The 10 Best Golf Courses for Doing Business
from
November/December 2006
by James Chitwood
It is a crisp summer afternoon at Pebble Beach, and for the fortunate few on the central California golf course, all’s right with the world. How can it not be? They are playing along one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline anywhere, following in the cleat-marks of Tiger and Phil and Arnie and Jack. To cap it off, while the rest of the country is gripped by a molten heat wave on this day, it is perfect khakis weather here, as it always is.
Despite all this, the golfers are not smiling. One does not smile at Pebble Beach. Rather, the occasion of playing Pebble calls for a seriousness of purpose commensurate with the lore and regality of the course. So down on the 18th tee, a foursome of businessmen from RSUI, an insurance underwriting company in Atlanta, size up the monstrous 543-yard par 5 with grave faces, like board members surveying worrisome third-quarter results. To their left, the Pacific stretches out from the rugged coastline, its rumpled surface laced with filigrees of kelp and punctured by the heads of sea otters, which lounge on their backs as if to comfortably watch the action on land. Behind them, the 17th hole juts out into the surf. Up the hill to their right, diners at Pebble Beach’s Stillwater Bar & Grill dig into pan-seared scallops.
The golf is the draw, but there is much more in store for the RSUI guys. Tonight they will join their co-workers for a party at the Inn at Spanish Bay, another Pebble Beach property. There will be dancing and live music and, because it’s a games-theme night, pinball, arcade games, and, of course, drinks. It is no wonder that, as Pebble Beach’s conference-services manager, Linda Lloyd, says, “companies love to hold their events here, because they know they’ll get 100% attendance.”
Those not lucky enough to be part of a conference find other ways to play. Just in the previous month, says Lloyd, both Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani called to get tee times. Such is the lure of Pebble Beach that when Evan Tracey, a 6-handicapper and the chief operating officer of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, a political-media research firm in Arlington, Virginia, is asked what he’d do if invited to share a tee time at Pebble at 8 a.m. the next morning, his answer is immediate: “I’d start looking into flight times.” Only one course would exert a stronger pull on Tracey. “If someone told me they had a time at Augusta,” he says with a laugh, “I’d flip them my office keys.” Indeed, in an informal
Corporate Board Member
survey of directors, executives, and golf aficionados, Augusta National ranks No. 1 among the 10 best golf courses for doing business, and Pebble Beach is No. 2. For course details on them and the other eight, see the ranked profiles on the following pages.
For almost as long as men have played the game, they have used it as a way to improve their lot in the corporate universe. There is something about golf’s leisurely pace, its structure (competitive but not usually head-to-head), and, of course, its status as the sport of the wealthy and powerful that makes it the perfect way to build relationships. General Electric’s former chairman and chief executive Jack Welch is such an avid golfer that, as he wrote in
Jack: Straight From the Gut
(2001), “golf even got me a GE board member.” At the time, Welch was second in the
Golf Digest
CEO handicap rankings, behind Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems. McNealy got in touch with Welch and challenged him to a friendly game, “
mano a mano
.” Welch agreed, and McNealy went to Nantucket for a 36-hole match, which Welch won. Not long after, impressed with McNealy the man, Welch asked him to join the GE board. Later, as he targeted successors at GE, Welch took potential candidates to Augusta as a way of judging how they handled themselves.
Women still find themselves in a sandtrap when it comes to sharing the full social and career benefits of golf, notably at three of the 10 courses that
Corporate Board Member
ranks as the best ones for business: Augusta, Burning Tree, and Pine Valley still won’t accept women as members. Each of the three has taken a lot of well-deserved criticism for the restrictions. Regardless, women golfers are out there driving and putting in ever-increasing numbers. The nonprofit Executive Women’s Golf Association, founded by 28 businesswomen in 1991 to provide “opportunities for women to learn, play, and enjoy the game of golf for business and for life,” has seen its membership soar to almost 20,000. Nancy Rogers, an executive vice president of Aon Risk Services of Rhode Island, says that over the past decade she’s found much more acceptance of women’s using golf for business. “But four hours of golf is not to talk about a transaction with a client,” she says. “It’s to get to know each other in a relaxed situation.” After that, when she wants to discuss a deal with the client, “it’s an easy call to make.”
