Tony Bolding, a mortgage account representative, took up golf to build business relationships. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Golfing for Dollars
There's more business between the bunkers than ever before, from the salesman holding the pin for clients to corporate sponsorships and big-ticket charity events.

By Mike Ashley
Most days, Tony Bolding puts on a coat and tie and goes to work at North American Mortgage in Fair Oaks.

About twice a month, though, he puts on a golf shirt, packs his cleats and clubs in the trunk and heads to "work" at the golf course. A wholesale account representative, Bolding is still selling his company’s wares –– competitive mortgage rates –– only in a much more enjoyable setting.

"I don’t care if you’re selling paper products, copier machines, mortgages, whatever," says Bolding. "It’s based on relationships."

Bolding is hitting straight down the middle. Non-golfers might be

frightened to know just how much business is done on the fairways. Or in the clubhouse. Or on a phone call while business acquaintances are planning their next golf outing.

"Any business recognizes the value of spending time networking with peers or building relationships with clients," says Bolding, newly elected regional vice president of the Virginia Association of Mortgage Brokers. "If I have an opportunity to spend an hour and a half at lunch with a client, I’m going to seize that chance. If there’s an opportunity ... to spend four hours [with a client] on a golf course, you bet I’m gonna take it."

Tee times aren’t the only venue for talking shop. Tournaments have also become big business, especially in Williamsburg, where the Professional Golf Association makes an annual stop with the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill.

National Golf Foundation figures show that folks in the United States spend $16.3 billion annually on golf. State government certainly sees the link: The Virginia Tourism Corp. is pitching the state’s golf attractions on cable television’s Golf Channel and in Golf Digest magazine, as well as in banner ads on Internet golfing sites.

"Virginia’s [golf] product is ahead of what other states have to offer," says Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Barry DuVal.

"We have several golf courses that are known around the world. ... It’s also an important part of our retirement population. I just think we can improve in our promotional initiatives of our golf courses. That’s where our budgetary items come in to play."

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Notah Begay sunk a six-foot putt on the 16th hole in a playoff at the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill in October to walk away with $450,000. The winner of this year’s Championship, held for the 20th year in Williamsburg, will cart off $504,000 — and that’s only part of a $2.8 million total purse.

The money’s getting bigger for the tour players because golf sells so well in the corporate world. More than 123,600 spectators came to all or part of the four-day event last year, paying between $10 and $35 daily for tickets.

More significantly, corporate sponsors purchased packages that ranged from $12,000 to $72,000 for sky boxes, tents or the chance to play in the pro-am tournaments that are a big part of the event. "You go to a football and basketball game and you’re up in the stands," says Johnnie Bender, Anheuser-Busch’s executive director for the annual tournament. "But here you can get really close to a PGA player and have an opportunity to get autographs and interact. That’s unique in the world of sports."

At least 83 major sponsors agree, from nationally known corporations such as Sprint, Prudential Investors and Pepsi-Cola to local car dealers, banks and radio stations. They purchased luxuries on the links: a corporate tent on the 18th green for $72,000, or an 18th-green sky box for $42,000. Smaller boxes on the 15th green cost $12,500.

Bender says the boxes –– there are now 28 on the 18th green –– debuted at Kingsmill in 1993. She and her staff weren’t sure they would work in Williamsburg because the market is so much smaller than many PGA events.

"We’re totally sold out on 18 and we don’t have anywhere to go," she laughs. "We didn’t even know if they’d sell that first year, and look at it now."

The Peninsula Alliance for Economic Development was a Platinum Sponsor at last year’s championship, and it will be back. Alliance President and CEO Rick Weigel says his 3-year-old, nonprofit group spent $18,000 for a sky box last year. You’ll find them on the 18th green again this fall.

The alliance works to attract businesses to four cities and three counties along the Eastern Shore. In its effort to get the word out and the businesses in, the Michelob Championship was a hole-in-one. "We don’t do a lot of advertising," Weigel says. "We feel you need to make personal contact and spend face-to-face time with the prospect companies and their site-location consultants. The key is, how do you get both those groups here to see what a nice area it is?"

How about inviting them for food and drink from a spot overlooking the 18th fairway at a nationally televised event on one of the country’s finest golf courses? "Golf gives you a great setting to spend five or six hours with your favorite client," says Bender. "Nothing speaks to them like the atmosphere of being outdoors right next to PGA Tour professionals."

