Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Conversations with the smartest people in the golf business to get the inside stories and strategies driving the business of golf forward. Hosted by former PGA Tour player Roberto Castro.
I'm Roberto Castro, and this is the Course Record Show. The trends, technology, and strategy driving the business of golf. Welcome back to the Course Record Show. I am joined by Scott Blevins, president and general manager of TopTracer, which is owned by Topgolf. Scott, thanks for being here.
Scott Blevins:Hey. Thanks for having me. Excited to do this.
Roberto Castro:Awesome. So TopTracer started as a ball flight line people saw on TV, but now the technology has really moved into everyday ranges, including Topgolf, your parent company. You know, when you joined in 2022, was the product offering still mostly focused on broadcast, or where did it stand with the more commercial consumer facing range product?
Scott Blevins:Yeah. It, by the time I joined, the team had done a great job, you know, continuing kind of the legacy broadcast business, but also really diving into the the range business and bringing that experience to consumers, both at Topgolf and then, you know, hundreds of ranges at that point, worldwide. So I think they were, you know, roughly six or seven years into the range business by the time I joined Okay. And had some nice, great accounts all over the all over the globe, really. At that point, we've just accelerated the business since then.
Roberto Castro:Awesome. So you report to a newish CEO at Topgolf, David McKillips. I read an interview with him, from the spring. And two of his top priorities, one was to upgrade the Topgolf experience for core golfers, which I thought was interesting. And part of that Yep.
Roberto Castro:Involves going from RFID balls and chipped balls to TopTracer tracking at a Topgolf facility. How far along are you in that transition?
Scott Blevins:We're pretty far along. So, so now every Topgolf does technically have the TopTracer tracking capability. So the cameras are tracking the shots and running most of the gameplay. What what's next is to officially leave that legacy chipped ball, which has some technical things we're working through to make sure the experience actually gets even better than it is today. And then at that point, Topgolf will be able to migrate off of off of that ball into an actual a real golf ball, which will improve the experience for the player.
Scott Blevins:And, also, it will move a 100% at that point to the TopTracer system. Another priority that he mentioned was league golf. How involved are you there? I noticed that you're running something called the ultimate open experience that culminates at Birkdale at the British Open.
Roberto Castro:Yep. I think, personally, connecting pro golf and recreational golf is the next been big unlock for the industry. So how did that promotion work, and how are you thinking about that at Topgolf locations?
Scott Blevins:Yeah. So so our team does a great job just in general on promoting global events around our our our customer base, which is now 1,500 driving ranges across 38 countries. And we have some peak moments during the year, lot of times around majors where there are competitions where, basically, our customers are driving more new customers at their ranges, and they come back more often because they can enter the contest as many times as they want. Okay. I think we have one player that has had 33 holes in one in a single contest because they wanted to win it, so they hit several thousand shots.
Scott Blevins:So we have some amazing, activations going on, and I I am with you on the future of tying in live golf to somehow all of our customer base and gaming at the same time. Yeah. We do a little bit of we tease that a little bit at the open championship coming up, in a couple of weeks here where we have on course activations happening, and we have basically, our technology at the open is running the driving range experience for the players. It's running the broadcast experience for the fans. And then we have 20 different simulator experiences throughout the campus at Brookdale, where some of them are private and private suites.
Scott Blevins:Some of them most of them are public. And then, basically, the consumer can experience all of our technology in so many different ways. They can walk up to the range, scan a QR code, pick the player they want to watch, and they get all the player shot data. They can go to the twelfth tee, and they'll have a QR code on the tee, and they can you know, if Scheffler's there hitting a drive, they can scan the QR code and get Scheffler's shot data, while he's playing. So there's all these interactive things that are starting to blend, like, the the tour level experience, and it's also now going to the fans, which I think is, like, super exciting.
Scott Blevins:And I could see the vision of then connecting all these ranges that aren't necessarily and people that aren't at the event, but getting them somehow involved with that championship would be amazing.
Roberto Castro:Yep. So the experience at the in the simulators on-site at Birkdale, What are they playing? Is it somehow connected to what's happening out on the golf course? Is it a contest that's, you know, ladders up to it somehow? How does that work?
