I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a brid egg.
Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida Egg Egg fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today marks our ten year anniversary as a company. On December ninth of twenty fifteen, I sent the first Friday Golf newsletter. I wrote it on December eighth while I was at my previous employer. It basically did nothing.
And I had come up with this idea. I you know, I got great advice years ago, and I had this idea, and I had met my friend Andy Mack, who's a Chicago area entrepreneur, very good junior and a junior player and played at University of Illinois, and he had started companies and he told me he gave me this, this great advice. We had morning meeting. He said, you know, everybody spends all this time thinking about how to perfect
their idea before they ever launch it. And he told me that morning, you know, you should just start it, you know, and go, because I had told him this idea for a golf media company, just do one. Put it out into the world, and that's the best thing you could do. Don't spend time thinking about how to how to make it great before you've ever done it.
So that day I went to work and I wrote the first newsletter and got going and I sent it to ten friends who played golf, and then sent it, you know, the next one to everybody that I had ever played golf with that I had their email, or anybody that I knew played golf, I had sent them like a nice little letter about you know, I started this thing, and then we were often running and you know, people shared it around, and you know, we we became a golf newsletter, and all of a sudden I became
really engrossed in trying to build a golf media company, and at this time still working a full time job. So you know what I found was I did a lot of work for my side hustle at my normal hustle, and eventually that side hustle became my normal hustle. And you know, from that point on, I never really have dreaded a day of going to work. And you know, you know, I wrote about this in our newsletter that went out on Tuesday. But I think the biggest thing, when I look back on it was was being naive
I had. There was never a doubt in my mind that things weren't going to work out, which I found, you know, when I look back now at how hard, how challenging it's been, you know, just like I never in the early days ever thought of a reality where I wouldn't be doing this, And I think that's probably the most valuable thing among all the things that had
to go my way. Lots of luck, a really impeccable timing with the when when we started some things, you know, and then you know, a ton of hard work, not just for me, but my extraordinarily talented team that I am so grateful for getting to work with. So today's episode, we're gonna kind of talk about the last ten years. I'm joined by our first full time employee, hire Garrett Morrison, who's been a co host on this podcast, has written you know, hundreds of thousands of words, maybe millions of
words on the website. Our second full time employee, Will Knights, who now runs our events but wrote the newsletter for free when he when he started, he basically knock knock, kept knocking on my door until I said, yeah, I sure, start writing stuff and we'll have you, and which parlayed into a full time job with a start date the day that COVID shut down America. That's another fun wrinkle
of of the story of of of our company. And then finally, Brendan Porath, my my co host on Shotgun Start, really a podcast that kind of transformed, I would say, the way people thought about our media business. And guys, welcome on, thanks for joining me today.
Hello, Hello, how's it going.
It's good, It's good, it's been I said this on the Shotguns Start, but I don't I hadn't really thought about the tenure until yesterday afternoon when I needed to write the newsletter that I told people I would write, And then I started thinking about it, and I just like a flood of memories, a flood of fond moments in time, and you know, a great appreciation for all the readers and listeners that have have been with us
for this time. And you know, I was thinking back to like just the idea of like I would live and die by how many newsletter subs that we added. And then obviously, you know, super grateful for all of your guys's hard work and everybody else on our team's hard work that have helped us kind of grow this company into a real thing over the last ten years.
All right, well, I want to talk a little history here, Andy, kind of go back to the beginnings of the company and get some of your stories about that. But first of all, just to introduce the voices here, Will Knights is on with us. How are you doing today?
Well, I'm doing well. Garrett, great to be here. And Reminisce a little.
Bit and Brendan poor Ath, a voice that many will be familiar with from the Shotguns Start podcast. How many Frida Egg podcasts have you done recently, Brendan?
Not many.
I think I had one about this time last year with Jeff Shackelford. I think we did start, But aside from that, not many. I know, more before the Shotguns Start existed and now, yeah, that's where we park all that. And yeah, no, it's good to be I find it really interesting to listen to you guys. Reminisce, I mean it's good. We never do that that often here right, Like, it's like we are going a million miles a day and just trying to get stuff out, and I think
we're pretty productive at doing that. But God, when you think it, stop stop and think. And Andy even talked about like I didn't really stop and think until I had to write something for the newsletter today on the ten year anniverse, and so I think it's a good exercise to stop and do it. So I'm excited to listen to some of you guys.
But we're very much like a tomorrow oriented company, or like next week oriented company, like, but we got to get done what we have to get done for the next week, and this week happens to be the ten year anniversary. So here we are. Here, we are doing that, but it happens to be that this task requires us to reminisce a little bit and look backward.
It's funny. I have like a you guys all know this. I have a horrendous case of ADHD. Like it's bad.
It's part of the magic.
And the part of how I set this thing up so I wouldn't fail myself was very strict deadlines, and this would never have worked as an occasional blog. And I think like there was probably moments a time where people were wondering, like, what's going on with the Frida Egg podcast? And that's because I did not have strict rules.
But the start of the newsletter it was Monday Wednesday, and like I I, you know, even from like once it got to like two hundred that the idea of letting down people and them not having it one time at that when I said I was going to deliver. This was what got me through so much stuff. Probably drove my wife insane that I was like gung ho about you know, these deadlines and that I could not
postpone it. And you know, but the deadline oriented nature of it, I mean, it makes it so you always are looking towards the next thing that you have to do, but it does limit the ability for you to ever reflect on anything you just did.
Yeah, for those who don't know, Andy's wife was the first editor of Frida Egg Golf, or as it was called in its first edition, the Golf Hack the Golf Hacks. But somebody told you that was bad.
Yeah, well I knew it was bad coming up with it, but I was taking the advice of my friend. I wasn't gonna let coming up with the perfect name get in my way.
Oh absolutely right, and yeah, you another couple of weeks.
A funny story, So I changed it to Frida Egg. My friend who I used to work with. I'll just say his name so he gets recognition. But Paul Spiller, I worked with him at a company called Belly. He he was like, I love the Wednesday subject line was your Wednesday Morning Frida Egg g lie or. And he was like, I love the name Friday Eck. Why don't you just do that? And I was like, yeah, that's great.
So anyways, fast forward to we're doing like official business paperwork and my my cousin in law I just call him my cousin. He married into my married my cousin. Is that just a cousin, cousin in law, cousin in law. Yeah, because my lawyer and our lawyer, I guess he's like, you know this Frida Egg name, this is this is a terrible name. You have no intellectual property over your name. Why all these tech companies are Google or like these made up words?
Yeah?
Is that then they own all the intellectual property. You need to change the name. And this is this is like spring of twenty sixteen, and I say, no, we can't make the change the name. The company is way too big. It's way there's way to any people who know it. I mean, we had like a thousand followers at this.
Point, at this at this point, yeah, and you were you were at that point two and a half years away from maybe more away from hiring your your first employee.
Yeah. But I'm like, oh, we're way too big to do that. People will never forgive us if we changed our name.
It's established.
Got to thank Paul for all the SEO headaches over over the years and the confusion for catering companies. But you know, it's a name that's stuck. Yeah.
Can I ask a quick question because I feel like the answer may be it's funny or random, But why did you pick December night to send the first newsletter for a golf focused company or news? December feels like a.
