MEET THE PGA TOUR’S SECRET EQUIPMENT MANAGERS

0:00Hey four play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple podcast, Spotify or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon music. The course is calling and your Chevy Equinox can take on whatever the day throws at you. Stylish and ready for anything Equinox handles your commute weekend trips and even those last minute T times easily load up your clubs and gear with plenty of cargo space plus hidden storage under the rear floor to keep things neat and with a big standout touchscreen the Equinox puts all your tech right where you need it bold and confident Equinox looks just as good on the road as it does down the back roads from the first drive to the final pot Equinox is built to do more so you can focus on the game. In the works pizza Papa John's hands like seven toppings pepperoni mushrooms black olive sausage peppers onions and Canadian bacon. When it works it's Papa John's the works now starting at 1099 better ingredients better pizza Papa John's Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason they got something for everyone and boy oh boy do our guests today.

1:06Really just exhibit the very best of American entrepreneur ship they very much utilize Chevy which is actually discussed and brought up but kids mentioned it last week. Had it took a lot of the golf world by you know surprise of what's going on behind the scenes with this trailer that's taken all the PGA toward players personal belongings golf clubs mattresses stop to stop across this great country. And we have Steve and Ben Olka who are the owners run now Ben now runs Olka Inc and we get the entire backstory it's a fantastic fantastic show and it really just reminds you how great the opportunity is if you're also there you got a good creative idea here in the United States of America which is the heartbeat of America Chevy all that comes together on this very show gentlemen. An amazing car brand amazing American company that we talk to today it's just a real American show with a couple of Americans on here really great and yeah he does reference.

2:11He has to stop at a Chevy dealership to get a new Chevy it's amazing that someone that has to drive from east to west north of south of this great country relies on Chevrolet to get the PGA tours equipment and clubs from stop to stop that's a great little shout out for our company here Chevy thanks for being a proud spot or thanks we're very proud for you to be. And we're going to be a great sponsor and partner of our show it's been a long time and we've been part of with Chevy for a long time that's a big brand for the voice to be associated with. Chevrolet Chevy dot com they got a great lineup of SUVs and a great lineup in general the the traverse the equinox the tracks all kinds of great options we do Chevy Chevy suburban quite a bit make sure you check out that entire lineup it's all loaded with tech that keeps everything in sync check out the lineup at Chevy dot com once again go check them out. Part of America Chevy dot com. I got a buddy of struggles with that shot a lot his name is Frankie Barrierelli so the guys actually gave him a nickname of butternize because he always nice to the cops the green.

3:16I got a break 90. We appreciate what you guys did for all of them really cool. I was like hey Phil you only fucking 2999 and he grabs 100 is a guy 190,000. Yesterday take 100 you go fuck your shit. I say in a hobby. For play presented by bar stool sports we are officially entering the best month of the year I believe which is October wears beautiful pretty much everywhere in the entire country fall golf football season crisp in the air kind of the beginning of the holiday season we have however also entered the part of the golf season. Where you know for example in my research for today show the top story on golf digest homepage was titled the passion of Jason Kelsey is what the title of that was so you know there's just not a ton in the golf world that's going to be cooking right now we have trailer boys coming on this show very shortly which I think is going to be an incredible interview Kevin Kisner enlighten the golf world on the last episode where two episodes ago I guess very well.

4:29I think we ended up shopping that up putting it into an earlier part of the show where you said something pretty cavalier pretty nonchalantly just about Louis Usta who's in who's tase into some people call having a zone mattress and we were like how does he get that mattress around you like oh yeah this guy's taking they take everybody's stuff and boy did that open up a can of worms for people and I think that in Ryan Richens research has been one or two articles written about it nobody really knows about it so we're going to get these fellows on pretty soon soon here kids and I'm going to get this one. Soon here kids and you know I think that's going to take over most of the show of a lot. Yeah I'm sure they have plenty of stories and we'll have plenty of questions it'll be an epic show so looking forward to having them on the sun is taking over Steve's business Steve started caddy and this came up with this idea why he was cadding and now the sun is doing the exact same and he's at the Utah championship this week cadding and trailer boys so I made that name up but Frank you can add to it with trailer part boys. I will tell you after our clip when a little viral multiple tournament directors on the PJ tour text me like stories that have because the tournaments have to help these guys there's you know thousands of

5:38Pegasus of luggage and they roll right in and so a lot of the tournament staffs help and one of them text me and said oh yeah I know about the mattress one one year we we had to help move the mattress upstairs to the master bedroom and put it on the bed and then when the when Louise wife got there she hated the house and so they moved so we had to go get the mattress. I'm going out of the house to another house. Oh man god I can't even imagine how many stories there must be and yeah I mean logistics suck everybody knows that like logistics just suck moving is the least like thing that anybody does and they're just moving everybody's life essentially every Sunday until Monday morning what a you know I mean it's genius but what an interesting life they must live so I am I'm excited to have them on couple. A couple other things to throw into the show first you know we've got kids your festival is this weekend I believe today's like a building out.

6:38Jay I want to remind the folks through your very own words of you know how they could attend what the plan is. Yeah the plan is we're going man Friday night we have first band gates open at 5 5 15 to 11 on Friday night with the infamous string dusters being the headline on Friday night and then Saturday is just an all out best man noon open the gates first band 12 30 and it goes to 11 p.m. we have vendors food trucks VIP tents bounce houses all kinds of things so today starts the build out with the tents tomorrow the stage and then we hope everybody comes this rain or shine forecast looks little rainy late on Saturday but we will have plenty of fun no matter what and and bring it out man a can South Carolina let's go this for the kids in the CSRA and we raise a bunch of money to give back to the community so it's all not for profit and so your tickets are tax deductible so it's almost a free concert if they have income let's go where do they get tickets.

7:46Southern strings fest dot com or on the 80,000 post I put up with the links because I've learned that rigs taught me but way back in the day whenever he used to make me try to link something on my Instagram but I never did it whenever we clip these things when I was not working with you boys he goes you're the worst link guy I've ever met so now I've learned how to link really bad like guy getting what you got there I think you know I've got better because I just no repost y'all supposed. Right we put the link and you just hit the repost button made that really easy really easy I'm sure it's going to be an incredible time we have been to you know a one of the OG formats of the Kisner foundation event and it was a it was a hell of a time that we had I think we were we are like chase rice's bus at the end of that night or something like that I'm trying to remember who we are sure. There is another sad story out there is probably Charles Kelly was there and he just got diagnosed with blood cancer I don't know if y'all saw that on his Instagram so shout out to my boy Charles Kelly who was the OG Kisner foundation musician him and Darious Rutgers started this entire thing 10 years ago so all the prayers up to him I taught him last night he's in a good spirit good spot.

9:04Stacey still feels pretty good and so thanks that's going to be great but everybody keep him in your prayers he's an awesome guy from Augusta Georgia and lead singer of Lady Annabelle I'm awesome dude. Yeah thoughts with him I I didn't realize he was the OG but yeah I mean how would it be like a decade you guys been doing this kids yeah man it's pretty crazy we started with just a concert and fun at sage Valley golf club and then we turned that into golf and concert then we turned it into tour players and concert and then it felt like I was putting on a wedding every year while trying to compete on tour so I just said why don't we just start paying these musicians to come and see if we can't make money that way and now that's turned into a blue grass festival in the middle of town. I love it I love it a couple other quick things that we're going to throw the trailer boys in here PMT match so I believe our boy Trent you know there's a lot cooking in Chicago last week president's cup hole in one event filming merchandise lot happening but boy. Knocked out some videos and you know PMT guys are the biggest thing in sports media and they're all over this golf scene you know I know big cat he's been like really get into golf his favorite thing he said his off camera golf which is something that I've been I've been preaching for a long time but hang with lefty lockwood all of them I believe we had quite the cast of characters on the latest YouTube video.

10:25We did we did a 3v3 scramble first of all I want to say I refucked up my back this morning so if you see me do if you see me squirming it's because I'm just internally screaming my head off back problems really just a big downer as anybody out there who has back problems knows so that's something that I'm battling today but yeah the PMT match fusion surgery man you might have to give it a shot I would let them start digging into me right now the way I feel I don't even need an anesthetic just put it just start cutting me open. And fix whatever's going on but I'm doing it's I like yeah no it was like you can't even like bend over to like tie your shoes when you're back hurts you're like I'm I'm at a bad spot but the PMT matches great 3v3 scramble we had the PMT boys out there Dana beers was out there Jersey Jerry was out there sunset Valley great golf course we had done a breaking 100 out there with Jerry year two ago so runs and works out there hooks it up every time we had a great time it's a great match it's an incredible cast the characters we did nine holes on our channel and then eventually nine holes will come out on the part my take channel but yeah those guys are getting in the golf and we had a really good time that day.

