Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
It’s like playing a round of golf with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs and listening to the stories behind their success.
Hi, I’m Paul Liberatore, and I love talking to entrepreneurs and the stories behind their brands. I find it intriguing when people are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and successes. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to some of the biggest names and brands in the game of golf.
So come join me on my quest to find the stories Behind the Brand.
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
#138 - Full Swing: Evan El-Saden
Floyd Arnold founded Full Swing Golf in 1986, and it's now grown into the biggest U.S. producer of multi-sport simulators, changing the way people play indoor golf with its cutting-edge tech. The company, now called Full Swing Simulators, runs its operations from Carlsbad, California, and leads the industry in sports technology innovation.
Full Swing's tech has come a long way, moving from dual-tracking to tri-tracking, giving players the most realistic ball flight simulation you can get. You can play on the world's most famous courses and try out more than 30 different sports. They've combined high-speed cameras with infrared light technology to show exactly how you're hitting the ball and give you instant feedback.
Some of golf's biggest names use Full Swing simulators, including Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, and Jason Day. They've also landed some impressive partnerships - they're now the Official Licensed Simulator of the PGA TOUR and work with TGL, a new high-tech golf league.
Whether you're looking for home entertainment, a place to practice, or fun activities for the whole family, Full Swing has got you covered. Their simulators let you play on more than 84 championship courses and try out 13+ different sports.
Bruin Capital saw Full Swing's potential and bought a controlling stake in 2021, hoping to turn it into something like Peloton but for golf. This move has helped Full Swing grow even stronger and explore new ways to innovate.
Full Swing keeps pushing what's possible with golf simulation tech, changing how people practice and play golf no matter the weather or where they are. They've earned their reputation in golf tech by constantly innovating and partnering with top sports organizations and pro athletes.
What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. This week I have my good friend, Evan Alsadden from Full Swing. If you guys don't know what Full Swing is or are, or the proper pronunciation, then you probably have never been in a simulator or watched TGL or know Tiger Woods is, so you probably shouldn't even be playing golf. So I have on the show today. We're going to talk about everything Full Swing, all the new stuff they're doing, we're talking about TGL, we're going to talk about everything. So welcome to the show. Thank you, pleasure to be on. So where are you located?
Evan:looks like you're a bar yeah uh, we've got a couple little hidden uh takeaway bars in the in the office, so we call this one the dive bar. But yeah, it's where I can kind of get away and and talk to you. So yeah, we're in carlsbad, is where h uh hq is um now, are you from carlsbad, are you from somewhere else? No, I grew up in la canada, uh, just outside of pasadena, so in the la area, but now reside in san diego and my wife and two, two young kids, it's a blast.
Paul:Where do you live?
Evan:in san diego, like I'm in san marcos, oh yeah it's about yeah, it's about 15, 20 minutes away from the office everything's like it's expensive there.
Paul:Man, san diego, I know I would love. I would live there a heartbeat. I love san diego. That's like my favorite. The whole area is awesome. It's just so expensive it's.
Evan:It's so expensive. I mean, we we bought a house a couple years ago and I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, we're overpaying. And then interest rates go up, the housing prices are going up. Who knows what's going to happen. But I feel lucky to have found a place, because I needed one with the, the little ones running around where were you living before?
Paul:like downtown ish or something.
Evan:We were renting in Solana Beach. So yeah, just yeah, just south of us, about 25 minutes or so, but yeah, it's great down there. It's just extremely unaffordable.
Paul:Yeah, everything south of like I don't know Bakersfield is affordable, right.
Evan:So how long have you been with full swing then? So I've been with the company for probably close to eight years now. Seven half eight years, yeah, so it's been a little while. It's kind of funny you just kind of look up and times flown by, but yeah, it's been a while. We came to this office, I want to say about six years ago, so we're doing about a year and a half, two years and a kind of a split. We had a split distribution of the workforce. We had kind of like a we work type of set up for sales and marketing and then kind of operations, fulfillment, finance was all out of Rancho Bernardo and yeah, so it's. It all came together at this office.
