My guest today is Josh Levitats, the only Indiana based golf tour operator, and he is the founder and CEO of JEL Golf Travel from informally booking trips in 2019 to officially launching his own company. In 2023, he strives to bring traveling golfers to Indiana and position the state as a hidden gem golf destination.
He's a graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He combined some legal expertise with a passion for travel in the world of golf. I'm excited to dive into some of the best of the Midwest when we're talking in terms of golf, talk about some of the crazy, you know, amazing courses that we have here in the state.
We'll also talk about some of maybe the places that Hoosiers like to go and get outta the state. And we're just gonna get a, a real deep dive into the golf scene in Indiana. So Josh, welcome to the show.
Absolutely. I'm glad to be here. Couldn't be a more perfect time for this. We just had pins in the ground in a lot of courses around Indiana.
The golf season just started.
People are getting out there and starting to play. Uh, I do have to ask, how did you end up in Indiana?
What I tell people is love,
ah,
love the classic love story. Growing up in Miami, meeting a girl and moving to Indiana, you know, every romcom.
Yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's definitely, I think Drew Barrymore stars in that
one.
Exactly. Uh, no. So my wife, uh, Sophie grew up in Carmel and we met actually in law school in Gainesville. And ended up moving to Washington, D.C. after law school and then decided, uh, when we couldn't afford anything in Washington, D.C. we would move back, uh, to her hometown in, in Carmel. So that's where we're at right now.
Okay. So you end up Yeah. The love story. You end up back in Carmel, Indiana, obviously, I'm assuming you've been a recreational golf player for a long time.
For sure. I mean, I'm super lucky, honestly. Uh, my parents got me into the game when I was five, six years old, so Oh, wow. Growing up in Miami we're outdoors 98% of the time outta the year.
Right. So, um, it was either I had a sport. Of choice. Um, and baseball. And golf. That was it.
Yeah.
And super easy. And my grandparents took me out to play. Got my first par when I was like seven. Um, got hooked from there and no way that was it. Yeah.
First what course?
It was actually in Arizona. It was, uh, Scottsdale course.
I don't remember the exact name of the course. I just remember it being in Arizona.
Yeah.
Um, and I had family out there. We were just visiting. But
that's sick. I've you still yet to get my own first par, so
Oh, we gotta get you out there. Oh
dude, I'm, I'm, I play like four times a year, five times a year. I'm like a, if a charity reaches out and is like, Hey, buy a foursome, do whatever.
I'm like, okay, I'm in. I'll come do that. But I'm not like a diehard, I have just not gotten, I don't know, I usually get a little bored around whole, like 13.
Fair enough.
And I'm like, oh, the last five are kind of brutal. So, uh, but I, I like the older I get, the more I start to enjoy it. Like, the last time I played, it was like, like we, we used, I always play scramble format.
I'm like always in a scramble. And we used more of my shots. The last round I ever played than ever before.
Sure.
And I was kind of walking out there a little tall or like you're strutting your stuff. Yeah. Maybe one of these days. We'll we'll play, I'll just play my own ball.
Yeah.
Wouldn't that be something?
So moved to Indiana What year?
This was 2024.
Oh, so you started, you started booking golf trips for people well before you moved to the state of Indiana.
Oh yeah. Oh boy. I was, uh, so the long story is I have a group of 24 guys golf trip. Very, I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with this. Yeah. You have your buddy's trip that you have.
Someone's got to plan it. Right.
Yeah.
I was always that guy. So
where was the first big trip you planned?
The first big one was actually Myrtle Beach.
So, so you, you planned a trip for you and 23 of your buddies to go down and play.
Yeah.
That's sick.
And the logistics of it. I was working obviously 24 guys like herding cats.
Right. You're. All over the place, getting people's flight information, all that stuff.
Herding cats and like maxing out your credit card too.
Oh yeah.
You know. Oh yeah. That's gonna be 15 grand and you're chasing it down for like six months. Exactly right. I need you to pay your stinking Yeah. Venmo. Me please.
Yeah, you're nailing the head right there. Yeah, that's, uh, that's exactly how it went, but I enjoyed it so much. I was like, already planning the next one. Right. As
we're on, what are the aspects, when you're planning a golf trip, what are the aspects you had to take into account? Because you obviously, people are probably all coming from different cities, different places.
Where does that like the itinerary start to get built, and how do you do that?
It really starts from, I, I take the perspective of, all right, what would I want to do on this golf trip? And then I view that from the lens of everyone else. So I know people are coming from all over the place, and I try to organize tee times at least the first day around when people would arrive.
So usually we have a PM round the first day, if it's a Thursday. For example. Um, and just getting, obviously gathering the information from everyone is half the battle. But as I start planning it out, I know that I wanna play certain formats of, of the golf tournament that we're putting on at certain times.
And I know we wanna play a lot of golf. So a lot of what we do is set up like an 18:00 PM Thursday, 36 holes Friday, 36 holes Saturday 18 Sunday morning, and then we're done. So that's five rounds of, or that's six rounds of, uh, tournament golf. Usually the PM round on Thursday is like a practice round that we, that we put together and just a little skins game or something.
But I make sure that everyone is there at least by Friday morning when the, our tournament starts and we have like a Ryder Cup style tournament with a trophy and we have an MVP jacket. And this all started back in, uh, 20, so our first iteration of this was 2017. Um, and really in 2019 is when I started doing like word of mouth type of trip bookings for people.
So a lot of, I, I call my group of 24 guys that are rock solid that are going on this trip every year at this point. Um, they're my little minions that have their country clubs and they're friends and they've now done word of mouth. So I've gotten them as their friends, as clients and all that stuff. But yeah, from, from that group of 24, I've been able to grow this business, uh, pretty rapidly and.
I'm like actually proud to say that we're the only golf tour operator in Indiana. Um, and we've joined various organizations to promote Indiana. Um, and the Indiana golf scene, the Pete Dye Golf Trail, I would say there's, I say a similar trail, right? And Alabama actually has what's called the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, different golf course architect.
It's all around Alabama and Pete Dye is such a influential person in Indiana. He built. A number of golf courses within Indiana. And so I wanna bring people to Indiana to experience the Pete Dye Golf Trail. And it hasn't been marketed in the best of ways Oh. In the past, uh, I guess years now. Um, but from all the way south and French Lick all the way north, um, to the region and the border of Michigan, there's Pete Dye golf trails every or Pete Dye golf courses everywhere.
Yeah. And I wanna bring people to those.
So what does a tour operator look like? Sure. Like what does the, what are the logistics of that? Especially, I'm sure people will listen to this thinking and getting ideas of how to level up their trip.
Yeah.
Whether or not they want to use a tour operator or not.
Like that's up to, up to you. But what does that process look like?
There's a difference between. Travel agent and a golf tour or a tour operator.
Yeah.
And I'm actually both so
nice
whether, whether you want to book your honeymoon, right. And just a travel agency type of booking where you get the hotel and you get maybe scuba diving or whatever you want.
I can do that. Um, but for a tour operator that's a little bit different.
That's kind of, that's kind of crazy.
Yeah. It's just,
it's like subtle plug. I also like book honeymoons on the side.
Yeah. Whatever. Whatever you want to do and travel. Like I'm happy to do. Yeah. That's kind of my mentality. Um, the tour operator is someone who books packages, so we're talking both the lodging and the golf together.
Um, and also transportation to and from the golf course. Uh, I can get charter, like private jets if people want private yachts. I'll hopefully one day I'll be able to do that. But we have partnered with various companies with indie travel industry in order to bring packages to people for them to book seamlessly.
