Nick Schreiber: Founder, Old Barnwell

NICK SCHREIBER: In most places, a caddie is a service for the member. At Old Barnwell, taking a caddie is a service for the caddie. It is really about a four-hour opportunity for the member to mentor, to get to know, to make an impact on a caddie. Gratefully, we've got a group of members that take that to heart.

MASON REED: I'm Mason Reed, and this is Invested in the Game, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each episode, we tell the story of remarkable people who have committed their time, resources, and emotional energy into making golf the wonderful—and sometimes maddening—game that it is.

On today's episode, I'm speaking with Nick Schreiber. Nick is the founder, owner, and visionary behind Old Barnwell Golf Club in Aiken, South Carolina. It would be enough that Old Barnwell has, in just a couple of years of existence, already become one of the highest-rated golf courses in America, or that it filled up its entire membership before they even built a clubhouse. But that's not even the heart of the story. Nick and his wife, Sarah, had a vision to break the traditional model of a private golf club and create a place that revolves entirely around a mission to make golf more accessible.

Nick's got a fascinating story to tell. His entire life contributed to the idea for Old Barnwell. In a short amount of time, they have brought access for children, hired hundreds of local youth to caddie and apply and get coveted Evans Scholarships. They've partnered with Annika Sorenstam's foundation to help up-and-coming female golfers, and much more. And he's just getting warmed up. We talk about the life journey that led to the creation of Old Barnwell, its surprising early success, and where it's headed.

We even have a nice surprise for Nick about the impact he's had on one of his caddies. Nick's a fascinating guy, and I hope you enjoy hearing Nick's story as much as I did.

Nick, welcome to Invested in the Game. Thank you for being here.

NICK: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

MASON: Well, I'm looking forward to chatting about Old Barnwell. You were featured, and Old Barnwell was featured, in one of our Challenger films that we create here at Schwab. Quick plug, they're on Schwabgolf.com, or you may see them on TV. And in those films we showcase people who are challenging the status quo in golf, and you and Old Barnwell are fantastic examples of this. And we're going to talk about how that came to be. We're going to talk about where it's at, where it's headed, but we have to go backwards in time to get to that part of the story and wanted to start with just a simple question about your introduction to the game of golf. What was your first introduction to the game and the role it played in your life in its early days?

NICK: Sure. So I grew up not playing golf. I'm sure I had held a golf club at some point, but my dad did not play. For a lot of people, that's usually how they're introduced to the game. For me, my introduction to the game was as a caddie. I grew up north of Chicago. I'm one of eight kids. I say this a lot, but I grew up with every opportunity known to man, but my father did not. For all of us kids—now it's 14, but I think back in the day was 13—at 13, you got a summer job.

And so for me it was washing dishes, and it was caddying. And so I caddied at a club called Old Elm. It was a bike ride away, and that was really the first introduction to not just the game of golf, you know, people playing it, but really the social aspect of it and the power of it. So I was 13 at the time and fell in love immediately, and that's when I really started to play.

MASON: How did you get into caddying at Old Elm without having been a golfer, having played golf? What got you to being a caddie?

NICK: So you know, in the Midwest and in Chicago in particular, there's a great tradition of youth caddies. I think a lot of folks are familiar with the Evans Scholars program, which we can talk about in greater detail, but it's just, you know, at, say, Chicago Golf or Old Elm, two of the best golf courses you'll find in the state of Illinois, the majority of their caddies, in fact all of the caddies at Chicago Golf, are students. And so you know, at 13, it's not an uncommon thing for, you know, kids my age to hear about it. It's a way to make quick cash, and you're outside, and so it was kind of an appealing opportunity. 

I didn't really … I had no idea how appealing it was until I got there, and, you know, back then there were no apps, so it was really, if you got there first before anybody else, unless somebody, you know, requested somebody else, you know, you were going to get out there, and so that was … you know, I could guarantee myself some quick cash and be home before, you know, 1:00 in the afternoon. It was a pretty good day.

MASON: And so in addition to cash, which is pretty good for caddies at that, especially at that age, you also started to learn, you know … I think one of the benefits of being a caddie is you learn adult things because you're carrying a bag for an adult, and you learn how they act for better or worse. You learn what they do for a living. So you also got a front seat to a lot of probably successful people, I'm assuming, at a club as prestigious as Old Elm. So you were also getting a little bit of a lesson, I'm assuming, in business and behavior and other things.

NICK: Absolutely, I think it's the money that maybe was the most appealing before I started caddying. And then once you get to know the experience on the course, it's as much about the connections you make and the lessons you learn. And it sounds really corny but Old Elm is kind of known as the CEOs' club in Chicago. And so pretty quickly you get introduced to people who are in the newspaper, in the Tribune, on a regular basis. And not only do you learn the traits and the types of behaviors that you want to emulate, but you also learn a fair amount about the folks that you don't.

And I think that can be equally as powerful, quite frankly. But yeah, so I mean, very early on, I had the opportunity, I think I was probably three or four loops in when I got to caddie for a guy named Chris Galvin, who was at the time the CEO of Motorola. And, you know, in the '90s, Motorola was like Apple is today. And I just remember him being so kind, so engaging, asking me questions and allowing me to ask him questions.

And that really stuck with me because the joke I make is that in any other situation there'd be security between me and him. And here he was just having a conversation with this 13-year-old kid who was curious about what he did for a living. And I've never forgotten that. And I had many experiences like that with other businessmen at Old Elm and later at other clubs where I caddied with men and women.

