1125: Finances of Being a Pro Golfer

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“>> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no-laying”

a podcast presented as always by our friends at Titleist.

The first hour of this pot is going to be ad-free. Thanks to those very friends at Titleist. Just want to give a quick shout out. They just posted meals playing less and with Russell Henley on YouTube.

Lots of cool nuggets in there. Go check it out. Today's episode is on a topic I've wanted to dive into for a long time. The finances of professional golf. PGA tour money list, it used to be the end-all be all

determinant of success in professional golf. And it kind of goes against everything we're taught in society about money, which is that you shouldn't talk about how much money you make or how much you spend. In professional sports it's different.

Earnings are mostly public and I'm definitely guilty of just assuming because someone has made $10 million in the PGA tour that they're set for life. >> People just look at the big number. Like how much did you make on tours?

>> I made that much technically, but I was a lot older than I liked to admit when I started to learn a little bit more about the expense side of being a touring professional.

“Flights, hotels, caddy fees, coaches, mental coaches,”

physical therapists, country club fees, rental cars. The expense is really due at up. >> My last year on the corn freight tour. Like I said, I made $108,000. But I probably spent $100,000 to do my job that year.

So it's like that's a push. >> In this episode we're going to break down a ton of this stuff. You're going to hear from a lot of people.

First up is going to be our old friend, Denny Cash,

who is sort of a catch-all representative of all the interviews we did and honestly for this podcast. If you didn't listen to the prior Denny Cash episode that we did, the quick synopsis look it's a lot easier to get some of the behind-the-scenes golf people to tell you stuff if they don't have to put their name on it

and speak it into a microphone. Not a lot of agents or managers want to be on a microphone, talking about their players specifically about how much money they're making. So to kind of add a layer of vagueness to all of this, Denny is going to be kind of playing the role of five or six different interviews

that I did for this podcast, all kind of combined into one. Just call them an industry expert agent. Again, this will make sense when you start listening. We also added an extra layer of vagueness for move some names, specific names of players,

as you might imagine, for some additional anonymity. But we talked to Denny about a lot of stuff, but specifically how much these players are making off the course. There's a lot of different examples spanning multiple tours, spanning both the men's and women's game.

You also hear an interview with longtime tour pro Steve Weekroft, who was an open book about essentially everything when it comes to finances. I remember when I did go through a nice run, looking at my checking account one day, and there was $975,000 in my checking accounts,

doing absolutely nothing for me. Cornfairy tour pro James Nicholas, who documents a lot of financial stuff on his social media channels. If you need something, you get it. I don't care what it costs.

“I don't care where you have to go for it.”

It's going to make you better. You got to get it. aspiring cornfairy tour caddy Ryan Murray, and his journey to try to get on a bag on the cornfairy tour and how the finances work at that level.

Last year it was more so just I would spend money on my credit card in my wife would tell me to stop. Also DJ track down our old friend Lauren Coglin for a few brief questions at the end. So, Denny for the delay.

Thank you everyone for tuning in. We're going to kick things off here with Denny Cash.

Denny, it's great to see you as always.

You know, when you first visited with you, you talked a lot about your deep, storied career on kind of the sell side the sponsorship side around the professional golf events. But you've also been an agent for players,

professional golfers of all skill levels for what 60, 70 years as well. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Chris, great to see you again.

Love me on the show. You guys are doing a great job. Love what you guys are doing. Yeah, golf's a small world. You know, you touch a lot of points.

You meet a lot of the same people. It's a lot of hotel bars. You know, where that you're running into people and you're just kind of bouncing around this crazy industry from from job to job.

And yeah, it's good to be able to talk a little bit about player representation today. A lot of disclaimers on this, of course. We are blending a lot of different interviews conversations.

We've had spending a lot of different years into this one character of Denny Cash. I don't know what you're talking about. Any names that we use here. You know, we'll we'll tell you when we're getting

specific on a name potentially. And then we might be being super vague. Holding random names that are of course. Of course, not clients of for Denny. Of course.

Of course. You know, you don't be staying this industry for as long as I have, you know, burning those kinds of bridges. All right. Denny talked to me about what the range of off course

And let's start on the men's side. Sure. Not going to surprise you here. The range is wide. It is a big spectrum of how much players earn off the golf course.

“And I think without giving you any names, of course.”

You know that course. I'm just thinking of names that pop into my head. I know I know of one multiple major champion.

We'll call him makes easily over 15 million

dollars off the golf course. Another one that pops in. Another multiple major champion. Probably 10 to 15 million in that range off the golf course. You know, another client of ours.

I'm thinking about a multiple time winner on tour. Probably right around 10 million dollars. And then you have some, you know, you go down the, the spectrum to some of the lesser accomplished players. The lesser visible players.

I'm going to pull some names. These are not my clients. Don't mean for you to take these names literally. But let's just examples. These are just examples.

Let's say someone like a Doug Kim, a Ricky Castillo, Alex. Molly's guys that are are nice players. You know, accomplished plenty in their, their young PJ tour careers. But maybe not quite as visible as some of the guys. You're watching every week on Sunday afternoon.

They probably have deals.

You know, that add up around half a million dollars.

“I think that's probably a good general rule of thumb for this conversation.”

And you know, again, it's, it's so oversimplified. It's kind of very from person to person. But a good rule of thumb is probably a replacement level. Type player on the PJ tour. Probably makes about $500,000 a year in sponsorship money off the course.

How much does the world ranking matter when you're trying to sell a player? You know, as it is easy as looking at the official World Golf rankings, going down the list and assuming that it goes in order from there on how much you make off the course. Success helps. Obviously, you know that.

But it's not as tightly correlated as you would think. I think it's probably more about marketability and other factors. I think there's some guys and, you know, you'd be surprised. There are probably guys that are like top 20 guys in the world that have been very visible. That can sometimes just be a little bit more difficult cells.

Some of the European players. This is probably not a surprise. A little harder to sell, particularly to US based companies. You know, then players that are maybe a lesser success level. Sometimes even lesser talent.

Let's take a guy like Rasmus Hoigard. I do not rep this player, of course, just pulling a name. But Rasmus is a, you know, a proven winner, writer, cover, done a lot of stuff. I would guess he's probably a tougher cell than someone ranked near him. You know, on the world rankings take a.

A math, McNeely, who. They're both top 50 players. But math is a sponsorship dream, right? The very well spoken, he's great a corporate days. He can he can do a lot of stuff that a lot of these companies are looking for.

“And so I think that's one example of maybe world ranking, not necessarily correlating directly to off the core success.”

How much does, you know, sponsorship dollars? How much do they vary from say the corn fairy tour to the PGA tour? I mean, you know, some of these guys that bounce back and forth between those probably have a pretty good. You go down a level, not only you play in for less person, but I'm guessing this sponsorship dollars going to that. Do you build the contracts like that and of specific way to say, hey, this is my exposure level to PGA tour here.

Does it corn fairy and are those different prices? They are. It's you're you're probably seeing a trend developing here Chris varies. And so, you know, for once in one instance, I'm just thinking about one of my clients who went from. On the corn fairy tour, probably making two 50 300 K off the course to, you know, get to PGA tour card and overnight that kind of flips to 500 between 550.

I would say and a lot of that's, you know, it's just interesting, right? It's the same guy, same marketability, same everything. It's just, it's just a different tour, which I think is understandable, but a lot of that can also be incentive based to your question, you know, if he plays well. A lot of it's based on world ranking checkpoints and performance metrics and I mean, all of that translates to visibility for the company, right?

And and how how marketable, how visible is this player going to be, but they could push that 50 up to a million dollars if they if they play well.

So it there is upside for the player, there's a little bit of risk mitigation for the company, so it's a pretty good system that seems to work out for both sides. We talk a lot on this podcast about wanting guys to participate in things, wanting them to be a part of extra content and things like that. You as an agent representing players, what do you do in terms of encouraging your players to be forward facing and content and how does that help you in deals with, with different sponsorship groups? It's, it's complicated because it's, it's a massive part of the world that we're living in and I think you see the upside when you see a player who doesn't really really well.

That can also, I'm not saying that this is what happened with Max, but like let's that can also be a double edged sword if you're a player who's chasing that kind of stuff and taking your eye off the ball.

“I mean, at the end of the day, like a lot of this is just based on how well are you playing on the golf course, right?”

I mean, you can, you can't short-cut your way to success in this just by amassing a bunch of Instagram followers.

I think you can do that, you know, that helps, but it is a balance, right? Like you can't, you can't go all in and put all your eggs in this basket of being a pro influencer, otherwise I think you just being influencer. And so my job is kind of like trying to figure out that balance and and how players can keep their eye on the ball while also trying to maximize the things that some of these companies are looking for. Have you seen players go off a certain end of the spectrum in the wrong direction?

Totally.

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you see guys, you know, and women as well, for that matter, like you can, yeah, you can chase the wrong, the wrong metrics, right?”

I mean, at the end of the day, it's how fast can you get the ball and the whole is kind of the only thing that matters and all the other stuff is sort of icing on the cake. And so when you see players lose that perspective on that, I think it can, it can warrant maybe some tough phone calls and some some advice that sometimes well received and sometimes not. But I think the, you know, the overarching thing is as much as you don't want people to get distracted is like, man, it is a valuable aspect to why these companies sponsor these players, right?

I mean, there's a reason why you have a logo on the hat. And it's because if you show up in a YouTube video, you show up in an extra interview here, you show up in some clip that goes viral or something like that's kind of the reason these companies are paying to be associated with you is for the eyeballs that come from your visibility. And so it is a push and pull for sure. You want, you want players to be open to those sorts of things without kind of losing sight of, you know, the actual long game here.

“Some of these numbers we've talked about on the men's side. How do they compare to the top names on the LPGA tour?”

Chris, you know what I'm going to say? It varies. Of course. I think what's interesting in the women's game. And it's, this is true of the men's game too as we're saying, but you can, you can be a player in the women's game who's very, very marketable and not necessarily a tip top top five player in the world.

And I think some of those players, if you do things the right way, can make two and a half five million dollars, maybe even more off the golf course through just smart partnerships.

