Defining Hospitality

DH - Scott Young
===

Speaker 4: [00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan, and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Fall Hospitality Group, a design-driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Today's guest is a golf expert who strives for constant improvement on a mission to help athletes own their swing. He has over 15 years of experience as a professional golfer having played in tour events worldwide. He's the host of his podcast, pivot the Path. He's the founder of Swing With two S's On the front.

Their inaugural location is on top of Grand Central.

Station in New York City. Ladies and gentlemen, Scott [00:01:00] Young, welcome Scott.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Good morning, Dan. How are you? Thank you so much for having me.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: I'm so happy to have you. I just actually interviewed another podcaster. I haven't interviewed that many podcasters, but I want everyone to know that's Not why I'm interviewing Scott. Scott and I are neighbors. We have multiple children and some of them overlap in grades.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Not

together.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Oh yeah. Not together. but that'd be cool. I'd be a, I'd be, a dad with you, Scott.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Thanks.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: I, I think, I think we'd be, we'd be good parents together, I think.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: I think we're very calming.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: actually,

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: good taste of music, sir.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: yes, they would have incredible taste in music. I think that they, well, you know what? They already do. We already have pretty great kids, but let's not talk about them. Let's shine the light on you.

Uh, but I want everyone to know, so I'm not a golfer. I play golf. I kind of retired when my oldest child, Vivian was born. Um. About 17 years ago, and I've probably played two or three times since then.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: I am trying to change that. I might, I might [00:02:00] add.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: yes, Like I said, I retired from golf, um, 17 years ago, but I was Very intrigued with Scott as a fellow entrepreneur.

Um, because what he's built to help people own their swings is really experiential. And while it is fitness focused and sport focused, um. There's a level of hospitality that you experience when you walk in there that I think is really cool. And it's also an interesting balance of hospitality and making people feel comfortable, but also coaching and training where you gotta get people to get uncomfortable and try new things and trying to balance all that is really challenging.

So I thought we could all learn from how you do that balancing act. But before we get into it, Scott, um. What does hospitality mean to you? You've traveled all over the world on tour. You've stayed everywhere. You've traveled as a family, a ton. You host people. You, you know, what you're, you're from Australia, where they have a whole different kind of, uh,

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: much,

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: idea, of hospitality.

But [00:03:00] what does it mean to you?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: I think the essence of defining hospitality to me is sharing what I believe to be inviting and calm and above all for swing is educational. whether it's kids or whether it's our facility. To me, defining hospitality is the pure essence of sharing what I believe to be hospitable. that's been shaped by the school I went to, my parents, how Rosemary and I invite our kids and our group of, of community in here.

And then specifically Swing is an indoor high performance indoor golf facility where. We're designed to improve golfers and to get them to understand how they move and how that facilitates better golf.

You know, our, our hospitality starts with education, but it's also having a welcoming point of view. So when you walked in, what was that about six months ago, believe you'd picked up a club for 10 years. I've kind of [00:04:00] understand who you are. come at you like a freight train from a biomechanics and a math and a golf point of view.

So to me, hospitality's reading the room and saying, well, I'd like to get this customer to where I want them to be, but gotta come in at their level of,

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Hmm.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: experience or enjoyment. Or is he a golfer? Is she a golfer?

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: So how do you balance that, um, with certain people? 'cause you, I.

would say that your approach to golf and that idea of biometrics and the science side of it is a little, it's unorthodox in the, in the view of many golfers, right?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: not a, there's not a facility like Swing anywhere in the country. There's a couple that have. movement components without a doubt. but I, I, I believed, you know, I spent 10 years on tour traveling the globe, playing and saw all these facilities, outdoor, indoor, whether it's a fancy Shinnecock or Augusta, who, you know, where I've been down to.

You and I will go [00:05:00] play our local Muni this summer down at Fairfield. That's, uh, a little path three. That's absolutely magnificent. So I've the Augustas of the world to the Shinnecock of the world too. You and I will get out with Vivian and, and Izzy and, and Theo and we'll go play a little path three.

So it's, what I try to do is read who you are very quickly. That's probably my biggest skill in getting back to what is defining hospitality. Hospitality through the swing metric is reading you very, very quickly. And working out at what level of intensity I've gotta come at. And then I try to bring you up to my level of, look.

We are a biomechanics math-based. Every time someone comes into swing, they leave an hour later better than they walked in. So I am fastidious on getting people to own their swing and improve, I can't come at you at my level of intensity. So I just try to read the room of who you are and how you move.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Hmm.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: [00:06:00] cool.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: okay. And then someone like me, I'm very curious and open-minded. I like to try a lot of different things, and it was uncomfortable in the, way that you had me approach what I was learning, the.

the, the new or whatever, however horrible my swing was. You, you saw a couple things and you're like, okay, try this.

And I, I can try that. But then there's also, 'cause I just know I haven't done it for very long. But then there's other people who've golfed their entire life, and then maybe they work near you, near Grand Central, and then they come down and like, oh, I want to do this. But they have their own set way. How do you, how do you handle that?

I'm, I'm curious how you handle that type of golfer and it Forget golf. It's just like that. How do you, and you can apply this to anything in life, but it's someone who. Is really set in their ways, they, they're coming to you because they know they need some help. Right. So that's step one is recognizing you need help, but then they may not agree with your methodologies and you're just like, it, it, it can become [00:07:00] like, I don't know, oil and water or there's some friction there.

Like how do, how do you approach those and what's, what's a good outcome? And then what's the one where it's like, okay, we're just not, this methodology is just not a fit.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So to answer that very simply, I believe golf is super simple. And I'm going to enjoy, look, we have tour players coming in. We've got PGA members. I've got golfers who have never played golf before. I'm gonna try and grab someone who hasn't played golf before, uh, and I'm going to be able to improve them far quicker than someone with habits.