MASON: We'll probably come full circle to this when we start talking about some of the programs around the mission at Old Barnwell including the Evans Scholar program. So we're getting some of the source code here on potentially where the mission's coming from. When did you actually transition from a 13-year-old caddying for cash to actually playing? I've seen you play. You're a great golfer, so somewhere along the way you probably picked it up pretty early on, yeah? 

NICK: Yeah, so I started playing that summer, and I convinced my dad—my brother started to play a little bit then too—and so we convinced my dad to play when we would spend a couple of weeks up in Wisconsin. And so we played this, I mean, it's one of my favorite places on earth, but this dog track called Maxwelton Braes in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin.

You know, my dad who could not stand golf and who grew up really, I mean, honestly, I think he thought golf was so elitist and just not the type of sport that he was interested in. And then of course, once he started playing with us, he got addicted like everybody else. And it was a great opportunity to spend time together, you know, all of us. And so I really became obsessed, and, you know, in high school, you know, I went to a high school where we had a very good golf team. I always love to preface this next statement with that. Because I never made the team, tried out all four years, and did not. I mean, I played well, and I didn't even come close. 

So I was never a great golfer, but what was kind of nice about that is that because I wasn't good enough to focus on competitive golf, it allowed me very early on to start focusing on the walk and the journey of playing golf and so not just, you know, enjoying the people I'm playing with and speaking with them and learning more about them, but also kind of golf course architecture and really appreciating the places that, you know, I still am amazed at the fact that, as a kid, I got to walk the fairways of Old Elm and at Shore Acres, you know, places that are fantastic examples of classic golf architecture. So yeah, I mean, everything happens for a reason. So I'm glad that I didn't make the team any of those years, because it really did kind of kickstart my love of the game for other reasons.

MASON: Well, and I know you're an acquaintance of Andy Johnson. He told a similar story about the golf team, and he's a really, really good golfer. 

NICK: He is a really good golfer.

MASON: And you must have had some sticks in the northern part of Chicago back in the day because it sounds like there was a lot of, not just good golfers, but ones that went on to play at Illinois and these really top-ranked golf program. So just I just want to say not making the team, Nick …

NICK: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

MASON: … it's not a slight on your golf game.

NICK: No, I very much appreciate that. I wasn't ever considered as an alternate, so I wasn't really. 

MASON: You were really down there, OK.

NICK: Yeah, I was down there, but thank you for making me feel a little bit better there.

MASON: So you had a little bit of an interest in it recreationally, and you started to appreciate the walk. You started to look around and appreciate early days golf architecture, early days for you golf architecture. Did you continue that as you your life journey went on either through college and thereafter? Did it stay consistent like that? That that was its role in your life, the game that is?

NICK: It did not. I think like a lot of people, when I was in college, not only did I not have a ton of time, but I certainly did not have a ton of money to play golf, and I was fortunate enough to have some, you know, great internships and things like that in the summer. Playing golf was kind of an afterthought, and then once I graduated college, I had no money …

MASON: Went from zero to zero or less than zero, OK.

NICK: Yeah, exactly. And so it kind of went away for a while. And the one exception to that was I'd take a trip every year with my brothers and brothers-in-law and my father. And we had the chance to play some incredible places with some incredible people. And so for four days a year, I was reminded of what I was missing, and not only what I was missing, but just the power. It sounds so corny, but it's true. Like the, you know, one of my older brothers got his first really good job through somebody we played with on one of those trips. And it just kind of goes to show the power that the connections you make on the golf course are so much more important than the score you shoot. So it's something where I lost it for a little bit, but I still got a taste of it. So that when I kind of came back, it felt really good to be back. I didn't need a reminder of how powerful it could be.

MASON: So that establishes your relationship with golf and also some of the seeds of what we now know at Old Barnwell, which we'll talk about in just a second. What about your own career? So at some point you made a little bit more than zero, what … you were, I believe, mostly in the corporate world. Once you graduated college, what were some of the jobs, what was going on in your life? What were some of the jobs you had? What was the career path you thought you were on that is clearly not what it is today?

NICK: Well, I mentioned earlier that I was given every opportunity as I was growing up, and one of those opportunities was … you know, when I graduated college—my parents paid for my college—and so when I graduated college, I had the opportunity to take a little bit of a risk, and that risk was I wrote about music, about rock and roll music, for two years for magazines in Chicago and then later in Denver, and when I talk about making zero money, I was … I had no debt coming out of college, and I had debt after working for two years, so it was really … it was not a productive two years from a financial perspective, and honestly, it was a really kind of a difficult experience, but one I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I mean, I really, you know, sleeping on a futon mattress with no furniture in an apartment in kind of the worst part of Denver while trying to make ends meet and working at an airport, you know, to make money. That was a …

MASON: And you were writing about rock and roll?

NICK: I was a critic. Yeah. So I wrote for a magazine in Chicago for a year, and I was basically their music festival correspondent, in essence. And I got to travel to all these great places and see all these great shows and then transcribe all the interviews that the better writers were conducting. And then I got this great job at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. And no joke, I literally showed up for my first day of work, and nobody knew who I was or what I was doing there because the person who had hired me had lost his job, and the Rocky Mountain News was about to collapse. And so I showed up, and turns out I didn't have a job. 

