WHAT Mini Tour Golf COSTS: PART 1

[Music] it's tournament week finally back after a week off Great Lakes tour kicks up again this week we're playing Taran daa just outside of London tournament starts Wednesday today's Tuesday today's my day to practice up get sharp get prepared and get ready to play tomorrow what I'm going to do this week is I'm going to talk about what it costs what an event like this cost out of my pocket and basically how well I need to play Just To Break Even This Week first things first the first cost we have to talk about is the entry fee for typical mini tour structure the entry fees are pretty high basically we're all putting our money in the pot and we're playing for that so this event a 3-day event after tax cost going be $620 and change so that's our first expense of the week what's our next cost since every tournament's not at your home course in your backyard you got to stay somewhere one of the nice things about this great lak tour is it's all based in Toronto so your lodging expenses are pretty low and then there's some events like this week in London that's not very close to Toronto so so I either have to get a hotel Airbnb or stay with friends or family very lucky that I've got a very close friend who lives in Burlington so it's about an hour and 10minute drive to the golf course but that's okay because that means my lodging costs for this week are $0 which is always good done my practice for the day I'm feeling good I'm feeling pretty prepared ready to rock tomorrow morning fittingly we're in the car now which brings me to the next expense I'm going to talk about which is gas we got to get to these tournaments so we have to pay gas this week the fact that I'm staying at my friend's house and saving a little bit of money or a lot of money on a hotel I'm having to eat a little bit more when it comes to gas because that hour and 10minute drive is a lot of gas so for the three- round tournament I'm looking at about two tanks of gas and $65 a tank so that's about $130 added to the expenses for the week let's hang out the final expense for the week is food can't play golf on an empty stomach we got to eat so what you saw is I just did some groceries I get snacks for the golf course and grab some breakfast that I can eat in the car on the way to the course in the morning sometimes when you're staying with friends and family they feed you they'll cook you dinner every once in a while but you can't rely on that you got to expect to pay for your own lunch pay for your own dinner my groceries just cost me $20 and then there's 3 days lunch and dinner let's say $1 to $15 a meal so we're looking at an additional $30 a day so that's 9 tack in these groceries that's $110 for food now we can tally up all those three expenses and this week is costing me $860 so stay tuned tomorrow it's the first round of the tournament but it's also time for me to start talking about basically where I need to finish in this tournament so I can break Heen and potentially make a profit see you guys tomorrow round one is over it finished this morning but I had a bunch of errands to run this afternoon picking up my new clothes Fresh ad's Threads with my nice Bell let's talk logo and I had to regrip my golf clubs so now I'm finally sitting down do my stats take my notes for the day the day went okay I started off pretty well I had it one under through 12 holes but I made three really sloppy bogeys coming home I shot two overpow 72 two underpower 68s leading so I'm only four back with two rounds to play I'm still in this especially given the fact that I didn't have my best stuff today I'm I'm looking forward to stepping up a little bit tomorrow where do I need to finish though if I Want to Break Even this week I said the events costing me $860 if you look at this purse breakdown you'll see that I need to finish sixth place to win $850 so basically break even [Music] it's round two as you can see raining it's going to be raining all day it's going to be a real fun wet time this gives me a minute to talk about basically why why are we paying this money and playing for such little money and wanting to just break even or make a profit some of us are lucky some of us as I have in the past have had sponsorship dollars backing us or or funding privately backing us so the costs don't need to be the biggest concern you have the money to play so you're playing to get your reps get your experience and just kind of progress your career on for myself I'm kind of doing this out of my own pocket self-funding through my speaking income and I'm concerned about basically making a profit every week so I can continue to play but events like this the Great Lakes tour is really great because top 30 guys on this tour is ranking get into bigger events on the ccpt which is a tour based out of Quebec for example we have one next week that's a two- round tournament with a $50,000 purse entry fees is less expenses are less basically your break even point is finishing 40th so this event though not very lucrative is basically a Gateway into more lucrative better tournaments so coming out here putting up $860 having to play really well to break even something most of us love to do and are very lucky to do so that's basically Why We Do It ultimately we're doing this so we can give ourselves experience give ourselves reps so that when bigger tournaments come we've been in those situations we've had to make those putts to win to force a play off to make a cut what have you that's why we're doing it that's why we're slugging it out on these mini tours it's not glamorous but it's a lot of fun so I'm going to go out there in the rain try to survive today I'll see you guys [Music] later okay guys you can tell I'm no longer at the golf course I'm back in Toronto it's Saturday taking the day off to relx unwind decompress evaluate what happened this week this week I finished 20th I struggled a little bit on the second and third round three four sloppy bogeys each round really cost me finishing 20th is no money and it's just such a paper thin line between shooting a good score and then being rewarded for it and struggling a little bit and finishing in the middle of the pack it's tough it's stressful it it beats you up I'm not the only one who probably is down a little bit and a little beat up after this tournament 60% of that field made no money this week so it's tough but it's what we choose to do because we believe in ourselves and we believe in our work and we know that one day maybe next week maybe the week after that maybe a month from now the hard work and the patients will will pay off it's really easy to get frustrated and almost want to give up but you can't you've got to stay patient you got to keep believing in yourself and believing in your work and work just that little bit harder I've evaluated what went wrong and I know what I need to really hone in on for the next week's tournament we're playing for a big purse and a good tournament could you know make up for the last two events where I've lost money but this is it this is what we wake up to and what we go through when we are out there pursuing our dreams of chasing a bigger tour through mini tour golf it costs a lot of money and it's tough but we love it so guys thank you so much for tagging along with me this week seeing the ins and outs of the dollars and cents of what mini tour golf is like I hope this opened your eyes to that part of our job and our Pursuit that we have to deal with every every single day every single tournament and I'm sure a lot of people aren't aware of just what it costs so I want to thank you if you like this video give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel because there'll be a lot more videos like this as the weeks progress if you want to learn a little bit more about mini tour playing about professional golf you have some questions comment them below and I can make videos about that but again guys thank you so much and I'll see you next Monday that's my way