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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.
Jeehae Lee 2026 - Cleaned Transcript
Jeehae 2026
[00:00:00] Speaker 5: I'm Roberto Castro, and this is The The Course Record Show, the trends, technology, and strategy driving the business of golf.
[00:00:13] Roberto: Welcome back to the The Course Record Show, Quick 9 with Jeehae Lee. She's the founder and CEO of SportsBox AI, a computer vision AI company. It was recently acquired by Bryson DeChambeau's investment fund. Jeehae was on the show in 2021, in the early days of SportsBox. It's really cool to have you here five years later. Thanks, so... Thanks for coming back on The Course Record Show, Jeehae.
[00:00:34] Jeehae: Yeah, thanks for having me back on. It's, uh, kind of cool to be talking again in five years.
[00:00:40] Roberto: All right. Before we get to the acquisition, just quick elevator pitch for the listeners. What is SportsBox AI? What is the tool? What does it do?
[00:00:48] Jeehae: So, I'm gonna keep this very simple, 'cause there are a million ways to describe this.
But essentially, we have a suite of products that allows you to point a phone, point a camera, and get- Swing data, so on how your body is moving throughout a golf swing instantaneously such that you can analyze it in a way that you cannot just with your eyes. And it's a product that can be used by coaches and golfers.
It's also being used by, club fitting professionals and PTs worldwide.
[00:01:18] Roberto: Awesome. Great description. All right, let's jump into the exciting news.
Uh, acquisition, what was that process like? Why did you - land on partnering with Bryson's investment fund?
[00:01:28] Jeehae: You know, if you were to ask me five years ago would this be part of the potential outcomes, I would've said, "No, you're crazy.
What are you talking about?"
[00:01:38] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:01:39] Jeehae: You just can't script this, right? But the thing I , love the most about it is that it grew so organically, the whole relationship with Bryson. He valued our product and our team for what we could do for his game, and, you know, we obviously had some great success working with him early days, and just kept deepening the relationship.
The more we did together, the more he believed, and the more that we dreamt together, the, the things that we could do together, and it just made a lot of sense. This was, like, the logical next step for both of us.
[00:02:12] Roberto: That's great. And the deal, did it come together organically like that, or did you run a process?
You were saying, "Hey, the business is in a place where, you know, we think an acquisition or a new capital infusion is what it needs to go to the next level," and, you know, you took bids, the whole thing, or was it more just like it came together naturally and organically?
[00:02:29] Jeehae: I mean, a little bit of both.
I, I've had great advisors and the board members who've been, guiding me along this process, like what to look out for, what are the opportunities along the way. So I can't say that, uh, we were totally heads down building only.
[00:02:44] Roberto: Yep.
[00:02:44] Jeehae: Uh, we were actually more focused on trying to raise a Series A, um, actual fundraising.
But, I knew that this was a potential conversation to be had. So, no, we weren't out there trying to, sell the company, but yeah, timing-wise it worked out perfectly.
[00:02:59] Roberto: That's awesome. , So going back to 2021, and maybe I'll just give the listener here a, a quick background and, and feel free to edit or fill in the gaps.
You played college golf at Yale. You played a year or two on the LPGA Tour, went back to business school, did a stint at Topgolf. And, uh, when we spoke five years ago, I asked you, "Why did you leave Topgolf to start your own company?" And you said, quote, "I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur." So five or six years in, w- you know, what's the journey been like?
What's been one huge surprise to the good, and what's been some of the surprising challenges?
[00:03:31] Jeehae: Man, I've certainly learned a lot. Uh, lots of ups and downs. Just like, I mean, it's so similar to being a professional golfer. If I look back on both of those five and a half year stints, like it's been exactly five and a half years of building SportsBox.
[00:03:47] Roberto: Okay.
[00:03:48] Jeehae: I played golf for exactly five and a half years. And the ups and downs feel very similar. You know, the, it can feel very lonely. Uh, even though you have a team around you, there are things that you deal with in the trenches where you feel like you can't really talk about it with other people. You have to put on a brave face.
You always have to be, you know, as optimistic as possible. Tomorrow's another day, you know, next week is gonna be a breakthrough. Like always in that mindset, and you really truly have to believe it to, to keep going, right? So, that's been that's been really fun to reflect on. What are the surprises?
