Undercover Boss (2010) s03e09 Episode Script
Taylormade Golf Company
This week on Undercover Boss: Wow.
The CEO of Taylormade, the world's top-selling golf equipment brand, poses as an out-of-work golf enthusiast trying to land his dream job in the industry.
- I'm Al.
- It's nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Can this desk jockey survive without his million dollar beach home and private putting green? I will be a superstar at every job you put me in.
- Ow.
- Oh! What is this guy doing here? I gotta go a little faster, huh? Yeah.
He should keep his day job.
Will this former sales rep remember how to sell his own product? Yeah, this, it, uh Let's see And, will he be able to keep his identity a secret? Are you Mark King? I have something really important to tell you.
Find out next on Undercover Boss.
Undercover Boss 3x09 - Taylormade Golf Company Original air date April 6, 2012 With a reputation as a trailblazer in developing revolutionary technologies, Taylormade is the number one maker of high-performance golf equipment in the world, selling to more than 50 countries.
And overseeing the 2,000 employees at this $1.
2 billion business is one man.
My name is Mark King.
I'm the president and CEO of Taylormade Adidas Golf.
And, I pretty much do everything around here.
I've been here for 30 years.
I started here out of college in 1981, I became a territory sales rep, And I've been the president and CEO of Taylormade for the past ten years.
In 1998, Adidas bought Taylormade.
So then shortly after that, we put the two names together.
I've played golf ever since I was a little kid.
My father was a high school teacher.
Had the summers off, and so he worked at a little nine hole golf course in Green Bay, Wisconsin where I grew up.
And my mom and I used to go out every day.
We'd play nine holes in an hour and 20 minutes.
We would go around and around and around.
And I just fell in love with it.
I really pride myself on being in touch with the people because that's where I came from.
I came from the bottom and worked my way up.
How often do I play golf? I golf as often as I can.
I normally play with some of the executives.
- Whoa! - That hurt.
That would be very normal work.
All right, we ready? Let's go.
Best part of being a CEO is you get to come and go when you want.
My philosophy is, you should go home at 5:00 and if you're not done by 5:00, the job's probably too big for you.
You gonna miss me while I'm gone? I always do, dad.
- Really? - EhI'm just kidding.
- You just saying that? - Yes, I do.
I've had a fair amount of success in my professional life.
Not so much on my personal life.
I've been divorced twice.
My first marriage will always be wonderful for me because it's given me the joy of my life which are my two children Allison who's 20, and Lauren who's 16.
- Are you excited? - I'm nervous.
That's funny.
Going undercover for my dad will be tough because of his personality.
My dad's very goofy.
Usually the center of attention, so, hopefully, it'll work out.
But I think it'll be tough.
I want to go undercover because the business of golf is really at a difficult time right now.
Since 2000, sales overall in our industry are down about 15%.
It's a difficult challenge for us to get a shrinking number of golfers to spend more money each year on a toy that they really don't need.
And as CEO, I need to get out there and figure out what we can do better in every aspect from sales, to production, to shipping, in order to see improvement in our revenue.
- Don't blow your cover.
- I won't.
Good luck.
- Love you, dad.
- Love you.
Good luck.
While undercover, I'll be posing as Al Bauer, golf enthusiast.
That baby's white.
I chose Bauer because I thought it would be too much to be Jack Bauer, the famous badass TV character.
So I thought I could be his more bumbling but funnier brother, Al Bauer.
My coworkers will be told that I'm part of a reality show called Keep Your Day Job that takes people who want to switch from their current job into their dream profession.
I will be a superstar at every job you put me in.
Today's the first official day of Al Bauer, and I'm nervous as heck.
I think the last time I was feeling this helpless was when my children were born.
The unknown is what's got me nervous.
I think that's really what it is.
So maybe this will be a big learning experience for me to let go a little bit.
This afternoon, I'm in Westminster, South Carolina at the golf ball manufacturing plant.
I'm going to train in the quality control department.
We make about 1.
6 million dozen golf balls a year, which equates to about 8,000 per day.
- Hello.
- How you doing? Good.
I'm here to see Caley.
All right.
In the golf ball category, we are not number one, like we are in the equipment.
So, I'm here to look at what could we do to be more competitive? - Caley? - Hi! - I'm Al.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
I am a quality control auditor.
So, what I do is I make sure that the quality of the ball at each process, is up to standard.
Okay.
All right, let's grab the clipboards and we'll hit the floor.
Over 5,000 balls I inspect every day.
So we'll start out at buffing.
We look for any imperfections.
You know, if there's a nick missing out of it or if there's a line.
Do you inspect every ball? We do 25 ball audits.
I grab three at a time.
I go around the equator, top, bottom, throw it.
Around the equator, top, bottom, throw it.
You go and then you hand it to me, and I'll tell you good or bad.
You're good.
You have to have very clear vision, and I don't have very good vision.
So when I look down there, it's very hard for me to see the imperfections.
I gotta go a little faster, huh? Yeah.
And I was a slow as a turtle.
I don't know how anyone can inspect What I do, I grab them three at a time.
Oh, okay.
- 'Cause we have so much to do.
- Okay.
That way, it goes a little faster.
Yeah, you're right.
In this job, you really have to go fast, and it didn't really seem like Al was doing that.
I'll show you how we have to do it.
- The speed, man.
- Yeah.
You want me to try it on this one? Nah.
- Why not? - I'll get it.
Cause we gotta go.
Well, maybe I can do faster.
These look good.
There's a lot more to do, okay? We're gonna pick it up, so you better keep up, okay? Okay, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming.
Let's go to stamping.
Stamping.
Here, same thing, we do 25 more.
All right, and I get them out of here, right? Yep.
Gotta catch them, right? Yeah.
Al, well, he's, he's trying, but I just, I'm not sure he's like, cut out for it or not.
We're gonna go to paint.
I'm too old to be moving this fast.
Caley was fast.
That's all I can say.
I couldn't keep up with her.
And I'm just watching you? Yeah, I gotta get caught up now, we're behind.
I know I've been holding you back.
Sorry.
It's okay.
You're good.
Thank you.
All right, let's go to this one.
Okay.
I definitely felt like an old man in a wheelchair.
And see how far behind I am? You gotta do all these? Yeah.
I'm exhausted.
Running around with big boots on is much more demanding than sitting behind a desk.
All right, pressure's on.
Let's go.
When you have my job, you say things like "we have to have the highest quality standards.
" It's easy to just say it, but to actually see the people that execute it, it's really eye-opening to me.
How long you been working here? Almost two years.
And you like it? Yeah, yeah, I like it a lot.
- You do? - Yeah.
But the only thing that does stink is it can be really, really stressful, 'cause there's not anybody higher than me here now.
So I don't have anyone to go to.
Why why isn't there though? I really don't know.
I don't, I mean, supervisors, they're gonna be on first shift 'cause they've been here so long.
So the second shift, you're on your own.
Yeah, I'm on my own and then third shift is on their own.
And what if I made the wrong decision? My boss comes in, and I could have messed up thousands of dollars worth of production.
It's on my shoulders.
- How old are you? - 21.
- Whoa.
- Yeah.
It can be really stressful.
I've come out of here crying before.
- Really? - In tears, oh, yeah.
What amazed me from Caley was there's nobody here but her.
Why do we have a supervisor on shift one and not one on shift two and three? I don't know the answers to those, but I'd like to find out.
Okay, here is where we have final inspection.
It comes over here on a pallet, just like that.
- Okay.
- In the corrugate.
And then we tear apart six boxes.
Yeah, six dozen balls.
- Every one? - Every one.
We have more than three defects, the whole pallet has to be gone through.
- Yeah.
- I'm already tired.
I know, right? Kill me now.
Well, if this works out for me, it'll be difficult, because I have two daughters.
Oh, how old are they? Uh, 16 and 20.
Ah, so like my age.
My oldest daughter's your age.
And I've been divorced so Because of that, I've become very close to them.
You know what I mean? I mean, ours is actually the opposite way.
Like I don't even talk to my dad.
- Really? - No.
He didn't come to like, my graduation, he didn't walk me down the aisle.
- Seriously? - Yeah.
You know, I didn't have the best of childhoods.
But my aunt and Uncle, you know, that I moved out and I live with, like, they've been so good to me.
- My mom - They have been? Yeah, they actually gave me the house that I live in now.
Is it nice? It's, it's like, just a, um, mobile home.
So we're gonna save up for a few years and then maybe build, because my husband was in the construction industry.
