Up Your Game with PGA of America Teaching Professional Michael Block.

Music plays.

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Charles Schwab Presents

Michael sits in an office crowded with golf memorabilia. Then he’s out walking a golf course, a dog trotting ahead of him.

Throughout, Michael is playing golf, often accompanied by his dog, or is sitting in his crowded office.

Michael Block: I was never that great in high school. But I was kind of a late bloomer. I started playing a little better and better, but at no point was I like, “Hey, let's go turn pro and be on the PGA Tour.”

Onscreen text:

The Challengers.

A series about people who

Question. Engage. Succeed.

Michael Block

Michael: My name is Michael Block. I'm the head golf professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club. I asked myself at an early age, “Are you good enough to be on the PGA Tour?” And I realized, thank goodness that no, I wasn't. Because for me to be successful on the tour, I needed to be top 100 in the world, and I really didn't feel like I had that game. I just knew that I really wanted to be in the golf business, and I needed to go to the golf course every day of my life. I didn't want to be anywhere else but at a golf course. So my goal was to be the head pro at a great course, and I've been lucky enough to do that.

Arroyo Trabuco opened in '04, and for, I'd say, almost eight years, I helped the people here to open this club up. I only ran a Tuesday morning skins game for the employees, and that's all my golf was. And then once the club was up and going, I had a lot of people going, "Michael, you need to get your PGA membership and plan these tournaments. You're just throwing money out your sunroof." So I got my PGA membership at age 35 and immediately qualified for the national championship for the PGA Club Pros—312 pros from across the country—and I was lucky enough to win it my first year out. And it just kind of opened up the floodgates. So I shoot some course records or whatever it might be, and everyone's always like, "Hey, Michael, you need to go get on the tour. You need to go on the tour.”

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Do I want to have a six-foot putt to pay for my mortgage?

Michael: And I’m like, “Do I want to have a six-foot putt to pay for my mortgage?” And I figured out very early, I am much more comfortable at a golf course being social with the members, teaching. And I know that that's my path in the golf world.

Music stops.

Michael [exclaiming after sinking a putt]: Oh, there we go.

Rhythmic but less intense music begins.

Michael: So a lot of people think that PGA Professionals such as myself, who run golf courses or teach, can't really play golf. But it's so far from the truth. Every year, if you're able to qualify, you can go play against the Rory McIlroys and the Jordan Spieths and the Tiger Woods.

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2023 PGA Championship

Oak Hill Country Club

Michael is at the 2023 PGA Championship. Hundreds of golf fans are behind him, watching and cheering. He and his caddy shake hands with Rory McIlroy, and then he prepares to tee off.

Tournament announcer [off-screen]: Now on the tee from California, PGA Professional, Michael Block.

Michael: Obviously, the PGA Professional, we don't make nearly the money or have the fame, which they deserve. PGA Tour players are out on the road 35 weeks a year.

Now Michael is playing golf with his son Dylan.

Michael: Club professionals get to be at their house with their family year-round. And I'm lucky enough to where I've been able to kind of do both. I dabble in the PGA Tour world, but there's nothing absolutely better for me than to get in the cart, to have my puppy, Messy, jump in there with me. I love being with my family. And I'm lucky enough to have two boys, Ethan and Dylan, that love the game as much as I do. I always tell my boys and my wife, I say, "Golf gave us this; that golf gave us the food that we have on the table, and it gave us the house we live in." So the sport's been very good to me, and I love giving back.

[After a shot] We’ll take it.

Michael: It's sad to say, but also fantastic. Literally every day, 365 days a year, evolves around the game of golf.

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When we have a day off we go play golf.

Michael: My family, when we have a day off, we go play golf. We don't go to the beach. We don't go to the mall. We go to the golf course. That's just what the Block family does.

Michael is putting, but his dog, Messy, hits the ball it his paw, knocking it away from the hole.

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Dylan Block: [Laughing] Messy’s on my side.

New music begins.

Michael: I love being a club professional. And I feel like we're lucky enough where we get to still go out there and compete against the best in the world. But the PGA Tour pros, they're not afraid of me, a 47-year-old club pro. They're so good. It is unbelievable. For me to just even be able to compete against them is a dream, and I'm very lucky to do that. But I've always lived in this way where, “Why not?” Why can't it be me that hits that low chip, lands just short, and checks to a foot, and I get up and down, and I qualify for an event? Why can't that be me?

At a PGA event, Michael holds an umbrella above his caddy and himself as they walk toward his ball for the next shot.

Fan [off-screen]: Michael!

Seth Waugh: I am Seth Waugh. I'm the CEO of the PGA of America at the PGA Championship.

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2023 PGA Championship

15th Hole

Michael tees off. The ball sails down the course and goes straight into the hole.

Seth: Michael's hole in one on 15, it was extraordinary.

TV announcer [off-screen]: A hole in one for Michael Block!

Seth: The cheers were louder for the everyman than they were for the champion. And the game needed something like that.

Rory McIlroy, Michael’s caddy, and others hug and high-five Michael as fans cheer.

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Arroyo Trabuco

Club House

In the clubhouse at Michael’s home course, a crowd is watching Michael on TV and cheers for his hole in one.

Seth: Shining a light on PGA Professionals and what our 30,000 do every day and showcased and why we're the gold standard in the game. There's just so many good young players coming up, and I think Michael has given them even more belief and inspiration.

Onscreen text:

Michael Tothe

Tournament Director

Charles Schwab Challenge

Michael is sitting at a table in a clubhouse, listening as Michael Tothe invites him to participate in the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament. In reaction, Michael puts his elbows on the table and covers his face with his hands.

Michael Tothe [off-screen]: We have an exemption available, and we'd love for you to be at Fort Worth this week.

Michael Block: PGA Professionals have been very supportive. I've gotten so many emails and personal phone calls and letters saying their clubs have been in their office with dust on them, and they're starting to play again. And they're playing in their metro events, their chapter events, their section events, and hopefully going to get a top 20 and play in a Major. It's so cool. The PGA America has given me so much. If I can just repay them in any way possible, I'm going to.

Seth: Because it isn't about the 18th green for us. It's about leaving this game better than we found it.

At the 2023 PGA Championship, Michael retrieves his ball from the cup at the 15th hole as the crowd loudly cheers his hole in one.

Onscreen text:

Ask questions. Be engaged.

[Charles Schwab logo]

Own your tomorrow®

Michael is playing golf with his son Dylan. As they walk away from a hole, they fist bump.

Michael Block: If my boys are in a PGA Tour event, or even better, a major championship, I can retire. I could basically just put the clubs to the side and be the happiest guy in the world.

Onscreen text:

[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]

The Official Investment Firm

©2024 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0224-4P5E)

Music stops.

On-screen text:

Thanks to

Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club

Dylan Block

Geoff Cram

Davis Holman

Music plays.

Gabriella stands on a golf course, wearing a red hoodie. Her breath turns to steam as she talks.

Throughout, Gabriella is often on a golf course, practicing different shots, performing tricks with her clubs and golf balls, explaining what she does.

On-screen text:

Charles Schwab Presents

Gabriella DeGasperis: There’s a lot of fake stuff on YouTube, but I’m not interested in that. I want to give people the real me.

On-screen text:

The Challengers.

A series about people who

Question. Engage. Succeed.

Gabriella DeGasperis

Gabriella: I’m Gabriella DeGasperis. Golfer and social media content creator. Most people know me as Gabby Golf Girl.

Her Gabby Golf Girl golf bag stands upright on a course. Then Gabby is driving balls. Then old footage shows Gabby as a very young girl, playing golf.

Gabriella: I started playing golf when I was two years old. My parents got me a set of golf clubs. They were pink. And I kind of just fell in love with it.

Gabriella is on a course, practicing putting. She misses her first putt.

Gabriella: I love the game so much. I love that I have to put in a lot of work to get better. I love a challenge, and I love sharing that with others. In my experience, junior golf is so competitive that it can take the fun out of the game. And that’s not me. I don’t want to be a part of that.

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Can positivity make me a better golfer?

Gabriella: Can positivity make me a better golfer?

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Shorter backswing warmups

Grab each end of the club

Stretch the take away

Clips from some of Gabriella’s YouTube videos play.

Gabriella: I make all types of videos. Tips to help people get better. Tricks for fun. I challenge people at the random golf courses. I do collab. I always try and choose the tips that I’m working on myself.

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This is a great feel drill to do for chipping off extremely tight lie

Gabriella [in a video clip]: This is a great feel drill to do for chipping off an extremely tight lie.

I’m working on something, I’m like let’s do a tip about that. I just want to make it as authentic as possible. Right now, what I think needs the most work in my game is putting. And I think that’s just because I’m more of a mathematical person. Not really that feel-oriented. So I have a hard time with speed on putting.

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For me, this is the best putting drill.

Best putting drill

Line up 6 balls

Gabriella [in a video clip]: For me this is the best putting drill.

I’m learning the game, and I’m teaching the game at the same time. Helping someone else play well makes me feel just as good as playing well myself.

On-Screen text:

Oh.

Gabriella: I’ve had a billion coaches, but my best coach is my dad.

Ron DeGasperis: My name is Ron DeGasperis, and I’m Gabby’s dad. And obviously as a dad, I’m super proud of her. I’d love to tell you that I’m there really managing her time. The fact is that she really is managing her time on her own.

Gabriella: Every day I kind of set out to do two things: Get better at my game and help others to find their love for the game.

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I’m the first tee time in the entire club.

Gabriella: I’m the first tee time in the entire club. I play for about an hour and 30 minutes. That’s 18 holes. And then right after that, I usually go home, early lunch, do some homework. Then I’ll come back, practice, film for social media. Anything that I have to do for Instagram reels or any other social media, I’ll do then. Then I come back, edit all of it, do homework, 9 to 11 o’clock at night.

Gabriella and her dad use a phone to make a video. Then she uses her phone and a laptop computer to edit the video.

Gabriella: I analyze what I do a lot. If you open my laptop, it’s YouTube analytics on the top. And we’ll have a spreadsheet. We’ll say, okay, which videos gained the most followers? Which videos have the most comments? And we kind of put them in categories, and then whatever’s doing the best at that moment, we’ll put out more. The best video that ever performed was the one where I just introduced my mom.

Her laptop screen shows her YouTube page and then the number of views some of her videos have gotten.

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Meet my Mom

Gabriella [in a video clip]: It’s Mother’s Day, and I’m bringing out my mom. So meet my mom.

Mrs. DeGasperis [in a video clip]: When Gabby was little, my husband and I would write on her gloves motivational quotes.

Gabriella: I don’t know if I can remember the best comment. But really, I do like the tips comments because I feel like I’m helping others. That makes me feel so good. They’ll say, “You shaved five strokes off my game.” “I loved when you said this.” I’m like, that’s what I’m trying to do, you know?

[A very young Gabriella in an old video clip]This is the two-ball chip shot.

When she hits the balls, one goes straight up and she catches it; the other ball rolls toward the hole and sinks. The young Gabriella screams joyfully and runs off.

Ron: I think the exciting thing about this journey on social media for Gabby is the fan base that she’s created, and it’s growing so rapidly. So for us, it’s exciting as a family to see her wherever she goes to build that momentum and that support of the fans that she has. And if she does make it to the LPGA, then it would truly be unprecedented to have that massive following going into that LPGA Tour.

Gabriella: A fan base for any player, I think, is extremely valuable. But women apply a lot of stress to themselves. Whether it’s in sports or in just regular life. And sports even heighten more. I do it. So do a lot of the girls I play with. And so do a lot of women on the LPGA Tour. And I think that if women can make themselves a little bit more relatable in those tough times, people would sympathize and understand.

Gabriella [in a video clip]: I always want to be transparent and honest with you guys about my golf game. I shot 80 today.

Ron: We obviously have concerns of her being in the public eye. But I think there are concerns in anything you set your kids out to do.

Gabriella: Sometimes the comments are negative. But most of them are really positive, so I’m super grateful for that. Listen, I can’t control what people say. I can control what I put out there.

[in a video clip] I’m just gonna go after every shot the best I can, be as confident as possible. Here we go.

Ron: She’s super mature. She’s super responsible. And we definitely, as a family, have a good management over it. I think she’s gonna have a lot of opportunity just from what she’s learned along this journey. And we’re proud of her no matter what.

Gabriella keeps a golf ball in the air by repeatedly tapping it with a club; then, before the ball can touch the ground, she drives it down the course.

Gabriella: If I played you on golf, I will pick that based off how much do I love the team. Not necessarily the level of golf, but I would want to love the campus, the coach, and the kids that I play with. That is most important. 

On-screen text:

Ask questions. Be engaged.

[Charles Schwab logo]

Own your tomorrow®

Gabriella: You know, golf is my life. But there’s more to me than just golf. I’m still 16. And I don’t know the future. I don’t really know what’s gonna happen.

On-screen text:

[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]

The Official Investment Firm

©2024 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0224-4P5E)

On-screen text: THANKS TO:

Thomas Szymanowicz

Jeff Massa

Music fades.

Music plays.

A golf bag full of clubs leans against a shelf. Andy sits before a computer working, and then is out on a golf course. Throughout, Andy will be out on a course, walking or playing; sitting in an office, often in front of a computer; or aerial shots will show various golf courses.

Onscreen text:

Charles Schwab Presents

Andy Johnson: [Laughing] At this point in my life, golf is my life. I am either talking about it, I'm writing about it, I'm thinking about it at, at all hours of the day.

Onscreen text:

The Challengers.

A series about people who

Question. Engage. Succeed.

Andy Johnson

Andy: I'm Andy Johnson, and I'm the founder of Fried Egg Golf. I grew up playing golf. I was playing competitively as a Mid-Am into my late twenties. And I was the person that watched golf on the weekends, played golf on the weekends, read about golf during the week, and just absolutely nuts about golf.

The things that I was interested in weren't always the things that were covered in mainstream golf. And understanding golf-course architecture really brings another dimension to the game. I have this theory that if somebody's interested in something that means there's thousands of other people that interested in that too.

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What if we made golf architecture approachable?

Andy: I thought, “What if we made golf architecture approachable and simple and easy to access?” So, I started with Fried Egg Golf. Obviously, you want a golf course that makes you make decisions and makes you think. I thought I should play over here, and I ended up in a terrible place. But then, you know, what's beautiful about golf architecture is the art of it. If you hired ten different architects to look at a piece of land, all ten would come back with a different design.

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Meadow Club

Fairfax, CA

Andy: Were at Meadow Club, which is in Fairfax, California. It is an Alister MacKenzie design. Back in the 1920s, they didn't have the ability to move a lot of earth, so what they had to do was they had to use the natural features of the ground. And one of the things you notice at Alister MacKenzie's golf courses is he was excellent at picking out the most interesting parts of a property and jamming as many holes as possible on those parts.

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8th Green

10th Green

11th Green

Andy: So here in this just small vicinity you have the 8th green right behind me. You've got the 10th green just to the left. We're on the 11th tee, and the 11th green plays right on the ridge. The 7th hole comes right back on the back side of this ridge, and then the 8th tee comes from on top of the . . . It's probably, maybe one of the most dramatic parts of the whole golf course.

Everybody knows the Masters, those roars on Sunday.

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Augusta National

August, GA

10th Green

17TH Green

7TH Green

2ND Green

15TH Green

Andy: One of the reasons they echo through the golf course is that the holes are so close together because the greens, the tees are all placed on these really interesting ridges. So they're just kinda packed together, if that makes sense. A lot of his courses feel so intimate because you visit a place, you go away from it, and then you come back to it. And it creates this sense of familiarity, but you're coming at these really cool features from different angles.

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Pasatiempo

Santa Cruz, CA

Andy: So when you start to kinda take a step back and look at the entire golf course wholistically, it gives you another thing out on the course that brings enjoyment other than how you play. You can look around and say, "Oh, what a cool bunker that is." Cuz it's amazing how this hole goes over this piece of land. And it kind of takes away the pressure of, "I need to make a par to break 90 for the first time.” That's still part of your golf life but it gives this other thing that brings enjoyment other than how I played today.

A buck stands on a golf course, casting a long shadow from the low sun.

Andy pulls a camera from his golf back and takes pictures of the course. Pages from his Fried Egg Golf website flash by, each featuring a photo of a different golf course.

So I thought one of the biggest gaps in golf coverage was golf course architecture. And that's when we started to dive in and really focus on taking great photos of great golf architecture and explaining it in really simple terms. When I started doing that, I was not good at it.

Kaley Johnson [off-screen]: Yes, he’s colorblind, but he is a photographer. He couldn't write, but he taught himself how to write. He teaches himself whatever he wants to learn.

Kaley: My name is Kaley Johnson, but most people know me as Mrs. Fried Egg. I'm Andy's wife.

Onscreen text:

We put out at least one piece of content every single day.

Andy:  We put out at least one piece of content every single day on The Fried Egg.

Kaley: He is a writer now, the great podcaster. He's such a natural.

Andy: Excited to chat with Tom Doak today on the latest episode of The Yolk with Doak.

Andy sits in front of a microphone, recording a podcast. Then he’s in a rocky area with tall grass, send a drone into the air.

Kaley: Everything just continues to evolve and expand. And it's cool to see the audience continue to grow.

Andy: One of the coolest things that happened a couple years ago was Rory Mcllroy in a press conference before Southern Hills PGA talked about how he got ready for the tournament by watching one of our videos.

More pages from Andy’s website flash by.

Professional golfer Rory McIlroy stands before a microphone at a press conference.

Speaker 1: Rory, on knowing the golf course, what did you do to know and to work on once you got here?

Rory McIlroy: So The Fried Egg did a little video with Gill. So I watched that.