So that's a. More or less the elevator pitch of why you use a tour operator because everything is packaged into one and you don't have to go out and try to organize and try to optimize tee times when you know someone is arriving X, Y, and Z and someone is wanting X, Y, and Z type Of course. Yeah. And all that stuff.
I do that for
you. You're basically doing the work of like that really nice person in everyone's friend group,
correct.
Everyone who's been there knows what we're talking about. When someone is hunting down the Airbnb and getting the transportation and herding cats on, like what time are people coming in?
And, and like for them it's like, who's, that person also ends up being like, who's buying the groceries and who's doing this? That exactly. Right. And you're like, everyone's mom for the week. If you remember like college spring break, that was like the first time that someone gets designated, like the leader of the chaos.
Right?
It's actual chaos when you're dealing with 24 people or 12 people even. I, I, I can't, I put myself in the shoes of that group leader. I call them. I'm, I'm always communicating with the group leader and the first thing they always say is, I can't get my guys to commit to anything. Like, I, I try to ask their opinions for what golf course to play, what hotel or what lodging to stay in.
And I'm getting 30 different answers. How do, how do you do it? And I'm just like, well, I just tell them what to do.
Yes.
That is, it's, it's very simple. You just. This is where we're staying. That's it.
Yeah. And that's great. I accidentally my, any of my friends who listen to this one. So I've done this a lot of times for our like spring break group.
Sure. In front of guys trips, all this stuff. Not on the golf side, just like in general. We're going somewhere and I accidentally, we were down in uh, Miami. Yeah. And I booked what I thought was an awesome spot. Um, it was like right on the beach, you know, blah, blah. Like the first day we stayed like closer to South Beach, like, 'cause we got in early and got like a hotel, like right on the beach.
Spent a day there,
right.
Poolside, service Cabana, the whole nine yards. It's spectacular. And I'm like, okay, our spot, our Airbnb we have for the next three days is gonna be amazing. And we happened to show up to this hotel and there was like an Orthodox Jewish convention. Sure. With like so many small children.
I love it.
So it's like the boys are all like 25, like trying to like, you know, have some fun and like go to 11 or whatever, like, and we're like, little kids are doing cannonballs into the pool right side, and they're like, bro, we had poolside cabanas yesterday and today I'm getting like residual splash from some kid Stand ball.
Exactly.
And I was like, and at that point, like I had, I had hit winners on all my Airbnbs leading up to that since then. You know, they, they always questioned my, my picks these days.
I wonder if this was at the shell borne in Miami.
I have no idea.
That's, I mean, growing up in Miami, I know all these spots that, uh, that like where the Orthodox Jewish community would have their conventions or whatever, may be one of those spots on Miami Beach is the Shelbourne.
Um, which is a phenomenal spot. I've, I've had plenty of people who've stayed there, but it's on like 17th or Lincoln Road in that area
maybe. Uh, that's hilarious. But it's just like the
boys were buzzing.
Yeah. And they're like, you, well, what did you do? What did you sign us up for?
Yeah.
And it's like, dude, that's backlash that you get when you're, when you just tell them.
So having an expert that knows a little bit about the trip, about the place is important.
Right.
What was the first trip you booked for someone that wasn't your friend?
A trip to Streamsong. Uh, for a group of guys coming from Miami, it was pretty simple. They were driving up so there wasn't as much logistics as, uh, one might need.
I would say the toughest trip that I've ever had to book, um, is definitely overseas. So I did a trip for a group of guys to Ireland and in Northern Ireland specifically, and the logistics of having everyone fly in at the same time to get the private driver, to drive them to the course to get the hotels situated with the double and single accommodations that they were all requesting and moving from course to course.
'cause they were actually. Mobile, they weren't staying put in one place. That was probably my most difficult. And that happened pretty early on. So I learned a lot about the, the UK and the Irish space, um, of how that would operate rather than just in domestically.
How are you talking to the people in Irish?
Like how are you learning like what to do? Are you just like on the phone or are you like sending emails? Like
a lot of phone calls, obviously the time difference, but we've partnered with various, with similarly situated companies in Ireland, in the uk, in Australia, New Zealand. So when we'd send people to Australia and New Zealand, uh, obviously the time difference.
We can't be working 24 7. We, we go crazy. So I have a trusted partner in Australia, New Zealand, um, through like a destination management company partnership. They handle everything, boots on the ground. Um, and all I do is set up the logistics of everything and I send them all the details and then my hands are,
dude, that's crazy.
Yeah. Okay. So you were doing this kind of ad hoc Sure. For people and then really for four years or so, you grew it and then officially started in 2023.
Correct.
Take me through the process. Sure. If I had me and 23 friends that were like, we don't know where we want 'cause this is a classic guy conversation, we should go on a golf trip.
Yeah.
Yeah. We should.
Yeah.
All right, cool. Let's do that. And then that's it.
That's it.
It's like, so if I come to you and I say, yo, me and the guys wanna go on a golf trip. Where do you, where do you start?
The first start is where do you want to go? That's,
and I'm like, I, I don't even know, like where
you're like, I want to go to, I don't know, Wisconsin, in January, I'm gonna be like, yeah, that's probably not the best spot to go.
Okay. What if I wanted to imagine someone from out there, send this to your friend who doesn't live in Indiana, correct. That wants to come to Indiana. We saw this bucket list, golf video about French Lick. Yeah. About Indiana being a hidden gem of golf.
Sure.
I want to come on an Indiana golf trip. So where do you start?
Hey, I'm coming to Indiana. I wanna golf.
It always starts with what else do you guys like to do? Because there's different. Experiences that I can put together in Indiana based on what the group vibe is like.
Yeah.
Vibes are massive in my business, certainly, and I can say that other golf tour operators feel the same way.
Um, a lot of what I do is customize, so it's fully customizable to the group's vibe and what they want to do. Yeah.
So gimme like, uh, gimme some samples. Like what are the different vibes that you
Get, so French Lick obviously has the casino. That's a massive draw for groups, golf groups.
Yeah. I Don't gamble.
You don't gamble. So I
do, I
do gamble. You do. I love gambling. But, but this group, this hypothetical group, this does, does not gamble. You don't want to gamble then Indianapolis is your spot because we have what's in, uh. Speedway is the Brickyard. The Brickyard is home to the Indy 500. It's a massive speedway.
It's an incredible experience where there are golf holes in the Speedway.
Yeah.
So
Brickyard Crossing, I played that one. Yeah. It's a phenomenal experience. Not, you're not gonna get that anywhere else.
It's its own version of like a bucket list place to stop through.
Absolutely.
Yeah. The more it's, it's not like, you know, where they're playing, I dunno, pebble Beach or whatever.
Right. But it's, it's iconic and it's a really cool experience.
Yeah. So what I would do is, let's say French Lick isn't for someone because of, for whatever reason, they don't wanna go to French Lick. Then I bring people to Indianapolis, and then I'd say, all right, we're gonna set up a, a tour for you. It's gonna be, you're gonna play Brickyard Crossing.
You're in the, in the massive stadium.
Wait, let's, let's say this, if it was, if it was, you know, we're doing Thursday. Yeah. We're doing 1836. 36 18.
Yeah.
We all fly into to Indy, right? Thursday morning.
Yeah.
Where, where are we staying at?
We're gonna stay at a sick Airbnb.
Oh, you're doing Airbnb?
Hopefully in Broad Ripple.
Yeah.