The level of stress for young people today is way different than when I grew up.
When I was Caley's age, I was having fun playing sports and doing the best I could at school.
I wasn't working or taking on the same responsibility that these kids are.
This is me and my husband, and that's our baby.
He's not really a baby.
He's a dog.
But he's our baby.
We got him like two weeks after we got married.
And we took all of our wedding money - You did? - Yeah.
- It took all of it.
- How much was the dog? Like, $2,000.
- No.
- Oh, yeah.
They get real expensive.
And then I think we're probably gonna, like, get a full-size female.
- So you want another one? - Yeah.
I think it's easy for people that have had a tough childhood to hide behind that and say life has dealt me a bad hand.
You don't even get that Caley had a bad hand.
You just get she's gonna make the most out of life.
Very, very impressive young person.
Yep, there you go.
And then we'll replace that ball with a good one.
You did good.
To see someone like this striving at our company is great.
We just need to make sure we hang onto these people and support them.
- Okay? - Okay, yeah.
- That's a lot of golf balls.
- Yeah.
Crazy, huh? Who buys them all? That's amazing.
Hey, how are you? The boss has a not-so-secret admirer.
You got it going on.
Mark King, the CEO of Taylormade is a boss undercover at his own company.
- I'm Al.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
His employees think he's part of a reality show where people try out jobs in their dream industry.
He should keep his day job.
His journey continues in South Carolina.
I'm here today to work with our returns department.
This is one of the distribution and return centers for footwear and apparel.
This is a really important place for us because it's got a direct connection to our customers.
I haven't been here very often, and I'm interested in how we run the operation, and I want to really understand if we have the right systems to make it efficient.
Because the more efficient we get always, there's more customer satisfaction, which equates to more money for us.
Hello.
I'm looking for Teresa.
Right here to the left? - Yeah.
- Thank you.
Hey, how are you? - Teresa? - Yes.
- Al.
- How you doing? - Good.
- All right.
Well, this department is actually kind of broken up into three sections.
Everything on this side is something that's gonna go into inventory and be resold.
Okay.
The other side of the conveyer belt is things that are damaged.
The third is doing credits.
- All that here? - So I have a system.
Yeah, this returns department actually handles all of the U.
S.
- So - Seems like a lot.
Um, there's a lot of little details.
- Yeah.
- Let's get you started.
When product comes in, you scan it into a database.
This database will go into my office, and from my office, I will issue credit.
Really? Okay, you know what, you don't even have to worry about that because I'm here to make sure you learn, because then that makes me look good.
Okay.
Okay, first thing, you look for your "RA" number.
"RAS995" I need tracking numbers, so you just scan it.
- You don't have to type it in.
- Okay.
- How about that? - Oh.
It's a jacket.
You scan it, - put it back in here.
- Okay.
Put it on here.
Leave it like that.
All right, let's get you to do this.
- Okay.
- Okay so first, we're looking for an "RA" number.
So it's "R-A-S" Mm-hmm.
gotta be able to type, huh? Oh, over here.
Five, two, nine.
- Tracking number, you did well.
- Okay.
I can do that scanning.
How long you been doing this? Doing returns probably about ten years now.
But I've been with Taylormade for 23.
You have? There was no returns in South Carolina so, I was like, if I show y'all that we need a returns department here, would y'all consider it? - Really? - So that's what I did.
And it used to be that we used to have to do all this manually.
- Really? - It would take forever.
So you developed how it operates.
- Right.
- That's pretty cool.
What happens here too is defective shoes.
- Okay.
- You got it, okay.
Get your knife out and cut them up.
- Really? - Cut them up.
And then these are just thrown away? Yes.
- There we go.
- Make sure it goes deep.
So that nobody can go to the landfill - and find a pair of shoes.
- Oh.
And wanna return them for another pair.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Some of these shoes are nice.
Yeah.
And it's just one box after another, huh? This is just a small percentage of what comes back.
Now how about the apparel that we get back? We cut those up.
- You do? - Yes.
God, it's amazing how many shoes, though, huh? As I'm looking at these shoes, they may have flaws that prevent them from being sold.
But they're still useable.
I feel horrible about how wasteful it is.
Sometimes I suggest, you know, hey, I know this children's home, I know this women's shelter, um, can I take this, you know? Yep.
I don't wanna just throw away these shoes.
I don't wanna just throw away these clothes.
- Somebody needs them.
- Right.
Thousands of dollars in merchandise all gets destroyed, for really no reason.
I'd rather help people that need help than worrying about a few pairs of shoes that get returned.
So, we're just gonna take a little break here.
Okay, good.
Do you have children? - No.
- No children? No, naw, no.
- Married? - N was.
I've been enjoying my singleness.
You have? Yeah, me too.
How old are you? Same age.
- Yeah really? - Mm-hmm.
When he said he was single I thought, dang this man's single.
We're the same age.
Oh, shoot, I'm gonna see what this man's about.
What do you do then, other than work? - Guess where I'm going.
- Where? Alaska.
- You are? - In July, mm-hmm.
It's a singles cruise.
- What are you gonna do? - It's on my bucket list.
- Oh, it is, really? - Ever since I saw that movie The Bucket yeah.
I just like, saved up my money.
So what else is on that list? I would love to go to Australia, but that's like - You would? - Yeah.
I wanna spend my money on adventure.
You wouldn't believe this, do you th I have my motorcycle license.
- You do?! - Yeah.
You got it going on.
That's what I would say.
How long you been single? Probably about 13 years now.
I got where I was I'm happy, and I don't let nobody disturb that, because I had enough negativity in my life.
Because I was thinking about, um, my mom was a foster parent.
She was? And I even thought about myself just probably trying to be - a foster parent because I - Yeah.
I have a three-bedroom house and it's just me, so You know, share it.
You know, share it.
You shouldn't be selfish about it.
Yeah.
So how about you? Kids? I have two girls, they're grown and off and about.
They're doing good, I guess.
- One's a teacher and one's - Wow.
And one like works in the music.
She gives lessons and stuff so I I love Teresa.
She's awesome.
But when she's pouring her heart and soul and getting really personal, and I'm making stuff up.
It's really, um, it doesn't feel very good.
I'm from a little town outside of Chicago.
Started working for the Park And Recs 20 years ago.
The thing that's unnerving is to just blatantly lie.
As a human being, it doesn't seem right.
You know, what am I gonna do, I'm single, and I don't really wanna continue to move snow - and leaves and - Yeah.
And, I don't wanna wait a week.
- Teresa? - Yes? I have something really important to tell you.
I'm Mark King.
I'm the CEO of Taylormade.
No, you're not.
No, you're not! I don't believe it! I'm like, I just kept saying to myself, I kept saying to myself, God, this man's single too, he's good looking, I'm gonna get him.
Do you know the show Undercover Boss? Yes, I watch yeah.
You're on it now, too.
No! When I see that, when I see that show, I'll be like, y'all didn't know that was y'all's boss man? Y'all didn't know that was y'all's y'all didn't know that was your CEO.
He really fooled me.
He really did.
It was an awesome experience to be that close to my CEO.
I had to tell you that it was me.
I didn't want to play this thing any longer.
You are a spectacular employee.
- Well - So I want you to know that.
- I try to do a good job.
- You do a good job! You do a great job! I'm now almost qualified to work for you.
Wow, I am really shocked.
I just don't believe this.
That moment made this experience all worthwhile.
Honestly, I can't even describe what I feel right now.
It's just really wonderful.
Now I'm gonna take this earring off.
- Okay, you can take it off.
- Yeah, because it's fake.
Yeah, because I'm like, okay, Mark King with an earring? Oh, l okay, okay.
He is down, give me one! You think I should get one? Eh, you'd look cute.
But you'd look cute either way.
Teresa's single, I'm single.
You never know.
Oh, God.
Today, I'm in Liberty Township, Ohio, and I'm here to train with a demo tech rep.
Demo events are opportunities for us to invite golfers to see all of our products.
The demo tech reps then fit the consumer to whatever the golfer's looking for.
We invest an unbelievable amount of money in this program.
We have events that sell in excess of $100,000 in a one-day event.
I wanna make sure the demo tech reps have all of the resources that they need to give the consumer the best possible experience, and then hopefully buy our products.
- Hello.
- How you doing, sir? - Good, I'm Al.
- Jarryd Lance.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
I'm here to help you today.
Yes, sir.
I need all the help I can get.
