Jay Karen, National Golf Course Owners Association | Episode No. 513

Welcome to the Wednesday Match Play, your weekly connection to the biggest and best brands in golf. On this show you will learn more about the latest golf fashion trends. Here from LPGA and PGA Tour players. Get advice on planning your next golf getaway, and much more. Broadcasting live from Palm Desert, California, now on the T. Rikipotts. Head over to lessplaythrough.com. Someone told Gabe to check out the golf gear at Marshalls, so he grabbed his sons and went shopping to see what they could find. From the original golf ball flight enhancer to a mini desktop pin set, you won't believe all of the random and hilarious golf items they discovered. Wait until you see everything they pull off the shelves. Use the spirit of St. Andrews with Eden Mill. From our award-winning Jins and Whiskeys to our craft beers, every sip tells a story of Scotland's rich tradition and modern innovation. Handcrafted with passion and precision, Eden Mill is more than a drink. It's a celebration of heritage, flavor, and the art of distilling. Perfect for toasting life's moments, big or small. Discover Eden Mill today and raise a glass to Scotland. Learn more at EdenMill.com. The National Golf Course Owners Association is a trade association founded in 1976 that represents golf course owners, operators, and industry professionals across the United States. Its mission is to support successful and sustainable golf operations through advocacy, education, networking, and business resources. A mess up, so to the Wednesday matchplay podcast brought to you by Eden Mill St. Andrews, Jerry reflects on his time with the ENGCOA. Ernie has certified association executive designation and the mini initiated shaping the future of the golf industry. He dives into the golf business AI workshop, recaps national golf day, and shares insights into golf business magazine and the value of content being delivered to members. The conversation also explores the growth of indoor golf and simulators, membership opportunities, and many results of being part of the ENGCOA. This was an inspirational conversation and it was an honor to have Jay on the show. Let's tee off. This is going to be an awesome conversation and I know that because this guy and I have been talking for the last few minutes and just we hit it off right off the bat and I'm so pumped to have him with us here today. But Jay, welcome to the Wednesday matchplay podcast brought to you by Eden Mill St. Andrews. Thanks for having me, Ricky's been a long time coming for this, so looking forward to our chat, man. It has been, I mean, it's so funny. I feel like I know you like me and to see you pop up on the screen. It's like, oh, hey, I know him and I finally get together and spend some time chatting. But thanks for doing this and it's just so, so nice to chat. But before we jump in, how are you and the team over at ENGCOA doing and ready for the summer ahead? You know, we, we don't have a slow season in the association world. Even though we're in the golf industry, we represent a lot of seasonal businesses. We say really busy all year long. We have a team of people here, love being in our headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. We now have staff all over the country, though. We've kind of turned into that virtual workforce as an association. But I'm gonna tell you, man, golf in good times and bad times associations are staying pretty darn busy. We love the work that we do. Well, it gets real busy here in the Coachella Valley for about five months and then we take five months to kind of reset and prepare for the next season ahead. But you're all over the place. So yeah, you don't get the chance to slow down. But this is not your first, first run with the ENGCOA. You spent, I mean, nearly a decade back in the late 90s, early 2000s before stepping away there and coming back 11 years later. Tell me more about that journey, what first led you to the ENGCOA and what brought you back and just what is the organization mean to you personally and to the game of golf? Ricky, I got a career and a marriage and a family out of this deal. You know, it's just, it's been pretty awesome. So in 1997, I moved to Charleston, South Carolina to get my master's degree. My intent was to be a high school social studies teacher. That was what I was going to do. And I enrolled at the College of Charleston in the master's program to get my MA in history, to kind of give me a leg up in the teaching profession because at that time in 1997, if you had your master's degree, a starting teacher made $23,000 a year. The only head your bachelor's degree was $19,000 a year. So I was like, I better get my master's. And I needed some extra cash while I was in grad school. And I knew a friend from college in Charleston and she said, hey, my mom is looking for someone as an assistant. And her mom was a woman that was like employee number three at the National Golf Course Owners Association. And it moved to Charleston in 1990, the association. And so this was '97. And so I started working in NGCWA part time for a couple of, you know, for a couple of weeks in August of '97. And then two weeks into it, they said, hey, would you like to do this full time? And I said, absolutely. So I kind of fell into it, Ricky, honestly. I happened to be a golfer and loved golf. And just a lucky coincidence that I fell into this association place. And I stayed for 10 years. And seven of those years, I was the director of membership for the organization. And I absolutely loved every bit of it, right? Being part of a mission-based organization, helping support small businesses and whatever the problems may be. And the teaching profession and that vision kind of went to the back burner. And I just kind of, you know, hookline and sink are into the association profession. Now, we are in golf. Certainly, that's kind of the content that we work on. But I kind of grabbed on to the association profession thing. And I joined my organization, which is called the American Society of Association Executives early on. It became a certified association executive a long time ago, like before I was 30, really loved the profession of managing leading associations. And I was just lucky to be in golf. So I stayed until 2007. Then I left for about eight and a half years and I was in the lodging industry. So stayed in the hospitality kind of recreation space. And I ran two organizations that represented all the small properties around America. Butiko tells, country ends bed and breakfast. I was kind of their champion in that space for many years. And then NGCOA CEO after 25 years was leaving in 2015. And they invited me to come back and consider, you know, being the CEO of the organization, which I did. So I've been back about 11 or about 11 years now. Absolutely loved. And the reason I came back was, you know, golf was kind of still in this industry recession. And I saw amazing opportunity to try to do good work in the space and, you know, champion golf course owners and operators and, you know, help them succeed. And when we, you know, we were still under a black cloud, certainly as an industry at that time. I thought it was a great opportunity to be helpful and try to practice leadership back in the golf industry. Well, that's cool. And we have that journey and that's kind of been the lifeblood for you and the business. And it's cool that you have that certification and associations. I work for NHOA. I came from an HOA, even though we're a quote unquote country club. We're an association. And you could live here and not even know how to spell golf and still be a member of this association. So that's cool. There's certifications in that. And let's talk a little bit more about the NGCOA itself for those that may not be familiar. Talk about where you're based, the mission of this organization, and maybe some of the major initiatives that you're focused on as we move into the summer of 2026 and beyond. Sure. You know, in the alphabet, super associations and golf, we are kind of the new kid on the block. We were started in the mid 1970s. So we've been around for about 50 years. And you got to look at the history of golf. And then in the 1970s, golf, most of the golf courses were either private clubs or municipal golf courses. And the event of the privately owned daily fee course really had not burgeoned yet. But the popularity of golf from Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas and all that, you know, the high demand that was coming to golf, you know, had a lot of American families and farmers turning their land into golf courses and people were building housing developments and so forth. So there was a, you know, rocket ship rise and supply of privately owned golf courses. And that's really the birth of NGCOA. We were kind of a committee within the National Foundation in the 1970s of privately owned golf courses. And they said, well, we need our own thing. You know, we need to have our own conference to compare notes. We are a unique animal in this business. And that was what NGCOA was born out of. Over time, you know, we've grown today. We've got over 4,000 golf courses in our organization and we represent the privately owned public golf course. We represent, you know, hundreds of municipal golf courses, hundreds of private clubs. We represent any type of ownership now as we've evolved. But over the years, I'd say the crown jewels of what we've done are really education and advocacy, right? It's running a golf course is a hard business. It's a multifaceted, complex business. To the outsider, the layperson may think, oh, you're just