Episode 267. Liam Mucklow - Founder of The Golf Lab & The Baseball Performance Lab - One of the best in the game!

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Let's get into it.

Welcome to the ForeJack Podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Season 4 of the ForeJack Podcast, Canada's number one award-winning golf podcast and the fastest growing golf podcast in America. Now available on SiriusXM, Pandora, and all your favorite streaming platforms. ForeJack Podcast is powered by none other than TaylorMade Golf. Their engineers have been hard at work making the next generation of equipment, and their new lineup for 2022 is absolute fire. Head over to TaylorMade Golf and check out the new Carbon Face Stealth and Stealth Plus. Experience better energy transfer for yourself. TaylorMade has also been very generous with us this year. We have a shipping container full of goodies to give away. Keep your eyes on our ForeJack Instagram page for all those contest details. Season 4 continues to impress with a laundry list of amazing guests boasting some serious industry horsepower. But before we get into tonight's guest, let's head around the country and check in with the 4JACK family on the road. Derek Lane, what's going on in SoCal?

Live recordings, my favorite thing about doing the 4JACK is that we're in the same room, we're lying to each other face to face instead of doing it over Zoom, which I'm a huge fan of. Um, obviously this one's a little quiet right now. Uh, David Brison is on what I'm going to call a red phone conference call. So if it's important enough for him to miss the first part of this pod, you know that probably either Toronto's falling off into the— into some sort of lake or ocean because nobody cares, or more importantly, it's not about him. So that's a really big factor in what it is we do. So excited for this one. Obviously a little bit of a desert connection with Liam and some other great things in golf, so I'm stoked to kind of go forward on this one. There's some great questions And for me, I think there's gonna be a lot to be learned on this one. I think this is one of those great follows. Once we go out the Instagram follow to the Golf Lab, I think a lot of people are gonna benefit from that.

There's— this is a massive tee up for Brisson because this is Ontario all over the place. Like he's just nowhere near this one.

So let's be honest, it's better for the listeners.

Yeah, I guess so.

We're saving the audience on this one. Well, without further ado, you may recognize this long bomber from his early days impressing the locals on the range at the Inview. A standout PGA of Canada professional once upon a time and founder of the global brand Golf Lab, please welcome to the show a longtime personal friend, Canadian native Liam Mucklow.

Oh, nice little play in there. What's going on, boys? How we doing? Good, buddy.

How you doing? It's been a long time, Muck.

I know, I know. It's, uh, it's been fun watching you guys grow this thing though, you know, just kind of, you know, creeping around on social media, listening to the odd podcast.

I love it.

It's been a— I don't even know what kind of pursuit it is. It's just like this selfless, continuous pursuit for something. I don't know what the end game is.

And I think we're winning a little bit because the dumber we are and the more we talk, the better we get. So I think that says a lot about our audience.

I guess.

Let's just be honest. It's not as though we're Rhodes scholars on much other than bullshit and beer. So I think that that's a good thing for us.

I agree.

I think it's been fun. And yes, this is— well, it also helps when we get guests like this, right? So we've had a pretty good run here the last 6 months, and, uh, I think that that has a lot to do with it.

I've said for a while, if you're, uh, if you're dealing with numbers bigger than 6, you're probably not going to be a golf pro. So math isn't always our specialty, that's for sure.

Yeah, that's a legit comment. Uh, Liam, what's, what's going on in your world, man?

Like, where do we—

um, where are you hanging out right now?

Yeah, I'm in the swamp, entering year 3 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You know, pretty logical place to go when you, you know, grow up in Edmonton. But yeah, it's, you know, I guess maybe like most of us in the industry, you know, the, the world's kind of coming back on again. Like, you guys are allowed to sit down next to each other without, without putting masks on and all that kind of shit. So sort of just you know, coming back to life, I guess. Travel's begun. So we've got, you know, golf side, we got some cool stuff back on the go. We got a few guys from the Spanish Golf Federation doing some training days in the lab right now. Just got our first location up and running in Asia. It's in Kuala Lumpur. We got one more open the doors next month in Singapore. And yeah, just getting ready to get back into long-haul travel. Kind of, yeah, that's it. Decompressed after spring training, which was crazy. It was like a human ping pong ball between Florida and Arizona.

So that's very fitting for, uh, yeah, we won't even go there with that joke. Uh, so talk to us about the inception of Golf Lab. I mean, your world has like changed here over the last 10 years.

Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, God, what was it? I think it was, um, Probably around March 2007, where we had that, uh, that big house with 7 or 8 of us doing God knows what down in the desert. You guys were looping at the Vintage. I was going off to Toscana, and we'd meet up for beers at about 3 o'clock.

Yep.

Um, yeah, I hopped in my car and, uh, you know, drove east, basically started, uh, started teaching at, uh, at Bond Head, the Golf Institute of Bond Head, under a guy named Bruce McCarroll. And it at the time was like the most teched out place in Canada. And, you know, Bruce was Master Professional, National Teacher of the Year. So just kind of went there to try and figure shit out. Um, you know, I knew I always wanted a business, and, you know, I think, uh, a big part of it was, you know, from my, uh, my time playing over in Asia, um, you know, and stuff on the Long Drive Tour, I just got a chance to do a whole bunch of really cool shit, you know. And basically I figured that old rich dudes like cool shit too and they would probably pay for it if I gave them an opportunity to pay for cool shit and so that's kind of the underlying principle of the Golf Slab right there!

By the way, no true words probably ever been spoken being as much time as we spent in the desert. That's probably very, very true because as you know, the more you can talk, the more you can sell and the more technologically advanced it is, the more they buy!

Well, it is. And like, you know, um, like, for the most part, golf pros suck, right? Like, most golf pros, you know, end up in their current position through a lack of decision as opposed to a conscious one. You know, I think that, uh, you know, the majority of teaching professionals out there make people worse. You know, there's a few that don't make people worse or better. They usually have a pretty solid career. And then there's like a very small percentage that can you know, that can deliver quantifiable improvement to a broad spectrum of, of skill levels, of personalities, of levels of discipline, um, you know. And, you know, I think— I mean, we know— I mean, God, I remember talking to you guys when, uh, Chris, uh, the day the freaking market crashed, and you're coming home and there's dudes that have lost $200, $300 million while they're on the golf course. Yeah. I mean, you know, these people, they're most limited resources, time. So if you can get them better faster and take less of their time, it doesn't matter what the fuck you charge.

That's it!

