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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Women No Longer Green on the Business of Golf

For years, the California Real Estate Women’s annual fundraising event consisted of a wine tasting. But this year, CREW traded in the crystal for clubs and took to the greens at Tarzana’s Braemar Country Club for a round of golf. You might say they were taking a shot at stepping up their business game. “For a long time we’ve taken this back seat to men in a lot of our businesses,” said Tori Robinson, vice president of commercial services at Fidelity National Title Co. and a CREW member, “and they’re getting wise and saying, we can’t continue to do business like girls. If they’re entertaining their clients on the golf course, I have to be able to entertain my clients at the golf course.” Robinson, who has been golfing for about 8 years, took up the sport after realizing that clients were turning down her business invitations. “They would say I can’t meet with you; I’ll be on the golf course that day, and I think they were meeting with my competitors,” she recalled. More and more, women in law, finance, insurance, real estate and other professions are coming to the same conclusions, and they are looking for ways to get in the game. And even groups and associations that once thought about seminars to help members compete are now considering golf tournaments, often accompanied by clinics for beginners. “We are looking into doing one,” said Elizabeth Post, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Bar Association. “We recently resurrected the women’s lawyer section, and we have thought about doing a clinic before the event, which the L.A. chapter does.” According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of female core golfers (those who play eight or more rounds per year) has risen 1.8 percent over the past five years to 2.5 million while the number of men has declined 2.2 percent to 10.2 million. For occasional golfers, those who play one to seven rounds per year, the statistics are even more revealing. The number of women who are occasional golfers has jumped 10.7 percent over a five year period to 4.4 million, compared to an increase of 4.8 percent for male occasional golfers, who number about 10.1 million. While many of the women who have taken up the sport enjoy it, almost all say it wasn’t fresh air and exercise that drove them to the greens in the first place. It was a desire to advance their business. “When I was really young, my father always told me that the deals will be made on the golf course,” said Katrina Jones, general manager of the Westwood portfolio at Equity Office Properties, and one of the organizers of the CREW event. “As I got older, there are all these golf tournaments. And when you go, all the women were taking care of the registration and there would be this sea of men playing golf. I play three or four times a year because I go to the events, but I didn’t want to be the person at the registration desk.” Men, it seems, have always known of the business advantages of golfing, both for making contacts and building professional relationships. “If you give me four or five hours with someone on the golf course, I’ll give you a psychological profile the likes of which you’ve never seen,” said Richard Hoefflin an attorney in Westlake Village who switched from tennis as he got older. “You can really size someone up as much by what they have said as by what they have not said.” Business women say they too have long seen the connection between golf and career. “You go to a conference and you meet people, and the whole golfing thing brings a whole new dimension to your relationships,” said Jennifer Beever, president of New Incite, a marketing firm in Woodland Hills. “A lot of business is based on relationships, and being able to have an activity in common with business people is important. I think for a long time women were excluded from that.” The women say that golf used to involve a lot of drinking and cigar smoking, much like the three-martini lunch that was once the linchpin of business meetings. That has changed, but many women find catching up is hard to do, especially when their male counterparts have been playing the game for years. “I kind of left my comfort zone and forced myself to get to a level where I felt comfortable playing,” said Brenda J. Zamzow, president of The Zamzow Group Inc., an accounting consulting firm where she recruits high level financial professionals. “I’m getting referrals and closing deals because of the time I’ve spent or invested on the golf course,” said Zamzow, who has been playing for about five years. Some women also say that they find it hard to justify a whole day away from the office playing golf, while men often view the activity differently, and at least some men agree. “Men do view it as an opportunity to establish a relationship that might, somewhere along the line, lead to some business connections,” said Barry Harlan, a partner at law firm Lewitt, Hackman, Shapiro, Marshall & Harlan, who’s been playing for about 15 years. To make women more comfortable, CREW held a clinic prior to the tournament, and other women’s groups are increasingly using clinics to help members feel less intimidated about playing. Women too are mentoring each other in the sport. “About 20 years ago, I just decided I wanted to go off on business time and expense like the guys do,” said Patricia A. Evans, who recently left a post as vice president of Markel Corp., an insurance company. “We would get invited to these parties, and the guys would get golf tournaments and the girls would go shopping. I don’t shop, so I took up golf. Since then I’ve gotten a lot of women into it, and I’ll tell you, it makes a big difference.” Evans figures that when she began playing in business-related tournaments, she was among a mere one percent of female players. Now she notes that about 35 percent of the participants are female. “As far as insurance is concerned, there are more women who play, and there are more all the time,” she said.

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