Mike Hendrix (00:00)
Hello, I am Mike Hendrix from SMB Golf. And today my guest is Paul Sampliner from Highland Park Golf Club. And this is the Tech Caddie podcast.

Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Sampliner (00:26)
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me.

Mike Hendrix (00:28)
I'm glad to have you. It's good to reconnect that we were together a couple days ago and I'm glad I convinced you to come in here and be on the podcast.

Paul Sampliner (00:35)
That's great. I don't think I've seen you for 15 years before that.

Mike Hendrix (00:38)
I know. For people that don't know, you have a pretty long history in golf and we'd like to kind of go back and try to figure out how people got so involved with technology specific to golf, et cetera, et cetera. I think your story's pretty, unique. Today you're in Cleveland, Ohio, which is where Highland Park is. And we're to talk about your foundation and all the cool things that you guys have going on at that golf course. But I think you,

got exposed to golf probably in high school, right? And I think you went to high school in Cleveland.

Paul Sampliner (01:08)
Yeah, I actually grew up across the street from Highland Park and started playing there as a 12 year old. So it's really where I learned how to play the game and certainly have a passion for it and actually moved back after 20 years around the corner from the house I grew up in. And now I'm high school coach at the same course. It's great.

Mike Hendrix (01:25)
Yeah, it's pretty cool. But in those 20 years, you make your way out to Arizona and you become a PGA golf professional. think there are people that know you today and have known you for years and didn't know you actually were a PGA golf professional.

Paul Sampliner (01:39)
Yeah, it's a good story. I went to Ohio State, moved to Chicago and wasn't happy with what I was doing. I was working on the mercantile exchange and I was about 27 years old. I said, you know, screw it. If you could do anything, what would you want to do? I said, I want to be a golf pro. So I moved to Arizona and did.

Mike Hendrix (01:56)
That is cool. and so how long did it take you to pass your test and actually get your card?

Paul Sampliner (02:02)
Sure, you know, I'm a very average player. It took me four times on the PAT tour. I was the leading money spender on the PAT tour, but eventually did it and went through the PGA school very quickly, I think in about a year and a half.

Mike Hendrix (02:16)
Cool, And so you start to get exposed to tee times actually through, I think it's Marriott and then you, at some point you move from Marriott to Hilton. But I mean, this is actually like the very beginning of online tee times and maybe thinking about channel management related to tee times. Take us through that. Take us through this Marriott to Hilton thing and kind of how that got you exposed to what we've all been involved.

Paul Sampliner (02:41)
Sure, at Marriott, was a golf pro at Marriott Desert Ridge Wildfire. So it was under construction, soon to be the largest resort in Arizona. I think it's 1,100 rooms. So at that time we had two golf courses there, two golf courses at Camelback and one more in Mountain Shadows. So we had a nice little cluster of golf courses. So we decided to start a call center.

for those golf courses and the call center and then on top of that we created a wholesale. So people would want to book their rounds at one of the Marriott courses and then we would offer you know one of 30 golf courses in the area and make wholesale rates off of that. So our first year in the call center we actually broke even from that and it worked out pretty well.

Mike Hendrix (03:26)
I mean, how far up the flagpole did that go where somebody pulled the trigger to say, yes, we're going to do this. We're going to create a call center specific to golf. Because there's some upfront investment there. Like, how did that even come to be?

Paul Sampliner (03:39)
Yeah, it already existed. So there was a group called Hospitality Tee Times in Phoenix, and they were running the Troon call center already. So we just kind of moved into the room next door, and it was a separate entity, but everything was already in place. So we just kind of moved in and copied a lot what Troon was doing.

Mike Hendrix (03:57)
Perfect. Okay. And so now you start to realize the, power of access to these tee times, right? You need to find some central reservation system. So obviously you guys can be booking these things, but you tell me, mean, is this how you get exposed to tee sheets and this whole world of, of reservations in golf?

Paul Sampliner (04:15)
Pretty much. So Marriott was an EZLinks customer and then we used Golf Switch to connect to the other non-EZLinks courses. We created itineraries and really were a vacation packager is what it turned out to be.

Mike Hendrix (04:29)
Did you

work in a golf shop before that?

Paul Sampliner (04:33)
Yeah, for many years. was a golf pro, think for five or six years before that. I got a little tired of selling folding shirts and teaching lessons. And I thought this was a really cool avenue to get in. What happened was at that time, these two guys walked into our golf course, three guys actually, and said, want you to be our third or fourth customer, one of our first customers on GolfNow. And we said, yeah, sign us up.

Mike Hendrix (04:43)
Thank you. Yeah.

Who are those guys,

Paul Sampliner (04:56)
Sure, was a Brett Darrow Michael Loustalot and the guy named Tom Enders who now works for Troon

Mike Hendrix (05:03)
That's right. Okay. So, so Loustalot and Brett come in Tom and Enders as well.

Paul Sampliner (05:11)
You are weird

Mike Hendrix (05:11)
At that point, do you know what GolfNow is or is this the first time you've even heard of it? First time I've heard of it.

Paul Sampliner (05:16)
It's on paper, there's no integration and we sign up, we give them some rates and away we go. The fax machine starts going nuts. After a couple of weeks of doing this, I started working with another guy named John Millir, if you know that name, two i's and John Millir, brilliant guy. So he really was my mentor in learning how to operate online tee times. At that time, the Marriott courses were doing one or 2 % of their business online.

Mike Hendrix (05:24)
That's right.

Paul Sampliner (05:42)
We signed off with Co-op

Mike Hendrix (05:44)
see

here on that because that's a data point one or two

Paul Sampliner (05:46)
Sure,

that is a 2002 or three somewhere in there. Go on. Then we signed up with GolfNow and I became, you know, for these five golf courses, like an online revenue manager and we started to crank it out. So 4 % online, 10 % online. It really made sense to manage these rates.

Mike Hendrix (05:49)
Okay, all right.

