#12: Stewart Cink

Roberto: Joining us today on the Course Record Show is Steward Cink. Stewart played his college golf at Georgia Tech, joined The Tour in 1997, played on multiple Ryder Cups, is a multiple time winner, including two wins in the last year. Stewart, thanks a lot for joining us on the Course Record Show. 

Stewart: It is my pleasure guys, happy to be on. 

Dan: Compared to when you started on Tour in 1997, is now a better or worse time to be a Tour player?

Stewart: It's a better time. And I'll tell you why. There are two reasons: Tiger and Woods. Tiger started right around the same time I did. My career almost coincided with his from the get-go and everything just, I mean, it skyrocketed once Tiger came on the scene and had his impact, and it's still going on obviously. So, it's been a really good time to be a professional golfer with some longevity since Tiger Woods has been involved. 

Roberto: So you just smashed both of our follow-up questions because one was, what are the factors in you saying that? And then the second was how does Tiger factor into that? So you got right to the point.

Dan: Tiger's still relevant, but the more and more time goes on and Tiger retires or sort of winds down in his career, will the effect that he created in raising the earning opportunity for pros- does that go away, or what's going to keep that going?

Stewart: I don't know. It's hard to say. I don't see it going away because there may not be another Tiger Woods. And it's unlikely that we're going to see a guy like him as dominant as he was, with the charisma and the ability to pull in different types of people into the realm of golf. But we do have a lot of players who make up a pretty good chunk of that as a group.

And I mean, Jordan Speith is hugely popular. You know, at times we've seen Ricky be very popular. You've got players that are really doing a good job holding things up and plus the feud right now. You know what I mean? It's not a person, but it's a thing and people know about it. So I don't know, I don't see it going away.

And we've got strong businesses that are behind us that like where they are positioned as sponsors in golf. And as long as that continues to grow and it continues to be a good payoff for them and they feel like there's value there, and we all as a group continue to deliver value, then I don't see it going anywhere.

Roberto: Sticking with changes on the Tour. There's been a lot of talk about super golf league, premier golf league. I think it's all talk. We haven't spent a lot of time on it on this show, but let me ask you one simple question. If you were a top 10 player today- and you've been a top 10 player in the past- and are way up there now, what's the hook? Why would a player be interested in doing anything but playing the PGA Tour? That's what I still haven't heard. What is the hook? 

Stewart: I guess it depends on where you fall, in like your purpose for playing. You know, do you play for money? If your answer is yes and you play for money, then you'd have to take a pretty hard look at it if it's actually going to pay out what it says. And I don't know the details. They’re not exactly calling me every day or knocking down my door at all. So, I don't know what the details are. But I have talked to a couple of players and then the numbers are pretty staggering financially. So if you're playing for money and you consider this your income source, and that's basically how you look at your career in golf, then you have to look at it and I don't see why you wouldn't give it a shot. 

But if you are in it more to test yourself and to drive yourself and to see how good you can become at something, and that's more your purpose, or if you're trying to reach people- we have lots of different purposes out there- then I don't understand why you would look at it. I think the PGA Tour is a fabulous stage for playing golf. And the fact that you can earn a living doing something that we do is, uh, is really just, it's remarkable. So I would really have to have my loyalty tested to move over.

Dan: So let's talk about sponsorships for a little bit. You were one of Nike's first sponsored players when they joined the golf business in the two thousands and you stayed with them for about 12 years. And then obviously you left the business a few years later in 2016. If you were writing the book on Nike and the golf business, the abridged version by Stewart Cink, what does that sound like? 

Stewart: I think I’d title the book, “Why not create a factory to build your own golf ball” And I would probably forward it by saying there are a lot of companies that can build good golf balls. Basically the technology out there is kind of shared now between all the companies and the golf balls are all very similar. It’s kind of a reinventing the wheel situation. And I don't know the business inside and out, but it's my strong hunch that it was tied to their going into the golf ball business on their own. 

I don't know how much of this information is proprietary or whatever, but Nike contracted with Bridgestone to make their golf ball. So from the time Tiger Woods first started playing it and it showed up and he was using this ball with a weird logo on it back in the late nineties and he was winning everything, to like you mentioned, me and a few others who started early on. David Duvall started using a ball with a Swoosh on it. They were made by Bridgestone. Nike designed the ball and Nike's engineers sent all the specs to Bridgestone and Bridgestone inputted it in their production line and put in the materials and the production line spit out Nike golf balls out the other end. They were made by Bridgestone. They weren't Bridgestone golf balls. A lot of people thought, oh, this is just a Bridgestone ball. That's not true. It was made by Bridgestone, but it was a Nike golf ball and they were really good. They were there right at the top with all the other golf balls.

Then I have a feeling that at some point it was a financial concern and Nike decided that they were sharing too much with Bridgestone, or they wanted to go a different direction. They didn't want to be a partner anymore. And anyway, they started making their own ball and they built a factory. And from the ground up they tried to kind of reinvent the wheel. And that wheel is what pretty much sunk the company, I believe.

Roberto: That's really interesting. Because I always thought I knew the Bridgestone piece, but I didn't know that they had gone off on their own to build out their own manufacturing. So that is really interesting. What about golf clubs? Cause you, what did you start with when they got into the business? Just golf ball, one club, two clubs, or did you jump in head first? 

Stewart: What I started with was golf ball and apparel. And in the Nike world, when you wear Nike's apparel, then you wear Nike apparel only. And there's no patches on the sleeve. There's no back. There's no, there's nothing else. So they pretty much buy you out. And it was great because it kept you out of the outing carousel, and you're not doing a lot of photo shoots, except for them. They do plenty of that. But you kind of streamline your life off the course. And it was really good plus a lot of great people. I really enjoyed my time working with him. But I started with a ball as far as I remember. They had clubs they were tinkering with and sort of starting to introduce, but I don't think clubs were part of my piece until maybe like three or four years later.

And I started with a driver and then some irons and wedges and then the fairway wood and then a putter. And I'd say by probably about in 2005, I was everything Nike all the way from hat to golf shoes, to clubs, balls, bag, everything.

Roberto: You just couldn't resist the square driver?

Stewart: I'm telling you, what Nike had on their team going for them was they had a really strong R&D. They didn't develop from within. They pretty much went out and plucked it from other companies.

And that's the way the golf business goes a lot of times. They were kind of the predecessors to the PXG model. And so they had engineers that were working on all kinds of crazy stuff. And you walked into their place out in Fort Worth. And it was like, literally like a science R and D lab. And they had weird looking golf clubs.

Most of it was never going to be approved for USGA, but it was just for testing so they could get an idea of what really works and let's go from there and get it within the rules. So the square driver was just kind of an offshoot of that. You walk in and you're like that driver head looks square, and they say, oh yeah, it's square. Wait till you hit it. And it worked. And that was one of the funniest things about, I think it was around 2007, when they introduced that driver in the first iteration of that thing was the loudest and made the worst sound. Oh, it was disgusting- the sound. I mean, as soon as anybody hit a driver, you remember probably anybody hit that driver on a golf course, you knew instantly from anywhere on the property that someone hit a driver that was with a Nike square driver.

