When he was in high school, his golf coach said to him, Brian, you know more about golf trivia than I've ever met, but you will never make a living on this. And and the fact I ran into his golf coach in the grocery store and I said, I don't know if you're married aware about Ryan's doing. He said, I am. And I said you remember what you said to Himn't? He said no? And I said, he he did say that, But I mean, fifty thousand people follow him.
It's just an every single day, isn't. He said, He's aware, and he's so thankful. He's just overwhelming, and he will. I don't think he will ever lose that, man, I don't. I don't think he will. Another logo nobody he h Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Janella. Thanks for spending time with us again here at the Pit. It's been a crazy stretch as Alan, Schipmunk, Alex Upeggy and I continue to build out this modern media network of
content creators. Much more to come and soon, but let me start by thanking links soul who I know will approve of and appreciate the higher ware announcing with this podcast what is links Soul. Here's Jeff Cunningham, who, along with John Ashworth, our co creators of the lifestyle brand. I've worn on and off the course for over eight years. I think Links sold. You know, we've always called it
just an idea that we we just tend to. When we finally got chewed up and spit out of enough corporate gigs, we decided to do this thing ourselves, um, the right way, because we just don't fit into that culture anymore. And Links Soul, now that you know about it, it just it's not meant to be in that It's not a it's not a plant that grows in the corporate settings, so you know, and a handshake in my backyard on March third, oh nine nine, we shook hands
and decided to do it this way, our way. Go to link soul dot com and use promo code fire Pity for discount on your next purchase. All right, now to the news. From a TV fire to the fire pit, we welcome Ryan French to the collective, a robin hood of golf and media. The humble and thoughtful stay at home dad found a platform and a purpose while tending to the responsibilities of a daughter and a son who at the age of eighteen months was diagnosed with Kari malformation,
a rare brain condition that required surgery. With a support of family and friends who he made along the back roads of scruffy mini tour venues, French launched a Twitter handle at a case of a golf one more commonly referred to as monday q Info, which recently surpassed fifty followers. One of those is Cede Hawker Smith, who's a thirty six year old mini tour player who French has caddy
for over the years. It's unbelievable, Like he's by far the best person for you know, for the job in terms of just running the account, because you know, like you said, he's just he's like, you know, just alt of the Earth, like one of the best guys. UM uses his platform so well, especially to what it's kind of turned into now with you know, um connecting like teams in need with you know, equipment gear and all this stuff. So it's it's really been cool, um to
just see everything kind of come about and whatever followers later. Um, It's it's amazing. Meanwhile, the likes of Aaron Rodgers and other successful fans have slid into his d m s in order to help donate resource is to high schools and Monday qualifiers in need of support. Monday Q info is one of the best stories in golf right now, and it's because of the stories he's compelling all of
us to care about. See Michael Vassaki, Corey Connors and the guitar playing Lasso champion who competed in the Byron Nelson pre Qualifier. What's French's relationship with the PGA Tour? They, like everyone else, are taking notice, as we all should be. It's been crazy. I wrote an article for you guys, for us, for us, I gotta say us no, Um, you know, I guess I have always been a golfer in man. I mean, I will tell the story of
my dad's sitting next to me. My dad's a huge part of my golf life, A huge part of my life obviously, but but my golf life especially. So Um. I say in the article that that I became a golf nerd on the day our TV started on fire. So um. We were watching a Stanley Cup Finals game.