Andy: That was really cool. [Laughing] At eight years in, I feel like The Fried Egg's working. [Speaking to a fellow golfer] “I was trying to hole it, so we don't have to hit another one. “

And I think the thing that probably I feel the best about when people talk to me is when the say things like, "I've played golf for 20 years, and I loved it. I never thought I could love this thing more than I used to. And now because of paying attention to golf courses and the architecture of them, I love the game of golf even more than I did before."

Onscreen text:

Tens of thousands of golfers watch, read and listen to Andy’s work every week.

Fried Egg Golf’s architecture videos have been viewed more than 1,000,000 times.

Ask questions. Be engaged.

[Charles Schwab logo]

Own your tomorrow®

Andy: All of my friends send me pictures every time they get Fried Egg lies. And when I get a Fried Egg lie in the bunker, I do feel a little bit of pressure.

Onscreen text:

[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]

The Official Investment Firm

©2024 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0224-4P5E)

Onscreen text:

Thanks to

Meadow Golf Club

Jim O’Neal

Music fades.

Music plays.

A lawn mower rolls along, cutting grass. Then Tom is sitting in an office chair in a garage.

Throughout, Tom will be playing golf, working to maintain the course, or sitting in the course garage. In Addition, many shots will show different areas of the course—the greens, fairways, woods, and streams.

Onscreen text:

Charles Schwab Presents

Tom Coyne: I thought this would be fun. I’d get to live every golfer’s dream. It’ll be like we bought a zoo. And it’ll be a good time.

On screen text:

The Challengers

A series about people who

Question. Engage. Succeed.

Tom Coyne

Tom walks under some trees, toward a golf green. Then he is sitting in a small maintenance vehicle.

Tom: My name’s Tom Coyne. I am a golf writer turned operator of Sullivan County Golf Club in Liberty, New York.

On-screen text:

Sullivan County Golf Club

Liberty, NY

Photos show Tom walking along an Irish road, carrying a golf bag on his back; squatting in a green field, holding a golf bag, with a dog lying at his feet; walking uphill on a narrow country road, several cows walking ahead of him. Then images of his book covers go by in quick succession. Then Tom is walking a golf course

Tom: I’m probably best known in golf for doing some pretty wild, ridiculous golf adventures. I walked the coast of Ireland for four months with golf clubs on my back. I played every links in Scotland. I played golf in all 50 states for different book projects. But it got to the point where I’d moved around so much, and I’d explored so many different places that I thought, “I really wanna tell the story of one golf club.” And I didn’t expect to be running that golf club. But a story needs a challenge, and this place brought plenty of problems and plenty of challenges.

So Sean Smith, the greenskeeper, reached out and said, “Hey, there’s this wonderful course, but it’s gonna close at the end of the year. Would you like to write about it? Do you know anyone who might like to take it on as a project?”

On-screen text:

Sean Smith

Sullivan County Golf Course, Superintendent

Sean sits in a golf cart just outside of the course garage.

Sean Smith: The place used to be quite a club. It was built in ’25, and all through ’50s, ’60s, ’70s it had a very strong local membership. And through the ’80s and the ’90s, like so many of these small clubs, it just got lost in the wash of big golf, bigger golf courses, more amenities. And it just got forgotten. I know we don’t measure up in a lotta ways to other places, but in a lotta ways we do, and he sees that.

The inside walls of the garage are covered with old signs, some of which are humorous. Tom is just inside a garage door, hitting balls out into a grassy area.

Tom: So there is this question of how good can the golf get with the resources that we have? Because we have very limited resources. So I have had to think a lot about what makes a golf course great?

On screen text:

What makes a golf course great?

Tom: What does a golf course really need? And I found that it’s a lot less than I thought it was. You need good greens. You need grass on the fairways. You need the tees to be in pretty good shape. But I also think, to make a golf course good, a golf course also needs to be accessible. We had to keep this place affordable. And we wanna maintain what’s special about the place. It should feel old. It should feel Catskills. But it can also keep getting better. And that’s the challenge.

As a writer, you have to be pretty comfortable being by yourself. And now I spend hours at a time on a mower or out on the golf course with my thoughts. And it actually gives me a lotta time to think about, “What am I doing here? What is the story? Are we going in the right direction? How long does this play out? What is the endgame here?” It gives you a lot of time to daydream about where it might go. But also think practically about, “Okay, what’s the next step?”

Sean: Tom Coyne is a golf nut at the end of the day. To my eyes, he’s no longer Tom Coyne the writer or the podcaster. He’s been kind of our third full-time guy this year on the maintenance crew. It’s not just been having someone so influential in the golf industry here, but he’s been able to contribute down in the dirt like a proper golf nut. Not just someone who’s here for the pictures and for the golf. He’s contributed at every level.

On-screen text:

I mow the fairways and the tees.

Tom: I get here early in the morning. I’m on the machines, and I love it. Yeah, I mow the fairways and the tees. I’ll cut holes. I can change pins. I fix a lot of ball marks. I rake traps. Getting to know a little bit about what a greenskeeper knows on a golf course has changed my perspective as a golfer and has changed my expectations of what I want in a golf course.

It’s funny. People ask me, “Are you writing the book? When is the book gonna be out?” That’s not sort of how I work, and I also don’t know what the ending is. I really don’t know yet if this is a comedy or a tragedy. I hope it has a happy ending. I think it’s going to have a happy ending, but the story is being written every day that I’m out here. But I know that this place should exist for a lot of reasons. And so I feel a responsibility here that maybe I didn’t expect to feel.

A Sullivan County Golf Club flag flutters in the breeze. The course’s clubhouse—a small building—is situated near houses in the small town.

Tom: This is a point of pride for this town. It should exist cuz it’s got this great history. It should exist for golf. And it certainly should exist for the people who work here. We need to make sure that we maintain the spirit of what it actually is—a Catskills Mountain nine-holer. We can’t lose that soul. So that makes it a special place for me.

It’s the sort of dream thing, right? A golfer who runs his own golf course. And I have to remind myself at the end of the day, I’ve never been an early riser, but I find myself waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning thinking about, “Did I order golf balls? Is that mower running? What are we gonna do about the dandelions?” All these things running through your head. And you sometimes do have to step back and think, “What we’re doing here . . . we are doing enough. We’re giving it everything we have. And it’s enough because people are showing up, and they’re having fun.”

I was up here a few weeks ago, and a member had just finished his round and went in and had some beers with his friends. And he walked out, and I was standing outside the pro shop. He said to himself, “That was a great day.” I thought, “That’s why I’m here.”

Sean: We’re gonna end up with twice, maybe three times the rounds that we’ve done in the last three years. It’s a big, scary future for a little place like this. But he’s made all the difference in the world.

On screen text:

Ask questions. Be engaged.

[Charles Schwab logo]

Own your tomorrow®

Tom: If old Tom Morris came out of his grave and said, “I’ll give you nine more holes,” I would say no thank you. Just now that I know the work that goes into taking care of nine holes, nine holes is plenty.

Onscreen text:

[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]

The Official Investment Firm

Music ends.

©2024 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0224-4P5E)

On-screen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Music plays.

Throughout, Tania Tare, a woman in her thirties, walks along a golf course and a beach in New Zealand. She hits a variety of shots, mostly trick shots, on the course and in her home.

Tania: I’m obsessed with golf. Aren’t we all [laughs]?

Percussive music plays.

On-screen text:
The Challengers.
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Tania Tare

Upbeat, poppy music plays.

Tania: I am Tania Tare, and I’m a professional golfer and trick shot artist. I grew up here in Auckland, New Zealand. And I’ve been playing golf since I was about 15. Well, I hit my first ball at 14, and then probably my first golf round was when I was 15. I played a lot of tournaments in New Zealand, then I went to college on a scholarship at FIU in Miami.

On-screen text:
Titirangi Golf Club
Auckland, New Zealand

Tania: And then post-college tried to turn pro and do the pro thing. But I’ve had three wrist surgeries, so I haven’t really had a full shot at it.

I would say after I had my third wrist surgery, I think that I was just hardened after that. And so I think that was the first time I realized I might need to start thinking outside the box. I knew that I wanted to be involved in golf, and I wanted to make a career out of golf, but I didn’t know how to do that.

So the question I was asking myself was, “How do I stay in golf if I’m not competing?”

On-screen text:
How do I stay in golf if I’m not competing?

Tania: So I kinda fell into trick shots a little bit. I just did trick shots personally for my friends and family because they thought golf was really lame, and I was trying to make it cool. But the first time I did a trick shot that I just made up on my own, just bounced a couple of ping pong balls between my legs and hit them into Solo cups. And it was pretty basic, looking back on it now, but no one had done that before. And so those videos, both just my friends and stuff, were going pretty well, and everyone was really excited about them.

With her arm alternately in a sling or bandaged up at the wrist, Tania bounces golf balls with her club and knocks them into plastic cups across the room.

Tania: And then fast-forward a year and a half, so I just took my profile off private and then within 24 hours, the golf pages were all posting them. “Hey, can we post your videos? These are awesome. Never seen this stuff before.” And then they pretty much went viral. And that’s kind of how it all started. And then everyone was like, “Hey, you’re the trick shot girl.” And I was like, “Oh, guess I’m the trick shot girl” [laughs]. I think at this point today, I’ve done around 400 trick shots.

Tania spins a ball on the face of her club.

On-screen text:
I’ve done around 400 trick shots.

Tania: Honestly, I really enjoyed just hitting it out the air purely. When I pull that off, I feel like that’s still as satisfying today as it was when I first did it. But my favorite set of trick shots I’ve done are the flip cup ones, only because no one’s ever done something like that before and they get harder and harder.

Tania attempts a trick shot, losing control of her club three times before getting it right.

Tania: For me, I think the perfect trick shot is something that looks visually easy enough that you try it, but hard enough that you can’t pull it off.

Thomas Davies, a young man with bleach-blonde hair, walks along the beach with Tania.

Thomas: My name’s Thomas Davies, and I’m Tania’s youngest brother. Before Tania started doing trick shots, I thought of golf as this mundane sport, but she really showed me that golf could actually be fun. And I’m pretty impressed at how much exposure she has gotten across the globe. All my friends even know who Tania is, and every time she’s back, they try to get a game of golf with her. It’s crazy how the world sees Tania as this pro trick shot artist now, but she’s also a professional golfer, and she’s still my big sister.

Closeup of Tania’s black sheep logo ball cap. Tania, wearing her cap, and Thomas stand on the beach laughing.

Tania: I wanted a logo that encompassed everything about me. So the Black Sheep stands for two things. One, it reminds me of New Zealand. And two, I think everyone should strive to be their original authentic selves. I feel like that’s the most valuable thing about a person. Just having wrist surgery after wrist surgery, I thought maybe that golf wasn’t for me. But I think being a black sheep let me kind of choose the trick shot path and still know I was going in the right direction.

I think even though I haven’t really gotten a great shot at playing competitively, my life has actually turned out probably a lot better. I’ve got to places that I haven’t been able to go before. I’ve met so many amazing people who I’m now friends with, and been on the James Corden Show and Tosh.0.

Screenshots of social media show Tania with James Corden and Daniel Tosh.

Tania: So I’ve gotten to do amazing things all purely because of trick shots. But when I find out that someone who didn’t play now plays because of the trick shots, that makes me feel like I’m showing golf in a different way, and people are saying to themselves, “Oh, golf isn’t just this one-dimensional thing. There’s so many different ways you can jump into golf and enjoy it.”; I think that’s always most satisfying for me.

On-screen text:
Tania’s trick shots have been viewed 100s of millions of times.

Tania [hitting a ball into a cup in her room]: Yes! I got it!

On-screen text:
She gets home to New Zealand as often as she can.

And if she can avoid further injury, she’s still hoping to compete again.

Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo] Own your tomorrow®

Tania: And I still want to keep playing competitively in golf. And I think honestly will probably never stop playing.

On-screen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo] The Official Investment Firm

©2023 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0323-2ZDH)

Thanks To
Titirangi Golf Club
Doug White
Thomas Davies
Peter Aitken
Jo Dawkins
Sandi Young
Xcalibur Film Productions

Music ends.

Music plays.

Zac Blair—a thirty-something wearing a hoodie and an orange stocking cap—is on a golf course, sunlit trees behind him, looking through a laser rangefinder. Then he’s walking down a trail through a wooded area.

Throughout, he will be on golf courses, walking or playing golf, sometimes with others; or he will be sitting in a work yard, a large pile of sand, a piece of heavy equipment, and a clubhouse behind him. In addition, aerial shots will show parts of different golf courses—greens, fairways, sand traps, sandy roads.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Zac Blair: The par fives are really cool. Not that we didn’t do good with the fours, and I think the threes are amazing. But the fives really stand out to me.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers.
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Zac Blair

Zac: I’m Zac Blair, and I’m a professional golfer.

A few years ago, I tore my labrum in my right shoulder. Kind of sucked, obviously. I had been a person that played golf literally every day for my entire life. So for something like that to happen and then not get to play for seven or eight months was definitely a wild transition, but a lot of cool things came from that time off. Had a couple kids. Got to spend a lot of time at home with my wife. And built a golf course.

In old footage, a younger Zac sinks a long putt in a PGA event, and cheers erupt. Then stills of golf courses and of Zac playing golf flash by. Then several items with “TBC” logos are shown.

Zac: It really started right out of college when I got my PGA Tour® card. Gotta go to a lot of really cool places around the country. I was seeing a lot of cool clubs and golf courses. Stuff that I hadn’t really seen in Utah. And I got this idea of building a golf course in Utah for me and my friends. We were just calling it The Buck Club, but kept hitting little hurdles and roadblocks. I’m not a multibillionaire that can just fund the whole thing by myself, and it’s not just gonna be funded by selling hats and head covers and T-shirts. That’s where it turned into this idea of The Tree Farm here in Aiken, South Carolina.

Onscreen text:
The Tree Farm
Aiken, South Carolina

Zac: The big question for me was as a 30-year-old PGA Tour golfer, “Why can’t I build the best golf club in the world?”

Onscreen text:
Why can’t I build the best golf club in the world?

Zac: For me, a good golf club is about the people and the membership. The thing that all the members at The Tree Farm have in common is they love golf.

Several images of watercolors of a golf course flash by.

Zac: They believed in my vision even before the place was built, which was unique. I think it was a pretty old-school way of building the club. It was a bunch of people ponying up and buying into my vision and my dream. And so the whole membership are people that love golf.

Onscreen text:
I had conversations with everybody that got invited.

Zac: I had conversations with everybody that got invited. It was easy to tell if it was just another person trying to belong to another club versus somebody that really had a passion for the game and wanted to share a special place with guests or family members.

Jay Washburn: My name’s Jay Washburn, and I’m a member of The Tree Farm.

I joined the golf club before there was a golf course because of Zac. It was in his heart to build a great golf course. Not because he wanted to make money or because he wanted his name in lights, but because he wanted to build something. He loves golf. He loves golf courses. And he’s also someone who creates goals and then goes and accomplishes them. He’s a tour player. He’s decided to build this course, and it took him a long time, and it was a hard road, and he’s done it. He doesn’t give up. Now that I’ve seen the golf course, I’m stunned. The best pictures in my head, the drawings, whatever I’ve imagined—it’s even better. It’s big and beautiful and just fun.

Kye sits in a maintenance vehicle, wearing a Tree Farm hoodie.

Kye Goalby: It’s actually better than I thought it was ever going to be. My name is Kye Goalby. I’m a golf designer and shaper.

I think a lot of guys might think they could do it. What made Zac unique is he did this studying of the golf courses ahead of time. And when Zac first got out on the Tour, he wasn’t eligible to play in the Pro-Ams and had to do something on the Tuesdays of the event. And instead of going to the range and working on his game, he would go to a local golf course that was of architectural interest and go check that out.

I heard that he was at Hartford, and he drove to Pine Valley, which is probably about a four-hour drive. I don’t think a lot of guys are going to be doing that on their days off from the Tour.

Zac: Yeah, my first couple of years I would always try and scope out the best place around. See what makes it great. And was fortunate to go to a lot of cool places.

Kye: You meet Zac, and his age sorta becomes irrelevant. You know he’s young, but the passion he had and the knowledge he had, the energy that he has, it’s infectious. And I knew we could work together.

Zac [exclaiming at a friend’s good shot]: Oh, yes!

Kye: It starts with the land. Any good golf course—you need good land if you really want something great. So we had some really cool elevation changes, and they were severe. But with getting Tom Doak to help us with the routing, we were able to overcome the severity and actually utilize it and enhance the routing through that severity.

Zac: And I told Tom in the letter that I wrote him, “You can do whatever you want. It can be as quirky as you want, as short as you want. I’m not trying to build this championship-style golf course. I just wanted to make a fun place for people that loved golf.” I would’ve loved if it was like sub-70. I would’ve loved some weird, quirky, wild things. And then it just ended up being 18 really good holes.

Kye: Well, the first hole is a par-three. A lot of traditionalists in golf will think that's weird.

Zac: I think it's really unique and different, and people will definitely stand up to the first tee and know they're at The Tree Farm. The drivable par four at 18 was the only thing in the letter that was like non-negotiable to Tom. It was talking about North Berwick and just how fun it is to finish. Maybe making an eagle or an easy birdie instead of getting hit in the face and making a bogie or a double. That's what I wanted.

[After sinking a putt] There we go.

The coolest places I've ever been, the membership want to show it off to other people that love the game. And that was really the goal here—was making sure everyone feels like a member when they're here. Because you might only come one time in your whole life, and the last thing you want is someone to be like, “God, that experience wasn't good.” Hopefully, everyone thinks it's as good as I do.

Onscreen text:
This year Zac will finish up The Tree Farm
while competing in 25 events on the PGA Tour.

Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Zac: Ultimately, the plan would be to take the proof of concept back to Utah and build The Buck Club. Yeah, that would be nice.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2023 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0323-2Z8H)

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
The Tree Farm
Tom Doak
Kye Goalby
Drew King
Jay Washburn

Music ends.

Music plays.

A golf club rolls a golf ball into place.

On-screen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

George Gankas, a middle-aged man, sits in a pro shop wearing a baseball cap.

George: I get that a lot of real golfers don’t hit off mats. But to me, I know contact. I can always tell when a ball’s hit well—I can hear it.

Percussive music plays. George hits a ball and walks along a course.

On-screen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who question. Engage. Succeed.
George Gankas

Jaunty music plays. George pulls his car into a parking lot, walks through the pro shop carrying his golf bag, and takes shots on the driving range and along the fairway.

George: My name is George Gankas. I’m a golf pro out at Westlake, California. I was not a golfer first. I was actually a wrestler, played volleyball, played baseball, played a bunch of different sports. And my senior year in high school, my dad took me out golfing, and he told me if I ever actually beat him, he’d quit golf. I said, “All right, that’s some motivation.” And beat him the very next year, shot 71. I played at junior college for two years at Ventura College, and then I walked on at Cal State, Northridge and played two years there.

Well, I started caddying out at Sherwood Country Club just so I could play more. And in the mix, I started helping a lot of the members there getting better. And [inaudible]: “You should teach, you should teach.” And I'm: “I'm not teaching.” It ended up to a point where I started doing a couple juniors around town here, and they started winning. So I was like, maybe this is my calling.

George instructs several junior players on the driving range.

George [to a student]: And right here, I want this shoulder to retract a little. I have to go back. One more time.

I really love teaching, but what I question most is: Why are people teaching the same thing to everybody? Does it matter what a golf swing looks like, if it works?

On-screen text:
Does it matter what a golf swing looks like if it works?
 
George: For me, my student Matt Wolff probably has the least aesthetically pleasing swing, but if you watch him hit balls, it’s probably the most impressive sound, ball flight, everything.

I never really had a coach. It was more of me experimenting. I am more hands on, because then I find that I can get better results.

Matt takes shots from various spots on a course.

On-screen text:
I am more hands on.

George Gankas: But I can move a shoulder. I can move here. I can move legs. And I feel like in an hour I get way more done than anybody on the planet.

I have devices I developed so they could do things on their own. I made a GSnap, OK. And the GSnap basically just makes the face closed. As soon as they heard click, they’re like, oh, my arms move back in front. I have an entourage, basically, every time I teach. If I was in a country club, I couldn’t do that. And I love the camaraderie out here. I love that people are practicing together. And all my players that are here, they love it because they get to hit balls and talk trash to each other. It’s an everyday thing. And I think that if I didn’t have anybody out here, I’d kind of be bored.

George instructs more players, slides a GSnap training aid onto a player’s hand, and reviews video footage on a mobile phone with a couple players. George and Johnny Reese, a younger man with a mustache and wearing a ball cap, instruct a junior on the range.

George [to a student]: Good, very good. So that felt more compressed, right? So we’re going to get this moving back, as this is down. Now, start down, get that hip back.

So Johnny’s my mover. He actually does all the hard work. He’s one of my best friends, and I think he’s one of the best movers that I’ve ever had.

Johnny: My name is Johnny Reese and I’m a professional golfer. I’ve been working with George about 10 years. Everything that George does is just a little bit different than most people. He’s definitely one of a kind. The way George gets in there or myself get in there and move people around would be a little bit unusual, but without giving someone the feel for it, a lot of people would not get it. George loves golf. I get calls at 5:30 in the morning with a swing video and he is yelling at me for not answering my phone call because he wants to see what I see or teach me something. And he’s got a solution for any player, not just a good player. He knows when to change something and when to leave something alone. And it’s pretty crazy to see, when he goes to work with someone, how fast he gets them to hit it well.

Johnny sits in a golf cart by a pond, takes a practice swing at dawn, reviews swing footage on his phone, and works with George and a junior out on the course.

George: I think it’s very important to look at old timers. They always had rhythm, full turns, they always had great impacts, a lot more movement, a lot of triggers. And I think when you create more movement at start, it is becoming more athletic. Anytime we get stuck over a ball, the body doesn’t turn. The arms move faster than the body. And I think that’s where a lot of the compensations, the tilts, the standups, the timing of the hands through the ball become normal. And if you look at Matthew Wolff, you’ll see that he starts this way at an impact and boom, boom. And then he goes, and he always has great rhythm, and I think that that takes his mind out of the shot. It’s almost like boom, boom, go. The bigger his trigger is, the better he plays. You can tell he is freer, he has more confidence, and I think that’s very important.

George sits in the pro shot and works around the course. Black-and-white footage shows pros in footage from old tournaments. Matt Wolff makes shots during a tournament, and the crowd cheers.

George: I think a good golf coach is someone who is not concerned with what everybody else thinks about you and what you teach. I think there’s someone who is more concerned with your players, how they perform, and how you can help them. I’ve been teaching since ’98, so what is that, 25 years, almost? I have an online academy. I have people that DM me on social media. So I’ve probably taught more than 10,000 people in my career. So when people ask me, what is there left to do? You’ve taught PGA TOUR® winners, you’ve taught division one, number ones. What else is there to do? I do think that I still have a lot of game, but I would like to compete. So I’d say that that’s what’s left for me, is not trying to prove how good I am at coaching. It’d be more for what I can do for myself.

George works with juniors on the course and adjusts a camera and a laptop. Fast-forwarded images of multiple golfers on the driving range. George takes shots around the course.

Johnny: I really want him to actually go try and qualify for the senior tour. I don’t think people realize how good he is. He just loves it so much.

Johnny works with George on his putt. George takes a shot at the green from the other side of a pond.

George: What I love about golf is that it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re a pro or a really good amateur. It’s a tough game.

On-screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo] Own your tomorrow®

George walks the course on a fall day. He blows on his hands and rubs them together to warm up.

George: You know, I don’t have a proudest moment in teaching. I’d say I’m proud every time one of my players calls me and says that they had a great day. That makes me proud.

On-screen text:
©2023 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0323-2ZDH)

Music ends.

On-screen text:
Thanks to:
Westlake Golf Club
Kristel Erickson
Leo Pustetto
Zaid Kahn
Johnny Ruiz
Charlie Reiter

On-screen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Light music plays.

Throughout, Christine Fraser, a short-blond-haired woman in her thirties, walks a golf course alongside a large body of water, the sun on the horizon. Christine consults her notebook, takes photographs, and hits a few golf balls. She walks among riding mowers and chats with other golfers along the way.

Christine: I’m not interested in designing top 100 golf courses. What I’m trying to do is invite people to the game through accessible architecture.

On-screen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Christine Fraser

Christine: My name is Christine Fraser and I’m a golf course architect.

How do I design for everybody? It’s so challenging. You’re trying to design for so many different people at once. You’re trying to design for the management, for the superintendent, for the person playing the forward tees.

So it’s a moving, shifting puzzle, where one piece affects the next. If golf doesn’t reflect the population of your demographics, if it doesn’t consider environmental justice, if it doesn’t become more inclusive and diverse, then golf might not be around in 50 years.

The single biggest question the game has to answer is: How do we become more diverse and more inclusive, to ensure the future of our game?

On-screen text:
How do we become more diverse and inclusive?

Christine: As a golf course architect, I consider myself a therapist. Being out on the golf course isn’t always about the game. It’s about human connection and being vulnerable and practicing your mental health. So it’s human development. It’s not just a game; it’s much more important than that.

I’d like to build a golf course that someone who feels like they’re on the margin can walk on the first tee and say, “Wow, this was built for me.”

Today we’re at Camden Braes Golf and Country Club. This is where I grew up. This is my home. This was designed by Herb Wolfram, and he’s my grandfather.

A dilapidated barn bears an old sign that reads “Camden Braes Golf & C.C.”

Margaret Wolfram: Christine has golf course architecture in her blood. My name is Margaret Wolfram, and I’m Christine Fraser’s grandma.

Margaret, an older, white-haired woman, sits in her home. Photographs depict family members working around tractors and standing in a barren, wintry field.

Margaret: When Herb and I were about 10 years married, we thought, “We want our own business. We want a business that would involve the family.” And golf at that time was very popular. So Herb went off and looked for properties, and we found the one at Camden Braes, and that was it.

Christine: I learned a lot from my grandfather, even though he wasn’t a trained architect. My grandfather wasn’t a golfer, which makes this so interesting. He was a really practical person, and he was able to understand that if water is the most valuable resource that a golf club has, we can reallocate that resource by allowing the fairways to firm and brown. Then we create sustainability going forward—without giving up any fun.

Every day, I work to persuade people that there’s value in brown turf and there is value in a forward tee program.

On-screen text:
Every day I work to persuade people there’s value in brown turf.

Christine: Firm and fast is a great equalizer because it allows the slower swing speeds to gain that extra yardage, but it also challenges the better players to consider their accuracy and their angles in on the second shot, so it’s a win-win.

Christine [after taking a shot with her driver]: It’s right by the pin!

It’s really important to spend time at the golf course. And for me, the discovery and the fact-finding phase is on the golf course, but it’s also meeting people who experience the golf course and connecting with the membership and playing in ladies’ night, playing in women’s leagues, and playing in the men’s leagues to understand how a cross-section of the membership experiences the golf course. But once we get to the design phase, it’s digital. It’s often difficult to show someone a 2D rendering of what your vision is. And so the development of 3D renderings, using the photos that we take, is such a helpful tool for people to understand where we’re headed.

Christine sits in her office, marking an image of a golf course on her computer screen with a stylus.

Christine: If I had to define what a golf course architect is, for me, it’s someone who serves a community in some capacity.

Golf has a race issue. Golf has a gender issue. Golf has a class issue. But for those issues, golf would be the most incredible game in the world. And I do respect the legacy and tradition and integrity that has been established over the last centuries. But if we don’t invite more people to the game, these clubs will not survive. And I want them to. I really do.

Christine walks in a sand trap, picking up a handful of sand and letting it sift between her fingers. She looks out toward the sea with the sun low in the horizon.

Christine: The dream is to design a modern-day St. Andrews, where the community comes and uses the golf course as the individual needs to, and it becomes a piece of the community that functions for people with disabilities and for beginners and people who have never believed in golf and that changes their mind.

On-screen text:
Christine is currently creating a new masterplan for one of the oldest golf courses in North America.

“Our profession needs more diversity to better serve the wide variety of people who play and love golf … Christine Fraser is one of the bright lights of our craft, and we are excited to see the impact she will make.” —Gil Hanse

Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Christine: Am I happy sipping a Guinness out on the patio at men’s night? I mean, yeah, sure. But am I happy out on the golf course on my own when it’s six o’clock in the morning and I’m the only one out there? That makes me happy.

On-screen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2023 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0323-2Z8H)

On-screen text:
Thanks to:
Camden Braes
Brian Wolfram
Marg Wolfram
Christine’s Family Members
Miranda Wolfram
Brad Fraser
Toronto Hunt Club
Sean DeSilva

Music ends.

Music plays.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Lynn Marriott: I think work on a range is extremely overrated, because people can fake it on the range, but you can’t fake it when you get on the course.

Throughout, Lynn and Pia are out on a golf course, walking or driving and putting golf balls or coaching students; or are in an office, writing notes on a dry-erase board and showing the books they’ve written. And dramatic views show a golf course and the nearby hills and mountains of a desert landscape at sunrise.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Lynn & Pia

Lynn: I’m Lynn Marriott, and I’m a golf coach.

Pia Nilsson: My name is Pia Nilsson, and I’ve been coaching with Lynn, with Vision54, for 23 years now. So Vision54 is about 18 birdies. And it’s about always looking at the possibilities to go towards that. And that’s what we want all golfers to do.

Lynn: We want people to have a skill set, where they can manage themselves. So that means managing their mind, managing their body, managing their emotions. And of course, managing their swing and the technical part as well.

Onscreen text:
What do you do when you play great?

Pia: So a question we ask any golfer coming to us is: What do you do when you play great? Because they come to us to play great more often.

Lynn: More people know what they don’t want to do; what’s wrong with their swing than what’s right with their swing. Or when they play really well—what’s going on?

Pia: Every human being on the planet, they’re unique. And every golfer, to play good golf, is going to do it in a unique way. So we can’t have a set way: “This is how you play great golf.” But it’s to helping each golfer figuring out how they do it best.

Onscreen text:
We help people compartmentalize all the different skills they need.

Lynn: We help people compartmentalize all the different skills they need when they play golf. There’s actually three phases to every golf shot. There’s a future, there’s a present, and there’s a past. So the future is your think box, and that’s where you need to make a decision. And then the present is the play box. It’s where golf happens. It’s where you make the swing or the stroke. And then the memory box is dealing with the outcome. So there’s two things that you’re deciding on in your future of every shot—is the actual strategy of the shot and what your play box athletic feeling’s gonna to be.

Pia [to Mia whom she’s coaching]: Let’s hit one more. It doesn’t matter where the golf ball goes, but you’re going to do it with your eyes closed.

Mia: Hit the shot with my eyes closed?

Lynn: Uh-huh. With the same play box, so you can really stay in it and feel that low center of gravity all the way to the finish.

What actually makes a memory stick in the brain is emotion, and golf is a very emotional sport. So it’s understanding that when I have a positive or negative emotion, it becomes a memory.

Pia: To store and celebrate the good shots is essential if you want to be as good as you could be in golf. The brain needs the little emotion for it to store it as a memory. And for the bad shots, it’s very, very important, because we’re are going to hit bad shots in golf, and many think, “Well, yeah, but I need to learn from it.” We want you to learn too, but if you stay more objective, like: “The ball is in the water, and I forget to check the wind.” That’s objective. So I could learn for the future, but I don’t get the storing of memory. So it’s very important for competitive golfers that have to answer to media and sponsors and friends and family. Sometimes they rehash the misses for weeks on weeks, and it can really get them.

Kevin Streelman: My name is Kevin Streelman. I’m a professional golfer.

I’d say all golfers, all professional golfers, at some point they realize that the mechanics aren’t necessarily everything to good scoring. It’s very individualistic. You’ve got to get into yourself and try to understand why you do what, in tricky situations, in nervous situations. And Pia and Lynn understand that better than anyone.

I was top 50 in the world, thinking I have this game down. I was playing great. And all of a sudden, come the summer of 2014, it just all went away. I had worked with a coach who I didn’t really agree with what was going on in my golf swing. I was at the U.S. Open. I missed the cut by a ton. I’m sitting there at Pinehurst Friday afternoon. I’ll never forget where I was, on this bench right above the putting green. Pia and Lynn had come for the week. And they sat down and asked me a question I’ll never forget. “Kevin, if you taught yourself, what would you tell yourself about your golf swing.”

Kevin is sitting near a golf course as golfers behind him play.

Kevin: I go, “That’s easy. Club's too stuck behind me. It's a little shut. I need to get it more open. I need to get the club more in front of me. I need to rotate. As I turn through, I'll be more posted on my left side. And I should hit the ball very much in front of me with just slight pull cuts.”

They said, “Why do you go see anybody else? Go up to Hartford. Sunday, birdie 10. One-putt 10 and 11, and birdie 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. Win the PGA TOUR®.” I was the same guy. Nothing changed. I believed in myself. Pia and Lynn helped me do that.

Onscreen text:
Lynn and Pia have coached players to over 100 TOUR victories
Four #1 ranked players in the world
10 major champions

Ask questions. Be engaged.
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Own your tomorrow®

Lynn: Every golfer needs to understand that you have to learn to manage your emotions or this game's gonna to eat you up.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2022 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0222-17H2)

Music ends.

Thanks to
Talking Stick Golf Club

Music plays.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Brendon Thomas: We believe that if you make something that’s worth keeping, people will pay for it.

Throughout, Brendon is surfing; is out on a golf course, walking or driving and putting golf balls; or is in an office, showing the pages of The Golfer’s Journal. Other Journal employee are sometimes shown. And dramatic views show a golf course, ocean waves on the rocky coastline, the nearby hills and mountains, and birds flying in the cloudy skies.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Brendon Thomas

Brendon: My name is Brendon Thomas. I’m the publisher of The Surfer’s Journal and the founder of The Golfer’s Journal. It’s not immediately obvious how golf and surf are connected. One is fluid and moving really quickly, and you’re reacting to the changing environment. Golf, you’re standing over a stationary object, but you’re still in the elements. You’re still factoring in the wind, the atmosphere, the same way you would in surf.

You’re out in nature, there’s a lot of downtime between activity—between hitting a ball, between catching a wave. And I think those similarities are very important—being able to surrender your mental space to the environment and be present in the moment. As surfers, we see ourselves as part of a tribe. And golfers are part of a tribe as well. Golfers have their own culture, their own art, their own lingo. It’s very much a shared identity that I don’t think is celebrated enough. There’s so many interesting people that play the game.

[to his companions on the golf course] How’s it going boys?

And so the idea of the Journal is to really unearth those people, and bring them together, and connect them. One of my core beliefs, and something I always tell my staff, is you have to build the world you want to live in. And the question we kept asking ourselves is, “How can we make golf the way we want it to be?”

Onscreen text:
How can we make golf the way we want it to be?

Brendon: And we wanted to speak to these passionate people who love the game as much as we do and find ways to harness their collective energy to help direct the future of the game.

So back in early 2017, I was friends with Scotty Cameron. We had played a lot of golf together. One day, I decided to pitch him on this idea I had. It was supposed to be an hour-long discussion, and three-and-a-half hours later, he said, “If you build it, I’ll support it.” And that was really a push that I didn’t expect to get. So I went home, regained my composure, and then showed up at LINKSOUL™ and told them my idea.