And so I had to kind of figure it out. I wrote 50-word reviews for Westword, which is like a Village Voice subsidiary. 

MASON: Wow 

NICK: Yeah. And so that's kind of why I was working as a baggage handler and a bartender at an airport three hours away from Denver on the weekend so I could find some stability, financially.

MASON: I think I know you pretty well. We've known each other for a few years, but I knew that I would learn some things in asking you these questions. And this is, this is one of them. I did not know about the baggage handling or for that matter, the job that wasn't to be at the Rocky Mountain News. That's tough, actually.

NICK: Well, again, I was very fortunate that, you know, the reason I went back to Chicago is, I'm not joking, my sister who lives in the boonies of Colorado, you know, basically near Hayden, which is where, if you're flying into Steamboat, Hayden is the airport. That's the airport that I worked at. She came to visit me in Denver and saw my apartment. And so without me knowing, she called my mother and was like, "This is not a good situation. Like, he's got nothing in this place. It's in a not-great part of town." And so maybe a week later I got … 

MASON: They sent in SEAL Team Six to extract you out of Denver and take you back to Chicago?

NICK: I mean, well, it wasn't so much … it was SEAL Team Mother, you know, my mom sent a nice note and a check for $75 and said "Get out of your lease. Here's some gas money. Come back home." And I remember like, just sitting there reading this note, and it was like, all it said, it wasn't … it was just like, "Come back home." And you know, I'd given it a run, and I think I kind of saw the writing on the wall, and so I did, you know, I figured out a way to get out of my lease without hurting anybody's feelings or breaking any laws and drove back and then kind of entered corporate America.

MASON: What were you doing in corporate America?

NICK: Well, as it turns out that I mentioned my brother got a job. So he worked at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago and helped oversee trade show operations. It's a big trade show experience there for all sorts of industries. And so I got a job working on the floor for different trade shows. And after about six months started working at … they had a group of art shows that they owned and ran. And so worked as a sales manager at Art Chicago, and then I went to grad school. 

So I spent two and a half years at the Merchandise Mart, got some really good experience, kind of really got used to this 9 to 5 or getting up early and actually having a schedule and discipline and all that stuff. And then of course, had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and so decided to go to grad school, where I basically spent 18 months not figuring out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

But I came out of that and started consulting, which was a really good experience because that exposed me to some really talented people, to companies that were doing really impressive things. And you know, I just got to, I mean, I was working my tail off and traveling a ton, but I really got to watch people who are far smarter and more experienced than I was at the time, you know, do some pretty impressive things with … we focused on change management and employee engagement.

So like the McKinseys of the world would come in and say to Pfizer or J&J, "Hey, you've got to do X, Y, and Z." We would be the ones that came in afterwards and helped them execute on that strategy. And I worked mostly on the communications side. So I was writing speeches for, you know, Pete Coors or, you know, some of these kind of leaders at companies where communication is such an important part of that change management, of making sure that your employees are aware of and understand, you know, the changes that you're making and why you're making them.

And that really stuck with me. That communication piece, it's something that I've really held on to the point of excess, I think, with Old Barnwell in terms of … I try to be very transparent with our members about all the big decisions we make and why we're making them and, you know, I think I learned that through great leaders and great co-workers when I was consulting.

MASON: There's no word count limit in an email. You can write as long and as many words as you want.

NICK: You know, you know that. You've seen my emails. That is very true. You age when you read my emails. But hopefully for the two or three percent that get through my emails, they understand where I'm coming from and have a better understanding of the decisions we make as a team at Old Barnwell.

MASON: Well, help me bridge what sounds to be a pretty successful consulting job and career to Old Barnwell. What happened from there that ultimately started to be the transition or where you're at today—what was going on?

NICK: So the transition, there's kind of a throughline of risk that I was able to, again, take because of the opportunities I'd been given and the success that my parents had had. And so I had the opportunity to join a start-up that, of course, failed after nine months. But in that nine months, going from consulting to wearing so many different hats at a 10-person start-up was a shocking experience. And it gave me a ton of confidence in my ability to not just, you know, cold call and get said no to a million times but also actually make strategic decisions.

And so that led me to a group of folks that we started a software business together around HR tech, and that grew really quickly, and it was a great experience, and, you know, at some point we had to bring in adult supervision, which meant that I was no longer in the leadership team, which was the best for everybody, but I got to experience the whole kind of rise of that business and then the sale of it to a private equity firm. 

And, you know, unfortunately, you know, one of the benefits of that experience is that I was working a ton and learning so much. But one of the drawbacks is that when you're working a ton, you know, your priorities can get out of whack, or at least they did for me. And so I, you know, I hate talking about this, but it's just part of the story. And it is, you'll see, it's part of the story of Old Barnwell, too. 

You know, we had sold the business. I was the last founder, cofounder, kind of still in the business at that point, and you know, I'd had a drug and a drinking problem that I had hit extremely well since I was probably 18 or 19. And if you're familiar with addiction, you know, people can hide it really, really well until they can't. And I got to that point. And so, you know, this is the most embarrassing part. My son was 13 months old at the time, and I had to get help. And so I did. I got help, and that meant I was away from home for basically three months at the most important, for me, the most important time of my young child's life, you know, leaving my wife in just a really, really difficult position. And as you can imagine, when you come back from a situation like that, you take stock of what you've done and what you want to do. And I give, you know, a ton of credit to Sarah, my wife, who said, you know, "Listen, I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what's going to happen with us as a family. I don't know what's going to happen with you in your career. But whatever you do next, you better love it. You better really be passionate about it because if you're not, we're just going to find ourselves in this situation again, where stress, you know, gets to the point where you're trying to figure out ways to let out steam, and it's just a dangerous equation."