Paul:I don't know if you've been it's a pretty fun spot, though I think next time I come out there I want to come see you guys like do. I did that last summer. I did like two behind the brand behind the brand kind of youtube videos. One is with sunday golf who's in? That used to be in the sunday bags, you know they're yeah their office was like right next to, uh, the baseball.
Paul:What's the park called over there, I just can't think of the name of it with padres play, yeah, that other team, echo, yeah, by peco, um, and then I did a behind one. I got behind the scenes video with vessel too, and like saw the whole facility and like saw it was cool, dude, like it's nice, yeah, like just to see that, like people can get a better taste of, like you know, because I think it's like yeah you know like, oh, let's um, and I'm not gonna name it.
Paul:I went to another place once too, but they wouldn't let me film in there and I was like, well, what the hell am I here for? This is boring. Like, oh, we gotta Google PR to make sure it's okay. I'm like dude. Why am I here filming? If I have to be like vetted, we're open to it. Do the tour or not. Yeah, we're open to it.
:It's a fun spot here.
Paul:It's fun, it's just like. Yeah, so like, when you started like, I guess my first question is have you always been into golf or you like you know like? Did you start like, were you like some, really like enum or some you?
Evan:know, like when you're a kid no, no, that's not me by any means. I was always interested in golf. I mean, my, my um, parents are golfers and I was fortunate to have access to a country club, but I I spent my time at that club in the pool ordering food on their tab. So I wasn't, you know, making good use of the golf course. I didn't have the patience growing up for golf, even though it was always around, always on TV. But I really started to get into it, like I think a lot of people do, kind of in the college. You know, right after college, picking it back up again, again. I could always hit a ball, but just never straight, and I still struggle with that, as as many of us do. But, um, yeah, no, wasn't, didn't come from the golf industry.
Evan:When I came here, I was in the cpg world working for one of the conglomerates. You know that kind of have half the shelf at a walmart or target, uh under, uh, new brands. Um, it under Null Brands. It was Null Rubbermaid at the time. I was with them and then came over to Full Swing about seven and a half, eight years ago. It's just been a roller coaster. It's been great though. We've done such an amazing job at growing and scaling the business, creating new products. It's been exciting to be a part of it.
Paul:Full Swing's been around for a long time right, yeah, a long time. Core brand. It's one of the original, if not the original it probably is is the og of the space.
Evan:I would imagine it's. It's around 40 years, uh, old, you know, and it's gone through a change of ownership throughout those years, obviously. But, um, I think, really, when our ceo ryan daughters and my boss, our ceo jason fierro, they kind of came in, um, I think two years prior to when I started something like that, and came in, came in with a private equity group and really invested in the business and you really started to see it just take off when you started getting the right people in the right seats. So, yeah, it was pretty fun to be a part of that.
Paul:I mean it's really cool too. I think about you guys is like I feel when you guys came out with kit right, because it's like you you had to be in the sim space to know what you guys, who you guys were and what you were doing. But then when the kid came out, it was like it opening up to a newer audience, right, or an audience that maybe couldn't afford the, the big jama, you know yeah I mean it was.
Evan:It's funny. I I'll never forget my second and and again, I don't come from this world. So my sec I think it's like my second or third day on the job our ceo goes, hey, I want you to go build a launch monitor. And I'm like, well, you know getting on google like what's a launch monitor? Because I had no clue. I mean, I understood the concept of uh simulation and home right and and obviously doing my diligence on the company before I came in, but then I started to understand what it was and the utility in it and um having someone like tiger who's has a good relationship, uh, with both ryan and jason, you know, say, hey, um, I'm using this track man and he had a whole bunch of issues with his track man and thought it would be a great opportunity for us to build something that was reliable, accurate. I mean, we we do hold ourselves um in high regard as far as accuracy. If we feel like without that, everything else you know can't really, you can't really celebrate the benefits of these tracking systems. You know user experience, the different games, the courses, this, and that you really can't um buy into that unless you feel really good about the numbers that you're especially somebody like tiger, right, like he's like hey, I'm gonna put my name on something
Paul:but, you know what I'm saying like I mean, we all like trackman's around forever, right, and they're like totally, there's a bear in the room like everybody knows, okay, it's trackman.