And then I think if you look at the tip top of the market, I mean, obviously that's a player like Nelly or specifically Nelly. Again, not one of my clients, but I'm just kind of making an educated estimation here, but she's probably making north of ten million dollars off the golf course a year. I mean, she's obviously got serious blue chip sponsorships. And then with someone, you know, like Nike, probably her most visible sponsorship. A lot of their contracts are based in incentives. Like we were talking about earlier. And so in 2024, she had a monster year, right? She had to make a lot of money off the golf course. She's based on those incentives and all the upside in those deals. And so 25 she didn't win, you know, it's a little bit of a down year by her standards.

Maybe not quite north of ten million dollars, but I have to think 2024 was.

And I think what's interesting with Nelly specifically to, again, not my client, is that if you, you kind of put the pieces together. Nike traditionally buys up a lot of the quote unquote inventory, right? I know Nelly's a little bit of a unique example because she has a sponsored hat where you, you have kind of the, the Goldman logo and the Taylor made logo and some other stuff and she's got a bag logo and whatever, but you think about a player like Scotty Sheffler, what sponsorship do you think of when you think of Scotty Sheffler, it's Nike and Taylor made to an extent, right?

But mostly it's Nike that's very visible. And so with a player like Nelly, she has all that Nike real estate kind of bought up, but she also has a lot of other partners kind of quote unquote behind the scenes, right? So she's doing a lot of other corporate days. She's doing a lot of other just obligations. And so I think for as much as people like to, maybe knock her for, for not playing the Asian swing, you know, for instance, to start the season. Some of that, I think is, is fair, but it's, it's interesting that she probably has a lot more going on off the golf course than people realize, which either gets jammed into the very short off season on the LPGA, or, you know, she needs to do some of that during this time where she's not traveling to Asia.

So all those days have to come from somewhere is, is my point, and especially the women's game when you're trying to max out your, your top end earning days. I mean, I understand kind of why it looks that way.

I think a lot of the Asian players can get really solid deals with, you know, Asian banks and Asian financial services companies and similar things like that.

You see a lot of those sponsorships, which can maybe probably lead to around a million dollars or so, and in off course earnings.

But then again, the replacement level kind of American and European players probably more than the like 200 to 500k range, so probably splitting somewhere between the corn fairy tour and the PGA tour.

“What's an example of a way a player could make themselves more marketable? What's a dream client look like for you?”

I think the first one that pops to mind is probably going to be someone that would pop to mind for a lot of your, your listeners as well as kind of an obvious answer, but let's look at someone like Joel Damon.

Needless to say, of course, not a client of course.

But I would say, if he was a client of mine, pre netflix boom, pre, you know, Joel Damon take over of the of the golf culture world. For a player like that, we're probably looking to get around 100k for a patch, call it, you know, this all varies even has its own little nitty gritty minutia, but, you know, hat, collar, sleeve, chest, bag, like a patch like that, we're probably looking about 100k.

“I bet post netflix that numbers probably up around like 250, and so that's just very real exposure leads to more money type of estimation there.”

And so I mean, I feel like all in, you add all those together and, of course, appearances and, you know, whatever, I bet Joel probably makes an excess of a million dollars off the course and nobody loves Joel more than than you and I Chris of course, but I think he's he would say he's been a below average tour player the last couple years, right? And so for below average tour player to make over a million dollars, that's a pretty crystal clear example of, you know, being marketable and what that can do for you because he's a positive brand that people want to be associated with people want to be involved with.

Actually, reached out to Joel to get an answer on this exact topic.

“Slowly, knowing up crew, I appreciate the invite and the questions.”

I would say my, my bump from being just a kind of a bucket hat wearing journeyman golfer on the financial aspects for a big on Netflix has been. But incredible, I would say after the first year immediately I went like three X to four X even and instead of, you know, maybe searching and hoping and reaching out a lot of calls were coming in and we were had the opportunity to negotiate and say notice some people and find the best opportunity on that. Financial, probably three and four X on the sleep for me off the golf course, but I'll see opportunities on top of that as well of just me more people doing more cool things and being in an elevated world I would say outside of just like an average journeyman golfer as my career is kind of been.

Really special, it's an unbelievable opportunity and I'm happy to capitalize on a lot of that as also as I say on that. It's the the the power of saying no is very interesting and most golfers and most people don't have that, but it's been nice, but then also being able to arrange contracts for longer than one year or six months or 18 months. Okay, you can actually form relationship with these people you can have long term deals and you can form relationships and friendships and knowing that this can be longer than like I said 18 months or a year whatever some of these contracts are so.

You can really formulate a like a plan for the future of who's going to be on your team and who's going to go forward and how it all kind of pieces together on that so. I hope this helps if not I can try and just talk to me about golf outings this is honestly something despite all my years of doing this doesn't compare to your years doing this any but all my years in this I'm kind of just learning about the full scale and scope of golf outings like players go get paid to play golf with people. And the access of just regular corporate days what do they get paid for something like that yeah man you should see the outings in the early days Chris listen the outings are easy money straight up this is an easy money maker for a lot of the guys out there I think even I think people would be surprised even some of the mid tier I keep saying replacement level players but some of those guys can probably pull 50 K for a single day 75 K for a single day with the right partner plan 18 holes.

That's probably around 100 K could push even even north of that which I think this part's going to sound ridiculous but but hear me out I think some of those top guys even for that amount of money.

“Quickly start budding up against is this worth my time and that question because it sounds easy go tee it up play 18 holes do a little dinner chat for 100 K it is easy but man those guys can over commit themselves very quickly and for a guy.”

who's making tens of millions of dollars a year between on course off course earnings it it is more complicated than that when you start adding up the compounding effect these are usually you know a lot of times a Monday after a tournament when you're already pretty burnt you want to go home and sleep in your own bed it's another day on the road it's another night a weird sleep probably flying out that night it's another day away from your kids or your spouse or your house or your dog or your whatever it might shorten the next week if you have a tournament the next week it might affect your prep for.

You know going and trying to win four million dollars at a signature event it just is not quite as simple as let me just stack up as many of these corporate days as I possibly can.

But it's also a balance there too and this is where I think you know players need to have good advice is. We've all seen a million examples of guys who look like completely different players from year to year right people who fall off they make a swing change they make a coaching change they make whatever and they lose it and they they might make ten million dollars one year and they might make. Make two million dollars the next year and you never know when that's going to happen and so it is a delicate balance for a lot of these top guys of how do I keep the train rolling and make sure that I am performing at the tip top of my abilities every possible time I teed up.

“And also I don't know how long it's going to last and so how do I smash the glass and grab as much cash as I possibly can during the limited earning window of my life here so it's it's tough balance but corporate outings are a good lever for that.”

It's hard because we are talking serious serious dollars here but as we'll learn throughout this episode as well and as we've learned over the years expenses and professional golf are real taxes and professional golf are real and I guess I could be a little surprised at times that guys are willing to do.

Do things for relatively small amount of money when it compares to their career earnings and keep doing it into their 40s 50s and 60s.

Yeah, it's it's an interesting one because like you said the you know the taxes are a little bit of a double edge sword right you're only paying more taxes if you're making a lot more money and so it it does go. Go hand in hand but like you said a lot of times the number on the sheet even the number on the contract is not really the number that's going into the bank account and so you just got to be pretty smart about not chasing shiny objects not getting blinded by you know is this really a hundred thousand dollars to go show up to this event or does that mean.

And I have to find another flight home does that mean what am I paying taxes what am I thinking about for expenses is anybody staying along with me am I extending lodging am I do like it just there's a lot that goes with it and again I know this is this can sound ridiculous because these are exorbitant amounts of money that we're talking about here but just trying to illustrate that it's not all quite as simple as it probably seems. The equipment industry is a big one as it relates to professional golfers how do you balance something that has such a great impact on the performance of your actual clients.

Also it could be some pretty easy guaranteed upfront money we see guys change equipment companies all the time we see them chase dollars at times we've seen an effect play we've seen very effective changes from one equipment company to the next but. How do you deal with that and did you kind of sometimes end up veering into career on course golf advice towards some of your clients again a tough struggle because you're going to get paid off that equipment deal of course of course this is a it's a little bit of a test of.

“test of of the agents incentives I think here right because you've like you said you you have a lot of power to give advice you have a lot of power to give bad advice and you have a lot of power to let your own interest get in the way of.”

I should say your short term interest get in the way of potentially your long term interest because you know if your guy plays as good as possible you're going to make as much money as possible that it does really come back to that at the end of the day and so. I think this can sometimes be they can be very distracting I think for players and I think what I would love the dream for me. Would be for a player to come to me and say I'm a title is player or I'm a tailor me player I'm a kind of like whatever their company list.

Yeah, title is is you know I know you guys work titles for one.

I don't need the distraction because like you said, I've learned this lesson the hard way you know I've been around for a long time Chris.

“We're learning this lesson with more than one player the upfront money can be very tempting.”

It's not hard to convince yourself that the equipment's really similar the irons are basically the same the I've hit the driver per I might even be in the driver better who knows if I'd make this change and that change. You know this shaft it you can it's very easy to win to convince yourself that this is no difference than what I've I've been playing the whole time and I've just seen it happen enough times that I.

Really try to convince my clients that if it feels like tinkering.

If you're thinking it it feels like tinkering just don't just don't mess with it just play the stuff that is going to make you confident that's going to make you play your best golf and.

“I think what's kind of interesting for like a business perspective is with the increase spend from companies on and I else stuff like at that level junior college amateur type golf I think the thinking is for a lot of companies.”

Okay, if we can you see a lot more players taking equipment much more seriously and saying I don't want to change I just want to play my best golf so it's kind of like if we can. Head that off at the past if we can sign this young potential stud when he's 15 16 17 years old maybe the thinking will be well he's not going to want to change when he's 23 25 27 30 coming to the prime of his career. And maybe we can get that guy or gal at a at a little bit of a deal so that's kind of an interesting one to watch but I guess we'll see how that kind of plays out over the next five years or so.

The private jet travel, who's flying probably he's got all everybody's flying private all the time in that right. And then you would think our flying private kind of how I would I would characterize it a lot of the a lot of these private aviation deals are interesting they they oftentimes almost always I would say translate into essentially like hours you know think about it like credits for for these flights so let's say somebody signs a. 200 thousand dollar quote unquote deal with a company and it's basically just 200 thousand dollars worth of hours for that private jet you know so there's there's very little cash exchange here and so what a lot of these people you know a lot of these players will do is they'll take a look at their schedule for the upcoming year.

