Latest / Putting Is Fun / He Needed a Baseball Bat. Golf Got Him Instead. | Putting Is Fun Ep. 1

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He Needed a Baseball Bat. Golf Got Him Instead. | Putting Is Fun Ep. 1 · Putting Is Fun

• speaker-1: For an Arnold Palmer blade or a classic John Rooter You can find your Santa, be a straight shooter Train yourself to respect the three footer Bring out your Scotty or that new fango lab. Your time rolling putts will surely be fab. Putt, putt, putt is just like it seems. You can drift away and chill in a dream. Putt with your rose can soak up the sun-free vitamin D is good for everyone. I'm just spitting facts. Putting is fun. speaker-0: Hello folks, Brian Manzella and the nice John. The white hat, the black shirt. So putting is fun. I think everybody who's ever tried it knows that putting can be fun. That's the approach that we intend to take with this show. We intend to embrace the fun parts of putting and you know, ⁓ We realize it can be maddening and not fun at times, but it's a mindset and this show basically is a mindset. So really quick, we wanna introduce ourselves and we'll start with the putting guru of the two, Mr. Ortega, tell the folks a little bit about yourself. speaker-1: Well, I'm a guy that started golf when I was 12. It's kind of late for today, but that's when I started. I got into the game because I needed a baseball bat of all things. Yeah. Yeah. So I was at the boys club playing basketball. That was my game, even though I'm not particularly tall, I was a basketball player and I was telling one of the guys there, guy named Hector Garcia, said, Hey, I really need this bat. And my dad won't buy it for me. He goes, well, you can go up to the country club and carry bags and you'll get $6. speaker-0: Yo speaker-1: and a hot dog at the turn and you you can earn the money for the bat that way. speaker-0: Which club was this, of course? speaker-1: Hacienda Country Club in the Haber Heights. It has some history. think Tiger Woods shot nothing there when he was in high school and they've had some really good players come out of there. But any case, so I ended up caddying for this guy named Van Cleave and he owned a ⁓ furniture manufacturing company and he was not a very good golfer and not a very nice man. so I didn't like golf because golf would be... Auntie or I'd be watching a football game and they said, we got to end this football, this football broadcast to go to the golf. I'm like, okay, this is a stupid game. So when I went up and caddied for Van Cleave, he confirmed that golf was a stupid game. Just hated it. You know, just, so I caddied his bag two times. He had a real heavy bag, a bunch of golf balls, terrible golfer. It's like, okay, this, game is just terrible. So I just needed one more time out. That's it. And then I got my bat. So I ended up getting paired with this guy named Bob Johnson and Bob Johnson. looked like a cross between Phil Silver's and Ben Hogan and looking back and I didn't know this at the time, but his swing was like Ben Hogan's too. So had a flat swing, a lot of lag. ⁓ He played golf at USC, off the first he hits it in the woods to the left. I'm like, ⁓ here we go again. And then the second shot, he bended it around and hit it on the green. could tell it was something that was like skillful. Like, ⁓ man, this is cool. So he ended up shooting maybe 74 and at the time he was middle 60s, but he made it look easy. He was a super nice guy. And so just sold me on the game. So then I started playing caddies, you know, the caddy day on Friday with Hector and some other people. And then, you know, I got to the point where I was going out to long. speaker-0: Friday's was Caddy Day? speaker-1: Friday was caddy day in the morning. Yeah. So we'd play golf and kind of got a little bit better. I was a decent athlete. So I picked up the game, you know, I wouldn't say I was great right away, but you know, I can hit a ball, make it go in a direction, went reasonably far. And I just started liking the game as I, as I improved. And then, like I said, I was a basketball player. wasn't a whole lot of golf being played during the school year at the school that I went to, we didn't have a golf team. So I would, I would play on the weekends maybe, but then when summer would come, I golfed a lot. And so. By the time I was a senior in high school, I'd really caught in the bug badly or good, I should say. Started working at the country club and honing my skills. And the whole time I was interested in golf theory and golf instruction, even though back then it was probably not that good, looking back on it. But that's kind of how I got involved in the game because I needed a baseball bat. So had I not needed a baseball bat, you and I wouldn't be talking right now. I can tell you that for sure. speaker-0: I'm glad you needed a bath. Did you ever get the bath? speaker-1: I did. It was an Adirondack and it was a 31. Yeah. I don't know if they're making bats anymore. Probably not. But the cool thing about this bat, it had a little bit thinner handle like the big boys, know, the little league bats that were shorter, you know, they had like a thicker handle. So this one had a smaller handle and the barrel wasn't any bigger, but it kind of seemed like it was because it had the thin handle. speaker-0: I this company, Adirondack. speaker-1: And I think it was the second bat or second game that I was using this bat that I got fisted and I broke it. was like, ⁓ so, speaker-0: So how did you go from working at a country club, like, you know, everybody that I know that ever wound up as a golf pro sort of had a similar deal where they worked at the course, they parked cars. I parked cars when I was 13, you know, I picked up balls when I was 17 or 18. and then you, but how did you make the transition from working at the country club to becoming a- golf teacher for a living. speaker-1: I was working at a course called Fullerton Golf Course in Fullerton, California, and I was parking carts and picking up the range. And at that time, I think I was in my early 20s, maybe 22, 23 years old. I had already gotten to the point where I chatted around par about maybe a little bit under par when I played well. And I'd taken lessons and I studied golf swings. I was just really into it. But I was parking carts and picking up range balls. But one of the pros there, he and a