Alyssa Lies Unfiltered: Jason Michael Carroll's Raw Story on The Trout Show

Jason Michael Carroll - Raw Story

 [Speaker 3]

Saddle up for an unforgettable ride with country powerhouse Jason Michael Carroll, the North Carolina native whose raw storytelling has defined modern country for nearly two decades. Raised in a preacher's home where secular tunes were taboo. Jason found his voice in church pews before exploding onto the scene with his 2006 debut waiting in the country, hitting number one on Billboard's country albums and launching heart wrenching hits like Alyssa lies, live in our love song, and I can sleep when I'm dead.

From Arista Nashville stardom to indie resilience. He's penned party anthems and soul bearing confessions. Now with his eighth album Anthem on the horizon for 2026.

Jason teams up with PD Pablo on the rowdy nothing but country and digs deep into sobriety and Southern grant. Join the trout as he unpacks Jason's journey from hidden radio listens to stadium dreams.

[Speaker 2]

Normally I ask people like where they started and all that stuff. But what intrigued me was your journey as it really touched me recently because my grandson turned 18 this year and he just joined the army, which surprised me. He's in the third or fourth week at Fort Jackson.

But you went into the Marines. How long were you in? Four years, sir.

Okay. And were you stationed in the United States or did you get to travel any?

[Speaker 1]

All of my friends. I joined as a reservist, which was only going to be one year active duty and then switching over. Well, I had a first sergeant that made me his target in my school.

And if anybody's been in the military, then that means that they'd like to pick on you. So I didn't respond. I responded like a typical Marine.

And so I was easy to rile up. And so when I was in Marine Logistics Base, Albany, Georgia, I actually was picked. He said at the end of our training, he said, I'm gonna pick three Marines when I call your name, step forward.

And he called the first two. And I swear he was doing the whole Ryan Seacrest thing before Ryan Seacrest was popular. He called my name last.

But he said, you're going to help stay behind and train the next classes of Marines that come through. So I actually trained Marines there in Albany, Georgia. But all my friends, all of my fellow Marines, they went to Okinawa, Japan.

And I never got to go overseas until actually we got with a group called Navy Entertainment, which is kind of similar to the USO. But we did the military, Navy and Marine installations. And so I got to do that.

I've been overseas now seven or eight times.

[Speaker 2]

You still doing it now? Do you still go?

[Speaker 1]

As many times as I can go, yes, sir.

[Speaker 2]

You know, that's got to be a really cool thing to do. In the Bahrain, Djibouti, Africa. I mean, these people, it's because I'm old enough.

We had the draft, the Vietnam War. I was in the draft, but my number was just high enough and all the deferments were gone. My dad was a World War II vet.

My wife's parents were. My father-in-law passed away. He was a D-Day.

You know, so I admire people like yourself that go in. But here's my question. Were you already singing and performing or was that after you got back or after you got through with your service?

[Speaker 1]

When my dad found Jesus when I was seven, we got into church. They stayed in that church for a while. And I remember going to Sunday afternoon choir practices.

And I thought it was so cool. They were out there singing. And eventually in the car, my parents heard me singing.

And so they started making me do specials at the church. So I would literally try to hide behind a microphone stand. I was this big and try to hide behind a microphone and just sing it like if it was a big pulpit, the better because I could duck behind it.

And when I was in the Marine Corps, actually, I sat beside my senior drill instructor during boot camp at Parris Island and during one of our chapel services one Sunday. That night we're in our racks. It lights out and I'm laying in my bed.

No one's yelling at me. It's finally I can contemplate the day and think about why I stood on those yellow footprints to begin with. And all of a sudden I hear Carol and my eyes get this big around.

Sir, yes, sir. Kick the head of my squad bay. And I'm thinking it's never good if they call your name.

I'm like, yes, sir. Yes, sir. So I jump out of my rack.

I run up there and Carol pointing, sir. He says, you sat beside me in chapel today. Carol said, yes, sir.

He said, you sing like a bird. I said, thank you, sir. Sing my hymn.

Now, the reason I knew the Marine Corps hymn was because when I was a kid, You mean the famous hymn, Marine Corps hymn? Absolutely, sir. The reason I knew it already, but even though I was in a Marine, I was less than a maggot, less than the dirt on the ground.

