What is it about the shoe that is making them better? It really is physics. I'll get a little technical here. When we're standing, we push into the ground, but the ground pushes back up. That's called ground reaction force. And when we push with our muscles harder than the ground is holding us down, that's how we move. So what we did with our shoes is we angled the ground reaction force so more of it is going in towards the body. So now when you load on your backside, you're a little
bit more stable and you've got more force going into your body. And then when you transfer from the backside to the front side, you get more force into your body. So it just creates a more stable base that able to use the ground force a little bit more effectively in the body. Hi, this is Alan Than from Sunny Singapore and I played Keppel Country Club. Welcome
to Golf SMARTA number nine hundred and thirty one. Bernard Langer swears by the performance of athlon shoes because they make a difference with Tim Marcus is is golf smurter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mindes to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smurder Podcast. Tim. Hello, Fred, You're an enigma in the golf industry because you have a real job. I've got a
couple of real jobs. Oh my gosh, that's exhausting already. Yeah, but you've got a shoe company, a golf shoe company now called Athlons. Yes, and how long has Afalon's been around now? So I actually started Athlons in two thousand and eleven. So it's we originated in baseball. So I'll give you the background story. So I grew up wanted to be a baseball player, went to college to play baseball, and got her, so my baseball dreams ever came true. But I always loved playing. So when
my kids got a little older, I started playing adult baseball. And in twenty ten I went to this pro ball camp. So it was an adult camp. I was topped by major league coaches. It was four days of like spring training. It wasn't like a fantasy league. He actually went to learn how to play baseball. Wow, that it was amazing. I wish i'd had that when I was sixteen instead of forty nine. But it actually turned me into a better hitter at forty nine years old that I was in
high school college just the fund House. But during that camp, Rick Adare was a pitching coach for the Warrioles at the time. He had this drill where it put a rousin bag underneath the drivewake heel on the outside of the foot to tip the knee inward. So if we were to draw a line from the ankle to the groin, the knee would be on the inside of
that line. And how he came up with that drill study at Hall of Fame caliber pictures and talking to him, and they all had just just incredibly powerful and balanced lower half and if you drew that line from the ankle to the growing they all had the knee just on the inside of that line. But most major league players, even at that level did it. So hence the drill. So when we got talking, he found out I was a patent charty. He goes, hey, do you think you then we could
figure out how to put that idea into a shoe. So that's how athlon's got started in early two thousand. You're a patent attorney, and so he said, can we put this in a shoe? I mean it's like, when did you ever design a shoe? Yeah, what a weird way to get to there? Okay it is, yeah, so but that's how that's the that's how athlon has got born. I see. So what brought it
to golf? So we It took us several years. So first thing we did was patent in every conceivable way I could think of to implement that. After doing some research on how shoes are made, and I'm sure as a patent attorney you know every single way to bet and something, we did do a good job there. So we have twenty some issued paths down our shoes, so a lot of different ways how to implement it. So it took
us a few years to get a prototype built. So we started actually in baseball and softball and in twenty fifteen, twenty and sixteen, and we always knew our technology would be applicable to all sports, including golf, and so we were planning on like twenty nineteen. It really get started with golf, and early in twenty and eighteen, we were at a charity golf events and the four of us were wearing our Afflon soft shoes and we paid the twenty
five bucks to have a long driver hit one of our t shirts. So we were standing around talking to this guy, his name which Mitch McDowell. Sadly, Mitch says, passed, but we with him and said, hey, you know, would you mind trying our shoes, And fortunately, one of the guys in our foursome at the same time shoe as Mitchell, and he took one swing in the shoes and he goes, oh my god, my backside stayed locked in and I just hit the ball forty yards for her. He goes, okay, let me do it again, Let me do
it again. He did it six times in a row, all felt the same thing and hit the ball, you know, thirty forty yards further each time. That's amazing. So he was like, oh, you got to give me a pair of these. So so that kind of that'spedited our desire to get into golf. Yeah. Yeah, by that summer we had a prototype pair of golf shoes ready to go. So Mitch took those to a
long drive competition. And Mitch had been competing for a fifteen years by the time, so he was kind of ending his career, or at least the real competitive things of it, and so he got knocked out in the route of thirty two. But Ryan Stein it was number six in the world. So this is two thousand and eight and number six in the world. Been competing for eight years but never won in a long drive event. So he
goes, hey, let me try those shoes. He puts the shoes on, he wins that of it back to that out in our shoes, he wins that event. People like, Ryan, what do you do differently? He goes, literally, I changed my shoes. What a testimonial. Yeah, so it's been awesome. And then you know, and then the next
guy I tried it, and the next guy. So by the time the twenty nineteen long drive season was going, we had we had eight of the top ten men and eight of the top ten women in our shoes, and over half of all the competitors were wearing our shoes because you know that at that stage they're trying to get everything they can out of the ground. In
our shoes just help them be more stable and use the ground up. And then later that year we got introduced to the Champions Tour through one of our representatives, and Bernard Layer said, Pele trip, So we set a pair of Bernard and he was looking at staying with his current shoe company and one other shoe company, and he took our shoes and the other two pairs of the driving range and hit and he hit in our shoes and it's like, man, I hit those balls really well, that must be a fluke.
