That's Good. Pick it Up!
Nate Oxman is a true Renaissance Man—Marion caddie, teacher, longtime golf writer, published author, and now podcast host. On That’s Good. Pick It Up!, Nate sits down with the authors behind some of golf’s best books, sharing the stories, ideas, and moments that make the game so meaningful. If you love golf and a good read, this one’s for you.
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That's Good. Pick it Up!
Sean Zak - Searching in St. Andrews: Finding the Meaning of Golf During the Game's Most Turbulent Summer
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We're revisiting another episode of The Hole Story Podcast where Robby & Jonathan interviewed Sean Zak to learn more about his book, Searching in St. Andrews.
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of That's Good Pick It Up. Robbie here, founder of Best Bowl, and producer of this podcast for my friends Nate Oxman and John Morton. They are still busy doing life. So we are revisiting another episode from the whole story where we chatted with Sean Zach, the author of Searching in St. Andrews. It's a great book. Sean's just an incredible guy, a writer, all things covering golf. So you guys are going to love this one. It's just another great opportunity to learn more about a great golf book, but somebody who is doing great things in golf. So appreciate Nate and John for allowing us to use some of these past episodes to introduce it to you guys, a whole new audience. Check out what Sean Zach is doing and make sure you are following him. Hope you enjoy this one. Another episode of That's Good. Pick It Up. Today's guest on the Whole Story Podcast, joining us from the windy and kind of gray city today is Sean Zach. Sean is the senior writer at golf magazine and golf.com. He's the author as of April 2024. You probably have a ton of other books, but uh you wrote Searching in St. Andrews and want to hear more about that. But uh Sean, welcome to the Whole Story Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me, guys. That is the only book I've written, and you're right, it is extremely gray. I live in a uh a high-rise building, one of the many high-rise buildings in Chicago, and so when it gets foggy, it's like extra foggy. Usually I can look out and see a nice driving range, but I can't see anything right now. So I'm locked in on you guys.
SPEAKER_02High rise book sales must begin.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, once you get the penthouse, you're above the fog. You don't have to worry about that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, exactly. We're not there yet. Um but Chicago just says so many, so many high-rises, it's almost like an inevitability you'll you'll end up in one of them. Well, before we start, let's ask, are uh uh Cubs or White Sox guy? Neither. Neither. I'm from Wisconsin originally, uh, so I'm a Brewers fan. Um and I've very much just enjoyed the Packers beating the Bears in in Soldier Field yesterday. So I didn't go to the game, but was driving around town afterwards and saw uh many Chicago fans extremely upset. So it's good to be me yesterday.
SPEAKER_01There you go. I mean, it could be worse. You could be a Cubs fan. I'm a Cardinals fan, so I don't know if that helps. But yeah, there's some community there. National League Central still works.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, very nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, go ahead, John.
SPEAKER_01We could we could continue to talk about baseball, but unfortunately, Robbie makes me talk about golf on the golf podcast. So uh, you know, you mentioned like we just talked about, you're you work for golf.com. We're gonna get to the book. I'm assuming you didn't just start your golf career in 2022 when you somehow moved to St. Andrews for 90 days. So where did golf come into play? Were you one of those kids like pitch and putt at three years old, or did it come in later in life?
SPEAKER_00Uh it was uh it was slightly later in life. I really took to this sport um in the summertime when I would visit my grandparents. I would always go spend a week with my dad's parents, and my grandpa was a ranger, a retiree, but like, you know, a starter, ranger, driving range picker, kind of do-it-all person at this little course in a tiny town in in Wisconsin. And I would just go there at eight in the morning and I would screw around and just you know, hit 300 golf balls, chip in putt, sneak out for nine holes by myself, and then at the end of his shift, we'd go play together. So it was just a uh essentially golf camp, one week of summer for me, uh, when I was probably 13 or 14. Um, and that basically pushed me into working at a country club in the uh local area growing up. That really like the golf bug bit so hard, and even though I I played other sports, um, it just became the the one that was constantly calling, the one that you can't perfect, the one you just are always wanting to get better at, but somehow, you know, the the uh skill set is not a very linear, like increasing movement. So um then I you know started writing about golf a little bit, studied journalism in college, and then got an internship at golf magazine, gosh, uh 11 years ago now. Um, and it and it have been there ever since. So that's a long internship. Yeah, yeah, I know. Um it's true, they they fortunately do pay me an annual salary now, but uh it was uh it was humble beginnings that have really worked out for me.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. Um so what uh kind of what was the first story you did there at uh at Golf Magazine?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh the first thing that I really worked on um w as an intern was what Golf Magazine used to do, uh they did an annual survey of PJ Tour Pros. They would interview uh anonymously, like on the back of a driving range. We went to Congressional when the tour used to be uh visiting DC annually, and we went and basically tracked down 50 tour pros, 50 or 60, and just had them answer yes or no questions, and questions that would get uh answers quickly. And we're I'm sitting there with a little um clipboard and just marking them off. Like, do you think pace of play is an issue? Yes or no? Do you think players should be paid more? You know, these same issues that kind of like continue to um dominate uh the tour and and news cycles. Um just invigorating was like, oh wow, you can do this as an intern, you can get fate like very frontal facing time with pe like pro athletes. Uh I kind of really just enjoyed the stories that we were able to tell with that survey, and it was kind of a pretty perfect like internship thing because no one gets a byline on an anonymous survey. Um and you know, none of the tour players were afraid to speak with you because they knew it was all anonymous, and so you really got a lot of unfiltered access that kind of hooked me. Um and yeah, that was kind of the start of it all. Uh, we look back on it, we don't run that survey anymore, unfortunately, because times have changed. Players have gotten a little bit uh more angsty toward the media, a little bit uh less willing to kind of like give you 10 minutes for a survey, but uh there is some gold in that.