And that's just what I was going to ask you. Were you actually changing rates within the day and the whole thing?

Paul Sampliner (06:11)
Absolutely. And it was immediate results. It was just fantastic to see you change your rate and your change sold immediately. was the online instant see just occurred quickly and I was just amazed by it. So from that, you know, in a month or so, I talked to Mike and John Millir, I said, sign me up, get me on board. I can go nuts with this thing. And, you know, it happened. So maybe six months later,

I ended up working for GolfNow. think I was, they started to acquire franchises and then they got some capital. And I think I was one of the first employees after this capital and off to the races we go.

Mike Hendrix (06:50)
And just for people at home, this is under the flag of Cypress Golf, right? And I think it's sometimes maybe Cypress Golf Solutions, but GolfNow was the brand, but the company was Cypress Golf.

Paul Sampliner (07:02)
The GolfNow was not the brand. was golf 602 and golf 216 and that was the brand.

Mike Hendrix (07:09)
So when Darrow and Loustalot first walk in, they don't even say the words GolfNow to you. They're talking 602 at that point. And then for people that are 20 years old, that's the area code. And so that's how a whole bunch of tee times were selling back in the day. Everyone was doing an area code.

Paul Sampliner (07:16)
Correct.

Yeah,

it's funny at that same time. If you remember the area codes change. So cities became 345 and six area codes. So the area code, you know, dot com didn't make sense anymore.

Mike Hendrix (07:35)
Right, And then do you remember by chance when you first met them what the business model was? Like did they want a commission? Had they they gotten into barter yet?

Paul Sampliner (07:45)
No, it was barter for sure. was EZLinks was barter before GolfNow, I believe. And it was, you know, the time before twilight, make a squeeze time really doesn't cost you anything. Let's give it a go. I it was a super easy pitch and painless.

Mike Hendrix (07:58)
And so, and so when you joined Cyprus, they probably had already gone through one or two bankruptcies. I think a lot of people don't know that, that they, they, they kept trying to figure it out and what, what will be the model that works. And I, as the story was told to me, when they kind of left all those bankruptcy days in the past, it's when they, got into barter.

Paul Sampliner (08:19)
Yeah, I've heard stories about it. think greens.com was the name of the company. This is before my time. Um, and just, was a lavish business with lots of investors and a lot of money going back and forth. But I don't know too much about that.

Mike Hendrix (08:31)
Okay. And okay. So now you, come on board with Cypress, you stay in Phoenix, correct? Okay. And, pretty shortly after that, I'm thinking you start to hear that, like, maybe we're going to sell this business and, and this whole thing could, could change.

Paul Sampliner (08:36)
Direct.

Yeah, and I knew that was the goal from when we started. Let's grow it as fast as we can and try to sell it to, you know, Golf Channel, Time Warner, somebody like that. You know, I was just an operator at the time.

Mike Hendrix (08:56)
Right. And so about this same time is when I start doing all the work I was doing with last minute golfer.com. Sure. And I also knew the goal was acquisition. and so, just to fast forward a little bit for everybody golf channel purchased GolfNow first, and then about six months, eight months later, purchase last minute golfer, .com.

and then that's really how you and I met. and I didn't know, mean, remember I'm in Columbus, Ohio. I'm not in a hot bed of golf, but I'm, I'm running Pittsburgh and Indianapolis and I'm running. Geez. You know, Cleveland, Cincinnati, all these different markets for last minute golfer. but it's when I get introduced to the GolfNow guys that I really get exposed to you and you start teaching me about.

channel management and how rates can fluctuate somewhat, you know, all that stuff. Um, and so I've always, you know, I credit you a lot with teaching me about this, about this world, but oddly enough, mean, you were a similar amount of time in, this T in this tee time space is just that you were in a hot bed for it.

Paul Sampliner (10:04)
Yeah, I was just the lucky guy, right guy in the right spot and took advantage of it.

Mike Hendrix (10:08)
Yeah, but you, you, but you crushed it. so you were like one of the first people that ever even trained me how to use iMUS if people don't know iMUS, iMUS was the original kind of backend of GolfNow, that we were using at golf channel. And I'll never forget, we all came down for like a two week training class and you, we were kind of talking about the adoption of the internet and you said, watch how fast the internet can work.

And you moved a trade round to zero dollars and we just sat there and watched. I mean, in 42 seconds it was sold. was, it blew my mind. You know, I couldn't believe that there were that many golfers on the internet looking for these things. And I mean, that is a seminal moment for me that I realized, this is going to be huge.

Paul Sampliner (10:41)
Okay.

Yeah. The other thing like that really made it successful in my mind was in Phoenix. The only really discount program was the PGA Southwest pass. And that was 50 % off, you know, one day in advance or two days in advance. And what GolfNow did is allowed you to electronically manipulate rate any anywhere between 50 and a hundred percent, which beat the discount, you know, the discount card. And it just caught on like hotcakes. Everybody said yes. And we were selling, you know,

500 rounds per month per course immediately and many courses would sell, you know, over 3,000 rounds per month. It just worked really well.

Mike Hendrix (11:31)
Yeah. And I do, you know, that does get you in somewhat into the, were disruptive, right? We disrupted that card and that card was a major competitor of ours for years. Frankly, we would go and talk to an operator and they would say, well, I do the PGA card and so I'm good or whatever. And we would have to make the case of, know, Hey, you can keep doing that, but you ought to use GolfNow as well. Yep. Yeah. So, so talk, take us through a little bit. It's,

through the acquisition when Golf Channel buys a GolfNow, obviously they must've said to you, hey, look, we'd like for you to live in Orlando because you did ultimately move to Orlando.

Paul Sampliner (12:09)
Yeah, so first of all, we were so excited because now my little dot com product company have we've got commercials on the golf channel on PGA Tour events. So we were jumping up and down. This is we've got audience now. We don't have to work as hard getting customers. It's just a perfect fit. Let's go. So what you know, being in Phoenix, there were other franchisees that were also very good operators. And just by being in Phoenix, I was kind of the most advanced operator.

