Chad Mumm, Executive Producer of Full Swing, discusses the release of Season 2 of the Netflix docuseries on the PGA TOUR. He highlights the improvements made from Season 1 and the focus on linear storytelling and drama in Season 2. The two also discuss the positive reception and viewership of the show, as well as the target audience and the goal of making golf accessible to all. The involvement of Rory McIlroy is emphasized as a critical aspect of the show, and the journey of Rickie Fowler is highlighted as a key storyline. Mumm also discusses the surprising personalities featured in Season 2 and the potential for future storylines in Season 3.
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Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-of-the-tour-golf-podcast/id1096923241
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7IQ9QaToKXNpaDzXd313ME
00:00 Introduction and Season 2 Launch
00:49 Improvements from Season 1
02:28 Focus on Linear Storytelling and Drama
03:37 Positive Reception and Viewership of Season 1
04:53 Target Audience and Making Golf Accessible
06:52 Importance of Rory McIlroy’s Involvement
09:34 Surprising Personalities in Season 2
12:06 Addressing the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf Relationship
14:40 Rickie Fowler’s Journey in Season 2
16:56 Potential Storylines for Season 3
17:51 Conclusion and Season 2 Release Date
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On the strength of season 1 of full swing the Netflix docu series on the PJ tour we are within oh just a couple of days of launching season two and it drops on Wednesday of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and uh everyone involved with it is pretty excited about it golf
Fans are pretty stoked about what season two will’ll have in store and we’ve got the man who can shed a little light on that Chad mom from VOX media is the executive producer of f swing and kind enough to hop in and hang with us Chad thanks for some time what’s happening
How you doing out there in LA yeah you know I’m I’m excited I can’t wait we’ve been working on this thing for the last year I can’t wait for the world to see it couldn’t be more proud of uh of what we cooked up for everybody so uh you
Know fire up Netflix March 6 it’s there for you ready to binge so let’s I’m happy to tell you all about it was there any feedback or self-critique that you guys as a production unit gave yourselves after season 1 that sort of gave you some new ideas new openings new
Avenue news about how you might proceed going into the second season you know any anytime you make one of these shows a season one is a little bit of like you’re figuring out the world you’re figuring out how to make a series you know listen I’m a hardcore golf fan I
Mean I have tilling Hast on my sweater here um and I listen to all the podcasts I heard all the feedback about how we explain the cut in every episode maybe one too many times and one of the one of the great things about a season 2 is we
Don’t have to work as hard to establish the world you know and and season two of full swing starts off right at the end you basically right where we leave you at the end of season one so you get thrown right into the action Rory maroy
Coming off of winning the FedEx Cup tour Champion number one player in the world we jump right back in with Rory kind of at his moment of like maximum heat and he’s at the top of the mountain and we follow his story as he goes into the
Beginning of the year and misses the cut at the Masters and then watches his as you will see you know budding arch rival uh win the PGA Championship in Brooks kka and it just throws you right into the action without having to explain what a par is we don’t have to spend as
Much time even introducing cast members you know we we we created this cool world of what life is like on the PGA tour we introduced a bunch of great characters in season one you know we can just throw you right into the action with them for season two so I I think
Our Big Goal first and foremost was like no sophomore slump sophomore album it had to hit it out of the park so we had a really high bar for ourselves on making sure we lived up to people’s expectations from season one I think we we hit that bar and then some the second
Goal was really just to how do we tell stor that are just more linear inherently how do we how do we create a show that propels you through the season so there’s you’re going to see more Cliffhangers in this in this season there’s more two-part episodes that tie
Together and and you know pick up the second the other one ends so I think the whole show is inherently just like more dramatic it’s more bingeable and we have this amazing thing called the writer cup that we can use as a device that ends up guiding so much of the drama throughout
The whole season and you get to kind of culminate the whole show in this head-to-head battle which as you know in golf like we don’t get all the time you know we can go into an event with 10 or 12 people being followed by our cameras
And you know in 150 person you know 50 guy field you know we got to get lucky for someone to be in the final group together and and the rder cup was great for us because it was just one team was going to win one team was going to lose
And you never get that kind of Direct One V one drama as a Sunday singles matches as you do at the Ryder Cup so you know everything like the stars Al line for us I I can’t wait for you guys to see it I think uh your explanation