Because it was the out right right Well, so, I you know, I think about this. I don't. I was a little frustrated at my job. I was, you know, I was kind of like in charge of our way, figuring out new ways for our business to make money. And I, you know, the CEO of the company, and I don't think really saw I die and with with where we should be going, and that frustration led me to like, well, I could just do this on my own.
So I went. I went on a vacation with my way now wife too, to Argentina and in Thanksgiving during Thanksgiving, and I don't know, I can't really remember, but I think I came out of that vacation just more disgruntled about my current employment, and it just led me to want to do something on my own.
You know.
I think that happens with a lot of people, is where you get kind of dejected at your existing job and it makes you want to, you know, spend that mental energy that feels like it's being wasted on other things.
And frankly, like you know, I was working at a media company and basically the blueprint of the fried Egg was everything I was hoping our company would do a newsletter that was really content forward, that you didn't feel like you could skip a podcast, those were those were the things I was trying to get my old company to invest in, really authentic content that was like you you had to read, you know, because we had a we had a really interesting audience. It was like, and
the company's still going, is doing well. I mean, it's grown. But we had a really interesting audience of like super influential people in the tech scene of these different cities that we operated websites in, and I just thought that was super valuable. I just I kind of learned what the value of building a really engaged audience was, or like, what what if we had a really engaged audience? Is what I would say?
What was interesting to you about newsletters specifically, because you know, Frida Egg started as a newsletter, was a newsletter exclusively for a while, So why why were you building from a newsletter in twenty late twenty fifteen, late early twenty sixteen?
Is Actually my wife was really into the Skim at the time, right, which is which is a newsletter that's focused on delivering like news, and it was really geared towards millennial women who at the time were in their twenties, twenties and early thirties. And I remember her asking me like what I thought about these random news stories? And I'm like, and she's not really like poring over the news, right, And I'm like, what what are you asking? Why are
you asking? And She's like, I read this newsletter the Skim, and I then kind of looked into it because my other job was like very related to this, Like I was trying to sell newsletter advertising, and I became very fascinated with the Skim and the Hustle and these newsletters. The premise of the newsletter being that's the piece of content, because what happened at the time with newsletters was you send these newsletters and there's no reason to open them.
It's just an aggregation of website articles with an ad in it, and I could just go to the website and find the articles or go on Twitter or whatever. What was unique about the Skin and the Hustle was it was the content was in the newsletter. Thus what you see because of that is people are way more engaged with what you're sending because there they don't know what's inside. That's when the content's being delivered, it's not being delivered onto the website. So that's why I just
really loved the newsletter concept. I thought, and what you know, what I what I believe in, you know, more so today than ever, as we've seen like in the years we've changed, is getting a connection with somebody via email is a very intimate relationship, like and the way I view it is like, I'm not going to ever disrespect or kind of overstep our bounds in that relationship. When we send you something, it's going to be meaningful, thoughtful stuff.
It's not going to be we sold our list to some company who gets to send you a promotional offer.
What we what?
So what I what I believe is then you have a lasting connection. You know, there's a lot of things that are changing, and who knows, email may change, but we're years we still get mail in our mailbox. You know, an email address is like a direct connection with people, whereas the social media is you're kind of at the will of the company and the algorithm. So that email
connection is really powerful. And I thought, and I believe still is like kind of the hub of everything we do because you might miss a tweet or a video that's posted on YouTube, but you know you can always find that email.
It's interesting how newsletters have survived while every other delivery mechanism except from maybe the podcast, has been disrupted in some way in the last couple of years. You know that the experience of going to websites is no longer what it once was. Social media platforms change at the at the whims of their owners, and so you can't rely on that either. But the one, the one constant has kind of been email, and that's it's been really steady for us.
You know.
Yeah, podcast is great too because people subscribe and then you're you get that automatic push like it gets sent to your phone.
Especially, it's the email of audios essentially.
Yeah, So it was Yeah, starting was it was quite This is a fun, amazing time. I you know, I would say the thing that I missed the most is is waking up and having you know, early days, nobody trying to get a hold of you, and you just wake up and have this ultimate freedom of what am I going to make today? And that's probably the thing that I missed the most about growth.
But yeah, what comes to mind when you think of those those earliest days when it was just just you, any stories, any kind of ridiculous events that pop into your brain every so often.
I was texting with a friend this morning, actually, you know, like right after I started, and Brendan you'll remember this. Do you remember who the Big four was?
Yeah, it was a Jason Day, Ricky Fowler, Jordan Spieth, and who Rory Right? It was right, Okay, it's.
Right, Yeah, and I think it was.
It was.
It was in January of twenty sixteen. Yeah, they played at Abu Dhabi and I think they teed off at like one am Central something like that. And I stayed up all night and then went into work. Oh god, and I watched it and then I went into work. I was like a zombie. And we lived my wife. My wife and I lived in this loft apartment, so I had we didn't have a ceiling on our one
bedroom loft apartment. For the bedroom. It was like one of those like half So I'm like, I'm listening to it like super quiet, trying not to keep up, and it's just like completely insane behavior. BPD.
You remember much from that, Yeah, I mean I remember those times, the Big Four of the twenty sixteen Abu Dhabi. I mean, are your last comment sort of like the only reason any of this works is from a little
bit of insane behavior, right, like from you. I mean I think about Garrett, like you know once a Yale north Western like teaching it like one of the most prestigious schools, and like taking a chance, like you know, obviously very very smart, could cut his own path taking a chance, Like that's kind of insane behavior, no disrespect parent, like, but obviously a massive credit to the company. Will like this young kid, I'll use that term liberally, but you were an adult but.
In your mid twenties when came on the right Yeah right, but at that college. College was a couple of years ago when when Will came on board.
Yeah, but you have your act together more than any of us, like within like the first year, like organized, driven, creative, like Okay, I'm gonna I like this guy from Chicago, I'll do it for free, let me like, and now you're like running everything for us on events and and I don't know, and Andy just staying up in the middle of night trying to do two jobs at once because he thinks he has convictions. So like, I don't know.
It all starts from a little bit of an same behavior that that is driven by kind of love and love of like wanting to do it, not just wanting to make a bunch of money, wanting to be fame and wanting to do whatever. It was like, we want to do this because we think it's good. I don't know that insane behavior common resonated with.
Me, Garrett, you were our first staff member full time. I've never asked you this. What what did what did your like family, your wife and your your your your other close family say when you were you said you were going to join this small golf flock.
They were excited, honestly they were. They were very supportive. So I had a good job, you know, I was. I was teaching at this independent school, as they call it, a boarding school in California called Stevenson School. It was located in Pebble Beach. And that's part of why I got back into golf and kind of the mid twenty tens, early two thousand tense, because I was I was teaching at this school and around all these great golf courses. So, you know, it had been an interest of mine when
I was younger. Golf and golf architecture. Really got back into it when I was when I became a teacher at the school. And yeah, when by the time I I, you know, jumped out of that job and into this one, I had been writing about golf for a while for you know, a couple of years, publishing articles on blogs occasionally with with various magazines, and things like that, getting kind of a freelance. My blog went through a couple of different names.
Uh.
By the end, it was just called Garrett Ford Golf because at the time I was going by a semi pseudonym on Twitter, which was Garrett Ford.
Before yeah, I guess, yeah, I mean, but a term I just learned about.
