1197: Neil Learns How a PGA Tour Event Gets Built

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! The job I always think is worse but you can see see all these fence poles going up yes and very shortly you'll hear the sweet sound of a fence pounder see the guys in the neon yellow over there yeah that's the job I've always like yeah I don't want that job see the two guys there they're gonna stand up they got about an 11-foot pole they mount their hammer on it he goes and gets his little stepladder oh there he goes and now you'll see and hear he's gonna get up there turn on his hammer right while this woman tees off oh yeah there's the jacking he doesn't care it's ladies day on 16. Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here joined by an eclectic group of colleagues one Icarito Neil Schuster is here. Neil what is going on? Not much good morning gentlemen fired up to be here we got a special one for you. DJ Pie is here hello Deej. Hello good to good to be here you know we're recording this at 8:30 my time we should have done this about 4:45 5 o'clock we got to get up early for the podcast like that that's right throw on the vest get to work right the coffee going get a breakfast sandwich our esteemed colleague as well Charlie Van Kirk is here what's going on Charlie hey Solly who's the eclectic one in this group the whole everyone yeah everyone Neil what are we doing here? What are we doing today? What would you say we're doing here today? It's a little different episode yeah it is this is one that's been on the like kind of brainstorming board the jam session board for years Charlie and I are gonna take in a little audio journey of the job site we're going to explore all the stuff that goes into hosting and building out a successful PGA Tour golf event in 2026 and specifically we're gonna focus on the build-out for the 2026 BMW Championship that is taking place next week Belle Reve Country Club in St. Louis so if you take I guess if you take anything away from this podcast I hope it's an appreciation for all the little stuff just the amount of stuff that has to get done in a very specific sequence and amount of time so like the next time you're on site you know rope and stake why don't you take a look take a look at those knots this this is this has been a dream of yours for a long time I would say this is a this is that we've we've leveraged our BMW relationship to really get behind the scenes this has been the eat that an open door in terms of hey we'd like to you know interview a bunch of people would like to come on site we'd like to really dig on on some finances a lot of background we're gonna get into a lot of stuff of like cuz I'm the same way you are maybe not as entertained by this whole thing as you are but you get to a tournament you're like man all this for just like a few days of watching people play golf like this triple-decker you know hospitality thing I'll just just play golf for a few days and then just gonna tear it back down and all go back to normal it just it never financially adds up in my head to work but I must if they keep doing it we're gonna get there where does it all go we're gonna get there too I'm excited for this Neil I I worked at the PGA Tour for a long time I got to know a lot of the operations people they're they're fascinating people it's a fascinating job you know I feel like a lot of the player relations stuff is just like you think that's the sexy job it's like I know they're just pissed about like whatever the locker room set up this week or something boring these guys are just like you know how do we get that huge thing from there to over there I don't know how we're gonna do it do we got to take out trees do we got to bring in machinery it's just problem-solving all day so I love this topic and I'm pumped it pumped to dive in a lot of craftsmen DJ that's right that's right before we get there Neil I don't have a good transition for this one you're doing you're doing the intro and the read here and usually if I'm doing it I got a good transition here but do you got some some some title stuff you want to tell us yeah just you know shout out the Titleist presenting sponsor and I want to give a massive shout out to Austin Shackleton he's the New Jersey area Titleist fitter I worked with him about a month ago getting fit for a 3-wood and a 7-wood he's awesome so if you're in the area go see and I would say that like local fitters for Titleist everywhere put me in a GTS 3 3-wood I've always liked being able to turn a 3-wood right to left I've been turning it way too much right to left was kind of set up for that and so he kind of neutralized the right to left ball put a little bit more weight in the toe for me and since then I've had three Eagles since that fitting a similar set up in the 7-wood so we're hitting par fives of two gentlemen and starting to really attack it surprised the golf ball DJ when we have a chance to score getting the ball up in the air with those fairway woods so GTS Farrow woods have been great still loving the left - golf ball highly recommend the left - if you're struggling with the spinny t-ball as I tend to do and if you have you know full swing wedges that zip off the green that is neutralized both of those issues and then I put the 2026 Scotty Cameron phantom 7.2 in the bag in May plumbers neck that's the story here guys I've resisted it forever it's just like a craftsman behind the ball it's coming out but I don't know maybe honeymoon maybe not I don't know but I think it's honeymoon maybe not but the plumber's neck is is hot right now uh that's that's my bag update neil the plumber uh the tradesman the the ibot member the local 908 put your pants up neil uh i was wondering because if we but you and i might may or may not play a alt shot event later this fall is like oh man do i need to do i need to get in neil's golf ball a little bit a little time in with neil's golf ball good good point i i literally i got in bed last night i was like i gotta play a different golf ball we're also gonna get to people waking up at night and making notes for themselves that's that's in this episode as well um so let's run a show what do we what's what's what's yeah what's the kind of run a show spoiler caveats real quick uh there's a lot that goes into building a tournament and charlie and i captured an overwhelming amount of first-hand audio interview content i think the hardest part with this stuff is like selecting what you know all of it's interesting you know but it's like okay we got to tighten this up so this will not be a complete list of everyone and everything that makes a tournament successful we had to focus um i hope it's a good overview of how it works on a macro scale so we'll go through some of the big players early uh and kind of who does what but from there it's a lot of it's a collection of things that said you know made us say wow or just made room for wow and some stuff that just made us laugh so we interviewed about 15 people on site and from home tried to break it up into a few different sections we'll talk about the why like why are we doing this quick run through of of who does what uh because there are a lot of stakeholders we'll profile the conductor i think the uh the main character i'm going to call him the conductor what i'm going to call the big ass jobs uh we'll laugh about some of the smaller more unique jobs uh walk through the financials and then run through some stats and then if you know as you guys have questions maybe we have answers i don't know we did also if you don't i don't know who anybody who does at this 12-6 curveball a couple weeks ago scheduled to go to st louis meet charlie there and we're going to talk about some of the things that we're going to talk about in this video so let's get started and we're going to talk about some of the things that we're going to talk about in this to uh do the hit the job site complete bone zone flights ground stop at newer couldn't get out next night couldn't get out thunderstorms in the area faa just choke points everywhere so charlie did make it so a lot of the firsthand stuff charlie captured on on his end i was able to work the interview stuff from home but uh charlie anything to add there yeah i mean sally this was whiffs of rider cup last fall when neil's alarm didn't go off and you and i were sitting on the bus at four in the morning and neil's just like ah fuck guys i did it again and i spoke this one into existence i'm like i missed you know i haven't had any flight issues in a while back to back canceled flights i'm i'm i'm over to this summer united both times but thunderstorms i mean like the whole airport shut down that's not you know no that's that that that courtesy is always extended to american when flights get canceled and delayed too so that's yeah that's great yeah i mean my i have to sneak this in there that that our idea for this was to put neil in a micro dirty job situation and just neil make you suffer as much as possible and let that carry the firsthand audio and i am i am gutted that that didn't get to happen but i'm kind of holding out hope yet yeah exactly yeah like i i've not given up on that conceptually for for something so we gotta you know maybe it's maybe it's next year at liberty maybe it's something else mw's in my backyard next year and then i'm when these flights i'm sitting at new york you know for four hours and then i go home at you know 1 a.m i'm like it hit me i'm like god bmw's at liberty next why don't we just do it next year you know so i had a lot there's just been a lot of uh a lot of angst and stuff so uh charlie also took some awesome pictures while on site so if you're watching this on youtube we'll flash those when we play some audio clips uh and we'll try to get those out on social media as well i got a million things we want to get through so please be patient if we if we get lost on the trail here uh but otherwise you guys ready yeah i have i have one question uh i mean you you kind of we kind of danced around this but just a lot of topics we could do there's a lot of stuff on our brain storming doc why you've talked about doing this for literally years what what is what is it about this that makes you makes you want to dive in it's a couple things every time every time i go to any professional tournament but especially the ones that bounce around rider cup last year us open this year and then bmw the last three or four years i just i'm always blown away by the operation and then i've also started to realize how it's grown you know how it's it's kind of uh and and talking to everybody on site like these buildouts have doubled and so the idea of building a temporary city for a 130 000 plus people to come and enjoy themselves over the course of a week is fascinating uh i find myself wondering about like little stuff and so you know it's just always been a curiosity uh and i use the word city intentionally because like again the last 20 years these buildouts have gone from like county fair style open air tents by the putting green to three-story buildings like legit buildings with ac couches kitchens sound systems chandeliers the list goes on i have never worked in construction uh but i'm fascinated by stuff getting built in the real world deej i know you're a a lover of guys building cabins on youtube you know just the the sequencing for this stuff venue selection how it's laid out the financing custom build logistics of 50 different vendors and then it's not on an empty lot like it is with a permanent building this is a you know most of the time a private club people paying a lot of money to be a member at that club uh you got to avoid shutting down the course so it's all very confined you can't push the open date you can't have a soft launch you know it's like we got one week if we don't hit these deadlines and if we don't get all this stuff done in the next you know week now uh it's a hard deadline so all of that is really really interesting to me and then like the relationship with the local community the neighborhood the the government we're gonna talk a little bit about that and just like what you know like what you have to do not just at the course but like to move you know 15 000 additional cars on the road in a you know an old school neighborhood is is um something that needs to be thought through um as as a member of a course that has hosted a champions tour event for the last five years and is now no longer hosting one it is like it's never about the week of the tournament like giving up your course for all you got to give up your course for the week it is always about the four to five to six weeks ahead in advance clanging banging noise like you heard in the cold open there of like while you're i get the course is under construction and then it's under construction to tear it all down for weeks afterward and then there's damage left by everything that's been done there uh it's like it's just a it's a big thing to give up your golf course for uh for a professional event you don't think about that i don't think about that with wyndham at all which is this week as we're recording this because but somebody's been working on that year round all year uh three years in advance i'm just gonna say in advance and bmw championship i think is a really good example one because i've met the people that do it and i've always we're gonna you know do a kind of a profile the people is the other reason for why deeds where i've always been really really impressed when i'm like man these guys are super competent and interesting and and fun you know what i mean so i'm like i'd love to profile what goes into the operation here uh and bmw championship moves around and so you know and and other tournaments do rider cup but like the fact that they do it every year uh it's not every two years and it makes it more complex there's pros and cons to moving around but as the tour starts to think about moving the tour championship around in a few years and you know getting to other markets i think bmw is is kind of the the gold standard for how to do that well so yeah that's i've just always wanted to like dig in and and see how works well