SPEAKER_02Watch out for the kid with the clipboard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you should take that survey to just a regular driving range and be like, here, I got five bucks here on the clipboard. If you answer these 10 questions, we'll buy you a uh a bucket of balls.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, you you would definitely get some you'd find out a lot about the the American golfer. Uh one thing about that survey that I loved was that um a couple years later, Ricky Fowler was voted as the most overrated player on tour. This would have been the year he won the player, so I think 2015. Um and now when you pull 50 or 60 players, if any if like a group of six or seven of them vote for the same guy, that's gonna be your leader for the most overrated because you'll get a bunch of different names. Um and so Ricky and Ian Poulter, I believe, tied for most overrated among the players we surveyed, and that became a big headline, and then that week of the players it comes out, Ricky's being asked about it all. Lo and behold, goes out and wins that week, and I think was asked about it like afterward. It was like it was great publicity for us, but also for him, because he's like, No, I'm not overrated at all, I just won the players. Uh it was it was quite a talking point that that was probably the peak of that those surveys.
SPEAKER_02I remember that he was throwing some darts on 17 too.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Some same ledge every time. Awkward locker rooms at that point, right? You're like, if you were the one of the guys that anonymously said he was overrated, you're just like avoiding him because you missed the cut on Friday and he's still there.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing that was also funny was that Ian Poulter completely like missed the whole overrated part. It was the fact that Ricky's the you know, the marketing savvy, very commercial laden guy who wears orange. Everyone was like, of course he's overrated. Uh and n Poulter didn't get any of the same fanfare for that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, everybody just said, Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. So what's uh what's it been like lately writing for golf? I mean, I know uh we'll get into the the stories behind uh searching in St. Andrews, but golf world has kind of uh changed as far as um, I guess stories and like you said, access from players, people wanting to talk or not wanting to talk. So what's it like? Do you travel around much, going to a lot of events still?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I probably go to six or seven or eight maybe tournaments a year. Uh most of the the the majors and the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, and then a handful of others. Uh it has been a fascinating time to cover the game. And before I like dive into why it's fascinating, I will say I am ready for this era to be uh over or at least like moving in in a slightly different direction. I would like some uh newness to it all. Um and by that I'm mostly just referring to the kind of stalemate with the PGA tour and its potential investors, but uh it has been fascinating because a lot of people do not agree on necessarily where the game is going or has been the last few years, um, or even the years prior to that. Like there's a lot of people that believe your John Roms and Phil Mickelsons and Dustin Johnson's are one 100% in the right to do however they please as independent contractors, and then there's a lot of people who feel the exact opposite, which is that they shouldn't uh be shirking the PGA tour for hundreds of million dollars elsewhere. And so that polarity, having such distinctly different viewpoints from a lot of people who care about them, particularly the people involved, like there are 200 to 250 people that can call themselves at least conditional PGA Tour members. It makes it very interesting to try to find out where are all these opinions? Is there anybody in the middle that can be swayed? You know, it's it's quite political, uh frankly. And um, that makes it interesting to to cover the sport because you have to think about a lot of different entities and why they matter, and the agents and the families of players, the future families, uh the legacies. Um I was thinking about Phil Mickelson just the other day and how he is so quiet right now, and um he has found a lot of comfort in being quiet, and I'm actually happy for him on that front. Um as a player who has like long been one of the most vocal uh and most public PJ Tour players, I think Phil has found an element of peace in his current life. Um he had to go through some really difficult times to get there, and I'm so curious if he'll stay there. Uh so that's why I think it's fascinating because you're really dealing with human instincts, human emotions, very human issues of money and politics. Um and that's what's funny, is like you can only last in this era for so long before it's like, okay, can we just kind of go back to the birdies and bogeys and get back to guys winning tournaments?
SPEAKER_02All of this uh surrounding a little white ball that's uh that's on some green grass, right? Like it's crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And um, but like but I really mean that it has forced me to read a lot of legal documents and it has been invigorating in many ways, but uh exhausting in others. So um frankly, like we're we're we're filming this today, the day after Rory wins in Dubai, and it's a very um I think full circle moment for 2024 because I was privileged enough to go to Dubai when he won the Desert Classic in January. First time I've ever been to Dubai opens up my eyes quite a bit on a part of the world I had not been to. Rory wins. You fast forward ten months, Rory wins again down the street at a different golf course, and during that entire year it's like have we, you know, what have we accomplished as like a golfing uh ecosystem this year? There has been certainly plenty of things accomplished. Uh it's been a lovely year in golf, but the the kind of bookends of Rory winning in Dubai uh it just kind of has has merely just clarified it all for me in a way.
