Like my goal is either to anine this year. I dunno if I
can get to it , but that's mygoal, right. So like, if I get
down to a nine, it's

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
A good goal.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Yeah, it's a good goal. If I get , I get down to
a couple more strokes, that'dbe cool too . So like, I played
with him, I shot an 84 and hewas like, what the f dude? Nice
. Like a , and he's like a fiveor something and he shot an 82
or something. He's like, whathappened? I'm like,

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Ah . I was like,

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
I loved it. It was, it was so cool, dude. It was
like, I was like, I don't know. That's the best part about
golf, right? It's like whenyou're in the zone and you're
hitting like greens and you'relike hitting shots and they're
like exactly what you wanted todo. You're like,

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Mm-Hmm .
.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Oh , I really like this game. Not just like, oh ,

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
I'm

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
S spraying it. I'm gonna get a five or six.
Usually

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
That just, oh , usually that just happens on 18
and then you're like, I gottaplay again Now , it
actually

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Happens to me the first time you're , this is
really good. I'm , I gotta comeback. I'm one of my first
driver shot. I haven't warmedup when I hit a house. That's
usually happens to me .
But um, all right , so we canfind you on at the Kingdom
site, right? We can find youKingdom

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
Website. Um ,

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
You

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
Can find me on skill if

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
They wanna do online instruction though with you.
Like how do they find you? Isthere like a

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
Facebook ? Um , it's on skill list . The app skill
list . It's also on my bio onInstagram.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Instagram

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Blink

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Tree or

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Something .

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Yeah . Um ,

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Yeah, I think it's on there. I think it's on
there. I don't know . Um, butyou can go to skill list.com ,
you can type in my name. I'm onthere. Um , and the way that
works, you send in videos, I'llsend you an analysis and some
drills to work on me talkingabout it. They're all, I have
zero prerecorded drills forthat. So anytime someone sends

(01:10:02):
me something, it's

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Oh , apart , right ?
It's like it's

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
All custom

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
You , it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
I don't have like,

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I don't have's my plan of how to ,

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
I mean, I have a file of them that like, as we
go along, Hey look, this is adrill I want you to try. But
everybody's, especially thefirst few times like it is, Hey
look, this is just for you.
Like , I'm not

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Exactly how are you gonna help somebody if you
don't even know what they cando? Right. So it's

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Like,

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
Or not, dude ,

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
And I tell people all the time, like the skill is
thing. The only thing hard withthe online is sometimes drills
work and sometimes they don't.
And when I have somebody infront of me, I know within a
couple swings that the drill'sgonna work. I don't know that
when they're thousands of milesaway. So I usually give people
a couple drills and hey look,try these out, see which one
you can do. So , and

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
They fill 'em , all of 'em , and then they send 'em
back to you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
They send 'em back and I'll tell 'em, Hey look,
that's the one. Do that, that'sgonna help you. Right?

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Yeah. They can't help you then help you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
Right. If it , if it's too hard or it's too easy
either way, I'm not gonna haveyou do that drill. That means
you don't need it. But if it'ssomething that, hey, look, you
gotta work on a little bit, butyou can also do it. Then
there's kind of our drill.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
So there's lots of places we can find you. So we
can find you on the app, we canfind you on Instagram, we can
find you on the site or justGoogle's name. You guys like
seriously,

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
It'll pop up. It'll either be me, it's funny, it'll
either be me or Sydnee Crosby'ssister. Her name's Taylor
Crosby also. It's very weird.
. No relation. Norelation. No relation. Oh ,
it'd be cool to relay to SydneeCrosby. That'll be tight. But

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You
got, I really appreciate it.
I'm glad we had the fun .
Thanks for having me on other ,and like, I had fun, like, but
he's fun as hell and he's like,he's super smart. Like, this
guy knows this stuff. So like,honestly, like if you guys have
a chance to work with him , Iwould, I recommend it. Um, I'm
really kind of excited to havehim on the show and , um, I'll

(01:11:50):
see you guys in the nextepisode.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind
the Golf Brand podcast. You'regonna beat me and golf stay
connected on and off the showby visiting golfers
authority.com. Don't forget tolike, subscribe and leave a
comment. Golf is always morefun when you win. Stay out of
the beach and see you on theGreen Green .

All Episodes

#114 - Golf Digest’s Best Young Teacher: Taylor Crosby

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#114 - Golf Digest’s Best Young Teacher: Taylor Crosby