Embracing Innovation While Honouring Tradition - Hoyt McGarity, President at 8AM Golf

ModGolfPodcast

And there's going to be a really interesting conversation, really engaging. And my guest today is Hoyt McGarity, who is the president and CEO of 8AM Golf. And if you have not heard of 8am Golf, they are an integrated collection of brands with the shared mission of supporting and celebrating golfers and the golf industry, valuing the traditions of the sport while encouraging innovative practices to help it grow.

So that right there embraces everything that I do with the golf ventures I've worked on over the last 10 years in the golf space, what the ModGolf Podcast embraces, respecting the traditions, but also all the great things that we are to to fuel the future of the game. And 8AM's goal is to create a golf company that provides golfers with tools, inspirations, and experiences that are fundamental to having more fun on the course. And as you know me well enough and everything we do, fun is with a capital F.

That's something that's so important. And I can't wait to dig into this with Hoyt. So I'm going to stop talking and I'm going to just introduce him. So Hoyt, welcome to the ModGolf podcast. Thanks for joining us today!

Hoyt 02:19

Colin thank you. I'm excited to be here and on the podcast and talk everything 8 am.

ModGolfPodcast 02:27

Good stuff. Good stuff. So, Hey, I've got to ask you, first of all, I always ask this icebreaker question, I've done a little backgrounding on you. Of course you and I have not had the the pleasure of speaking quite yet until today. But I know you were a high level golfer. You actually played professionally for some time. You also were a college D1 player. So I want to ask you this icebreaker. And this is about your first golf experience ever. Because sometimes people have never picked up a club before. Sometimes when they're two years old and everything in between. So I want to ask you this. And this can tie into the whole fun aspect too.

When was the first time you ever picked up a golf club? What was that first golf experience and that power of invitation? Who was that person in your life that made that happen for you?

Hoyt 03:12

Wow, that's a good question. I would say that my first, thinking way back here, my first golf experience came from my uncle, actually. It was actually my grandfather. We just called him Uncle Ed. And no one in my family played golf at all, like nobody.

ModGolfPodcast 03:26

Okay.

Hoyt 03:28

And I think around seven years old in the backyard, he always in his basement, made he made clubs. He collected old clubs, right?

ModGolfPodcast 03:37

all right

Hoyt 03:38

And he made me one and he taught me the game all the way down to the grip. I use an airlock grip still today. Everything came from Uncle Ed, to be honest

ModGolfPodcast 03:49

All right.

Hoyt 03:49

so he got me into the game early

ModGolfPodcast 03:52

Interesting. Early. So after that, because then obviously you became an elite level player, I'm assuming in your teens, then you went on to college. So what what was that next step for you? Who was that next person, mentor or teacher that encouraged you to get that confidence and get to that next level?

Hoyt 04:09

I would say after uncle Ed, I got really into it. I started caddying when I was 12 years old at Maidstone. And I grew up in Bridgehampton, Sagaponic, New York, in the Hamptons, but I was not a member at any of the golf courses. So I worked at pretty much every golf course out there, caddying, to be able to play because there was no public courses in the Hamptons. And I would say where I started to take it serious was in my teens.

And I think the most influential person in my life in the sport of golf is a gentleman named Rick Hartman, who's the head pro at Atlantic. And I was friendly with all the pros, but I think Rick kind of took me under his wing. I worked there for a long time. And still to this day, Rick helped me with my first businesses helping raise money. So to this day, he's like a father to me. And I give a lot of credit to him.

ModGolfPodcast 05:01

Nice. Nice. So as I mentioned earlier, you did play in college, then you played some professional golf, but then you obviously got the entrepreneurial bug either after your golf career or maybe at the same time as some seeing some gaps and opportunities, pain points that we talk about all the time in entrepreneurship and and startup culture. So I want to learn about the origin story of 8am golf. My understanding with Howard Milstein, the work that he's done with the Nicholas group, with golf.com and some others that he put this whole thing together, and then started bringing in some other companies.

And one of those companies is one that you co-founded. So why don't you tell us the origin story of 8AM Golf and also how you connected to all of that and how you came in with the venture that in the golf space that that made that connection for you.

Hoyt 05:54

Yeah, actually, I'll go one back step. I'll start with my business, how I ended up into Howard's world, and then from there into 8am.

ModGolfPodcast 06:00

Right, right.

Hoyt 06:01

So I started, found a company called True Spec Golf.

ModGolfPodcast 06:02

Awesome.

Hoyt 06:05

I think at the end of my playing career, traveling around the world, playing professional golf, which was amazing. I was always way more addicted to the golf equipment, the gear. I never had aspirations to be a teacher or the instruction side, although I took a lot of lessons, but I was always fascinated by the equipment. And so I actually lived in Canada for a while and I started a company called Modern Golf with a few other people in Toronto.

ModGolfPodcast 06:28

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Hoyt 06:29

And that was my first taste into the custom club fitting, high-end gear, really enjoyed that job at Modern Golf. And then in January of 2014, I left Modern Golf, came back to the States. I raised the money and I started Tru Spec. And we had a lot of success fairly quickly in the United States. And I think that's when Howard came into my world, probably at the end of 2016. So Howard's in the Hamptons as well. And he's in New York City, business from a banking perspective and real estate. And someone introduced me me to him and I did not know him and I know a lot of people in the Hamptons and he got fit at TruSpec, loved the experience. If you think about how it all comes it comes around it was like he got fit, he picked up yardage after he ordered the clubs. Our communication was really good, our customer service was fantastic and we delivered the club on time.

So he says, hey, who is this group? And these people ticked every box really well. I could say we do that with everyone. But, it was just it happened to work really well with Howard.

ModGolfPodcast 07:38

right

Hoyt 07:38

And it got his attention.

ModGolfPodcast 07:39

yeah yeah

Hoyt 07:40

And then a mutual pro put us in in touch and he was asking me about Miura Golf. So originally when the call came, I thought he wanted to buy a set of Miura Golf clubs. I did not know who he was.

ModGolfPodcast 07:52

Right.