SPEAKER_01Well, if golf magazine came to you now and said, Hey, I need you to write three questions, we're gonna give you a clipboard and anonymously talk to these players, what do you think the three questions that you'd be asking to really maybe culminating what's gone on over the last 18-24 months or maybe where they think the game's going next?
SPEAKER_00Gosh, that is a good question. Um I would want to know if players if if if tour players are professional golfers, you maybe would have to do different surveys, one for live golf and one for tour players. But I would want to know like what single uh thing upsets them most when it comes to pro golf? What what thing irks them? Is it the amount of money you make? Is it the the the reputation of the game? Is it uh, you know, I don't know, maybe the the structure of how things how the tour is and how many players are allowed to have memberships. I would like to know the singular thing, and it probably I think your survey would probably result in a number of answers. But there's been a lot of um problem solving, if you will, the last few years, right? Like there was a big deal when John Rahm just wanted more porta potties around the golf course, and you know what? He got it, right? The PGA Tour instituted that. Um so there's been I I want to know what's on top of everyone's mind right now. Um I would also like to know if they could blame one person for the current state of things, who they would blame. I think a lot of people could blame Phil Mickelson, a lot of people could blame Jay Monahan, a lot of people could blame um John Rahm, potentially. Um I would say those maybe be your your three highest uh vote getters. Um certainly Patrick Cantley would earn a vote or two. So that's kind of what I think about is like there's a lot, there's like there's like voting blocks, I think, in this negotiation phase. And I think each voting block understands the power that they hold. And I uh I would like to know who the the collective of of professionals would like to blame the most. I'm a little too chaotic with these uh survey questions, but that's kind of where my brain goes.
SPEAKER_01With with you being around the game for so long and obviously having backstage access that all of us wish we were interns now for 11 years, because that'd have been awesome. Um but where do you see the differences between, say, the guys that are maybe almost losing their card or fighting to get their Q card back versus answers from guys that are like in the top 10? Because there is a reality to, I mean, like a Rory Mackerel going, hey, this isn't that we need to fix this, as opposed to the guys that now have to go play lots of different tournaments because of what the PGA is doing to make sure that the stars are in play all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good question. I think the main difference is that players of the, let's say, the top 15 to 20, um, they're so confident and are so like probably likely to guarantee that they will be on tour for the next decade. They just know if they have one bad year, it won't be two. They'll be back uh on top in you know the following season. And so I think you'll you'll hear questions when they or answers that revert to the product and basically just trying to grow essentially the amount of TV revenue. Um and you can grow that revenue in a couple different ways by getting greater sponsorships, but also by improving the product. I think that that's something that that those players would focus on the most. Um I think players that are around 100 to 150, they are exclusively focused on opportunities because there's a lot of self-awareness in that. They know where they are. They are I'll never forget Joel Damon saying, like, someone has to be the 78th best golfer in the world or something like that. That came from a place of stunning awareness by Joel, and currently he's struggling to be the 78th best golfer in the world. Um but a lot of those guys are aware that for over a decade the tour has been handing out 125 like full status memberships, and that is now bound to change. Uh extremely bound to change, it's going to change. And so uh they are essentially seeing 15 to 20% difficulty increases just to kind of maintain the same lifestyle that they have been. And I don't know, like if you told me, HA Sean, it's gonna get 20% tougher for you to have the same job you have next year, like there's no way I would take that well. Like, there's no way I would I would handle that well. I would probably be kicking and screaming in the same way that some of them are, and um, so I don't blame them, but I I guess where I come from is I try I really try to see the middle of both sides where it's like I think the tour does need to work on its product, and I think at some point you can do that by making it more competitive and and opening pathways, and uh that would ultimately kind of make it a little bit more cutthroat. Um there is going to be though a ceiling on how cutthroat you can make this thing before you end up turning people off or not necessarily turning them off, you end up turning people away that could become something incredible. Or the story of Joel Damon, to use him as an example, if that happened four years from now, you know, then Joel isn't on the PJ Tour and he doesn't star on Netflix's show, and you end up losing what is a very popular and also um common story on the PJ Tour. There are a lot of players of his ilk that are really great people and are incredibly talented and are just trying to find out how good they can be. Um a recent story of that to keep rambling is Justin Lauer, who is like he's gonna be on the PJ Tour next year, he's gonna have full status, he's gonna be in really good shape, but he wants to know if he can win, because he's not won on the PJ Tour. He wants to know if he can qualify for the signature events. He wants to know if he can make it to the tour championship, which he's never done. And uh the more cutthroat you make it, the more of those people are just never gonna get a chance. So we're talking about like products and chances and money and opportunities. Um that's kind of where the those ends of the spectrum net out.