So again, what I've learned to do with Swing is take. Me out of swing and basically apply math. So we're a little different and, and some would say quirky, but I think extremely precise is that every ball flight, getting a little nerdy here for a second, every ball flight has a math equation. So what I thought when I was building swing was, [00:08:00] rather than trying to present Scott's philosophy, if I can explain, Hey Dan, if you wanna hit a high draw, that's a ball that occurs as a right hander from right to left.

Your club has to do certain things. Therefore, your body, we believe that your body is the root of all golf swings. So we start with the body. So I can explain and take me out of it and say, well here's the math of hitting a ball flight. It's really simple. It is literally as black and white as one, one plus one equals two.

All three depends on how good your math is. Uh, so if we can take out a philosophy, swing is a math-based learning system. So it's basically, here's the ball flight you want to hit. I look at how your body moves, and then the customer can't really refute that because it's all math. And so I try to take out a philosophy and say, Hey, we just need your body to be in positions A, B, and C to hit a ball flight.

Can you move in those positions? That's the first thing we do. So anyone who walks in, we do a screen. We don't touch a golf swing till [00:09:00] we look at every part of your body. It takes about 30 minutes And then we can, we'll tell you exactly how you'll swing before you even pull up, pull a club out of the bag.

That's the cool thing about what we do.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Hm.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: it's very basic. Some, some see it as technical. So to answer your question, it's less about. someone because that would be a philosophy based thing. It's more about, here's the math of the ball flight I can get you to hit, I can get anyone to hit whatever shot they want in about five minutes.

It's super simple. They've just gotta unlearn a lot of, for the good golfers and the people who've had a lot of experience, they've gotta unlearn a little bit about what they believe. So YouTube and Instagram is making golf very difficult to be. because there's so many philosophies, and Swing is a math-based learning system based around biomechanics movement.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Well, that's also. I guess the increase of all these different methodologies, and it could be eng golf, it could be, it's actually in anything.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: it's in anything.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: It's in anything, right? I.

always say there's this alphabet soup [00:10:00] of ideas out there, and then, so it's not so much, and all these tools can be great, but it's, it's, it's not so much the tool as it is the practice, right?

So it's like, okay, pick one, go along that path and see how it goes. And, um. One thing that I was intrigued by is, you know, golf historically has been outside on big courses. It's a lot of maintenance and people, and it's an incredibly capital intensive business to run from a golf, just from acquiring the land and, and maintaining it and, you know, all the other things that go into running a golf course.

But, um, I've seen this rise of golf simulator. Um. Spaces and they can be from in a bar in a hotel, yours, which is like a, a physical training area, so it's not just golf, you're also doing core work and Pilates like things. And [00:11:00] so there's like a whole spectrum of this, but I am seeing this whole golf. World from true golf to, I don't even know all the other ones, but where there's, it's truly like smashing hospitality and golf together in these like new and inventive ways.

What are your thoughts of on what you're seeing out there? Because I've done some things, it's kind of fun, but you're not like getting better. You're just going out and having some beers and having fun.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah, we're not, we're not a bar with golf simulators. We're a training ground our studio. functional movement. We do over 230 physical therapy sessions a month. Our business is based on getting you to move better. So for all those hoteliers out there who are looking to engage with their customer better in terms of defining hospitality.

Most people with a hotel are traveling that's conservatively four to five hours of sitting. And so whilst 95% of the indoor golf business is all bar and entertainment based, [00:12:00] are actually movement based. So we believe, and I'm, you know, we've proven, I still lecture down at NYU hospital on, on biomechanics and we believe that how you move defines how you swing a golf club.

And so for those who are coming to a hotel, as you said, or a, or a bar based golf simulator business. movement's gonna inhibit how they, how they swing. So firstly, the explosion of indoor golf is phenomenal. It's reaching different people from different platforms, and it's getting people to engage with our game, whom otherwise wouldn't.

it gives you an experience of golf that might be a 45 minute smash and grab. least that customer gets to engage in our pheno, mean golf's phenomenal. It's the most beautiful game, both in terms of enjoyment, but also to get to know someone. So if, I'm building a new hotel and I've got six vendors from which I can draw upon to, to fit out that hotel, hey, grab Dan Ryan and go spend three hours with him.

You'll get to know who you are, how you handle pressure, how [00:13:00] you handle defeat, how you handle success, all in within two hours. So. was traditionally in what we call a green grass experience golf course. But now you can do that at a bar. Now you're not gonna improve when you go to these bars and facilities that have taps.

I mean, we have physical therapy, weights, squats, and we understand what the pelvis does rather than having 10 beers on tap. You know? So it's just our take. And which is, getting back to your question, define hospitality. It, it's the essence of what I know, which is. To improve your golf game, we've gotta look at your biomechanics, which is really simple.

So we are an improvement based business, but it's still a hospitality. We are just looking for the customers who really want to improve their golf rather than experience golf. But there's, there's room for everyone. Like if I can get 50 people to go to a top golf. of those 50 people, there's gonna be 15 of them who hate sucking.

And so they give me a call and say, Hey, when I go and have a couple of drinks with [00:14:00] mates on a Friday night, I actually wanna improve. I don't wanna wake up on Saturday morning with a lower back pain. And that's why they come to us. So we've got a very niche market of improvement and I'm really yet to meet someone who doesn't want to improve.

I mean, when you came in with your mate, what was your mate's name? He

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: David.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Dave came from the outside, which means he used his chest and he said, oh, I come from the inside. And I'm like, no, no, no, you've gotta get on some decent tech.