Hoyt 07:53

Well, I found out real quick. He wanted to buy the company. He was asking me questions about it and I gave him my honest opinion. And I think we just had this connection. Howard is a mentor to me now, but we just kind of hit it off. And then he asked a lot about Tru Spec. He ended up buying into Tru Spec as a shareholder. And then he bought the remaining of the company within six months of that. It was like very quick where he bought out all the shareholders, myself and everyone.

And then we moved it into his portfolio, which at the time had Nicholas companies and Golf Logix. And then we added Miura with me, True Spec.

ModGolfPodcast 08:31

right

Hoyt 08:35

Then we bought golf.com and Golf magazine. And we started to roll up these businesses, but we didn't have 8AM. We didn't have a holding company. And it got to the point where we were like, we need a holding company, right? Like we need somewhere to put all these businesses. And in 19, we created 8AM Golf. Honestly, when we chose the name and everything, we didn't think anyone would ever hear it. We just thought it was a holding company. And then things escalated from there.

ModGolfPodcast 08:59

Right.

Hoyt 09:02

You look at everything in golf, as you can imagine, and I spend my day there.

ModGolfPodcast 09:07

Yeah, I see.

Hoyt 09:09

And now we have 14 companies

ModGolfPodcast 09:13

Yeah, and we're going to dig into some of these here. Just to back up, just for context here, so if people don't know who Miura Golf is. So they're a Japanese company who makes high-end hand-forged irons and wedges. So I understand now you've got the the global rights to Miura, except in Japan. Is that correct?

Hoyt 09:29

We have a partnership in Japan with the factory. So yeah, we own the Miura brand globally and we don't do the sales in Japan, but we have a relationship with the factory and they're tied into us globally.

ModGolfPodcast 09:32

Right.

Hoyt 09:40

So it's like a good joint venture, but they're the most amazing club makers in the world. Let's be honest, the forging process, the steps, their attention to detail, it's best in class. And on the front end, we were good. We were much better at the selling, branding and the rest of it. And I think we just a great, it's been an amazing relationship with the Miura family and their factories are at full capacity and can't add any more.

And that means we're doing well.

ModGolfPodcast 10:07

Nice. Nice. And with Golf Logix, I do know them. I do know, know Pete Charleston. I had him on the podcast. I just looked back when I saw that you do own Golf Logix and I had Pete on The ModGolf Podcast back almost right back in the beginning, back in 2018. So, so yeah, I certainly know what they do and the great things with green reading and putting and what they've taken on the next level there with, with their in real time on course, digital information for golfers.

Hoyt 10:26

yeah

ModGolfPodcast 10:33

It's awesome what you have there. So I'm really interested now to see how this thing has evolved organically. And so it sounds like 8am Golf was just created as this holding company. You created this bucket to hold all of these companies and assets in, and it was not the original overarching philosophy or vision to then create a brand and a culture around this.

Hoyt 10:49

Yeah.

ModGolfPodcast 11:00

So he could can tell us a little bit about how you evolve from concept to execution? If there even were any early challenges with what you're doing here, I'm sure there's maybe a couple. I always love stories of things that didn't work out. A venture you thought was going to be a rock star, but as we know, with investing and acquisition that not all of them work out. So tell us a little bit about that, how you went from 8am Golf as being this thing that no one really knew of because it was behind the curtains as this this holding company, but now it's actually a brand that's out there and and getting more and more notoriety and having Justin Timberlake, who we'll talk about in a minute, involved too, kind of adds more celebrity cachet to that also.

So yeah, tell us a little bit about that, how you went from having a holding company to now a brand that is becoming recognized globally.

Hoyt 11:49

Thank you. Yeah, like I said, when we first started, it was Howard and I, we just picked a name and it has a funny story to it. And we honestly just needed a place to house it and we needed to hire great people and kind of, you know, we're a very hands-on group, as you can imagine, on all of our businesses. So we're much more operators, so we don't make 20% investments and sit back. We're not a private equity firm. We're very hands-on.

ModGolfPodcast 12:16

right

Hoyt 12:17

In fact, I think of the 14 brands, 11 of them we own 100% of. And then the management we tie in, right? And the other three are in industries that we're not experts in, but we want to be in. So then you would take a smaller piece of it because you rely on your partners to execute.

ModGolfPodcast 12:29

Right.

Hoyt 12:33

And so when we go back to 2019, we thought of this. We said we're in a holding company. It's a division of a bank, right? Which is how we're mostly known as a private bank called Emigrant Bank. And that's kind of how we did it. We put all the assets there and then we started to acquire more and we started to start up some assets too that we have today. And then it got more attention. People took to the logo, the flagstick logo, because it's really simple. And we started to make some gear and it got into the right hands with some celebrity i don't know just this weird brand just started to emerge from an 8AM Golf perspective which we never planned. Then Justin Timberlake obviously propelled that times a thousand and I've had a relationship with Justin that goes back many years.

We played a tremendous amount of golf together. I used to fit him for golf clubs down at Albany in the Bahamas where we had a True Spec location. And we became really good friends.

ModGolfPodcast 13:34

okay

Hoyt 13:36

And these are my early days. I was fitting all the clubs. We had a very small team. And that's the grinding days of of where you start. And I just became great friends with him. He loves golf. He's an entrepreneur.

ModGolfPodcast 13:49

Okay.

Hoyt 13:49

You can imagine how many golf deals Justin Timberlake gets sent just because he's, you know, the Bob Hope of the new generation, like in golf.

ModGolfPodcast 13:53

yeah

Hoyt 13:57

And he was like, look, I make investments in all these golf assets, but I don't even know why. He just loves the sport. It was in 2019, his team and he came and said, what if we invested into 8AM Golf, the holding company, therefore we became your partner on all the assets.

ModGolfPodcast 14:09

Yeah. Right.

Hoyt 14:18

And then we talked about it. We're like, look, this would have to be a real investment. Not structured like a typical thing where a celebrity gets X and X and X, right? And honestly, he's been a fantastic partner, side-by-side on every single investment we make.