I was seven. The only thing I remember about it is my so our our TV was in the basement, and uh, our living space was on the on the middle floor, and then upstairs with all of our bedrooms, and my dad yelled up to my mom, go get the fire extinguisher, and my mom yelled back, I can't lift it. You remember those moments like yesterday and we you know, our our TV was in our basement and
it just all of a sudden, it just went. I was upstairs and it just went kind of boom, and you know, Howard yelled at me and I couldn't find the I mean, it was kind of it was just chaos. And Mr French, do you do you remember the burning TV? Yes, call me Howard plays that it makes me more comfortable. Yes, I certainly did. We had a finished basement and the TV exploded and fires and the as Ryan described it, that's exactly what it was. And it was you know,
I've never faced a fire at that time. Uh, but it wasn't very fine. And then as as he was explained, we had no intention of going in twenty years with the whole TV and we were well known around the community for crazy people that don't have a TV. I don't know that Howard Night. I mean, it was just like, well,
let's wait a week. And then we said, well, let's wait a month, and we waited twenty nine years, and I mean it was it was very interesting because it was I think embarrassing for our children, and he didn't have a TV and we just never gave in, so he just never had one, and they'd have to go to grandma Grandpa's if they had an assignment, and that's the way it was. Obviously, this is pre internet. So I got all my sports information from the Detroit Free Press,
which was delivered to our house each morning. I read it from cover to cover. And we lived on a golf course, so golf became my favorite sport. And and I always say, like, I don't remember the age, probably around ten. I remember Monday mornings just flipping to the back page and if you'd have to be our age to kind of get this, but in the back page was the only day you could find the full field scores of a PGA Tour event or whatever it was
called at that time, the Night Tour or whatever. And I remember just reading those and saying, like, I wonder how these guys make it. Ryan French of Alpino, Michigan was seven when his TV caught fire. They lived on the Alpina Golf Club, and thus golf has been his life. My dad was the CEO of a company that put mentally and physically handicapped people into the workplace. But he tried his best every day to come home at five o'clock and we would We lived on a small municipal
course and on the third hall. We were members. And what we would do is Dad would come home and change and we would go out and start in the fourth hole and around dark on the third hole at our house, come home and and uh and do and and and we did that five or six times a week. We kept our scores on the back of our basement door and average them up and all those kind of things. But but I think, Matt is that game was so important to like I love golf. It was important. But
my dad and I were best friends. Ryan was a very good golf for even as a little boy, and he would go out to the golf course during the day and no one would play with him, No adult would play with him. Um and he wasn't allowed on the golf course by himself when he was seven for eight, and he would wait at the golf course on all day to play, and then his father would come and play with him at five o'clock. No, I mean, I can see him to this stage. Just come, I just mom,
nobody will play with me, you know. And his dad came home and did it. It was just a part of their life. It was wonderful. There was fights on the golf course, nothing to do about about golf. There was conversations about real world things that happened. Uh, you know, whether it was in his life or my life. And uh,
it just became a special place for us. It's where we you know, Um, my dad's health is not great now he's sitting next to me, um, but you know, it was we were best friends and that relationship on the golf course taught us a lot about life. Looking back, obviously, when I was young, I didn't know what the hell I was doing out there. But we had a conversation about grades and girls and friends and you know, anything anything that that was going on in the world, and
and and it it is. It's a special part of our relationship. As we get into my story, will just can it has always been a part of who my dad and I are. Uh, you know, today I haven't seen him in a couple of months, and you know, we talked about golf. It's just it's been a huge part of our relationship for sure. Howard French suffered a stroke and has been dealing with dementia. But welcome to the opportunity now to talk about his son and golf.
We're very proud of Brian. Uh. He's done a wonderful job. I take absolutely no credit for UM. I liked the golf um and it was so convenient because it was in the backyard, and we always liked it to storm from uh oh anywhere from noon to about four o'clock and everybody got off the course and then we Brian and I are known for a very quick players, uh, and we could fish around and we could finish around in uh thirty five minutes with that a lot of attention to anything else to get the ball in the
hole and go over the next hole. UM. So it was a tremendous boost for us as a family. My life was certainly patient with us, and that was good, uh and we love her for that. And it was really a bone of contention in Howard's in my marriage that Howard never let him win. He never let any of his children win. And it was not what I wanted. I wanted him to give in. I wanted him to lose to him. I wanted a kid to come home not upset, and he said, no, he's got to earn this.
