The GOAT Code - Ep 2 - How Tour Player Equipment Deals Work
Have you ever wondered what happens when a golfer makes it through Q School? How the equipment deals work and why some struggle their first year on tour? Here's why...
Welcome to the Goat Code podcast episode two.
This one I'm going to take a little different approach to discuss some things that a lot of guys don't know a lot about and want to know about.
I got a bunch of messages on Instagram after I posted my what's in the bag because I have a mixed set.
I have a set of ping irons, I have Callaway woods, a tailor-made putter, and titleless balls.
So a lot of people are like, wait a second, I thought all you pros always played one single thing.
And I'm going to tell you why I don't do that with a quick little story.
Back in 2007, I was working with a tour player named Blake Adams.
You guys probably know who he is.
And it was his first year getting his status on the nationwide tour.
And he came to me in January of that year to do some work on his swing.
And we did a ton of work.
And by March, he was ready to rock and roll.
And he had been offered after Q School, like the moment you walk off the 18th green at Q School, you, if you're in that top 25, you are lambasted with offers immediately.
Cobra Golf, Puma, whoever it is, tailor-made, titleless, whatever.
Titleless is a little bit different.
But in general, the big marketing guys will hit you right away.
And so Blake's no different.
He got hammered with an offer, a bunch of offers right away.
And I begged him at the time to not take this deal.
Now, let me explain to you how these deals work.
So this is, again, 2007.
So it could be a little bit different how things work now.
But one of the things that he was proposed, and this is how most deals work, is that with a big brand who has everything, balls, hats, bag, clubs, et cetera, they want a blanket deal.
They want you to play everything.
And so in that time, Taylor may have just come out with these balls.
You guys remember the TP red, the TP black.
And quite frankly, they were terrible.
They were horrible golf balls.
They were super spinny.
They were shorter.
And Blake was a very long hitter.
And he was hitting, playing a Pro V1X, I think, at the time.
And we took these balls.
They sent us several dozens of these balls.
And we took them out on the course.
And we used a launch monitor.
And they were literally on his longest drives with a Pro V1.
They were 30 yards shorter, the TP red was.
And so I begged him not to use that ball.
And I begged him not to change his putter.
And the reason for that, Blake used a belly putter or a long putter.
And I took him to Bay Hill a couple weeks before the tournament.
Now, Blake had never seen the course.
In fact, this is how country boy Blake is.
I mean that as a compliment.
Blake grew up in Georgia.
And he didn't even know about the Bay Hill tournament.
This guy had status on the nationwide tour.
And had no idea what the Bay Hill event was.
That's pretty wild.
But it's true.
So I took him out there for the first time to play the course.
And this is a couple weeks before the event.
And I don't know if you guys have ever been to Bay Hill.
But the rough is nasty.
And before the tournament, they grow the rough up a ton.
And they don't cut it.
And so that they get it really, really thick and lush.
And then they cut it right before the event.
So if you go there a couple weeks before the event, it's impossible.
I mean, the rough can be eight, nine inches deep in places.
So, and they start slowly cutting it down to get it right for the event.
But we were there in like the gnarliest conditions.
The guy's never seen the event, never seen the tournament, never seen it on TV, never played the course, obviously.
And he went out and shot a 65 first time seeing the course.
And the reason he shot that 65 was not just great ball striking, but he was one of the, if not the best putter I had ever seen.
This guy rolled in putts from everywhere.
And if you know Bay Hill, the greens are not easy.
The greens were fast.
The rough was nasty.
Everything on that golf course was impossible.
First time seeing it shoot a 65 is insane.
And so I watched it.
And obviously, I've been working with him for a few months at that point.
And so I'd gotten pretty familiar with his game.
And I'm just, I said, Blake, if you take an equipment deal, for the love of God, do not play that ball and do not change your putter.
And Blake took the deal.
And I'm going to tell you the result of that.
So now the way these deals work again is that they will, you know, I think the deal was for 50 grand for the year, which is very tempting for somebody first year out on the tour, because that pretty much covers, you know, your caddy's expenses for the year.
So like you're, when you start out as a professional golfer in that first season, you're in the hole a hundred grand.
You've got your own travel expenses.
You've got your caddy's travel expenses.
All these things are mandatory.
You know, they're variable costs, but they might as well be fixed costs.
You're, you start out the year a hundred grand in the hole.
So when an equipment sponsor comes out to you and says, I'll give you 50 grand up front and give you, you know, free bags, gloves, balls, clubs, everything for the year.
It's very, very tempting for most of these young guys to, to avoid.
And so, but the catch is it's one size fits all.
You play all of our stuff or you play none of our stuff.
You get everything or you get nothing.
And so with, with the putter now, I'm a big fan of, if you have a putter that you love, that you guard that thing with your life.
If you have a good three wood and a five wood that you love, you guard those with your life.
You do not change those because I don't care what somebody tells you.
Everyone is a little bit different.
And at this level, fine tuning little different things is massive.
You know, the shafts, the shafts are a flat piece of steel that's rolled over and welded.
The weld is not exactly the same every time where that weld is on that shaft and how it's oriented in the, in, in the putter head is not the same.
Every time the exact weight, these are, you know, the cast heads, they're not exactly the same.
And so what TaylorMade told him to do, and I'm not picking on TaylorMade because every equipment manufacturer basically does the same thing.