A 24 banger. Airbnb.
We'll find either neighboring, we will find housing. We'll, we will configure it however we want. 24 people is a lot for an Airbnb in a, in a city like this. But granted, I'm doing more. I would say my average is around 10 and a half, so like eight or 12 people somewhere around there.
Okay. Um, a little bit more manageable.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but we're gonna stay in Broad Ripple. You're gonna have the scene, um, in Broad Ripple, phenomenal area. We're gonna go, uh, play Brickyard Crossing one day. Um, have obviously gotta figure out like what days work best, but I would optimize it. So you're playing the best golf courses, uh, on days where you can spend a little bit more time there.
So, um, the Thursday afternoon round, it's probably a little bit more chaotic as people are coming in. I wouldn't wanna put you up at Brickyard Crossing because I want people to enjoy it. Oh, we would also play The Fort at Fort Harrison State Park. Phenomenal Pete Dye track, um, in weaving in and out of the woods.
There's a lot of elevated tea boxes. It's a great experience for a public track, um, in Indianapolis and Indi Indi Indianapolis area. And then one day we're gonna go up to Kampen-Cosler and we're gonna go, I'm gonna get buses and we're gonna go up to Purdue and we're gonna play the Kampen-Cosler Course, which is phenomenal.
When I tell you it is one of my favorite golf courses, not only in Indiana, but that I've played anywhere. Um, it's truly a remarkable experience and they do a great job there. And then next door to it, there's two courses at Purdue is the Ackerman-Allen Course, um, which is also, um, equally as good if, uh, and Kampen-Cosler holds the title for being the best golf course at Purdue.
But Ackerman-Allen is a phenomenal experience, a great like. Second round of the day where you have a little scramble, the boys are buzzing, maybe a couple drinks in, and it's a great track for that. The next day, either playing Brickyard Crossing, I would say probably the Brickyard would be the next day, plus The Fort would be that combo.
Okay. So if 36 old day, so
where are we playing the 18? There's, where's the warmup round at?
Warmup round, probably Purgatory.
Oh, purgatory is
good. Purgatory up in Noblesville. Is
that freaking grass? Dude
is a,
is that link style, is that what they call
it? Very lengthy. You can kind of hit it anywhere.
Bunkers are everywhere. But very, I would say it's an underratedly difficult golf course because of the wind that whips through, um, and the layout and all the bunkering. But great track, truly, uh, a great first round golf trip track.
Yeah,
that's how
I would. Alright, so we we're hitting a little, a little just warm up at purgatory Exactly.
On Thursday. Then we've got our double uh, two. Lafayette
Lafayette. Exactly,
exactly. And
Ackerman-Allen.
Yeah. And then on Saturday, yeah, we wake up. We're, we're just feeling, feeling good. We hit Brickyard in the morning.
Brickyard a little lunch. Yeah.
Maybe get a little pork tenderloin and speedway somewhere.
Come on there.
Right there.
Right
there. And then zip over to The Fort. Correct. In the afternoon round. And then Sunday.
Sunday. Singles the only place to do it. You gotta head down to Bloomington and play The Pfau Course. the new Pfau Course is
Oh,
phenomenal. It is very difficult. Um, when I say Sunday singles, it's a, it's a format of a.
Man on man match play. So it's you versus another guy. You're going out there and you're just trying to beat that person hole by hole, obviously not stroke play where you have to add up your total. 'cause no one wants to do that when you're shooting 140, but you can play one hole, one hole, one hole, one hole.
Yeah. And whoever wins at the end, the most holes is the, is the ultimate winner. And The Pfau Course was just renovated a few years back and phenomenal
dude. Okay. That is like a heck of a, and then along there you're also gonna give them like lunch and dinner recommendations.
Absolutely.
Because the other piece is like, if when you're playing 36 holes, you're not like dying to go out to envy and like, you know, buy tables downtown, but it's like a little like steak dinner somewhere and
Absolutely.
You know, rest up and get ready to, 'cause you gotta wake up early and get back out there.
Exactly. You head over to St. Elmo's, you head over to a Broad Ripple spot. Like, that's super easy. I can set that up. No problem. I, I have every. I, I, I joke, I have every minute planned, but I, I truly, I think about every minute of every day in making a plan for a group.
Um, so
do you like buffer in times for like Yeah. They're gonna be late,
boys are late. That's that. Like, just in general? In general. I've learned that on my own golf trip. I've, I've learned that with other golf trips that I've planned. If I try to cram things too much together, um, it's a recipe for disaster.
What is appealing when you think about, uh, marketing golf in the state of Indiana? How could we pull more national tourists to the state of Indiana to golf?
So, I, I briefly mentioned it, it's Pete Dye and that architecture,
it's, is Pete Dye only famous to me? Like, do I only know Pete Dye because I live in Indiana?
Yeah. Or do people from all over know Pete Dye?
No, everyone knows Pete Dye. If you're an avid golfer, if you're a golfer in general, you know Pete Dye. They're playing. The players at a Pete Dye course this week. So he is like one of the most world renowned architects of the modern era. Um, and if we start marketing as the Pete Dye Golf Trail, which is something I'm I'm building, we can bring a hell of a lot more people to Indiana to play golf.
Now, I also say this with Indiana doesn't come with quite the price tag for a golf trip that you would in a Wisconsin or in Michigan if you're comparing Midwest golf states. So. With it being a more value destination and you have the hidden gem potential of all the Pete Dye golf tracks, especially in at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick.
Um, with that being like the, the Premier Golf course in Indiana, um, you can really make a bang and golf course or golf trip just by bringing people to the area and experiencing it.
Yeah. How many Pete Dye courses are there in the state of Indiana?
There's a lot. I don't even know the number off the top of my head.
Publicly accessible. I think a part of the Pete Dye Golf Trail, they officially advertise eight or 10, but I mean, all the, a lot of the private tracks, Crooked Stick, woodland, um, there's a bunch more. I think even his son has some influence here too. So
I
was gonna say, I think the number. Might be 22.
Yeah.
Okay. Seven courses are on the official. There's like, so we also have like four websites. I just literally found four websites that are the Pete Dy Golf Trail.
I'm trying to consolidate that.
So if you go to pete dy golf trail.com Oh see, and then that takes you to another one.
Correct.
Ackerman-Allen, Brickyard Crossing, Kampen-Cosler Maple Creek.
Yep. The Fort, uh, Pete Dye Course at French Lick, and then Tippecanoe Country Club.
Yeah.
So there's seven
all over the state.
But then there's even more courses that were designed by Pete Dye.
Correct. And in the private space,
only members can play at private courses. Correct. Like if you were going on a golf trip somewhere, you couldn't just be like, Hey, is there a non-member rate?
If there are people who want to play private courses? I never say the answer is no. Only within reason. Augusta National and. Georgia, you're not playing Augusta National. So like, I'm sorry, you're just not, if someone asks me like, oh, can I get on Augusta? Like no.
There's just no way that anyone, you have to be a member.
You have, well, yeah, and even if you're a member, you don't even get on Augusta National. There's a famous story from a few weeks ago, Gary Player tried to get, get him and his three grandsons onto Augusta National. Gary Player, a masters champion. He won the tournament. So he is a member of Augusta and they were like, no.
Go Gary Player, one of the greatest golfers of all time.
Wait, so who golfs this thing?
It, Augusta is like a, a weird place where it's very corporatized. So you'll get like the CEOs of the or of major companies or commissioners of the sports leagues and all that.
Advertisers.
