Noonan Caddie App reads your launch Monitor Data to Suggest Your Next Best Shot

GS#1017 This week we speak with Matt Williams about the evolution of indoor golf and simulators, and the integration of AI technology in the sport. We delve into the journey of Golf Track, a successful indoor golf facility, and the development of the Noonan app, which leverages data from launch monitors to enhance golfers' on-course performance. The conversation highlights the importance of data-driven decision-making in golf and the entrepreneurial spirit driving innovation in the industry. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi. I'm Dan from Sunshine Coast, Queensland and I play
at Matt cool On Golf Course.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to golf SMARTA Hi.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is to be a sad round song from Stockholm,
Swedom and.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I play at WORKERSH Barrier Golf country Club.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
This is golf smartt number ten seventeen.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is not just a GPS app. We're not telling
you distances. We are telling you outcomes. We are predicting
where your shots are going to go. This is something
that is going to tangibly improve your score. I go
get a swing change, or I go get a lesson. Right,
there's going to be this period where you're making adjustments
and you're trying to get used to the new swing
and get used to the new fields. You're gonna be

(00:41):
practicing quite a bit. Same thing with new clubs. There's
not like this immediate impact to your score. That's not
true with making better decisions. Making better decisions has an
immediate impact literally overnight. You're going to reduce your scores
because you're not going to be making mental mistakes anymore.
You're going to be playing the high percentage shot every
single time. If you take Newton's recommendations, if you make

(01:04):
the highest percentage shot every single time, you're inevitably going
to play better because of all the mental mistakes you
would typically make. So if you're really looking to make
a material impact on improving your score, giving you a try.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Moman Cabby app reads your launch monitor data to suggest
your next best shot with creator Matt Williams. This is
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf
minds to help you lower your score and raise your
golf IQ.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Here's your host, Fred Green.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Matt, going to see you, Fred, Good to see you too.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
There's a movement of AI in golf that has to
be discussed, and I'm so glad that we have you
on to talk about this because of what you're taking
advantage of bringing AI into golf. But when I first
got the email from Matt Williams, I'm like, oh my god,

(02:08):
the baseball player, the former Giant. Oh I'm so excite.
Wait a minute, You're not Matt Williams. You're Matt Williams.
Does that happen too often?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
It actually does. I am were you a fan? To
be honest, I've never been a big fan of baseball.
You know, it ruins my golf swing. So I figured
I just I focus and do the one thing I'm
good at.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Good, good. But I want to before we get to AI,
let's talk about indoor golf and simulator golf, because there's
a definite movement going on for more and more people
finding that simulator golf is as fun, maybe more fun,

(02:53):
because it's a controlled environment and it doesn't take four
and a half hours.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that kind.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Of wraps it kind of fills it in right there. Right,
I mean, enough said, No, We've got a lot of
podcasts to go, don't do that.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
No, No, I'm I'm kidding. Look, I could speak all
day about this. You know what I think is really interesting.
There's a lot of really good, I think articles coming
out recently and they're analyzing just kind of why golf
simulators and the usage of this technology is expanding. And
you hit on two major factors. Right. Obviously, one, you
can play all day, all winter long, whether it's light out,

(03:33):
dark out, raining, you know, cloudy, whatever it is, right,
I mean, you can continue to play indoors and on
these simulators. But the other thing that I think is
particularly interesting is you know, the rapid expansion of golf
has you know, we hear about it all the time.
It's the most amount of golf I think that's been
ever played in history, and.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
That since COVID, because pre COVID there was struggles going on.
There was a lot of talk in the industry about
how we're going to survive one hundred percent courses we're
closing all over the place.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
And via COVID, the frankly concepts like top golf, a
lot of people have been introduced to the game and
like you and I know, it's it's a fantastic game
and we get hooked immediately. So you've got all this
interest and demand that has come in, but unfortunately, the
supply of golf courses has remained stagnant. So the statistic

(04:28):
that I have seen is golf participation has grown forty
percent since twenty nineteen, and essentially the golf course supply
has remained stagnant. So the question is where is all
this excess demand going to go? Because golf courses for
the most part are full. Sixty four percent are operating
at capacity. So you know, whether it be the just

(04:48):
availability of tea time amount of time, it takes. You know,
a lot of these participants and these golfers are strutting
to turn to golf simulators as a way to scratch
that itch well.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
And then there's two phases of that. People have the
simulators in their homes, yeah, right, or now the facilities
are opening up where people can go, you know, kind
of like you know you bring up and Barney Adams
brought this up months and months ago, and I asked
him about top golf. Is it having an impact on
the growth of the game, And He's like, no, because

(05:24):
people go to top Golf, they don't necessarily go start playing golf.
It's like you go to a bowling alley and not
everybody who goes bowling joins the league. Yeah, it's like, okay,
good point. I guess that could be considered.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I might disagree with that a little bit. I think
you can't you can't underestimate the impact that top Golf
has had. They have introduced people to the concept of golf,
even though it's not true golf, it is golf, Like
you can't. That is undeniable. And I don't you know
what I think where people rag on top golf a

(05:59):
little bit, is they never really had a concept that
help customers when they graduated from that top golf experience. Right,
there's an evolution that you go through from getting introduced
to the game to becoming you know, a golfer on
an eighteen hole golf course. And Top Golf is top
of the funnel, right, it is getting people introduced to people.

