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- It is not impossible, but it is hard to see past the shrill glare of public dialogue and political discourse these days.

It's kind of eclipsing of economic and commercial data that would be helpful, if we could see it, so that in turn creates more uncertainty.

Welcome again, and thanks so much for supporting the most widely watched and the longest running dialogue on Carolina business policy and public affairs here in the Carolinas.

There is not necessarily a looming recession because the data doesn't really support that.

What we are feeling though is uncertainty, and uncertainty is not good for business activity.

We will start this week's dialogue and discern what is fact, what is fiction, and what just may be fear.

Joining us later, again, Jay Karen, CEO of National Golf Course Owners Association.

- [Announcer] Major funding also by Foundation for the Carolinas, a catalyst for philanthropy and driver of civic engagement, helping individuals, nonprofits, and companies bring their charitable visions to life.

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Welcome to brighter banking.

And Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," Aaron Nelson from the Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill- Carrboro, Antjuan Seawright of Blueprint Strategy, and special guest, Jay Karen, CEO of the National Golf Course Owners Association.

- Hello, welcome to our program.

We can say Happy Spring, Happy Easter.

We're right around the corner, right.

- We can say Happy March Madness too.

- That's right, Happy Spring.

- Okay, I wasn't gonna bring that up.

So, gotta be Chapel Hill.

- Oh, gotta be Chapel Hill.

- [Chris] So, Duke?

- We'll cheer, except when they play each other, we do cheer for The Triangle.

- Yeah, okay, well, you're very gracious because most.

- I might be unique.

- Yeah, okay.

- Lady Gamecocks, period point blank.

- Lady Gamecocks.

- You wanna hear something cool, and probably gonna get in trouble for saying this, but we're workin' on Dawn Staley right here on this set.

- She'd be great.

- She is a rock star.

- Call her the GOAT.

- Yeah, 'cause she is, she's pretty amazing.

Anyway, I completely go down a rabbit hole.

So this year, here we are at the end of the 1st quarter, hard to get past a lotta the political discourse, but if we cut through that veil, what are the things that you're most worried about?

- Oh, well, we're thinkin' about how do we stay focused on the things we thought were important before things felt like they got crazy.

Communities had clear goals for us, workforce, housing, supporting small businesses, making sure that we've got the infrastructure that we need, workforce development.

But now it is loud and crazy and distracting and stayin' focused on those things will be our top priority.

- I think the name of the game for most reasonable people is survive and advance.

There's so much uncertainty in the entire ecosystem, whether it's business, whether it's healthcare, whether it's infrastructure.

You name the industry, there's so much uncertainty.

What was once certain for a lot of people, i.e., federal government, has now become uncertainty because of all the disfunctionality in Washington.

So for most organizations, whether you're private or public, the name of the game is survive and advance.

Let's just see what today holds, and if we make it through today, we'll plan potentially for tomorrow.

But we sure cannot think about years down the road, as we are accustomed to in any industry.

- Well, go ahead, go ahead.

- I was gonna say, I agree with that, and that is what then I worry about.

On a day-to-day basis, it's really hard to solve big problems, if you're gonna take 'em just one step at a time.

And folks are, they're pulling, it's like hypothermia.

They're pulling back from their extremities, from their long range planning and just focusing on what their current challenge is.

And that, I think will be a real challenge for us.

- The, go ahead.

- And I was gonna say, what's so scary about this very fragile moment that we're livin' in is the guardrails have been taken off.

There's no such thing as true indebtedness to the constitution.

The rule of law does not apply in most cases, where a lotta people are test driving a lotta things, and truthfully be told, we're now moving further into partisan corners, so we cannot get things done that should not be even close to a partisan disagreement.

We should not disagree on providing affordable quality healthcare.

We should not disagree on good roads and schools and all the basic necessities that life calls for us to do, but now that seems to be in a place of division and that's why I move from concern to worry.

- Let me ask you a question on balance.

The kind of debate that goes back and forth, political business creates uncertainty is most likely not sustainable for any period of time at the current velocity that it's happening.

Economists will call what is going on and given a name to it, they call it creative destruction.

I don't think this is, it doesn't seem that a lot of this is happenstance, and I don't mean just what's coming out of the Trump administration, but this idea of, well, let's blow things up and reset 'em.

