In this week's episode I interview my good friend Taylor Crosby, one of Golf Digests “Best Young Teacher’s in America” list. This honor is only given to the select few golf instructors under age 40 who are making the biggest impact on the industry—and in more ways than ever, with the growth of digital and social media.”
Crosby played collegiate golf for both the University of Georgia and North Carolina State University. While at Georgia, the Athens, Ga., native played alongside current PGA Tour standouts Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, and Brendon Todd. After graduating from N.C. State, he played on mini-tours, served as a head golf professional, and caddied on the Korn Ferry Tour.
In this week's episode I interview my good friend Taylor Crosby, one of Golf Digests “Best Young Teacher’s in America” list. This honor is only given to the select few golf instructors under age 40 who are making the biggest impact on the industry—and in more ways than ever, with the growth of digital and social media.”
Crosby played collegiate golf for both the University of Georgia and North Carolina State University. While at Georgia, the Athens, Ga., native played alongside current PGA Tour standouts Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, and Brendon Todd. After graduating from N.C. State, he played on mini-tours, served as a head golf professional, and caddied on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving range from Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play
Speaker 2:To fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf if you don't play it for money? Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert Tore . What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I had my longtime friend Taylor Crosby. You guys have probably seen his content on Instagram and on YouTube. He's a top instructor. I mean the top 100 instructor for under 40. Not yet . Top 40 .
Speaker 3:Yeah ,
Speaker 2:You're gonna be there. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:For
Speaker 2:Under 40, which is quite amazing. Think about it . 'cause there's a lot of instructors out there that would kill to be on the Golf Digest list. And this guy's on it because he's that good. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, man. I'm excited about it. Can't wait.
Speaker 2:So where are you located at?
Speaker 3:I am in Greensboro, Georgia. So we're an hour east of Atlanta, hour west of Augusta. We're halfway between Masters and East Lake , Augusta National and Eastlake. We're halfway. That's
Speaker 2:Have you been to the Masters?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Growing up we went all the time because I grew up in Athens, Georgia. I mean an hour and a half from August. So we went,
Speaker 2:Went to uga a
Speaker 3:I did, I played golf at Georgia. And
Speaker 2:Did you really?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my God . That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah,
Speaker 2:I had a, I had a roommate in college who was like, parents met at UGA. Right. So like I , they're like nice . Oh , oga , oga , oga . And I was like, what's uga ? But I mean, that was back then. I know what UGA is now. Like , oh , the dog , the Bulldog. Oh , the
Speaker 3:Best dude . I mean ,
Speaker 2:Tell story of like, his parents like met, they were like in some, he was in a fraternity and he was in a sorority. And the way they met is they were tied to a tree together for some kind of like, hazing. What it <laugh> . That was the story. I was like, that's a weird story. I ,
Speaker 3:That's a great story. That sounds very Athens. I like it.
Speaker 2:So you grew up in Georgia, so I always ask this question, but it's gonna be a dumb question. Obviously you're a golf pro, right? I always ask, oh, you're a pro. And then people are like, no, I'm not a pro, I'm a whatever handicap. So like, have you always, like, when did you start playing golf?
Speaker 3:I mean, I had a , like a plastic club in my hand from the time I could walk. Uh , my dad was a golf pro down in St . Simon's. Uh, when he got outta college. My grandfather was a really good player. And so I've always been around golf, but I wanted , growing up in Atlanta in the early nineties, I wanted to play for the Braves baseball . I wanted to be a pitcher. Yeah . Like I wanted to be Tom Gln. 'cause I do everything left-handed except for play golf and pack a dip can. Those are the two things I do. Right-hand <laugh> , and that's about it. So everything else left-handed. So I wore , I wore number 47 for Tom Gln, like wanted to be that guy. I mean, like, that's what I've always wanted to do. But I'm five foot eight and didn't throw very hard. So golf was probably the better choice. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Did you, so did you like get lessons as a kid and like the whole nine yards? Or when did you really start taking golf seriously?
Speaker 3:Uh, I really probably didn't start taking it seriously till I was, I don't know , eighth, ninth grade. Oh really ? Like for real through it ? Yeah. Uh , I mean,
Speaker 2:Not like, you probably played your dad. You were probably like, okay. Yeah , but like, I
Speaker 3:Mean like we played, I was always Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um ,
Speaker 3:But I didn't start playing like a lot of tournaments. Like I'd play in little local nine hole tournaments when I was 11, 12, right around there.
Speaker 2:That'd fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean it was more just, we gotta go out to the golf course and eat chicken fingers and go to the pool was more what it was about then. And then when I was like at eighth grade, I started like, okay, I could probably be pretty good at this. And so I went.
Speaker 2:Is that when you, like in
Speaker 3:On that
Speaker 2:Immensely, did you do a switch in your head like, okay, I'm not gonna do baseball. Or were you still doing baseball and golf?
Speaker 3:I mean, I still did baseball. I didn't play baseball league league . No . Yeah. I mean, I didn't play in high school. Um, our team in high school is just ridiculously good. Um, and they still are. Yeah, I mean like, there's a bunch of guys, I mean out of the, one of the high schools there that, I mean, they're probably one of the top high schools in Georgia now. And it's a not that big of a school, but they
Speaker 2:Jazz . Well , like my high school is the same way. Like, like in I was in Mesa when I grew up, but like, like, I mean like Che Revy went to my high school, like, you
Speaker 3:Know . Oh, chess
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah. Crazy. Like it is a beauty.
Speaker 3:We're the same . We're
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 3:Not play college golf against each other
Speaker 2:Really? I remember, like, I worked, when I first got outta college, I worked , uh, Amer West Airlines and his dad was a pilot. Right. His dad was a senior check airman, like, like way, way, way up there the thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I like hated my job. I hated him with passion . And I was like right outta college. And I used to go into his office every day. He was a completely different department, but I knew him because of my neighborhood. And I like went and talked to him every single day, like true story. And he'd be like telling me all about Che and like, 'cause like he was like, that's when he made it to the masters . I think he made the Masters as a freshman at ASUI think he made it because he won the amateur or something. Yeah. And it was like, what? Like I was so crazy back then. But he's a good dude, man. That's a good family. They're really cool. Yeah. Um, as a Taylor and I were talking about earlier in the show, like, like tell tell the, tell him the story about Jim Furich . Like this is a crazy story.
Speaker 3:Yeah . <laugh> So
Speaker 2:About normal people. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We were just talking about just regular guys. Right. So I was a freshman at Georgia and it was my first first event ever. I got in and I qualified and , and we were playing an event at Sawgrass Country Club and went down a day early and played TPC and we got done playing and we were just kind of play practicing around and stuff, just kinda messing around. And we ran into Jim Furic on the range on from the range on the way to the parking lot. I can't remember exactly, but, you know, we started talking to him and by the time we left, you know, all of us got in the vans or in the vans and we were going to the hotel and all was like, God , he's such cool guy. Like just a regular dude, you know, just he's a regular guy. And our coaches are like, yeah, they're all just regular guy. They're just like you. They just happen to be really good at golf. Like they're really good, but they're just regular guys. Like Jim was, I mean, he was probably on his way home to go have dinner with the family and you know, put his kids to bed. Yeah .
Speaker 2:It's a little crazy about golf. That's what I love about doing this podcast is like, people can really see these as normal people. They're like cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah .
Speaker 2:You know, and like, I don't know , like have a better understanding of like, you get past the veil, right. And you just see that they're just sure normal dudes doing their thing. And so, all right . So you grew up in Georgia and you got really good , um, you started getting lessons. Like , did your dad like help? Did he see that you had a passion for the game or you're just like, I want this ?
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, yeah, he's probably saw that I had a passion. He, so he is a really good player. He was super hands off , like super hands off .
Speaker 2:Do wanna mess you up or what?
Speaker 3:He just didn't want to . He was like, I'm not gonna be that parent.
Speaker 2:He loved .
Speaker 3:He was , he was like, I always just wanna be dad. Like I just wanna be dad,
Speaker 2:I wanna play with you . Hang out .
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean like, he was like, I wanna more like, hey, if you wanna talk about your round, we can talk about your round, but I'm not gonna be the guy that's like, alright , I can't believe on 13 you did this, blah, blah , blah . He is like, no. He was like, just don't act like an. He was like, that's all I ask . Just don't make me look bad. I'm like, you got it. Yes sir. Um , yeah .
Speaker 2:But
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, like when I wanted to start taking lessons, I , I did from a guy in Atlanta who's who was really good, George Kellen Hoffer , I learned a lot. He was way ahead of his time with video and all these kind of things. Like he used to work with Duval when he was in college and Charlie Howell. Oh
Speaker 2:Wow .
Speaker 3:A bunch of guys , uh, there at his, I mean it was a terrible drive . It was a 10 cup driving range and <laugh> . But he had all this video . It was crazy. I've still got the VHS tape , you know, we did that. And then when I was , uh, when I was in college, I actually worked with a guy that who played for a while and he's now a , uh, a country music guy. His name's Colt Ford. Um, but I worked with him and he's a squares guy too. <laugh> , um, but Colt is he, I started working with him. I worked with him all through college and then he went back into music and started making music. So I tell him all the time, it's his fault. I didn't make it professionally. 'cause I was playing my best golf when I was working with him. And then he decided to go live his dream and I gotta play bad golf and donate money on the mini tours <laugh>. But, but he is now, it's funny. Now it's come full circle. I'm his swing coach. Uh, so it's pretty
Speaker 2:Really Oh ,
Speaker 3:That's crazy. It's awesome. Does
Speaker 2:He live in Georgia or you just do it online?
Speaker 3:Uh , so he comes back
Speaker 2:To Nashville.
Speaker 3:His parents still live in Athens, but he lives out in Oklahoma. Splits time between Tulsa and Nashville.
Speaker 2:That's cool. So like, it's coming that place too right now. Right. Because my son who's like 10 is really good at baseball, but he's getting burned out. Mm-Hmm . Like , you know, doing travel and all that crap like that. And I , I don't wanna burn him out. Right . It's
Speaker 3:Hard. Yeah . You
Speaker 2:Know , do do whatever you want, man. Like I'm not gonna push you. And so then he got lessons. He is little, like nothing crazy, you know, and he always liked to play. And then like in the last, like seriously the last four or five months, like all he wants to do is play golf and I don't push it. Right . He's just like, I'm go play golf. I'm gonna go play this little crappy nine hole. And he is like totally in love with the game. Like completely in love with the game. All he wants to . That's
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 2:And my dad gave him some old hybrid and like, next thing I know, he's like in the backyard just swinging this hybrid by himself. And I was like, what's going on? Right.
