MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 21: ``No appointments today. The boss is very busy.he is practising golf!''Sounds a bit strange. But, in corporate circles, weekend golf seems to have taken a much serious turn. And it was very much evident at the Seagram's Blender's Pride Corporate Golf Championship at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club.Touted as a National event, chief executive officers, managing directors, managers from across the length and breadth of the country descended on the BPGC greens to test their skills outside the boardrooms. While some might have touted it as a two-day get-together, many of the participants would have disagreed, strongly.``There is a lot of difference between playing anywhere else and at a competition like this,'' says UK Bose, CEO, Sahara Airlines who have flown four of their top executives based in different cities especially for the championship. So have a host of other blue chip firms including Hong Kong Bank, Essar Group, ING and Morgan Stanley.While golf is a way of life inEuropean and Asian corporate world the bug seems to have finally bit Indians too. No wonder that the number of participants for the first of it's kind `National' ran into three figures.``I made no preparations coming here but the competition I have been seeing here for the past two days has been very serious,'' says 27-year-old Akshay Kilachand, an executive with Kesar Enterprises who has been roped in by Zverchand Sports to play for them. While many were keen to send their team, the trouble was finding two golfers within the firm who would keep the company flag flying high.With some of the high-placed personnel converging at one place, many companies see this as a good advertising chance too and make some eventually fruitful contacts too.``Once on the course you have nothing much to do but hit the ball and walk after it,'' says Bose. ``So what do you do but talk with your competitors. And at the end of the day a person whom you barely know has become a good friend.''With two players forming a teamand their performance together deciding the winner, there is no dearth of camaraderie. ``Everyone tries hard,'' notes Kilachand. ``After all it's the company's name at stake.''But winning here will not be the end of it as the victorious teams fly to La Manga Resort, Spain as Indian representatives for the World Corporate Golf Championships in May this year.Says Bose: ``It will be a tough task winning there. But at least we are making a beginning.''