I was more. He hadn't earned a title yet. My dad, when we were kids, he had a forklift job.

And my parent, if we gave my mom any hell during the week or if I got in school, in trouble at school, my dad would come home and my brother and I knew what that meant. He'd come in the back door. We'd hear him come home like 11 o'clock at night.

He'd walk up the hallway. And if we heard the steps coming back down the hallway, we were in trouble. And so my dad would come and he'd kick the door open and he'd flick the light on, say, get dressed.

My brother, at seven and nine years old, we knew what that meant. We'd get dressed, put our shorts and shoes on. We'd go outside.

My dad was already in the family station wagon, backed out of the driveway. We lived in a 40-trailer circle trailer park. And my dad had the headlights on bright.

We would have to run in front of the front of the car. My dad driving behind us, singing Marine Cadence at 11 o'clock at night. And if we didn't sing loud enough on one trip, it was two trips.

Do it again. And so that's how I knew that I could still do it. So that's actually where I got over my fear of singing in front of people was boot camp.

[Speaker 2]

Isn't that funny? So when you got out in the reserves, but when you got out, was that when you really went into doing the thing that you really do now?

[Speaker 1]

I sang for a pop station back home. And I was working at Carolina Builders building doors and windows in the shop. And they had you want to have a pop station playing on the radio.

I heard that they were doing an online or over the air karaoke contest. I was like, oh, well, so I called in to audition over the phone. They said, hey, come in Thursday and be a part of the part of the show.

I went in Thursday, wound up winning the show. A band that was listening in Durham, North Carolina, 30 minutes down the street said, hey, we're looking for a new lead singer. Are you interested?

And so I was doing my first gig two weeks later. How old were you at that time? 19, 20.

But I was still still in the Marine Corps, but I had just been switched to reserve status.

[Speaker 2]

So you know, you're talking about when you were singing at church. When did your voice become the voice that you have now? Because obviously you weren't singing like you do now.

[Speaker 1]

No, that's a funny story, too. We were in Oxford, North Carolina. My dad had it was my dad's first church.

And this was back in the day. And kids today don't really understand what this was. But you remember spring cleaning?

You remember when your mom would open every window and every door in the house and let the let the blow the dust and the bad spirits and everything else out of the house? Yeah. And you clean up.

And so that's that's we did. Well, my mom was playing a tape of the Chugwagon gang. And before this, I was singing like the highest, like alto, like soprano parts.

I could I could hit him. And my mom said she heard this extra bass line coming from the back of the room one day. Like I think I was 12 or 13.

And she walked back down the hallway and she came around the corner. And I was singing from the Chugwagon gang. I'll have a new home with God eternal where the redeemed of Christ shall stand.

Yeah. So. So my mom, I immediately started singing that.

And then that turned into the accent, you know, that we grew up with. And when people say I have an accent, you know, I didn't think I had one. But, you know, I grew up on tobacco farms.

I guess I do. And so singing with that, that country music just really resonated with me because it was people that sounded like me.

[Speaker 2]

I'm really intrigued by what you do, because this new thing you've got out with the rap guy, you know, how I mean, how did that come about? I mean, did you already know that? Know him?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. Petey and I have been friends like 20 years. We met by happenstance at a bar in Wake Forest.

And I was still drinking at the time, but we we would see each other randomly. And every time that we would talk, I mean, he was the nicest guy and we'd hang out and he'd be like, hey, let's do something. I'm like, yeah, I love it.

Let's do something. And my voice being traditional country and everything I've written to this point was really a traditional country idea. The crazy thing was this year we finished the record last September.

This new record was done. I got the bright idea in October to ask a very well-known guitar player, hit songwriter, hit guitar player in Nashville to to play guitar on it. I asked in October his day to day person.

[Speaker 2]

I just have to ask you that his name is not Rob, is it, by any chance? No, sir. I happen to know somebody.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

So I asked his day to day person. I said, would you mind if he could ask me if he would do this? And so she got back to me, said he will do it.

But he's got a lot of stuff on his plate, a lot of traveling, a lot of things like that. So, yeah, just give him some time. It's a cool.

So every two weeks I'd email. Hey, any any any progress? No.

