Two Sets of Rules Are Better Than 20 Million

Hi All,

It’s been a while, but I’ve been gone for good reason.  2013 is turning into a memorable year for me and TGA.  We’re in the throes of building the TGA Sports Foundation, YTD franchise startups are double any previous year, we’re undergoing a shift in corporate structure as well as organizational culture, and it’s all given me a lot to write about.  I just need to (and will) do a better job of allocating time for it.

There are several half written blogs saved on my computer from the past four months, things I found interesting and started writing about but never finished.  One involved anchoring and bifurcation, topics that came full circle this week.

Anchoring has never felt right to me, but there’s also no evidence (even according to the USGA) that it helps.  I understand on a philosophical level why they decided to make and uphold this rule change, but from a practical level it makes little sense to me for a governing body to allow something for decades and then decide to abolish it.  Seems like they need to sleep in the bed they made as opposed to negatively altering the most important part of the game for dozens of professionals and thousands (millions?) of amateurs.  There’s a reason the USGA wrote their ruling the way they did and have been hording hundreds of millions of dollars (while simultaneously eliminating their grants program), and I wish the magnitude of the legal battle they’re preparing for served as the writing on the wall about their wisdom (or lack thereof) with this decision.

More disappointing to me is the opportunity lost for the USGA to have strongly considered adopting two sets of rules – “bifurcation” – to prevent the anchoring ban from making the game of golf even harder for many amateurs. 

I’ve heard great arguments against bifurcation, but at the end of the day my belief is this – golf doesn’t have one set of rules, it has 20 million as most amateurs create (knowingly or unknowingly) their own versions.  Therefore, it makes sense to me to have one set of simplified amateur rules that the most casual of golfers can understand and follow.  Make it three pages max.  Allow anchoring.  Play all OB, lost ball and hazard penalties like lateral hazards.  Allow winter rules year-round.   Etc.  All of these things would make the game less difficult/frustrating and speed up pace-of-play, two of golf’s most painful ailments.  And they would make the rules less confusing and create more conformity.  Seems to me that steps like these would be the ones that are really "for the good of the game."

For the professionals, keep the existing rules unchanged and make them theirs.  Every other major sport – baseball, basketball, football, etc. – has separate sets of rules for amateurs and professionals, even up to the competitive college level, so what’s the big deal about doing the same with golf?

I think it’s going to be a fascinating several months/years as this plays out with the PGA of America being angry about the decision, the PGA Tour claiming it will consider adopting its own rules, equipment companies considering lawsuits and amateurs facing the decision between worsening their game or being possibly labeled a cheater.  Not a good situation, in my opinion, for the USGA to put everyone else, and themselves, in.  For those of us in the industry and all the golf entrepreneurs out there, it’s worth following closely as the outcomes will have a big impact on what threats and opportunities exist.

Thanks for your patience with my lack of blogging, hope you’re doing well and I look forward to having a much more engaging dialogue for the rest of 2013.  Happy entrepreneuring…

Best,

Steve

2013 Will Be A Great Year For The Golf Industry

I love New Year’s Day.  It’s a day in which most of us are reflecting on the past, thinking about the future, and doing so in a purely optimistic and hopeful way.  One of my goals for 2013 is to approach every day like that.

I didn’t write a New Year’s blog in 2012.  That’s because, while being optimistic and hopeful about most things, I wasn’t for the golf industry.  I thought early on that 2012 was going to be painful, and in many ways it was. 

More industry professionals lost jobs, saw decreases in pay and were forced to look elsewhere for career pursuits.  I know because they were calling me.  Unfortunately most didn’t have the capital to start their own business with TGA as they had been living paycheck to paycheck for years as golf professionals waiting for the industry to turn around.

The USGA didn’t help matters by telling pros and amateurs alike that they’re cheating if they anchor (i.e. use) a long putter, literally causing backaches for the ever-important baby boomer generation.

The PGA Tour further hurt matters by literally wiping away the dream for journeymen professionals of making it onto Tour with a few good weeks at Q School.

But, as in all years, good things happened too.  Year over year rounds were up 7.7% through August, hopefully not the sole result of weather being more golf-friendly this year than last.  And there's new leadership at the PGA of America, with Peter Bevacqua as the newly-appointed CEO and Darrell Crall filling the newly-created COO position, both of whom come from business and development backgrounds.  These are positive steps forward.