And it was just below And I will never forget the day that he beat his father. I will never forget it. And it was like, I mean, before the ice cream Sunday, he ran in the house, you know, and said, Mom, I won. You know, I beat dad, and um, I think from they and they just continued that relationship and it was the only thing. I mean, he could do that with his grandfather and his father and him, and it was a bond and it was
just amazing. It was one thing to beat his dad at Alpina and he was having some success in high school and in like so many others, French received a reality check. You know. I grew up in a small northern Michigan town and I was like I always say, it's like a big fish in a small pond. You know. I won the club championship, in the men's club championship at sixteen. I thought it was a big deal. Now looking back, there was probably five or six guys that had,
you know, any sort of real golf skill. Uh. But I mean I thought it was you know, I thought it was I was big ship and then uh and then no, no schools recruited me, and I was like, what, you know, I thought it was. I thought it was pretty good. So I went to a community college, Lansing Community College, and it was like, I don't know if there's such a thing. It's kind of an oxymore, but a good junior college program. And we went to National's twice in the two years I was there, and you know,
I was like, oh, I'm still okay. And then I tried to walk out of Michigan State. And I always say, Matt, like, I walked in there and I was like playing pretty good golf for me, And I mean I had no shot. You know, I was gonna be of the twelfth man on a five man team. And at that time, Michigan State was a pretty bad golf school. So it was my wake up call that I had I had no business in this game. And and looking back to now what it was, it was, it was definitely my wake
up call of how many talented guys that were out there. Um, you know, it was. It was eye opening because I was shooting, you know, seventy four on seventy two on a good day, seventy seven on a bad day, pretty consistently, and I had no shot. He might not have had the ability to play professionally, but French was still willing to help others to try to get to the PGA Tour.
In all of my years of covering Buddy's trips and father and son traditions within the game, I've never heard of an annual father son caddy trip, which the French boys did several times a year. From two thousand three until two thousand ten, my parents still lived in northern Michigan. I was running a group of restaurants restaurants in southern Michigan, and you know, we wanted to find a trip that we could make to like kind of connect So, um, my dad and I did a caddy trip. And I
always say, is now this is the Internet days. I found this was the McKenzie Tour now, but it was called just the Canadian Tour. I found a tournament that was close in Toronto that we could drive to. I called the caddy master and I said, hey, you I see her looking for caddies, and he was so excited when he found out that I had played college golf, and my dad knew what was happening, and so we're like, oh, we'll make it a trip. There was no intention of
making it a yearly trip or anything. We just went out to caddy on a mini tour. And so definitely that trip and the following trips are what why this account exists. If I didn't go on those trips, I would never be sitting in this chair talking about these stories. And it was eye opening. And what I say two respects is one, how many good players are out there that weren't on the e J Tour. This was a
mini tour in Canada. And to the lifestyle that they lead, and that is essentially what the account is about, is how good these guys are and the lifestyle they lead isn't what you see on TV. When they went candying, I mean I sent them off into places without cell phones, I and I was, I mean, I just went the stories and I thaid, oh my god, I'm gonna what's
gonna happen here? It was amazing. They came home they loved it um and I mean they I mean trains going through was awful, but it was you know, I mean, those are those are memories that are just forever with him. Definitely. What I learned most on that trip, Matt, that first
trip is the off the course stuff. And I tell him the story is a week Our tradition was a camp every year, and so Dad and I set up our tent and the next morning I went in to brush my teeth the community bathroom and and next to me was a player, and and I just like it was I just didn't know anything about off the course life for these guys. And I really like stunned of why a professional golfer was next to me at a thirty five dollar a night U campsite when he had
a golf tournament the next day. It just like it really boggled my mind. I really had no thought that played. I just didn't think of the financial side of of golf or off the course stuff. And that moment sticks with me because it really was the moment I was like, Wow, these guys, you know, this is not the pro golf that I know. At some point this part time Caddy became a life partner. Yeah. So I was in Chicago
and uh, Yeah, we met. I was running a group of restaurants, and yeah, my my wife is is an amazing lady. And a friend introduced us here and and she had I always tell a story about my wife and golf. Her only relationship with golf was that she tried out for the high school team in order to meet a boy. She had never played golf before, but the boy that she was interested in was on the golf team, so she tried out for the girls team.