growing grass and people just hit a white ball. That's it. Much more complicated than that, especially when you're a land of business and you're dealing with resources and so forth. And so education through conferences and podcasting and magazines and white papers of the research over the years that we put out into the space in addition to the advocacy work that you know that we do now. And we really built an advocacy shop over the past 10 years where just more and more legislation, more and more lawsuits that are impacting the operations of golf courses we've leaned in to try to influence to protect the interest of these golf course owners and operators. A lot of frivolous lawsuits out there. A lot of issues, well-intended state and federal lawmakers that are trying to, what they think past good laws that might be damaging to the golf industry. So we have to make sure that we intervene. And that's what we do in GCOA. So it's multifaceted but very typical trade association work. We're headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina. We got something. staff in California, Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia as well. So we've really grown up to be a pretty much shirt-rate association representing our owners and operators. Well, that's great. And you mentioned running an operation like a business. It is. I mean, there are some really beautiful places out there and some resorts and some golf clubs and private clubs. But at the end of the day, it's a business. We've got a P&L and we've got a budget that we have to hit. And yeah, it's cool. We get to go to work every day and play golf and splash around in the pool. You're right. And if you're not paying attention to the business, you're not going to be around. Right? So it's an important part of this that we serve. Well, right now, it feels like AI is just dominating conversations across every industry. And the NGCOA has been leading into that with the Golf Business AI Workshop tour. Tell me so much more about that. I'm excited about that initiative and what operators are learning from that. Sure. You know, it feels like 1995 all over again, Ricky, when the internet and the worldwide web was this new, cool thing, right? It's very different with AI, but certainly it's very reminiscent of 30, 31 years ago when the internet started taking hold. And you know, in its infancy here, you can imagine back then golf courses having, or associations having conferences on how to build a website and what is a website, right? And all of this. And we're in that place right now with artificial intelligence. Fast forward to 2026. And so we're hosting workshops and we have some, you know, what we call faculty, whether the golf course owners that are like Allison George that are doing it well or Mike Hendrix, you know, great technologist who's helping golf courses essentially update their websites in ways to make sure that artificial intelligence agents can find the proper information, can find the right information and do it well. It feels like search engine optimization, search engine marketing all over again, but now for AI. So there's the marketing side of it that we're teaching at the workshops, but there's also just simply the practical use, you know, how do you build SOPs at your golf course and how can you use AI to help catalog all of it, right? And build them into training tools. How do you use it to put out your next marketing campaign? How are you using it to do some of your social media content as well? Just some of the blocking and tackling right now is what is happening from a learning perspective at these workshops. But on a greater sense also, NGCO is looking at how artificial intelligence is going to into how it's going to impact the entire tea time ecosystem and how golfers will be using AI to book tea times and making sure that it's a healthy symbiotic relationship on that front as well. So AI is about to rock so many areas of the world. One of the things that I'm grateful for is that golf as a product is relatively AI proof and that AI is not going to take away jobs and it's not going to disrupt the experience because you still have to get out there and swing a club at a golf ball on 200 acres of land. So we're going to be using AI as a tool more than it is a threat to our particular sector. Well, on a personal level, are you using AI much in your day-to-day operations and there's been anything about the technology that surprised you? You know, I mean, the association business is no different than probably any of the business right now figuring out how do I use AI to make myself more efficient or to help me solve problems. I started using it. I was my first delight with AI was using Chatchy PT, I guess about two years ago now or so. And it was like, okay, these are the ingredients I've got right now in my refrigerator. What can I make with it? It's like one of those stuck moments. Like, okay, you've got these five ingredients here is what you can do and it came out with like three recipes of something I can make. I was like, oh my god, like, how did you do that so quickly? Fast forward to today. And Ricky, the way I use it as the CEO of the organization, honestly, these days, when I've got kind of difficult strategic questions in front of me, I will put these issues in front of AI to help me come up with additional questions or additional ways of looking at some of these hard issues. And I've been shocked at how comprehensive and intelligent a lot of these answers are. And the prompts that it'll have for me to ask to go deeper into those things. I'll give you an example with the Burdy Act that we're looking at in Congress. It'll be great to have copyright status for a golf course architecture, just like buildings have. But, okay, so now look into the space. Well, who owns the copyright licensing rights to the design? When a drone comes in and captures images of a golf course and goes into a simulator, are those images of the golf course or is it capturing the design of the golf course? If it's images of the golf course, well, the owner of the golf course may have all the rights to that. If it's the design of the golf course, it might be the architect. So when it gets put in the simulator, which one are we licensing here? The images of the golf course are the design. So I'm putting these very difficult questions into artificial intelligence to kind of help me round out and give me ways of thinking about this stuff strategically so that we can in turn provide guidance and resources to the industry. So it's gotten pretty complex pretty quickly and it's very impressive to me. I got a buddy that works as just a side hustle at a local movie theater and it's the funniest thing ever. So he's been doing it for years, but he doesn't much more efficiently now. But just one day a week, he builds the schedule for the movie theater. There's like 10 or 12 movie theaters there and what's playing on what day and then what theater. And he said that it used to take him a couple of hours and now it takes him a couple of minutes because he just dumps it into AI and it builds it for him. So it's pretty fun. It's pretty fun. How you can use it though. I know. I know it's unreal. I feel like sometimes our wittingly or unwittingly contributing to some kind of overall body of knowledge is somehow going to be used against us one day. No, it's just, it's kind of scary too. It's awe inspiring, but it can be like, where is this going, right? One thing that I really like about NGCOA is the amount of education and support that you're providing to operators. Tell me more about the Champion Circle program and how that works for your members. Oh, yeah. No, thanks for asking that question. So forever, the crown jewel of what we did at NGCOA was education and networking. And networking is a form of education, right? It's the peers talking to each other, learning and so forth. We've done that well for decades. Well, we built an advocacy shop here at NGCOA. We have to essentially be ready to fight reactive situations all the time. And also to be proactive on various things in the advocacy space, whether it's public policy, legislation, etc. The Champion Circle program we launched in the last couple of years is a program that allows NGCOA to build up a legal and advocacy fund that we earmark. We set aside funds so that when that terrible, errant golf ball lawsuit comes out that is threatening a golf course in a particular state. And we're afraid that it's going to set a precedent across the country. The golf course loses that lawsuit. We might lean in with an ambiguous brief and have to hire lawyers and spend tens of thousands of dollars to support that course and that club in that pursuit, but that we think is very important. Well, you know, with how many lawsuits and brush fires are happening out there in the legal space, we need, you know, basically a war chest to be able to dip into when we need to fight these fights. So that's what the Champion Circle program is supporting now the second crown jewel of NGCOA and the very important advocacy work that we have. In fact, you know, Ricky, we've grown our membership considerably over the years. I think because the advocacy work golf course owners and operators know that we can be a target. So they're willing to support the organization through joining and through funding our Champion Circle program. You also published the golf business magazine. What kind of content and readers expect there? And how do you decide what topics are most important to cover for golf course owners? Oh, you know what? That's interesting. We've been publishing golf business magazine now for about 30 