Latest / PlayBetter's Golf Tech Weekly / #15: Sean Ogle (Breaking Eighty)
Transcript
- PlayBetter: Welcome back to Golf Tech Weekly. Mark Schifordjian here with Daniel Fitzpatrick. Our guest today is one of the more interesting people in golf media. And I'd argue one of the more interesting people in golf period. Sean Ogle from Breaking 80 joins us today. Most people know him for honest deep dive reviews of launch monitors and simulators, golf watches, range finders, you name it. Fewer people know how he built that platform after quitting finance, moving to Thailand. and reinventing himself first as a freelance writer and then a coach of freelancers. Even fewer know about the cocktail bars, the luxury resort reviews, the quest to play the top 100 golf courses, and to visit the top 100 bars. We're going to talk gear, a lot of gear, but we're also gonna talk about how you build a life that looks like Sean's. Here we go. All right, Sean, what's up? Dude, thank you guys for having me. This is great. I'm excited to do it. Thank you so much for joining. We've been looking forward to this one. Sean's been a buddy of Play Better's for a long, time. Daniel, you go way back with him also. Yeah, we've known Sean for a while, even from past jobs. And it's great to kind of come full circle here and have a cool conversation to just. Talk about current tech, past tech, and even past experiences to how we've landed here today. So yeah, it's going to be fun. Yes. Awesome. Well, we are going to talk some tech. Obviously, Sean's got thoughts to share. He's played with pretty much all of the current toys and all the ones that have led up to this point. But before we do, I want to kind of touch on how in the hell one becomes Sean Ogle. ⁓ Sean, give us just kind of a bit of a walkthrough. When Breaking 80 began and all that led up to it, how we got here, how you ended up running a golf review, golf product and golf kind of lifestyle travel, et cetera, et cetera site. Yeah, dumb luck. It's pretty much all dumb luck. No, I was one of the few people. So I graduated with a finance degree in July of 07. So I had my job lined up. I was really excited. I thought I was going to be a like financial analyst, you know, money manager. That was like my dream. and got a small job as a portfolio analyst for a money management firm here in Portland, Oregon. And so by February of 2009, marketed collapse, bosses were miserable. I was miserable. I was like, ⁓ is this like what the real world is? And I used to joke I was the only person in Portland that had to wear a suit and tie to work, which was not as exciting two and a half years in as I expected it to be. ⁓ And so what ended up happening was I took a trip down to Rio for Carnival with my best friend, February of that year. Saved up all my vacation time, had to beg my bosses to let me go. And so we went down, we went and danced in the carnival parade, went to a Guazu Falls, we went hang gliding over Rio. And the day I got back, I got a 20 % pay cut. And so after this like two week trip, I was like, man, I should be able to do stuff like this whenever I want. Like this was great. This was what I'd been missing those previous two years. And so what I ended up doing was I started a blog that was called Location Rebel that was essentially documenting my quarter life crisis. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. ⁓ and ended up building a little bit of an audience there. Six months later, I left my job and I ended up moving to Thailand for the better part of the year. As I kind of learned online marketing, I learned how to grow that business. ⁓ and then in 2012, I got to the point where I was like, you know, Hey, I know how to blog. I know how to do some of these online marketing things. Let's apply it to something that I'm really passionate about at the time. there weren't really that many good golf blogs out there. Keep in mind, this was kind of before Instagram, before Twitter, before YouTube. Blogs were the way people got their social media. And so that was kind of the quick version of how Breaking 80 came to be. Yeah, well, definitely the unconventional route, right? And I think that there's some value there. A lot of people that are in this space, whether as reviewers, influencers, they come. They come to it from a more traditional golf background. playing career of some kind, ⁓ a coaching career, whatever it may be, they're in the industry and then they may spin off into this direction. ⁓ your case, ⁓ I would imagine you played some recreational golf, enough to develop a passion for it, ⁓ but you're coming at it from a completely, ⁓ really what would be an outsider or unconventional perspective. ⁓ And Daniel, you come from a more traditional path. ⁓ Went to school to study golf ⁓ instruction, ended up switching over to the tech side, kind of came up that road. And I'm wondering from your perspective, do you see value in kind of that outside voice, somebody coming from an entirely different road to arrive kind of ⁓ at the same place? And does that give the viewer, the reader, the opportunity to learn a different perspective. I totally think it does because, you know, 99 % of golfers don't work in the golf industry, right? So they can resonate with with guys like Sean, and they can, you know, they have the same mindset or maybe the same experiences. And they're looking for people to relate to. And even so, like just researching products and going through and trying to compare technology. Sometimes it's nice to just hear it from someone who maybe feels like they're in the same mindset or the same perspective of things. It's not always like you want to go to somebody and say, OK, what's the golf professional going to tell me to buy? ⁓ If that was the case, then places like PGA Tour Superstore wouldn't be a thing, right? Everyone would still be going to golf shops to buy their golf clubs and equipment. ⁓ So I think that that's certainly interesting. and unique ⁓ because like like Sean said, I mean, a long time ago, everybody went to went to blogs. I mean, look at companies like Barstool Sports. They used to only be bloggers. And now they've grown this huge audience through YouTube and all the ridiculous things that they do. ⁓ But it's it definitely is important. And like I said, I just think that it a lot of golfers, their blue collar, their standard recreational players. And sometimes they just want to read information or consume information from a person who they feel is just like them or maybe the same level of golfer as them. Yeah, certainly keeps it very relatable. You touched on something, Daniel, that I think really kind of ⁓ gets into what I think makes Sean's brand stand apart from some of the competition out there. And that is the kind of the omnichannel nature of it. So one of the cool things about Sean is, yes, he has a very successful YouTube channel, but kind of the bedrock of his brand and his business is his website, which is still that blog, right, Sean? I mean, it's a it's kind of as if you've still doing what you started doing in Thailand. 100 percent. A lot of people think blogs are dead and the reality couldn't be further from the truth. know, I think that it's, you know, most people I've gotten more visible over the last three or four years when I started the YouTube channel. and I think I'm one of the few kind of, you know, independent review sites like this that do both the written side and the video side at what I think is a pretty high level. And so both of those things kind of cross pollinate and it allows both, you know, to kind of raise the profile of each of them. ⁓ but I still focus just as much on the written side. if not more, because it's a lot easier for people to kind of skim, get the information they want, get it quickly, jump back and forth between different products that they might be considering. ⁓ For as much as I love YouTube, not everyone has time to sit and watch a 20, 30 minute deep dive about whatever specific product it might be. And so you can get a lot of that same information in just a few minutes by skimming through a blog post. And so a lot of people still ⁓ go about ⁓ buying products that way. Yeah, yeah. And even when you don't want to skim, when you really want to do the deep dive, the written word has an advantage and does afford you an opportunity to, in some ways, go even deeper than you can on video. ⁓ So yes, just as you say, you're able to present it in multiple ways, of meet the reader or viewer wherever they are. And then the other big separator to me is, you know, there are a number of sites that are doing kind of one thing, ⁓ be it Golf Tech Reviews, which you certainly are one of the leading voices in in our space. But you also do