Evan:But like yeah, I feel like trackman has a massive advantage because they well, there's a kleenex of the industry I mean they yeah of the launch monitor space.
Paul:I got in with coaches and they were the first. I mean like every you know, but it's. But I know there's like a like I don't have a track man because I can afford one, but like I know that for tiger to stand behind something like you don't see that right. Like was no not technology, there's always misconceptions.
Evan:I think, too, whenever someone sees an athlete or an ambassador affiliated with a company, that he'll promote something just because it's in his financial interest, I can even though I don't know with 100% certainty, with 99.9% certainty can say he wouldn't be doing it because he thinks he's going to get a bigger check in the mail.
Evan:I mean, you've heard stories about TaylorMade and him feeling like a club is you know a half yard off, like where it should be.
Evan:I mean, that's the level of detail that he expects, and so you know, his big thing was, you know, the most critical data points as far as what he was concerned were like carry distance and spin rates and making sure that it was reliable, which, at the time, as TrackMan, was giving him problems.
Evan:And it was an opportunity for the company to invest in a complementary product to the in-home simulators that we made, a complimentary product to the in-home simulators that we made, and so that technology that we picked, a radar-based application, made total sense for outdoor full-flight tracking, because the Doppler radar is essentially sampling the ball throughout its entire flight, so you know the velocity and then where it is in space over time, the movement of the ball, whereas the other launch monitors in that category. We have the opportunity to basically take a path of what core tech do we want to use right Camera-based technology, like your, like the Foresight GC quads or, you know, the lower end, the Skytrax and we intentionally went after radar because it truly is the best tech for the outdoors. And then what we found was, you know, kind of certain, uh, serendipitously, is that right?
Paul:something like that uh, what is the word? Yeah, I understand.
Evan:Is it serendipitously maybe?
Paul:Yes, serendipitously. Oh, I think I said it.
Evan:Yeah, I think that's right. Teamwork Slackman and Titleist were working on this RCT ball that allowed radar launch monitors to essentially solve problems that they had indoors for the longest time, which I think in prior years was really the advantage of the camera-based products, and so the advantage indoors for camera-based products have significantly diminished because of some of the different innovations that have kind of just so happened in parallel to our development, which is pretty nice, yeah kind of interesting too right when like things are like I read this book once and they're like there's like so many things we don't see happening, that like we think we see everything's going on, but there's like things happening in whatever the universe, whatever's happening that like you don't know what's happening too, so it all like kind of falls into place.
Paul:You're like what the hell?
Evan:Yeah, it was perfect timing, but we're we're really, really proud of that product and a lot, of, a lot of folks talk about the price point cause we price it at $5,000, but it is truly just as accurate as a track man, more accurate in other areas. You know, I'm sure track man has advantages in a couple areas.
Evan:It was for $15,000 or whatever right, or $20,000 or whatever they're at $20,000 around that range, and you know we came to market with a product that was optimized.
Evan:We have PhDs working on it that come from the radar space really the drone space and automotive as well and so they helped us develop something with the same performance capabilities without having to essentially use two separate radar boards in our device. We can do it with one. That cost savings we get from those radar boards, which are expensive, we transfer to the consumer. And that's not an easy story to tell and it might not have made sense when I just told it to you, but the cost of goods goes down because we were the beneficiaries of the gains in technology and so because of that, we're able to transfer those savings through to the customer and instead of just making a bigger margin and selling it for 15, 20 grand, we want to democratize golf and give young golfers who are aspiring to turn amateur or amateur or pro, whatever it might be, an opportunity to use this stuff and feel pretty confident so what year did the kit come out?
