Odette School of Business students on a study abroad trip in Scotland. (Back, left to right) Gabrielle Graziano, Lauren Purves, Alexis Russell, Luke Tatomir, Ryan Roth, Stefan Dobrich, Dylan Schives, Evan Smith, Dr. Matt Wilson
(Front, left to right) Kayla Bennett, Lava Rios. (Submitted by Dr. Matt Wilson)
By Lindsay Charlton
WINDSOR, Ont. — Building strong business relationships sometimes means stepping out of the boardroom, onto the green, and driving connections.
Trading formal office wear for a polo shirt and baseball cap, assistant professor Matt Wilson of the Odette School of Business focuses on using golf as a business tool in his course, Teeing Off for Business Success.
“Golf is a unique sport because it’s four and a half hours outside, talking with somebody,” Dr. Wilson explained.
“So unlike other activities, it can be very useful and fruitful to conduct business, whether it’s sales, business development, negotiations, or networking.”
The course is a study-abroad opportunity that gives students an ace experience, taking them across the pond on a 12-day adventure to where the game began — Scotland.
“Of course, golf is at the forefront here, and the course is centred around that, but there’s also the history and culture of Scotland in general,” Wilson said. “We also explore business in Scotland and how that might be a little different than in Canada.”
During the study, the 10 students played a round at five historic golf courses, each hosted by a team of two students. Each day of the course offered a different theme, such as relationship building, business and culture in Scotland, personal branding, and golf and privilege.
“They’re responsible for not only researching the course that they’re hosting but also designing invitations and describing the type of play, the rules, the prizes and that sort of thing, as well as some of the discussion prompts that they want people to use over the 18 holes,” Wilson explained.
Ryan Roth, a fourth-year business student who attended the trip, said he started golfing in between hockey seasons when he was a kid and said this experience really drove home the importance of relationship building on the course, in both business and life.
“I learned the importance of being an active listener, and to not necessarily badger someone with questions, but listen for maybe something you can relate to or that you might have insight about. Asking the right questions to spur something in their mind to start to form a connection,” he said.
“It’s really not about the golf at all. If you’re trying to conduct business, that should be the last thing you’re worried about. You should really be more worried about picking the right moment and building on the relationship.”
Wilson said it was very important to have a gender-balanced trip, as golf can be considered a male-dominated sport and, with its strong ties to business, has been criticized for potentially preventing women from excelling in their careers, a phenomenon Wilson referred to as the “grass ceiling.”
“The idea with this course is not only to grow important skills, but also to encourage students, particularly women who are interested in business, to come along and maybe try this activity that they hadn’t in the past,” he said.
Lauren Purves, a fourth-year business student who attended the trip, said that although she’s an experienced golfer and plays for the UWindsor golf team, she found the focus on women in the sport to be impactful.
“Learning about how women can be more involved in golf was one of the biggest takeaways for me,” Purves noted.
The trip also included a tour of Edinburgh Castle, a Scotch tasting and tour, the World Golf Museum, visits to investment management company Baillie Gifford and a meeting with Michael Braidwood, CEO of Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society in Scotland, as well as other cultural activities, along with readings and dinner discussions about the day’s theme.
“We met with financial advisers over at Baillie Gifford, and they had both a man and a woman come in to talk with us who are high-level golfers themselves,” Purves said. “It was great to hear about how they were able to incorporate business in golf and how they make those connections, and all the avenues golf can open.”
Purves also described how different the culture of golf is there, compared with North America.
For starters, many of the courses are considered public land, with people utilizing the space for much more than the links. Having to consider people walking their dogs and playing frisbee while navigating the course.
“Everybody walks, golf carts aren’t common, but people are also a lot quicker, so we had to keep moving,” she said. “It’s faster paced while you’re playing, and they seem a lot more interested in the 19th hole, where you can connect with people after, have lunch, a drink, where for us, you do a lot of the meeting throughout the course.”
That mix of tradition and community is part of what draws golfers from around the world to Scotland.
Many, chasing the dream experience Roth had — playing a round at the Old Course at St. Andrews Links, the oldest golf course in the world and largely considered the “home” of the sport.
“I had a pretty unique experience,” Roth recalled. “I entered the singles lottery and was placed on the waitlist, so I showed up to the Old Pavilion at the first hole at 5:45 a.m. and got a tee time for that afternoon. I was so excited.”
Knowing how much the moment meant to him, Roth said his classmates came out to support him — some gathering at the first hole, Wilson joining on the 14th to watch the rest of the round, and others meeting him at the 18th to see the finish.
“It was surreal, I honestly don’t even know how to put it into words. I played my best round of the entire trip there. It was perfect, just the mystique of being at the home of golf, and I’m walking down the 18th fairway and there’s a sunset and it’s truly breathtaking, it was such an amazing experience,” he said.
For Roth and Purves, the trip was unforgettable — a deep dive into culture, business, leadership and more, all packed into two weeks.
“It was amazing,” Roth said. “I think a lot of us talked about how we believe we learned more about business and life in the 12 days we were there than we could have in an entire semester worth of classes. The learning on these trips is so valuable.”