Me too, me too. Apparently it's a it's a really big deal. But in any case, uh, yeah, I was. I was there before those guys. But the reason I was going by Garrett Ford was that I just didn't want my students to find me on Twitter and I didn't want to have to waste a day of class like explaining what I was doing, right, uh, And so that was it. I was Garrett Ford. Andy knew me
as Garrett Ford. In fact, I think he might have thought that my name was Garrett Ford until he literally had to like I had to fill out a tax force.
Actually that's definitely true, because I remember because I was writing for Andy at that time and he like sent me a message like I think I'm going to hire Garrett Ford, and I was like, oh awesome, Like I love this stuff on Twitter, YadA YadA, And I do remember that, Like Andy texted me, he said, did you know his last name is Morris? At that point, I truly had, We all thought your last name was fort.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah. And you can tell, like Andy didn't google me or anything, because otherwise he probably would have figured that out before.
No background searches.
No background checks, no no googling to the Stevenson School website to make sure that I was actually employed by them. In any case, you asked what my family thought they were into it. They they they had already, you know, been aware that I was interested in going this direction. My wife was was very familiar with my frustrations with the kind of boarding school teaching job. Uh, it was.
It was an overwhelming job that you know. We lived on campus in a house on campus and inside the gate, inside inside the Pebble Beach gates right Our house was connected to a dormitory, and I just couldn't get away from my job. I see way more of my kids now than I did when I was working that job. And it's a great job. It's you know, people do it for decades, have have all my respect, But most of the people who last that long are real extroverts.
They really like being out among people and interacting with people all day long. By five years of by the time I had done that job for five years, I was pretty tired of it, and so I was ready to move on to something new. Everybody who was close to me knew that, and they went with it. I think, you know, if they had their concerns, and I'm sure there were probably some concerns, they kept them to themselves and just trusted me, which was very very nice of them.
Will you you were kind of on.
You.
I mean, you started working in twenty seventeen in a capacity you were writing, and you wrote the newsletter. You pretty much had taken that over. And my thing was, we had to hire Garrett first because we needed one person that knew that had a vast understanding of the of the English grammar system. That was number one for people.
Who I was an English teacher right at the at this morning school, and that was definitely part of the reason that Andy hired me.
Will had passable grammar. I don't have fastibal grammar. Nothing could be published without somebody reading it. But uh, will you came on right during COVID. I didn't want to tell you, but I was sitting in my basement staring at the ceiling, wondering, like, if anybody was going to play golf, how when when's the next like sponsored check or sponsor going to come in? How am I going to like I just hired Will? Like, why is this happening now?
Uh?
What? What were you feeling in your in your apartment?
Well, I mean I was feeling the same thing. It was, honestly at that going back to Brendan's comment of like I was young and not really thinking about how the Frida egg made money. At that point, it was just like Andie's hiring me. Great, I got a job. But then you get into the situations like, Okay, how is health insurance going to work? And when are these paychecks going to come? Is at the fifteenth of the month, Yeah,
like the basic things. And then a week before I start, the Rudy Gobert incident happens, and I fly home and we start kind of getting into it, and I realized very quickly how the real world works, and especially when you have a small business and you have to make sure money is coming in the door. And thankfully we weren't talking about this to each other. We were just
worrying about it at home. But I was twenty six years old, like working at home with my roommate at the time, who had also started a small business around this time, and we were both very nervous and just kind of expressing our anxieties to each other. But he didn't have anybody else to talk to day to day
beside me. So thankfully we at least would hop on a zoom call meet you and Garrett and would we would have ideas and we would talk about what is going to fill the space that week at the very least, and thankfully then last too long. But there were there were dark months there at the beginning.
Honestly, COVID was an amazing time if you just looked at it from content creation.
It was enforced solitude.
I you know, Brendan, I often look back at what we did with the Shotgun Start and I have no clue how we did that. Brett, Garrett, you pretty much took over fried Eggpod for.
A little while. Yeah, I mean, because you're you were doing Shotgun Start three times a week and uh, running a business dealing with the financials, Like we did not have a financial person at this time. It was just you Andy. And for people who are familiar with your kind of podcast persona, they might think that maybe Will and I missed some paychecks and stuff like that. We never did. All that stuff was completely professionally taken care of by Andy and so pretty overwhelming task that you had.
And so the fried Egg Pod was kind of the victim of that for a while. It was really irregularly published, and I you know, at some point we just sort of agreed that I should I should take on a little bit more of that load. But yeah, those COVID times, I mean, it turned out to be an amazing boost for golf, where people kind of went back to basics, rediscovered the game, and a whole new set of people came into the game. And you know, it's not that
that made COVID good or anything. It was obviously a very terrible time, but it played out differently than any of us thought. And yeah, I remember Will coming on board and being worried about that. Now Will had been effectively part of our team for a long time. At
that point. In fact, before I have or worked with Andy or did anything with Andy, Will was working on the newspaper, on the newsletter rather as as you mentioned, Andy writing the newsletter on a you know, three time a week basis, so he was very much part of the team when I came on board. But bringing Will on full time was a big move, something that we were excited about. You know, Will brought so much to the team other than just writing, and so we're very
excited to have that. But but you know, just the kind of coincidence of that and historical events made for a very uncertain time. I remember, actually, you know, kind of in a fit of complete irrationality and panic, selling my driver for a couple hundred dollars because I figured having the extra cash on hand might be a good idea for the next couple of weeks. Like obviously that wouldn't have done anything if things had gone really bad, but I just like, maybe I shouldn't have this driver.
I ended up having to to rebuy a driver a couple of months later. But yeah, it's so you know, those that that was a rough couple of weeks. But then I think we realized we can be at home, we can do some interesting stuff, we can learn some new skills, you know, we can we can really burnish our skills as content makers. Take this opportunity and and
and explore some new avenues. And Brendan, I remember you and Andy kind of happening upon this idea of the long form flashback Friday type podcast that was sort of a product of this period. And at that time Shotguns Start was.
What just.
Was it a couple of years old, maybe a year and a half. Yeah, And so that was a that was a and it was kind of born of the fact that you guys were doing a three time a week podcast. You just had to figure out interesting stuff to fill up that time when there was no golf, and you and you sort of figure it out.
I mean it was a news show.
Yeah, I know, scary, that was the concept.
Yeah, like everything else, pretty scary obviously, like, uh yeah, it's a news we will always have something to talk about. We will get news the guy the content gods provide. And then all of a sudden, there was no more golf tournament, no more professional golf or any tournaments of any kind. So yeah, like Andy said, when you think back on it now, just what we were doing, the amount of amount of work and research and then recording time was pretty substantial. But I think it grabbed a
lot of people. People still talk to me about those episodes all the time, and you know, if we had time. Now I think we do them more often. We plan to do them more. But yeah, that was that was an interesting time in the company for all of you guys, and certainly for the pod too.
What was going on you were working at espuation at that point, right, I was.
Just going to ask blog cabin came came about as well during during your espenation time.
Yeah, I worked for Vox Media and I remember, like, like obviously on their sports side, it was like it was a pretty like forward digital media company where like you could the point was to make something cool and unique and creative and not repeat what other people are doing and like you like the world's your oyster on
the internet. And I remember when Andy actually I think one of my like earlier members of Andy is he sent me something to edit or read over about Aaron Hills, like an angles piece, like with an angle, like you were explaining it to people who were watching Aaron Hills and you had like the scatter.
