Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
The Art of Business Golf
Business golf differs significantly from recreational, competitive, country club, gamblers, and drinkers golf because it's entirely about relationship building rather than winning at any cost. Understanding this distinction can mean the difference between business success and failure.
• Business golf is about developing relationships, not winning trophies or small bets
• Recreational golf includes mulligans and improved lies while competitive golf focuses on lowest scores and winning
• Country club golf centers on facilities and surrounding yourself with like-minded people
• Understanding your customer's needs and your objectives should guide your business golf approach
• Knowing when to let the customer win can be more valuable than claiming victory yourself
This episode tells the cautionary tale of "Flomax," a scratch golfer who prioritized winning a tournament over maintaining a crucial business relationship, ultimately costing him his job. Remember: you want to win the big game (business relationships), not the small game (golf tournaments).
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Welcome to Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, recording from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. If you're a first-time listener, welcome. If you're a returning listener, thank you. Time listener welcome. If you're a returning listener, thank you. Tails has been downloaded in over 200 cities worldwide, so I thank all of you for listening.
Speaker 1:In this episode I revisit business golf and to me, business golf is different than other types of golf. I mean, there's recreational golf, there's competitive golf, country club golf, gamblers golf, drinkers golf, and then there's business golf, and business golf has components of all the other ones, except, make no mistake about it there's one thing and one thing that is entirely different about business golf, and that is it's all about relationship building. And look, I'm as competitive as anybody else. When I get a club in my hand and I'm going out to play golf, I'm trying to do my best, I practice a lot, I want to score, I want to do well, and when I play in business tournaments, I'm trying to do the best I can for my team to help them win. But sometimes, when you're playing business golf, you have to understand what you're winning and what are you playing for and who are you playing against.
Speaker 1:So in this episode I'm going to tell a story that was told to me by a good friend of mine, tommy Toons, about a time when he and his sidekick, freddie Flomax, were playing in a customer routing and Tommy knew it was at stake. Freddie just wanted to win at all costs. Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. But before I get into that story, I want to talk about my thoughts after watching the two-part episode of Tiger on HBO Max. So sit down, grab your favorite libation, because I know I have mine and, yeah, I'm going to tell you another story. If you're a returning fan, you might know that I'm a big Tiger fan. In a previous episode I spoke about the father-son tournament, where he displayed Charlie, his son, his youngest child, and how well Charlie did and Tiger took the role of, like his father took with him.
Speaker 1:So when this HBO special came out, I wanted to see it. I knew nothing about it and I read nothing about it, other than it was going to be about Tiger Woods' life and coming into it, I thought that this is something that he endorsed, that he was part of, because he is so good at protecting his brand and I thought this was. He was waiting years to be able to tell the world his story. So I start watching it and I see excerpts from when he was a child and these are things. I actually remember watching the Mike Douglas show when Tiger's father and Tiger came on the show and Tiger's like two years old and they wanted to show his swing and I thought it was amazing back then. It's like this kid could swing a golf club. It's amazing. And so they showed that. They showed other excerpts of his father with their home videos, with him either hitting balls in his garage where Tiger was a tot just watching him all the way through his junior golf.
Speaker 1:And you know Tiger's dad was had a big imagination and he had big dreams for his son and he trained him, and so we learn a lot of things in the first part about his upbringing and the fact that he had a girlfriend and that his girlfriend introduced him to just a fun part of life and things other than golf. She even had little idea about what a phenom he was on the golf course because she was a kid. He was a kid and they would hang together like teenagers do. And then they go through how the parents didn't want her in his life because they felt she was a distraction for the greatness that he was going to have on this earth in not only being a great golfer but being the next Martin Luther King, the uniter of people around the world. And as I'm watching that, I'm thinking I'm not sure that Tiger is endorsing all of this, because it certainly didn't make his parents seem that great. They seem to be extremely controlling, not prejudiced, because I don't think it was anything to do with race, because she wasn't black. I think it had more to do with she was a distraction and he was about to come onto the scene and show the world what he can do. Because she wasn't black. I think it had more to do with she was a distraction and he was about to come onto the scene and show the world what he can do. So I'm watching it.