Evan:I can't remember 21, 20 um 20, I want to say 22, yeah what I think is interesting too is the price point.
Paul:Right, because you're saying you know, and I think, like because you're the first, I'm going somewhere with this, right, so you're the first at that price point. And then it's like okay, now you're starting to see other but everybody else starting to follow. Right, like you have your sub, you know everyone's sub thousand, right, that's the race, the bottom. Then you have sub 2000. People are like kind of bitch a little bit. You know, like oh, but you're getting more and more better technology right from where you pay. And then you see, like the 3000 unit come out two years ago, right, which is the sky track series. And now it's like you guys were already out of five, right or right on five. But then what carmen comes out five months ago, a five thousand dollar unit, right, so it's like, oh, so it's almost like I find it very interesting, right, because it's like, not, it's, it's a race to the top, with trying to get the getting as much juice out of the system as you can without having to spend a bajillion dollars on it, exactly exactly now.
Evan:I mean that the the price gamut $500,000 to $20,000, and you have all these products in between, and so for us, I mean my boss says it's the best, it's the best kept secret in golf, but you're starting to see not only just the organic adoption of it at the various levels, but a little friend in TGL had the opportunity to give this business, for, you know, part of the tracking solution that that we accomplished with kit to any one of those brands and they didn't, and that's a tech infused golf league exactly it's all tech right like it's like I mean, and I think what's interesting about you know, switching to tgl?
Paul:it's like it was cool to watch. Even the stadium was amazing. It was fun. Did you go to any events?
Evan:you probably know everyone, yeah yeah, I mean not every one of them. I I was a big part of um setting it all up kind of the development, and so I I probably traveled about seven times in the last year and it's a big deal for me to travel because of the kiddos and yeah the fact that it's on the united states and it's not like I mean it's another corner of the united states but it's such a great accomplishment for the business too.
Evan:It really um was a testament to what what we've done on not just kit, which is a big part of um, tgl, but ultimately our virtual green technology, making that green turn and undulate it's a lot of work yeah, I mean it's like you're
Paul:starting. You know people are gonna talk crap or you know like, oh, you know, it's simulator golf and it's like dude they're. It's like technology is jumping in leaps and bounds and it's being accepted yeah, right, so it's like dude there. It's like technology is jumping in leaps and bounds and it's being accepted, yeah, right, so it's like it's. I mean, it's only gonna get better, more each year because it's gonna have better technology, better stuff. We learn from mistakes, we make things cooler, or whatever it might be. And it was still fun to watch and it's still cool to see. Um, yeah, I think with tgl, what's happening, tg like right now.
Evan:Is it like because of this, everyone's playing now, right, like well it just finished, um, season one, and I think it's been an overwhelming success from tgl's perspective. The viewership, which is I'm sure it's probably viewership, which is I'm sure it's probably viewership, sponsorship, you know, the combination of those things have exceeded expectations by a pretty fair margin, I'd say, which is great for everybody involved, obviously, and, I think, great for the game of golf. You're seeing the viewership for that skew lower and the audience, I think, doubled. So they doubled the participation that they were expecting and the audience skewed lower than they had anticipated, which is a good thing because they are trying to bring, you know, a younger demographic to the game of golf, and so I think it really hit a lot of different marks.
Evan:Now there is so much more in the TGL world that is going to be happening between now and Season 2. Whether it's adding new teams, we have a whole list of things that we want to accomplish as a group. But you kind of saw, from Episode 1 through the finals, they, from a production standpoint, know, changed so much to the tech. We we were monitoring it but made notes on things that, um, opportunities, that that we could have to improve different things, automation, um, creating more intrigue in certain areas, um, but again you're, you're throwing some. You know you're throwing a dart at the board and it's an overwhelming success.
