GOLF

There's big business going on out there on the back nine. Deals you'll never strike; contacts you'll never make. All because you can't hit that silly little ball.

artwork by Chris OBrion

Golf professionals around the state nod knowingly when asked about this familiar species that emerges each spring, golfus immediatus, if you will. "You'll have some cases where someone feels like their clients are big golfers, so they feel like they have to play," says Scott Letien, head golf pro and general manager of The Crossings golf club in Richmond. "Or they'll be invited to corporate golf tournaments, and they feel like they have to learn. I've even had some people who never played before, and their boss told them they had to go learn how."

It's better than working late.

Gerald Radican is a financial planner in Vienna, Va., and he lets the cat out of the golf bag a little. "The reality is very little business gets talked on the golf course," he says. "But you get to know about people, and in a roundabout way, that is business."

Radican grew up around golf, but in the past few years he's become more serious about using it in his work, even including two days of golf with clients and potential clients in his monthly marketing plan. "I always say the true definition of a client is someone who takes your calls or returns your calls," he adds. "If I sponsor golf outings with companies, they'll always ask me, 'Hey, when we gonna go golfing again?' It's a good in. They know I call about more than just business."

The granddaddy of Don's golf misadventures occurred on one of his last days on the links. He ran over an important client with a golf cart and ended up carting that salesman to the hospital with a nasty cut on the leg.

Don hung up the spikes and went back to doing most of his networking over lunch. Maybe golf just wasn't his sport, but it's more likely that Don's bunker bumbling was caused by lack of confidence. He should have spent some time and money on lessons before he charged out onto the course with clients. He probably could have kept from embarrassing himself, even if it is too late for him to become the next Tiger Woods.

"Like any sport, you can learn a lot quicker at an earlier age," says Letien at The Crossings. "The older you get, the harder it becomes. You have to dedicate yourself to get lessons at least once a week, and to go out and practice. We tell our students a minimum of two, hopefully three times a week in between the lessons." Letien recommends that novices take five or six lessons before even thinking about stepping on a course to actually play. Letien's assistant pro, Robert Price, tells some horror stories of what not to do.

"I had a woman come in and say, 'Look, I gotta play golf with my boss this Saturday, and you need to teach me how to play this damn game,'" says Price. "She comes out with about 10 rings on her hand, high heels and a skirt. ... About 10 minutes into the lesson, she starts yelling at me because she's got blisters on her hand."

Even those who play regularly, and don't wear excessive jewelry while they're doing it, admit that golf is a humbling pastime. "There's no rhyme or reason of athletic ability in golf," says Letien. "Seems like there are great athletes who can't play a lick, and vice versa."

"It has to be something that they want to do, that it is a game, in essence, and that they want to learn," adds Tim Poland, head instructor at the Kingsmill Golf Academy in Williamsburg. "Maybe they can improve their business by socializing with their clients, but deep down they've got to actually want to play. They have to want to spend more time learning about it."

Bill Carpenter, president of the New River Valley Association of Realtors, did not earn that title by spending a lot of time on the golf course. But he knows the value of working while he plays, even if the playing sometimes seems like work.

"If my golf game is any indication of what kind of businessman I am, I'm in tremendous trouble," Carpenter laughs. "I play in a lot of those tournaments where you come in contact with potential clients. I always make sure it's captain's choice, though, and that makes it a lot more fun."

For the uninitiated, captain's choice is a marvelous innovation in golf, where a four-man team plays the "best ball" on each shot. You might go a whole afternoon hitting from prime positions on the fairways if one or two of your teammates can really play. If you're new to the game, it's the best way to hold your own in a tournament, and you won't hold up the other foursomes whaling away from the nethermost parts of the course.

Carpenter and his wife, B.J., with their son now grown and on his own, have more time for the game these days. And Bill just splurged on a new set of clubs. "I spent about $2,000," Carpenter says. "And I didn't take a stroke off my game. I got some of those clubs with the big, fat heads. Sometimes I hit [the ball] straight now."

Spending money can help improve your game, but most experts agree that a sense of humor is more important.

"The important thing to remember is when you step up to the tee and do the most embarrassing thing in golf -- whiff -- you play it off like you were just taking a practice swing," says Chris Colston of Alexandria. "And when you yell 'Fore!' you say it with confidence and force."

Colston, who recently celebrated his first annual 39th birthday, is like many guys his age: too old and brittle for basketball and not ready to learn the finer points of shuffleboard. As they reach their fabulous 40s, many executives discover that golf is the only sport they are still aerodynamically suited to play. They're carrying a golf bag on their back and a spare tire on their front.

Colston, a sportswriter who "played about once a year for 10 years," doesn't fall into the spare-tire category. He's more in the having-more-spare-time group. Colston got serious about the game two years ago, taking lessons and actively pursuing opportunities to play.

He is the prototype of what it takes to get good at the game if you didn't grow up on the greens and fairways. He took lessons a couple of years ago, and when those lessons started to sink in, he started to sink more putts.

"I didn't think about it helping in business, but just socially," he says. "So many people I know were playing, and I've seen my dad get so much enjoyment out of it over the years. Now it's something we can share."

While business and golf were once considered male domains, that way of thinking has gone the way of leisure suits and bouffant hairdos.

You won't find either of those at the Kingsmill Golf Academy. There, on the picturesque course, you will find the Executive Women's Golf School. Opened last fall, the school enrolled seven women, all looking to improve their business prospects -- and their games -- with two days of training.

Lynn Polizos, public relations director for the Meridian Group in Virginia Beach, was among those in attendance. Her firm promotes the course, but she also had personal reasons for enrolling. "I thought about taking up the game for some time," she says. "I always liked the game, but it also seemed like I might be missing so many opportunities -- golf tournaments, when clients were choosing up foursomes. I couldn't go because I couldn't even hold a club."

Kingsmill taught Polizos how to hold a club and much more. For beginners, the first lesson is in the parking lot: how much and when to tip and how to drive a golf cart.

From there, it's on to a hole to learn golf terminology and some basic facets of the game, including course etiquette, scorekeeping and even how to dress. Moving over to the driving range, students learn the fundamentals of how to swing the club, including pre-swing rituals -- everything but how to curse when that tee shot ends up in the lake.

"It's very basic, a golf-for-dummies type of thing," laughs golf school instructor Veronica Karaman, who helped establish the women's program. "The idea is to let them learn and to not feel intimidated or overwhelmed."

That approach worked for Polizos, who started taking regular lessons after attending the school. The introductory course, she says, "gives you confidence to play. I'm not intimidated. I feel I can go out there and hit the ball."

Kingsmill recently expanded the women's program to four two-day sessions this year. For $695, students get two nights at the resort, a reception, video analysis of their game and an instruction manual. The second day concludes with a Par 3 tournament to get the fledgling hackers on the course, and on the right course to future golf happiness.

There are plenty of local pros ready to teach you the finer points, and not just at country clubs but also at less expensive public courses and golf ranges -- places where you're less likely to run into anyone you know. This is the ideal time of year to pick up the game, too. You can still beat golfus immediatus to the tees, and start your climb up the tournament leader board -- not to mention the corporate ladder.