golf travel reviews, golf resort reviews. Tell us about why and how that kind of that lifestyle spin off has has kind of complemented the tech review part of it. Yeah. So Breaking 80 started as a travel website. It was funny. was August of 2012. hanging out with my buddy Steve in Portland. We played a round of golf and we came back afterwards. like, man, there's like no golf. We should start a golf website. And he ended up being too busy. I started it. But then the thing that kind of got traction early on was my goal to travel and play the top 100 public courses in the U S. And so I started doing that. I was writing about a bunch of the travel, shooting the occasional very terrible video. ⁓ and so, you know, Travel has been a big part of my DNA personally and a big part of, you know, breaking 80s DNA, you know, for a long time. ⁓ and it's kind of gotten to the point where I've really just created, you know, the golf website and the golf brand that I'm excited about where I get to talk about and do the things that are most interesting to me. And assuming that there's probably going to be, you know, entertainment or usefulness or interest from other people, ⁓ if I'm interested in it. So You know, whereas early on it was 80, 90 % travel. Now that's flipped. Now it's probably 80, 90 % product reviews because that's how you actually really build a business around it. Um, but I pick and choose the travel that I'm most excited about and most interested in and most unique. And that, you know, goal is evolved from the top 100 public courses to the top 100 courses in the world. And I'm still kind of slowly chipping away at that. And so, you know, my favorite pieces of content are the ones that I can kind of intertwine the two. You know, I took a trip to Vietnam last year and so I think we did four or five product reviews while we were in Vietnam and so you get to showcase, you know, some of the unique locations, some of the destinations, talk about the product when you're on the course. Um, and I think that when you can kind of do those two things together, you have something really unique. That's also engaging for me personally, which is important for the longevity of a business like mine. Um, you want to make sure you're not getting too burnt out and you stay interested and focused. Um, and so being able to do content like that is one of the ways I've been able to do that. Yeah, it takes you to a lot of cool places too. mean, just, ⁓ you know, just in the last year, I'm going off memory from watching your channel and visiting with you. I mean, you just got back from Hawaii. You immediately went from Hawaii to Pine Valley. ⁓ You were in Vietnam, you were in Nova Scotia, you were in Mexico. I'm sure I'm missing quite a number of places and we're only talking about the last several months. Yeah. So a bit of a charmed life, I'd say. Not that you haven't worked your ass off for it. Um, but, but congratulations and I applaud you for, for continuing to follow what's probably not the obvious monetized side of the business. Um, in fact, it might not, it might be very difficult to monetize something like that. And yet you continue to do that because that's simply what you want to do. Yeah. I yeah, I mean, from the very beginning, you know, when I started that blog location rebel in 2009, it was essentially talking about the benefits of a lifestyle business where it's like, how do you build? a business that you can run from anywhere, know, give you freedom of time, do the things that you want to do and help some people in the process. And that has been in what is it? 17 years now. Um, we actually just passed three days ago was the anniversary of when I started my first blog, which is in 2009, so 17 years. That's wild. Um, and so that's been the one kind of, you know, or one of the through lines through everything that I've done is that I just want to be able to do more of what I want to do and help people in the process. And I'd like to think and hope that a lot of the, you know, the product reviews and helping people make some of these buying decisions has been helpful for a lot of people. ⁓ you know, travel, figuring out where to go. Maybe it's just entertainment value and being like one day I want to go to that, you know, that place and be able to create content around it. ⁓ but that's been, you know, kind of the one thing that as I've thought about growing or scaling or hiring a big team or turning it into a broader media company, ⁓ you know, if there's been plenty of opportunities to do that, but at its heart, you know, I'm really, Like lifestyle and spending time with friends and family and doing interesting things, that's kind of the core of what I've done for the entirety of my career. And ⁓ that's valuable enough that I'm not necessarily looking to change it in a big way. Yeah. Daniel, maybe you want to burn the spreadsheets and ⁓ shut the laptop and take on some of this life for yourself. Yeah, I hope my wife doesn't listen to this episode because she's gonna say he's traveling everywhere I want to go. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Now, super constant balance with my wife being like, she's like, Wait, where are you going? Wait, okay, I want to go on that trip. And like, ⁓ you're going to banded dunes. There's not much other than golf there. Like, cool, you can go to band and you're good. Yeah. And is it when you travel, and I've seen it in a few videos you've done reviews on I think this is something to to to worth noting. You use the Arco system a lot. And I think that that's a really unique thing for people who do travel a lot because you can get data and see shots you've hit on these incredible golf courses or gone on these trips. It's like you get something to take away from it everywhere you go. So ⁓ that was something I watched in a video of you recently. And it really made me think like, man, if I travel somewhere, I definitely want to see if I can take that with me because, you know, maybe you hit an iconic shot somewhere, then you kind of have a way of saving that forever. I that's been one of, so I've used Arcos since, you know, first came out in 2014. Arcos is one of my all time favorite golf products period. Um, you know, some people have different experiences with it. does have a relatively high subscription, which people hate and I get that. But for me, I've played over 400 rounds with it. Um, and that's the thing that I've talked about that I don't feel like it's mentioned enough is that inherent travel journal. You know, I can go back and I can, you know, I've got every almost every single round, assuming I didn't have rental clubs. And it's like, I can see, you when I played, you know, the old course and I went driver three wood, eight iron, and then made a 20 foot putt for par on the old course. ⁓ you know, I was at Valley Neil last summer and I hit a number seven, hit a drive to two feet for a tap and Eagle. And you can go back and you can see all the details of all those shots, which I think is, is just really, really cool and fun. And you know, they're kind of stepping it up. As you guys know, they just, you know, kind of morph the link pro into the air. So now you can use the Arco system sensorless and overall it works pretty well. Like there's, you know, still some, some things to work out and it's not quite as good at knowing exactly what club you're using. But what I love about it is if I'm traveling and if I'm playing with rental clubs, I can still track that round on Arcos and I can still get that data. And so I think that's been, that's been pretty cool, but yeah, I'm, I'm a huge fan of the product. That's an awesome point. Daniel, bring up, mean, ⁓ living this life and kind of marrying the two ⁓ via Arcos. ⁓ Gosh, it's almost like your personal photo album of all of these trips and seeing all these cool courses and how you performed on them is one of the hidden advantages of Arcos. ⁓ Regarding the Arcos Air, you've now used that and you've used the new rangefinder as well, yeah? Yep. Yeah. Thoughts on how it's evolving? ⁓ I love the way it's evolving. I think it's evolving really well for kind of the diehard Arcos user. I think for the casual Arcos user, it makes it a little bit more difficult to figure out what the right move is. If you're using the sensors and or Arcos Air and you're using the rangefinder, then you're investing in extra hardware that's a few hundred dollars each. The full subscription to use everything is around $300 a year. So if you're someone who golfs once or twice a month in the Northeast, and so you're only golfing, you know, seven months out of the year, you know, it's a little bit more of an investment that's, you know, kind of, you know, tougher to justify. But if you're someone who's golfing a few times a week, you're travel for golf, you're really trying to get better. I don't think there's any system that really comes close into, you know, what, you know, what it does and what it provides. ⁓ And I'm not supposed to. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this, but I've seen beta access to some of the changes that they're making and it is getting exponentially better. It's something that I'm extremely excited about. And so I'm really curious to see that go live and see it evolve. Yeah. Yeah. They are just really continuing to push the envelope and make it cooler and cooler. Some of this new AI strategy that they have is really, really interesting. and effective. mean, it's amazing. And Sean, I you've made this point before. It's amazing how often when I stand on the tee box and I look at the suggestion for how to play this hole, when I follow the advice, how my score is in fact better than it likely would have been had I done my bomb driver out of bounds and recover from there. Yeah, I think the stats are they've got like over 1.5 billion shots tracked now. And so to take that AI and pair it with your own information. mean, when you can see on the AI overview and you can see your shot dispersion with that club, you can really get a sense of like, ⁓ there's a good chance that, yep, I'm probably going to be in that bunker. I should take its advice and use a different club to avoid that. You know, technology is coming a long way and AI is one of those things that's infiltrating every part of the golf tech world. And in some cases it's genuinely useful and is absolutely going to be a game changer. And in other cases, you you wonder, it's like, well, Are you fitting this in because that's the trendy thing right now and you can as opposed to actually genuinely solving a problem that people have. And so, you know, it runs the spectrum of super useful can be like completely game changing to, you know, sounds cool on paper, a little bit of a novelty, but not actually something that, you know, we generally need. Yeah. So Sean Sean reviews shot tracking products, ⁓ launch monitors, GPS watches, handhelds, range finders, training aids, all of that stuff. again, coming from a writing background, a travel background. I think all of that kind of shows up in how you review stuff. It is what kind of informs your unique voice, which has definitely been proven to be something that, as Daniel said, resonates with viewers and readers as relatable, potentially. Can you kind of talk about both your philosophy for what a review should be and how it should be presented and help somebody, and also how you go about testing and reviewing a product? Yeah, so every reviewer, every person has their own criteria, their own things that they look for. For me, the most important thing is to provide both sides of the story. There's no such thing as a perfect product. Every product is going to have its pros, its cons. Very rarely is it easy to say, this is the best product, this is going to be the best fit for everybody. As much as I wish there were, it's just not the case. you with the reviews that I do, I really try and do a good job of presenting the full picture. ⁓ you know, I'm one of the few people out there that is truly unsponsored. You know, you can't pay to be ranked higher in my best of list. You can't pay me to do a review or say one thing. And while sure I get paid via affiliate commissions, you know, that's the, you know, kind of the model, ⁓ pretty much every product where I review, get a similar affiliate commission. So I don't care which product you end up buying. ⁓ my allegiance is to the audience and to make sure. that I'm helping them find the right things for them. And if I do that, then I'm gonna be successful. ⁓ And so, that's where making sure that I don't just gloss over the negatives and say, hey, if you're this type of person, this isn't going to be a good fit. It's like, boy, just talk about the Arcos. It's like, I'm sure if they would love it, if I would be like, yeah, it's such a good value for the subscription. And just kind of glossed over that fact, but ⁓ I don't. And I think that's why I... do have maybe some of the influence that I do or the brand has grown in the way it has is because people know that they can trust and get that full picture. And so, when it comes to how I do the reviews, ⁓ I've kind of found the format that kind of works for me and they all follow kind of a similar pattern where it's like, here's a quick introduction, my thought on the product, here's the first impressions, here's the setup and what that experience kind of feels like. Here's how the product, you know, performs. You know, here's some of the features, quality, all of that type of stuff. ⁓ here's some of the negatives. Here are some of the downsides. Here's how this product compares to other competing products in that world. think that that's one of the really important benefits that I can provide is now with so many of these niches, whether it's launch monitors or range finders or, you know, GPS units or whatever it is. ⁓ I've tested many, if not most of the products in that particular category. And so I'm kind of. uniquely qualified to make those comparisons, say, hey, this is for this person, not for that person, that type of thing. So you kind of get the full picture. Whereas even some larger organizations, they have multiple people reviewing and it's not necessarily one person that's been hands on with everything. ⁓ That's not to say I don't have people that do some writing for me occasionally that do one-off reviews or different reviews like that, but for 85 % of it, I've touched everything personally. And so that'll give my final impressions of the product. And so you can kind of expect this fairly consistent, fairly repeatable format that I think people have come to rely on and trust. And it helps it. It just makes it that much easier when you are weighing one product over another to kind of see it in that consistent format. Yeah. Daniel, you watch all the content and read all the content. We're watching multiple channels and reading blogs all across the Internet for all these products. What do you like about Sean's stuff and what do you think has made it successful? Yeah, I think a big, I mean, we've we've kind of touched on it, but there there's definitely a consistency factor here. ⁓ I mean, I think that there's you can tell that there's honesty in it. And it's not just all positivity. You know, he he talks about the flaws. He talks about the things he likes. ⁓ And he's like, like we've talked about, he's honest. So I think that that grows and helps kind of a cult following to it to to a point. ⁓ But it's also like I even I even love the way that you go about. ⁓ when you travel to the PGA show, Sean, it's like a lot of these guys, take cameras and it's like this full studio effect and you're more in like a sponge going in there and soaking everything in and kind of analyzing and making notes here and there. And then ⁓ your content comes later or down the road. Maybe after you've had some time to think about it and what is important or what you feel is important or what may be the issue. ⁓ I think that's unique. And I think that it allows you to not just have your initial thoughts and reactions, it allows you to have thought out and calculated reviews and information out there. appreciate you saying that as a good thing. For the last two or three PGA shows, every time I've come in, I'm going be like, no, this is the time I'm going to film video here. We're actually going to give our first impressions. And then every time I get in, and this is one of the pros and cons of being a one man show, it's like, You know, my dad does my video editing. You know, I have a few occasional, you know, exterior written reviews, but most of it's just me. And when I'm going to the PGA show, it's just me and the camera. I, every show, I get to that point where I'm like, you know what? My time is better spent, you know, talking to the brands, you know, learning what all this stuff is, as opposed to kind of glossing over that and then trying to be on camera and doing all this extra work. ⁓ I always have. I always want to because you the people that get the stuff out the fastest right after that, they're getting, you know, you get a lot of views and a lot of eyeballs and a lot of content on that. But, ⁓ you know, I like to think that the way that I do it, it is maybe a little bit more thoughtful, even if I would love to do a better job of getting stuff out pretty quickly. ⁓ you know, it's, it's one of the trade-offs you kind of make with the way that I've run my business and the way that