“Golfing is very revealing,” says Rogers. “You can see who’s impatient, good-natured.” Curt Culver, 54, chairman and CEO of MGIC Investment Corp. in Milwaukee, agrees. “Golf is such a great game to learn about people,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to observe a person, learn about their integrity, how they react. Because golf is a game that will test you. Some react like a champion, and others react, let’s say, differently. You learn a lot about a person, and whether you’d want to do business. It’s a great testing ground for all the human emotions.”
Culver should know. In
Golf Digest
’s most recent handicap rankings, he finished first with a minuscule 2.4, making himself something of a golfing celebrity in the corporate ranks. A former collegiate golfer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he played one year, he interviewed for his first job at MGIC in golf clothes because he was in Milwaukee to compete in the Wisconsin State Open. Thirty years old at the time, he signed on as a marketing program manager. Since then he’s regularly used golf as a business tool, following a simple set of guidelines. First off, he never brings up business. “I let them bring it up,” he explains. “Some just don’t want to talk business on the golf course, and then we may talk afterward over a cocktail. Then there are some that want to talk the whole time. That’s just a feel for the people you’re with. You always end up doing it; it’s just dependent on the person.” (A tip from one who might know: Donald Trump, 60, has said he thinks the best time to talk about a deal is right after the other guy hits his best shot of the day.)
If he’s the one being wooed, Culver sees it differently. “If I’m the customer, I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “I want to get to know them and enjoy the game. Life is so busy, with cell phones and everything else that’s going on. This is four hours to relax. Within that, there are things that come up that spur you into a business discussion. A lot of it is knowing the people you do business with. If I trust the person, I know I’ll trust the company.”
Others are more proactive. Roger T. Kirwan, 64, chairman and CEO of Woodside Credit in Newport Beach, California, and a board member at Commercial Bank of California, uses the game as a conduit. “I played tennis years ago, and that didn’t work, because you’re playing against each other,” says Kirwan, whose office looks out over the eighth fairway of his local club. “In my current business, I book loans and then sell them to banks. Of the banks I’m working with now, one was locked in on a golf course and the other was started on a golf course.” His general rule of etiquette: Get to know your peer on the course, discuss the deal afterward, then close the deal the following week.
Kirwan has an advantage most don’t. He is a partner at Pebble Beach, one of approximately 120 partial investors in the resort, so he can secure tee times more easily than others. “Exclusivity is the draw,” he explains. “You don’t say it in those words, but ‘How would you like to play Pebble?’ is a pretty impressive invitation to offer.”
Regardless of the venue, there are some unspoken rules in business golf. First off, keep it moving. “Be respectful of the course and the time on the course,” says Kirwan. “I’m a mid-90’s golfer. There are guys out there playing mid-70’s. I don’t slow them down; that’s the key.” Second, never show your temper. Third and most important, play fair.
This third rule is something all executives agree on (even if they don’t all follow their own advice: A Starwood Hotels survey found that 82% of U.S. business executives cheat at golf). “Golf is a near-perfect metaphor for leadership,” says Donald E. McHugh, 73, author of
Golf and the Game of Leadership: An 18-Hole Guide for Success in Business and in Life
(2004). McHugh, a former executive at Owens-Illinois and General Motors, is now a partner in the leadership development firm On Course Instruction, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. So he understands the importance of behavior on the course. “People think they get away with kicking the ball or not totaling up their strokes, or things that are very obvious,” he says. “But people always notice that.”
Another thing everybody agrees on: What happens after the golf is almost as important as what happens during. “The business takes place at the 19th hole,” says McHugh. “The golf can set up the opportunity to have more of an informal, in-depth, let-your-hair-down conversation than if you made an appointment and went to someone’s office. It’s a chance to see how they handle the libation situation, if you will.”
No one understands this quite like Jeff Becker, 48, president of the Beer Institute, an industry lobbying organization in Washington, D.C., who has played Augusta and Pebble Beach. Becker too is a former collegiate golfer—he played for a year at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan—and his 2.9 handicap put him in 13th place in Golf Digest’s 2005 Political Ranking, which listed the top 200 golfers in D.C. (First was Chris Lamond, vice president of the Federalist Group lobbying firm, handicap 0.7.) Through golf, he’s met congressmen and assorted other power players. “They tend to remember if you hit the golf ball pretty well,” he says. He ranks his business-golfing priorities as (1) the people you play with, (2) the golf challenge, and (3) the facilities. His main criteria for after the game, however, will come as little surprise. “A nice place to sit with a cold beer—that’s all I need,” he says. “That after-golf beer is what cements friendships.”