Any progress? No. I was all the way through December through January, February, the first week of February.

She emails me and says he can't do it.

[Speaker 2]

And I'm like, yeah, been there, done that. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

So I am. And again, no hard feelings, because during that time. Well, one, no hard feelings at all, because I was asking him to do me a favor.

Why would I be mad about that?

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

But so during that time in December, I started building this track up. I have I have a grandbaby now. And so.

Congrats. Thank you. She's awesome.

But her name's Nugget. Well, I call her Nugget. The whenever she gets fussy, I would take her to my office and open up my one of my dogs and like Ableton.

And we would build tracks together and I'll and I'll let her hit the buttons to build drums. Sometimes I'll slide things over to make it cooler. But then I'll hit play and she'll start doing this.

And so we built the drum track for this song. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Maybe I'll write something to it.

She took a nap. And that day I started working on the track. And I even called my wife.

They said, should I ask Petey to be on this? The crazy thing was when I met Petey years ago, rewind real quick. After I gave him my number and we said, let's do something together.

Sure. We exchanged numbers. We've stayed in touch, text each other every now and again.

I come home off the road and this is back when we were slam busy, like we were crazy busy. In 2007, we were the busiest artist, according to Billboard magazine. It's pretty awesome.

A business new debut artist. So I'd get home off the road and I'd be in bed. And my phone would start ringing at like three in the morning.

And my wife's like, who's calling you? And I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, somebody's calling you.

I said, baby, it's Petey. And she's like, what? I said, it's Petey.

And she said, Petey's not calling. I said, baby, it's Petey. And she goes, uh-uh.

So I finally fumble around, find my phone and answer it. And in the background, you hear. And I'm like, Petey!

Petey! And finally he'd answer and be like, what up, dog? I'm like, you called me?

So I don't know why, but he would butt down me all the time at like 3 a.m. And so that's, we've known each other for a long time. And when I asked him to do this track, he was gracious enough to do that, man. And really, he's from the country.

I think people get misconstrued with what country is. I think sometimes country is mistaken as a genre when country is a lifestyle. Country music itself, like you can say that somebody is country because they grew up on a tobacco farm and they play a steel guitar and they were raised in a bluegrass family.

I get it. But also, I grew up on an 82-acre tobacco farm. The only surrounding towns to the place I grew up in were urban towns.

So on the weekends, my buddies and I would be driving from the car wash down to the Walmart strip, blasting anything from George Street to Tupac. And I mean, black, white, Mexican people, that's what we did.

[Speaker 2]

You didn't care.

[Speaker 1]

No, and so I think, but I would argue that I'm just as country. And so that's where this idea for this song, Nothing But Country, came out.

[Speaker 2]

Do you still believe that you should? I mean, people still do. Everybody I talk to brings out albums.

How do you personally approach it now with the industry? Like this new tune you got with Petey. Obviously, you're talking to people and all that stuff, but you personally, how do you get the word out that you got a new tune?

[Speaker 1]

Everything is through social media now. What's unfortunate is that when I left Arista Records in 2010, we were the top thing at the label. And I'm not being cocky.

We were the first act that that staff had ever broken. When that staff got there, Brooks & Dunn was already a hit. Alan Jackson was already a hit.

Martina McBride was already a hit. Carrie Underwood came from American Idol, so they didn't build her. I was the first act that they broke, and we were all proud of that.

When I left, a lot of the people in my staff were jumping ship. They were leaving Arista and going to, say, Capital and things like that because the hierarchy was changing at Arista. The industry was changing as a whole, but still, that's what was happening.

When I saw the writing on the wall, Joe Galani was the gentleman that signed me to my record deal.

[Speaker 2]

That sounds familiar to me. Was he an A&R, or was he an executive with them?

[Speaker 1]

He was the executive. He was the head of Arista Nashville. I recognize the name.

Great guy. I still have so much respect for Joe. The people that were coming up behind Joe, I had already had some run-ins with, actually, because of military.

One of them was because of a military issue. My Marine Corps response was not PC. I knew that's where you were going.

Joe was asked to step down, and I had a problem with the people that were going to be taking over for him. We had already had a run-in. We'd already had issues.

I saw the writing on the wall with everybody behind me and my staff jumping ship. I was like, oh, well, I'll leave. We're the most popular thing right now going on.