And so, you know, I was lucky. I joined a venture capital firm as a partner that really only took about 25, 30 hours of my week. And with Sarah's approval, we started talking about ways that we could create a mission-focused golf business of some sort that was green grass. And so we live in Charleston, South Carolina. We thought about a par-three course. We thought about something—I'm on the board of the First Tee in Charleston—something related to youth golf. And then of course, as is often the case, you get delusions of grandeur. And I think one of the best lessons I've learned in life is that in order to do great things, you do, you need delusions of grandeur.

And Sarah was willing to both be the realist behind these visions, but also the support system that said, "Hey, what would be the first step if you wanted to build an 18-hole golf course or a private club that's mission focused?" And so she was the one kind of pushing me along.

MASON: So you're in recovery, you're working a little less than a full load of hours, and you're having a lot of conversations with Sarah about how to enjoy life and find joy and give something back to the community. But it's like, "We'll build a golf course." Like where did that just, was that out of the blue, or had that been simmering for a while?

NICK: So it kind of goes back to Chris Galvin and that experience as a caddie at Old Elm. That really stuck with me that you could be anybody in that position and have this opportunity. And my brother getting a job, one of the introductions that was made around the private equity firm that purchased our HR company happened on the golf course. I mean, those things really stuck in my head. And so I think what it was, there was a study of some sort, I remember, that we came across, and I want to say it was a Stanford study about how the easiest way to kind of move up in the socioeconomic hierarchy is to be connected to or surrounded by people who are in those higher-income brackets. And that led us down a road of, "Well, that kind of jives with a lot of the opportunities that you get by meeting people on a golf course." And obviously, I love golf. I love the idea of being around a golf course. But we didn't really know until we kind of got farther along down the road that we could do something with a private club where, kind of the theory was, a great golf club has a few things at their disposal that can make a huge impact. They have a great facility for people who want to play golf that can be used to raise money. It can be used to host outings and things like that, which is important. 

But more importantly, they've got members who have a great deal of experience in various fields and who have the resources to help both financially and otherwise with their time and their experience. You know, we always talk about time, treasure, and talent. And so we figured if we could create a membership that understood what we were trying to accomplish and was willing to participate in that, we could create some programming that would have a great impact on the community around the golf course. And so that's, you know, kind of a long-winded answer, but that's really how we decided on the concept of a private golf club, an inclusive private golf club, which is an oxymoron. But we thought that we could kind of pull something off around that. And there are a lot of great examples to look at for bits and pieces of this puzzle.

MASON: You're teeing up my questions without knowing it. That was brilliant. I wanted to ask a little bit about this because the part of your story that's challenging the status quo is when you look at … and this is, you know, my mom might be listening. So I'm going to help a little bit with the lay of the land of golf courses. There's municipal golf courses that are public access, typically lower cost. They have some community programming, and they probably make up the vast majority of golf courses in the United States would be my guess without the statistics in front of me. There's other public courses that are probably more expensive, but they're privately owned—that might be a Pebble Beach or a Pinehurst or whatever. You can play those if you've got a little bit more money and maybe seek out those kinds of golf course. And then there's private golf courses, which are probably less than a quarter of the golf courses in this country, small memberships, you pay to get in, and typically built around privacy. 

They're built around the idea that you're with, you know, similar people, and you have a community of those people, and that's perfectly fine. That's their, the lane that they're in. So the challenger part of your story is that you tried to, you lifted up a little bit of the swim lanes here by saying, "Can we create a private golf course that has, that is centered around a mission and that will do things you typically don't associate or associate as much with a private club?" And I think you were answering some of that, but can you … was that because you believed that if you could bring people that are typically associated with a private golf course who also have means and connections but merge that with a mission that you may be able to have a little bit of a cake and eat it too?

NICK: 100%. That is a great way to put it. And candidly, the idea of building a public golf course is a much greater risk for us, you know, for Sarah and myself. That definitely, you know, I'd love to say that this is altruism, you know, 100%. But the idea of building a public golf course without any sort of … because in a private club, people pay initiation fees. And so you get some money upfront. Now, granted, we weren't charging much for initiation fees, but that did provide a little bit of stability. So I want to be clear that that certainly played into it. But I had also seen … I'm on the board of the First Tee, as I mentioned, in Charleston. And so there are couple of partner public courses that they work with and no private clubs that they were working with, and those public courses were actually … it was hurting them because the programming from the First Tee was taking up their space. It was taking up some of their tee times, and I just knew that, you know, having been around private golf, so many of these places have these wonderful facilities that are hardly used. 

And so it's like filling a hotel room in the last minute. I mean, you can sell it for cheap because nobody else is going to use it anyway. And so there were certainly some components to that. But to your point, the things that my father hated about golf, the elitism, the exclusionary component of it, you know, there's definitely some truth to that in some places, even today. However, there are many, many more examples of both members and clubs who aren't interested in that, and who want to expand the game, and who want to create opportunity for the people who play it and for those that don't. 

