Double Bogey: Why Business and Golf Sometimes Don't Mix - Josh Reed

For as long as business has been conducted, the golf course has been considered an ample and appropriate place to seal the deal. I could not disagree more.

Golf is undoubtedly the most frustrating sport, and I use the word “sport” lightly. The absence of the unique skill set and lack of consistency that is needed to be successful can turn even the most beautiful Saturday mornings into ugly reminders of Midwest summers. One bad shot can make the most mild-mannered Wall Street professional resemble New York Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan on an episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks. Transforming Augusta National into your neighborhood country club with one blow to the blooming azalea flowers could lead a potential employer/client to assume that perhaps you won’t make the best, most levelheaded business partner. Making it public that you have a mouth like a sailor and losing your cool can leave accomplished closers asking for mulligans.

Why would anyone ever want to take a perspective client to a golf course? People have this far reaching idea that a golf course offers a serene environment, with peaceful streams and perfectly manicured grounds, that will allow them to gingerly meander around the greens, puffing an imported cigar, while spitting out reasons why one should partner with their lame up-and-coming company. This is not the PGA TOUR, so allow me to bring you back to reality.

Golf courses are nothing more than never-ending money traps that will leave you in a deeper hole than the bunkers at St. Andrew’s. If that doesn’t change your mind, try and remember the disgusting smells of irrigation water and tee box coolers that have been known to carry deadly bacteria. Oh yeah, this is way more appealing than a plush corner office. Let’s tee off.

The game itself has a tendency to bring out the rabid competitor in people, leaving them thinking they’re back in 1994 doing ‘Oklahomas’ during two-a-days at their local high school football practices. Just the right mindset for negotiating multi-year contracts and large sums of currency. Convinced yet? We haven’t even started drinking.

Drinking beer and golf are as synonymous with one another as the Kardashians and championships. A couple cold ones down the hatch and you might find yourself saying something about the client’s last shot that would leave reason to feel regret. Perhaps you think you can keep it classy with a beer per hole. Great idea, if you enjoy driving your cart like Tiger Woods on Thanksgiving, leaving the newly labeled big fish to assume your can’t-miss business plan is as unpredictable as George W’s. frat boy antics.

Now, let’s presume you actually take golf seriously. Nothing is worse than being beat because it makes people feel inferior. Around the 12th hole, when your client’s hope of turning it around on the back nine eludes them, and you feel the need to step on their throat, is the same time you can kiss that new Mercedes goodbye. The situation never ends well, so keep it simple and leave Saturdays for the “honey do” list.

Receiving continuous whiffs of foul water hazard odors, allowing honorable mention high school football mentalities to make an unwelcome comeback, outshining the person you’re trying to lure in, and continuously flagging down the cart lady is a recipe for business deal disaster.

Offices were invented for a reason. So unless you plan on partnering with John Daly, take my advice and keep business off the course and the macho shenanigans in the pub.

- Josh Reed