Well What we're gonna do, we're gonna grab every bag out of here and we're gonna take it to the range.
Okay.
When I first saw Al, he had a tattoo, he had an earring, I didn't know if he was a golfer or going to the bowling alley or what he was doing.
So you do a lot of these, Jarryd? Right now, I'm doing about four or five a week, going to school full-time and We're gonna set this down right here.
Okay.
So this is what you wanna do? Well, what I wanna do is I wanna play golf for a living.
You mean as a golf professional.
Yes, sir.
I played in junior local tournaments starting at about 11 or so.
One of the first tournaments I played in was a state tournament and I won that.
Awesome.
When do you have time to play? I either practice before I work, or I practice after or both.
Wow.
You've got this down to a science.
- There's a science to it.
- There is.
All right, we're good to go now.
How you doing, sir? When you think of Taylormade, you think of drivers.
The driver is the club that you use to tee off with.
If you have a driver, you wanna hit it far.
Every golfer's biggest challenge is to find a driver that they love.
We're gonna deal with two people at once.
We're gonna watch him hit, and then we're gonna make sure he's got the right club.
We've got 48 adjustments we can make on these clubs.
He's gonna want to get a different shaft and a little bit different lie angle because he swings a little bit more upright.
He hit that one on a good trajectory, so I'm gonna keep that club in his hands.
Okay.
Here you go, sir.
First 2 degrees up.
Can't hit any straighter than that.
We got two ladies coming up here.
I'm gonna see what you can do.
- Hi, I'm Al.
- Angie.
- Angie.
- Jackie.
- Jackie.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Why don't you both hit a few balls and we'll just take a look? Wow.
So let's see how it's set up.
You got the heavy weight in the toe, which means it's gonna help it draw a little bit.
- You're not getting a draw? - No.
Let's see.
One Okay.
All right, you keep hitting them.
Angie, I wanna go ask Jarryd one quick question.
- Okay.
- Okay? One quick question.
- Jarryd? - Yes, sir? She wants to draw her ball a little bit.
It's set up 2 degrees closed, right now it is.
Because that's what that red adjustable sole plate is.
It's a very, very complicated thing, fitting these people.
Tell you what, I like that there.
That's hard to beat.
I've been doing demo days for 30 years, and I've never seen one as efficiently run as this.
That'll lower Yeah, this, it, uh There's a hundred different things that we have, but there's a thousand different options.
Here we go, sir.
Let's try this one real quick.
You could close it just a little bit and try it.
- Yes.
- You wanna try it? Take one minute.
- Now, he's gonna tee off tomorrow at 7:30.
- The new weapon.
- With the new weapon.
- Thanks, Steve.
- Thanks, Steve.
All right, we're gonna go out to the car.
I gotta grab something.
It's a nice ride.
I appreciate it; I had a smaller compact car, and I couldn't fit everything in it.
I decided, hey, I wanna get a bigger car.
So you have to pay for all your expenses by yourself? - I pay for the gas, yes, sir.
- Okay.
And, you know, sometimes we may go 200 miles away.
We don't get paid for all the traveling that we do.
We just get paid from the time we get to the golf course to the time we leave.
So I have that, pay for gas, paying for school, paying for my practice.
But I'm lucky to break even.
Jarryd said that they get paid for the time on the job.
But if somebody has to drive three hours, I think they should be compensated for that, so I'm definitely gonna look into that.
Oh, yeah.
What are you going to do to pursue this tour thing? I you know what, I need a sponsor.
You do.
And right now, I'm saving money - for my car, school and practice.
- Right, right.
Just to be able to play, let alone tournaments.
Tournaments right now I can't do, that's that's too much.
- Too much.
- If I had time and a sponsor, I could do it, I know I could.
So did you do you do this because you love golf? Absolutely.
From about ten, my dad taught me how to play.
He did? Was it affordable at all here? Oh, no, golf, it it's a rich man's game.
- It is.
- I'd love to change that.
Not very many people have five hours or $50 to go play golf.
My dad worked at a steel company for 35 years, and I had to shag balls, pick up golf balls - Whatever you had to do.
- Sneak on.
Go play three or four holes before dark.
I will do whatever it takes.
That's why I want to own my own golf course and lower the rates.
To go play nine holes and play for $15 in a cart or play for free if you're a junior or college golfer.
- Right.
- And promote golf.
And that's what it's all about.
Business is so competitive today that you kind of lose sight of why you do things.
My passion has been golf since I was a little kid.
Jarryd has a deep love for the game.
He wants to be able to bring people into the game so they can love the game as much as he does.
Well, we've got people waiting.
We gotta get back to work.
First and foremost, I think a CEO is responsible for moving the business forward.
What I didn't realize was that we really need to get serious about making it affordable.
That's the future of the game, bringing kids back into the game.
Making programs for them, whether it's lessons or tournaments.
We can do extraordinary things, and it starts with young people like Jarryd.
That's what will drive our success.
And we become a better company because of it.
Can't hit it any better than that.
If you could, I'd like to see it.
That was awesome.
Mark goes clubbing.
- Ow.
- Oh! Oh, oh, I'm sorry.
But will his coworkers see through his disguise? There were a growing number of eyes on me.
It was just uncomfortable.
Today, I'm in Carlsbad, California, our headquarters.
And I'll be working on the production floor.
Golf clubs are the heart and soul, the bread and butter of what we do.
We make 8 million golf clubs a year.
Excuse me, do you know where Cristian is? Yeah, he's right over there.
We keep most of our assembly of our products here in the United States, right here in this building underneath my office.
I've been here since 1981.
That's 30 years.
My disguise is fantastic, but I'm not sure it's gonna work today.
- Cristian? - Hey, what's up? - I'm Al.
- I'm Cristian.
- How you doing? - Good.
I'm here to train with you today.
Oh, yeah? - Um, these are the burner 2.
0s.
- Okay.
- It's like superglue.
- Okay.
Then we take it over here to the press.
Set it down, we press these two right here.
Then you just clean it up and get it ready for the person that's gonna do alignment.
How do you get it out of there now? How do you get it out of there? Like, she'll get it out of there.
- Oh, she'll get it out.
- Yeah.
Wanna give it a go? Oh, I'll try it once.
Okay.
- Do that? - Yeah, just one put it in.
- Like that? - Yeah.
What is this guy doing here? - Like that? - Yeah.
Now, we have to do this a little bit faster.
As you can see, she just stopped the wheel.
- Okay.
- Put it in.
Everybody here has something to do for the whole product.
It all goes together, huh? Yeah, it all goes together.
Got it.
Let's see if I can do the wood right.
- Ow.
- Oh! Oh, oh, I'm sorry.
It's okay.
I'm sorry.
I'm a little nervous.
I'm too old to be moving this fast.
Ooh! Sorry.
Just announced 12 hours today.
Is that good? That's good.
Overtime, but I never miss overtime but like, you know, personally, I spend more time here than with my family.
- You do? - My friends and my girlfriend.
to 6:00 in the afternoon.
Getting home around 7:00 all you do is just basically sleep.
- Sleep and work.
- Sleep and work.
- How old are you, Cristian? - I'm 19.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
I dropped out of college, - and - How come? When I graduated from high school, I had a scholarship for soccer.
- You did? - Yeah.
But my mother got skin cancer and I felt bad leaving and not helping out my dad.
Well, I just decided to stay and and I help him out.
- You did? - Yeah.
- So, you ever take a break? - Yeah.
- Grab some air.
- Okay, let's go.
Right over here? So did you play golf at all growing up? Uh, I would just play mini golf.
- Oh, just mini golf.
- Yeah, mini golf.
I started playing soccer just because all I really needed was soccer shoes and a ball.
That's pretty cool.
Where were you gonna go to school for soccer? I was gonna go to Humboldt State University.
You were? But at the end, it doesn't matter.
Because because my mom didn't have insurance.
- Oh, my God.
- Yeah.
It's hard for me, like like, I hear people complaining.
I don't get mad at them or anything.
But I see just the life they have.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
I I got choked up today.
Cristian is the way you'd like to have everyone in the world be willing to sacrifice whatever they have for other people.
Hey, we need to get back to work.
Okay, thanks for talking.
No problem.
He made a decision at 19 years old to do something that's really incredible.
It's just heartbreaking to see a person that young that had to give up something that he had worked for his whole life.
That that's really moving.
Yeah, there you go.
- How's my speed? - It's good.
Is it all right? Well not really.
Not really? Too slow? Yeah, actually a little bit slow.