Yeah. Yeah. And they'll open it up like very secretively for, um, for them, but only a couple weeks outta the year.
And then it's the tournament and that's it.
So the majority of time spent is nothing going on there
at Augusta? Yeah, they're always renovating something. They're sprucing it up. They're, uh, adding more birds or something. 'cause the. The myth is that they actually just fly in or they add in bird noises to the, to the, to make it seem like, to make it sound, I guess, cleaner.
I don't even know what the sound is like, but if you're at Augusta and you,
have you been
I've been twice
to To spectate?
Yeah, to spectate. And they, so there's, it's a weird spot where there's no bugs. And you're thinking Georgia in the, in April, there's like, it's a little muggy, but it's not like crazy muggy.
You'd think there'd be mosquitoes or flies or something. Like, there's no bug, no bugs, zero bugs, no worms in the ground or nothing. Um, you hear this like faint uh hum underneath the ground, which is like this sub air system that is constantly being run so they can suck the moisture out of the ground.
This, this place is, when I tell you it. It doesn't hold a candle like Disney World of like the, the experience that you have when you're there. There's no cell phones, so you can't
bring, but you have to put your cell phone up. Like you can't even bring it in. Can't
even bring it
in. If you like pulled it out to take a picture, you would get,
oh, you get tackled, probably thrown in jail.
You may get killed. I don't know. No, I'm kidding
dude. What, like, is there like a locker? You put your phone in?
No, they just tell you to go back to your car and put it in your car.
Is there someone that's like checking the course for phones?
Yeah, for sure. And you have to go through metal detectors, the whole thing.
So when you, when you arrive on property,
why are they, why are they so stick? Like why are they such stickler on the
phones? It's the old, I dunno, it's like the oldest tradition in, in golf. It's, uh, they try to keep it as pure as possible If you're looking.
So no one gets pictures from inside Augusta National?
Not unless you're credentialed to do so. Can, can
you read a camera
disposable no. Uh, disposable camera. I believe You may be able to. Definitely not anything that can, uh, has noise. So, oh. Even like a. I would say a camera that does the, like the, the click. But you can hear that bing, like
yeah,
they would probably say no, but maybe a disposable camera they would say.
Okay. So
this is literally like the opposite of the waste management.
Oh yeah. It's the antithesis of it. Wow. The Augusta National, uh, to tournament organizers are probably looking at the waste management, like, like writhing and cringing. this is disgusting What is this? Yeah.
What have you done to our beloved sport?
Exactly.
Wow. Okay. So, so kind of a sidetrack there, but I love it. So you're talking about like, there are courses within Indiana that might be like one of the most esteemed private courses in Indiana.
Crooked Stick.
Yeah. That's where we had a PGA event,
correct.
Uh, a while back,
John Daly won the 1992. 19 91, 9 92 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick.
Great stories come out of that. Um, there's also Victoria National that's down in Evansville. Down in Evansville.
Yeah. They hosted the Korn Ferry Tour Championship there a few times. I believe
they have. Yeah. And it switched over to, to French Lick,
and they did that the last two years. But it's not coming back next year.
I know, unfortunately. Yeah. It was a what a what A tournament. That was the Korn Ferry Tour. Guys aren't PGA Tour guys. They're quote unquote minor leagues of, of golf. And the way they play that golf course, which is probably one of the hardest golf courses in the country, is remarkable. I don't know how they shot what they shot at that golf course.
I've played it multiple times and I'm. Like, it, it, I'm struggling, dude, but it's a, it's a fun struggle. Okay. We went down two years ago. Yeah. The first time it was in French Lick, so we're down there like, yeah. This is my first time ever at a golf event. Like we're watching and like, these people are so good at golf.
Yeah.
So, so good. They're out there ripping it, blah, blah, blah. We're kind of talking about it. We get back to the, the casino later, we're sitting at a blackjack table and we're like, oh man, a hole. Was it 15 or 16 where there's water on the right or water? Like, it's like basically half the hole is water and you have to like, you have to like
par three.
I think it's a par three. But you It's
16. Yeah. Is
it 16? Yeah. Yeah. It's the craziest hole.
It's like 300 yard par three.
Yes. And you have to hang it like over on the left hand side. Correct. Or else you're. In the water.
In the water.
And I'm like, oh yeah. Like I don't know how they've been playing this. And the guy like two seats over is like, yeah, I kinda like ripped on it and like sat it out.
Like, wait. I was like, wait, did you just say you guy?
Yeah.
And we realized it was the guy who was leading the tournament after day one,
he was just
vibing at the
blackjack table.
He was drinking a couple beers. That's
unbelievable.
And it's like, and ripping some blackjack. And I was like, this is crazy.
Right? Like what? And you know, he, and he's playing to try to get his PGA Tour card.
Right. That's a grind. The Korn Ferry Tour, that is a grind you are playing to ultimately get a goal of a PGA Tour card. The guys on the PGA Tour are playing to keep their PGA Tour card.
It's like relegation.
Yeah.
In terms of like soccer, if people are about, like, if you've ever watched Ted Lasso and they talk about getting relegated and getting promoted.
Exactly.
Like it's like, I think it's, is it 10 or 20? Maybe 2020.
You get their, there's various different, yeah, there's so many different ways of getting their card, but I think through the Korn Ferry Tour points, it is top 20.
Yeah. And so there were a few guys that already had theirs locked up. Right. They were like, whatever happened, but there was a good chunk that needed to score X amount of points to end up getting their card, which is like right.
I don't know. You're gonna get a couple hundred grand, right? Like maybe close to a million bucks if you can, you know, play in all the tournaments. Exactly. It's like the, it's like the Happy Gilmore thing. Like first place gets 250,000, what's the last place? Get 7,500 bucks? It's like,
oh yeah, I'll take it.
He's
right.
We're
walking out here. Money. Exactly.
So when people around the country start to think about Indiana as a golf destination, what are the things that draw them in?
Obviously not during winter, but the weather is phenomenal. During the summer or end of spring, summer, fall, trying to cater towards the people who are opting for a Midwest golf trip and want to choose Indiana over a Michigan, over, uh, Wisconsin.
Over Minnesota.
Correct. Are those like the blue chip, mid Midwestern, I mean, Michigan for sure, right?
Yeah. Michigan and Wisconsin are definitely the top two. Why?
Wisconsin?
Wisconsin has championship golf destinations like Whistling Straits. Um, Erin Hills where it hosted a PGA championship, um, and Sand Valley, which is, we were talking about Bandon earlier, uh, um, off camera, but Bandon-esque, where it's all walking, it's a destination, what they call dream golf.
So it's a dream golf destination. Um, and wait, you know, carts no carts?
Bandon? No carts.
No carts.
Do you get like a little roller for your bag?
Yeah. Caddy.
Oh, okay. So someone just carries it. Okay.
I, you, you can opt for a caddy or you can just hoof it. Dude. Yeah.
36 holes walking. Oh
yeah.
No kart.
Oh yeah. The the trick is here to change your socks.
Yeah. You
gotta change your socks. If you don't change your socks, you're asking for disaster,
like pulse. Check on some of these, uh, the people like that go on these trips.
Yeah.
That's a workout
dude. These golfers that go on my golf trips are golf sickos and I love it. I
absolute. And how many calories? How many calories do you think you burn?
Walking around of 18,
it's around five miles. So whatever that would be.
Yeah. And your're carrying weight, it's kind of your own weighted vest type thing. That's, that's nuts. I did not know.