years. And I was all digital and format. I was one of those. The print magazine was a victim to the COVID cost cutting and we haven't gone back. So we got a great digital magazine there. And you know, the editorial decisions on that really are a combination of certainly feedback from the marketplace. You know, the owners and operators telling us what are their problems? What content do they need help, you know, with in their educational pursuits so they can run better businesses? But our role at NGCOA also is to look around the corner and be a bit, you know, one step or two steps ahead of owners and operators and deliver that content. You know, one of the important roles that associations play is signaling to the industry. What's happening out there in society, government, politics, the economy? You name it and then connecting the dots to content. Like this is coming. You need to be prepared for this as an owner and operator, whether it's environmental issues, technology that's coming, you know, whether it's how we've moved as a society, I give an example, you know, customer service, elegant customer service these days is to many, it's just good self service. If you give me good self service, I don't need someone to serve me, right? Well, how do we translate that to golf courses? Where do we introduce more self service into the golfing experience, the check-in experience, all of these things? And you know, that's the kind of thing that we'll write about. When we see a golf course owner or operator experimenting with self service, check in at the kiosk instead of the pro shop desk, what does that look like? How is that working and how can we share that story? So, it's a bit of combination of giving owners and operators what they're asking for and giving them what they're not asking for yet, but that our eyes are looking for. There are so many publications out there though, I mean, I mean, Border Magazine is spectacular and CMAA publishes and Golden State chapter sends out stuff. I could literally spend an entire week just reading the information that the industry is providing to me. Well, that goes to show you how robust and complex our industry is. If we were a monolith, every business ran at the same way, then there probably might be one magazine in the industry. That's just so. 16,000 businesses in our industry and everybody seems to want to do it a little bit of different way. So, unending need for good content, for sure. You are recently in Washington, DC for National Golf Day. How was that experience this year? Were there any key conversations or takeaways that really stood out for you? Yeah. I've been going to this National Golf Day thing and you've always been part of this for many, many years now. And honestly, it gets better every single year. And that's just not a talking point. That's real. I've lived it. I've seen it. In the earlier days, we'd go to Capitol Hill and it was almost like we were facing eye-rolling. You know, okay, the golf industry is here. What are they going to talk about? That there even in industry was questionable in our first conversations was now fast forward to 2026 and in the event that we just had last week, the receptivity now is off the charts. You get a sense that they look forward to the conversations with us, right? Because we're golf. We deliver joy for living. We're contributing to local economies. We have golfers in Congress and on the staff level of Congress. So they're excited when the golf industry shows up for National Golf Day. So the conversations are always positive. They want to hear what's on our plate, what we're asking for, what's new. And that was no different this year. But one of the most exciting things for us this year, Ricky, was some of the golf industry leadership was able to have meetings with the White House. And we were able to meet with some of President Trump's kind of front porch people in the public liaison office and really educate them on our legislative and public policy agendas. And they really were curious and they wanted to be supportive because one day our legislation is going to reach the president's desk, right? And we want them to know what our issues are and how we stand. And there's a very friendly reception and a wonderful opportunity for us to tell the good story of golf, even to the White House, you know, who's occupant is the most famous golf course owner in the world. Well, advocacy has become such a critical part of what you and that organization do. You've spoken about issues like the Par Act and the Bernie Act, but beyond those, what are the biggest legislative issues that golf course owners and operators should be paying attention to right now? Right now, you know, on the federal level, certainly labor is a big deal. You know, not besides the Par Act, not in too many taxation issues on our plate, but labor is a big deal because with every administration, the line moves on what people want to do with the workforce in America and how they feel about treatment of workforce and what burdens they want to place on employers, you know, enforcing them to do certain things, whether it's with OSHA and safety and redefining what does it mean, you know, to be, to working out in a hot environment, what temperatures, too hot, you know, and what things you need to do base. These things are changing all the time. Who's an impenetra contractor? How do you define an independent contractor in 2026 versus maybe 2036, right? These lines are moving. H2B visas is on our plate that we talk about in Washington and making sure that the American employers, resorts and clubs in particular in the golf industry are able to access the reliable foreign workers that they have relied on for decades to run their businesses and that we have, you know, ample access to inviting them in and working at our, at our great resorts and clubs without taking American jobs, right? We have to, these are things that are on our radar is also the Fit Act, which would allow Americans to use their health savings accounts, the pre-text contributions they make to their health savings and flex savings accounts, to use it on exercise and gym memberships and golf equipment and golf lessons to get out there and actually practice good health, which is the best preventative measure against, you know, spending money on medicine and health care, which is the, you know, which is really what HSAs are limited to in their use for. And so we've got great bipartisan support in Congress over essentially allowing pre-text alloys to use on the good health things that might help lower the health, the health care system, the cost overall in America, right? Those are on our radar on the federal level. At the state level we're constantly having to look out for changes in how property tax treatment is happening at the local level with golf courses, environmental regulations that get passed at the state level that might be an overreach based on, you know, what's already happening at the federal level. So constantly having to stay vigilant now more and more at the state level as well. Well, as more public golf courses are sold off, I mean, I'm for housing developments and solar projects, like data centers. How does that reshape the future of accessible golf in America? And what role do you, I love munis. I remember growing up on a muni playing high school golf on one and I decided to go there in the morning and come home when the sun went down. But what role do those clubs and private clubs play in preserving the game for the next 25, 50, 75 years? You know, this, this is really an enormous issue and it's, it's a, it's a bit of a head scratch or two on what we do because we're really talking about the supply line in golf, you know, he's supplying demand, right? Forever, we seem to kind of come together as an industry to work on demand because there was this threat that, you know, fewer and fewer people are going to play golf. Well, there are certain things we can do collectively as an industry to try to stimulate demand and try to work on customer retention together, right? You got to, you got to look at both sides of the coin, supplying demand, but that's something that we can lean in, spend money and do something about which we have done for years back in the old golf 2020 days and the industry coming together to create, you know, programs like get golf ready and all of those things. They've really paid off, right? Now we have a, a, a, a host of amazing programs that any golf course and access some, you know, as far as growing the game and, and, and players. The supply side is where the concern now is turning is, you know, when you look at the golf courses that have closed down over the last 10 and 20 years, they are the low end daily fee courses and so many of them have closed down not because they have failed as businesses, but because the real estate is, is just way too valuable and, and, you know, a housing developer or someone's going to come in and cut a check, you know, that is 10X, what the golf course would be worth simply as a golf course. And that's going to continue to happen, Ricky. We're going to see, you know, the, the public daily fee courses continue to close, not necessarily at a fast clip. We're not talking about an existential crisis in the next five to 10 years, but you look at the 50 year outlook, 75 year outlook. If more and more of these daily fee courses close down and the only courses that are being built are high end private, you know, very economically inaccessible golf courses. You got to wonder, where is the average American going to play affordable golf outside? That's where the muni sector comes in, there are 3000 