When it comes to entertaining, there are three types of courses. First, there are the places you play with your friends. This is where players can let loose, gamble, give one another grief. For example, Culver is a member at two clubs near Milwaukee, one in Naples, Florida, and exclusive Sand Hills in Mullen, Nebraska, but when he plays regularly with his friends they go to Nagawaukee, a public course in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. “That’s where I play with all my buddies that I grew up with who can’t afford a club,” he says. “I like to play for a few dollars, and that’s a given with my buddies, as is goofing around and talking during backswings. Generally, everyone in the business world is pretty competitive, but you have to feel your way through that. You don’t want to be in a situation where it’s uncomfortable.”
The second type of venue is the home business course, the local club where it’s easy to play host, the place where you’re comfortable and where you can always snag a good tee time. For Kirwan, this is the Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, California. For Becker, it’s Robert Trent Jones outside D.C. Then there are the wow-’em courses, places like Augusta and Pebble Beach, where just by virtue of getting on, you’re getting ahead. “If you really want to impress somebody, take them to an exclusive club,” Culver says. “If you play golf long enough and you’ve been in businesses long enough, you’ll have connections at the clubs. Those are great to entertain at.” While there isn’t an explicit agreement—“I got you in, so we’re doing business”—it certainly greases the wheels. “You don’t accept the invitation unless you’re willing to give the business proposition a full listen, or unless you’re inclined to want to do it,” says Kirwan.
“Of course,” he adds, “at certain courses, it’s hard to say no to the invite.” And the 10 on these pages top the list.
1. Augusta National
Augusta, Georgia
The granddaddy of influence, power, and prestige, founded by Bobby Jones and his friend Clifford Roberts in 1932. Watching the Masters on TV, you’d never know there’s a landscape of strip malls outside the gates. But inside, well, as Beer Institute president Jeff Becker, who played it three years ago, says, “It’s like walking on God’s country.”
The links unfold over gorgeously manicured lawns dotted with movers and shakers. Bill Gates and Arnold Palmer are members, as are a roster of CEOs and board chairmen past and present, including Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Peter Coors (Molson Coors Brewing), Robert Allen (AT&T), Edward Brennan (Sears), and John Reed (Citicorp). It’s a club so elite that before he was accepted as a member in 2002, Gates famously spent years trying to be invited to join. Membership is strictly by invitation; there is no application process. Press reports have estimated that initiation costs $25,000 to $50,000, but like almost every other club on this list, Augusta National will not disclose fees.
Combine the prestige with the course itself and even the most jaded corporate type turns giddy. “It’s overwhelming,” Becker says. “Like an out-of-body experience.”
What about the controversy over Augusta National’s refusal to admit women as members? Well, it seems to be far enough removed that most male execs don’t worry about it. “The Masters sponsors did come back, and you know how paranoid corporate America is. If there’s a whiff of scandal, they run,” says Alan Shipnuck, a senior writer at
Sports Illustrated
and author of
The Battle for Augusta National
, published in 2004. “In the public imagination, there’s always going to be a little taint. The meaning of Augusta has changed a little bit. But let’s be honest. Getting a chance to go down there for the weekend? No one’s going to turn that down.”
2. Pebble Beach
Pebble Beach, California
How impressive is Pebble Beach? It’s a public course—one of two on our list—and it still feels exclusive. From the green fees (a whopping $475) to the accommodations (prepare to pay $535 to $2,875 per night for a room or suite), this is a people’s course in name only. Says Linda Lloyd, Pebble Beach’s conference-services manager: “There are so many CEOs walking around here that you stop even noticing them.” But “to protect privacy,” she won’t name any she’s recently seen.
The draw, obviously, is the course. Established in 1919, it has hosted United States Opens and the annual Pro-Am. Not long ago it became the first public course to be ranked the top golf course in America by Golf Digest. The setting makes it “a very distracting place to play,” says Jeff Becker. “It’s certainly the most beautiful walk I’ve ever had.”