Like over there's a long order.
As Cristian and I were working together, I was starting to feel like people were looking at me.
And I was feeling like people were starting to maybe think, who is that guy? It was just uncomfortable.
What people are doing is they're staring.
There were people actually walking from other departments to look at me, so I'm really nervous that they're gonna recognize me.
Hi, are you Mark King? Mark King, the CEO of Taylormade, is a boss undercover in his own company.
But now he's working on a golf club assembly line where his coworkers have seen through his disguise.
Hi, are you Mark King? Are you? Oh Yeah, I think you busted me.
Did you recognize me? - She told us.
- Do you recognize me? You weren't supposed to.
Well, it's nice meeting you.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
How did you guys know? - She told us.
- Yeah.
You recognized me? Does everybody know? Yeah.
Pretty much.
Did you know? Well good, Cristian.
I'm Mark King.
I'm sorry, man.
I was shocked, and I'm still shocked.
It was a big surprise that I'm working with the main guy from this company.
CO? CEO? I was hoping I wouldn't get busted.
But I decided to turn it into an opportunity.
I knew it was you.
I knew it was you the minute I looked at you.
I know you did.
Getting to share my experiences and what I've found with the whole production floor was incredibly moving.
I work right next door to the factory and often stop by, but working right next to them and sharing their jobs, it meant a lot to them and even more to me.
You said it right away? To actually go down there and see what those people do to see how hard those jobs are and really how unappreciated they are they just get forgotten about.
Oh, wow.
But I think the thing here is to appreciate it, making sure these people feel loved, and respected, and listened to.
Even what might seem to be a small tweak to us might be a massive tweak in their lives.
My undercover experience is almost over I really need to meet with my board members.
- How are you? - Good.
- Welcome back.
- Thanks.
And tell them about the experience, what I learned, but then more importantly, what do we have to do to take action on these things that I found? I went to the ball factory.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- In South Carolina.
I worked with a young lady, her name was Caley, and she was only 21 years old.
But she had some really good feedback.
We only have a supervisor on one shift, and sometimes they run three shifts.
- Mm-hmm.
- When she has something that's kind of on the edge, which might be rejecting a bin of 5,000 balls, it's just a lot of pressure on her.
Oh, yeah.
I really think that's something that we could do.
Then I worked demo day with an incredible young guy named Jarryd.
But one issue for you with him, he did mention that they get paid for their time of the demo days.
But he said many times he has to drive three, four hours.
And he doesn't get paid for that drive time.
So I just think in those unique situations, we should be looking at reimbursing gas mileage - or paying.
- Yeah.
I think you could follow up on that.
I think that would really help.
The third thing that I think you could have your team look at is, in South Carolina, where we have - defective products come back - Yeah.
- We throw them away.
- Okay.
There was a lot of what they call "B-grade" shoes.
That we don't have a good plan for yet? Exactly.
So maybe you could have somebody look at that.
- Yeah, for sure we can do that.
- Okay.
- I'll see you soon.
- Okay.
All right, see you later.
The only thing that's left is to meet with the employees and tell them what I learned while I worked with them.
I am here to tell Al he should stick with his day job.
I just don't know that the stress level and quickness of my job is right for him.
- How you doing? - Good, how you doing? - I'm doing just fine.
- Do you know who I am? No, should I? That's big Al, right in front of me.
Without the earring I see.
I'm Mark King.
Yes, sir, I do know who you are right now.
- CEO of Taylormade.
- Yes, sir.
- How you doing? - No, you're not.
Oh, I hope I didn't say anything stupid.
So how did I do? - Um - Not good? No, not really.
Honestly, Caley, I was so impressed with you as a person.
The level of responsibility that you've taken on is amazing.
It stresses you out though, doesn't it? - Oh, yeah.
- So I'm gonna try to help you with some of your stress.
- Ah.
- So, we're gonna make sure that there's a supervisor on call all the time.
So that you can get a decision and move on.
- Awesome.
- Yeah.
I've been looking for a dog for you.
- A dog? - Mm-hmm.
But they're very hard to find, so instead, I'm just gonna give you the $3,000.
No, you're not! - Oh, my God.
- And then I'm going to give you $10,000 to put towards your dream house.
Shut up.
Yeah.
I it means a lot so much.
- You deserve it.
- This is crazy.
I mean, I've never had anything go, like, great in my life.
And it's just all of a sudden.
It's crazy, I'm so happy.
Jarryd, I've been going to those demo days for 30 years.
Mm-hmm.
And the way you organize those days, it was really impressive, and I mean that sincerely.
So, we're gonna find some formula that if you have to go a long way that we reimburse you for gas - and the time that you spent.
- Yes, sir.
You know, I've had the same passion for golf since I was a little kid, just like you do.
You said it was your dream to be a professional golfer.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't really know if you were good enough or not.
So I did a little research on you.
And you're actually as good as you said you are.
- Which is pretty cool.
- Yes, sir.
So as soon as you're done with college, we're gonna give you $50,000.
We're gonna sponsor you for two years.
I like that.
- You like that? - I like that a lot.
We're gonna give you all the resources that we have that'll allow you to pursue your dream.
Yes, sir.
Everybody needs a break, and this is my break I feel.
Sky's the limit right now.
So who knows, better be looking out for Jarryd Lentz in the near future.
Hey, how you doing? Did you make it through the rest of the shift? Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Cristian, I'm 52 years old, and I've never been touched in a way that you touched me.
What you've done, sacrificing your future for your family.
So to help out with your mom's medical expenses, I'm gonna give you $10,000.
- You all right? - Yeah.
Just speechless.
On top of that, I don't want you to work full time anymore.
I just want you to work part time.
And on top of that part time, we're gonna give you $15,000 a year for two years.
- Wow.
- So you can make your full salary that you're making today, and we'll go back to school.
- That's great.
- Okay? In addition to the $30,000, I'm going to pay for your college so that you don't have to be under all this pressure and know that your family's taken care of.
That means a lot to me.
My kids have, you know, everything.
And when I heard your story, it was really I just wanted to help you.
- Thank you, buddy.
- Thank you very much.
All right, I'll see you.
Hey, dad, I'm gonna go to school.
They're gonna pay for my college.
They're gonna give our family $10,000 for medical expenses and to pay the house bills.
Oh, son, I'm so happy for you.
I'm crying because I'm happy and just don't know what to say.
Hey.
Teresa, how you doing? - I'm doing well, doing well.
- Snuggle in, man.
Honestly, and I mean this, Teresa, the fact that you took the initiative to say let me start this returns department, and then, with almost no resources, be able to create what you've done it just was unbelievable.
So I wanna do a few things for you.
- Okay.
- You know, you and I talked - about those shoes.
- Yeah.
Right, the ones that really are salvageable.
We actually are starting an initiative to bring golf to inner city kids, and we can do it with apparel, - with the footwear - Awesome.
- with anything that you think - Awesome.
- Isn't that awesome? - That is good, that is good.
But then I thought, gotta do more than that.
So I thought, I should give you a week off, paid vacation.
But if you have a week off, you gotta have some spending money.
So I thought I'd give you $5,000 just to spend on whatever you want.
And then you talked about The Bucket List.
You're gonna make me cry.
So I'm sending you to Australia.
All expenses paid.
What do I say? You don't have to say anything.
Oh, bless you.
The emotion is just out of this world.
Yay! Going to Australia! When I decided to go undercover, I didn't really know what to expect.
Really what I found out is as much as I think myself and our company is in touch with all of the people, we're probably not at the level we should be.
I I just will make it my number one priority to ask all of them about their personal life, and I just want these people to feel special.
And I don't think it takes much.
But it's not something you can do part time.
It's something we have to do every single day.
Golf, to me, is really different than most sports.
The game is just so much more than hitting the ball.
Really, the core of golf is on values that all of us should live by in life.
Honesty, integrity, perseverance, commitment, hard work, and why shouldn't everyone be exposed to not only the game but the values of the game? So I've decided to start a golf program at a local foundation called Solutions for Change.
And it's for homeless families.
- Hey, Chris.
- Hey Mark, how's it going? - Good, how you doing? - Good, good, good.
Why shouldn't everyone be exposed to not only the game but the values of the game? We can get the kids playing and hitting balls and any of you that wanna play and we'll give you lessons and educate you and provide you with equipment.
So we want to invest $50,000 in a program that So that's awesome, isn't it? That's how we're gonna have a great game 30 years from now is to get everybody the opportunity to play the game.