This is just an example, but they said, look, we'll make you a wax casting of your head.
I think it was an odyssey putter head at the time.
And they said, we'll make a wax casting and then we'll, we'll make it.
And it'll be exactly the same.
It's just going to say TaylorMade on it.
I said, it will never be exactly the same.
Now you've probably gone through this yourself.
You, you've had a three wood in your bag that you've loved for years or a wedge or a putter or whatever it is.
Don't let anybody take it from your hands, make them pry it from your dead hands because these things are never, ever the same.
And so to, to go on further with what happened that year, Blake was a phenomenal ball striker.
If you look at his stats, again, I think this was two set Oh seven or Oh eight or something.
I can't remember.
Um, he was like in the top five or top 10, top 15 and, and all ball striking statistics that year.
And then like a hundred and something in putting, he lost his card that year because he couldn't putt with that putter.
And the ball was super spinny.
That didn't help either.
But, but his ball striking was still statistically phenomenal.
He was a phenomenal ball striker.
I I remember him telling me about one tournament toward the end of the season where he literally didn't hit a chip until.
Like, the 71st or 72nd hole.
On Sunday at an event.
That's how good his ball striking was, but he could not get the ball in the hole.
And that's to circle back to why I play a mixed set of clubs.
That's exactly why the, my favorite word in the English dictionary is freedom.
There's no more beautiful word than freedom to me.
I am not bought or owned or paid for by anybody.
I play whatever club I want.
I play whatever balls I want.
And I, I will not change that unless I have the freedom to play what I want.
If somebody makes an equipment, you know, makes offers an equipment deal, but their driver sucks that year.
Why would you want to play that?
But that's what happens on the tour all the time.
And this is just one example of many guys I've worked with who've gone through similar circumstances.
So long story short, why do I have a mixed bag?
That's why I want the freedom to play what I like.
If I like the way that something looks or the way it sounds or the way it flies or what have you, I like the way glove feels.
I don't, I want to be able to have the freedom to pick and choose.
But now most tour players, especially younger guys, they don't have that.
And so you've probably seen this all the time on the tour.
Some guy comes out and he's like a young gun.
He's a hot stud.
He comes out and he goes through Q school and he wins Q school or, you know, finishes the top five.
And it's like, dude, this guy's going to go out and destroy the world.
And then his first year on tour, he's, he's a disaster.
And I was like, Oh, it's just getting used to the tour life and the travel and all that stuff is definitely true.
It all has an influencing factor.
But in my experience working with guys like Blake and Tyler Aldridge and all these other guys I've worked with who, who've gone through these big equipment deals and big equipment changes.
That is a massive, massive issue in that first year or second year or third year until they kind of either get enough money to where they don't need the equipment deal.
They can kind of back it down and say, well, I'm going to, I'm going to play your stuff, but they have enough pulling power to say, but I'm not switching to your ball or your wedges or your putter or whatever.
And you see that with all sorts of players.
Like, right.
You look at Tiger Woods plays a Bridgestone ball.
Now he wants a spinnier ball and Bridgestone, you know, makes that ball for him.
But he obviously has the clout and the pulling power to say whatever he wants and negotiate whatever deal he wants.
But younger guys on tour, they don't.
So if you see a guy go through Q school and then he has a really, really tough first year, it could be travel and getting used to all those things.
But a lot of times it's just a big, big equipment change.
And they've had clubs that they've played with for several years that they truly love, that they own, they know what it feels like.
And especially the putter, the putter is so extremely important.
And so that is one of the things that you'll see with tour players all the time is that they may have a really, really bad first season out there.
And that's why.
So if you find the clubs that you love, don't let anybody take them from you.
Now, obviously most people aren't looking at equipment and sponsorship deals and stuff.
But I just saw people talking about one of the YouTube golf influencers signing a deal with Live Golf.
And now, you know, all of these other YouTube influencers and social media influencers, you know, they take all these sponsorship deals because that's a great way to make money.
Especially nowadays, you know, you can get your YouTube channel or social media channel sponsored for tons of money.
And who's going to turn down free money?
Well, I want that ability to turn down free money to be able to play what I want and say what I want.
Like training aids.
I'm not a fan of training aids.
I've got six training aids sitting in my studio right now that people are asking me to review.
And I tell them when they eat, when they mail them to me, look, I don't really like training aids.
Most training aids, 99% of training aids are junk, to be honest with you.
I've been testing training aids for more than two decades.
And almost all of them are invented by some high handicap golfer who's retired and has now come up with some idea to fix his own problem in his golf swing.
That's a fact.
That is the majority of training aids that I have tested that people think they've got the, you know, the solution, the cat's meow to fix the golf swing.
But they're really just trying to fix their own problems, don't understand the fundamental swing mechanics that are the issue.
And so they try to go about fixing it with some band -aid fix that I think it's going to magically work.
It's a lot like switching drivers and thinking, oh, this is going to fix your slice.
The driver isn't going to fix your slice.
Fixing your swing mechanics is going to fix your slice.
And the driver should compliment that and not be the cure for it.
It's just not reality.
So long story short, Hopefully this helps you understand a little bit more about how kind of equipment deals work on tour and what happens to your favorite tour guy when he struggles his first two or three years out there on tour.
But the important lesson for you is once you find clubs that you like, keep them.
Keith
Chuck
Mark
Chuck