So he did that a dozen times. Our shoes, their shoes, their shoes. Every time in our shoes, he goes, I'm at the ball. Bet So Bernard has been wearing our shoes since twenty twenty. WHOA, that's really impressive. What is it about the shoe that is making some of the people with, you know, the top of our game, making them
better and feeling better about it? Clearly? Yeah, so it really is physics, you know, when it's a little technical here, but you know, when we when we're standing, we push into the ground, but the ground pushes back up. That's called ground reaction force. And when our when we push with our muscles harder than the ground is holding us down. That's how we work. So what we did with our shoes is we angle the
ground reaction force some more of it is going in towards the body. So uh so, now when you load out of your backside you've got you're a little bit more stable and you've got more force going into your body. And then when you transfer from the backside to the front side, you get more force into your body. So it just creates some more stable base and able
to use the ground force a little bit more effectively in the body. Okay, And and is that something I'm really kind of lost at this because I when I look at the shoe and you sent me a pair, and I appreciate that, I've been wearing them for a couple of days now around the house because I'm not gonna go outside with him. Yet they don't look that radically different than a shoe except for a couple things. And is that all
it takes to make them stand out like that? So in the heel, it's like any other shoe, And as you go down from the heel towards the toe, it has essentially the same slope on the ladder side or the outside of the shoe, but on the inside of the shoe it has a steeper slope. So at the time you get to the ball of foot toe area, it's about a quarter of an inch higher on the ladder side than
the media side. So when you get into that athletic position, your feet are kind of rolling in just a little bit, and that shifts your knees in a little bit, which shifts the ground reaction force. Wow. Incredible. Also the bottom of the shoe you have a what you call a grip and glide outside. Yeah. Yeah, So this is the version that you're wearing. That's our grip and glide pro the envy that our previous shoe, which we're in the process of winding down. It has a little bit less
aggressive pattern. But so what it's intended to do is when you're loading on your backside, you really want that shoe to grip because you don't want your flip to slip as you're loading on your backside. But then as you're releasing your backside, you want to shoot a kind of let up. So so it grips when you're loading and then glides when you're releasing. And then the
same thing on the front side. You know, when you're putting that energy out of your front side and really want that shoe to lock you in, it grips and then when you can release it, let's go. So hence the grip and blunt Yeah, because immediately when you look at it, you go, oh, that's a different kind of design. I've never seen that before, but it seems to make sense because you want to rotate, you know, on your feet, and it just kind of glides you through that,
I guess is the best way to put that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the direction you want to rotate, it has a lot less friction, so you can rotate easier. And in the direction you don't want to rotate, it's got a lot higher friction components so you stay locked in. Yeah, and conventional golf shoes, the friction coefficient is essentially the same
whether you're rotating to the left or right around the bully interesting. I mean, it does help, but it's it's, you know, our shoe, you know, because we've had people say, well, you know, I'm not our laying now that I'm wearing your shoes, and it says, well, but the shoes only do so much for you. I just want to make that Oh no, they do so much more, and we're going to learn about that on the other side of this when we come back after this.