11:36Love it YouTube for play make sure you go subscribe you know we're at 650 or something thousand subscribers on YouTube which is an unbelievable number from what we started with which is the number zero. So to get there's great we have a good amount cooking even on the on the for play podcast channel as well so those are the two ways you can subscribe go check that out last thing I got. Administratively is just stored up our sports dot com maybe our fall golf merchandise and then one thing we always love we just to the new drop that like maroon hoodie is one of my favorite. We've ever we've ever done it just looks good and everybody I saw I saw you guys arrived to Medina and and put out a little video where at the beginning you hadn't changed into the Medina gear yet you're both rocking them a room. Hoodie and I thought damn it both look good it's almost like it's like sharp but slipping and it's like it's incredible with that thing we've that things awesome. We've been calling it the Ron Burgundy you wear that Ron Burgundy hoodie around it's show up and people are like where did you get that thing and we tell him store not parcel sports dot com go everybody out there if you love that hoodie go get the Ron Burgundy on the bar still store you're going to love it and people are going to be like wow I love that color that

12:47D. This collab it's just got athletic fit to it but it's super comfortable it's one of their new hoodies amazing amazing fit I absolutely love it all the D. Disapparal that we collabed with this year is really good obviously the butter spun stuff is outrageous so make sure you go check it all out. And I got a little clip hanger form on since we're on the merch deal is I we us have got something dropping in the next couple weeks so you'll be ready for that. That's actually that got green lit we're ready to rock on that thing. Oh yeah I think it's coming out in like 10 days two weeks I'm going to start promoting it hell yeah and it's badass. I love now. So store it up arsel sports dot com you go to the collections part for play or golf and you know we like to highlight the handful or ten or so new items that we've got we've got more coming in a couple weeks but you also scroll through there man there's just pages of really good gear that we've had. On the site for a long time so check all that out all right without further ado I think right rich and let's green light it let's get these trailer boys in here for.

13:53You know one of the more enlightening stories that we've had. What's up fellows. Good morning. Good morning I love it. He's got white socks jersey on after a big win last night. So these sport and the colors. Good guys were black you know that that is a that's a pun that's a pun said Nick jersey by the way. Wow. As a say Lewis guy who hates the cubs I got no issue with the white socks non-box you're right in our league rigs buddy. Hey no cubs in this family right man. Yeah exactly right. I got to ask you you know like last week his kind of drop this bomb on us of what you guys do I think you know Steve what you it sounds like started. What kind of reaction of you guys gotten over the last week of people to reach out to you being like hey somebody somebody sort of like unveiled your business here.

14:54It was pretty shocking for me because I woke up for a guy's golf trip in Washington state Thursday morning like why. Why do I have like 50 new followers and they all seem to be like golf bros what's what's happening right now. I thought it's a bunch of bots and then and then I just like hit the road for gamble sands and like I kept getting followers and then I finally sell the real I'm like oh that's awesome. That's so cool. That's unreal. It's truly something like nobody knew about which at this point I mean we've done eight or 900 podcasts everybody has a golf podcast everybody's interviewed everybody everybody's done YouTube videos and then for us to kind of be like wait there's this whole operation going on on tour that nobody knows about. We're 25 years. Yeah well you guys want to know how it started. Yeah she's about to hear the story about the inception of Hulk Inc.

15:54I was going home right after 9-11 for my aunt's funeral and I was flying through the Baltimore airport and I left my vehicle with a caddy buddy. We were out east at the end of that year and 9-11 happened. And at the same time my aunt passed away so I was going to head home for just a couple of days with a backpack of clothes to pay homage to my aunt and I get to the airport and there's a line for two hours to get through security. And as I go through this line and I'm standing there and I'm standing there there's two army personnel up against the wall with M16s across their chest and I'm going whoa is this what airports have become one week after you know one of the greatest tragedies our countries ever faced. I got to thinking while I was standing there if I've just got a backpack and it's taken two hours what's going to happen to the players and their wives and their kids with clubs and suitcases and strollers.

16:56It's going to create a havoc in every week weekend and week out because as Ben knows we drove everywhere as caddies and and he still does he's you know here it is 25 years later with the business. But I got home and I thought about this long and hard and called Henry Hughes who at the time was the head of all the tournament directors on the PGA tour and I said Mr Hughes I've got this idea I think I'm going to start a truck and trailer business. And he said oh really that sounds like a great idea I said well you know I think it's going to be much needed on tour and he asked me right away goes well Steve do you have a plan and he said I heard from another caddy about the same idea and I'd like to see a plan of what you want to do with this I said yes sir I do I stayed up all night and I typed eight pages on my computer and I sent it to Henry FedEx the next day. And he got it a day later he called me and he said Steve I want you to cover all your bases you are good to go because there was no way I was going to work on the tours turf without permission from the head man.

18:05And so the trailer and truck and trailer business as we called it Hall King. Actually we started Ben wasn't it hope that they use it. Oh yeah the acronym was Hulk is overland players express because we hope that this was going to fly and players were going to sign up. Well I went to the in right after 9-11 and got this thing launched at the end of 2001 I needed players and at the time I was working for a guy from Florida who went to the University of Florida Pat Bates. We used to call him Fabio because he had the longest air on tour. And he and and JJ Henry and all the guys that I knew from the the tours fellowship but Pat and I ran the idea past Pat and Jonathan Bird and Ben Crane and some of the other guys and I got my original six to sign up and give me $1,500 seed money to buy a truck and a trailer.

19:16Now that didn't cover a whole lot but as as I got it out on tour in 2002 the first year I was at the Bob Hope for the first week and and Corey Pavan pulls me aside. And he goes hey Hulk I here you got this this business you're going to haul our stuff for us. I said yeah Corey it's it's going to be on me to get the stuff to the next tournament and you can fly hands free through the airports. He goes how much do you want I said 1500 he wrote the check right there in the parking lot and that's how things got roll it. And and then when he was in high school he came out in the summers and he started being my right hand man and you know I mean that's why he can you know bench press what 300 100. You're looking at stuff in the trailer at an early age I can squat quite a bit now. Yeah. These bins are heavy. Yes well thanks to your mother getting those bins gone we got all these you tell them about the bin service.

20:18Yeah yeah I mean kids are kind of touched on it but my mom randomly found a container store and has these massive black bins that are on wheels. And it just kind of clicked that like hey this could be a portable locker guys can put whatever they want it like summer golf bins summer family bins. And some guys have to one for them one for their wives and Gary will in his three. I think one is devoted to his personal chef and it's just pots pans whatever the chef needs. But yeah they they can fit whatever he want and it is amazing that we just tetris them in every Sunday. I thought you're going to tell us for his hair product. Yeah it could be I don't do it. Yeah there's probably like a privacy right you have like a privacy policy there nobody's going to comb through anything. It's like a gentleman's agreement I'm not going to dig through it at all. I mean sometimes they lift a lid and I see and it like I'm pretty sure Justin Thomas is all filled of really nice golf shoes because he wears those nice foot joys.

21:21Yeah remember remember Ricky Follars bin had a lock on it. Yeah yeah we take Ricky's bin into the original container store bin into the locker room where all these went and and guys were going in there and stealing Ricky's hats. So he eventually put a lock on his team. He eventually he got a bin that that could lock so he is his hats were so popular. Yeah those side orange ones is like I don't know for Sunday what am I going to do. I don't think that ever happened but yeah. Another service they added throughout the years was you could pay more and they would take it to your hotel room or your house for you. The shmuz option. Yeah shmuz option. I still call it that. So you show up and bins already taking your bin and golf clubs whatever you have on the trailer and it's sitting at your house you've rented or your hotel room. So you literally and then when you check out he comes back and gets it for you. Yeah. You don't even do I used to roll that sucker down eight miles of hell floors yelling at my wife the whole time about how heavy it was.

22:28Why don't we just pay them more if they do this. I had ten ten guys this year that paid for the drop off pickup service. But yeah it's a lot of a lot of coordinating addresses on Sunday night Monday morning. So how big is the team is it is it just you two and who's all on the team. So it's I'm retired. I'm retired. I had to quit a job with the Seahawks to get him to retire. Otherwise I don't know if he ever would have. Interesting. But yeah my buddy Josh he lives in Phoenix. I live in Gilbert Arizona and he he works from home but he comes out on the weekends. If the drive's like nine ten hours or longer and then we'll just alternate. We got to air mattress in the back seat but like conforms to it and we both sleep like babies. Well while the other one's driving. Yeah so what is your window right I mean kids was kind of talking about a little bit but from when the tournament wraps to when you you know you people expect their stuff to be at the next stop.