Pebble Beach is well set up for business—situated near Monterey, an easy trip from either San Francisco or Los Angeles, and close to the Asilomar Conference Center. The course and facilities have been substantially upgraded since 1999, when a new ownership group took over. There are three places to stay: the Lodge at Pebble Beach, the Inn at Spanish Bay, and Casa Palmero. The Lodge, where rooms cost $610 to $1,875, is the liveliest, with a handful of restaurants that include the Tap Room, laden with photos of U.S. Opens and stocked with pre-embargo Cuban cigars like the $105 Arturo Fuente Opus X, and Club XIX, which affords a view of the 18th hole. The Inn at Spanish Bay ($535 to $2,875) pays homage to golf’s Scottish ties: A bagpiper walks the first hole every afternoon, then winds up on the terrace. Casa Palmero is the most private, a villa surrounded by 24 guest rooms ($745 to $2,425 a night). This is where Tiger stays and where corporations often buy out all 24 rooms. Many execs make it a two-day trip, playing Pebble Beach one day and Cypress Point, another top-tier business destination at Pebble Beach, the next.
3. Burning Tree
Bethesda, Maryland
Golf and politics, like golf and business, have long been linked. After he was inaugurated, Warren G. Harding bailed out on church on his first Sunday in office. Why? So he could play 18, of course. “It’s a big part of Washington in the summertime,” says Evan Tracey, COO of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, a political-research outfit. “The lobbyists in town look at golf as an integral part of the process. It’s invaluable for making relationships.” There’s no better place to build such relationships than Burning Tree, though nearby Congressional is a beautiful course too. Over the years, Burning Tree’s members have included presidents (Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, to name a couple) and the heads of just about every conceivable arm of government, including the CIA and the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense. The club won’t disclose members’ names or its fees, but a recent story in
U.S. News & World Report
said the cost of joining is $75,000, plus $500 monthly dues.
Founded as a golf club for men in 1921, Burning Tree retains a fraternity feel. Women aren’t allowed, members are renowned for playing shirtless at times, and a bawdy tone pervades. Says Tracey: “There’s definitely a lot of political power at Burning Tree. It’s like being let in behind the curtain. The couple of times I’ve played there, you’re deeply indebted to the people that invite you. It doesn’t necessarily lend itself to closing deals, but being invited out there opens a lot of doors.”
4. Sand Hills
Mullen, Nebraska
Deemed the Augusta National of the Upper Midwest by the New York Times, this jewel in the middle of nowhere—Mullen’s population is about 500—opened in 1995 and has quickly become a favorite for serious business bonding. “It’s one of the truly great clubs in the world, so I take important customers there,” says MGIC chairman and CEO Curt Culver. “It has a good setting, away from everything. You get four-bedroom cabins and an opportunity to get to know someone through dinner, playing cards. Because it’s so isolated, golf is all you have.” How much are the cabins, and the fees? “We are a private club. We don’t give out information,” says office manager Marylou Harding.
Execs come in by private plane and stay for a day or two. Part of the allure is the no-frills approach. The fairways on the course designed by Masters champion Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore are fast and hard, and the winding course route makes every shot a calculation of wind versus angle. Ranked 12th on
Golf Digest
’s list of the 100 greatest golf courses in America, Sand Hills is the top-ranked one built since 1960. “It’s a total immersive experience,” says Alan Shipnuck of
Sports Illustrated
. In other words, a perfect place for focusing on golf. Or business.
5. Champions
Houston, Texas
The top course in Texas, this is for the business crowd that considers golf not merely a means
to camaraderie but the main event. Co-founder Jack Burke Jr., a former Masters champ, has boasted that it’s home to more single-digit-handicappers (400 by one count) than any other club—in part because you have to be a 15 or lower to join. Membership costs $25,000 plus $428 monthly dues, but as Burke has said, “You play your way in; you don’t buy your way in.”
Champions has a pair of courses: the longer, par-71, 7,301-yard Cypress Course, which bristles with more than 70,000 trees, and the rougher 7,021-yard Jackrabbit. The Cypress has hosted Ryder Cup matches, the U.S. Open (in 1969), and the Champions International, a PGA tour event. A three-bedroom cottage is available for $400 a night.
The upper crust of Houston can be seen out on the course or gathering at the clubhouse (there’s even a bar in the men’s locker room). Various tour pros also come through, often to get advice from Burke, who once won four consecutive tour events in four weeks. He provides tips to members, club instructors, and visiting pros like Phil Mickelson, whom Burke helped with his putting. Bring clients here and, if you’re lucky, you—or they—might get a pointer too.