Obviously was terrible as she had never picked up a club, didn't make the team, didn't get introduced to the boy, and and has never played golf before in my life. Here's Stephanie French, Ryan's wife, a nurse he met ten years ago. Was it love at first sight? What? What? What struck you about him? And said, Oh, this is my guy. This is so funny, So I will always remember this. We had a mutual friend that worked for Ryan at our in the restaurant industry that introduced us,
and I had just moved to Chicago. Ryan had just moved to Chicago. And our friend that introduced us was a very um, very kind, wonderful man, but he was very sort of promiscuous with his love interests and he had just broken up with a man. And so I came into his apartment and Ryan was sitting on the couch and I was like, oh, Jacob's taste in men is really improved, Like how I could get on board with this, Maybe this one will actually last. And so I sat and I talked to Ryan and I was like, oh, no,
this guy is for me, not Jacob. And um, and so we just started hanging out as a group of friends. UM. But I think pretty quickly, yeah, we started dating. And I mean within I want to say, six or eight months, we were engaged. This is about the time when Ryan also meets cde Hawkersmith. The first year we met, I think we were just engaged. I said, hey, there's a mini tour event in town. It was actually a tour
of the U S Pro Tour. Fino was the leading money winner and the owner stole everyone's money, which is another insight into the mini tour life. But they had an advantage Chicago. I think the last event they ever held before the owner disappeared with everybody's money. But they held a mini tour event in um in Chicago. We were living downtown at the time. In a small apartment and Uh I called the tour and said, hey, we'd like to house a player, and my wife's like, what
the hell is this? You know we're gonna have a stranger in our house. Two thousand twelve, I was playing on the National Progolf Tour. UM and Ryan we had an advantage Chicago, and Ryan offered us UM offered a billet, UM which just host housing, offered us a room. So buddy and I took him up on it and stayed. Um. It was like it was basically a closet UM with two air mattresses. UM. And so that's how I first
met Ryan. I think it was junior two thousand and twelve, and he can't He didn't caddy for me that event. He caddied for the other guy. But we just we hit it off. He took us up to it was a John Hancock building and UM up to the bar up top, and it was just it was a fun week and UM, we just we stayed in touch ever since. How what's he like as a caddy? Ryan's really good. Um,
he's a good player himself, so that helps UM. But he's he's really good at like knowing what to say and when to say it or when not to say anything at all. Um, And I know him like our relationship, you know, like we we joke a lot, and so it's to have him on the bag. It's like it's it's really good because it keeps me, you know, calm and just loose. So but he's he's very good, very good Caddy. I've been so fortunately, so lucky just to know Ryan and just kind of have like a front
row seat just see everything unfold. Um. And one thing that you know, obviously doesn't really get talked about on Twitter, but like his wife's staph is like she's awesome. Um. Every time I'm up there, uh for a qualifier or whatever and out with Ryan, it's just she's kind of doing whatever she can to let Ryan like have a good time because you know, like he he is at home all day, um, and he's he's busy doing work, um, putting out content. But she's just like she's super supportive,
and I think it's awesome. You know. I would think Ryan would agree that most wives would be like, hey, Bud, like take the sweatpants off, put on a suit and go get a real job. But she's just been She's been great, so she deserves a lot of credit to my wife. Is uh. I mean, I haven't had a job for three years tweeting about golf, So to say that she is supportive is um is is an understatement. She's an amazing woman who's uh a nurse dealt with COVID, lost her dead in the last year, and um, she
is a huge part of of what this is. For sure. Any French was born in her little brother, Jackson French, was born in and for the first year and a half of his life they couldn't figure out why he wouldn't stop vomiting. Our son, Jackson has what's called chiari malformation. And I'll try to give a quick version of what it is. Um. You know, part of his brain is down the whole hole in his skull. And for for
different kids, that means different things. Uh. For jack it meant that he he vomited every day of his life when he was from the time he was a baby until time he had brain surgery. UM. And we didn't know anything that doctors didn't know anything. We went to numerous doctors to try to get some answers, and the only reason we found charity was like we thought he had a brain tumor. So yeah, we had done at gastro doctors and uh and everything. I went to a
allergists and went back to our primary care doctor. They thought we were overfeeding him and uh, it was a it was a rough year and a half for sure. Um And and I say in the article, is you know I I'll never forget that. So we had an m r I brain m r I, and for some reason I wish it didn't happen, but it did. That the person who read our our m r I gave
us the report. And so for those that have never been through this, and hopefully most of you never will, is a doctor doesn't read your m r E. There's a person who specifically read your m r I, and then you go to a doctor down the road. Whether it's emergent you need to go right then or a week or a month whatever. But you're not really supposed to see a report because it's not a medical doctor who reads it. And so for some reason they gave us out of the report and it said KR malformation.