That's— that's awesome!

That's something.

Yeah, yeah, legitimately. Like, and Derek's been at a level, probably the top end of the private club director sort of golf professional level for a very long time. Rancho Santa Fe, obviously the desert, now here in LA. And then in that Those words are very true. They resonate, Derek, do they not?

They do! And you know what? Another thing is, I'm gonna be careful because between Liam and myself, I might not have a Class A by the end of this because I believe very firmly that he does, that the majority of our profession isn't doing what is necessarily current in today's world. I'm obviously a little bit on my own island on that point of it being here in the Southern California section, but I think that we have lost the way of leadership and have embraced what is going to be social media or easy or things that just make their life complacent so they can do other things but when you really get into something like the Golf Lab, you're perfectly set because I remember when I was in the desert, if you were ahead of the curve and you brought demo days, like we were the first people that just put everything out on the range. I wasn't worried about theft, right? So, some— now, people would hang out and they would be on the range for 4 or 5 hours. You could start introducing, you know, at that time Ping was doing fitting which was different than everybody else. You could now suddenly turn hosels. You could do things and it was like, "Oh, that's possible!" Right? And where I was, you could sell one set. Well, they ordered 5 because they had 4 other homes. So, mine wasn't just about the actual point of making the connection. Mine was more about the service. And I wanted to make sure that at the Quarry, we did everything humanly possible to make the best facility in the world. And it started with the golf course and the turf grass maintenance and all of the things that Mark did. And we kept that all the way through. But like you said, it's really easy to be lazy around wealthy people because at some point, they're just going to move on and they're going to recognize and go to another club. And so, obviously, Liam has an in with the Madsens. Mason Club, which is the newest and the greatest right now. And you know better than anybody how that sausage is made, to use a pun from a previous pod. But more importantly, it's, it's just the truth. And it's like, what are you doing to evolve? And nothing has evolved like the Golf Lab, right? Like, nothing is currently better than the opportunity what you're providing, not only in the baseball field, but more importantly for our podcast, in the golf field.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, um Well, you know, as you kind of touched on it, you know, you'll always, you'll always have a chance, right? You know, and, and the price is not a barrier, but at the same time, I think there's very few people out there that can appreciate the, the level of service that's demanded, right? And, and so that is incredibly difficult to keep up with and to continue evolving. And, you know, like, you know, whether you're at the Quarry or Madison Tuscano, the Vintage, it doesn't matter, Rancho, Rolling Hill, you can't have a bad day. You can't have a bad day. You can't give a bad lesson. You can't give a bad fit. And if you do that, if you never have a bad day, you're golden. But— Right.

And you said it earlier, price versus value, right? They don't care about the price. They care about the value. And for us, we've said it from the beginning is if the value is there, it's like, why would you choose the Vintage or why would you choose Tuscano or the Corrier Madison? It's all going to have some sort of value to you. You obviously like the view. You might like where your house sits. You might have a south-facing lot versus a north-facing lot. It just comes down to what is your value? And I think more importantly, where golf has gone, especially with what you're doing, Liam, I think the value is exactly what they're looking for when they walk into your facility, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's exactly the story I told my wife when I told her I wanted to spend, I don't know what it was, freaking over $400 a foot on a shed to teach golf out of.

He's like, uh, yeah, we're gonna—

no, no, we really need force plates. What do they do? Well, they, they give me information to understand why the motion capture curves look the way they are. What does that do? Well, it gives me the underlying body patterns that cause the club delivery that's quantified by my launch monitor. What does that do? It's going to help us make more money. Like, shit. Exactly.

It's like, we just put Gears in our academy. So we're a private club academy Bill and— yeah, almost $700,000 worth of instruction, all member-based. But we got Gears, Sam, and that's— again, it's value, right? Like, what am I doing that's different than the rest of the private club world where a guy's working on a swing plane with an iPad just telling you, you know, make sure you drop it underneath, right?

Well, and it's like, you know, there's— especially in the world we're talking about, right? Um, we're dealing with, uh, luxury recreation. Right? This is— we're not dealing with PGA Tour players. We're not dealing with people that do this for a living. For the most part, they— I mean, probably all of them have more money than time. You know, so we look at it. If we can find ways to more clearly communicate, you know, to provide objective measurements so our students have, you know, a clear understanding of what they actually need to do, not some, like, esoteric, vague thing about how it felt to me when I was trying to do something like this 7 years ago. They're going to get better faster. They're going to have more fun doing it, you know? And that's kind of— that's just the— that's the foundation for any solid academy business.

What's the evolution been like? You get in your car, you drive to Ontario, all of a sudden you're going to start this thing, you're going to break ground, and now you have multiple sites, you have the Swing Lab baseball front.

It's goofy, man! I don't know. It's wild! I mean, it was— You know, if you go back, actually, like, I was, I was looking at a couple pictures the other day, this whole thing getting started. You know, I got a, uh, I got head pro job up at Taboo after my first year at Bond Head, which was great when I was like 28, 29. But it also meant I was out of work because it's a resort. Get married, you know, wife's pregnant, buy a house, out of work. Oh no, fuck, I guess I better start something. Shit. So it was like, uh I, I rented a couple hundred square feet from the, the squash club gym that I worked out at, you know, ripped the TV out of our living room, bought a couple of flight scopes, hooked up a couple cameras, and basically rigged everything up. So when the gym staff in the morning would flick on a light switch, all this stuff would turn on. And then, you know, members could just kind of go in and hit balls and do that kind of stuff. And, you know, within like 2 weeks we had 75 people paying $60 a month to just go in and hit balls in a place that I was paying like $400 a month rent on. So, you know, like most business people, you have a good thing working, um, you go from like 400 to 27,000 square feet. What a shit show that was.

Um, Jesus, that's a big undertaking, man. What was that whole project like?

Well, it was, uh, I mean, it was super cool. It was incredible learning experience. Um, it was horrible business for the bottom line, you know, like it was taking, teaching a quarter million dollars in lessons just to keep the doors open. But at the same time, to have the opportunity to go through that at that age, I think gives you a pretty good foundational business understanding. I mean, we had to clear $60,000 a month just to break even. You understand the top line is for vanity and bottom line is for sanity. And I look at when we exited there and we opened the research center that's kind of our global headquarters there at King Valley, We downsized by like 20x, but the bottom line went through the roof. And interestingly enough, the top line didn't really change.

