Live from The PGA Show 2026: Startups From The Inventors Spotlight

Conor Martins - Founder CEO of Rapid Risk Reduction

Sure. Conor Martins, I'm the founder and CEO of Rapid Risk Reduction, R3 for short, and we're here to show the heat box to the world for the first time.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

There we go. I know with these mics here, we got to get a little closer here, so I'll move that to you. This is what we got recording here. Okay. So, now you've been doing these, not just in golf. Golf is something that you started, but it was outside of that. Tell us about quickly the origin story of the market that you were in, what you had created, and then now you love golf and how you saw an opportunity here before you give us the demo.

Conor Martins - Founder CEO of Rapid Risk Reduction

Yeah. So, a good friend of mine, Joe Murphy from Huntington, West Virginia, had the idea to invent the OneBox a couple of years ago, which is an opioid reversal tool that has video technology. It saved a reported over 500 lives. So, as we were selling that product, we were talking to a lot of public health agencies and such, and a problem kept occurring. Heat strokes, heat strokes, heat strokes. Most of our team happens to be huge golf fans. And when we were trying to decide which products roll out next, heat box just made the most sense. Heat is increasing every single year.

And several times when we've been on the golf course playing golf, we saw people have heat strokes and majority of courses don't seem to have a protocol for it. So, the box that we have for them helps them be compliant with safety regulations, but most importantly, it helps protect the kids on the course, the elderly on the course, and then also anybody that wants to ever overheat. Good stuff.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

Okay. So, demo time. Here we go.

Gavin Cayenne - VP of Sales at Rapid Risk Reduction

So, my name's Gavin Cayenne. I'm the VP of Sales here. So, former PGA professional and golf instructor in South Florida. It's like Conor had mentioned, none of the courses that we visited or that I've worked at personally had any protocols. So, this is the heat box. So, it's your AED for heat strokes. So, inside of it, you're going to see three boxes. The first one is going to be the heat stress box, and it's going to come with an emergency rescue blanket so that you can place over the body to cool you off. It's also going to come with rapid ice immersion ice packs.

And the second box is you're going to find the hydration packet. You're going to find electrolyte drink mixing tablets, as well as electrolyte tablets and mix-ins. And then inside of the first safe base box, you are going to find waterproof tape so that you can take the ice packs to your body, as well as disposable thermometers. But the cool thing about this product is not necessarily just the resources and the supplies that are inside the box, but the video technology. So, hold that up a little higher so that the other camera can see that. If you open up the box, when you pull it down, it's going to have six sections with video technology inside of it. You can turn it down on the volume right here, but it covers everything from heat rashes to heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat strokes, and actually emergency and incident reporting.

So, depending on the emergency, if you click the button, it's immediately going to start playing. The cool thing is that it's bilingual. So, if you click it twice, it's going to start playing in Spanish as well. So, it's a great way that you can use the golf courses or really anybody can use to train their staff or anybody that's on the property. So, that way you can enhance either worker safety or golfer safety.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

And what I love about this is it seems like the courses will do training for their staff beforehand, but let's say if someone just started and they don't have that training, then they can take this out of here and immediately within 30 seconds, while this unfortunate event is happening with heat stroke, they can then help that person.

Conor Martins - Founder CEO of Rapid Risk Reduction

It's a great point, Colin. We compared a lot to the AED scenario. If you took the video out of the AED and asked 100 people if they knew how to use it, maybe five would feel confident to use it. But with the video, you're probably looking at 85 to 90 people would feel confident to use it. So, redundancy in a life-saving situation, bystander response is super important. And the most important thing is instilling immediate confidence in that person to save a life.

So, there's a lot of places on the golf course that you're a 15 to 20-minute drive from the clubhouse if you're on that side of the course. And if someone happens to have a heat stroke out there, by the time EMS gets there, it could be too late. So, it's a necessary precaution. Kids and elderly on our golf courses, they take up a lot of the rounds played on a course every year. And they are very prone to heat-related illnesses. And so, as an everyday common golfer, whether they just don't hydrate enough, it gets too hot, they have too much alcohol consumption, it can happen fast.

And it's better to be prepared, considering the responsibility that the courses have to their patients. I love what you're doing with Heatbox here because it does have impact and it will save lives.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

So, finish up here. Why don't you let people know where they can find out more about you, websites, social media, where they want to buy a Heatbox or learn more, where do they go?