Oh, I'm
that
too old to carry my back now. But
yeah, that people love to go on. Uh, go on these golf trips and not use carts.
Correct. That's my favorite part of golfing.
Yeah. You're just sitting there, you're vibing in the cart. Yeah. Yeah.
Dude.
Bandon and Sand Valley are two destinations. That is bucket list, truly bucket list Once in a lifetime for a lot of people, you have to almost save, like in your piggy bank, like I want to go to Bandon at some point in my life,
like the average trip for 10 to 12 people.
Sure.
How much is the average trip?
I'll try to throw out a number, but it truly depends on location and the type of course that you're trying to play and all that. But we'll book, um, anywhere from like 1500 a person all the way to 4,500 a person for your epic experience. For the Bandons, the Sand Valleys, the Whistling Straits, like it could get up to like six grand a person, UK and Ireland and stuff that, that I, my rule of thumb for a trip like that, you're spending a thousand dollars a day no matter how you draw it up.
You're spending a thousand dollars a day. So plan for that. 'cause people always, I get a lot of the pitfalls of the business is I get quote farms. So a lot of people want quotes, quotes, quotes, quotes without actually having, without actually booking anything. Um, and they're just trying to compare pricing and all that stuff, which I'm used to, and I know basically everyone in the industry at this point.
So I know when someone is, uh, quote farming or, um, kicking tires, like, oh, I don't know about this, but like, can you knock off a few bucks? Like all that stuff, I've dealt with it all. Um, but when it comes to the UK and Ireland am like a thousand dollars a day, that's it. Like I can construct anything you want from a thousand dollars a day.
That's kind of how you have to do it. Yeah. You gotta be as matter of fact, as possible. I try not to, um, let people think that I can get them some like significantly discounted rate, because at the end of the day, you're paying for an experience and Yeah.
And like the headache, like I think that the headache is, you know, if you're a value, like whether you're, maybe you're young Yeah.
Or you're a value shopper, like, dude, just do it yourself. Right? Like, just go out there and Yeah. Put all the work in, call the people. Like put the logistics all together. Book the transportation herd the ca like do it all yourself. Yeah. If you're the value shopper, this is like, yes, you're gonna get some, you know, inside baseball on partners and, and ho there's hotel discounts and a lot of referrals and things like that happen.
But at the end of the day, like, it's not like you're gonna get a 50%. Right. You're not like a value trip. Right. It's like, Hey, I'm making your life easy so you can show up. 'cause inevitably, let's say you go on a 12 person trip, usually it's like. 10 or 11 people are having fun and one person is stressed out.
Sure.
And this way it's like, hey, basically no one has to be stressed out.
Right. And I encourage people to book their own trip. If someone understands what it's like to book a trip for 8, 12, 16, 24 people, then they are more likely to come to me the next time and be like, I don't want to ever do that again.
Yeah. So
I encourage people, I'm like, go ahead, book it like please. Like by all means, like, tell me how it goes. I'm here as a resource whenever you need my help.
Yeah. Okay. If there are golfers in the state of Indiana that are listening, what are some hidden gem golf courses in Indiana that people need to know about?
I would say Kampen-Cosler and Pfau people need to play. It's one of those like, uh, really cool experiences, especially if you're going maybe on a football weekend or a basketball weekend if you're Purdue, because football stinks up there. And kind of the opposite in Bloomington. But um, definitely those two,
which is wild.
If you would've said that five years ago, people would've looked at you crazy. And now it's like totally reversed.
I went to University of Florida. I'm sitting here like my basketball team is. Best in the country. Perhaps my football team stinks.
Yeah.
Who would've thought that?
Yeah. Again, uh, 10 years ago you'd be like, okay, come on now.
Yeah. This
is, are you forgetting about Tim Tebow?
Exactly. You know, trust me, our, our savior now. Uh, so definitely those two I would put on, uh, for Indiana travelers for sure, if they're gonna be within Indiana and even coming to Indianapolis. If you're up in the region or if you're up in Northeast Indiana and you wanna come down to Indianapolis, we can obviously set you up Brickyard Crossing and The Fort.
Those are two great destinations, but there's truly more hidden gems like bear slide. Oh, that's in phenomenal C, right? Cicero. Yeah. And
Shane
loves,
loves Bear slide.
Love bear slide. Great track. Truly. Um, I mentioned purgatory,
dude. What's the one in Peru? People rave about
rock. So is that Tr Rock? Hollow
Rock.
Hollow Rock. Hollow
Hollow. People love Rock. Rock Hollow. In rock Hollow's
phenomenal. Yeah.
Like there's, um, I've met like multiple people that say that that spot is just phenomenal Trophy Club in Lebanon, right?
Trophy club in Lebanon. Yeah. I love Trophy Club. Even Prairie View. Prairie View is, uh, in Carmel.
I mean, what's not to love about Prairie View? Like it's, it, yeah. It hosted a lot of state tournaments for high school state tournaments back in the day. Uh, leg. Uh, The Legends also, um, great, great track that used to host a high school state championship.
This is interesting. There's six regionals across the state of Indiana where boys golf regionals are held.
Yep. So Lake Central, they're playing at Sandy Pines. Awesome. Uh, Warsaw's playing at Stonehenge.
Great.
Which I, uh, we, I'm up from up in that area. Yeah. Our uh, I was in junior high. I was on the golf team. I was horrible. So bad. You're
just saying that you didn't, don't play golf. What are you were on the golf team.
I was on the junior high golf team, but I was so bad.
Sure.
I literally shot, we only played nine in junior high golf.
Yeah.
90 nines. Literally in nine holes. I got circle nines or whatever. Circle sixes that's on every hole. Circle sixes.
That's so funny.
So, uh, yeah, I think, well, or what is that? Nine times 81?
I got 81 1. Yeah. Like they make you do circle six.
Yeah.
Every hole.
I don't even know what that means.
You
had that
after six. They stop counting your, and then you say they just, they just say put it in the hole and they like, there's like, you know, the first five, there's the next five. Yeah. Whatever the last three were.
I was me and my buddy Brendan Damron.
Sure.
And one other kid we're the last three. And they literally just kinda let us dick around on the golf course. You were
out there for
hours.
Oh dude. I would just be like at the end I'm like hockey pucking it into, yeah, it was so bad. Uh, but we played at Rozella Ford, which is right next to Stonehenge, Warsaw, uh, then Harrison, well, west Lafayette, they play at Coyote Crossing.
Sure.
Never heard of that one. Muncie Central plays at the The Players Club.
Okay.
Washington plays. Country Oaks and Providence plays at Champions Pointe.
There you go.
Rock Hollow, the Peru sectional. That's
a rock hollow's. Phenomenal.
See, that's also interesting that you have to play at all these different places.
'cause it's like, what if one of the courses is just easier Sultan's Run in Jasper. Like that's a sectional
difficult golf. Yeah.
You talk about that's like
difficult golf course.
Yeah. Versus someone who's playing like, I mean, I don't know, I don't know what the Covered Bridge Golf Club is in Providence, but I don't know if it's
also difficult Golf
course.
Oh really? Okay. Wait, is Covered Bridge, is that where uh, Fuzzy Zoeller. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. That's, that's not a good, but it's like, do you think there's like a standard where it's like, Hey, it has to be a course that is X amount challenging.
Yes and no. So there's probably some ratings that like every course is rated and there's a slope assigned to it.
