Big splash in Newport for business

Championship seen as networking opportunity

As president and CEO of Bank Rhode Island, Merrill W. Sherman has plenty to keep herself occupied at her office. But for a few days this week and next she will be far from fluorescent lighting and traffic noise.

Sherman will be promoting the bank and cultivating friendships in the emerald beauty of Newport County Club – at the U.S. Women’s Open.

Sherman could cross paths there with Hope Aldrich, president and CEO of Eastern Insurance Group of Natick, Mass., who also will be watching the championship play and schmoozing clients and colleagues.

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Another woman executive on the scene will be Cindy Demma, membership director of the Lake of Isles golf resort adjacent to Foxwoods Resort Casino. She plans to hand out a fistful of tickets to the Open as thank-you gifts to Lake of Isles members.

The three women, along with all the other attendees, will be witnesses to two forces in play in Newport from June 26 to July 2. First, the prestigious championship will be making a very big splash for Rhode Island tourism and for fans of women’s professional golf.

Second, businesswomen will use the event as a tool to advance their – and their firms’ – agendas, just as men have done for decades at other major U.S. golf championships.

“There has been a large amount of money involved in marketing this event,” said Sherman, whose BankRI is hosting a hospitality tent for clients and employees. “It will be a major draw for Rhode Island. The Open has the potential to be a good entertainment vehicle for friends and family of this institution. It is a way to entertain customers and reward employees.”

Aldrich, who, like Sherman, is an avid golfer, had a similar plan in mind. “We have several tickets for every day of the tournament, and we will be taking our 40 top customers,” she said. Demma said handing out tickets to Lake of Isles members helps the resort motivate its biggest referral base – its current members – to market the resort. “If I were taking prospective members, my goal would be to schmooze them enough to encourage them to purchase a membership,” she said. “The most important thing they remember is who helped them get there.”

Having the Women’s Open in Newport is creating a “huge buzz” for fans of women’s golf in the region, said Patty Ianiere, co-owner of Golf-Hers in Seekonk, an 11-month-old retail shop that caters exclusively to women golfers. “This is a hot ticket,” Ianiere said, with unrestrained enthusiasm, “like tickets to a big Broadway show or a corporate box at Fenway. There is nothing better than saying to one of your customers, ‘Come and be my guest; this is a chance to see the pros at Newport Country Club.’ ”

The enthusiasm is especially high because of the changing nature of the women’s game. Accomplished young American and foreign players – including the 16-year-old sensation Michelle Wie – are generating a tremendous amount of media attention, and combined with the still very active Hall of Fame career of Annika Sorenstam, the sport’s fan base is growing.

With or without the presence of a top-flight international championship in the neighborhood, however, women in business are increasingly signing on to the notion that golf – meaning playing the game – is almost essential to staying competitive in the business world. In just the past six months, Rhode Island has become home to a new chapter of the national Executive Women’s Golf Association, which exists, said chapter president Carol Malysz, “to provide opportunities for women to learn to play and enjoy golf for business and for life.”

Malysz and other observers say the past decade has brought an upswing in the number of women who are consciously developing their skill at golf as a business tool. Golf is a good setting for developing social and character skills and for evaluating those skills in others, said Malysz and others. “It teaches patience, how to be a good partner, how to celebrate others’ successes, how to deal with others’ behaviors that might affect your play,” Malysz said. “People in business are using golf to size each other up.”

Aldrich said she has been using golf to cultivate business relationships for about 25 years, and added, “I think more women should do it.” Aldrich began playing golf in the early 1980s while working in sales. “Golf is a good way to entertain and to get to know other people’s businesses,” Aldrich said. “You have to have lots of different ways to deal with customers, and golf can be helpful.”

Sherman also has been playing golf in business for an unusually long period – for a woman – of 25 years. “Golf historically has been a great customer entertainment venue,” Sherman said. “Doing business, when it is done right, inevitably involves relationships, and you really get to see someone’s personality on the golf course.”

Ianiere said she and her sister, also a golfer, opened the shop to serve a growing market of women who were not well served by existing pro shops. As evidence of growth, she points to a projection by the National Golf Foundation that the women’s golf market will be the biggest growth area in the next five to seven years. Also, Ianiere said, ESPN televised much more women’s golf last year than during the previous year.

Despite the growth projections, however, the actual numbers of women playing remains fairly flat, according to Jackie Beck of Beck Communications, who specializes in public relations for the golf industry. Beck says many women are taking up golf, but about as many are quitting, possibly because they feel awkward and out of place in the traditional male world of the links and the clubhouse.

Even though Golf-Hers supports and thrives on the growth of women’s golf, Ianiere acknowledges, “Not enough women are using golf in business and don’t realize the benefits of it. Men have been working this angle for a long time, and they have been doing it very wisely.”

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