Geoff Cunningham: My name’s Geoff Cunningham. I’m the cofounder and art director of LINKSOUL. I’ve always been a big follower of The Surfer’s Journal. And so when Brendon contacted me, it kind of felt like I was meeting a celebrity of some sort, somebody who I thought was really cool. He came to John and I to see if he was crazy for thinking that he could start a magazine that was The Surfer’s Journal of golf.

Geoff sits in an office, talking about the Journal and showing its logo and covers.

Geoff: To start a magazine in the middle of social media, you’d have to be as crazy as Brendon. You’d have to be very creative, very innovative, and calculating, smart, and driven. The logo, it was his idea, and it’s one of my favorite logos that I’ve ever worked on. It’s a great symbol in golf, that captures the soul of the game. I finally found the tee at Goat Hill Park, one of my morning walks, and kind of knew it was the one.

Brendon: In the beginning, I did a bit of everything. We had no venture capital.

Onscreen text:
I was doing the social media. I was selling ads. I was writing features.

Brendon: I was doing the social media. I was selling ads. I was writing features. And my editor, Travis Hill, was on the other coast, so we really scrapped it together. The photography in The Golfer’s Journal was actually one of the biggest challenges initially. Everywhere I looked, the photography had a certain aesthetic. So we went out and got photographers who don’t play golf, and we sent them into this foreign landscape to capture the game. What we got back was just completely different to what you see everywhere else.

Brendon is in an office, talking about the Journal, flipping through its pages and showing the photos and covers.

Brendon: The book is the backbone of the whole enterprise. As we move increasingly into the metaverse, physical things that are tangible are super important. And I think that’s what people love so much about the Journal, is that we paid so much attention to the construction of it. We do things like spot-varnish all the images, so the images really pop. We do things that you can’t really do in the digital realm, not crammed between ads. The story warrants 30 pages in the book, it gets 30 pages in the book. Really let every story be told to its full extent. And I think that’s what separated us. It separates us now.

Brendon rides an electric bike, with his surfboard attached in a side carrier, to the beach and begins surfing.

Brendon: Something that I’ve come to realize over the course of starting this business, is that the quality of your life is almost entirely dependent on the quality of your mind. People talk about the work-life balance. I don’t really buy into that analogy. I don’t think you need to balance it. I think of it more as a flywheel. If your work inspires you and gives you fulfillment, then you are energized, and you’re better at home. And your home life can inspire your work life. And the more attention and mindfulness that you bring to each of those situations, the better your whole life’s going to be.

The more I’ve worked on that, the more I’ve been able to manage my time, and manage a couple titles, a start-up that requires a lot of energy and attention, and a family that I love and have to giving them the time that they deserve.

I think the initial question was always, how can we tell golf stories differently? We’re telling human interest stories as much as we’re telling golf stories. And I think that connects with a lot of people. So the answer to that question was yes, there was a different way to tell golf stories, and we’re doing it.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
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Own your tomorrow®

Brendon: People have told me, on more than one occasion now, that they’ve fallen back in love with the game because of The Golfer’s Journal. And that, to me, is the most rewarding thing to hear.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2022 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0222-17H2)

Thanks to
Goat Hill Park Golf Club
John Ashworth

Music fades.

Music plays.

Joey Diovisalvi is jogging down a dark street, with streetlights glowing above him.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Joey Diovisalvi: Every day, my day starts in the dark. The birds haven’t even woken up yet, and I’m out there just getting players ready to get better. My name’s Joey Diovisalvi; I’m a biomechanics coach on the PGA TOUR.

Throughout, Joey is training and working out both inside and outside at different times of the day, is helping someone else train in a gym, or is sitting in a room.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Joey D

Joey: How did I know I wanted to be in golf? I didn’t know; it just happened by accident. I wasn’t planning on it, ever—cuz golf wasn’t cool. I think that, when you look at the history of what golf is—it’s feel. It’s technique. It’s all of the things that basically do not agree with strength and speed—and how is the body engineered to really work?  

Onscreen text:
How is the body engineered to work?

Joey: You will never, ever get better unless you start to understand your body’s movements. So how you going to get there? Were you going to hit 150,000 more balls? That’s not going to help. Once you teach them that, then all that other old-school thinking—it’s gone. And now it’s time to show up. And this is where we start to get better.

This is the closest way that you can actually replace a tool with a club. So what I love about this drill is it gives us the opportunity to mimic the golf swing with something that’s a little bit of resistance that creates the opportunity to make your brain and body connect.

Where does power come from? Where does mobility come from? Where does flexibility come from?

Onscreen text:
Where does power come from? Where does mobility come from? Where does flexibility come from?

Joey: Where does the movement happen with strength? People don’t have enough ability to take their lower body and keep it stable, and then their upper body and create rotation. So this is really golf-specific fitness, and it is absolutely necessary to get better at golf.

Onscreen text:
Mark Amuso
Managing Partner
Joey D Golf

Mark Amuso: You can’t think your way through a golf swing—it takes a second and a half. You gotta feel it. And, to be consistent, you have to be able to hone those feelings to become real. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re the number one player in the world or you just picked up a club yesterday. We’re all just golfers trying to get one notch better. And that’s what he’s tremendously talented at.

Joey: We evaluate people through a process that’s very, very detailed. And we understand—can they actually swing and balance? You can’t have power if you can’t swing and balance. And that’s what people don’t understand. But nobody talks about it because it’s not cool. It’s cool to talk about hitting a drive 400 yards. So it’s the thing we start with—that’s the first link. When we’re done with the table assessment and how the bones are moving and joints and muscles, then we put them on a balance system.

Onscreen text:
We put them on a balance system.

Joey: And once they’re swinging on that, we collect all of this data. The great thing about math is it’s never wrong. It validates what they have to do to get better. Balance is huge because if you’ve never worked on it—once you do, then all of a sudden you realize, “Gosh, I swing so much more efficiently, and my swing speed increased. My ball speed increased. My smash factor increased.” All the technical stuff starts to come into play, and that’s kind of cool. They’re winning more. They’re placing higher in events. They’re more confident than ever, and there’s less injuries. And I think, when I look at that as a coach, that makes me believe that the work I’ve done over the last two-and-a-half decades has made a difference.

It’s bike, run, swim, every single day, just to start the day. And the sun hasn’t even thought about coming up yet. But if I can lead by example, then you’ve got to really bring your A game when you come here, because I don’t have any ability to have anything less; just doesn’t work for me.

I’m actually training with them, which is very unorthodox. I think to out-train them in this environment is great for them because it constantly raises the bar. They’re like, “That old man is not going to take me down.” And they can’t get there. How are you going to get better? I just bring it to this level because it’s what I’ve done forever, and it works.

Mark: Joey certainly wasn’t the first guy to lean on fitness training to help support better performance. But it was not widely adopted. And in the just over a decade that I’ve been with him, I’ve seen adoption at the Tour level and at the recreational level go through the roof. And for professional golfers now, it’s absolutely mandatory. You just got to do it.

Onscreen text:
Joey D has personally trained 3 world #1 players over 2 decades

Joey D Golf’s clients have won more than 130 professional tournaments

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Joey: I’m not warm and fuzzy; I don’t hide it. But I can promise you that, when you’re done working—I don’t know if we’re hanging a banner or winning the FedEx Cup—but we’re getting somewhere.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2022 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0222-17H2)

Music ends.

Music plays.

Olajuwon Ajanaku: I don’t even feel as though I’m in the fashion industry. I feel like I’m making clothes to connect with people. My name is Olajuwon Ajanaku, founder of Eastside Golf.

Throughout, Olajuwon and Earl Cooper walk around or take swings and putts on a golf course, or sit in a brightly lit room while answering questions and showing off the golf fashion items they designed.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Eastside Golf

Olajuwon: I’ve been playing golf since I was six years old. I’d play golf, junior golf—ended up getting a scholarship to go to Morehouse College and won a National Golf Championship 2010. After I graduated, turned pro in golf, did that for a couple of years—but got to a point I just couldn’t afford it anymore. I was taking up odd jobs, I was still playing mini-tour golf, had a couple of professional wins under my belt, and even was caddying. But it got to a point I just couldn’t afford it. So I thought, “What if I could create a brand to sponsor myself?”

Onscreen text:
What if I could create a brand to sponsor myself?

Olajuwon: In every sport, usually you see players become owners; but have you ever seen an owner become a player?

Onscreen text:
Have you ever seen an owner become a player?

Olajuwon: You know, I want to play golf—and I was just like, “You know, it’s going to be hard to find sponsors, Olajuwon.” So, what’s the first thing? Let’s just make a logo. And I talked to my best friend at the time, Earl; he was doing his own thing.

Earl Cooper: I am Earl Cooper, and I am the cofounder of Eastside Golf.

So I met Olajuwon in college, at Morehouse College; we met there on the golf team. But when you graduate, you’re faced with decisions: you follow your passion, or go to law school—cuz I have a degree in political science—but I had dreams of playing the PGA TOUR. I just wasn’t good enough—quickly realized that. But I still wanted to be involved in golf, so jumped into becoming a PGA Professional. And then in 2016, I was named Golf Digest’s one of the Best Young Teachers in America. So my Eastside story started with him, about to turn 30. He just, “Hey man, I need to create a logo.” I’m like, “Okay.” And he’s like, “Hey, can you hook me up with an artist?”

Olajuwon: First picture that I came with was this picture of me when I was 12 years old. Then I was like, “You know what, let’s say same motion, jeans, sweatshirt—and actually, a Cuban link chain.” I felt like that would explain how you are to be out on a golf course: just being yourself. I wanted something that would represent me as I swing a golf club.

Earl: I’m like, “Man, that’s dope. That’s fly. And you should put that on a shirt.”

Olajuwon: It was just going to go on my polo and on my bag; but would people understand the logo?

Earl: He puts it on a shirt—he’s like, “Man, you won’t believe what happened to me today.”

Olajuwon: I went downtown Detroit; I maybe got stopped 60 or 70 times. They like, “Yo, who are you? What’s that logo? Where can I get it? And do you play golf?” Those are the continuous questions that I got. Then after that, Earl was just like, “Yo, bro—do something with it.” So I end up making sweatshirts, t-shirts, socks, hats, umbrellas, and other accessories. And from November 2019 to February 2020, I sold out, like, six times.

Earl: He filed an LLC, filed for trademarks, did the sourcing of the products—all of the things that kind of goes into making something special.

Olajuwon: Actually, on the first 2,000 orders, I wrote thank-you cards in every single last one of them.

Onscreen text:
I wrote 2,000 thank you cards.

Olajuwon: But it was what was needed. I wanted to show the customer I appreciated them. It went a long way. It went a very long way.

Earl: He was doing the steps, and I was supporting him. Now we’re in January 2020, and he’s like, “Man, we got to go to the PGA show,” and I’m just kind of like, “Man, they’re not going to understand, based on my experience, that logo swinging with a chain. This isn’t going to work inside of the golf world.” He’s like, “No, we got to go, man. You got to go.” And I literally, I mean, going to the PGA show—I felt like we stole the show.

Olajuwon and Earl are on the golf course, putting the ball toward the hole while cheering each other on.

Olajuwon: A lot of people, after I made the logo—they would tell me that they see themselves in this logo, and that they feel like they can be themselves, finally, within the game.

Earl: You got something special. I knew it was special, but it’s always one of those things where you kind of question, “Is it just me just trying to support my friend, or is this a real business?”

Olajuwon: The shoe that we collaborated with Jordan Brand on—man, I feel like it’s a huge success. Because it is trading on StockX, it has the respect from the fashion industry, has the respect from sneakerheads. I mean, that’s crazy. So, where we stand now is—I’m there to where I can sponsor myself, but right now we’re trying to make the game for everybody. And we want to work with companies that feel the same way.

Success to me with Eastside Golf looks like seeing the younger generation come up to me and say, “Hey, you guys inspired me. I played basketball and golf, but I see the intersection. I see that you can do both.” That’s success. I just want to pass it along, and I want the younger generation to use golf to their best ability and as a tool in their life.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Olajuwon: It’s always been about representation. If you don’t see somebody else doing it, then how would you know that it’s even possible?

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2022 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0222-17H2)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Sugar Creek Golf Club
Nyre Williams
Nyre Williams Jr.

Music plays.

John Simpson: I always wanted to be a pilot, but I caught polio when I was two. And then when I was 12, I had about a year in hospital with many operations. And my father and others told me there’s one game you can play on a level playing field with able-bodied people—and that is golf.

Throughout, John and several people with prostheses travel around, take swings, and celebrate on a golf course. John and a few veterans also answer questions about their individual stories in separate locations.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
John Simpson
and the 2021 Simpson Cup players

John: When I got out of the hospital, I started playing and I got down to 7 handicap, and my life took off from there. My name is John Simpson, and I’m president and chairman of the On Course Foundation.

The On Course Foundation is a charity I started in Britain in 2010, after I’d visited the Headley Court Military Rehabilitation Centre. When I went there and saw the amount of young guys in there and how many had been terribly damaged, I just thought, being disabled myself, and knowing what golf had done for me—what can I do to help?

Onscreen text:
What can I do to help?

John: Because I was in a great position to start a charity, which would teach them golf—and then get them employment within the golf and related industries.

The goals are quite simple, I think: to get out and be back with your comrades, and realize that some of them are actually much worse off than you. We teach them the etiquette and the rules and the history.

Onscreen text:
We teach them the etiquette the rules and the history.

John: And it’s a guarantee that every one of them will hit the “wow” shot within the first morning session. And we know that when you’re able-bodied, the game’s got you; it’s that one shot, and it’s even more so with these guys and girls, and actually says, “You know, I can do this.” And they just can’t stop practicing and playing to be as good as they possibly can.

So, when we started the charity, we had to raise money to make it all work. And one of the ideas we had was to start a tournament.

Mike Browne: So the Simpson Cup is 12 injured servicemen from the U.S. and the U.K. who battle it out in a Ryder Cup–style event. My name’s Mike Browne.

Gregg Stevenson: My name’s Gregg Stevenson.

Chad Pfeifer: My name is Chad Pfeifer.

Mike: And I’m a professional golfer.

Chad: I am a professional golfer and a member of the 2021 Simpson Cup USA team.

I didn’t play much golf growing up; I was introduced to it after I was injured over in Iraq.

Mike: I lost my leg through the knee, and well, I never left the house for about six months. You know, I was really at a low point—thought all my sporting days were over. I thought my life was pretty much over.

Gregg: I didn’t even have prosthetic legs; I was stuck in a wheelchair in the audience, just listening to John being inspirational, as he always is. And yeah, it was just that recognition of, “Oh, hold on a second with my rehabilitation—this makes sense.”

Mike: But I couldn’t hit a ball to save my life, to be fair. So then I hit one ball, and that was that. I hit it. It only went probably 50 yards, but it went straight—and I’ve just instantly sort of fell in love with the game.

Chad: And once I found golf, that just—it gave me a sense of purpose. And moving forward, it gave me different challenges every day—not only the golf aspect of it and being competitive, but also learning how to walk with a prosthetic and getting on different terrains, and just kind of escaping my mind from everyday living. And so golf was very therapeutic for me.

Gregg: You know, ultimately, we all want to win the competition, but I’m looking at it from a slightly different angle in terms of “every guy is at a different stage of rehabilitation.” I think the main thing is the camaraderie, the challenge, and just—people facing up to adversity and just demonstrating how good you can actually be at something.

Mike: And it’s just about having that feeling of being in a unit again.

John: You know, it’s quite something to be able to compete on this level playing field in this great game of golf, and actually then represent their countries again—when all of them thought their sport as they knew it, and sometimes their life as they knew it, was now over.

Gregg: I think John Simpson gave me a fair chance to be the person I know I can be because I lost that person for a little while. I lost the confidence; I lost the sort of self-esteem.

Mike: I didn’t think my life was worth living anymore. You know, you can’t put into words what it means to people, what he’s done—it’s just, he’s saved lives. I took up golf in 2014 and I turned pro in 2016. I’ve just qualified for the rest of Dubai. I’ve played greens with the best players in the world.

Chad: I was the first wounded veteran amputee to play on the Korn Ferry Tour. It’s pretty cool to know that I’ve accomplished that.

Onscreen text:
The Simpson Cup is in its 9th year

The On Course Foundation has worked with more than 2,000 veterans in both the U.S. and U.K.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

John: It’s a real aim in my life that the more we can help and get them playing golf and get them back into society and get them jobs—the sooner, the better.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2022 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0222-17H2)

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
The Creek
John Dodds
Mike Todt

Visit simpsoncup.com to donate

Music ends.

Music plays.

Ben Hogan: I like to work; that was the greatest pleasure.

Robert Stennet: His name was Ben Hogan, and he was golf’s original challenger.

Throughout, black-and-white pictures and videos show Ben Hogan playing golf at different stages of his life and participating in interviews about his involvement with the sport. And two Ben Hogan Foundation employees, sitting in different rooms at their office building, further explain Ben’s story and history.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Ben Hogan

Ben: Very few times in my life I’ve laid off maybe two to three days. It seemed like it took me a month to three months to get back those three days where I took a rest. It’s a tough situation. I had to practice and play all the time. My swing wasn’t the best in the world, I knew it wasn’t—and I thought, “Well, the only way I can win is just to outwork these fellas.” So they might work two hours a day, and I’d work eight.

Robert: My name is Robert Stennett and I’m the Chief Executive Officer of the Ben Hogan Foundation. People say that Hogan invented practice, but practice wasn’t a burden to Ben Hogan. Practice was something that he cherished and loved. That was true throughout his life.