Speaker 3:That's alright .
Speaker 2:And so like, I was like, this is cool. So then I actually talked to my, one of my instructor friends and I was like, he's really good juniors. And I was like, Hey, would you be willing to work with him ? Like, I'll, I'm not gonna say nothing. And he's like, yeah, he's a lot of kids that go all the way. And I was like, he's like, yeah, I'll do that. I'm like, I'm like, do you wanna do like together? Like, we have lessons together, like me and him and you. And he is like, no, I want me and him and I wanna focus on his game. And like, he's like, but honestly man, he is like, you're not gonna , he'll make more gains out playing golf with you than he will with me. He'll just learn how to do it the right way. And I'm like, perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah .
Speaker 2:My , I had a dad that would like scream at me from across the fairway, like keep my head down Right. And whatever. So I'm not gonna do it with my kid. But yeah ,
Speaker 3:I'm ,
Speaker 2:It's, it's interesting 'cause at that age it's like, I don't know , like it's cool to see passion. I don't know. Right . In the game. Like
Speaker 3:A hundred percent .
Speaker 2:You know , you just say when you , I feel like you see passion as you get older as a kid or as an adult. Yeah . Oh , I really love this game. But now with , I don't know , I'm excited. I'm like, oh , this is cool. Like , that's
Speaker 3:Cool.
Speaker 2:You have a better chance of going this way than you do going baseball, dude. Like basically the hardest sports to get in. So it's like, I don't know , I think it's cool .
Speaker 3:I'm gonna
Speaker 2:Be earl on baseball . So then you What's that?
Speaker 3:I said, I'm gonna be Earl Woods on baseball with my little boy.
Speaker 2:Are you going to you like ,
Speaker 3:No, I'm not gonna really be .
Speaker 2:How old's your son?
Speaker 3:He's five <laugh>. Oh, we got time , bro. No , you can do tee-ball .
Speaker 2:Have you had t-ball yet or no? Oh
Speaker 3:Yeah, I coached his T-ball team this past year. Did you guys
Speaker 2:Go the way , did you get the, the ribbon ? Oh
Speaker 3:No. Well, we won every game, but it's because there are no outs and we had more people on our team, so we scored more runs <laugh>. So we , we were undefeated.
Speaker 2:I did see , I did the same freaking thing. It's like every kid gets the bat. And regardless, I got yelled at during t-ball because like it was t-ball and you're still a tee . And I'm like, these kids are not gonna be playing t-ball next year. They didn't know to hit a ball. So like the first game or two, like we did t-ball. And after that I was like, no, I'm pitching to you like I'm gonna do on my one knee. I'm gonna like blob it and whatever. And the other coaches started getting all off and like told the league. Oh . And I was like, dude, you're not helping 'em . And then by the end of the league , right by the end of the season, all the coaches were doing, I'm like, yeah , no. Duh. That's
Speaker 3:What , that's what we do in our, they get, they get three tries. You get three swings. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Get too ,
Speaker 3:You get , and then you put on the tee and rip it. Right. There
Speaker 2:We go. I mean it takes, it's like any much longer than them hitting the fricking tee , you know? And it's like, who cares? Like, but it's cool because they actually see progression, right? Like two months later is hit balls. Not like, oh , half the tee . I mean it's like next .
Speaker 3:And then one of those kids that, that first time one of those kids hits it when you pitch it to 'em , it's a freak out . They're so excited. They're like, oh my gosh . Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah . They're like, so are you though, because you're like hit in the face because you're like three feet away . <laugh> like, I got hit so many times, I didn't care. I was
Speaker 3:Happy. Yes .
Speaker 2:What's crazy is like, my son was on his team for a long time and he went back to Little league this last season and then on this team was one of the kids we get t-ball with who was really good too. So it's like kind of cool to see like, you know, five, six years later it's like they're still good. Like my son was really good. Like, I'm not just saying that. Like he was just, Mike son was like throwing balls in the air by himself and like hitting it when he was like two, like he was so into , into baseball.
Speaker 3:I wish you could see my backyard right now. My son back .
Speaker 2:Is it a baseball like area ?
Speaker 3:He's got a pitch back out there like a little net.
Speaker 2:Really? A five. Holy
Speaker 3:Crap. Yeah, he sits out there all day. I was like, well, this way don't stand out there in the heat. Like he can throw it to himself. We're fine <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:He loves it , he'll be fine . Like , see, like that's awesome. Like he wants it. Like that's the Yeah, I dunno . That's one thing I find learned with parenting is like, don't force anything. Like if a kid wants to do something, let him do it, you know? No , you're not gonna be a professional basketball player like five two . Like, it'll never happen. Right.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:Like, yeah ,
Speaker 3:If
Speaker 2:You wanna go play, go play YMCA. It's all good. Don't worry about it . Yeah .
Speaker 3:Just , no , my bloodline's not gonna be a football player or , or basketball player. We're , we're short and small and slow. It's not gonna happen. <laugh>
Speaker 2:If you want pizzas, okay, that's my bloodline. Or like some spaghetti, you know, like we can help you out there. But other than that
Speaker 3:I can teach him the ways of bourbon when he gets older. Like, I'm getting that . I'm looking
Speaker 2:Drinking. Yeah . But like not to buy alcohol. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Sitting at the pool. I'm really good at it. Like, I'm very good <laugh>.
Speaker 2:So. All right . So then you, how'd you get, all right , so like, did you start winning tournaments in high school? Or what happened? Like, like how'd you get like to go play division one golf? Like that's a big
Speaker 3:Rc . Yeah , I mean, I , I'm sure I did. I , it's funny, I was telling somebody this the other day, I don't really enjoy winning that much, so I don't remember much of those. I hate losing with a passion. Like, I hate losing, I hate it so much. Um, I remember more of those than I do the wins . It's maybe , maybe that's why I'm not playing golf professionally, but , um, but it always, like , that was what always pushed me, right? Like, I hate , I always wanted to be like, don't make the same stupid mistakes and, you know, things like that. But, you know, I I , I was good. I I wasn't a world beater by any stretch. I was good. Um, you know, I had offers to play different places, but when I got offered by Georgia, I , I was a walk-on like , walk-on, at Georgia. I had scholarship opportunities, but in golf, big scholarship's, a half scholarship. Um, but in Georgia we have the , the Hope scholarship, which the lottery covers everything except for room and board. And I was, I was a pretty smart kid. I , I'd made real good grades. So I had academic scholarship too. So I was like, well, in Georgia, I'm on a full ride and I can be on one of the best teams in the country. I was like, let's go <laugh>. And it was in my backyard. Exactly right. I mean, I've been around it for forever. So I was like, I mean, I'm , I'm in with that. And then I left , uh, midway through my junior year. Uh,
Speaker 2:Why, what made you go to
Speaker 3:We were just , we were really good. I mean, we were really good. All five guys. My junior year, that was the year they won NCAAs at Caves Valley in 2005. Um, all five guys were all Americans. And we were only graduating one. And Brian Harmon , Adam Mitchell, and I think Hudson Swafford were coming in the next year. And so I was like, you know, I was kind of the sixth guy anyways. And we had one qualifier that year and we didn't have another one 'cause they were that good. Um, and I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna get any better just sitting at home. I was like, I hate sitting at home while they're at an event, you know , doing these things. I was like, I gotta go somewhere where I can play. And NC State had recruited me in high school and I had always had a good relationship with their head coach. And then their assistant at the time played golf at Georgia, graduated the year before I started. And so I'd known him, I had a relationship with those guys. So I transferred up there midway through the year and spent my last year and a half at NC State.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. I don't think people realize that too, of the college golf. Like there's only so many players that can play in a tournament, right? Per school.
Speaker 3:Most, yeah. I mean, you've only got five guys that travel. You've usually got somewhere between eight and 12 on the team and you've only got four and a half scholarships, so you gotta figure it out. Gotta do math .
Speaker 2:I didn't realize any of that. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Like baseball's the worst with scholarships. It's hard. Baseball's hard. So
Speaker 2:I mean, really, it's like if you're not in that top five, it's like you don't get to play. Yeah . You to practice. But like, yeah , it's like, okay, well that , that's not, how's that for , I
Speaker 3:Mean , you find other, you find other tournaments to play in individual type events, but that wasn't why I wanted to play golf in college. I wasn't gonna play .
Speaker 2:Yeah , because you don't need like a , you don't , you don't , you weren't looking to be like, oh, I was part of that team, you know, look how cool I was. It's like, no, I want to be playing. Like that's why I'm here. Not I want to . It's not a team sport. Golf's not a team sport. Sorry. Nope .
Speaker 3:It's
Speaker 2:Not. Nope .
Speaker 3:You
Speaker 2:Know ,
Speaker 3:It's individuals that add up to a team. Score
Speaker 2:A team. Yeah, exactly. So it's like a little bit different. So it's not like, oh, we win. It's like, well, kind of . But really it's like, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:The teams that win are the teams that, you know, everybody, all five guys are trying to win that tournament. They're trying to beat the hell out of each other other , because if you're all
Speaker 2:Trying for
Speaker 3:That win , they
Speaker 2:Beat each other . They win. Yeah , exactly .
Speaker 3:You're all track for that win . You're gonna be pretty good.
Speaker 2:It's only one winner involved .
Speaker 3:Like Oklahoma State Spin . I mean, Oklahoma State, a couple years ago when like Holin and those guys were on the team, they could've fielded two teams that would've made match play . They were that good. Like it , they were crazy. Their nine guy would've played one or two at any other school almost.
Speaker 2:So what do you do? What do you think you do if you're like a teenager and you wanna play like college golf , like, and you're good, but like, do you think it's a kind of a risk then? I guess if you go to like one of those like powerhouse schools , like you might not get to play. Like yeah, you're part of that system, but you might not get the opportunity.
Speaker 3:It's a risk for sure. I wouldn't have changed anything. I still would do it. No, no. I mean, those guys are still my boys. Um, I learned a ton. I mean, heck, the guys on my team, like Kiz Kiz was on the team. We came in the same year. Uh , crazy. Then , then you've got Chris, Kurt , Brenda , Todd, the year behind us the next year was who's the next year ?