ModGolfPodcast 14:29

Amazing

Hoyt 14:34

And sometimes he could be forward-facing with it. Sometimes he might sit behind on it because it's up to him. And then we started the 8AM Invitational, which is our celebrity event in Vegas. And I think at that point, people were like, what's 8AM Golf? And we didn't have a sponsor or a corporate sponsor. We just said, we'll call it 8AM Because we wanted to bring attention to that so people knew that we owned all these other brands.

ModGolfPodcast 14:57

right

Hoyt 14:58

And then at that point, 8AM became a thing. And people started to recognize it. And you'd see the logo and we'd always have people trying to get the hats and the gear. We don't sell it. So it's just kind of funny culturally. But the real focus of it is to draw attraction to the brands that we own. And, and to run an actual business.

ModGolfPodcast 15:17

Right.

Hoyt 15:19

And we've debated if 8AM should be its own thing or not someday because of where it's going. But we think it's a respected name. I think when we have different divisions in events and travel, people see that it's powered by 8AM. They know it's going to be like a best in class type of event.

ModGolfPodcast 15:37

Yeah.

Hoyt 15:37

They trust the brand.

ModGolfPodcast 15:41

Got it. Got it. Okay. Well, I do want to ask you more about your investment strategy and valuation thesis for potential acquisitions or partnerships, but you, you kind of teased me earlier that there's a funny or quirky story around the name 8AM Golf. I'm a bit of a brand guy myself. And so I always love to hear the origin story of the name. So you've got to share that with us.

Hoyt 16:03

Yeah, because Howard, particularly Michael, his son, with a lot of their investments, their favorite number is eight. A lot of their investments are holding companies or they start with something eight. The addresses at their house have something eight. So they just love the number eight. So do I. And so they're like, it's got to be with the number eight. And then they came up with the name. I had really nothing to do with the number.

ModGolfPodcast 16:29

You've got to share that with us, Hoyt.

Hoyt 16:30

It was more Howard, he liked 8AM because it's a tee time, but his wife's name is Abby Milstein. So it was really her initials with the number 8AM, it tied to golf, but it clicked to him as Abby Milstein, which I found fascinating. And then he says "you know it's the first tee time". I'm like well it's not really the first tee time but we'll go with that! And that's how it happened. At the time it was like you know we weren't gonna both use our names. It's funny my name's Hoyt McGarrity he's Howard Milstein so we were gonna use HM but we don't want our names in this thing right?

ModGolfPodcast 17:03

right

Hoyt 17:03

So it was a funny story. And, yeah, actually the AM is Abby Milstein, but it also is a tee time. So it just all worked out,

ModGolfPodcast 17:19

So I looked at some of the great properties that you have here, the innovative and groundbreaking things that you're doing. So I need you to talk about 3's and also with T-Squared Social. So can you bundle those two together and talk about them?

Hoyt 17:37

We were making all these investments in the sport. And when I mentioned we owned 11 or 12, those are the ones we have partners in because they're in the hospitality front. And our expertise not necessarily was in hospitality.

ModGolfPodcast 17:45

Yes.

Hoyt 17:48

So if you go before that, we were making investments in everything and then COVID hit, right? And we were lucky to make all of our acquisitions, quite frankly, in 2018, 2019. So we had pretty good timing, not knowing what was going to happen to the sport of golf. But during COVID, everyone got a little crazy with the valuations and how they were pricing and everyone was buying golf companies.

ModGolfPodcast 18:09

Mm-hmm.

Hoyt 18:12

And we were like, we're not buying anything at these prices and we'll wait. So we actually turned our attention to hospitality, which during COVID was way down. I don't know many people that were building a bar in New York City in 2021, let's be honest.

ModGolfPodcast 18:22

yeah

Hoyt 18:27

And we bet on the market, we bet on New York, thinking to ourselves, the market's way down, hospitality is not in the greatest spot at that time, who would invest here? Well, we did, and we created and we banked on the fact that when we do open in 2023 fall, we're banking that the city would come back. And it was good timing and we kind of hit that. So on T-Squared Social front, Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods are our business partners with a group called Nexus, which goes back to Albany in the Bahamas where I met Justin.

Nexus owns Albany. It's their kind of 8AM. It's their holding company name. And Nexus, they're an operator.

ModGolfPodcast 19:09

Yeah.

Hoyt 19:12

They have restaurants, bars, hotels. So they were the perfect partner. And Tiger is a major shareholder. I think the second largest shareholder at Nexus.

ModGolfPodcast 19:20

all right

Hoyt 19:20

And we had these relationships and we partnered, we had a building in Manhattan because of Howard's real estate portfolio. We had an incredible space and we always wanted to do a golf concept, but not just golf.

ModGolfPodcast 19:29

Alright

Hoyt 19:34

We wanted more of a Punchbowl Social. If you ever heard of this brand that used to be around, a lot of games with golf as well inside. We didn't want it to be just a strictly a golf bar, like a Five Iron Golf, which I know you've had them on. We wanted to be a little different.

ModGolfPodcast 19:49

right. Yeah, yeah

Hoyt 19:50

So we have duck pin bowling, darts, television, sports bar. It's a very different environment. And we had the space. So we partnered with Nexus, Tiger and Justin, and we created this brand and we launched it in the fall of 2023. We're not even one year into that thing yet. And we have big announcements coming and we're very excited for the future of T-Square because it's done very well in the first year.

ModGolfPodcast 20:13

Nice. Nice. So, let's about 3's now. So my understanding is there's currently one 3's, and you're partnering also with other groups on on that.

Hoyt 20:19

Yeah. Yes.

ModGolfPodcast 20:23

And I think Justin's been one of the ones that's been fuelling that. So so tell us about the concept and and the type of ah clientele that you are catering to.

Hoyt 20:37

Yeah, so we saw the buzz around the Top Golfs of the world and everything at one time.

ModGolfPodcast 20:37

Yeah.

Hoyt 20:45

And we looked at all these things and I saw there's miniature golf or putting. Now there's Pop Stroke, The Puttery, Putt Shack, Swingers. There's like a million of them coming in one time. And we were like, man, the most unique space is this par three space. People love par three courses under the lights, family fun centers, music, et cetera. And Justin was big on the par three space, right? So at first our approach was we traveled around the world, which I tend to do all over Asia and everything. And I looked for the best par three courses, thinking that there was an operator out there that may have a few.

