[00:00] Bryan Hyde: Welcome to the Phoenix Business Brief podcast. I'm Brian Hyde, and today I'm joined by Scott Blandford. He's the CEO and co-founder of PreSwing Golf. And Scott, welcome to the program. Tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background. [00:12] Scott Blanford: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Brian. I really appreciate it here at— everybody here at PreSwing is appreciative of it as well too. So my background is, wow, I used to work for the Phoenix Suns back in the '90s after going to Arizona State University. And then I got into technology after that. So I worked about 25 years in the technology space building big ERP systems and everything like that. And then I got out of that and a friend of mine, Benny Alon, who's our founder, really wanted to build a golf app. And the story behind his golf app was about 10 years ago he was with his teacher and they were you know, on the range. And his teacher's like, Benny, you're hitting it great. How's things going? And Benny's like, I can't take it from here out onto the golf course. He's like, I would like you to go with me on the course every single round. And the guy was like, well, that's just not possible, you know? So they then decided like, oh, Benny decided I needed like you on my shoulder, a chip on my shoulder. And this was like 10 years ago, so the technology wasn't quite there. So about 2 years ago, he asked me, he goes, do you think this is something we can build? And I go, sure. I've been in technology doing stuff. I've been in sports. I played golf nearly my whole life. So I'm like, yeah, this sounds really exciting. So I drove up to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he was for the summer, and we kind of came up with a plan and a name and all kinds of things like that, all in the encompassing of an afternoon. So, um, and then we've been starting to build it, and then we've been starting to add things and getting people involved and everything like that. So that's kind of a little bit of my background and kind of how we got started. [02:00] Bryan Hyde: So let's, let's start with the presumption that maybe someone who is new to golf is hearing this, and, and let's talk about some things they need to understand about the game. And the first thing I want to ask you is, is there any such thing as a born natural when it comes to playing golf? [02:16] Scott Blanford: I don't think there's a born natural when it comes to playing golf. Golf is one of those sports. Now, you will have some people that are more athletic and more inclined with hand-eye coordination and things like that. But golf is one of those sports where you just can't sit there and go, oh, I just pick it up and just do it and stuff like that. It takes a lot of time, right? And it takes the majority of people that get really good. have to take lessons, right, and learn and figure out their swing and hit thousands and thousands of balls on the range and play hundreds and hundreds of rounds of golf to make it, you know, to the tour, you know. And I've played with some people that are just like awesome players, you know, and the way they hit the ball and everything like that, and they're not even a fraction of what it can be on the tour. You know, so we would love it if some of the people that use our app got to the tour and stuff like that eventually someday. But our app is really for the everyday golfer. Everybody who's out there that's frustrated about their game or anything like that, we wanna make it better. We want them to enjoy the game better. [03:24] Bryan Hyde: And that was actually the next question I wanted to ask is, okay, for the people who don't wanna go for that green jacket one day, there's still a lot to be said for improving your game. And I mean, it's even if you're just out there on the links having fun, It sure would be helpful to have someone to coach you. And the people I know who are serious about improving their game always seem to talk about, well, I, I needed to talk to somebody who really knows what they're doing, who can analyze what I'm doing. Now, in that context, talk to me about how Pre-Swing helps to fill that role. [03:52] Scott Blanford: Yeah, so a lot of people kind of ask us and go, oh, are you replacing the teacher? Are you replacing the golf professional out there? And we are like, no, we are not at all. We are— we don't tell you how you should shape your swing. We don't give you, hey, AI is going analyze your swing and tell you how to do it. We do not do that at all. What we do is we work either with the professional— you can do this on your own and things like that. And I've taken only a few lessons in my life and everything like that, and they've been helpful and things like that. But a lot of things in my golf I've tried to figure out on my own. So what we do in the app and how we do this with a teacher. So let's just kind of go through the scenario with a teacher. So if I'm with my teacher and I did this last week, I was having some trouble with my driver and I worked with one of our golf pros, so that's already within the app. And we went there, and so I hit 15 balls. She just looked at my swing, right? And then she says, okay, here are the key things that you need to do when you're hitting a driver, right? You need to make a full turn. So I wasn't going all the way back. I needed to keep my left shoulder down when I was going through, and I needed to slow down swinging way too hard, too fast. So those 3 simple cues, she said, okay. And then she, and then she goes, well, how do you want to phrase those? Right? Because you could phrase each one of those 10 different ways, right? So I phrased in a simple way and I just said full turn, left shoulder, slow down. Those 3 things. So I put those in the app, right? So we have a skill. So we have 30 skills in the app and one of them is driver. So in driver, I put these, these in and, you know, somebody comes into the app. fresh, we have 20 tips in there already for them. They can use those, move them around, and do whatever they want. But those 3, I