Did you hit the panic button at any point and go, "Holy shit, I'm going back to Edmonton." Not going back to Edmonton, that's for sure.

But yeah, there was a lot of time where it was panic where there was some times where my wife and I had some pretty tough conversations about divorce on paper to make sure that the house was kept in case the business went down. Yeah, it's— you know, it was nasty! It was a real deal though!

That's scary, man! I mean— I guess from a staffing perspective, do you just go "Okay, I'm gonna try and find the best instructors I can. Do I want a lot of guys working here? Do I want to like sell my soul and work 20 hours a day?" Yeah!

I mean, it was a little bit of everything! You know, the nut was so high on that! You know, everything really had to be firing on all cylinders. So, you know, we had our teaching pros and— you know, pretty unique programming and stuff like that. But at the same time, we would rent out excess inventory so other pros that didn't have the money to say buy a Trackman, you know, they could come in at that time, they could, you know, teach a lesson on Trackman for $30. So it was, it was trying to pull everything in from all over the place. When we had on-site physiotherapy, we had, uh, personal training, there's like a 3,000-square-foot gym. Um, you know, the biggest thing really was there was just too much dead space. The top line revenue was great. The original business model called for between 8,000 and 9,000 square feet. My former partner made a bunch of money in automotive and wanted a big shiny place, and we got that with the big shiny bills.

Robert Leonard We're going to take this opportunity to welcome David Briston to the show.

David Briston Hey. Hello. What's up, dude? Not much, man.

How are you?

I'm good, I'm good.

Apologies, uh, running all day today and, uh, overlap upon overlap, but we told him the presidential phone rang.

Yeah, yeah, the bad— you got the bad signal in the light.

Liam's the smartest guy in golf because he left Barrie, Ontario, where I reside now.

Oh, are you living there now? No shit.

Jen got, uh, a promotion at TD, so she runs the north. So we're based on Barry.

Yeah. Oh, no way. I think, uh, she— we might have a— I had a good buddy of mine is with TD, so she knows, uh, she knows Darryl Hebner. Tell her to say hi.

Is he in Collingwood?

Uh, no, he's in Barry.

Okay, all right, got it.

Muck's a pretty sweet guy. He's, uh, yeah, I've ever, uh, seen sitting still for very long. So yeah, I can, I can contest to that.

That was the basketball game last night.

It was awesome. It was freaking cool. I mean, I, I like to cheer for underdogs. I was hoping UNC was gonna, uh, was gonna hang on, but man, what an electric environment. That was the coolest environment I've been in of any, any sporting event I've been to in North America.

It's pretty crazy thinking last year they had cardboard cutouts, right? Like, just 65 days, you just went from absolutely stoic to electric in, in less than, you know, basically essentially a calendar year.

COVID only exists in Canada.

Yeah, we don't, we don't believe in COVID in Louisiana or Florida or California or anywhere in the lower 50 states. Yeah!

Same!

Yeah! The Southeast is different, that's for sure!

So how Baton Rouge? Let's get into Baton Rouge! So why?

Yeah! So, you know, opened our first academy at Madison. You know, doing— it was great! You know, doing all kinds of cool stuff like we would actually, you know, we would set up a tent and have multiple GEARZ weekends. I had— I think I was the only outdoor force plates but you know, you can get away with that in the desert. And it was, you know, it was fantastic. You know, we got the same time. Gosh, let's see, what would this be? It would have been PGA Show 2019. I got a phone call from Greg Rose. You know, Greg's like, hey Liam, get to the booth right now. I kind of wandered down there. And, you know, if you know Greg, he's— times when he's pretty blunt, pretty direct. It was, Liam, this is Kent Mathis. He's an agent with CAA Baseball. He said, "There's no such thing as bat fitting. Can you figure it out?" That was not what I was expecting. You know, I was just kind of like, "Maybe, I don't know." So Kent connected me with a guy named Kyle Orso. He's a VP at Marucci Sports. They're the leading, you know, wood bat company, you know, really kind of dominating the baseball space at all levels. So Kyle sent me 8 bats, just 8 wooden bats. Uh, Johnny from The Golf Lab flew down, we ran a Gears weekend at Madison Club, then we packed the stuff up, uh, bought a Rapsodo, which is a baseball launch monitor, and we headed out to Glendale, you know, and, uh, and through Kent we started paying these, uh, independent league guys $50 to come in and hit 8 different bats, you know. And at the end of each one we'd be like, okay, which one do you like the best? They'd pick one and be like, well, what if this one hits it 4 miles an hour harder? Like, oh, well, no, I like this one now, you know, and we're kind of looking at going, damn. So we kept making this sort of progress and the whole time I'm going, well, this doesn't make sense. Like baseball is America's pastime, you know, like it's Moneyball, it's the numbers game. Like this is the person's bat, you're kidding. Like there's no such thing as fitting and, you know, there really wasn't. You know, that, that continued to evolve. You know, we're pretty fortunate early on, in addition to forming a, you know, form a new company called Baseball Performance Lab. It's, you know, just obviously a spin-off of the Golf Lab. You know, entered into a long-term partnership with Marucci Sports, and right on the heels of that, you know, we signed a couple Major League clubs, you know, one in the National League, pretty close to where you guys are at right now, and then another one in the American League not too far from where I'm at. And it was like, oh shit, we have a business? We still don't really know what we're doing. What was cool is like, you know, it's— there's so many similarities and there's so many differences. Um, you know, we're, we're on site with our National League partner, and the very first player we go through and we fit, we're like Oh man, like, yeah, like this bat's the best for the guy. We're like, well, that was kind of deflating. You know, one of the performance scientists leans over, he goes, that guy was just AA Player of the Year. I'm like, oh, okay, all right, cool. You know, and the thing that I think helped us the most early on in baseball was the willingness to say, I don't know, which as I've learned is a thing. I mean, we all know that it's not very often you go and you ask a teaching professional a question and whether they know the answer or not, Very rare you hear, I don't know. Um, you know, so we just kind of kept pushing along and taking all the lessons we've learned from golf, studying baseball, using similar technology matrix of force plates and motion capture and launch monitors. And, um, it's pretty cool now. We've got, uh, we've got multi-year deals with 5 MLB teams. Our, our client list has come to Baton Rouge to see us is over a billion dollars in lifetime earnings. Um, yeah, and it's just, you know, it's, uh, it's fun. I don't know what else to say.

I'm gonna say that next time we're, uh, we're together, you're definitely picking up the tab for lunch.