Well, there really wasn't any. They either independent or at a private club. It was kind of a fragmented business model that no one's really commercialized. And then we went to Greenville, South Carolina and saw 3's. And we had no idea who owned 3's at the time, but it was different. It was well run. It had amazing course. It had a lot of music. It was what we liked and we're like all right who's this group? Who it turned out to be this gentleman named Davis Cessna who is considered to be golf royalty. He's a member of your Seminoles and Pine Valleys and everything else in between. You could see his golf IQ reflected in how he ran 3's, but his heart was hospitality.

ModGolfPodcast 22:03

Right.

Hoyt 22:04

And we really liked Davis and we really liked the concept. And then the people that were backing Davis are very influential in the golf world. So it was just a funny thing that we had no idea. We just liked the place. And we ended up striking a relationship. We came into 3's. And the first two years was kind of fixing the business model, upgrading the food and beverage. Like we had to spend time to get that one right before we go gung-ho and start opening up a bunch.

ModGolfPodcast 22:32

yeah

Hoyt 22:36

Right now, we just bought a property in Charlotte, North Carolina, and 3's 2.0, which is going to start from scratch, will be built in Charlotte. We're very excited about that. And we're looking at several other properties in the U.S.

ModGolfPodcast 22:49

Yeah.

Hoyt 22:49

and abroad because we're getting a lot of phone calls. Actually, of all the businesses we own, we get the most phone calls about 3s. Like, how do I get one? I have a Part 3 course! Because if you think about it, most Part 3 courses are either a municipality, they're run down, and they're just mismanaged. And it's a shame, like all these municipalities out there that have par three course and they're all terrible.

And you're like, man, if someone could come in, and it's hard to deal with the municipality, but if you strike the right deal with them, we could come in and convert it into a 3's, it would be great for the community, great for the people, junior golf, everything in between. Right. And that was kind of the original mission statement, but the municipalities are a bit tricky in politics.

ModGolfPodcast 23:29

Thank you.

Hoyt 23:32

Sometimes we wish there was an answer.

ModGolfPodcast 23:33

right

Hoyt 23:36

So if anyone's listening to this and they're in the municipality and they have a part three course, call us because we're very interested.

ModGolfPodcast 23:42

Well, maybe that's something, I'm not going to promise anything, but I'm here in Vancouver. I know that Oliver Tubb, who made the introduction that works with 8AM.

Hoyt 23:48

yeah

ModGolfPodcast 23:49

He's in Vancouver also. We do have three municipal pitch and putt par three courses and you are right. One of them and is in really good shape. The other two, not so much, but there's such incredible opportunity there as you talked about. So let's expand on on 3's here.

Hoyt 24:05

yeah

ModGolfPodcast 24:09

It also is lit up at night, so you can play till 11 p.m.

Hoyt 24:09

I'd be interested in working with you.

ModGolfPodcast 24:12

And also it's 12 holes. So I don't know if the first one was 12 holes because of the size of the property of the acreage, if they were confined or that was by design. So tell us a little bit about that as you, now that you've nailed the concept now with the first one and tweaked and refined it and you are ready to scale it, are you looking at that model and decided that they're all going to be 12 holes? Will all be lit up and how much land is is needed for 3's.

Hoyt 24:29

Yeah. Yeah, we love 12 holes. Actually, Davis is the one that originally made 3's 18 holes, but it was like too much, right? And for a part three concept, and he crunched it down to 12, and he used the other holes as practice holes. So if you join, you can go there and chip, it's kind of neat, right? You can go hit 50 yards, it's a wedge area. And that's what he converted those last holes into. And the future will be, yes, 12 holes.

The flaw in the 3's, so sometimes when you buy a municipality or a golf course, and if you try to keep the existing routing, you you get what you get.

ModGolfPodcast 25:09

Yeah.

Hoyt 25:13

So in the 3's in Greenville, the holes go out and they come back in like a traditional course. But then to me, that's a disconnect from the clubhouse, the fun, the music, because what happens when they're out there on holes seven, eight, nine, and they're so far from you, right?

ModGolfPodcast 25:18

right

Hoyt 25:28

And so in the future, maybe it goes out three holes, comes back out three holes, like loops, fun, entertainment, music throughout the course. And a lot of the inspiration, honestly, was from Pinehurst and The Cradle.

ModGolfPodcast 25:41

Right.

Hoyt 25:41

And The Cradle fits on what used to be useless 17 acres of land over there at Pinehurst. Now it is one of the most popular things at Pinehurst and probably one of their biggest money makers. So they've took 17 acres of deserted land and turned it into this profitable money machine that everyone loves so that was like, hey, how come you can't bring The Cradle to the communities and grow it?

ModGolfPodcast 26:09

Right.

Hoyt 26:12

And I could be wrong on the 17 acre size of The Cradle, but I'm pretty sure it's on that type of land. But we always looked in the 20 to 25 acre size. I think Greenville is like 32. It's too big. So it's like, yeah, I think 18 to 25 acres, depending on what you do is like the perfect par three only golf course with a food and beverage clubhouse bar music, big putting green, a Himalaya putting course, all the fun stuff.

So it took a second to fine tune that, but they all should be 12 holes. People don't want to play 18 holes of par 3 golf or they just want to have fun. You can go back out and play again if you want to you can play as much as you want.

ModGolfPodcast 26:53

Nice, nice. Well, I've been in the golf entrepreneurship space for a while and time is one of the pain points when I first stumbled into the industry, because I don't have a golf background at all. My background's in architecture and design of sports venues and stadiums and events. So that's how I kind of stumbled into into golf accidentally almost 12 years ago now. And we've seen since day one there, time required is a barrier to playing golf. There's lots of pain points and issues there. So I'm assuming that's by design there with 12 holes, you can keep the experience under two hours then rather than three, three and a half.

Hoyt 27:29

Absolutely. I'm thinking about like juniors and their parents. Like if you come to a 3's, if you go to Greenville and you're a mom or dad and you bring your kids there first of all, they have a Himalaya putting course. You can sit on a patio. You don't even have to even play golf. Look, my mom didn't play golf. My dad passed away when I was nine. My mom took me to every golf tournament. She never played golf until after she retired.

