The club expects their golf proth and their assistant pros to make sure everything's perfect.
We want a club row that can play like Tiger, teach like butch merchandise like Ralph Lauren, and tell jokes like Bob Hope.
Right, it is absolutely The problem is the amount of pay for the amount of work. It doesn't mesh for clubs.
If you don't make these changes, you're not going to get the people you want. Your product is going to suffer. People are not going to want to come play there, They're going to go elsewhere, and you're eventually going to go out of business.
Is seth while helping He's the right guy in the driver's seat, But is there a vehicle he can drive that can make it any better?
People are put on earth to make everybody's lives better, right, Like? How can he not want to be surrounded by those people?
Right then?
And that's what our PGA professional is. You know, it's not perfect, We're not perfect times far from perfect. We're moving the needle, making a lot of progress and I hope people are noticing it. But that's not the point either, right. The point is leaving the room better. And I'm going to keep fighting to do that every day.
Put another log on the fire. Nobody here is given time.
Welcome to the fire pit with Matt Janella.
We're back for part three of this series on the club pro crisis. In parts one and two. Through the process of talking to current and former PGA professionals, From talking to people like Butch Harmon and Shane Ryan, who in May of twenty twenty two wrote a story for Golf Dies entitled the Club pro Crisis, We've been able to piece together the issues. It's a work life balance, too many hours for not enough pay that's simply not working for this next generation. There's the Internet and free
acts to information and instruction. There's an awareness issue in that leadership at some clubs, some memberships, certain clientele of courses across the country, and in my case, the media. They we are not aware that a problem exists. It's not common knowledge that clubs and courses are struggling to find and keep good help. Not enough people know PGM programs have been closing throughout the country, and I'm not sure enough people know how and why. COVID exacerbated all
of the above. Before we get to some possible solutions, I want to thank some brands who made this podcast possible. Let's start with AG one by Athletic Greens Nutrition made powerfully simple. You've seen the ads and thought what is that. It's your daily supply of nutrients and gut health. It's very simple. You get a beautiful box, a bottle to drink from, a scoop or of powder. You put the powder into the water, mix it up, drink it down, taste great. Drink it in the morning before a cup
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And then there's Dormy Workshop, an incredible golf family business based in Halifax, Nova, Scotia, where all they do is make quality leatherheadcovers and accessories. Go to Dormyworkshop dot com and use promo code fire Pit fifteen for fifteen percent off your next purchase. All right, we pick up part three of this series where we left off in part two with Shane Ryan on COVID's impact on the industry and his thoughts on where we go from here.
It got worse and it exposed a problem that's been existing for a long time, but it magnified it and exposed it. And I think, you know, things like I wrote, and I'm certainly not the only one. People are being far more outspoken on this now. And so yeah, it's come to the forefront of attention. And yeah, like I said before, it gets to the question of now, what do you do now, how do you fix it?
If you can fix it, and what are your thoughts on that after all of your reporting and listening and learning.
Yeah, in terms of fixing it. You know, the really interesting thing I found when I started this, I thought it would be a money thing that you know, they weren't making enough money. That's really not the case. You know, some head pros make really good money. Money for assistance even has gone up, you know quite well in the last five to ten years. The problem is time. The
time is the thing that's killing them. And especially for young people, either who are still in the industry but thinking of getting out or the ones who did get out, they're looking at the head pros. They worked under who may have had the dream job right that they said, this is where I want to be. And what they see is that that head pro never sees his children, that head pro got divorced, he's an alcoholic, he's depressed, whatever the case is. They go, even the dream jo
doesn't look good. It's kind of terrible. And so time is the critical issue. So you need to instead of paying your assistant twenty thousand dollars more in your head pro twenty thousand dollars more, you need to hire another assistant, which is more expensive. Right, But that's the thing. More people is the only thing that reduces the collective hours
that everybody has to work. And the solution is simple in that sense, but not simple for these clubs to actually do because it is obviously a budgetary cost.
Here's Chandler Whittington again, a voice from parts one and two, Withington worked at Seminal Marion and Hazelteine, which is where he resigned from his post as head professional in twenty twenty one.
There's this generational gap. And I told Seth and Pepper to twenty I said, you've got to get the leaders of CMAA, the club manders association the same room with PGA, and we need to understand each other better. You know, how are things changing? Who are we, where are we now? What are we going? And what is crucial art to our success and what will ultimately cripple us if we don't address it. So that article is meant to be
awareness first education seconds. You know, we want the we want club pros understand like you know, Kelly Williams from Kentucky used the Big l work. We want to have it in there is like there's never timers right now, you know, not just club pros but superintendents to leverage yourself because the competition is dwindling by the day.