Evan:We feel very honored to have been such a big part of it. Also, the on-screen graphics the game was of our doing as well. That's a lot. It was a pretty big accomplishment because it does touch scrapping technology, the game itself, the green, and then the architecture that allows for shots to be ingested and things to move. All that's us, and I'm really proud of the team. We've got such a smart, capable group that it took something like that to focus and really show what we can do if given the opportunity what's it?
Paul:what's cool, too, is like also being the first to do it you know, like someone else's. You have lots of competitors out there. They all could have done something like this. They didn't. So, yeah, kind of do like now. Yeah, if guys don't know, like, how does the like full swing kit work? Is, is it just Doppler? I know there's a camera on it too. I know that.
Evan:Yeah, there's a camera, yeah, camera, doppler radar. So essentially, you put your unit down about 8 to 10 feet behind the outdoors, you put a ball down, use our application, which I think is another great part of the experience. I think we really kicked butt on the user experience as well in the application, and it's a simple setup guide. I mean, it's really easy to get up and going, and I think that was a big opportunity that we had in front of us was to reduce the amount of setup time with some of the other products in the space. So you use your mobile application, you connect to the unit, you align your unit to the target and then it allows the system to do its thing, and so Doppler radar tracks the ball flight throughout its entirety.
Evan:We've got a camera on board that has a video grab for each shot that you take and, depending on your subscription plan and there's only two, really one, which is do you want data and video over time so you pay for storage? It's not. It's very easy to understand why there's a subscription there, but you get basically all the features that we offer in the premium subscription and currently we're offering that for 99 a month to $199, but we're adding in a pretty fun feature here coming up soon in the Full Swing Combine, which is a fun experience that'll be launching here in the next couple weeks.
Paul:Is that a new software upgrade, the Combine.
Evan:It's an update to the application, the mobile application for tablet.
Paul:That's cool. Now people can get a Full Swing kit. They can buy the kit and like hit it into a net if they want, or they can just totally change. But you guys also do like you can buy like almost like build your like a diy, like kind of help, not really pure diy, but almost like they can buy their own setup. Right, so you have it.
Evan:Yeah, you can exactly I mean, all you really need to know is I would say, like the tightest you'd want to go indoors, eight feet behind you for the unit, you know, eight feet in front of you for a net or a screen. Um, you can do a diy kind of I don't say hack job, but you know what I mean grab all your favorite components, yeah, or kit, yeah.
Evan:That's a lot of right and we offer, obviously, if you just, if you're new to the space and you just want soup to nuts, the whole thing, we offer that as well. But, um, yeah, it works indoors and it's fantastic. It does really well both outdoors and indoors. And, um, it's a fun little little product that fits in a. We have a nice little carry case as well that's shock absorbent and kind of waterproof so you can fit into your golf bag, which was a big part of the design aspect, actually of the unit itself was to make sure people can use it on range but then stowed away if they want to go out and play around a golf how long did the battery?
Evan:last, if you're out, the range battery lasts a long time. I mean it's it's probably at the top of the spectrum. I mean, again, you kind of do the competitive assessments every now and then, but at the time when we did it, I mean it performs, I would say about six hours. I think we probably marked it five hours, but just in my practice, like how I've used it, my use case, it'll last it around six hours, even more, um, depending on usage, right, because every time you hit a ball you're processing data. So, depending on frequency, you know five hours is a safe bet to say it's what we market, so I should probably go with that, but in practical terms probably about six hours for most people in practical terms, probably about six hours for most people.
Paul:Um now, what I like about the full swing kit, though at least it's like how you have the data like all on the actual unit yourself, like you don't have you don't have to bring right. I mean, yeah, you can bring an ipad with you or an iphone or whatever, right, but like you don't have to rely on that to be like what was the yardage is like you can literally yeah like okay, and it's big and it's bright, it's like right there, it's not like all weird.
Paul:You know what I mean. Like yeah, I think that was kind of a big thing too, because you see a lot of people kind of follow suit after you guys did that it was.
Evan:it was very clear during research that that was an opportunity that no one was cashing in on and, you know, granted we the execution of it was in an OLED screen, which is, you know, cool and it pops more to your point.