SPEAKER_02Well, you talked about you know Joel Damon being a good story, and and yes, it made for great uh uh content on full swing there on Netflix. So how does the tour, how does golf, I know you are a storyteller in your writing, how do we get more of these stories of the guys like a Joel Damon, like a Justin Lauer, um, in front of people in creative ways that kind of makes people buy into the the underdogs or the guys that are fighting uh for their cards?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a it's a two-way street. Um it's incumbent upon people like me doing a a good job, doing the right job, and maybe not being asked to do some of the maybe journalism that has like uh been become popular in the last 15 years, which is more focused on uh just total number of viewership in quantity. Um so focused on on doing really, really quality storytelling that proves to the PJ Tour, the DP World Tour, the Live Golf Tour, it proves to the tours and the the people that play on them, hey, like there's an outlet here for your story to be told. You have to lean in too. That's that's a very unspoken thing about Joel Damon. He is not afraid to talk to anybody like at all. He loves talking to people, he loves telling his story, he loves finding out your story, right? And um, that makes him pretty rare, I think. Um I think it's no surprise that when anyone thinks about maybe who the most popular and media savvy tour player is, a lot of people name Joel right off the top. Um, that's just the human that he is, and so I think you need people ranked around Joel's skill set to open themselves up and be willing to, and uh, and you know, that comes with not being unafraid to, right? There's a little bit of a fear of having your story told. I don't blame people for that. I have certainly been approached by like local news publications back where I grew up. Hey, let's talk about Sean, you know, and what he's up to now. And I'm like, oh gosh, I'm being asked to do the thing I ask people to do. I don't know how much I like this. Uh and so it's really a handshake that um you need to come. It's a relationship that needs to be honored by both sides. And to some extent, I think it it really works out well. But in this like current era, it's been, I think, difficult to tell those stories because there's been so much change and there's been a good bit of angst. And maybe just like things that um I'm not it's not to say that it's more important, the the pro-Golf wars, than like you know, the guys fighting for tour cards, but it's just been really easy to go in that direction because um guys have opinions about it and want to talk about it, and they'd almost would rather talk about that than talk about themselves.
SPEAKER_02Well, this is an open invite. If Joel wants to come tell a story, right? Let's uh come on the whole story podcast. Geno can jump come with him. Anybody that wants to come can come on.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, Sean, I thought that was gonna be your first quick answer. Like, well, if we get more people on the Whole Story Podcast, they can just tell their own story, and it'll just be super easy.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what? Like I the there's an element of golf podcasts that just are really good for these sort of things. Just laying out and um I think I would do think the thing that's a little tricky is uh player tour players are so used to telling their story to pro am partners and sponsors, and you know, when it comes to something like this, it's like no man, we're just we're gonna have a beer and and and talk about it. Um I think there's unless you put your foot in your mouth, there's kind of nothing bad that can come. Absolutely. No, no, no, definitely now.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, sorry. Well, we can edit it down, so if they put their foot in their mouth, we can we can help them out. So so let's take out the controversy, let's take out some of this other like what would be kind of your dream story to tell that you haven't told yet.
SPEAKER_00Uh that I haven't told. And it has to be realistic, right? No.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't happen. We can go we can go to fictional. Hold on. Let's let's start with the fact whenever you say it has to be realistic, and here in about two or three minutes, we're gonna talk about how you spent 90 days and like realistic has gone way outside the door for regular people.
SPEAKER_00So that's very true. I you know, I think this is not incredibly uh unrealistic, but I was asked this a couple uh weeks ago. Um basically I think the the part the story in golf I'm maybe most fascinated by is probably like the next 10 years of Tiger's life. And I I feel bad uh highlighting Tiger because he's the only guy we like always talk about, and he is the most you know, he'll be the most important golfer that ever lived. Um and so it's very easy to to kind of like go in that direction. But um I think for the first time in his life, the last maybe two years, he has come to grips with okay, every day of my life is going to be different about that because of that car accident, um, and just how he goes about living a different life. Um that's obviously inclusive of him as a father, um shielding, you know, his avid golfing son from uh the world that is like thirsty for the next Tiger Woods. Um you know, him in a powerful role with within pro golf and how much he wants to stay in it. I think the tiger away, you know, this is the man who owns a boat that's called Privacy. That's why it's probably unrealistic. But I do think the the tiger that's at home on a Tuesday is still very important uh and interesting person in the world of golf. He would never see it that way. Um but you know, that would be the dream. Because I I think with the right storyteller and the right amount of buy-in from Tiger, I think I think we might get there in time. Not necessarily me um or even modern media, but at one point he signed up to do a um his a book, you know, a a memoir. He did sign up for that, and it was as far as I know, commissioned to be done by the same author who wrote uh who ghostwrited um Andre Agassiz's memoir, which is called Open, which a lot of people like in the industry highlight as like the best sports memoir and one of the best memoirs out there. Now Andre Agassi, his he's he's a bit more open than Tiger Woods and hasn't had nearly the amount of um controversy that has surrounded his like off-course life. But if you could get like half as deep with Tiger as as that writer guy with Agassiz, you would have something really special for the golf and sporting world. And so I think there's something there's there's like the door is not shut. It is somewhat open. We'll see if Tiger ever walks through it though.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're pretty confident he's a uh regular listener to the podcast. So Tiger, give uh Sean a call. He'll uh he'll be happy to help you with this. Yeah. Well, you spent uh an incredible summer, uh, one that most golfers would be uh jealous of. And in 2022, you hung out in Scotland uh for the entire summer for what, 90 days? Um how did that come about? And uh we watched the video, recommend everybody check out SeanZach.com. You can kind of see a little behind the scenes video of this, but um yeah, tell us how this came about.