23:30How quick is that window. It depends on the drive like if I'm going if I'm going waste management to Ruby era that's what a six six and a half hour drive. So I'll be there at midnight. I'll sometimes I can get to a hotel and take a four or five hour nap and then get there right before everybody start showing up and start unloading. So other times I'm rolling into town at 10 a.m. just because the drive is so long. And we ramped or down start bringing stuff in and guys guys will come up to the trailer sometimes like hey is my or my clubs in there already. I'm like yes or they're lined up outside and they can just come wheel their stuff in while they pull up to the course. It's got to be priority one is the clubs. Oh yeah. Oh you lined up right away. Like there's some guys that are like hey I'm in the money program. Can I can I get these right now? Well yes yes yes let's go. Now we've all come across our own travel issues in our lives. We obviously I'll travel the country and you end up with delays or you end up with traffic or or just things happen on the road.

24:30Like what is that stress and anxiety level of taking the PGA tour players. Clubs and all their belongings and going from stop to stop. Have you have you found yourself in situations where you're like I can't get it there in time. Well dad you've got that nice little horror story going to Belriva decade to go. It was during the time that Ben's mother my wife Mary was putting in her 10 years on the road with us. And yes we left the Boston tournament. And by the time we got to the western side of Massachusetts we had a flat tire on the trailer not the truck we had to we had a flat tire on the trailer. And so we fixed that fortunately kept a spare inside the trailer and the type of Jackie needed to get it up on the in air and I got it done and we got back on on road. And now we're coming into western Pennsylvania into into Ohio we lost an entire wheel assembly on the trailer.

25:39And now and we're supposed to be in Belriva that that Monday morning you know leaving Boston Sunday night we planned on being in St. Louis with all the stuff. Sometimes Monday morning well by the time the wheel assembly we had Mary quick thinking that she always was she got on her computer and she found a you all place 40 miles away from where we broke down. So we got we we unhitched the trailer contacted a guy to fix it and we drove the truck to get this you all came back put everything in the you all. And she followed me to St. Louis I I drove the you all she drove the truck. And we showed up Sunday night at the Ritz Carlton for the BMW championship and there's you know 50 players waiting for their stuff and the funny thing about it was that Monday afternoon Jeff Olgovy was on the range and flip wops t shirt and shorts and the head official at the time.

26:45He came up to Jeff he goes Jeff what are you doing where she what do you dress like this for he goes hey the Hulk is aren't here they got all my stuff on the tree. But we remade it and that that was the latest we ever showed up for a situation to the next town but then I'll tell you I mean he you know for worth the memorial that takes what 14 hours that 17 this year 17 yeah usually rolling at like 11 a.m. or noon and but that's one of the best tournaments on tour because Mike McKee the off-sky he has a bunch of the volunteer kids they are literally waiting in front of the clubhouse as we're pulling up I dropped the ramp door they whisk everything inside it takes maybe 20 minutes on low 20 minutes yeah and I mean this week in Utah I did it by myself it took me three and a half hours so it's some weeks or better than others for sure.

27:45Hey man that's pretty much that's pretty much on the entire tour one thing I don't want you boy Hulka boys get in trouble and I don't think you are doing it justice but both of your wives. We're integral in this and I think you both need to give your wives shout outs because we thought this Mary Hulka was like our tour mom out there for years you know we didn't communicate with Steve we taught a Mary and then Ben's wife was integral whenever they started but now she's home raising babies so I think you both deserve a little shout out. I was waiting to get that in how do you want to kill me if I did. Yeah she kept us in line for sure she's the best. Mary Hulka set up this phone for me because you know me being no way no how would I be talking to you guys without Mary setting up the whole situation here but yeah they just left you see behind me the whole world on the wall of our air being be here and pigeon forwards Tennessee and when we wrap this up I'll be heading to join them at Dollywood and that's our homage to Dolly our news out.

28:53Yeah we're here in Tennessee where Mary went to school I actually came down for a weekend when we were dating back in 1980 this is definitely way before Ben but she was going to school here at UT and I got to see fast willy galt play a game and that was pretty incredible because you know what he did for our bearers back during the Super Bowl era and yeah here we are no actual. I'm in black desert right now and cad in for CT pan so this is his second start after like 15 months off at risk surgery so. Wow I'd he's she's at home well no she's actually watching the state with her family with the kids so if I'm kidding she's solo if I just unload I fly home Monday nights get to be dad for like four straight days fly back Saturday do it all over again so. All cuz I'm good. I don't want you to name any names but have y'all ever black ball to tour player.

29:59From the trailer yeah like he treated you like crap and we're just not gonna take your stuff anymore I have not across I haven't come across it I feel like everybody's so nice to us because we are the ones handling their stuff yeah they were. Yeah yeah if we're mean to these guys they might they might not get our stuff here on time or they might unload it last on Monday who know. Someone connected to that have you ever said no to an item. I would have. Yeah seriously no there's a couple times this past season I had loads so big that was just like I can't I'm sorry. I was like so full that set of clubs late in the day I'm like I'm sorry buddy I can't I can't do it this time. Yeah what's is there like I mean we talked about the mattress obviously is that the craziest. Item or is there like are there crazy items that you've ever had to be like yep we'll figure it out I feel like my dad and I can go back and forth and try to top each other with the crazy side of.

31:02I'll start with the mattress I'll start with the mattress because one year at Torrey Pines. Everybody stays at the Hilton right next door kids you remember that I mean that was that was player central so I didn't need. Oostie's manager to come and get it from the golf course because I could just drive a two blocks. South and I drove up right into the portico of the Hilton and I started sliding this trade this mattress out of the trailer. And I grab it by the handles and the bellman comes over and he looks at me and he goes sir you know we have mattresses here we have that. I said yes and then I explained it to him and he helped me get it into the lobby and from there the manager waited for us and he got it up to Oostie's room. But I was here at that mattress because of his back it it was just a perfect mattress for him queen it was a queen size and he would take the hotel mattress off and put his on because he slept.

32:06As best he could on his own mattress. Yeah I mean sometimes they're not as large with some guys have those eight sleep mattress toppers like the cooling system I think it is yeah so. So there's a couple guys that have those on the trailer one year there's a caddy that wanted his BMW motorcycle from waste management to pebble I think it was a trip. Yeah and I remember I remember strapping that thing in and then having to pack around it and that was absurd absurd that was one of those. Coach and I was a spin bike weight about 500 pounds that he kept on there oh yeah yeah yeah. It was a trainer the spin bike it was in the old school peloton yeah no another one Matthew Wolfe before he went to live his grandma came to every tournament and we transported a motorized scooter. That's right. That's right. Yeah and that thing was so heavy I literally could not lift it so we had to like drive it up the ramp door like get it over the threshold of the ramp door and like park it right.

33:10He left us the key. Oh my gosh. And if it was dead I'd have to charge it just before I could load it into the trailer that was a nightmare. But yeah we've got we've got five dog crates this year for guys that travel dogs we have little kid bikes and scooters. Paul Casey is to have his like racing bike in a travel case for the whole year. The dog thing and I've played a couple of events this year and just the dogs and player dining I can't get over what are we doing out there we got. I mean bunch of service animals yeah a lot of I told somebody I said you want to see how stressful the tour is you we used to smoke cigarettes and drink beer when we're stressed out now we bought dogs. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. That's a incredible. That's awesome glad I'm retired. Yeah I know I'm dealing with a lot out here dead. Well too I mean as ears go on these players like the players have so many things I would assume compared to back in the day right like now there's so many training pieces of equipment and so many things to keep their bodies at the top shape because now athletes are on a whole new level.

34:23And they're making so much money and they're planning for so much money as opposed to the back in the day they probably were pretty much you know their clubs their gear and that's all they needed was to get on to the golf course and play the game now it's like it takes a village just to get these guys on to the driving range. 100% I mean I have 10 independent trainers using the trailer so I have massage tables like crazy. And those are actually nice packing pieces because like sometimes there's gaps in the trailer and I need like something perfect and that massage table slides right in so I don't mind those as much they're pretty heavy but they're soft so it's not too bad. How big is this trailer like for people that don't know trailers like visually is it like as big as one of those. Tor trucks that drive around the tailor made. No I don't know what you started with that probably a 16 footer but this year. I had 15 so now this year the last few years I've had a 30 foot trailer says like a 24 foot box and then the nose would be 6 feet and then last month I just got a goose neck delivered for next season.

