Nick Carney and Andy Loors, co-founders of Long Walk Golf Company
Jeff interviewed Nick Carney and Andy Loors, co-founders of Long Walk Golf Company, about their journey from military service to launching a golf clothing brand. They discussed how their shared passion for golf and military experience inspired them to create their own clothing line, with plans to give back to military communities through charitable initiatives. The company launched after Andy took the initiative to form an LLC following a conversation with a friend in the industry, marking the beginning of their golf apparel business.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Birdie Ball
- Long Walk Golf Company
- Pinehurst Manufacturing
- Snell Golf Balls
- Carsley Golf
- Painted Hills
- Squares Golf Shoes
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores a golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in the short grass.
Speaker A:For the hackers, dew sweepers and turf spankers, here's Jeff.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to Grilling.
Speaker B:It's Green, of course.
Speaker B:We're based in Portland, but we're also in Seattle and Texas and parks in between.
Speaker B:And a proud member of the Golf News Network.
Speaker B:I'm jt.
Speaker B:This segment is brought to you by Birdie Ball.
Speaker B:If you want to have a putting practice green in your patio or your garage or your house, go to birdieball.com they make some excellent portable greens.
Speaker B:And also, if you like to practice and you don't have a lot of room, I would suggest you go out and get yourself a box of Birdie balls.
Speaker B:They look like a napkin ring and they only go about 40 yards, but you can hit them at full speed.
Speaker B:So go to birdieball.com well, I've got two great guests today, Nick Carney and Andy Lorz.
Speaker B:And they've got a fairly new company called Long Walk Golf Company.
Speaker B:These guys met in the service and then they decided that they were.
Speaker B:Well, I knew Nick was a golf enthusiast.
Speaker B:That's the first time I've ever met Andy.
Speaker B:But they got some really cool clothes they're working on, so we're going to talk to them about that.
Speaker B:Guys, welcome.
Speaker C:Thanks.
Speaker B:No problem.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:You met in the service.
Speaker B:We'll talk about that maybe in the next segment.
Speaker B:But what possessed you to get in the golf, as we would call it, the rag business?
Speaker B:That's not an insult to your wares.
Speaker D:That's just.
Speaker B:That's just my family was in the retail business for almost 30 years, and they sold clothes and we always called it the rags.
Speaker B:So anyway, well.
Speaker D:Honestly, when we were in the army, a lot of the jokes within ourselves was, what are we going to do when we have to grow up and get a real job?
Speaker D:And so a lot of times when we were deployed, as you probably already are aware, guys would take and set up driving ranges downrange and take old clubs or take their clubs and, you know, pass the time hitting golf balls.
Speaker D:So there's a lot of hours spent with makeshift driving ranges overseas, hitting golf balls and talking about having to grow up one day.
Speaker D:And then Covid hit and we got to play a lot of golf and played a lot of golf together.
Speaker D:And we were both kind of tailing towards the ends of our careers as it was, and, you know, we started thinking more of what, what is Post army life look like and that, you know, having to grow up and get a real job.
Speaker D:And that was kind of the boom era for golf as well, and the growth of new clothing companies and the access to figuring out how you can actually do it yourself.
Speaker D:Because me personally, I always thought you had to have a immense capital and someone that actually knew the clothing industry to get into it.
Speaker D:And luckily for me, Andy is somewhat of a. I don't want to say clothier, but is very fabric oriented from the military side.
Speaker D:And I can let him speak to that.
Speaker D:He has that deep knowledge.
Speaker C:And the other kind of like motivation behind it too, was kind of giving back to that community that was so good to us.
Speaker C:You know, the army was really good to us in terms of, you know, all my kids were born while I was in service.
Speaker C:They benefited from a lot of programs, a lot of nonprofits out there.
Speaker C:So, you know, kicking the idea around of creating our own brand and then also giving back to the community, you know, with, with a percentage of our sales, maybe doing, you know, special promotion or limited runs of certain shirts that go to a specific organization or charity.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And, you know, kind of one of the last things I did when I was in the military was, was.
Speaker C:Was kind of dealing with materials and textiles in the, in the industry.
Speaker C:So it's always been kind of a hobby of mine of like, design and, and creating different things.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And one of the times we were, you know, your phone is always listening to you, so, you know, the combination of all of these things.
