Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
Golf, Ego, and Life Lessons
Have you ever made a decision so spectacularly self-sabotaging that you couldn't help but laugh at yourself afterward? That's exactly where we begin this journey—with my confession about renaming a successful golf podcast and promptly losing half my audience. Much like my previous marketing disaster involving overpriced plastic plates during the anti-plastic revolution, it's a perfect example of how ego drives our decisions, often to our detriment.
The golf course serves as the perfect laboratory for observing ego in action. From the player confidently announcing they'll ace a par-3 (before scoring a 10) to the experienced golfer who putts aggressively because "I don't think about missing," our self-perception dramatically affects performance. Professional golfers like Tiger, Rory, and Scottie make aggressive plays under pressure not from blind overconfidence but because they've proven to themselves repeatedly that they can execute. The lesson? Confidence should be built on capability, not delusion—a principle that extends far beyond the fairways.
We also explore golf's curious rulebook, which prohibits using earplugs to block distractions while allowing Bluetooth speakers that create them. And in our modern world of contactless everything, I share a cautionary tale about needing actual cash in a cashless society, especially when stuck behind someone with 30 items in the 10-items-or-less checkout line. Whether you're a golfer facing retirement's shifting priorities or young parents confronting the shocking 33% increase in child-rearing costs over just three years, this episode offers perspective on adapting to life's unexpected challenges. Subscribe now for more tales from beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, where golf and life lessons intertwine like Bermuda grass on a summer green.
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you're tuned into another episode of tales from the first tee. I'm rich Easton telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. I worked with a golf course co-worker the other day I'll call him Atticus Finch who recently came upon my podcast With a note of surprise. He couldn't connect the title of my podcast to the subject matter Because, as I paraphrase him, you know, I saw Tales from the First Tee, but there's not much golf talk for a title about golf. Now, I butchered his southern accent, but I think he's on point.
Speaker 1:Sometime a year or two ago I changed the name of my podcast to. I changed the name of my podcast to Just Tales because my ego, my inner self-talk, my quixotic, imaginative self, my Walter Mitty, lured me into thinking that golf talk was just my gateway drug into ranting about my observations about the world, observations about the world. So what did I do? I changed the title and lost half my followers. I mean, this is just another brilliant move from one of the marketing and sales minds behind serve-in-store interlocking semi-disposable plates. In 2005, I ran a marketing team that invented over-specced, over-priced plates that acted first as a plate and then transformed into a storage container. When you click the two plastic plates together, they became a container Liquid, still spilled out, but it was a way, after a party, that you could send somebody home with leftovers. Anyway, think of it as a solo plastic plate, but more plasticky and more expensive in a time when plastic became a dirty word. Look, we just don't make this shit up, market it and sell it. We did a lot of research, we went through a lot of focus groups, but when we went through it, I don't think we had pricing in mind, and once we learned what it cost us to manufacture it and put that price in the marketplace, I think we might have shot ourselves in the foot. So you might ask what would make somebody change a podcast title, a podcast that continued to grow, grow into 1,700 cities, over 100 countries. Why would somebody do that? The answer ego. Which leads me to my first segment bringing your big driver energy to the golf course.
Speaker 1:Ego gets a golfer out of bed in the morning convinced that they're gonna have the round of a lifetime. Starting with that. Look at me, fellas power drive off the first tee, despite the fact that their last round ended with three doubles and two triples because of wayward drives. You know, I was playing with a random pair up. The other day. We get to this par three 198 yards over water and he walks up to the tee, turns to us and says hey, someone, take the pin out, I'm going to ace this right now. He goes on to hit his drive into the water on the right, takes a penalty stroke, decides I'm not going to walk up to the water where it went and I am going to put it. Tee it up right here again, take my penalty stroke and hit that drive 198 yards probably. Put it in the bin, tease it up again, pulls it into the bunkers on the left protecting the greens. Takes him three sand shots to get out and three putts for a 10.
Speaker 1:The ego can work both ways as long as you know your capabilities. Long as you know your capabilities, pga Touring pros like Jack, tiger, rory, phil, finau, scotty, ricky and Bryson are driven by their self-belief that they can carry that bunker, hit 218-yard sand shots over water to a well-protected green or make that snaking putt to win the tournament. When they know if they miss it too far and miss that next putt, they give up everything. They play aggressive because they know they're capable of pulling off shots under ridiculous conditions and high pressure because they've done it before, from the time they were junior golfers, through high school, in college, in amateur tournaments and on the pro circuit. They don't think about how foolish they're going to look if they screw up. Their ego guides their actions Positive self-talk, because they've done it before and they knew they could do it again.