(06:19):
You know, the twenty million people who are quote unquote
interested in playing golf. It has given them really a
friction list kind of you know, low risk way to
start hitting shots and kind of you know, experience that
shot euphoria that gets you hooked initially. But after that,
that's where everybody else we have to pick up the
slack because once they've gotten that inche and gotten the

(06:42):
bug they hit their shots at Top Golf, they've seen
it go into those you know, giant holes in the ground.
Now they're ready to go and start playing more serious golf.
And you know, to go from top Golf all the
way onto a golf course that's a huge leap, and
golf simulators and launch motors that give them again that
low risk way to play. You know, they're not holding

(07:04):
people up, They're not you know, having to spend four
hours they can get kind of a nice condensed experience
in a really a true golf type experience, albeit virtual,
but then they can kind of start taking those baby
steps actually making it onto the golf course itself. And again,
I kind of come from a sales background. Right top
of the funnel, you got to get people in the
door before you can never kind of move them through,

(07:25):
and I think Top of Golf has has done a
great job in doing that.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Interesting because you know, there was that opportunity as well
with video games. You know, that started around the turn
of the century, around two thousand and even before that,
and that had you know, I've heard of people who said, yeah,
I was really good at the you know, Tiger Woods game,
and so I thought I'd try golf and realize, oh

(07:50):
my god, this game is really hard, and so it
may have been turn on or a turnoff. I mean,
I've heard stories on both ends of that. But video
games really didn't have the impact of simulators. I mean,
it's a completely different experience because you're actually not using
your thumbs to play the game, you're actually swinging a

(08:12):
golf club. And then there was the virtual and I
never had one, so I don't know but like they
came up with these sticks that attached to your screen,
not attached, wirelessly attached, and you can swing the stick
as if it's a golf club and pretend the virtual stuff. YEA,
not explaining this, well.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, I think you're you're explaining golf plots and more
of like a virtual reality type experience. To be honest,
I haven't played on one of those, you know. I know,
Meta put a pretty big focus on developing the metaverse
and things like that, but it still kind of looks cartoony.
I am. I'm more of a technologist, so I very
much believe that that will be a thing eventually, once

(08:56):
you know, the technology catches up. But you know, I
think the experience, at least at this point is it's
still not quite there for for mass adoption, right, You're
going to get the early adopters, you know, the people
who are really wanting to try new tech, but to
kind of get to that you know, early majority, I
think it's got a little bit ways to go. But
the you know, the concept is promising.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
And what do you think about the growth and the
potential growth of these locations simulator locations where people can
go and are aren't you involved in that as well?

Speaker 2 (09:33):
We are. Yeah, So frankly, our our entrepreneurship journey started
with one indoor golf facility here in Kansas City. We
all had corporate jobs. We were you know, this was
during COVID, so we had that itch to play golf
year round and we had access to one track man
launch monitored at local club fitter. But you know that

(09:54):
was you couldn't really play that very consistently because he
was running a business. So you know, the idea is, hey,
what if we turn this into a business, and we
decided to take the leap. We all made the investment.
We you know, at the time having kind of a
golf performance facility, which is more just strictly memberships. We

(10:14):
don't do food and bev restaurants everything. At that time,
you know, you had a simulator paired with a bar restaurant,
and that was the concept. And for us, as avid golfers,
people who were really more looking for a place to
practice and train rather than go to an entertainment concept
that didn't exist, certainly not in our area and frankly
around the country as a very novel concept. So we

(10:36):
wanted something that one appealed to us. So it had
to have high end technology, and number two, it had
to have kind of a low operations effort. Right, we
all had the day jobs. We couldn't be there twenty
four to seven, so we needed really a concept that
would allow people to come into the facility even if
we weren't there, So kind of has a badge and
badge out type access system. They pay a monthly fee

(10:58):
and then they can use the facility any time. So
that concept is called golf Track. The first location was great.
We were casually positive in sixty days, we were faring
on a wait list in four months. Really appealed very
well to our core demographic. That led us to open
up our second location, just about twenty minutes away from
the first one. We then decided, hey, you know, if

(11:20):
that's not enough, let's start franchising this because we've got
a lot of inbound requests from people saying is this
a franchise? How have you thought about franchising? And we
realized there was a big opportunity out there, so made
the investment, stood up the franchise operations. We've now sold
sixteen franchise units coast to coast all the way from Eugene, Oregon,
down to Tampa, Florida. So this is something that I

(11:43):
think is continuing, continuously accelerating. We've kind of proven the concepts.
You know, what's a little bit unique about the golf
track concept is it has the memberships, but it also
pairs it. It's not just a strictly unmanned twenty four
to seven concept.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
We have APGA and instructor who is doing lessons of
club fittings as well, so that people who are coming
into the facility practicing they have, you know, somebody that
they could you know, get a lesson from or get
a club fitting for a new equipment. So it really
kind of, you know, completes essentially the entire ecosystem of
what avid golfers like us actually want. And we didn't

(12:19):
just do just TrackMan launch monitors. We actually invested in
putt View. That's another core partner of ours because one
of the things that we surveyed the members and we
asked them, you know, what's what's the one thing that's missing?
They said, short game. We got to have short games.
So we didn't just want to put up putting Green.
We thought, hey, if we've got a nice tech enables facility.
We better have tech on our putting green. And put

(12:41):
View is a great partner if you're not familiar, but
they effectively do kind of a simulator type concept on
a putting green. They map out the dulations and they
have basically a projector that displays aim, lines, games, all
different kinds of things onto the putting surface itself, so
you can practice different ladder drills, you can play darts,

(13:01):
you can play tic tac te's. It's really cool and
all the time you're really kind of honing in on
your aim and your putting stroke and making sure that
that short game is just as good as your long game.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
I'm curious with the golf track, like when you first started,
you're in Kansas City. Did you do research about maybe
this isn't the best location to start to test this?
Is this a great golf community or do we have
potential of people who want to play that aren't getting

(13:40):
out there. I mean, why Kansas City is the start
and what other options were there?