6. Shinnecock Hills
Southampton, New York
It’s hard to get more storied than Shinnecock. This was the country’s first world-class championship course. Founded in 1891, it hosted the second U.S. Open, in 1896, and has since been the scene of more. The course is challenging—Alan Shipnuck describes it as “18 punches to the nose”—and it’s even harder to become a member. The view from the first tee, stretching out toward the water, is said to be worth it. And also worth the membership fee, which in 2002
Sports Illustrated
estimated at $50,000.
Can’t get in? Well, you might try playing at the Bridge, the Southampton golf club founded in 2002 by a former commodities trader, Robert Rubin (not the Clinton-era Treasury secretary). But bring money; the initiation fee is an awesome $600,000.
7. Bel-Air Country Club
Los Angeles, California
If your business is show business, this is where you golf. Perched in the hills above UCLA, the view takes in the university, Century City, and, beyond, the Pacific. The first hole is a par 5 that affords a view of the campus, though it’s often the golfer who is really on display. A restaurant with large windows overlooks the hole, so industry types will watch and judge your stroke. It’s such a pressure-ridden tee that according to Variety, superagent Michael Ovitz used to start his round on a later hole so he’d be warmed up by the time he got to the first one.
Members past and present include actors Tom Cruise and Luke Wilson, tennis champ Pete Sampras, and sportscaster Al Michaels. At the 1976 U.S. Amateur Tournament here, Jack Nicklaus first met a then-15-year-old Tiger Woods. Greg Norman is an honorary professional. This is a dealmaker’s paradise. Scripts are shopped; financing is secured; movies are cast. As
Los Angeles
magazine put it, “Bel-Air is to golf courses what Spago is to power lunches.”
8. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Bandon, Oregon
Bandon Dunes is similar to Sand Hills: remote, gorgeous, and home to great golf. Ben Crenshaw once observed, “You hear about it, but until you see it you just don’t realize that it’s such a special place.” The resort has three courses amid the wind-stripped dunes and forests of coastal Oregon, one of them—Pacific Dunes—ranked second on Golf Digest’s list of the best public courses, behind Pebble Beach. The accommodations are built for business; the Grove Cottages, for example, offer four private rooms with a shared parlor and patio, each costing $1,400 per night. “It’s the ultimate bonding trip, because it’s a pilgrimage to get out there,” says Shipnuck. “There aren’t a lot of facilities, so you’re not going to host a big conference. But you can take a few execs and get some important ‘alone’ time with them.”
9. Winged Foot
Mamaroneck, New York
Squirreled away in suburban Westchester County, Winged Foot lies in the middle of wealthy, influential golfing country—there are more than 40 private golf clubs in Westchester County, and five public courses. Among them all, Winged Foot has the most cachet and the most illustrious history.
Golf World
wrote recently, “Winged Foot isn’t the newest club in Westchester County, but it’s the one everybody wants to join.” This is due in part to the U.S. Open-worthy courses; Winged Foot is the only private club in the country with two selections on the
Golf Digest
list of America’s 100 greatest golf courses (the West course is ranked eighth, the East 34th).
As one might imagine, decorum prevails. During normal play hours everybody must have a caddie, even if using a cart, and a strict dress code forbids, among other things, “excessively tight slacks.”
10. Pine Valley Golf Club
Pine Valley, New Jersey
Consistently ranked as one of the top courses in the world, Pine Valley has an elite reputation that opens all manner of doors to those who can play. “The ultimate is to invite someone to Pine Valley or Augusta,” says Woodside Credit chairman and CEO Roger Kirwan. “If somebody asks if I’d like to play one of those courses, all I say is, ‘When?’”
Others don’t agree that Pine Valley is one of the two best golf courses for doing business, but there is no argument about its deserving a place in the top 10. Unfolding over 623 acres in the woodlands of New Jersey, it has perhaps the finest assortment of three-shot holes in the country. Its potential was obvious to Charles Blair Macdonald, the first U.S. Amateur champion and founding vice president of the United States Golf Association, which describes him as the father of golf architecture. He was one of the first architects to see the grounds at Pine Valley, and upon doing so is said to have remarked, “Here is one of the greatest courses—if grass will grow.”
It did. Another legendary golf architect, George Crump, laid out the original design in 1918. Today there are wide fairways and large, fast greens, along with some beguiling holes—including the seventh, nicknamed Hell’s Half-Acre. Despite its acclaimed course, Pine Valley has never hosted a major tournament, because there isn’t room for spectators.
