DAVID Work on grass
A corporate golf day fails in the details, not in the welcome speech
I have seen branded umbrellas and no sunscreen, a scramble with no one explaining max drives, and a prize table before half the field had finished because scoring was a spreadsheet in a dying laptop. Corporate golf is event production. The golf is the medium.
Format that does not humiliate anyone
Scramble or Texas scramble lets a beginner contribute a putt. Cap the drives if you have ringers. Stableford is fine for a golf-confident field. Stroke play for clients who last played in 2009 is how you get quiet carts.
Tell people the dress code twice. Have loaner clubs. Put a smiling human on the range who can say “hold it like this” in two minutes, not a lecture. That human can be me.
Time is the real VIP
Shotgun starts only work if groups know their hole and marshals move the lost. Forecaddies on blind holes. Water on the course, not only at the clubhouse. A scoring plan that does not require a degree. Photographers who do not stand on through-lines.
The client remembers how they felt on the first tee, not the loft of the raffle driver.
I coordinate and caddie for company days from Nairobi and on the road. Bring me in before the save-the-date, not at 6am on the morning.