35:28Yeah feather light it's 6 feet longer and feather like they build all the big. Samis for like Callaway title is all those club companies and so I met. Met the guy through the cobra truck. The cover guys like you got to talk to Mike and so I got one ordered. Got delivered and it's fantastic got like hydraulic lift for the hitch I just have to figure out how to hit. Hitch up a goose neck instead of bumper hitch. That first trailer I bought was $5,000 and then just out late 60,000 for this next one. Yeah in 25. Yeah. The price of doing business. Yeah talk about diesel prices my god yeah that's getting ready to say hi you should be asking for a little extra in the middle of the year because of the dude the. Yeah I'm sure charge fuel searchers my gosh. It's it's funny like when I when I got lucky enough to go hunting and hanging with kids at his place.

36:31The guy that was with us kids was in the shipping you know he had a bunch of the his history was in shipping and he was. You know this was five years ago or whatever it was and when you know Amazon was kind of booming I know it's still there but like at the time it was still kind of new. I have like everything in any second and he was really talking to us about on there forget the line he said he's like you learn how expensive it is to ship air is what you told us and he was no question. Yeah and he was like when you look at he was like it drives me nuts because I look at Amazon they have so much money that they can ship. Poorly packed trucks or they can move poorly packed trucks for now but if you look at a really old school shipping transportation company. You know you'll see how good they are at the tetris of items because it's extremely expensive to transport air. Yeah that maybe think of that when you're talking about like sliding in the massage tables into like the perfect pocket that must give you this incredible like satisfying feeling.

37:33Oh it's the best I am my buddy Josh he's he's out there to help me drive but he knows to just sit back and let me do the packing. Like I'm so OCD when it comes to packing that he'll be like putting something and like no no no let me do that. You're going to train to well that. Yes he did. Did you work in the NFL before this don't I remember that? Yeah I was with the Seahawks my first season I was doing equipment management like full full time internship and the first season was then they won the Super Bowl of Russ. That's what I thought. Yeah I was telling the boys that before you came on I'm like I'm pretty sure Ben came from the NFL to come back out and do this full time. Yeah so it's well sorry. Do you get a ring? Oh my god source of it. I'm still waiting for it but I got I got a super bowl bonus but like me and the other three equipment interns were the only people in the building that didn't get a ring. And then oh Jesus me to this day.

38:33Yeah I did but I price one of Tiffany's for eight grand and when I win the lot of Ben you're going to have your you're going to have your replica. Hopefully this is the story is everybody in the building gets a ring like literally everybody so I was like as soon as you said I was like this guy's got a Super Bowl ring. Yeah I mean at the time it was disappointing but like it was my first season I can't be like going and asking like hey I deserve this like no I it's my first year in the NFL. But I mean I got to go to two Super bowls be on the sideline and be there for the whole week in New York and Arizona. Unfortunately I was on the Patriots sideline as a ball boy when the interception happened so that was brutal. That was so brutal. Yeah yeah real. The equipment manager that whole equipment side of sports is something that the average fan doesn't really get to see I was telling these guys before you hop down. When I was younger I got a pretty good look into the New York Islanders equipment team just because I was like always around the organization.

39:33You know our family has a restaurant right across the street from where the island is just a play and all the guys would come in and they'd get beers and pizza and then I would kind of talk to them about the team. They'd say oh come on for come over for practice tomorrow and come check out how we do things and I like loved that whole world of like how they would set up the room and get all the equipment set up and as a younger kid it was like really really cool to see all the stuff all the equipment looked incredible and everything was shiny and set up. But then as you get older you realize and like God these guys when do they sleep when do they go home do they even have families like you know when the islanders when the islanders finish their game at 10 30 at night and they're playing an Ottawa the next day. Like who's setting up that that away you know locker room in Ottawa that next afternoon you know the guys are getting on a plane they're flying they're sleeping someone's got to get far a lot of mouths pads and set it up so that when he showed up to the rink at 10 a.m. he's ready to go on the ice and that's like that that is not for the fuck that is not for the weak man. No you can be a strong individual mentally physically to be able to handle that you're the first one in and by far the last one out by far by far I did it for University of Arizona I got a scholarship to do it there.

40:43And so I had like nine years nine years of experience to an equipment management but like if you have a prime time game on the east coast and you're Seattle Seahawks you're getting home at 4 a.m. you got to unload the we're in bottom of the airplane getting all the bags and trunks into these by the way. And so you're getting trunks into these box trucks getting to the facility getting laundry started and then you have to check the jerseys the next morning so like that's literally a not going to sleep kind of night and you got to get all the jerseys check find the stains see if you need to order new ones for the next week so it was just non stop like from the moment training can't begins to the end of the season like if you have a family it's it's tough it's very tough. So I think that's what you guys want specific things I know hockey particular they want their sticks tape a certain way they want the certain amount of sticks they want their blades sharpened a certain amount of way I mean rigs would know that whole world you guys just throwing equipment at guys so I can't even imagine what you've got three times the amount of players and all the different equipment and clean the wide receivers have like eight pairs of cleats like what are you going to do with all of these it's one game it's one game but yeah it was wild so it kind of trained me to do these grueling hours and do pretty much is being

41:58the equipment manager of the PJ tour. Yeah I was like I remember as like you know as a as a freshman playing like college hockey obviously we had a great equipment manager team but it was very small and it was pretty much the way that you could like gain a bunch of favor with the team is if you were really good at like pack in the bus you know yeah for sure for sure you hustled you were the first guy there you're slinging bags of the bus you would be like in the running to be the captain of the team you know for sure how you cut your teeth yeah for sure so what is your guys or rigs go ahead no I was just gonna ask dude I'm looking at the schedule and I was trying to find the biggest issue that you were gonna have we had been already knows trust me oh for sure when he's second they're at Riviera in California and then you know the next day we're looking at the cognizant classic in the Palm Beach area how what you know that that's a trip or I just tell guys ahead of time like hey I you are not giving me clubs because I am not going to show to Wednesday and that's just one of the very few trips of the year where I just can't do what I usually do so I

43:12I still get there like on Wednesday and like the families they'll come get their stuff but it's a very light load going to Florida because I get no clubs hardly any suitcases but like the guys a pay for the bench for the year like they're still in there I get there and then the Florida swing is a dream I'm like I'm staying in hotels every Sunday night during Florida right that's incredible how long is that drive like do you that's where your boy has to help you out oh yeah yeah we we alternate like we've stayed in hotels before just because we like we don't want to do it non stop and it's a 1,300 miles yeah it's brutal Jesus man feels like it's longer than that it feels like 3000 but like sometimes one year times like oh sorry go ahead no just west Texas the amount of times I just see west Texas every year's nightmare well that's what that's what I was going to add was one year Mary and I got on the road from Riv and started the drive and as soon as we got into El Paso

44:17it's dark out I'm driving I'm just staring at the white line no traffic around me and then all of a sudden right in the middle of the road was a mule deer carcass and I whack that thing head on and the trailer fortunately everything bounced over it and we just kept driving nothing nothing structurally damage the trailer or the truck and the next morning once the sun came up we start smelling something and it's all the guts of this mule deer that hung onto the chassis of both the truck and the trailer and it was I mean just the worst smell you could imagine and we spent about an hour in a self drive through car wash somewhere in Louisiana and got as much of that off of there before we were going to show up at the time that was yeah West Palm it was the I don't know we might have been going we might have been going to Miami when you know back in the day men when even when you helped me in high school that long drive was was the derral Eastern open to yeah yeah it's all you once you get

45:35the floor you like we're there and then you're like no other 700 miles yeah brutal such a funny visual to me if you guys just wiping and washing off dead carcass uh uh the fours equipment is inside of that yes yes discussing yeah for those spray hoses at the car wash yeah you got to keep the trailer looking nice for the sponsors it's funny uh what's here so what's your current relationship with the PJ tour I know Steve mentioned it off the top but I got to imagine everything's pretty seamless now but like how often are you touching base with them how often are you in contact with them like what's that relationship like uh the pretty much talk to the operations team just like let them know what my schedule looks like for the year like what terms I will be at what I won't be at like I obviously don't go to Mexico for me to like the international events don't don't do Canada because just getting past the border is such a nightmare sure so I just do pretty much stateside and my dad laid out the the groundwork so well that it's just a seamless operation known yeah it's running very smooth but the I tell the