And then we put him through his paces in what, six minutes He was hitting a high bomb draw and he was blown away.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah. And he's a really good golfer, David Kennedy.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Listen to this one. Everybody loves David.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: so, when, when David was thought he was hitting a high bomb draw from the inside, because we have world class tech houses, camera based.

He was blown away the, that he actually wasn't swinging the way he thought he was. And in a couple of minutes we had him ripping it and it was fantastic. And then you come along who's hardly played golf and you've got a very good motion. And so you're a [00:15:00] little knock need like me. Anyone who's knocked knee has generally fantastic hip mobility, internal rotation and you ripped it.

And it was quite an interesting, you know, dichotomy of here's a guy who doesn't play a lot of golf but can move. Whereas Dave does play a lot of golf and. We just have to fix his movement a little bit.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: I wanna go back to that idea. You said something about people who are staying in a hotel usually have come off a flight and did four or five hours of sitting. I. And I want to tie that back to, you know, my, I think I went to you once and before I even started golfing there, I guess it was like you said, get on that bike

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah. We're

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: and like Yeah, just like get on the bike for, I don't know, five or 10 minutes and just easy.

Just get it going, get the blood flowing, get the muscles loosen. And I'm wondering like. If, if you were to take that idea of moving.

and people who are traveling or road warriors and then whatever segment that of as golfers and who wanna improve, it would be interesting to, like, from a wellness perspective in a hotel you check [00:16:00] in, they somehow, they know you like golf and it's like, oh, we have a golf simulator and our meeting room that never gets used or whatever and, you know, go on a bike.

And it, it does seem like a good way to like get out of your head. Breathe, get blood going and doing something that you're fun have. Have you seen that anywhere in the hotel

space?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: There is a little bit of that. So we're on top of Grand Central Station. We've got the Inter Smith Intercontinental, the Smith Hotel. We have, I've got 16, actually, I've counted them for you yesterday. I have 16 hotels within one and a half blocks of me. Right? For those customers at those hotels, conservatively, they're gonna be traveling to get to that hotel at least four hours, if not, you know, eight to 10. I've teamed up with ba, British Airways. I'm trying to get into the BA community because we've got pilots and hostesses and hostess men who travel for 17 hours who then come to the hotel. Remember JFK's an hour, as you know, an hour and a half from the city, thereabouts. [00:17:00] And so some of the hotels have golf simulators, but I think that's a fundamental flaw because. Said, person who walks up from a 15 hour flight, for example, let's go six to 15 hours. They're gonna be super tight and they don't know how to actually improve their mobility or stability. And that's where the swing, and this is what we want to do. We want to get 50 to 60 boxes of swing around the world. And although they may be all improvement boxes, I think there's a lovely segue into the hotel community to say. People don't want to hit golf balls. They wanna make sure that they don't wake up with back pain the next day. And that's where our expertise comes into it and says, here's a safe manner in which to move. Everyone's different. You and I are very different in how we move. And what the swing platform does is it explains to the individual how they move, what they have to do to get them to, in our case, swing a golf club. But look, I'm still a tennis nut. It doesn't matter whether you're skiing or [00:18:00] surfing or playing tennis or softball with your kid. Swing is the essence of biomechanics. So what we do is explain how the individual moves, what that individual has to does to be safe, and obviously improve. Improve motion. So. I think the hotels, and you've seen golf simulators pop up in airports, it's, it's a flawed system because that person just has a whack without understanding what they've gotta do for it's three or four minutes of warmup.

But if you warm up your body, so how David warms up and how you and I warm up will generally be different because we're built differently. And that's our, that's our little, our little niche is to explain to the individual how to do that,

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah, David's. David's pretty skinny and weak, right?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: Dave, we're gonna get you back in. We gotta get where, where? Where's a little more meat on the bone?

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: But I, I do think that it's an interesting idea in the, in the, from just a movement perspective. 'cause we could all benefit from more movement as just a society and people, and

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: Absolutely.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: especially the [00:19:00] road warrior, um, class. And um, okay, yeah, you could do yoga, you could go to the gym and do your own workout and all that.

But it would be an interesting way and a fun way to mix it up. And then with, you are in a great location with a lot of hotels around there. Do you, have you approached. General managers or, or I don't know, concierges at those hotels and brought it up and what, what's been the response? Or is that like a whole other.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: That's a whole different beast. We haven't tackled a whole lot. Ironically, they're reaching out to us. The issue lies that we are so busy now with our members. So we're a member based business model. We have about 400 members. We've signed for a, for uh, 1800 square feet next to us.

We're taking over a cafe. So the, the issue becomes with so many hotels near us, we've had about seven concierge reach out and say, Hey, we want to get to swing. But unfortunately. There's no structure in place, so I've gotta do probably a little better [00:20:00] job of providing them a structure with which their customers can come in.

I think it's a no brainer. Uh, certainly British Airways. The, the airlines have have reached out to us and said, Hey, we want our pilots and our crew staff to be able to enjoy some downtime. They're in and out in about 14 hours, so that makes it a little tough. They've gotta sleep, eat, uh, get some washing done and hit the road again. But it's something that I'd like to explore because it's, we have, I've got Wimble, Wimbledon, tennis Pros coming to see me. We've got. NHL hockey play. We've got a vast majority of, of golfers, and I've got people who've never played golf before and who want to get into it for, for, to to, to get some deals done on the golf course. Most people don't understand who they are, so the essence of swing is to understand who that person is, to get them to improve their movement, which ties back to playing better golf. And so if we let that hotelier come in and just do a one hour smash and grab. It starts to compete [00:21:00] with the improvement.

My essence of swing is that every single person who work walks through our door leaves a better golfer or a better mover. And so for that hotelier who's just checked in and wants to clear their head, they just wanna walk in and smash, smash 10 balls and walk out it, it, it now contradicts our brand a little bit.