We talk a lot these days about a purposeful life or having purpose in life. Ben Hogan was probably one of the great examples of that. You know, everything that Hogan did, including his practice and the extra spike in his shoe, was done with purpose.

And that was what Ben Hogan did, perhaps better than any golfer of his day—and perhaps any golfer to this day. Hogan was always asking himself, “Have I done everything I can do to win? Have I done everything I can do to be my best?”

Onscreen text:
Have I done everything I can do to be my best?

Ben: I used to play 36 holes a day when I was playing in tournaments; I’d play the first 18 on the practice tee.

Onscreen text:
I’d play the first eighteen on the practice tee.

Ben: And remember, every shot I’d play, I’d get that shot until I could really hit it right. Then I’d get called on the tee, and I’d play my other 18. I did it every day.

Robert: Mr. Hogan didn’t just change the game of golf with his play and his practice; he was truly an innovator in club design.

Chip Graham: My name is Chip Graham. I’m the Executive Director for the Ben Hogan Foundation.

Mr. Hogan was innovating these golf clubs purely for himself to get better at his game—for instance, the hybrid. Mr. Hogan developed and built this golf club in 1960. It’s clearly a hybrid. He practiced with it; he hit it to improve on his own game. The hybrid came out in 1970.

Robert: We have a metal wood that was done when everything was a persimmon wood. Mr. Hogan was experimenting with putting weight in the grip of the putter. We have bore-through shafts that Mr. Hogan was doing in the 1960s, way before you ever heard of a bore-through shaft in a golf club.

Ben: When I started this company, I was back there making clubs myself, right along with all the workmen. They know now how to make a perfect golf club, and that’s exactly what we make. We don’t put out anything else except a perfect golf club.

Chip: Everything had to be done the right way—and there were a number of times where we would have Hogan Irons in the pro shop at Shady Oaks, and he would walk through the pro shop and pull one or two off the rack. And he would take the golf club and pull it up and take a look at it—and the eyesight would go down to the leading edge of the club. And then he would say, “You know, a lot of these golf clubs are not to my liking. We’ll have a brand-new set sent out to you tomorrow morning.” It had to be perfect.

Robert: A lot has been talked about Ben Hogan’s pursuit of perfection. He was a driven young boy from early in life, and golf became the conduit for him to pursue perfection.

Onscreen text:
Ben Hogan had 64 wins including 9 majors.

Ben Hogan is the only player to win the Masters, US Open, and Open Championship in the same year.

He won at Colonial a record of 5 times.

Chip: Mr. Hogan played in 292 PGA TOUR events, and he finished in the top ten 241 times.

Robert: Only two golfers have ever received ticker-tape parades in New York—one of them being Bobby Jones, and the second one being Ben Hogan. 

Late in Mr. Hogan’s life, the director of golf here at Shady Oaks, Mike Wright, asked Mr. Hogan how he wanted to be remembered. And Mr. Hogan thought about that for a little bit. One would think he would have said, “Perhaps the greatest golfer; perhaps the greatest ball-striker.”

When asked by Mike Wright how he wanted to be remembered, he said he wanted to be remembered as a gentleman.

Onscreen text: 
Ask questions. Be engaged.
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Own your tomorrow®
 
Ben: I had to be on the straight and narrow all my life, and I loved it. I couldn’t veer off because I had nothing—and I had to eat, and I didn’t want to go to jail. They don’t feed you very well in jail.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2021 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0321-11N9)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
The Ben Hogan Foundation
PGA TOUR
Shady Oaks Country Club

Music plays.

Jeremy Wright: I think everybody should own a persimmon golf club. Persimmon golf makes this game fun again.

My name’s Jeremy Wright. I’m the owner of Louisville Golf.

Throughout, Jeremy, Gerard, Ronnie, and Robert sit in the warehouse where they make their golf clubs, explain their history, and show their process of designing and making the clubs as well as the materials and final products. They also take some swings on a golf course.

Onscreen text: 
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Louisville Golf

Jeremy: I kind of feel like there’s several types of golfers that you need to identify first. There’s a performance-oriented golfer looking to perform his best in tournaments, competitions—he may even be a TOUR player. And that player, I think, is going to have a difficult time understanding why you might want to play hickory golf or with a persimmon golf club. And then I really feel that there’s a golfer out there that may be your weekend warrior—they are looking to enjoy golf. That category is where we stepped in.

Playing golf with persimmons is fun. Playing golf with hickory is fun. Who wouldn’t want to experience what it felt like to be Bobby Jones?

Onscreen text:
Who wouldn’t want to experience what it felt like to be Bobby Jones?

Jeremy: If you’re not curious about what it feels like to hit a persimmon wood, then maybe you’re not asking yourself the right questions.

Gerard Just: My name is Gerard.

Ronnie Just: My name is Ronnie.

Robert Just: My name is Robert Just. I work here at Louisville Golf, and I’ve been here a little over 46 years. It wasn’t like going to work. I’m the fourth brother in line, and my older brother Ronnie, my brother Elmore that owned it, my brother Mike, myself, and then my younger brother Gerard.

Gerard: I mean, everybody had a key to the company. It was a family thing.

Ronnie: That’s what made it so nice: being around your family all the time.

Gerard: Hanging out, enjoying each other’s company.

Ronnie: Our brother Mike was the president for years after the founder, Elmore, passed away—and when Michael wasn’t able to run the company anymore, here comes Jeremy, that is a hickory man himself. So that worked out really well.

Jeremy: We were founded in 1974 by Elmore Just. What makes Louisville Golf Club special is the quality, the craftsmanship, the dedication, and carrying the feel and tradition of persimmon golf into the future. There are about 200 steps before a golf club ends up in the customer’s hands.

Gerard: It would take weeks to make clubs.

Jeremy: You need to select a log that’s a minimum of eight inches in diameter.

Ronnie: To make a driver, the block had to be large enough—but it also had to be light enough.

Jeremy: And then from there, we’ll rough turn them, oil harden it, fine turn, cut the nose, the neck, mill the face, sole plate, proper weights, bore angle, hand-cut grooves, hand stamp them, spray it from there, clear coat it—and this is entirely done by hand.

Onscreen text:
Rough turn
Oil harden
Fine turn
Cut the nose the neck
Mill the face
Sole plate
Proper weights
Bore angle
Hand cut grooves
Hand stamp
Spray
Clear coat

Gerard: One time when we were doing 100 heads, we might have only one job to do—and we did that all day. But as things changed, we might do 10 different jobs now. I’ve probably made or touched at least 100,000 clubs.

Robert: Actually, you could probably get away with a lesser workmanship, but that’s just not something we’re going to do. You can’t stop technology; it’s always going to move forward. But I think people play hickory and play persimmon because they’re more of a purist, and they want to put their self to test more than just the equipment. They’re the ones that enjoy it the most. I’m almost afraid that, as technology advances, you almost glean less from what you’re doing. It’s “faster and further”—and it just loses something. If there was a taste of golf that you savor, I think it’s being lost.

Onscreen text:
Louisville Golf makes some of the finest hickory and persimmon clubs in the world.

They have been making them the exact same way for decades.

Onscreen text: 
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Robert: I have never hit a metal driver. I never will. It wouldn’t be the same.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2021 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0321-11N9)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
No Laying Up

Music plays.

Gil Hanse: When the pros say, "Oh, that golf course is great. It was right in front of me."—I mean, I think if anybody ever says that about one of our courses, we might quit.

Throughout, Gil and Jim are in an office working on architectural designs or they’re working on or taking some swings at a golf course. And dramatic aerial and ground views show the Ohoopee Match Club golf course they helped develop and build.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Hanse & Wagner

Gil: My name is Gil Hanse, chief bulldozer operator for Hanse Golf Course Design. I think we’re fortunate in that we have had tremendous opportunities in both branches of our business—the restoration of existing great old classic courses, and then building the new ones.

I think every golf course architect would prefer to do things from scratch, but we learn a lot from the restorations. We learned a lot from trying to figure out what Tillinghast did at Winged Foot, what Ross did at Aronimink, or what Raynor and Macdonald did at Sleepy Hollow—so I think we take an awful lot out of those projects that helps us with our own individual designs.

Onscreen text:
Ohoopee Match Club
Cobbtown, Georgia

Jim Wagner: My name is Jim Wagner. I’m a golf course designer. We are at the Ohoopee Match Club in Cobbtown, Georgia—one of our most recent designs. It’s 22 holes. So you can have different forms of golf. We have the main golf course—which we’re on now—which is 18 holes, 7,000 yards; and then we have an afternoon or whiskey routing, which takes the 4 extra holes and adds that into 14 of the other holes for an afternoon routing of roughly 5,600–5,800 yards. So it’s fun. It’s interesting.

I always ask myself, “Why does a golf course have to be 18 holes?”

Onscreen text:
Why does a golf course have to be 18 holes?

Jim: Why does it have to be 9? Why does it have to have returning nines? I think the ability just to get people to go out and play, enjoy the game of golf, whether that’s 5 holes, 9 holes, 12 holes—I don’t think any of that should matter.

Gil [commenting on another golfer’s shot]: That’s perfect.

Jim: I think the no-par came about through Michael Walrath, the owner. Michael wanted to do something different and did not have a problem with unconventional golf. If we can call it unconventional. It’s really about finding the land to create fun and interesting golf.

Gil: I think people are rethinking, "What is quality golf? What is the experience?" People talk so much about golf being too difficult and too long—but I think, actually, the fact that you get four hours detached from your cord and your phone is something we should celebrate for the game, instead of apologizing for it.

And I think a lot of what’s happening now is an appreciation of the simpler form of the game that we started off with, and then it just got so complicated and lost along the way. And I think we’re kind of getting back to where it should be and where it had been.

Jim and Gil play a friendly round of golf with others.

Gil: My grandfather introduced me to the game. I idolized him; he was great. He was the only person in our family who played golf, and so I think the opportunity to be with him out in that special landscape always intrigued me. But then I went down reality’s path and studied political science and history, but then switch in to landscape architecture. First summer I worked golf course maintenance; second summer I worked construction for Tom Doak. I was really lucky. It wasn’t a straight line in any way, shape, or form.

Tom taught me a lot about construction and the role of the architect in construction—and the kind of design-build process that Jim and I have always employed. It’s an interesting dynamic. Really I work in both construction and boardrooms.

Onscreen text:
I work in both construction and boardrooms.

Jim: It’s long days—six days a week—and it’s anything but glamorous when you’re out there in the field. But when Gil shows up at 6:30, 7:00 o’clock in the morning, and he’s the first one out on the bulldozer, and most likely one of the last ones in at night, I think that’s something that challenges us all.

Gil: We’re outside in the dirt, working all day, and then you go in and you’re sitting in front of a board at a very conservative club, and you’re having to present to them the sort of vision for the future of a club that maybe has been in existence for over 100 years and obviously has very strong traditions and a very strong background—and you’re crossing that. But I feel very comfortable in both worlds. I obviously respect a lot of the work that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw do.

Tom Doak was a mentor to me; I worked for him for four years. I think David Kidd and Mike DeVries do really exciting work. But then, about five years ago, I just realized, “You know what? The best golf architect in the world, and the guy that’s had the best and biggest influence on me, is the guy that’s sitting next to me for 25 years.”

Jim Wagner is just an incredible talent. The work he did in Merion—I mean, every single person on that job was just gobsmacked. And we were just standing there looking and going, “Is that possible? Can you actually make a machine do what he just did?” I’ve been the luckiest man for any number of reasons: great wife, great family, great life, wonderful career. But the fact that somehow Jim Wagner walked into my life 25 years ago—I can’t imagine how much worse our work would be without him being involved. And so it’s just—yeah, it’s been a great ride, and I’m hopeful it keeps going for a long, long time.

Onscreen text:
When it opened, Ohoopee Match Club was named Best New Private Course by both Golf Digest and Golf.com.

Hanse & Wagner courses will host more than a dozen majors over the next ten years.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Gil: One of the nicest compliments we’ve ever gotten was Bill Coore said, "I love walking your courses because I’m never sure what I’m going to see next." And when somebody like that says that, that’s amazing.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2021 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0321-11N9)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Michael Walrath
Ohoopee Match Club
Pat Worsham
Todd C. Sapere, PGA

Music plays.

Throughout, Troy is either in an office, working out both inside and outside, or taking swings out on a golf course.

Troy Mullins: Speed and power are going to create an entirely different game.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Troy: My name is Troy Mullins, and I’m a professional golfer.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Troy Mullins

Troy: I got into golf just randomly, through a family friend that introduced me. I picked it up after college and it was just something that was challenging, both physically, mentally. It was just a great sport, different than anything I’d ever played—different than running track and volleyball. And I fell in love immediately and just kept playing. I played with a friend, a female friend, who said, “You know, women don’t hit it this far. Like, this is an anomaly.”

And she’s like, “You’ve got to sign up for Long Drive. You have to do it. It’s in Mesquite, it’s not that far.“ So I drove out there with one driver—and got second place.

I was like, “Wow, that was awesome.” Music was blaring. You’re hitting the tee and people are grunting and yelling, and it was a totally different side of golf—and it was almost something that I missed from track. I always question: Why do golfers have to look the same or swing it the same?

Onscreen text:
Why do golfers have to look the same or swing it the same?

Troy: I wish that, when I was starting the game, there was someone like a Bryson—or like me—that I said, “Wow, I can play this game athletic,” because I spent so many years trying to fit the idea of a golfer that I just was never going to be: the perfectly clothed, not-athletic golfer that I was trying so hard to fit into.

I normally come out around 6:00 a.m., practice ’til about noon, then go home, have some lunch—and then it’s time for a workout.

I work out every day and I mix up my training to keep my body guessing and flexible. I do a mix of hiking, biking, Pilates, and boxing—and yoga. I think I get my power because I was an athlete; I wasn’t just “a golfer.” I played so many different sports that I have the ability to move my body in different ways, and the coordination and core strength and leg strength and leg speed that isn’t required of a golfer.

It’s funny now that younger players are hitting the ball further with all the mechanics that they always said were wrong and using drivers now that are lower-lofted and longer, because it creates clubhead speed—and why not?

When I got into golf, I said, “Okay, how can I make this work? Now I have to pay for lessons; how do I do that?”

To pay for golf, I started my own tutoring business.

Onscreen text:
To pay for golf I started my own tutoring business.

Troy: I have a student that I’ve had for six years and—it’s going to make me cry. But I’ve known her her whole high school career, and it’s amazing to see that I’ve impacted her academic life. And I hope I have that same impact on someone that I haven’t met that watches how hard I work at whatever I end up doing. And it would just be very cool if some young girl’s on tour and said, “I made it because Troy tried” or “Troy made it.”

How it feels to play well is like waking up with a chocolate sundae and whipped cream.

Then there’s days where you don’t play well, and you have to convince yourself that you’re still having fun—and so that’s when, sometimes, I have to turn on music, especially if I’m just out here practicing.

My best friend was out there with me for a practice round. We had been talking about shuffling, and we both don’t know how to shuffle—and so we just kept trying it. I had a chip shot that I hit super close, and then we both had this look…

A social media video of a golf tutor and student plays—and shows comments on the video on the side. The student takes a big swing, and the tutor raises her arms in victory and celebration. The two begin to do the Running Man dance together while smiling.

Troy: Sometimes you need that. I think if someone hits a good shot, why not play music and enjoy that moment?

I love broadcasting. When the opportunity came, I said, “Yes, why not?” I have a fascination for other people’s stories, and if I can ask the right questions and have fun with it, I’m all in. Whether I make the tour or not, a bigger picture is, why not have young girls—and even older women—join the game and become part of networking that they have never been exposed to, or get college scholarships that are not being utilized? If I can help girls do that and grow the game in that way, then I’ve made it.

Onscreen text:
Troy is one of only four women ever to hit a drive over 400 yards.

While getting ready for LPGA Q-School, she is commentating for NBC Sports.

Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Troy: I don’t think it’s a question of if I’ll make it—I think it’s when.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2021 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0321-11N9)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Brian Simpson
Desert Willow Golf Course
Sian Bentson
Silas White

Music plays.

A student wearing a backpack walks across the Columbia campus. Mark Broadie sits in front of a chalkboard in a classroom.

Mark Broadie: “Drive for show, putt for dough” is probably the most incorrect expression in golf. My name is Mark Broadie, and I’m a professor at Columbia Business School.

Throughout, Mark is working in a university office, is writing on a chalkboard or whiteboard or explaining data analytics in a classroom, or is taking swings or showcasing his research on a country club golf course.

Onscreen text: 
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Mark Broadie

Mark: I’m in the Decision Risk and Operations Group. Throughout my career I’ve taught financial analytics, business analytics, and more recently, sports analytics.

I’ve loved golf since junior high school—practiced playing in my backyard with my father’s clubs, hitting plastic balls. So I decided to combine my personal passion with my professional interests—probably around 2002.

I was wondering what separates average golfers from better golfers, and what separates average PGA TOUR Pros from the best PGA TOUR Pros? How do you get better, and what are the biggest contributors to better scoring?

Onscreen text:
How do you get better? What are the biggest contributors to better scoring?

Mark: You can look at driving distance, you can look at putts, you can look at proximity to the hole—and it’s like, yeah, but these are all sort of disparate measures. How do I combine a 300-yard drive with a 5-foot putt that misses? It’s not obvious how to do that. And somewhere in that process, I realized the key is to measure everything in the units of strokes, and you want to benchmark things relative to some average.

Strokes gain measures, progress to the hole—not in distance, but in terms of strokes. If you’re standing on a par 4, where the average strokes to hole out is four, then an average drive should get you to where you’re three strokes away from the hole—three strokes to hole out. So if you hit a 300-yard drive in the fairway and your average strokes to hole out goes from 4, say, to 2.8, you’re two-tenths better than an average drive.