So it's based on the difficulty of the golf course and what a scratch golfer would shoot at that golf course. So rating would be like 74, so a scratch golfer is zero handicap would shoot a 74. That's kind of how it's rated. I'm sure there are certain parameters within. Whoever the high School Golf Association's rules, um, committee that determine which courses to put stuff at.
Um, but again, it doesn't really matter which course it is because you're playing against the people that you're playing against and you're playing against the course. So,
oh, I guess that's true.
It like, it really doesn't necessarily, so it doesn't matter what someone
in Warsaw's doing,
the only thing that would make it like different would be like, alright, weather one day may be more difficult in one place versus another, but everyone is playing against the same golf course.
Yeah. And in the same weather. So
yeah, I guess like, I didn't think through that. Yeah, I was thinking that you were all kind of like competing.
Competing
and it's like, you know, someone who's playing Hawk's Tail of Greenfield
Right.
Versus someone who's playing Sultan's Run. Like, it definitely seems like, uh, it's a little bit cha a little bit more challenging to recommend that would
probably rather play Sultan's Run nothing against Hawk's Tail, but.
Salt's run's phenomenal. I send a lot of groups down there,
dude. It's really, they have a stay and play there too.
Yeah,
it's very cool.
So I'll combine French Lick with Sultan's Run. Yeah, super. They're close enough and many also, how many Chariot Run? Oh, so
if you make it to Chariot Run, I lost 18 balls on that course.
There you go. On my bachelor party.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Southern Indiana honestly is a phenomenal golf trip because I'll combine those courses that I just mentioned. You have, you can stay in French Lick and play and be at the casino and do your thing, and it's a very relaxed environment. And then I send you a bus to pick you up and you actually head to Northern Kentucky to do the bourbon trail.Oh.
So you go to distilleries and uh, have that experience as well. So. Like I said, like what I'm booking is experiences, not necessarily just like tee times and lodging, a lot of the, what I call the legacy golf tour operators. Um, if you look online and just search golf tour operator, you'll see what those companies are.
Um, they're very cookie cutter. They'll say, here's your tee time, here's your lodging. Have a good time. And I'm sitting there thinking through everything that you want to be doing, um, and putting together a package that it encapsulates everything. Now, if there's a group that comes to me and they say, oh, I want tee times and lodging, I'm happy to do that for them.
But I, I, I get my kicks out of like building the Bourbon Trail experience incorporated into it. My true philosophy is that the golf trip is best after the round. It's not the actual round. And people may shoot a hundred, they may shoot 65. After the round, like you said, you were at French Lick, at the blackjack table and chitchatting with whoever it is.
You're vibing with the boys around a, a fire, you're drinking bourbon on the, the trail you're doing whatever you are, whatever you're doing afterwards. And, but you're always talking and you're just conversing with the boys about the day. You're saying to yourself, I really should have hit this shot versus this shot.
You're thinking about everything.
Trading
war
stories from
the round
your feet are sweaty and bleeding. No. Okay.
Right. Uh, what have you, have you been seeing all of these, like golf houses?
Yeah.
Like bucket list golf, like they have houses or other places that have like, like you go on a golf trip, but you're also staying in a golf house where there's sims and the whole, like people are fanatic about golf.
Correct. Where's like the, have you, have you booked people into some of these golf houses?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Scottsdale, our big location right now is St. George, Utah. We talk about hidden gems. St. George, Utah is, uh, desert Mountain Golf. So,
dude, I was just here.
Really?
Because it's near Zion.
Oh yeah.
Yeah. I was just there.
I ran the Zion crossing, like I ran across the park.
Did you?
And we got lunch in St. George.
You didn't wanna do the Moab? Uh,
two 50. Two 50. Yeah. That's a little bit of my paid grade for now, but, uh,
let's get you there.
Yeah, right. Let's do it. Let's
start promoting it now. Let's start training.
Yeah. Right. But we were in St.
George, St. George is also like the, they have like a really cool outdoor culture as well.
Absolutely.
It's like golf, recreation, iron man. Yeah. Like they do a big event there. St. George. Absolutely. Wow. That's wild.
Oh, and, and if I can have two minutes to plug something, we're actually putting on a huge wellness retreat in St.
George. So what we're gonna be doing is putting together a golf, wellness and happiness retreat. So this will be partnered with, uh, Happy Golfer, which is Hally Leadbetter's Company. She's a golf media influencer and content creator. And. We're putting on this event for people who wanna obviously enjoy golf.
You'll be playing golf at Black Desert, um, which is a host to both A PGA Tour event and an LPGA tour event. Um, you'll be staying at Black Desert as well, which is a five star property, very new. They're building out an entire experience at Black Desert, and we're also putting together groups to go into Zion National Park to hike The Narrows.
Um, I don't know if you were able to do that when you were there, but The Narrows is basically a canyon and, uh, you have. Water running through the canyon, but it's only about, I don't know, it gets all the way up to maybe chest height. And So this is
pa Yeah, we stopped right before there.
Got it.
Um, 'cause you need, you're supposed to get like waiters and stuff for all that.
Yeah, yeah. You get the, the gear for it. 'cause yeah, the water is cold as hell, so, yeah. Yeah. You hike through the, The Narrows for about a couple miles. Um, and then we have like happiness seminars that we're putting on as well. So people, a lot of Can you live your best life? Like what's your purpose and stress relievers and like being psychologically safe and, um, getting into a good mindset.
We have yoga, we have five Ks that we're running. We have obviously all the healthful food options. We'll have smoothie bars and we're gonna end it with a silent disco where everyone's just gonna be vibing and dancing. And dude, what, doing the thing,
what led you to want to do this?
Um, I was just talking with Hally and my other partner is Brian Dubow, who runs, um, Hit of Happiness and he's a certified Happiness coach based out of LA and he does keynote speaking and he works alongside the university's UCLA and USC in LA to teach happiness and it sounds very woo wooey, but, um, he's one of my best friends, so I was able to, to get him involved and put on some seminars for the guys and the girls that are coming to the wellness retreat.
So. Looking forward to that. Not to take too much time off of, off of, uh, yeah. Golf in Indiana. But that's kind of my, my short plug for the trip. And I would love people to join us in St. George. In St. George.
Dude, that's pretty sick.
Yeah,
they have a really good, I think it was in St. George
St. And we're doing a hydrotherapy experience or what does
that mean?
So we're going to WorldSprings, which is in Zion or it's, uh, right outside Zion. Zion Canyon Hot Springs. So you have about 50 different hot tubs. I would say they're not really hot tubs 'cause they don't, uh, what's it called? Blow water, I guess. But they're different mineral pools. Hot, cold, uh, yes. So therapy.
Where is this? This is Zion Canyon Hot Springs in, uh, St. George.
I'm like 90% sure I've been. Yes, I've been there. Perfect. So after we, 'cause it was a 40 mile, like run. Run.
Yeah.
We finished that and we were like, dude, we need to, and we went and got like a half day pass to this place. Yeah. And they have, so they have like natural springs to the area.
Correct. But then they also have like, uh, manmade ones that are, uh, with the same composition of minerals as like other famous springs around the world.
Exactly.
So you can like look and be like, okay, I'm in. And there's different temperatures, like they go hotter and colder. So you can get into like a 95 degree hot springs from Italy and then like 102 degrees South American geyser type.
Yeah. Like with all different like makeup makeups of magnesium and all the stuff.
Yeah, all the minerals, all the salinity count. Like the
dude, this is a wild pull. I did not. And they have the saunas right there. Correct. There's a bar service too. Yeah. We did not partake because we were like still dead. But it looked like it was a total vibe.
Yeah.
