#115 - GolfZon Simulators: Jimmy McDonald (Director of Sales)

In this weeks episode I interview my good friend Jimmy McDonald, Director of Sales for GolfZon. GolfZon is the #1 golf simulator company in the world, with locations in some 63 countries, with over 12,300 commercial sites. Just in 2022 alone, over 87 million rounds of golf were played on their simulators. And what is really cool is that Golfzon also hosts two professional virtual golf tournaments each year (GTOUR and WGTOUR) with a total prize purse of more than $3.5 million. With the GolfZon 2 Vision, the most realistic golf simulator in the world, and there new Wave, GolfZon is poised to take over the U.S. Market.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving range from Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf if you don't play it for money? Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert tore .

Speaker 2 0:34

What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I had my good friend Jimmy McDonald from Golf Zone Golf Zone simulators. If you guys don't know what Golf Zone is, they pretty much make the coolest golf simulator in the world. I've never seen anything like it. It's called the Two Vision . And they recently came out with the Wave, which is phenomenal. And we're here to talk about the Golf Zone wave, the two vision and how Goldstone's kind of really taken over the market right now in United States. So welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 1:01

Hey, thanks. Thanks Paul. Thanks for having me. And thanks for your kind words, man.

Where are you located?

Speaker 2 1:05

So like, so we were like talking before the show. I'm like, yo , man, this, this golf zone wave's like sick. Like this is legit. Like if you're looking for, like, if you're looking for a really good simulator that won't like break the bank. Like that thing is, we'll get to that in a minute, but it's , it's really cool. Um, so where are you located right now?

Speaker 3 1:23

Yeah, I wish I could say I'm in my basement with this sweet background behind me. Um, but I am in my basement. It just doesn't look like that. Um, I'm in New York. I'm based in New York. Our company, golf Zone America. We're headquartered in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC and globally Golf Zone is a Korean company. So , uh, our US outfit came here in 2017. We set up shop in Virginia and thank God they brought me on board . All

Speaker 2 1:49

Virginia .

Speaker 3 1:50

Yeah, it's actually kind of an interesting Yeah, it, it's a funny story. We hired , um, or , or we got a couple, few different colleges to do some research for us and we basically told 'em what we did, who we were and what we were looking to do in the United States. We told 'em what we built in Korea and hey, this is what we're trying to build in the us where should we be headquartered? That was the question. And I think we went to like Duke, Dartmouth, brown, like some high highly touted schools, right? So they all went their own separate directions. They did their own research on where they think we should be headquartered. And they all said Minneapolis, Minnesota, in unison. All three of them said Minneapolis. And actually that's probably our most densely saturated market in terms of volume.

Speaker 2 2:37

Oh , that makes sense. We got the most sense . Yeah . Stimulators

Speaker 3 2:38

Out there , what

Speaker 2 2:39

You guys do and Yeah,

Speaker 3 2:41

But we couldn't headquarter out there because too many flights get canceled in the winter. And we're a very mobile team. We're traveling all over the place. So that's why we chose Virginia, because you don't get the snow and you can get on a plane and you know, your flights still canceled. But why did

Speaker 2 2:56

You I choose like California, like might it be cooler to be like in Carlsbad or like, I don't know , orange County, Arizona , Scottsdale, I mean,

Speaker 3 3:07

Totally . That

Speaker 2 3:07

Better. I think Virginia,

Speaker 3 3:08

Well first of all, I think against Virginia , I wasn't a part of the planning committee. I was not a part of the

Speaker 2 3:13

Planning. C would , I would've been part of that. I've been like, yeah , let's put a cool place. Nothing against Virginia though. The reason why I asked Virginia, 'cause another brand I work with in the same space is based outta Virginia. I was like, why, why are these two big brands in Virginia? Like, maybe 'cause century's located Lot Tech . It's like, is it ? I don't know. I maybe it is.

Speaker 3 3:29

Yeah, I mean they're both Korean companies . Northern Virginia. Um, so Dulles Airport, right? You got Reagan, which is in the heart of DC and then you've got Dallas , which is kind of on the outskirts right around that Dallas airport area. There's a ton of tech and there's a lot of government contractors there, but it's all tech.

Speaker 2 3:46

Oh .

Speaker 3 3:47

So for us it kind of ,

Speaker 2 3:48

Yeah,

Speaker 3 3:49

I would've said Dallas. 'cause you're right in the middle of the country and you can fly anywhere .

Speaker 2 3:51

Dallas doing great too. Yeah, you're like right in the middle. And it's a big metropolitan city and it's techie. Right? Austin's close too. Yep . Why Austin? I don't know , I guess, I mean, I just wonder. I thought it was weird In the last week, two very large Korean companies are based out of, not based , but like contractually are based out of Virginia, which I just thought was weird. I don't know. I just thought was weird. Um, so are you a golf pro?

Speaker 3 4:16

Yeah , technically. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:17

<laugh>. You are?

Speaker 3 4:18

Yeah. Yeah. That. So I, I've been in the golf business since I was 11. I started caddying when I was 11. Got hired in the bag room when I was 13. And then I just forever I was in the golf business. I was

Speaker 2 4:29

So where'd you grow up at?

Speaker 3 4:30

I grew up in Connecticut. Um , okay . Live in New York now, about an hour from where I grew up. But , uh, the golf up in Connecticut, kind of where I grew up is tremendous in that like, Westchester County, like Winged Foot was 15 minutes from where I grew up. Really?

Speaker 2 4:45

Oh, you

Speaker 3 4:46

Know, there's so much golf there. Um, big part of the culture around there. So it was a golf pro till I was like 20, 26 I think. 26, 27.

Speaker 2 4:56

So who taught you to play golf? Your dad, your grandpa, your mom who?

Speaker 3 5:00

Yeah, my dad . My dad took me to the range for the first time and it immediately sunk its hook enemy . I was baseball and hockey is what I played growing up. And then golf came about. And the only reason I stuck with it, honestly, is 'cause I've always worked. I had a paper route from the time I was eight and when I turned 11, my dad said, you should make some real money and start caddying. So I had to learn the game a little bit. He taught me the game a little bit and then I started caddying and next thing you know, I'm just, I'm a lifelong

Speaker 2 5:29

Server every day . Make good money at 11. You're like the richest kid in the neighborhood. Totally .

Speaker 3 5:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:35

Like everyone else is like playing Nintendo and you're like, yo, I'm gonna go caddy and make some money.

Speaker 3 5:40

Yeah , I'm gonna go buy Nintendo. That's what I was think . I'm

Speaker 2 5:42

Gonna buy five Nintendos. I'm gonna go like this <laugh> , I'm gonna go buy me a , a Super Nintendo, probably Beer of generation. I would say Super Nintendo . It

Speaker 3 5:54

Might've been Sega Genesis by then.

Speaker 2 5:56

No way. How old are you?

Speaker 3 5:58

37.

Speaker 2 6:00

Oh yeah. Genesis. You're young though . Yeah, I guess 11. Yeah. You're like my age kind of. I'm 45, but still

Speaker 3 6:07

45 .

Speaker 2 6:07

Um ,

Speaker 3 6:08

Okay,

Speaker 2 6:09

So, so you grew up playing and then when you got up , did you, like , were you on the golf team and like the whole nine yards?

Speaker 3 6:16

No, I wa I was a hockey player that, that's, you know, baseball and hockey. I was a goalie.

Speaker 2 6:22

Defend . You're a goalie.

Speaker 3 6:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:24

That's the hardest position. Um,

Speaker 3 6:27

Well thank you for saying so. I appreciate that. Oh , my goal. Tell are brethren,

Speaker 2 6:31

So who's your favorite hockey team ? Saber , the island, Connecticut.

Speaker 3 6:38

Harford Whalers , a Whalers fan. Really ?

Speaker 2 6:39

Really? I like the , I like the old Whalers uniform. The old school one that was sick.

Speaker 3 6:43

You still see people rocking the hats and I see people wearing scars. They

Speaker 2 6:48

Still whalers fan though. I

Speaker 3 6:49

Mean, how can I be? They've been gone . They mo so they turned into the Carolina Hurricanes. They moved down to North Carolina.

Speaker 2 6:54

Oh , that's right. You're like, see, so

Speaker 3 6:56

When all my favorite players left in North Carolina, I tried to stay with them , but now I don't really follow anybody.

Speaker 2 7:01

Yeah. Like I grew up, so I grew about here and like there was three hockey rinks in the entire state of Arizona when I was a kid. And like, there was one and twos on two in Phoenix. This is before they built like the Ice End Scottsdale and all that other stuff. And so like, if you played hockey, like that was really obscure. But I fell in love with a sport because all was baseball and football and golf out here. And like, I was like, why did my parents like, let me play this when I was younger? I love this. It's the best game ever made. And like , do

Speaker 3 7:28

You play it now ?

