“You know, D.F., more business deals are made on the golf course than in the boardroom.” So says the vendor who keeps telling me I must take up golf or my business will wither away to mere nothingness—and I actually do have doubts as to whether many business deals are made in boardrooms. I mean, who uses boardrooms for anything but board meetings? Would you invite a prospect in there and risk him seeing some board member’s agenda (with doodles all over it) thrown in a corner?
So it may well be that more deals are made on golf courses than in boardrooms, but that would only be because the number of deals that have been made in boardrooms—all throughout the history of business—is, like, four.
But this column isn’t about boardrooms. It’s about golf. And that’s a problem all its own, because I know nothing about golf. I just know that I don’t want to play it, and I’m really not persuaded by the more-deals-golf-courses argument, because I know darn well those same guys could be making those same deals on a freeway overpass if they really wanted to.
They’re just playing golf because they’ve convinced themselves it’s an approximation of working. If I could make a business deal while playing beach volleyball, now we might have something…although I have a feeling any business deal made while scantily clad will likely accrue to the greater benefit of the best-looking person. Just a theory. Back to golf.
I actually did go play once, probably 20 years ago. I was a young economic development official in a fast-growing community, and some realtor got the idea that he needed to “network” with me, so he asked me to join him on the golf course. Wanting to please my boss, who wanted me to “network,” I headed over to meet Mr. Networking Realtor.
Did you know you’re apparently supposed to bring your own clubs? I just figured they would have that sort of thing there. It’s a golf course, after all. Would you open a restaurant and make people bring their own forks?
“D.F., you don’t have clubs?”
“I figured there’d be lots of them lying around.”
Besides, I was there to make a business deal! What kind of business deal does a young economic development official make with a realtor? Got me. I figured someone would be standing on the green ready to explain it when I got there. But no. All I found was a bunch of grass cut at varying lengths, and a bunch of people talking weird.
“Good lie there, Bernie. Good lie!”
Good lie? Hey! Just what kinds of business deals are going down here?
I never returned to the golf course. About 10 years ago, people stopped asking me. They know that while they’re on the golf course “making business deals,” I’ll be at my office doing everything I can to steal all their clients. It’s a mutual understanding that’s stood the test of time.
It’s also worked well for all parties. One of the worst things about golf is the fact that “serious” golfers (which they all think they are) insist you follow “golf etiquette.” They’re Nazis about this. Everything from the way you dress to when you advance from one hole to the next is governed by golf etiquette.
But you’re never allowed to ask anyone what the etiquette is.
Granted, these days you could surely Google “golf etiquette” and get the answers you need in about three seconds, but you’re already wasting enough time playing golf. Now you have to do research before you go?
Besides, how would you know if some wise guy (like, say, me) wrote a completely fake set of golf etiquette rules and managed to get them prominently listed on the search engines as a way of sabotaging your “business deals”?
“Before your playing partner tees off, it’s very rude not to give him a wedgie.”
You’re thinking to yourself, “No one would believe that’s a real part of golf etiquette,” but when you get around these people, nothing seems outside the realm of possibility.
Let’s just be honest here, OK? Golf is a business person’s excuse to miss work. Plain and simple. It’s no different than high school kids skipping school and going to the arcade, except that the nature of the deceit is slightly altered.
When a kid skips school, the kid either pretends to be sick or sneaks out hoping to not be noticed. It’s all about avoiding detection. That’s as much the point of doing it as whatever it is you’re going off to do. Skipping work to play golf requires your boss to be a willing participant in the scam.
“Boss, I’m going to network on the golf course today with that important contact, Larry.”
“Ah, yes, well, good luck with the networking,” says the boss.
He knows what you’re doing. Why does he let you get away with it? Because he wants to do the same thing next week, and even though he’s the boss and he can do what he wants, he’d rather avoid grief from the employees. The best way to do that is to let you get away with it when you want to pretend to do something business-related while you’re actually dressing like a dweeb and whacking a little white ball around.
From the time we’re born, we never stop seeking ways to blow off what we’re supposed to be doing while pretending we have a good reason. People in business are no different. They simply incur exorbitant greens fees in the process.
As for all those “business deals” they made on the golf course, one can only speculate as to how many were nullified the following morning, after the respective deal-makers had sobered up.