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Well, i mean, we're all looking in Kansas City, so
it was never really a question of, you know, would
we go somewhere else. The question certainly was will this
actually work in our market. We right, you know, certainly
have winter like we have. We have you know, a
period during the winter when it's not ideal to play.
For the most part, you can play in just about
every single month, you know, there's enough warm days where

(14:08):
you know it's above forty five. You know, forty's kind
of cut out for me at least, So there's definitely
times in the winter and in December, January, February where
at peaks and you can get out there with our
courses remain open as long as it's warm enough, you know,
you can get outside, as opposed to like you know, Iowa, Minnesota,
where you know, certainly the golf courses shut down. So

(14:29):
there was a little bit of concern. It's like, hey, well,
if theoretically you can't play outside year round, will people
actually use this? And and that was actually, frankly why
we built our nowonon platform. So we were concerned about seasonality.
We were concerned about people not wanting to come indoors
when they could play outdoors. And what was pretty interesting

(14:50):
to us is those first people that came in, they
would hit clubs, they would hit shots, and they kept
complaining that our tech is wrong. Right, They're like, Noah,
those those yards numbers are wrong. Turns out they were wrong, right.
They had inflated egos and you know, different views on
how good they were and how far they actually hit
their shots, and the data told a very different story.

(15:11):
So the thought I had is, Hey, if they're making
bad decisions or don't truly understand how they're hitting their
shots indoors when it's perfect lies, you know, no distractions,
I guarantee you they're thinking, you know, incorrectly about their
game when they actually go out on the golf course.
So I got to think. And I come from a
tech background. I've sold software for my entire career. I

(15:31):
definitely know what it's capable of, kept up to date
with all kind of the trends in AI and things
of that nature. And I figured, hey, we could take
that data right that understands exactly how you hit each club,
pair that with GPS information with a golf course, and
we could actually make recommendations on what club you should
hit and where to aim better than a human could.

(15:54):
And we do that by essentially mapping your dispersion pattern
and creating a statistical representation of where you're most likely
to hit so our When our app is, you know,
working and out on the golf course with you, it
acts like a digital caddy. You literally push a button
and it scans the hole. It analyzes essentially every club

(16:16):
and name combination based off of the data you've input
it from your launch monitor sessions, and it calculates what
your likelyhood is to hit the fairway, green, penalty area
bunkers for each each club and aim in your back
and it'll say, okay, well, this club and aame combination
is the best because it gives you highest odds to

(16:36):
hit your target, whether it be the green and the fairway,
while also minimizing your risk of hitting it into a
penalty area. And I use it exclusively on the golf courd.
I don't use my range turner anymore. I literally just
hit a button and it tells me my quote unquote
literally my high percentage shot and I hit that and
it works phenomenal. It reduces those big misses that I have.
And I'm a I'm a one handicap, so I'm out

(16:59):
there even though I've played golf my entire life, four
or five times out of the round, it'll actually tell
me I actually hit something different than I typically want
to think of, and it's right. So it's a phenomenal
experience and I'm really excited. This is obviously something we
built for our facility, we're partnering with other indoor facilities,
but we're also trying to get you know, you know
other folks who are using these launch monitors, using kind

(17:20):
of more of this data driven approach to golf and
want maybe a second opinion on some of these shots
and maybe a way to reduce their scores.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Well, you got way ahead of me. I was gonna
we were going to talk about the Noon and APPP
and you opened the door and I know, and you
jumped right through it. Let me guess you've done sales.
So but I do want to talk more about the
golf track locations, the physical locations, and we will talk
more about Noon and App. But I do have to

(17:51):
ask when you said that you're using the Noon and
App and it told you to do something different than
you had planned? Ye, were most of those changes corrections, suggestions?
Ego crushing? I mean, were you thinking that you should

(18:13):
do the other show because of ego or because of
skill level? Because clearly you have that.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, I know, I think it is a little bit
of ego. I think it's it's well, it's it's one,
it's ego, and then number two, it's just the ability
to only have so much in your mind at one time, right,
you know, And I'll give you an example. So we
typically think of our clubs in terms of average carry distance. Well, frankly,
I think we just we would even just say average distance,

(18:39):
which in most cases includes role. Well, if you've got
towrst carry like, carry distance, frankly is probably the most
important thing. How many people have actually measured what their
carry distance is for every single club unless you're.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Possible, because you're you're not.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
You know, the only way you can do that is
with a launch monitor, right right, correct, So you need
to know those numbers because if you've got a force
carry of water or over a bunker or short sighted,
you got to know what that carry number is.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
But then you also need to understand what your miss is, right,
because you don't hit an average carry to an average
is literally an average of multiple numbers, meaning you hit
it short of that number, and you hit it long
of that number, and you know the average is somewhere
in between. So what you really need to understand is
the likelihood that you will hit it a certain distance.