Speaker C:And then I would, I would get like reels and stories after stories on Instagram of like, yeah, you know, it's really not that hard.
Speaker C:And you know, basically it's like, hey, why not us, Nick?
Speaker C:Why not us?
Speaker B:And yeah, so when, so when did you decide actually to really jump in and walk us through that process?
Speaker B:You guys had obviously talked about it when you were deployed or back home, et cetera, but when did you say, all right, Nick, we're going, what do we do?
Speaker C:So we, we'd always talked about it and like everything we, you know, we do, we try to, We.
Speaker C:We strive for perfection.
Speaker C:But if you wait, nothing's ever going to be perfect, you know, so you're going to wait forever.
Speaker C:But a friend of mine who's, who's in.
Speaker C:Who's in the industry, I was, I was talking with him, he was asking me what I was going to do post career.
Speaker C:And I told him, Nick and I were talking about starting this company.
Speaker C:And yeah, we were having a couple, couple Drinks.
Speaker C:And basically he said, well, just do it.
Speaker C:If you wait forever, basically, just have the courage and just do it.
Speaker C:And I think I went home that night after a few drinks and created the llc.
Speaker C:And I was like, hey, Nick, it's done.
Speaker C:We're doing this.
Speaker C:And then we just started designing and prototyping and getting our first shirts out there.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker C:That whole process took, what, about.
Speaker C:About a year, Nick, From.
Speaker C:From the time we said, not even, like, what was it like?
Speaker C:That would have been like June of.
Speaker D:24, June, July, when you started the LLC.
Speaker D:And I think we had our prototype, like, November.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to that.
Speaker B:Like I said, I have some familial background with the clothing business.
Speaker E:And.
Speaker B:Okay, you start the llc.
Speaker B:What's your first steps?
Speaker B:I mean, you've got.
Speaker B:Let's even say, Andy, you had some of your designs worked out.
Speaker B:You got to find somebody to manufacture the garments.
Speaker B:And limited runs are.
Speaker B:You know, you're in North Carolina.
Speaker B:VFC is back there.
Speaker B:If you don't know what that means, folks, it's like Wrangler and Levi, not Levi's Lee jeans.
Speaker B:And they're.
Speaker B:They're huge.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But they also.
Speaker B:They also manufacture those clothes on ships park.
Speaker B:You know, for monetary reasons.
Speaker B:They're parked just across the international waters thing.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker B:They do that, and they have them made in various parts of the world, but they're.
Speaker B:They're monstrous.
Speaker B:How does somebody that wants to start a clothing line do.
Speaker B:You go to a local seamstress shop and say, can you make us 20 of these shirts?
Speaker B:Or how does that work?
Speaker D:So we, like, all, like, a lot of stories.
Speaker D:There's a little bit of luck involved, and then obviously, knowing luck and personal connection.
Speaker D:So I happen to be in New York, and one of my best friends from high school was up there for a meeting of a business group that he's in.
Speaker D:And one of the other people in the meeting.
Speaker D:So he invited me out to dinner to go hang out with them, and they were, you know, gracious enough to let me come tag along.
Speaker D:And so these are all different industry guys.
Speaker D:And one of the guys owns a company called Pinehurst Manufacturing, so it's headquartered down in Atlanta, Georgia, but they build their.
Speaker D:They make all their stuff in Honduras.
Speaker D:So when he asked who we were using, I was.
Speaker D:We were still in the exploratory phase.
Speaker D:And he was like.
Speaker D:He's like, I want to help you.
Speaker D:He's like, we want to help you.
Speaker D:Here's a number.
Speaker D:And he connected us with his guys and it's definitely been more of a mentor to the mentee relationship where they've been helping us along.
Speaker D:We've been doing a lot of the research and doing stuff on our own.
Speaker D:But, you know, I can't stress how awesome they have been with us and how much help they have been, you know, and I can't guarantee that they would give anybody else the lower minimums that they gave us, but they.
Speaker D:They were willing to help us grow.
Speaker D:And it's been a fantastic working relationship and partnership.
Speaker B:Well, that.
Speaker B:That's kind of cool because not everybody, if you will, would have that type of connections and luck.
Speaker B:I've seen people over the years, you guys, that they have really great ideas, but to get them off the ground.