another thing is we we have never been shy about offering our critiques of where the pga tour maybe gets some things wrong or where we might have different personal taste and blah blah blah they'd never mess this up they'd never mess the operations up they never don't have it built in time they're never behind schedule on any of this stuff they don't correct me if i'm wrong but they're never behind schedule on any of this stuff they don't but they're never behind schedule on any of this stuff they don't correct me if i'm wrong remember they don't run out of food they don't run out of water they don't have massive parking problems like they their ability to put this part on always amazes me and uh it's yeah and it's not all the same and it's not all the same organizations and that's also important to note so like that's why i'm fascinated by it it's not like it's not a copy and paste model across every tournament kind of has its own different setup and personality so we'll get into that too and to be honest this was like a like going back five years ahead of it in advance i was like oh this will be things that live screws up like it's not as easy as the pga tour makes it look to their credit i would say live has had equal amount an impressive amount of competence in the setup and the build out and all of the logistics that go into that like that was where i i was expecting things to go wrong and didn't but um again that this whole part does amaze me not you know not at the same extent it does to you neil but uh i'm very curious to dive in it's just a matter of whether those people get paid but that's a different that's a totally different conversation i think the different organizations is fascinating to me because i think a lot of people very very understandably uh would be like oh it's the pj tour the pj tour has a rope guy the pj tour has a an op you know and they do have ops guys right obviously that that do this stuff um but bmw is an interesting one you know i i don't even totally i mean it's western golf association it's bmw it's like there's a lot of different cooks in the kitchen so maybe we start with like a little rundown of that let's let's start there i'm gonna lay out let me just do a quick overview macro so host so kind of players and organization host organization this is not the pga tour this is the western golf association wga they've the mission for them they were found in 1899 wga exists to conduct championships for professional and amateur golfers promotes the use of youth caddies and supports the evans scholars foundation's efforts to award full tuition and housing college scholarships to high achieving caddies with limited financial means basically they are that they run the tournament right so they are responsible for everything that goes on outside the ropes big hand venue selection you know i have to work with the pga tour on on you know what courses but like they are they are the ones building the tournament they are doing all of the stuff that we're going to talk about they conduct four amateur tournaments annually and two professionals one corn fairy event that was in chicago a couple weeks ago and then the bmw championship which bounces around they're based in chicago uh they're going to liberty next year i don't know if they've announced it but olympia fields was a a location in the past and and probably one in the future as well obviously we're biased i think they are the gold standard we've partnered with them to work towards a named evans scholarship shout out to abby boyer our first scholar but this is when we talk about uh the history of the pga tour and the non-profit stuff this is the non-profit component um they have one thousand two hundred and sixty evans scholars enrolled in twenty seven universities uh for the twenty twenty five twenty twenty six academic year and they've uh twelve thousand five hundred and seventy five young men and women have graduated as evans scholars since 1930. so that's what you're that's the charity component of this specific tournament the western open which is now the bmw championship can i pause on this this is this is something that people do neil that i don't need to pick on you for this but i just want to clarify you said we're biased based on this i i this is something uh i feel like i've gone through in the last five years of like i would say we would be biased if like your brother was running the western golf association and we've we felt the need to steer out of our way to to say nice things about them we have chosen because of the great work they do with the evans scholars foundation to be closely tied to that right well just like we did work with espn uh yeah exactly about seven years ago i just want to say they're you know just just to acknowledge there is a partnership with the with the i would not say we are biased towards the evan scholars foundation i'd say we we wholeheartedly endorse uh the incredible things they have done with that nitpicking your words there but i think there could be a little confusion on that and i think what i would add here is there's a there's a host organization most weeks sometimes the pj tour pulls tournaments in in-house to do like well i'll get there okay cool so but this is like if you go to phoenix this is the when you hear about the thunderbirds if you go to dallas the salesmanship club there's there's different organizations like this kind of scattered and there some of them are struggling like they're getting i don't want to say you know the ones that aren't it's like anything like the middle's getting hollowed out a little bit so the the best host organizations i think they offer a tremendous value both in the the clarity of the charity component which is really important and we'll talk about in the finance section and uh creating differentiation having a personality like for western golf the wga like being being like we want to bounce around because like not every tournament makes as much money for the evans scholars but those are important markets and places where they want to start a scholarship or make sure like you know all these scholars spread out it's a way for them to bring the alumni back together and so there's a lot of different success metrics for them and and how and and i think if it you know the pga tour does a really good job with their championship management but they're going to systematize it and it's going to be a lot more uniform and they they're not you know they're not going to want it to they're not going to go out of their way to make it stand out no one's going to care yeah yeah it's not there it's kind of like hey we're doing 10 of these or whatever it is more efficient though you know what i mean totally which i i think we don't have to get into it now but it's worth keeping in the back of your head like that's the push and pull between all these changes on the pga tour right is like what you just said makes complete logical sense right we want to move around this is our fundraising engine we have people all over the country we need to go to different markets yada yada yada if if the pj tour is moving towards being just a pure entertainment product and there's somebody on their couch being like i don't give a just go to bandit dunes like there's a real push and pull there between how the tour was set up and how it used to operate and kind of where it's where it's headed which i think there's a lot of healthy tension in that but it's tension nonetheless so and the wga their pnl they get everything outside the ropes they get the money from tickets hospitality not the title sponsor, but the hospitality, you know, the, the, whatever it's a package of tickets or, you know, 400 K big ass tent, uh, concessions and merch. Right. And so that's where, you know, they're running this tournament and they have to make sure that that number is a lot bigger than what it costs. And then the, whatever the profit is that goes, you know, for the most part, we'll talk about some details that have changed, but that's going to go to the Evans scholars. That's the money that we are raising to send men and women, guys and girls to, uh, to school. So I'll be honest. I didn't even know that. I thought I, I assumed the PG, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's, that's where the majority of their money is going to come from. Uh, and also, but then, you know, this isn't a, an event and experience. They're going to generate more donations from this, you know, so there's all like, but from the actual P and L of the tournament, that's to keep it simple. So second, second stakeholder, go ahead. Quickly on that. The PGA tour though, helps them sell the hospitality, right. Or they're not necessarily in charge. I guess I'm thinking of like players, which is champ management. That's different. And that's one of the hosted ones. So that's going to be a little different. Uh, and tour championship, they're going to help. Sell the hospitality, but, but for this specifically, WGA is responsible for the local market sales. Wow. Right. And I think, I think, you know, you could probably think of the PGA tour as like a channel partner. Like they're, they might be funneling like an OMP official marketing partner. Hey, Grant Thornton has a big office in St. Louis. Can you guys hook them up with a, with a suite? You know, like, of course they're going to send inbound that way. But as far as like, who's, you know, where's that check being signed to? That's going to WGA. Whereas next stakeholder is going to be title sponsor. This is BMW. Uh, BMW, this is the 20th year that BMW has been the title sponsor of the Western open hosted by the WGA. The first year they were the sponsor was a cog Hill who won that tournament. Uh, Tiger woods was the cat baby. I was there, baby. Let's go. Uh, who was a runner up? Deej, uh, Mark Leishman. I think Aaron badly. Oh, okay. Leishman was runner up or no release. You want a one, one of these? Well, I'm worried. Somebody checked me on that. If you're going to ask it as a trivia question, I thought you knew the answer. I think I saw Aaron badly. Uh, hold on 2007. Uh, why don't you look that up? And you made a great transition here. Second place, Aaron badly. Okay. Yeah. All right. Listen, I've been doing a lot of research. So my own research, you know, so it could get a couple of things wrong. Okay. Goal mission. Like what, what is BMW getting out of this? Uh, first off I'd say, let's just call out the Denny cash episode. Solly, I just listened to that a couple of days ago. I don't know what number it is, but we should link it here. But this, if you want more information on like title sponsorship and what the big name title sponsors are getting out of working with the PGA tour, that's a, that's going to be a better resource. Uh, but they're trying to create an annual experience that represents the BMW brand well to both golf fans watching, and then provides them kind of a physical experience for different stakeholders with, with BMW, BMW, and talking to people that, uh, that work there or work with BMW. It's a physical product company. They make cars, right? So hosting a real world event allows them to get creative with touch points, uh, not just for customers or for people watching, you see the cars displayed in the lakes, all that stuff, but also like hope that dealers, you know, you got to take care of your top dealers around the country. Uh, and then other channel partners. Uh, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of stakeholders in the automotive industry. And so this is a great like center of gravity for them every year. Two things, Neil, one that is episode eight 79 of the no laying up podcast, how sponsorship works, uh, on the PGA tour. We're already taking care of most of this part of the episode for me, but this episode is brought to you by our friends at BMW proud title sponsor of the BMW championship. They're celebrating the year, the term it's 20th anniversary. And we're reminded of what makes this event so special every year, thousands of people come together to build an entire city around a championship golf tournament, creating unforgettable experiences for players and fans alike. Since BMW became title sponsor, the BMW championship has been named PGA tour tournament of the year, six times reflection of the incredible work that goes into every detail. For BMW, it's an opportunity to connect with passionate golf fans, share their latest vehicles and innovations and help support something even bigger. Every BMW championship is played for the Evans scholars foundation, helping provide life-changing college scholarships to deserving caddies across the country, BMW, the ultimate driving machine. Uh, and shout out to them for helping us, you know, making intros, getting us set up with, with, uh, you know, access to do this. So as I said, um, it's not just customers, dealers, partners, you know, and, and good center of gravity for them, uh, reference again, reference to Denny cash and specifically the, the workday example in that episode. So I thought it was fantastic that just quick recap of that CEO workday lost a massive deal back in the day because of, uh, SAP was able to set up a pro-am experience with tiger woods with a big prospect. And they're like, you know, we're going with Bob sugar. Uh, and so he was kind of like this, man, I'm going to get into this golf, you know, sponsorship thing. So I can, do the same thing. So the point being, there's a very human and memorable experiential piece of, of these events, sponsorships. It's not all about the commercials, you know, they're measuring all of that stuff. Uh, but there's a kind of a hard to quantify piece of this, which is just like, you know, human, like, Hey, if something's going wrong, if I hosted them and they had a great experience, I'm going to get a call. At least I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get, Hey, we're going with Bob sugar. You're going to, you're going to call me before you do that is, is the idea there. Um, so we'll get into it. A little bit more like the finance stuff later, but third stakeholder PGA tour specifically the, for, for the operations, the competition