But there was a bigger thing that happened in 2012, a bright spot that was/is very bright, that fuels my optimism and hope for 2013.  That is the early sign of a significant and critically important cultural and philosophical shift within the industry.  It’s difficult to describe this paradigm shift with concrete examples as it’s more of a feeling – little things picked up by open ears and eyes.  People being more open-minded to new ways of thinking and acting.  New ways to enjoy the game being thought of and tested.  People being less territorial and more collaborative.  I see it and hear it every day.  The number of golf entrepreneurs is growing.  The status quo is diminishing.  And I believe this is exactly what needs to happen for the industry to rebound, the game to grow and those of us within it to thrive with viable opportunities to build a career and generate wealth.

For this reason, I think 2013 is going to be a great year for golf as this feeling hopefully becomes cemented in strategies, decisions and actions – and we’re investing in that belief at TGA.  We’ve doubled our staff and increased overhead.  We’ve identified and are pursuing new revenue streams.  We are trying to execute an aggressive growth strategy.  And because I believe so much in these things, I recently increased my equity position in the company.

I hope 2013 is a year of innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship for the golf industry and I wish you all the best in it.

The PGA Tees it Back While Telling Us to Tee it Forward

Adam Schupak had an interesting tweet recently that I’ve been thinking about.  It said:

Adam Schupak ‏‪@GolfSchupak

‪@JoshuaJTGA True but a mixed msg to say avg golfer should play fwd while pushing the pros back. If pros at 7700, whose going to play 6500?

There was intriguing dialogue back and forth about this concept between industry vets I know well and good points were made on both sides.  But the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Schupak’s stance.

When you’re a kid shooting hoops in the backyard, what does everyone dream about?  Scoring 60 and hitting the game-winning shot in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, of course.  Or, at least that’s the scenario that played out in my mind almost every afternoon for years.

Fast-forward to adulthood and the same concept applies.  When you’re on the putting green lining up 8 footers, what do you imagine?  Is this the putt to win the U.S. Open or to shoot 88 instead of 89 on the local muni?

Kiawah's 9th Hole, a 494 Par 4

Tee It Forward is a great program and one that I want to succeed.  I bet we’ve all had too many bad experiences being behind a player or group that was playing inappropriate tees and holding everyone up.  A recent NGF study determined that the average round of golf takes 4 hours 17 minutes and 30% of golfers think that this is too long.  This is important considering most golfers cite golf’s time commitment as one of the two main limiting factors in how much they play (the other being cost).  Therefore, speeding up and maintaining a healthy pace of play is critical to the industry.

People want to play the courses the pros play.  The want to play under the same circumstances as the pros to gauge how far away they are from being as good as them.  It’s the kid in us that still likes to dream and play make-believe every once in awhile.  And telling folks to tee it forward while the pros are teeing it back eliminates the opportunity to do so.  Which is why people don’t play from their appropriate tees as it is.

Of course, the PGA of America has an obligation to the players and fans to provide a tough and fair test of golf, as does the PGA Tour and USGA.  However, I agree with Schupak that they’re sending a mixed message by using a 7,676 yard course for their national championship while promoting Tee It Forward during commercial breaks.

Next year the PGA Championship is at Oak Hill in NY.  Wouldn’t it be neat if they kept it at the length currently listed on the PGA’s website of 7,134 yards, or even shortened it to under 7,000, to align with their campaign?  That would send a powerful message, especially if they used other means besides length to challenge the players.  Otherwise, as long as the pros keep teeing it back, I believe the PGA will have a hard time convincing the weekend warrior to tee it forward.

The PGA Tour Golf Marathon Adds More Miles

This has been a big week for Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour.

Yesterday, the Tour officially announced that the 2014 season won't kick off in Kapalua in January, but rather will start three months earlier at the Frys.com Open in October.  The big change is that the four Fall Series events will start awarding a full allotment of Fedex Cup points, hence raising them to the same level as all other tournaments.  The Frys.com Open is just a few weeks removed from the Tour Championship, so an already exhaustive season will go from nine months to ten, with the only break coming from mid-November to mid-January.