general manager there decided they were going to start dipping into the till. so they could support their drug habit. And so they fired them, and they needed somebody to teach the group lessons. the GM of, or the regional manager, he asked me, said, hey, do think you could teach these group lessons? And said, how much does it pay? And he said, $12 an hour. I was making it $3 an hour at that time. So how old? I think I was 23. speaker-0: at the time? So you didn't play college golf? speaker-1: No, I played community college golf and then when I transferred to Cal State Fullerton, they were disbanding the team and the coach wasn't interested in taking somebody on. So that's fine. But in any case, I started teaching the group lessons and I enjoyed it and the people were getting better. I'm like, hey, I'm not too bad at this. And then as I was giving lessons, people would drive by on the carts and say, hey, you teach here? I'm like, yeah, I do. So that's how it started. I was thrust into it because a couple guys were, you little hanky panky with the cash register and here I am. speaker-0: What a story. How long before you were just teaching, you know, and not having a, you know, guard titleist or any of those things that you do when you work in golf and they give you a clinic or a couple of lessons? speaker-1: How long was it before I became like a full-time teacher? that what you're asking? speaker-0: Yeah, like how long did you do the club part of it, you know, the club pro type part, assistant pro type part before you went into full time teaching? speaker-1: The way it worked out was I was teaching at the course, doing part time, giving a lesson here and there. And by the way, the first kid that I ever coached, his name was Chris Tidland, he became a tour player. And I think, he worked really hard and was really very talented, but when people ask me, how come you think you're very good at this thing? And I'm like, well, the first kid I ever coached became a tour player. And I've got a kid right now that I've worked with since he's eight. He's a pretty good tour player too, right? So I don't know what I have to offer some people, how do you do it? I'm like, I don't know, I just do it. I just look for things that look normal and encourage kids to practice hard. And of course I really encourage them to practice putting and both of those guys are amazing putters. Jake's really, really good putter. I think it was maybe right around 30 that I started teaching full, full, full time because I was working at Roger Dunn's. It's an off course golf course or excuse me, shop. Yes. World ride golf. Yes. So I think I started there right around age 24 or five. speaker-0: famous golf shop and worldwide golf. speaker-1: And I was there for five years. That kind of ended abruptly because the girls at the cash register, we weren't supposed to date and I dated a few of them. And the guy that owned the shop, he wanted to date the girls. So I made the cardinal's sin of dating the girls that he wanted to. speaker-0: Night putting is fun. That's a different. speaker-1: Yeah, we did a little bit of night putting. I can't go into details. think when we get farther along is maybe we get more permission to get a little dirty. I could start sharing those stories, but for right now we'll keep it PG, right? So anyhow, so after that, I went to work at little Newport. It's called Newport Beach Golf Course. And that's where I met my wife. Public course? Yes. Yes. If you ever fly out of John Wayne Airport, you fly right over the top of the golf course. speaker-0: So, okay, so you get into golf, you work at the course, you become a teacher, you work an off course place, which I think explains a lot that the Roger Dunn thing, I knew you worked there for five minutes at some point, not for five years. So that explains a lot to me of you're club junkie like me, not just a putter junkie. So once you were teaching full time, you know, you were teaching full-time, like as probably an independent contractor of sorts. Did you always have business? I mean, or was it a struggle? speaker-1: In the beginning, I would probably give right around 20 hours worth of lessons because the course I was at, there were a lot of people going through there and it was very vibrant and 20 hours of lessons when you're just kind of kickstarting teaching full-time, not too bad. So I did that for a couple years and then I went to Costa Mesa and started working over there. And while I was working at Costa Mesa, was concurrently doing John Byron putters with Byron Morgan. By the way, I met Byron at. Roger Duns, because he used to come in and looking for classic clubs. We're going sideways here. speaker-0: So you can't gloss over this now. ⁓ So your work, your night putting, you go to the next course as a full-time teacher, you pick your lovely wife out of the hat, and you're given 20 lessons a week. And how exactly do you wind up in the putter making company selling putters? And of note, by the speaker-1: Yeah. funny you should ask. ⁓ Byron used to play golf every weekend with Scotty Cameron. I knew him as Scott Cameron, but he'd play with Scotty or Scott and his best friend named Blake. No, no, no, no. was at Los Serranos out in Chino. They used to use it for qualifying for the LA Open all the time. it was, was Scotty and Blake versus Byron. I forget what his buddy's name was. He owned a newspaper in Huntington beach. And so speaker-0: I did start. at which course, at the course you were. speaker-1: know, Scotty was working for ⁓ Ray Cook at the time. He was a salesman and he got into design by going to a guy named Byron Butler and they were working on the blue goose and some other designs. I remember. Right. the blue goose. speaker-0: The blue goose. What was the, just to remind me, was the blue goose a billed putter? speaker-1: Yes, it looked a lot like T.P. Mills, it had a flange to it. speaker-0: That's sort of what I remember. speaker-1: Yeah, the majority of them. I'm sure they made other ones later, but the ones that Scotty was involved with, at least designing, were those. So Scotty had gotten into it and Byron was really good at repairing clubs. He did a lot of woodwork, like wood woods, Tommy Armors, 693, M85s, all that, And he would collect, know, designs by Arnold Palmer's, Scottsdale Ping Answers, he ordered TP Mills's, you we were kind of... really fully entrenched