More from Cody Sinkler, director of golf operations at the park in West Palm Beach, Florida.
I don't know that there's one solution other than.
Us using our voices and making sure that we prioritize our own work life balance and make sure that we're working for employers who are going to do the same. And and I frankly don't think we should tolerate if if we're being expected to kill ourselves to speak, we just have to someone's got to just stop it. Say this is Enough's enough? And I want to work a forty hour week. I want to have two days off A lot to ask right day is off a week. But it's little things, so employers. So in my case,
you know, we're a startup facility. We'll be adding employees soon, and one of the first I mean one of the first things that we'll be doing is assessing any ways we can the work life balance of anyone we bring on to our team and adding perks. I mean, I've seen job postings from high end private clubs. I counted one recently that had about thirty bullet points under responsibilities and qualifications and one bullet point under benefits and it just said competitive pay. So we need to realize that
these people are trying to make a career. I mean, let's make sure we're giving them pay. We're giving them retirement with a match. We're giving them health benefits, We're giving them family benefits at the club or golf course. We're giving them two days off a week, two days off a week. I mean, it's little things that can add up to making a big change for our industry. Young people are not going to want to come in and work six and seven day weeks, sixty hour weeks
and make fifteen dollars an hour. They just don't want to do it, and I don't blame them, by the way.
And here's Connor Evers, who graduated from the PGM program at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. After several successful internships at elite clubs all over the world. His current job is expedition planning manager for Haversham and Baker, a company that describes themselves as quote the country a club of international golf travel.
I would just say more more work life balance. I have a great friend here in Cincinnati. Uh he works at it's called Kenwood Country Club and he's he's actually a head professional there and a part of his interview and actually it's funny, I'm speaking to a lot of my my my friends are also PGA professionals at interviewing
for different jobs. That's one of our questions now, And that was never one of my questions many of my interviews, you know, when I was you know, doing doing internship interviews a little bit different than you know, postgraduate stuff. But that's actually one of one of the questions now, like what what are these clubs doing for work life balance. You know, how many days am I expecting to be off, you know, per week? And how much golf am I able to play? Am I able to play with members?
It's just more of those questions that I really don't think Matt you would ask, You would ask in an interview in the golf industry even three years ago, two or three years ago. So I think that's a great change in the right direction. But I would say, you know, magical line like yourself, I would say work life balance for sure. Kind of looking back at it.
More from Robins mainly, who became a class A pro twenty years ago. He was an assistant pro at Breckinridge Golf Club for both decades. After getting married at the age of forty six, he left the golf industry to sell real estate.
I think also a thing that could be done better is that one than all these management companies have for the most part of taking over the shops. So there's very few pros that own the shop. But you make it part of the package, not what you grew up with, but you make it where the where all the members own the shop, all the PGA members, And yeah, there's
a higher cut for the head dog. But there's a you know, then I'm trying hard to sell a driver out on the range, and I'm coming in for more club fittings because there's I'm regripping more clubs because I have a piece of the action, and I think that's where then the shops I think would make more money because all the assistants are pushing harder. You know, if you're just paying them an hourly wage, they're just going
to come in and do their job and leave. So if there's a skin in the game, you always work harder. You know, you guys are starting your own thing, and all of you are working harder than you probably did before. But that's because there's skin in the game. And I think that could be the ultimate solution because then if the pro shop grows and more sales, then it's not coming out of the operator's expense.
And here's Josh Doxentter, general manager at Harbor Shores Resort in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Don't.
I don't think it's an easy or equip fix because you know, we're we're members of an organization that has no say into our operations and ownership, right, so we work for either an ownership group of board or management companies, but the PGA does not own in the facility, so there's only so much that they can do. I think being in you know, I was in the Southwest section for eleven years. I was in the Wisconsin section four and a half years. Now I'm in Michigan. Been in
this section for over three years. And what I've seen is something in every single section is that the typical PG member feels like there's they don't have a voice, like they don't they're not being heard, and is there some truth to that?
Maybe?
I think, you know, I have the opportunity, because of the Senior PGA Championship, because of other things, to have maybe more of an inside look. I sit on the national board for PGA works, you know, and be able to kind of see what's going on behind the scenes. But I would also say that if you if you want to be a part of change, you have to put yourself in that mix, right If you want to have a voice, you need to start running for your board, you need to start, you know, doing different things to
get involved in the PG of America. Do I think that Seth has done a great job as CEO so far. Absolutely, he's really he's been the first one in a while that's really taken to heart what the PGA members are seeing and really trying to find ways to get around some of the challenges that they face for decades.