And although my wife was a nurse, we'd never heard of it and never google a medical condition. Uh that's my advice to everybody. We came home kind of assumed it meant brain surgery, and the next four days until we got into a pediatric neurologist was you know, a pretty pretty rough, rough part of our life because you don't know, you don't know what's coming. And so UM, finally met with John Rougie, who is is a hero in our life. UM, and he told us our sundated
brain surgery. It was really hard. Um, it's still scary for sure, but we are so lucky. Um. You know, we spent that time in ic you and I think right has tweeted about it recently, Like we met a lot of families who they never get to take their kids home. And I see it at work a lot, and then to go through it personally really just drives at home. So I think, above all, we're just so thankful. Um. Jack is healthy and smart and crazy five year old that drives us up the wall, but in the best
kind of way. Although I hate that Jack had to go through what he did, and he's fine out and hopefully you know, there might be some complications down the road, but if you met him, he'd be a pretty normal kid. But um, yeah, I'm I don't know if happy is the right word, but I definitely learned a lot about life in those two weeks. We were fortunate that as Rise platform has grown, he's worked with UM, the Bobby
Jones Kiary Foundation. UM. We had no idea that this legendary golfer like also had Ciari malformation, and so that was kind of a cool thing to connect like Rise love of UM, you know, golf and everything that that means to his family to what we're going through now. So that was neat. Even though the great Bobby Jones had Kiari malformation and there's a foundation raising aware us about the condition, it took doctors eighteen months to get Jackson a diagnosis, and now French finds himself in a
position to make a difference. I call it a perfect storm. Is uh jack head brain surgery. We had a long term nanny, Paulina, an amazing nanny that was with us for years. Uh graduated from college and was going to go get a real job in the restaurant group that
I was working for. One bankrupt and so the start of the account was I was gonna stay home for a couple of months, and literally that was it, Like I was gonna I was gonna stay home for a couple of months and look for a job that fits right and get a new nanny and get Jack back to health and we and we would move on. He never went back um, and he like very casually one day like mentioned to me, like, oh, I started a
quitter account to talk about golf. I was like in the kitchen making dinner, and I was just like, okay, whatever, Well, like I hope you like get like this will be good for you because I I don't have the like his ability to remember detail for sports is it's like mind boggling. And I have teased him many times like if he could use that brain power to like cure cancer or like you know and you know, climate issues, the world would be a better place. I really started
this account to have an adult outlet. We have a seven year old at the time of four year old, so a four year old and a two year old, and I didn't want to watch cartoons all day, and so I have had these experiences through golf. But the original part of the account was I was just gonna post Monday qualifying scores I had met or played with or you know, been in the group with so many guys at this point that I was checking many tour scores and my nerd, my golf nerd had never left.
I'd always done that through my life. It had created more and more relationships. So I was looking at you know, Outlaw Tour, in the Golden State Tour and West Florida Tour to see friends or people who had stayed at our house or people ID caddied for Ben in a group with so that never left. And then about two weeks before Jack surgery, I caddied uh for CD Haggersmith, who I just talked about in that stayed at our house and I said, hey, I'm thinking about starting this account.