And it was so unmistakably loud. The second iteration of the driver was really good. And it was a fabulous driver back. That's what I used when I won the Open Championship in 2009, and Lucas [Glover] won the US Open, the major right before that, with the same driver. 

Roberto: Nice. I don't remember what you were playing at the Open Championship. I remember you making a deep run in the match play tournament. Now I know the secret. You just had this obnoxious driver that your opponents just couldn't deal with. 

Stewart: I tried to get an edge any way possible. 

Roberto: So you mentioned how, when you're with Nike, you're pretty much sold out. There's no room for other partnerships and sponsors. So you transitioned away from Nike, you're starting from scratch in that regard. So two questions, big challenge for your agent. Let's start there. How did you choose an agent throughout the years? And what was the key factor in making that relationship successful versus unsuccessful?

Stewart: Well, which one of the five agents are you talking about that I chose over these years?

Roberto: We've got time. We've got time, got a lot of time. 

Stewart: Okay. I’ve been on the Tour for a long time. And the nature of the businesses is that you just, you know, your relationships kind of run their course and that's happened to me. I've had an agent who kind of decided to get out of my career. And I decided to get out of a few agents’ careers along the way, but no hard feelings. I'm still friendly with everybody along the way. But it was tricky. I think when I was with Nike all those years, my agent probably had it pretty good because it was a good pay day. I was highly ranked in the world and I was getting a good, yearly retainer and his cut of it was really high.

And I didn't have to do a whole lot of organizing outings and such for all the other sponsors, like if I had patches all over my sleeves and everything. And then back to the end of 2012, when it ended, Nike basically let me go. And I had played crappy for a couple of years, so that was part of it. It was also at the same time when they were going after Rory McIlroy. So they were accumulating a war chest to throw at him. And they had some expiring contracts that they had a choice to either renew or let go. And I was in the let go part because I had a decent chunk of change tied up with them and they needed a huge chunk of change for Rory.

And so it was just simple math. They just cut me loose and used my money to go after him. So that was at the end of ‘12 and yeah, I was on the market fresh and I had an opportunity to expand my relationships in number, not necessarily in financial work, but yeah, it was a new territory, new piece of territory for me.

But I learned a lot about that and I formed some relationships quickly but it was different for sure, different to have the multiple sponsors that I was working with as opposed to basically just one. 

Dan: And was that primarily with equipment companies, because we heard that around that same time, the equipment sponsorship deals in terms of value, except for the very, very top went down significantly for players. Does that coincide with your timeline? Is that how you experienced that? 

Stewart: It does, but I think with me, it also coincided with crappy play. So when I won the Open in 2009, it was right at the beginning of the big recession. Right? And so my post-British Open, the couple of years right after, right on the heels of that, was in a really big downturn. And so golf was hugely impacted at that time. I think that was the catalyst where a lot of those deals started to shrink down and companies like Titleist kind of led the way from what I remember. They went to a model where they didn't just do individual deals with players. They mostly just said, where's your world ranking. and you plug your world ranking into this formula that says, here's how much we'll pay you. And that pretty much is still how it's done for the most part, unless you're a guy with a lot of extra panache like Ricky Fowler or, back in the day, Camilo had it. You know, he was really recognizable and had a lot going for him.

And those guys did their own deals. But if you were somebody like me or Roberto, you pretty much said, well, I'm number 148 on the world ranking. And they said, okay, then our formula says, here's what you're making. It was very cut and dry and a little frustrating sometimes, but that's just the way it was.

Roberto: Yeah, I think what you mentioned about kind of the inevitable ups and downs in performance is what makes the player-agent relationship tough. I had a really up and down career, which made it hard to build momentum with a sponsor. Like everyone's a little up and down, but if you can kind of keep things rolling and you've got XYZ corporation, it's like, look, Stewart you know, just got on the Tour. He kept his card and he's playing better. He's having a good year. You can keep bumping those deals a little bit and build some momentum. But when a player hits the skids for a year or two, that's when he's calling his agent and he's like, why aren't new deals coming in or why? And it's just tough that player-agent relationship- it's a tough business. It's not easy. You've got to, it really is. I'm still very friendly with the people I worked with, but I just never felt like that was really a strong, cohesive relationship. But his business depends on how I play golf. And if there's one thing you can't predict in this world, it's how people are going to play golf. It's just so hard. 

Stewart: It is hard. And I always…I was very aware of that. And since I left, or since Nike let me go, and I got back into the corporate outing entertainment kind of world a lot more often, I realized quickly that the best way to sort of even out those peaks and valleys- well, the valleys, no one wants to even out the peaks, it's only the valleys- the best way for me to do that was to be like a really good corporate entertainer on the day that they have you there, you know, to knock it out of the park and make it where they're talking about it for weeks afterwards, like, oh my gosh, can you believe how good Roberto Castro was that day? We gotta have him again, you know? And then they stopped thinking about the 74 you shot on Sunday when you're in contention and the TV coverage didn't show you. So you can iron out some of that. And you know, you're personable and you know how to handle the crowd. You tell good stories that don't last forever and make people laugh and you make them feel like they're having a good time. And in that way, you can make yourself valuable in a different way. 

Dan: That's gotta be draining though, right? Like how do you strike the balance between being that person, bringing it to every outing, kissing the baby, shaking the hands, all that good stuff. While just focusing on golf and focusing on your family and stuff you like outside of work. I mean, you mentioned Ricky earlier, he gets a lot of flack for over-indexing on the sponsor side, whether that's true or not. I don't know. But how do you, what's the balance like for you?

Stewart:  First of all, I do kind of enjoy the kissing the babies part of it. I don't mind doing that. So it is taxing for sure, to travel, to spend the night to, you know, take a red eye back from the west coast or something like that. Yeah. It has a cost, but I do enjoy it. So I don't have to labor through that part and fake it too much. I have a good time doing that and it's a genuine good time. I enjoy it. The other thing is now that my kids are adults. There, uh, my oldest son's pretty close to Roberto's age and Dan, you guys are the same age. 

So I've got a 28 year old and a 24 year old. And so now that I don't have the pressure to come home and- you know, well, that doesn't sound right. It's not the pressure, but, you know, I wanted to be home. When I was with Nike all those years, I didn't have that many outings. It was great. And that's one of the things I told as a mandate to my agent was keep me out of outings. I don't want to be in that, you know, I'm with Nike and I don't want to go out into corporate outings. Don't bring them my way. 

It's way different now, because it's something I enjoy doing. It's yeah, it's extra income fine. But it's also a way I can bring value to the sponsors so that we have a long-term relationship. And my wife, she completely understands and she sometimes goes with me on those trips. But it's way different now than it was for me say 10, 12 years ago and before. 

Roberto: So bringing that up- and it ties a little bit back to the PGA Tour and PGL Saudi stuff- the ask on the players. I feel like it's very light on the PGA Tour players. Like you're talking about all these things that you're doing. That's all you as an independent contractor. You're earning compensation for that. Now the Wednesday Pro-Am is a pretty heavy lift. You're 12 hours removed from playing in a PGA Tour event. And you're going out with four guys, entertaining them for six hours a lot of the time.