And I think that's our responsibility.
That's it.
Nice.
That's awesome.
The CEO of Taylormade, the world's top-selling golf equipment brand, poses as an out-of-work golf enthusiast trying to land his dream job in the industry.
- I'm Al.
- It's nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Can this desk jockey survive without his million dollar beach home and private putting green? I will be a superstar at every job you put me in.
- Ow.
- Oh! What is this guy doing here? I gotta go a little faster, huh? Yeah.
He should keep his day job.
Will this former sales rep remember how to sell his own product? Yeah, this, it, uh Let's see And, will he be able to keep his identity a secret? Are you Mark King? I have something really important to tell you.
Find out next on Undercover Boss.
Undercover Boss 3x09 - Taylormade Golf Company Original air date April 6, 2012 With a reputation as a trailblazer in developing revolutionary technologies, Taylormade is the number one maker of high-performance golf equipment in the world, selling to more than 50 countries.
And overseeing the 2,000 employees at this $1.
2 billion business is one man.
My name is Mark King.
I'm the president and CEO of Taylormade Adidas Golf.
And, I pretty much do everything around here.
I've been here for 30 years.
I started here out of college in 1981, I became a territory sales rep, And I've been the president and CEO of Taylormade for the past ten years.
In 1998, Adidas bought Taylormade.
So then shortly after that, we put the two names together.
I've played golf ever since I was a little kid.
My father was a high school teacher.
Had the summers off, and so he worked at a little nine hole golf course in Green Bay, Wisconsin where I grew up.
And my mom and I used to go out every day.
We'd play nine holes in an hour and 20 minutes.
We would go around and around and around.
And I just fell in love with it.
I really pride myself on being in touch with the people because that's where I came from.
I came from the bottom and worked my way up.
How often do I play golf? I golf as often as I can.
I normally play with some of the executives.
- Whoa! - That hurt.
That would be very normal work.
All right, we ready? Let's go.
Best part of being a CEO is you get to come and go when you want.
My philosophy is, you should go home at 5:00 and if you're not done by 5:00, the job's probably too big for you.
You gonna miss me while I'm gone? I always do, dad.
- Really? - EhI'm just kidding.
- You just saying that? - Yes, I do.
I've had a fair amount of success in my professional life.
Not so much on my personal life.
I've been divorced twice.
My first marriage will always be wonderful for me because it's given me the joy of my life which are my two children Allison who's 20, and Lauren who's 16.
- Are you excited? - I'm nervous.
That's funny.
Going undercover for my dad will be tough because of his personality.
My dad's very goofy.
Usually the center of attention, so, hopefully, it'll work out.
But I think it'll be tough.
I want to go undercover because the business of golf is really at a difficult time right now.
Since 2000, sales overall in our industry are down about 15%.
It's a difficult challenge for us to get a shrinking number of golfers to spend more money each year on a toy that they really don't need.
And as CEO, I need to get out there and figure out what we can do better in every aspect from sales, to production, to shipping, in order to see improvement in our revenue.
- Don't blow your cover.
- I won't.
Good luck.
- Love you, dad.
- Love you.
Good luck.
While undercover, I'll be posing as Al Bauer, golf enthusiast.
That baby's white.
I chose Bauer because I thought it would be too much to be Jack Bauer, the famous badass TV character.
So I thought I could be his more bumbling but funnier brother, Al Bauer.
My coworkers will be told that I'm part of a reality show called Keep Your Day Job that takes people who want to switch from their current job into their dream profession.
I will be a superstar at every job you put me in.
Today's the first official day of Al Bauer, and I'm nervous as heck.
I think the last time I was feeling this helpless was when my children were born.
The unknown is what's got me nervous.
I think that's really what it is.
So maybe this will be a big learning experience for me to let go a little bit.
This afternoon, I'm in Westminster, South Carolina at the golf ball manufacturing plant.
I'm going to train in the quality control department.
We make about 1.
6 million dozen golf balls a year, which equates to about 8,000 per day.
- Hello.
- How you doing? Good.
I'm here to see Caley.
All right.
In the golf ball category, we are not number one, like we are in the equipment.
So, I'm here to look at what could we do to be more competitive? - Caley? - Hi! - I'm Al.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
I am a quality control auditor.
So, what I do is I make sure that the quality of the ball at each process, is up to standard.
Okay.
All right, let's grab the clipboards and we'll hit the floor.
Over 5,000 balls I inspect every day.
So we'll start out at buffing.
We look for any imperfections.
You know, if there's a nick missing out of it or if there's a line.
Do you inspect every ball? We do 25 ball audits.
I grab three at a time.
I go around the equator, top, bottom, throw it.
Around the equator, top, bottom, throw it.
You go and then you hand it to me, and I'll tell you good or bad.
You're good.
You have to have very clear vision, and I don't have very good vision.
So when I look down there, it's very hard for me to see the imperfections.
I gotta go a little faster, huh? Yeah.
And I was a slow as a turtle.
I don't know how anyone can inspect What I do, I grab them three at a time.
Oh, okay.
- 'Cause we have so much to do.
- Okay.
That way, it goes a little faster.
Yeah, you're right.
In this job, you really have to go fast, and it didn't really seem like Al was doing that.
I'll show you how we have to do it.
- The speed, man.
- Yeah.
You want me to try it on this one? Nah.
- Why not? - I'll get it.
Cause we gotta go.
Well, maybe I can do faster.
These look good.
There's a lot more to do, okay? We're gonna pick it up, so you better keep up, okay? Okay, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming.
Let's go to stamping.
Stamping.
Here, same thing, we do 25 more.
All right, and I get them out of here, right? Yep.
Gotta catch them, right? Yeah.
Al, well, he's, he's trying, but I just, I'm not sure he's like, cut out for it or not.
We're gonna go to paint.
I'm too old to be moving this fast.
Caley was fast.
That's all I can say.
I couldn't keep up with her.
And I'm just watching you? Yeah, I gotta get caught up now, we're behind.
I know I've been holding you back.
Sorry.
It's okay.
You're good.
Thank you.
All right, let's go to this one.
Okay.
I definitely felt like an old man in a wheelchair.
And see how far behind I am? You gotta do all these? Yeah.
I'm exhausted.
Running around with big boots on is much more demanding than sitting behind a desk.
All right, pressure's on.
Let's go.
When you have my job, you say things like "we have to have the highest quality standards.
" It's easy to just say it, but to actually see the people that execute it, it's really eye-opening to me.
How long you been working here? Almost two years.
And you like it? Yeah, yeah, I like it a lot.
- You do? - Yeah.
But the only thing that does stink is it can be really, really stressful, 'cause there's not anybody higher than me here now.
So I don't have anyone to go to.
Why why isn't there though? I really don't know.
I don't, I mean, supervisors, they're gonna be on first shift 'cause they've been here so long.
So the second shift, you're on your own.
Yeah, I'm on my own and then third shift is on their own.
And what if I made the wrong decision? My boss comes in, and I could have messed up thousands of dollars worth of production.
It's on my shoulders.
- How old are you? - 21.
- Whoa.
- Yeah.
It can be really stressful.
I've come out of here crying before.
- Really? - In tears, oh, yeah.
What amazed me from Caley was there's nobody here but her.
Why do we have a supervisor on shift one and not one on shift two and three? I don't know the answers to those, but I'd like to find out.
Okay, here is where we have final inspection.
It comes over here on a pallet, just like that.
- Okay.
- In the corrugate.
And then we tear apart six boxes.
Yeah, six dozen balls.
- Every one? - Every one.
We have more than three defects, the whole pallet has to be gone through.
- Yeah.
- I'm already tired.
I know, right? Kill me now.
Well, if this works out for me, it'll be difficult, because I have two daughters.
Oh, how old are they? Uh, 16 and 20.
Ah, so like my age.
My oldest daughter's your age.
And I've been divorced so Because of that, I've become very close to them.
You know what I mean? I mean, ours is actually the opposite way.
Like I don't even talk to my dad.
- Really? - No.
He didn't come to like, my graduation, he didn't walk me down the aisle.
- Seriously? - Yeah.
You know, I didn't have the best of childhoods.
But my aunt and Uncle, you know, that I moved out and I live with, like, they've been so good to me.
- My mom - They have been? Yeah, they actually gave me the house that I live in now.
Is it nice? It's, it's like, just a, um, mobile home.
So we're gonna save up for a few years and then maybe build, because my husband was in the construction industry.
The level of stress for young people today is way different than when I grew up.