Tim I'm really fascinated. Why is it that you guys figured this out and got such great results and nobody else has Or is it because you're that good of an a patent attorney, you know? I think it's yeah. I've been doing patent law for thirty five years, and what I've noticed, the most disruptive inventions for a technology or in a market space usually comes from an outsider. So I am definitely an outsider when it comes to designing shoes.
And then I look at the team that we had to put this together. So I was working with major league baseball coaches who really understood athletic performance at the highest level. And then we also worked from day one with the orthopedic surgeon Preston Wolan out of Chicago, so he brought that perspective in. And then we had sports scientists, so Gary McCoy has been working with us for almost ten years, and then Jeremiah Johnson who's with us in house.
He's also a sport scientist. And then I bring the engineering side of things. I have an electrical engineering degree in a minor physics, so I look at things completely differently than an orthopedic would, that a sports scientist would,
or as a baseball coach would. So but collectively we're like, okay, we all brought our own backgrounds and experiences to this, and when I looked at it, I looked at as a physic It's like, well, how do I get the best energy from the ground through your shoe to the bottom. And I think that's a pretty unique perspective when it comes to design and
shoes. I think that's why, you know, our shoes do what we say they'll do what as far is making it more stable, a little bit better consistency and swaying in some in better distance because you just get more power and stability recently, and these shoes have a wider area for the toes correct in comparison to our previous shoe to envy. Yes, so it's a little bit more anatomically friendly to the forflet, but it still doesn't it's still you
get the really good rep. It's just a little bit more comfortable at the forefoot, so you know, people with a little bit wider foot now will be a little bit more comfortable. Yeah, noticed it immediately. And also you know I prefer to walk when I play golf, and I encourage people to do so, and these seem to have a lot of support and give to hold me up and not have to do any inserts that I generally put in my own shoes. Yeah, that was that was our intent, you
know. So the midsole, which has our technology in it, it's also made out of repurposed Mitchel material, so it's a green product. But you know, we wanted just enough cushion in the heel to you know, make
it comfortable as you're walking. The other thing that with the the slopes that we have in there the don end float, is that as you're walking, it kind of rolls your fore foot to push off your big toe and second toe, so very much like the natural movement of your foot, you know, you heal sprikey kind of roll and then push off your big toe, second toe. So the shoe kind of helps with that too to help so that enhances the comfort as well. M How many different styles of shoes do
you have now? So we have the current one out, which is the Mangrove. We have three color ways on. We have the Envy and three color ways that we're coming out with an NB two within the next three to four months, depending on production, and there'll be three different color ways for that U and then we've got several more designs in the work just to keep adding. We keep figuring out better and better ways to make the shoe and
enhance the performance. Uh. You know one of the things that we also prior to ourselves on as the longevity of our shoe, that you know, they they should last, especially the Envy Pro because they've got a little bit thicker nd salt to them. I mean, I'll sol they should last a good season even if you're you know, walking all the time, and even if you're walking out assholes, they should it should last a good season.
And these are spikeless shoes, correct. Yeah, And with respect to that as you brought that up, because we I did a bunch of testing in our lab and the end the gripp and glide prug gave as much traction as cleated shoes that we were testing. Wow, how do you test that and
quantify it? Yeah, so it's it was a slippage test. So I just basically take weight and pull on the shoe and a certain amount of weight you'd break the friction of the shoe to the ground and that then you could calculate, you know, what that friction can for, and then you do it from different angles. You you can see how the sheet responds. So our shoe, especially in the rotation in the grip side of rotation, was a little bit better than conventional spikes. Fascinating to me because more and more
golfers are wearing spike less shoes. But then the people who compete are like, no, no, no, you gotta have spikes. It's like it's so important to have spikes. But you're seeing guys like Bernard Langer and others in the Champions Tour. The older golfers are like, I don't want spikes anymore. I need comfort. I need you know, I need to support
my back, I need to support my walk. Yeah, And I think as the PGA players become more and more aware of what we're doing, this is our hope anyway that they'll realize that, yeah, you don't beat a cleated shoe if it's designed to give you the traction that you need. And you know, that's the whole point of the spiral pattern that we created. It creates so much surface area to connect with the wound that it I mean, that's that's what creates all the friction, which is you know what you're
trying to do, right, and do you have how blurs. I guess the question is how many different styles do you have and are these styles primarily for men or do you have both. We don't have specific female shoes you we have so we have we have three of the mangrove right now. There's the black leather upper, and then we have two white uppers, one with a blue mid salt, really really cool looking, and then we have a
