The Turn – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This episode we hear from Fred Ridley, a well-recognized partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP. He is also the current chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and its annual tournaments, which includes The Masters in April.

Fred is also well known for being the last US Amateur champion not to turn pro - having won in 1975. He grew up in Lakeland, Florida, learning to play golf on municipal courses. He went on to play collegiate golf at the University of Florida on a team that eventually won a national title, played once and served twice as Team captain in the Walker Cup, and played once and served as team captain once in the World Amateur Team Championship. He has also served in various executive roles for the USGA including President in the mid-2000s.

So - incredible record - why not turn pro? Fred made a firm decision at a young age to work toward a career in law, and points to his role model and Augusta National founder, Bobby Jones, as his inspiration. After graduating from Stetson Law, Fred went to work for IMG, Mark McCormack’s sports agency in Cleveland. Eventually, he came back to Tampa - in that transition he stopped playing competitive golf, dug into work, and found his way to Foley & Lardner where he has been since 2001.

Fred and I discuss his foundations in golf, his transition from being known as a golfer to becoming known as a working professional, the commonalities in his executive roles on and off the golf course, and his definition of “grow the game.”

S2 Ep. 5

This episode’s guest is my friend from high school, Doug Yass. Doug and I played golf a few weeks ago with his brother and my classmate, Robbie, and they shared with me their passion for sports gambling and how it’s become their full-time pursuit. They started referencing relatively unknown players by their odds for the upcoming tournament, and backing them up with shots gained stats and recent trends in their games. I was interested in that level of detail and knowledge, and how they were applying it to gambling, so Doug agreed to talk about it on here.

Prior to Covid, Doug was based in Ireland working for Nellie Analytics, the sports gambling division of Susquehanna International Group. Doug’s dad - Jeff Yass - is one of Susquehanna’s cofounders and is known for his prolific poker skills. Doug discusses how that influenced his journey into professional sports gambling, how he calculates player odds in an effort to gain an advantage on betting exchanges, and what our horizon in the U.S. looks like for legalized gambling.

Mike Zisman LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/mike-zisman-51528/

GolfGenius Website - www.golfgenius.com/

This is our fourth episode of The Turn. Welcome to a different side of golf. This season will include 9 episodes with one released every 9 days. In these episodes, we’ll approach what each individual does both on and off the golf course with a business perspective in mind.

This week we hear from one of the leading entrepreneurs in golf technology, plus the first person to give me a job - Michael Zisman, the founder of Golf Genius.

Mike served on the faculty of M.I.T. in 1977 after receiving his Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from Wharton. He left M.I.T. to pursue a career in technology in 1979 when he founded Soft-Switch, a leading pioneer in the email industry. In 1994, Mike sold Soft-Switch with to Lotus Development Corp. for $62 million where he became CEO. Eleven months later, IBM bought Lotus for more than $3 billion. Mike subsequently held executive positions at IBM in the Storage Systems Group, On Demand Strategy, and corporate strategy divisions before retiring in 2004. He since served as a Managing Director at Internet Capital Group until 2010 and is now on several boards as an investor.

It goes without saying that Mike has had astounding success in IT services — and golf genius is no exception. Mike founded Golf Genius in 2009. As a tournament management software, Golf Genius has processed over 20 million rounds in the past 12 months, is used by over 9,500 golf clubs in 53 countries, and recently they’ve partnered with the USGA, R&A, and other major global golf associations to build the infrastructure for the new world handicap system. Mike and I talk about the essence of entrepreneurship, building technology companies from the ground up, how Golf Genius is embracing data for the future of golf, and much more. You’ll learn how Mike is relentless and has a killer instinct in creating groundbreaking startups. I’m sure you’ll walk away having heard something insightful like I did

Milky Golf Instagram: www.instagram.com/milkygolf/?hl=en

Milky Golf website: milkygolfofficial.com/

This is our third episode of The Turn. Welcome to a different side of golf. This season will include 9 episodes with one released every 9 days. In these episodes, we’ll approach what each individual does both on and off the golf course with a business perspective in mind.

This is the second week we are focusing on people who have leveraged social media to cultivate a following and create a brand. 

If you love watching videos of smooth swings and are a fan of dairy products, you’ll love this episode. 

This week we hear from Max Siegfried, a D1 collegiate golfer who happens to be my younger brother. He’s also the co-founder of the successful Instagram page - Milky Golf.

