Latest / The Central Indiana Sports Report / Tipton Golf Pro Micah Voorhis (Co-Host: Michelle Garmon; Podcast 344.1)

Transcript

Tipton Golf Pro Micah Voorhis (Co-Host: Michelle Garmon; Podcast 344.1) · The Central Indiana Sports Report

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: What you are listening to now is the central Indiana Sports Report podcast number three hundred and forty four point one.
0:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Mine and tipped in tribune and Edward Collie your sports center group of shell Germans interview.
0:13
[SPEAKER_03]: With tipped in golf pro Mike awardees.
0:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Who has returned a tipped in after being a golf and basketball star for the Blue Devils.
0:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And has been gracious enough to allow us to podcast out at the golf course every Wednesday.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Your facility to the Central Indiana Sport Report with your host, Greg Mendel.
0:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome everybody to the Central Indiana Sports Report out here.
0:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Our regular Wednesdays during the summer at Tipton Municipal Golf Course with Michelle Garmin, Sports Editor of the Tipton Tribune and Elwood Collider, and with Golf Pro, Michael Vores, first of all, Micah.
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for allowing us to podcast out here every week on Wednesdays and appreciate it.
1:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And thank you for coming on and talking about your background and a little golf with us.
1:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And as I hear, probably a little basketball as well.
1:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely happy to have you guys out here on Wednesdays and thanks for having me on Mike.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So for those because it has been a few years that are maybe new or just as we tend to get older sometimes we our memories aren't as good or not from this area.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so just I'm believing you are a
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a two thousand eleven tip to the high school graduate.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: He played golf and basketball was a member of the boys golf team that went to state and was a member of some basketball teams that advanced onto the semi-state level regional and semi-state level.
2:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell us what you did, where you
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, tell us what made you decide that you wanted to do something in the field of golf, and then what your path after graduation from Tipton?
2:16
[SPEAKER_01]: To get back here.
2:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So golf's been my passion since I was probably thirteen or fourteen years old.
2:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the game.
2:23
[SPEAKER_04]: They'd have to kick me off this golf course, and it's kind of fun to go full circle and get to be the
2:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It would be that golf professional where you started and you learned the game and you get to kind of give back to that same community that gave so much to you.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's really my passion within that.
2:42
[SPEAKER_04]: As far as after I graduated high school, I went to Eastern Kentucky University.
2:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I received a degree in marketing and professional golf management.
2:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, from Richmond and Richmond Kentucky.
2:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Love my time in Kentucky.
2:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And then from there, I had internships all over the
2:59
[SPEAKER_04]: The United States, I did a couple of Indianapolis here at, let's see, Wolf Run who's not, it's no longer an existence and then that was in Zion'sville and then I had, oh, Genesis to concert golf venue now, Hawthorne's in Fisher's and then from there I went to mid-Lothian Virginia, it's a suburb of
3:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh goodness.
3:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Richmond Virginia.
3:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And Tom Fazio, par three course, I did Junior Golf there.
3:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was a part of the first T program at the first T of Augusta.
3:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's had golf professionally there for sixteen months.
3:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Got to do a lot of cool stuff in that Augusta time frame and it made me fall in love with Augusta Georgia too.
3:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not about place to be at least one week of the year.
3:48
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's growing.
3:50
[SPEAKER_04]: That community is good.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You said you developed your passion at thirteen fourteen.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Your soul is at, uh, if you go out for the middle school golf team, or did you have somebody that started bringing you to the course that, uh, that introduced you to golf.
4:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
4:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm one of those full throttle kind of guys.
4:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So if I love it, I'm going to just keep doing more and more of it.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, I just fell in love with it.
4:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to play golf with my dad and I started, you know, it's really funny.
4:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I started, um,
4:20
[SPEAKER_04]: going and just hanging out at the golf course of my dad and finding golf balls.
4:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So we'd go play a wild cat or we'd go play a course in the area and I would go shag golf balls and it really I love being out there on Saturday mornings.
4:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It would love being outside.
4:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I could always move.
4:37
[SPEAKER_04]: move around and it was cool.
4:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't ever want to be at a desk.
4:42
[SPEAKER_04]: That was just not my expertise.
4:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe someday in my life, I'll all reside at a desk, but I love being active, being able to move and work with my hands.
4:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So, yeah, dad started me and then I had a golf ball and I was hooked and I played all over this country and I love it.
4:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Golf is afforded me to do things to get to meet some of the best people in the world.
5:04
[SPEAKER_04]: get to experience experiences I never even dreamt of doing.
5:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's really cool.
5:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So who was a golf pro at Tipton when you, as when you were playing here from thirteen to when like when yeah.
5:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So like when I first started with Jack, Jack was I would consider Jack my pro my first golf lesson was from Jack.
5:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Jack was beloved around here, really the standard, right?
5:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And then Rusty for a little bit in that, in my high school years, Rusty, I think Rusty just took over when I was starting.
5:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So starting, ending my high school career.
5:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So then I started my journey to becoming a golf professional.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so you came back to Tipton from Chicago, right, correct?
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want to tell us about where, what course you were at up there and kind of what role you had?
6:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I did my last internship at Olympia Field's Country Club.
6:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Olympia Field's was, I'll give you a little history of what Olympia Field is.
6:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a seventy-two whole facility on the south suburbs.
6:17
[SPEAKER_04]: During the steel times in Chicago, a lot of people got out of the city and came down to the south side of...
6:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Chicago.
6:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And then with that, their goal was to create the best country club in the United States.
6:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Actually, in the world at the time.
6:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It was built in nineteen fifteen.
6:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We had a depression in those time frames.
6:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They sold off half of the golf courses.
6:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's thirty six holes now.
6:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's steeped in championship golf.
6:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So they've had PGA championships.
6:47
[SPEAKER_04]: U.S.
6:48
[SPEAKER_04]: opens very big BMW championships.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Or the old western open.
6:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Very similar to what.
6:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Crooked sick has around here.
6:57
[SPEAKER_04]: and it was a really a great fit for me.
7:01
[SPEAKER_04]: The reason for it, it was a blue collar, non-mogynistic crowd.
7:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you get into Chicago, there's different types of clubs.
7:08
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a club where nobody that works with their hands or at there.
7:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But this was one where I'd have the CEO of McDonald's, just somebody that's a general contractor that does work with their hands and everywhere, body and between.
7:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not the same every single day.
7:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So there was not just a sect of people that were maybe fifty to eighty years old.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: a bunch of old rich white people.
7:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, it's not that.
7:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It was not.
7:33
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a very diverse community.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like the Augusta Club.
7:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're the wrong with that.
7:39
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, it was, it was cool because that's what I loved.
7:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And they loved it's being Southside.
7:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It was not as proper, right?
7:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't have to wear a shirt and tie every single day.
7:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I could wear what I wanted to wear.
7:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I started my career in twenty fifteen there.
7:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Went to the first tee of Augusta for sixteen months came back in twenty seventeen.
8:00
[SPEAKER_04]: From there, I had the LPGA PGA Championship.
8:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I worked that one.
8:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Danielle Kanglin, that event.
8:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I worked the twenty-fifteen U.S.
8:10
[SPEAKER_04]: amateur, where Bryson D. Chambo won.
8:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got some cool stories with that.
8:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I worked the twenty-twenty BMW when John Rambit, Dustin Johnson, and then Victor Hoblin won the last one in twenty-twenty-three.
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Having attended those events as a member of the media, and I know while the PGA or who you know is handing out the credentials, I know that the availability of the hospitality tents, the media tents, the work media tents, having the wife and all of that setting that up and organizing all of that that falls on the
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of that I believe probably falls on the clubs themselves and the people that work there.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you just tell us a little bit what goes into hosting that big event?
8:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so usually have a when you get a big build out and not a lot of people understand why different golf courses can't host big events sometimes So the PJ was moved and you're familiar with that the PJ moved because they didn't want to deal with football as far as TV coverage So I moved it early and you took some of the Northern golf courses out of the picture because of that because that was our goal at Olympia was to get a PJ championship again We were trying to do it a hundred years since we had had one before and I think we had it in twenty
9:29
[SPEAKER_04]: twenty four or I'm sorry twenty four would have been a hundred years from nineteen twenty four yeah so with that being said it's not usually ninety two hundred day build out and they they bring in everybody from uh...
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: to build the stands and then build the tower.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, big hours.
9:50
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, our last one, we got voted in twenty twenty three, the best build out on the PGA tour at Olympia.
9:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was a really cool thing.
9:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So it starts with that as far as what I do in golfer professionals do.
10:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We had one during COVID, which was the coolest event I'd ever run.
10:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Because everybody, if you were in the bubble, you didn't have COVID.
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: We had all the testing.
10:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And you got to be basically with the guys.
10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: All the top, well, at that time, it was top-fifty in the world, right?
10:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So we were the liais on.
10:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So we liais on from the manufacturers to get them their golf clubs.
10:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Anything from, I mean,
10:29
[SPEAKER_04]: that it's a big logistical thing where they ship everything into these people to the golfers.
10:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So they'll have a UPS basically on site, they're shipping everything in, gets checked, make sure there's nothing security checks it, and then we would distribute it out to the players and the catties alike.
10:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So, a big end of that, big end of locker room making sure there's a Vizio and all of that type of stuff.
10:51
[SPEAKER_04]: But my biggest thing was I ran the driving range.
10:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So, whether it's setting the line up and making sure the golf balls are sorted for each player's golf balls.
11:01
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I got a cool story.
11:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So, when in twenty-twenty, when John Rom
11:06
[SPEAKER_04]: in Dustin Johnson.
11:07
[SPEAKER_04]: They made two big pots.
11:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you ever got to watch it.
11:10
[SPEAKER_04]: There were two big pots that they made at the end.
11:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was on the driving range with John Ram and told John that Dustin had made the pot and he was going into a playoff.
11:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So that was one of my cooler events to get to do that.
11:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was on the radio with him and we got to do some pretty cool things.
11:28
[SPEAKER_03]: To get to do that at any event would be cool.
11:30
[SPEAKER_03]: To get to do that at that kind of event.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that people understand that a lot of the professional golfers are really, I mean, they're friendly people.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're in them, they're in their caddies and as long as you know golf etiquette and don't step that, I mean, they're great.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to talk to and
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just to hang with if they have some dead time.
11:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
11:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, so golf professionals or professional golfers, they have to be they're in the media of a lot, right?
12:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Even kind of more than probably some of their professional athletes, right?
12:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So they're they're always playing programs.
12:10
[SPEAKER_04]: When's the last time a basketball player has to play a program every week, right?
12:14
[SPEAKER_04]: During the season, right?
12:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't, right?
12:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They have to be able to interact and
12:17
[SPEAKER_04]: They understand their marketability goes up and down based on some of that being congenial and having a personality.
12:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And so they typically do a pretty good.
12:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And you get some good characters that play golf.
12:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's a lot going on there.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me, how much time though when you were working at those bigger golf venues and stuff, how much time did you actually get that you were able to play golf?
12:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so it's a really a hard thing.
12:46
[SPEAKER_04]: When you become a golf professional, you know, I was teaching golf a lot.
12:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, maybe six to eight hours a day during that, a hundred and eighty day.
12:55
[SPEAKER_04]: We call it the best stretch where you're working a lot of hours.
13:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You're in the servants.
13:02
[SPEAKER_04]: You're in the servants business, right?
13:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You're serving people.
13:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You're trying to impart knowledge.
13:06
[SPEAKER_04]: You're trying to give them basic and part of your soul to help them become better golfers.
13:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it's hard to flip that switch.
13:13
[SPEAKER_04]: At least it is for me.
13:14
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of guys that can go out and teach for six hours and then go play golf, but it's hard because I'm pouring myself out every day trying to get them better.
13:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you almost look at yourself as a back burner.
13:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But I get to play a lot of them.
13:27
[SPEAKER_04]: really cool places in the top one hundred.
13:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I use the word top one hundred basically.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a golf digest rankings.
13:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Probably about sixty of them.
13:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got to play just because of that fraternity and sorority of being in that group.
13:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So your favorite of all time is.
13:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Come on.
13:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Give me my best.
13:44
[SPEAKER_04]: My best.
13:45
[SPEAKER_04]: My favorite round of golf I've ever got to play.
13:47
[SPEAKER_04]: is that Pebble Beach, it was seventy-five degrees, not a breath of wind.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: You're out there.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I was my third-year birthday.
13:54
[SPEAKER_04]: We had a Greek.
13:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I was playing with my best friend in the world and stayed right on property.
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: The actual Pebble Beach Club, they have a club where there's a pool and you have access to it if you stay on property and wake up at seven a.m.
14:10
[SPEAKER_04]: you could go in the hot tub.
14:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It's about sixty degrees in the hot tub is literally like you're on a cruise.
14:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're dangling over the ocean there.
14:18
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rocky Edge.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I will say this.
14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I rub, rub purpose who played baseball and was graduate of tip the, he has a, he's
14:28
[SPEAKER_01]: has job very good job out in Arizona and he has a group he and I think three buddies they go play pebble beach every single year and I can't remember when it is and that's what he said I mean they love it because it's their one their favorite places in every year he takes videos you know and it's like yeah I get why because that is I mean it's it's not for the for anybody that's trying to do it on a budget but it's kind of one of those situations where
14:58
[SPEAKER_04]: if you can't if you can just take advantage of it don't like you can always you can't get that time back but you can you can always make a few dollars you had a chance to get to Europe at all I have not know that's where that's where that's where you probably be tough yes I love to I'd love to do that I haven't been busy now tell us that what brought you back how did you find your way back to tip
15:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so obviously I spent quite a bit of time in Chicago land area.
15:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I actually lived in Indiana still in Northwest suburbs of Indiana with the country called being on the south side.
15:33
[SPEAKER_04]: A little south of that.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: this kind of the the break and we just around like the St.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: John and so the St.
15:42
[SPEAKER_04]: John Highland Griffith Munster Maravill Hillburg area yeah so it's a good area it's what they call it the region or whatever north of Cindy and so I I spent about nine to ten years in that area loved it there love Chicago getting able to you know go to all the sports games I've gone to I would say
16:03
[SPEAKER_04]: fifty concerts in that Chicago area.
16:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I love concerts.
16:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Love getting going this morning events, but I think it came down to a quality of life for me.
16:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I was working really, really hard.
16:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I had a very demanding job.
16:17
[SPEAKER_04]: We got a lot of perks with it, but it was also very demanding.
16:20
[SPEAKER_04]: With that,
16:21
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they owned you a little bit and I wanted to have a little bit of a reset when my dad passed away in twenty twenty one.
16:32
[SPEAKER_04]: My sister and I bought the business out, our family business out.
16:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're fifty percent owners of
16:40
[SPEAKER_04]: our family business and with that we were getting up to twelve employees and this kind of hard to navigate all of that from Chicago land area and I wanted to get back eventually and you know honestly I wasn't looking I'll tell you I was it just kind of fell into my lap had a few people send me this job posting and I said I'll give it a try and
17:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I had a great job.
17:02
[SPEAKER_04]: There was nothing wrong with it.
17:03
[SPEAKER_04]: They still love me.
17:04
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I'm going to play Olympia on Tuesday of this upcoming week.
17:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have a great relationship with all the pros there.
17:12
[SPEAKER_04]: They helped me out of time.