I've done it, which you know, is, is definitely their pros and cons to it for sure. Yeah. Fantastic. Let's talk about kind of the category that we all maybe care about most ⁓ launch monitors. Seems to me that we are in quite a good place in 2026. Give us your kind of your general thoughts on kind of the state and state of the industry, ⁓ where we sit today ⁓ as it pertains to the option overload really that we now face when it comes to launch monitors. Yeah, like who wins in 2026 when it comes to golf launch monitors? The golfer. It's like you look at all of these products. was like, wait, when like the flights go Mevo plus like that came out in like 2020, I think, you know, the Repsoto M11 Pro that might've been like 2021. Those were some of the first ones where I felt like, oh, these are accessible consumer prosumer level, you know, devices that all of a sudden are making accurate data, you know, simulator, you know, options kind of in range for the average golfer. And now you look at where we're at, you know, five, six years after that. And, you know, there's, you know, 20, I don't know. does certainly more than a dozen really good launch monitors out there that are everywhere from, you know, $200 up to 20,000. And so I think what's great about it is going back to the idea of there isn't a one size fits all. And this is, there's no category where this is more true than launch monitors. you know, there is something for kind of every need. There's something for kind of every budget. And so it really depends on like, you know, what your space is, how you intend to use it, where you're intending to use it, what metrics are most important to you. ⁓ but it's an exciting time, especially as we're seeing some of these brands go even further where it's not just a launch monitor in an ecosystem or a launch monitor in a vacuum. building an ecosystem around it where you have your launch monitor and that feeds into the same app where you're tracking your rounds and that feeds into the same thing where you're doing simulated golf. And so you're able to get all of this extra data around your game. ⁓ and you have some of these ecosystems where, you know, it just kind of captures all that data. You can go back and makes it easier to review. It makes it easier to practice, easier to improve. And I think that's one of the more exciting things, in the world of launch monitors is how It's not just working in a vacuum, but it's also working with other devices within these product ecosystems to kind of enhance the enjoyment and the information you're getting as a golfer. Right. What we saw at the 2026 show, some of it is now shipped to you. Some of it is still upcoming. ⁓ What are you excited about? What did you see that you think maybe pushes the envelope that much further and is genuinely interesting as we get further into this new year? Yeah, so I think there's a few different obvious ones. The Square Omni is kind of the big one that a lot of people are talking about. That's one I haven't been hands on with that I'm excited to kind of see if it lives up to expectations. I've got my reservations about it, maybe more than most. One of the things I've learned is that Square has one of the most passionate and vocal fan bases out there. If you say something negative about the Square on a YouTube video, you're gonna get a bunch of comments about it, which I have. but you know, for as great as it is, you know, there are some drawbacks build quality is a little questionable. Customer support is kind of non-existent. The software experience, not nearly as good as a lot of the competitors. ⁓ so I'm excited to see if the Omni improves on all of that. ⁓ you know, and really kind of becomes, you know, the, you know, the go-to and that, you know, sub $2,000 optical launch monitor, ⁓ range. ⁓ another one that I'm really excited about that I feel like is maybe flown under the radar a little bit more than some of the others. is the upcoming, ⁓ you know, what's called the Playmaker from Blue Tees. Rainmaker. Rainmaker. ⁓ From Blue Tees. You know, when you talk about an ecosystem, I feel like they're one of the brands that has really jumped all into creating an ecosystem. You know, now with the new Captain Pro and Captain Air rangefinders, you've got smart, you know, rangefinders that will take your launch monitor data and they will make club recommendations within the rangefinder itself, which a few other brands do. but they have a smartwatch, they have a speaker, they have GPS units. They have all of these things that kind of build out that ecosystem. And so if they can, you know, live up to what they're providing, ⁓ if they can do everything they've done on the hardware side and get the app, you know, to really be a good robust experience that supports all of that, you know, I think they're, you know, they're one of the front runners in terms of building that ecosystem and doing it at a price point that's, frankly, really, really appealing to most golfers. It's not like you're having to invest in like, you know, the foresight Bushnell launch pro where, know, just to get in the door, it's 2500 bucks and then a 200 or 500 year, a dollar a year subscription. Blue T's, I think their subscription is 99 bucks for three years and it includes the first year free. So four years of their subscription for 99 bucks total. know, that's the one, one of the few subscriptions where I'm like, oh, this actually feels reasonable for the support that you're hopefully going to get. So, um, so those are a few products that kind of jump out, uh, that are particularly exciting. You know, the other, obviously the shots go Bellum one, a $200 launch monitor is insane, especially one that has a built in screen and has, you know, app capabilities, um, you know, all pretty stripped down. Uh, but when you take this thing out on the range, like it performs really well. And so if you're just looking to get your general carry numbers and a few, you know, basic numbers about, where you're at, make the range more fun and actually get your distances dialed in a little bit than for 200 bucks. Like there's nothing else that comes close at that price range. Pretty amazing. Do you see it as a threat potentially to something like the SwingCaddy SC4 or SC4 Pro? there room for both of those kinds of products in the market? Yes. And I honestly, a threat, sure. Like there will be some people that will be like, oh, I can save a few hundred bucks and go with the LM-1. But right now they're still fairly separate products. ⁓ I put the SC4 Pro kind of in the Rapsodo MLM2 Pro, Garmin R10, the Rainmaker, like those are all kind of similar because they have simulator access. They have a few extra features. They're giving you some extra data. Most of those have spin data, for instance. The LM-1 I feel like is kind of targeting a different person. It's someone who's not trying to do sim golf. They just want some basic numbers. Maybe they're hesitant about spending a bunch of money on a launch monitor. So I feel like it's almost like a gateway drug into the launch monitor world. It's like you spend 200 bucks. ⁓ You know, if you spend that, you decide to upgrade or move to something else, you're probably going to, especially these days where it's hard to keep in stock ⁓ for as popular as it is, you're probably gonna be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it. But I don't necessarily look at it as a threat. In some ways I look at it as a benefit because ⁓ It's getting more people into this accessible launch monitor world at a price point that's reasonable and I think there's going to be some people that are like, ⁓ this is great, but now, okay, I'm ready for something that can do a little bit more. And so I'm curious to see if ShotScope expands this device or if they roll out, you know, a higher end device over the next couple of years to kind of capitalize on the people that did get brought into this world through that product. Yeah. Daniel from from all that Sean said are you you agreeing with him? Are you are you seeing any any holes that that ⁓ that maybe need to be filled in here regarding kind of state of the the industry at the moment? I I think he the nail right on the head ⁓ You know, I'm I'm particularly intrigued by the by the rainmaker also ⁓ because I think a lot of consumers even even including myself like When I buy a brand of something, try to continue on and invest in that brand if I have a good experience. And I think Blue Teas can really capitalize on that. Because a lot of their other products have been successful. I look everywhere at the golf course when I play, and their speaker is everywhere. People have their range finders because they're at a great price, and they perform