All right, come on out, we'll have a crawfish boil.

There you go.

And fit me for my next bat.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah, you're gonna break.

Let's go.

Car stereos you're gonna steal. Liam, talk to us about the importance of being fit. Why, why should people care? Why can't you just go to Canadian Tire or Dick's Sporting Goods, grab a bat off the shelf, or golf clubs likewise?

Yeah, it's like, well, you know, it's, you know, we've been saying in golf, the— it's so, it's interesting here. Okay, so there's first thing you have to understand, uh, unless something's changed in the last 6 months to a year, there has never been an empirical study that shows that getting fit for clubs lowers handicap, but Changing the club is the single fastest way to change your ball flight. Okay. That doesn't mean it's going to be good, but like, let's face it. If I give you a 14-degree driver with a 43-inch lady shaft, you're going to hit that thing way different than when you hit right now. It may not be, it may be better. It may be worse, but you know, so it's, it's important from, you know, recognizing that oftentimes, and I'd say this even at the highest level, You know, when I'm dealing with a PGA Tour player and they're struggling with something, absolutely the very first thing I'm going to check is going to be their equipment, right? Because if I— if, if lies and lofts have got knocked out and that's what's affecting proximity to the hole, I just want to make those quick bends and you don't have to worry about your swing. You just keep being you and you get a different result, you know? And it, it's incredible actually the number of times that happens for, for all the PGA Tour players, LPGA Tour players that we've worked with. You know, we go through a pretty detailed intake process, you know, from, you know, body screening, power testing, full body motion capture, ground force analysis, you know, build a full blueprint of every club in the bag and test every club in the bag's dynamic performance. We've never had anyone come in that had their entire bag, you know, from lob wedge to driver performing exactly the way they wanted to. The closest we've ever had Andrew Putnam came in one time and everything was so dialed in. Um, he was losing his 4-iron a little bit right. Sure enough, compared to every other club in the bag, it was like a degree and a half flat. You know, 3-hour process, we bend it to match the rest of his set. You know, next week he gets his first win at the Barracuda. You know, I loved it because he hit 4-iron on 18 coming in. But you know, it's, it's You know, it, it's, it, it depending on who you are, it has so many different value propositions. You know, if you are someone that's out there playing for your living, it's like, I don't know, it's like having insurance. Like, you know, you want to always have insurance in your car. You should feel the same way about your clubs. Check 'em every Monday. You know, for the amateur players out there, you know, if you've got a driver that's more than 2 years old, you're almost certainly giving up yards. Right, you know, and whether we look at Brody's work or, you know, another, another number of other statisticians out there, we know that, you know, as you gain more yardage, you have the opportunity to score better. Um, you know, so it's, you know, it's endless, the number of reasons, you know. Like, if you're a beginner, right, won't say, oh, I'm not good enough to get fitted for clubs. Well, if you're shit, it's probably more important to get fitted for clubs. Right? Like, I, I just look at so many people starting out, they've got ill-fit clubs and it fucks their posture and grip right from the get-go. Like, I don't care if you've got one club and all you're doing is going to Topgolf with a 7-iron, make sure it's the right length, make sure it's the right lie angle, make sure it's the right loft, and go get more out of your time.

You know, Liam, it's funny you say that because we have the same policy here, and obviously we're not The Golf Lab, we're lucky to have a great kind of setup in the back of the academy and all that, but like, we have no demo clubs. We don't believe in them, right? You either get fit or you buy, and we have fitting 14 days a year. We bring in companies obviously on Master Staff with a non-sponsored of—

of—

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

As you know, with supercomputers and the iterations are moving so fast and these guys are doing so many different things with the golf ball and ball speed and all of these things are moving around a spherical thing that just does amazing things with its design. You could be one click away from prosperity and you have no idea if you're not properly fit, right? And now, as you're getting into technology, you're talking about force plates gears and all these great things, like even just numbers and ball spin and flight and all of these things, as you said. And the thing that you said that's the dearest to my heart is the fast way to change your ball flight is to change your equipment, right? It's just that simple. And I don't think people understand. And since we've opened Rolling Hills, we're the opposite. You know, we're running about 48% of all of our sales are hard goods, which is unheard of in the private club business. And the reason for that is because of our academy and the technological advances we have, we can prove that new shit is better, which is the whole point in doing this. So if you had an '18 Tesla, it's not a '22 Tesla. There's going to be improvements.

Micah Gibbs It's not the Plaid.

Preston Pysh Exactly. That's exactly right. And it's like, I think that people forget that research and design and people are smart. There are people like yourself. They're moving stratospherically through this world. And it's like, holy shit, listen to really smart people It's a very small tariff to pay to get good fast.

Well, and I think, you know, there's something you bring up, you know, that I know you guys are doing there, and it's part of the reason why you're as successful as you do. But I don't, I don't see this— one of the— it drives me nuts, frankly, is, um, and I feel like it actually is more prevalent in the States than it is in a lot of Commonwealth countries, um, like these independent silos of teaching and fitting, right? And it's like, it just, it, it makes no sense to me. I mean, even if, even if your head coach doesn't actually perform the fitting, they should be driving, like, you know. So for, like, I'm just saying, for listeners out there, if you don't have the opportunity to go somewhere, you know, that has experts, if you're going to, you know, we'll call it like, uh, you know, not a big box but one of the new, you know, one of the new trendy fitting shops, you know, there's a few of them out there that have a bunch of locations and they've got good product and You know, they do a really good job with their build control and they've come leaps and bounds, but you know, skill's tough to replicate and fitters can sometimes go off the rails and be individual. But arm yourself with some knowledge, go in and make specific demands, and that just sets a playing field. So like, just as an example, you know, if, uh, if I'm a golfer, uh, you know, out in your neck of the woods, understanding that, you know, the normal types of conditions and stuff that I play in I'd be like, look, man, here's what I need you to do. Uh, if you can create me a driver where I have a smash factor that is consistently above 1.45, I launch it between 11 and 13 degrees with between 2,000-2,400 spin, you got a sale. You ready? Let's go. Right? And you take all the, you know, the weird kind of, I don't know, just subjectivity out of it. Just tell the people what you're looking for. If you hit the numbers, you got the right you know, you got the right thing in your hand.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's important to have the right information for sure. Some of the amateur players out there definitely won't need that technical understanding of why a lower spin rate is going to do this and that and the other and the X factor. But I, I like that. That's, that's something that I can support for sure. Understand what your, what your end game is. Why are you going there? What are you doing? And then obviously getting the proper equipment for, you know, that, that X factor end result that you want out of it. That's really, really cool.