committee. So I spoke with Steven Cox, uh, last week, one of the lead tournament officials for the PGA tour also kind of what used to be the advanced guy that would go around to different events, make sure. And their role here is like, yes, they, they are responsible for sanctioning the event, handling all the media partnerships, the TV stuff. They, they handle the media rights and the check that BMW signs goes to them. And then they do, you know, support the host course with whatever renovations need to be made. And they make sure they help out with agronomy. Uh, but specifically they are responsible tournament setup wise for everything that goes on inside the ropes. So that's agronomy course set up course improvements in advance of the tournament. Uh, they handle the title sponsor money, as I said, and Steven said, I was like, give me some examples of like what you're working on, on those advanced site visits. He's like fairway with line patterns, width of intermediate height of rough height of fairway. He's like, you know, what are we going to do with this collar with, uh, what sort of green speeds are we prepping for? You know, are I'm, I'm looking at the site map and I'm just making sure everything's far enough away. Are we going to have any TIO stuff? Hold that thought. We'll get there shortly. And I've seen them like come into our course and they'll dot the fairways of, you know, we don't typically have an intermediate rough, uh, at, in, at Tim Aquana, they'll come in a couple of months in advance and, and put green lines in the fairways of like, here's where we're going to grow up the intermediate cut for this tournament. Like they'll just make little kind of tweaks like that. Um, in, almost the way they work as a rules officials is it's similar here. So an example that Steven gave me of for coming up is on one of these advanced visits, they, they actually talked to a seller shy and Steve Milton of CBS and they, they want to put a new fly cam in. Uh, I think it's between 17 and 18 this year. And the, the P you know, Steven's like, Hey, we're worried. We were worried because looking at the shot link data from the PGA championship in 2018, a lot of guys dumping it left on both holes. And those wires are gonna be running down the left side of both holes. And so they're like, we don't, you know, he's like, last thing I want is someone hits that wire and gets a favorable drop. You guys are going to jump all over me. That's a problem. We're trying to get, make sure that the, but we also want those guys to use their bells and whistles, you know? So we're calling for more like cool shots. And, and this is where the PGA tour will weigh in and use some of the data from an, an experience they have to be like, all right, we gotta make sure we put this in the right place. We don't want a Norway versus England goal kick situation at all on 18. Yeah, that's right. Uh, and then last thing here, Deej to, to your point earlier, it's important to know the tour is getting deeper into championship management and, you know, hosting basically the WGA in this case. Uh, and right now they host the cognizant players, truest FedEx tour championship and president's cup. And I think there might be one or two others I'm missing. Uh, but that's where they, they have two separate teams. You got the, so the internal teams at the PGA tour are working both sides of this. Yeah, it's, it's kind of like I, I said at the beginning, it's kind of a fascinating, a fascinating thing. It's one of those where it's like, if you, if you blew everything up and you restarted, would the PGA tour run everything? It's kind of the TPC idea that Brian roll app talked about at the players, right? Where it's like, if, you know, if, if we could, don't you think we'd want to control all of our own venues so that we're not pushing a membership out and so that we're not, we're not doing X, Y, and Z, but also that's a whole other undertaking. And it's, it's, there's a lot of positives to how it works now. So I, I just pros and cons, man. I mean, there's no right answer. The more people you talk to, I feel like the more, you know, not as a cop-out, but the, the more people you talk to, the more sympathetic you get to just like, wow, this is, this is complicated. It's not quite as easy as just like solid. We figured it out or we felt that it's very easy. It is. We felt that when we were doing the schedule, uh, the schedule podcast, right. Where it's like, okay, although Doug governor's off, you can make the 2028 schedule, anything you want. We got, I think we all got like halfway through. We're like, ah, I mean, it's just, kind of seems like it's just like how they're doing now. I figured out why now I get why we're in Memphis in August. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, it kind of, you know, it kind of makes sense what they're doing. I think they've thought about it real quick, you know, I believe truest in Miami are both, uh, chain management, um, uh, events as well. And, and I think it's also where the PGA tour, you know, they can be a little bit of a backstop for some of these tournaments, you know, like, cuz not every, again, these host organizations, not all of them are, are excelling. Um, you know, it's, it's, it comes down to people, which we're gonna get to here shortly, but a couple more stakeholders, host course, this is bell Reeve this year. They have. experience hosting a ton of high-end um golf vet pj championship they have a history of hosting high-end amateur and and uh you know professional events um but they haven't done it in a while so it's still kind of like dusting off the you know the playbook um and you know i think what's important to to realize here is it's just they have a lot of stakeholders in the membership right so how do you work with a course like that to make sure that this is a win for them they're trying to celebrate st louis and and you know kind of the local uh flavor but also you know just kind of put on a good event and have a party and again as i said liberty national next year uh and they're already ahead of like the whole build out site maps all built so they're working on you know almost in tandem like getting ahead of next year as well i'll just quick run through tv partners that's cbs this year normally nbc and we're going to talk about that how that creates some complexity for the operations team here and then you've got a ton of vendors local government local hoa this year uh we've been we're having some hoa meetings about parking and access you got all the local sponsors and of course you got the the fans which will be kind of around the estimates probably 130 000 that was that was the number given for castle pines which was a high high water mark out in denver a couple years ago for for bmw so sorry that was a lot but that's just state of play here uh okay all that all that makes sense that and and it again is bewildering that they're not only doing that uh for this week but they're doing that for 30 40 events on the pj tour and then a bunch more on the corn fairy tour and a bunch more in the champions tour and it's it's and then the dp world to the live golf it's just there's a lot of a lot of moving parts in pro golf but who's who's the conductor we talked about the maestro at the beginning where who's who's leading the ship here well as we talked about a lot of like i'm fascinated by the size and the size of the event and how many stakeholders are involved need to collaborate but i i think what's unique here maybe it's like this in construction but as far as i the way i look at it in a large company it's a very clear hierarchy you know that this event is an amalgamation of like disparate organizations vendors freelancers government officials volunteers a lot of volunteers as well and oh it has it changes cities every year and it like literally can't have delays so you need a conductor that guy is patrick timpson vice president of tournament operations for the western golf association patrick has worked uh at wga his whole career i think he's coming up on 25 years uh he was initially an intern uh or crew guy at the western open uh during summers in high school uh and then he went to college and came back to western golf and has worked his way up the ladder to basically run shit uh so charlie here's a clip let's just we'll let him introduce himself patrick timpson vice president of tournament operations for western golf association and where are we standing right now we are standing golfers right of 18 approach behind a huge scaffold deal that's the size of a football field 100 meters long just about as wide as a field and we're we're going to walk in here to check out what's going on status wise to make sure the next vendor can get in on time and how many days until tournament week um i don't i don't count that anymore but let's say uh it's three weeks from monday okay oh i'm sorry two weeks from monday oh shoot monday next monday is advanced advanced week we okay and uh as you can see there's a lot to be done you know we're standing on rough plywood guys are painting polishing shining but the the biggest project was getting these walls done the interior kind of divisions so that uh that vendor can vacate the space and our next guy can roll in literally so they're going to roll out the carpet i'm stressed yeah all right well he's not though and i know we're going to touch on that but i've met patrick previously like three years ago and i see him every year at the bmw and he's he's awesome and i've always thought he'd be a fascinating guy to profile i remember at castle pines i was walking with him he's like oh you see those porta potties up there like yeah we had we brought a crane in overnight and put those those went in late it's like three stories up he's got the porta potty you know it's like how do you do that man uh so a few like things jump out immediately when you meet him first he sounds like the actor jk simmons uh the whiplash guy he kind of looks like him too but he's not going to the whiplash guy he kind of looks like him too you know he's just a great voice for radio uh which which is awesome uh bald fit just a positive force of nature every time i've called him to interview him or uh you know ask a question which is probably like five or six times at this point he picks up the phone on the first or maybe second ring but like always this patrick you know just like and then you hear what what charlie's captured i mean he's just constantly talking to somebody and it's never like he it's just like part of he just it's like it's not so natural uh you know what i i there's not sing one single like manual labor job that i haven't underestimated the amount of time by at least 3x not one single one uh even like knowing going in that part i will still underestimate how long stuff takes to not be stressed to have everything be in that state of those photos that charlie just showed as well if you're watching on youtube oh my god that's a different you're wired different so he just embodies like competence and he's extremely calm in short sally put him on the list all right we've got rory we've got scotty maybe rom and patrick timpson dude he's an absolute dude okay he is a dude for sure uh charlie you spent you spent a couple days with him what was your what were your takeaways yeah i basically just followed him around at work for for two and a half days spoke to some other people as well but you know he would have a vendor meeting maybe at eight in the morning for half an hour an hour with with a dozen or so of the folks who were out there building stuff but then he would just cruise around the course he was you know putting spray paint down if like a line that was marking a flag got a little dull he would just touch up the line he would you know he would have 48 new uh like urgent emails in his inbox between that would show up between 9 and 11 a.m and he would like handle all of those by by 2 p.m for example he's just like going out he would like we would be solving something or he would be solving something as i basically just pestered him with questions the whole time and three people would come up to him from different departments while he was solving that one problem and he would solve three more from those individual departments over the course of that and he was just so like the one of the biggest takeaways for me was how calm he was as neil mentioned like granted there's so many problems that have to get solved like someone drives the the wrong kind of vehicle or forklift without tread tires over the golf course in the wrong spot and ruts up the golf course or someone literally crashed into a bridge of scaffolding and up the mesh like if you got flustered by all of that stuff over the course of these months you probably wouldn't survive so he's just like just mowing him down just you know task by task no problem everything's fine uh so i asked him about actually i teed up neil and neil asked him about his his management style here in this clip you got something sally i'll just say compare that with here i was last night maybe stressed about playing a different golf ball four months from now all tournament versus all that is that's not lost on me all right here we go all right i'm gonna switch gears management style uh you've got 95 things going at once uh i don't charlie's telling me he doesn't hear you raising your voice uh you you've got great vibes uh like you're not stressing out is that is that how you're wired is that or is that 20 years of experience the the latter you know the um stressing out thing has has definitely gone downhill because end of the day we know we're giving out a trophy we know uh the folks that we've got under working with us whether it's vendors or our staff they've been doing it they know the drill everybody's working towards a common goal so um that end of it stress has has left my system a while ago now i still you know can't sleep because i you know all these things are running through my head but it's not like oh i can't get it done i just gotta remember it so there's a lot of a lot of you know last night i probably wrote six notes to myself in between you know going