Dustin Heise 0:00

Right on. Well, we know that since we've had some time together there in the the winter, uh, Garrett, we've been looking forward to getting time together to just have a chat and and you know, kind of dig into how we've continued to collaborate, inspire one another, have a laugh, but also, you know, just think about ways that we can continue to perpetuate the good work and the the momentum that's happening right now in sport. And I can't thank you enough for some time today. My good friend Garrett Ball, today's guest, he's the chief operating officer at Gulf Canada, where he helps lead everything from major championships and business operations to long-term growth across the game. A former CFO, five-time national championship in lacrosse. He brings a mix of rare leadership, sport operations, athlete perspective to one of the most influential sports organizations in the country, certainly, but you know, more broadly than that. Thanks so much for taking us a time, Garrett. Really appreciate it.

Garrett Ball 0:54

Well, what what an opening. That's an unbelievable bio. I appreciate you. I appreciate everything you do. I love the way you put yourself out there. It's been great to get to know you on our board at for Tourism Canada and looking forward to this. So thanks very much for having me.

Dustin Heise 1:09

Yeah. Well, it's a pleasure. I mean, it again, it's just about growing together and how you know when we have anyone that comes into our circle of influence, how we can continue to spend time with them, invest in them, take them to the next level. I mean, immediately you made me feel so welcome as a new board member at uh Sport Tourism Canada. And just, you know, knowing that we can continue to build together, perpetuate the opportunity, not only here in Canada, but inspire the globe on what's possible with economic impact and sport and sport tourism, but also using sport as a platform to help improve people's lives. And you're doing just that at Gulf Canada, but I know you did it long before that. So I'll just start to just kind of dig into the fact that you've come from an elite athlete to a finance leader to COO. What was that defining moment you know that really showed you leadership in sport and the business sport lane would become, you know, where were you wanted to go?

Garrett Ball 2:04

Well, I think I think you know, you don't become a leader if you don't go get it. If you don't want it, you won't get it. So I don't know if I have specifically a defining moment. I I recall the defining phone call, though. It was about a decade ago. So at this time I'm playing competitive lacrosse back then, and and my wife and I, we're probably three, four years into our first home together, starting to have a young family. We'd had a daughter, starting to have our second child, and I recall driving to and from the rink. Many of the guys a little bit younger than me at this time in my career, the money wasn't while I was playing, but I could continue to do it. And I think the desire was really dying on me. And you start to transition to your career and you think about ways to compete in your career. So as I said, the desire was dying. I was transitioning from player to coach to assistant GM. I was doing lots of coaching on the side. Well, it it killed me. And uh, probably didn't go into a rank for five years to watch the cross. And I was just tired of it, ready to start that life with my wife that she deserved, and and with our kids. So here we are, our new home. And uh it's five days between Christmas and New Year's. And uh I'm about two years into my role at Golf Canada. I was a controller at the time, and my phone rings. We're shopping for some furniture that's probably too expensive for us to be shopping in the first place. And it's the CEO of Golf Canada. And I'm thinking, this isn't good. You know, I see he calling me after Christmas before New Year's, and he was calling to tell me that they were making a change at the CFO position and were ready to appoint me as the CFO of the organization. So that might be the defining moment, I suppose. I think prior to that I had spent 10 years with Breastwater House Cooper's, and this was maybe the defining moment. You start to think about how you can be a leader but still compete, you know, and in the skills transfer from sport to the border. You know, you gotta prepare, you got to analyze, you've got to build a team, create culture, manage stakeholders. And while the desire to play eventually faded, the desire to build teams and the that the desire to compete only got stronger about 10 to 12 years ago.

Dustin Heise 4:18

Man, I love that. And I I doesn't shock me at all that that's how that happened for you, just knowing how you know, getting to know you, you're a stoic, you're a poised leader that has a a sense of readiness about him at all times. And I just even remember in some of our earliest chats, like, you know, just a direct question, like you'd ask, How's your business? And I knew what you meant by that, because you're asking, like, in one breath, you're kind of asking, like, hey, just how's it going? In the same breath, you're asking, like, how are things going in your business so that we can kind of get to build, you know, on each other from that perspective. I just love that about you. You know, and especially as you as I look at and listening to you share the story of the the lacrosse to you know, the business of golf transition. Sport clearly taught you about bringing people together across different spaces. You know, what were the the likenesses of of the two sports that you were able to build community in lacrosse and golf? I do think about lacrosse.

