Episode #35: How I Fell in Love With Golf Again 06/04/2021

Meredith:
Welcome to episode number 35 of the Gimme Golf Podcast, powered by myrtlebeachgolftrips.com. I'm your host, Meredith Kirk, and today I'm joined by Caledonia Golf and Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club's PGA general manager, Bob Seganti. Today's episode is all about how I fell in love with golf again. If you have had an up-and-down relationship with golf and need some tips on falling in love with the game again, we are here to help you spark a new love affair with the game.
Meredith:
Bob, we're sitting here on the veranda at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club, and our topic for this podcast is why I fell in love with golf again. If you have never been to Caledonia, I can tell you, you're going to fall in love with golf instantly if you sit about five minutes on this veranda. This is truly probably the best view in all of Myrtle Beach, I have to admit. I was just mesmerized coming into this place, so gorgeous, the oak trees and everything. Bob, this is your view every single day. Certainly, you love golf.
Bob:
Oh, I do love golf, and I'm incredibly blessed, and a quick story of how I got into the golf business. Years ago, back in the very early '90s, I was involved in a seasonal business somewhere else and would come down here in the wintertime and actually would tend bar up at Webster's. It's a different name now, the Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort. I had gotten into golf in my late teens, and the first time I drove in here, I'd heard about this amazing golf course, Caledonia Golf and Fish Club, and I had a day off or something. I said, "Let me go check this place out."
Bob:
By the time I drove in the entrance road under the canopy of live oaks, I made the turn to come down to the clubhouse, I'm looking at the first hole, which would be on your left coming in, and the 10th hole, well, what was the 10th hole, on the right. By the time I got to the clubhouse, I literally decided that I wanted to be in the golf business, and I was not in the golf business at that time. I said, "I need to make this happen." That's how much I love golf.
Meredith:
Wow. It's almost like a self-prophecy. Here you are, a young kid, driving in here. This leads you to the golf business. Did you ever think that you would be the general manager, which you are now, for the years and the amount of time you've been here? That's pretty cool.
Bob:
It is cool. I'm blessed. There was a lot of hard work, and I also worked for a company that recognized, I don't want to say my talents, but my hard work. I started, and I wasn't that young. It was actually a second career for me. So by the time I started here, I was probably 26 or 27, I guess, before I'd fully moved down here. I'd sold out. I had a share in a restaurant, like I said, in another place in South Jersey, which I belonged to a super awesome golf course up there called Avalon Country Club, which was where I learned to play golf and do a little bit of drinking, too, quite frankly.
Bob:
I started like most people start in the golf business, right? I started outside. I was a full-time starter ranger five days a week, and I'd catch a bag drop shift to make a little cash money. I've worked in every position, and I loved every one that I did, but there was just an always opportunity to move up, and we have an amazing team here. We've always had an amazing team. I'm just fortunate to get to this position. It's rare to hear that title. It's on my business card and when folks say, "Hey, Bob, the general manager," or something, but I'm just part of the team, and I'm happy to be part of the team.
Meredith:
Well, that's why we love you so much, because you're just such a down-to-earth person. You're so real. I have found, and Nate, you and I have discussed this, we've been in the golf business for several decades now. Like you, Bob. We've all been in it a long time. I can say my perspective is this, when you have been in pretty much every position and you have worked every position, I have found that the best GMs are the ones that have been cross-trained like that, that have experienced every single position, because that's how you can lead and really operate a golf course functionally, when you know what it's like to be in every position. You certainly have, and I think that's what makes you so cool, is because you're not ... Even though you're at the top technically in the triangle, you don't look at it that way. You see everyone as equals no matter what you're doing because you've been there.
Bob:
Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that, and I think my kids would check your coolness factor there. They may not think I'm so cool most of the time. But it's funny you say that because we were having a conversation with our team one day. The older you get, you sort of like these business phrases or inspirational quotes. I've kind of leaned into them, and you're trying to have perspective in your life and in your golf and in your workplace. We have young people or older folks, whatever, start here all the time. Everyone has their first day or first week on the job and trying to meet everybody, you don't meet everybody the first day, and say, "Hey, look, here's where we're at." We say, "Welcome to Caledonia. Welcome to True Blue. The rest is up to you. You use your personality."
Bob:
I said, "I will tell you this, that no one here should ever ask you to do something they're not willing to do." I said, "Hey, have them clean the toilet," or, "Hey, where does the trash go in the dumpster? Come here and I'll show you." You take the trash out there, right? "Hey, let's pay attention to litter." You have to lead by example. Telling someone to do something, that is not leadership. You lead by example. You can have directives and everything, and you need to have those. But if you're not willing to do whatever you would ask anyone of the 120 people that work in our company, which is True Blue Caledonia, Caledonia Golf Vacations, if you're not willing to do that, you're not going to be very successful.
Meredith:
That's right.
