[This post was first published in 2006.]
I play golf. Badly. Sporadically. Reluctantly. Only to please others, but never myself.
Golf is a rotten game, about as good for sports as accordions and the Average White Band are for music.
So, when the Wall Street Journal features golf in either of its Friday Weekend Journal (my very favorite reading of the week) or the Saturday Pursuits section (my second favorite reading of the week), I get grouchy. And that’s what happened this morning on the front page of the Pursuits section—a piece called Business Golf Changes Course. It was an article about the power and cachet golf has maintained even as the work force has grown more diverse. At least, that’s what the article intimates in its subtitle.
In fact, authors John Paul Newport and Russell Adams point out the following contrary evidence:
1. Participation levels in golf have been flat for a decade because fewer people can justify the hours or expense to play a round.The article then goes on to say, however, that “in industries where golf has deep roots, like insurance, finance and real estate, it’s high art.” Here, golf is used to “get away from an office environment to network and build relationships, in the hopes of doing deals down the road.”
2. Women, many of whom did not grow up golfing, now occupy more executive offices.
3. Tech geeks would rather be mountain biking. Silicon Valley in particular appears to have abandoned golf for other outdoor pursuits.
4. Company perks are under assault, and this includes the ritzy club memberships.
Donna Shalala, the Clinton cabinet official and now president of the University of Miami says, “I don’t think I’ve ever made the ask for $25 million on the ninth green or anything like that—that would be pretty gauche. But I have certainly developed relationships on the course that have led to raising a lot of money for the university.”
[Note to University of Miami alumni: Don’t golf with Donna Shalala.]
Does this feel a little bit like a twentieth century vs. twenty-first century culture clash? Or old money East vs. high-tech West?
I once read that Jack Welch worked 80-100 hours a week. Given his success, I believed that. Later I read that Jack Welch was a great, scratch golfer. I believed that. Obviously, two beliefs in conflict.
Somebody is either having his scorecard or his timecard forged. Cause I am pretty sure the only folks who work 80-100 hours per week and are scratch golfers are golf pros. Unless you count time on the course “with a business associate” as work, in which case we get to count time with business associates fly fishing in Patagonia, and time with business associates at the French Open as work.
My brother lives in California and is an avid golfer. One day in my mail at Sensitech I found a beaten up golf ball with the Sensitech logo, something he'd found in the woods of a California course he'd been playing.
Think of the odds of that happening. Unless, of course, our Account Executives are hard at work with business associates more than I realize. (I’m going online to check handicaps now.)
There are many problems with golf. The first is that there’s way, way too much time to think. If you’re struggling to solve some business or personal problem, why would you walk around for four hours, much of it waiting patiently for others to line up their shots? It would be more distracting, more engaging, to play right field in a t-ball game with six-year olds.
And then there’s the issue of insanity. Albert Einstein said insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.
Having played golf, I would submit that insanity is, in fact, doing something over and over again and expecting the same result.
If golf were chess you’d get all set to move your rook straight ahead six squares to checkmate your opponent. Just the way a rook was designed to move. Except when you pushed the piece ahead, it would go two squares forward, three squares right and then fall off the board onto the rough of the rug. Checkmate denied.
How fun is that?
If golf were driving you would sit in a car with three other people and step on the gas to go 200 yards. Every third time you stepped on the gas you’d actually go 200 yards, give or take a few, and mostly on the road. But the other two times you’d go right, off the road, or left into a tree, or 30 yards and stop. And nobody would think anything of it. That would be "driving."
Do the same thing the same way over and over and keep coming up with a different result.
To show you how insane the game is, if you actually stepped on the accelerator and went, say, 250 yards, your three passengers would “ooooo” and “aaaahh” their appreciation: what a great driver you were! The car actually did what it was supposed to. And if you did it six or seven times in a row, you might think about quitting your job to become a professional driver.
Recognizing from Newport and Adam's article that golf is losing its grip on twenty-first century enterprise, I have a modest proposal on how to fix the game.
1. Every course would be reduced from 18 holes to 11. That’s the right number. If I’m playing well my game inevitably goes awry about then. If I’m not playing well it’s time to quit and go home. You still get a beer or a candy bar on 9. And the replanting of seven holes all over America would partly offset the loss of the Amazon rain forest.Oh, and finally, as part of my modest proposal to fix golf: Please have some mercy and keep it out of my weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.
2. More forecaddies. I didn’t even know what a forecaddie was until I played a course called the Blue Monster at the Doral Resort in Miami and (unexpectedly) hit a ball right down the middle of the fairway only to lose it in Bermuda grass. Just plain gone. How is that fair? Then I noticed the group in front of us and there were about 11 people and I asked why so many. Forecaddies. What for, I asked? So you don’t lose your ball.
Ah-ha. I’ve spent a good deal of time wandering around courses, and off courses, looking for my ball. So, I suggest a forecaddie for every stroke on a hole. 5-par: five forecaddies. Unless there’s a water hazard or sand, in which case there’d be more.
An end to teenage unemployment in America.
3. Timed holes. Once the first golfer breaks a little beam with his drive, the clock starts. When time is up for that hole--and there's no messing around taking six practice strokes before every shot--a red light just off the green starts flashing. Everyone picks up his ball. If you are on the green add two strokes. Off the green add three. Move on to the next hole.
4. The higher the handicap, the less you pay. Obviously the lower handicapped guys are using the course more and creating all the maintenance. And higher handicaps get discount beer. Give us poor duffers a break.
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