Speaker 1:I was playing golf with Billy the Kid the other day, a senior single digit handicapper with more rounds under his belt than pro boxer Len Wickwar. I've seen him birdie holes from parts of the course that most golfers never even dare to enter. He's driven by his belief that he could make the next shot or putt. We both got to this green where we hit our approach shots pretty close to each other. We had downhill sliding putts from similar distances. I went first because I was a few inches farther back and I babied my putt which, on Bermuda greens, causes the ball to veer offline even more because of the graininess of the grass. I didn't want to chance hitting my ball with too much energy in case it missed the hole, rolled even further past the hole than my first putt. Billy the Kid hits his putt with gusto, hits the hole, but because of the angle of the hole and the worn down side where everybody has hit that side of the cup it bounced out, came to rest maybe a few inches from the cup and I said weren't you concerned about a long comeback putt if you missed it? And his response hey, rich, I don't think about missing. That's the answer.
Speaker 1:Egos can be your best caddy or your worst nightmare. The ego doesn't just hurt your score. If you don't have a long history of backing it up, it will have you arguing with your inner caddy or ignoring the wind, imagining that one shot you made on the driving range a few months ago, or trying to chip it off a tight lie three feet off the green instead of putting, because you just saw Scotty or Rory do it last Sunday to hit an incredible shot that either went in or landed inches from the hole. The male ego just doesn't stay in the golf bag. It follows you off the course. It's the same fire that drives you to make that risky stock investment because of your gut feeling, or buy that fixer upper in a developing area in an inner city, or walk into your boss's office after he had the worst day of his life and then demand a raise.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's like the game, two truths and a lie. That being said, the male ego's a caddy you just can't fire. It's going to lift you up some days and drive you to force an issue that might benefit you, your family or maybe even your community. It's the confidence and belief that, against all odds, you're going to win that job, you're going to get that girl to say yes, you're going to turn the hardest customer into your biggest advocate. But it's also that inner voice after loading up on transfusions after the last hole that tells you to wait for the green ahead of you to clear on a par five, even though you just hit a shitty drive and you have 275 yards to the pin. If you could just clear the tops of those 200 year old live oaks, fly it over the deepest pop bunker protecting the green and land it softly on the green, and then he takes his club back and hits it. It was at this moment that he knew he fucked up and the bad news is you just can't fire your inner caddy.
Speaker 1:Golf has the craziest rules. Here's my idea for a fucking sport I knock a ball in a gopher hole, not straight. I put shit in the way Like keys and bushels and high glass so you can lose your fucking ball and go whacking away with a fucking tire iron. So I was playing in a foursome Monday morning and happened to play the first nine holes while the entire maintenance crew had their full staff mowing, rolling the greens and raking the bunkers at every hole we played. Now I don't know if this is true or not, but it seems like the greens crew at this course weren't trained to turn off their engines and get stealth every time golfers played through. I believe they're measured on how much, how fast and how well. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing them because they do an excellent job.
Speaker 1:This course that I was playing was in pristine condition, probably because their maintenance staff know what they're doing. Anyway, by the time I get to the eighth green, my head is ringing with the sound of mowers. So I make a comment and my comment was you know, I should have worn my swimmers air plugs to drown out or muffle the sound of the entire greens crew. Well, billy the kid, the commissioner of our saturday morning game and local rules aficionado, pipes up and says that's against the rules. Now, at first I didn't believe that air plugs were prohibited from the rules of golf because when I'm out playing, a lot of times I'll see single players out listening to their AirPods or some even full size headphones.
Speaker 1:I I mean, how many times have you been in the middle of a swing and the guys in the next fairway, an air shot away, are flirting with the bev cart girls, blasting their favorite tunes or talking it up on the next t-shot while you're on the green trying to make a clutch putt, or golfer or golfers in your foursome that just can't stop chatting about something or someone while you or your partner need to make that next shot? I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg of distractions that golfers face when they need total silence to concentrate. Have you ever played a hole where the tee box was near a road and you had some yahoo driving by hunk their horn to rattle you while you're in mid-swing? Or a guy in your foursome who rips his Velcro glove off in the middle of your putt? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have the option to just plug up when you anticipate distraction? Black out the distractions, find your zone, get your Zen golf on Nope. On Nope Because, according to rule 4.3a, unless you have the need of a hearing aid which amplifies sound.
