Leveling the playing field
Women add golf to their business skills

by Annette Overton McGrath
for Virginia Business
March 2007

Sometimes the best place to close a business deal isn’t in the confines of an office or over lunch at an expensive restaurant: It’s on the golf course. Company executives and their clients get to know each other as they roam the greens and fairways of 18 holes.

Until recently, though, many businesswomen weren’t able to use this option because they didn’t golf. That’s changing. As men have done for generations, women are adding golf to their skill sets as a way to develop business relationships.

Take Amy Ellertson, for example. Ellertson, a senior vice president for wealth management at Smith Barney in Charlottesville, is better prepared than most women, and a lot of men, to tee off with clients. She was on the women’s golf team at San Jose State University in California and briefly played professionally.

Skill in golf assures a level playing field in business, says Ellertson, who is 46. “You’re doing something guys like to do that they have expertise in. You get respect if you can golf in a male-dominated industry.”

In addition to getting respect, women golfers are getting deals. In a survey conducted by Golf Digest in 2003, 70 percent of the women responding said they used golf as a networking tool, while 22 percent said they had closed a deal on the golf course.

The influence of golf on business has contributed to the growth of the Florida-based Executive Women’s Golf Asso­ciation (EWGA). Pam Swensen, the organization’s CEO, says the EWGA started 15 years ago with a group of 28 professional women. Today, EWGA has 20,000 members across the country, about 1,000 of whom belong to Virginia chapters.

But women with young families can find it difficult to devote the time required to take lessons and play 18 holes of golf. Most women in EWGA either don’t have children or have grown children, Swensen says.

While women are playing golf to bolster their business skills, their presence on the course is already having a significant effect on the golf industry. Only 5 percent of all American women play golf, according to Swensen, but they pour about $75 million annually into the industry’s coffers.

Numbers collected by the National Golf Foundation indicate that the greatest growth in female golfers from 1990 to 2005 was in the category of occasional golfers, who play one to seven rounds of golf a year. In 1990, 6.1 million women were occasional golfers. The number spiked at 7.1 million in 2003 and settled at 6.6 million in 2005. Among women who can devote time enough to play eight or more rounds of golf annually, the numbers have been relatively steady over the same period, ranging from 2.3 million to 2.7 million.

One woman who is golfing more frequently is Richmonder Molly Hable. She grew up in a family of avid golfers, but she didn’t focus on her game until about three years ago. An account manager and national field sales trainer for Terumo Medical Corp., the 32-year-old has found golf can invigorate a sales career. “Sales is so much about relationships,” says Hable. “As a female, you’ve got to be careful and have a real sensitivity to socializing. It’s not as appropriate for you to go for a beer [with a client] as it would be for a male rep.”

She finds that many meetings, conferences and charity fund-raising events in her industry revolve around golf. Working on her golf game “was a way not to be excluded,” she says.

Golf pro Melissa Trowbridge helps women like Hable get started and hone their skills. Some of her students at the Birdwood Golf Course in Charlottesville attend U.Va.’s Darden School of Business. “Women are quickly realizing that they need to get up to speed with their male counterparts using the golf course as a networking tool. They make it a part of their graduate program for themselves.”

Trowbridge, 46, does not come across many female golf students who played early in life. “It’s like piano lessons: You didn’t appreciate it when you were younger.”

The Ladies Professional Golf Association and United States Golf Association are trying to introduce women to golf at a much younger age. They’ve developed programs to teach golf to girls seven to 18 years old at sites across the country. Swensen says that, as the LPGA generates more visible stars, it’s not uncommon to see little girls in ponytails at tournaments seeking autographs from their favorite golfers.

Some of those girls may eventually play golf on a team like the one coached by Jan Mann at the University of Virginia. In just its fourth active season, the U.Va. women’s team ranked sixth nationally in one poll and seventh in another. Mann is especially proud of the fact that, of the 25 varsity sports at U.Va., women’s golf has the highest collective grade point average.

A former director of instruction at the Pinehurst golf resort in North Carolina, Mann says her players are well aware that when they leave school to join the work force, their golf skills will be a bonus for them. “Men have been using the golf course for years as their offices.”

An eager participant in many sports, Mann, 55, did not take up golf until she was 28. It was a challenge that she affectionately deems “a dangerous bug. Anybody that plays golf sees it’s the hardest and the most enjoyable sport you can play.”

She considers golf a great sport for women because it’s a good way to meet people. Compared with tennis where there’s little opportunity to talk, she points out, golf involves hours of conversation in every game. (Golf pro Trowbridge also brings up tennis, wryly remarking that she teaches golf to a lot of former tennis players. “Their knees usually go,” she says.) “You can enjoy golf at any level,” Mann says. “You can play it without direct competition. It’s the game of a lifetime.”