So we're just trying to work out how that looks. We need them for more than 40 minutes. That's, that's the point.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: I forgot that you're, I knew you were members based, but I actually forgot, but I'm seeing that as a, a hu. A really huge. Trend right now in hospitalities members clubs from, obviously there's always been the fitness clubs or members, but just social clubs. Um, how are you, was that a choice to be members club?

Like what, what's the business decision on being members club versus open? 'cause if you were just an open, come in and smash or like get a couple, uh, get a package of 10 lessons. It might be easier to fit in those transient guests at the [00:22:00] hotels.

Your decision on like trying to go members route versus, uh.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: to be honest, it gets back to your original question, define hospitality. Hospitality to me is, is sharing the secrets that I've learned being a PGA member for, you know, 26 years. Which is, hey, golf is a very simple game taught unfortunately by the platform, very poorly. And so golf pros teach a philosophy and we teach, Hey, golf is math and geometry. And so if you have a customer of a golf experience walking in who just wacks away, I can't achieve my goal. Again, get back to defining hospitality. Not trying to piss in your pocket here, but it's So when you reached out to me, I was so pumped to do this. We believe everyone can improve, right? Unfortunately, there's no structure for which people can really improve their movement and specifically golf. And so the [00:23:00] membership entrepreneur decision was, well, we've got a set of skills that we know is unique, that is very quickly I can work out. Subconsciously who someone is, what, what do they want? When Dan Ryan walks in, does he want to clear his head? Has he had a, has he had a, a tough week at work? Does he just want to hit drivers as hard as he can to alleviate some pain or does he actually want to get better?

So we try to grab you when you walk through the front door, read you quickly psychologically, and go, well. We will give you a bit of a way to blow off steam, but ultimately I'm gonna infuse that with improvement. So that's very difficult when you open that door, like say a five iron, which is a, a, a business model of golf.

I think they've got 20 odd facilities around the, around the world. They're owned by Callaway and unfortunately they can't control their customer experience because it's largely a walk-in model. There is a little bit of a membership depending, uh, on location. And so my wife and I, who's my partner, [00:24:00] business partner, decided to say, well, okay, let's control the narrative a little bit and say, ultimately Dan Ryan doesn't want to have back pain.

Ultimately, Dan Ryan would love to go out with Dave and place nine holes of golf and talk shop, and he doesn't wanna suck. So that's why we led, led the to the membership based business model ultimately. I spent seven years on crutches as a kid and I was in a wheelchair. 'cause I'm hypermobile and I dislocate my joints. And so I've had to work hard to get my body at 50 under control. And it's fitter at 50 than it was at 30 because we've got structure of movement and so to pass on, again, defining hospitality to pass on that essence of, all right, what are you trying to share with the community? We share improvement, that's what we do.

And so we tailor improvement, whether it's golf improvement, whether it's mental improvement, do a ton of what we call pre-shot routine work. And ultimately, if you can control how you enjoy yourself and control the environment, people have a [00:25:00] better experience, I think, than just a walk in,

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: I think it's also like a paying a, like a membership fee or membership dues. It also shows. A higher level of commitment as well. It's like you got skin in the game as a, as a, as a someone who's paying the membership fee, but also as a, as an entrepreneur and business owner. I, I think that business, the membership business model is really awesome because then you have some recurring revenue that you can help plan around, right?

It kind of like, it totally smooths out the volatility of I.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: Skin in the game is very important. So our business and our belief is you gotta have skin in the game. You've gotta be committed.

You know, our job is to say, Hey, give us a little bit and we'll move mountains for you. But if you don't take a step in our direction of being committed to improving, we, it's not work, certainly in, in our game, in golf, but the whole community is what we're trying to build.

We are trying to build a community at swing. [00:26:00] Where the, like-mindedness, talents, irrelevant, couldn't care. If you absolutely suck and can't get the ball in the air, we will fix that. That's easy. But you've gotta have a, a like-minded community to improve. So we had, and, and I'm not sure whether it was you, uh, your lovely, lovely partner, uh, or it was Rosie or myself, but we got all our kids in last year.

Over the summer, we had what, we had 12, 14 year olds and they had the best week. They came in every day. So we had complete non beginners. And I remember there was one young girl who remained nameless, who said, I'm not sporty. I don't play a ton of sport. And she actually improved the best. And so that essence of improvement, that's community.

And that has to come with membership. That has to come with commitment.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Yeah, that was that. Just from an experience that was so awesome. Like

we live up in Connecticut and every morning they would get on the train, all of 'em, and go down to Grand Central and walk around the corner and go in and, yeah, that was cool. We gotta

do that again. Hmm. Yeah, it was cool.

so you mentioned you [00:27:00] were on the tour for 26 years.

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: On the tour for 10 years. Yeah.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: Oh, okay. You've been a PGA member for 26

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: Yeah. I was on the road for about nine and a half years straight, like literally left Sydney. Actually, I was an idiot. I left Sydney just before the Olympics started.

Like, what was I thinking? So I missed all the Olympics 'cause I was on the road playing, basically had a surfboard set of golf clubs and a suitcase and went see what this old, big, old world's about.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: What an incredible way to see the world. And for those 10 years, I mean, you must have some of the most incredible stories and experiences, but on 10 years as like a, as a professional athlete on the road, you must have all different. Experiences of hospitality.

Is there any one, but you also probably like, maybe, you know, there's so many of you that land in one place for one tournament, so some people might get the better experience or like, how does the, actually, how does, how do they manage [00:28:00] that?