Speaker B:And like you were just referring to there, Nick, the minimums of.
Speaker B:And I don't care if it's a food product, a clothing product, you know, Western saddles or whatever they have, there's not that many people that will do low runs or small runs, if you will, for a startup, because they don't know you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:And it was.
Speaker D:I mean, there's only one other company that we found that could do the low minimums that we would be, you know, needed in order to give it a shot.
Speaker D:And we were going to go with them.
Speaker D:And we, you know, the only reason we didn't was because of this personal connection and, you know, I guess fate maybe.
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker D:I'm a big believer in, you know, if you.
Speaker D:If you put yourself out there and you don't say no to ideas and new things, good things can happen.
Speaker D:And if you're able to recognize a good thing and seize it when you got it, instead of shying away from it, it was kind of more of the jump in and figure it out, which is a lot of how we did things in the Army.
Speaker D:It wasn't a perfect plan ever.
Speaker D:It was 80% and figure it out when you get there.
Speaker D:And so that's, you know, obviously we have a lot of planning and background and research and that side of it, but there's still a certain level.
Speaker D:Just like in business, at some point you gotta just jump in and give it a shot and then adjust on the fly.
Speaker D:Because if you wait to have the perfect product, by the time you get it out there, a lot of times it's no longer even relevant.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're gonna take a break.
Speaker B:We're gonna be back with Nick Carney and Andy Lures from Long Walk Golf company right after this.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
Speaker F:Need a vehicle?
Speaker F:Does it Feel hopeless.
Speaker F:Did other dealerships already say no because of credit or negative equity?
Speaker F:Westin Kia wants to say yes during the Kia Fall savings event.
Speaker F:Come see Weston Kia, Oregon's all time leader in Kia sales.
Speaker F: January: Speaker E:Hey everybody, JT here.
Speaker E:If you need something to practice with in the inclement weather, try Birdie ball.
Speaker E:Go to birdieball.com check out the actual Birdie Balls, their packages, their putting greens, which I happen to have a couple of those and they work great.
Speaker E:Birdieball.com Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:I'm JT.
Speaker B:Today we're very fortunate to have Nick Carney and Andy Lures from Long Walk Golf Company.
Speaker B:They're based in North Carolina.
Speaker B:Although Nick is a Oregon boy by fate if you will, at least his family lives out here.
Speaker B:And I know your mom.
Speaker B:I talked to her, I've talked to her a lot and she always gets this little smile when she says, I'm going back to Pinehurst to see Nick and his family.
Speaker B:It's like, and if you haven't picked this up yet, the Carney family is a huge golf family.
Speaker B:So we'll leave it at that.
Speaker B:So now you're getting the manufactured.
Speaker B:Is it, is it online only or are you getting into golf shops and retailers?
Speaker B:I mean that's another whole world.
Speaker D:Yeah, right now, everything online.
Speaker D:But we are starting to get into the or.
Speaker D:We just got our, all the, our first shipment in about a month ago.
Speaker D:And so we've been trying to work through all those kinks and getting the SOPs and uh, you know what we didn't want to happen is go out and do advertising campaign and get a whole bunch of orders and then screw up the orders and have those customers never come back.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:We wanted to kind of make sure we had everything as best we could worked out so that as the customers started showing up, we could actually, you know, fulfill the orders and provide them the service that we want to provide.
Speaker B:So Andy, what do you, are, are you running the day to day operations or both you and Nick running them?
Speaker B:And then like Nick just said, you know, you got your first orders in or you have a little warehouse.
Speaker B:How you, how are you handling fulfillment?
Speaker C:That's always kind of weird.
Speaker B:Yeah, kind of learning.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, we're kind of learning as we go.
Speaker C:We're wearing several hats as far as like a company goes.
Speaker C:But yeah, I mean, I think initially we're Just working out of each other's homes.
Speaker C:Nick has a pretty good storage situation at his house, so.
Speaker C:And then we're kind of mailing, fulfilling all the orders ourselves as far as like the day to day.
Speaker C:We kind of, we kind of split that, you know, life happens and our schedule can be hectic.
Speaker C:So we, we do a really good job of communicating and kind of picking up, picking up each other's slack when need be.