Milky has gained almost 30,000 followers in 24 months by posting swings of up and coming, relatively unknown elite junior and college golfers. More recently Milky has started selling branded apparel and gear such as shirts, hats, and headcovers. Like me, Max has been a competitive golfer for most of his life and was named the Philadelphia junior player of the year in 2015.

We talk about Max's come up through junior golf and setting expectations playing at the next level, why starting Milky Golf was the best decision he made for himself, and what makes Milky different than other golf-centric social media accounts. He also shares a great story about playing poker with Tiger Woods at an event a few years ago. And, most importantly, we learn who was the original milkman and the inspiration for the Milky Golf page.

Lou’s Twitter - twitter.com/LouStagner?s=20

Augusta National Amen Corner LEGO replica - golfweek.usatoday.com/2020/03/18/aug…replica-no-12/

This is our second episode of The Turn. Welcome to a different side of golf. This season will include 9 episodes with one released every 9 days. In these episodes, we’ll approach what each individual does both on and off the golf course with a business perspective in mind.

The next two weeks we are focusing on people who have leveraged social media to cultivate a following and create a brand. If you’re always looking for ways to improve your game through stats and analytics like me, you’ll love this episode. This week we hear from Lou Stagner, a Director of Analytics at a multi-billion dollar privately held company in Philadelphia. He’s also the Golf Stat Pro, and has gained over 11,000 twitter followers in 18 months by publishing deep statistical insights into the questions we all ask:

Does your angle to the pin matter? (twitter.com/loustagner/status/1…36880543744?lang=en)

Should I go for it or layup? (twitter.com/loustagner/status/1173773949307686917)

At what point is being in the rough instead of the fairway an advantage? (thefriedegg.com/rough-vs-short-gr…t-pga-tour-venues)

And one of my favorites, what are the PGA Tour pros handicaps and if they played net events, who would’ve won the most majors? (mygolfspy.com/tour-stats-major-w…ayers-got-strokes/)

Lou’s analysis and tweets have been written about by every major golf publication, he’s appeared on Michael Breed’s XM radio show numerous times, has been interviewed on several occasions, and is a guest contributor for the website My Golf Spy. As a byproduct of his work, Lou helps professional and amateur golfers optimize their strategy with stats & analytics. His stable of players range from PGA Tour and European Tour professionals, to Division One collegiate players competing at the highest amateur level, to weekend country club players looking to improve.

Lou and I discuss what he set out to create with his twitter account, how he’s built a brand around objective data insights, and the unforeseen opportunities that have come out of it all. We also talk about how he and his daughter built a 20,000 lego piece replica of Augusta’s Amen Corner that they will auction off to benefit charity after it’s signed by several former Masters champions.

Denny's Instagram: www.instagram.com/mccarthy_denny/?hl=en
Denny's Twitter: twitter.com/_dennymccarthy?lang=en

Hey everyone I am Cory Siegfried and this is my interview series - The Turn. Welcome to a different side of golf. Our first season will include 9 episodes with one released every 9 days. In these episodes, we’ll approach what each individual does both on and off the golf course with a business perspective in mind.

Our first guest is Denny McCarthy, a PGA Tour professional and the number one ranked putter on Tour for the past two seasons including this current one. Denny and I were teammates at Virginia during his first year, where he entered as one of the most sought after recruits in the country among the likes of Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. He was subsequently named ACC freshman of the year and an eventual two time all-American.

He has won the Junior PGA Championship, the Porter Cup, the Maryland Amateur twice, the Maryland Open three times, and has represented the United States at the Junior Ryder Cup, the World Amateur Team Championship, the Walker Cup. He has also competed in seven US Amateurs, and has qualified for two U.S. Opens. Before turning pro, Denny was ranked as one of the top 50 amateurs in the world. He is currently ranked 72nd in the FedEx Cup standings(as of 8/1/2020) and has notched a few top-ten finishes.

We spoke two weeks ago while he was in Ohio at Muirfield, in between the Workday Charity Open and the Memorial. Most recently, he’s been mentioned in headlines as one of the first Tour players to test positive for Covid-19 at the Travelers Championship. We touch on that briefly, talk about his transition to Tour life, how he’s surrounded himself with the right team to help cultivate his personal brand, and how golf has helped him create opportunities for others.

Denny also shares an incredible story about his first round with Tiger Woods at their home club in Florida right in the beginning quarantine. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

S2 Ep. 4 (almost over)

This episode’s guest, Mac Barnhardt, is a longtime agent and performance coach. Over the past 25 years, Mac has represented some of the most well-known and accomplished players in golf.