Speaker 1:And then, as we get to the end of the episode, on comes Rachel Uchitel. Now Rachel Uchitel was the woman who basically broke him. She is the woman that he had a relationship with for some point of time and the National Enquirer got a taste of it and they decided to follow her until they caught the two of them down in Australia. And at this point, when she came on and it looked like she had the market covered on collagen for her lips. But when she comes on, I'm thinking, holy shit, he definitely didn't endorse this. So I immediately pick up my phone and start looking it up and I'm just like Tiger doesn't want to watch this. He had nothing to do with this. He doesn't want to relive his past, because as you get to the second part of the episode, it's all about ways in which you can just blow up Tiger's brand. They're talking about all of the incidents that happened in the end of 2009 and all of the incidents that happened right around Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:When he comes back from this, australian Masters and his wife has already gotten some kind of clue that something's going on because the National Enquirer does a big story on it. That's when they bring in the former editor of the National Enquirer, neil Bolton, who takes delight in talking about Tiger's great failure. So two things occur to me when he does that and they show him. Number one Tiger absolutely had nothing to do with endorsing this two-part series. And number two, neil Bolton what a cunt. He is the lowest form of humanity. The way he snickers and smiles when he talks about how Tiger's not going to get away with this just makes you think what kind of human being would want to do that job, would want to be part of the paparazzi? I mean, this is the lowest form of humanity. So now I'm convinced, holy shit, tiger has nothing to do with this, but I'm interested. I keep watching like a car wreck.
Speaker 1:So obviously at this point Tiger's ex-wife learns of his affair with Rachel. But then after that, more women start coming out and then they go into this expose on Tiger's life when he goes to Las Vegas and other places and how he's a womanizer, and you know how dare he do this. And meanwhile the world prior to that is applauding this young man from coming from nothing and becoming one of the greatest golfers ever. But clearly he is not a white greatest golfer ever, he is a black. And even at that time Tiger was saying he's not just black. I think he's got four different races. He gave it some name. I don't know what it was, but I think that offended some of the black people because they're like yeah, you can't get into country clubs when you're a kid, not because of this mix because you're black and so and I think Tiger has owned that as well. As you know, I think he tries to pierce barriers of race, but that's a whole different story.
Speaker 1:So now they're showing the paparazzi and the paparazzi chasing after Tiger. Now, tiger has had his whole life of being in front of cameras and dealing with this, but his ex-wife hasn't. She was thrown into this and now you see there's some film clips of her pulling her kids out of a car to take them someplace. And then you've got these paparazzi asking piercing, embarrassing questions while she has the kids. I mean, who are these people? What are they made of and why do they get so much pleasure out of asking questions? They know that she's not going to turn around and answer the question, but they just want to get themselves on film asking the question so that they could get notoriety. You know, and they even in the film, they even try and psychoanalyze why Tiger did what he did, and for me, all of that was just bullshit.
Speaker 1:Some of the worst of it is Tiger comes back after several month layoff, so now it's 2010 and now he's coming to the Masters. He hasn't played in a golf tournament since the Australian Masters. So now he comes to the US Masters. I think it's five or six months after his last tournament. So he breaks out and Billy Payne, who is the chairman of Augusta National, has a press conference and he's got the entire committee from Augusta sitting on the side and he's talking there and he's talking about how Tiger has disappointed all of us. Our hero didn't live up to the role model that we sought for our children. His future will never be the same again. He'll never be measured just as a golfer, but they're looking for his sincere efforts to change his ways.
Speaker 1:Now they're talking about a previous champion who, by the way, happened to be African-American. So we've all heard rumors about Arnold Palmer, fred Couples, nick Faldo. I mean, some of these are not rumors, they're just fact that they might've stepped out on their wives as well and they were previous champs. But I never heard Billy Payne talking about them. So to me this is an embarrassment. And what was really cool is at least they got another point of view from Brian Gumbel who, as I'm watching this, then they clip into Brian Gumbel a little bit later and says his black perspective is that why would they do this to an African-American? Because he was African-American. So that was the first thing that really hit me, and I'm like Billy Payne, who are you to be commenting on someone's marital affairs? I'm looking at that whole row of guys with their green jackets that are in the committee and I'm thinking who is sleeping with whose wife in Augusta? And you know who is watching porn with a bag over their head, you know, dressed like a clown or something like that. I mean, it's just crazy to sit there and watch these guys sit up on this bully pulpit and talk about, you know, things that they're all doing themselves or allegedly doing themselves. So that was the first thing.
Speaker 1:Then there was an interview with Tiger Woods and Charlie Rose, and again this I think this is in 2010 and Charlie Rose asked these questions so condescending and so judgmental. And it was the next year that Charlie Rose got fired for having inappropriate attempts to have affairs with people that he worked with. So I'm thinking, when I'm seeing Charlie Rose do this, I'm thinking is Charlie Rose jealous that Tiger slept with a dozen women outside of his marriage? Meanwhile, charlie couldn't get one girl in the office to sleep with him. It's just such bullshit.