(19:25):
And that's where more of a statistical dispersion pattern comes
into play, because we understand what your your variance is
or what your mishits are. So when I say you
should hit, you know, a seven iron, and I'm recommending
that because you've got to force carry over water, we're
doing that because we have calculated your likelihood to hit
to carry the water with that club, and it's better

(19:46):
than an ad iron. So where you tend to see
some discrepancy between what people's gut tells them they should
hit and what they're what the data shows, it's often
because yeah, the average number probably is a little bit
close to the pin, but if they mishit that club
in any way, they're now in big trouble. And it's

(20:08):
those big numbers that really inflate your score. So what
you should be doing is you should be mitigating against
any of that risk. So in that particular case, it's
better to club up and take that water out of play,
even if you hit a bad shot right and just
accept you might have a little bit longer of a
put than to try and you know, force an aid iron.

(20:29):
And really hope and pray that this is the time
that you're going to catch it nice.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, I'm curious when you know, we talk about carry
distance and total distance with your wedges. I'm sure you're
really good at getting a lot of backspin on the ball. Wait,
I've never yeah, right, but I've never I've never done that,
and I would like to see what it looked like

(20:55):
on your carry distance in your total distance, because your
total will be less in your carry for sure. It's
not what you've experienced.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
No, no, it absolutely can be. But for the most part,
I mean, you know, we've definitely seen pros that'll spin
it back thirty thirty fee yet or something like that.
I mean, you see that for sure. You know that
that generally doesn't impact what a recommendation would be. You know,
It's it's interesting to definitely see like a carry distance
being longer than a total distance in some cases, but

(21:28):
for the most part, you're not too worried about, you know,
spinning it back all the way off the green into
a water hazard. For for most I would say, you know,
ninety nine point you know expertise.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, no, I'm definitely just thinking of what I see
on television, because you know, you just don't see I've
had I've seen where I've had some backspin on the
ball and it's like, oh, because my mark, you know,
my divid is here and my ball's back here. That's interesting.
I didn't know I can do that, So I would
think that that's I've always wondered, how did they know

(22:00):
how much backspin they're going to get on it? It's
just my ignorance.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Okay, well, I mean no, it comes down to understanding
your numbers, right, I mean, if you're in a launch
monitor and you're hitting shots with each club, it is
telling you that it is calculating what your spin rates are,
and it will show you that, hey, your total distance.
You know, you're typically on average getting you know, less
total distance than you do carry distance because of the

(22:26):
amount of spin that you're generating. So you know, if
you don't know those numbers, or you haven't plugged those
into an app like Noonan, when you're out on the
golf course, like you're making decisions based off of an
incomplete data set. Frankly, right, you're you're going into a blind,
You're you're thinking you hit your clubs one way based
off of what an assumption. A time that you hit

(22:47):
a good one time, you know you're judging it from
one hundred and fifty yards away and a driving range
you can't really see where the ball lands like it's
it's an incomplete way. So you know our our expectation
and frankly what we is. You know, the use of
these launch monitor technology. You know the way that the
access is improving through facilities like golf track or the

(23:08):
technology getting cheaper like this is eventually going to be
table stakes for any golfer. They're all going to be
hitting with launch monitors in some form of fashion. Everybody
at the pro level is doing it, Everybody at the
you know, elite allegiate collegiate level is doing it. A
lot of amateurs, avid golfers are doing it, and then
soon it'll be kind of that late majority laggers who

(23:30):
are adopting as well.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
You talked about with the golf track facilities that you open.
There's so many questions I have about that, and I'm
going to go back, but I am. I promise I'll
bring it back to noon. And but how many when
you started out, how many stalls per employee that you
had running? I mean, I love the idea of bringing

(23:58):
in a head pro there teaching pro to have their
on staff, and I've seen that at Top Golf as well.
But what was the ratio? I mean, you know, other
than the physical location, you didn't have a kitchen to
worry about to start, I would think, So you're overhead
and you said you were profitable in sixty days with

(24:21):
that first location. Amazing, So how so what was that
ratio there? I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, the first location was about two thousand qure feet
and we had three TrackMan base in a put view
that was manned by one resource. They were there pretty much,
you know, eight to five most days. We try and
get those resources essentially generating revenue as well, whether they're
doing the lessons in the club fittings. So that that was,

(24:50):
you know, pretty much the model. Mostly that person is
helping with onboarding. They're there to answer questions because inevitably
with technology, there's always going to be a little bit
of an issue your computed and at restart or what
have you. It's sold out pros things like that. You
do need some support and if it's not going to
be you as the owner, right you better have a
staff member to help support that. So that was kind

(25:13):
of the model that we had. And what's nice is
now that we've started to expand, that ratio really doesn't change.
You know, you you can still manage multiple facilities with
the same FTE resource, so you start to get economies
of scale once you grow beyond that, and that's definitely
what we experience. So we've got you know, kind of
a GM operator that's managing the facilities, kind of taking

(25:35):
day to day operations. They also do lessons, so they're
revenue generating resource. And then we've got you know, a
couple head professionals. One is fully on staff, another you
know sometimes kind of rents out the facilities. And we
do some partnerships with the club fitters and some other
teaching pros if they need access to our facility and
we you know, work with them on that. But all

(25:57):
of those things are just you know, extra revenue streams.
You know, the majority of our revenue is just monthly memberships.
So once we start to tack on things like leagues
and you know, services from lessons and club fittings, that
just kind of increases the per unit revenue. And that's
what's been really appealing as we started to franchise is

(26:18):
we really do focus a lot on finding owner operators
who are PGA instructors. The model works extremely, extremely well.
The unit economics changed so dramatically if you are the
person who is also managing the facility, because you're paying yourself, right,
so essentially your salary is covered by those monthly memberships
and then that book of business that you've likely brought