So that's a heavy lift, but let me ask you this. I watched Formula One and my brothers all went to the race in Austin. I didn't go. I've never been to it. It seems like those guys are running and jumping through hoops for seven days leading up to those races, that they're really bought into the entertainment factor of driving Formula One. So the Pro-Am has existed for 60 years. Like what can the Tour do to activate their players better? And it just, it all ties into the same conversation. What are players, uh, what responsibilities do we have to the Tour and to ourselves? It's a whole conversation. 

Stewart: Yeah, I understand. And I think first of all, going quickly to the Wednesday Pro-Am: it is a heavy lift; the transition to nine holes has been a big win, I think. It gets more players involved and it takes less time off each player’s plate. It's been a great thing for me personally. It seems like life is a lot busier now out on their Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the PGA Tour than it used to be. So that's been a good thing. As far as non Pro-Am type things, and if tournaments could transition away… like the Tour Championship, you know, they have a different model for the Wednesday. They don't have a Pro-Am, and they have different activities you can do, you can choose between different sponsor related activities.

It would just simply take some focus grouping, and I'm sure they do a lot of that, to ask are you happy with that? Do the Coca-Cola and the Southern Company feel like they're getting better value out of that than an 18 hole round with a golfer or two golfers? It would depend on the company. And I have a feeling you'd probably hear a lot of different answers about that. And to your point about the light lifting, the one thing about golf is the real value comes with interactions face to face with their clients and guests.

And so there's not enough of them to have a 156 players do something with groups. You know, they just can't bring in that many people. And they can't activate that many things at one time. So I think that's where they say, well, we only need 25 players to do something, and they're not going to the guys that are just barely getting in the tournament.

It's the same ones every week. I'm sure it's Rory, it's John Rahm, it's those guys. They get hit up. I would probably say that they would argue with you that it’s not light lifting on the PGA Tour because they get asked all the time for stuff, they carry the load. 

Roberto: That's a fair point. And that's a really good point. And that's why I usually roll my eyes when people compare sports, even though I just did it. There are 20 Formula One drivers versus 156 Tour players a week. So yeah. Well, that's a good point. 

Stewart: And also I bet if you go down to State Farm Arena and you kind of walked through the pregame with the Hawks for five or six hours, you’re probably not going to see a lot of sponsor interactions leading into the games. I don't know, maybe you are. And I know they do a lot of stuff that's team-related like internal. Cause you see it when you're at the games. You see try to draw the other team's logo, stuff like that.

I mean, that's probably fun for those guys, but it's still time. And at the end of the day it has a cost, but they're not doing that at 4:00 PM when the tip offs at 7:10. So it'd be interesting to look into some other sports and see what they do. But yeah, I do agree that it's kind of light, it's very individual, they let you say no to things, but I have a feeling that those guys at the very top, they carry the load.

Roberto: That’s fair. I've thought about that. Like when the guys skip Honda and they all live in Jupiter and it's like, people like me sit in the locker room. It's like, why wouldn't DJ play? He shows up Thursday morning and just tees it up. Like there's a Tour event in town. It's not how it works. Those guys are always getting ferried around. And if you sign up to play and then you say I'm not doing anything, I'm not showing up until Thursday morning, then you're a bad guy. If you don't play, you're a bad guy. So I get it. 

Dan: Stewart, if you were a corporate sponsor yourself, how would you go about activating something or working with a set of players on Tour based on what you’ve learned so far?

Stewart: Well, I think if I was in that position where I was deciding where my marketing dollars go, I would probably look really hard everywhere. I would look and see, like, what do people want? What kind of clients do I have? What's gonna resonate most with them and what kind of experiences can I give them?

And so, I think that's where golf wins out: the experiences, the Pro-Am, the just being around the course. It's a really unique type of thing in golf that you can play with the pros the day before the competition starts. And so I would look at that for sure, and then the question would become, do I want to put my marketing dollars into event sponsorship or do I want to advertise during the coverage on golf or do I want to have some patches on some sleeves and get players?

And I don't know. I don't know, to be honest, if I think that title sponsorship would be worth it. It's a big, big number. I don't even know the number now. It's probably up around $10 to 12 million a week, maybe more. But then, you don't have that much of a risk because almost every tournament produces a compelling finish. And especially depending on the time of year, you're looking at between January and about August or September. You're looking at major network coverage and you're not competing against the NFL that much head to head, which really is a big factor. So I think I would probably look at the network golf season and I would probably also try to spread a few dollars around to maybe two or three players. But I don't think I would go with the big platoon and I don't think I would go with just one guy either.

And I also would actually look into the LPGA because I think they're gaining some momentum and they're becoming more visible. And I know you could probably get deals for a little bit less just because of the way that this market is structured right now.

Dan: And the ladies have nailed the on-course experience it seems like. They really kind of bend it, really go the extra mile to help out in that sense. 

Stewart: Yeah. They have done that. They've done a good job. They've probably performed out of necessity more than we have, to be honest. I think we are as a whole kind of a little bit more entitled: the PGA Tour players. The Champions Tour and the LPGA tour players, both of those groups have done a good job with their interactions and just making it a good experience for the fans all around. 

Roberto: I think you missed a big sponsorship opportunity: business of golf podcasts, I think, have an incredible return on investment. So keep that in mind. 

Stewart: I’ve got room on the yoke of my shirt here if you guys want us to do something. 

Roberto: We can't afford you.

Roberto: Stewart, you and Lisa ran a big charity event. I played in it for a few years. What were the biggest lessons learned? And then what's a bigger challenge: raising money or logistically operating the event? 

Stewart: Oh, logistically, operating the event is by far the biggest challenge. It was an enormous challenge and I love doing things that I can. You know, golf is an unbelievable vehicle for raising money for charity and raising awareness.

And I can give you an actual concrete example of how that is. When Lisa and I first got into our foundation and started hosting an event, we didn't want to do golf. We wanted to do something different. So we hosted a barbecue festival. You know I love barbecue. And so we hosted a professional cook-off for a couple of years up in Duluth, outside of Atlanta here.

And we had somewhere between 25 and 40 teams. I think we had 25 teams the first year and we had 40 the second year. Professional teams and we organize this fair, where the public could come. And we had a little, it was like a farmer's market, but we didn't sell food. It was just a come and hang out at the fair and we worked our tails off and I learned something about myself: that I don't probably need to be the CEO. I need to be the operations guy because I think like an engineer in a lot of ways, even though I never was an engineering student when I was at Georgia Tech. I was a management major. But when I got into these events and started running the show along with Lisa, I quickly became the operations guy and that was what I sunk my teeth into.

And I wanted to make sure everything was perfect for the teams and our guests, including some sponsorship that some family named Stewart and Lisa Cink made to the event. I think we raised like 30 grand and we worked our tails off. And so we did that for two years. Then we transitioned over to what became the Cink Challenge, which is what you played in up at River Club, also near Atlanta.