Here's all the things going on in my life. And he said, hey, man, you know, uh, why don't you start. It's a good idea. You know more about golf than anyone should. Um and uh. I always used my brother's line, he said, if imagine what you would be an astronaut if you knew this stuff much stuff about space. So yeah, you just very casually mentioned I'm going to start this
Twitter account. U c D was a was like a pro golfer that he caddied for has become friends with and he said, you know, c D and I just kind of kicked it around and it's just gonna be someplace I can be like a golf nerd with a few guys. And I was like, that sounds great, because then maybe you won't try to get me involved in
these conversations that I cannot remember. And so he started it, and like it was just one of those things where like a week or two I go by and he'd be like, oh my gosh, I have a hundred followers, and then I have if a hundred followers would have been a lot um. I remember calling I never called my wife at work. She's a nurse who dealing with
like life and death. I remember calling my wife when I got to a thousand at work and saying I just went over a thousand followers, and I was like, are you sure they're not like confused, like they know this is not like what's happening. And it just has like slow and steady, kept growing um and so you know, here we are. Every moment in this account has been
so surreal. And I say it all the time, is if I made a list of the craziest things that would happen at the beginning of this account, none of the things that have actually happened would have been on that list because the stuff that's happened is is literally too crazy to even comprehend. For example, like give me, give me a couple sure. Yeah, last night I was messaging with Aaron Rodgers h and he is sending money
to a high school team that I am helping. I mean, like, that is just I don't even he's a follower of mine. We've messaged back and forth some talk about needing an outlet. In the middle of all that's going on with Green Bay and the Packers front office, Aaron Rodgers is helping Monday qualifiers. So the story of Aaron Rodgers like, I
was streaming that Scottsdale Open during COVID. It was like the only golf tournament going on in the entire world, and I was streaming it and I saw him Like people that get on your stream, you know, they show up, And I was like, Aaron Rodgers, like what, I didn't know he followed me whatever, And then I noticed he followed me. I was like, this is crazy. And then about two or three months later he sent me a message was like, hey, I saw that player needs help,
I'd like to do it. I just like stare at my phone like is this really happening? And uh yeah, We're like texting. We're like, what are buddies? Meanwhile, Ryan French is an avid Detroit Lions fan. So the last last Aaron Rodders story, so he sent me this thing before I responded like I had to collect myself that he sent it, and he's like, how can I help? Uh? And I said it to my buddies and I and my buddy replied, what you say? And I said, uh, oh, I sent him a message and I said I've been
a lifelong Lions fan, so please fuck off. And he's like, did you really say that? I was like, I didn't really do it. He's d M with Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, I know, it's crazy. It's just crazy, he said, Detroit Lions fan. He wanted to tell Aaron I don't need your help. I don't want your help. You know, stick it. I hope he did not say that. He did not say that, but he wanted to. He was joking. Yesterday
I was on Golf Channel, talked to Aaron Rodgers. I funded to my followers, funded two high school teams in need. H Mackenzie Hughes, who was at the Masters this year UH sent seven boxes of clothes and equipment and things to a school in need in UH North Carolina. H a guy today. It was a golf coach of a team in Florida got five thousand dollars from somebody to fund his entire year. That's that's happened in the last two days. I don't I don't even know. I don't
even know what to say. I asked Ryan's parents and his wife where they thought he got his motivation for a career dedicated to stories about the little guy and kids in need of resources. I also asked Ryan a couple of parts to that, man is is my mom is? You know, was a drug and alcoholic counselor for many years, and you know, UM helped people in so many ways and just have always been you know, she talked and
put into me. My dad put mentally and physically handicapped people into the workplace and could have left for a job that paid more, you know, as the CEO of this small company for thirty five years and could have left for a better paying job. It's just part of who my family was. UM. But I think two parts of that is I think I ran a group of restaurants I was. I was young and making good money, and I think I was pretty selfish. Uh at that
point in my life. UM, I met my wife, one of the most unselfish people I've ever met, and really changed who I was. And she has been amazingly supportive of what this is UM on a much bigger scale once it started to grow. That was the conversation my wife and I had is we have to use this for good. I love that you know, players have followers