Speaker C:You know, Nick is, you know, kind of taking the lead, I think in terms of like the financial aspects of it.
Speaker C:I've started sitting down and really doing most of the design for our shirts.
Speaker C:We were going to try to license different camel patterns and then seeing kind of how the road bumps we were hitting with that and the obstacles, I just started kind of getting really familiar with different Illustrator or design software.
Speaker C:And we've been doing all of our designs in house, you know, and kind of keeping the same theme.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like, you know, primarily we're, we're a golf, you know, apparel company, but you know, still kind of paying a little bit of homage from, you know, the time that we served in the military.
Speaker C:So incorporating some kind of camel pattern in the placket on the inside of the collar stand.
Speaker C:So I mean, it's there, it's subtle.
Speaker C:You know, we want to, we didn't want to, you know, kind of be super like, hey, we're only, you know, I think the term vet bro kind of comes out right, right toward the golfer, but, you know, still kind of give a little bit of a nod to, to our background.
Speaker B:Now that's one of you have, if you're listening on the radio, you can't see it, but Andy's got one of their shirts on, I think.
Speaker B:And tell me about that.
Speaker B:I, like I said, I have some familiarity with the clothing business.
Speaker B:That looks like a very well made shirt.
Speaker B:One thing is the buttons are a reasonable size.
Speaker B:If you get kind of ham handed like I do, and you got these little tiny buttons, they, you know, and if you're in a hurry, pretty soon your collar's all wonky like that.
Speaker B:So what do you take your inspiration from?
Speaker B:From the designs and how do you blend the military aspect of that into your designs and still make it not look like we're going duck hunting.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:So Nick's.
Speaker C:We're actually wearing one of our shirts as well.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:So the kind of the inspiration for.
Speaker C:Okay, yeah, for the, for the button, you know, using the four button versus the three button and having a, a placket that is kind of Kind of like that classic look that, you know, you can, you can trace all the way back to like, you know, semi by estetos, back, you know, in the old PGA days.
Speaker C:That was kind of like the shirt back then, but with a little bit of modern upgrades.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So, so put in a collar stiffener.
Speaker C:The angle of which the collar comes out is a little bit more modern and then incorporating some kind of design for the inside of the placket going down.
Speaker C:I don't know if you can see this one, but, you know, it's some form of camouflage.
Speaker C:And then on the inside of the collar stand as well.
Speaker C:So, you know, it's subtle.
Speaker C:It's, it's there, it's there.
Speaker C:If you want to expose a little bit more, you just undo a couple more buttons or you can, you know, kind of subdue it a little bit more, but button it up.
Speaker B:Well, that's really cool.
Speaker B:So one question on the design.
Speaker B:One thing.
Speaker B:Nick has seen me in person briefly.
Speaker B:I'm not a fitted shirt guy.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I'm more of an expansive shirt guy that you need that.
Speaker B:So one of the things I've noticed with some of the golf shirts out.
Speaker C:There.
Speaker B:That the, the, the area and the width of the shoulders, you know, can be a little, I don't want to say uncomfortable.
Speaker B:They're not uncomfortable because they're all very soft shirts.
Speaker B:But when you go to, you know, hit the golf ball and you kind of get bound up a little bit.
Speaker B:And also for a more, again, expansive figure guy like me, you get especially around the middle.
Speaker D:Is it.
Speaker B:Are your shirts cut like kind of straight down, but big enough to.
Speaker B:And you guys, you know, you're ex military, you're in good shape, you're muscular and all that.
Speaker B:And I see guys out on the course that are built like you guys, I'm assuming, and yet that shirt looks like they're trying to enter a bodybuilding contest instead of, instead of going and playing around a golf fair thing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So that was, that was a major issue that we struggle with.
Speaker C:How do we tailor to such a big population of golfers?
Speaker C:Because, you know, it's all shapes and sizes.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So we decided to come up with two different sizing schemes.
Speaker C:So we have our active duty fit is kind of more tailored.
Speaker C:It's going to come in a little bit in the midsection.
Speaker C:It's going to be a little bit more of that kind of tailored fit, you know, for, for the guys that like that look like the shirts that we're wearing are, are the active duty shirts and Then we went with a more kind of comfort, you know, classic fit of.
Speaker C:Of traditional golf shirts.