When I was Caley's age, I was having fun playing sports and doing the best I could at school.
I wasn't working or taking on the same responsibility that these kids are.
This is me and my husband, and that's our baby.
He's not really a baby.
He's a dog.
But he's our baby.
We got him like two weeks after we got married.
And we took all of our wedding money - You did? - Yeah.
- It took all of it.
- How much was the dog? Like, $2,000.
- No.
- Oh, yeah.
They get real expensive.
And then I think we're probably gonna, like, get a full-size female.
- So you want another one? - Yeah.
I think it's easy for people that have had a tough childhood to hide behind that and say life has dealt me a bad hand.
You don't even get that Caley had a bad hand.
You just get she's gonna make the most out of life.
Very, very impressive young person.
Yep, there you go.
And then we'll replace that ball with a good one.
You did good.
To see someone like this striving at our company is great.
We just need to make sure we hang onto these people and support them.
- Okay? - Okay, yeah.
- That's a lot of golf balls.
- Yeah.
Crazy, huh? Who buys them all? That's amazing.
Hey, how are you? The boss has a not-so-secret admirer.
You got it going on.
Mark King, the CEO of Taylormade is a boss undercover at his own company.
- I'm Al.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
His employees think he's part of a reality show where people try out jobs in their dream industry.
He should keep his day job.
His journey continues in South Carolina.
I'm here today to work with our returns department.
This is one of the distribution and return centers for footwear and apparel.
This is a really important place for us because it's got a direct connection to our customers.
I haven't been here very often, and I'm interested in how we run the operation, and I want to really understand if we have the right systems to make it efficient.
Because the more efficient we get always, there's more customer satisfaction, which equates to more money for us.
Hello.
I'm looking for Teresa.
Right here to the left? - Yeah.
- Thank you.
Hey, how are you? - Teresa? - Yes.
- Al.
- How you doing? - Good.
- All right.
Well, this department is actually kind of broken up into three sections.
Everything on this side is something that's gonna go into inventory and be resold.
Okay.
The other side of the conveyer belt is things that are damaged.
The third is doing credits.
- All that here? - So I have a system.
Yeah, this returns department actually handles all of the U.
S.
- So - Seems like a lot.
Um, there's a lot of little details.
- Yeah.
- Let's get you started.
When product comes in, you scan it into a database.
This database will go into my office, and from my office, I will issue credit.
Really? Okay, you know what, you don't even have to worry about that because I'm here to make sure you learn, because then that makes me look good.
Okay.
Okay, first thing, you look for your "RA" number.
"RAS995" I need tracking numbers, so you just scan it.
- You don't have to type it in.
- Okay.
- How about that? - Oh.
It's a jacket.
You scan it, - put it back in here.
- Okay.
Put it on here.
Leave it like that.
All right, let's get you to do this.
- Okay.
- Okay so first, we're looking for an "RA" number.
So it's "R-A-S" Mm-hmm.
gotta be able to type, huh? Oh, over here.
Five, two, nine.
- Tracking number, you did well.
- Okay.
I can do that scanning.
How long you been doing this? Doing returns probably about ten years now.
But I've been with Taylormade for 23.
You have? There was no returns in South Carolina so, I was like, if I show y'all that we need a returns department here, would y'all consider it? - Really? - So that's what I did.
And it used to be that we used to have to do all this manually.
- Really? - It would take forever.
So you developed how it operates.
- Right.
- That's pretty cool.
What happens here too is defective shoes.
- Okay.
- You got it, okay.
Get your knife out and cut them up.
- Really? - Cut them up.
And then these are just thrown away? Yes.
- There we go.
- Make sure it goes deep.
So that nobody can go to the landfill - and find a pair of shoes.
- Oh.
And wanna return them for another pair.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Some of these shoes are nice.
Yeah.
And it's just one box after another, huh? This is just a small percentage of what comes back.
Now how about the apparel that we get back? We cut those up.
- You do? - Yes.
God, it's amazing how many shoes, though, huh? As I'm looking at these shoes, they may have flaws that prevent them from being sold.
But they're still useable.
I feel horrible about how wasteful it is.
Sometimes I suggest, you know, hey, I know this children's home, I know this women's shelter, um, can I take this, you know? Yep.
I don't wanna just throw away these shoes.
I don't wanna just throw away these clothes.
- Somebody needs them.
- Right.
Thousands of dollars in merchandise all gets destroyed, for really no reason.
I'd rather help people that need help than worrying about a few pairs of shoes that get returned.
So, we're just gonna take a little break here.
Okay, good.
Do you have children? - No.
- No children? No, naw, no.
- Married? - N was.
I've been enjoying my singleness.
You have? Yeah, me too.
How old are you? Same age.
- Yeah really? - Mm-hmm.
When he said he was single I thought, dang this man's single.
We're the same age.
Oh, shoot, I'm gonna see what this man's about.
What do you do then, other than work? - Guess where I'm going.
- Where? Alaska.
- You are? - In July, mm-hmm.
It's a singles cruise.
- What are you gonna do? - It's on my bucket list.
- Oh, it is, really? - Ever since I saw that movie The Bucket yeah.
I just like, saved up my money.
So what else is on that list? I would love to go to Australia, but that's like - You would? - Yeah.
I wanna spend my money on adventure.
You wouldn't believe this, do you th I have my motorcycle license.
- You do?! - Yeah.
You got it going on.
That's what I would say.
How long you been single? Probably about 13 years now.
I got where I was I'm happy, and I don't let nobody disturb that, because I had enough negativity in my life.
Because I was thinking about, um, my mom was a foster parent.
She was? And I even thought about myself just probably trying to be - a foster parent because I - Yeah.
I have a three-bedroom house and it's just me, so You know, share it.
You know, share it.
You shouldn't be selfish about it.
Yeah.
So how about you? Kids? I have two girls, they're grown and off and about.
They're doing good, I guess.
- One's a teacher and one's - Wow.
And one like works in the music.
She gives lessons and stuff so I I love Teresa.
She's awesome.
But when she's pouring her heart and soul and getting really personal, and I'm making stuff up.
It's really, um, it doesn't feel very good.
I'm from a little town outside of Chicago.
Started working for the Park And Recs 20 years ago.
The thing that's unnerving is to just blatantly lie.
As a human being, it doesn't seem right.
You know, what am I gonna do, I'm single, and I don't really wanna continue to move snow - and leaves and - Yeah.
And, I don't wanna wait a week.
- Teresa? - Yes? I have something really important to tell you.
I'm Mark King.
I'm the CEO of Taylormade.
No, you're not.
No, you're not! I don't believe it! I'm like, I just kept saying to myself, I kept saying to myself, God, this man's single too, he's good looking, I'm gonna get him.
Do you know the show Undercover Boss? Yes, I watch yeah.
You're on it now, too.
No! When I see that, when I see that show, I'll be like, y'all didn't know that was y'all's boss man? Y'all didn't know that was y'all's y'all didn't know that was your CEO.
He really fooled me.
He really did.
It was an awesome experience to be that close to my CEO.
I had to tell you that it was me.
I didn't want to play this thing any longer.
You are a spectacular employee.
- Well - So I want you to know that.
- I try to do a good job.
- You do a good job! You do a great job! I'm now almost qualified to work for you.
Wow, I am really shocked.
I just don't believe this.
That moment made this experience all worthwhile.
Honestly, I can't even describe what I feel right now.
It's just really wonderful.
Now I'm gonna take this earring off.
- Okay, you can take it off.
- Yeah, because it's fake.
Yeah, because I'm like, okay, Mark King with an earring? Oh, l okay, okay.
He is down, give me one! You think I should get one? Eh, you'd look cute.
But you'd look cute either way.
Teresa's single, I'm single.
You never know.
Oh, God.
Today, I'm in Liberty Township, Ohio, and I'm here to train with a demo tech rep.
Demo events are opportunities for us to invite golfers to see all of our products.
The demo tech reps then fit the consumer to whatever the golfer's looking for.
We invest an unbelievable amount of money in this program.
We have events that sell in excess of $100,000 in a one-day event.
I wanna make sure the demo tech reps have all of the resources that they need to give the consumer the best possible experience, and then hopefully buy our products.
- Hello.
- How you doing, sir? - Good, I'm Al.
- Jarryd Lance.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
I'm here to help you today.
Yes, sir.
I need all the help I can get.
Well What we're gonna do, we're gonna grab every bag out of here and we're gonna take it to the range.
Okay.