Speaker 1:Then there's the interview with Tiger's caddy, steve Williams, who is on the bag for all but I think, one of his major wins. And Steve Williams is from down under, I'm not sure if he's a Kiwi or Australian, but they interview him and he talks about how great Tiger was. But how they get into the years when Tiger started having injuries. And Tiger started, if you remember, there were some tournaments where Tiger's hitting the ball and falling to his knees and all of a sudden all of his back injuries start getting worse and worse and now he has to have several back operations and it takes him out of the game. So Tiger's out of the game for a while while he's repairing his back and doing rehab and Steve is talking about how there is this tournament, this US Open, that Tiger said he's not going to play in. He just can't, his body's not ready yet he can't play anymore.
Speaker 1:And so Steve's words were that he asked Tiger if he could caddy for one of his countrymen, adam Scott, and, according to Steve, tiger said yeah, go ahead. Sure, I'm not going to play in it. And then, days before the US Open, tiger changes his mind, calls Steve and says hey, I need you. And Steve's like well, I'm already committed to Adam Scott. Adam Scott plays in the US Open and, according to this film, tiger calls him, or his team calls him the next week and says you're done with Tiger. Now Steve is so shell shocked from this. Steve is like but Tiger told me he didn't need me on his bag and all of a sudden he's changing his mind. And last minute I can't go back on Adam. I told Adam I'd, you know, I'd caddy for him in the tournament.
Speaker 1:But what they're not talking, what he's not talking about, is what happened from the time in 2009, when all of this shit came out about Tiger and all these women, to the summer of 2010, during the US Open. What did Steve say? What didn't he say? How did he behave? What was that relationship like between the two of them? After all, the stuff started? Because I'm sure they're asking Steve all the time Steve, you're his caddy, you carry his bag, you've traveled to all these different towns. How did you not see this? And so, whatever Steve said and whatever went on, when Steve decided to carry Adam Scott's bag number one, he probably thought Tiger's days were over because he could hardly walk, and he also thought I'm not sure I want to be associated with this time bomb that just went off.
Speaker 1:So when Steve says, oh, I don't know why Tiger's not my friend anymore and I thought it was odd that he fired me it's like, come on, steve, there's another story behind that. Because when they interviewed Tiger, he's like time to make a change. I'm making all these other changes. This is just a time to make a change. I'm making all these other changes. This is just a time to make a change. Move on. So Tiger's not telling you what's going on, steve's not telling you what's going on, but the filmmakers make it seem like oh, tiger, what a douche.
Speaker 1:But to add some positivity to this, what I did like about the two-part series is it shows when a person has talent and they commit their time and their energy to something, how great they can be. I mean, he dedicated every waking hour to be a great golfer and he had the tutelage of his father, who was a green beretet who could throw at him all kinds of psychological warfare when they're practicing to get him ready for the real world. I also liked the story of Nike and Phil Knight staying with Tiger and the first ad that they did when Tiger went pro. It's like hello world and it talks about him being black and I thought that was brilliant. Now his dad didn't want the race card to be played. His dad didn't want anybody managing him but his dad, and so you could see that. So I think over time you could see the two of them starting to separate as Tiger number one becomes an adult, number two becomes a multimillionaire adult, becomes a brand and becomes attached to a machine that's marketing him, and his dad starts seeing the separation. So I think that was causing something between the two of them.
Speaker 1:But Nike stays with him and then Tiger comes back and he wins again after this whole sexual exploits and then the injuries, and Tiger comes back and he starts winning, and then Nike doesn't add Winning, takes care of everything, which I thought was really interesting. They're looking for the positive. You know they're trying to sell clothes, they're trying to sell golf clubs at the time, they're trying to sell golf balls at the time, and Tiger's the guy, he's the engine that's going to help them do it. So I thought that was great. I also, like some of the other interviews from Tiger's early childhood friends and friends of his dad. I thought they were very open and honest and they put a positive spin on Tiger and they were very honest about the relationship between Tiger and his dad and everything else. I also liked the way they wove this thread of transformation where Tiger goes from this kid to this iron clad, emotionless, killer robot golfer to, over time, after going through everything he went through as we all go through in life, becomes this smiling golfer, connecting with his fans and his competitors, and is grateful that he could not only stand up and walk again, but he can compete in the one thing he's been doing his whole life. So for me, I'd recommend watching it. But I'd also say, you know, you got to take what some people say with a grain of salt. You draw your own conclusion. I liked it All right. So back to my story about business golf.