Garrett Ball 5:14

Yeah, um, it is a tight-knit, passionate sport. You know, it's not the biggest, it is our national sport. Everybody in lacrosse knows everybody. Yeah, and you think of some of the communities that are famous for lacrosse, if you will. So we're I got North Orangeville 15 minutes away from where we are today. Uh, you've got Six Nations, which I had the honor and privilege of playing for. On your side of the country, you've got New Westminster, where arguably some of the first lacrosse in in this country, uh, sorry, the indigenous communities was played. And those communities are so tight and everyone is so passionate in helping each other. As I said to you before, the the call started. I was out moving nets last night at 10 o'clock last night to prepare for a lacrosse room this weekend. On the contrary, golf is much larger larger, right? You got 6.8 million Canadians playing this. The sport is diverse, it's built through accessibility and shared experiences. Maybe it cheats a little bit. I think golf is the greatest sport in the world for creating community um through the handicap system. You know, it's one of the great equalizers in the sport that allows you and I to compete against each other, whether we're on nights or nothing, or for five bucks, we could be vastly different golfers, but actually go out and compete and have some fun against each other and carry that drive that athletes too. So the other highlight that it would make is sort of both sports have become anchors in communities. So we would talk about six nations and orange hill and new west. On the golf side, golf charitable impact is immense. So about $400 million annually get raised through golf tournaments in Canada. And then oftentimes, the golf club in a rural community is the major employer economic driver, right? Outside of the LGTA and Vancouver, some of these communities thrive on that mom and pop golf course. So I would say LaCrosse sort of builds community through deep roots, where golf builds community through broad reach, but both create connection in the communities they operate in.

Dustin Heise 7:14

Yeah, man. Such a good call. I mean, you know, I'm based on Vancouver Island here, as you know. I I I couldn't agree more. And you know, I was so blessed to get to play the game growing up as a junior all across Vancouver Island, broader than that, even, but it sure does bring people together. I mean, I also played lacrosse for that matter. I love both games like uh, you know, as much as you do for sure. But you've been able to just make such an impact on on both the business and operational side there at Gulf Canada. It's really impressive. And you guys have been incredible mentors to Canadian sport. You in particular have been an incredible mentor, you know, to me in particular, around how to continue to build the business that you are, you know, especially through your major events channels. But, you know, as you've continued to grow the business, and and we know like you gotta be so on point and diligent and you know, and staying on top of it, how do you ensure that you know that growth never comes at the cost of culture, Garrett?

Garrett Ball 8:07

For maybe for the cliches that might come out and respond to this rightfully. Firstly, uh culture doesn't happen accidentally. It must be intentional. And I think that you've got to be direct and and you've got to have the right people to help build culture. And uh I think as our headcount has doubled from about 65 people 10 years ago to about 135 people today, it's been important that we weed out the people that have bad attitudes. And bad attitudes will kill cultures from inside the organization. And we've made some shocking and surprising changes as some of our staff, but knowing those attitudes and cultures would hurt us in the long run. We've had to make some difficult decisions to make sure that we've got the right team in Gulf Canada. As you would tell, not for profit organizations can't always compete on compensation. So we would say we would compete through experiences and purpose. Currently, we're a proud recipient of the hundred great places to work to designations, and we owe a lot of that credit to our leadership team and and our chief people officer. We've invested heavily in bringing our teams together. So we think we've navigated through the pandemic, we've navigated that growth from 65 to 100 people. Now we've got staff in every province of the country working in disparate offices, homes, whereas five, six years ago everybody was in our form building looking at the existence. But now we bring everyone together uh in a direct and concerted effort through national holiday parties, maneuver board meetings across the province and engage our staff in whenever that meeting is in that province. The RPC Canadian Open is another excellent opportunity to bring everyone to Ontario to experience and be part of our biggest event of the year. And the CPKC Women's Open also moves around. So lastly, I'm sitting in it, and you know, it's a bit silly and privileged at Gulf of Canada to be one of the I don't know, more financially viable plenosaurs in our country. But we've just built a new headquarters to 26,000 square foot building with new technology, right with an amenities, you know, golf stimulator for a cafe, 70,000 square foot putting park for our staff, and we've struck a tremendous deal with the golf course that we're adjacent to where staff have complimentary golf on a daily basis. So well, you know, and buildings don't create culture people do, and our job is a great opportunity for those people to connect and and to succeed.

Dustin Heise 10:38

Well, I think it's evident that you you nailed it in one keyword. It was intentional. And you know, how you guys have realized what it is that you needed to have as a culture to get the best people in to deliver on, like you'd mentioned, you know, one of the most successful NSOs in Canada, no question about that. And you're competing against some you know massive sports and culturally massive sports in Canada in order to be exactly that. But where have you seen over the last decade that you've been able to have the the impact that you wanted to have the most? Of course, you can share quite easily and evidently in in your major event strategy. It's world leading or world class by all means. But I'm talking like in the golfer or in the participation. So just maybe just share a little bit about the impact that you guys are you know also intentionally having.