municipal golf courses in America, and it's still in their DNA to keep golf affordable. It's government golf essentially, right? And it's in their DNA to keep these open spaces green. So I'm hopeful that a lot of municipalities will continue to operate in that fashion, looking out for the affordability factor. And they'll continue to maybe to grab up the golf courses that are, that are for sale, you know, and turn them into the parks and recivision so that, so that we continue to have these green grass places to play. So the question on the private clubs though is a good one Ricky, because, you know, I think if the supply and demand curve continues to do what it's doing and demand stays strong and supply continues to shrink, I think there's going to be pressure on private clubs to try to be, you know, even more so, partners with the community and opening up the private gates a little bit to more lessons and youth programs and whatever it might be on that side of the game. And to have their great PGA professionals give lessons more to the community, more, you know, high school programs youth on course, you name it. If they can keep the window open a little bit to community programs like that, that might certainly help keep golf and close proximity to people that really want to play the game and find in the future that the places to play are shrinking. Well, another major challenge that operators face is labor. And I face that daily here in the Coachella Valley in a very seasonal market and there's seasonal markets in California and Arizona and Florida. And seasonal staffing is just, it's so difficult, especially with the uncertainty around the the age to be visa program. And I love learning more about that. I've actually been to some seminars even recently about that. What is in GCOA doing alongside the seasonal employment alliance to advocate for the industry and how can operators better navigate this political issue? So you got to look at the situation today right now with HWB visas. There are a lot of golf, you know, resorts and clubs that rely on HWB workers. And you know, let me remind the audience, HWB workers are non-immigrant seasonal workers, meaning they're foreign workers, but they're not immigrant, meaning they go home every year. They're not looking to live in America. And they come here seasonally and some of them and they're coming to our great resorts and clubs for decades. They've become family to these communities, right? But most employers say that need these workers go through a lottery system. And because the demand on that there's a 66,000 worker cap in America, and it's been the same number since 1990, although the demand on that cap is topping 300,000 requests for those 66,000 spots, right? And these requests are coming from the employers, not the foreigners wanting to come here. Employers need them. So we have a problem. And the employers that use them have to go into this lottery system. So if you need 10 workers or 50 workers or 100 workers, you don't know how many you're going to get until you go through the lottery system, right? It's not a way to run a business. It's very unreliable. So we're looking to inject some reliability into this. One of the things we're doing with the seasonal employment alliance is advocating for a certified seasonal employer designation with the Department of Labor. So that if you're, let's say, a golf resort and you've been using the HBVSA program in a respectful legal way for five years running and the highest number you've used in those five years, let's say, as 30 workers, that you should be able to apply and get your 30 workers and those 30 be exempt from that 66,000 cap, right? And so, and then you don't have to go through the lottery system. You should be able to know that you're going to get your 30 workers. Now, if you want 35, well, then maybe the five extra go into the lottery system, whether you get them or not, right? That's up for debate. But that's kind of where we're leaning in right now with Congress is trying to get them to approve a seasonal, excuse me, a certified seasonal employer designation so that it makes it that much easier and more reliable for businesses to get the much needed workers that they that they have. There's a lot of discussion on rising greens fees and the overall cost of golf, but you point out that there are many of these increases that are actually correcting years of pricing lag behind inflation. And I think about how much it does cost a golf. And, you know, I come out from a different angle being in private clubs and private HOAs, but talk to me a little bit about pricing and what you're seeing with how operators can look at what they charge for a tea time. Sure, this is, you know, this is a math lesson, ladies and gentlemen, it's really just math. Public golf course owners and operators, private clubs as well, even municipalities for certain degree, have to make the bottom line work. If you don't make the bottom line work, you're not going to be in business very long. So how do you make the bottom line work when the cost of good stolen expenses just keep going up and up and up every year, whether it's wages or fuel or, you know, the food that you have to buy off the trucks or the fertilizer, the water that you have to buy, whatever it is, costs continuing up every year. Greens fees in America stayed pretty flat for a 15-year period right up to 2020 when COVID kind of changed everything. So we fell behind. In fact, over that period of time when the consumer price index of everything you bought in America went up and up and up and up and green fees stayed relatively flat, you could argue that right before the COVID hit in spring of 2020 that golf was cheaper than it ever was, right? You can't make businesses work in the long haul with that kind of math. So now finally, you know, with the higher demand for golf and the greater the numbers that are coming in, it gives business owners not, you know, the opportunity to play catch up here, not just to cover their bases on the rising cost, but the capital improvements. Oh, excuse me, privately on public golf courses have never been very good at saving money for those enormous capital expenses. Private clubs have the opportunity to do assessments. Municipalities have the opportunity once in a while to float a bond referendum and maybe to get some cash flow in there or, you know, to get the capital that they need. But if you owned a public golf course, you had to save for that rainy day or for that major investment and when we were in an industry recession for 15 years, it was almost impossible to do so. So the pricing had to change in order for the math to work and for these businesses to stay alive. And that's just kind of where we are. And I think now we're in this kind of equilibrium in, you know, for our industry that we've got good health. If any owners and operators are pushing the envelope too far in pricing, well, you know, what will happen? The customers will stop making those tea times and that'll be the signal that they maybe they went too far. That's just the way the market works, you know, and we have to respect that. So how can those operators and club leaders communicate those rising operational and capital costs to members and customers without alienating them? And I again, from a private club perspective, that's me talking to my board of directors. Right. This is where you can, you know, use the sticker shock method, right? Like in the association industry, you know, sometimes when I'm talking to my board as an association executive, talking to my association board members, when we talk about the expense of putting on conferences, right? I use the gallon of coffee, you know, method where I'm like, did you know that a gallon of coffee that we have to buy at the hotel for the upcoming meeting is $105 a gallon, you know, it's like the sticker shock of that. And it used to be $90, it used to be $70, it used to be $60, that when we're paying $105 for a gallon of coffee to put out there for our members, I'm just signaling to our board, can you believe this? This is this is just the nature of the business. You need to understand that and then they get it, right? They understand why we might have to go up by, you know, $99 on the registration fee in order to cover our costs. Same thing with audio visual costs, AV costs, you know, we had a board meeting just last week in Washington, DC and I decided to print PowerPoint slides instead of having, you know, the screen up because I like, look, it would have cost a $2,000 today to have a screen and a projector in this room. It might not be in a good steward of your association dollars by, you know, maybe spending $20 to print this out for everybody, right? So a signal to them, how much it actually costs? It's probably the best way to gain the sympathy and the understanding that you need if you're having a pricing discussion about what's necessary. We had a golf course owner and operator Ricky, this is hilarious, probably 20 years ago. There's the guy named Dan Clark in the middle of Iowa and he was getting so much pushback from his senior golfers about raising the price of golf by $1, you know, on the weekends. So what he did was he parked the brand new, you know, five gang fairway mower out by the first team, put the price tag on it was, you know, at the time, probably $45,000. And he did that as a signal like, did you know, this just cost us $45,000 to have this mower. And it just opened up conversation with his customers that like, oh, okay, I didn't realize it costs this kind of money. Now, that was a bit of a brash move. I wouldn't recommend that for, you know, every