SPEAKER_01I want to know how you pitched that to your boss, be like, hey, listen, yeah. You know, I feel like someone needs to spend um uh a summer overseas just hanging around the old course because you know Chicago's.
SPEAKER_00I got lucky, man. Yeah, I got lucky. Um I it was about this time of year in 2021 that I was just like, okay, another year is in the books in terms of like golf work, and I was single and I was about to turn 30, and I was just thinking, like, okay, is golf the sport that I want to to devote to? And live golf did not exist to that point, um, which is which is kind of wild to think about. Um, but I was just I was a little unsure, like, okay, I've worked in this business for about 10 years. Like, is this the business that I want to continue working in? And like I really love it, but there are certainly parts of the sport that I don't love. Um you know, I would love for it to be a little bit more uh have a little bit more diversity and to be like way more welcoming, I I think, to different audiences. Um and I think it's naturally continues to move in that direction, but maybe the pace by which it did or does isn't as quick as I would hope. And maybe I'm being unrealistic, but I just really wanted to see it. Um, and I don't know if I was seeing it in middle America quite as much, but I knew that if I wanted to like make a decision on this sport, I feel like I needed to understand it better abroad. And so I the pitch was hey, the open is coming to St. Andrews the 150th in July. What do you think about me going there for a month and a half prior and a month and a half after? And I'll just cover the sport for golf.com from St. Andrews. And I also like made the pitch slightly rosy. I was like, don't worry about paying my rent. Like, I'll get someone to sublet my Chicago place, I'll take care of rent. You just pay for me like to cover the live golf event when it launched in London, or pay for me to cover the Scottish Open. Um, or like the women's open that summer ended up going down to Mearfield, and so that was gonna be the first Mearfield Women's Open, the first Mearfield women's event. Like that was gonna be a very big week in its own right. And so I laid out this 13-week schedule and said, like, I will I'll essentially do two articles that are St. Andrews based per week, and then I'll still do the rest of my job, which means like working on East Coast hours, which meant that uh I was gonna be working essentially from like 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. most days. And I think the fact that I had built up maybe eight or nine years of experience and they saw a little bit of something brewing in that town, they said, screw it, go for it, Sean. Uh, but don't, you know, don't find yourself working less. Definitely, definitely do what you can and see what you can find. And um it was, of course, like by the time my flight like left the eastern seaboard, uh, Live Golf had launched its first like list of players. And so I was like very quickly, like, oh crap, like what is this summer actually gonna turn into? Um it was a it was I think I think it'll be remembered as one of the weirdest summers uh ever, oddly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh I can't imagine getting on the plane and and seeing that list come out and be like, well, I'm not gonna sleep tonight and I'm gonna start start writing. But um wait so you stayed in the town of St. Andrews, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I stayed about a mile south of the old course. Okay. What? What was your had you been there before? I'd been there for maybe one or two nights um during like the Carnousti Open in 2018. Um so yeah, it's uh it's a tiny town. Like to to go a mile south of the old course is like kind of the town limits.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I I visited with my family years ago, didn't play, uh, looked at the course, uh, jealous of all the golfers out there. But what were you hoping to find in the actual town itself uh during that time? Apart from the golf, or uh, were you seeking out uh I don't know, just the history of it?
SPEAKER_00A little bit of that. I think I think just a little bit of like if golf has been here being St. Andrews uh for the majority of its existence, like what is different about it here and why has it been so good in Scotland to the extent that everybody raves about it? And what's you know, how is it better there than it is in in Chicago or in New York where I lived for a number of years? Um in the parts of America, like American golf is different, and everybody swears by that. And there are parts of it that are actually really great that I really like, and there are parts that are very different that I don't like. And so I really wanted to just understand that extra element of the game that I wasn't getting. Um the the fact that like you could pretty much play if you try, you could pretty much play any golf course in the country. You know, frankly, the extent of like Meerfield might be off limits slightly. Um but they open their doors to guests far more than than country clubs do in America. Uh, and I wanted to kind of understand why that is. The the economics of golf abroad are very interesting and and certainly different. Um, the willingness to have no golf carts but also dogs running all over the place. Like these little things that are are certainly uh in in a way frowned upon at times here. Like, why is why is that the case over there? And if if this sport um is everything that I think it can be, like has it been perfected over there? Um, or is there even things that they need to work on too? Um that's a bit vague of an answer, but that's kind of what I was I was going into. It's like I need to be here during the open, I need to see the golf world come in, but I want to know what it's like before, and I want to know what it's like after. Um and I think that uh I just think that that story was was sort of worth telling.