And basically decide like how are we going to use this X number of hours and so they'll look for choke points they might live in I don't know they might live in Dallas or Arizona or.

Whatever they look at hilton head and they say guys can be a pain in the ass to get from Scott still to help him headed back you know if I'm not playing the week before I'm not playing the week after whatever it is and so they'll say okay I've been burned some hours there. They might look at you know I don't know family vacation they have come up because like it's one thing to travel by yourself. It's another thing you hear players talk about like you start traveling with three kids and spouse and maybe a nanny and a yada yada yada and it can just be a lot of like.

A lot of moving parts trying to get to the airport get through TSA screening or whatever so I think some of the players will look at like weeks for their travel and families weeks where they're even going on vacation right you know a family vacation is supposed to be.

“I think that's a very interesting thing to do with the fact that they're going to be a lot of things that are relaxing from you know compared to traveling to go play pro golf so they might be a time where they want to go use some hours and so.”

It's up to different players and how they want to use that stuff but that's that's I hope that answers your question Chris as far as how how so but I guess use. It does and it's the interesting factor of I've maybe viewed a little differently over the years is like man you really pay in 50 k extra whatever might because guys will also on top of some of their deals spend some money on private jet flights. Some hours through some of these companies it but it's to say you know alright if getting me home this night cost me 50,000 cash or 50,000 credits or whatever that might be on on the private jet if it gets me home this night.

I'll wake up at my own bed gives me two days of rest before I get back to here on this day or it gets me back from whatever event. And I'm rested and I I make one more put in the top 10 and then this next week it has already paid for itself. I've even heard players describe it as on the flip side is less getting home and more just like getting to a tournament right like let's say that they played. They played you know the night before they finished late on a Sunday maybe they're in contention and they're playing the next week and it's like okay if I.

There's no flights that leave Sunday night so that means I got to leave mid morning on Monday because I don't want to get up at 4 a.m. after burning it all week on the golf course.

Oh man if I can take a jet whenever I wake up on Monday morning I get there you know in a much better time on Monday afternoon I can go play the front nine on Monday do all my normal work and then I can go play the back nine on Tuesday do all my normal work. I can take Wednesday off basically you know go hit balls do any pro and stuff I got to do just make that a 30% of you know the day that it could be prep wise all of a sudden you're a lot more ready to go on Thursday and it's just easy to see the conventional.

I'm thinking there about how again I know we're talking about huge numbers here but how 50 grand can start to feel worth it is when you're playing in a 20 25 million dollar golf tournament it's like man that adds up quickly if you can shoot one or two shots better and so that's the gamble is whether or not it's going to pay off.

“Do you as agents do you touch all the money that comes in the doors do you guys pay the caddies to you you know pay the coaches stuff like that I mean I'm just wondering how far the agents tentacles reach.”

Rarely rarely will that that pop up we as agents take in the sponsor deals we run a lot of that kind of account management so to speak and so we'll run all the payment and processing on that we'll take our cut of that but the rest is usually flowing through financial advisor business manager you know someone like that who's kind of doing more of the other what almost seems like more life stuff right there they're doing a lot of that stuff and so. I think we are to be agents right players need help with stuff we're here to help them with stuff they need us to to handle travel booking you know we can take care of things like that just little things like that if they need someone to make their life a little easier we're here to help with with that stuff but most players obviously do a lot of that themselves or they'll have.

Maybe they have their wife handle it if they're traveling with the family you know it's easier because maybe she's coming in and out of the Airbnb more like it just makes more sense for her to book flights and lodging and some of that stuff so we're here to help but a lot of it pretty much sticks to to sponsorships stuff.

“What's something that people maybe wouldn't expect in terms of expenses or the lifestyle of professional golfers and this this answer of course can can vary amongst.”

So what's something people maybe wouldn't expect it's a good question Chris one of the interesting things that I think much more specifically on the LPGA tour especially the the apps and tour the corn fairy tour basically tours that are not the PGA tour. It is such a big thing it food is the is the big one and just kind of thinking about meals and where the margins are and if you think about like when this is becomes very evident when you start following a players. You know when you're on site following a player like you just realize how much they end up eating at weird times kind of vis-a-vis meals right if you're teen off at 10 o'clock but that's great that's a very easy time to prep for whatever but when you eat lunch or you lunch on the golf course you lunch after the round and so a lot of times it's like players really like to think ahead on like.

All right, what's the food situation at three o'clock when I come off the golf course do they have lunch for me at the course is it just going to be cookies and.

Real that's sitting out do they have breakfast at the course beforehand like players legitimately think about all that stuff and they plan their schedules around some of it as well like you hear you know if it's marginal whether a player should play an adventure not these are kinds of things that that truly can make a difference some of these like softer softer features of a tournament.

“And I think the other thing is that that would maybe surprise people or maybe not if they really like thought about it for a second is just this idea of.”

Like journey men and how there's journey men on the corn fairy tour because the money is good enough right like you see.

Very much just built on the promise of maybe I'll make the L PGA and all this stuff will be worth it use you see people kind of have to pack it up at a certain time there's rarely even journey women on the L PGA tour you know I think players are much faster to to kind of hit that point of okay maybe this isn't. For me, but at least there's enough money on the L PGA to kind of say like you know all right if I broke even last year I can give it another shop but on some of those mini tours it's it's tough it's really hard to.

Operate on the margins and so I think I just kind of speaks to maybe this whole conversations like there's a very clear gap between the halves and the half knots you know the players who have everything going for them right now.

Smaller and smaller and smaller and there's going to be fewer players that kind of get let through and then you think about the pressure that that puts on players because you get used to a certain lifestyle when you're playing really well you know you get used to oh I bought this house I've got this mortgage I've got these kids and.

You know college, you know kids don't get free colleges because you played pro golf that's not really how it works and so you know especially for these players who are not.

Really set forever some of those guys at the younger tier like start to think about the things that you and I think about every day in our daily life you know families and how we're going to take care of things post golf and because when it's good it's it's crazy crazy good right but when it's not it can get really really claustrophobic I think and it gets it gets it gets real pretty quick. And I both have I've known people that you know gone up to the PGA tour had a little cup of coffee had some success had some top five's made some big paychecks and.

You know I haven't been back to the PGA tour in four or five six seven years and are still grinding it out on with conditional status and I just look at that and I wonder how are they making ends meet man honestly like I you're with the travel and the kid those expenses at home don't change they don't go down when you go drop down a level.

“A hundred percent but it's also like you're you know if you are going to make it you have to be just insanely, rationally confident in your own skill.”

And if you don't have that you're probably not going to make it anyways right and so it's like if you do have that it's probably pretty pretty damn hard to to give it up and so it's. Interesting man but that's why we love it Chris that's why I've been in this industry for 70 years and and I hope another 70.

Yeah took up more time than I would always be with you guys.

Can't wait to hear part three with you and we'll figure out you know a different part of your career that we'd ever even do about but. Yeah I'm thinking about getting a golf course architecture maybe we could talk about that. Well, then he of course we really really appreciate your time.

“You've given us all you possibly could course none of those players were your clients again I don't know if we mentioned that.”

Just claim where we got to put in there but I want to transition a little bit here if you don't mind we talked a little bit about players bounce and back and forth between tours.

We got a lot of different interviews here on the back half of this episode talking to some some players with first hand accounts some caddies as well with first hand accounts of.

How finance is work and professional golf and next up is a chat with our friends Steve wheatcroft who spend many years on the PGA tour many years back and forth on the corn fairy tours well. He's got some great perspective to share with us. How would you describe the lifestyle change between the PGA tour and the corn fairy tour. The expenses don't change a whole lot. The money coming in goes down by 94%.

So the hotels of the same price whether I'm staying in which to talk hands is or I'm staying in Charlotte for Quay Hollow. The dinners of the same price, you know, you don't get a discount you don't get a 94% discount at the bonefish grill because you're on corn fairy tour. The, yeah, I mean, nothing really changes. You just make a whole lot less money. Is it relatively easy at the beginning of a year to budget what your estimated expenses are going to be or does it fluctuate greatly over the course of the year.

Obviously, the caddy payout is going to be dependent on how you play, but are the rest of the expenses relatively constant would you say. Yeah, I would say they're pretty pretty well fixed. I mean, you can get a good idea. If if I got off to a great year, if I win so many obviously, maybe my hotel bill goes up another 10% you know for the year, but maybe I start staying in some nicer places of rent at a house here and there when I normally wouldn't. But for the most part, I mean, if I was traveling alone, I didn't care as long as I had a nice bed and nice shower and you know it was in a good part of town.

I didn't really care where I stood. So I was trying to keep those expenses as low as I could. Did you ever feel like any kind of a push and pull relationship with this, this money spent might be a great investment in my golf game, but it might not be. And I don't know if I want to spend this money on this right here and gosh, that'd be a luxury if I was a top 10 player in the world. I'd absolutely do it.

“But where I'm at, I can't justify, did you ever feel that at your level?”

Yeah, yeah, a lot, you know, you go to some of these events and guys have just spent money left and right and you see what they're buying, whether they're buying cars or watches or diamond rings for their wives. I remember kind of a funny side story. We were at GreenBride the one year. We were walking through the little shopping area down below and I just happened to stop by this like watch jewelry place and I'm just looking in there and

And I'm like, I've made like $7 on the PGA tour this year. Like I'm not going to spend $10,000 on a watch.

“And they're like, we'll make yourself a deal if you make X amount of dollars this week, you have to buy that watch. I'm like, fine, if I make 50 grand, I'll buy this watch.”

And sure enough, I had a put on Sunday on 17 is a par five and 17th hole and I had like eight feet for birdie and I'm looking at the leaderboard and I'm like, I'm like, I'm make this. I think I'm inside that 50 grand number. And sure enough, I jam it like four feet by miss it coming back and then I headed to a foot on 18 for birdie. And I walked off and I sure enough, I made like $52,000 that we got finished like 18th or something like that. And I wasn't even going to do it. I was like, no, I'm not doing it. No, I kind of gagged that finish home. Like, no, you made yourself a promise you have to go do it. So I went in and the woman's like, look, you guys get 40% off this week is a courtesy anyway, so like even if you don't want it tomorrow, sell it, you're going to make money on it.

So I bought the watch, but that was one of the only expenditures I ever did and the only reason I did is they basically made me do it.