We'll get to more on Seth Wall later and he gets his own episode, but for now, it's back to Cody Sinkler.
I know right now, as these numbers drop, as less people are getting into this profession, we can be more selective with where we work option A versus option B. If you're going to offer me a five day work week and you're not, I don't want to work for you. So we need to be more selective, and employers should just try to do every little all these little things can add up every little thing they can to improve work life balance and put it at the forefront. Be creative.
One weekend, day off a month, I mean two days off a week. There's a lot of things floating, holidays. There's a lot of things we can do that can add up. But the pg of America has been a positive voice, but the onus is on the employers for sure.
Here's Butch Harmon and his thoughts on where we go from here is the pg of America helping? Is Seth waw helping? Do you see some sense of hope and progress going now back in the right direction direction?
Well, as you know, I've.
Never been a member of the PGA my whole existence, and people ask me why, and there is no real reason. I mean, I just I'm just kind of a little bit of a rebel, I guess, and I do things the way I want to do it. And I'm not saying the PGA is bad because it's not. Seth why, I think is the best guy they could have in charge of the PGA of America right now, without a doubt. He's a guy you and I know very well. He's
the guy that loves golf. Yes, he was a great businessman with Deutsche Bank and stuff, but he's been involved in golf and around golf his whole life. So he's the right guy, is there. But just because you have the right guy, how are you going to change this? How are you going to take you know? They love to say I don't know how many members they have twenty seven thousand or are you hear it? At the PGA for all the twenty seven twenty twenty eight thousand
PGA members. Okay, you have all these members, how are you going to create an environment that's going to make their life better. That's going to be hard for this organization to do this. And the PGA of America should be like a union. They should take care of all their members. Remember when COVID hit oh who was it that had all the discount stores A Dix They had all these discounts, so that had all these young PGA pros working there as teachers. They fired them all the
government of all of them. So all these young people that were involved and teaching in the Dick's stores, in their teaching base and stuff, who were supposedly working to be a PGA member, and a lot of them were PGA members, were gone. And do anything about that. They didn't go to Dick's and try and fight for them and say hey, no, you need to be here. So this, this company, the PGA of America, needs to take care of it it's people better. And I think Seth is a guy who can do that. But how do you
do it? I mean, it's gone, it's gone downhill for so long. And please, for all of your PGA pros out there at head professionals. I'm not knocking you. We're just talking about what the system has become, not you as an individual. I know you guys are great golf pros. You do the best you can with your job, but you're caught in an industry now that doesn't seem to really care about you.
Back to Chandler Withington, why would or wouldn't there be a unionization of of PGA club pros.
It's becoming a reality. I mean, let's look at Amazon and Starbucks. You know, it comes a point where employees are like, we actually, you know, we're in a position to make the terms now, and that's what we're trying to kill you willms using that leverage where tell the pros like, you're actually at a point where you actually now have the leverage use it, you know, And you know, I don't think it's like you need to take people to the shed on it, but it's just creating realistic
and accomplishable expectations across the board that like Visa the standards, we're not going to work more than fifty five a week. You know. After then it's the law of diminishing return, right, so you don't need to ask for everything you can't get everything, but what's really most important, and what we just kind of learned from that was it's not more money, it's just more time away, you know, having a sustainable life.
That's all.
Yeah, seems fair.
You'll like to think, right like, I'm sad that I had to leave to find it, but I was at peace immediately, even though we didn't know where we where we were.
Going to go.
It was a My wife saw it, you know, when I kind of was like, that's it, we're moving on. It happened quickly. She's like, you're totally a peace with this, I said, I am. When I start thinking about all that I'm not going to deal with. I'm going to miss a lot of it. But the stuff I'm not going to miss, you know, I know it's going to be. It's going to get weird here for us. We don't
know where we're going. We're gonna move whatever in kids, and but you're going to see a lot more of me, and that's what we've gotten.
Shane Ryan on the possibility of unionizing.
It would take an incredible act of collectivization, right. It would take a collective labor act that would be very difficult to get all these people, like you said, in these siloed disparate clubs to do it would certainly help them. And you know, this is far from the only industry where you can say this, but you and I talking, it's hard not to leap to just what you said. Boy, how useful would a labor union be if they could strike, right?