Phoenix was the most advanced market. So, and I was good at what I did and it made sense. So they just moved me to Orlando to kind of run the operations there.

Mike Hendrix (12:47)
And you're married at this point. you're, mean, you guys pick up, you know, all your roots in Phoenix, just like you had from Chicago and you guys moved to Orlando.

Paul Sampliner (12:55)
Yeah, you know, my wife, God bless her, you know, has picked up and moved for golf businesses many, many times. This was a fairly risky one. You know, I had a nice, you know, had had professional job at Marriott and Hilton and I had a good career going and I took a little bit of a risk. But to me, it wasn't because I saw the power and I saw how this thing worked.

Mike Hendrix (13:15)
it did. Right, right. Great. Okay. And so now we get to you get to Orlando, you have a couple of different jobs there, you and I started to spend a lot of time together because we were we would go out and do these training sessions around the country. I think we called them power ups or something like that. What

Paul Sampliner (13:34)
Training or sales, Mike? What's

that? Was that a training or sales presentation?

Mike Hendrix (13:41)
Paul, come on. We packaged it as a training session, but as I'm sure a lot of people on this, or watching this podcast right now know that we were doing a lot of selling in that training session for sure. Yeah. but listen, I'm, you know, I'm proud of, of all that early day stuff that we did there. I thought we helped a ton of golf courses, make a bunch of money. I will say, because you and I were together the other day in Cleveland and we kind of said this

in that with that owner group in Cleveland. There was a time that this trade round was distressed inventory. We didn't feel like we were really keeping operators from, you know, selling nine a.m. or 10 a.m. on Saturday morning and that kind of that. I thought the value prop was really good. I also have a lot of respect for people that say, yeah, but you were selling that trade round at seven dollars and that was unacceptable. I'm not going to argue that point like you could go back and forth on that forever.

But so long as the trade round was in a distressed time of the tee sheet, I thought the value proposition was excellent.

Paul Sampliner (14:44)
Sure. Originally, Mike in Phoenix, we would actually count tee times for the trade. So we would say there has to be five or six open foursomes two days in advance before we would post the trade. So we actually, I would sit there for two hours and post the trade based on utilization. Therefore it was really unobtrusive to our customers.

Mike Hendrix (15:03)
That's right. And at last minute golfer, we wouldn't post the trade until '24 hours before it expired. So for seven days on last minute golfer, was all the inventory was just for the golf course. Then within '24 hours of the trade time, the trade time would appear and we might sell the trade time. And I thought that was a good...

Paul Sampliner (15:24)
Fair

enough, but Mike, what's the average booking window for those courses in the Midwest? A day and a half?

Mike Hendrix (15:29)
That's right. Although, you can make the case now, that's not the case right now that, you know, clearly one of the reasons GolfNow was successful, is because it, it, got its roots. really grabbed the industry when golf courses were going through a tough time and it was not hard to get on a tee sheet. And so people did wait until the last minute to book and all those things, that frankly,

Now this new demand that everyone is enjoying since COVID, it's changed this whole paradigm. And honestly, if GolfNow tried to start today, it would be much more difficult because there would be so many operators saying, I just don't need it. You know, I just, don't need it. And by the way, the technology that I'm using today to run my golf course is not expensive. So I'll just keep paying cash to foreUP or whomever.

Paul Sampliner (16:17)
We'll go through that. That's the same story we went through. Mike, conversely, it seems to me we're about to go through a recession, maybe a depression right now in the next two years. Does it revert back to those days of where golf courses are hurting? Does the demand change? Golf is discretionary. It can change in an instant.

Mike Hendrix (16:43)
I'm not sure that's thing. thing. I'm not good thing. I still think this thing has room to grow and it will grow. that's good if that's good thing. thing. not thing. sure good thing. I'm not good thing.

Paul Sampliner (16:57)
golf in general.

Mike Hendrix (17:03)
kids adopt this thing and just run with it. And they, and they love it way more than I loved it. And I thought I loved it so much when I, when I was a young player. And that does get us to outside of Highland park. You are a golf coach. are high school varsity golf coach at Shaker Heights. talks about that. How's that experience been? Do you enjoy helping these kids out? I would think it's a blast.

Paul Sampliner (17:24)
Yeah, thanks for bringing out Mike. It is an absolute blast. So my goal is to have my kids, you know, have the same experience I did and I just love going round and round gambling on the course, you know, spending, spending all day at Highland eating hot dogs with stadium mustard. If you know what that is, uh, Cleveland famous mustard at Highland. Um, and it was a blast. So I'm trying to give that experience to the kids that I work with today and we've done it. Um, so we've got kids that just love going round and round and round.

In fact, last year I had 45 kids try out for 15 spots. So it's working, we're doing it and the Highlands a big part of it.

Mike Hendrix (18:00)
Yeah, that's awesome. You know, that whole tryout thing, that is something to keep our eyes on. What do we do with the other 30 kids? How do we keep them in the game? I think, you know, I've gone through that as a father. When a kid gets cut you worry about like, well, will they stick with it? Sure, absolutely.

Paul Sampliner (18:22)
I answered that Mike.

Starting in May at Highland, we've got a high school golf league, so this is available for 8th graders through 12th grade who may not be on the high school team, but want to play golf and be social or win some prizes, have fun. So that to me is one of the answers for the kids that don't play high school golf.

Mike Hendrix (18:39)
awesome. I'm super glad to hear you said that. mean, and it makes a lot of sense. So many of these kids that don't play varsity basketball still play intramural basketball at the high school, right? They want to be around their buddies. They want to be around their friends. They love all the texting banter that goes on and that kind and just because you can't make the varsity basketball team doesn't mean you shouldn't have an opportunity to participate. And so I don't know of a lot of other people that are doing what you're doing.