46:41obstacle like when I when I'll be getting there talk to the operations team for each individual tournament and let them know like when I'll show up where I need to be parked or where I'd like to be parked for loading on Sunday that kind of thing as the tour ever like talked to you about buying you guys out or overtaking or how like the operation because it you know like we were almost shocked that the tour wasn't providing something like this on their own I need that and you well you know that the story goes back to Ricky Fowler's buddy um uh David Pritchett uh he was actually a friend of Ricky Romano's uh Ricky's caddy offered Mary and me a half a million dollars to buy the business he wanted to get away from his cubicle he wanted to go out on the road he loved golf and he had heard that we might be pitching the the business away from the family

47:43and so we get this offer and two nights later I think Ben and Heidi took Mary and me out to dinner and Ben looked me right in the eye and Mary and said mom, yeah this is all I know I don't want you to sell the business yeah so I basically just like I can't let this happen it's all yours yeah he said and he said he looked just right in the eye he said this is all I know I know equipment and I know I've been with you dad since high school yeah helping you with this and I want to take it over and we said okay okay and here we are thank you go Ben yeah let's go Ben yeah he's got one more year of payments and he's done it's all yeah it's all that is for mother and father for for what three years now yeah four uh yeah four four yeah well done Ben yeah that's awesome Ben that's awesome I'll give credit to Heidi she's like we need to keep this you have to figure something out so we we did we did good but it like I would not be able to do

48:47it without Heidi because she did it with me for seven years after we left the Seahawks and she uh she was doing the driving we were alternating she was loading unloading and I mean every time we're CT would want to play Monday afternoon and Heidi be having to finish the unload and I go caddy nine holes on Monday but um yeah she was a grinder so when I'm on the road she knows exactly how hard the work is so she's not like hey uh can you get home earlier like no she gets it you know I it's no secret that like inflation exists so when you guys like ever decide to jack up prices like how are there like any sensitive conversations you have with people or is they pretty just like whenever it is it is extremely rare I mean they they know how expensive things are getting like flight so tells diesel right just cost cost of equipment like a truck is a hundred thousand dollars these days so it's not so like there's never really any pushback and I don't I don't think I don't think there will be I also the purchase have gone up so like when I raise things by a thousand bucks they're like

49:53okay I have a I was gonna ask this earlier I used to always laugh when your dad would bill me on like you know December 15 I have quite a tournament in two months and I've just spent all of my savings on Christmas and then he's like yeah I'll give you discount if you'll pay me by January 1st I'm like dude why didn't you ask me like a month ago when I was cash flush I used to give him your e-phone the west coast you're still billing right around Christmas it's probably early December late November yeah yeah okay you moved it up a couple weeks oh yeah but last year last year it was it was pretty rough last year because the truck was unfortunately stolen in Houston not the trailer the truck was stolen in Houston I was it I was getting for CT we missed the cut and I go out to Saturday morning to work out and I walk in front of my hotel it was parked right by the awning of this fair field in and trucks gone and I'm like what the hell am I gonna do like what what

50:54so I got the police on it everything and I'm I go back to my hotel room just shocked and I'm like how am I gonna get the trailer to San Antonio and I start googling Chevy dealers in the area there's one that has a 3500 left on the lot and like I have to got I have to get it so I go and buy this truck go to Home Depot like by the time all the paperwork's done it's like 8 p.m. or whatever it is Home Depot closes in an hour I have to go buy hitch get on the truck and get the trailer move that night and then five days later I'm in my hotel room in San Antonio and the police called me like hey we found the truck and went so they found the old truck and it was like torn torn up on the inside so they could hotwire it whatever and so it gets shipped to Arizona insurance fixes it all up and then I have to sell this old truck and it was just a nightmare night there can't imagine yeah it was brutal so anyway like financially last late last year was little tight on on money so I think I

51:59sent the text out early November yeah hey boys time to pony up boys yeah oh man yeah you just got a stressful gig it's like you have a you have a strict deadline like twice a week you know which is crazy think about yeah and if if I got a guy that told me Sunday morning like hey can I send the clubs and then all of a sudden he's in a playoff I'm like I just I promise I was gonna wait and sometimes you're fighting the golf fight and darkness and you're just sitting there waiting on the last set of clubs yeah he doesn't always just have his regular guy so he also offers if if the trailer has room like if I'm in the last group on Sunday and I'm playing in the next week and I don't want to travel my clubs I can just pay him to take him that one week yeah walk up business yeah yeah get a lot of suitcases a lot of suitcases for guys like caddies caddies players trainers rules officials they all send stuff up their traveling pretty heavy and just need like a suitcase

53:02taking that kind of thing and caddies these days they're all traveling with golf clubs yeah makes sense they all they're all ex players man good all players that why yeah yeah so everyone's trying to get lean enough to not have to check a bag when they fly that's pretty much what they're doing right yeah yeah yeah and just love you not having to deal with it yeah it's just so nice it just saves you so much on both ends of any travel you know just like not having to check a bag not having to go through that process not having to wait at the carousel not having to risk losing anything it's just like so much cleaner when you travel a lot yeah and you gotta think about the guys flying private like a lot of them will team up and fly three or four guys private and you just can't fit all the stuff on the planes so they have to use bin or they wouldn't be out of fly private yeah have you ever lost anything where you showed up you open up the trailer and you're like oh shit in the last 10 years I think it's been two maybe three times where I left like a massage table

54:04in the training room like a guy wasn't there that week and I forgot to grab them massage table and then I'd have to pay to get it overnighted and profusely apologized but I I'm like usually steal trap on everything that I have on the trailer I'm like I gotta go check for that check for that check for that but it's been pretty rare think of a lot better than me leaving David DeBalls clubs in New York I would say I'd have a better track record than me Ben that's good oh my god I just pulled a major bogey and he left him and didn't tell me and the locker room guys didn't tell me this was at the Westchester Classic I forget where we were going and I showed up to the next tournament DeBalls comes over looking for his clubs I said David I don't have your clubs he goes well I left him in the locker room I said well they didn't tell me I'm sorry they must still be there and of course you know FedEx got them there the next day but yeah New York don't

55:12get me start with New York Steve I'm curious in all your years of caddy and I don't even know the answer to this how many wins do you have on tour and who are some of the players you all caddy for my hall of favors David Graham and just this a couple months ago Mary and I were proud as could be because we got invited to his induction ceremony a Jackson Memorial and David become the 51st recipient of of Jackson Gray Jacket and his name's up on the on the wall now but I spent 14 years with David eight on the on the big tour overseas we won in Melbourne in his hometown eight of my 14 wins were with David yeah two on the two on the big tour four on the senior tour and then all over the world which is once I'm sitting in front of this wall if you you know you look up

56:12here to Vancouver all the way to Sydney Australia and Melbourne my career was was pretty amazing and I I was truly blessed one twice with Pat Bates on when it was the bite.com tour and that was I I didn't win the first one with him he won three that year and it got him the battlefield promotion to come back and play the big tour the following year and I said this was early 2000s as I said Pat I was on Paths Bag when 9-11 hit but yeah I had I in my career you guys are all sitting down when you hear this I've cadded for over 150 different players in my whole off off and on 42 years I was 19 years old fresh out of college I tried to walk on the Illinois golf team and I didn't make it and I got disgruntled with school and I I went home and I told Grandpa Frank my dad Frank who was a golf coach and basketball coach in the Chicago suburbs

57:16in the high school level I said dad I'm gonna give this tour caddy in a try because I had gone down to a little tournament in southern Illinois about an hour from champagne and caddy didn't the Robinson open a town of maybe 7,000 people in the middle of South Central Illinois the two major industries there were the Heath Candy Bar Company and a marathon oil refinery and everything else was corn and I cadded in a $100,000 purse tournament that offered 20 to the winner in 1971 and the following year I went back to it and that's when I withdrew from school and I came home I told dad I said dad I'm gonna go to Napa next week and start caddy and on the tour and he goes go for it I did and I go what what do you mean you did he goes yeah I caddy on tour right after I got out of the Navy in the mid 40s and I'm like you never told me this and he said he said he and in the fraternity brother who was the captain of the golf team at

58:20Northwestern decided to take a semester off from school and they barren stormed the southeast in the summer of spring of 1946 and when they had money they played golf when they needed money they went to the next tour event that they could find and they got a job and he did this for a while and and then came home went back to school and finished school we never told me that until I said I was gonna try caddy and on the PGA tour and he gave me his blessing so 1973 was my first full year on tour I got to tell you a story about how I met Arnold and I ended up actually caddy for Arnold one week that's that's another story but the first time I laid eyes on Arnold was on the putting green at Indian Wells Country Club at the Bob Hope and the guy that I started my career with was not in the tournament so I got I had to caddy in a little satellite event later in the week but I went out to the Bob Hope just to see guys tee off.