SPEAKER_01So what did you find? I mean, 90 days is a long time. You obviously didn't just stand at hole number one with a clipboard and ask random questions. So like as you traveled the country, as you began to experience the people in different places, what was there one thing that kind of was this aha moment of, man, if we could just bring this back to the US, it would solve so many problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the only thing that's really tough is I I kind of want their soil, like I want their turf, which is based off of sand, and you can't just get that in uh I don't know, Indiana, if you will. Uh and which is unfortunate because um I think that that is the uh lack of pun intended here, like that's the ground on which St. Andrews and Scotland uh their economic system stands on. Um because the sand or the soil is so sandy, it drains so well, you can play golf in St. Andrews pretty much 365 days a year, and the upkeep is not so intense. You know, you don't have to use water. You embrace when the grass is brown rather than when it's green. Um it is also embraced when it's rainy and windy, and these sort of things that um sometimes American golfers shy away from, maybe Scotland golfers lean into. And I do think that that it's a very like tiny way of changing the golf ecosystem, but anything that that would uh I guess that makes it a lot cheaper over there, and then therefore the courses can stay in great shape. They want they're very old, so you have a bunch of visitors that want to come play them. They don't charge locals all that much money, but they do charge visitors for that like one experience. Suddenly you have this kind of like pyramids issue where it's like, okay, we'll take care of the soil, okay. Now we'll take care of the memberships, okay. We got the visitors who are essentially our international marketers. You know, it all kind of tends to line up where um the the golf ecosystem there is not so, hey, you gotta pay five hundred dollars to play whistling straights because it's green and it's on the lake, and it's uh the tea times are so crazy, and there's a bunch of corporate influence. Like that's the kind of stuff I think that has gotten out of hand in America, unfortunately. And uh you just don't really you don't see it much over there.
SPEAKER_02Oh so you wrote a yeah, you wrote a book searching in St. Andrews. Kind of give us the 30-second pitch of what the book's about. I obviously been talking to I'm sure a lot of these stories are in there, but uh watch somebody uh go to Amazon, go to the bookstore and grab a copy.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think I was turning 30 and I wanted to fall like fully head over heels for the game. I was like, it's kind of there, and I wanted to like really lean all the way in, and I just think that the only way the only place to like do that as best as I could would have been during an open summer and the home of golf. And uh so the book is essentially m my way of refalling in love for the game, which is not to say that I disliked the game, but it was me proving to myself, no, this is a game that I think I can I can do for a lifetime and work in and find um the secrets of the game like invigorating when I'm 32 today and hopefully when I'm 62 and 72, right? And I think that's a that's a a realization a lot of people have over time in this sport. They do really fall for it and you can do it forever. Um, but I think the ways that I fell for it, particularly that summer, will be different than um than other people uh and who aren't in my shoes. So it's a little bit of a travel log, like, come on, join me, you know, sit on my shoulder as I like run into people, do different things to to invoke Joel Damon's name again. I caddied for Joel at the Scottish Open, and like to be a bird on you know, a fly on the wall for all those kind of things, I think makes it a pretty fun tale.
SPEAKER_01Are you already planning what your midlife crisis book's gonna be and where you can pitch that to your boss? Because this feels like an early midlife crisis of I want to keep doing this forever, and then you come back to your boss in 10 years and be like, listen, here's the deal. Yeah, we've got to go to 90 days. There we go. Yeah, perfect.
SPEAKER_00I I honestly think that that is a pretty uh interesting way and like sound way of describing it. It's like it might have been a little bit of a not so much a crisis, but like an early life angst, right? Which is like, okay, man, like there's a lot of paths out in front of you. Like, do you wanna do you wanna pick the golf one? Okay, like let's prove it to ourselves. And um I do think what's nice about it is it it it uh intersects so much with the pro game, and the pro game was working through its own angst, continues to, but during that particular summer, I mean um you really had two warring sides, and you had uh the women's game being forgotten about and uh all these sorts of things that were bubbling up at different points that I was able to kind of be behind the scenes for.
SPEAKER_02Well, you did kind of have a front row seat to the uh the outcome of the open. So what was it like being there watching uh the one everybody wanted to see win, Rory, uh have it taken from him by Cam Smith?
SPEAKER_00It was it was pretty chilling. Um I think Cam is a lovely dude, and he's so chill, and if he's you know a world-class golfer who during that summer was probably playing the best golf of his life, and uh he is precisely the type of player who could steal and open from Rory because Rory has shown sometimes an inability to just get the ball in the hole uh on Sundays, and Cam Smith has shown an ability to make putts from anywhere on the planet, and so it all really lined up on that back nine. Um and I'll never forget like walking home that night, you know, we've written our stories, it's past midnight, it's like almost one in the morning, and there, you know, the the pubs in town have like a little bit of a murmur to them. They're not like no, you know, there's not that many people that are still out, but I just promise you, if Rory had won, like there would be people maybe still in the streets, the pubs would be completely full, and that people would be going crazy. And I just it just goes to show like there was a uh there was a bit of a native son that had been adopted that week and he did not win. And that doesn't mean that like Cam Smith was wrong for winning or that they couldn't have also like embraced Cam Smith, but it was the quietest 64 I think that will that won a major that will ever ever happen. Um and yeah, it just it felt like everything was tinier because of it. And uh but that doesn't make me dislike it. Like I really like that that I like that that result happened because I think it it uh more than anything just kind of continues advancing Rory's story and like holy cow man, you can't get any closer to like a truly iconic win than that one, and you somehow missed it. It's we'll talk about it forever.