Paul:Oh, the brightness outside too. Right With the sun, like yeah, it's like you're not, like still pops, yeah, like in a bright day it just seemed like such low hanging fruit based on the research that we did.
Evan:It was a little bit of a surprise at the lack of competition when it came to that. A little bit, uh, of a surprise at the lack of competition when it came to that. But we try to be as least you know invasive as possible when it comes to someone's uh practice regiment and so if a simple glance is all you want to do and you don't want to interface with a phone or a tablet or a watch, you don't have to yeah, you don't really need to have, like your uh internet connection either you know, what I mean like, or that's a problem too.
Paul:I feel like if you sometimes is like when you try to bring like an ipad with you, like that thing's gonna overheat, like you know, like yeah, the ipad itself, the iphone it can, yeah, I mean just way before the launch monitor is going to way, way, way before, yeah. So then you're like now you're completely hosed because now you like you came and read because your thing showing like the over here, yeah, you're absolutely right.
Evan:I I remember doing some testing out in um Indian Wells. My folks live in Indian Wells for part of the year and it was a really hot day and I figured why not stress test the uh combination? So I went outside for about 30, 40 minutes and I want to say like 95 degree weather and I put my phone. You know what I mean Like it's just. Yeah, I mean it's dry heat, but yeah, I put my phone in the carry case for the launch monitor. As I was using the launch monitor, my phone was overheating before the unit. So yeah, you're right.
Paul:So let me ask some questions. I don't know the answer, like I know the answer, but well, I don't really so. Can somebody use the full swing kit on regular grass, or does it have to be on turf?
Evan:oh, it can be on regular grass or turf, the surface material does not matter um that's what I figured.
Paul:I know some brands I learned the hard way. At some brands you have to have turf, which I'm like that's completely pointless, because I live in arizona and we don't turf really unless you're indoors. So interesting. But yeah, that's one thing. The other question I had too is um, like where can people get a full swing kit? Don't you have like kit kits, like a like, like a full like? I remember reading that somewhere too. You just literally get all in one box, like all this stuff yes, so we offer the the package bundle with the launch monitor so we we have a um kind of an indoor solution that's not just your ipad connected to a projector.
Evan:We actually have um our golf course software that we use for our simulators available, a condensed version of that available for the kit, what we call kit studio experience. So I think you get around 17 uh courses, um, and we've got a relationship with the tour, so you've got some exclusivity as far as courses go, some of the tpc courses. That's cool and um. You can connect it through a pc and, you know, have your kind of full in-home simulation experience with kit being the driving driving force behind it. Um. And then we have, you know, our mobile application, which again is much more geared towards practice with the driving range and this new combine um feature which is coming out soon, which is essentially um, a partnership that we have with a group uh called clipped. They're based out of london but they are a data science team.
Evan:That um has a proprietary scoring system and gives you shot quality, so you kind of pick a distance, your combine distances I want to work on 60 yard, 80 yard shots, whatever it might be, and based on their algorithm and what our unit's telling you, you know how far you hit the ball, whether you're indoors or outdoors, it'll give you this unique scoring system which allows you to transfer you know, that skillset to on-course play. I think that's the best way to kind of take a one-to-one from practice, really applying what you're doing in that practice setting to on-course, which I'm really excited about. It's really fun. But yeah, you've got those two options connecting that studio to a mobile application or to the kind of full PC software if you want to play all the courses so can you play some courses on the on the app you can't play any courses on the app but again you can get the PC version of our 17 courses and practice areas and long drive competition closest to Penn all that sorts of stuff on the PC version of golf.
Paul:Now with that, does the kit then plug in? If you're doing it to a PC, is that using just the Bluetooth or the Wi-Fi, or do you have to use a cable?
Evan:You can use Wi-Fi or you can USB-C into it. So you send a USB-C to the launch monitor, to the computer, and then it drives the experience.