She didn't know anything about golf.

ModGolfPodcast 27:53

ah

Hoyt 27:53

And she would have loved the 3's because she would have been able to drop me, watch me, I can go out and play. I can have putting, I can do whatever I want. And she's in like a nice area with music, could read, to do whatever she wants. Right. So it's like a family fun center, really, but it can turn into private parties.

ModGolfPodcast 28:09

Huh.

Hoyt 28:10

There could be more drinking, like you can turn it into what you want, especially after a certain hour. But it is just this neat area. And I really think that for juniors is a big deal because golf is intimidating. 18 hole championship golf courses are even more intimidating. And part three courses is where you probably should learn the game when you're young and have fun doing it. You're having fun while you're playing and you're enjoying it.

ModGolfPodcast 28:42

Wow, I love this. Well, on the ModGolf YouTube channel, myself as a very average golfer, I shot some video a couple years ago when I was a 14 handicap, but now because I'm playing less golf, because I'm in the golf industry, sadly, I'm back up to 17. But I play the local pitch and putt courses. I have one that is literally where I am right now at my house, where I'm in the studio for this recording, it is less than two miles away.

And I'll go play there in the morning, usually at 8 a.m. by the way, and get up there a couple of times a week. And one thing I started to do was take people that have never played golf before. I'm quite heavily involved in the startup and entrepreneurship community here locally, so I find these young people that I've never played golf before and I invite them out. I bring some clubs, a couple of balls and we play some pitch and putt and shoot some video and they just loved it so it's that gateway to golf. I find it's just this great introduction to golf whereas with Topgolf and those type of venues and I've worked as a consultant with Topgolf - fun backstory they were going to acquire one of our original ventures back in the day, but I'll tell you that one over a beer sometime - that there's this false narrative that of the 50% of the people that go to Topgolf, which identify as non-golfers, that a lot of them are going to get through the funnel, end up being golfers and have that first green grass experience.

And they found that wasn't happening. Callaway found that wasn't happening to convert Top Golf guests into purchasers of clubs and equipment and balls. So what you're doing with 3's, this is the real deal. You're having a green grass experience, but it is like this analogy: I'm here near Whistler in in British Columbia. So the ski hill, Whistler Blackcolm, and I snowboard and my wife's family skis.

Thank you. And we use this analogy, or I do anyway, of having that bunny hill experience, that green run experience. If you've never skied before, Hoyt, that I'm dragging you up the chairlift in Whistler. We go past the green runs. We go past the blue runs.

Hoyt 30:45

Yes.

ModGolfPodcast 30:46

Black diamond runs are like, no, Hoyt, we're going off the backside of the bowl down this steep triple black diamond that's all ice. And like, good luck, bud. I hope it works out. That's the kind of a psychological equivalent od being on the first tee of an 18 hole 7,200 yard golf course. People RE like, I don't want to have that experience! So what you're creating in a way is kind of the fun bunny hill for, for golf.

Hoyt 31:09

Thank you.

ModGolfPodcast 31:12

And it's that great gateway. You've got to introduce people to the game.

Hoyt 31:14

Yeah. First of all, backing up to Whistler, that's a funny analogy because I used to live in Canada and the group used to take me to Whistler and I was a pretty good skier and we did exactly what you said. We're going up and we're up and I'm like, okay, we're at the top and why are we still hiking? And why are we going down the back of the mountain? So my skiing days, I did it and I was like, man, this is not for me. So yeah, I got thrown into the Whistler black home scene pretty good with my friends back in the day.

But from a golf perspective, I don't think Topgolf was ever going to translate into real golf.

ModGolfPodcast 31:49

All right.

Hoyt 31:50

I actually believe that simulator golf will because you get addicted. And by the way, it's the least intimidating. You're hitting into a screen 10 feet in front of you. You don't have to chase the ball down. You're not in the crap all day in the woods, hitting out of the sand. I feel like if you're learning the sport of game that has the ability, where Top Golf or Callaway might have missed, it's not thinking that through.

Where just because you're at a driving range, that doesn't mean it translates. Now, if you go to a driving range in Asia, there's no music. This isn't fun. This is serious people hitting golf balls by the thousands of golf balls. It's a whole different environment. They're not drinking, they're taking it serious. Here in the US it's a fun experience and it was super cool but i don't know if that was gonna convert people into golfers. That was the problem with Top Golf, I didn't think it would translate into actual rounds to the rate they thought but Five Iron Golf maybe but what I see in Asia with the simulator golf it's much easier if you learn there and you're like, man, I actually hit the ball pretty good.

Then you take it to the grass, right?

ModGolfPodcast 32:47

Yes.

Hoyt 32:48

Par three golf is way smarter. Back up one more, putting, like The Puttery, Putt Shack, Swingers, all these brands, Popstroke, they're not going to translate into golf either, right? The good news about their business model is everyone can putt the ball. You don't have to be good to putt the ball. It might not go straight, but you could figure it out much quicker than hitting a golf ball for everybody.

ModGolfPodcast 33:13

You're not going to whiff, no.

Hoyt 33:15

And you can monetize that from kids' birthday parties to drinking until midnight. You can monetize your hours longer in those concepts. Well, I think they may be more successful business-wise, but part three golf, yeah, it's still hard. If you've never hit a golf ball or you didn't know the clubs, it's still not there, but it's the first step when you think you're ready, it'd be a lot easier to go play a par three golf course than a big course. And then I think that people learning there and juniors will translate.

No, I bet you the percentage would be extremely high that they would carry on to real golf.

ModGolfPodcast 33:49

Love this. Love this. I completely agree 100%. And I know from my experience playing more par three golf right now than I do ah par 72, 18 holes, which I do only every second week, is that you're hitting 65% of the shots you hit in the golf course are within 50 yards, even though these par threes are a little bit longer and I'm out there with two wedges and a putter and, and yeah, what you would hit and need to master.