Speaker 2 7:29

And I played , no, I haven't played in like 15 years, but I , my I played in men's league for a while after like, yeah , I got married and I was like, I'm too old for this. Like, my back was hurting like my lower back. I'm like, why's my back hurt so bad? You know? And I was, but I, I love hockey. Like, I love hockey. I had a , I , my buddy , uh, he's on the podcast a long time ago. He played for the , um, the avalanche like in like back in the nineties. And so he always talks so much to me, dude . Like all the time. Like every time we talk on the phone, he'll like purposely like show me his like Stanley Cup, like little trophies. Like, look what I got and you don't have one of those. And I was like, yeah bro. 'cause you're freaking professional a lot. <laugh> , I suck. Like, because you come up to the men's league night. And I'm like, there's no way I'm doing that. So he's like, oh , they are like names . Oh , he still plays men's dropping . Yeah, they still play men's league. It's a men's league in North Scott , like in Scottsdale. And it's like all NHL players, dude. Like seriously, it's all, you know , like , uh, I don't know. How can you like, I can't think of some of these dudes. Like, I don't know , like tons of people you would know. You know, I'd be like , oh, I know that guy. What the hell's that guy's name? Not Neil Bratton . What's that guy who played for, but he played for the North Stars and like it was Neil Bratton and so-and-So, and he was Mike Madonna . Mike McConnell lives up there. Oh

Speaker 3 8:45

My God. Yeah, dude.

Speaker 2 8:47

Like I know I'm throwing myself back. Right. Because that's what I love . I I loved hockey in the nineties. Like that's,

Speaker 3 8:52

Yeah ,

Speaker 2 8:52

My hockey like circle like 1990 to 94, 95. I'll tell you, every player I geek out on that stuff, you know. And like

Speaker 3 9:00

N Hhl 94 is the best hockey video game ever made.

Speaker 2 9:03

Ever made. Dude, bro, that is the only game I ever asked. I Yeah. For Super Nintendo. Or is it like , did you have for Sega Genesis?

Speaker 3 9:11

I had it for everything. Even today, if you get the new hockey games for like PSS five and you're picking your control method, you can pick like the standard advanced or n hhl 94 controls where you just use the buttons from 90 . Those

Speaker 2 9:24

Was the best game. That was literally the best game ever made.

Speaker 3 9:26

Totally

Speaker 2 9:27

Drills . Yeah.

Speaker 3 9:27

Because

Speaker 2 9:27

All hockey games before that were like mad lame. Right. Because like you'd have like, you know, they had like, what was it , blades of Steel was the other hockey game. It was for Nintendo and I used to play all that. Okay . And it was like, but yeah. Yeah . I know we're totally about Nintendo, but yeah, for real. I love that game.

Speaker 3 9:41

What are we talking about again? <laugh> ?

Speaker 2 9:43

I don't remember. There's be a way you could like cheat. I remember this, my buddy always to do to me we're like, if you went back and forth a lot behind the net, the goalie would get stuck on the net. And I was like, what's up with that dude?

Speaker 3 9:53

Oh man. And then they came out with NHL hits and it all went out the window. You ever play NHL Hits?

Speaker 2 9:58

No, because of oh

Speaker 3 10:00

Three on three . It was great. Oh ,

Speaker 2 10:02

Look at that boring.

Speaker 3 10:04

Oh no. You could check people through the boards and if you checked them through the boards and through the glass, they couldn't come back on the ice. So you could just pick three against Nagoli . Yeah . It was beautiful.

Speaker 2 10:13

Was it? That's what they started like making these like extreme video games back then. Like, you know, like, I don't know . Anyways, back to golf sewing , not geeking out Nintendo games. So Fricking guy, man. Just kidding. So then you, you played hockey in high school. Did you play hockey in college or did you

Speaker 3 10:34

I didn't. No. I, I , I , I stopped, I stopped , uh, playing competitively. I still played men's leagues. Yeah . Um , I went away to college. So I went to music school of all things. I went to the Berkeley College of Music up in Boston, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 10:46

Shut up.

Speaker 3 10:48

Yeah .

Speaker 2 10:49

What , what do you play?

Speaker 3 10:50

Yeah. Uh , used to play a lot of guitar and I sang and I wrote songs and went to Berkeley for that. But golf was pulling me back, man. I wanted to, I , I went there and realized that I couldn't do music. I wanted to come and, and get a real job and work around golf. I just loved it. I missed it. Um, so came back within a couple years. I was a golf pro at a golf, at a local golf course to where I grew up , uh, in Connecticut for another, yeah. Yeah. The , the Sandwich Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. It's great golf course. I've been number one in the state for 40 years, I think. Great spot. Um, I was a golf pro there until I was about 26, maybe 27, kind of in that range. And then we , my wife and I started a family. So I , I mean, I don't know if you've had Golf Pros on your podcast, but that's a tough gig with raising kids. And I wanted to go the corporate route and thank God Golf Zone came along because it's a best of both worlds. Right? I get to , it's a hard,

Speaker 2 11:49

It's a hard transition, isn't it? I'm not, not like, I feel like golf pro . It's like that's a hard job. I don't think people realize that. And I don't, when I have, like I had , uh, Taylor Crosby on the show a couple days ago and Yeah ,

Speaker 3 12:02

He

How did you go from teaching to GolfZon

Speaker 2 12:03

Was talking about that as well. 'cause he is down at the kingdom and, and, and like he was saying that like, you know, it's like you come out wanna play golf and you have like three options, right? Like, okay, I work in the pro shop as a golf pro and then I, I spend 60 hours a week in the golf in the pro shop and I get , and I get for 10 hours if I'm lucky. Right? And then it's like, well that's, that's hard 'cause you're working seven days a week, right? Pretty much. Um , and like I don't , I , it's like that transition to go like, what do you do? Right? Like if you're good at golf, like what do you do? You try to go pro, you know, which is hard as hell. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And then, or you can teach, which you can get, you know, that could be hard too. You could be a really great teacher, but you might be working in the pro shop 90% of the time. So how do you pursue that career path? Um, and then the third option is going into the business. Right? Into , uh, into corporate or a brand or whatever it might be. So how did you bridge that gap? Like how did you go from teaching to golf zone?

Speaker 3 13:05

Yeah, there was a , there was a job in the middle there. I , I took a job with , um, with another company. Just sales, right? Corporate sales. Um ,

Speaker 2 13:15

Was it golf or No, no. Oh , just

Speaker 3 13:18

Regular sales. Completely. Yeah. It was just regular old sales. I was working for a company selling water. So I would sell water to like

Speaker 2 13:25

Connecticut. What <laugh> exactly . A water .

Speaker 3 13:28

Poland Spring. Poland Spring. I'm going and shucking Poland Spring to like shop Right . And stop and shop in Walmart. And it was great, but it was a great way to cut my teeth in the,

Speaker 2 13:37

It could be sales, right? Yeah, yeah .

Speaker 3 13:39

Closing.

Speaker 2 13:40

Yeah. And like hunting down the lead and like getting it closed .

Speaker 3 13:44

Totally. Yeah. Because look, being a golf pro, you're in sales all day, every day. You're selling yourself. That's what you're doing. You're selling your services. I can help you with your swing, I can help you putting, I can do , I can do all these things to empower you and make your game better. And it's eventually up to your client to make that decision. If they want to continue forward with you , transition to a product where you gotta go in and make the case for something that's not you. That's a big <laugh>. That's a big adjustment

Speaker 2 14:11

That Yeah . I to convince the person to buy it. That's a hard job. Like that's,

Speaker 3 14:15

Yeah. If

Speaker 2 14:15

You, if you could master sales, that's like one of the best skills you could ever have in your entire life. Like my buddies in sales, he make so much fricking money, it's ridiculous. I was like, what the hell? I mean, he worked his off. But it's like,

Speaker 3 14:26

Yeah,

Speaker 2 14:27

It'd be , but it's like the 1%, you know what I mean? Like , if you get really good at sales, it's like you can really do really well.

Speaker 3 14:33

There's a lot of really good life skills in there too. In , in teaching you how to negotiate, teaching you how to be yourself through a situation and, and let people see the true person who's delivering the message. Right? It's relationship building and, and relationship maintenance, all that stuff. That's great. At work and at home. I mean, sales situations will help you out with your wife. It'll help you

Speaker 2 14:56

<crosstalk> after law school. I thought that would help me out. Like when arguments, I'd be like,

Speaker 3 14:59

That's the opposite man. <laugh> . I

Speaker 2 15:02

Know . She still beats me all the time. It's all right . <laugh> . I'm like , all I have is debt. <laugh> .

Speaker 3 15:09

Yeah. In , in the , in the personal point system of a marriage. Oh

Speaker 2 15:12

Yeah. Oh yeah. Forget that. <laugh> like, okay , you in , forget it. I'm not gonna argue. Um, so how long did you do that?

Speaker 3 15:22

That was about four years. Uh, and I, I worked up from territory to a larger territory to a region. And that was great experience. 'cause that gave me the opportunity to learn kind of a corporate hierarchy and how it , the structure works and how you work your way through it. And then coming over to Golf Zone was the opportunity just kind of popped up out of nowhere. Right. But it was , uh, through a golf pro. Through a golf pro that I used to work with. He was doing some work with the company. Yep . Um , who were they doing ? And he said, Hey, we're building a Salesforce. He was kind of sales operations doing a little bit of both. Uh, 'cause the company was so new. They , they were founded here in the US in 2017 and that's when he started with him . So he called me up and said, Hey, we're building our Salesforce. I know you've been in sales, things are going well. Do you wanna take a look? Took his call. I met with the CEO .