Yeah, I was going to ask what your biggest splurge ever was after after a good week of pay. The Jever, you know, never never splurge anything.

I'm trying to think, I don't, I mean, I never really had that huge pay to remember the biggest pay to I had I finished second in Palm Springs, but it was like a seven way tie. So I only made like 400 grand. And even then, I was just, I probably was one of the nice dinner or something. That was always a big one for me is like, if I if I played well and I cashed a nice check, I usually went out and had like a good ball of wine and nice steak and Just tried to enjoy it with whoever was around me at that point, but no, I wasn't a big, you know, I didn't spend a whole lot of money on myself.

“I just I've never been that guy and and I think the other part of it is when you grow up playing mini tours and you go through that realm of like four years where”

You know, anything I thought we probably talked about this in the past where I remember calling my mom one time. She's like a you eating well on the road and I was like, yeah, I've got fifty dollars set aside for dinners and she's like 50 at night. I was like, no, not 50 for the week. Like I can go to subway and it's like foot long sub bag of chips and a drink with seven bucks at them seven forty nine dollars. And she's like now you spend that on a glass of wine, you know, at the right places. And but like when you live that lifestyle of being so frugal on the road, because you know that you need that money for entry fees or for gas to get you to the next event.

Even when you get to the PGA tour and well, I'm sure we'll talk about this coming up. It's like you want that cash on hand because you never know when the next run of 10 missed cuts in a row is going to be. And you just want to have that bucket sitting right there. Even if you like there was a few times I had way too much money in the old checking account.

But it just felt like it was safe to me that like just knowing that it was there and if I went on a horrible run here, at least I had cash that I could I knew where it all was.

Aside from my golf related expenses with a job that your week to week performance fluctuates greatly and your income fluctuates greatly and you could be on a different tour as of next year at all times. How do you personally budget your own finances your car house you're going to live in and it was all the uncertainty around that career. What is that struggle like. I absolutely know budgeting skills whatsoever. I just flew by the seat of my pants. I know that's probably not the answer you want, but it was just the.

I don't know how much it costs us at costs us like how much are we spending per month. I have no idea. I knew we weren't living extravagant lifestyle, you know, when I'm married and have two kids like we just we paid for our bills and we do you know an extravagant like a vacation here vacation, but like I knew. I could I can kind of see the overall picture and knew we weren't spending outside of our means by and so. But as far as budget like I had no idea how much I was spending per month until after I retired and watched all my money go away and I'm like, okay, how much are we spending a month like maybe I should start to dive into this on what the food bill actually looks like or what you know how what is.

You know, are total expenses every month that we have to have the live versus, you know, discretionary versus extra. Yeah, so. Yeah, but I did not have a budget. No, I just kind of ran with it. When you did walk away from from playing professional golf, did you feel like you had enough money to retire on like did that did you feel like you you're no. Absolutely not. And even still, I mean, I retired after the 2019 season and my best golf was played in 2015, 16.

“Then 17 and 18 were okay. And then I mean, I had decent year on the cornford in 19, I think I finished like 44th on the money list, I mean like a hundred and eight thousand dollars.”

But I knew that that was going to be gone quickly and it went away really quickly. Obviously, when you started a new job and my next job in the finance world was all commissioned base, so it wasn't like I had a set salary coming in, which if I could go back and redo it all over, I would have done a completely different because I needed some storage stability.

But no, I knew when I was done that I was never going to be like, hey, you're set for life. No, God. No, it was the exact opposite of that. It was my God. I have to get some money back in the door quick here. Like I have a little bit of a buffer, but I was shocked at how fast that went away. So you had between cornford and PGA tour over over the course of the career looks, you had about four million dollars in career earnings. How much do you think you would have had to earn on the course to have been able to walk away from golf and been fully comfortable being retired.

Like not work again. Yeah, that's a hard, yeah, I guess, but I know I've almost everybody works in some capacity after leaving golf either in media, you know what not, but 20, 20. 25 and with your listeners are going to absolutely laugh at right.

So I took what I did on there, I had $4.1 million in career earnings on the course, and let's say I made another 1.2 million off the course in endorsement deals, right.

So there's 5.3 million, and then I broke that down over a 14 year stretch, it came out to like $398,000 a year. Minus 125 grand will call it a year for expenses average, you know, cornford and PGA tour somewhere up somewhere down.

“And then then tax that, I think I did 25% just kind of a median over, you know, some years where I was in the 30, whatever, 5, 38% some years, I was in whatever.”

But it came out to, I think it was like $191,000. Again, these are rough estimates on all this stuff, but $191,000 a year job for 14 years. If you did that job, do you think you could retire after that was done? Probably the way you haven't paid, you haven't paid any bills at home yet. Was that definitely not with what new young kids cost?

Yeah, I've got two kids, so yeah, I mean, I'm not, I don't have three, but I've got two, and it's paid, yeah, if you're making $191,000 a year, and you haven't paid any of your bills at home. You haven't paid your mortgage, you haven't paid your electric, you haven't paid it in like, no, you can't retire on that. You just hope me that'll cover the year, right? So no, it's, once you start to look at the numbers, it looks great when people go on there and they're like, wow, you may,

I wish they would change like total earnings to total earnings divided by how many years you played, you know,

times tax rate, something on there, because everybody's like, dude, you made four million.

I put something online a couple weeks ago about I was looking for help getting Indiana tickets for the national championship game. And I had four thousand people right me back on Twitter saying, you're so cheap. You made four million dollars on the PGA tour. Go buy your own tickets. I was like, all right, man, if you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of this, we can talk, but no.

It's like, yeah, it looks great. Four million dollars is a lot of money, but spread that thing out over 14 years and tax it and take your expenses out. And I mean, that's 14 years at $125,000 a year and expenses alone. There's 1.25 of it gone right out of the gates. Then take, you know, another 25, 30% of that in taxes away.

And then by the way, you got bills at home too. So, yeah, that's a that 20 number would probably come in, because if I would, you know, it's one of those things.

If you had retired, if I'd gotten done with golf in 2019, and I had had six million dollars in the bank still.

“Then yeah, we can make some things work with that, right?”

You can invest that and someone, you can find some place that you can make eight to ten percent on that. Live on interest the rest of your life if you really wanted to. But, you know, I had a big hedge fund friend of mine tell me that one time he's like, yeah, we just need to get you six million dollars and we'll get you. I can get you ten percent doing this. That's great bill.

I'm six million short. So I'm going to need a little help getting to that six million. Sounds like a great plan. I love the, I love the idea of having six million in the bank. I'm just around six million short of that number.

So if you could help me get to that point, that'd be awesome. But yeah, if you were in dairy, you'd be more than six million away from that number. Exactly. I don't think it'd be worse. I just I loved that conversation though when he said that though.

I was like, that's awesome, man. I'm, I'm exactly six million short. So if you could help me get that.

“What, what, can you tell me how the PGA tour pension works for you in particular and what you know about it from, from a, from a wider span?”

Yeah, I didn't really get into a whole lot of that one. I was playing. I just knew that I could defer whatever the number is now. I was right around twenty thousand dollars a year. I could take that and put that away.

That was the max we could be putting into a deferred comp plan with the tour. I know that it went into a bunch of different buckets. Once you get once you play five years, you get vested. So basically every cut you made on the PGA tour. You got a certain dollar amount set into your retirement as well.

Just for making the cut. You got, it was four thousand dollars. And I'm sure it's up to seven or eight thousand dollars now. But yeah, that money would just every cut you made went in there. And then after you got five years at 15 events a year.

That money was vested.

So once I hit 45 years old and stop playing professionally, you know, playing five events a year. You had to start taking. This birthments from that. Some in some fashion. I don't remember how I even structured it.

But the user will let you take it for, you know, a certain year, a certain amount of years or things like that. However, you wanted to structure it. So, but then the rest of it, you know, there were certain buckets that paid out at 45 certain buckets at 50. And then the main one was 59 and a half just like any of the other. You know, required minimum distributions, stuff like that.

“So what are those distributions look like for you now, what what would you have coming through now?”

I am taking there's distributions coming from three different plans right now. I can't tell you exactly which one is which. One was a thousand dollars once. Nine hundred dollars and one was around six thousand dollars a month. Which is great when you're starting a brand new nonprofit and you're not paying yourself anything as a salary.

So you'd least you have something coming in. So it has it is the timing of it has been nice that I've had at least had some other money coming in. But yeah, so that was something that I had to start taking. But yeah, they rest of it is just sitting in there. And I will give the tour a lot of credit.

They they do a very nice job with whatever investments strategy they're doing here. But there was a time I remember in. In where was I at Vegas. I was out playing on the golf course and I got an email on my phone and I checked it. I was like, this is wrong. I guess it was about the investment or the retirement plan.

And I literally had to call, I think it was Ross Berlin at the time I called him out and I said, Hey, there's a problem here. I shouldn't probably say anything, but I think we have too much money in my retirement account. And he came back to me like, I don't know 45 minutes and he's like, no, it's just been a really good year. Everybody's made a lot of money.

Just the investments that they jumped on were going through the roof. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to complain. But yeah, so the tour is done a nice job of investing. So I will give him that. What did for someone at your level?

What did off course sponsorship look like?

“How much does that fluctuate from a PGA tour to corn fairy tour level look like?”

Who does the negotiating for that and kind of? How did you, how did that help, you know, supplement things? And how did that fluctuate based on how you're playing, whether in sense based in any of that? Yeah, I mean, I'd love to give you a perfect answer.

I can tell you that my first year on the PGA tour in the year.

I mean, I, I had no business being on the PGA tour. I think we talked about this in one of the, you know, no laying up pods here a couple months ago. I knew I didn't belong on the PGA tour. I finished like 206 no money list that year.

I made $310,000 before I ever hit a shot. I thought I was the richest human ever, right? And then in 2018, which was my seventh year on tour, my fourth consecutive, I couldn't get a club sponsor to take a pay me anything. Like titleist Callaway, I was like, hey, 50 grand for the irons,

the bag, the hat, now we're good, thanks. So the money obviously changed throughout the years. And I know granted, I know that I wasn't the best name in the world at 42 years old, and I wasn't some young up and coming star. But it was definitely that the hey day of it was back in that, you know, 2005,

the 11, maybe window. But yeah, the ball shoe glove deals are interesting out there.