Does everyone get the same experience or are some people sleeping out in their car in a, in

a broom closet?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: have, I have had my fair share of, at the very start, sleeping in the car because I missed a cut. So basically quick synopsis without getting boring. 144 Pega up in a tournament. Generally Augusta, which is coming on, uh, at the start of April, actually next week, depending on where this is, uh, that's actually a smaller field of about 80, 85, but 1 44, peg it up. Then that field is cut to top 60 plus Tyson. It's basically cut in half. So unless you're in the top half of the tournament leaderboard, you are actually not getting paid. And so the hospitality you, I started to draw upon, we stayed with families because of a golf course, hosting a golf tournament. There's a lot of that community that actually want to engage with the Tour

Pro. So I stayed for the best part of. So I traveled around Australia for about four years, then I went to Asia, then I did uh, Canada and North America here. [00:29:00] I traveled the US for about five years straight, and I. As you know, travel is brutal.

I mean, it is brutal. You actually don't see the town you visit, you fly or drive in. You go to the golf course, you go to your accommodation, whether it's hotel, I started what we call Billeting. So you'd send an email out. To the golf course and say, Hey Dan, we're up at, you know this town, you are a member of the course.

Do you want to bill it, host a tour player? And so you actually stay with them and get to know them. And it, it's just lovely. And I'm a laid back kind of guy, so I, I've got. Thousands of stories, both good and

bad. It's not always good. Uh, where upon you actually are so blessed to be invited into someone's house and they let you in.

Like it's, here's the key dude, knock yourself out and you get to know someone. And so I wouldn't say I saw a lot of the town, whether it's LA or Chicago or [00:30:00] you know, Chattanooga. Tennessee or whether whatever it is, but I got to know people and so I've learned whether it was the school I went to, which is like a military boys school in Sydney to being on the road for 10 years, I've had an influence and a in infusion of just hospitality and you start to shape and everything's gone into swing.

So we've. I've kind of, from the, from I've got my father-in-law who lives with us, he was in Vietnam and he's got an old Australian digger hat where he was pissed one night being in the US Navy in Kings Cross, where he swapped hats with an Australian digger. I've got that on top of one of my columns to Ken. Ken, um, miles, who's the guy from Ford v. Ferrari I've got a helmet of his to, I've got a set of Arnold Palmer's clubs, so. There's been a lot that's gone into swing, which gets back to, I'm trying to invite people to what I believe is the [00:31:00] essence of being cool or not as cool as you Dan Ryan, but trying to be cool.

Trying to mold a bit of math and biomechanics and improvement into what I think's. We always play country music, like I love my Chris Stapleton. He's a nice vibe to hit some balls to. So it's, yeah, there's been a lot that's gone into building swing. I built it myself, which has been pretty cool.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: okay. So then with all those stories and your whole experience and starting swing and tr and kind of being an evangelist for. What I'm hearing is like an unorthodox wave of teaching and approaching golf with ma with math and geometry. Um, you also started a podcast and what was the impetus behind that?

Like, I've listened to a bunch of the episodes and I feel like when I listened to them, I've actually, I went out to go hit some balls last summer

and I was listening to the podcast before. I feel like it made me better 'cause it got my head into the.

Into the space and you're just, and you're kind of just telling stories [00:32:00] about, you know,

playing in Ibiza or Spain or, I don't even know where you were, where the, where it was, but like you just have so many stories you can tell, but what was the main impetus for starting up?

scott-young---sswing_2_04-04-2025_085104-1: So that was to get on social media. We, we actually looked at what you were doing and we listened to yours and thought, damn, that's a damn good podcast, because yours is high and tight on. What is hospitality? And I said to Rosemary or Rosie said, I'm the golf and the math and the biomechanics brain and Rosemary's the growing the brand.

And we were a new brand. And so Rosemary said, why don't we start to jump on social media and start to elevate our brand experience? And we looked around at podcasts and social media and we found that most had a. Uh, most, most the of the tone of people's podcast was emotional and their opinion. And our podcast hopefully sticks to math and keeps it very honest.

And I try to be very honest. So when we film me [00:33:00] swinging, I don't have a practice swing. It's straight off. Or if we talk about occurrences, there are hopefully rooted in. Being honest and high and tight on the math and physics rather than having an emotion or an opinion. And so we wanted just to be honest and say, Hey, golf is a fundamentally simple game.

I, I'm a tennis nut. If the ball's coming to me on a tennis court, I've gotta move, adapt, and react. Whereas, because the ball's stationary. It's simple, but it's been convoluted over the last 30 years to make this juggernaut of I don't have enough time to play. I'm not good enough to play. And we've got beginners who've been playing for six months, who break 80 because it's swing is a structure.

And the podcast was a way too present, a different approach of the golf swing. We, we try to keep it pretty honest.

dan-ryan_57_04-04-2025_085104: So when I listened, I did hear some of the math, but I was more struck by a lot of the stories you would bring about being in a [00:34:00] certain location or just funny things that happened as you're going and you must have like an incredible catalog to pull from.

So I, I'm saying that because I don't want people to think like, oh my God, it's just, I don't wanna listen to the Pythagorean theorem being talked about with a golf club.

Speaker 5: Hey, everybody. We've been doing this podcast for over three years now, and one of the themes that consistently comes up is sustainability, and I'm just really proud to announce that our sponsor, Berman Fall Hospitality Group is the first within our hospitality industry to switch to sustainable and recyclable packaging, eliminating the use of styrofoam.

Please check out their impact page in the show notes for more info.

Speaker 6: The, the podcast is all these anecdotes. I remember pre queuing for the Australian Open at a place called Capra in Queensland. And so I flew in, grabbed the higher car and drove to Capra and they, the, the range was closed, so they had us drive to a nearby golf course to use their range to warm up. So I pull in and it was [00:35:00] off the beaten track in Queensland.