Well, and a lot of the reason too that we suffer from this is just the vanity of professionals, the vanity of people, right? It's like, "Hey, I belong to this staff. I have to sell this stuff." In my world, I don't care what you sell as long as it's rung through my cash register. While I'm going to promote the brand that's part of my life, it might not be the best fit for someone. In the end, I have 465 bosses and the Golf Professional of the Year is the guy who gets his contract renewed for next year. So to hell with meetings and fanfare. I want my membership to know not only are we the leading industry in golf, we're also the only industry and the only private club that's going to take that to a certain point where you're knowing that satisfaction is guaranteed because it's your facility. You own the ground, right? And it's much like he's talking about. You can't push forward without the knowledge base of actually knowing what you're talking about and then not having a bias to a certain product, even though it might not be best. It's going to look good on your stat sheet and it might get you another free driver or another something else. I just think that that's where shit gets lost. I don't think that's necessary in today's world.

I don't think, uh, I know any other brands other than TaylorMade, to speak for yourself.

Way to go, man. Bleed red, bleed red.

See what I put up with, Liam? This is what I'm talking about. We were just flowing into this podcast.

Yeah, well, it's the company. I mean, you did technically choose to be there in the room, and I like that.

So the good news is I get to leave in 10 more minutes for my next meeting.

So, but it is refreshing to hear a voice pushing common sense and logic. And one of the things, like when, when Parksy said we're getting on with Liam, it's like, hey, I know somebody's going to come out and hit your right smack ass in the nose going, either it is or it isn't, right? And this whole semantic thing where you could go and romanticize, hey, I got this, and this and this and it's an AutoFlex shaft and it's $1,000 because you have all the money in the world. Well, you know it's going to happen the minute you put them in their hands. My problem is I'd rather do the opposite. I'd rather sell somebody that they're going to want to have, they're not going to want to give up their gamer because it's so good and then you prove that the next gamer is better than the old gamer.

Yeah!

Yep!

Yeah!

It's like, you know, as much as we joke that, you know, our members' IQ gets cut in half the second they get on property. The, the reality is, like, if you are a member at one of these private clubs or you have the disposable income where you're actually in there for custom fitting, as much as we in the industry like to, you know, disparage our clientele, you're probably pretty smart, you know. You figured out how to have bankroll and how to have time to actually play this expensive, time-consuming game. So, like, let's take the opportunity to give a little education, you know. Like when your member is out there asking you for a 4-iron, like, okay, I'll tell you what, you got 3 cracks at it. Have one 4-iron that lands steeper than 45 degrees, you get it. If not, fuck your 4-iron, we're getting a hybrid. Well, why do I need that? Oh, because when the ball lands steeper than 45 degrees, it's got more vertical energy and it has an opportunity to stop. Wait, doesn't spin make it stop? No, there's 7% spin decay over the flight of the ball. Like They love that shit. And then when they go out and they flush their 4 hybrid on 190-yard par 4 or par 3 and it sticks, they get to tell a story to their other few rich buddies that are walking up there. Now you got 3 more clients.

Liam wasn't speaking English to a lot of our listeners there with ball spin and all that stuff. But now, and I do have to go and I just want to segue, it's been cool to watch your journey because as you know, serial entrepreneur myself, but You know, you kind of ventured off our first sit-down, gosh, 10, 12 years ago. Liam's talking about things that are way above my brain capacity, and, you know, he told me what he's doing, and it's been kind of cool just to watch your journey and, you know, enter that arena of entrepreneurship and the ups and downs. And, you know, you alluded to that a little bit earlier, but at the same time, pretty cool what you're doing. And, you know, all the things that you do talk about are changing just not golf but sports, and I think that's it's, you know, a testament to the time and the work and, you know, the knowledge that you've, you know, experimented with. And I don't know, keep going and off to my next one. These boys can wrap it up.

Appreciate it. Thanks, David. Hopefully it's less than a decade before the next time we catch up.

That's true.

It's nice too when the guest can outlast one of the hosts. So that tells you the staying power of what it is we're doing.

I'm in Southern California. I'm actually going to surfing.

I don't blame you. Enjoy Barry life. Hopefully there's no snow when you get back.

Let's, let's talk a little bit to the listenership. Let's go forward. You're going to tell somebody one basic, something simple. Obviously the Golf Lab can go to any length of information that you want. What should we be talking about? Ball speed? What are you looking at? Are you looking at club spin? Like, where should we start for those that don't have the access to a private club or a setup like you have or we have?

Well, you know, so yeah, for like You know, if reality is you don't have access to any of that or, you know, trusted advice or anything, you know what driver's the best? The one you hit out the middle the most. You know, like, and it's, you know, we— and I love, like, all the crazy numbers and all the goofy stuff and all this kind of deal, but it, you know, there was probably a 5 to 6 year period from when I was done playing you know, and I was starting the business, I was studying, I was learning, I was experimenting, I was doing all these things, and I was so deep in the weeds at the same time and reason I forgot that it's a game, it's a sport that we have to play, you know. And I was, uh, I was on the range at Nona one time with G-Mac and, you know, working on his driver, um, you know, he swings a couple degrees down on it, he's still playing well, doesn't really want to make much in the way of delivery changes, he's using like an ancient Callaway Optiforce. Um, you know, we're just talking about ways to cut a spin rate and do this, that, and the other thing. Okay, we could hit a little high on the face, maybe a little toe, you could get some vertical gear effect, you can increase whatever, all this kind of crap. He looks at me, he goes, well, I got a question for you. Why wouldn't I just learn to hit the ball like that out the middle of the face? And I'm just like, oh shit, logic is— logic is undefeated. And he's a beauty, like, you know, he's engineering mind, studied the UAB and all that kind of stuff. But it was a pivotal moment because it, you know, I think it made me realize, you know, the art is understanding, you know, impact geometry, understanding ball flight law. But then really what we need to do, whether we're in, you know, instruction, coaching, fitting, whatever it is, we need to translate that to the person in front of us to make it relevant in a way that they can process, understand, ultimately change perception. You know, the way one of the more recent kind of, I don't know, uh, soapbox rants I've gone on is, you know, is when people come to see us, whatever, whatever that engagement is, they're coming to change performance. Performance is what happens out on the golf course. Performance isn't going to change unless we change behavior. Changing behavior in an adult is a very difficult thing. Behavior is not going to change unless we change perception. So, we have to tackle perception first and we need the person standing there in front of us to think about something they've always thought about from a different perspective or view it through a different lens and only then do we have the opportunity to make meaningful lasting change.