Hoyt 33:59

sure

ModGolfPodcast 34:16

I think back to a Harvey Penick comment in one of the chapters of his Little Red bBook. If I'm not misquoting him here, talking about teaching kids and he talked about this. He saw parents all the time and first thing to do is they put a driver in their kid's hand on the driving range. That makes no sense, that's counterintuitive. What's the goal of the game? That is to get the ball in the hole. So where do you start? Close to the hole. You start from putting close in, get that skill down, move back a bit and then you start to chip and then you start to pitch and then you start to move back which seems so obvious but so many people don't look at it that way. So I think what you're creating here is a very fun environment that's condensed also with the sustainability piece that I want to get into because a lot of the work that I do, both in architecture and in golf, is that whole environmental sustainability piece.

You're using fractions of the land for an experience that a 72-hole 7,000-yard golf course would use, which is what, around 160, 180 acres, right?

Hoyt 35:20

156 acres minimum like one fifty six minimum pretty much

ModGolfPodcast 35:23

Yeah. So you're doing that. Okay. So I wanted to switch gears here a little bit because we do have a lot of people that listen to the ModGolf Podcast, watch on the YouTube channel and they're entrepreneurs themselves. They've got ideas, whether it's in the golf space or they can port it over into some other idea that they have for some other venture, either a product, a service or experience. So I want to talk a about your investment strategy and evaluation thesis with 8AM Golf.

Because you've made several strategic investments in emerging golf brands, including your own. So what does the evaluation process look like when you're deciding to acquire or invest in a startup or early stage company within the golf industry? Can you even tell us right now? Because I'm sure you are just flooded with unsolicited proposals once people hear about you now that you've put your brand out there.

I'm sure you've got people working for you that are vetting down the opportunities and who are analysts for all these incoming ventures. So tell us about your process and what you're looking for. So if there's people out there listening at whatever stage there are at, please help them out a little bit.

Hoyt 36:31

Yeah, absolutely. This is what I do every day. So I spend my day looking at businesses, right?

ModGolfPodcast 36:34

Yeah, yeah.

Hoyt 36:36

I don't know if there's a group that's looked at more golf businesses globally in the last four years than 8AM from all sizes. I'm talking venture all the way to the big, big ones. It's been quite interesting learning about everything golf and who's running these companies and who's really got it together or not. When it comes to 8AM, it's hard, right? We might look at 400 golf companies. We can't buy 400 golf companies as much as I love the sport. So it's hard to say no sometimes. That's one thing I had to learn because I was in that same position trying to sell a business or raise money, and it's hard, right?

But I would say from an 8AM perspective, I try to buy a partner with brands that have synergies with our other brands. Considering I walked into something that had Nicholas, Golf Logix, Miura, True Spec. Well, Nicholas and Golf Logix were currently there. Miura and True Spec have something in common. That's hard goods and I have a passion for equipment. So in the hard good business, I was like, hey, we like this business.

We know this business. It's a tough business, but we know it well. And then in a media aspect of having Golf dot.com and Golf Magazine, the problem with when you start to look at all these other businesses, let's say I wanted to buy TaylorMade. Sounds like a great idea, right? We go buy TaylorMade one day or back in the day when it's for sale, but then it would threaten Golf.com. Could threaten True Spec's business because now Callaway wouldn't sell to True Spec.

Golf.com might lose all of its advertising. And now I've just destroyed these companies we've already bought. That doesn't sound like a good strategy. So you have to be smart. So I've always liked best in class premium brands or agnostic brands. I've always appreciated True Spec because it's agnostic. We have no allegiance to any brand. You know what's a good one which we don't own is like a Trendy Golf in the apparel side.

I Love Trendy Golf. They wrap all brands. It's premium. It's super cool. I've always appreciated that brand. I always looked at Trendy as the True Spec of clothing. So I try to be neutral on the best we can so we don't threaten any of our partners. I also try to stick to the premium. I have this conversation all the time in our sport, as luxury as golf is and premium as golf is, there's not many premium brands, which is strange to me.

I'm not using fashion, but if you go into the fashion world, you have LVMHs of the world and you've got this crazy luxury. We don't have that in golf. You go into the car world, they have crazy luxury and then everything in between. And golf has a bunch of brands, right? And I'm like, who can stand out? Miura, for instance, was probably the one brand that touches luxury in some weird mystique way globally, because we sell out of literally everything we make, right?

And it's like, I can up the price and we sell out. That's different type of brand. And I also noticed like our premium brands like True Spec and Miura and our travel, they all are touching the the same customers and they love these experiences and they love the events and they love to buy equipment. So I always kind of gravitate towards like best in class premium brands when I look at new things versus our other businesses that are in the masses, millions of people, they tend to go a little bit more like this, right?

Because they're so big. Where our other ones are like these, wouldn't say boutique because they're much bigger than boutique, but these brands tend to just trend up every year, year over year. And I like those. So we're in everything from hard goods to apps, so hospitality to media. I mean, the only thing we're not in from golf course design is apparel. We don't own an apparel brand, probably won't. And that's the only industry that we're not really in. We sell a lot of apparel globally, but it's, so it's kind of funny. Like, uh, I think we're pretty diverse and covered.

And, and so if I'm looking at something, I just want to match up to a couple of those.

ModGolfPodcast 40:46

Right, right.

Hoyt 40:47

I want to match up to a couple of those. That's my priority.

ModGolfPodcast 40:48

Interesting. Hey, could could you walk us through a recent acquisition or partnership that 8AM Golf has made and what made that opportunity stand out? I know you touched on it a little bit about the alignment that you have, which really is your vision or investment thesis or acquisition thesis that I'm seeing that's kind of emerging, especially with that luxury brand kind of elevated experience. So yeah, can you tell us about that? Something that recently has happened and what ticked the boxes to make that a go?

Hoyt 41:18

Our most recent, probably latter ones were obviously T-Squared Social because it was a big one for us and there's a lot more to do.

ModGolfPodcast 41:23

Yeah.