You know, just like I said, like if, if you were to ask me , "Oh, you're go- you're going to have a partner and one of the biggest stars in the game." Yeah. "Biggest, best players to ever play the sport, like, as your main partner," I, I would've said, "Get out." You know? Like- Yeah ... that's crazy. That's a dream scenario.
And but like really it's yeah, that, that's been super surprising in the best of ways. And if I can unpack that a little bit more, you know, when we started back in 2020, the aha moment for me knowing what the technology could do was, man, like you can measure the swing such that- A golfer, can know the exact differences between when they're playing their best golf, reliable, consistent golf, to all of a sudden you stand on the range at a golf tournament and you're like, "My swing disappeared."
And you could tell me exactly what the differences are. That is the Holy Grail, right? And that's what I believed in. That's what we've been marching towards. And the fact that we are working with professional golfers exactly in that way, and proving that thesis out with Bryson, it's just like, it's that, that, that's been, like, the, the biggest pleasant surprise.
[00:05:48] Roberto: Yeah. I would have to say that the Bryson piece, you know, goes in the, the biggest surprise, not just because of him being one of the best players in the world, and he's won a couple majors, but, you know, right, wrong, or indifferent, he's one of the most creative thinkers. Like, he's thinking completely differently than everyone else, right?
And I actually, you know, on my golf text chains, when he does an interview or he has some idea, nobody really, like, judges up or down, They're just like, "This guy is just on a different wavelength," right? And I think that's gotta be a big surprise and really, really interesting for you, and where the business goes from here.
Yeah. Also, I find your r- response about ups and downs about entrepreneurship, Kyle Porter and Normal Sport, the writer, was our last guest, and we, we compared notes on, on that. And I told him I've been, you know, closely involved with the TGL journey, and, you know, a startup, entrepreneurship, high profile for sure, but it's the ups and downs, right?
It, it's, uh, and it's not, not unlike professional golf, for sure.
[00:06:44] Jeehae: Exactly.
[00:06:46] Roberto: Talking about getting with some of the best players in the world and coaching and figuring out the difference between good golf and bad golf, I mean, coaches play a big role in that. Uh, in 2021, when we chatted, you said, "A big milestone for us is to get level of penetration rate among golf coaches in the US.
After that, we wanna get, to students so students and coaches can work together." Did you execute that playbook? I mean, has that really been the focus of the business? How has that onboarding of coaches worked out?
[00:07:12] Jeehae: Yeah. It's exactly what we did, actually. That was the playbook. We believed in it.
We believed that we need to, we needed to attack the top of the pyramid of influence in the game. And, uh, I think that's something we... That took a lot of, I guess, conviction and guts to stick to, 'cause a lot of people with the technology that we had, you know, certainly a lot of people around me were s- telling me to go direct to consumer, right?
Like, "Go and, like, build an AI coach, you know, the swing tip generator for, for- Yeah ... mass market golfers." And I was like, "I just don't believe in that as, like, the tip of the spear," you know? I really believe that to succeed and have lasting value in the golf industry, you have to be built into the process of the people who are the- The core of the industry, the, the, the coaches and the fitters, the people who are, like, administering and, and bringing the game to the masses, like, we need to be built into their process first such that it becomes the process by which everybody learns a game, everybody, you know, improves their game.
And the first three years certainly were very much focused on building it out with a coach base. And I, I would say nowadays I go to a golf course, and I kind of expect the coach to at least have heard of SportsBox- Yeah ... if not already using it. And, uh, and so that's, that's, that's pretty cool to, to see that we've now, become, like, integrated into the fabric of the industry in that way.
Not only with coaches, but, uh, we're now in 100-plus retail stores through our Worldwide Golf and Cool Clubs relationship, so people are using it for fitting.
[00:08:52] Roberto: Yep.
[00:08:53] Jeehae: Uh, you know, we're being used in broadcasts on Golf Channel and Sky Sports. And, uh, a lot of fitness like PT-type of professionals are using our technology because they wanna know that the exercise that they prescribe actually has an impact on the golf swing that y- they want.
So we've... we're really, like, covering the entire industry as, like, a core enabling technology, which I am very proud of.
[00:09:19] Roberto: Yeah. It's a really interesting way to phrase it about getting into that later th- layer that administers the game, right? Mm-hmm. That's really cool. Uh, you're getting ahead of my questions here.