Scott Blevins:So so that's a great question. We have a great partnership with Foresight Sports. So each simulator will be running the Foresight hardware, and that launch data will be driving our gameplay screen. So in every day, basically, the consumer will be able to choose any Top Tracer experience they want to do from a competition to Angry Birds. We got a ton of kit out there.
Scott Blevins:And then you can also play, you know, Pebble Beach or whatever golf you can do the whole TopTracer experience
Roberto Castro:Oh, wow.
Scott Blevins:Inside of a without seeing the ball flight, thanks to our partnership with Foresight. So it's actually like simulator experience.
Roberto Castro:Yeah. Yeah. But I agree with you on the live piece. It's gotta be coming down the pike here shortly. Right?
Roberto Castro:That it'd be awesome if you could go to the twelfth tee and watch Sheffler tee off, go into the twelfth green hospitality and play the hole that he just played. Play the same hole. Yes. Compare your trace to his trace. I've always thought that shot level handicapping is a big opportunity in simulator golf.
Roberto Castro:Right? If I'm a 20 handicap and I hit a good one for me, how do I level that shot up to fly next to Scottie's? Your good one should be next to his good one. Yeah. Think it's I think it's coming eventually.
Roberto Castro:I hope yeah. I would imagine you guys will be at the front forefront of it.
Scott Blevins:Yeah. We'll be we'll we'll probably be working on on some parts of that, at the open championship. So I'll report back in how it goes.
Roberto Castro:So we mentioned the Range product and the Range Technology, which is tracking golf balls. You know, you log in on your phone. Really, really cool. 1,500 plus customers. You also have something called TopTracer IQ.
Roberto Castro:Explain it to me. It sounds like a property management system. Is it a point of sale? Like, if I own or operate a driving range, what problems does it solve for me?
Scott Blevins:Yeah. Great question. So so quite simply, what what generally happens when a customer installs our range technology is they get a big boost in business in year one. And you can imagine. Right?
Scott Blevins:The experience gets enhanced on the range. So, people are willing to play more, spend more, come more often. So the the range owner is extremely excited that they've delivered a great experience. They're probably making more money. And what they see is new players at their facility.
Scott Blevins:They see more kids. They see, women coming out more. They see just a wide range of golfers. So they want to capture that player data so that they can market back to them when they have leagues, when they have tournaments, when they have events, if they have a special pricing, if they have a Friday night tournament. So TopTracer IQ essentially just captures all that player data and delivers it back to our customer so that they can see how often they're coming, what games they like, and then make offers back to them to come back more often and participate and and have more fun.
Scott Blevins:It's a data tool that gives them access to their customer data via an AI agent. And so it they can ask questions. How do I grow my business on Tuesday morning from 10AM to 2PM? I seem to have a weak spot. Can I promote an offer to these customers, and will they come?
Scott Blevins:And they'll get the answers.
Roberto Castro:So how do you capture the the recreational customer, the golfer data? When I log in, do I have to give an email or a phone number to to log in to the experience and see my shots flying?
Scott Blevins:Yeah. All of the data would come back through logged in users through the app. So, basically, the facility will promote downloading the TopTracer app so it's easy to scan when you get there, and it gets you right into gameplay. And it remembers, and stores all of your gameplay data. So it's highly it's a free app for consumers.
Scott Blevins:It's super intuitive, great to use, shows all the locations of the TopTracer ranges, and just makes it very fun, fast, and frictionless to kinda get into the gameplay. So that's that's where that data would be coming back to our, our partners is through logged in users.
Roberto Castro:That to me is a classic example of consumers will give you their data if you give them something in return. Right? And I paid $20 for a bucket of balls, and I feel like I'm getting the TopTracer experience for free. Yeah. I'll log in with my name and my email.
Roberto Castro:Yes. I'll download an app if I can track my shots. To me, it feels like you've given the consumer something. They're gonna give you the data back, and now the driving range facility is gonna be able to use that and and extract a lot of value from it.
Scott Blevins:Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's great for everybody, honestly.