The logistics are way easier because the golf course doesn't have to be set up like a barbecue contest and a festival. You don't have to run water and power and fire extinguishing equipment and safety measures and appease all the rules for the local county, state and city. You don't have to do all that.

Because the golf course is already sitting there waiting to be played. All they have to do is charge up the carts. And so golf also turned out to be very popular compared to barbecue. And we probably did close to 10 times the amount of dollars raised. And so it was just an absolute no-brainer if there ever was a no-brainer in history, that was it: to stick with golf.

No seriously, golf is a great fundraising vehicle. It's popular. People can play it and we go back to the Wednesday Pro-Am model out on Tour where golfers come and get a kick out of playing with the pros. And that's kind of the reason that you have a charity event, sort of leveraged some of my relationships, like with Roberto Castro, and you know, got you guys to come out.

You're unbelievable entertainers for a whole day, and you make my guests feel like they're welcome and valued and they'll pony up. And we're glad to have a good group of people that we've met. And we ran that event for about seven or eight years. And we stopped it a couple of years into Lisa's diagnosis that we just couldn't juggle everything at the same time anymore. I don't think we're done. I think we're going to keep going at some point. 

Roberto: Nice. You can combine the best of both worlds. The Cohen Cup, which is an event that three of us did for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, because one of my teammates at Georgia Tech was diagnosed with leukemia. We did an event at the Atlanta Athletic Club. Only had four pros. Cause I don't have the pull of Stewart Cink to get like 20 pros. So I said, we're going to do a Georgia versus Georgia Tech thing and Kizner and Chris Kirk and these guys came. And we did a two on two match and people didn't play. They just came out to watch. And we had Stewart and Chad come cook barbecue for the lunch.

We raised $250,000 over two years with eight pros total. And that includes me. So golf is an incredible, incredible vehicle to raise money. And it’s just because those guys we had were personable, people like you; you didn't even play, but you came and donated a whole day to cook and there's nothing like it. And that's why it's so popular for charity events. It's awesome. 

Stewart: Yeah, it is. It really is. It's amazing. It's a great game to be in for distributing finances and helping. It's just, you know, it can go a long way.

Dan: Switching back to our focus on the Tour. You've seen a thing or two on Tour and your years playing the game. When you compare Tim Finchem’s style to Jay Monaghan’s regime, if you will, what are the biggest differences you've seen? 

Stewart: What I see when I sort of experienced the style of leadership is, I think Jay learned a lot from Tim. I was on the Board when Tim was Commissioner. It was from around 2006 through eight, something like that. And I got to see Tim up close and in action. And I see Jay's style to be very similar to Tim's except it's like he's ratcheted things up even more. It's been necessary for him to do that because the world's not slowing down.

Well, at least it wasn't until about March of 2020, but it's even now, it's still just incredible how much Jay seems to hit the accelerator with things. And he's had some challenges. I mean COVID was a huge challenge. The costs that were involved in all the testing and the protocols that we had to do were just astronomical. But he managed to get us through that, and more than just get us through that, we came through that sailing. And so he's got good relationships, it seems like, with the TV partners, which is absolutely key for us. It used to be that tournaments really cared about how many spectators they got because every beer, every t-shirt, every ticket sale, it mattered so much to them.

And now, it still matters to the tournament, but if you asked the PGA Tour, I think the organization, if it has a gun to the head, I think would say we care more about TV than we care about attendance. Because that's where the Tour can earn money. It's a huge, huge part of our business. And Jay seems to have a good relationship with our network partners. 

Roberto: Jay had a stint running The Players. Let's talk about The Players. First of all, quick note, the purse for The Players next year is 22 million dollars, which is insane. And it's doubled in about five years. Cause I think last time I played a couple of years ago, whatever, it was 10 million. We're at 20 million now.

But money aside, what do you think of The Players- you think they've done a great job elevating that event and how can they continue to give it its own identity? Do you think it's really carved out its own place in golf and what can we do better?

Stewart:  I think one thing that Fincham did when he was toward the end of his career before retiring was I think he tried to borrow too much from the Masters for The Players. We'd change it from The Players Championship to The Players. That sounds a lot like The Masters. And we just tried to do a lot of things that were very Masters-like now. I mean, if you're going to pick a tournament, let's copy The Masters because it's a darned good one. And I think we all would agree. One thing that differentiates The Players, I believe, is the course: the island green, 16, 17, 18, the rest of the course. I think most of the public probably is like yawn, but those three holes are what draw people into that golf tournament on television.

They want to go see it. They want to go play it. And so it's an iconic site for a golf tournament and it doesn't move. It stays there. I don't know if we've got to figure it out, whether it should be in May or March, who knows. But it's just a great event. I don't count it as a major because I've never been able to play worth a hoot there. For some reason that's just never really been, never agreed with my style of play. But it's a fabulous tournament. The players show up for it and purse? Yeah, it's gosh, that's staggering to think that. I mean, I remember my first PGA Tour win, I think the purse was 1.5 million and now we're ready to play for 20 million in a single tournament.

So it's pretty amazing. But I mean, that's just all credit goes to the Commissioner and the staff that does all the negotiating for all those deals. And also a lot to the players too, because as a body of players, I think the players have done a good job with their relationship with the fans and being approachable and being really good at golf. 

Roberto: Long and crooked doesn't work at Sawgrass?

Stewart: Is that what I am? Why didn't you tell me a little while back? I would’ve changed something.

Roberto: I’ve read multiple interviews where you were like, I'm long and crooked and it works for me. Okay. Look at my best years, I've never driven it straight. So those are your words. 

Stewart: That's kind of true. I've never been a straight driver and I mean, I'm straight for stretches, but I've always had kind of a wild one here and there. And, you know, “fore right” and “fore left” have kind of been part of my normal vocabulary, but it's, uh, I just have gotten it around and I'm, I don't know. 

Roberto: Yeah, gotten it around to the tune of like 20th on the all-time career money list, and then we're focused on business, but who are the two most crooked drivers you've ever seen? Number one and two on the career money list: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson. 

Stewart: So, yeah, that's pretty true. Isn't it? 

Roberto: Yeah. We could get Dan to do a deep statistical analysis for us, or we could just check all y'all's bank accounts. Long and crooked works.

Dan: So let's stick with The Players. I know we have two Tour players here. One of them not named Stewart Cink has the course record at Sawgrass on both courses. So, Roberto, how would you see The Players? Is it something that you think should be elevated to sort of major status? How do you sort of contrast what Stewart just said about the comparisons to The Masters? How would you do it differently? 

Roberto: You know, I think what's cool about the golf courses is that really all 156 players have a chance to win. And that sometimes can work against the tournament because you get some kind of middle of the mall, normal Tour players that contend. Whereas the golf course at the US Open and The Masters are now set up to where there's a nine out of 10 chance that one of the top 10 players in the world is going to win because it just rewards that skillset so specifically of those top guys and good for them. So that can be good and bad. It can create a cool Kevin Kizner-Ricky Fowler drama, or, you know, insert whoever player, but also to become iconic, you really want your Jon Rahms, Jason Days, really top 10 guys there on Sunday. So that's one thing.