I'll just go to another label. Well, when I had to leave, Arista started telling everybody that I didn't want to visit radio. Thank God I have radio friends across the country that call BS on it.

That's what started. I've been independent since then. I think that it made it more difficult.

I missed the label money, but you know what? Because of that, every album I've done since then, I wrote. If they want to know something about me, go pick up my albums, go listen.

I still put out albums like you were talking about because I still believe there's a journey on each album. This new record has these interludes on it that I'm really excited about because in the 90s hip-hop, that was a big thing. Again, that's some of the stuff we listened to.

When you play this record and you hear this, it starts off this guy walking in his truck, cranking up his truck, and you hear an interview that leads into the song. You hear an interview later on, then you hear another kind of scene. To me, it's a journey.

I believe that the song still wins at the end of the day. I have to believe that.

[Speaker 2]

You're a prime example of what I tell people is happening more and more. It seems to be a lot more in the country realm, I think. There's a lot of independent artists out there I deal with on a lot of genres.

But it seems to be that the countryside is more pushed to that. Maybe it's the southern feel that we want to be in charge of our life. So when you do something, do you bring a producer in?

Or do you produce everything yourself? Do you get a second or third opinion? How does that work for you?

[Speaker 1]

I think the key to that is, and I would love to work with big producers, but honestly, just at this moment in my career, being independent, everything is fan-driven. I have a Patreon page that literally my Patreons pay for my entire record. The supporters I have there, so shout out to my Patreon folks.

I tell them they're my record label. You guys put this together. I would not have been able to do this on my own.

Now, I think the key to that, especially because I know where I want my music. When I write a song, I'm already envisioning a video. I'm already seeing images that I think.

And that's what helps me put the song together.

[Speaker 3]

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[Speaker 1]

I think the key to that is finding a good engineer, like a really good engineer. And the guy that we had engineer on that, this record, is Ace. I met him through another friend of ours, another artist, Sam Groh.

And Ace and I clicked. The guy is super smart. And he gets, like, when I explain something to him, and sometimes technical terms, especially if I'm put on the spot, I'm like, you know that da-da-da-da-da?

Yeah. So he gets it. And so I think that that's a really big part.

But I've had more creative control in the last two albums than I've ever had. And this one right here, I think, is, I know when an artist puts out a new record, they say it's their best record yet. And we all say that.

Yeah. And I do believe that this is my best record yet. I think this is where my creativity finally had a chance to finally shine a little bit more.

And maybe even on the next one it'll do even more. But right now, this is where it's at.

[Speaker 2]

What I like about you, talking to you, is the energy that you still have. I have a feeling along the way you probably lost some of that. And you've now gained it back.

Next few months, as you go by, I noticed I was looking at your touring schedule. My question for you is, and this is what I see more too, is do you think that more artists, Frederman brought this up the other day, are doing more smaller venues? I noticed that a lot of artists now are moving to smaller cities that have 1,000, 2,000 places instead of going to American Airlines here in Dallas.

It's 16,000. Is that kind of what you're trying to go into? I saw that you're playing in smaller communities and all that stuff.

Is that something you like doing? Or is that something you're driven to think you should do now?

[Speaker 1]

I like playing anywhere. I've always told people, even back when we were touring with Brooks Dunne, Alan Jackson, Carrie Underwood, all those folks, 20,000 or 200 or 20. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to put the same show on.

I love playing for people. Now, are we selling out arenas? No.

But I think that that's also a product of radio not really jumping on the backs of independent artists, which is I don't think the best song wins. And it's been that way as long as you've been listening to music, as long as I've been listening to music.

[Speaker 2]

Yes, it's true. We had payola back in the day.

[Speaker 1]

Well, think about it. How many times did you pick up a record and you're like, oh, I love this song that the radio programmed me to like, because they played it 1,000 times. Of course I'm going to like it.

Well, then you go by the record and you're like, that wasn't even the best song on the album. What they call Beat Size was so much better. And people don't get that now, because everything's single-driven.

And so I really got to the point where I kind of, man, I want to play where I can play. I want to put these songs out. And again, I still believe the song can win.

And I have to believe that, because if I don't, then what am I doing? Because according to the other philosophy, my time's already passed. But that's what I'm saying.

