Breaking the grass ceiling: meet the women investing in a pair of balls
Golf has long been man's game. Kathryn Dobinson speaks to professional women who are utilising the golden snitches of business – golf balls – to tangible effects by joining a "golf for girls" networking scheme.
7:00AM BST 21 May 2013
Ladies, if you want to be ballsy in business, you need to invest in a pair.
This isn’t about stuffing a lumpy pair of socks down your Marks and Sparks knock knocks, rest assured, it’s about utilising the golden snitches of business – golf balls.
For golf, says Adrienne Wax, author of Even Par: How Golf Helps Women Gain the Upper Hand in Business, is a critical tool in building and retaining client relationships which then translate into new business opportunities. The problem is that "women don’t seem to have got the ‘memo' about how effective a career tool the game is,” she tuts.
Some 90pc of 500 Fortune chief executives play golf, which proves Wax’s first point, but 481 of this Fortune 500 are men, proving her second. And I need not remind you of the recent hoo-hah at Augusta National Golf Club to hammer home that the green is perceived male territory.
Georgina Casas, a 35 year-old director at Hays Recruitment company, is putting paid to all that, founding the first 'Golf for the Girls' networking programme in London. The programme of tutorials and practice rounds in partnership with City Golf on Coleman Street have been so popular that the first inaugural women’s golf day went ahead this week at the world class Wentworth golf club in Surrey.
“We wanted to set up something across all sectors to engage female talent and we were inundated with applications when we first came up with the idea in September 2012,” she says. “There are 65 clients from retail, investment banking, professional services, finance, technology and wealth and asset management who join forces and meet up at 7am before work on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning for monthly lessons.
"All ladies here are really sporty but none had played golf before. The first couple of lessons were frustrating and I thought 'this is really hard.' But then the penny dropped and now I can't get enough of it."
Historically women have seen the relationships men have developed on the golf course, she says. “There's over 500 staff at Hays and a ratio which is roughly 60/40 men to women. It's heavily male-dominated. I would find it hard and pressured to play with a group of males but maybe now I would be comfortable playing in a mixed group.
“What we’ve proved is we can certainly hold our own on the golf course. It's been a real eye-opener that, OK, we can do it. Move over boys.”
The results are tangible. Maybe the appeal lays in the forgiving handicap system that allows clients of differing ability to play together competitively. Charlotte Wheeldon is a corporate partner at law firm Wallace and says it's a fantastic way to build contacts and strengthen existing relationships. “A lot of my clients are keen golfers, and eighteen holes on a great course is often far more appealing to them than a business lunch.”
Similarly Wax, a former senior level advertising executive, says that some of her most important clients were golfers. “Not once did we discuss business during the entire day. As a result of our day of golf, we ended up becoming fast friends and golf buddies.” The hard bottom line? “They spent lots of money with us,” she says in her book.
But Condoleezza Rice (pictured), former US secretary of state, took up the sport when she was 50 and says she savoured the ‘strategy’ of the game and that it taught her patience. That kind of personal development is clear to see on the Hays programme. “Having given up a few very early, very dark, very cold mornings over the past few months for networking with a difference, I definitely have a greater appreciation of the sport and to some extent myself,” says Penny, an investment banker.
“I now appreciate the erudite ability, physical and mental strength, concentration and the personal battle that is undertaken with every stroke.
“There is a metaphor in there relating to my career in the city that I am sure many women will relate to.”
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