Garrett Ball 11:27

Yeah, well, you're right. We've won several awards at our our national championships, but also secondary. I think right now I'm sitting in what we would call our first T candidate of the boardroom, and first T is intentionally targeting underserved and underprivileged kids. We launched this in 2020 in just some you know, not the business history area. I was raised by a single mom. We lived up in gear to income cooperative housing. A lot of my registration fees to play hockey and from lacrosse were subsidized. And now we've built this program more than 275,000 youth since 2020 that have participated in first T, almost 100% funded by private donors in fundraising. So we raised about $12 million since 2020 to fund this program. And it's not necessarily to get more golfers, of course it's building up the pipeline, but it's just using golf to teach the life skills, confidence, respect, resilience, integrity. And so far the stories from parents and teachers and participants are pretty powerful. So as I said, it's not producing better golfers yet, we all, but it's producing better people. And I think the realization that golf cats and and our team and my team can influence communities in future is is really, really incredible. And I'm a father now. And um my wife and I instill this in our kids, they don't need to be the best. They just have to be great role models and be confident in what they're doing to be successful in life.

Dustin Heise 12:55

Man, that's so awesome. Hence our values, and you're so aligned. I love it. I'm gonna double-click on the uh the first T piece here, and I'm good with how you share like the world leading athletic component that comes in time for sure, but you're creating massive access and inspiring kids to be able to access a program in a game that is you know front and center all the time on sports and sports networks and and things of that nature. How did you guys get you know the you mentioned $12 million, but did that spearheading come from within the board and the governance? And someone wanted to make sure that golf was able to have that impact? Was it board-led? Was it ops led? It's fine if it's both, but how did you get that across the line to have this succeeding at that magnitude at that 12 million level?

Garrett Ball 13:43

Yeah, well, it it was uh management led, you know, our CEO along with the steel of our foundation. We have a separate foundation with property to see how I did that. And we've seen this in the US, and and you have Kevin flew on yeah, it's spot on. You know, Kevin came in about halfway through the start of this program, and he had seen the way that US donor philanthropy was growing support in the US. And so we didn't need to recreate anything, the blueprint was there. And Gulf, again, thankfully, or maybe fortuitously, has an affluent sort of panographic behind it. So a lot of those uh affluent donors were already in our network or our purview. And when we were able to tell them the story, the impact we would have on their donation and their philanthropy, yeah. I was surprised, I admittedly, how fast the donations started to come in. And these were multimillion dollar term donations to support the program and support the vision, and with grown to be one of the biggest chapters of first tea in the world. It is a program run out of the beach in Florida, but Canada is now one of the largest chapters in the world.

Dustin Heise 14:53

Yeah, it's not only is it inspiring, it's lovely to hear how it gets moving and the momentum that builds in, like you said earlier, it's just about getting started and and taking a leadership role in whatever that pillar of the community needs to be. And in this case, it's about getting you know kids out there and and people out there in the first place. When you think about the future of Canadian sport and the kind of leadership you know that's going to be required, what do you think Canada and and you know our organizations are in need of now more than ever?

Garrett Ball 15:23

Well, I mean, I think first and foremost, I would call my friend your friend too. Adam Matt Cooper is finally the right politician to lead Sport Canada, in my opinion. You think about and this has been a criticism of the his predecessors, but there wasn't a real sport person in that role, and it's changed so often over the last decade that it finally feels like the federal government has some stability without him at the helm. He's the right guy to delete it. Also, much like me, he came from very blue-collar, you know, subsidized uh upbringing and can speak to that as he tries to build a Dell Sport in Canada. In Ontario, we're also fortunate to have Mr. Neil Lumston at the helm and the two of them leading sport in Ontario in the country is significant. But I I think that we you know as Canadian sport needs to maybe prioritize people before podiums and encourage contribution in diverse perspectives. I think unfortunately the the way that podiums were maybe prioritized led to some of the unfortunate and safe support issues that have crippled the sport industry in our country over the last decade. But we can move beyond that now. And I think that the future sport in in Vancouver then are trying to get past that and change the sort of way that we innovate sport in our country to match the Canadian demographic. As I alluded to earlier, we filled this putting park. And we know in golf the next person that comes into our support, the 6.9 million, or you know, when we tip the 7 million, they're not coming in at private clubs. They're coming in in golf simulators and short course and short format at golf. And we want to build these across the country so that there's innovation in our sport and keeps new Canadians and diverse Canadians from acquiring a sport that they haven't been able to access in the past. So I love that. My conclusion was sort of the success in this country will include participation, innovation, and growth, not just the wins that we count to every two years.