business owner to do something like that. But he felt pretty, you know, it was an extreme situation where his seniors were all threatening to go down the street and leave the golf course because he was raising the price by $1. So it just kind of, you know, you got a signal to your, your customer somehow, maybe the ones that are the loudest about the price increase, what it actually costs to run a business. And private clubs can do that a little bit better through your governance model and your boards than public golf courses can with their, you know, with their customers a little harder of a task in that case. Well, I mean, the affordability is a concern for everything. I mean, you got gallon of milk, like six bucks. Where do you see the pricing strategies heading over the next few years? And how can these facilities balance both profitability and accessibility? You know, it's an interesting question because the premise of your question is unique to golf. And I get this a lot, Ricky, where how do we balance, you know, profitability with accessibility? Inheriting in that question is that it's like it's a golf course owner's responsibility as a business owner to make sure that it is economically accessible. And there's tension here because golfers think and believe in for the right reasons, I mean, golf was born out of a municipal golf course in St. Andrews, right? That golf, you know, we want everybody to play golf. We are so proud of our game. We want it to be accessible to everybody. So that's in the DNA of what we do. We want to spread the words, spread the gospel of golf. Everybody should play it no matter where you are in the economic strata. Then the pressure goes to the golf course owner and operator, like what are you doing to keep golf affordable? When you're a business owner, it's a tough question. It's like it's your responsibility to do so. And maybe the responsibility of a municipal golf course to do so because they are funded by the taxpayers, they're funded by the local citizenry. But how often does someone go to a restaurant to Chipotle or to a locally owned restaurant say, hey, what are you doing to make sure that, you know, the people in this town can afford to eat at your restaurant doesn't really come up in the restaurant industry quite as much as it does golf because it's different. So it's a challenging premise to put the burden on the golf course owner that it's your burden to make sure golf is economically accessible. Thank goodness there is in the DNA, the goodness of so many people that love this game that they do want to keep it affordable. They do want to make it accessible, whether they open the doors to youth programs, high school programs, there are ways to make it accessible to the community without necessarily sacrificing the pricing of the tea time in order to do that, right? It's a tough balancing act, but right now seems like dynamic pricing tools are needed, you know, to to be surgical about when, you know, which tea time is maybe should be more affordable than others and being able to, you know, to kind of spot the opportunities on the T-sheet to to play golf more affordably. But at the end of the day, competition is going to keep the price in check as much as possible. It's just what's going to happen, right? It's the American system at work, but my bed is on the municipalities, the 3000 courses in America that really want to keep golf affordable for their citizenry and I'm grateful that they're doing so. You can talk about flights. I need to book a flight from this coast to that coast and hey, that's not affordable, but I guarantee the person sitting next will be not paying the same price that I'm paying. And that's happening in so many things that were, I mean, you know, concert tickets, you know, you name there's so many things that are now being dynamically priced. And I think it's an okay system. You just got to look out for unfairness and and gouging or, you know, extreme circumstances based on variables that aren't necessarily fair. Like one of the things that we're seeing Ricky is in the ecosystem out there, not just I just not engulfed necessarily, but if you know, if if a website determines that you're going back to a site and checking out a shopping cart, you're checking something out, it may know, this guy's really interested. So I might be able to change the price on something because of the demand this person is showing versus, you know, someone coming to the website for the first time, right? And so, oh my gosh, are they taking advantage of me? Because they can determine that Jay Karen is more interested in this product than Ricky Pots? Well, that's interesting, you know, and does it know that if a male or female or a candidate determine certain things about me and change pricing accordingly? So kind of be on the lookout for what variables go into dynamic pricing. But overall, it's working well for the golf industry. Well, indoor golf is exploding right now. They just opened a back nine here in Rancho Mirage. It's open 24 hours. It's got four sem bays. One of them's private doing lessons. I mean, if the three in the morning, how would it go? It balls on a Tuesday. I can. But we're seeing simulator venues and entertainment concepts. And this year round golf business just popping up everywhere. Let's talk about those. Instead of viewing these businesses as competition, and how can traditional golf facilities embrace stuff? Like golf song or top golf and these different gamified practice experiences. And I immediately think of my good friend Don Ray, Gusto Ranch in Arizona. Like, what's he doing over there? Like, that place is just awesome. You know, the best thing you can do right now to take advantage. And I would say take advantage of the moment. Take advantage of the movement. It's not really a moment. I think this is here to stay. Is for golf course owners and operators out there, private clubs, public golf courses, you name it is to build this yourself and appendate to your business. So that you're capturing this part of the new golf economy. What we've seen is 2,500 locations popped up all over the country over the past five years or so. And it's great for golf. Anything that puts a golf club in someone's hand, I think is great. I don't think is a competitive situation. Even the top golf phenomenon. I've always thought it's a net plus for golf. But what's happened is that we've added to the golf economy by just restaurant tours and golf bros and anybody that wanted to build a simulator business, they've done it. And they've added to the golf economy. But those that have been in the legacy economy, golf course owners and operators, you don't want to let the moment go. You want to be able to do this yourself so that what Don Ray is doing, he's got this, I don't know how many bays he's got at the top trace of range facility at Augusta Ranch there. But he's even marketing it as a different business than just a Gus, Gus arranged golf course so that families, entire kickers are coming and experiencing this awesome top trace of range. And then they look to the right and they see the first team. And they see the outdoor golf course like, wow, when do I get to graduate towards that? And Don Ray is capturing the full cycle of that, right? This is wonderful. Every sport would kill for what we have right now in this movement of screens and greens. And that's screens versus greens and screens and greens because they're not competitive, Ricky, because they're completely different experiences. One is going to be air conditioned. That you might want to do something for an hour or so with your buddies in a small day. That's pretty awesome. Scratch is an itch that the avid golfer has. And it's actually going to scratch an itch for the future golfer. It's a less embarrassing place to try to beat balls, learn how to swing and get really great data from whatever technology you've got there in the simulator. So I think these are very complimentary right now. Where this is going is going to be the interesting question for sure. Where are people playing golf 50 years from now? How many people are going to be playing in screens more than greens? Don't know at this point, but right now, for the foreseeable future, it feels very complimentary and symbiotic. What's the process for joining the NGCOA? Do you actually have to be a golf course owner or are there opportunities for managers and operators and industry professionals who just want to learn more and get involved? That's a good question. We are a trade association where the golf course or the company is really the member. And so if you're a director of golf and you're just kind of loving the content that we're putting out there, well, you get your golf course to join the organization. You could put as many staff members in our communication and our databases you want. So you can load it with the food and beverage manager, the general manager, the owner, the operator. Whoever it is, anybody who is keen on serious education in treating their business as a business, they want to improve. They want to start practicing progressive practices at their business, we want you. And for the longest time, we were really here for the mom and pop golf course owner operator. That was kind of how we were born in the 1970s. But we've got all the major multi-course owners and management companies under our umbrella. We've got over 800 private clubs in our membership in the organization, hundreds of municipal golf courses. So no matter what the ownership type is, we're really here for owners and operators. Anybody keen on running a successful business, we want you in the organization. But we