Made the tenth hole, I think again, tenth Yeah, yeah, it was.
It was the article. It's an article with the title with an angles, okay, and and it and it really resonated.
Yeah, and he sent it to me, I'm sure you like I like to look over and I was. I sort of been I don't know, brought up and groomed in digital media in a way of like looking for cool, different important ship not just like here's how tiger Wood shot is seventy one And I was like, whoa, this
is like really really smart. That was you know, I had known you and followed your work, but that was the first time I was like reading over like this is like I don't know if it was the most revolutionary piece or the well written piece, was like this is like a different way to like make stuff, and it is probably the thing that knows you're talking about waking up, like what am I going to make today?
Like that freedom you had, And that was one of the first things or was coming from sort of the culture I came from, and seeing that like felt like a really really good match, Like this guy is really smart and really like is trying to make something different and unique and say something that maybe not all the other people are saying all the time. So yeah, and then we launched into blog cabin and it all went from there.
You bring up something about like the Vox culture, about thinking outside the box, doing stuff that other people aren't doing. Yeah, the company prior that I worked at, we had a staff of writers, and I I'll never forget I was on you know, the business side, but I was. I would occasionally have to go tell them they needed to write some sponsored content piece that I sold, which was never fun. But I became friends with a lot of them and I would be like, do you write stuff
that you want to write? And they're like, no, never, right, like maybe one article a week and they're writing multiple articles a day. And I always thought that was like kind of backwards. It's like, you should always have writers and then for the most part, you should just let them write whatever they want to write, because that's going to be the most interesting thing. Like let them take a topic or take an event and write it through
their prism. And that's I think something that like, you know it, established media is kind of botched is that, you know, they feel like they have to do the old like, well this worked ten years ago format, so we have to keep doing that, and somebody's always got to be assigned to that. And that's something that drew me to Brendan's writing was he's writing about you know, monster cutout to gas stations, right right?
Well, I mean I think that's why you were You and your team were able to kind of crack in. I wouldn't say you like could take over, but like you can crack in because all the other golf media space people have like so many masters to serve and the reverse they're doing the reverse of what you're talking about, Like, what can I write to generate the most traffic that
serves the ads that keep us the lights on? And you were going from the you were starting from the opposite end of like I want to write something cool that I think is interesting or important or funny or humorous, uh or something I have a particular expertise on, like you're and that will draw the people in and then we'll build from there and that will draw the sponsors in that like I Yeah, it's not a way to
scale right away overnight. Right Necessarily, there's gonna be fewer people wanting to read about the wid and angles of the tenth hole than there are that like Tiger Woods's back update or whatever. But it's a way to actually have a voice and authenticity and a real audience. Yeah, and a real audience. And that's and nobody was I would I won't say nobody, but not many people were
doing that. And you saw you guys saw the opportunity and and I think that's why it's been able to stick, Why you were able to crack in, not necessarily take over the world, but why you were able to stand out and crack in and now stick.
What are your guys's favorite things that you've worked on since you've been here?
Go ahead, Will, I mean, I.
Think, I mean, there's been so many different variations of my job over the years.
That Will It's been like basically everything I.
Kind I was kind of thinking about it. Over the last ten years, I've done everything from like podcast clips to the merch to the writing writing. Garret would edit the newsletter. I would put everything in our back end system to events to social media. It really has like kind of transformed over the years. But to your point earlier, like when I started writing the newsletter, it was after my day job. I would come home and just like
kind of figure out what happened during the day. But Andy would let me write whatever I wanted, and that was like a really freeing thing. Was like, as long as I'm covering the events that are happening, just write about that. And that was always super fun for me. So I mean that honestly, Like the newsletter being like my responsibility and it wasn't even my job, was like something that really like got me into Frida Egg quickly.
It was like, Okay, I'm invested in this thing. I'm not making money off of it, but like I want this to be a good product, And that was super fun for me as a twenty four to twenty five year old. And then over the years, I mean, having been and so many different things, I have stories for everything. But I think seeing people at our events now that I've got to know in twenty twenty one, or even
our first events in twenty nineteen is incredibly rewarding. And just the fact that I consider many of them friends now is something that is probably what I'm most proud of, is the fact that people want to come see us
around the country. And so I mean that's a very long winded answer to what's my favorite thing that I've been a part of, But I think there's just so many different tentacles of our business that we've been been involved in over the years that there's something that everyone can kind of latch onto.
I was doing your review research today and I was trying to find something in my email, Will and I came across an old newsletter subject line that you had crafted that was Mitch, Mitch, don't kill my vibe.
Didn't you do?
Actually, didn't you do Jordan's third Leg? At that point that was Andy Okay, Yeah, our newsletter headlines used to be a little bit, a little bit wilder than they are.
Well, that Jordan's third Leg came from the LaGuardia airport after my flight was delayed. After I did up all night for the open with Brendan, Brendan invited me to come to video. It was like video pop. It basically was what like kind of the beginning of the shotgun start, I would say. And we did it with Amon Lynch one day, and we did it with h. Richard Johnson one day from the Box offices in New York. I remember I made the cut at the Oldinois State Am and w dd to go do that.
Yeah, I don't know that was a good idea, but it was something came of it eventually it did.
It wasn't great, It was a great idea, some of the best ideas, but we we were like, we didn't sleeper two days. No, that was the whole premise of the stick was we were literally up all night.
I mean, yeah, think about like that. I don't know, think about that. Golf Channel just would have picked us off then or somebody make me. I'm glad we you know that's where you had Abe and me you Richard j I don't know.
It was like, probably a pretty good show, but except it was at four in the morning and nobody was watching. So yeah, that was fun. I forgot about that. One of the crazy sliding Doors moments was when we started the Shotgun start and we you know, Brendan was working at Vox, and we we offered Vox fifty percent of the pod and they said no thanks and washed their hands of it.
I remember that well. I talked to my boss. I was like, cause, this is absolutely not going to I have a full time job here. This is not going to be for you or your company or property or you know, project, and they're like, oh no, like they didn't care about it. I mean, at that time we had expanded it into politics and all that. I don't know that we had a person running our sports who didn't know who Nick Saban was. I'll just leave it at that, so let alone. Golf was pretty far down
the line, and the golf pod. The notion of a golf pod was sort of like, uh no, yeah, go ahead and do that. And but like I guess if it gets like big or you can make money off it, we'll need to talk. I was like, all right, sure, I'm sure we will not be talking.
I'm gonna do it.
There's no obligation there.
I just got permission. We're going see it. So, yeah, that was right, that is true.
Well, thank you, Vox, appreciate it.
Right, Well, they could be a partner for this pot. Nothing is in writing. We're off and clear, we're running. Let's see you got your Garrett, what was what was your favorite piece or project?
I loved doing the first uh what what we now call All Grasses Local. There are videos that are about different turf operations across the world, and the first one of those videos that we did, and at the time, the concept was more we're talking about young people getting
into turf. We're talking about turf internship programs, and so our idea was to make a short series of videos about the internship at sand Hills Golf Club in Nebraska and bally Neil Golf and Hunt Club in Colorado, and we made three different visits to the courses, talk to the superintendents, talked to the young people and the turf internship program that those two courses ran jointly at the time.