I always thought that was a fun one for a lot of these young college kids,

because they signed with an agent and the agent's like, okay, well, I've got, you know, titleist there. Ball shoe glove deals $40,000 on the PGA tour. Well, then the, the agent would take, you know, 10% of that or 15% of that, which I'm like, all that, it's a standard deal for rookies.

Like it doesn't change, you know, if your tiger woods, it's one thing, or if you're some, you know, Jordan speed, maybe it's a lot more, obviously, but if you're a standard guy coming out there to play on the tour, and you know, you're a, you're a corn freight tour rookie coming up, it's 40 grand, whether you sign it or your agent hands it to you,

and then you still sign it, you want to pay your agent eight, you know, eight thousand dollars to have him hand you a piece of paper. So those are the things I didn't really understand, not to get sidetracked there. But there wasn't a whole lot of money on the corn freight tour.

You know, if you got 20 or 30,000 dollars before you hit a shot, it was, it was decent between Bolshevik love and some clubbed endorsement deals. Actually, probably get a little more than that, 30 or 40,000. And then any kind of endorsement, you could sell the hat for something, or sell a, you know, sleeve, just try to, I mean,

“honestly, you just pawn yourself off there, whoever will put a logo on you.”

You got to, you got to really sweet talk some people and some programs, and what, like, try to, you know, make some good partnerships that way. PGA tours a little different. They're obviously a little bit more eager to spend out there,

but even that dried up pretty quickly. There wasn't, you know, again, I probably made one point.

We'll high-ball and say $1.5 million total over 14 years of endorsement money, right?

It's not like I'm just swimming in it. I mean, Scotty and, you know, Roy, have $20 million for their shirts every year with Nike.

Those guys have a crap ton of their money is off the course. Their rest of us were, you know, probably 70% of our money was on course. 20 to 30% was off the course. On course cash, off course sponsorship. What other revenue streams exist out there for, for yourself or players like you,

golf outings?

“Like, did you participate in a lot of golf outings that are paid?”

Is that, was that at your level? Was that a significant income as well? Now, I mean, honestly, the easiest ones were like the Monday programs. When you were going to be there anyway. And it's like, hey, do you want to play this Monday?

Bro, I'm doing a command, you know, you had come in six hours earlier. I was going to get in Monday night, fine. I'll get in Monday morning and play it noon. And they pay you 1500 bucks to 2500 bucks, something like that. I think they're up to 3000 now.

But I'm like, I'm going to play a practice round anyway. Then I can just play that, make three grand or two grand whatever it is. Then play nine holes Tuesday, take Wednesday to just hit balls. And so I played quite a few of those. I played way too many Saturday programs after missing cuts.

Um, I didn't do the whole thing. Oh, God, there's a bunch of them.

San Antonio was always the best one.

And I remember looking at my wife the last year because they were the worst golfers ever. I can't remember who the, I was probably better. I can't remember who the sponsor was, but they would bring a group out there. And you'd play the, um, was the Oaks course.

“I think it was, is the other one bases two courses on site.”

So you're staying in that JW anyway. And you could fall out of bed and then roll over to the other course and play in the morning. And you'd make the same thing. It's like 3000 bucks or something like that. But these guys sucked so bad.

They were the worst golfers and it's not the golf course to be on with them. And I just remember I went out there and I played and I made it like three holes into the event. And I had been looking, I walked eight miles already looking for golf balls. And I texted my wife from the course and I was like, don't ever let me play in this Saturday program ever again. And she's like, I was going to say something last night.

But you told me to say the same thing last year. But yes, there were Saturday programs that you could play off site a lot. Yeah, if you missed the cut and you were going to be in town anyway, they had off sites. Did you go to the players actually here in town used to do a huge one. And the other is I know this is I lived in town.

And if they were really struggling, they for people they call me and be like, hey man, you're, you're local. You know, we still need a couple people. We'll pay you five grand to go play, you know, Tim McCawner, you know, saw grass country club or something like that. But they were paying guys like Sergio, I remember $60,000. Wow.

So, you know, walk across the street and go play and he's like, no thanks. I'm good. And I was like, I'll do it for 10. 12.

But yeah, they had a lot of those, but the one here was always a huge one.

But yeah, no other. I mean, you'd get the occasional, you know, he will pay you five grand to come play this one or that one. But I mean, I did maybe one or one of those a year. Two of those a year maybe. You don't hear too many stories of pro golfers kind of blow and through their money.

And you don't have the name names with this.

“But have you, have you seen that happen with guys that you think would, would have based on their on course earnings?”

Like, would it would be way better off than than they currently are? Yeah. 100%. Guys love guys by really, really big houses for no reason. I think that that's the biggest one that I see these guys did.

You know, they have one child and they have a, you know, a 90, 500 square foot house with seven bedrooms. It's like, yeah, you have a baby man. I mean, do you even go to the second floor? There's a lot of wine collections on tour. Wine collection is not a cheap habit.

Cars. Someone on cars, nothing, nothing too bad, I guess. But the one thing I see is a lot of times houses. So they just buy houses and they take, you know, a lot of people flying private when you shouldn't be flying private. It's like, yeah.

Okay, man, you've had a good six month stretch here.

Let's not, you know, you don't need to be spending 20 grand to get to this place when you get a couple first class seats for two grand.

But yeah, I mean, I've definitely seen guys blow through their cash way faster than what they should be. I think the divorcees would would make up the fair amount of that as well. I did not go down. I did not think that road, but yes, that's a great one. Yeah, and golfers tend to get divorced a lot.

It's it's a weird thing. There's a obviously it's the lifestyle. But I think more guys get divorced when they get done playing than they do while they're playing because then all sudden it's like, oh, this is a different life. And oh, you're home. Now you're home every week instead of being gone 20 weeks.

I like to love better when you're gone 20 weeks. So yeah, you see a lot of that stuff. But yeah, that's a good point. Divorce is a huge one. If you could go back in time to like, let's say, this deep week crafted like heading out on the P.J. tour for the first time.

And you could give that guy one piece of financial advice. What would it have been?

I remember looking at my checking account one day and there was nine hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in my checking account.

And I just like, I don't I have a million dollars basically in a checking account doing absolutely nothing for me.

And even if I did go on a horrific run here and again, you know, this goes back to like just making sure your cash is there for bad times. And I was like, I don't need a million dollars to do that. Like I should have peeled off half a million dollars of that and put it somewhere and try to make money on it for a few years while I'm spending the rest. But I just again, it was my pretty little number. I like looking at it and wanted to keep it there.

And I knew that, you know, I knew it was just sitting there. It wasn't doing anything for me. But I mean, I probably cost myself half a million dollars by not investing it back in the day. So I wish I was smarter about my money back then. But again, it just, you know, could I have told myself that at the time?

Probably not because I was just so paranoid about having cash to actually be able to go play golf.

“That's what I thought about all the time.”

And I know the answer to this question. You've got to put in a PGA tour event on the 18th green and the difference is 10 grand in winnings. And you have to put against me at Tim Aquana on the 17th hole in the difference is say you would maybe lose $450, which one hurts worse to miss. I'm more, I'm more nervous over that put against you and it hurts more to miss that against you.

Because I was always very good because everybody's like, oh, you cost yourself $200,000 with that finish.

And I was like, did I, like, that wasn't my money. It wasn't in my pocket yet. If I hand you $450, that's my money that I'm handing you. But when I, when I bone the bunker shot at Canada and cost myself $400,000, like I hadn't finished $72,000 yet.

So that, you know, it didn't matter if I did that on the first hole or the last hole. The tournament wasn't done yet. And like at the end of the day after 72 holes, my position was here. That's how much money I made. But that money was not ever mine.

When I lose the year asked Tim Aquana, that cash is in my pocket in my wallet. And I like it there. Now you're taking my cash. That $10,000 put that I haven't missed yet on the PGA tour. Like, that wasn't my money yet.

So that's all play money until it actually gets cashed.

“Can professional golfers get over subscribed to taking appearance fees for things?”

Is that a hard thing to ever turn down and how do you balance that with your own schedule? Yeah, I think 100%. And that's one of the first rules that somebody told me that too. And I don't remember who told it to me. But they said you have to get really good at saying no.

Because when you first get out there, you just want to tell everybody, yes. You're going to have club reps come up and like, hey, would you mind trying this shaft? We're like, we know we're not trying to get you into this. We just want your opinion on it. Like, yes, sure, give it to me 20 minutes later.

You just been wailing on drivers with some new shaft for no point whatsoever, right? Same thing. Like, hey, would you mind coming to this dinner to do this? Or will pay you a thousand to come speak at this or just come sit? Yeah, I'd love to do it.

And then next thing you know, you're mentally just exhausted.

“And I do remember that because I said yes to everything when you first get out there.”

So eager to be everywhere. But yes, you can over-subscribe yourself for sure. So that's I don't remember who told me that lesson early on. But I've told that to numerous people also like, Make sure you're good at saying no. And if it's not something that's going to benefit you in the long run,

you don't need to do it. Like your goal is to go out there. And as much as I'm anti, you know, make it a business. There does need to be part of it that is make it a business. Your job is to go out there and play the best go off and get your head in the best frame of mind.

You can at week in week out to do what you're supposed to be doing. And the off-site dinners in those paychecks really don't matter if you're not playing great golf. It's such an interesting thing of like something on the surface can be very obvious. Like, would you like this amount of money to go to do this one day thing?

And like, of course, that sounds amazing.

You zoom out and you're, you know, you're budding up again. You might be budding up against something with that on a micro level. Yeah, yeah. Super easy to say yes, macro does this make sense. Like, right.

The hooting the blowfish, the Monday after the master's thing like my agent one time is like, Hey, do you want to come play in this? I'm like, fuck yeah, want to go play it's hooting the blowfish. Like, oh, yeah, it's my first year on tour. I'm getting ready to go to Hilton head.

And so I played the Monday after the master's pro and we went up there. Sunday sat on some 100 foot yacht had some, you know, the whole service team taking care of us were drinking the greatest wine I've ever had in my life. And then we, we partyed all night with John daily on his bus. And then, you know, next day played a eight hour round of golf at Murdoch Beach.

And then hung out in the house of blues and just got smashed with Darious Rucker and John daily and all these athletes.