Paul:Yeah, and then if somebody has a projector or something, they can plug everything to the whole system and make it look cool. Exactly, but you also have the one that has a net, too, right? Or people can just hit into a net and you can have your computer right.
:Totally.
Paul:You can have a laptop right there and you can be like, okay, that's cool.
Evan:A lot of people will do that exactly. They'll either use their laptop or they'll connect their laptop to a tv screen yeah, oh exactly.
Paul:Or tv screen, right, yeah, all tvs now have that functionality. But then you also don't make just the kit like. Then you have like your higher end, like commercial stuff yes, yeah, we've got our your flagship product?
Evan:yeah, flagship yeah, so our um, we've got simulators that you know. Again, that's the. It's been the bread and butter of the business for 40 years, as I mentioned.
Evan:Yeah, so it's evolved so much. We've got a state-of-the-art system here that uses camera and infrared technology and it's got all the IP around it. But it's the best in the game real-time transitioning of the ball into the virtual world based on kind of the tech and where it sits, and that's really important when it comes to good golfers wanting to use this as a practice tool. But obviously it's really fun and entertaining as well. Right, you can do so much with it.
Paul:It's even higher level of accuracy, right, because you have laser and you have camera system and then you have Well, you're indoors.
Evan:Indoors again, there's no launch monitor out there can yield the same level of precision and accuracy as what our tech can do indoors. And that's just a function of us haven't been in the space for so long and the the um the system and how we set it up. We kind of put these two uh curtains of tech before the screen and and the ball passes through these kind of curtains and it creates a vector and gives uh the golfer the ability to hit the ball anywhere on the screen and you'll see the ball enter the virtual world exactly where that ball hit.
Paul:I hate lag. Lag is so annoying, dude, when you're like hitting a ball and it's like you hit it and then you're like waiting. Looking at your watch, you're like, oh, there's the ball, but you've already had a cup of coffee and like yeah right.
Evan:It's not even just lag, though I mean that's one part of it that I think the bigger part is. Like if you hit on an old use trackman as an example. I mean you hit on a track band, if the ball's starting from the center of the screen every time, even if you hit one right or left. What I'm saying is if you hit one top right of the simulator screen, it's going to come out top right, really Like a push draw.
Paul:You really see it? It's not like, oh, I hit it straight A hundred percent Full shade and it's straight. That thing looks like you hit the screen straight, but that really was like over there, right, it's on three fairways over.
Evan:Yeah, everybody else starts at the center bottom center of the screen.
Paul:You hit it in the middle of the fairway at every shot.
Evan:Good job, right, right yeah so that that's I mean, that's been um again, our achilles heel, um it's just making sure that this thing is always. We're continuously improving it um year over year and the experiences that we offer now are so cool. Right, we're not just I mean, we are pretty hardcore into golf, but we do offer really fun and entertaining games, and we've got our full swing games pack which has a myriad of experiences you can, you know football challenges soccer, challenges baseball, you name it so we've got a ton of different experiences, yeah.
Evan:Yeah, home run Derby.
Paul:But is? But? Is that but that for the, the ceiling mounted unit, or is that you can use that in the kit?
Evan:Not for the kit, at least for now. We are getting into baseball with kit though that is a good segue if you wanted to do that but we are using the knowledge we gained and gleaned from golf in object tracking with radar, and we're going to be launching a baseball product here. Uh, very soon, oh I know, that it will be for the masses I want, I want to try that yeah, it'll be pretty fun, that's gonna be cool, I think that's like it's.
Paul:It's interesting like stuff starts in golf but then it easily transpires any other sport right, like soccer or baseball or shooting or like you know what I mean. Like I, yeah, like race car simulators and airplane sims like that people have in their houses like full deck, like full like, and I'm like totally. But if the mass is too, there's so much money in baseball, dude, it's ridiculous. There's way more money in baseball than there is in golf.