And there's also. Uh, if you think there's like cold weather at the top, when you go up to the top of the mountains, it's freezing, right? So you have people that are like coming in from mountain biking or doing whatever, and they're like, oh yeah, I wanna warm up.
Right?
Very, very cool that, wow. I did not think of that.
I would be talking about the Zion Canyon Hot Springs.
That's awesome. I'm glad you've been there and
it's cool. I mean, I'm, this is good.
How was the 40 miles
dude
across the, it
was hard
across that really?
It was hard. Uh. Mostly I, I mean I went in there overconfident and undertrained.
Sure.
So the last 10 miles really beat me up.
Um,
is that 'cause of the elevation changes? I guess not the altitude
per se, but like the, so where we ended at the most touristy part.
Right.
A lot of that is paved. Sure. Like it has like, oh
yeah,
like concrete. And so it was, by that point I had been running on trails that are kind of soft and it was decline.
You're coming down out of the elevation and it just was so hard on my knees. It, that part sucked. Um,
do you prefer trail running? Generally?
Like, I can run the mon on all day long and that's like, you know, that's like paved, which is fun. Um, I'm getting more into trail running. I mean, I just signed up.
We're doing. A 50 mile race in Steamboat Springs. Nice. In September. So that one will be fun. I dunno, I've just gotten really into just seeing you're gonna
get out there early for acclimation?
Uh, yeah, we'll go out like Thursday run on Saturday.
Okay.
So like, we'll, we'll be in the, in the mix, but there's I think maybe 10,000 feet a gain for elevation.
Like the one we just did was 7,000. Yeah. So we're just gradually getting the end goal is, I mean, maybe not the end goal. The current goal is to build up to a hundred mile race. Yeah. That's what I wanna do. But
do Leadville.
Yeah, that would be sick. I think I wanna do that one. It just seems like insane. It looks insane.
Which gets me fired up.
Yeah.
Okay. Let's get back into golf. Sorry. Oh no, I love it dude, this gets me fired up. If people were planning a trip to Indiana to golf, what would your top three must dos? Doesn't necessarily have to be a specific course or be, but if you were to say, Hey, here's three things to remember.
When you're booking a golf trip in Indiana, what would they be?
Obviously it depends on location, but we'll, we'll stick with Indianapolis I guess. 'cause that's where people would fly into, right? Yeah. If you're doing an Indianapolis golf trip
and that Southern Indiana trip, you could fly into Louisville and then drive over.
Like I
bet that's what people do. Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so I'll set it up either way. If people fly into Indianapolis, I'll have them pit stop in Bloomington and just like, check out the campus. Even play Pfau if they can.
Yeah.
Um, or if they're flying from Louisville, just say, oh no, you're, you're not missing anything in Kentucky.
You gotta come up to,
there
we go. Go the French Lick. Um, definitely first thing is you gotta check out the Brickyard. Like people don't, I, I, I'm from Miami obviously, and I tell people all the time, like, you have to come up to see the Indy 500. And I'm not saying people are gonna come to play golf and go to the Indy 500, but that we have done that before and.
But just seeing the Brickyard and being at the, the stadium is something that when I saw for the first time, I was like, I can't believe. This exists.
Oh dude. It's crazy.
It's crazy. Um, so that's definitely one. You gotta schedule something there. Um, St. Elmo's heading to St. Elmo's. Everyone wants to do that.
Everyone wants to go to St. Elmo's, have the shrimp cocktail burn their face off with the horse radish. Like the whole, the whole thing. Third thing in Mass Ave is, is a good spot to, to send people to Broad Ripple. Also, sending people to Bloomington or to Lafayette to experience the college campuses has been very popular.
Yeah.
Um, even downtown Carmel, I'll, I'll have people come to downtown Carmel and be like, oh, check out Sun King. You want something a little bit more low key? You wanna go to Sun King? Go to three up. Like, you'll have a good, good time there. You don't have to be out till three, 4:00 AM You just go, yeah. Grab a couple beers and, and enjoy, um, downtown Carmel.
Yeah, there'll probably be a football game on the big screen in, in the, in the square. So,
yeah. What do you think we could do from an Indiana perspective? What could we do to market golf in Indiana? Better
consolidate. It's gotta be consolidating, just like you said, uh, you were like going four different websites to show all the different courses that are part of the Pete Dye Golf Trail.
Um, consolidating it to one arena. And that would take, um, obviously Visit Indiana would be big, big in in this arena. Um, the tourist boards of the various cities that have these golf courses. Um, but just consolidating it to a place where we can then market it way easier than saying, all right, I'm marketing Rock Hollow, I'm marketing, uh, camp in, in separate arenas.
So people will be able to go to one website more or less and say, alright, I want to play this. I wanna do this. And, um, being able, and so on my website, I try to consolidate it as much as possible. So we have, if you look at our website, it has Indiana, then it has like. French Lick, and then we have the Pete Dye Golf Trail, and then there's the various courses on the Pete Dye Golf Trail.
So I try to consolidate it, um, as much as I can, but help with from Visit Indiana and help from other tourist boards within Indiana would be massive.
Just like getting people like, Hey, this is a, an unreal golf trip that
you
need to take. Like I'm sure that I think French Lick worked with Bucket List golf to bring him to
do
that whole thing.
I'm sure that generated a lot of inquiries for sure about coming because it is a really cool trip.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, if you were playing the French Lick trip, do you have 'em play? Pete Dye, you have play, uh, Donald Ross. You, Evan, play Sultan's Run.
Yep.
And now they have the new like par three or
Yeah.
Sand Creek is the par three. Yeah.
That's a great,
super fun
dude. You just do that on a Thursday.
Yeah.
Come out there. You're just like swinging around or you
can just loop it as many times as you want.
Yeah. You hit that on Thursday, then you know, you play maybe like Sultan's Run and Donald Ross and Yep. Then you, then you
play Chariot.
And if you want, and again, Bloomington is, I, I bring up Bloomington a lot, but it's only an hour from both Indianapolis and French Lick. So you can even squeeze in Bloomington from in, in that trip as well. And I've tried to send people to Pfau, um, a lot more, but uh, it was just a phenomenal experience.
Sand Creek, the par three. I like to, to book trips, um, where there is a par three course that people can play. I think it's, that's where you get the most fun and that's where the vibes really show. Um, you have like beers in your hand and you just have a wedge and you're just kind of like whacking it and you play little games here and there.
You try to hit crazy shots. Yeah. You're not really worried about score. Um, and it's, you're just walking around. It's, it's very leisurely and that's what people love to
do. Yeah. It's a vibe for sure. Okay. We've come to the end of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana Rapid Fire. So this question is brought to you by friends at.JC Hart, they're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home? Love. No, uh,
it's, it's true that, so growing up in Miami, I was in the hustle bustle. I was, uh, it's what I call chaos.
I call Indiana home, um, simply because I can unwind and relax. Um, it's one of the most unique places where it allows you to really turn your mind off. And I love Indiana because of the space that I have and the people that I've met. There's, um, I can honestly say like, these are the nicest people that I've met in my life.
And it's a remarkable, um, transition and shift from coming from Miami, moving to Washington, D.C. which is equally as chaotic. And then moving to Indiana where my brain almost like shut off and I can really focus on the things that are important to me and the people that are important to me.
Yeah, I love that. Okay, rapid fire questions. What's your favorite golf clothing brand? Clothing brand right now is REDVANLY. Oh,
I don't know this one.
REDVANLY is Elite
REDVANLY.