Speaker C:And we were calling that veteran fit.
Speaker C:And it's kind of like, not at.
Speaker C:Kind of where we came from.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And it's all right.
Speaker C:You're allowed to.
Speaker C:You're allowed to.
Speaker C:To have that veteran fit, you know, after a certain, you know, but we didn't.
Speaker C:We didn't want to exclude, you know, a whole population just, you know, because of our sizes.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And, you know, we're still, you know, that's kind of going to be the theme, starting off with shirts.
Speaker C:Now, eventually, we're going to do shorts and pants so that, you know, we'll.
Speaker C:We'll also kind of incorporate that in there because, you know, some guys don't like the tapered look with the pants.
Speaker C:Some guys still like the traditional kind of, you know, wider, you know, wider legs.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Opening at the bottom, and then, you know, kind of take that on with kind of more outerwear for cold weather and.
Speaker C:And so on.
Speaker C:So, you know, again, we.
Speaker C:We always said that we.
Speaker C:We didn't want to outpace growth.
Speaker C:We kind of want to grow it organically as.
Speaker C:And, you know, it's a learning process for us as well, but we want it to be kind of like more of a natural, not.
Speaker C:Not forced.
Speaker C:And, you know, we're kind of proud of, like, the quality that went into it.
Speaker C:It was a lot of prototyping and, and going back and forth, and we're talking, you know, small fractions of measurements, but to us, it matters.
Speaker C:You know, we want to get a good, good quality product out there.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:We're going to take another break.
Speaker B:As usual, I'm running over time, but, David, you'll have to deal with that.
Speaker B:We'll be back with Nick and Andy right after this.
Speaker B:Don't go away.
Speaker E:Hey, everybody, it's jt.
Speaker E:You know, I talk about Painted Hills all the time, and we always say beef the way nature intended, but it's more than that, because each bite of Painted Hills will make your taste buds explode.
Speaker E:Put a big, bright SM your face, and whoever's at your dinner table will have a big, bright smile on their face.
Speaker E:And you can thank me for that later.
Speaker E:Just go to painted hillsbeef.com and find out more.
Speaker B:You won't regret it.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:Like I say, always a proud part of the Gulf News Network and also on stations in Portland and Seattle and Texas.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker B:I never go over the entire list because I'm never really sure.
Speaker B:Actually, the radio Business can be a little topsy turvy sometimes.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank Dean Snell and Jason Almeida back at Snell Golf Balls.
Speaker B:They produced tour quality balls directly sold to consumers at a very consumer friendly price.
Speaker B:I use Snell Golf Balls, so go to snellgolf.com also Carsley Golf, home of the Rhymer 2.0.
Speaker B:If you're having little problems with your stance or your alignment, something easy you can pop in the bottom of your golf bag.
Speaker B:It's not very expensive, but go to carsleygolf.com we're talking with Nick Carney and Andy Lures today.
Speaker B:So, Nick, how does the ethos, if you will, that you learned in the military apply to running the company.
Speaker D:If.
Speaker B:That makes sense to you?
Speaker D:Yeah, it does.
Speaker D:I mean, that's a good question because.
Speaker C:It'S.
Speaker D:I guess because we did it for so long, it's become more of a natural thing for us.
Speaker D:But it's a lot of set the foundations and get the foundations right from the beginning and do the foundations really, really well over and over and over again.
Speaker D:And then you end up with a good product and a good result.
Speaker D:So we're constantly creating, but then, you know, evaluating and then adjusting as needed, which is essentially what you do in the military is, you know, you, you research, plan, prepare, execute, and then you adjust and you do it all over again.
Speaker D:And it just becomes a big cycle.
Speaker D:And the faster and more nimble that you can adjust, the faster your improvements are going to be and the better they should be.
Speaker B:So I've got a question for each of you.
Speaker B:Same question for each of you.
Speaker B:And Nick, you can go first.
Speaker B:What do you think at this point in time, as of today, what's the most important thing you've learned so far in putting this company together and making it happen?
Speaker C:Really?
Speaker D:So I would say it's knowing that it's realizing it's never going to be perfect.
Speaker D:You know, get it to as good as you can get it and then try it and then iterate and try it again.