Speaker 2:It's amazing.
Speaker 3:I mean, then you've got Harmon Hudson Swafford , and then next year was Harris English.
Speaker 2:If you think about it, it's like, it's like top echelon of like college players, right? Like, it's so like cool players. It's not, this isn't a joke, you know, it's not like, no , you played football in college and it's like you have like a 1% chance of making the NFL , right? It's a , it's like, it know, it's like if you're winning tournaments or you're winning the NCAA tournament and it's like you're pretty much gonna , I mean, got a chance. What , I guess what's, what happens? So lemme ask this because I'm, I'm , I'm not trying to sound dumb. I don't know how this process works. So like, okay, let's say you play college golf, which you did, obviously. And then what happens? Like, so you went to NC State and you played NC State, you finished out your career there in college. And then what do you do when you get outta college? If you're a , if you're a professional golfer who's really good, what do you do next? I, I know you tri go with a tour, obviously, but how does that process work?
Speaker 3:Well, I was a professional golfer, but apparently I wasn't really good. Um, <laugh> I donated a lot, but you know, like, it's literally like now it's different with the PGA tour, you and all that stuff where you're getting guys that right, when they graduate, they've got Korn Ferry status. Or now that you're gonna have a guy that has PGA tour status or PGA Tour Canada, PGA tour Latin America. There wasn't any of that when we were in college. It was like, you graduated in May. I mean, unless you were the like, top, top guys, like, I mean big time like , uh, Ryan Moore or uh , DJ Trahan , those type guys, when they came out, they were getting sponsors exemptions to big tour events. 'cause they had won everything under the sun. Um , but unless you were those guys, you're probably playing a mini tour. Like the, when I was playing, it was the e golf tour over here in the, in the southeast. And then you got the, it was the Adams tour and the gateway tour. Like you had all these tours where you're basically, there's all these tours
Speaker 2:Trying to , well you have to pay to play in it, right? Like percent
Speaker 3:1200 ,
Speaker 2:Three per 1500
Speaker 3:Per tournament, plus your hotel and
Speaker 2:Plus flying there or driving there. You're in
Speaker 3:The whole whatever , 1500 to two grand a week and you on a mini tour, you gotta finish top 10 to break e , top 15 to break even.
Speaker 2:Holy crap.
Speaker 3:I mean it's, the mini tours are more, it's
Speaker 2:Hard,
Speaker 3:Like , oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's
Speaker 2:Hard .
Speaker 3:I mean it's a , it's , it's more about getting you ready for Q School . It's what they are. It's not a way to make money. Um , back then you could make more money than you could now in the mini tours , um, there were guys that made a lot. 'cause we had 200 guys ponying up 12 to 1500 bucks of an event and it only cut to 60. So you had 140 guys going home. I mean, like a couple events a year . I mean, I wanna say four or five events a year. They had 50,000 in the first place. I mean , you get one of those, you pay for your year,
Speaker 2:Paid for your whole year, you're
Speaker 3:Good to go. Yeah , exactly.
Speaker 2:It's then
Speaker 3:Everything else is profit, then you're good to go. Um, and it's not quite like that now. It's not, there's not quite as much money in it now because there's APGA tour, Latin America, PG Tour Canada. I mean, there's a Canadian tour always, but they weren't through the PGA. Um, and so that changed things with mini tour stuff. But you know, these big time kids now, they're gonna have Korn Ferry, PJ tour status, Latin America, whatever it might be. They're gonna have some type of status now. Everybody else, I mean, you gotta scratch and claw, try and find somebody to give you money to go , uh, to go give it a shot
Speaker 2:Sponsor, right? Like the Yeah . You know , you're working, which is impossible. You're trying to , it's almost, it seems like it's a hard road, right? Mm-Hmm . Because it's almost like you have to win in the first six months or you're hosed or have a sponsor. Yeah .
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah . I mean, like, I've saved up for a whole year , year . I was a bartender in Athens, which was a really fun job. Um, but <laugh> , but I saved up for a whole year, lived with my parents, didn't play in anything. I just practiced, saved up for a year. And I was like, look, this is my money that I got. This is what I got. We're gonna see how long it lasts. And I mean, 'cause it was right after 2008 with all the housing money .
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And like when I graduated college, I was a , I had a , a degree in financial planning and consumer economics. Oh Jesus . And that was , so this is Lehman brother . There was like no jobs Madoff and the real estate market went .
Speaker 2:Yeah . So
Speaker 3:I was like, well , I , there's no jobs . Try and play golf. I might as well try and play. Um, so we, I , you know, I saved up and I tried it and didn't work out, which is fine. I , you know, I <crosstalk> .
Speaker 2:So how long, so you saved up, you tried. So how long did you do mini tour stuff? Like a year or two? About
Speaker 3:A year and a half. Almost two years . You
Speaker 2:Got burned out. Was it just
Speaker 3:No, I ran outta money <laugh>. I , and I was like , I , I always wanted to do it with my money. And it was more that it wasn't just that I ran outta money. Uh , that's the easy answer. But it was more that I had a stretch my last, last time playing golf full-time professionally. I played in events here and there since then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But when it was my only job, I , uh, I had five, four or five straight events where I think my worst score was 70 or 71. And I only made two cuts.
Speaker 2:Oh my God.
Speaker 3:And I felt like I was playing , like, for me, like, I mean, I felt like I look, I'm playing really good golf. Like I felt really good about my golf and I'm 10 shots behind the guys leading every week and I'm missing the cut. And I was like, you know what, maybe you're not good enough. I mean, like, it's okay. Um, and it sucked. I mean, I still remember the last tournament I played full time . I , I missed a putt on the last hole then that was like seven under through two rounds and missed the cut and <laugh> . I remember going to the car and I broke my putter in the trunk of my car. I just slammed it in the trunk of my car, like just put it in the thing and just, I was like, I'm out and <laugh> . But you know, right after that I ended up going to caddy for one of my guys who's one of my travel buddies that we, we traveled together, room together every week. I caddy for him. And he ended up making all the way to final stage ofq school . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And so then he had a job the next year. So I caddied on the Korn Ferry the next year. And, you know, but that was , he can't make money doing that either. But , um, you know, that kind of led me down to I really like golf. I mean, like, I wanted to do something in golf.
Speaker 2:You love it. Yeah . You're trying to figure out like where do you fit?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, like , I had to do something and then I was a head pro up in the north Georgia Mountains for a summer. Shout out to all the golf professionals that sit in a pro shop all day. 'cause this guy can't do that. Um, I did it for a while and I was like, I will get out of this business. I'll find a way to sell insurance. Do something. I cannot do this, be in the shop is 75, 80 hours a week. I was like, I'm out.
Speaker 2:Can't do it . Yeah. And then that's the thing too , I have a buddy who's a golf pro and he's like, it sucks dude. He's like, you know, I mean, you know , they , oh , you're the GM or whatever we call some dumb titles, not gm, but whatever he is. But like, essentially he's working 80 hours a week Yeah . For minimum wage. And then Yep . He makes his money on teaching his students. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> when he can fit them in, when like doing inventory right . And doing , getting their first thing in the morning. You gotta get your
Speaker 3:P and i and all this stuff. I'm like, no .
Speaker 2:And he has to drive like cross town every day to the golf course. I'm like, what a terrible, terrible, terrible. Like what's, what's the upside? Right? Like, oh, you know, someday I'm going to go to the next. Like, I don't know . I think it's hard, dude. Like I don't think people realize that. That's super hard. That's
Speaker 3:A hard job. That's , it's , I mean it's , it's hard to find people to work now in the assistant pro gig, it's just hard 'cause it's not , there's no money. Um , like
Speaker 2:Mean more money being a bag boy or a walk , you know , the end of for sure you can make more
Speaker 3:A cat at a golf course. They have a caddy program. You'd make more than the assistant than the first assistant would. No doubt. And I mean it's, that's, that's kind of what led me to what I do now. I was looking like, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2:What year was this when you were like doing 2011? So you were just like, okay, this is, I don't wanna do this forever, right? Mm-Hmm . I don't wanna do caddying. This is unless you get lucky.
Speaker 3:No , he had made a made to where I'd probably be cadding still.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Then you'd be like , oh, making good money. It's worth the risk. Right? Yeah . It's like,
Speaker 3:It's
Speaker 2:Like it's all it is . You know, you get your percent
Speaker 3:And I was 25 and single <laugh> , or , well, I mean, I had a girlfriend, but we didn't have kids, you know, like now my wife, I wasn't single, but you know, we didn't have kids. I was 25 .
Speaker 2:<crosstalk> , they're crossroad in your life, you know, 25, 26. Like, what am I gonna, what am I doing here? Right? Yeah . Am I gonna grow up or am I gonna like No, I , I totally get that. So then how, like, what did, what did you realize like, hey, maybe I can teach, like, and how'd you get hooked up with Jim and everybody?
Speaker 3:So I grew up playing golf with both of Jim's sons, John and Matt. Um, are you serious? Yeah, we're all about the same. Because I mean, in all these national terms , you end up seeing all the same guys. Um, and John played at Oklahoma State and TCU and Matt played at Wake Forest. Like I knew who were , I
Speaker 2:Like Jim McLean , everybody in case you don't know. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Jim Cleen . Um , and I remember, you know, like I always played in the Doral , Publix, and this is when Jim had a school at Doral and his school is right by number 10 of the blue monster. 10 11, and then 12 T comes right behind the school. So he'd always kinda like pop out and watch. I remember I was playing with John one one year with actually John and David Ledbetter's son at the same time. It's crazy <laugh>. But like, you see just Mr. McLean and Mr. Ledbetter walking down the fairway and you're like, these are like the guys I see on golfs every week. Legend . They're
Speaker 2:Legends.
Speaker 3:And I just remember that. Right. So I knew he had golf schools and I know how respected he is in the golf industry and uh , especially as far as teaching teachers. Um, if you look at a top 100 list or the best young teachers list, like if we were to sit down and go through it more than half, or Jim McLean people at some point in their lives . It's crazy. It's crazy. Like it's nuts how big his , I mean, he makes Nick Saban's coaching tree look tiny , um, <laugh> . It's just, I mean, it's crazy. And he's really good at it. And I, I remember looking at it, I saw a post on like pga.com or something that he was looking to hire instructors. And I was like, well, I'll reach out. And ended up, I didn't really, I didn't love the thought of going to Miami. It's just not my speed. It's not my, not my jam. Um , I
Speaker 2:Can't see why.