Roberto Castro:Range business, I find really interesting. I mean, personally, I know, someone who has one here in Atlanta and, you know, was was a a good, not great business for a large number of years, and it is a great business now. I mean, they are really making a lot of money. Yeah. What separates I mean, is the is the industry just so big and booming now that it's kinda tough to screw it up, or what do you think separates a great operator from an okay operator on the driving range side?
Scott Blevins:The ones that have technology, right, have a leg up because they've got an experience. But just putting in the tech is one thing. An engaged owner who then drives, drives the business with the technology, and, we have a couple of customers who have dedicated, like, an employee to just walk the tee line to make sure that customers are engaging the tech.
Roberto Castro:Yeah.
Scott Blevins:And they've found that there there's an ROI on that employee because the happier the customers are, you know, just getting into the tech. And once you get them rolling, they're all good. But some some need help just to get started. So we see the engaged owners that that take the next step of making sure that their customers are engaged are the ones that are winning. And then those customers are coming back to that that area, and we're starting to see enough driving range data that tells us the the operators with tech Yeah.
Scott Blevins:That are driving driving tournaments, driving events, and then engaging their customers are starting to take market share from those ranges that are not doing that. It's not an unlimited pie. There's still a pie there, and, eventually, the ones that are doing the best job gaining share.
Roberto Castro:Yeah. The gamification piece is so interesting to me. I I think you it's a very popular buzzword, but I took my 10 year old daughter and her friend to hit in the back nine simulator a couple of weeks ago, and they were having fun. And then when the second bay opened up, they started playing long drive. And, I mean, their eyes lit up.
Roberto Castro:They're beginner golfers, but competing. Like, just at that level competing, they thought it was so much fun. And I think that that really underlies, you know, it's a buzzword for a reason. I just it was crazy to see it in person.
Scott Blevins:Yes. And and we see it all the time. And I think what's what's clear is that when you get out in the field and you see younger kids engage with attack. There's some now that are hitting a shot. The ball's in the air.
Scott Blevins:They've already turned back to the game screen to see the game screen before the shot lands. Yeah. They're very, focused on what's happening on that screen, and a lot of it is competition. And once they're kinda hooked at that point, expect that experience every range they go to. And when they get there and it's not there, they don't have much patience for, like, hitting a ball without any feedback.
Scott Blevins:It's interesting dynamic.
Roberto Castro:That's really interesting. Let me ask you a question about partnerships. I mean, we would mention the one with the RNA. You guys have have partnerships with Kemper Sports. You have, RNA, TGL.
Roberto Castro:You're the official ball tracing partner of TGL. Just from an industry perspective, right, I find it interesting to follow partnerships in golf. I find some companies that are trying to get their foothold probably overvalue partnerships. Oh, we have this. What does that mean?
Roberto Castro:Do you have customers? Do you have revenue? Are you getting, you know, dedicated fans and proponents of of your product? Like, what's your calculus on the give and get when you're looking at partnerships?
Scott Blevins:Yes. I I I'm a so first of all, I'm a big fan of partnerships. I I've I've done them in my past lives at other businesses, and they can be very meaningful if there is, you know, a clear three way win, meaning that your partner wins, you win, and then the the customer wins. Yeah. So there's all that Venn diagram.
Scott Blevins:And in the middle, there has to be, like, a compelling reason or a compelling offer that is working between those three entities. So I think as long as you focus on the end consumer and what they're getting, you'll you'll get to a good partnership angle. Our partnerships, for instance, with, I mean, PGA of America official ball tracing technology there.
Roberto Castro:Yep.
Scott Blevins:It it's to your point, a partnership in in, like, name only or headline only is fine, but what really accelerates it is when both sides are bought into what you're trying to achieve. So and especially with the PGA, they're very bought in that technology is eventually coming to every range. So they want their PGA members educated and and and understanding that technology is coming and how do I address it, when do I deliver it. So there's a whole, like, knowledge base there and education piece, and then there's actually a, you know, a financial piece to it too, so where everybody wins on kind of these installations. So that's that's the the partnership angle with the multicourse operators is is similar.
Scott Blevins:The master agreement in place, but you still have to go as a brand, educate each facility, and work with their needs and listen to what they require because most ranges are different, and most are operating with a certain thing in mind that they wanna achieve. A private club has got different goals than a public course or semi private. You just have to go we we have to have the master agreement where we work well with the operator, but then we still have the job to do of educating and consulting individual properties within that group, if it makes sense.