Speaker 1:So, like I said earlier, there are different types of golf. First there's recreational golf, and it's what most of us start with, either by yourself, with friends, significant others, couples. I mean recreational golf has things like mulligans, improved lies, gimmies hitting giggles. I mean you're has things like mulligans, improved lies, gimmies hitting giggles. I mean you're there to enjoy the outdoors, you're there to enjoy your company and it's fun. The other side of the spectrum is competitive golf. You play by the rules. It's all about the lowest score, it's about winning. It's serious. I mean it requires a tremendous amount of time and practice to maintain a high level of play. I mean, unless you're John Daly and, by the way, I like this new white beard Santa image that he has it, just it's so him but unless you're John Daly.
Speaker 1:In today's world, competitive golf starts young, never stops as you get further and further along and you get past amateur into pros. You're now it's become a big money game. So now you're surrounded by teams and sponsorship and the whole media circus. It is not recreational golf by any means. As a matter of fact, I have some friends that played competitive golf when they were younger. That's all they did, and now it's hard for them to go out and just hit and giggle and play with buddies because it's not the same thing.
Speaker 1:There's country club golf. I mean there it's not only what you do but who you're doing it with and who you're surrounding yourself with. People who join country clubs like to surround themselves with like-minded people, people like people who are like themselves. Some join to improve their game. Some join because they want to give their family a country club experience. It might be the only game in town or it just might have some great facilities and again they're surrounding themselves with like-minded people. Usually they're better facilities than public courses, depending on where you live and you know. People are there to find similar level golfers meet new friends, but it is an entirely different experience than public golf. What I liked about country club golf was being able to get on the course almost any day, any time, and not feel like you're being rushed, not feel like you have eight minutes to tee off and you have people behind you and you have rangers driving around the course trying to tell you to keep up pace. And so it from that standpoint, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the golf courses themselves. From that standpoint, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the golf courses themselves.
Speaker 1:What challenged me was the throw-your-dick-on-the-bar kind of attitude with people at the country club. You know like who drives the nicest car, who lives in the best neighborhood, who dresses the best, who has the best job, who's making the most money. Things like that I can do without. I also struggle with superficial subserviency. So you walk to the club and people are coming up. Oh, mr Easton, can I get this for you? Can I get that? You know, you get into the bar, oh, mr Easton, can I do? And they're throwing your name out and meanwhile they got their hand backwards, kind of looking for that little tip for everything they say. And then, as you go to the cart bar and you hear them talking about Mrs Lipschitz and what a douche she is. And even though she might have been a douche, the fact that you hear them talking about her after five minutes ago they were kowtowing to her and telling her how nicely she was dressed, it's bullshit, I tell you, it's just bullshit.
Speaker 1:Then there's gambler's golf. That's anything from a two-dollar Nassau to the exchange of mortgages Nassau to the exchange of mortgages. In an earlier episode I pulled out a soundbite from Charles Barkley talking about a golf match he had with Michael Jordan against some other guys where Michael Jordan was putting for $300,000. I mean, it's all relative, but that's gambler's golf. The objective of gambler's golf is to win money. Score is a milestone, winning is the finish line. Now something changes in our interaction with people. When it bets on the line, some people choke, some people cheat, some elevate their game. Money changes recreational golf to gambler's golf. It just does, because the stakes mean something and it affects people in different ways, and some people just need the juice.
Speaker 1:Then there is drinker's golf. I mean, golf is a thinly veiled excuse to drink as long as you can, as long as the bar is open and as long as the cart girl comes around the course. Now I think that all of these different types of golf can be intertwined. I mean, you could be playing recreational golf for a dollar or so drink, have a good time. You could be doing it at your country club. They're not mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1:But business golf is a whole different story. As I said earlier, the objective of business golf is to develop a relationship. You've got to know who you're playing with, what is most important to them and, long-term, what do you want to get out of this experience? Are you trying to sign up a new account? Are you trying to build a relationship so that when shit gets bad in business, you at least have some kind of relationship with the person on the other side so you can get on the phone and talk to each other before they discontinue your entire line of products? So you got to know what their needs are, what they want and what you want to accomplish. Business golf can resemble recreational golf. It can resemble gamblers and drinkers golf, but you just have to make sure that you don't try and win a $2 bet and then have your customer not want to do business with you anymore. It's that simple, which leads me to my story told to me by Tommy Toons A few years back.