have given players. There's a guy who has given players dollars he was a follower of mine to continue to chase his dreams, no strings attached, and that is amazing and wonderful. I'm very proud and happy. But to give to talk to the golf coach I did today and know that this guy was blueing golf bags together to make his team and now he has five thousand dollars to go buy what he wants. Uh. I think if you have a platform, then it's in a small part
you have to use it for good. So you must love the idea that the tour has just decided to arbitrarily start giving out forty million extra dollars to the guys who are already very, very wealthy and have accomplished a ton of like. You must love that concept. You must think there's no better way to spend this forty million than just simply throw it at the already rich, right, Yeah, I mean to be fair to the tour. They've come a long way, you know. I think they never cared
about Mondays. They have never cared about the back fillers of that story, and I think the tour has never given a fair shot to tell those stories and and make it interesting. They always say, oh, Tiger, And obviously I understand Tiger and the top five get it. But uh, when you when you see guys, I'll use a player. I don't know if he wants to mention, so, uh. He finished very high in the Latin American Tour, had a great year one whatever whatever. He sent me his
balance sheet. He made twelve dollars net, you know, take home. I think he finished fourth on the money list on the Latin American Tour. And he has he has four kids, and twelve thousand dollars probably goes maybe a month, you know, two and a half months, three months and so yeah, I think to be very fair. Uh, obviously, I think that the forty million could have spent ben spent elsewhere. That the corn Ferry Tour persons are the same that
they've been for seven years. The guy who has finished seventy, who is probably a top four hundred or five player in the world, Ah, can't make a living. Steve Wheatcroft is a perfect example. Like Steve, I was like, what I'm I'm not going back to the corn Ferry Tour. I have a family. On Monday June, Michael Kasaki made it twenty part to qualify first spot in the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook and Florida. The video of the Saki's called to his father to tell him he made it
has one point five million views. This is the sound from the Saki's press conference. Do you have any sense of why your story seems to be resonating so widely? Why so many people are tweeting about and cheering on Instagram? Because a lot of people give up on their dreams, probably because they can't avoid it. Um. I've been lucky enough to be with my parents and being able to help me out. Sometimes two keep leaving it, and I said it today in a tweet, Matt is there just
happened to be a camera there this week? That happens at almost every Monday. I talked to Neil Johnson, who's who's who's helped me along the way, and it's now starting to grow his own thing. He's like, Ryan, I I want to qualified for the Puerto Rico Open, you know, four years ago, And I sat in my car and bad. He's like, no one ever saw that there just happened to be a camera there. Uh, there's not very Monday, very many Mondays that a career defining. Maybe it's the
like maybe Michael Velsaki will never get to the PGA Tour. Uh, maybe he'll never make it to the corn Ferry Tour, but he'll always have that moment. I use a guy all the time. His name was Tad Belcon. No one has ever heard of Todd Belkin. Uh, no one will ever hear of Todd Belcon again. He was a pizza store manager and made it through the Byron Nelson two years ago pre qualifier and then made it through the Monday qualifier. And he probably has no chance. I mean,
he didn't even attempt to play pro golf as a career. Uh, he's I think he's an insurance salesman now and he will always be able to tell his kids that he played on the PGA Tour. And I think it's such a cool thing in sports. It's like, I always people laugh at this analogy, but there's no free throw contest to play for the Lakers, There's no there's no breakaway contest to play for the Red Wings. And that's what
a Monday qualifier is. It really is. I mean, at the end of the day, if you have a two point oh handicap or below, you can play on the PGA Tour. End of story, like you get through a prey. Yeah, there's no strings, there's no one to tell you you're you're not fast enough, for strong enough, you don't hit the ball far enough. Eighteen holes is like it's a free throw contest. It really is. You can beat a very good developmental Tour player, can beat a PGA Tour
member and eighteen holes and no doubt about it. It doesn't. It happens all the time. It is such Michael vel Saki moments happened at almost every Monday. Back to cde Hawker Smith on where the Monday q info handle is now and where it might go from here. I think this week was really huge with the I think Michael Vasaki is his name the Monday Qualifier at VAL's bar. Um like guys who are in the golf industry and
obviously like his followers know. But but like what has happened this week with just the amount of attention that that has gotten. Um, Like it's, uh, it's really cool to see. But I think like it's it's a springboard for you know, what is to come and like what is possible the potential of you know, kind of what he has created. In the end, Ryan French was being compensated by the PGA Tour for writing for their website,