And that was just such an amazing project to do because it was a new kind of thing that we were doing, and the focus was really on making a quality piece of storytelling about these people at these places. I thought they came out really well, and that's mostly a credit to Cameron Hurtis and his excellent work. But I often remember the feeling of producing those being being on site at those incredible golf courses. I mean, it was the first time I had seen either of those courses.
I was pretty blown away by the courses themselves and just the opportunity to talk to the people who were working on them and to try to make something beautiful and moving and informative and about what life is like when you're living and working at this kind of place. And since then, we've done a number of different videos that have kind of taken that perspective on golf courses, and I've really enjoyed that I've been involved in a
number of them. Obviously are current colleague Matt Rusius and Cameron Hurtis are most involved in those video projects now. But yeah, whenever I get an opportunity to help them with one of them, it's a big highlight. And Andy, I know you always like to reminisce about staying in the hotel in Mullen. There was hotel at least yeah, sand Hills Hotel. There was at least one night when
we needed to stay there. It's not the ideal place to stay, I will say, although they're very friendly there and it's a you know, it's a bed to sleep in for the night. But it was after a long day of shooting.
It was dark.
I mean, the thing about these trips is that you're up all day, right because you don't you don't go in for dinner because you're shooting at sunset. And so it was what nine or ten o'clock when we finished up.
I think when you think of the totality of the day, it was one of the hottest days of the year there. It was like one hundred, one hundred plus and I I like to remember the day like it was yesterday
because we woke up super early. We had to drive from Grand Platte, which is where we stayed the night before, were up to Mullen and we so we you know, that's like an hour drive and we had to be there for the morning meeting at Sandhills for the maintenance team, which is like an hour before sunrise in the middle of summer.
So we were right North Platt. Yeah, we started North Platte, went to Yeah, so if people are familiar with the Era area, a short.
Drive, Yeah, it's not short, but it was just like it insanely early day. We we get through, we shoot, I want to say, like we you know, obviously shoot all the morning, set up the morning meeting, like them doing their jobs. Then after that we have these inner blocks of interviews and it's like two o'clock and he literally just texted me, which is funny that like while you were talking about this project. So I go to
Kyle Heglund you and Cameron. Cameron had played because we stopped there on the way for me moving to California, and we did before the place opened, and we played nine holes there that week. But you know, I go, I go to Kyle Heglund at like two and I'm like, hey, you think we can play? And it was like it was one hundred plus degrees. There's nobody on the golf course. Go for it. And I remember we go, we're walking.
We're the only ones out there, because I remember we sat down on the fifteenth tea box, which is the furthest point on that side of the property. It's the furthest point away from the clubhouse on the whole property, I believe, And we're sitting there and we're the only ones on the golf course and there's you know, the
beauty of the sandhills. Is this a vast nothingness? And I think we just sat on that tea box for like a good twenty or thirty minutes, and I don't think we said much of anything to each other and just say at in silence, and it was like, I'll never forget that we finished. We finished golf and where it was a little cloudy and we were waiting for the sun and Dick Young's cap and his wife are
just hanging out on Ben's porch. It was us, Kyle Haglenn, Dick Young's cap, who's the founder of sand Hills and his wife, so the two people that like started this.
And Dick Young's cap is telling us about like these these amazing stories about digging the mainline irrigation by hand himself to build this place, you know, all these early tales, uh, you know, hiring Bill Corr and we're doing this and then all of a sudden, like this epic explosion of sun comes out and we get our footage we need, and then we finished shooting and we have a couple drinks with Dick Young's Cap and then we go into town and go to the hotel and pick up We picked up a pizza.
Pizza, Yeah, there's there's the one twenty four hour gas station in.
Mullin pizza if I remember correctly, from a twenty four hour gas station and a six pack of beer. And we just sat outside. It was a beautiful night and sat outside and like you know, no cars are going by. It's one of those like U shaped motels, eating pizza, drinking beer on the off the hood of our car while just trains passed through.
Yeah yeah, with the the pizza box on. It was either on the hood or on the trunk, right.
Yeah, Yeah, the six pack was on the hood too, Yeah.
Yeah, and that was Yeah, It's just a great moment after a really wonderful day. Yeah, Dick Young, Stap and his wife. I remember we're like raiding the set. They had a rating system for sunsets that they were discussing, and they gave this one like a seven or an eight or something that they had seen better, but it was a pretty good one. So yeah, it's I mean, what of privilege to even set foot on a golf course like that. I've tried to never take that for granted.
I've gotten to see a lot of incredible places during my time in the company that I never imagined that I would get a chance to see before I started working for Friday, So, you know, an incredible opportunity to just get to play the course and spend a little bit of time there, but to actually get to know Kyle Hegland, the superintendent, get to know the people who worked for him, learned something about the community that they were all part of, and then to spend some time
with Dick young'scap himself. It just worked out beautifully and we finished the day on the note of you know, the pizza beer on the hood of the car. So that was really the that was the fall experience there and and you a day that I'll never forget that project.
As an outsider who wasn't involved in the day to day like you guys were making these trips out there, I was in Chicago doing events or holding.
It down whatever it was.
Yeah, there were only four or five of us for the time, but I no, no, no, But I remember that project sticks out to me too because like we had done some events at amazing places, and we'd like done some travel and all that stuff. But when we actually had like an official project. We were working with sand Hills and Valley Neil and for me had someone who had only heard about these places or read about them.
They were just completely mythical. But I knew how well regarded they were in the golf space, and I was like, oh, some like very serious places are giving us a chance. And it was a really cool moment as someone just kind of taking in like frieda Egg as a whole from inside the company too, because it's like, Okay, maybe other people actually kind of see what we're going after here and are going to and are actually going to give us a chance to work with them in the future.
Yeah. I think that project was a moment when we felt started to feel post COVID, Okay, we're we're cooking with gas here, We've got something going here. We've we're working with with some incredibly talented people who can make excellent content, and we've we've started to resonate in the golf industry to the point where we can we can go to these courses and make unique things about them.
And at that point, Brendan was full time. Cameron was full time and.
Full time at that point. Yeah, that was kind of on the Okay, yeah.
He was, he would have started that spring, that's right. Yeah, pp you got a favorite story? Uh, I mean or moment.
There's there's so many of them, obviously from Shotgun, but but that's maybe more apropos for that pod.
I I don't know.
There so so many of the amusing stories are like the mishaps, right, like or the like rough in it life that I think, like, I'm not suggesting we have
we've had a hard go of this at all. This has been great and like, but you had to also kind of love the game or love the game for some of these some of these instances and some of the just I mean, you know it's like that the pod committing to do it three times a week, and where you have to record from and where you would produce it from and turn it around and get it out. And you know, we we went to and Will was there.
We went to the Ryder Cup in a freaking RV because we're not paying for a house in Wisconsin with limited supply and we're living on this RV that anytime one of us like rolled over in bed, the other end would shake and the like. We had to go like thank god, we'd never even touched the bathroom because we you know, parked in a country club parking lot and used so like or we went to the Open and that was like a massive trip. It was the first open either of us had ever gone to, and
I think the first time we gone to Scotland. And but but like to make it work, we stretched to pay for dorm rooms where you'd have the bathroom at the end of the hall, communal like showers and toilets, and we both got like the stomach bug.