Roberto Castro:Yeah. I love that concept of putting the consumer in the middle of the partnership and adding value to the consumer. I think that's that's really where it has to work. That's where I think some of my skepticism. You verbalized it well where it's like, okay.
Roberto Castro:I see these two people have a partnership, but what does that mean for me as a as a customer or consumer? So Yeah. Very interesting. You mentioned PGA of America. Stepping back a little bit, your career path, I find it interesting.
Roberto Castro:You started came out of a PGM program, came up through the golf business, spent seventeen years at Adams Golf from the late nineties when the company was in high growth mode. I mean, I saw a quote where they they went from 1,000,000 in sales to 85,000,000 in a three year period in the nineties, which is crazy. All the way through the twenty tens when, you know, it leveled off. They were acquired by Taylor Made in 2012, and and the company's out of production today. So, I mean, I'd love to hear your version of the arc and maybe why Adams was not able to establish itself over the long term with the Callaway's title as tailor made's pings of the world.
Roberto Castro:I I I think there has to be a great story here.
Scott Blevins:Yeah. No. It was a tremendous opportunity to to start with a company. You know, we I started prior to it going public, and we were a very small custom fitting shop. And, Barney Adams at the time came out with a great product.
Scott Blevins:I was teaching for Hank Haney at the time. Barney came out with a prototype of a club called the Tight Lies.
Roberto Castro:Oh, yeah.
Scott Blevins:We did this prototype to our customers who we were trying to fix their three and four iron shots, and it's very difficult to do, as you know. We handed them this club, and all of a sudden, they're hitting it a 180 to 200 yards in the air like they've been playing golf for twenty years. So it really made us as instructors look smart. And, so I knocked on Barney's door and asked if I could come work to for him because I thought the product was gonna be a home run. And then we did an infomercial.
Scott Blevins:It was a home run. The company went public. I think I think for a long time, it was the largest IPO in golf. It's not that anymore, but we raised a bunch of money. Did not have a product pipeline, really to follow-up that home run product.
Scott Blevins:Yeah. So we brought in, Chip Brewer, who's currently Callaway CEO, came in to to run the company. And Chip just did an amazing job of of building out an r and d team. We built out a sales team, a marketing team, and we eventually, got a foothold in other product lines like hybrids and had niches with the the Champions Tour that then fed PGA Tour and the LPGA. Like, we we became a full service, you know, product company, and actually gained share and and actually did have momentum.
Scott Blevins:So the sale to TaylorMade occurred, because we were gaining market share and we had a slot technology that other companies wanted at the time. So I think even if you look at TaylorMade's product line today Yeah. Some of slot technology is still in it, and that was the original Adam's Golf, slot technology that essentially they purchased and put into their full line.
Roberto Castro:So why did TaylorMade stop investing in that line? When I got on tour, half the guys were carrying the hybrids. And Yeah. The irons were super popular, like you said, with, maybe more of the champions tour set. So that's 2012.
Roberto Castro:What happened?
Scott Blevins:So I think like, I probably won't get the dates exactly right, but, they had CEO multiple CEO leaders that then came in succession. So I think just in terms of their own company strategy, they probably looked at the technology and the size of Adam's. The size of our business relative to theirs was still very small.
Roberto Castro:Yeah.
Scott Blevins:We were a niche company and a niche brand, I think the calculus for them at the time was, do we want to have a separate brand, or do we just wanna take the technology and put it in our line where we can sell incrementally more dollars, across the globe? Adams was, I wouldn't call us global at that point. We were very heavy North America with some light touch than other countries, but we weren't a global brand with offices in 50 countries with a distribution network. Right? So, you know, I don't know their calculus.
Scott Blevins:You probably have to ask them on that. I I thought it was a great brand. I still see it around today. You know, seniors, women, hybrids, it was it's a it was a really good niche.
Roberto Castro:Yeah. And one thing that Adidas owned TailorMate at the time, if I'm not mistaken. So Yes. TailorMate was a niche company in the Adidas portfolio. So where does that leave Adams as a niche company in the TailorMate portfolio?