And then I think the thing in May, I think the course was brown and it played fast, and I'm sure, the kind of purists liked that better, but a brown course doesn't look as good on TV and it looks better over-seeded and it’s just more majestic; it's better for TV. So the Jason Day hitting a two iron 275 yards down 18 when it was playing firm and fast, 90 degrees in May. I don't think that was the spirit of the golf course. So I think it's better in May. I mean in March, excuse me. 

Dan: Do you agree, Stewart?? 

Stewart: Yeah, I think I do. And plus, I mean, as a company guy, it's more Masters-like to have it overseeded. Seriously, I do think  Roberto's right about that. It probably… the players liked it in Bermuda in May when it was all Bermuda. But I remember seeing some of it on television, the greens look like they were just horrendous. They look terrible. Like you could see all the grain patches. And in reality, when you stood there, when you had a lineup at 10, but it was probably some of the best greens we played all year, but they look bad on TV.

And I think March is probably a better time and in March, the golf season is really getting kicked in. I don't think the PGA Tour wants The Players to be like a warm-up to the majors, like right before The Masters. We don't want that. I don't think we want that, but if we're in March, we're going to get that.

So every year The Players is going to create really good storylines. And you know how many times we're going to see the number of balls in the water today on 17 on television. I mean, we could probably change some of those graphics up and keep it fresh, but you know, you also don't want to fix what ain't broken and it's a really nice tournament. It's a great course. And it challenges you mentally, almost like no other course. 

Roberto: And they've done a really good job on property. I know that's not where the 20 million comes from, but they get massive crowds and it's become a big party. It's a really fun tournament. It really is.

Stewart: It really is. And it's one of the handful of tournaments around the Tour season that most people wouldn't recognize, but the players see it where you feel like when you're at that tournament, that the crowd almost like in a social weight has to be there. Like you gotta be seen if you live in Jacksonville, you gotta be seen at The Players. If you live in Charlotte, you gotta be seen at Quail Hollow. If you live in Columbus, Ohio, you gotta be seen at the Memorial. A lot of tournaments don't have that, you know. I love Riviera, but it doesn't feel that way when you're in LA.

And it does feel that way when you're in Sawgrass. They have that factor where it's just like, you know, that people who want to connect in Jacksonville, they want to be there because stuff happens at that tournament.

Dan: So I don't know if you have this ambition. I certainly don't think I have this power, but I'm going to declare you Commissioner for a day just right here right now. What's your first order of business? 

Stewart: I've been asked this question before and I've never answered it very well, so I hope I don't continue that streak. It's such a difficult job. I think I would probably rearrange our model out there. I love our Board structure. We have four players that serve on the Board, and we have four independent Directors who are guys and gals from the corporate world who are names you would recognize. They're just astounding individuals. And I was humbled to learn from them when I was on the Board. So I think that's a fabulous model. 

I don't really think our sub-board, which we call the Player Advisory Council, or the PAC, is all that effective, to be honest. I've been on it a lot. I've seen around the table. I think Roberto has been on it. And I just see a bunch of players kind of representing themselves. And to me, that's not what Board leadership is all about. The Board does listen to what the PAC says and they listen closely. And so when that group of sort of individual thinkers puts forth a message to the Board, they act. And I think I would probably restructure that and I don't know how I would do it, but I don't really think that the 16 player PAC is an effective way to advise the Board.

Roberto: Yeah. If you put it the way you just did where they don't have any voting power and you know, Kiz famously at his first PAC meeting was like, wait, we don't vote? There's no vote here? I'm out. But they do listen. The four Directors do listen to the PAC. So if you describe power in that, it’s pretty unorganized.

And the people on it just show up to the meetings and don't invest much else in it. Right? It was my experience and players were busy and they aren't as well informed as they could be, but they also don't have access to a lot of information either. I think that's one thing that has been shown pretty clearly by this alternative golf league stuff is I don't think the players have a clear understanding of the Tour’s business model.

And I think that they're trying to kind of tell players now, like, look, this is where the revenue comes from. This is where it goes and that's good. But I didn't see that in the nine years I was on Tour until very recently. And you see it recently because other leagues are talking about where’s the revenue going.

So I think there could be more education and a more informed membership. Do you agree with that? 

Stewart: I do. And I don't know if it's because of the pressure coming from outside competition, like the Saudi golf league and whatever, or if it goes straight to the top and this is more Jay Monahan’s influence. Maybe it could be a little bit of both. But I do agree that the players, and I would count myself too, I don't feel like I have a strong grasp of the model of where the money goes and where it comes from. I have a grasp, but not a super strong grasp. But the players that form that 16 Player Advisory Council, I think, largely show up and just talk about what affects them.

And as a group you can get a consensus in a way, because a lot of the issues, you know, when someone brings something up, the other players are, yeah, you're right. Yeah. That does mean something, you know, and then next thing, the Board's voting and right. I don't know.

I just think that players, maybe could be a little bit more- they could be educated a little bit more about what it means to be on that and how you're really supposed to set your feelings aside and think from a big picture kind of perspective about what's better for the PGA Tour and not what matters more to you.

Roberto: Yeah, I agree with that.

Stewart: But that's tough. You know, I, like you said, the players are busy, busier today than they've ever been in any time in my career. It takes a lot of time to read through a lot of the paperwork. And a lot of that paperwork is coming straight from the PGA Tour and they're telling you exactly what they want you to know. There every number can be seen from a little different angle. And it's just, it's not a perfect system and I don't know what the answer would be, but I think that's the first thing I would do if I was Commissioner for a day.

Roberto: You brought up a separate conversation, Stewart, and that all of the information comes from one source, which is the Tour. So I think that the players are really busy and there are smart guys on the Tour. But they're sitting down at a table (with others) whose job 40 hours a week, 60 hours a week, 80 hours a week, is to think about the business of the Tour. And the players think about the business of getting it in the hole for 80 hours a week. So you have a total mismatch of preparation and information. And I really felt that my last few years on Tour and today that the players could use a professional full-time voice that just follows the business of the Tour. And it's just a source of information. Somebody who wakes up every morning and says, I'm looking after the business of the players and when the players need information and education, an independent source can provide them that. Right. So it's like asking the IRS how to do your taxes, but the only sources you call the IRS. That's not how it works. You call a CPA. Right? And that's where we are right now. I think it's just out of balance.

Stewart: I agree. I think that's a good proposal to have like a former player, maybe as a liaison, not necessarily serve on any of the Boards or the Councils, but as a liaison, someone who has a right to go in and get information and disclose to players at request or whatever, just educate themselves and all the different topics that are going on in the rapidly changing environment out there, we all know. I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with that if that was brought up at all. I don't think I'd want to be that person though. 

Dan: I think Greg Norman would.

Stewart: Greg Norman already has a job. 

Roberto: Gosh, who would have thought that retiring rules officials needed non-competes? I mean Slugger’s working for the Saudis- who saw that coming?

Stewart: But yeah, it’s something. I think I need to educate myself about this thing because I think there's a lot of humor in there. 