Bob:
You'd have to survey the staff to see how successful I am as a general manager, but I know as a company we do very well because we've really evolved in the team aspect and there's no job too small. I could never ask you to, "Hey, Meredith, you have to clean out the dumpster." "Well, I don't know how to do that." "Well, I'm not going to show you because I'm the general manager or I'm the head professional, I'm the director of golf." That's not the way it works.
Nate:
You hit it on the head because when we started, you had to start ... You started as a starter ranger. You had to start and work every job to work your way up. That's just the way it was. It's funny you say that because I had the same philosophy. Never ask anyone something you wouldn't do. There was one day we had a tournament when I was at River Club and the porch had cobwebs on it. So I got the power washer out myself, put on grubs, went out, power washed. A guy was coming to talk to me about a golf tournament, and he goes, "I want to talk to the head golf professional," and a guy points to me, he goes, "That can't be him." The guy comes out, and he was literally upset with me. He's like, "You're the head pro and you're out power washing?" I said, "Well, it's got to be done." I subscribe to that. The hard work and dedication of that actually gets you to where Bob's at today.
Meredith:
Absolutely.
Nate:
That's just ...
Bob:
Well, it gets all of us to where we are. At some point along the line, someone will pat us on the back and say, "Hey, you're doing a great job." You say, "Hey, thank you," but you lean into the next task, whatever it is. I never got to what I thought was my, I don't even want to say [inaudible 00:07:53] because I get so distracted, so excuse me, because we're just so used to multi-tasking. So I saw that and I said, so when you start in the golf business, or I would imagine this is true in any business. I've been in other businesses. You start at the bottom of the totem pole, right? Everyone gives you direction. When you're the low person on the totem pole, you get direction from everybody. I've noticed when you become the general manager, technically, you're at the top of the totem pole. Everybody gives you direction, right?
Nate:
Yep, yep. This is true.
Bob:
Everybody gives you direction, right? You're here when you start. I hate to use the term bottom, but that's where you start, and you get direction and everybody and kind of ... And when you get to the top, you get direction from everybody. Everyone's looking for you not to make a mistake, but they want good, solid direction, good, solid leadership.
Nate:
That's a good thing because [crosstalk 00:08:44]
Bob:
Yeah, it is a good thing.
Nate:
They've seen that you will do their job and they see you're a down-to-earth person, and they say, "I can go to him and say, 'This needs to be better,'" whereas if you were just someone that came in, dress shirt every day, sat up in your office, and it's, like you said, just directing people, they would tend to not do that. But they know that you've done their job and they know they can relate to you, so that's important. But that kind of gets to what the topic is because when you work so hard in this industry, you kind of get away from playing golf.
Meredith:
What brought you into this anyway? It's golf. So, I mean, with your responsibilities here being the general manager, how do you take the time out for yourself to get out there and find that passion and love for golf?
Bob:
Well, I'll say this, and you are 100% right. I have not ever met anybody, anybody who works in the golf business who did not get into the business because they didn't love the game. Because no one looks at it and says, "Hey, this is going to be an amazing career," if wealth is what makes you happy. No, you simply get into it. I love golf. I want to be around it. I want to see if I can make this work in my life. That's how it started for me. I just loved it so much, I wanted to be a part of it.
Bob:
I went from making a very nice living owning a seasonal restaurant, supplementing that income, to rolling back, as a matter of fact, to the point, I had just gotten married at that time, and my wife was looking at me like, "What are you doing? Your income level goes from here, and then you're working for minimum wage and tips." I said, "Well, we'll be okay. We have some savings," and it's all worked out beautifully for us. So yeah, finding the time to play golf.
Nate:
It becomes back burner.
Bob:
It becomes back burner. At some point we're all PGA professionals or LPGA professionals. Clearly, we had enough ability to get those credentials to play, right? Whether we were accomplished players or not. I could've never made a dime playing golf. I used to be able to play good golf handicap-wise, scratch or better. But it can get away from you if you start focusing on other things. What had happened to me and how I fell in love with golf again, and this is just recent, I'm not saying I didn't play for 15 years, but when I did play, it was pretty crappy most of the time.
Meredith:
How crappy?
Bob:
Well, now, it was rare, really, to be honest with you, really since ... I hardly played any 18-hole rounds scoring my own ball since 2013, and there's a different reason for that, too, but we can circle back on that. I basically just played captain choice events. You hit a few long drives, you hit a couple decent iron shot swings, but, man, I'll nail topping the ball, just a couple of [inaudible 00:11:44] rockets out there just out of the blue.
Meredith:
Yeah, I mean, come on, guys, let's just get nitty-gritty on this.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:11:50] I've got the feeling, I know.
Bob:
I mean, no. I mean, pretty terrible.
Meredith:
We've all been there.
Bob:
It's not like the guys and gals I'm playing with, they're like yeah, okay, just rusty. It got to the point where it was kind of like I'm hoping, it kind of go to the point of where playing with strangers or folks I didn't know, I was not comfortable.