But, you know, hey, Kelly Trent at Raymond Memorial. Let's do that at Raymond, too. Let's let all these other high school kids join a league. That would be that would be awesome. Right. So tell us about Highland, because Highland's unusual, Paul Highland Park for people that don't know 36 hole golf course right in Cleveland. Super close to Canterbury and Canterbury is like an all time great golf course in Ohio. But there's a foundation now that's that's trying to save this golf course and kind of

bring it back if you will. And I know you're on the board of the foundation. Talk to us about that and how you guys are trying to save this golf course.

Paul Sampliner (19:43)
Yeah, it really exciting, Mike. Thanks for bringing it up. Highland was about to close about three or four years ago. There are moguls, horrible conditions. The creeks were overgrown. The course was flooded from 100 years. This course opened in 1927. So we're about to celebrate our 100th year anniversary here in a year. So we're working towards that. The mayor of Cleveland had was looking for bids to operate the golf course. The foundation came in. We are a nonprofit entity.

Um, could save the course. So the foundation is Cleveland citizens and golfers that love to play a Highland and we're trying to get donations, you know, to keep this course alive and make it fantastic. Um, so it's really all about capital. need everything. We need bunkers, irrigation. Uh, we've got a driving range opening up, uh, this year. Um, so a lot of exciting things and it's all on donations from the community. So we're trying to get the community.

to help save this wonderful asset and keep it a golf course for the next 100 years. And so everybody can enjoy this great game.

Mike Hendrix (20:46)
And when did you, so, actually, um, uh, I guess we'll go back a little bit. You're at GolfNow. You actually, did you not move to Ireland for GolfNow?

Paul Sampliner (20:56)
Yeah, it's a great story. We'll get into it. Some of the business practices for GolfNow, it was going to be difficult for me to do as doing all these shows. I felt I was a defender of the model and it became more and more difficult for me to defend the model. GolfNow acquired a company in Ireland and I went over there to do some of our seminars. I had a great time and thought I can help Ireland with demand-based pricing.

with visitor rounds and so I did. So I ended up moving to Belfast for almost two years.

Mike Hendrix (21:27)
And I, I ultimately followed in your footsteps, although I didn't move there, but then, then that became my, but the reason I bring it up is because, so then you ultimately decide to leave GolfNow. And, and, that was sad. we, I remember we had a big sendoff deal for you and, but, you go back to Cleveland and before Highland park or anything, you actually did become the head golf professional at Manakiki, which is, which is owned and operated by Cleveland Metro parks.

I just want to get the timeline correct, right? You went back to the green grass experience.

Paul Sampliner (21:59)
Yeah, you I had did some other things, worked in some nonprofits, in nonprofit technology, and just love golf and wanted to get back in golf. So maybe about three years, I got a job at Manakiki as the head pro and started with the Cleveland Metro Parks. The Metro Parks are nine golf courses, wonderfully maintained. Two of the golf courses are the top five golf courses, public golf courses in Ohio.

Mike Hendrix (22:19)
Yeah, yeah, it's big time golf for people that don't it's it's it is, you know, for our Chicago people, it's similar to a big Forest Park Reserve, that kind of thing. So okay, so you get there. And like you said, you've been out of golf for a few years. You probably get exposed to let's call it almost like the new GolfNow, right? New terms and conditions, new business practices, that kind of thing. And I think GolfNow was serving Cleveland Metro when you got

Paul Sampliner (22:42)
Right. So I walk in and my first day, um, Manakiki and the Metro Parks are paying for trade times, you know, 16 players out of 18 whole facility to GolfNow. So that's new for me. I'm, you know, back into it. I'm like, wow, that's a lot of money. That's, you know, $80,000 in trade times. What are we getting for this? Um, so we're getting the usual, we're getting a distribution, we're getting a tee sheet point of sale system, some marketing, you know, I don't know what else.

So my first call to GolfNow on my first day was, stop the nonsense here, guys. I need you to take away two trade times from all these courses when you do it. And they did it. So my first day of work, I think I saved the Metro Parks 250 grand in barter. I was employee of the week.

Mike Hendrix (23:25)
For sure. Yeah, yeah. And I do think that's interesting. You know, we've we've counseled lots of people across the nation. There's room to negotiate. And so clearly you were able to improve the deal. OK, so you leave Manakiki, which is another great course, by the way, you leave there. And how do you get exposed to Highland Park? How does it come to be that like you're like, yeah, I think I'm going to get on this board and I'm going to like dig in and try to help this thing?

Paul Sampliner (23:50)
Yeah, so the mayor of Cleveland, Mayor Bid put a proposal to operate this kind of failing or almost closed 36-hole facility. So I went in myself and say, hey, I can run this golf course. It's around the corner and I've got a little bit of golf experience. At the same time, another gentleman went in who was a builder and with a better model who said he's going to hire Troon and he's going to help build the golf course. And this was much better than I was proposing. So I...

joined with him and became part of the board. And now we're on the same team and helping Highland become great.

Mike Hendrix (24:22)
Nice. Okay. And so, so, and, and, you know, I know you said we hadn't seen each other in a long time, but we had stayed in touch somewhat digitally, you know, two, three times a year, we might trade a message or something like that.

Paul Sampliner (24:35)
When I was at Manakiki, I didn't really want to talk to you because I felt burned by GolfNow, honestly.

Mike Hendrix (24:40)
Got it. Well, that, makes me, that makes me feel bad. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, but I understand. Um, and, then ultimately I left too. So, uh, anyway, so you recently here, think maybe you get exposed to some of the stuff that I'm doing or whatever. guess it, maybe it was about the Google thing as I'm just thinking about it, the, the whole book online button thing happened. And so I was generating a lot of content about that. And that actually is like,

very relevant to any golf operator in America. And I think you had a couple of questions and that's how we got, got reconnected. And so it just by chance, I had already been booked to speak at a couple different owner meetings. One in Springfield, Ohio at Locust Hills, that's owned and operated by the Kitchen family. And then one at Valleaire that's managed by

Paul Sampliner (25:14)
Sure.