Roberto: I think there is too. I agree. Yeah. 

Dan: Alright, Stewart, we're going to transition from questions that were focused on depth and go for speed now. So we've got a couple of segments, one named Tap-ins and one named Buy or Sell. So I'll get us going with Tap-ins that are mostly about golf. You ready? 

Stewart: Yup. 

Dan: Alright. Some of these are about barbecue too. So better barbecue chef, you or Chad Parker? 

Stewart: I knew you were going to throw that my way, because I listened to the Course Record Show featuring Chad Parker. And I heard his answer. And so I would answer the other way. I would say me. I would pick myself in a contest against Chad. And the only reason is that because Chad has become such a well-rounded and well-trained chef in a lot of different areas and I still remain a one trick pony, but I can be pretty good at that trick.

Roberto: Fighting words. I foresee some sort of charity barbecue. Chad-Stewart cook-off sponsored by the Course Record Show situation. Let's stew on that.

Stewart: I would love it except it's going to be me and Chad. I don't know if we could actually cook against each other in all honesty because we're cooking partners. We share ideas, we support each other and he's like my best friend. So, it's a blast cooking with those guys. 

Roberto: What if it's for the kids, then you could cook against each other?

Stewart: To heck with the kids; we want to win.

Dan: I don't know. Speith and Reed made it work by trying to beat each other as being teammates in the Ryder Cup. I think there's something there. 

Stewart: So you're right. 

Dan: Sticking with barbecue. What's your sauce of choice? 

Stewart: Oh, that's completely different for different kinds of barbecue. But if I had to pick one sauce for everything, I would actually probably pick the South Carolina mustard sauce. I really enjoy that mustard style.

Dan: Nice. Now going back to golf. What's one course that's not being played on Tour today that you wish were on the schedule?

Stewart:  Oh, Castle Pines in Denver. Loved playing there back in the day. 

Dan: At the old International?

Stewart: Yeah, one of my favorite tournaments- long and crooked worked great.

Dan: If you could steal one part of any Tour player’s game, what would it be?

Stewart: It would probably be Tiger Woods’s resolve. His mental toughness, his resolve.

Dan: Which young player on Tour most reminds you of yourself?

Stewart: Zalatoris. 

Dan: Why is that? 

Stewart: Well I used to be skinny awhile back. He's kind of framed about like me. He's tall and lean. I was really thin when I first came out and he looks like he's got a homemade type swing in a way, which I had. I wasn't a lesson kid growing up; I had a few little tips here and there, but not really a range rat. And it looks like he just kinda has learned how to get the job done. He putts a little different. He hits his ball a little bit with a different kind of move and that's kinda what I felt like I did when I grew up, when I came out. 

Dan: Who was closest to matching peak Tiger: Duval, Phil, VJ, or someone else? 

Stewart: Probably have to choose VJ there because VJ actually overtook him for a brief moment there around 2004, I believe. He won 10 tournaments in a single year. And so I think VJ came the closest.

Dan: You mentioned the feud earlier- team Bryson or team Brooks? 

Stewart: I’m on team Bryson. First of all, I think the feud’s fake. I think it's just a huge ploy. I mean, look, it ended up in a match. It was televised and Capital One sponsored. Those guys did great in the match. So I think the whole thing is just a big thing.

Dan: Day on the lake or day on the slopes?

Stewart:  Slopes.

Dan: Urban or suburban living? 

Stewart: Well, I have to put my money where my mouth is, right? Or actually in this case, it's apt to put my mouth where my money is. We just moved into Midtown. So I'm urban. 

Dan: Alright. You survived all the Tap-ins. So over to you, Roberto. 

Roberto: Alright, Stewart. My section is Buy or Sell. It's a little more business focused. Buy or sell: Tesla stock?

Stewart: Sell. 

Roberto: Buy or sell: the creation of a startup golf league in the next five years? 

Stewart: Sell. Buyer trend here. I'm gonna just sell everything. I'm fire sale. 

Roberto: Buy or sell: simulator golf?

Stewart: Buy.

Roberto:  Buy or sell: Bitcoin?

Stewart:  Buy. 

Roberto: Wow. Buy or sell: PGA Tour Champions?

Stewart: Buy. Phil Mickelson. 

Roberto: Is it because you get to use a golf cart or just in general? 

Stewart: You mean it's still going to revive it because you get to use a golf cart. Is that what you're saying? 

Roberto: I'm saying, are you going to play? 

Stewart: I'm going to play. I mean, I've got my exemptions going till I'm about 51 and a half right now, so I don't have to decide right away. But I haven't been all that enthusiastic about it because I haven't had to be thinking that way. But it's, you know what I'm, what I miss is I have a lot of friends like you, and a lot of guys that were really good friends. But I don't have a lot of peers that are my age. And so what I'm going through in my life, or what I'm experiencing is a lot different than almost all of my friends out there. I mean, Chesson is also one of my best friends, just had his third new baby. And I don't have new babies and it's going to be fun to reunite with a lot of guys I know and have some peers again, out there, some aged peers. So I am looking forward to that. And the cart thing, I don't know. We'll see. 

Roberto: So you're saying you don't know what channel Paw Patrol is on? 

Stewart: I don't know what channel is Paw Patrol, but I've heard of it. I've heard people talk of it.

Roberto: Buy or sell: having your son on payroll? 

Stewart: I'm buying that. 

Roberto: I think it's working pretty well. So I would buy that.

Stewart: It's so fun. I mean, I had some success last year with some wins but mostly even without those, it was still like, best year I've had, as far as enjoyment.

Roberto: That's awesome. Well, Stewart, thanks so much for coming on the Course Record Show and talking about the business of golf. You have an incredible perspective on it and you're very, very well-informed. So we couldn't thank you enough. 

Stewart: Well guys, thanks for having me on. I love it. And you guys do a good job. I've listened to a lot of your episodes and so keep it up. 

Dan: Thanks, Stewart. Appreciate it. 

Takeaways

Roberto: All right, Dan, great conversation with Stewart Cink. I thought it was going to go off the rails there where I told him that he was long and crooked and he was like, I'm crooked? You think I'm crooked? That wasn't great. Otherwise really productive conversation. 

Dan: You sure know how to butter them up, Roberto, but he took it well, he took a lot of this well. It was great to hear his perspective on a lot of things, given his time in the game. So what jumped out to you the most? 

Roberto: Well, I'm going to offer a disclaimer, to be fair. We were talking about the Ryder Cup one time and he said that he got to one of the Ryder Cups and the Captain was like, look, I don't really know how to pair you, or you're going to sit. I looked at your stats and you're just not hitting it that straight.

And Stewart was like, I finished third on the points and I've never hit it straight. Check my stats, my whole career, guy. Okay. And I'm here and I'm in the Ryder Cup and it's not my first one. So that's where I based that on. But he's, you know, Tour players don't like to hear what they're not good at. So it's just a funny quip. He's the best. 

Dan: Yeah, it was great to meet him and get to talk to him about this kind of stuff and pick his brain and right off the bat, he gives us some gold. Why is the Tour now better to be a player in than it was before? “Tiger and Woods.” I thought that was fascinating.

