The Deal

How long have you been with Publisher’s Press?
Eight years now.

How long have you been playing golf?
For 15 years.

How often do you play golf?
Usually once a week.

What is your handicap?
It’s a 7.9.

Where and when did the outing take place?
We were actually in Northern Ireland, June 23-28th.

How many people went on the trip?
We had 16.

Does the company do this annually or biannually and what impact has it had?
We’ve done it annually since 2002 and it basically started out as a few customers that were good friends with our owner, all had golf as a common interest. So a small group got together and they went to Pinehurst in 2002, and ever since then the group has grown. We limit the group to customers, ones that have been with Publishers Press for several years. It’s almost like a reward for customer loyalty, but the goal of the trip is to deepen our relationship with our customers at that executive level, that’s the key. The top people of the company will come on these trips and it allows them to get a chance to be with the owner of Publishers Press and spend time with them. We always set up some time for a formal meeting to discuss publishing topics, and that’s usually a very good forum/round table because you get some very high level publishers to speak about their businesses, the trends that they see, there’s a lot of information and idea sharing.
We do these corporate trips that give us an opportunity to try and deepen our relationships with some of our clients at a higher level, at the owner-executive level and it gives our clients an opportunity to network with other clients of ours in a relaxed atmosphere. There is a thought process around this.

What courses did you play?
The different courses that we played were Royal County Down, Royal Port Rush, Port Stewart, and Castle Rock.

What was the atmosphere/weather like? Tell me about your experience(s) playing at those particular courses. How did it feel to be there?
The interesting part is I’ve been over to Ireland on several trips, and this is actually the first trip that we got the rain that everyone always talks about in Ireland. Everyone talks about how it rains so hard that it comes down sideways. It’s unique because there is a combination of rain and very strong wind. The wind is kind of pushing the rain, so it comes down sideways (laughing).

How hard was the wind blowing?
It gusted from 30-40 mph, very strong. You can’t even think about using an umbrella because the wind is so strong it just blows them inside out or down the fairway. You have multiple layers of rain protective clothing, and you kind of take it on and off because the weather changes very quickly there. It could be sunny, and then a half hour later it’s raining very hard and it’s a monsoon and then twenty minutes later the sun comes out again, so you have to be prepared for all four seasons during a round of golf.
Royal County Down is one of the most beautiful courses and very highly ranked. Some publications rank it among the top 5 in the world. The wind was fairly constant at about 20 mph, and very, very heavy rain. The conditions play a lot of tricks on your mind because you’re just not used to playing in conditions like that over here [U.S.A.]. You can’t hit a ball right where you want it to go because the wind’s going to blow it. You have to adjust everything. You even have to adjust your putting because the wind is blowing so hard. It’s a different type of golf over there [Ireland]. You don’t want to hit a lob wedge, lots of low punch type of shots.

Do you have a most memorable experience on one of the courses or a hole in particular?
Well (laughing)…I’ll say at hole number nine at Royal County Down. I was in two feet of very high grass and the caddie said, “Let’s take a chance” and gave me my 7 wood and I hit probably the best shot I hit of the week, just short of the green from about 210 yards on a par 4. I was way off to the right, but I hit a really nice recovery shot so that was fun.

Can you describe the hole to me?
The interesting part is, it’s fairly straight but you literally hit out to the end…your drive goes to the end of a cliff, and then it drops probably 40 or 50 feet to the next part of the fairway. You can’t see the fairway really, you just hit the ball to a point…it’s a very blind shot and you hit the ball over the hill, over the caddie’s head and then you go and try and find it.

What did you shoot at Royal County Down?
Not one of my better scores, I actually shot 89.

Did you have a favorite course?
My favorite was Portstewart, par 72. The one thing that’s a little different at Royal Port Rush and at Portstewart the caddies are members of the club, that’s a little unusual compared to over here in the States. The interaction with the caddies I thought was very interesting, they knew the course because it was there course, they knew the history of the course, they knew the ends and outs, they knew every inch of the golf course. They were very, very good but, they were just so knowledgeable, and proud of their course.

What other attractions did you partake in, (i.e. restaurants/ bars)?
We try to mix it up a little bit although it’s primarily a golf trip. Some of the gentlemen spent time fly fishing. We took a really nice trip to the Bushmills Inn and we went to their distillery and some of the folks did the tour, and then we had a really nice dinner there. We also went to a place called the Giants Causeway. Now the Giants Causeway is only 3-4 miles from Busmills, but it is one of the most spectacular natural cliffs I’ve ever seen in my whole life. There are 40,000 columns that are all either six sided, some of them are five sided, but most of them are six sided all along the ocean and they come out of the ocean at different heights. These were created during the Ice Age and through volcanic flow, but when you look at it it’s just hard to imagine. It was just amazing. It’s so hard to believe that these perfectly formed columns were done by ice and volcano because they’re just perfect. You just have to say, “Well there is definitely a god.”