I know people very close to the Frys.com Open and am happy for them.  This steroid shot from the PGA Tour speaks highly of their hard work and the quality of tournament they run.  And, if they switch the course to The Institute (a club so private it makes Augusta look like a muni) as this article suggests, it would be an awesome way to start the season.  I'm also happy for the McGladrey Classic, another Fall Series event where my favorite golfer, Davis Love III, is closely tied to as the Chairman.

While this decision boosts the profile (and surely the sponsorship dollars) of these events, I'm scratching my head about how it improves the experience for fans.  The golf season already seems like a marathon and fans will now be asked to jump into a new one a few weeks after the last one ends.  That's like having Week 1 of a new NFL season three weeks after the Super Bowl.  Then, as quickly as fans are asked to embrace a new season, they're forced to take a two month break until the Hawaii events in January.  I further worry that the longer schedule will result in lower-quality fields across the board as players have to pick and choose their events to avoid burnout.  Finally, I've always personally enjoyed the Tour season starting in Hawaii as it's like a big breath of warm fresh air after the holidays.

Following this news yesterday, the Tour announced today that Web.com is the new title sponsor of the Nationwide Tour, effective immediately.  Reports are that the deal is worth >$10 million/year for 10 years.  I couldn't find financial details of Nationwide's deal with the Tour, but I suspect that it wasn't $10 mil.  The Tour's recent decision to eliminate the traditional Q School model and make all aspiring Tour players go through the Web.com Tour for at least one season almost certainly sweetened the deal.  I've already talked about why I disagree with this decision.

Two days and two big announcements by the Tour.  I applaud them for being proactive about trying to grow their business.  I hope we look back on this week in a few years as a big one in a good way, but I fear that we will not as I don't see these decisions being fan or player friendly.  I hope I'm wrong because big in a bad way is not what a fragile industry needs right now.

Analyzing Taylor Made's Purchase of Adams Golf

This has been a big news week in my world – the PGA Tour announced significant structural changes, my company TGA officially announced the launch of TGA Premier Youth Tennis with the USTA as a Founding Partner, Los Angeles announced itself as a meaningful startup community at Start Engine’s Demo Day (where I’m a Mentor), and Taylor Made announced its acquisition of Adams Golf.

I’m going to talk about all of these items in future blogs, especially TGA’s strategic decision to enter the tennis industry as the lessons learned are already reminding me of case studies I used to debate in business school. 

Today, however, I want to look at Taylor Made’s Acquisition of Adams Golf, which was announced on Monday.  I’m going to look at it from three perspectives – financial, strategic, and implications for entrepreneurs.

Financial:

Taylor Made Adidas Golf Group acquired Adams Golf for ~$70 million, or $10.80 per share. This represents a premium of ~71% over the share price from before Adams Golf announced it was examining major new strategic directions in early January and a 9.5% premium over their closing price last Friday of $9.86.  Upon news of the acquisition, shares rose 8.8% to $10.73 on Monday (where it currently remains), indicating that the market likes the acquisition, at least for Adams Golf.  Shareholders must like it too considering the stock at this time last year was $5.22.

Adams Golf had $11.85 million of operating income in 2011 on $96.50 million of revenue, so Taylor Made gets an equipment company that is profitable with ~12% operating margin. This seems pretty good considering Callaway, the other publicly-traded golf equipment company, had an operating margin of almost -10% last year with $81.09 million of losses on $886.53 million of revenue.  Therefore, Taylor Made paid 0.72x revenue and 6x earnings.  I don’t have any comps to compare these multiples to, but at first glance they look pretty good to me considering the lack of profitable equipment manufacturers in the industry.

Strategic:

Adams Golf’s focus on mid-high handicappers nicely complements TM’s portfolio of products that focus on low-mid handicappers.  Therefore, the acquisition buys top-to-bottom market share for Taylor Made.  Additionally, when analyzed through Porter’s Five Forces (which is a great model for looking at strategic decisions), the deal looks like a good one:

Threat of New Competition – the acquisition makes the largest golf equipment manufacturer even larger.  I agree with many leaders in the golf industry who feel that we’re about to see consolidation amongst equipment manufacturers and this move is a step in that direction.  As a result, threat of new entrants into the market decreases as barriers such as capital requirements, brand equity and economies of scale tilt more in favor of Taylor Made. Analysis – thumbs-up for TM.