in like the classic club market. A lot of the stuff that the guys on tour at that time were using, speaker-0: Give me a year now, where are we in this story? speaker-1: Ooh, time flies. I'm gonna see if I could make it somewhat accurate. I'd say it's probably like early 90s. Okay. Early 90s, right? So Byron, he proposed to me, he said, hey, know, we've done a couple deals together. used to buy tailor-made drivers that were steel shafted and we'd pull the shafts off the heads and we'd black chrome them and put like all dillish shafts in them. We made some money doing that kind of stuff. did. he goes, why don't we start making putters? I'm like, What are you talking about? said, well, know, Scotty who's working with this guy, Byron Butler and blah, blah, blah. And like, all right, well, I don't know, give it a go. You know, sounds good to me. I was young at the time and it just, you know, sound like a good, a good way to stretch out my mind and my abilities in golf. So I said, okay. And so we decided we're to make like a replica of a Scottsdale ping answer. So I went up over to a- speaker-0: wound up John Byron and Byron John sounds better. speaker-1: No, no, cause John Byron Nelson, Byron Nelson, was his name, John Byron Nelson. ⁓ And Byron was a big fan of Byron Nelson. you had John Byron, you know, just sounds better than Byron John. speaker-0: And you have a John and a Byron and run the company. speaker-1: Right, right. We were gonna make it like a dead copy of a Scottsdale Ping Answer. Nobody else was making it, even Steven Ping wasn't making it at the time. So I went to this foundry in, I think it was called Paramount, it's kind of near Long Beach. And the guy that was the head guy there, his name was Pete Sanchez, excuse me. And I went in and I said, hey, we got this idea, we're gonna make this Scottsdale Ping Answer, add a manganese bronze like they make it, because it sounds good, you know, feels good, that's what people want. He said, nah, no. He said, do that. I'm like, well, why not? And he said, you should make it out of carbon steel and milled the face and make it kind of like a TP mills. I'm like, oh, shoot, that's a lot better idea, right? So we made that and we are the first ones to make like a softer steel answer style putter. And Steve Pate won the San Diego Open before Cameron had a guy on tour with his putter. So we were off and running. we did that for, I don't know, Byron and I were probably together for eight years. from, let's call speaker-0: Okay, so eight years from the beginning to the end, where in the eight years was the height of John Byron Potter? speaker-1: Yes. Let's say probably late 90s, like 98 to 2000. speaker-0: But in the eight years, where was that like, you five years in four years in like in the middle speaker-1: If I understand your question correctly, where we started to see market, attention and sales are you talking about? Or are you talking about like, true use? speaker-0: I'll rephrase it. Y'all were together eight years making John Byron putters. Some point. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: I think I had one for a while. I knew people that had Bartlett knew about the putters. So we're all the way over here in New Orleans and we're fiddling around with putters and the putters are available and they're good and people like them. So when was the height of the company? When did the company market share of high-end putters? What was the best? Was it in the middle of the eight years that y'all hit y'all height? Because obviously at the end it probably wasn't going great. speaker-1: No, wasn't. Two Ball Putter just destroyed us. But I would say 98 was about the year. About then, we'd had some guys win on tour. Lee Trevino had won on tour. ⁓ Raymond Floyd had won on tour. speaker-0: To be no one with what head? speaker-1: It was called an MO1. was kind of like a blade, like a T.P. Mills looking thing. It was really nice, hardly any offset. And then Floyd, he won with the same model, but with huge offset. So we had two guys on the senior tour win, and then we had some good camera shots, like the warm camera. speaker-0: Did you go out to tournaments at that point like they do now and work to work to. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. We called it the Black Sea. ⁓ God, was the Black Sea. And I was probably a little too aggressive. Like we got some letters. going to, you got to your guy to like mellow out. Yeah. So I'd go out and I'd, you know, engage these guys, Trevino, Raymond Floyd, Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer. Arnold Palmer used one in the skin game. Just, you know, I'd just go out there and just hang with those guys and learn from them about putting too. speaker-0: At that point, were y'all bigger than Scotty? speaker-1: No, he, he, he leapfrogged us by leaps and bounds when, ⁓ Bernhard Langer, one of the masters with his answer copy. It's called it classic one. So at that point, speaker-0: before he was with Mizuno. speaker-1: I think it was about the same time. Because he was doing the reason Mizuno and he was doing Scotty Cameron putters, but he was stamping Mizuno on them because they were flying them around to the different tournaments. he was, yeah. Yeah. So, so when, he, hit that, ⁓ that home run, he, he left us in the dust. And then he got titleist's attention because his Darrell survey count got high enough and they were looking to, you know, supplant Ping as the number one putter on tour. So they had. I don't know, Steve Jones, ⁓ Corey Pavin, Lenny Clements, or a few other guys that were using bullseyes. So if they combined those putters with Cameron's putters, they were the number one putter on tour. So think they gave him like $4 million at that time, which was a lot of money, still is. And the rest is history. He's become a multimillionaire and I teach golf, which I'm glad. speaker-0: I remember when the deal was made, the two deals I've managed, as I've said in other podcasts, to make people famous and I have done less with myself. But the two business deals that I heard about that if I could have bought stock in them, I would have taken my own hard earned lesson money and plopped, know, $500 to $1,000 which... back in those days was a bunch. When Nike signed Tiger and when Titleist signed Scottie Cameron. Because they're just, the companies are so big and the product was so at, you know, needed, right? It wasn't that Scottie made a better putter. I'm sure you know that, I don't have to tell you that. just, build putters became a thing and he had a name. could have been you guys. So did y'all get any offers from any of these other companies to go make putters for them? speaker-1: That would be a yes. And it was from Spalding and that was before Callaway had purchased Spalding. So I had gotten a call, a guy named ⁓ Caesar Sinuto. You him? Played the tour? Yeah, he had a real nasally high voice. He hey John, there's gonna be a guy calling you. He's gonna say he's Lee Trevino. says, don't call him. Don't tell him he's full of shit. It's gonna be Lee Trevino. Lee Trevino's gonna call you and they wanna buy your company. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, Torb. speaker-1: I'm all right, so sure enough, I get a phone call, Lee Trivino is on the phone and you can recognize his voice, because I talked to him a couple of times and he's going, hey, I want to make you rich. I'm like, sounds good to me. So the guy that was going to do the deal with Spalding, I forget what his name was Goldstein or Goldberg, Gold something, I'm not being necessary, but it was one of those guys, the lawyer. And he told me, he said, hey, we want to buy you guys, kind of good story. We'll offer you what you think you need, what do you need? I'm like, I don't know. I didn't even think about selling this company. You it's like, you tell me, make me an offer and if it sounds good, we might have a deal. And he goes, well, we'll talk about it. We'll come down ⁓ Friday next week. All right. So in the meantime, he calls and Byron answers the phone. And Byron, sometimes he would say some things that weren't exactly what he should have been saying. Let's just go with that. And he told the guy that we wanted $4 million each. They'd given Cameron $4 million, not they had. ⁓ Titles given Cameron and Cameron's just flying right and ⁓ Spalding had given Hogan company four million dollars that included a forging foundry so the guy goes these guys are out to lunch and that was the end of it right so we had an opportunity but it was speaker-0: If you would have made the decision what would have been the number you would have taken a lot less speaker-1: Oh yeah, I think at the time based on our sales and our profitability, think a million, a little bit more than a million dollars would have been the correct number. If they had given us two million, that would have been better, but I think if they had offered us 1.2, but the other part was the guy said, Ian, if it doesn't work out, we'll give it back. And I was like, how can you lose that? But it didn't happen, and looking back, even though that was painful, mean, Honestly, I got depressed, because I worked 10 years my ass off. There some times I would sleep two hours a night, just getting things ready for a week. Sometimes I did that by myself. When that all blew up and we washed up on the beach with nothing, I was like, ⁓ my God, talk about, it's like me watching all my dogs getting hit by a car at the same time. You know how much I love my dogs, right? Super, super depressing. So went back to work at the course full time. The whole time I was doing John Byron, I was also working at the course and teaching. And so I went back to work at the course full-time. I started teaching and at first it was just. speaker-0: So that was sort of the beginning of the eventually y'all split up speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't wanna go into too many details. speaker-0: But how long, okay, so y'all split up and then how long did he keep making putters until he passed away? speaker-1: much to I think he died two or three years ago. And so, from 2001 until at least 2020 something. So he probably went on for 20 years. He made really good putters. He's a super skilled guy. And before we got into the business together, were really close. And when he passed, even though I kind of felt like I was mistreated and I was, I felt a lot of... ⁓ A lot of sympathy for his family and I felt like I lost a friend even though in the end we kind of had let's say 10 stimes. Yeah, so he did it for about 20 years and he mostly did ⁓ answer style putters, but he did other things. He did mallets and pretty creative and crafty guy. He was the more crafty of the two. I was probably the more creative of the two of us, but we were really good partnership. It was just one of those things where things went that way and If it didn't go that way, wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I never would have met you. I never would have met all the people that I've met ⁓ being a golf teaching pro. I look back and even though that was a painful experience, it was something that was best for me as it turned out. It was best. speaker-0: So, okay, so now you're back at Costa Mesa, you're teaching full time again, because you're not making putters, and how long before this eight-year-old kid, know, mama calls, or he comes and tugs on your shirt and says, I need a lesson. speaker-1: Yeah, okay. way that this happened, it was pretty cool. He and his brother. speaker-0: I know before you kind of just offhandedly threw Jake's name out there, but John, for the folks who are watching this and don't know either one of us or maybe don't know John because I feel like sometimes I'm everywhere and nowhere at the same time. John has been Jake's teacher, Jake Knapp, the famous Jake Knapp, age eight and he's now 29. speaker-1: AJ. No, 32, time applies. just looks, he looks really young cause he's in really good shape and he just has a young face. He's clean liver and he works out. speaker-0: So you're at coaster, how does this go down? speaker-1: Okay, so there was an evening where we happened to have rain. We don't have very much rain in California, but we're having rain and nobody's on the driving range, but Jake and his brother Ryan and his dad. And I see this kid hitting balls. He was tiny and he's hitting it right out of the center of the club face, pretty straight, balls falling a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left, but pretty darn straight. And just really, I'm just going, wow, this is pretty good. So I said to his dad, said, man, that's really good. And he thought, the dad thought I was just trying to be nice. I'm like, no, you don't understand. That's really, really