Nate:
It's tough, isn't it?
Bob:
I'd be the guy out there giving clinics, back in the day. Hey, I don't care, you want to have 50 people sit behind me, I'll hit these flying shots all day long and I'm not worried about blading one. Then all of a sudden it got to the point where I'm just playing with three men and women who I just kind of met, some captain's choice fun, and they're like this guy's supposed to be a PGA pro and he's hitting it all over the lot. So it was pretty bad. Pretty bad.
Nate:
Here's the other thing. They don't know you. Here is the PGA general manager of Caledonia and True Blue. So there are expectations, regardless of that PGA beside your name. Oh, he's the pro, I'm playing with the pro.
Meredith:
Automatic pressure.
Bob:
Yeah.
Nate:
If you don't play and keep up with your game it can go south so quick. I took 15 years off. I mean, I was injured and couldn't play the way I played. I wasn't a really good player, I shot below 75 to 80 I was ecstatic. So par turned into 80. But it's the pressure of playing with people with the expectation level. And then you have expectations of yourself. It's like I don't want to go out there today.
Bob:
Yeah.
Nate:
Because you don't have time. When you've got that responsibilities that you have, you don't have time to spend working on your game, going out and playing. You kind of get away from it. It's kind of like, "I just want to go home today."
Bob:
I'll debate you on one point. Folks will say, "Oh, you're in the business. You can't play golf." That is bull crap. Our ownership group, our whole management, myself, we encourage everybody to play. Our ownership group wasn't like I don't want to see the pro out there playing two or three times a week. Of course if it's 9:00 in the morning and you're squeezing it in between a full morning that's a different story. But no, we encourage everyone to play golf.
Bob:
So I could never use that as an excuse. I could say I don't make the time to play golf. I would find excuses not to play. It wasn't because I couldn't play because of work responsibilities. There's always time in the day. Of course raising kids and coaching other sports and doing all those things, they all take time. Golf does take time. But there is no excuse for ... True Blue has got an amazing practice facility. There's no excuse not to go to Steve Dresser Golf Academy, which has been there for 14 years.
Meredith:
Steve is awesome.
Bob:
Or all of it, right? There was just no excuse for that. So it was all just self inflicted. There was no outside pressures. Now, could I get out and play three times a week? No. Could I get out and play once a week? Not every week.
Nate:
The question is, did you want to?
Bob:
Yeah, no I didn't want to because ... When I hear oh I'm working on my game or I'm grinding it out there, to me, I have a whole new perspective on that. It's not a grind. It's not work. I want to do it. I'm enjoying the process of getting better at golf again.
Bob:
No, I didn't want to do it. Because I knew that I hadn't practiced enough or kept up with anything. I wasn't keeping up with technology and equipment. I didn't know where my swing was. I had probably for a dozen years I had this over the top move that I would never take literally five minutes to figure out why I was doing that. It was just a natural move for me to come over, so everything was just super solid at impact, it felt that way, and then you look up and there's that ball going middle target and it's moving left.
Meredith:
It's moving left, yeah.
Bob:
It's not a draw, it's a pull. Man, it is hard to talk to that. For years I figured it out, and I know I'm rambling on here, but in the last eight weeks I fixed that. I fixed that by watching a 30 second video clip. A 30 second video clip.
Meredith:
See, video tips.
Nate:
They work.
Meredith:
They work.
Bob:
I'm rambling on here. My wife set me straight back in February. Here's how I ...
Meredith:
It takes a woman sometimes to do that.
Bob:
It does. Well, it does. My wife will suffer fools occasionally, but not all the time, and not under her roof. Every February I get together with guys I played softball with for years. So like 28 guys go out, we went out and played True Blue. Of course, pre-requisite round of golf. I practiced for 30 minutes two days before. I go, all right, most of these are airborne. Oh yeah, there's a few that are like ...
Nate:
Captain's choice.
Bob:
There's a few that are professional quality. I'm like, eh, you know. This other couple, skanky ones, we'll just pretend they didn't happen and we'll just go about our business. We get out there and it's a good bunch of guys, mixed group of golfers. Basically go out there, it's captain's choice, we go out there and proceeded to play like crap. Literally probably hit three good shots, a couple of putts, our team is in dead last. It wasn't a great weather day, we had had amazing weather. A couple of beers on the course, it's fine, it's good to see the guys.
Bob:
I came home, my wife was like "How was it?" I was like, "Well it was great to see the guys, and everything was fun." She said, "How was your golf?" I said, "It was terrible." I go, "I'm embarrassed about my golf game." I'm a decent softball player. These guys know, good athlete and all that stuff. She goes, "You know, you do this like four times a year. Six times. You go play in these events, these captain's choice events where it's supposed to be fun, you come home miserable, you come home saying you're embarrassed." She goes, "You know, you're going to be 55 years old in November." She goes, "You've got more life behind you than you do in front of you." She goes, "Are you going to suck at golf the rest of your life or are you going to get good?"
