When you see a high-end golf course on a Friday afternoon, don’t think of hobbyists dressed in moisture-wicking golf shirts. Think of it as one of many remote offices for the profession.
There is a common stereotype that accountants/CPAs are obsessed with golf. Like so many stereotypes, it comes from an actual fact: While to many people golf seems like a slow frustrating game of hitting a small white ball into a hole that is very far away, to an accountant golf is an 18-hole audit on oneself regarding integrity, accuracy, and ability to manage risk.
Why does the "Language of Business" translate so easily to the "Language of the Links"? It's not just through networking and enjoying the outdoors; rather it has to do with the reality that a golfer is able to experience the laws of physics in a manner that will ultimately define how they can apply the logic of a General Ledger to real life.
Using the Scorecard to Establish Your Golfing Experience
The golf scorecard is a valuable tool for golfers. It provides an accurate record of scores and assists golfers in understanding their performance, other golfers' performances, and how the game has changed throughout history. The scorecard also provides a record of when a player was last assessed and will allow you to compare your scores to previous assessments to evaluate how you are improving.
At most courses, you will find that the golf scorecard includes designated areas for recording results. Additionally, it will include designated areas for tracking performance relative to par for each hole. On each hole, you will typically see a picture of that hole along with its distance from the tee to the pin. There are many different golf scored stores which cater to different aspects of the game, including equipment availability and condition, price, amenities, and layout of the course itself.
Golf scorecards vary from one golf course to another, but typically all golf scorecards include similar chart designs, with a Golf Association of America (GAA) approved chart clearly shown on the front of each page. Many standard-sized scorecards will have a standard scorecard template printed on both sides of the page. Again, however, many of these templates differ from one course to another.
The "Hazard" Analysis and Risk Management
Each golf hole is an estimate of future expenses. When an accountant gets to a Par 4 tee box with a body of water left and a large sand trap to the right of the green, they aren't thinking about how to execute the swing. They are doing a risk management audit in real time.
Aggressive Play (Hitting the green in one shot) is the same as buying through a venture capital firm.
Conservative Play (Laying up to avoid water) is similar to the way municipal bonds get purchased.
When accountants prepare taxes, their job is to identify all potential "contingent" liabilities everything that can go wrong. While playing the golf course, those contingent liabilities are hazards in the water or out-of-bounds. They are accounting colleagues that are not playing to "bet money." They are trying to manage the risks involved. Both have an internal sense of satisfaction from making one shot or completing a perfectly prepared audit with no exceptional items.
The "Green" physical and conceptual form
The term "green" for cash is used because the place where the golf hole is located is called the green.
To a tax professional, the slope of putting green is an analogy of a revenue chart's trend line. One must consider the "break", which are the external market effects, the "grain", which is friction/internal culture, and the "velocity", which is cash flow.
When accountants evaluate a putt, they are stimulating the same areas of the brain that would evaluate a complex depreciation schedule. This process requires the three-dimensional understanding of how small inputs at the beginning of the process (the stroke) create a substantial variance at the end of the process (the result). If you are one degree off on a 20-foot putt, you will miss. If you are one-tenth off on a $20,000,000 financial statement that is consolidated, the entire thing will collapse.
Golf reinforces the concept of "details" - a characteristic that makes a CPA successful.
The Long Game vs. The Short Game
Each outsourced accounting firm owner is clearly familiar with what it is like to be between the Long Game (strategy, branding, firm value), and the Short Game (billing, collections, daily fire-fighting).
In a sense, golf is unique in that you must master both the "long" game and the "short" game simultaneously. You could hit a bomb down the fairway (have an excellent sales year), but if your short game is not up to par (you do not have good internal processes), then you will have a double bogey.
Accountants like this because this is the way that life is for them. You must keep your eyes on the 400-yard target but pay complete attention to the 2 inches of motion of the club head. This is a wonderful lesson in concentration and compartmentalization.
The "Rule Book" Sanctuary
Most golfers think the USGA Rules Book is full of mindless pages describing everything from "loose impediments" to "temporary immovable obstructions" when they are actually nothing but a total bore. To a CPA, however - it is considered light reading...
CPAs are accustomed to living their lives according to a fixed set of guidelines, whether it be the IRS tax code, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or local, State, and Federal statutes regarding payment of taxes, etc. Therefore, CPAs feel comfortable when there is a definitive rule that allows for the identification of what is legal versus what is considered illegal in the world of business.
Golf courses provide CPA's with the same structure which offers a reassuring environment. When your ball moves after you have addressed it, that is a stroke. You cannot protest against the auditor (Marshall) who calls a stroke on you to his/her Supervisor (Marshall). You will not receive an extension on your tee time. This structure that governs golf is extremely therapeutic for any CPA whose job requires them to be the "Adult in the Room" that always knows where the line is drawn.
Why the Work is Important (And Why the Course is the Benefit)
First let's face the facts: Accounting is very high risk! Many people consider accounting to be “boring,” and that is just plain wrong. Accounting is very serious. If an accountant misses one small piece of information, an entire company could go out of business, a family could lose their entire estate and a CEO could go to prison!
The amount of stress that comes with being held accountable for this much responsibility is enormous! The work performed by CPA's is much more important and detailed than the average client understands, and often represents very little of the “Insurance of Mind” value that should come from hiring a quality CPA.
The only place to transfer that psychological pressure into something that doesn’t have “real world” ramifications, is the golf course. When you hit a golf ball into the trees, you aren't going to cost anyone their retirement! This is a Controlled Stress Environment, because it allows a CPA to use their high level, detail-oriented thinking power 100% of the time but for the sake of having fun.
The Ultimate Networking Ledger: The Final 19th Hole
The last piece to the puzzle of building your network is social capital or the relationships a person has with others. The relationships formed in accounting are based on integrity and openness.
When hitting the links with a prospective client, you can learn more about their integrity in four hours of golf than you can in four years of business meetings. Do they cheat by moving their ball in the rough if no one is watching? Do they accurately count their strokes? Do they get upset when things do not go their way?
The golf course is a four-hour due diligence report on the potential CPA’s potential partner. The golf course is where partnerships are audited and trusted.
Summary of the Perfect Harmony
While golf is a sport that the CPA participates in, it is not the main connection between CPA's and golf, rather it is the continued efforts to achieve “the Perfect Game".
In the accounting world, "the Perfect Game" is a year where all audits are conducted with no discrepancies, all tax strategies are executed to perfection, and every decimal is in its proper position. The “Perfect Game” for golf is a score of 59. Both "Perfect Games" are mathematically impossible, but each day as the CPA awakens (including tee times on Saturdays), there is a belief that through hard work and perseverance he will be able to achieve that elusive “Perfect Game” of accounting or golf a little bit closer to accomplishing each time.
The grind, the precision and most importantly, the scorecard has to ultimately balance.