good. And at the time he was working with a guy named Doug Booth, one of the pros at Costa Mesa. Then Doug moved on. A month later, I got a call from Bob Knapp. says, do you want to coach my kids? I'm like, hell yeah. So that's how it happened. I was just in the right place at the right time. And so I ⁓ really ⁓ am grateful that that happened. It's been a really good experience watching a kid go from being a tiny junior golfer that can't hit par fours and two, and to somebody that does what he does now, hits the bar miles. Exactly. It's been ⁓ great having this front row seat for this progression, if you want to call it that. speaker-0: for. So somewhere in there, see if my math's good, 24 years of Jake, that happened pretty close to when you started teaching full-time again, right? speaker-1: Yeah, it was within a few years. speaker-0: So when did you transition to being, by the time we meet, a putting kind of known for being, even though you're ⁓ very good to great full swing coach and still do it primarily, if people need to take more putting lessons, but that's another part of this show. But when did you like say, okay, now I'm gonna really jump back in with both feet and Sam putt lab and then eventually you have the Ortega putt lab slash golf lab ⁓ now. How long did that little transition take? Did you kind of like stay away from like really fooling around with putting or you never really lost that? speaker-1: Must have been six or seven years ago, six, seven. I like doing that for the kids, six, seven. speaker-0: to long after we met. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So, so I was, I was known for teaching putting because, know, was a guy that made putters and the people figured that he probably knows a little bit about putting. And so I did a putting instruction like somewhat specialized. guess it was still specialized before I started using the Sam put lab and quintac and all that stuff. Right. I had my, my groove board, the putting board, and I could show people a lot about what they did with their strokes after I developed the groove board, which was like right around 2000. So, you know, I wasn't like, I just decided seven years ago to teach putting only, but I was just known for teaching putting cause I was pretty good putter and this had an insight for it and also an affinity for it. I people could just tell that I like putting, right? So I decided, must've been right around 2000 or a little bit before I said, Oh, I think I'm going to try to specialize in this. Just, just see what, see what happens. Right? So I started offering myself as like a performance coach or whatever chipping putting. you know, something that's not standing on the range hitting golf balls, right? So that was just before 2000. And then I opened my first studio that you came to, the smaller one down the way, that was right around 2001 ish. How about that? Yeah. So, and then I did that in that, that building over there or that same, same shopping center here, but it's a smaller unit for three years or a little bit more. And then right around 2020, I came over here to the bigger unit where I put up a TrackMan simulator and I have my putting platform same one that Biv, you know, my buddy Biv who's passed away. By the way, I want to probably start crying, but I want to dedicate this, what do want to call it that you and I are doing today? speaker-0: It's a pod and when it goes out there it becomes a pod We would like to dedicate the pod to our mutual friend they've wanted to pass the way last year, correct? Am I messing that up? speaker-1: Yes, you know, no you didn't. It was December 24th on Christmas Eve. past one, yeah. But anyhow, ⁓ back to... speaker-0: Who, who, by the way, among other things, he was, you he was a financial guy. That's how I knew of him because my dear friend and my attorney, Mike Daly, his wife, worked with Biv in the financial world. And Biv was also Maria. And also he was the club champion multiple times at Evanston Country Club. where I went yearly for a while to give golf lessons. Like once a year I would go up there. Eric Barnes was the head pro then, now he's a full-time teacher. When Biv got into instruction, I think he wasn't necessarily a putting guy at first, if I have that right, and then just got interested and unfortunately just wasn't with us as long as it would have been nice for everybody that knew him. but he developed a putting robot made out of wood and... speaker-1: He two different iterations. He did one that was all wood. I want to get one of the all wood ones. I got to talk to his son. He's still reeling from, know, of sudden death. But then he also did one that had aluminum extrusion and wood. then the last, his last trick was he motorized it and it was all got this thing so cool. But his son won't give that one up. His son's computer guy, so he's going to mess with that just for a while. But I'll probably eventually end up with that one too. speaker-0: You still have, of course, the half and half one. speaker-1: Yeah, right, I'm looking at it right now, his name's Rocky, like my dog. speaker-0: Because when you want and he can hit chip shots we we saw that too. He's a little you can hit little chip shots speaker-1: But I'll give you a little story about Biv and I. So Biv was introduced to me by guy named Billy McKinney, mutual friend of ours. Absolutely. Biv, when he'd go to the Orlando show, he'd not get a car. He'd intentionally not get a car, because that way, you if you drink a little too much, can't get a 502 if you're not driving, right? So I ended up being his driver for years. So about the second or third year in, he invited himself to dinner with us one night with a friend of mine named Brad Butler. And he drank a little bit too much. I got really upset with him. It was not good. So I didn't talk to him. I put him on freeze for at least a year, maybe two. And I could tell he was a little bit hurt by it, but I'm like, dude, this guy, he just behaved badly, right? And so I ended up going to this Quintec seminar at the place where Sean Cox was the pro, what's the name of that one? Grand Elmar. And Biv's there with a guy named Leaf something or another. I went up to him and I said, hey, Biv, know, sometimes I get my panties in a bunch when shit happens that, you I don't feel good about, but you know, I used to drink a little bit too much and I misbehaved