The gap wedge.

I was a winter graduate of college. My parents think of it as me making up for those semesters where all I took was skiing and History of Beer (a real class at UGA in case you are considering a graduate degree). I like to think of my extra time spent in school as my victory lap, although I started celebrating well before crossing the finishing line.

But finish I did and my first post school job was in the creative department of a particularly terrible advertising agency. I graduated on December 16th, but the new job did not start until February 1st which left me over a month to do what every ambitious and driven young person should do as a capstone experience of their education and that is play golf everyday, sometimes twice a day.

Golf was kind of my new thing and while I had taken a class in it (insert parental snicker here), it was not until that time between desks that I really began to enjoy the sport. Having only the funds from odd photo jobs to keep me floating, my choice of courses was limited to the Green Hills Country Club or the Athens-Clarke County Municipal Landfill. I choose Green Hills because it had a slightly better chef. Green Hills is the discerning man’s course. And that discerning man should prefer a concrete pad and a net for a driving range. I shouldn’t give Green Hills a bad rap. I mean, it’s a family place. Like, for instance the old family cemetery on the third fairway. Yes, there is a cemetery on the fairway.

My friend Mike was also waiting for his big advertising job to start, but he wasn’t able to join me on the green because he had not technically been hired yet. Mike spent his days working at a golf shop, and like any great friend who works at a golf shop, he hooked me up with all types of junk for cheap. Enter the pure spin. Mike found a club that he swore by and he bought me one. It was a pure spin gap wedge and I remember being impressed with the flashy neoprene cover. I thanked him, put it in my bag and there it stayed.

I didn’t use the gap wedge for a bunch of reasons. For starters, I didn’t know when to use it. Second, my game was making progress with what I already had in the bag so why go and mess with progress by using this awkward little club. Third was that it appeared it was going to take some work to use it correctly and since I didn’t know what the result might be, I ignored it and left it in the bag.
You have to admit you’ve done this at work at least once. You had a tool; you didn’t know what to do with it. You left it in the bag. Somebody might have asked you, “What does that do?” And rather than sound dumb and say “I don’t know,” you said, “Oh that stupid thing is worthless.”

Next time I want to throw a club in the lake, I’m reaching for that one.
I have consulted plenty of companies who leave the marketing department in the bag. They see that slightly awkward looking club and don’t really know what to with it so it sits. They know others use it with prowess but they simply have not let it work for them and so when they’re in the rough, the unused club sometimes finds itself at the bottom of a dyed green lake.

Are you tired of hauling that club you never use? Scared that you’re going to swing it only to ground out? Are you ready to lower the handicap that not properly using a marketing department is causing? Here’s how to better your game with the basics.


Learn to read the situation

Some golfers thoroughly study the landscape and some golfers just wrongly guess and then follow which ever way the wind is blowing. Some get down and read the putt while others rush through a 3 putt and blame it on the ball marks.
Learning to read the situation is the beauty of research and that market research is nothing short of a crucial function and need of marketing. Marketing departments should be actively vetting intelligence about market conditions, trends, competitive movements and channel opportunities.


Some say they don’t have the time to get down and read the situation. I say the time you don’t have now is used up fishing your ball out of the lake. Some say they have intuition and I say that unless you play a scratch game then there is always something more you can learn.

The right swing, every time.

Golfers spend years getting their swing right and they should. It is the element that affects pretty much the whole game and a good swing touches nearly everything. The need to fix the swing is unavoidable and it is my experience that those who refuse to work on their swing do not remain golfers for long.
I wish marketers that ignored their swing would not remain marketers. I’m not trying to be mean or suggest that people give up, but the swing of marketing is where the game is won or lost. The swing is strategy. It’s the successful integration and maneuvering of consumer, market and competitive insights to a pinpoint application of force that sends results sailing far and, more importantly, where you want it to go.


But many marketers don’t care about their swing. Funny, they often try to play the game without swing. And when they do swing, they do this little croquet looking exercise that send the ball twenty feet. “You just hit the ball twenty feet,” someone will yell.
They reply, “Yeah, but it’s in the right direction.”
To which the original golfer says again, “Yeah, but you just hit the ball twenty feet.”
I know, you won’t go in the lake if you hit it twenty feet at a time. Just don’t expect to win anything but the middle finger of the group who’s behind you on the course.
Crafting good strategy takes practice. It takes the driving range of academic study and the training of a pro who knows how and what to correct. The marketer who learns command of strategy may not always hit a hole in one but you can be assured they are progressively making every swing more accurate, more useful and more precise.


Now play the game.


It easy to assume that you’ll get better by playing without learning to read the course or perfecting your swing, and to an extent, you’re right. In marketing, playing the game is carrying out a plan. It is all the advertising, sales activity and promotion that aims an effort down the fairway. You can skip the first two steps and still get incrementally better - that is if you can afford it. TV spots cost money. Brochures cost money. Salespeople cost money. This is not Green Hills. There is no discount for off season play.
But let’s say you do read the course and perfect your swing. In that case, get out there. Be bold. You might not always clear the lake or stay out of the bunker, but with a good idea of the course and a strong consistent swing you have the odds with you.


Give the club a try.


I was working the chipping green at the University of Georgia practice area and decided to give my gap wedge a try. It works. It pops the ball up with perfect spin and when the ball finally sits down it pops down like it fell in a mud. Despite my reluctance, I learned to use it. And my game hasn’t been the same since.