Mike Hendrix (25:32)
Cindy Cole, who's a long time operator in Northeast Ohio, highly thought of. And she had come over to the Valleaire years ago. And so I was gonna go up there and make a presentation. And I thought, be cool, if Paul came with me, could recreate this power up thing we used to do. And we could share your story about what you had been going through at Highland Park, if I have that right.

Paul Sampliner (25:58)
Yeah, and it kind of turned into a power down. So we went from power up to a little bit power down. Let's kind of give the real picture. Or let's give the example of Highland and share that with some of the other operators in Cleveland.

Mike Hendrix (26:12)
Right. Okay. And so I will, I'm going to actually share a screen here and these are some of the slides that you shared, the meeting, Paul, correct? and you were making the case to everyone in the room and it certainly wasn't, it wasn't like it was this, you know, no one should ever.

use GolfNow or whatever, you were simply trying to teach people there is a way to analyze the performance of a marketplace, the performance of a vendor that typically works in barter. There is a way to analyze how they're performing. And you had gone through that, our, Mike Loustalot and Sagacity just helped organize some data for you, but you had gone through that. And I thought it'd be interesting to have you come on and maybe we share it with a larger group.

Paul Sampliner (26:57)
Yeah, and before we talk about that, talk about kind of the line item of barter, right? So, you know, there are 9,000 golf courses on GolfNow. I don't think any of them have a barter line item, like there's labor. So Mike, if barter, we're spending maybe $100,000 of barter for services, where would that fall on the line expense item for golf courses? Is that a top five expense?

Look at labor like a top five expense and you say every year, well, what can I do with labor? But this isn't really looked at. So the message here is we should look at this because it's a top five expense for our golf course.

Paul Sampliner (27:31)
So what we're looking at here is our course distribution data from 2024. And it's a little bit tricky to find all this data. You have to look at probably eight or nine reports. So let's start with the top. So that's our trade rounds. And again, this is actually only through October of 2024.

So we're actually about 3000 trade rounds sold, which equates to 4.8 or 5% of our total rounds. I believe that's actually eight or 9% of our total revenue because the rate is more. So with the trade rounds, it's carts and 18 holes. We sell a ton of nine hole rounds, walking rates. So this is the trade rounds are actually a little bit higher. So what I'm saying, Mike, is we're paying about 80 to $100,000 for trade rounds.

for reservation services for just a little bit of marketing included. But I think that's a pretty big chunk out of our net revenue, which is about $1.2 million to pay for reservation services.

Mike Hendrix (28:29)
And

you say a little bit of marketing because this does segue into the next line, right? 5,200 rounds from the marketplace. But I think what you're kind of saying between the lines there is because you believe, I don't know, 4,500 of those you would have collected anyway. I think that's

Paul Sampliner (28:49)
And our data at the end of the year shows that our new customer account went up maybe 10% or so from a small database.

Mike Hendrix (28:56)
Okay.

Paul Sampliner (28:57)
So the course rounds, GolfNow is performing. And again, that's about 9.3%, the marketplace of our total round. That includes affiliates, barstool, things like that. So Mike, talk about that 9.3%. Is that good or bad? What are courses doing? What should I do with that number?

Mike Hendrix (29:16)
Well, listen, 9% coming from a marketplace actually can be fine. So long as the other items are in line, you know, if 9% was coming from a marketplace and 40% was coming from your booking engine, that's fine. Again, assuming the financial agreement between the two parties makes sense, that would be fine. But in your case, when I take trade rounds and I add them to course round,

and meaning those are the two places, two channels related to the marketplace. Those add up to greater than what your booking engine is doing, Those add up to 14.1%. Whereas your booking engine is doing 12.3. I'm not faulting GolfNow for that, but you all are in a place where you need to significantly grow.

activity, bookings, et cetera, that is going through your booking engine.

Paul Sampliner (30:09)
Sure, you know, through our booking engine, our website, that's funny you mentioned that. So two years ago, Mike, we did not have a website through the city of Cleveland. And if you wanted to book online, you have to go through GolfNow. So we're trying to reverse that a little bit.

Mike Hendrix (30:22)
That is a heads up to everybody out there, Paul, that, you know, we tend to think more about apps today and whatnot. Your website is very important. You want it to look great. You want it to work great because it can be a huge source of revenue for you if it's managed properly.

Paul Sampliner (30:37)
With those booking engine rounds at 12.3%, where does that fall in line with the rest of the country, do you think, based on your information?

Mike Hendrix (30:44)
Yeah, it's way low. You should be a normal golf course with a good online presence would be doing 40% of their rounds through their own booking engine, if not higher. mean, some golf courses are doing over 80% of their rounds through their own booking. And so you so you are way behind.

Paul Sampliner (31:01)
Very good. Mike, have me on at the end of the season and we'll see how we did. Okay. Let's go down one more line to the call center line. And the call center is, you know, doing great. Almost 40% of our rounds are going through the call center.

Mike Hendrix (31:14)
And let me

just, let me hop in again, because I don't think a lot of people know that GolfNow even offers this service. So this is a white label call center. This is not 1-800-GOLF-NOW. This is call the Highland Park phone number, and you'll be directed to book a tee time. And some human will get on the phone that actually works for GolfNow and will book this tee time. I'm correct, right?

Paul Sampliner (31:40)
Yeah, that's right. It's press one for a tee time, which goes to the call center and press two to go to the golf shop.

Mike Hendrix (31:46)
Okay.

And why, why did you guys decide to pay for a call center?

Paul Sampliner (31:50)
Yeah, it was an emergency situation pretty much. So our GM, we're getting flooded with phone calls. We're 30 people deep. He kind of threw his hands up like many operators do and said, we need help. So this was an instant solution to the problem and it worked really well. I think what we missed is some planning to do a book direct program to really do that. And that's where we're at this year. But if you look at the bottom, know, 64% of our rounds

are coming through our GolfNow relationship. they are doing what they promised. So it's okay. The next step is to really dig in a little bit more of where these rounds are falling. let's look at that from the side.