I mean, if they could do these things even, you know, if they could you know, talk to each other and say like, okay, you know, this is what we all make, here's the standard. How do we fight for it? And you shouldn't accept thirty thousand dollars even if you're you know, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania or something like that. There's all these things that would be good to do. The question of can they do it? It would take a separate organization, I think from the PJA of America.
I don't think that would be the unionizing force. It would take them organizing it themselves, and it would take incredible buy in. And that's you love to dream of it, but it's I guess I'm probably a little cynical about whether that can or will happen.
Why would you say you're cynical? You know, hearing from so many or what where does that come from?
The cynicism would be that to have a union, you're going to have to have people pay union dues, right, So you're going to have to ask for money from the club pros and you're going to have to get a buy in of over fifty percent.
Right.
And again we're looking at there's nothing joining any of these organizations together except they're all golf clubs. Right. There's no fundamental commonality other than that, and so that's hard to get people to do that even in you know, you can look at any other like the auto industry in the US, right, There's it's tough for unions to thrive even in that because it's very easy for people to sort of propagandize against unions by saying, what are they going to do for you? You know, just deal
with management. We're friendly. And let's face it, if you're an assistant pro at some club where you like to be and you don't want to move, and the idea is you're going to join a union and antagonize for higher wages, well, the union you're going to join is going to be full of people that aren't from where you're from right, it's going to be this network that you have, but the people you're dealing with every day are your bosses that you literally see every time you
go into work, and so that's it's a tough situation. I mean, it's it's the problem with unions everywhere, so getting that on a large scale together when there's no framework for it yet, right, It's not like there's an old club, you know, club pros union that just needs to be reactivated. There's literally nothing, and so I think that's very very high bar to clear.
Back to Robin's manly of Breckinridge, unionizing is something that's been mentioned but seems incredibly unrealistic considering the the fragmentation of the PGA of America isn't in control here. It's course by course, club by club. There's no there's no true way of trying to get together like the masses to organize, right. It just almost seems oddly unrealistic completely.
I think I was involved in unionization and Ski Patrol, which is a very similar It's funny that I was in two businesses that were work their tail off and we're grossly underpaid. But Ski Patrol has they've been able to form union. Veil resorts own so many resorts that they've been able to unionize because it is just a ski resort, the same employee running. I don't know how much you have ever skied, but so I'm in the thralls of that as well. But there's zero chance of
being able to have a unionization of golf professionals. I can't possibly see how that could. Yeah, I or call it impossible.
Josh Dockson, I don't know if it's completely appropriate. I think to me again, it's it's more of help educate everybody around you what the job of pg professional is. It's not coming into work and you know, hanging out for a couple of hours playing golf and then you know, having a couple of drinks at the bar. That's not a PGA professional, right, And it's really helping people understand
what that looks like. I know the PGA did some campaigns in years past about thank your PGA professional and stuff like that, but I think it's more than that. It's more of an education to be like, hey, this is what we're here for. We're here to serve. That's ultimately what PGA professionals. We're here to serve. We're here to grow the game. We're here to make sure that you know, if we're truly the experts in golf, that you can come to us anything golf related, and we can.
If we don't have the.
Answer, we can at least steer you in the right direction. And like I said, my biggest focus is trying to make sure that we have less bums coming up through the Apprentice program and more stars Channler Withington.
Look, I think the point about like, look, you know there are a lot of club pros that can't break eighty is valid, But I also understand the reasons why I can. I want to give you that whole history, going back to Alan Robertson talk about when did things shift, you know, and how did you take club pros like Bob Ford in the eighties who was qualifying for the US Open and playing it whiles he's hosting it to now forty years later, Like you'll never see that again.
People be like, you'll never see a pro at a club like that qualify for you, So well, why keep in mind, like and you probably know that some of the qualifications like and this may be something pre to talk with Seth about. I think I've talked about this with Seth, but I'm going to talk to Don Rey at the annual meeting. But I don't know how much
really the PGA can do. Right Seth has been banging the drum like he's been at met meetings and our things, trying to tell club leaders like, look, this is your opportunity to fix this. We can't fix it for you. We oversee the professionals. But unless professionals unionized, which isn't out of the realm. I don't think that's a crazy thought anymore. But until then, like, the PGA really can't force any work.
You know.