Speaker D:I think it's a real easy trap to get into both in life and in especially golf.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:Like you think you're gonna, you know, you're not, you don't want to go play around because you're not putting as good as you think you are.
Speaker D:It's never going to be perfect.
Speaker D:You got to get out there.
Speaker D:You're never going to get better at golf without playing.
Speaker D:And that's how the business world is like, you're never going to get better at Business, sitting on the sideline, reading books and studying or being on the driving range, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:So I think that, you know, if there's one thing from golf and even the military, like, you know, most of the time in.
Speaker D:Not most of the time, but there are a lot of times in the military where I didn't feel ready to do something and I went and gave it a shot anyway and it worked out.
Speaker D:And, you know, some of the stuff that I achieved to this day kind of seems unbelievable, you know, and I, I never felt ready, like, I never felt like I was in a good enough position to make it, and I made it.
Speaker D:And I think trying to apply that to myself on a day to day with the business is.
Speaker D:It's easier said than done, but it's something that I, I use to keep moving forward.
Speaker B:Yeah, Andy, I think for me it's.
Speaker C:Probably equal parts patience and flexibility.
Speaker C:And there's so many parallels, you know, from, from the military to actually golf especially.
Speaker C:I'm not as good as a golfer, as good a golfer as Nick.
Speaker C:Uh, so, you know, one day you have a plan, hey, this is my normal shot.
Speaker C:And all of a sudden you're, you're, you're pushing them instead of, instead of, you know, drawing them that day, and you have to adjust on the fly.
Speaker C:And that's kind of been the.
Speaker C:You know, what I've kind of taken away from this whole experience up to this point is, you know, it's not going to, it's not going to.
Speaker C:It's not an overnight thing.
Speaker C:You know, you need a little bit of a, you need a little bit of patience.
Speaker C:And then when things start to kind of not go the way you, you want them to according to plan, the ability to kind of make those quick shifts and kind of keep staring in the right direction.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a fun ride so far.
Speaker C:So, yeah, we're going to keep at it.
Speaker D:I think our, our, our slogan or tagline for the company is never stop walking.
Speaker D:And, you know, that kind of goes in line with what we were saying where, you know, golf is a lot like life, where you're going to have super high highs and super low lows, and they might be back to back or they might be stretched out really far in between, and the only way to get through it is to never stop walking.
Speaker D:You just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going forward.
Speaker D:And eventually the high highs will come back and you just have to accept the low lows.
Speaker D:And adjust and hope that the next shot's going to be better.
Speaker B:Do you think your time in the military made it so you can make those adjustments and decisions faster?
Speaker B:Because of.
Speaker B:You can analyze the situation maybe a little quicker than the average person who's kind of slogging through it and their heart's in the right place, but they.
Speaker B:What's the old term?
Speaker B:They get analysis paralysis.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker B:So I would think that because of your service and your training, et cetera, that you're able to look at something and go, okay, I'm making something up here, so bear with me.
Speaker B:You know, there's.
Speaker B:There's five things going on.
Speaker B:This is the number one of importance, and this is the number two.
Speaker B:And that's what we have to deal with today.
Speaker C:I would say.
Speaker C:So the ability to kind of quickly prioritize.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What needs to be taken care of, for sure.
Speaker C:But I think it also.
Speaker C:It also kind of goes down to kind of our personalities, you know, maybe a little bit of impulsivity mixed in with a little bit of adhd kind of helps out with that.
Speaker C:Kind of like that, you know, that challenge.
Speaker C:But, yeah, I mean, it's essentially like what you're saying is kind of prioritizing and then putting out those fires in the order that you need to.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Nick, what do you think about that?
Speaker D:Yeah, I think it helps.
Speaker D:It definitely, you know, after being in the military and deploying, puts a lot of the business challenges and life challenges a little bit more perspective because it's not life or death, you know, and having dealt with those decisions and having to prioritize those, you know, these ones don't seem as, I don't know, close to an emergency, if you will, lack of a better word.
Speaker D:So, yeah, it does.
Speaker D:It helps you, you know, rack and stack, which are your top priorities and what.
Speaker D:And you've, you know, in the military, you learn, you know, obviously you never know what's going to happen the next minute, so you have to do every.
Speaker D:You know, do as much as you can that day.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Just like in life.
Speaker D:But it also helps you kind of realize this could be done tomorrow.