white upper with a very light gray mittil. So we gain those as unisex, and so far our sales have been about twenty percent to women with the new shoes. Wow. Yeah, to anticipate or I think no fingers crossed with the envy. We were like ninety five that so so this style, at least of the early early releases. Uh, women are much more drawn to this shoe than the NB ship. Yeah. Now I've noticed that there's no ventilation or air holes or the you know, the uppers have you know,
cooling in them. They're they're not a mesh. So I'm assuming that these were going to be great for you know, mourning play, when it's moist, it's damp, rain play. Tell me about how these were designed for for keeping your foot dries. Yeah, so that is a leather upper and it has been waterproofed, so the shoe is is waterproof, so it's it's great for those damp warnings and even rain and you and then the extra
fraction you get with the gripping glide pro outsol. I think you know, we've had some players already playing in really wet, damp conditions and they're like, wow, it really really locked in some good early feedback on that excellent. Congratulations, Thanks you, congratulations. And I saw that on your website
that you're also selling insoles separately than what you have in the shoe. Yeah, So why we started doing that is, you know, right now, like I mentioned, we have about a quarter of an inch difference between the later side and the medial side. So the outside took the inside of the shoe and the forefoot area and so by time you get down to the toes, it's about that different. And it as you taper up towards the heel,
it gets less and less. But we've noticed that some people want a little bit less of that slope and some people want a little bit more. We've had players, well they'll put a little bit less in the front foot and a little bit more on the back foot, so they can get better rotation through on the backside. But really that I'm sorry, get better rotations
through on the front side. Really keep that bat side locked in. So the insuls allow you to customize your fit or your sweltering in the athletic field. And is your fit true to normal sizing or do you recommend something a little bigger, a little smaller. Yeah, so these are running true to size, maybe a half size big depending on what you've come from. So
they're certainly running a half size bigger than our Envy shoes did. So people have ordered Envies in the past, they should probably go down half the size. So and with respect to like a Nike, we're probably a half a size smaller than what they run. Okay, let's take another break and we'll talk more about this and your pet project when we come back. When we started the conversation, you said the company started in twenty eleven. Kind of
surprised. I've not heard of these shoes. I've not seen them. I may have missed them at the PGA show last year. I don't know where where are they? Where do you find That's an excellent question. So it, like you said it, we didn't come out with our first prototypes until like twenty and fifteen, and then we were focused in baseball softball, so we really came out with golf shoes and ate twenty eighteen or two thousand and nineteen. We were at the twenty nineteen pgation. Okay, and then what
happened, Oh right, COVID. Yeah, that COVID thing, that COVID thing will be, and you know it was in plans. It was yeah. I mean, we're one of hundreds of thousands of businesses. But had COVID been three months later, we would have been an entirely different position because we had just signed Bernardline in twenty twenty and he was off to a great start. He was in Tucson, so we went down and met with him because we're in the Phoenix area and through another well, through Rick Adare,
he knew many of those broadcasters. So he called up and said, Hey, go talk to town. So I'm talking to the broadcasters, and you know, they want to know more about the shoe and you know why Bernard is wearing it, and Bernard is winning that event, so he's on of TV at the time, so they're talking about the shoe. How much it's
helping him. And so we're getting all this great coverage in the end of FI and at the same time, we were in discussions with a venture capital group that was in the footwear industry that love what we were doing and wanted to take us to the next level and be out. And then you get to mid March and everything stopped. We were it felt like we were, you know, finally on the runway, all ready to lift off. It's like that go back to the hang. Oh well, the the the VC
group was led by a doctor out of Austin. I forget his name, but he was called to be on the National COVID Committee and about four months later he found out he had stage four terminal cancer. It's just yeah, so that whole opportunity, uh, you know, getting the funding we needed to really grow the business. It's just at adaptorate. And then with the shutdown of uh, you know everything for several months, you know, all that all that no meta was lost and then yeah, it's just been a
struggle to to recapture it. And we had some and then we had inventory issues or shipment issues, uh, production issues because we were having our shoes made in South Korea. These shoes that you're wearing, they we're made in l A. Okay, so our shoes. So that's another big benefit of our shoes is they're they're handmade in l A. Wow. So so we eliminated the international shipping because we haven't made it. Look and you also eliminated
that supply chain issue. Yeah. Yeah, so that's that's helped considerably. I mean, it's it's just they've been great to work with, the companies called Community made out of LA So they've been they've been great to work with, and we've got we've got big things planned together going forward. So hopefully, uh, you know, we'll start we'll regain that momentum we had just