to bed and waking up where i woke up and said oh you know gotta check on this permit oh gotta check on this um so that's the nature of uh probably the closing weeks you know my wife will tell you i i if i if i am fortunate enough to be at home and um i'll wake up in the middle of night and just say stuff and kind of like sleep sleep talk about it but um backstopping on six we gotta look at that exactly and she's like go to sleep um but oh my god yeah so so that's the the stress end of it you know the the whole you know getting angry screaming at guys i think i got turned off from that uh early on so back when when i started is just kind of grunt work at at cog hill um they had a superintendent who was great at growing grass but um bad at uh interacting with folks that were disrupting his golf course so um we got yelled at a lot you know for a carts are off the path or you know why is this guy here or you know you guys are whatever it was and uh i'm like well that's that's not very motivating or helpful like i i get it like we shouldn't be there but um no needs no need to scream so uh there's i'm generally not yelling at any vendors for doing a bad thing i'll i'll certainly uh talk to him about it and uh yeah get him straight but don't need to yell so why so why are you always yelling at us neil exactly can you learn from this yeah no i i think i was trying to come up with a way to describe his job because i i don't think operations it is it's too too broad i came up with a disruptive term deej it's problem solving as a service peace ass all right uh and just over the course of 10 weeks it it leading up to this championship it's just he's rolling around on on site sun up to sundown solving problems and here's a little taste of that uh problem solving sal left two openings in the rail but there's only going to be one right in the middle right in the middle mother okay so you've got two missing in the back aisles right yeah i got a 10 in the back row so now so you'll have 11. a sliver so you want us to follow that line follow this line let me show you what i'm thinking so you you want trailers to receive deliveries yeah what i was looking at yesterday these orange marks they go out 48 feet that way so this would be the s end of your trailer you should probably educate them no our guys on rope and state they busted a whole spool of yellow rope is just sitting in the trunk because they like tried to unreal it and came unraveled and then we well one one rule one spool is definitely compromised and then they don't know how to tie the knots they don't they need education hello this is patrick that was probably me calling that's just the whole day basically oh my god hey patrick it's neil i can't figure out how to open these peanuts give me a hand there's no paper towels in the bathroom yeah uh so it's like i mean i and what what shines through there is it's it's patience and it's clear communication right it's just like people skills which i i think is is awesome well and competence right i mean it's like i always think this is a weird analogy but i always think about this with like video stuff in our business for which for a long time it was like oh just let's delegate the business stuff it's like i don't even know how to do it let alone like delegate it to somebody else i don't even know how to do it like i don't even know how to ask them for what i'm what i need because i don't really know what i need until i just kind of futz through and figure it out for something like this it's like no he has to have the answer to every question which means he has to know the ins and outs of every single thing that that goes on you know that's just a such an impressive breadth of knowledge you know that's not it's not just management it's like no it's also extreme hard skills and and knowing where to point different things i think that's that's important to like clarify i don't man it's not management like patrick he'll tell you like he's only as good as his team well he's only technically got three guys working for him on site uh i mean more folks are going to arrive for for advanced week and tournament week but it's mitchell uh who's kind of another mr fix it he's uh tournament operations manager and he's got two paid interns he got tj and jack and i want to play this a lot of it's collaboration with like external vendors so like yeah he's their customer but it's like he's got a he's got a he's got a lot of it's collaboration with like external vendors so like he's still got to direct them and yeah coordination would be a good way to put in so i do want to play this clip uh of kind of how he manages because i i think it kind of uh highlights how how clear of a thinker he is this kind of came out of a conversation that he and i were having about food uh which is you know as one does he was talking about a cookout that they do with a bunch of the crew and making fresh salsas and five gallon barrels and all this stuff so uh you'll hear how this develops what are you eating during all of this oh um so leave the hotel at, you know, call 545-6, get your coffee. I'm not a breakfast guy. Lunch is a high note here. I try to make it that. So we've got a couple interns in here now, TJ and Jack. Those guys are great. We can get into their stories later, chat with them. But, you know, this office will have probably a dozen, 15 people working in, starting like middle of next week. And I told those guys day one, you know, Jack and TJ, I'm like, there's, there's a couple rules that we need to abide by here. Number one is your radio. So always have your radio on you and on. So you're prepared. Number two is always have your, we give them like a Leatherman multi-tool. Always have that because you never know. It's a box or, you know, you need the pliers to fix something, whatever. And number three is lunch is here at noon. Because if it's not, you know, when everybody's running around, everybody's got a schedule. Everybody's got a call. Everybody's got meetings. Everybody's got walkthroughs. Everybody usually clears 12 to 1230. Everybody comes into the mess hall. You eat, you break bread, you laugh a little, and then you go, go back out and do it again. So occasionally we'll have some folks in town and we'll, we'll go out to a nice dinner or something. But even those, it's like, ah, I'd really rather spend those two or two and a half hours. You know, we've, we've got whatever we have left, you know, less than 30 days to do this. It's going to start to be like, oh, I've got less than 10 hours to do this. I, I wish I would've had, two more hours. And that's all cumulative as we go. So that's, that's why we try to keep, keep lunch timely. And, uh, you know, for me, I, I, I, I just stay here, eat here. God, I, the repetitive, like the repetitiveness as a comfort, sign me, sign me up for that. When there's chaos, you got to keep it simple. And so just like the, Hey, I got three things for you. Here's your radio, you know, here's your gun. No, here's your tool and do not. And the are ordering lunch, you know? So it's like in lunch, better be here at noon. Otherwise you're good. I'll tell you everything else as, as needed. Uh, it's just like, we can't plan for all the rest, you know? It's like, let's plan for what we can plan for. And then, uh, we'll take all the, all the rest of it as it comes. I just, I love, I love that. Love that ethos. Yeah. Before we get to the next step, Neil, uh, I want to give a shout to our friends at the USGA. At some point, golf starts to follow you home. If you own more golf polos than t-shirts, if you practice your swing with an umbrella, or if you find golf tees in the laundry, this is a sign. This is a sign. You're a junkie. That's not in the copy. Uh, it's, it's time to get a handicap index. When golf becomes part of your daily life, a handicap index is the next step. Track your progress, compete against friends and make every round mean more. Get a handicap index today. Visit get a handicap.usga.org to get started again, get a handicap.usga.org to get started. Okay, Neil. So you, you said if I'm tracking, he's got three people on his team. He's got vendors constantly coming, coming in and out. Like how do, how do they break down? What's the division of labor here? How do you kind of like, how do you figure out who's doing what who's triaging what's coming in? Who's focused on one thing for six weeks? You know what I mean? How do they kind of break it down? So I went into this project wondering, like, I kind of curious about the vendors and there's probably 50, 70, but I was like, are these national? Are they local? Are you working with a new tent guy every year? Um, you know, and, and so I asked Patrick, one of the first things I asked him in our interviews, I asked him, all right, I'm planning a new golf tournament. Who's my first call? You know, who's my first draft pick? And this is the clip of him walking through the big stuff. Who you're drafting is, is tough because, uh, there's only probably two or three to choose from, you know, for the big ticket items that events like this do it, whether it's golf or, you know, big music festivals, things of that nature that need a big temporary footprint, probably only two or three players in the big structure game. I'll call it scaffold under structure, tip seats, kind of grandstands, tenting, et cetera. Um, so you got to pick out somebody to handle that. But in our scenario and what, what I've liked and we've done for about 15 of those years is we've got vendor a that does scaffold everything down foundation, if you will. And then vendor B is going to come in on top of that and do the tent. So what you're going to learn over the next like 15 minutes is like, there's a whole economy to events, concerts, formula one golf tournaments. And, and, and it's kind of a fascinating industry started to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole on uh so the big ticket stuff is national but it's important we'll get to in a second is it's still the people still matter like who's your foreman there's a lot of institutional knowledge um of guys you want to work with on the specific big stuff but then the local shops are going to be trophy polishing dry cleaning port-a-potties buses like also very important stuff that like hey yeah there's some like he told me we're still using the same trophy guy from 2018 you know and the same dry cleaning service you know so so there's some there's some clues on where to go with this stuff but not you know it would be some i guess you could say would be great if this was all national but it's a lot it's a mix of both just real quick dry cleaning is that just for like um server like hospitality service waiters waiters players um i mean they offer the players so much stuff like i was talking to stephen cox about like during advanced week i was like so what what do you do then he's like we uh the pj tour does a full walk through like we drive we do like a run of show for the players like we drive the courtesy car into the parking lot we walk and understand how much walking they have to do to get to the locker room and where we've set up the the wellness trailers and the massage and how far is that from the putting green and just which is like you know pampered fucks but like i think it's sergio i cannot wait to be done with this tour yeah i know i know it's like oh my god what a life right but like they're offering a lot of of extra stuff um you know if you yeah dry dry cleaning but that's also for the yeah service and the hospitality as well so that's a big ass job you don't even think about that but like they're they need those they need the service to look nice the bartenders what sticks out to me as well is it's got to be just i can't imagine how much competence is just the number one attractive quality that any of these vendors can have yeah right if you're if you're patrick and it's like okay i've got 476 different vendors that i've got to figure out here if you're the if you're the group that's just like hey man we're gonna show up on time and do what we say we're gonna do is just like great can you do this for the next 20 years i don't i don't want to i just want to worry about as little as possible it's just like it's just funny to hear i think the trophy polishing guy was the first thing that you mentioned. It's like, yeah, how long would it have taken to think of that guy? You know, like that's the last thing he wants to be like, Hey, we got a problem with our trophy policy guy. I think he's all over it. Patrick, can you please take this off my plate? I do not want to have to think about this. I might be a TJ or Jack issue to deal with. Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah. So one of the guys in the dude's conversation is Salvador Martinez from San Miguel de Allende, who is the scaffolding foreman. He's kind of maybe the DJ pie of the operation in the sense that like he will build you the city. He will roll with the punches of the topography. And most importantly, he will find his Hollywood hotelings and his Kevin Jacksons who will make something that looks like it was made by 12 people. And it was actually made by three. That's like Sal talked a lot about his team and the fact that he's got 25 guys doing it. And he's got a lot of people doing it. And he's got he's got a lot of people doing it. And he's got You know, not, they're like more temporary labor, let's say. So they're there, they know I can lift this and bring it from A to B, but they don't have the background knowledge of experience that Sal's kind of core crew does. How do you find the right guys? It's working with everybody, like all over the place. Is Martin the longest tenured on your team? He's been with me 15 years. 15? 