Another quote from our convo five years ago, "I wanna be on golf broadcast." So you, you are involved with Sky Sports. I think you do a little bit with Golf Channel. How's that journey been?
[00:09:39] Jeehae: It's been cool, and I think we'll do more and more of it. Um, certainly not core business for us- Yeah ... but very effective way to get eyeballs and attention on the technology, and, uh, we're really grateful for the Sky Sports relationship.
They use it in, their weekly PGA Tour broadcast where they break down players' swings from that day on the range, on the golf course. And it's, uh, it's a great way to educate the masses on the, the kind of data, the, the way that we speak about the, the swing. Yeah. It's not just, "Oh, looks like they moved a little bit more this way."
It's like, "Yeah, like Rory moved two and a half inches this way in the backswing." Like, the people are starting to think about the golf swing in those terms which, you know, there's no other vehicle like broadcast to, to have that effect.
[00:10:32] Roberto: Yep. Going back to the coach and consumer piece, do you really think that there is a consumer market for some of these more advanced training tools, Or do you think it either has to come from the coach or just, you know, it's a small market?
Because there's so many re- different reasons to play golf. Like I had a conversation with my old coach at Quail Hollow recently, and he has a friend that said, "I don't even know if I like golf. I like being outside, I like being with my friends, and I like drinking beer." Right? Yeah. Like he's not really a target consumer for a tool like SportsBox AI.
Is there enough of a market on the consumer side for something like this?
[00:11:07] Jeehae: 100%. , I mean, there ... I think the stats, like 8 million people who are actively looking to improve- Yeah ... and they're either lessons or watching improve- like, you know, uh, swing tips content-
[00:11:20] Roberto: Yep ...
[00:11:21] Jeehae: game improvement content on social media.
So those are people who are like, you know, for whom, yes, enjoyment of the game is important, but for them, like it's equally important for them to continue improving their swing and their game. Those are the people who are going out there and buying personal launch monitors. Yeah. They, they have, uh, built-in sims into their homes or at least a, a net that can, they can hit into.
So those are our people.
[00:11:44] Roberto: I think that reaching those people via a trusted source like a coach, which is your strategy is probably the right way to go about it. Because as simple as, you know, the personal launch monitors have gotten, and I'm sure that, you know, the UI on SportsBox continues to improve and improve, you know, it, it- there's a reason there's professionals, right?
The average golfer, even the one that's looking to improve, it's a jump to, uh, to get to the point where they can use a tool like that and, and help themselves. , I'm sure that's where you wanna get eventually, but it's, it's tough.
[00:12:14] Jeehae: Yeah. And you know, I have to brag about our product a little bit here. In the last 12 months or so, we've made leaps and bounds progress in making the data a little more accessible and understandable for the average user.
Okay. So when you take a swing in SportsBox now it actually does point to one or two things that you should think about as like the first thing to improve. Yep. And it relates that, uh, concept, let's say it's, you're not turning enough in your backswing, and relate it to a specific data point, so chest turn at top.
And, uh, from there, we kind of point you to, now it's time for you to practice against this. Like swing tips are abundant, you know, a dime a dozen.
[00:13:01] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:13:02] Jeehae: Nobody ever got better from just listening to a swing tip, just like no one ever got fitter from knowing how to diet Right ... you know? Like watching a YouTube video on how to do a deadlift never made you any stronger, right?
[00:13:17] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Jeehae: So we, what we've designed our product to do is like taking them from, okay- Here's your swing. Here's something, a snippet of a tip, but we were gonna- we're going to relate that to one or two pieces of data and dump you into a training mode where you get feedback on every single swing. And that's the thing that people who really value SportsBox love about our product, that they can practice with intention and feedback that makes them kinda stay on the right track- Yeah
versus like, "Oh, one day I try this, and another day I'm trying this," you know? Kind of, and then you're back to square one, you know?
[00:13:59] Roberto: Yeah, I love that. And you have to, you have to distill the information for the consumer, right? I mean, TrackMan's an incredible tool, but when a screen with 16 tiles pops up, and I still don't know which data point I'm supposed to be looking at.
So I think that, um, that's, that's absolutely the right strategy.