are not an individual membership organization or trade association. So you get your golf course or your golf club or your multi-course owner to join and bring as many human beings into the database to get that good learning as you'd like. Just go to ngcwa.org, choose a state where you're headquartered or where you're located and jump on in. - Well, speaking of education, do you partner much with organizations like CMA or other industry associations to share this knowledge and to create collaborative learning opportunities? - When we work with our allied association peers, it just seems like nine times at a 10, it's usually in the advocacy space, right? But sometimes, we'll publish content together on the advocacy content itself. But we really haven't worked together with our friends at the club management association or GCSA on a lot of education. We have with the USGA green section sometimes. We'll kind of republish some of their good work to our members so they can see it. But we are looking at publishing content with our allied associations. We've talked a little bit about where things are going with golf course architecture and copyright status on it. Club Management Association, NGCAA is looking at publishing some educational guidance for owners and operators on there on how to navigate the field of licensing your golf course, design and imagery in simulators, right? What are the rules around that? What are the guidelines around that? Which agreements say between architects and owners and operators and all that? So we're going to collaborate here soon on that kind of content. But really, we focus mostly on advocacy and we each have our own content shops. And so yeah, there are probably some wonderful opportunities there to continue collaborating with our great association peers. Well, your resource library looks robust. What kind of information is available there? And how frequently are you updating the content there? The resource library we've got on our website, which is for members only. So you've got to be a member of the organization to access it. This is everything from best management practices, safety and our white papers and research, compensation and benefits studies. We publish a pretty comprehensive one on the few dozen positions at the golf course. We've been loading that up for years. But where this is going, Ricky is kind of where I'm actually excited. We're soon going to be launching an AI tool for our members to be able to ask the AI agent questions. Any question you have about operations, for example, you probably can relate to this one. We have a partnership with our homeowners association, but we put signs up though that the homeowners really are not allowed to walk their dogs on our golf course on the pass or really ride their bikes on the golf course pass. But they do anyway. And what can I do to try to communicate better in a friendly way but that they shouldn't be doing that? That this is restricted access. You'll be able to use the AI tool in our website, which will access all of our resource library itself. It'll access conversations that have been had on our online platform we call Accelerate, which has been our online crowdsourcing platform for years, where owners and operators are chatting with each other. It's going to incorporate all of this large language model system and then surface an answer. And if the answer is not satisfactory, it's going to lead you over to accelerate to ask your question of the other owners and operators to get some pretty live, quick feedback. So pretty cool to see where this is going. We're going beyond library into this artificial intelligence kind of portal way of serving and getting answers to questions. Well, another benefit is the savings program and the partnerships that you've developed for members. Tell me more about that and how those relationships and how operators are using those to improve their efficiency and maybe even help produce costs. Sure. We have what we call our Smartby program. This-- we've had this thing for nearly 30 years where we've got wonderful vendor relationships out there, whether it's with Yamaha Golf cars, Toro equipment, rainbird irrigation, Pepsi, you name. If you go to our website at NGCO.org and you go to the purchasing program, you'll find all the great deals. We've got dozens of these direct TV and all this. And basically, it's an affinity program, Ricky. It's where you remember the organization and you're going to either get immediate savings on these products and services, or you may get a rebate. And so it seems like every week I'm signing rebate checks to our members, whether they just install the rainbird irrigation system and they're getting 1% rebate. Well, you've just spent half a million dollars on a brand new irrigation system. You remember, Vengee C-O-A, you can get a $5,000 rebate check because of your membership. That's a pretty beautiful thing. So that's just one of the great benefits we have in the organization. So we always encourage members to come over and check out the Smartby program. It's not usually the reason why people join the organization. They join us for the education advocacy. But when they discover the Smartby program, they're pretty grateful that they can realize these savings and these rebates. Well, what is the cost to join? I mean, you just saved me five grand. I mean, I can't imagine it's going to cost me $5,000 to be a member. All right, it doesn't take a math professor figure out this is a value. The average 18-hole dues is, I believe, about $495, right? $500 a year. And that can actually be a little bit higher, even a little bit lower, depending upon what state you're in. Because we have affiliates out there, which, you know, sometimes are called chapters that you get two associations for one was the Michigan Golf Course Association or California Golf Course Owners Association. You joined, you know, in some states, you're joining through them. And you're getting two associations for one, really. But so the average 18-hole golf course is $500 a year. That is crazy affordable. Like, I need to get us involved right away. That's awesome. Yeah, maybe buy a few golf courses and have them all join, Ricky. I love it. So you also have a buyer's guide. How does that platform work? And then what value does it bring to facilities? I mean, you just do everything here to help support these owners and operators. We're doing what we can. That's for sure. And hopefully it shows. But this buy is an online buyer's guide. since we line up. our website probably 30 years ago where it's just a comprehensive directory of what vendors are out there. Okay, I need a club architect. All right, go to the Angie City Buyers Guide and it's going to be a list of dozens of golf, you know, golf course or club architects. You know, I need a new software system or I need a new payroll provider. I need whatever it is, it's just a wonderful one-stop shop, you know, maybe we used to call it the white pages, you know, that kind of stuff. Remember those days when we use that to look for vendors, we just have it, you know, all collated here within the, within the Angie City website instead of just doing a Google search, which will, you know, show you the companies that have done the best job on search engine marketing. That's who's going to float to the top. You can go to our Buyers Guide and get a really comprehensive list of those companies that are in our industry. Tell me more about your team. I mean, you're supported by a lot of people around the country and in the culture that you've built within that organization. Just give me, I mean, you've got, I'm sure hundreds of not thousands of employees around the country, but I'm going to run your team in the culture that you've got there. Oh my gosh, I wish we had that many, sort of maybe, but, you know, we're generally known as an association that is really punching above our weight. And that's kind of a dubious honor, right? Because because we're the new kid on the block in the association world, Ricky, we've only been around for 50 years from a budget standpoint. We're kind of small compared to our friends at GCSA, CMAA, and so forth. You can look at all of our tax returns on 990s. We're just, you know, topping a $4 million a year organization. We got about 20 full-time staff at the association headquarters. And we've got, you know, we have, we're governed by a great board of about 19 men and women that own golf courses of all sizes and shapes from invited clubs, the CEO of invited clubs down to the, you know, middle of Iowa family farm golf course as well. So the culture of NGCOA, this is, we're all about problem solving and service. So we've hired good, what we've done from a cultural standpoint. It's just hire people who care. They have this it factor, right? The average tenure at our team here is like 10 or 12 years. So, you know, working at the organization. We have from age, I think 24 to 86 on our team. And we all love the work that we do. We love that we work for golf course owners and operators because these are people who are delivering joy for a living, right? And there's something special about that when you get to work for an association where your members deliver joy for a living. You want to be around that. There's something special about it. And so, you know, I just try to, my best, to hire people who care, who love the work. And we just honestly, we try having a good time together too. You know, we're a bit of a casual culture. We want to enjoy each other. And so we do. And that's just kind of been a, you know, an organic recipe for the longevity that we've had on our staff and the good work that