15, 15. He's like three years older than me in the company. But like pretty much everything that I learned building-wise, I got it from him. So he's, I mean, I put my hands on fire for that guy. Like compared to all the, there is good builders in the company, but he's something else. He's the best. He's the best the company has. Like, you know, it's not because he's in my team, but it's definitely he comes up with ideas that sometimes I don't see it, and he's like, no, no, we can do it this way. Okay, let's go. So it's a trustful source for me for, you know, any build. I've set my hands on fire for you, DJ. I would set my hands on fire for you guys. It's so sick. And one thing I'd say here is there's a lot of erector set stuff, and we'll learn like a lot of stuff that gets repurposed, but a lot of this is custom built, you know? That's what I was going to say. Landscape's got to be different. Yeah, and, you know, they got to build like little rooms inside for meetings, and then it's on the side of a mountain. The slope, they built it on a caves valley, I remember. On 18 was like, oh, my God. Yeah. Charlie, we got next up, Marty Breen. One more character here for you. This is Marty who, while Sal is building the foundation, as Patrick mentioned, of the scaffolding, Marty's the tent guy. Marty's putting the roofs on, and he's been at it a while. He's a very old school character, very pen and paper. You know, Patrick was shocked that Marty dialed into a team's meeting at one point while he was out of town for something, and you'll hear a little bit of that. In this clip. Yeah, Marty, can I ask you, what's the hardest part about your job aside from dealing with Patrick? Yeah, getting Patrick on the phone is probably the hardest thing. But, yeah, you know, just keeping on schedule is probably always my biggest worry, and then the things that I forget, which wake me up at 2 in the morning. Marty and I, I think, wake up at the same time every night thinking about the same things. We were just talking about memory. What's the last thing that woke you up at 2 in the morning? Just whether or not I've asked, for the right parts on the trucks that are being sent from Phoenix, you know, and then it's like. Then forget one thing. It's not, you know, ship it overnight. Yeah, so it's always those kind of things that irk me. Or if I forget to ask Patrick something or, you know, those things where you're running out of time. Do you find that your old school methods butt up against any of the new school? Can you coexist peacefully with your paper and your op stocks? No, I, yeah, I mean, we do pretty well together. Me and Patrick have gone through this. For a lot of years, so, you know, once I get him in front of me, I can. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, it's pretty easy. So Marty predates me quite a bit. My first Western Golf summer was. Oh, 2? And what were you, like, 80? 92? 92, probably. You're going to take this one? Yeah, so, yeah, I've been doing this tournament for a long time. Man, Marty going all the way back to the Cialis Western Open. God, he's got that. That must warm your heart to use his Chicago accent. Oh, that's great. Thick, bullish sausage. I, yeah. We kind of, I mentioned this at the beginning, but I want to circle back to it. So they're putting up all these tents, you know, Sal and the whole gang is building this city. And then they take it all down at the end. I don't know if I'm skipping around, but, like, where does it go? Does it go back to the vendors? Like, how do. I just don't know how. I can't really wrap my head around how this works afterwards. So they build. Build all this. And then, I mean, all of this is powered, right? So that's always something I've been curious about. Like, first off, where does it all go? And the other 51 weeks of the year. And there's. I think the best illustration of this or audio of this is Todd Fasano and Woodrow Bosley from Agreco, the tournament's provider of generators, power, and AC. The leading provider of climate and mobile climate solutions. Agreco is a power solutions company. We deal in and specialize in any type of major projects, events, power generation, distribution, AC, refrigeration, chillers, things of that nature. Do all of these gens live in an Agreco warehouse somewhere typically? Yeah, they go from site to site. Some of them were at the women's KPMG in Minnesota. So we got a lot of those back here. They went from PGA to St. Louis and then St. Louis to Minnesota and then back, you know, so we're just. just getting them out. Luckily, FIFA's loading out right now, so we did all the broadcasts for FIFA. So we're trying to get that equipment here so that we can get it deployed and on the course. Yeah, that's all this stuff, Charlie. Like, nobody has a warehouse for any of this. It just jumps from job to job. If Agreco, you know, there was no event for six months for some reason, I'm sure they don't have a facility large enough to put all their stuff. Same with the tenting company and the scaffold company. It's all made to move. They will start to start moving gens to the south for hurricane season. So after we get done with the events, then they go south, but then we also do other events, Formula One, Vegas, and Mecham Auto Auctions are a couple of things that we're doing this fall. All right. All right. Guys, I know I'm a weirdo, but how amazing is that? It's just all this stuff, the scaffolding, generators, the heavy-duty, like, stuff. They're going to run 25 miles of cable. For all the shot-link stuff and all these generators. And then it just keeps moving. It's not just constant tour of concerts, golf tournaments, car races, boat shows. And then, all right, you know what? Let's go down south for hurricane season. Uh, I just, it's like, and then you think back to COVID when everything, you know, comes to a screeching halt. Like, I mean, this is, there's, this is a whole economy around any type of live event. And I've just never really dug into this. So anyway, I, I just, I can't, I don't know where the TC and I have a one-on-one conversation. I can't, I don't know where the TC and I have a one-on-one conversation. camera set between us here and jacks i don't know where it is right now i do not know where that one pelican is right now i do not know and they're and go to greco go to their website and look at the size of these fucking generators i mean they're they're basically shipping containers you know what i mean and so it's like it's not like we're we're not moving like a mini split here like these are on the backs of trucks just crisscrossing the country going to minnesota coming back fifa's here and so you're planning fifa's was kind of an outlier so then that probably throws everybody off of like oh crap we got to get ready for this massive soccer event around the country that's got to throw a wrench in planning for patrick you know of of just supply and demand so all of that just uh i love that shit that's what i was first to talk this with um i mean we have the the event the champions event at timaquana and and i was asking somebody like all right they're packing up all this stuff where does it go they're like oh up to rsm i was like oh shit like i didn't even think about that like and that timing actually works really well the seats and everything that you would sit in at the champions event in jacksonville are the same ones that just end up at rsm it was always my favorite example of it was always the hawaii events on the pj tour where you know i don't know how they were doing it at the end if this was still the case but it's nbc golf channel whoever was just like all right well you know you they don't have that stuff out there so we just got to put them on a big ass boat takes a couple weeks to to float all those cameras and scaffolding and towers and stuff out there and then they finish up and then we float it back for the west coast swing yeah uh and it's just yeah it's just surreal all for just to us bit to bitch about the telecast anyway i thought there was too many fucking commercials yeah so you you got these big vendor and and again let's go back to patrick i mean he the key here and i'm sure anybody in construction knows sequencing right so making sure this stuff shows up so that the next guy can go so i want to go back and forth with charlie here on on just how patrick handles this and a lot of it it's like john mason the plans are in my head so charlie take take it away yeah here's a clip of me asking patrick about his memory because as we've we've established he's really keeping a lot in there at one time and he was not hamstrung by like looking at his devices all day there wasn't a whole lot of oh let me look that up or i don't know the answer to that it was pretty freaking quick uh so here's a quick clip of this how is your memory just in general memory yeah hopefully very good like i you know driving around either spotting things like i know that that's we got two 30 by 30 concession stands there this is a food truck that's about 28 feet long there's another 10 foot tent down there at the end that's selling milkshakes like i've looked at the the map and the planning and all the matrices that go along with it for five six years for any of these events so at some point they kind of blend together a little bit and i might be thinking liberty national or whatever that's what i was wondering about with all the change of venues and stuff like i guess it's pretty good and i i feel like i kind of expect that up out of people like if i tell them something and they don't remember that conversation that's always a little disappointing yeah sure you know it's not practical to have all that information with me even if it's you know in the cloud and i got an ipad or something it's still oh hold on hold on let me go oh shoot the internet's down or you know i'm sweating i can't work the eye like right you got to know those things so here's one of uh near and dear to our heart uh patrick kind of outside his purview but just kind of like reading the need and getting ahead of a developing tio situation a clip from the the 8 a.m vendors meeting on my my second day there and i'll explain what happened after this meeting once i play the clip anything else on on your guys end we're good mike you good scoreboards so we're moving one from seven i don't know i don't know but i have a feeling that peter and paul will not like it so what about mary i don't know if this is is there a mary coming so uh paul paul didn't like it but he said he can't step on peter's toes there's a hierarchy there against them and peter won't be here until the 10th so where is it on seven though it's right at the like the cart turnaround um yeah it's a great spot for the people sitting in the uh trophy club so i think it's it's right here they don't want to have to make a ruling right they don't want the guy that because it could come in it would be a line of sight to so where would you move it yeah uh where would i move it probably over there where it's cursory yeah and then if we move it there like that's where the players walk so it's it's going to be a conversation yeah it'll be a conversation with peter yeah so that one and then can you move it on the other side of the creek yeah what about why not on the other side of the creek you got to get it over there with a tractor i don't know if that tractor can get back there i haven't i've never been been back there i'm generated we'll figure out what it would make more sense to be driving really close to the t box we'll take a look okay oh out of the way so that one and then you remove the one on 18 fairway a lot of moving parts so kind of unresolved there basically what happened is i asked him about this after the meeting i said like oh one of the unresolved things was this leaderboard what's the deal there and he goes you want to go out there yeah of course let's go take a look so this leaderboard on the left side of seven it was gonna almost certainly lead to line of sight relief from players who blew their drives left uh the generator was already in place for this leaderboard that hadn't yet been installed and so we drove out waited for a group of members to go through patrick kind of surveyed the scene and then we decided to move it over to the other side of seven and we were able to move it over to the other side of seven so we're able to move it over to the other side of seven so we're able to move it over to the other side of seven and if you're watching on youtube the the previous clip there's a photo of him spray painting something in the ground he just said all right we're not getting it across that bridge we're not marking up that ravine with the tractors let's just put it here in the left side we're going to get it out of line of sight no one's going to almost certainly be banking it this far out of play off the leaderboard it's still going to be in view of the grandstand all right let me just mark these stakes here's where the gen goes call todd and woodrow from greco tell him to come over here and move that gen solves oh so yeah just so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so i'm going to go ahead and just put it in the chat so nuance of working with CBS versus NBC. So Charlie, why don't you play this clip? Yeah, this one kind of tickled me because as you can probably tell, Patrick is a perfectionist and this, uh, this particular problem really graded on his perfectionist sensibilities. You'll hear another boo-boo by the tower boys. Tower boys are on a heater right now. What's going on? Yeah. Well, this, uh, so you learn something new, NBC and CBS have different tower layouts, but they haven't agreed on how staircases work. So this one you can see is, as we'll call it external. So the tower is twice as deep as I'd say it technically needs to be. Okay. And I finally learned out, learned why I always thought it was just their, their preference. And it turns out it is their preference, but it's their preference based on how they set up their labor. So NBC, when they build a tower, they have a little pulley system. A guy goes up to receive whatever they're receiving cameras and equipment. And a guy at the bottom is working the rope and up it goes here. They hand load it all up. And because they hand load it all up, those staircases that go to the top platform are a little bit wider. So now we have this protrusion, which is an aesthetic nuisance relative to the flushness of the grandstand. So what's going to happen now? Well, it'll look neat and tidy because what, what we do is we have, uh, very specific tower banners. We call them that are built out and are all BMW gradient branding. And it's, it's cut to fit that tower perfectly. And generally what we do is run what we call our logo mesh, um, on that, on this structure and it would run in front of the TV tower. So that would be just one clean line. Okay. So now it's going to have that little jagged bump, which will drive me crazy for the next three weeks, but probably only two or three other people will be driven crazy. So this needs to be flush with the front and it looked like, and now I don't have my tape, but Salvador just measured it and said, you had two and a half feet here. And you got two and a half feet there. Well, yeah, it's because of that up there. I get it. And it'll all still fit. Yeah, it'll fit. It's just going to be sticking out. So, so we'll, we'll manage the handrail, but that'll just keep our, keep the rules guys happy. Keep us happy. All right. So there are two clips there. The transition is him deciding, no, I don't want this to drive me crazy. Actually, I'm going to go back and get them to move this whole tower. That's protruding like a foot from the rest of this spectator area. And slide the whole thing. I want it flush. Thank you very much. I'm going to go find that next week at BMW for sure. And, uh, and, and yeah, just do a quick check. It matters to this one. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's just, you know, a little, little clips that, that popped up that we loved. What's uh, so what happens, they get all the blocking and tackling done. All the grandstands are set up. All the towers are set up. All the tents are set up. Like what, what what's next? Yeah. So again, it's all, it's a big race and it's one of my questions in the first interview is like, well, why don't you just do it earlier? So obviously post-course, you know, and so it's all very condensed and it's a big race to advance week. And there's just certain things you can't do until the week before the tournament. Cause that's when the shot link PGA tour sending all their stuff, the broadcast, they, you know, they're a traveling circus, so they can't set up cameras four weeks in advance. Um, so there's like the last 5% of the job. I'm just shocked by how high, how intensive the labor is. There's like, there's no shortcuts to this stuff. So first example I'd give is ask Patrick, how much fence, you know, you gotta put fence around the property so that nobody can, you know, basically enforce tickets. Secure it. Yeah. There's four miles of fence that will be set up temporary fencing, uh, tough, like gnarly job. That was gonna be the dirty job that, that I was gonna, gonna be, gonna be doing. And, and that, that job stinks. But then not only the fencing, the meshing, if you go look at mesh fencing, it's like zip ties, man. It's like, it's to do it. Like there's just no shortcut on that stuff. And it's pretty analog situation. Yeah. And one of the, the, and you can do that stuff early, but then the meshing internally, there's a lot of fencing internally. And that's, you know, so there's just a lot of detail that goes in the week before another one that goes that, that happens. It's always, it seems like a little bit of a fire drill is rope and stake. So next time you're at a tournament, uh, I want you to take a look at rope and stake. And here's. Patrick on rope and stake. This is good stuff. So back when I was a, a intern crew guy, the rope and stake job, that was like the bottom job. Cause if I assume you guys had never pounded rope and stake, but that's, it's no fun. Yeah. There's 2,500, 3,000 stakes out there. Yeah. And don't hit a water line. You're you're pretty much defining the stadium, right? You're saying here's where the gallery goes. Here's how players move from green to tee. And then we have, you know, there's a guy named Bryce. Who's our lead. And the way the rope and stake process works, um, is pretty good. So he's, he's the driver, right? He's gonna, he's gonna be deciding where the lines go. So he'll get a, uh, you know, carry all golf cart and load up as many as he can in the, in the back there usually, I don't know, 50 or a hundred at a time. And he's just driving the line and he's gonna one handing it in the ground just so it stands up. Then there's, um, you know, the, the labor kind of following behind, they'll come out, pound the stakes. So stake pounder, you know, you got your big pipe handles. It's, I don't know, 20, 35. Pounds. Boom. All right. So you gotta do that 3,000 times. You're following Bryce as he drives around the golf course guy. So Bryce is throwing the stake guy behind him is pounding the stake. And then in a perfect world conditions are good. And we got the right amount of bodies. There's another cart behind him with, uh, you know, 10 gallons of hunter green paint. So this guy's got a paint MIT dips, his hand in goes to the stake. Boom, boom. It's green. Keep going. Stakes. You can't just buy green steaks. I wish I and that's the other thing you know it's like a business opportunity yeah every good rope and stake guy has uh what's effectively known as a rope rig so in the back of his cart build a little apparatus that holds two spools of 5 000 foot rope and he'll um you know leave one end with some of the labor and just start driving and kind of slalom through the uh through the stakes so that the line doesn't get lost and then you've just got a guy or two walking behind him tying a you know double clove hinge knot on the deal and off you go we say the rope's perfect and we always uh ask the guys send in a picture if you see it but if you get a bird landing on your rope that's when you know it's caught enough i thought you'd like that sally and i gotta we got charlie we gotta follow up on a bird pick yeah uh it's advanced week we might have to dig dig that up um but okay so i i mean a lot there but i was also interviewing uh but i was also interviewing uh a couple other tournament directors and this job makes people laugh all rope and stake and it's a good indication of how this is a kind of a cottage industry uh he doesn't do it for bmw but there's this argentinian guy named kiku that is like the rope and stake he's a specialist and he does a lot of pg he just travels around does rope and stake and and i asked uh patrick about oh yeah i know kiki we don't we don't you know we work with bryce but you know so it's just like a very specific job like the cbs spotter that the guy i you know you're just like oh my god there's just like guys that that do these kind of unique golf tournament jobs just all over the place um and again this is stuff that just has to get done three days before the tournament starts and and like he said it's defining the arena you know it's and don't hit a water main like there's just a lot can go wrong and and it seems like such a simple thing i can't figure out why you know once you paint the you know everything keeps getting moved around you paint the post screen what happens to the green posts why i think they rust uh rain okay i think it's just like they just get beat up and and it's weatherized um so anyway as you guys are probably feeling like it's stressful so let's just especially you know we asked patrick about this but um you're doing all this and he's got a handle on it all but then there's still inspections that have to go on so charlie let's cue this one up uh if you think back over the last 20 years what's the what's the most stressful event you know i know it might be weather related but when can you think when's that when there was that stress level when was that level the highest for you so um inspections can be super stressful where um you know we we go through all the proper procedures to get everything engineered stamped out drawn drawn properly executed properly but at the end of the day there's a little bit of um you know opinion from the inspectors whether that's a fire marshal or a building inspector or health inspector that sort of thing because we kind of live in this gray area we're not permanent infrastructure and at least don't have codes that specifically address what what we're doing at this scale so it's in between you know state fair where there's a 30 by 30 tent selling corn dogs and you know building a house we're in the middle somewhere there because we do have you know we've got air conditioning and we've got elevators and we've got all these things but it's a temporary event so i can remember the first year at crooked stick um 2012 uh inspections you know four days out and the list we got from the building inspector was something that would take a month to execute to you know get the get the doors open and um we did it and that was uh that was a challenging uh advance week i'll say but it was you know taking down structures rebuilding and i'm not talking you know 10 by 10 tents these were you know grandstands that might have been hey they forgot one thing in the foundation now we got to start it over so man those are uh those are never fun but yeah weather weather is weather and uh the the worst case was here in 08 where um you know flood and all that to deal with but that's uh you roll with the punches there god that inspector thing is talk about something i'd never thought about just and that happens during advance week so you do all this work and you know because the the inspectors don't want to show up until it's you know right like they don't they they got a million other things to inspect uh again temporary thing so just kind of drilling down on this isn't a backyard party you know this requires like a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of time and it's a lot of work and i think it's it's it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and an environmental easement at caves valley ahead of last year's tournament um i asked patrick about it he chuckled and said yeah we we wanted to put a tv tower i think it was left of one or two green and it was down by like a creek or a marsh uh turns out that was a protected like environmentally protected wetland and that guy he was like oh god you know like that and he was like it got caught ahead of advanced week but he had to go through the permitting process guys i have a a protected wetland in my backyard i can't imagine navigating environmental variants like that while trying to like not puncture the irrigation lines and getting the fire marshal to like approve my points of egress should i ask you die for some strategies on how to get around some of those products exactly a lot of people just do it i think it's yeah so then and then this is one of my favorite clips so throw that stuff in like heavy duty civic stuff in with a very relatable very avoidable problem uh let's cue this one up charlie kind of a digression question how many typos you take care of on an annual basis um the uh well a lot but the most memorable typo that comes to mind is that crooked stick so a crooked stick right outside of indianapolis there was a lot of tie-in with the motor speedway there bmw had you know players test drive cars all that fun stuff and there was this enormous banner behind the first t that made it past every um possible you know approval from our side and bmw the tour and this and that that you know had a picture of a couple of hot players at the time in a car and said you know gentlemen start your engines but nobody noticed until the 20-foot tall thing got installed and said gentle man start your engines so the the e and the a was a uh an overlook and that was a you know then we we learn so good for us bad for the sign printers but we learned that they can produce that in an hour and it doesn't really take them the 10 days that they tell tell us it takes gentlemen i've vividly i was at that tournament too and i vividly remember vividly remember that sign he's talking about remember who was on it who was on the poster uh i remember rory won the tournament i'm guessing he was probably on there yeah it's open the year before i'm sure it was like rory dustin johnson tiger sounds like crooked stick was it was a uh we caught some curveballs specter and with the typo uh so that's why it's one they've what they haven't been back there since right they probably hadn't been there before probably maybe for like a senior something or other but yeah it's kind of a random yeah kind of a random one-off venue circling all the way back to like this event moves around well and and i that's another thing i've always known there's just so much signage and bmw does such a good job with the branding but there's just a lot of approvals on on typos man and and so that was a one i was curious about so last one unrelated to patrick um but i learned from some conversations with patrick and some other tournament staff like the nuance like in complexity uh how how nuanced and complex the title sponsor branding can be so there's this german guy named clemens that works uh for bmw and he's based in munich he's based based out at the mothership and and his job he cites the branding and car displays for all bmw golf events around the world so he has as as i was told he has a wizardly eye for how on-site signage and branding and and product placement will look specific mainly for tv um and and and basically maximizing exposure so his job is to like frame up the car behind nance in the in the uh tower on 18. um and make sure the car the camera like shooting back from the green picks up the car behind 16t and what's interesting about this and and talking to stephen cox about this is it becomes a massive factor for the competition com you know team if they want to move the t's up one day or change you know kind of flex the course they have to plan for that because and and no is this just a sign we're moving or like and he this guy's like well hold on just a second we have a camera over there on 13 that's going to shoot back and that x7 is in the background because you know bmw's measuring how many you know how many minutes of exposure like and they they should they're spending a ton of money so you know that that type of collaboration involves pj tour bmw and i just i just like love it that there's like a guy there's a guy for that and so uh i'm gonna see i gotta seek out clemens