Makes a lot of sense as it relates to the Natural Evolution of a Series in in any realm in any space there might be some broad brush to educate viewers in season one and then a little more refinement in season 2 in terms of the viewership and the streams Chad I mean
You guys have to be thrilled with the 53 million streams between the debut of season 1 in February through June kind of outperformed expectations would you say yeah I think everybody you know was shocked at how broadly the show is accepted by by fans kind of of just
Great storytelling all over the world I mean obviously poured my heart and soul and our entire team sort of poured everything we had into season one making something great how do we make golf accessible to people how do we suck people into these human stories how do
We humanize these athletes and give them like moments of really big payoff and I do think in hindsight also golf just has a it’s a great canvas for these kinds of Storytelling because it’s such an individual Sport and if you can get behind the curtain with these athletes
And with their families and with their team you really can humanize them in a way that’s harder to do when you’re surrounded by the infrastructure of like an n team or even like an F1 team you know there’s just we have amazing access to these guys and they’re just and their
Families and they’re just like they for us you know we don’t have to work through some comm’s team we don’t have to you know we’re not being chased by PR people it’s just like us and the cameras and them and I think that humanity and
The fact that when they get out there on the golf course it’s really just on them there’s no place to hide it just makes for great storytelling canvas the golf audience is a curious contingency to kind of get your arms around right there’s a there’s an entrenched uh core
Audience that’s kind of been involved in the game for a long time there’s also a young and newer and fresher emerging uh set of eyeballs that I know the PJ tour uh is really focused on where do you guys land in that space Chad in terms of
Who you think full swing is ultimately going to be aimed at you know the goal is just to make a show that millions of people around the world fall in love with and and want to spend their time with I think you know we don’t necessarily think about our audience in
That sort of micro uh niches it’s really like if we we kind of have the assumption that we do a good job and we show real access to these players that the hardcore golf fans are going to find something to take away from the show they’re going to get an insight into
These players that they have never seen before and that’s just by virtue of the access that we have and then our job on on top of that is to make a show for for everybody else like fans of just not just great Sports stories but just great
Human drama and you know I think we we were effective at at tugging at some heartstrings in season one and you know giving people some rushes of dopamine watching someone or rushes of adrenaline even watching someone hit a pivotal shot at a pivotal moment and uh you know I
Think we just want to build on that and I think you know honestly like the kind of stories that unfolded last year while we were making season two you know it it it takes it up a notch honestly the the drama is so real and it’s so visceral
And and being able to you know live through a very disruptive year again on the PGA tour and then to have it all culminate in a head to match up in Rome where you’ve seen all of our cast members and all the characters of the show and all their families trying all
Year to make this team and then finally they have to kind of put up or shut up and it’s in Rome and people are singing songs and chanting it just it gives you this like great buildup across the whole season and I think we you know as I said
I think we I think we did something really special with this season and hopefully you know everybody who watches it agrees you mentioned Rory a little bit earlier Chad he’s the brightest star in the game outside of tiger of course we’ll call Rory the brightest active
Comp competitive star uh in the game and he’s one of the few players I think that has crossover appeal uh for folks who are watching outside of the professional golf realm and he’s the star of the show he is the tip of the sport he’s the
Social conscience of the pj2 he’s all of that he’s a big deal to have involved how critical was it how meaningful was it for you and your team to have the full Buy in from Rory mroy yeah I mean you can’t even quantify it and and last
Season you know we we Rory for the final episode and he wasn’t in the show until Monday at uh the Tour Championship at Eastlake and we tried all year to kind of talk his team into having him come into season one and I think you know they were kind of the impression that
Hey he’ll lean in for season two we just kind of want to see what the all about and and I flew we didn’t have an ending to season one so I flew down to Atlanta on the Sunday night and just wandered around the East Lake Clubhouse until I
Ran into Rory and and just kind of gave him the pitch of my life to say like hey you you got to jump in now because if not people aren’t going to hear from you till 2024 and you know to his credit he said yes and an hour later he had a
Microphone on and was running around the clubhouse in the locker room and then goes on to win and his buyin I think just only increased as he saw the response to the show um he he told us an anecdote that I love where you know he
He and his wife were in New York for just a vacation and out to eat and you know he gets recognized sometimes but he said he was walking down the streets in New York and people kept coming up to him being like oh you’re the Netflix guy