Conor Martins - Founder CEO of Rapid Risk Reduction

Here at the actual event, we're at Booth 301 on social media. It's at Rapid Risk Reduction. And our website is www.rthree, spelled out, not the number three, rthree.io. If you get 15 Heatboxes, you get two built in with that package as well for free. So, take advantage while the deals are there.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

Absolutely. There we go. I love what you're doing, guys. Thanks for taking the time. Best of luck with the Innovator Showcase. I know you either have been on the pitch stage or going to be. So, I hope that goes well and I love the product. I will include all of the links that the guys mentioned here in the show notes to make it nice and easy if you want to learn more about Heatbox. There you go. Thanks guys.

Gavin Cayenne - VP of Sales at Rapid Risk Reduction

Sure. Thank you, Colin.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

All right. My second entrepreneur and inventor and founder here. I went by this booth and first the name caught me in the graphics with Black Hole Golf. It's like, okay, you got me at Black Hole Golf. And then I met Brad and he explained what they're doing here to make golf more entertaining. Basically, bringing the experience to your backyard or to a park. The way they've gamified this. First, Brad, welcome to ModGolf. Thanks for joining us.

Brad Thompson - Founder and Creator of Black Hole Golf

Thanks, Colin. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

What's going on? What do you have here? What did you bring to the PGA Show this year?

Brad Thompson - Founder and Creator of Black Hole Golf

So, Black Hole Golf, like Colin said, is a way to bring at-home practice to any open space. Whether it's your front yard, backyard, go to a park, whatever you need to do. But it's a gamified experience to take and learn actually how you are playing with the right amount of data. You can challenge your friends. You can play solo. You can do so many things. The way I like to try to describe it anymore is it's like taking traditional golf and marrying that with a Topgolf style entertainment.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

All right. So, you've explained it. You actually have it right next to you. So, why don't you show it? And we're all going to include some B-roll here so that people will be able to see it. But two minutes or so that we have here, nice and quick. Brad, why don't you let us know what's going on here?

Brad Thompson - Founder and Creator of Black Hole Golf

Absolutely. So, the way that the system works is you get a set of devices that are meant to be like a T-marker. You also have your app, which allows you to pick the style of game that you want to play. You get target discs. They obviously light up. They are meant for day or nighttime play. They have a gamified experience to where they flash, to make sounds, to really be entertaining, and to make practice not feel like practice. But you set it up. You throw these discs. They're meant to be frisbees, so they're not meant to be gentle. You can take golf balls to them. They're not a big deal. And it works from 10 yards to over 200 yards. I don't have a 200-yard backyard, but I wish I did. But you can get there. You hit real golf balls.

You go collect them. It knows exactly where it is. There's points, leaderboards, all sorts of different ways to actually play. And you can challenge friends. You can recruit people. It's very themed and kind of gamified. And it's something that I'm very passionate about, how you would learn how to play better. So much fun. And does that have to be light outside? I think it's more fun at night. It's built for a nighttime experience.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

So very quickly here, where are you on your journey? Are you in beta right now? Are you scaling up? Can people order it? Let us know where you are at the show, how people can find out more, and when you're ready to start to get these in people's hands in their backyards.

Brad Thompson - Founder and Creator of Black Hole Golf

Absolutely. So we came here to the PGA Expo to get the beta launch. So if you go to my website, which is blackholegolf.com/PGA, there's a form that you can sign up to be signed up for the beta program. Beta will start a small number of devices. The first number that actually gets signed up for it, we'll send it out to you. It's about 200 of those. We want feedback from people. We want to build this for players. And then August or September is when we're actually going to start doing real devices and with all the feedback that goes into it.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

There we go. Good stuff. Okay. As I will do in the show notes, I'll include all the links that Brad just mentioned there to make it nice and easy for you to find out more about Black Hole Golf. Brad, so glad I met you. Love what you're doing. It's fun. I love the gamification side, bringing that to golf in an authentic way. Believe me, there's a lot that I see out there. It's like, yes, it's not quite right. Or you're a solution looking for a problem. And once I saw what you were doing here, love it. That's why I had you on. So thanks for sharing Black Hole Golf with us here today.

Brad Thompson - Founder and Creator of Black Hole Golf

Absolutely. Thank you, Colin. I really appreciate the time.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast

Absolutely. Good stuff. Thanks, Brad. Take care. That's a wrap for this episode of the ModGolf Podcast. I'm your host, Colin Weston. Thanks so much for joining me. Bye for now.