I have to believe that my songs are going to be, I still make an impact. I wrote a song that's on this new record, Case in Point. I was playing a show in Indiana, northern Indiana, about six, seven months ago.

This couple came up to me before the show and said, hey, we're getting married next August. Can you play Live in Our Love Song for us? I said, yeah, I'd love that.

Cool. They wrote down their name, put it on the piece of paper. I'm looking at it.

It's an acoustic gig, so I'm staring at it the entire time I'm playing, all night long, and I'm thinking, okay, when I get to Live in Our Love Song, I'm going to nail some. I roll right through it. And I'm playing Live in Our Love Song.

I look at the back of the room, and I see them, and they're dancing by themselves. I'm like, oh. So I said, hey, guys, I am so sorry.

I said, but can y'all come forward, because I've got another song on my new record that's coming out soon that I think is going to be a next big wedding hit. And I apologize for not announcing you guys. Like, yeah, I told you I would.

So they came up front, and I started a song called I Love You Best. Well, as I'm playing it, she starts crying. He's holding her, and they're dancing, and it's a really cool moment.

Afterwards, they come up to me and say, Jason, you're not going to believe this, because my song, the hook is, I love you first, I love you most, I love you best. And when she came up to me, she said, look, she said, we dated in high school. It was kind of Live in Our Love Song, but people told us it never worked out, so we both went separate ways.

We wound up just getting back together after several years. And on her arm, she had a tattoo that said, I love you most. Oh, wow.

And on his arm, I love you best. You best. And so they actually just got married at the beginning of August, and I sent them the demo of I Love You Best so that they could play it at their wedding.

[Speaker 2]

You know, that's the thing, and I tell people this all the time. If they ask me, I always say, I wish everybody could feel that moment on stage, that you're part of the crowd. When the band is perfect, you all know what everybody else is thinking before you hit the first note.

We've all been there, and the crowd is with you. And I said, that moment right there, you were playing. I don't know how many people were there, but you were playing for those two people.

You changed their life in that moment. I mean, that was supposed to happen. And those are the kind of things that you go, wow, now I know why I do this.

[Speaker 1]

Exactly.

[Speaker 2]

I mean, if you're not a creative person, you go, well, that's really sweet and all, but no, no, no, you don't understand. It grabs you to keep going and write something else. And I watched a little bit of your thing this morning, that you did this morning.

What's the dog's name that you were throwing the Frisbee to?

[Speaker 1]

Akilah.

[Speaker 2]

Akilah.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

And I'm seeing you watching, because you have so many people that follow you, you're trying to keep up with all the people's comments, which is always hard to do. I know when you've got that many people, and I appreciate the fact that you shout out to people and all that stuff. But you're in touch with your own community there.

That's a pretty cool thing, dude. I mean, really. And the thing about it is, who was I talking to the other day?

They're up and coming. And I said, you know, getting down after you get through playing and shaking hands with people is a big deal. Because you may not think it's important to you, but it is to them.

Even if you're just an up and coming artist. You're always, as I always was told, people want to love you. As soon as you get on stage, people want to love you.

It's your job to keep them loving you while you're standing up there.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

They don't have any reason why not to like you. They want to like you. I mean, seriously, it's true.

When you think about it, and still you start playing. And then it's like, okay, I don't like him anymore. So, well, I wanted to talk to you about the nonprofit that you helped with.

Is that a Marine-based thing? Is it something to do with veterans or something? I read about what you're doing.

[Speaker 1]

Which one, sir? I work with several, yeah.

[Speaker 2]

I don't remember. What's the biggest one you work with? The one you spend the most time with, let's just put it that way.

[Speaker 1]

I just got back from one in Ohio called Operation Cherry Bend.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. And what do they do?

[Speaker 1]

We take wounded veterans out on guided hunts.

[Speaker 2]

Okay.

[Speaker 1]

Maybe that's the one I read about. Okay. And we just started.

It's a week-long event. This year, we had our biggest group of veterans yet. They had 50 new veterans come in.

So, we actually had returning veterans, which become squad leaders. We have the new veterans that we have coming in, and we call them recruits. Even though these guys are seasoned veterans.