Hard to believe I shot a couple of 76 is it harbour town that week or something right?

“Because I'm still hung over by Thursday.”

But again, it's like, at the time, I'm not going to turn that down. Like, hey, I've looked up the John daily and all these guys and I'm going to go hang out with them and party.

And first year on tour, man, again, he'd lose focus.

And, but I don't regret it at the same time. I mean, there's, there's a bunch of stupid shit I probably did. But I also got to, you know, hang with Michael Jordan in the area casino or Wayne Gretzky. And I, you know, hung out with Wayne drank half a ball of Gregus and had to go play the night. The round the next day and Scottsdale even though I'm going to shot 77.

I was on my way home either way, but didn't feel great. That next round, I can promise you that. And I'm not going to turn down stuff like that at that point. You got to live a little while you're out there. You could shoot 63.

I'm like, yeah, I could shoot 88 too. Like, I don't know. But I know I'm going to go sit and hang out with Wayne Gretzky all night and share some really fun stories. Before we get to our next guest, I want to give a shout out to our friends at

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Again, rhoback.com code NLU for 20% off your first order. Next up is going to be corn fairy tour player James Nicholas. This interview took place a couple months ago before his recent win down in Colombia. James documents a lot of his financial journey on his Instagram profile. We talked about a lot of that stuff.

And I'm going to ask you this interview here with James. We appreciate his time. You released a full accounting of all of your finances for the 20-25 season. I'm curious. What compelled you to do that?

Yeah.

I always wanted to keep track of what was coming in and what was going out.

Right? The pro golf journey is tough as it is. And when you're on the corn fairy tour, you rely on sponsors, you rely on people around. You'd be about your home clubs getting to get you going. And then I've always just been that way where I want to know exactly where that money is being used.

Where we know where I could, I guess that's saved money, but where I could spend my money smarter. So for me, it was just tracking everything down and then also making it easier to pay my taxes. And right off, you know, some of the offsetted losses at the end of the year. So you track everything for tax purposes. Is all of your expenses related to golf?

Are they all considered tax deductible?

“And does everyone do this good of a job of tracking it?”

Yeah, so I have people don't don't do this good of a job. But they do probably have their own accountants and whatnot and teams that are part of their agencies that help them. I have an accountant that helps with it. So I keep track of it all. She kind of looks through it and is able to detect, you know, what's 100% tax deductible?

What might be 50% tax deductible? I know that there's certain things that are, I guess, a higher percentage of stockable than others. So that is above my pay grade, but that's the reason why I do it. I track it all that way. She has all the information and is able to, you know, maximize my, my, I guess minimize my tax liability.

Talk to me a little bit about the balance between, you know, wanting to play professional golf competitively yet, you know, competing on the corn theory tour, which is obviously less prize money than you would see on the PGA tour, where the balance of at times trying to save money. But at times also making sure you can be at at your highest possible competitive level. What's something you, you necessarily won't compromise on and what are some things maybe you do to save money expense wise. Yeah, my first year, I stayed in all the host hotels.

And I quickly realized that I wasn't able to cook the meals that I wanted to. I had a rely on the player dining for breakfast and lunch, which doesn't meet my standards. I'm extremely healthy. My wife is a health coach. So for me, the non negotiables now are Airbnb's at the full kitchen. That way, we can cook breakfast and lunch and dinner and not the reliance on going out or having to, you know, be totally up to whatever the tournament provides us.

And so much to better than others, like Savannah and Colorado, they do an incredible job at, you know, making sure there's clean options and healthy options for us while on the road.

I'm not going to stay in host hotels. I'm going to try to find Airbnb's whenever I can. That might be a couple hundred more dollars in the week, but honestly, it's been cheaper than the host hotels. If I go to Bogota on a stay in the host hotel, it'll cost me $12, versus the Airbnb they got for, I guess, some two weeks is going to cost me $600. So there is, you know, it does save money sometimes, but I'm not doing to save money. I'm doing it to maximize my performance on the golf course. So that's one of the things on flights, right? If I'm flying from Florida to Argentina, I'm not going to sit in the back of the bus and, you know, wake up, 13 hours later with a stiff neck and not be able to perform. So investing, and that's what it is.

It's an investment investing in a better seat on a plane is going to be one of the non-negotiables as well, especially for those flights over four or five hours.

“I learned that when I played D.P. Roll tour two years ago. That was something that was really important to me was making sure that my body was fully ready to go fully rested, comfortable.”

And I didn't, you know, have those long trips, long journeys where I woke up with a stiff neck and then had a withdrawal. So those are two big things for me, warm on the road. When it comes to making sure my body and my performance is that it's optimal or in its upper form, I'll spend as much money as I can. Because that money's going to come back in, you know, prize money. You're playing this season in 2026 on the corn fairy tour. I would have to assume a goal of yours would be to play on the PGA tour.

How do you balance to say, like, all right, yeah, this, I want to, of course, make money in 2026. But the ultimate goal would be a whole heap of money, you know, exponentially more than I'm currently making for my golf on the corn fairy tour. Do you think, like, oh, you know, I don't need to obsess over expenses at this level because there's a much bigger play at hand here of, you know, not only am I trying to make money to survive this year, but I'm trying to qualify and ladder up to the biggest financial opportunities.

“100% right, so I look at my year, I look at my sponsors and I say, okay, what money is coming in.”

This is my base. This is what I can work off of and I can make $0 and break even if I spent this. So I have that number of the back of my head.

And then I also know that I'm going to make some money in the corn fairy tour. We're playing for a million dollars every week, right. The winner gets $190,000.

You can make some money on the corn fairy tour, which is, which is a great tour, my opinion. People don't really realize that, but you are spending a lot of money, you know, I'm roughly spending $125,000 a year just for flights, hotels, caddy fees, rental cars, you name it. There's a lot of expensive feet, but there is that carrot at the end, where you get a PJ tour card and you're going to make a minimum of $500,000 through their new program that they have, or that's the player. I don't know what they call, but the player insurance program.

And then on top of that, you're going to make probably another 500 if you're a Markable guy, right, you're going to have all these sponsors. Titleists and paying and tailor made, you're going to have a club deal.

But that's something that I've never chased. I don't really chase sponsors for the money.

If it's going to hit my performance. So I'm not going to sign a 14 club deal with, expand if I don't play any of their clubs, right? So to go back to your original question.

“I view the corn fairy tour as the step is so into the PJ tour, not the, oh, I'm going to go make a bunch of money and, you know, that that's that, right?”

The money comes directly to the PJ tour. And if you're able to make some money in the corn fairy tour, that's great. Like you said, I look at the money that I'm going to spend for the year, try to at least break even with my sponsors. And with social media deals that I do and all the extra curriculars that I do that way, whatever I make on the golf course is profit. And then I can use that for, you know, other things my life. Can you give us an idea as to what your income looks like from sponsors? And then here's if you know how that compares to some of your other peers on the corn fairy tour.

Yeah, definitely. I'm not going to give any way any numbers because my numbers, I are very different than anybody else like corn fairy tour. And I might need to be fact checked, but I believe I've got the largest following across any corn fairy. I'm 99% sure that that's correct. I've got the largest following on socials. I've got the YouTube channel and I'm able to get a much bigger number from my sponsors than other guys on the corn fairy tour might.

Because I'm promising them 6 million plus views across my platforms per month.

And you know, most of my by 12 and I'm getting 75 million views on their logos on their brands on, you know, all these different things. So, if you're a corn fairy tour guy and you get on a feature group, you might have 40,000 people watch you on the, and you win the tournament, you might have 40,000 people watch you on that that certain week. But if you're able to mark yourself in a way, no matter what you do on the golf course, promise your sponsors 75 plus million views, you're able to get a bigger number.

And that for me has been a big reason why I do all the social media stuff.

So for me, it's a little bit different. And I try not to share all those numbers because I don't want to give people this unrealistic. Sense of what, you know, it could look like if you are on the corn fairy tour about getting sponsors.

“So I have a lot of guys that comes to me in their, hey, how do I get sponsors?”

How do I go about finding them? And I have all those answers and I talked about it on my YouTube channel.

I talk about it with a lot of players and you know, you got a first look at your family and be like, hey, do you guys know anybody other connections that we've had as we've grown up?

Do you know anybody that has a company? Do you know anybody that loves golf and wants to help somebody out? And you know, you can get five or $10,000 for a logo on your sleeve. But if you're a Markiplier, I mean, there's guys like Blades Brown and Neil Shipley who have done, you know, amazing things. And for that, their numbers are a lot higher than guys that are lesser known on the corn fairy tour.

“So the number ranges far more than I can even explain, right? There's some guys that are paying getting paid millions of dollars from companies like Calaway, right?”

Coming out of high school, like Blades, I don't know what his deal is, but or guys like Okshay coming out of high school and not just getting paid so much money because they're, you know, the next big thing.

And then there's guys that, or maybe 27, 28 years old that are rookies on the corn fairy tour have never done anything in their careers prove that they're the next big thing.

But they end up being the next big thing, but they're not getting those big numbers off front. So it's a really far conversation to have. And that's something that I've always wrestled with was sharing. Well, for me, it's like it's so individual from person to person to play to play or you got to find what your value is and if you can provide more value, you're going to get paid more from the sponsors sponsorship side. You also have, you know, the content you create both on Instagram YouTube that that requires investment, not just of your time, but also a financial investment into those channels as well, I assume.

So I mean, I spent $35,000 kickstarting my YouTube channel last year and I didn't see any return on that income because in order to start making money on YouTube, you got to have over 10,000 subscribers and need to have all these requirements.

“But now it's actually a big money maker for me and that was a investment that had to make I think it was probably actually closer to 50,000 at the end of the year when everything was said and done.”

And you know, I had a buy a quote man, I had a higher guy, I had a pay him and his guys, so yeah, it is, but that's the investment that I was willing to make and now it's starting to pay off.

Not only in add sense on YouTube, but in the increased sponsorship money from my sponsors and club companies and whatnot. What's something that the best PGA tour players have access to that you would love to have, like something they can afford that helps them greatly with their golf, but also only makes sense to have if you're making millions of dollars, it's got a little bit circular, a little bit chicken and egg there, but what's something that the, you know, Scotty Sheffler would have access to financially that you would love to have access to.

