The PGA Tour on Tuesday announced a joint agreement with N.Y.-based Bedrocket Media Ventures to launch golf's first internet video network, Skratch TV, and named LEE BUSHKELL GM. The longtime PGA Tour exec will continue the arduous grind of flying from his home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., to his office in N.Y. during the work week and back home Friday to spend the weekend with his wife and two daughters. He believes with a fledgling company it is imperative to be there physically in order to ensure coordination of his team and focus on hiring new staffers. Here, Bushkell tells THE DAILY his plans for this weekend.
KIDS INCORPORATED: I get on a flight Friday at 8:00am ET and won’t get home until 1:00am, so Friday night will be spent in JFK Airport and in an airplane, unfortunately. But this weekend we are going to Universal Studios. My daughters are 10 and 7, and this is the first time for them. They are obsessed with “HARRY POTTER.” My kids are quite thrilled. It is going to be a Harry Potter gauntlet. We are going to be there all weekend and Monday as well. I’m reading the Harry Potter books right now to keep up with my daughters who are crushing them. I finished the third one and I am just starting on the fourth one. I like to read non-fiction and a lot of history books. When you spend a lot of time in airports and on planes you have a lot of down time, and that is how I’ve become such a prolific reader.
PASSING ON THE GAME: I try to play golf if I can with my kids; they are starting to pick up the game. It is really hard to pat my kids on the head and go play a five-hour round after you’ve been gone all week. My guilty weekend pleasure is getting up early with my kids -- they never want to wake up early during the week -- and just sit on the sofa with them and catch up on “ADVENTURE TIME.” It appeals to me and them. It is a fun, cute, but very intelligent cartoon. That is my true, true downtime. I’ll definitely record this weekend’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and the NBA All-Star Game and watch them when I get home.
BEEF! IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER: I grill all year around regardless of the weather. I fancy myself a good cook, but I am much more of an efficiency cook. I can cook and clean at the same time. I can go from grill to table or stove to table very quickly. I focus more on perfecting staple meals versus trying exotic foods. I grill a mean steak in a lot of different ways and I make a pretty good chimichurri sauce. My favorite place in N.Y. is Saxon + Parole in NoHo. It is just a few blocks from work and has fantastic food, fantastic drink and a fantastic experience. Obviously, N.Y. is a much bigger place to play on a daily basis than sleepy Ponte Vedra Beach, but we have a place called Palm Valley Fish Camp that is outstanding. It is a really good, traditional Florida seafood restaurant.
BREAKING AWAY: My favorite weekend getaway is exactly where I live. We live just a short bike ride from the beach or the Intracoastal Waterway on either side of us. There are so many outdoor things to do. I will ride down A1A Oceanfront on my bike to St. Augustine and back in a morning. It is so great -- it kicks your butt -- but it is beautiful and inspiring. Right across the street we have a massive state park that we do things in as well. We joke that we never go anywhere when we are on vacation because spending time in an unstructured way in Ponte Vedra is just so wonderful. I am an active biker and have a road bike that I love to ride. It is great for solitude and to think, which I do not get a lot of chances to do during a hectic work week. It is really hard to find a gym on the road to consistently work out. I am addicted to an app called the 7-Minute Workout. It is all individual body weight exercises and a routine that you are supposed to be for seven minutes, but my workouts are between 21-28 minutes and they kick your butt. All you need is space to move around, which works really well in a N.Y. environment. But honestly, my best workout is just walking around the city. I have a Fitbit and usually walk about 12,000 steps or 5-6 miles every day.
