Manifesto
Playing golf makes our lives better.
There’s a limit, but like water, we've never met anyone who's found it.
Sadly, our realistic number of rounds per year is crazy low. Work, family, vacations all get in the way. We don’t have enough days.
That can change if our five work days start looking like golf days.
Two rounds a week. That’s that goal.
Meet the goal a quarter of the time and you pick up 25 rounds a year. That’s a start.
We’ve seen enough family time vs golf fights. It's never worth it. But we only feel the need because we don’t dare start the same fight at work.
It’s time that fight starts.
But in a way that makes you the undisputed more golf champion of the world while making everyone else around you feel good and included, not beaten and abandoned.
More golf is the goal.
Here’s the plan.
Step One: Don’t be an asshole
Everyone knows people make money on the golf course. The purpose of being at work is to make the company money. You're just looking to switch locale. You’re not too good to work like everyone else. You’re not trying to work less. And you certainly don’t know more than your boss. You just want to test it.
Step Two: Tell a Compelling Story
Like it or not, when you leave to play golf, you open yourself up to some criticisms. You’re lazy. You’re not committed. You think you're better than everyone else. They’ll think it, but you can combat it with a good story. (Remember step one.)
Here are the two elements of a compelling golf story: Relationships and Data. Your theory is that golf is the best relationship-building tool in the world. You think it’s 10% better than sitting in the conference room with someone, and it’s the only acceptable way to talk to someone for 4 hours in the middle of the workday.
Add those together, and you get a scenario that adds up to more closed deals. More money for the company. Not by a little bit, but by a margin that makes spending a day a week on the course make sense.
Step Three: Prove It
If golf is the best relationship-building tool in the world and business is a relationship game, then golfers should win, and data should back it up. But only if you track it. Start with tracking who you play golf with vs not. It’s simple, but you’ll see a difference. Our fellows go way deeper, but golf vs not is where everyone starts.
Step Four: Improve it
Golf is a relationship-building tool, but we talk about it like it’s magic because there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of little moments in a round of golf that combine to create someone’s impression of you. Are there some (like playing fast and Step One) that matter a lot? Yes. But most are so tiny you’ll think they’re meaningless. Only when added up do they create the all-important impression.