Mike Hendrix (32:29)
Right. But I, but I would say this, on that call center piece, if you took the call center and add it into your booking engine rounds, right? You'll notice that you are, it will actually, it's exactly 50%. That's how you might be wondering, how do I get from 12% to 40% IE the booking engine? Cause that's a huge growth. Well, now you see it, right? You are going to significantly reduce phone calls to the golf course by pushing golfers to your booking engine.

Very quickly, get your booking engine to 40% and reduce your phone calls so you therefore don't need to pay for a call center. You should not be paying for a call center in 2025 because more people should be booking online.

Paul Sampliner (33:13)
Sure. Mike, where is that call center located? Where is that?

Mike Hendrix (33:17)
Well, it was in Chicago when I was responsible for it. My understanding today is it's mainly offshore.

Paul Sampliner (33:24)
Very good. So what we're looking at here is, you know, my question is, is this really helping us? So this is marketplace course rounds for July. And again, marketplaces GolfNow and affiliates. so Saturday and Sunday, you can clearly see, that that's the majority of the rounds. So that's great. We love rounds of golf. My question is, are these really new golfers? And is this helping my bottom line?

It'd be great if they fell in some of the other areas where we needed help.

Mike Hendrix (33:54)
Right. Like could GolfNow be this unique source of rounds at times that golf courses struggle to get them. And I would say this is saying, no, it can't. Right. GolfNow just mimics golfer behavior.

Paul Sampliner (34:10)
Yeah, and it's funny in the old days, GolfNow only sold distressed inventory. So we would only sell one to four o'clock and that would affect it. Later on, we added retail rate inventory on Saturday and Sunday. And again, it just mirrors the rest of the course. So if GolfNow is 10%, it's a pretty good sample size and represents pretty much our booking pattern anyway.

Mike Hendrix (34:31)
Yeah. And then, you know, another tip for people out there, if you do think that you could fill up your Saturday and Sunday morning with no help whatsoever, we'll just stop posting inventory to GolfNow on Saturday and Sunday morning. And you can find out pretty quickly, You don't have to end your GolfNow relationship. Just don't post any inventory to the marketplace on Saturday and Sunday morning and really measure if, you're not seeing any drop off in total volume.

or total rounds played, then you know you don't need them on the weekends.

Paul Sampliner (35:04)
Makes sense. wasn't aware that could be negotiated.

Mike Hendrix (35:06)
Yep. So let's go to the next one, which is your trade rounds.

Paul Sampliner (35:11)
Yeah, so this is all the trade rounds for the month and it kind of looks the same way. So because we sell so many barter rounds, it really mimics the rest of the course. So again, Saturday and Sunday, Monday at 10 o'clock are prime time, you know, for barter rounds and Mike, that's a little bit painful.

Mike Hendrix (35:28)
Yeah, it's a couple of interesting things here, Paul. Look at all of these zeros in on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Um, you never know for sure, but I would say my assumption is it's because they sold out their trade on Saturday and Sunday morning and there was nothing left to sell. Now, some people might say, no, there's just no golfer demand on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. But let me take you back to the previous slide. There clearly is.

We see course rounds being sold in this pocket. How come we don't see trade rounds being sold there? Well, it's because they're loading them in to the most where they can have the trade round price as high as possible. And they know that's on Saturday and Sunday morning. This is where when you really get into the details of this, you start to get a little concerned that the relationship maybe isn't financially where you would want it to be.

Paul Sampliner (36:24)
Well, sir, Mike, that's the problem. You know, the more trade times they're up, they start competing with your course times. So when there's a price of, you know, $35 for Saturday next to a $45 at the same time at 10 o'clock, it's prepaid. You know, of course the $10 lower price is going to sell. That's the nature of the trade.

Mike Hendrix (36:42)
Yeah. I, I did some quick math. If you look at 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. just on Saturday and Sunday, sorry, just on Saturday and Sunday, this adds up to like 21%. So of all the course rounds they sold for you guys in July, 21% were in that pocket. You'd like to think trade would be 21% or lower.

But unfortunately you do the same math for the same time and it comes in at 26%. So like in the most valuable spots of your tee sheet trade is outperforming course. And that's not good. that has to be addressed.

Paul Sampliner (37:27)
Great point, Mike. Agreed.

Mike Hendrix (37:28)
Okay, now we kind of take a look at like what you did pay and then what what 2025 could look like

Paul Sampliner (37:35)
Sure.

Yeah. So this is unbundling the bundle of the cable program here. So let's start with the tee sheet point of sale, right? So again, we've sold 2,700 rounds total in trade. And if I take a third of that, know, 900 of those are for the tee sheet point of sale. We equate this to $35. Again, those trade rounds are worth more than our average round. So it's about $31,000. So Mike, did I just pay $31,000 for a tee sheet that costs

5 to $10,000 cash.

Mike Hendrix (38:07)
Yeah, I mean that, you you can definitely make that, argument that'll make you wake up in the middle of the night right there.

Paul Sampliner (38:13)
Yeah, that's a little painful. So conversely, the call center GolfNow is charging $2 or asking $2.50 for call center rounds. And again, we were getting cash bills for a while of 10 to $15,000 per month. We later changed to trade. And I actually think we're based on that $2.50. We're getting a very fair deal for the call center, although we I feel and we both feel that it's not necessary.

Mike Hendrix (38:37)
Right. Let's restate that for a second. There was a time you're saying at Highland Park that you were paying cash for a GolfNow service and it was $2 and 50 cents for every round they booked over the phone for you. Correct.

Paul Sampliner (38:51)
Correct.

Mike Hendrix (38:52)
And then at some point you, you obviously you got uncomfortable with the lot with the cash liability that was building up and you and you guys must have gone back to them and said like, Hey, can we can we do this through trade?

Paul Sampliner (39:05)
Correct, we'll add up more trade times, absolutely.