Speaker 1:Tommy was managing a very big piece of business for our company, for one of the biggest grocery retailers in the country, and his job was to develop relationships with this customer and build our franchise, build our brand at that retailer, and he did an outstanding job. Before he got there, we had had some bad relationships in the past and maybe we weren't doing the things they wanted us to do, maybe we weren't buying their proprietary data and then showing it to them. But Tommy got in there and we started doing those things. So now we're building the business and Tommy has a team and he's got Mr Flomax with him and Mr Flomax's job was to analyze data and help them present it to our customer. But the reason Mr Flomax was such a value to our company is he was a scratch golfer and all of the managers at this large retailer knew him, liked him and wanted him to play golf with them, particularly when they had industry tournaments, because most likely he was going to help them get in the winner's circle.
Speaker 1:In this particular town where this large retailer was headquartered, there were also some other very large manufacturers, some of the biggest in the world, and every year there was a golf event that everybody wanted to get into the retailer, the big manufacturers, because for a few reasons. Number one everybody wanted that trophy. Number two the swag bag that you get when you show up was incredible. I mean it was hundreds of dollars of merch shoes, golf clubs, golf attire. I mean who didn't want to be part of that? But our company wasn't the largest company. So year after year we would try and get in this tournament and finally Tommy got us in the tournament.
Speaker 1:He had Mr Flomax invite one of the buyers and one of our reps to join us in this foursome. And these guys are ecstatic, particularly the buyer. Buyers at a lot of these retailers don't make as much money as the people that are selling to them, so they get fringe benefits, they get taken to dinner. Sometimes they're invited to tournaments like this. And so for this buyer, because he was at such a low level in the organization, I mean this was a big thing for him to be invited and, by the way, he was a really good golfer and so was the broker, and so was Flomax. So they go to the tournament and you have to declare your handicaps. Now Flomax and his buyer and his rep were scratch golfers. They go in and they claim 10 handicaps. Tommy is like a 15 handicap and he comes in and he's like I'm a 15 handicap and again, tommy is responsible for this foursome. He is the sales manager. So they start getting into this tournament and Flowmax and his buddies are killing it One under par, two under par, three, four, five, ten under par. Now it's getting to.
Speaker 1:It's a long day and when you play in these tournaments sometimes it's a five to six hour round of golf Because there's so many people and they play at a slow pace. There are cart girls, there are things going on on the course as well. It gets to the late afternoon. Tommy has to do something with his daughter and he's like guys, I got to leave, and at this point they're like 15 under par. And so Tommy leaves and these three guys are going to play a threesome. The rest of the way it's a scramble. So you're just hitting the best of all the shots.
Speaker 1:Tommy goes by the clubhouse and he could see people have already finished and seven under is the best score. And the foursome that was seven under had a VP from the biggest retailer in town and the time he sees that he gets in his car he texts Flomax hey guys, you cannot hand in that scorecard, you cannot win because the VP is at seven under. And this is the guy that we want to impress, this is the guy we want to keep doing business with. Do not turn in that scorecard. He goes home Later that night he talks to Flomax and Flomax says hey, we won 17 under par. And Tommy is like oh you, motherfucker, you shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1:The next day Tommy gets a call from our VP of sales, because our VP of sales got a call from this retailer and from the VP of this retailer who basically claims that Tommy's team cheated and they shouldn't have won and because of that they're going to discontinue the entire line of products. And now Tommy's like, oh shit, I told you, guys, I told you not to do it. But what happened was Flomax and his category manager was so excited and the category manager, who had never played in this before, but always wanted to. He wanted that trophy in his office so he could give three shits about his VP, who was going to rain a storm of horror down on our company because he just wanted that in his office. Meanwhile Tommy's had to call up this VP and say, look, we'll give you the trophy. Sorry, our guys were probably better than what they said they were. We apologize, take the trophy. This guy was going to discontinue the whole line of products until somebody else intervened and basically said it was your category manager who wanted this. Your category manager is a scratch golfer. He said he was a 10. So nothing bad happened at that time. But I got to tell you what Flowmax was not part of the company three months later.
Speaker 1:So sometimes you could lose for winning. Be smart, think about what your objective is. What do you want to win? And the answer is you want to win the big game, not the small game. You've been listening to Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, recording from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Thank you.