And so it was a lot easier than, than I imagined, quite frankly, finding people who heard about, there's a new course going up, and it's private, but it's mission focused. Like, "What is this?" You know, like a lot of people scratched their heads, but a lot of people reached out, not really concerned at all about the golf, saying, "Well, tell me more." You know, "I'm interested in this." That was the point that took this idea that Sarah and I had and actually made it something that we could actually pursue because there were people that were interested in this. So I'd love to say that, you know, I'm challenging the status quo, but it takes a lot more than me going out there and …

MASON: You needed people to write checks and people to say, "I'll support this, and I'll do the things you're trying to do." So why don't we talk a little bit about the mission itself? So you … and you can fill in the blanks if I get any of this wrong, but you're … it's difficult to find pieces of land for golf also. You … we're going to leave out some details, but you eventually find a place. It's outside of Aiken, South Carolina, and you begin to pursue what is now Old Barnwell with all the work that goes into building a golf course and starting to think about that. When did you start to outline what you and Sarah wanted the mission to be there? Did that happen over time, or were you very clear that it had, you know, x, y, and z components, and can you share a little bit about those?

NICK: Sure. It was very iterative. I mean we … I mean, frankly, we had no idea what we were doing. And so we had this kind of vision or this grand overarching concept of creating a welcoming private club, basically. And so that became the mission, which is to bring people together through golf, which is pretty general, but kind of hit on those things that were bouncing around our brains at the time. But it was through a million conversations with people in the golf industry, people in the nonprofit world, people who straddle both, and then with potential members that we kind of figured out, "Well that's a big mission, but there are very specific things we can do to act on that." And so it really became about finding programming that fit that bill and finding partners who had experience in doing these things that brought people together through golf. And so where we ended up is finding great partners. So we partnered with the Evans Scholars Foundation, which we mentioned earlier, which is, you know, a scholarship. It's the best scholarship in the world as far as I'm concerned. Each year, you know, right now they have 1,200 kids that are in 25 or 26 universities across the U.S. that are there free room and board and free tuition. They earn it. It is such a tough scholarship to get, but these are caddies that have earned it.

And they're a great partner because they not only could help us build a youth caddie program from scratch, but they also had the playbook for so many of these things that we had no idea what we were doing. So they're a good example of a partner we identified. Another thing that was important to us was supporting women's golf and creating a platform for that. And so we were really fortunate, through many of these conversations, to get introduced to Annika Sorenstam, who's the best golfer in the history of the game.

And so she and her foundation said, "Well, how can we help?" And so we created a program that would really help aspiring female pros who are graduating college. And you know, unlike folks on the men's side where, if you're a really good men's golfer coming out of college, you've got sponsors. You've got some financial backing. I'm not saying it's easy, but if you're coming out, and you're one of the top 10 amateurs in the country, you might still have to borrow money. You're working to find, you know, people who can help subsidize your housing and all that stuff. 

And so we created a program that we could sponsor aspiring female pros at Old Barnwell. And so again, what we really did is we iterated based on feedback and on introductions that were made within the game that allowed us to kind of take some ideas that other people had—none of these are original ideas—and put them to good use.

MASON: And it seems like what you did was also find members that not only accommodated these things, but leaned in on them so that it creates a bit of a virtuous cycle. So then they understand the caddie program and seek it out and want those to support those caddies. They, if the golf course is being used for an event, a women's event, they understand that, welcome it. They will volunteer for it. And it starts to go beyond that. I know that at one point when some of the challenging weather had gone through your part of the world there, hurricane had come through, and I think an email got sent out to the members saying, "Hey, we've created this Amazon list of all the things that are needed for the community," and then the list sold out minutes after you sent this list out with hundreds of things. 

So I think it starts to expand and become a bit of a bigger idea about the idea of being a member there. Is that a fair way to characterize that? That it's not just that you get to play the golf course, and we're helping some young women transition from amateur to pro golf, and that feels nice. It's actually a little bit more engaging than that, I would say, or …

NICK: Yes, I think that's a … "engaging" is a polite way of putting it. Honestly, I think what we ask a lot of our members. And so we wanted to create an exceptional golf experience for our membership. But we wanted to charge well below what the market would bear.

And in return, we asked our members to participate. You know, we made it very clear that we didn't want members who could write a check. We wanted members who were willing to take a youth caddie, who were willing to volunteer at a, you know, women's college event, or who were willing to help create a community in other cities, where we've got members all over the place. And so there are many, many ways for members to participate. But the idea is we wanted folks that wanted to be a part of that. 

We always say that, you know, in most places, a caddie is a service for the member. At Old Barnwell, taking a caddie is a service for the caddie. It is really about a four-hour opportunity for the member to mentor, to get to know, to make an impact on a caddie.

And gratefully, like you know, you can't tell in every case, but gratefully we've got a group of members that 99% of them take that to heart and really, really believe in that and are willing to invest their time, their treasure, and their talent towards these programs that help kind of celebrate and expose and invite those groups that are generally underrepresented in the game to have a seat at the table—and not just in golf but a seat at the broader table of life.