(26:39):
over from your teaching career, they're going to convert over
two membership, so that's going to help you get off
the ground much quicker. But then all of those services
revenue is going to go straight to your bottom line, right,
so that the unit economics, like I said, the margin
profiles are are extremely attractive when you were that owner operator.
So we've got you know, great franchise e in Nebraska

(27:01):
who is you know, fits that profile, very excited, he's
going to do extremely well. And then you know, as
far as we also definitely do appeal to the investor types.
We just sold our entire Kansas City market to an
investor and they're looking to you know, essentially own and
operates five different locations. So for them, you know, they're

(27:23):
hiring one of our resources to become the GM and
they're going to manage the data day to day operations.
But it's you know, it's obviously a great business to
invest in because you know, it is providing a semi
passive revenue stream.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
And with with the golf track expanding in the beginning,
how did you get the word out to make it? Uh?
You know, booking up so quickly and I guess having
a waiting list people have to book in advance, just
like on the golf courses. Now did you use social
media or how did you get the word out so

(28:00):
quickly and make it such a success so fast?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
I mean, partnerships are key, right. We we knew in
our local area, and this is why I think franchises
is important because every golf community is going to be
a little bit different. There's going to be connectors in
the in the ecosystem that you know are going to
help drive you know, interest as well as people had
actually come in and check out the facility. So getting
those partnerships in place, we partnered with the local it's

(28:25):
called Central Links. They manage all of the local tournaments
on an amateur and USGA qualifying basis. So we did
partnerships with them. We did partnership with local businesses who
had kind of some connective tissue to our concept. And
then you know, of course social media, advertisements, radio. I mean,
we literally tried virtually every single channel that we could
possibly think of, identified which ones were working really well,

(28:49):
which ones don't work really well, and that's kind of
given us, you know, obviously the playbook so that when
we open our second location, we opened that one profitable
from day one one because we had already pre sold
a wait list. We had those people, those numbers ready
to go, so we had kind of that break even
membership number already signed up that were essentially using the

(29:11):
first facility while we were getting the second location already
stood up. So you know, it becomes pretty much Prince
repeat after you figure out what works or what does.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
It and what time of year did you open the
first one? Did you do it at a time when
people can't play golf or did you while they're high
on playing on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, we definitely try and time these, you know, to
coincide with the indoor season. So the first one opened
in August twenty three. Second one, unfortunately, we had some
permitting things, you know, those those things will happen. We
didn't get that one opened until January, but it was
still kind of during those those winter months, and you know,
we didn't have any trouble opening. You know, I could

(29:52):
definitely see if you try and open it in kind
of early spring when people are starting to get excited
about outdoor golf, that you know, there there may be
a little bit of a challenge, but but you know,
definitely for the avid golfer, they see use of this
technology even when it gets nice outside, as really an
integral part of their practice routine. So it is kind
of interesting. There's a seasonality aspect that will happen February.

(30:15):
After February, you see a little bit of a drop off,
but then once that drop off stops, it actually starts
to pick up again because then you start to get
people who are now going outside. They realize, you know,
I'm hitting balls driving range, or like, you know, I
can't get in and they realize, you know, all of
the things we talked about just the downsides of outdoor golf,

(30:35):
like hey, I need to supplement this with something I
can do twenty four to seven, and they become members
at that point. So it's kind of interesting. There's this
like you know, up and down thing that happens. When
you typically would think it would continue to go down
to the summer, it actually starts to pick back up.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah. So with the membership aspect of it, do you
allow people just walk into or if they're going to
rent a bay for x amount of time, they have
to become a member.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Correct, they have to be a member, or we do
guest passes for them to come in with a member.
But yeah, we don't do any kind of public you know,
fief hourly bookings anything like that. You can get a lesson,
you can get a club fitting if you're not a member.
Members get discounts on both of those. So there's you know,
incentives to just joining the facility. But yeah, we we

(31:27):
very much operate kind of like a boutique gym where
you know, you become a member, pay that monthly fee,
but you get unlimited access to the facility, which is
really really nice.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
But with limited amount of bays you're going to have,
it's like unlimited access if you can get access.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Right, yeah, and that's why we so we do it
a couple of things to curb that, right, We do
caps on our memberships. So we don't, you know, exceed
essentially a minimum.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
You know what your minimum is, you have to be
but you do have a cap on your max some number.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
We have a cap on the maximum. We don't you
have waiting lists? Yeah? Yeah, during the winter the clubs.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Most exclusive golf clubs have waiting lists. And you have
an indoor facility playing office simulators and you have waiting lists.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah, awesome.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Good congratulations man, I thank you, thank you. That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
So if you've got this really successful physical brick and
mortar business going on, that you've now franchised in sixteen
locations and growing, what do you what do you project
for twenty twenty six? Twenty twenty six, we want to
be at one hundred. You know, well, we kind of
look at the comparables now that we're kind of in

(32:53):
the franchising world.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Frankly, we didn't come from this space. We've got a
CMO who is very experienced. She ran Title Boxing for
a number of years, which grew to several hundred franchise units.
But kind of what the insiders are saying is indoor
golf franchises are among the if not the fastest growing

(33:15):
franchise concept out there, and you get a lot of
people obviously very much like us, who want to own
a business. They'd like to do it in something that
they enjoy, golf being a pretty popular sport, and this
is a great way to kind of get introduced into entrepreneurship.
So we are getting tons of just inbound requests about