Nate:
Wow.
Bob:
"You used to be a good player." She goes, "Now we couldn't make a living on your paycheck," she goes, "but you used to come home annoyed if you shot higher than 75."
Nate:
Yeah.
Bob:
She goes, "I'm sick of it." She goes, "Either get better at golf, because the whole reason we got into this business," now my wife's been in business for a long time too, she manages Caledonia Golf Vacations. "The only reason we got into this business is because you loved it. You'd better love it again, or what are you doing?"
Bob:
The next day I booked an appointment with Stewart Clark to get fitted and everything. My equipment was complete crap. Junk. Didn't even fit. My irons were 18 years old. The shafts were an inch too long because my posture and body had changed. He's like, "What are you doing, man?" But he's like, "Hey, you've still got a good swing speed. Your swing actually looks good, but we need to start you on a process." So it happened in February, my wife kicked me in my butt, and that's how I fell in love with golf again.
Nate:
That's great. And you got perspective. She gave you perspective on it. That's the best.
Meredith:
I think it's awesome that she did that. There's probably men listening to this right now saying man, does his wife have any sisters? Usually it's the women keeping the men home. Women are like no, don't go play golf, because they know their man's going to be gone all day, and here your wife is the opposite and a lot of men are like, I like that. There needs to be more chicks like her.
Bob:
Yeah. Well, yeah, be careful what you wish for. No, she's awesome. I will say this about her and she probably won't listen to this but she might. Yeah, you have to get the deal set up in the beginning. If your wife's a golfer or you're a golfer, I have never, and I used to play a lot of golf, missed a tee time for my wife's like no, you can't play golf. Her dad was a golfer, my brother-in-law was a golfer, they get it. My wife was a golfer for a while. She had a goal to break 50 for nine holes, she worked hard at it for a year and did it and then she was done. It was the weirdest thing ever. I'm like, "What do you mean you're done?" She goes, "I accomplished my goal. I'm good. I'm good with it."
Meredith:
Been there, done it.
Bob:
I'm like, okay. So anyway, if anyone needs a set of expensive left handed Titleist whatever I've got a whole bag just sitting there.
Nate:
You could talk her back into it.
Meredith:
I love that you're in love with the game again. Does it feel good? Is your confidence coming back? Do you feel like this is going to continue now?
Bob:
Oh, there's no doubt about it. I'm having these amazing practice sessions. I'm not going to say tour quality, that's ridiculous, but very good quality, high quality shots. I'm just totally in love with the new equipment, which fits me. Everything feels comfortable. I like technology, I'm not as gifted with technology like y'all are, but I use it. It has made the process of practice so much more enjoyable. Everything. I bought all this great stuff. This is how out of golf I was, I didn't even have a range finder.
Nate:
I didn't either.
Bob:
I bought a range finder. In the last three months I bought a range finder, alignment sticks, my equipment perfectly fits me. Now video.
Nate:
I had to have someone show me how to use the range finder. Yeah.
Bob:
Yeah. That's pretty bad. That's how far away ... Oh, but I'm absolutely loving it. All I think about is golf now. I'm playing softball last night and I'm in the on deck circle and I'm swinging the bat. All these guys play golf, it's a senior league and we're all big, "Man, your golf swing looks good." I'm like, "Yeah, it feels right." I'm not even, I'm playing with softballs. You know what, my golf swing is so good right now, my softball swing is not great, I go I'm hitting everything it's about a foot off the ground coming in. A great night at the plate, it's like I was hitting four irons or something all over the field. I totally love it. It's never going away now.
Bob:
Now the only thing I do need to do, I do need to get out there and play more. I'm playing six or seven holes, or seven or eight holes. I need to get out some 18. But practice sessions three or four times a week, absolutely love it.
Nate:
My problem is, and I was telling Meredith this yesterday, is I practice too much and don't get on the golf course enough. I'll hit balls. My goal is to hit balls at least every other day, but I'll take three weeks before I play again. You can't do that. Because I'm not good at practicing, I just pound it, I just pound balls.
Bob:
I've even gotten better at that. Again, we're fortunate here, there's great practice facilities and amazing golf courses all over Myrtle Beach, that's what we're about here. Most of us in the business take it for granted that we have these opportunities and places. But over at True Blue, multiple practice greens. Never trying to hit three balls at any target and just switch target distances and everything.
Bob:
Absolutely head over heals love. My older son played junior golf and he was turning 11 with that old [inaudible 00:22:43] program, stopped and then played soccer.
Meredith:
I was in that program.