MASON: So we haven't really talked chronology, but just for people that are listening, Old Barnwell, by golf standards, is brand new. You are still in temporary building facilities. Your clubhouse will be … which is always a big moment for a club is when the clubhouse opens, will be opening this fall, as will some lodging. But I have to believe you did not think it would be this successful this quickly. You said you were taking a risk, and you have, I believe, a full membership and a waiting list, and you have already, before you have a clubhouse open, been designated a top-100 golf course, which just adds to this kind of incredible story. What are some of the successes, though, that you've already seen with the mission programs in addition to, you know, what seems to be early financial success, which is generating members and revenue and also, you know, having the golf community say, "This is a heck of a golf course."

NICK: Yeah, when we set out, rankings was never a priority, but I'd be lying if we weren't fully aware of the impact that that can have. I mean, it's a marketing tool. We haven't spent a dime on marketing. And to have people that become interested in the golf course allows us to spread the word.

And it's also, I think, a matter of pride for our team and for our membership that they took a risk to, and they've helped build a culture and a club that is being recognized, and that's, that's never a bad thing, but hopefully it's just another excuse for us to talk about the mission, and for most of our members, that's exactly what it has been. So it gives, you know, our members … their friends now want to come and play, if they didn't want to before, and then those members come and play, and they experience, you know, the culture. They experience the youth caddie program, or they see the kids course where kids are running around.

And you know, there's this opportunity to expand the impact and the messaging, so yes, it's a huge thing. But I mean the biggest measuring stick that we have in terms of our success will always be the things that we can do on the mission side. So you know, we mentioned Evans Scholars Foundation. We are extremely proud that, you know, this is pretty much unheard of, but we have two Evans Scholars before we have a clubhouse. So in our second year of existence, we have these two youth caddies that, you know, they have to get a hundred loops. They have to get the certain, you know, GPA. They've got to have character in the interviews, and things like that.

So we have these two caddies, Benton and DJ, who … they amazingly were selected as—not amazingly because they're great kids and they deserve it—but from our perspective to have those two candidates that early in this process is really fantastic and something we didn't anticipate. And a lot of that was due to interview training through some of our members or some of our members kind of giving them the support of extra rounds so they could basically hit that 100-round threshold for caddying. Another component is, I mentioned the kids' course. You know, we've been able to partner with national organizations like First Tee and Youth on Course to provide public access. On the kids' course, which is 15 holes, it ranges from 75 to 300 yards. It is, you know, it is not easy. It is fun. It is always fun. It is not always easy. But it's become this great playground for kids of all ages, for them to feel ownership over this place. You know, can't play there as an adult on the weekends until noon unless you're invited basically by a kid. And so when we allow public access, you see a great kind of melding of cultures. You've got these … a lot of our members and their kids who have, you know, a ton of resources at their disposal, some who don't. And then you see a lot of kids from the local area that are pursuing this game that maybe their parents hadn't really been aware of. And it's just a wonderful thing to see. And so to me, the idea that we have public access on that through some really great organizations is another milestone for us, and so we keep moving the goalposts back because we know that we can do more, and it's because of those members who are willing to accommodate that, that … hey, listen, they're paying for exclusivity whether they want to admit it or not. That's totally OK. That's a private club, you know. But they're more than willing to share with folks, and that's just incredible

MASON: Did you think success would happen this fast?

NICK: No, no, no. I mean, honestly, I think … you know, my father's a 20% investor in this. So it's Sarah and myself and then my father. When I kind of brought this up to him, he was … skeptical is an understatement. And the reason that he decided to invest was because of the philanthropic component of it. And he is very business minded.

And I mean, he was really reluctant, quite frankly. I mean, I really had to twist his arm. And now, I mean, when I have … you know, I talk to him fairly frequently about this. He's very interested in the philanthropy component, but he's excited because he's like, "You know what, this is a pretty good business, you know, we can …" Now, I want to be clear that, you know, we're still not profitable. We will be next year. But what that allows us to do is then invest in the programming. It allows us to invest in all the things that are important for our members, but most importantly in the programming and to expand our outreach and the impact that we can have on the community. And that is where … did I think that was going to happen so soon? No. Did I think it was going to happen at all? I mean, honestly, the goal was to get to a point where we could maybe break even and continue to build on the success via our members' generosity, not our, you know, our bottom line.

MASON: P & L sheet. And for people out there listening as well, there's a couple of sayings around the golf world. One of them is that "if you want to be a millionaire, start as a billionaire and then open a golf course." That … the old line about that. The other one is "The first person to make money on a golf course is the third person that owns it." So I say those not to be glib, but to say many people know that golf courses aren't great businesses. So the fact that you're talking about potentially being profitable next year is remarkable. 

I want to go back if you don't mind. You mentioned the Evans Scholars. I had a chance to, this is a surprise for you, Nick. You ready for this? I had a chance to reach out to DJ. 

NICK: Oh great, ha ha. 

MASON: One of the caddies you mentioned who received one of the Evans Scholarships. So the Evans Scholarships for you all is like a restaurant getting Michelin stars in its second year of being open. It's, it's that, it's that difficult. And he sent me a nice note. And if you don't mind, could I, I'm going to read this to you. I was going to just read a couple of parts to it, but I'm going to, I'm going to read this to you.

This is from DJ: "I'll never forget how nervous I was the night before I caddied for Nick for the first time. As someone who had never stepped foot on a private golf course, just showing up to work at Old Barnwell felt like stepping into a world I didn't belong in. I told my mom I was nervous. I just didn't know what to expect.