if he's there this week i'm gonna go take a picture with him because i wanna i wanna meet that guy deeds do you remember conway farms 2017 bmw championship pro-am i'm playing with rom and we're on the 18th hole and i had like 235 in and i had three iron or three wood and i didn't know what to do and rama was like you can't get three iron there just take a three wood and hit it low and bounce it off the grandstands and you look up in the grandstand there's an i-8 parked in the grandstand like he wanted me to bank one off the grandstand with an i-8 parked right there and i was like i i won i think this i might come into play uh this week for the tournament and two i'm not gonna do that uh that's not gonna be me that puts a a ball through that one of you asked how do they get the cars out into the lake i didn't get that i didn't ask this question i think they float them though like on a barge but and he was like i don't know i don't know he was like i don't know he was like i don't know anyway all those displays have to be built that's sal's job and and and where they're placed so so clemens i think he does like a tour where he he's in the u.s for a couple weeks he'll make a site visit to belrive then he's going to go to liberty national get ahead of that and start to like put stuff on the map of like you know like i picture him with a monocle like yes i like this you know uh so anyway i love that shit a couple others uh police relationships something i've always been curious about so um this is dependent on the market and it's a interesting one for bmw as they move around some police departments the local police have a big enough you know uh team it's usually sheriff's department kind of falls in their purview uh but like you if you watch there's always a there's a cop with every group especially bmw only 50 players and i've always wondered like is that do they select a golfer because it's like if you don't play golf like those guys could get in the way and he's like yeah you know what we try to first off if the police department puts out a call to other departments in the area hey we got this tournament coming up if and and they try to say like if you're a golfer we got a good job for you you could be kind of a you know walking security so a lot of those cops are you know it's a it's a good job to have and you know then wga is responsible for all the other security metal detectors all that stuff so it's it's a good job to have and you know then wga is responsible for all that stuff and then the last one just hoa patrick was at some hoa meetings making sure neighbors have tags to get through barricaded streets that are shut down parking passes you know you got to make sure all of these and that's just like a thousands of people that have nothing to do with the tournament but like you can't have them complaining so there's just so much that goes into like working with the local uh town and the local services to make sure you got got what you need yeah yeah it's like running a little city government yes almost you know it's just so impressive to be dialed on all that all right let's talk a little finance um so i'm gonna try to do a quick run through this uh as we outlined earlier we got four stakeholders you have to host organizations so wga they collect everything outside the ropes tickets local sponsors hospitality merchandise concessions they bear all expenses for setup pj tour collects the big money that's the bmw the the check from the title sponsor they're writing one check uh they might be doing some stuff on this you know with evan scholars separately but for the event you know stuff it's it's one check they national tv partnership official marketing partners kind of mothership revenue and then they're working with the uh title sponsor on funneling some of that money to tv as again reference the denny cash episode go back and listen to that there's a there's a lot of good stuff there um on how that works and then bmw they just spend money they don't collect any revenue they spend towards the purse and the host course i believe is paid by wgi i actually didn't confirm this but i believe it's paid by wga i actually didn't confirm this but i think that's part of kind of the pnl with wga i think the pga tour helps with subsidizing any renovations you know making sure that that's done properly and and and working with them on agronomy um so a simplified explanation for how it works on the revenue side most pga like regular pga tour events title sponsor shoulders like the lion's share of the purse so from research and conversations typical sponsor fee is roughly like 125 150 of the purse so if it's 20 million dollar purse 30 million dollar check that money is going to cover pay for all i'd say most or all the prize money that's changed a lot you know the wga will it does kick in a percentage of that i don't know what it is and i i wonder if that changes depending on i think it varies a little bit um they're going to pay a payment to the host organization fees paid back to the tour you know the mothership's got you got to pay for the water bill at the global moat um and then activation costs hospitality on-site branding marketing campaigns all that jazz in several conversations i did learn that uh it's gotten more complicated since the you know pga tour enterprises and uh the purses have gone up significantly um so one thing that's changed starting in 2025 each tournament host pays an additional purse fee plus a share of tournament revenue now goes back to the tour so i think that was one percent in 2025 i believe it's still one percent and i've heard it's going to rise to two percent in 2027. so you know some coupon clipping going on from from the pga tour on wga you know so that's that's a that's a thing so let's focus on the expenses go ahead dude sorry well the only thing i was going to say to draw conclusions and maybe this is an oversimplification apologies if it is but i mean that money has to come from somewhere yes which if the if the event is supposedly put on for charity it seems like it's just coming out of the charity pool so and and i i want to get to that clip right after this kind of the the charity component but i i do want to go over to the expense side because a big takeaway is how complicated the expenses are for wga and how important and vital it is to have somebody like patrick that can manage that because that's directly related the the competence is directly related to what the scholars get right so charlie let's cue this one up all right so there are 1770 budget categories yeah so if i look at um you know you want to add six more yeah it is the 250th right right like some of them like flags for flagsticks that's a one you know one invoice great but if i'm looking at uh let's see here something like main entrance that big long floor we drove on yeah so all right all that scaffold all the carpet that goes on top of it all the handrail that goes along the side that floor the tent the graphics that go inside that tent the audio because we we play like a looped welcome to the bmw championship okay all that sort of stuff so that's all that's all that's stuff um what else goes in there so then once you get down to the actual entry the metal detectors the signage that is allocated towards the main entrance power that goes out there for all the ticket scanners and metal detectors turf repair when we're done that's all allocated by so those are all individual within the 1770 categories yeah so so one of the 1770 is main entrance and then in that main entrance there's oh i see all those things okay so if you look at like that double decker structure you can imagine all the all the invoices more or less that are allocated to that structure so this is not necessarily like a carpet is you know all carpets across property are one category it's like it's allocated to represent what's used there so if that's you know that's 400 feet long that's probably uh 8 or 12 rolls of carpet so when we get our big carpet bill i'll say all right 12 of these allocate to main entrance okay 50 of these allocate to skybox 10 of them player movement you know all those all the different areas where carpet is applied we then push the money there accordingly god whoa next time randy talks about our books being too long to close or whatever we're gonna play that for him yeah exactly yeah so but i mean that's this again this is the game and so allow me to kind of back up or pontificate for a second something i've come to understand in my old age uh is that you know you expect you have to create a memorable experience and a good experience to generate like big returns on charitable stuff and i used to shake my head when i worked at google and i saw the amount of money the united way or some of these other big charities spent on like google ads i'd be like god that's why doesn't that money go to the you know to the charity you know and and you people some of these uh non-profits get um dinged for like how much executives make but then you hear how complicated it is and you got you it's all about the people right and i think over the last 20 years these golf events and these buildouts have have doubled as patrick told us and it's in some ways come kind of become an arms race like we got to keep creating a memorable experience um for the title sponsor to keep them happy you know it's just kind of the game the ante goes up and i think there's some of this too is the economies of scale so if you're asking someone to pay 300 plus for a hospitality package over four or five days it needs to feel big and i think with the agrecos and with the tent companies it's like they they you know it's economy for them of like well let's just why don't we build another one and then we'll sell that one for 300k right and so i think the the the scale almost you know it overwhelms me to think about with these budget categories but the scale you almost have to go big or go home uh at this point and that's what kind of evens it out um so anyway another clip from patrick on the evolution of the the kind of the build out over the last 20 years can you give me a percentage split on where the revenue comes from or for you guys across ticket sales concession sales merch sales and and hospitality and and am i missing a bucket there yeah so off the top of my head i can i can give you largest to smallest i i need to poke around a little bit to give you a percentage but corporate hospitality is certainly the the lion's share so i'd say that's double if not triple the next next numbers that that feed in so that's selling all the you know anything from selling um you know a corporate package of 10 tickets to you know the law firm to selling a big uh sponsorship of a space or a venue or a you know a hospitality suite that might host 100 people you know so that can be somewhere those units can be anywhere from you know five thousand dollars to four hundred thousand dollars depending on what folks are buying so collectively that's the lion's share of the revenue that that we generate on site next is usually um it's kind of like hand-in-hand merch and ticket sales those are those are in the same realm and then uh concessions falls below that now certainly you know we're not in the same realm we're not in the same realm but certainly there's other buckets that that get fed into that but they're not as uh not as i don't know memorable yeah okay and then over the last 20 years have those percentage splits changed has has hospitality like ramped way way up like you know talk to me about that a little bit yeah so our i mean just everything about our event and i imagine that's uh across the tour has has gone up you know pretty strongly over the last 20 years where corporate sales you know for us you know just related to our build you know our builds doubled over those years in terms of square footage so you've got to imagine the revenue goes right along with it not to mention that you know the world works and inflation and things go up, price of doing business, all that. So the ticket to buy those things have gone up and the demand and or our efforts to sell them have gone up to make that grow a ton. Merchandise has changed completely. You know, back at Cog Hill 20 years ago, it was, you know, a little pop-up tent. You know, they had a couple pro shops. They had two buildings there. It wasn't, you know, a big fan shop or anything like that. It was run the mill, off you go. People got it if they wanted it, but it wasn't, you know, a beacon. You know, here, you know, we're having this thing on Sunday prior to the championship that's open to the public just to kind of be an open house. You know, merchandise is open, concessions, come watch the last round of FedEx to see who's actually going to be here. And we've got like 2,000 people signed up to come out here and do that. So at the end of the day, you know, Patrick said this later on in that clip, this is a fundraiser coming from the WGA's perspective. So money raised for the Evans. Scholars, whatever's left after the expenses and player purse, but like the increase in those expenses, it goes, that hospitality is really what's driving that up. I was surprised to hear about the merch growing. You know, I'm just like, man, like anyway, I think that helps them though. Cause they bounce around. So it does feel special in certain markets. Totally. But as Patrick said, if tournament profits, 3 million, he used that as an example, the funding that's funding for the Evans scholars. So since 2021, here's the amount that's been raised for the scholars. It's been, it's been 5.6 million in 2021 at caves Valley, 5.6 million, 2022, 4.5 at Wilmington country club in Delaware, 5.5 at Olympia fields in 23, 10.2 million at castle pines and 24. And then it, I couldn't, the financials haven't been released for 25, but I know castle pines was the high watermark. So then the natural question again, back to the earlier in the, this conversation, why don't you just go back to cost pines? And it's like, well, there's some other stuff about, you know, the identity of the tournament, certain markets are important. There's some, you know, donations. Speaker 1 : Stuff that