pretty well overall. ⁓ So I think that they have a great opportunity here. Obviously, the biggest part of it is going to be accuracy. ⁓ It's a really unique device. Again, it has a built in screen. It's going to be able to do some golf simulation and it sounded like ⁓ they're going to make their own simulation type software within the app as well, which is going to be really cool. ⁓ So I'm just intrigued, obviously, by all of that. yeah, mean, yeah, the Omni has been so crazy popular. ⁓ The reviews early have been really promising. I think if you're going to use it with GS Pro, it's kind of a no brainer. But I think if you want something that's a practice tool, it might still have you searching for more with their software. So that's kind of where I'm at with it. And obviously their support, you know, if the build quality isn't going to last a long time from the outside, it looks great. But who knows how long, you know, it'll perform for. That's where, you know, if you get into a customer support scenario, maybe you might be reconsidering. But Yeah, I think it's a great year. I think we talked about a little bit off air beforehand. You know, it's a great year for golf technology. Again, there's a lot of new products. And it seems like everybody is kind of trying to advance and make it cheaper at the same time. So in a world where everything seems to be getting more expensive, and everything seems to be more difficult to get the world of launch monitors has become easier to obtain, which is kind of rare when you look around the world at other products. That's for sure. That's for sure. One last thing I wanna add on that because I think this is going to be an important piece to it all is hardware costs have come way down. So we're seeing the Rainmaker 600 bucks, the original Square 699, 799, Omni under $2,000. It's clear that costs are coming down for hardware, but all of these products need software to support it. And I feel like that's where things are gonna get interesting. Blue T is being a great example. The new Captain Pro, I think is the best value rangefinder out there. 7X optics, dual color OLED, really good glass, really fast, ⁓ has all the like, you know, smart data, pairs with the app. But the app experience with it has, for me personally, at this point has left a little bit to be desired. I've not had a great experience with the app, ⁓ even though the hardware has been excellent. And so... that's where you start to wonder. It's like, okay, how is the app going to perform with the launch model? How is the, you know, how is Square's app going to, you know, perform? Cause you know, Square, for instance, I imagine they're, you know, more factory based. They're, you know, over in Asia, you know, they were probably a manufacturer beforehand decided to come up with their own product and here we go. But they weren't necessarily software developers. And you're curious, are they just going to try and put out a whole bunch of hardware and then... not support the software in a way that is useful and meaningful. I'm really encouraged by Blue Tees because they have big teams. They've obviously pumped a whole bunch of money into this ecosystem. So I think the app is going to get worked out there. ⁓ How is it going to work for Square? How is it going to continue to evolve for a company like VoiceCaddy? ⁓ Even Garmin, huge multi-billion dollar company has done very limited updates to the software experience in their golf app. And so I think that's one of the most overlooked things when it comes to a lot of these products is how is the software going to integrate? Is it going to be updated? Is it going to continue to improve? And are you going to be able to get support on it? And if you can't do any of those things, then that makes even a great looking and great, you know, using piece of hardware makes it a little bit tougher to recommend. And I feel like that's one of those things that often people kind of overlook when it comes to some of these products. Awesome points. Exactly the kind of insight and kind of differentiating thoughts. that you get at Breaking 80. So thank you for sharing that. ⁓ You touched on range finders. You've used the Captain Pro. Hit us with a couple of your favorite range finders maybe for various scenarios. For somebody that does want to interface with the app, Captain Pro offers an incredible opportunity, right? Yep. So right now, my favorite range finder that's come out this year is probably the Captain Pro. It's got all those features and I think that it's going to continue to get better as they improve that software experience. But even if you don't use any of the smart features, you know, you can pick it up after discounts. It's like 299 retail. You can find it for like 270. ⁓ That is an incredible rangefinder for what you get. The voice caddy TL one, which is kind of in that same price point that's been out for a few years now. Also excellent ⁓ and continues to be kind of a go-to if you just want a standard rangefinder. The one I've been personally using the most is the Arcos. That's not the right fit for everybody, but it does enhance the Arcos experience, being able to automatically set the pin. So you're getting more accurate approach data, you're getting more accurate putting data. And if you're not familiar, what Arcos does is, you know, the rangefinder pairs with the app. And as soon as you shoot the flag, it will mark exactly where the flag is on the green so that it knows you hit your approach to 20 feet and you made a 20 foot putt or you three putted from 20 feet. So it gives you that accurate, accurate data. So I think that that's excellent for Arcos users in a similar vein. I think the Garmin Z30 is still like magic where it pairs with a Garmin watch. And so you can shoot the flag and it'll tell you exactly how many yards from the front and how many yards from the back of the pin or from the, how many yards from the front, the back of the pin from the green, pin is, excuse me. ⁓ And the way that works is pretty cool. And then instantaneously, it'll send that data to your Garmin watch. So it'll show you exactly how far away you are from the pin and then it will adjust as you go up ⁓ and follow the hole. So if you shoot it at 167 yards, you walk up and you're 40 yards away, it will adjust for that. And so that's, that rangefinder is very impressive if you are a Garmin user. ⁓ From a total budget perspective, I still think the ShotScope ⁓ Pro L2. It's kind of my best recommendation on the full budget spectrum. You can usually find that for under $130 sometimes closer to like 110 not the best rangefinder in the world by any means But first, know kind of the cheapest one that's still pretty accurate and still works pretty well That's one of my go-to recommendations. How about someone? How about something a little less lesser known in in a pretty cutting-edge? You had a great review on the the miles II their their flagship ⁓ rangefinder, gene pro gene pro G one. miles. He kind of came out of nowhere where it's like, again, this is similar to square or voice caddy where there were a manufacturer beforehand decided to go direct to consumer. ⁓ and my impression of them was always like, ⁓ it's like, you know, cheap Amazon rangefinders. And I think that for a long time, that's kind of what they were. ⁓ but then they released, you know, the gene pro G one. and it's a hybrid rangefinder. So really good laser, really good glass, really fast, really accurate, but has a built-in screen so you can keep score. You can get GPS yardages. It pairs with the app. ⁓ Again, perfect example of what we were just talking about. How are they going to improve that, support that? Is the app experience going to get better? Remains to be seen, but that rangefinder provides a ton of value. And again, even if you just want to use it as a regular rangefinder, it works really well. ⁓ They proved they weren't a one hit wonder when they released their new Gene Sonic speaker. ⁓ The blue T speaker has always been one of my favorites. ⁓ You know, realistically has been my favorite. It has been my biggest recommendation. The thing miles is doing different and it's a different price point. It's a hundred dollars more expensive retail, but it has a GPS unit built in. So you don't have to pair it with your phone if you don't want it to. And it also has a removable screen. So if you've got your GPS, if you've got your speaker on a golf cart, you can take that screen off, put it in your pocket, walk out to your ball in the middle of the fairway and see exactly from that point, you know, how far your shots are. And that extra usability ⁓ aspect to it ⁓ really does enhance the experience. And that's using technology in a way that