Does some of the dialogue that's going on, we use the Department of Education, and the Trump administration wants to completely shut it down or at least blow it out and move it into other areas and figure out the budget and how to reduce it.

Aaron, does there need to be a review of some of these old agencies and how they used to do business?

- Oh, maybe, likely.

But the strategy of let's blow it up and then try to put the pieces back together feels to me a little unusual.

I don't think any of us in our businesses would hire the, let's bring the Tasmanian devil in, let's have him spin around like crazy, and then see what's left standing and what we need to glue back together.

Wouldn't do that in our own businesses.

So yeah, we do need to take a look, and we probably need to do it faster than we've done in the past, but we need to be a little more thoughtful.

- No one is against transparency, should not be.

No one is against weeding out waste, fraud, and abuse to the system.

I think we should do that in all aspects of our lives.

The challenge is the approach to where this administration and others are taken to this idea of getting to waste, fraud, and abuse has become dangerous.

When you lay off 80,000 employees from the VA, that becomes dangerous.

When you talk about laying off FAA agents, that becomes dangerous because we have planes literally fallin' outta the sky.

When you think about eliminating the Department of Education at a time where kids are preparing to take the next step in the collegiate journey, these decisions become consequential because they impact people, not just the policies, but they impact people.

- And let's push this now to where the rubber meets the road for a lot of us, and that's on the state level.

North and South Carolina both have state budget surplus projected in 2025.

South Carolina's 1.8 billion.

North Carolina's a billion, down a little bit from last year, down a lotta bit from last year.

Does some of this uncertainty, is it going to burn up that surplus?

Do you expect it might?

- Oh, I don't know.

In North Carolina what will eat our surplus, and for good reason, is investing in recovery in Western North Carolina.

The challenges that they have, the need for direct government action to help the communities recover, is a way we're gonna spend some of those funds.

I do think that the economic output, the ability to still generate the taxes that'll produce net revenue will remain.

There'll be a lotta pressure to invest in schools and some other things, but Western North Carolina is a key community priority.

- Three things are gonna impact our surplus.

One, people, right.

We're a growing state, and so South Carolina's going to figure out how to make adjustments to the growth.

Two, policies, policies that impact Washington.

When you talk about cutting funding, grant funding that will go to towns and cities and entities like colleges and universities, that's gonna impact where, how do we keep those programs afloat because those programs are life or death.

And then the economic bill of health of the country always has impact on the budget.

We are teetering on a recession.

The current administration has received poor marks when it comes to handling of the economy.

Most economists are fearful of a recession when you think about tariffs, and that will impact the Carolinas.

So you can only imagine, smart budget writers and lawmakers are thinking, if we move towards this tariff kind of idea and thinking that's gonna impact how government functions and flows.

And so, we've got to put money up for a rainy day.

And then the other element is North Carolina and South Carolina are preparing for elections in 2026, so there's going to be this notion of giving money back to the taxpayers to show that we can run government and we can make taxpayers feel like we're being sufficient with their money.

- Yeah, just quickly, 'cause we got a minute left.

In budgets, there is a clear movement for teacher pay.

South Carolina has in fact eclipsed North Carolina in teacher pay.

North Carolina has a house bill now that has made its way or making its way through to increase teacher pay fairly dramatically, at least goin' in the right direction.

Would you expect more of this in the next few years?

- Well, I'll say I'm hopeful, both personally as the husband of a special education elementary school teacher, who tells me the story of her peers who take those long drives and work real early in the morning for not very great wages.

There's no community or state that has regretted raising teacher pay.

It pays off always.

- I think for us, as the little brother of a high school principal, it's not just about teacher pay, that's one element, but we have to fully fund public education.

Minimally adequate is our standard for education in South Carolina, that's dangerous when we're competing with North Carolina and Georgia.

We have to fund education, the whole hog we have to feed, if you will, so that includes improvement to our school buildings, the technology, the things it takes for our children to compete in an ever changing global society.

I think teacher pay is one element of it, but teacher retention is another.

- We're out of time, guys, but stay with us, we're gonna join our guest in a moment.

You gave me an intro here, and you were talking about Hurricane Helene and how some of the budget's gonna go, some of North Carolina budget's gonna go for that.

Interestingly enough, Hurricane Helene, we're gonna take a deeper dive at a panel with the reconstruction of Western North Carolina.

It has gotten through a business cycle.