going it right before COVID hit. But yeah, it just took a long time and then, you know, the investment market has just been brutal for the last two years. So finding capitals just that that painting. Well. Hopefully this kind of exposure is going to help you as well, and people are going to be fascinated and they'll go online and and check them out. Where are they available? Is it online only? Yeah, it's primarily through our website Athalons dot com. So that's a T H A l O n
Z dot com. They eventually will be available through Dicks and Amazon, but we're still just getting getting going there. So the envy you can still get through a Dix online. We're not in any brick and mortar stores, so I any solid and is there a plan to make them out there in the brick and mortar and big box world. Ah, if if we can grow the way we'd like to, then we'd love to, you know, be
being one of the golf stores or several of them. Yeah. And I noticed that from the different varieties of shoes that are on the website, there's a big price difference from top to bottom. Yeah. So the the the man Grove shoes which you're wearing, you know, they're they're at two eighty five, so they're at the high end, but they're also they have their R shoe, they have all the new technology in it. It's handmade, it's leather upper, it's really comfortable. Yeah, I'm gonna say right now
and deally comfortable. Yeah. And then like the baseball shoes, those are on clearance. Uh, the nvs will soon be go on Clarence. So our future is in the man growth in the next generations of shoes where we're going to be building are making and they'll all be made or at the final assembly here in the United States to help with you know, just the logistics of supply chain MH. And are you going to try to make an appearance at the PGA show in twenty twenty four or not not this coming year twenty
five? Maybe? Yeah, yeah, so it it It just depends on how we do and you know, and to be honest, we were at the show in twenty nineteen and in twenty twenty. Course, twenty twenty was a not a good not a good year to judge anything by. Yeah, right, twenty nineteen we did, we did get a fair bit of awareness through there. It's just been you know, logistics and finance right now that
limits what we can do. Market marketing, well, it's truly remarkable that, you know, so many companies that I talked to are hoping to someday get to a high profile person to showcase their product, to get it out there a little bit more. But you guys started with the high profile names of people endorsing the product, and then it's like, okay, let's put it out there and see what happens. That's really unique in this industry to
get that kind of endorsement up front. Yeah, it's it's been a fun project, but I you know, if you'd told me in twenty and eleven, we'd still be struggling by twenty twenty three, added like, yeah, now, what would it do? I taken it this long? Well would I've may not have started at the verse CLIs, but here we are. And where does the name Athalons come from? So that came from a marketing firm and that was we spent one hundred and fifty grand out of marketing firm
and that was all we got out of But it was because shoe. I'm going to apologize for that one. I'm really sorry to hear that. It's uh, that's been quite a learning experience. We can we can touch on that in a second. But because our shoe is applicable really to all sports, they thought of athlete and decathorn, So Athalons is so athlete and the kathalon merged together and then put the Z on there for some spice. That was worth it. That was worth another fifty grand right now? Oh yeah,
yeah, ouch, let's take one more break. We'll be back after this. As we talked about how you have some great endorsements just before you get out the gate and exciting. I'm sure that there's competitors out there. There's so many different shoe brands out there, and it's the viciously competitive field. I'm sure somebody took note of what you guys were doing and said,
oh, we can do that. Yeah. So it's been it's been an interesting journey, you know, since you know, we started with you know, the marketing, you know, just said hey, you know, shoes really do matter in performance, for athletic performance. And we got a lot of scoffing initially from the markets that tome on the shoes a shoe, How can that matter? You know? But but over the years we've had you know, more and more people are like, yeah, you know it really,
it really does work. So it's interesting. Now Jeremiah does our social media, but somebody will will come on and say, you know, geez, that's a bunch of that's a bunch of who is I'll be kind uh, And you know, Jeremiah didn't have to respond. You know, people that wear our shoes, it is like, no, it's not it's it's it really does work. You know, it's rooted in physics and it just makes sense. And you know, so earlier this year, because it does
work, other brands, another brands started started coppying our technology. So we file the patent entrenchment suit in the Eastern District of Texas against under Armor alleging that they're infringing five of our patents. So that that suit is currently in process. Wow, and I thought under Armour was a Baltimore based company. I'mous. I'm curious as to can you talk about what specifically they tried to
steal of your patents? So it's it's alleged patent intringing it. So yeah, we've asserted that we're infringing our patent, but until it's fully adjudicated, it's elected. Right, you're an attorney, okay. But yeah, So our our athletic positioning is what we call it, it's optimal athletic positioning, and it's it's the three dimensional uh trigonometry and geometry that we created in the mid soul to get you that athletic positioning which shifts those glol reactric forces in.