said, okay, that's all I want is those 3. So I put them in the app, and then on the range I would play that, I would listen to that. And we use an AI voice when you type that stuff in. You can use a male or a female. So we listened to that, and I listened to it hit a ball. Okay, that worked. And actually, we kind of had like 4 or 5, but I narrowed it down to 3 as we kind of went through things. So then that was last Friday. Sunday I went out and played and I could tell you, hey, I hit every ball great. And that's not, that's not the case, right? But I did think of those things. I would play them on holes and stuff like that and go, okay, that's my thought that I need to think about. And I think what people do in this game, because this game is so hard, right, is that people, when they get to a shot, And they sit there and go, I'm in a fairway bunker. If, if you've been on the fairway, right, what, what do people think about? Right? They don't think about the things that are going to go right. They think about the things that are going to go wrong. So what we do is we put that thought into your mind before you hit that shot. You know, we want to speed up play. So we want you, as you're walking to your ball on the fairway, or as you're walking to your ball in the fairway bunker, to play that fairway bunker tips to yourself. 4 or 5 times over the course of, you know, walking to your ball or driving to your ball. Or when you get there, you play it once and then you go and execute. So that's the premise of our app. [07:08] Bryan Hyde: So it sounds like what you're describing is this is about building not just the skills, but the mindset that is needed to apply those skills correctly each time. [07:18] Scott Blanford: Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So yeah, we're putting that, that, that thought into your mind, right? [07:25] Bryan Hyde: One of the— [07:25] Scott Blanford: when we first started developing the app and we have GPS in the app and things like that, I was out with my dad. He's 88 years old, still plays golf 3 times a week. Unbelievable. He shoots his age almost every time. But I was out there with it. I was testing the GPS with his group of friends and one of the guys was not playing very well. And I was just keeping to myself because I was just walking with him. I wasn't playing. And he, and he goes, oh, I had a lesson the other day and I just can't remember what the guy told me. You know, he's probably about my dad's age, 80-some years old, right? So paying for these lessons and everything like that. And 3 days later, he doesn't remember what the guy played or told him. So I just played our stock 5 things for the driver, and one of them was keep your back straight. And he goes, that's the one he told me. And, you know, lo and behold, he did. He hit a good shot on that. So that's the thing people don't remember, you know? So it's that, it's that mindset that we're putting them in the right frame, right? They've either figured it out on their own or they've worked with their teacher and go, okay, these are the things that work for me. So our app, like I said, has those 20 things. But also in our app, we have professional golfers and what they think of. So we have Smiley Kaufman. He played on tour, he won on tour. He was in the last group at the Masters in 2016, I think. And then he now is a golf analyst, right? So he sees what the pros are doing and everything like that. So in the app, you can also listen to Smiley Kaufman talk about what he does before he executes each of those skills. He also— so he has 2 things that you can listen to, that himself, and you can also listen to Smiley, what he thinks the tour players are thinking to themselves before they execute every shot. And then also in our app, we have professional teachers. Edie Wessel and Justin Kambala, who are 2 teachers that are here in the Phoenix area, great teachers, and they have some great information in there about technical things. So their thoughts in there are technical about what you should be doing with the driver, you know, teeing the ball high, making sure you're sweeping through it and things like that. And then we have a caddy. Bill Dodd, who caddied, he played on the PGA Tour a few events. He played in the senior— what's it called? Champions Tour. Now it's called not senior. I can't say that. And then he caddied also on the Champions Tour, and now he caddies professionally, just, you know, around at golf courses and things like that. But he gives you that mindset of what a caddy is going to tell you before. So, you know, that's that positive thing of saying, okay, you can do this. You can, you can execute that shot. So you can listen to all those. You can choose one of those players and everything like that in the app. Now we also have another thing, and I keep on going on about these things, about these voices, but this is what really makes our app different. We also have the ability— so some people have come to us and said, I really like the way my coach says it. You have this AI voice, but I don't like the AI voice, or I don't like, you know, listening to somebody else. I like what my coach says. I want my coach on the golf course with me. So you can, you can just take the phone and have your coach record his voice. So he could say those things before you hit your driver, like slow down your left shoulder and those things like that. That coach can do it. And then we had some other people say, well, wait a minute, you can't have outside advice when you're in a tournament playing golf. You're not allowed to have outside advice. You can have advice from yourself and your caddy that is standing next to you. So we also added a feature called My Voice. So then I can record my actual voice when— so I could have done that myself. I could have recorded myself saying, you know, full turn, left shoulder, you know, slow down. And then I can listen to myself while I'm playing in a tournament or some type of competition. [11:28] Bryan Hyde: Now, Scott, there was a lot of thought that went into the decision to use the vocal cues as opposed to