59:23Arnie's on the putting green and Indian Wells with James Garner who he was gonna play with that day and I I was by the ropes between the putting green and the first tee knowing he had to pass me and as he passes me there's this this Palm Springs debut to my left and she's standing there waiting for Arnold to come by and he he actually winked at her he went he went like that and she goes oh Arnold and this absolutely loses it because he winked at her and I'm like this guy has got some serious charisma with the ladies and I mean the experience of that and then being around later on that year I was fortunate caddy and back at that tournament in Robinson I was cadding for Steve Melner because his caddy went home for three weeks to be with some family

1:00:25affairs that were going on and I covered for him and I'm cadding for for fluff the original fluff Steve Melner and he comes out of the locker room after lunch we're gonna practice and he goes hey I was just talking to David Graham and he's looking for a new caddy are you interested? I said the guy from Australia he goes yeah I go sure yeah I talked to him and so David met us on the range and he goes stiving I'm gonna take three weeks off and I want you to meet me in Hartford and I said okay David I'll be there so I get to Hartford first hole Thursday morning the the T is it's a short par four guys hit iron off the T in a wedge at at Weather's Field this is where Bruce Edwards grew up Dennis turning grew up all the guys from the boats grew up but all these guys from Weather's Field became tour caddies well here we are at their home course I'm on the first hole with David he hits it right hits a tree drops down in knee high rough

1:01:26loss ball oh I'm like this is not going to be my job for very long if I don't find this ball and sure enough he had to make it had to walk back to the tee and reload and we made six on a very first hole on a two iron wedge hole and I'm like this isn't going to be my job very long but now it's it worked out it worked out very well I was I was very fortunate to hit my Hall of Famer among those 150 players wow it's amazing career that is amazing but the one time I did caddy for Arnold was the same the same tournament in 1976 we got a pick up softball game going on because the caddies used to try and get a game with the with the press and and everybody you know we would always be playing softball baseball was my first love as you can see but we're we're at we're at Weather's Field again and what happened was that that softball game

1:02:33I Pete Rose Ernie's caddy at home played and I broke his power bone I was on second hit to the outfield I came barreling around third muff his nickname was muff mark Barnes from Terrohood Indiana waiting for me with the ball and I smacked him so hard I broke his power bone put him on the shelf for six weeks and I got the caddy for Ernie cover for muff at at the hard for tournament Ernie shot 66 the last day for me and he made he made about uh oh 2500 dollars finish in 25th yeah and he's seen and they said Ernie was cheap well he wrote me a check for three hundred dollars I didn't think Ernie was cheap that was a lot of money that's a lot of money in 76 unlike Bruce who who I think he never cashed his first check in his career with Dick Lots for forty dollars or whatever it was or four hundred dollars I should have put put that check like like Ralph Malta Roger Malfe did with his forty thousand dollar winners check it's at the bar

1:03:37there in Pleasant Valley up there unbelievable unbelievable uh man I got to ask you about this this uh you talk course this uh black desert I mean is it an insane walk for you guys uh honestly no it because they that it's so spread out on some holes they have shuttle carts between okay I want to say like four maybe even five greens we get a shuttle ride to the next t-box but it is so gorgeous out here I'm not saying I caddy the first year uh two years ago it was a newer course and it's like so firm but they've had some rain um the past couple days and it's a lot softer it's playing very long it's always a really fun one to watch just because the visuals are so unique to what we see weekend a week out out there yeah yeah I was watching the last episode you guys all seem so dejected that the president's couple is over like when are we gonna get some real golf again I'm like hey black desert come on guys walk it I like it rally rally right now I mean we right back on

1:04:43the side I was shocked that uh coivan and some of the international guys were playing this week from president's cup but I think I think they're all playing Tokyo next week so it's just easy to come here and then get on the charter yeah yeah that makes sense uh yeah I'm excited amazing credit what a uh what a pair what a family business you know it's the classic American family business exactly the lives father son your best buddy who you're out when you need it yeah it's just as good as it gets entrepreneurship baby my three and a half year old is an absolute tank so he's he's in the running for next next man up you already you're dreaming about he's got the whole kick-a-kavs already going so I can happen to the perfect family like the Hulk is our big body's dear voices like you guys were born to do this to just lift heavy things move them around logistics it's my dream job just manual labor yeah brokler you know kudos to the tour for protecting us to

1:05:47be the only game in town and to the players who have always supported us and you know we we love them all that's absolutely absolutely okay ink baby that is just as good as it gets hope started with hope oh hope it works so good gentlemen well we really appreciate the time like I said this is a part of the pga tour behind the scenes that very few people it feels like new about at all so here in the stories and the details is just as good as it gets so uh we very much appreciate the time yeah thank you for having us on this is so cool yeah man happy to do it you guys are the best they took care of my family and my life for 15 years on tour and uh I when I brought it up I just assumed everybody knew about it so it's hilarious whenever these boys are like what are you talking about and then all the interactions on social media we're like what are you talking about this service I'm like well I'll tell you I'll just have them on the podcast and they'll let me tell you what they do yeah that's great that's so great hey Ben what's on the back

1:06:49ramp door I think we need bar still on that back ramp door yeah that would be great that would be great it's turt its turtle box speakers right now is they got the full wrap on the trailer oh so you guys wrap trailer for sponsorships as you drive it around yeah yeah yeah plus they get the primo park and spot every week to unload and load so you know hey they're they're showing off rigs rigs I don't know if you remember this but I met you at winged foot at the last us open when Bryson won yeah and and I was trying to pick your brain on the putting green on like two zero whatever it was and I'm pretty sure you said ill-presentate he's like yeah I don't think that's the the sponsorship or like marketing that he's interested in he doesn't want he doesn't do billboards but yeah I was uh well I mean we might you know it's been six years now we might have to get into this into my revisit yeah we're always in up for a revisit I love it that's right that's good yeah wing foot was an interesting one that was like our we were like Patrick Reed's media

1:07:51arm that week oh so it was an interesting yeah he was like a contention all sudden he went from like you know never talking to you by you to be like I just wanted to do interviews with you guys yeah I'm gonna go back there in two years so that'll be exciting yeah wing foot's awesome steeper abadu and that place is really good but um all right Jens well good luck this week yeah thank you guys let's go Hollywood yeah sir it's great to see you man yeah thank you guys go wide stocks this episode is brought to you by whoop the wearable device that gives you personalized insights into your sleep recovery and the strain you're taking on and how daily choices may be influencing your overall well-being we kind of touch on this at the very end of the show in terms of personal choices and well-being and where we're at um I've been a proud whoop user for like five six straight years now I have a streak I will update that streak one thousand five hundred

1:08:56ninety three well great days of logging my personal data I was actually just clicking on you know I was thank you I was trying to click on I've sung my fun all-time stats my lowest resting heart rate gentlemen 46 beats per minute my highest resting heart rate 109 I think I had the COVID which is probably not great my highest HRV which is insane 117 I think I hover you know I know I think I hover around like that 60 or 70 if you click on yourself so like your little picture of yourself on the top left and then it gives you a bunch of like I have achieved you know in the other side of the spectrum my lowest recovery 1% my max heart rate ever 190 beats per minute that was during an ice hockey session so you get all these insights all brought to you by whoop which is a fantastic wearable device I'm a guy who doesn't play ice hockey and who doesn't get the heart rate going high that often but my max heart rate is one ninety two what I would have been doing wonder

1:10:01with that point in time who knows but that's a high that's a high one I got one ninety two as well I think yeah first who knows maybe the first year the international or something maybe yeah maybe some intercourse oh there you go yeah right always getting laid it's all I want to get their hearts rates getting high that's cool let's go I'm gonna go with that you know you could have been any of those things whoop and powers you to make better decisions by providing you with actionable insights into your sleep your recovery your training and your overall health I'm always amazed that whoop can like tell when I'm playing hockey versus when I'm playing golf it will log an hour and 20 minutes of ice hockey it'll it'll log you know four hours of a golf session if I hit the range for 30 minutes it's like that was golf wasn't it I'm like yep make sure you join whoop today at join that whoop.com slash bar stool you're gonna get your first month free all right whoops been great big part of our life we got the community I'm in a handful of communities my Arizona group I Saint Louis group

