Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chris's Club Championship Lessons: Rolling in from a board meeting with zero warm-up, Chris shoots himself out of the tournament in the first three holes and posts 85, 79, and 77. The positives: his handicap is now under five, the new driver finally behaves over the last two days, and the company was fantastic.
• Dalton's Cramp on 14: Thirteen over through 13, Dalton walks off the 14th tee and feels his quad seize up. After two days of flu symptoms and a 100-degree round, he shuts it down and hopes it was just dehydration. Earlier, a 95-yard sand wedge got stuck in the grain on the takeaway.
• Chad's Handicap Drop: Chad's handicap has gone from 21.8 in late July to 17.5, which he insists still sucks. The guys debate what makes someone a good golfer, and Chris splits it into two scales: being fun to play with, and single digits.
• Joining a Club: Dalton compares notes on joining a club seven minutes from home, and Chad on joining one of the two private clubs in Lawrence with his niece in the pro shop as a guide.

The Approach: The Customer Concentration Trap

Chad brings the scenario: a $6 million business gets $1.5 million from one customer, and that customer is putting the work out to bid.

• The Math: A 15% price cut to keep the account sounds manageable, but on 30% margin work it takes gross profit from about $450K to $225K.
• Build the Off Switch: Dalton would run a big account like a separate division so it can be cut cleanly. He doesn't negotiate his fees, and he'd treat this as the spark to make sure it never happens again.
• Customer Concentration: Chris wants the top five customers under 25% of revenue combined and asks how many relationships it takes to keep this one. Sometimes it's addition by subtraction.
• Better Than Nothing: Chad remembers discounted "summer rates" that built a book of non-ideal clients, plus a 20% client that sold its company. Dalton's firm cut about 25% of its returns by volume and grew revenue anyway.

Looking Down the Fairway

• Chris won't touch a club this week but has a member-guest in two weeks. Chad is working on the simulator project in his shop. Dalton has a solo tune-up round before a membership round at a freshly overseeded course with long rough, plus new grips on his 56 and 60 and a new SuperStroke Pistol 2.0 putter grip.

The Final Pour

• Three more beers hit the RDTFM Leaderboard. Chris gives Birdsong Brewery's Hazy Sexy Cool, a 6.8% New England IPA out of Charlotte, a 7.5. Chad's Lagunitas Trooper from Petaluma comes in at a 7.6: pretty bitter, pretty dank, and solid, just like Iron Maiden. Dalton gives Stone's Chill Villain a 7.1, calling it better than the regular Stone IPA but a little monotone. And after an all-IPA run, the guys promise a non-IPA week.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chad's Range Curse: Chad logs 350 reps on the range, has his best practice session ever on Saturday, then sees none of it show up on the course Sunday. Plus, the Midwest enters its "pale skin sadness" phase of the golf calendar.
• Dalton's Comeback Round: Dalton plays his first full 18 since his injury flared up, posting an 88 at a par 70. His 8-year-old steals the show with a real par on a 240-yard par four, and a TopGolf session has him striping drivers again at his best ball speed since he got hurt.
• Chris's Short-Course Heartbreak: Chris starts 2-under through four at The Scurry, the brand-new 12-hole short course at Chechessee Creek, then finishes 1-over. He also takes an awkward selfie at what's apparently the world's only carnivorous plant bog on a golf course, and protects his new Qi4D driver ahead of club championship weekend.

Life as a CPA: Our Approach

• The Prior-Year Mess: Dalton pitches the scenario: a good new client checks out, then you find their prior-year returns or financials are flat-out wrong. The guys explain how they break the news, lay out options, and handle the extra cost.
• Reading the Reaction: Chris explains why a business owner's response to bad news tells you exactly what kind of client they'll be. He also covers the real cost of bad financials, from business valuations to tax fraud having no statute of limitations, and why "read your tax return" is the best tax advice he gives.
• Audit Roulette: With the government rolling out AI, the guys discuss how long it'll be before the IRS catches up to people who've been getting away with sketchy filings during years of low audit rates.
• TikTok Tax Advice: Dalton vents about clients paying $5,000 for cookie-cutter "tax planning packages" full of strategies that don't apply or aren't legal. The guys explain why business owners fall for it and why AI won't save you if you don't know which questions to ask.