badly, probably way worse than you did that night. So I just like to tell you that I'm sorry that I treated you that way. And he was so relieved. He was like, ⁓ my God. So I hadn't talked to him for almost two years. And ever since then, we were like, we were like brothers. We just talked almost every day, except for when he went to his girlfriend's. Yeah, so, I mean, not. Not having Biv here, Biv was a really smart guy. mean, he was a great resource and I really miss him a lot. know, in this game and being in this business, you make these relationships with people and sometimes it's like go figure, because we are so different, Biv and I, like you and I. Absolutely. We're pretty different guys, Absolutely. And so I really get a kick out of the characters in this business and just having friendships and relationships and time spent with them, it's great. speaker-0: I was kind of scrolling through, there's some little mistake that Apple made with me. And I have like old iPhone stuff and then everything from, I don't know, 2010, right? So I think the iPhone's a little bit older than that. So I couldn't pin down exactly when or how we met. And it's been so long that I forgot. So if you remember. You can enlighten me and all the folks listening. And watch. speaker-1: I can. There are some things that I can remember, like most things that don't make any difference to a lot of people. I know my keys are over there, but there's certain things that I forget and other things that are just random that I completely remember. And I remember- speaker-0: remember tacos. speaker-1: It was a golfing machine, whatever they called the get togethers, summits, whatever. Something merry, like Lake Mary. speaker-0: Okay, there was the first one was in Birmingham, so that wasn't it. So then there was one outside of Orlando at a place called Howie in the Hills. And then there was one more in Lake Mary. Yes, there was one more. That's the famous Joe Daniels banged on the table. Yeah, and he got mad at Aaron Zick too, but part of it is fun. So, okay, so you went to that one. speaker-1: Not that one. speaker-0: You went to that one and. speaker-1: I met you there, that's where I met you. And you were kind enough to come up and just say, hey, I want to introduce myself, I'm Brian Manziel. I felt a little bit like a fish out of water with all these golfing machine guys. At the time, I don't even know what had done. I think I had done the GSEB. But you were like one of the grand poobas. speaker-0: How long, I mean like how long were you, like, you know, how long did you know Billy? speaker-1: ⁓ I met him at Big T Driving Range in Bonaparte. I think I was at the time. early 20s maybe, 1920, 21, and he was a kid. I think he was just getting into high school. So at that time, that was an unbelievable place. Bobby May would go there, hit balls at night. speaker-0: to tag her into playoff at Valhalla. speaker-1: Right. then also Mac O'Grady would stop by there. speaker-0: Phil Bugleno. speaker-1: Yes. And then Jack Fleck, the guy who beat Hogan in a playoff. Mr. Gary Sanders, the guy who played at USC. was big easy before big easy. He could have been really something, but he had a brain aneurysm and died. was a sad, sad thing. And who else? ⁓ there was a guy named Joe Duffy. think it was named Joe Duffy. had so many A-lises. Like when I first met him, his Joe player, good looking guy had like, I think he's from speaker-0: reflect. speaker-1: whales or something like that. So he had, know, fuzzy foreigner accent. He just dressed really nice. He had a really good golf swing, good looking one anyway. And then, um, somehow Gary Player found out that he was claiming to be his nephew and he had to change his name. So he became Joe Duffy. Then he became enamored with Macko Grady. So then he became Joe Mc Duffy. He had all these different names, right? It was like, wow, this guy's unbelievable. Pretty good teacher. Uh, no, he's just a player. He was good. He was good. speaker-0: out at the Big T. speaker-1: Right, yeah. So it turns out that when I was at Roger Dunn's, kind of we were going all over the place, but when was at Roger Dunn's, this guy comes in, Joe Duffy or whatever his name was, and he was down on his luck and he needed to sell some golf clubs. So he had a trunk full of golf clubs and he said, hey, can you give me something for these? He was asking the guy at the front counter, goes, we only give trade in, I can't give you any money. So they called me up to the counter and said, hey, can you... give this guy some money for these clubs. I'm like, well, I only have like 300 bucks. I'll go around and see what I can rustle up. So I ended up rustling up about a thousand dollars, right? So said, Hey Joe, you can have, Hey Joe song, There's a thousand dollars. You good with that? He goes, yeah. He was just, you know, pretty grateful at that time. Like, okay. So I get these clubs. mean, they're just a hodgepodge of whatever. Didn't, it didn't amount to a thousand dollars, but I was trying to help the guy out. So about a month later, this guy comes in. He's like an Italian loafers. has a ⁓ President's Rolex model, know, the studs diamond, stud diamond thing. And he was driving a Rolls Royce and his outfit had to been three or $4,000. It was just incredible. And he pulls out a wad of hundreds and he was getting, I don't know, Tideless, whatever, pro trajectory or whatever the ball was at that time. I forget what they were. And a new golf bag and some clubs and some drivers. And he just... He starts peeling hundreds off and the guy that was the manager at the time goes, isn't that the guy that, you know, and then he overheard. Yeah. So he was overhearing this and he goes, yeah, I'm the guy that you stole those clubs from. Like, God, you're pretty ungrateful a month later. Right. So we're just like flabbergasted how this guy went from like needing some money to eat, having all this stuff. And as it turned out, he was driving on Pacific coast highway and he had like a whiteboard and he was speaker-0: change for Jews clubs. speaker-1: flashing to these wealthy women, hey, you wanna go to lunch? And they go to lunch with him and he poses as international stockbroker and he bilked him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they ended up making a movie about him. And what's his name, the guy that played in Dukes of Hazards? John Schneider, is that his name? The blonde guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, blonde guy, yeah. Yeah, he portrayed him, yeah. So we had all kinds of characters. speaker-0: And Billy was just a young guy trying to play, right? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Billy was just a young guy trying to play. was really good. He played at Santa Barbara and I think he qualified for a tour event. He just didn't have a really good knack for, you know, putting around the green or chipping. He was a golfing machine guy and he was a Ben Doyle guy. speaker-0: Was he, he was friends with Bobby Schafer. speaker-1: Correct, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so the Ben Doyle, Greg McKatton, you know, that whole, you know. The tree. Sective, yeah. Greg Zork. speaker-0: branch and I'm a branch from a higher branch because I'm younger. How does it work? Yeah, because the way the tree grows, right? So Greg's a branch down by the bottom that's about this big around and now I've been around for a while so... further up the tree. speaker-1: Your ranch is getting pretty Yeah, yeah. So anyhow, a lot of people, know, Billy McKinney is like I said, and Bobby Schafer's, and I've probably come up with a few other names if I think long enough, but it was a pretty good crew that, you know, would go to Big T and kind of do what we did. That's kind of the Billy McKinney part of the story. speaker-0: ⁓ So for the folks that you know 5 % of the people that might watch this and listen or listen, you know, because we're, nowadays podcasts are both video and audio and it's a different experience, you know, both ways for sure. You don't have to bore yourself with the two handsome guys in here. You just listen on Spotify or Apple or all the other sound clouds. So I've been teaching for 44 years. I've played for 10 more. The second most famous teacher that ever lived that was a public drive and range guy for most of my career. So the king of that is Jimmy Ballard. Pell City, Alabama, little drive and range, know, became world famous, taught 150 tour players on a bad day. And, you know, maybe I've taught 30, you But I was always interested in putting, right? I was always... because I wasn't very good at it and it didn't make any sense that I wasn't, because I could throw a football and hit whatever I was looking. I could shoot a basketball. I was a volume shooter, but I could score. I led the city in scoring in the Catholic school, Athletic League in New Orleans when I was in eighth grade. Now, that doesn't sound like much and it really isn't much except there was about 50 Catholic schools, so it wasn't nothing. And I'll get... Pitch cards, not as good as my dad. So all the things you would think athletic, you would think that I could putt, but I really couldn't. I wasn't much of a yipper. So by the time I started teaching golf when I was 20 and I would teach putting, I figured out pretty early on that I was a much better. putting coach or teacher, the coach's word still is growing on me, putting teacher, then I was a putter until I was trying to qualify for the US Open 20 different years and never made it, and never made it through local even though I had some really close calls and led the damn thing out to 27 holes once when it used to be 36 holes. We were gonna play at Lakewood Country Club. and I'm trying to put a year to this, 90s, early 90s. And I've gone my whole life without really putting good, not even like for any length of time, everybody has a good putting round, right? And here's the goofiest part of my putting story to get us caught up, Johnny, is I was so sure I was gonna be a good player that I never wanted to mess it up. You know, so they thought if you lifted weights, you know, and even though Frank Stranahan and Gary Player could make a monkey out of that, historically, they thought if you lifted weights with your upper body, you would hurt your golf game. So I didn't lift weights and I did double leg work. I did the linemen and the backs, because I was much more of a football player up until I was 17 or 18 years old than I ever was a golfer. And I still think I'm probably a better football player than I am a golfer. But. Lakewood Country Club where they played the tour of that for a long time in New Orleans from 60 maybe three to 88 and had historically great greens ⁓ a Bermuda 328 hybrid I Think of the Greenskeeper Reese Coltrane. I think what a name for a Greenskeeper right came up with this little hybrid stuff I'm there with a ⁓ cat named Ronnie Worth, who was a world-class kickboxer who later became a home builder, took lessons from me and cattyed for me in this term. So we go out and play a practice round. played Lake, I even worked there a little bit. So I played Lakewood a billion times, but you still want to like see what's going on out there. So you go out on a day before and play a practice round. And I'm about three or four holes in. I am ripe at it. And I couldn't putt it in a wash tub. And not yipping now, just was going off at right angles. I decided I was gonna putt like modified Bernhard Langer. Okay. Put the putter up against my left arm. And I putted that way the rest of the round. Pretty decent. Make anything, but I made most of my short putts. You know how practice rounds are, people are hitting three chip shots and all this kind of stuff. So you're not really paying that much attention to. You know, these balls are coming off the putter, you know. The next day I couldn't hit the side of a barn, which is how golf is, right? But boy, I putted good. And so I did that for about eight or nine years, the Langer putting. And I, at some point, was really, really good at it. I won a local qualifier, held it at all places, if you can believe this, Johnny. The PGA show, I won the local qualifier for the Dave Pell's World Putting Contest. And then I lost in the sectionals, which was also held there like the next day. So I could putt that way, you know? then as time went on, like anything else, you know, went up other roads and I can still putt that way. And we'll talk about my putting a million times in the show because I really think putting is fun or I wouldn't have. prove this name for the show. But I kept working on learning about putting. And I like, I tend to not like listening, although I do it. Other people talk about golf swing stuff at seminars because usually I want