Bob:
Oh you were? Then stopped and played soccer so that he's doing a couple of different things. He works hard, he makes a little bit of money, and he's gotten back into golf. All of a sudden, because a couple of his friends were like, "Hey, your dad's [inaudible 00:23:02]" and all of a sudden he's like, I'd better get into golf now. He is completely hooked. All we do is we'll send each other video clips. We communicate more, we've always gotten along well, he's just very quiet believe it or not. My wife's like, "You and I probably just out-personalitied him. No one has room to speak in this house."
Bob:
We talk about golf all the time now. "Hey, how was your session?" "Oh man, I had a great session, I was hitting a six iron. You know I'm thinking here, I'm tweaking ..." It's just opened up this whole new avenue of commonality or something we have in common. So now we have a soft goal of playing in a father and son next year.
Meredith:
Ah, that's awesome.
Bob:
Which would just be nuts for us. It would be super exciting for me. It would be his first kind of tournament like that. It would be the first kind of tournament for me in a super long time. I used to play in a couple of section events back when I was assistant, I couldn't break an egg in those. It was always like, "Hey, great round." 75, or it was 68. 75, 79. I'm like, I'm just wasting my money here. I'm just filling up the purse.
Bob:
Yeah, so it's kind of infectious, right? Love kind of infects everybody, it's all positive.
Meredith:
We've seen that with COVID and the number of people coming into the game this last year. I've been the busiest that I've ever been instruction-wise. In fact I am booked out right now, I can't even take appointments because so many people are wanting to come into the game and learn the fundamentals, the basics and everything. Golf courses are booked right now, people are out playing. So it is contagious.
Bob:
Yeah. Six and a half, depending on national golf, six and a half new golfers coming in. And certainly, as we all know, folks who used to play six times a year are playing 18 times a year. Everyone's playing more golf. I think what's amazing for us, and they don't have the hard numbers, but you can just see it every day. If we're good at our jobs, which we are, you're good with senior students and you're amazing with social, I mean, you walk around with your eyes and ears open. But every day the amount of 25, 30, 35 year old groups of men and women, a lot of younger couples coming through the door all the time.
Meredith:
I see that too.
Bob:
We call it the flat brimmers and the flat front shorts. Stuff all guys like me came up with.
Meredith:
You still wear the pleats, right?
Bob:
Yeah, whatever. Every now and again. Anyway. Look, I'm happy to be an almost 55 year old man, right? I figure hey, I've got another good 40 years on the planet if I start taking care of myself. I'm not knocking that age group but when your business and you're looking at hey, all our customers are 55 and older, 65, it's like that's not going to last forever. So this whole influx, brought on by COVID, I mean, and all these that work from home and this crowd. My son's 24 and all his buddies are out playing and they're driving me nuts trying to get them tee times all over town. I'm like, hey, go and get a Prime Times card or a Passport and quit bothering me. You all have jobs. I don't want to call every golf course.
Bob:
Anyway, that's exciting for me. Because it's exciting to see young people. And they love it. They love the social aspect and the music. Now we're all selling craft beer and all this stuff. It's perfect. I mean, selfies and videos. It's perfect. Our responsibility now, we, I mean golf industry, we can't screw this up. I don't know how we can, but we can't, and we shouldn't.
Nate:
I'd be interested to see what you guys both think about this, but the knock on golf was it takes too long. My answer is what do you have to do? You're playing four hours and 20 minutes, what else better could you be doing? They always said well I'll just play nine holes. It's like shortening a baseball game. Is that going to bring more people into baseball? You either like it or you don't, right?
Meredith:
I think it depends on the courses, too. I think when we were all growing up a lot of courses weren't as long as they are. I grew up, yardage-wise, playing shorter courses. It was, to me, maybe that could play some role. Courses are a little bit different.
Nate:
I'll admit, I lose interest sometimes after 16 holes. I'm thinking 15, 16 holes would be great. But I just think the excuse of golf just takes too long ...
Meredith:
It's the technology too. It's like we're wired where everything is little sound bites.
Nate:
You're on your phone, I've got to answer this email, I've got to do this, I've got to do that.
Bob:
That is a great talking point because golf tours solutions, all these marketing co ops, we have these amazing associations in this marketplace, relationships. It's a huge cooperative between all the golf courses, even though they're ownership groups. Three years ago, four years ago, well, probably as little as three years ago, we were golf business wasn't great. Young people, they don't want to play golf because it takes too long. Everything is technology, everything has to be now. It's amazing all of a sudden now, again trying to take positive things out of COVID, is people realize you know what? I want to be on the golf course for four or five hours.
Nate:
Yeah.
Bob:
I want to be in an outdoor space. I want to spend time with friends.
Meredith:
Right.
Bob:
I really enjoy this. Yeah, life is fast paced and technology is like this, but this time out here is awesome. On the other side, I can work from home. It's completely flipped.
Meredith:
Yeah, it is.
Bob:
Our perspective is golf, all the excuses that were made because people we were making because people weren't playing golf, now we're turning around and realizing we need to sell the positive aspects of golf. Maybe selling it is hey, here's five hours not even away from anything, you're never away from anything, we have USB chargers on the carts. I'm sure you all do too. No one's away from this, right?