Roberto Castro:So That's correct. Yeah. I I think some of these m and a deals, it's always exciting when they start and you get attention for six months, when you get swallowed up by a much bigger entity, and then it's easy to lose lose attention when you're when you're small. So very interesting. Rapid growth.
Roberto Castro:I love your story of knocking on Barney Adams' door. You know, I have a mentor who says, go to a small company, go to a company that has more business than they know what to do with, and and you can really get noticed, and you can really move forward. I think that that fits what you did at that time with Adams.
Scott Blevins:Yep. Very fortunate.
Roberto Castro:Yep. You moved from there to you stayed with Adams more on the marketing side, and then you took a role as the chief product officer at Balfour, which is the class rings, yearbooks, gift companies. So you've spent your life in the golf industry. Was it liberating to try something different, or how was that transition?
Scott Blevins:It was. At the time, I had a start up going, you know, just a sales and marketing start up, and and I was starting to gain customers. So I was probably at the point of starting to scale that business a little bit. And then I got a cold call from a recruiter, on this Balfour job, and I looked at it as essentially a 125 year old startup. It was a con conglomeration of of, really about five companies.
Scott Blevins:They hadn't launched new products in the previous fifteen years. They had a lot of legacy products, and it was a slow melting ice cube. So I thought it was an interesting challenge to basically come in and redo the entire product portfolio, start gaining market share again, move the revenue up. And and and I just thought it was a nice, hey. This is a great five year challenge that we could come in and bring in a team and do.
Scott Blevins:And so that's what we did, and I I really enjoyed getting a look at a different business, number one. And then, two, it was a digital transformation project. So most of the orders were still coming in via mail with cash and checks. Yeah. And we flipped this entire business to I think when we left, it was 90 plus percent digital orders at the time, which was very fortunate because toward the end of the the project, obviously, we had COVID and had to go through like, you know, digital became extremely important at the right time.
Roberto Castro:Yep. Emma, at Captech, we worked with a different company in that space during COVID to to for that exact reason. Right? How do you move some of these in person graduation type products and experiences into the digital world? So I didn't work on that, but it's a it's a heck of a story.
Roberto Castro:And if you had started that journey in the late, you know, twenty tens, You were very well timed, so very interesting. Right. How did you move back into into the golf world with Topgolf, TopTracer? Another call from a headhunter?
Scott Blevins:Yeah. Well, this one was interesting because obviously, I had kept up with Chip Yeah. Throughout time. Right? And he's doing a great job at Callaway, so we speak on and off.
Scott Blevins:He was a board member at Topgolf, so, occasionally, I would talk to him when he would come to Dallas for meetings. I also knew Ben Sharp, who at the time was president of TopTracer. Ben was at TailorMade when Adams was purchased by TailorMade. So I worked with Ben. And then Artie Stars, who was at the time the CEO, is a neighbor, of mine.
Scott Blevins:And I had known Artie through friend groups and things of that nature. So between Chip and Artie and Ben, I had had enough golf conversations to know that, a, Topgolf is a phenomenal brand and super interesting, but, b, TopTracer, which combined, you know, golf and technology Yeah. And kind of space that I was used to seemed to me if I go back to that Venn diagram and it had golf, technology, and great people
Roberto Castro:Yeah.
Scott Blevins:Like, that was where I wanted to go next. And so I think I had coffees and lunches and conversations with Arty for over a year before we ended up figuring out how to make it happen. And then I came on board and and worked for Ben Sharp initially. And then when Ben, moved to be the head of Callaway Golf in Europe, I filled his spot from going kinda from commercial director into the president role.
Roberto Castro:Very cool. Let me ask you about the broadcast side. We haven't touched on that. So who is your customer? Who do you have the relationships with on the broadcast?
Roberto Castro:Is it the producers? Is it the sellers, Shys, and Tommy Roy's of the world? Is it the networks?
Scott Blevins:All all of the above. Okay.
Roberto Castro:Alright. Because, you know, I've I did some analyst work with ESPN at TGL this year, and then I did the PGA championship with ESPN. So I'm, you know, just looking around trying to figure out that world, and I was wondering who who it is that you would you would work with.