Dustin Heise 17:24

No, it's I mean, so spot on with you're starting at the top and and and having leadership and shared leadership across this massive country. So you nailed it. We've got a great leader at the top, Adam Vancouver at 100% supported and certainly in lockstep with a prime minister that sees sport as a nation builder at this time. Like it's unbelievable timing. We're so blessed to have them. You've got a a sport minister in Ontario that's able to perpetuate that too. And we need to see that across the country as well. No question about that. And you know, having you know the ability to work alongside each of our provinces and territories and help them to help their provincial territorial governments unlock a similar investment. And hopefully that, you know, then we can see this power of sport and certainly getting Canadians and and folks that are you know able to participate and build an incredibly strong Canada, you know, from a athletic perspective for sure, and just active and healthy, but also see the association or domestic production continue to skyrocket because Canadians are healthy or they're active, they're they're not a you know a burden on healthcare. They're able to get that much more out of an hour of work because they feel better and they know that they've got something to look forward to. So, you know, man, like we're certainly on the same page in in in that spirit. But then I think you guys are nailing it with innovation and inspiring through that. I'd like to just chat you know a little bit more on that uh that innovation piece. So you're unlocking those that don't necessarily have to always get to a golf course, and and obviously we'd want that for everybody, no question about it. Are there players or rather are there companies that are getting behind you guys with that vision to unlock that many more Canadians to just get you know able to swing a club and do it in ways where you know they couldn't have before? And I'll even ask like around persons with a disability that can get out there and play the game because of new new ways to think about the game.

Garrett Ball 19:22

Yeah, well, we're immediately going to talk about golf simulators. So this is a wave that no other sport has seen, too, right? So golf has gone through a significant rise in its popularity. You know, people are starting to call golf cool again.

Dustin Heise 19:36

Absolutely.

Garrett Ball 19:37

And it's sort of started in 2020 when the the pandemic pushed people outside, and and golf was one of those avenues where people could play. At the same time, we've had this technological innovation that has started in Korea and started to come over into North of America and infiltrate communities across Canada. So in my hometown, there's eight now commercial simulator businesses, and they're popping up every month a new one. I'm sure it's the same on the West Coast. We're seeing it more in Canada than we are in the US with these candles simulators. Now, hard helps, but no longer does a female or someone with a disability or a child show up the golf course and be intimidated by who's behind them, how fast they're playing, how many balls they're gonna lose. And you can come right into a golf simulator. The format is shorter, the time is shorter. If you don't have the ability to walk, you don't have to in a simulator. This innovation is helping to grow from 6.8 to 8.8. And in our last study, there's now 800,000 people in Canada that only play in golf simulators. Oh, yeah. They only play inside. So we're gonna continue to perpetuate this and grow a membership program through simulators and provide benefits and drive people to these commercial businesses again. And back to what I was saying about the first T's. You're not trying to drive people to the first T of a private club anymore. There's so many avenues for new golfers to start.

Dustin Heise 21:12

Love it. And then I also have no doubt that you guys will find the conversion to both and one or the other, and just you know, marrying them. So it's it's what an exciting time, and that's so rad. I also love the way that golf and it's not happening everywhere yet, but it I I have no doubt that it'll continue to evolve. I love just you know, my background in board sports, and we started out our chat before the call here, you know, even chatting about that, just the style of the sport too, and just the way that, you know, the way that people dress and the way that you can kind of play in your own style now more than ever. And I even see that influence from skate, surf, snowboard with what you can purchase in in golf apparel and golf brands and things of that nature. And I think that's gonna be a lot of fun to see that that evolve and you know, for us to be able to go get on snow together, Garrett, but then also take a similar style to to the game of golf or you know, the the ability to just just rock what we feel most comfortable in. Maybe I'll throw it to you for for a final word on just that, and then uh then I'll let you have your day back as you get ready for a massive tournament right in front of you here.

Garrett Ball 22:16

I was laughing because I was gonna ask you about six years ago, my club brought out this almost snowboard skateboard style single-person golf cart. You stood on it, you put your bag on the front, and then you had a handlebar, almost like a scooter, and you drove around the golf course. Well, they were super dangerous, and they lasted one year. I haven't heard anything about these. No one seems to know what happened to them. There must be lawsuits across the country over these things because I thought I was athletic, and I was jumping off into the woods on hills, and even who was less athletic than me was in serious trouble with these things. So I thought that was a good laugh today. I'm glad you you brought it up because I forgot to raise it earlier. I mean, I think sort of like I would leave you with one final line. It's the scoreboard's fade, but the impact our sport hasn't keeped the last lifetime. And we're so fortunate to get to work in sport and talk about it and and experience some of the greatest events in this world through sport. So we're privileged and it's an honor uh to talk about it and continue to share our stories.

Dustin Heise 23:19

Well, thanks so much, man. I couldn't agree more. Well, I I'm excited to see the impact that you're gonna continue to have in sport and the game of golf in board sport as we look to continue to grow the cross pollination of from snow skate surf to the course together and continue to perpetuate just you know inspiring people in general through good leadership, man, and just the the way that you lead, it's uh it's gonna continue to inspire many, many others. And uh can't thank you enough for the time today, my brother. Thanks so much.