happens year round. And so it's, it's not just a go maximize the, the millions. That's not like the exact success metric they're looking for. Speaker 2 : Yeah. And there could be a, you know, a sizable donor in particular in Denver that might not get matched the next time. Speaker 1 : And then the other thing here too, is there's variable costs in certain markets. Like I asked him what's the biggest variable. And he said, you know, parking like, and, and busing and shuttles, because he's like, that's that those are expensive vendors and that's gas. Uh, so how much diesel do you guys think they needed, uh, for this week? It's couldn't even be good. Speaker 2 : This is like generators and. Speaker 1 : Yeah. And, and buses and all that stuff. Speaker 2 : Knowing the fact that most, I think 98% of the power that's used on site are coming from the generators. Yeah. This is the shoes on the other foot here. Usually we post these to you and you say a dumb thing and we laugh at you. Uh, Speaker 1 : Uh, I'm going to, I'm going to say, uh, Oh my God. I don't know. 5,000 gallons, 50,000, 35,000 gallons. Hey, and they locked in the price in February before the straight up was fired up about that. He's like, yeah, lock that price in February. So it's a dollar a gallon difference. I mean, yeah, like 35 grand. And that's again, that's the kind of stuff that he's responsible for, because and knowing that it's going directly to the mission, you know, after all the costs are done, it's you know, that makes those seven hundred and seven or one thousand seven hundred and seventy budget categories. Like, well, let's track this shit. So anyway, here's a kind of a I hit him with some rapid fire questions on on stats, which is just a good indicator on how dialed Patrick is. All right. I want to run through like rapid fire section here. Some fun stats. How many volunteers? Twenty two hundred. What's the busiest day on site? Hmm. Toss up. I'll say I'll say Friday seems the busiest because that's the all those corporate hospitality venues are humming. General spectators are about 90 percent what they are on Saturday. But Friday just seems busier. OK. How many buses, shuttles this year? We got eight routes. I think at peak, we're probably in the neighborhood of, say, just over 100 pieces of shuttle equipment moving. OK. How many miles of fence? On the perimeter, we're at four and a half, five. And then we got to do the interior, which will be another two. OK. How many miles of rope? Let's see here. It's a seventy three hundred yard golf course times to fourteen. So call it about twenty thousand feet of rope. So about three miles rope. OK. Four miles. How many cars you expecting cars? I'd say twelve thousand. OK. How much carpet? Three hundred and sixty thousand square feet. So call it nine acres if you want. How much beer? I can't spit that one out a lot, but I can I can give you that data. Yeah, I was going to say the same with water hot dogs. Yeah, you know, don't have it off the top of my head, but I have it. Yeah, it sounds a test, right? How many port-a-potties? Two hundred and seventy. I love that, you know, that number. That's good. Well, that one is so we're we're approaching, you know, sell out here for Saturday grounds. And generally all those questions come to me is like, all right, when are we going to do this? And generally all those questions come to me is like, all right, when are we doing this? All those questions come to me is like, all right, when are we sold out? And that's based on all sorts of things, some of its parking, some of its assets here at the club. And a lot of it is, you know, port-a-potties and concessions. It's just practical stuff. Yeah, I love that. I just the thought of like, hey, Patrick, when are we sold out? I don't know. It depends. Yeah, right. So I've never actually thought about that. That's that makes a ton of sense. So I did dig up a few stats from from Castle Pines or Patrick sent him over more than twenty five miles of various cabling for data and video connections. Seven, seven acres of carpet at Castle Pines. Four thousand cases of beer were consumed. Eighty two hundred milkshakes were served. Tasted Jack. But can you believe it? Ain't no milkshake. And then two hundred fifty two BMWs were delivered, detailed and decaled for championship usage at the twenty twenty four. BMW championship. So like last one, people had to drive those like it's just insane. One of the last questions. The last questions I asked Patrick was what does success look like? And I loved I loved his answer here. What's the success metric you're looking at, you know, after a week of, you know, BMW championship week? The the easiest one is all right. How much did we generate for the Evans Scholars? That's dollars and cents and easy answer for me. If championship week, if I can, I can sit in my office and watch the golf tournament. It's it's worth it. That's good. OK, it's working. If if my phone has a full battery isn't ringing, that means there's not problems. So the less people talk to me tournament week, the more successful the event is in my eyes. So I was thinking maybe we try to call him on the live show that Sunday and ask him what his battery, how his battery is. I love that. That's a great idea. A very just a look at I really, really liked that answer. So it's like to imagine all this again the year. Round job. This is just. Oh, yeah, it rained. Sorry, man. Oh, we didn't blow that place sucks. We asked today. Yeah. We were asking a lot of staff or Charlie was asking, like, what's what are you stressing about? A weather was just an easy answer for everybody. But even that you don't hear about weather in the lead ups ever like, oh, they couldn't build the grandstand because of weather like that. Never even weather interruptions don't end up with with lack of construction happening there. But Neil, did you get a sense like I mean, I. I know what you said about the charity dollars, but is is there a preferred venue? Is there a favorite venue? Does it do they have to how do they kind of look at that? I think with BMW sponsoring like for 20 years, they're starting to become some continuity of like, you know, they've been the Caves Valley Olympia, you know, getting back to Chicago is important to to WGA. And I tried to ask, like, what was the most you know, hey, what was your favorite BMW? And the answer I was kind of getting from everybody was like, it's like naming your favorite kid, but I feel like Castle Pines was. Was kind of the leader in the clubhouse, and that was twenty twenty four. It's obviously the high watermark for WGA. It was a great turnout in a in a golf market that I think is starved. I mean, you know, the international with the Stableford used to be a Castle Pines. It's a really interesting golf course. It's on the side of a mountain. And so it was a really it was a complex build for them. Very hilly course. But I think it was a great example from an execution standpoint of they had a really good plan. And. Being there, they did a really good job of of moving people and people in Denver like to hike. So they leaned into that. And I think once you get the big stuff, if you're operating at a high level, they were able to do a lot of creative stuff. They customized the course signage to look like ski maps. It was really cool. Yeah. And so and I think that's the kind of little stuff that like is really what differentiates BMW. And it's because they can do all the big stuff. And they're also not on like autopilot with like, well, we know where this is going to go, you know, so they're able to they're I don't know. It's just a high sign of competence to me. And I think that's I think that's telling of of the the execution they they had. So that that tournament was was kind of seemed like the one that was like that. That one was sweet. I have never really thought about it that way, but I could see the yeah, in my head, I'm always like, well, it'd be so much better if you just do it in the same place every time. But it would be so much easier to get complacent in that way as well. It makes a lot of sense. So Buzz would be different, too, you know? Yeah, and yeah, and there's pros to being the same market. You kind of have your sales dialed, you can forecast better, you know, it's easier, but there is market fatigue. talking to a couple other tournament directors sometimes it's like like and we i don't like the the uh analogy i make is sometimes in the in the pro shop for us it's like all right uh what's going to be the first major collection this year you know like it's it's kind of you're running the same blueprint so in close in closing uh you know we're we're round towards home here i want to send it over to nick white uh who was called out by uh carlos araya the gm ceo of belrive as an unsung hero and charlie why don't you tee this one up carlos araya yes here we go here's nick white as far as just a day-to-day like standard job that i think is really hard is cleanup mowing any cleanup pass i'm very particular about cleanup passes whether it be the fairway into the intermediate or the cleanup pass on the green it's the the last pass or two you know in front of the collar on the green so as a mower setting down to mow his pass they're late right they can't get the very edge so somebody has to come through with another mower and mow the circle around the green to essentially clean it up okay well it's it takes a lot of focus and precision because you don't want to mow into the collar but you don't want to be scared to not get close enough to the collar because then you're going to leave you know skips so it's a really detailed job so the guy that we have doing it his name is austin kern and everyone we call him because he mows the cleanups on the fairways and the greens and i don't want to mow the cleanup i it immediately so it sounds very surgical somebody else do it yep I don't have the I don't have the the patience for that it's like you want your barber with the straight razor to not leave like you know little scruffy patches and 100% make it look good man leave it I always say like hey anytime someone leaves the job I always say hey man that's got your name on it so if somebody is is you know weed eating something and they do a you know terrible job and they scalp all around the tree because they weeded it down to the dirt or they or they miss an area or whatever and say hey man that's got your name on it you were the last person to touch that is that how you you feel good about that I'm stealing that one that's important too with like you know is the ball on the green or off the green and if that is a little hairy there that could that could uh weigh into some things you need a ruling and then it slows down pace of play yeah and so you know first off shout out to Nick shout out to the supers everywhere shout out to Colonel Cleanup but uh I feel like and shout out to all the turf heads I can't wait to hear what what about Cody's cleanup process uh down down and forth but I bring this one up one like we focused on Patrick but I think Nick White's doing the same thing with his crew you know like he he's solving a million problems all day long he's collaborating with the PGA tour to make sure the agronomy's dialed and then Carlos doing the same thing with Belle Reve membership making sure everybody's like on board and and so you kind of have these like captains and then they're all working together and then just the last line I think sums it all up like that that's got your name on it you know like I love that and I think it sums up Patrick's ethos well as also so and I'll say this you Neil and Charlie you got your name on this one this is this has been great man you guys feel good about this what else I think so I yeah I feel like we were we were uh we were you're doing it well and also felt like we were working towards advanced week as well it's like man we got to get this one done uh so what did we miss anything anything you guys are curious about uh or yeah I mean a zillion things but nothing like it's to your point that it's like okay well this all makes sense for the ops like now yeah let's do the agronomy okay yeah let's figure out how the how the setup stuff works you know it's like I I think that's such a good point that you can everything you said about Patrick I'm like that that sounds like the most invigorating hardest job ever and there's also like three more jobs around that are are kind of trying to run similar little little kingdoms you know it's it's fascinating cannot wait to get to Thursday all everything that has gone into all this tournament they're playing live clean in place like it's over it's it's ruined it's all rude can you believe these guys play live clean in place I can't believe it I just think I just think the camera angles stink you know TIO I just can't keep having TIO out there wish we could get more worm cams you know no I mean cool tower great job Sal but I just wish we could get more worm camps do you have a different opinion on TIO after this after doing all this I think there's a lot more thought that goes into it for sure really but now I do still think I firmly believe that there should be a penalty for line of sight I really do I think you could you could talk me into free or drop zones I I think the current line of sight relief should be and that's not a that's not that's a problem at the I I think with the usga we'll take that offline I'm not gonna I'm not gonna let's not spoil this one you know what Charlie play this out on this last clip hey what uh we gotta get a lunch order in taco Tuesday I like it let's do that same place copy that uh it's gonna get tacos man they were good I'm hungry right now that was bad timing bad timing it's good stuff guys thank you guys both I learned a ton in this and uh yeah made me maybe curious to do other angles of uh of of behind the scenes of of myself so thank you sure thanks for listening fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space at the Home Depot find power tools and tool sets starting at fifty dollars to help tackle DIY projects home updates and more whether you're 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