(33:36):
people kind of in our shoes who you know, are
maybe stagnant in their career, looking to do a little
bit of a side housele whatever, whatever it is, right,
maybe get out of the pro shop, you know, pulling
T shirts and own a business and kind of control
their agenda. That is a dream for a lot of
these people, especially these head pros that are just they're

(33:57):
working their butts off in these facilities and in many
cases their earning potential could be capped.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
The time away from family is a huge, you know,
downside of working in some of the traditional facilities. So
business ownership obviously gives them the ability to really control
their own schedule, and I think that's a very appealing
thing for a lot of people who really have that
entrepreneurial bug.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
One of the biggest surprises I've ever had on this
podcast is the amount of golf instructors that listen to
the show because they use it as a resource to
hear other instructors and what they're doing. So go ahead
make your pitch. I mean here, I'm delivering in them
to you. I'm not asking for a referral fee, but

(34:41):
here's your opportunity to have them sign up for this.
How do they do it?

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Absolutely? So go to golf trackfranchising dot com, spell golf
track good good point, golf g O L F t
r K dot com and there's a section called franchising. Yeah,
check us out look. I'll be the first one to say,
business ownership's not for everybody, right. This is not a
completely hands off concept, you know. I frankly, there is

(35:10):
no business that is this quote unquote passive. I don't.
I don't believe in that. But if you are looking
to really control and own your your own business and
manage it, frankly, you're doing a lot of this right now.
Right You're teaching lessons, You're going and finding your customers,
You're you're doing all the things that require you know,
a business owner to do. So having your own business

(35:31):
and being able to take advantage of all the hard
work you've done and building your book of business, converting
those over to members and having kind of that base
salary then paid for and then tacking on, you know,
all the services revenue that goes straight into your pockets
instead of doing any kind of revenue share. It's it's
a phenomenal concept in a way to do this, and
and right now is a good spot to get on

(35:52):
because if you look at just the growth that's happening
in this we haven't quite gotten past that growth curve.
You know, the adoption cycles is still early on. This
is a good opportunity to kind of, you know, put
your stake in the ground and build your book, you know,
in your local community before you know, the saturation happens.
So I think this is a phenomenal opportunity to get in.

(36:13):
And like I said, just entrepreneurship is great. It's it's hard,
but it's extremely rewarding. And if you're up for that
and that's something that excites you, let's sell.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Okay, So here's what I'm really baffled about. Now we're
gonna pivot. Why when you've developed this really compelling business
for the twenty first century, that has legs, clearly has legs,
and as it doesn't have legs, it has jets that
are just exploding behind you as you're moving forward. Would

(36:49):
you go to move to develop an app?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
What do you?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
I know, your tech guy in your software sales guy,
But isn't it kind of like small? I mean, I
don't why would you do that?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Confuse that fair question? Ask myself that a lot. I mean,
look that there was a period where I had a
full time day job. I was working at golf track
and my my main responsibility is the noon and app.
So my business partner handles a lot of the golf
track and the franchising. He's phenomenal with that. I handle

(37:27):
a lot of the noon and app side. So building
bring it to market.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Hey, guys, give Matt the app, keep them.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Busy, keep him out of our hair. Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, yeah, he's always selling.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Let's give him the exactly, Let's give him something else. Yeah. So,
I don't you know that it's what I think what
kind of happens is. Maybe it's like pent up entrepreneurial
spirit or you know, I don't know what it is.
But once you do make that leap and you start
on this entrepreneurial journey, everything you see now becomes a

(38:06):
new business concept, right, so every problem in our business
now becomes a new problem and a new frankly, an
opportunity that we can build process.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Problems are opportunities.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
There are opportunities exactly exactly. So when we're like, hey, seasonality,
that's a problem. I wonder if we could use that
data on the golf course? Is anybody doing that? No? Interesting?
I think that's a business starts out. Is just something
that we could use for our facility. And we're like, no, Actually,
this macro trend of use of launch miners, why don't
we just make it work with every launchmawer, not just TrackMan,

(38:37):
but every launchmarwer out there. And now this becomes a
mass market solution, so that one has this massive high
growth trajectory that we can potentially take advantage of, in
addition to obviously the high growth opportunity that we have
within the franchising to tackle onto that. Now we've got like, hey,
well there's some other problems that happen kind of within
the indoor facilities, Like our screens are essentially consuables. You

(39:00):
get thousands of shots, actually millions of shots at this
point that are getting hit into this kind of small
area of the screen, they develop holes and that's aesthetically ugly,
so you have to replace those, and those screen replacements
can be a thousand bucks a pop. So what if
we came up with a solution to help extend the
life of those that became you know, another project that
we're in the process of going and developing. So now

(39:22):
we've got essentially a new prototype that we've developed that
will extend the screen life by about ten next So, yeah,
it's this weird thing where it's like, hey, you know,
you almost have to start to say no to things. Fortunately,
you know, we've come up with a couple of good
concepts that definitely have the legs and we validated the
product market fit that it has made sense to actually

(39:43):
go and invest the time and energy to build those out.
And we feel like Noonan just given the use of it,
the feedback that we've gotten from folks in this industry,
it's been extremely positive and we're excited about the potential.
But it's not easy and.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Thus the destination of a serial entrepreneur. So now let's
talk about that noon and app. So, if you have
a launch monitor at home like a rap sodo, you know,
or something inexpensive, or you have your own launch monitor,
or maybe you go to the driving range and they
have a top tracer and you can use that all
that data that is being gathered on those launch monitors