And so as I reversed the car into the parking spot, I went over a tree stump and I ripped the bumper half off the car. So here I am. Back in Australia for the first time in over a year, I'm literally an hour after I land and all of a sudden I've got a brand new high car with a bumper ripped off and I've gotta go preq and, and and earn a living.

And so the podcast was an opportunity to talk about when people say, I've gotta go play golf with my boss, or I'm, I'm on the golf team, how do I perform? We try to say, Hey, pump the brakes, learn to control the process. And here's some anecdotes that, you know, I've. Bounced along the way, and we have guests on, and we have mates of mine who are on tour, and one of my mates who is on the podcast is ING for a guy on PGA tour right now.

And so we've got all these beautiful stories about anecdotal, what happens when or what you do, how, and it's pretty cool. So how long have you had it now? We're up to episode seventies. We've [00:36:00] been going about a year and a bit.

Speaker 7: A year and a bit. Okay, cool. So one of the questions, and this I, I was thinking about this.

The, uh, the other day when I was recording with someone, um, when you start, you don't really know who's listening or who the audience is or who you're connecting to. And I, I think about maybe eight or nine months in, I finally, I was like, oh, there's data here, or like, I can see who I'm talking to and.

Who I was talking to and the questions that I would ask in like, I know I'm talking to you right now. Yeah. But then I'm asking questions that I know my audience might be interested in because it's, and then I knew I could narrow it down to like who the audience is. So from the time that you started to now, did who, who you think was listening change from what you perceive when you first started to, like, now that you're doing, are you talking to a different audience?

Speaker 6: Great question. I, I approach it a little differently. I thought there was an opportunity to talk to the golf. So we are golf community first and foremost. Mm-hmm. [00:37:00] We'd love to branch into a little bit of an entrepreneur community because we believe the story of Swing. We, we signed the lease pre Covid.

I built it largely myself during Covid. We got shut down. We launched a whole new brand during Covid. So. We'd love to get into the entrepreneur, Hey, this is how I did it. But we, our main school is our golfers with without a doubt. we know that the conversation we have on the podcast is very factual.

And I don't mean that in a nerdy way. I just mean that the Gulf community, unfortunately, the powers that be, the PGA two or Augusta National, they're very monopolistic in how they control the entire narrative. And we've spent four and a half years developing our own golf clubs, which are being made here in Connecticut.

They're the only US golf club, I believe, currently. Oh, so you

Speaker 7: don't have to deal with tariffs.

Speaker 6: So yes, there's all these tariffs come out. We are making them about half an hour up the road and they're, they're being machined and, [00:38:00] and, and from forged steel here. So we can beat to the tune of our drum and we are not destined by.

When Rory wins, everyone pats him on the back and we take a step back and go, well, he might have won, but he's, he's missed X, Y, and Z. From a factual point of view, it's gonna be interesting when he gets to the majors.

So we are just trying to keep it very factual and that has brought us to an audience. That likes the honest on honest ma manner in which the pivot, the path is. Okay.

Speaker 7: As you're talking about, I'm, again, I'm not like a huge golf per, like I know Tiger Woods. I've heard of Rory McElroy.

Yeah. Michaels, all those I, all the big names I know, but I was at a conference once. I go to a lot of conferences. But I learn a lot at them. And then, um, there was this one. One guy was talking about, and it goes back to your idea of continual improvement. Your customer is someone who wants to improve continually and believes in that education, right?

Speaker 6: Absolutely.

Speaker 7: So [00:39:00] there was this slide that, um, had Tiger Woods and it was talking about all of his achievements early in his pro career. But he won this, won that. He may have won a master's. He was like on par or on track to beat Jack Nicholson as like the best golfer of all time. Yeah. And he went through Jack Nicholas.

Jack Nicholson's. Oh, Jack Nichols. Yeah. Jack.

Speaker 6: Although Jack Nicholson is a very good golfer, although I bet he

Speaker 7: is. He's like, he needs someone to follow him with an ashtray so he can smoke while he is golfing. Jack Nicholas. Sorry, the bear. I knew that The bear. The bear, the

Speaker 6: golden bear. Yes.

Speaker 7: So he was on track to.

Surpass him, but he found, he's like, I don't know if I can do it, even though I, the math shows he was going to trending. Yeah. And then he redid his entire swing from the ground up. And was that a good move in your opinion, or a bad move?

Speaker 6: this is a great segue and I love that this is not scripted, so I don't see that at all.

What I see is that as an emotional [00:40:00] individual, tiger crashed his Cadillac and we got a peek behind what his true self was like. right in the height of Tiger stardom, he crashed his Cadillac and his wife had learned that.

He'd done this, that, and the other thing, and that was the downfall of creating a barrier between the customer experience and the tiger phenom. I think he, personally, personally, I think he's the, the greatest golfer that's ever played, in my opinion. He's better than Jack Nicholas because he has so much more competition to win each week.

Getting back to Jack, I've never met Jack, but he didn't have. So 144, pick it up in a tournament. Realistically, every time Tiger played a major, probably 80 people could have won that event when Jack was playing majors, maybe 15 could have won it. Um, you always have your outlier. So I believe Tiger was a better golfer, but as an individual, when he [00:41:00] crashed his Cadillac the first time reversed into it at, at his house in Florida, all of a sudden the mystique that was Tiger Woods was shattered because the truth came out.

And it wasn't the fact that he was working on his golf swing. It was the fact that the one beautiful thing about our game is that it's honest and getting back to what swing's about is that and the podcast. We are very honest with both how we approach our customers. I wanted to build a set of golf clubs that were honest and built in America because I could make them what we call non offset.

Don't have to get into that, but it's a very honest golf club. It provides an honest ball flight and the podcast talks about honest occurrences. And so Tiger kind of the rollercoaster started dipping when we realized that he wasn't this perfect individual. I don't label whether things are right or wrong.