The way you articulated focusing on the enablement layer, the people that administer the game of golf is, uh- Mm-hmm ... is really smart and really, well put. One of your investors actually on that note was EP Golf Ventures. So that's a joint fund between Elysian Park and the PGA of America, and Kris Hart has been on the pod who helps administer and run, run that fund for the PGA of America.
How was that partnership? I mean, did that give you some access to the PGA professionals, you know, the 30,000-plus that they have? Was that a big part of your strategy?
[00:14:49] Jeehae: Yeah, certainly... It's been a really, really valuable partnership. Obviously the PGA has a responsibility to remain somewhat neutral to the, the technologies that they, you know, recommend to- Yeah
their professionals. But just having the insight of how, like, the different layers of PGA professionals out there ... Like, who are the influencers- Yeah ... among the professionals to, like, get to them fast. Like, those have been really, really critical insights for us to grow our business.
[00:15:18] Roberto: Yeah, that's great.
And I ... , i'm glad you opened with that, as that they have to remain somewhat impartial. I feel like, you know, you go to the PGA Show, you go to tournaments, be in the industry people think that, like, "Oh, if I can just get the PGA of America as a partner, like, I'll just get 30,000 people to use my product," and that's not at all how it works.
Not quite.
[00:15:35] Jeehae: Yeah. Not quite.
[00:15:36] Roberto: Not quite.
[00:15:36] Jeehae: You still have to do the legwork. Um- That's right ... you still have to get people's buy-in. You know, uh, I think golf professionals in particular to to stay somewhat traditional right? And they have their process. It's really hard to change behavior.
[00:15:57] Roberto: Yep.
[00:15:57] Jeehae: Right?
It's, uh ... It doesn't matter how good your product is, how revolutionary, how meaningful. Like, you still have to change people's behavior. Like, you have an hour lesson, 30-minute lesson. Like, you're asking them to change how they do things, do their job. And so yeah, we, we, um ... It was a pretty heavy lift tr- going to the different professionals and showing them how valuable it could be and why they should change their behavior, so.
Yeah.
[00:16:24] Roberto: Well, I'm not gonna rehash the same story I did with Kyle Porter, but we spent about five minutes talking about changing human behavior in the episode with him recently. Mm-hmm. Talked about Tesla, talked about his newsletter all those things. So, you know, if you have five minutes, check out the middle of that episode.
But it's so funny you said that. It, it really is the fundamental challenge in, in consumer acquisition is, hey, people are people, and, and changing what they do is really difficult.
[00:16:48] Jeehae: Yeah.
[00:16:49] Roberto: Where does SportsBox go from here? What are you most excited about?
[00:16:53] Jeehae: Well, we've got this- Rocket boost, booster-
[00:16:57] Roberto: Yeah ...
[00:16:58] Jeehae: um, called Bryson DeChambeau, uh, with an incredible reach with golf consumers nobody else, no organization, no company has.
And so, and he believes in our mission so wholeheartedly. You know, it's, it's not like a brand ambassador-
[00:17:20] Roberto: Yeah ...
[00:17:20] Jeehae: relationship. We're not shoving anything down somebody's throat. He believes in us more than we believe in, in ourselves sometimes. And so we're gonna just go and do everything we've been doing, but just at an accelerated clip and with a, with a great partner.
So.
[00:17:37] Roberto: That's awesome. What has he influenced most so far? Is it the product roadmap? Is it how you take it out to market? Is it, is it all of the above? Like, what's been his biggest direct impact beyond his platform?
[00:17:49] Jeehae: , So I'll, I'll share, I mean, the obvious things are, like, whenever he talks about SportsBox, like, our user sign-up goes up like this.
Like, yes, that, that does happen. But the things that you probably don't see are, you know, he, about a year ago we had been internally talking about, like, how do we bring generative AI-
[00:18:10] Roberto: Okay ...
[00:18:10] Jeehae: agentic AI to what we do because we have this problem of not problem, this, like, ongoing challenge of how do we make data more consumable, more easily d- digestible to the masses, you know?
'Cause, like you said, like, if you see 20 tiles on a TrackMan screen, you're like, "Oh, I don't know. Well, I don't know make, how to make use of that," right? Yeah. So we saw LLM and agentic AI as, like, the, the ideal solution to that problem, and Bryson saw that. And he was starting to form a good relationship with Google as well.