Speaker 2 16:10

Well , it's not water. I mean, I like water.

Speaker 3 16:13

Water's pretty good,

Speaker 2 16:14

Man . It's golf.

Speaker 3 16:15

You , you need water. I want golf simulators though. That sounds fun. True . Um , that's

Speaker 2 16:20

Very true.

Speaker 3 16:21

So yeah, it was couple quick phone calls and very quickly I realized that I could marry the two of, Hey, you've gotten pretty good at this sales thing and you really like that lifestyle of the Monday to Friday more structured, not working 200 hours a week. And also golf. So just having both of those as your career path. It's never even thought it was an option, but five years later, here we are.

Speaker 2 16:47

Yeah. So who's golf zone? Like people don't know who golf . I know Golf Zone is because I've done a bunch of research and I've done a bunch of content lately, but like, who are they? 'cause they're massive. They're fricking huge.

Speaker 3 16:59

It it's almost unfathomable how large and the, the reach of this company. So Goldstone was founded , uh, I might have said this earlier in the year 2000 in Korea, very much out of a market need. If, if you're not familiar with Korea, most of your population is in Seoul. And Seoul is about five times the size of all five boroughs of Manhattan put together. And it's all high rises . It's all urban development. Right. And you've got a really huge golfing culture in Korea. But because the city is so big, there's no golf courses, there's nowhere to do it. So you have to go or

Speaker 2 17:41

Do it out right outside the city . Yeah.

Speaker 3 17:42

You have to leave the city, go to the suburbs. Now you're traveling for an hour each way. You're playing a six hour round because everybody wants to do it. And just due to supply and demand, the prices are astronomical. So it's really hard to capture and retain your golfing audience in Korea. Excuse me. So in the year 2000, the idea was, hey, let's bring golf to the city. Let's put it in a room. Can we set up a screen and just have 'em hit into a screen? And after a couple different generations of technology, right around 2009, golf Zone really started catching fire. And in 2011, the company went public in Korea to the tune of a $1.6 billion market cap. It was the fifth largest IPO in the history of the Korean exchange. Um, they started expanding into satellite offices. They opened up Japan, they opened China , uh, and then they opened the United States in 2017. So we are 100% owned by our global parent company in Korea here at Golf Zone America. Just a peek into some of the numbers here. Last year in 2022, we did, I think it was 87 million rounds of golf on our simulators. 87,000,018 hole rounds by registered golf zone users. So that doesn't count any guest play. It doesn't count people coming in and playing 9, 10, 15 holes. It's only fully completed rounds. 87 million of them . It's astronomical.

Speaker 2 19:13

Yeah, that's crazy . I mean they're , they're so big. Like I didn't realize 'cause doesn't Golf zone also own golf buddy? I could've sworn that's what I saw.

Speaker 3 19:21

That's correct.

Speaker 2 19:22

That one of their sub .

Speaker 3 19:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:23

Yeah. I was like, what the hell? Like, because I was , I'm like dealing that too. I was like, holy crap . Like you don't understand or like , I don't know , like how po like how big this brand is in Korea, which is cool. Is like, you know, and you only starting to see like, I feel like, and this is not a knock, I just feel like you didn't really see a lot of golf zone stuff like just the masses yet. And then with the Wave being a launch and the two vision and like, I mean, the first time I saw the two vision was the PGA show this year. And it blew my mind. I was like, what the hell is that? Yeah . That is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah. And then like it , like I just never seen anything like that. And I was like, that's that's what I want. That's the future right there. You know? And, and I think like it's a mountain of coming to America and like, and the power and the force because they run a lot , a lot of the technology, like people don't understand, like this is like literally probably the biggest sim company in the world, I would say.

Speaker 3 20:15

Oh, for sure . It is. Yeah. Global market share. We are number one by leaps and bounds. And second place is a distant second here in the US It's a very different story because we came here in 2017, but you know, some of our competitors full swing golf, they've been around for 30 years here. They've had a presence in the United States for 30 years. So that's what we're battling is it's not necessarily a market share question that we're battling in the us but it's just a brand awareness question. Yeah . We're still taking calls to this day. If people call us and they say, God, I saw you online, I didn't even know you were hearing this thing. And it's like, we've been here for five years, six years, seven years. <laugh> .

Speaker 2 20:53

Yeah. It's getting the message out that like, yo, we're here and like we know what we're doing. Yeah . Like, so like when I, so I just did a a , a video. I was telling Jimmy, like on the , on the wave, right ? And like I did a bunch of researchers on , on the brand itself as part of this video. And like one thing that blew my mind is like, I remember that like goldstone's in like 63 different countries at this point. And what's super cool, because I haven't seen anybody do this, is they have like their own like pay league kind of thing, like competition. And they had like a huge prize pool, like millions of dollars in prizes for online golf. Like, and I'm like, that's all next level stuff, right? Like , because that's what everyone like talks about doing, but they're already doing it. It's just that like yeah ,

Speaker 3 21:35

They're

Speaker 2 21:36

Doing it in Korea and now they're coming over to the United States and they're really coming in full force when like, yeah

Speaker 3 21:41

This is

Speaker 2 21:41

Like one of those times they feel like where it's like you're gonna see the switch , you're gonna see that like, not in terms of golf zone , but like, like when, what's the place that Callaway owns my mind as well ? Top Golf . Uh , yeah Topgolf, when Topgolf came from like, what the hell's Topgolf? That's stupid, right? And then it's like, yeah ,

Speaker 3 21:55

No,

Speaker 2 21:56

That's a big shift. And it's like the same kind of thing. It's like you're gonna start seeing this big shift where it's like you gonna be normal. Like oh that's what I want. You know? And as prices start coming down on these units, like, you know, even especially like, we'll talk about this in a minute, but like with the two vision , I mean that thing's like how much the two vision cost ?

Speaker 3 22:13

Yeah . It's 76,000.

Speaker 2 22:15

Yeah . $76,000 . I mean if I had 70 I'd buy that . My house, I was super rich. But like, but the Wave <laugh> , I mean, I mean Jimmy has like four of 'em behind him at his house right now . His basement can't

Speaker 3 22:26

Get

Speaker 2 22:26

Enough of them <laugh> . But if you know the wave, it's like with the wave, they're pretty much taking the technology and the two vision and they're putting it in the wave. It's a smaller scale, but it's like kind of close to the same thing, but not as, but like close enough. And it's like holy crap. You know? And it's like the price point's , what four is it four for the, what's it called?

Speaker 3 22:49

39.95 baby ?

Speaker 2 22:49

Yeah, 39 95 . Right. So it's like, it's crazy 'cause I , I mean I'm excited by golf songs , so I'm like, whoa, this is, the graphics look amazing. They look real number one. Oh good . They look cartoony. I mean I'd probably lose the whole caddy thing. Dunno if it was me. 'cause it's kind of like , I'm like, come on dude. But other than that I think it's super cool. That's what I'd say

Speaker 3 23:08

Noted. That's a fair point, fair point. You know,

Speaker 2 23:11

I'm talking about, you can see the guy in the background. It's like, oh , like, like I would lose that or I'd, I don't know , maybe had some guy talking I'd put like chubs there or something. Like that'd be cool. Um,

Speaker 3 23:20

Yeah, it'd be cool if we got like Jim Nance as the announcer, right?

Speaker 2 23:25

You probably could. I mean, you're the one golf simulator company in the world. I mean, they said Jimmy McDonald would be the announcer. Good shot . I've

Speaker 3 23:32

Been selling that for six years, man. They won't buy

Speaker 2 23:35

No <laugh>. So. All right . So then you what num what employee number were you at Golf Zone ?

Speaker 3 23:43

I don't exactly remember. I , I was either five or six and crazy and there were a couple people that started within the same week or so. Yeah , I think I was five and the next guy was six. Um, yeah, now we're, we're , we're quite a bit bigger. I think we're, we're close to 40 now. Uh , we're just growing like crazy. I mean, do

Speaker 2 24:03

Golf zones maybe guys , I can't even like tell you. It's like, it's massive. It's like, it's like the Apple of Korea. It's like some huge, you know,

Speaker 3 24:11

They , they touch everything. Golf, everything Golf, golf Zone owns at least a piece of it. And most times it's a big piece. So it , you think here in the US golf retail PGA tour superstore, right? That's probably one of the preeminent names you think of here in the us In Korea it's golf zone retail. So you go into a golf zone branded retail facility and you go buy your golf balls and your gloves and there's no golf simulators. Yeah. You get your golf bag, you golf shoes, and then you take 'em across the street and you go play on a golf zone simulator. Every part of the journey. Okay.

Speaker 2 24:44

So when you first came on board then in 17, like what did, what was the offering at Golf Zone? Like what did they have that was for sale in the us ?