We were there. It was the work like, it was awful, the best life, but you know, you had some for love of the game situations and in.
Some really creepy houses in Augusta Tood.
Some interesting ones that I don't even like I had the credential via my prior job. Sometimes then I think, like then Indy, I don't know, I will got the broad yall on one of those I think where he was like my mental health that was not good. The one at a gate you can only do this loop around one little street and he had to go for a walk, but it was like this no quarter mile loop you just had to do over and over again or what I think, Yeah it was.
I think it was the twenty twenty one Masters. Yeah we had a house. Not it was not far from the club, but like we you guys had. I got it on the grounds one or two times that week, but otherwise I was just covering it on social from the house. And I remember like they pushed up tea
times or something. But I needed to get outside. So within that little gated community that was effectively two cull to sacks, I got my ten thousand steps in and effectively a loop, and I counted and it was fourteen times. I did this look and I was just like I just needed to be outside and then I remember I do remember texting you Brendan, and I was like, golf needs to start here because I'm going insane.
It was not good for a mental health.
I don't know, Yeah, what one what I would throw out from a company wide perspective on like the sand Hills side of like cooking with gas would be Like I think the Kiowa PGA was I don't want to say transformational, but like sort of affirming in a.
Way that like we were we had we weren't out of COVID yet, but like kind of coming out of like that was the first one where people could start coming again and and and like the first time I traveled, and like it felt free in a way. But for us it was sort of like a proof of concept of can you get value from going to professional golf events.
Of course we know in our golf course architecture, architecture coverage, we need to go to these courses, we need to photograph them, Garrett and and and Andy and Matten camera. They need this continuing education and on the ground education, and of course that must happen with professional golf. I'm not always sure that's like convinced that should be the way should you watch this on TV. Can you take more of it in? Is there more value to turn something around real quick being at your desk And I
think it's a mix and match. But that Kia one and it was writing on the Friday, it was writing for the Friday newsletter video, the Quia video, and then like the pods too. It's just like we got a lot of insight that I don't think we would have gotten from the comfort of our home, and I think we started to and sometimes you're at the mercy of
whatever happens in front of you while you're there. And I remember, like Mike Clayton and several others sent us messages like God, that was good stuff, like you can't that's what we want from you. We want to like to be you know, get sort of the point of view of being on the ground, be put in your shoes.
And I don't know, that just developed in a way where we got we were in the right places at the right times, and it was a little affirming in that way for obviously not just Shotguns Start, but the the competitive golf operations of the entire company of of like going to some of these events and you know, obviously it was a historic Major with Phil and everything like that, and when we were there seeing the Phil
Brooks dynamic in that final group, it is amazing. We've had an amazing group of majors to cover when you think about it, between Tigers twenty nineteen, we had Phil at Kiowa, we had Bryce and Rory at Pinehurst, I mean the country clubs kind of like the one that people don't ever talk about, but what a great, great weekend that thing was, and then obviously now you have
Rory at the Masters. Is It's been an amazing, amazing I think that's what you pinch yourself to all these events that you've been to.
Pinehurst. Pinehurst was insane. I mean, pine Hurst was like the best major. I've felt like they just keep up.
Yeah, since basically twenty fifteen, it's been. It's been pretty consistently high quality, with just a couple of exceptions. If you think about the Majors from twenty ten to twenty fifteen, you know it's not nearly the same. So we're fortunate in some respects. But that Ko Phil versus Brooks event, that was I remember that too as a really great
moment in the company. Both Andy and Brendan wrote fantastic articles after that event about the different dynamics of the final round and just talking about golf in a way that that I don't see it talked about very often with an eye for detail and a sense for what it means. That that is pretty rare. And so that was you know, that was is twenty twenty one, right, yeah, yeah, so it's a while ago now, but still still very vivid.
One of my favorite memories is from the Pebble Beach us Helfen, where Brendan and I have seen it at one read house. I slept on a on a pull out couch that like just was like a crater, was terrible, and it didn't have a sed. It was like an insanely hot week and Pebble Beach. It was the week that you started, Garrett.
Yes, exactly. That was the week that I started, because it was the it was the week that I was moving out of my place on campus at Stevenson School. We were we were packing up and getting things in the truck, and we were going up to Oregon where I now live, and we overlapped for a couple of days. You showed up Andy on on Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever it was, and we had time to go to my classroom and record a podcast. So we we recorded a podcast in my classroom, and then you came to
dinner that night. My parents were there because they were helping us move my my wife was there, my kids were there, and so that was everybody's introduction to to Andy Johnson, this guy that I was going to be working for. And they they all very much enjoyed Andy. I think they were. They were put at ease by by the fact that he seemed like a solid person and uh and and not a jerk, you know, so
they were I think they were reassured by that. But then the next day we were we were on the road and out of there, so I actually didn't see any of the Pebble Beach us open because I had to move to Oregon on that very week.
Do you guys remember the story I wrote that week from oh yeah, you timed up Bryson, right, you went clock, Oh yeah, and.
You put a stopwatch to Bryson. I was gonna say the hollow Thud article. I remember the Hollow Thud article as well, which was a little more serious, I guess, but the.
Stopwatch article is my favorite one ever anyway ever are ever doing? I was out there with a notebook and I had my phone and I was timing like to the to the split seconds on all these guys in this group, and it was so funny. I'll never forget. I was walking up the sixth hole and some somebody, some fan was like, hey, are you Andy Johnson? And I'm like yeah, I was like he was like, oh, I figured I figured you'd be the only one out here timing people on how long they took a job.
Didn't know me from anyway.
He just didn't know what you looked like, just the fact that you had a Yeah.
He just was like yes, by the time by me sitting there timing and jotting down numbers and you can see the whole notebook.
But this was this was like way before it got hot. It can't lay and everybody timing bryceon. Remember that Liberty National was a place and that some viral video there.
That came after Yes, every day basically.
Yeah, they're they're definitely. There are definitely people who have replicated that that idea. To put some numbers to these claims about slow play.
He was averaging like two minutes he was the details.
I will tell you a quick story from that pebble that comes to mind that serting capitulate encapsulates where you were in the startup day, like getting there, like the the hybrid days. We did not have like the nicest places. You said you were sleeping on like a brick rollout thing and there was no ac and it was one hundred degrees And you'd come back and you'd come back from a day of pebble and it was one hundred
degrees in the house. It was like over ninety on the thermostat, and you're like, do what you can't open the windows and sort of you I wouldn't say we're rough in it, but it's not like the we're not staying at the Pebble Beach Lodge. And but you had cracked through in a way and established yourself in the community or as a golf media person. We sometraction that you had a former US Open champion and Jeff Ogilvie coming to record a podcast with you at this house
spartan accommodation. So you're like in this hybrid of like, yeah, we're cooking, we're making a name. Jeff Ogilvie No, like wants to pod.
He's a great chat and he comes over and he like walks in the door and it's like, I'm just sitting on the ouch in this like small room. You're gonna go record the pod like over there five feet away, and he like looks around. You're like huh. He didn't say anything because he's classy and polite, but the look on his face and there was like, huh, what's going on here? This like kind of dark room was like that.