Threat of Substitute Products or Services – since there are no alternatives to golf clubs – meaning, you need to have them and them alone to play on a golf course – this “force” doesn’t apply much to the acquisition.  In terms of customers spending their time/money on activities that substitute for golf, this deal also has no impact. Analysis – neutral for TM.

Bargaining Power of Customers – consolidation almost always leads to less bargaining power for customers due to fewer options that create less competition.  Analysis – thumbs-up for TM.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers – this move gives greater economies of scale to TM and therefore gives them greater influence over suppliers. Analysis – thumbs-up for TM.

Intensity of Competitive Rivalry – I believe the acquisition will increase rivalry in the short-term as competitors scramble to compete with a growing market leader through increased advertising spending and so forth.  However, in the long-term, I don’t believe any equipment company can create a sustainable competitive advantage through innovation due to USGA regulations.  Therefore, manufacturers will (and are) evolving from R&D houses to marketing firms.  Once this happens, golf clubs will essentially become a commodity from a technological standpoint and industry leaders will need to succeed through brand equity.  New  private-label entrants will then be able to enter the market with equal quality and significantly reduced price-points through reduced overhead, thus increasing competitive rivalry for everyone.  For both the short-term and long-term, that spells trouble for Taylor Made.  But, I believe this will happen regardless of the Adams acquisition. Analysis - neutral for TM.

Implications:

For entrepreneurs, I think consolidation is bad news in the short term and good news in the long term.  As technology becomes a commodity, and big players fail to innovate (as is often the case with consolidation), opportunities will arise for new entrants to capitalize on the huge market of people who want top-of-the-line technology but don’t want to pay $500 for a driver.  If and when that happens, hopefully entrepreneurs will be there with a solution that makes golf more affordable and therefore gets more players into the game.

Last Week Was A Great Week For Golf

The Waste Management Phoenix Open last week was, like always, an awesome tournament.  Making it so unique was the fact that even if Spencer Levin won easily with zero drama (as most predicted entering the final round), or if Kyle Stanley didn’t pull off an amazing turnaround following his Farmer’s Open collapse the week before (something that golfers, entrepreneurs and many others can learn from), it still would’ve been an awesome tournament.  Why?  Because the people who put it on – the “Thunderbirds” – focus on making it an all-around fun experience as opposed to just a golf spectator event.

There’s the famed 16^th hole with its stadium seating, a seemingly simply concept considering all other major sports have 360 degree seating formats, but this is unique to this one hole.  This one tournament.

There’s the Bird’s Nest across the street where the likes of Will.I.Am and the Goo Goo Dolls performed in the evenings, with players like Rickie Fowler making stage appearances.  Again, unique to this one tournament.

Simply put, the Waste Management Phoenix Open is one big party.  Which, not surprising for the golf industry, means that some folks don’t like it.  Last week I shook my head as I read tweets and comment threads on blogs/articles questioning whether this was good for golf.  “This” being the raucous crowds at 16, the drinking, the atmosphere.

I think there's no question that this tournament is good - make that GREAT - for golf.  Here’s why:

Attendance for the Saturday round alone was 173,210.  That’s a record for single day attendance of any golf tournament ever.  In history.  Consider this – event organizers for the Farmer’s Insurance Open the previous week at Torrey Pines (in the heart of San Diego) estimated attendance at 150,000 … for the entire week.

Overall attendance at the Waste Management Phoenix Open was over 500,000.  Compare this to last year’s U.S. Open at Congressional, where total weekly attendance was “nearly 230,000 people.”  And the field in Phoenix featured only two players in the Top 10 of the World Rankings, with the highest ranked golfer being Webb Simpson at #6.

My take is this – anything that brings people into golf and gets them excited about the game is good for the game.  It should be encouraged, embraced, studied and replicated.  The 16^th sat 22,000 people and anyone who watched the tournament could see that the fans, players, caddies and everyone else loved it.  Who will forget Bubba Watson and Ben Crane reuniting as the Golf Boys?  Pure entertainment.

For the detractors, I encourage them to read about the Haimish Line because I think their view comes from the wrong side of it. 

Last week, 500,000 people hung out on a golf course in Scottsdale – more than ever before in the history of the game – because it was a fun, social environment.  That's a valuable lesson for anyone in the golf industry looking to grow the game.