(40:22):
and saved not just the warm ups, but go out
and had, you know, hit all your different clubs. The
noon and app that you've developed access is that information
and then makes suggestions on the course of how to.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Play the whole correct. Correct.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
That's pretty awesome. That's really really and because the app
ecosystem right now, the golf app community is pretty crowded
and more and more and we've you know, we've developed
we've not developed anything, but we've had many conversations. We've
exposed many of these apps to our audience, and this

(41:06):
one just has a different way of helping you with
your game. This is really unique. Tell me more about that.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, no, you're you're spot on. The app market is
extremely saturated. You know, there's some licensing platforms that you
can go out and do and get some basic GPS data.
So the ability to simply say, you know, here's your
distance to certain areas of the golf course that's, you know,
essentially a commodity at this point. So obviously we didn't
want to do something that didn't add value. And specifically,

(41:39):
what our goal is is to really extend the value
that you're getting from these launch monitors. Right. I think
when you think about it, you've got this great treasure
shove of data when you're out and you're practicing on
a launch monitor. All that data that gets generated could
be extremely valuable when you go outside, but there's nothing
that's helping you bridge that gap. So the question comes,

(42:00):
how do I use my practice data to actually improve
my on course performance? Because at the end of the day,
there's one question that's waiting for you at the end
of every round, and that's what did you shoot? Right,
That's the only thing that's important, And if you're not
improving that score, you don't really feel that good at
the end of the round about how you played that day.
So we wanted a way that we could actually changibly

(42:24):
improve those on course performance and improve your scores. And
we felt, by frankly understanding the data, this is the
easiest path, right. You know, when I when I was
in technology, it's it's all about just removing steps. How
do you remove steps? How do you remove friction? How
do you automate processes? Right? The decision making process for
what club do you hit and where do you aim?

(42:45):
It's it's it's simply that it's a process. And where
people tend to get stuck and make mistakes is they're
using you know, incomplete data. They are you know, skipping
steps in their process. They're not factoring in for information
where they're making human errors. And technology is phenomenal at
reducing friction, reducing steps and frankly doing it correctly every

(43:05):
single time. And that's and that's what we're able to do.
The missing link has always been the launch more data.
We've always had information about the information on the golf course.
We've always known how far is it to a bunker,
how far is it to a green middle, front back?
All that information we've always known, but how and.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Also what clubs you're playing because you have to enter
that data yourself, right exactly, But we've never really had
the detailed data about exactly how you hit each club.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
And we need to know not just you know, the averages,
but also, like I talked about earlier, the variance in
your shot pattern. So Now that we've got essentially those
two data sets, we just combined them. All of a sudden,
we can make decisions better than a human can, and
we can eliminate all those human area that happens when
you're making those shot decisions. So this has really kind
of become, frankly, a new way to play golf. Have

(43:55):
it quite coined the right term. I don't know if
it's high percentage shot or you know, the kind of
making decisions based off of the percentages rather than the yardages,
but that's effectively what it is. You start to think
about shots not in terms of how far does a
club go, but you start to think about it in
terms of what gives me the best chance to hit
my target while also mitigating my risk. And that's a, frankly,

(44:19):
a more enjoyable way of playing golf. I liken it too.
When I'm on a really nice golf course like Pinehurst
and you've got a great caddy with you and they
just hand you a club and say okay, aim over
there right, and all you focus on is swinging. It's
such a freeing experience because you're not weighed down by
all those decisions that all your focus on is making
a good swing and you inevitably play better.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Can you use the app if you don't have a
lot of data behind you? Is it also helpful if
you're just coming off of Oh yeah, oh I went
to track man, I did track top trace are at
my range for the first time the other day, so
it really didn't hit all my clubs that day, but
you know I've got limited amount. What would the noon

(45:09):
and app and spell explain Noonan and O N A N.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yep correct, Yeah, just just like the Caddyshack, Just like Caddie?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Is that where you got it from?

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah? What's the famous I can think of?

Speaker 1 (45:25):
You know, it's fluff, so you don't want to call
it any sorry?

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Bones? Yeah yeah right, bones.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
There you go. Yeah, well I'm older. So if you
don't have all that data, I mean, as you're building
your data, is this app also helpful?

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah? So you do need launch moder data right to
get the best experience with Noonan, you need the launch
monitor data. That's that's frankly why we built it. You
don't need a ton So what we recommend is a
minimum of ten shots per club. The more data the better,
but ten gives us a good enough sample size to
create that statistical dispersion pattern. So it takes about an hour,

(46:06):
hit about one hundred and thirty shots with your clubs,
and you've got enough data to really make really good,
intelligent decisions.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
And what are the costs for this this app program?
Is there cost?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I mean there is, yeah, So we definitely see nonon
as a premium offering. You know, this is essentially a
replacement to manual decision making and it's a score improvement tool.
So you know, the thing I always talk to people
about is this is not just a GPS app. Right,
We're not telling you distances, We are telling you outcomes.

(46:42):
We are predicting where your shots are going to go.
So the cost is two hundred dollars a year, and
this is something that is going to tangibly improve your
score because if you think about it, you know, I
go get a swing change or I go get a lesson. Right,
there's going to be this period where you're making adjustments
and trying to you know, you know, get used to
the new swing and you get used to the new fields.