Speaker D:My sleep is more important than staying up all night to write one more email or whatever.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I understand that it is all about priorities, and that's how we get things done.
Speaker B:And it's my observation, and I'm older than both of you guys, but I can tell you that we learn from life if.
Speaker B:If we allow ourselves to, you know.
Speaker B:So we're talking with Nick Carney and Andy Lorz from Long Walk Golf Company.
Speaker B:So are you guys having fun?
Speaker C:I am, but I kind of.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I'm kind of like an eternal optimist.
Speaker C:I mean, I think next, along the same way, we could be in pretty much any situation and kind of see some sort of, like, silver lining in it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And at the end of the day, I think it's, you know, the.
Speaker C:The whole process of creating something and having something that's ours, There's a lot of pride in that.
Speaker C:And, yeah, I. I got a lot of fulfillment from it.
Speaker B:What was it like when you got your first.
Speaker B:And you said you got your first orders in, you got that, you guys ordered your first shipment, if it will.
Speaker B:What was the feeling like when you opened the box and you finally saw it, you know, a really.
Speaker B:A finished product and you held it up, or you.
Speaker B:I'm sure they're individually bagged or something, but you hold them up and you look at it and you go, wow, we did good.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:I mean, mine was like, oh, crap, now we gotta sell these.
Speaker D:You know, the same thing.
Speaker C:It's like, hey, what's next?
Speaker C:You know, it's okay.
Speaker C:What.
Speaker C:What do we go?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker C:But, you know, you have to.
Speaker C:You have to take the time to take in those, you know, and.
Speaker C:And really appreciate those small, you know, gates and wins that we're.
Speaker C:We were making along the way.
Speaker C:So, you know, I remember thinking kind of along the same lines.
Speaker C:I was like, man, this is amazing.
Speaker C:And what's next?
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:What are your.
Speaker B:We got about 40 seconds here before we have to go to break, and we can pick it up on the other side, too.
Speaker B:What do your army buddies think about this?
Speaker B:They go, cool.
Speaker B:Or did they just want free shirts?
Speaker C:I haven't.
Speaker C:I haven't heard any.
Speaker C:Anybody that didn't think it was a good idea, like, oh, wow.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:And you two are.
Speaker C:You two are probably the right one suited to do it.
Speaker C:So they've been super supportive.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Nick, have you heard anything?
Speaker D:No, they've all been real supportive.
Speaker D:You know, it's.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:I think it's.
Speaker D:I'm hoping that it's becoming a goal or, like, makes it real for them that they don't have to just get out and go get a job that is in the military space, whether that be guns or hiking or hunting or whatever, that they can create something and hopefully we'll be in the spot when they're getting out, that we can hire them and send them out into the world and have Them work.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:We're going to take another break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with Nick Carney and Andy Lors from Long Walk Golf company right after this.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
Speaker F:Need a vehicle?
Speaker F:Does it feel hopeless?
Speaker F:Did other dealerships already say no because of credit or negative equity?
Speaker F:Weston Kia wants to say yes during the Kia Fall savings event.
Speaker F:Come see west in Kia, Oregon's all time leader in Kia sales.
Speaker F: January: Speaker F:Orientor.
Speaker E:Hey everybody, JT here.
Speaker E:If you need something to practice with in the inclement weather, try Birdie ball.
Speaker E:Go to birdieball.com check out the actual Birdie balls, their packages, their putting greens, which I happen to have a couple of those and they work great.
Speaker E:Birdieball.com.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green on JT.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank the folks at Squares Golf Shoes.
Speaker B:Yep, I got a couple pairs of squares.
Speaker B:I've got funky feet.
Speaker B:It's not probably a really good selling point, but they're very comfortable.
Speaker B:The wider toe box is you get older, your feet spread out a little bit.
Speaker B:So go to squaresgolf.com and they've got multiple styles and very comfortable and men's and women's and they do baseball shoes and pickleball shoes and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker B:So go to Square Shoes there.
Speaker B:We're talking with Nick Carney and Andy Lures today.
Speaker B:Where do you see Long Walk golf?
Speaker B:Hopefully in two years, five years, 10 years.