Looking Down the Fairway

• Chris heads into his club championship this weekend, Dalton sets up a modified shamble with his son against a buddy and his 17-year-old, and Chad starts memorizing next summer's tournament course on his garage simulator.

The Final Pour

• Three more beers hit the RDTFM Leaderboard. Equilibrium Brewing's Fractal Enigma lands close to Chris's IPA baseline at 6.3. Fields and Ivy's Fence Bender West Coast Triple IPA earns a big 8.5 from Chad, with a warning that it's no all-day tailgate beer. Latitude 33's Blood Orange IPA keeps Dalton's blood orange streak alive with a 7.7.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chris's Fitting Session: Zero rounds played, but he got fit for the driver he won last week, landing in an X-flex shaft (his stiffest in 20 years) and a tweaked loft with one goal: anything but left. Plus, he's signed up for his first club championship in years, and it's gross or die.
• Chad's Swing Rebuild: One round so bad he stopped keeping score on 14 and nearly sold his clubs in the parking lot. He breaks down the drills from his first lesson, fixing an out-to-in path, a steep transition, and a fast-closing clubface, and why the range-to-rounds ratio has to flip for now.
• Dalton's Comeback Nine: A twinge on a steep beach hill is a reminder he's not running yet, but he walks a full-length nine with his kids, trusts every swing, and turns their scramble into a dessert-on-the-line competition, despite lipping out a painful number of short putts.

The Approach: The Productive Pause

• Two Days, Zero Screens: Chris explains the quarterly "productive pause" his business coach recommended: 48 hours with no phone, no tech, and no agenda, and how he solved years-old firm problems on the very first night.
• Finding Your Spot: Why a state park cabin didn't work but a beach-walk Airbnb on Edisto Island did, how much chaos you notice once it's gone, and his daughter's unforgettable question: "Dad, are we chaos?"
• Don't Put Up a Zero: Dalton shares his philosophy that something beats nothing, Chad makes the case that the right environment is different for everyone, and Chris recommends the leadership book Taking the Lead by Dave Alpert of Joe Gibbs Racing.

The Final Pour

• Another strong week on the RDTFM Leaderboard. Hear the verdicts and decimal-point ratings for Ritual Brewing's Double Red, crowned the best red Dalton has ever had, Friction Beer Company's Southern Hospitality, and Shell Ring Ale Works' Hop Doctor.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chad's Blind Pick: A half-hour-old grocery run turns up Outer Range Brewing's Fresh Palette out of Frisco, Colorado — plus a live education on what "DDH" actually means. No bunnies on the can this time.
• Chris's Charity Scramble Circuit: Four events in a matter of days, including Tunnel to Towers at Port Royal and Palmetto Dunes. Then a pro-am in Columbia where he played the tips alone because everyone over fifty moved up a tee, finished six under, lost by a hair — and walked out with $647.50 in shop credit and a brand new TaylorMade Qi4D. Club championship is October 2nd. The stars aligned.
• Dalton's Full Bag: Every stick back in play and the second TopGolf round completely pain free. Carry numbers are returning (gap wedge 133, eight iron 163, driver 280), the wedge game is throwing darts from fifty yards, and the driver is still producing a massive slice that the three wood somehow doesn't.
• Chad's Ten Thousand Reps: A spreadsheet tracking reps-with-feedback against March 1st and the summer tournament, a full stroke off the handicap in three days, and the discovery that the public course in town has better greens than his club.

The Approach Scenario

Chris brings a question he's fielded twice in the last two weeks — including from a client trying to fund Broadway musicals: two people want to start something, so what do they open?

• Liability First: Dalton walks through why exposure drives the decision before taxes do, why an LLC preserves the S election either way, and why "go talk to an attorney" is never optional. Plus the cleanest analogy of the episode — LegalZoom is TurboTax.
• The $100K Test: Why the S Corp math only works once you're consistently clearing six figures after expenses, what payroll and a corporate return actually cost, and why one good year at $150K doesn't change the answer.
• The Stuff Nobody Budgets For: Chad on admin costs as the forgotten line item, and why the Wyoming-LLC-for-your-California-consulting-business advice floating around social media is among the worst things to come out of it.
• Partners and Allocations: Uneven splits kill the S Corp, and the hot take that if you don't need a partner, don't have one.