Speaker 3:Yeah . <laugh> . It's not my jam. Um , but then they had an opening in Fort Worth, Texas, and I was like, that's more my speed. That's cool. Um , and it was then they had a junior academy tied to it , a very boutique version of like AIMG school. We had 15 to 20 kids every year. And I was like, that I could really get in . Like I, that was my favorite thing of all the stuff I did out there was working with our kids that were there boarding with us. I was, the last couple years I was there, I was in charge of all the OnCourse instruction and things like that. It was like, so the last
Speaker 2:<crosstalk> , you loved it. You fell in love. You were like, oh, I love this . It was ,
Speaker 3:It was amazing. And I gotta go with them to tournaments. And I ended up going to all these US girls juniors, the US Junior, the US Am because of that. I got a caddy in the US Open with one of the guys. Like, I mean, it's really, really cool. Um ,
Speaker 2:You guys bonds these kids too? 'cause like they just, yeah. Like , and
Speaker 3:Now they're
Speaker 2:In this form for middle years too, where you're just like, they listen to you and they look up to you and they look , you know, it's like,
Speaker 3:And now I , I'm all that's cool because they're all getting married and they're having kids and stuff. I'm like, oh . And
Speaker 2:They're , oh, come my wedding. And you're like, like , oh ,
Speaker 3:They're like sending me baby shower things. I'm like, oh my gosh , that's not right. That's cool . <laugh> , they can't be that long ago. Um , but you know, like that was once I got there and the guy guys that I have out there, I mean like two of 'em to this day are still my biggest mentors in golf. Joey Wartenberg , Justin Poynter , those two guys , like, I mean they still, they crush it out there. Justin works with a ton, a ton of, ton of girls in LPGA Symetra. Wow . A bunch of, you know, junior golfers. He's helped groom a ton. Joey's the same thing. I mean, he is got some really, really great players. And, you know, being around them, seeing how much they love teaching and how good they were at it. <laugh> you know, if I didn't learn something, I I was an idiot. Like, I , I had all the opportunities and it, it's
Speaker 2:Like you were , you were at the right place too . Like to just absorb all
Speaker 3:That. And we were
Speaker 2:All knowledge and , and we were all fairly
Speaker 3:Young. I mean fairly young. Uh, Justin's the oldest , uh, I don't wanna say how old he is. I can't remember. I don't want to you to feel old Justin. Um, but when I got out there, I mean he was like 42, 43 and he was the old guy
Speaker 2:Like your age.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right. I mean he was the old guy and I was 26, 27. Oh,
Speaker 2:I know. Do hate that feeling.
Speaker 3:Right. And so we were all in there and I still remember the first couple years we were there, we had to wear pants in the middle of the summer there. 'cause he is like, look, y'all are also young .
Speaker 2:Oh God , I
Speaker 3:Need you to look more professional. And then as we got, you know, a little bit more, a little older and our faces look like we've been beat up in the sun, he is like, well I guess y'all don't have to wear pants anymore. Um , <laugh> . But you know, that was, it was the coolest. I we still will sit there and text
Speaker 2:It in Dallas. Where was this at Dallas.
Speaker 3:We were in, we were actually in Arlington. So we were right near Cowboy Stadium. Like we were right there. We were halfway between, I lived in Dallas. A lot of them lived in Fort Worth. But um , that was
Speaker 2:The cool stadium .
Speaker 3:It was awesome . It , it was, I had a blast. If we, my wife and I really, the only reason we moved back this way was 'cause we had our, our first kid and we wanted to be closer to camp Grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 3:I wanted free help <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Exactly . Free daycare.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well my parents live a mile from my house. There's a reason for that. Like Yeah .
Speaker 3:My, my mother-in-law lives , lives like two miles.
Speaker 2:Yeah . Yeah. It's like, it makes sense, right? Because daycare's expensive. Like two
Speaker 3:Grand a month . Very . Yeah .
Speaker 2:That's so crazy. So then how long were you there teaching in Dallas?
Speaker 3:I was there for eight years.
Speaker 2:So that's 2019 .
Speaker 3:Yeah. I was there till , uh, Memorial Day weekend 2019. I still remember. 'cause that's when we drove the U-Haul this way back this way . And the last six months I was there starting in January. I was splitting time between here at Reynolds and there. And it was more that we knew Jim was selling the facility. So all of us were kind of, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna go
Speaker 2:About this? Yeah . He's , yeah . We're not sticking around.
Speaker 3:We we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do. And I had an offer from a guy here, I worked for him in high school at one of the golf courses. Um, and he's now our director of a director of the Kingdom at Reynolds. And he called me and he was like, Hey look, I know you're priced to looking at moving back to Georgia. He is like, here's your interview. You have the job if you want it, just let me know. I was like, okay. Um, I was like ,
Speaker 2:<crosstalk> . And that's the one thing I don't think people realize either. At least . I mean, I didn't because I'm an outsider, but like golf, the golf world is like teeny, teeny tiny. Oh , it's super tiny. It's tiny. Like everybody knows each other. Your reputation precedes you. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> be a good dude. Don't be a dba. Right . And you say what you're gonna do, you go do it and whatever. And that's why, I mean, for me, that's why we grew so fa so fast because that's just how I am. Yeah . And then I didn't realize that like, oh hey, like I'll introduce you to this guy. I obviously to that guy like, 'cause you just wanna like help people that are cool and like
Speaker 3:Are nice . Yeah . It's a very small fraternity. It's very small
Speaker 2:And you somebody off
Speaker 3:Like everyone gonna
Speaker 2:Know . Yeah. You're done
Speaker 3:Immediately.
Speaker 2:I'll I could . Yeah. For reals. Like
Speaker 3:Immediately, which
Speaker 2:Is cool. I like that. So I mean, I think like, I don't know , that's, I don't, golf's so small, dude. It's ridiculous. It's ,
Speaker 3:That's why , I mean , it's , it's fun. Like I went out to uh, Colorado a few weeks ago for the US Girls Junior , not Colorado Springs with one of my clients. She made it. We were super excited. We're out there with her family. Um, and you know, we were going through the practice rounds and end up running into all these college coaches and she can't really talk to him yet 'cause she's about to be a sophomore. But I'm sitting there talking to him and you know, after the round she's like, how do you know all these people? I was like, well one, I worked at a junior academy, so we had relationships. I was like, but most of these coaches were either coaching in college when I played, they were playing in college. Like at the same time I was girls or guys or they were playing with my sister. You know, like , because my sister played through four years behind me in , in college at Central Florida and Georgia. I was like, it's not a big space. I was like, and then plus all these kids we sent to school when I was at Jim McLean . Like we had, you know, a bunch of big , uh, Bama and TCU and like all these places around the country. And I'm like, look, the coaches like , we just know each other 'cause it is that small and they all just move around to different schools. Um, I was like, it is that small. And she's like, wow. She's like, I mean it's just, she's like, you know somebody everywhere, don't you ? I was like, yeah, it , it golf. It's small <laugh> . It's very small.
Speaker 2:It's super small. Like, I just don't , I think it's so cool about it. So I mean like the way that Taylor and I met each other was through Bob at Squares. So like, 'cause Bob, Bob was on a podcast like a month ago and he started naming all these pl like all these instructors that he, you know, that Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> uses product. And I was like, I wanna talk to Taylor, I wanna talk to Jim. Like these are all people I like follow on Instagram. Right . And I'm like, that's so awesome. But like why, like why do you like square shoes?
Speaker 3:What makes it so it all came about from Cult Ford . Um , when I actually, when I left Texas, I was , uh, I was on staff with Titleist and so we got, you know, FootJoy shoes, all that kind of stuff. Yeah . When I came here , um, I wasn't on my staff deal, ran out. And so I was looking to go, you know, like, Hey, who can I get shoes from? Because Taylor made Adidas partnership wasn't a thing. You know, like, so you didn't have that, that look. So I was sitting there, I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Well Colt happened to be in my bay one day and he is like, bro, let me reach out to Bob. He's like, I got these shoes. He's like, they ain't even, they , I mean they had probably just come on of like, just come out. I don't even know if they went to the PGA show like
Speaker 2:Two years ago, like two and a half years ago.
Speaker 3:It's 2019.
Speaker 2:Oh crap. So they just came out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean like, they had just come out. Uh , yeah . And so he reached out to Bob like, Hey, can you send Taylor a pair of these things? And I got 'em. And you know, the first generation of 'em , I was like, these don't look great, but they are ridiculously comfortable. Like I could wear 'em. And I was like, I could teach in 'em all day. I could play golf and my feet didn't hurt and I felt stable. And really, like what brought me to 'em too is the laces that don't move the little state lock laces. It's fricking genius. As simple as it is , as simple as it is . I was like, I like this. And then , you know, as it's evolved in the last three years
Speaker 2:We've had that
Speaker 3:The shoe has become much better , better , better looking
Speaker 2:Better .
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah . It's better looking . But it's also like they didn't lose what the reason was. You know, like performance ,
Speaker 2:It's a performance shoe. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Square toe box . Your , your feet can sit out like this, your toes can spread out a little bit more . And that was, I mean, you know, does it make you swing faster? Maybe? I don't know. Um, I haven't tested it like that, like they have. Right. But I just know that when I wear them, they're super comfortable and I feel super stable. But I mean, and for me it's just, Hey look, they're very comfortable. Yeah. I can play golf in 'em . My feet don't hurt. And you know, and plus just like, Bob's such a good dude. I mean, he, he's so funny. He, I always tell him, I'm like, dude, you're like a living cartoon character. Like you really are. And <laugh> like, and he is just a riot. And like anytime I call him and like in a , Hey look, can you help me out with this? He's always like, Hey, I got like, let me know I got you. Got you done. And so it was one of those things like, hey, people like that. Like, and if he, likewise, if he's asking me to do something, hey, yeah man, I got you. I'll put something out for you. Whatever you need. Um, and you know, it's just, I I think it's great. And I think I really do like people gimme grief about 'em. They're like, you know, I can't believe you're wearing those shoes. I'm like, well, all right , that's fine. Well , uh, we'll just see what the scorecard looks like at the end of the day with like, my clients and stuff. They gimme a hard time. I'm like, well yeah , those, those Jordans do look cool. And I love Jordans. I wear 'em all the time. I don't wear Yeah ,
Speaker 2:You're playing basketball, bro. I didn't know where to play basketball today . Like ,
Speaker 3:I don't , I've got Jays on right now, like, but I'm not gonna play golf in 'em . That's not what they're for. <laugh> they're not even really for playing basketball at this point. They're ,
Speaker 2:They're horrible basketball shoes.