17:13
[SPEAKER_04]: But in any place, you all probably wouldn't have done it right.
17:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
17:16
[SPEAKER_04]: No, seriously.
17:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I told them in the interview process.
17:18
[SPEAKER_04]: There's two places I'd take.
17:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, staying in the golf business, it would be a gust of national.
17:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, to do something there, or here, because I told her it was better than a gust of... Wait, actually, no.
17:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I say that, it's because I told people this all the time, I played all over the country, right, and are all over the United States, and I'd play this one every single day, if I only get to play one.
17:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is where I found, really, I found the love for the game of golf, and I definitely want to help this community.
17:48
[SPEAKER_04]: enjoy it for many years put some foundational stuff in that we'll continue to the prosper.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure people always understand just how special Tipton is because it has an eighteen-hole municipal golf course, but it's not just I mean it is a beautiful course and has been a really nice course of course I you know I know Jack because he's the first pro that I remember you know wanting that
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: to be that way, you know, and they've always done a, I think for the most part, have done a good job of even hiring grounds, the superintendent of, you know, maintenance and everything, but it's, you don't find a whole lot of,
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: public golf courses that are this nice because even with as hot as it's been.
18:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still pretty or then if you go to some of the other public courses and well, even sometimes you go over to L when you drive by the golf links and I mean, they're glad everything gets brown and you're bristly in.
18:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, we are tremendously privileged to have, number one, a community of good golfers.
19:01
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of good golfers here.
19:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I think sometimes they don't understand what they have, but I think it's something that they're learning.
19:15
[SPEAKER_04]: inch by inch.
19:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think I'm helping the community understand that I've got something great here.
19:21
[SPEAKER_04]: We're trying to implement some newer technology.
19:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I say that golf courses in the twenty twenty two thousands when I got here.
19:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We were still doing paper and pencil type stuff.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm just trying to help them with, you know, a little bit of a technological upgrade.
19:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a little bit more of an expense, but I think overall, I think the vitality and being able to continue this great tradition of golf here, it's going to.
19:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it needed to make a few changes to get on that level.
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, the golf course is always in great shape.
20:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Phil does a great job out here doing that.
20:02
[SPEAKER_04]: He's actually right now.
20:03
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a junior event.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lafayette actually Charlie wood is playing he's actually helping them out the grounds crew over there so yeah that it's the junior PGA right because of the top of that there's so how many in the on the mail side how many Indiana golfers are
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: at the top of the lead, you know, and that.
20:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's a third of the very fourth of the leader board, yes.
20:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a very prestigious event, obviously.
20:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The Couture Sun, I believe Couture Sun maybe not, but I know Charlie Charlie's there, which is a pretty cool thing for us in the Midwest.
20:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he's doing that.
20:43
[SPEAKER_04]: He's incredible at that.
20:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that we've got some really, really good things going in.
20:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna continue doing it.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing I was, and I like because you're right, you tipped in his community of golfers, and I said the one, the one sport at tip, and then I don't think I've ever seen really plummet.
21:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always been consistent and always found success as golf.
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: and you know now with girls golf and I mean Jason's had some really good girls golfers come through there quite not as much so what what do you want to do to help promote golf at that for it to get the younger you know to get them started in golf that eight nine year old so they have a love for it so you know as they
21:28
[SPEAKER_04]: progress.
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
21:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, that's one of my, uh, my strong suits.
21:32
[SPEAKER_04]: If I do anything well, I'd teach junior golf well.
21:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, I did it in mid-Lothian Virginia for, I stayed on property, had a part three Tom Fazio golf course.
21:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Did it, they stayed in the cabins with me.
21:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a really cool, that was a really cool junior golf experience.
21:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So that,
21:47
[SPEAKER_04]: that experience I ran all the junior golf stuff at Olympia fields and obviously did all the junior stuff at the first year of Augusta and you know with that I import better better kids better athletes and then better golfers.
22:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that the old adage of these kids that have all this technology and they're always swiping in on iPads and all of that type of stuff they
22:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't take to a game that's stationary and the good old swing back and swing through and just hitting golf balls and being bored.
22:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So I try to have a dynamic lesson playing every single time.
22:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We're moving at the start, get your brain, the blood flow going so that they can listen.
22:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We stay moving.
22:31
[SPEAKER_04]: We may have three or four quads that we do, we're working on short game, we're working on putting.
22:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So hopefully instilling that golf isn't just this old, on athletic sport anymore.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think they give me a shot definitely gets some good stuff.
22:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So the return home is a great story.
22:53
[SPEAKER_03]: It happens a lot with a lot of different people.
22:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes the return home is a stepping stone to something greater.
23:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes the return home is permanent.
23:03
[SPEAKER_03]: At this stage in your life, do you feel like it's permanent or do you feel like it's a stepping stone to a top pro job in the country?
23:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no.
23:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to be here as long as it'll have me.
23:15
[SPEAKER_04]: As long as it'll allow or welcome the new ideas and to get things a little more situated and we can guide and have a master plan to continue to get better.
23:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I said, I don't want to just sit there and not be able to use what I've learned.
23:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But if they'll let me use what I've learned, I'd love to be here as long as they'll have me.
23:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just, that's the biggest thing that I'm doing this, you know, for I took a tremendous pay cut, nothing.
23:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But I, I want to help.
23:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, it's that full circle.
23:47
[SPEAKER_04]: This is where I've learned how to play golf and has started my journey and I want to continue to, to find those kids, boys, girls that, that maybe that's the, the one thing that they can,
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: grasp on to and it can take them to heights where they never knew they could and that's kind of what I what I want to do are you going to introduce let's see I'm I'm trying to remember how what all Michaela and or Michaela and Andy have as far as they have four yes are they all boys are they three boys in a girl or yeah
24:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, I love introducing the game of golf to them.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if they're golfers.
24:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I'm not privileged enough yet to have kids, but I have plenty of kid time in my life and I enjoy getting to spoil them and hopefully in part some of that wisdom that I have gotten over my golf career and
24:45
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
24:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We love future golf.
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We love future athletes.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care what they do.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially when I know your sister did the volleyball thing and the dancing, but really golf is a, I mean, what people don't understand is I think one of the things like this, golf is a life, I mean, that's one of those lifelong sports that you pick up that about that
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: it's good for you beneficial for you from the time you're young all the way through business deals can be conducted on the golf course you know and you can play it like Charlie Smith he's still he's in his mid-eighties and still shooting in the seventies he plays golf every day I think since I've known them since in I grew up across a road from Charlie you know from Charlie and his family so he's the one he taught me how to swim golf club
25:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, and that is something that I think a lot of even like athletes that you see that were big into football or baseball or hockey or anything.
25:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They still want to have that competitive itch scratch, but they can't go running up and down the court, they can't go do some of that, maybe they had an injury or something like that, but they can still get that with golf.
25:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And like you said, a lot of business deals, a lot of when they get these corporate jobs, if they ever want to, you know, continue to elevate in their corporate life or their
25:59
[SPEAKER_04]: career.
26:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Usually there's a lot of deals done on that golf course so it's always something a skill that is you know I've had the privilege of playing golf with CEO level people just because I know the game very very well and they want to play with good and it's something that's really really cool.
26:19
[SPEAKER_03]: We are joined now by Tipton Head Coach Jason Bales and I assume you two are gonna probably be spending some time together.
26:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, starting Friday, I'll be here.
26:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like for the next eight weeks, hopefully longer.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so yeah, it's a we're excited to get going and, you know, it's a different year, a different season.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's been hotter and
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever all summer and in Friday it's supposed to be absolutely amazing so I think it's a good song so you know we've talked about this year go what a great guy and what a great impact Kyle DeGler had on the youth and he taught in coached
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what's happening here on Friday is the Kyle DeGler Memorial Open.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So it shouldn't be surprising that we're going to, that the heat's broke and the weather's going to be perfect.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Kyle's trying to make a, I'm just probably trying to make arrangements for that.
27:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know it, what couldn't have been for me because when I put it all together because I, I help organize all that.
27:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, there's a lot that goes into it.
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm thankful for all the help that I get with it.
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I probably shouldn't have had first-year-olds practice and an outing on the same day.
27:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think I'll see a lot of you on Friday, I guess.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So, for you, for your standpoint, because we know, in Jason's organizers and everything, so for you, like when you had these memorial tournaments instead, when people bring it, come in, the foundation, the Boys and Girls Club,
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: the Caldeggler, the blue devil football boosters, I mean, on and on.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The golf boosters also have, I think I know the elk does a poor festival time.
27:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean for you?
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you have need to do, Mike, or what is your, what do you do to make sure everything runs smoothly for all of these
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, and we really want it to be a while moment each time they get an opportunity.
28:11
[SPEAKER_04]: From very start to the end, you know, we want to set up the driving range so that, you know, people feel welcome.
28:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We want that person or that organization to feel like this is cool.
28:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, or memorialized, I really do.
28:25
[SPEAKER_04]: We take it very seriously.
28:27
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't want to.
28:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't want to overlook any of that type of stuff.
28:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So from there, from the first point of contact, he'll be in, we want to be first class in that sense.
28:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And make sure the cards are all staged up.
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody has a good time.
28:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope that the organization can make good money.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you're also supporting Tipton golf course.
28:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's something that is really a cool thing, that not only are we supporting that, which you're supporting also a Tipton thing that is really a cool thing.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I have one more question for you, Mike.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: they hate and i mean and you have it every summer but it seems like this summer we've had a couple stretches that have been actually brutal how does that affect business at the how does that affect the golf course yeah um obviously we're not the youngest community in the world um we have some uh we have
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: season farmers.
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to put it down.
29:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, gosh.
29:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's okay, right?
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And we love the old farmers.
29:26
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, we're all getting there.
29:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
29:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's, you have to roll the punches.
29:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You have to be very flexible as a golf professional.
29:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't control a lot.
29:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, it does impact our bottom line, but we, um, we try to take advantage of old bosses.
29:42
[SPEAKER_04]: They take advantage of your advantages.
29:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So when it is nice out, we try to take advantage of it and, um, try to get as much as we can and we have such a cyclical business because of the weather and it's, um, unfortunately in the Midwest, it's not always predictable.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, we had a lot of rain this year.
29:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, golf courses in perfect shape and mid.
30:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the first outing we did.
30:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It was in the best shape.
30:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd seen it in maybe ever.
30:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the rain and we had eight inches just bake on top of the grass.
30:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, this is a floodplains.
30:13
[SPEAKER_04]: If not, you'd probably see this would never have been a golf course.
30:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It would probably have tons of alcohol and beans on it right now if it wasn't floodplains.
30:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're happy for the floodplains, but we have to deal with that role of those punches.
30:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, at least the
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: At least the judging of the creek they did.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: helped with that rain.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We got this year.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it probably, I know it impacted, but it probably wasn't as bad as what it would have been.
30:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that is, that was a huge project.
30:42
[SPEAKER_04]: There's two big projects that have occurred that has helped the golf course.
30:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Number one, that, that dredging off so you don't have as much water coming out on the golf course.
30:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And then second thing is having that irrigation, especially, you know, that sustained hot weather.
30:55
[SPEAKER_04]: If we can have irrigation instead of paying somebody from basically midnight to four in the morning to run a,
31:01
[SPEAKER_04]: a hose out on all these all the fairways and some of the greens we can do that with irrigation heads that is that's huge as far as keeping the golf course green and you know keeping our patrons happy in that sense.
31:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I would like that something to that because I know for us Friday with a beautiful weather.
31:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike, it does a great job with with our groups as well.
31:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's worth mentioning because Friday is going to be a beautiful day.
31:27
[SPEAKER_02]: There's probably going to be a lot of people who want to come out to the golf course.
31:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the days that I know for me as a golfer man, seventy five, eighty degrees, no humidity, man.
31:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be outside.
31:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to do something other than just work in the yard or something like that.
31:43
[SPEAKER_02]: He does a great job of not only allowing us to have the course on Friday for our outing, supporting our group, which I think probably, and I don't know this for a fact, but in turn, probably, doesn't necessarily hinder his business, but they are very, very gracious in allowing us those special days to work with that.
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So, as a community member and as someone who runs outings here and runs a golf program,
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We're really appreciative of what he does here, and I think that's something that this community really can get behind.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess one other thing we'd probably need to ask you, is there anything coming up involving the golf course or anything you're doing that you want to let the community know about?
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
32:27
[SPEAKER_04]: No, first, it is a privilege and honor to get to be an outlet for the community.
32:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I really do as much as sometimes we have vocal community members here.
32:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We also at the end of the day, we're trying to serve and make this place the best we can with given our resource constraints.
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we're trying to do every single day.
32:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we've gotten a lot accomplished in the short seven months that I've been here.
32:52
[SPEAKER_04]: We did a lot of renovations.
32:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's probably what the community needs to know is with the budget I was had received.
33:00
[SPEAKER_04]: We have done a ton.
33:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We have value engineered a ton of in the clubhouse looks completely different organized.
33:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It kind of looked like a disheveled mess when I got here.
33:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've really transformed that into an area that you're proud of when you walk in.
33:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that sets the tone for the entire golf course.
33:17
[SPEAKER_04]: When you walk in and the place looks like it's disheveled, you'll see church start talking, hat back, you know, then it gets a little bit crazy.
33:25
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think I'm very proud of what we got to do with that.
33:28
[SPEAKER_04]: New golf carts were huge this year.
33:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Being able to have golf carts that
33:35
[SPEAKER_04]: are worthy of this golf course.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So not ones that break down and all that type of stuff, it's really helpful and beneficial to do that.
33:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're continuing to, we've got a potential, a really cool potential to get cart pass all the way through this golf course.
33:52
[SPEAKER_04]: So one of the things that we struggle with is when we do get an inch and a half, maybe two inches of rain, we have to shut the place down to golf carts.
33:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I want to do, if I could put another stamp on,
34:03
[SPEAKER_04]: on this place is to have a continuous car path so that there's no time so the community if it's a beautiful day like we like he said about seventy five degrees but we just had gotten down porn typically what happens is we do you get really hot and then it pours and then we come seventy five and it's perfect and you're just looking at each other like gosh I wish I could play golf in which we could have golf carts but I really do want to to get that accomplished and I'm hoping they get that done
34:29
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I'll even tell everybody.
34:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So the golf course road and that road is getting repaved, remilled early next season probably in June and our goal is to create a the cart path as far as
34:46
[SPEAKER_04]: shed the grass.
34:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Make sure we have all the liners ready and then we're going to use that mill those millings and we're just going to dump them right out here.
34:52
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to do a project that's again value engineered.
34:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to have it's going to be tipped in only.
34:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it's going to be hopefully something that we can be really proud of and continue to help the community get the most out of this golf course.
35:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Micah, Michelle, Jason.
35:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
35:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's do this again.
35:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Appreciate it.
35:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks once again to
35:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Micah, Michelle, and Jason for joining me.
35:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And Michelle and I really do love our time out at Tipton Municipal.
35:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And thanks to Micah for allowing us to come out there and podcast every Wednesday.
35:30
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be doing it again this Wednesday.
35:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Only difference is now it's after school instead of during the day.
35:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Please share this podcast with your friends and family.
35:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll spread the word that the Central Indiana Sports Report is here.
35:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And talk to you about Central and the MS port that was in the day.
35:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Central and the MS port report, the product of ITG media and I love Susie.