Spend 2012 on the Right Side of the Haimish Line

After a break for the holidays and the birth of my beautiful daughter Eva Grace Tanner, I’m returning to my weekly blog with a renewed vigor for 2012.

I’ve been reading a lot lately and one of the more interesting pieces was a Mark Suster blog titled “Spend 2012 on the Right Side of the Haimish Line" in which he references this NYT article by David Brooks.

Brooks defines haimish as “a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.”  The concept is that you risk crossing the haimish line into a less happy existence if you blockade yourself from normal folks.  Examples of doing this would include staying at super-private hotels, working solely from behind a desk, etc.  As I read these articles, I took the concept a step further by thinking about the professional consequences that would arise from boxing in one's experiences.  i.e. If you play golf exclusively at private and luxurious clubs, yes, you'll miss out on the congeniality of playing with weekend warriors who are making friends, drinking beers and playing for the love of the game.  However, if this same person is then responsible for addressing the challenges faced by these weekend warriors, they probably wouldn't do a very good job.  They'd be too far removed.  The challenges themselves would fall outside the false sense of reality that their experiences had created.  And thus, professionally, they'd be operating from the wrong side of the haimish line.  

As I went through this intellectual exercise, I thought a lot about the golf industry.  And I’ve thought a lot about this concept of the haimish line since as several interesting headlines and observations appeared in the first few weeks of 2012.

First, at the PGA Tour’s season opening tournament in Kapalua, Commissioner Tim Finchem announced the Tour’s commitment to raise $100 million for The First Tee this year.  Since 1997, The First Tee has been the sole junior golf organization supported by the golf industry and it operates on a $13 million annual budget.  And yet, despite The First Tee’s claim that they’ve had 4.7 million participants, there are less kids playing golf in the U.S. today than there were the day it was founded.  (2.8 million in 1995 vs. 2.5 million in 2010 - National Golf Foundation data.)  Instead of opening their doors and offering support/resources to other youth programs, industry leaders are doubling down on their single all-in bet.  That, to me, is a decision made from the wrong side of the haimish line.

Then, earlier this week, Finchem proposed a change to the Q School format. One of the great things about professional golf is that anyone can pursue their dream of making it on Tour. You don’t need to get drafted, you don’t need an agent, you don't need to be a certain age … you just need to pass through Q School, which is open to any good player. The new format would be a 3-tournament series that is only available to select Nationwide and PGA Tour players, thus eliminating the opportunity for college golfers, club pros and anyone else who’s been working meticulously on their game to bypass the mini Tours and go straight to the big leagues. The new format benefits existing tour players, adds three new tournaments and their corresponding revenue, and undoubtedly builds more prestige in the Nationwide Tour (which, perhaps coincidentally, is in need of a new title sponsor after this year). But nevertheless, it's a closed format. Derived from closed-minded thinking that, to me, comes from the wrong side of the haimish line.

On the flipside, Golf 2.0 has done a great job of identifying golf’s many challenges and it has the industry’s undivided attention.  Its presence is everywhere at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando this week.  The much harder and more important part is to now identify viable solutions and execute on them.  Nevertheless, I applaud the PGA for hiring Boston Consulting Group to provide them with a sobering analysis.  I also applaud them for recruiting the perfect person to lead Golf 2.0 in Darrell Crall.  These are all things happening from the right side of the haimish line.

Additionally, the PGA of America clearly has a new social media strategy on Twitter that is much more active and open-minded.  Historically they would only tweet well-manicured PR messages but now they’re engaged in an active dialogue with industry members, including retweeting criticisms and all.  I’m also a big fan of the hashtag they’ve been promoting - #growgolf.  These are smart, engaged decisions made from the right side of the haimish line.

All of these topics require further discussion and there are other smaller examples as well, but the point I want to get across is this concept of this haimish line.  The golf industry has been operating from the wrong side of it for too long.  And it’s understandable – industry leaders don’t pay for golf, probably haven’t experienced a six hour round in their professional careers and aren’t working shoulder-to-shoulder with the PGA Pro who’s folding shirts in the shop and struggling to get by.  It’s good to see that they’re taking steps in the right direction to understand and address the challenges being faced by golfers, industry members and the game as a whole.