Hoyt 41:24

And 3's in the hospitality space. But the one we have that you will find out more about next year is in the travel space. We're spinning up our own travel business. And we partnered with a gentleman named Simon Holt, who's a good friend of mine, who's an unbelievable operator in the space for travel, especially in the luxury premium space. Let's just place hold it as 8AM travel for now because it has that credibility. Remember 8AM, it's funny now with the brand and the logo that people would know that or trust that brand to buy a trip with.

And we have golf dot.com and golf magazine, the top 100 courses in the world. Like we can take unique trips around the world, but we're not focused on the masses. I can't book thousands of trips here. And that's a different operator. We're much more focused on people that want to go to unique places like Japan and play golf or the UK or in Europe or South Africa, wherever you may want to go and get on the best golf courses in the world.

I want to deliver that experience. So we partnered with, again, it's like knowing the only way you're going to succeed is if you have great partners and great operators. And the one thing I think we do really well at 8AM is that all the people running the businesses, the presidents of each company are great people. And without them, I don't know how we would do what we do because we can't just micromanage and run 14 companies from over here.

You have to trust that you put the right people. For instance, Simon Hall in the travel space, I trust Simon. He's got the skill set. So how can we make Simon succeed is my goal. Like we know we have all the tools, but how can we make Simon as an entrepreneur grow and have some upside and and in an owner of his own business with us? That's kind of the new thing for us. So sometimes we might incubate something like a travel division. We did it for events, right? We have partner Derek Oki in events and Oliver obviously helps with the events.

And we weren't in events. We were just getting calls and we were putting on this thing in Vegas with Timberlake, then the Bridges Cup. And I'm like, man, we need an events team because I don't know how to run an event! I was just selling them. And now you got to execute. And the last thing we wanted to do is put our brand on it and not execute 100%.

ModGolfPodcast 43:46

Great.

Hoyt 43:46

You can't. So we went out and found the best people. And I love hiring people. And I always look at resumes and I always try to find the best people within the sport globally.

ModGolfPodcast 43:58

Right. Nice. Nice. Well, you touched on one of the last questions I was going to ask you, and that was your work in the event space. because as you mentioned, the fact with golf dot.com and Golf Magazine, obviously you're creating content around that. So I see now you have this vertical integration that all these things can plug in and support each other and promote each other, that you've got these platforms, both digitally and print. But the event side, I did notice because I was in Montreal for the President's Cup and I did see advertised and I saw some video on social that I guess one of the events that 8AM was putting together was, how can I put it best, looked like some kind of a very high-end pre-event for all of the players and their spouses that looked like more of a red carpet experience.

and I'm like, huh, that's interesting. 8AM Golf is doing that now. So I'm assuming that's tying in with some of the events teamwork that is starting to really take hold with you now.

Hoyt 44:59

Yeah, absolutely. It stems from having a media company, right? Golf.com and Golf Magazine, let's put them up here. What does that business mean? It means a travel division. Makes sense, right? When I said synergies and what we look into, it means events. All these things are a feeder back to that. But it's hard for the CEO of Golf.com to start all these new divisions and run a big business. So we look at it as like 8AM Golf will start them, get them organized, and then they can get inherited when they're ready by golf, taking the pressure off them to not lose focus of their day to day business.

It's a little bit of a stressful level for me, but we were pretty good in the startup space as well, and we would like to get it to a place and then pass it on. From an events standpoint, yeah, I just want to do best in class events. I keep using that word best in class in everything we do. And I think that the one you're referencing, I think, is the Bridges Cup that we just had. And that was in South Korea this year.

ModGolfPodcast 46:00

yes

Hoyt 46:01

And the Bridges Cup, this is our third one. And it's basically USA versus the international team, a little like a President's Cup, including Europe, UK, of the best mid-ams from around the United States and around the world that can go compete against each other. And CJ, our partners in South Korea who sponsored the CJ Cup, came to us and said, look, we want a big Mid-Am event, which was odd. Who wants that, right? Like that's not something commonly you talk about.

And we were like, well, we could do this. This sounds amazing. But it has to be amazing. And the first Bridges Cup was a couple years ago in South Korea. And we flew every player business class and all the uniforms, all the gear. Then we brought a media company in the game. And people came back from that thing going, "what did I just play?" No one spends more money on an amateur event than us in the world. I don't even think the Walker Cup costs as much as the darn Bridges Cup, if you think about how we track it.

And then the next one was in France and then it escalated. Some of the best players in the world. We had 1,500 people apply to play on a 12 person team. The hardest part was picking the teams from all these great players from around the world. We went to France and the USA team won the first one. We won the second one but actually it was very competitive but we got them in the singles matches. Then we were like "all right how do we make this even more and more competitive with the international team?" because they have such global players. How are they not beating us? They're better so we went out and found all these incredible players played in the Walker Cup last year and we went to Korea just three weeks ago and we played these matches. aThe US team ended up winning but we won literally on the last hole of singles after four days of golf. If we had to play another hole we lose right that's how close it was for three days and very competitive.

ModGolfPodcast 47:15

wow

Hoyt 48:07

And it's just gained all this traction. We're getting phone calls from major golf courses around the world to host a Bridges Cup now. And the amount of people trying to get on the team is amazing. So 8AM thought, "Why would someone want a Bridges Cup, the first one? And then you say, Okay, well, there was a first Walker cup, there was a first US Open, and they were probably made fun of a long time ago.

Then if you make it a brand, it becomes something and maybe the Bridges Cup is nothing in five years. Or maybe it's a Walker Cup for mid-ams for the USGA and R&A. I don't know, but we're on track for it. And it's amazing the response and the competitiveness of this event, right? So we're looking to add more and we have some announcements around that coming. Hopefully the first one in America is coming at a big time place this year. So we're working on some things, but that's just one event.

I mean, The 8AM Invitational in Vegas hosted by Justin is a very different thing. It's a celebrity event. Lots of fun, sponsors, music and just a good time all weekend. And that is in our fourth iteration this year. And yeah, Justin, Jimmy Fallon, we get in all these amazing celebs that want to play in it. And I think it's because we treat them differently. We don't require them to do anything. They play their own matches. They have spectators and they just mingle with everyone. We just want them to feel comfortable for the weekend, not just hound them with every single step of the way.