There’s a misconception that strokes gained just applies to professionals because you see it on the PGA TOUR website and on broadcasts or PGA TOUR events, but it applies to amateurs just as well. Back when I started on this, I needed data. Was there any amateur-level shot data—not fairways, greens, and putts, but actually shot-level data? Where did the shots start and where did they finish? And there wasn’t any. So I needed to start writing a program called Golf Metrics to be able to gather, in this case, amateur data—but at a shot level.

And we didn’t have GPS, we didn’t have phones with Google Earth. I would have images of the hole on paper, and I’d write an X where my shot would finish, make a few notations: “I was 152 yards in the rough.” This would get filled up throughout the round, and then at the end of the round, I’d spend 10 or 15 minutes clicking on these images on a computer—and the computer would know if I clicked here, I was in the rough.

I recorded tens of thousands of shots.

Onscreen text:
I recorded tens of thousands of shots.

Mark: When I finally got access to the PGA TOUR ShotLink data—which is this amazing data set—I could slurp it into my Golf Metrics program. And when I looked at their data versus the data that we were collecting, it wasn’t a surprise that they were almost identical. Now I could analyze professional data, as well. So now you could compare not only a 90 golfer to an 80 golfer, but you could compare an 80 golfer to a PGA TOUR Pro—or great PGA TOUR Pros versus average PGA TOUR Pros.

The most surprising thing that I found was that putting only accounted for about 15% of the stroke difference between the best PGA TOUR Pros and average PGA TOUR Pros, whereas shots outside 100 yards count for 65% of that scoring difference. And that similar breakdown between the best pros and average pros in between 80 golfers and 90 golfers was incredibly consistent.

The single most important shot that amateurs should practice is 150-yard approach shots. The reason for that is there are great skill differences between 90 golfers and 80 golfers, and between 80 golfers and pros—and you have a lot of these shots during a round. It’s the combination of skill differences and quantity.

Never would I have imagined when I started this research that I would be talking to players, coaches, and caddies, but it helps them get better. So they call me to help interpret and analyze their data.

Jordan Spieth: We got reports from Mark Broadie on all the strokes gained.

Both at press conferences and on golf courses, several golf pros say “Strokes gained,” one after the other.

Rory McIlroy: And strokes gained is the best stat, by far, that has come into our game.

Mark: When I heard Rory McIlroy mention my name in the context of strokes gained, that made me feel incredibly proud; that this was a worthwhile endeavor. I hope the lasting effects of strokes gained is that we understand the game better, we enjoy it more, and that people become better golfers because of it.

Onscreen text: 
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Mark: I would much rather be a great ball-striker than a great putter because you’ll be doing well week in and week out, and in those weeks when you’re putting above your normal average—well, that might be the week that you win.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2021 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0321-11N9)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Boo Weekley
Columbia Business School
Gregory Coleman
Jordan Spieth
Justin Thomas
Mike Diffley, PGA
Pelham Country Club
PGA TOUR
Rory McIlroy

Music plays.

Suzy Whaley: I get great joy from working with kids. They give me energy, they give me enthusiasm—but I also love to see them grow. I’m Suzy Whaley. I’m a coach and a teacher of golf.

Throughout, Suzy is either in an office or out on a country club golf course. She smiles and laughs while teaching golf to and interacting with people of all demographics on the course—and takes some golf swings, herself.

Onscreen text: 
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Suzy Whaley

Suzy: I’m very proud of my body of work. I’m proud of wearing our logo and our badge. I’m proud of being a master professional within the PGA.

I played golf at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on a four-year scholarship there and was on my way to law school. I instead took an about-face and went to tour school for the LPGA Tour and secured my tour card right out of college. I played on tour for two years. Really the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me was losing my card; that woke me up to the real world. I prepared incredibly hard after that. Got my tour card back and then went on to a teaching career once we had our children, and I absolutely fell in love with that.

My career has never been linear. It’s always been about, “What’s the next challenge?” and “How can I help evolve and grow the game?” We need to look more like our communities. We need more minorities, more young girls, and more people playing from every cultural background. Why shouldn’t everybody think golf is for them? It really is.

Onscreen text: 
Why shouldn’t everybody think golf is for them?

Suzy: For so many that have never been exposed to the game, golf can seem intimidating. And certainly we want to dispel that, and we want to give an invitation to anyone that wants to play, to come join us and to realize that we’re gonna walk you through where to park the car, where to put the clubs, how to drive to the driving range to get your lesson, what you have to do to navigate walking inside to check in. All the things that all of us who grew up with golf think are very simple, aren’t as easy when you’re brand new and you’re not quite sure where to be or what to wear, what the etiquette is on course. But what wakes me up every single day is having the opportunity to change somebody’s life through a game that I love.

I love to teach every level of the game. The joy I get out of a beginner reaching their goal or hitting a shot in the air for the first time, is just as amazing as a professional that I coach winning a golf tournament.

Every single day that I’m in town, I teach.

Onscreen text: 
Every single day that I’m in town, I teach

Suzy: Five o’clock in the morning, I wake up, I work out—I’m a little bit obsessed with that.

I think the most fun I have in coaching is watching someone develop. It’s a journey together. It’s not just, “Hey, thanks for coming. I enjoyed being with you today.” It’s more, “How can I help you? How can I develop you as a child, as a whole child, as an athlete?” Golf has inherent qualities that develop character—and I love being around children who love sports and love the game. When my children were little, I didn’t let them beat me at Crazy Eights. [laughs] I’m an extremely competitive person.

We ran up the stairs against each other. I always just love doing something in the moment of time and putting effort into it when it means something—so for me, being competitive goes past just golf, it goes past sport. It also goes into business. I relate my competition and my experience in competition on golf courses, and it’s helped me in the business environment.

Onscreen text: 
Suzy was the first female president of the PGA of America

Golf Magazine lists her in the Top 100 Teachers in America

Suzy: It’s about being with other friends and family; being with people you love; competing! Maybe you’re not great at it yet, but let’s get there.

Onscreen text: 
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Suzy: I don’t ever need a day without golf. I know that’s hard to believe, but if I could play golf every single day, I would play golf every single day. I love walking and playing the game.

Onscreen text: 
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
Official Wealth Management Firm

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (0420-05ZY)

Music ends.

Onscreen text: 
Thanks to
PGA of America
PGA Jr. League
The Country Club at Mirasol

Music plays.

Bill is outside, looking through a laser rangefinder.

Bill Coore: In my experience, golf course design is way more about editing than authoring.

Throughout, Bill is in an office or out on a golf course. And dramatic aerial views show the Bandon Dunes course, the Sheep Ranch course, ocean waves on the rocky coastline, the nearby hills and cliffs, and birds flying.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Bill: My name is Bill Coore, and I’m a golf course architect.

On screen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Bill Coore

Bill: We’re at Bandon Dunes, on the coast of Oregon—one of the most amazing golf complexes in the world. We’re about to begin work on a new project a little further north on the coast of Bandon, a new course known as the Sheep Ranch.

It was a property that about 18 years ago had some work done on it to create sort of an undefined golf experience that included a number of greens and just natural contours that were there that people could go play and make up their own holes. It’s taken on almost a mythological aura during those years, so very few people have seen it.

It’s amazing when people see this landscape from a distance or from altitude, the first impression is it’s completely flat. When you’re out in it, walking, you realize it’s anything but flat. It’s some of the most magnificent contours for golf that you could hope to see. Yes, they’re not as dramatic as the Pacific Dunes course here at Bandon Dunes. But in its way, this is different from all the other courses and just absolutely ideal for golf.

Onscreen text:
What is the site?
What potential does it have?

Bill: When we are approached about any project, the questions that come to our minds are: What is the site? What potential does it have to create interesting, enjoyable golf?

My design partner for over 30 years now, Ben Crenshaw, and I, we go to a site to let the site guide us, to tell us what to do.

As you start to study the site, some things are obvious. Anyone who’s ever played golf could come here and say, "Oh, I can see a golf hole going along the ocean." But some things not so obvious, you need to walk and get a sense of what the site offers.

Pages of hand-drawn plans for the Sheep Ranch course flash by in quick succession.

Onscreen text:
You need to walk and get a sense of what the site offers.

Bill: This is just an initial thought. It’s a par 3. They would either play almost directly downwind, or directly into the wind. For that reason, we have no fronting hazards, such as bunkers or severe contours because we want you to have the possibility of landing a ball short of the green and rolling it onto the green. That’s important certainly into the wind, when you’re trying to get the shot lower, but even more important when you’re playing directly down a strong wind because you have to land the ball short; if you were to land on the green it would go over.

We give these type of initial concepts to our associates in the field. We give it to the guys, “Start working on this, and feel absolutely free to deviate from this at any point you see something happening that you think could be better.”

Onscreen text:
Deviate from the design if you see something better.

Bill: The key to being a good golf course architect: first of all, having a love for the game and appreciation for the game of golf, and what it’s provided to so many countless millions of people through its 500-year history. Beyond that, it’s having a knowledge of how different people play and what provides them interest and enjoyment in the process.

You want the owner, without question, to be happy. You want the people who are going to come there to be happy. But you can’t control those things. If you can, as a designer, do something that you truly believe is the best that can be done on that given site, at that given time, then I think that’s all you can do.

On screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.

Sand Valley: “Golf Digest’s best new course of 2017”
—Golf Digest
Bandon Trails: “Top 15 on America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses”
—Golf Digest
Cabot Cliffs: “Top 20 on World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses”
—Golf Digest

[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Bill: I’d like to say I’ve picked it, but I think it picked us. Pretty special.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

Thanks to
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Sand Valley Golf Resort
Cabot Links

Music fades.

©2019 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC.

Music plays.

Throughout, Casey is in an office, is walking on the University of Oregon campus, is on a golf course interacting with the young golfers he coaches, etc.

Casey Martin: Competitive people, when you put them in a situation where there’s a winner, they’re gonna wanna win. I’m Casey Martin. I’m the golf coach at the University of Oregon.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Casey Martin

Casey: When I look back, I had success, was able to make it to the PGA Tour. But I think my coaching has evolved out of some of my failure as a player.

Onscreen text:
What did I do wrong?
What could I have done better to maximize my abilities?

Casey: What did I do wrong? What could I have done better to maximize my abilities? I didn’t challenge myself enough on a daily basis to accomplish some kind of goal or get something done. I would go practice, but it wasn’t as focused as it should have been. It wasn’t as competitive as it should have been. It wasn’t as intense as it should have been.

Onscreen text:
I designed a program that was going to be competitive.

Casey: I hit balls, worked on my swing, and went to compete. Looking back on my experiences at Stanford and putting a bunch of stuff together with some of my failures, I designed a program that was going to be competitive. Just a little different to try to find out who’s got that extra stuff, to get ready for the heat.

[Talking to the golfers he coaches] “Alright, boys. You guys know what we do here. A lot of short game. A lot of competitive practice. And that’s what we’re gonna do again today. So party’s over. Nail down your distances. Nail that down.”

Onscreen text:
Practice would be harder than a tournament

The golfers Casey coaches practice hitting out of sand traps, driving balls, putting.

Casey: Ideally, practice would be harder than a tournament, and there would be more pressure. And you’d feel more angst so that when you get to the tournament, it’s like, “Hey, I’m ready for this. This is easy.”

[Talking to the golfers he coaches] “If you feel like you wanna hit to the flag, then back up to your number. But dominate your nine o’clockers, ’kay?”

Onscreen text:
Edwin Yi

Edwin, a University of Oregon golfer, talks about Casey as a coach.

Edwin Yi: Coach prepares us in the best way he can because he’s been through it. He’s experienced the PGA Tour, and he knows what it takes to win.

Casey [talking to the golfers he coaches]: “Everyone’s chipped up. It’s a big day. There’ll be three games.”

Onscreen text:
We compete for everything

On the golf course, Casey sorts and hands out poker chips to the players during a practice.

Casey: Back maybe in 2010, I gave everybody chips at the start of a quarter and said, “We’re gonna have this quarter-long process where we compete for everything. And at the end of the day, the guy’s gonna get all the chips, and everyone’s gonna bust out, and there’s gonna be a winner.” They just wanted to beat each other. And that’s what I love.

[Talking to the golfers he coaches] “Second round, it was Parker. I’m gonna put it right there.”

I always think maybe it’s run its course, and guys don’t wanna do it. But then when we start doing it, guys wanna win. And I see the juice, so to speak. And guys wanna try to beat each other. And they don’t like giving up their chips. And they love getting the chips at the end of practice when they do well. And it’s fun but very competitive. It’s working, so we just continue to do it.

Onscreen text:
In 2016, the Oregon Ducks won the Division I NCAA team championship
The following year, they were only one victory short of defending their national title

Photos of the University of Oregon 2016 championship team scan by.

Casey: The experience that those kids had in 2016, winning—they will have that for the rest of their life. I love being a part of that. That means a lot to me.

Obviously, I want them to be great at golf but at the same time not to take the shortcuts as a human being. To do it the right way.

On screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.

Edwin: For me, he’s a mentor. My second father figure in a way.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Casey [talking to the golfers he coaches]: “Hey guys, text us updated chip count, would ya? Just so that we know what we gotta deal with. Did anybody bust out today?”

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

Thanks to
University of Oregon

Music ends.

©2019 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC.

Music plays.

Mike Keiser: I’m a hard-boiled capitalist. When you create a product, you know it works or not when you make money on it. I am Mike Keiser. I develop golf resorts in remote locations.

Throughout, Mike is in an office or out on a golf course. And dramatic aerial and ground views show some of the courses he’s developed, sandy hills, forests of tall pines, ocean waves on rocky coastlines, nearby hills and cliffs.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Mike Keiser

Josh Lesnik
President, Kemper Sports

Josh Lesnik: I’ve been working on the Keiser portfolio of courses for the last 20 years. What Mike did really has turned the industry on its head. He said, “I’m going to go to where the golf ground is great and try and build a great golf course on great property with great architecture and see if they’ll come.”

Onscreen text:
The Dunes Club
New Buffalo, Michigan

Mike: My first course was in homage to the world’s number one golf course, Pine Valley. The course I built was nine holes. It’s on sand with some beautiful dunes, close to Lake Michigan. And it was successful, so that motivated me to decide to do at least one other golf course.

Onscreen text:
Bandon Dunes
Bandon, Oregon

Mike: As I got ready to build Bandon Dunes with David Kidd and his dad, Jimmy Kidd, I realized that America really hasn’t built links courses. Why don’t we have golf courses like Dornoch in America?

Onscreen text:
Royal Dornoch Golf Club
Scotland
Why don’t we have golf courses like Dornoch in America?

Aerial shots show golf courses in very urban landscapes and set among neighborhoods full of houses.

Josh: In the late ’90s, people were building golf courses close to major metropolitan areas. They were building them to sell homes, to sell real estate. Really squeezing the golf course between homes. And what Mike did was really against the norm at that time in golf course development.

Mike: It slowly but surely dawned on me that to do a course like Dornoch, in particular, in America, even if it’s a remote site, just might work out.

Onscreen text:
I work very closely with the architects.

Mike: I work very closely with the architects, not because I don’t trust them, but because I enjoy it. And if both the architect and I weigh in, I think the result is better. I leave them alone to do their best routing, then I walk it with them and tell them what I think. I actually rate each hole on a scale of 1 to 10 and share my scorecard with them.

Onscreen text:
Cabot Cliffs
Nova Scotia

Aerial views of Cabot Cliffs course in Nova Scotia show its lovely green fairways and seaside cliffs.

Mike: Cabot Cliffs, number 16, which is a par 3, over the beach to an unbelievable green site. That’d be a 9. That’s a 9 that wants to be a 10.

Onscreen text:
St. Andrews (old)
Scotland

Lahinch Golf Club
Ireland

Old Head Golf Links
Ireland

Mike: My total encyclopedia of knowledge is based on playing all the great courses numerous times and deciding which holes and which courses I liked the best and which I didn’t.

So my job when I walk a brand-new routing with an architect is to represent the retail golfer—that is, the golfer like me who usually doesn’t break 90. And, therefore, my first take on this beautiful to-be par-3 was we needed a bigger bailout left. We needed a much bigger backstop in the back of the green. So where we ended up is he gave me additional bailout space on the left, a lot of backstop space in back.

Onscreen text:
Mammoth Dunes #8
Wisconsin

Mike: And he finally convinced me that the green is all about carrying it over sand, and we should have no bailout front. And that’s the way we built it.

We are in Rome, Wisconsin, population 600 people. I certainly wasn’t looking for a golf course site in the Midwest, much less in central Wisconsin.

Onscreen text:
*Footage Courtesy of DMK Golf Design

Mike: I had no idea that half of Wisconsin is sand-based. 100-foot sand dunes covered in plantation pines. Our use of paper is declining dramatically, and most of the paper mills have gone out of business. And therefore most of the demand for these red pine plantation trees is dwindling. So you can buy land very cheaply.

When you restore it as acreage, it returns to its sand-barren origins of what it was like 200 years ago and what it’s been like for 12,000 years. It was worth building in this remote site—something a lot like Bandon but without the ocean.

The ultimate question is: Will enough golfers go play it at a certain greens fee to make money at it? And the answer was “yes.”

Onscreen text:
“A mammoth marvel.”
—Golf.com

“Sand Valley is the Bandon Dunes of the Midwest.”
—Golf Digest

Mike: It actually worked. It’s my almost religious belief: If the architect does a good enough job, they will come.

On screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Mike: When I began building golf courses, I knew nothing about grass. If you were to quiz me now, we would find that I still know almost nothing about grass. It is really boring.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

Music ends.