How work is handled, right, That all comes it's club the club. Every culture is different, but the qualifications to be a PGA member. I passed my playing ability test on the same day that pains to Or died in October twenty sixth, nineteen ninety nine. I you know, plast
playmabilly test. Now I am here a PGA member twenty three years later, and I've never had any standard of my playing since it doesn't matter if I can't break one hundred right now, I'm still a PGA member, right So I hate to kind of throw it in this context, but like very much the same as live. Right, what's the motivation to play well in more when it's all guaranteed, right, my salary and my contract's not tied to how well
I play. I think if you actually do some digging on this, from what I understand, maybe things have changed. Australian PGA does have a standard playing requirement, like you're indexcess to always be like a three or something like that, so that people look at Austrian and PJ players they
know what they can play. Now the business is completely different in Australia, but like playing on my strong, pg's put it a high emphasis over the last thirty years, PGA, like clubs and board leaders been like we don't care if you can break seventy, Like who's going to run that outing on Monday? You know who's going to sell
that membership, Like you know who's going to run the Ladies' night. Right, It's become more of the admin and the staff and the service level less about helping us play the game, because we've got teachers who are you know, one hundred percent full time teachers who can help us with that use the club pro We don't care if you can play more you do this and it's gotten kind of a fragment a little bit. And I think that's when
you see people getting out. It's like like, you know, we all got into this because we love playing the game, and then it's just over the years, like it's gone down.
Now.
Look, if you worked for Bob Ford like I did, he told you like the minute you start posting scores in the eighties and tournaments, just take my name right off the resume.
Right.
So we've always been like pushed by Bob to like maintain our game. And I'm glad I did. Like I'm not a pro anymore, Like I'm still trying to play better, right, But I think that's what you've just kind of seen. Like again, you weren't wrong, but I just want you to understand how do we get here, you know, because that wasn't the case thirty forty years ago.
More from Shane Ryan. I was talking to a couple of own, you know, assistant pros who have now gone on to other industries. And if you've got these assistants who are good people people and they're they're making friends at these clubs, and these people are then you know, our CEOs or or you know, own or part of in a position to pluck these people out and bring them into other industries. You know, that's good for these assistant pros. They're they're utilizing this this this platform, so
to speak, and getting jobs and other industry. But that's bad for the industry because now you just lost your best people because they're not being paid. Now they're going to get It's so easy to get them out of you, Like I can double your salary if your salary is thirty grand. It's pretty easy to double someone's salary as a position or triple it and say come work for me. And so that's a benefit for these people, but a bad thing for the industry.
It's true. And you know, the interesting thing is the reason all these people got into the industry is because they love golf. Right, you don't get into it because you're like, oh, I'm going to become a millionaire or anything like that. And so a lot of that I like you. I talked to a lot of people who had left the industry and they're glad they left because the stress was killing them. And then they have more of a family life. But almost all of them have
a sense of regret. It's not like, you know, they still want to work in golf, that that was the dream. It's not like they're you know, in their sales job or whatever. They may be happy and they may be more content, but there is something lost there. In other words, if you treat these people correctly, you know, and give them a little bit of work life balance, they want to stay in the golf and they don't want to be blocked by the club member. They want to be
where they are. It's just that the situation becomes untenable and they and they start to see for my family life, from my mental health, I better get the hell out of here or my life will be miserable.
Brad Sniper, I.
Work somewhere where one of their former assistant pros hit it off with one of the members and the member ended up paying for him to go to law school and he works at his law firm. Now there you hear all these stories about you know, professionals getting into that side of the industry, you know, getting close with a member or someone who works at the club, or yeah, like you said, just connecting with someone through golf, whether it's a club or outside of the club, being a
golf professional. It kind of it forces you to be that kind of even if it's not your natural kind of inclination. It forces you to be a people person. It forces you to step out of your comfort zone. And it's really hard if you're not able to see the person walking up to the tee, if you're starting groups, start a conversation, find something to relate to, whether it's a logo on their shirt, Oh did you play XYZ club?
I was there a couple of weeks ago, whatever.
It's It teaches you how to make those connections, and that serves you pretty much anywhere in life. You know, if you can adjust to a different environment, whether it's golf or not being able to put yourself in an environment that might not be your comfort zone and still adapt and thrive there, that serves you anywhere in life, not just golf. So I feel like what we do does kind of prepare you for just life in general
and succeeding anywhere. And there are these stories, yeah, of people getting their start in the industry in green Grass, but kind of either tagging along with someone somewhere else finding success in another business, industry, whatever it may be, because of that foundation of skills that you get as a golf professional.
For sure.
Connor Evers again, who graduated from the PGM program at Methodist University in Fayettville, North Carolina.