Mike Hendrix (39:07)
Yeah. And so they could have sold over 5,000 trade rounds in that March to October window and they ultimately sold 2,700, but to your point, that's 130 grand.

Paul Sampliner (39:18)
Yeah, so we were exposed to that's what they were allotted to sell was the 5040 trade rounds. So Mike, the issue here is, you know, we're paying $130,000 on the hook for $230,000 for just reservations. So go to the next slide and see what it could look like in 2025 is kind of what we think. So this is our new vendor coming in soon. And as you mentioned, you know, the new new tee sheets point of sales are anywhere from 4,000 to 8,000 per year.

We've canceled the call center. We've canceled distribution or hope to, and we're going to go to a book direct model, right? Processing fees stay the same. So now we're $40,000 and the previous slide we were $130,000. So Mike, again, did I just save my golf course $90,000 this year?

Mike Hendrix (40:06)
Yeah, that's something. Who knows if it's going to be 90. I do think just in your case, because you can't you can't speak for every single golf course. But in your case, I do think your P&L, your profit and loss statement at the end of '25 is going to be better than in '24.

Paul Sampliner (40:23)
It's hard to measure because, you know, weather's got to be the same. We've got a driving range coming in this year. So it's really going to be tough to measure, but we can look at other factors. So visits to our websites, know, booking engine rounds, there's several other factors that we can look at that'll show success for our program.

Mike Hendrix (40:39)
The thing with Cleveland is, and we showed this also in the presentation, you know, not even 70 % of the tee time inventory in Cleveland for public golf is available on GolfNow. And

If GolfNow loses Cleveland Metro parks, it's a whole new ball game. they, they mean they almost should be paying Cleveland Metro parks to stay on GolfNow, because if Cleveland Metro parks walks from GolfNow, GolfNow has got a problem in Cleveland like they do in Columbus. People, a lot of people don't know in Columbus GolfNow has 31% of the tee time inventory. Uh, and we are seeing this happen in, in larger cities where it's, there's some, uh,

There's some attrition there on T times through GolfNow.

Paul Sampliner (41:22)
Sure, Mike. In my little corner of the world here in Eastside Cleveland, there are just this year, I think seven golf courses have gone away, at least from GolfNow tee Sheet. So these things change quickly and you've seen this over your career. Markets can change very quickly. And what's funny to me is, know, Cleveland is probably one of the least expensive markets in the country and Highland is one of the least expensive courses.

in the least expensive market. You know, it's nothing compared to everybody else.

Mike Hendrix (41:50)
Right, right. And so I do think there's a story that needs to be told too, because I'm not suggesting anybody did anything that wasn't by the, you know, in line with the contract. But I think you did experience, it is difficult to get out of an agreement with GolfNow. And we shared with people some steps you should take now, if you think you might want to get out of your GolfNow agreement a year from now or something like

Paul Sampliner (42:17)
Yeah, just I would be very careful. So we were in a three year contract. It seems like every time you want to renegotiate for different terms, you have to go into another three year contract. Highland has been a customer of GolfNow for I think over eight years. And to me, you know, after two years or so, it's every year, you know, they've got to prove their value, we have to prove it, that we want to be a customer. And it's a handshake, I feel. But it is hard to get out of these.

Mike Hendrix (42:46)
It was a handshake when you and I started. We did not have agreements, but written agreements with golf courses.

Paul Sampliner (42:52)
Yeah, you know, in the old days, Mike, I used to say we've got a 95 % retention rate through this handshake agreement, which was true That's unfortunately, I don't think true anymore.

Mike Hendrix (43:02)
Right. I do agree with you three years seems to me to be too much. I also agree with you that after a contract renews, it should not renew for a whole nother, you know, it should be year to year, right?

Paul Sampliner (43:15)
And not in those three years, once it renews automatically another three years, that's good advice.

Mike Hendrix (43:19)
Yeah. And so that's, you know, what I do with my customers is they come up there, my data subscription customers, they subscribe for a year. Then we go month to month. I got to earn it every month. Right. And, and I just think that that's the, that's the fair way to do that. and so I will say Paul, you know, you contributed a lot and I think we detailed, you moved around the country for this company.

you helped a ton of people grow their careers, just a ton of good stuff there. And I have not asked you this over the last few weeks that we've been talking, but like, was there, did anybody explore like, can we just do Paul a good guy? Can we just do Paul a solid here? He was an important piece of what built this company. Can't we just help this guy out? Did that never come up?

Paul Sampliner (44:06)
You know, I tried to pull the Paul card but you know, it's a business and I understand that and it's all based on the data and that's okay

Mike Hendrix (44:12)
It is okay. But you also would like to think like, companies will never forget the early people. And I guess I wish that had happened for you, frankly.

Paul Sampliner (44:22)
It's okay. I was paid for a job. I did the job. Thank you very much.

Mike Hendrix (44:26)
Fair enough. you won't be able to be out of GolfNow completely in 2025. us about that.

Paul Sampliner (44:32)
Yeah, correct. because we were, you we're still on a GolfNow contract, which is okay. You know, distribution is not the end of the world. I think what we're going to do, we're a 36 hole facility. We're going to move all the GolfNow to one course and all the trade to one course and keep the other course empty. And we'll see what happens. I'm not saying we're going to leave GolfNow once our term is up. We're going to play it by ear and measure things based on data.

Mike Hendrix (44:57)
Yeah, maybe the ROI in '25 is so good that it's worth exploring to stay.

Paul Sampliner (45:02)
Yeah, I mean, Mike, if you want to go to the store where the golfers are, GolfNow is pretty good at it.

Mike Hendrix (45:07)
Well, let's talk about that though, because I think now there's a place that has some functionality in terms of booking tee times. There's a place that's larger than GolfNow that people can go to find tee times. And that's this new development with Google. I'm curious to get your take. You've been exposed to it now. think you're up to speed on everything that's going on. how much, risk has GolfNow taken on?