Speaker 1:You cannot gain the advantage of buffering or eliminating sound of local elements at the risk of a two-shot penalty or loss of a hole when you're playing match. Play for the first infraction or total disqualification the next time you do it. Hey, I don't know about you, but most places I play golf Bluetooth speakers are the rave. Soft jazz, classic country and yacht rock are usually not the genres of choice. Regardless of somebody's taste in music, anything other than the whispering sound of a light breeze, the twittering of birds in the woods or even a distant yell of a golfer after making a career shot anything other than those can be a distraction. That's why so many golfers I speak to enjoy the late afternoon or very early morning round playing alone. Just less distraction.
Speaker 1:But golf is about overcoming distractions by engaging the mental mechanism that eliminates sounds and sights that get in your way. Don't you think it's ironic that there's no rule about adding more sound, fidgeting while you're playing partners or about to swing, taking a business call in the middle of a round, but there's a rule about getting an unfair advantage with airplugs, earbuds or headphones to drown out those etiquette-less distractions? It gives me greater appreciation for PGA Touring pros who just keep it together all four rounds, despite unruly patrons yelling stupid shit or the media asking stupid questions. And here I am bothered by a commercial lawnmower on a Monday morning. Man, I need to work on that. 30 items in the 10 items or less line. You got to be kidding me. 30 items in the 10 items or less line. You got to be kidding me. Because of my adaptation to technology.
Speaker 1:I find myself with much less cash these days, probably because of the proliferation of contactless payment or the tap at most retail locations. If I didn't need my license or Costco card, I don't think I'd ever need to carry a wallet again. You know I bought this minimalist pop-up wallet a few years ago to reduce the bulky feel of a leather wallet filled with whatever I could put in it. It was a major improvement and the click feature to pop up credit cards made me feel like I was improving my life. I know it's the simple things right.
Speaker 1:For some reason recently, when I removed one of the cards in the pop-up, the remaining cards fell out, and the last time it happened I'm sitting in my car and if any of you have these cars with tight consoles, you know that if you drop anything. If you're in the driver's seat to the right, it falls down in that little area. It is a pain to pull anything out. There is no hand that is made to fit all the way in there, so you actually have to get out of your car, back up or forward the seats and get underneath to get whatever dropped. It's impossible. So that drove me to start not even carrying my wallet unless I had to go to Costco. So no wallet, because on my phone I've got Apple Pay and I could basically attach it to any one of my credit cards or debit cards to transact wherever I need to, and basically most every retail outlet has one of those. I mean, if you're going to a farmer's market you probably need cash, but not always.
Speaker 1:So this incident in the car, where I had to surgically remove some of my cards that drop, leads me to my frustrating adventure in the checkout line at Publix. So let me set the scene. I'm playing in this early Saturday golf game and needed cash to pay to play. Our commissioner runs a cash-only pay-up front game, so I had just recently rid myself of my last $20 bill and needed to get some quick cash infusion, most people knowing that they're going to play in this game on Saturday, go to the bank or do what they have to do to get cash before Saturday, but me, no. My bank also is far enough away to make the journey too long, and I think it's four miles, maybe seven minutes, but to me that's a long way, particularly in the afternoons when it gets crowded here in Mount Pleasant. So now when I need cash I'll go to Publix, maybe three-tenths of a mile away, to buy a banana or some fruit or gum and get cash from the checkout person. So I'm running late.
Speaker 1:Last Saturday ran into Publix, grabbed some produce and speed walked to the registers. Now the self-checkout lines were open, but they don't dispense cash. Were open, but they don't dispense cash. There were two manned registers open. One had a line of two people with filled carts Nope, not going there. The other one was the 10 items or less line with only one person that was just pulling their cart into the lane Perfect. Now I couldn't see what was in her cart because she moved her cart around the lane before I got behind her. But I'm thinking whatever it is, it's 10 items, how bad can that be? It's far better than waiting behind those two filled carts. And I could go behind the two filled carts and hope that they see I'm just holding fruit in my hand and say, please, please, go ahead of me. But you can't take that risk. So I go to the 10 items or less line.
Speaker 1:I turn the corner and here is this lady. Mind you, I have two bananas and a peach the perfect golf fuel. No cart, no bag. The lady sees me, looks at me but continues to unload her cart. Okay, how many items could it be? She's not offering me a cut in front of her. Maybe she's in a hurry, maybe somebody in the past didn't let her cut, and it's like the opposite of paying it forward. All I know is she has way more than 10 items. She starts to reach for those yellow dividers, those sticks that we all use to make sure that the cashier doesn't charge us for groceries from the guy behind us.