Thanks to
DMK Golf Design
Sand Valley Golf Resort
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Cabot Links

©2019 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC.

Music plays.

David McLay Kidd: As golf course architects, we learn early on to trick the golfer and to put fear into a golfer. My name is David McLay Kidd, and I am a golf course designer.

Throughout, David is in an office or out on a golf course, walking or driving a ball. Other groups of players are sometimes shown. And dramatic aerial views show the Bandon Dunes course, ocean waves on the rocky coastline, the nearby hills and mountains, and birds flying in the cloudy skies.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
David McLay Kidd

Onscreen text:
Bandon Dunes
Oregon

David: Today, we are at one of my, maybe my favorite spot on Earth, Bandon Dunes.

Onscreen text:
Is harder better?

When I built this, I didn’t ask the question, “Is harder better? Is there a need to have resistance to scoring? What are the shot values?” I built a golf course that fell across nature and was an adventure and allowed people to have fun.

I think that the question of challenge, difficulty, playability, are the greatest questions for our game. When I came here as a twenty-something, I was completely steeped in golf from the United Kingdom, especially from Scotland, where I’m from. And there, golf is as much about the weather as it is about the terrain you play across. And the weather offers a fair amount of the difficulty, the challenge that’s involved.

In the U.S., I started to be indoctrinated into this ethos of resistance to scoring and shot values and this whole “harder is better” ethos. And then Tiger Woods turned up, and everyone said, “Golf’s too easy.” And I and many other golf course designers sort of bought into that.

For quite a while, golf courses got really, really hard for the average player. It’s very easy for a golf course designer to think that they’re working for the person that writes the check. It’s very easy to forget that, in the end, they’re working for a golfer.

Golf course architects learn early in their profession that there are these tricks they can play to deceive the golfer, to make him misjudge distance, misjudge angles, to put fear in their hearts by showing them disaster at every turn. And golf course architects see it as a badge of honor to create those things. And I did, too.

I’ve gone back and reevaluated that.

Onscreen text:
Mammoth Dunes
Wisconsin

Aerial views show the sandy and grassy hills of the Mammoth Dunes course.

David: At Mammoth, I went the opposite way. I wanted to sort of reset my architectural ethos.

I started to wonder, when you play a golf course that you know and love, there are certain holes on that golf course that you enjoy more than others. There are certain holes that you can be more aggressive on than others.
           
The simple analogy I used was green light/red light. When I play my home club, I know that there are 6, at most, holes on the golf course that I would consider green-light holes. I feel confident I can go for it. I can make birdie reasonably easily. Those are the fun holes.

I wondered to myself, “What would happen if I try to build 18 holes which were green-light holes? If I tried to build your confidence and get you to play aggressively?”

Onscreen text:
What if I try to build your confidence?
And get you to play aggressively?

David: It doesn’t mean I’m going to make them easy. It just means I’m not going to make them overly hard. Making birdie is still going to be a challenge, but I don’t want you to wreck your card. I don’t want you to lose the ball.

Onscreen text:
I go back and reimagine the courses that I’ve done

David: I go back and reimagine the courses that I’ve done in my career on a pretty regular basis.

David is in an office, marking up and showing plans of a golf course that are on large sheets of paper.

David: This plan I’m looking at now is an up-to-date aerial photograph of Bandon Dunes. Here on the 14th hole, this is a relatively short par 4. I want to take this bunker out completely. It really doesn’t serve much purpose.
           
“Look at that” [speaking to a fellow golfer out on a course]. What’s interesting is my peer group, some of them have pushed back on that, trying to find negatives in it. “It takes too much grass to do it.” “There’s not enough challenge in it.” And yet, if I stand on the 18th green of the courses I have created that follow that mold, I don’t hear any golfers saying, “It was too easy. I had too much fun.”

What is entertaining about golf—it’s scoring. It’s about continually hitting the ball. It’s about having some degree of success. And so if I can build a golf course that allows scoring and allows recovery, that makes for a lot more fun. I will never be an apologist for being an entertainer on a golf course.

It’s not that hard today, in the social media-connected world we live in, to build a golf course and have it lauded for a year or two or maybe even three. But it’s hard to do it for 5 or 10 or 20. Maybe that’s where the old dead guys win over the young live guys like me, is the courses that are truly great have to stand the test of time.
           
Twenty years ago, this place opened.

Onscreen text:
“USGA awards Bandon Dunes 2020 U.S. Amateur”
—Golf.com

David: And in 2020, it’ll host the U.S. Amateur, probably the most elite amateur event in the world. That makes me feel like I had a successful career.

On screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

David: That doesn’t look bad does it? It’s a pretty good view.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

Thanks to
DMK Golf Design
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Sand Valley Golf Resort

Music fades.

©2019 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC.

Two men are walking on a golf course.

Music plays.

Man [off-screen]: Most golf clubs have too many “don’ts” that keep us from the core of what golf is supposed to be.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

A man wearing a baseball cap, Rob Collins, is talking.

Rob Collins: My name is Rob Collins. I’m a golf course architect, and I wanna change the way people think about the game.

Rob and another man are walking on a golf course. Upbeat, percussive music plays.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
King & Collins

Upbeat music plays. Aerial view moving over a golf course.

Onscreen text:
Sweetens Cove Golf Club
South Pittsburg, Tennessee
Established 2014

Rob [off-screen]: Tad King and I got hired to design and build Sweetens Cove Golf Club in 2011. We were hired by a local concrete manufacturing company called Sequatchie Concrete.

Rob drives a ball on a golf course.

Rob:Our client was a man named Reese Thomas, and I told Reese very early on that our intention was to build the best nine-hole golf course in the world. And if they wanted that, they should hire us.

On a golf course, Rob stretches in preparation for a shot.

Rob: Any new course that we look at, we look backwards to the old course, and we try to apply those lessons to whatever site. And at Sweetens Cove we were applying those key lessons to dead-flat ground in a floodplain. All that matters is a fun and engaging environment for the golfer.

As he walks on a golf course, Rob places a club in a bag.

Rob [off-screen]: One of the things we ask ourselves is, “How do we create drama?” And “How do we create fun?”

Onscreen text:
How do we create drama?
How do we create fun?

Aerial shot looking straight down at a golf course.

Rob [off-screen]: We wanted to build a golf course that changed from one day to the next and had so many different options built into it that it would never play the same. Ever. In order to do that, we have really wide fairways, big greens. And we tell people that they can play from whatever tee to whatever pin they want to. We don’t ever want to be dictating how you’re going to play. We want people to have that sense of discovery on their own.

A black dog is trotting on a golf course.

Rob [off-screen]: Does it matter if you have two pins? Does it matter if you have jeans on or an untucked shirt?

The black dog runs faster on the golf course.

Rob [off-screen]: We don’t have any rules at Sweetens Cove. In fact, our first ever promotion was, “Come play golf at Sweetens Cove. Dogs welcome.” The only rule that we ask is that you don’t infringe upon other people’s enjoyment of this place. Just keep up and be a good friend.

Aerial view of undeveloped land.

Onscreen text:
Landmand Golf Club
Homer, Nebraska
Expected completion 2021

Rob and another man are in a truck driving and then walking across an open dirt field.

Rob [off-screen]: When Tad and I met 13 years ago, we said, “There’s a better way.”
Design and build is the way to do it. We can control the artistry. We can control the cost. We can deliver the exact product that we want without having things getting lost in translation. And we set about doing things our way.

Tad King, an older man with gray hair and a sun visor, is talking.

Tad: I am Tad King of King-Collins Golf, and we design and build golf courses.

A barn is shown, with an open field behind it.

Tad [off-screen]: Landmand in Nebraska is the polar opposite of what we inherited at Sweetens.
At Sweetens, we had 77 acres of flat floodplain, with one foot of fall from one corner to the other. So everything we did was manufactured.

Tad gets into a bulldozer.

Tad [off-screen]: We, approximately, generated 350,000 cubes of material by digging lakes to generate the land forms and the green complexes and everything.

Aerial view of Sweetens Cove and then Landmand.

Tad [off-screen]: In Landmand, it’s 580 acres. From ridges to valleys, we’ve got 93 feet of elevations. King-Collins does not produce flat, boring golf courses. We like bold features. We like to utilize slopes and contours.

Tad drives a bulldozer.

Rob: We’re building a green that’s an homage to the famous Sitwell Park green that Alister MacKenzie built in England. It’s sort of a white whale in golf architecture circles.

An old black-and-white photo is taped to the inside of the windshield of a bulldozer; a color photo is on the control panel. In a panning close-up of the old photo, men stand on the green, wearing old-fashioned golf outfits.

Rob [off-screen]: It’s a green that’s always fascinated us. It’s got these huge cascading features.

Tad King talking, with a golf course in the background.

Tad: Rob first introduced the Sitwell Park green to me early on, and I fell in love with it.

The old black-and-white photo appears again. As Tad talks, the men in old-fashioned clothing transform into people with modern clothes.

Tad [off-screen]: It’s my favorite photo I’ve ever seen of any golf course. And we have been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to build it.

The black-and-white photo of the golf course turns into a color image of a dirt field with the same people in modern clothes standing in it.

Tad: To make sure that the boldness that we build is playable, it takes common sense, and it takes a trusty smart level.

A bulldozer drives across the empty dirt field.

Tad [off-screen]: A green this bold, it’s gonna require a lot of finesse and finish work to make it playable. When it starts getting into the fine details, that’s when Rob and I will both actively begin shaping. I’ll take the greens, and Rob gets in the bunkers.

Onscreen text:
We’ll both actively begin shaping

Rob is walking on a golf course, carrying a golf bag.

Rob [onscreen]: The only thing that matters is the golf. All the other stuff is fluff. It’s extra . . .
It matters very little. You don’t have to have a clubhouse. You don’t have to have 18 holes.

Tad [onscreen]: There’s no bells and whistles on our golf courses. You will never find a recirculating creek. You won’t find bulkheads. All this fluff, eye candy. We build golf for the sake of golf, and that’s helped us get where we are.

Relaxing music plays. As Tad talks, Rob drives a ball and then walks along the golf course, carrying his bag of clubs.

Onscreen text:
“Sweetens cove ranked #49 in top 200 modern courses.”
—Golfweek

Rob [off-screen]: The accolades are really important to me. I think that one thing they’ve done, particularly, the Golfweek ranking, has helped legitimize this golf course in the eyes of a lot of people who may not be preconditioned to recognize nine-hole golf courses as a legitimate form of golf.

Aerial view of people playing on a golf course.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Tad [off-screen]: So in my mind there is no perfect golf hole. But we’re still workin’ on it.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0420-05ZY)

Relaxing music.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Sweetens Cove Golf Club
The Andersen Family

Music fades.

Music plays.

Bob Vokey, an older man with white hair, walks along a golf course, carrying golf clubs.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Bob Vokey [off-screen]: To me, an engineer was somebody who drove a train and wore a funny hat. I’m not an engineer. I’m a golf guy.

Bob: I’m Bob Vokey. I work on wedges because I want to help improve your game.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Bob Vokey

Gentler music plays. Bob walks along a golf course.

Bob: I had visions of playing the game. I thought at one time when I came to the United States, I tried to play the mini-tours, but I realized my three, four, five handicap’s not gonna catch it. I was hittin’ a 3-wood in the par fives and these guys are hittin’ irons in. I realized, uh-uh, I don’t have that game.

But I always dabbled in clubs. It was like a hobby with me. So I decided, you know what? I can’t play this game. I’m gonna work on golf clubs. So I went and worked in a little golf shop in Anaheim, California, called Syd’s Custom Golf, learning about persimmon woods and refinishing and reshafting, regripping. And that’s basically how it started.

Bob walks through an office hallway.

Bob [off-screen]: I wrote an article years ago that said, “Golf courses are too long. It’s too expensive. And the game is too hard.” It was all negatives. And I honestly think it’s become a bombers’ game.

Bob talks on the factory floor, wearing safety glasses.

Bob: My mission is always to help people play better golf.

Onscreen text:
How can I make this game more enjoyable?
How can I give players more confidence?

Sparks fly as Bob uses a machine to polish a wedge.

Bob: How can I make this game more enjoyable? How can I give players more confidence?

[off-screen]: The average player hits four, five, six greens a round. But you’ll see them—they’re out there trying to hit that 300-yard drive. And they’re never gonna do that cuz they don’t have the physical ability to do it. But what they do have, inside 100 yards, where 60% of their score comes from. So they’re gonna save themselves a heck of a lot of shots cuz they don’t need that club head speed to hit that 300-yard drive.

A golf ball is struck by a club.

Bob [off-screen]: There is no perfect wedge for every player. I don’t think it exists.

Bob talks in the factory.

Bob: That’s why it’s so important to be fit. You have to be fit. Go and get fit for wedges.

Bob holds the head of a golf club, turns it over, and draws on the edge of the club head with a black marker.

Bob [off-screen]: There’s a perfect combination of wedges for every player. Different bounces
and different grinds for different techniques of the players to be able to hit every shot that you possibly could hit.

Kevin Tassistro, a younger man with a goatee, talks.

Kevin Tassistro: Before Voke, it was pitching wedge and sand wedge. One grind for all.

Bob pulls the head of a wedge out of a rack of heads and draws on the edge of it with a black marker.

Kevin [off-screen]: Since Bob Vokey started to make wedges, we now have 23 different SKUs, 6 grinds, 9 different lofts, leading the way to the next generation of wedges. My name is Kevin Tassistro, and I am the Director of Development for Vokey Wedges.

Bob and Kevin walk along a golf course, carrying equipment.

Kevin [off-screen]: Bob, he’s the one that said, “We need to add more lofts. We need to add more grinds.”

Bob: Not every player is the same. Everybody has different techniques, different shot requirements, different courses they play, too. Different greens.

Bob and Kevin stand on a golf course. Bob hands Kevin a golf club.

Bob: I learn from not just tour players. I learn from the weekend golfer, the avid golfer.

Kevin hits a golf ball out of a sand trap as Bob watches.

Bob [off-screen]: Look at their swing type. Are they upright? Which I call
digger swing. Or a slider?—shallow-cut swing.

On a golf course, Bob holds six golf clubs; hands one to Kevin.

Bob [off-screen]: I ask them what’s working. But you know what gives me more?
What’s not working. That’s important too.

On a golf course, Bob hands Kevin a club and points down the course. Kevin hits a ball.

Bob: Cuz this is a game of misses. It’s a very tough game. So I try to solve what’s not working. A lot of these players, good players, I can give them any kinda grind, they can hit it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, when they practice. But can they hit that shot on the backside, Sunday afternoon? Can they hit it under the gun? That’s so important.

Bob talks on the factory floor.

Bob: They give me all that input. Then I take that input, go in, and grind a wedge to their specifications.

Bob, wearing heavy leather gloves, grinds a golf club head on a bench grinder.

Kevin [off-screen]: When I first came on board, I asked Bob, “What do all these grinds mean? Where do the letters come from?”

Someone wearing blue rubber gloves uses punches to incise letters into a golf club head, and then polishes the club head.

Kevin [off-screen]: He said, “Oh, it’s what I made for specific players.” He’s got S-grinds for Stricker. He’s got T-grinds for Tom Pernice. K-grind was Tom Kite. V-grind is Vijay Singh. Lefty is L, which was Phil Mickelson.

Bob: Before, it took me a week, two weeks to come up with a prototype, or if I could grind one. Doing it by computer, it’s so exact. You’re able to develop—from all the SM1, 2, 3, 4, 5s—knowledge that we gain there, put it into SM6, SM7, and now further on to SM8.

Bob polishes a club head at a workbench.

Bob [off-screen]: I was maybe a doubting Thomas, but it took me a couple years to get used to being able to accept that a computer can do what I can do with my hands.

Bob walks along the floor of a factory.

Onscreen text:
I come here every day

Bob: I come here every day. This is where I live. This is what keeps me young, seeing these unbelievable people that I work with. I absolutely, totally love what I do, and I get asked many times, “How long you gonna keep going, Voke?” I said, “Well, I’m gonna keep going as long as I possibly can.”

Onscreen text:
Almost 50% of wedges on tour are ‘Vokeys’
Voke has worked with 22 of the 23 players ever to be world #1

Bob walks through the factory.

Bob [off-screen]: It’s neat to be able to say that you worked with some of the best players in the world, and you helped them play their best golf. But you know what? Where I get my thrill is somebody’ll say, “Mr. Vokey, since I’ve had Titleist® Vokey® wedges, my game has improved so much. I thank you very much.” That, that’s my gratification, right there.

Upbeat music.

A man works a lathe in the factory.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Bob: If you wanted to know the honest truth, some of my happiest moments of my career were behind a wheel.

In the factory, Bob uses a grinding wheel to shape a club head.

Onscreen:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0420-05ZY)

Thanks to
Acushnet Company
Titleist

Music fades.

Music plays.

A gray-haired man wearing a knapsack walks along a tree-lined path.

Klaus Eldrup-Jørgensen:[off-screen]: One two-thousandths of a second. That’s all the time it takes for the club to hit the ball and the ball to leave the club face again.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Klaus talks in an office, with large windows behind him.

Klaus: My name is Klaus Eldrup-Jørgensen, and I founded Trackman.

A square orange Trackman device sits on green artificial grass. A hand reaches down and places a golf ball and a tee in front of the device.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
The Track Men

Klaus lines up a shot at a golf driving range and hits the ball.

A white flag with “Rungsted Golf Klub” in black lettering flutters against a blue sky. Klaus talks in an office.

Klaus: I’m definitely a golf lover. I was not a great player, but I was a good player. I love to practice. When we started, the question we asked ourselves was, “Can we make it more fun, more efficient to practice, using technology?”

Onscreen text:
Can we make it more fun, more efficient to practice using technology?