When I first saw Al, he had a tattoo, he had an earring, I didn't know if he was a golfer or going to the bowling alley or what he was doing.
So you do a lot of these, Jarryd? Right now, I'm doing about four or five a week, going to school full-time and We're gonna set this down right here.
Okay.
So this is what you wanna do? Well, what I wanna do is I wanna play golf for a living.
You mean as a golf professional.
Yes, sir.
I played in junior local tournaments starting at about 11 or so.
One of the first tournaments I played in was a state tournament and I won that.
Awesome.
When do you have time to play? I either practice before I work, or I practice after or both.
Wow.
You've got this down to a science.
- There's a science to it.
- There is.
All right, we're good to go now.
How you doing, sir? When you think of Taylormade, you think of drivers.
The driver is the club that you use to tee off with.
If you have a driver, you wanna hit it far.
Every golfer's biggest challenge is to find a driver that they love.
We're gonna deal with two people at once.
We're gonna watch him hit, and then we're gonna make sure he's got the right club.
We've got 48 adjustments we can make on these clubs.
He's gonna want to get a different shaft and a little bit different lie angle because he swings a little bit more upright.
He hit that one on a good trajectory, so I'm gonna keep that club in his hands.
Okay.
Here you go, sir.
First 2 degrees up.
Can't hit any straighter than that.
We got two ladies coming up here.
I'm gonna see what you can do.
- Hi, I'm Al.
- Angie.
- Angie.
- Jackie.
- Jackie.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Why don't you both hit a few balls and we'll just take a look? Wow.
So let's see how it's set up.
You got the heavy weight in the toe, which means it's gonna help it draw a little bit.
- You're not getting a draw? - No.
Let's see.
One Okay.
All right, you keep hitting them.
Angie, I wanna go ask Jarryd one quick question.
- Okay.
- Okay? One quick question.
- Jarryd? - Yes, sir? She wants to draw her ball a little bit.
It's set up 2 degrees closed, right now it is.
Because that's what that red adjustable sole plate is.
It's a very, very complicated thing, fitting these people.
Tell you what, I like that there.
That's hard to beat.
I've been doing demo days for 30 years, and I've never seen one as efficiently run as this.
That'll lower Yeah, this, it, uh There's a hundred different things that we have, but there's a thousand different options.
Here we go, sir.
Let's try this one real quick.
You could close it just a little bit and try it.
- Yes.
- You wanna try it? Take one minute.
- Now, he's gonna tee off tomorrow at 7:30.
- The new weapon.
- With the new weapon.
- Thanks, Steve.
- Thanks, Steve.
All right, we're gonna go out to the car.
I gotta grab something.
It's a nice ride.
I appreciate it; I had a smaller compact car, and I couldn't fit everything in it.
I decided, hey, I wanna get a bigger car.
So you have to pay for all your expenses by yourself? - I pay for the gas, yes, sir.
- Okay.
And, you know, sometimes we may go 200 miles away.
We don't get paid for all the traveling that we do.
We just get paid from the time we get to the golf course to the time we leave.
So I have that, pay for gas, paying for school, paying for my practice.
But I'm lucky to break even.
Jarryd said that they get paid for the time on the job.
But if somebody has to drive three hours, I think they should be compensated for that, so I'm definitely gonna look into that.
Oh, yeah.
What are you going to do to pursue this tour thing? I you know what, I need a sponsor.
You do.
And right now, I'm saving money - for my car, school and practice.
- Right, right.
Just to be able to play, let alone tournaments.
Tournaments right now I can't do, that's that's too much.
- Too much.
- If I had time and a sponsor, I could do it, I know I could.
So did you do you do this because you love golf? Absolutely.
From about ten, my dad taught me how to play.
He did? Was it affordable at all here? Oh, no, golf, it it's a rich man's game.
- It is.
- I'd love to change that.
Not very many people have five hours or $50 to go play golf.
My dad worked at a steel company for 35 years, and I had to shag balls, pick up golf balls - Whatever you had to do.
- Sneak on.
Go play three or four holes before dark.
I will do whatever it takes.
That's why I want to own my own golf course and lower the rates.
To go play nine holes and play for $15 in a cart or play for free if you're a junior or college golfer.
- Right.
- And promote golf.
And that's what it's all about.
Business is so competitive today that you kind of lose sight of why you do things.
My passion has been golf since I was a little kid.
Jarryd has a deep love for the game.
He wants to be able to bring people into the game so they can love the game as much as he does.
Well, we've got people waiting.
We gotta get back to work.
First and foremost, I think a CEO is responsible for moving the business forward.
What I didn't realize was that we really need to get serious about making it affordable.
That's the future of the game, bringing kids back into the game.
Making programs for them, whether it's lessons or tournaments.
We can do extraordinary things, and it starts with young people like Jarryd.
That's what will drive our success.
And we become a better company because of it.
Can't hit it any better than that.
If you could, I'd like to see it.
That was awesome.
Mark goes clubbing.
- Ow.
- Oh! Oh, oh, I'm sorry.
But will his coworkers see through his disguise? There were a growing number of eyes on me.
It was just uncomfortable.
Today, I'm in Carlsbad, California, our headquarters.
And I'll be working on the production floor.
Golf clubs are the heart and soul, the bread and butter of what we do.
We make 8 million golf clubs a year.
Excuse me, do you know where Cristian is? Yeah, he's right over there.
We keep most of our assembly of our products here in the United States, right here in this building underneath my office.
I've been here since 1981.
That's 30 years.
My disguise is fantastic, but I'm not sure it's gonna work today.
- Cristian? - Hey, what's up? - I'm Al.
- I'm Cristian.
- How you doing? - Good.
I'm here to train with you today.
Oh, yeah? - Um, these are the burner 2.
0s.
- Okay.
- It's like superglue.
- Okay.
Then we take it over here to the press.
Set it down, we press these two right here.
Then you just clean it up and get it ready for the person that's gonna do alignment.
How do you get it out of there now? How do you get it out of there? Like, she'll get it out of there.
- Oh, she'll get it out.
- Yeah.
Wanna give it a go? Oh, I'll try it once.
Okay.
- Do that? - Yeah, just one put it in.
- Like that? - Yeah.
What is this guy doing here? - Like that? - Yeah.
Now, we have to do this a little bit faster.
As you can see, she just stopped the wheel.
- Okay.
- Put it in.
Everybody here has something to do for the whole product.
It all goes together, huh? Yeah, it all goes together.
Got it.
Let's see if I can do the wood right.
- Ow.
- Oh! Oh, oh, I'm sorry.
It's okay.
I'm sorry.
I'm a little nervous.
I'm too old to be moving this fast.
Ooh! Sorry.
Just announced 12 hours today.
Is that good? That's good.
Overtime, but I never miss overtime but like, you know, personally, I spend more time here than with my family.
- You do? - My friends and my girlfriend.
to 6:00 in the afternoon.
Getting home around 7:00 all you do is just basically sleep.
- Sleep and work.
- Sleep and work.
- How old are you, Cristian? - I'm 19.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
I dropped out of college, - and - How come? When I graduated from high school, I had a scholarship for soccer.
- You did? - Yeah.
But my mother got skin cancer and I felt bad leaving and not helping out my dad.
Well, I just decided to stay and and I help him out.
- You did? - Yeah.
- So, you ever take a break? - Yeah.
- Grab some air.
- Okay, let's go.
Right over here? So did you play golf at all growing up? Uh, I would just play mini golf.
- Oh, just mini golf.
- Yeah, mini golf.
I started playing soccer just because all I really needed was soccer shoes and a ball.
That's pretty cool.
Where were you gonna go to school for soccer? I was gonna go to Humboldt State University.
You were? But at the end, it doesn't matter.
Because because my mom didn't have insurance.
- Oh, my God.
- Yeah.
It's hard for me, like like, I hear people complaining.
I don't get mad at them or anything.
But I see just the life they have.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
I I got choked up today.
Cristian is the way you'd like to have everyone in the world be willing to sacrifice whatever they have for other people.
Hey, we need to get back to work.
Okay, thanks for talking.
No problem.
He made a decision at 19 years old to do something that's really incredible.
It's just heartbreaking to see a person that young that had to give up something that he had worked for his whole life.
That that's really moving.
Yeah, there you go.
- How's my speed? - It's good.
Is it all right? Well not really.
Not really? Too slow? Yeah, actually a little bit slow.
Like over there's a long order.
As Cristian and I were working together, I was starting to feel like people were looking at me.