I mean, that's perfectly said. I mean, like I said, I'm enjoying this because not only is the discipline there, but the dedication to what you do. But your logic is exactly where I fall under. I say the same thing to everybody on the team, every assistant that works with me— change the perception. It is their club. It's their money. It's their thought process. How do you become a leader in your industry without changing their perception? Because obviously, they were successful at some point to be here. Either they were, you know, born to the right two people or they worked their ass off to get it, right? So that being said, how do you change the perception? And here, it's the same thing. That's why we go so hard good and our special orders are so high. Because we push the envelope from a standpoint of instruction. And most places would look for a private club to not lose money. Ours is an amenity. We lose money on it because we want to pay our staff and have the best possible team. We have two top 50 teachers here. We did it all. We put a lot of money into the instructional side of it, the club fitting side of it. We have a national, uh, fitters— we have a fitter board staff member, uh, nationally. We've got a lot of push. We make a lot of our revenue off of high hard goods because people here believe the stigma that, hey, the professionals know best. And with numbers, you're the king of this. Numbers can prove you right. You know, you can be an asshole. You can be a horrible human being. You can do a lot of things that people don't agree with, but you can't ever go against the numbers because they're dead ass right. And I think that people eventually, especially successful people, we go back to the value thing. People know that there's a value in getting fit. There's a value in getting better. And everybody that plays this game for real, obviously is going to want to get fit, get better, because they want their handicap to go lower. It's a pretty simple premise.

Well, I, I love what you guys are doing there. You know, as we talk about, uh, talk about this towards the end of, uh, end of our Golf Lab Certified seminars, you know, and it comes down to the reality of, um, there's more rounds of golf available to purchase than there are people to play them, right? There, there's more drivers for sale than there are people to buy them. right? And when you're operating in that space, it's a commodity. It's bought and sold strictly on price, you know. And then you can do what you see at a lot of public clubs or semi-private where you can bundle a few things, right? Like, okay, yeah, well, if you, if you buy a 20-pack of green fees, you'll get a little bit of a discount, right? Um, which is interesting because that's what we do in golf. But if you look at what happens in other industries, say like, you know, within coffee where you buy coffee beans, You know, if you— then you could go buy a can of coffee where it's ground and stored in the can. That you actually pay extra for that, but our dumbasses in golf actually go ahead and discount shit, right? You know, um, you know, or you go to Starbucks, you know, and you spend your $5.10 for your caramel macchiato and you watch them make it and they misspell your name and then they call it out and you go and you spend a shit ton of money, but you do it because of the experience, right? And that's exactly what you guys are doing there. You're providing them with what they want, but you're doing it in such a way that makes it incredibly enjoyable. And that's why they're not going to go to another club. That's why, you know, for, for your members, the last thing they would ever dream of would be purchasing anything from not you, right?

Yep. So discipline, right? So like, we're having Topgolf coming to El Segundo, and like, who would have ever thought when we were doing this, and you're, you're hanging out the Madison, and I'm lucky enough to be at the Quarry, that in time digital golf or game golf was going to be my biggest competitor. I mean, that's a real thing. And if you're going to miss that and you're arrogant enough to think that because what's behind the gates is stuffy enough or secluded enough that they're not going to do it, you're crazy. The world is moving so fast into technology that you better have your shit together and you better provide service and you better make their enjoyment, their experience enjoyable. Otherwise you're going to lose to anybody that's got a screen And it's fun.

Well, you take a look at what, uh, you know, I lived over in South Korea for 4 years, 2004 to 2008, and it was already like that over there, you know. And the Western world is catching up again. People, so their most limited resource is time, right? So to travel to the golf course to play 18 holes is difficult. You have to provide something very unique for them to do that, you know. I mean, we're going to be at a state close where they are in Korea where there's, you know, 3 times as many indoor golf centers as there actually are golf courses. I mean, shit, I remember giving a lesson to a guy over there, and, uh, you know, like kind of through broken English, and I'm talking to him, you know, trying to ask some questions, you know, you know, what are you working on, how long, you know, how long you've been golfing for. He's like, oh, like 7 years. I'm like, okay, so what do you normally shoot? He goes, oh no, never played, never on course, but this year I will play. I'm like, what? Holy shit! But you know, that's where we're headed.

And you're not wrong. And we have USC, so both the boys and the girls play here, the men and the ladies. And we had a USA golfer that literally said, "I don't hit off mats. I'll just go practice somewhere else." And I'm just thinking to myself, you just have no idea of what's coming and where this game is going because that type of attitude is exactly why other places are winning, right? Right? And it's like, what the ball does to perform and what you do to make the ball perform is the fun in the game. If we get to the point where we're so arrogant in the thought process and we don't want to invest in what it is that makes us better, I think you're just looking— just look at gas prices. Look at everything. It's a really easy subject to get away from, right?

Yep!

You know, and I think that what you guys are doing, and that's why I was so excited for this one, is just simply because there's a service. And when you can provide a service that nobody can match, you're just in a wonderful space.

Yep, yep, that's for sure.

Yeah, I like that. Liam, let's talk a little bit about family because we haven't, uh, we haven't talked any fun stuff yet. So yeah, yeah, well, your, uh, all your kids and your wife and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, so, you know, typical golf pro, uh, uh, you know, met my wife in a golf lesson, or as I like to say, she paid to meet me. I gave her a discount. Um, yeah, yeah. And then, uh, yeah, now I got an 11-year-old boy. After we wrap with this, I'm gonna go throw batting practice for him. So nice, you know, he's, uh, he's full-on baseball, football, you know, playing a little bit of golf. Finally, finally getting into a little bit. For a long time, that was dad's thing, so it wasn't cool, but I think he's starting to realize that he kind of hits it a little bit farther than the normal 11-year-old. Um, yeah, no, and just, you know, living, uh, living the dream down here in Louisiana. Looking forward to, uh, getting back out and traveling some more.

How's it going down there, dude? Is it hot as balls? Like every movie you see— I've never been there personally, but every movie you see, it's just hotter than hot.

It's, it's pretty sweaty, but, um, I'll take it over an Edmonton winter, right?

It's like your guy, because they would say I'd listen, hover humid or hot it is, it's better than where I came from.