And we've got a bunch of patents regarding a variety of ways to implement that, and you know, we believe that under arms using five of those patents and a variety of we ended up having a file of the at an infringement suit and we did that in April of this year. Well, good luck with that. Thank you. I hope that goes to how you want
it to go. Yeah, well thanks. You know, one of the things that it does, you know, just from my perspective, is it validates the technology, because that's that's one of the things that you know, we've struggled with is getting getting the message out there that no shoes really do matter and if you can create better ground body connection through your shoe using physics your performance, that you be a little bit staler, a little bit better
power, and more consistent. And so having a major brand allegedly infringing our patents is great validation for the technology that we shoes really do matter. They do. And even it has on your website better shoes, better golf. It's not just a slogan. No, that's the name of the episode.
One of the things that really jumped out to me when I was communicating with your people about having you guys come on the show and expose us to this was that there was not just the Athlon's logo at the at their signature, but there was a logo for a nonprofit called Interwoven Circles. Yes, would you mind sharing why that's in the signature of employees of the shoe company, so that that is the nonprofit that that we had. Athlons started to help
support child abuse prevention. I grew up in an abusive home, and you know, in many ways it struggled with the negative self image of an abused child, and it's been a lifelong, lifelong battle. And you know, for most of my life I wasn't had any intentions of ever talking about it
publicly. And then in my mid fifties, so five or six, well seven years ago now, I started having flashbacks more of what happened to me in my childhood, and so that prompted me to say, you know, if I keep my mouth shut, then I'm just complicit in allowing child abuse to continue. And I couldn't do that. So we started, we started Athlon I'm sorry, we started Interwolven Circles and parallel with Athlons, and we were hoping as the Athlons ran grew, you couldn't think we could hear athlons
with awful thinking child abuse prevention. So that was why we really coupled them together. Because imagine if you thought, you know, every time you heard the word miike, you couldn't help but think child abuse prevention, it'd be on the forefront of everybody's mind, and tilt that happens, we're never going to make real headway and preventive child abuse. No, I'm really sorry that
you had to go through that. Thank you. Everybody's got their own story, unique story of what they had to go through to become an adult and to have that haunt you have, your childhood haunt you as an adult, I can see why. You know, you never think you'd want to share it or talk about it, but once you come to the realization that a, it's really important to let people know and be You're not going to sleep
well until you do. Yeah, that's that's so true. Yeah, and it would just it would just be there, And I'm glad you were able to break the cycle. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, that's that's that's my big motivation. You know, at the stage of my life and careers, I'd like to make a more positive contribution to society and helping bring more awareness to child abuse prevention. And you know, and my my vehicles are are what I can do, you know, through athalons and and then
through the law practice, you know. So the more opportunities we get to talk about child abuse prevention, the more we can get that out of people's minds. That's that's the way we're really going to see the improvement. And the statistics are staggering, right, And I can't imagine it's we're we're trying to talk to kids about children about this. We need to like get adults to admit yea that they're partner run you know, Joe Torre's organization. They
do a great job of working with the kids. So this is my perspective, and it's nothing against what everything, but if you're if you're teaching a kid, it's to recognize when you're being abused. So it's it's after the fact dealing with it as opposed to preventing it in the first place. So what I really want to focus on is preventing it in the first place.