Speaker 3:Um , but you know, like it's, it's one where like, I , I think they, I think they are really good. And like I said, Bob has been unbelievable to me helping me out any way he can. And so like that loyalty stuff like that, I'm like, dude, that's a guy I'll help out if he ever needs anything. And one day he'll probably be like, Taylor , you know what? You're not that cool. You're out and that's fine. I doubt that , but I'll, I'll still wear squares. That's the crazy thing. I've told somebody the other day, I was like, even if I didn't get them for free, I would wear them. I would buy them. Like I , I know that sounds, I know. No , you believe me. But I would wear them tomorrow 100%.
Speaker 2:They work. That's a thing. Yes , they work. Yeah . I mean , that's it. I love 'em . Like I don't wear 'em go to the mall, but I wear 'em . Go play golf because I want hit the ball farther and I want to like, have my feet not hurt and all the other things. I mean that's like, you know, it helps me perform better on the course. That's, that's what it comes down to. I wanna hit , I wanna play better. Like, that's it.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna drop bombs. I just wanna get it farther . I
Speaker 2:Want , I wanna hit further and I want , I want , I don't wanna spread everywhere. That's like the two things I wanna do . Sure. Man . Go see Taylor. So then you went to the kingdom, right? What's the kingdom? In case people don't know what the kingdom is.
Speaker 3:So TaylorMade has two sites. Their , their original kingdom is out in Oceanside, Carlsbad. Um, and it was, the kingdom here was supposed to be just the East Coast version. So PGA tour players that were out here on the east side could just come to here and it'd be easier to get to than go flying into San Diego and, and doing all that. And so that's what it was for a long time until , uh, MetLife acquired Reynolds Lake Oconee , they bought it from the Reynolds family. And when that happened, it was re , MetLife wanted to own the piece of property that Taylor made owned for the kingdom here because it was , you know, they wanna own the property. Well in that thing, they still kept the relationship with TaylorMade. So we are, the kingdom here is the only place that a retail person, just anybody off the street can go get APGA tour level kingdom level experience with their fitting. Um, so like it's the same kind of, I mean we have everything. We've got two
Speaker 2:Publicized 'cause the kingdom, right
Speaker 3:Kingdom
Speaker 2:And San Diego Kingdom , it's
Speaker 3:Got , you're gonna have to be an influencer or a tour player.
Speaker 2:Influencer or tour player or
Speaker 3:That's the only
Speaker 2:Way you gonna to in golf .
Speaker 3:Right. See
Speaker 2:I didn't know that . This is crazy. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:Um , like you can't just call up Taylor Ma and go, Hey, I wanna go to the Kingdom. You can come to ours out there. Um, just like you can't go to Oceanside for Titleist like random Joe Blow can't go there. Um, same with the Ely Callaway thing out there in , in in Carlsbad also. But it's one where like we have two retired PJ Tour trucks. The one that's out there right now is the last one before the double decker bus they have now. Um , but we have two tour trucks. One of 'em builds , uh, driver's , fairway, woods Hybrids, the other one builds Iron's. Wedges. So complete fitting now. Yeah, like, so like in a fitting, somebody will come in and get it , say they're in there for a full bag fitting, like we're going driver through putter. Well, while the driver will be the first thing we do, the fairy woods and irons and then putting and stuff like that. By the time they're done, they're starting to hit their fairway woods to get fit that driver's already built. And at the, at the, like with them , that driver's built, same with the Ferry Woods . We go down now irons, most times we order irons 'cause we just don't have enough room for inventory. Um , but we , if we do get, like we still get some Corn Ferry guys and you know, symmetric girls, LPGA girls, things like that, or like high , super high level college kids that Taylor TaylorMades taken care of for them, you know, we'll usually have something in stock that we can build. They'll have all their clubs that day. And I always tell people like the ones like a , a retail person, you'll have your clubs the next week you'll have five to six business days coming from, coming from TaylorMade . But every club that has a head cover, you're gonna leave with that day. So it's
Speaker 2:Like the real deal. It's not like, oh yeah, we're gonna ship it to you in two weeks.
Speaker 3:Oh no , I mean like you're leaving with those clubs and you know, the cool part about what we have mean like there is like it's gonna be correct 'cause our builders on there are , are tour builders. I mean like, they are legit. Like even when we get something coming in, if we get something shipped to us for a Reynolds member, we've got it on the truck, double checking everything, triple checking everything to make sure everything's correct before you send it to him .
Speaker 2:When you went to there, you , so you moved there in 19, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So you moved or to back Georgia to work there? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Now what like, 'cause like how did you grow so quickly? Because I mean you're , you know, I know like Taylor really started like doing the Taylor brand, right. And in some ways, like a lot of people don't do that. They just kind of like, I'm an instructor and no one knows who I am. I was part of this big machine or something like that. So like when did you start like doing your online instruction, your influencing on social media, your YouTube, all that. Like when did you start going through that process. So
Speaker 3:I tried a little bit when I was in Texas, so I ran the social media for our junior academy. So I had an idea of what I was doing. I mean, I still didn't really know. Yeah . I was just trying learn as I went. You , that's
Speaker 2:All you can do is learn,
Speaker 3:Fail and learn fail , right ? And so I was trying to do it, it was a way to make a little extra buck when I was out there, <laugh> . I mean, like as a teacher, I was like, yeah, sure, I'll, yeah, I'll try it ,
Speaker 2:I'll do it maybe .
Speaker 3:Um , but then like in 19, it really started to grow a lot like Covid. I mean, like, I had, I mean, didn't have a choice. Uh , I couldn't teach in person here, but I had had a relationship with the guys from Skill Us , with Baden . And, and I'd actually met him at the PGA show in 20 before everything shut down. Um, we had talked and, you know, we had talked about getting that going. And he's like, look, I think it's the future. And I mean, dang sure is. I , I teach people all over the world now, which is really cool. Um, but you know, when it happened, I was like, well, I was like, I got nothing to do, <laugh>. I can't, I can't teach people in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I
Speaker 3:Can't teach people in person. I was like, I might as well, you know, grow my social media and try and push people to my online platform that way. Like I'm , I'm gonna push my Instagram. I know that . I know kind of what's going on. And then, you know, I was working with a coach then, and I still bounce ideas off of him. Shaheen Giovanni up in Montreal and his brother Brandon. Um, and I did a mentorship thing with Shaheen. And part of that was I did some stuff with his brother Brandon, who runs all of his business side of it. And he was like, look, Taylor, we gotta, we gotta get your Instagram. 'cause my whole goal is to get to 10,000. 'cause at 10,000 then you could swipe up in a story and you could have product placement things. Now everybody can do it. But I was like, I wanna be to 10,000 so that I could put my skill thing on there and people could swipe up and go straight to my skill list . Or if I put a brand on there, I could put on there, they could use my code and go for it. Right? Um , and so that was what I told Brandon . I was like, that's my goal. He's like, all right , we gotta do X, Y, Z. And sure enough, from like we were talking before we got on here from March to June or July, we went from like 4,000 followers to 20, almost 25,000 followers. I'd be like, boom. Like , it was crazy. What crazy. And now, I mean, I just kind of maintain it now. I don't do as much with it because I am now. I'm just busy
Speaker 2:As hell.
Speaker 3:I'm really busy. I'm just really busy teaching. And I enjoy teaching more than I try to, than I enjoy putting out content. I just <laugh> . It's just, at this point, I , I would you
Speaker 2:By teaching and not putting out content, like Yeah .
Speaker 3:You know , I mean , I , it just takes so long. I mean, it just does, like during , I ,
Speaker 2:I know if you don't realize, like, to make a good reel or a good video, or a good mean ,
Speaker 3:Your hours ,
Speaker 2:Whatever it takes four .
Speaker 3:During Covid, I could shoot, I could go up somewhere and take six different shirts with me and I could shoot, you know, if I took an entire day, like where I'm just like, all right , look, I'm gonna go here. I'm gonna shoot an entire day's worth of videos. I could get, you know, a month of content in a day if I really needed to. And, but now I'm just like, my days off that I'm not, because I'm teaching from either eight to five, nine to five, eight to six every five days a week. The other two days, I want nothing to do with it. <laugh>. Like , I want , like I wanna hang out with my kids, go to the pool, you know, whatever. I don't really wanna be trying to make content on my days off. Um, 'cause like now most of my content is just swings of my, the kids I teach or the people that I teach. Different things like that, that the content's in front of me. Um, now will it, it's
Speaker 2:Funny, it's so funny to like, have this conversation. 'cause like, I feel like, okay, 20 and 21 were good years for content creation and like, whatever. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And I think like, 'cause we, people weren't able to go play golf, right? No . Or like professionals, right? Like yourself. And then it's like, now it's like that balance. Like what do I do? It's like, you know, I maintain, but can I grow it? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> I gotta maintain. And I still like, I'm a husband. I'm a father too. So it's like, it's like, before you had like, well , I had no job because I wasn't able to teach .
Speaker 3:So it's like , how am I okay . Three months where I had no job.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm gonna drive people through my platform. Right? So it's like, it's like the balancing act. And I, I don't , I think it's very fascinating to like, hear from that side too. 'cause I think about that like that , like that's the hardest thing to get good content. There's a lot of bad content, but
Speaker 3:There's a lot of bad content. But yeah, I mean, good content's hard and it's hard not to like, just be super repetitive. Um, and it's, you know, like there's no new information in golf. It's not that much new information, different ways to vocalize it, you know, like there's different words, you know what I mean ? Like, there's different ways to say it. There's nothing crazy different. And I think that's why George has blew up so much. S because it's different. It's different. He's got a different vibe, different
Speaker 2:Style . I love you . Chill
Speaker 3:Dude's so smart. Like, he's so smart. And like, I respect the hell out of him. He's done unbelievable. I mean, he's huge. He's probably the biggest social media golf instructor there is. Um, as far as how he's turned it into what it is without being a YouTube guy, because he doesn't put out YouTube content. It was just I Instagram, he
Speaker 2:Get crush did . He would crush.