REDVANLY, and I will say it's Elite because of their pants and shorts is elastic waistband. Oh, and. When you have a couple, couple beers on the golf course, that is very useful.
Yeah.
Amen. Um, but truly it's the material. It's, it's this very, um, lightweight material that is easily, um, worn on, on golf trip or golf courses and in the heat of the, the summer and even in, um, the cold of the spring. So REDVANLY gets the nod here.
Love that. Uh, top three destination golf trips,
Scotland.
I mean, you have to, it, it's kind of like I'd be sacrilege for, to not mention Scotland, the Old Course and Carnoustie. Um, and those courses around that area, it's something every golfer has to do at some point. So I might as well mention it. Um, it's almost like, should I even put it in here? Because,
because it's just like
expected.
Yeah. It's, it's expected. Um, but truly Bandon Dunes is phenomenal. Southwest Oregon, um, it's. One of those places. It's honestly why I started the business. And I can go into a little bit here, just if you humor me for a second. When you drive into Bandon, you're on, you fly into Eugene, you take a two hour drive, and it's down the coast.
It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. You're in a bus, so you're not like actually renting a car. I mean, most people are in this bus and, um, you're with the boys, you're buzzing like you're ready to rock, you're ready to play some golf. Like, you're so excited. Even looking forward to this all the whole time.
And it's like you're looking out, out the window and the, the waves are crashing against the cliffs of, of the west coast of Oregon. You're just like, it doesn't get any better than this. Truly. And I sat there and I was like, I need to book this for other people because that's the only way. Like I, I can live with myself almost like this is it.
Um, so that's kind of how I got started for real in 23 was like going on this golf trip and experiencing that emotion. Um, so Bandon is definitely one hands down. Uh, I'll, I'll give one more like super underrated trip that not a lot of people take advantage of besides French, like obviously. Um, and that would be, uh, black Desert and St.
George that I just mentioned. St. George, Utah is a hidden gem destination that we want to send as many people there as possible, totally untapped market. Um, the PGA Tour goes there. The LPGA Tour goes there. A lot of different golf organizations from the west coast go there for their tournaments and we wanna send more people from the East Coast over there.
So that's, I'd say Scotland Bandon St. George
Best Starter course in Indiana,
maple Creek. Why not oldest course, maple Creek. I, I feel like that'd be a good starter course. I
don't even know where Maple Creek is at.
Pete Dye. Uh, one of I think Pete Dye's oldest. There you go. Love it. All right. These are the same three questions we ask
every guest that comes on the show.
First thing, what's something the world needs to know about Indiana? It's more than just a flyover state. I'm sure you get that answer all the time. It truly is. Um, we have so much to offer here. I'm a massive sports fan. Massive. I go to every type of sporting event you can think of. Um, and Indianapolis specifically does it better than anywhere else I've been.
Um, the sporting complexes down there are second to none phenomenal. Um, I love Lucas Oil is one of my favorite football stadiums that I've been to. Hopefully one day I want to get, uh, both a baseball and a hockey team professional, or at least a. Not double A or minors, um, to Indianapolis. 'cause why, why can't this be a four sport city?
Interesting. I think that hockey is probably, well I think that soccer and hockey are probably a little more, I think the MLB is gonna be really hard just given like how close we are to Chicago.
Yeah.
St. Louis, Cincinnati. But it would be sick.
Yeah.
But if the Bears are gonna build their stadium, like why not?
This is your chance to share a little bit, uh, about a spot in the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Covered Bridge.
Fuzzy Zoeller, um, Fuzzy Zoeller is a Indiana staple.
He recently passed away.
He did? Yeah. So I'll definitely go with Covered Bridge and just to get outta the golf space, but even in all of Southern Indiana is Larry Bird and Fuzzy Zoeller central.
Um, I want, when you're even in French Lick, the town, which is super small, super quaint, but I mean, honestly pretty good restaurants there too. Um, they have so much memorabilia from those guys that it's almost a museum at that point to these Indiana legends that that's gotta be it. Yeah.
Uh, I totally agree.
It's awesome. Finally, who is the Hoosier we need to keep on our radar as someone who's doing big things,
Patrick White. Is the director of golf at, uh, Woodland Country Club. He has been instrumental for, for my business. Certainly he, uh, is doing massive things with the PGA, um, both in Indiana and nationally.
And I would definitely want to give him his flowers for all the efforts and that he's been put in and all the, the hours and dealing with, I'm sure country Club members and that kind of thing. But, um, truly, really good resource for, for my business and someone who more Hoosiers should, should know about, especially in the up and coming space.
And then second would be totally. Separate would be, uh, Chris Kutanovski, who is part of the Indiana Endodontics group. And I have to shout him out because he's also been instrumental for JEL as a advisor to us, um, in the business sense. And, um, he, his office is down in, uh, Greenwood, so, um, but he's a massive golfer.
He takes me on so many different golf experiences and I'd be remiss if I didn't shout him out as a up and coming Indiana. Uh, Indiana Hoosier. Yeah. And he's not really up and coming. He grew up in Crown Point, so he moved to, to this area and, um, have to shout him out.
I love that. Finally, as we wrap out, I gotta know PGA or LIV?
PGA always. Wow. Did you go to LIV? I didn't. I was actually in, on, on a trip when I planned. Wow. But my business partner, uh, went to the LIV Golf tournament and he was like, it was chaos. Like, I, he didn't even know what to, he brought his kids, he was like, I don't think I should have brought my kids here. It was like, he was like, he was like.
This didn't feel like a golf tournament. It felt like a party and. I get it. Like it's four people. I, I don't mind LIV Golf at all.
PGA Tour. You're sounding, you're kind of sounding Augusta, you're kind of sounding my
dude. I, I have my traditionalist No
phones.
Yeah.
I love that. Hey, you know, I think that, uh, it's interesting, there's a right market that likes LIV, that likes that aspect.
You know, if you're not like die hard to just go watch
Right.
A ton of pure golf. That might be the move. Yeah. But also, I mean, I don't think Augusta is hurting on ticket sales at all. I don't think they're hurting on merch sales. Like they
can, they can both live
Yeah.
In no pun intended, uh, on their own.
Nice. And they'll be Okay.
Love it, man. Well, hey, one, I think that it's so cool the way that you are helping get more people exposed to golf in the Hoosier State. I think this is a. An engine for travel and tourism that I've never thought about until this conversation today. I think that's a really cool way to get people into the state and they can be like, oh, not only is, are the golf courses good, but the restaurants were good, the hospitality was great, and it just expands a little bit from hosting sporting events where people are attending the sporting event, where you're going to Final Four, you're going out to like watch people play sports to like, oh no, like get in the game.
Like this is the Pete Dye Trail. This is, you know, covered bridge with Fuzzy Zoeller, the whole nine yards. I just think it's so cool and something. Yeah. You know, if you book, oh my gosh, like 112, like if you brought a thousand new people to visit the Hoosier State, like that is significant.
That would be awesome.
That's sick. That's, I love it.
That's the goal here.
Sweet man. Well, hey, keep up the good work and we'll talk soon. Absolutely. Thank you.Here's your tee time, here's your lodging. Have a good time. And I'm sitting there thinking through everything that you want to be doing, um, and putting together a package that it encapsulates everything.
My true philosophy is that the golf trip is best after the round. It's not the actual round. And people may shoot a hundred, they may shoot 65 after the round. Like you said, you were at French Lick, at the blackjack table and chitchatting with whoever it is, you're vibing with the boys around a, a fire.