SPEAKER_01He said a couple of those. Yeah. More than a few to write about, I'm assuming, in the last or eleven years.
SPEAKER_02So I besides working non-stop, I know you worked the whole time if your bosses are listening, but uh, how much golf did you get to play while you were there?
SPEAKER_00Uh I probably played like 15 to 20 rounds. I can't remember, it might have been twenty, um, which is plenty for for uh three months, um maybe twice a week, four times on the old course. Uh and so very spoiled to have done that. Um, but it wasn't like I was out there every single day. That would be the ultimate, you know, based not in reality sort of summer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We'll take the real answer off the air.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. Yeah, I'd be like, I told you I went from one to ten. I played golf from six a.m. until one p.m. every single day. We we always talk about golf as in and and I'm assuming a few rare cases where you're playing, but mostly it's who you're playing with. So is there anything that stands out just in terms of uh if you played 10 or 15 rounds, you got to play with 30, 40 people. Was there anyone that just sort of stood out as this is a moment I'm gonna remember just because of the people I played with?
SPEAKER_00Totally. Uh ironically, it's like kind of how I started the the book was just introing people into what could be a very random, I think it was a Thursday night, I can't remember, uh, on the old course. We had the last tea time off. I was playing with a friend I had met named uh Pete uh I think it's Kahig, but it might be Ko Hig. Uh either way, Pete was a CFO for a like third-level uh club in the English football system, and I had happened upon him because he's a golf nut. And he was in St. Andrews during the open and played with him and just two of the random buddies that he knew from the the the St. Andrews uh from St. Andrews Golf Club, which is like located on the 18th hole there. Uh, and these guys were just these such different people. One is like a Scottish uh was it was a he lived in St. Andrews and owned a flat, and the other was this guy who grew up in Hawaii who had broken his foot and was playing in a walking boot, and both of those guys were just like like one was a little bit you know more round and and the other guy at the broken foot was like rail thin and like smoking cigarettes, but these two guys were like best friends bound by the game of golf and bound by their visits to St. Andrews. And the fact that you could just on any given night happen into those people because the St. Andrews doesn't allow you just to book a foursome, right? You end up playing with a lot of strangers when you play the old course. That's one of its gifts. Like people hate that you can't just guarantee your foursome will be on the first T for that photo, but it gives you things in a much more subtle way that I don't think you would get otherwise. Sounds perfect. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Very nice. Well uh Uh we asked everybody uh to talk about their own game a little bit and and you said you have listened to uh at least one episode before. So we asked everybody what's what is your most memorable golf shot?
SPEAKER_00Oh my most memorable Well, so I'm a I'm uh right now an eight point zero index. I will fluctuate in the high sevens and low eights, which all of all which means like I'm fully capable of of breaking eighty and kind of shooting a 75. I have zero holes in one, which is really sad. Um we're all tied. Yeah. I think my most memorable sh gosh, I w I wish I had a good answer for you. I you know, I I hit a shot that summer at Ely Golf Club, which is um down the coast, maybe twenty miles from St. Andrews, and I think it's the 12th hole, which is this it's a cape hole uh on the I guess what would be on the North Sea, and I had blown my drive. This was a point in my life when I was really battling the big right miss, and I had missed horrendously to the right, and we're also playing into the wind, and so I hit, you know, I think I topped a three wood at that point, and then I hit like a little bit of a stinger sort of thing to like maybe maybe like 40 yards away from the hole, but I was very much back in the fairway, and I said, screw it, like I'm putting this because you know that's what you do in the lynx land. And so from about 40 yards, I hit this putt rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling, and of course it it falls in for like the stupidest par you could ever imagine making. And I remember my opponents on the green had completely written me off. They thought they were gonna go like three up, and suddenly I think uh I think they both made five, or maybe either tied the hole or I won the hole from them, and that one sticks out because to see the look on their faces and to see their shoulders drop from someone who has no business making four is kind of uh that's definitely one of the most efferable routine part. I've got to get the links galled.
SPEAKER_01That putting thing from off the green is my that's my that's my jam. Cheat code. Not very good at anything else, so I might as well just punch it up there. Well, we always like to do a thing we call the quick nine as well, just go back and forth to some quick, easy questions, hopefully. And I'm I'm excited about this one because there's a lot to choose from, I think. Uh what's the favorite course that you've played?