Speaker D:Yeah, we see, I think in the first two years we're really going to focus on refining our core services and building the brand and building a loyal client base that wants to keep coming back and buying shirts and building that culture within the company and like I said, all the fundamentals that we need so that, you know, when hopefully the day comes and we start scaling at a good pace that we can actually keep up.
Speaker D:And like I said, the foundation's built so that we can actually scale, you know, in five years.
Speaker D:I hope that we have a full lineup of clothes, not just shirts, but, you know, pants, shorts, tops, you name it.
Speaker D:Sure love to have a kids line, you know, in the next, within five years.
Speaker D:My kids keep asking about that, you know, when are you gonna.
Speaker D:Because they think it's so cool as we're innovating and the shirts come in and, you know, that's been a real inspiration for us is, you know, we get new shirt, we get a shirt in or we get a sample in and the kids are like, oh, did you guys design that?
Speaker D:Did Uncle Andy design that?
Speaker D:You know, and them seeing us work on it late at night, early in the morning, and then it becomes a real object, you know.
Speaker D:You know.
Speaker D:Yeah, so.
Speaker C:And I hope, I think our kids are big, big.
Speaker C:They're almost like board members.
Speaker C:They approve or disapprove of patterns and designs.
Speaker D:Yeah, no, they do.
Speaker D:It's good too, because we have our, you know, grown up opinions on like, what's a cool shirt?
Speaker D:And you show it to one of the kids and they're like, ew, that's gross.
Speaker D:Don't do that.
Speaker D:You know, and you're like, okay, this probably isn't going to work with the teenagers or the college kids.
Speaker D:Like, maybe we need to go back to the, you know, the drawing board or create a second shirt, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I think, I think your idea too, there, Nick, of a kids line, you know, because they get you.
Speaker B:Both of you have kids.
Speaker B:So we were all kids once.
Speaker B:But there's that awkward age, if you will, between like 8 and 13 or 14 where you really can't wear adult clothes and you can't wear little kids clothes anymore because you're growing and, you know, your body's changing.
Speaker B:And I don't see a lot of that.
Speaker B:And maybe, of course, I don't.
Speaker B:My daughter's grown up, so I don't hang out in clothing stores much anymore, especially for kids.
Speaker B:But I don't see a lot of that, especially in the golf world for kids.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's, you know, if more of the brands are starting to get it, like the higher end brands are starting to get into it, but, you know, obviously that comes with a higher end price tag and.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:Hard to, you know, as a parent with, you know, we have four kids, so when you got to buy four shirts, golf shirts, you know, buying the premium brand, knowing they're going to get three months out of it is kind of hard, you know, and that was something that we kind of helped push us over the edges too, as far as doing this was, you know, with Andy's background in textiles and kind of knowing those people, knowing those spaces, you know, we were confident we could build a very, a very high quality shirt at quote unquote, a more reasonable price that, you know, doesn't break the bank, but you still have the quality that you would expect from a modern, you know, performance golf polo.
Speaker D:Sure, we'll take that kids line as well.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Real quick, and I meant to touch on this earlier, Andy, tell us about your percentage going to helping veterans.
Speaker D:So we're still, we're still.
Speaker C:Kind of developing that aspect of it.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:So there's a couple avenues that we can go with.
Speaker C:You know, maybe 10% of total sales or I was thinking also.
Speaker C:And again, you know, this is, this is we're probably minimum a year out before we can actually do the second option.
Speaker C:But designing a line of shirts, a limited run, you know, we don't know what that number is, but let's say 500, you know, just to throw a number out there, limited run of 500 of a shirt that someone helps us design and by someone and, you know, still debating on the name of the line of this, but just calling it a hero shirt for now.
Speaker B:Andy Lors, Nick Carney from Long Walk Golf Company, thank you very much.
Speaker B:I wish you guys a ton of luck.
Speaker B:I think that's very cool what you're doing.
Speaker B:I'm a huge supporter of veterans.
Speaker B:My dad was a D Day guy.
Speaker B:And best of luck to you all.
Speaker D:Thank you.
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:No problem.
Speaker B:We'll be back next week.
Speaker B:Actually, we've got Sean Zach from Golf.com and Golf magazine talking about his book next week.
Speaker B:So until then, go out, have some fun, play some golf.
Speaker B:But most of all, be kind.
Speaker B:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
