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This weekend’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting article that examined “business golf” and its increasing irrelevance in some parts of the business world and its increasing importance in others. Several women provide their perspectives and mention is made of the Executive Women’s Golf Association (an org that we had not heard of, but will support because we like what it does).

Business Golf Changes Course

By John Paul Newport and Russell Adams (The Wall Street Journal Online)
May 26, 2007; Page P1

Early one Friday afternoon about 20 years ago, Wendy Baker, then a senior vice president at the insurance company Continental, was leaving her office when she ran into another female executive.

“Where is everyone?” Ms. Baker asked. Many of the company’s executive men were off at a golf outing. “We’re the ones in charge here. Why aren’t we out there?” Ms. Baker said.

Almost immediately, she says, she began taking golf lessons, and soon she and a group of friends were playing socially on a weekly basis. Within two years she had developed enough talent to feel comfortable using golf in her business dealings. Today, Ms. Baker is president of Lloyds America, the U.S. arm of the British insurance syndicate, and a respectable 12-handicap golfer.

In a sense, business golf is a collusion that has developed over the years between business people and their clients. And it used to be much worse — or much better, depending on your point of view. As late as the 1970s, Time magazine had a full-time staffer — a top-flight golfer named Sonny West — whose only duties were to play golf with the magazine’s best advertising customers.

Today, though, things are different. Participation levels in golf have been flat for a decade in part because fewer people can justify the hours it takes to play a round or the expense. And the workplace has changed dramatically. Women who may not be steeped in golf now occupy executive positions, and many of the tech geeks who run the world would rather be mountain biking. At the same time, corporate perks are under intense scrutiny and booking time on the company jet for golf outings to Bermuda seldom flies anymore.

All this makes golf increasingly irrelevant in some powerful parts of the business world — and yet the sport is more important than ever in others.

At Silicon Valley giant Intel, which has about 90,000 employees, there are no company-paid country-club memberships and no golf outings, and you probably won’t find many executives comparing handicaps in the boardroom. A spokesman for the company said he could only think of one executive, Chief Financial Officer Andy Bryant, who’s an avid golfer. He joked that Mr. Bryant might have a difficult time finding a enough golfers in the company for a foursome.

LinkedIn, a company that specializes in connecting- professionals online, gives its own employees plenty of opportunities to build business. Some play in a weekly soccer game that attracts venture capitalists and other dot-com professionals, and cycling trips are getting more popular. One thing they don’t do is play golf. In the 10 months that Dave Sanford has worked for the company, he has never heard of an employee taking a colleague or client to play golf — and up until a couple of weeks ago, the company’s headquarters was across the street from a golf course. Silicon Valley attracts a lot of people who were never exposed to such an “old school” sport, says Mr. Sanford, a product and business analyst who also helps organize social events for the company. “We’ve got a guy who’s really passionate about disc [Frisbee] golf,” he adds.

But in industries where golf has deep roots, like insurance, finance and real estate, it’s high art. While vestiges of the old world surely remain — foursomes of cigar-chomping white males closing deals at exclusive country clubs — those who play a lot of business golf say the reality is much more subtle. They say the sport’s primary value is to get away from an office environment to network and build relationships, in the hopes of doing deals down the road.

Business Links: Women from Harvard Business School take instruction.

“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,” says Donna Shalala, a longtime golfer who was in the Clinton cabinet and is now president of the University of Miami. “But I have certainly developed relationships on the course that have led to raising a lot of money for the university.”

Executives are also putting more thought into how to play and whom to play with. Business foursomes are now more diverse, with 20-something women and middle managers joining in. The fastest-growing segment of the Executive Women’s Golf Association, a nonprofit group that teaches the game to businesswomen, is  . . .

Click here to read the rest of the article:
“Business Golf Changes Course” (The Wall Street Journal Online)

Click here to hear WSJ reporter John Paul Newport talk about the new ways that business and golf intersect:
Hear the podcast².

 Click here to learn more about the organization mentioned in the article:
The Executive Women’s Golf Association

Adam Thompson also contributed to this article

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