Ginni Rometty is the new CEO of IBM and one of the main architects of the reinvention of this old line technology giant. Under her influence IBM has embraced cloud technology as the centerpiece of their product and service offerings and , as a result,  their company shares are at the highest valuation in their history.

As their new ad campaign boasts this makes her the #1 IBMer in a lot of ways.  She is entitled to all the spoils that go with responsibility she has embraced, including a membership in one of the most exclusive all boys fraternities in the country, Augusta National Golf Club.

Augusta National has a history of extending membership to the chief executive of IBM, one of the main sponsors of The Masters each year, as well as the top executives of other fortune 500 companies like Coke, GE, Rockwell, and more.  As Sally Jenkins points out in this Washington Post article, “Inherited money doesn’t get you into Augusta, nor does status or reputation alone.  The best way to become a member is to shark your way to the top of a large American Company…..Rometty earned her way into a winner’s circle that is genderless.  Her defining characteristic is not that she’s a woman but that she has a talent for corporate victory”.

By process alone it seems that Augusta National has an opportunity to put into it’s rear view mirror past criticism of it’s penchant for male only membership.  Most important, they can do this on their own terms and not “at the point of a bayonet” as Hootie Johnson characterized it back in 2002 when women’s rights advocate Martha Burk tried to force it on them through her unsuccessful parking lot demonstrations down the street from the club entrance.

Seems to me that if the membership committee of Augusta National really means what it has said in the past, women will eventually be members of this austere club, this is their opportunity to pull it off seamlessly, without fanfare, and for a reason that fits with their policies.  As Sally concludes, “If Rometty does slip on a (green) blazer, it will be quietly, for the simple reason that, in business, she plays from the tips”.

(Click to read Sally Jenkins article about Augusta National and Ginni Rometty)

Sally Jenkins

Washington Post

March, 2012

In his Golf World column, Final Say, Roland Merullo talks about the reason there is such a bond of deep friendship created by those who regularly play golf together.  Nowhere else do we relate to people of such diverse interests, political and social views, and income standings.  It is a wonder that we can spend four hours regularly with people who think so differently from us, yet golf seems to create a bridge of tolerance and shared purpose that gets beyond all that.

True friendships are built with a measure of humility.  Merullo points out that the game dishes out humble pie without regard to who you are. “The moment you set foot on the first tee you’re signing up to periodically make a fool of yourself. Nobody escapes.”  When we watch Ernie gag a three-footer to lose a championship we can feel his pain because we have experienced that pain-in front of others we know well-so many times before.

That protective shell  we wear to ward off the slings and arrows that life throws at us every day has to be permeated if we are to establish real relationships with our friends.  It does not take  but a few holes on the golf course to get a good sense of someone in your group and, as he says, “if you tee it up with someone 30 times a year for decades you can probably sketch out a map of his DNA”.

In the end knowing whether a person will be there when you need them has a lot to do with witnessing how they handle the expected and the unexpected.  Appropriately put “every golf outing includes moments of failure, disappointment, even heartbreak.  How we face those things speaks volumes about the creature we are underneath the mask of the personality”.

It has occurred to me many times that when I want a piece of solid and objective advice I will pick up the phone and call someone who I have befriended through golf.  There is something about the authenticity of their advice I can embrace because we have read or misread a putt for each other in a two-man team competition and hold no malice from the result.  Golf does provide a unique platform for experiencing such things together with people we have come to trust.

(Click here to read Roland Merullo’s Golf World article)

Roland Merullo

Golf World

March, 2012

With the LPGA Tour coming to the U.S. this week for the first time in 2012 all eyes will be on  young Lexi Thompson who will be making her state-side debut as a full fledged, card-carrying LPGA pro.  There has been so much written about this young phenom since here win at the Navistar Classic in September and the Dubai Ladies Masters in December, almost too much to digest.  But as you can read in this Sports Illustrated article by Alan Shipnuck last fall, there is a whole lot to this young lady and the clamor is justified.

She is about the same age as Michelle Wie when she went pro at 16 so the comparisons are inevitable.  But unlike Michelle, Lexi’s focus has totally been on the women’s game and beating her peers.  From age 12 to 16 the results have been phenomenal.  She has the game, the poise, the athleticism, and the drive to compete at the LPGA level right now.

Shipnuck says in the article, “Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez says that the ideal formula for an LPGA player to achieve popularity is “to look like a woman but play like a man.”  Which is why (Jim) McLean, in a nod to the LPGA commissioner, says, “Lexi Thompson is God’s gift to Mike Whan”.

In reading this article you have to conclude that Lexi’s strongest attribute the next few years will be the support group of her family.  It has provided her the competitive foundation within which to develop her golf skills and the grounded perspective to handle the challenges success and fame will bring.

It is not going to be easy for her to develop as a regular kid competing every week with women ten years her senior.  She will need to avoid the “burn out at a young age” that has foiled careers of other gifted and talenteds in women’s sports.  Some mentoring from more recent peers like Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel who have made this transition successfully would do her a world of good. Hopefully her parents will give her the latitude to seek this out.

Any way you look at it Lexi’s arrival will be a huge boost for American presence in the ladies professional golf ranks.  American fans have lots to be excited about, the next Solheim Cup should have another loaded gun on the American side.

(Click here to read Alan Shipnuck’s “Lexi Thompson” SI Article)

Alan Shipnuck

Sports Illustrated

November, 2011

Brandt Snedeker is an accomplished player on the PGA Tour with over $12 million in career earnings since 2004, three PGA Tour wins, and a boatload of fans who just love the lanky boyish gait, blond curls popping out of the back of his visor, and the Opie Taylor smile that seems to say “I’m glad to be playing the game I love for a living”.

His dramatic playoff win at Torrey Pines this year and getting to the third round of the WGC Accenture Match Play have put him on our radar screen once again this year.  Currently eighth on the PGA Money List, FedEx Cup Standings, and 2012 Ryder Cup List would indicate that he is likely to stay there for the rest of this year.

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With The Masters approaching it is a great time to reflect on Sneds connection to the major he probably covets more than any other.  Flash back to 2004 when Snedeker, playing college golf for Vanderbilt, qualified for The Masters as an amateur winning the U.S. Public Links Championship.  He knew of The Masters tradition providing players who qualify access to the course prior to their appearance in the tournament.  So for the eight months leading up to his first appearance he would drive seven hours each way nearly every weekend between Nashville to Augusta to play a couple of rounds on one of the most revered venues in the game.

In that Masters, he made the cut as an amateur, shooting 12 over for the four rounds, but this cache of practice rounds gave him a familiarity with  Augusta that would serve him well four years later.

Flash forward to 2008 (I love these special effects) he was not playing his best coming into the Masters and he only hoped to somehow get into the top 16 to get an automatic invite back in 2009.  He got a dream pairing with Tom Watson his boyhood idol and proceed to play the course he knew so well like a wily veteran shooting 69-68 to get within one of the lead after the halfway cut.

With family and friends walking each step of the way, Sneds flirted with history and embossed that smiling image into the consciousness of a growing group of endearing golf fans.  Take a moment and read this revealing 2008 article by Michael Bamberger from Sports Illustrated Vault that recounts Sneds journey that week to an incredible third place finish in The Masters.

With his putting stroke, I would not be surprised this Easter Sunday if Sneds is hawking twenty footers through Amen Corner and nipping at the seams of a green jacket.

(Click to read Bamberger’s article “No Man Is An Island”)

Michael Bamberger

Sports Illustrated

May, 2008