Speaker 3 24:53

Yeah. We , we had , um, we really had two core products that we sold. We had the vision premium, which isn't terribly different from the two vision. There's a couple subtle but key differences between the two. Uh, and then we had our vision standard, which we're still selling today. Um, GDR standard was part of that as well. The GDR stands for Gulf Zone driving range. Uh, that's more, you see that in training and , uh, practice facilities, of which there are a couple in the New York market , um, that we own and operate called , uh, Gulf Zone Range by Ledbetter. And that's just practice analysis and training. This , those simulators, the GDR simulators, it's meant to have one user on them for a period of time, whether it's 30 to 60, 90 minutes. Our other simulators, the vision models, so vision premium, vision standards, two vision, those are all our entertainment simulators, which are meant to have two or more people, two to six people on them for a round of golf on a golf course.

Speaker 2 26:00

So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the two. Like let's talk about the two products that I know about. I mean Sure . Uh, let's talk about the two vision and the wave. And let's start with the wave first. So I guess can you explain to the audience , um, you know, what is the, what is the two Vision

Can you explain what is 2 Vision?

Speaker 3 26:20

Two Vision first? Yeah. Okay .

Speaker 2 26:21

Yeah. It's two Vision first. Sorry. Yeah,

Speaker 3 26:24

I can

Speaker 2 26:26

Vision , I can do that . I can't really figure that out.

Speaker 3 26:27

I couldn't see what your other hand was doing. I trust you were doing the right thing. Yeah , like tell me . So the two vision simulator is our flagship model. That is when people think golf zone, they think what's the best, and this is the best . The two vision is a camera based technology, full service , turnkey golf simulator. So we use high-speed cameras. Two , there's two for each handedness of golfer. There's one in the ceiling and there's one in a kiosk. Yep .

Speaker 2 26:57

Which of those two? That's exactly , yeah. The red one's a ceiling and the blue's in the kiosk.

Speaker 3 27:01

That's exactly right. Yep . And those two cameras are set at an offset angle, kind of like, so if you could see my hands.

Speaker 2 27:09

Yeah. Uh ,

Speaker 3 27:10

The , the reason that we put a camera in the kiosk <laugh> , well some of this is audio only, right? <laugh> . So one hand pointing down, one hand comes , and if you, if you have the cameras at that angle, we found that it's a bit better than our vision premium, which just has two cameras in the ceiling. Because when you have them offset like this, you're able to capture a hell of a lot more clubhead data. And the feedback that we got from our users was, Hey, this is great. The ball data's awesome, but the club data's a little lacking. So we took this different approach with these cameras to a ton more club head data. Um , all the data displays on the kiosk, I think you had it. Yep . An image

Speaker 2 27:51

Of it that timing it like perfect timing already already said that. Yeah . Some B roll action right there .

Speaker 3 27:55

We didn't even practice this, Paul. The

Speaker 2 27:57

Red light turns on, it's like hit the slides . So <laugh>,

Speaker 3 28:01

So all , all your data and , and that's also touchscreen. So that's how you control the whole unit right there. But let's take a step back from the kiosk for a second. Once you get on the golf simulator, you selected your golf course, you set up a game, you're ready to go, you're standing on the simulator ready to hit shots. The whole objective here is to take away that kiosk and just make this a game between the golfer and the ball and the course. Because you don't have to go interface with the CPU really at all. It's gonna run the whole game for you. And there's, there's no buttons you need to hit. So all the buttons are there if you want to have that experience. But we try to make this golf emulation more so than simulation. We want you to feel like you're playing the game. And we're able to do that a by kind of eliminating that kiosk so that you don't have to interface with it throughout your round . Uh ,

Speaker 2 28:51

You just do it right at the beginning and then you just do your thing, right? Essentially at that point.

Speaker 3 28:54

Yeah. You just play, you just play your game. Right. You don't have to

Speaker 2 28:57

Like seriously isn't the coolest thing ever. I think this is the coolest thing ever. Like straight up, this is the coolest simulator I've ever seen in my entire life. Like it's the coolest thing. Like literally , um,

Speaker 3 29:07

The two pieces, you don't

Speaker 2 29:08

Even need the kiosk at all. Like, I mean, you need to set your stuff up, but you don't even like after that it's like, I'm gonna go play golf all good.

Speaker 3 29:15

Yeah. And now you don't have, like, there's other simulators where you have to go to the CPU and you have to change your aim and your club and all that stuff. And it's all, you don't need to. You can if you want that experience, but you don't have to. But the other two elements that I think really elevate this to the next level, our number one, the auto tee up system, so that there's no shagging balls, right? You hit a ball, it hits the screen, it returns, and a new ball is pegged up for you automatically at each user's unique preferred T height . So if Paul and I, if we're playing together and you like your ball teed up at three and three quarter inches and I like mine at four, it's gonna know who's playing and it'll tee it up appropriately. You've also got three different hitting mats really on the two vision. It's five. You've got fairway and then your rough mat is subdivided into a long cut and a shorter cut. And then your bunker mat is subdivided into a green side and a fairway bunker hitting <crosstalk> .

Speaker 2 30:13

So you gotta switch , switch . You guys gotta switch out this graphic 'cause that's not even right because really there's not two more like you should tell 'em on the website. That's not even like half as much stuff. That's weird .

Speaker 3 30:22

That graphic there is actually of our vision premium model. That's the one that they started, we brought here in 2017.

Speaker 2 30:30

Oh.

Speaker 3 30:30

And if you cycle back, yeah, we should change that .

Speaker 2 30:34

I know. It's , it's , they should change that. You can see it here. The reason why I know because I got to play with it. I was telling Jimmy like before the show, like I got to go play with the two vision at Tru like two weeks ago. And like I noticed thing like the back of my hand, I was , they taught me how to use it and within like 10 minutes I was like, oh, this is the coolest thing ever. You like write a note change image on website. Um ,

Speaker 3 30:54

I'm writing that down as we speak .

Speaker 2 30:56

And also that should be slanted like Right, I know , I know about the product. So like this is all like, you hit the screen and then it comes down and it's a slanted downwards and then it rolls into a feeder underneath you and it automatically just does, like you never have to bend over you just like ever. Unless you need to move the ball into the different grass . Right. Or the different stuff on the right.

Speaker 3 31:16

Uh , even then I use my club, I use my club to do it . Oh , good

Speaker 2 31:19

Too . Yeah, that's true. You can go too. I guess you can kind of see it here on this screen. You can kind of see like there's actually what, five, right, five lies you can pick from.

Speaker 3 31:26

There are, yeah. Fairway, intermediate, rough, deep, rough, greenside bunker, fairway, bunker five total . And

How does the 2 Vision works?

Speaker 2 31:32

The cool thing, what I love about this unit is like you were saying before, like you don't really have to touch the kiosk afterwards. Right? So like, let's pretend like I hit a shot. I guess it kind , I guess like explain how a system works. So I hit my T shot and it, and it, it ends up on a hill. What happens to the system?

Speaker 3 31:49

Yeah. So at that point, if you end up, let's say Paul, you hit your drive 325 yards, I assume it's somewhere out, maybe just hundred yards , the first cutter off. So that whole hitting surface that you're standing on is gonna lift out of the ground and then it's gonna tilt to simulate the terrain of the course you're playing. Fricking cool. It'll move up to 16 degrees of slope, which doesn't sound like a lot just conversationally, but if it were 16 and a half degrees of slope, the ball wouldn't sit still on the fairway, Matt . So that's about, that's crazy . That's about

Speaker 2 32:24

Mass will go about , have it roll off the thing.

Speaker 3 32:27

Now you'll see a more severe lie in the rough, our swing plate won't go that far, but in real life you'd see more severe than that. But on the fairway you're not gonna see much more than 16 degrees. So it's pretty darn close. Um, furthermore on the

Speaker 2 32:40

Two unit . So the other thing is too , is like you can't cheat, right? That's the other thing is that you can't cheat on the system. I mean you can, but you're gonna get penalized, right?

Speaker 3 32:48

Right. If you can always play the ball from the fairway, you can always put the ball on the fairway, Matt , and play from there if you want to. Um , but the system knows which hitting mat you're supposed supposed to be on and which hitting mat you're on. So if you put it on the fairway, but you're supposed to be in the rough, it'll assess a percentage penalty and it'll call that out. Out

Speaker 2 33:06

On is crazy . It's crazy because it's like, it does it internally. Like it's not like, oh , okay, whatever. It's like, let's say I I I went in the sand, right? Like I the screen and I'm like f that I'm gonna put it on the grass and then I hit my next shot. It's like, it's still gonna act like I hit it outta the sand or, or is is it not Do that, it's gonna give you a penalty in the math, right. And be like, well actually you didn't and you're gonna get this penalty automatically and the distance on the ball and everything else is gonna be penalized on that shot. Which is kind of cool because you can't cheat. I mean you can, but it's like, it's pointless. So it's like it's

Speaker 3 33:38

Not gonna work out for you if you do, it's

Speaker 2 33:40

Not gonna work out. Yeah. And then the other thing that's cool is like if you hit out the sand, like you would never think like this, but like it feels like you're hitting out a sand, which is nuts 'cause it's a bunch of like , it's bristles, but it feels just like it. And the difference between the bunkers and the green or the green side and the fairway, it's like you can feel the difference. It's so crazy. It's like, I don't know, it's just nuts. Like it's the coolest thing .