Speaker 3:I mean , and then he's got his membership stuff . Like he crushes it, dude. And you know, like, but he is different. He's, he's a guy that, Hey, look, he is super Callie . Like he is not gonna try and be golf, you know, buttoned up , dude. He's gonna be in his slides, bro. Yeah . You know, like, I mean, like, he's just him. He's a west guy guy. Golf chain too .
Speaker 2:That's the thing too. I feel like it's like, as new players come in, it's like, you don't have to be stuffy and weird and like, no, I don't know . No wearing khaki pants and a polo in your video and like, you know. Yeah .
Speaker 3:I think that's part of the
Speaker 2:Reason . Go . It's like, you know, you go to PG wearing , wearing khaki pants, you're like , oh yeah, those guys, all those dudes are in the PGA program, right ? Wearing
Speaker 3:Their khaki pants and their blazers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're all throwing it up. They're like , what's up man ? I'm like,
Speaker 3:I'm not APGA guy. Um , not for any reason, but I figured once I went through my stuff with Jim, there was no reason for me to do it. I was accredited.
Speaker 2:I've you learned the hard way, right? Are you learned ? I've you learned by doing everything
Speaker 3:I need. Unless I want to go be a director of instruction somewhere. And I don't wanna be that, that's not what I wanna do. I don't wanna direct , we
Speaker 2:Also learned teach , we also got a top in top, top top instructor forever. That's one of the most well respected instructors ever . <crosstalk> .
Speaker 3:Yeah . I mean, to go teach somewhere, if somebody knows I worked for gym for that long and he didn't fire me, it'd be probably pretty good <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Um , yeah . They're like , oh , you're hired. Like , you , you don't , you don't need a resume. Like ,
Speaker 3:You know . No , it's so funny. Like, like you're said , like when I walk through the PGA show, I've got on, just like, I'll have on a golf shirt or one of my T-shirts and jeans and boots or, you know, like whatever. Like I'm
Speaker 2:Yeah , exactly .
Speaker 3:Looking like a normal dude. And everybody's like, I'm watching everybody in their jackets. I'm like, yeah, I'm glad I That's not me, man. I , I can't rock that.
Speaker 2:Yeah . I had somebody, I had somebody comment on my, one of my YouTube videos and they're like, it was, I don't know , it was like a product review or something. And they're like, oh, like , swear to God. I said, this is a really good review, but you're just a typical YouTuber with your T-shirt on. Like, you should wear a polo shirt. That's literally what they said in the comment. I was like, okay , whatever. Like , cool back , I , my back was , thank you so much. And I wrote back, I'm like, I so much appreciate that. Like,
Speaker 3:Thank you . Like I ,
Speaker 2:It's like, thank you. Like thank you. It's exactly, because I'm not gonna like wear a polo. Well , actually
Speaker 3:That's probably , probably still wearing like pleated khakis though. They're probably still wearing pleats in their pants. <laugh>,
Speaker 2:Their mom bought 'em. Um , I went to a , I went to shoot content when I was at a golf course, and my buddy was like, I was wearing a T-shirt and like shorts or whatever. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna shoot content on the , on their back area. Like, not even with people. No , probably in a private course. He's like, yo, bro, you gotta like , uh, change your clothes. I'm like, are you serious? Like , I thought he was joking around and he's like, no, this is private. I'm like. It's like semi-private. I'm like, not. I'm like, come on , I'm really, he's like, no , like , for real. Remember ? I'm almost like, okay. So then like, they like didn't have my size right. So I had like double extra large pants and a double extra large sweatshirt or polo shirt. I had to shoe content. My pants are falling down. It's the ugly shirt ever . Like, it was the only shirt that was like , it was ugly . That smaller double XL though . They hat I was so, dude. I was so. I should watch those . I should send those, those videos. It's , you can see 'em .
Speaker 3:That would be funny . That would be beautiful. What , what ?
Speaker 2:I'm like, whatever, man. So like, what are you doing now in terms of con like content? Are you just like , are you just showing your, your students and like your instruction with your students? Or what are you doing with that? You
Speaker 3:Know, I don't even put that much instruction with my students. I do with some , um, but it's more like, I use it as a way to highlight, you know, mostly just the kids that I teach. Um, my 55 year old member doesn't care if I put 'em up on Instagram. He doesn't give a. Um, but like my 15, 16 year old kids, like when they make it onto the story or into the thing, they're like, Hey, that's kind of cool . Big deal. Like , I mean, like,
Speaker 2:Yeah , Hey,
Speaker 3:Taylor has a little bit of clout. He's got 24,000 followers. It's not that many, but it's more than most of them have. But <laugh> , you know, like, they're like, it's kind of cool to get on there or like, we'll play games. And like, I always tell 'em like, my favorite thing to do is the instructor wins. Like, 'cause I just, I just, I hate losing. So I just like put the instructor wins. Like if I beat 'em , we're gonna take a selfie and we're gonna sit there and I'll be like, well, it happened again. Instructor wins. And so they're like, I don't want to end up on that <laugh> . I'm like, that's Yeah,
Speaker 2:You did it fun and competitive, right? Yeah. Without making it like hard and like,
Speaker 3:Yeah, like , I love , like there's nothing replaces competition. Like that's how you're gonna learn. That's how you're gonna get better. You get your butt whooped, you go, what the hell is that person doing better than me? I gotta figure it out. Or you just roll over. And those are the ones that, hey, they might play, but they're not gonna be great. And that's okay. It's fine. Doesn't bother me. They're just not gonna be the ones that are gonna be the elite. Right. And they separate, you can play high school golf, you can have fun with golf without being, you know, like that's, yeah , totally .
Speaker 2:95%
Speaker 3:Of my business is people who aren't elite. You know, like I've got a very small sample size that are elite and , but the other one's like , Hey, I still wanna get better, but I need to have fun while I'm doing it. And so the competition side, like, I mean , it's just talking smack or, you know, we'll play, like with some of my members, Hey, we'll play for, hey, who's gonna buy the first round when we get done? Right. Just in something silly. Even if it's a chipping game or we'll play for a dollar or hey , closest to the hole for a dollar on a chip shot that they struggled with after like, we're on the golf course, I'll be like, all right , look, this is how you want to hit it. Right. And I , we will hit it All right . We'll do close to the hole for a dollar. Right. And the fun thing is like, everybody thinks that I'll get like, oh, I don't wanna lose these things. And I don't, but I don't mind putting up the one that the student won. If they beat me that did my job, you know , I've done my job. They're getting better, I'm okay with that. Now I'm gonna talk smack the whole way. If I beat 'em . Like, I'm like, that's how I am . You
Speaker 2:Want them to beat you though, that's the thing you want .
Speaker 3:I mean, I do, but I mean ,
Speaker 2:But you want them to, because
Speaker 3:I always tell I'm not gonna , I'm not gonna let you win. I , I don't, I'm not gonna , but if you beat me, great dude, that means we're moving in the right direction. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like, I think the biggest compliment to a , any kind of instructor is to have your student like win or whatever it might be. Like, I , I met , I used to be a flight instructor a long time ago, and I had a student who was a military pilot or a helicopter pilot, and I was just be so hard on him and he was like twice my age, right. And like, he wanted to get his pilot's license. And I was like, for , he was a helicopter pilot and I was , I was so hard on , so hard on him , and he was like, man, we are so hard on me. And I'm like, I'm like, 'cause you need to know this dude. And so then like, he took a check ride and he passed with flying colors. And he is like, oh , now I see why. He's like, no ,
Speaker 3:It's easy.
Speaker 2:Like now I see why you're so hard at me . I'm like , yeah, because that's , if you could pass me, that's gonna be simple. Like, that's gonna be no big deal. And like that's c average. If you could pass the test, that's AC average, but I don't want you c average , I want you a plus . Right , right. Because like, you're gonna have people in the airplane with you and it's like,
Speaker 3:C average is dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's d like you passed, but like, that's C minus . It's dangerous . Like you didn't
Speaker 3:Right .
Speaker 2:You know, and so I think it was golf the same way. Right. It's like, that's the biggest compliment's. Like, you don't wanna be ACC average player. You want me an A player, let me, let me make you an A player. But Right .
Speaker 3:And if you wanna be AC player ,
Speaker 2:You have to be elite A plus . But like, but like ,
Speaker 3:If they wanna be AC player, I'm okay with that too. It depends on how I'm wanna teach 'em . It's , it depends on how we're gonna
Speaker 2:Yeah. How invested is that person, you know , like their Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Right. How much are they gonna practice? What are they gonna do? You know, like it depends on what we're gonna do in lessons. But you know, like I've got a girl right now that, I mean, if she stays with it and doesn't get hurt, things like that. She could be, she could be pretty special. I mean, she could be very special. She's got the drive.
Speaker 2:She's the one that , that cool . You see somebody like that though? Oh . Like , you're just like, oh man, you have it. Like, what the heck? Yeah .
Speaker 3:Like she's got it. And as she grows and gets bigger and does all these , I mean, she's only 15 and, and who knows what the hell . That's the coolest thing in the world. But she's like, she's one that she'll come into the lesson, she's like, all right , look, this is what I have to do better. I'm like, you got it <laugh>. Alright . Yep . Let's go. Let's see what we gotta do.
Speaker 2:Yeah . She hang out for an hour because her dad brought her and she didn't wanna go.
Speaker 3:I mean, like, and she's got all her stats. She keeps all of her stats. She's like, look, this is what is , she's not right. Right. Now's so cool . I mean, like, and I'm like, all right , cool. That makes our my job easy. I mean, it does. And it , and it makes it fun. Like most of the time though, we're not grinding on something, we're just maintaining, making sure it's really good and then we'll do some other stuff. But, you know, it's, it's just a lot of fun. Like, I love teaching. I could talk about it all day. I love , I
Speaker 2:I So like when did you, when did you , uh, when was the first year you got nominated for the Golf Digest?