we try to continue doing. That is crazy. You have that few people for the amount of work that you're doing kudos to you. I would have literally thought you would have said hundreds employees. That's incredible. Well done. I like, you know, even coming down to the design work, the graphic design work that we do, Ricky, you would never know what a small shop we are. It's like we portray ourselves like a Fortune 500 company, right? Like we do our best, the stuff that we put on social media and the work that we do. You know, we cast a bigger shadow than we have and we outpunch our weight all the time. Like I said, it's a dubious honor. I wish we had a $10 million budget or $20 million budget so we can get to more of our to-do list. But I'm grateful that the joy that we bring to the table allows us to kind of deliver beyond kind of what even the members and sponsors pay for because they're constantly happy. Our attention rates are great. And we'll continue that recipe as long as I'm here. Look at it, your membership. How are you approaching membership growth right now? And where do you see the organization evolving over the next three, five, 10 years? Sure. You know, when I came on board in 2015, we had about 3,000 golf courses in the dues paying membership. And I think the last membership report I saw we've topped 4,300 golf courses in the organization. So a nice clip of growth in over that same period of time over the past, you know, 10, 20 years, we've lost what? 1,500 golf courses in America. So in the face of a shrinking supply, we've had a growing membership. Certainly a testament to the work that we're doing. That's for sure. I think especially the advocacy is striking and nerve. And so we're on a growth curve, my friend. And one of those areas in particular that we've been focused on and strategic about has been the municipal sector. The municipal golf sector has got 3,000 courses in America. They've never had a real home. They've never had their own association in the golf space. There is the National Parks and Recreation Association and they kind of serve the municipalities and parks and recivisions. They don't specialize in golf, right? So we've kind of opened the doors and have really embraced them. We've got something we call the muni community within NGC away. We've got advisory committees that help advise what content they need. We've got special online meetings for the municipal golf sector. So we're leaning in there for sure. And this is strategic move. It's not just a membership growth business move. It's a strategic move because you know, I've discussed the supply and demand curve may be changing in the future. We may be losing more daily fee golf courses in America. And municipalities are going to, you know, their stock value is going to continue rising because they're going to fill that need for affordable golf in America. So we need to support their success. So that's kind of dug tailing into our growth strategy. And I'm hoping of the next, you know, three to five years we can top that 5,000 course mark in our membership. I recently saw you with my good friend Kathy Harbin. Tell me a little bit more about your relationship with her and then her club in Paris, Texas. You know, I have a lot of favorites in the golf industry, but but Kathy is chief among them. You know, she owns a Pine region Paris. And I've known Kathy even, but I knew her back in my first stint at NGC UA. She might have been working for the World Golf Foundation or even the World Golf Village at that time when she was managing this property. So I've known her in the golf course owner operator space. We really got close, a number of years ago when I came back to NGC UA, I used to do this contest, Ricky. I love this. I did an essay contest, right? I would say, hey, write a 300 word essay on why I should come intern at your golf course as CEO of NGC UA. Why I should come out there and learn the ropes and shadow you. And Kathy was one of the facilities that I picked. And I went out there for a few days to simply to shadow her, watch her operate, learn, you know, just keep learning about the business and what her troubles are and her challenge points. This must have been probably around 2018 or so. So we really bonded over that. We got to spend a lot of time together. She's an amazing golfer. So, you know, LPGA, PGA professional as well. So we enmaster professional at that at PGA level. So we played a lot of golf together and just really become good friends and peers in this industry. And she was the president of our association in 2024 and 2025. So she was at the helm with me working closely on shaping NGC UA. She just stepped down recently and handed the baton over to Whitey O'Malley, who owns a golf course in Colorado. She's one of my favorites. She is the the voice of reason in the room. She's passionate about golf operations and teaching professionals and how we need to unlock the potential of our teaching professionals at more facilities in America. And she's always preaching about how we can be even more welcoming in the game. So we are foot soldiers in this long game together, Ricky, of improving the golf industry for our future success. I love Kathy to death. Well, tell her I said hello the next time you see her. I haven't talked to her in a while, but her and I connected. I mean, it's been years ago, but she's, she's as good as they come. And that's cool that she was able to be a part of that and the fact that you guys have spent time together with her in Paris. Like, that's just, I love it. How small this world is. And she's not slowing down, you know, just amazing me how much work, you know, she takes on someone, you know, in this industry. It's not just at her golf course. She's still involved in so many organizations and efforts. Fun fact about her. She was on my podcast in 2021 June of 2021. She was episode 251. You got that in common. That's cool. I love it. Well, man, we can talk for hours. This has been so much fun getting a chance to learn more about you and the NGCOA. And just before I let you go, is there anything else you'd like to share with listeners that we haven't touched on here today? You know, I just, I just love the passion that so many people have in our industry for this game. And so much of it gets channeled through NGCOA. Our job is to take all the great ideas, all the wish lists for the golf industry and try to turn it into an agenda and actual work. And that's something that we enjoy doing. So if you are operating a golf course out there or you're interested in it, you know, we welcome you in the organization. We are a wide tent, municipalities, private clubs, public golf courses, big resorts, small facilities, nine whole executive courses. You name it. We're here to support your success. So, you know, give NGCOA a shot. Come under our tent, meet the members of our organization and you'll be glad for it. I can promise you that. Well, where is the best place for us to learn more about you, the NGCOA and everything that you have going on? Is it the website, is it social media? Where do we go? You know, the website is a great place to join and see our resources, but I would suggest you follow us on LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn, follow NGCOA and LinkedIn. That's where we're going to have more active conversations about things going on in the industry. So definitely follow us there. Tune into our golf business life podcast that I do every month where you can ask live questions of me and our guests and it's, you know, oftentimes co-hosted by Don Ray. And, you know, so tune into that. Follow us there and engage with us. Those are some great places to do so. Well, let's you and me tee it up soon. Where are we playing? Your house or mine or let's do a home and home? Ooh, I love it. You know, why don't we meet the middle of the country? You know, let's find one of these places somewhere in the middle of the country because you're California, South Carolina. So why don't we, you know, like close our eyes, pick a place on the map, point to it, and that's where we're going to meet up because there's going to be a golf course nearby. You know, maybe we should make that a show that we picked the most random place in the world by putting our finger on a map. We flew there, played golf together, and we can talk shop more and, you know, have another episode. That sounds awesome. Like I'm not even kidding. Let's do that. Like I'm going to do it. September, October. So let's go. That sounds good. Oh, I'm in Ricky. Well, there's no doubt that you are a leader in this space and just in everything that you're doing here. But leaders or readers, what book are you currently reading? Okay. I know you teed this one up and it's going to seem like a contrived answer. But literally, I just got in the mail the other day, Tom Coins' new book, A Course Called Home. He was on Sunday, CBS Sunday morning the other day talking about it. He's a famous golf writer. He wrote a book called A Course Called America. And he basically with a group of investors bought this Sullivan County golf course in New York and have turned it into a thing and he's written a book about it. So it's a golf course ownership book. A story about someone who's never owned a golf course and the trials and tribulations of making that course work. So that's what I'm reading right now because I love the stories of golf course ownership because anything can happen on any day. And so that's it's a bit even though I'm learning it's more entertainment than learning for me at this point. So so that's why I've been reading right now. A Course Called Home by Tom Coins. This is probably the hardest