Klaus: In the beginning of 2003, there’s lot of technology around, but nothing has happened to golf for decades. So you still buy a bucket of balls and you hit it. And, at least at that point in time, you didn’t get any feedback.

Klaus hits a ball on a driving range and watches it. Then, with a Trackman device next to him, he looks at his mobile phone.

Klaus: I’m not a technician or a radar engineer or anything like that myself.

A man walks into a dark office space, the lights come on; all the workstations are empty.

Klaus [off-screen]: So I was very, very lucky and ran into a very, very good guy who’s been spending his whole life and career working in the military using Doppler radar.

A young man with short dark hair talks in an office.

Fredrik Tuxen: My name is Fredrik Tuxen, and I’m the inventor of the Trackman technology.

Fredrik writes on a white board on which there are equations and diagrams.

Fredrik: The first time I met Klaus, I was head of R and D, making radars for military applications. So tracking missiles, bullets, rockets, and that stuff. They had this fantastic business idea: If you could track a golf ball, how you would make a business out of that.

Fredrik works on a computer in an office. He looks at different screens showing graphic representations of data.

Klaus: In the beginning we thought of this as a practice tool. But it quickly turned out that we had a lot of interesting data that actually was very valuable to the equipment manufacturers. After equipment manufacturers, it became club fitting. And eventually it became teaching. In the beginning, we just measured the ball. How far was the ball traveling, and the height of the ball; spin of the ball.

In the old days, people thought that they could just look at the golf ball and tell what the club was doing at impact, but you can’t do that. There’s several combinations of golf ball and club impact that’ll give you the same ball flight. So if you don’t know exactly what goes on at impact, you don’t really know what to correct.

A pair of hands, one hand gloved, grips the handle of a golf club. A young golfer hits a ball in an indoor practice room with a screen on the wall showing the ball’s trajectory. Another man sits at a computer and looks at data that analyzes the golfer’s swing.

Fredrik: What happens when a club meets a ball? And why is it that for some people it is absolutely optimal to have a 3,300 RPM spin rate, where for others it’s only a 2,000 RPM spin rate? And that actually was a foundation to a lot of the insights and thought leadership that we created at Trackman. And what is it that you want to do if you want to maximize your own potential?

Onscreen text:
We developed new terminology

Fredrik [off-screen]: We had to develop new terminology, like “attack angle”: How much are you hitting up on the ball? How much are you hitting down on the ball? If you are making contact with the ball after the low point, you have a positive attack angle. Your club path will always be more to the left, for a right-hand player, than your swing direction.

The computer screen shows the trajectory of the ball.

Fredrik: When I talked to instructors back in the early days, this was mind-blowing for them. They had not had this geometric picture in their minds before. And this completely changed the way they were thinking about how to swing the club, where to make contact with the club, and how to achieve desirable numbers.

When Trackman brought out this—“You need to hit up on your driver to maximize your distance”—this was very controversial.

As Fredrik speaks, various workers solder parts, use a wrench to assemble a device, screw components together, examine data on a computer screen.

Fredrik [off-screen]: Trackman is a hardware company where everything is designed in-house. There’s not a component you find in any of our devices that we have not designed ourselves. We design our own microwaves components. We are building all the electronics. There is not a piece of code that is running, either on the devices or in the applications, that has not been built in-house.

Onscreen text:
Everything is designed in house

Fredrik: We are definitely also a data company. We started out using Doppler radar technology. I cannot see that in future we will not always have a piece of that. But in the very first Trackman, we also had a camera in there for ease of use, so we can align the Trackman. Four or five years ago, we took a completely new step. We’re using the cameras as a tracking device. So now we are tracking both in radar as well as in camera data, computer vision. Will there be new technologies we’ll be adding to this in the future and that we’re exploring? Yes, big time.

The head of a golf club is lined up behind a golf ball on a tee. Behind it is the orange Trackman device.

Klaus: The orange box is a good story. In the beginning, we didn’t have a lot of money. But we decided we wanted to use a little bit of money on product design. So we actually had the pleasure of meeting one of the key designers for the Danish hi-fi company called Bang & Olufsen. And he helped us shape the box and so on. But then he said, “You’re going to make that box orange. If you make it orange, you’re gonna own the orange color on the golf course.” And that was fantastic advice. One of the best we ever had.

A man walks along a tree-lined path carrying a case labeled Trackman.

Fredrik: One of the things that makes me super, super proud: If I or anybody else goes to a PGA Tour event, European tour event, the full range is covered by orange boxes, Trackmans. And these are Trackmans that tour pros have purchased on their own.

An orange Trackman device sits on the ground in front of a circular design made up of the names of professional golfers. Then, a golfer lines up a shot in front of the design.

Onscreen text:
90 of the top 100 golfers in the world have purchased their own Trackman

The golfer swings the club.

Fredrik: We have never ever and will never give any Trackmans away for free.

A woman pulls a large cart full of boxed Trackmans through an office space.

Fredrik [off-screen]: This is state-of-the-art technology designed to provide the highest-level accuracy that tour players and equipment manufacturers so need.

Fredrik walks through the office space.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Fredrik: If it’s not against the laws of physics, it can be done.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0420-05ZY)

Music ends.

Onscreen text:
Thanks to
Trackman cofounder Morten Eldrup-Jørgensen
Rungsted Golf Klub

Mellow music plays.

A group of five casually dressed young men walks in slow motion past the front of an apartment complex with a white picket fence.

Speaker [off-screen]: We’re definitely not journalists.

Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents

Speaker [off-screen]: We do our best not to misinform people, but there’s definitely times when we are subjective.

Onscreen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
The ‘No Laying Up’ Guys

One bearded man wearing a baseball cap backwards walks in slow motion.

Onscreen text:
‘Tron’

A second man with shaggy hair and a mustache walks in slow motion.

Onscreen text:
‘Icarito’

Another bearded man walks in slow motion.

Onscreen text:
‘DJ’

A fourth man with a beard and sunglasses walks in slow motion.

Onscreen text:
‘Soly’

A fifth man in sunglasses walks in slow motion.

Onscreen text:
‘Big Randy’

Upbeat music plays.

Big Randy and Icarito sit in chairs on the front porch of a white house.

Big Randy: We’re at the Kill House, Neptune Beach, Florida, United States, Earth.

DJ opens the screen door of the apartment. The hands of a man twirl a golf club.

DJ: The Kill House is kind of an homage to Tiger Woods’ Seals training when he was in the prime of his career and decided to do special forces training and may or may not have blew out his ACL and tore a bunch of stuff. Anyways, we are among the biggest Tiger Woods fans I think on the planet. So, hopefully it’s much more of an homage than a shot.

Tron and DJ are sitting on a staircase in a house, talking.

Tron: We’ve taken this stupid little snippet of some throwaway line from an article of what that place was called. And we’ve turned it into, basically our worldwide headquarters. [laughter]

DJ: Yeah. I think if anything sums up “No Laying Up,” it’s taking the smallest possible minutiae of a joke and blowing it up as big as possible. I think that’s probably what we get our biggest thrill out of doing.

Holding a large microphone fashioned on the end of a shortened golf club, Randy interviews a couple sets of men on a golf course, the second standing in front of a large sculpture of a bull.

Tron [off-screen]: I think the simplest way to explain it is, we try really, really hard to be a reflection of what fans are thinking.

Upbeat music plays.

Carrying a backpack, Icarito walks in front of the white house and then enters through the front door.

Icarito: We started first off as a text thread, and then I got involved and we built a website. So it actually started as a blog, weekly previews, writing about the game. Because we didn’t have a golf outlet that was writing about golf in the way that we talk about it and watch it.

A man’s hands plug a cable into a microphone.

Soly [off-screen]: The question I think we all kind of asked ourselves was, why was everything we watched so different than how we talked about golf?

Onscreen text:
Why was everything we watched so different than how we talked about golf?

Soly is sitting in a leather chair, talking.

Soly: The authenticity was just missing. And that’s kind of where we felt like we could start to at least try to fill a void.

Icarito is sitting on a couch, talking.

Icarito: So then we just started writing it ourselves. Nobody read it for six to twelve months, but I think what kept it going was the fact that like we would all work on these previews together.

Three of the men are sitting around a table talking.

Icarito [off-screen]: Randy would laugh at something I would write, which is validating to me, which makes me want to keep doing it.

Soly checks his phone at a desk, with a microphone and a computer set up to record.

Icarito [off-screen]: And I would laugh at tweets that Soly’s putting out.

Tron and DJ are sitting on a staircase.

DJ: How do we answer a question that somebody’s asking? How do we make each other laugh?

Tron and DJ are sitting on a couch looking at their laptops. Big Randy sits between them looking at his phone.

DJ [off-screen]: What’s a premise that we would tune in to? Once we’ve kinda answered those two questions, it’s like, all right, how do we make it either informative or entertaining or both?

Big Randy: We settled on video for that reason.

Upbeat, folky fiddle music.

High-speed motion of a group of men moving around a golf course. Quick shots of people laughing and smiling, a man riding a motorcycle in a circle around a couple others.

Big Randy [off-screen]: it’s golf, but what it’s really covering is people. Whether it’s “Tourist Sauce” …

Onscreen text:
Tourist Sauce

Big Randy [off-screen] … and the dynamic between the five of us, or local flavor, local people …

Big Randy speaks over a series of quick shots: The No Letting Up guys are playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. A man in an outdoor café gives two thumbs up over a plate of sausage and potatoes. Someone with an iPhone photographs two women and two young men drinking beer in a restaurant booth. Big Randy is sitting on the couch.

Big Randy: … it’s a bunch of happy people doing their passion.

Two young men are sitting in a locker room.

Onscreen text:
Strapped

DJ speaks over a series of quick shots: A man puts a flag in a golf hole. Three men are walking across a small bridge on a pond. A man strikes a golf ball out of a sand trap. Two men chest-bump on a golf course. A man air-drums in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle. A man falls off a short rock-climbing wall. A man rides a scooter in an office hallway. Two men wake up in bed.

DJ [off-screen]: Particularly with “Strapped,” I think that what we’re very cognizant of is, nobody wants to get through an episode and be like, “Wow, they were super comfortable the whole time, and like, what an average experience that was.”

DJ and Tron are sitting on a staircase.

DJ: “Wow, how interesting.” [laughs] You know, people are tuning in to see something that’s outside the ordinary.

DJ speaks over a series of quick shots: A man is walking across a suspension bridge. A man turns upside down on exercise equipment. A man catches a red golf ball tossed to him as he walks. A man runs around a golf hole holding a flag and a golf club. A man does a karate move in front of a store at night. A man plays an acoustic guitar for a gray-haired woman. Icarito, Big Randy, and a young woman walk a large white dog at night. Three men are on a golf course near a body of water. One drives a golf ball. Two men shake hands on a golf course. Two men have their picture taken on a cliffside golf course. Three men are laughing and smiling on a golf course. Two men hug indoors. A man waves inside a restaurant. Men are walking to a small private plane. A man pumps his fist while looking out the window of a small white car that drives away. A man drives a golf ball on a course.

DJ [off-screen]: And to see something that’s a little more uncomfortable. Randy says it’s technically a golf series, but it’s not really about golf; it’s about people. But golf is the vehicle that takes you to all these places and it introduces you all of a sudden to these people that’s like, man, we never would have crossed paths without this stupid golf series that we happen to do.

Tron: There’s a responsibility for us to be authentic, go to the places that we think people should go to, and kind of lift up what’s right in the game.

A man hits a golf ball in a sand trap and gets sand in his face. A man hits a golf ball in a sand trap; it rolls backward.

Big Randy speaks over a series of quick shots: Big Randy holds a yellow 18th-hole flag. Tron pretends to yell excitedly as he drives a car. Icarito hangs his head out the passenger window of a car and looks around. A man sketches a caricature of two men playing golf. Icarito talks and points with verve in a kitchen. Big Randy is eating from a bowl in a kitchen. Tron leaps excitedly in slow motion on a golf course. Men are walking near a monument and pointing. Men sightseeing in a European city.

Big Randy [off-screen]: The beauty of it is, we’re not expert in anything. The only thing that we’re expert in is being able to make fun of ourselves. And I think that’s very important, because if you’re gonna dish it, right, you gotta be able to take it. And I think, because we are the first ones to make fun of ourselves …

Big Randy is sitting on a couch.

Big Randy: … then—our golf games, our appearance, anything, right?—

A man takes a ball out of a cup on a golf course. Men shake hands on the golf course.

Big Randy [off-screen]: I think it invites people in.

Soly speaks over a series of quick shots: Two men high-five on a golf course. Icarito and Big Randy eat donuts on a golf course. Wearing bathrobes in a bathroom, DJ and Soly motion for silence. Icarito dances in the middle of a circle of women. The men sing among a crowd outside a pub. A man drives a golf ball. A man drives a ball on a golf course near a body of water. A man wheels golf bags on a cart as he grins. High-speed motion of seven men moving around a golf hole.

Soly [off-screen]: People saw that we were in it for the love of the game and just like to be goofy and, you know, be dumb at times, and really that’s what people can relate to. The dumbest stuff has been maybe the most successful. It’s not like, hey, I’ve really predicted that this player’s gonna be a great player. And wow, I need to follow those guys. It’s like, no, this bit they have going where Randy thinks Rory is dead is incredible. And that’s what gets people coming back.

Upbeat music plays.

Icarito and Big Randy are walking down an urban street.

Soly is talking into a microphone, recording a podcast.

Soly: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the “No Laying Up” podcast. We’ve got a great show for you today.

Tron and DJ are sitting on a staircase.

DJ: I think that our biggest strength and our biggest weakness comes from the fact that we do everything.

Tron plays with a camera while DJ lies on a couch in a living room. Soly takes a camera and recording equipment out of the trunk of a car.

Onscreen text:
We do everything

Soly is sitting in the equipment room.

Soly: And it is just the five of us. We are all five producers.

Tron, DJ, and Soly ride in a car driven by a fourth man.

DJ [off-screen]: There’s no cameraman, there’s no audio, there’s nobody directing shots. It is us, in the truest sense, like run and gun. Everybody pick up a camera.

Two men walk through a room of large marble columns. Men are photographing camels in a desert. Tron and DJ are sitting on the stairs inside the apartment.

DJ: It feels, hopefully, a little more relatable, and it feels a little more like, you know, man, that’s what it would look like if me and my friends went and did that.

Tron hits a golf ball on the fairway toward a hole in the distance over some sand traps.

Tron [off-screen]: Golf doesn’t have to be vanilla.

Tron, Big Randy, and DJ are talking on a golf course.

Tron [off-screen]: We may have a different take, but …

Tron is sitting on a couch.

Tron: I feel like we’re all kind of old souls.

Tron and Soly are talking and laughing on a golf course.

Tron [off-screen]: Kinda traditional golfers.

Tron, Soly, and Big Randy are sitting on a couch.

Big Randy: Hopefully, at the basis level, we’re friends.

There is a photograph of the No Laying Up guys posing on a cliff near an ocean.

A man’s hands are typing on a laptop computer covered in stickers.

Big Randy [off-screen]: From that has grown a business relationship. But I think the foundation is friendship.

Fast motion of men going in and out of an RV camper. Icarito lies on a bunkbed in the RV, talking to DJ, who’s seated below him. Tron, Icarito, and Soly are in a living room, working on a podcast.

DJ: It feels like a band. Their main focus is making music together, but there’s a time that comes where they need to have business decisions, they need to have financial decisions.

DJ and Icarito are sitting on a couch in a living room.

DJ: Probably not our favorite part of the job but we have to do those every now and again too. I think we all have slightly different aspirations. For me personally, it’s much more about building a community than it is building a media company.

A golf bag is propped against the wall displaying the No Laying Up logo. There is a black-and-white photo of a man wearing sunglasses and a No Laying Up sun visor.

DJ: And there’s other people who joke about the same stuff, and notice the same stuff, and I think that’s where that sense of community comes in. Golf can be extremely lonely for a lot of people, especially people our age. I’m so lucky I found you guys.

The guys are seated around a table on a tour bus, laughing. A man is walking on a mountaintop near the ocean. Three young men are running on a beach with a small dog on a leash.

Soly laughs lightly. Icarito laughs.

Soly: Success is a difficult thing to gauge in our business. It does not come from download totals; it doesn’t come from view counts.

Two men are shaking hands and hugging on a golf course.

Onscreen text:
“It seems like almost everyone on tour follows them.”
—PGA Tour Pro Zac Blair

Soly [off-screen]: We’ve had some people say, “You guys make me love golf more. You make me wanna go out and play golf. You make me wanna go to the golf course. You make me wanna travel and experience things.”

Two men are riding in a golf cart. Tron tries on an ugly golf sweater.

Onscreen text:
“… A funny and witty alternative to a sometimes subdued golf media”
—GOLFWRX

Big Randy and another man are posing with the Hollywood sign in the background.

Soly: I don’t know how you measure that, but hearing that, it pounds into us that we’re doing at least something right.

Three men are sitting outside the No Laying Up house. One points with a golf club. They laugh, get up, and walk away. The five No Laying Up Guys walk down the street, their backs to the camera.

Upbeat music plays.

Onscreen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
[Charles Schwab logo]
Own your tomorrow®

Randy is sitting on the porch of the house.

Big Randy: I don’t show emotion. But yes, it’s very cool and very fun to be able to do what we do.

Big Randy and Icarito are sitting on the porch. Icarito points to his T-shirt with a picture of a bison on it. Big Randy is messing with the tag on the back of Icarito’s shirt.

Icarito [onscreen]: I have a big collection of animal shirts—this is one of them. Plus, it was hot outside.

Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0420-05ZY)

Thanks to
The Buck Club

Music ends.