Speaker 1:Now the fun begins. She begins to break up her groceries into three groups and pays for each group separately. So she puts down these three dividers. The first two are to break up her three different groups of items. The last one is to make sure that she doesn't get charged for one of my bananas, that she doesn't get charged for one of my bananas. The cashier doesn't ask her to move to the other cashier who has no limits, because she basically has 10 or less items in each of her three groups.
Speaker 1:Now, as she's separating her groceries into the three separate purchases and making sure that each group has 10 or less items, she starts deliberating on which items go into which group. That winds me up, so I start my death stare. It's a look that I gave my kids of disapproval. Anytime they were doing something where they had to change their behavior, they'd look up, they'd see the look and I didn't have to say anything. And then that's not working. So then, if you ever watched Ted Lasso, I start my Roy Kent under breath growls like like I'm starting to make. All these sounds like I'm a rabbit animal had no effect on her.
Speaker 1:I had 15 minutes to get to the first tee and join the first of five groups teeing off because I was in the first of five groups. Shame on me for not planning this and getting my cash, but who would have thunk that this would happen? Finally, with 10 minutes to spare, I get to the cashier, pick my phone up to the credit card machine and use my Apple wallet, pay and use my debit card because I'm going to get cash. As I'm finalizing the transaction I get that common bing which basically means it's complete. I asked the cashier hey, where is the cash return prompt so I could decide how much cash I need?
Speaker 1:And this guy goes oh, you actually need an actual debit card for that. I said I just paid with a debit card. He said, if you use Apple Pay, even with debit cards, you can't get cash. And I'm thinking, fuck, it's too late, I've paid, I can't change lanes. But he tells me, you know, there's an ATM debit card machine outside Publix, know, there's an ATM debit card machine outside Publix. And I'm like, yeah, we all know it's the biggest rip off of all times. But as they say, any port in a storm. Lesson learned get cash a day or two before the Saturday game.
Speaker 1:I mean, this retirement mode has certainly softened me up to the point where I forget to get money or I'm like mañana, I'm just not in a hurry anymore. You know, I walk around now without cash and sometimes I have to be reminded of the date, because on days with no appointments, no reservations, no tea times or no meetups, who cares what date it is. Hey, kids thinking of starting a family? Time to break open the piggy bank. Hey, some people start a family by accident, and if you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'll ask our commander in chief to draw you a picture. Some people start a family by accident, and if you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'll ask our commander in chief to draw you a picture. Some people start a family in a hey, let's do the dirty and see what happens. Others have to spend a fortune to connect a sperm with an egg. And if you're in China and this is according to a recent podcast I just heard about trafficking If you're in China, you can traffic women from Vietnam and start a family, because there's not enough Chinese women, all because of the one child per family rule, and certainly the males were favored.
Speaker 1:So whatever got you to the point of wanting to birth a child in 2025, know this the cost of raising a child this year is 33% more than just three years ago. Recent research suggests that the parents, parent or guardians will spend $20,745 to buy a basket of goods and services over the course of a baby's first year and I just didn't pull those numbers out of my butt. According to the Baby Center, a parenting website, they compared prices from three years ago to today, and it's astonishing. Now that number is for the first child, assuming you have to buy certain things for the first time. If it's your second, third or fourth, you'll likely have a lot, or at least some of the stuff from your other kids. So while the annual number might not be over 20,000, it's still going to be uncomfortably more for the things that you still need this year than what you might have needed a few years ago.
Speaker 1:So how does a young parent or parents even afford this? How do they do it? And I think the answer is not so simple. Either, number one, you triage the important things first, you compromise on the less important things, you create a side hustle to get more money, or you just apply for another no-interest credit card for the first year and basically absorb your high-debt current credit card and then become an indentured servant to the banks.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, actors like Jennifer Gardner, taylor Swift, alec Baldwin, jennifer Coolidge, steve Martin and Martin Short are all touting the benefits of 2% back for a better lifestyle. So charge, charge, charge. But if you let it revolve, like 90% of most credit card users. You'll get your 2% back and it'll be charged 22% interest. Man, that's less interest than charged by the Shylock of Venice. So if you're expanding your family, which makes the world a better place, the cost of better is 33% higher. You've been listening to another episode of tales from the first tee. I'm your host, rich easton, telling tales from beautiful charleston, south carolina. Talk to you soon I'm going to go ahead and get my Thanks for watching.