Evan:I think because, like it's how we're about to find out if not, I'm gonna just take my full swing kid and put on a stick and be like okay, read this you know, surprisingly, when we were doing our market research in in baseball, um, I had kind of the same assumptions that you did. Like baseball, scott, and they do have a ton of money, they do have a ton of participation. But what's interesting is, unlike the golf space, the baseball kind of technology landscape is very thin. Golf is way more saturated than baseball, so it's interesting yeah.
Paul:I don't know. I don't know either. I think more people play golf as they get older. I'm not playing baseball anymore. There's no way. I played kickball a year ago and I pulled my hamstring. Playing kickball, dude it still hurts, you know, yeah, but I think there's so To your point though there's a huge.
Evan:To your point, though. There's a huge participation, you know, in in the younger, uh, demographic, right up until you get to the high school, college, and then of course you know if you're not professional or any of the minor kind of minor league teams, then, yeah, you're probably not needing a device like that, um, but there's still massive participation rates in in you know, travel ball, it's nuts, it's not.
Paul:Yeah, I rates in in travel ball it's nuts, it's nuts. I mean, you're in California, I'm in Arizona, it's like the same thing I mean any state travel balls.
Paul:So much money. Yeah, there's like so much money in youth baseball. It's ridiculous. I mean just I don't know, and I think it's smart too. I would love to hear talk to you guys when you come up with that new product. That'd be, I didn't. I knew you're coming. I remember hearing about it, but I didn't know. I thought it was going to be something we're going to use with an already existing product and they're just going to try to Well, that's what we are, we are.
Paul:We are using the kit launch monitor so that launch monitor that we use for golf is the basis for baseball.
Evan:Yeah, that's gonna be cool as hell, dude. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be pretty fun.
Paul:We're currently in in so much crap, you guys could do like too like with that kind of track dude, like you know, like bat speed up, and like kids like oh, I you know, like there's so much stuff, um, I can go.
Evan:Yeah, we have a lot of opportunities available to us here at this company. That's. One thing we're not short of is ideas and opportunities, and sometimes the biggest struggle is figuring out where we want to go um which is a good problem to have.
Paul:I would say so where can people find the full swing kit, like right now they want to buy one. Where do they find it?
Evan:yeah, you just go to our website, wolfswingolfcom, and from there you have your selection of uh, exploring the simulators, the launch monitor, the packages from launch monitor, our software packages that we offer. It's kind of all spelled out for you. They're explaining the tech, the price points. Um, yeah, just go to our website and you'll you'll be able to navigate your way through that's awesome.
Paul:Well, thank you so much for being on the show, appreciate it. I've been a fan. They had a really cool booth this year too. The pga show, like you, that big putting green too. I remember like that a few wasn't a puff. You, our virtual green. Yeah, the puff you is the augmented overlay yeah dude, that's like my dream, but those are so expensive. That's like my dream, but those are so expensive. That's like that's the coolest thing to have in anybody's house Most putting greens.
Evan:It'd be great.
Paul:But like you all, it's good in my house though. I don't know. Yeah right, I may have cost it like. It probably costs as much as you could buy like a Cybertruck dude.
Evan:Those things are so expensive. Just the putting green, like from what I? Yeah, I mean we're we're working on a cost optimized um version of of our high-end putting green. That you know it's a little bit more affordable but still gives you a ton of different um, you know breaks and what have you so you can work on your game and all that like that.
Paul:yeah, I swear to god, dude, I think I just I was talking to somebody about this. I was like if somebody could come up with a more affordable let's call it affordable like putting green system, that would crush Because, like every dude wants to have that, I think almost as much as they want to have a simulator. You know it would help my game. Dude, that's a thought. Yeah for sure, but thanks for being on the show.
Evan:Appreciate it, thank you.
Paul:Not just the kit. The kits like their entry into their world, but if you're into, like, if you want even a more higher system for your house, like a really nice custom cool stuff, you check that out too. Um, but so I will see you guys in the next episode thanks for listening to another episode of behind the Golf Brand Podcast.
:You're going to beat me A golf. Stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfersauthoritycom. 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 you.
