The Rooms · 10 of 12
The Golf Outing
Four unstructured hours with somebody who is going to decide something about you, whether either of you says so.
What they’re reading
Whether you know the etiquette. Whether you're honest about your score. And above everything else, how you behave when you're playing badly.
What to wear
Collared shirt, tucked. Golf trousers or tailored shorts. Proper golf shoes.
Check the club's rules before you go, and actually check, because plenty of them still ban denim, cargo pockets, athletic shorts, and untucked shirts, and being turned away in the pro shop in front of your host is a bad five minutes. When you can't find out, go tucked and long.
What to bring
Your own balls and tees. Cash for the caddie. A hat.
When to arrive
Forty-five minutes before the tee time. Warm up, roll a few putts, get your bearings. Never be the man jogging to the first tee while three other people wait.
The first sixty seconds
Introduce yourself to everyone, including the caddie and the cart staff. Especially them, because your host is watching how you treat people who can't do anything for you.
State your handicap honestly, or say you don't have one, which is a perfectly good answer.
How to act
Listen for
whatever they raise on the back nine, because that's the thing they wanted to talk about for the whole round and were waiting to bring up. And listen to how they talk about their own business when there's no meeting structure around it. You'll learn more in four hours than in four quarters of calls.
When you speak
while walking, never while anyone is over a ball. Silence when a man is addressing his shot is absolute, and breaking it is the single fastest way to mark yourself as somebody who doesn't belong out there.
How you speak
conversational, unhurried, curious. It's four hours. The man who fills all of it is exhausting by the seventh hole and unbearable by the twelfth.
Your body
keep pace. Be ready when it's your turn. Rake the bunker, fix your divot, tend the pin, and watch everybody's ball, not just your own. Every bit of it is being read.
The thing you can't fake
your temper, and your scorecard. Take the honest number. Somebody is watching and somebody always counts.
The mistake
Talking business on the front nine. There's a rhythm to it and everyone knows the rhythm except the man who breaks it. Front nine you get to know each other. Back nine, if it comes up, it comes up. Sometimes it's the parking lot.
And nothing you do on that course will be remembered longer than how you handled a bad hole. Nobody cares that you shot 94. They care a great deal about what you did on the fourth green.
The guide
All twelve rooms,
with the drawings.
Fifty-eight pages. Free, and there is no email field.