But from the moment I met Nick, all that changed. Despite coming from wealth, he never made me feel, quote, "less than." In fact, he treated me like an equal. That first impression stuck with me, and over time, I came to see that it wasn't just a kind moment. It's who he is. When people ask me about Nick, I tell them he's more than just the owner of Old Barnwell. He's someone who truly believes in the mission of making golf accessible, regardless of race, gender, or background. And that mission isn't just talk. It's lived out through the people he's brought into this space. The members and staff here are handpicked not just for their love of the game, but for their character.

Because of Nick and the youth caddie program, I'm now able to attend the University of South Carolina through the Evans Scholarship. That alone has changed my life. But even beyond that, Old Barnwell has become more than a job. It's become a second home.

Nick is a husband, a father, a mentor, and most of all, he's someone who leads with humility. He's a reminder that leadership isn't about status or money. It's about the way you treat people. And that's something that I admire as I come into my young adult life. One day, I hope to give back and contribute to the mission of Old Barnwell because it's given me so much more than I ever expected." 

I didn't ask for all that, but how does that make you feel?

NICK: Oh, it makes me feel really grateful that DJ found his way to Old Barnwell. That's incredible. He is such a special guy. Sorry. That's just, I mean, that speaks to his character. I mean, he is … he's one of … I think at his age, I was so unwilling to show vulnerability. He's got goals. I mean, he wants to be, you know, he wants to be, go to dental school, and he's got these ambitions, but he's also had a ton of challenge in his life, and that's his story to share. But, you know, he's willing to share that and willing to kind of share how he's overcome some of those challenges and the importance of his mother in that. And to hear that from him really, I mean, it means the world. It just, yeah, that's incredible.

MASON: I'm sure you have a lot of these "pinch me" moments where you were trying to build something. You had a vision, you had a dream, but you never know. You never know if it'll work. You never know really what true impact it will have. But I guess that's a demonstration of that.

NICK: Well, I'd love to take credit for that, but that is … DJ is making his own, his own way. 

MASON: DJ is going to be a star …

NICK: He is. He's already a star.

MASON: And I appreciate him … appreciate him sharing that and you hearing that. 

Let's look forward. You have a top-100 course. You have a full membership. Your buildings are going up here soon. You built a kids' course, and I believe just this week, hot off the press—we're not a big breaking-news podcast here—but, hot off the press, you announced you're building a second golf course, which I don't think was necessarily part of the original plans, or if it was, it was maybe a hope, but that's now happening. That's a real thing that at the site at Old Barnwell there will be a second 18-hole golf course in addition to the original one, as well as the kids' course. 

This is crazy. So talk a little bit about looking forward at Old Barnwell about either, you know, golf course, mission programs. What's the … what's the future looking like?

NICK: The future is, I mean, we are in such a good position thanks to our members and our mission partners that, you know, we hired a mission director in January, a guy named Ed Brockner, who, you know, in a previous life was the executive director of First Tee in metro New York. He worked as a VP for the Western Golf Association and Evans Scholars Foundation, and he came in, and this is often the case, kind of, you know, he politely took my amateur ideas and said, "Hey, these are really good, and these are not so good, and here's how we have to refine this." And so in kind of working with him over the last few months and seeing what our members have built in terms of a culture, we know that we can not only expand the impact, we can have a multiplier effect. And so the idea of expanding into this new course will allow us to do even more. It will allow us to expand the caddie program. It will allow us to expand access for public access for kids and creating another opportunity to get as many people on a golf course that might otherwise not. And so, yeah, this was not something we expected to, you know, it's something we certainly had hoped to do at some point.

I mean, 2030 was kind of the earliest we thought we might be able to do that. And so to be able to send an email to members this week to kind of officially announce it is really exciting. And I think there's a lot of details to hammer out. But the headline is, is that we wouldn't do this if it wasn't going to be good for the mission. Quite frankly, it'll probably be good for business, which will help bolster our foundation, our Old Barnwell Foundation, which is coming online later this month. And you know, there's certainly those elements to it, but for me, this is a mission-based decision to create another great golf course, a great golf experience, that other people can experience along with our members and to do some great things with our mission programming and partners.

MASON: Earlier on, you said that you started to realize that there were hand-raisers out there that as you were starting to look at membership, that you noticed that people were interested in this idea that they could belong to a private club and do something positive in the community and the golf community, etc.

Is your hope that there's another Nick Schreiber out there somewhere that will do this in Texas or California or Illinois? Or have you sat around with Sarah and said, "Well, maybe we could do another one in Colorado." There have to be more than just, like, you now have a model, and you probably have more people than you can even accommodate there. There have to be more hand-raisers out there. Are you up to your eyes in Old Barnwell? Could you do something somewhere else, or do you hope that maybe somebody looks at it says, "I can build the Old Barnwell of Colorado, and I'm inspired, and I'll call Nick, and Nick will tell me everything, and I'll, I'll use his blueprint."

NICK: Well, I would love for it to be called the Old Barnwell of Colorado or wherever. But the truth is that again, we are taking ideas that other clubs have in place. And our benefit is that we're like a laboratory. We can take all those different ideas and throw them at the wall and see what sticks. But to your question, yeah, I have no interest in expanding this outside of our community, but I do have an interest in creating a model that can be replicated. I mean, I think, you know, we say this a lot, but you know, I'll give you the example of the Annika Ambassador Program. So you know, if this is working in Aiken, South Carolina, it can work in Jacksonville, Florida, or Scottsdale, Arizona, you know, where those are the kind of hubs where these young professionals practice and play. It is additive to our community. It is additive to our members to have these young women who are pursuing a career in professional golf around.

