1219: Deane Beman

Chris Solomon (0:29)

Deane Beman, welcome back to The No Laying Up Podcast. Soly here. I am thrilled to bring you today's episode. I'm very, very stoked. This was a career highlight one, honestly, for me. Deane Beman, former commissioner of the PGA Tour, second commissioner of the PGA Tour, came over here, right over here to my house, in my office. I kept him for as long as I felt physically comfortable keeping him, peppering him with questions. I do have to give a massive, massive shout out to our friend Adam Schupack. He has a book, it's called Deane Beman Golf's Driving Force.

I studied this thing in and out. Still reading it again for the second time. I did not get to everything as you might imagine in this interview about the life and career of Deane Beman. There's just too much stuff. But I would highly recommend you go find somewhere that sells books and read this. If you like this interview at least, you will learn a ton about the history of the PGA Tour and how Deane took it from a podunk little series of events to the massive, massive global marketing machine that it is and all the little fights along the way.

The little things that if they would have just gone a little bit differently, could have resulted in a very, very, very different golf world. So I think you're going to love this interview.

You'll love the book as well. I get no incentive, of course, but I feel bad because I used a lot of the material in this book to come up with the questions and subject for the interview. So The No Laying Up Podcast is brought to you by FootJoy, the number one shoe in golf. No Laying Up listeners, you might have already seen the official announcement that we came out with on Friday. We are extremely excited to announce the second shoe in our No Laying Up Design FootJoy MyJoy series, the Air Male 1 This is straight from the desk of Neil Schuster. And at this time, we have it available for the ladies as well. FootJoy is the number one shoe in golf for a reason. Their dedication to performance and innovation truly helps golfers play their best. So it only makes sense that they're worn by more players on tour than any other shoe. And now you can get a pair designed by us. These are classic FootJoy spike traditions in white with brown lizard leather accents and exclusive color coordinating No Laying Up embroidery on each shoe. We've got the wayward drive on the right and our script NLU initials on the left. You can get yours today, nolayingup.com. Click the Pro Shop tab at the top or you can go to store.nolayingup.com as well. The ability to hit the ball long and left of the green while wearing these is thankfully not guaranteed. Before we do get launched here, Taurusau, Season 10 Islands and Highlands sponsored by our friends at Rhoback. Rhoback is all about bringing people together. They crave activity just like us. That's why we are so excited to have them on board this season. As the presenting sponsor, to kick off Season 10, you can use code SAUCE at rhoback.com. There's an incredible amount of stuff in there. Be on the lookout tomorrow morning, Wednesday, if you're listening to this, when the Taurusau's Rhoback collection drops in the No Laying Up Pro Shop as well. So that's Rhoback. Best fit, best feel. It's Taurusau season. We're excited to get this out into the world. Greatly appreciate their support on it. So make sure you guys are watching the premiere episode tonight, 8 p.m. Eastern time here on Wednesday the 7th to get Taurusau launched. That's all I got. Here is Deane Beman. So I've long had a joke with Billy Kratzer. He got, who is now my sister-in-law, helped get her a job at the PGA Tour. I joked and I showed him pictures of my kids. I said, these kids would not exist if it wasn't for you. That's what ended up bringing me to Jacksonville. It's a long story, but if you never got her that job, I don't know if my life as it stands would exist now. And as I'm reading about your career and everything, I think there's a lot of people in Jacksonville that would probably say the same thing. If you had not chosen this as the home of the PGA Tour, I certainly wouldn't be sitting in this house right now. I'm sure you get that feedback a lot in Jacksonville.

Deane Beman (4:03)

Well, it certainly made a big difference here. When we came here in the golf world, Jacksonville was sort of the tail end of the Florida tour. Everything was bigger and everybody thought better.