Speaker 3 34:00

Seen I , when I do live demos on this thing, that's all people want to do is head out of the, out of the bunker map. They wanna see the plate move and they wanna experience that. And that is your wow factor for sure , in my opinion. It also turns it from a, just an entertaining golf simulator to a game improvement golf simulator because there's really no place in the world you can go practice balls at eight degrees below your feet. Everybody in

Speaker 2 34:25

Sand. In sand,

Speaker 3 34:26

Yeah. In sand no less, right? Or out of the rock or,

Speaker 2 34:30

Yeah . There's cool things too is you can put, so like even like that you can put on it and it, I know all about your product. I'm not trying to sell here . I think I just think it's that cool. Like you're looking for a job <laugh> maybe. Let's see. So then there's like a , there's like a la so you're putting , and it's just like, oh, you gotta hit it like 15 feet, let's just pretend. Right? And then what it does, it shows like a laser beam, like a red laser, like a cat, you know, like a cat chasing laser thing. Like shoot it like right in front at the edge of the, of the, of the system. And that's where you're supposed to aim. Like, so, you know, like that's the proper what lie I not lie, but angle I guess or whatever line .

Speaker 3 35:05

And

Speaker 2 35:05

Then you just

Speaker 3 35:06

Ball .

Speaker 2 35:06

And I was like, holy crap. They thought of everything. Like

Speaker 3 35:10

I always compare that feature Paul to like , I used to caddy, right? And when I would read the green for somebody, I would use the flagstick and I would point to a blade of grass on the ground. And that's all we're doing is we're calling out, Hey, aim it here. It's up to you to hit that line with the right speed to make it. But if you hit it here, you're gonna have the best chance to make the pot .

Speaker 2 35:28

And like also, like even if like, then you might ask yourself, well what if I move the ball? Let's say I was like right here and then I move the ball to the right or the left, right before I even hit the shot. That laser moves too. Like it knows where the ball is. It like, it kind of follows you around. So it's like you can't be a dumb. It's like, okay, I'm gonna put it over here. The laser's gonna be right here, <laugh> , and

Speaker 3 35:45

Then that you're

Speaker 2 35:46

Still , you're still aiming at the same point. It , it's, it's literally the coolest like simulator I've ever been on. That's like, it's very ingenious. Like everything they did, there was a purpose for it. It's not just there to like, you know, look cool, it , like there's a job for it and it makes it go faster, right? So instead of like, I think it's one of the downsides with sims, it's like when you go putt, you're like, oh, it's 15 feet. And you're like, okay, cool. And you hit the ball and it like goes right past the hole and you don't know where the lie is. 'cause this thing has to read from the cameras and all this other. And like really?

Speaker 3 36:17

Yeah ,

Speaker 2 36:17

This thing makes it so, like, if you can learn how far 15 feet really is for you when , when you put, it's still gonna show the right lie and the right, you know, length of the shot. I don't know . Just , it's just really cool. It's

Speaker 3 36:29

So cool . So let's talk about putting for a quick second because that, in my opinion is one of the key differentiators that doesn't get talked about enough with our simulators and with a lot of competitive products in the marketplace, putting is either not an option or it's not a good one. And you hear all the time, people say, well, we just turned putting off, or we set GIS to 15 feet because putting is stupid and it's not very good the

Speaker 2 36:53

Entire game. Right? Like it's like literally it's huge. That makes you, that's like, that's how you actually get your, your handicapped down is your putting Well it's , well it's every or you a 10 foot circle and we'll give you an automatic in after you making the 10 foot circle. Like , that's.

Speaker 3 37:07

And , and Paul, if you did that on the PGA tour every week, you would have a 40 way playoff at 40 under Right? Of course. If you made guys not put, it's not gonna work. The game is won and lost on the Greens and golf zone realized that that was a shortcoming of golf simulators and put a ton of money and effort and development into making the, putting as realistic as we possibly could. And it's to the point now where I I , it's the best I've ever experienced in golf simulation. I think it's the best in the category. It's the best in the the

Speaker 2 37:38

World . I disagree on

Speaker 3 37:39

Our simulators. And you can, a lot of our clients will mark out the floor in front of them. They'll use tape or something like that to mark out 3, 6, 9, 10 feet. So when you have a putt of that distance on the simulator, you know, you have a frame of reference, oh , okay, that's where the hole is. It's five feet away. Let me hit it to that line. And if you hit it that distance, the ball will go in the hole. It will, you can hit putts as short as six inches on the simulator. And if you hit it too hard, it's not going in. You know, it , this is real life putting here and you have to treat it that way.

Speaker 2 38:11

I think , uh, I just think like you guys have thought of everything, and I'm not trying to sell it to vision. I mean, 'cause the two vision is $75,000 and like, this is more of an entertainment product like you were saying before, like, so like you guys Yeah . Aren't you guys working with Troon ? Don't you have a bunch of like locations and you're opening up places or what's the , what's the , what's the deal with that?

Speaker 3 38:30

Yeah, that's right. So golf zone's really good at two things. And the first thing we're good at is making some really badass technology. Our golf simulators are the best in the world in my opinion. Um, and the other thing that we're really good at is operating a commercial venue in , in , in Korea.

Speaker 2 38:50

Yeah. 'cause you know how to do that for sure, right? Like that's what you do.

Speaker 3 38:55

There's like 6,000 stores, man. There's 6,000 stores that are either corporate owned or franchises of Golf zone and we know how to do it. We've gone through the trials and tribulations of running these venues. We know what works and what doesn't. And we're taking that mindset and bringing it here as well. So we have our private customers who buy 4, 8, 10 of these things and they open up their own venue. But then we also have a retail division and we've opened up now three venues in the metropolitan New York market that are all using our entertaining technology. So these are venues where you can go have a burger and a beer and go play 18 holes with your buddies. And then we also have a , uh, two venues , uh, one right now, the second will come online later this year called Golf Zone Range by Leadbetter. And those golf zone range by Ledbetter venues are training and analysis venues. They're places where you can go get a lesson from APGA professional, you can enhance your game , uh, but you're not gonna go and have a beer and play 18 holes at Pebble because that's not what we're trying to do there. You're gonna go to Golf Zone social for that. And that is our golf zone. Social , uh, by Tru venues.

Speaker 2 40:05

Yeah. So like what's cool is like, you can go and you can play the two vision if you want, hang out. And so the only place you're at right now is in New York,

Speaker 3 40:16

Correct? Yeah. We've got one venue in Stanford, Connecticut, which is a stones throw from the New York border. We've got West Niac New York in Rockland County, and then we've got Scarsdale New York in Westchester County.

Speaker 2 40:30

And then , um, what about expansion? Like where else ? Like , or like is there any more slated not just in the New York metropolitan area?

Speaker 3 40:39

No , right now our, our focus is in the New York metro area. Phase two will be an expansion regionally. Um, so we'll break out of New York, but we'll stay in the Northeast. Yeah . And phase three will be more

Speaker 2 40:50

Big cities, right? Where there's like same kind of, I would assume model as what's having in Korea. It's like, look, we know the big metropolitan areas don't have a lot of places to go play golf, so let's focus on that. Not like, let's go open a location up in Oklahoma. Right. Or like , I mean, maybe later on, but not right. Yeah .

Speaker 3 41:07

Maybe later on, not, not phase two <laugh> . Phase two, you'll see cities like, and and we haven't done any of this

Speaker 2 41:13

Yet , so I'm not Boston and DC and Phil Philadelphia and Chicago and Minneapolis and like all these big metropolitan areas that like half the year is gonna be cold, right. We're not gonna be able to play. Yep .

Speaker 3 41:26

Yep . And actually makes sense. Some of the warmer weather are just as if not more so successful than the cold weather climates. Houston, Texas comes to mind. Our our venues in Houston are , they're private operators there, but they're, they're just great. Those are year round solid businesses, whereas up north

Speaker 2 41:47

Ooh , Scottsdale would be big too, man, honestly, for I bet it's

Speaker 3 41:50

Too hot.

Speaker 2 41:52

Too hot right now. It is . And I'm saying like, it's almost like you flip it, right? It's so hot right now. You Yeah . You can go play golf in at Tru , you know, whatever or at, you know, Scottsdale TPC for a hundred bucks, but it's like 115 degrees outside and it's not fun. So it's like, why would you wanna go do that? If I can go play , uh, have a drink and hang out with my friends and go play Scottsdale TPC and I'm in Scottsdale at some bar, like I might go do that, you know? Yeah . I don't know . I think it's, that's so cool as technology and you guys can kind of see what this image like is like, you can see all five of the , uh, grass types here and stuff like that. Um Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But so then that's a two vision, right? So that's like the diamond, right? Like that's the, that's the top Top,

Speaker 3 42:36

Yes.