It's that's a very interesting question and like I think it is chicken over the egg and I've actually. I've talked a lot about this with guys from Morgan Hoffman told me this in the first, but first day term probably asked Morgan he's a close buddy money go Morgan what is something that, you know, I need to know as a professional golfer and he goes, if you need something you get it, I don't care how much it is, I don't care what it calls, I don't care where you have to go for it. If it's going to make you better you got to get it and in the end it's going to pay itself back, right? I know that there's some things in life that okay, hey, now I'm going to go on credit card that you're I'm not saying do that, but maybe you know you're tight on cash and you don't know whether or not to buy a GC quad or a track man or, you know, new set of wedges that because you don't have a club sponsor whatever it is.

If you're serious about this and you know you're good enough and this is going to be your career, you got to do it and you had to take a leap of faith and then I actually asked Harry Higgs. I was playing with him the first week in the Bahamas a couple weeks ago and I said, Harry, you know, what is, what is your big thing, a pro golf like you've been on the PGA tour, have been on the corporate tour, you kind of bounce between the two and he goes, Airbnb's for me or the biggest thing, I want to spend my money and Airbnb's if I'm spending actually $1,000 or $2,000 a week on Airbnb's at the end of the year what is a $20,000 for some people that that's a lot a lot of money for Harry is going to the PGA tour he's made it, but he said it's going to make you feel better, it's going to make you play better.

And then on the equipment side of things like the juicy quality of the track man's, it's going to help you prepare better and then in turn that's going to help you get further in your career and like we said, the care is at the PGA tour. You can go and be in the red every year or $20, $30,000, but then one year in the PGA tour and you wake up and you're like, wow, I've got a lot of, you know, a lot more zeros on the bank account that I used to so I've, and I don't want to talk for other people because it's much easier when you have a great backing right I came from a great family.

My parents supported me right out of college and I'm not going to lie and pretend that, you know, I could just spend money that I didn't have it's like my parents were like, hey, what do you need.

I ended after two months, you know, I turned pro in August and I got my corporate tour card in December through three three months and the mental side of it where I know if I fail.

I'm never going to be out on the street right I will have that financial support if I need it and that's someone that I don't take for granted and it's something that definitely helps people perform right when you're playing for status and not for money. I think it is way easier to play your best golf. What did you mind ever, I've never heard a pro golf or say I'm thinking about money all the time while I'm playing, but does your mind ever wonder on the golf course about, you know, on certain shots or you get in a certain situations about what that might impact.

You're income financially for the week or are you able to completely separate the money aspect while you're actually playing the golf.

Yeah, I'm the corn fairy tour. It's sort of if you don't win, the money is not going to change your life, right? So I first heard last the last one of the last season I made like 70,000 dollars, which is amazing, but it's going to change my life.

“No, so I think that's why I'm not really thinking about it when I was in six place of the U.S. Open this year and you know, the sixth place took home one million dollars and exemption into next year's U.S. Open.”

Now, I'm thinking about a little bit more, right? Like that's a little bit different, but at the end of the day, it's like you said, we're chasing a PGA tour record. We're not chasing a financial gain right now. That would be great if it happens. That's great, you know, if it comes along with it, but I doubt a guy like Johnny he for last year on the corn fairy tour who absolutely tore it up with thinking about, you know, if he's making $50,000 or $70,000 versus on a pot, right? It's like he knew he had a PGA tour card after a week, like eight last year and at that point it's like I'm going to make him, you know, if you play well and you keep on doing, you're going to make a lot of money.

Can you tell me a little bit about how catty fees work and are you covering expenses for catty's do do players cut it cover expenses for catty's on any tours and kind of how their situations work.

Yeah, so on the PGA tour, I don't think anybody would be covering any sort of expenses on the corn fairy tour and PGA tour America, it's a little bit different. You'll see a lot more buddies and, you know, friends or girlfriends and wives, cattying for players on the corn fairy tour and PGA tour Americas. And in those cases, it's typically hey, I'm going to cover all your expenses, you're not going to have anything out of pocket, but then I'll give you a percentage of my earnings. The way I do things and the way that I would say 70% of guys, maybe 80% of guys do it, is they pay their catty a base fee and a percentage.

So I pay my guy 1500 plus 8% for the events that happen in the States and then 1750 plus 8% for the events that happen out of the country. And then he's on his own for all of his expenses as flights as hotel, so again, you know, he can do it as cheaply as he wants or as expensive as he wants, but he knows what's coming in and that, you know, percentage potential that he might be able to.

“This might be kind of a silly question, but I think you'll understand where I'm coming from here.”

Do you do play golf for money? Like, do you play pro golf for money? Is that why you're doing this? In terms of like the different tours, right, like I played in the DP world tour, I played in the corner for a tour, not to my own horn, but I would be making a lot more money doing something else if I, you know, if I was doing this for the money. So farm out there chasing money that I'm doing something completely wrong. I kind of asked myself, like, why am I playing this, this game? Why am I playing golf and it's because when I was eight, nine, ten years old, I'd be, you know, on a cutting green somewhere, talking to myself and like this is this puts it when you was open.

So when my first PGA tour, but in this pistol, when it wasn't, oh, this puts it when five million dollars in, you know, in a vet and ex of that, right, so when we, when I think most players are in the same boat. You know, some players have great degrees and certain things that they can go out and find a job, but we're doing this for the love of the game. We're doing this to further our careers, and then yes, like if there wasn't any money in it, do I see all of us playing working as far as we can probably not, like you do need to make money to support your family, to support your life.

And it's like, when I'm on 17, like, this week, and I have a 15 foot of a par, the wind's blowing 50 off the left, and I'm just trying to survive out there. I'm not thinking that, you know, if I make this pile, I'm going to make $8,000 or $10,000.

“It's, oh, I want to make 15 more points, so that's what we get me higher in the points list, and that's going to be higher to a PGA tour card.”

And then at the end of the year, when we've been the PGA tour, trying to chase down, you know, top 50, the world ends the majors, and then trying to chase down the number one of the world. So when it comes down to all these expenses. Yes, it costs a lot of money to chase your dream, it costs a lot of money to play pro golf, but at the end of the day, you're investing.

So it's like, I'm investing in the stock that's changed Nicholas, and hopefully in a couple years time, that's stock's gone through the roof, and it's paint dividends. So that's sort of how I look at it, and it's kind of helped me perform and play my best.

Before we get to our next guest, I want to remind you, is the time to visit Pinehurst Resort at the cradle of American golf pinehurst is more than fame number two, an anchor side of the US open.

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“So how would you describe caddy life on the corn fairy tour both for yourself and just caddy life in general?”

I started on the corn fairy tour last year and because I'm so brand new on the tour majority of players that I've been seeking to work with are more so like conditional status guys or guys that are Monday qualifying into these tournaments. So for me, caddy life on the corn fairy tour is actually pretty hectic. I spend a lot of time getting last minute confirmations of yeah come help me out and then you know, let's say we let's say I work with a player for one week and we finish in the top 25 during the season.

They're guaranteed an automatic start the next week in the next tournament and then if they ask me to come take care of them again that following week. Now I'm having to make all of my travel plans and all of my arrangements.

The day of or the day before I actually have to get on the road. So for me, it's pretty hectic for sure.

Come on, the players pay for everything for the caddies right they're covering that that change flight cost for you right. Yeah, yeah, I'll say this. I don't want to fully call that a misconception.

“I'm sure that there are plenty of caddies on plenty of levels that have that happening for them where their players are covering their cost.”

Either I'm too dumb to have figured out how to make that a reality or I'm just too naive and too inexperienced, but I feel like if you're a veteran caddy coming off of maybe like the PGA tour or the champions tour and you have over 10 years of experience carrying the bag for some very well known golfers. You're probably going to be able to have a little bit of leverage to to justify your player covering your travel expenses and then also paying you on top of that, but again speaking for myself.

I'm in that situation where I'm working for conditional guys that might be on the alternate list that week and they don't actually know if they're going to get into the tournament.

And so for me, all of those expenses come out of my own pocket because this is a passion that I am pursuing and I'm trying to be there for the players and so whether some people agree with it or not or some people think I'm stupid for doing this or not. I look at it as an investment in the long term and I'm ultimately trying to get to the PGA tour as a caddy for somebody that's a very successful golfer and if I have to spend a little bit of money out of my own pocket right now to put myself in a position to get to that end goal then.

How does that work from a budgeting standpoint like for the year for you like you said you view this this what you're doing as an investment.

“Do you have you plan how much run way do you have to kind of pursue this you know and and are you.”

I think there's a balance there both for players on the corn fairy tour and caddies of. How much is this me trying to earn the money that I get from the corn fairy tour and how much of this is laddering up to the potential that I you know could earn if I advance to the next level. Yeah, that's a great question. I I'm. Again, take it or leave it. I'm kind of a leap before you look kind of person. I don't actually. Yeah, I'll figure it out as I go. Like one of the videos that I posted a couple weeks ago in the Bahamas.

I was talking about expenses and I said that my food expenses for the week were going to be a TBD because I had no clue how much money I was going to spend on food that week or those two weeks. And I've just gone into this knowing that it's going to cost me money. I try to earn as much money as I can every single week, but most of that depends on how well the golfer plays that week if I even get hired. So I actually don't have any kind of a budget per se for this. Last year it was more so just I would spend money on my credit card and my wife would tell me to stop.

And then this year it turned into a little bit more of an intellectual decision where I created an LLC. I actually formed a business for me to be a caddy as an independent contractor. And so I opened up a business bank account. I opened up a business credit card with capital one that has no limit, which sounds awesome, but at the same time is kind of scary because I have to pay that bill at the end of a single month.

I know expenses can vary greatly on a week to week basis in terms of times where you're going especially for for the international events, but can you take us through maybe like what what a typical week would look like and we're coming off the Bahamas somewhat recently as we're recording this I would guess that's on the higher end of expenses and then what what it would maybe a more traditional corn fairy tour stop might look like. Bahamas definitely tends to be one of the more expensive trips for the year, but I don't know I either got lucky or I timed it really well, but my travel expenses for this trip just to me did not seem like they were very expensive.

I mean, I bought a one way ticket to NASA and it was like 280 bucks. I mean, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I can't even fly to Phoenix there is only for two hundred need.