1:11:06we've got a four-play group that's got 500 people in it that you could check out again make sure you get involved in your first month free that is join dot whoop dot com slash bar stool all right folks that was the hoka boys what a great business what a great family just a couple fantastic guys who could tell you good stories so kids thank you for setting that up and like you know yeah that's just like if you're gonna do that business those personalities were made for that business yes hilarious we just finished the interview and I looked down on my phone and already both of them texts thanks so much kids you're the best love that we got to come on and tell our story so things like that that I don't even think about are interesting to the world are fascinating and I will continue to keep looking around for stories like that that people don't know about because those are two of the salt of the earth guys you'll ever meet their wives are incredible too and family business you know entrepreneurship you touched on at the end rigs but

1:12:07made in America man those guys are just good old American dream right there and they and they love it you can just tell by the energy and the voice how much they love it yeah we had them on for an hour and there there wasn't a second where I didn't find what they were saying interesting they could tell great stories Steve has stories for days I would listen to him all day long yeah it's just a great like you guys said American family business and it was just very very interesting and I'm really glad we had him on great guys it is there is like a such a feeling to of like they don't if they were just given like a bunch more I don't know that like Ben would do anything different I think they'd be like no this is like what we're here to do we are here to run this trailer run the logistic people need us people need us so we're gonna continue to do this and I just that grind and making ends meet making it all work like that is that's what it takes and that's just a good old fashioned small American business that's what this country's built on those guys just seem like as good as it gets I love them just every time they couldn't help themselves and

1:13:11kids you brought it up first but like they couldn't help themselves telling how you know Steve's wife this and then Ben's wife that and how they saved the day and it's just what it takes so that was really cool to hear from that is just such a a peek behind a curtain that you didn't even know was there you know what I mean yeah yeah it's fascinating man they just live their life on the tour Stephen Mary started that I had more interactions with them Ben was later in my career and my kids were already done traveling by the time Ben started so it was more just hey will you take my clubs for me in my suitcase but when I have my family like you know Mary would watch Kate for a minute or something you know I'll Brittany and I had to go run something at the trailer she'd be like just leave Kate here you all running do whatever you got to do I'll just have her right here I mean just things like that I remember Mary doing the the Darrell survey on you know on Thursday to see what clubs guys were playing because they're out there and it's like hey you want to get paid a little extra money to go see what clubs and balls of guys are playing and already you already know all the guys so there was just so many different facets of my life on the tour where we

1:14:14interacted with Stephen Mary for the majority of my career it's it was like I said she was like the tour mom out there everybody just turned her you know Brittany would I'd pull up after our walk up on Sunday and the parking lot after around and her and Brittany would just be standing by the trailer talking or whatever Brittany's waiting to leave to go to the next event so it was a large part of my life and that's why I was so shocked that other people didn't know about it but it's an amazing story that they've done it for 25 years and I didn't know how it started the 9-11 thing really really was amazing that that's how it spurred his idea to do it. What came from such a genuine place he wanted to make sure the players could get through and then it also is just great horse type for business I mean he's an obviously very impressive entrepreneurial entrepreneurial type brain where he saw that this could be a source of income as well as helping you know the tour out from getting his body to spot B but yeah I mean talk about you know obviously like when tragedy strikes like that like he like that's the first thing he thought about was all of these

1:15:18players and how they're gonna get through like no one else was thinking about that so it's incredible yeah yeah I was like the world came to a stop at that point and he like was thinking you know I mean like he's like I'm gonna have to figure out something or else like we're not getting back to normal see ever right so if we can't get through with nothing how are they gonna get through with everything and it's just like well we're gonna help them we're gonna figure out so yeah awesome story good job kids setting them up only other couple things I've got around the golf world I've just been pretty glued into the to the USGA mid-ameter at the Lido we played the Lido a couple years ago at San Valley right after it opened up we've done a lot on this show about the Lido the original Lido was like right in Frankie's backyard we've kind of covered a decent amount the backstory between the lost golf course and the world war and it being used for militaristic reasons and and kind of unkempt and lost and then with Tom Doke and the Kaiser family and San Valley bringing it back and you know like digital video games allowing you to kind of build

1:16:26out the the new version of it and then program that into machines that could now just take a pretty flat open field in northern Wisconsin and turn it her central Wisconsin and turn it into the Lido how awesome that golf course is I think it's CB McDonald is all the original holes you know the history of that Lido golf course it's real long island had the greatest golf course in the world it was like number one it was Pine Valley Augusta National and Lido and it was designed by CB McDonald Seth Reiner engineered it and Alistair McKenzie designed the 18th hole like it was all it went from the bay to the ocean took over all of basically that Lido beach area of Long Beach Long Island which now like we have a Barrelli's bar basically like a mile away from where that location was they have a Lido golf club there now that's town run it's like half the property of what it used to be it doesn't go across the road like it used to so it's only on that like inlet side and it's just I mean I hate to say it was kind of a dog track they kind of let it go it's just one of those places

1:17:30on the water that are it's super soft and it's never really maintained correctly um but anyway it was the number one golf course guys from the city would go out there and the pictures are out of control of what it used to look like and yeah I think it was World War one or two they had to turn it into a kind of a military zone where they would like poor concrete over it they had to sell the golf course because it's just like at that point I think during the Great Depression they couldn't keep the golf course running and then the war struck and I'm not sure like what happened my American history isn't the best but I don't know what happened first I think it was the the Depression and then the war uh and they basically sold that land to local government and they turned that into like barracks and runways and everything and it was just forgotten for forever which is just outrageous with how much good golf we have out here right you think of Chinnacock and National Golf Links and all the places at east we had a place that was less than I don't know how far is Lido Beach from the New York City like 10 miles away from Manhattan like we had an unbelievable location for what would have been the greatest golf course on the planet

1:18:35um so yeah just an interesting thing and then the story goes that somebody we did a whole video on this but somebody on PGA 2K where you're able to build a golf course I built a couple golf courses knives Creek and butters Bay they're out there on the 2K Metaverse show the 2K verse somewhere incredible golf courses one day I got to take you a spit I got to give you a spin around knives Creek it's unbelievable butters Bay actually was my butters Bay was the number one because it was a real water feature but some guy used the building feature where dude in 2K on on Xbox or PlayStation or PC or whatever they give you a plot of land and you can start with whatever type you want you want like highlands you want water golf course do you want mountains however you want tree lined and you just start off with this plot of land and you build out a route and then it just gives you the routing of a golf course and then you start to literally lay the grass you put you put where the rough is and you can move mounds to exact dimensions of what you want right you can have a mound pushing the ball from right to left I'm telling you you have the

1:19:37most the most hands-on experience of building a golf course aside from actually doing it in PGA 2K so this guy got all of like the data and I forget what the word was but like what's a light art it's a lidar data where he was able to track exactly where the original Lido location he found all these old photos he even did shadow referencing where he saw a shadow from a photo got the data on how high that the plane that took the photo was and was able to see what time a day it was taken and that shadow that was getting casted off that hill would tell you how high that mound was and he did it to the exact fucking millimeter of what the original Lido was built built this out and then I think they used that data to build the Lido golf club at sand valley so they used all the data from the video game that he built and and they sent out AI robot Elon Musk excavators and they shaped the ground to the exact lidar specifications that this guy built

1:20:39isn't that outrageous and we play the Lido and it's fucking insane and when you're playing the Lido at sand valley which I guess now the man am is that like you can picture it being one of the greatest golf courses ever especially if there was like ocean right there right they don't have ocean in the middle of Wisconsin but like it's really cool to play a refabricated lost golf course it's like it's like if we lost Pebble Beach and someone built it and fucking Idaho right I mean it's outrageous right you know we just opened a new golf course in in Aiken called the 21 Club that was a friend of mine bought the lost Alistair McKinsey design that was supposed to go in Argentina in an auction and he put it right here it just is opening like now no way yeah I've heard about this I haven't played it yet but I was just that rang my bell because it came across my desk this morning a Alistair McKinsey historian went to the 21 Club as it's now done and like talked about it based

1:21:44on all the history he knows of Alistair McKinsey and how they did it and how he didn't try to make it like Lidar like yours is saying exactly he just took the holes and routed with the piece of land that he had and he the historian was quoted on there saying he thought that was the right way to do it to justify the architecture so if we ever if we ever all get together down here again let's go play it oh my god that'd be a dream yeah it's um god we actually kicked around that idea when we were at Lido it amazed me that people like are there trademarks and copyrights for golf rowdings and architecture like can someone just copy Tim Agustin ah yeah I think there are because yeah I think there should be but I don't know that it should be but like can someone just build the exact same golf course somewhere yeah it feels like they could I mean people right try to try to make the twelfth of the gust to everywhere you see true I don't know like the whole golf course anybody would have his hat in their trademark they would