Speaker 2 42:36

And then you guys are coming have come out the wave now. What's the wave?

Speaker 3 42:42

Yeah. The , the wave is a very , it's a very, very different product. <laugh> and it , it's a product. We haven't been in this category, but the category is probably the largest that there is in golf simulation in , uh, just getting out to the mass consumer, right? And it's a $4,000 price point. Personal launch monitor device slash golf simulator. Yeah . That's the unit right there. Right down front and center. That's the golf zone wave that is a radar device. There is a camera on it, and you use that camera for two functions. First is for alignment. You can pull it up on your mobile device and you can see where it's pointed. So you can have it oriented at your target. So you get proper readings on your shots. And second, it's gonna videotape your swings. So you have something to go back and look at to do some , uh, further analysis on what you're doing to deliver the club through the impact zone. Um, on top of that golf zone, we're not just in the launch monitor category. We wouldn't be true to brand if we did that. We are a golf stimulation company. So that's what we really wanted to lean into with this product was yeah, take it to the range, use it on the range, that's great. You're gonna get all the data you need to have a , an enhanced range session , uh, and , and deeper analysis into the numbers. But when you take it home, we want you to be able to set it up in an environment like this, whether it be in your garage or your den or an extra room or your basement. And what's the one thing that Radar launch monitors can't do is putting radar launch monitors are really good at tracking a projectile down range , but as soon as the golf ball never leaves the ground, you're asking that device to do something it wasn't made to do. And so we created a precision putting mat that pairs with your golf zone wave launch monitor. And that putting mat uses 14 infrared sensors running up and down the right and left sides of it. So you're gonna get a whole bunch of pictures of the club and the ball at and after the impact zone, which is gonna allow you to have the same exact putting experience on this $4,000 unit as you can on our larger two vision $75,000 unit. It is , that's crazy. First in , it's the first that I'm aware of in this category to be offering something like that. And the putting experience on Golf Zone is by far the best. And we wanted to give that to everybody.

Speaker 2 45:15

I mean, I think this is phenomenal. Like this is such next level stuff because no one's doing that. I mean, when I first saw the Wave, I was like, oh, that's cool, you can put, right. That was the first thing I was like, oh, that's a whole other thing as what Jim and I talked about earlier. Um, you know, but the problem is, is like, I can't put, you know, I guess it gets , you could tweak it. It's clunky, right? I think you can use like the Launch Pro and a couple other ones will let you put, but it's like super, super clunky. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But with the wave it's like you can put, and it's like, it, it's in a geeky kinda way. It's so it's like holy crap, this is the coolest thing ever because like , I'm actually put and actually feels like I'm actually playing golf. Um, which is just phenomenal. And the , the , my experience with the wave as this so far, you get the same graphics I would say as you would in the two vision . It looks almost the exact same, right? Yeah . And I'm running off of , and I was , they always , you know, they always, with most simulator companies, they're always like, you know, run off a gaming pc. If you have a simulator room run off a gaming pc, right? Because you can move full max res and everything like that. Now I wasn't, because I don't have a gaming pc, but I have a really fast like business pc, right? Mm-Hmm . And it worked fine, no problem. And it looked really good. So that's the first thing. Um, the putting is next level, like nothing I've ever experienced before. And then what's cool is like you can only , you can either use the wave, like in indoors with the putting, or you can take out to the range with the unit behind you. So you can kind of see, like in this picture here, that the unit right behind her is the actual , um, the, what do you call it ? The launch monitor, I guess, or the,

Speaker 3 46:50

Yep . The ,

Speaker 2 46:50

You know, the , and so I, I , it's , it's a very versatile product that you can actually use it both ways and like, I don't know, I , I think it's, now, Jamie and I talked about this before the show, like what separates the wave from, like , say its competitors, like the full swing , the st plus , they're all around the same price point, right? Is is the putting for sure. But also I think like, this is more, if you want a really good simulator, like a really good simulator that has all kinds of cool features. Like the Wave is like , yeah , I can, it's like you flip it, right? It's like some units are like, oh, it's really good at being a training device that we can also run sim functions on it, right? Yeah .

Speaker 3 47:31

Or

Speaker 2 47:31

This , like, and I, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like it's the , the wave is flipped. It's like we're a really good simulator that you can also do some like, you know, training stuff on. So it's like, which bucket do you wanna fit? And as a , as a consumer, who are you? Do you wanna train a lot or do you want to play a lot? Right? And that , and it , it's cool because no one's really doing it like that. And also it's like their stuff looks really good. Like their courses look good. It's not all cheesy, you know, like, I don't know . So the wave's awesome. The wave's awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3 48:03

I think you nailed it . I , I think you nailed it, Paul. You , you can be there , there is no shortage of options out there who are great training devices that can also be a simulator. But our angle on this was, well, hey, we're golf zone, we're a really good simulator. So what if we made one of those that could also be a training device? That was the whole angle here. And I , I think it's really working. I , I think the product is an absolute home run. But again, we're fighting the battle of, hey, nobody knows we're here. So that's why this product exists. It's $4,000. There's a lot more people that can afford that in 75. So let's get it out there. Let's get the golf zone brand name

Speaker 2 48:43

Elevated. Yeah. The technology's all there. It's just in a smaller rac like, you know, like you don't have the moving floor and all the special grass and whatever, whatever. But like, you don't need all that because if you want the core system, you're getting the core , the little core system for what? 20th of the price? Yeah,

Speaker 3 48:59

15th

Speaker 2 49:00

Of the price. I mean, I , I haven't taken it , I didn't take it outside. I took it indoors and I used it on a sim and I plugged it on , you know, and I plugged it into like a projector and I was like this exact same experience. Um , and I also, so like, so there's two ways you can use it. You can use it through the , your computer, which is like the full, if you want the full sim experience, use it through the computer. Absolutely. And , uh, if you don't wanna do that, you can also use it through the app. Which , uh, is iOS, is it Android too or just iOS?

Speaker 3 49:30

IOS and Android. Yep .

Speaker 2 49:32

Both. So like , and then, but it's different. It's a different, it's a different, it's similar but different, right? Like I would say that the app between the app and the sim or the app and the computer,

Speaker 3 49:43

It is, yeah. So the computer is gonna give you the ability to play golf, right? You're gonna play on

Speaker 2 49:49

Hundred courses. And they're not courses either. It's not like some course you never heard of. It's like, whoa, crap. How get that course? You know , these are,

Speaker 3 49:55

These are legit golf courses. Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:57

Um , and legit ones. The app ,

Speaker 3 50:00

The the app. Paul doesn't have courses on it. It's got I think, one hole that you can go

Speaker 2 50:05

Play. Yeah . It's one hole . It's , yeah. It's more for practicing. I feel like the app is,

Speaker 3 50:08

It is, it's called Wave Skills. That's the app that we have right now. And that is just full on training. So if you've ever seen the backend of a TrackMan device and just all the numbers,

Speaker 2 50:20

Yeah, that's

Speaker 3 50:21

What you're gonna see. You're gonna see the data and you're gonna be able to analyze the data and it stores the data to your account. So you can go back and, and compare today's practice session against what you did in January. You know, it doesn't matter. You can, you've got all the data saved there forever. Cool .

Speaker 2 50:35

Yeah. I think it's super cool. It's like , it's like, it's made for when you wanna go use it to the range or go practice in a yard or like not, yes.

Speaker 3 50:42

Not

Speaker 2 50:42

Play golf, but you're actually practicing with data. Not so much, you know, I'm playing golf on a really cool simulator,

Speaker 3 50:49

Doing your wedge gapping, right. You gotta have, you gotta have data to do that. So you can do all that stuff with this

Speaker 2 50:56

Device . And you can , and you can also like, I know 'cause you have like the three modes, right? Like you can do like putting, you can do like approach and you can do, what's the third one? Like driving or something?

Speaker 3 51:05

Just driving

Speaker 2 51:06

Range . Regular it range . Regular driving range , range approach , putting Yeah. And like what's cool is you can li like , this is , this is the fun part. You can be like , oh, I suck it 90 yards out. Like what club do I use? Okay. So like you could literally just put the app on on iOS and you can literally practice that shot over and over and over and really gap that shot and like , oh, I hit my sand wedge 95 yards. And you have all that data and you go, okay, now I'm gonna go back 10 more yards further. Do I still hit that? Like you can literally like drill in your numbers. I don't know . I think it's , it's, it's cool like gap . That's

Speaker 3 51:35

How you get good right there.

Speaker 2 51:37

Yeah. And then if you wanna put like, 'cause that , that's always the disconnect because you can't put, so then people were like, well , I'm good at approach and I'm good at the driving range, but I can't put, and it's like literally you can sit there and put the same 10 foot, put a hundred times on the mat and be like, put, put, put put and be like, why am I breaking a right or am I breaking left or whatever. I don't know. It's, yeah.