SPEAKER_00Um my favorite course is the old course. I know it's not a good answer right now. I think my favorite day, I was able to play Pine Valley uh a few years ago on like the perfect October day, and we went straight from the 18th green to the first T and played it a second time. Uh and so that's about as braggy as I'll get. But that was a I mean, that that stands out above everything else. All right. Um, in your time there in Scotland, what was your favorite hole in the wall golf course that you played? Um, you know, I didn't play it that summer, but a couple of summers since I've played Dunbar, which is down the coast from North Berwick. Um along the coast. It's fantastic. The entire course exists between this like rock wall and the sea. Uh, and it's always windy and always just like empty every time I visited, uh, which is both sad but also great. You can go at your own pace. Dunbar stands out like in a big way. Write that one down. Uh, what course is at the top of your bucket list? Uh I feel I feel like I need to I haven't been to Bandon Dunes, um, which is a pretty glaring hole that seems rather achievable. Um I don't like the cost uh at Pebble Beach, but I feel like I need to get there. And then like if we're being hasty, uh I'd like to play down the street from Pebble at Cyprus. Um but that one, like that might never get crossed off the bucket list. Have you won uh the media lottery at Augusta yet? No, have not.
SPEAKER_02So good stories.
SPEAKER_01If uh if the Augusta folks can somehow rig that, that'd be some good stories. So if you if you ever need a place to stay andor a playing partner, I'm in Augusta. So Oh, okay. You get the media deal, I've got a place for you to stay. I'll just be your cat. Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_01There you go.
SPEAKER_02All right, who would be in your dream for some?
SPEAKER_00Uh I it's a pretty lame. Well, you know what? Take that back. It's not a lame answer, but um I really just would love to play like a solid course with my dad, brother, and grandpa. Uh my grandpa, as I said earlier, taught me the game. He has since passed, and I just think that my dad and brother would get so much out of playing with like me in my current form, but also grandpa as well. So it's uh it's more of a heartstrings answer than it is uh any pro golfers we'd be playing with. That's perfect. Pro golfers are boring. Um what course do you want to tell a story about? Ooh, um I wrote about one a couple weeks ago, so like that one doesn't count. I you know, I think the the story I would like to do requires me about like two million dollars, is um I would like to take over the golf course, one of the golf courses I grew up playing uh down the street from. It's called Cherry Hills, it's in uh northeastern Wisconsin. The bones for it, like so many you know, great courses, are there, but they've just rotted over time uh and like lack of like really good investment. And I think two million dollars, uh, it might be a little bit more, maybe four million dollars. Two million will get me the course, and then two million would also save it and like refashion it. That's a story I think you could tell in a f a pretty fun way.
SPEAKER_02That'd be fun. All right. Are you a music on the course guy? And would it be jump around by House of Pain?
SPEAKER_00Uh, good question. I am uh I don't care. If you want to listen to music with me, uh by all by all means. It doesn't bother me. Uh I don't typically do it myself. Um, but during COVID, when I was playing alone a lot, I was listening to podcasts uh just walking the fairways by myself, and that was so lovely. Gosh, I love I I long for that summer. As weird and as as tragic as it was, um, it was a really good one for for me in my golf game.
SPEAKER_02All right. Little side note, he went to uh Wisconsin there, so that was the jump down plug. For those that are listening and wondering why that was the question, yes. I imagine you've done that at Camp Randall a time or two.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Yep. Not right now, though. They're that team's struggling.
SPEAKER_01They've had their glory days.
SPEAKER_00All right. Uh what is your favorite snack on the golf course? Oh man, I think the perfect uh snack of the turn is just uh a Gatorade and a Snickers bar. And sometimes I'll go two Snickers bars, but it's it happened this past Saturday. It's just like you tee off at, you know, between eight and nine, you haven't really had a whole lot, and you get hungry by the turn. Give me one Snickers and one Gatorade, and I'm gonna finish strong. There you go.
SPEAKER_02Frozen Snickers.
SPEAKER_00I'm not opposed, but I think I'd I'd like to be able to bite through it without hurting myself. Not hurting your teeth. All right. Favorite golf course logo? I'm a big fan of the Stanwich Golf Club logo. Uh that's a club in the Northeast called uh Stanwich Club. And it's just a a witch on a broom. I think I think there's a golf flag involved in some way. Um you'll have to check it out though. But I know like when they do these little like online social media logo brackets, it always performs really well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think somebody recently said that. All right. Last question. What is next for Sean Zach? Good one. Finish that internship. Yeah. But and you can only do it in third person. You have to talk about yourself in third person.
SPEAKER_00I think uh I think Sean Zach takes on 2025 uh golf season by making a lot more video content, a lot more um straight to camera stuff that kind of provides some commentary on things that is hopefully quick, inviting, but also people dive in without uh they know the news and they want to know maybe how to think about it. And I think hopefully I can take that on and give them something to think about. Man, I'm looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_02That'd be good. Very nice. Well, Sean, this has been a pleasure, man. I appreciate you uh you taking some time to sit down with us and talk about some golf.
SPEAKER_00You got it, guys. I appreciate it. And uh and thanks for letting me chat about my life. It's it's uh it's been a fun one, but like you said, what's next? Hopefully something even better.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll be here to uh to follow along. But uh for Sean and Jonathan, this is Robbie. Y'all have been listening to another episode of the Whole Story Podcast.