Bender says the championship is adding a third day of pro-am play this year to give businesses the opportunity to purchase spots playing alongside the pros they see on television. Spots in the tournament are often a part of larger corporate packages: The pro-am entry fee starts around $1,500.

For local sponsors, that fee is a drop in the bucket of what it means to have a PGA Tour in their back yard. An economic impact study reported that the 1998 Michelob Championship injected nearly $52 million into Virginia’s economy. The figure includes $1.3 million in ticket revenue and $620,000 in marketing and promotions. The impact filters down to include more than $160,000 in wages and $1.4 million in tournament expenses like tent rentals and temporary fencing.

Bender is quick to add that Anheuser-Busch annually distributes a large portion of the proceeds to local charities from Richmond to Chesapeake. Last year, 30 charities shared $425,000. "The goodwill Anheuser-Busch can generate through an event like this, well, that’s why they made the decision to sponsor," says Bender.

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The 43-year-old Bolding has been in the mortgage business for 15 years. He’s been in wholesale mortgage the last six years. That’s when he got serious about golf. "I picked it up precisely because that’s where a lot of the business gets done," he says.

According to Bolding, two annual tournaments sponsored by the Virginia Association of Mortgage Brokers are two of the biggest days of the year in his business.

How much business gets discussed on the course is strictly up to the client, he says. "It’s a fine balance. I’ll try to spend about 20 percent of the time talking about the benefits of doing business with me, and the other 80 percent is more relationship-driven."

Bolding tries to play with clients and potential clients twice a month when the weather permits, and he knows it’s worth the expense. "On an average day with a couple of clients, I’ll spend around $400 to play and buy a little something to eat at the turn."

Golf courses are taking notice of the burgeoning business around their bunkers. Two partnered Richmond-area clubs, Royal New Kent and Legends of Stonehouse, announced a corporate membership program this winter. For a $200 monthly membership, businesses can get nearly half-price discounts on the $100 plus in-season greens fees.

"We saw a big market for corporate memberships," says Len Isaacs, membership director for the two clubs. As a longtime golfer, past president of the Richmond Golf Association and current president of the Mid-Atlantic Golf Association, Isaacs knows his target audience. "Pharmaceutical sales people, who entertain doctors all the time, they seem to be over here two or three times a month," he says.

From clubhouse bag-drops to post-tournament parties with trophies for the best and the worst scores, golf clubs like Isaacs’ cater to those big corporate outings. During the prime months of April and May, a 72-person outing — which fills the course — could run a corporation around $13,000, he says.

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Karen Brav enjoyed playing in the American Cancer Society’s annual golf events. The only problem was that she was always driving from her Northern Virginia home to courses in Louisa and Orange counties. That changed in 1993 when Brav, working with her golfing friends, asked: How tough can it be to organize our own tournament?

A year later, the Virginia Women’s Golf Tournament to Fight Breast Cancer was born and debuted at Penderbrook Golf Club in Fairfax. The tournament raised $22,000, and with 35 teams, outgrew Penderbrook that first year. Now held annually at the Chantilly National Golf & Country Club, the 1999 tournament took in $72,000 for support of cancer research.

The event became even more significant to Brav, who underwent her own successful battle with the disease a year after organizing the Northern Virginia women’s event. Today she serves as the American Cancer Society’s mid-Atlantic golf director. "It gave me something very positive to focus on during some tough times," Brav says. "It turned out I needed that tournament a lot more than it needed me."

In her capacity as golf director the past three years, Brav now helps organize 120 charity golf events a year from Delaware to Virginia. She says the American Cancer Society name helps sell the events, and that’s what makes the whole thing work.

"Some of our events do make their money from player registrations, but the greens fees have gotten so high it’s like in real estate, where it’s location, location, location. In a golf tournament, it’s sponsorship, sponsorship, sponsorship."

There’s no better example of that money-raising mantra than in Richmond, where The Pink Ribbon Classic at the Country Club of Virginia has become the American Cancer Society’s gold standard. Backed by heavy hitters like Crestar, Dominion Resources and the Virginia Farm Bureau, the October event raised $135,768, the largest amount ever at an American Cancer Society women’s golf event in this region. In 1994, the event raised $4,000.

According to Brav, the event is now so successful that it is sold out each year even before the invitations are mailed. Individuals pay more than $100 to be a part of the morning field. Corporate-sponsored teams, at a minimum donation of $1,200, take over in the afternoon.

Charity events aren’t easy to run. "You need to have a very, very good [organizing] committee," Brav says. "You need to have well-connected people, people who can reach out in the community or open some doors. Richmond definitely has that."