Scott Blevins:It's it is a combination of the networks, the governor governing bodies. You know, there's a lot of folks interested. And the nice thing about it is, again, most of the conversations are centered around what is the consumer experience like, how are they consuming it. And so that's kind of the common thread that gets us all in the same space. So so not only from what are we delivering this year, but we are always talking about the innovation for next year
Roberto Castro:Yeah.
Scott Blevins:Down the road or two years from now. So there's always a a flow of innovation happening behind the scenes to deliver what the consumer probably thinks. Hey. They thought of this yesterday, and it's now on on TV. It's probably been in the works for twenty four months.
Scott Blevins:Right?
Roberto Castro:I think having just a little bit of exposure to that TV broadcast world, one thing I've been very impressed with is those folks keep the viewer, like, very top of mind. Every conversation I've had is always like, this is what the viewer's thinking. This is what the this is who tunes in. This is it's not about like do this, do that. Or it's it's always focused on the viewer, the fan, the customer.
Roberto Castro:Like, that's what they default to. And I think it's easy in a lot of businesses to not do that. So they they they they're laser focused in in the television world.
Scott Blevins:I agree. And it's and that's why it's fun to work with them. Because, again, it's kinda going back to the consumer in the middle, and what do they need, and what are we solving for. And it's and it's very exciting to deliver against that.
Roberto Castro:Yeah. That's awesome. Well, Scott, what, what are you most excited about as a closer?
Scott Blevins:As a closer, I well, I'm I'm super excited about our business in that if you if you really think about it, we do have a great distribution network, and we've got 1,500 customers, and we're excited for all of them. That there's there's still another 40,000 around the globe that are in the range business or adjacent to the range business that don't have technology. So the total addressable market here and what we could grow really for all of golf Yeah. In terms of getting more people in, that like, that's super exciting. It's it's distributing the technology to places all over the globe.
Scott Blevins:I just got back from a trip. We we went Japan, Australia, New Zealand Wow. Back to back to back. And so we saw customers in Tokyo at very compact ranges, high volume, high density, full. I mean, from 24 bays to 300 bays with technology, everyone engaged.
Scott Blevins:And then you go to Melbourne, and you see a completely different kind of golf. And but the golf there was also busy. All the bays were busy. People were using the technology in a different way. Then you go to New Zealand, and it's slightly different there as well.
Scott Blevins:And there's new ranges opening up in the middle of sheep fields in the most beautiful settings you've ever seen. And then you drive up, and there's a 30 bay range with technology with food and beverage, and it's full of players that you can tell have not necessarily been playing a lot of golf, but they are having a great time. And when you get back from those trips, it's just super energizing to think of how many more times that that's happening. And and the the size of the sport has to be growing. Like, you can just go out, and if you see enough customers, you you understand that it's it's in a really good place.
Roberto Castro:That's awesome. That's awesome. Alright. Closer number two. Have you been to a TGL match, and, what do you think about SoFi Center and TGL?
Scott Blevins:So I haven't been to a live match, but I've been to SoFi Center twice. Oh, okay. Able to hit that and do the short game. Like, I love all of it. Yeah.
Scott Blevins:It's it's like a magical place. I I love the event. I love the content, and I I think it's getting better and better and better. And with the WTGL coming, I think that's just another angle that's gonna grow. And, again, I think that is to your point earlier, it is right to have conversations about live golf going on on TV Yep.
Scott Blevins:And bringing that to the people across the globe. Like, there's just seems like there's some amazing opportunities there. So I'm I'm very bullish on it.
Roberto Castro:Agreed. Well, Scott, very interesting conversation. I will be following along with with TopTracer very closely. Hopefully, we can bump into each other at a TGL match. It is fun to get in there and play yourself, but it's really fun when the best players in the world are playing.
Roberto Castro:You can Yes.
Scott Blevins:It is.
Roberto Castro:Sit back, have a beer, and watch those guys do their thing.
Scott Blevins:So Exactly.
Roberto Castro:Appreciate your time, and, thanks for listening to The Course Record Show. If you enjoyed the conversation, please subscribe, pass it along to a friend, and we'll catch you next time.