And he’s like you know first time I’ve ever been recognized not for just being a pro golfer but just because I was in a Netflix show and I and he got he gets it I mean Rory’s Rory’s extremely smart and you know I give him a ton of credit
Because we filmed with him not at the highest point of his year you know and and the beginning of the season was tough he missed the cut at the Masters you know he felt like he he he didn’t have what it took to to go and beat
Brooks at the PGA Championship and you feel that frustration in the show I mean it’s it’s raw and real and we get you know we had better access to Roy than I think anybody’s ever had for a longer period of time and then you get to see
Him kind of grind it out across the whole season and then come back to Rome and you know sort of be the the heart and soul of that European riter Cup team and and you know get it done in sort of historic fashion it’s just it’s a really
Great season long Arc and I think that you know this season for for full swing season two I think people are going to get to know Rory in a totally different way whether you’re a fan of his or not I think you’re going to you’re going to
Have newfound respect for him as a as a human being as a competitor and I think there’s going to be a lot of a lot of fun chatter about some of the stuff that we captured with Rory Chad were there players uh involved in season 2 whose personalities and appeal and Q factor
Kind of left you guys thinking oh boy that was a pleasant surprise yeah I think the two that come to mind are Tom Kim and Keegan Bradley Tom obviously super super young Superstar I think you know he’s already won three times in the PGA Tour you know
People forget he’s only 21 years old I think you know L Vic o is 24 four I think you know Nick Dunlap might be 23 I mean people forget how young Tom Kim is and how long he’s been playing playing pro golf and you know there’s like an
Innocence to Tom as he finds himself kind of swimming with sharks and and he’s playing practice rounds with Rory and tiger and Jordan Speed and maxom and Justin Thomas and he’s just found himself in this sort of A-list crew and there’s a sweetness to his point of view
That I think we we knew he was a great personality I mean we saw him at the President’s Cup we saw that energy and that fire but really spending a season with Tom it was my one of my favorite stories to tell because he’s just he’s
Just got so much heart and then in the moment of sort of maximum pressure when he was tested at the Open Championship when he injured his ankle he stepped up in a big way and you know and there’s a lot of superstars that just don’t have
That level of grit and I think Tom proved a lot to to us and to the world and hopefully to the Netflix audience about what it takes to to really be a star Keegan’s another player who you know when we started season one Keegan was one of the first players we talked
To you know he’s huge fan of these kinds of shows he told me he watches every single season of every episode of Every hard kns and you know drive to survive and everything in between he he really loves these shows and he wanted to be in
And we honestly like told him he needed to wait for you know season two and and so he leaned in and told us at the beginning of the year that the only thing that mattered to him was making that rder Cup team and you know he said
Look good or bad you guys can have cameras with me all year long I’m leaning in and you know to to watch his journey and how close he got to being you know that final pick and earning his way onto the team at first and then hopefully waiting by the phone for a
Call from Captain Zack Johnson to say he’s made it back to Rome and when that call comes and the answer is no is is just a it’s just human and visceral and difficult scene to watch that you could possibly I mean it’s not life or death but but it’s it’s heartbreaking stuff
And and you know credit to Keegan for just owning it and leaning in and if you’re a fan of professional golf you’re going to become a huge fan of Keegan Bradley because I mean talk talk about being a pro and being a great human being a great dad and a great competitor
You know that Keegan Keegan blew us all away so the relationship between the PJ tour and the live golf tour is um it’s an unavoidable narrative right I mean you just you just cannot ignore it how did you guys tackle that without dwelling on it but also not ignoring it
Did you lean into that conflict a little bit more in season two this show is about professional golf I think both above and beyond and you know we have an amazing partnership with the PGA we also have a great partnership with all the other governing bodies in golf and and
We had filmed you know we were embedded with several players last year Mito Pereira Ian polter Brooks Kea you know these guys Dustin Johnson who left for live in the middle of the season and you know we felt like it’d be doing a disservice to our audience to to ignore
Those guys and to pretend that you know it never happened and so you know we we continued to film with Dustin all year so you’ll see DJ in in season two and the moment of I think that everybody is interested in seeing is the the events
Of June 6th when the PGA Tour and the piff announced their sort of framework agreement it dropped like a bomb across the pro golf landscape and we had cameras out with like several top 50 and top 10 players we had a crew in in Canada for the RBC Canadian open just