Well, it's like, you know, it's the same thing when I was living out in Barrie, you know. It's like, you can complain about the cold, you can complain about the heat, but you fucking can't complain about both. You're just a hypocrite. Like, what the hell, man? So, you know, you know, between that and then I'm a big believer in, uh, you know, if you don't like something, you know, either A, get involved, or B, leave, you know. So I've been heavily involved with the PGA because I see opportunity to try and support and evolve, you know. So whether it's, you know, being on the board of the PGA of Ontario, or, you know, developing and delivering education stuff for the PGA of Canada, or sitting on the teaching coaching task force down here in the PGA of America, you know, don't complain, get involved, you know. Or if you don't like it, leave, which is kind of what I'm working on with Canada.

So, well, I'll never forget it. Before we get into the rapid fire, Mark Smith, the best superintendent I've ever been around at the quarry forever, just said the only difference between complaining about heat and cold is very simple. You don't shovel warmth.

I'm like, yeah, you don't. We don't shovel the rain. That's 100% correct.

It's the only difference. So good for you.

Hashtag buried life.

Hey. Oh yeah, I don't miss those. I got to— I'll start. I'll start swamp life here soon.

There you go. Yeah, swamp life. Looking forward to that.

The Rapid Fire 10 portion of the show is brought to you by our friends over at DraftKings. DraftKings Daily Fantasy Sports mirrors season-long fantasy sport but condenses it into shorter sweat-inducing formats. Heart-throttling contests range from a day-to-day or a week-to-week depending on the sport. Competitors draft a player roster and those athletes earn points based on their in-game performance. Sweat the sweat each and every play. Test your skills and knowledge. Throw down your bragging rights. Friends, family, foes, or other fans nationally. Let the victory chase for you a change. Check out DraftKings.com and use 4JACK as your promotional code for a little extra kicker. Let's get back to the show.

And then we're going to transition to something we'd like to call the Rapid Fire 10 to close out the show. It's 10 skill testing questions surrounding Canadian politics. Oh boy, I'm just kidding. We're gonna make it fun. This will— this will, as Derek alluded to, teach us how the sausage was made, so to speak.

All right, all right, let's do it.

Starting the clock. Question number 1, Liam. This is probably the hardest one too. What did you have for breakfast today, sir?

Ramen. Ramen.

Seriously, ramen, that's the best one.

Yeah, we were at the game last night. I slept in. Kid and I had ramen before he went to school at lunchtime. I love it.

Nutritious, delicious. Yeah, yep, cost-effective, cost-effective.

Yeah.

Question number 2: what's in the bag right now? Obviously you're getting out a little bit to play golf. What are you swinging for wrenches?

Uh, yeah, I got, uh, the PXG Original STs, the, uh, full milled irons. I've got, uh, I got a couple custom wedges from, uh from Wedgeworks at Bokeh. So I mix up the, the balance and grind depending on the season here in Louisiana. I've got the, uh, TaylorMade— what is it— 790 UDI 2-iron in there.

Nice.

Uh, PXG Gen 4 driver and 2-wood. Wow.

Okay, what do we have? What's the wand? What's the magic wand right now?

Oh, so, um, I am fortunate enough to have a few Scotty Cameron Circle Ts which are benched. Uh, I'm using a prototype TaylorMade Mullen that was made for— it was actually made for DJ, but after uh, after studying vision, uh, for about a year, I realized the stuff that Scotty made me couldn't have been worse for me in my playing career. So it's kind of cool now, like when I, you know, when I stand up over a 6-footer and I've got the hole in my periphery, I can actually see straight, you know. Like if I put a line on the ball, looks like it's going in the middle of the hole. Back in my playing days, looked like it was going about 14 inches left.

Wow, interesting. We'll have to dive into that on the next show. It sounds like there's some—

yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's some— yeah, there's some value there.

Not coincidental that they're not the number one putter in the world anymore.

Yeah. Question number 3.

They're pretty.

They are very nice. Yeah, it's a marketing firm.

Kardashians of putters.

Yep, that's good.

Question number 3, Liam: are you an outfit guy? Do you get dressed in the dark? Do you care what you look like? Are you a white hat, white belt, Kind of guy. Um, what's the look going to the golf course?

It's just which pair of Jordan golf shoes I'm going to put on. I'm either going to be playing in, in some, some funky Jordans that are hard to find, or I'm going to be in my FootJoy 1857s. It depends if I'm going to shoot a number or not.

Nice. Uh, a while back there we saw Tiger at the Masters with some FootJoy Classics, so yeah, he, uh, was pretty excited to see him out there, but not really surprised to see him in FootJoy.

That was a little weird. Yeah, it was. But, uh, I think it's probably that, uh, if they're— if it's the true classic, I mean, the same as those 1857s, I don't know, there's just— I just find there's something stability-wise about the old leather sole, the wooden heel, real spikes. Could just be nostalgia.

Hard to beat. Yeah, exactly. Uh, we're heading to the golf course now that we have all this information. What does a warm-up routine look like before you play? Is there anything specific to do, anything methodical you could do, something you could share with our listeners?

Yeah, I get to— I actually have, uh, I have like a red stretching band. And so basically for me, you know what, my swing is my swing. I hit it how I hit it. I don't really hit balls anymore. I still got a bad thumb. But, uh, you know, I'm going through stretching out to keep T-spine stable. I'm going to go do some overhead deep squats, you know, same thing. I'm going to hook thumbs around it in here to kind of keep core engaged and start to get, you know, some stability as I start to rotate. And so I'm, I'd say, very focused on the physical and have no regard for the technical because if I'm working on my swing before I tee up, all I'm going to do is ship a bunch of cash off to whoever I'm playing with. Love it.

I want to be there that day for sure. Music on the golf course, Liam. Question number 5.

Are you down?

Absolutely. Yeah, 100%.

What are we listening to?

Uh, I'm old school, man. I'm classic rock. That's it. You know, it's the same thing at the lab. One of the toughest technology decisions that I stood on the most, the lab, was what kind of stereo to put in for the yacht rock.

Yeah, rock it.

You gotta— I mean, you gotta have tunes. Like, let's have some fun out there. We're practicing shit, right?

I agree 100%. That's kind of bred into you by the Madison, right? Gotta have tunes on the range all the time.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Like that.

God forbid we have fun.

I mean, yeah, no, that's not allowed.