really does improve things as opposed to ⁓ just kind of doing it because you can, doing it for like, you know, kind of gimmick sake. So. So yeah, are you a music on the golf course guy? And if so, ⁓ what percentage of rounds? ⁓ Probably 50 50 depends on the group with Daniel. What about you? I'm 100 % every every time I play the guys I play with ⁓ like to play it and and I'm I'm all for it. I think it actually avoids if someone coughs or sneezes or something, you don't even realize it's happening in your backswing or something. But yeah, there's always some Jimmy Buffett playing down here and speakers. Yeah, Daniel's got always somewhere near a margarita probably living. Yeah. Sean, you like a margarita as well. ⁓ Sean, ⁓ for all of these incredible Renaissance man things that he's done ⁓ also people may not know dabbled in a cocktail ⁓ review website as well called Slightly Pretentious. ⁓ think you kind of put that on pause for now, but ⁓ at a quest to visit the top 100 bars in the world, shared a lot of really cool cocktail recipes, techniques, ⁓ various ⁓ bartenders and history and all kinds of really, really interesting stuff that just kind of speaks to you just continuing to kind of follow your passions. ⁓ just a quick yet another applaud for Goshawn. Yeah, that was kind of my that turned into kind of my COVID project with, you know, growing that site out. ⁓ But one of the things I've learned is when I travel, I like to find unique ways to experience places. I think that's what's one of the things that's so cool about golf is like the first real golf trip I ever took was a road trip, mostly by myself through Wisconsin and Northern Michigan. And I found myself out at Forest Dunes, which is an unbelievable golf course, kind of in the middle of nowhere. And you're like, I would have never been here were it not for golf. And you see all these places that... you wouldn't have seen otherwise. And I think bars are an interesting way to do that in more of an urban environment. So it's like, if you go to Paris, you know, yeah, it's cool to go see, you know, Versailles and the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. And I want to do those things. But also, last time I was there, there were five top 100 in the world bars. And so that takes you to neighborhoods you wouldn't necessarily see. You try drinks that like, you can't imagine the flavors that you would have had. It's like, these are things you would never expect to taste in liquid form. you know, sit at the bar, you talk to the bartenders, they give you other local recommendations for where to go see, you talk to locals, you talk to other people that are traveling, and it's just really provided a cool way to see other cities to go deep on another hobby of mine. And so it's been been a lot of fun. And so, you know, on the most, you know, at its peak, I'd gotten to 61 of the top 100 on the list that was kind of right before COVID. So now that I've had a kid and breaking 80s taken off, even more, you know, we're We're sliding on that one a little bit, but it's still fun to go to when I travel. Yeah, it just kind of speaks to the overarching kind of ⁓ premise of your whole approach, which has really been experiential. in ⁓ kind of in the pursuit of a story, ⁓ accumulating experiences and trying to live a colorful, interesting life, I guess. So if you're able to also make a living doing it. God bless. That's really awesome. That's what I've said for years. was like, person who wins at the end of the day is the person who's accumulated the most stories. It's like, you that's, you just want to live a life interesting enough to, you know, be able to share stories and tell things. And, you know, that's kind of been one of my kind of founding ideas, you know, with everything I do. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Let's quickly hit on ⁓ golf watches and or GPS devices, anything standing out there ⁓ current or recently passed. ⁓ Yeah. So I mean, there's all sorts, you know, of, of devices out there. I'll say I wear the, you know, Garmin Phoenix eight, you know, I wear this 80 % of the time. If I'm not wearing a watch, Daniel's got one too. Absolutely. There you go. Absolutely. Love it. You know, for a holistic, um, track all of your fitness, all of your health, your sleep. Um, you know, if you want to use it for smartwatch features, you know, it's got the built in, you know, microphone, you can do calls, which some of the other Garmin watches you're not able to do. I think that's wonderful. you know, the, just reviewed the Garmin J one this week, the kids golf watch, which kind of surprised me, you know, it's very niche. It's not going to be for everybody, but I thought it was actually a pretty cool way to give kids some agency over their round of golf. ⁓ my daughter's a little young for it, but I think about with the personal forward teas where it'll set GPS tee boxes based on how far you hit it. ⁓ for my daughter to be able to control the round of golf in a few years where she's like, dad, our tee boxes were right here. and be able to kind of take control of that as opposed to me leading her around the golf course. I think that's pretty interesting. ⁓ But ⁓ yeah, Garmin in general, when it comes to interesting GPS products, I feel like they're, you they rolled out the G82, which is half high end ⁓ GPS half launch monitor. ⁓ I think it's the only launch monitor that's maybe a little bit feasible to take with you out on the course. And that was kind of, you know, those are two products that were both released at the same time. You're like, huh, didn't see either of those coming. like interesting niche products, but for the right person, really do fill a need and kind of a hole in the market. And then the, mild sea speaker, that was the other one, you know, as far as the GPS product that has the, you know, that, you know, GPS chip built into the speaker. think that's fairly revolutionary in that world. And you know, really enhances the experience. So those are kind of a few things that are on my mind from GPS perspective. Great highlights for sure. ⁓ like to hear from both of you guys about just kind of thoughts of where golf tech goes from here. And I know that none of us have a crystal ball. I should say, ⁓ Sean, you've now been in this space for a long time. ⁓ If I had to ask you this question five years ago, ⁓ it's doubtful that you could have predicted all that we're seeing currently, right? mean, it's just it's just incredible. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. So so likewise. ⁓ not asking for an accurate prediction of what things are going to look like in the future, but just generally speaking, where we are now, where do you see things heading? Is there anything that jumps to mind as a category that's overdue for disruption or how AI plays into everything? And just any thoughts that come to mind? Yeah, so there's two specific things that come to mind. You know, the first is women's golf. ⁓ you know, there is as more women are looking to play and starting to play, there is a huge, ⁓ disproportion of information out there for female golfers. And so I think that, you know, there's going to be, there are going to be, you know, women out there that are going to, you know, say, call it, create the breaking 80 for women golfers where it's like focusing on reviews, focusing on a women's perspective. I think there's a big opportunity for that. You know, I've kind of explored, it's like finding the right person to. You know, kind of help. Obviously it's tough for me to review from that, that perspective. Um, but looking for the right person that can maybe help with, know, some of those things to feature more of that. I'm breaking 80. Um, as my wife's been playing more golf, we've talked about ways to get her involved and things like that. So I think that that's one area that very clearly there's a big opportunity. Um, the second is a much broader, you know, there's a lot of different ways you can go with it, but it's just how is AI going to continue to disrupt the industry? Like I said, I think that it's going to, um, disrupt in some ways that are wildly useful in some ways that are really gimmicky and you're going to kind of have everything in between. But one thing that, you know, I've been thinking about that's, you know, it's golf adjacent, ⁓ but I'll tie this back in. There's an app called Bevel. Have you guys heard of this? It's kind of a fitness tracking app. So it originally came out so that Apple watch users could get similar information to what say like Garmin users could get. ⁓ but now they integrate with Garmin. and it takes all of your information, ⁓ know, all of your health data, all your fitness data, you can put in your