That was a great That's sort of an encapsulation of where you were cracking through but also still climbing your way up. God, do you think about from his perspective, I think he had just left Cypress Point where they had done a they had done like a champion a US Open champions Reunion event has Cypress, and he came straight from there to that little one bedroom. Yeah. It was like an old fisherman house in Pacific Grove. It was just a shack. I mean it. Oh that's good. That was good.
Great pod too. I mean he was game. It was just like he walked in this room. I'm sitting over there in the corner. It's like dark it's like, what's going on right now?
Anyways, I completely forgot about him. Come over there, all right. We could do this for literally like ten hours, I think, but I'd love love to hear maybe favorite place that you've gone, and it could be any place that you've.
Gone with Friday. Good question, favorite trip, Favorite place I'll go first, all these guys think, I mean I I I feel like Northern Ireland should be in the running. There have been so many That was a massive trip for us, a big one. But when we did that explorations, I guess it was last year, March of twenty four and I, you know, just getting to play like Woryal
County down Rollport Rush with you guys. You know, we're sprinting and working the whole day, trying to get some cultural stuff as well, communal stuff as well, and you know, like the whatever number one, three, eight whatever courses in the world, pretty good weather during a time when no American tourists were around, but also getting the good like good enough weather to make it not feel awful like that's that's obviously a massively memorable, memorable, memorable trip for me.
All of us. Getting the the plague at that I dodged that I got. I got out. I got away from that.
Some of you guys got.
I was on the plane on the way home from that trip. I was like dying. It like hit me mid flight all the way you know, long flight, but it hit me like mid flight. I was dying. I had on two sweatshirts and a jacket and I was, you know, baby, if there's still a listener. But I'm like huddled up in the corner and next to me is this younger guy. It's like, hey, do you do you do the fried Egg podcast? And I'm like, I'm
so sick. I couldn't talk to anybody, you know, And I'm just like yeah, and I just like, don't say anything. I huddle away. I always thought, like, I hope that guy didn't get sick.
Another quick vision from a trip would be when we went to the Open. And obviously we got to place like Great Court, the Mirfield and Gulling and all these places before, but we were there for the Open and it was the first time you got to see the old course and like you walked out and like I had a couple people text me like on off the side, like hey, can you.
Like you gotta you gotta get his reaction. You gotta get it, like get.
It, Like I need to see his face when he finally gets to the Old Course, and uh, I did it. And like so my daughter's birthday today, you look like my daughter coming to my wife like put all these balloons out in the house and like that she had set this scene or Christmas morning and like it delivered like that. I'll never forget you walking on the first tea of the Old Course. That's that was a fun trip you just like honestly that kid kid in the
candy store like lighting up. Yeah, you started immediately talking about the reversible hitting like and Stephen Britton was like, of course you would walk out the first thing you start thinking about it is a reversible you know frush.
But that was a we suw kevin na practicing by himself. Yeah, that was another trick one singular right right, all right, go ahead, guys.
I mean so many great trips. I'd have to say going to Melbourne, Australia last year basically a year ago today is when I was over there was an unforgettable experience and and just something that I'll be probably talking about for for the rest of my life. The number of great courses that I saw there I was stunning, and the number of really wonderful people that I met was was impressive as well. That that kind of Melbourne golf community is really something else. So so that, yeah,
that's that's number one. It's got to be. I also loved going to Maine. This is also a fairly recent trip, I guess, but it's just always something that was in the back of my mind. I'd love to go to Maine and play some of these nine holders and write about them and take some photos and sort of take
people along on that experience. And specifically the day that I devoted to taking the ferry out to north Haven Island and playing a nineteen thirty two Wayne Styles course out on north Haven and then coming back on the ferry and that being kind of the day that was that was wonderful, And yeah, at some point I'm going to do full justice to that experience. I've talked about it a couple of times and written a thing or two about it, but yeah, that's that really jumps out as well.
I think mine are very similar to yours. Gary, Like there's not one specific place necessarily that's like my favorite. But two trips in particular that jump to mind. One is when Garrett, Andy and I we we had hosted an event at meadow Brook and Detroit, and all three of us went to the events. We came out one morning, all like all three of the bedrooms kind of came to the same place, and we were all wearing the exact same thing, like the same Friday polo and khaki shorts.
I was like, all right, well, we got to get some more stuff in the in the.
Merg shop here.
But then also trip we did, yeah because double authentication wrecked the world at that time. And we also like we went to Oakland Hills and saw Inverness. We woke up at like two thirty in the morning or three o'clock to drive two hours to Inverness.
Franklin Hills we also saw on that trip.
Yeah, awesome trip. And then the other one that sticks out would be like I haven't been credentialed at too many events, but like back in the day, I went with you guys to a couple of majors. And also the Michigan trip was when the little Will thing started on shak Would started.
That was remember at that trip make sort.
Of like Will pretended it was his bead is where we'll sleep in the night.
Honestly one of the best bits because everybody would come up to be and Will at events and be like, Will's like the same size as you.
Well, but it's brilliant because it seems like Will when you see him, like on a call like this, it seems like he could be short. You know, sure's fine, it seems like it's possible. It's not that he looks short, it just seems possible when you look at him from the shoulders up. Yeah, that guy could be short.
He could be like five four I'm not you know, definitely not six' five for.
Sure, yeah but he's like a completely average sized human male.
O man that had such a long. LIFE i, mean people were at The Ryder cup bringing it up to me it was that was good. Stuff but then the other, trip that other credential one that would be The brookline us open that it was also like a combo, trip because that's kind of how we did things back in the, Day like we tried to tie our own events to, majors which is ludicrous in the.
Day looking, back we still try to do. That we're still trying to tie everything. Together it's, like, well we have to be here for. That we can do this.
Too try to do, that but it's much easier to do now that we have a larger. Team but so like The, brookline LIKE i went with you guys to the first couple of days of the tournament and then had to drive To yale because we were doing an event that had been delayed for two.
Years that was an insane.
Situation, yeah and so god like piecing all of that, together like trying to do a major coverage drive run to a two wave event that we were, like these people had given us their. Money in twenty, twenty the world shut down and all.
It was The Dog, bowl right was we were so. EXCITED i remember when that event sold out and they had a second, day and then we did it second day and that sold out.
Faster it sold out. Faster it was like twenty minutes the first one and then eight minutes the second, one AND.
I remember we were looking at each Other andy and we were, like holy, shit this is, working this is so. Great and THEN covid hit and we couldn't do.
It, yeah it was just it was.
Heartbreaking but, people like most people who signed up for, that, like you, know obviously a fair number of, people you, know since the event didn't, happen you, know want it would want to reach that would be a reasonable. Thing almost almost everybody stuck with, it, Right like a lot of people stuck with it and just waited until the event. Happened and that was like one of the first indications that the community around this company is is really pretty.
Special and and just the fact that they stuck with they. Stayed they signed up in twenty, twenty did the event in twenty twenty, two and a lot of people who signed, up you know that in that initial wave finally got the product two years later and they were fine with. It that's.
Amazing and they only got like half the, product which is the craziest part because we were only able to do we could only have a maximum of one hundred people on property at a time Because yale was still
extremely strict with their. Rules So i'd be, like if you're in the first, wave like you need to be off the site by one o'clock because these guys are coming in and they're like and, so but not only the people coming to the, event but Like, peter who is THE gm Of yale like an amazing guy to work with and he's like his communication throughout the whole process was, great and just like getting to know these people throughout the years and their dedication on all ends was.