I mean, we all know the impact Tiger Woods had on purses. That's not the surprise, but the fact that he still feels that's going to carry the Tour for years to come and is such a big reason why it lingers today, even though Tiger is not very active, it just baffles me. I don't know if I should be baffled, Roberto, but it baffled me. How do you sort of process that? 

Roberto: Yeah. You asked him if you thought there would be kind of a regression of the mean after Tiger retires. And he said no. And I think I agree with him solely in that global growth is what's going to be what drives the Tour for the next 20 years. It's not the hockey stick that Tiger caused, but I don't see it going down just because I think the pie is getting bigger. It's a world game. You know, the Discovery deal is going to stream all over the world. And he's right. There are some stars that are collectively filling Tiger’s shoes. If you can say that. 

Dan: I'd be more willing to accept that as an answer, if it wasn't for sort of an analysis of what happened right before Tiger. I think the late eighties, up to the mid nineties, you have Faldo, Norman, Ballesteros, Langer, Strange, Sandy Lyle, who was getting good players, right. That was a good crop of players going on there. And no one's saying, oh, those guys did so much for the business of golf and did so much for the purses. I don't know if it's because they weren't good enough compared to what we need to see or compared to the crop we have today.

Maybe the fact that they, a lot of those names I mentioned were not American, if that has something to do with it. But, you know, that seems like a pretty good comp to what we're talking about with the new generation here. So that's kind of why it's hard to process the answer that Stewart gave us being sustainable in terms of value for the Tour. What are your, what's your take on that? 

Roberto: I don't know. I go back and forth on this. Some days I'm like, wow, the media and the landscape are just so crowded right now. You can watch Netflix, you can do all these things. Some version of the metaverse and BR-AR will eventually improve to be really consumer friendly.

But on the other hand, live sports is the only thing that people watch live. So the value of them continues to go up, right? That's the Joe Ogilvy take that as sports become the only thing that people watch live, their commercial value continues to go up. So I go back and forth on it. If I knew the answer, you know, we could play some bets and I don't, but I think that's my take on it. 

Dan: Yeah. Maybe. I mean, the other thing to think about is Tiger is still somewhat active and of course he, you know, he moves any needle, is the needle, whatever you want to say, but he is obviously in the twilight of his career. I think sort of what's going on with the purses now is really fascinating, right?

With the startup league out there, and the PGL, et cetera. It's just really interesting to think about it from a what drives what's going on? And it was the profitability of the Tour. And of course, the opportunities for players. The PGA Tour’s never had such a strong threat against it, or at least so imminent. It's funny, like it was competing with the European Tour years ago and it's kind of built an alliance of sorts to help it out. But now that alliance has got some new threats. So, I mean, I'm all for competition. I think it's great in any setting, but I wonder if the Tour gets through this without the PGL or any of those sort of startup getting going, then what happens to purses? Does it continue on the same upward ascend it's been on or does it stop? I think it stops for a while, but we’ll sort of have to wait and see, unless you have some thoughts on that too. 

Roberto: Well, you could say that about so many things right now. Right? The last 20 months have been unprecedented. The world is awash in cash, the valuations of companies and real estate. It's crazy. Nobody knows what to make of this. Real estate prices continued to double, you know, houses are worth double what they were three years ago. Just like The Players purse is double. Valuations in the M & A market is crazy. So no one knows the answer to this question right now. The safe bet would be, it can't continue forever, but will it revert? That's a tough question to answer. 

Dan: I think reverts tough. I think revert is tough. It's just so much would have to happen. There's a world where that could happen, but I think the factors that have to come together to make it happen are unlikely to do so at the same time. 

Roberto: Yeah. Let’s stick on the business of the Tour, let’s talk about The Players Championship. I thought it was interesting that Stewart said that The Players had been modeled more and more after The Masters. I never really got that vibe playing in it, but you can see what he's talking about. But I think we were all in consensus that the focal point of that tournament and its identity needs to be built around the golf course. Right? It's a big ticket now, but anyone can go down and play TPC Sawgrass. The last three holes. There's actually quite a few iconic holes, but the last three especially. And I think The Players Championship is in a good place and is only going up, but I don't know why people like to talk about, you know, what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. But I thought we had a good conversation around that.  

Dan: Well, so if we take Joe Ogilvie’s take that The Masters is the tournament that cares most about the fans. And you're telling me you disagree that The Players is like The Masters, is that because of the fan treatment or because of something else? What makes you say that?

Roberto: Well, it just doesn't feel anything like The Masters; nothing does on site. There's tons of corporate hospitality. Then it's Florida. It's a big party, which has all positives. I'm listing all positive things, but it has no resemblance to The Masters. Nothing has any resemblance to The Masters.

The only thing that people have impersonated pretty well is the golf course and the conditions of the golf course, like what they do at Quail Hollow is a direct impersonation of The Masters. What Jack does at Memorial is a direct impersonation of Augusta and The Masters. And you can get that right. You can get it closer to right. But an entire environment, creating a ‘world?” It's not possible. It's the creating of a world is something Augusta has done and no one else is even in the ballpark. 

Dan: Yeah. I mean, yes, I agree that it's hard to enter that ballpark. I've also never thought of The Players as getting more and more like The Masters. And so that was interesting to hear. The other bit that kind of surprised me was the March versus May decision. I get the arguments that you and he both aligned on in terms of, hey, with the overseed, it looks better on TV and that matters.

And it might matter for a lot of viewers and I totally buy that. But hearing how it was playing when it was in May and I'm not bothered by the color of the green, et cetera. I know what you're referring to when it looks sort of weird. So I get that, but man, it was sort of fun to see that course with that extra challenge of the firmness that was there. That was fun to see. And how it was always awkward in the schedule. So I don't know how to replicate the May conditions in March, but man, that was fun to see. And I'll miss that. 

Roberto: Yeah. Firm and fast is usually better for true core golf fans. Greener is better for casual fans. And the golf schedule is something we're not going to tackle on the Course Record Show because there's no good answer to all those questions. We'll let Shackelford continued his rants about the schedule. 

Dan: Yeah. I think if everyone got their way and put their tournament in the exact week they wanted, you'd have 20 weeks of five tournaments each and that's how it would run. That's not quite gonna work. So, you're right. We won't be able to get there. Let's go to the golf ball business. Really interesting to hear Stewart's take on Nike and their demise in the golf business having been driven by their decision to manufacture and fully own soup to nuts the golf ball.

What's your take on that? Do you buy that or do you see more stuff having been around during the time of Nike's demise? 

Roberto: I think it had to be a bigger brand consideration. There's no golf ball factory that can sink Nike. Or if Nike was committed- a different way to say that would be if Nike was really committed to golf, they can afford to make the investments, golf ball factory or not. Interesting insight and kind of one of those topics that we've stumbled on on this show that just opens more questions than it answers. And I think we should look again, you know, at a golf ball industry rep or executive on the Show. Cause I'd be really interested to hear more about that business top to bottom.

