G ame O n
In the early 20th century, an advertising impresario named Frank Presbrey created the first “corporate outing” at Pinehurst, attracting stressed-out business types from the Northeast’s congested cities to the sleepy Sandhills for “golf, fellowship and relaxation among like-minded businessmen,” as an ad from that era explained. (He also created the resort’s Putter Boy symbol.) That halcyon age died in the late 1970s when the PGA Tour connected golf’s growing popularity to the game’s upwardly mobile fan base and realized there were princely fortunes to be made using tournament names to peddle Cadillacs, windows, retirement plans and loads of other products. As city names were subsequently replaced by corporate logos, local identities became irrelevant: The Azalea Open quickly faded into oblivion, while Greensboro became a billboard for Kmart, Chrysler and other corporate interests before morphing into the handsomely revived Wyndham Championship. Charlotte’s tournament sponsors included Kemper, Wachovia and now, Wells Fargo. On the grassroots level, where the vast majority of the auld and honorable game has long existed, managing to survive everything from world wars to global economic crises, a little cozy company golf to flatter a boss or woo a prospective customer in the interest of an improved bottom line seems harmless enough — maybe even the American way. If P.G. Wodehouse is correct that golf not only tests a fellow’s character but sometimes reveals the absence of it, perhaps golf’s greater contribution may be the sweet clarity it brings to any human association, along with genuine bonds of trust and friendship that can come from chasing an unwinnable game through the bosom of nature with a trusted companion — or even a potential client. For what it’s worth, my friend Jasper reports that the “big cigar” element has all but disappeared from the first tees of his corporate outings, mirroring a continuing decline in both smoking and the game’s popularity. A decade ago, an estimated 30 million Americans played golf at least eight times a year, the National Golf Foundation reported. In 2015, the total was 24.1 million. Golf, like success in business, is a game that’s difficult to play and often impossible to master. “As my clients have gotten older,“ Jasper notes, “there seems to be a whole lot less talk about business and more conversation about wives and grandchildren and places we’d like to go before we give up the game. Business hasn’t been fun the past 10 years. Golf with a buddy at least is always fun — especially if you take some lunch money from his pockets.” PS This article recently appreared in Business North Carolina Magazine.
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PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2016
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