Speaker 3:Uh , I don't know . I've been nominated a few . This is the first time I ever made it. Um , really, and it's , I think ,
Speaker 2:Explain , can you explain what that is in case people don't understand?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's the best young teachers list. Um, you have to be under 40 , um, by the time, I guess the one came out in January, right? You can't be 40 yet by then. Um , and it used to be the best four , the top 40 under 40. Well there's just so many more instructors now. Like there's a lot of people doing what I do now , um, all over the country because a lot of golf instructors have learned that you can make more money doing this than sitting in a pro shop. But it's, you know, as we go through it, well we're sitting there and I got nominated for the first time, I don't know , six, seven years ago. Um, and I didn't make it. So it was like three, three issues ago. Right. Three times ago. Because it's a two year window.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that what it is ? I didn't know that . Yeah , over year .
Speaker 3:So this is like for 23, 24. Um , this is the last time I can be on that list 'cause I'll be over four . And
Speaker 2:You made it, it comes out again . Cool .
Speaker 3:I made it. I think the people at Golf Digest were just like, you know what? Geez , this poor guy's been on here too many times. He's gonna be too old next time. So we'll just put him on there. Um , <laugh> . But
Speaker 2:No , they do .
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know. But it's one where you get nominated by certain people and then I don't, that one is more of a golf digest that I don't think you've, maybe you do vote on it. I can't remember. I think the people who have been on the list before vote. I know what the top 100, the top 50 is. 'cause I vote on that one. Um, that's sent out to people who have either been on a Golf Digest list somewhere or been nominated for Golf Digest list. Like the top 50 will come out later this year. Um , and it's looking a little different this year. The top .
Speaker 2:It'll pretty cool be the top 50 instructors, not under four
Speaker 3:Top 50 instructors. And then like, they have the best in state and things like that. They'll they'll have
Speaker 2:Those. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Um, that'll all come out later this year. Year. 'cause I know voting just finished yesterday. Um, but you know, like that one, I know how that works. You, you vote and it's, you gotta get a certain amount for you to be that guy. Right. Um ,
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And this year they're changing up a little bit. It'll be really cool for a lot of people. You'll see a lot of new names on there and it'll be really, it'll be really cool. Um , I'm excited about it. But you know, this was the first time I'd ever made it and you know, but in the past it, I know how lists work. I know how they go. It's not the end all be all . Um, it's not, but it's nice to be recognized <laugh> . You know , like it's just one of those things that it's nice
Speaker 2:Validation to what you're doing with what you're doing. Yeah . Like outside of knew a third party validation,
Speaker 3:I knew I was a good instructor. I mean, I do, I know I'm a good instructor. I , I've paid my mortgage by doing this for a while now. Um, but you still want to like, Hey, somebody recognized me. It's kind of cool. And so I didn't make it two years ago and I was pretty, but I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty, I was pretty mad about it. Um, I really felt like I'd earned it and obviously I didn't. It's okay. Um, but you know, this year I actually found out I was going to Mexico for my 39th birthday. My wife and I were leaving. I went there instead of the PGA show this year. It's always during the PGA show, I'll be there next year. It'll be my 40th. So whoever's down there, we're gonna have a big party for my 40th during the PGA show. So , um,
Speaker 2:You wanna I'll go. I'll be there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Come on John . We'll get John in on it too.
Speaker 2:It'll be John Bob .
Speaker 3:It'll be a blast. Um, but you know, it's one where we were on the way to Mexico. My dad calls me, this is January 18th, couple days before my birthday, my dad calls me and he goes, Hey, congratulations. I was like, what? I , I thought he was calling me. 'cause I like, we were literally leaving the next morning at four in the morning to drive to Atlanta , go to the airport. I was like, what's he saying? Congratulations to like, I made it another year. Like everybody, everybody I know be , I'm getting close . I mean , I think everybody's over at this point. So he is like, congratulations. I was like, thanks what dad ? He was like, no, you made the best young teachers list. I was like, what? I was like, I had no idea. 'cause it hadn't come out to us yet. He is , I mean he is been Golf Digest for forever. And so they got the issue. They get on like the 15th of the month. So he'd already had the issue. I was like, no way dude. And he was like, well hold on here, I'll send you pictures. And you know, I mean he's 72
Speaker 2:So the pictures were , all,
Speaker 3:The pictures were all jacked up on there. But I saw my name . He was
Speaker 2:Like Motorola phone. I was big with big numbers .
Speaker 3:It was probably with his iPad and trying to figure Yeah . With his Android <laugh> . But you know, he sent 'em and I was like, and I sent a message to a couple of guys that I knew had nominated me. I was like, Hey look, thanks for nominating me. I found out that I made it. And they're like, how the hell do you know? I was like, they're like, we haven't gotten the email or anything. I was like, my dad just sent me, told me that I made it. They were like , how the hell does , you know , they're like, oh , it's not the digital version. I was like, oh yeah, here you go. I was like, well y'all are obviously on there, but you know, it was one night I made that, it made my trip down to Mexico a lot more fun knowing that I had made that. Um, but you know, it's deal the way I tell everybody, I'm like, it , it is cool for me. It is . But my whole thing is I wanted to bring like, okay, well people see Reynolds Lake Oconee in there. People have seen Reynolds Lake Oconee in Golf Digest for forever anyways. But you know, like, hey look, they have instruction there. They've got high level instruction there. Hey, maybe we should go check it out.
Speaker 2:Uh , people Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um , you know, we've got three greatest right ? We've got a guy who played on tour for eight years that's in there and once he gets healthy, he'll probably go back and play Champion's tour. I hope he does. Anyways, I told him I don't want him to teach much longer. I want him to go back to play <laugh> like , uh, 'cause he is just too good. Um , he deserves, you know , we've got a good group. We've got another good group now. We got everything to teach. How
Speaker 2:Many instructors are there?
Speaker 3:We have three at the kingdom.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We've only got, we only have two bays. Yeah, we have three.
Speaker 2:Oh . Um , the bays are pretty cool . I saw pictures. I was like, holy crap. That's nice . Yeah ,
Speaker 3:It's pretty sick . And we've got a badass short game facility. I
Speaker 2:Bet's like ac I have like air conditioned and like all that too .
Speaker 3:It is , it is .
Speaker 2:It's But once
Speaker 3:Open that bay, once you open that bay in Georgia in July hot , it's still
Speaker 2:95 in
Speaker 3:The bay . It's so hot . It's still hot <laugh> .
Speaker 2:It's still hot. It's just blowing air. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just, we
Speaker 2:Can't , we can't even do anything out here, dude. It's so freaking hot. It's not even fun. I was supposed to go yesterday morning to Martin's place, but
Speaker 3:Y'all have like , the entire month of July was over 110. Did I see that? It's every single day was over 110 in
Speaker 2:July. Yeah. It's like, it like 6:00 AM It's like 95. You know what I mean? So it's not even like nice out when you go play early in the morning, it's like already hot. You're like my , I usually play like a nine hole with my dad every Friday. And he's like, last three weeks he's like , you wanna go play? I'm like, no ,
Speaker 3:Not really.
Speaker 2:'cause you're , you're tired. It's like, let's do something else . Say nine . Yeah. It's like , I'd rather just like do something else. So breakfast my , don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah . Let's
Speaker 2:Get ,
Speaker 3:Get breakfast. Like just hang out for an hour
Speaker 2:Or somebody goes, Hey, you wanna play golf this weekend? I'm like, sure. What time's about 10 30 and I start laughing . I'm like, you can't get any other tea time. 10 30. Right. So like, what? We're at noon, one o'clock. We're in the , we're on to turn. You're stupid. Get outta here. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:I'm not doing that. You're like, no, I don't wanna play in 115 degrees, bro .
Speaker 2:I almost die . Like one time I played It's a dry
Speaker 3:Though . <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah , dude . Like one
Speaker 3:Time's dry too . Was it two years ago?
Speaker 2:Two years ago I was playing golf at the , um, what's the colors called? The bowl the boulders, which is really fancy and nice and cool. Just big boulder rocks. It's up in carefree ca freak . And like , uh, I was guys from Deux . What's that?
Speaker 3:Isn't that spring train isn't then spring training up near like carefree and stuff too , or baseball ?
Speaker 2:Well , yeah, there's like a , there's kind of like Carefree is like Phoenix.
Speaker 3:Like it's
Speaker 2:Super like, and like it was a hundred and I think we teed off at one o'clock. It was the stupidest thing ever, bro. And like, it was, I think by the time we were at 16, I quit playing. Like I, I , I was drinking water, but I was like, I'm , I just sat in the cart and watched these other three dudes play because we were all perfect , bigger group. And I was like, I'm done. I had the worst headache like ever. And I drive an hour back home and I was like, I took all this water, but like all the salt and stuff, like I was, I was not okay dude,
Speaker 3:Get home. You're like, oh ,
Speaker 2:Oh, I was so sick that's went to bed . I was so sick.
Speaker 3:Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Just the heat kills you. But um, so then you, you also do a lot of online training too, right?
Speaker 3:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I don't do as much now. I did for a while . I don't do a ton. I still do some You
Speaker 2:Have so many hours in a day, right? I mean, you're teaching,
Speaker 3:Right ? I mean, it's not my focus to try and do that, but I still teach some online. Um, you know, a lot of it still like now is a lot of my kids that I've taught here that are now in college.
Speaker 2:Oh , cool .
Speaker 3:And so instead of them having to come back all the time, like I already know how I'm gonna manage what they do. Like skill is the way that I use .
Speaker 2:Do you teach on
Speaker 3:The line ? Like what's that process mean ? People send in their videos and I can do all the analysis stuff. I mean it's pretty cool. It's actually pretty badass. Is it ? Um , now I don't have like my track man and stuff like that, but you can, I've watched enough golf. You
Speaker 2:Can see what happens with the shot and why
Speaker 3:The way it Yeah , I mean I know
Speaker 2:What's happening. Enough shots . Yeah.
Speaker 3:And a lot of it is, look , I have make sure that they tell me, look, this is what the ball's doing on this shot. This is what happened on that shot. So I can go, okay, these are the matchups that create those things. Hey, what's the miss ? Well I've been hitting this weak right ball. Okay. And this is the one that was the weak right ball. Okay. So let's see what's happening there so we can match it up and go. That's why this is happening for you.