With that, I have a challenge for everyone, myself included - let's make sure we spend 2012 on the right side of the haimish line.

Why the U.S. Hibernation?

The U.S. Open begins today and you’ll be hard-pressed to watch coverage without hearing about how the U.S. is getting dusted these days by international players.  Here’s the landscape:

·         The top three ranked players in the world are Europeans (Donald, Westwood and Kaymer, in that order).

·         Europe possesses the Ryder Cup and has won 4 of the last 5 meetings.

·         Europeans hold the U.S. Open Trophy and the Wanamaker Trophy (PGA Championship) with Graeme McDowell and Martin Kaymer, respectively. 

Adding salt to the wound is the fact that South Africa, a country 1/6 the size of America with 49 million people, holds the other two major trophies – The Open’s Claret Jug with Louis Oosthuizen and The Master’s Trophy with Charl Schwartzel.

Is there a sensible explanation for international dominance and U.S. hibernation on professional golf’s largest stages?  I decided to explore.

Theory 1: People are picking up golf at a greater rate overseas than in the states.

Year	U.S.	Europe
1985-90	8.1%	6.1%
1990-95	-2.0%	9.2%
1995-00	3.3%	5.5%
2000-05	0.8%	5.7%
2005-10	-2.6%	1.6%

Europe has been growing in overall golfers at a greater clip than the U.S. since 1985 but they’ve generally followed the same pattern.

Additionally, the number of golfers in Europe’s largest golf market, the UK and Ireland, actually decreased 4% last year.  This is the same market where five of the top ten golfers in the world reside. 

Thus, I don’t think growth/decline in golf participation is the culprit.

Theory Two: There are more overall golfers and/or a larger percentage of the population is playing golf overseas.

Country/Region	Total Players	% of Population
U.S.	26,100,000	8.5%
Europe	4,436,085	0.7%
South Africa	147,960	0.3%

This data suggests that the U.S. should dominate professional golf.  We have 5.9x more golfers than Europe and 176x more than South Africa!

Theory Three: We have less junior golfers who can be developed for competition at a young age.

The top 5 ranking European countries in terms of the percentage of overall golfers who are juniors are:

1.    Turkey (51%)

2.    Latvia (28%)

3.    Romania (24%)

4.    Greece (21%)

5.    Czech Republic (15%)

i.e. Not the U.K., Ireland, Germany and Spain where Europe’s top pros come from. 

Additionally, with 2.7 million kids playing golf in America, more than 50% of Europe’s 4.3 million total players would need to be juniors in order to outpace the U.S.  As shown above, that is not the case.

(Side note – if, in 15-20 years, we see young stars tearing up the PGA Tour from Turkey and the rest of Eastern Europe, you heard it here first.)

Theory 4: The quality of junior competition in the U.S. is inferior to Europe and others.

This is subjective and cannot be proved or disproved with data.  The folks at the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) and U.S. Kids Golf would likely point out that top teenage golfers from around the world travel to the U.S. to compete … not vice versa.  Same with collegiate golf – top International players come to ASU, USC, Oklahoma St., Georgia, etc.  So, I doubt this is the culprit.

Theory 5: It is happenstance and we’ll see a return to equilibrium shortly.

My findings are that disparities in overall participation, growth in participation, youth participation and competitive preparation are not the causes for Europe’s recent dominance in professional golf. 

Thus, in conclusion, my lack of a conclusion leads me to believe that it’s happenstance – a perfect storm resulting from Tiger’s implosion, Phil’s struggles and the incubation period of America’s young guns like Rickie Fowler as they evolve from good to great.

Maybe equilibrium will start its process this week.  As a result of this analysis, my fantasy squad is loaded solely with Americans.

On a serious note, I look at this data as an entrepreneur and see two things:

1.    The golf industry is seemingly ripe for innovation to turn around the declining participation numbers.

2.    The international golf market is starting to blossom in places like Turkey, Eastern Europe, South Africa and elsewhere (i.e. China) and there will be some big winners who capture this growth.  Hopefully it’s you and me.

Have a great U.S. Open week and Happy Entrepreneuring. 

(All data about golf in the U.S. courtesy of http://www.ngf.org/ and data about golf in Europe and Africa courtesy of http://www.kpmg.com/ ... along with personal computations.)