to crawl out of my skin and exit the building, but I make myself listen because I like knowing what everybody else is teaching. But. when somebody's pretty knowledgeable about putting, to me, it's a much more enjoyable listen for a lifetime golf teacher because there's so many different ideas. Now it's starting to kind of get, to me, a little bit too close together, which is definitely a story that we'll cover here on The Pot. But at the end of the day, David Tom, my most famous student, on and off since 1988. David never worked with me for five minutes, besides before he would ask me to give him a putting lesson. I probably gave him 500 minimum. He had and has ridiculous putting talent. Right? So I take very little credit for that, but I can tell you this, I messed the swing up a couple of times, not in the last 15 or 20 years, but I messed it up a couple of times. I never messed up his putting stroke. I never messed up his putting stroke. So I, you by the time all the devices and the measurement and now, know, TrackMan will measure putting pretty well or to slightly better than pretty well. I really dig it. But what I dig more about putting than anything else is doing it. Because in my mind, I can do it way better than I've ever done it. And I have flashes like everybody, I mean, I don't do that. I consider myself a poor putter anymore, you know, like I was early in my career. So, and then the other little detail here for the folks that made it this long is that this show, Putting is Fun, is part of the umbrella of shows. Right now there's four hot in the works. This. being the third one. When you watch this folks, Funnel Golf, the company that I'm involved with and a little side department called Funnel Golf Media, colloquially, if that's the right way to say it. Not an official title, but in the company, the media part of Funnel Golf. ⁓ You'll have already been able to watch my podcast with Sam Osborne called No More Lies. and also my YouTube show, the very ⁓ interestingly titled, The Brian Manzella Show. So, it's fighting as fun as the third of these and there's one more that'll be a week behind when this one comes out. So we're very excited about all of that, but super excited about this pod. So, Johnny, the first subject that we're gonna cover and we're just gonna touch on it. And then in episode two, we'll really expand on it. If you're gonna have a show, I'm thinking to myself, if you're gonna have a show called Putting is Fun, so it's about putting and it's taking the high road and, you know, the thing about putting is anything might work. Anything might not work in full swing. Might work with a tour planner, but anything might not work if somebody is a 25 handicap. Eight degree outside in slicers. But I've seen putters who were good putters who swung eight degrees outside in. I'm sure you have too, right? So I wrote down in my own little goofy way the five elements of putting. So live on the show, please correct me. I got the typewriter ready to go. Here's what I've got. speaker-1: Absolutely. speaker-0: You've got the putty, that's the golfer, right? You've got the putter, that's what you're putting with, okay? You've got the ball, what you're putting. Everybody's got a ball. If anybody thinks putting with different balls isn't different, they need to go try a few different balls and go to their favorite putting green. Then you have the putting green, what you're putting on, right? What you're putting on. And the hole. Oh, don't they all have a hole? Come on now, I played public golf, man. I played golf yesterday and a couple of those holes, if I'd have had a steel four, one quarter inch steel ring, I couldn't have got it in half of those holes because they probably hadn't changed the cups in a few days and they've had a lot of rain. So did I miss anything? The putter, the putty, the putter, the ball, the putting green and the hole. Everything else has to fall under. those categories, correct or not? speaker-1: Yes, yes. So you were talking about the playing field per se, right? And all of that matters. But my job as a putting coach or a putting teacher is to look at somebody's way of navigating that, like looking at all those things, like the quality of the green, the speed of the green, the tilt of the green, all those elements that they have to consider in their read, but then. I look at how well they can either aim or hit their start line, even if they don't aim well. And then I also look at like the pace of their stroke and that's where it gets a little bit fuzzy, let's just say. So some people have long languid strokes and other people are real quick in staccato and almost stop at the ball and all kinds of things, right? So that's where my focus is when I'm working with somebody on their putting. All those other things aren't necessarily a given because they're all different. The putter itself for each person is gonna be either impactful in a good way or a bad way. So if you have, let's say, like an answer style putter that's too light for you, or let's say if you have a mallet that's too heavy for you, you're not gonna be able to putt as well as you could if you had a club that would work for you. speaker-0: And putting greens, I remember, since you're a California guy, a Southern California guy, I remember the first time I ever putted on greens that weren't Bermuda and that's Pebble Beach. Can you imagine that the first putting greens you ever put on in your life that are hard Bermuda or greens that some tour players can't even put on and they're shaved polenta as Ben Doar used to say. Port of Greens was so good he went and shaved Poana because I guess at Carmel Valley Country Club they had some really good bent. So ⁓ I think Johnny, we're gonna have a lot of fun entertaining and explaining and informing folks about the mysteries of putting and the known quantities. I couldn't think of anybody in the whole world I'd rather do it with than you. speaker-1: ⁓ thank you. It's gonna be fun. I've been looking forward to this. It took a little bit of time to get to this place, but now we're here and we're in show business. speaker-0: And the other thing we have. speaker-1: What's that? speaker-0: Super cool. Written by Mr. Johnny Ortega. speaker-1: For an Arnold Palme- and just Santa. speaker-0: Episode one in the books, folks. See you next time. speaker-1: Look forward to it, Brian. Thanks. ⁓