Mac played collegiate golf at High Point University in the mid-80s. After college, he worked in the airline industry before taking a position at Pros Incorporated, a legendary agency created by Vinny Giles that represented the likes of Tom Kite, Lanny Wadkins, Davis Love the third, David Duval, and Justin Leonard.

Pros Inc. was purchased by Octagon in the late 90s, and in 2003 Mac left to be Davis Love’s full-time agent and create his own agency, Crown Sports Management. Mac also helped establish Sea Island as an epicenter for Tour pros and attracted talented players such as Jonathan Byrd, Lucas Glover, Brandt Snedeker, and Brian Harman.

In 2013 Crown merged with Lagardere Sports. Since leaving Lagardere in 2018, Mac has set out to reinvent the sports management approach with his new company Rock Sports by helping professional golfers maintain purpose, focus, and balance both on and off the course.

This episode’s guest, John Brooks aka Brooksz, has had a profound impact on many collegiate golfers.

John played college golf and was an NAIA All American at the University of North Florida, where he became the men’s team head coach while pursuing his MBA. In 7 years, John took the program from the NAIA league to NCAA Division 1. He remained head coach for 14 years total, during which John oversaw tremendous growth and change in the program, coached 19 All-Americans, and he coordinate the funding, design, and construction of a $2.5m training center on campus. Today, North Florida remains one of the top-25 men’s golf programs in the country.

In 2003, John left coaching to establish his consulting business, Red Numbers Golf, to assist junior golfers and their families navigating tournament golf and college selection. I worked closely with John throughout high school, when he helped me institute effective practice routines and goals, organize my national tournament schedules, pinpoint colleges where I could have fulfillment both on and off the golf course, and ultimately he guided me through the recruiting process at UVA. He’s worked with over 600 players and their families in his 18 year span as a consultant, is an Advisory Board Member for the Titleist Performance Institute aka TPI, and is an advisor to the American Junior Golf Association.

John identified a need and built a product to cater to a demographic. John and I discuss that, along with how he started down the path of coaching and why, approaching his coaching career as a business development opportunity, and what it’s like to work with players during the formative years of their lives to set them up for long term success in life beyond golf.

Season two of The Turn is here. We start with Will Zalatoris and Scott Fawcett.

Will is ranked 43rd in the world golf rankings, is the 2014 U.S. Junior Amateur champion, and 2017 ACC player of the year. That same year, he was a member of a victorious Walker Cup team that featured Cameron Champ and Collin Morikawa. Will earned his way onto the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019 through Monday Qualifiers and finished #1 on the KFT’s money list last year.

Will earned an exemption into the U.S. Open at Winged Foot where he tied for 6th. 14 PGA events, five top-10s, and $1.8M in winnings later, Will has ascended the world rankings. He has more worldwide top-10s than any player since the start of 2020.

Scott founded the DECADE scoring system, which solves golf strategy by combining shot distribution patterns and PGA Tour scoring statistics to optimize target selection. In 2014, Scott caddied for Will in the Texas Amateur, which he won by three shots. Three weeks later Will won the U.S. Junior Amateur.

Scott and Will share their history through stories of tournaments, applying their findings over time, how those findings helped Scott shape his theories for DECADE, and we discuss Will’s REAL practice of meditation and how it’s helped elevate his game.

This episode’s guest, Dennis Satyshur, is a legendary club professional and the director of golf at Caves Valley golf club outside of Baltimore, Maryland.

Dennis was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he learned the game of golf through caddying for his dad at an early age. Eventually he won the Pennsylvania high school state title before heading to Duke University as a dual athlete playing on the varsity golf team and as the quarterback of the football team. For those of you who know Dennis, his nickname “Football” comes to mind.

He came to know one of his now longest friends, Tom Kite, during a short stint as a playing professional after college. Dennis then went on to serve under some renowned head professionals around the country at clubs such as Pinehurst, Pine Tree, and Baltimore Country Club, but the most impactful mentor he encountered was Bill Strausbaugh at Columbia Country Club.

Dennis became the head pro and director of golf at Caves Valley in 1991 when it opened - during his 30 year tenure there, he’s developed 25 assistant professionals on his staff to become head professionals at other clubs, served as an assistant captain on the 1997 Ryder Cup team, and has overseen many prestigious events at Caves Valley including next year’s FedEx Cup playoff event the BMW Championship. Dennis’ attention to detail has cultivated a culture of excellent service and experience that has helped create the brand of Caves Valley - we talk about his upbringing, fostering that culture as a team player, and how he’s approaching his final year at Caves Valley before retiring after the BMW Championship next season.