Filming something unrelated like we had no idea it was coming either and it it you know as as disruptive and kind of crazy that moment was and and honestly there’s still not a resolution to it uh it makes for an amazing story to tell because all of a sudden you have all of
These players that you really have invested time with as a viewer that now have had their whole entire world flipped upside down and nobody has any answers you know I think last season the slow drip of players you know exiting or the speculation is Cam Smith gonna leave
After the British show you know is who’s staying who’s going that kind of slow drip it was dramatic when somebody would leave but it was also like you know we had seen that happen before so there was not like that much surprising there was always like rumors before they left the
June 6th announcement was like a bomb being dropped and nobody had any idea it was coming and so when you have an event that affects literally everybody in professional golf not just the tour players but the Live players as well like kind of everybody had questions and
Nobody had answers to have an entire sport be rocked in one day it just gives like this amazing macro narrative that we can you know tell stories off of and I think the the access we had to that moment and and the support that we had
And the trust that we had from the PGA Tour to tell it in a way that was true and fair and journalistic you I a lot of credit to the PJ tour for sort of you know maybe holding their nose as they watch this and see what that really
Dramatic moment looked like from the inside with their top players Ricky Fowler of course is one of the most telegenic stars on the PJ tour Chad and has been for years even during a dark period where he went a few years kind of searching for it not winning Ricky of
Course returned to the Winter Circle in emotional fashion in Detroit at the rocket mortgage classic uh last summer is that a big part of season two it’s a huge part of season two and and Ricky you know to to his credit was one of the first players to say yes to full
Swing I mean in 2019 I mean he’s he’s been a part of this show for as long as it’s been an idea that we’ve had so we filmed with Ricky all last year before you know for season one we had to make the difficult call to let him know that
He wasn’t actually making it into season one despite all the access he had given us and his family had given us and and we knew he was trending in the right direction he started with working with Butch Harman again and it felt like he was going to have his big ending and we
Called his team and said listen like if you trust us you keep leaning in like you know we we’ve got 90% of an episode here but we know we’re just waiting for the ending and and so you get to see a real two-year Arc for Ricky Fowler going
From I believe when we started filming with him he was like 165th in the world or something up there you know in that in that range have him come all the way back to make the Ryder Cup team to get back in the winter Circle to almost you
Know get himself in the final group of the US Open and feel the entire US Open crowd sort of behind him it was an electrifying moment and to have that putt finally fall in Detroit the the relief and the release of like all this emotion if you don’t tear up a little
Bit you know watching that story then you know might want to get that checked out brother because it’s a it’s a powerful powerful story and and Ricky just he’s so honest I think that’s that’s I think people feel like they know Ricky Fowler because they see him on television they see the commercials
They you know they’ve seen him on social media but you know he’s so real with us and and the access we had to him just brings you inside that world and inside his world and his wife Allison is just spectacular and the the willingness for
Them to really be real with us and to open up and to to let us into their lives and feel that weight of the pressure that he was under and the pressure the whole family was under frankly to have that all kind of you know the clouds part on that in one
Glorious Sunday in Detroit was just like you can’t you can’t script it well we’re all hopeful there is a season three Chad and assuming there is is you might want to reach out to Jake Gap and his team because that dude has a story to
Tell I got to tell you it’s like the second coming of The Big Easy you know that Jake gap’s been so fun to watch we saw him out at Tori and he’s just like that kid hits it I mean I’ve never seen anybody you know more effortlessly hit
It you know hit 185 186 mph hour ball speed on his little Fairway fighter so the guy’s had incredible Talent obviously breakthrough winner great story former bouncer you know these are the this is the beauty of the PGA tour and its ability to kind of bring people
Up and obviously coming out of the Corn fairy tour and and that development and that whole class actually I think is really held themselves to a very high standard at the beginning part of the season and so um I I did tweet at Jake knap and said to have his agent call me
So if we are lucky enough to continue to make him this show I think uh you know it might be a might be a part for Jake nap to play all eight episodes of season 2 of full swing on Netflix will be released on Wednesday of the Arnold Palmer Invitational that’s Wednesday
March 6th the second stop of the Florida swing Chad mum is the executive producer with VOX media the folks that uh produce season one and season two congratulations on all the success and uh thanks for hanging for a few moments today Chad no I really loved it and hope you guys all enjoy
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