I know. Do you enjoy it? Yeah, the time that I was like, okay, music on the golf course is all I was with a couple clients, we were down playing at Riv, and Marky Mark was in front of us cranking tunes the whole day round. I'm like, all right, it's good enough for him, I'm in. They can do it at Riv, we can do it at King Valley.

I like that, man, that's good. Yeah, I think there needs to be a bit of a changing of the guard, sort of remove that stuffiness. Question number 6, something that translates well to our listeners, uh, maybe you can give them a little advice on a swing thought or something to think about when you're at the golf course?

Solid contact is king. You know what, I mean, I've been at this for a while now. I still haven't seen anyone hit it with their backswing, so stop worrying about it.

That's good. I like that. Legitimate. Heard it here first, folks. Question number 7: Liam, are you a snack at the turn kind of guy? Hot dog, non-fat chai latte, whatever it is.

What's your go-to? No, it's either— again, it depends on the, uh, the environment in which I'm playing. You know, one of them is going be a steady stream of Michelob Ultras from beginning to end. The, uh, you know, the other one is gonna go like peanuts and beef jerky and water.

There you go. Okay.

Yeah, so you— yeah, going low on the glycemic index, you know, long-term energy release protein, minimal volume of food in the stomach, like that, or a bunch of Ultras.

Question number 8: Favorite golf course memory, something that really resonates with you when you think back on those magical moments?

Oh man, um, God, I mean, there's, there's too many, you know. I, uh, I'm pretty lucky. I think my, uh, my ability as a youth to hit that stupid little white ball farther than most is, you know, afforded me a pretty, pretty awesome life, I think. Um, Favorite? Gosh, all-time favorite, probably, probably beating Zubac in the 2001 International Long Drive Championship on TSN with my first ball. He hit 6 and couldn't get it past, and he's probably going to punch me if he hears this, but I mean, I look up to Jay. He's an idol. He's the most dominant in the sport, but I got lucky and had my day.

I like that. I was kind of hoping for like you, me, Assman, Tothman, Riverside, Washington ass man freak out and throw clubs?

Well, I remember the one time— I remember one time being on the 18 tee at P Club and ass man was having a bit of a rough day. It was in the Edmonton Open and he hit one. I can't remember where it started or where it ended up, but I was like, you know, come on, like, get him, get a kick, get a bounce. And he turns around without us, right? Goes, stop fucking talking to my goddamn golf ball. It's my ball, not your ball. Don't talk to my ball, I won't talk to your ball. Shut the fuck up. I was like, Okay, got it. Next.

That's legit. I, I got a club thrown at me across the fairway. Get your fucking mouth off my ball. Yeah, for sure. Love you, ass man.

Love you, ass man.

Uh, question number 9, then I'll hand it over to Derek to close out the show. We always like to ask our guests the cliché question: who would be your ultimate dream foursome? We'll let you play 5, pick 4 players.

Oh, um, Going with, uh, man, I'm going with my folks for sure. Um, yeah, and then, uh, that's probably it, you know. If I was gonna go, I wouldn't even— I probably wouldn't even fill out the group. It'd be— it'd be my folks, it'd be my wife, and we'd be playing the Compass course at Royal Melbourne.

All right, I like that. We've had everything from Jesus to the group from Seinfeld. So that's— yeah, family's a good one.

You know, if I was able to have two dream groups, it would be Back at the Slide. Ah, just for old time's sake.

I like that.

The old Ingie. Yeah, take it away. Question number 10, final question of the evening.

Well, Liam, thanks. Number one, again, I love the candid honesty. I think that that's what this industry needs. I think there's just too much bullshit, and I think there's too much tickling of certain areas of the, of the life, because I think people really don't seem to want to get down and dirty to get better. Right? I think that it's always going to be in the dirt, and I think what you're doing is proving that by what you're doing, not only from a technological standpoint, but as more of kind of leadership in that thought process of, hey, I can fix it, I can do it, we can talk about what it is and hear the numbers. And I think it's like you said, one foreign adjustment, suddenly a guy wins. I don't find that to be coincidental at all, right? Like, you've got to be reliant on what it is that you do. But my question for you is, is going through the way that you've done this and starting in Edmonton through some of the great places in America, and, and then you've been international with the long drive part of it, and you've done all this stuff. What do you see industry-wide we need to do? Like, if, if you had the chance for a day and you're going to keep your, your Canadian PGA status, you're going to say, hey, I have a chance to move the needle a little bit, where are you moving the needle in golf?

Well, you know, I think, you know, for me, I'm going to keep pushing the direction that I have. I don't see any change coming there. You know, biggest advice I would give to other, you know, people in the industry is stop making— stop making your decisions based on not losing your job. Stop with the fear-motivated decisions. Get out your comfort zone and take a look at it and be like, okay, if I really wanted to be the best, what am I going to do? You know, and that goes for anything. It doesn't matter if it's how you organize the merch in your shop, if you're, you know, if you want to be a club fitter, if you want to be a teacher, but stop with this fear-motivated decision bullshit.

Bingo! And that is exactly why I appreciate the answer because that's exactly right! You're 100% right on the simple fact that we sell and we do and we act out of fear and now we went to a committee-based society away from that benevolent dictator or that supreme leader or whatever you want to call him but that person like Mr. Yamaki runs Riviera and it's like, we now all decide amongst each other and as you know, there's nothing worse than 12 wealthy people in a room trying to come up with one you know, common answer. It just doesn't exist. And so I think professionally, I think the reason for that— and I— this is where I differ from the rest of the world— I think we've gotten weak professionally on decision-making and knowledge-based information because we allow committees to tell us what we can and can't do instead of being the actual predictor and the voice professionally of what it is you're supposed to do. So I do appreciate that answer.

Yeah, stop letting amateurs run your golf club.

There you go.

Love that.

Words of wisdom from the man himself, Liam Mucklow. Thanks so much for joining us on the show tonight, man. Muck, it's—

yeah, boys, it's been a long time. Keep up, uh, keep up the good stuff, man. If, uh, you ever need someone to talk shit on another season, let me know.

All right, well, if you get to LA, you're welcome. Would love to have you out. Love to show you around. Love to talk to you about it.

I'll, uh, yeah, I'll be out there in about 6 weeks, so I'll let you know. It'll be awesome.

We've got some of that team that we can't talk about. We got a lot of contacts here here. So we spent a lot of time with that group.

So let's do it.

All right, thanks so much. All right, boys, all the best.

Take care. See ya.