Meredith:
You're listening to music now.
Bob:
Yeah.
Meredith:
You're out chilling, you're having a beer.
Bob:
Yeah. You can work from the golf course. There's no reason not to be on the golf course now. Before, it was, not that you always want to work on the golf course but let's be realistic. I could, I don't. I don't go out on the golf course without my phone. If you have your phone, you're working. You're plugged in.
Nate:
I always want to grab a photo. That's why my phone's there.
Meredith:
Yeah, me too.
Bob:
Oh my gosh, 100%. That is work. I think there's three social media directors sitting here at this table, if I'm not mistaken. If we want to give ourselves that title.
Nate:
Yeah.
Bob:
But I know we're responsible for a lot of it.
Meredith:
Yeah, I think a lot of people, especially last year with the pandemic and it was an election year, it was a very intense year social media-wise. I actually detoxed at the beginning of this year from it, a lot of it. I got COVID really bad. When I was really sick, Nate knows this, he's like one of the only people I was texting. It was a life changing thing for me. At that point I said okay, I need to hit a reset button. I want to change the way I do some things.
Meredith:
So for me I don't go on social media quite as much. I mean, I'm active, obviously, every day. But not to the length. I make a conscientious effort now when I play golf to not look at socials, to not open up my email application on there. I'm like Nate, I'll grab some video or some pretty pictures because that's what I really relish about it, just the whole experience of getting out there and playing golf. That's my love for it. But there is definitely a lot of people now doing social media detoxes. You can actually Google it, just social media detox, and you can look at the dates. It's been so much, 2020, 2021, learning how to take a break.
Meredith:
Some of the things that you can do that I have done is actually delete apps on your phone. I did that a lot at the beginning of this year. I deleted Twitter. I deleted apps so I couldn't access it. Like Gmail and Facebook I would actually have to go on my laptop. It would force me to take an extra step of do I really want to get on and scroll and get locked into that scrolling mode of it? I think a lot of people are taking a time out for mental health, because that's just part of our mental well being emotional, physical, everything. Mind, body, spirit, I think it's all connected, and I think science is showing that now. How unhealthy staying too connected to digital can affect every area of your life.
Meredith:
Obviously, it can affect your golf game. We can fall in love with golf again. I think part of that is taking a step back from how active we are on technology. Like you said, Nate, we live in such a digital world. There's a lot of people, well, I don't want to spend five or six hours out on the golf course.
Nate:
Again, it's like golf's in a different place, too, where when someone sends you an email they expect a response. Why hasn't he responded to me? Back in the day, working within a company, you'd get an inter-company envelope that was sent three days ago and then you'd send it back. We got along just fine then. Things worked, things functioned. We've all gotten our brains it's like, oh, I've got to get that done right away, I've got to do this. It's good to get things done, but ...
Meredith:
Snail mail wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Bob:
Meredith, I must say that is great perspective. I've found myself the same way. I go out on the golf course, I go out there I just want to enjoy, look around. I take a couple of pictures, a little video. I do feel when I'm on our properties, whether I'm playing or practicing, I hate to use the term work because I love my job.
Nate:
It's tough to play at your own place sometimes, though, because you're looking at things.
Bob:
Yeah. It is. But I totally agree with the mental health and spirituality. I am trying to get so much better at that. Phil Mickelson. Phil has always been such an interesting guy. I used to root against Phil because I was a Tiger guy and it's like, with sports you have to root for somebody, root against somebody. But I always admired, he's a talent, he's an interesting guy. But you talk about being inspired, which even made me fall in love with golf more, I'm looking at Phil's condition at 50 years old. Let's be honest, the camera adds weight. Phil was never as out of shape as everyone said he was. That dude looks awesome.
Meredith:
He looks great. What is he, 55?
Bob:
He's 50.
Meredith:
Phil's 50. I thought he was 55.
Nate:
I used to root against him too.
Meredith:
I did too.
Bob:
What I was trying to say is the fact that he played terrible golf, then came back and won the PGA, looks so good, this interval fasting, I've experimented with it but I haven't been strict. But I want to get strict about it. And all that stuff. It's all inspiring now. I'm inspired by seeing positivity in everything.
Meredith:
Yes.
Bob:
There is plenty of negativity out there. I don't need that in my life.
Meredith:
Amen that.
Bob:
That's dragging us all down.
Meredith:
It really is.
Bob:
That's not saying you should just walk around with your head in a bubble like all is well.
Meredith:
Exactly, right.
Bob:
But your point is well made about everything that happened last year, from the political, all the hatred. I don't have time for hate anymore. Hate's a dangerous thing, let's just leave it at that. We don't need to get sideways in that conversation. But golf has become a great, I'm not saying a sanctuary, my life is really blessed. As my wife and I talk about it all the time, why aren't the kids doing this or they should be doing ... It's some perspective, right? You look at everything in a whole and say hey, you know what, it's pretty good. Everything is positive.