There's so much any stories so or I went to went to school. There's a thirteen hundred alumni from the program, and they've had the PGM program there since I believe they started in eighty six. They used to know all the stuff off the top I had when I worked there,
but now I don't. But so to eighty six, a little over thirteen hundred alumni, and there's so many stories of you know, people in their mid twenties, really thirties, their goal one day is to be a head professional, director of golf, director of instruction at a top club. And they meet someone and they're the director of you know, beer or wine sales for a huge distributor in Chicago,
and they're done. You know, it happens that way because you know, a lot of these top executives at clubs, that's their getaway is being at the golf course and being a member there and they're a little bit more relaxed and have a conversation with someone and that's where the conversations start is in spark around the golf course and around the club. So so yeah, you just never know, you never.
Know exactly Robin's manly. It could still an entry point to something that's so unrelated from golf, but it starts in golf, and then golf continues to have to try to figure out how to piece this all together.
Huge absolutely correct, especially in the private sector. You know, if you're a good assistant, you're gonna you're going to have a member that enjoys your work ethic and enjoys how you communicate with people and and organizational skills and all that that you can take to another another job. So that's and and there's a huge number that have done that. I've got a ton of friends that got their their current job through going through golf. But golf
needs people to stay. You know, if this growth, and you mentioned COVID and I that's when I that's when I was done good and bad. But it's but it's monkers and it's but it's not going to last forever, you know, the the I would have to think that as an average we're going to start start seeing a tick around down before it just can't continue. I don't think and then where where's that? Yeah, I don't Seth probably had some pretty good, pretty good answers and ideas.
The problem is getting those ideas out and into the hands of the employer. The whether it's the management company, privately owned, resort, course, municipal course, it's the employer that has to know these problems. And I think as I was at the at the meeting and we were on a break, I was like, we've got to get these employers to some of these meetings. It doesn't do a great job for all of us pros to be here
some of these employers. And I think I don't know if Seth mentioned that, but that would be a starting point for sure, would be the PGA of America saying, let's get the employers together and explain our side of the story so they understand it better. Because I think there's just a disconnect from the very tippy top down to that that assistant pro where if I keep using the word assistant bro. But there's club pros, heat pros
that still aren't making great money. They're certainly making better money, but very very few are making the six figures Chandler Withington.
All that needs to happen is for leader at every club to be like, you know, if you're the pro listen, you know when that's not here on Sunday or he's not here on Tuesday, he's with his family, and we support that, and you know, we're not going to be texting him, you know outside of the hours of nine to five, we're not going to be emailing outside ninety five. Our expectations for this person that change, and we're we're going to have a better and happier employee and you know,
a longer tenure relationship because of it. There are no bad people in this equation. We just have missed to understand the shift in the priority of life. And it's not a bad shift, Like we'll all come out of this better if we just recognize it, hire a few other a few more employees to like to compensate for it, and and we'll have better relationships and better staff and better people and like a better product. Where I'd be
sad for our association and the game. It's like we still have a lot of great people left in it, but we're losing people by the day and eventually, like we're going to wake up tomorrow and go where they all go, you know, and and you know, why didn't we do something about this sooner? You know, there's there should be people like me that are eighteen and wanting to be the pro. The pro should be that thing that people want to be. And I just don't want to see it get the black eye that it's getting
right now. You know, I think we've got a chance to do something here. And look your microphone, chance, Shane's Penn and many others. You know, we collectively tell this story and try to get people look in the mirror and recognize what's going on. We'll be okay. You know, se Seth gets it. You know he's been talking about it, and you'll have a good conversation with him.
Next up in part four of this series, My conversation with Seth Wall, former CEO of Deutsche Bank and CEO of the PG of America since September of twenty eighteen.
You know, I can't pay them more, but I can try to get people to pay them more by having them understand and then having them realize that they're not an asset, They're not a lever. You can pull their people right who have kids and colleges and tuitions, to pay and car payments and you know, et cetera, cetera.
Right, and and.
They work, you know, in a great industry doing something they love, but ungottly hours. Right, And it's a little bit you know, too much chocolate ice cream, right, Like it's great until you know you have you have too much? Like people say, well, do you play much, and go, no, I'm in the industry. I don't play at all, right, And it's kind of like, well that's crazy, Like if we can't play, like, who can, right, So I think it's a matter of freeing our pros up to do
what they love. Is just a play more. Play with members, play with guests, play with you know with if you're at a municipal course, play in a you know, a Skins game or whatever it is you do, right, Like, how else are you going to you know, understand your customers better?
Put another log on the fire. Nobody here is get the tie