So we just treat it differently. And yeah, it's, it's been pretty exciting. The events things are fun. We just partnered with the NBA for an event. We partnered with McLaren and events from Formula One. So it's happening now. It's exciting.

ModGolfPodcast 49:56

Amazing. This is so good. You know what? I've got like 20 more questions I can ask you here, but I want to be respectful of your time here and also with our listeners here, everybody that's joining us.

Hoyt 50:02

yeah

ModGolfPodcast 50:06

But one thing we're going to do here is we are going to jump over for a video call here for the ModGolf YouTube channel. So we're going to have a slightly different conversation there, talking a little bit about entrepreneurship for people that are looking to get in the game.

Hoyt 50:14

yeah

ModGolfPodcast 50:21

You talked about that a little bit, but we're going to take a deeper dive into that. But to finish up here, one last question here. So I had a look at your portfolio too, some other places that you're now starting to cast your net into in with Chirp Golf, with Daily Fantasy for betting for golf fans, that you've got that.

Hoyt 50:29

Yeah.

ModGolfPodcast 50:40

So this ties into my last question. That is about the future of golf and innovation. So looking ahead here, Hoyt, how do you see the future of the golf industry evolving? And are there any trends in technology? Obviously, AI is at the forefront, but technology, entertainment, sustainability, and product design that you think will shape the next phase of growth in golf and perhaps inform some of the the investment decisions that 8AM Golf makes in the next while.

Hoyt 51:09

There's a few questions there. But yeah, I would say that the biggest thing, other than AI, because AI has the ability to change a lot of things.

ModGolfPodcast 51:13

I know there are.

Hoyt 51:24

Good or bad, but let's just look at the positive for a second. And I don't even know if the positive is good for certain industries, right? But if you look at instruction, if AI figures that out, and it will at some point, and you can get immediate lessons from your phone and a camera and and explanations. You still need the instructors or someone to explain it to you. But you may see the lessons, how you take a lessons change.

It might even apply to club fitting someday. I think it's way more complicated in my world. I love to have an AI engine to narrow down options and everything at a True Spec. But I still think you need a club fitter. We're not trying to replace a fitter. And I think we're so far from it. So AI can be very disruptive. I think it'd be great from a business aspect. I think it would be bad for the industry in some cases. I think it will be bad for jobs and people. And that bothers me.

ModGolfPodcast 52:18

yes

Hoyt 52:18

But it's inevitable and it's coming. So it's not there yet for us. But there's no doubt in every industry in this world that that's going to play a part in the next five years. So you might as well get comfortable with it and learn it and know how to use it correctly.

ModGolfPodcast 52:28

Yes.

Hoyt 52:32

But there's so many pros and cons and it's way over my head here, this AI stuff, but I do keep an eye on it. And I tend to look at a ton of those businesses that so-called haven't figured out, but no one has yet, not in golf.

ModGolfPodcast 52:45

Right.

Hoyt 52:46

I think a biggest thing from a participation in where the sport is, is two things. I think screen golf will play a big deal. Like I mentioned, we've seen this, the highest valued businesses in our sport tend to be these simulator companies other than equipment companies, it's all around the tech, right? And where is that going? These sports bars, these type of concepts where it's it's less intimidating to go hit golf balls. And it's a lot less square footage. I mean, think about Top Golf. You're taking up 18 to 20 acres buying this.

This is a fortune when you can have a really cool a bar hangout indoors and a lot less square footage. So that's going to take it.

ModGolfPodcast 53:29

Thank you.

Hoyt 53:31

And I think that the biggest thing that bothers me is the PGA Tour / LIV Golf thing for the sport. It's creating a riff globally in the sport that doesn't need it right now.

ModGolfPodcast 53:44

Yeah.

Hoyt 53:45

And they need to figure it out. And the thing that I think that the PGA Tour has missed on is that they've lost the global game. Like we're so American that we're like, Oh, it only matters here. And I know you're in Canada, but in North America, all that matters is that The PGA Tour managed to lose Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea. You don't lose those markets. And now it's all LIV. And honestly, the big loser is the European Tour. It's still bad. This has to happen. And slowly they're losing the world because the players wouldn't fly to South Korea, wouldn't fly to Japan.

These are the biggest golf markets in the world.

ModGolfPodcast 54:25

Right.

Hoyt 54:25

You cannot ignore that Vietnam is going to surpass probably Korea and Japan in the next 10 years. We're building 26 golf courses in Vietnam right now. Just us, the Nicholas companies. So if you think of it like that, where is that in 10, 15 years? They love golf in Asia. That scares me if they don't figure out. I think they will. I think they're smart people and they just need to pull it together.

ModGolfPodcast 54:51

Well, I guess I'll have to have you back on the podcast five years from now to and play this back to see if your prognostications are actually coming true, your crystal ball gazing of how many are right and how many are not. So, hey, as we finish up here, Hoyt, why don't you let our listeners know how they can learn more about 8AM Golf. I'm sure it's pretty simple with what you're doing on social and also digitally online, but why don't you let them know what's the best way to have a look at all the good things that you're doing.

Hoyt 55:20

Yeah, we have 8amgolf.com. You can always look at the website. Again, our focus is to drive you to the particular brands of your interest. So if that's from club fitting to media to fantasy gaming, there's something for everything. Follow us on social, follow us on Instagram, follow us on Twitter, and LinkedIn. We see a lot of the business news. So and if you're entrepreneurs out there and you have a business, just reach out, email us on the website.

We watch it all the time, or get ahold of me directly.

ModGolfPodcast 55:49

Thank you. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, as I always do in the show notes for this episode, I will have the links to all the good things to connect with 8AM Golf and Hoyt, as he just mentioned there. And I also will have a bio page for him also. So it's nice and easy for you to connect with them. So on that note, Hoyt McGarity, CEO and president of 8 AM Golf. This has been awesome. Like i said i can keep going for hours here as my mind's kind of blowing up here but i'm gonna show some restraint and we're going to go over to YouTube and hopefully everybody, all the listeners will join us as viewers over there. So once again Hoyt, thanks for joining me today on the ModGolf Podcast!

Hoyt 56:32

Thank you for having me. That was great!