And I have so many questions about Nike in general, right? I mean, people say that they don't care about anything other than selling tennis shoes. So they don't really care about the golf business. They don't really care about selling tennis clothes. The only thing they care about is brand and brand sells running shoes, running shoes you can make for eight bucks and sell for 180 or Michael Jordan's. Right? So it just felt a little bit too big for me to have any really strong opinions on. 

Dan: Oh, speaking of economics, what can it cost to make a set of a dozen golf balls? Right? Do you take all these golf balls and market there for 40, 45, 50 bucks? What's it going to cost to make them? Five? And then you've got to market them and you got to sponsor Tour players to get them out there. I know there's more to it than that. But it seems like the economics can't be too different than what you mentioned with shoes. I don't know. We should verify that, like I know Bob Parsons of PXG was asked on an interview, are you ever going to make a ball? And he's like, no, I've got much bigger problems to deal with. So he knows something about how brutal it is that just on the surface is really, really hard to compute. 

Roberto: Yeah. It has to be something with market share. I think you have to get reps to put it in green grass shops, you have to get the shelf space at your PGA Tour Superstores, Dick's Sporting Goods. And it's just so entrenched. The incumbents are so entrenched, right? Titleist has such a stranglehold on the market and maybe Bridgestone and a couple others, but it's like, how do you unseat Kellogg's? You could make the best cereal in the world, and it's probably a decent business selling cereal, but they own all the shelf space at all the grocery stores. It's gotta be a similar challenge to something like that. 

Dan: Yeah. I mean, that example was how a very clear market leader owned a disproportionate share of the market. The golf ball is dominated by a few companies, but not quite that consolidated. 

Roberto: Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. 

Dan: Alright. Switching gears a bit. His answer on Commissioner for a day was not something I expected. I thought you would talk about where he would take the Tour and where he would go. He didn’t talk about an outcome or a vision. He talked about a process and talked about how the Players Action Committee would totally be restructured in terms of voting rights and their role in governance of the Tour. I thought that was really… I did not expect him to go there. I didn't even know where that would go in terms of direction for the Tour, but he knew there was something wrong there. So clearly a player’s Commissioner thinking about his role if he were ever to be Commissioner there. 

Roberto: Yeah, I think his answer was very process-driven and  it was interesting. I think an earlier part of the conversation proved his point. We were talking about how you activate players and give value to sponsors. I said, the lift on players on a week-to-week basis is pretty light and there could be some more creative ways to create sponsor value. And Stewart said, oh, hold on. For you it's pretty light, but you're not a top 10 player. You’re not a top 20 player. And he's a hundred percent right. And I think it proved his point about that room of 16 guys in the PAC. All of their perspectives, very, very colored through their own lens. And it just makes getting anything done or having a broader vision for the Tour difficult because everybody just walks in- especially when you're not trained or instructed or have much practice in corporate governance or Board work- that you just walk in and you just say, this is what my life on Tour looks like, and this is what I want. And that doesn't necessarily lead to positive conversations about the membership as a whole. 

Dan: Well, the PAC is currently under the Rory McIlroy regime is most definitely a top 20 player in the world. Like I wonder do you get any sense that your conversation starts to change when someone like that's at the helm? 

Roberto: Yeah. I mean, who is, No Laying Up or one of these guys calls him Commissioner Rory or whatever. But the PAC, whoever the chairman of the PAC is, just means you're going on the Board the next year. It's not like they have any power over a regular PAC member. So Rory's voice obviously is louder no matter what title is on his name plate in the room, but I'm not sure it matters that much.  

Dan: I think the title you're looking for is Prince of Ponte Vedra. Shout out to the Shotgun Start for that one. 

Roberto: Prince of Ponte Vedra. That's good. Those guys have a name for everybody. 

Dan: They do. Alright. Speaking of a Tour and governance and Commissioners, the Jay Monaghan days versus the Tim Finchem days. Stewart talked about the role of Jay as an accelerator in playing that. How do you feel about that? 

Roberto: I think those are strong words. I think Tim really drove the business to a new place, whether that was Tiger or that was Tim. And nobody can answer that question. But to say that Jay is pushing the ball forward a lot stronger than Tim is high praise and serious talk. You have to say that it's hard to compare what Jay's been through to the last 20 months. Unprecedented keeps- it is- the reason that word keeps being said is it’s absolutely been unprecedented. 

And to be the first sport that came back and to announce a TV deal in the last couple of years and lead the Tour into a $20 million purse at The Players and 10 million a week next year. I don't see how you could have any serious complaints or reservations about the direction Monaghan is leading the Tour. Pretty impressive, in my opinion. 

Dan: If you’re a player, right? If you're a fan and the quality of the product and the things you would expect to see, I might argue with that a little bit. I'm not saying they got worse. What I'm saying is that there were some missed opportunities to get better. That has been the case for many, many years. 

Roberto: Like what?

Dan: Well, I mean, the quality of the broadcast, for instance, right, continues to be a big challenge. I might be biased being in Boston, but the lack of a presence in cities like Boston, Chicago- I think it seems to be a huge issue for the Tour. Like how are these big markets not being addressed to fans that are just avid golf fans and don't get their fair shake of a PGA Tour golf. So I've got a few bones to pick, but I get that the commercialization has been really strong and it's mostly driven by TV versus in person events as Stewart Cink talked about.

But yeah, I’ve got a couple of bones to pick and I don’t know if I should be pointing my finger at Jay or something else, but I think there is some room to grow.

Roberto: Those are fair points, especially the lack of presence in some top five, top six US markets, for sure. And, you know, I think it's just easy to complain about the commercialization of the product and this and that. It's like talking about young people being punks. You can go back and find Plato and Socrates quotes about the next generation being completely a bunch of deadbeats and the future of civilization being screwed.

You know, you can go find Jack and Arnie and Peter Kostis was on that interview where all he did was lament the commercialization of the Tour. That they were having these conversations 30 years ago too. So the market works. It speaks: if the product gets bad enough and the coverage is bad enough, people won't watch, they won't watch and then they'll have to change it. So I totally see your points, but that's my analogy on that complaint.  

Dan: Yeah, I get that the money that had come from somewhere. I don't have an issue with commercialization to be very clear. I just think that it can also be more sustained, I think, if they also take a different tack to it. So that’s my take. We’ll have to see how this stuff plays out. Of course I'll remain a golf fan pretty much no matter what. So I might be traveling no matter what. So we'll keep watching what's going on. 

Roberto: Yeah. And I think you bring up a good point, right? Golfers’ passion is way up there compared to other sports, hobbies, interests. Way up there. Like people are “in” no matter what you feed them, they're still gonna eat. So that definitely feeds into some of the complaints, I think. Yeah. 

Dan: Well, I think that wraps it up for us here. Thanks again to Stewart for the time. Fascinating conversation and any last parting words here, Roberto? 

Roberto: No. Please subscribe to the Course Record Show. If you enjoyed this episode, we tend to put them out every few weeks, about once a month, and we will keep turning stones over in the business of golf. Thanks for listening. 

Dan: Thanks everyone. Happy holidays.