Paul Sampliner (45:32)
Well, there's no risk in doing the agreement. I think the risk for GolfNow is forcing customers to say either the GolfNow engine and your Golf Course engine or nothing. That to me, I think is the risk. So for our Golf Course, I asked you yesterday, you know, what do you think, how many rounds is Google Book going to produce? And your comment was '25 % of the online rounds this year. I think that's pretty, it's pretty powerful thing. So to me,

My vendor is, this is a free service that Google is providing, right? The vendor is GolfNow can choose to hook up to it or not. So to me, I want to participate in the way that I want to participate in this solution. It makes a lot of sense. So if GolfNow is handcuffing me to the way that I'm going to participate, I think I'm going to choose another vendor for my point of sale.

Mike Hendrix (46:21)
Got it. Yeah. And so, and we know we actually showed a map in my, my portion of the presentation. So like in Columbus, foreUP has done an excellent job with setting up everybody's book online button to go directly to the foreUP booking engine. think that's how most operators, would like for it to happen. And in Columbus is an interesting study. So people around the country could probably dial in and look at what's going on in Columbus in Columbus.

Kemper owns six golf courses. They don't just manage them, they own them. And then the city of Columbus has another six golf courses. Well, those 12 golf courses are all with foreUP And so foreUP is the dominant technology provider in central Ohio. And it was really cool to see foreUP light up all these book online buttons and go directly to these booking engines. I you know, I kind of tip my hat to foreUP for doing that.

It's the right way to take care of Columbus municipal golf. It's the right way to take care of their Kemper partner. And it'll be interesting to ask Columbus municipal at the end of '25. Let's review the impact Google had.

Paul Sampliner (47:30)
Yeah, let's say it right here. Your bet was '25 % of the online rounds.

Mike Hendrix (47:34)
That that's right. think 20 and now here's another piece to that. Um, and I don't know this today. Hopefully somebody from foreUP will contact me. Now let's look at the foreUP booking engine and see what the analytics package looks like on the backend, the reporting of that booking engine. Can we see these different sources of, of tee times and can we generate a report that we put in front of our customer, the operator that clearly shows

Here's how these online channels are performing for you specific to the ones that ran through your booking engine. And I'm hopeful that these booking engine companies will roll out really good reporting around.

Paul Sampliner (48:14)
Yeah, I was told that exists, so we'll find out.

Mike Hendrix (48:16)
That's great. That's great. So what's your golf team look like in '25? Will you guys be down here at Scarlett competing for a state championship?

Paul Sampliner (48:25)
Yeah, we love Scarlet. We're rebuilding right now. So we've got some young players. We're going to do a lot of laps in Highland and improve our game. It's to be a fun summer.

Mike Hendrix (48:33)
Good. and, what was total rounds of Highland Park last year was kind of around 50,000.

Paul Sampliner (48:39)
No, just under 60,000. And again, the goal, we're not sustainable, right? So we're just short of being sustainable after a couple of years of really growing. So I'm hoping this decision, this tee sheet change decision and our driving range are gonna put us over the edge.

Mike Hendrix (48:53)
And so I think what you mean by sustainable is even though you almost did 60,000 rounds, you guys did lose money in, in 2024, but also that wasn't a surprise. That's part of the foundation's business plan around saving this property. Correct. Great. Great. youth on golf, you guys participate in youth on golf.

Paul Sampliner (49:12)
we do. Those are free tickets that we see a little bit here and there. You know, you buy the tickets in advance. That's a funny one, because those tickets are $6 for youth on golf and our junior rates 11. So it's a funny right in there, right?

Mike Hendrix (49:23)
And then I think you've got exposure to the first tee at Highland Park. And I think you're going to try to grow that relationship.

Paul Sampliner (49:30)
Yeah, we're outside of Cleveland, but adjacent to Cleveland. So the First T does a lot with the Cleveland Metro Parks, and we're going to be a satellite campus for First T. So we're just excited to have golfers at our facility learning the game and enjoying it. For sure.

Mike Hendrix (49:44)
And I think the golf league thing for high schoolers is awesome. I don't know if that was your idea, but that's a I mean, that's a program. Again, just to recap, maybe the kid got cut. He didn't make the golf team. We still want to give him a place to play and a kind of consistent reason to come out and play that golf league is an excellent idea for that.

Paul Sampliner (50:04)
Yeah, you know the other piece of that of junior golf is parents. We want parents to drop their kids off at the course and let him stay all day. That doesn't happen anymore. The parents and everything has to be guided and watched like free play is fun and your kids going to grow from just being out there and I've seen it season after season.

Mike Hendrix (50:22)
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on that. that's great. Well, hopefully, you know, I do want to say thanks to Greg Harris, who's the executive director of the Ohio Golf Course Owners Association, you know, to invite me in to speak and then to let me bring you along. That's great. I hope that we get I've been trying to help grow the Golf Course Owners Association in Ohio and literally just add members. So hopefully we can get Highland Park to become a member. We've added some some

courses in Cincinnati. I think when these things with Google are happening or the BYOB thing that we've just seen happen in Arizona, I think you need a strong local voice. And so hopefully we can grow the Ohio golf course owners association and make it stronger.

Paul Sampliner (51:03)
Sounds great, Highlands in!

Mike Hendrix (51:05)
that's awesome. That's, that's good news. I'm going to move you to the won column in my HubSpot. Well, listen, Paul, thanks for coming on. I'm going to come up to Highland Park this summer and, and see you. It's been, it's been great to reconnect and listen, I wish you all the best with the decisions you make. I also hope that other people that, that use GolfNow, I hope those people have great years too, right? I'm not going to root against anybody.

Paul Sampliner (51:10)
Very good.

Mike Hendrix (51:31)
and, hopefully you've helped some people, you know, let's get this thing to be the ROI that it should be a little more appropriate.

Paul Sampliner (51:38)
Very good. Thanks so much, Mike.

Mike Hendrix (51:40)
Okay, Paul, thanks for joining us.

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