It has gotten through a news cycle a couple news cycles now, and not many people are noticing what is going on in Western North Carolina.

We will talk to people like Kit Cramer from the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, David Jackson from the Boone area and Watauga County Chamber of Commerce, Peter O'Leary, the Mayor of Chimney Rock.

Unbelievable damage, if you've seen some of those pictures or if you've experienced it, and Carol Pritchett, Mayor of Lake Lure.

They will all be in the studio, talking about recovery efforts and where they are because they are a long way from normal.

Golf in the Carolinas is almost as congruous as college basketball, Friday night football, going to the beach.

The golf industry has continued to experience significant growth.

The global golf club market, valued about 4 billion plus last year, and it's projected to grow another 3% per year through 2030.

These are big numbers.

In 2023, a record 531 million rounds of golf were played on the globe, surpassing the previous high of 529 million in 2021, so business is good.

Back to my original point, if you are in the Carolinas, you are at ground zero for the golf business.

Joining us now is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Golf Club Owners Association.

We welcome back from Charleston, Jay Karen.

Jay, welcome back.

Good to see you.

- Good to see you Chris.

- Yeah, why you still smiling?

- Well, golf's had a bit of a glow up the last five years.

Last time I was on the show was 2018, and I was talkin' about our industry recession that we were still in.

The number of players had been receding, the number of golf courses had been receding, and it's a different story here in 2025.

- It's pretty amazing, so Jay does that?

So is a growing golf club business or just growing revenues, does that mean that the financials of golf club ownership are good?

- Yes.

We've seen essentially for the first time in 20 years now, a net positive number of golf courses, which means fewer are closing down, and finally, golf course owners in private clubs have the capital to reinvest.

They haven't had this in decades, to reinvest in irrigation systems, their clubhouses, capital improvement projects that they're putting back in, so when I say a glow up, I really mean it.

The golf courses today that have survived the industry recession are doing quite well.

- Aaron, please.

- That's really interesting.

And it seems like who's playing is changing, that it isn't the same set of folks you would've seen in the '80s.

Golf is gettin' a little younger and a little more diverse.

Is that true?

- A lot has changed on that side.

One is there have been concerted efforts in the golf industry to expand the game demographically for sure, right.

One of the worst stats in our industry is that the leadership table in golf is 97% male and white, right, but when you look at who's playing, it's more diverse.

But golf doesn't look like America yet.

That's kind of one of our phrases we like to say as our aspirational phrase is, "Golf needs to look like America."

And when you look at the under 30 crowd playing golf, it is much more diverse, much more female.

So if you were looking at it as a stock, the futures are looking pretty good right now, but the economic center is still the Gen X and Baby Boomer generation.

But, it is changing.

Also, you had the Topgolf phenomenon.

You have social media, which has completely rescrambled how people see golf.

When they look at golf now on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, it is super cool, super accessible, looser, more fun.

And that is appealing to younger generations for sure, technology driven, music on the golf cars, it's a different vibe, and that's what needed to happen.

- That's right, it's not just a quiet talking guy watching a very long shot travel across the sky.

- [Jay] Not anymore.

- Consuming the watching.

- [Jay] It's a little louder.

- [Antjuan] As the non-golfer here, certified non-golfer.

- We can change that.

- I'm curious to know how America's economic bill of health or the dysfunction in the political ecosystem, how and if that has impact on the industry as a whole in how you all move forward, backwards, or even stay still in some regards.

- So the intersection of some of those political conversations in golf really probably comes down to labor for us.

The hospitality industry took a big hit during Covid, right, the great resignation that was happening in hospitality, and golf was not immune to that.

So trying to attract people back to the game and to to work at golf courses has been challenging, in a time when we're busier than ever on top of that.

And we rely, many of our great resorts and clubs rely on foreign workers, that come to America under H-2B visas.

And so the H-2B Visa Worker Program, which is a returning worker program, these folks come here every year, go back home and come back again every year, they get caught up in the immigration debate.

And it's really not a national security matter, this is a labor issue, right.

So, it's a tough one for us because there's, we are always lobbying in Washington.

One of the things we do in at NGCOA is we lobby for the golf industry, and one of the things is to try to keep raising the cap of H-2B visas so that we can get more qualified workers, 'cause local Americans won't do those jobs.

They won't rake the sand traps.

They won't for even 16, 17, $18 an hour, they won't do those things.