but it wasn't much at all. In fact, if he elected to attend a Monday Qualifier in person, he'd lose money doing it. What is your relationship like with the PGA Tour. Yeah, I mean, uh, it's a it's a tough dynamic because I was on a call with them a couple of weeks ago and they said, you know, we love ninety percent of what you do, we don't like two So probably they like of what I do
and they don't like. That's probably my That's probably a guess is I try my best to keep it very honest about what these guys go through, what golf courses look like, that there's no purses that I think the corn forty. You know, I tried to be as much as I can that voice for the players, and the tour is not fond of that at times for sure. Um you know, the waste management has played at McCormick Ranch,
which is like a factory. They the Monday qualifiers stay off Matt's and the greens aren't very good and those kind of things. And I'm going to tweet that, uh, I know that make the two are very happy. So um yeah, I I I have tried my best to What has worked in this account up to this point is tweeting what I think is interesting or important to be said. And I don't. Of course, it's in the back of my mind now that I wrote for the
tour and those kind of things. But I just say what I want to say, and I don't want the tour to ever sense for me. That doesn't mean the tour doesn't doesn't people from the tour don't texture call me to ask why I tweeted something that they do for sure. UM, And my response often to that is, I hope you guys see that of my stuff is pretty positive, and I hope you go back and look at that. I mean, you go from a TV on fire to uh to joining the fire Pit Collective. Ryan French,
welcome to the fire Pit Collective. Matt, thank you so much. I really I Ah, I will tell how I felt about this moment. Um. Matt and I and Alan Rann to zoom call with Alex I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and we agreed that we're gonna make this work. And I clicked leave the meeting and my wife, Stephanie was it was in a chair next to me, and it was just dead silence. After I got off the call, and she was crying, and I just was really like stunned that this is all come to this. Really,
it's ah, it is very very surreal. My wife is uh amazingly happy. I'm like, I can't believe it. Uh. The line I wrote in the story is my dreams never got this far. That's just all there is doing. Uh. If you said, hey, what's your dream? If you could be in golf journalism. I wouldn't have ever thought that it would end here for sure. Well, we're just getting started. Let's go up. Before we get to Bryan French's favorite fire pit, I want to let you know about Part Points,
a new scoring system for golf. This is Brandon Eibert, one of the developers of the concept and the app. Well, a couple of years ago now, Kevin came to the office and was watching Morning Drive and he said, well, they were talking about how you teach your kids how to play golf. And my boys are seven and ten at the time, and he said, well, teach him how to play. Got tuble to shoot par And it's you know, start from twenty five yards and and you make sure
you're consistently shooting part from that distance. When you do that, move back to fifty when you do that, moved back to seventy five. And it kind of hit me two ways. One is, I'm not a scratch golfer. I probably should play golf the same way. You'll find a distance on every hole where I can make par from and and and so we started practicing like that. When I take the boys to play golf, we would play forward and you know i'd play maybe from a tea box for
a tea box. They play up and there was a time where my oldest son Corbin gets par from fifty yards and my youngest son Keaton gets parts from twenty five yards and Corban goes I deserve more points than my brother because I made part from from further back and that's what my ball went on. I was like, yeah, we have something, And then I realized I was having so much more fun playing golf when I was scoring than I was trying to navigate bogies and bars from
you know, the blue tea boxes. If you will download the part points app now and go make part beyond your Twitter account? What is your fire pit? Yeah, I mean I'll go back Matt to to my dad and eyes brown of golf and uh, it's not a fire pit at all. But every Friday. Uh, we used to play for a toughly Sunday from McDonald's and so um
I lost often. Uh. I was a little bit mentally weak when I was a kid, and my dad was was competitive and would remind me that I was getting close to beating him, and I would often fold like a like a cheap tent and Uh, I spent many allowances paying for my dad's Sundays. But um, we would sit in the car and and eat our Sundays that I often paid for, and uh you know, talk about Like I said, it really had very little to do
with golf a lot. It was about life. And um, you know, my dad and I sit around and talk golf often. Ah, we'll do it today. Is health is not uh not not great, but we've had many years of amazing golf. And so yeah, he had a red Ford for us, if I remember right as his uh as his company car, and there was many conversations about golf and life, uh, sitting in that car and then McDonald's parking lot