That's not my, just my opinion. I just present arguments. And so I look at Tiger and I [00:42:00] look at his dad, and I think you built one of the greatest individual athletes of all time probably that will ever be. But did you build a beautiful son who's respectful? And that's, I just present ideas. I don't try to label.

I never label anyway. I couldn't care if you're pink, black, blue, or green or up and down, or I couldn't. What we do at Swing is we just say, here's set of ideas. This is how to get you better, and we just present them in a really factual way. So Tiger's Essence and his de decline was more about, we understood that he was a multi flawed character who still is.

And he just happens to be the brilliant, most brilliant golfer in the world there. There's a difference there. And so we're getting back to Rory right now, in my opinion, the best golfer it's ever been in terms of technically, but lacks that killer instinct. Whereas Tiger, that meant he was the essence. He was a Max Verstappen, he was a Roger Federer, he was a kovic.

And so the podcast, we talk about [00:43:00] that and we just keep it nice and high and tight on fact.

Speaker 7: You know, earlier you said you, you love tennis because you're, you're adapting and you're, and you're, you're attacking the ball, but you're moving, right?

Where golf, you're. S I'm gonna, you didn't say this, I'm gonna say it. It's 90% mental, right? Because you're, the ball is there and you're just, all you're doing is messing with your mind about hitting that ball the right way. Hundred percent. And it just gets in your head hundred. Um, it's very, and I'm gonna bring our kids into this one so just so people can know.

'cause I want to give Tilly and Annabelle a shout out. I was the, the unofficial team photographer, right? Yes. And this is where pressure. And stress is actually, I think a good thing and it makes this better. But I was their basketball team photographer and they were in their championship game. They were down, they brought it up.

Tilly tied the game up with seconds left.

Speaker 6: Yeah, it was very cool.

Speaker 7: Right. And then I think Anabel got the ball and maybe made a layup.

Speaker 6: Absolutely. No,

Speaker 7: she didn't make the layup, but she got fouled. Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:44:00] So it was tied and it was gonna go into overtime, but they could have won it. And Annabelle got up there at the foul line.

Had two shots and missed both.

Speaker 6: Yeah.

Speaker 7: And after the game, and then they went into overtime and they wound up losing. But after the game, I was, it was such an incredible game, and I talked to Anabel, my daughter, and I was like, you know, how did you feel when you were up on that line? Were you stressed? And she's like, oh my God.

I was so stressed. And it was like she said, it was just really intense. Yeah. And I said, you are so lucky that you got to experience that. Oh, absolutely. Waiting at that line. With all that pressure with, there was less than a second, or maybe, I don't know if it was 0.4 or four seconds left, but it was like they could have gone up and won and won and won the championship.

And it's such an o, like an honor and a, uh, just a rare occurrence to be in that position where you're like, you're in the arena. It's you. And only you and like you have to really [00:45:00] focus in. And so much learning comes from that. And that's one thing. Even though I don't play much golf, I think like there's an opportunity to do that on almost every single swing.

Speaker 6: Look, I think golf take me and what my wife and I are trying to do in the industry and the brand out of it, golf's the quickest way to get to know yourself. It's the quickest way to get to know someone you'd like to do business with. Because it's so honest. The only person, remember to hit a golf ball from a tee where you tee it up and hit your first shot, you can mess it up about 70 yards wide and still have a good result.

So the golf customer, and I think unfortunately largely because of the PGA tour, have created an understanding or a thought process that you have to these perfect golf shots. You can absolutely. If you had 75 shots in a, in a round of golf for 18 holes, you could hit five well, and still shoot even par.

But it's managing [00:46:00] the expectations is what we do best. So we talk about pre-shot routines and mental concentration. When Tilly shot that shot and it was two seconds to go, and Annie stole the ball. That is, that is a learned experience and you hope that everyone deals with that and. That's what golf is the essence of.

It's understanding that pressure is a self application. When Tiger crashed his Cadillac 15 years ago, all of a sudden we got a peek behind the curtain and all of a sudden he had a lot more expectation because they were like, you aren't this perfect individual. And now that affected his performance.

And so what we try to do is say, let's not label people right or wrong. Let's just present facts and improve them. Whether it's movement, facts or golf swing facts or mental facts. And so watching our girls, like watching Tilly, which you captured,

Speaker 7: oh, that was a good

Speaker 6: shot. That shot. And it was a swoosh. And it was amazing that a young kid had the presence of mind to be calm.

[00:47:00] And, and, and the place went ballistic. It was so cool.

Speaker 7: And I actually forgot about Annabel steal, and she was so intense. Yeah, she fell straight away. And then she got f and then she went up to the fowling. That was just amazing. And to see that. They have that in them to like lock in. We all have it.

We all have it. But unfortunately, I, I say we don't have the opportunity to practice that, to be put in that crucible. Right. And I think we learned so much about ourselves and others in that crucible. And I think golf, like, I don't know. Now I'm talking myself into playing more golf. God dammit.

Speaker 6: I've had eight unders and seven unders, and I've shot 60 fives and fours. But I've never played a perfect round. So the reason I at 50 are still striving, you know, I'm, I'm pre cuing for the US Open in a couple of months. I haven't done that for four years, five days. Wait, what's a perfect

Speaker 7: round?

Speaker 6: Mentally.

Perfect.

Speaker 7: How? Oh, okay. What's that?

Speaker 6: Okay, so my goal in golf and getting back to, and you know, when you said, come on this podcast, obviously we're great mates, but I was really excited [00:48:00] because I'm trying to play a perfect round of golf and I'm trying to instill in our community. That perfection in golf is mental.