It's just … it so outweighs the financial or monetary investment in the program. And I think other clubs will see that. And my hope is that they will. So yeah, I think I would love it in 10 or 15 years, or 20 years or 50 years or whatever the case may be, if people look at Old Barnwell and they say, "Man, that is a great golf club." And there's not really any talk about the mission because it's not unique. It's not alone in doing that and …

MASON: It's become normalized.

NICK: Yes, exactly. Again, I think, and I just want to be, I can't stress this enough, and I'll pick on Augusta National. When I grew up, you know, and I was a fan of golf, you know, Augusta National is everything you want to see on the TV. It's just this incredible experience watching the Masters each year. And then as I got older, you read a little bit about the history, and there's some, you know, there's some challenges that they've faced and some decisions they made that, you know, aren't great. And I kind of had this impression of Augusta National as I got older as kind of like everything that was wrong with private golf. 

And now we're about 45 minutes away from Augusta National, and they have been very helpful in so many of our mission endeavors, but now I realize that they are like everything that is good about modern private golf. They, without looking for any sort of credit, are doing more for the city of Augusta than any other organization. They are doing more to expand the game of golf through Drive, Chip & Putt, through the Augusta National Women's Amateur, through international competitions. They're doing more than any other organization in the game of golf, and they're not asking for credit. And so I think that, man, was I wrong. And boy, even though they're not shouting it from the rooftops like we are about our mission, they're setting a really incredible model. They're setting an incredible example for other clubs like us who want to have an impact like that. So we're not alone. We've got plenty of people to look up to, and our hope again is that whether it's in Colorado or Florida or New Hampshire, there's an opportunity for clubs to invest just a little bit and to get a great return for their members, for themselves, and for their community as a whole.

MASON: Well, golf is a great platform for helping communities and charity. I read an article recently said there's 178,000 estimated charitable events at golf courses every year. And the combined charitable efforts of golf aren't even close to the combined charitable efforts of the four major sports in the United States. So there's something here. I think what's unique about what you've done is creating a membership that comes into it knowing that that is what the club revolves around and maybe breaking the concept that a really architecturally significant modern golf course and having a mission have to be two separate thoughts. 

Final question I want to ask you. So I think I know where a lot of your optimism rests. But when you think about golf in the future, broadly just the game of golf in the future, what gives you a sense of optimism about that?

NICK: I'll give you two answers. One, I mentioned the Drive, Chip & Putt. We are actually really excited on Monday. We're going to be a regional host for that competition that if you make it to the finals, you play the day before the Masters begins. They have the big event at Augusta National. And so we have over 190 kids that are showing up. And they're from all over the Southeast. We're proud that I think we had more applicants than any other club, which is incredible, except I feel bad for these kids because, if there are fewer applicants, they'd have a better chance of getting through. 

But that to me that … like … and these kids are from all over the place, and they come from different backgrounds, and that is really makes me very optimistic. I'll give you another example though, which is, because of my opportunity to be, you know, on the Challenger series, I got to go to the pro-am at the Charles Schwab in Texas at the Colonial a few weeks ago, which was just an incredible experience. And I had a caddie on my bag who was not from the area. He drove an hour and a half to be a caddie that day. And he was homeschooled. He had never caddied before. He was an incredible caddie. And so in talking to him, he had only started playing golf two or three years earlier, and he was already a plus two. I mean, this was like, he was like half … I'm a short guy. He was half my size and just a delightful kid. And so like that gets me really excited. I mean, that's, and to see, I had never been to a pro event like that before. And to see the impact that that event was having, and this isn't just on Charles Schwab—it's on the community as a whole and the membership there at the Colonial—that was really, really cool. So I'm really optimistic. I think there are always challenges to growth, and there's a lot of history that we kind of have to overcome. I always like to say that we want to create a new tradition that belongs to everybody.

And I think that you're seeing kids like that and kids at the Drive, Chip & Putt who are really pursuing that and who are going to be great, you know, shining lights for the rest of us.

MASON: Nick, as we wrap up here, I just wanted to share two words of gratitude for you. First, thanks for making the time to chat with us. I appreciate you doing that. And second, thank you to all that you and Sarah and the team at Old Barnwell have done for golf and the surrounding communities. I'm confident the impact will be felt far beyond Old Barnwell and for many years to come.

NICK: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. And I'll just say that, you know, as much good as we're trying to do, selfishly, this is the most fun I could possibly have in my entire life. And so I'm very grateful to be doing it. It's a blast. And I get to talk to people like you. And I don't take that for granted.

MASON: Awesome. Well, we may have you back again someday. We could talk more about the expanding mission, but thanks again for your time. Take care.

NICK: Thank you.

MASON: Take care.

So that's it for us today. Thanks for listening. You can check out Nick's course at oldbarnwell.com or on Instagram at old_barnwell. 

For all of Schwab's golf content, our films, tournament news, and promotions, check out SchwabGolf.com. If you've enjoyed the show, which we hope you did, we'd be really grateful if you'd leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or feedback wherever you listen.

We'll be back in two weeks with Sam Hahn, CEO of the hottest equipment company around right now, LAB Golf.

For important disclosures, see the show notes or schwab.com/TheGame.