question I'm going to ask but it's my favorite. Who's in your dream force? And that's anybody alive or dead and where are you playing? I don't care if you say a gust of it. But I hope you got something that's better than that. Yeah. That's great. I love this question because you know, certainly when I ask, when I'm asked, hey, where's your favorite place to play? Or where is your fate? You know, whatever my it's easy to look at the bucket list places. But when I I think most avid golfers go back to their emotional center, where did you grow up playing? And if I could play that again. So I'm going to say the place that I want to play, my top of the list is the course where I grew up that doesn't exist anymore. It closed down, you know, to that development fate that we talked about. Some had chased Country Club in Snailville, Georgia. I would love to play that course again. I knew every inch of that place and absolutely loved growing up there. And my dream force, I'm going to turn into a five sum only because I've got three brothers and my dad would be the five of us playing Summit Chase together once again. That's kind of my dream. Second to that Ricky would be if I could take all four of them out to Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach is still my favorite walk in the country. And they've none of them have ever been out there. So if I could go out there and be with them the first time they were approaching green number eight and you look back and you see the dramatic cliff behind you on number eight and all of these things. If I could be with them, when they first experience that to me, that is a dream. So those, you know, so I gave you two answers to one question, but it does involve my brothers and my dad. I'd tell you Pebble is just an incredible experience. And the fact that people don't realize how small those greens are, like they don't look that small on TV and you know what Tiger has done on that golf course. It's just what an unbelievable property and just one of the most iconic and famous courses on the planet. Still my favorite walk in America and I don't know if anything will ever talk that. Well, speaking of Tiger, I didn't tell you this. I am Tiger's biggest fan. My collectives memorabilia, I fun fact, I actually have red and black tubs that I put the Tiger merchandise in so I can store it safely in my third bedroom. I've got stuff hanging on every corner of my wall of him. So be careful how you answer this one. But he's tied with Sam's need 82 official PGA tour wins. Every time I open my phone, he's in the news doing something wrecking a car, flipping do whatever I know all that said everything that he's been through. Do you think he gets one more win before he retires? All right. First thing I got to say to you, Ricky, though, is I'd appreciate the Sam's need comparison. We often, and this is Kathy Harbin in my ear on this one, where in my head is we can't forget Kathy Whitworth and her 88 victories. I always think that needs to be part of the conversation. We kind of forget that sometimes. But to your point, and by the way, you're such a fan, are you going to start Tiger Con? Are you going to create a Tiger Con kind of conference of enthusiasm fans? Seems like a business opportunity for you, Ricky. I'm going to give you the short answer that no, I don't think he does. I don't think he, after the injuries that he's faced, now that he's aging into the senior tour opportunities on the official PGA tour. As much as I've loved following him in his career, I don't think he notches another victory on the belt. All right. I don't like that answer. I do think that if he could, and think about this, he doesn't clip that truck that he's passed. And a few months ago, he plays at the masters, and he's your Ryder Cup captain. Do you think that that's true? I think that he, I think being the captain of the Ryder Cup team definitely was a possibility there. And I would still love to see that happen down the road. But I think winning, when you see the limber backs that are crushing the ball, you look at Cameron Young and crushing it, when he finished, at the players, and his drive on 18375 yards, I get it. Tiger is the greatest of all time in that respect. I think it would be quite an uphill battle to beat the limber backs in the game that we're starting to see right now. And I'll say one more thing to that. So he can't do this at a John Deere classic with a Reign Delay on Thursday. He's not going to be able to have the one that gets him to 83. And until he tells me, and it's not like he's going to text me and let me know, but until he tells the world that he's done, I'm going to have that one sliver of hope that he gets one more. I don't care about majors. I'm done worrying about the majors. I still think he's the greatest of all time for what he's done for the game. And in my opinion, still continues to do for the game. And I just one more, don't go out tied. And but when he realizes, when he wakes up one day and says, OK, I'm done. He needs to be done. Let us know and then do whatever he's going to do in the next phase of his life. I kind of put us out of our misery on that one, right? Every time he speaks, I'm like, all right, are you coming back or are you going to play? Let's go. You know, and if I was placing money, I'd say no, but it's also something I would love to see one day, right? If it's her, and did not set one more victory. What's next for you in the NGC OA? So, you know, we're in this moment right now with artificial intelligence. And I think what's next is how broad we go with the educational content and helping owners and operators embrace this phenomenon because it's going to be one of the most unbelievable resources out there in running business, you know, just golf, you know, all businesses. So I think that's an exciting thing in front of us. We've always leaned into technology and what's happening in that space. So I can see just kind of expanding the content. We put on technology conferences. We put on a T-time summit last fall on, you know, what's happening in the T-time ecosystems. I can see that being an ever-expanding role for us to play in the industry is providing good content and guidance on what's happening with technology because that's really the biggest part of change in our business is technology, right? So I think that's happening. And that municipal golf growth in our sector to make sure that we take care of the needs of those operators of municipal golf courses. In addition to the others, we want to care for everybody because we believe that the supply side of golf is going to continue to have challenges and we got to be there for everybody to maintain that healthy supply that, you know, millions of American golfers love to play, right? So that's kind of what's in the in the crystal ball for us in addition to as we talked about ongoing advocacy needs. We got to continue to build a treasure, a war chest to be able to fight the advocacy needs because I think as Congress continues to be dysfunctional, more and more legislation and public policy changes are going to happen at the state and local levels. So we have to expand our abilities to be ready to engage and to have relationships already built at the state and local level. So I see an expansion in that direction as well for NGCOA. Step into the heart of Scotland with Eden Mills Scotland experiences journey through the art of craft distilling or tradition meets innovation. From blending your own gin to savoring the finest whiskeys, every moment is a celebration of Scotland's rich heritage. Whether you're a whiskey enthusiast, a gin lover, or simply an adventurer at heart, Eden Mills offers experiences you'll never forget. Book your journey today and create memories to last a lifetime. In golf, the 19th hole is a slang term for a bar or a restaurant honor near the golf course. It's very often in the clubhouse itself. Based on what you were talking about, where your dream foreson's going to be, I think I know where your favorite 19th hole is, but where is it and what are you drinking? As a kid, my favorite 19th hole was Summit Chase Country Club having a grilled cheese and a coke. That was my dream 19th hole after finishing walking 18 holes. But today, an ice cold hazy IPA is my drink of choice. And I'm going to choose the ocean course at Kiowa, the Ryder Cup bar right there. We can watch these people come up and finish on the 18th hole with the ocean in the background. Kiowa is about 45 minutes from my house. So, there's, I don't know if there's a better place in my life where I can go kick it up, feel the breeze, drink a cold beer and watch other suffering patrons that suffered through the most difficult golf course in the country, but it love every minute of it. Finish up there around. That's probably my favorite place. Thank you so much for doing this. This has been such a long time coming and I'm glad that we finally made it happen and you're doing some important work here and in the golf industry is better because of it. So, keep it up. And I just can't wait to see where this journey takes you and how you continue to grow from here. But thanks again, my friend. And I hope that you and I do get the chance to not only chat again soon, but fly to the middle of this country and it up. Ricky, we're going to make it happen. Thanks for having me on the show. I'll talk shop all day long with guys like you. So look forward to maybe another episode down the future because a lot's going to change in this industry. That puts this installment of the Wednesday Matchplay podcast in the books. But we'll be back next week for another exciting episode of the show.