“It's like on Southwest Airlines for Grand Out Loud. So, you know, I think in total for two weeks in the Bahamas, I was maybe a little over $4,000 in expenses, which to me doesn't seem like a lot.”

I mean, $4,000 is a lot of money, but to go to the Bahamas for two weeks on two different islands with three plane rides and two hotels like it just didn't seem like it was that much. I will tell you that one of the things that a lot of counties, I would say almost every caddy on the corn fairy tour tries to do this every single week and they try to share housing as much as possible. So you'll have guys that will get an Airbnb and you might have four, five, six guys in one Airbnb splitting that cost.

For me, I was fortunate this year. I was able to split a hotel room with two other guys in NASA at the Alana's Resort. So, you know, a large hotel bill got chopped in a third, which was huge.

And then the second week when we were in Abaco, I was able to split a hotel room with one other guys. So, you know, like an $850 hotel bill for an entire week gets cut in half and I'm only paying like 475 bucks. So, that's one of the ways that a lot of us try to manage our expenses as much as possible as sharing housing whenever we can.

“What did the income look like for you for that for that two week stretch?”

I made a big fat zero dollars the first week. I was not able to work with any players that were in the actual field, which is okay. I mean, I knew that that was a huge possibility and I was kind of taking a chance going out there last minute. I got super fortunate that I was able to work for Bryson Nimmer week two in Abaco, Bahamas, incredible dude. I mean, I know it's not a money related answer, but that guy is genuinely loved by almost every single person on the corn fairy two or so. If you ever get a chance to meet Bryson Nimmer in person, definitely take advantage of it, he's awesome dude.

I kind of took a stance not too long ago that I don't want to share like the exact details of how much money that I'm making currently for a few different reasons, but the main priority or like the biggest reason why I don't want to do that is I'm actively trying to find a goal for that I can work with for this season and I feel like trying to share those details on social media or in interviews right now is probably going to hinder me in that endeavor.

So I will say that I did make so many of the second week I took a net loss on the two weeks and we'll leave it at that.

That loss on the two weeks, but did you view it like do you view it as a success overall, you know, I mean you're you're you're trying to ladder your way up there. I imagine there's some networking that went into that first week there's cost of doing business. You know, and I imagine not everything is straight dollars and cents on a week to week basis for you. Yes, such a great point. I definitely looked at it as a net gain a net profit on the whole trip for sure financially sure I lost a little bit of money, but I can't put a price tag on experience.

I can't put a price tag on being able to be involved in tournaments. You can't put a price tag on being in front of the golfers. This isn't industry where everyone that I look up to that has been doing this for longer than me that has kind of coached me along through my career has told me if you're not at tournaments and you're not in front of these golfers. Everyone will forget you and no one will think of you. And so again, I took a loss monetarily, but profit was for the whole experience. It was massive. I mean, to be able to work with a guy like Bryson Nimmer that finished in the top 50 in points last year on the corn fairy tour has full status this year for the first time on the corn fairy tour is loved by so many people on the tour.

The amount of other golfers and other caddies that I was able to meet that week in abaco working for him is priceless.

“Can you walk us through what your income and expenses look like in 2025?”

Yeah, so I'll give you a perfect example. I'm currently trying to finish up all of my finances from last year cadding on the corn fairy tour. I worked a total of 17 events for three different golfers on the corn fairy tour last year.

And my current expenses right now and I still have a little bit to go, but my current expenses are like $26,000.

So I would say I'm probably going to either break even around that $31,000 mark or I might even take a little bit of the loss last year total in cadding. So for me, I would say like a break even point 35k if you're making 35 grand out here, you're probably going to be breaking even on your expenses is a caddy.

“And honestly, that's probably low because there's 25 events throughout the whole year. So if you get a full time bag and you're at every single event, you're probably going to have to break even around like $50,000.”

So when what do you do when you are off when you're not working a week out on tour, do you do caddy at home do a lot of corn fairy tour caddies just caddy at other local clubs and how does that work?

Yeah, when I'm so I live in Nashville, Tennessee and when I'm not on tour and it's not like a frozen tundra like it is or because this disgusting weather that we have in January.

Yeah, I caddy had a couple different local private clubs, Bell Mead Country Club out here and then troubadour are the two places that I loop at when I'm not out on tour, which is nice because I can I can earn as much or more in a week doing that as I would if I was working for a guy on the corn fairy tour. I do know that there are other caddies on KFT that do the same thing. I know a handful of guys have come out of places like saw grass and some other guys come out of places in like Arizona and stuff like that so it is a pretty common thing for for us guys like during the off season especially or.

You know throughout the year when we're we're not on tour to do that. So one one thing I've heard of of happening is and I'm curious if this is ever range between caddies on the corn fairy tour and their players is you know you have a great season on the corn fairy tour you have the same guy on the bag for the majority of events if not all of them you graduate to the PGA tour and guys step up and maybe want to make a different higher maybe want to hire somebody that knows the PGA tour golf courses.

Does that happen does that happen frequently and it kind of is that part of the risk of even if you get on a great you know bag that's headed towards the moon on the corn fairy tour that you could get left behind. Yeah, so I don't have personal experience to that so my answer is going to be a little more anecdotal and just kind of like what I've heard while I've been out there and that is absolutely 100% of reality. You know as a caddy on the as a caddy for professional golfers doesn't matter what to or you're on.

I look at it personally like every week is my last week there's never going to be a guarantee that I'm going to be carrying the bag for the same person the next week because at any given moment they.

They have to make decisions on what's best for them and the brutal reality of being a caddy on professional golf tours is that. Sometimes you're not what's best for that golfer and and a lot of times that could possibly happen when a guy gets promoted and gets a chance to go play on the PGA tour because he runs his card up there. I mean you're going to be playing completely different golf courses that you're not used to playing from the corn fairy tour there could potentially be. You know for example there could potentially be caddies that were on the PGA tour for years and years and years and they've got tons of experience on all the courses that the guys are going to play out there.

“And so I think in those moments a lot of times players they're always just coming down and making a decision on what's best for them sometimes those guys might think that.”

I'm going to be from the PGA tour with experience on those courses is going to suit their game better and it's going to help them be more successful up there and then I know of people personally that have. You know been able to stay on that bag of their player as they got promoted in the PGA tour and I think that's the one thing that we're all hoping for is caddies on KFT is. We're hoping that we have a good strong enough relationship with our player and that we work well enough together that if they are in their PGA tour card they're going to keep us on the bag.

But I think if you're if you're really really humble and I think if you're realistic about what this job is. You don't ever set an expectation that that will happen. Well, if you get fast forward to the end of the year what would be we're starting fresh for for 2027 what what would you like to be what would be a goal your work in towards. Yeah, so kind of like. Answering this in two ways.

“My main priority for 2026 my only goal is to just find a player that I can caddy for for the whole season. So I think what I would be looking for in 2027 is to have found that player that I could work for consistently and have them.”

To keep me on the bag for the year of 2027 like that's that's my goal. I'm I don't know maybe I'm a sicko but like I could care less about the money aspect of it honestly like I'm doing I'm doing okay without that I just I just want an opportunity.

I love being around people that achieve great things and.

“I just just want an opportunity and that's what I'm trying to put myself in position to get.”

Lastly, DJ caught up with our old friend Lauren Coglin with a few questions about how her life has changed with recent success. So before you broke out on the LPGA, how would you describe kind of your financial situation as a professional golfer. Before I broke out in 2024, I mean. I think for most people I had I was okay like but you know if I had one bad year I was not going to be doing okay. It's kind of how I think I could describe it you know my expenses would would drain my savings down pretty good if I didn't have a good year.

I mean my rookie year on Epsi both on Epsi and 2017 and then rookie on LPGA I made about a total of twenty thousand dollars in two years at one point. Had to ask you know just for business purposes you know my husband and I kept our finances separate just because so I would pay all my golf stuff and then he would kind of take care of our home expenses I guess you could say.

“You were down to our last five hundred bucks I think at one point you know I need I had to borrow a thousand dollars from him so I could pay my credit card bill on time.”

So now I'm in a very different different place I would say thankfully and luckily so.

So we can see like what your on course earnings always are but how did your you know playing better golf how did that change your off course earnings.

Yeah I would say my expensive have increased over the years just because you know if you it's. Just like running a business the more money you make the more you can put back into it just because you can and so I do. One my caddy is always going to be the highest I would say expense you're going to have because if you play well they're making money to and so that's going to be your biggest one but I mean I would say. You know save as much money as possible my expenses were probably between like 50 and a hundred thousand dollars a year now they're more like 200 to 250 probably easily but a lot of that's caddy.

Because you're paying them a percentage of your earnings. So just so he has it how do kind of normal caddy arrangements work on the LPGA. Oh say so yeah so most of them the very very top players might be on salary but the average caddy out here is going to be getting a weekly fee I guess you could say a weekly stipend and that's probably going to be between at minimum it's going to probably be about 1700 bucks a week. And then most of them are going to be a percent for a made cut in 10% for a win. Any lifestyle changes since here is your big breakout due life.

“Yeah due life is definitely one you know I have we have our house in Charlottesville Virginia still I guess technically Rutgersville Virginia still and then we did just buy a condo down in Jupiter for winner snowbird.”

All of that bought a condo down there I bought the car that I've always wanted I got a 20 25 Toyota 4 runner and then I got my husband a boat as well he's a big fish guy so.

What kind of boat let's see what are we looking at it's a 20 20 25 foot Carolina CF light blue. Obviously I wasn't paying him because he's my husband and so I kind of told him in exchange for what he would have made in percentage I was I would buy him a boat and so. You know obviously played really well at Chevron and that's when I told him I would do it and then after he died from it every on and I did really well there too. I kind of told him I was like well I guess it's got to be a bigger boat now and then.

Joe's situation but yeah so we're going to call it though in in honor of both the Chevron and beyond we're calling it the Chevy on. I like it oh yeah. Thank you everyone for tuning into another episode of the no laying up podcast this episode was edited and mixed by Charlie van Kirk if you'd like to provide any feedback on this episode you can always email me. Solly at no laying up dot com we will continue to do deep dives like this into different parts of money in the golf world if you have any questions or any ideas for future episodes or anything we did not cover.

Neither this part or the sponsorship episode we did last year please let me know. Solly at no laying up dot com and I will certainly get eyes on it we greatly appreciate you listening and we'll see you back here next week.