Speaker 2:Um, I like your Minnesota twin shirt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you . Yeah. Big, big twins fan <laugh> as a Braves fan. Grown up big twins fan. Um ,
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding. We were in our joking around the whole time.
Speaker 3:Way aware . He's giving me about my logo on my shirt. Um, but uh , this is very Phil Mickelson have made Come on here and just be like, yeah, what's up bro? That's
Speaker 2:Taylor's logo. And we were just joking. This is my logo . We were just around, shout
Speaker 3:Out to Jared , um, Brock Company. They designed my logo for me and , and swing juice by the way, man. Golf and tacos. What's up
Speaker 2:Dude? I love , I like your logo. Your logo's sick. You should do a puff hat like that. That would look sick.
Speaker 3:It's
Speaker 2:Black hat with puff . That would be sick. We gonna get one of those . I'd buy that . It's
Speaker 3:Gonna be, it's gonna be badass. That's
Speaker 2:Sick .
Speaker 3:No, I just send you one. I'm not gonna sell 'em to anybody. I'm just gonna send them away. I don't wanna deal with the taxes. I'm just gonna buy 'em and give 'em to people. Taxes, <laugh>. I'm just gonna buy 'em and give 'em to people, man.
Speaker 2:So like
Speaker 3:You ,
Speaker 2:So like his shirt. So like you like that's from swing juice, right? I didn't even , yeah , I forgot . That's swing . They're doing polos now,
Speaker 3:Dude. They're awesome.
Speaker 2:Swing juice makes the best T-shirts, bro. I love swing juice. They're
Speaker 3:Awesome. Seriously.
Speaker 2:John Mason is the man, one
Speaker 3:Of my favorite humans on this planet. Um, love John and love being able to wear their stuff. It's really cool. Um , John ,
Speaker 2:Like John is like the og like he was literally the first one to do T-shirts in golf. Like no one else was doing T-shirts and he was doing that stuff like back in 2012, 11, like the golf and hip hop . And
Speaker 3:He actually had a swing juice too. It was actually ,
Speaker 2:That's right. That's what he told me in the show. Like , that was his related
Speaker 3:That's
Speaker 2:What we started . He had a drink, it was like, that's how we started the name. I was like, Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . He said he didn't quit doing it, but Yeah , it's crazy.
Speaker 3:It's crazy.
Speaker 2:I know all the same people. It's so weird. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:This stuff , it's
Speaker 2:A small world, right? It
Speaker 3:Is . We're talking about it's a tiny
Speaker 2:Fraternity. Yeah . It's because people, good people wanna be around good people. That's it. Right?
Speaker 3:Right. And so like we said, I don't have time to, I don't have time to associate with people I don't wanna hang out with. I got,
Speaker 2:I don't wanna do that. I'm ,
Speaker 3:I got no wife and kids. If I wanted to hang out with people I didn't want to hang out with, that would just be stupid. I'd be wasting time with 'em .
Speaker 2:Um , well, I mean you , where can people find you? Taylor?
Speaker 3:So , uh, mostly you can find me on Instagram. Uh , it's at TC instruction. Instruction. Find me on some TikTok stuff. I don't do much. It's more for me to just be mindless and watch stupid toss. Um, I've got some things on there. I really just do most of my stuff on Instagram. I I, I don't do anything on YouTube. Wasn't really my, that's not really my scene. Um ,
Speaker 2:Don't really You do .
Speaker 3:I'm not into the creation stuff. It's just not my <crosstalk> .
Speaker 2:Yeah, bro, all you need to do is like film a video of instruction of whatever and then kind of into a reel's also ,
Speaker 3:You know what's crazy is like now though, I'd have to have two different things filming because Instagram's vertical and YouTube's, I don't , YouTube's more landscape.
Speaker 2:I swear to God, dude, you don't, you just have to like, have your editor like put it in landscape mode. My honestly, you can , you can do that.
Speaker 3:You mean me <laugh> ? I can talk to you about that. <inaudible> <laugh> . You mean me my editor? Yeah . Me. I got it. I'll, I'll I'll get on him real quick. I'll be like, Hey, look dude, you need , yeah . I
Speaker 2:Mean you , yeah, yeah , yeah, yeah . Forget that. You better learn how to do this . I , I have no idea how like I I I have somebody that does it for me. 'cause I could not figure that out. I can't even figure out Photoshop, dude . I'm not even touching that.
Speaker 3:Oh, see , like I learned that by myself when I was doing the social media. I know how to do Photoshop and my wife does that too. She's an interior designer, so like she does that to Oh,
Speaker 2:You , oh , that's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah .
Speaker 2:I wish I knew that stuff. Or AI files. I wish I knew all that crap mean my life .
Speaker 3:Oh, I've been messing around with that. That stuff's kind of cool, man. That's creepy though. But it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:It's super cool actually. Like, it's really cool . The illustrator, like, you can make some cool stuff. It's very basic. Like, it's like not basic and
Speaker 3:It's not that hard to use. It's really not even my dumb.
Speaker 2:Just when you have time to learn it, right. That's the whole problem. Right . You're a dad, you're a husband, you teach probably 60 hours a week and you try to make content when you have time. But no , I get so you're on also
Speaker 3:Every once in a while ,
Speaker 2:But then also if they go to the kingdom, like how do they find it ? Do you have to request you at the kingdom or what?
Speaker 3:Uh , no, just sends it to our front office and they'll be in touch with my stuff. Um, the best one , I mean like, it's the kingdom at Reynolds, lake Oconee , uh, you can find it actually probably on either the Taylor made site or our site at Reynolds. But if you start typing into Google, the kingdom at Reynolds, it'll pop up . Can
Speaker 2:They request you? They go there. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh yeah. And I'm, I'm always there. I'm there Tuesday through Saturday, so somebody's there. Um, <laugh> I'm usually always there, but you know, it's, it's a , it's an awesome place to teach and we get people better. I mean, that's the whole job, right?
Speaker 2:That's the best part.
Speaker 3:I like keeping, getting people better and if I don't then that's my fault and we'll figure it out. I'm not gonna let it be my fault for long.
Speaker 2:I played golf like two weeks ago with a buddy of mine, or two weeks ago. It wasn't three weeks ago, and I played him for a year. I'm practicing a lot and I've been like in construction and like all this crap, right. And I, like, I was at 25 last year when I quit my job and like now I'm a 15. Right. So that's a big swing. It's
Speaker 3:A big difference. It's a big jump .
Speaker 2:Yeah. And like , I'm trying to get down to nine. Like my goal is either to a nine this year. I dunno if I can get to it , but that's my goal, right. So like, if I get down to a nine, it's
Speaker 3:A good goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good goal. If I get , I get down to a couple more strokes, that'd be cool too . So like, I played with him, I shot an 84 and he was like, what the f dude? Nice . Like a , and he's like a five or something and he shot an 82 or something. He's like, what happened? I'm like,
Speaker 3:Ah . I was like,
Speaker 2:I loved it. It was, it was so cool, dude. It was like, I was like, I don't know . That's the best part about golf, right? It's like when you're in the zone and you're hitting like greens and you're like hitting shots and they're like exactly what you wanted to do. You're like,
Speaker 3:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> .
Speaker 2:Oh , I really like this game. Not just like, oh ,
Speaker 3:I'm
Speaker 2:S spraying it. I'm gonna get a five or six. Usually
Speaker 3:That just, oh , usually that just happens on 18 and then you're like, I gotta play again Now <laugh> , it actually
Speaker 2:Happens to me the first time you're , this is really good. I'm , I gotta come back. I'm one of my first driver shot. I haven't warmed up when I hit a house. That's usually happens to me <laugh> . But um, all right , so we can find you on at the Kingdom site, right? We can find you Kingdom
Speaker 3:Website. Um ,
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 3:Can find me on skill if
Speaker 2:They wanna do online instruction though with you. Like how do they find you? Is there like a
Speaker 3:Facebook ? Um , it's on skill list . The app skill list . It's also on my bio on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Blink
Speaker 2:Tree or
Speaker 3:Something .
Speaker 2:Yeah . Um ,
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's on there. I think it's on there. I don't know . Um, but you can go to skill list.com , you can type in my name. I'm on there. Um , and the way that works, you send in videos, I'll send you an analysis and some drills to work on me talking about it. They're all, I have zero prerecorded drills for that. So anytime someone sends me something, it's
Speaker 2:Oh , apart , right ? It's like it's
Speaker 3:All custom
Speaker 2:You , it's not.
Speaker 3:I don't have like,
Speaker 2:I don't have's my plan of how to ,
Speaker 3:I mean, I have a file of them that like, as we go along, Hey look, this is a drill I want you to try. But everybody's, especially the first few times like it is, Hey look, this is just for you. Like , I'm not
Speaker 2:Exactly how are you gonna help somebody if you don't even know what they can do? Right. So it's
Speaker 3:Like,
Speaker 2:Or not, dude ,
Speaker 3:And I tell people all the time, like the skill is thing. The only thing hard with the online is sometimes drills work and sometimes they don't. And when I have somebody in front of me, I know within a couple swings that the drill's gonna work. I don't know that when they're thousands of miles away. So I usually give people a couple drills and hey look, try these out, see which one you can do. So , and
Speaker 2:They fill 'em , all of 'em , and then they send 'em back to you.
Speaker 3:They send 'em back and I'll tell 'em, Hey look, that's the one. Do that, that's gonna help you. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. They can't help you then help you.
Speaker 3:Right. If it , if it's too hard or it's too easy either way, I'm not gonna have you do that drill. That means you don't need it. But if it's something that, hey, look, you gotta work on a little bit, but you can also do it. Then there's kind of our drill.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of places we can find you. So we can find you on the app, we can find you on Instagram, we can find you on the site or just Google's name. You guys like seriously,
Speaker 3:It'll pop up. It'll either be me, it's funny, it'll either be me or Sydnee Crosby's sister. Her name's Taylor Crosby also. It's very weird. <laugh>. No relation. No relation. No relation. Oh , it'd be cool to relay to Sydnee Crosby. That'll be tight. But
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You got, I really appreciate it. I'm glad we had the fun . Thanks for having me on other , and like, I had fun, like, but he's fun as hell and he's like, he's super smart. Like, this guy knows this stuff. So like, honestly, like if you guys have a chance to work with him , I would, I recommend it. Um, I'm really kind of excited to have him on the show and , um, I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me and golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the Green Green .