And so, we rely on these workers.

- I got to think that you would, you would partner along with the agri-business because don't they have the same challenge?

- There's is H-1B visa.

They do, but they're separate visa programs.

One is is coded for agriculture, one is more for hospitality businesses.

- Lemme go back to somethin' you said just a couple minutes ago.

You're talking about Topgolf and the phenomenon that that created, and you also talked about technology.

As golf moves indoors with technology, more accurate of your slice or whatever you're doing, and the club, the actual indoor club, that's built around indoor golf, is that cannibalizing from playing outdoors?

- So that's spreading like wildfire, and we haven't come up with the right term for them, but in Korea, they call 'em golf cafes.

And these are places, and they have over 5,000 in South Korea, where there are more in South Korea than there are Starbucks, and these are the places where there might be five to 10 simulators, food and beverage.

Some of these folks don't even have food and beverage.

You get a key fob, and you go let yourself in and play, have fun on the simulators.

Over 2000 locations in America have popped up in the last five years.

And that to me, right now, it's satisfying the golfer.

It's scratching the itch for the golfer that wants to go on a rainy day or just wants an hour long experience, and they can play Pebble Beach on the screen.

And we talked about this six years ago as, "This might be coming," there was one in Columbia that had just shown up.

Today in Charleston there are probably 10 locations in Charleston.

And it's complementary at this point.

It's not cannibalizing necessarily 'cause you can't replace the outdoor experience.

There's nothing like being outside and playing golf.

This can become a feeder ground for people because we're having capacity issues at public golf courses, the tee sheets are full.

So where are people gonna play golf in the now or in the coming years?

These simulator places are less embarrassing 'cause nobody's really watching you.

You're not worried about what are the rules here, what's the culture?

Do I have to have my hat on forward or backward here?

It's much more egalitarian, and I love it.

- [Chris] Mm hm, yeah, go ahead.

- How does the climate crisis impact the industry?

Because you talked about moving indoors, outdoors conversation, but obviously, the storms are gettin' heavier.

You all have experienced that in North Carolina.

We experienced it in South Carolina.

How is the climate crisis conversation gonna impact the industry movin' forward?

- Good question, Antjuan, so out West, it's an existential question, access to water, right.

And so, golf courses have to tell the good story of what they do for communities to remain on the pecking order of who gets to have water.

So definitely, that's a problem.

And then you have storms, like what happened in Western North Carolina, the City of Asheville Municipal Golf Course, a storied place, first to integrate golf in North Carolina was this municipal golf course in Asheville, decimated by the storms.

So in these cases, golf courses are gonna have to figure out how to create water retention areas on their facilities.

A lot of 'em are losing access to insurance, are going bare on certain aspects of the land, and so that's a real challenge that we're having in our industry.

But one of the salves, to your point, is moving golf indoors, right, and where there are weather issues, climate issues, to be able to play indoors.

It's not just simulator places.

If you look at what's happened on television, the TGL program, I mean, the PGA tour players are now playing into giant simulators, these greens that can move and do interesting things, the undulations.

So a lot of this is moving indoors, and I'm here for it.

- Is it gonna start feelin' more like putt putt though?

Like at some point, when you're makin'.

- Don't knock the putt putt industry.

- I've got, Antjuan, the windmill of fear.

- No, there are.

They've taken that and injected steroids into the old putt putt thing.

There's PopStroke, and I mean Tiger Woods is an investor in this company, so this is what do you do on a Friday night?

Let's go to PopStroke, and that's where it is these lighted, amazing, souped up putting places.

So yes, it's happening.

- [Chris] It's not your Myrtle Beach putt putt anymore, is it?

(men talk over each other) - No that's exactly.

- What about length of play?

So many sports are trying to make it go a little faster.

Folks seem to have less attention span, don't have all day long to play.

18 holes is a, it's not just money, it's time.

- Yeah.

- Who has that kind of time?

Are there efforts to try to make it faster, shorter?

- Well, pace of play is always a challenge, right, and so there are always efforts to try to make the 18 hole round a little quicker.

But there has been a real rise in nine hole play.

More people are playing nine holes than ever, and that's really good.

Short course development.

When you look at the golf courses that are being built in America, they're either really high-end private clubs in the middle of nowhere 'cause that's the only place you can find 300 acres of land, or they're short courses.