1:22:46be them right yeah I feel like people do it you know there's like replica courses in myrtle beach and stuff aren't there true it's amazing that doesn't take off you know like there's just these incredible course out there just copy it just build saying and kind of have a middle of Iowa and like the OG of golf architecture I think it kind of like did you know where they would just like go to scot one and be like these are the sickest holes we're gonna build those in America this is like kind of what they're like natural goblins like green by CB Mcdonald they're everywhere on Long Island like the rear end and the berths and all that the punch bowl yeah right but yeah it is it is it I would wonder if there's trademarks yeah that's something I've never heard of before on like golf course architecture on designs right like you created and designed something that's unique is it yours you submit the plans yeah you'd think it'd be the similar to like construction right like you submit a plan they're they're out there

1:23:47they're on blueprints I would assume that there is some sort of jurisdiction that that looks over all that stuff I recommend for folks over the next day or two there's some good social accounts out there the USGA's putting some about there of like these intense mid-amateur matches at the Lido and it's awesome to watch because the golf course is so cool it was it's probably a top 15 for me that that we've ever done that we've ever been to I thought the Lido was so incredibly cool and I'm gonna give a shout out to Drew Kiddelsen who's a good buddy of mine in Scottsdale he played in he he played in the Masters in the US Open in like 2007 or 2008 maybe and he's like my age now and he's in the quarter finals he's down I think three down through nine right now but he's in the quarter finals at the mid-amateur if you win the mid-amateur you play in the Masters in the and the US Open so Scottsdale guy with Sparock guy great great buddy of mine and he's well known in the area as like the best golf I don't know how anybody can be better at golf than he is you know and he's he's

1:24:49playing really well he won I think in 23 holes in the round of 32 to advance so rooting for for him but overall just the Lido getting the mid-amateur and seeing a bunch of the footage got me pretty fired up because that golf course is awesome otherwise gentlemen I think that's all I have speaking to take things from people kids I'm taking rang my bell you used to use that that like yeah you took came across my desk yeah we're taking rang my bell I like that you got yeah you can have that one I'll just agree to a co-share on both things love it that rang my bell reminded me of something that's what I said something yesterday I hit a good drive we played yesterday you said the rang your bell office you ever hear that kids what you when you hit a good drive it's in the mayor's office oh yeah I'll tell him I don't think it's that one's come across my I hadn't ring my bell where I say it but I hear a lot of other people say let's come across my desk

1:25:52I had to play in that the RBC Heritage program on 18 I hit a great drive and he said that's in the mayor's office and I had never heard it before in my life and I now I just use it and I was using it yesterday with Frankie hoping it was right and we looked it up and it was right that a boy yeah kids when you look down the fairway when you are on a t-box yeah on a fairway we got a t-box and you're looking to hit a drive what are you looking at when you look down at your target the target but like what is your target I guess is the question like are you overhanging tree I am yeah I'm looking at a tree limb a edge of a bunker where I'm pretty precise on that it's not just like in between those two bunkers that are 50 yards wide are you looking to land it there or start it finish target I can't do a start if you tell me to start it out of tree I finish it on that tree yeah because I see the whole curve remember I was talking about the linear non-linear

1:26:52side and when I put I see the whole curve when I like if do you ever told me to start a ball at the flag and draw it to the middle of the green I always just started it right to the flag and drew it to the flag so sort of like Jackson Coven did on the on the last ball yeah yeah right that eight iron right at it do you close ball you look up you look at a limb on a tree and you're like I can vision this thing finishing right and landing on that spot that's correct and you just and you look up you look down you go correct interesting all right yeah I just yeah I was you in a good yesterday I was yesterday bending was flying the drone and he flew it kind of like let's call it a hundred yards in front of the t-box right in my line of sight and it was like hovering right over the fairway the beginning of the fairway staring at us trying to get the shot of the ball kind of launching and I just stared at it and I'm like I'm gonna try and hit that thing right I'm just gonna launch it right at that drone and something about it I just like one after

1:27:54this ball and I launched this like rising dead straight missile and it got me thinking about you you see the tiger videos of all the windows he hits and stuff and how he can hit the nine windows and all the different shot shapes I'm like am I supposed to be trying to launch this ball through a certain part of like my window because I don't think about any of that stuff you know I just kind of looked down at the ball and trying to make contact I'm not thinking about like where it's going where it's flying I don't know if any of us amateurs golfers are thinking about that and then I try it on the next hole and I duck hooked one but yeah it's something I'm working on keep grinding on it it's the way to play look at your target try to figure out how to get it to that target and use one key and you're swinging to help you get it to that target and it sounds like the kids you're saying the more specific the better because everybody gives you like between those bunkers you're like okay all the time yeah anywhere right of that tree's good okay right it's not specific enough yeah and anybody that tells you don't hit it anywhere don't talk to

1:28:55them anymore either because you'll just hit it there every time yeah every time the brain doesn't know every time I'll end the show on a somber note basically a very sobering note that life sucks and everything I've been eating healthy and doing all the right things for like two months my cholesterol still sucks ass no so like what am I supposed to do I haven't eaten ice cream in like two months I'm living life like a boring old fucking loser I'm not eating cheese I'm walking around eating grilled chicken I'm eating oatmeal every morning with fricking with fricking with fricking sucks I had a thing called called almond malk it's not even almond milk it's called almond malk and it's like it's just humans aren't supposed to have this you know you're supposed to have just cow teat milk that's what we're supposed to be drinking and I'm drinking almond malk to try and fucking navigate my way around this high LDL and all this APOB bullshit and I get the numbers back and I eat clean for two months and it went down 4% and they're just like that ain't good enough

1:29:59they went down but it's like it's still unbelievably high so now what do I do people say go on a stat and do this then other people are saying stat and takes the cholesterol out of your brain you get dementia like I you know what I'm gonna eat the nerds breeze sandwich at the islander game on Friday that's all I'm gonna do I don't give a fuck anymore you're starting to sound like your dad it's what's it all for yeah what am I doing this for I want to eat what I want crazy it's crazy there I say yeah too much this isn't a long time is that yeah I know but like it like you know I agree with that but the numbers are supposed to reflect like a more impressive reduction I think like it's supposed to be reduced a little bit more than that especially with such an extreme lifestyle change like basically I talk to Chachi B2 which is gonna take over the world and I was like is this a realistic like thing if I kept going and it's like yeah I will keep going down but like if you're at 151 and like 100's high like

1:31:03well that's going around 149 then 144 and then one like you're still gonna be unbelievably high for years so it's like you gotta get this thing down dude you gotta get down to like 80 like you're not dropping 80 anytime soon yeah damn yeah yeah I just have to stick with the oatmeal and honey unfortunately sucks dude all right I'm gonna go eat some ice cream man I'll be have a great day Frank too I'm gonna give a breakfast sandwich I'm gonna give a late breakfast deal well they don't get me started on these authorized watch dealers that's a that's a show for another no no to make you feel better I'm once I'm done with this podcast I'm just gonna go lay on the floor until I can find a local chiropractor that will take me in and somehow get me so I can put my shoes on I anyone that owns a place that has watches won't even respond to a text message that I send them so that's another thing that's raising my cholesterol multiple places all around the country by the way all around the country all right we gotta stop this pod yeah all right

1:32:03everybody have a great weekend uh you know make sure you check out the PMT match make sure you check out uh if you're in aching go hit on the other strings festival going to sell right now go enjoy your ass out there have a have a beer with kids listen to some music uh and then uh once again store dot partial sports dot com we appreciate the support with any merchandise big thanks to Ryan Rich and grindin this week I think you probably had a late night on Sunday night to get that post president's cut podcast out um how are your teams doing Rich and how you know how's your how your sports teams doing right now is I bringing you some joy not at all the packers are terrible it's still early in the year but we suck it's not about the game cocks game cocks horrible so bad I was out of wedding last weekend so I couldn't watch the game but my friends were just texting the group chat like we suck we suck we suck so yeah it's going great but we got to do the best part of the team you know what the brew crew yeah no I mean I'm just waiting on that you know I'm I will admit I'm a casual baseball fan so it's hard for me to get pumped about it till I actually have the game on

1:33:05my TV if that makes sense like watching it and I'm like all right let's fucking go but I'm definitely waiting on it understandable uh let's go baby let's go blues uh Robert Thomas new captain uh all well thank you rye rich and appreciate you what a week and um we'll be back next week big thanks again to the hulka ink those guys are just the absolute best so appreciate them coming on uh be safe enjoy the weekend place and fall golf it's great and we'll see you Tuesday hit it hard hit it hard