Speaker 3 51:57

In and , and Paul, the , the tricky thing is retraining the American consumer. That putting is an actual thing you can do on a golf simulator. 'cause they'd say, no, we don't wanna do it. 'cause putting sucks, putting sucks, putting sucks. That's not very good. And then they get to the golf course. They've been practicing all winter in the colder weather climates. They've been playing on their golf simulators, but they haven't been putting, so they're hitting the ball great. But they're re-putting every hole when they finally get out to the golf course and they're going, why am I shooting 95? I hit a , I hit 12 greens in regulation, I shot 91. It's like, yeah, you're not putting So if , or

Speaker 2 52:34

Chipping, I'm not chipping like, you know, like small chips, right? And just like enough, it's like

Speaker 3 52:39

Get the reps in, get the reps in, get the numbers, get the practice in. You're hitting the shots. Finish the hole. And that's what golf zone lets you do. Finish the hole, hit that six foot putt, make it, come on. You gotta make those. It's a tournament.

Speaker 2 52:54

That's , it's the thing. It's like, I , like I was the other, if I was your competitors, I'd be scared, honestly because I'd be like, oh crap. Because I think like, people don't know what golf zone really is. Kinda like we talked about at the beginning of the show, like who they are, the technology, what they are, the whole nine yards. And it's like, you know, I mean I've had to , now , now I've been able to see, now I've , I've been able to play on both of the units, right? Your two, your two flagship units that are here. And it's like, holy crap. Like no one can,

Speaker 3 53:25

Yeah ,

Speaker 2 53:25

No one can touch this. You know? It's like, but just getting that word out. But like, look, this is a huge competitor , like competitor now that you guys need to check out because if you, like, if , if you're gonna spend $4,000 on another unit, you want to make sure that like you have everything you want. Right? Or I don't know . I just think it's, it's, it's, it's pretty cool. Like, I don't have to say that. Like, oh yeah, you know? Yeah . You have this ability. What's your, what's your , uh, stick? You know, what , what's your stick? You know, like what are , what , what , what's your thing ? What are you known for? Oh, we can do spin or we can do we're cheap. Yeah . Or whatever it might be. And it's like, this is a good unit and you get what you pay for and you actually get more than that . Honestly, I think you get more than what you pay for with this unit because I mean, and it's like affordable. Here's the other thing too. Like they're like, one of the big things when you buy like a , like a simulator app , you know, launch, monitor , simulator, whatever is, they get you on the like membership and it's like, oh, it's a thousand dollars a year if you want all the golf courses. And it's like, whoa , I just spent like $5,000 on this thing. And it's like, this is actually affordable. Like if you want like the whole shebang, right? All the courses and all that stuff, it's like, it's not that much money. It's like, it's like super affordable. It's almost like you're making the , it's like you're selling a good product, but you're not screwing over the consumer on the tech or like , or the full access. You know? And I think a lot of people try to do that. Like, yeah , oh , it gonna be a lower price, but we're gonna get you up over here. You know? And it's , it's like you're like, no, we're gonna do a high quality product and just for a little bit more. Not , you know , if you want the whole thing, it's like a couple hundred bucks, not like

Speaker 3 54:59

Right . Like

Speaker 2 54:59

What they're offering is probably in my mind is worth well over a thousand dollars if you buy like their full version and they're not even charging like half that. That's my opinion. Like I think that's cool.

Speaker 3 55:10

So, oh , thanks for saying that. I won't tell, I won't tell our CFO that 'cause it'd be like, raise the price to a thousand <laugh>.

Speaker 2 55:17

Well, no, I think, I think that's a big selling point to be quite honest. Like, because no one's doing that. It's like people are getting tired of subscriptions. They don't wanna spend the subscription, they spend five grand on a unit, you know, and it's like,

Speaker 3 55:30

It's a bit of a necessary evil, you know, of course to maintain the servers and to keep developing new stuff. I mean there , there's ongoing costs associated with that and having the subscription helps offset some of that. So it, it is the best way for us to not only go to market with what we believe is the best software, but to keep it as the best software in the category. So having the subscription, it helps,

Speaker 2 55:56

But the difference between you and some of your competitors is that your subscription is actually affordable. Like, it's not like you're gouging the consumer on top of buying a really nice, expensive unit. You know, within re within reason. Yeah . That it's, it's like I don't have a problem paying that extra for the full max version of whatever the subscription is . I'm telling you right now that it's like I , it's probably like a fifth of the price of anybody else, right? Yeah. So it's almost like, well it's a no brainer. I'm actually gonna get the full version 'cause it's not that much money, you know, like I would never buy the full version of E six. I could never afford it, but, you know, I can get the full version . That's another thing ,

Speaker 3 56:39

You know, that's another thing I like about the wave though, is that if that is what you wanna do and , and you do wanna go get E six , by all means, you can run that on, on a WA device. Yeah , you can plug it

Speaker 2 56:50

Device if you want to or you can use their software. I mean

Speaker 3 56:52

Yeah, no problem .

Speaker 2 56:54

It's cool. I don't know , I think you guys have a phenomenal product and I'm not just saying that , that Thank you very, I'm ,

Speaker 3 56:58

I'm really glad to hear you say that. It's new. You know, we've been talking about it for a couple years now. We've been in development,

Speaker 2 57:04

We've gone changes year . What was the first announced in like 2020? That's what somebody said. And I was like, really? I didn't know that. Or 19 or like the V

Speaker 3 57:11

One

Speaker 2 57:12

Was , it was announced, right? Like, oh, we're coming out with this. But like, it wasn't released until like June or something.

Speaker 3 57:19

When was there not APGA show? It was 2021.

Speaker 2 57:24

21 ,

Speaker 3 57:24

Right? Yeah . So we announced it in 20 then. No,

Speaker 2 57:29

19 .

Speaker 3 57:29

A five , sorry , 22 . Really? Yeah, we announced it in 22 , January of 22, and then we released it in June of 23.

Speaker 2 57:38

Yeah, like a month and a half ago.

Speaker 3 57:40

Yeah . Yeah. And that's just development, you know ,

Speaker 2 57:45

And that's one thing Jimmy and I are talking about too, is like, there's not, what I, what I like so much about this unit is, I mean , I got to see both of 'em , right? So I got to see like their super high end and I got to see their made for the masses version and it's like so nice. There's such great units that like, you know, I think back to like, okay, who the competitors are and like who should really be worried right now? And the only thing that's like, it's a matter of time before everybody knows what Golf Zone is, right? Like, if this is a Garmin product, I'd be like , oh, we , the new Garmin thing came out and I love Garmin, don't get me wrong. And like, you know, but like Golf Zone , no one knows who Golf Zone is. And it's like, as soon as they people do, it's gonna be like, oh, that's gonna be like, it's like the, it's like the sleeping, what's it called ? Like the, the dark horse, right? Like, you know, in the racetrack it's like, oh, that's the one that's you

Speaker 3 58:32

Watch

Speaker 2 58:33

Out for. Like that's, that's the

Speaker 3 58:34

Tortoise in the Hare man.

Speaker 2 58:36

You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not just saying honest to God. Like, I think like when people realize the power of this unit, they're gonna be like, holy, you know? And then especially if you can, I don't know , I think it's cool. And I've , trust me bro, I've, I've done like every unit I know every one of your competitors . I know whatever . Like , I , I've I hundreds of YouTube videos on it and it's like this thing is off the chart. It's cool.

Speaker 3 58:57

It's so cool. That's great to hear you say it, man. We're we're gonna cut up this , uh, we're gonna cut this up and we're gonna use a lot of sound bites here. I can tell you that

Speaker 2 59:06

<laugh> good . Do that.

Speaker 3 59:07

That'd

Speaker 2 59:07

Be great. I'd appreciate that. Just kidding. Um , so where can people, it's like, so we had somebody just commented on the, on the live stream , he's in Korea,

Speaker 3 59:19

Hey .

Speaker 2 59:19

Okay . And he says, I'm a shareholder of Golf Zone in Korea. Where can I buy the golf zone wave? The golf zone wave can be found on Amazon, Japan, but the corresponding product cannot be found on Amazon. USA . Now I know this because the only places you can buy the Wave is on your website, right? In the US

Speaker 3 59:38

As , as of right now? Yes . As

Speaker 2 59:39

Of

Speaker 3 59:39

Right now we are , we are soon going to be launching on Amazon. Uh, that is a long, arduous process that we're near the finish of . Oh

Speaker 2 59:48

Yeah . Big time.

Speaker 3 59:48

So yeah. Forever we'll be on Amazon soon.

Speaker 2 59:50

So right now, are you guys only gonna be selling on Amazon, your website? Are you gonna go like to third party retailers as well? Like all the big stores?

Where can I Buy the Wave?

Speaker 3 59:57

No . Yeah, we'll , we'll do third party retailers as well. It , it's all early stages. You know, the product's only been out for, what, two months, month and a half, two months. So it takes some time to set that stuff up. We're going through it now. We've got some dealers out there who are having some success with the product. Um, and we'll be going through traditional retail as well.