(47:04):
You're gonna be practicing quite a bit, same thing with
you know, new clubs. There's not like this immediate impact
to your score. That's not true with making better decisions.
Making better decisions has an immediate impact literally overnight, you're
going to reduce your scores because you're not gonna be
making mental mistakes anymore. You're gonna be playing the high

(47:24):
percentage shot every single time if you take Newnon's recommendations.
So law of averages comes into play. If you make
the highest percentage shot every single time, you're inevitably going
to play better because of all the mental mistakes you
would typically make. So, if you're really looking to make
a material impact on in your improving your score, is
your goal give you aon a try Wow.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
So it takes the ego out.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Too correct correct.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
That's a that's a hard thing to do. You know,
caddies caddies real caddy. You know, you someone to argue with,
you know, you know they've just met you and stuff.
But but having the AI, having the data there really
can crush your ego.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
What's really nice is, and I think this is pretty
unique to nonan we have we're making all of our
recommendations based off of the data you entered. So you
were there, you hit the shots, you collected the data,
you put it into the app. There's no guesswork of
like how did it make this decision. It's making it
based off of the shots that you hit. So you know,

(48:34):
how do you take your ego out of it? You
look at the facts, and the facts are this is
how you hit each club. So you really can't argue
with that because data doesn't lie. And I think that's
that's what's unique, and that's what ultimately I think gives
even myself the buy in to use Newnan instead of
any kind of I'm not making decisions to myself. I'm I'm,

(48:55):
you know, out in the golf course hitting a recommend
club and I just go, you know, tunnel vision on
the aim line. It gives me and I hit the
club that it told me to hit, and it's giving
me really good recommendations every single time. And I've now
played some of the best rounds I've played all summer
because I've you know, drinking the kool aid. Frankly, if
I'm the founder, I bet I'll be using the product, right,

(49:16):
so I use this exclusively, and I will say, like
this is a really fun way. I kind of an
unforeseen consequence when I'm out on the golf course, you
don't really realize like the mental drain that happens when
you're trying to make all these decisions in factor in
all these things, like it's it's tiring, and when you're
just using an app to tell you what to do,

(49:37):
you forego all of that and it actually makes you know,
golf more enjoyable. It's if you're ever used like a
self driving car, and you went on a long road
trip and you get out of the car at the
end of it, you're kind of like wiped and neal
and really really really drained. But when you use a
self driving feature, you get out like you actually feel
kind of refreshed because like you haven't really been paying
too much attention. You're kind of like hanging out and chilling.

(49:58):
It's it's in that one and the same thing.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I did that once and I got drowsy by not
I wasn't as an as engaged when I was driving,
and I got drowsy, and I'm like, Okay, I gotta
turn that thing off right now. That's that's the old
guy looking up at it. Do uh do? Is it
available for Android and Apple.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Right right now? It's just Apple. We are working on
on the Android. We wanted to get Apple right first
and then and then copied over to Android. We're still
small start up.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Yeah, do you have a project date of a projection
of when it will be available for Android?

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Not yet?

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Not yet? Okay, all right, well that's relevant, glad I
brought that up. And what about your your golf track members.
Is there an advantage to be a golf track member
to use the Noon and Ai app? There is.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, They've been a great kind of test bed for
us or our corporate rom members. They've all gotten free
access to the app and they've beta test it, giving
us feedback, told us kind of what they liked, what
they didn't. So we've incorporated all that feedback into the
platform itself moving forward. For all of our golf truck franchisees,
you know, we're not forcing them to use it. It's
it's up to them. But what we do do is

(51:15):
give them a revenue share off of any subscription that
they help influence. And that's the same thing that we
offer you know, across the board, golf truck members or
golf truck franchises get a little bit extra incentive, but
the opportunity exists for everybody and every indoor golf facility,
because we see this as a way to really help

(51:37):
them not only make more money, but also improve the
stickiness within their customers. Because if you get hooked on
using noon in, there's an interesting thing happens. You want
to kind of prove that, like you're better than the
data says, So like you're going to come back to
the facility, hit more shots, be like you know, bad
data didn't hit great that time. Let me let me
hit some more right and upload that data. It's like, oh,
that dispersion, there's no way I only have like a

(51:59):
thirty percent has to hit the green from one fifty out.
Let me go collect more data, right, So all of
that typically happens, you kind of get this like you
know flywheel effect that goes on, and yeah, overall it's
it's a great way. So we're we're really focused on
creating a partnerships with those indoor facilities to help get
the word out and help us sell mark sell nowonon,

(52:19):
which gives you a monetary benefit to it.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Wow, and okay two hundred bucks a year, but you
know you can really admortize this in your head of
like this is really worth having. It's a lot cheaper
than having a caddy for every round I play correct
a knowledgeable caddy who knows my game. It's fascinated. How
do people find it?

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So we are on the app store. You can just
search newon Caddy should be the first search that comes up.
We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook. You want to check
out some of the content we posted. We've we've done
some you know, here's how you play it, and we've
shot some videos recently as some my co founders when
they when they don't use the recommendations, you can kind
of see what happened this when you go against the
recommendations and spoil alert. It goes in the water. But yeah, no,

(53:04):
it's it's a it's a great way to improve your game.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Well. I've always been attracted to young entrepreneurs because I
was one myself at one point and fascinated by where
they're going and what they're bringing to the world of
golf for now and in the future. And this is
definitely definitely fitting into the future. Congratulations, man, I wish

(53:30):
you the best luck. I hope everything goes well. And
if you're a golf Smarter listener, you might want to
check out the newnan app noonan Caddy n O M
A M Caddy on an Apple. Matt, thanks so much
for sharing this with us.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Thanks Bred. Congrats on a thousand episodes. That's awesome.