having them look at a screen and this is how it's done. Talk to me about why it's important to hear it. More so than to see it on a screen? [11:42] Scott Blanford: Well, the people that we talk to and everything like that, and I'm not an expert in this area or anything like that, but we have talked to people like that, and we've talked to people who do lessons and, you know, tons of people and things like that as far as in the golf industry who are doing lessons. And their belief is, as you talk to somebody, as they hear that audibly, that's a reinforcement for them, right? Because when you're sitting there over the ball, And if you think about it this way, you're audibly thinking to yourself the 800 things that are going to go wrong, right? So now this is a reinforcement of that audio. And we even have some people, and our founder, Benny Alon, he does it. So he sets up his stuff and everything like that, and he listens to those things, those cues that he does when he's sitting at home or if he's on a plane somewhere and things like that. And he'll listen to them on the golf course every once in a while, but he doesn't a lot. But he knows now he's listened to it so many times He knows that cue already in his mind because it's that repetitive thing that he's listened to. So we feel like that audio aspect of it, it's quicker. You can listen to it quicker. You can use Siri to say, hey Siri, you know, pre-swing skills, and then it'll say driver and you can— you're off and going instead of pulling out your phone and then going, okay, I'm going to scroll and find the right one and everything like that. So that's that process. [13:04] Bryan Hyde: It seems fitting to— I mean, I'm hearkening clear back to when we were tiny you know, children or even babies, hearing the spoken word is how we learned. That's the— that was our initial way of starting to understand the world. So to me, this is tapping into something that's very fundamental. [13:19] Scott Blanford: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. And that's a good— that's a good point. I should put that in my sales brochure and everything like that. Do I need to give you a little byline on that? But yeah, but you're right, you know, so that is that thing. And the people that we've talked to and the people that have used the app, they're like, oh my gosh, that's incredible. As soon as they hear it, as soon as they put it in there, they go, oh, I hear it, you know. And we have, uh, it on your Apple Watch also, so you can listen to it there. Very easy, just, you know, plug it in and go, okay, I'm listening to it real quickly on that. Um, you know, uh, our app hooks to like the Bluetooth speakers that people have on their cart and everything like that. You could play it there, but now you've annoyed your, your playing partners and things like that with your tips. But, you know, however you wanna, however you wanna listen to those, they can do it. We've also had some people that wear hearing aids and they're like, this is the best. I can just listen to them. Nobody else gets bothered and I'm going and I don't have to worry about things. So along with giving you that swing thought, we also have GPS and everything like that. So we give you the number so you can sit there and go pre-swing distance. You get your distance front, middle, and back, and then you can also get your thought. [14:35] Bryan Hyde: That's a lot of different technologies all converging to help a person improve their golf game. Talk to me about AI. Does that play a role as well? [14:45] Scott Blanford: Yeah, so we do have a little AI in it. And like I said before, once I type those tips in and everything like that, you can, um, you can listen to that voice in an AI or female or male voice. Okay, that's one aspect of it that we're using, that we're using that AI voice for that to get that text into that voice that you want. Another way that we do it is We also have in our app scoring. So you have the ability to put in your score, the number of putts, greens in regulation and fairways and everything like that. But then you can put in notes. And it's very interesting. We just had somebody that sent us an email about it and said, okay, when I play golf course, I write down these notes. Everything at the end of every round, I write down everything that I did on every hole. So we have the ability to put that in. And what we do then is we take that information, we take your score. We take any shots that you tracked, number of putts, everything like that, and that note. And we take all that and we combine that over the last 10 times that you've played that hole, and we give you an AI recap that basically says, okay, this is how you've played this hole in the past, and this is a recommendation from AI of how to play it in the future. So, and then what you can do easily in the app as well too with text-to-speech because you can sit there and go recap when you're on hole 4, and it'll read out that recap to you of how you played it in the past and how you played it in the future. [16:15] Bryan Hyde: So, okay, so let's, let's connect up our listeners with where they can find out more about Pre-Swing Golf. You have a website you can direct them to? [16:23] Scott Blanford: Yep, preswinggolf.com is our website. We have information there, and you can download the app from there as well too. And you can go right to the App Store, look it up as Pre-Swing. It's just the app name is just Pre-Swing. They can look it up on the thing. And if you and your listeners want to get a deal here for the first like 2 months that we're out here, if they could use SMILEYLAUNCH as the discount code, the promo code when they sign up, they'll get 2 months for free. So SMILEY, S-M-Y-L-I-E, LAUNCH. All one word, and they can do that. [17:00] Bryan Hyde: So, all right, again, we are talking with Scott Blandford. He is the CEO and co-founder of Pre-Swing Golf. And, and Scott, I appreciate you joining us today on the Phoenix Business Brief podcast. [17:11] Scott Blanford: Perfect. Thank you so much, Brian, for having me on, and we appreciate you.