Amazing what are the crazier things about that event was the period of time when nobody was working At yale DURING covid because they had no superintendent and no general, manager and people would ask, like what's going on with? This and our response would, be there's nobody there to talk, to so we don't, know we don't. Know we will, refund we will refund your money if you'd. Like we plan to have an event as soon as it is it as there are people that work. There BUT i,
mean it was that was a crazy. One, WELL i was going to bring up the trip we. MADE i picked you up from your your job And Grand rapids and we went To Grand, Rapids, michigan d and we we stopped at Stouton. BRAY i remember we got beers at a bar that had the auction. Prices it was like the stock market of beers In. Kalamazoo this is. Great what was that?
Called, yeah not very crashed every hour and beer was really. Cheap it was amazing and.
Uh and then we went to Sto we Played Stoton bray in the, morning and then we went to.
The.
Mines was it? Yeah and then so it was thirty six On, saturday and then On sunday we had thirty six again and it was it Was pilgrim's run To Diamond springs and all this we were droning everywhere we're. Going So I'M i THINK i was carrying around the heavy the big, drone the one That will uses now The phantom. Four we're A phanom. Three it was a big backpack and we were and we uh we played thirty. Six i'm effectively double bagging with the with the with
the uh the. Thing and it was While tiger was winning The Tour. Championship so we were walking up like the closing stretch Of Diamond. Springs me And will are just like huddled around a phone Watching tiger win The Tour championship and THEN i you, know we, fly we fly the. Drone that, Night will's cooking on the newsletter and driving home and then he's going to work the. Morning so it just like pure startup, hustle like we
get away where we just we shot four. Courses we we you, Know will's writing the newsletter all the way back in between, courses we're talking about like fuddy tweets that we could send from The friday. Account, uh just like encapsulated startup. HUSTLE i feel LIKE i think.
That was Also i've been dating my now wife for like six or eight months at this, point and Like andy AND i had probably seen each other in person like two or three, Times like it was not like we knew each other really. Well we like we worked together after my day. Job BUT i was, like, Yeah i'm just gonna go out for a weekend trip With, andy and she was AND i, like we really we split a hotel. Room we split a hotel. Room and that was also WHEN i, learned LIKE i learned some
quirks About Andy. Johnson like we we finished the first day and like we didn't have a hotel room, booked and that gave me so much. Anxiety And he's, like, oh we'll find a. Place, yeah it, all it all works out in the.
End BUT i was just what IF i get my help INTO i remember one Time cameron AND i were driving From denver To North, Platte, nebraska which we had already, uh which we already, mentioned and we didn't have a hotel and we we Called andy and we were, like we don't have a. Hotel andy was, like, oh no, Problem i'll get you, one and he like called ahead and we had hotel rooms that. Night but that is that that that is a different way of operating than THAN i had been familiar with.
Before that's we've been, Better we've got. Better we definitely had.
Apart, YEAH i think the more YOU i would also had like had traveled at that. Point so it was, like when you're not in the travel, world you don't know how easy it is that find hotels in certain. Places but, actually the first TIME i Met brendan at the twenty Nineteen, Masters andy booked my flight DOWN i think like four days ahead of time BECAUSE i didn't know IF i was, going BUT i had taken a
full week off of work SO i could go. DOWN i was, LIKE i HOPEFULLY i am, going but everything always works.
Out it's he, stated The Bixby, house The Original.
BOYS i remember WHEN i loved that.
HOUSE i remember at landed In chicago for The Ryder cup At Whistling.
STREETS i guess it would have been twenty twenty one and, eighties like we've GOTTEN rv and you're driving by the, way you got to go pick it.
Up AND i was like, WHAT i.
DON'T i Don't i'm not driving this. THING i don't want to be. RESPONSIBLE i don't. Drive i've never driven anything over like AN sguv or. Minivan, like, no you're. DRIVING i was like, no, no And will AND i went and picked it.
Up and.
The owner was obviously a very interesting character because he owns ON rv and uh and, uh you got it off some Like airbnb for. RV's i don't know why you you went down this rabbit, hole but you were an R v boy that. Week BUT i had to drive. It and then we're on like the, whatever the beltway Around chicago and rush hour and.
Like this thing's. Bouncing i'm, like Oh, god just get us To. Wisconsin so that ended up being a great set, up big thing again To Pine, hills the country, club the best course of the. Best, yeah and they let us park in their parking lot and they kept the locker room door open for us that week so we could use the bathroom and shower or whatever we. Needed it's very.
Nice we went in the one morning for breakfast or like to sit, down and there Was Michael jordan's who goes all The ryder, cups and mj was, there you, know playing a recreational.
Run.
Yeah, god that place is. AWESOME i feel like a full time event.
There we're we're reminiscing about the startup days fondly, here but we are we're a different kind of company. Now we have a lot more colleagues than we used to and they are very professional and it has kind of you, know streamlined us and organized us in a way that we just weren't capable of and a few years. Ago And i'm very great for. That it's although although you kind of miss those days when you would when you would just kind of slap together things at the last
minute and and do everything. Yourself you, know there's there's part of you that misses. That but we're we're definitely in a better place, now ye where we can do so much, more so much more, efficiently because of because of all the people that we work with that we've been able to bring on in the past couple of years who have just frankly been better at a lot of this stuff than we.
Are.
YEP i hope this pod was. Listenable it was just us reminiscent. HERE i don't know if anybody asked for, this but this is what you got. Today big thank you to everybody who has, listened who has done anything in support of Frieda, egg whether it's even just tell a friend about about what we. Do this all wouldn't be possible, without you, know the people on our. Team but more, IMPORTANTLY i always say this at, events is like if nobody ever listened or, read we wouldn't be doing.
This AND I i'm a Huge i'm just eternally grateful for everybody that's listened read for the years and and made it possible for us to build this great. Team And i'm really really excited about about the next ten years and you, know us continuing to push ourselves to produce better and better stuff for you guys and and tell more stories authentically and and you, know kind of
in our. Way SO i appreciate. Everybody the last twenty four hours has been just, say you, know kind of pinch me moment of thinking about what what the last ten years have. Been and thank you guys on this podcast and everybody on our team for all the hard work over the, years it wouldn't have been you. KNOW i think that the best THING i can say about our staff is THAT i never wonder if anybody's not working hard and AND i think that's the number one
thing you don't. HAVE i don't have to. MIND i never had to micromanage anybody and never have really doubted what people are. Doing and that's the dream as somebody who runs a. Company so thank you, everybody and uh we'll be back next. Week and uh big thanks TO. Pj big editing day FOR. Pj another another another important hire over the. Years but thank you to, everybody and we'll be back next week with WE i you, know we have ten year. Merchandise we did the original. Run
we did a run on. Original our FIRST t shirt is A Sukumba Berry watt design with an. Angles it's modeled after the fourth hole At woking is the whole design on. IT i love THAT t. SHIRT i ordered myself a new. ONE i have one of the. Originals it's free worn out at this. Point and then we have ten year hats which are just Like Friday established twenty. Fifteen if you want to get in the celebration, mood but thank you, everybody and thank you guys for jumping on and chatting with.
Us