It's got nothing to do with the outcome. So we are a process, process, process driven facility, and what that looks like to me is when I've got a golf shot, whether it's the first shot or the last part of the day, I wanna be absolutely perfectly committed to that shot. Now the outcome is irrelevant and I'm yet to play a round of golf in how long I've been playing.

I've been a PGA member for 26 years. I've yet to play a round of golf. Where every time I strike the ball and every time I look at the ball go down the fairway or the put, I then switch off. I've never played a perfect mental round of golf and that's why I play

Speaker 7: Okay, so I like the idea that the outcome is irrelevant.

Speaker 6: Irrelevant.

Speaker 7: So it's when you're addressing and striking and after the strike. Yep. But what do, what does that, like, how do you, how do you judge in a binary fashion whether you're in the perfect mindset [00:49:00] or not?

Speaker 6: I saw all these sports psychs and they all said, you should do this and you should do that, and Tiger's doing this and Tiger's doing that.

And so I had all these sports psychs and I read every sports psych book you can name. Golf's not a Game of Perfect in a game of tennis, in a game of golf, all these books, but not one book explained actually the process to control one's mind to present a perfect routine. So golf is about. Taking a club out, creating an idea of what the shot, I think it's all art.

Creating an art of what you're trying to do, understanding what the body needs to do because the body holds the club. The club hits the ball. The entire industry is focused on the ball and its swing. We're focused on the process. So I can create a perfect feel of a golf shot like Tilly did when she did the layup like Annie was doing when she was doing the free throws.

A free throw in basketball is exactly the same as hitting a golf shot. 'cause it's a closed sport, but the gremlins get in, right? The, the, the self-doubt, the self-deprecation [00:50:00] gets in the, I haven't practiced enough, or I had a shitty night's sleep, or, I can't do this because I just missed that last free throw.

No. Mm-hmm. Perfection to me, looks like pulling the trigger on a golf shot, part chip, whatever, with the absolute pure essence of that golf shot. Everyone knows how to play golf. And so perfection is playing a round of golf, pulling the trigger with pure commitment and forgetting where it goes, and then wiping the, I call it, wiping the slate clean after you, after you have a shot, wipe the slate clean, move to the next.

And that's a, that's a learned skill

Speaker 7: after you do it, how do you know if you did it or not? Yep. So

Speaker 6: I go after I play golf. So I'd love to be able to instill this in our customers.

Most of them, getting back to your point, most of them have to wanna improve. Some of them don't want this level of improvement. But after a round of golf, I quickly go on my own. I've got my scorecard, takes me about now three minutes, and I can quickly [00:51:00] backlog every golf shot I hit and I label whether I did it successfully or not.

So it's very honest. Labeling of, oh my God, did I commit to the shot or did I not? So if you and I went and played nine holes with Tilly and Annie, I'm not gonna do that. But if I play, so I'm gonna play probably this afternoon, just go out and play six or seven holes. I'll absolutely track how I, how I mentally perform, because the thing that most people don't realize, which is where Tiger was so good.

On the last hole of the PGA tour event, Rory missed a five six footer, a par. Now next week, he's playing in the masters that miss and that habit will recreate itself at Augusta. The chances of him winning based on his last six weeks where he is missed a lot of short parts that has momentum and we believe in the whole swing brand is based around trying to create a momentum of improvement and.

Yeah, those little idiosyncrasies of miss and failure, [00:52:00] you've gotta accept them and, you know, let them go out of your mind and present a game of golf where you don't have a pre-ordained, you know, feeling or, or mental, negative response. I'm trying to play golf and pull the trigger on every shot as if it was my first for the day.

And that's really hard. That's a learned skill,

Speaker 7: that idea of it's really like. Having approaching each everything you're doing with intention, right? Correct.

Speaker 6: That's all it is. Awesome. It's a learn skill and that's what our brand's based on and that's where Tiger and Jack, I mean Jack was amazing.

46 won his last major, and that's what I think hospitality is to us is saying, Hey, we've just got a better understanding of how do you can go out and shoot even par when you come into Swing. Let us help you. So that when you leave an hour of practice, you're better than when you started. Get back to the whole question you asked, whether you want it to be member based or off the street.

Off the street. That's not gonna occur. [00:53:00] And so we've found a niche to say, Hey, give us an hour of your time. Don't go and go to the bar. Don't go and shoot pool. Don't go and throw darts around. Come and have an hour of becoming a better self. We use the golf as a vehicle, but give us an hour of your time.

Let us, allow us to help you be it, move better, therefore play better. But also let's talk about how to actually mentally be better. And so when that basketball shot comes up, we talk about that a lot with Tilly and, and tini, Hey, have a process and, and just let it go.

Speaker 7: Yeah, let it go. Totally test the process.

I love it.

Speaker 6: Process, process, process.

Speaker 7: Scott, this has been fantastic. If people wanted to learn more about you or swing or, and see if, if they can figure out how to, yay. Go ahead and become a better version of themself.

Speaker 8: Love that. Or

Speaker 7: if anyone has questions about how this could tie into hospitality, what's the best way for them to find out more?

Speaker 6: Fantastic. Thank you. so scott@sswing.com. Swing is SS WIN gScott@swing.com [00:54:00] or just sswing.com is the website.

Speaker 7: Cool. We'll put it all in the show notes. So I thank you for coming on here and speaking with me. I know we do it all the time anyway, so it's just great to share your experience with everyone.

Speaker 6: I love it to find hospitality.

It's really opened my eyes to what it is we're trying to do.

Speaker 7: Wonderful. And also thank you to our listeners. Without you, I wouldn't be here talking to people like Scott and hopefully. Helping you become a better version of yourself by just learning from other people's experience. So if you liked it, please like, subscribe, pass it on, leave comments.

It all helps with the growth.