So what what causes a person to act out? I mean, there's certainly some psychological issues that no matter what treatment they're they're just going to do that. They're going to have that behavior. But there's I think most abusers are are trying to heal some of their own internal word wounds and they just act out in the wrong way. If they had a better release for their own internal issues, then to take it out on a kit, we'd start to
see the numbers drop. Yeah, well, thank you for that work, and we wish best of luck on that there are places where we can go and make donations to help support it. Yeah, so right now we're really kind of in a Hiati's motion is with all the work trying to do athalons to recover from COVID. So but the organization is still there. But you know what I would recommend if somebody wants to donate, you know, Joe Torre's safe at Hall of Organization out of New York in LA a great place
to go. Almost every town has a cost of program, where almost every major city has a cost of program. There's all kinds and really that's what Interwoven Circles was intended to do. We'd raise money and then give it to various charities that we're already doing work. Great so because I don't want to create another organization and we're competing for money, I'm really trying to unite all the charities that are working on the same issues. Yep, so that we
have a much better collective voice than trying to compete for fox. Let's collectively work together to raise defonse. Wow. All right, but thank you for sharing all that. And again I'm sorry for you know, your childhood and I'm glad it led you to a place where you can make other childhood better. Yeah, that's that's the hope that we're trying to do, you know. And I think that's kind of the beauty of golf, you know, is it? It really is. Yeah, it's about making life better,
more enjoyable. So so to be able to you know, work within that platform and just you know, take a second one out, taking a sway and enjoying a beautiful day on the golf course. Just you know, what what can I do to help others? Right? You know, a little bit of donation here and there to some of these great organizations can make the world a difference for a chip. Yes, any time of the year, any time of the year. Absolutely, Oh, Tim, Well, congratulations
on these shoes. They're really comfortable. I cannot wait to get them out on the golf course. Unfortunately I have to, that's right, not because of weather, but just because I'm staying away from the golf course for a couple weeks as I recover from some nasty tennis elbow. But that's a whole different conversation. Has nothing to do with your product, because I'm going to check it out definitely, but I'm going to wear them a lot in the
meantime because they are so comfortable and easy for walking. So great. Yeah, that's what I use it for. I don't bolf near it out, so they're my They're my work shoes when I have to go meet with lions. No, they're They're a comfortable shoe and they look great with Oh good because your client's not going you just coming here directly from the golf course, because they do look they do have a golf shoe look to them. It's not like a sneaker we're talking about here. Yeah, and where can we
follow? Whether you're on social media or is it just your website. You guys have an active social media account, So we have an Instagram account, Facebook account. All Athalons yes, yep, okay, awesome, well Tim, thank you so much again, and best of luck. I hope this really works out and that more pros take a peek at these and say, oh my gosh, I just hit the ball better because I put these shoes on. Because you know what, it works right, that shoes really do
make a difference, shoes really do matter. Thanks so much for your time and best of luck. All right, thanks for that's pleasure. So my recovery from the pinch nerve and tennis elbow is progressing very nicely. Yet it's still not fully recovered, nor have I had a golf club in my hands in about six weeks, and for a Californian that is a long time anyway.
Good news is that any day I'm expecting to receive the all new Lab Golf DF three point zero putter, which is being released to the public probably by the time you hear this. Ever, since I interviewed CEO Sam Han in early December, I've set my goal to stay away from hitting balls or putting until that putter arrives, and once it does, I'll shoot a video of the unboxing comparing it to the DF two point one. The fitting process and take a couple of putts in my backyard green to show you my first
reaction. And as long as we have dry weather, I'll start practicing putting daily and then slowly move into working on my shortcam. I may not be able to take full swings until I get back from my two week vacation to Costa Rica in February. So keep your eyes on social media at golf Smarter to get the introduction to the newest release from Golf and get daily video highlights, tips and insights from our featured guests on Golf Smarter and golf Smarter Mulligans.
And you don't have to follow on every platform because each post goes to YouTube shorts, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Shout out to Alan Tan, our first Golf Smarter Ambassador, checking in from sunny Singapore. Clearly, Alan recorded his episode open on his phone and then sent me the file and with that he's received a free link to Tony Manzoni's video of
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