So he brought Google into our, our world, and we started building this LLM layer to our product at an accelerated pace than we could have done on our own. Wow. So we actually just launched SAMI, which stands for SportsBox AI Motion Intelligence. Um, and we're gonna roll SAMI out in different modes throughout this year.
The first mode being an AI highlight. So you take a swing, and, SAMI will give you, a brief description of what, what we're seeing. Right? So that we're- you're not, digging through, tiles of data to get to the point. Like, we're just giving you the swing insight that you're looking for.
And then SAMI will also become this conversational tool that you can, you know, work with to dive deeper on everything, right? And so, so yeah, those are the things that he really pushed us towards, and not just, like, demanded, you know? Like, "I need this." Um, but he actually brought a partner like Google who enabled us, partnered with us to build something that we may not have, uh, done on our own, so.
[00:19:59] Roberto: That's a great story. Uh, and that's a partnership that has impact. I think it's funny, across the industry you have a bunch of conversations, and ... The golf industry loves partnerships, right? And I think that some of them can be more impactful than others. And the one you mentioned with PGA of America, you being smart enough to realize, like, "Hey, I'm still gonna have to run the ground game here."
And second, you know, bringing the power of Google into your product is really, really great usage of partnerships. Yes.
All right, Jeehae, last follow-up here. A little bit off topic, but we spoke in 2021.
Uh, Topgolf had just been acquired by Callaway. You did a stint at Topgolf after business school, and the conversation five years ago was, Callaway got Topgolf for $2.6 billion. They got the Toptracer Range and that tech kinda thrown in, you said, kind of as a, as a $0 toss-in.
You were super bullish on this acquisition. Fast-forward, they, uh, they sold the majority of it to a private equity firm at about a $1.1 billion valuation. Why do you think that merger worked out differently than it was anticipated?
[00:21:02] Jeehae: You know, I obviously left the company prior to the acquisition, so I didn't know all that went on after I left, right?
Yeah. What happened internally. But I think it's a couple of things, just ... I'm, I'm just as much of an outsider as, as anybody. Sure. Um, but I think, one, I don't think they quite, merged the two companies as closely as they were hoping to, you know, the Callaway and Topgolf. There were a lot of potential synergies between the two, but I don't think they were able to market Callaway products to Topgolf customers as effectively as they were hoping.
And then two is I think Topgolf, and this is my personal belief, I think they built too many venues.
[00:21:51] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Jeehae: Because they believed- The thesis of Topgolf is, every weekend. You know, not an occasion-based business, but like a, s- it's, it's a place that people can go every week.
[00:22:04] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:22:04] Jeehae: Uh, but- A
[00:22:05] Roberto: third spot, yeah.
[00:22:06] Jeehae: Yeah. And I don't think they ever proved that out.
[00:22:11] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:22:11] Jeehae: You know, it's still very much seen as an occasion-based business. Uh, you go to celebrate birthdays, and bachelor parties, and occasional corporate outings, but it's not, like, it's not replacing, a restaurant or a cafe visit, you know?
[00:22:25] Roberto: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Jeehae: And so they overbuilt believing one thing, and it didn't quite pan out that way.
[00:22:30] Roberto: Yeah. That's great perspective. I agree on the, on the venue numbers, and I just think about market. You know, when I started seeing Huntsville, Alabama, and Greenville, South Carolina, it's just smaller population base. And unless you have really, really recurring foot traffic, And the thing about occasion-based is they're not customers for Callaway golf equipment, right?
It's a really high-end, high-performance, high price point product. If I'm going twice a year to have some beers and get outside or for a birthday party, I'm probably not going to, to be purchasing, that equipment, which, which they thought was gonna be a big opportunity. So, uh, great perspective.
Jeehae, congrats on, on the journey. Awesome to talk to you five years later. This was a ton of fun for me. Appreciate. We'll be following closely, and, um, you know, I'll, I'm sure I'll be seeing your product on Live From on the Range with Bryson working with it, and many others. So, thanks again.
[00:23:19] Jeehae: Thanks for having me on, and maybe we can do this again in five years.
[00:23:23] Roberto: Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:24] Speaker 4: This episode is brought to you by Holderness & Bourne. It is summertime, getting warm. Check out the shorts on hbgolf.com. I usually wear the Harwood short performance blend, fits really well, great colors, awesome pair of shorts. If you're more into the cotton, check out the Cameron short. Also, Father's Day coming up.
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