There's just not, it doesn't pencil out to build an 18 hole daily fee course anymore, so what if I have 40 acres?

Can I build a short course, fun place, and take a driving range and add what's called Toptracer range technology to it, where it's gamified and you're havin' fun, and you can play Pebble Beach on a driving range, and they're gonna come out and serve you food and beverage.

So that has totally changed how golf course owners are using just their own driving range for a shorter fun experience.

- We don't hear much about the LIV effect as we used to.

Is that settled down?

Is that normalizing now?

- Who knows?

I mean that's, I call all that golf Hollywood a little bit, 'cause it's on television, it's the rock stars, movie stars of golf and so forth.

And apparently, they keep saying they're getting closer to a deal, but it doesn't really impact us going out to the first tee, that's because we wanna get out, have a good time with our friends and family.

So that's a little bit of noise still, but it's getting settled.

- Okay, interesting.

- How does infrastructure play a role on course development and the conversation, rural versus urban, suburban?

Like, what does that actually mean for the industry?

Because we're havin' a lot of different pocketed conversations around infrastructure around the country, and obviously, you can't have golf courses without proper infrastructure.

- So maybe that's one of the reasons they're building golf courses in the middle of nowhere where they don't need as much infrastructure.

But when you look at existing golf courses, a lot of the daily fee courses that are out there are ripe for the picking for redevelopment, right.

As we say in the industry, "The dirt is worth more than the grass."

And where are you gonna find 200 acres near population centers, but golf courses?

So you've got multi-family developments going in there, and then, so to your point, it's zoning.

Can a golf course turn into a 2000 home facility, and does the local community have the infrastructure to accommodate that?

- So to follow that thread, is that repurposing the entire course?

Is it changing it, is it going away?

Do you see more of that?

- We have for sure for the past 15 years, and it's an economic.

It's sad for golf, but it's kind of an American dream story for the owners of the golf course.

They held it for 50 years in their family, they finally got to sell.

Some though, to your point, are downsizing.

They'll take nine out of play, build homes or sell it to a corporate campus or whatever it might be, or create a park, and then they keep the nine open for that shorter experience that we talked about.

So they're trying to thread the needle there a little bit with what they have.

- I hadn't thought about how you said it.

'Cause if you were to zoom out on a community, look down, and say, "Where should we build housing?"

You'd see these big open, already graded, already infrastructure laid.

- You can see it in a plane.

Just, as a plane comes into Charlotte, look outside, you can see where the green space is, and a lot of it can be golf courses, yeah.

- Is it mostly private ownership still, nonprofit ownership, clubs with boards of directors?

- Private clubs are mostly still member driven, member owned kind of facilities, but 75% of courses in America are public access.

And of those, about 1/3 are municipal golf courses, so the fat of the bell curve are privately owned public golf courses in America.

- So, and we're runnin' out of time, so I'm gonna have to take this back, in about a minute and a half, Jay.

So, back to that point.

Do you see municipal courses or public access courses converting to take advantage of the economic leverage that they'll have?

- The municipal sector is where we should place our bets for golf courses for a few reasons.

They're closest to population centers.

They still have in their DNA the need to be affordable to play, 'cause that's what's kind of disappearing are the affordable places.

And they're the ones, who may be buying up some of these privately owned golf courses that want to go outta business or are ready to sell, that the municipality in their green space efforts are, that's the only sector that's been growing in golf actually from a golf course supply standpoint.

So we're placing our bets on the munis.

- 30 seconds left.

Are drives getting longer?

Are people getting better at hitting the ball?

(Jay laughs) - The PGA tour players, some of them are hittin' the ball longer, but the average golfer really isn't.

No, no, we're still trying to.

- Yeah, I whiff at it a lot.

Mine goes in the woods a lot, so I've given it up, but.

- There's a nice walk in the woods and a nice walk in the grass.

- A walk in the woods.

Jay, thanks for being back here.

- Of course.

- Let's try not to, we'll try not to let it happen, be multiple years before we have you back, but it's nice to see you.

- You too.

- Thank you.

Antjuan, always good to see you.

Thank you.

- Good to see you.

- Come back again, Aaron.

- Thanks, Chris.

- And not on video (both laugh).

Until next week, I'm Chris William, we hope your weekend is good.

Happy spring, good night.

- [Announcer] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation for the Carolinas, Sonoco, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

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