The £250,000 Golf Ball
Apr 14th, 2009 by richard
Tony was driving his smart Jaguar through a tight Coventry lane, just on the outskirts of the city when it happened.
A sudden ‘bang!’ from out of the blue. The kind that has you pumping on the brake and screeching to a halt. Something, some foreign object, a projectile from out of space had hit the wing of his car at fast speed.
Tony climbed out and headed straight to the front wing, drivers side, and there it was; a dent in the metal, a perfect indent the size of a…well….exactly the size of a golf ball. A quick scan of the area revealed the offending object sitting guiltily on the side of the road. A wider scan revealed a golf driving range just back of the lane.
Dent, golf ball, golf driving range! It all quickly fell into place.
Tony – a little pissed at the chock sized dent in his prized vehicle – made his way straight over to the reception at the edge of the range. This should not (he thought) take long. He was on his way to a big business meeting, so he didn’t have a lot of time to spare this day, just enough to introduce himself to the manager of the course and perhaps exchange insurance details.
He quickly sought out the man in question and presented him calmly and quietly and respectfully with the ball, the story and the opportunity to make amends. He assumed that it would probably be a five minute chat, followed by a very small insurance claim, the golf range taking full responsibility. It was the only range for ten miles, the lane was at the very bottom of the (too short) driving range and the ball had fallen out of the sky as he drove past. It was open and shut as far as Tony could see. And let’s be honest here, this was not a big incident, it was not life threatening, certainly nothing to lose any sleep over. It was just a random accident involving a £2.50 golf ball and a small insurance claim.
Or was it?
As it turned out, this was (perhaps) less of a random incident and more of a serendipitous occurrence. And my friends this turned out to be no mere £2.50 golf ball, neither was it a small insurance claim and an hours body-work from a local garage. This was (no less than) a voice from the sky, a divine orchestration; an opportunity of limitless proportions. It was a chance for the golf manager to do the right thing. A chance to be magnanimous. Actually it was an opportunity for him to make lots of money. Certainly it was a chance for him to save lots of money, a quarter of a million pounds to be exact.
You see Tony, as well as being a very old and close friend is also an international business man, his company makes tens of millions every year, a proportion of which, up until this day, they spent on entertaining their very wealthy clients at this particular golf resort, restaurant and hotel.
The manager didn’t know this of course. And Tony didn’t feel the need to mention it, he was on his way to a meeting, and didn’t want to get caught up in unnecessary discourse, and certainly he did not want to use his business dealings with the resort as a bargaining tool. Tony didn’t think that would be necessary. It was a small incident that he was sure the manager would deal with fairly and quickly.
So the manager did not know anything about Tony. All he knew for sure was that he had a gent in front of him looking to make a small claim on the company’s insurance policy and….he wasn’t going to have any of it. Not only did he deny any responsibility (‘what makes you think the ball came from our range’ and ‘can you prove it?’) he was also very disrespectful about it, informing Tony that there was no way he could prove the ball came from his range (please!) and that even if it did, he as the manager could not and would not bear any responsibility for it. He suggested that if Tony wanted to pursue the issue any further he should try and locate the member that (may or may not have) hit the offending ball and claim off him as an individual.
This of course, in a large golf club with hundreds of members would be an improbable course of inquiry.
The point here is less about who was actually at fault (the club or the member) rather the issue was one of magnanimity. The manager with his arrogant dishonesty and small mindedness lost the opportunity (one of many I would imagine, by his attitude) of creating wealth and inspiring good will by doing what is right. Instead he sent Tony away dissatisfied. So Tony did probably the only thing that was left open to him; he placed the matter in the hands of his company solicitor.
Then he cancelled all of his many business dealings with the club.
A projected fortune over the span of his career – and of course any future business dealings with the resort, which, looking at the exponential growth of Tony’s company, would have added up to a great deal of money. Not to mention the fact that many of the associates Tony brought to the resort for meetings and meals, were hugely influential themselves, and would no doubt have used the complex for their own business dealings.
Tony did not do this out of spite or malice, I sensed no anger in his voice when he re-told the story, he said he just did not want, and could not afford to be involved with dishonest and disingenuous company.
Good will costs nothing at all, but it can reap a fortune when it is congruent. Honesty takes a lot of courage and faith, but in the end it sets you free. And magnanimity has the power to forge fast friends and fiscal opportunities that offer great and profitable longevity.
And the opposite could quite easily turn a £2.50 golf ball into a £250, 000 liability (and in this case it did).
And who knows, if the golf manager had been a bit more open, a tad more generous, he may have even converted his poor business judgment into a very rich vein of friendship.