We are one less statistic that gets rung up in 2018, and there are going to be a lot of them. You can take our name off that list."
Hsieh has prior experience with emerging sports. In the 1980s, he founded the first trade magazine to cover the snowboarding industry. In those days, snowboarding was looked down upon by the skiing industry. As interest in traditional skiing waned, and slopes and retailers found it harder and harder to make ends meet, it wasn't long until the fledgling snowboarding industry sport was credited with bailing out its snooty cousin. "I remember when snowboarding was a new upstart sport, and we were fighting to get onto ski resorts," Hsieh said. "They didn't like kids, the urban influence or the music. That went on for a long time, and we finally started getting on at mom-and-pop resorts. Skiing started losing its appeal, and new generations weren't going skiing. Everyone who was snowboarding was 15 to 20 years old, and that's who was missing from skiing. We knew then it was going to be big, bigger than skiing. Disc golfers feel the same way." Hsieh lobbed a lot of the credit for the professional disc golf event's success to tournament director Sean Jack, who convinced him Gleneagles was the perfect venue for such an event. "He told me we could make it as big as we want it to get," Hsieh said. "I'm a guy who's trying anything and everything to survive. We have traditional golf, foot golf and disc golf and a training academy for our workers. Nothing is too outside-the-box for me." Indeed, Hsieh has a history of doing things differently at Gleneagles. Since 2015, Hsieh has been working with a local labor union in the Bay area to provide unskilled labor in a pre-apprentice program that provides training and hope for at-risk residents from one of the city's worst neighborhoods. It also provides Hsieh with low- to no-cost labor and the satisfaction that comes with knowing he's doing something to help those who need it most. And as golf courses continue to close at a startling pace while the industry seeks supply-demand equilibrium, such innovative programs help Hsieh keep Gleneagles off that growing list. "I'm not saying I have all the answers. But for $20,000 I raised through crowdfunding, I have completely flipped my small business model," he said. "It's also taken some creativity and some risk-taking, but it has ensured that Gleneagles can make it into the near future, and that's a big deal. We are one less statistic that gets rung up in 2018, and there are going to be a lot of them. You can take our name off that list."
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