The Final Pour

A reminder of the scale — one and two, no thanks; three and four, only if it's free; five and six, solid; seven and eight, good beer; nine and ten, holy grail. Ratings land for Outer Range's Fresh Palette, Fiddlehead Brewing's flagship IPA out of Shelburne, Vermont, and El Segundo Brewing's Burnoff. Plus the confession that finally puts an asterisk on last week's marshmallow bunny beer: Dalton poured it down the drain and threw out the other two. No rescoring allowed. It's in the bylaws.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chad's Swing Rebuild: After three decades of self-taught golf, Chad takes his first-ever lesson, gets a stronger grip and an out-to-in path fix, then plays the very next day and learns the hard way that progress is a long road.
• Chris's Birdie Jams: A group chat invite (and a wife who says "don't threaten him with a good time") leads to a round at Chechessee, a dice-rolling net birdie game, 11 strokes from a stranger, and a 79 from the tips, plus a mind-bending Joseph Mayo bunker tip that flips everything he thought he knew.
• Dalton's Comeback Round: His first round back from hip and quad surgery is a walking nine at a par-3 course, where he stays healthy, swings at 90%, and shoots 8 over with a birdie despite not hitting a single green.

The Approach

• Where's My Money?: In the debut of this new segment, Chad pitches a real scenario from his firm. A second-generation construction contractor with a new controller is showing big profits on paper but draining its line of credit. Dalton digs into debt service, owner draws, and commingled personal expenses; Chris explains why project-based businesses with slow-paying corporate AP departments get squeezed, and why the cash flow statement, balance sheet, and AR/AP agings should tell the real story before anyone jumps to fraud.
• The Reveal & The Follow-Up: Chad shares what they actually found (over and underbillings way out of line from compounding WIP entry errors), and the guys discuss how to handle business owners who don't want to understand their own financials, from spoon-feeding and red-alert flags to meeting clients where they are and knowing when to move on.
• Coming Soon: Dalton teases a future episode on the growing mess of clients who set up their businesses based on TikTok advice.

The Final Pour

• The leaderboard gets a shakeup. Chad's Nightmare Confetti from Cigar City Brewing crowns a new leader with a 9.1, Chris's Focal Banger from The Alchemist outshines last week's Heady Topper with an 8.2, and Dalton's kid-selected Brewery X Novelty Marshmallow Hazy IPA (bunny label and all) limps in at a 3.2, with three more cans still waiting in his fridge.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chris's Humble Pie: Surviving a brutal 91 at Cog Hill's Dubsdread, followed immediately by a dead-last finish in an Ironman tournament on zero sleep.
• Chad's Tech Deep Dive: Joining the Jayhawk Club and exporting Golfshot app data into ChatGPT to try and solve the mysteries of his 20-handicap swing.
• Dalton's Rehab: Navigating hip and quad surgery recovery with limited rotation, smooth iron swings, and frustrating defeats to his six-year-old at TopGolf.

Life as a CPA

• Client Turnover: Chad breaks down why losing a major $80,000 client is just part of the firm ownership journey and how to weather the storm without panicking.
• Process Overhaul: Dalton explains how reimagining his firm's 1040 data collection process natively within Karbon allowed them to ditch their previous software's front end, saving $15,000 annually and reducing client friction.
• Local AI & Security: Chris discusses the hardware challenges of running local, open-source AI models for strict data compliance, plus a warning about highly sophisticated, AI-driven phishing scams targeting clients.

Debit or Credit

• The guys play buy-or-sell on industry hot topics: whether hourly billing should be dead, if 60-hour busy season workweeks are actually just management failures, and if asynchronous video should replace email as the primary client communication tool.

The Final Pour

The first official entries hit the RDTFM Leaderboard. Hear the final verdicts and decimal-point ratings for Boulevard’s Space Camper Juice Nova, The Alchemist’s legendary Heady Topper, and Harland Brewing’s Hazy IPA.