And I was feeling like people were starting to maybe think, who is that guy? It was just uncomfortable.
What people are doing is they're staring.
There were people actually walking from other departments to look at me, so I'm really nervous that they're gonna recognize me.
Hi, are you Mark King? Mark King, the CEO of Taylormade, is a boss undercover in his own company.
But now he's working on a golf club assembly line where his coworkers have seen through his disguise.
Hi, are you Mark King? Are you? Oh Yeah, I think you busted me.
Did you recognize me? - She told us.
- Do you recognize me? You weren't supposed to.
Well, it's nice meeting you.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
How did you guys know? - She told us.
- Yeah.
You recognized me? Does everybody know? Yeah.
Pretty much.
Did you know? Well good, Cristian.
I'm Mark King.
I'm sorry, man.
I was shocked, and I'm still shocked.
It was a big surprise that I'm working with the main guy from this company.
CO? CEO? I was hoping I wouldn't get busted.
But I decided to turn it into an opportunity.
I knew it was you.
I knew it was you the minute I looked at you.
I know you did.
Getting to share my experiences and what I've found with the whole production floor was incredibly moving.
I work right next door to the factory and often stop by, but working right next to them and sharing their jobs, it meant a lot to them and even more to me.
You said it right away? To actually go down there and see what those people do to see how hard those jobs are and really how unappreciated they are they just get forgotten about.
Oh, wow.
But I think the thing here is to appreciate it, making sure these people feel loved, and respected, and listened to.
Even what might seem to be a small tweak to us might be a massive tweak in their lives.
My undercover experience is almost over I really need to meet with my board members.
- How are you? - Good.
- Welcome back.
- Thanks.
And tell them about the experience, what I learned, but then more importantly, what do we have to do to take action on these things that I found? I went to the ball factory.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- In South Carolina.
I worked with a young lady, her name was Caley, and she was only 21 years old.
But she had some really good feedback.
We only have a supervisor on one shift, and sometimes they run three shifts.
- Mm-hmm.
- When she has something that's kind of on the edge, which might be rejecting a bin of 5,000 balls, it's just a lot of pressure on her.
Oh, yeah.
I really think that's something that we could do.
Then I worked demo day with an incredible young guy named Jarryd.
But one issue for you with him, he did mention that they get paid for their time of the demo days.
But he said many times he has to drive three, four hours.
And he doesn't get paid for that drive time.
So I just think in those unique situations, we should be looking at reimbursing gas mileage - or paying.
- Yeah.
I think you could follow up on that.
I think that would really help.
The third thing that I think you could have your team look at is, in South Carolina, where we have - defective products come back - Yeah.
- We throw them away.
- Okay.
There was a lot of what they call "B-grade" shoes.
That we don't have a good plan for yet? Exactly.
So maybe you could have somebody look at that.
- Yeah, for sure we can do that.
- Okay.
- I'll see you soon.
- Okay.
All right, see you later.
The only thing that's left is to meet with the employees and tell them what I learned while I worked with them.
I am here to tell Al he should stick with his day job.
I just don't know that the stress level and quickness of my job is right for him.
- How you doing? - Good, how you doing? - I'm doing just fine.
- Do you know who I am? No, should I? That's big Al, right in front of me.
Without the earring I see.
I'm Mark King.
Yes, sir, I do know who you are right now.
- CEO of Taylormade.
- Yes, sir.
- How you doing? - No, you're not.
Oh, I hope I didn't say anything stupid.
So how did I do? - Um - Not good? No, not really.
Honestly, Caley, I was so impressed with you as a person.
The level of responsibility that you've taken on is amazing.
It stresses you out though, doesn't it? - Oh, yeah.
- So I'm gonna try to help you with some of your stress.
- Ah.
- So, we're gonna make sure that there's a supervisor on call all the time.
So that you can get a decision and move on.
- Awesome.
- Yeah.
I've been looking for a dog for you.
- A dog? - Mm-hmm.
But they're very hard to find, so instead, I'm just gonna give you the $3,000.
No, you're not! - Oh, my God.
- And then I'm going to give you $10,000 to put towards your dream house.
Shut up.
Yeah.
I it means a lot so much.
- You deserve it.
- This is crazy.
I mean, I've never had anything go, like, great in my life.
And it's just all of a sudden.
It's crazy, I'm so happy.
Jarryd, I've been going to those demo days for 30 years.
Mm-hmm.
And the way you organize those days, it was really impressive, and I mean that sincerely.
So, we're gonna find some formula that if you have to go a long way that we reimburse you for gas - and the time that you spent.
- Yes, sir.
You know, I've had the same passion for golf since I was a little kid, just like you do.
You said it was your dream to be a professional golfer.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't really know if you were good enough or not.
So I did a little research on you.
And you're actually as good as you said you are.
- Which is pretty cool.
- Yes, sir.
So as soon as you're done with college, we're gonna give you $50,000.
We're gonna sponsor you for two years.
I like that.
- You like that? - I like that a lot.
We're gonna give you all the resources that we have that'll allow you to pursue your dream.
Yes, sir.
Everybody needs a break, and this is my break I feel.
Sky's the limit right now.
So who knows, better be looking out for Jarryd Lentz in the near future.
Hey, how you doing? Did you make it through the rest of the shift? Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Cristian, I'm 52 years old, and I've never been touched in a way that you touched me.
What you've done, sacrificing your future for your family.
So to help out with your mom's medical expenses, I'm gonna give you $10,000.
- You all right? - Yeah.
Just speechless.
On top of that, I don't want you to work full time anymore.
I just want you to work part time.
And on top of that part time, we're gonna give you $15,000 a year for two years.
- Wow.
- So you can make your full salary that you're making today, and we'll go back to school.
- That's great.
- Okay? In addition to the $30,000, I'm going to pay for your college so that you don't have to be under all this pressure and know that your family's taken care of.
That means a lot to me.
My kids have, you know, everything.
And when I heard your story, it was really I just wanted to help you.
- Thank you, buddy.
- Thank you very much.
All right, I'll see you.
Hey, dad, I'm gonna go to school.
They're gonna pay for my college.
They're gonna give our family $10,000 for medical expenses and to pay the house bills.
Oh, son, I'm so happy for you.
I'm crying because I'm happy and just don't know what to say.
Hey.
Teresa, how you doing? - I'm doing well, doing well.
- Snuggle in, man.
Honestly, and I mean this, Teresa, the fact that you took the initiative to say let me start this returns department, and then, with almost no resources, be able to create what you've done it just was unbelievable.
So I wanna do a few things for you.
- Okay.
- You know, you and I talked - about those shoes.
- Yeah.
Right, the ones that really are salvageable.
We actually are starting an initiative to bring golf to inner city kids, and we can do it with apparel, - with the footwear - Awesome.
- with anything that you think - Awesome.
- Isn't that awesome? - That is good, that is good.
But then I thought, gotta do more than that.
So I thought, I should give you a week off, paid vacation.
But if you have a week off, you gotta have some spending money.
So I thought I'd give you $5,000 just to spend on whatever you want.
And then you talked about The Bucket List.
You're gonna make me cry.
So I'm sending you to Australia.
All expenses paid.
What do I say? You don't have to say anything.
Oh, bless you.
The emotion is just out of this world.
Yay! Going to Australia! When I decided to go undercover, I didn't really know what to expect.
Really what I found out is as much as I think myself and our company is in touch with all of the people, we're probably not at the level we should be.
I I just will make it my number one priority to ask all of them about their personal life, and I just want these people to feel special.
And I don't think it takes much.
But it's not something you can do part time.
It's something we have to do every single day.
Golf, to me, is really different than most sports.
The game is just so much more than hitting the ball.
Really, the core of golf is on values that all of us should live by in life.
Honesty, integrity, perseverance, commitment, hard work, and why shouldn't everyone be exposed to not only the game but the values of the game? So I've decided to start a golf program at a local foundation called Solutions for Change.
And it's for homeless families.
- Hey, Chris.
- Hey Mark, how's it going? - Good, how you doing? - Good, good, good.
Why shouldn't everyone be exposed to not only the game but the values of the game? We can get the kids playing and hitting balls and any of you that wanna play and we'll give you lessons and educate you and provide you with equipment.
So we want to invest $50,000 in a program that So that's awesome, isn't it? That's how we're gonna have a great game 30 years from now is to get everybody the opportunity to play the game.
And I think that's our responsibility.
That's it.
Nice.
That's awesome.