And we take them out. This year, we went dove hunting. Case in point, you really never know what these veterans are going through and what their lives were like.

There was a buddy of mine that was part of this program. He wouldn't mind if I say his name right now, Bill. Bill, when I first met him, honestly, we would have put him on the watch list for 22.

We would have worried that he would have been one of the ones because all week long. I think I'm funny, but I couldn't make him laugh. I tried like hell, and we just did not get him to jump on anything.

I remember that year was the first year we added skydiving. Now, Bill was a paratrooper. Bill's in a wheelchair now.

And Bill, he's stuck in that wheelchair.

[Speaker 2]

Was it from the service or something else that happened to him?

[Speaker 1]

Yes, sir. And so, Bill was a paratrooper. Flew, jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, which I pick on him for.

And my son is an 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, so he does the exact same thing. And I'm like, no. When I was in the Marine Corps, I would repel out of a helicopter, but I didn't like it.

And that year, we added skydiving to our list of things we did with the veterans. Now, when Bill came down from that tandem jump, you couldn't wipe a smile off his face. And the rest of the weekend, Bill was a different man.

And Bill has been back to our event every year since then. And I think if we can make a difference in one veteran's life, then I think that that's contagious because I think other veterans see weight. I have hope.

Somebody cares about me, too. I can go out there. And so, reminding our veterans that they are important is a big thing.

Because here's the thing. When we get out, I call it being released into the wild. When we get out of the military, our humor is not accepted.

The way that we respond to situations is not accepted. The military situation that I ran into with Arista real quick was we did a show in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a show for winners, as I was told.

I like talking to people. So, when I got there, I introduced myself to the radio station. I said, hey, thank you for having us.

I said, Jason, thank you for being here. We just suffered a loss in our community. One of our own died in Afghanistan.

I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. We wanted to do something nice for his fiancée. That's her over there.

I went and introduced myself. Ma'am, I'm so sorry for your loss and your sacrifice. Thank you so much for what you've done for our country.

Thank you, Jason. I wanted to do something nice for his family. There's his cousins.

There's his mom and dad. There's everybody else. We're about to go out on stage and play a song called I Can Sleep When I'm Dead.

That was my single at the time. And I went up to my record rep in front of the radio and said, don't you ever put me in this situation again. I said, we're not playing the single tonight.

And she said, you have to. It's your new single. I said, I'm not playing the single.

And I refused. That night we got on stage. We did our show.

The crowd had a good time. The radio station came up, thanked me, said we did a good job. I thanked them for playing my new single that we did not play that night.

We got in the car, and I got a call from the people that were coming up behind Joe Ghilardi that were going to be taking over Arista. And they said, Jason, the whole staff's ready to turn on you because you're hard to work with. And that was the beginning of my end at Arista.

That was where it all started. And so it is what it is.

[Speaker 2]

What are the other ones you get involved with?

[Speaker 1]

I'm about to go next week. I'll be heading to Sacramento, California. I've been there 16 of the 17 years they've done this charity.

The one year that I missed, every year they pair me with PGA Hope. We take veterans out and play golf with them. And so PGA Hope does a great job of actually taking these veterans out, and they have instructors that teach them how to use their abilities or disabilities, whatever it is.

Some machines will stand these veterans up, and golf instructors will teach them just how to use their arms. I've got one guy that I play with every year that has one leg and one arm, and they're both on opposite sides. And he goes out and plays golf and has a great time.

And this organization, the one year I missed, Ken Morton Jr. does a great job with that organization out there. He and his family have run Haggin Oaks Golf Complex for a long time, and it was Ken's heart that really put this whole thing together. And I called him and said, Ken, I can't make it this year.

And I was already on the lineup. Everything was there. And he said, Jason, why?

And I said, I apologize, but I just got invited to go play overseas. I was going to Bahrain and Djibouti, Africa and Guam. And I said, I have to take this, Ken.

And he said, Jason, if I found out that you would turn it down for this, I'd be mad. So that was the only year I've missed, and I've been back every year since then. And every year we have four new veterans.

And so this year I've got four new ones that we're going out to play golf with. And Ping really stepped up at first. The first company was another golf company that did it, but now Ping has taken over.

And so we'll actually go out, play golf. And Ping not only gives them a golf bag.