Bob:
But golf, to your point, get out on the golf course or get on the practice tee and you're focused, or you develop a personal par. I find just beauty and joy hitting a solid golf shot. Yeah, I want to go out there and I want to shoot some good scores eventually. That's going to happen soon, I know it's there, but I'm not even worried about that right now. I'm just enjoying playing four or five holes. Hey, I hit a perfect drive, or I hit a perfect approach, man that was a perfect read on that putt, done, good. That's great. I'm just enjoying it.
Bob:
I'm not, if I kind of knock one into the trees, I'm not really focused on score. A long time ago when I thought I was a good golfer, and I was okay, score was the only thing that mattered. Now, if I've got to start paying some bets out to people, yeah, score is going to matter at some point.
Nate:
So your expectations have gone down. I'm out here to have fun now.
Bob:
Yeah, I have goals, but I think, I told my son, he's just getting back into it so breaking 100 is his goal. He'll get there. I said, "You're going to get there, then you're going to break 90. It's going to take a little bit more work to break 80, but if you want to do that you can do it." Because score is important. It's not that important to me, but personal par, like I said, personal par and enjoying time with friends, that's really what golf is all about. Does that make you a serious golfer? Well yeah, you can be serious about having a great time with friends and having your own personal par and seeing joy in a beautiful golf shot. You can be serious about that. Just being a serious golfer doesn't mean that you're someone who's a scratch player or single digit. The most intense, passionate folks I've ever met about golf who are at the practice tee and play all the time are folks who are 15, 18 handicappers. They love it just as much as a scratch guy does.
Meredith:
That's right.
Bob:
Or gal.
Nate:
Yep.
Bob:
More, probably. Because if you count score as success they may not have had as much success, but man, they're the ones that support the golf business. They pay the bills. They're our core customers and they love it just as much as anybody playing for a living on tour.
Meredith:
They're out there for the experience.
Bob:
Golf is a very personal thing. I think we need to emphasize that more. Hey look, don't worry about the score on the score card. The only numbers you should be concerned about on the score card are the yardage of the golf course, where it's going to be comfortable for you based on the realistic distance you drive the ball, not your best drive ever. Find that place and you're going to enjoy the game so much more.
Meredith:
That's one thing I would say to our listeners if you have fallen out of love with golf. My first tip to fall back in love with golf is something you just said. Scoring. Don't keep score. Next time you go out and play golf I would recommend, I mean obviously you need to look at your score card and whatnot, hole placement if you've never played that course and whatnot, and yardages, and all that helps, but don't keep score. Or if you want to keep score, only write down your birdies and pars. Don't write down anything, let's say you triple a hole.
Nate:
I'd have an empty card.
Meredith:
Well listen, if you have an empty card, you have an empty card. Let's say you're on the tee and you go out of bounds, forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Tee up another one, go out there and have fun. Don't write the score down. There's something about that, especially if you're naturally competitive. That can be detrimental. For me, if I take a break and come back into it, the first couple of rounds I'm just not going to keep score. Or I'm only going to allow myself to remember the two or three birdies, few pars I got, and I'm fine with that. I don't go any more mentally.
Nate:
See I had good friends, they kept bugging me to play golf again. They were like, you've been in the business so long, you don't play golf anymore. They started off what you were doing. We started off, there were four of us, and we played two man captain's choice against each other. That really got me into not keeping my own score. If I hit a good shot every now and then it's like, oh, I can do it.
Meredith:
That's great, Nate. Really, that's the way to go.
Nate:
They were super about that. So our first two or three rounds were let's just play against each other, two person captain's choice. It was like, wow, this is good.
Meredith:
What do you recommend? That's really good, Nate. Not keeping score, playing a game like that, what would be the one thing you would recommend for our listeners to fall back in love?
Bob:
Well I'd have to say it depends on where you play golf, I guess. If you're brand new to the game then you're just falling in love with it for the first time. But I do think, and I almost hate to use the word practice because practice sounds like drudgery and I love it so much now and I didn't always love it before. It's a lot of things that made practice better and easier. I think you have to go in with a realistic attitude. What do I really want to get out of this? You can have a long term goal, but it is just seeing the beauty of the ball flying towards the target in a clear blue sky or whatever, is that what I'm looking for?
Bob:
Or hey, if I'm really score focused, and some people are and that brings them joy, then you'd better go see someone like yourself. A teaching professional or something. Because chances are you're not going to be able to figure it out on your own. My suggestion would be teaching professional, make sure your equipment is correct. Fitting is incredibly important. I realized that, I've been a PGA professional for 21 years, had my stuff tweaked a long time ago. But then go into a fitting session and realize that your irons are an inch long and all the wafts and lies are wrong? That's crazy.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Bob:
I mean, that's crazy. You talk about compensating.