blood work. You can do, it's got like a nutrition thing, so you can take photos and it'll tell you exactly what you're doing, ⁓ you know, what all your macros are and all of that type of stuff. gives you so much data, but then it has an AI that is one of the best AI tools I've ever seen. There's kind of four different personas. So you can pick if you want someone that's going to be gruff and honest or kind of, you know, friendly and encouraging or somewhere in between. But you can go in and I can say, hey, based on this run that I did in my diet today, what do you recommend I do for the rest of the day? Or based on my fitness trends or my health trends, how do you think I should play out this next week from an exercise standpoint or whatever it might be? I can be like, give me a chart of this data. If it doesn't have it built in, it will create one. And so I look at that and that's, I've been using this for like a month now and it has been a game changer. It's like so elevated the Garmin data I get and the experience like it's truly next level. ⁓ I could see somebody doing something like that for golf where it's like, okay, you're taking all of your round data. You're taking, you know, videos of your swing and being able to analyze, you know, that, ⁓ and we're seeing bits and pieces of it here and there. feel like Arcos is kind of on the verge of that with, ⁓ some of the statistics. You know, we see some like instruction apps where, you know, they'll take a video of your swing and be able to give you advice. Um, I think that there's a world where we're going to see more of that. I think we're going to see it more tightly integrated, um, so that some of these ecosystems, as we've talked about it, become a one-stop shop for everything. Um, and the people that can do that thoughtfully, um, in a way that's a really good user experience, that's really frictionless. Uh, I think they're going to have a big leg up. So I think that's one area where I kind of see, you know, some evolutions happening in the coming years. Yeah, great comments. ⁓ Daniel, any thoughts or piggybacks on that? I know you're a big fan of ⁓ the upcoming Amy software from Unicore, ⁓ things like that. ⁓ Where do you see things going from here? Yeah, I think that that type of stuff with AI can be can be super interesting. Obviously, as we've learned, you know, AI is still pretty young. So it makes a lot of mistakes still. So, ⁓ you know, trusting it in a golf swing might be tough for for better golfers for a little while. But I definitely would love to see how well that or how much that improves or takes off in the next few years. But like kind of like Sean said, like one thing I it's probably more of a want than maybe and maybe a hope than maybe what I think will happen. But I would love to see, like you said, Sean, where some of these ecosystems become more of a community thing, where I'm just thinking of my experience alone. ⁓ Me and Mark have been testing the Arcos rangefinder and the air system quite a bit over the last month or so. And I've come to learn that in the group of guys we play with on Saturday mornings, ⁓ there's like 12 of the 16 guys that have Arcos in their bags or have used it before. So there's quite a few guys that have used it or are using it. it's like I'm now designated to be in the first group every week, which is great. But it's mainly because I have the rangefinder. And when I shoot the pin on all of their apps, the pin is already set for them. So that way, they don't have to try to figure out where that is. And so my mind starts thinking, OK, it's keeping my score. I would love to be able to add everybody in my group. We can have all the skins game done before we get in. ⁓ you know, I think of like the Grint app where you can pop up a chat box and talk crap to each other during the round, like even if you're not playing at the same time as them. So it's like there's these little things where I think they could make, you know, obviously, you don't want to be on your phone the entire time you're playing. But just like having those little pieces of it being like a one stop app for everything, I think would be really cool. ⁓ And that comes down again, Sean, like the software side of things, we want everything to be perfect, it probably never will be. ⁓ But I do think something where you can maybe not have to go through three different things to get what you want out of it would be really cool. ⁓ That's kind of my thoughts. That's something I've wanted for a long time. even, in my time at FlightScope, that's one thing I actually requested was to try to mimic the Grint app and pair with that with their i4 rangefinder and try to make it into a golfers only app where they don't have to go through all of this. You know, that's just I've always wanted that and I've been a big user of the Grint app for a long time just because I like to talk crap to my friends when I'm not playing golf with them. Yeah, I love to get the notifications of guys making three putt pars and stuff and then I can, you know, wait for them to come around on 15 and make sure I know that I saw it, you know, and stuff like that. So I just think it grows the community it allows because not you can't always play with your friends all the time. So I just think it's it's a fun and unique way to to interact with each other, which I think would be really cool. And I think you really, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt Mark. ⁓ I think you just hit on a really important point as like AI and tech are advancing and people are spending more time in their phones and more time on the tech. You know, the thing we really need more of and the thing we want more of is community. We want to be with our friends. We want to like, you know, talk about stuff when we're off the golf course. We want to give each other crap. We we all want that. And I feel like there's ways to do it, but there's a lot of room for improvement that could bring a lot more people together. And so I guess that might be the third evolution that I'd like to see that I think is going to happen is figuring out some of those community aspects where it's like people are really rallying around their own golf communities and able to use technology to enhance that as opposed to something that becomes solitary or gets in the way. I even think like, you know, you've got a group of guys and it's keeping score and you pull up to the tee box. ⁓ You know, Sean has hit shot to three feet. See if you can beat that. It almost like it creates this challenge within it too, which would be really cool. There's so many ways you could go about it for sure. Lots of opportunities on the indoor side for all of these same ideas and concepts, right? To kind of bridge that solo pursuit of playing golf in your garage to a community. know, there's still a lot of improvement and ⁓ ground to be made up in that regard. So yeah, great stuff, great ideas guys. Thank you for sharing those thoughts. ⁓ Daniel, ⁓ let's fire a couple of rapid fire questions at Sean, get a couple of ⁓ his quick takes here. ⁓ You wanna hit them with a couple? Yeah, so I know we kind of touched on a few of them. I'll, kind of, this is something that is opposite of what we just talked about. ⁓ But what's the growing trend that you actually wish would just disappear? especially like golf technology wise, is there something that's catching on that you're like, this is stupid, just stop. Yeah, yes. And this also kind of goes against what I said about the ecosystem. But I feel like one of the more gimmicky aspects of this are the rangefinder launch monitor integrations where it's like, okay, I can go and I can get my launch monitor stats. And then in the rangefinder, it's going to give me a club recommendation. ⁓ Lots of brands are doing this now. ⁓ some integrating it better than others. I feel like for most golfers, that's not actually that helpful. There's so many extra variables that are on the golf course. And some of those do take that into account. They have smart distances and give you, you know, adjust for wind and all that stuff. But in, in reality, that feels like one of those things that's like little gimmicky kind of, you know, trying to create a solution for a problem that doesn't necessarily exist. ⁓ So again, helpful for some people, but I think that, you know, that's one of those, you know, trends that I'm seeing where it's like, yeah, that's, it's kind of cool, but I haven't seen an implementation of it I was like, ⁓ my gosh, you have to have this. Like this changes everything. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. And I know we talked about ⁓ most underrated, you know, products, stuff like that, but it seems like in today's golf world, like you everybody wants a launch monitor or everybody has a rangefinder. And if they don't, you know, it feels like they're, they're losing strokes. They're friends that do. ⁓ but is there a glaring piece of technology where you think, okay, every golfer will have this in 10 years? ⁓ is it, is it that simple or is it still going to be, yeah, some people have it and some people don't. And that's just the way it's always going to be. I honestly, it's like, Golf has been around for hundreds of years and it's like technology is enhancing it, but I feel like everybody experiences golf so differently. everybody wants varying levels of tech. Some people want all the tech and some people want absolutely none of it. And so I don't know that there's ever going to be that thing that everybody has. There's certainly things that are going to see more adoption. You know, we're seeing more and more people using electric caddies, um, you know, kind of electric push cart type deals that are seen more of that. We're seeing more people that are using GPS watches. You know, most people have a rangefinder these days. Like, you know, that's probably the thing that is like the most obvious answer. It's like, yeah, most people will probably have a rangefinder of some sort. But I feel like most, you know, pretty hardcore golfers already do. But I don't necessarily see anything that's floating out there where it's like, yes, everybody is going to have this. This is going to completely change how we interface with golf because everybody interfaces with golf in such a different and unique way. And for many of those people, this is their ability to get away from tech and get away from a screen and just enjoy being outside and enjoy being with community. So I don't know that there's anything like that that's on my radar, at least. Yeah. I think that's what I love about Arcos Air and the philosophy behind it is I can stick the fob in my pocket. And if I don't want to look at my phone for five holes, I don't have to. Exactly. And hit shots. And then maybe if I'm waiting on the group in front of me three or four five holes down the road, I can jump in and say, OK, yeah, that was good. That's good. You know, that's one thing I've been trying to get away from and just more focus on golf. So ⁓ yeah, totally agree with you there. again, there are products that can allow you to do that with still getting the data, which I think is really cool. Totally. Sean, what's the best course you've played in the last 12 months? ⁓ I played Pine Valley a couple of weeks ago. So I got to go play that three times. it was, I've been telling people, it's like, I was like, there's no way it's going to live up to expectations. Like expectations were so high, sky high, there's no way it could meet them. And it met and exceeded everything. is unequivocably, if you're just looking at the golf course itself, it's the best golf course in the world. Like there is not a bad hole out there by any means. Speaking of great golf courses, the PGA is at Arana Mink, of course, this week. I think this will be releasing on a Thursday or Friday. So the tournament is now underway. ⁓ Sean, you've played, we asked you right before we went on air, ⁓ have you played Ironimink? I knew that you had. said twice. So tell us just a little bit, give us a little tease for the Donald Ross masterpiece that is Ironimink and what kind of viewers can expect to see when they tune in. Yeah, so it is top five, if not top three most well-manicured golf courses I have ever played in my life. Like it is so perfect. And the fact, as I understand it, the course has been closed to all play since November. ⁓ So members have not been able to play. they, like it is going to be the most dialed, well-manicured course like you could possibly see. ⁓ The rough, when the rough gets grown up out there, like it's thick, it's gnarly. I'm really curious to see how far they take in the fairways. ⁓ You know, you could make this a US Open level course in terms of difficulty if you wanted to. And I'm curious to see how far PGA pushes it. ⁓ But it's going to be a fun one to watch. There's so much history at that course. It's so cool. It's going to be beautiful ⁓ to watch on TV. And I'm curious to see what happens. Can you give us a winner, please? Only a winner. We don't want anyone but a winner. I'm going with Rory. Look at the confidence that he's had this season. ⁓ I ⁓ think he's going to pull it out. We'll see. What about you two? Daniel, you got something? ⁓ I mean, as much as I'd like Rory and or Brooks Koepka to win, ⁓ I'm going to pick Jordan Spieth just because I'd like to see someone win a career Grand Slam again. I think that'd be a cool storyline. Plus, he's been playing some good golf this year. I think I think he's kind of due for for getting back into the major championship winning circle. I like also somebody playing playing well, both he and his brother. But I'm going to Met Fitzpatrick. our guy, our guy here, we've talked a lot about ⁓ about him and his obsession with ⁓ golf tech and stat tracking. And ⁓ he seems like he should be sponsoring the show by this point, but new driver in the bag this week. So, all right. His driver his driver cracked last Saturday or Friday or something. Yeah. All right. all right. Well, the pick is out there regardless. So cool. ⁓ Last question, Sean, your go-to cocktail order at a great bar, not including whatever house specials they may have, but your standard go-to. Yeah, so if I'm at one of these top 100 bars, I will always order something off the menu, because usually those are ones they've spent months, if not years, pouring their creativity and soul into. So you want to experience that version of it. If I'm just going with the standard classic cocktail, I usually go with an old-fashioned ⁓ you know that if you're at a place like that, it's going to be pretty good. So that's kind of my go-to drink, I'll almost always order off the menu given the opportunity. And if I'm going to a resort or, you know, private club, always try and see, do you have something special? Do you have a signature drink? Is there something that, you know, I can only get here that I can't get anywhere else? And so those are always, you know, fun and make for good stories. Great answer. Real last question. One golf course that you haven't yet played, not including Augusta National, ⁓ what's one course that you really, really want to get to? I mean, there's so many of them. But we'll go with an obscure answer. This would be top five. ⁓ Wade Hampton in the mountains of North Carolina. I don't know what it is about that course. I always love a mountain golf course. ⁓ perfectly manicured, like high-end fazios are always kind of fun to play, but there's something specific about that place that has just been on my radar that I've wanted to see forever. And so, you know, that's the, I don't know if that's the absolute number one, but it's certainly up there on the list and probably wouldn't have been the answer you were expecting. So we'll give you that one. Yeah, it wasn't, but of course you've played all the other, you've played everything. Not quite, but we've made some progress. We've gotten around. Yeah. Well, this was a lot of fun. We could do several episodes with Sean and not even really scratch the full surface of the interesting life that he's led up to this point. And I just really appreciate, how you've always kept it very genuine and you've always remembered your friends, including us. And just a really good guy to know. I'm really honored to call you a friend ⁓ and really appreciate you being on the show with us. Dude, it's my pleasure. Thank you guys so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and ⁓ hope we can do it again at some point. That sounds great. Find Sean at Breaking80.com as well as Breaking80 on YouTube. ⁓ You'll find a ton of amazingly good, relatable, very transparent, very genuine, very honest content. He's got ⁓ a newsletter as well you can subscribe to at the Breaking80 site. So certainly would encourage anyone that's interested in. any of the things that we've talked about, do definitely check him out. ⁓ again, Sean, thank you. Daniel, you're going to be locked in for ⁓ the PGA, I know. ⁓ We'll be texting on the side, I'm sure. So enjoy that view. Yeah, thanks, Mark. It's going to be a fun week. Major week is always some of the best time of the year. We only get four of them. So I'm looking forward to it. Exactly. Lock in. All right, great. Well, guys, thank you so much, everyone watching and listening. Really appreciate you joining us. Please do join us again next week for more Golf Tech. You have been listening to Golf Tech Weekly presented by Play Better. Thank you.