How women can transform golf

Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM, is probably one of the most powerful female executives who passionately enjoy the sport and was recently inducted into Augusta National as its third female member.

What a fulfilling 2015 it has been. A real golf feast. Catching up with Tiger Woods’s niece Cheyenne Woods to seeing 19-year-old Emily Kristine Pedersen from Denmark clinch the title on a very challenging golf course. Woods, who was on her maiden India visit, finished tied second carrying home a cornucopia of heritage, henna and food. And then there were opportunities to cover Anirban Lahiri in the best ever performance at PGA Championship. We were the only website that followed him there, and what amazing luck. With a T5 Lahiri sealed his future in the United States where he has already begun playing for the season.

But this column isn’t about just golf. It’s about the sportmanship. Much to my upset even that word excludes ‘women.’ Female players are great ambassadors of any sport. Within India Inc there are some spectacular female players. Manisha Girotra of Moelis is too busy banking but she does go low on the course on a good day. A regular on the circuit is Latika Khaneja, well known for her sport company that once managed Virender Sehwag. Ekta Chadha who is a dentist entrepreneur has her facebook timeline flooding with golfing pictures.

Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM, is probably one of the most powerful female executives who passionately enjoy the sport and was recently inducted into Augusta National as its third female member. Sheila Johnson, the billionaire co-founder of the BET network and CEO of Salamander Hospitality often says she isn’t a brilliant golfer but needs to practice. World famous singer Celine Dion doesn’t just like golf, she loves it.

Sandra Day O’Connor who was the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court made her first hole-in-one of her golfing career with an ace on a 125-yard par-3 at her home course in Arizona back in 2000. What golf reveals about us has value – it tells us about character and about integrity. While women have been really few- in that sense golf needs to be more gender fair — men have been doing “deals” on the golf course for centuries.

HSBC’s Siew Men Tan picked up golf for many reasons. “For one, I didn’t like the idea of sitting back when all my male colleagues took clients to the course to play. And if I am having a lucky day, I am happy to beat some of my banker friends on a round. But on a serious note, golf has been a key way of getting access to and breaking the ice with clients.” If business is the objective, it’s futile to think of golf as just leisure activity. It’s is all about networking. Whether it be bonding with new clients or quality one-on-one time with upper management, that time on the course can be priceless for business. It’s also among the most universal sports and hence women should take to it because they can play for fun or business all over the world. With 40,000 courses all over the planet, it’s never difficult to find a golf course.