Meredith:
I'll bet that was a steep angle of attack right there.
Bob:
Oh yeah. So to fall in love with it again is to realize, first of all understand why you loved it initially. Maybe, hey, just understand why you fell out of love with it and you want to get back into it for the right reasons, whatever those reasons are. I do think if whatever your level of success is, I think absolutely with all the amazing golf academies and instructors and what is even better for me and things I've picked up online are all the incredible golf tips and videos that are available online that can bolster, hey, I had a great lesson with Meredith and we went over X, I can find her tip online to support that and I can just review that at any time, in between my next lesson. Get your equipment fit right. Then just find a group of people you enjoy being with.
Meredith:
There you go. That's key.
Nate:
That's important, yeah.
Meredith:
Like who you play with.
Nate:
I'm at the stage I don't want to play with people i don't want to play with.
Bob:
Yeah.
Meredith:
That's true. Definitely.
Nate:
I know that sounds bad. I want to play with people that are fun and energetic and just have fun.
Meredith:
Yeah. When I go play golf I honestly, I dread if I'm getting paired up with someone because I don't know the person. Then suddenly I put pressure on myself, and then I go into performance, I'm a pro, I have to perform. It's not good for me. So when I play I make sure that I book a group that I really like to play with.
Nate:
But you see it with people on vacation. You'll have a group of people come in, eight people, and maybe they don't like each other. It's like, why did you go on vacation with these people, right?
Bob:
Oh, yeah.
Nate:
It's like, I don't want to play with him. Why did you?
Meredith:
Why do you torture yourself?
Nate:
You're paying money to come play golf and it's like it's torture. Don't make it that hard.
Bob:
Yeah. It's interesting in our business because if you spend a lot of time on the floor, anyway, you hear people all the time. Welcome to True Blue, welcome to Caledonia, I hope you have a great day. We'll see. Well it's a beautiful day. Well it depends how I play. So here's my stock line. We all probably have about six stock lines we use just to move from conversation to conversation, or person to person. I say don't let the score dictate how your day's going to go. Enjoy your time with friends at a beautiful place.
Bob:
The hardcore people are kind of like who's this perky Pete over here. It's like, whatever, dude. But a lot of people are like, that's a good perspective there. That's where I'm at.
Nate:
I don't even like these guys I'm with. That would be the next step.
Bob:
That's where I'm at. Find the beauty in the day. But I am serious about getting my game back, or whatever semblance that is. I'm serious about getting my 30 year old game back. It's not going to be the same as when I was 30, but it still can be good.
Nate:
You still want to be good, but it's about perspective and expectations. At this point none of us are going to be on the tour. It's personal growth. I want to be better the next time out than I was the time before, take something positive away from it, right?
Meredith:
Absolutely. Well, for those listening, if you want to fall in love with golf again, I would start at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club or True Blue. We're sitting out here at Caledonia on the veranda looking at a view that is spectacular. The best view in Myrtle Beach golf. Quite incredible. Every time I come out here I am mesmerized.
Meredith:
That is why, speaking of love, you have so many weddings and engagements. There's a lot of love going on here at Caledonia. So if you want to fall in love with golf again you need to book your next round at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club. Also, the sister course, True Blue. Get in touch with Bob Seganti. Bob, let's tell our listeners if they want to come book, fall in love, do you have a fall in love with golf package available?
Bob:
Well, yeah. Okay, stay and play packages. Book online. We're available everywhere, just like everybody else in this amazing Myrtle Beach golf marketplace. We truly are the golf capitol of the world. If you can't find what you're looking for in the game of golf or anything to do with golf here you're not going to be able to find it anywhere. Caledoniagolfandfishclub.com, truebluegolf.com, myrtlebeachtrips.com. Of course, Meredith, I love your instructional videos online.
Meredith:
Thank you.
Bob:
If you don't follow Nate's social media stuff at Myrtle Beach Trips and on his own page you're missing out because he's an amazing photographer. Time spent with you all is always time well spent. I truly enjoy our friendship. I really enjoyed talking about this. I don't know if you can tell but I'm super excited about golf.
Meredith:
Yeah, I can see it. Your pupils are now hearts for golf. It's good to see you in love with golf again. It's like anything, sometimes you go through stages where you're not feeling the love, but the love is back. It's returned. A lot of people are experiencing that now, post-COVID. I like to happily say that all of that is behind us now. But yeah, a new love affair with golf, 2021, golf is growing and it feels good to be back out there. So I'm glad you're back out there, Bob, and again thanks for hosting us out here. It's always a joy to come out here.
Nate:
We could seriously stay out here all day.
Meredith:
Yeah. I want to get some pictures, too, before we go. But for those listening, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Thanks for tuning in. You can check out our other podcast available on our Gimme Golf Podcast. Don't miss out, we'll be back again next week. Thanks for listening.