Speaker 2 1:00:16

See, what's so cool about this is like, okay, so like if Golf Zone has these big tournaments already, right? For these big pots, like I could see you guys doing the same thing with the Wave and be like, oh yeah, it's a million dollar pot. And it's like anybody who has a wave can play in it and people could actually play at their house and like, you could really market the hell out of this thing in that regard. Like, you know, because no one's doing stuff

Speaker 3 1:00:36

Like that. Like,

Speaker 2 1:00:37

And you guys are already doing it just on a different, on a different level, on the bigger systems. I don't know , I think this is so much you can do with this. It's crazy. No

Speaker 3 1:00:44

Comment. Stay tuned. <laugh> .

Speaker 2 1:00:46

So like, when I was at, when I was at Troon , like there , the guy was explaining to me about the two vision. It's like if you become a member or like you have an account with Golf Zone, like you just have a card, you swipe it in front of the machine, it like knows who you are and it's like, oh, this is Jimmy McDonald, here's all of his information. Like it , like it just , it knows it and it goes to the cloud. And so if Jimmy goes and plays, you probably have to say this part, sorry , know this . If you were like, if we were , if we were playing the two vision , like it records every one of your swings too, which is fricking cool. Like that's <inaudible> , we got to mention that. Like it will show you like camera view, your whole fricking swing, and it takes that whole thing and it saves it to the cloud. So like you can go to a , a , a , you know, a location in New York, go practice, go play, go home. And you can like literally watch all your shots, see all your data. Like it , the whole, like the club it show like, it's so cool, dude. It shows like the club stuff. Like it shows you the club face when it hits the ball. Two different, two different camera views on the club. Then it shows like if you're on the range, it shows like you like your body. I don't know , it's nuts and play .

Speaker 3 1:01:48

Right ?

Speaker 2 1:01:48

So, cool.

Speaker 3 1:01:49

Next . That's , that was great. You hit it right on the head. And Paul, how much does that service cost you?

Speaker 2 1:01:54

Zero,

Speaker 3 1:01:55

$0 and all that data is saved in the cloud forever.

Speaker 2 1:02:00

And you can save it and then you could send your instructor or you can send it to like , you can draw on it yourself. Like even that , that was for Africa thing we're gonna talk about , even on the wave, you can draw on the app. So like you can like record yourself, you on the wave, right? Yeah. Because there's a camera behind you and then you can draw on the camera and you, or you can draw on the Wave app. Like, it's like all these, like I feel like Gallstone has thought of all these things already now . Like, oh, that'd be a cool idea to do one day. It's like, no dude, they're already doing it. Yeah , it's like just, it's just , I don't know . It's very advanced. So I

Speaker 3 1:02:32

I I'm so excited to, I I'm going to Korea in about two weeks. I haven't been since before the pandemic, but I'm going back and we're gonna spend some time with the development team and see what they've been working on. And I can't tell you how excited I am .

Speaker 2 1:02:48

That's

Speaker 3 1:02:48

Cool . I'm gonna walk into this room with all these ideas of what I think just like you , you were saying they've already thought of it, right? And I've got all ideas . Yeah. These amazing .

Speaker 2 1:02:57

Yeah, like they already know. And it's been tested too. They've already tested it on the mass, right. In the masses. It's not like, it's not like, oh, could we, oh , it's like, when are we right

Speaker 3 1:03:05

Paul? They don't even talk about it until it's past quality assurance testing. They don't tell us that they're working on something unless it is vetted and it works. And they tested it ad nauseum and it's approved and then the information gets released. Like, Hey guys, this is what we're working on. So for me to go to Korea in two weeks and see what they've been churning out in that, in that development office for the last couple years, I , I wish we were doing this podcast in two , in three weeks, <laugh> , because there's gonna be some wild

Speaker 2 1:03:36

Stuff follow up . You can't even talk about it though. You have to like, call me on the phone and be like, bro, blah , blah . And I'd be like, what ? Well, I don't know . I I don't get this , I don't get , I like, heck as you, my audience kind of knows. I feel like that's kind of what we all love . We all love playing with the tech , right? Sure. And I think like the wave is like honest to God flying under the RA radar right now. It's only been out for a month and a half, but I think like within a year or less, like everyone's gonna know what the wave is and it's gonna , I just , I think it's, it's a phenomenal product. It just , it just is like, it just is, I don't know . Again , you know, there's a little bit of a learning curve, but, you know , at least the only , here's the only thing I'll just tell you right now, and you probably already know this. So like, the only negative I had to say about the Wave simulator app is it takes like three freaking hours to download. Like that's the truth. Like the , it takes three hours to download it and , and, and it's a ginormous program. It takes like 80 giga space on your computer. So like that's a downside I would say. And that's pretty minor. I mean, it literally takes that long 'cause you have to download like a bazillion not just their file, but it's like, oh, the new framework from Microsoft and all this other crap, it's on, on and on on. Yeah . And then finally it works and you're like, okay, cool. So I guess I gotta have two things on my tell your development team that, that that file needs to be in one zip file because three hours is way too fricking long and you confuse a lot of old people. And the other thing, like my dad and the other thing is , uh, what was the other thing? Oh, it'd be cool. I'm just letting you know, it'd be cool if you could like minimize , like, you know, I don't know , like if you run the Wave app on your computer or whatever, like it takes over the whole computer so you can't like screen record it or I couldn't screen record it because it , like, it locks down a computer. So like, you know, and something you can like, you can like put it in a window pretty much like, I don't know, like anything else, it won't let you do that. It like locks it down so you can't do that. So like that's a downside for somebody like me who's trying to create content with it, you

Speaker 3 1:05:32

Know,

Speaker 2 1:05:32

Because I can't record , I can't do a screen record. So what I've been having to do is like record my laptop screen, which is not as nice, but I think that if they could figure out a way, just making it like a, you know, a box, you know, and you can like size it to your , to your monitor or whatever. That would be the only thing

Speaker 3 1:05:47

I saw. That's interesting.

Speaker 2 1:05:49

You know what I mean? Well

Speaker 3 1:05:50

Just

Speaker 2 1:05:50

For like, if someone record it ,

Speaker 3 1:05:52

You Paul, on , on your first note. Yeah. It it's a huge freaking file. It takes up a lot of space. Um, it's a big program, right? So coming soon is Vision Wave Mobile, where we're gonna launch that software and a lighter version of it, you know, there won't be hundreds of courses, but there might be dozens. And we're gonna launch that on iOS and Android devices. So that'll be a mobile app that you can download from the app store , um, and have the same quality of golf course. Just not the same quantity of golf. That's

Speaker 2 1:06:28

The thing I , and I know like, that's the thing I think is that like you're giving like 180 golf courses and like think about Hun or however many courses, there's a ton of 'em and you have to like show like, like all that information for each course, right? Could you imagine that times 18 holes , times however many , um, and then the Wave app is easy. I mean that's no big deal. The wave

Speaker 3 1:06:50

Whatever skills , that's that's a breeze. There's nothing to it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:55

But I mean I think it's, I think it's phenomenal honestly guys, like I don't have to say that often. Like this is a phenomenal unit. Like if this is like put this in your, like if this is in your budget, like I would highly recommend it because I think like if you're trying to make a sick like simulator room and you want a system that'll just run and it'll look really good and then you can practice if you want or you can take to the range. Like this is a really good unit to get because it's , like I said, it's only four, it's $4,000, which is a lot of money, don't get me wrong. But like, you definitely get what you pay for and this could last you like 10 years, you know what I mean? Yeah . Like, and it , of all the developments with the , with what you guys are doing, I don't know . I think it's, it's a great unit. I mean hon both of them so

Speaker 3 1:07:34

Great man. Thank thumbs up . Thank you for saying so. I appreciate that very much. And I can't wait.

Speaker 2 1:07:38

There's not a lot of information out there that's a problem. Like there's like one YouTube video, you know what I'm saying? Like yeah . Be two because mine's coming out really soon, but still. There

Speaker 3 1:07:47

We go.

Speaker 2 1:07:49

It's awesome. I'm those , well thanks for being on the show. I had fun with you. Um, same

Speaker 3 1:07:55

Here. Thank you .

Speaker 2 1:07:55

My new Irish friend , um, <laugh> , but um , you

Speaker 3 1:08:02

Can never have enough of those, man.

Speaker 2 1:08:04

I think everyone's Irish though. My wife's half Irish . Um, where, where's, can people find the golf zone? Like what , what's the website?

Speaker 3 1:08:14

Yeah, golf zone golf.com. If you go to that website, you can find all of our product mix , uh, including the Wave. We can buy the Wave right from our website or you can research our other products and reach out to , uh, sales representatives for more info. So golf zone golf.com.

Speaker 2 1:08:34

Well, cool. Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Um, it was nice finally meeting you in person. And , um, you guys can check out the gallstone wave. It's, it's legit. I mean, it just is. If you , if you had a chance to check out the two vision, it's gonna blow your mind. I'll just say that what for sure it did mind . I mean, it was the most coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life by far. So I really appreciate it. Thank you Paul , and I will see you guys in the next episode.

Speaker 1 1:09:01

Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me a golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.