Business on the Green

Businesswoman Regina Savage explains how golf and business are intertwined.

By: Melinda Sherwood
   Golf and business go together like collared shirts and Bermuda shorts, and the reason is simple: "You can learn more about a person in a game of golf than you can at 10 business lunches," according to Regina Savage, co-owner of the Colonial Terrace Golf Course in Wanamassa. "That’s how my stockbroker got me, my lawyer got me, and my insurance broker got me."
   A professional shopper, gourmet cook, and golfer with a 12 handicap, Ms. Savage recently spoke at a New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners’ golf outing on how to conduct business on the golf course. "It’s not that you discuss business on the golf course — it’s about finding this common ground," she explained. "When you have many people vying for your service, if someone is smart enough to take me out for a day on the golf course, they’re going to get my business."
   In a sport and an industry dominated by men, Ms. Savage is a minority within a minority — a woman golfer and one of the few remaining proprietors of a family-run golf course. She has an advantage, though. "I’ve had a club in my hand since I was five because my father is a pro," said Ms. Savage.
   Lin Cesario, Ms. Savage’s father, was a PGA player who retired in 1977 and owned his own course in New Egypt — now the Hanover Country Club.
   Ms. Savage inherited Colonial from her great uncle, Ceilio Gonzalez, who built the course in 1924. Ms. Savage’s three sisters and mother, Consuela Cesario, are also part-owners, and her husband, Tony Savage, left a career in computers to become superintendent of the course after earning his degree from Rutgers’ Center for Turf Grass Science.
   A par-35, regulation-9 course, Colonial Terrace is generally thought of as a beginner course, said Ms. Savage, because "we don’t have huge sand traps that you drive your truck through. The greens are small by today’s standards."
   Although more women are playing golf these days, they still face obstacles on the golf course — not just the sand-trap variety either, said Ms. Savage. "Women are not often accepted," she said. "We have been battered on the golf course — on private clubs we can only play at certain times. People who have a mutual love for this game should also have a mutual admiration for each other. It shouldn’t matter to a group when I walk onto a tee, that I’m a woman. I’m a decent player, I can go anywhere and hold my own, and some men are very intimidated by that."
   That shouldn’t deter women from taking up the sport, however. "You don’t have to be a great golfer, but you have to be knowledgeable about the game," explained Ms. Savage.
   For starters, she said, know who has honors on the team (who gets up first at the next tee), know how to mark a ball properly on the green, and "never, never, never" touch your ball in the rough (the longer edges of the fairway). Remember, too, that time is of the essence. "No one in golf cares how good or bad you are," she said, "but they do care about how slow you are. If you make a four-hour round of golf into a six-hour nightmare, you’ve probably lost all credibility."
   A few rounds of golf a month will not only give you strong legs and a nice tan, it could be as valuable as your chamber membership. "Playing 18 holes of golf with a perfect stranger will let you know a lot about them because golf is a game of etiquette, rules and honesty," said Ms. Savage. "You can get insight into whether you want to do business with this person."
   For more information on Colonial Terrace, call 732-775-3636.